Reviews – Page 18 – Blue Ink Alchemy

Tag: Reviews (page 18 of 36)

Movie Review: Salt

Thanks to my friends at Geekadelphia, my wife and I were able to enjoy an advance screening of Salt. We walked out of it wondering the same thing: why is a movie dealing with a villain put to bed twenty years ago coming out now?

Remember how Yahtzee equated the United States to a prize fighter who keeps yelling at his old rival Russia because they didn’t have a proper title match? “Last I checked, it hasn’t been 1979 for at least 10 years.” In that case he was talking about Battlefield Bad Company 2, but it seems this unfortunate backwards-looking form of inspiration has reached Hollywood as well. Despite the fact that there are all sorts of punching bags for an espionage thriller that’s also a vehicle for Angelina Jolie, Kurt Wimmer’s Salt manages the feat of bringing the Soviet Union’s labyrinthine intelligence plotting back from the dead as an engine to drive the film’s plot.

The plot introduces us to Evelyn Salt, a CIA operative married to an arachnid expert. She’s getting ready to enjoy her anniversary when a Russian defector walks into her office claiming to have vital information. Placed in an interrogation room with Salt, the defector reveals that he has knowledge of a presidential assassination plot going down in New York City in 24 hours. He even knows the name of the assassin: Evelyn Salt. Pointed out as a possible mole, unable to reach her husband and trapped in her own office building, Salt needs to facilitate an escape and find a way to prove her innocence. Or carry out her role in the assassination plot. Or go on vacation. Or get her nails done. The question I asked myself while actually watching Salt was, “What the hell is she up to?” he desire to see what exactly her plan was kept me going all the way to the end credits.

A lot is made of the identity of Evelyn Salt, and to the credit of Wimmer’s script, Philip Noyce’s direction and Angelina Jolie’s acting, we’re never quite sure who’s side she’s on. She conveys emotion when she has to and turns it off when it’s time to kick ass – par for the course from the creator of Equilibrium. The film seems aware of the fact that it’s a vehicle for Jolie, and never really gets in her way. We’re never out of sight from our leading lady for more than a minute. Her performance here is definitely more in the vein of Wanted than Changeling, but she’s at least somewhat interesting to watch.

In fact, the cast isn’t uninteresting and does rather well all around. None of the performances feel forced, none of the actors gnaw on the scenery and they’re given interesting stuff to do. Liev Schreiber has quickly grown on me as a supporting actor, with a quiet intensity and growling voice that isn’t overshadowed by Angelina’s presence. Chiwetel Ejiofor isn’t bad, either, channeling a bit of the drive that informed his performance as the Operative in Serenity. The script is fine, never going into camp territory or stopping to wink at the audience. The action is at least somewhat inventive in places and it’s shot well by Noyce, never becoming too confusing or too loud, a tip some other directors could take. In fact, all of these elements make it a more-than-decent thriller, and a thrill ride besides.

But the best writing and acting in the world can’t overcome a bad premise. It’s like building a brilliantly designed and carefully constructed house on a beach with bricks of sand as your foundation. It’s not going to end well. Salt never completely collapses, but the idea that the spectre of Soviet aggression would rise up from the shadows of the past to seek revenge on America for a war that never got to the shooting stages and resolved itself almost two decades ago is pretty preposterous. I can think of at least a few people who will see this film, take it as at least partial fact, and use it as just another thing that we should be afraid of, in addition to terrorism, socialist medicine, communist market oversight and fascist environmental controls. BE AFRAID. WE ARE THE GOVERNMENT. OBEY US.

Dammit, there I go getting political again. I told my ~~controller~~ ~~therapist~~ very patient readers I wouldn’t do that any more.

