Ghost in The Shell (The live-action film)

I actually prepared for this movie. I watched the first anime to have a good feel of the original material. I wanted to see it before I saw this. I had low expectations, because I had heard many bad things about it, but once again, I don't think it was as bad as people make it out to be.

It has a totally different feel than the anime. It's less subtle, less deep. It demands less of the viewer than the original. Watching the anime I constantly felt like I had to think, fill in the gaps. Hollywood movies don't do that. They spell everything out for you. But I actually liked some of the scenes they added. The bit where Batou lost his eyes. It made me want to read the manga and find out of they took the scene from there or came up with it themselves.

I also liked the addition of Major's mom. It added a bit of that Hollywood-ish Happy End to the mix, but it wasn't sickeningly sweet. It worked. It was well made. There weren't too many words, it wasn't overly spelled out and that's why it worked.

Scarlet isn't a bad actor. She does her best. Does she capture the essence of the character? Does it feel like the same character? Not to me...I just think this role needs a Japanese woman.

I liked the Japanese guy there was. The one who actually spoke Japanese, but it kind of made it even more clear the film was kind of racist.

The city they were in was weird too. In the original it feels like they are in Japan. In the movie it's some weird futuristic city and one doesn't really get if they are Japan or America or in some new weird country.

I liked that they didn't make it very Matrix-like. The original was older than Matrix, but it still reminds people of it and had the film used that esthetic too much it would have looked like a knock-off.

I liked that a lot of scenes were visually incredibly similar to the anime. The plot was different, but not terrible. Not as good, sure, but you can't make a greater thing out of something that was already brilliant.

In conclusion: Watch the original, but if you're interested give this movie a try too.

Beauty and the Beast

Assuming some of you read this blog regularly you may remember that Cinderella was the first film I ever reviewed here. I didn't really like it.

This, I loved. One might argue that it's cheap to make a film that counts on the young adults feeling nostalgic seeing it, but I think this is how you should make a live action film based on animation. It stayed true to the original and the things it added helped to fix up some of the plot holes people have long been wondering about. Questions like: "Who is Belle's mother and why doesn't anyone remember there used to be a prince living in a castle or wonder about what happened to the royal family? Is all the furniture in the castle alive?" are wittily answered.

I liked the add-on of the fact that if the last petal of the rose falls the enhanced servants would all turn into things forever. Inanimate objects. That being said, I think the reason as to why the servants ever deserved to be cursed was never very well given, the movie tried to offer something there too, but I don't think it was convincing.

I didn't grow up with the Beauty and The Beast animated film, I simply had the classic Disney-style book of it, but even I somehow knew these classic sings by now and I'm so glad they kept them! The songs were great. The new added songs were cool too, although I preferred the old ones. They haunted me for days. The added bits, like Belle being an inventor ,were cool too. Gaston was so perfectly cast! The casting was good all-in-all, but man, Gaston! He looks like he jumped out of that animation.

The visuals were gorgeous. I especially liked Lumiere's design. Then again I always liked him in the original too.

Logan

I had great expectations for this film. I had heard that it was the best of the Wolverine movies and while I hadn't managed to see any of those I have at least seen all of the main X-men movies and liked them if not loved them.

I could see why this film was said to be different from the rest. It really stood up from the rest of the X-men franchise and I sat in the cinema hall wondering if that was a good or a bad thing. By the end of the screening I decided that it wasn't or at least that I didn't like it.

While I applaud Marvel's effort to do something different, something that doesn't come off as a regular super hero film, in this case they didn't pull it off. They tried so hard to make a realistic drama that was still a superhero film that in my opinion they managed neither very well.

From this point on there are major spoilers ahead! Read at your own risk!



I liked the first half of the movie just fine. There was a lot of gore, but it still seemed the film was on to something. There were good domestic scenes, interesting storyline. Then everything turned into a pretty awful bloodbath.

Dear film industry, please get over the notion that the more death and sadness you put into a film the more artistic it gets. It's not just an issue this film has, but this film certainly has it. I personally thought the ending was crap. Was the death of Logan and Charles unexpected of a superhero movie? Yes. Did it make it a good film? No. In fact it ruined it. You killed all of the likeable characters. At the end of the film you have a bunch of kids whose only redeeming quality is that they are children. Most of them we haven't met until 30 minutes ago and as characters, they are undeveloped and I'd quite possible not care at all if most of them dropped dead.
It wasn't a terrible movie, but the more I thought about it the less I liked it.