ofvanityandwax Reviews

Cracks (I) (2009)

Simply beautiful

[10/10 · 31 May 2012]

While this might seem like your typical boarding school drama it isn't. It's a surprisingly beautiful film with wonderful cast and some fantastic scenery. However, it's Eva Green's performance and the music that won me over. The entire score is done by Javier Navarrete - who was nominated for an Academy Award for his score of Pan's Labyrinth - needless to say, it was phenomenal and really adds so much to the movie. It might be a little slow paced but I don't think that detracts at all. I found that you could sympathize with a lot of characters as the main themes were abandonment, favouritism, fear, and the desire to be wanted. It was nice watching the characters all develop and start to accept Fiamma.

I read the book after watching the movie and there were a few things that had been changed - the ending in particular. The book featured a more "Lord of the Flies" ending whereas in the movie it's not nearly as explicit and much less horrifying... if one can really say that. Either way, I'd highly recommend the film.

The Last Airbender (2010)

$150 million dollar disappointment

[1/10 · 2 July 2010]

I went into the movie knowing it would not be even a fraction as good as the real show. However, I didn't know that would make me literally want to leave the theater in the middle of the very movie. How someone could do such damage in approximately an hour and forty minutes is entirely beyond me. It was ridiculous, the only way to describe it is a $150 million dollar failure. I could understand if the effects were not up to par but the biggest disappointment was the acting. It was so stiff and it never once felt like the actors meant a word they were saying. I caught a glimpse of an interview with Nicola Peltz and Jackson Rathbone on TV and even their approach to that felt so wrong. It felt kind of disgusting to see as I've lately been watching Avatar: The Last Airbender (with extras) almost religiously for the past month.

The script in itself should have been tossed into the garbage and burnt and it's remains locked away so that no one would ever have to suffer looking at such garbage. That's why I'm not really sure if it's the actors or the script that's really to blame for the atrocious "movie" that's resulted. The long and, I'm assuming this what they were going for, "inspirational" speeches merely consisted of crudely strung together clichés and the language left much to be desired. I found myself almost twitching at the phrase (something along the lines) "You guys are AWESOME people!"...

What I find the be so incredibly amazing is how someone could honestly fail to such a proportion when they literally have a blue print already created. The fans know how the characters look and sound and while I understand that no one fits the package perfectly one out of two would be better than nothing. As well, suddenly deciding to change the pronunciation of the characters name is definitely not the best idea, while I do understand that he wanted the names to sound like their Asian origin, it didn't go over well and the whole time I was just cringing at the mere mention of Aang and Sokka's names.

This movie does not hold a candle to the original show. Heck, it should be retitled as it is hardly resembles the original in any way shape or form. While I do realize that not all episodes can be featured, the sequence of events just left you feeling awkward and confused. I, also, loathed the way they worked the bending in like it took five minutes of moving ones hands around awkwardly before any actual bending occurred. Most of the fighting was like fifteen minutes of martial arts with like the occasional bit of air bending and a little water being splashed around.

There was nothing to love in this movie not even the most adorable of characters such as Momo. Momo had literally what three minutes in the entire movie which I found extremely depressing as Momo was always one of the characters I just wanted to cuddle because of his adorable mannerisms but in the movie I had no love for the digitized Momo. Not even Appa was interesting.

This movie leaves me hoping and praying that M. Night Shyamalan goes broke and is black listed so that he can't ruin the series even more so. This is definitely something you will spend some time just trying to forget.