Tag: The Princess

2022 In Film: Day Six (The Quite Good)

On By troubledproductionsIn Year round upLeave a comment

Beast

Ups: Good length

The CGI animals have a real presence

Wonderfully directed.

Downs: Not essential

Dialogue is a bit simple.

Quite cliche at times.

Best Moment: When the characters walk through the village and discover all the dead bodies. Haunting, like something out of a horror film.

Worst Moment: Lion in the house, only because it didn’t feel as natural as the other parts.

Best Performer: Elba, obviously.

Opening: The characters arrive at the reserve. Good way to showcase the scenery.

Closing: Surviving members of the family recreate an earlier family photo. Cliche, but kind of sweet.

Best Line: Death came calling to my wife and daughters and i wasn’t there to say no you can’t have them

Original Review here

Elvis

Ups: Is great at telling you who he was, not in a “facts and important dates” way, but in a “understanding who he is” way.

Austin Butler. He is phenomenal.

Will make you cry at times.

Downs: Weirdly edited.

Tom Hanks is a strange choice.

Terribly paced. Tries to do too much. There are at least three stories worth telling, and they’re not given enough time.

Best Moment: The Christmas special. Punk as anything.

Worst Moment: The assassination of MLK, trying to tie that into Elvis feels a bit cheap.

Best Performer: Austin Butler, obviously.

Opening: Tom Parker is on his deathbed. He then talks about how he met Elvis. Kind of a lazy framing device.

Closing: Elvis, fat and depressed, sings at Las Vegas. Truly emotional.

Best Line: His entire speech on stage to Tom Parker. Blistering fury.

Original Review here

Looking For Venera

Ups: The central relationship between the two.

The sociopolitical subtext to everything

Some really interesting shots.

Downs: Not very engaging at times.

Best Moment: The family dancing around a room to music being played on a tinny radio. The enthusiasm the characters have for the activity and for each other is heartwarming to see. And completely stopped by a man coming home and telling them to go to bed, all that happiness and joy, gone in an instant. Really demonstrates the power that the patriarchal system has over them.

Worst Moment: There’s a scene just after that at the breakfast table. It’s really well acted and has some shocking moments, but the characters are out of focus. Very picky I know but it’s too basic a mistake to make in a professional film.

Best Performer: Kosovare Krasniqi 

Opening: A sex scene in the woods between two fully clothed people. Strange choice as you don’t know who they are. Filmed from behind some trees so you do get a wonderfully voyeuristic feel to it. It’s later talked about by the characters, so we didn’t really need to see it.

Closing: A young boy drinking water at a table at a family dinner. At first, I thought “that’s a weird way to end it”, then it hit me. He’s observing. He’s watching the family interactions, he’s seeing how men treat women, and that’s what he’ll grow up to be too. A simple shot implies that everything will repeat. Kind of genius.

Best Line: “I’m not a coward like her”, that line shows her growth so much, but also her immaturity, as saying that to an abusive dick just means they’re going to take it out on the other person.

Original review here

She Will

Ups: Very claustrophobic.

Great sound work, both in terms of music and general sound design.

Downs: The fire incident doesn’t have a narrative follow-up.

Needs to set up some of the background characters better so we know how they’re regarded in-universe.

Feels like it should be better.

Best Moment: When she enters the lodge. You really feel the claustrophobic nature of it.

Worst Moment: A close up of a slug. Really specific but it cuts to it, and then cuts back, way too quickly to the point where it seems like a mistake.

Best Performer: Alice Krige.

Opening: Closeup on a womans eyes looking up at lights. Eye close ups are always good in horror movies as they can be so expressive. We see surgery being performed on her, intercut with her putting on makeup. A nice contrast, and intriguing enough to make you wonder what’s going on, especially when she talks about her mask being one of “preservation”

Closing: A scene of chaos and female reckoning.

