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Lagomorph01
Reviews
The Adventures of Tintin (2011)
Visually stunning, story wise boring.
When going to film school, there was one mistake that I saw a lot of the beginning directors, cameramen, editors and the like make. They were all so focused on the technique behind the film, that they forgot to focus on story and the characters. Watching Tintin and the Secret of the Unicorn made me feel like I was in film school again.
From the first shot on, walking into the world of Tintin feels amazing, you see that everything was treated with the greatest care and eye for detail, and even though they still can't quite seem to get eyes right, the whole movie looks absolutely amazing. Strangely enough, you don't get the time to enjoy the beauty of it all, because right after the initial scene you're taken into a roller-coaster ride. It's there where this movie is starting to show it's flaws. There's very little breathing time left for the movie, and because of this, you never really get to feel or care for the characters. They never become lovable, they don't get their moment to shine and they're never genuinely funny.
Watching the whole spectacle, one begins to wonder if Spielberg purposely chose to abandon all basic storytelling rules and just go with it, or if he was distracted the whole technique of motion capture while making it. At least, to me, it feels that way.
As a result of this, the movie falls a bit flat. You have a great introduction sequence, but after this you're sucked into one two hour action sequence which is barely followable because of all the different layers of action going on on screen. Steady camera shots have been replaced by a constantly moving roller-coaster cam, which gives beautiful lenghty shots, but gives so much information that it's barely followable en sometimes even stomach turning.
Another part where the technique doesn't compliment in the storytelling is with the sometimes slapstick humor. Because the characters look so real, except for some facial features, as a viewer, you can't really accept some of the things that happen to them. If a piano falls on a cartoon character, you think it's funny because you accept that he'll just come out of it unharmed except for the fact that the piano keys are (completely playable) sticking out of his mouth. If that same thing happens to a human, we know that he would have broken every bone in his body and, if still alive, would have to be driven to the intensive care immediately. These kind of things feel illogical in the movie and take the viewer away from the viewing experience.
Storywise they took the easy way out. The situations feel forced and uneasy, like they wanted to put as many locations in the film as they could, and the plot, told by action instead of dialogue, is rather laughable. I don't like to compare the source material to the movie in a review, but the way they translated and hollywoodised the story feels out of place and never genuine. This feeling even goes as far as the soundtrack, because even the music by the brilliant John Williams seems flat, uninspired and never truly memorable. We never hear any of the compositions that Williams excels at, the recognizable orchestrated themes introducing plot elements or characters, telling a story of their own. But to be honest, these elements never really get enough screen time to have their own theme.
In a nutshell, it feels like the movie was focused on technique, and while it looks truly beautiful, it lacks in all the other departments. And in a world in which computer graphics get prettier every day, this movie, in a couple of years, will be forgotten with the rest of the for-their-time beautiful, but lacking story wise, computer animated films.
Dexter's Laboratory: Ego Trip (1999)
This movie is brilliant!
The show is really good and this movie is great too! It has a more serious story line that's true, but the overall humor and great characters bring the whole thing together so that it fits like a glove! The whole style is awesome too, the coloring is real good, varying from the green colorful dexter scheme to the dark red Mandark scheme (which in one moment overrules the entire world). The robot in the fighting sequence is unbelievably good designed and the ending is as unexpected as it is hilarious! I can't believe some people rate this as a bad movie. The only thing that is negative is it's duration, I'd like to have seen a evening filling dexter presentation.
Aladdin and the King of Thieves (1996)
Worse then Jafar, better than the awful series...
Alright, so it is better than the series... BIG DEAL. The series are the worst thing that could happen to the original (brilliant) movie, if Disney was god, this would be it's second mistake... The animation is crappy, although it's better than RETURN OF JAFAR, but the characters are just annoying, they just took the front most characteristics of the characters and based everything on it, for example Iago is just the most annoying character in this movie, he's just greedy and cowardly. The only things that are positive about this movie, are Robin Williams and John Rhys Davies. Williams is not as good as in part one, and some of his lines are just awfully annoying. But it's the way he copies most celebrities that actually kinda saves the movie (it sure is the only reason why I'd ever want to see it again). As for John Rhys Davies, he's good, but we all knew that. It's just sad to see him in such a very very bad movie... As for the whole plot, it stinks... It's all much to forced. Aladdin suddenly has issues with his family, and the whole magic lost city thing and the magic scepter with the silly woman in white in it, it's just too much bullsh*t to take. The first Aladdin was no bullsh*t, just Aladdin. As for the songs, they're the worst I've ever heard in a Disney movie, it's like the characters are just talking, followed with a magical Tadadaaaa, and then they talk again... My conclusion, avoid this one, and the series, stick to the original. Boycot this movie for all I know, just make Disney stop making all these cheap rip-off sequels, they're better than this... I give it a 4/10 for Robin and John...
Jurassic Park III (2001)
You know, what if they went back...
This movie is the typical example of a million dollar hit that had a sequel... and another... A bad one... The plot is very simple, a couple of people drop by Alan (guy from the first movie) they want a tour of the second Island from part 2. Alan agrees if they don't go on the island but of course they do, they have to find their son who landed there with a parachute, in the first scene on the island 2 or 3 people die. The rest of the movie is a series of predictable and unrealistic Dinosaur attacks. Somehow the velociraptors suddenly have intelligence and speech (in their own language), so now they seem to be the kind of badguys that would bug Scrooge McDuck. And another thing, that woman... that awful, awful woman... If she screams one more time I'm gonna go to that Island and rip her lungs out! She is so annoying through the entire movie, that I was really hoping that her head would get bitten of... Well, it didn't. As I predicted she got back with her man after this "Horrible" adventure... The visual effects are pretty good, so is the music, although it's no John Williams anymore... If you wanna see a dinosaur movie, watch part 1 again... This is only for Ross from friends, because he's the biggest Dino freak in the universe! ;)