Snow White and the Huntsman (and a little bit of Mirror Mirror)

Okay, I didn’t review Mirror Mirror. I’m not sure why. I really liked that movie, but I couldn’t quite put in to words what I liked about it. It was just campy fun that felt like it was honouring, and satirising, the Disney-style fairy tale films. I guess that’s my review of it. See that film. You might not agree with me, but it’s well worth watching, especially in this age of fairy tale films that are being DARK and EDGY and GRITTY. You know, like what Snow White and the Huntsman was trying to be.

Now, this film I can honestly put into words how I felt about it. A lot of words. But I think one word that mostly sums it up is ‘vacuous’. The film is just so empty and devoid of substance that it doesn’t leave a lasting impression. As I left the cinema I was complaining about certain aspects of the film, but often found myself trying to remember what else I didn’t like because though I didn’t like it I still couldn’t remember what it was.

Snow White and the Huntsman is your basic Snow White story but made all dark because fun isn’t allowed any more. Now we have a ridiculously evil queen (Charlize Theron) and her ridiculously evil brother (Sam Spruell) taking over a kingdom and then locking the vacant princess, Snow White (Kristen Stewart) in the dungeon. Of course, Snow White escapes and is then hunted by Eric, the title’s ‘Huntsman’ (Chris Hemsworth). Of course, Snow White befriends the guy in about a minute because the evil brother just blurts out that he’s going to betray Eric.

This is our main cast for most of the film. What’s that? You want dwarfs in this Snow White film? Ah, no you don’t. They’ll just be some side characters who offer little to the plot or story. In fact, you can pretty much say that about any character, to be honest. There’s some talent in here (Theron and Hemsworth) but they are wasted on an awful script that gives them so few lines and such little time for character development that they don’t really have screen presence. But in a film where no one has much screen presence I suppose they fit in extremely well.

The acting was, at times, pretty good. Hemsworth and Theron do what they can with the script and some of the dwarfs seem to be trying their best to be memorable (spoilers: they aren’t). However, the evil brother is just irritating with his over-acting, whilst Stewart is bland. She’s always bland. I’ve seen her in the Twilight films, Adventureland and this and in all of these she has the same blank expression on her face. Sometimes she’ll try to emote but this is worse than the blandness as moving her facial muscles obviously causes her a lot of visible pain.

The plot was pretty dire, too, and seemed to have little focus. The scenes didn’t have much flow, leaving you wondering how or why the story was at that point. At a few points things made no sense, such as characters coming back from the dead from plot convenience or a quick scene with Theron showing her do nothing whatsoever. Then it just all kind of ended with little resolution to anything (SPOILERS: Snow White stabs her. She dies. Then Snow White becomes the queen. Then she looks around at everyone. THE END!). Personally, I expected some kind of epilogue or speech or something, but there was nothing whatsoever. It just ended like a cheesy 80s action movie.

Don't know what happened here. Strange stuff happens a lot for no reason.

Then we have the thing that could have helped this movie hold itself together: the action. People love action scenes. They are fun. They are even better if we can see what’s going on. Thanks to some pretty bad cinematography I couldn’t keep track of any of the fight sequences, sometimes wondering what part of the setting the camera was focussing on or who was fighting who. One scene had a fight at night with fire lighting the area, but bugger me if I could tell you who was fighting in it or who was on which side. Pull out the camera bit then I may have seen more of it and enjoyed it.

This was upsetting as I could see some pretty good combat going on in there. It looked realistic and it seemed that every hit had an effect on the fight. I just wanted to see these fights. It’s a shame because most of the cinematography and directing was pretty good, showing off some good looking scenery (though it was too focussed on the scenery at some points, rather than focussing on plot and such). It was just when things were happening that it all fell apart visually. 

Keeping with the visuals, actually, I did see a lot of points I thought “That looks like Lord of the Rings”. The mountains, the panning shots of people walking over greenery, stuff like that. It all stank of Lord of the Rings. Then there were the crows, or ravens (the Queen is called Ravenna), that looked strangely like Saruman’s spies. Oh, and then they ripped off that bit in The NeverEnding Story where Artax, the horse, drowns in the Swamps of Sadness. That was just shameful. This film borrowed from a lot more films, resulting in something that was more Avatar than Pulp Fiction. 

This film, however, did have potential to be good. It lost its focus early on and spent too much time on scenes it didn’t need to. Some more characterisation would have been good, especially for the two characters who are IN THE TITLE, and maybe someone could try and get Kristen Stewart to have as many, maybe more, emotions than Nic Cage. At least then she would show some emotion. A tighter, better script would have been nice as well. Weird how a 2 hour long film could do so little...