*twitch*

Since posting this review on the Escapist the night I saw it, I’ve gotten some stick for apparently being ‘naive’ and ignoring the threat that Russia presents to America. The thing is, though, I know we’re going to get spied on. Espionage does not automatically mean open conflict. In fact, if it gets to the point of a car chase or a gunfight, the espionage has failed. So, when the US busted that Russian spy ring recently, was I surprised? Not really. I’m sure the US has spies all over the world as we speak. I do see the point made to me about not being naive in terms of espionage happening right now, but I have to opine the idea that espionage inevitably leads to open conflict is very far-fetched. To anticipate that sort of hostility is to live in perpetual fear, and that is something I refuse to do.

Stuff I Liked: Decent script, well-shot action and a brisk pace.
Stuff I Didn’t Like: Dammit, leave Russia alone. The war’s over.
Stuff I Loved: If I loved anything, it was seeing Angelina kicking ass and seeing how creatively she was dealing with the people she didn’t kill.

Bottom Line: It’s not a bad movie. It’s a decent little espionage thriller that suffers from the aforementioned idiotic premise. You’d be okay if you wait for it to come out on video. There are other movies out there that deserve to be seen in a cinema. Like Inception.

Movie Review: Inception

July 24, 2010 / BlueInkAlchemist / 12 Comments

I’ve been a fan of writer/director Christopher Nolan’s work since his shatteringly brilliant Memento. He’s breathed new life into Batman with two equally stunning films, and his somewhat underrated adaptation of the novel The Prestige is every bit as haunting and cerebral as his other work. This year, he brings us Inception. Not only is it probably the best film you’ll see all summer, if not all year, it’s also the best film of Nolan’s career to date.

Yep. Better than The Dark Knight, better than Memento.

The tag line for the film is “Your mind is the scene of the crime.” The concept is that technology originally developed to allow military recruits to train against each other in a consequence-free dreamscape is now being used by professional thieves to steal information from others’ minds in their dreams. This requires the participation of an architect to build the world of the dream, a chemist to balance the drugs required to keep the mark and the team under, a forger who creates cyphers to assist or distract the mark, a point man to keep the mental defenses of the mark’s subconscious at bay, and an extractor to get their hands on the information. Everybody involved needs to remained focused and calm, which is a problem for the extractor, Cobb, whose own subconscious is breaking into the dream worlds his team have built. He needs to go home, and to do so, industrialist Saito offers him one last job – not to steal an idea, but to implant one, a process considered to be impossible and known as inception.

If he hadn’t become a filmmaker, Christopher Nolan may have become a renowned illusionist, the sort of stage practitioner that leaves the crowd breathless and wondering how exactly he pulled off his trick. What’s particularly amazing about Nolan’s work is, not only are we aware that he’s manipulating events like a master puppeteer, he goes out of his way to show us the strings before he leads down a labyrinth of ideas and environments, daring us to keep up. We caught glimpses of this in Memento and The Prestige, but Inception takes this to a whole new level. The rules of the dream, the logic behind the flow of time within the subconscious and the ways in which the mind moves to protect itself are explained in great detail, Nolan shows us how these constructs work, and then takes us on a journey that has us questioning what rules, if any, were broken, and how the story arrives at its conclusion, to say nothing of what that conclusion actually is.

Inception would not work anywhere near as well as it does if it didn’t have such an excellent, top-caliber cast. Leonardo DiCaprio as Cobb the extractor continues to shine in the sort of edgy, mature, hard-bitten roles that have caused me to embrace him as a fantastic actor. He gives Cobb a great deal of haunted depth, and has the burden of carrying the bulk of the film’s emotional and philosophical weight. He does so with grace and not a hint of exertion, drawing us deeper and deeper into the realm of Cobb’s mind.

