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Avatar (2009)
Special effects alone gets this to a 4 rating
The good :- Wonderful special effects.
The bad (mild spoilers) :- This was a thinly veiled version of American's colonising Western USA. Anyone who doesn't see the indigenous population of Pandora (and this name in itself demonstrates a terrible lack of imagination) as being representative of the indigenous tribes of north America must be blind. They live in tribes, they wear the same style of clothing, similar hairstyles, they ride around on horses, they have an elderly male leader of each tribe, they believe in a connection to the Earth and animal spirit world and the biggest give-away of all : bows and arrows!!! And what is all the fighting over? A substance called "Unobtainium". Cameron, simply hang your head in shame.
The Plot (major spoilers ... clearly) :- A technologically superior race (Cowboys) come along and drive the indigenous population (Indians) off the most precious piece of land. A thicko of a marine (yet more stereo-typing) lives and falls in love with the indigenous population for three months knowing that they're going to be driven off their land and never gets around to letting them know. Actually, the more I write, the more I realise how annoyed the laziness of the plot writing made me. Are the movies only for morons now? Are those of us with a memory or education not allowed to watch films with action in them? There are many books out there with better plots that could have had the Avatar CGI, 3D and hype treatment. Also, can someone explain to me why anyone would name such a planet "Pandora"? It's like someone naming a new cruise-liner "Titanic"!
Broken Flowers (2005)
Slow, painfully slow
In addition to the sleep inducing pace, none of the characters actually seemed real. There is a huge difference between stilted and awkward conversations and wooden acting, except here it seems.
Unfortunately, stilted and awkward is how I will consider the writing and directing of Jim Jarmusch now that I've witnessed it.
I hope for Bill Murray's sake, he gets some parts that utilise his strengths more in the future.
I don't need a film to be action-packed or crammed with emotion filled music to tell me when I'm supposed to be happy or sad or to tell me when something scary is about to happen, but I do expect a lot more content. This film felt like it had been padded out to make it long enough to be called a film.
The Saint (1997)
A Hole a Minute
It was painful to watch. I could list all the holes, but it would waste yet more of my time than the film did and you might not read this warning if I had to tick the 'Contains Spoiler' box.
It is like watching a Bond movie directed by a first time director. Someone should tell the writer a bit more about Simon Templar. Aside from the small factor of being a poor actor, Val Kilmer is the antithesis of suave. I mention Bond because there is too much Bond-styled action in this. You get the feeling that the people making the film wish they'd got a Bond movie to direct, so they tried to emulate one. The end result meaning that they slaughtered the memory of The Saint in the process. They are very different characters.
It gets one point for Elisabeth Shue looking as lovely as ever. It doesn't get more than that because it falls down through its near infinite number of holes too much to drag itself up to two points.
Sin City (2005)
Stylish, Arty and Gratuitous - I'll highlight paragraphs with spoilers
Beautifully stylised and I loved the significant colour additions to what is otherwise a black and white film. My wife and I talked for ages afterwards about the specifics of the colours. Then there's the bouncing around in time, as most noticeably utilised before in Pulp Fiction. These factors being the reasons I called the film arty. I can imagine people considering such a gratuitous film being unable to gain such an adjective, but IMHO it does.
Tight plot with no big holes and the slightly disparate stories connected nice and subtly at times, which is again a similarity to the style of Pulp Fiction.
Reasonable acting, nothing more. It would be a bit difficult to play it too straight with all the over the top action. As a guide, I'd liken the level of action and violence to that of Kill Bill.
Minorist of minor spoiler after the '*' :-
In addition to the Pulp Fiction time-jumps and the Kill Bill death toll, you could also see where Tarantino influenced the dialogue. He clearly wrote the lines for one of the hapless henchmen - * the one repeatedly berating his colleague in long drawn out monologues for failing to steal inconspicuous getaway cars. Very funny snippets.
I've never seen the comics this is based on and it was the cast list and the slick trailer that easily convinced me to go and see it. If I'm honest, it didn't live up to the trailer, but then not many films do.
I didn't want the film to end, which is always a good sign, but it wasn't good enough to make me really, really like it.
Major Spoiler in this paragraph :-
My only thing I disliked (although it was quite a error in my view) in the film was the very ending, where Hartigan decides the only way to protect Nancy is to kill himself so the bad guy won't have a motive to go after her anymore. Clearly that should really have been plan 'B'. Plan 'A' would be to go and kill the bad guy (perfect result) or die trying (no worse than plan 'B'). And who's to say that there weren't hit men currently still on the lookout for her? *shrug*
Closing comment: It was nice to see Frodo embracing his Gollum side.
Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith (2005)
Glossy and action packed, BUT abysmal delivery of the plot
The ships looked great. The action was great. The effects were great. To those aspects I would give 10/10, 9/10 and 10/10 respectively. But as everyone should know by now, most of what makes a good film is the plot and the script.
The biggest disappointment of all in this film is that the actual underlying plot is really good. How can a good plot be a disappointment you may ask? And my answer would be: When it's shoe-horned into a blockbuster so badly. So when someone who's had decades to work on the application of the plot, how could they have come up with this pile of amateurish drivel?
THE NEXT PARAGRAPH CONTAINS THE NEAREST THING TO A SPOILER, BUT NOT THAT CLOSE REALLY AS I'M REALLY VAGUE ABOUT IT. IF IN DOUBT THEN SKIP TO THE PARAGRAGH BELOW. THE ONE THAT BEGINS "Basically, ...". The seduction to the dark side could have sounded at least a little bit convincing. The very action that flicks the switch in Anakin is born out of a completely irrational act by someone supposedly completely rational. I would say more but I don't want this to be considered a spoiler.
Basically, the script is so bad that Natalie Portman (Padme) and Samuel L. Jackson (Mace Windu) struggle to sound credible throughout. This is fundamentally because contradictions hide round every corner, with people saying one thing and then suddenly changing their minds because the plot needs to go in another direction. This most commonly afflicts Padme, Mace and Anakin. On my ten minute train journey home, I thought up numerous ways the story could have been improved to better fit the plot. This shouldn't have been possible for me to do, when George Lucas has had more years than I had minutes! In fact, I'd go so far as to say that the script was almost as ill-fitting as Darth Vaders new suit. Let's face facts, David Prowse (original Darth Vader) was a giant of a man and Hayden Christensen (Anakin Skywalker) could spend a lifetime in the gym and still never borrow his clothes for a night on the town. There's a point in this film where my mind is inexorably drawn to a vision of Rick Moranis in the film 'Spaceballs'. The difference being that 'Revenge of the Sith' isn't supposed to be a parody of the original Star Wars films, while that's exactly what 'Spaceballs' is.
The hardest thing George Lucas had to accomplish was making a story that was good enough to keep us enthralled even when we knew where the plot had to end up. Unfortunately, the end feels totally rushed as they just throw in all the necessary bits in a flurry of facts at the end. And even these fact often contradict with the original films in many places. Lord of the Rings spent twenty odd minutes on accomplishing the ending properly, guiding the heroes down the paths they were then to take. Now I can see why it was so important not to squish the results of an epic into such a tiny slot at the end. Shoe-horned was my adjective at the start of this review and I still stand by that now.
Such a potential masterpiece ruined.