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After Earth (2013) Directed by M. Night Shyamalan

Posted by: Frank Veenstra Posted date: 8:47 AM / comment : 0 , , , , , , , , ,



This movie has far too little going for it!

This is basically a very shallow movie experience, that never turns into a fun, exciting or tense movie to watch. Not that it's too formulaic or anything but it's doing far too little with its main concept, which is the biggest disappointment about this movie.

Once the movie gets started, it makes you think that it's going to turn into a father/son relationship type of story, in which the two, slightly estranged persons, slowly start to grow toward each other and reconnect, once they spend some more time together and have to face some dangerous situations. However, as it turned out, the movie is hardly focusing on the two together or their relationship, as the movie its story slowly keeps moving along. Emotionally this is a very flat movie, while there obviously were plenty of opportunities and paths this movie could have taken with its story its characters. It instead decides to do absolutely nothing with anything and it rather lets things play out in a very bland and disengaging way.

This all still would have been OK, as long as the movie had some other decent enough things to offer. Something interesting or something exciting or specular, that keeps you glued to your seat. I just don't know what this movie was trying to do or hoping to achieve though. Seems to me that no one was really trying to turn this into a great, original and memorable movie to watch. It's not that anything about this movie is truly awful but it just feels like a very uncreative and lifeless attempt at trying to combine science- fiction with adventure and dramatic elements.

Kind of funny to see how once M. Night Shyamalan's name proudly was put on every poster and he and his name showed up everywhere, once a new movie by him got released. With this movie, his name is hardly mentioned anywhere! How times have changed, in just the course of a couple of of years and a few terrible movies later. Guess that good news for the M. Night Shyamalan haters out there is that his hand is nowhere to be seen in this movie really. Nothing about this movie screams M. Night Shyamalan to you, which should tell you something about its blandness as well.

Visually, it's also nothing more but a just passable enough looking movie. The special effects certainly weren't bad but they most definitely weren't all that great either and the same could be said about the set design. This definitely at no times ever feels or looks like a big budget science-fiction movie, even though its budget apparently was somewhere around $130 million. You would and should expect to get some more excitement and creativity out of a movie, for that kind of money!

And I don't know. I don't think that Jaden Smith is a terrible actor but it's very obvious that the only reason why he is in the business and gets to do movies like this is because he has some well known and respected Hollywood parents. There's certainly nothing about him that seems terribly charismatic and also nothing about his performance indicates that he's one among the most talented young actors in the industry. And that's kind of annoying and distracting about him and his performance in this movie. It also doesn't help that he stars alongside his real life father Will Smith in this, which makes it all the more apparent to you that the only reason why he's in this movie is because of his father. Bad move from all sides!

Really, there is nothing about this movie that makes me hate it but it's a terribly unremarkable one, without any true excitement, creativity, emotions or originality in it.

5/10

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Ace Ventura: When Nature Calls (1995) Directed by Steve Oedekerk

Posted by: Frank Veenstra Posted date: 9:26 AM / comment : 0 , , , , , , , , , , ,





(Review originally written at 16 December 2008)

I always thought that it was quite strange Jim Carrey only did 2 Ace Ventura movies, rather than making a trilogy out of it. Not that I've re-watched "Ace Ventura: When Nature Calls" again I can see why they stopped with the series after this one. (I'm not really counting in the upcoming movie "Ace Ventura Jr: Pet Detective", since it obviously features a different main character.) Well, it was not like its predecessor "Ace Ventura: Pet Detective" was brilliant but it showed some good potential for more. This potential gets basically all ruined and wasted within this movie.

Thing I simply hated about this movie was its absolutely dreadful script. It's such an incredible childish and simple written script, that features nothing original, nothing surprising and very little funny actually. Most, if not all the fun from this movie comes from Jim Carrey's performance. It's an annoying story, that is set too much at the same locations. All of the other characters within this movie also just don't work out, due to its very poor story and writing in general.

The movie is supposedly for most part set in Africa but its obvious that not one step get set on African ground during the production of this movie. It's obvious studio work and the movie for some parts got shot in wild life park(s), I would imaging. It gives the movie a cheap look and feeling as well, even though of course this wasn't a low-budget production.

Yet, still it's a movie that will make you laugh. Jim Carrey is totally crazy as Ace Ventura and he's actually more hilarious in this role than he has been in any recent movie of his. The first Ace Ventura movie launched him to stardom, which allows him to in this movie go even more over-the-top with his character. It provides the movie with some great laughs, due to sheer stupidity. Yes, the movie and its comedy is at times so stupid that you can't help but laugh.

So, watch this movie a get a few laughs from Carrey's performance. Otherwise, you can easily do without ever watching this movie.

5/10

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Dirty Pretty Things (2002) Directed by Stephen Frears

Posted by: Frank Veenstra Posted date: 4:32 AM / comment : 0 , , , , , , , ,

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(Review originally written at 24 July 2008)

Quite surprised to see how much this movie is being appreciated. While it of course is not the worst movie I've ever seen it also just isn't the most exciting or engaging one. It's a very simplistic and superficial movie, that could and should had been worked out way better when considering its main subject.
The movie just doesn't ever really become tense or exciting, the storytelling doesn't ever allow it. It's the kind of more realistic and slow but distant way of storytelling, in which all of the characters are quite stereotypical. It's all way too simplistic, especially also the movie its main plot. It's as if the film-makers didn't had the guts to be edgy and simply picked the easy, simple, safe road for the movie. The movie paid more attention to its style than its actual substance. A shame, when considering the 'serious' subject of the movie.
Surely they could had come up with something better concerning the theme of organ theft. It's a waste of a potentially great and relevant subject. The movie is not really a thriller, it's not ever tense or engaging enough for that but it's also not really a drama, since the character remain too underdeveloped and are just mere flat stereotypes of the persons from the countries that character originate from.

Perhaps it's also due to the main character that the movie doesn't really work out. He's a quiet but obviously intelligent man, who also obviously carries a secret with him. It makes him a character that is not always easy to understand and you just never really connect to him. Also embarrassing to watch at times how incredibly moralistic they made him look, which gives the entire movie as a whole also a moralistic overtone, that is somewhat in contrast perhaps with the serious and realistic approach of the movie.
The movie is only still refreshing to watch because it tells the story from the point of view of (illegal) immigrant living in London. But like I said before, the characters are still sad stereotypes. Chiwetel Ejiofor the smart African immigrant who has to start at the bottom again in the western world, Audrey Tautou the naive innocent young Muslim girl (funny though that Turkish immigrants speak with a clear French accent), Zlatko Buric the always complaining and cold Russian, who is also always in for making some extra cash. Benedict Wong the smart educated Asian and Sergi López as the temperamental Spaniard. It's especially bad how villainous Sergi López plays his character in the movie. He's basically evil and bad in every way possible, which again seems in contrast again with the movie its more realistic and serious approach of things.
I don't really think it's the actor's fault though. The international cast have proofed in movies before that they are some real capable actors, also in English speaking roles. Still it seems odd to me that they ever agreed to participate in this movie, considering the extreme stereotypical and also superficial roles they had to play.
But I more blame Stephen Frears for picking this approach. He's a well known and appreciated director, who has made some real hits but also misses in his career. This movie is somewhere in the middle of it. It's not good or effective enough to consider this a success movie but it's also not bad enough to label this movie as something horrible and unwatchable. It's a good looking movie that unfortunately doesn't pick the most effective approach thinkable for its subject.
6/10


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