Battle Royale - A Response

This post is in response to the review of the manga, film and novel versions of Battle Royale, a book I love, a film I think is very good, and a manga I hate. This post is just about my thoughts on the manga, expanding upon the thoughts of the review. You can find the review at Fucking Zombies! Check it out, it's a good blog.

You feel almost exactly the way I did about all three of these. Thought, I have to say I have an uncontrollable hatred of the manga.

See, the manga changed characters too much. As you said, things are over sexualised, but I don't think you've even covered the extent of it. These two sentences come hand in hand as Mitsuko Souka such a massive amount that her entire motivation in the manga is sexual thrills. Which pisses me off. Oh, and having her backstory seemed like a cop out to make her sympathetic, when really she's just a terrible person.

On top of this, the big change with Shuya Nanahara with his "I refuse to kill" atttitude just irritated me as it completely missed the point of the novel (having to kill to survive, even though you don't like it) and would have just caused too many issues throughout the book.

But the biggest betrayal in the manga is probably my favourite storyline in the novel: that of the journey of Hiroki Sugimura. They made him out to be an ultimate badass, when really he was just a normal guy driven by love. On top of that, the fact he doesn't die at the correct time just ruins the importance of his story. His love powers him on, in the novel, but he dies because of the island, but also is able to express his love because of it. Kind of a double edged sword kinda place.

And then he does a Kamehameha. I mean REALLY?! This is meant to be set in REALITY, and not some fucking fantasy world.

There are lots of other issues with the manga besides character change, though. One of the biggest issues I have, as you said, is the art. Yes, everyone is quite 'bishi', but that wasn't really my issue. My issue was that everyone was drawn as a certain category, which, to me, felt like the artist was a lazy bastard. Now to give each one names.

First we have the 'Frog'. This is reserved for your "ugly on the outside, ugly on the inside" types. So many lines on the face, drool and maybe even attempts at being creepily sexual. Kinda reminds me of the snails from Uzumaki.

 After that we have the 'Nutter', which is what I like to call the same face and stance everyone pulls when they go insane. It usually consists of crying, weird eyes and maybe movie in a funny way.

We also have the 'Brute’. He’s basically your large-nosed big guy. The diametric opposite of this is the ‘Kid’, your type who, whilst in the same class as everyone else, seems to be about 10 years younger.

 

We finally have the ‘Hero’, your average main character type, as well as the ‘Woman’, because at least the art can be consistent there.

If you want to see a woman type, look at the original blog.

So yeah, I think that’s all of the characters. It’s only, y’know, been about 3 or 4 years since I read it. This rage sticks.

I do find you are pretty correct on everything, though. I just felt that the horrifying quality of the manga needed to be expanded upon. The novel is one of my favourite books. With this you may think “Well, any changes would piss you off!” No, actually. The film is so different to the book but the film does something good: it tells a competent story and knows where to focus to tell its own story. It captured the essence of the original novel, but does its own thing with it, and that’s only good.

This is a long post for a response (so much so I decided it would serve better as a blog post), but as I said, I felt the manga needed to be vastly expanded upon.

I just hope the video game is better than the manga.

What? This isn't to do with Battle Royale? Dammit!

A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master (1988)

It’s been a while since I last watched Dream Warriors but I’m not sure that matters too much. Dream Warriors seemed to end with a lot of finality, what with Freddy being defeated in both the dream world and the real world. Surely he’s dead for sure? Well, no, he is not. There’s still more films for him to be in. *sigh*

OK, to the film’s credit Dream Master is pretty enjoyable. The irritation I have with it comes from the way that Freddy comes back. Some dog just pisses on where Freddy was buried, but in the dream world, and now he is back. Not sure why, or how, but that happened.

Now that’s out of the way I need to get on with the rest of the film. The film starts off with the surviving cast from Dream Warriors and Kristine seems to be haunted in her dreams with omens of Freddy’s return. Turns out she is right, because Freddy isn’t giving up that easily and he proceeds, over the next 20 minutes or so, to kill off the final three Elm Street kids. That’s right, they all die. But that’s okay because within this time we’ve been introduced to our new protagonist, Alice, who starts off weak, but ends up kicking arse as the film goes on.

When Kristine is about to die she pulls Alice into her dream and, somehow through dying, she gives Alice her power of pulling people into her dreams. This works to Freddy’s advantage as he uses Alice, a chronic daydreamer, to pull other kids into her dreams so he can kill them too because... I don’t know, he’s psycho. The rest of the film consists of Alice dragging people into her dreams and trying to get them out, but to no avail.

