Plot: A girl falls down a hole and nothing makes sense. Then again, I'm pretty sure everyone already has an idea on the plot.
Soundoff Review: Every time a movie is remade or the idea is remade, I ask myself, is it really necessary? What makes it better or any different from the original? To me re-doing a movie is a very hard feat to do, you can either do it disastrously, exactly replicate it, or do it better even.
Let's make an analogy, let's pretend that movies are like a painting and when someone makes a new movie they use a new canvas and start from scratch. What Tim Burton does is get the original Mona Lisa and traces over it in a subway and paints it in his studio doing drugs, most likely heroine, and reading the Communist Manifesto.
My main complaint of Tim Burton's cover is that it was extremely predictable and not colorful enough, and even had Political implications in it.
We know what's gonna happen next, then why are we watching it if your not going to change it?
You have a whole slew of characters to work with and they are extremely colorful, how come they didn't come off as colorful or awesome as I thought they would?
Another thing, the political implications were quite blatant.
You can tell Tim Burton has a very western political thought, come on, a small person who in the end conquered great things. Sounds extremely western to me. We can also look at Alice as a lone Caucasian going to North Korea accidentally and everyone in North Korea (Red Kingdom) wanting to kill her save for a few rebels (Mad Hater and comp) who help her.
Also one more thing, this is a blatant attack towards feminism. According to Tim Burton, the Red Kingdom and White Kingdom is exactly what would happened if females had dictator unitarian monarchical powers. One queen is kind and the other is extremely violent which shows the bi-polar nature of women which Tim Burton exploits throughout the movie to create two rival nations against each other based on female ideology, in this case feminism.
Conclusion: The movie went by way too fast and felt rushed at lots of points. Tim Burton had an extremely good cast to work with, however, he decided not to, which created a cover that didn't feel like the director of the amazing "Big Fish". Alice in Underland (North Korea) is average 2.5/5
Saturday, March 13, 2010
Shutter Island the review!
Summery: Watching Shutter Island is like eating an ice cream cake. Some parts are just better than others while the whole is satisfying.
Plot: Two US Marshals are sent to an island for a mission. On this island is a mental institution where they try to help the prisoners I mean ahem, the "patients" get over what is making them sick. US Marshals Teddy Daniels and Chuck are sent to investigate the disappearance of a patient in the mental hospital. However, this is just the backdrop to a even deeper story full of conspiracies/hallucinations/memories/and the oh so great twists.
Intro: When you eat an ice cream cake we all know that the best part about it is the ice cream, however, it wouldn't be ice cream cake if there was no ice cream, hence ice cream cake to be truly satisfying needs to have ice cream. Shutter Island is like ice cream cake. There are parts the movie excels in that makes it truly avant garde and some other knacks that somewhat hinder the movie from being excellent. In each section I shall reveal the pros and cons.
Music Score: The orchestral score is actually some what kindergarten in construction. The music score during the beginning is extremely distractive actually and does not create the mood that it was trying to go for which was a haunting and moody piece. It was blared really loud and made up of simple instrumentation and did nothing but distract/annoy watchers.
This is where it gets tricky, this same piece of music is played in during parts of the movie when things get moody or try to be "scary" and for the most parts it works better than it did initially.
The other music scores where placed way better in the movie and did not distract rather did what they were supposed to, which was to heighten the mood during the scene. Mostly during the hallucinations and the many revelations that Teddy Daniels have, and it's fricken awesome.
Camera: I must admit the camera angles were a great bane to the movie. Often panning around quite spasmodically. Like as if each character had their own camera and when they spoke a line it would switch to the automatically. At some parts too, it felt as if I was watching someone play Resident Evil 1, as the cameras sometimes shifted in weird angles when the characters move around.
That being said, the camera angles were the most disappointing part of the movie, however, it wasn't bad enough that it hindered the movie from being enjoyable, especially during the more avant garde scenes which were handled perfectly actually.
Scenery/Character designs: The decade this movie took place in was during the 1950s and was it portrayed quite well. You get your smug as heck police officers, the suave detectives, the nurses, the huge amount of smoking, the authentic 1950s props, the amazing World War II flashbacks, it has it all. Currently I am playing Bioshock 2 and I must admit that watching Shutter Island reminded me of playing Bioshock 2 in scenery and what the character designs of Bioshock was striving for, which was basically the mutant versions of characters from Shutter Island. Each character is extremely colorful, and has a mind of their own and extremely convincing, and when I mean convincing I truly do! You yourself as a watcher will get lost in "their" world, which I know I have.
