(SPOILER ALERT, SERIOUSLY THERE WAS NO OTHER WAY)
… I don’t know how to open this. Should I just talk about how remakes are usually pointless again? Should I mention the fact that the original “Nightmare on Elm Street” is one of my favorite movies? Should I bitch about the producer Michael Bay being a man with no actual talent that has seemed to make it his goal to screw over anything that has made movies good? No, I should really just start with the fact that I saw this movie several weeks ago and it’s still got me angry! This movie is just bad. It doesn’t even seem to be trying and it’s just a cash grab using the name only. I actually felt dirty after leaving this movie. I literally felt like I had to sit there and watch the director rape a franchise and character that I love by turning it into a sloppy, stupid, poorly executed, idiotic mountain of pure failure.
Those who have lived under a rock for the past 26 years, the “Nightmare on Elm Street” series put New Line Cinema on the map as a studio. The plot was there are a bunch of teenagers that are being stalked by a killer in their dreams. This killer, named Freddy Kruger, was a child murderer and molester that was killed be the parents of the children that he hurt after he was released due to a technicality and this is his revenge. It was simple, yet at the same time had a nice new angle to the slasher craze, not to mention that most every video store in the country has the image of Freddy Kruger on the wall somewhere if you actually go look. So this is a movie with a large fan base to say the least. Did it really need to be remade?!
I could understand “Clash of the Titans”, hell “Friday the 13th” didn’t bug me because honestly the first one wasn’t that great a movie to me. Yeah it and “Halloween” set up the slasher standard, but it really didn’t impress me that much. “Nightmare” was an interesting idea and actually was genuinely creepy. I was 16 when I saw it and I had nightmares that night.
The remake just takes everything that made the original good and fucks it up so bad. No, it actually goes even farther! It takes things that are good ideas in theory, and then executes them so poorly on top of fucking up the original ideas! Like the idea that after staying awake for too many days you can dream while still being awake, but the kids can usually just suddenly snap out of it, so it’s a mute point really. This is without doubt one of the laziest scripts I’ve seen since “Highlander 2: The Quickening” or well, everything Eli Roth has ever written. Here are some examples: The parents were some how able to make their kids not only forget Freddy molested them, but that they even went to the same school together before junior high school. (HOW???) The kids believe that Freddy is actually going to be able to kill them after about one line usually. (WHY???) And, oh I almost forgot, they try and play off the idea that maybe Freddy was innocent, right before they prove that he wasn’t. I mean, that is just… Wow, I was sitting in the theater just watching these events unfold and all I could see was plot hole after plot hole after plot hole. I’m not saying that they have to give us crap tons of exposition, because that just gives us “Legion”, but really all the things I just talked about are either never explained while insulting our intelligence, or just makes the characters look incredibly stupid. Try this on for size, one guy shows up, unannounced at the main character’s house, covered in blood. He then says he didn’t kill the girl he was with, it just happened and it was someone that was in her dream. At this point they’ve kind of sort tried to establish that the characters are all having the same dream like in the first movie, but they didn’t really say that they felt like they were in that much danger, at least Nancy didn’t. So when a guy covered in blood shows up and says it’s ok, he didn’t do it she was killed in a dream AND this person just buys it right there I call bullshit!
In the first movie, they show that everyone had the same dream yeah, but they were all there when Tina was killed too, so it made much more sense for Nancy to believe that the guy could kill them in their dreams! And even then she still wasn’t convinced at first! It’s like the script to this movie was only half finished, but they decided to shoot it anyway! I could go on and on listing the problems with it because that’s really all this movie is, but there is way more to get to.
