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Reviews
Metoroporisu (2001)
Disappointing
Given this films pedigree, I expected more.
Potential spoilers ahead.
I first saw this film in November 2001 at an animation festival and found myself greatly underwhelmed (and a bit disconcerted by the end scene given the events in New York a few days earlier) so I rented it again recently to gain a more balanced assessment.
The first thing that strikes you about this film is its use of computer-aided effects (not strictly CGI as it is combined with cel animation). Personally, I dislike the use of 3D with 2D animation. It causes a film to lose its hand-crafted quality and is often too smooth and sticks out a mile. It is a trend that has developed a bit too quickly from convenience and adds very little to the experience - see any recent Disney film. The 3D scenes in this film not only jars with the 2D cel animation, but is also very primitive compared to other recent 3D animation. The camera moves are rigid, the modelling basic and the lighting bland. Compared to the exquisite watercolour images from various select scenes in the film, they seem to have been spliced in from an early animatic. Only the beautiful image of a dawn over the rooftops of the underworld (seen on a rather misleading ad poster) make up for this disappointment.
Then the film begins and more problems surface. The characters are as 2D as their construction. The storyline is scarcely credible and seems more concerned with theme and philosophy than drama. I found myself wondering what was the point in creating a very advanced robot that thinks it's human to sit on a chair in a high tower and rule the world. Talk about pointlessly elaborate. Not one of the characters seemed able to explain their function and therefore any tension that might have been developed vanished as soon as more 'pretty' graphics appeared.
No, for a film written, produced and directed by such masters, you would expect something more than this. There was no pace and no sense of emotion. Even the filmmakers on the DVD seemed more interested in their work of 'art' and technology than the audience that had to watch it.
Why did Duke Red go to such lengths to rule the world? Why not just build a big computer or an army rather than a huge building to do something weird (and then never referred to again) with the sun? Even Bond villains don't have schemes this outlandish and intricate. Why does he make a robot to rule the world when he hates robots and has an army that seeks out and destroys them? And why did it have to resort to that final cliche of grand destruction? Hmm. I also found it surprising that no mention was made of the original film on the DVD, even in the production notes. The original film was about class structure, the new age of mass production and exploitation. This film seems to have been written after looking at a few choice clips and incorporating its 'style'.
Despite appearances, it's completely 1D: 3/10 (for some nice painting)
Insomnia (2002)
Mutton dressed as lamb?
Possible spoilers
The above summary is a little harsh, but rather accurately sums up my feeling about this film. To be honest, I enjoyed it, despite my heightened expectations. The problem lies not in the excellent direction and camerawork, the sympathetic and controlled acting and the stunning scenery, but in the second-rate script. I felt, after watching it, that I'd just seen an airport novel brought to the screen.
The film begins with a couple of scenes of rather clunky exposition. Al Pacino plays a Los Angeles cop sent to a small town to Alaska to solve a young girl's murder. He is also under investigation by internal affairs and these two situations begin to collide as the perpetual sunshine of the arctic town keeps him awake, night after night. The weighty exposition and desire to tie up all the thematic threads continues throughout the film and manages to drag down the pace. Interestingly, it is only when Robin Williams appears on the scene that the film begins to take off. His is by far the best and most complex character, and you are never quite sure what he believes he did to the dead girl.
Inside this film is a great film trying to get out. Couldn't anyone fix the script? Were their hands tied? They must have known how leaden it was. With another draft, the removal of a few large plot holes (sleeping pills? At the end, how does one character know about another character's investigations?), a dreadful scene of chance' discovery involving a tennis ball, and the removal of the main female part (think about it, there is no reason for her to be there she is just his conscience), it could have been a much better, tighter film.
Missed opportunity: 6/10
Ivansxtc (2000)
Hmm. Seedy.
Rule #645: All films made in Hollywood, by Hollywood, about Hollywood, must be seedy. I should probably add for Hollywood' to the above list, as the film is more or less a home movie. Like The Player, Sunset Boulevard and countless others before it, it is a film that has been made by locals and just happened to have been given a world-wide release; seemingly by accident. It also takes great delight in detailing what a dreadful, decadency, drug and sex-fuelled level of hell it is. Personally, I can't wait to go there.
Although based on an original novel, its structure is different and only the central idea has been borrowed.' Danny Huston plays (and rather well) an agent who manages to land a big, starry client and discover that he has cancer, all in the space of a few days. It's all downhill from then on as he begins to reassess his life, realises his girlfriend is just after his business connections and that he has barely achieved anything of worth in his short life. To be honest, that really doesn't come through in the film and feels as if it could have done with a few more scenes and some sharper editing. Despite some excellent scenes, the characters seem too much like improvised teaching studies and not well-written, three-dimensional people. Only Ivan manages to leap from the screen, and that is largely because of Danny Huston's Jack Nicholson-like presence.
Another thing to note is that the film was shot with digital cameras, although the sound seems to have been recorded with a Dictaphone. The photography is good, but is soft and jittery. This is because it was shot interlaced and not in progressive scan. Given the quality of the cameras available, and its inevitable transfer to film, I'm not quite sure why. Techno-bore detail, I know, but still distracting.
A good effort, but a home movie: 6/10
Minority Report (2002)
Tries hard, but in all the wrong places.
After a few hours of consideration, I don't think I like Minority Report. For starters, the plot is an almost identical re-working of The Fugitive, and that did it better. Also, the characters seem confused and perfunctory. It wants to be sci-fi, but gives up half-way through. It wants to be a (pre) murder mystery, but you care little about Anderton.
Sure, it looks and sounds good, but it reeks of formula and design, not intuition and ideas. I really wanted to enjoy this film but found myself putting the plot together long before the characters stopped running to think for a moment. On the other hand, it's the first film I've seen in a long while where the FX were given the chance to fall in to the background while the story took centre stage. It's taken ten years but FX seem to be maturing.
Spielberg might just be getting interesting again, but this film feels as if it should have had Harrison Ford in it. I had the same reactions to Minority Report as I did to Blade Runner, and any Kubrick film for that matter: admiration, indifference.