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Reviews
Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief (2010)
Not really for adults, and possibly not for kids either
The premise of this movie was not terribly promising or novel to begin with, but unlike Harry Potter, it dealt with the subject matter in the most lazy, clichéd way possible. Why does Percy's sidekick have to be the "wack" black stereotype? When Anabeth is introduced, we are treated to several cuts back to her with an appraising look in her eyes, as if there were any doubt from the first second of her introduction that she'd be the love interest. The movie itself lurched along to uninteresting locales, and assumed the audience knew absolutely nothing about Greek mythology. While this itself isn't bad, the pedantic exposition regarding it was. The movie should not have underestimated the intelligence of children, who will research these topics themselves if they're interested enough. It was not necessary to explain each character's motivation, origin, and properties.
Ultimately, I found this an insult to the average movie-goer's intelligence. Smarten up the dialogue, make the characters more than cookie cutter props to propel the next action scene, and please, restore a bit of wonder to the genre by leaving OUT a few details for the viewers to discover and supply for themselves.
Sunshine (2007)
Was an entirely different movie spliced into the end?
I really wanted to enjoy this movie -- Danny Boyle is a man to watch, and my initial impressions of the movie were somewhere akin to Solaris and 2001. As I watched, the movie did not disappoint -- the visuals were sumptuous, the cast was acceptable, and the technology, while not 100% convincing, was interesting enough for me to shrug off inconsistencies and buy into the film's atmosphere.
Just as it was languorously drawing to its conclusion, the movie took a jarring turn near the climax which angered me, not so much because of its stupidity (which it had in excess) but because it completely sabotaged the flow of the previous 3/4 of the plot.
Some have complained the characters were shallow, the plot was full of clichés -- for me the movie was beautiful and interesting enough for me to follow, but the finale was a great disservice as the pacing, atmosphere, and message changed. The editing became horribly blurred and confusing, and the main character made a couple of idiotic decisions, decisions familiar to any main character in a horror movie. And make no mistake: at this point the movie had degenerated into a shameful slasher pic.
Whether or not the movie was a masterpiece or pretentious preening, the ending was utterly at odds with whatever it had been trying to establish previously. I can pinpoint for you the exact moment when the movie completely derailed, and I'll bet just about any viewer could as well. Why couldn't the author? The director? The producers?
Transformers (2007)
Can Special Effects be too good?
I grew up watching Transformers and surrounded myself with piles of the toys, so I was a little worried that Hollywood would touch and likely defile the Transformers franchise, almost as sacrosanct to my childhood as the original Star Wars trilogy.
And all in all, there was nothing in it that was a severe disappointment! Michael Bay is no master of intrigue and subtlety, but fortunately he's making a movie from a children's cartoon, so he could play his strengths: massive destruction, amazing special effects, and a jaw-dropping opening firefight that singlehandedly pays the movie ticket's price.
What disappointed me a bit, however, were the fight scenes that followed. The robots in this movie were far more complex than their cartoon counterparts, and when they got into extreme closeup rock-em sock-em action, I couldn't tell if I was seeing an arm, or a leg, or even a face..! All I saw were whirring gizmos and servomotors and clanky metal plates. To make it worse, they even added digital blurring effects to make the fights seem "faster." The opening scene worked because the camera zoomed out and let you see everything; you could fully appreciate the scope of destruction and not get entirely distracted by the 72 million polygons that made up the computer model of the transformer in action. Most of the other fight scenes were too complex, too fast, and after a while, a bit irritating.
I get it. You're supposed to be in the picture with the actors and the bystanders, appreciating the epic size of the robots and marveling at their sophistication. But it actually hampers the action with a visual, psychedelic overload of special effects.
That, and the extremely drawn-out and painful scene of the autobots all trying to hide from Sam's mommy and daddy were the only real gripes I had with the film. How much can you expect from a movie about robots who transform into little innocuous cars and trucks when they each pack enough firepower to take out several countries anyhow?
Into the Blue (2005)
Well-paced fun
I was astonished at the dismal rating for this film, which at the time of this writing was 4.8. Into the Blue never demonstrated any pretense of becoming the next academy award winner, and instead faithfully executed its focus -- beautiful ocean scenery, beautiful bodies, and a significant degree of tension and action to carry the plot. I found the characters believable, especially given the target audience of the movie: the dialog was fairly cleverly humorous, but serious when it needed to be; the characters were adequately conceived, including the intentionally unlikeable 4th party woman who "wasn't family." Most of all, I enjoyed the pacing of the movie. Some slow underwater scenes were accompanied by peaceful music belying the increasingly perilous situations the characters found themselves in. Halfway through the movie, the tension never fully dissipates, as each event flows into the next as the stakes rise. The badguys are dealt with intelligently, and there are enough twists to convincingly carry the instability and danger of the situation.
