Things don't bode well for King Arthur
May. 29th, 2004 08:17 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
gwynI finally caught up on the two big fannishly oriented early summer movie blockbusters, Van Helsing and Troy, and what a pair of craptastic, bombastic, overdone, bloated pieces of crap they were. But the eye candy! THE EYE CANDY! That's really all you can say for either of them, if you ask me, and I suppose that's good enough, but it definitely leaves me feeling like those will not be among the future DVD purchases (unless Troy features some deleted scenes of Sean Bean thighage), and I'm scared at what it will mean for King Arthur -- the movie I'm most looking forward to this summer.
I knew Troy wouldn't be a good movie -- I mean, Brad Pitt with the faux English I'm-acting-a-classical-role-here accent, the fact that they jettisoned most of the familiar story of the Trojan war, and all that action emphasis, pretty much tell you ahead of time what you'll get. I think the washed out film way overemphasized the cheesy low-rent CGI, so that battle scenes just looked fake and flat, as did buildings and backdrops. The film is surprisingly dull considering that it follows the action movie formula -- start with big fight, go expository, another big fight, exposition as dialog and more standing around talking, big fight, talking, big fight and loss, talking, and so on. There were times I could barely stay awake waiting for my next glimpse of Eric Bana's pecs or Sean's shoulders.
And many people have commented on how Helen is nothing special, certainly not enough to launch maybe even a hundred ships, and I have to agree -- she's working real hard on the Keira Knightley squint affectation, but it wasn't playing here -- I thought Hector's wife would have made a much, much better Helen, more believable. And honestly, though Brad doesn't do a thing for me normally, I did like the rock star (complete with groupies! The way everyone flocked around him just cracked me up) pout and hair, and the whole no one understands me thang he had going. You could tell that Pitt thought he was being risky with the teasing almost-nudity here, but I thought it would have been much riskier if they'd have jettisoned the tacked on romance with de rigeur babe and done the truly risky thing of having the more true to story romance with Patroclus, instead of sticking the glaring neon sign blinking "cousin! he's my cousin!" over the two actors' heads. That would have been a lot riskier than carefully shadowed body shots and glimpses of ass or runner's girdle that we ended up with instead. God forbid we should take a real risk in a summer major motion picture. (Though, regardless, I did like Brad's buff bod and the golden lion braids.)
And it's hard to completely hate a movie that has pretty much everyone in it -- criminy, even Nigel Terry shows up! So many wonderful, obscure Euro actors and even Tommy, the dead kid from Miracles, not to mention the freaky Meg Foster-eyes guy from Fifth Element and The Messenger (as Eudorus). So it's like a great spot the actor wing-ding. I just wish it hadn't been a wing ding with hammers to beat us on the head with. I can't quite figure out what happened to Wolfgang Peterson -- he used to be such a good filmmaker. It was sad to see how formulaic and by the numbers this turned out to be. I wonder if anyone is going to be able to make an action-based movie anymore that doesn't follow this up-down-up-down standard, because it's boring and annoying, to me, anyway. And besides, I'd much rather sacrifice some of these CGI battles for some great sitting around jawing scenes by great actors. I like Brendan Gleeson the more I see him (what a great, bellowing bull of an actor he is), I worship Brian Cox when he chews scenery, and Peter O'Toole got more of a performance out of Orlando Bloom in their brief scenes together than the rest of the movie got out of him. Sean had so little to do it hurt, and when he was coming up with the idea of the Trojan Horse, you could practically see the lightbulb over his head. I loved Eric Bana in Black Hawk Down (he did an excellent job of capturing the quality of the real life character described in Bowden's book), not so much in Hulk, so it was lovely to see his work here (I still would like to see him in Chopper, just to see what he can do) and how strong he was as a central character.
And I have to agree with my buddy Keiko Kirin, who made a very smart comment about how little the religious aspects had to do with this story once they jettisoned Homer's premise. Since so much of their lives at that time were ruled by beliefs in the gods, by reducing it to a few random references to Apollo and Ares, you take away a lot of what was significant to the motivations of people of that time. It becomes strangely modernistic, though not necessarily in a good way. The moral issues are reduced to the personal (especially whiny Achilles self-involvement), and I had to wonder why on earth you'd even keep the reference to Achilles's heel if you take out the whole reationship to the world of gods thing, anyway.
When movies like this get boring and by the numbers, I find my attention wandering, and questioning all the events. I couldn't quite wrap my mind around why, if it was so important to have the funeral rites Hector talked about before his battle with Achilles, the archers didn't just shoot Achilles since he was in range -- instead everyone stands around looking sad and doing nothing. But then I can answer my own question: Peter wouldn't have had his great chance to have more to do in his scene in the Greek camp. And then they top it off with that execrable song at the end, yet another Horner attempt at the big movie hit song. I couldn't even last long enough to hear it out, it's the first song that's ever driven me out of a theatre before the credits ended.
