Welcome to the new profile
We're still working on updating some profile features. To see the badges, ratings breakdowns, and polls for this profile, please go to the previous version.
Reviews4
marblespire's rating
I'm serious.
What do I mean by that?
Well, what I mean is that all the really interesting elements of 'Thir13en Ghosts' were accomplished Before and After the camera rolled.
For one, the house. The house is simply a MASTERPIECE of design, function and plain-out coolness. It has to be seen to be believed--and even then, you may still have some trouble. Whoever designed it knew EXACTLY what they were doing.
For two, the design and execution of the ghosts. Now, I admit, I'm not much of a horror-film person, so my experience is decidedly limited. But the ghosts were very interesting, because, visually, they were extremely striking (with the exception of Ghost #4, the Withered Lover; for plot reasons she had to look reasonably unscathed). According to the "back story" of the film, all the ghosts met violent, ghastly demises, and the character designers tried to create apperaances that would communicate some of that violence. If you ask me, they succeeded.
If there's anything to complain about, however, it's the OVEREXPOSURE of these ghosts. I haven't seen 'Alien' but I'm told the treatment of the alien in that film set a standard in fright movies--show just little bits of it and let the audience's imagination do the rest. 'The Brotherhood Of The Wolf' is a film that actually USED that technique, and it worked quite well. But in 'Thir13en Ghosts' you see several ghosts frequently... And the shock value wears off. Some more subtlety would probably have been wise.
Back to what makes this film good. For three, I've always been a sucker for snappy dialogue, and Matthew Lillard has a lot of good lines. Watching him bounce frenetically off weary, incredulous Tony Shalhoub is a sight to behold. Lillard knows how to overact to good effect, and it works well here. (Why didn't he do it in 'Wing Commander?' The character he played there is the KING of overacting. But that's another story.)
Four: the editing. The movie switches constantly between shots of the 'normal' world and the 'ghost' world--often alternating between slow- and fast-motion. This could be confusing, but, thankfully, it isn't. As proud a movie as 'Lord Of The Rings: Fellowship' lost me during its battle scenes by shaking the camera too much; it's hard to create confusing-but-still-comprehensible images out of fast, flickering action. But 'Thir13en Ghosts' manages it. ...And the rest of it was crap. I went along with the plot only because I wanted to see what would happen next. The characters were the stereotypical Horror Movie Brainless Morons. The music was nothing special, and the sound effects were about what you'd expect from ghosts who have iron cages strapped to their faces. The actors had very little to work with, and their performances were accordingly flat.
But 'Thir13en Ghosts' isn't ABOUT characters, or plot. It isn't even really about scaring the bejeebers out of the audience. It's about presenting striking, interesting visual imagery. It's eye-candy. Maybe the producers tried to make it more than that, but it didn't work, so don't bother, you'll be disappointed. Just drool over the eye-candy. 'Thir13en Ghosts' is one of the most visually creative movies to be released in a long time.
What do I mean by that?
Well, what I mean is that all the really interesting elements of 'Thir13en Ghosts' were accomplished Before and After the camera rolled.
For one, the house. The house is simply a MASTERPIECE of design, function and plain-out coolness. It has to be seen to be believed--and even then, you may still have some trouble. Whoever designed it knew EXACTLY what they were doing.
For two, the design and execution of the ghosts. Now, I admit, I'm not much of a horror-film person, so my experience is decidedly limited. But the ghosts were very interesting, because, visually, they were extremely striking (with the exception of Ghost #4, the Withered Lover; for plot reasons she had to look reasonably unscathed). According to the "back story" of the film, all the ghosts met violent, ghastly demises, and the character designers tried to create apperaances that would communicate some of that violence. If you ask me, they succeeded.
If there's anything to complain about, however, it's the OVEREXPOSURE of these ghosts. I haven't seen 'Alien' but I'm told the treatment of the alien in that film set a standard in fright movies--show just little bits of it and let the audience's imagination do the rest. 'The Brotherhood Of The Wolf' is a film that actually USED that technique, and it worked quite well. But in 'Thir13en Ghosts' you see several ghosts frequently... And the shock value wears off. Some more subtlety would probably have been wise.
Back to what makes this film good. For three, I've always been a sucker for snappy dialogue, and Matthew Lillard has a lot of good lines. Watching him bounce frenetically off weary, incredulous Tony Shalhoub is a sight to behold. Lillard knows how to overact to good effect, and it works well here. (Why didn't he do it in 'Wing Commander?' The character he played there is the KING of overacting. But that's another story.)
