Reviews

Completely implausible and illogical plot - which would be ok if it wasn't obviously (sincere) political. Bad dialog/script. Surprisingly high production values. Red Dawn this is not.

For a movie with gun violence as the core activity, this is a very quiet, reflective piece. It is well scripted, well directed and well acted with no filler (no witty banter, ridiculous stunts, little humor, no f/x, etc). They do a good job of -not- glorifying the fights and maintaining suspense; at no point do I want to be in the main character's shoes. Along with Freida Pinto's character, I'm rooting for him to survive and work through his hopefully fleeting passion/obsession, not win the fights. Most of the time the positions he puts himself in just look like pointless death traps that I would rather not see him walk into (contrasted with a Jason Statham or Bond movie where it's fun to see how the protagonist manages to spectacularly untangle bad situations). The final fight is perfect - two accomplished warriors meet with nowhere to go and nothing to do but everything to prove.

Kwanten did an outstanding job - his character was nothing like I've seen him do before but I doubt Eastwood in his prime could have done better. And Rourke was his character; it may not have been a creative leap for him but it served the story well which is all that matters.

The weaknesses of the movie are also it's strengths: it has a very small # of relevant cast members and a very simple (but nearly perfect) story and script. So if it's not exactly your type of movie there's not going to be much in it for you.

I didn't think that there was any Robin Hood movie that I couldn't like but...

The leads were past their prime. This could have been worked around but Cate had unflattering costumes and Russell was too bulky to play a spry character.

The score - I keep thinking that it's me and my lack of musical appreciation but every bar felt like it was "off". I couldn't recognize any recurring melodies in it. It was frustrating as hell because I really can like this genre and tried to like this.

The direction/camera - It was very undisciplined, unfocused (I mean not sticking to the right action from the correct angles, nothing was blurry) and sometimes seemingly random. This didn't seem like a Ridley Scott movie at all.

The story - long, complex and humorless. And the narration jumped around with gaps; as long as the movie is, the viewer is expected to fill in numerous blanks and add subtexts from their knowledge of other Robin Hood stories.

Inconsistent characters - as an example, sometimes Prince John was channeling Phoenix's role from Gladiator, sometimes he was channeling Prince Humperdink from The Princess Bride... despite a bit of exposition/screen-time in the middle of the movie focusing on him, there was nothing explaining the last 45 min or so. His actions seemed arbitrary; one minute he's comically inept and sympathetic, the next minute he's not. Most of the characters were introduced and then they popped up for some action sequences and disappeared again.

Some of the battle sequences were pretty good but there were almost no good fights around/with Robin/Crowe. The Robin - vs - Little John was not a good fight. The action in Robin's final sword-fight/confrontation made no sense to me at all - I think I would need medication to try to explain what happened in that sequence.

The only reason this could be called a Robin Hood movie is because of the names of the characters/settings and because they gave Crowe a bow to use in a few scenes, but otherwise there's virtually nothing recognizable about this incarnation. Flipping around some character/place names and a couple minor subplots, they could have called it a King Arthur movie almost as easily as a Robin Hood movie.

I can only imagine that this is one of those movies where people stood around an espresso machine gushing about how "outrageous" they could make the various scenes/characters and that's what got into the movie. Throw plausibility, logic, consistency and everything else out the window. I can't get started on examples because there really aren't words to explain how ridiculous the action is and this review would get bigger than it deserves to be. There was a very definite Batman & Robin/Schumaker vibe to this for me.

CGI characters duking it out for the last fight is always a bad thing (see Mortal Kombat II, also, or rather do not see that) unless it's a James Cameron movie.

The cast was good but they had NOTHING to work with. There were a couple lines where I could see the actors deadpanning and almost subvocalizing "this will be cut" but the lines staid in amongst frenetic scene shifts to keep us from dwelling. I can only imagine what did get cut. If there's a bonus real with the cast cursing out the director or the writer (Sommers) I'd pay to see it.

The F/X budget was there (I think). The setting and costumes all could have been interesting although I felt sorry for Beckinsale.

This movie made all three Underworld movies look like understated masterworks.

It's not even good for kids to see because they might get ideas about stupid things to try.

The production values here are very questionable; there are virtually no f/x other than a handful of werewolf transformations (which may all be taken from one reel, not sure yet). The rest of the werewolf shots are movement off-camera with shadows and fairly bad makeup/costumes; stuff from 1950s Hollywood...

There's virtually no action. We have seen two of the main characters get beat up and/or pushed around a couple times but that was brief, unsatisfying and otherwise did nothing for my action itch.

Other than that is story, the characters and rather reckless, go-for-broke acting (and some good music). Occasionally they miss their marks but far more often they do not and the show and characters definitely have grown on me where I did not think they would. The three main actors have remarkable chemistry; they could probably thrive with any material. I had no idea what they were going to do with the ghost in this show but her stories have consistently been my favorites.

I recommend it with the caveat that you will need an open mind if you're used to a bit more Hollywood polish.

Whatever it costs to get a HD big screen TV capable of playing 3D, along with the player and the glasses, I WILL PAY IT. I don't care if I have to sell my corvette. I don't even have a big screen TV now.

Terminator and Aliens are two of my favorite all-time movies. JC has since come out with Abyss and Titanic - both good but neither making any of my top lists. So I wasn't expecting something nearly awesome. This was. People say the story is weak. It isn't. People say it is derivative - ALL movies are derivative, even Terminator, even Aliens and even Titanic - this movie has plenty which separates it. And the characters have depth even if you sometimes have to read between the lines to see it. Aside from those talking points, the f/x, action sequences, epic scale, and raw fun are all magnificent. And I haven't used the word magnificent in years and I'm pretty sure my use of it was related to 'The Magnificent Seven'. The movie is as entertaining as I can imagine a movie to be.