Displaying Review 6 - 10 of 17 in total

• Lacks soul (and IQ) — for Deja Vu
  Written by VierasTalo on 05.05.2010

  I'll get over the plot of this movie right away: It is by far the most extraordinary amount of bullshit and techno-babble I have seen in ages. The amount of that terrible techno-babble even exceeds the ludicrous amounts that Star Trek had. There's an actual moment where the characters engage in a pseudointelligent conversation regarding the physics of the entire time machine video thingie. They try to make it seem possible by using fancy words that the writers hoped the viewers would adapt as actual words in their head, and the writers obviously assumed that none of the viewers didn't know anything about the basics of time and space. Hell, I don't know shit about them either, but I can tell when I'm being subjected to techno-babble and bullshit. I mean why should they try to make us believe that something in a movie that obviously bases itself on a fantasy world unlike ours would actually be possible in our world? Deja Vu has magnificent action and a nice premise, so why bother our heads with dull dialogue that we know is in no way intellectual or interesting? It makes no sense, bring in the action already! I must say that how they did the whole time seeing thing was kind of impressive, especially a chase scene around the middle of the movie where Washington is chasing a man from the past with a humvee (this is a Bruckheimer production after all) in the current day.

  Tony Scott is a great visual director. He can make things look really cool and such, but he is terrible when it comes to creating actually intense sequences, which is something that was already apparent in his previous movie, Man On Fire, in which the last hour was somewhat boring, monotone action. He is pretty decent when it comes to the dramatic moments. The camera work is actually relatively impressive at a few points. Also, thank god that Scott didn't go over the top with the color filters and such like he did in Man On Fire, it wouldn't have fitted this movie. It must be said though, that the man has kinda gone low. I mean he directed True Romance, and now he's making movies like this? He deserves better. The acting here was rather questionable. Washington obviously did this for the paycheck, and showed little to no effort in maintaining his character as a believable human being. Kilmer has done nothing in the last years except cashing in on those paychecks as well, so his performance was pretty much the same as Denzel's: Mundane. The female character here is the ultracliched black woman™ who provides the most unbelievable and idiotic movie romance of all time with Denzel. Nothing whatsoever stands out from the rest of the cast, because the screenplay is good in nothing but creating these cliched run of the mill unbelievably predictable charecters who do exactly what you expect them to say and do exactly what you expect them to do.

  All and all, I enjoyed the action scenes in Deja Vu, but the movie tries too hard to make itself seem plausible or realistic, and fails miserably. This, like the 2006 movie Lucky Number Slevin, simply ruins itself by trying to be smart and witty. Underneath the pseudointellectual shell is nothing more but a run of the mill CSI episode combined with a few action scenes.

• I thought my calculations were bad — for The Number 23
  Written by VierasTalo on 06.05.2010

  This was a rather silly movie. What really ruins it is numerology, into which Number 23 obviously largely bases its beliefs on. The number 23 is no more common in our world than for example number 37. They can both be withdrawn from any daily event in our lives with the help of numerology. Let's say that I ate three doughnuts just now. Then I drank water. I took seven sips before my glass was empty. Then it comes down to 37. Things like this occur by the minute. Everything can be calculated to a number you want it to be, aslong as you spent alot of time in it. True, the number 23 is far more favored by numerologists, but it is no more common than 37, 29 or even 75. The very thing Number 23 bases it's story on, also makes it ridicilous and silly. Why would a relatively sane well-living man think that the apperance of a certain number means more than the apperance than some other number? It hardly makes any sense. But that's why the novel seems like Sparrow's life. It drives him forward because it's kinda like a twisted version of his own life, or atleast that's how Sparrow sees it. I never understood how. The conclusions that the characters draw in this movie are so absurd and ridicilous that they almost make the ending of Saw seem plausible. Also, the ending twist, which is an unfortunately common thing nowadays in movies, comes about 20 minutes before the actual movie ends. I say that it is rather interesting that such a thing happens, but it looses most of it's dramatic power simply by happening far too early. You can't see it coming though, and it certainly makes sense, but the trip that the characters take to get to that end twist is so dumb and absurd in a bad way that I find it almost impossible to like.

