The Last Samurai (2003)

I can say that I enjoyed this movie for two reasons. One, The excellent acting by Ken Watanabe, and, two, the spiritual ness that he brings to the movie with his portrayal of a Samurai who is seeing his time pass him by. Watanabe makes a typical carbon copy Hollywood movie quite entertaining. This movie should be seen by one and all.

The story is about how a supposed American Military hero, Nathan Algren, played by that American stud Tom Cruise, is asked by Colonel Bagley his former commander, played by Tony Goldwyn, (girls will remember him because he was the bad guy in the 1990 Patrick Swayze movie Ghost), and the Japanese Ambassador to the US, to train a new army for the emperor of Japan to defeat the evil Samurai that are fighting the changes being brought to Japan by the Ambassador. Since this is a typical Hollywood movie, our hero, Algren (Cruise), is a drunkard who is haunted by his military past of slaughtering millions of innocent Indians in the late 1870′s. He was commanded by General Custer of the 7th Cavalry, which for those people who slept through history class, fought the Battle of the Little Big Horn, where he took 700 lightly armed Calvary officers and fought 2000 Indians, and lost, badly. But since most of Custer’s men were slaughtered, Algren must have been out sick that day of the battle. So Algren is haunted by visions of his next duty, which is the slaughter of Indian women and children, probably some kind of reference to the Battle of Wounded Knee where American Cavalry did slaughter a bunch of Indian women and children to revenge the death of Custer. His commander of course was Col. Bagley (Goldwyn) who he now hates. Anyway, Algren agrees to go to Japan and train the new army how to fight with its new weapons being provided by, you guessed it, America. So Algren takes his badly trained men into battle and loses, badly, to the Samurai, and is captured by the Samurai leader Katsumoto. From this point on, the movie takes a left turn and becomes a good movie.

Ken Watanabe, who does a brilliant job playing the part of an old warrior trying to keep his county from losing its identity, plays Katsumoto. I was really taken aback by the overall tranquility and for lack of a better term, spiritual nature of the Samurai that he portrays. Watanabe actually practices many aspects of the Samurai in real life according to IMDB.com. He just does an outstanding job in the movie and deserved the Oscar nomination he got for Best Supporting Actor, which I hope he wins.

The rest of the movie is the same stuff. Algren tries to come to grips with his past and redeem himself by fighting along side the noble savages of Japan, blah, blah, blah. The director of the movie was Edward Zwick who has direct one of my favorite movies, Glory, and also other movies, The Siege, and Courage Under Fire, does a good job with an easy Hollywood script. John Logan who has helped write great movies, Gladiator, and horrible movies, Time Machine and Bats, wrote the screenplay and it is a reflection of his other plays combined, some parts very good, some parts very bad. The other actors in the movie do an admirable job but clearly the Japanese actors out act the American ones in this movie.

Go see the movie, its worth seeing. However without Watanabe, this movie would be pretty average.

Brian-The Naked Gun

The Last House on the Left (1972)

This movie was shocking in 1972. At least that is what those who saw it say. I wasn’t one of them. However, in this day and age of blood, guts and horror, this movie is not going to satisfy the modern filmgoer’s desire to be shocked.

The premise for “The Last House on the Left” is straight forward. Two girls, Mari and Phyllis, go into town to celebrate Mari’s 17th birthday and run into four criminals who have bad intentions. They end up taking the two girls into the woods with intent to rape and murder them. By pure chance, they end up getting taken to the woods across the street from where Mari lives, where her parents are worried waiting for the arrival of there daughter from the previous night. After getting raped, Phyllis tries to escape, get help and get three of the four bad guys away from Mari since she is still a virgin. However, the girl gets caught and is brutally stabbed to death, hacked up by the three. Mari tries to have the fourth guy help her escape. He is the only one with a conscience, but she gets caught, raped, told to walk into the lake in the woods and shot in the head.

The four bad guys–when I say “guys,” I do mean three guys and a girl–clean themselves and go to the nearest house to rest. Well, it turns out to be Mari’s house, and the parents for some reason, even though they are unacquainted with the visitors, let the killers in and have dinner with them.

Later, the mother sees one of the bad guys wearing Mari’s birthday present, a peace symbol on a necklace, and the parents go into the woods and discover Mari’s body along the lake. The parents go on a vengeance spree and kill the bad guys.

