adrianedler Reviews

The United States of Leland (2003)

Hard to swallow-at least for me

[5/10 · 3 March 2012]

Disclaimer:

After reading many positive reviews, I noticed that many people really liked this movie. I might not have liked it as much because I saw it in German, and missed some of the intricacies of the dialog. (Because I am a native English speaker.) But that being the case, this review reflects what I think about this movie.

Great movies can be divided up into two categories, potentially. The first are encouraging movies. They might encourage us to do is to realize our true potential, like The Return of the King, with Aragorn becoming what he was meant to be. Other great movies have themes which could give us some kind of hope, to laugh in face of adversity, or to see something from another perspective. Great movies like these, such as It's a Wonderful Life, speak out about the value of life and of every individual, ring true in everyone's hearts. These are the movies which help us to face life. And then the second class of great or good movies, are ones that may not be so profound, but distract us from the seeming futility of our lives, without perhaps such a deep theme, but with a lot of entertainment value. Movies like James Bond, which for a couple of hours, spirit us away into a fantasy world of superwomen, super-cars, super-spies, and super villains. Die Hard is another one like this. This is commonly classified as escapism.

But this movie is neither escapist nor encouraging. It is also not a thriller, in the true sense. Rather it seeks so replace hope with despair, causing us to focus upon the pointlessness of life, and give excuses for someone taking the role of God. These kinds of seed thoughts could encourage murder, if dwelled upon, and taken to their logical conclusion; it leads us to think that pity is sufficient grounds for murder, and that we should admire someone who murders when they did it because they felt sorry for someone. Of course this sounds sick, and it should. But this is honestly what the movie portrayed. And the fact that it is not portrayed with a cold cynicism is what makes it the scariest. It is not the only one of its kind, but the moral vacuum in which the movie is played is the same as a horror movie, but with less blood. Basically, the word justice is put into the furthest corner, away from view, and the word Despair, Pointlessness, Meaninglessness, Lostness, Fear, Doom, and Disappointment are projected in the front, making the question we are supposed to ask painfully clear, "What is wrong with doing something wrong if I feel that it is right? And if I feel that it is right, doesn't the pointless nature of life make that which I feel right, ruling out all sense of right and wrong?" In other words, "Because life has no meaning either way, does it matter really what I do, as long as it has a meaning to me?"

The obvious counter to this reasoning is also shown in the movie. The pain which going with my urges may inflict others is made apparent in the parallel story of Pearl and his girlfriend, as though it were not clear enough in the grief of the victim's family. Perhaps this element was kept intact, in order not to downplay the consequences of the murder too much. But this thought that my actions actually do have a meaning, and that there is a right and wrong, despite of my feelings or urges does not seem to be the dominant theme of the movie. If one does not think too much about it, one is left with a pretty neutral attitude towards murder, thinking that maybe he even did the "right thing."

If nothing else, the movie allows people to reflect upon the impulsive nature of crimes, with misguided motives, combined later with the horrible pain that they can cause others, as well as the guilt for those who commit them. But I had to really think about it to come with this conclusion. It might have been just a depressing movie about a boy who murdered his neighbor because he was so stinking depressed himself that it just didn't matter. And that is pretty disgusting.

The Mists of Avalon (2001)

A wonderfully told depressing and hopeless story

[6/10 · 10 June 2010]

This movie was tiresome, and extremely tragic. It provided the viewer with nothing to believe in besides himself, without any good reasons that that is a good thing to do. Guilt and fear run throughout the story, and an overly acute sense of heirlessness do not give enough oomph to produce a strong plot.

The spiritual side of the drama provides no focus for the action, nor hope to give the movie heart. The conflict between the pagan religion and Christianity is in the forefront, but the viewer is confused as to which he should prefer. Should he love the old pagan religion, that curses the queen to childlessness, and makes an heir out of incest? Or should he love Christianity, which seems in this movie to be a guilt trip put on us by the priests? Being at a loss for an answer, it seems to leave us with the conclusion that we are left in this world to make what of it what we may (I dare say a theme far too common in adventure movies these days). On the one side, this is convenient, since then I do not need to be concerned for right and wrong. However, in practice this does not add up, since adultery is still really wrong, even if it was actually condoned by the king himself!? But the worst part of this godless world where one has to survive on his own, is that man does such a great job ruining his life, in this movie. Incest, death in the family, jealousy, adultery, barrenness, betrayal, curses, and an outrageous amount of focus on the lack of an heir seem to be all that he can produce in this life without any true hope in something eternal, or at least supernatural.

Criticism aside, many other aspects of the movie, such as characters, acting, and effects, and music, these are all great, in my opinion. More than expected for a TV movie, for sure. This is why I have rated it with six stars, not with five.

Something else which bothered me was the amount of focus on the intrigues surrounding the king's son. I think that focusing on this, and building so much drama around this point is in principle a wrong equation for suspense. It is sort of like having a story be not about wealth, but poverty. Because the heir was actually sort of the greatest form of equity, and real wealth, that a king could have. And then, when the negative suspense is resolved, of who is going to take the king's place when he is gone, the actual heir reveals himself to worse than no heir at all! A mixed signal to the analytical mind who could come up with this motto: Who wants to have kids, if they sometimes wind up betraying their own parents? So much emptiness, contrary to expectation.

Although I normally like adventure movies, and don't need to have adrenaline rushing through me to enjoy a movie, for me, this movie lacked the driving motive of a compelling story, with too much focus on the mundane and the morbid, leaving me craving something which never emerged from the fog. Well done, with great acting, and good effects may be to its credit, but the raw materials of the story, and mainly the focus of the drama, is so tragic and hopeless, making this movie, at least for me, hard to enjoy.

Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time (2010)

What else do you expect from Disney?

[7/10 · 7 June 2010]

Interestingly people have very high expectations of movies these days, to come up with stuff against this movie. On the way into the film my wife said to me, this is a Disney movie. It sort of set me at ease, since I would have hated it to be full of things I would not really feel good about spending the 16 Euros to watch. We went into the movie expecting some sort of family entertainment, with a good story, fun action, and a sort of mysterious overall feeling, which the previews hinted. And the fact that it was made by Disney calmed any fears that it would be too intense, violent, for a lady, like my life, who does not need to hear swearing and see blood splatter to like a movie. We go to the movies too little to risk seeing a horrible one...

I think people often would like every movie be absolutely stunning and life changing, and surpass all other movies, and only then, can they say that it was any good. Media oversensitivity. What if those people just did not go to the movies for say six months for a while, and then see how much they liked movies? I think this is one of the reasons why people cannot appreciate family movies. There is a huge numbness to the idea of an innocent story without a lot of stuff behind it, and a lot of the extra stuff which is only for adults (profanity, violence, sex, and gore).

Having said all of that, speaking of the opinion of the Prince of Persia is easy. The story was not too full of twists and turns, so as to be understandable by the common man. The stunts were great, and enough to keep the suspense going to the end. It was rather unpredictable, for those of us who are unacquainted with the game. And in any case the themes of virtue, integrity, trust, and standing together were all well maintained. Not a bedtime story for a 5 year old, but a movie which an adolescent should be able to appreciate. Keeping with this assessment, I noticed, that the under 18 age bracket rated this movie very well, whereas every age bracket older rated it a bit worse.

Furthermore, who produced Cinderella? Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs? Who brought us Sleeping Beauty? Disney is a producer of predominantly family entertainment, and has relatively high content standards in terms of gore, types of violence, profanity, and sex. Nowadays it seems some people can only appreciate movies which have loads of all four. But putting the question of the movie in perspective, as an adventure/fantasy/family movie, adapted from a video game (which excuse me, if this is extreme, but aren't video games for young people?), what else would you expect?

Age of Empires II: The Age of Kings (1999 Video Game)

Excellent interface makes this an awesome game

[10/10 · 26 May 2010]

This game is probably is likely the most exciting game of its kind, and definitely the best one I have ever played. It is as addictive as it gets, and I believe that this owes a lot to the simplicity of the interface. Straightforward enough to attract the beginner, the options with which the interface options are enough to provide a large variety of strategies to the more advanced user. The use of hot-keys can make the game play very fast, and gives you excellent control of the armies, something I have felt lacking in, say, Rise of Nations. The expansion has taken the frustration away from the villagers lack of initiative Age of Kings. And the sequel, Age of Empires 3, seemed to me to lack the to ease of control, somehow as the second one. Perhaps adding too many variable makes it more tricky to feel inside of the game.

To explain the idea of what makes the interface superb, someone probably has to play the game a bit. But the great thing is that it does not take long to get used to, and offers great variety to the player. Four kinds of resources to gather produce an economy with logical and practical unit generating buildings (town center, stable, barracks, archery ranges, castles, monasteries, docks, markets, and siege workshops), with two research oriented buildings (blacksmith and university). And the economy is vital to production, especially at the outset of the game. There is the option of starting out the game with more or less resources, which can help enhance the early building of the civilization, and the option of having a lower or higher population limit. Additionally, playing the game against the computer has various difficulty levels, and numbers of opponents, so once you defeat two, you can move up to three, even seven opponents at a time. And map sizes and types offer a lot of selection, along with a variety of game play options.

The ability to play either defensively or offensively is open, as most civilizations can produce a great defense, although some are decidedly offensive only. And the challenge of finding a balance between a defensive and offensive strategy, and being able to switch from one side of the map to the other to be on the defense against the enemy's attack and at the same time attempting to rout his defenses and rid oneself of his ongoing threat, at the same time keeping your economy intact enough to continue the attack, is enough to provide for hours upon hours of play. And this is only in the single player maps.

Having not played the first installment so much, this review covers perhaps all of the features in one. There is so much that the game has to offer in the campaign department too, where you fight alongside historical figures such as Atilla the Hung, Genghis Khan, Saladin, and others. Every one of these is a unique experience and allows you to be right there in battles that decided much of the history of western civilization. The story line only allows you to fight within history, not create your own version, so the experience is quite authentic.