But that doesn’t mean the rest of the cast is just phoning it in. Everybody’s in top form here. Joseph Gordon-Levitt, who apparently can totally rock a suit no matter what film he’s in, seems dedicated to keeping Cobb grounded to keep his job as point man from being to difficult, while Tom Hardy (who thankfully has put that Shinzon debacle far behind him) encourages everyone around him to use their imaginations while he forges the tools they need to pull off their heist. Ken Watanabe shows us many dimensions as Saito, a man who is both the cause for Cobb’s predicament on this last job and the apparent key to his freedom. Cillian Murphy as the mark is more that just a dupe, but to say more would be giving away plot information. And Ellen Page, who’s quickly become one of my favorite young actresses, conveys Ariadne as both the eager young architect recruited by Cobb and the voice of reason inside his head. If Saito has the key to Cobb’s freedom, Ariadne has the key to preventing the interference caused by Mal, played with sublime menace by Marion Cotillard.

Yes, her name is ‘Ariadne’, as in ‘mistress of the labyrinth’. There’s a lot of symbolism in Inception. Since we’re dealing almost entirely in the realm of dreams for the running time of this film, and dreams are populated by people, places and things that hold special meaning for the dreamer, quite a few things that happen between the first shot and the last seem to invite us to interpret them. Christopher Nolan is a skilled storyteller, so the film never verges into completely obscurantist territory like 2001 does, and even as symbols come and go, the plot remains taut and the characters clearly motivated. As I said, Nolan’s confident enough in his skill to show us the strings. That doesn’t mean that those very strings we’re shown can’t be used to mess with our heads.

I admit I had a squeal of delight when Ariadne asks the question, “What happens when you start messing with the physics?” It’s something I never quite got about The Matrix. If you were in complete control of the world around you, why not start messing with things the way she does? The way the real world interacts with the dream world leads to some very interesting situations, from a quick laugh at the beginning of the heist to one of the most inventive and breathtaking fight sequences I have seen in a very, very long time. Not only does Joseph Gorden-Levitt rock that suit, he does what was probably a rather complicated stunt without seeming to break a sweat. The guy’s a pro.

This is a film I will be watching many more times for many years to come. It’s Christopher Nolan’s best film to date, and it will be damn hard to top. I’d love to go see it again right now, in theaters, as the big screen perfectly captures the scope, power and danger of the worlds built within our dreams. However, it’ll also be great on DVD, so that the film can be paused, rewound and analysed with friends over drinks to try and figure out what exactly it all means. I for one can’t wait for those evenings.

A lot’s been said about the ending of Inception. I’ve tried very hard not to give away any spoilers, but let me voice my opinion to the best of my ability. Christopher Nolan is not a bad storyteller. He gives us all the clues we need to figure out exactly what Inception is and means, to him and to us. He doesn’t take the Kubrick & Clark route, of trying to raise many more questions than he answers. He wants us to understand. He encourages us to figure it out. And he provides everything we need to solve the puzzle. The challenge is… can we?

I’d like to think I can. I just need to see it again. A few times. It’s an amazing film, one of the best I’ve seen in a long time, and if ever there was an excuse for me to sell a major organ to afford a high-def television and a PlayStation 3 in anticipation of a film coming out on Blu-ray, Inception would be it. This one’s going to be in my head and in my heart for a long, long time.

Stuff I Liked: Beautifully shot, written and executed. The various dreams are distinctive and gorgeous. The touches of humor are brilliantly timed and delivered. It’s subtle, cerebral and packed with action.
Stuff I Didn’t Like: I am going to miss that kidney I have to sell.
Stuff I Loved: Very strong characters portrayed by skilled, damn good-looking actors. A totally immersive storytelling experience I won’t soon forget. It made me think. It still does.

Bottom Line: You owe it to yourself to see Inception in the cinema. Find where it’s playing and go see it. It might be the best way you’ll spend money on entertainment all year, and it’ll stay with you long after the credits roll. Go. See. This. Film.