The movie has a few things which bring it down. Why would the parents be entertaining anyone, let alone strangers, while their 17 year old daughter is missing? How did Mari’s body get so far away from the lake? Not to mention, how did her parents find Mari in these woods, even though Phyllis runs for quite sometime and never finds the house or the road before getting killed? Why do you make the cops so completely inept? It makes the movie sappy. If the cops are smart and still unable to get the bad guys, then it gives some credibility to the bad guys and their smarts.

The one actor of note is David Hess, who portrays Krug Stillo, the evil guy who does the rape scene with Mari, played by Sandra Cassel, then shoots her. He is excellent in this role, and quite terrifying in his portrayal of this rapist. He alone keeps this movie from being campy.

I can only imagine the two scenes which made this movie shocking were the rape scene of Mari and the murder of Phyllis. Both have a sense of realism which is unnerving, adding to the fact it was shot in such a way it makes the film look like a documentary. This also adds to the disgust you have for the scenes.

However, there is nothing else in the movie which makes this a horror flick. I don’t know how else you can classify this movie, but it is not scary. I will say, the fact these are ordinary people committing these crimes does allow you to realize this is a possible scenario. That is scary.

Commentary on the DVD is provided by Wes Craven, his first movie by the way. It is actually very humorous, and you discover this movie was made with his statement being the peace movement, while a wonderful ideal, is nowhere near reality. His commentary during the rape scene is also very well stated, and I agree with him whole hearted.

This movie will not scare you. I do not advise women to watch this movie for the realism factor, especially if this has happen to you. However, this is not a gore scare, but a psychological scare. By our modern standards, the film’s scare factor is mild at best.

Brian – the Naked Gun

 

The Last Legion (2007)

Another movie about the beginnings of the Arthur Legend and this takes place before he was born. The story is very creative in the idea of how the legend came about and the production value of the movie is very nice. The fault in the failure of this movie does not lie in the actors, director, or writing of the movie, but with the production company that decided to bury the film before it was ever shown on the big screen.

The last Caesar of Rome, Romulus Augustus, played by Thomas Sangster (Tristan + Isolde) is captured and taken to a remote island fortress by the Gaul’s who have captured Rome and the remaining pieces of the Northern Empire. While being held captive, Romulus finds a sword with a mysterious background with the help of his former teacher Ambrosinus, played by Ben Kingsley (Amadeus.) One of the last Roman guards, Aurelius, played by Colin Firth (Love Actually,) stages a daring rescue of the Caesar and decides to take him to the last remaining loyal outpost with a Roman Legion, Britain. Once there, however, they discover that the Legion has been disbanded and that they are all farmers, no help against the Gaul’s who are following and Vortgyn, a man who is looking for the mystical sword and kills everyone who does not help in the search or gets in the way.

The biggest problem with actual movie itself is the lack of a true nemesis. The story is split between the conflicts on the continent (Europe) and that of Britain and two different nemeses are created. The only constant is a minion of the Gaul King who has let the boy escape and hunts him down in Britain. Especially hazy is the character Vortgyn because he is in nowhere near enough of the movie to be the main nemesis and there is no character development for him. He is a bad guy who kills people who don’t help him find the sword. Is he a bad guy? Yes. But give me something else to go on.

The acting was fine but seeing Ben Kingsley in yet another movie that is going to do nothing at the box office makes me ask why is he taking these rolls? For every great movie he is in i.e. Schindler’s List, Amadeus, he is in movies that are absolute crap for his caliber of talent, i.e. A Sound of Thunder. It was great seeing him in this movie but why isn’t he in movie that are Oscar contenders anymore? It doesn’t make since.

One thing that was wonderful about this movie was Indian actress Aishwarya Rai. Wow, is she hot. She definitely gives this move a 9+ for eye candy alone. Oh and she can act too, so its not all beauty and no brains. She has it both and I can’t wait to see more of her.

Lastly, this movie is not the greatest, but the producers should have done SOME advertising for this movie. I did know it existed until I saw a poster at the theater in the small town, (granted I live 10 minutes from Denver, but still,) I live in and only saw TV spots for it the same week of its release. The distributor of the film is The Weinstein Company, and I have seen them do this to movies before. You would think that with a little money spent that they could at least get a little more back. But no, if its not going to make 100′s of millions than its not worth it.

