Reviews

An Englishman's view of Napoleon, big reveal.

The title character has the charisma of ground pork that has been in the fridge for two weeks. He is dysfunctional in most conceivable ways and few redeeming qualities are shown. Historical inaccuracies are too many to list. A particular embarrassment occurs when Napoleon returns from Elba and the troops sent to arrest him defect to him en masse on his word alone, an accurate depiction of a real event. Nothing that the film depicts explains how Napoleon could command such towering loyalty from anyone. The scenes involving Josephine are too many, too long and too cringe. Eventually they become an experience that reminds of the dentist, where you reach into your pocket to clutch your keys and wait for it to be over. Without putting a too fine point on it, the objective of this work is to elevate the character Josephine, and diminish the character Napoleon, for certain dystopian reasons that by now are all to familiar to most. What is not so typical here is that an author of Ridley Scott's stature has chosen to debase himself to the extent as is evident in this work. Why? What could be worth this?

First off: does this installment improve upon the 1984 film? No, it fails at that, which is telling.

The pacing is slow, when the film should be trying to economize on time to encompass such a huge story. Certain aspects of the story are neglected, such as the Emperor, Navigators and the Harkonnen, in favor of empty drawn-out scenes. The hand in the box leaves you cold, there is no sense of the intensity that should be felt in that scene. Villeneuve assaults the senses with excessive noise, as is his hallmark. Likewise the excessive use of color filters gives a bland look.

The second half of the film is torture, as the plot hardly moves forward in 90 minutes, a masterclass in bad screenwriting. Truly awful adaptation from book to film there. It does seem as Villeneuve is going to show us less of Dune in 6 hours than Lynch did in some 2 hours.

There are some bright spots, such as the battle for Arrakeen and the Sandworm attack. Those are impressive scenes.

The story lacks credibility on too many counts. That is the main reason I lost interest before the end.

The headline says most of it. Tarantino's use of banal dialogue as a device has long since worn out its luster. Most scenes are painful to watch, because you know what is coming: repetition of banal lines that were never interesting to begin with. The excessive amount of gore adds nothing. Certain segments defy credibility in the interest of exploitation-type effect, e.g. the General Smithers bit. The usual Tarantino craft ensures a degree of quality that lands a 6.

I'm a big fan of the show. But this episode moves into territory everyone should stay out of - author onanism. Authors inserting themselves or their work into the narrative. If you want to talk about how you create, do a "making of". Don't write a show with constant nods to yourself. It's pretty uninteresting stuff for viewers who have come to watch original and thought provoking sci-fi. R&M have occasionally strayed into the subject of screenwriting before, but rarely, and never without having a solid storyline besides. This time they go overboard and there is no storyline besides this self-indulgence.

So, worst episode ever, and hopefully R&M return to form next week.

I'm a Terminator fan. T2 is a high water mark in action film making that few will ever reach. This movie, Terminator 3:Rise of the machines, is worth some money seeing. It was never going to match T2, let's be realistic. But it's anything but terrible. There's female injection, but there had to be some to make up for Sarah Connor, it's not a problem. The first half is sufficiently interesting, and the action is sufficiently exciting, but not much more. The plot is well set up, regarding John Connor's situation. Now, I don't want to spoil, but the ending really - REALLY - hits home. Incredibly powerful.

All in all, this film moves along from the position of T2, and delivers everything sufficiently well, or even a lot better than that. A worthy third instalment.

P.S. isn't it interesting that T3 and Dark Fate score about the same but T3 has mostly positive reviews but D.F. has mostly terrible reviews? Just a thought.

I failed to watch in one sitting. The trademark Tarantino dialogue is getting dated. You just want them to get on with it, not spell everything out to the last syllable. The hoods discussion is just ludicrous, uninteresting, and forced. The viewer is supposed to care whether Django is reunited with his wife. It's hard to stay interested in that. The exaggerated gore is unintentionally comical. There is a problem with motivation for the german guy. Being german just isn't enough for him to lay everything on the line. Credibility is a major issue. How hard would it be to get possession of one damaged-goods slave girl if you wanted it this badly? Didn't watch the whole thing, and I honestly don't care how it ends.

