Film Criticism

The Rocketeer Review

May 24, 2015 by JD Hansel

(MINOR SPOILERS)

I really like Timothy Dalton. I greatly enjoy watching Jennifer Connelly. This movie was recommended to me by a friend, and I was pretty sure I would love it. Unfortunately, the movie was largely dull and uninteresting for the first half. The protagonist was a bore, and the antagonist was honestly more likable and charming. The concept could have been very interesting, but I just couldn’t get into it for quite some time.

Then, much like in Hannah and Her Sisters, there was a redeeming scene. Finally, when the story was starting to get interesting, they gave a scene to Jennifer Connelly’s character, who had to give the best performance of her life. The scene was an absolute delight, largely because I could finally focus on a couple of the characters that mattered to me. Seeing this scene in this movie felt like the geeky kid on the sidelines had just jumped up and did a slam dunk, so I couldn’t help but applaud.

On the whole, it’s not a bad movie. Some of the characters are interesting, the concept is rather unique, the screenplay gets better and better throughout, the visuals and soundtrack are frequently impressive, and I could easily see why someone would really like this movie. For me, however, I like a protagonist who’s likable. Say what you want about film being a visual medium, but let’s not forget that visuals alone are not the point – otherwise you could just go to a Smithsonian art museum for free and see better visuals than most great films have to offer. The point is storytelling, and at the heart of every story are its characters. If the movie had a stronger main character, the story would have been much stronger, which would have made the film rise above “okay.” The one redeeming scene, however, earned this film an extra half a star above par.

Avengers: Age of Ultron Review

May 20, 2015 by JD Hansel

First of all, everyone needs to see the first Avengers movie, preferably after seeingCaptain America and Iron Man. Then, watch Avengers, and after that, Capt 2 and maybe a few of the others in between. After that, you care about all the characters in Avengers: Age of Ultron. That’s really all that matters with this movie.

The movie is an excuse to hang out with the characters. That’s all. The story is not really special, and the visuals are typical for this kind of film. (I will give it props for its excellent opening, which is very impressive, but I prefer the look of the current Daredevil series to the look of the Avengers films.) The movie is really a blast so long as you really enjoy seeing what the characters throw at one another (figuratively and literally) and you enjoy good bantering, drama, one liners, and character development. The story is, at the very least, set up so that the audience is very interested in seeing what the characters will do next, and how they’ll get out of tricky situations. It’s a fun summer movie, and that’s all it needed to be. I highly recommend it.

Ever After Review

May 8, 2015 by JD Hansel

Do you know how often I give a movie four and a half stars? I’ve done over 50 movie reviews and I only gave such a rating to two of them … but today you can make that three. To be honest, I probably should have given this rating to a couple other really good movies I’ve reviewed, such as Annie Hall, but I really wanted to save such a high number for the absolute best of the best. For this reason, it is odd that I would choose to give this rating to a film that stars one of my least favorite actors in the lead role. (What, you don’t see why I don’t like Drew Barrymore? I can’t really explain it, but I find her voice pretty annoying, and the roles she plays are often the kind of characters that seem like they were written just to bug me.)

Here’s the thing: that’s pretty much the movie’s only flaw. Everything else, from the story to the dialogue to the performances to the visuals to the music, was done right. The world of the film is enchanting, the characters are delightful, and the story manages to capture all of the best elements of the story upon which it is based, Cinderella, while carefully adjusting what does not hold up. The story of “Cinderella” is a timeless one, which means it does not need an update unless something extra special will be added. Rather than adding anything too terribly brilliant or different, this film adds the basic thing that “Cinderella” lacked – a love story that’s actually a love story. And it’s a good love story at that.

The movie owes much of its success to the main character, and while I think it was the writing that made the character great, Barrymore’s performance was really not bad. The character could have been ruined by someone who lacked talent, but Barrymore’s acting talent allowed for the character to shine through in exactly the way it needed to, making aCinderella that the audience really cares about. It helped that she was doing an accent, but what really helped was the way the dialogue was written. It was done in such a way that the character is strong, smart, independent, and brave, without seeming like an annoying know-it-all. This is a fine example of the type of character I would like to see more often in cinema.

If I may note one other thing, and I do believe this is key, I think it helps to have the writer be the director, or at least have some additional control over the project so his/her vision gets across. Many of the other movie’s I’ve reviewed that I enjoyed the most had Woody Allen as both the writer and the director, or at the very least as both writer and star. Planes, Trains, and Automobiles came very close to getting four and a half stars out of me, and Silver Linings Playbook succeeded in doing so. Both of those had the writer direct as well. Perhaps this is just the wishful thinking of a screenwriting control freak, but I want to see this become common practice.

