I have absolutely no connection the the TV show "Dark Shadows" that ran in the late 1960s and early 1970s. I have no context for the tone of the show, the relative merits of the acting or writing of the show and no hangups about excavating some remote and sacred part of my past and my psyche. So I went into Tim Burton's new film Dark Shadows (based on the TV Show) as a totally blank slate... except for the fact that it's a Tim Burton movie and features Johnny Depp and Mrs. Burton, Helena Bonham-Carter, whom he works with always.
Regardless of what one might think of the television show, this is a generally enjoyable, pointless movie. There is really nothing terrible about it and it falls in line with much of the very average Burton has put out for much of the past 20 years. He has taken "weird" to such an extreme that the style and concept has folded back on itself, making the uncanny and strange become banal in his universe. What saves this film (if only slightly) is the very bright acting of Depp and the generally snappy writing of his character here.
Barnabas Collins (Depp) is a colonial-era rich man living in a town his family owns in Maine. One day, as he's chasing his girlfriend, the witch Angelique (Eva Green) turns him into a vampire, ultimately leading to his burial in the town graveyard for safekeeping. Flash forward 200 years to the 1970s and Barnabas' coffin is exhumed (by mistake) and he gets out. His family still owns his mansion, but has lost a lot of their status in town, particularly their cannery. His rival Angelique is now the king (er... queen) fisher in town.
He is introduced to his family members, including Elizabeth (Michelle Pfeiffer), the head of the household, Dr. Julia Hoffman (HBC), a live-in shrink and Victoria Winters (Bella Heathcote), the kids' tutor, who bears a striking resemblance to Barnabas' old girlfriend from way back when. It seems Angelique hopes to ruin the family (again) as long as Barnabas doesn't fall in love with her.
The story is a bit convoluted, and, frankly, unmemorable... though it is pretty fun as it rolls along. Depp has a great sense of comic timing (and a strange resistance to playing characters who don't have English accents) and the script (by Seth Graham-Smith) showers him with great moments and lines to ham up. That the the film is so forgettable is probably the main factor in saying it's not really all that great. It's not that it's really bad, the good stuff is pretty good, but the rest doesn't really any connections and slides away into the ether.
Stars: 2 of 4
Fantasy etiketine sahip kayıtlar gösteriliyor. Tüm kayıtları göster
Fantasy etiketine sahip kayıtlar gösteriliyor. Tüm kayıtları göster
30 Mayıs 2012 Çarşamba
24 Mayıs 2012 Perşembe
The Avengers (3D) (Sunday, May 6, 2012) (45)
The most important component in the dumb Summer blockbuster movie is escape. That is to say, I don't expect much intelligence -- and quite the opposite -- I'm looking for dumb visceral fun. Loud explosions, big settings, maybe some good ol' T&A. They are more spectacles than pure cinema, having more in common with a circus, a freak show, a sight seeing trip to an unknown land where I can turn my brain off and enjoy the experience washing over me. The Avengers is nothing like that. It is a slow, dull, dialogue-heavy Russian novel of a film that is so complicated in its detail that I was unable to just "sit back and enjoy" because I was trying to figure out and interpret what was going on -- mostly because it was so goddamn stupid!
It seems Disney and Marvel have been anticipating this film for a few years now, releasing individual monograph films relating to many of the prominent characters. Last year there was Thor, Captain American and Iron Man 2. There was also a re-boot of the Hulk story (though that featured a different guy playing him). I thought that Thor movie was a horrible abortion of storytelling and excitement and only saw the first Iron Man (which was pretty fun). So at the beginning of The Avengers the idea is that we understand who all the characters are and what they are doing in the world.
It seems Thor's (Chris Hemsworth) little brother, Loki (Tom Hiddleston), is upset that his big bro is all godlike and living in America, so he steals some blue rock that has magic powers (though I didn't catch what kind... something about connecting beings from his world to our world... or something). A guy named Nick Fury (Sam Jackson), who has an eye patch and who I only sorta remember from the first Iron Man movie, rounds up all the super heroes, Thor, Cap America (Chris Evans), Iron Man (RDJ), Hulk (Ruffalo), some lady who's good at kickboxing (ScarJo) and a dude who's a really good archer (that dude from that Iraq movie that lady won the Oscar for), and makes them work on an invisible flying aircraft carrier. Seriously, I'm all about fiscal responsibility and I think that's the first thing the Republicans should cut from the Pentagon budget next year. It seems... too much.
They are all individuals and firmly believe in doing things on their own. Cap likes working with others, but he's from the 1940s and is prolly a Red. Bruce Banner doesn't like being the Hulk because it fucks up his clothes, but is generally an amiable guy. Tony Stark is too rich to give a shit about working with others... so he should prolly just become mayor of New York and break FAA helicopter laws on the weekend. So all these people proceed to sit around tables talking about the rules their drawers have given to them about what they can and can't do (Hulk can't be controlled; Thor has issues with his magic and sometimes can't lift his awesome hammer). Oh - and these two norms, ScarJo and HurtLocker, waste time and screen space trying to be interesting, but failing badly.
Let me say this again: in a world where you have a Norse god (even if he's from another planet), a billionaire who builds unbreakable rocket suits, a green super beast and a dude who represents all that is great with America (that's a lot to represent!), why do you need a lady who's a super spy who doesn't dress in revealing clothes and a dude who's really good at archery? (Also - as this is the second movie with archery prominently in it in recent months, what does that say for America's chances at the Olympics later this year? Why can't Gina Davis get work, people?!) Hawkeye and Black Widow (oooh - such scary names!) are as lame on screen as their names suggest. Neither actor is very talented, they're given terrible, boring lines to read (by director/writer Joss Whedon) and they have no powers or traits that the remaining team couldn't live without. If you're going to give me a useless woman, at least make her show me some skin and sex.
Aside from all this on-screen dramaturgy, there are basically two big action sequences, one at the beginning as all the heroes are fighting not together and one at the end, when they realize that they should work together (again, they're all fucking commies... Stark is clearly a Randian fundamentalist and should be ashamed of himself for working with less-than-capable teammates). This movie basically has two enormous acts and crumbles under the weight of this structure. This is not a fun movie to watch because you're mostly waiting for the next thing to happen... but it never really seems to come. And, no, I don't think this is some Marxist film theory that Whedon is getting into. I think this is just a misfire of a script and film.
This movie is not particularly loud or big. The second battle sequence destroys most of midtown Manhattan (thank god!) but isn't really memorable and just feels like the similar sequence in the third Transformers movie (I think that was Chicago they were blowing up there). The 3D I saw the film in added nothing to the experience for me.
Mostly this feels like a story forced together by its constituent parts. There had to be an Avengers movie because there was a Hulk movie and a Cap America movie, etc. This is clearly setting up a franchise now, but I have no interest in it. What is coming next? Loki is going to come back with a bigger bluer rock? Whedon will cast Wally Shawn and Andre Gregory to discuss the relative merits of gamma ray poisoning around an Upper West Side dinner table? Actually, that sounds a lot more appealing!
Stars: .5 of 4
It seems Disney and Marvel have been anticipating this film for a few years now, releasing individual monograph films relating to many of the prominent characters. Last year there was Thor, Captain American and Iron Man 2. There was also a re-boot of the Hulk story (though that featured a different guy playing him). I thought that Thor movie was a horrible abortion of storytelling and excitement and only saw the first Iron Man (which was pretty fun). So at the beginning of The Avengers the idea is that we understand who all the characters are and what they are doing in the world.
It seems Thor's (Chris Hemsworth) little brother, Loki (Tom Hiddleston), is upset that his big bro is all godlike and living in America, so he steals some blue rock that has magic powers (though I didn't catch what kind... something about connecting beings from his world to our world... or something). A guy named Nick Fury (Sam Jackson), who has an eye patch and who I only sorta remember from the first Iron Man movie, rounds up all the super heroes, Thor, Cap America (Chris Evans), Iron Man (RDJ), Hulk (Ruffalo), some lady who's good at kickboxing (ScarJo) and a dude who's a really good archer (that dude from that Iraq movie that lady won the Oscar for), and makes them work on an invisible flying aircraft carrier. Seriously, I'm all about fiscal responsibility and I think that's the first thing the Republicans should cut from the Pentagon budget next year. It seems... too much.
They are all individuals and firmly believe in doing things on their own. Cap likes working with others, but he's from the 1940s and is prolly a Red. Bruce Banner doesn't like being the Hulk because it fucks up his clothes, but is generally an amiable guy. Tony Stark is too rich to give a shit about working with others... so he should prolly just become mayor of New York and break FAA helicopter laws on the weekend. So all these people proceed to sit around tables talking about the rules their drawers have given to them about what they can and can't do (Hulk can't be controlled; Thor has issues with his magic and sometimes can't lift his awesome hammer). Oh - and these two norms, ScarJo and HurtLocker, waste time and screen space trying to be interesting, but failing badly.
Let me say this again: in a world where you have a Norse god (even if he's from another planet), a billionaire who builds unbreakable rocket suits, a green super beast and a dude who represents all that is great with America (that's a lot to represent!), why do you need a lady who's a super spy who doesn't dress in revealing clothes and a dude who's really good at archery? (Also - as this is the second movie with archery prominently in it in recent months, what does that say for America's chances at the Olympics later this year? Why can't Gina Davis get work, people?!) Hawkeye and Black Widow (oooh - such scary names!) are as lame on screen as their names suggest. Neither actor is very talented, they're given terrible, boring lines to read (by director/writer Joss Whedon) and they have no powers or traits that the remaining team couldn't live without. If you're going to give me a useless woman, at least make her show me some skin and sex.
