jayarava Reviews

How to Train Your Dragon (2010)

Good entertainment

[7/10 · 7 April 2010]

I like cartoons. Like many US creations it's a morality play. At time the moral element is a bit too prominent for my taste, but I suppose it's standard for the US. The moral is partly shared with Avatar and Sesame St - don't fear/hate difference. Sometimes people behave badly because they are driven by circumstances, sometimes we fight because it's all we've known, and so on. Unlike Tolkien I'm not totally opposed to allegory and there are clear parallels to the wars currently being waged by the US and Europe in the Middle East. Let's hope many warmongering politicians everywhere go to see this movie and see how stupid they are.

Actually the more I think of it, the more I realise that the Dragons represent Middle Eastern peoples (including the Afghans); and the Vikings, America. Though I suppose if I were an Iraqi peasant I might see the other way around! The big dragon is either Sadam Hussein, Tony Blair, or George Bush depending on where you live - a hungry beast driving minions on to evil acts. The one that everyone obeys because they are too frightened not to.

Also adults in this film, as in most films these days, are pretty stupid and it's the kids that figure out how to save the situation. Yay for them! I read this as part of the continuing aftershock of two world wars which showed that authority figures are not to be trusted. And this leaves us in a dilemma: we don't trust or respect authority (because it betrayed our grandparents) and so there is a breakdown in authority and responsibility.

But then they all live happily ever after, even the dragons, once everyone listens to the kids and their fresh perspective.

I was puzzled by why the grown up Vikings all have Scottish accents while the children have US accents.

District 9 (2009)

OK but...

[6/10 · 4 September 2009]

Don't get me wrong - this is a good movie in many ways. The special effects are great, it is grittily realistic, mostly good acting especially from the main character, yadda yadda. The semi documentary thing works well enough, and blends OK with the 'real' action. But in many respects it is quite predictable and not saying much that we don't already know. Indeed in many ways it is rehearsing some well worn clichés about how we react to outsiders. Worse it seems to fall back on Hollywood formulae towards the end - references to every American Marine movie may well have been unintentional I suppose, but at one point I was also thinking of ET.

It's a difficult movie from the point of view of the shear number of murders and vapourisations that occur - it must be well over 100. It means I left the theatre feeling more numb than anything else - other emotions regarding the ending (which I anxious not to give away) were drowned out by the gunfire and flying blood. The film showcases the emotion of anger, hard and bitter anger. Ironically the callousness of some of the characters must be fostered by a movie which numbs us to the reality of violence, so in a sense the movie is participating in the problem rather than offering a vision of another way of doing things.

I think we have to treat this movie as entertainment of the gruesome kind (that I associate with Peter Jackson), certainly not a horror film, though horrific in parts; but we should not treat it as saying anything new or insightful about prejudice because it doesn't. And what it does say is not at all subtle - perhaps this was the point, but I'm not sure anyone on the wrong end of a bludgeon was ever truly convinced of anything - isn't this what the story of South Africa has really shown us? So why bludgeon us with a film?

Moon (2009)

A welcome return to sci-fi core values

[8/10 · 25 July 2009]

'Moon' represents a very successful return to sci-fi as those of us who *read* sci-fi understand it. There are no monsters, no disembowelling, no gratuitous sex, no car chase equivalents. What's more it's an original story, rather than yet another poor adaptation of a sci-fi novel! There is simply one man in extreme and somewhat inhuman circumstances trying to understand what it means to be human. There is no attempt to shock or revolt us just to get a reaction, instead we are treated as intelligent and discerning viewers with the ability to reflect on what we are seeing and our own responses to things.

The film moves slowly in a way that invokes '2001'. There is time to be thoughtful, which some viewers seem to find "boring". It is a reminder that once upon a time films did not flicker by with epilepsy inducing rapidity, bombarding us with light and sound and action until thinking is not even an option. 2001 is invoked in other ways as well but Jones decides not to follow the masses down the well worn road, but cuts a new path that is quite a delight. There is plenty of time to experience your own reactions to the dilemma which is quite rare in sci-fi movies.

Moon raises serious grown-up issues and leaves you to decide what to do about them. It's not a polarised good/evil, light/dark kind of Hollywood movie - it is about a subtle moral issue, and again this seems to leave some viewers confused and flailing.

Sam Rockwell is a credible actor, and some of the special effects (again muted and fully in context rather than the usual blare) are really very clever. As the truth dawned it occurred to me that Duncan Jones is a talented writer and director, and that I can hardly wait to see what comes next. Let's hope he's not a one hit wonder as I really want to see more of this kind of thing!

The Matrix (1999)

Still the best

[10/10 · 20 July 2009]

2009, and the best sci-fi movie ever made is still The Matrix (1999). Let's forget about the sequels, the less said the better, but the original had everything: mind blowing special effects, awesome concept, gripping plot, breath-taking action sequences (with knowing nods to the Hong-kong Kungfu genre - e.g. signature moves from Bruce Lee from Jet Li), gnarly sound-track, and engaging characters. Though many aspects of the movie have been copied, nothing has come close to it. Never has one movie raised the bar by so much.

When one considers the nature of speculative fiction one sees so few movies that come close to the complexity of thought and concept as the print medium. Only The Matrix and a handful of others (e.g. Bladerunner, Close Encounters, 2001 A Space Odyssey) really do justice to the genre - the books are more about humans adapting to unfamiliar situations rather than monsters and terror. So few sci-fi movies require the audience to think or evaluate what they are seeing. With The Matrix one cannot help but reflect on reality and what it means to be human. "There is no spoon!"

Apollo 13 (I) (1995)

Like being there

[9/10 · 20 July 2009]

For the couch potato no movie comes as close to the real thing as this one. It is the most believable space movie ever - with real zero G! The actors all do a terrific job - no one is coasting as you so often see with the 'A-list' actors these days.

It captures the sheer complexity of the missions, the enormous back-room staff, and shows what you could do with technology before the micro chip was invented! The sets are loving recreations of mission control - or maybe the used the real one, I wouldn't be surprised.

The Apollo program had grandeur and daring like the early square-rigged ships, or the first Antarctic explorers, or Hillary on Everest. And the movie manages to portray that with some emotion, but not over the top sentimentality. The men involved were heroes no doubt about it. But the tech's on the ground working for solutions where also magnificent.

It's not like seeing a movie, I feel like I was there. I feel like I was a part of it somehow - disbelieve was totally suspended for two hours. It's everything I love in a movie!

Until the End of the World (1991)

will make you yearn for the end of the world

[3/10 · 20 July 2009]

You know you are in trouble when the comments on the back of the DVD packaging say "visually stunning", because this is the inevitable comment on a film which has a rambling disjointed plot and below par acting. And so it was. Way, way too long at almost 3 hours the story is played out across the world. The characters are flat and unengaging - the two male leads being played by Sam Neil and William Hurt who specialise in alienation and distance. Neil's facial expression is the same whether he is in love, being betrayed, chasing the bad guy, being mugged, or watching his beloved in agony. Even the most emotionally charged part of the film - in the father-son relationship during the last third - is clichéd (with Max von Sydow playing to type) and stilted.

The plot twists and turns, but in the end leaves many things unexplained - it's not at all clear why Hurt is being pursued in the end or who the people were that pursued him. It all gets resolved by the supposed disaster which never materialises - a disaster movie with no disaster, an apocalypse with no horsemen. It's full of disjointed parts that don't add up to a satisfying whole. Many of the scenes are completely flat and add nothing. When Hurt wakes up between two elders, they seem to be as baffled by their appearance in the movie as I was, and he is as unreadable as ever.

The idea of hiding away in Australia with a tribe of Aboriginals is somewhat novel, but this is a white man's fantasy I think - they are a group of Man Friday's who attend to his every need, although there is a step too far and they do leave him which once again is done with minimal emotion.

The whole thing was as dry as the Aussie desert. Maybe you had to see it on the big screen, but in the end I did not believe the film was visual stunning - it used some stock shots of the Australian Outback but there was nothing very interesting in the way the film was shot.

I found myself earnestly wishing for the end of the movie, if not the world.

Moon 44 (1990)

Good looking, OK, but some mostly forgivable flaws

[6/10 · 27 June 2009]

This is a stylish looking movie, with moody lighting and atmospheric industrial sets. The space ships are cool - though why the good guys only have helicopters is a puzzle. The characters are likable enough but some are out-of-the-box Hollywood cutouts. The actors are either almost famous, or look hauntingly like people who are - I spent a lot of time wondering if I had seen them before (I hadn't it turns out). The story is OK, however there are a few plot glitches, and at times the story line is a bit thin. There are no real surprises - and no moral ambiguity. The dialogue is OK but once or twice stinks so bad you'll cringe (it may have been an attempt at humour?). At least there are no sudden swerves into the horror genre, and no completely unexplainable plot twists (as in Sunshine for instance).

If you like sci-fi anyway you probably be forgiving enough to enjoy this. I got the DVD for £1 at Tescos so I feel I got my money's worth.