July 26, 2004

Spiderman 2

♪Spiderman... spiderman… la la la la spider can...♪

well, that was more exciting than the movie…

I suppose I should start this review at the beginning. The beginning was actually good – the credits that is. While they rolled the opening credits, they showed comic book-esque scenes from the first movie. That was a really nice touch.

It went downhill from there.

The movie started out slow, to say the least. Peter Parker is a screw up. Ok we get it. Being spiderman is messing up his “normal” life. Ok we get it. Hello! *tap tap* is this thing on? I said we get it! Assuming your audience is a bunch of morons who don’t understand a concept unless you repeatedly ram it down their throats is not a way to endear them to your movie.

Ok, moving along. Moving right along (unlike the movie). After what felt like 5 years, the examples of how much being spiderman is causing young Petey’s life to go down the crapper finally came to an end. Enter Kirsten Dunst with red hair - Mary Jane, whose name gets me every time.

Summary version of their relationship: She loves Peter. Peter loves her. Spiderman is screwing it up. Wow. we’ve really deviated from the theme of the first ½ hour now, haven’t we?

Of course, the movie doesn’t do it in summary version, but rather in long-winded, angst-filled, over-dramatic version. I think there was an action movie in there somewhere. Excuse me; has anybody seen my action movie? I seem to have misplaced it in this romance/drama chik-flik. Anybody? Bueller?

Now, let’s get one thing straight. I am all about romance in movies. I love romance in movies. But seriously, can we tone down the “when harry met sally” and tone up “spiderman.” Please?

And then there was doc oc. I have nothing against big people, but a chunky octopus was not nearly as frightening as Willem Dafoe’s Green Goblin in the last movie. I mean, he actually looked like he could fight spiderman, and wouldn’t just give up and go have a donut. And then doc oc turned out to be good in the end. I hate it when they make the bad guys turn good. The only villain that has ever pulled this off and didn’t piss me off by turning into a complete sissy in the process was darth vader. If you’re bad, be bad. Be true to yourself! Don’t change to conform to what society has deemed to be good.

To top it all off, Spiderman took off his mask. I need say nothing more about this for the appallingness of the action speaks for itself.

I give this movie 1 ½ stars: ½ for the opening credits, 1 for James Franco who is a cutie. But of course, they are making him into the Green Goblin for the next film, so I’m supposing they’re going to kill him off, losing the only good thing this movie had going for it.

Posted by Terri at 04:37 PM | Comments (1)

July 14, 2004

Troy

Ah, where to begin?

I went into this movie with high hopes for several reasons, not least of which was the cast of hunky men. Add to that the fact that the Iliad is an amazing story, and I was expecting a thoroughly pleasurable experience.

Boy, was I wrong.

It started off well, with a naked Brad Pitt. Add to that a topless Orlando Bloom and a scantily clad Eric Bana. Not long after that, the unknown Garrett Hedlund came on screen and added a nice piece of unexpected eye candy. But once I got past all the man flesh, I realized that these gorgeous guys were no better than cardboard cut outs. I could have phoned in a better performance. So if I may, I would like to address the next few comments to some of the characters.

Achilies, dear, standing outside the walls of Troy screaming Hector’s name over and over is not dramatic, it’s funny. Very funny. And flexing muscles does not make up for lack of acting.

Paris, honey, your brother just died because of your stupid, foolish, rash, selfish actions. Confusion is not the correct expression to be wearing. I know you’re pretty, but you still have to act. And the fact that you got your Legolas on at the end of the movie does not redeem you.

I actually thought Sean Bean was decent, and I had no complaints (that I can remember) about Eric Bana’s or Garrent Hedlund’s performances. I thought Brian Cox was rather funny as Agamemnon, bringing about the only entertaining parts of the whole movie. I don’t have much to say about the three main women in the movie. Their performances were rather shallow as well, I thought. I can’t entirely blame the actors, because when almost everyone’s’ performances are poor, you have to look to the director. I mean, he’s the one looking at dailys and saying “Yup, these look good.”

The only person that turned in a decent performance was Peter O’Toole, but then again, he’s Peter O’Toole. The scene between him and Brad Pitt would have been the only redeeming part of the movie had the rest of it not been so awful. I mean, after a while, it was just painful to watch, like a train wreck.

