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pete-marchetto
Reviews
Skellig (2009)
Don't be seduced by the cast list
Given the cast I thought I couldn't go wrong with this.
My mistake.
I felt the film a string of wasted opportunities. A cast to die for thrown at a script littered with tropes. A magical element very much underutilised. Questions left hanging unanswered but the mystery so little fleshed out that the absence of answers is met with a shrug in any case.
The characterisation is shallow. The misanthrope turned inexplicable saviour. Inexplicable dislike transformed into equally inexplicable friendship. And vice-versa. All these things could have been better set up, but instead they seemed to rely on the very existence of such tropes to work - oh, the audience is familiar with this sort of thing happening so they won't question it sort of logic. It happens in the movies so here it is again happening in a movie.
Throughout the film veers towards the mawkish on the back of a plot so threadbare that the moment you know what the crisis is you know precisely how it will be resolved by what means.
I boosted my rating a star or so in acknowledgement that this film is probably targeted at an older-children, young-adult audience and I just ain't there no more, but I can't help feeling this is one for conservative parents who see all the boxes ticked, the kind of parents whose children you feel sorry for if their children are actually capable of thinking.
Safe, predictable fare for unthinking children, then. Otherwise avoid. Above all, don't be seduced by that cast list.
Terminator Genisys (2015)
What's with all the duff reviews?
Occasionally - just occasionally - I depart from my usual bill of film fare and head for the bubblegum shop. So it was I decided to overindulge and watch the entire Terminator series of films in one horrendous and unhealthy blow-out.
I well-enough enjoyed the offerings prior to Genisys, but felt things were flagging by the time I got here. When I read the reviews of Genisys, I was tempted to call it a day without watching it, but for once my completist obsession paid off.
To my mind, Genisys is the best offering of the lot. Without any spoilers to give away a well-crafted plot it's difficult to praise the film to the level it deserves, but suffice to say I can understand why Cameron was one of the few who rated it highly for all the critical knockbacks. It's not only a worthy successor to his first Terminator offering, but also plays with its themes so beautifully that it's clearly a labour of love as much as of craft.
The humour is dark, but gently amusing. An ageing Schwarzenegger - his age neatly built into the plot - is nicknamed 'Pops' by his charge, and throughout the film there's the sense that the film plays with what's preceded it while never degenerating into parody or homage. The action is played a little down from some of the excesses of earlier offerings - let's face it, it would be hard to play it up - but the action is there in abundance just the same along with the tension that comes with it. What it makes way for in being somewhat played down is a genuine humanisation of the characters. I actually gave a damn about the strange and complex relationships that came into play and, for the most part, the scripting allowed for them to develop well and realistically.
Sure, I'm not your classic Terminator fan, but in writing this review I do so as someone who knows what anyone would have got out of what preceded Genisys. I got it myself. How on earth those who saw Genisys can't see it as a worthy successor is beyond me. To my mind it's spot-on.
One recommendation. Do it my way. Watch the entire series in a sitting... or, at least, several sittings over a few days. If you can't be bothered doing that, at least watch the original Terminator once more before watching this one. That film fresh in your mind, you'll get a great deal more out of Genisys. But either way, don't write it off for carping reviews. Check it out, and decide for yourself.
Tideland (2005)
Surprisingly disappointing
A fan of Gilliam's work but long out of the loop, I stumbled upon Tideland quite by chance knowing nothing about it. I settled down with it my expectations high.
My early impression as the film unfolded was that the grotesque realism was laid on rather too thickly, and yet it never quite managed to reach the heights of true grotesquerie. With an intentionally Gothic backdrop, for example, it may have worked. Instead, the realism of the presentation just left me feeling it was overblown. The adaptation of a young girl to a clearly very dysfunctional family environment seemed unbelievable, particularly in her maintenance of her innocence. The many breaks I took here, and throughout what was to follow, were to some small degree motivated by discomfort by what was portrayed, but mostly I was just bored. Somehow the presumably grotesque seemed banal. In trying to confine itself within the bounds of realism, it failed by becoming unbelievable.
I felt nothing for the central character, nor for her parents. Nor was I to subsequently develop any empathy with the central character or the two other main characters she was subsequently to meet.
Some of the acting was good, though never excellent. Take a star for that. Likewise some of the camera-work. The ending almost made me feel perhaps the whole exercise hadn't been a complete waste of my time, but not quite. Still, another star for that and... well, that's about it.
This being Gilliam, I turned to many of the good reviews this film received in search of what I must surely have missed, but found glowing arguments unconvincing. I'll probably read the novel at some point in further quest of enlightenment. But for now, my apologies, Mr. G. This is not a worthy addition to your body of work.