film criticism by maryann johanson, not an AI | since 1997
TO BE! ARRRRGGGGGHHHHH!!!! Yeah, he’s shouty, like he always is, but I kinda like Mel Gibson as Hamlet. I saw the 1990 Franco Zeffirelli mounting of the story of the Mad Dane years ago and I must admit that it didn’t really make much of an impression on me then, but now, having watched it … more…
Oh, but there is joy in this movie… It fills you up, this wonderful, wonderful movie, with just the simple yet profound connection it’s possible to make with another creature, even if that creature is merely a cartoon rat.
Other critics have already dragged out the $10 words to describe this film — some of the ones I’d chose myself are ‘seductive,’ ‘masterful,’ ‘majestic,’ and ‘elegant’ — and you must believe what they say because they say True Things. But the one thing that strikes me most about LOTR: FOTR, besides its seductively masterful and majestic elegance, is simply how utterly right it is.
I suspected The Fifth Element was gonna turn out to be a bunch of claptrap, and I was right. It’s a visually stunning film, to be sure — I’m a sucker for gorgeous spaceships and gorgeous spacescapes — but ultimately it’s a strange brew of Blade Runner, Raiders of the Lost Ark, and Douglas Adams, mixed with a lot of pseudoreligious, pseudoscientific nonsense.