I went into this movie wanting to enjoy it, and I wasn't disappointed. Though its premise wasn't the most intellectual of premises, I don't feel as if it were dumbed down as much as many action movies do, and instead carried out is plot with due respect given its expectations. I'd recommend this movie as a good post-summer adventure flick!
Changing Lanes (2002)
A wonderful movie thwarted by its mismatched trailer
I want to start off by saying I can completely understand how viewers felt this movie was dull and lifeless. After the adrenaline-pumping portrait of road rage that the marketing department projected for this movie in its previews, it does fall completely short of expectations.
Yet the true Changing Lanes was much more subtle and humanistic than it was meant to be. Street scenes are painted with a damp, dingy gray color. The music is spare, thin, and mostly bleak. The two main protagonists are people who are difficult to like, though Samuel Jackson plays a more sympathetic character, victimized not just by a smug lawyer, but by a history of alcoholism that has resulted in the disintegration of his family and of his life.
What I appreciated the most about the series of events in this movie is that manifested rage that this movie cashed in on turned out to be quite believable. The characters lashed out at one another, but often withdrew into a sort of introspective horror for what they had done. They were motivated to do bad things, but they were not bad people.
The ending, perhaps, was a bit too pat, perhaps attempting to assuage viewers who had just sat through 90 minutes of ugliness, but it didn't sit that badly with me, and I enjoyed Affleck's drifting speech about the girl on the beach in the end. This movie wasn't perfect, but it had a consistent style, an appropriately low-key but still "edgy" soundtrack, and an interesting exploration of two people who were arguably closer to losers than heroes; yet they were interesting due to their flaws.
If you've seen the preview for this movie, try to forget you ever saw it and instead enjoy the considerably less glamorous movie that Changing Lanes turned out to be.
Troy (2004)
"Inspired" by Homer's Iliad
I walked into the movie theater knowing that Troy was going to be a bastardized version of the Iliad, but I was unprepared for how freely they mauled the epic. Yes, the battle for Troy lasted TEN YEARS, and they didn't even show up until the last year, so the whole taking of the beach head by Achilles was an exercise in irreverent Hollywood flair. I couldn't believe how they turned Menelaos into a villain, and killed him (instead reserving that to his wife back home). Ajax bought it too, instead of going mad and killing livestock in the fields after the war.I can't remember the post-Iliad chronology, but didn't Achilles die outside of Troy's walls by a poison arrow to the heel rather than sneaking in via the Trojan horse? Nestor was lame; in the book, he was always recounting long, wistful war stories, and seemed more like a valued but annoying old folks' home tenant than a grim tactician. Besides Menelaos, however, the treatment of Briseis was absolutely ridiculous. Women, slave women, were cattle in the Homeric days. They had no voice. Though Achilles was fond of her, she could never have spoken to him like she did, nor would he have have run about the streets willy-nilly looking for her. It didn't even work on a Hollywood level; Achilles killed her brother! Why would she still be crazy in love for him?!
The movie didn't even work if you ignore the fact that it was "inspired" by the Iliad. The pacing was weird, and the initial march to Troy took RIDICULOUSLY LONG! First we see Priam looking out. Then a shot of Andromache. Looking out. Then Achilles, looking. Then Hektor, who is... looking. Then Paris, looking. They basically go through every person in Troy, looking out on the marching horde. I know it's the biggest battle of the age; how many times did they say it already? This bit of "drama" was followed later by the laughable fight scene with the C4-packed hay bales they rolled down to the boats. As the Trojans are near victory, Achilles' cousin (not lover, apparently... Hollywood wouldn't touch that) Patroklos dies, and like some sort of cricket match, Hektor calls it off for tea time.
My grievances go on and on. I thought Hektor and Odysseus were decent adaptations. Pitt looked the part, and did a good job sulking like he did in the book, but his line readings were awful, and he couldn't really decide on his accent. Sometimes it was grimly American, sometimes British. I didn't even like Menelaos' bearing... he was too unctuous and not brash enough.
