Easter Film Fest
Apr. 5th, 2010 05:27 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
alobearI originally wanted to go and see four films in one day this weekend, but the cinema timings were against me, so I've had to make do with one a day for the last three days, with the fourth planned for Wednesday.
How To Train Your Dragon was an excellent start to the weekend - excitement, humour, good characterisation, and generall all-round fun. But why were all the adults Scottish and the kids American? I could have don without the father in the row in front explaining blow-by-blow what was going on to his very small children and asking them to guess what might happen next, but I managed not to let that detract from the film too much. The plot actually reminded me very much of Monty Roberts in The Man Who Listens To Horses - hero going against the traditional interaction with animals of his immediate society, by studying said animals in the wild (sort of), and then trying to bring people round to his ideas. There were lots of fun characters to invest in. lot of excellent visual detail and variety, and a well-thought out miniature world to get to know. Highly recommended.
I spent most of the first half of Clash of the Titans trying to figure out what was missing that meant it wasn't as good as it could have been. I think it may have had something to do with the fact that the hero was less than charismatic, and (aside from the token woman) none of his band of companions were initially given names. Things went rather downhill in my opinion during the scene where all five of said companions were given names and character hooks just before being slaughtered by the Medusa. The fact that rather a lot of the film made very little sense didn't help, either. Zeus gave the go-ahead for unleashing the Kraken on Argos and then spent the rest of the film dropping helpful gifts on Perseus to help him defeat it. Since he was in charge and everything, he could have just called the whole thing off. And since they were given ten days' notice of the Kraken's attack, why didn't the people of Argos just leave? Good points - the Pegasus was really cool, and that's about it. I wouldn't say the film was *bad*, per se, just eminently forgettable.
The Blind Side wasn't big on subtlety, and I wouldn't have said Sandra Bullock gave a stand-out performance, but it delivered pretty much what I expected, and had a lot going for it in terms of entertainment value. The characters were likeable, there were both humourous and moving moments, and it kept me interested for its full two hour plus running time. I would say it was a little slow on the initial build, and it's not going to win any prizes for originality or unpredictability, but it's a good example of its type, and overall I quite enjoyed it.
How To Train Your Dragon was an excellent start to the weekend - excitement, humour, good characterisation, and generall all-round fun. But why were all the adults Scottish and the kids American? I could have don without the father in the row in front explaining blow-by-blow what was going on to his very small children and asking them to guess what might happen next, but I managed not to let that detract from the film too much. The plot actually reminded me very much of Monty Roberts in The Man Who Listens To Horses - hero going against the traditional interaction with animals of his immediate society, by studying said animals in the wild (sort of), and then trying to bring people round to his ideas. There were lots of fun characters to invest in. lot of excellent visual detail and variety, and a well-thought out miniature world to get to know. Highly recommended.
I spent most of the first half of Clash of the Titans trying to figure out what was missing that meant it wasn't as good as it could have been. I think it may have had something to do with the fact that the hero was less than charismatic, and (aside from the token woman) none of his band of companions were initially given names. Things went rather downhill in my opinion during the scene where all five of said companions were given names and character hooks just before being slaughtered by the Medusa. The fact that rather a lot of the film made very little sense didn't help, either. Zeus gave the go-ahead for unleashing the Kraken on Argos and then spent the rest of the film dropping helpful gifts on Perseus to help him defeat it. Since he was in charge and everything, he could have just called the whole thing off. And since they were given ten days' notice of the Kraken's attack, why didn't the people of Argos just leave? Good points - the Pegasus was really cool, and that's about it. I wouldn't say the film was *bad*, per se, just eminently forgettable.
The Blind Side wasn't big on subtlety, and I wouldn't have said Sandra Bullock gave a stand-out performance, but it delivered pretty much what I expected, and had a lot going for it in terms of entertainment value. The characters were likeable, there were both humourous and moving moments, and it kept me interested for its full two hour plus running time. I would say it was a little slow on the initial build, and it's not going to win any prizes for originality or unpredictability, but it's a good example of its type, and overall I quite enjoyed it.
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Date: 2010-04-05 05:58 pm (UTC)Instead I saw Clash of the Titans, which had all the flaws of the 1982 version (and at 10 I was a little more tolerant of them) and a few more on top. Specifically they took out a fair bit of the god-politics that made the story even vaguely logical (in that one, I think, Cassiopeia's insult was to Thetis who insisted on Zeus punishing Argos, so it became more logical for Zeus to help Perseus. It's a strange thing to change really, considering it just introduces a rather large plot hole).
'Pegasus' as the name of the species and not just a single flying horse bothered me too, but that's just me being picky.
It looked pretty though, and I was mostly there for Kaya Scodelario, and I knew full well her part was pretty much blink and you'll miss it.
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Date: 2010-04-06 11:12 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-04-13 08:52 pm (UTC)