colinrfricke Reviews

Napoleon (2023)

Lost Opportunity

[5/10 · 27 November 2023]

First of all I give it a 5 based solely on entertainment value. Historically, it's more like a 2. Regardless Hollywood is not where I go for historical accuracy so it does get somewhat of a pass. The movie was entertaining and did have interesting moments but it felt more mediocre than amazing.

All that can be said is this movie was a wasted opportunity. The relationship between Napoleon and Josephine was inaccurate and bizarre. The battle scenes were ok at best and a huge disappointment at worse. Many of the battles look like they only involved a few hundred men and strangely always took place near encampments.

The movie bit off more than it could chew. Napoleon's life is an epic drama so much so that they skipped entire campaigns and only included 5-10 minutes at best of others to make a 2.5 hour run time. This made the movie feel choppy and disconnected. It would have been better to have focused on only part of Napoleon's life and made sequels to cover the rest.

Phoenix as Napoleon was a major disappointment or almost disaster. Perhaps this was Scott's fault but Phoenix failed on so many levels. The love scenes were weird and some of his lines bordered on silly ("you think you are so great because you have boats!"). This is especially bizarre considering much of the dialogue is historical record so there is little reason to deviate.

Worst of all, the movie failed to convey why Napoleon was great. Why was Napoleon an exceptional battlefield commander? Why was all of Europe terrified of him? How could this man rally 17 year old farm boys to superhuman feats against overwhelming odds whenever they saw him on the battlefield? Why did France sacrifice well over a million men to their deaths and not only welcome him back from exile but give him a massive state funeral 20 years after his death and a place of honor in Paris to this day? Napoleon's life is almost so exceptional and astonishing that his story is too much for even great directors and actors to handle.

Honestly if you want a much better and just as well made movie about Napoleon I highly recommend the A&E miniseries from 2002 called "Napoleon." Far more accurate historically and in depth.

The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It (2021)

Why Fix what isn't broken??

[5/10 · 13 June 2021]

This third movie in the series was just ok. The director attempted to move the story away from the typical haunted house storyline of the previous two films. The problem is that the first couple films were very much liked so why deviate? True there needs to be some variety but most of these hauntings have enough variety to satisfy that.

The beginning scene is the best as it is the climax scene in a typical Conjuring movie, the exorcism. The film then devolves into satanic curses and flashy special effects while Ed and Lorraine investigate the source. In the end there is a small step between the sublime and the ridiculous and this film takes that step big time. They made the same error with the Conjuring 2 where the end scene with the lightning and the tree windows bursting would put to rest any question of demonic possession. This film goes even further with levitating and exploding windows and helicopters around.

Still the movie has some redeeming qualities. The special effects are good and the investigation, while choppy and navigating without a compass at times, is still intriguing. The scares are less but they are still there. This would be a good horror movie standalone but as a Conjuring movie it is weaker.

The most disappointing part is that the "true" story (depends if you believe in this stuff) would have made for a good movie. The documentary from Discovery "A Haunting" covered this case and it was a very good episode when I saw it.

In the end it is worth your time but it is a weak link in the series. I feel they should return to their roots for a Conjuring 4.

Napoléon (2002)

Decent but doesn't encompass the real story

[7/10 · 24 April 2021]

The Napoleon miniseries was a pretty ambitious attempt at Napoleon's life. It got the job done but couldn't quite encompass the sheer scale of Napoleon, the Empire and the wars.

First the bad, the battle scenes. If you are looking for a military series about the Napoleonic Wars this will not be your series. If all of the battle or military scenes are added together they would encompass maybe 30-40 minutes. Napoleon fought at least 60 major battles and 12 military campaigns. 9 battles were covered with some scenes as short as 30 seconds. The best battle scene by far was Eylau. Second, the battle scenes have relatively few extras. The battles look like they were fought between regiments not armies. Every battle presented (w the exception of Arcole) had more than 100,000 men present (Leipzig had 500,000) but at most extras amount to 1,000 or less. Most of this was cost I'm sure but it shows.

Another bad item, the series has many foreign actors acting in English. As a result it comes off forced. Many actors were quite good. Josephine, Fouche, Caulincount and to a less extent Napoleon were good. However there are many smaller actors that hurt the series.

For the good: the costumes, uniforms and filming locations were all nice. The story is largely accurate minus a few liberties to make the story flow. The series also moved at a good clip, first episode being the weakest.

Perhaps the part in my opinion is the imagery and attention to detail relating to the wars. Images of burned out churches in graveyards after Eylau, horrors of war in Spain, bodies piled up at Aspern and images of teenage soldiers in 1813 do hit well. The scene with the peasant woman telling Napoleon how her sons were killed in the wars and the desperation faced by many in France at the end also was well done and does homage to a war that killed 5 million people and likely killed a larger percentage of the French population than any other modern war. This made Napoleon a mixed figure in the series, something historians still reflect today.

