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The Spy (2019)
Plenty to love, and plenty to hate
Didn't really want to write a review but this thing seems to be so mixed up. If you check the other reviews, there's an fair distribution from 1-starred hate to 10-starred pure love. Something's going on. I myself wanted to give up about episode 4, but my better half was hooked by then ... and I'm glad she was.
So first, why all the dislikes? Some people are annoyed by the accents, but its not such a big deal.
Some people are annoyed that the Israelis are portrayed as more 'good' than the Syrians. Actually, I don't think this was the case. The Israeli intelligence service and political elite's use of Eli, and their stupid betrayal of him by their actions, was just as callow as the torturing by the head of the Syrian intelligence service, and just as short sighted as the actions of the Syrian president. There were some lovely, genuine people amongst the Syrians, and in fact, you could say that their characters were portrayed in more depth than that of the Israelis, who tended to be a little 1-dimensional. But even if it were the case that there was some political bias in the film's presentation, well, welcome to the real world, but I don't think that's the kind of thing that really ticks you off in a movie or drama.
What is really annoying is where the story doesn't hang together and where the acting or script is poor. Yes, for movie purposes, certain sequences have to be compressed, but in the end Eli/Kamal seems to be having a freakish streak of good luck, and seems to be taking not one unnecessary risk, not two, but three, without getting caught, and presumably all in the name of hooking us on the drama? It's at that point that I wanted to give up. And regarding the script, Kamal's adulation and praise for Syria really is too much, and surely he could just stop smiling for one second? I really don't think Syrians would fall for an act that cheap.
Another aspect of the storyline is that I really don't like knowing the ending, from the beginning of the series. OK, so I know Kamal will get caught and tortured, so basically I now have 6 episodes of padding before I get there? Really? Why does IMDB need a warning about plot spoilers, when the first episode itself is a spoiler for the whole series? There were further repurcussions from that storyline decision, but I've said enough already.
But now let's get to the good stuff. There are 4 things to enjoy from this drama. Firstly, the story does hold you, as you genuinely care about Eli/Kamal and his wife, and the military outcomes. Secondly, the presentation is good, in terms of scenery, costumes and realism. Thirdly, the acting is generally good so you can empathise with the characters. The fact that Sasha Cohen has previously created multiple personas in comedy, plays nicely into the role here of someone who has to live the life of a double persona. So although some of SBC's acting is a bit drama school in places, the overall effect is gratifying. Which brings me nicely to the fourth point, why I'm still struggling to get this drama out of my head.
At the beginning of the series, in a flash-forward, Kamal is forced to write a confession, and struggles to sign his name. His rabbi says "Poor boy, you don't know who you are". It seems like a kind of joke to relieve the tension. Then at the end of the series, we know the whole persona of Kamal that he has carefully built up over many years, and realise that he is genuinely struggling to know how he should sign the document.
We can now reflect back to previous episodes where Eli was back in Israel, but acutally he was behaving as a 'Kamal'ised version of Eli, he had absorbed that role so deeply. There were many examples, but when he was asked to show his Id after buying expensive items, he gets angry with security and says "Do you know who I am?" or something like that. When he discovers a serious error by teh office he rings up his boss and gives him a serious telling off. He finds it disgraceful that his wife doesn't have her own telephone line.
In the end, Eli prefers to be Kamal (apart from missing his wife). And why not? As Kamal he is a multi-millionaire who has built up a successful business and who hob nobs with the political elite. When he enters a room, "everyone wants a piece of him", as his army friend says. Eli's exposition of the role of Kamal is so successful - even landing the job of Deputy Minister of Defence - that one wonders what was he doing as a small time clerk back in Israel? Maybe if he'd been given some seed capital and a new blank identity there he could have gone for it and been similarly successful? And perhaps, many of us are also like that and are held back, Leviathon like, by a myriad tiny strings of our own construction?
So my advice is to grit your teeth through the poor parts of this drama, but get what you can from the rest, for there is plenty of good meat to be had.
Life (2017)
A final point to add to all the other bad reviews
I switched off half way thru, deeply regretting that I hadn't switched off earlier, and thus had unnecessarily wasted 20 minutes of my life. The reason I switched off (apart from all the technical contradictions and nonsense pointed out by everyone else)? Well, by now the creature had killed or maimed 3 people in a brutal and horrific way, yet they were still calling it Calvin! So if the name chosen by the school kids had been 'Fluffy', or 'Darling', they'd still be calling it that? So the movie is not just technically and logically a joke, its also a joke in its grasp of human emotions. Every time they called this creature, which can potentially wipe out the entire human race, 'Calvin', I cringed.
Fire and Ice (1983)
A hidden gem
Ostensibly a pulp movie for kids, this animation has many things I like in it, and should not be judged by first impressions.
Yes, it has some hopeless plot fails. Like it seems that the Fire King can totally destroy Nekron at any time by releasing lava from the volcano. The price is the collateral damage - all the intervening land is destroyed as well. But hey, they can win the war anytime they want.
