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Reviews
Krull (1983)
It was a flop... not by chance
I saw this movie when I was about 11 (many years ago) and I perfectly remember that mixed sensation: disappointment & discomfort. It's like when there's a great party you have been waiting a long time but, once you arrive, you find out it's a masked party and you don't have a costume... To cut a long story short, this film doesn't work: science fiction and fantasy don't blend, Ken Marshall (a convincing Marco Polo) here seems dull, the characters are quite banal, action sequences aren't exciting, many details aren't logical and the whole thing is really boring. The Nostalgia? Yes, the film's interesting and some things are really good but, I mean, you cannot see a sort of Stormtrooper fighting against an imitation of Robin Hood in a fairy-tale world!! You can't prevent your brain thinking "it makes no sense!" and that's the reason why I've never watched it again... I mean: FLASH GORDON is a sort of guilty pleasure, obviously not a great movie but it's camp and entertaining, not to mention the mithical score. KRULL is boring, really, and - unless you have a personal reason to love it - there is no reason to watch it (apart from the curiosity, of course).
Morgan (2016)
6 stars because it's short...
... if it was longer, only 4. Why? Because I understood that Lee is a synthetic in a few minutes; because everybody acts in a stupid way, because there's no chatarsis, because Lee wins only to permit the final twist, because etc. However, the actress who plays Morgan is really hypnotic (Lee is only very beautiful, all the others are wasted...).
The Foreigner (2017)
COULD BE BETTER
Let's start saying the book was quite different and probably better, especially the ending, but the real problem is the main character, played by JC: his behavior is that of a violent psycho! What are the reasons for his actions? Where is the logic? Furthermore, he seems invincible... JC performance isn't enough to make us believe what we see and, at the end, the same British authorities show no humanity or respect for the Laws. Realpolitik? Maybe, but, as a movie, there is NO chatarsis. TAKEN is much simpler (and not a masterpiece), but it works, that one not. 6/10 only for Brosnan, who, at least, can act.
Capriccio all'italiana (1968)
6 VERY DIFFERENT EPISODES
Like many Italian movies of those years, this film is composed by some episodes (6): they are very different for lenght, style etc. so, it's obvious, even the quality is quite different: Pasolini's is a little masterpiece, full of poetry, and the episode with Totò against long-hair-guys is really hilarious. I have to admit that I don't even remember the other episodes, but those I mentioned above are a must-see, so I give 7 stars, but you can easily find the separated episodes on the Net. Actually, if you are addicted to blockbuster-for-dummies, that means you don't like real cinema, so don't watch this movie!
Barb Wire (1996)
Disapponting, but better than many Marvel movies...
It's easy to laugh at a failure: let's check why it happened instead... That movie was never intended to be a masterpiece, but a honest and camp entertainment. In those years, it was still normal to produce films with a low budget, so they did it: a star (remember, there weren't reality show then), a story (based on comics), and a production team (related to Polygram, I suppose) . What went wrong? First of all, it needed more money, for the locations, the costumes and everything you have to buy to put it in a movie. The director is a music clip director, so he lacked experience, and you can really tell! The script is not bad even if the screenwriter did better elsewhere. The cast is ok, Udo is great and Pamela played quite good (I mean... it isn't Shakespeare, but she works) . A great problem is sexyness: you have got a sexbomb but you can't pass certain limits; it is obviously a fatal error, you must dare sometimes, but the worst is that Pam is often not at all sexy, on the contrary almost ridiculous (like H. Berry in Catwoman, not like M. Pfeiffer in Batman returns). Think about how the director of X-Men "loved" and enhanced Mystica, can you see what I mean?! Besides, in those years music was still important in an action movie, but here it's boring and annoying (and very cheap). However, I still watch Barbwire, sometimes, because it isn't boring like a 400.000.000 dollars blockbuster for dummies and when you watch it you can think how it could be, on the contrary those big movies are (almost) always the same...