2000s Movie Reviews

Hot Fuzz Review

August 5, 2014 by JD Hansel

I did not think that Hot Fuzz was my kind of comedy at all before I watched it, mostly because it seemed like just another one of those crude comedies that are filled with blood, extreme profanities, and anything else they could throw in to get the stupid college kids interested. While to some small degree that may be true of this film (mostly just the bloody humor) this film was a pleasantly intelligent surprise. This parody of action movies is the second installment of the Three Flavours Cornetto trilogy, and it is focused on an excellent police officer in London who is making the other officers look bad, so he is sent to do police work in a small village with no crime. The village seems completely peaceful at first, but Constable Angel starts to suspect that the seemingly-accidental recent deaths of certain residents are actually connected murders.

While the film has a bit more blood and gore than I generally like, it makes up for that with scenes like the Romeo and Juliet scene, which I think is one of the funniest scenes I’ve seen in a comedy from the time period in which this movie was made. It also is a very impressive action/mystery movie, with writing that carefully weaves together a brilliant plot that ties everything together, and makes every line of dialogue count. Lines that seem completely insignificant all come back in the end, and really, the audience is being set up the whole time. It’s really brilliantly written and performed very well. If you like British satires, or if you like action movies, you’ll probably find something about Hot Fuzz to enjoy.

Amelie Review

August 2, 2014 by JD Hansel

For those of you who’ve never heard of it, Amélie is the 2001 French film that inspired the Travelocity commercials featuring the garden gnome. It’s about a young woman whose life seems rather empty, so she starts trying to do good deeds to make the world a better place. It’s all in French, so you’ll have to watch it with subtitles if you don’t speak that language, and since I never ever watch movies for which I must do that, I was interested in giving it a try. I’m glad that I did, because it was quite an experience.

Naturally, a concept for a film like the concept I described would make one question if the story is any good, but it actually is quite clever. It all builds well and interconnects, keeping the audience interested and providing a satisfying ending. What’s neat about it is its unique and bizarre style, with artistic special effects used throughout in a way that no American comedy would try. If you appreciate very strange and weird comedies, or different approaches to film-making, I think you’ll really like this film. It’s certainly done very well.

Harry Potter 3 & 4 Review(s)

July 30, 2014 by JD Hansel

I’m lumping together my reviews of the third and fourth Potter films because these two are so similar, despite having different directors. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban is clearly where the film series changes course and becomes a series for teens, not children. The filters, colors, lighting, and overall tone of the film is changed to accommodate this, and its sequel, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire is about the same way in terms of tone and mood. As pointed out by Cinema Sins, Goblet of Fire starts with a shot of skulls in order to make the movie seem less child-oriented. This sadly takes away the childlike wonder that the first two films captured so well, and I think that the tone of the series did not need to change to the degree that it did. Perhaps it was Azkaban director Alfonso Cuarón who decided to make the change, or perhaps it was the producers and the studio, but I do wish Goblet director Mike Newell had tried to bring the spirit of the first two films back.

Alfonso Cuarón is known as a good filmmaker from a technical standpoint, and I can see why since his movies do look cool and have impressive cinematography. However, I don’t think he was really quite right for making Potter films. The movie is slow, and it doesn’t get all that interesting until the end, at which point the plot gets so complicated that the movie makes a number of errors in an attempt to express it well (and the aforementioned Cinema Sins video shows this well). Mike Newell made the series even darker, and made a film that has the most whiny-teenager drama I’ve seen in a Potter film so far. He brought on board a new score composer to replace John Williams, so a little more of the charm was lost. It is really rather strange though that I thought they were directed by the same person, until I looked it up, because their styles seemed pretty similar.

Both of the films introduce interesting new characters, such as Professor Lupin – a very likable character that is played perfectly, as is Sirius Black. Sybill Trelawney and Peter Pettigrew are each annoying in all the ways they should be for the sake of the story. Alastor Moody is done brilliantly, particularly from a writing standpoint, but also in terms of acting. Sadly, journalist Rita Skeeter did not get horribly murdered slowly and painfully as I had hoped she would, but in my opinion, she’s worse than Voldemort. The depression of seeing the performer of Twilight’s Edward as a significant actor in a Potter film is balanced out by the joy of seeing David Tennant in a wonderfully evil role. However, all of the new characters means that time is taken away from important characters like Hermione, whom I find more interesting as a character than Harry or Ron at this point. This is probably because I find her more relatable since she seemed to have feelings of inadequacy as a child that she handled by becoming more knowledgeable about magic than everyone else.

Still, I really want to see the rest of the series, so I guess they must have done a lot right after all.

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets Review

July 20, 2014 by JD Hansel

The second installment of the Harry Potter series is certainly just as good as its predecessor. It is a bit darker and scarier, and sadly features a little bit less of Hermione. It is very clear in this film, perhaps more than in the first Potter film, that every single scene in this is important, and every character that has a speaking role has some important function in the plot. Everything is done carefully and with purpose. Because the film is very much a mystery story, one’s mind is actively involved in sorting out the characters and the plot, even during the slower part of the movie. The CGI is far, far better this time around though, which is nice. As far as the rest of the film goes, what I said about the first Potter film still mostly applies, so I don’t have much more to say about this movie, other than the fact that I now have to see the next one.

Harry Potter Review

July 16, 2014 by JD Hansel

I’ve known for some time now that I would eventually have to start watching the Harry Potter films since he’s had such an impact on geek/nerd culture, and culture as a whole. I never read the books myself, so it is difficult for me to fairly judge a film adaptation since I have no way of comparing it to its source material, I don’t know who to blame for problems with the story, and I don’t know who to praise for what was done well. Still, I decided to watch Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Sorcerer’s Stone. I’m very glad that I did.

The story, based on a children’s book, makes the film seem really “children’s-booky,” which helps the film have childlike wonder, but keeps the characters from seeming realistic. The characters are interesting though, and they are generally performed well, with Richard Griffiths’ facial expressions making the first few scenes in the film almost enjoyable despite how annoyed I was that the “good guys” left the very important baby in the hands of abusive idiots and their beloved, despicable son. It’s not wise to make the audience this sad and angry at the very beginning of the film, but seeing as how Harry didn’t seem to have much of a personality to make him interesting until the second third of the film, I suppose they had to rely on his awful family life and his mysterious powers to make us interested in him.

Now, I get that there’s a lot of stuff that happens in this story, and the story spends a lot of time appropriately building to a fantastic climax with brilliant surprises, but part of adapting a book to a film is making the necessary changes that will make the story work better as a movie. In this case, it was being adapted to a family film, so an hour and a half would have been the ideal run time, but this film goes for two and a half hours, which is a bit longer than the average child or preteen can wait for the climax. Aside from that though, the film probably had the feel that J. K. wanted the story to have because just about every shot felt magical thanks to great cinematography and enchanting music.

Special effects and makeup is an area of film-making that I generally am not too focused on, but in this film I couldn’t help but focus on it. The makeup looks awesome on the creatures that required it, and many of the effects were really good-looking too… as long as they did not use computers. Whenever a shot had CGI, it looked like a DreamWorks remake of Who Framed Roger Rabbit. The scene in which they played Quidditch looked like a remake Space Jam but with flying brooms and the cast of The Polar Express as the Looney Tunes.

The movie does leave me wondering about many things that it did not explain well, and there’s not much of an excuse for that since the movie had so much time to explain itself (I mean really, two and a half hours is a lot). However, it succeeded in making me get so attached to the characters and enchanted by this world that I really want to watch the sequels now, so I guess it did its job. For this reason, and because John Cleese, I think it’s definitely a film worth watching if you haven’t.