Underworld

Fr3ak, it is most awesome to see you back--you should hang out more!

If I had to categorize it, I would say one to rent not one to see @ theatre.[/quote]

I agree with you--definitely a rental. I wish I'd waited and rented it, but I didn't. I doubt I could've even if God Himself had appeared beside my bed one night and said, "My child, do not go forth to see that movie."

That was how highly I'd been anticipating this thing.

I would have liked to see motivation, all 'round. The only characters I felt had any at all were Kraven and Lucien, and they were both very one-dimensional. And Lucien was the character with the most potential for interesting motivations--but then they just threw in a cheesy here's-the-reason-I-do-this flashback and left it at that.

Having a R & J plot is a problem most of the time, I think--as you said, it's been overplayed again and again. Plus, I have to add that Romeo and Juliet is probably one of my least favorite of Shakespeare's plays, aside from some kick-ass lines and monologues, mostly on the part of Mercutio.

Why the Underworld R & J thing bothered me:

Absolutely no reason for, and not a helluva lot of evidence of, a deep and tradition-defying love on the part of our lovers, first and foremost--which you gotta have if you're gonna pitch this thing as R & J with vampires and werewolves. It was all tease and no show. I would much rather them have built up a rapport of some kind instead of relying on some tepid sexual tension.

At least, as I remember it, there was no actual declaration of love. That would've just made me laugh.

This movie also severely suffers from the lack of a Mercutio--one smart and engaging character who steals the show and dies because he's caught in the middle. Lucian comes closest to this, but he's certainly no Mercutio. He's barely even a Tybalt. He has no close ties to either of the main characters, much less real emotions towards them.

I don't think our filmmakers actually read the play. If they had, they'd surely have been smart enough to steal more than the surface elements and use them to their advantage.

There's other stuff I'd probably change or want to have seen, but I'm tired.

Would I see the sequel? Oh, hell, probably. I am a sucker for the snazzy trailers. Also, I hold out hope that having the storyline and history already set up might help matters, and allow the filmmakers to focus more on the characters.

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You were a demon and a lawyer? Wow. Insert joke here."

Could it be that those are the cases where the film is both very good and very bad at the same time bealey? (rather than just a mainly good film, or a mainly bad one) Or indeed, could it be, as Henry says, that those films carry no easy-consumption doggy-bag message, but expect us to make/complete the message, hence the divisiveness? (i love those movies too, coz they've somehow escaped certain aspects of trammeled human thought and egocentricity-of-view, or they've embraced many aspects of both)

Much to ponder oh movie-prophet. I think perhaps you are over dwelling on the idea that a film might be pure/all good, or the contrary. Even if the odd film were to attain such a peak (i don't believe they could - but that's me - my film and life spirituality is firmly based in the idea that there's good-n-bad in all things)...the fact that it's an unknowable pure-goodness you're talking about points to the problem - that human perception will always be the key. Yes a mass of reviewers will give a full-on-good film a mass good-review, but as Henry said, this can also be the case with a movie that to him or you or me might be tripe [Are we "wrong" to take "goodness" from said film? I think not. The constant flux and fixed constructs of the human element means your search for a constant system of evaluation of constant-good is doomed to ultimate failure, if you're with me. That's not a bad thing i don't think - coz i don't think there's such a thing as a pure good film or a pure bad one. Just more one way or t'other, and our views can differ wildly on that too]

I'd agree that the overall "quality" of anything (it's good n bad sides and overall nature) is ultimately unconceivable as a whole, and yet undeniably the case [i.e. its repurcussions exist no matter what]. The real test is to strive to learn all the different ways of judging and appreciating "quality" in all it's different forms and contexts (and appreciating those that disagree with us too is part of that). That's a good mission for both movies and life i'd say

Have i made your prophet's robes sway at all? We are all worshippers at the oblong of light (but we all walk out the door into the night too - and having unglued ourselves, happily share our thought-stews )

EDIT: Dammit, seeing as i'm spieling - here's something i PM'd to the Bealster (with an extra finiky fiddle B)

"the main theme [here] is the "there's-good-n-bad-in-all, so it's the judgement-call that should hold us enthralled" one - i.e. everyday is judgement day [that's my new catchphrase for saying - we live, we learn, repeat - or more specifically - there's no fixed measurement method or perfect practice for all - we live, we learn through logic, we learn through experience, and we learn a whole host of ways to decide what's good/better for us, good/better in general, and what's the best choice in a situation. That's not the same as the judgement call of good-or-bad. It's the "how good/how bad" judgement call. i find it enthralling anyway ]


EDIT: Incidently - i thought the trailer looked a bit suss. But then i've been influenced by tv-reviews since then too [gonna wait for it to do the tv rounds]

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Virtual Reality chatter on a movie site? Got endless amounts of it here. Reviews over here

I didn't like the film at all, it bored me to sleep many times. It was just so damn cheesey and had a stupid plot. Though Kate looked great in the skin tight suit she didn't fit in the film. The cgi is terrible and the acting is just as bad, nothing felt real and I didn't feel like I was whisked away into a gothic world, I was sent to the land of nod instead.

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instrumental rock band that I am in.

That's what i was afraid of from the trailer. It didn't look like it was going to cast a spell (just waft some familiar smells around perhaps - and pseudo it-all-smells-of-false-banana smells at that) We seem to be specialising in under-par special effects in britland (as my friend can probably back up having got his little credit on Tomb Raider 2 - he was only doing the rendering tho - it's not his fault ) I've got a feeling we just don't have the the film-culture here for people to be learning properly. Too much theory, too much impractical practice, not enough hard-knocks push-it-til-it-rocks learning and doing methinks.

I, on the other hand, thought the opposite. The special effects weren't great, but they were far from terrible. The acting was ok, not great, but I liked a few of the characters a lot. Namely Viktor and Lucian. I thought the gothic feel was pretty cool, but not as gothic as I wanted it to be. I enjoyed the silly plot, and thought it was a good compliment to the action (in a darkly comic Flash Gordan sort of way). I liked it.

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"I'm mad as hell, and I'm not going to take it anymore!" - Howard Beale

Just to let everyone know, that this Halloween, Underworld will return with a 1,200 theater expansion (re-release).