Oldboy (remake)
I don't really have enough words to articulate everything that I want to get across in this review, and that isn't just because I already wrote this entire review before but lost it because of a ****** backspace key, but rather, because there's such a vagueness behind the selective words that have been chosen to do my thoughts justice. For those that aren't aware, the movie that I am looking at is a 2013 American remake of Park Chan-wook's 2013 film of the same name. The movie stars Josh Brolin, Elizabeth Olsen, and Sharlto Copley, while Spike Lee takes the reigns as far as directing goes. Both movies have considerable differences to be considered, however, they all center around a character that escapes after having been held hostage for decades in a hotel-room as he seeks revenge toward the person that has held him captive.
I think that it's safe to say that the majority of the viewing public that had seen the original movie was welcoming this remake with the utmost of optimism. Remakes have always carried this stigma about them, and I think a lot of the pessimism is justifiable when you look back at history. There has been countless remakes that have failed to capture the same credibility as the movie in-which they took inspiration, however, I have always tried to approach them with an open-mind. I didn't necessarily jump for joy whenever I heard that they were making an American adaptation of Oldboy, but that's because there is no reason whatsoever to do so. The remake isn't meant to be solely targeting the individuals that enjoyed the original, in-fact, that isn't even to be considered the leading demographic. These are the times when I feel that remakes are understandable and actually have an existence that carries relevance, when it is trying to share its story with an audience that otherwise would never hear it.
I know that one response is, "Well, why don't they watch the original?" And those that say that have allowed the concept behind an American-adaptation fly over their head. While I enjoy foreign-movies, I understand that other individuals may not have the same interests as me. They may not enjoy subtitles, dubs, or they may have simply never cared enough to discover a movie like Oldboy. This isn't a fault against them, and is mere personal preference. Which brings about the relevance of an American-adaptation, and sometimes, they will actually capture the same sentimentality brought about by the original, or at the very least, hit some of the strong notes. For example, Let Me In, while not as good as Let the Right One In, captured a lot of the best scenes and had actors that treated the story with respect.
At the same time, a remake is the equivalent of walking on eggshells, because it's so easy to break what was made special about that film. While Spike Lee's Oldboy doesn't exactly do justice to the original, I do believe that it's at least an average movie with interesting ideas.
I'll start off by saying that the first thing that I noticed about this movie is something that I believe will be significant for those that are fans of the original and are unsure whether or not they want to give this movie a chance. I do believe that this movie carries enough diverseness from the original to offer something that can at least be enjoyed to a certain degree. Similar to The Crow being followed by City of Angels, Salvation, and Wicked Prayer, Spike Lee's film carries the basic-premise but makes moderate tweaks to how everything comes about. (and just like The Crow sequels, all of it isn't exactly for the better.)
The movie has more of a straight-forward narrative behind it, it pieces things together and doesn't really have much in the way of complications. However, the original had something of a nonlinear unpredictability about it that really enabled for it to be delved into like you were entering a spectacle. A lot of that has to do with the performance of the lead, played by Choi Min-sik. He comes across as somebody that feels incredibly deprived, isolated, and as if he has perhaps come to the brink of insanity, whereas while Josh Brolin brings out a decent performance, doesn't really carry any of those traits. He seems more robotic than anything, as if we're dealing with a complete and utter bad-ass. As an example, I'll bring sight over to a scene with a hammer, in-which both characters fight off a group of people. In the original, the protagonist comes off awkward and slow, as if reacting in the way that somebody would actually expect for him to react. Whereas in the remake, Josh Brolin basically dominates, and it feels like a scene from an action-movie more than anything else.
I will say that there's a lot more depth to the characters in the remake, they actually go into more details about each character, and leave somewhat subtle little hints leading to the movie's conclusion. They also incorporate a lot of interesting elements about the protagonist's character, and do something more with him checking off people from a list. However, I don't think that it actually changed anything for the better. While we don't exactly get the most detailed of back-stories regarding the characters, there's a certain whimsical mystique about it, I really enjoyed the cinematography and directing, everything felt grimy, desolate, and everything meshed together nicely. I feel like, while you could technically look at the story of the original and remake and say that the remake checks-off more, it's the way that they did it which really hooked me in.
