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The Patriot (2000)
historically inaccurate and jumbled story
If you're entering the theater with the intent to place artistic integrity before blatant marketability, this is not your film. The Patriot is a jumbled, uncoordinated mess without a sense of moral ambiguity that insults the memory of American soldiers who gave their lives for a coordinated cause. It also attributes Nazi mannerisms to the British, led by Colonel William Tavington, who is portrayed by Jason Isaacs.
The plot is as similar to other Roland Emmerich productions (Godzilla, Independence Day, 10,000 B.C.) as it is insultingly simple. A colonial man named Benjamin Martin (played by Mel Gibson) is beset with disaster (the Revolutionary War), and must face it bravely, lest he lose his life as well. In the view of some, this is more of a disaster movie (both figuratively and literally) than a war movie, because Emmerich chooses to place the focus of the nearly 3-hour-long movie on the atrocities (most of which are apocryphal) committed by the British rather than the struggle of the well-meaning protagonist. In reality, church burnings by the British never occurred, there is no evidence Banastre Tarleton (renamed as Tavington in the movie and portrayed by Jason Isaacs) ever broke war rules and shot a child in cold blood, and prisoners of war were never needlessly shot down. This movie also decides that the character shouldn't own slaves (so why choose the location of South Carolina?), or it would make him look bad. This film decides to put big- budget profitability instead of historical accuracy, and hence fails to provide a proper story.
Interspersed throughout the movie are various "hilarious" segments meant to provide comic relief from a serious topic. Fake black teeth, a well- dressed Frenchman, a young lady's deaf father (who wasn't on the screen long enough to provide us anything to laugh at) and Gibson's children, offer nothing more than a simple pleasantry to distract us from Gibson mutilating a corpse with a tomahawk. However this comic relief is misplaced and takes away from the harsh realities of war. While all this may offer half a chuckle at best, one cannot miss the main problem with The Patriot: it follows a familiar storyline with monotonous characters whose struggles are too clichéd for us to sympathize with them. Additionally, the actors in this movie are curt and apathetic - e.g when a character dies, a potentially emotional and powerful scene ends up becoming a jumbled mess of pointless reassurances and quick recovery . Gibson's performance is not only limited by his monotonous drone in place of much needed emotion, but also hindered by a mediocre script and a too-liberal "Americanized" accent. However, his is not the only reviled performance. Heath Ledger is apparently sparing his talent for a later movie, as he seems to act uninterested in the production as well. Ironically, the only decent performance in this film was that of Jason Isaacs's, whose character was basically reduced to nothing but a cartoony "bad guy" left hopelessly for the audience to hate.
The movie doesn't care to focus on character development and emotions as much as it does on glorifying its special effects and slapping on a story at the end. Artistically, it provides nothing of significant merit whatsoever. For those who are looking for a film studio's excuse to show off their excellent CGI and special effects, this movie will suit their purposes. However, if you appreciate a truly compelling story, studded with wisdom, historical accuracy and a powerful message like I do, then let this disaster blow over without your help.
2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)
Stanley Kubrick is an Unmatched Genius Filmmaker
Admittedly, I never heard anything about 2001: A Space Odyssey until I saw a cameo of the HAL 9000 computer in the Epic Rap Battle between Steve Jobs and Bill Gates (nicepeter and epicLLOYD). I went to the library, borrowed a copy, put the DVD inside, and thought, "Well, this ought to be the clichéd sci-fi story.
And for the next two hours, I sat in amazement as I saw the breathtaking visual accomplishment of a movie. It never failed to enthrall me and keeping me on the edge of my seat. It was, in my opinion, a highly realistic view of one envisioning the year 2001 in 1968.
I finished the movie, and immediately went into IMDb for the results, and I was fairly shocked at the amount of people who disliked the movie. Most of those dislikes said something along the lines of "Overrated", "boring", and "someone tell me what the hell this is about."
Arthur C. Clarke and Stanley Kubrick never really intended the audience to understand the movie completely: "If you understand '2001' completely, we failed. We wanted to raise far more questions than we answered."
I completely agree with him. It isn't really much of a story of dialogue (which is kept to a minimum in this movie) as it is a visual story, along the lines of "Metropolis" or "A Trip to the Moon." The purpose of cinema is to provide a visual outlet to fascinating ideas and conceptions, relying on dialogue only to convey an actual story. 2001 manages to do both without the need of much dialogue, and therefore achieves what cinema originally intended to do.
That is why 2001 is my favorite movie of all time. 👍👍 10/10 (and I would rate it 11/10 if I could.
La leggenda del Titanic (1999)
Mind-Boggling
Let me preface this review by saying: I have no words for this atrocity that some people dare to call a film. I can only use Roger Ebert's words when he reviewed Caligula (another travesty I have neither time nor patience to delve into right now): "(This movie) is sickening, utterly worthless, shameful trash. If it is not the worst film I have ever seen, that makes it all the more shameful."
How in the world could an Italian direction possibly have perceived the completely clichéd love story encompassed by possibly the greatest tragedy of the 20th century and associate it with a rapping dog?! Why was it ever started? Why didn't they just quit halfway and realize that it wasn't worth the trouble?
Unfortunately, they went through with its production, and ended up insulting the memory of all the poor souls who died on the Titanic. NO ONE DIED?! IT WAS ALL A FAKE?! THE TITANIC WAS COMPLETELY FABRICATED BY THAT LITTLE MOUSE FOR THE SAKE OF ENTERTAINING HIS GRANDCHILDREN?!?!
I would not recommend this movie to anyone, even my worst enemies. Fabricated as this story purportedly may have been, a disaster did occur in the end - this piece of unapologetic garbage.
"I hated this movie. Hated hated hated hated hated it." - Roger Ebert