Movies

Up

Last weekend we had our first whole family trip to the cinema – Olga, Maxim, and myself. The choice of the moving picture was simple – “Up“, the only family friendly movie in the cinema right now. Plus we all love animated films. Plus I’ve heard quite a few good words about this one.

The animation was excellent, as always from Pixar. But the story and the characters, I think, needed more work. There were a few funny scenes, a few quite serious and sad ones. It wasn’t just for the kids, but for the whole family.

Overall, while enjoyable, the film lacks something. Either a crazy creature running around and getting into silly situations (even though there was a candidate), or a character with a funny voice (even though there was a candidate), or something completely different.

3 stars.

Public Enemies

A couple of days ago I went to the cinema to watch “Public Enemies“, also known as “Johnny D”. I’ve been waiting for this film for a few month now, since the first time I saw its trailer.

Sadly, it turned out to be a disappointment. There were a few good moments, yes, but overall it was rather empty. The story wasn’t interesting or engaging. The characters were many and shallow. There was practically no drama. And there was very little of action. Relations between different characters were also very vague, partially because there is very little dialogue and nothing happens. So you can’t really make it out who thinks what of who and how they all are getting along.

It was also a disappointment technically. First of all, I am getting pretty irritated by the shaking camera these days. It wasn’t fun back in Blair witch times, and it isn’t fun today. Soft focus and purposeful mistakes which are aimed at creating an old film effect were destructing and annoying. Also, the choice of sound effects and music was strange at best. During the rare gun fights, the sound was quite crisp and surrounding. But during some other scenes it was either too distant or too quiet. Frequent moments of no music and no dialogue without dramatic pauses felt very much like an amateur cinema. And on top of that, the film runs for 2 hours 20 minutes. Way too much.

My overall rating – 3 stars. There was a lot of potential though.

G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra

The other day I went to see “G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra“, which turned out to be the silliest movie I’ve watched in a while. Numerous special effects could feel the holes in the story and poor acting. And further down the road, all those special effects became nothing else but annoying. Things were flying back and forward, exploding, and flying more, without any reference to what is actually going on. Sometime it was even impossible to tell where the action is taking place – in space, high in the air, just above the ground, or under water.

On top of that, the dialogues were really awkward and unnatural with extreme levels of naivety. There was a chance for violence to redeem the film, but PG-13 cut all those changes.

Overall, the film is quite empty and visually tiring. 2 stars.

Trailer : District 9

I’ve heard a few really good words about “District 9“, the new alien movie. I have no idea when it will come to Cyprus cinemas or will be available on DVD, but the trailer looks quite interesting.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d6PDlMggROA]

Visual Effects : 100 Years of Inspiration

Only by watching things like this can you realize how far have we moved in terms of visual entertainment over the last 100 years. Some effects look ridiculous while it will take some more years to out date the other ones. Enjoy!

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LP_hAszQPgk]