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Reviews
The Village (2004)
Some questions...
THE VILLAGE is well shot and has the kind of tone that one would expect from this director.
As with SIGNS, however, after the film has finished you begin to find flaws and unanswered questions coming to mind...
*SPOILERS!*
The scenario to this film is that a group of intellectuals have decided to create a Utopian, seemingly ancient village that is cut-off from the modern world. To stop villagers leaving they have created a legend that claims scary creatures lurk in the surrounding woods.
Okay, here are the questions that came to mind as I ejected the DVD from my player...
1) Why do the elders (who're the only ones who know the truth) need to speak/act/dress like they're from the past? Surely a Utopian village with modern language but no modern appliances/peaceful atmosphere would suffice - after all, the youngsters born in the village would simply assume that this is how the world should be.
2) The elders know about modern medicines. Why don't they keep a cache hidden away in case of deadly illnesses/accidents?
3) Why did Noah dress up as the creature when he stalked Ivy in the woods? She's blind! He could dress up like a clown and she'd be none the wiser!
4) Towards the end of the film it's explained (in an expository conversation) that someone with power has redirected planes away from the skies above the village. WHY? All the elders had to do was add scary 'flying-things-that-cannot-be-named' into their legends and the younger villagers would buy it... but, of course, we viewers would then know what the twist is going to be (I guessed it anyhow.)
5) Why don't the elders simply come up with a legend about the 'mysterious-energy-that- comes-through-wires-that-cannot-be-named'? They'd be able to have electric lights then and, you guessed it, the younger villagers would be none the wiser.
6) Are we meant to believe that NOBODY EVER trespassed into those woods? In all these years?
There you go.
Run for the Sun (1956)
Solid
A solid little exotic thriller that boasts good location photography and that great staple of pulp yarns: ex-Nazis hiding in the jungle!
It's a mistake to regard this film as a remake of THE MOST DANGEROUS GAME. In that movie, plus films like TURKEY SHOOT and HARD TARGET, the plot is about antagonists who like to hunt down people like game animals. In RUN FOR THE SUN, however, the chase at the end is not a planned hunt on the part of the Nazis: they simply want to keep their whereabouts a secret from the world outside.
It's a nice touch to have bad guy Howard actually WANT Widmark to hang around the place because he stops jungle life from being so dull.
The Hamburg Cell (2004)
No such thing as truly non-partisan
THE HAMBURG CELL has been praised for managing to be "a strictly non-partisan film". This is a difficult thing to achieve, considering the subject matter, and I don't think the makers of this story manage to pull it off. It's interesting to note that only fleeting glimpses of the damaged twin towers and a crashing plane are shown: there are no shots of the World Trade Center workers falling to their deaths, or re-enactments how how the hijackers slit the throats of airstewardesses. This is supposed to be a non-partisan film, remember? But wait, close-up footage of murdered Bosnian Muslims IS shown earlier in the film. We see a murdered Muslim woman, shot in the back, in close-up. I detect some bias here...
Elephant (2003)
Deadly dull
I think the only reason this film hasn't received more criticism than it already has is because its subject matter is so worthy. Using non-actors walking endlessly around school corridors does not make the viewer empathise with these characters or feel that what they're watching is 'real'. Rather the opposite, all that happens is that you find yourself feeling nothing for them. You become acutely aware, in fact, that what you're watching is fake: just a bunch of kids with non- existent acting abilities who can't even stop from glancing at the camera! There are no compelling storylines - about the best thread is the drunk dad storyline. Everything is so banal that you find yourself wanting those two boys to start shooting so something interesting will happen. I think someone should've pointed out to Gus that there's a reason scenes of people doing nothing are edited out of films - it's BORING. If you want to watch a film that contrasts movie horror with the awful ordinariness of a mad sniper killing innocent people, go watch TARGETS instead.
Timecop: The Berlin Decision (2003)
Good sequel
Though it doesn't have the big budget of the original TIMECOP, this sequel makes up for that with a more enjoyable, more involving plot. It's also better at exploring the concept of a future where time travel is possible, with organizations set up to make sure that the past remains correct. There's also a blink-and-you'll-miss-it appearance by Hong Kong movie 'Gwailo' Steve (OPERATION CONDOR, LETHAL PANTHER) Tartalia as a Nazi soldier.
Van Helsing (2004)
Just gets sillier
*spoilers* >From the very beginning, it's obvious that VAN HELSING was going to be an over the top CGI adventure pic that isn't meant to be taken too seriously. Fair enough: the initial scenes are fun, especially the fight with Mr Hyde and the first attack of Dracula's brides. BUT THE FILM JUST GETS SILLIER. By the time we've been introduced to other-dimensional mirror doorways and a vampire reproductive cycle that seems to be more like an alien pod-laying idea stolen from a Science Fiction move, this film becomes just too preposterous! If the baby vampires had been better designed they could've (slightly) saved this film. As it is, they resemble silly, cartoonish bat-things straight out of a Scooby Doo cartoon. When the first batch attack the village they don't seem nasty enough to the THE BIG THREAT that they're meant to be. IF these critters had actually looked like creepy flying baby vampires they might've worked (but I think that makers of this film wimped out of that idea because they considered the sight of exploding human-looking baby vampires to be too horrible.) The sequence where a vast chamber of hanging cocoons is filled with electricity looks like some out-take from a sub-par Matrix film. The monsters in ABBOTT AND COSTELLO MEET FRANKENSTEIN are far, far better than the Universal monsters on show here. Dracula, especially, is a travesty of the original. Awful! Pathetic! My 12 year-old nephew, however, thought the film was great.
Training Day (2001)
A well-constructed story, until...
*Spoilers!* A lot has been said about how this film paints a bad picture of the LAPD, or how it depicts the worst aspects of humanity: betrayal, treachery, greed,etc. However, though it places its tale within a realistically urban environment, TRAINING DAY is actually a clever tale of how Washington's character sets up his scheme to get the money to pay off a p*ssed-off Russian gangster. THAT IS THE STORY. For the most part, the story works well, with good-guy trainee Hawke finding himself in ever-more compromising positions as Washington builds up to his money-acquiring caper.
The only weak part of the plot occurs when Hawke is saved (during a lethal poker game) due to the most far-fetched example of good fortune/coincidence seen in a movie for a long time. Maybe reviewers try to get more out of this movie than is actually there because Washington got an Oscar for his role.