I didn't regularly watch the show, but Metalocalypse: The Doomstar Requiem is a highly enjoyable metal/rock opera. It has an excellent blend of both musical genres and art directions. While it's best to have someone familiar with the show provide some context (or perhaps find a video online), it's pretty easy to respect what they've done. It's probably the top-notch entry in its genre (animated metal opera). Great narrative themes, great visuals and great music.
Highly recommended.
Monday, June 22, 2015
Sunday, June 14, 2015
Jurassic World Review - A Successful Modernization, But Nothing New
Jurassic World was probably the biggest and best example of a "been there, done that" movie, but it was surprisingly enjoyable after going in with low expectations.
There was good humor and interesting characters, but there wasn't so much a story as things "just happened" and character arcs were ho-hum. Bryce Dallas Howard had the most interesting story (a mix of Alan Grant and Richard Hammond from the first one - genius scientist playing god/obsessed with control and not understanding kids/family, learning the value of the opposite over the course of the movie), but the film was neither built around her nor gave her the right focus or beats. As well, Chris Pratt didn't entirely work as the action expert due to his comedy getting in the way, despite some good banter/delivery of his lines with BDH (although BDH lacked chemistry with him).
Speaking of which, the meta humor was cheeky, but somewhat distracting. While it was fun seeing and hearing the references to the original Jurassic Park, some early humor about the situation took away from a later point in the movie, as well as raising overall questions on the logic and world building of Jurassic World.
Most disappointing, Michael Giacchino continued his streak of uninspired scores by creating another fairly generic big orchestra score, which may have been a commentary on the movie itself - reusing old cues and trying to be bigger, but the end result being rather generic. I hope studios take note to try and find someone else to follow in John Williams' footsteps (suggest either Thomas Newman or David Arnold).
All that said, the film earns a RECOMMENDED for those wanting to revisit the world, but don't expect the intelligence, intrigue, excitement or awe of either of the Spielberg versions.
There was good humor and interesting characters, but there wasn't so much a story as things "just happened" and character arcs were ho-hum. Bryce Dallas Howard had the most interesting story (a mix of Alan Grant and Richard Hammond from the first one - genius scientist playing god/obsessed with control and not understanding kids/family, learning the value of the opposite over the course of the movie), but the film was neither built around her nor gave her the right focus or beats. As well, Chris Pratt didn't entirely work as the action expert due to his comedy getting in the way, despite some good banter/delivery of his lines with BDH (although BDH lacked chemistry with him).
Speaking of which, the meta humor was cheeky, but somewhat distracting. While it was fun seeing and hearing the references to the original Jurassic Park, some early humor about the situation took away from a later point in the movie, as well as raising overall questions on the logic and world building of Jurassic World.
Most disappointing, Michael Giacchino continued his streak of uninspired scores by creating another fairly generic big orchestra score, which may have been a commentary on the movie itself - reusing old cues and trying to be bigger, but the end result being rather generic. I hope studios take note to try and find someone else to follow in John Williams' footsteps (suggest either Thomas Newman or David Arnold).
All that said, the film earns a RECOMMENDED for those wanting to revisit the world, but don't expect the intelligence, intrigue, excitement or awe of either of the Spielberg versions.
Sunday, May 17, 2015
Mad Max: Fury Road - aka George Miller slapping every CGI-heavy action director in the face, ever
I'm jumping on the bandwagon and giving Mad Max: Fury Road a HIGH RECOMMENDATION for an action movie. Awesome choreography, excellent cinematography (some seriously gorgeous visuals), an exciting and dangerous universe. Yes, the movie has a serviceable story and isn't the best for character development, but there are some rich characters and lots of great themes to make up for it.
We seriously missed out by WB/DC not letting George Miller direct a Justice League movie. I'm guessing I'd rather rewatch Fury Road than any of the DCU movies.
This is the best event movie so far of the year. See it in theaters with big crowds. Go in only with the expectation of great action and you should be pleasantly surprised.
We seriously missed out by WB/DC not letting George Miller direct a Justice League movie. I'm guessing I'd rather rewatch Fury Road than any of the DCU movies.
This is the best event movie so far of the year. See it in theaters with big crowds. Go in only with the expectation of great action and you should be pleasantly surprised.
