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philip-63
Reviews
Pride & Prejudice (2005)
Pretty, but heavily dumbed down
The best thing about Jane Austen's heroines is that they are flawed people who are forced to confront their failings. In 'Pride and Prejudice', Elisabeth Bennet's flaws are multiple. She has most of the brains in the family and knows it; she is opinionated and something of an intellectual snob. She can also be rather priggish and holier-than-thou. All this adds up to the 'prejudice' that blinds her to Mr Darcey's virtues. None of the Austen's Miss Bennet is found in this visually attractive but rather empty adaptation. This Elisabeth Bennet is nice throughout the story, exhibiting not a trace of imperfection at any point. Even her bookishness is almost entirely cut out, lest we find it intimidating. As for her disapproval of Mr Darcey - all too paper thin - is based entirely on hard evidence. Anyone in her shoes would feel the same way, given what she sees and hears. In the end, it turns out her information was incomplete, and so she is able to accept his advances. That's it. As simple misunderstanding is cleared up.
Austen's novel is more than a romantic comedy in regency dress. But you would never think so from a timid adaptation that tries too hard to be liked, and ends up pitifully short of grit and substance.
War of the Worlds (2005)
Independence Day without the humour
There's lots of CGI mayhem, as you'd expect. There's a big bass-heavy sound track to keep you jumping in your seat, of course. The aliens are exactly as you've seen them a dozen times before (the consensus on what aliens look like is peculiar, given that nobody has ever seen one). There is nothing to get your teeth into plot-wise. Tom Cruise's journey to cuddly daddy-hood is dull and irritating, and frequently saccharine to the point of embarrassment. The audience jumps, but is rarely scared. The in-jokes and semi-topical references (to ET and 9/11) do not lift the piece into enjoyable kitsch, as happened with Independence Day. And the familiarity of the whole scenario acts like a dead-weight. In short, a safety-first cash-in that brings nothing new to the party.
Alfie (2004)
Toothless remake, a missed opportunity
Whether or not you have seen or ever liked the original 'Alfie' starring Michael Caine, you are unlikely to get much out of this surprisingly disappointing film, unless you find the sight of Jude Law smirking his way through 90-plus minutes a turn-on. Clearly the writers/producers of this remake felt that the behaviour of the original Alfie - a cold-hearted sexual conqueror with, by today's standards, an appallingly chauvinistic attitude to women - would not be credible today. Either that or they felt that we in the audience would simply end up hating Jude Law, which, of course, we can never be allowed to do (stars are stars, after all - they have their public images to think of). So instead they give Alfie a soft-focus, almost Hugh Grant-style makeover, place him in New York (where his English manners inevitably come over as slightly quaint) and ask us to simply bask in his good looks and charm. The result is that this Alfie has no real dark side, not a whiff of the casual machismo that made Caine so compelling, and consequently no impact. Ironically, an updated remake could have been great. The attitudes Alfie exhibited in the original film are alive and well today - only buried beneath a surface of socially acceptable behaviour. Many men today would LOVE to be Alfie, if only they had the chance. And some women are even willing to play along. The question is: why? What's going on? Why haven't things changed? Or have they? There was a fantastically rich seam of material here, if only these film-makers had found the wit or the courage to exploit it. Instead they opted for a romantic comedy - only one with a serious lack of jokes. What next? Perhaps a remake of 'Schindler's List' where the camp guards only tickle their prisoners with feather dusters. Can't wait.
Cold Mountain (2003)
Slow, slow, quick, quick, SLOW
There's a certain amount of nice scenic photography in this film. The mountains in winter look good from a helicopter. There is some rather horrible gore at the beginning, during the civil war battle. The rest is like "The Outlaw Josey Whales" without pace and without Eastwood's charisma. Just when you think the action may pick up, we get another softly-spoken, dirge-like voice-over from Nicole Kidman. Jude Law makes little impression in the lead male role. He is monosyllabic, and comes over as too lightweight for the 'epic' tale he is obliged to carry. Overall, the action is fatally episodic and the script WAY TOO LONG. Someone should have told Mingella to get busy with the blue pencil, but I guess he is too big a fish these days for that to happen. Pity. In the hands of a more dynamic director/writer it could have been good.
Love Actually (2003)
Desire, actually
I really didn't enjoy this film, for all its moments of comedy and several good performances. The brazen tackiness of it all raised my hackles. It wants SO MUCH for you to like it, from the title to the sound track, that it falls over itself. Further more, it isn't really about love at all. What we see time and again is desire, plain and simple. Real love (self-sacrifice, constancy, selflessness etc) barely enters the equation. In fact, you could say the parading of this imposter does it, if anything, a great disservice. Curtis would have done better to think up a good story and tell it, rather than air the rather half-baked philosophical concept underlying these different scenarios.