Aside from all this on-screen dramaturgy, there are basically two big action sequences, one at the beginning as all the heroes are fighting not together and one at the end, when they realize that they should work together (again, they're all fucking commies... Stark is clearly a Randian fundamentalist and should be ashamed of himself for working with less-than-capable teammates). This movie basically has two enormous acts and crumbles under the weight of this structure. This is not a fun movie to watch because you're mostly waiting for the next thing to happen... but it never really seems to come. And, no, I don't think this is some Marxist film theory that Whedon is getting into. I think this is just a misfire of a script and film.
This movie is not particularly loud or big. The second battle sequence destroys most of midtown Manhattan (thank god!) but isn't really memorable and just feels like the similar sequence in the third Transformers movie (I think that was Chicago they were blowing up there). The 3D I saw the film in added nothing to the experience for me.
Mostly this feels like a story forced together by its constituent parts. There had to be an Avengers movie because there was a Hulk movie and a Cap America movie, etc. This is clearly setting up a franchise now, but I have no interest in it. What is coming next? Loki is going to come back with a bigger bluer rock? Whedon will cast Wally Shawn and Andre Gregory to discuss the relative merits of gamma ray poisoning around an Upper West Side dinner table? Actually, that sounds a lot more appealing!
Stars: .5 of 4
17 Temmuz 2011 Pazar
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 2 - 3D (a.k.a. HP7P2-3D) (Sunday, July 17, 2011) (56)
So here we are. We've reached the end of the Harry Potter movies. The seven books, having been stretched out to eight films and nearly 20 hours of screen time and are now totally over forever (until J.K. Rowling writes a new book that is turned into a new movie). It's one of biggest, longest, most profitable film franchises ever. It's also a lot of fun. (If you haven't seen any of these movies, or none since the first, ignore the rest of this post as you will be bored miserably, I'm sure.)
HP7P2-3D is basically the second half, or really the last third, of the seventh and last Harry Potter book. It begins with a running start with the Harry, Ron and Hermione trio on the hunt for more of Voldemort's horcruxes (small things into which he injected parts of his soul to make it harder for him to be killed). They go to Gringott's to get one of them, and then realize one of the last ones is back in Hogwart's, from which they have been truants for the whole school year (no comment on how in a book about seven years at a school, they only spend about six there, with the last one a year of non-lesson-based Evil Lord-fighting. But J.K.R. wants kids to stay in school, or something).
When they get to Hogwart's they find the school in dark lock-down, now run by Snape, where the professors teach the kids all sorts of terrible magic to inflict pain on others. There are Death Eaters all about and all sorts of people in black leather (hot, if you're into that sorta thing). Harry gets a little help from his friends (students and teachers) in Dumbledore's Army and what's left of the Order of the Phoenix. They fight a massive knock down, drag-out fight with the bad guys before Harry's final one-on-one with Voldemort.
I think the movie smooths over some rough patches that I never liked in the book, particularly with Snape. I always felt like the 'Snape is a good guy' thing that we're told near the end was a bit too hard to swallow in the book. Here, however, director David Yates and writer Steve Kloves do a wonderful job of showing how Snape was always massively conflicted about Harry, about his eternal love for Harry's mom, Lilly, and his deep hatred for Harry's dad, who was probably a total douchebag who deserved to be killed by dark magic. The last 20 minutes of the film are particularly wonderful. The epilogue especially always felt forced and precious, but here feels totally natural and necessary. It's a lovely ending to a great epic story.
What I particularly like about this last film is how it brings in traditional themes from human existence and classical art: the idea of one person doing something alone versus someone working with their friends and allies to get a job done. It is very reminiscent to me of the classic story from Hollywood lore that after seeing Fred Zinnemann's High Noon (a story about a marshal who can't get help and is forced to defeat a bad guy singlehandedly), Howard Hawks decided to make Rio Bravo (a story about a sheriff who gets all the help he needs from his friends to defeat the bad guys) in response.
Voldemort is Marshal Will Kane and Harry Potter is Sheriff John T. Chance. We are constantly reminded here about how Voldemort (né Tom Riddle) is one of the greatest wizards ever, for better or worse, and how Harry is really only an average wizard who excels at making friends and having them help him. (There is even an suggestion, posited by Snape, that Harry is a proud prima dona and somewhat of a talentless jerk.) When Harry goes searching for the missing horcruxes, he does find a few on his own, but also needs help from his associates to find the others. Meanwhile, Harry is told that Voldemort found all of them on his own. I guess the idea that this Lincolnian leadership style is more effective, at least less demagogic and less evil.
I'm also very interested in the revisionist look at Snape as a reluctant collaborator. In this film, he's Maréchal Pétain, a stooge put in a position of power and told to stay quiet while terrible things happen inside his domain (the school). Unlike the general understanding of Pétain, however, Snape is hiding the fact that he's really on the side of good and not evil. Was Pétain trying to work against the Nazis and destroy the Reich from the inside? It's a very hard sell.
(Of course, we shouldn't forget that Snape did witness lots of evil things happen at Hogwarts and his Death-Eater days and it's hard to forgive him for those things. I don't care that Colin Powell didn't believe in the testimony he gave at the UN Security Council in 2003, he said it and it sent us to war and thousands of people to their death. He should have resigned if he was so morally torn. I won't forgive him now.)
The 3D worked really well in this film, probably better than I can remember in any Hollywood picture where I've seen it used. Some of the scenes play very well with the depth of focus and the disorienting quality of the enhanced image, like Gringott's sequence at the beginning. In other scenes, where there is little action, the 3D is used gently to simply show us how basic things recede into space. I would hope in years to come, directors use 3D more in this way than they do with some movies where it seems that dumb tricks are inserted into every shot to make sure we know we're seeing it in 3D and make sure we feel like we're getting our money's worth (we never get our money's worth as it's still way too expensive).
As with the last film, there is no need to see this movie if you haven't seen all the other ones, and particularly if you haven't seen the first part of this one. It is, however, very solid, much more interesting than I would have expected and a lot of fun from a sheer entertainment point of view.
Stars: 3 of 4
HP7P2-3D is basically the second half, or really the last third, of the seventh and last Harry Potter book. It begins with a running start with the Harry, Ron and Hermione trio on the hunt for more of Voldemort's horcruxes (small things into which he injected parts of his soul to make it harder for him to be killed). They go to Gringott's to get one of them, and then realize one of the last ones is back in Hogwart's, from which they have been truants for the whole school year (no comment on how in a book about seven years at a school, they only spend about six there, with the last one a year of non-lesson-based Evil Lord-fighting. But J.K.R. wants kids to stay in school, or something).
When they get to Hogwart's they find the school in dark lock-down, now run by Snape, where the professors teach the kids all sorts of terrible magic to inflict pain on others. There are Death Eaters all about and all sorts of people in black leather (hot, if you're into that sorta thing). Harry gets a little help from his friends (students and teachers) in Dumbledore's Army and what's left of the Order of the Phoenix. They fight a massive knock down, drag-out fight with the bad guys before Harry's final one-on-one with Voldemort.
I think the movie smooths over some rough patches that I never liked in the book, particularly with Snape. I always felt like the 'Snape is a good guy' thing that we're told near the end was a bit too hard to swallow in the book. Here, however, director David Yates and writer Steve Kloves do a wonderful job of showing how Snape was always massively conflicted about Harry, about his eternal love for Harry's mom, Lilly, and his deep hatred for Harry's dad, who was probably a total douchebag who deserved to be killed by dark magic. The last 20 minutes of the film are particularly wonderful. The epilogue especially always felt forced and precious, but here feels totally natural and necessary. It's a lovely ending to a great epic story.
What I particularly like about this last film is how it brings in traditional themes from human existence and classical art: the idea of one person doing something alone versus someone working with their friends and allies to get a job done. It is very reminiscent to me of the classic story from Hollywood lore that after seeing Fred Zinnemann's High Noon (a story about a marshal who can't get help and is forced to defeat a bad guy singlehandedly), Howard Hawks decided to make Rio Bravo (a story about a sheriff who gets all the help he needs from his friends to defeat the bad guys) in response.
Voldemort is Marshal Will Kane and Harry Potter is Sheriff John T. Chance. We are constantly reminded here about how Voldemort (né Tom Riddle) is one of the greatest wizards ever, for better or worse, and how Harry is really only an average wizard who excels at making friends and having them help him. (There is even an suggestion, posited by Snape, that Harry is a proud prima dona and somewhat of a talentless jerk.) When Harry goes searching for the missing horcruxes, he does find a few on his own, but also needs help from his associates to find the others. Meanwhile, Harry is told that Voldemort found all of them on his own. I guess the idea that this Lincolnian leadership style is more effective, at least less demagogic and less evil.
I'm also very interested in the revisionist look at Snape as a reluctant collaborator. In this film, he's Maréchal Pétain, a stooge put in a position of power and told to stay quiet while terrible things happen inside his domain (the school). Unlike the general understanding of Pétain, however, Snape is hiding the fact that he's really on the side of good and not evil. Was Pétain trying to work against the Nazis and destroy the Reich from the inside? It's a very hard sell.
(Of course, we shouldn't forget that Snape did witness lots of evil things happen at Hogwarts and his Death-Eater days and it's hard to forgive him for those things. I don't care that Colin Powell didn't believe in the testimony he gave at the UN Security Council in 2003, he said it and it sent us to war and thousands of people to their death. He should have resigned if he was so morally torn. I won't forgive him now.)
The 3D worked really well in this film, probably better than I can remember in any Hollywood picture where I've seen it used. Some of the scenes play very well with the depth of focus and the disorienting quality of the enhanced image, like Gringott's sequence at the beginning. In other scenes, where there is little action, the 3D is used gently to simply show us how basic things recede into space. I would hope in years to come, directors use 3D more in this way than they do with some movies where it seems that dumb tricks are inserted into every shot to make sure we know we're seeing it in 3D and make sure we feel like we're getting our money's worth (we never get our money's worth as it's still way too expensive).
As with the last film, there is no need to see this movie if you haven't seen all the other ones, and particularly if you haven't seen the first part of this one. It is, however, very solid, much more interesting than I would have expected and a lot of fun from a sheer entertainment point of view.
Stars: 3 of 4
21 Şubat 2011 Pazartesi
How to Train Your Dragon (2010) (Monday, February 21, 2011) (183)
It's a sad thing for How to Train Your Dragon that no matter how good a movie it is (it's a good movie) it will never be as beloved as Toy Story 3. I guess that's the luck of the draw for any animated film these days - that the year you are released there's always a chance there's a bigger and glitzier Pixar movie that takes all the attention. Still, Dragon does a wonderful job and is still a very fun and delightful film and deserving of lots of praise and attention.
In the film Hiccup is a weak, dorky boy living in a small island town of vikings (who speak with Scottish accents). His father is the chief of the town and because he's not very strong, Hiccup works as an assistant for the town blacksmith making weapons and swords that the warriors use to fight the dragons that pester the village. He seems totally inept at doing anything physical aside from grinding blades and is a shame to his loving father.
One day, after designing a catapult that shoots dragon traps (he's very clever and is good at engineering), Hiccup catches what turns out to be the notorious Night Fury dragon, the most dangerous beast in the world. When he goes to find the thing, he realizes that it's a very loving creature. He works with it, calling him Toothless, and learns all about dragon ways, figuring out the dragons are not nasty beings but just unhappy with their horrible reptile master and very misunderstood. He then has to prove to his village what he knows - and prove to his father that he is a strong man worthy of respect.
I watched this film on DVD and not in the theater in 3D format. I'm sure this affected my overall experience, but I still think it was a visual masterpiece. One scene in particular, where Hiccup finally has a breakthrough in training with Toothless and they go for an elaborate flight, is absolutely magnificent even in standard 2D - and I imagine it would be even more spectacular in 3D! This is one of the first times I've found animators use the 3D format to truly bring you inside the picture rather than just showing off with elaborate gimmicks.
The story is nice for kids and for adults and very funny and well written. I like that the vikings are all Scots and that details like the score are done with rather celtic-inspired themes. There's a rather poignant bit at the end of the film where Hiccup is injured in the ultimate battle and comes away missing a foot, as if he was an injured war veteran. This is done very well, not fetishized and could easily be understood by kids that war has real consequences, even for the victors. At the same time we are not beaten over the head with the emotional ramifications of this (Hiccup gets back on his dragon and flies away).
This might not be as fancy and elite a film as Toy Story 3, but it is a very good film and well worth watching - even in 2D!
Stars: 3 of 4
In the film Hiccup is a weak, dorky boy living in a small island town of vikings (who speak with Scottish accents). His father is the chief of the town and because he's not very strong, Hiccup works as an assistant for the town blacksmith making weapons and swords that the warriors use to fight the dragons that pester the village. He seems totally inept at doing anything physical aside from grinding blades and is a shame to his loving father.
One day, after designing a catapult that shoots dragon traps (he's very clever and is good at engineering), Hiccup catches what turns out to be the notorious Night Fury dragon, the most dangerous beast in the world. When he goes to find the thing, he realizes that it's a very loving creature. He works with it, calling him Toothless, and learns all about dragon ways, figuring out the dragons are not nasty beings but just unhappy with their horrible reptile master and very misunderstood. He then has to prove to his village what he knows - and prove to his father that he is a strong man worthy of respect.
I watched this film on DVD and not in the theater in 3D format. I'm sure this affected my overall experience, but I still think it was a visual masterpiece. One scene in particular, where Hiccup finally has a breakthrough in training with Toothless and they go for an elaborate flight, is absolutely magnificent even in standard 2D - and I imagine it would be even more spectacular in 3D! This is one of the first times I've found animators use the 3D format to truly bring you inside the picture rather than just showing off with elaborate gimmicks.
The story is nice for kids and for adults and very funny and well written. I like that the vikings are all Scots and that details like the score are done with rather celtic-inspired themes. There's a rather poignant bit at the end of the film where Hiccup is injured in the ultimate battle and comes away missing a foot, as if he was an injured war veteran. This is done very well, not fetishized and could easily be understood by kids that war has real consequences, even for the victors. At the same time we are not beaten over the head with the emotional ramifications of this (Hiccup gets back on his dragon and flies away).
This might not be as fancy and elite a film as Toy Story 3, but it is a very good film and well worth watching - even in 2D!
Stars: 3 of 4
5 Aralık 2010 Pazar
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 1 (a.k.a. HP7P1) (Sunday, December 5, 2010) (153)
So this is the continuation of the Harry Potter tale. It's the first part of a two-part final book... and it's very, very long. This is the seventh year of school for Harry and his friends - but the whole book takes place with the kids not in class. I guess when you're fighting the Most Powerful Wizard in History and trying to stop him from destroying the world, you get a hall pass or a doctor's note and are excused from school. Whatever.
Harry, Ron and Hermione are on the hunt for the remaining three (or four) horcruxes - objects in which Voldemort put part of his soul so he be sure to not die easily. They basically move around, mostly in the wilderness, though sometimes in weird small towns, trying to avoid Death Eaters (bad guys) and solve a few riddles (like the mysterious gifts left for each of them by Dumbledore in his will and what the next horcruxes are).
As with some of the previous films - but probably more so here- this doesn't totally work as a movie without a book and wiki easily at hand to explain some of the more obscure details or general sweeps of the story. This film mostly moves along on the steam of the books, rather than it's own internal engine. It's a bit difficult to follow at times and some things happen in rather magical ways, leaving us scratching our heads in bewilderment.
This movie has some very dull moments and overall plays much longer than its 150minute run-time. I think the idea here is to have the entire seventh book, so it was divided up into two gigantic halves. I think it would have been better to cut some of the less critical material and make the film more 120-minutes or so. It would have been better for figuring out the overall feel and keeping a nice, efficient story moving along. There is a lot of stuff here with kids sitting in the woods thinking about stuff and reading.
The overall look of the film is dark, gray and foggy. This is very nice and gives a great feeling to the tale. Just like the book was, this is not really a movie for little kids. It's a movie for teenagers and older people... it's spooky and rather frank about sex/love and death.
This is a good movie, though not a great one. The script should have been cut a bit, sacrificing perfect re-creation of the book for a more enjoyable, easier film viewing experience.
Stars: 2.5 of 4
Harry, Ron and Hermione are on the hunt for the remaining three (or four) horcruxes - objects in which Voldemort put part of his soul so he be sure to not die easily. They basically move around, mostly in the wilderness, though sometimes in weird small towns, trying to avoid Death Eaters (bad guys) and solve a few riddles (like the mysterious gifts left for each of them by Dumbledore in his will and what the next horcruxes are).
As with some of the previous films - but probably more so here- this doesn't totally work as a movie without a book and wiki easily at hand to explain some of the more obscure details or general sweeps of the story. This film mostly moves along on the steam of the books, rather than it's own internal engine. It's a bit difficult to follow at times and some things happen in rather magical ways, leaving us scratching our heads in bewilderment.
This movie has some very dull moments and overall plays much longer than its 150minute run-time. I think the idea here is to have the entire seventh book, so it was divided up into two gigantic halves. I think it would have been better to cut some of the less critical material and make the film more 120-minutes or so. It would have been better for figuring out the overall feel and keeping a nice, efficient story moving along. There is a lot of stuff here with kids sitting in the woods thinking about stuff and reading.
The overall look of the film is dark, gray and foggy. This is very nice and gives a great feeling to the tale. Just like the book was, this is not really a movie for little kids. It's a movie for teenagers and older people... it's spooky and rather frank about sex/love and death.
This is a good movie, though not a great one. The script should have been cut a bit, sacrificing perfect re-creation of the book for a more enjoyable, easier film viewing experience.
Stars: 2.5 of 4
13 Ağustos 2010 Cuma
Scott Pilgrim vs. The World (Friday, August 13, 2010) (100)
Scott Pilgrim vs. The World is a wildly fun take on dating in the video-game age. Based on the graphic novels by Bryan Lee O'Malley, smartly adapted by Michael Bacall and video game/comic book lover Edgar Wright (whose Spaced series is totally brilliant and serves as a wonderful corollary to this film) and directed by Wright, this film is totally fresh and funny, taking itself seriously enough to connect with the characters, but being silly enough to know what its doing at all times.
Scott Pilgrim (Michael Cera) is a dorky bassist in a dorky emo punk rock band. He is in a year-long recovery from a long-term girlfriend who broke his heart when she dumped him. He starts seeing a girl much younger than him who becomes more of a buddy than a sexual partner (because she's too young for him). All of his band mates and friends mock him for his lame non-sexual relationship.
One day he meets Ramona Flowers (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) who he falls in love with immediately. They go on a few dates and he soon learns that she has seven exes who she broke up with over the years. These exes have formed a league of villains whose mission it is to destroy Scott and re-take Ramona's heart.
On his team, Scott has his gay best friend, Wallace (Kieran Culkin), his sister, Stacey (Anna Kendrick) and a passel of hangers-on. As he fights successive exes, he is wrapped up in his own nerdy self-doubt and never totally confident in his actions. He's the anti-super hero and totally relatable every-man.
Typical of Wright's earlier work, this film uses 1980s and 1990s video game references throughout to enhance the dramatic moments. When he defeats each ex, their bodies turn into coins that he can collect to move up to a "new level". Small, clever details decorate each scene, so when he goes to take a leak in the bathroom, we see his "pee level" go from 10 to 0, or when he gets a jolt of self-confidence, he wins an "extra life".
Wright also uses a wonderful score by Nigel Godrich, a frequent collaborator of Radiohead and Beck, that uses 64-bit sound effects and musical cues to underline critical moments in the story. Perhaps it's a bit obvious to use Nintendo sound cards to make some of the music, but it still works well in this context.
Michael Cera is a bit annoying as an actor (and has super-annoying hair here) mostly because he plays the same dweeby role over and over again. He's always the less-than-confident-but-secretly-brilliant teen or twenty-something - and he remains that in this movie. But I think he's very sympathetic here and helps convey the emotional story very well. At one point he worries that because Ramona changes the color of her hair without much thought that she might be flaky and could dump him with as much thought as well. This is funny because we have all been in this position of self-doubt and vulnerability - and that is exactly who he is in every movie.
This is a very light and easy movie and a ton of fun. Wright has a fantastic ability to mix a geeky tech theme into a very realistic emotional world, making a story that is both reminiscent of childhood feelings of deficiency with a more heady barrage of cultural references. Even as a person who really never had a deep connection with video games or comic books, this film totally works for me. Dating is like a bad video game where you constantly just miss the ledge and always fall into the lava pool - but then you get a new life and begin again from the last saved level.
Stars: 3 of 4
Scott Pilgrim (Michael Cera) is a dorky bassist in a dorky emo punk rock band. He is in a year-long recovery from a long-term girlfriend who broke his heart when she dumped him. He starts seeing a girl much younger than him who becomes more of a buddy than a sexual partner (because she's too young for him). All of his band mates and friends mock him for his lame non-sexual relationship.
One day he meets Ramona Flowers (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) who he falls in love with immediately. They go on a few dates and he soon learns that she has seven exes who she broke up with over the years. These exes have formed a league of villains whose mission it is to destroy Scott and re-take Ramona's heart.
On his team, Scott has his gay best friend, Wallace (Kieran Culkin), his sister, Stacey (Anna Kendrick) and a passel of hangers-on. As he fights successive exes, he is wrapped up in his own nerdy self-doubt and never totally confident in his actions. He's the anti-super hero and totally relatable every-man.
Typical of Wright's earlier work, this film uses 1980s and 1990s video game references throughout to enhance the dramatic moments. When he defeats each ex, their bodies turn into coins that he can collect to move up to a "new level". Small, clever details decorate each scene, so when he goes to take a leak in the bathroom, we see his "pee level" go from 10 to 0, or when he gets a jolt of self-confidence, he wins an "extra life".
Wright also uses a wonderful score by Nigel Godrich, a frequent collaborator of Radiohead and Beck, that uses 64-bit sound effects and musical cues to underline critical moments in the story. Perhaps it's a bit obvious to use Nintendo sound cards to make some of the music, but it still works well in this context.
Michael Cera is a bit annoying as an actor (and has super-annoying hair here) mostly because he plays the same dweeby role over and over again. He's always the less-than-confident-but-secretly-brilliant teen or twenty-something - and he remains that in this movie. But I think he's very sympathetic here and helps convey the emotional story very well. At one point he worries that because Ramona changes the color of her hair without much thought that she might be flaky and could dump him with as much thought as well. This is funny because we have all been in this position of self-doubt and vulnerability - and that is exactly who he is in every movie.
This is a very light and easy movie and a ton of fun. Wright has a fantastic ability to mix a geeky tech theme into a very realistic emotional world, making a story that is both reminiscent of childhood feelings of deficiency with a more heady barrage of cultural references. Even as a person who really never had a deep connection with video games or comic books, this film totally works for me. Dating is like a bad video game where you constantly just miss the ledge and always fall into the lava pool - but then you get a new life and begin again from the last saved level.
Stars: 3 of 4
8 Temmuz 2010 Perşembe
Twilight Saga: Eclipse (Thursday, July 8, 2010) (70)
So this is the third installment of the Twilight movies and I'm pretty sure I'm happy I never read the books - and sorta regretting watching all the movies now. The story is going deeper and deeper into dull teeny melodrama, stuff that isn't even that fresh, with a story that is based on dumb stuff and ridiculous bad choices.
In this one, there is a mysterious band of wild young vampires on the loose in the Pacific Northwest killing people like crazy. It seems they might have designs on capturing Bella, though it is not totally clear why. Meanwhile, she is still moody and somehow is torn between vampire Edward (to whom she's engaged, more or less) and Native American wolf-boy Jacob, who basically can offer her nothing.
The Cullens, Edwards "family", are worried that if she is not made a vampire soon, the Volturi, the head king-judges of the vamp world, will be upset and seek to punish or kill her and them. They are also worried about this wild band of murdering vampires and arrange an elaborate battle with the young vampire army that is coming to take (or kill) Bella.
This whole story about the wild vampire army seems totally dumb and unnecessary, not to mention the fact that (sorry for the spoiler) the Cullens basically beat them all without even breaking a sweat. The reason for this fight in the first place is that Edward killed the boyfriend of some vampire chick in the first movie and she is getting revenge. To say this story line is tertiary would be an exaggeration. That is is brought up to the front so much is a mark of a terrible script and story.
That Bella has to decide between Jacob and Edward is dumb. She has basically never shown more than mere friendship to Jacob (ok, fine, they kisses a few times) and has always been in love with Edward. She says she's still totally in love with Edward, but Jacob doesn't believe her for some reason. Clearly all hell will break loose with the Volturi if she picks Jacob and doesn't become a vampire - but nobody ever breaks her options down like this. This is bad teen romantic melodrama at its worst.
Director David Slade (who previously did the indie piece Hard Candy, and that's about it) gives the film no particular look or feel at all. The first film had very nice photography and the second one had a nice indie rock soundtrack, but this one has neither. It's basically as dead as the story - just a lot of stuff happening on screen but not elegant or pretty or interesting at all.
Even worse than the writing is the acting. I don't know how this franchise could come out with three of the worst acting leads in a generation, but it has done just that. Taylor Lautner and Robert Pattinson are both laughable in their difficulty with basic emotions and line reading. Kristen Stewart rises to a new level of mediocrity with her craft. She is dead behind the eyes and doesn't even play a melancholy teen well. I hope to god that after this terrible series of films is done, Hollywood will wake up to the fact that she can't act and stop casting her in stuff. She's still young and if she keeps working for the rest of her life, it will be a very sad thing for me.
Stars: .5 of 4
In this one, there is a mysterious band of wild young vampires on the loose in the Pacific Northwest killing people like crazy. It seems they might have designs on capturing Bella, though it is not totally clear why. Meanwhile, she is still moody and somehow is torn between vampire Edward (to whom she's engaged, more or less) and Native American wolf-boy Jacob, who basically can offer her nothing.
The Cullens, Edwards "family", are worried that if she is not made a vampire soon, the Volturi, the head king-judges of the vamp world, will be upset and seek to punish or kill her and them. They are also worried about this wild band of murdering vampires and arrange an elaborate battle with the young vampire army that is coming to take (or kill) Bella.
This whole story about the wild vampire army seems totally dumb and unnecessary, not to mention the fact that (sorry for the spoiler) the Cullens basically beat them all without even breaking a sweat. The reason for this fight in the first place is that Edward killed the boyfriend of some vampire chick in the first movie and she is getting revenge. To say this story line is tertiary would be an exaggeration. That is is brought up to the front so much is a mark of a terrible script and story.
That Bella has to decide between Jacob and Edward is dumb. She has basically never shown more than mere friendship to Jacob (ok, fine, they kisses a few times) and has always been in love with Edward. She says she's still totally in love with Edward, but Jacob doesn't believe her for some reason. Clearly all hell will break loose with the Volturi if she picks Jacob and doesn't become a vampire - but nobody ever breaks her options down like this. This is bad teen romantic melodrama at its worst.
Director David Slade (who previously did the indie piece Hard Candy, and that's about it) gives the film no particular look or feel at all. The first film had very nice photography and the second one had a nice indie rock soundtrack, but this one has neither. It's basically as dead as the story - just a lot of stuff happening on screen but not elegant or pretty or interesting at all.
Even worse than the writing is the acting. I don't know how this franchise could come out with three of the worst acting leads in a generation, but it has done just that. Taylor Lautner and Robert Pattinson are both laughable in their difficulty with basic emotions and line reading. Kristen Stewart rises to a new level of mediocrity with her craft. She is dead behind the eyes and doesn't even play a melancholy teen well. I hope to god that after this terrible series of films is done, Hollywood will wake up to the fact that she can't act and stop casting her in stuff. She's still young and if she keeps working for the rest of her life, it will be a very sad thing for me.
Stars: .5 of 4
5 Temmuz 2010 Pazartesi
The Last Airbender (Monday, July 5, 2010) (67)
Before I saw The Last Airbender, I read and heard a ton about how this was one of the worst movies ever made. This did not surprise me at all all as I'm not sure that writer/director M. Night Shyamalan has ever been capable of making a good film. Some of his recent works, like The Lady in the Water and The Happening, are some of the worst movies I've ever seen in my life. His ineptness when it comes to straightforward direction and camera-placement is shocking to me. His scripts are terrible with laughable dialogue and ridiculous plot twists. How he didn't learn basic filmmaking or screenwriting by now is staggering - and even more stupefying is that he's still given money to make these turds.