Tuesday, May 12, 2015
Scott McCloud's The Sculptor review
I'm a bit conflicted on Scott McCloud's long-awaited graphic novel "The Sculptor," although it's probably actually disappointed. I respect the craftsmanship, artwork, vulnerability and love that went into the graphic novel, but the characters... Though they felt very real and human, they came across as selfish, immature and egotistical (as expected for people in early-mid 20s). I often wanted to slap some sense into them.
On the whole, while I like its overall message - that art is important and can change the world - to a certain extent, it's rather self-indulgent, but not necessarily enough to detract from the overall book. There are some cool ideas and very sweet moments in the book, I just didn't enjoy all of the choices, particularly with regards to the characters themselves.
Rating: Recommended. I enjoyed it more than Bryan Lee O'Malley's Seconds, which is similar in concept, but different in execution. Funny how both are about very talented selfish flawed people (borderline assholes).
On the whole, while I like its overall message - that art is important and can change the world - to a certain extent, it's rather self-indulgent, but not necessarily enough to detract from the overall book. There are some cool ideas and very sweet moments in the book, I just didn't enjoy all of the choices, particularly with regards to the characters themselves.
Rating: Recommended. I enjoyed it more than Bryan Lee O'Malley's Seconds, which is similar in concept, but different in execution. Funny how both are about very talented selfish flawed people (borderline assholes).
Musings on Life, Success, Happiness
Life is an RPG, structured with progression and the lessons of the WWE. One will be more successful with a good party, as this is a team-based experience.
There are plenty of cheat codes to life, which makes it feel like one big joke (in a good way), so find the humor in everything.
The challenge is to become an Influencer and happiness is decided based on which level of influence you are willing to work towards and either achieve or are complacent with.
Your industry of interest doesn't matter. The challenge is all the same.
There are plenty of cheat codes to life, which makes it feel like one big joke (in a good way), so find the humor in everything.
The challenge is to become an Influencer and happiness is decided based on which level of influence you are willing to work towards and either achieve or are complacent with.
Your industry of interest doesn't matter. The challenge is all the same.
Friday, May 8, 2015
Rashomon quick thoughts
Rashomon is an interesting movie. A bit dated now for it's narrative structure, with the first half or so kinda meh, but definitely picks up steam in the second half. There are a lot of great themes and elements that are contextually important, but my modern day entertainment lens just gives this an "interesting" rating.
Tuesday, April 7, 2015
The Godfather (1972) 2015 review - Modern Storytelling Has Evolved
The Godfather does NOT hold up as a great movie.
It's good on the technical aspects and performances are OK (Brando's actually pretty hokey, with his nuanced ticks feeling more like something to cover up the fact that he didn't memorize his lines), but the narrative lacks solid emotional connection and good character development - the movie is all plot. Yes, there's the "story" of the business being handed down the family and trying to prevent an all-out mafia war, but the relationships between the characters are poorly, if at all, developed. Vito and Michael's relationship is weak and Tom Hagen barely feels like a brother; the entire family dynamic is strange. Not to mention the time jumps detract from narrative - it should have been more contained to help stress the development, particularly for Michael's descent. Also, the women in the movie are given "damsel" roles.
When is there ever good banter to show the relationships? It's a weak "family" movie.
Game of Thrones is what The Godfather wishes is could be. While The Godfather obviously paved the way for a lot of things in modern cinema (whether film or TV), it unfortunately doesn't hold up from a storytelling perspective.
Admittedly, I'm not a drama guy. It's very hard for me to enjoy a movie that's pure drama or always serious. My biggest issue is the film grossly lacked humor and comedy (humor doesn’t mean slapstick, it can be dramatic). To me, comedy is truth, comedy is life. If I don’t find humor in something, it rings hollow.
The Godfather is always serious.
Again, humor doesn’t always have to be about a “joke” or slapstick. Humor can be simply relating to something or a character having an honest reaction. There are maybe a handful of moments that actually felt human to me:
1. “Take the cannoli”
2. Sonny coming to the aid of his sister
3. Apollonia driving in the car
4. Tessio asking to be spared (specifically Tessio, not so much Tom)
Nearly all other moments in the film are serious, as there’s very little brevity or banter between the characters and ESPECIALLY no humor, which is very strange for an Italian family, as Italians are probably the best example of running the full gamut of emotions (or at least the anger to happy spectrum). Granted, this may be an aspect of Italians of the 40s, as Joseph pointed out, whereas I'm familiar with modern Italians, actually being one.