These performances are just bad, and I mean bad in a way that makes people from “The Final Destination” look like they could successfully pull off Shakespeare. True I never expect greatness from horror movies as far as acting, but seriously, these people are fucking pathetic! None of them stand out at all; they’re all just the dumb stereotypes that we always see. The jock, the bad kid, the dumb girl, the awkward couple that both like each other but neither of them actually have the guts to ask the other out. It’s just clichéd and really really gives us no attachment to these people and gets to a point where I was actually laughing when they died a few times. And Nancy, played by Rooney Mara, is the worst of all because she basically does absolutely nothing for half the movie while we follow another character and then when she is portrayed as doing something, she just goes to the library and looks through old files telling us things that we pretty much already knew. So she does next to nothing through out the movie! Her would be boyfriend Quentin, Kyle Gallner, is also fairly bland but he at least has some personality so I actually kind of liked him, kind of. He at least wasn’t annoying or super boring like everyone else.
But aside from the shitty script, the terrible performances and the plain fact that this movie didn’t need to be remade, Freddy is a joke. Yes, I know in the sequels he became the punch line king of killers, but I don’t mean he’s a silly character, I mean here he’s not threatening at all! The one thing that seems like it might have actually saved this waste of film was that Jackie Earl Haley got cast as Freddy. I was holding out the faintest hope that this guy could give us a really creepy Freddy, just like Robert Englund did in the first movie. But sadly, while Haley has his moments of creepy, he’s given way too many bad jokes, his presence is surprisingly un-menacing and really he looks like crap! I’m not kidding, he looks like one of those aliens from “Close Encounters of the Third Kind” if it was put in the microwave. That’s not scary! Nothing about this movie is! And fucking up Freddy’s appearance was the first problem! Add in the fact that he just utters bad, and I mean really bad jokes, and the fact that when his claws touch ANYTHING they spark and that doesn’t even begin to make sense! HOW DO YOU FUCK UP SOMETHING SO GODDAMN SIMPLE?!
And don’t even get me started on what this movie actually tries to scare you with. Jump scares, that’s it. I hate jump scares. The moment that you have one in a movie, that’s it you can’t do it again. But this movie seems to have been dropped on its head as it does them over and over and over. That’s all we get! There is no tension, no atmosphere and the dream world is drastically under used, mostly because that would probably be good and get in the way of the jump scares. God this movie doesn’t give any effort at all!
Is there any point in continuing? This movie was just stupid. It actually took an interesting idea, and just makes it shit pure and simple. I think it should come as no surprise that I just hated this fucking movie, and don’t recommend it at all. If I could have my way; the negative, script, every print made and Michael Bay would be dropped down a volcano to never blight the cinemas ever again. Who’s with me?
Wednesday, June 16, 2010
Thursday, June 10, 2010
Daybreakers
Finally! God I only hoped this day would come again! I’d hoped but never thought this would actually happen as quickly as it did, but wow this is great! At long last, a vampire movie with actual freaking vampires in it! Fuck “Twilight”! To fucking hell with those movies! They’re boring, stupid, boring, sexist, a terrible love story and did I mention boring? But I think the biggest problem for me was this…. VAMPIRES DON’T FUCKING SPARKLE IN THE DAY LIGHT!!! They catch on fire and die! It’s established lore and it’s something everyone knows and this movie’s opening I like to think is a big middle finger to that stupid stupid fucking idea.
Whew, ok so “Daybreakers”. The plot of the movie is that the world has succumb to a plague that turns everyone into vampires. The remaining humans are scattered and hunted down to be farmed for blood, but the supply is dwindling and they need to find a substitute or they will die after turning into vicious Nosferateau looking things that just have feeding on their mind. It’s an interesting concept and a strange way to take the idea of the vampire and blood as addiction or disease and add the idea of using its lack as a metaphor for oil. Yeah it’s something everyone is doing these days, and it’s honestly getting a little annoying but it was I think done pretty well here. The pace never drags and it doesn’t really preach like other movies, it just uses it within the story.
It’s assisted by the movie’s brilliant production design, which perfectly subjects to this new world like Ridley Scott was able to do in “Blade Runner”. It’s starkly ominous and dull like things are beginning to get neglected. There are little touches like the amount of blood the coffee shops are putting in the coffee is being used as a marketing tool. The design of the cars being able to drive the vampires safely in the daylight is also very interesting and adds to the world as a whole.