In the end it was too ambitious of a target for a miniseries. They should have stuck either with the personal/political life or the military not both. To cover Napoleon in true fashion would require an entire actual series covering 10 seasons (not a bad idea). So I cannot blame the series for failing to encompass the totality of Napoleon but is was a disappointment. Still if you know nothing about Napoleon (not the case with me) it gives you a good overview and could leave you wanting to learn more. In that regard it succeeds.

Max Keeble's Big Move (2001)

Good preteen movie but weak ending

[7/10 · 17 April 2021]

I watched this when I was just entering my teens and enjoyed it back in 01. I decided to watch it and feel it has withstood the test of time. The concept is a clever one, 12 year old Max endured a terrible slew of bad characters in his new school. He figures out from his parents he is moving so he plants revenge on all his enemies. His plan goes wrong when he learns he is not moving anymore. I though Linz was a great actor in this, he fits the late 90s early 00s preteen boy motif pretty spot on (spiked hair, cargo pants: I had the look too). Other than that there is nothing unusually special to the story, however that is not necessarily a bad thing: the story moves and is funny (McGoogles is me name) and in certain areas quite clever (the stock market bully was a unique character).

My criticism is that the ending was weak and cliched. Max faces his bullies (and nearly gets the life beaten out of him by two older teenagers a direction Disney would never go today) but the whole marching band school gang up scene was a little much. The ending with the animal farm and principal was also too over the top. Nevertheless it is a movie designed for preteen boys (I just feel this is more of a boy movie but I could be wrong) so in that regard it is not THAT over the top. It is also not stupid like more modern movies for this age group (ie. No over the top silly slapstick actors except for the ice cream guy albeit mildly slapstick).

So in the end it is a good movie that took a stand run of the mill ending. Worth watching and worth your time, certainly better than 95% of the movies in this genre but the weak ending ruined what I felt could have been a much lasting and memorable film.

Coco (I) (2017)

Absolutely beautiful.

[10/10 · 2 November 2020]

Coco is a beautiful movie about the Mexican holiday "Day of the Dead." Miguel Rivera is 12 years old and loves music but a traumatic event in the family's past makes music taboo. Miguel eventually stumbles into the land of the dead where he unknowingly meets his great great grandfather.

The movie hits on some very intense topics including death, family trauma, and the importance of family. This movie hits right to the bone because everyone has someone close to them who has passed. It reflects the importance of passing down family stories and the importance of elders in the family. I put this as the third in the "trifecta of death' movies by Pixar. Up deals with the death of a loved one and trying to honor their memory, Inside Out deals with the death of innocence and moving to the next stage in life, Coco deals with death itself. All are superb and tear at the heart strings.

Halloween (I) (2018)

Awesome! A great twist on the slasher genre

[9/10 · 20 September 2020]

This was a great movie. The movie is a sequel to the original 1978 Halloween movie. In the movie an aged Michael Myers escapes from the mental institution and wreaks havoc on Haddonfield on the same night as 40 years earlier. Meanwhile the story also follows an older and still traumatized Laurie Strode who lives in a bunker home and practiced with guns for the ray Michael escapes again. However her paranoia causes her to lose her daughter both literally as a child to Child Services and figuratively in a relationship. Laurie'a granddaughter is sympathetic and closer to Laurie than her mother. The movie ends with an epic showdown between Myers and Stode.

The movie did not disappoint. It had some twists, plenty of action and the showdown between the two original rivals was nothing short of epic. The story hits on the trauma of victims of horrendous acts and the effects on their family in Laurie's family drama. Meanwhile there is a decent amount of social commentary that follows generational differences and the traumas that different generations go through. Serial killers were the thing in the 1970s when the original was made but not the same now. This leads one Gen Z character to comment "it isn't a big deal compared to things today" for what happened to Laurie. However he proves incorrect as when Myers shows up her wreaks havoc on a scale the kids have never seen before. Other issues such as the right to self defense, gun rights, and science morality are included. Highly recommended.

Tom and Huck (1995)

Not terrible but probably not worth your time

[4/10 · 4 September 2020]

I remember watching this movie when I was a kid and liking it so I gave it a shot. It wasn't terrible but it probably is better as a kids movie. Story follows Tom, a mischievous boy, and his nomad friend Huck, a teenager, as they witness a murder by Injin Joe (yeah yeah racism, white privledge, oppressive imperialism yada yada yada: get over it it's based on a book from the 1800s). The problem I felt with the story was that there was too much Tom tomfoolery and not enough Joe menacing. The story would move along and get sidetracked by some shenanigans by Tom and Huck. There were a lot of good scenes such as sneaking up on Joe to steal a map and Tom's moral dilemma about telling the truth at a trial to save a man's life and his blood promise with Huck. I felt the climatic scene was kind of blah. Again not terrible but better as a movie for your ten year old nephew.

