Review
Saw two movies over the weekend: Metropolis and Insomnia.
Metropolis is very impressive. In terms of style and the enormous amount of effort that must have been involved, it's probably the most amazing animated film I've ever seen. Scene after scene had backgrounds which must have taken artists weeks to produce. The animation itself was quite interesting, and seemed to borrow some elements of its style from the comics of the period from which the film takes its aesthetic inspiration, the 20s and 30s. The whole thing was a gorgeous, rococo art-deco masterpiece. Visually, that is. The plotline was average, the dialogue (subtitled from the Japanese) was even somewhat sub-par. But they weren't all that important.
The inspiration for the setting is Fritz Lang's early cinematic breakthrough of the same name. Robots and humans living in a mechanised society with the latter enslaving and subjugating the former. The similarities between this film and Lang's are not that great, however. For starters, the anime has much better special effects. Just kidding. To be honest I don't remember the original Metropolis that well. I saw it quite a while ago and remember finding it boring, which is not that surprising given that it was made practically before the invention of dramatic pacing in cinema (at this point I should duck to avoid the hail of rotting fruit from any film-school purists out there. Seriously though, a lot of old movies are just, well, dull). Anyway, enough to say go out and see it. It's far, far better than most things currently out. Even if you don't usually like being beaten about the head with blatant thematic and philosophical content.
Insomnia, Christopher Nolan's follow-up to the arguably superb (I'd argue it if I was in the mood, but it's certainly very clever, funny, and damned good) Memento, was approximately as disappointing as I was expecting it to be, given the vibes I'd received from people who'd already seen it. It's not a bad film. It has a decent cast (with a surprisingly inoffensive Robin Williams as the villain), a decent plot, polished direction, and whatnot. It's well-crafted. Unfortunately, it's pretty much just a straight-up cop vs. murderer psychothriller.
Al Pacino plays the 'hard-boiled' (euphemism) LA detective who's sent to Alaska partly to help out on a murder case, and partly to escape an internal affairs investigation. He doesn't sleep throughout (hence the film's title, eh) because of the permanent Alaskan summer sunlight. If you want someone to look tired, you should get Al Pacino. I don't think there would have been much makeup required, the man looks as if he hasn't slept in about a thousand years naturally. He was immensely predictable in this role and I found myself wishing they had cast someone else, someone a little less typical. The murder plot was almost irrelevant, which was also annoying. The whole movie seemed to just be an excuse for a few face-offs between Pacino and the sinister Williams in the Alaskan wilderness. Woo.
So, in summation, not bad, but definitely not Memento. Second outing's always the hardest though, just look at M. Night Shyamalan following up The Sixth Sense with the execrable Unbreakable. Go and see Metropolis first.
Saw two movies over the weekend: Metropolis and Insomnia.
Metropolis is very impressive. In terms of style and the enormous amount of effort that must have been involved, it's probably the most amazing animated film I've ever seen. Scene after scene had backgrounds which must have taken artists weeks to produce. The animation itself was quite interesting, and seemed to borrow some elements of its style from the comics of the period from which the film takes its aesthetic inspiration, the 20s and 30s. The whole thing was a gorgeous, rococo art-deco masterpiece. Visually, that is. The plotline was average, the dialogue (subtitled from the Japanese) was even somewhat sub-par. But they weren't all that important.
The inspiration for the setting is Fritz Lang's early cinematic breakthrough of the same name. Robots and humans living in a mechanised society with the latter enslaving and subjugating the former. The similarities between this film and Lang's are not that great, however. For starters, the anime has much better special effects. Just kidding. To be honest I don't remember the original Metropolis that well. I saw it quite a while ago and remember finding it boring, which is not that surprising given that it was made practically before the invention of dramatic pacing in cinema (at this point I should duck to avoid the hail of rotting fruit from any film-school purists out there. Seriously though, a lot of old movies are just, well, dull). Anyway, enough to say go out and see it. It's far, far better than most things currently out. Even if you don't usually like being beaten about the head with blatant thematic and philosophical content.
Insomnia, Christopher Nolan's follow-up to the arguably superb (I'd argue it if I was in the mood, but it's certainly very clever, funny, and damned good) Memento, was approximately as disappointing as I was expecting it to be, given the vibes I'd received from people who'd already seen it. It's not a bad film. It has a decent cast (with a surprisingly inoffensive Robin Williams as the villain), a decent plot, polished direction, and whatnot. It's well-crafted. Unfortunately, it's pretty much just a straight-up cop vs. murderer psychothriller.
Al Pacino plays the 'hard-boiled' (euphemism) LA detective who's sent to Alaska partly to help out on a murder case, and partly to escape an internal affairs investigation. He doesn't sleep throughout (hence the film's title, eh) because of the permanent Alaskan summer sunlight. If you want someone to look tired, you should get Al Pacino. I don't think there would have been much makeup required, the man looks as if he hasn't slept in about a thousand years naturally. He was immensely predictable in this role and I found myself wishing they had cast someone else, someone a little less typical. The murder plot was almost irrelevant, which was also annoying. The whole movie seemed to just be an excuse for a few face-offs between Pacino and the sinister Williams in the Alaskan wilderness. Woo.
So, in summation, not bad, but definitely not Memento. Second outing's always the hardest though, just look at M. Night Shyamalan following up The Sixth Sense with the execrable Unbreakable. Go and see Metropolis first.
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