Filmic Things for a Friday
Jul. 18th, 2008 08:46 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sdelmonte- We are not going to get to see The Dark Knight this weekend. So a friendly reminder to use spoilers when posting about it. That said, I've read a host of reviews, not a one telling me anything I didn't already expect, so I don't think it's that kind of film.
- As for the film itself, those reviews (most of them positive and even the negative ones raving about Heath Ledger) have damped down my enthusiasm. I fully expect a very well done film with at least one amazing performance. But I don't know if I'll actually like it. If it were some other characters - Daredevil and Bullseye, for example - I might stay home, as the film sounds really, really dark and depressing, and thus not my usual kind of film. But Nolan earned my trust after his film Batfilm, and I really do want to see what Ledger does with the Joker.
- I don't have to wait to get to the theaters to see the Watchmen trailer, though. I still have plenty of doubts that anyone can turn the single most complex and challenging graphic novel ever made into a film (especially if you want it shorter than, say, five hours). I still don't like how Cool Night Owl looks, and I think that Silk Spectre is too young and too sexy (she should be just past the age that she can get away with that outfit). But...Dr. Manhattan is close to perfect. The voice of Rorschach is the voice for him I've had in my head for ages. Jeffrey Dean Morgan is the right man for the Comedian. The clips of that world that we see look right. That doesn't mean the rest will work, but if nothing else, we might get a story true to the original.
- Meanwhile, moving away from DC, we saw Hellboy II. I don't think there is much I can add to the conversation about that film other than that Del Toro is a visionary. In the hands of most, the story and the cast of this film would have been more than adequate. We would have a fun and very good summer film. But Del Toro's imagination races ahead of the needs of a summer movie, and everything follows along behind. The imagery he creates is wonderful, stunning, unlikely, incredible. He melds urban fantasy, high fantasy and super-hero action together into something marvelous, and still loads of fun. I cannot wait to see what he does with Hobbit or Dr. Strange. I cannot wait to see what he does next in general, even if I didn't care much for Pan's Labyrinth. For here is a man who understands that sometimes movies shouldn't be just a mirror on the real world, but also a gateway to the impossible.
- As for the film itself, those reviews (most of them positive and even the negative ones raving about Heath Ledger) have damped down my enthusiasm. I fully expect a very well done film with at least one amazing performance. But I don't know if I'll actually like it. If it were some other characters - Daredevil and Bullseye, for example - I might stay home, as the film sounds really, really dark and depressing, and thus not my usual kind of film. But Nolan earned my trust after his film Batfilm, and I really do want to see what Ledger does with the Joker.
- I don't have to wait to get to the theaters to see the Watchmen trailer, though. I still have plenty of doubts that anyone can turn the single most complex and challenging graphic novel ever made into a film (especially if you want it shorter than, say, five hours). I still don't like how Cool Night Owl looks, and I think that Silk Spectre is too young and too sexy (she should be just past the age that she can get away with that outfit). But...Dr. Manhattan is close to perfect. The voice of Rorschach is the voice for him I've had in my head for ages. Jeffrey Dean Morgan is the right man for the Comedian. The clips of that world that we see look right. That doesn't mean the rest will work, but if nothing else, we might get a story true to the original.
- Meanwhile, moving away from DC, we saw Hellboy II. I don't think there is much I can add to the conversation about that film other than that Del Toro is a visionary. In the hands of most, the story and the cast of this film would have been more than adequate. We would have a fun and very good summer film. But Del Toro's imagination races ahead of the needs of a summer movie, and everything follows along behind. The imagery he creates is wonderful, stunning, unlikely, incredible. He melds urban fantasy, high fantasy and super-hero action together into something marvelous, and still loads of fun. I cannot wait to see what he does with Hobbit or Dr. Strange. I cannot wait to see what he does next in general, even if I didn't care much for Pan's Labyrinth. For here is a man who understands that sometimes movies shouldn't be just a mirror on the real world, but also a gateway to the impossible.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: Jul. 23rd, 2008 05:37 pm (UTC)