Change Your Image
solymr
Reviews
Kingdom of Heaven (2005)
R. Scott does it again...
... and shows how epic's should be made. The acting, the costumes, the story, the setting, the battles all excellent.
In my review I will not debate over the historic accuracies because I Hollywood is not true to history in any way, shape or form.
As I'm a great fan of the genre, I must admit that I was mostly disappointed with epic movies made since Gladiator (except LOTR and King Arthur), and was praying that R. Scott would do AGAIN what he did 5 years ago in The Gladiator. And he DOES. During the entire movie I had a felling he was showing O. Stone, W. Petersen and others how it is supposed to be done.
The story is quite simple and old-fashioned: A Kinght(Neeson) comes home from the crusades and wants to meet his illegitimate son(O. Bloom), who is suffering the death of wife and child, and give him his love and land. The son agree's and goes to Jerusalem, starts proving himself, falls in love, becomes favorite among the people, then an enemy, and war.
But of course, during the story, R. Scott shows much more, the greatness of religion and it's many flaws and misinterpretations. The director does not take sides and shows the "enemy" in a favorable light. He tries he's best not to discriminate any religion, but actually shows Katholicism in slightly worse light than the Muslim.
The acting is superb. O. Bloom delivers a mind-blowing performance and succeeds there where C. Farrell failed,he is becoming a great actor and definitely he has matured since LOTR and PoTC. Eva Green, L. Neeson, J. Irons, D. Thewlis, are great as usual. And I was SHOCKED with E. Norton's role as the leper king. He was so GREAT I could not tell it was him at all, and he most definitely deserves an Oscar for his role.
The Sets and costumes are spectacular, realistic and beautiful at the same time. The battles will leave you speechless, and mesmerized.
There are only two problems in the movie: 1. I sensed that various scenes were shortened because of the length and you feel that something is missing, which I hope will be rectified in the DVD edition.
2. The soundtrack is great, but you have a feeling that it is the same one from the Gladiator and Black Hawk Down and I was disappointed with it.
All in all a great film...
The Interpreter (2005)
Political thriller from the old school
I went to see a hidden pretpremiere in my cinema, and I must admit I was pleasantly surprised when I realized what I was going to watch.
The movie starts with an shocking intro, which put me on the edge of my seat, where I remained for the duration of the movie. The acting is superb, Penn and Kidman are at their best, the shots that were made in the UN building add to the realism (none of those flashy super non-existent high-tech stuff that are usually in films). And Pollack was very close to recreate the atmosphere of his earlier movies (p.e. Three Days Of The Kondor)
When the movie was finally over, I had a feeling that something was missing in the hole movie, although I can't put my finger on it...
Laws of Attraction (2004)
great screwball comedy, ruined ending
This movie reminds me of the romantic screwball comedies from the 30's, 40's and 50's. The movie succeeds in following the humor, witty dialogs and great pace witch made the romantic comedies of old so great. That is, until the ending. The entire ending is ruined, copy-pasted from every other average romantic comedy today (they split up, the guilty one realizes his/her fault and runs to his/her lover and spills his/her guts out... and they live happily ever after). It is not the director's fault, he even tried his best to make the ending not so sleazy (aka the excellent wedding scene). Pierce Brosnan is great, in some scenes even better then Moore, reminds me of Cary Grant, James Stewart in their best work (Bringing up Baby, The Philadelphia Story...). Brosnan is actually becoming a much better actor than he was 6-7 years before. Julianne Moore is, as always, excellent. The supporting is actually also great, from Sheen, Posey, Fisher, Dunn to the locals in the Irish village. All in all a great screwball comedy which has not been made in years, if the ending were any better...