Wherein I Review Several Movies

Alright, so, call it a rainy day thing... or really, just call it the fact that snow continues to fall unabated. Since I didn't get to go out for my birthday tonight like I'd planned, I instead decided to get caught up on a couple of movies I'd been meaning to see.

I would like to point out that Filmspot.com is still in beta, and it's painfully obvious why after tonight. I attempted to post quite a few reviews, and was met with a great deal of resistance by their system. Apart from the fact that no matter what you do, it will mangle your formatting the first time you submit, it also seems that with The Number 23 and Curse of the Golden Flower, when I attempted to 'fix' said formatting, I ended up resubmitting it. (Esp. No. 23, which I now have FOUR reviews posted for, because no matter what I did, it kept reformatting it the same way, even with up to 8 forced line breaks.) The odd thing is that I've never had this problem on GameSpot, and it seems like they use the same system.

Oh well, as long as I don't get in trouble for 'spamming', because it was unintentional.

Anyway, here goes...


The Number 23

I'm going to be as kind as possible, because I had high hopes for this. High hopes that were dashed.

First, a little background. My birthday is February 23rd, so, you may be able to understand that I saw this and thought, "perhaps it is fate."

To say this movie is bad doesn't do bad movies justice. I mean, House of the Dead was bad, but this movie is bad on a whole other level.

The movie is about obsession over the number 23, but the problem is that, for the most part, it's all just a ridiculous series of coincidences. Coincidences that start from the opening, and continue all throughout. Honestly, it's like 'The DaVinci Code for Dummies'.

You hope, when you figure out what the twist is going to be, that you're wrong. You really hope that something amazing happens to tie it all up, but, then, when it turns out the thing you've been fearing happens. That's when you want to throw things at the screen. It's when they proceed to try and justify it, that's when things get really bad, because, no matter how hard you try, you cannot justify this.

It's unjustifiable.

I will say that I love Carrey in a movie where he's just flailing around like a lunatic. Truly, that sort of humor lost it's luster when I was 12, and, honestly, even though the movie itself isn't great, Carrey gives a fairly solid performance.

I cannot in good conscience recommend this movie to anyone. It's just not good.

I don't mean that it's the worst movie I've ever seen, I have honestly seen far more horrific ventures in film making, but, do yourself a favor and avoid this one.

Unless you really enjoy terrible movies.

FilmSpot | IMDB | Wikipedia

Curse of the Golden Flower

Curse of the Golden Flower is a little bit different than any of the previous 'Asian Cinema' movies that I've seen, but not substantially.

It is, in every way, an incredible piece of filmmaking. From the moment the film starts, you are accosted with over-saturated colors and a plethora extremely well choreographed movement. The most noticeable thing all throughout is the wardrobe, which is phenomenal, and the set design and construction, which is amazing.

Understand that it takes quite a bit for someone like myself to use words like phenomenal and amazing.

Beyond the visuals, which make up a majority of the films strong points, there's also the incredible 'fight scenes', which are, in no uncertain terms, as amazing as you'd expect from a film of this type. The only problem is that there's not nearly enough of them for the first 3/4 of the film, no, the story is what dominates.

The story, however, is another 'story' entirely. It's in depth and rich, but, I feel gets lost slightly in 'translation'. It's hard to watch, truly, because so much of the story requires you to set aside your concepts of 'normal' culture and society. It's also very slow going, and I feel that much of the story is withheld from us for far too long, until the end, when everything is 'revealed'.

The epic battle at the end makes the entire thing worthwhile, though.

FilmSpot | IMDB | Wikipedia

Eragon

I've not been more upset with a book to film adaptation than with this movie. It's awful.

I try hard, when I go to see remakes and adaptations of things that I've enjoyed previously, to go into it with 'fresh eyes', as if I'm watching something new.

I couldn't manage this, however, for Eragon. I will say that I've read the first two books from Pauolini, and enjoyed them immensely, even if they were rather verbose, and did borrow liberally from several fine fantasy works.

Paoulini is very visual with his descriptions of characters and actions so that you cannot read Eragon and Eldest without having incredibly accurate images all throughout, and, having read the story so thoroughly, my visual images are very vivid.

So, it is with great frustration that I see so many liberties were taken in the casting and reproduction of the characters. Esepcially given the amount of money they used in the creation of the dragons, it seems impossible that they could not have done more with the other 'non-human' creations. As an example, the Urgals, which are described as creatures with with horns and greyish skin, are in the film, merely filthy looking men.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that the movie isn't visually compelling. Saphira is amazing, the sound is astounding, and the effects of the magic are impeccable.

The most frustrating thing about the entire film, though, is that they use so many ridiculous plot devices to cram a 550 page book into an hour and a half. An example comes at the very beginning, where the extremely young Saphira is first learning to fly, she soars into the air and through heavy clouds, his apparently hit by lightning and suddenly grows about 5 times her size... something that took a while to happen in the book, and, frankly doesn't make a lot of sense, even if you've never read it.

The other issue that effects my enjoyment is that very little character development. The plain truth is that there's no way to fit this book into an hour and a half. It just doesn't work!

Now, I have to apologize that I've given this review based on reading the books, but, I can't find any other way.

So, the sum of everything? If you've read the books, it's best to avoid the film. If not, well, it's not so bad.

But, you'd do better by reading the books...

Filmspot | IMDB | Wikipedia