Let's address the two main characters, Vito and Michael Corleone. For their arcs and emotions, here’s what I saw:
Michael Corleone, as played by Al Pacino, has the arc of being the good boy of the family, who wasn’t supposed to get involved in the family business, actually getting involved and ascending into power while descending his humanity. He debuts in the wedding scene and starts at about an ambivalent/neutral 5 on the emotion spectrum, where 10 is manic Robin Williams and 1 is angry Pacino.
At no point do we really see Michael as the happy guy away from the family business. Sure, he’s a war hero, which assuredly changes him so he probably won’t be as happy-go-lucky, but at no point in the movie does it ever feel like he’s not in the business. As well, if his arc is about his descent/loss of humanity and his big turning point is the restaurant assassination as his means of getting involved, the setup prior to the moment wasn’t enough to justify his turn (again, he’s always been present in the film and with the family to that point). They tried to show his humanity and confliction of the assassination by closing up on his eyes/face, showing his eyes darting around, but his arc to that point wasn’t strong enough to justify his nervousness. Also, what did he do in the war? Did he kill anyone? If so, why is he so nervous now?
From there, he descends on the emotion spectrum to a 4, possibly a 3, as he moves to Italy to avoid the fallout. He sees a girl that he “falls in love with” which equates to staring intently. Staring. Intently. She comes across more like a possession he needs than someone he’s falling in love with. The whole point of his time in Italy is to further the idea of keeping him out of the business by establishing him falling in love, so that when Appollonia is assassinated he further descends down the spectrum, he comes back to America for vengeance.
Back in America and rising to power, Michael is at a 3 or 2 on the emotion spectrum. He’s more aggressive, conniving and ruthless. He’s asserting his power by re-organizing the family, as the family has been falling apart over time. By the culmination of the baptism-assassination, he’s taken control as the new Godfather, where he’s at a solid 2 on the emotion scale. During his last scene with Diane Keaton, he has a flash of 1 as he briefly pulls out angry Pacino. You can see in his eyes that he’s pretty gone and lost his humanity.
The big problem with Michael, for me, is that nowhere during that spectrum or arc do I care for him. At no point has he ever shown any humanity worth attaching to:
1. He has no real love for Diane Keaton
2. He has no innocence as he was never actually away from the family business
3. He has no real love for Appollonia
Why should I care about Michael besides the fact that he’s the main character? He’s not a badass rising to power like Scarface. For someone going through horrible events, he’s not nearly as relatable or has as wide an emotional range of, say, Chiwetel Ejiofor in 12 Years a Slave, who starts at a happy 8 and descends to a darker place (a 3, maybe a 2), only to come back to a happier side by the end, but clearly still an affected person.
As for Vito and Brando, he starts the film on the serious side, around a 3, and pretty much hovers there for most of the movie (getting closer to a 5 or 6 towards his end, after he’s dethroned). He’s serious and trying to do business. He’s shown only focusing on business. He never talks about family or anything human, it’s just business, business, business, nothing personal. Then again, perhaps Vito was never about family and it's a false assumption on my part, as I don't recall him interacting in his daughter’s wedding much and barely ever with his wife. His personal side doesn’t come out until the end, when he becomes the “old grandpa.”
Because of that, Vito’s big emotional reveal of not wanting Michael to not be in the business falls completely flat – it was barely ever established. It was a falsely emotional scene. They never had heart to heart conversations, it was rarely established that Vito didn’t want Michael involved. Michael was pretty much always present.
Now, if that is the point of Vito’s story arc, in which he’s a guy who never had control of his family despite having control of basically an entire city, then that seems like a bit of a stretch. Half of his family is working with him, how hard would it be to check on his wife, daughter and “favorite” son? I find it hard to believe a guy that powerful wouldn’t be checking in on his own family and people. Speaking of which, his daughter is a complete farce as a character – by no means does she seem like either a mob daughter’s boss or an Italian woman. Italian women are strong as hell. She’s a princess/damsel. She is a plot device.
Speaking of which, the way the story presents itself, the characters rarely felt like they had any agency. Every character largely felt like they were going through the motions of the writer/screenwriter, rather than having things organically happen to them. The writing came across as putting the characters through these scenarios in order to make me FEEL, but the pacing and flow didn’t match. There was little character pathos, just manipulation.
