Hey guys, was hoping to get some feedback on a few reviews that I've written recently.
These are the first reviews I've done-- I've written a decent amount of fiction for an amateur writer, but I haven't done much reviewing at all, so I thought I'd give it a shot, since I enjoy Movies, Music, and all that sort of thing. Some profanity in the second and third reviews.
All reviews are copyright
www.MetalMusicMan.com - pick whatever you would like to read, one or all three, and thanks for reading!
------- Blood Diamond Review --------
Blood Diamond: Leonardo DiCaprio, Djimon Hounsou, and Jennifer Connelly
"Don't ever let go, Rose!" Oh god... this movie can't be good; Leonardo DiCaprio is in it.
Now that I've addressed the first thoughts of every Titanic-hating man who has seen the previews for this movie, here's a pleasant surprise-- it doesn't suck. A connection of several different characters and their experiences, Blood Diamond takes place in Africa during the violent diamond smuggling of the 1990's, just after apartheid has been removed. It has a good plot, great drama and character development, and powerful imagery as well.
The movie beings with a local African villager, Solomon Vandy (Djimon Hounsou), walking down a dirt road with his son, Dia (Kagiso Kuypers). A normal trip home from school quickly becomes a tragedy when a truckload of rebel soldiers arrive and begin slaughtering everyone in the village. Women and children are defenseless against the barrage of automatic weaponry, and to make matters worse, half of the rebels doing the killing are young boys around the age of ten. The images of children killing innocent civilians is bad enough when it appears to be an isolated incident; this is a recurring theme throughout the movie, however. Solomon's wife and children manage to escape, but he and his oldest boy Dia are captured by the rebels. Solomon is sent to work in the diamond mines, and Dia is forced to join a training program (read: brainwashing) so as to make him a "soldier of the rebellion".
The scenes depicting this training of Dia (as well as a group of other young boys) are pretty hardcore, to say the least. For instance, an African civilian is placed against a wall in front of Dia, who is wearing a blind fold. The rebels give Dia an AK-47 and force him to pull the trigger, then remove the blind fold and cheer him on. Dia watches the man bleed to death, stricken with horror as he realizes what he has just done.
Leonardo DiCaprio's character, Archer, is an ex-soldier turned diamond smuggler who meets Solomon when he finds out that Solomon has discovered and hidden an extremely valuable diamond during his time working in the mines. At first reluctant, Solomon agrees to give Archer the diamond if he will help him find his family, particularly his son Dia. DiCaprio has a great performance in this movie, he pulls off the South African accent well and is surprisingly convincing as a military-hardened badass smuggler. He's not afraid to get his hands dirty, but he's also extremely cautious of the dangerous African territory that he's grown up in. Archer plays his cards like he just wants to get out of Africa, no matter the cost, but when he meets Maddy Bowen (Jennifer Connelly), a journalist looking to exploit the bloody diamond trade, he has a gradual but convincing change in heart.
Blood Diamond's imagery is simply astounding. I've always heard about the poverty in Africa, but I never realized that it was
that bad. There are so many people in such small spaces, and many of them are just sitting around in the heat, often using broken down cars as shelter. The hardship is overwhelming. Blood Diamond also has some great action scenes-- all out rebel raids on entire cities explode with gunfire, RPG's, and other explosives.
The movie ends in The United States and it wraps up pretty quick, but that didn't bother me much since the primary role of this movie was to show the experiences of a few people while in Africa during the blood diamond trades. Overall, I'd say that this is a solid B+ or maybe even an A-, and it's definitely recommended. A powerful movie with some amazing drama, Blood Diamond is definitely worth your money.
------- Children of Men Review --------
Children of Men takes place in the near future, when all women have lost the ability to reproduce, and thus, the youngest people on earth are around the age of 18. All major cities have crumbled under societal chaos, save Britain, which remains. Britain is basically a huge Nazi, they allow Brits and only Brits to stay within the relatively safe area of the city, and ship out / deport all immigrants (former French or U.S. citizens, etc.) to concentration camps of sorts.
The main character, Theo, is played by Clive Owen. Through a series of events he ends up meeting a girl who is somehow actually pregnant, and the movie focuses on their attempt to escape Britain and the surrounding dangerously chaotic territories in attempts to reach a "new world" where a new civilization is trying to be made, as all hope has been given up on the known world recovering from the state that it's in.
Sounds like a cool movie, huh? Yeah, I thought so too. Unfortunately, it wasn't very impressive. Reading the intro paragraph, you might be interested in seeing this movie, but there are a few things that you should know before taking the time to watch it-- this is not a spoiler, just a general warning:
- By the end of the movie, you still don't know why women are not able to have babies.
- By the end of the movie, you do not find out why the ONE girl who is pregnant in the movie is capable of being pregnant.
- By the end of the movie, you'll ask yourself, "Why the hell was Julianne Moore even in this movie?"
- By the end of the movie, you will wonder, "What was the point of having a fat, nappie-haired lady dance around and chant like an Indian?"
- By the end of the movie, nothing is accomplished, you will realize that you have watched 2 hours of a pregnant black woman running through dirty cities, and you still don't know what the fuck is going to happen to the human race.
"Julianne, do you think that anyone will suspect that this movie goes no where and accomplishes nothing?"
"I don't know, Clive, all I know is that I should get a better agent, because I was in this movie for a total of about 5 fucking seconds."