Suffice it to say, I was well prepared to loathe this film, but I didn't. It is not a good film, by any means, but it is a decent action/adventure story with a dumb, but easy narrative. Many of the technical aspects of it are a mess and the acting is terrible throughout, but it is not a horrible film.
The story is about how there is a world where there are people who live in tribes based on one of the four elements: fire, earth, water and air. It seems that there are people in each element group who can control their element and use it as a weapon, or "bend" it. The Fire people are trying to control the whole word and do so with help from their firebenders and their big metal machines. None of the other groups can stop them. Oh, and it also seems that the elemental groups are generally different ethnic groups too - so water people are Inuit, Fire people are South-Asian Indian, Earth people are East Asian and Air people are also East Asian, but maybe more Tibetan.
The film opens with two water people (who are curiously white in the middle of their Inuit families - whatever) who discover a big ice ball in the ocean. Out of the ice comes a small white boy who turns out to be an airbender. Legend has it that there is an airbender who is able to control all the elements, he is called the Avatar.
It seems this airbender is the Avatar (how convenient!), and as soon as he is thawed he is hunted an captured by the Fire people. It seems there's a Fire prince Zuko (played by Dev Patel from Slumdog Millionaire) who was kicked out of the Fireking's house for some reason. He wants to bring the Avatar to his father to regain his name and his status in the court. But the prince has a rival in a cousin (or something) Commander Zhao (played by Daily Show comedian Aasif Mandvi) who sees the Avatar as a chance to gain status himself and end Zuko's chances at reconciliation with his dad. They race around as the Avatar and the two white water kids try to escape.
The story comes from a well-loved animated television show that I have never seen. It is a bit typical of the fantasy genre, but nothing too offensive or difficult once you're in the world. The worst part about the script is not the sequence of the narrative, but the horrible dialogue. Somehow all the people sound like they're speaking words that were written in another language and translated into English - or worse, that they were translated from English to another language and back to English. At any rate, the dialogue is laughable at best and shameful at worst.
Everything technical about the film is really bad (I only saw it in 2D, but I hear it's not better in 3D) from the costumes to the sets to the computer graphics used in some of the bigger shots. The Iceworld fort at the end looks like it is made of foam-core board and never is convincing that its anything other than a back-lot stage.
M. Night's direction is really the worst. He doesn't understand that you need tight shots for some things and medium shots for other things and long shots for other things. It's all mixed up here, so you'll be in the middle of an action fight scene and you'll just get close-ups of the characters faces, not knowing what's going on below their chins. In one of the climactic scenes, we get an overhead shot, rather than a horizontal one, dramatically cutting down the impact of the event.
The acting is a joke throughout from the white water kids and the Avatar to Aasif Mandvi. You'd think one of the actors would do a good job, even just by chance - but no such luck. It's all horrible. That the main kid actors are white and not whatever ethnic people their tribes are is pretty sad. It's not as if these kids are good actors anyhow.
Perhaps the reason I don't hate it more is because the story is fresh enough and I don't have an personal connection to the television show. I can see why people would like the show (I might try to watch it myself now) but I also see how M. Night is still a really terrible director and an even worse writer. Don't get me wrong: this is a bad movie - it's just that I was expecting the worst movie ever and it wasn't that.
Stars: 1 of 4
Suffice it to say, I was well prepared to loathe this film, but I didn't. It is not a good film, by any means, but it is a decent action/adventure story with a dumb, but easy narrative. Many of the technical aspects of it are a mess and the acting is terrible throughout, but it is not a horrible film.
The story is about how there is a world where there are people who live in tribes based on one of the four elements: fire, earth, water and air. It seems that there are people in each element group who can control their element and use it as a weapon, or "bend" it. The Fire people are trying to control the whole word and do so with help from their firebenders and their big metal machines. None of the other groups can stop them. Oh, and it also seems that the elemental groups are generally different ethnic groups too - so water people are Inuit, Fire people are South-Asian Indian, Earth people are East Asian and Air people are also East Asian, but maybe more Tibetan.
The film opens with two water people (who are curiously white in the middle of their Inuit families - whatever) who discover a big ice ball in the ocean. Out of the ice comes a small white boy who turns out to be an airbender. Legend has it that there is an airbender who is able to control all the elements, he is called the Avatar.
It seems this airbender is the Avatar (how convenient!), and as soon as he is thawed he is hunted an captured by the Fire people. It seems there's a Fire prince Zuko (played by Dev Patel from Slumdog Millionaire) who was kicked out of the Fireking's house for some reason. He wants to bring the Avatar to his father to regain his name and his status in the court. But the prince has a rival in a cousin (or something) Commander Zhao (played by Daily Show comedian Aasif Mandvi) who sees the Avatar as a chance to gain status himself and end Zuko's chances at reconciliation with his dad. They race around as the Avatar and the two white water kids try to escape.
The story comes from a well-loved animated television show that I have never seen. It is a bit typical of the fantasy genre, but nothing too offensive or difficult once you're in the world. The worst part about the script is not the sequence of the narrative, but the horrible dialogue. Somehow all the people sound like they're speaking words that were written in another language and translated into English - or worse, that they were translated from English to another language and back to English. At any rate, the dialogue is laughable at best and shameful at worst.
Everything technical about the film is really bad (I only saw it in 2D, but I hear it's not better in 3D) from the costumes to the sets to the computer graphics used in some of the bigger shots. The Iceworld fort at the end looks like it is made of foam-core board and never is convincing that its anything other than a back-lot stage.
M. Night's direction is really the worst. He doesn't understand that you need tight shots for some things and medium shots for other things and long shots for other things. It's all mixed up here, so you'll be in the middle of an action fight scene and you'll just get close-ups of the characters faces, not knowing what's going on below their chins. In one of the climactic scenes, we get an overhead shot, rather than a horizontal one, dramatically cutting down the impact of the event.
The acting is a joke throughout from the white water kids and the Avatar to Aasif Mandvi. You'd think one of the actors would do a good job, even just by chance - but no such luck. It's all horrible. That the main kid actors are white and not whatever ethnic people their tribes are is pretty sad. It's not as if these kids are good actors anyhow.
Perhaps the reason I don't hate it more is because the story is fresh enough and I don't have an personal connection to the television show. I can see why people would like the show (I might try to watch it myself now) but I also see how M. Night is still a really terrible director and an even worse writer. Don't get me wrong: this is a bad movie - it's just that I was expecting the worst movie ever and it wasn't that.
Stars: 1 of 4
22 Mayıs 2010 Cumartesi
Ondine (Saturday, May 22, 2010) (43)
Ondine is a nice little movie by Neil Jordan about an Irish fisherman, Syracuse (played by Colin Farrell), who pulls a woman out of the sea in one of his nets. She is not forthcoming about who she is or why she was in the water and insists on staying out of the way of the locals in town.
Syracuse, known as Circus by his friends for his penchant for wildness, is a devoted father who has been struggling to kick alcohol and improve his life. He and his wife are divorced and she is in much worse shape than he is. He's a good, likable man and is very good father. His daughter Annie, physically disabled and in a wheelchair, decides that the woman, Ondine, is a silkie, a Scots-Irish folklorish mermaid-like lady who lives between humans and the ocean. Through the film it becomes more and more unclear whether she is some sort of magical creature or just a woman who fell in the water.
The movie is very nice and simple. The best thing about it is how Jordan never really lets us know the truth about Ondine (until the end). We recognize that this world is very real and supernatural stuff probably doesn't happen in it, but Annie is very convincing and for awhile it's the best option we have. I really like this mystery and how it is played. It's not insulting us - but showing how the people of this small coastal town are in a position (economically, culturally) that such an idea might be conceivable.
Colin Farrell is really great in this role. He is respectful to Ondine from the moment he meets her (and considering his boozing past, it's nice to see that he treats this gorgeous woman with such class). His character struggles with his sobriety, but he is clearly the most constant force in his daughter's life (she lives with her more drunk mother).
Ondine is played by Alicja Bachleda who is, again, beautiful and very convincing. I like that Jordan decided to have the character enjoy playing along with the mystery and not telling people what she really is. There's a wink-wink to her performance as she thinks the uncertainty about her humanness/silkieness is fun.
At worst, the film is a bit too slow and very small. There is nothing really brilliant about this, but also nothing bad either. I think having Annie in a wheelchair is unnecessary and silly, but whatever. It is a fun little real-world fairy tale and very nicely executed by Jordan.
Stars: 2.5 of 4
Syracuse, known as Circus by his friends for his penchant for wildness, is a devoted father who has been struggling to kick alcohol and improve his life. He and his wife are divorced and she is in much worse shape than he is. He's a good, likable man and is very good father. His daughter Annie, physically disabled and in a wheelchair, decides that the woman, Ondine, is a silkie, a Scots-Irish folklorish mermaid-like lady who lives between humans and the ocean. Through the film it becomes more and more unclear whether she is some sort of magical creature or just a woman who fell in the water.
The movie is very nice and simple. The best thing about it is how Jordan never really lets us know the truth about Ondine (until the end). We recognize that this world is very real and supernatural stuff probably doesn't happen in it, but Annie is very convincing and for awhile it's the best option we have. I really like this mystery and how it is played. It's not insulting us - but showing how the people of this small coastal town are in a position (economically, culturally) that such an idea might be conceivable.
Colin Farrell is really great in this role. He is respectful to Ondine from the moment he meets her (and considering his boozing past, it's nice to see that he treats this gorgeous woman with such class). His character struggles with his sobriety, but he is clearly the most constant force in his daughter's life (she lives with her more drunk mother).
Ondine is played by Alicja Bachleda who is, again, beautiful and very convincing. I like that Jordan decided to have the character enjoy playing along with the mystery and not telling people what she really is. There's a wink-wink to her performance as she thinks the uncertainty about her humanness/silkieness is fun.