The plot is great. It introduces a new element and utilises Freddy’s powers over dreams in a way you wouldn’t think them to be used. You could tell that the people making this film were looking at all avenues of sleep and dreams to try and make the story fresh and they did just that.

On top of that we have a constant element of threat. I’d be lying if I said I could tell when the characters were in a dream before it became overly clear. This created an air of suspense over the rest of the film. We’re never sure when people will die or who they will be. Sometimes it’s a side character and sometimes it’s the main cast, we are never sure. This is great because it’s shocking when people get killed, especially as Alice is often able to witness the deaths but is powerless to stop Freddy.

Lastly, I’ll have to say that Freddy in this film is probably at his best so far. He is genuinely creepy but also an absolute laugh at times. Even during a scene of great horror he would say something or do something comedic and would make me laugh, and though I’d laugh I would not be taken out of the horror element of the film. Compared to the other films he is astounding and Englund’s performance is perfect. This is the Freddy I had heard about: sinister and creepy, yet funny.

Though I did really like this film and thought it was far better than the first two films I have to say that I did prefer Dream Warriors. That film explored the dream aspect a lot more than Dream Master, but this film gets a lot of credit for trying to expand upon Freddy’s powers over dreams, unlike in the first two films. Sadly, the main issue I had with this film was how Freddy was brought back. Nonetheless, it was a seriously good film and had some good moments.

Top 10 Worst Films of 2011

Well, the last list I put up of worst films had people getting annoyed at me for reviewing things that I have never seen. I’m pretty sure that list was not a review of anything, but instead me saying I didn’t want anything to do with those films. Well, here’s a list of more films I don’t like, but instead, this time, I’ve seen them. I’m leaving the best films for the next list, we need something happy to get over some of these films.

10. Mars Needs Moms

Everything in this film is freaky. Everything. Not just the martians, no, they at least look cartoony. It’s mostly the people who look freaky. It’s the uncanny valley problem. They look real but not real and it just makes you feel uneasy. This makes just watching the film difficult. Maybe it looked better in 3D, but I doubt it.

But on top of this the actual plot to the film is boring. It’s not terrible, really, it’s just really, really boring. Boring, dull, snoozefest. That’s the entire film. Nothing the characters did made me care. All of those incredibly annoying characters. Don’t get me wrong, if the voice actors were trying to make me hate them all then they did a great job.

Mars Needs Moms also defies physics and biology. I just couldn’t let that slide. Not sure why, I guess I was just picky with this one.

9. Gnomeo & Juliet

I’ll be honest, I was kind of looking forward to this film. Despite the terrible pun in the title, I thought the trailers made it look funny and maybe it could have been a good family film. I certainly went into it with higher reservations than Mars Needs Moms. With such an amazing voice cast I thought it would be passable at a bare minimum.

How wrong I was. This film is completely horrendous. There are two likeable characters in the film (Stephen Merchant and Jason Statham) but with such a wide cast these barely helped. Whilst the animation was fun the jokes were stale and were generally cringe-worthy. There was barely a single funny moment in this entire film and the film tried so hard to make us laugh.

It was upsetting to see this. I wanted to like this film and it is likely this film would not be on my list, but then it seemed to comment on the fact that this is how Romeo & Juliet should have ended like the film did: with a happy ending and a sing song. Sure, the film couldn’t have ended like Romeo & Juliet but the film goes out of its way to say that this is better. I just couldn’t stand that.

8. Your Highness

This film seemed to be going for a Mighty Boosh meets Monty Python and the Holy Grail vibe but completely failed. I love Danny McBride, James Franco and Natalie Portman but this film just showed them refusing to act. Their British accents were terrible and they couldn’t convey more than one emotion at a time.

On top of this the script was horrible. At no point did I laugh. It was extremely unfunny and seemed to be trying its hardest for jokes. Furthermore, the swearing does not fit the setting at all. It just created a massive disconnect between setting and dialogue. I will honestly be happy to never see this film again.

The only reason this film isn’t lower on the list is the fact that I just didn’t find it funny. I think I might not have got it, but it still seemed like it was terrible. Plus, it didn’t make me angry. Unlike the next film...

7. Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides

This is probably one of the best examples of how to destroy everything from the previous series: take a popular character and give him his own adventure. Well, Puss in Boots, surprisingly, doesn’t look too bad actually, but On Stranger Tides was annoying as hell.

