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coughingdragon
Reviews
The Man from U.N.C.L.E.: The Girls of Nazarone Affair (1965)
Solid episode of the spy series
As the episode begins, we see Napoleon Solo and Illya Kuryakin entering a hotel on the Riviera when they are distracted by a couple of beautiful blond women photographing a vendor. Moments later the man is dead and so starts a struggle between the two agents from U.N.C.L.E and a group of blond Thrush agents for the possession of a formula for a rejuvenating serum. The plot provides a great sandbox for Vaughn and McCallum, and it is their interplay both with each other and the other characters that is the greatest strength of this episode. The story may be a little too campy for those who are not fans of this kind of sixties fare, but those who are fans will enjoy this hour of television.
The Magnificent Seven (1960)
A remake that matches the original classic
The Magnificent Seven is the remake of Akira Kurosawa's The Seven Samurai with the tale transformed into a western. The story remains the same. A poor town plagued by bandits hires a group of men, in this case gunfighters, to protect their village. What is impressive about this film to me is that while I consider The Seven Samurai to be one of the greatest films ever made, I find that this film is in some ways preferable.
In comparison, The Seven Samurai, is better at laying out the plight of the villagers and their relationships with their protectors. Also, The Seven Samurai is superior at laying out the battles so that the viewer is more aware of what is supposed to happen and has a greater reaction when something goes against the plan.
However, The Magnificent Seven has three significant advantages over The Seven Samurai.
First, The Magnificent Seven does a much better job at making each of the title seven distinctive and easily identifiable. With actors like Yul Brynner, Steve McQueen, Charles Bronson, and James Coburn, the movie was blessed with actors who brought strong personalities with them, and the movie used them all well.
Second, the inclusion of the Eli Wallach character gave a face to the villains and the audience someone to root against which is more effective than the more anonymous villains of The Seven Samurai which are barely seen outside of quick flashes in the action scenes.
Third, Elmer Bernstein's score for The Magnificent Seven is one of the greatest ever recorded and adds a great deal to the greatness of the film which cannot be said for the score of The Seven Samurai that is more functional than great.
In the end both The Seven Samurai and The Magnificent Seven are tremendous achievements in film with The Magnificent Seven being quite possibly the greatest remake ever.
Elektra (2005)
Bland adaptation of a fascinating character
Frank Miller's Elektra is a fascinating character, but all that makes her interesting is sadly missing from this movie. In the comics, Elektra is an exotic assassin who only slightly removed morally from the people she is paid to kill. In this movie, she is still an assassin, but a very bland one. Jennifer Garner lacks the exotic quality necessary to bring the character alive bringing more of a girl next door quality that makes her less than convincing as an assassin. The script does her no favors by giving us a very conventional story of revenge and protecting a young girl that doesn't allow for the moral ambiguities that would have given this movie a chance at being interesting.
The Elektra presented here is not alone in being bland as pretty much everything in this movie is completely uninvolving. None of the characters here escapes being two dimensional with both the writing and the acting to blame. The plot of the movie is at its heart very basic with a couple of weird elements thrown in that don't work. The look and feel of the movie is that of a straight to video offering not a major motion picture, so it is tough to figure where the budget was spent on this movie.
Somewhere there is a great film to be made out of the Elektra character, but this sure isn't it. I hope that in the future someone else will be given the chance to make that film.