Story: The backdrop like I mentioned during the plot leads to an extremely open ended movie which is awesome. Movies like these tend to have a predictability factor, however you get so involved that some parts take you by surprise. As you watch the movie your logic WILL FAIL YOU, this is not a light statement too.
The best parts of the story are the more avant garde parts that occur during hallucinations/remembrances/etc. and do these parts deliver on awesome. I do not want to spoil any of them, but these parts are the ice cream of the ice cream cake, if you know what I mean ;D But all I will say about them is that they are extremely colorful/memorable/crucial to the story/and awesome. My only complaint is that there are not enough parts like this, and when you get back to reality or "think" you are you start to miss the made up world D:
PROS:
Awesome Storyline
Avant Garde
Unpredictable
Cons:
Music score needs some work
Camera angles
Conclusion: I heard this movie had mixed reviews, but do not let detractors of this movie fool you! Shove aside any formed biases against this movie and let it work to your advantage. Do yourself a favor and actually check this movie out before you hate 3.6/5
Plot: Two US Marshals are sent to an island for a mission. On this island is a mental institution where they try to help the prisoners I mean ahem, the "patients" get over what is making them sick. US Marshals Teddy Daniels and Chuck are sent to investigate the disappearance of a patient in the mental hospital. However, this is just the backdrop to a even deeper story full of conspiracies/hallucinations/memories/and the oh so great twists.
Intro: When you eat an ice cream cake we all know that the best part about it is the ice cream, however, it wouldn't be ice cream cake if there was no ice cream, hence ice cream cake to be truly satisfying needs to have ice cream. Shutter Island is like ice cream cake. There are parts the movie excels in that makes it truly avant garde and some other knacks that somewhat hinder the movie from being excellent. In each section I shall reveal the pros and cons.
Music Score: The orchestral score is actually some what kindergarten in construction. The music score during the beginning is extremely distractive actually and does not create the mood that it was trying to go for which was a haunting and moody piece. It was blared really loud and made up of simple instrumentation and did nothing but distract/annoy watchers.
This is where it gets tricky, this same piece of music is played in during parts of the movie when things get moody or try to be "scary" and for the most parts it works better than it did initially.
The other music scores where placed way better in the movie and did not distract rather did what they were supposed to, which was to heighten the mood during the scene. Mostly during the hallucinations and the many revelations that Teddy Daniels have, and it's fricken awesome.
Camera: I must admit the camera angles were a great bane to the movie. Often panning around quite spasmodically. Like as if each character had their own camera and when they spoke a line it would switch to the automatically. At some parts too, it felt as if I was watching someone play Resident Evil 1, as the cameras sometimes shifted in weird angles when the characters move around.
That being said, the camera angles were the most disappointing part of the movie, however, it wasn't bad enough that it hindered the movie from being enjoyable, especially during the more avant garde scenes which were handled perfectly actually.
Scenery/Character designs: The decade this movie took place in was during the 1950s and was it portrayed quite well. You get your smug as heck police officers, the suave detectives, the nurses, the huge amount of smoking, the authentic 1950s props, the amazing World War II flashbacks, it has it all. Currently I am playing Bioshock 2 and I must admit that watching Shutter Island reminded me of playing Bioshock 2 in scenery and what the character designs of Bioshock was striving for, which was basically the mutant versions of characters from Shutter Island. Each character is extremely colorful, and has a mind of their own and extremely convincing, and when I mean convincing I truly do! You yourself as a watcher will get lost in "their" world, which I know I have.
Story: The backdrop like I mentioned during the plot leads to an extremely open ended movie which is awesome. Movies like these tend to have a predictability factor, however you get so involved that some parts take you by surprise. As you watch the movie your logic WILL FAIL YOU, this is not a light statement too.
The best parts of the story are the more avant garde parts that occur during hallucinations/remembrances/etc. and do these parts deliver on awesome. I do not want to spoil any of them, but these parts are the ice cream of the ice cream cake, if you know what I mean ;D But all I will say about them is that they are extremely colorful/memorable/crucial to the story/and awesome. My only complaint is that there are not enough parts like this, and when you get back to reality or "think" you are you start to miss the made up world D:
PROS:
Awesome Storyline
Avant Garde
Unpredictable
Cons:
Music score needs some work
Camera angles
Conclusion: I heard this movie had mixed reviews, but do not let detractors of this movie fool you! Shove aside any formed biases against this movie and let it work to your advantage. Do yourself a favor and actually check this movie out before you hate 3.6/5
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