This movie is good enough to see on DVD, but that is about it. It doesn’t suck, but it could have been better.

Brian – the Naked Gun

Kiss of the Dragon (2001)

The reason why I like this movie is because of the martial arts by Jet Li. The situation and story is fairly basic and Bridget Fonda does nothing other than provide something pretty to look at, but I like the final battle scene and I also like the bad guy so it’s a very watchable movie.

The basis of the story is that a Chinese agent Liu Jian, played by Jet Li (Hero), is framed for several murders by a dirty French cop Richard, played by Tcheky Karyo (A Very Long Engagement) while in Paris investigating drug smuggling to China. Jian’s only hope for exoneration is getting an American prostitute Jessica, played by Bridgett Fonda (Jackie Brown,) who was an unwilling participant in Richard’s plan to the Chinese embassy so Jian’s government can take the evidence to the French.

The martial arts is what really makes the movie enjoyable, that and Karyo doing such a good job of being a hateful a**hole. I know what you are asking, how is Jet Li’s martial art different then Jackie Chan’s? Well I am glad you asked, both are great to watch on screen but Chan has humor in almost everything he does and Li is all business. The final scene in which Jet Li walks in to the French police department and starts kicking ass is one of the manliest scenes I can think of, just the ultimate in kicking ass and taking names.

Karyo was fun as the bad guy. To me it was the genius of the direction, by Chris Nahon (Empire de Loupes) in that at no time does he hide the fact that he is the bad guy. From the opening sequence, you know that Liu is going to meet the bad guy, it doesn’t matter that he is a cop, priest, president, or cheerleader, he is the bad guy so you don’t have to waste time looking for hidden character flaws. As I said Karyo does a good job, he seems like he almost enjoys the role of being the bad guy.

I have two problems with the movie which cause it not to get my best rating. The first reason is that I don’t care how big or important of a cop he is, he wouldn’t be able to shoot everybody he comes in contact with. His crew blow holes in everything. I don’t even know if the Germans did that much damage during World War II as the police did to their on city in this movie. The second problem is that the main character is Chinese, who is in a French city, surrounded by French people, except for one American (Fonda) and every one is speaking English. That is just annoying. I can buy that the Chinese and the French have to speak to each other in English, being a international language, but why don’t the French speak to each other in French, or Chinese speak to each other in Chinese? It just bugged me.

Finally I will sum up by saying that if you like your martial arts to be a bit more serious, or you need a break from the great goofiness that is Jackie Chan, then this is your movie. It does have a slapstick actor in the movie even though he is in a non comedic role. Burt Kwouk who played opposite Peter Sellers in all of the Pink Panther movies as Cato has a small part in this movie and it was nice to see him in a life post Pink Panther. Like I said watch it is fun and has a great final scene.

Brian – the Naked Gun

Kingdom of Heaven (2005)

I enjoyed this movie because of the attention to detail that the writer William Monahan and Director Ridley Scott brought to this movie. However, this attention to detail at times slowed the movie down to a painful crawl and it seemed like a 3 hour long movie even though its only 2 hours long. However, since it’s an epic it is a worthy effort by Mr. Scott and his cast did a workman like job in delivering the story.

This movie deals with the fall of Jerusalem to the Muslim army of Saladin around 1188 A.D. The movie starts in France where a blacksmith named Balian, played by Orlando Bloom (Pirates of the Caribbean) was morning the death of his wife who committed suicide. Because she committed suicide the local priest reminds Balian that she won’t go to heaven. Baron Godfrey, played by Liam Neeson (Phantom Menace,) meets Balian and tells him that is his dad and offers to take him to Jerusalem to be groomed to be his replacement. Balian declines the offer, but when he kills the priest of his village for remarks about his dead wife, Balian joins Godfrey. However, Balian is hunted down by the villagers and he along with Godfrey and some of his men are forced to fight to defend Balian. During the fight Godfrey is mortally wounded and dies before getting Balain to Jerusalem. Before he dies Godfrey Knights Balian and he is now the owner of the Godfrey’s land east of Jerusalem. Jumping to the climatic scene, Balian is left to defend Jerusalem after the Army led by Guy is wiped out by the Muslim army in the desert.

