Change Your Image
Peechy
Reviews
Der Krieger und die Kaiserin (2000)
Beautiful but ultimately confused and misplaced
I was excited about this film having enjoyed 'Run, Lola, Run' but was left with an unsatisfied and rather unpleasant taste.
As in Run, Lola, Run the characters are somewhat flat and unexplained. But unlike the directors previous film The Warrior and The Princess fails to capture a viewers attention with an exciting frenetic style and plot, lifting the need for character development. This failure only serves to highlight the films shallowness of writing and characterisation. This is a shame as the opening hour of the film show real promise of depth and meaning. However from half way through the film slowly meanders through the rest of It's rather long running time, eventually becoming sludgy and stretched.
It is the lack of any real explanation of the characters actions and reactions that brings this sense of loss. While Run, Lola, Run did not require such in-depth explanation, the slow pace of The Princess and the Warrior lends a viewer much more time for reflection on events. However there is little explanation of events to reflect on.
The film is beautifully and obviously very expensively shot. The cinematography, along with strong direction and a barrel load of powerful performances might just save this film for some. However, I ended the viewing with a sense of wasted time, distaste and mild disappointment.
Moonraker (1979)
'Moonraker AKA Bond In Space!' or 'James Bond Jumps the Shark'
Being a Bond fan, I avoided this monstrosity for decades. When I finally gained the courage to watch I was awestruck. The plot is stodgy and in places hard to follow. It is littered with film references (Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Young Frankenstein to name but two), product placement and jokes at the franchise it's self. There are more Bond references in this Bond film than the fantastic French spy spoof OSS:117. Worst of all is the films treatment of Jaws. The terrifyingly resilient adversary from the previous film is reduced to stumbling fool for Bond's comic foil, falling both in love and, impossibly, to earth in a shard of broken space station. If you add to this a dirgey script, unfeasible space scenes and poor acting by all but Michael Lonsdale, it is easy to see why this is considered the poorest of the Bond films. Ultimately, James Bond is a spy series, not Sci-Fi.
I can only assume that the director , Lewis Gilbert, had grown tired of this series 12 years after his last involvement and was unsurprised to learn that the writer was also responsible for the 'Confessions of...' series. This is a demonstration of lazy studio's using a popular franchise to put any old nonsense on screen knowing it will gross. The film has more comedy than the afore mentioned OSS:117 though is immeasurably less entertaining. If you are looking for comedy Bond I'd recommend the two perfectly pitched films from the French OSS:117 series, the classic 1967 Casino Royale or even the Austen Powers cannon. Other than that stick to the 'serious' Bonds and leave Moonraker to those with an over inflated sense of irony.
Ultraviolet (2006)
It's happened! I finally have a new number 1 worst film of all time
Ultraviolet 2006
Rated: 15 Studio Original Comic Book Company
. I never thought 'Deep Impact' would fall, then 'Troy' rose (ironically). Who knew that 'Troy' would fall so soon (habit maybe? OK enough of that) to 'The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen'. Surely, I thought, surely there is nothing worse that this film. Human endeavour has begot a film with no redeeming features, nothing of worth. There is no need to sink lower. Then I was introduced to 'Ultraviolet' from 2006.
I will start with the one scene that has the films single redeeming feature. The chase in the opening series of scenes reminds me of a modern 'Tron'. Or what 'Tron' could be with 21st century technology. That's just about it, and for that glimmer of thinking-this-style-might-look-good-somewhere-else I give 'Ultraviolet' a third of a star (out of 10).