I did like the token homages to the poor classicists in the audience. They gave a nod to Aeneas near the end, there was an aristea-like quality to the way Hektor and Achilles suited up; they mentioned (not by its name, xenia) the guest-host relationship, and Achilles had a conversation with his mom, but ... wasn't his mom a goddess? Thetis? The one who dipped him in the river styx, all but for his ankle? They never mentioned her name, leaving it open.
But.. why *didn't* the producers want to involve the gods?! They could have had incredible scenes of Ares himself out on the battlefield, of Aphrodite getting a spear in the arm, trying to save her son Aeneas from the nasty Achaeans. They wanted titanic battles, yet it doesn't get more titanic than the gods themselves chucking lightning bolts and clubbing mortals with weapons forged by Hephaestos.
I know they wanted to keep it "human," and they also probably wanted to keep a cap on the huge number of characters in the work. But they sure hamstrung themselves by once again underestimating the caliber of their movie-going audience. They dumbed it down. Boy howdy, did they dumb it down.
Equilibrium (2002)
Mild entertainment
This movie has been accused of being a Matrix wannabe, and though I agree it isn't the Matrix, I doubt it would have the same look and feel, or even exist, if the Matrix had not made such an impact. It borrows the styling, the oppressive framework, and the incongruous fight sequences of the Matrix movies to tell a story that in many ways has already been told. (Then again, one could say the same of the Matrix!)
I can't write a review without remarking on the "Gun Kata." The writer of this movie's affair with Japanese culture made for a very silly style of combat, wherein the cleric studies the statistics of gunfight scenarios in order to be all but unstoppable in combat. According to these statistics, it seems that somebody in the EXACT MIDDLE of a gunfight is the most effective. This seems less like Gun Kata than it does Gun Kamikaze to me, especially when a well-placed grenade could do just the same thing as a cleric relying upon statistics. Anyhow, we are supposed to be very impressed when the protagonist makes his entry with laughable gun flourishes and truly superhuman performances, but the end result is more puzzlment at why such a valuable cleric didn't just send in the shock troopers flanking him on either side. I also found the ridiculous gun posing to be more of an art form than anything very efficient, but that couldn't be, because art and emotion are banned in this society, yes?
I enjoyed the movie, actually. It had enough unorthodox plot twists and thwarted expectations to keep me going, and I actually found some of the slower scenes much more interesting than the battles. The gunmetal gray, drab atmospheres were well-done, and the music complemented the movie well, save for the schizophrenic "now = time to kick ass" music that was queued up when a fight ensued. Unfortunately, like its cousin, the Matrix, the movie couldn't decide whether it was a thinking movie more along the lines of Gattaca, or an all-out mindless Bruckheimer movie.
This movie will not impress, but it will entertain. It's a good Friday night rental, and is still far better than most of the garbage in the movie circuit (read: Tomb Raider).
(P.S. and one tiny spoiler: Why the devil did Father have artwork in his inner sanctum? He tells us that he has feelings as well, but it seems to me that these paintings would arouse a lot of suspicion from anybody who caught a glimpse of them. In my opinion, the whole "revelation" that he had feelings was pointless. And this revelation lasted all but 10 seconds before he got perforated by our hero.)
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (2002)
Chamber of Secrets should disappoint only the purists
The Harry Potter movie franchise, in my opinion, still remains dedicatedly true to the vision of the books. There were omissions and a few plot points felt a bit rushed, but as the books get larger and larger, it will be all but impossible to retain every detail of the original. That said, I think the second installment of Harry Potter was just as fun as the first.
Although I am irritated by Kenneth Branaugh as an actor in serious movies, he always does a fantastic job in films that require over-the-top acting, like Much Ado About Nothing, and this movie was no exception. He was hilarious as the pretty boy of wizardry, and it was almost impossible for me not to chuckle whenever he appeared onscreen. He was a brilliant choice!
Like many have said, the movie is darker than the first, and it's only going to get darker: books 3 and 4 get scarier and closer to death than the first two ever did. It's not a fault of the movie that it was darker, but the ending was an odd contrast to the lighthearted beginning, and to be honest, I enjoyed the first half of the movie a bit more because of its innocence (not to mention the clumsy owl!).
The movie didn't seem to focus much on the characters as much as the first, but that's because it expected its audience to have seen the first; not to mention the fact that it just didn't have the time to develop them. I missed the snapshots of daily school life that are often provided in loving detail in the book.
The quidditch scenes were really cool this time around! The transitions between the CGI and the real actors were much better this time around, and I can't remember a single scene from it that was blatantly computer-generated. The animatronic phoenix was a bit cheezy, though.
