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Death Note (2017)
Hideous rendition
I was very much looking forward to this title and I watched it as soon as it went up on Netflix, already from the start I knew something was of when the poster for DeathNote on Netflix, which was an interesting black and white, threshold type graphic had the words " ipsum dolor sit amet", for those who aren't in the know this is the most widely used dummy text to demonstrate typography/fonts and layout of text. I chuckled because clearly someone overlooked this, I did not imagine that this forebode what was to come.
The first thing that strikes you as a viewer is that the pace is ludicrous, there is no exposition what so ever, everything just sort of happens, as if you have an effect that was not put in motion by a cause, this persist during the whole movie. We do not psychological understanding of the character Light, therefore you do not sympathize with the character that alone would be enough to ruin a movie but sadly this is one of a horde of problems. The creators of this film were completely directionless, and this does not mean that director himself is to blame, everything is sub- par at best, the script is a complete mess it focuses on all the wrong places. Whereas the anime on which this film is based of focuses on morals and ethics, how can murder of any kind be justified and should some one with the power of life and death be allowed to govern people by his/her sense of justice. The Netflix version instead focuses on being a Twilight version of Natural Born Killers, with pathetic teenage sociopaths rather than a complex intelligent character who plots his every move and decision meticulously. The acting is laughable, it resembles most of the time a parody of the characters they were based on, especially the L character was in the anime a well written antisocial autistic person who had his ticks but was highly intelligent and intuitive, whereas in this adaptation the actor portraying him seems not to act but just play a part, everything about him is fake, even the way his eye moves you can literally see moments when the director says "look left, now right". This is not to say that the other actors are with out sin, but the L character stood out because he is a very difficult character to portray because of his quirks. The move tries to be edgy with the inclusion of excessive gore and more swearing than needed, this also comes around as forced and fake. The movie uses a lot of prerecorded music by some popular artist that just functions as a distraction and as most thing in this movie...forced. It is a shame because having someone like Atticus Ross being the composer it is a damn shame he was not used to his full extent. The cinematography was uneven, at times very interesting especially in darker scenes where different light sources have some wild colors, but these scenes where not counterbalanced in high key environments, but this is to be expected by Mr. Tattersall as the cinematographer of the prequel Star Wars movies.
The only truly good thing in this movie, and the reason to why I did not rate this movie with 1 star is Willem Dafoe and his portrayal of the shinigami Ryuk and how he was digitally created.
The movie as a whole is a underwhelming as best, a extremely loosely based interpretation of Death Note, the best parallel I can make is that this movie to the anime Death Note is like Dragonaball Z is to Dragonball Evolution. I do not recommend this and I would even say to actively avoid this tired prostituted version of the master piece that is the Death Note anime.
The Collector (2009)
Porn for cannibals
I can't say that I review movie a lot, quite frankly I don't have the tongue or the literary skills to express myself properly.
But reviewing this movie I believe I can do just.
This movie might just be one of the worst things to have been made in cinematic history, in no way has it any good sides to it. This movie is just plain sickening.
Script,directing,acting,cinematography and set direction are all horrendous.
The movie is something in the lines of the SAW series, a maniac serial killer picks random people to kill them in the most gruesome way possible. The exception is that "the collector" walks in to peoples houses and sets up sadistic traps and lock them in so they have no way of escaping, furthermore the killer from what we are told throughout the movie has no motivation. No mission ala Jigsaw nor revenge, just the plainest and simplest display of sadism. We get to know that he likes spiders, and that is more or less it.
We never get to know why the killer does this, we can blame it on some psychological deviation like I'm sure that many do but it is never explained like in movies like: Psycho, Silence of the lambs, Seven or even Saw.
There is no connection to any of the characters whatsoever, it is like if the script was written after the writers came up with the bloodiest murders they could think of and just writing whatever to come up to that point in the movie. But I guess we can't expect more from a person who wrote the last 3 SAW movies (which are a huge decline from the first three according to me). This is a poor attempt to make a new serial killer series so teenagers can argue who would win in a fight in between Jason, Freddy and The Collector.
