Reviews

What is this gibbering nonsense about Faramir & the CGI?

warning - spoilers! -------------------

It seems that nitpickers and ninnies have latched on to two particular aspects of TTT to try and claim the film is rubbish. Both points are particularly hollow:

Faramir - various issues have been raised:

1) he is too similar to Boromir - they are brothers for fricks sake - what do you expect? In the book Faramir is described as close to Boromir but closer to the true line of Numenor.

2) He does not let the hobbits go at the Forbidden Pool but drags them to Osgiliath? And? So what? Does this really diminish him? He still does the right thing in the end.

3) Everyone in Gondor seems to know of the Ring. No, totally incorrect if you actually watched the film

4) His life becomes forfeit for letting the Ring go. No, amazingly incorrect for supposed fans of the book to complain - his life becomes forfeit for letting the hobbits go. By decree of the Steward of Gondor any individuals found in its territory near Mordor must be killed or taken as prisoner to Gondor - because Denethor suspects the Ring is returning to Mordor - as is explained in the book if you could read.

5) The Nazgul sequence looks false - really?

6) The CGI sucks? What planet exactly do you folks live on? Or have you returned from some distant future where CGI has reached unknown levels?

Frankly every comment against this film can be categorised under 3 subsets:

1) People whose bums seem to demand more of their attention than anything else so they cannot sit through a 3 hour film - deserve some pity for a painful physical condition

2) People who simply have no appreciation of anything with a 'fantasy' premise as they have no imagination whatsoever - deserve even more pity for the drab and dreary lives they must lead

3) People who simply like to jump up & down and scream 'look at me, I'm different, I know something you all don't, look, look!!!' - deserve no pity whatsoever as they are the same types that make life a pain for everyone in any arena.

Give it a break. This is a great film. Not the greatest. But still great.

***********Warning Spoilers****************

I decided to take a few days after watching this to post my review, giving me time to mull things over. Frankly this film is a disappointment.

When you have an almost unlimited budget, the best CGI specialists working for you, no time pressure to deliver the finished product and actors queuing round the block in their desperation to work for you, then really there is no excuse for this being presented as the final product.

I'll start by tackling one of the ‘good' aspects of the film. The idea that Palpatine has created this false separatist movement to enable him to effectively usurp the Senate and put to use a clone army of the Republic is pretty neat. Excellent, terrific, well done George! It's hardly the most cunning plot idea ever but it's good enough and explains well how Emperor Palpatine comes to power. Some however have suggested that this somehow makes up for The Phantom Menace – that it explains why the first instalment seemed so disjointed and frankly amateurish. This is utter tripe. The TPM storyline / plotting was just rubbish and the events of AOTC should not be used as some sort of figleaf to cover this. But heck I'm man enough to let bygones be bygones.

Now I've read a few of the reviews on this site that have been of the ‘get real' variety. I agree wholeheartedly, this is Star Wars not Shakespeare or some deep, weighty film about the human condition. Thus I would suggest George Lucas remember this. It seems obvious to me that old George, in his quest for the creation of a mythic and enduring morality tale, has forgotten something – a myth or fable need not be childish. Emotions do need to be writ large upon the screen and character traits and ideas of fate and destiny conveyed via a bludgeon to the audience. I mean the pseudo-Noo Yawk caff with the chummy short-order cook / owner - urrrghhh...I mean please, please, please try and treat me with a little modicum of respect. In fact who the hell was this aimed at? Children under a certain age would not care, teenagers would think this was just lame - this is just an example of sheer self-indulgence at the cost of the audience.

This is what annoyed so many people in the audience when I saw it and which resulted in laughter at some of the supposedly ‘deep moments' – I mean for chrissakes did Anakin's mother really have to die in his arms – that got a real good laugh, which I assume wasn't the aim. Or do evil characters really need to have names like Sidious, Tyrannus? I await the formidable presence of Darth Eee-Will next. Does Anakin, to show the dangers of power without maturity, really need to whine like a 7 year old when he's supposed to be 16 or so? Even children over the age of 8 would be insulted by such idiocy. It is really necessary for Mace Windu to suddenly do a Samuel L. Jackson Bad-Man patented moment with ‘This party's over…' – again raised a laugh not of delight at recognition but at the sheer stupidity that made the director think this was a good idea when filming or editing.

