I've been waiting since quite a while for a comeback of Ridley Scott. There are already 10 years since the last movie that had something to make me remember it, despite the not so positive reviews. I'm referring to "Kingdom of Heaven". Since then I've went through "American Gangster", "Body of Lies", "Robin Hood", "Prometheus", "The Counselor". In the order of release. Do you see the trend? Well, there's "A Good Year" and "Exodus" that I missed, so maybe we can't generalize. Well ... surprise! ... The downhill slope is broken (though, to be fair it's hard to get below "The Counselor" with an 8+ figures budget). So, is it a comeback? ...
I say it's not. No comeback. Yup, the movie is ok .. Probably we're somewhere back at the level of "Body of Lies" in the list above (not that it's really comparable). But from here to the astronomic ratings this movie gets these days... I see a long path to walk. The subject of a stranded astronaut on Mars is catchy, as any type of Robinson Crusoe would be. What puzzles me though is that it seems so catchy that the exaggerated ratio of the Fi in SciFi gets unnoticed. A Robinson Crusoe stays a Robinson Crusoe wherever it might happen = I might expect some spectacular innovations when fighting for survival, but still not at the rate and success frequency that we're getting in "The Martian". You can say I'm not that optimistic, and maybe the technical documenting of the movie is good enough, but still the overall credibility it offers made me roll my eyes a bit too often. Even so ... at least we have a subject, compared to other trials in the genre, which were even more overrated ( guess which ... :) Sandra Bullock stars in it ;) )
It's back .. and in 2014 "Godzilla" has "friends". Why between quotes ? Explained below :) ...
The previous "Godzilla", Roland Emmerich's '98 "masterpiece", had only one positive aspect I guess = "Come with Me" - Puff Daddy feat. Jimmy Page. Well, at least according to some opinions (mostly Puff Daddy fans) .. although, the same tune was a blasphemy, according to other opinios (mostly Led Zeppelin fans), .. so in the end probably there wasn't any positive aspect about that movie. Therefore, I didn't add "Godzilla" v.2014 to the list of movies to catch in cinema, considering that a disaster remake can't be far from mediocre. There was a minor error in my reasoning, "Godzilla" v.2014 is not a remake (like "Godzilla" v.1998 probably wasn't a remake either). This doesn't mean that we have a complex subject worthy of a Nobel literature award, reason for this long intro actually = to avoid spoiling the whole movie in five lines ;) Still, to give the promised explanations ... In this new version, Godzilla is not the only over dimensioned roaring creature. And the quotes for "friends" means that the Miss Dinosaur competition gets pretty rough between contestants. For details on their challenges, like the opinion on the safety of Earths disadvantaged species (=the humans) check out the movie ;)
The acting is flat = the star is really Godzilla. The effects are ok. The sound is good. Besides these, the above variation from the classic standard disaster (=something really big bad and terrible is happening, and we have to save the day) gives some freshness. And still, for a giant monsters story .. there's still work to do to get to the "Pacific Rim" level.
I had high expectations for "Gravity". Probably too high, and probably that's what generated the final verdict. To which I want to get as fast as possible, so ...
What you see in the trailer is already something like a third of the movie. I'll try to refrain from telling the ending, but I cannot keep out the fact that the movie is not a SciFi. Or at least the Fi in SciFi is missing. It's a "disaster-movie", as "Volcano", "Daylight", "The Day After Tomorrow", etc, .. although I guess some of these are actually "SciFi" compared to "Gravity" (not in the good sense if the quotes aren't clear enough). What's ok in "Gravity" is that it has a very original idea for a disaster movie. What's not ok is that's not clear at all about what it is and that it wants to be more. Let's start with the not clear part. To be fair, the trailer doesn't promise anything extra besides an accident is space, with two surviving astronauts who (probably) will try to find a way back to Earth. But it definitely leaves you hope for more than that. If you also do a quick check-up on IMDb, you avoid to read the full plot when you notice the gigantic rating (because well .. you don't want a spoiler for the "best movie of the year") but you see by chance a character named Aningaaq, and obviously the genre listed as SciFi, you really get to expect something more than just "survive in space". Well, let's say that I'm just subjective and I shouldn't judge the movie based on getting frustrated for not receiving what I hoped for. Fair enough. But it was something more - the movie wants to be more than it is ...
Let's say that if it would have been somewhere close to the level it attempts, I could look at it as to "Life of Pi" in space. After all, "Life of Pi" is still sort of a disaster-movie if we strictly consider the topic. But it's impossible to look at it like this considering the depth and complexity of the story. Another "spoiler" - in "Gravity" we don't have a "tiger". I'll let this to be read between the lines, who's not able to get it probably was profoundly impressed by the depth of space thinking that's it's something else than just the depth of space. Because it's not, not in this movie. Everything's at the surface. I'm fine with a dumb action movie which doesn't try to seem intelligent and is just meant to relax your brain, I'm fine with a thriller or a well built drama which doesn't want to give birth to some existential questions but it's still clever enough to appreciate it, I'm fine with a SciFi that wants to be deep and manages to get there leaving you to find something in it that's outside the written script. I can appreciate a movie that fits anywhere in these areas and even more. What's annoying is a production that throws frequently in my face a message of "look what (else) I want to tell you; it's right here between these two lines; let me draw another line for you just to be sure you see it; the same color as the other two ? sorry I don't have another pen" - you get sacrifice, you get the desperation of solitude, the will to move forward, you get many others .. So what ? It has the same effect as the line that I've just written. Zero = a simple enumeration that I have in front of me, from which I can't choose something specifically because everything is on par with everything. You want to impress, let me discover something on my own, and not too many at once, otherwise it transforms into a soap bubble meant to generate a storm of feelings for somebody easily impressed. But who, after probably no more than a day, won't remember exactly what was so impressive.
Maybe I'm too harsh, but I'm really in the "right mood" for it. Let me try ending though in a positive note. The effects and the cinematography are gorgeous. It confirms me again, after "Tree of Life", that Emmanuel Lubezki is probably too under appreciated, being clearly in the range of the top cinematographers in Hollywood, with a pretty well defined style, after Richardson, Deakins, Kaminski and others. Again, the subject is an original one for this genre (where genre, again = "disaster-movie" and not SciFi), and for this genre it also has a proper length. It's short enough to avoid getting you bored, although it's a movie without much content (I'm afraid though that keeping you connected is also due to the wait to get something that doesn't come). The soundtrack is nice, though not very impressive. Something else .. I don't know. For a SciFi in the "lost in space" range, which is actually a SciFi, and also carries a more .. decided message, covered by a thriller nuance, to get your neurons working a bit to find it, I'll stick to "Sunshine" by Danny Boyle. Which I, warmly, recommend ;)
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