This film has much to recommend it for. Visually excellent, as is to be expected. The film nicely fleshes out some elements left obscure from the beginning of the Alien saga, and adds a new direction and dimension of urgency, the "Creators". It feels fresh by not merely adding complications to the end of the saga, as a sequel might, and has done in Resurrection. That said, the film has serious problems. The characters are mostly unconvincing and out of place. The crew of scientists chosen for this important and ambitious mission seem to be far from the cream of the crop, rather like a bunch of immature, irresponsible bungling idiots with behavioral problems. Other crew also show a relaxed attitude to the mission that seems out of place. The plot is somewhat ludicrous. The crew recklessly, repeatedly and consistently ignore the very obvious signs of biohazard, in a rushed approach that is driven by no apparent reason or urgency. What should be serious characters repeatedly skirt discussion of their situation, and rather wander blindly - repeatedly at that - into a threatening situation. Contrast that with the first Alien film, where a crew that should be of a considerably lower caliber carefully appraise their situation before acting. Elizabeth's feats in her medical condition seem unlikely, to say the least. Some characters have problems with motivation, especially David, although that might be resolved in a sequel. Nevertheless, a film worthy of repeated viewing - use local anesthesia for the problematic parts.

In the original, Roy Batty asks Deckard, "Aren't you supposed to be the good man?" - which Deckard isn't, or at most ambiguously so. In 2049, agent "K" is a good man in a typical Hollywood way, which spoils the concept of the original. 2049 contains several run-of- the-mill fight scenes which the viewer has seen in a thousand other films and add nothing. The much-awaited confrontation between K and Deckard doesn't make much sense, and their meeting is unfulfilling to the viewer. The look of the film is probably intended to contrast with the original, but is unsatisfying. A lot of annoying bright light and white surfaces, and uniform colors. The eclectic look of the original is gone. There is little sign of the thoughtfulness and effort which went into the look of the original. The sound effects are probably the worst feature, loud, grating and unnecessary. Multiple scenes of gratuitous violence and gore add nothing to the plot. There are a lot of assaults on the senses which don't help the movie much, but made this viewer think of drug dealers with bad heroin, who add a little rat poison to provide a kick. There are plot holes: problems with K's motivation, illogical events and an unexplained major phenomenon which is just too convenient for the plot. The film makes a logical extension of the replicant conundrum which does not however reach such dimensions as to capture the viewer's interest. This film is probably best enjoyed by those who have never seen the original.

It is a bit unfair to compare this film with the 80's BBC TV series, suffice it to say that the latter delivers the story infinitely better. What spoiled this film for me was the political message/propaganda contained in it and the message is that men are weak, pathetic, unresourceful and unsympathetic creatures. Almost all (if not all) the male characters are portrayed more negatively than in the TV production, sometimes very much so:

Peter Guillam goes from a turbocharged playboy, physical type to a fumbling, crying, closet homosexual.

Percy Alleline and Toby Esterhazy are both somewhat unsympathetic characters with certain weaknesses, yet with qualities relevant to their profession and in Alleline's case, a commanding presence. Both are reduced to goblins, really, with no apparent redeeming qualities in the film.

Boris goes from a "Moscow Center hood", a real tough guy to someone falling over himself as a pretend drunk.

Jim Prideaux is horribly miscast, no longer the "iron fist in the iron glove" but looks actually more at home as a teacher.

Bill Hayden was the cavalier and charmer in the TV series, we don't see much of him in the film, except to make it clear that he is the office head lecher if not sexual predator. The wit and charm is nowhere to be seen.

Roy Bland doesn't leave much of an impression in the film, so is hard to measure on this scale.

The Budapest waiter sweating - more of the same.

Control and Smiley retain most of their personas. The film takes care to show Control's death, irrelevantly, in an unsympathetic light.

The male characters in the film are further undermined by the lack of physical action and resourcefulness. The highly sensitive Budapest meeting is in a public place; Toby Esterhazy is snatched at the front door of the Circus; Ricky Tarr doesn't enter Boris' and Irina's flat solidly trying to talk himself out of the situation but takes on the role of a Peeping Tom instead. Any character of the story would put it like this: "Where's the tradecraft?" There doesn't seem to be any in the entire film at all.

Then there's the piece of graffiti on a wall around the middle of the film - "The future is female". That's as may be, but why fill this period film with sexist propaganda? Why not try to do the story justice instead? It appears that the whole point of the film is to make the male characters look worthless, incompetent and undeserving of their positions - quite a bit like soviet film making showing us the failings of Tzarist society.

