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Reviews
The Avengers (2012)
No Fun for a Non-Fan
As someone who has not read Marvel comics, has not seen the films "Captain America," "The Hulk," "Thor," or "Iron Man II," this film failed to pull me in. As a standalone movie, "The Avengers" feels like a mishmash of rapid surface-level character introduction and way too much action. Little attention is given to character development, as it seems viewers are expected to come into the film with a degree of knowledge.
However, this is not to say that I think the film would be great if I did have some knowledge of the backstory. There's little in the way of a moral here or a deeper meaning, as this is just a good-GUY-saves-world plot. It's one that (like many superhero movies before) makes me ask if character development or THOUGHT, for that matter, really are being extinguished by money-driven action. I wouldn't even call this a "popcorn movie," as I found few laughs and absolutely no connection to the characters in my experience.
I like action movies, but I need to be drawn in to the characters in order to CARE about the action. "The Avengers" didn't even try to draw me in, it just said "here are the heroes, now watch them fight!" If the first hour had established some human element for the heroes, I might have liked the action. As it stands, the audience is thrown into the arena with the invincible combatants, and expected to immediately feel for them despite their inherent invincibility. I must ask - why should I care about action when one side can't lose and I haven't been told otherwise? Why should I root for the Yankees? (The only reason I can see is because the "bad guy" Loki wears a ridiculous looking costume).
I keep attempting to find redemption in society's reception of this movie. Maybe that's why I hope that I'm just missing a big part of the backstory. I'm a big Whedon fan, and came into "The Avengers" hoping to see some more of his magic. I was rewarded with a two-and-a-half hour snooze fest of CG action. My only sincere hope is that the millions he makes off of this movie funds "real" projects of his in the future.
The Unit (2006)
Gets better
It's an interesting show for me, two story lines that aren't completely separate - the operators in the field vs. their families (plus usually one of them) at home in the states. These stories are sort of like a book with two story lines where you just want to skip over one story because you're so interested in the other. It's hard to actually watch some family squabble on the home front when you know the guys in the field are pinned down in a minefield...
Anyway, David Mamet is creator/producer. You'd think his writing abilities would reflect on the scripts, but this doesn't happen until the 2nd season. The first season holds your interest, but the writing is pretty poor and cliché, very predictable. 2nd season picks up the pace plot-wise, and finally kicks into higher gear towards the end.
The show isn't exactly realistic (how realistic/unrealistic, we'll never know seeing it's the Delta force), but is entertaining. Somewhat like 24 without the ridiculous cliffhangers, silly plot twists, or melodrama. It will make you want to be in spec ops.
8/10 - it kept me watching.
The Dark Knight (2008)
Who edited this film?? A disappointment.
Well, the praise for this movie must be due to Heath Ledger's death, or at least I hope that's the reason, because the movie is pretty disappointing. Ledger is a convincing maniac, but the rest of the cast falls short. Is Christian Bale in this movie? I think he gets the least screen time of the three leads (Ledger, Eckhart included) and really doesn't get many good lines. The only scenes I enjoyed were between he and Ledger. The editing of this film reflects the Joker's theme - chaos...was that intentional? If so, a poor choice. After the wonderful simplicity of many superhero films, including Batman Begins (I'd give that a 9/10), Dark Knight may have not been edited at all! It seems thrown together with no accounting for the viewer's intelligence. I've seen better episodes of television.
Wo de fu qin mu qin (1999)
Beautiful
One of the most beautiful film I have ever seen. Every shot is seemingly perfectly framed. Each frame tells a story, has so much depth. The simplest story is the most beautiful and easily liked. The fact that the film has very little dialog makes it that much more innocent and poetic. The Road Home feels like a traditional story told with great love. Never has a work that I've seen (Days of Heaven, A River Runs Through It come to mind) made so great a use of simplistically beautiful natural scenery. One of Zhang Yimou's best, if under-appreciated. This is a story you must watch and imagine that you are listening to a grandmother tell her grandchildren how she met her husband.
Munich (2005)
Spielberg's Journey
Ever since he has journeyed into serious films (starting with "Empire of the Sun" and then "Schindler's List"), Steven Spielberg has been searching for a method of making violence unattractive to moviegoers. "Schindler's List" was, of course, shocking, but this first attempt at strong violence did not quite have the intended effect. I know that a lot of people (including me) feel saddened by the film, but SL's violence could seem distant at times, like the audience was merely an observer. "Saving Private Ryan" was the second great attempt at making moviegoers detest violence, but this seemed easily dismissed as a war film, showing events that would probably never happen again, like showing violence in a distant universe. Munich is his latest effort, and it shows Spielberg's feeling that his previous films, although progressive, had not quite 'hit the mark'.
The violence shown in Munich is, perhaps, the most brutal realistically intentioned violence ever shown on film. I say 'realistically intentioned' because, like the average moviegoer, I have not witnessed people getting shot or blown up, so I don't know what those events would actually look like. There are many signs in the film that Spieberg is trying to improve on his earlier efforts. The guns in the film are REALLY loud when fired. This has the effect of putting you in the fight, making it more intimate when someone IS shot. The bullet wounds and remains after explosions are quite gruesome. When someone dies in this film, no matter what side they are on, you feel no happiness, no relief or awe. You feel a sense of death, nothing dramatic, just blank and empty. For this reason, Munich is one of the most important films to have come out, and perhaps it is Spielberg's best ('Raiders' is too superhuman to be included on that list). Spielberg deserves the best director for this one.
Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith (2005)
A Galaxy Far, Far Away...
I'm not quite sure how this film is being rated well. What is wrong with this film? Well, setting the Star Wars fan in me aside, this movie is just awful. The acting is completely horrible, and nobody in the cast is spared from that comment. The script is along the lines of Episodes 1 & 2, which is a long way of saying tremendously bad. Oh, I wish Lucas had brought in a screenwriter, someone like Kasdan (for those of you who are fans of the new trilogy, Lawrence Kasdan wrote Empire Strikes Back and ROTJ) who actually can write a screenplay.
The hopes of a good lightsaber battle and my love of the Star Wars universe are all that kept me from walking out on this movie. As it turns out, even the things I was hoping for, when they were finally shown, were terribly done. The climactic lightsaber battle is done poorly, the camera often staying too tight on the faces of the participants. All you see is a lightsaber flashing across the screen like a glowrod. At many times in the film I found myself asking "is this real?" Episode III's dialogue was so bad I had to make sure I wasn't dreaming. This and the previous two episodes have failed the Star Wars franchise, and it is time for Star Wars fans who are hanging on to the idea that no Star Wars film can be bad to let their real feelings out. This was a terrible film, and should be admitted by Star Wars fans as such. If only the DGA had allowed Spielberg to direct this one! Blame them, not just George!