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jascry
Reviews
Vanilla Sky (2001)
Abomination
I've seen, and love, the original film Abre los Ojos by Alejandro Amenabar. Having seen it several times, and as an actor, I can comment on how well constructed every moment of the film is. The story is constructed to keep you constantly wondering what exactly is going on from beginning to end and the acting is so perfect that the performances mimic real life. Unfortunately Vanilla Sky is but a pale reflection of the film it so shamelessly attempts to copy.
By taking what is meant to be a convoluted story and overexplaining it, Cameron Crowe dulls the impact significantly and turns it into an almost unintentional comedy. The concept is far fetched and Amenabar was well aware of that when he wrote Abre los Ojos. Apparently Crowe felt that the only way to keep an audience interested is by attempting to tie up every loose end to the point where it becomes redundant and completely uninteresting. We understand what is happening almost an hour before it ends so why must it be consistenly drilled home?
Unfortunately the real disappointment is in the performances. Tom Cruise is no better than a dime store version of the original's Eduardo Noriega and Penelope Cruz lacks any of the charisma she had in the original. Also, the intentions of all of the actors are so far from how the story is designed that it ruins any impact the film could have had. The usually excellent Jason Lee was obviously given no direction and flounders aimlessly in his character. Cameron Diaz is so abominable that she can't, even for a moment, convince me that she is even attempting to stay in character. Of course the fact that Crowe wrote the characters so lifelessly that they would not have been convincing regardless of who the actors were.
In the end I'd highly recommend staying as far from this abomination as possible and watching the far superior Abre los Ojos. I know this is 2 hours of my life I'll never get back so hopefully you won't have to suffer the same fate.
Resident Evil (2002)
Mainstream horror...
Just got back from seeing Resident Evil. Based on the fact that the theater was sold out for every showing today (including the 11:40pm I went to) I'd guess that it's definitely going to be a hit. It should be. It has everything someone expecting a movie based on the game should have. You have the house (albeit briefly), the dogs, Umbrella Corporation, the licker thing, the T-Virus and, oh yeah, the zombies. Add on some very nice gratuitous shots of Milla Jovovich completely naked and you've got the whole package.
What doesn't this film have? Let's see... a well written story, well done CGI, tension, scares and, oh yeah, GORE. Yes there's some blood in it but the camera is always cutting away when a scene that would require gore comes up. Maybe they cut all of the gore to get an R rating as I've read but there's so little that I think it would practically be PG if not for Milla's nudity and the work f**k used 1 or 2 times. How they could have turned down George Romero's script and fired him as director and then thought that Paul Anderson was making a better movie I have no idea.
So what we have here is an extremely mainstream version of what Hollywood thinks a horror movie should be. Horror fans will probably be very unimpressed with it. If you've nothing to do and need to kill 90 minutes then there are worse things you could occupy your time with but certainly don't go out of your way to see it.
Injeong sajeong bol geot eobtda (1999)
Beautiful but shallow
I saw Nowhere to Hide for the first time just 2 nights ago. I recently discovered the wonders of Korean cinema and I purchased it sight-unseen based on what I had heard about the film. After viewing it I've decided that it's a film in search of a loftier goal.
Visually, Nowhere to Hide is a stunning film. I'm tempted to call it experimental since the goal seems to have been more of an experiment in motion rather than a basic action film. From the opening black and white scene to the ending fight set to that "Holiday(?)" song, NtH is true poetry in motion creating an incredible atmosphere through motion.
Unfortunately I feel that the director, Myung-se Lee, sacrificed artistic storytelling for artistic visuals. The film is as average story-wise as it is beautiful visually with its standard "cops search for killer" plot that never goes beyond the standard fare. It helps that Joon-Hoon Park conveys such an interesting character but I felt that the film still lagged through the middle half.
In the end, despite its shortcomings, I enjoyed Nowhere to Hide. As it stands, NtH is certainly worth seeing at least once but, with more focus on plot, it could have been so much more.