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Napoleon. I don't like to use this word in reviews, but 'meh' pretty much sums it up. It's the sort of film that wins awards for costume design and maybe photography, and nothing else; and even the costume award would be on shaky ground as there aren't enough bouffant haircuts and ballgowns, since 99% of the cast wear uniforms. Phoenix is miscast and mumbly and his undiluted American accent is totally out of place; Kirby is okay but really little more than a bit part and done no favours by a script that treats her with contempt (her exit from the story seems like an afterthought). Predictably from Ridley Scott, the battle scenes hold up, even if at times they look cgi heavy. The highlight is definitely Waterloo, which manages to look as if thousands of extras actually do take part, rather than the usual drone shots of tiny little computer soldiers you usually get in screen battles nowadays (as in earlier battles in this film). It's often just dull, and if the rumoured 4-hour 'more Josephine' director's cut turns out to be not just rumour, I'll be pointing my face at something else.
My re-watch spree continues with these 2 favourites, last viewed 20+ years ago ...
Léon (The Professional) 1994 - 30 years old ... yikes!
Hardly needs any introduction, with the extended Korean dvd version being a forums-favourite at the time, iirc. Really enjoyed the remasterered blu - looks and sounds great. Mathilda ringing the doorbell remains a powerhouse moment, and how Portman stood literally face-to-face against Reno and (separately) Oldman aged just 12yo, is incredible.
The action scenes still work surprisingly well, shocking and tense, but funny too, and Oldman is a fantastic ott villain - I think the atmosphere is best thought of as a stylised comicbook adaptation. But post-#metoo, the portrayal of Mathilda (and notably the other female characters) is even more squirm-inducing, and would be unfilmable nowadays.
A thrilling 9/10 (surprised how poorly it fared with critics at the time, with just 64%).
The Barbarian Invasions (Les invasions barbares) 2003 - We had completely forgotten how funny (and rude!) this was - which despite the title, is actually an intimate family drama. Post-#metoo, some of the cruder edges would be polished off, as family and friends reminisce at a womaniser's bedside ... Underneath it all, is a real lesson on how to treat our elderly and sick - with compassion, dignity and humour.
The only downside is the dialogue (and subs) were occasionally too fast to appreciate the comedic nuances ... almost enough incentive to learn French! A warm and wonderful 8/10
Black Hawk Down (2001) Plays more like a documentary than a film and is all the better for it. Very tense, but not as tense as I remember it being. Solid 8/10.
The Marvels. A soulless light show that continues the steady decline of Marvel films that began post-Avengers Endgame. The Marvels takes it to its lowest point - I won't say 'rock bottom' as I have every confidence that the worst is yet to come. I was heartened to read (if wiki is truthful, that is) that this was a financial flop. It's really just a few competent performances held together by yawn-worthy cgi action, none of which is memorable. The script is a turd; while Tom Holland's Spiderman absolutely nailed the youthful, over-enthusiastic teen hero, the Marvels' take on it is a gibbering fangirl whose lines for the first half of this film could be replaced by 'omg omg omg' and make no difference at all. This is how bad it is: the only memorable thing about The Marvels is, unfortunately, the nadir of the MCU so far. It doesn't spoil the plot (which I'm struggling to recall) to say that the Marvels have to visit a planet on which, for no reason whatsoever, the population must communicate in song, and won't understand you if you just talk to them. Cue Captain Marvel in a flowing princess dress twirling about in a sub-Frozen, wet Disney musical number. I'm not kidding. I wonder how long it is before Samuel L Jackson tires of laughing all the way to the bank and says to Kevin Feige, 'I want out'.
I'm sure that must make you a basement dwelling neck beard as apparently that's the only kind of person who finds fault with Disney's output. It can't possible be that it really has become pandering drivel.
Has anyone seen Poor Things yet ?
Stone & Ruffalo's chat on a recent Graham Norton certainly piqued my interest. But it sounds like the film has turned out too male-fantasy rather then female empowerment ... what a missed opportunity.
Wonka Wars!
Round 1: Johnny Depp/Tim Burton eliminated. I saw their take on release and have no desire to revisit it, but I'm a fan of neither of these now.
Round 2: Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory (1971) v Wonka (1923). I have a theory about Willy Wonka that if you saw it as a child it has probably stayed with you, and I can see why. You could say the same thing about The Goonies. I saw Gene Wilder's Wonka (and The Goonies) for the first time just about a year ago. The Goonies was exactly as I'd expected and I had to give up halfway through. Willy Wonka I stuck with; though Wilder's best work was unquestionably the three films he made with Mel Brooks, he's perfectly watchable as Willy Wonka. The songs, however, I found weak and mostly forgettable. It has a very odd feel too, filmed as it very obviously was in Germany with English and American cast; the story may be timeless but putting in that definite time and place just felt off.
New Wonka has received criticism (predictably) because Timothee Chalomet isn't Gene Wilder, and (stupidly) because dwarves weren't hired to play oompah-loompahs. Chalomet has been criticized for his singing and for being too 'nice', i.e. devoid of the sinisterness of the child-killing literary Wonka. Well, I just read the story too, and Wonka isn't really sinister. Mischievous, yes, but hardly sinister; the kids that fell foul of his factory were okay at the end. As for the oompah-loopahs - there's only one in Wonka, and despite following the orange/green colour scheme of the first film, he's correctly-dimensioned at about knee-high, and therefore far too small to be dwarven. Hugh Grant is also great in the role and I wish he'd had a lot more screen time. There may be no standout singing in new Wonka but there's nothing wrong with it, which is more than you can say about the old one. The songs (from Neil Hannon - Divine Comedy and Father Ted theme) are memorable; a couple from the first film are also included. The entire cast is fine, and it's just great fun. From the makers of the Paddington films, an admirable pedigree. If I have one criticism it's that, while it in no way relies on cgi, it is occasionally over-used. But in this context I can live with that.
Verdict: Wonka (2023). A comfortable winner on all counts.
Spaceman. Adam Sandler in space is miserable because his wife won't talk to him. Carey Mulligan on earth is miserable because she wants to leave her spaceman husband. Sandler talks to a big ropey-cgi spider about what's on his mind. The spider talks back to him with Paul Dano's very dull voice. It's all dull and miserable. Exit viewer after 30 mins.
Has anyone seen Poor Things yet ?
[Raises hand]. I enjoyed the first half-hour and the final half-hour. In between I started to get quite bored because it gets to the point where it's pretty much all shagging, and that tends to bore me in fillums. The very distinctive fantasy look started to grate too. I'm not familiar with the book but I think it's all set in a real-world Glasgow (I may be wrong). Here a predominantly American cast all do British - I say British as I think Willem Dafoe is attempting Scottishness; it's hard to tell. Stone is passable at the English, but Ruffalo is not, and I soon found him quite annoyingly distracting because of it. I don't agree with all the praise that's heaped upon it. I doubt I'd watch it again, unless they trim it by about half an hour, which is easily possible. The scene in which a father educates his two sons by taking them along to watch him shagging Stone could certainly go.
Actually it reminded me of Barbie but none of the reviews I've read mention that film.
I just started watching the Jamie Foxx Day Shift (2022) film with no idea of the plot. None. Didn't even watch the trailer.
And the first seven minutes was a wild ride wondering what his character was doing and then finding out.
Now the rest of the film may be pants, but it's nice to be surprised by a film these days.