It's good on the technical aspects and performances are OK (Brando's actually pretty hokey, with his nuanced ticks feeling more like something to cover up the fact that he didn't memorize his lines), but the narrative lacks solid emotional connection and good character development - the movie is all plot. Yes, there's the "story" of the business being handed down the family and trying to prevent an all-out mafia war, but the relationships between the characters are poorly, if at all, developed. Vito and Michael's relationship is weak and Tom Hagen barely feels like a brother; the entire family dynamic is strange. Not to mention the time jumps detract from narrative - it should have been more contained to help stress the development, particularly for Michael's descent. Also, the women in the movie are given "damsel" roles.
When is there ever good banter to show the relationships? It's a weak "family" movie.
Game of Thrones is what The Godfather wishes is could be. While The Godfather obviously paved the way for a lot of things in modern cinema (whether film or TV), it unfortunately doesn't hold up from a storytelling perspective.
Admittedly, I'm not a drama guy. It's very hard for me to enjoy a movie that's pure drama or always serious. My biggest issue is the film grossly lacked humor and comedy (humor doesn’t mean slapstick, it can be dramatic). To me, comedy is truth, comedy is life. If I don’t find humor in something, it rings hollow.
The Godfather is always serious.
Again, humor doesn’t always have to be about a “joke” or slapstick. Humor can be simply relating to something or a character having an honest reaction. There are maybe a handful of moments that actually felt human to me:
1. “Take the cannoli”
2. Sonny coming to the aid of his sister
3. Apollonia driving in the car
4. Tessio asking to be spared (specifically Tessio, not so much Tom)
Nearly all other moments in the film are serious, as there’s very little brevity or banter between the characters and ESPECIALLY no humor, which is very strange for an Italian family, as Italians are probably the best example of running the full gamut of emotions (or at least the anger to happy spectrum). Granted, this may be an aspect of Italians of the 40s, as Joseph pointed out, whereas I'm familiar with modern Italians, actually being one.
Let's address the two main characters, Vito and Michael Corleone. For their arcs and emotions, here’s what I saw:
Michael Corleone, as played by Al Pacino, has the arc of being the good boy of the family, who wasn’t supposed to get involved in the family business, actually getting involved and ascending into power while descending his humanity. He debuts in the wedding scene and starts at about an ambivalent/neutral 5 on the emotion spectrum, where 10 is manic Robin Williams and 1 is angry Pacino.
At no point do we really see Michael as the happy guy away from the family business. Sure, he’s a war hero, which assuredly changes him so he probably won’t be as happy-go-lucky, but at no point in the movie does it ever feel like he’s not in the business. As well, if his arc is about his descent/loss of humanity and his big turning point is the restaurant assassination as his means of getting involved, the setup prior to the moment wasn’t enough to justify his turn (again, he’s always been present in the film and with the family to that point). They tried to show his humanity and confliction of the assassination by closing up on his eyes/face, showing his eyes darting around, but his arc to that point wasn’t strong enough to justify his nervousness. Also, what did he do in the war? Did he kill anyone? If so, why is he so nervous now?
From there, he descends on the emotion spectrum to a 4, possibly a 3, as he moves to Italy to avoid the fallout. He sees a girl that he “falls in love with” which equates to staring intently. Staring. Intently. She comes across more like a possession he needs than someone he’s falling in love with. The whole point of his time in Italy is to further the idea of keeping him out of the business by establishing him falling in love, so that when Appollonia is assassinated he further descends down the spectrum, he comes back to America for vengeance.
Back in America and rising to power, Michael is at a 3 or 2 on the emotion spectrum. He’s more aggressive, conniving and ruthless. He’s asserting his power by re-organizing the family, as the family has been falling apart over time. By the culmination of the baptism-assassination, he’s taken control as the new Godfather, where he’s at a solid 2 on the emotion scale. During his last scene with Diane Keaton, he has a flash of 1 as he briefly pulls out angry Pacino. You can see in his eyes that he’s pretty gone and lost his humanity.