At worst, the film is a bit too slow and very small. There is nothing really brilliant about this, but also nothing bad either. I think having Annie in a wheelchair is unnecessary and silly, but whatever. It is a fun little real-world fairy tale and very nicely executed by Jordan.
Stars: 2.5 of 4
29 Aralık 2009 Salı
The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus (Tuesday, December 29, 2009) (212)
The biggest story with this film is that it is the movie that Heath Ledger was working on at the time of his death in 2008. Somewhere around a third or half of the film was already shot, so writer/director Terry Gilliam had to rethink the structure of the film to keep production going. What he came up with is actually a pretty convincing final product. Watching the film unaware that Ledger died, there is no clear evidence that the end result we see is anything other than what was originally planned.
In the story, Doctor Parnassus (Christopher Plummer) is a mentalist and sideshow huckster who travels around in a time-worn wagon with a small troupe of freaks. He gets audience members to go through a magical mirror so he can control their imaginations and put them in a happy fantasy world. But everything is not as happy as it might seem when the entourage meets Tony (Heath Ledger) a mysterious man who seems to be on the run.
About a thousand years earlier the doctor made a deal with the Devil (a bald Tom Waits) to become immortal. Later he made another deal with him to be young again, but in exchange for this, he agreed to give the devil his daughter once she reached her 16th birthday. When the Devil comes to collect on the bet, Parnassus makes one last bet to see who can get five followers faster. Tony, in an effort to help the guru, exposes a checkered past of his own.
The worst thing about this story is that at it's core, it is a very simple idea - a man has to beat the Devil at a bet. But Gilliam doesn't stop at this basic idea and instead makes a very complicated, multi-layered story that is visually beautiful, as one would expect from him, but rather confusing. There seem to be too many characters with too many individual agendas totally separate from Parnassus' goals.
It seems as if Ledger had filmed all of his real-world scenes before passing away, so Gilliam cleverly has three actors play him when he goes inside the magical mirror. As a reflection of his deceitfulness (or three-facedness), Ledger becomes Johnny Depp, Colin Farrell and Jude Law as he steps into the imaginary mirror-world. I think this is an elegant way to deal with a difficult formal situation. It makes a lot more sense than just having an actor wear a mask to disguise himself (which is done a bit, but not very much). This not only works well for the story, but is also weird enough to fit into the rest of the film.
Of course because it is a movie by Gilliam, it is super weird and exotic looking. Much of the dream world looks like the previous Gilliam/Charles McKeown writing collaboration The Adventures of Baron Munchausen. It is fun to watch, but is a bit annoying that we can't get some new aesthetic. It mostly feels like recycled outtakes from Baron Munchausen rather than something entirely fresh.
This is an OK movie, but it is not fantastic. I appreciate Gilliam's success at dealing with the difficulty of losing his lead actor well before filming had wrapped, but the problems with the movie are deeper than this. It feels like an inverted pyramid, precariously perching a heavy top on a small point. It doesn't ever topple over entirely, but comes very close several times.
Stars: 2 pf 4
In the story, Doctor Parnassus (Christopher Plummer) is a mentalist and sideshow huckster who travels around in a time-worn wagon with a small troupe of freaks. He gets audience members to go through a magical mirror so he can control their imaginations and put them in a happy fantasy world. But everything is not as happy as it might seem when the entourage meets Tony (Heath Ledger) a mysterious man who seems to be on the run.
About a thousand years earlier the doctor made a deal with the Devil (a bald Tom Waits) to become immortal. Later he made another deal with him to be young again, but in exchange for this, he agreed to give the devil his daughter once she reached her 16th birthday. When the Devil comes to collect on the bet, Parnassus makes one last bet to see who can get five followers faster. Tony, in an effort to help the guru, exposes a checkered past of his own.
The worst thing about this story is that at it's core, it is a very simple idea - a man has to beat the Devil at a bet. But Gilliam doesn't stop at this basic idea and instead makes a very complicated, multi-layered story that is visually beautiful, as one would expect from him, but rather confusing. There seem to be too many characters with too many individual agendas totally separate from Parnassus' goals.
It seems as if Ledger had filmed all of his real-world scenes before passing away, so Gilliam cleverly has three actors play him when he goes inside the magical mirror. As a reflection of his deceitfulness (or three-facedness), Ledger becomes Johnny Depp, Colin Farrell and Jude Law as he steps into the imaginary mirror-world. I think this is an elegant way to deal with a difficult formal situation. It makes a lot more sense than just having an actor wear a mask to disguise himself (which is done a bit, but not very much). This not only works well for the story, but is also weird enough to fit into the rest of the film.
Of course because it is a movie by Gilliam, it is super weird and exotic looking. Much of the dream world looks like the previous Gilliam/Charles McKeown writing collaboration The Adventures of Baron Munchausen. It is fun to watch, but is a bit annoying that we can't get some new aesthetic. It mostly feels like recycled outtakes from Baron Munchausen rather than something entirely fresh.
This is an OK movie, but it is not fantastic. I appreciate Gilliam's success at dealing with the difficulty of losing his lead actor well before filming had wrapped, but the problems with the movie are deeper than this. It feels like an inverted pyramid, precariously perching a heavy top on a small point. It doesn't ever topple over entirely, but comes very close several times.
Stars: 2 pf 4
22 Aralık 2009 Salı
Ricky (Tuesday, December 22, 2009) (204)
Francois Ozon is one of France's most interesting contemporary directors. Some of his recent films, Under the Sand and Swimming Pool, are very well crafted, if not always totally successful. In Ricky, he takes his beautiful narrative style and joins it with fantasy elements. Unfortunately this hybrid does not work well, and leaves us getting two separate half movies with no good synthesis or complete story.
In the film, Katie is a single middle-class woman who works in a factory in the middle of France. One day, Paco, a Spanish manager visits the assembly line where she works and the two immediately have sex in the bathroom. Paco moves in to the small apartment where Katie and her young daughter live. They get married and she gives birth to a baby, Ricky. A few weeks after the baby is born, they find out that he has wings growing off his shoulder blades. The small family is set upon by tabloids making their lives miserable.
The basic middle-class drama part of the film is actually very good and compelling. Katie, played by Alexandra Lamy, is a sympathetic woman who is stuck in a rather rotten, dull life. The lack of options she has and the general malaise is written all over her face. Her affair with Paco comes off as an understandable diversion. Her young daughter's worry about Paco being flaky and untrustworthy is also well-founded and believable. There is a beauty in the brutal realism to these scenes - and is very reminiscent of the frank style of the Dardenne brothers.
The fantasy and flying-baby part of the film, however, is not only silly, but also seems totally separate and under-examined. It feels totally arbitrary that the baby has wings and, aside from the light commentary that the vulture-like press would ruin the family's privacy, there is no commentary on why this happens or why it means. It is so elliptical that it could be in a totally separate film. Does the boy grow wings because of some sin committed by his mother? Is it a commentary on our modern culture? Is he supposed to be an angel (because he doesn't seem like one and that thread is never really pulled)? None of these questions are raised, examined or answered.
This is a very small movie and not really worth the effort to watch. I wish it had continued on as an examination of middle-class ennui with out the fantasy storyline - but I guess that would have been a different film entirely. At least such a story might have been more interesting and complete.
Stars: 1.5 of 4 stars
In the film, Katie is a single middle-class woman who works in a factory in the middle of France. One day, Paco, a Spanish manager visits the assembly line where she works and the two immediately have sex in the bathroom. Paco moves in to the small apartment where Katie and her young daughter live. They get married and she gives birth to a baby, Ricky. A few weeks after the baby is born, they find out that he has wings growing off his shoulder blades. The small family is set upon by tabloids making their lives miserable.
The basic middle-class drama part of the film is actually very good and compelling. Katie, played by Alexandra Lamy, is a sympathetic woman who is stuck in a rather rotten, dull life. The lack of options she has and the general malaise is written all over her face. Her affair with Paco comes off as an understandable diversion. Her young daughter's worry about Paco being flaky and untrustworthy is also well-founded and believable. There is a beauty in the brutal realism to these scenes - and is very reminiscent of the frank style of the Dardenne brothers.
The fantasy and flying-baby part of the film, however, is not only silly, but also seems totally separate and under-examined. It feels totally arbitrary that the baby has wings and, aside from the light commentary that the vulture-like press would ruin the family's privacy, there is no commentary on why this happens or why it means. It is so elliptical that it could be in a totally separate film. Does the boy grow wings because of some sin committed by his mother? Is it a commentary on our modern culture? Is he supposed to be an angel (because he doesn't seem like one and that thread is never really pulled)? None of these questions are raised, examined or answered.
This is a very small movie and not really worth the effort to watch. I wish it had continued on as an examination of middle-class ennui with out the fantasy storyline - but I guess that would have been a different film entirely. At least such a story might have been more interesting and complete.
Stars: 1.5 of 4 stars
The Princess and the Frog (Tuesday, December 22, 2009) (203)
As a tribute to their classic 2D animation history, Disney made The Princess and the Frog, its first animated film to focus positively on primarily African-American characters (no comment on Song of the South here). The style is indeed reminiscent of classic Disney films, like Cinderella, Snow White and Beauty and the Beast, however this one lacks almost all of the charm and magic of those.
Tiana is a poor daughter of a New Orleans seamstress who dreams of opening a Cajun restaurant when she grows up. Her friend is Charlotte, the white daughter of the richest man in town (I'll clearly ignore the racial undertones here). Prince Naveen, a mysterious dark Europeanish royal, comes to town and meets with a voodoo witchdoctor who swindles him, turning him into a frog. Tiana meets the frog and is convinced that if she kisses him, he will become a prince again, but instead she is also turned into a frog - voodoo's a bitch, ain't it! The two frogs have to go into the woods to find another voodoo witchdoctor lady to turn them back to their human forms.
