Casino Royale

Bad, James Bad.

Finally, something that makes the Timothy Dalton movies look really good.

First off, this movie was half an hour longer than it should have been. At just about the 2 hour mark, I muttered "is this thing over yet?" and checked the time remaining.

The pacing was completely off. At times, it dragged horribly. Other times, things were so choppy you couldn't follow what was going on. It seemed like a lot of explanatory shots were cut, leaving dumb viewers like me wondering what just happened.

The action sequences were twice as long as they should have been. They didn't really accelerate the plot at all (they were all just set-up to propel the main plot), which made them kind of anti-climactic.

There were way too many characters. If you're going to have 10 named characters, don't expect to be able to reference them by name and have me "get it". I can remember the names of maybe 3 characters and I need to have a reason to remember their names. Repeat them, have a dialogue about them, make them stereotypical, do something!

And if you want me to remember a character from the a two minute sequence at the beginning of a boring 2.5 hour film, you have to give him a distinguishing feature (eye patch, peg leg, six fingers on his left hand, major scar, etc.).

V for Vendetta

I was really quite impressed by this movie. Much more than I thought I would be, in fact.

The characters were interesting, the settings were well done, the dialog was well-written. They don't waste a lot of time explaining what's going on in the world, but if you're paying attention, it's rather obvious.

This movie would have been a truly great movie if they had avoided the hideously out of place fight scenes. In the blink of an eye, the movie went from a rather dark, intriguing flick to a silly action movie complete with unrealistic amounts of blood.

I'm really surprised that this movie's message did not generate more press attention than it did. Basically, the world in which it is set is an extrapolation of our current terror situation. Everyone is kept in line by fear and having a different opinion is a capital crime. One character is even arrested for secretly owning a copy of the Qu'ran.

If nothing else, this movie will make you want to find out more about Guy Fawkes...

Day Zero

I intend to use this space to review stuff... Primarily movies... But occasionally a product or service will blow me away (or unimpress me) so much, I'll slap something up about it ...