The big problem with Michael, for me, is that nowhere during that spectrum or arc do I care for him. At no point has he ever shown any humanity worth attaching to:
1. He has no real love for Diane Keaton
2. He has no innocence as he was never actually away from the family business
3. He has no real love for Appollonia
Why should I care about Michael besides the fact that he’s the main character? He’s not a badass rising to power like Scarface. For someone going through horrible events, he’s not nearly as relatable or has as wide an emotional range of, say, Chiwetel Ejiofor in 12 Years a Slave, who starts at a happy 8 and descends to a darker place (a 3, maybe a 2), only to come back to a happier side by the end, but clearly still an affected person.
As for Vito and Brando, he starts the film on the serious side, around a 3, and pretty much hovers there for most of the movie (getting closer to a 5 or 6 towards his end, after he’s dethroned). He’s serious and trying to do business. He’s shown only focusing on business. He never talks about family or anything human, it’s just business, business, business, nothing personal. Then again, perhaps Vito was never about family and it's a false assumption on my part, as I don't recall him interacting in his daughter’s wedding much and barely ever with his wife. His personal side doesn’t come out until the end, when he becomes the “old grandpa.”
Because of that, Vito’s big emotional reveal of not wanting Michael to not be in the business falls completely flat – it was barely ever established. It was a falsely emotional scene. They never had heart to heart conversations, it was rarely established that Vito didn’t want Michael involved. Michael was pretty much always present.
Now, if that is the point of Vito’s story arc, in which he’s a guy who never had control of his family despite having control of basically an entire city, then that seems like a bit of a stretch. Half of his family is working with him, how hard would it be to check on his wife, daughter and “favorite” son? I find it hard to believe a guy that powerful wouldn’t be checking in on his own family and people. Speaking of which, his daughter is a complete farce as a character – by no means does she seem like either a mob daughter’s boss or an Italian woman. Italian women are strong as hell. She’s a princess/damsel. She is a plot device.
Speaking of which, the way the story presents itself, the characters rarely felt like they had any agency. Every character largely felt like they were going through the motions of the writer/screenwriter, rather than having things organically happen to them. The writing came across as putting the characters through these scenarios in order to make me FEEL, but the pacing and flow didn’t match. There was little character pathos, just manipulation.
Monday, March 2, 2015
Oblivion review - Shoots for the Stars, but Falls Short
Oblivion (2013)
One liner review: Not bad, but far from great sci-fi action romance.
With beautiful cinematography, amazing production design and a solid soundtrack, there's a lot to like in Oblivion. Director Joseph Kosinski did the rare feat of creating a sophomore outing that's better than his first (the visually striking, but incredibly boring and flawed Tron: Legacy); Oblivion is significantly more refined and better paced than Tron: Legacy, but it also has a lot of the same flaws for story and character.
Kosinski falls into the same boat of directors, that includes Ridley Scott and Zack Snyder, who go for style over substance (the degree of both is up for debate). It's particularly annoying because they often set up their films to seem like they'll have lots of substance, but just fall flat (looking at you, Scott).
Kosinski's biggest flaw is that he's not an actor's director, or at least not a character's director. Based on his two outings thus far, he doesn't seem to understand or care about good character arcs and how to have a really emotional audience connection. He lacks the storytelling prowess to put a character through certain beats of a plot to earn the proper emotional reaction, which is unfortunate because he actually knows how to create a nicely emotional scene (melding music and visuals). To put it another way, he tells the audience how they should feel, rather than showing them through the rest of the movie; there's no proper tension or buildup leading to release, resulting in some flat reveals.
On that note, Oblivion loftily tries to make an interesting futuristic sci-fi action-romance story, but because it tries for both with an underdeveloped script, it fails to achieve success on either front. It's not a particularly convoluted movie, but it does present a good number of plot holes. Once Kosinski learns how to create and work with a great script, he'll easily be on my list of must-watch directors, but I wouldn't give him another $100+ million for a movie to gain that experience.
Bottom line:
RECOMMENDED for those looking for something passively enjoyable with interesting ideas, good action, great production design and a melodic soundtrack (the credits track is almost worth the price of admission).
NOT RECOMMENDED for those expecting a more active experience that's intelligently scripted on either the story or character fronts.
One liner review: Not bad, but far from great sci-fi action romance.
With beautiful cinematography, amazing production design and a solid soundtrack, there's a lot to like in Oblivion. Director Joseph Kosinski did the rare feat of creating a sophomore outing that's better than his first (the visually striking, but incredibly boring and flawed Tron: Legacy); Oblivion is significantly more refined and better paced than Tron: Legacy, but it also has a lot of the same flaws for story and character.
