justbob1982
A rejoint le sept. 2002
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Note de justbob1982
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Note de justbob1982
Version I watched: UK cinema release (2D)
Actors: 6/10
Plot/script: 5/10
Photography/visual style: 6/10
Music/score: 6/10
Overall: 6/10
I'm a comics fan, so I was always going to watch it, but the record coming up to it before was not great, and what followed was even worse. This film got a terrible reception too, so bad that director Zack Snyder was given it back to make again, and reportedly rather better when it was released four years later (although I haven't seen it).
The funny thing, though, is that I didn't find this film that bad. I found myself rather liking some of the characters, particularly The Flash and Aquaman, and being interested in their character arcs. Jason Momoa and Gal Gadot still have screen presence and charisma, and the likes of Jeremy Irons are always enjoyable to see on screen. I think the criticisms are absolutely fair that it tries to pack too much in, with many main characters - partly a necessary factor of the teamup premise - and even more supporting characters who have to get their screen time, but the overall film didn't feel long to me, which is always a good sign. I was never bored. A few too many 'zingers' in the dialogue, a dumb name for the villain (Steppenwolf? Really?) but on the whole, it was... alright.
It helps that they seem to have restrained themselves a bit on the power levels of the characters involved. Man of Steel had cities being levelled, with an assumed death toll in the thousands, but this time they toned it down, so the destruction is limited to, well, just a town or two. Danny Elfman's score is also toned down, it seemed to me, eschewing some of his usual orchestral bombast and whimsy.
There has been a weird number of dramas and scandals surrounding the film's cast and crew ever since, though. The tragedy with Snyder's daughter, allegations about screenwriter and substitute director Joss Whedon absolutely annihilating his reputation as a feminist derling of the liberal left, Ezra Miller going spectacularly off the rails with criminal results, Amber Heard's vicious divorce proceedings with Johnny Depp, and even Gal Gadot weighing in unprompted on political situations in her native Israel then doubling down... All these proceeded to torpedo - or at least deal hefty damage to the prospects of - the Flash, Aquaman and Wonder Woman films that followed in the attempted 'DC Extended Universe'. And I haven't even mentioned Warner Bros' financial shenanigans that saw an essentially completed Batgirl movie canned forever.
Had Justice League been a palpable hit, it might have lifted the films that followed and had DC Comics' movie franchise well and truly off the ground. As it turned out, it was a somewhat disappointing mess, re-legislated over and over again online by an increasingly toxic core of "Snyder Knights" (and bizarrely, they voluntarily called themselves this!) and dogged by an endless succession of news stories that were not exactly it's fault but didn't help, until everyone else was fed up with it. Those 'Snyder Knights' still want to "Restore the SnyderVerse", and attack anyone who wants to move on under James Gunn, but it's not going to happen.
'Okay' it turns out, was not good enough.
For my full review, see my independent weblog on Blogspot, Cinema Inferno.
I'm a comics fan, so I was always going to watch it, but the record coming up to it before was not great, and what followed was even worse. This film got a terrible reception too, so bad that director Zack Snyder was given it back to make again, and reportedly rather better when it was released four years later (although I haven't seen it).
The funny thing, though, is that I didn't find this film that bad. I found myself rather liking some of the characters, particularly The Flash and Aquaman, and being interested in their character arcs. Jason Momoa and Gal Gadot still have screen presence and charisma, and the likes of Jeremy Irons are always enjoyable to see on screen. I think the criticisms are absolutely fair that it tries to pack too much in, with many main characters - partly a necessary factor of the teamup premise - and even more supporting characters who have to get their screen time, but the overall film didn't feel long to me, which is always a good sign. I was never bored. A few too many 'zingers' in the dialogue, a dumb name for the villain (Steppenwolf? Really?) but on the whole, it was... alright.
It helps that they seem to have restrained themselves a bit on the power levels of the characters involved. Man of Steel had cities being levelled, with an assumed death toll in the thousands, but this time they toned it down, so the destruction is limited to, well, just a town or two. Danny Elfman's score is also toned down, it seemed to me, eschewing some of his usual orchestral bombast and whimsy.
There has been a weird number of dramas and scandals surrounding the film's cast and crew ever since, though. The tragedy with Snyder's daughter, allegations about screenwriter and substitute director Joss Whedon absolutely annihilating his reputation as a feminist derling of the liberal left, Ezra Miller going spectacularly off the rails with criminal results, Amber Heard's vicious divorce proceedings with Johnny Depp, and even Gal Gadot weighing in unprompted on political situations in her native Israel then doubling down... All these proceeded to torpedo - or at least deal hefty damage to the prospects of - the Flash, Aquaman and Wonder Woman films that followed in the attempted 'DC Extended Universe'. And I haven't even mentioned Warner Bros' financial shenanigans that saw an essentially completed Batgirl movie canned forever.
