May 1, 2005
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Well another month has past by, time to review the movies I’ve seen for
April 2005. I saw a total of three movies on the big screen and eight
movies on the small screen. That’s eleven total, which isn’t bad
but shy of my twelve average that I was hoping for. I think
twelve is shooting a little higher than I should anyway, so now
I’m bringing it down to at least eight movies on DVD a month, and two
movies still in theaters. But then, with the coming months of
summer movies, I won’t be surprised if I can get more out of the
theaters.On the Big Screen we got…
Frank Miller’s Sin City = A-
Hostage = C+
Kung-Fu Hustle = A-On the Small Screen we got…
Big Fish = A-
Elektra = D
In the Company of Men = B-
Inuyasha – the castle beyond the looking glass = C
King Arthur – director’s cut = C+
The Thirteenth Floor = B+
Wimbledon = B
the Woodsman = B———————————-
Big Fish was a nice surprise from the director of Tim Burton.
The concept of wondering whether to believe a story that seems too
unbelievable to be believable is an interesting one. Sometimes a
person would exagerate a little to make a story more fascinating than
it really is. But what if a tall tale could be true? Or how can
you tell what was real or fake in a story? Or the more important
question that this movie brings up is, what is better, fiction or
reality? The visuals to Big Fish was used quite well to help illustrate
the wonder of what was told here, and the characters are as memorable
as the stories themselves. This has to be one of Tim Burton’s
best film to date, and as disenchanted as I’ve been lately with his
work, this one I really enjoyed. A-——————————
Hostage is heralded as the movie that will put Bruce Willis
back as a viable action star, and I think it works. Visually the film
looks good, and the audio is used very well as well. The story
moves at a nice pace that doesn’t let up on the dramatic and tense
situation that the characters are in. Bruce Willis does
a great job in his role of a retired hostage negotiator, who is forced
to get out of the side lines and be directly involved in the situation
that he is in. With a movie like this, a great suspension of
disbelief has to be considered, because there are situations that might
take you away from the movie’s premise. Also, true to it’s title,
there are sooo many hostage situations in this film, that it
dangerously gets close to the realm of parody. Still, I think it’s not
bad at all. C+——————————–
Elektra, in all sense and purpose is a very uninspired film. Coming off as a spin-off to the movie Daredevil,
I can easily say that I enjoyed that one better. Daredevil at least had
some sense to try to fit the feel and mythology of the source material
to a film, while Elektra couldn’t avoid becoming a very generic action
movie. It started to get really annoying when you can tell that the
director is just going through the motions of making a very generic
action movie. Yet, you get that sense that they might actually think
highly and seriously about this movie that they are making. If it
wasn’t for the special effects in the film, or Jennifer Garner‘s presence, this could simply have been
a cheap made for cable movie. One other thing, if you are going to use
the Japanese word “kimagure” for this movie, please don’t use it like
it’s some sort of mystical ninja technique, because the word means
something totally different. D
