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Brave (2012)
Not among Pixar's best
Oh, Brave. One of my least favourite Pixar films. Not that is terrible, it is pretty decent, but I'm just not into it. It copies Disney's unoriginal "plucky princess doesn't want to do what she is told" and honestly I expected better from Pixar.
I've got to say, the animation is superb. I could marvel at Brave gifs for hours without ever getting bored. Also, Merida's design is a breath of fresh air. She's not very beautiful, she has impractical curly hair, and she's not skinny on physically impossible level. That's pretty original. What't not original about her, is her stubbornness ad willfulness, which is not bad, just overused. I am not fan of getting married to someone I don't know either, but Merida's characterisation... makes her come off as a spoiled, teenage brat instead of the brave heroine we're meant to root for. Especially since it's implied she's the heiress to her father's kingdom, which means she couldn't care less about the good of her people, and that's being presented as OK because... reasons. And then there's the whole turning-the-mother-into-a-bear issue. As I said, I totally understand Merida's objection to marrying someone she doesn't know. But that doesn't give her the right to change people. When she went to that witch, her intention was to change her mother - that is, bind the mother's will to hers. Um, nope. Elinor is a free person, with her own free will and Merida has no right to deprive her of that. I'm all in for taking one's fate into one's hand, but not to the expense of others', thank you very much.
So, in the end, Merida is a spoiled, self-entitled brat who considers her problems as greater than everybody else's, and puts her well- being above the good of the many. She endangers her mother's life, and in the end, she still gets what she wants. She makes up for her own mistakes (that no-one else had the obligation to clean up) and is applauded for that, as if it was a selfless action on her behalf, whereas it truly wasn't. And in the last scene, we see Elinor with her hair loose, obviously changed, as if the problem lied with her, when Merida wasn't in the right the whole time, but is treated like she was. In the end, everyone must learn a lesson and change slightly their view of the world... except for Merida, who is rewarded for putting the queen in danger. Even the parallelism with the other dude, Mor'du, draws Elinor as the problem. The carved stone was broken, separating him from his family, and then Merida tears her mother's tapestry, it is Elinor who gets separated from her husband, daughter and sons, as if she's the one causing the chaos, when in fact it's Merida.
Brave has some breath-taking animation, goo voice-acting and score, but in terms of story-line, it's not that original, it doesn't bring anything new to the table, and can it's heroine may be one of the most irritating characters the Disney pantheon has to offer. Not that it isn't suitable for a movie night with your friends and pop- corn.
Frozen (2013)
Hmm... not that good actually
I belong to the minority that doesn't believe Frozen is a masterpiece. I don't hate it, I just find it extremely overrated, and given more credit than it deserves. It is supposed to be "feminist", but it's not.
1. The villain.
Hans, a prince so far down in the line of succession he made a plan to marry a princess and then rule through her. A very good plan, actually, but why go after the spare and not the heir? Why didn't he leave immediately after he saw Elsa was no interested in him and find a female heir that was, which would have been way easier than seducing the spare (Anna) and then plan to have the queen removed? Also, he hopes to take full of control of the kingdom after he lets Anna die... how? He's completely unrelated, and his status as prince can't give him the throne. He isn't even the heir's consort - he never married Anna (he should have waited until he married her), and a scenario where he lies about marrying Anna, with no witnesses and no consummation seems a very unlikely one to be believed. And his revelation as the villain was a cheap move for shock value, as well. There was no building-up to the reveal, no foreshadowing, nothing. It appears as if the third act was rewritten in the last minute, with not much thought thrown in it. Disney has given us some wonderfully abusive villains, but Hans was a superficial and lacking one.
2. The pacing.
Two many plot lines. Elsa wants to protect everyone from her, Elsa wants to control her powers, Anna wants to find Elsa, Anna wants to reconcile with Elsa, Kristoff must learn to love people as well, not just reindeer, the weasel duke wants to take over Arendelle (with a very obscure and puzzling plan), Hans wants to take over Arendelle... too many (unresolved) plot lines. A book can have many plots running at the same time, so does a TV series, but a movie? Not that easy. In the end, everything feels rushed, and no story-line was explored enough, not even the important ones. The songs are another example of bad pacing as well.
3. The protagonist and her sister
Anna is not a feminist character. First off, what does Anna do that's so feminist? She sets off on an adventure where she's saved by men, one way or another. Hadn't it been for Kristoff, she would have never made it out. And despite Elsa's "You cannot marry a man you've just met", Anna does the very same thing by the end of the movie, a movie that's supposed to criticize that behaviour found in the earlier films. So why does Frozen endorse something when they made fun of it earlier?
Anna is no good character either. Namely, she has no character development. She starts off as an over-excited lady, and ends up as an over-excited lady. Her morals aren't tested, she doesn't go through some existence-doubting quest or anything, she remains the same. No conflict in there. Elsa should have been the main character. A princess whose own self is her burden, who wants to protect everyone she loves not from an eternal factor but from within, from herself, who needs to control her powers but can't, who isolates herself out of fear... a perfectly written character. Instead, they gave her a song and shoved her to the background, in an icy castle, and showed us her wacky sister's snow adventures, which include Anna getting saved by a man, being helped by a man, being led by a man, all the time. And in the end, the only choice Anna makes is to get in Hans' sword's way, which is very sweet, but comes too late. Anna is a sweet, one-dimensional character that does nothing but being stupid.