  As much as it hurts to admit it, Schumacher nailed it on the visual side here. I loved the Sin City-ish look that was present in the few great scenes that we got from the book itself. Also, it was fun to see that there is still a director out there who actually uses the whole color filter-thing with atleast some subtelty. The performances were nice, and I really enjoyed watching Jim Carrey, yet again. Especially those previously mentioned book scenes worked wonders for him. Virginia Madsen cashed in her paycheck, and so did the rest of the cast, but they still did it with a good attitude so it wasn't too bothersome to watch them. One thing that should be noted about the movies visual style were the set pieces though. They were incredibly over the top. We see large halls with nothing but a bed, rooms filled with A4s and numbers... And it all looks as realistical as Carrey's tattoo in this movie. Which means that it really goes to the fantasy-zone on the set pieces, which is fine in the book scenes, but it also does that in "real life" on occasion, which doesn't work all too well since Number 23 tries far too hard to base itself on reality, which, for a movie of this kind, is virtually impossible in the end.

  Indeed, Number 23 had everything necessary to be an entertaining, linear sequence of thrills. But it failed due to the abstract nature of the story. I truly did enjoy most of the performances and direction, but I really can't get over the ridicilous script. If you can ignore the fact that Number 23 tries too hard to make itself seem realistical, you're going to enjoy it quite a bit. If you can do that, you will like it.

• A fountain of joy — for The Fountain
  Written by VierasTalo on 06.05.2010

  Andrei Tarkovsky is generally called one of the greatest movie directors of all time. Why is that? Is it because he had magnificent writing skills? Is it because he somehow managed to pick the cream of the crop as far as actors go? Is it because he was able to direct pretty frames? No. It's because he could direct pretty frames with a meaning. Every single frame has been designed and well, framed, with an obscure amount of skill, creating perfection. This does not only create pretty frames; it creates pretty frames with a meaning. What does this have to do with Darren Aronofsky's new movie, The Fountain? Aronofsky has reached the point where he can create pretty frames with a meaning. Is there really much more that needs to be said about the directing of the movie? I mean it's more than enough to say that the man is on the same level as Andrei Tarkovsky. Aronofsky's screenplay is pretty much equal in quality. Apparently he wanted to recreate the sci-fi genre, in the same way that Star Wars did back in the day. In my opinion he succeeded, as impossible as it may sound. Unlike many modern sci-fi films, the future part of this movie features no technology, which is great. I'm tired to see how fast spaceships can go, or how effective laser beams are when destroying planets. The special effects, which do not use CGI, are absolutely stunning. It's all done by macroimaging, which basically means taking really sharp, little images of blood cells and such. It looks amazing, and it shows off the best in the ending, which is the most beautiful ending I've seen during my life, and it's perfectly held together by Clint Mansell's excellent score.

  The acting in this movie has been called somewhat steady, and people claim it has no variety. I beg to differ. The only reason Hugh Jackman propably agreed to do this movie is because his characters are all extremely different, and so he also gets to show off his different emotional stances, instead of simply showing how much hair he can grow and then shave in the name of his role. I was especially impressed with what this "wolverine" could do with the doctor character, who is almost constantly in pain and torment. Also, he showed great despair around the end as the Zen-guru. Weisz is somewhat balanced between her two roles; as the wife, she shines with joy of the little life she has left, and as the queen she is dead serious about everything. It works well, and she also gets to show off her acting talents. Ellen Burstyn and many others come by for side roles, but they stay in the shadows, as they should. This is a movie about two people in love. Well okay, 5 people in love, and one is in love with a tree. But still.

  The Fountain is, in my opinion, the best movie of 2006 alongside Children Of Men. It would have entirely revolutionized sci-fi cinema if it would've been properly marketed. But instead it flopped. Sometimes this is the fate of great movies and I accept it. I just hate to see a new Michael Bay-flick surpass something that migh make people care about themselves, and make them happy. Oh well. Shit happens.

• Hooray for nothing! — for Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End
  Written by VierasTalo on 15.05.2010

  A random assortment of people try to save Jack Sparrow from... I don't know where, it was called something but it was never specified at all. Anyway, they try to save him because it's a pretty good way to spend 90 minutes of this film, atleast on paper. Then there's an ultimate battle or something with Evil Colonel from part 2.