Good Bye Lenin! (2003)
A German 'Amelie' with a poignant edge
This is a delightful film that richly deserves its growing success. It's an engaging and humorous tale of well-intentioned deception, in which a young man tries to protect his ailing mother from the potentially lethal truth that the old East Germany, for which she has sacrificed so much, has actually disappeared during the 80 days she was in a coma. Marked with clever editing, excellent acting, touching humour and some genuine historical and personal insights, it's a genuine delight. I'd recommend it to anyone looking for a break from the usual summer blockbuster fare. And don't worry about the subtitles: the film isn't at all verbose and relies mostly on images and emotions to make its points. Go and see it!
The Heart of Me (2002)
Brits going through the motions
My, what a repressed lot the inter-war British were, or so film-makers born decades later would have us believe. Well, in this movie here they are again being more repressed than ever - and the ones that aren't repressed are slightly batty, reckless and self-indulgent. Overall the film affects great seriousness, but cannot escape the melodramatic and contrived nature of its source material (a pot-boiler-ish novel by Rosamund Lehman dating from the 1960s). Bonham-Carter reprises roles she'd done before with ease. Williams is rather wooden, even allowing for the (you guesses it) repressed nature of her character. Bettany has done better, but carries off his role believably. But this is not enough to lift the film out of a rather unsatisfying gray area between melodrama and serious/historical period drama.
The Man from Elysian Fields (2001)
Tiresome premise and familiar plot mar enjoyment
This film reportedly suffered budgetary problems. After the first half hour, it's easy to see why. The premise is simply too familiar, and is EXACTLY the kind you would expect to find in something like THE RED SHOE DIARIES, or made-for-TV soft core erotica like that. Consequently the characters lack any sense of being real, and we care about them little. Garcia is adequate, but never stretches himself. Coburn is agreeably crusty. Jagger is not very good, and Williams does what she always does: look attractive, but pained beneath the surface, as if suffering from haemerrhoids. The dialog is periodically snappy. There are some good lines, but the promise of artistic insight is never fulfilled. The film ends predictably and with a cloying dose of schmalz. Overall: disappointing.
Maid in Manhattan (2002)
Shame on you, Ralph
The make-up people must have used a TON of gloop to cover up Ralph's red face on this one. Never a good smiler (let's face it) his attempts here at being warm and genuine are truly painful, and it's a miracle his face doesn't crack open from the effort. There's zero screen chemistry between him and Lopez, and the story is pure Hollywood factory output - unoriginal, uninspired, unfunny. A strong candidate for worst film of the year.
Road to Perdition (2002)
Crude plot, doubtful casting
This source material for this film is a so-called 'graphic novel'. Perhaps this explains its weakness. The situation is extreme, and the conflicts therefore obvious and predictable. The movie is imaginatively shot and tightly directed, but it suffers from poor casting. Hanks is never credible as a man who blows people's brains out for a living (Hanks? Oh Come on!), and Jude Law leers his way through his psychotic role with all the subtlety of Victorian melodrama.
Definitely not for grown-ups. Feels like a comic strip, but without the necessary element of self-parody.
The Man from Elysian Fields (2001)
Tiresome premise and familiar plot mar enjoyment
This film reportedly suffered budgetary problems. After the first half hour, it's easy to see why. The premise is simply too familiar, and is EXACTLY the kind you would expect to find in something like THE RED SHOE DIARIES, or made-for-TV soft core erotica like that. Consequently the characters lack any sense of being real, and we care about them little. Garcia is adequate, but never stretches himself. Coburn is agreeably crusty. Jagger is not very good, and Williams does what she always does: look attractive, but pained beneath the surface, as if suffering from haemerrhoids. The dialog is periodically snappy. There are some good lines, but the promise of artistic insight is never fulfilled. The film ends predictably and with a cloying dose of schmalz. Overall: disappointing.
The Others (2001)
Nothing new - at ALL!
A creepy Victorian house surrounded by fog. Things that go bump in the night (and at other times). Creepy servants, scared children. A twist you can see coming a mile off (unless you've never seen a film at all like this before). Well made, solidly but unspectacularly made, and technically perfectly competent, but with a story and an ambience that is nothing new. Anyone who has seen 'The Woman in Black' (on stage or TV) or any of a score of British ghost flicks of the 1960s or 70s will find everything here amazingly familiar. That 'The Others' is being touted as a possible 'best film' for 2001 is a extraordinary (unlike the film).
The Beach (2000)
The problem? Underlying material weak.
Everyone involved in this film clearly tried hard to make a filmable story from this novel. In so doing they changed a great deal, as indeed they had to. But I don't think their efforts were rewarded, mainly because the book wasn't that good to start with. Certainly it didn't 'cry out' to be a movie, the way some novels do. So what we end up with is a forced, rather inconvincing - if well shot - cross between 'Hideous Kinky' and 'Lord of the Flies'. Stronger, clearer material would have served these film-makers better.