Many pros and cons have already been detailed by other reviewers, what some see as poetry and philosophy others find pretentious. I can see the merit of both positions. However, the more serious and disturbing aspect of this film is the historical inaccuracy and the racial overtones. In The Thin Red Line, Japanese soldiers (apart from battle scenes) are depicted as children, sometimes naked children, wallowing helplessly. US soldiers and officers are variously depicted, but frequently given vicious and cruel character traits, and the more negative character traits are given to those characters that are played by those actors that appear to have the greater north European ancestry. Is it silly to note or comment on this slant? Imagine we were dealing with black soldiers, and that the darker ones would be portrayed in this way; enough said. The Japanese soldiers as portrayed in this film are largely unrecognizable as the ruthless warriors that history records. The scene where a whole platoon of Japanese soldiers is unable to bring themselves to kill an armed enemy soldier who refuses to surrender is patently absurd. Tie this into the racial overtones I have already described, and we are onto something very unsavory indeed. The film gets 5 for fairly interesting battle scenes, though they are few and far between.

This film rather transparently deals with the apartheid era in South Africa, with a wider message on immigration today, only blacks/immigrants/whoever are portrayed as aliens. The living conditions of the aliens, forced on them by the human population, is so accurately modeled on the living conditions of blacks under apartheid as to leave no room for confusion. This message is largely delivered through the main 'alien' character, who serves to remind that despite a group's manifest loutish behaviour, said group is nevertheless composed of intelligent and noble individuals. Also, inevitably, it is revealed that the master race (humans) are much worse than the downtrodden louts (aliens). The final message, the possibility of a declaration of war on the human race by the alien race in retaliation for mistreatment is again a rather transparent multiculti social message: Treat us well or when we are in the driving seat we are going to treat you badly - or alternately this can be construed as justification for what is happening in post-apartheid South Africa.

The film is fast paced and exciting, and no doubt thoroughly enjoyable for anyone able to ignore or stay unconscious of the film's political message. It would be much more enjoyable (and original) if the film had left multicultural politics behind it and accurately focused on the issues that would arise between humans and aliens. In this respect 'Mars Attacks' achieves more - which is saying something.

Fairly good overall, but inferior to other recent dramas of the Tudor era such as Henry VIII, Elizabeth (1998), Gunpowder Treason and Plot in that there is recourse to melodrama - a hint of a cult of personality that is absent from e.g. the 1998 production. Unfortunately this tinge of melodrama brings an overall feel of shallowness to the production which might otherwise not be there. At the same time one cannot fail to note that characters other than Elizabeth's are underdeveloped compared to the 1998 film, especially Walshingham's, which appears in both works. Well worth a watch but a little disappointing. Blanchett's Elizabeth is the recommended choice over Mirren's.

We have Leon, the hyper-assassin with a warm heart; we have Keyser Zöse, the unseen god of criminals; we have the now beyond predictable Ritchie brand of English gangsters; we have the overly logical manner of expression that used to be cute in the 90's; in other words, this film is beset with clichés, it is unoriginal, and crushingly boring a lot of the time. The ending is an anticlimax, and a pretty silly one at that. And yes, I "got" the plot, in case anyone is wondering. The film tries a little to hard to hide it, probably because there is not that much sense to make of it.

On the upside, there is the fresh and interesting delivery of the character "Sorter" by Mark Strong.

When you you are expecting the conventional hollywood back-of-the-hand slap to the face, the wind is doubly so knocked out of you when you receive a full force punch in the stomach. That is what this film did to this viewer. Now, how historical it is I couldn't say. But as storytelling, nothing is held back. The uglyness it portrays is uncompromising. The storyline, though tortuous, holds together. Worth seeing without a doubt.

This film has good points of course; acting, camera work and the general look of the film are beyond reproach. However, the plot does not carry a film of this length and scope, and this proves to be a fatal flaw in the tapestry. The excessive time devoted to the unfolding of the relatively simple story makes a mockery of the otherwise fine efforts of the actors, and make them look overdramatised and pretentious. This is where the film crashes in the view of this critic, because a serious and dramatic film can absolutely not afford to be pretentious. Cut by 45 minutes, this film might well have been good. 4/10

It is awesome. It is indescribable. It is the greatest film I have ever seen, and I have seen a lot. It brought tears to my eyes just by sheer visual power. Peter Jackson is the God of cinema. His treatment is so strong that he casts a shadow on Tolkien himself. If this film does not get the lions share of the oscars, then those people are beyond redemption.