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Ok, here's the deal. Periodically, I'll put a movie review on this page. My scale is as follows:

Utter crap; a total waste of 90 minutes of your existence


Possibly worth watching if you're suicidal or drunk or high or immortal


Slightly below par of standard Hollywood fare


A decent movie, worth seeing once


A good movie; a candidate for multiple viewings


An excellent piece of cinematic work; worthy of high praise and a spot on your video rack


Dungeons and Dragons - (2000; approx. 107 mins.; reviewed 2/3/2002) The venerable TSR/Wizards of the Coast franchise with so much creative potential and so many vivid, richly-textured worlds whose limits were only drawn by the imaginations of the players was long overdue for expression in a motion picture that brought to a mainstream audience the three-dimensional characters and complex, engaging storylines for which it is famous. This isn't it. As you might imagine, this film was on the radar screens of many geeks the world over (myself included) long before it came out. We had high hopes that the hours we spent in dark computer rooms and sitting around tables rolling twenty-sided dice would be vindicated. What we got was such a strange hodgepodge that I can only speculate that the writers (Topper Lilien and Carroll Cartwright) had never actually seen an AD&D rulebook prior to sitting down at the word processor. Their world is one in which magic-users and non-mages form some class hierarchy all over the world, with spellcasters dominating the thaumaturgically-challenged. This is not only not very consistent with any existing AD&D setting, but it also doesn't really make that much sense. After all, spellcasters are not gods--they are typically physically underdeveloped people who cannot wear armor to protect themselves and must carry around an assortment of scrolls, spellbooks, and material spell components to be of any value at all. The only material component in this movie is some sort of generic magic dust that seems to allow any user of any level to cast any spell. Also, the dragons, who are featured rather predominantly, are only limited to red and gold, both of whom breathe fire! None of the other metallic or chromatic dragons are even alluded to in the story. Unfortunately, aside from its casual dismissal of AD&D rules and settings, which is a rather large thing to toss aside, there still isn't much to like about this film. The main protagonists, two exceedingly-dorky and inept thieves, Ridley Freeborn (Justin Whalin, of Lois and Clark fame) and Snails (the ever-dreadful Marlon Wayans) and one low-level mage (Zoe McLellan), are not particuarly interesting and you actually find yourself wishing they would die horribly so the movie will end and you can get on with your life. There is a token elf (Kristen Wilson) and a dwarf (Lee Arenberg), and the interrelationships among the three races are about the only thing that the movie portrays in a halfway-accurate fashion. I can't understand the presence of the two A-list actors in the film, Jeremy Irons (Profion) and Thora Birch (Savina). Irons must have simply been bored out of his skull or really hard up for quick cash. Birch must have taken this role on some bad advice, 'cause she surely didn't need the money after her recent success with American Beauty. This one's a stinker, completely unworthy of the title. 

 My rating: 

 


Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring - (2001; approx. 2 hrs., 58 mins.; reviewed 2/3/2002) You'd think that a guy like me would have read Tolkein's LOR trilogy in the callow days of his youth. However, you would be wrong. Having heard about the much-hyped film trilogy, though, I decided I had put it off long enough; shortly after arriving in Tallahassee, I obtained a copy of The Fellowship of the Ring from the public library and read it. In it I discovered many of the elements that made me realize why people referred to it as an archetype of the epic fantasy genre. Familiar things like elves, dwarves, wizards, halflings, demons, and trolls all lurked within the pages, as well as Homeric themes of heroic triumph over adversity. Tolkein's writing style did tend to drag a bit, but this isn't a book review. My first hint that the movie version lived up to fans' expectations (and that I would thus be equally as dazzled by it) was the fact that my friend Scott, who has been an avid fan of Tolkein for years, had no complaints about the adaptation. Several weeks after discussing the matter with him, I had the opportunity to see it myself. It was impressive. Amazingly, it was filmed entirely in New Zealand; I, for one, had no idea that New Zealand has such a vast diversity of landscapes. The cinematography alone may well be worth the price of the ticket. For those who don't know, the story revolves around the young hobbit (or halfling) Frodo Baggins (played ably by Elijah Wood), who inherits a dangerous and potent magic ring, which the Lord of Darkness, Sauron, covets; he can unlock its powers and use it to enslave the free races of the world. Therefore, Frodo must take the ring on an epic journey to the very heart of the lion's den, Sauron's homeland of Mordor, for there lies the only place that it can be destroyed. Accompanying him on the initial leg of the journey are the wizard Gandalf (played wonderfully by Ian McKellan), three of his hobbit friends (Sam, Pippin, and Merry), the ranger Aragorn (Viggo Mortensen), the fighter Boromir, the elven archer Legolas, and the dwarven warrior Gimli. The movie does follow the book fairly closely with some deletions, mostly for the good. The odd and rather nonsensical character Tom Bombadil is mercifully absent. Also gone are some small scenes, such as the discovery in the woods of a number of trolls that have been turned to stone by sunlight. One change I did dislike was the scene at the river; although the new version does give Arwen (Liv Tyler) something to do besides look pretty, it takes away from the dramatic significance and heroic stature of the character of Frodo. In the first book, this is perhaps the only time when he seems to be a powerful force, even if it is only for a short period. My only other complaint about the film is that the wizards' duel between Gandalf and Saruman (Christopher Lee) looks rather silly at times, with the two of them just hurtling each other across the room with no apparent effect. The cast is terrific, although I might have picked someone else for the role of Galadriel; Cate Blanchett just doesn't come across as the proper combination of serene, warm, wise and stunningly beautiful. McKellan is in top form here. If it were up to me, I'd throw his conical hat in the ring for a Best Supporting Actor Oscar. He plays the role of Gandalf as though it were written for him. The special effects are superb, and I can't wait for December. I guess I'd better scrounge around for a copy of  The Two Towers. My rating:

 


O - (2001; approx. 95 mins.; reviewed 9/1/02) I always feel a sense of morbid fascination when I read or hear that a new Shakespearean adaptation is coming out. It's the same feeling you get when you see a bad wreck on the interstate, and you want to look away, but you just can't. The two best film renditions of Shakespeare in recent years have been by this generation's Olivier, Kenneth Branagh. His Much Ado About Nothing (1993) and Hamlet (1996) were both time-shifted from the original settings, but still captured the spirit of the source work and made it accessible to a wide audience without sacrificing any of the intelligence and insight into humanity of the originals. Other film versions have been somewhat less impressive both in ambition and achievement. Regrettably, this piece falls in the latter category. I wanted to like it--it has received wide critical acclaim, and the leads are very appealling. Julia Stiles (this marks her second appearance in a Shakespeare update--see 10 Things I Hate About You) is as cute as ever in her role as "Desi" (Desdemona). Mekhi Phifer has a powerful screen presence, and this serves him well in his role as "Odin"  (Othello). Josh Hartnett, whose presence seems to be a nod to the teenage-girl portion of the audience, has yet to display much of a talent for acting at this point, and he clearly lacks the range for the role of the greatest villain in Western literature, Iago ("Hugo"). The film is obviously aimed at a teen-aged audience, but, even in the aftermath of Columbine, it's difficult to take some of these things seriously. Othello is set against the backdrop of war between Venice and Cyprus. O is set against the backdrop of a basketball championship game between two prep schools.  Perhaps it's my lack of interest in sports, but this background of a basketball season just seems silly. Hugo's professed motive for destroying Odin is that Hugo was passed over in favor of "Michael" (Cassio) to be team co-captain (with Odin). The director, Tim Blake Nelson, is apparently extremely uncomfortable with the idea of ambiguity in Iago's character. Nelson's Hugo makes several asides that the medium of film demands that you take seriously and at face value (they are done as voice-overs, rather than onscreen), whereas Shakespeare's Iago makes a sufficient number of conflicting statements that his asides are always taken with a grain of salt, and at the very end, you still aren't really sure why he acts as he does. Nelson nearly beats you to death with the idea that Hugo is jealous of Odin over the attention he gets from Hugo's father (the basketball coach, competently played by Martin Sheen) and from his girlfriend "Emily" (Emilia, played by Rain Phoenix). He also makes no bones about the fact that Emily is attracted to Odin, something decidedly absent from the play. So there is never any real question about what drives Hugo to evil. The action goes more or less as you would expect if you've read the source material to the inevitable denouement. However, I do feel compelled to point out a scene that is exceptionally graphic in nature. At a point in the film where Odin begins to question Desi's fidelity, the two of them engage in sexual intercourse. As the scene proceeds, he starts to feel that she is imagining herself with Michael, and he begins to get very rough. It is tantamount to rape, and it is not a scene suitable for a younger teen-aged audience. It was also, in my view, completely unnecessary to the film. My rating: