some_empty_friend Reviews

Til døden os skiller (2007)

A charming but half-baked affair

[5/10 · 30 March 2008]

If there ever were a film to hop around aimlessly from one plot point to another, "With Your Permission" is it. One should be aware that the film's tagline becomes obsolete within forty minutes of the film. After that, it's impossible to tell where the story trails off to, and more importantly why. The "where" is merely unsatisfactory. And the "why" is never answered.

What results is a series of plot lines strung around our anti-hero, Jan, and his unpredictable wife, Brente. Each plot line carries little depth; the crust of the story is baked, but there's a nice gooey middle. Characters are introduced without purpose. When the last shot cuts to the final credits, I couldn't help but wonder what I watched; what was the purpose of the film, the point, the thesis? Why did I spend 95 minutes watching a film that was supposed to be about a man who is beaten by his wife and maybe for once he'd do something about it, when in fact, that is only a small part of the story?

The one merit of this film is its execution. It was well-done, well-acted, and it looked great. Nothing too fancy with the camera, but the story didn't call for it. And though I don't speak Swedish, it still succeeded in being a humorous film.

The main fault is a weak script. There's just not much to it, but there's plenty potential for a story that could've transcended what it is.

Gone Baby Gone (2007)

A good story told with a weak style

[4/10 · 21 October 2007]

The ideas and questions of kidnapping and ethics presented in this film have great potential, but it folds under a weak script. At many points in the film, especially at the end, Afflec interrupts these points with things not as relevant to the story.

What are we supposed to walk away with after watching this film? For the majority of its duration, I thought it would be something significant as the story was heading in that direction, but I was ultimately let down.

Story flaws aside, the dialogue is quite atrocious and the acting did nothing to help this. Afflec's inexperience shows itself most abundantly here.

The overall style comes off rather trite and exaggerated as well:

The music is too melodramatic

The Boston heritage is overdone

The voice-overs don't complement the story (the narrative voice-overs are unnecessary and the transition voice-overs are excessive)

And finally, the characters are uninteresting. With the exception of the little girl, I don't care about any of them. Deaths happen frequently, but I feel no emotion when someone hits the bucket. Rather than being characters with wills and souls of their own, they are players in a pre-destined plot. Morgan Freeman gives an excellent performance as usual, but this is the first film I've seen him in where I am apathetic to his fate and purpose. This is an important, powerful, and moving story. Unfortunately, the film doesn't share these qualities..

King Kong (2005)

Not-So-Great-Writing mixed in with too many CGI effects

[4/10 · 20 December 2005]

Although the plot is interesting, it is hardly enough to fill three hours and it doesn't. Jackson decides to drag on the majority of the action sequences ten minutes longer than they should be. Instead of trying to add more to the story, the writers seemed to have left it up to Jackson to do the entertaining with CGI effects, which are just too much.

Nearly everything in the film except the actors is CGI. Like Episode 3, the film looks like a video game. This over-abundance of special effects is, ladies and gentlemen, the end of cinema. too many movies are adopting this high-paced, digital-image editing. There's little story left after this.

The dialogue is terrible. The basic story, although interesting, just isn't supported enough throughout the film, and is replaced by drawn-out action sequences, resulting in plot holes that are too ridiculous (come on, how do they get a giant ape on the ship? Not gonna happen with the resources they have). The one saving grace is the acting, which is surprisingly decent across the board.

In a nut-shell, King Kong is bad writing attempting to be cloaked by a tedious amount of green-screen imagery.

Peter Jackson, please return to your roots - Dead Alive, Bad Taste, etc. Stick to the story instead of your computer.

Wedding Crashers (2005)

A Horribly Unoriginal ROMANTIC COMEDY

[2/10 · 20 July 2005]

I don't understand it. As a comedy lover, I was excited to see this movie get good reviews before it came out. "Finally," I thought to myself, " a movie that may actually pump a breath of fresh air in the stale lungs of what recently has been deemed 'comedy' in Hollywood."

I walked into the film with a bias FOR the movie after hearing so many good things about it. My high hopes were shot down in the first half hour of the film. I wanted to enjoy it. I was hoping to enjoy it. But half hour in, and I had only cracked a smile once at some minor joke.

But the audience wasn't laughing it up and I couldn't understand why. There hadn't been anything funny yet.

After unfortunately watching it against my will last night for a second viewing, I payed more attention to the five people around me and their reactions to what was going on in the film. Just as the theater audience did, they laughed at only the most obvious things:

1.A character swearing (usually Vince Vaughn)

2.The gay kid (who did crack a smile on my face when they cut to him, but this has to be one of the worst representations of gays I've ever seen in a major film)

3.Obvious physical gags - Vaughn getting shot in the butt, getting touched under the table (which was blatantly STOLEN from American Pie 3, and how many times has someone been shot in the butt in a comedy?).

4.Dated sex jokes

There was no unique or original humor, nothing that hadn't been done before. And the humor in this movie consisted of the most cliché' rehashed jokes. There is no chemistry between Vaughn and Wilson. Vaughn is the supposed 'scene stealer,' while Wilson is the more serious one, who didn't make the audience laugh a whole lot. This has to be the worst comic "duo" I've seen in a comedy.

And to add further, Wedding Crashers, like most other Hollywood films, turns into a typical "guy falls for girl who has macho boyfriend who treats her like crap and ends up falling for other guy" plot. However, this films has probably the most trite use of the macho boyfriend- he cheats on the girl, he beats up Wilson, and he seems like a nice guy until all of a sudden he's suddenly a completely different character.

Owen Wilson's monologue at the end is the worst in film and theater history. He should be ashamed of himself for degrading his status as an actor to a speech that sums up every romantic comedy ever made. And this is a romantic comedy. It fits with the same category of Adam Sandler's guy-gets-the girl garbage, as well as Julia Roberts' never-ending line of crap. I give this a 2, only for the four times I cracked a smile, which I will count as one solid laugh, and Will Ferrell's line, "What the f%#@ do you want?" because of the hilarious tone of voice he uses.

IMDb made me check a box indicating "This review may contain spoilers." However, I have not given away any spoilers. You've seen this plot before. You've heard the jokes. You've seen the guy get the girl at the end where he kisses her. And right before Owen Wilson kisses her, he utters "Would it be totally cliché' if I kissed you right now?" Yes it would, Owen. Ironically, that line is a perfect metaphor for this excuse of a comedy film.