The biggest criticism that I can offer about the remake is that it doesn't really hammer in end, which is absolutely the best part of the movie. It differentiates considerably, however, whenever it happened in the original, it felt like a big event, whereas in the remake, it doesn't. Obviously, I am not going to have the initial surprise, but I believe that it doesn't have the same result in the remake as it did in the original.
In an effort to wrap this up quickly, I'll conclude with saying that Spike Lee's Oldboy has a lot of what made the original great, in that, it has the basics of the story, and by that alone, somebody experiencing the concept for the first time will probably appreciate it. However, the original had a better performance from the lead, and a director that knew exactly what he was doing.
Teen Titans: Trouble in Tokyo
Rabies and germs, I absolutely adore animation, it's a phase that started in childhood and never went away, and while adulthood altered some in that regard, adulthood never fazed me. Teen Titans started in 2003, and nobody really knew what to expect, the animation was silly and over-the-top, taking some inspiration from anime, and bringing together a cast of superheroes that never had the spotlight. By the time that it ended in 2006, I can with complete certainty that I enjoyed it every bit as much as Batman: The Animated Series, Batman Beyond, Justice League, the 90's Spider-Man, and X-Men Evolution. A lot of the episodes would either be hit or miss, sometimes they would be ridiculously silly, but whenever they put all their effort into something, it turned out extremely well-done. The chemistry and well-done feud with Slade Wilson and Robin is one of the finest that I have ever seen, and they knocked in out of the park with the episodes with Raven and her father.
Before long, my brother and I discovered a new Teen Titans, a flash-comedy called Teen Titans Go!, and while their cast is great, they have a long way before they are ready to entertain anyone. (REFERENCES!)
All joking aside, they have been doing Teen Titans Go! and aside from the occasion laugh, it offers nothing of relative worth whatsoever especially in-comparison to the actual show. And realizing that, I began looking, besides obviously the comic-books, there has to be more of this dynamic faction, something that I swept under the rug like a lazy janitor, and then, I remembered that there was a TV-movie called Teen Titans: Trouble in Tokyo. For those that are unaware, Teen Titans: Trouble in Tokyo is a 2006 animated film which premiered on Cartoon Network, and features David Slack returning after leaving once finishing the fourth season. Most fans of the series are aware that there is only two ways that Teen Titans seems to be able to go, it can either try to be funny or be serious. If it tries to be funny, it's usually a mess of campy either that is either hit or miss, but usually miss, but if it's serious, we are almost always in for something special. Whether it be Robin reflecting on good and evil, some of the bizarre intricacies of Raven's past, Cyborg's desires to be human, or Beast Boy and Tara's relationship.
In Teen Titans: Trouble in Tokyo, they are trying to be funny, at least for the most part. A Japanese villain that goes by the name of Saico-Tek attacks the Titans, and through some shenanigans, the Teen Titans find themselves heading to Tokyo in his pursuit. The underlying story is the brewing relationship between Starfire and Robin. There's entertainment-value to be found in Trouble in Tokyo, the action-scenes are particularly good, but it doesn't kick it into another gear. It feels as if they took an average episode of the show and ballooned into into an hour long special, while if they would have taken The End: Part 1-3, and turned it into a movie, it would have probably been the best animated-movie that the Warner Bros. have ever made, including Batman: Under the Red-Hood.