Typical of Disney animated features, the film has a bunch of music and songs in it (composed and written by Disney mainstay Randy Newman). Sadly none of these songs are memorable at all, even though there is a nice effort to include New Orleans styles of zydeco, jazz and blues. As I watched these songs, I think I mostly felt that they were a nice efforts, but just not as good as recent Disney fare (Under the Sea, Be Our Guest, Hakuna Matata).
Mostly, the story is pretty dull and stretched out way too far. Froggy Naveen and Froggy Tiana spend close to half the movie in the woods on the way to the good voodoo lady with almost nothing important happening. There is so much set-up to the story (Tiana's dream of a restaurant, Charlotte's greedy family, Naveen being swindled) that when the story finally kicks off, it's almost over.
There's another thing here, which is a bit more sensitive, which is the fact that it is the first major feature that Disney has done with primarily African-American characters. To me, it rides the delicate edge of being rather culturally insensitive too closely. That Tiana has to be the poor daughter of a domestic and that her best friend is rich and white might be historically accurate, but feels rather racist considering in a Disney fantasy world people of any color can be anything - why does the one black movie have to be so tied to historic Southern culture?
That the film takes place in New Orleans and features voodoo so prominently is also a bit too much, I think. Again, why can't black people live in a wonderful dream world of castles with good witches and bad witches? I think in an effort to combine political correctness with real-world based fantasy, Disney went a bit too far - or not far enough. I don't know why, after so much success with Brothers-Grimm-esque fairy tales Disney had to turn a story on its head and divert from the traditional Frog Prince story.
Stars: 1.5 of 4
Tiana is a poor daughter of a New Orleans seamstress who dreams of opening a Cajun restaurant when she grows up. Her friend is Charlotte, the white daughter of the richest man in town (I'll clearly ignore the racial undertones here). Prince Naveen, a mysterious dark Europeanish royal, comes to town and meets with a voodoo witchdoctor who swindles him, turning him into a frog. Tiana meets the frog and is convinced that if she kisses him, he will become a prince again, but instead she is also turned into a frog - voodoo's a bitch, ain't it! The two frogs have to go into the woods to find another voodoo witchdoctor lady to turn them back to their human forms.
Typical of Disney animated features, the film has a bunch of music and songs in it (composed and written by Disney mainstay Randy Newman). Sadly none of these songs are memorable at all, even though there is a nice effort to include New Orleans styles of zydeco, jazz and blues. As I watched these songs, I think I mostly felt that they were a nice efforts, but just not as good as recent Disney fare (Under the Sea, Be Our Guest, Hakuna Matata).
Mostly, the story is pretty dull and stretched out way too far. Froggy Naveen and Froggy Tiana spend close to half the movie in the woods on the way to the good voodoo lady with almost nothing important happening. There is so much set-up to the story (Tiana's dream of a restaurant, Charlotte's greedy family, Naveen being swindled) that when the story finally kicks off, it's almost over.
There's another thing here, which is a bit more sensitive, which is the fact that it is the first major feature that Disney has done with primarily African-American characters. To me, it rides the delicate edge of being rather culturally insensitive too closely. That Tiana has to be the poor daughter of a domestic and that her best friend is rich and white might be historically accurate, but feels rather racist considering in a Disney fantasy world people of any color can be anything - why does the one black movie have to be so tied to historic Southern culture?
That the film takes place in New Orleans and features voodoo so prominently is also a bit too much, I think. Again, why can't black people live in a wonderful dream world of castles with good witches and bad witches? I think in an effort to combine political correctness with real-world based fantasy, Disney went a bit too far - or not far enough. I don't know why, after so much success with Brothers-Grimm-esque fairy tales Disney had to turn a story on its head and divert from the traditional Frog Prince story.
Stars: 1.5 of 4
21 Aralık 2009 Pazartesi
Avatar- IMAX 3D (Monday, December 21, 2009) (202)
Avatar is the story of Lieutenant John Dunbar who moves to the Dakota Territory during the Civil War and becomes friends with the Native American tribe in the area. He ultimately marries the daughter of the tribe's chief and leads his tribe to a small victory in a battle against the American Army. Wait - that's not it... Oh, right - it's the story of Marlow, a sailor who is asked by his country to go up the Congo River to look into the actions of a crazy man named Kurtz. Wait - again, that's not it. Oh golly - oh right! It's the story of a hacker named Neo who goes into the Matrix, a reality below our own reality, and becomes *The One* for the people who live inside of it. They seem to be unable to take care of themselves, and despite talking like a surfer moron, he helps to liberate the people. Shoot - that's still not it.
OK - it is actually the story of how in the year 2154, there is a planet somewhere in the universe called Pandora where there is a special metal called 'unobtanium'. In order to mine it, a private contractor enlists the the U.S. Marines to secure the land from the thousands crazy alien animals that might come out to hurt the operation. Ex-marine Jake Sully is put into a scientific unit who is trying to help and learn from the giant blue humanoid people on this planet called the Na'vi. He is paralyzed from the waist down, but when he gets into a pod, he becomes an avatar - a Na'vi look-alike that can move in this world easier than a human can.
At some point he gets lost on a scientific mission and finds himself in the Na'vi world. He soon begins living with them and dating Neytiri, the daughter of the chief, who becomes his tutor for all things Na'vi. After some time, the mining operation wants to relocate, so it moves into the area where the Na'vi live. The natives, with the help of Jake, fight the humans in an effort to save their way of life.
This is one of the most over-hyped, over-reviewed worst movies of the year. There is basically nothing good about the film. The story is totally dumb and recycled, the writing is terrible with laughable dialogue. Lead actor Sam Worthington, as Jake, is a joke as an actor. The special effects of the film and the CGI settings of almost the whole thing are terrible - and the film looks worse than many other recent films (that were made for a much smaller budget).
It's been 12 years since writer/director James Cameron made Titanic - and I was under the impression that he had been working on this script for a long, long time. But what we get is a total rip-off of Dances with Wolves, Heart of Darkness and/or The Matrix. There is absolutely nothing new here plot-wise and nothing that is better than the originals it rips off. Every idea here is tired and every twist is predictable and visible from miles away. I mean, not to spoil the ending, but there is a Return of the Jedi-style Yub-Jub song and dance at the end.
Sam Worthington is terrible, clearly cast for his physical looks and muscle rather than his acting. He plays a dumb marine who doesn't know much when he arrives and doesn't grow all that much mentally throughout the story. Listening to him speak, it is hard not to laugh at how bad he is. (Also, curiously, in the second act, his looped-in voice over suddenly changes accents from American to Australian. Why this couldn't have been corrected is bizarre to me.)
Sigourney Weaver is much too overdone and comes off as too much of a bitch at the beginning of the film (she also asks for a cigarette in her first appearance... aren't we beyond that, James?). She seems basically unnecessary in the story as the scientific research she does seems to go out the window after the first sequence. Considering Jake had a better rapport with the Na'vi, it is unclear why she moves into their camp with him. (My favorite thing about her character is that in the avatar world, she wears a Stanford tank-top, as if the Na'vi would respect her more because of her top-level degree.)
At no point in the film did I think that I was in the world I was seeing onscreen - or that that world actually existed. It looks like a big animated world - not all that dissimilar from bad CGI one can find on many Saturday morning cartoons. The Na'vi look entirely animated - not even as good as Pixar toys or cars. This is a big problem as it was a constant cause of separation between the story and me. The Na'vi never felt like real things that I could sympathize with. They always looked to be animated, in a world filled with a few real-world things like humans and helicopters. I am told that this film cost several hundred million dollars to make - and that that money went into the technology and animation. But I don't see the results. To me it looks like any old CGI movie that could have been made 10 years ago. I don't get it.
On top of that, seeing it in 3D was frustrating because when you're wearing the glasses, you have to look exactly straight ahead or the picture will be out of focus. You cannot turn your head slightly and look out of the corner of your eye, for instance. In addition, you have to look at exactly what the filmmakers want you to look at. If they are focusing on something in the bottom right corner of the screen, but you are looking at the top center, what you are looking at is out of focus. I don't know why these faults are not getting more attention, but it was super frustrating for me. I think the 3D technology is not totally up to par yet. I also don't think it's worth the extra $3 to watch in 3D as I think the movie would have been just as good standard.
The most frustrating and insulting thing about the story is the tired suggestion that because they Na'vi are closer to the earth and more 'native' than we are, they are better. This is hackneyed and dumb. It's the old idea that Native Americans respect the land so they are better people or how Africans are more connected to the spiritual world. The Na'vi are all played by African-American actors, yet they seem rather Native American in their dress and ways. Of course, after telling us that more simple and spiritual is better, we then see the Na'vi using modern head-sets to communicated and machine guns to fire - because I guess human culture does have some good uses. Ugh.
This is really a total joke of a movie. Again - the ore they are trying to mind is called *unobtanium*. That's so beyond stupid it's insulting. This is a terrible script, it does not look half as good as it should and it absolutely 100% not fresh. What a waste!
Stars: .5 of 4
OK - it is actually the story of how in the year 2154, there is a planet somewhere in the universe called Pandora where there is a special metal called 'unobtanium'. In order to mine it, a private contractor enlists the the U.S. Marines to secure the land from the thousands crazy alien animals that might come out to hurt the operation. Ex-marine Jake Sully is put into a scientific unit who is trying to help and learn from the giant blue humanoid people on this planet called the Na'vi. He is paralyzed from the waist down, but when he gets into a pod, he becomes an avatar - a Na'vi look-alike that can move in this world easier than a human can.