This movie is like porn for cannibals, much like what has happened with the SAW series.
I advice strongly not to watch this movie. This is the FIRST film I have ever rated 1 which I think pretty much stands for itself.
Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (2008)
Indiana Jones and the fall of a childhood
I to did not enjoy the fourth installment to me it didn't happen, I just don't have it in me calling it an Indiana Jones movie. There are too many things distracting from the character and from the mythological character he has become.
When I hear Janusz Kaminski was "studying" the cinematography style of Douglas Slocombe and that Spielberg had to make a movie like a young director again I felt confident that at least visually and acting-wise I would have been pleased.
I miss understood what they meant by this, Kaminskis studying was more like an evident way of trying to cheat his way through the test, it was badly lighten I'm sad to say and you could actually feel when they were in studio. All the shots where very narrow unlike (maybe it was too much cost to make a bigger CGI landscape/background) the original trilogy, therefor you felt many scenes being on set rather then being on location.
Spielberg directing like a young director, I guess many like me misinterpreted it. I thought he meant going back and directing like he did in his early years (which made the originals so unique and beautiful) but instead he meant directing like young directors now-a-days meaning relying mostly on CGI.
The story was flat it had no depth to it, as was the case with the characters. The only one with depth in this movie was Indiana, and that's because we already had an established relationship with him from the previous movies. I mean the character Mac is supposed to have been a sidekick of Indy's for a long time, his traitory after the first like 10 minutes of the movie was blunt, didn't do anything. They could have, like in the original trilogy used a pre-adventure scenario where we could have gotten to know the character (Raiders: Mayan Idol, Temple of Doom: Diamond in Shanghai, Crusade: The Cross). This story needed something like that, instead we are introduced to Indy quite lately after Russians and the dreaded CGI gophers.
Marions return was meaningless, in the movie she couldn't have many more then 7 lines, and even when she is revealing the true case of Mutt it does not come as a surprise, and honestly you just don't care.
Mutt is the comic relief character that falls kind of flat, I don't care what people say he is not funny. They used so many obvious jokes aimed for children, the combing of the hair after his death threat, swinging with the monkeys and getting hit by branches at the crotch. He is very exaggerated and not evenly balanced as Marcus Brody, Sallah or Short Round in the originals. He does not feel like a greaser, rebel kind of a guy.
Finding the artifact, the crystal skull, was so immensely boring...no booby traps, no excavations, no riddles and no real trouble getting it. Seriously moving an old corpse of a Spanish conquistador to get the crystal skull did not satisfy my after 19 years of waiting. Stumbling upon an ancient artifact that the Sovjets are after is not very Indiana Jones if you ask me.
I give it a 3 just because Harrison could have pulled of a good Indiana Jones movie still, but was not given the chance. Making Indy go Sci-Fi was not the way to go. There are still a lot of artifacts connected to this world, so there was no need to go looking for space men. Done right the Roswell alien story could have been interesting to the Indiana Jones franchise though. But we still have places and artifacts like Atlantis and the Spear of Destiny to explore and much more.
Conversations with Other Women (2005)
See it for the style and not the story
"Conversations with other Women" is, if the title isn't obvious enough in that statement, a romantic comedy with a touch more to the ironic style. The film is basically about a man (Eckhart) who meets a woman (Bonham Carter)at a wedding. The couple at the beginning of the film wants us to believe that this is the first time they've ever met, the annoying part of it is that at the end of the movie we know that they actually have a rich and colourful history. But they keep playing the "we've met for the first time" through out the whole movie which makes you feel kind of cheated. It is although in many ways rich in it's character build up due to the fact that there can at times be two stories told in one shot (using Duo Vision). But the story failed to make me interested because of them constantly behaving like strangers to each other, which makes it fairly hard to get emotionally attached to the characters.
