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Archive for the ‘War’ Category

The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (2002)

The_two_towerDirected by Peter Jackson

I knew when I started this project that I would have to watch some movies that I didn’t want to watch. I was thinking about movies like Taxi Driver, with its rough subject matter, and Raging Bull, with its graphic violence. I had forgotten that I would have to watch The Lord of the Rings. You see, I love the book. A lot. I’ve read it several times, and I have a very clear picture in my mind of what everyone and everything looks like. I saw The Fellowship of the Ring when it first came out, and I wasn’t impressed with what Peter Jackson had done with Tolkien’s masterpiece. I had no desire to see the other two, especially since the Ents are my favorite race. I didn’t want Jackson to ruin them for me. But I love writing this blog, so I made the sacrifice and watched The Two Towers. (And I was right. The Ents sucked.) I am going to try very, very hard to judge this film based on its own merits and not compare it to the book, but I may not succeed. Please just bear with me.

So what’s the story? This isn’t a stand-alone movie. It’s hours three through six of a nine-hour movie, so it’s a little hard to recap. But Frodo and Sam are making their journey into Mordor to destroy the ring. Merry and Pippin have been kidnapped by Orcs, and Aragorn, Legolas, and Gimli are on their trail. Merry and Pippin meet the Ents, a race of tree-people, while Aragorn, Legolas, and Gimli meet the Riders of Rohan, a tribe of Men. Saruman is growing bolder, sending out his armies to destroy both Rohan and Gondor. Confused? Yeah, don’t watch these movies out of order. There is no recap from one to the next, so you will be lost if you don’t already know the story. You might be lost even if you do know the story, because the movie and the book are rather different.

The Good: Sean Astin is wonderful as Sam, Frodo’s loyal friend and servant. His complete devotion to Frodo and their cause shines out of his faces. It’s great to see. I do rather like Ian McKellen as Gandalf. He manages to appear both grave and kind, both serious and cheerful. Good stuff.

The set design is quite good. The world of Middle Earth comes to life in these movies. Although it’s not quite the same as what I envisioned, I am willing to admit that it is a wonderful vision.

There are some wonderful effects. Gollum was especially well done, which I feel is also partly due to Andy Serkis’s acting. The animation or capture or both of Gollum made him come alive with all his facets.

The Bad: There wasn’t a good balance between battle and storytelling. I feel like there was a lot of time spent on the Battle of Helm’s Deep, while some other things (like everything in the court of Rohan) were skimmed over. The Ents and their destruction of Isengard are barely shown, even though it’s a crucial part of the fight against evil. Also, what was that Arwen/Aragorn interlude? Jackson is already telling multiple stories at once; throwing in one more just bogs the whole thing down.

I didn’t like how no one in this movie but Our Heroes are willing to do what they need to do. Aragorn tries unsuccessfully to get Theoden to fight against Saruman’s masses, but Theoden thinks that hiding is a better option. Of course, when the armies come to Helm’s Deep, it’s Aragorn who gives the pep talks and plans the defenses, even though Theoden has defended Helm’s Deep before. The Ents don’t care about helping fight Saruman until Pippin reminds Treebeard of what Saruman has done: he has cut down trees that were friends of Treebeard’s. If Pippin hadn’t come, Treebeard would have melted into the forest and sat peacefully watching his friends die to feed to fires of Isengard. The only problem with that is that Theoden and Treebeard are both noble men, leaders of their people. They would have taken action without a third party telling them what to do.

The Ugly: There were some seriously cheesy moments in this movie. I groaned out loud when Legolas slid down the stairs on a shield, shooting arrows all the way. I know Legolas is good, but that’s just silly. Also, the “Aragorn being rescued by his horse” scene was a bit much. It didn’t fit in this movie. (And here is where my book-loving part comes out: There is so much in the book that had to be cut because of time constraints. Why did Peter Jackson feel like he had to make stuff up and add it in? That time could have been spent better. Anyway, that’s my rant. I tried really hard to write this review based solely on its merits as a movie and forget that it was based on an extraordinary book, so I figure I am allowed one little rant.)

Oscars Won: Best sound editing; best visual effects.

Other Oscar Nominations: Best picture; best art direction-set direction; best film editing; best sound.

Category:

Adventure, Drama, War

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The Thin Red Line (1998)

Thin Red Line posterDirected by Terrence Malick

When the Criterion Collection DVD started off with a message from the director suggesting that it be played loud, I thought two things. First, Terrence Malick has never lived in an apartment building with neighbors who get mad over the smallest noise. (Seriously. My neighbors complained to the landlord last week when I was watching Parks and Recreation reruns. At nine o’clock.) Second, Terrence Malick has control issues. He obviously cares very much about his movie, but he doesn’t seem to realize that once it is out in the world, people will do what they please with it.

So what’s the story? This movie doesn’t exactly have a cohesive, concise storyline. It follows the progress of the Battle of Guadalcanal on the Solomon Islands during World War II, but through the points of view of many soldiers.

The Good: There were excellent performances from many people. Elias Koteas as the sympathetic captain and Ben Chapin as the man desperately in love with his wife were the ones who stood out for me, but that’s possibly because I sympathized with their characters the most. Nick Nolte was great as a slightly bitter career Army officer, Jim Caviezel fantastic as always as a lowly private, Sean Penn convincing as a crusty sergeant.

