DanLawson146
Joined May 2014
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Reviews391
DanLawson146's rating
POSITIVES:
1) The performances are really good. There's a lot of balancing that needs to be done between humour and seriousness, which I think the actors were able to do very well.
2) The film is really funny and has some razor sharp dialogue. There are several hilarious moments and plenty of smirks and chuckles on top of that too.
3) It's a difficult balance to strike in a comedy satire film, but I was glad to see that the film didn't shy away from the darkness of this period of history and had plenty of serious moments in it, despite ultimately being a film trying to make you laugh.
NEGATIVES:
1) If you came into the film not knowing anything about this period of history then you might have been engrossed by the plotting of the different characters and excited to see who was going to come out on top. However, I studied this period of history at college and so knew all the ins and outs of who ultimately wins and what happens to each of the different characters, so this meant there were times in the film where I wasn't really gripped by the narrative and was actually finding the film to be quite boring.
2) The accents were a real problem for me. I know that you're meant to just look past this because the film isn't trying to take itself too seriously, but I just couldn't look past everyone doing British or American accents when we're meant to be in Russia. The worst offender by a clear mile was Jason Isaacs and the preposterous accent he was told to do for some reason.
3) For a film that is meant to be set in the past, I never felt like we were in the past at all. The film is too shiny and glossy and stagey to ever immerse me in the world that it's trying to inhabit. It felt like a group of friends getting together and deciding to put on a show about Stalin's death and the rush for power, but not really making any effort in terms of costume design, production design, makeup and hairstyling, etc.
1) The performances are really good. There's a lot of balancing that needs to be done between humour and seriousness, which I think the actors were able to do very well.
2) The film is really funny and has some razor sharp dialogue. There are several hilarious moments and plenty of smirks and chuckles on top of that too.
3) It's a difficult balance to strike in a comedy satire film, but I was glad to see that the film didn't shy away from the darkness of this period of history and had plenty of serious moments in it, despite ultimately being a film trying to make you laugh.
NEGATIVES:
1) If you came into the film not knowing anything about this period of history then you might have been engrossed by the plotting of the different characters and excited to see who was going to come out on top. However, I studied this period of history at college and so knew all the ins and outs of who ultimately wins and what happens to each of the different characters, so this meant there were times in the film where I wasn't really gripped by the narrative and was actually finding the film to be quite boring.
2) The accents were a real problem for me. I know that you're meant to just look past this because the film isn't trying to take itself too seriously, but I just couldn't look past everyone doing British or American accents when we're meant to be in Russia. The worst offender by a clear mile was Jason Isaacs and the preposterous accent he was told to do for some reason.
3) For a film that is meant to be set in the past, I never felt like we were in the past at all. The film is too shiny and glossy and stagey to ever immerse me in the world that it's trying to inhabit. It felt like a group of friends getting together and deciding to put on a show about Stalin's death and the rush for power, but not really making any effort in terms of costume design, production design, makeup and hairstyling, etc.