Aside from the less-than-mediocre acting, they managed to turn the plot of a perfectly good story into a borefest. Come on people, the story was already written for you, all you had to do was adapt it for film. How do you mess that up? There was bad dialogue running rampant through both the Spartan camp and the Trojan city. A friend of mine referred to this as “soft porn for women.” The acting is bad, the story is bad, but there is lots of nice flesh to look at. That’s about all this movie was good for. It would have been better if the nice flesh kept their mouths shut and just stood around and looked pretty.

Posted by Terri at 10:24 AM | Comments (2)

January 08, 2004

Lord of the Rings - Return of the King

*** warning - there will be spoilers, so if you don't want to know what happens, don't read.

where to begin? i had eagerly awaited this movie since the end credits rolled of the two towers. i would have been at the theater tuesday at midnight had i not been on call for work. so wednesday evening, i bought tickets and we went to see it.

wow

i had heard that critics said it was not as good as the other two. i have to disagree. i thought it was wonderful. the cinematography was again amazing. i have to go to new zealand and see if it is truly as beautiful as it appears in the movie. the effects were superbly done again. they were not overdone, which can take away from a movie. they added just what was needed to make everything believable. but neither of those elements is what made this movie.

what made this movie was the people in it and their relationships with each other. for some reason, those came across more to me in this movie than in the other two. (and it wasn't because i wasn't swooning. i absolutely was. i kept trying to 'touch the pretty elf' until darren smacked my hand down) from merry and pippin's parting with each other to sam and frodo on mount doom in mordor; from aragorn and eowyn in rohan to legolas and gimli on the final battlefield; from theoden and eowyn saying goodbye to faramir's exchanges with his father; it was these moments of human interaction that made this movie. not the grand sweeping scenery. not the amazing sfx. not the gorgeous men (although they were nice too). the characters were real. you felt their pain. you felt their joy.

i cried like a baby for the ten minutes leading up to when theoden dies. i cried again during the last battle (not pelennor fields, the one outside the black gate). i cried again when frodo leaves with gandalf, bilbo and the elves to take the straight road west across the sea. darren just sat there and shook his head at me.

there are a few things that i wanted to point out, comparing this yet again to my other favorite trilogy - yes, star wars. first, the name struck me - 'return of the jedi' vs 'return of the king'. i believe lucas admitted to being a fan. which would also explain why alderaan means 'lord of the trees' in elvish (spelled aldaron) and why endor means 'middle-earth'. also, darren insists that in the battle of pelennor fields the huge oliphants were a shout-out to the at-ats in empire strikes back. i'm not so sure about that, but i swear, the scene where theoden dies, and eowyn tells him she must save him and he says she already has, i swear i've seen that before somewhere. where was that? ah yes - return of the jedi. i think whether it was done intentionally or unintentionally, it was a nice shout-back to star wars. what i mean by shout-back is that lucas had many shout-outs to tolkien in his movies. this was just a return of the favor.

i was glad to see that they didn't end the movie once aragorn was crowned. i think i was the only one in the theater who felt this way. if they had given me a potty break, i could have stayed for another 3 hours to see the return voyage, the scouring of the shire, and the rest of the book that had to be cut to make the movie marketable. i also would have liked to see more than just a glance between eowyn and faramir. i think some people felt it dragged after the coronation, and i don't think there was any way to keep it from being anti-climatic. i think they took it just far enough, for a movie anyway, by showing bilbo, frodo, gandalf & company crossing the sea and sam returning home. i am always hopeful for extended and additional scenes in the dvd, but i don't think people would have stayed in the movies much longer than they did.

all in all, i think it was an entertaining movie whether you are a tolkien fan or not. i'm not sure if it would make sense to someone not seeing the first two, but they are a worthwhile investment of time as well.

so i am going to start out this new year dating and rating. (no, not men - my movies). i will date the review and rate the movie on a scale of 0-10 stars. this movie, my first review of the new year even though i saw it last year, i give a 9 out of 10. (i would have given the two towers 9 1/2 out of 10 and fellowship 9/10, just for reference) i have yet to see a movie that is 10/10 - nothing is perfect, but these sure come close.

Posted by Terri at 10:31 AM | Comments (0)