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Am trying to slip some movie-watching into the last few days of the year, finally see some of the flicks I'd heard so much about, weigh them on their own merits. Spoilers below, I guess, but these films have been out long enough that I'd have to think if you had a strong interest in their revelations, you've seen them already. Anyway.
Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull: Immediately after seeing this I flipped over to Comedy Central and watched South Park's "The China Problem," in all its disturbing glory. I didn't hate the movie that much. I'm not sure I hated the movie. I don't think I liked it all that much, though, and ambivalence isn't what I was hoping for. Mrs.![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
daethkow asserted it to be the true trilogy-ender, discounting Temple of Doom, and I'm not sure I can agree with that. Obviously replacing fuzzy, ill-defined theology with fuzzy, ill-defined science fiction is a stylistic choice -- moving the setting to the 1950s, due to the leathering of Harrison Ford, isn't, and maybe that compromise was the best they could do. But the action sequences went on 50% too long with 200% more CGI creatures than they needed ("Maybe I used too many monkeys"), and the plot didn't so much as advance as stutter from location to location: change locale, make deductions, oh noes Russians are already there and waiting for you to emerge.
There was something very not-Indiana-Jones about the entire endeavor. It felt like a badly GMed RPG -- "There is a neon arrow pointing to the Amazon river basin. You should follow it." None of the characters felt like "actors" in the sense that they effected actions in their own narratives. Or maybe it was that they never left the Americas. Or maybe it's that magnetism doesn't work that way¹. Or maybe there's that whole aliens-but-not-aliens thing. Or maybe there's the raw implausibility of, oh, pretty much every aspect of every action sequence. Meh.
Funny things: I didn't hate Shia LaBoeuf. The very name makes me roll my eyes, and yet I found him to be one of the less grating aspects of the film. The film does exploit one of my few weaknesses, that being Cate Blanchett, but when she's pouring over the map with Jones and trading observations -- that I liked. I was waiting for Indy to dump the ball-n-chain and hook up with the sassy mind-crazy colonel so they could complete their quest and subjugate capitalism together, or failing that, to seek to defeat moose und squirrel.
It's a troubling film, mainly because I don't feel it fits with the previous films at all -- it serves as something of an overlong coda to the franchise, I think, but nothing more. (Also, that anyone could claim this film was better or more enjoyable than Iron Man needs a CAT scan.)
Wanted: Never read the book -- Mark Millar is not a selling point for me, and yet, I dug this film. Yes, it's almost as implausible as Crystal Skull, but it sets its own ground rules and joyously plays within them. It wants to be a stupid loud action vehicle, and it's certainly that, and that immediately makes it more of a success than most films I've seen lately.
I kept saying "This is just like Narnia" before recognizing James McAvoy. Heh.
This movie's Shia is Angelina Jolie -- no, I don't get the appeal of her hypercollagenic face or her over-tattooed flesh, but you know, I didn't mind her at all in this film. In fact, she did a pretty decent job of introducing poor Wesley intoNarnia the Fraternity, and Liam Neeson Morgan Freeman is Morgan Freeman, just...with that added twist of lemon to make things interesting.
A trifle, yes, but pleasantly diverting.
Cloverfield: I'd already seen the South Park episodes and been exposed to enough of the outstanding plotlines that it wasn't going to be surprising (or, as Randy Marsh would point out, "startling") but I think it still succeeds in the same scope that Wanted does -- it knows what it wants to be (a first-person modern Godzilla movie) and it makes it happen. Am not sure if it's too long or too short -- it seems like it's one plot contrivance away from justifying its already paltry length -- and I don't particularly like any of the characters (I wonder if for all the alternate titles if anyone suggested Run Hipster Run), but it doesn't err on the side of overexplication, doesn't dwell on scenes, doesn't linger. Much better than I was expecting it to be. Not sure if seeing it on the small screen dilutes its effect, but it'll have to do.
My favorite character is still the reluctant-to-topple streetlamp in the deleted scenes.
¹Yes, they do point out that the skull's effect isn't quite magnetism -- as it's effecting non-ferrous objects -- so it's more of a selective telekinesis, I guess, but still.
Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull: Immediately after seeing this I flipped over to Comedy Central and watched South Park's "The China Problem," in all its disturbing glory. I didn't hate the movie that much. I'm not sure I hated the movie. I don't think I liked it all that much, though, and ambivalence isn't what I was hoping for. Mrs.
daethkow asserted it to be the true trilogy-ender, discounting Temple of Doom, and I'm not sure I can agree with that. Obviously replacing fuzzy, ill-defined theology with fuzzy, ill-defined science fiction is a stylistic choice -- moving the setting to the 1950s, due to the leathering of Harrison Ford, isn't, and maybe that compromise was the best they could do. But the action sequences went on 50% too long with 200% more CGI creatures than they needed ("Maybe I used too many monkeys"), and the plot didn't so much as advance as stutter from location to location: change locale, make deductions, oh noes Russians are already there and waiting for you to emerge.There was something very not-Indiana-Jones about the entire endeavor. It felt like a badly GMed RPG -- "There is a neon arrow pointing to the Amazon river basin. You should follow it." None of the characters felt like "actors" in the sense that they effected actions in their own narratives. Or maybe it was that they never left the Americas. Or maybe it's that magnetism doesn't work that way¹. Or maybe there's that whole aliens-but-not-aliens thing. Or maybe there's the raw implausibility of, oh, pretty much every aspect of every action sequence. Meh.
Funny things: I didn't hate Shia LaBoeuf. The very name makes me roll my eyes, and yet I found him to be one of the less grating aspects of the film. The film does exploit one of my few weaknesses, that being Cate Blanchett, but when she's pouring over the map with Jones and trading observations -- that I liked. I was waiting for Indy to dump the ball-n-chain and hook up with the sassy mind-crazy colonel so they could complete their quest and subjugate capitalism together, or failing that, to seek to defeat moose und squirrel.
It's a troubling film, mainly because I don't feel it fits with the previous films at all -- it serves as something of an overlong coda to the franchise, I think, but nothing more. (Also, that anyone could claim this film was better or more enjoyable than Iron Man needs a CAT scan.)
Wanted: Never read the book -- Mark Millar is not a selling point for me, and yet, I dug this film. Yes, it's almost as implausible as Crystal Skull, but it sets its own ground rules and joyously plays within them. It wants to be a stupid loud action vehicle, and it's certainly that, and that immediately makes it more of a success than most films I've seen lately.
I kept saying "This is just like Narnia" before recognizing James McAvoy. Heh.
This movie's Shia is Angelina Jolie -- no, I don't get the appeal of her hypercollagenic face or her over-tattooed flesh, but you know, I didn't mind her at all in this film. In fact, she did a pretty decent job of introducing poor Wesley into
A trifle, yes, but pleasantly diverting.
Cloverfield: I'd already seen the South Park episodes and been exposed to enough of the outstanding plotlines that it wasn't going to be surprising (or, as Randy Marsh would point out, "startling") but I think it still succeeds in the same scope that Wanted does -- it knows what it wants to be (a first-person modern Godzilla movie) and it makes it happen. Am not sure if it's too long or too short -- it seems like it's one plot contrivance away from justifying its already paltry length -- and I don't particularly like any of the characters (I wonder if for all the alternate titles if anyone suggested Run Hipster Run), but it doesn't err on the side of overexplication, doesn't dwell on scenes, doesn't linger. Much better than I was expecting it to be. Not sure if seeing it on the small screen dilutes its effect, but it'll have to do.
My favorite character is still the reluctant-to-topple streetlamp in the deleted scenes.
¹Yes, they do point out that the skull's effect isn't quite magnetism -- as it's effecting non-ferrous objects -- so it's more of a selective telekinesis, I guess, but still.
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From:
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A lot.
Other than that, it wasn't a bad movie. I particularly enjoyed the dark subway tunnel scenes.
As far as Crystal Skull... Normally I'm a fan of all things alien (and zombie, and vampire) but I really would have liked the skull to have had a more terrestrial explanation. Something that would have fit in a bit more with the first three films. They'd already established wacky fun supernatural religious shenanigans in the Indyverse, why couldn't they have done something with that? Why did it have to be
snakesaliens?From:
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From:
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Also, I think my FAVORITE line in Wanted was Morgan Freeman: "Then shoot that motherfucker!" I loled. I actually really liked the movie, I think because it doesn't TRY to be anything more than it actually is.
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Cate Blanchett, however, was awesome.
And I actually liked Cloverfield. There were some pretty implausible bits there, too, but they were pretty standard horror film (WHY ARE THEY NOT RUNNING AWAY FROM THOSE FREAKY BUG THINGS YET?! WHY ARE THEY VENTURING OUTSIDE INSTEAD OF STAYING IN BASICALLY AN UNDERGROUND BUNKER WITH SNACKS?!) so they didn't bother me as much.
From:
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The opening scene didn't look real. The scenery appeared computer generated, not something that could appear naturally. It threw me off. Like you I find the film troubling. Not extremely bad, but I never got into it.