Why, yes, I am bored, what makes you ask?
Jul. 27th, 2003 03:38 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mousmeHere's my version of the LXG meme, but first allow me to say that I was unthrilled when I actually saw the movie.
Much potential mostly wasted, annoyingly forced symbolism at the end (dying England hands off the torch to young and vibrant America —gag!), and since when is Captain Nemo a Sikh? No, really? I have no problem with Sikhs in general, but last time I checked in Jules Verne's books, he was an old white guy.
The Nautilus was too humongous and covered in silver to float, let alone be a submarine. Come on! No one will ever make me suspend my disbelief enough to consider that dozens of metric tonnes of silver bullion can be made into a submarine. :P Besides, the Nautilus looked nothing like what it was described as in the books. :P Yes, I'm a purist.
No comment on Allan Quartermain, as I've never read any of those books.
Tom Sawyer was forgettable, and the shtick with the gun at the end was predictable and very very trite.
Jekyll and Hyde was an interesting characterisation, but generally speaking they spent far too much time trying to redeem Hyde, who in the stories was nothing but a psychotic murderer and completely out of control, and not so much a huge hulking monster. Oh well. Good acting there, for what it was worth.
Mina Harker —interesting premise, that she hadn't been cured as it was recorded in Dracula, but they gave her very uninteresting lines, poor thing. She deserved better.
Skinner was meh. He hid for most of the movie, and at the end recovered miraculously and overnight from third-degree burns. Whatever.
Dorian Grey was the fun part of the movie: not only did he comport himself completely in character, but apart from the fact they made him immortal (*snort*), they actually did the right thing and *didn't* redeem him, no matter how much the audience wanted them to. Oscar Wilde's dillettante would have behaved exactly like that, and I'm glad they stuck to the character so faithfully.
He also had the best line in the movie:
Random assailant:After shooting Grey repeatedly without leaving a mark"What are you?"
Dorian Grey: "I'm complicated." Delivered with panache and just the right sneeringly cynical intonation.
The villain? *snort* Right, him. Well, he changes identity a couple of times during the movie: first he's an evil deformed German psycho with a mask à la Phantom of the Opera, then it turns out he's the recruiter who made it all up, and finally the recruiter turns out to be none other than Professor James Moriarty (we're supposed to guess this all on our own, with the letter "M" as our only clue, *sigh*).
Of course, I burst out laughing in the theatre at this and got some evil looks from people around me. James Moriarty my arse!
Think about it: he's Sherlock Holmes' major nemesis, right? He supposedly dies (along with Holmes who later resurrects having apparently faked his own death) at the Reichenbach falls in 1889 or thereabouts. I'll check my dates later. He is described in the books as being an older man, at least in his fifties. The film supposedly takes place in the early 1900s, that is nearly a decade later, which would make Moriarty sixty at best, if not older.
"M" in this movie looks about 35 if he's a day, and certainly does not comport himself as the "Napoleon of Crime" that Sherlock Holmes made him out to be ten years before. Oh well.
In conclusion, the movie took most of my favourite books or characters and mangled them beyond recognition. *sigh* Also, the action scenes were pretty choppily set up, the plot had holes in it so big I was surprised the Nautilus didn't fall through them, and I kind of had issues with Mina Harker's makeup.
The movie wasn't the worst I'd seen, but after Pirates of the Caribbean it was a big disappointment. End rant.
The Rules
1. Choose five to seven characters.
2. These characters may be from books, movies, comics, TV shows, games, and real life. No traditional superheroes may be utilized, however.
3. They may be from any place on the space-time continuum and any plane of existence. Characters do not need to exist within the same era and country as in the original.
4. You must identify the recruiter, the leader, and the villain, and there must be at least one female.
5. Optional: You may identify their primary means of transport.
Villain: HAL (2001: A Space Odyssey)
Recruiter: M (the one from James Bond, and no, I don't plan on having her turn evil)
Leader: Richard Sharpe (hero of the Sharpe books by Bernard Cornwell, rifleman extraordinaire and exceptional leader of men, blah blah blah)
Team: The Man With No Name (Clint Eastwood, the Sergio Leone films), Jill Valentine (Resident Evil), Nick Knight (Forever Knight), Nikita (La Femme Nikita), Columbo (hey, *someone* has to do the thinking around here!).