What made this movie worth watching is that it was shown in so called "Duo Vision" meaning that the screen is cut in half and the left and right part are showing different things, therefore making it very interesting with the flash back scenes and you get back story at the same time as something less interesting is happening in real time.
I do not recommend this movie as a love story type movie, there have been many movies, similar to this one where the movie is mostly or entirely dialog based. The ones that strike me as the most similar are Linklaters "Before Sunrise" and "Before Sunset", where you feel that these people are authentic making the camera unnoticeable and giving you at that time a feeling that your stuck in the moment with them.
Using the "Duo Vision" through out the movie was an interesting concept and sometimes worked very effectively but it just doesn't work all of the time in a movie where love is the main focus of attention. But seeing and even talking about intimate stuff you want to feel unnoticeable which isn't working good here.
The style that was tried to be executed was something that I like and in fact it didn't fail all over, I like the story but not how it was presented therefor I give it a 6/10
Cloverfield (2008)
Cloverfield a mystery still
I have been following some of the hype surrounding this movie since the end of last years summer, when people where questioning, right here on this board I might add, what was this monster Godzilla, Ctuhulu (or however you spell it) or even a popular belief a lion (seriously what the freak was up with that!?).
It spurred a lot of interest in me because not only am I of nature a curious person but I also happen to like what J.J. Abrams has been producing and thinking along those lines I knew that we probably wouldn't get to know what this monster was or neither would any plot points be revealed (but hey as the curious person I am I tried my beast to get a teeny bit of information cause let's face it, it was a long wait).
To be honest while sitting in the theater I couldn't help but to feel this story wouldn't be concluded, in the sense that we are used to. There would still be questions unanswered (We are talking about a guy producing LOST remember), but the main story will be delivered not like it's done now a days with movies like Matrix Reloded and POTC: Dead Man's Chest. We get a sense of closure.
Yes, we do not get to know what the monster is, alien or submerged behemoth that clearly woke up on the wrong side of the bed. We do not know if it is defeated or not in the end. We don't even get a good glimpse of it. But watching the movie I found that it would ruin it putting in such information in, people tend to forget that this movie does not focus on the monster but a certain group of people, about loss and hope. Not giving up and staying together in a situation that can only be explained as surreal and terrifying. The threat of not knowing what's going on is a lot more unnerving then knowing what is going on. People fear what they do not know.
I for one felt satisfied with this movie, it gave me everything I was promised, I do not care for it's creation but for the people running away from it. A hand held camera was exactly what this movie needed, it made the camera a person in this whole ordeal, making an objective camera we'd just get nice objective shot that esthetically may be beautiful but lack the soul, you do not need to focus on everything or what can be initially meaningless (the monster). This is what for me exactly the 98 movie Godzilla did wrong they focused more on the monster then the people.
Forget the term monster film and see it for what it is, do not search the monster but the bonds that tie the characters together.
Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest (2006)
It has the same characters as POTC: COTBP but don't be fooled it's not the same type of movie.
I was excited about this movie, because I really enjoyed the adventure packed first part of this soon to be trilogy. I loved the portrayal Johnny Depp made of his now legendary character Captain Jack Sparrow, and I love the fact that the movie didn't take itself to seriously. It was a very good popcorn flick with not to many over complicated twists and gave room for very much entertainment.
But even POTC can't flee from the most terrible curse of them all, I'm talking about the curse of the bad sequel. A curse that has struck many movies and destroyed many franchises. Unfortunately in these days we live in people want money and press out every penny on anything that can make them a quick buck, I think "Dead Mans Chest" is a perfect example of that. They made a sequel (technically two) over the course of 3 years.