However, they didn't, instead, they gave the reigns to silliness and campy humor which basically summarizes just about everything that I have to say about this movie. The scenes with Robin and Starfire don't come across as heartfelt or troublesome, I am not immersed with them, and with that being the only emotion to carry this movie past the humor, it's really difficulty to be entertained. There is something of a whodunnit as well, however, it's something that I am almost certain half the viewing audience will have predicted within the first thirty or forty minutes of the movie. In conclusion, I don't really want to come off as too negative because a lot of the elements that can be found in this movie can actually be found in the Teen Titans show, however, those particular elements are the ones that ultimately held it back. There is no in-depth characters, and it doesn't really feel like anything other than a big, stupid movie for a show that I thoroughly enjoyed.
Percy Jackson & The Olympians: The Lightning Thief
Percy Jackson & The Olympians is amongst the several young-adult books attempting to capture the same, ahem, lightning in a bottle that Harry Potter was able to seize. I'll open this up with saying that I absolutely adored Harry Potter as a book-series and movie-franchise, and I believe that they have cinematic brilliance on numerous accounts. Ever since Harry Potter's success, there has been a lot that have tried to do something similar, and some of them have even succeeded. For example, while Twilight obviously wasn't able to garner the same critical success, it was able to capture a considerable amount of success. And more recently, The Hunger Games has begun carrying the torch as a money-maker and well-received movie-franchise based on young-adult books. However, for all of these, there are those that don't make strong critical success and those that don't capture the audience as what they were aiming for.
Whether it be Mortal Instruments, Beautiful Creatures, or Vampire Academy, there are countless that try to play off of that bewildering formula that made individuals gravitate toward the more popular franchises. Percy Jackson & The Olympians: The Lightning Thief is the first step toward a middleman. While the movie hardly got critical acclaim, the movie was followed by a sequel, which is also soon to be followed by a sequel, and made made over two-hundred million dollars in the box-office. And so, where do we begin, where it begins, of course, and so, let's look at this adaptation of the highly beloved Percy Jackson book-series.
Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief is a 2010 fantasy film directed by Chris Columbus, who, besides discovering America, actually is responsible for directing Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, as well as Chamber of Secrets. It stars Logan Lerman, Alexandra Daddario, Brandon T. Jackson, as well as one or two others that I don't feel like naming. I suppose that it's time for a roll-call, we have a director that has already proven himself capable of directing a young-adult movie, and who are the actors? We have the main-girl from the Texas Chainsaw movie, that I wanted to see naked, but they were like, no, and instead gave me a terrible movie. Then, there's Brandon T. Jackson, who I have never heard-of, but last and most important to me, we have Logan Lerman. After making this movie, Logan Lerman would go onto have a tremendous performance in a movie alongside Emma Watson, called The Perks of Being a Wallflower, and so, that's enough for me to go ahead and say, I am sold for this movie! but then, I watched it.
The story incorporates numerous intricacies brought about by Greek mythology, declaring Percy Jackson as the demigod son of Poseidon, and telling us about how Zeus' magical thunderbolt has been stolen, leaving with Percy to take the blame. This leaves for Percy Jackson to come face to face with his destiny, collect some magical orb-things, before delving into the underworld for a reason that he hasn't really thought out. The movie has an extremely fast-pace that doesn't ever take the time to breath at all, not even, not even once, not even once, once, once, and that's a jagged pill to swallow whenever you consider that it actually carries a run-time of almost two-hours. Let's get an understanding here, the movie is two-hours long, and that doesn't stop it from feeling ridiculously high-paced. As I have already said before, there are two other main-characters opposite Percy Jackson, but it doesn't feel as though either of them really has much of a reason for being here.
Neither of them actually feels developed much at all whatsoever, instead, the audience feels as though it's merely supposed to accept that they are friends because the great storyteller in the sky said that this was how it had to be. Then, and this is going to hurt me to say, Logan Lerman felt extremely out of his element in this movie. I think a lot of it has to do with the writing, everything happened way too quick, and not only did it seem like the audience didn't have much of an identity for the character, I don't believe that the actor had much of an identity for the character. There are also a lot of parts in the movie that feel disproportionately childish like whenever they go into Las Vegas, and I feel like a lot of the scenes could have meant more if it felt like the movie actually seemed like it meant for them to mean more.
