posted
Here's one for all those who've been complaining about the domination of Stargate threads over the General Sci-Fi forum!
Wow. I had been looking forward to this film all year, and I am pleased to say that it did not disappoint me a bit. Saw it this evening and was completely enveloped by it. It was like a 2-hour visual orgasm for nerds such as myself and, I suspect, for the other members of this board as well. I was left with a pleasant euphoric feeling upon leaving the theater.
There hasn't been as great an homage film since the original Star Wars and Raiders of the Lost Ark. Absolutely packed with rich, delightful references to everything from Buck Rodgers and Flash Gordon to Fritz Lang's Metropolis and Max Fleischer's Superman cartoons to King Kong to War of the Worlds and beyond. Wonderful wonderful wonderful.
The look of the piece is absolutely stunning. I've heard it derided because of it's "over-reliance" on CGI, but believe me, it works. Boy, does it ever work. It is obvious that a tremendous amount of care and effort went into everything, put forth by people who knew their source material and did their damnedest to pay it worthy tribute. The digital imagery wasn't distracting (as was sometimes the case with the SW prequels) but rather blended together with the live action elements to create an integrated, synergistic cascade of visuals that bombarded my poor nerd brain to the effect of so much ecstasy.
Mind you, it does not in any way look realistic, but it looks authentic, if that makes any sense. They captured the "feel" of the old serials PERFECTLY. A lot of this stuff is fairly physically impossible (i.e., airplanes flying underwater, aircraft carriers in the sky, ray guns, giant robots, etc.) but yet even realizing this does not take away from its believability on the screen. Suspension of disbelief, for me at lease, was complete. (And that has always been a big part of this sort of thing, harkening back to when people went into movie theaters to be temporarily swept away from the day-to-day horrors of the Gread Depression.)
The script and acting is not lacking, either, so long as one considers that the writers and players are deliberately trying to emulate those by-gone days of evil plots (and evil plot devices ) and swashbuckling adventure. There is a wistful innocence about the characters, but yet a layer of complexity and imperfection has also been injected into them, as demonstrated particularly by the somewhat tense romance between the Hero (Jude Law) and his female-reporter-companion (Gwyneth Paltrow). Perhaps they're not exceedingly "deep" characters, but certainly not one-dimensional either. And all I have to say about Angelina Jolie is HOT HOT HOT!
This movie was made for people like us, and it kept me going from the first frame to the last. I hope you all will find it as enjoyable.
-MMoM
-------------------- The flaws we find most objectionable in others are often those we recognize in ourselves.
Registered: Jun 2001
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posted
I can see this going the way of my Van Helsing thread, where it gets one reply and then falls away into oblivion. Is this just because no one has seen the film yet? (Perhaps because it hasn't been released in your country yet?) Or is it something about my review threads that fails to attract people?
-------------------- The flaws we find most objectionable in others are often those we recognize in ourselves.
Registered: Jun 2001
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posted
I'm going to see it TUesday so I'll post something witty then.
quote:Like I've said before, any movie with giant robots and Angelina Jolie is an instant hit.
I thought Jolie was a robot.
-------------------- Justice inclines her scales so that wisdom comes at the price of suffering. -Aeschylus, Agamemnon
Registered: Aug 2002
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posted
Fembot actually. The T-850 version, with prominent lips and milksacks to conform with current western beauty ideals, perfected for infiltration. It is bubbly, cloying and happy.
-------------------- "I'm nigh-invulnerable when I'm blasting!" Mel Gibson, X-Men
Registered: Aug 1999
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posted
Well, I still have not seen it. We've got yet another Hurricane hitting us this weekend so everyone is just renting movies, buying beer and staying the fuck indoors.
I dig the Max Fliescher robots a lot though: great homage there.
-------------------- Justice inclines her scales so that wisdom comes at the price of suffering. -Aeschylus, Agamemnon
Registered: Aug 2002
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posted
Just saw it this past weekend, and I really liked it. It was fun for a couple of hours of (mostly) mindless entertainment. The opening scene with the Hindenberg III docking at the Empire State Building really set the tone, as well as the near-sepia way the colors were done.
Okay, big giant robots aside, I was thinking (at first) about the innacuracies with the P-40 Warhawk, wondering where the back seat came from and how it was able to do extremely high-G turns without breaking up. Then it retracted its propellor blades, dove into the water and sprouted screws. THAT'S the point where my mind was able to shrug off any concept of reality and really enjoy the movie.
I'm sure everyone saw the 1138 on the door of the scientist's lab. Were there any other more subtle references or tributes I might have missed?
posted
I liked this movie a lot, though I have a few gripes.
I thought they flumped on the character building, we got no background or purpose of Dex other than "buddy and gizmo-freak", when Joe mentioned him to Cook to get her to help him, I felt "Why? what does he mean to her? Tell us!!".
Also, the whole "Totenkopf" (german for skull, we swedes say "d�dskalle", dead skull) being dead and the heroes having fought effectively nobody but lifeless objects for 90 minutes, it felt like a copout, like getting cheated. They wanted to do all the clich�s of 40's swashbuckler flicks, how could they deny us the mad scientist laughing into a microphone??? Lastly ending his life in a "I die, Horatio" speech.
And the tibetan fembot was way too underused, too short fights. And Joe should've kissed Polly properly before the ending, the lens cap remark made their relationship feel more platonic then ever, although the joke was fun.
Technical questions: Why did Polly see her name in the water reflection of Joe's plane registry?? Had the visit to Shangri-La given her mutant code/language-translation powers? Also, she analyzed that german button text on the rocket to see the emergency label.
I don't remember what Joe's plane registry (written on the side) was, but if it was only letters, maybe he indeed had written Polly's name in Tibetan, and she couldn't see it until she'd gotten the Shangri-La upgrade feat.
Thoguhutas?
-------------------- "I'm nigh-invulnerable when I'm blasting!" Mel Gibson, X-Men
Registered: Aug 1999
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posted
The registry on the side of the plane was "h11 0d", which I thought was an odd registry, even for a mercenary outfit. It was just "polly" written upside down.
![[Razz]](tongue.gif)
) and swashbuckling adventure. There is a wistful innocence about the characters, but yet a layer of complexity and imperfection has also been injected into them, as demonstrated particularly by the somewhat tense romance between the Hero (Jude Law) and his female-reporter-companion (Gwyneth Paltrow). Perhaps they're not exceedingly "deep" characters, but certainly not one-dimensional either. And all I have to say about Angelina Jolie is HOT HOT HOT!![[Big Grin]](biggrin.gif)
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