Some quick, capsule style reviews from movies I’ve seen recently. I have been running short on time as far as the blogging goes. Hopefully I can get back into it soon enough.
The descent:
This one is simple enough to explain. Go see it. I don’t want to talk too much about it because I went into the movie fairly ignorant of it’s plot and I believe I enjoyed more than I would have had I known what was coming.
The movie is a lot of fun and it likes to surprise you. Let it. Unlike a lot of movies that try to throw you for a loop and fail, Descent actually does a terrific job of keeping you off balance and shocking you. There’s a few twists, a few jump-out-of-your-seat moments and a lot of fun. The writers took the time to set the premise up nicely and it was a fairly brave act. The movie sort of plods along for a while, like as boxer pretending to be slow and stupid, and then POW! Right when it has lulled you to sleep it smacks you in the mouth. The acting is good, the direction is actually pretty interesting with some clever shots and the pacing is absolutely brilliant. I’ve never seen a movie better paced than this, it was perfect. The thing is, had the pacing and the direction not been tight it would have bombed miserably. The Descent is really lightning in a bottle that way. An incompetent director or some shoddy camera work would have made this thing unbearable, instead it was truly awesome.
Miami Vice:
If you’re a fan of the TV series, or an eighties guy like me hungry for some nostalgia, skip it. This movie has none of the cache that the show had, none of the chemistry between the characters, no hip feel to it at all really. They even eschewed some of the great Phil Collins 80’s music in favor of unrecognizable crap.
Jamie Foxx overacted his way into oblivion and Collin Farell actually turned in a very good performance. Both of them were just a bit to somber and serious throughout and for some reason you always got the feeling that they just didn’t like each other very much.
Director Michael Mann showed flashes of his 80’s brilliance, picking some absolutely beautiful Miami acreage to film. He has an amazing knack for capturing the essence of a place that’s hard to explain. The soft colors of the early morning when the harsh neon is still viewable but waning, the late aerial shots of city hemmed in by ocean, the gorgeous late night cityscape; all of that is typical Mann and easy to take for granted. However, no one else does it like Mann. If all I showed you was a quick scene of a man and woman on a roof talking, with the soft light of dawn and the glow of a city behind them, you would instantly think Michael Mann, Miami Vice. It’s almost inexplicable and intangible how he does it—it’s also quite brilliant.
After that the plot becomes over complicated, the love interests too predictable and the relationship between Sonny and Crockett way under developed.
Don’t get me wrong, Miami Vice is enjoyable and has a nice, gritty feel to it. The action is good, Collin Farrel is perfect for it. If it wasn’t called Miami Vice I would be much more excited than I am about it. Unfortunately they set the bar high by announcing a Miami Vice movie and then delivered a product where there was little or no effort to emulate the original. A lot of the fun, trend-setting appeal is missing.
If you didn’t love the show or aren’t familiar with it, you’ll enjoy the movie. I did. But I had to realize early-on that I wasn’t going to be treated to anything Miami Vice like and deal with it.
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