The acting was ok, nobody stood out yet nobody did a bad job. The one character I enjoyed the most was Tiberius, played by Jeremy Irons (Being Julia.) His character was by far the toughest of the good guys and he was smart, albeit a little bit of a coward in the end. I am not quite sure if I can ever accept Orlando Bloom as a action hero. He was perfect for the Lord of the Rings movie as well as Pirates, yet in those he had a strong ensemble cast. I just don’t know if he is the kind of actor that can carry a action movie.

I liked what Ridley Scott did with the movie. However, it was too long at times. The opening act where we get Balian to Jerusalem was way to long. I liked that he showed how dangerous the travel was across the Medaterranian but adding everything together in the first act, just too long. His battle scenes were not original or creative, but not every movie has to bring something new to the genra. So what if the scenes were copies of Lord of the Rings, until that movie we hadn’t seen anything on such a grand scale, let’s enjoy it a little while. Writer William Moynahan did a great job of adding detail to the script, some of it being based on factual information, I am amazed that this is his first writing effort on the big screen.

The one thing that made me really upset was the music. Epic movies need their own original music, but to borrow music from other movies takes away from the movie. On my own I heard music from the movie “The 13th Warrior”, by Jerry Goldsmith, and I heard somebody say that he heard music from the “Gladiator” in this. If you are going to spend money to make an epic, spend money on making the music right too.

While you might need to bring a pillow to watch the movie, I still say it is worth watching in a movie theatre. The attention to detail that was brought to the movie, complimented by the acting makes for an enjoyable movie.

Brian – the Naked Gun

King Kong (2005)

“…it was the beauty that killed the beast.” This ending line to this very good movie provided the overriding problem with Peter Jackson’s epic tale, King Kong, Jack Black is not a dramatic actor. His acting was as painful as a sore thumb that you constantly hit when hammering a nail. I don’t blame Black however, he has come along way since Saving Silverman, but he still lacks the risk taking and the skill required for such a role that was written by Jackson. Jackson’s writing, editing were also major problems even though I feel he has cemented the fact that he has replaced George Lucas as the best fantasy story teller of our time, but he should have shaved thirty minutes of the movie to make it flow better. This is a good movie but Jackson made some mistakes that kept this movie from being great.

Jack Black (The School of Rock) is Carl Denham, a movie director looking to film the next great adventure movie on an uncharted island, during the depression era 1930′s. He gets an out of work and hungry actress Ann Darrow, played by Naomi Watts (21 Grams,) to play the lead and once they get to the island, Darrow is kidnapped by the inhabitants and offered up as a sacrifice to “Kong,” a 25 foot tall ape. The crew of the film as well as the ship must survive dinosaurs and large insects, as well as Kong, to try and save her. Denham also has vision of capturing the ape and taking it back to New York to get rich.

I totally bought the love story between Darrow and the Ape. No, I am not talking about bestiality, but it is best described as a love between a dog and the owner, if the dog was 25 feet high and you could ride him to work. There are many great scenes that show the bonding of the ape and the actress. Two stick out the most to me, one, is when they are in New York and the Ape had just escaped the show and was found by Darrow in the street. The ape and Darrow end up on a frozen lake in Central Park and there is a very touching scene with the ape sliding around on the ice holding Darrow, cementing the relationship that they have, also setting up the depressing ending that you know is coming. The other scene is actually a two scenes, but they show the relationship between the two come full circle. The first scene is on the island when Darrow is being stalked by one of the last T-Rex’s and Kong’ jumps on the other side of Darrow, staring at the T-Rex, and Darrow slowly backs into Kong. At that moment the trust between the two was established as well as the affection. The next scene that shows the reversal is at the end when Kong is on top of the Empire State Building and Darrow climbs the ladder to the top and gets in between Kong’s legs and keeps the fighters from shooting at him. Putting themselves in harms way to keep the other safe is a great show of love, and I totally bought it.

Naomi Watts was very good as Darrow. Working with a bunch of green screens and being forced to do alot of physical stunts with a bunch of wires and whatever they do to make it look real must be very difficult, and to keep character like she did was impressive. She was a bright spot in the movie.

