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Reviews
Me, Myself & Irene (2000)
Farrelys
Carrey has reunited with the Farrely brothers in a film, with a more misfire of laughs than successful ones, though still it's adequately funny, the setting of story, that being in Rhode Island, is interesting. Carrey plays a Rhode Island state trooper who has been the butt of a lot of people, that walk all over him. A yes man. Finally cracking up in a supermarket, while waiting at a counter, he creates a new, "take no s..t" character Hank, the absolute opposite of his character, Charlie Bailey. In split personality, this is what can happen, a person is so revolted by his own self, he replaces it with someone totally different. Renee Zewellger, as an EPA employee, who we kind of get the feeling, she would rather be somewhere else, plays an ex girlfriend of a guy involved in corrupt dealings with the company, where she's caught and transported by Carrey on police motorcycle to a safer place, pursued by the bad guys, that involve other corrupt agents etc. The movie does play well as an adventure though, and Carrey's three black blasphemous sons (there's a story there) are a hoot, probably the funniest thing in the movie. Too, near the end in a fight to the death between Carrey and Zewellger's ex, we have an ugly bit of violence, unwarranted, only if in another attempt to humour, when Carrey's thumb is blown off. The theme song was another good thing about this average humorous movie that still plays in my head and takes me to 2001. Farrely fans should still see this, with laughs, far and few between. Carrey does make a goose of himself and overacts in this though, where the every changing back of personalities in scenes, is something you just don't buy.
The Dirty Dozen (1967)
Expendable 1967
Or: The Expendables is basically The Dirty Dozen 2010's, that was my point, it is completely derived from The Dirty Dozen. Not that there's anything wrong with that. It's obviously the blueprint for so many action movies that followed. A lot meaner and funnier than I expected going in. Everyone's so young and alive! Charles Bronson had yet to grow his trademark moustache and Donald Sutherland looks like a teenager.
I enjoyed this movie and the odd cast mixing together. Telly Savalas as "Maggot" was one creepy weirdo! Makes you wonder how this sort of movie plays in Germany, if at all?
King Arthur (2004)
Avoid at all costs
The director amazed me.he managed to squander a massively stellar cast with the pathetic execution of a big budget movie. From the first few scenes, there were blatant lighting continuity problems with different lighting tones, contrast level and intensities. During some big battles with camera angled up, to accentuate battle drama, there was a mix of smoke and heavy clouds and then some shots it was just partially cloudy with blue sky. That lack of quality ran into the script as well with cliché moment after cliché moment which muted any impact the music score had on eliciting emotions from the audience. Onto the plot, King Arthur and his loyal knights are deceived and forced into one last mission to officially receive their freedom papers from the Roman Empire. Will they follow through? If so, how many will survive the final mission? Another abrupt moment was when Keira Knightley's character is rescued from a dungeon and later she unexpectedly goes from being shackled to a highly skilled tribal warrior. Avoid at all costs!
King Arthur: Legend of the Sword (2017)
What did I just watch ??? Lousy lousy lousy
Back in 2004, when I reviewed Antoine Fuqua's "King Arthur", I recalled the words of the Canadian author Robertson Davies who pointed out, in his novel "The Lyre of Orpheus", that there had never been a really great theatrical or cinematic treatment of the Arthurian legends. Purcell's opera might be thought an exception, but Davies discounts it on the basis that its plot differs radically from what we have come to think of as the traditional Arthurian story.
Fuqua's film was billed as a more historically accurate version of the legend, treating Arthur not as the mediaeval knight portrayed in, among others, "First Knight" from the nineties but as a Roman cavalryman in fifth-century Britain. It was, however, rather dull, Clive Owen made an uncharismatic hero and it contained so many historical howlers that its claims to accuracy looked very hollow.
Guy Ritchie now brings his own interpretation to the story, which he sets not in a recognisable Roman Britain nor in a recognisable Middle Ages but in a sort of vaguely sub-Tolkienesque fantasyland. As the story open, Arthur's father Uther Pendragon, king of the Britons, is at war with a race known as the Mages, who have magical powers, such as the ability to conjure up gigantic beasts like elephants (only much bigger) to assist them it battle. You might think that this gives the Mages an unfair advantage, but in fact Uther is able to defeat them. This, however, proves a Pyrrhic victory, because soon afterwards he is murdered by his treacherous brother Vortigern, who seizes his throne.
