Just a quick post to say that so far my summer movie viewing has been a great 2 out of 2.
Waited a couple of weeks for the hype to die down but finally took the family out to see
Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith. Yes! This one almost completely redeems the last two movies and that, my friends, is saying something. Not that I hated those films but they were so far below the heightened bar of the SW franchise that they were a disappointment by comparison. But this one...oh boy! Dark, long, deep and ultimately compelling. The only thing missing (and which would have made this the best of all SW flicks) was a Han Solo type character. Definitely would go back and see this one again.
Last weekend the wifey and I took in
Batman Begins and were equally well pleased. Again, a dark and brooding film which captures well some of the source material from Frank Miller's graphic novel
Batman: Year One. What a cast: Christian Bale, Liam Neeson, Michael Caine, Morgan Freeman, Gary Oldman, Tom Wilkinson, Rutger Hauer, and the surprise standout for me Cillian Murphy as Dr. Jonathan Crane. Like the Spiderman movies, this one is not just about action and superhero fluff but deals with themes of revenge and justice and salvation. There were, however, two downers to note.
One was the director does not know how to film a fight sequence. Please, sir, take a gander at
Spiderman 2 for some pointers. I am a major fan of the buckled swash and there was plenty of that as well as the traditional fisticuffs. But Christopher Nolan (who did the phenomenal
Memento) is a bit too obsessed with the actor's faces. Thing is, Chris, when they're moving around so much we can't even glimpse who it is we're looking at when you've got the camera just ten freaking inches away from them! Plus, maybe I'm just too pre-MTV-gen but the edits went so fast that key elements of the
danse violent were lost (like how the spurs on the glove could grab a sword, f'r instance, and just who's glove and who's sword would've been nice to know, too).
Secondly, I recommend all us grown-ups avoid movie theaters on weekend evenings. The giggling, mumbling, outright talking and seat-bumping from the teens behind us made us yearn for the good ol' days of ushers with flashlights in hand. I seriously thinking of bringing my own to the next film I see and shining it in the offender's face: "Hey, buddy, I said keep it down!" No wonder
more and more folks are opting to watch movies at home. That and the sawbuck I had to hand over for the missus and I to get in. Still, I'm going to go back and see it again as my daughters still want to see it.