Rigel (![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} rigelkitty) wrote,@ 2008-05-06 18:30:00 |
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Movie Reviews (5/6/08)
TV Series: Planet Earth (1996)
Review: The best analogy I can make for this gorgeously-filmed TV series is that it's the Bathroom Reader of nature specials. While each episode is designed to cover a grandiose, sweeping chunk of the natural world, the subjects it touches on therein amount to only a few seconds to a few minutes apiece - enough to briefly whet the curious mind, but hardly a dedicated inspection. This isn't really a complaint as it is a description of the approach. Earth is a big place and a lifetime of hour-long specials wouldn't cover it all, so this'll have to do. The DVD set is narrated by the original BBC pick, David Attenborough, who I'd prefer for all my nature specials if possible (or Peter Coyote), rather than the USA redub by Signourney Weaver. The rumor of heavy-handed focus on vicious predation is overrated - while there are examples of these, the gore is kept to a minimum and in moderation. Of course, the visuals are where this series is at. Whether you have HD or not, the eye-popping footage is the best of any television documentary I've yet seen. Each episode is endcapped by a ten-minute behind-the-scenes featurette which is often just as intriguing and often fairly humorous as well. The five-disc set does falter a bit in that the first episode is essentially a clip show of the next ten, and the entire 5th disc is another three-hour clip show with a less tolerable narrator focused on talking heads making dramatic pontifications on environmentalist issues - we stopped watching that after 15 minutes, preaching to the choir and all.
Rating: **** out of *****
Movie: Snakes On A Plane (2006)
Review: It's very easy to suspend disbelief for a movie that's inherently fantasy, such as a cartoon, a parody (like Naked Gun, Scary Movie, etc), or a sci-fi film with inexplicable gadgets. But despite the insistence of its advocates, SoaP simply took itself too seriously to be allowed to get away with it. Originally billed as having been made to be deliberately bad and hokey, it succeeds wildly, but not in a good way. Instead of lovingly embracing and wallowing in all the bad clichés of disaster/horror flicks, it falls into the gap between, simply utilizing them in passing, resulting in a painful-to-watch homage to direct-to-video paperweights. Samuel Jackson is simply not enough of a badass - his prize line is jarringly tacked onto a surprisingly mellow performance. The CG is terrible, but not deliberately enough to be laughable. The gore is probably the only thing that's gratuitous enough to be funny, but probably only because it was thrown in at the last second and doesn't mesh at all with the script. There is only one shining moment of hilarity that represents what this movie could've been, a truly Zucker-level gag that straddles every bad action/horror genre. That would be the deus ex machina button on the microwave. If only the rest of the film had been that brilliant.
Rating: ** out of *****
Movie: Pucker Up (2005)
Review: I've seen a number of movies about niche competitions lately, including Spellbound, Wordplay, and Word Wars. There seems to be a market for about one per year. In most cases, these have been fantastic. Pucker Up, covering the pursuit of the international whistling championship, is pretty good, but falls under the shadow of the others in terms of drama and historical examination. There just isn't a whole lot of whistling history to cover. They review the same content two or three times to fill the short 75 minute program. The excitement of the contest also doesn't build to the nail-biting crescendo one would hope, and unlike other docs the viewer isn't able to play along as things unfold. Still, the participants perform some pretty impressive feats of musical performance, and we caught ourselves comparing our own whistling prowess long after the show was over.
Rating: ***1/2 out of *****
Movie: Iron Man (2008)
Review: It's not every day that a superhero movie is widely praised by critics, and that led to my decision to catch this at the theater. I'm not a huge fan of Iron Man, and thus I wasn't able to connect with the main character, although he will appeal primarily to mechanics, engineers, and people who like to build stuff from scratch or take things apart to see how they work. This in no way precluded me from enjoying the film, with a fine balance of comedy, FX, and adventure. The only thing more surprising than how Robert Downey Jr. fits his role as Iron Man is how well Jeff Bridges does as Obidiah Stane. The characters and visuals are remarkably true to the comic books, especially the final battle, which lends to a significant amount of fan-love whenever any of the multitude of easter eggs pop out, but also reduces the depth that can be portrayed. Downey's delivery can be heavy-handed due to the actor's style and the level of improvisation that director Favreau allowed. There is a gimmick after the credits roll that, while many have raved about and wowed at, I was extremely disappointed in considering the level of painstaking accuracy that had gone into the rest of the movie.
