Fluke_Skywalker

The success of 2000's Oscar winning 'Gladiator' should have ushered in a new era of large scale "Sword and sandal" films. Instead we got a few offerings and then comic book movies became all the rage and the historical epic got lost in the mists of time. One of the ones that did get made before heroes in tights took over was 2004's criminally underrated 'Troy'.

This is the kind of movie that needs a big stage, and boy does 'Troy' have a doozie. The production values here are just off the scale. And the special f/x! How in the world does a movie made twenty years ago look five times better than movies released this year?

The cast is uniformly excellent, with even the side roles filled by seasoned and accomplished actors who don't appear as if they're just there for check.

It even has a terrific James Horner score (did he have any other kind), pitch perfect for the operatic tone and huge stakes.

This was a hit when it was released, but it seems to have become somewhat forgotten. That's a shame, as it really is a very, very good movie.

I've never read the novel by Alexandre Dumas that this movie is based on, but given that the audiobook version of the former has a runtime north of fifty hours and the latter clocks in at just a smidge over two, I'm guessing that we're getting a severely truncated version here. It doesn't show in terms of the story feeling chopped up or incomplete, but it does really montage its way through the second act so that we can get to the revengn'. Oh well, no matter. It all works perfectly fine regardless.

There are pinpricks all over the hull of this ship, but they don't add up to a large enough hole to sink it. For instance, aside from Guy Pearce and Richard Harris, the film is woefully miscast. But the likes of Caviezel and Guzman make up for it with their genuine, energetic efforts. That goes a long way with me. It's like when you go to a fast food place and their workers are polite. Does it make the fries fresh or the shake machine work? No, but it does make the experience more pleasant.

This is far from a classic, but it seems like it's kinda been forgotten over the years, and that's a shame. It's old fashioned in the best sense of the word, and a nice enough respite from the CGI inflated garbage Hollywood mistakes for being "entertainment" these days.

It seems pretty clear now that the "Comic book" film is on its last legs. The combination of an oversaturated market married with a steep decline in quality has the genre about to join the Western in the mausoleum of pop culture. Can one great movie change that? No. A string of good to pretty good ones? Again, no. This is a nosedive that even Chuck Yeager couldn't pull out of. Enter: 'The Fantastic Four: First Steps', a film so mid, so meh, that your super power will need to be not falling asleep.

Ironically this is the fourth try at a live action F4 adaptation (If you include the Corman hoax from the early 90's, which I do). That's a whole lotta effort for an IP that really doesn't have much "cool" factor or cultural currency. But Marvel never met a toothpaste tube it couldn't squeeze dry, so here we are.

Filled with atrocious CGI f/x, a wafer-thin story and a total lack of emotional connection, the two best things I have to say about this movie are that it's short and that I enjoyed the retro futuristic visuals. That's it. Forgettable score. Poor casting. I could go on and on. Everything else here is a swing and a miss.

This isn't the worst movie in the increasingly inconsequential MCU, but it sure isn't good enough to act as a course correct for Disney's once Titanic brand.