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ElliottMortensen
Reviews
Panama (2022)
Cliche overused troupes every scene
If you haven't seen this movie, you made the right decision.
I think the target audience is college guys who hang up action movie posters to cover up holes in their dorm/frat house walls. This movie is so bad I think even those guys wouldn't hang up this movie's poster if it was given away for free. What's bad about the film?
1. Cliche overused troupes every scene
2. Edited to cover up bad acting
3. Edited to cover up bad script writing
4. It's supposed to be about Panama in '89, but that's just a convenient back drop. Of course this movie wasn't going to be historically accurate, but probably would have been slightly better if they had to put in effort to make up a mission that didn't have any historic ties.
5. 80s fandom, but only knowing bad 80s cliches (as if from someone who never lived in the 80s just google searched references at random)
6. Rock N Roll gunfights (literally), but using modern rock n' roll instead of 80s rock.
7. The dirt bike race - just, yeah, so stupid.
And most important: the main focus of the agent's mission is the sale of a Soviet helicopter. However, the script dedicates no energy in explaining why that's important at all. So if the script doesn't care, the audience won't. What happens if he doesn't get the sale to happen? What are the consequences if the other side get it? Is this the only chance to get it? Why at this point in the Panama conflict is it important? I watched the whole movie, and I don't recall these questions were ever addressed directly or subtly.
Blade Runner 2049 (2017)
Kicking myself for not seeing it in the theater
This is not a movie, it is a museum experience. I'm not a fan of Blade Runner (1982), it's a good film (great even), but I don't care much for it. However, I love Blade Runner 2049, and it's because of how it built itself off of the first movie. The first movie took the depictions of the future and made it dirty. It wasn't the first movie to do this, Alien did that for space sci-fi, where all before space or the future was clean, organized, perfect, and utopian. Ridley Scott accomplished the dirty, imperfect, corrupt, and perhaps apocalyptic future by using the subgenre of film noir. This required the audience to recognize it by using the detective plotline. Blade Runner 2049 keeps that film noir subgenre and detective plotline, but goes beyond it. Blade Runner 2049 needed to stay true to its predecessor, but needed to be a credible future to the 2019 the original Blade Runner created. The problem in doing this is to make sure it is believable, and not have the glaring problem of all the Star Wars movies where the technology doesn't really change from episode one through nine. Blade Runner 2049 succeeds in that, and the reasons why are what make it a great movie.
The first accomplishment is keeping true to the Blade Runner's 2019 universe. Sequels can ruin franchises if they do not stay true or ignore their original cannon. Blade Runner 2049 has the gritty, near apocalypse future. It isn't heavy on the film noir look, but it doesn't fully depart from it. What is more critical is the plot: the antagonist is back, but instead of Tyrell Industries, Jared Leto's corporation has bought it and retained its records, product, and advancements. More importantly, the critical thread of the plotline to Blade Runner 2049 is what happened with the protagonists in Blade Runner (1982). Deckard and Rachael's legacy not only goes on, but is the mystery that needs to be unraveled by "K", Ryan Gosling's character, also a detective. So the perspective of the future is sustained, the antagonist, and the protagonists' actions are retained. They're different, but fitting to what the audience expects in the world.
Blade Runner 2049 also shows us the new world that has emerged. They needed to make the 2049 a progression from what Blade Runner had shown audiences. This is accomplished through going along with the journey of "K". They show him using the technology of 2049, going to different facilities like a farm, archives, orphanage, and police station (not buildings, as the audience gets to understand the purpose of these places), as he is digging more and more into the case he's tasked with solving.
As he goes through the different characters he encounters also show what the world has become since 2019. Dave Bautista's war surgeon, Ana de Armas's companionship character, black market vendors, Mackenzie Davis's street urchin, Sylvia Hoek's "Luv" business presentation on cyborgs, Jared Leto's business mogul grand vision, and Robin Wright's upper level administration. Robin Wright and Jared Leto also help create the magnitude of the case which is the crux of their world. There are also different groups and segments of society at work. Corporations (through Tyrell and successor Wallace Industries), government (through the police), and the citizens (through the resistance). All of these draw the audience in to knowing that universe through these character's fourth wall.
