Season of the Witch

Olga and I spent some time choosing which movie to go see today.  There are a few showing, but none of them sounds even remotely attractive.  After we went through all options, we decided to watch “Season of the Witch“.  At least the trailer was attractive.

The film turned out to be a disappointment.  Whilst it had some good acting and special effects, the story failed it miserably.  It was too shallow and too raw.  There seemed to be no purpose, no connection.   And there were way too many contradictions.  Maybe fifteen or twenty years ago, all that could be easily hidden behind the visual effects.  But not today.

Overall, I’d give it a 3 out of 5.  Don’t bother with the cinema – watch at home.

Fair Game

Went to see “Fair Game” in the cinema.  Unfortunately, it turned out to be a disappointment.  It felt like the filmmakers couldn’t really decide on what kind of movie they are making.  There is a bit of a spy movie, which sucked.  There is a bit of political conspiracy interlinked with a bit of documentary.  That sucked too.  There was a brilliant part of family drama.  But it was only a small fraction of the film without really being linked to the rest of it.

The film is not really fulfilling.  After all that time watching it, I had to ask myself – “what did I really get out of this film?”.  And unfortunately I had to answer – “Nothing”.  It’s not entertaining.  It’s not thought-provoking.  It’s not education.  It’s not emotional.

That’s too bad really.  Because both Naomi Watts and Sean Pean were involved and acting, trying to make this film better.  But there was just no base for their acting.  The storytelling was so bad.  What is even more surprising is that the director of this film – Doug Liman – for sure knows how to make good movies.  He proved that with directing both “Bourne Identity” and “Mr. And Mrs. Smith”.

Overall, I’d give this film a 3 out of 5.  If you really want to see it, don’t waste your money on the cinema.  There is nothing there that you won’t see on a smaller screen, in the comfort of your home.

22 Bullets

I’ve heard a few good things about “22 Bullets” so I put some effort into getting a copy.  The film is also originally in French, so I had to spend some time finding a viewable translation.  I don’t really like dubbed films, so I opted for English sub-titles.  Too bad the ones I got were done via automatic machine translation (I am pretty sure it was Google Translate).  They conveyed the meaning, but had no authentic beauty.

Anyways, back to the movie itself.  For me it was a disappointment. I enjoyed Jean Reno acting, as I almost always do.  But everything else was bad.  The story was very simplistic and very straight forward.  No plot twists there.  The acting of most other characters was mediocre.  And really it was a move with nothing much happening.

On top of that, I have a problem with movies that make idols out of criminals and that promote criminal way of life.  I think we have enough crap in this world already to be asking for more, especially in such a way.  Maybe it was lost in translation, but “22 Bullets” seemed liked that kind of movie.

Overall, a 3 out of 5, mostly for Jean Reno.

Men in Black II

Just a couple of weeks ago I posted a trailer for “Men in Black II” and said that I somehow missed it this movie altogether.  And here I am, holding a copy of “Men in Black II” in my hands.  Not that I was looking for it in particular, but I got it via a concerned reader of this blog.  Thanks Alex.

The film is a sequel to the first part and is very similar in a lot of ways.  It is a light entertainment with a few bits of sci-fi in it.  Both Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones are in it.  With quite a few aliens and big guns.

This part however is not as good as the original movie.  It tries to be, but it’s not.  It is entertaining and funny sometimes.  But it’s much weaker in every way – less action, simpler story, etc.  I still enjoyed watching it and it also made want to watch the first film again.

Overall, 3 out of 5.  Watch it if you have nothing else in your queue, but don’t spend any time looking for this movie.  Don’t expect much either, and you’ll probably enjoy it.

Clash of the Titans

Last weekend I watched “Clash of the Titans” with a bunch of friends.  I was insisting on watching it in 2D, since it was widely known that 3D in the film was added in post-production and hence won’t be anything remotely similar to the real 3D, but my arguments weren’t convincing enough and we went to 3D cinema anyway.  Don’t make the same mistake.

As I expected it, 3D really sucked.  Do you remember those bulky CRT monitors that we used to have with our desktop computers, back when everyone wasn’t a happy laptop owner?  If you do remember them, then you probably remember the horrible experience when such a monitor was configured for a low refresh rate, say 60 Hz.  The images on such a monitor were flickering, there was no sharpness, and your eyes and had would start hurting pretty soon.  That’s very similar to the experience of the pseudo-3D.  Horrible experience in other words.  In fact, it was so horrible that we kept taking glasses on and off constantly.  One could watch this film totally without 3D glasses, but in certain places it was easier to have them on.

So, was pseudo-3D the only thing that spoiled my experience?  Nope. I felt that the movie was very shallow in pretty much every aspect – acting, story, special effects, drama, scale, and so on and so forth.  Just to give you some idea with a little spoiler – there wasn’t much of a clash in this film, and there were no titans.  About 40 seconds of screen time were given to a rather large creature, which many might confuse with a titan.  But when we are in Greek mythology, a word “titan” actually has a very particular meaning.  So, no titans.

And yet another something else that didn’t help my perception of this film was a fresh memory of “Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief” – another Greek mythology action movie that was released recently.  And as much as I didn’t want to watch “The Lightning Thief” it turned out to be quite a nice flick.  And it happened to be way better than the titans with no titans.

Overall, I’ll give the titans a 3 out of 5.  Skip it and you won’t miss much.  If you really want to see it though, make sure you watch it in 2D – save yourself some money and a headache.

P.S.: I only now realized that I forgot to review “The Lighning Thief”.  I will correct this shortly.