Four: the editing. The movie switches constantly between shots of the 'normal' world and the 'ghost' world--often alternating between slow- and fast-motion. This could be confusing, but, thankfully, it isn't. As proud a movie as 'Lord Of The Rings: Fellowship' lost me during its battle scenes by shaking the camera too much; it's hard to create confusing-but-still-comprehensible images out of fast, flickering action. But 'Thir13en Ghosts' manages it. ...And the rest of it was crap. I went along with the plot only because I wanted to see what would happen next. The characters were the stereotypical Horror Movie Brainless Morons. The music was nothing special, and the sound effects were about what you'd expect from ghosts who have iron cages strapped to their faces. The actors had very little to work with, and their performances were accordingly flat.
But 'Thir13en Ghosts' isn't ABOUT characters, or plot. It isn't even really about scaring the bejeebers out of the audience. It's about presenting striking, interesting visual imagery. It's eye-candy. Maybe the producers tried to make it more than that, but it didn't work, so don't bother, you'll be disappointed. Just drool over the eye-candy. 'Thir13en Ghosts' is one of the most visually creative movies to be released in a long time.
My best friend and I went to see Nemesis on opening day. We're both unabashed Trekkers and we've been with the series since about half way through NextGen. We went in with high expectations, myself especially; my favorite movie has always been Star Trek VI, and Nemesis looked like it might be able to recapture some of that movie's perfect blend of action, politics and character drama. The fact that Nemesis has been marketed as NextGen's last movie only heightened the parallels in my mind.
What we GOT was a plot that should've been submitted as a 1-hour episode--and been shot down there.
The plot was very simplistic. Here it is, in summary: 1) Picard meets Shinzon. 2) Shinzon shoots at Picard. 3) Picard blows up Shinzon. Oh, God, the excitement. The real drama should've been a contrast between the choices Picard and Shinzon have made, and how those choices shaped them into who they are today. 'Should've been,' because this conflict NEVER EVOLVED. Sure, there was some ACKNOWLEDGEMENT of it, but did the two of them ever really start comparing their lives, justifying themselves, trying to persuade or convince or--might as well admit it--DESTROY the other's identity? No! Neither of them even DOUBTED themselves, which is pathetic. We come to Star Trek to see humans, not superheroes.
I was disappointed with the special effects; they wouldn't've looked out of place on TV. Seriously, what did we have? No writhing energy ribbons; no big 30-on-1 space battles; no cute Data-as-life-preserver moments. Just spaceships throwing energy at each other. Maybe that was cool around the time of the ORIGINAL Star Trek, but nowadays it's par for the course; we want MORE.
(Am I the only person who thought that, when Picard rammed the Scimitar, the ships should've crumpled like automobiles instead of shattering? In the first place, who makes a spaceship out of such brittle metal? Of course, most starships are in fact made of lots of SMALL METAL PLATES, so maybe fragmenting is more realistic. But I honestly expected crumpling.)
I was also disappointed at all the scenes that were cut out, because as far as I can tell, those scenes were the GOOD ones. Furthermore, you could see the holes they had left. My most vivid recollection is in the last conversation between Data and B4. Data says, "I must deactivate you because you have no respect for others," and the audience says, "Wait, when was THAT established? We thought B4 was just reprogrammed by Shinzon, and besides we haven't seen him doing anything worse than spying." You get the feeling that they deleted the scene where B4 went to kindergarten and slaughtered all the cute little kids. Or pledged his soul to Al Qaeda. Or SOMEthing.
One bright spot: I was VERY pleased by Picard's dialogue, at least prior to the Argo scenes. This is quite possibly the first time we have seen the good captain unbend, and it's really refreshing to see him cracking jokes and making fun and being, well, happy. Kudos to John Logan for that; it is, unfortunately, just about the only thing he did really well.
As to the other characters... Wait, WHAT other characters? They were afterthoughts. We were promised a story that would send EVERYONE off in style. Instead we got Picard and 6 co-pilots; if the Enterprise wasn't such a big complicated gadget that it takes at least seven people to run it, Patrick Stewart could've done this movie solo.
Now, before anyone jumps down my throat, I want to say that yes, I DID enjoy this movie. Seeing Picard get to joke around is worth ANY amount of bad plot, in my opinion. But as a writer and a perfectionist, I always look at what a movie COULD have been, and unlike most Star Trek outings, Nemesis fell far below its potential. What could've been a truly gripping psychological drama about the conflict between darker and lighter natures was instead reduced to a action-oriented shoot-'em-up... And not a very good one, either, because of the run-of-the-mill special effects. I mean, Attack Of The Clones ALSO had bad character and plot work, but at least there were lightsabers involved.
What we GOT was a plot that should've been submitted as a 1-hour episode--and been shot down there.
