February 2012
Chronicle. (at the movies) I found this to be another really good crack at "what if some people really DID get super powers?" It was a little too slow and long in the take-off, but once it got going it was really engaging. A nice trio of main characters, an interesting and mostly believable exploration of the ramifications of what's happened to them, and a really exciting climax.
I'm not entirely sold on having the entire movie 'chronicled' through various cameras. I don't know that we necessarily gain anything more from that than if we'd simply had it filmed in a traditional fashion. It's not really until the climax that it even becomes interesting, otherwise it's often just a strained gimmick. In direct comparison to Cloverfield (which Chronicle has a very similar vibe to, and not just because of the handheld camera style) Cloverfield at least had a definite reason for delivering the story to us the way it did, while Chronicle's reasoning is far more flimsy and hard to accept.
I glibly described Chronicle as 'Cloverfield meets Heroes versus Kick-Ass' and I think that sums it up pretty well. I enjoyed Chronicle an awful lot, see it.
Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. (on DVD)So I finally got around to the last movie in my Indiana Jones re-viewing. This is not so bad really. Not nearly as bad as I whinged and moaned and lamented upon seeing it in the cinema. Yes, there's some stupidity, and a lot more useless stuff than I'm used to in IJ movies, but for some reason I was able to forgive it more this time.
The sci-fi angle (aliens, telepathy) was really grating on initial viewing, but it seems quite appropriate for the time period now, as does the swapping of Nazis for Reds as the cookie cutter bad guys with machine guns.
Indy really seemed in character for most of his screen time, which was nice to see, like an old friend returning. I really liked his briefly outlined history since Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade – being a spy, helping the US government, etc. That, and his ability to really endure a lot of physical punishment, made him extremely reminiscent to me of Will Eisner's original comic book version of The Spirit, post World War II.
LaBeouf had obviously been studying Ford's acting from the first three IJ movies and was aping that the best he could a lot of the time. He was a lot easier to ignore on this viewing too — he wasn't so annoying. Allen's acting was pretty woeful and vacuous though. The ongoing inclusion of the Mac character was completely perplexing once he had "admitted" to being a double agent — superfluous, confusing and should've been eaten by the ants. There were only a few times computer generated imagery was over used. To be honest, Lucas and Spielberg could be admired for their restraint there.
Here's an observation apropos of nothing really… The opening scene with the kids in the hot rod near the nuclear bomb test site reminded me very much of the opening scene of The Hulk's origin story from the original comics. And then to see a general named General Ross turn up? Coincidence or homage?
Lastly, I never had a problem with the fridge. Not originally, and not now. There, I said it.
It actually played in the cinema the same time as the Hulk. I went to see the Hulk and they accidently played The Crystal Skull instead. It was a while before people really realised! I was one of the last to realise as I thought it was Rick Jones driving onto the gamma bomb testing range!
ReplyDeleteHah! That's awesome! That's the best Hulk movie never made I reckon! I'm glad to find that I'm not the only one who felt the similarity. :)
ReplyDelete