The Patriot (2000)

Entertaining movie about the Revolutionary War

[8/10 · 2 February 2020]

The Patriot is a good Revolutionary War movie but it is fiction.

The story follows Benjamin Martin, a farmer in South Carolina with a checkered past whose perfect life comes crashing down in the turmoil of the American Revolutionary War. When a brutal British dragoon officer, Colonel Tavington shots one of Martin's sons in cold blood and torches his home he seeks revenge by joining a local militia. As Martin's militia disrupt British supply lines, Tavington resorts to sadistic acts of cruelty against civilians until Martin and Tavington do battle.

Excellent costumes, acting, and the fact that it really is the only war movie depicting the Revolutionary War make it worth watching.

The biggest grip with this movie is the historical inaccuracies. What makes it worse are that Martin and Tavington are loosely based on real people ("the Swamp Fox" and Colonel Tarelton). First it is a movie so let's just calm down. However some of the scenes are so inaccurate it is disgusting. The fact that his African American workers are "freemen" and they eventually hang out with other free slaves is odd. Slavery was common in the South so dont sugarcoat it.

The second topic of controversy involves supposed British atrocities especially the scene with the church. This gets the Brits in a tizzy as there are no records of British troops killing civilians in that manner. But let's not try and dim the real atrocities committed by British and allied troops and the effect it had on the American people at the time (Americans were not angels at the time either). Between 1.5 and 3% of the American population died in that war (not including civilians). Civilians, like in all wars, were murdered by enemy troops albeit not on orders from high command. Homes were ransacked regularly and put to the torch. For example, Norfolk VA and Portland ME were both bombarded and torched by the British. British and their Indian allies massacred 300 American civilians at the Battle of Wyoming, 12,000+ American POWs died on British hulk ships of deprevation and disease with a death rate in excess of American POWs in WWII. More than 100,000 Americans became refugees and fled to Canada after the war. To put these numbers in perspective, that would be equivalent to the US today losing 5 to 10 million military members, 1.5 million in POW camps, having San Francisco and Seattle completely destroyed and losing 15 to 20 million people as political refugees. This war affected Americans like no other including WWII and the Civil War. Virtually everyone in the country came into contact with enemy troops, every state had battles and suffered occupation. This is not to say the British like Nazis but the horrors of war were there as they were in most wars of the 18th century in some form or another (the Seven Years War AKA French and Indian War in the US featured plenty of horrors in Europe and America). For many Americans at the time this war uprooted their whole lives and if Hollywood needed to portray that by exaggerating a single British officer's acts and the nature of war in general so be it.

Hocus Pocus (1993)

THE Quintessential Halloween movie!

[9/10 · 1 November 2019]

This is without a doubt the best Halloween movie ever made. I consider this a "preteen" kids movie: more than enough storyline and humor to keep adults entertained but mild enough for kids to understand. The story revolves around three witches from 1693 Salem who are brought back to life for one night on Halloween in 1993 by teenaged skeptic Max, his younger sister and soon to be girlfriend. They have to last the night as the witches try to steal their spellbook to suck the lives of children to survive forever.

The movie is entertaining and very nostalgic. For those who grew up during, what probably were the greatest years to be a child, the 1990s this brings back memories. To this day I watch the movie every Halloween. Can't beat it!

Independence Day: Resurgence (2016)

A poor follow up to the greatest alien movie ever

[4/10 · 7 September 2019]

This movie sucks compared to the original, which in my opinion is the greatest alien movie ever. Stand alone it is ok. The story has enormous plot holes, poor character arcs, and cheesy dialogue. Some plot holes include: why are they drilling to our core to destroy the planet? If they wanted our planet for resources it defeats the purpose. If the space ball was so smart and had the secret to defeating the aliens, why did they get wiped out? Why did the Queen have thousands of ships around her but they did nothing when we fired on her?? There are plenty more.

Second, the Chinese propaganda is almost nauseating. Hollywood, in all their wokeness, forgot that they are praising what is basically an authoritarian regime. To be fair, reverse engineering is what the Chinese do best...

There is no real plot or character development. The aliens come but there is no real calculated escalation like the first one, there is just plain mayhem. The characters make no sense to me either. Why did I need to know Professor Okin was gay? His boyfriend had no purpose to the movie at all. Even Okins character jumped all over with little real reason. Also what happened to Goldblums ex wife from the first one? She was never even mentioned.

The redeeming qualities are that the action is really fun. We get to see some ground action vs just areal battles in the first one. The air battles are cool as well. They also did a good job throwing back to some nostalgic characters from the original.

Mohawk (2017)

Just ok.

[5/10 · 8 June 2019]

It was not a terrible movie, it was actually quite good. The ending lost it 2 stars however. The American soldiers are supposed to be the bad guys which is fine but it is a weak premise. Sure the Americans torture and murder civilians but the whole thing started cause the Mohawk guy gutted 22 Americans in their sleep despite not being at war.