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thehairthieves
Reviews
Rebel Moon - Part One: A Child of Fire (2023)
Yeah, nah
I was invited to watch Rebel Moon the day it came out with some friends and, having heard the basic idea (Star Wars meets Seven Samurai) and seen that it was getting generally negative reviews I wasn't hyped to see it by any means. The good: it wasn't as awful as I was expecting. The bad...
Things start out pretty interestingly, actually, and I was drawn in by the build up in the village (although some of the background effects looked more like matte paintings than good CGI). After that, though, things started a gradual downhill trend to the point where I really was only partially paying attention during the second half.
The movie did a couple of things well at least: the aforementioned opening, some of the world building, some of the effects, and some of the costume design (which is surprisingly reminiscent of Warhammer).
The rest, however, is pretty bad. None of the actors put in a noteworthy performance, largely because they characters they're given are as flat as pancakes with the blandest of dialogue. The series of characters the protagonists gather basically get an introductory cutscene before being relegated to the background; they also happen to be a procession of different ethnicities, making their presence seem a bit token (the East Asian character even has 'Asian' battle music).
The main villain isn't too bad, although his hairstyle is truly dreadful and he randomly switches into a suit and tie halfway through for some reason. The big bad, however, just isn't intimidating in the slightest, not helped by his very not-scary Northern Irish accent (better than the very fake accent we're treated to by the turncoat character).
The visuals are a real mixed bag: some look really stylish, while in some shots it's painfully obvious the actors are performing in front of a green screen.
This film also seems to 'borrow' from a few unexpected sources. The species of character who betray information about the good guys to the villains are nearly identical to orcs from Lord of the Rings, to a point that it's hard to ignore. Additionally the whole sequence with the griffin-esque creature could be mistaken for a shot-for-shot remake of the Buckbeak segment of the third Harry Potter.
Rebel Moon's biggest misstep in my opinion, however, is that it leaves it introduces its most intriguing character early on, then abandons it. Judging from the very end the intention is for the robot character to be more prominent in the sequel, but judging from their appearance in that shot their story would have been far more interesting than that which the movie portrays. Show us Farmer Bobot!
Honestly, the biggest points of interests for me in this were the beginning and ridiculing the laughable portions; without them Rebel Moon would have been about as boring as any movie I've seen.
À ma soeur! (2001)
Nonsensical
I had to watch this film for my university French course and, don't get me wrong, I love French and French cinema, but this is one of the exceptions. For the majority of the film, I was bored, confused and occasionally repulsed. My repulsion is quite explainable, due to the amount of nuditiy in this film. While I don't find the female body repulsive, I do find needless scenes of female nudity being shoved in my face repulsive, particularly when they involve the breasts of a 14 year- old girl. My boredom and confusion however, stem from the fact that virtually every scene in this film is either too long or goes nowhere, often just seeming like filler. There are also scenes which make no sense whatsoever, such as when Anaïs suddenly appears naked on the beach, without any rhyme or reason. Then, suddenly, at the end, we are hit by an unfeasibly dark 'twist'. I put 'twist' in inverted commas because the mood of the film towards the end makes it blatantly obvious that there will be one. The only thing we aren't told is what that twist is. The twist itself is needlessly violent, and the reactions of the characters are somewhat confusing.
This film shall be condemned to the vast scrapheap of movies I have seen, simply because it goes nowhere and makes little to no sense.
The Adventures of Tintin (2011)
Could have been great
I was really excited to see this film, as I'm a big fan of Tintin, both the comics and the TV series from the early 90s. I was also pleased to see that the American influence would be primarily limited to Steven Spielberg, with the cast being mostly British and also having Peter Jackson on board. Things started off quite well, with the film sticking closely to the comics and TV episodes, keeping a good pace which got me into the film early on. I was also very impressed with the motion-capture animation and the 3D effects, even if some of the characters didn't look quite right.
However, soon after Tintin and Haddock crashed in the desert, things started to go rapidly downhill. The key to this was the fact that the story suddenly veered off onto its own tangent, almost disregarding the original story and the fact it had based so much of itself on the originals up until that point.
What also infuriated me was the silliness of it. Of course, a film like this should have a dose of silliness, there's no question of that. But there was far too much, which really ruined it for me. The climactic scene of the duel in the cranes is a prime example of this. It was just too silly for me to take it seriously. Not only that, but this would never have been in one of Herge's original stories.
