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Well, I'm on the fence about this one. I really, REALLY wanted this to be my new favorite movie, it drat well should have, given the source material. However, something just didn't gel with me about the movie. First off, the beginning was terrible, a hell of a way to start a movie, much less 'end a partnership'. The title sequence looked like something I could whip up in iMovie in about 10 minutes, and then out of nowhere the movie jerks into motion. Madsen was terrible as Willis' partner, and the way they handled Willis' 'Death' was all wrong. It seemed much more intense in the books, but in the movie they played it all out in long shots and it was over relatively quickly. No intensity. Then Marv's story comes along, it was pretty great for the most part. The escape sequence lost some intensity somewhere along the line though, it went by way to drat fast. In about a 60 second timeframe Marv is attacked by the cops and subsequently miles away from them. (This brings up another problem with the movie, I think they should have left out THE BIG FAT KILL entirely and just let marv and hartigan's stories duke it out. But because they shoved TBFK in there, the wntire movie felt extremely rushed pacing wise. There were a seldom few moments of reflection and pause, which I think would have helped the movie out a lot. You can't have tension and excitement for an entire movie without grating on the audiences nerves a little bit.) Kevins bit was well done, he managed to be pretty creepy most of the time. The audience let out a giggle or two during that shot of him standing outside the prison cell however. The posing was all off, he looked smarmy, not menacingly gleeful. Also, the composition of the shot of limbless kevin was stupid, he looked like a childs toy. The entire audience scoffed at that. Roarke was good, Rutger Hauer needs more movie roles. His death was handled cheesily however. And finally, marv's electric chair conclusion was done well. I think we can all agree that we knew marv was too big of a badass to just let one 1000 volt jolt of electricity bring him down. Im going to skip over the big fat kill because it was the best paced portion of the movie, say what you will about the story, but this segment is where the movie really picks up. My only problems were Micheal Clarke Duncan's ridiculous sideslap to Gails face, and the way jackie boy's face exploded . You could see the cgi from a mile away. Otherwise, very well done. Ah, we finally reach the conclusion to THAT YELLOW BASTARD. Hartigan is played perfectly by Willis. I'd have to say this, in my eyes, is brucie boy's finest acting job. That scream he let out in prison was heartwrenching. Also, nick stahl did a great job with 'junior', he really nailed the 'loving stupid piece of poo poo rat' character perfectly. Alba did a decent enough job as well, although she wasn't given much to work with. Oh, and who can forget the "This is THE END" part? You could feel the tension floating around the theater at that point. The way the movie was going I don't think any of them would have been surprised if that ended up being true. As for the bad, The music in this segment was the worst in the entire film. The club techno was outrageous, (GG using an average song i've heard about a thousand times in tv commercials for the past three years) and that hilarious 'epic' tune that was played over hartigans infiltration into the roarke farm was terrible. It instantly reminded me of the godawful score from THE PUNISHER. One more gripe was the way they shot Hartigan's death[spoiler]. I thought the image from the books of him [spoiler]laying in the snow with a cloud of steam pouring out of his head was much, much more endearing. The shot of the splatter blasting out of the back of his head did nothing for me. I actually think it killed that whole segment for me. Despite all of my gripes and overanalyzations, I liked the movie. I just liked it, that's all. I'm a little disappointed with the end product, as I think they got a little too carried away with making it "HEY GUYS ITS JUST THE SAME loving THING AS THE BOOKS". I'm going to see it again tomarrow, and maybe I'll come away with a more favorable impression now that i've gotten all of it's problems out of my system. I'm giving it a 4 out of 5. Not perfect, It could have been though. It could have been. EDIT: Did anyone else experience a lot of disgust from other audience members after leaving the theatre? It seems like everyone was in a zombified daze after leaving, and a lot of them were moaning about the violence. (Women, all of them. The guys were just going crazy about how awesome it was) I think the average movie goer was confused about how their favorite actors were doing those things on screen, and i think the whole movie was sort of a blast to the nuts to them. They're probably still reeling too.
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Apr 2, 2005 09:52
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| # ¿ Apr 29, 2024 01:30 |
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