I really want to know the answer to one question – is there anyone in world of cinema who has the balls to tell George that this cut or that edit is frankly crap – a classic is when Padme is lying, apparently dazed and hurt on the sand – along comes a helpful clone trooper and suddenly she jumps up and with an ‘I'm o.k.' shakes of the moans and groans. The audience creased up at that one and so did I.

I really can't blame the actors in this for the fact that Yoda comes across as the most coherent, real character and he's CGI. The only human actor who came near was Temuera Morrison as Jango Fett and that's because to be the Boba Fett's papa, nay even clone is just too cool for school. The only person who can really take the blame is George Lucas.

Is this utter tripe like Phantom Menace? Not by a long shot. But if the next episode, Nemesis I believe is the title, is the same degree better than AOTC as AOTC's is better than PM then we may have a reasonably good film on our hands. Whether I go to see it is another matter as you have to wonder if you want to be a chump 3 times on the trot.

Yes the effects are great - big deal, that's what we expect now. yes Yoda fights - whoopty-freakin-doo. It really has been overhyped. A heartfelt plea George, a guy you may have heard of (and ripped off actually) called JRR Tolkien wrote a story that he hoped was a morality tale disguised as fantasy - luckily this other chap called Peter Jackson came along and made a damn good movie out of just one part. If you really insist on following your vision, let someone else put it on screen for you cos frankly you have stopped doing a good job of it. Yes, we're too jaded and cynical - so you had better change what you deliver instead of expecting the audience to revert back to how they were when Star Wars came out and forget some 25 years of films in between.

This film appears to have been dimensionally phase-shifted! What should have been jokes are not...what should have been cool effects are not....what should have been a Ghostbusters for the 21st century is not.

The film is off-the-beat (not offbeat) and off sync from the nod. Having Mulder-man as the lead investigating weird goings on should have been the start to lots of jolly, jolly. ho-ho-ho hilarity - instead it leads nowhere.

**************minor spoiler****************

There is one bit where Julianne Moore's character trips over (she's supposed to be helplessly clumsy) - I wondered if I was supposed to laugh or at least grin inanely and this is how the I felt throughout the film, the feeling of 'oh was that meant to be a joke? Let me see if can muster a smile' - the tricky bit is that if you watched this pig-swill by yourself you might just put your morose expression down to being in a bad mood - luckily I had several other people with me who confirmed my sentiments - this film makes Ghostbusters II look good.

The funniest bits are in the trailer - they should have just released that as a film and left the screen blank for the other hour and half.

Concept is great, the execution (for creepiness, mystery, tension) is terrific, Laurence Fishburne does a typically excellent job, the rest of the cast is good, by 2/3rds in you are breaking into a cold sweat....and then the denouement lets down the entire thing - it just turns into a gorefest with

************spoiler warning*******************

little explanation for the ship's designer's descent into madness and his attempt to jump the ship back into hell with the rescue team on board.

The scariest stuff was, kinda cliched but what the hell, the bits you couldn't really see - the blurred video recording, the thumping on the bulkhead, the black pool of 'something' in the warp chamber - these are the cool bits. The minute you start seeing too much, the minute ol' gougy eyes appears it all starts to get stupid. A shame, a real goddamn shame.....

**********warning - spoilers*****************

Some reviewers have called Aliens cliched, old-fashioned and so on - the only reason this movie may seem cliched nowadays is that it is truly the grand-daddy of all action films since. This set a new target to be achieved and some film-makers since have just ripped off the idea of a gung-ho group of hardcases coming up against a fiercer, tougher opponent, the whole feel of relentless action, the pacing and so on.

This is a truly great film - there are as always small quibbles - Ripley's affection for Newt being enough to risk her life for example (though I believe a special edition explains how Ripley outlived her own child due to to her prolonged period in stasis). There will always be some people who will not like this film - people who can't get it into their heads that this film preceeded much of the CGI tech we take for granted now, or people who plain dislike action/horror/sci-fi...and then there are always those folks who will just disagree with a popular opinion in order to seem 'clever' or 'special' - well as long as you're not included in one or more of these sub-groups, then I can pretty much guarantee you enjoying this film.