mjblake's Reviews

Star Wars: Episode II - Attack of the Clones (2002)

4/10

20 May 2002

Warning: Spoilers

Contains Spoilers! And from the 80% favourable reviews on this site, they seem to be correct. Sure, there were some whiz-bang special effects, some nice developments which gave fans of Episode IV something to relate to, the scenes with Palpatine were actually pretty good, but......

I won't even bother with the embarrassing dialogue, the lifeless direction, the complete absence of any reason why we the audience should care about any of this, the fakeness of any shot with non-human characters (and some of the humans didn't look so real either....), the 5-shots per second action sequences to hide the fact that hey, this is just one bunch of cartoons fighting another bunch of cartoon..... Oops, sorry, I couldn't not bother with them completely. But puh-leeeze :

R2 can fly?

3PO can swing like an Olympic gymnast?

Yoda can do a Sonic Hedgehog impression?

Jedi can sense poisonous centipedes in another room - but can't sense when 6 others are sneaking up on them from behind?

C3PO knew Lars and Beru before Episode 4 (where he didn't even recognise Tatooine, the planet he was made on)?

C3PO's can't function in "Empire" when cut apart, but his head a droid soldier's are fully interchangeable?

Anakin will have a very late growth-spurt to fill out that black costume?

Why is there a scene from Gladiator in the film? And why is there a creature from Lost in Space (or Starship Troopers) in Gladiator?

Apart from the video-game franchises, is there any point at all for the Coruscant sky-chase and the Geonosis conveyor belt episodes?

Who is paying for these clones, and how are they doing so without anyone knowing about it?

Does love only happen when you say it lots - until for no apparent reason the other person says it back. (A bit like Mr Freeze in Batman 4 with his anger.)

Isn't Obi-wan a little young - assuming Luke is born in a few years, then Ewan McGregor turns into Sir Alec in just 25 years?

How come when you fall a thousand feet and land on a speeder it doesn't hurt? Yet a slight encounter with a lightsabre later on renders Kenobi and Anakin motionless....

Likewise, you can fall off a platform attached to a rope and it doesn't break your wrist? (Do NOT try that at home....)

In a techno world like Kamino, why would someone be riding a large reptilian bird-like creature? In the rain. Exchange rates make fuel for a speeder / aeroplane-thingy expensive, perhaps?

Is it likely that having ignored her for ten years, after first travelling a parsec across the galaxy then zooming through the night across the desert, a young man will find his mother 35 seconds before she dies?

Does a senator and former queen really pack her own luggage?

In this advanced society why is there so little basic medical care - surely it was worth resuscitating Padme's dying double in the first scene?

Are Coruscant short-order chefs really the best place to find information about one planet missing from the databases - (if there are "thousands of systems" looking to leave the Republic just how many planets can there be in total)?

And, finally, my own personal favourite, the one thing which really really reeeeaaalllllly depressed me about this film....

In the high-tech world of Star Wars, they can make hand-cuffs which are immune to being opened by Jedi mind control, but by god, they haven't figured out how to make hand-cuffs which can't be picked by a lady's hair-pin!

The Star Wars philosophy is clearly to let know no illogicality, no completely and utterly ridiculous piece of plotline, stand in the way of a good action sequence or other excuse to show off your new computer toy (except, the action sequences aren't actually any good - Starship Troopers and most of the Alien films looked way way better....)

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Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace (1999)

2/10

no phantom, no menace, and sod all entertainment....

20 July 1999

please, george, explain the significance of the title too me, as i saw little of menace and no phantoms neither...... i can only recall once going to a cinema with such low expectations - that for the last batman film, and it managed the unlikely feat of falling miles below them - and so was almost pleasantly surprised that this wasn't that bad. lucas manages to keep things moving at sufficient pace that you're left with no time to think about all the film's many, many faults. at least, that was my experience. and the lightsaber battles were amazing.

but what a wasted opportunity - the original trio, by giving us enough info about the characters to make us give a damn, and by staging the battles on an epic scale, made us care about the fate of the people concerned and the universe : this one was just a lot of clever, crisp scenes. we learn nothing of the background of qui-gon or obi-wan, so why should we care when the former is killed? and there is not a hint of evil in the film - not in palpatine, certainly no trace of it in anakin, and darth maul's scenes fly by so quickly..... even the battle droids pale into comparison with the stormtroopers and their semi-human / semi-automaton feel....... and why in a movie tailored for kids is that first text roll-up couched in trade-barrier talk and the whole plot driven by legal technicalities.... oh we could just keep on going on couldn't we? finally - people in costumes or puppets still work much better than the cgu stuff - there's one scene where ewan mcgregor is supposed to be talking with jar-jar but seems to be looking somewhere at the back of his head.....

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She's All That (1999)

7/10

oh to be popular......

8 June 1999

That this film is viewed by most reviewers here as better than average for its genre is due almost entirely to a marvellous performance by Rachael Leigh Cook in the lead role. As mindless entertainment, this just about passes, but to be honest, it doesn't have much else going for it. One perhaps should not expect too much of this type of film, but at a time when teen culture in the USA is very much under the microscope, this says very little about life as a teenager at the end of the century, refusing to challenge the audience and pandering to every cliched assumption in the book. Is it really true that everyone deep down wants to be prom queen popular, for instance, or that a geeky but beautiful art student who grew up without a mother really just needs another female's attention to show her how to wear make-up or pluck her eyebrows?..... (like wearing make-up and plucking eyebrows are incontrovertibly "good" things).