Best Line: “The mud here is thought to have healing properties because of all the ashes from women who were burnt as witches” *blank-eyed stare* holy fuck.

Original review here

Sonic The Hedgehog 2

Ups: Better than the first one.

Funny.

Actually has a plot.

Downs: Still inconsistent with the speed.

Quite forgettable.

Tries too hard with the comedy sometimes.

The lead character is kind of obnoxious.

Best Moment: The fact that the villain is basically defeated by a punch in the balls, much like Hitler was.

Worst Moment: The bar dance.

Best Performer: Idris Elba, he is hilarious.

Opening: Sonic is attempting to be a hero. Fun start, and demonstrates both his speed, his morality, and his naive nature.

Closing: They play baseball. Quite funny actually.

Best Line: “It’s so nice when diabolical evil lives up to the hype!”

Original Review here

The Adam Project

Ups: Perfectly cast.

Always good to see new ideas given a big budget.

Downs: Some characters are sidelined unnecessarily

The dialogue could be better.

Bad CGI at times.

Best Moment: The goodbyes. Incredibly emotional. There are two fight scenes I nearly chose, which looked good. But this section is incredible.

Worst Moment: The villain’s death. Mainly because the CGI looks atrocious.

Best Performer: Walker Scobel.

Opening: Ryan Reynolds has stolen a jet and uses it to escape through a wormhole. Sets up the central theme almost immediately.

Closing: Back in the future. Adam meets his wife again. Sweet, but not sure it was the right choice. We don’t see that much of them together.

Best Line: “Hey. You have her to take care of you. She has no one. You understand? Do you understand? She wakes up every morning with a broken heart and a, and a closet full of his clothes and gets nothing from you but a fistful of crap, and not even, like, ten seconds of genuine empathy. You know, thity years, you still get sick to your stomach every time you remember how you treated her now.” More moments like that please.

Original Review here

The Princess

Ups: Bloodier than I expected.

Some good fight scenes.

Downs: Really bad CGI at times.

Feels too much like a video game at times.

The whiff of pandering never really goes away.

Best Moment: The opening because it sets it up as being something different

Worst Moment: When she sets someone on fire. Only because the CGI is REALLY bad

Best Performer: Dominic Cooper

Opening: The Princess (hey, that’s the title of the movie) wakes up in a tower and finds herself chained to a bed. Flashbacks to her being kidnapped. She breaks her own thumb to escape. Surprising but effective.

Closing: She slits a guys throat. There’s a lot of blood and his head comes off (which was a bit weird as she didn’t initially seem to cut that deep). The king announces that now women can rule the kingdom. Yay, finally equality for all rich people of that one family. Her friend didn’t actuallly die, then a guy who’s been searching for her the whole film recognises her. Kind of expected. Then there’s a completely neutered cover of White Wedding

Best Line: “You’ll learn to sleep with one eye open. To never turn your back. I’ll be in heaven, just thinking day and night of ways to kill you. And you’ll be in hell, wondering when it’s coming. And you know that it will be coming. Because you know that I’ll never rest, never idle, never stop, until i am standing above your corpse, holding – in my delicate, manicured hands – your still beating heart!”

Original Review here

Zero Fucks Given

Ups: Has the best drunk acting. They don’t make sense and they talk mostly shit.

Adèle Exarchopoulos, she’s quite good isn’t she?

Downs: There are a few plot points which don’t really go anywhere. Some more interesting plots are suggested but not followed up on.

Best Moment: Montage where everyone is recording safety videos and have to end it by standing still and smiling for 30 seconds in silence. Very awkward and weirdly funny.

Worst Moment: The moments when she’s not on a plane.

Best Performer: Adèle Exarchopoulos, obviously.

Opening: Pre-shift meeting of airline crew. Being told to focus more on individual sales. Then some beautiful shots of flying through clouds. That meeting doesn’t really lead to anything.