Fast forward a number of years, long enough for Arthur to have grown from a baby into Charlie Hunnam. Vortigern does not seem to have grown a day older in the intervening thirty-odd years, and still maintains his tyrannical rule. Rumour has it, however, that one day the Born King will return to liberate Britain from tyranny, a rumour which strengthens an active resistance movement. The "Born King" is, of course, Arthur, only he doesn't know it yet. And then one day a stone with a sword sticking from it mysteriously appears. Only the Born King, it is said, can pull the sword from it.
Ritchie is probably best known as a former Mr Madonna, but apart from that he is best known for directing Cockney gangster flicks like "Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels", and this film is essentially a Cockney gangster flick translated to a sub-Tolkienesque fantasyland. (And, yes, it is just as weird as that sounds). Before he discovers his identity as the Born King (and to some extent afterwards as well) Arthur, or perhaps we should call him Arfur, is a regular lowlife Cockney geezer who has grown up among prostitutes and petty crooks in the slums of Londinium. (Although the action does not explicitly take place in Roman times, the Roman name for London has been kept). More Arthur Daley than King Arthur. When not earning his living in ways which would not bear too much close inspection, Arfur likes to hang out down the local boozer with his mates, who mostly have traditional Arthurian names like Bedivere, Tristan and Percival, although there is also a Bill and a George in there. (I don't recall them from Malory).
The rest of the plot is far too complex to explain, but it details how Arfur accepts his new-found identity, learns to develop his magical powers and takes his revenge on Vortigern. In doing so he has the assistance not only of his aforementioned mates but also a pretty female Mage- not all Mages are bad- played by Àstrid Bergès-Frisbey, winner of a Special Oscar for "Actress most in need of a new stage name, at least for English-speaking audiences".
This film was, apparently, intended to be the first instalment in a six-film franchise. That would explain a few things. It would, for example, explain why Arthur, generally portrayed as a teenage boy at the time of the "sword in the stone" incident, is here played by the 37-year-old Hunnam; Ritchie obviously wanted the same actor to play the character throughout the series. It would also explain why the film only deals with the early part of Arthur's career; there is, for example, no Round Table, no Lancelot, no Guinevere and no Holy Grail. Merlin is mentioned but does not actually appear. There is a character named "Mordred", but his role is not that of Sir Mordred in the traditional legend.
Unfortunately, I am not sure how many of the remaining five episodes will actually be made. The film has not only performed poorly at the box-office but has also been savaged by the critics. And, I must say, not without reason. Ritchie's film is really no better than Fuqua's. Hunnam certainly makes a more charismatic hero than did Owen, and Jude Law is reasonably good as the treacherous Vortigern, but none of the rest of the cast stand out. The film is overlong and the plot is frequently over-complicated to the point of incomprehensibility. The production budget was apparently $175 million, and I cannot really say it was money well spent.
Michael Phillips, film critic of the "Chicago Tribune", called Ritchie "one of the world's most successful mediocre filmmakers", and my only quarrel with this assessment would be that on occasions "mediocre" has seemed too kind an adjective. (The abysmal "Swept Away", which had the inadvertent effect of sweeping away Ritchie's then-wife's film career, is a case in point). On this occasion, however, it seems that success has eluded him.