IT CAME FROM NETFLIX! Sherlock Holmes

July 23, 2010 / BlueInkAlchemist / 2 Comments

[audio:http://www.blueinkalchemy.com/uploads/holmes.mp3]

Necessity is the mother of invention. Along with being something Sherlock Holmes himself might utter while investigating a case, this idiom is also the reason I’m reviewing Guy Ritchie’s recent feature-film treatment of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s detective. I was originally planning to subject myself to the apparent mediocrity of The Taking of Pelham 123, since it’s been a while since I’ve found a movie average enough to warrant my ire, but my financial situation has caused Netflix to give me dirty looks instead of instantly streaming movies until I get my act together. Surprisingly, though, my desire to sound more like a critic and less like a fanboy is still going to be satisfied. You see, if it weren’t for the presence of Holmes & Watson, Sherlock Holmes would feel a lot like a movie that’s trying to both follow the lead of Pirates of the Caribbean and shamelessly appeal to the steampunk kids.

When it comes to Victorian England it’s hard to imagine a detective with more fame, quirks and intensity than Sherlock Holmes. He’s often called in by Scotland Yard to help them solve the more baffling crimes that cross their desk, when he isn’t employed by private interests. For years, assistance has come to Holmes in the person of John Watson, an Army veteran and skilled doctor. However, Watson is intending to get married which means he’ll be moving out of their shared living quarters on 221B Baker Street. Holmes is, for his part, unhappy with this situation and thus begins acting out, until the perpetrator of the last case on which the men worked, one Lord Blackwood, apparently rises from the dead. If there’s anybody from London that can figure out how this resurrection worked, it’s Sherlock Holmes.

Then again, neither Encyclopedia Brown nor Nancy Drew had been born yet. The main plot of Sherlock Holmes isn’t really all that mysterious. There’s no real cunning at work that Dan Brown couldn’t cook up to sell a few more novels that have readers picturing Tom Hanks in a hilarious mullet. It isn’t necessarily bad writing, as the facts do come together relatively well without major plot holes. If you pay attention, you can see what’s really going on even as people are bandying about words like “the dark arts” and “sacred order” as if Voldemort’s about to show up. (Wow, I am really going for a high score of pop culture references, aren’t I?)

The definition of bromance.

Now, if that was where the film stopped, just at the not-so-mysterious mystery plot, I’d pass it up. But it gives us something great wrapped around this somewhat mediocre story. Robert Downey Jr. is, to be honest, the sort of Holmes I always envisioned Holmes as being. Now, I’ve enjoyed the portrayal of the legendary detective by the likes of Basil Rathbone and Jeremy Brett, but this disheveled, twitchy, slightly neurotic and way too brilliant for his own good Holmes really strikes a chord with me. Brilliance and madness are separated by only the thinnest of lines, and while past Holmes often play with that division, Downey dances across that line with a sense of abandon that’s a joy to behold. He’s not quite as great as Hugh Laurie’s Doctor House, but he’s pretty damn close.

Over and above Downey’s performance is that of Jude Law as Watson. A lot of people who’ve gotten hold of Doyle’s material seem to think that Holmes should always be the brilliant one and Watson should only play second fiddle, being two steps behind Holmes or so rotund he has trouble keeping up. Guy Ritchie and the writers chuck those previous notions out the window, embracing Watson as an equal to Holmes, not just a straight man to the main act. Again, someone’s been watching episodes of House, since this Watson, which may be the best I’ve ever seen, strikes a resemblance with that mad doctor’s long-suffering best friend, Wilson. Together, Downey and Law have fantastic chemistry that makes the B-plot of Watson’s upcoming marriage every bit as engaging as the arcane conspiracy A-plot tries to be.

“Join me, Holmes, and I’ll make you forget all about Watson. We’ll be together every night.”
“…Blackwood, are you asking me out?”