Closing: Her in Dubai (wearing a face mask incorrectly btw, it’s not covering her nose) watching a fountain show. Impressive but does seem a bit too much like someone’s holiday video rather than something in a film. It was all supposed to be from her phone, hence the very final shot of her turning the camera towards herself and pulling her mask down. Slightly underwhelming.

Best Line: I prefer to be the irresistible one than the good girl. There is no past, there is no future it’s just you as a cabin manager in this precise moment and her in front of you. Nobody cares about your personal life or your personal issues or what you did yesterday or what you’re going to do tomorrow.

Original Review here

The Princess (2022)

On By troubledproductionsIn ReviewLeave a comment

Quick Synopsis: When a strong-willed princess refuses to wed a cruel sociopath, she is kidnapped and locked in a remote tower. With her scorned, vindictive suitor intent on taking her father’s throne, the princess must protect her family and save the kingdom.

I was going to dismiss this until I saw the trailer and noticed it was far more subversive and bloody than I thought it would be. I’m glad I watched it as it’s a fun watch and a good way to spend 90 minutes.

I’m not that familiar with the work of Le-Van Kiet, who has mainly worked in Vietnamese cinema, but he did a really good job directing this and I could easily see him being the guy trusted to take on whatever action franchise replaces Fast And Furious. Truth be told, I think he’s only about two or three films away from being discussed as possible Bond director. Those films would need to be really good though as there are a few flaws in the directing here which will be more harshly criticised in a bigger film. Firstly, the CGI is really bad at some points, looking like a video game (especially the fire), and there are some moments which seem overly stylised. But mostly the stylised nature works in its favour. It provides it with a unique and fresh look akin to Kingsman (and yes, I am fully aware how weird it is to say something is unique and then immediately compare it to another film). The action set-ups are superb, there’s a lot going in them but you never feel lost, great sense of physical geography in fight scenes that make them very easy to follow.

There is still a question about whether films like this are catering to a female demographic, or pandering to them. Is it supportive or demeaning? There are arguments both ways, yes she is a strong independent female lead with no focus on romance, there are strong female side characters etc. But her clothes get torn off in fight scenes, and her character is still defined by men. I will be kind and lean towards thinking it’s catering for them. It does do it rather clumsily though. Remember that bit in Endgame where all the female superheroes suddenly appeared in the same shot and you could almost hear the “wooo, girl power, see, we support women” because of how unsubtle it was? There are moments where it’s reminiscent of that. It’s not the worst thing in the world, if it is going to do something like that I’d rather it do it with that message, not just the constant “I am strong man who is rude and sexually harasses women into relationships” themes that defined 80s and 90s action movie leads.

So yeah the message is basic, but what of the plot? Well that’s basic too. It’s very stop and start. She starts to escape, hides, starts to escape. It is clever that almost the entire thing took place in a single building, and is a lot more believable than “she escaped easily and then came back” but it would have been nice to have it feel less like a video game and more like a story. As it is, it’s just her constantly kicking ass for 90 minutes, which is fun to see but does mean that you could edit the film down to 10 minutes and not lose anything of substance. This isn’t helped by how lacking the supporting cast are. Dominic Cooper is having a great time as the antagonist, but the other characters are flatter than a pancake and just as disposable. It doesn’t help that almost all of them look slightly like a more famous actor.

In terms of performance, Joey King is……well it’s hard to tell. There are times when she’s brilliant, but then in some of the action scenes doesn’t quite have it. She’s mostly there, but there are a few moments where her movements (or the movements of her stunt double) don’t quite work, coming off a little stiff. Those are only fleeting moments though, otherwise, she’s pretty much perfect for this. Much better than she was in Wish Upon.

So in summary; there’s a lot to criticise about this film, but if that’s what you’re thinking when you watch it then that’s a bit weird (I mean, I do, but I am weird). It’s not to be analysed and pored over, it’s to watch and enjoy. It’s popcorn cinema at its best.