Left Behind (2000) Review

May 4, 2015 by JD Hansel

Oh boy, here we go …

For the most part, you can just take Kevin McCreary’s review and insert it here. I would, however, like to address a few things myself, and I’ll start with the positives. First of all, there are actually some really nice shots in this film that are theatrical enough to be right up my alley. Second, the film takes its time before it starts shoving the Bible in our faces, allowing the story’s development to take center stage for a while. Third, it’s tough for a religious movie to say “this is the world you’re living in” without it feeling both preachy and unrealistic, so I think it may work in this movie’s (or perhaps this genre’s) favor to do something more in the vein of sci-fi/fantasy.

That being said, the movie is still pretty silly, rather preachy, a little unbelievable, and a bit too cliche. I always like the rule that events can be unrealistic, but the reactions of the human characters to these events must be realistic if we are to take the story at all seriously, and I don’t think this movie makes the human characters quite believable enough for the story to work. The movie begs to be riffed, as I did throughout. It doesn’t do the best job at holding my attention, so I actually paused the movie one day and abandoned it for a few weeks. My long break from the film was also due to the fact that I found it kind of depressing – several cars and planes crashing, people losing loved ones, and especially dogs lost without their owners are all ideas I’d rather not associate with a benevolent supreme being.

So, in the end, it’s not the worst movie I’ve seen, but it’s far from the best. Oh, and please, no more bookend voice-overs in religious movies ever again.

Harvey Review

April 23, 2015 by JD Hansel

It’s been weeks since I watched Harvey. I thought it was fitting to watch it on Easter, but then I never got around to reviewing it until now. So I’ll just review it now, and hopefully I’ll remember most of it.

Harvey, the third film in my unexplained series of reviews of movies that start with “Ha,” is a pleasant film. The plot concerns a man who repels most people he meets because he has a large invisible rabbit for a friend. It is based on a play, and it feels like watching a play the whole time. It is clever and funny, but since the main character (played by James Stewart) isn’t very real or relatable to me, the film didn’t totally hold my attention the whole time.

The plot was structured well in my opinion, and sort of reminded me of Shakespeare’s style. The ending was a little weak, but it was still nice. There were a few shots in the movie that looked pretty good, and some shots that were somewhat of impressive from a technical standpoint, but it’s a rather ordinary-looking film on the whole. Some of the lines are good, but the humor is by no means brilliant since it’s nearly all relying on the same joke: no one knows how to handle this crazy guy’s invisible friend Harvey. Still, it’s certainly a decent comedy film that will get a few laughs from its viewers.

So, in the end, it’s probably worth seeing. It’s not necessarily a must-see, but it’s a cute movie that is nice to watch every once in a while.

Hamlet (1996) Review

April 10, 2015 by JD Hansel

Is there a way for a mere college kid,
Who hardly can recall the time of day,
To have the slightest clue of how to do
A film review about a Shakespeare play?
I once again must face that question now
Of whether I should judge only the film,
Or judge the work the film is based on too?
And why the heck did Shakespeare write this way?

So now that I’m done with the iambic pentameter (and I’ll admit I didn’t even rhyme it right for Shakespeare), let’s talk about Hamlet the play. I like Hamlet, as a character, and I find him to be rather fascinating. I can understand an intellectual who struggles to accept the concept of death, is obsessive and goes kind of insane, and slowly, methodically plans out how he can make clever plans once he has good evidence suggesting it is wise to do so. Perhaps it may frighten some people to hear me say this, but I can relate to the guy. That being said, it takes him months, and we have to watch five whole acts. We shouldn’t have to wait that long, so as to keep waiting in suspense from becoming waiting in boredom. That’s my main problem with Hamlet – it’s tedious.

Aside from that, Hamlet is a very well-written story with an interesting premise, clever dialogue, and strong characters, so this seems like a natural fit for cinema. This has been adapted for film and television many times, and while I have not completely finished watching the version with Patrick Stewart and David Tennant, I may like their performances of the characters just a wee bit better. Still, this movie has a really fantastic cast – all of them brilliant and/or super famous – and the characters are all done well. The acting may be a little over the top, but I don’t think that hurts the film.

Actually, one of the major criticisms I’ve seen of this movie is that it’s too theatrical. I’m not sure I believe in such a thing. The very theatrical acting works very well for the nature of this production. The shots are all huge, and I suppose they are theatrical, but I see them as cinematic. One might say that my heart belongs to film, but I still have the hots for theater. One would be right. I felt like I was watching a humongous theater production the whole time, and I loved that.

I must say that my big problem with it is still the length. I watched the full-length version on DVD, and I was frightened when I got to the end of disc one, which I thought would be the end of the movie, but I found out that it was only the end of the first half! The rest one on disk two, and it was a bit of a chore to get through. The impressive thing about this movie, however, is that it’s really the first time anyone had tried to do the whole play as a movie before, keeping in every word. This movie did Hamlet without editing it down, and that’s rather impressive. So, if you’re okay with a ridiculously long movie that looks good, has great writing, and has strong characters, I highly recommend it.