Change Your Image
geoffrey-landis
Reviews
Lancelot du Lac (1974)
Muddled and boring
This film is an attempt to remove the romance from the Arthur legend. Even the titular love affair between Lancelot and Guenivere is portrayed with no show of emotion and no physicality, with the characters for the most part never even looking at each other, never smiling. Unfortunately, the director not removes romance, but also removes logic, plot, and motivation. The result is not merely unromantic, but muddy-- with no explanations, it is nearly impossible to figure out what is going on, or why the characters are doing what they are. The director sure was enthralled with the (not realistic) armor, though-- the characters wear it even indoors! And Camelot (never referred to by name( seems to consist of about an acre of land, containing little except about eight knights, a castle that is never seen from outside, a two-story hut, and a dozen tents. Except for the beginning scene, with knights killing each other with spectacular (and completely unrealistic) amounts of spraying blood, all of the fight scenes take place offstage. The joust scene, central to the movie, is filmed by showing Lancelot picking up his lance, the flag of the opponent being raised, and then the horse's legs are filmed as he actually tilts at the opponent. Even in the movie's climax, with archers in trees (who came out of nowhere-- no antecedent in the film for archers) firing at knights on horseback, the arrows are shown only as hitting trees-- apparently the archers are lousy shots. I'd rate this one as muddy and confused-- pass it up.
Cats & Dogs: The Revenge of Kitty Galore (2010)
Forgettable parody of action movies
Mary wanted to see it-- her rule is, if it's got a cat in it, she wants to see it. Quick summary: the trailer shows all the good scenes. The first movie had been mildly cute, although forgettable. The highlight of sequel should have been "more really cute dogs and cats." But they decided to put an average (full grown) German Shepherd in the lead (instead of the cute puppy from the first movie), and focused too much on the pigeon (who, admittedly, did get most of the good lines). The supporting cat was good, but had too little screen time. Most of the plot was quotes from other movies, with cats and dogs playing the parts (in particular, the opening title scene was a very well done version of the old James Bond movie title sequences). Except for where it was a direct parody of other movies, the plot was mostly perfunctory, and the denouement was a long and mostly incomprehensible action scene. The 3- D was both irrelevant, and also badly done. See it in 2D. If you see it, do stick through the credits for the final scene.