You could also make fun of Teegra's virtual nudity. But maybe this is a tactical solution to a known problem? If Dad has to take the kids to a PG movie on a Saturday morning, isn't it fair to put something in it to help the time pass nicely for him too?
Normally on most movies, I have an idea what is going to happen next, but in this one, the next act is often a surprise. Of course, it is expected that the Fire King will try sue for peace with Nekron, and at the end, that Teegra will stop Larn from killing one of the troglodytes ... but this movie doesn't follow the 'established' script in the appalling way that Star Trek Beyond does, for example.
For example, none of the baddies, not even Nekron, shows any sexual interest in Teegra. Nekron, who speaks with a rather gay voice, is contemptuous of her, but is scarily powerful. Indeed, all the way till the end it looks like he totally outclasses all the opposition and they don't stand a chance. There is no finely balanced match between good and evil here: for Nekron its a turkey shoot. When he says of Larn "you interest me" so commands against killing him, you sense his boredom with life, and with the idiotic allies - and enemies - that he is surrounded by.
I like the bit where Teegra steals some meat from Larn's fire, he then says "if you want it take it" and she replies "I am not a thief". She then leads him flirtatiously to some red berries/cherries which he eats, then SHE stands proudly on a high rock. There are enough interpretations of this 60 seconds alone to keep you entertained for a while.
Later Teegra decides to head off home. She doesn't invite Larn but just sets off without him! So like a junior schoolboy, the big strong Larn has to tag along with the 100% feminine Teegra. Its a nice demonstration of a true power play between the sexes. Feminists take note.
When Larn and Teegra get dragged down by the lake monster, I expected them to fight together and even bond by it. But Teegra swims off leaving Larn to his fate. I don't think its cowardly and wrong, I actually think its correct, but this is not the kind of realism we are used to in children's or even adult's movies. "Better one dies than two" is not the kind of mathematical morality we get normally, not even in Die Hard movies. Then for the rest of the movie till the end, she sadly and reluctantly assumes he is dead.
Teegra is dropped off at the hut of Moleel, a lesbian witch who appears to want her as a sexual plaything. So, Teegra is carried off by Artois, the hulking, dangerous looking monster (bad); then found to be in the hut of a kind and beautiful woman (good); then the woman wants to have sex with her (not sure what I'm supposed to be feeling right now?). If there's one thing this movie is not, its predictable.
Later, Teegra makes a bungled escape attempt. But if it weren't for that, the rescue attempt by Larn and Darkwolf could have been successful. As it was, it turned out to be a fiasco. Now there's a plot twist I've never seen before.
Nekron's response to Teegra's plea for a common humanity that can live in peace, is priceless. For a while he seems genuinely baffled as to how to respond. Is he weighing it up? Is he shocked by her openness and kindness? The normal 'bad guy' response is an instant "I spit on your kindness and humanity", but Nekron also says "I spit on you", to the beautiful and seductive Teegra. I don't think I've seen this kind of bad guy confusion and contempt before in any fantasy or sci-fi.
Nekron then tells his mother not to bring any more of her sluts to him. Now it really looks like Nekron is gay, his mother doesn't seem to get it, and they have a relationship that Freud could have a field day with.
Anyway, I've said enough. I think this animation is a lost gem.
Basic (2003)
Gave up half way
I'm normally a fan of John Travolta, but as other reviewers have said, there are just too many plot twists and turns, mixed in with a variety of flashbacks, so that in the end you stop caring. Or rather, you are thinking when told yet another version of events "really, well maybe, but I'll just treat that as hypothetical for now".
Note to director, if you are going to perpetually change a plot, you have to first get us invested in the first one. If you just sketch out one plot line, then quickly skip to another, we just don't care. This reminds me of Kurosawa's Rashomon, where 4 different accounts are presented of a rape and murder. Rashomon however, does not leave one feeling frustrated in the way this movie does.
But back to the movie. I was struggling with the realism of this OLD movie having a female Ranger since they weren't allowed to serve till April 2016. If she had been a butch muscular woman maybe I could swallow it, but she was petite and very cute. Then one of the guys was blatantly gay - and this is before "Don't ask, don't tell" was scrapped. So now I was waiting for the black disabled lesbian Ranger to appear in the next scene, just so we can all be politically correct.
The straw on the camel's back came in the middle of yet another discussion in the rain soaked hut. There were at least 70 lighting flashes over a 3 minute scene. I was wondering if the "training exercise" was taking place on the planet Venus, or did the lighting engineer have a dodgy power supply?
The map shows lightning flashes per sq km per year, with black / max at 70:
http://geology.com/articles/lightning-map.shtml
Since that jungle hut experienced a few year's worth of lightning in the course of that one scene, I guess the rest of the year was just peaceful and sunny?
For me, the movie descended from 'hostile training environment' to pantomime, and I switched it off.