The other great thing about this movie is, of course, the special effects. The entire island sequence is phenomenal and every scene with the dinosaurs is amazing. I realized that in movies like this that I, as I call it, have to suspend my disbelief. Jackson again paid much attention to the detail of the action scenes, the fight with the bugs was very creepy and it could have been very easy to make the bugs look bland, but the detail on the crickets alone was enough to give me the shivers. Detail was also key in the movements for King Kong. In the 1970′s version, it was obvious that it was a man in a monkey suit. With the use of computer animation, and the GREAT physical acting of Andy Sirkus, Kong looked like a 25 foot ape. Between King Kong and Golem (Lord of the Rings), Sirkus should get some kind of award because his physical acting ability is awesome.

One drawback to this movie is the length. It is clear that Peter Jackson wanted to tell a story and length be damned, he was going to tell it. The movie suffers because he wants to tell the story. Every scene could have lost easily five minutes. The first hour was the worst, providing back story to characters that die quickly, and just the build up to the island itself was slow. Now time flew once they were on the island. There was one scene that could have been cut, which by no coincidence, is also the scene that is the least believable in the entire film. A bunch of Raptors scare a bunch of Brachiosaurs and they run down this narrow canyon and in the process run over and around our heroes, killing a few of them off in the process. It was way to long to kill off what amounted to a bunch of “red shirts,” and I can’t believe any thing small, human and raptor alike, surviving a stampede of Brachiosaurs.

The biggest drawback was Jack Black. His acting ability was clearly outclassed by the part in which he was trying to portray. He was way to forceful on any dramatic dialogue and had the same look whenever the scene required an expression from Black. Be it looking at Kong or looking at Naomi Watts naked, he has the same look, dear in the head lights. His dialogue was an issue just because he didn’t know how to deliver the lines. The last line in the movie which I mentioned at the beginning of the review is one example of many. I don’t blame Black, he has never shown the range needed for a role like this. The blame falls on Jackson himself for casting Black. In an interview, Jackson said that he cast Jack Black because his kids watched his movie, School of Rock, and they loved him. Black has grown as an actor in my opinion, but he isn’t ready for a part like this.

On the whole I can tell you to watch the movie. I found the romance very sweet and touching and the special effects a visual delight. Jackson is the new story teller for the next generation, but he needs to learn to save something for the DVD. He also needs to learn that he should not allow his children to make casting decisions.

Brian – the Naked Gun

King Arthur (2004)

The legend of King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table is amazing because of its story, the lady of the lake, the Guinevere and Lancelot affair and etc. However, all good legends have a history to it, which is usually quite boring compared to the legend. I don’t know if the history of the Arthur legend, which the movie “King Arthur” presents, is accurate, but it is one of the better movies made about King Arthur.

“King Arthur” revolves around six men forced into the Roman Army for 15 years and fighting the native British people, called Woad’s, in the Roman part of the British Isles. Five men come from continental Europe, somewhere in modern day southern Russia, a province called Samaria. The leader comes from Rome name Arturious–forgive the misspelling, or Arthur.

He and his Sumatran Knights have never lost a battle, although they have lost men. Before they are allowed to leave, the Knights are asked by a Roman Bishop to go north of the Hadrian Wall, find the Godson of the Pope and bring him and his family back on the other side of the wall to join the rest of the Romans leaving Britain. This is because the Romans did not want to fight the Saxon Army arriving from the north. So, Arthur, played by Clive Owen (Closer), leads Lancelot, played by Ioan Gruffudd (Black Hawk Down), and the others on a mission of mercy through Woads and Saxons.

Director Antoine Fuqua (Tears of the Sun, Training Day) does a nice job of balancing the action, suspense and drama. David Franzoni wrote the story, and he has previously done “Amistad” and “Gladiator.” His touch definitely showed, because the fight scenes are as excellent as the ones in “Gladiator,” just not as bloody to nab its PG-13 rating.

All of the actors I noticed were from Europe, including Keira Knightley (Pirates of the Caribbean) who played Guinevere and Stellan Skarsgard (Good Will Hunting) who plays Cerdic, the leader of the Saxons. All of them did a good, not spectacular, job. One character from the Arthur legend, Merlin, had such a small role in this movie, it isn’t really worth mentioning. Considering previous movies and the legend of Merlin, it is somewhat surprising.

Overall, this movie was a pleasant surprise, but I fear, since “King Arthur” is not the same kind of movie the other legendaryfilms are like, this probably wont last long in the movie theater, and that is too bad. This movie is a definite must see, especially at the cinemas.

Brian – the Naked Gun