All in all, I think the second Harry Potter is just as good as the first. Unless you're fastidiously zealous about the details, you're 99% guaranteed to like this one if you liked the book.
Lilo & Stitch (2002)
A brilliant buildup to a self-destructive conclusion
I absolutely loved the first half of this movie: Stitch was perfectly characterized as reckless and feral and completely dangerous in the compass of his small, adorable form. Lilo, when first introduced, ran the risk of being nauseatingly cute, but it dissipated as her quirks rose to the surface. Even the sister was remarkably deep; in fact, one of the most outstanding qualities of this latest Disney installment is that the plot followed the development of three characters simultaneously and with an equally talented brush. I found myself interested in the outcome of all three characters, unlike so many other Disney films which follow one protagonist surrounded by a static collection of stereotypes.
But I knew the heights to which Disney brought the plot would fall as its innovation by necessity had to be hammered into a hackneyed moral lesson and a conclusion in which all loose ends must be tied up in the most just and comforting fashion possible. But the methods they used--! I was able to suspend my disbelief for half of the show, but the chain of events grew more and more logically outlandish until in the end I was forced to throw my hands in the air and feel as if I were almost watching a different movie where all internal integrity had been lost!
I enjoyed this movie greatly, and it's one of Disney's best. I knew the ending had to be shoehorned in, and as a result, I sat back and enjoyed it. But it was a flaw that derails it from its course to being a true classic.
Donnie Darko (2001)
Unique, absorbing, and very subtle
I'll skip the obligatory preamble of how wonderful this movie was, and go to what I appreciated most: the nudges and hints the plot gave the viewer, almost as breadcrumbs to entice them further into Donnie's world. There were countless elements in the movie that suggested causality, or equality, or some sort of relationship without ever telling the viewer their exact role in the plot. I found that to be both refreshing and engaging. There were times when I thought that perhaps even the writer would not be able to explain the point of everything in the movie, but in the long run, it doesn't matter. This movie gives you something to experience and ponder rather than describing it blow-by-blow and resolving every loose thread in the plot. Even if one were to think that the writer had only loose control of the plot, the end result is the same -- wonderment, fascination, and an experience that will last far beyond the two hours of the movie's running time. Thanks for such a unique and fantastic movie!
Vanilla Sky (2001)
A not-so-subtle Abre Los Ojos
Because the plot of Abre Los Ojos was so strong, it's difficult to give this movie a terrible rating. I still enjoyed it and appreciated the romance and found it to be strangely magical in an urban kind of way. However, Vanilla Sky takes too many cues from Hollywood -- most prominently the utter lack of subtlety by which Abre Los Ojos was crafted. (slight spoiler) The cryogenics theme is introduced too blatantly, and it's spelled out in mindnumbing detail later in the movie. Tom Cruise's character is immediately stereotyped, whereas the protagonist in Abre Los Ojos had a playboy role that was more difficult to grapple with. Just like the color of Vanilla Sky versus Abre Los Ojos, everything is sharper, less ambiguous, and... louder! The music for the "derangement" scenes were all-out annoying and inappropriate, and seemed to last far too long.
I'm glad this movie was released, if only to prompt its viewers to watch the clearly superior original. At its heart, it's still a good tale that should at the very least get a strong reaction out of the audience. 7/10.
Requiem for a Dream (2000)
Truly Unpleasant
I was pretty enthusiastic about both Pi and its soundtrack, and was pleased to see another movie from the same fellow.
However, whereas Pi had an interesting plot and occasional moments of brightness, this movie was almost exclusively about suffering, and the last half of the movie almost gratuitously dwelt on that. My biggest beef was with the plot, which became a contrivance to abuse the characters, again in the last half. Whenever chance would have it that the protagonists could have several possible futures ranging from fortunate to dismal, the plot always chose the worst possible future. After a while, the suffering was completely artificial, loaded with graphic, ugly images; high-strung and irritating music, and a disregard for reality that had hitherto remained intact.
The acting was well-done, the direction had style, the music, save for the grating violins when things were really getting bad (which I suppose were meant to invoke pathos), was interesting and well-suited, but I have to ask myself -- why did I watch the movie if it was completely unpleasant, if I didn't learn anything save for the depths of pain and disgust to which a movie can go? I am all for intelligent independent movies, but there has to be some spark of enjoyment in it instead of a kaleidoscopic barrage of suffering. I regret watching this film.