Kosinski falls into the same boat of directors, that includes Ridley Scott and Zack Snyder, who go for style over substance (the degree of both is up for debate). It's particularly annoying because they often set up their films to seem like they'll have lots of substance, but just fall flat (looking at you, Scott).
Kosinski's biggest flaw is that he's not an actor's director, or at least not a character's director. Based on his two outings thus far, he doesn't seem to understand or care about good character arcs and how to have a really emotional audience connection. He lacks the storytelling prowess to put a character through certain beats of a plot to earn the proper emotional reaction, which is unfortunate because he actually knows how to create a nicely emotional scene (melding music and visuals). To put it another way, he tells the audience how they should feel, rather than showing them through the rest of the movie; there's no proper tension or buildup leading to release, resulting in some flat reveals.
On that note, Oblivion loftily tries to make an interesting futuristic sci-fi action-romance story, but because it tries for both with an underdeveloped script, it fails to achieve success on either front. It's not a particularly convoluted movie, but it does present a good number of plot holes. Once Kosinski learns how to create and work with a great script, he'll easily be on my list of must-watch directors, but I wouldn't give him another $100+ million for a movie to gain that experience.
Bottom line:
RECOMMENDED for those looking for something passively enjoyable with interesting ideas, good action, great production design and a melodic soundtrack (the credits track is almost worth the price of admission).
NOT RECOMMENDED for those expecting a more active experience that's intelligently scripted on either the story or character fronts.
Monday, February 23, 2015
Kingsman: The Secret Service - The Adult Bond Send-Up You Didn't Know You Wanted
Kingsman: The Secret Service
It was within the first scene of the movie (the title sequence) that I quickly realized to just say "fuck it" and enjoy the ride that is Kingsman: The Secret Service. In that "checked-out" mentality, I found the film to never take itself as anything other than what it is: a modern day adult send-up of classic Bond and spy movies.
It does a great job of playing with classic Bond tropes: the grandiose villain with a defining feature (lisp) and the badass second-in-command, the rich and powerful secret organization complete with a master of gadgetry/tech , the equally powerful evil organization and even the classic spy romances.
Without trying to give too much away, the film did a very interesting twist by having the villain (wonderfully played by the one and only Samuel L. Jackson) not actually seem all that evil - he actually wants to, as he fully believes, help the human race - through population control. The film itself never directly calls him out as evil, nor does he grandstand, but clearly he's the bad guy. Right?
As for the spy romances, I thought Kingsman did a great job by largely avoiding them, instead focusing on the friendship between the two young, attractive, would-be secret agents - breakout stars Taron Edgerton and Sophie Cookson. Even the wicked and alluring evil second-in-command played by Sofia Boutella, also a breakout, lacks a clear romance angle. It's refreshing to just have them focus on character growth and plot (classic spy hero's journey to save the world).
Speaking of the characters, everyone did a fantastic job, with Colin Firth going above and beyond to prove that he can really kick ass and have fun while doing it! The adult actors (Firth, Jackson, Mark Strong, Michael Caine) were all clearly enjoying their roles, while the younger actors felt more like they had something to prove (as they had more of an arc, particularly Edgerton and Cookson).
Beyond that, I particularly enjoyed the films overall style - choregraphy, cinematography, direction, set design (exotic locales and elaborate sets!), costumes and even a surprisingly satisfying soundtrack by Henry Jackman and Matthew Margeson.
My only gripe is the film's gratuitous violence. I like good over-the-top violence with a point, such as Robocop, but found the occasional bit of over-the-top violence in Kingsman to be unnecessary, despite the many great action sequences. Then again, the gratuitous violence regarding our desensitization may be one of the films mild attempts at social commentary - the other regarding the power elite of the world vs the layperson. But the commentary, and even the violence, wasn't really the primary focus of the film, which was simply to have some crude, crass adult fun with spy movies.
Bottom line:
RECOMMENDED for those looking for a highly enjoyable spy romp popcorn flick with great action and style.
NOT RECOMMENDED for those against gratuitous violence, crude humor or expecting something revolutionary in the spy genre.
It was within the first scene of the movie (the title sequence) that I quickly realized to just say "fuck it" and enjoy the ride that is Kingsman: The Secret Service. In that "checked-out" mentality, I found the film to never take itself as anything other than what it is: a modern day adult send-up of classic Bond and spy movies.
