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dougalg
Reviews
Serenity (2005)
This film loosely continues the story that was began in Firely with the plucky crew and their dangerous stowaways...
I rated this film a 6, but would rate the 15 episodes of Firefly as a 9 or so. Why the discrepancy? Well, the main reasons are fairly stylistic. The style of Firefly was one of slow measured progression, occasionally punctuated by fight scenes, but those weren't my favorite episodes. To make this movie in true Firefly style, it would have had to have been at least 1.5 times the length it was, or maybe even twice the length.
Additionally, the movie carries on some of the (for science fiction) innovative technical aspects that made Firefly lovable. Unfortunately, it also seems to lapse into certain Hollywood clichés that somehow never came up in Firefly. I'm thinking in particular of one scene involving Shepherd Book, which I shan't give away as it's a spoiler.
Additionally, the focus of the movie is very different from the series in several ways, firstly, the series made sure all the characters had relatively equal time, but here not so, it seems fairly unbalanced towards Zoe, Mal and the Tams, with the others being relegated to minor bit parts. Secondly the focus of the movie in terms of major "villain" takes a direct turn from the series the villains from the series are gone, and replaced with another totally different one, and the motives of the alliance are totally different, not to mention that the doctor now knows substantially more about his sister than before...
I guess a lot of this was "necessary" n order for the movie to happen, but I would much rather the show getting picked up by a new channel and being allowed to do justice to the back-plots and characters, rather than trying to mash it all into a short 2 hours, as well as bring a conclusion to it all...
War Stories (2003)
Not too bad a film, doesn't make a clear statement.
This movie intrigued me right form the start because it's an american movie about Afghanistan. Also, the fact that it is about the mass media and war coverage was also pretty interesting. The movie's two main characters are Goldblum playing a sort of stereotypical ani-establishment type, and Lake Bell as his newbie photographer.
The good thing about this is that it does show how much personal preferences shape the stories that make it to the headlines. One character at one point justifies his stance with the words "maybe I just love my country", proving that he is not being impartial, and that we cannot truly expect impartiality from the media.
The movie goes back and forth between whether the US government is playing games or not and what a reporters duty is and whether or not reporters are impartial. In the end it is shown that the reports will give the story. But this isn't completely accurate given that many reporters are refraining from "asking the tough question" because they feel it would be unpatriotic to do so.
The movie left me feeling a little unsatisfied but overall it is in itself (i think) relatively unbiased, showing all types of reporters and also things that may or may not be motivating the US government.
The Matrix (1999)
Gwarrr... I'm still trying to escape the horror.
Why does everyone think this movie is a masterpiece? What differentiates it from your typical, run of the mill, enjoyable action movie? Nothing, except maybe that horridness that is Keanu Reeves.... The action sequences are pretty nice, I'll give you that. But if you want to watch really good action sequences go rent some old-school chinese movies. Or even new ones. Those have the coolest fight scenes imaginable. And the special affects, they were nice, oo, aah... But all they were was eye-candy. They were not the kind of special affects that are so good you don't notice them. Those are the best kind of effects, they mesh with the movie so well that they don't distract from the plot, of course The Matrix doesn't really have a plot. The movie tries to be Cyberpunk, it's based on the novel by William Gibson who is a fantastic writer, so I have to assume that the novel is good. But this movie tries to sort of ask about virtual reality and "where are we headed?" and so forth, but it does it so poorly where so many others have done well. Try reading (that's right, _reading_ Gasp!) Otherland, or Neuromancer, or the Diamond Age or Snow Crash or any of the great cyberpunk novels if you want to know what this movie should have been. Or even some movies, like eXistenZ which is not really as like the Matrix as some people would have you believe. Anyway, that's my two cents.