4. Fictional kingdom vs realism
I am no expert on such subject, but the ruling of Arendelle is treats as no big deal in this movie. The queen and king died when Elsa was 18, so why wasn't she made queen right away? Why did it take three years before she was crowned? Who ruled Arendelle this whole time? Also keep in mind, Arendelle needed heirs. If Elsa was out of question, then the king and queen should find a match for Anna as soon as possible. Instead, they shut her in. And then, Anna just abandons the kingdom, leaving Hans, a man she does not know, in charge. OK, Anna is naive, but why should anyone accept that? I imagine there must be a head in the castle's household (that Kai guy for example) who would question Hans' fitness to rule. And again, a female character is dependant on a male one, which makes me wonder again, "Why is this movie considered feminist when women rely on men to help them and save them all the time?" You'll notice it's never the other way round. Also, Hans attempts to slay the queen and lies about the princess' status, and gets away with that? Surely, he gets a punishment from his bros... to clean the stables. Usurping a kingdom, and attempting to slay its rightful ruler (and the rightful heir) should have him executed, if I were writing the script. And because sometimes I tend to expect the worst from anyone, if I were Elsa, I'd be wondering whether this wasn't an attempt of the King of Southern Isles to usurp my kingdom through his son, but perhaps that's far-fetched.
At the end of the day, I don't think Frozen is as great as everyone wants it to be. It's amusing, it's fun, but not complex at all, with shallow characters, unnecessarily long musical numbers, and too many subplots to find out what the real story is, and explore it.
The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad (1949)
Mixed feelings
I have mixed feelings about this movie. I really loved the story with the frog, and loathed the Ichabod one. So you'd think I'd give this a balanced 5, but instead I gave it a 7, because a) the animation's pretty good, and b) I really liked the frog story. I'm gonna review those two stories separately.
The Adventures of Mr Toad: I don't know why I loved this one so much, I just know I did. Maybe because it combines a character who's flawed but still lovable and a whodunit - a whodunit I hope was explored more, but still a sweet, heartwarming story that I fell in love with. And it doesn't last too long. Some short stories just feel stretched, particularly when they have an extremely boring content, even for a short story, but this one was just fine.
The Legend of the Sleepy Hollow: Oh god. Oh my God, where do I begin? This story tells the classic story of the Headless Dude. And though I love spooky stories (and I wold have loved this one if for what I'm about to say next) "The Legend of the Sleepy Hollow" was ruined in the worst possible way; by having a love triangle. Or rather no, not the triangle itself, but rather the protagonist. Ichabod Crane, or some sort, I honestly don't remember. Here's the thing; Crane goes to the Sleepy Hollow to teach the children there. He meets Katrina, a lovely unmarried young girl with many admirers, and falls immediately for her. So far so good. Unfortunately for poor Ich, Katrina has an admirer who's more ardent than the others, Brom Bones, aka the Gaston of the "Walt Disney is Around" era. We have some rivalry between the two for the woman's hand (apparently said woman has no opinion on that!) but what truly bugged me was Crane's feelings. In the scene where he basically day- dreams while he's class is a chaos (bonus sin; he's a terrible teacher) he practically states that the reason why he's after Katrina is her good looks and family wealth. That's it. Crane sees Katrina as a pretty face that can make him rich and nothing more. And though it's not unheard of a man making profit though women, what really annoys me it's that the whole thing is portrayed as positive. We're meant to side with Crane. We're meant to want Katrina pick him at the end, though it's clear he doesn't care about her. Do we ever seem him speak to her and get to know the real her? No. One could say that that's right about Brom Bones and all the other men, but at least they get the benefit of the doubt. They've lived in Sleepy Hollow their whole lives, so they actually do know the real Katrina. We're meant to see Bron Bones as the antagonist, but does he ever do anything bad? No, not once. There's nothing villainous about his and Crane's fights over Katrina. And there's the assumption that he dressed up as the Headless Horseman and killed Ich (drove him away?), but when Ich took a look inside the Horseman's collar, he was absolutely terrified, as if there was indeed no head in there. If he had seen Brom's face, he'd be angry and outraged, not horrified. So, no, Brom Bones' not the bad guy here, no matter how desperately the movie wants us to believe. Crane is not the good guy, even though he's framed as such. Actually, he acts as a gold-digger whose gold- digging nature is presented as good, maybe because he's a man. Imagine if the genders were switched. Would any viewer have any sympathy for female!Crane whatsoever? I don't think so.
9 (2005)
Pretty entertaining
This short film tells us the story of 9, a ragdoll-ish, stitchpunk- ish... thing, 9, who leaves in an aftertheend-ish, apocalyptic-ish world... and is all alone because all of his friends have died. On his own, he sets on a quest to murder the beast who slayed them - and even though he gets the soul-draining talisman, they still DON'T get revived. Kind of justified, the cat beast rips their bodies off. Like, he has a cloak made of their skins, which actually is pretty terrifying. No dialogue in this one. After all, most of the time, 9 is all alone and has no one to speak to. Speaking to himself isn't an option, this short isn't about psychopathy. Though we get a glimpse of original!5, who would get split up in 2 and 5 in the feature film.
