Sunday, November 20, 2005
More movies yet
So I got to see a bunch more movies lately (right now it's the only thing keeping me sane in the face of the dreaded Technion HEDVA/1t course). Here's a brief review on each:
  • Ridley Scott's Kingdom of Heaven is a rather belated attempt to capitalize on the "psuedo-historical epos" trend of the last few years which was ironically started by Scott's own Gladiator (in case you were wondering, Braveheart was not a little too early for its own good, having come out in 1995). Synopsis: Balian, the son of Lord Godfrey, is knighted, takes up the task of defending Jerusalem from the forces of Saladin and ends up saving the day etc. Throw in a bunch of clichés about love, what it takes to be a humane leader back in the crusades and some generic morality crap and you've got a seriously badly written film. In its defense it does feature some superb photography, OK action and a huge cast consisting of some favourite actors of mine: Orlando Bloom (who finally appars capable of acting), Alexander Siddig (of DS9 fame), Brendan Gleeson, Jeremy Irons, Edward Norton (who does not appear visually), David Thewlis and finally Liam Neeson, who isn't actually on my list but does deserve a mention. Too bad the movie just plain sucked.
  • Nicolas Cage's latest movie Lord of War was an absolute blast. It is an amasingly cynical, mostly funny and quite surprising satire of what makes third world countries wage war, as well as what makes greedy people tick. It doesn't make any excuses for the clichés it employs, and in my opinion it hits the spot precisely: some messages simply do not come across until you bang them into someone's head with an allegorical hammer. My only issue with it is that it fails to keep the satire simply as that, and culminates in a verbal political message which is an exercise in redundancy.
  • Instead of making a long point I'll skip to the very end with a summary of The Exorcism of Emily Rose: good acting (particularly by Laura Linney and Tom Wilkinson), reasonable dialog, crappy predictable storyline and no boobs at all. In short, a movie not worth your time; if you're interested in the legal/judicial aspects do yourself a favour and go watch Law & Order, it's what they do.
  • I've heard a lot of conflicting opinions on I, Robot. Maddox went as far as to say:
    Here's how I would have changed this film: start out with a shot of Will Smith in a grocery store buying a 6 pack of Dos Equis beer, except instead of paying, the cashier is a Dos Equis marketing rep who hands Smith a thick wad of bills. Next shot: Smith finishes the last of the beer, walks over to Isaac Asimov's grave and lets loose. Why not? Same message, none of the bullshit.
    I won't deny that this movie has some serious issues (particularly with product placements; here it was even worse than The Island, if that's even possible) but I would take an opposite view to Maddox's: I enjoyed the movie immensely. Having read the book quite recently I find that the only place where the movie deviated completely from what is detailed in the stories (because I, Robot is not a single coherent storyline, rather comprised of several short tales) is in the depiction of Susan Calvin's character, who is actually very true-to-form in the beginning of the movie. Regardless, the movie features rather imaginative photography, some great action sequences, a plot which ultimately doesn't suck and some of the funniest dialogue I've heard in years (the only competition comes from the underrated Constantine). Bottom line? Recommended.
Movies
Sunday, November 20, 2005 2:34:39 AM (Jerusalem Standard Time, UTC+02:00)  #    Comments [0]  |  Related posts:
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