ilBuono Reviews

Unforgiven (2013)

Suffers from remakitis

[5/10 · 27 March 2014]

When a movie is as brilliant as Eastwood's Unforgiven, it's very hard if not impossible to watch its remake with a fresh eye. I tried, but could not succeed. I kept wishing I was watching the original. Not to say it was a bad film, not at all, but there are some major flaws in this movie. First of all, the characters and actors were nowhere as charismatic as in the original. Not that they were bad, but imho they lack the emotional depth and nuance that their predecessors had. While Gene Hackman's role seemed beautifully fleshed out, his Japanese counterpart is merely a psychopath.

The film imitates parts from the original at places were they could have strayed off a bit, and vice versa. Sometimes it felt I was watching a western, just with Japanese actors, while I expected it to be a samourai movie. There are scenes from Unforgiven 1 and 2 with matching color palettes, which I think is a shame. Why not go for a totally different approach? Accentuate the differences, not the similarities. But there are scenes in the original that had a lot of punch (eg the final shootout scene), which have been given a different approach and therefore fail.

Where it succeeds is the beautiful cinematography, and the conclusion of Japanese Will Munny's character. I also like the symbolic use of the elements like rain and snow.

But as said, I'm extremely prejudiced (Eastwood's Unforgiven is one of my favourite movies) and perhaps the viewer who is not familiar with the original will love this one just as well.

Sabata (1969)

Interesting but average spaghetti western

[7/10 · 30 August 2013]

'Sabata' begins with a compelling exuberant country tune, in which people chant 'Ehi amico... c'è Sabata, hai chiuso!'. Exiting and snappy like only an Italian spaghetti western can be. Imagewise the same feeling for style and absurdity is present, there are some interesting shots with equally interesting camera angles. Soon Lee Van Cleef enters the picture.

So you think you're in for a treat. But, despite the obvious creativity and originality, it's not a very good movie and could have been a lot more fun than it is. Lee Van Cleef and William Berger give life to interesting characters, as you should expect. Sabata's a mixture of LVC's persona in For a few dollars more and James Bond and showcases inventive ways of killing people. Berger's fine as the enigmatic Banjo, who plays, well yeah, a banjo. The irritating Pedro Sanchez character and the ridiculousness of the Alley Cat character are something else.

But the real evildoer in this movie is the muddled plot. It's incoherent, drags and you never know when it will end. The movie is a bit longer than an hour and a half, but it certainly feels like a much longer movie.

But not to want to sound too negative, it's still fun to watch. There are enough interesting ideas and fine camera-work to get something out of it. Just don't expect it to be on the same level as any Sergio Leone movie.

The Cow and I (1959)

Very enjoyable escape movie

[9/10 · 18 June 2012]

I saw this film rather by coincidence, but I'm glad I did. I didn't know the film, and I'm not particularly fond of French movies (not necessarily a hater too), but I started watching and was soon hooked. It's a nice little film about a French prisoner of war who wants to escape Germany with a cow by his side (pretending he's taking the cow someplace).

Although this premise may sound a bit thick (or thin, as you wish), it's a thoroughly enjoyable movie, with some heartfelt and funny moments, as well as a few moments of suspense. Fernandel gives an excellent performance, happily with few fringes, as the movie could easily have been turned into a flat cheesy comedy by a lesser actor. A lot of credit goes out the photography, it's superb, I felt like I could hang every frame of the movie on my wall (as is often the case with them old black and white movies). Loved it.

TMNT (2007)

the story ruins it again

[5/10 · 1 May 2007]

The Turtles are back in cgi, and they look great. The animation is good, the characters look good (except for the humans), the special effects are great, in fact there's only one problem: the story is just plain stupid.

Although there are some story lines that promise more depth in the story of these fighting turtles, like the difficult relationship between Leo and Ralph, but it fails to touch you where it should. I think the Spiderman movies are very great because the character Spiderman/Peter Parker is more important than the overall story is (the good guy fighting the bad guy). Here the story is so ridiculous (stars lining up, 13 monsters escaping from a flaming vortex of terror,...) that it can only appeal to younger audiences. A missed chance, I would say.

King Kong (2005)

Cinema at its best

[9/10 · 11 January 2006]

Although the film is not flawless, it's been a while since we've seen something as epic and wonderful as King Kong. As a matter of fact, it has been since the last LOTR film, I think. In this mixture of Jurassic Park, Titanic, Apocalypse Now and the original King Kong, Peter Jackson proves himself once more to be a master at this genre, adventure films with a fantasy twist (or the other way round).

From the nostalgic beautiful beginning set in NY in the 30s, to the Jurassic Park-like jungle, the film looks absolutely stunning. The cinematography, and not only that, it seems that with every new Peter Jackson film, special effects take a huge leap forward.

But special effects and the looks aren't everything though. Besides that, there's very plenty of excitement, adventure, cliffhangers and also some really touching scenes in this blockbuster. In the end, you really feel with Kong, and when he dies, you feel sorry for him. And this is what cinema is made for: to excite,to laugh, to cry. So I'd recommend this to anyone who wants to see a good spectacle with a heart.

Arizona Dream (1993)

Arty, but not very good

[5/10 · 11 January 2006]

Looking at the comments on the board, I'd say it's way overrated. It does have its moments, but there are too many dull scenes, and too many scenes which drove me near crazy because of the weird, loud music. This is a problem which occurred to me several times throughout the film.

Besides that, it goes nowhere. There are many story elements, but none are explored in an interesting way. It doesn't have focus, so in the end, it's about nothing. The actors, especially Johnny Depp and Jerry Lewis manage to save it a bit, but nonetheless this could have been much better. I have nothing against arty, but it has to make some sense.

El Cid: La leyenda (2003)

Missed chance

[4 August 2004]

I don't understand really why this is not as good as it could have been. The production looks very nice, the backgrounds are wonderful and use sometimes inconvenient colors, the animation is nice, the style of drawing is nice (with exception of the villain, who is really very badly drawn), the gigantic arms add an own touch to it. But what the movie lacks is a decent screenplay and most of all, originality. The whole picture feels like made of pieces you have seen thousands of times before, it has nothing new to bring (except the beautiful backgrounds I mentioned before). The beginning, with the two young fools racing against each other feels like a real ripoff of Prince of Egypt. The villain is some kind of poor Jafar-ripoff. And as said before, it all isn't that involving and funny. Another thing that really disturbed me is the editing. Normally I don't notice often bad editing, but here it really annoyed me at times.

So, this is a movie that looks excellent, like it could have been made by Disney or Dreamworks, but it misses almost everything what makes this two companies great. Too bad.

High Plains Drifter (1973)

Slap in the face supernatural western

[9/10 · 11 July 2004]

One of the coolest westerns ever made. Eastwood, instead of copying his breakthrough director Leone, definitely has his own style (although there are some references which are more like an ode). Dark, violent but also incredibly cool and funny at moments. Eastwood makes big impression as the anti-hero Man You Don't Mess With alias avenging angel, and by the end, literally makes hell break loose and the shot Eastwood taking revenge to one of the bad guys by whipping him to death is one of the most demonic and haunting shots I have ever seen.

Although this may look like the usual western in the beginning, wait and see and you'll find a slap in the face, supernatural western which is not to be missed and will keep your mind busy for a while. Who said the western was old-fashioned? Clint still makes it one of the coolest genres there exist.

The Matrix Revolutions (2003)

Not too many words lost...

[8 November 2003]

First of all, I don't know what all the fuzz is about. I found the second Matrix film to be just a worthless film. Very boring, uninteresting and incomprehensible. Nothing really made sense to me. Not even the action. Especially the action. The only thing that was alright to me was the whole highway-sequence. Don't get me wrong, I like a good story, but if it has to be incomprehensible, I'm no longer hooked. This film is different. It doesn't add too much babbling around and it just cuts to the chase. I didn't really think it was a great movie (and that is the fault of reloaded, because I was totally off track with the story), but it sure was an awesome one. The whole war sequence is a very impressive piece of filmmaking and made me think about LOTR. Also the sfx in the finale are just great...

So, briefly, it is a very fun entertaining film and for me it did the Matrix series look good after all...