August 4, 2008
A film about an elite group of assassins. A “Fraternity”. I don’t really know where I stand with this one. Ok, I’m lying, I hated it. Angelina Jolie really needs to stop being in shoot-out movies. Is that really the only genre she is capable of existing in? Long story short; decent comic, terrible film. It was immediately apparent that the roots of the action style was heavily derived from The Matrix’s bullet time sequences and Fight club’s underdog story.
The first building shot was composited terribly. It was so blatantly obvious that the building used in the scene was comped in. The key lighting didn’t match, and the figure chroma was university grade-esque (gross). I don’t get how they could make the rest of the visuals beautiful where bullets bend around corners and pierce skulls, while they can’t even light a scene decently? Shows you how terribly balanced the budget would have been for VFX. Probably all spent buying flowers for Angelina.
Morgan Freeman unpredictably played a mentoring role, while Angelina exposed her buttocks for the 7 millionth time, and brandished a gun while pouting. Everything about this was predictable. Barely any structure or plot, but plenty of shooting, car chases and train crashes.
Though the comic is closely matches shot to frame, they stripped out the super villain attribute of the characters, sacrificing them for slightly more ‘believable’ people with the ability to spike levels of adrenaline (thus making them think faster). Way to kill what would have been an excellent super villain movie… The ‘plot’ was all over the shop, and the twists could be seen a long while off. I think the weakest plot hole is that they predict targets from pieces of cloth from some fancy weaving machine, while anyone could just cut out a scrap from a craft store and claim it to be part of the prophecy. It’s so central to the plot that they end up all dying. Pretty weak.
- Me: seen wanted yet?
- Me: it’s so horrible
- Tim Bond: don’t remind me of the piece of shit experience
- Tim Bond: There was a point I didn’t think it could get any worse and then it did
- Tim Bond: is it bad for me to want the main characters to die?
- Me: It was sooooooooooo bad
- Me: dude, you should get back into movie review schtuff
- Tim Bond: Oh I so would
- Tim Bond: but I have currently found a hobby that is taking all of my spare time
- Tim Bond: and it is not masturbation.
It was still fun to watch ( I took my pal Fran to see it and it was a blast!) but wow; what a terrible remake of every shooting movie ever. You are best saving your ticket money for another screening of The Dark Knight, Or Hellboy II.
July 16, 2008
3 hours of delicious film, and I savored every second of it. It felt like I didn’t pay enough for a ticket to something so enjoyable (oh and not to mention it was on the IMAX screens). It’s so much grittier and dark than the first of the series. Christopher Nolan tested the waters with Batman Begins to great success and it gave him the grounds to induce an even more malevolent tone in The Dark Knight.
It’s a very mature sequel, exploiting the ghastly society Gotham City had been left in where the last film tied off. I really appreciate how the characters feel real. They don’t need super powers or any supernatural influences to be engaging; it’s all to do with the strong contrast established in the battle of ideals. Structurally, it felt like the film ended 2/3 through when The Joker was caught for the first time. You get a delightful surprise with another hour of darkening twists, as the experience becomes increasingly bitter for the souls of Gotham City. It moved at a dynamic pace and the shorter time-line allowed for the time to expand into a length which felt like a documentation of a real time event.
Heath Ledger’s performance as The Joker was outstanding. His portrayal of the character has got to be the most sick, twisted and humorous villain I’ve watched for a long time. I was instantly sold when The Joker performed the most horrendous and casual magic trick involving a disappearing pencil and the eye socket of a bouncer. Don’t want to give away too many of his hilarious and creepy antics, but watch out for his stint in a nurse costume with Two-Faced Harvey Denton. Of course, Christian Bale was amazing. So glad that they canned Katie Holmes for Maggie Gyllenhaal.
Explosions, sweet vehicles, punch ups and guns. It’s got all of that awesome Batman testosterone, as well as the complications of gang warfare and internal identity struggle. Easily in my list of favourite recent movies. I enjoyed it a lot, and I know I’ll have to catch it again in the cinemas! The wait was well worth it.
July 9, 2008
An interesting take on the superhero genre. I don’t know if I loved it (pssht- it was so lame), but it was a refreshing turn, seeing much less spectacular origins and establishment of the superhero archetype. Guess it was worth a look with
Will Smith as the lead.
Too bad the premise was weak. The pop culture references were sloppily thrown in to provide a link to the internet-aware generations. Expect repetitive lame phrases like “call me an asshole one more time”; because it’s in there for the whole movie. I really wish they didn’t cast Charlize Theron as his opposite. She’s pretty great in naturalistic roles, but as a female heroin she comes off superficial and unconvincing.
Compositing was pretty average at best. Shots were not lit consistently, and the flying sequences looked like something straight out of GTA. The twisters in the middle of the street was ultra corny, and live action mattes were pretty poorly layered.
Was a bit of a letdown, but oh well. It’ll make the next big superhero flick : The Dark Knight that much more mouthwateringly awesome.
P.S. HA HA cock.
July 5, 2008
The best ‘rebooted’ film I’ve seen in a long while. A cast of amazing actors (Ed Norton, Liv Tyler, William Hurt and Tim Roth), and an amazing script re-write of the 2003 flop; Hulk. Flashbacks and deeper intricacies ground this expected ‘sequel’ as a mutually exclusive retelling of the Hulk story. Marvel is really starting to mature. Most recently, something that I am loving is the tie in to the possible Avengers all-star movie.
From the go- I swear I caught a single-second-blink of an Ironman Stark Industries logo, as well as badges hidden all over weaponry. Whatever they did, it was subtle, but really rewarding to find for those who payed attention to all the little easter eggs. Of course, Stan Lee cameoed - this time with a slightly bigger role. The subtle humour within this action flick was enough to prevent it from becoming too dry.
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June 22, 2008
When I saw leaked Dreamworks concepts for this film, I was really excited. Pandas! Probably one of my favourite bears (actually, they are more closely related to racoons). Luckily I managed to get on an advanced screening to get it out of my system! The only doubts I had about this film was the ability to translate the amazing 2d concept designs by Nicolas Marlet (also worked on Monsters Inc, Madagascar, and Over the Hedge) For those who’ve been lucky enough to see it (or even trailers), you’ll appreciate how amazingly clean and rhythmic the shapes are within the character design. They did a really great job pulling the clean shapes into 3d, volumetric designs. Even still poses were very dynamic, because of the natural flow in design and solid posing. It’s been a long time since I’ve seen designs which have made me want to catch an animated flick. What’s more is that you’ll even get to see the designs animated in a really organic and stylised 2d sequences (which I loved the most) as well as a treat in the credits.
On a technical standpoint, the effects were not overwhelming, but complemented the designs so well. The fur’s stylised application kept it from distracting (which is such a common annoyance in more recent production) and the lighting was crisp enough to clearly highlight silouhettes in those amazing action sequences. If there was anything to dislike compositionally, I’d say that a some of the backgrounds had too much detail, and caused action to be lost amongst it all.
With a cast of Jack Black, Dustin Hoffman, Angelina Jolie, Lucy liu and Jackie Chan - you’d think you might find the familiar voices annoying, but they seemed to work naturally as the voice cast. The story was pretty solid and dorky, but it’s allowed to be! It is a kid’s film. The character acting and timing was brilliant. The audience I was with ranged from 6 to mid 50’s and everyone got good and clean laughs out of it (which I think is an amazing feat in this current age of filmmaking). I think the theme of self value really held the film together well, and wrapped up really tidily but in a manner that remained warm and thoughtful.
Was surprisingly enjoyable and I absolutely recommend that you see it. I may be a biased animator (:P) but it’s super fun and worth your money!
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