Reviews

I'll admit that I rented "The Talented Mr. Ripley" without the slightest clue about what the story entailed. However, this caused no problem as I soon became involved in the twisted and rather bizarre plot; I was immediately interested in the movie as it was unique and unusual right from the start.

Matt Damon portrays the mysterious Mr. Ripley, who, more or less, remains a mystery throughout the film. I was intrigued at how, when you first see him on screen, you are given the impression that he is nothing more than a shy, innocent, and intellectual young man who pretty much keeps to himself. However, this image is only visable for the first five minutes or so, and is virtually shattered once he accepts the offer to go to Italy in search of Mr. Greenleaf's son, Dickie. I was fascinated at how rapidly his personality altered, and suddenly I understood that he was rather odd, as he deceived Mr. Greenleaf in the first place by wearing a Princeton jacket and pretending that he knew Dickie. Now, I haven't explained this entirely, as those of you who have seen this film know, as I am not writing this to create a summary of the plot, but rather to give my comments. Basically, Mr. Greenleaf saw Ripley playing the piano at a wedding wearing a Princeton jacket, and since his son also went to Princeton, he asks Ripley if, by any chance, he knew Dickie. Of course, since Ripley never went to Princeton in the first place, he couldn't possibly have known Dickie. Despite this fact, however, Ripley says that he did know him, and that they were friends. As soon as he says this, he manages to get himself in a deep hole of trouble as Mr. Greenleaf asks him to go to Italy to try and retrieve his son, as he couldn't do it himself due to that fact that Dickie wouldn't listen to his father following a serries of arguments.

I thought that the acting was brilliant, especially that of Jude Law (Dickie) and Matt Damon. I was on the edge of my seat throughout most of the film, and I felt that all the characters were believable in their own ways. I believe this to be a splendidly clever story, which is well written and directed. I thought that the music playing during most of the film was excellent as it matched the strange, eerie atmosphere of the story beautifully.

I would like to conclude this review by saying that this is a very good movie with an unusually unpredictable ending; it's nice to see a movie that doesn't finish perfectly for a change.

I thought that this movie, which had a lot of potential, was, in a word, "wasted". I was extremely disappointed in it and expected a lot more after watching the very promising trailer for it in the cinema.

I rented it the other night and, I must admit, was looking forward to actually watching it. I am normally a huge fan of all fantasy/Sci-fi/action/adventure movies, and I honestly thought that this one would be no exception. I should have taken the hint that it wouldn't be that great of a movie when there were only six copies of the video to rent (all of which were still there) in the whole store, whereas movies like "What Women Want", which was released at the same time, had about 20 copies of which only a few were still available. However, this could be because of the fact that "What Women Want" stars Mel Gibson and Helen Hunt, whereas "Dungeons and Dragons" stars less well known celebrities (except for Jeremy Irons and possibly Thora Birch).

I didn't particularly like some of the supposedly "funny" lines, and I thought that the dwarf in the movie was a completely unecessary character. I understand the fact that this film is based on the card game, and therefore maybe it was thought that the dwarf was required to complete the game-based characters (though I have no idea if this is the case as I have never played the game, nor know anything about it)I think that if the dwarf was, in fact, thought to be a necessary character, then maybe a more developed part should have been made for him, as it seemed to me that the dwarf was just added to the film for decoration purposes. He only said something like three lines in the entire movie anyway.

I will not continue to go on about the various parts of the movie that annoyed me, and I do agree that the movie seemed to revolve around a basis similar to that of "Star Wars Episode 1: Phantom Menace", in the respect that a young female ruler is struggling to improve the qualities of her Empire.

However, I will say that I liked the set decoration in "Dungeons and Dragons", which did display some vivid imagination. Finally, I would like to say that I believe all films contain good in them, no matter what they are. Therefore, I think "Dungeons and Dragons" would appeal more to people who enjoy the game and to those who like simple humor and sorcery.

This is, as most people who have seen it would agree, a good movie. Although I must admit that it is not one of my all time favourites, as I don't have a nagging desire to watch it again any time soon. I guess this is because you really don't have to watch it more than once to know that it is a good and entertaining film, unless you are an incredibly big fan of the movie and can't seem to get enough of it, which seems to be a common case for many.

I believe "The Matrix" to be a brilliantly creative and interesting movie with a good combination of superlative special effects and spine-tingling action. I also believe that this film deserves the numerous acclamations it received for it's amazingly different storyline, and nobody can possibly dispute this fact.

I thought that the camera work for this film was wonderful, and I share the opinion with almost everyone else that the special effects were mind blowing. However, I think I prefer other sci-fi movies like "Star Wars", although I know that they are not really that similar to each other , though are categorised in the same genre.

I would like to conclude this comment by saying, as an aspiring film maker, that the Wachowski Brothers are extraordinary film writers with very admirable imaginations. I know, for a fact, that I couldn't possibly write anything so creative, but give me a couple of years. I am only 14!