j-exoo Reviews

Floris (2004)

Movie or a bad play?

[9 April 2005]

About Floris I draw a comparison with The Pirates of the Caribean which I personally found a very bad movie with Johnny Depp (and he is not a bad actor at all) as a drug addict queer Pirate. Floris is technically not bad at all and so was The Pirots. So I don't think this is the worst movie of Jean van de Velde (director). Slowly dutch directors climb to a level of British and American filmmakers. Nice special effects and perfect light and a good cast. That characters like Floris Sr (Rob Lowe) are flat and clumsy is understandable. Because again the bad script(s) (p.e.: the Beach with Leo diC; bad script and also bad book) gets me on my nerves. And the following explanation is only understanding by Dutch people but the script has a high 'Bassie en Adriaan' value. Al those proverbs, stupid jokes refer to the modern times, or in the break of a play advertising for soap to clean clothes, no, no, no not funny. It makes it ridiculous and childish. A big chapeau for Pi (Birgit Schuurman) who has never acted. And Floris jr. (Michiel Huisman) has the same charisma as the old Floris (Rutger Houwer) at that time. You can not use modern music in a movie about the Middle Ages it's horrible and makes it unreal. Once in a while I recognized the old Floris music which made the old Floris movie just more exciting and could be better used in certain scenery's. And when there ever will be a continuing story of "Floris in China" please may I read the script first?

Gay in Amsterdam (2004)

Gay isn't good enough

[7 April 2005]

Absolutely bad but funny enough watchable. And again the clichés are going on and on and on. In a way the characters played as they were meant to be (absolutely sissy (nichterig -Dutch-)) in this context were not that bad. The shots were perfect the light was good (seen on a TFT Flatscreen) and also the music as background was tolerable. So in general you can say a good movie with good (looking as well) actors but a bad script. It's a movie to sit back and think of all the other good movies you've seen. To much gay... is this possible? yes it can, this film is. I'm looking forward to see another film of this director Mr. Tom Six maybe he must see the British movies "AKA" or - it's an old one but superb - "Another Country" first.