Melancholia was a movie I went to see expecting it to blow me away. I thought: now here's a movie that doesn't have the mass-friendliness of the average Hollywood movie, but at the same time actually has a nice budget, and some good actors. Now don't get me wrong, I often find low- budget films with fresh talent amazing, but with Melancholia I was hoping for something that successfully molds together the Hollywood and indie movie scenes. Here's what I thought of the movie:
As it opens there's a quite long, slow moving apocalyptic scene that I won't even try to explain. But, to be honest, I found it to be quite nicely done. With the occasional space imagery to me it looked like if Ingmar Bergman had made a 2001: A Space Odyssey -based short film. Wagner's music really made it an extraordinary experience.
Part I: The Wedding (no I'm not calling it Justine, live with it): At first it seemed like a pretty nice, slow starting, atmosphere building part of the movie (note that at this point I still really wanted to enjoy this movie), but as time went on I found myself hating most of the badly written, annoying, and shallow cast, and I was hoping for bad things to happen to them all, especially Justine, Kirsten Dunst's character. By the way, why does everyone consider her performance so great? Sure, she was good at playing an angsty character whose motives remain a mystery to everyone, but honestly, being either expressionless or having an intentionally painful fake smile on shouldn't be that hard. When the wedding scene was over, I thought, finally, now can we get to the part where this gets good?
Part II: The Generic Ranch: So, after being bored with the first half of the movie I was hoping for something a bit better. Well, I never got what I was hoping for. Justine just got a lot more annoying, we found out she has paranormal abilities, and people were taking a planet sucking out some of earth's atmosphere, probably taking it off it's course and killing everyone on it regardless of weather it collided or not really goddamn well. Not even Kiefer Sutherland's great performance could make me have any motivation for watching on. For the first time in my life I was actually contemplating walking out of the theater I was so bored and annoyed. Long story short, Justine was a total douche, her sister paniced and the world came to an end, and the movie ended. Oh yeah and there was that kid who did an even worse performance than Jake Lloyd on Star Wars ep. 1. Yes it was really that bad.
Okay, the very end was pretty epic, with Wagner's music almost blowing my eardrums out and a huge blue planet smashing into the earth. I have to admit though, when the movie ended, I accidentally let out a giggle, much to the dismay of most people sitting near me. Seriously, as well made as it was, it was a pretty silly way to end the movie in my opinion.
Alright, pros and cons:
Pros: We saw Kirsted Dunst naked a couple of times, and although I really disliked the jumpy, amateuristic camera-work, the movie was at times visually amazing, and not really ever over the top. Also, the idea for the movie was pretty cool, and I really enjoyed Kiefer Sutherland's acting. The very beginning and very end should have been made into separate short films because they were really worth watching.
Cons: Exceptionally shallow characters whose ridiculously small backstories were just thrown on to the viewers, mostly just average, sometimes painfully weak acting, and plentiful filler scenes that had no purpose whatsoever and that could have been cut down without the movie losing anything, while some scenes were just cut off completely (for example the impromptu sex scene with Justine and her husband, which, if correctly made, could have told us most everything about their relationship, and many more scenes that were just cut way too short).
Conclusion: I'd like to give the movie more points just for it's beginning and end, and the story that had great potential for a sci-fi - sporting drama, but I just can't. For the first time in a while I seriously had trouble getting through this movie without walking out in the middle. Sorry to all the people who think it's a great movie, but personally I think I'd seriously rather do the dishes and mow the lawn than watch this movie again.
As it opens there's a quite long, slow moving apocalyptic scene that I won't even try to explain. But, to be honest, I found it to be quite nicely done. With the occasional space imagery to me it looked like if Ingmar Bergman had made a 2001: A Space Odyssey -based short film. Wagner's music really made it an extraordinary experience.
Part I: The Wedding (no I'm not calling it Justine, live with it): At first it seemed like a pretty nice, slow starting, atmosphere building part of the movie (note that at this point I still really wanted to enjoy this movie), but as time went on I found myself hating most of the badly written, annoying, and shallow cast, and I was hoping for bad things to happen to them all, especially Justine, Kirsten Dunst's character. By the way, why does everyone consider her performance so great? Sure, she was good at playing an angsty character whose motives remain a mystery to everyone, but honestly, being either expressionless or having an intentionally painful fake smile on shouldn't be that hard. When the wedding scene was over, I thought, finally, now can we get to the part where this gets good?
Part II: The Generic Ranch: So, after being bored with the first half of the movie I was hoping for something a bit better. Well, I never got what I was hoping for. Justine just got a lot more annoying, we found out she has paranormal abilities, and people were taking a planet sucking out some of earth's atmosphere, probably taking it off it's course and killing everyone on it regardless of weather it collided or not really goddamn well. Not even Kiefer Sutherland's great performance could make me have any motivation for watching on. For the first time in my life I was actually contemplating walking out of the theater I was so bored and annoyed. Long story short, Justine was a total douche, her sister paniced and the world came to an end, and the movie ended. Oh yeah and there was that kid who did an even worse performance than Jake Lloyd on Star Wars ep. 1. Yes it was really that bad.
Okay, the very end was pretty epic, with Wagner's music almost blowing my eardrums out and a huge blue planet smashing into the earth. I have to admit though, when the movie ended, I accidentally let out a giggle, much to the dismay of most people sitting near me. Seriously, as well made as it was, it was a pretty silly way to end the movie in my opinion.
Alright, pros and cons:
Pros: We saw Kirsted Dunst naked a couple of times, and although I really disliked the jumpy, amateuristic camera-work, the movie was at times visually amazing, and not really ever over the top. Also, the idea for the movie was pretty cool, and I really enjoyed Kiefer Sutherland's acting. The very beginning and very end should have been made into separate short films because they were really worth watching.
Cons: Exceptionally shallow characters whose ridiculously small backstories were just thrown on to the viewers, mostly just average, sometimes painfully weak acting, and plentiful filler scenes that had no purpose whatsoever and that could have been cut down without the movie losing anything, while some scenes were just cut off completely (for example the impromptu sex scene with Justine and her husband, which, if correctly made, could have told us most everything about their relationship, and many more scenes that were just cut way too short).
Conclusion: I'd like to give the movie more points just for it's beginning and end, and the story that had great potential for a sci-fi - sporting drama, but I just can't. For the first time in a while I seriously had trouble getting through this movie without walking out in the middle. Sorry to all the people who think it's a great movie, but personally I think I'd seriously rather do the dishes and mow the lawn than watch this movie again.