The book is great, the movie is not. Only the beginning is done well. However, I was fairly impressed with Colin Farrell as Arturo Bandini and thought Salma Hayek pulled off a good Camilla. I was also impressed with the depiction of 1930's L.A. I thought that the environment was pulled off quite well. But then about half way through the movie veers away from the book and it becomes a clichéd and sappy love story. The ending is completely changed and loses everything that made the book great. I really am not sure why such a change would be made, this wasn't ever going to be a huge blockbuster film, so why make such a lousy rendition of Fante's work, that is, why try to give it a typical "Hollywood ending?"
Reviews
3 Reviews
And Lucas' failure is complete.
19 May 2005
Warning: Spoilers
***Spoilers!****
Lucas finally leaves behind the childish stupidity of the first two episodes and delivers a much grimmer movie. Too bad he does it so poorly. The first problem with the movie is the acting. The forced, pitiful dialogue is enough to make a person cringe. It is glaringly obvious during the exchanges between Padme and Anakin. But rather than leave a movie to be destroyed by bad dialogue and acting, Lucas decides to take it a step further and brilliantly adds a pointless robot villain named General Grievous. This robot's special power was that he had reptilian organs and suffered from a bad cough yet could somehow mysteriously breathe in space. But the hardest thing to stomach about this movie is Anakin's sudden and whimsical switch to the dark side. Lucas tries to create all of these different factors for Anakin's change to darkness, yet none are convincing enough. First Anakin struggles with visions of Padme's death, then he gets placed on the Jedi Council and is asked to spy on his dear friend Palpatine, and to top it all off, those stingy Jedi have the gall to not award Anakin with "Master" status. Then Palpatine reveals himself as the Sith Lord to Anakin and tells him they may be able to save Padme from death. One thing leads to another, and Anakin lops off Mace Windu's hand and decides to become a Sith. It is truly unbelievable. Out of 6 or so hours of movie-time between Episodes I, II, and III, 10 minutes are dedicated to the Dark side's "seduction" of Anakin Skywalker. It takes Palpatine 3 whole scenes to convince Anakin to switch sides. But the fun doesn't stop there, oh no! After walking the path of good(except that Sandperson incident in episode II) for all these years, Anakin has little problem slaughtering all of the Jedi younglings and hating all of the Jedi, especially Obi-Wan. The truly glorious thing is that this movie all takes place in maybe a week's time, and Anakin's complete switch to darkness takes about 1 minute. I suppose it is possible that the events in this movie were supposed to span a few months, but that is not made clear, due to the story-telling genius of Mr. Lucas. Lucas had two movies before this in which he could have shown a gradual change to darkness. That would have been believable. But Lucas is such an idiot and has no idea how to develop characters, and this is the result. Yes, it is understandable that Anakin is troubled and frustrated and supposedly loves his wife very much, but that just isn't enough to make his sudden change to the dark side believable. Lucas has had 28 years to figure out how Anakin became Darth Vader. You'd really think he could have come up with a more convincing story than this. But then something truly wonderful and realistic happens that nearly redeems the film. Padme simply "loses the will to live" and kicks the bucket. This is really great coming from a formerly strong and independent character, who now has children to concern herself with. But I guess that's not a good enough reason to live. It's a good thing that this trait isn't passed down to Luke, otherwise he may have dropped dead from depression in that Death Star trash compactor. I would also like to point out the stunning use of the drawn-out soap opera-esquire "NOOOOOooooooo!!!" that Darth Vader bellows forth upon discovering that Padme has perished.
