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Reviews
La cité des enfants perdus (1995)
Disappointing, but for a different reason
I'm fine with movies that choose style over substance. I absolutely love Brazil, if that tells you anything. I was totally prepared to see a movie that had minimal plot and coherence, and was ready to simply immerse myself in the 'grotesque and disturbing imagery' as the rating touts. Another thing that intrigued me was the box art, which looked almost Aztec/Steampunkish. I thought that perhaps that type of imagery would dominate the film, or at least figure prominently in it. It did not. Instead the film mainly features imagery and sets from what appears to be the city from Alex Proyas's Dark City if it had been located on a French coastline in the 1940s.
But getting to the point, what ruined this movie for me was not that it was to unfocused and lacking in action. It was the filmmakers insistence that everything be so insufferably f*cking goofy. I felt like I was watching a bad rip off of a Terry Gilliam film, made by somebody who completely missed what made his style so great. First of all, this is a tame movie. Not that that is my reason for disliking it, I'd just like to set the record straight. The film's rating is absolutely undeserved. It easily could have been rated PG-13, and contained nothing too disturbing for a young teenager to stomach. And even then, any scene that even began to create a sense of foreboding atmosphere was immediately ravaged by unnecessary and painfully protracted scenes of people acting like mentally damaged infants.
Look, its not that I don't "get it". I understand what they were going for here, its just that they f*cked up (In my opinion). To put it simply, an otherwise chilling, absorbing film best described as Bioshock meets Brazil, is marred by disgustingly indulgent characters and camera-work by the filmmakers. For instance, the character of the mad man who kidnaps children to steal their dreams because he cannot have any of his own should be instantly tragic and threatening, a truly fantastic character simply by design. Any hopes of such a thing are tossed aside within the first few moments as he and the rest of his, what I suppose you could call family, scream directly into the camera for over a minute. Without any thought, they instantly reduce what should have been an incredible character with so much potential to a pathetic whimpering baby in the body of a man. They really seem to be TRYING to act stupid and over the top. Why? What's the point? There is no subtlety or really any care given to anything in the film, least of all that first pointless scene. It really seems as though that scene existed for the sole purpose of destroying the disturbing atmosphere that the film was trying to achieve right out of the starting gate.
In the end the film had so much potential, and so much style to work with, but it was wasted in favor of the film's oh-so-quirky antics. If this is French dark absurdist comedy, perhaps I'm just more suited to British dark absurdist comedy where the comedy goes hand in hand with the atmosphere rather than the former beating the latter into submission and sticking its @ss into the camera lens.
Drive (2011)
Very cool movie
It's unfortunate, but it seems that despite this film's deservedly high ratings on IMDb and Rotten Tomatoes, the raving action junkies have come out of the wood work to scream at this film and all who liked it. Any page that you may find concerning Drive most likely will be filled to the brim with messages along the lines of, "They talked too much! There weren't a lot of car chases and explosions! Why wasn't this movie dumb and actiony like I wanted it to be!?" The problem seems to be that nobody knew that this was NOT Fast and Furious 6 being released simultaneously with Fast 5, and thus nobody was prepared for a beautifly filmed throwback to 80s noir films. Luckily I actually read a review of this film before going, and so I had the advantage of being informed of just what I was in for. The other two people that I went with were not, and though they didn't hate it, they were surprised.
If only more people looked into the movie before hand. But then again, I would have liked this movie anyway. It was very intense and successfully channeled a bit of Quentin Tarantino's style. Everything that these people bashed the film for, like Gosling's character being predominantly silent and wearing a satin scorpion jacket and the soundtrack consisting of cheesy 80s pop, were exactly what made the movie great for me. It was slow to begin with, but knowing that it would pay off (and it DID) made it all the more tense during the first act.
I highly recommend this movie, just as long as it is clear to you that it is not all about car chases, and that is not what you are expecting. The title refers more to the character's emotional drive, if you get what I mean.
Collateral Damage (2002)
Both good and bad
This would be a good, average action movie, except for one quality that both detracts from it and adds to it. That is the phenomenal amount of propaganda in this movie. And NO, I'm not whining about it. I actually liked it. Because honestly, I couldn't tell whether it was intentionally over the top or serious, or maybe even both. The way that the movie wrapped itself in an American flag and blew stuff up one minute and then bashed the US military for slaughtering innocent civilians the next made the politics of the film really enjoyably hard to pin down. i don't want to say that the movie was a spoof of itself because I think that it did embody some sincere patriotism. It's just that it spends a while pandering to a conservative audience and then goes 'oh liberals, you know we love you guys too' and then goes straight back to what it was like before. I don't know, maybe it was just selling out to a wider audience because they knew that it's sometimes mindless patriotism would offend people (It kind of offended me, though it was mostly harmless. Aside from all the killing.) But in any case, I enjoyed the movie both as a spoof and a straight forward action film... no matter how annoying the stereotypes got.
