November 20, 2005

  • movies I've seen recently...

    Jarhead is a war
    movie unlike any war movies I've ever seen.  This movie is more
    about living the life of a marine, as opposed to a movie about the war
    itself. You really get a taste of what it felt like to be in the
    situation the main character played by Jake Gyllenhaal
    went through as a marine. This movie doesn't necessarily glorify a
    marine's life like a lot of war movies do, but instead humanizes the
    experience.  This isn't an action movie at all and more of a
    character driven drama. Sam Mendes
    is becoming one of my favorite directors because he makes a great
    emphasis to let the characters of the movie shine through, and Jarhead
    is no exception. "A-"

    Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire isn't necessarily one of the strongest of the four movies, and this is coming from somebody who considers GoF the best
    book of the series. The pacing of the movie simply went by too fast, as
    they tried to cram as much information from the books as a 2.5 hrs film
    can hold. Out of all the movies, this one cut almost half of the book's
    content (okay, maybe just a little over a 1/3). Out of all the movies,
    this one also took the most glaring liberties in the plot. There's also
    a lot of elements that aren't explained in the film either, and the
    non-book reading fans are going to have to take a lot at face value. I
    simply felt that the story would have worked better as a 3 hour movie.
    ... and that's it for me being a bit nitpicky...

    The glaring positive thing about the movie is the look and feel of the
    Harry Potter world. Although there are CG sequences that didn't look
    too great, there are a lot that really looked excellent. There's also a
    lot of great inventive uses of
    magic displayed here and like the Prisoner of Azkaban, the world and
    people look and act more "natural" as opposed to the staged look of the
    Columbus films. The interactions between the characters are also quite
    entertaining to watch. The humor here also seems to be improved upon,
    while the scary sequences justified the PG-13 rating. I mentioned the
    pacing of the film moving too fast, but director Mike Newell
    was able
    to make the movie really shine when he slowed things down for the more
    important events in the story. There are a lot of memorable moments
    littered throughout the movie which helps makes the film a wonderful
    experience to watch.

    Overall though, I still enjoyed the movie a lot despite it's flaws. The
    positive elements simply overshadow the negative, so it's impossible
    for me to say that I hated the movie (like some diehard purists are probably going to say). I commend Mike Newell for tacking
    on
    what's arguably the hardest book of the series to adapt. But it still
    has to be said that the book is so much better than the movie. "B+"

    p.s. I've seen this movie twice already, and I liked it even more the second time around.