On top of the two leading men are multiple things for Sherlockians to enjoy. There’s a lot of references to things mentioned even in passing within the pages of Doyle’s 56 short stories and 4 novels featuring Holmes. From a certain bullet pattern to Holmes’ substance abuse, if you pay attention you’ll be able to draw all sorts of parallels and point to where these references are rooted. A reference that requires no research is the presence of Irene Adler, played delightfully by Rachel McAdams. Mentioned in one story as a woman that bested Holmes at his own game, Adler has grown to rather gargantuan proportions in later fan works. The notion that Holmes would occasionally box is ramped up to give the film more action, and a gadget fixation that was tangential at best allows some of the technology of the Victorian era that inspired the steampunk movement to appear along side the two-fisted adventuring and witty banter. None of this is bad, per se, but it does feel at times like a bit of pandering.

The interesting thing is, none of these elements that I’ve taken shots at really stop the film from holding up as a well-paced period adventure. Sherlock Holmes works, and I was entertained pretty much from start to finish. If the mystery had been a little bit more clever I would be tempted to consider it a must-buy. As it is, it’s definitely worth a rental before you decide to buy it. I’m definitely curious to watch it again to see if there are more Doyle references I missed the first time. There’s also the fact I watched it without my wife and she’s going to love this Holmes.

“Blackwood came on to me, if you can believe that.”
“I can indeed. You do look like Tony Stark.”
“…Who?”

In closing, I can’t help but feel like Guy Ritchie cribbed a few notes from Christopher Nolan. Yeah, I know, more pop culture references incoming, but stick with me. At the end of Batman Begins, Gordon hands the Caped Crusader a particular playing card. Guess who showed up in The Dark Knight and pretty much walked away with the whole damn picture? Now, I’m not saying that the similar mention made in Sherlock Holmes is going to result in a similar outcome, but I’ve heard the likes of Chrisoph Waltz and Daniel Day-Lewis are up for the part in question. I think we’ll be finding out next year, and I’ll be trying really hard not to get my hopes up. With a Holmes and Watson this good, could we please have a villain worthy of their abilities that doesn’t come off as over-the-top or campy? Can we please have a sequel to a film based on one of the foundational works responsible for my interest in fiction that works as well as The Two Towers did in relation to Fellowship of the Ring? Guy Ritchie, if you read or hear this, mate, would you please make sure the sequel to Sherlock Holmes doesn’t suck?

Please?

Josh Loomis can’t always make it to the local megaplex, and thus must turn to alternative forms of cinematic entertainment. There might not be overpriced soda pop & over-buttered popcorn, and it’s unclear if this week’s film came in the mail or was delivered via the dark & mysterious tubes of the Internet. Only one thing is certain… IT CAME FROM NETFLIX.

IT CAME FROM NETFLIX! The Hangover

July 18, 2010 / BlueInkAlchemist / 1 Comment

[audio:http://www.blueinkalchemy.com/uploads/hangover.mp3]

Crazy nights and weekends are the stuff modern legends are made of. They do things like deprive you of money, give you interesting hickeys, or keep you from posting a regular blog feature on time. Most of the time, though, you at least have the benefit of remembering how you got into a situation where you need to delay a car payment or explain to your significant other the lipstick on your collar. Or shorts. The three gentlemen at the center of The Hangover, however, don’t have that luxury. The more they discover about the best night of their lives that they can’t remember, the more the audience discovers how surprisingly and raucously funny this movie is.

Normally I’d put the poster here, but I like this shot a lot more and it’s basically the same thing.

The set-up goes something like this: Doug is about to get married. His best man, a schoolteacher named Phil, is taking him to Las Vegas for his bachelor party. Along for the ride are mutual friend & dentist Stu, who is taking the opportunity to escape his shrew of a girlfriend for at least a few hours, and Doug’s brother-in-law-to-be, Alan, a character that can be most charitably described as “quirky.” Upon arriving in Vegas and changing for the night out, Phil takes the group to the roof, toasts with Jagermeister and says that no matter what happens, as far as anybody outside of the four of them are concerned, it didn’t happen. The next morning, Phil, Stu and Alan wake to find their hotel suite a wreck, a chicken wandering in the sitting room, a tiger in the bathroom and a baby in the closet. None of them can remember a thing. Stu’s lost a tooth, Alan’s lost his pants, and worst of all, Phil has lost Doug.