I loved Jack Sparrow. Everyone did. But when he is the sole focus of the movie he just becomes... irritating. Extremely irritating, in fact. When he took the forefront there seemed to be no characters around him serious enough to make his kooky actions funny.

The plot was also terrible. A lot of people have a go at At World’s End but that was just boring, not stupid. This just seemed completely phones in and didn’t have enough likeable characters to push it on.

6. Battle: Los Angeles

This one I can get over with quickly: dull characters, dull plot, crap CGI, camera was too shaky, I didn’t care about anyone, the cinematography was awful and it was incredibly forgettable.

I wonder if the Asylum version was any better...

5. Almighty Thor

Speaking of the Asylum, look at this travesty. Whilst most don’t expect anything from the Asylum, I do believe they are capable of making good films. Such as Sherlock Holmes... That might be it, actually. Thing is, though, is that I don’t expect complete crap from them like I used to. They could have made this rip-off good. But it wasn’t.

Probably the worst thing about this film was that everybody was detestable. I hated everyone in that movie. I couldn’t care less if they anyone survived or not, or even if the hero or the villain survived. The acting is awful and this really doesn’t help with liking anyone.

One of the few saving graces of this film is that the effects were laughably awful. However, the plot is terrible and the characters are dull. Keep far away.

4. Hop

Hop is one of the worst Christmas films ever made. Yes, you may think this is a film about the Easter Bunny and was set in Easter and released in Easter has to do with Easter. But it doesn’t. It’s a Christmas film.

Let’s see: sleigh, check; operation run by millions to get presents to children, check; trying to a non-believing character to believe, check. Yeah, there are more elements, but I really don’t want to spend too much time on this film. Just be aware of one thing: Easter films will NEVER become a thing.

EB, the main character, is annoying. The guy with him is annoying. The only good things about this film are Hugh Laurie and a 4^th wall breaking joke near the end. Oh, and David Hasselhoff. He’s awesome no matter what.

3. Beastly

Well, this is the first film that I hate. No, not just hate, I detest. I wish to see this film, and the next two, get completely wiped off the face of this planet.

I love Beauty and the Beast, so of course this film interested me as it’s a modern retelling of that fairy tale. But of course I was disappointed. Turns out this film takes everything that was great about Beauty and the Beast and gets rid of it.

But this isn’t the big problem with the film. The biggest problem is the characters and the relations between them. The two leads have an impossibly contrived relationship which just makes you think the guy is an arsehole. In fact, he goes from ‘kind of a dick’ to ‘utterly despicable’. At no point is he charming or likeable, but the film pretty much tells us he is likeable, so we have to. Venessa Hudgens is just bland as hell.

Whilst Neil Patrick Harris could have helped improve this film, his talent was wasted and anything he did inject wouldn’t have saved this film. Especially the ending. Well, the next film has a disappointing ending but no likeable actors to try and save it.

2. Sucker Punch

Holy crap this film made me angry. This film just offended me in every way possible. It started off amazing. I was really into it for the first 5 or 10 minutes. The cinematography was great, the soundtrack was great and the style of storytelling was great. Then it all began to fall apart...

For the rest of this film I sat there wondering what any of the visuals had to do with anything. I have pondered this many times. And I have come to a conclusion: Zack Snyder wanted women to be dressed in sexy clothing but he wanted to get away with it, so tried his hand at making art.

That is all this film is. It’s just scantily clad women with bits of ‘plot’ in the middle. But none of it goes anywhere. It just seems like Zack Snyder had a few ideas for video games, but only came up with one scene for each, so put them together and made some shit up about a burlesque house and a mental asylum to tie it all together. It was a mess.

And then he has the balls to call it art. Well, let me be a little vulgar here: Fuck you, Snyder.

In almost every way a disappointment (apart from the opening of course, but this just made the rest of the film more disappointment) I thought this would be my most hated film for the entire year. I’m pretty angry just writing about it.

But then I watched:

1. Anuvahood

Anuvahood is possibly one of the worst excuses for a film to ever exist. At every single point in this film I was not happy. I couldn’t laugh. I liked one character in this entire dog turd and they even ruined him by making him a dick. The plot is non-existant. The acting is even less so. The directing was terrible.

I was just angry at this film. It gave me absolutely nothing to be happy about. I didn’t have high expectations going into this movie but even expecting it to be a pile of crap would be giving this film too much credit. I have no words to properly describe my rage at this film other than what I have already put. This film is detestable, despicable and is only outdone on unfunny humour by Freddy Got Fingered. And that’s only by a gnat’s wing! Don't see this film unless you want to lose hope in humanity.