This movie had enough material to successfully span out as a three-hour movie, and I know that is frowned upon for whatever reason, but the alternative is something that feels premature. Similar to a photograph with a lightened tint because it was underdeveloped, yes, we might have to wait a little bit longer, but the clarity would have been certainly worth it. While the three-main characters themselves seem dangerously underdeveloped, that is nothing compared to the antagonist, and the so-called twist, feels more like the twist you'd expect from a low-budget horror movie meant to surprise you, even though the reason you wouldn't guess it is simply because of how stupid it is. Even still, I will say that the cast is capable enough to keep this from plummeting to the mediocrity of something such as Mortal Instruments, which is just absolutely awful, and there is an entertainment-value to be had with the movie.
I can't figure out whether or not it's the special-effects or the Greek mythology, but there is something about this movie that kept me at least somewhat immersed into the story that they were trying to tell. As a final verdict, I will call this a borderline average movie with entertainment value, but not nearly as enjoyable as what it could have been.
Percy Jackson: Sea of Monsters
While Percy Jackson & The Olympians: The Lightning Thief wasn't able to reach the pinnacle of success for young-adult book movie-adaptations in the same breath as Harry Potter or the Hunger Games, it wasn't a complete and utter failure. It is certainly an improvement over movies such as Beautiful Creatures, The Mortal Instruments, and Eragon, which also yearned to achieve the same successes. At the very least, it had enough going for it that they had enough faith for a sequel, bringing the cast back together, and trying for an adaptation of the positive received novel of the same name. I watched this movie for the first time immediately after watching the Lightning Thief, suggesting that I was at least somewhat entertained and amused by the characters. I went into it expecting gradual improvements from the previous movie, and I can't completely decide whether that is what I got or not.
There were one or two tweaks that were made in-preparation for the sequel, for starters, Chris Columbus left his position as director, still serving as a producer, while Thor Freudenthal took the reigns. He is evidently responsible for Hotel for Dogs and Diary of a Wimpy Kid, but I have never seen any of his work. They also added Leven Rambin and Douglas Smith to the cast. The gal known for a small role in The Hunger Games and the guy for his work on a show called Big Love. Sea of Monsters basically picks up where the first movie left off, Percy has more time under his belt with sharpening his claws, and they give us back-story on some of the camp history. I can tell you that there feels to be a gentler and less rushed feeling about the movie. The previous film felt as if it lacked a lot of the confidence that is necessary to be a success, and so, like a lot of others, it wanted to get the colorful eye-candy and visualizations on the screen and give the audience instant gratification.
Conversely, a movie franchise such as Harry Potter didn't really feel as if it made modifications to the story in an effort to have more time for the embroidery of the atmosphere, if that makes sense. Basically, Percy Jackson 2 feels more laid-back and gentle with the approach, and I appreciated that. You immediately meet the Clarisse La Rue character played by Leven Rambin, and honestly, there isn't a lot of depth to her. Honestly, it seems like the character is merely designed to annoy the audience, however, it isn't like Draco Malfoy, where she feels like an antagonist, but more like a character that you want to see killed off. As the minutes progress in the story, you'll be introduced to the new male character named Tyson, Percy Jackson's long-lost brother, who is a cyclops. I found him to be annoying, however, by the end of his movie, I don't completely hate him, which is something that I am thankful for.
After introducing these characters, I was terrified that they were going to regress to the campiest humor conceivable possibly and put the nail in the franchises' coffin before it has a chance to take off. However, barely, I do believe that this movie is an improvement over its predecessor. The movie doesn't feel nearly as allover the place and rushed as Lightning Thief, and while the two new characters are annoying, I believe that the movie is put together with more care than the last one. Sea of Monsters is mediocrity, but acceptable mediocrity because it has entertainment value. And so, as a conclusion, I will say that like the last movie, this is borderline average, however, I will say that they made gradual improvements as far as the structure goes. With this being said, I'll be waiting for The Titan's Curse.