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Immortals (2011)
Erotica for the simplistic, sadistic, bi-curious human
This is a really stupid movie.
The best thing about Immortals is the acting. John Hurt is a great actor and this role doesn't seem to take much out of him.
Mickey Rourke isn't bad considering his two-dimensional character and cast well because he is what some of these very good looking males will look like if the try to destroy their bodies. This makes the story utterly simplistic (which is not good or bad): good guys are bodybuilders with good jaw lines, bad guys are the scarred, ugly people who enjoy torture and murder and so on.
(Considering that all the actors seem so be chosen because of how good they look shirtless and that every character is two dimensional, I am surprised by how good the acting is.) The chief bad man (Rourke) murders a person every time he hears bad news, which is taken straight from the worst Jean-Claude van Damme movies.
The first flaw I'll discuss is that no body seems to be able to act rationally. When the oracle says to the men: 'stand your ground when the cloudless sky roars' (paraphrased) they actually flee and pretend that they followed the oracles advice. The boat would actually have made a great excuse to transport the gang of heroes to another location. Not to mention that they then wouldn't have the strange plot hole of escaping a tsunami by jumping behind a cliff.(By the way why did the boat have the shape of a Dutch wooden shoe? Was it really just to make the scene change work?)
When a bow is found no one ever tries to gain distance from the target to actually use the bow the way it is intended and it is actually lost after only one useful use by the hero. In the scene where the heroes know it is a trap, Theseus storms after the monk with the bow and doesn't think to stay on top of the cliff to shoot his arrows to the bad people below is baffling.
The "dam" at the end (which is actually a wall) has a small opening in it where the hordes of bad men need to get through. Considering the obvious influence 300 has had on the style of this movie it is strange to me that the people in the narrow passage do not use the tactic which made the battle portrayed in 300 so historic: closing the narrow gap by locking shields.
The scene where Theseus has sex with the oracle is simply weird. The tension seems all wrong, there is no chemistry, and if I were to read the mood just before they kiss I'd have said that the oracle would have decided not to have sex. (Oh, if you are having sex like this, you are not satisfying your partner) The lack of character development becomes painfully obvious in this scene, the growing together of the two characters consisted of maybe five lines spoken to one another, something about visions being a curse or a gift. At the end the characters just separate and then Theseus dies, the end.
There is a point in the movie where miners are mining something around a temple, it seems they are merely doing this to fill the screen. No mention about funding the army or something, just people digging a hole.
The graphic quality is not bad. The makers seem to have gotten the jest of how to do the action in the 300 way, but do it just a bit more sloppy. The 30 seconds it takes Zeus to slam his whip into a god is a bit much, especially since it doesn't help the plot much. There is a point where a soldier jumps with two feet onto an enemy shield knocking them over, to anyone who says Immortals is not like 300, this exact jump is done in 300.
The worst thing about the the look of the film is the idiotic costumes. The soldiers are often wearing Roman armor, which I don't really care about, but the gods really have the most ridiculous stuff on their heads. Aries seems to have strapped gold colored fence poles to his head in the form of a Mohawk and Poseidon has princess Leia buns made out of plastic. Also the non god characters: Hyperion with a Venus fly trap helmet with bunny ears and the minotaur with a barb wire (invented in 1900 or something) helmet.
The worst scene to me is when the gods fight the Titans. The Titans are apparently blue/grey goblins scurrying around in a hole. The gods beem in like the are the Power Rangers and at the end the battle (and death of some of the five? gods) seems to be pointless because Zeus just lets the mountain collapse. This part is sloppy acting since the movement Zeus makes does not imply an enormous effort.
Overall, this movie has some good visuals, but is flawed in script, logic, characters, dress, locations, bad use of source material and if it didn't have a lot of extremely bloody violence and naked people there would be no reason to go see this movie at all. A number of other movies have done parts of the visual style of Immortals, but they have done it better, so go see those and not this.
De brief voor de koning (2008)
Hasted garbage
This movie is dreadful. I really can not understand why the director is being praised for what he created here.
Every scene seems to be rushed, as if there wasn't enough film in the camera. Like when Piak throws Tiuri his sword. Piak doesn't throw it further than a few feet yet when the camera changes its angle, all of a sudden the sword flies another 8 feet. Is it such a bother to just throw that sword a few times more often?
And then there are the actors, almost all of them the best Holland has to offer and a few of Germany's great. How come none of these fine actors seem to shine in their parts? Isn't it a big part of the directors work to ensure they do their best?
Then there are parts of the book that are altered for no good reason. Why doesn't this film start with Tiuri in the chapel? That would have been a great introduction for the main character. A dim lit chapel, and then the knock on the door and the cry for help. It is easy to convey a bit a drama to that, but it doesn't happen. Vokia is also wounded, no idea why, he wasn't in the book. And it doesn't quite fit either.
There are parts that I liked in this movie. The shots of the landscape through which Tiuri goes are pretty good. The actor that plays Jaro does a good job. And when Tiuri meets the lord of the toll I got an emotional response from this performance, even though it doesn't really make sense in light of the book.
All in all, I just think it is too bad they didn't put some more effort into this. It could have been something if the makers would have just spend some more time in preparing dramatic effect, storyboard and a decent script.
I sincerely hope they don't ruin another great book by Tonke Dragt.
A disappointed fan.
The Insatiable (2006)
Pretty good flick.
I just saw the screener and it's pretty good. It's not a high budget movie, but it's very tastefully done. It's not about the gore, it's not quite a thriller or a comedy. It's a mixture. Keeping it real and somewhat close to life. About the acting: There is one scene where they should have slapped the actor and make him do it again for screwing up his timing, but on the whole it's very entertaining. Sean Patrick Flanery did great, although you do get the sense of a cool guy playing a dork. But that's easily forgotten by the 'hey, it's the guy from the Boondock Saints' feeling. (or maybe that's just me) I think you'll enjoy this movie. It just might make you smile, or give you a kinky idea to try with your girlfriend... (just consider this part a joke, those fainthearted people amongst us)
Anyway: good flick, go watch it.
Perfume: The Story of a Murderer (2006)
Extraordinarily close to the book
This movie is fantastic. Why? Well, because it follows the book so closely, and the book is so marvelous. I should say I've seen the French version of this movie, and I think that was a good choice. Normally I wouldn't say so but this movie is about a Frenchman, it takes place in France and the French narrators voice, for instance, is far more compelling. Every major scene from the book is in the movie except one, which is a shame. However, it is an understandable choice.
Every scene has the right atmosphere, just enough lighting. The acting is great. And the most important thing, they haven't altered the plot immensely or shied away to much from nudity or violence.
In short this is as close to a masterpiece as it can be, making a movie from a book, that could not be made into a movie.