And immersing us in this world is a great way to set the stage for the performances, which all do their job. Really that’s all I can say. Willem Defoe plays his part with competence and is very good as the former vampire in the film. Ethan Hawke adds nice vulnerability to his character and adds to the idea that the vampires here aren’t mindless, some want their humanity back. But if I had to say anyone steals the show, it’s the villain played by Sam Neil. His character is such a guy you love to hate. I think the peak of his awesome villainy is towards the end where he’s drinking blood out of a wine glass and talking about how it is packed with the great smell of fear, god it’s nice to have an awesome vampire like this after those pussies from “Twilight”.
Plus the make up effects are just amazing. Yes, this movie has CGI, it’s an unavoidable thing these days. But really, it’s mostly for backgrounds and cityscapes, the creatures are mostly suits and prosthetics, really fucking amazing prosthetics and suits. They have a nice Nosferateau feel to them and are very articulate. To top it off they actually seemed to have hired people that know how to act to play the starved vampires. The characters have the tiniest glimmer of humanity left in them but they’ve fully gone dependant on blood as it is their first and main drive. It perfectly shows that the right person in the right kind of suit can work way better CG characters, and they didn’t need to hire Doug Jones for it!
The script is tightly written, and really has nothing that glaringly stands out as a flaw. The story makes sense, the plot flows nicely, all the changes to characters don’t come out of the blue and the main goal of finding the substitute, or better yet, a cure keeps the audience engaged and really brings us into the story. Same with the editing and I already talked about the production design.
This is a perfect example of a movie that just works. Are there things I could nit pick? Oh yeah every movie has those. The difference here is in a bad movie, the nit picks become all the more glaring because honestly, the movie sucks hardcore so why should we let it get away with them? However in a good movie, you may notice, but why should you care? The rest of the movie is so good that it can get away with them. Like “Gremlins”. I love the movie but when I stop and think there are some HUGE plot holes in that movie, but the rest is so well done that I honestly don’t care. So what if snow is water and if the Gremlins touch it they should multiple like rabbits on Viagra? I don't care, I'm entertained! Really "Daybreakers" is just good. I can’t talk about it enough. It’s tightly written, full of drama and action without being silly and it’s well acted. Unlike “Twilight” which I really want to just stop at this point. This fad is probably the most damaging thing that has come out of the last decade of Pop Culture. However, I like to think that “Twilight” is just that, a fad. It’s something that is going to die out after awhile and be forgotten as our generation’s “What the fuck were we thinking?” pop phenomenon, like leisure suits or most of the fashion from the 80’s. I really think that “Daybreakers” will end up being a cult classic. This movie will last and “Twilight” won’t. I like that idea.
Whew, ok so “Daybreakers”. The plot of the movie is that the world has succumb to a plague that turns everyone into vampires. The remaining humans are scattered and hunted down to be farmed for blood, but the supply is dwindling and they need to find a substitute or they will die after turning into vicious Nosferateau looking things that just have feeding on their mind. It’s an interesting concept and a strange way to take the idea of the vampire and blood as addiction or disease and add the idea of using its lack as a metaphor for oil. Yeah it’s something everyone is doing these days, and it’s honestly getting a little annoying but it was I think done pretty well here. The pace never drags and it doesn’t really preach like other movies, it just uses it within the story.
It’s assisted by the movie’s brilliant production design, which perfectly subjects to this new world like Ridley Scott was able to do in “Blade Runner”. It’s starkly ominous and dull like things are beginning to get neglected. There are little touches like the amount of blood the coffee shops are putting in the coffee is being used as a marketing tool. The design of the cars being able to drive the vampires safely in the daylight is also very interesting and adds to the world as a whole.
