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Silver_Knight
Reviews
Legiunea straina (2008)
Sick
This must be accompanied by a special rating and warning: NOT RECOMMENDED TO NORMAL PEOPLE.
The obsession of Daneliuc with the most dirty body functions becomes here a real nightmare. Also, it's evident that the man is a misanthrope, he hates everybody - his country his people, his actors, his job. And this hatred makes him blind and he forgets anymore the profession he knew long ago.
This so called "film" is just a hideous string of disgusting images, with no artistic value and no professionist knowledge. It is an insult to good taste and to good sense. Shame, shame, shame!
Capcana mercenarilor (1981)
Not so bad as what to follow
Here, the story is still told almost well, and the direction is decent enough. One of the best scenes is the drinking roulette in the end, where the mercenaries are paired two by two, to drink themselves stupid, so that the oe keeping longer of each couple shoots the other. Of course, Amza Pella and Cornel Girbea offer the most interesting confrontation and outcome.
But, all in all, the movie doesn't bring anything new. It's just an adventure film on historical background.
I also remember that when I saw it people were commenting that the censorship had insisted to delete certain scenes, because they were too cruel, and Nicolaescu was able to keep them. For that period, it was interesting enough, but they can't compare with what one can see now as cruelty.
Wanted (2008)
pretty damn cool
Wanted is based on a controversial comic of the same name written by Mark Millar. It will be hard to believe for those that see the movie without having read the comic book, but the film is actually toned down. "The Fraternity" has their own code of ethics. They are doing what they feel is right and are unconcerned with and unapologetic for any collateral damage. They train Wesley in the ways of their world: special baths that accelerate healing, the power to slow down their perception of time (thereby increasing their own reaction time) and the ability to bend the trajectory of bullets.
And let's be honest, it looks pretty damn cool. Tooling around Chicago in Dodge Viper, killing bad guys and using Angelina Jolie to make your ex-girlfriend jealous makes for a fun Friday night in my book.
The Incredible Hulk (2008)
Miscast and formulaic
A lazy, formulaic mess of a superhero film. It's not a patch on "Iron Man" which was Marvel's first "in house" production, and it suffers terribly when compared to that offering. When the standout sequence is a rehash of the rooftop scene already done (and to much better effect) in Bourne Ultimatum you know you're in trouble. Ed Norton is, unfortunately, totally miscast in this take on Bruce Banner. He's far too bland to command leading man status. The action scenes are tired and lifeless, with poor fire FX and some terrible "eye line" work on the CGI. Only the end scene fight between The Hulk and The Abomination look vaguely convincing. And it's the sort of fight scene that we've seen endless times before in other, better superhero movies.
Neînvinsa-i dragostea (1994)
Crazy but enjoyable
Although not by far one of the best Romanin movies ever made, this nutty black comedy stands true to its own promises. The storyline gets lost somewhere in the second half, and the ending is positively anticlimactic. However, for about two thirds of the running time the social satire works well enough, with an almost ferocious sharpness, and the erotic content keeps remarcably tame, for a period when everybody supposed that cinematic freedom means plenty of full frontal nudes and explicit sex scenes. The author prefers to use the means of implicit suggestion, oscillating somewhere between decency and lack of courage.
Thankfully, the movie is saved by a great cast, made up of a few of the best Romanian actors, giving the full measure of their talent, and also a bunch of students and amateurs for the first time on screen. Skillful cinematography and a snappy editing, plus the great music score of the Nanu Bros, make up for many of the directing uncertainties. All in all, what it promises, it delivers - in a surprisingly coherent form, by comparison with all the pre-1989 Romanian productions.