It does a great job of playing with classic Bond tropes: the grandiose villain with a defining feature (lisp) and the badass second-in-command, the rich and powerful secret organization complete with a master of gadgetry/tech , the equally powerful evil organization and even the classic spy romances.
Without trying to give too much away, the film did a very interesting twist by having the villain (wonderfully played by the one and only Samuel L. Jackson) not actually seem all that evil - he actually wants to, as he fully believes, help the human race - through population control. The film itself never directly calls him out as evil, nor does he grandstand, but clearly he's the bad guy. Right?
As for the spy romances, I thought Kingsman did a great job by largely avoiding them, instead focusing on the friendship between the two young, attractive, would-be secret agents - breakout stars Taron Edgerton and Sophie Cookson. Even the wicked and alluring evil second-in-command played by Sofia Boutella, also a breakout, lacks a clear romance angle. It's refreshing to just have them focus on character growth and plot (classic spy hero's journey to save the world).
Speaking of the characters, everyone did a fantastic job, with Colin Firth going above and beyond to prove that he can really kick ass and have fun while doing it! The adult actors (Firth, Jackson, Mark Strong, Michael Caine) were all clearly enjoying their roles, while the younger actors felt more like they had something to prove (as they had more of an arc, particularly Edgerton and Cookson).
Beyond that, I particularly enjoyed the films overall style - choregraphy, cinematography, direction, set design (exotic locales and elaborate sets!), costumes and even a surprisingly satisfying soundtrack by Henry Jackman and Matthew Margeson.
My only gripe is the film's gratuitous violence. I like good over-the-top violence with a point, such as Robocop, but found the occasional bit of over-the-top violence in Kingsman to be unnecessary, despite the many great action sequences. Then again, the gratuitous violence regarding our desensitization may be one of the films mild attempts at social commentary - the other regarding the power elite of the world vs the layperson. But the commentary, and even the violence, wasn't really the primary focus of the film, which was simply to have some crude, crass adult fun with spy movies.
Bottom line:
RECOMMENDED for those looking for a highly enjoyable spy romp popcorn flick with great action and style.
NOT RECOMMENDED for those against gratuitous violence, crude humor or expecting something revolutionary in the spy genre.
Thursday, February 19, 2015
Kill la Kill anime review
Good gracious me, "Kill la Kill" is an absolute treat of a show. Great characters, great music. It starts out really strange/weird/quirky and fetishistic, but is a slow build that ramps up into a great testament of human will, with plenty of "fuck yeah" moments. But don't let the pervy-nature of the show fool you, there's actually a lot of great depth, with some strong parables and themes. The action got me fully invested and the humor was always welcome; the flow between the two helped set a great overall pace for the show.
Trying not to give any spoilers, it was one of the most enjoyable thrill rides I've had the pleasure of being on in some time. I watched all 24 episodes on Netflix within about a week and wish there were more, or at least a bit more of an epilogue/denouement. The show is primarily action while often playing with genre tropes and it delivered in spades - great character development through its action.
Speaking of characters, Nui Harime quickly became one of my favorite recent villains. The combination of her bubbly personality, high strength level and melodically ominous music made for a richly entertaining character; reminiscent of Buffy's Mayor. Also, again despite the fetishy nature/start of show, it's filled with LOTS of great female characters, often outnumbering and outshining the male characters (who are equally fetishized).
Highly recommended. It's very complementary to Gurren Lagann, seeing how they had the same director and writer.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3114390/?ref_=nv_sr_1
Trying not to give any spoilers, it was one of the most enjoyable thrill rides I've had the pleasure of being on in some time. I watched all 24 episodes on Netflix within about a week and wish there were more, or at least a bit more of an epilogue/denouement. The show is primarily action while often playing with genre tropes and it delivered in spades - great character development through its action.
Speaking of characters, Nui Harime quickly became one of my favorite recent villains. The combination of her bubbly personality, high strength level and melodically ominous music made for a richly entertaining character; reminiscent of Buffy's Mayor. Also, again despite the fetishy nature/start of show, it's filled with LOTS of great female characters, often outnumbering and outshining the male characters (who are equally fetishized).
Highly recommended. It's very complementary to Gurren Lagann, seeing how they had the same director and writer.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3114390/?ref_=nv_sr_1
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