All of these aspects help it to be an acceptable sequel, but what makes this film great is how they make it believable as a sequel. This is why it is a museum experience. First, the obvious journey along with the main character. It is immersing the audience into every aspect of the 2049 world. You see, and then know, how the technology works, how it is to walk the streets, home life, rich vs. Poor, and on-world vs. Off-world. Off-world is never shown on screen, but the characters from it are different enough.
The visual art of the movie also makes it a museum experience. This is the second accomplishment of the film. The role of advertising and futuristic products, city scenes and landscapes (like live action sci-fi book covers), and Las Vegas leave the audience in wonder and amazement. I love the Las Vegas sequences, as those differ than future advertising and landscapes. The Las Vegas is creative genius, as it imagines how the future (2049) would depict our own current past (1950s and 1960s). They combine the future technology and infuse retro idealization so that the audience is subliminally entranced by it. It is a place the audience wants to visit to be amazed, but it is presented so well that the audience wouldn't initially discount that that environment isn't real. It is easy to dismiss the idea of being on a starship, it is harder to dismiss being in a place that appears in a way we've always known it to be. That is art through film.
The third accomplishment is the audience understands how the world relates to our own. I could write and exhaustive list of all the examples, but a few key ones should suffice. We have seen snippets the world of the fictional 2049 already in reality by 2017 (when it was released); digital tech (like hologram Tupac), Jared Leto like an evil Steve Jobs, climate change of pollution and ruined ecosystems (like so many reoccurring news reports). All of that is rooted into today, and the film presents it, not like a lecture, but just having the characters go about their lives naturally amongst that. It makes the film take nearly three hours to view, but illuminates that fictional world in vivid detail to be fully comprehensible to the audience. It becomes a place and time they'll know intimately.
This last accomplishment is the most important, as the first two made it a good sequel and good movie. The last one makes it a great sequel and movie. The film had the unique task, that not all other sequels have, of being created close to the date of when the original film depicted the world nearly thirty years prior. The only other futuristic sci-fi universe I can think of is the Terminator films. The third, fourth, and fifth were written, filmed, and released after the key plot milestones of the first two. They failed. Blade Runner 2049 succeeded. It did so because while everyone knew the depiction of 2019 from the first movie would not be an accurate outcome by how the world was going in 2016, the sequel didn't look to correct that or throw it out as canon. It took the vision of how 2019 would be (based on the 1982 film), kept it cannon, and merged it into what 2049 could look like based on how the real world of 2016 was. The audience can believe 2049 could end up looking the way this film depicts it, the same way the Blade Runner of 1982 made the future (2019) seem a possible outcome. It stayed true to the cannon, but drew from the real world 30 years after the first film, to create a further envisioned future, while walking the audience through all the aspects, perspectives, and lives of it's universe. That makes it masterful, a great movie (not just an adequate sequel), and a film that's an experience not just a movie.
Napoleon (2023)
Zero Dark Napoleon
The title should be Zero Dark Napoleon, because the whole movie is poorly lit and it's so bad that it really ruins the movie. Even when Napoleon is in Egypt, during daylight scenes, I wanted to scream for them to turn some lights on. I guess Ridley Scott wanted natural lighting, but that much authenticity is not needed. I think of Braveheart, another long biopic largely depicting European politics and battles. The scenery in that movie still looked natural while having the actors illuminated. It's just so prominent that I can't avoid it. I'm surprised it's not another relaunch of a Batman series. Hollywood: TURN THE LIGHTS ON.