Much potential mostly wasted, annoyingly forced symbolism at the end (dying England hands off the torch to young and vibrant America —gag!), and since when is Captain Nemo a Sikh? No, really? I have no problem with Sikhs in general, but last time I checked in Jules Verne's books, he was an old white guy.
The Nautilus was too humongous and covered in silver to float, let alone be a submarine. Come on! No one will ever make me suspend my disbelief enough to consider that dozens of metric tonnes of silver bullion can be made into a submarine. :P Besides, the Nautilus looked nothing like what it was described as in the books. :P Yes, I'm a purist.
No comment on Allan Quartermain, as I've never read any of those books.
Tom Sawyer was forgettable, and the shtick with the gun at the end was predictable and very very trite.
Jekyll and Hyde was an interesting characterisation, but generally speaking they spent far too much time trying to redeem Hyde, who in the stories was nothing but a psychotic murderer and completely out of control, and not so much a huge hulking monster. Oh well. Good acting there, for what it was worth.
Mina Harker —interesting premise, that she hadn't been cured as it was recorded in Dracula, but they gave her very uninteresting lines, poor thing. She deserved better.
Skinner was meh. He hid for most of the movie, and at the end recovered miraculously and overnight from third-degree burns. Whatever.
Dorian Grey was the fun part of the movie: not only did he comport himself completely in character, but apart from the fact they made him immortal (*snort*), they actually did the right thing and *didn't* redeem him, no matter how much the audience wanted them to. Oscar Wilde's dillettante would have behaved exactly like that, and I'm glad they stuck to the character so faithfully.
He also had the best line in the movie:
Random assailant:After shooting Grey repeatedly without leaving a mark"What are you?"
Dorian Grey: "I'm complicated." Delivered with panache and just the right sneeringly cynical intonation.
The villain? *snort* Right, him. Well, he changes identity a couple of times during the movie: first he's an evil deformed German psycho with a mask à la Phantom of the Opera, then it turns out he's the recruiter who made it all up, and finally the recruiter turns out to be none other than Professor James Moriarty (we're supposed to guess this all on our own, with the letter "M" as our only clue, *sigh*).
Of course, I burst out laughing in the theatre at this and got some evil looks from people around me. James Moriarty my arse!
Think about it: he's Sherlock Holmes' major nemesis, right? He supposedly dies (along with Holmes who later resurrects having apparently faked his own death) at the Reichenbach falls in 1889 or thereabouts. I'll check my dates later. He is described in the books as being an older man, at least in his fifties. The film supposedly takes place in the early 1900s, that is nearly a decade later, which would make Moriarty sixty at best, if not older.
"M" in this movie looks about 35 if he's a day, and certainly does not comport himself as the "Napoleon of Crime" that Sherlock Holmes made him out to be ten years before. Oh well.
In conclusion, the movie took most of my favourite books or characters and mangled them beyond recognition. *sigh* Also, the action scenes were pretty choppily set up, the plot had holes in it so big I was surprised the Nautilus didn't fall through them, and I kind of had issues with Mina Harker's makeup.
The movie wasn't the worst I'd seen, but after Pirates of the Caribbean it was a big disappointment. End rant.
The Rules
1. Choose five to seven characters.
2. These characters may be from books, movies, comics, TV shows, games, and real life. No traditional superheroes may be utilized, however.
3. They may be from any place on the space-time continuum and any plane of existence. Characters do not need to exist within the same era and country as in the original.
4. You must identify the recruiter, the leader, and the villain, and there must be at least one female.
5. Optional: You may identify their primary means of transport.
Villain: HAL (2001: A Space Odyssey)
Recruiter: M (the one from James Bond, and no, I don't plan on having her turn evil)
Leader: Richard Sharpe (hero of the Sharpe books by Bernard Cornwell, rifleman extraordinaire and exceptional leader of men, blah blah blah)
Team: The Man With No Name (Clint Eastwood, the Sergio Leone films), Jill Valentine (Resident Evil), Nick Knight (Forever Knight), Nikita (La Femme Nikita), Columbo (hey, *someone* has to do the thinking around here!).
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no subject
Date: 2003-07-27 04:47 pm (UTC)Anyway, that's all I can remember of that. I'm going to see it when it comes out over here out of morbid curiosity and Sean Connery.
no subject
Date: 2003-07-27 08:13 pm (UTC)