And that's it for the Pro's. On the top of the cons list we have Plot. Ultra-cool and ultra-thin Violet is a hemophage (vampire) and part of the hemophage 'resistance'. She captures a 'weapon' that turns out to be a child who she then steals to protect for a undisclosed reason. But it turns out that he isn't a weapon against hemophages but a weapon against humans so the dictator of this totalitarian state can keep control of the
something. I'm not really sure. The story resembles a disconnected mumbled rant by some bin-looting loon. To say it's unrealistic would be monolithic understatement. Its about not-vampires-honest or 'people with an infection' who apparently aren't humans anymore but a whole new race despite that fact its called an INFECTION. Oh and they're terrorists. Whoops I mean 'freedom fighters'. However the main issue I have with the plot isn't the stupidity of it, but the moral ambiguity. We're supposed to support Violet, she doesn't want to kill the humans, bless 'er. Though she does. Lots. And the 'freedom fighters' are good right? Because they're fighting a corrupted, politico-religious, dictatorial system, right? I dunno! The film hints at this with hospitals and research labs as semi religious centres and the dictator called 'Deacon', but doesn't ever take the time to explain it. The whole film seems to be a sequel without the aid of a first film for the exposition. With the hemophages walking around at the beginning with red identifying armbands, I suppose its some kind of metaphor for the persecution of the Jews. Or possibly AIDS, since it is an infection. But then again people with AIDS aren't considered a different race. So yeah, I am guessing it all about the racism thing. But then at the end of the film they find a cure! If they wanted a cure what was the point of fighting for their freedom in the first place? See? It's a moral mess. There isn't enough room here to explain the labyrinthine plot. A NEVER WILL BE.
Something else to take issue with in on the con's list is a personal bugbear of mine, The style. How a director managed to get style over content with the mammoth plot line is actually impressive. The film looks like the director found all the light and colour they sucked out of 'Sin City' and said 'Hey, I know what I can use this for'. Then he turned the contrast right up to 11, poured on an unhealthy dose of lens glare and presumably went to polish the walls some more. The look of the scenes are so multicoloured shiny surfaces, polished steel and glass that it began to hurt my eyes, until eventually it just hurt my brain. It's all way too much.
That's a rather good phrase actually, it applies to most of the film. Apart from the acting of course, When it comes to that there just wasn't enough. Each scene flies past without as much as a by your leave, so that any actual acting left is simply parroting the lines and legging it off to shoot someone in the face. The shining light of the whole experience is William Fichtner. Look him up, he's been in a lot, but there just isn't enough screen time for him to stretch. Other than what little of him we see the acting is universally bad.
However, none of these things ruin 'Ultraviolet' per se. There's nothing wrong with hyper unrealistic style. The acting is certainly less smug than 'League of Extraordinary Gentlemen'. And I can deal with a plot too big for the film, look how awesome 'Lord of the Rings' is. None of these problems kill the film. What does brutally and bloodily murder it is the old 'It-could-have-been-good' flaw. OK it was never going to be 'Citizen Kane' but 'Ultraviolet' was filmed, edited and polished and sent of to the studios by the director for reviewing. Then some money-crazed producer got his hands on it and performed a smash-and-grab with some editing equipment. They cut it down from 120 to 88 minutes. Deciding it was too emotional they got rid of most of the 'down' scenes leaving minimal plot exposition. It could have fixed so much. Still, we'll never know.
Sin City (2005)
Style over content cause much disappointment
An awful film which i was utterly disgusted with. The rating for 3 comes from the beautiful graphic film work, the style is identical to the comic book. Though I'm not sure if this is a good thing or just laziness on the part of Robert Rodriguez. However, as the comic book was meant to be similar to the film noir detective films of the 1950's the film comes across as taking the mickey out of this rather than an homage.
Since this seems to be what the film concentrates on the direction and the acting is catered to this and comes across as hammy and ludicrous
Though i thought the novel was good enough i don't think the extreme violence from the comic strip worked well in film. The violence seemed comedic, unnecessary and over dramatic. However the worse part of this film is its treatment of women. Once again, though the treatment of women is taken directly from the comic book it doesn't translate well on to film, coming across as much more offensive and vicious than before.
Possibly worth a watch if you can ignore the insistent machismo and excessive violence for the stylish use of colour.