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voodoo4936
Reviews
Finding Nemo (2003)
One of the year's best movies, animated or otherwise
Ignore the reviews claiming that "Finding Nemo" is great, but not Pixar Studios' best film. Ignore any comments on this page that point out flaws in the theme, humor, or sentimental plot. In fact, ignore everything you may have read about "Finding Nemo" and just see it for yourself. "Nemo" is Pixar's crowning achievement, and it's as close to perfect as any movie I've ever seen. EVERYTHING works in this film: the vocal performances are top-notch (particularly by Albert Brooks' Marlin and Ellen DeGeneres' Dory), the animation is nothing short of breathtaking, the dialogue is superbly written and genuinely hilarious at times, and the story is wonderfully simple, almost Zen-like. Disney's tendency to go overboard with the sentiment has been thankfully held back, so when an emotional moment comes along, you really feel it. No part of the movie drags, no scene seems out of place, and the entire thing will leave you captivated, whether you're 8 or 80. It's been so long since I've seen an honest-to-God masterpiece come out of the theatre, it might seem like I'm exaggerating, but rest assured: "Finding Nemo" deserves any and all praise it receives. This one's a keeper, folks.
Kill Bill: Vol. 1 (2003)
Stylish, energetic, and witty trash
The first thing you need to know about Kill Bill is that it's about as far removed from Tarantino's classic Pulp Fiction as you can get. Tarantino's calling card - cool criminal types who kill casually and shoot the breeze about pop culture from this and many other decades - is absent. And thank God. Returning to that formula, used to lovely effect in Fiction and 1992's Reservoir Dogs (and aped by just about every subsequent crime movie since), would have provoked audible winces from Kill Bill's audience, who have been anxiously awaiting the director's followup to 1997's mildly received Jackie Brown.
No, Mr. Tarantino has tired of that one trick, and as such can't be called a pony. He's looking in other directions, inhaling every piece of cinematic candy he can find and sifting through it all to find suitable inspiration. In this case, the inspiration is the classic kung-fu "chop-sockies" of the 1970s. Kill Bill is littered with sly references to these cult flicks, so it's safe to say that those cultists will get slightly more out of Kill Bill than the average moviegoer. But that doesn't mean the average moviegoer won't have fun with this trash. Because make no mistake: Kill Bill is trash, in its purest and most exhilerating form. Tarantino borrows, recycles, and improves on old garbage and turns it into....well, new garbage. The result? A cult classic in the making, and a breath of much-needed fresh air in this season's stale movie environment.
The second thing you need to know about Kill Bill is that the pace never slows down. You know you're in for a treat when the first major fight scene takes place less than 5 minutes after the opening credits. After that, it's a high-octane ride as the Bride (Uma Thurman) tries to track down the b**tard who crashed her wedding, killed everyone in attendance (including the groom and her unborn baby), and shot her in the head. She survived, though, and newly equipped with a metal plate in her head (and one hell of a bad mood), the Bride is out to kill Bill. See, Bill is the leader of a top-secret group called the Deadly Viper Assassination Squad (DVAS - they're divas, get it?). The entire Squad, along with Bill, busted up the wedding for an as-yet-unknown reason (hopefully Volume 2 will fill that particular hole). So the Bride decides to kill all of the DVAS, along with Bill. In case you couldn't tell by now, Kill Bill has "cult movie" written all over it.
And what a cult movie! Tarantino fills Kill Bill with knowing nods to martial arts classics, and manages to fuse them with his own pop-punk, ultraviolent sensibilities. The gore in this movie is deliciously overdone - you can practically see the hose spouting blood out of the decapitated yakuza's head, and that's to say nothing of the anime section detailing the childhood of one of the DVAS, O-Ren Ishii (Lucy Liu). The final climactic fight scene, which takes place in a gorgeous Tokyo restaurant, has more eye-popping choreography and virtuosic camera work than you likely thought possible. The whole thing is like Crouching Tiger on acid, with Uma and co. brazenly flaunting the rules of gravity while showing off some of fight supervisor Yuen Wo-Ping's best work to date. Kill Bill's dialogue is shamelessly cheesy, its characters are cartoons, and it's all overseen by the faceless Bill (David Carradine, from TV's Kung Fu, natch), whose weapon of choice is a katana that closely mirrors the one that the Bride uses to exact her revenge. A retired swordmaker (who Makes One Last Blade After Swearing He'd Never Make Another Weapon Again, cough cough cheese cheese), a p**sed-off bartender's assistant, a necrophilic male nurse (he's Buck, and he's here to f*ck), Nancy Sinatra, and El Paso all make their way into the Kill Bill mix. But what's most interesting about Kill Bill's atmosphere is the East-meets-West sentiment. For every slo-mo katana attack, there's a gunshot from a six-shooter. For every Oriental flute solo, there's a harmonica lick. For every masked yakuza gangster, there's a deputy decked out in a cowboy hat and leather boots. It's as if Tarantino is subliminally trying to get us (the West) to connect with them (the East), two cultures legendarily incompatible.