Clive Owen straight up pisses me off. He has all of this awesome aura of weird British drama about him, so you'd expect him to make a good actor-- instead, I've seen one good Clive Owen movie to date; Sin City. Everything else he's ever been in, as far as I know, has sucked, let's go down the list: King Arthur, Derailed, that one bank robbing movie with Densel Washington, bla bla bla. Foo-ie. Anyway, Clive Owen disappoints me because I see potential in his acting skills, and yet he has impressed me on so few occasions. That statement, in a nutshell, can also be applied to his latest movie as a whole, Children of Men.
Children of Men looked AMAZING when I saw the previews for it, I thought it was going to be some kind of huge, life altering, amazing British movie of awesomeness. Instead, it turned out to have a lot of strange style-istic shots and cool sets / locations, but a terrible plot, and no explanation of anything. It was one of those movies where they just plop you in a situation and don't explain anything, so that you go along the ride not knowing what's going on, but in order to pull that off, you have to actually conclude or explain something by the end of it, which this movie did not do. Disappointing and kind of a waste of time, which is sad, because I really wanted to like it.
Okay, so it wasn't a
terrible movie, but it should have been more and it wasn't, and in some ways, that's worse than it just sucking flat out. Nothing was explained, nothing was concluded, the movie starts no where and ends no where. It had such a cool theme going for it, but nothing is accomplished or gone over at all, which makes it impossible to identify with any of the characters, and I hate that, because given the awesome situation that the movie takes place in, I really wanted to identify with them. Again, not a terrible movie, but terribly disappointing.
See it if you're bored, but there are many better choices.
------ The Last Kiss Review -------
This is a remake of an Italian film from 2001, released late in 2006. I watched this movie because I kept seeing previews for it on the TVs at Circuit City and I thought it looked somewhat interesting, despite the fact that I thought Zach Braff was a douche bag. Don't ask me why I thought he was a douche bag, I have no explanation other than that he just has that douche bag look to him. You know what I mean, he's the kind of guy who you look at, and for some reason unexplained, you just think to yourself, "God, that guy is
such a douche bag".
Anyway, the plot of the film centers around a 30-something couple, Michael (Braff) and Jenna (Jacinda Barrett). They have a great relationship and although they aren't married, they have a child on the way; Jenna is about 10 weeks pregnant. The major conflict is that although Michael is happy with Jenna, he's going through the usual 30-something turmoil of knowing exactly what's going to happen next in his life, and this is what leads him to chatting with Kim (Rachael Bilson), who he meets at a friend's wedding reception.
The chemistry between Michael and his girlfriend Jenna is convincing, but it's taken for granted that the two are a couple in love, and serves more as a background relationship. The Last Kiss truly shines with the chemistry between Zach Braff and the persuasively beautiful Rachael Bilson, who has had a few minor roles, most notably her part on the TV show "The O.C." This is really a breakout film for her; Bilson's acting as the irresistibly sweet, younger college student is so amazingly convincing that I found myself shouting at Zach Braff's character, Michael, while watching the movie-- I felt like some kind of stupid old woman screaming during a horror movie, "Don't go in the dark room! He's going to stab you!". That was me. For the whole movie. I have no shame. Laugh. Go ahead. You'll do it too, I promise. Just watch the movie and try not to. Seriously. Do it.
"Don't talk to her! Don't give her your phone number!
You fucking idiot, don't talk to her after work, or at all, ever!
RUN AWAY! RUN FAR, FAR AWAY FROM THE HOTTIE!"
Pathetic as it may seem, I found myself screaming this throughout the entire movie because I knew that, if I was in Michael's position, I would certainly have fallen for Kim; she's perfectly flirty and surprisingly forward with her advances, yet, she pulls back at just the right time, perpetuating the attraction. Watching Michael as the ball of yarn was dangled in front of him was saddening, because it sparked the realization that such a small, fragile, yet beautiful thing is the fall of every man.
During one rainy scene, Kim's shirt gets wet. Michael is a gentleman and says that she will not have to worry about him trying to sneak a peak at her soaked white blouse, to which Kim responds,
"...but, I'd be disappointed if you didn't look..."
Resist
that, I
dare you. Don't get me wrong, Bilson's character Kim is not entirely to blame for the ordeal, but the piece is so extremely well played that it's impossible for it to not be the most memorable part of the film. I'm hoping to see Rachael Bilson in quite a few more roles in the next few years, put her on your "rising talents" list.
Beyond the interactions of Michael, his girlfriend Jenna, and the side project, Kim, there are multiple other story lines that deal with the actions of supporting characters. Three of Michael's friends all have excellently written, unique backgrounds and issues, and each of them works out their own problems while still interweaving with the main Michael-Jenna-Kim storyline. The same is true for the relationship between Jenna's mother and father, who have a visibly deteriorating 30-year marriage. The part of Jenna's father is played by Tom Wilkinson, who does a great job of playing a father who has been made stern by his own relationship with his wife. There's a particularly good scene between Braff and Wilkinson, where Jenna's father both scolds and comforts Michael after learning about his would-be son-in-law's actions.
The most satisfying part of this movie is that for each of the many different conflicts between all of the vastly different characters, there is never a single easy solution to any of the problems. Whether things work out or implode, each character's struggle is boldly displayed throughout the movie, and all decisions are difficult.
The Last Kiss is a fantastic movie. The comedy is sparse, but fitting and punchy. The romance is great, and the drama is superb. Altogether a great experience and an amazing look into the troubles and triumphs of couples of all ages.
Highly Recommended.
THANKS FOR READING! Comments welcome!
