Nicol_Bolas
Joined Nov 2005
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Reviews13
Nicol_Bolas's rating
This movie is the definition of Shown their work. This movie loves holding forth on how much its filmmakers know about things. If you were to grade a movie based on its rigid adherence to reality (ignoring the premise, of course), this movie would get an A+.
Unfortunately for this film, movies are graded on their entertainment value. And in that department, this film falls apart.
The dialog is atrocious. The characters seem completely incapable of actually saying anything; they have to dance around the point. Its like that scene in Spielberg's War of the Worlds where the characters are desperately trying not to use the word "Alien". Except it makes even less sense here, and that kind of dialog is *everywhere* in this film.
This style of dialog feels very unnatural and forced. You wonder how people who talk this way interact with other human beings at all. This film absolutely loves using many words to say as little as possible. How a film can use so many words and still fail to communicate basic ideas, I don't know. But they seem to have achieved that, so kudos.
That dialog sabotages the films plot and every attempt to create tension. Despite the wordiness of the dialog, they never actually say what's happening. Combine this with the fact that the film doesn't like to show things either, and you are left with a film that simply doesn't work. I appreciate a movie that doesn't just give you everything, that requires audience participation to get everything from the story. But there are limits.
We know that *something* happened towards the end. But the film is very circumspect about what it is. And since we're talking about the climax of the story, what you have is a film without a climax. Things happen, but to no apparent purpose. Or at least, to a purpose that is not made clear.
If your headspace isn't the same as that of the filmmakers, if you're not thinking *exactly* as they do at every moment in the movie, you're not going to get whats going on. However, it is the filmmakers job to see to it that the audience is in their headspace. So its really their fault that the film doesn't work.
And here's the worst part. Even if you do eventually get whats going... its not that clever. You don't get some kind of transcendent revelation of the nature of Man. If you are able to figure out what happened, then all you get a fairly decent movie plot. What you get for understanding the film simply isn't worth the effort.
What is this film? It's like using the words "Sesquipedalian Loquaciousness" instead of "wordy"; even if you understand what the big words mean, it's not like you have communicated a profound concept. This film is dense and impenetrable for the sake of being dense and impenetrable, not because it communicates meaning better or more precisely.
Unfortunately for this film, movies are graded on their entertainment value. And in that department, this film falls apart.
The dialog is atrocious. The characters seem completely incapable of actually saying anything; they have to dance around the point. Its like that scene in Spielberg's War of the Worlds where the characters are desperately trying not to use the word "Alien". Except it makes even less sense here, and that kind of dialog is *everywhere* in this film.
This style of dialog feels very unnatural and forced. You wonder how people who talk this way interact with other human beings at all. This film absolutely loves using many words to say as little as possible. How a film can use so many words and still fail to communicate basic ideas, I don't know. But they seem to have achieved that, so kudos.
That dialog sabotages the films plot and every attempt to create tension. Despite the wordiness of the dialog, they never actually say what's happening. Combine this with the fact that the film doesn't like to show things either, and you are left with a film that simply doesn't work. I appreciate a movie that doesn't just give you everything, that requires audience participation to get everything from the story. But there are limits.
We know that *something* happened towards the end. But the film is very circumspect about what it is. And since we're talking about the climax of the story, what you have is a film without a climax. Things happen, but to no apparent purpose. Or at least, to a purpose that is not made clear.
If your headspace isn't the same as that of the filmmakers, if you're not thinking *exactly* as they do at every moment in the movie, you're not going to get whats going on. However, it is the filmmakers job to see to it that the audience is in their headspace. So its really their fault that the film doesn't work.
And here's the worst part. Even if you do eventually get whats going... its not that clever. You don't get some kind of transcendent revelation of the nature of Man. If you are able to figure out what happened, then all you get a fairly decent movie plot. What you get for understanding the film simply isn't worth the effort.
What is this film? It's like using the words "Sesquipedalian Loquaciousness" instead of "wordy"; even if you understand what the big words mean, it's not like you have communicated a profound concept. This film is dense and impenetrable for the sake of being dense and impenetrable, not because it communicates meaning better or more precisely.
There are so many movie adaptations of other media that are ashamed of their source material. They want to run away as fast as possible from what the source material was. In some cases, this means dropping minor aspects of the original. In other cases, this means changing the entire tone of a work.
Take The Dark Knight. For all of its greatness, it isn't a Batman film. Indeed, it would probably have had more verisimilitude if they'd called the character "The Vigilante" or some such. Every time the word "Batman" is uttered, the film seems to lose its tone. Batman is reduced to an artifact in his own movie, an echo of an unwanted element in this serious character study/action film.
Speed Racer is completely without shame for its source material. This is Speed Racer in live-action. The world is clean and pure, the racing scenes are absolutely over-the-top (even moreso than in the cartoon, if you can believe that), and even the characters are broad and dramatic. It is, in a word, pure.
No attempt is made to cover up the fact that a family with the last name "Racer" had a child that they decided to give the first name "Speed". This is introduced, and the audience is to either accept it or move on to something else. Speed's brother has a pet chimpanzee; this is introduced and the audience is expected to accept it or leave. The whole movie is like this.
There is nothing quite like a film that knows what it's trying to achieve and lets nothing stand in the way of achieving that. This film sets out to make live-action Speed Racer, and it succeeds. If that interests you, check it out.
Take The Dark Knight. For all of its greatness, it isn't a Batman film. Indeed, it would probably have had more verisimilitude if they'd called the character "The Vigilante" or some such. Every time the word "Batman" is uttered, the film seems to lose its tone. Batman is reduced to an artifact in his own movie, an echo of an unwanted element in this serious character study/action film.
Speed Racer is completely without shame for its source material. This is Speed Racer in live-action. The world is clean and pure, the racing scenes are absolutely over-the-top (even moreso than in the cartoon, if you can believe that), and even the characters are broad and dramatic. It is, in a word, pure.
No attempt is made to cover up the fact that a family with the last name "Racer" had a child that they decided to give the first name "Speed". This is introduced, and the audience is to either accept it or move on to something else. Speed's brother has a pet chimpanzee; this is introduced and the audience is expected to accept it or leave. The whole movie is like this.
There is nothing quite like a film that knows what it's trying to achieve and lets nothing stand in the way of achieving that. This film sets out to make live-action Speed Racer, and it succeeds. If that interests you, check it out.