While I liked the beginning of the most recent (and last?) part of the Spider-Man movies, it did not really grip me. For me, the first movie had style, charm, and romance – in the two follow-ups these magic ingredients were lost somewhere in the mix. Were the performances of the main actors not good enough? Maybe, at least not good enough to make up for the overly complex and many-threaded plot that was not resolved in a very convincing way. In the last part of the movie, one emotional moment had to follow the other too quickly to be savoured for itself and to develop its own taste. This is a pity, since I like both the main characters and the main actors… Nonetheless, there are certainly many superhero movies that are much worse.
IMDb entry | Trailer
Posts Tagged ‘comic’
Spider-Man 3 – too many conflicts.
Saturday, May 5th, 2007300 – hmpf.
Thursday, April 19th, 2007I do not know how the German comic language expression hmpf
should be translated to English. It expresses a certain discontent, mixed with a dose of frustration and recognition of the fact that the cause of the hmpf
will not easily be removed. This describes my feeling towards this movie pretty accurately. I went to see it because of the aesthetics. Comic style – since it is an apaption of a graphic novel by Frank Miller. Who is known for his violent style. Well, the movie is violent too, of course. One thing that was interesting to me was to experience a qualification in my attachment to grittiness. I think I may have written gritty is good
in some other movie reviews here. This is not necessarily true. The Spartans were dirty, their helmets, shields and weapons were dented and dirty too. The was a lot of soil and blood. But it was not good. Maybe, I could argue that this was not really gritty: there was dirt and blood – but there was no pain. The 300 Spartans died. But they did not feel actual pain. Or confusion. All characters and emotions were clean. That is not what I mean when I say I like gritty. Too much perfection. And don’t get me started about the politics and philosphy of this movie. There is a measurable degree of fascism going on. There is a lot of really bad stereotyping of minorities of all kinds. And no irony. If this would be the next thing after postmodernism: I don’t want it! I can only recommend this movie to one group: those who have an interest in representations of violence. (By the way, the story is not exactly gripping either.)
IMDb entry | Trailer
X-Men: The Last Stand – no distortions.
Saturday, June 24th, 2006I was hoping that the third part of the X-Men series would disappoint me less than the third part of Mission Impossible. Admittedly, this is not a very high-flying hope and to my relief it was fulfilled. Although I feared the worst, since the director has changed to Brett Ratner. Well, we did not have to suffer actors such as Tom Cruise, which helps a lot. Ian McKellen and Patrick Stewart, both solid actors, and also the main character Hugh Jackman as Wolverine along with the rest of the crew do their jobs as decently as they did in the first two episodes and, in contrast to Mission Impossible, the special effects department along with the screenplay writer did not fall asleep during the production of the movie. An enjoyable movie if you liked the first two parts, definitely good enough if you are looking for an entertaining action movie to load into your DVD player and also offering some pictures splendid enough to fill a larger screen.
IMDb entry | Trailer
Not sure about the violence.
Wednesday, September 28th, 2005About a month ago I saw Sin City – impressive pictures, super soundtrack and excellent actors that blend into the the dark and gritty world of Frank Miller’s Sin City perfectly. It is the best comic adaption that I have seen so far. Comics are one of my favorite media – the story telling possiblities offered by putting pictures into sequences are stunning. (If you haven’t done so until now, you definitely have to read Scott McCloud’s Understanding Comics, which is also translated into German. One of the few must have reads that I would recommend to anyone.)
However, I do have one problem with the comic market which definitely moves into focus when watching Sin City as a movie: the aggressive depiction of violence. From my perspective, the violence in Sin City wasn’t too bad; I found it less disconcerting than the comic sequence in Kill Bill vol. 1 for example. The use of colors other than red for blood, the obvious non-realism of the massive amount of injuries sustained by the protagonists and the whole mystic and dark atmosphere made dealing with the violence easier for me. Nonetheless, I remain skeptical about the whole kill splatter shoot die moan guts-flying-around issue – my non-spilled guts tell me to…
IMDb entry | Trailer
Gritty, not super.
Tuesday, June 21st, 2005This is how we like our heroes. Batman has all the potential to be one of the grittier characters that one needs: an ambivalent symbol, no real super powers, a history of guilt and mistakes. To my dismay I did not like any of the Batman movies that I saw since the nineties. Except for the new one. Batman Begins is directed by the director of Memento, Christopher Nolan, Batman Begins has a great cast, and it is not nearly as clean and plasticized like the other Batman movies. The story did not really work that well for me in the first quarter of the movie – it seemed like they tried to spin a story that is to grande for a super-hero movie. After a while, the paced accelerated and the story unfolded in some nice twists. One other thing that made this movie not the perfect experience – although it is hard for me to admit this – might be Liam Neeson, whom I usually like very much. However, his presentation of the role of the potential villain was not completely convincing for me. A thing that I liked about this movie was that they did not go for Matrix like martial artish fighting scenes. There are several fighting scenes, but the camera is always really close to the action and the cuts are very short. Keeps the old men safe from harm and adds to the grittiness. I saw it in a dubbed version and I am not sure if they meddled with some of the sound effects, which seemed to be out of sync or at least not exactly matching what could be seen on the screen in a few scenes. Overall, I enjoyed this movie and would recommend watching it in the cinema. It is good enough, especially if you like one of the many stars in the cast, who sometimes act in unusual roles or outfits.
IMDb entry | Trailer