And immersing us in this world is a great way to set the stage for the performances, which all do their job. Really that’s all I can say. Willem Defoe plays his part with competence and is very good as the former vampire in the film. Ethan Hawke adds nice vulnerability to his character and adds to the idea that the vampires here aren’t mindless, some want their humanity back. But if I had to say anyone steals the show, it’s the villain played by Sam Neil. His character is such a guy you love to hate. I think the peak of his awesome villainy is towards the end where he’s drinking blood out of a wine glass and talking about how it is packed with the great smell of fear, god it’s nice to have an awesome vampire like this after those pussies from “Twilight”.
Plus the make up effects are just amazing. Yes, this movie has CGI, it’s an unavoidable thing these days. But really, it’s mostly for backgrounds and cityscapes, the creatures are mostly suits and prosthetics, really fucking amazing prosthetics and suits. They have a nice Nosferateau feel to them and are very articulate. To top it off they actually seemed to have hired people that know how to act to play the starved vampires. The characters have the tiniest glimmer of humanity left in them but they’ve fully gone dependant on blood as it is their first and main drive. It perfectly shows that the right person in the right kind of suit can work way better CG characters, and they didn’t need to hire Doug Jones for it!
The script is tightly written, and really has nothing that glaringly stands out as a flaw. The story makes sense, the plot flows nicely, all the changes to characters don’t come out of the blue and the main goal of finding the substitute, or better yet, a cure keeps the audience engaged and really brings us into the story. Same with the editing and I already talked about the production design.
This is a perfect example of a movie that just works. Are there things I could nit pick? Oh yeah every movie has those. The difference here is in a bad movie, the nit picks become all the more glaring because honestly, the movie sucks hardcore so why should we let it get away with them? However in a good movie, you may notice, but why should you care? The rest of the movie is so good that it can get away with them. Like “Gremlins”. I love the movie but when I stop and think there are some HUGE plot holes in that movie, but the rest is so well done that I honestly don’t care. So what if snow is water and if the Gremlins touch it they should multiple like rabbits on Viagra? I don't care, I'm entertained! Really "Daybreakers" is just good. I can’t talk about it enough. It’s tightly written, full of drama and action without being silly and it’s well acted. Unlike “Twilight” which I really want to just stop at this point. This fad is probably the most damaging thing that has come out of the last decade of Pop Culture. However, I like to think that “Twilight” is just that, a fad. It’s something that is going to die out after awhile and be forgotten as our generation’s “What the fuck were we thinking?” pop phenomenon, like leisure suits or most of the fashion from the 80’s. I really think that “Daybreakers” will end up being a cult classic. This movie will last and “Twilight” won’t. I like that idea.
Tuesday, June 1, 2010
Dances with Wolves
Ok, so last time I made reference to “Dances with Wolves” being a film that I can’t stand. Well I got some negative feedback about that comment since it did win best picture, it was very successful and has made its way on to a lot of top 100 lists. And I must also confess, I had never been able to finish it until recently, when I watched it to show that I have credibility as a critic. Actually, this movie and I have quite a history, over the last 8 or so years I’ve sat down and tried to watch this movie at least five times, and have never been able to do it. In essence, if I was Batman, this movie would be my Joker. This is the only movie that I’ve ever just stopped watching because I couldn’t stand it. It’s not so much that the movie is terrible, or riddled with plot holes, or has a ridiculous story or anything like that. No, the reason that I have never been able to finish the movie until now is also my biggest problem with it as a film. IT IS SO FUCKING BORING!
This movie is so goddamn tedious in the first half that it always just made me so uninterested in what was going on that I did not want to go to the end because the boredom lasts FOUR FUCKING HOURS! Now, before you say things like “What? Does a movie have to have gripping action to get you into it?” or “Jeez not every movie can be 90 minutes.” I just want to say something: Some of my picks for best movies of all time are things like “Barry Lyndon”, “Gone with the Wind”, “Lawrence of Arabia”, and “The Godfather 1 and 2”, all pushing the three to four hour line. In fact, one of the DVD’s I’m most fond of in my collection is “I, Claudius” which is a mini series that lasts over 12 hours and has no flashy effects or action. I love all these films. They are all great epics and have a steady pace that builds the atmosphere while pulling you into the story. “Dances with Wolves” does not do this!
