Review catch-up
May. 9th, 2009 06:00 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
alobearToo many reviews, too little time! The problem is, it's been so long since I updated my reviews, I'm having trouble remembering what I wanted to say about some of the books and films. Hey ho, I'll use a cut to save space.
Let The Right One In by John Ajvide Lindqvist:
This is the book from which the recent film was adapted, and was lent to me by my line manager at work. It's not at all bad - an intriguing set-up, interesting characters, a fair amount of ick, and some good suspense. It's let down by a slightly clunky translation - perhaps they rushed it a bit so that the book would be available to buy just after the film came out, I don't know. I know some people who probably wouldn't like it because the 'rules' of the book's version of vampirism aren't presented very clearly, but I think that added some interest to the story, because the main vampire doesn't actually know how it all came about or how it all really works, which made the character more intriguing.
Race To Witch Mountain:
This was fairly standard fare - rather too many chase sequences and not enough character development for my taste, but largely enjoyable. The kids were both very appealing, and Dwayne Johnson did a good job as the guy dragged into their mess. It was quite funny in places, and quite exciting in others, and had a cool dog, so no real complaints from me!
Shall We Dance?:
I didn't see this when it came out in the cinema so was quite happy to give it a go during last weekend's trip up north. It avoided the predictable path on a couple of occasions, and had some nice character moments along the way. The best moment, though, was a fantastic shot of Richard Gere appearing up an escalator, dressed in a tuxedo - I'm not hugely attracted to him as a general rule, but that one shot was as stunner!
Shine:
An odd film about an odd man. I had heard great things about Geoffrey Rush's performance, but he was actually hardly in it, which was unexpected. The film focused much more on the character's youth and upbringing, which was rather painful in places. The plot progression had a strange, disjointed feel to it - there were occasional jumps in time, or switches in attitude from characters that didn't make a lot of sense, but I'm glad we stuck it out to the end.
The Anatomy of Deception by Lawrence Goldstone:
I bought this book almost at random when I found myself in town the other week without anything to read (horror!), and it turned out to be a pretty enjoyable Victorian murder mystery, centring on a young doctor who got dragged into the investigation. All the period detail was very well done, and the plot itself was interesting, but the ending was rather strange. Instead of bringing the culprit to justice and marrying the girl who'd been mooning after him the whole book, the protagonist decided to let the murderer get away with it, and when he asked the girl to marry him, she said no! So, the denouement was somewhat unexpected, but not necessarily in a bad way.
Star Trek:
My overall summation of the new Star Trek movie is that it serves as a very effective establishing shot, but does not work as a film in its own right. It was too aware of all the history behind it (in that it tried too hard to make it clear this was a different timeline so it didn't need to follow canon), and it was too focused on setting things up for what is presumably planned to be a new franchise. So, I came out of the cinema pretty much forgetting what I'd just seen, but looking forward to the next one. Having said that, I think the casting was largely excellent, and there were some lovely character moments scattered in between the time travel nonsense and large explosions. I particularly liked Karl Urban as Doctor McCoy, and Simon Pegg as Scotty has definite potential, though he wasn't really in this one enough to leave much of a mark.
Let The Right One In by John Ajvide Lindqvist:
This is the book from which the recent film was adapted, and was lent to me by my line manager at work. It's not at all bad - an intriguing set-up, interesting characters, a fair amount of ick, and some good suspense. It's let down by a slightly clunky translation - perhaps they rushed it a bit so that the book would be available to buy just after the film came out, I don't know. I know some people who probably wouldn't like it because the 'rules' of the book's version of vampirism aren't presented very clearly, but I think that added some interest to the story, because the main vampire doesn't actually know how it all came about or how it all really works, which made the character more intriguing.
Race To Witch Mountain:
This was fairly standard fare - rather too many chase sequences and not enough character development for my taste, but largely enjoyable. The kids were both very appealing, and Dwayne Johnson did a good job as the guy dragged into their mess. It was quite funny in places, and quite exciting in others, and had a cool dog, so no real complaints from me!
Shall We Dance?:
I didn't see this when it came out in the cinema so was quite happy to give it a go during last weekend's trip up north. It avoided the predictable path on a couple of occasions, and had some nice character moments along the way. The best moment, though, was a fantastic shot of Richard Gere appearing up an escalator, dressed in a tuxedo - I'm not hugely attracted to him as a general rule, but that one shot was as stunner!
Shine:
An odd film about an odd man. I had heard great things about Geoffrey Rush's performance, but he was actually hardly in it, which was unexpected. The film focused much more on the character's youth and upbringing, which was rather painful in places. The plot progression had a strange, disjointed feel to it - there were occasional jumps in time, or switches in attitude from characters that didn't make a lot of sense, but I'm glad we stuck it out to the end.
The Anatomy of Deception by Lawrence Goldstone:
I bought this book almost at random when I found myself in town the other week without anything to read (horror!), and it turned out to be a pretty enjoyable Victorian murder mystery, centring on a young doctor who got dragged into the investigation. All the period detail was very well done, and the plot itself was interesting, but the ending was rather strange. Instead of bringing the culprit to justice and marrying the girl who'd been mooning after him the whole book, the protagonist decided to let the murderer get away with it, and when he asked the girl to marry him, she said no! So, the denouement was somewhat unexpected, but not necessarily in a bad way.
Star Trek:
My overall summation of the new Star Trek movie is that it serves as a very effective establishing shot, but does not work as a film in its own right. It was too aware of all the history behind it (in that it tried too hard to make it clear this was a different timeline so it didn't need to follow canon), and it was too focused on setting things up for what is presumably planned to be a new franchise. So, I came out of the cinema pretty much forgetting what I'd just seen, but looking forward to the next one. Having said that, I think the casting was largely excellent, and there were some lovely character moments scattered in between the time travel nonsense and large explosions. I particularly liked Karl Urban as Doctor McCoy, and Simon Pegg as Scotty has definite potential, though he wasn't really in this one enough to leave much of a mark.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2009-05-12 07:02 am (UTC)The book was out long before the film: SFX raved about it at the time, so it was sat on my 'must buy' list for a year or so...