Now, whether the battles, events, and milestones of Napoleon's life are accurate: I don't know. It seems good enough. However, what is more critical is the fact that the significance of the events depicted is lost on non-European audiences. We're not stupid, but outside of Europe Napoleon's life isn't taught in detail to automatically understand what was at stake and groundbreaking in nuanced detail. The same way French students might struggle with details of George Washington's actions during the battles and key political events of the Revolutionary War. The significance could be remedied by having characters explain the importance via dialogue. Let the audience understand the stakes of winning or losing battles, political movies, and alliances. This was largely lacking in the film, which is necessary in the biopic genre.
The acting of Joaquin Phoenix is great: he depicts a miasma of Napoleon seamlessly: egocentric, brute, intelligent, blustering, self-conscious, cunning, and many other good and bad emotions. Vanessa Kirby, as Empress Josephine, is also great in her tragic role. In fact, the arguments, intrigued love, and displays of jealousy they portray in relation to one another reveal more to their characters than the battle scenes and public events. There should have been more, as their scenes of tete a tete drama showed they could act, and explained more in five minutes than some of the twenty minute battle sequences.
So, next director to make a Napoleon biopic: turn the lights on, reveal character and significance through dialogue, and get actors on par with Phoenix and Kirby into key roles.
Note: I saw this in the theater, so maybe they fixed the lighting before firing it up on Netflix.
Method (2004)
Too many threads
There is dialogue early on in this movie. Elizabeth Hurley's character is walking through a film premiere gathering and one bystander says to another, "She's so beautiful," and the other bystander says, "Yeah, but she can't act." At this point turn off the movie, and save yourself time.
This movie then proceeds to pull at too many threads: a mother-daughter jealousy trope, ex-lovers finally reuniting after many years, a marriage on the rocks, trying to become a bona fide method actress, power brokering in Hollywood, and a haunted movie set. Besides the last idea, it could make for a compelling script. However, each of those are poorly pieced together, presented in the most cliché way possible, and never coherently blended. Therefore, the redeeming quality of the movie is to see an example of a bad movie.
Im Westen nichts Neues (2022)
There are two tragedies of this film
Film #2800
There are two tragedies of this film. The tragedy within the film, and the tragedy of the film. The first tragedy should not be unexpected, and I will not avoid spoilers here, as the book has been around for a hundred years and the first film using the source book for almost as long as that. I probably had to read the book three times before graduating high school, and I imagine most people who would opt to sit through 2.5 hours of this film did as well.
The film is well made in multiple ways, and that is part of both tragedies. For the tragedy within the film: it hits the theme of the source book. The film shows how the war results in massive slaughter on a battlefront where draftees run in waves at their enemy in senseless attack after attack. They live in the worst conditions of the trenches, which is unimaginable unless it is truly shown to the audience. Shown the way the book explained. The film departed from the sourcebook on this. It used some memorable passages from the book, very late into the film, and not in the exact same way as the book to reveal this tragic theme. It is not a direct adaptation, the way the 1930 film was, but rather a motion picture "collage" of the theme. At times this was drawn out, too slow, or poorly executed. The audience has to draw too many lines rather than follow along with films inherent narrative to arrive at that "collage" style theme. If this wasn't the case the "collage" style would be a fresh interpretation that departed from the source book, yet stayed true to the theme, and therefore showing a new, original method and reason for a remake. It comes very close, so I will give credit for the attempt to do this.
One aspect at the very end was to add a nod to Barbara Tuchman's The Guns of August theme. The orders are given, must be carried out, and no matter what the soldiers are helpless to disobey even given the fruitless situation they can see but their commanders can not. This only came at the very end of the movie. If Tuchman's theme had been mixed in with Remarque's throughout the movie that also would have improved this film.
If the movie had stayed true to the source book in plot and presentation, but only updated the way the war could be presented they would have been successful at just that. War movies can be justified as remakes if they make the war look more realistic. In a way to update World War I the way Saving Private Ryan did for World War II movies. It did this, but two years too late. 1917 already did that. This made the necessity of perfecting the theme more important.
