Curious George Slides Gently On Downward
Friday, 10 June 2005 05:59 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
freckles_and_doubtSo, I finally went to see the new Star Wars today, taking, as a precaution, a friendly therapist along with me. I am happy to note that she was not required at any point to unwind me from the Foetal Postion of Total Bad Movie Shock, other than momentarily just before the film started, when she admitted she liked From Dusk Till Dawn. It's okay, we have worked through our differences, the friendship is intact.
My one-word judgement of the film? Blah. Or, if you want the honed, post-grad English summary: blah blah spaceships blah lightsabres robots blah angst blah blah plot holes lava conspiracy galactic war Emperor blah. Oh, and twins. Blah. I confidently predict that my long-term response to this film will be almost identical to my long-term response to Attack of the Clones, namely (1) silly title, and (2) what was that plot, again?
Things I Liked About Revenge Of The Sith:
1. Not much.
2. Some of the robots were cute, especially the ones that tried to drill into Jedi ships to eat them alive.
3. Quite a lot of the spaceships were sexy.
4. Bad!Anakin, contrary to all expectation and logic, was kinda hot. (Guess I don't have the Bad Boy attraction thingy utterly licked, after all). I'm not quite sure, I have 'flu and my eyes are all scratchy so I was blinking a lot, but he may even have acted once or twice.
5. Obi-Wan's lizard.
Things I Didn't Like About Revenge Of The Sith:
1-97. Most of it.
98. It was clearly made with the assumption that its expected audience are inattentive idiots on some sort of drugs. Honestly, the degree of s-loooooo-w and c-aaa-r-eful explaination of the least little detail, while not unusual in your average Hollywood actioner, suggests that Curious George has a very low opinion of his audience (although, to be perfectly fair, the last two films have already demonstrated that with some clarity). Such possibilities as nuance, suggestion, implication, logical development and assumption from the evidence are no longer tools in the Hollywood arsenal, and certainly not in Lucas's somewhat impoverished toolbox. Instead, he has the Cudgel of Belabour the Obvious.
99. It - and I have my Friendly Therapist's corroborating authority on this - made no real psychological or human sense. The unavoidable problem with this film, the greatest problem Curious George faced, was that - gasp! - we all know the outcome! Hi, everyone, Anakin becomes Darth Vader, surprised yet? Narrative tension so not happening in this film. Given that absence, the only thing on which the movie can rely to hold our attention is the way in which that fall happens. This was not an action film, it was a psychological drama, a story of tragic corruption. The reality and believability of Anakin's fall was the only thing that could possibly hold the film together. Since said fall was apparently scripted by an autistic recluse whose idea of human interaction is unmotivated stupidities loosely tied together with cliches, it was kinda doomed from the start. There is simply no believable evidence there for Anakin's corruption. I have to say, Hayden Christensen actually did better than I expected him to, but it wasn't enough. It made no sense, it didn't grip, I didn't care. Blah blah tragic irony angst self-destruction blah. Are we there yet?
100. Most of all, I didn't like that it was such a blah movie that I'm even having difficulty coming up with a good, stinging dissing. There was a plot (more or less), actors acted it out (not very well), there were lots of spaceships, the landscapes were cool, things reached a sort of climax, there was a light-sabre battle on a lava planet. Blah. Despite my level of distaste for Dusk Till Dawn, I find myself respecting it more than this. At least it had enough substance to annoy me.
My one-word judgement of the film? Blah. Or, if you want the honed, post-grad English summary: blah blah spaceships blah lightsabres robots blah angst blah blah plot holes lava conspiracy galactic war Emperor blah. Oh, and twins. Blah. I confidently predict that my long-term response to this film will be almost identical to my long-term response to Attack of the Clones, namely (1) silly title, and (2) what was that plot, again?
Things I Liked About Revenge Of The Sith:
1. Not much.
2. Some of the robots were cute, especially the ones that tried to drill into Jedi ships to eat them alive.
3. Quite a lot of the spaceships were sexy.
4. Bad!Anakin, contrary to all expectation and logic, was kinda hot. (Guess I don't have the Bad Boy attraction thingy utterly licked, after all). I'm not quite sure, I have 'flu and my eyes are all scratchy so I was blinking a lot, but he may even have acted once or twice.
5. Obi-Wan's lizard.
Things I Didn't Like About Revenge Of The Sith:
1-97. Most of it.
98. It was clearly made with the assumption that its expected audience are inattentive idiots on some sort of drugs. Honestly, the degree of s-loooooo-w and c-aaa-r-eful explaination of the least little detail, while not unusual in your average Hollywood actioner, suggests that Curious George has a very low opinion of his audience (although, to be perfectly fair, the last two films have already demonstrated that with some clarity). Such possibilities as nuance, suggestion, implication, logical development and assumption from the evidence are no longer tools in the Hollywood arsenal, and certainly not in Lucas's somewhat impoverished toolbox. Instead, he has the Cudgel of Belabour the Obvious.
99. It - and I have my Friendly Therapist's corroborating authority on this - made no real psychological or human sense. The unavoidable problem with this film, the greatest problem Curious George faced, was that - gasp! - we all know the outcome! Hi, everyone, Anakin becomes Darth Vader, surprised yet? Narrative tension so not happening in this film. Given that absence, the only thing on which the movie can rely to hold our attention is the way in which that fall happens. This was not an action film, it was a psychological drama, a story of tragic corruption. The reality and believability of Anakin's fall was the only thing that could possibly hold the film together. Since said fall was apparently scripted by an autistic recluse whose idea of human interaction is unmotivated stupidities loosely tied together with cliches, it was kinda doomed from the start. There is simply no believable evidence there for Anakin's corruption. I have to say, Hayden Christensen actually did better than I expected him to, but it wasn't enough. It made no sense, it didn't grip, I didn't care. Blah blah tragic irony angst self-destruction blah. Are we there yet?
100. Most of all, I didn't like that it was such a blah movie that I'm even having difficulty coming up with a good, stinging dissing. There was a plot (more or less), actors acted it out (not very well), there were lots of spaceships, the landscapes were cool, things reached a sort of climax, there was a light-sabre battle on a lava planet. Blah. Despite my level of distaste for Dusk Till Dawn, I find myself respecting it more than this. At least it had enough substance to annoy me.
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Date: Friday, 10 June 2005 02:54 pm (UTC)GL's idea of nuance is, given the requirement for a lightsaber duel amid some lava. Not to pick a place some industrial stone-forge, or a place where this is a current volcanic eruption (as happens on some places on earth from time to time), or even a planet with a higher level of volcanism than earth, but a world composed entirely of black and glowing red lava. (never mind the world-building logic – a surface of molten rock = no plants. No plants = no oxygen. Not to mention that people out there would break a sweat, if not burst immediately into flames).
lava world
Date: Sunday, 12 June 2005 02:05 am (UTC)All that said, a molten-surface world is definitely more feasible from a planetology stand-point than some of the others (mynock and huge space-worm infested superdense asteroid fields come to mind), But yes, breathing woild be a problem, although maybe that's why they didn't burst into flame so close to lava - no oxygen. The midichlorians must have solved their breathing problem ;)
It's the details that get me
Date: Tuesday, 14 June 2005 11:38 am (UTC)AAAAAAaaaahhh...
robynn