Rating: **** out of *****
TV Series: Planet Earth (1996)
Review: The best analogy I can make for this gorgeously-filmed TV series is that it's the Bathroom Reader of nature specials. While each episode is designed to cover a grandiose, sweeping chunk of the natural world, the subjects it touches on therein amount to only a few seconds to a few minutes apiece - enough to briefly whet the curious mind, but hardly a dedicated inspection. This isn't really a complaint as it is a description of the approach. Earth is a big place and a lifetime of hour-long specials wouldn't cover it all, so this'll have to do. The DVD set is narrated by the original BBC pick, David Attenborough, who I'd prefer for all my nature specials if possible (or Peter Coyote), rather than the USA redub by Signourney Weaver. The rumor of heavy-handed focus on vicious predation is overrated - while there are examples of these, the gore is kept to a minimum and in moderation. Of course, the visuals are where this series is at. Whether you have HD or not, the eye-popping footage is the best of any television documentary I've yet seen. Each episode is endcapped by a ten-minute behind-the-scenes featurette which is often just as intriguing and often fairly humorous as well. The five-disc set does falter a bit in that the first episode is essentially a clip show of the next ten, and the entire 5th disc is another three-hour clip show with a less tolerable narrator focused on talking heads making dramatic pontifications on environmentalist issues - we stopped watching that after 15 minutes, preaching to the choir and all.
Rating: **** out of *****
Movie: Snakes On A Plane (2006)
Review: It's very easy to suspend disbelief for a movie that's inherently fantasy, such as a cartoon, a parody (like Naked Gun, Scary Movie, etc), or a sci-fi film with inexplicable gadgets. But despite the insistence of its advocates, SoaP simply took itself too seriously to be allowed to get away with it. Originally billed as having been made to be deliberately bad and hokey, it succeeds wildly, but not in a good way. Instead of lovingly embracing and wallowing in all the bad clichés of disaster/horror flicks, it falls into the gap between, simply utilizing them in passing, resulting in a painful-to-watch homage to direct-to-video paperweights. Samuel Jackson is simply not enough of a badass - his prize line is jarringly tacked onto a surprisingly mellow performance. The CG is terrible, but not deliberately enough to be laughable. The gore is probably the only thing that's gratuitous enough to be funny, but probably only because it was thrown in at the last second and doesn't mesh at all with the script. There is only one shining moment of hilarity that represents what this movie could've been, a truly Zucker-level gag that straddles every bad action/horror genre. That would be the deus ex machina button on the microwave. If only the rest of the film had been that brilliant.
Rating: ** out of *****
Movie: Pucker Up (2005)
Review: I've seen a number of movies about niche competitions lately, including Spellbound, Wordplay, and Word Wars. There seems to be a market for about one per year. In most cases, these have been fantastic. Pucker Up, covering the pursuit of the international whistling championship, is pretty good, but falls under the shadow of the others in terms of drama and historical examination. There just isn't a whole lot of whistling history to cover. They review the same content two or three times to fill the short 75 minute program. The excitement of the contest also doesn't build to the nail-biting crescendo one would hope, and unlike other docs the viewer isn't able to play along as things unfold. Still, the participants perform some pretty impressive feats of musical performance, and we caught ourselves comparing our own whistling prowess long after the show was over.
Rating: ***1/2 out of *****
Movie: Iron Man (2008)
Review: It's not every day that a superhero movie is widely praised by critics, and that led to my decision to catch this at the theater. I'm not a huge fan of Iron Man, and thus I wasn't able to connect with the main character, although he will appeal primarily to mechanics, engineers, and people who like to build stuff from scratch or take things apart to see how they work. This in no way precluded me from enjoying the film, with a fine balance of comedy, FX, and adventure. The only thing more surprising than how Robert Downey Jr. fits his role as Iron Man is how well Jeff Bridges does as Obidiah Stane. The characters and visuals are remarkably true to the comic books, especially the final battle, which lends to a significant amount of fan-love whenever any of the multitude of easter eggs pop out, but also reduces the depth that can be portrayed. Downey's delivery can be heavy-handed due to the actor's style and the level of improvisation that director Favreau allowed. There is a gimmick after the credits roll that, while many have raved about and wowed at, I was extremely disappointed in considering the level of painstaking accuracy that had gone into the rest of the movie.
Rating: **** out of *****