I love cheesy campy fun movies that know they're silly, like The Order or Brotherhood of the Wolf, but Van Helsing took itself so seriously that even the formulaic up and down stuff just wore on me to my last nerve. Outside of the comic relief of David Wenham, who somehow managed to transcend that awful hair, and the glimpses of wolfman chest and Jackman chest, I could not wait for that movie to end -- and thought it never would. It didn't help having some really rude and noisy people come sit next to me 15 min. in and spend about ten minutes coordinating the children and barking orders at them, and then the stupid mother sitting on my hand as I tried to move my stuff (and I snapped "that's my hand your fat ass is on you cow" and she totally didn't even understand). I was cranky already, so the movie just made me crankier in its dragged-out overdone bloatedness. That clock striking midnight was certainly the longest clock in the history of the universe.
I'm pretty sure, because of who's directing King Arthur, that it's not going to be much of an improvement on Troy and Van Helsing. It looks like there's be just as much male pulchritudity though, and all I can hope for is that it's at least less boring in the between-battles parts than these are, and that the drawn out battles are less sleep-inducing. I want Arthur to succeed, I guess because poor Clive has been hovering on the brink of this kind of success for a long time, and I'd like that for him, but... I have a feeling it'll fit neatly into the same slots that Van Helsing and Troy have, and I'm not sure if even that much gorgeous male flesh (the shots I've seen of Clive and Ioan have just left me breathless) will keep me awake and not gritting my teeth in a minor rage.
I knew Troy wouldn't be a good movie -- I mean, Brad Pitt with the faux English I'm-acting-a-classical-role-here accent, the fact that they jettisoned most of the familiar story of the Trojan war, and all that action emphasis, pretty much tell you ahead of time what you'll get. I think the washed out film way overemphasized the cheesy low-rent CGI, so that battle scenes just looked fake and flat, as did buildings and backdrops. The film is surprisingly dull considering that it follows the action movie formula -- start with big fight, go expository, another big fight, exposition as dialog and more standing around talking, big fight, talking, big fight and loss, talking, and so on. There were times I could barely stay awake waiting for my next glimpse of Eric Bana's pecs or Sean's shoulders.
And many people have commented on how Helen is nothing special, certainly not enough to launch maybe even a hundred ships, and I have to agree -- she's working real hard on the Keira Knightley squint affectation, but it wasn't playing here -- I thought Hector's wife would have made a much, much better Helen, more believable. And honestly, though Brad doesn't do a thing for me normally, I did like the rock star (complete with groupies! The way everyone flocked around him just cracked me up) pout and hair, and the whole no one understands me thang he had going. You could tell that Pitt thought he was being risky with the teasing almost-nudity here, but I thought it would have been much riskier if they'd have jettisoned the tacked on romance with de rigeur babe and done the truly risky thing of having the more true to story romance with Patroclus, instead of sticking the glaring neon sign blinking "cousin! he's my cousin!" over the two actors' heads. That would have been a lot riskier than carefully shadowed body shots and glimpses of ass or runner's girdle that we ended up with instead. God forbid we should take a real risk in a summer major motion picture. (Though, regardless, I did like Brad's buff bod and the golden lion braids.)
And it's hard to completely hate a movie that has pretty much everyone in it -- criminy, even Nigel Terry shows up! So many wonderful, obscure Euro actors and even Tommy, the dead kid from Miracles, not to mention the freaky Meg Foster-eyes guy from Fifth Element and The Messenger (as Eudorus). So it's like a great spot the actor wing-ding. I just wish it hadn't been a wing ding with hammers to beat us on the head with. I can't quite figure out what happened to Wolfgang Peterson -- he used to be such a good filmmaker. It was sad to see how formulaic and by the numbers this turned out to be. I wonder if anyone is going to be able to make an action-based movie anymore that doesn't follow this up-down-up-down standard, because it's boring and annoying, to me, anyway. And besides, I'd much rather sacrifice some of these CGI battles for some great sitting around jawing scenes by great actors. I like Brendan Gleeson the more I see him (what a great, bellowing bull of an actor he is), I worship Brian Cox when he chews scenery, and Peter O'Toole got more of a performance out of Orlando Bloom in their brief scenes together than the rest of the movie got out of him. Sean had so little to do it hurt, and when he was coming up with the idea of the Trojan Horse, you could practically see the lightbulb over his head. I loved Eric Bana in Black Hawk Down (he did an excellent job of capturing the quality of the real life character described in Bowden's book), not so much in Hulk, so it was lovely to see his work here (I still would like to see him in Chopper, just to see what he can do) and how strong he was as a central character.