I am on the fence regarding the acting and script writing. For the first half of the film I didn't care for the characters. It was not just that the narrative was slow-paced, but that the plot was cliché and lacked character development. Boys graduating from school with high hopes of honor in glory for their country, troubles enlisting, and the travails of basic training have been in every WWI film since WWI. All those films were pulling from Remarque. Since this adaptation chose to depart from specific plot of Remarque's book it should have departed from using those cliché plot points. I say this because in the second half of the film, when the soldiers are really under distress and each scene gets progressively worse of a situation for them, then the characters became real. This is when the camaraderie, character development, and character perspectives emerge. These actors can act, and so when those aspects of their roles come out the film is interesting, refreshing, and captivating. That's when the tragedy theme from Remarque is incorporated into this film: the physical, mental, and psychological decline and loss is too much for anyone to bare. These soldiers are still individuals through this madness, and the war is making for hell on earth.
Now, the second tragedy. The tragedy of this film. This is why I put film #2800 at the top. When I was in high school I began writing all the films I had seen in a white and black marble notebook. It took awhile to recall all the ones I had seen, but by film #500 (Dark Water) I was caught up. I have rules to what films I count or don't count towards the list. However, my ultimate rule is that every 100th movie I have to see it in a theatre. I'm human, and have missed that four times now due to various circumstances. Two because coronavirus was in full swing. This was not one of those times.
A 100th film is a milestone for a film nerd. To see a great film as a 100th is to have a pinnacle milestone. To see a bad film is a let down, and it will take 99 more films to make it back up. I think of my #800; I wanted it to be Batman: The Dark Knight, instead it was Baby Mama. All Quiet on the Western Front would be a solid 100th milestone. Not a pinnacle, great one, but definitely one I would be content with heading into the next 99 films.
I wanted to see this movie in the theater. Instead Netflix produced it and sent it to streaming without a theatrical release. My film #2700 was Red Notice, which I accepted as a 100th to try the streaming way. I had streamed many movies before #2700, never as a 100th though. I was unaware that Red Notice was also released in the theaters for about a week or two at the same time. I thought that would happen with All Quiet on the Western Front. It didn't, and so streaming is killing the magic of movies.
This is a referendum on streaming services. I fear I will never get to see another 100th movie on the silver screen. I am being overly dramatic, but how is that new with Hollywood and movies? Seeing a movie in a theater still has a different experience to view and comprehend the movie. There is no pausing for bathroom breaks, trips to grab a dessert, or anything else in the theater. The film is playing and you sit there and digest it or miss it. It makes the viewing a performance of sorts. I have stepped out of a movie during and was unaware of key points, character development, or lines of dialogue that when I re-watched the film years later improved the film. I think of my #600 Children of Men; I missed nearly all of the background of Clive Owen and Julianne Moore's characters' diverged views in wake of their failed marriage because I stepped out for three scenes. It was a new year on the calendar before I saw those scenes.
Films in theaters play on the screen, and you are the audience. It is performance: theme, characters, and narrative as a theme presented to you. This is only possible in its truest form in a theater. At home, with streaming, a movie can be paused and played like chopped time bits of entertainment segments. That is the difference now between a film and a movie. Yes, Hollywood and associated tech companies have invented, bought into, green-lighted, and pushed their products into this corner. The audience is now the consumer, and we are to blame as well. VHS tapes took almost a year to be released. DVDs between 3 to 6 months. Streaming is instant and feeds our insatiable appetite for constant entertainment.
Why this film is a tragedy that it is streamed and not shown on the theater is because it could hold up if it was shown on the big screen. The name recognition alone would do that. The war scenes reaching a new perfection of reality do that. The acting would. The nuanced theme would be enough too. This was released at the end of October. If it was only in the theaters, word of mouth would spread so that many movie goers would be seeing it during Thanksgiving break, and it would be able to run into December. Maybe hanging on to last viewings through the Christmas and New Year's week. Now though it will be an "oh yeah, that was in Netflix's top ten awhile ago" as a maybe afterthought discussion during a family's Thanksgiving. This movie was good. The tragedy is that it never had the chance to perform, as a film, to an audience.