As it turns out, they're quite compatible after all, as Kill Bill has huge appeal for both hardcore Bruce Lee fanatics and the average blood-and-guts-loving Joe Schmoe. Kill Bill is a bracing, thrilling piece of pop-culture junk that no one over the age of 18 should miss out on.
Grade: B+
Wo hu cang long (2000)
A true gem
Once in a while, a movie comes along that combines all the elements that make motion pictures such an enjoyable experience. Ang Lee's epic Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon is one such film. A dazzling tale of swords, sorcery, and powerful drama, Crouching Tiger is truly a sight to behold.
Lee Mu Bai (Chow Yun-Fat), a highly skilled warrior, has given his legend ary sword, the Green Destiny, to the elder Sir Te (Lung Sihung). However, one night, while Mu Bai is staying at Sir Te's palace, a young thief named Jen (Zhang Ziyi) steals the sword. A chase throughout the grounds ensues, and Jen is eventually cornered by Yu Shu Lien (Michelle Yeoh), Mu Bai's good friend and fellow warrior.
It seems that Jen, a governor's daughter and bride-to-be, has secretly been taught martial arts by the infamous assassin Jade Fox, who killed Mu Bai's master. What ensues is a gripping and lifelike drama, as we learn of Jen's past and her passionate romance with a desert wanderer (Chang Chen).
The moving plot is simply amplified by the spectacular fight scenes, choreographed by Yuen Wo-Ping (The Matrix). Each fight goes beyond the proceedings - they don't just consist of two or three people going at it like angry zebras. The bouts are stunning in their complexity, and are much like the martial arts themselves - balanced yet brutal, delicate but deadly.
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon is one of those movies that you must own simply for the fact that you can watch and rewatch your favorite scenes, and never get tired of them. The action is fantastic, the characters are deep and realistic (you can spend hours just questioning their actions and motivations, and figuring out what makes them tick), and the direction and cinematography are nothing short of top-notch. The soundtrack, which won an Oscar at the 2001 Academy Awards ceremony, is beautiful and evocative, and perfectly fits the mood and atmosphere of the film.
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon is an absolute triumph of imagery and imagination. Finally, a move that not only looks great and sounds great, but feels great as well.
My Grade: 10/10
The Powerpuff Girls Movie (2002)
I loved it!
Sugar, spice, and everything nice: that's what little girls are made of. Add in a dose of Chemical X and you've got the Powerpuff Girls, a trio of crime-fighting tots with some freaky-cool super powers and huge bug eyes. They're also really, really cute. Like, painfully cute. Sickeningly cute. But they're also tough. Kick-ass tough. 450-lightning-fast-punches-per-second tough.
Actually, that's a fairly apt description of the Powerpuff Girls series itself, one of the many jewels in Cartoon Network's crown. Created by Craig McCracken in 1998, the show has equal doses of humor, heart, razor-sharp comic timing, kicky visuals, and good old-fashioned anime-style butt kicking. It's this potent mix that makes The Powerpuff Girls such a riot, and the same applies to the movie. Released in 2002 to a rather pithy box office take (read: bomb), The Powerpuff Girls Movie is nonetheless a great way to kill 80 minutes.
In case you're new to the whole PPG phenomenon (and it is indeed a phenomenon, now a multi-million dollar industry spawning every conceivable form of merchandise from keychains to breakfast cereals), the story goes like this: Professor Utonium set out to create three perfect little girls by mixing the above ingredients. However, he accidentally spilled some of the mysterious Chemical X into the mix, and the Powerpuff Girls resulted. These little tots can fly, run at amazing speeds, shoot laser beams out of their eyes, and even talk to squirrels (well, one of them can). Unfortunately, during their first day at Pokey Oaks Kindergarten in the city of Townsville, they get into a, shall we say, "rough" game of tag. Much property damage ensues as the girls fly around, smash into buildings, tear up the roads, and just generally trash the whole town with their super-powered shenanigans. No one in Townsville is impressed, the girls are labeled "freaks" and become social outcasts, and they soon end up wandering the streets of Townsville on their own. Hope arrives in the form of a mutant monkey named Mojo JoJo, but unfortunately, Mr. JoJo is not all that he seems....
The series' trademark visual style is here in full force, and with some slick CGI added to the mix in certain scenes. The colors are bright, the animation is simple and effective, and the action is as fast and furious as ever (if you thought Pokemon was seizure-inducing, get a load of THIS stuff). The plot is fast-paced and funny, with some hilarious pop-culture references that may require a second viewing to fully register (let's just say that Bill Maher and Van Halen are involved, not to mention King Kong) . The last 20 minutes of the film are delightfully chaotic (so....many....monkeys), and the whole production oozes cleverness and fun. The creators set out to make the best possible movie they could, and they've passed with flying colors.