The plot is so familiar as to be barely worthy of a mention, while the 2-dimensional supporting characters might also ring a few bells (nasty best friend, bitchy ex-girlfriend prom-queen, father (i) supportive but clueless - until the final reel, father (ii) overly ambitious for child, dorky (sex-less) friend, little brother in need of our hero's protection..... ). Throw in some clumsy editing, a couple of excruciating scenes - in particular, the "dad, you can't live your life through me - son, i never wanted you to think that" exchange, and a typically awful and unrealistic soccer scene (from "Karate Kid" to this, why do they bother?) and we could have witnessed a real disaster.

However, Ms Cook makes one of the more attractive teen heroines, in a very Winona-esque way, and continually holds our interest, as does the dialogue, which when it's not being borrowed from a third grade soap opera is snappy and fresh (though never quite up to "Clueless" standards). The plot does knowingly sidestep a number of cliches, for which we should be grateful, and the use of dream sequences, seamless flashbacks, and a tv show within the film, all offer variety to keep the viewer interested.

Finally, though, I was left with one big regret - he didn't deserve her, and it was a real pity that she (ie, the writers) didn't recognise that fact.

PS - One footnote - did anyone else while watching the scene where the two guys wearing combat gear and "Kill Artists" t-shirts are humiliated by head jock and class president Zac start to wonder that maybe it's events like this that lead to such people turning up at school the next day with guns and hand grenades.....?

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Notting Hill (1999)

7/10

liable to give you tooth-ache.....

1 June 1999

"Notting Hill" has an attractive leading couple, an interesting supporting cast, and more laughs than your average romantic comedy, but overall it makes "Four Weddings..." look like gritty social drama. Sweet, sweet, sweet. After a decent set-up, thought-provoking even, (how would YOU react if your friend brought a mega-movie-star along as a date to your dinner party?) at every juncture thereafter the film leaves all sense of reality behind and heads off on flights of fancies...... If you want to disengage your brain as the lights dim, and enter a fantasy world where movie stars and mortals meet, mix, and fall in love inside 10 minutes, then this is the film for you. If, however, you're hoping for some sort of realism, and any insights at all into relationships in the 90's, try somewhere else, sorry. Where you might expect to hear the sorts of conversations which might explain why Julia should fall in love with Hugh, you'll only get lingering views of beautiful faces and soft music....... .....And how come Hugh demonstrated that he lived on planet earth by recognising "Anna Scott" but somehow didn't know who Leonardo Dicaprio was?

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Beautiful Girls (1996)

9/10

the best approaching-30 film since "diner"

21 April 1999

In the opening scene of the film Willie (Timothy Hutton) climbs aboard a bus in New York and heads back to his snow-bound smalltown roots, ostensibly for his high-school reunion. Over the next 100 minutes he and his buddies entertain us hugely as they try to take, or avoid taking, the next major steps in their various lives.

The movie rather simplifies life, the whole goal of which seems to be to find the perfect partner. Those characters who have found theirs are happy, those who haven't (or those who haven't recognised that they just might have) are troubled, and it is these troubles which dominate virtually every scene and conversation. By comparison, Willie's indecision over his career in the music business gets glossed over with indecent haste.

Helped by a fantastic ensemble cast (for example, the sublime Martha Plimpton (where's she been since "Running on Empty"?) and David Arquette in tiny roles) and a fun soundtrack, and any number of memorable quotes, this movie will say something to anyone of that age-group. The scenes between Willie and Marty (Natalie Portman) are especially effective, while Andera's (Uma Thurman) descriptions of moments of perfection in a relationship are right on the nail.

Even though all the plot-lines come together with startling predictability, it's the journey there that makes this such an enjoyable film. For this almost-30-something viewer, the conversation between uncertain-single Willie and happily-married Moe had it all :

Willie : ".... so you think this is my way of saying that I don't want to grow old?" Moe : ""No, I think this is your way of saying you don't want to grow UP."

But all along we know that he will accept the burden of responsibility, and with Tracey (Annabeth Gish) to grow up, and old, with, who wouldn't?

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Triple Bogey on a Par Five Hole (1991)

8/10

interesting b&w docu-drama

21 April 1999

For those of you with a taste for the unusual, try and check this film out sometime. The film follows a mock-documentary maker studying a family of children whose parents were murdered on a golf course when a hold-up went wrong. The children now live on a luxury yacht, seemingly permanently moored in a sunny New York harbour. While most of the film is set on the boat, we also meet a psychiatrist (Robbie Coltrane) attempting to help them, as well as the guardian who has charge of taking care of them.

Unsurprisingly, each of the children (age ranges 10-18) has reacted to their parents' death - and the media circus that followed it - quite dramatically, but their problems are handled sensitively and the whole drama unfolds realistically and with touching and funny scenes as the narrator struggles unsuccessfully to understand the family as individuals or as a unit.

For those tired of formulaic family dramas or Hollywood blockbusters, give this a try.

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The Lovers on the Bridge (1991)

10/10

A dark fabulous fantasy....

21 April 1999

The most expensive movie ever made in France when it first came out, this is a marvellous dark fantasy. The whole production is a wonderful cinematic experience. It was most certainly designed for the biggest possible screen. It is a fantasy, never letting you the viewer forget that it is a film, and not reality. Hence some rather unnatural dialogue and obviously-staged scenes. It's a cinematic spectacle.....

At the same time, it is a dark tale of obsessive love, as Alex (Denis Lavant) first falls for, then comes to depend upon, his fellow dweller (Juliette Binoche) on/under the eponymous bridge. When it appears that she may get the opportunity to leave him, we see how selfish his love is and how we so often destroy that which we most cherish.

All the ideas and themes are blasted at the viewer with as much subtlety as the Bastille Day fireworks which signal one climactic moment. But on a big screen, it works, honest. This is one of about three films I've ever seen which received an ovation at the finish - and this from a typically reticent British audience....

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