The plot was very simplistic. Here it is, in summary: 1) Picard meets Shinzon. 2) Shinzon shoots at Picard. 3) Picard blows up Shinzon. Oh, God, the excitement. The real drama should've been a contrast between the choices Picard and Shinzon have made, and how those choices shaped them into who they are today. 'Should've been,' because this conflict NEVER EVOLVED. Sure, there was some ACKNOWLEDGEMENT of it, but did the two of them ever really start comparing their lives, justifying themselves, trying to persuade or convince or--might as well admit it--DESTROY the other's identity? No! Neither of them even DOUBTED themselves, which is pathetic. We come to Star Trek to see humans, not superheroes.
I was disappointed with the special effects; they wouldn't've looked out of place on TV. Seriously, what did we have? No writhing energy ribbons; no big 30-on-1 space battles; no cute Data-as-life-preserver moments. Just spaceships throwing energy at each other. Maybe that was cool around the time of the ORIGINAL Star Trek, but nowadays it's par for the course; we want MORE.
(Am I the only person who thought that, when Picard rammed the Scimitar, the ships should've crumpled like automobiles instead of shattering? In the first place, who makes a spaceship out of such brittle metal? Of course, most starships are in fact made of lots of SMALL METAL PLATES, so maybe fragmenting is more realistic. But I honestly expected crumpling.)
I was also disappointed at all the scenes that were cut out, because as far as I can tell, those scenes were the GOOD ones. Furthermore, you could see the holes they had left. My most vivid recollection is in the last conversation between Data and B4. Data says, "I must deactivate you because you have no respect for others," and the audience says, "Wait, when was THAT established? We thought B4 was just reprogrammed by Shinzon, and besides we haven't seen him doing anything worse than spying." You get the feeling that they deleted the scene where B4 went to kindergarten and slaughtered all the cute little kids. Or pledged his soul to Al Qaeda. Or SOMEthing.
One bright spot: I was VERY pleased by Picard's dialogue, at least prior to the Argo scenes. This is quite possibly the first time we have seen the good captain unbend, and it's really refreshing to see him cracking jokes and making fun and being, well, happy. Kudos to John Logan for that; it is, unfortunately, just about the only thing he did really well.
As to the other characters... Wait, WHAT other characters? They were afterthoughts. We were promised a story that would send EVERYONE off in style. Instead we got Picard and 6 co-pilots; if the Enterprise wasn't such a big complicated gadget that it takes at least seven people to run it, Patrick Stewart could've done this movie solo.
Now, before anyone jumps down my throat, I want to say that yes, I DID enjoy this movie. Seeing Picard get to joke around is worth ANY amount of bad plot, in my opinion. But as a writer and a perfectionist, I always look at what a movie COULD have been, and unlike most Star Trek outings, Nemesis fell far below its potential. What could've been a truly gripping psychological drama about the conflict between darker and lighter natures was instead reduced to a action-oriented shoot-'em-up... And not a very good one, either, because of the run-of-the-mill special effects. I mean, Attack Of The Clones ALSO had bad character and plot work, but at least there were lightsabers involved.
For a movie based on a video game, Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within was very good. Next to such atrocities as Tomb Raider and Street Fighter, it positively shines, and when compared to the complete gibberish known as the Super Mario Bros. Movie...
Having said that, Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within could have been A Lot Better.
If you paid attention to the Final Fantasy games, to any of the hype surrounding the movie, or to the CGI industry in general, you already know the computer animation for this movie is far-and-away the best ever done. Back when Square first started producing the movie in 1998, they were progressing at a rate of about one second of film PER DAY, because of the immense quality of the graphics, and none of that quality was lost as technology caught up and time passed. The backdops are jaw-dropping and the CGI actors look more real than some actual actors. Really simply, Square declared itself the current king of CGI animation. Pixar, Dreamworks, move over--the studio that cut its teeth on PlayStation games is in the house.
Unfortunately, having been a fan of the Final Fantasy games since it first sprouted on the original Nintendo, I'm a little jaded towards visual grandeur. And when you take that away, there isn't much left.
The plot is pretty standard--Earth is a wasteland; most of Terra's population has been wiped out by the unexpected invasion of mostly-invisible aliens called Phantoms. The remaining Earthlings struggle to survive. Aki Ross (the main character) and Dr. Cid (there's been a character named Cid in EVERY Final Fantasy production since 1991) have isolated eight Earthborn Spirits--not ghosts, but tangible lifeforms; one of them is a plant, and don't ask me how the plant has a spirit--that, if combined, can wipe the Phantoms off the planet entirely. With the help of Captain Grey Edwards and his crack band of soldiers, the Deep Eyes (Final Fantasy also has a knack for weird names--I mean, who came up with 'Premium Heart'?), Aki sets off to find, capture and use those eight Spirits. And then finally there's General Hein, a megalomaniac fellow who's just trying to blow everything up using a a very large gun.