As such I put all the blame on Kevin Costner. I hate this man. I know I’ve given a lot of actors crap about being terrible or boring in movies, but they have nothing on Costner. I have yet to see a movie that actually shows him trying to pull off a performance, it’s always just Kevin Costner being Kevin Costner and loving that he’s Kevin Costner. He can and will destroy any enthusiasm I have for a movie faster than anything else I can think of. He is so boring and bland in this movie, AND he’s the main character! Doing this is something that detaches me from whatever happens to him because I honestly just don’t care. But that is just the icing on the cake, because this was Costner’s debut behind the camera as director, and boy does it ever show.
The reason this movie is so tedious is because Costner doesn’t seem to understand the idea of subtly. He constantly, and I really mean constantly, tells us the same information over and over and over and over. The entire time I was watching this movie I literally shouted “Stop beating a dead horse!” at the screen several times. A great example is the opening where he learns he’s probably going to lose his leg to a wound, and we hold on four separate cut aways to show that he doesn’t want to lose it. Really, did we need to have that constantly bored into our mind when we’ve figured it out after the first two? Hell it’s one of the first lines of the movie making all the extra cut aways that much more annoying! To top it off, the scene leads to Costner attempting suicide (YAY!) by having the Confederacy fire at him. Then, like a Schwarzengger movie, THEY ALL MISS HIM! This act of abject cowardice distracts the confederates long enough for the Union to promptly own the bad guys and Costner is seen as a mighty hero. This part just bugs me because, as star and director, it just seems like this scene exists purely to stroke Costner’s ego. Yeah it leads to him getting posted at Fort Sedgwick, but couldn’t he have been assigned to it? Or some other way than the fucking over the top stupid moment we just got?
What really gets me is people say that this movie needs to be seen as an epic so that’s why the long run time. People, an epic is something grand, big, visually interesting, sweeping and thrilling. They are so long because the stories they tell are so multi-layered that they need to time to gracefully bring them to a close without being abrupt or leaving unfinished plot threads. The story of “Dances with Wolves” is not multi-layered and Kevin Costner dragging the dead bodies of five elk, or deer, or whatever the hell they were, out of a pond over and over does not make a movie an epic! It makes it tedious to the point of aggravation! Why do we need to see him pull ALL of them out? One or two would be fine and then cut to him burning the pile because we can figure the rest out. We can Mr. Costner, we smart enough, really.
To be fair, once I finally suffered through the first couple hours where basically the same things happened several times, this movie actually gets pretty damn good. It’s still filled with some useless scenes and some rather clunky editing, but at least there are other people that show up for Costner to interact with and the useless scenes are fewer and further between. Actually, aside from Costner, everyone involved gives stunning performances. No joke, all the scenes with the native tribe are really engaging and get me back into the movie despite the large amount of Costner Blandness that is prevalent through out. Mary McDonnell is amazing as a white woman raised by the Sioux named Stands with a Fist, and Rodney Grant really grabbed me as the warrior Wind in His Hair. Hell I could go on and on about all the characters and how good they are because they all were amazing. The fact that a good chuck of the second half has to do with Costner observing daily life in the tribe also makes you want to see more because it is so damned interesting, and the buffalo hunt that finishes the first half is truly an epic moment. The one epic moment this movie has mind you, but I am always one to give credit where it’s due.
I also love the portrayal of the Sioux in this movie, and that is the film’s biggest strength. It’s a nice change of pace since Native Americans were normally seen as evil, blood thirsty savages with no souls in movies prior to this. Here the Sioux are shown as diplomatic, noble, and just trying to survive in what little land they’ve got left after Manifest Destiny has basically taken everything else. It is a grand statement that shattered stereotypes and really made me realize why this movie is as renowned as it is.
