Change Your Image
enigmatikmike
Reviews
300 (2006)
Short of Perfection
Two things annoyed me most about the film (and hence the 2 missing marks). First was the over-the-top rhetoric and all those hyperbolas about Freedom and Justice. I think the filmmaker did an excellent job in portraying visually the fact that the civilised world (symbolised by Spartans) was standing up to an evil oppressive system (symbolised by Xerxes and his army of mutants). There was no need for the dialogue to refer to it CONTINUOUSLY. I'm sure the audience didn't need that amount of indoctrination. And referring to Thermopylae as a battle "against mysticism" was a bit outrageous, given that everyone, including Greeks, had some sort of mystic system.
The second thing that annoyed me was the somewhat low-key ending. I think that a character such as Leonidas deserved a more fitting death. A cool battle to the last, and only then should we have had the rain of arrows that slaughters him. What we had is a very short battle that pales next to the initial ones, and so leaves one slightly disappointed. Together with this I found the soundtrack to be slightly limited. Personally I would have added some more rock riffs.
Other than that it was a good epic film. The battles in the first half of the film were visually stunning, with time speeding up and slowing down to achieve better effect. Good Good stuff.
Let us hope that the lessons learnt at Thermopylae will never be forgotten.
Little Man (2006)
god-awful
If I just tell you how the story goes you would be better off. You'd be spared the agony of watching this absolute rubbish.
I mean, this isn't a decent film. It is not an attempt at a decent film. It isn't even a parody of a decent film. It is a money-making exercise by people who were confident that their names are enough to generate profits. In a film that's supposedly a comedy I only managed to laugh once, and smile twice. I believe even a funeral would have a better effect on me.
We have the same brainless, least-common-denominator type joke repeated about 5 times, some crass sex jokes (a side-note: I really am not prudish, I like good double-entendres and innuendos as much as the next guy, but even a 13 year old on heat would have been able to come up with better hilarity than what the wayans produced) and a predictable ending.
The credits come as a relief at the end, if you're haven't already dozed off that is.
Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan (2006)
I like! How much?
I will skip over all the good things that give this film its 9 points and go straight to the reason for that missing one out of 10: The film is tamer than I thought it would be.
Without giving anything away, the clips released on YouTube are not an appetizer building up to what you will get in the movie, but rather the main course. Don't expect to see acts of such audacity that they will put the YouTube clips to shame (as I did) or you will be slightly disappointed.
Apart from that, it's ironic sarcasm at it's best. A definite must see. High five!
Lucky Number Slevin (2006)
My God, that was fantastic!
In this world of false promises it is not common for a film to live up to the promises made by its theatrical trailer. Much less for the film to actually surpass them.
Lucky Number Slevin managed to do that with quite some style. And then more. The story is solid, interesting and never boring or overstretched. It nicely builds up the tension in different parts of your brain until it explodes in the dramatic twist in the tale which must surely be one of the best in current Cinema. Not to mention the clever use of shots which we would have already seen before, leading one to wonder: "How the hell did I manage to miss that!" And with a running time of slightly more than one and a half hours it is the perfect length to build up the story without over indulging on it. You'll sit up from that sofa with the feeling you get when you've just enjoyed something good, very good.
Verdict: Go rent the DVD now. Better still, buy it.
Sanctuary (1998)
Mediocrity made film.
Put simply, this is the most mediocre film I've had the opportunity to watch on DVD. The acting is mediocre, the special effects mediocre, the setting mediocre. For a change the storyline is not mediocre: it's worse than that.
I'm quite sure that I would have done a better job myself with half the budget allocated to the film. The constant referring to flashbacks is good at the start but becomes annoying as the film drags along. Drags, because the story is so damn predictable that you're just waiting for it to end. There are a couple of humorous points ("Fuck yourself." "I can do that, too") but these only highlight how drab and uninspiring the rest of the script is. Dialogue is zero, acting on the same level. You neither care nor want to care about the main actor. Let this be over with, please.
Special effects (usually a comeback for films like this) are hopeless too. Take the SWAT attack on the homeless community for example. How many of you have seen other film where SWAT members spend an inordinate amount of time posing with their guns but then fire blindly from the hip? The whole scene is directed so atrociously you never know hoe many people are actually there and where they really are. You realize the fight has ended when the truck blows up because... that's the way it is usually done. And I really really stood up laughing when the director shows us the main actor removing the tracking device from the pistol: a normal capacitor of the kind you can buy from every electronics shop.
I will not pass comments on the ending of the film, because it's sheer, unadulterated senselessness (and mediocrity) left me breathless. I hope it was a twisted joke I failed to comprehend, and not an attempt at serious film-making.