At some point he gets lost on a scientific mission and finds himself in the Na'vi world. He soon begins living with them and dating Neytiri, the daughter of the chief, who becomes his tutor for all things Na'vi. After some time, the mining operation wants to relocate, so it moves into the area where the Na'vi live. The natives, with the help of Jake, fight the humans in an effort to save their way of life.
This is one of the most over-hyped, over-reviewed worst movies of the year. There is basically nothing good about the film. The story is totally dumb and recycled, the writing is terrible with laughable dialogue. Lead actor Sam Worthington, as Jake, is a joke as an actor. The special effects of the film and the CGI settings of almost the whole thing are terrible - and the film looks worse than many other recent films (that were made for a much smaller budget).
It's been 12 years since writer/director James Cameron made Titanic - and I was under the impression that he had been working on this script for a long, long time. But what we get is a total rip-off of Dances with Wolves, Heart of Darkness and/or The Matrix. There is absolutely nothing new here plot-wise and nothing that is better than the originals it rips off. Every idea here is tired and every twist is predictable and visible from miles away. I mean, not to spoil the ending, but there is a Return of the Jedi-style Yub-Jub song and dance at the end.
Sam Worthington is terrible, clearly cast for his physical looks and muscle rather than his acting. He plays a dumb marine who doesn't know much when he arrives and doesn't grow all that much mentally throughout the story. Listening to him speak, it is hard not to laugh at how bad he is. (Also, curiously, in the second act, his looped-in voice over suddenly changes accents from American to Australian. Why this couldn't have been corrected is bizarre to me.)
Sigourney Weaver is much too overdone and comes off as too much of a bitch at the beginning of the film (she also asks for a cigarette in her first appearance... aren't we beyond that, James?). She seems basically unnecessary in the story as the scientific research she does seems to go out the window after the first sequence. Considering Jake had a better rapport with the Na'vi, it is unclear why she moves into their camp with him. (My favorite thing about her character is that in the avatar world, she wears a Stanford tank-top, as if the Na'vi would respect her more because of her top-level degree.)
At no point in the film did I think that I was in the world I was seeing onscreen - or that that world actually existed. It looks like a big animated world - not all that dissimilar from bad CGI one can find on many Saturday morning cartoons. The Na'vi look entirely animated - not even as good as Pixar toys or cars. This is a big problem as it was a constant cause of separation between the story and me. The Na'vi never felt like real things that I could sympathize with. They always looked to be animated, in a world filled with a few real-world things like humans and helicopters. I am told that this film cost several hundred million dollars to make - and that that money went into the technology and animation. But I don't see the results. To me it looks like any old CGI movie that could have been made 10 years ago. I don't get it.
On top of that, seeing it in 3D was frustrating because when you're wearing the glasses, you have to look exactly straight ahead or the picture will be out of focus. You cannot turn your head slightly and look out of the corner of your eye, for instance. In addition, you have to look at exactly what the filmmakers want you to look at. If they are focusing on something in the bottom right corner of the screen, but you are looking at the top center, what you are looking at is out of focus. I don't know why these faults are not getting more attention, but it was super frustrating for me. I think the 3D technology is not totally up to par yet. I also don't think it's worth the extra $3 to watch in 3D as I think the movie would have been just as good standard.
The most frustrating and insulting thing about the story is the tired suggestion that because they Na'vi are closer to the earth and more 'native' than we are, they are better. This is hackneyed and dumb. It's the old idea that Native Americans respect the land so they are better people or how Africans are more connected to the spiritual world. The Na'vi are all played by African-American actors, yet they seem rather Native American in their dress and ways. Of course, after telling us that more simple and spiritual is better, we then see the Na'vi using modern head-sets to communicated and machine guns to fire - because I guess human culture does have some good uses. Ugh.
This is really a total joke of a movie. Again - the ore they are trying to mind is called *unobtanium*. That's so beyond stupid it's insulting. This is a terrible script, it does not look half as good as it should and it absolutely 100% not fresh. What a waste!
Stars: .5 of 4
25 Kasım 2009 Çarşamba
The Twilight Saga: New Moon (Wednesday, November 25, 2009) (171)
To begin, I must admit that I have not read any of the Twilight books and really have no interest in doing so. Vampires don't really interest me that much as a genre and teeny bloodsuckers might be worse. I did see the first Twilight movie, though, on DVD (is that one now going to be renamed 'The Twilight Saga: Twilight'?) and was surprised that it was pretty OK. I really liked the photography and the blue-green-gray color palette of the film. The acting was terrible, but I thought the story was passable.
This second film loses whatever charm the first one had and works only as a bridge to the next film. I felt like most of the story was narration catching us up on what goes on in this baroque world and what to expect later on. This film absolutely does not stand up on its own and works only in conjunction with earlier or later stories. It is incredibly frustrating as it has no beginning and no end. There are a bunch of stories in it that go nowhere and it feels like a long episode of a teen serial - like an endless episode of Gossip Girl or 90210.
One thing I can't figure out is why Bella, the protagonist, is so beloved when she's just a dark, bratty, sad girl who makes bad decisions and seems incapable of taking care of herself. There might be two scenes with her smiling in the whole film. She seems like a jerk to her non-vampire friends and buzz-kill to anyone around her. When her toothy boyfriend Edward abandons her (for reasons that don't make sense, by the way, to the unread viewer) she falls into a pit of sadness that seems beneath her 17-or so years.
At any rate, left alone, she befriends a local Native American boy ('Look - an Indian boy,' says Cindy Brady) who doesn't go to school, but is a great mechanic. He falls in love with her, but she still longs for her Eddie. Then there's something about how the Native American boys in her town are all gigantic wolves and change from men to wolves when they sense there is danger around. Then there's something with Bella going before a council of aristocratic vampires in Italy or something.
I wish I could say that the stylistic elements that I liked from the first film remained in this one, but they do not. Director Chris Weitz loses track of the style with too much substance. The story is so choppy that we never really stay in any one place for long enough to see any beauty in it. Also, with the vampires out of town, there is no need for the over-cast skies that dominated the first film and allowed them to be able to go out during the day. These clouds led to the lovely muted color scheme of that movie. Overall, the look is pretty anonymous.
I would say the film is anti-feminist and a bad influence for young women, but that might be too late for such a warning. Bella is a totally passive player in everything she does. She makes no choices herself and needs either Edward or Jacob to guide her. When they're not around, she pouts and waits. I don't know if it was screenwriter Melissa Rosenberg or book author Stephenie Meyer who created such a lame and self-loathing character. (OK, Bella, so your boyfriend left for no reason. Pick yourself up and get back to life. You too can be an active participant in your own life!)
This is not a very fun movie to watch. It feels way too long and totally boring if you don't know what is coming next. What's worse is that there is no real discernible narrative and no beginning, middle or end, so it just feels like a collection of unconnected vignettes with no direction. Why it ends where it does is rather curious to me as there is no real resolution at that point. Why it couldn't have ended three scenes earlier, say, is not clear to me. I wish it had ended a lot earlier.
Stars: .5 of 4
This second film loses whatever charm the first one had and works only as a bridge to the next film. I felt like most of the story was narration catching us up on what goes on in this baroque world and what to expect later on. This film absolutely does not stand up on its own and works only in conjunction with earlier or later stories. It is incredibly frustrating as it has no beginning and no end. There are a bunch of stories in it that go nowhere and it feels like a long episode of a teen serial - like an endless episode of Gossip Girl or 90210.
One thing I can't figure out is why Bella, the protagonist, is so beloved when she's just a dark, bratty, sad girl who makes bad decisions and seems incapable of taking care of herself. There might be two scenes with her smiling in the whole film. She seems like a jerk to her non-vampire friends and buzz-kill to anyone around her. When her toothy boyfriend Edward abandons her (for reasons that don't make sense, by the way, to the unread viewer) she falls into a pit of sadness that seems beneath her 17-or so years.
At any rate, left alone, she befriends a local Native American boy ('Look - an Indian boy,' says Cindy Brady) who doesn't go to school, but is a great mechanic. He falls in love with her, but she still longs for her Eddie. Then there's something about how the Native American boys in her town are all gigantic wolves and change from men to wolves when they sense there is danger around. Then there's something with Bella going before a council of aristocratic vampires in Italy or something.
I wish I could say that the stylistic elements that I liked from the first film remained in this one, but they do not. Director Chris Weitz loses track of the style with too much substance. The story is so choppy that we never really stay in any one place for long enough to see any beauty in it. Also, with the vampires out of town, there is no need for the over-cast skies that dominated the first film and allowed them to be able to go out during the day. These clouds led to the lovely muted color scheme of that movie. Overall, the look is pretty anonymous.
I would say the film is anti-feminist and a bad influence for young women, but that might be too late for such a warning. Bella is a totally passive player in everything she does. She makes no choices herself and needs either Edward or Jacob to guide her. When they're not around, she pouts and waits. I don't know if it was screenwriter Melissa Rosenberg or book author Stephenie Meyer who created such a lame and self-loathing character. (OK, Bella, so your boyfriend left for no reason. Pick yourself up and get back to life. You too can be an active participant in your own life!)
This is not a very fun movie to watch. It feels way too long and totally boring if you don't know what is coming next. What's worse is that there is no real discernible narrative and no beginning, middle or end, so it just feels like a collection of unconnected vignettes with no direction. Why it ends where it does is rather curious to me as there is no real resolution at that point. Why it couldn't have ended three scenes earlier, say, is not clear to me. I wish it had ended a lot earlier.
Stars: .5 of 4
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