Although this short is in a way, sadder than the film (in here, all of them but 9 are posthumous characters, and in the end, 9 is left alone, whereas in the film, he has company), but for some reason the ending seemed to be... lighter. Perhaps because in the movie, he had actually met all the deceased stitchpunks, and had grown to care for them, when here, he only knew 5 (for like, one minute) and there's no indication he knew any of the other stitchpunks. Still, an entertaining short film I enjoyed.
Poirot: The Murder of Roger Ackroyd (2000)
Does not do justice to the book
Rated S for Spoilers. So, The Murder of Roger Ackroyd is cited as Dame Agatha's best. I tend to disagree - it's really not that great, but that doesn't mean I don't want to watch a decent adaptation of it. It saddens me to give it a low rank, but I want to review the least good episodes, and I'll do the ones I liked last.
Several characters (Charles Kent, Hector Blunt) have been cut, as well as some subplots (Mah Jong chapter, Miss Russell's son). Those are trivial. What this adaptation does and undermines the episode's brilliant murderer is... to take away all the suspense. We're meant to see Dr Sheppard as a surrogate Hastings; someone Poirot can definitely trust. In here, it's not that he doesn't trust him, but his role has been reduced. He's put aside in the background, making him nothing more than a mere suspect, so the Reveal at the end is much less satisfying. In other words, they took out the only element that made the book shine, because in terms of characters, character development, characterization and themes, the book was simply lacking. By making the character of the doctor less irrelevant, they wrote off the only thing that made the book worthwhile for me. To be fair, making Sheppard the narrator would not only be difficult, but also suspicious. Hastings, the good Watson himself never narrates an episode, so why does this random guy do it? In that case, they should just write his journal off, no matter who reads its aloud. Instead, I believe, they should have Dr Sheppard accompany Poirot everywhere, as Hastings would have done, and perhaps even say something along the lines of "You remind me of my good friend Hastings", so the audience would think of him as another Watson to Poirot's Sherlock. Instead, they wrote Japp in, which was a huge mistake. Not only is Japp nowhere to be found in the book, but in the episode, he undertakes Sheppard's role and becomes one of the reasons why the murderer reveal is has less impact.
Another thing that really bugged me was the ending. These series have a tendency to add ridiculous over-the-top chase scenes, and Roger Ackroyd is no exception. Here, at the end, after we know who murdered Roger Akcroyd, Poirot and Japp chase James in the factory, which results in Sheppard's death. It seemed completely unnecessary, and his suicide by veronal was way better executed in the books. Plus, there was some irony in it, dying the same way Dorothy Ferrars had. In here, it just was unbelievable and stupid. Also Caroline should have never learnt about her brother's doings, never.
On the acting... really, David Suchet and Oliver Ford Davies' acting was the only thing than prevented this episode from being a complete disaster. They both were very good! A pity we barely got to see James Sheppard.
Poirot: Appointment with Death (2008)
Watch the Ustinov version
I am not a book purist. I can accept changes, I can understand changes, sometimes I prefer the changes to the book-canon version. However, the changes in here were so many and so pointless, it made Appointment with Death my least favourite of these series. While I was watching it, I could only think "What were they thinking?" Let's examine the changes.
1. The added characters. Sister Agnieszka, Nanny Taylor and Lord Boynton. They offered nothing at all to the plot. I suppose they wanted more suspects, but Nanny Taylor is a ridiculous candidate for the culprit, so is Lord Boynton (who is long-dead in the novel), and the storyline with Sister Agnieszka was ridiculous to say the least. And unbelievable. Funny think is, Poirot had dismissed a possibility like this for being too far-fetched, in another story.
2. The murderer. The murderer is the same as in the books, but the motives have been changed dramatically, to the point they're barely believable.
3. They wrote Nadine off. Now Nadine is an important character, for she is the only one to stand up to Mrs Boynton's cruelty and sadism. Her interaction with Lennox was one of the best parts of the book, and it was a pity not to see it. Instead, they made Lennox (named Leonard) a snob, obnoxious dude. The only thing missed was him holding a banner saying HATE ME.
4. Celia Ravenscroft's back story is too unbelievable. So is Mrs Boynton's adopting of children and torture of them, because she couldn't have children. I get she's a sadist, but that was too far.
5. The flashbacks were scary. Yeah, I know that was the point, but they became creepy.
6. The character of Jefferson Cope was totally superfluous. He barely was there, so why did they include him at all, if they never meant to use him properly?
In the end, the solution seems way too incredible and unbelievable, so is the way the crime was committed. The only good thing I can say is that the acting was great and the scenery was amazing. The writing, though, was crazy and illogical. Several things weren't explored enough, one example being the Raymond-Sarah romance, which simply felt forced and unnatural. We also missed all other romance from the book, and every other couple. In other words, do not watch it. Watch the Ustinov version, it's far better, though lacks in scenery.