Category: Movie Reviews

I’d heard the hype surrounding Pan’s Labyrinth as it was an amazing story with incredible images, but it was clearly not a movie to take young kids to.

If I had to sum it up, I’d say that it was a very dark and brutally graphic version of Anne Frank goes to Narnia, but without a happy Hollywood ending. It dropped the F-word, had a person’s face get smashed in, repeatedly, with a wine bottle, bugs and goo abound, heads are shot at close range with pistols, a leg getting sawed off, a bloody pregnancy gone wrong, two torture scenes, a needle injection and widthdrawl is shown, and quite a bit of facial mutilation, only enhanced by someone stitching their own cheek back up, drinking a shot glass, and the bandaged wound fill with liquid. Relatively little was left to the imagination; so if you’re graphically squeamish, think twice – you may spend a lot of time turning away.

The whole movie was in Spanish with English subtitles. Once again, this worked for me, as about part way through the movie I found that I was picking up more Spanish than I knew and just absorbing the subtitles.

Like many foreign films, there’s a number of pieces that don’t make a lot of sense and are just given. It starts with a young princess escaping – she just does. She suffers consequences for it – she just does, let’s call it magic. A number of the characters spontaneously do things out of character, and yet, the movie is still amazingly predictable at any given point.

SPOILER ALERT

I wouldn’t rate the story as being anything amazing: Mother remarries jerk when current husband dies, daughter thrust into hellish home. Home has labyrinth, girl goes exploring, fawn reveals she’s a princess and to return needs to perform three seemingly random tasks. Things don’t go well, girl dies.

END SPOILER ALERT

Graphically, they did some pretty good stuff, especially with costumes and close-up special effects. However, I found the story depressing and left the theater feeling drained and unfulfilled.

Before going to see V For Vendetta, I heard two things:  1) “This movie really bashed on the conservative party, portraying them as evil, and the liberals as good.”  2) “This movie condones, if not encourages, violence.”

Having seen it, I walked away with neither of these two impressions, nor did I feel there was any strong political message.  The movie portrays a more modern version of Orwell’s 1984 using a just slightly futuristic Britain in a fictional, sensationalized comic-book style.

In a nutshell, society gave up too many freedoms, turned the other way once too often, and in doing so allowed a dictator to rise to power.  ‘V’ uses “constructive” violence — targeting those personally responsible with justice, resistance where he knows someone’s doing mortal harm, and warned destruction to wake society up to the corruption around them in order to remind them they aren’t indeed powerless. His motives are well intentioned for the betterment of society, although his technique of the ends justifying the means smacks more of a Batman philosophy than a Superman one.
The story was engaging, the acting was well done, and the visuals were on target — only two buildings blew up, and it was in the style and quality you’ve already seen in Independence Day.  And, for what it’s worth, the building were unoccupied — he was destroying a symbol, not trying to take lives by this action.

If I had to find a beef about the flick, there’s a few minutes where they show victimization of homosexual lifestyles, and the problem there is that it didn’t add anything to the movie.  This set of scenes could have just as easily been cut and the movie would have been just as strong; all citizens were suffering under the oppressive rule, not just one group.

Naturally, one can read more into a story than is there.  The message I got was the slippery slope argument about what happens if things go unchecked.  A country’s citizens have civic responsibilities that must be exercised or be lost; these include educating themselves, doing what’s right for the common good (even if it isn’t in your own personal best interests), and taking a positive active role in governing society in order to stave off corruption.  Random acts of violence, or even violence as an outleashed emotional expression were not endorsed, perhaps because they are so ineffective.

Interally, I would recoil if the liberal side actually views the conservative side in this manner (and also if the reverse is true) — for that would mean we don’t look at what is, but simply project our fears blindy onto another group; this is the exact tactic the movie’s dictator used to spawn division in order to get a strong hold in the first place.

I suspect the more accurate statement is that the extremists have taken over the popular political labels of our times, and that the majority of the population actually shares the same goals, but simply differs on how to accomplish them effectively. If anything, ‘V’ calls for a unification of the citizens to work together, to be something better; meanwhile the dictatorship uses the 1984 technique of redefining ‘unification’ to take on new meaning.

Will this movie inspire citizens to become terrorists?  I seriously doubt it.

So, go see the movie, get a big box of popcorn, and have a very entertaining 2hrs and 12min with the opportunity for delightful discussion over dinner afterward.

Just got back moments ago from seeing Ultraviolet. I can sum up this movie in one word: AVOID.

I’m totally serious about this. Spend the money you would have spent on that movie ticket and popcorn and do something else with it. Anything else, including burning it – you’ll have saved yourself 1hr 25min (plus 20min commerical time) of your life, be entertained by the flaming Jackson, and you’ll have a much better story to tell your friends what you did.

Ultraviolet was like watching the worst episode of Xena with a guest appearance from Wesley Crusher (with appologies to Wil Wheaton). It’s like some guys got drunk, and decided to make a movie by randomly throwing concepts on the table. Hint: after the brain storming session, you’re supposed to discard the bad ideas. This important step was skipped.

Chick + Fiberoptic Hair + Swords + Maternal Vampire + Cardinal Clones + Virus + Predictable Twist does NOT equal success. No back plot was explained, scenes shifted erratically, and even the technology used made little sense. The viewer is thrown into a jumbled world and ignored for most of the movie. Finally as total bordem sets in, even the producer injects pointless humor that’s so bad it’s just dumb.
Seriously, if you want to see Milla Jovovich, this is not the movie to do it. Unless you want to see her mid section. You get lots of shots of her belly button. Nothing above. Nothing below. Even a naked walk viewing her back side through a darkened scanner is a big old yawn.