  I watched a film called Zodiac yesterday. It was over 2 and a half hours long. I was never bored during that time. It was awesome to be honest. Today, I watched a film called Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End. It was almost 3 hours long. It bored me. But unlike the second part, this one bored me with extremely bad jokes and useless drama, and dull McGuffins. Seriously, this movie has every single McGuffin ever even remotely mentioned in the series, in an important position for the "plot." When it comes to the script of this film, I'm actually surprised. The previous movie really had about 10-20 minutes of actual story, but then this film has about... Well, 10-20 minutes of actual plot, but instead of filling the film with action like was done in part 2, here we get ludicrously bad drama scenes. The humour has greatly improved since the previous movie, since I actually laughed a few times in this one (I even laughed at Sparrow once). The new and old characters here are awful, they're all cliched stereotypes that should not exist in modern cinema. Especially the man played by Chow-Yun Fat is the most stereotypical hard-ass asian I've ever seen. I can't believe Fat acted the part the way he did, since he has proved time and again that he is in fact a magnificent actor. But on the other hand this same movie has Johnny Depp "acting" as some weird drunkard, so bleh.

  However, the pacing of this film is rather well composed. Since we don't get an overload of action until the very end of it, you might just notice yourself wanting to see some good old fashioned swashbuckling. This is why the indefinately best part of the entire picture, the ending, works so well. We get an action scene about 20 minutes long, which, in quality, is about as good as the action in the first part of the trilogy, but because we have been numbed by the horrible drama of the movie to that point, this mediocre action scene seems damn near divine. POTC 3 is a movie like LOTR: Return Of The King; it has about five million endings, all of which are just as boring as the other. And there's even an ending after the end of the credits, which I didn't stick around for though. The score is once again composed by Hans Zimmer, and it's mindnumbingly dull with it's repetetive sounds and second-grade choirs. Verbinski, as I've mentioned previously, is adored by yours truly because he directed The Weatherman, but in this film he produces yet again an average result. It's not as if this movie would look bad; it just hasn't got anything visually that we haven't seen before. With all this being said, I loved one scene from this film. Before the final fight, the leaders of the bad guys and the leaders of the good guys gather on a small piece of land. This scene is played off as an homage to old westerns, with it's Morricone-ish score and tight close-ups. I smiled.

  The time of pirates has truly come to pass. It was over in my opinion when Erroll Flynn stopped making pirate movies. Everything that can be taken from the subject of pirates, has already been taken. The topic has been sucked dry. Someone just needs to tell this to Jerry Bruckheimer, so he would stop producing movies about them.

• A great flick if you really like this stuff — for Hostel: Part II
  Written by VierasTalo on 15.05.2010

  The first Hostel was gruesome, sickening and disgusting. Yet I enjoyed it's superb craftsmanship and surprisingly good charecters. It's pretty much the same thing here, except with more plot. Hostel 2 goes in-depth with the whole technical aspect of the torture business; We see how the clients buy their victims, how they are treated upon arrival to Slovakia, and also some rules of the torturer alliance are explained. And instead of using the directorial trick Roth used in the first film, to make us believe we're watching a comedy for the first 50 minutes and then punch us in the face by showing a severed head, here he starts off with that severed head-type of feeling. We still do get a lengthy set-up involving a group of vixens partying and talking. Thank god for the fact that Roth didn't go the Tarantino way and make them talk about popular culture. Instead they just talk bullshit about their friends, just like in real life. And Roth is a good dialogue writer otherwise too, all the dialogue we get here feels spot-on and something that actual human beings might say. When it comes to the torturing scenes, I won't spoil anything. They are extremely creative, but besides a little scene around the end, they're almost goreless. In a movie like this you would expect a whole lot more of torture and such. But on the other hand two side characters, two torturers to be exact, are shown having some very interesting ethical conflicts with each other, and the transformation they both undergo as humans is rather interesting to see.

  The performances are also rather nice. All the women are hot as hell, except for the have-to nerdy kid with the gigantic gums and teeth. We ALMOST get some HLA, but it turns out to be Roth teasing the living shit out of us. I don't like that too much, but there still is a rather large amount of nudity here to please... Well, just about anyone. The technical side is magnificent here, sporting truly disgusting special effects just like the previous movie. The score should also be noted to be great, even managing to add some drama into a scene that would contain none whatsoever withou the music, but the music still doesn't steal the attention away from the movie itself, which really is a rather interesting thing. That's exactly what movie scores should be like. The problem here is that besides the two torturers we never really go above the good movie-level. It's good all right, but Hostel Part II never really manages to rise above that level into greatness. Nonetheless, I doubt that we will ever get a better movie in the torture-genre than this.

  But do you really want to see people get tortured for 30 minutes, and an hour of partying? If you can take it, Hostel: Part II is definately worth seeing. Otherwise, don't bother.