MovieBob has gone on record to say that good comedy is pretty much “review-proof.” You can’t talk at length about the movie’s nuances or artifice without giving away some of the humor and thus diluting the overall experience. Now, granted, Bob was talking about Hot Tub Time Machine which I saw the same night as The Hangover. In my opinion, Hot Tub is good (better than Grandma’s Boy to be sure) but The Hangover is exemplary. Why? Because while I was watching it, when I recovered from the latest fit of laughter, I found myself thinking, “Wow! Somebody actually bothered to write this damn thing!”

The chicken has all of the answers. Shame it can’t talk.

Now, not all comedy required a coherent or even realistic narrative through-line. What The Hangover does just as well as its jokes is show us what can be done when a comedy has a coherent, realistic narrative through-line. As the story unfolds, the film reveals itself not just as a good adult male bonding comedy but also something of a mystery story. And while this is a comedy, it’s not a shallow, easy-to-solve mystery that the Scooby-Doo gang could’ve knocked out. The characters need to piece together what happened over the course of that wild Vegas night, or the bride patiently preparing for the biggest day of her life won’t have a groom to marry. The film’s aware of the ticking clock and makes us aware of it, too, but not in such a way that it becomes too serious or overshadows the laugh. It’s a well-written, well-balanced and very funny script.

Now, it’s not a script that’s terribly original, outside of the ‘we don’t remember what the hell happened last night’ hook. And the characters are pretty stock – Phil’s the cool guy, Stu’s the henpecked guy, and Alan’s just plain weird. Yeah, they’re going to learn lessons about their lives in the midst of their caper, nothing new there. But what works is the fact that these characters, standard fare they may be, are presented with pretty straight-faced aplomb by the leads. Bradley Cooper in particular as Phil carries a lot of the movie, often being the voice of reason just moments after being the smirking handsome enabler of his less-fortunate friends. It’s the kind of thing you’d typically see Bill Murray or Vince Vaughn doing, but Cooper does it very well. Jeffrey Tambor and Heather Graham really shine as well in their supporting roles. The father-in-law character being understanding surprised me, and while the hooker-with-a-heart-of-gold did not, Heather’s still a great actress.

Alan looks a bit like a Jewish gangster in this shot, if you ask me.

I’m running out of things I can discuss without spoiling some very funny jokes, so here’s the last major point I’ll make: one thing that makes The Hangover work so well is a lack of contrivance. With a couple of exceptions, everything that happens in the movie does happen for a reason that makes sense. The presence of the tiger in the bathroom, the car that arrives when the guys hand in their valet ticket, the contents of the Mercedes’ trunk – none of it is resolved in a snap-of-the-fingers kind of way. There’s never a wink at the audience that lesser screenwriters would use to smooth over rough spots in the script.

This isn’t to say that The Hangover is free of flaws. There is a level of predictability to some of the situations, but the ones you don’t see coming will surprise you. The three leads are characters you’ve seen before, sure. But there are other characters and a well-hyped cameo that are surprises in and of themselves. A good joke that’s told well with the right timing is every bit as funny as it is when you first hear it. The Hangover does those jokes very well, and I was surprised at how much I liked it.

If you haven’t seen it already, do so. If you have, it might be worth watching again, especially with some friends who might not have had the privilege. When you do get the DVD from Netflix, though, can someone please tell me why the only difference between a theatrical release and an “unrated version” is a drastically increased amount of hairy man-ass?

Guest Review: Watchmen

July 11, 2010 / BlueInkAlchemist / 0 Comments

Today’s guest post comes to us from Eric LeVan. I have the distinguished pleasure of working with this gentleman on a daily basis. I asked for guest posts and he responded by sending me his thoughts on the movie Watchmen. My original thoughts on it can be found here. Eric’s personal blog is Cheesy Bacon Jesus.