And I have to agree with my buddy Keiko Kirin, who made a very smart comment about how little the religious aspects had to do with this story once they jettisoned Homer's premise. Since so much of their lives at that time were ruled by beliefs in the gods, by reducing it to a few random references to Apollo and Ares, you take away a lot of what was significant to the motivations of people of that time. It becomes strangely modernistic, though not necessarily in a good way. The moral issues are reduced to the personal (especially whiny Achilles self-involvement), and I had to wonder why on earth you'd even keep the reference to Achilles's heel if you take out the whole reationship to the world of gods thing, anyway.
When movies like this get boring and by the numbers, I find my attention wandering, and questioning all the events. I couldn't quite wrap my mind around why, if it was so important to have the funeral rites Hector talked about before his battle with Achilles, the archers didn't just shoot Achilles since he was in range -- instead everyone stands around looking sad and doing nothing. But then I can answer my own question: Peter wouldn't have had his great chance to have more to do in his scene in the Greek camp. And then they top it off with that execrable song at the end, yet another Horner attempt at the big movie hit song. I couldn't even last long enough to hear it out, it's the first song that's ever driven me out of a theatre before the credits ended.
I love cheesy campy fun movies that know they're silly, like The Order or Brotherhood of the Wolf, but Van Helsing took itself so seriously that even the formulaic up and down stuff just wore on me to my last nerve. Outside of the comic relief of David Wenham, who somehow managed to transcend that awful hair, and the glimpses of wolfman chest and Jackman chest, I could not wait for that movie to end -- and thought it never would. It didn't help having some really rude and noisy people come sit next to me 15 min. in and spend about ten minutes coordinating the children and barking orders at them, and then the stupid mother sitting on my hand as I tried to move my stuff (and I snapped "that's my hand your fat ass is on you cow" and she totally didn't even understand). I was cranky already, so the movie just made me crankier in its dragged-out overdone bloatedness. That clock striking midnight was certainly the longest clock in the history of the universe.
I'm pretty sure, because of who's directing King Arthur, that it's not going to be much of an improvement on Troy and Van Helsing. It looks like there's be just as much male pulchritudity though, and all I can hope for is that it's at least less boring in the between-battles parts than these are, and that the drawn out battles are less sleep-inducing. I want Arthur to succeed, I guess because poor Clive has been hovering on the brink of this kind of success for a long time, and I'd like that for him, but... I have a feeling it'll fit neatly into the same slots that Van Helsing and Troy have, and I'm not sure if even that much gorgeous male flesh (the shots I've seen of Clive and Ioan have just left me breathless) will keep me awake and not gritting my teeth in a minor rage.
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no subject
Date: 2004-05-29 10:45 pm (UTC)Ack! No! I hope not - I'm putting all of my summer movie hopes on Arthur. Guinevere with flaming arrows - how can that be bad? :) I saw 'Day After Tomorrow' today (heh) and it fit exactly what I expected of it, so I thoroughly enjoyed it. Still haven't seen Troy or Van Helsing yet.
no subject
Date: 2004-06-02 11:41 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-05-30 01:07 am (UTC)Just as a matter of interest have you ever seen the British TV version of Lorna Doone with Clive Owen as John Ridd and Sean Bean as Carver Doone? It's not the best adaptation ever but the eye candy is superb (and the slash potential is very interesting *g*).
no subject
Date: 2004-06-02 11:22 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-05-30 04:06 am (UTC)I could get into that.
no subject
Date: 2004-06-02 11:24 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-05-30 09:21 am (UTC)I agree, completely. Hadn't ever seen him before but was quite impressed with him here.
And I have to agree with my buddy Keiko Kirin, who made a very smart comment about how little the religious aspects had to do with this story once they jettisoned Homer's premise. Since so much of their lives at that time were ruled by beliefs in the gods, by reducing it to a few random references to Apollo and Ares, you take away a lot of what was significant to the motivations of people of that time. It becomes strangely modernistic, though not necessarily in a good way. The moral issues are reduced to the personal (especially whiny Achilles self-involvement), and I had to wonder why on earth you'd even keep the reference to Achilles's heel if you take out the whole reationship to the world of gods thing, anyway.
Yes. So very yes. They tried to use this sort of reasoning and motivation to justify the otherwise both silly and suicidal acceptance of the Horse, but as this whole layer had been ignored before, it all felt tacked-on and artificial.
no subject
Date: 2004-05-30 11:39 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-05-30 04:15 pm (UTC)*Cheers*
no subject
Date: 2004-05-30 08:39 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-06-02 11:39 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-06-02 11:40 am (UTC)