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Reviews
Gladiator (2000)
Ridley, Ridley, what have you done?
This movie is one of the worst I've ever been forced to watch. I mean, I came out of the cinema and wondered why the sun wasn't already up. I thought it must have been at least 8 hours long. It's just so BORING! When you think about it, what happens in this movie? Tough guy kills some dudes. Tough guy talks about honour with old guy. Mean guy kills old guy. Tough guy kills some other dudes. Mean guy talks about honor with girl. Tough guy weeps for his family. Tough guy talks about honor with black guy, then kills some dudes. (Repeat last three lines until bored, and then some more). If they would have just stuck to the killing part, then it would have been a mediocre action film. But no, they had to add "depth" (=lots of "philosophical" (=clicheed) truisms, with about 30 seconds of pauses/reaction shots between sentences). Actually, the screenwriter packed the script with so many clichees he actually only missed one: Flavius (the nephew of the mean guy) is not Maximus's son. Bummer. I thought I knew everything that would happen after the first quarter of an hour.
O.K. The good points: The first three fights or so ARE compelling (the other 20 or so cease to be). Ancient Rome never looked so real (Shame about the rest of the movie). The actors can act (their roles are just so clicheed the creators could have done with Muppets).
One final question : Does Crowe really go from Germania to Spain in one day (Some horse that must be...), and from Spain to North Africa in another two? In a CART? I Refuse to have seen that. I must have fallen asleep for a few hours. It's possible with this movie. Zero stars.
Playtime (1967)
Stunning!
This is the right movie for anyone who is tired of "modern" comedies. Aside from its stunning visuals and extremely clever use of sound effects (the film has nearly no dialogue), its humour is highly intelligent, not always obvious, and i must say that i was delighted to see a film that did not try to be funny all the time. This is to say, most other comedies put gag after gag after gag, but to do so they usually stretch one gag for too long. Playtime (and nearly all other works by Tati, which are all must-sees), on the other hand, has long sequences with no reason to laugh, and then it hits the audience with a gag (or, in this film`s case, rather an anecdote) - which is only a few seconds long. So its not for fans of Austin Powers or Dumb & Dumber, but nonetheless very, very funny. 9/10
The Matrix (1999)
One laughing eye, one crying eye
The Matrix is undoubtedly the best major SF film of `99 (and don`t bother with Star Wars Episode 1, which is bad beyond belief). But still, I think it`s WAY overrated. The Film has a clever story, at least for the average Hollywood Blockbuster, and some dazzling FX, but still... It could have been that much better if the creators just dropped the totally unnecessary "saviour" storyline. Just imagine the film without it - no problem, and no more stupid discussions on pointless, contradicting prophecies which basically tell you to do what you want! For me, a film which could have been one of the great ones but is merely entertaining (which in itself is a virtue these days, don`t get me wrong!). 6/10.