Well the troubles of DMC begin right at the start as I and my friends thought that we had entered the wrong movie when it began, it was so dark and so melodramatic from the start. The first 5 or so minutes you just might believe that this movie is a horror movie set in the 18th - 19th century. Nothing of the light hearted first movie is to be seen the climate of the movie is set right from the start but not as a adventure comedy type of movie, but a dead serious pirate movie.
Well then is the entrance of Captain Jack Sparrow that is actually a worthy tie to the one in "POTC: Curse of the Black Pearl" only a bit more morbid. I'm not saying this movie doesn't have comedic moments, but there are a lot fewer then in the first and a lot more serious at that. So much so that I never really laughed out loud but smirked at the funny moments in the movie, cause they felt misplaced, this movie had no real comedic feel to it.
I won't tell you the story cause you've probably already read it but what I will say is that you can just as well skip this movie and wait for the 3rd part of the installment cause what this really was, was a 2 and a half hour long trailer cause it ends worse then "Matrix Reloaded" and I am not joking, I felt cheated and aggravated. You do not get a whole story for your money, there is no end to "Dead Man's Chest".
You can actually feel how Jerry Bruckheimer wanted a ending (or forced it upon the writers) like this to guarantee that people would want to go see the third part of the installment. I'm sorry to say that Hollywood endings have changed a lot through out the years their not happy endings now, their just not concluded.
This movie is dark, it's not something I would let small children see (unlike the first one), it's beautifully shot, has top notch cgi and amazing sets but that's just not enough, without a good story none of that matters.
Crash (2004)
A crash like no other
For those who haven't seen this movie they probably ask: What is Crash about, I know I asked myself that before I went to see it.
Although I went in to the cinema knowing more or less what I was getting myself into and I can say that I to some extent was miss led and I think many will be. But that didn't disappoint me.
So you ask me what Crash is about and I will tell you this: Crash is about ordinary people in America from every ethnicity and how all their lives are connect. It's about the hidden and open racism that every ethnicity has, it's about the little things we do that can actually be a disaster for others, it's about change and to see the world through new eyes.
In short it's about everyday life and how our everyday actually is connected to so many other people most of them without us knowing it.
If you are looking for an action movie (as many people on my screening were) you will be disappointed. If you are looking for a good movie, that can move you and maybe even give you a new view on life this movie is for you.
Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith (2005)
Truly a revenge
Revenge of the Shi...Sith.
Can quite honestly be called a ILM campaign. The first scene in the movie is a battle in space, which made me question if it was the actual movie or a video-game, I was quite disappointed when I turned around to see that no one was holding a joystick.
The Story is basically about Anakin Skywalkers transformation to the dark side, why would he turn to the dark side you ask?
Well when Anakin gets back from the fight earlier mentioned Padmé his wife reveals that she is pregnant. So that night a bad dream stirs up in poor young Skywalkers mind of his beloved wife dying in child birth (although we do not see her die in the dream only screaming, isn't that what women do when they give birth?). Afraid that Padmé will die and that another close person to him will die he promises her that he won't let her die. That dream comes once more in the movie. Well the chancellor has taken a real shine for the young Skywalker and puts him on the council (which just seems to be a mensclubb the only thing missing is the cigars). he doesn't get the rank Master and that ticks him off (I never got this if you are master do you get some perks like fashionable clothes or something?). The Council asks of Anakin to spy on the Chancellor which he doesn't want to do cause the chancellor is a dear friend to him. Well it reveals that he Chancellor is a Sith Lord after reporting it to the council Anakin,helps in the killing of Mace Windu and becomes a Sith apprentice just to save Padmé. In the blink of an eye Anakin turns from arrogant Jedi to the cruelest of siths, killing "younglings" with out any problem. Nothing even remotely believable in that change, he turns on everyone even Obi Kenobi. And Padmé dies in the end after giving birth to Luke and Leia, but not because of complications, but because she lost the will to live. Two things about that she is credited at StarWars.com as human can humans die from the lack of will to live, secondly she just gave birth too two children doesn't she feel obligated to take care of them?