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Reviews
Azazel (2002)
Mixed feelings
The book is excellent, no question, but, unfortunately, the movie is not as good. Noskov's (Fandorin) acting is not convincing and his voice sounds really strange at times. Brilling is a typical Andrey Mironov type, and it looks like Bezrukov tries to imitate his acting. The best of all is Neelova (Lady Ester): her acting is way above everybody else's. Overall, the movie feels a little bit raw, as if made in a hurry: some parts are good, some are bad. So it's not like old-time classics, but still worth seeing.
Begushchaya po volnam (1967)
I enjoyed it
I read the book as a child, but saw the movie only recently. I liked it very much: excellent scenario, music, acting. The movie does not follow the book exactly, but conveys the same spirit and, in my opinion, is a nice interpretation of the book. Garvey's accent (Bulgarian, I assume) seemed a little unusual to me, but maybe for that role it is good.
This movie is definitely not for people who like Hollywood or any cheap stuff shown on TV nowadays. And, of course, those not fluent in Russian, will miss a lot.
The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (2002)
Worse than the first movie, but still OK
This movie is similar to the first one, but is slightly different. Here are the bad things: 1. The director has done a bad job running several story lines in parallel and switching between them arbitrarily. 2. bad camerawork during fights - the camera moves too quickly and it is hard to follow what is going on. The whole movie is too fast-paced, but this is Hollywood (...) 3. "sentimental moments" - i.e. they turn on some seemingly sentimental
music and characters begin looking at each other in some special way and saying trite things about friendship or love. 4. "Dwarf humor". OK, the dwarf is small and funny. You say it ones, you say it twice, again, and again, and again. The movie is not about the dwarf after all. 5. Too much Gorlum. OK, he has two personalities constantly fighting each other. You show it once, you show it twice, ... He is not the main figure in the story.
So, all in all, the movie is a little bit too long with lots of typical Hollywood cliches. But there is good animation, special effects. The fights are really interesting in places, but, of course, easily predictable. Very nice mountains in NZ. The movie still has a lot of good things in it and is definitely worth watching once.