My last gripe is that the film seemed far too long, particularly towards the end. A lot of scenes could have been either shortened or cut all together, as they didn't further the plot or provide anything to the enjoyment. This is another reason why I didn't enjoy the climax of the film, I was bored by the time it got around to it.
Overall, I would say that this is a film which had great promise, as Tintin is perfect for an action-adventure movie, but the fact that a lot of the film ignores the original stories ruins any chances of that. I would say that any major deviation from the original stories should only have been done if absolutely necessary to make the film work.
Alice in Wonderland (2010)
Good movie...if it wasn't for Disney
At first, I didn't even know that this was a different plot to most Alice in Wonderland films, and I was pleasantly surprised to find that it was a fresh take on the old classic. Initially, I wasn't sure it would be much, due to the appalling quality of films made in recent years. The film starts off quite slowly, with very little happening in the opening few minutes, and what does happen is entirely irrelevant to the plot. Once Alice finds her way down the rabbit hole, things start to get going. I enjoyed the dark atmosphere, being quite Harry-Potteresque at times. I liked the CG effects, with many of the characters either lovable or reflecting their actor's appearance while maintaining the fantasy element. This film's triumph though, it its casting. Helena Bonham-Carter makes for a superb Red Queen, and is by far the most amusing character in the entire film. Johnny Depp, who I regard as the only good American actor apart from John Malkovich, is also very good as the Mad Hatter, possessing yet another virtually flawless accent. Matt Lucas was a surprise for me, but I felt that he was an excellent choice as Tweedledum and Tweedledee, bringing just the right naivety to them.
The film runs very smoothly for most of the beginning and middle parts, with some features that I thought would never make it into a Disney film. Sadly though, things take a turn for the worse when the climax of the film comes around. The battle scene is very mundane, predictable and just didn't grip me at all. I'm reminded strongly of the battle with the Basilisk in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, except that scene is now 8 years old and puts the fight with the Jabberwocky to shame. The CG effects in 2010 look rather pitiful in comparison to those in 2002. The Basilisk looked so much more believable, not to mention the entire scene was more suspenseful, despite the fact I already knew the outcome of it from reading the book.
But the battle scene is nothing compared to just a few seconds of insanity that follow it. Johnny Depp's dance can only be described as a brain explosion on the part of the writers. I simply sat, staring at the screen, my only thought being "what were they thinking?!". It is truly one of the worst moments in any film, something that doesn't fit in with the rest of the film at all. Not even the music fits in with the Victorian setting of the movie. Johnny Depp should be ashamed of the brief seconds he spent dancing in this abomination of an ending. Speaking of which, I have seen many a cringe-worthy ending of American films in my time, but none as ludicrous or inconsequential as this. It is as if there were two sets of writers for this film. One for the middle, and one for the beginning an end. The two sections seem to bare no resemblance to one another, and may as well be from different films.
In my opinion, this film was gunning for an 8 out of 10, if it wasn't for the final few minutes which went from bland to inexplicable. It begs the question, did Tim Burton have anything to do with this excruciating ending? Or did Disney take over when it was nearly finished, and attempted to tie any hint of a loose end up and turn this once promising film into another piece of Hollywood tripe to be thrown onto the dung-heap that constitutes the majority of American cinema.
Avatar (2009)
Utter garbage
This has to be one of the worst films I have ever seen. I was subjected to it during a three hour bus ride home, with little other entertainment. It turned out to be like many other Hollywood films, a good basic idea but the execution of it was appalling. In future, Hollywood should pass its ideas onto European film-makers, just to make them bearable.
Aside from the bad acting, I have two main gripes that make this film so much worse than many of its Hollywood fellows. Firstly, the only original thing about it are the CGI effects. These, admittedly, are stunning. However, the actual plot of the story is so similar to many other Hollywood films, I'm surprised James Cameron bothered making it. It's basically Fern Gully with a massive budget. My second complaint is the budget itself. It's astronomical and was totally squandered. Just think how that money could have been spent, say on healthcare, education and the like. But no, instead it gets spent on a shockingly average film.
This film could have been great, but the recycled storyline destroyed any vestige of that.