jbanet Reviews

Sintel (2010)

A Powerful and Tragic Masterpiece

[10/10 · 3 October 2010]

This is a beautifully animated and skillfully executed tragic story. It hits all the key points of a classic tragedy in a way worthy of history's greatest playwrights. It has the "hero" who is good and decent but is brought down by her ambition and human frailty. It has the "reversal" when the fortune of finding her companion and overcoming the attacking dragon becomes the realization that the two are the same. This turns into the "recognition" that she has wasted her life on a quest with a flawed premise. At that moment, many things come together. She realizes how much time has passed. She finally understands the true relationship between Scales and herself. Scales moved on long ago, and what was left, what was driving her search, was her own obsession and delusion. She now sees herself for the battle-scarred killer she has become. Her quest has stolen her innocence and now, by her own hand, taken the life of the one she treasured most.

The fact that the movie hits all these elements so potently in only 12 minutes is amazing. The more I watch it, the more I appreciate how well everything fits together. The foreshadowing, symbolism, and other elements throughout the movie give it a depth much greater than its length. Things that might not seem significant at first play important roles in the story. For example, Sintel appears to be an orphan, which could be seen as arbitrary back-story. However, this helps explain why she becomes so blinded to reality once Scales is taken. Scales is the only friend she has ever known, and the loss tears her apart.

This powerful storytelling is then backed by animation that suits it wonderfully. There are imperfections, but the many things that are done incredibly well far outweigh any flaws. From the sense of wonder in racing up the temple, to the epic scale of Sintel's journey, to the expressions in Scales' face... it all works beautifully to magnify the story. The climax in particular pulls together story, visuals, sound and timing in a way that even the best feature films rarely achieve. I'm tempted to expound on every finely crafted detail, but it is best to just let you watch it and appreciate it yourself.

To top everything off, this film is released freely under the Creative Commons license by the Blender Foundation, which also freely releases the open-source 3D modeling tool Blender used to make the movie. This means everything-- the movie, the models, the textures, the software-- EVERYTHING is freely available for anyone to use or change. That's a far cry from most movie releases that want it to be a crime to even rip your own DVD onto your computer/phone/etc.

The Blender Foundation creates this and other short films to prove and improve the quality of their free 3D software, but they have done so much more here. This movie is a gift and a masterpiece.

Waiting... (I) (2005)

Disturbing, disgusting, offensive, and better than I expected

[7/10 · 19 March 2006]

When I first saw previews for this movie, I expected a soulless comedy about restaurant staff messing with customers. Although some people may feel that way even after seeing it, I was pleasantly surprised. From the introduction of 'the game' near the beginning of the movie, I knew this was going to be more interesting and even more disturbing than the previews.

Despite what appears to be rather thin characterization, 'Waiting' succeeds at being a good character-driven movie. I am not sure why this is. Perhaps what seem to be just childish antics add depth to the characters without us realizing it. Some people complain that 'the game' is a 10 second gag stretched out for the entire film, and on the surface, this is true. However, the game is really more of a mechanism for developing characters than anything on its own. The result is a set of very flawed, but surprisingly likable characters. Also, the ending, though a little abrupt, is entertaining largely because the movie does a good job of setting up the characters and situation.

This movie is not for everyone. If you do not like 'stupid' humor, then you will probably not be able to overlook that to enjoy the more subtle aspects. However, once you get past that, this movie is more than the sum of its parts.

Hulk (2003)

The Hulk tries too hard

[5/10 · 23 June 2003]

I went to this movie expecting the raw emotion of the hulk to really pull the audience in, to make us feel for him, to make us get angry along with him. What I got was a lot of characters yelling, crying, and trying very hard to appear emotional, but coming off forced and unconvincing. The bonds between the characters, and more importantly the bonds between the characters and the audience, were not developed well enough to ever make these emotional outbursts very motivating. Perhaps it would have helped if the beginning of the movie had focused less on just telling us the back story and more on building the characters in the present, letting the audience become clued in to their history as the movie progressed.

The action scenes suffer from a similar problem. Some were good, but for the most part, they were uninteresting despite the over-the-top action. It seems that the creators were unable to make the action more subtly interesting, so they just made it bigger and wilder. Unfortunately, boring action made bigger is still boring action.

The comic style scene cuts were interesting but overdone. Not every scene needs a fancy cut. Eventually the strange cuts just became repetitive. It looked more like someone playing with new audio-video equipment than someone seriously making a movie. They should have focused on making excellent comic style cuts at key scenes instead of making mediocre attempts at it throughout the whole movie.

All in all, "The Hulk" is not a bad movie. It is, however, a movie that lacks subtlety and tries too hard to make up for it with quantity and extremity.

Girl, Interrupted (1999)

Good character driven plot. Great acting.

[8/10 · 19 March 2001]

If you like character driven plots, then this movie will pull you in. The story is good, although I could tell that it had been converted from a book. The character developments occasionally make jumps implying that something is missing. However, the skillful writing keeps these discontinuities minor, and they are easily overcome by the incredible acting. I gained new respect for Angelina Jolie, and Winona Ryder outshines even Angelina's performance. By the end of the movie, we feel we really know the characters, which is impressive considering how complex and dynamic they are.