Since it appears that the entire world has a subscription to Netflix, I decided to join up for the free month of snail mail entertainment, and the occasional instavid. One of the first movies I placed in my queue and therefore received was Watchmen.

While the only two comics I’ve ever actually read religiously are The Exiles and Kick-Ass, I generally have a pretty good knowledge of a comic’s back story before I see the motion picture rendition. Watchmen was an exception. Knowing nothing about Watchmen before viewing it, I was amazed to discover that in lieu of being a cookie cutter superhero movie, it was in fact a philosophical challenge of self discovery with the more general theme of the cause and effect of human nature surrounding it.

My expectations were simply another super hero movie that would probably fail to generate any type of connection with its audience–one that was fully meant to appease the general nerd public and to line the pockets of the studio that created it. So easily it seems that the quality of films coming out today suffers through remake after remake and general lack of originality.

Watchmen started off strong with the assassination of The Comedian, a superhero with superior fighting skills, whom at the time I was not sure was a good guy. After the assassination sequence, the film led you down a montage of the past showcasing super heroes who either died or went into hiding in order to avoid the backlash from collateral damage and public unease that their existence seemed to generate. This was all in response to the growing cold war in which Richard Nixon was entering his fourth term as president, a real doppelganger to FDR.

The main plot of the movie is spent looking back through the history of the superheros and their trials and tribulations. The main focus is The Comedian since in present time, the remaining group of super beings is trying to uncover the details of his murder. The Comedian is truly an antihero. He killed his enemies and sometimes civilians without hesitation and he laughs about it only because it’s all one big joke, that in the end, in the grand scheme of the universe, it all truly doesn’t matter. This theme is repeated throughout the movie by the nuclear wonder, Dr. Manhattan.

With Watchmen, I found that I rather enjoyed the occasional non sequitur of deep thought moment to bone crushing violence. It was certainly a far cry from the norm and anyone that knows me knows that I love innovation on existing genres. It felt like I was watching an illegitimate love-child of the X-Men and The Incredibles and I rather enjoyed it.

The character “Dr. Manhattan” weirded me out a bit, however. While he was purported to be an omniscient being, the result of a nuclear experiment gone wrong, he was still taken advantage of in multiple ways, causing him to simply teleport to another galaxy at the end of the movie (spoiler alert, Snape kills Trinity with Rosebud). It begged the question, why had he even joined a “side” in the complex turmoil involved amongst the world’s nations. It was said over and over throughout the movie that he simply didn’t understand humans, yet there was scene where was making guerillas in the Viet Cong explode. As a super-set to all the other superheroes he just didn’t seem to fit among the story very well while still playing a crucial role in its development.

I absolutely loved Rorschach. He was a character that I simply wanted to be. He overcame a childhood of extreme negativity and used it to fuel not only his abilities, but his commitment to truth and justice. His superhero persona was absolutely perfectly fitted to him and wasn’t indicative of the usual “Awesome Man” super-being nomenclature. I truly felt for him throughout the whole movie. Of all the characters, he had only one crisis of conscience throughout the course of the movie, and once he overcame it, he set himself on the right path until the very end.

All around I’d call it a very fun watchable good movie, although the Dr. Manhattan thing still doesn’t sit very well with me. Watchmen mixed broken souls, astrophysics, sweet violence and nudity all into a tasty cake of storytelling. I greatly enjoyed it and would recommend it to anyone looking for a great story about extraordinary people coming to terms with their own ordinary flaws.

Tag: Reviews (page 18 of 36)

Movie Review: Salt

Movie Review: Inception

IT CAME FROM NETFLIX! Sherlock Holmes

IT CAME FROM NETFLIX! The Hangover

Guest Review: Watchmen

Buy This Book!

Search the Blog

Recent Posts

Getcher Updates!

Works

Legal Stuff

Categories

Archives