Super 8 (2011)
Wonderful, nostalgic, thrilling, but weak final act
After seeing this film I've been overwhelmed by both Wonder and Awe, and disappointment.
And that is what this movie was. I don't even need to describe the first half of the film. It just pure 70s and 80s movie magic. Albeit a bit slow up until the train crash, which may be one of the best action scenes I've seen in a movie for YEARS, but after that it moves along just fine. The child actors are wonderful, believable, and hilarious. Deputy Lamb and the other father character are great. The only character who proves weak and annoying was the Air force colonel, or captain, or whatever he is. His character was so underdeveloped and badly written that I found that every scene that he was in was hindered by him.
The Alien attacks are mysterious and creepy, exactly what I wanted going into the movie. Another great scene is when the police (I actually enjoyed the moderately humorous group of local cops as much as I enjoyed the kids) are jotting down the locations of the scores of dogs who have fled from their homes and the dots create a perfect circle around the town. That is what movies like this should be like. That is sci-fi mystery movie wonder. Scenes like this continue to carry the film for a quite a while, and it is not until the final fourth that everything starts to go wrong.
First of all, when the train crashed at the beginning many little white cubes spilled out of crates from the rail cars, and the main character ends up with one in his room. Eventually these things come into play.
The scene that marks the beginning of this fourth part is when Deputy Lamb is in military custody. While he is being escorted to the bathroom, Lamb suddenly knocks out the soldier, steals his M-16, and before you know it he's dressed up in a us army uniform and is blowing up a truck as a distraction so he can escape the base. Now, this scene comes out of nowhere and is the first of many that feel a bit out of place. Earlier in the film he is seen being arrested by the military, but this was MUCH earlier. It's as though Abrams either forgot about it, or was ignoring it because he realized that he had written himself into a corner and finally he just used whatever excuse he could think of to get Lamb out of the base and back to town.
Soon after that the kids break into the trailer of their old teacher Mr. Woodward, the man who intentionally crashed the train, and they find plenty of film footage and evidence. They find out through old films that Woodward was in the military and that the air force was holding the alien captive. Apparently the creature is psychic and can communicate through touch. So when it lifts Woodward ten feet off the ground and promptly drops him, he immediately knows that... the alien just wants to go home on its space ship but the army won't let it. Fantastic. All of my expectations were crushed at that point in favor of the oldest alien storyline in the book. But getting past that, they see that those little white cubes can form solid metal and then dissolve into cubes again in the blink of an eye. And so when all of the cubes, including the one in the main character's room, fly toward the town water tower, it's a safe bet that that's where the ship is going to be. They also learn that the creature is subterranean, and they find the entrance to the alien's cave and discover what looks like the skeleton of a space ship being built inside. Not to mention the bodies of several towns people hanging from the ceiling. These are two things that are confusing and never make sense. One being, if the alien is building a ship out of the little white things, of which there are plenty, why is he also building this thing underground? Never explained. Also, there is a shot in this scene where the alien is holding what APPEARS to be a human leg close to his mouth, and one of the kids says, "He's eating people!" Ironically this line actually gave me hope that the movie would stay on a darker course, and the rest of the scene where the alien chucks two people to what must certainly be their deaths gave me more hope. But then, just when I was hoping for something spectacular as the children are cornered by the alien, the least spectacular thing that could possibly happen happens. The kid talks to it and it walks away. Thrilling, isn't it.
So yes, it appears that it is a nice alien now, and as stated before, all it wants to do is go home. And that is why that scene confused me. One second he's supposedly eating people and the next he's shooed off by a little boy. surrounding this scene there are some good action shots of the military blowing everything up as the kids run for their lives, but these are soon abandoned for the final, terribly anticlimactic scene. The alien climbs to the tops of the water tower, gets in its ship, and flies away.
But even then, that leaves three fourths of good,solid, summer action movie magic! So why does this one fourth seem to consume so much of what I have to say about this movie? Because everything else was fantastic, so naturally I expected a fantastic ending. And that is why I feel so disappointed right now. Out of all of the parts that they could have slipped up on, they chose the most important.
The Thin Red Line (1998)
Fatal flaw
Before I rant, I will say that this movie has some fantastic sequences. For example, the opening in which two soldiers are living amongst the natives in peace, only to be sucked back into the war. That was very good.
In fact, the entire movie would have been just as perfect and fantastic as everybody says it is if only they had changed one thing; Cast unknown actors instead of big name stars.