No problem there. Anyone who plays Final Fantasy is used to Fetch Quests (in which the main characters perform a service to a ruler, generally retrieving a stolen object of enormous power, in return for help from that ruler). What I want to complain about are the characters themselves.
They are FLAT.
A lot of them die, and we don't miss them except that they don't speak any more lines. Grey and Aki (male and female lead) don't really evolve over the course of the story--and Cid is just there to provide technobabble. Oh, and by the way, there's almost no 'fantasy' elements in this movie, with the sole exception of the Spirits.
My two favorite games in the Final Fantasy series are numbers Eight and Ten. They are my favorites because they have unique, interesting, convincing characters. True, most Final Fantasy games take 40 hours or more to play, giving the writers a lot of time to flesh the characters out, but generally within the first five minutes of being introduced to a character (sometimes within the first few SECONDS, as with Zell and Kimahri) you know most or all there is to know about them--they are already convincing, already realized in the player's mind. Square's GOOD at doing that sort of thing.
If Square had bothered to invent real characters for Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within, the movie would have SOARED. As it is, it just barely limps along under the power of a few snappy lines of dialogue and a lot of pretty vistas.
It's worth seeing once, for the same reason any museum is worth visiting once--you'll get to see things you've never seen before and may not see again. But if you're like me and prefer your movies to have interesting characters and plotlines, be prepared for a disappointment.
Having said that, Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within could have been A Lot Better.
If you paid attention to the Final Fantasy games, to any of the hype surrounding the movie, or to the CGI industry in general, you already know the computer animation for this movie is far-and-away the best ever done. Back when Square first started producing the movie in 1998, they were progressing at a rate of about one second of film PER DAY, because of the immense quality of the graphics, and none of that quality was lost as technology caught up and time passed. The backdops are jaw-dropping and the CGI actors look more real than some actual actors. Really simply, Square declared itself the current king of CGI animation. Pixar, Dreamworks, move over--the studio that cut its teeth on PlayStation games is in the house.
Unfortunately, having been a fan of the Final Fantasy games since it first sprouted on the original Nintendo, I'm a little jaded towards visual grandeur. And when you take that away, there isn't much left.
The plot is pretty standard--Earth is a wasteland; most of Terra's population has been wiped out by the unexpected invasion of mostly-invisible aliens called Phantoms. The remaining Earthlings struggle to survive. Aki Ross (the main character) and Dr. Cid (there's been a character named Cid in EVERY Final Fantasy production since 1991) have isolated eight Earthborn Spirits--not ghosts, but tangible lifeforms; one of them is a plant, and don't ask me how the plant has a spirit--that, if combined, can wipe the Phantoms off the planet entirely. With the help of Captain Grey Edwards and his crack band of soldiers, the Deep Eyes (Final Fantasy also has a knack for weird names--I mean, who came up with 'Premium Heart'?), Aki sets off to find, capture and use those eight Spirits. And then finally there's General Hein, a megalomaniac fellow who's just trying to blow everything up using a a very large gun.
No problem there. Anyone who plays Final Fantasy is used to Fetch Quests (in which the main characters perform a service to a ruler, generally retrieving a stolen object of enormous power, in return for help from that ruler). What I want to complain about are the characters themselves.
They are FLAT.
A lot of them die, and we don't miss them except that they don't speak any more lines. Grey and Aki (male and female lead) don't really evolve over the course of the story--and Cid is just there to provide technobabble. Oh, and by the way, there's almost no 'fantasy' elements in this movie, with the sole exception of the Spirits.
My two favorite games in the Final Fantasy series are numbers Eight and Ten. They are my favorites because they have unique, interesting, convincing characters. True, most Final Fantasy games take 40 hours or more to play, giving the writers a lot of time to flesh the characters out, but generally within the first five minutes of being introduced to a character (sometimes within the first few SECONDS, as with Zell and Kimahri) you know most or all there is to know about them--they are already convincing, already realized in the player's mind. Square's GOOD at doing that sort of thing.
If Square had bothered to invent real characters for Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within, the movie would have SOARED. As it is, it just barely limps along under the power of a few snappy lines of dialogue and a lot of pretty vistas.
It's worth seeing once, for the same reason any museum is worth visiting once--you'll get to see things you've never seen before and may not see again. But if you're like me and prefer your movies to have interesting characters and plotlines, be prepared for a disappointment.