This had to be one of the all time worst movies I’ve ever seen. And, apparently, the audience agreed with me. People were walking out saying it was trash and wondering if they could get their money back.

Saw King Kong this weekend at the huge AMC in Tysons Corner.

The general reviews are correct, the 3hr movie is about 1hr too long, primarily because there are several side plots that aren’t all that relevant to the story line and could easily be dropped on the cutting room floor to give the movie a faster pace. That said, I’ll probablly get the DVD and be hunting for the extra footage and deleted scenes.

What I don’t get is the 5 star ratings it’s getting. It was visually appealing, but it struck me that the video compositing in Narnia were more ground breaking.

True, Kong has never been done in this scale or level of detail before. I just didn’t get emotionally pulled into the movie, having a hard time identifying with any particular character.

Three things were distracting to me. First was when Naomi Watts was being whipped around by King Kong — her image moved, but the physics of what would happen to her body didn’t, worse, her hair didn’t even obey the laws of gravity. Second was when King Kong kept changing sizes in my mind: first he’s 25 feet tall, then he’s towering against a dino, then he sits near Naomi, then he climbs a huge wall, then he smashes though an enormous gate, then he’s taken down by a few men, then he’s in a theater, then he’s three stories tall climbing a building — maybe I’m wrong here, but mass and scale just seemed to shift depending on shot. Third, super human speed by average humans; I’m pretty sure than in a stampede I’d be trampled in moments, and I’m fairly certain that in a race between me and a moving car, I’d not be able to keep up for long.

Many of the movie’s scenes were far over the top, too many happenstance chances. There were too many places where falling rocks, stomping monster feet, or ultra-deep chasms were at the right place, or had the right vine, or missed by just inches. People were getting picked up, thrown into the air, landing on rocks, sliding down rock faces bare skinned, and coming out no worse than when they started. I don’t know about you, but I can’t walk out to get the mail barefoot without my feet getting stabbed by twigs or sharp pebbles, yet these folks can run through a historic forest barefoot and not get a scrape.

Kong’s relationship, like many movies, happened too fast to almost be unjustifable. And, when Kong dies at the end, there are many wet eyes in the theater. Maybe I missed the point, but did everyone forget the pile of bones from helpless sacficed women that Kong previously brutalized, or the many innocents that were injured or killed as he rampaged through the city? With Kong gone, even Skull island is safer. Like I said, I think I missed the point. Maybe because Kong never seemed to me to be in love, but rather say Naomi as a novelity or amusement, or dare I say pet.

But, fiction is fiction, and it was an enjoyable theater experience none the less. Go see King Kong. See it on a big theater. Just do it at discounted ticket prices. I give it 3 stars out of 5.

Spurred by a letter from Danny asking if I wanted to go see the Matrix Reloaded, I have to point out I’ve seen it twice already. The movie is visually appealing, and the fight scenes are wonderfully choreographed, but it lacks the grit and depth of the first film. It’s more of an action flick than anything else, but I think I can underline the short comings by drawing from one scene from the original Matrix.

You know the scene well, Mr. Anderson has just been chewed out by his boss, he’s not back at his boring little cub when a FedEx package arrives. Opening it, a cell phone drops into his hand and instantly rings. It’s Morphesus, a man Neo knows and admires, but has never met. Neo learns he is in imminent danger, and at that moment “agents” are looking for him. “Shit!” exclaims neo. “Yesss….” reaffirms the voice on the phone, “if you don’t want to find out what this is about, do exactly as I say.” The mysterious caller perfectly times Neo’s escape, where he must open a window and climb scaffolding to the roof. But Mr. Anderson can’t go through with it, and retreats right into the “agents” hands.

That is good writing.

Mr. Anderson is yanked from his calm world into one of danger and mystery. There’s a good chance his life is on the line. He’s got to place trust in someone he has no reason to. There’s humor. There’s a great plan. And that plan is thwarted not by technical obstacles, but by character trait.

The Matrix Reloaded carries none of that among its special effects and fancy fighting.

At no time do you feel Neo is in any real danger. Overwhelmed, perhaps, but not outmatched. With sequel number III coming out this Thanksgiving, we know he won’t die this film. There’s little character building, the humor appears far less, and it’s all to clean cut and the mission is obvious.

The Oracle does a great job capturing the essence of the prior movie, but she’s the only one who does. We don’t see enough quality time of Agent Smith, so that’s made up for with quantity.

Perhaps the biggest threat to the story line is the hinting of a holodeck within a holodeck plot, which has been beaten to death by StarTrek, and only properly mutated into a enjoyable solution by Farscape writers who took a refreshing approach.

Warning… here comes a spoiler.

Neo meets the Matrix’s architect, who confirms there was once a “perfect” Matrix but that humans didn’t adapt well to perfection. The solution was to have conflict. On the surface, it seems he’s talking about the challenge of every day life being necessary. However, near the end of the movie, and outside the matrix, Neo senses and stops the machines from attacking their position. The door for Zion being part of an Uber-Matrix is cracked too far open for my taste, though none of this can be confirmed until this coming November.

Suspension of disbelief is perhaps the biggest thrill enjoyed by watching the Matrix, only this time around we’re lead to believe that Mr. Smith has escaped the matrix. This either pushes the edge of what’s believable, or it allows for more circumstantial evidence of an uber-matrix.