And I would be a huge hypocrite if I didn’t mention that the cinematography in this movie is just amazing. Every shot is beautifully framed and it really showcases the beautiful location they filmed in. Being somewhat of a would be amateur photographer I really love things like this, it makes the film awesome to look at even during those tedious parts in at the start, though it doesn’t make up for them.
So what are my final thoughts on this movie? I don’t hate it, but it’s not great by any means. It’s good, something that you watch once, maybe twice and that’s it. Sorry to both those wanting something more hate filled and to those wanting me to give this movie a standing ovation in this review, but I can sum it up pretty easily. The first half is shit, the second half is really good. That’s all I can really say, and the reason I didn’t ever have the desire to finish it in the past is because the first half is so insanely fucking boring. Yes, it picks up a lot in the second half, but to me that just highlights how boring the first half was. We spend so much time building Costner’s character and yet we never really get a glimpse at what his character is actually like, there are no real traits he has that make us want to see what happens to him. Hell, you could probably put a card board cut out into the role and it would still have the same effect, save for making the sex scene a little weirder. It showcases a misstep in him both directing and starring as he can’t put any character into his performance because this was his first movie be hind the camera and he probably had more shots lists and notes for other actors on his mind than his actual performance, not that he’s ever put a ton of thought into roles before or since. But what bugs me most is that a lot of the scenes, mostly in the first half, come off as very pretentious and I hate when a movie is doing arty shots or scenes for the sake of being arty and not really having a big point behind it. It’s overall a good movie, but I will not hold it against people if they get bored to tears in the first half and shut it off.
This movie is so goddamn tedious in the first half that it always just made me so uninterested in what was going on that I did not want to go to the end because the boredom lasts FOUR FUCKING HOURS! Now, before you say things like “What? Does a movie have to have gripping action to get you into it?” or “Jeez not every movie can be 90 minutes.” I just want to say something: Some of my picks for best movies of all time are things like “Barry Lyndon”, “Gone with the Wind”, “Lawrence of Arabia”, and “The Godfather 1 and 2”, all pushing the three to four hour line. In fact, one of the DVD’s I’m most fond of in my collection is “I, Claudius” which is a mini series that lasts over 12 hours and has no flashy effects or action. I love all these films. They are all great epics and have a steady pace that builds the atmosphere while pulling you into the story. “Dances with Wolves” does not do this!
As such I put all the blame on Kevin Costner. I hate this man. I know I’ve given a lot of actors crap about being terrible or boring in movies, but they have nothing on Costner. I have yet to see a movie that actually shows him trying to pull off a performance, it’s always just Kevin Costner being Kevin Costner and loving that he’s Kevin Costner. He can and will destroy any enthusiasm I have for a movie faster than anything else I can think of. He is so boring and bland in this movie, AND he’s the main character! Doing this is something that detaches me from whatever happens to him because I honestly just don’t care. But that is just the icing on the cake, because this was Costner’s debut behind the camera as director, and boy does it ever show.
The reason this movie is so tedious is because Costner doesn’t seem to understand the idea of subtly. He constantly, and I really mean constantly, tells us the same information over and over and over and over. The entire time I was watching this movie I literally shouted “Stop beating a dead horse!” at the screen several times. A great example is the opening where he learns he’s probably going to lose his leg to a wound, and we hold on four separate cut aways to show that he doesn’t want to lose it. Really, did we need to have that constantly bored into our mind when we’ve figured it out after the first two? Hell it’s one of the first lines of the movie making all the extra cut aways that much more annoying! To top it off, the scene leads to Costner attempting suicide (YAY!) by having the Confederacy fire at him. Then, like a Schwarzengger movie, THEY ALL MISS HIM! This act of abject cowardice distracts the confederates long enough for the Union to promptly own the bad guys and Costner is seen as a mighty hero. This part just bugs me because, as star and director, it just seems like this scene exists purely to stroke Costner’s ego. Yeah it leads to him getting posted at Fort Sedgwick, but couldn’t he have been assigned to it? Or some other way than the fucking over the top stupid moment we just got?