The DVD includes some great extras, including "character interviews", director commentary, a behind-the-scenes featurette, and even the Dexter's Laboratory short "Chicken Scratch", shown in theatres with the movie. Overall, it's a great rental, and an even better buy if you're a fan. Either way, check it out. It's by no means an animation breakthrough, but The Powerpuff Girls Movie is a blast from start to finish, and that's good enough for me.
My Grade: 8/10
The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (2002)
Not bad, but not great
Thank heavens for Peter Jackson. The out-of-the-blue Aussie auteur, previously best known for the 1996 Michael J. Fox bomb The Frighteners, has managed to deliver where so many others have failed, or feared to even attempt. He has successfully translated J.R.R. Tolkien's massive Lord of the Rings trilogy to the big screen with maximum verve and minimal crap. Last year's Fellowship of the Ring scored a bulls-eye with moviegoers and critics alike, and there was an audible sigh of relief among hardcore LOTR fanatics when the long-awaited film was finally released to smashing success.
So, where does Mr. Jackson go from there? He took a gamble in filming all three of the LOTR movies one after the other - what if Fellowship tanked? The whole franchise would have been up the creek. Thankfully, that fear was soon vanquished, but now Jackson has yet another roadblock to overcome: expectation. Hype. Buzz. Fellowship set the standard for Jackson and his crew - now all they can do is surpass it. That's a lot of pressure. I mean, a LOT of pressure. Thus, The Two Towers is arguably the most important film in the trilogy, simply because it has to live up to the expectations of millions of LOTR fans, AND the general movie going public, AND the critics, AND the studios that pay for the whole shebang. I'm amazed that Jackson hasn't had a stroke by now, or at least one mother of an ulcer.
So when all is said and done, does The Two Towers deliver? Yes. Is it as good as Fellowship? No. Does it still kick ass? For the most part, yes. It's just not very graceful doing it.
Simply put, The Two Towers is an exhausting movie. By the end, I felt like I'd been through a war zone. The film is just SO LONG, and there is SO MUCH GOING ON, from epic battles to flowery speeches to zombified swamps to talking trees....the first word that came to mind when I left the theater was "overstuffed". I feel like I'm beating on a dead horse, though - these movies are complete adaptations of the novels, and as such, there's going to be a whole lot of stuff packed into 3 hours. But even so, those 3 hours don't have to feel like 6. I can see where Jackson and company could have trimmed a bit here, shuffled a bit there, moved around a few parts here, just to make the narrative flow more freely. TTT's plot is heaps more complex than Fellowship's, and the best way to deal with that is to tell the story in the simplest, most direct way possible. But Jackson jumps back and forth between plot lines like Quentin Tarantino on speed, and it just doesn't work. This may be Jackson's way of keeping us from getting bored, but it's ultimately distracting and unnecessary. Yes, there are a lot of plot threads to juggle - from Frodo and Sam's descent into hell, to Aragorn's crew trying to rescue Merry and Pippin, to Merry and Pippin themselves just trying to stay alive, and more subplots than you can shake a wizard's staff at - but they should be juggled, not thrown into the air and allowed to crash back to Earth. The plot itself is average at best, and when coupled with the smothering story structure, makes for a rather underwhelming experience.
Fortunately, there is still plenty of good here, and a whole lot of great. The performances are once again top-notch, save for some flat dialogue and a few stilted scenes. The characters still feel the need to turn every sentence into a poetic work of art, Arwen still needs a shot of caffeine, and Frodo and Sam still need to get a room already, but otherwise the acting is very good. The gorgeous scenery and cinematography are back in full force, and it's likely the best eye candy you'll taste all year. The world of Middle-Earth just comes alive on screen - it's like you're RIGHT THERE. I don't know about you, but I'm booking myself a vacation to New Zealand ASAP.
But where TTT really shines is, yes, the butt kicking. The battle scenes are simply breathtaking (and cringe-inducing at some points - dammit, that sword just came right at my face!), and the final showdown at Helm's Deep is just unbelievable. There's so much buildup, and such palpable tension, that when the battle finally occurs it feels like you're going to war right alongside Aragorn and the Elves. There are so many fighters on screen, so much attention to detail, so much pure EXCITEMENT that I simply couldn't take my eyes off the spectacle, not even for a second (or a much-needed bathroom break). Oh, and Gandalf is alive. But you probably already knew that.
There are certain things that work in The Two Towers, and there are things that don't. Unfortunately, the good doesn't outweigh the bad, so TTT manages to find a fairly neutral middle ground. Will The Two Towers disappoint LOTR fans? Probably not. Will it disappoint everyone else? It's hard to say. But one thing is for sure: TTT is an experience you won't forget. Just try to ignore the rampant Hobbit homoeroticism, and you'll have a blast.
My Grade: 7/10