Christian Bale

The Fighter

The other day I watched “The Fighter” – a sports drama based on the life and career of the boxer Micky Ward. As with most other sport dramas, the main course of the story is known and predictable. Those movies are not done, watched, and enjoyed for their twisted plots. Instead, they are all about people and specific circumstances. And this film is not an exception.

To be honest, I’ve never heard about Micky Ward before this film. So it was interesting for me to discover who he is and how he came up to be what he is. It was also interesting to see a rather realistic approach to the story – less glamor, hot chicks, and big fights and more of hard work, sweat, personal drama, and overall resistance. The film helps to illustrate the idea that champion is 1% of talent and 99% of hard work. It also shows how impossible it is to satisfy everyone and how that often leads one to very hard choices, and how those choices have to be made.

Overall, I really enjoyed the film. Interesting characters, good acting, and authentic cinematics all make this film so much better. A 4 out of 5 from me. Recommended.

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.

Terminator Salvation

There are a few brands in the movie industry, which you just can’t miss. Whenever a sequel comes out, whether you liked the previous or not, whether you are a fan or not – it all doesn’t matter, you just have to go and see it. “Terminator” is one of these brands. The first two films were so good, that even now, decades later, I still have vivid memories of some parts of those movies. I still sometimes wake up in cold sweat when I see a huge tank turning around on a hill of human skulls. I still ask myself a question “How do you kill a smart machine, which is made of liquid metal and can blend into any form or shape?”, and I am so glad I know the answer.

And even though I didn’t like the third film of the series, and didn’t expect much of the fourth, knowing that Arnold Schwarzenegger prefers to be a politician these days rather than his usually self, I still had to go and see “Terminator Salvation” in the cinema.

How good was it? A bit. Nothing special. It had the humans and machines, it had the time travel, it had some war, it had plenty of special effects. But it lacked two most important things which Terminator is all about, at least for me – Arnold Schwarzenegger and the huge scale. Call it ambition if you will.

The movie makers at least agreed with me on the Arny. I guess they tried to get him in, and they couldn’t, and they couldn’t make a Terminator movie without one, so they ended up rendering an artificial Anry on a computer. He didn’t come bad or anything, but it’s just not the same.

Regarding the scale, the ambition ,the “WOW! Effect”, they totally blew it. There was no scale to this movie. Nothing that we haven’t seen before, nothing surprising, nothing mind or eye blowing. Same old, same old.

While, McG knows how to make good action movies, and both parts of the “Charlie’s Angels” are here to prove that, I think it’s him to lacks the scale. Scale is something only a few directors have a feeling for. Steven Spielberg is one (and he knows war too). Peter Jackson is another (although I don’t know how good he is with machines). Michael Bay is yet another one (although he is already doing a good job with another robot-related series). McG? I’m not so sure.

And I’m pretty sure it was the director’s lack of magnitude. Because the only other possible reason for not having scale in the movie is budget. And I don’t think budget deficit applies to the Terminator movies. As I said, this is one of those well recognized brands, so there shouldn’t be any problem finding the money or bringing the profits home. I might be wrong, of course, but that is my opinion.

So. The summary. If you haven’t seen it, go and see. It’s worth it. If you are deciding between seeing it in the movies and getting the DVD, go see it on the big screen. It’s just better. But don’t expect much of it either way. And maybe then, when you don’t expect much of it, you’ll enjoy it more. My rating – 3 stars. Not bad, but average.

The Dark Knight

The other day I went to see “The Dark Knight“, also known as the latest story in the series about Batman. I am not a big fan of superhero comics, with Batman being no exception. But I’ve seen all the movies so far.

I have to say that this one was the worst. It was too long and too boring. It had great cast, but that didn’t help the film one bit. There are a few special effects, but the overall boredom burries them in the long propagandic dialogues. In fact, the movie is total crap except for one bit, which makes it worth watching – The Joker.

Heath Ledger did an excellent job with this character. It was by all means the best villain I’ve ever seen in the movies. Heath Ledger even outdid Jack Nicholson, who played The Joker in “Batman” (1992). Heath’s Joker was the scary kind. That person was so evil and … broken, that you wouldn’t want him to exist on this planet at all. But, at the same time, he was so realistic that you could easily meet somebody very similar (minus the make-up, of course) just around the corner. Really, a masterpiece.

As it stands, it’s difficult to rate this film. I’ll give it a 5 out of 10, with all 5 points being for The Joker alone. If you aren’t into movie villains, avoid this film at all costs.