Twinsen61

Of Snails and Men is an entertainment movie aimed primarily at a Romanian audience. Giurgiu plays it lightly and safely but really funny moments are rare in-between. The themes feel stale and the nostalgia for the 90s does not really come through. All the characters are clichés starting from the corrupt factory chief down to each worker. Acting is mostly average though a really bad performance from Jean-François Stévenin stands out.

This kind of popcorn movie coming from Giurgiu is a disappointment for me after the controversial Legaturi Bolnavicioase which felt a lot more alive. Multiplex audiences will likely enjoy it moderately but they won't be telling their friends about it.

Rebuild of Evangelion has great animation. And I guess that's the best thing that can be said about it.

The original show was so full of ideas and emotion that even a 25 minutes episode could make you feel drained and confused. The first movie of the remake packs together about six episodes and this means that a lot of scenes had to be cut in order to fit the much shorter time frame and keep the story flowing. The result is that the characters have less depth and we are going too fast from one angel killing to another. It almost seems like a Hollywood remake with great computer-generated imagery and a lot of action. This is missing some of the spirit of the original.

The series was imperfect and highly uneven but in a bizarre way this was also one of the things that made it great. I think Anno should have Evangelion untouched – why remake something that is already as good as it can be? Rebuild of Evangelion is not a failure but it's kind of pointless.