Casino Royale (2006)
Campbells soup
Green, Mads Mikkelsen, Judi Dench, Jeffrey Wright, Giancarlo Giannini, Caterina Murino, Simon Abkarian, Isaach De Bankole, Jesper Christensen, Ivana Milicevic, Sebastien Foucan. Brilliant jump-start to the James Bond franchise by re-booting to the beginning in the first of the Ian Fleming stories with a new Bond (Craig, perhaps the best actor as 007) gaining his license to kill on his first assignment to stop an international banker (baddie Mikkelsen) from bankrolling a high-stakes poker game to continue lending support to global terrorism, with hottie financial analyst Green (perhaps the best Bond babe to date to boot!) in tow. Handled with great aplomb by director Martin Campbell (no slouch to the series with his intro of Pierce Brosnan in "GoldenEye") who skillfully keeps the action riveting (the opening foot chase is a real hoot), the editing snappy (kudos to Stuart Baird) and the storyline from sagging (the screenplay by Neal Purvis & Robert Wade and Paul Haggis bogs things down in the extraneous card game) with enough humor, death-defying gags and mostly for having faith in Craig, who brings a Steve McQueen, craggy handsomeness and under his well-chiseled physique a surprising lethal weapon: a heart. Can't wait for the next!
Me, Myself & Irene (2000)
Farrelys
Carrey has reunited with the Farrely brothers in a film, with a more misfire of laughs than successful ones, though still it's adequately funny, the setting of story, that being in Rhode Island, is interesting. Carrey plays a Rhode Island state trooper who has been the butt of a lot of people, that walk all over him. A yes man. Finally cracking up in a supermarket, while waiting at a counter, he creates a new, "take no s..t" character Hank, the absolute opposite of his character, Charlie Bailey. In split personality, this is what can happen, a person is so revolted by his own self, he replaces it with someone totally different. Renee Zewellger, as an EPA employee, who we kind of get the feeling, she would rather be somewhere else, plays an ex girlfriend of a guy involved in corrupt dealings with the company, where she's caught and transported by Carrey on police motorcycle to a safer place, pursued by the bad guys, that involve other corrupt agents etc. The movie does play well as an adventure though, and Carrey's three black blasphemous sons (there's a story there) are a hoot, probably the funniest thing in the movie. Too, near the end in a fight to the death between Carrey and Zewellger's ex, we have an ugly bit of violence, unwarranted, only if in another attempt to humour, when Carrey's thumb is blown off. The theme song was another good thing about this average humorous movie that still plays in my head and takes me to 2001. Farrely fans should still see this, with laughs, far and few between. Carrey does make a goose of himself and overacts in this though, where the every changing back of personalities in scenes, is something you just don't buy.
Vengeance Is Mine (2021)
Grade A movie that should be seen widely
Audiences are incredibly familiar with revenge films because it is a reoccurring common theme in movies, BUT Hadi Hajaig's Vengeance is Mine is one of those rare movies that feels unique. Vengeance is Mine stands out easily from your standard revenge flicks in various ways. First, we aren't given much of a a background (apart from some rapid flashbacks) of what is going on in the story and as the action takes place we get some hints of what happened to the main protagonist. Second, the main character played by Con O'Neill isn't your typical Hollywood hero. It's evident this dude doesn't know what he is doing and is a total scared amateur. He makes many many mistakes that sometimes it becomes a bit laugh out loud funny. It also shows us his humanity and allows us to identify and really care for him. He is incredibly different from other characters we see in this movie genre that are highly qualified for the violent task (think of Denzel Washington in The Equalizer, or Keanu Reeves in John Wick, or the Charles Bronson Death Wish films). O'Neill's Harry doesn't really know what the hell he is doing but he is ferociously determined to get his revenge. He's a normal guy who has been viciously hurt by a traumatic event in his past. The film takes its time to eventually buildup the character and his actions. It is a quiet and toned down film so when the violent scenes arrive they shock you in their brutality. It also differs from other revenge movies in that we don't see Harry get a sense of joyous satisfaction and his violent actions only complicate things more. Hajaig has managed to craft an incredibly unique revenge film which is more of a steady character study than anything else. He not only directed this film but he was also the writer, producer and editor, so this is entirely his baby.
I did not know much about this movie before going into it but I am glad I got a chance to see it because it was quite a unique jarring experience. Con O'Neill delivers an outstanding lead acting performance and he should get offered many more roles in films in the future. The film pretty much entirely revolves around his tragic character and he is practically in every scene of the film. He is what keeps us totally invested in the film during the quieter periods and the few lines he has are delivered pitch perfectly in the film.