Lucas finally leaves behind the childish stupidity of the first two episodes and delivers a much grimmer movie. Too bad he does it so poorly. The first problem with the movie is the acting. The forced, pitiful dialogue is enough to make a person cringe. It is glaringly obvious during the exchanges between Padme and Anakin. But rather than leave a movie to be destroyed by bad dialogue and acting, Lucas decides to take it a step further and brilliantly adds a pointless robot villain named General Grievous. This robot's special power was that he had reptilian organs and suffered from a bad cough yet could somehow mysteriously breathe in space. But the hardest thing to stomach about this movie is Anakin's sudden and whimsical switch to the dark side. Lucas tries to create all of these different factors for Anakin's change to darkness, yet none are convincing enough. First Anakin struggles with visions of Padme's death, then he gets placed on the Jedi Council and is asked to spy on his dear friend Palpatine, and to top it all off, those stingy Jedi have the gall to not award Anakin with "Master" status. Then Palpatine reveals himself as the Sith Lord to Anakin and tells him they may be able to save Padme from death. One thing leads to another, and Anakin lops off Mace Windu's hand and decides to become a Sith. It is truly unbelievable. Out of 6 or so hours of movie-time between Episodes I, II, and III, 10 minutes are dedicated to the Dark side's "seduction" of Anakin Skywalker. It takes Palpatine 3 whole scenes to convince Anakin to switch sides. But the fun doesn't stop there, oh no! After walking the path of good(except that Sandperson incident in episode II) for all these years, Anakin has little problem slaughtering all of the Jedi younglings and hating all of the Jedi, especially Obi-Wan. The truly glorious thing is that this movie all takes place in maybe a week's time, and Anakin's complete switch to darkness takes about 1 minute. I suppose it is possible that the events in this movie were supposed to span a few months, but that is not made clear, due to the story-telling genius of Mr. Lucas. Lucas had two movies before this in which he could have shown a gradual change to darkness. That would have been believable. But Lucas is such an idiot and has no idea how to develop characters, and this is the result. Yes, it is understandable that Anakin is troubled and frustrated and supposedly loves his wife very much, but that just isn't enough to make his sudden change to the dark side believable. Lucas has had 28 years to figure out how Anakin became Darth Vader. You'd really think he could have come up with a more convincing story than this. But then something truly wonderful and realistic happens that nearly redeems the film. Padme simply "loses the will to live" and kicks the bucket. This is really great coming from a formerly strong and independent character, who now has children to concern herself with. But I guess that's not a good enough reason to live. It's a good thing that this trait isn't passed down to Luke, otherwise he may have dropped dead from depression in that Death Star trash compactor. I would also like to point out the stunning use of the drawn-out soap opera-esquire "NOOOOOooooooo!!!" that Darth Vader bellows forth upon discovering that Padme has perished.
The Matrix Revolutions
(2003)
Very disappointing
22 March 2004
Warning: Spoilers
After all these years of waiting for the original Matrix sequels, this was a real disappointment. I thought that the whole point of the first Matrix was to show that Neo was The One and that his destiny was to destroy the matrix and free all of humankind. Apparently, that was all wrong.(WARNING-SPOILER!) He makes a deal with the evil robots, sacrifices himself, and the humans get to go on living in their crumby underground city. The machines free the humans who don't want to be used as batteries anymore, and everyone live crappily ever after. Whoopidy-doo.
It's like the Wachowski brothers just stopped caring. There were SO many STUPID things that happened in this movie. First of all, why didn't the people of Zion have a bunch of electro-magnetic-pulses set up IN ZION? Those stupid robo-warrior suits must have used up a lot of Zion's resources and they sure weren't a very effective when it came to defending the city. Also, when did Neo become SO STUPID? He stands around in his hover-craft, talking and fighting with Bane, who is so obviously possessed by the evil Agent Smith. Over and over again, Neo says, "Who. . . are you?" This goes on for about 30 years and you really start wishing that Agent Smith/Bane would just KILL Neo and put him out of his stupid misery. Then the movie ends, giving you more questions than it does answers. My suggestion to you is to simply deny the existence of the two Matrix sequels. Go through life pretending that they only made the original Matrix. You'll be happier that way.
It's like the Wachowski brothers just stopped caring. There were SO many STUPID things that happened in this movie. First of all, why didn't the people of Zion have a bunch of electro-magnetic-pulses set up IN ZION? Those stupid robo-warrior suits must have used up a lot of Zion's resources and they sure weren't a very effective when it came to defending the city. Also, when did Neo become SO STUPID? He stands around in his hover-craft, talking and fighting with Bane, who is so obviously possessed by the evil Agent Smith. Over and over again, Neo says, "Who. . . are you?" This goes on for about 30 years and you really start wishing that Agent Smith/Bane would just KILL Neo and put him out of his stupid misery. Then the movie ends, giving you more questions than it does answers. My suggestion to you is to simply deny the existence of the two Matrix sequels. Go through life pretending that they only made the original Matrix. You'll be happier that way.
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