Wednesday, June 20, 2012

Snow White and the Huntsman

(2012, Rupert Sanders)

Okay I like Kristen Stewart and I like Chris Hemsworth and this movie is filled with great character actors (Bob Hoskins, Ian McShane, Ray Winstone, Nick Frost, Toby Jones, Eddie Marsan, etc.) and has some solid effects, lensing, and costumes in places. Overall this was a fun tale if I was 12 I think I would have been crazy about this movie. I thought the ending was flat and then I realized. . . oh, a sequel cometh. Kristen Stewart double-punch action, dwarfs, faeries, the White Heart, Judeo-Christian-Celtic-y-mish-mash, a troll, and hallucinogenic fungi.  The soundtrack was "meh" by James Newton Howard. Charlize Theron is solid as the evil queen Ravenna. 6/7

Wednesday, June 13, 2012

Prometheus

(Ridley Scott, 2012)

So I never thought it would happen. . . a Ridley Scott movie that I didn't really like. So basically this movie looks great(!) and has some fine actors in it but it is poorly developed, illogical drek on many levels. All the characters and subsequent interactions are wooden and at times laughable-- except for the android played by Michael Fassbender.  Seriously-- a biologist who is hired by a multi-trillion dollar company and describes a totally alien organism as a "reptile-like" thing almost mad me laugh out loud.  I imagine a real scientific expedition to an alien world would have the biologist on his hands and knees for hours just outside the space craft.  Their containment/ contagion protocols felt hilarious too.  I felt like the whole time I was watching some BS studio version of the film and not the Director's cut. Totally, utterly predictable for anyone who knows the Alien films. Some great FX and production design and some cruddy make-up too. Weird. Thanks Ridley Scott for disappointing me.  Weak sci-fi, weak aliens/ monsters, just weak. . . . Oh yeah Noomi Rapace still rules and can do no wrong. (5/7)

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