After I watched the movie, I did some research and found out that if Terrence Malick had had his way, this movie would have been six hours long. So I’m also going to give the editors props for cutting it down to the more manageable three hours.

The movie was beautiful, but that was a double-edged sword for me. I have a feeling that soldiers running away from the enemy don’t tend to notice the giant lizards clinging to trees and the flying foxes hanging in the branches overhead. Maybe I’m wrong. (Please tell me if I’m wrong; if you have experience with situations like this and you did notice, let me know!)

The Bad: They had Adrian Brody and he got to do nothing! All he did was look terrified in various positions: standing and looking terrified, crouching and looking terrified, kneeling and looking terrified. He’s such a good actor; it made me crazy that he didn’t really have a story.

I didn’t like the music, either. Yes, it was nice music (Hans Zimmer, even!), but it never seemed to underscore what was going on. I understand the concept of using music that contrasts the action to make it stand out starkly, but this movie didn’t do that for me. The music just made me think that they were trying to glorify war, like when glorious music played as the soldiers charged up the hill. The music that played as the American soldier told the Japanese soldier that the birds were going to come and eat him was just felt off-kilter. Much of the music did.

The Ugly: This movie was three freaking hours long. It got boring. There were too many characters who could be called main characters, so the movie wasn’t really about anyone. It was just a rather nebulous collection of things that happened to a bunch of people who were in the same place at the same time. I felt like this was a movie made to impress other movie makers, not for the general public. I have a list of works of art in my head that I can appreciate as being well done, but which I personally did not like. This movie has joined that list.

Oscars Won: None

Oscar Nominations: Best picture; best director; best writing, screenplay based on material previously produced or published; best cinematography; best sound; best film editing; best music, original dramatic score.

Category:

Drama, Historical, War

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Saving Private Ryan (1998)

saving private ryan posterDirected by Steven Spielberg

 As I sat watching the battle for the bridge at the end of this movie for the second time, I couldn’t hold back my tears. But it wasn’t because the movie characters were dying; it was because similar scenes actually happened. I couldn’t help but wonder what war does to the souls of men, and I cried for the brave men who fought and died a bit inside each time they killed someone. I think that’s the greatest thing that Saving Private Ryan does. It reminds us that ordinary men sacrificed not just their lives, but bits of their souls, to protect the world from unimaginable evil. It makes us ask the question that is asked at the end: Am I a good person? Do I deserve the sacrifices that were made?

So what’s the story? After D-Day, three of the Ryan brothers have died. The youngest is still alive, and the war department decides that he is going to go home. Captain John Miller is ordered to take a small squad of men to go find him somewhere in Normandy. As they search for Private Ryan, they continue to face the dangers of war.

The Good: There is so much good in this movie, it’s hard to get it all down. All of the performances were perfect, from the thirty seconds we see of Mrs. Ryan to the more than two hours of Tom Hanks. It was surprising, but nice, to see Vin Diesel playing something other than an action hero.

The screenplay allowed us to catch glimpses of the soldiers as men. For example, when Captain Miller orders Caparzo to leave the kids behind, Caparzo says he can’t, because the little girl reminds him of his niece. Just that little line made me see Caparzo at a big family gathering with kids running around and screaming and playing. He probably wasn’t joining in on the play, but he was the kind of uncle who would give a kid a nickel to go buy a soda. There were little things like that sprinkled throughout that just made everyone seem more alive.

I loved the cinematography. I’m not sure whose call it was to use more muted colors, but those colors made it seem more like a memory than something that was currently happening. I thought it was a brilliant decision.

When the small group first heads out, I was extremely frustrated. I didn’t know any of the soldiers’ names, and they were all wearing their helmets, so I couldn’t tell them apart very well. But as the movie went on, I realized that the viewers were having the same experience as Upham of being thrown together with men they didn’t know, but would grow fond of as the story progressed. It made for very effective storytelling.

The Bad: Tom Hanks did not give a bad performance, but he never became Captain John Miller to me. He became a captain who cared about his men, a man who missed his family, a man who was losing himself and didn’t know how to stop it, but he still remained Tom Hanks. (Captain Tom Hanks, maybe?) It’s not his fault or the fault of the movie. I think it might be the media. We see actors in magazines and on the internet so often as real people that sometimes it’s hard to suspend the disbelief and let them be who they are supposed to be in the role. On the other hand, I had no problem with the other actors at all. I was watching for Nathan Fillion and almost didn’t catch him, and I didn’t realize Ted Danson was in this movie at all until I looked at the cast list. That was good. Tom Hanks just couldn’t break the “That’s Tom Hanks!” barrier in my mind.

The frame story bugged the heck out of me. Having the old man at the end was fine, but starting with him just felt wrong, somehow. (Although I would like to know how they find people who look so much like an old version of someone. The resemblance in this movie really is amazing.)

The Ugly: War is ugly. That’s all there is to it. And because this movie is so accurate, it is extremely hard to watch. I watched most of it twice, but I couldn’t handle watching the first half hour again. I am so grateful for the men who did what they did in the war, and I am so glad that I will never have to do that myself.

Oscars Won: Best director; best cinematography; best sound; best film editing; best effects, sound effects editing.

Other Oscar Nominations: Best picture; best actor in a leading role (Tom Hanks); best writing, screenplay written directly for the screen; best art direction-set direction; best makeup; best music, original dramatic score.

Category:

Drama, Historical, War

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