For all of its beautiful shots and haunting messages, this film comes very close to be laughable, stupidly, ludicrous. This is due to the endless amounts of COMPLETELY pointless cameos from famous actors scattered all throughout the film. Oh look, there's Sean Pen, oh look, there's Adrien Brody, oh look, there's John Travolta, oh look, there's George Clooney (for thirty seconds). There is no way that the makers of this film thought that doing this would not be a catastrophically large distraction, unless they were utterly clueless. This movie was not meant to have a character driven storyline, I totally understand that. I'm fine with the characters not speaking, not being given objectives, not having personalities or, well, features of any kind for that matter. And this would have worked just fine, if only they had not crammed in every famous actor available to show up on set for a few minutes and just sit there dressed as a soldier, then leave. The only character who comes even close to rising beyond one dimensional is Nick Nolte's.
This does bring up an interesting point though- maybe I'm the one with the problem when viewing this movie. Maybe I'm too familiar with these actors, and thus too expectant when I see so many of them in one war movie together. So perhaps if I were to have watched this without any knowledge of who these actors were, then I would have been able to enjoy the movie's beauty and poetry.
But as it is, this is about the equivalent of casting Arnold Schwarzenegger and Dolph Lundgren in Citizen Kane.
Pulp Fiction (1994)
Odd reputation
As with most Tarantino movies, each time you watch it it seems a bit different. Now, I don't't think that it's the best movie ever and I don't think that everybody has to like it, because it can easily be disliked. What I don't understand is this- Why does this film have such a bad reputation. Just think this over, please, all of you people who wail and complain about how horribly violent it is.
How on earth are you so isolated as to think that this is the most violent movie out there? Have you not seen any movies since 1994? Because believe me, this movie could practically slide by with a PG-13 today (well not really) But honestly, if you don't like the move, then sure, fine, you don't like it, but why would you attack it's content when there are so many other movies that are MUCH more violent?
Hot Fuzz (2007)
Absolutely gut-busting!
I've had it in the back of my head to see this movie for a few months, but never got around to it. Last night I finally watched it. And then I watched it again a half hour later and it was just as hilarious! It was just brilliant. I will worn you however, if a body with a giant concrete spike embedded into it's neck where it's head was and lumbering slowly towards the main character as blood spurts every where and faint eery music plays would frighten you, then, well... you get the idea. I almost threw up. I sat through every war movie, every horror movie, and never have I come so close to vomiting. But that one scene is still watchable at the very least. And the torrent of usually surprisingly good natured and harmless enough vocal gags will have you laughing so hard that when the epic gun fight comes you still be giggling.
The Plague Dogs (1982)
Deserves far more recognition
This movie, put simply, is great. I have noticed that many of the negative reviews on here state that it is too mature for children, and is therefore automatically a bad movie. This is ridiculous. When has a PG-13 rating ever stopped a movie from being good? Most of the films that are considered master pieces weren't marketed to 6 year olds, were they? True, it IS very dark, but even kids as young as 12 could enjoy it, and that still leaves a huge demographic.
As for the film itself, the animation, the characters, everything is great. Well, sometimes the faces are stiff looking, but the movement and camera angles are superior. John hurt does excellent voice acting. I really can't tell you how depressing it is to watch the dogs struggle on, and yet how attached you become to them. The fact that i love dogs and have a deep geographic and cultural interest in Great Britain made this movie an automatic favorite for me. But anyone should be able to enjoy it. Or perhaps enjoy is the wrong word. Rather, experience it (and not hate it).
I will not bother with a summary, as there are already a sufficient amount, so instead I will tell you all of the ups and downs:
The first 15 minutes of the movie are the best in my opinion, but the last 20 come close. The beginning is actually a bit scary and eery, an effect which I wish could have been maintained throughout the film. Even though it was probably unintentional, the first lines spoken by the two dogs and the general back noise are fairly disturbing in tone. The ending, if you still have not learned of it, which you shouldn't or it will spoil the movie, is a definite tear jerker, and it regains some of the hauntingness so well executed towards the beginning. The middle of the movie, unfortunately, lags a bit compared to the rest. I have seen both the uncut and cut versions, and I can tell you right now that the very few generally unimportant moments cut from the beginning and end are well worth missing in order to avoid a bit of the overly long and unfocused middle. You will notice that I have still given it ten stars despite the weak middle act, and that is because the movie as a whole is still top notch. The only other down to this movie is the music, which is missing when it's needed and when it is there, it is woefully out of place. Fortunately, this only occurs twice.
And please, be strong during the moments when it lags. Don't get bored and walk away, or you'll miss one of the most heart wrenching film climaxes in history.