What really gets me is people say that this movie needs to be seen as an epic so that’s why the long run time. People, an epic is something grand, big, visually interesting, sweeping and thrilling. They are so long because the stories they tell are so multi-layered that they need to time to gracefully bring them to a close without being abrupt or leaving unfinished plot threads. The story of “Dances with Wolves” is not multi-layered and Kevin Costner dragging the dead bodies of five elk, or deer, or whatever the hell they were, out of a pond over and over does not make a movie an epic! It makes it tedious to the point of aggravation! Why do we need to see him pull ALL of them out? One or two would be fine and then cut to him burning the pile because we can figure the rest out. We can Mr. Costner, we smart enough, really.
To be fair, once I finally suffered through the first couple hours where basically the same things happened several times, this movie actually gets pretty damn good. It’s still filled with some useless scenes and some rather clunky editing, but at least there are other people that show up for Costner to interact with and the useless scenes are fewer and further between. Actually, aside from Costner, everyone involved gives stunning performances. No joke, all the scenes with the native tribe are really engaging and get me back into the movie despite the large amount of Costner Blandness that is prevalent through out. Mary McDonnell is amazing as a white woman raised by the Sioux named Stands with a Fist, and Rodney Grant really grabbed me as the warrior Wind in His Hair. Hell I could go on and on about all the characters and how good they are because they all were amazing. The fact that a good chuck of the second half has to do with Costner observing daily life in the tribe also makes you want to see more because it is so damned interesting, and the buffalo hunt that finishes the first half is truly an epic moment. The one epic moment this movie has mind you, but I am always one to give credit where it’s due.
I also love the portrayal of the Sioux in this movie, and that is the film’s biggest strength. It’s a nice change of pace since Native Americans were normally seen as evil, blood thirsty savages with no souls in movies prior to this. Here the Sioux are shown as diplomatic, noble, and just trying to survive in what little land they’ve got left after Manifest Destiny has basically taken everything else. It is a grand statement that shattered stereotypes and really made me realize why this movie is as renowned as it is.
And I would be a huge hypocrite if I didn’t mention that the cinematography in this movie is just amazing. Every shot is beautifully framed and it really showcases the beautiful location they filmed in. Being somewhat of a would be amateur photographer I really love things like this, it makes the film awesome to look at even during those tedious parts in at the start, though it doesn’t make up for them.
So what are my final thoughts on this movie? I don’t hate it, but it’s not great by any means. It’s good, something that you watch once, maybe twice and that’s it. Sorry to both those wanting something more hate filled and to those wanting me to give this movie a standing ovation in this review, but I can sum it up pretty easily. The first half is shit, the second half is really good. That’s all I can really say, and the reason I didn’t ever have the desire to finish it in the past is because the first half is so insanely fucking boring. Yes, it picks up a lot in the second half, but to me that just highlights how boring the first half was. We spend so much time building Costner’s character and yet we never really get a glimpse at what his character is actually like, there are no real traits he has that make us want to see what happens to him. Hell, you could probably put a card board cut out into the role and it would still have the same effect, save for making the sex scene a little weirder. It showcases a misstep in him both directing and starring as he can’t put any character into his performance because this was his first movie be hind the camera and he probably had more shots lists and notes for other actors on his mind than his actual performance, not that he’s ever put a ton of thought into roles before or since. But what bugs me most is that a lot of the scenes, mostly in the first half, come off as very pretentious and I hate when a movie is doing arty shots or scenes for the sake of being arty and not really having a big point behind it. It’s overall a good movie, but I will not hold it against people if they get bored to tears in the first half and shut it off.
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