kai_sheffield Reviews

Carnivàle (2003–2005)

A Roller Coaster of Quality

[6/10 · 4 December 2011]

Carnivàle is essentially two stories: the realistic journey of a ramshackle carnival through dust-bowl America, and the magical, pseudo-mythological clash of "Avatars" that bleed blue blood, have high-contrast dreams, and say things in growly voices when their eyes turn black. The stories aren't particularly well intertwined; protagonist Ben Hawkins joins the carnival in the first episode but spends most of his time driving around solving mysteries, and many of the characters never interact with him at all.

More significantly, the story lines aren't of equal quality. The grit and dirt of the carnival is compelling; the Dreyfuss family are the show's most interesting characters and the series seems to acknowledge that by making them one of its focal points, even though they have absolutely nothing to do with the (very slowly) developing mystical Avataric conflict. The magical storyline, by contrast, is corny and boring. We all know where it's going the minute Ben Hawkins and Brother Justin are introduced, and nothing much really happens to drive this storyline forward to its rather obvious conclusion until season two. Sure, these characters have a lot of weird dreams, and ominous stuff happens, but few of these episodes drive the story forward in any interesting way, and we're left waiting impatiently for the next carnival scene. Brother Justin's storyline is particularly weak, especially in the first season, and in apparent acknowledgment of the fact, the show spends very little time with Justin, showing him to us occasionally to remind us that he's still there.

This show seems to have been conceived as a mythological story, with the carnival serving as a backdrop. That's too bad, because the carnival ends up completely upstaging the awkward "good vs evil" concept. Carnivàle could have probably been in a class with Deadwood if they had stuck with historical drama and cut the magic out completely; as it stands, it's a very mixed bag.

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (2008)

A movie that's born good and gets progressively worse

[3/10 · 27 January 2009]

Benjamin Button starts out very promisingly as a well-acted, well-paced film with an interesting premise. It's funny, a bit unorthodox, and the events in the film, in Forrest Gump-ian fashion, aren't directly related to each other but further the plot and character development.

Maybe it's an amazingly clever meta-joke, but as the film went on its plot regressed in complexity, relying more and more on worn out movie clichés and schlocky melodrama. By about halfway through, it's a straight-up chick flick, before becoming a daytime soap opera. The "aging in reverse" plot is more or less abandoned here, and when the movie returns to it, almost as an afterthought, near the end, there are no surprising twists to enliven the movie's deadening pace. What you expect to happen is exactly what does happen.

Persepolis (2007)

Generic coming-of-age story with gorgeous animation

[5/10 · 16 September 2008]

With its sassy female lead character, revolution-era setting, and themes of loneliness and exile, Persepolis has all the makings of a generic "third world" coming of age tale - the kind you can enjoy without any prior knowledge of the history of the country in question. In fact, this film is probably more enjoyable for those who have never heard of Iran before, as anyone who can tell the difference between a Shah and an Ayatollah will find the first half hour of the film didactic and plodding, as the "conversations" between characters are usually just melodramatic monologues.

It's also frustrating that this is strictly a tale of upper-class suffering. The main character comes from a wealthy family and can apparently leave the country at will. She sympathizes with communism, but there isn't a poor person to be seen in the film - instead we're asked to sympathize with rich teens whose drunken parties are at risk of being raided by the religious police, and with the generic trials and tribulations of the main character - love, loss, exile, etc.

The major redeeming feature is the animation, which is fantastic. It makes the film a worthwhile watch, if the story doesn't put you to sleep.

Tears of the Sun (2003)

Utterly atrocious

[1/10 · 30 January 2007]

By no coincidence this movie came out in 2003 as the USA was preparing to invade Iraq, and although the movie takes place in Nigeria, it's nothing more than a blatant endorsement of the invasion. In this movie, of course, there's no context for the violence; the "bad guys" are simply evil people who do terrible things for no reason. The only salvation for the cringing masses of Nigeria (probably the only African country the screenwriter knew of offhand) is through the selfless courage of the American military. This is a movie that urges you NOT to think. We're the heroes, they're the vicious barbarians, but we'll try to save their cowering women and children anyway.

Bab el shams (2004)

Captivating epic / History of the Palestinians 101

[9/10 · 28 April 2006]

This movie is divided into two parts, the first dealing with the Palestinians' displacement in the 1948 war and the history since then, and the second part dealing more specifically with the Lebanon war and the Palestinians' complicated situation there.

The first part is absolutely brilliant, a totally engaging epic told through the a comatose Palestinian militant. The second part has a lot more dialogue and gets a bit didactic in parts, where it seems like the characters are just explaining the politics of the Middle East for the benefit of the camera. Since the whole movie runs 4.5 hours, this half could probably have benefited from some cutting, but it's still hard to criticize the film as a whole.

Swordfish (2001)

Stupid, stupid, stupid

[4/10 · 4 December 2004]

-SPOILERS-

I kind of liked Swordfish the first time I watched it, but I just saw it again and realized how stupid it is.

Hugh Jackman plays a paroled hacker (Stan) who wants custody of his daughter. Now, obviously he has to be portrayed as the 'good guy,' so he explains midway through the movie that he was jailed because he hacked into and destroyed an FBI program that was illegally gathering info about people. But we also have to believe that the courts refused him any access at all to his child and sent her to live with a porn producer instead. OK... but it gets stupider. The way he can supposedly get his daughter back is by getting tons of money to hire a better lawyer, and that's why he works for John Travolta's terrorist organization. What a hero. Of course, he doesn't get any punishment for single-handedly enabling the entire bank robbery, because he did it to get money to hire a good lawyer to overturn a court case that was ruled repeated against him.

John Travolta's character, Gabriel, is even stupider. Gabriel runs a radical anti-terrorist terrorist group. He wants to 'protect the American way of life' by retaliating for terrorism with even harsher terrorism, to make 'rogue states' stop harbouring terrorists. Gabriel is willing to kill as many people as it takes to preserve 'the American way of life,' including Americans. But Gabriel doesn't lead the American way of life, he lives in a mansion full of sluts, alcohol, and techno music. This movie came out before 9/11 so it is not clear what Gabriel is even retaliating against. He is the biggest threat to the American way of life. Not to mention that murdering civilians in countries that harbor terrorists will do nothing to change the minds of the dictators who rule those countries. Gabriel has a bone to pick with the government (in this case the FBI) so why doesn't he realize that all the other anti-American terrorism is caused by that same government?

The other actors aren't very good: Halle Berry is a bimbo, Don Cheadle is awful and so is Vinnie Jones. The plot twist at the end is poorly explained (why is Halle Berry still alive?) and the action sequences are dull. All in all a poor attempt to rip off Tarantino and Guy Ritchie. John Travolta's description of bad movies at the beginning of the film will ring true by the time you have finished watching it.