Sam's Movie Reviews

It's flatland, so that makes it a must see assuming it doesn't completely screw it all up. And it actually manages not to.

The 2D portions are great, when it switches into 3D it changes from ugly to unwatchable, but it switches back to 2D soon enough. The 3D animation is crude which is fine in itself, it as a world of geometric shapes after all. However, there are extended periods of flickering lights, which made it literally unwatchable for me - there must be a better way to show lots of photos being taken.

It does the whole 2D world thing well, I didn't notice any obvious flaws (mind you I had a three year old in the room yelling about the circles and squares), unlike Flatland: The Movie which shows non-2D things in flatland in the damn trailer.

A reasonably funny movie - good if your in the mood for a non-thinking comedy.

It is very funny in parts, but has a number of flaws - it slows in the middle and glosses over a few things too quickly.

A long as you can manage to like the tobacco spokesman that is the main character it's a fun movie. Satire is something of a rarity in hollywood, so that's a nice change at least.

A great film. Of course I own the Firefly DVD set, have the DVR set to record the reruns, and have watched a few of the reruns when they were on...

The opening sequence is brilliant - it looks like one long take, but I'm not observant enough to actually tell. It introduces the characters and of course the ship to the new folk, and provides the old folk with that "seeing old friends again" feeling and throws them some references to things in the TV series too. The next scene introduces River's background and provides those who watched the series with some new information, it also gives the impression that the movie is going to have more action than the series.

Joss Whedon let his young female superhero fetish get the best of him. River has more superpowers than in the series (though the series was building up to them it seemed before it's life was ended early) and it feels very Buffy. I like Buffy too, but I considered it a downside, River in the series was better.

Inara and Shepherd Book get short changed too. Which is expected, there are far too many characters for a two hour film - even leaving those two mostly out it's still too crowded and I suspect that those new to the characters don't grow attached enough to care about any of them. Nine is just too many. Which will make those moments that fans of the series find touching/sad/happy less so for the those who didn't watch the series.

There is plenty of action, a little too much even - I would have prefered more character interaction, but I'm guessing I'm in the minority. There's plenty of funny. There's even a few shocks. Interspersed with the funny - enough to make at least one moment where there was laughter throughout the cinema and then silence as the funny moment was ripped to shreds by something most unexpected.

A film with some flaws, but they are more than made up for simply by seeing the Serenity and her crew on the big screen. When the DVD comes out it better have a director's commentary track.

The big let down is that it's missing the theme song from the series, and no an instrumental at the very end of the closing credits doesn't count. The lyrics sum up the series (and the movie) perfectly:

Take my love, take my land
Take me where I cannot stand
I don't care, I'm still free
You can't take the sky from me

Take me out to the black
Tell them I ain't comin' back
Burn the land and boil the sea
You can't take the sky from me

Have no place I can be
Since I found Serenity
But you can't take the sky from me

I waited and waited through the credits for that... And it never came :(

This movie somehow managed to just be boring.

Possibly because they set up two big fights near the end, but since all the characters in those fights are around in the original movies you know no one dies.

Possibly because the dialog was crap.

Possibly because the film in which the Anakin turns to the dark side and is transformed into Darth Vader was somehow made so badly that it felt like nothing happened.

Even the fights were boring...

The best plot summary I've seen is:

This was the movie. You two, go and kill this guy. Alright, now go kill this guy. Alright, now I want you to go kill a bunch of other guys. Now go over here and kill a bunch of other guys. Now I want you to go kill the guy who killed a bunch of guys while I go kill this guy. The end.

tempysmurf

An interesting film.

I've never seen a Frank Miller graphic novel or comic as I call them. And I'm pretty sure I'll never read one. However, the movie was great.

The visuals are great, and the violence is over the top. Robert Rodriguez is a director I like - conveniantly "Once Upon A Time In Mexico" was on the TV a few days earlier.

Anna was tricked into thinking is was comic movie, like say X-Men, which meant I got to see it with her - and she even liked it...