Had Justice League been a palpable hit, it might have lifted the films that followed and had DC Comics' movie franchise well and truly off the ground. As it turned out, it was a somewhat disappointing mess, re-legislated over and over again online by an increasingly toxic core of "Snyder Knights" (and bizarrely, they voluntarily called themselves this!) and dogged by an endless succession of news stories that were not exactly it's fault but didn't help, until everyone else was fed up with it. Those 'Snyder Knights' still want to "Restore the SnyderVerse", and attack anyone who wants to move on under James Gunn, but it's not going to happen.
'Okay' it turns out, was not good enough.
For my full review, see my independent weblog on Blogspot, Cinema Inferno.
Version I saw: UK DVD release (subtitled)
Actors: 6/10
Plot/script: 6/10
Photography/visual style: 7/10
Music/score: 6/10
Overall: 6/10
It's probably a bad sign that, when I came to review this film, I remembered very little of the plot, and needed to look up a synopsis to refresh my memory.
The story follows Momo, a preteen city-girl whose father dies, forcing her and her mother to move to her mother's rural childhood home. There, she accidentally summons three mischievous yokai (mystical creatures from Japanese folklore somewhat akin to fairies or goblins) who shake up her life with their antics, forcing her to confront her unresolved family and other issues.
It's a fairly well-trodden path narratively, but I think it owes most to iconic Studio Ghibli works including Kiki's Delivery Service and My Neighbour Totoro. The attempt, it seems, is to create a version of these stories aged up to the tween demographic.
Although Momo and her mother are voiced by fairly inexperienced actors, the three yokai are played by a selection of tried-and-trusted veterans: Cho, Koichi Yamadera and Toshiyuki Nishida. What life and energy there is emerges mainly from this trio of likeable, cartoonish agents of chaos.
The art style, tasked with marrying up magical fantasy with everyday realism, presents what seems an authentic portrayal of the Japanese countryside, but perhaps leans further in the direction of realism and away from the fantastical than I might have liked.
If I have one major criticism though, it is not of the film itself at all, but the subtitles. With white lettering and no border, they became difficult to read against any bright background, and impossible when the background was white, as it often was. To make things worse, they are dubtitles - the script of the English dub, in which extra lines have been added - so on some occasions we see a line of dialogue pop up into complete silence. The only way this can have passed is if nobody at western distributor Anime Limited bothered to watch the finished product before shipping it, and fraknly, it is not good enough.
Aside from the subtitles, I don't honestly think there is a great deal wrong with A Letter To Momo. If it has weaknesses, they are just in extent. On pacing, they erred on the side of slow and gentle. The human characters are recognizable and relatable, to the extent of being humdrum and mundane. The tone is bittersweet, but I might have preferred a bit more of the undeniable charm and warmth that can be seen at times.
The end result, though, is somewhat middle-of-the-road, lacklustre. I enjoyed the 2 hours-ish I spent watching it, but the fact is that there are many better films I could have been watching instead.
It's probably a bad sign that, when I came to review this film, I remembered very little of the plot, and needed to look up a synopsis to refresh my memory.
The story follows Momo, a preteen city-girl whose father dies, forcing her and her mother to move to her mother's rural childhood home. There, she accidentally summons three mischievous yokai (mystical creatures from Japanese folklore somewhat akin to fairies or goblins) who shake up her life with their antics, forcing her to confront her unresolved family and other issues.
It's a fairly well-trodden path narratively, but I think it owes most to iconic Studio Ghibli works including Kiki's Delivery Service and My Neighbour Totoro. The attempt, it seems, is to create a version of these stories aged up to the tween demographic.
Although Momo and her mother are voiced by fairly inexperienced actors, the three yokai are played by a selection of tried-and-trusted veterans: Cho, Koichi Yamadera and Toshiyuki Nishida. What life and energy there is emerges mainly from this trio of likeable, cartoonish agents of chaos.
The art style, tasked with marrying up magical fantasy with everyday realism, presents what seems an authentic portrayal of the Japanese countryside, but perhaps leans further in the direction of realism and away from the fantastical than I might have liked.
If I have one major criticism though, it is not of the film itself at all, but the subtitles. With white lettering and no border, they became difficult to read against any bright background, and impossible when the background was white, as it often was. To make things worse, they are dubtitles - the script of the English dub, in which extra lines have been added - so on some occasions we see a line of dialogue pop up into complete silence. The only way this can have passed is if nobody at western distributor Anime Limited bothered to watch the finished product before shipping it, and fraknly, it is not good enough.
Aside from the subtitles, I don't honestly think there is a great deal wrong with A Letter To Momo. If it has weaknesses, they are just in extent. On pacing, they erred on the side of slow and gentle. The human characters are recognizable and relatable, to the extent of being humdrum and mundane. The tone is bittersweet, but I might have preferred a bit more of the undeniable charm and warmth that can be seen at times.
The end result, though, is somewhat middle-of-the-road, lacklustre. I enjoyed the 2 hours-ish I spent watching it, but the fact is that there are many better films I could have been watching instead.
Version I saw: UK cinema release (dubbed)
Actors: 6/10
Plot/script: 5/10
Photography/visual style: 6/10
Music/score: 6/10
Overall: 6/10
Pokemon is a global cultural phenomenon and massive multimedia franchise, but despite being a Japanophile, it has largely passed me by, possibly because my family were more Playstation players than Nintendo.
For the 20th anniversary of the anime TV series, they created this cinema-release movie, editing together some of the key episodes and adding in some new footage that smooths out the joins between them.
At every level, the main contributors are all long-time Pokemon insiderds. The director is Kunihiko Yuyama, who directed the original TV series. Original writers Satoshi Tajiri and Takeshi Shudo are joined by comparative newcomer Shoji Yonemura. On the voice talent side, Sarah Natochenny has been playing Ash for some years, and the likes of Michele Knotz and James Carter Cathcart have ben there, in multiple roles, from the outset.
When it comes to Pokemon, the games are the core, and everything else is arguably advertising for them, so it should not have surprised me as much as it did that this film started (after the certification card, so it is part of the edited film) with an advertisement for a Pokemon toy, and ended with several 5-minute short films which I gather summarize the plots of the various games for new fans (i.e. Potential customers). The whole thing was essentially a 96-minute advert!
Still, they do commit to it. The animation, while unremarkable artistically, is crisp and modern-looking, with new shots integrated smoothly. None of it looked out of place on a big cinema screen, and I could believe they actually did some work on restoring and cleaning up the 90s footage.
The plot is confusing at times, including a dream section that made no sense for more reasons than the expected dream-weirdness, and an apparent resurrection during the climactic battle through means I could not fathom. Would more dedicated fans have the background knowledge to fill in these gaps? Or indeed, would nostalgia for the characters and world carry them through? I don't know, you'd have to ask them... but I can believe it would.
What I, an outsider, got was a fairly entertaining, if unevenly plotted, child-friendly, ordinary shonen adventure story that did not overstay its welcome. Dedicated fans will probably get the required nostalgia hit, but I would not really recommend it to newcomers.
For my full review, see my independent film review blog on Blogspot, Cinema Inferno.
Pokemon is a global cultural phenomenon and massive multimedia franchise, but despite being a Japanophile, it has largely passed me by, possibly because my family were more Playstation players than Nintendo.
For the 20th anniversary of the anime TV series, they created this cinema-release movie, editing together some of the key episodes and adding in some new footage that smooths out the joins between them.
At every level, the main contributors are all long-time Pokemon insiderds. The director is Kunihiko Yuyama, who directed the original TV series. Original writers Satoshi Tajiri and Takeshi Shudo are joined by comparative newcomer Shoji Yonemura. On the voice talent side, Sarah Natochenny has been playing Ash for some years, and the likes of Michele Knotz and James Carter Cathcart have ben there, in multiple roles, from the outset.
When it comes to Pokemon, the games are the core, and everything else is arguably advertising for them, so it should not have surprised me as much as it did that this film started (after the certification card, so it is part of the edited film) with an advertisement for a Pokemon toy, and ended with several 5-minute short films which I gather summarize the plots of the various games for new fans (i.e. Potential customers). The whole thing was essentially a 96-minute advert!
Still, they do commit to it. The animation, while unremarkable artistically, is crisp and modern-looking, with new shots integrated smoothly. None of it looked out of place on a big cinema screen, and I could believe they actually did some work on restoring and cleaning up the 90s footage.
The plot is confusing at times, including a dream section that made no sense for more reasons than the expected dream-weirdness, and an apparent resurrection during the climactic battle through means I could not fathom. Would more dedicated fans have the background knowledge to fill in these gaps? Or indeed, would nostalgia for the characters and world carry them through? I don't know, you'd have to ask them... but I can believe it would.
What I, an outsider, got was a fairly entertaining, if unevenly plotted, child-friendly, ordinary shonen adventure story that did not overstay its welcome. Dedicated fans will probably get the required nostalgia hit, but I would not really recommend it to newcomers.
For my full review, see my independent film review blog on Blogspot, Cinema Inferno.