Good Grief...
Jul. 21st, 2006 08:59 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
athersgeoSo, I've just got back from the cinema, where I saw "Stormbreaker" and I can safely say that I've spent better £6.60s. I'll put the spoilery content behind a cut - just in case there are folks here who're planning on seeing this later this weekend - but suffice to say, I agree with the Daily Telegraph's reviewer who suggests that this is a wasted opportunity. Good God is it EVER.
OK. Start off with the good:
Robbie Coltrane was perfect as the prime minister (noooooo! he wasn't lampooning our beloved leader! Noooooooooo!) - the eight year old beside me was decidedly bemused when I suddenly [and for no reason SHE could see] cracked up at when The PM said "Education, education, education". [for any Americans reading, who are similiarly bemused, our beloved leader made a speech on party policy regarding education - and yes, he began it with "Education, education, education".]
Stephen Fry was excellent as Smithers (even if I'm sure the hardest part of his role was banking his pay at the end of it).
Alex Pettyfer was good as Alex Rider, reluctant teenage spy, and Alicia Silverstone was exactly how I imagined Jack to be.
Lastly, Sophie Okenedo was good as Mrs Jones.
The not so good:
Ewan McGregor - I couldn't buy the way his character dies (spy escaping from complex and nearly dying turns up his stereo so far he can't hear the helecopter tailing him? Pulease) and it was unutterably pointless casting someone with his talent in a role that had about eight lines and who dies pretty much before the opening credits!
Ashley Walters and the rest of the actors in the SAS troop [see below] - they do the best with what they've got but good GRIEF it was cliched.
The bad:
Mickey Rourke - Blue eyeshadow. Long hair. I just...yeah. I have no words.
Damien Lewis - When you can actually hold a Russian accent consistantly, come back and we'll talk. Also, though I'm sure it's not mentioned in the book, I just didn't picture Yassan Grigorovich with red hair. I could have lived with that, though, had the accent not been so cod and failing...
The HUH?!:
Missi Pyle - What.The.Hell?! Think Helga from 'Allo 'Allo. But you're supposed to take her seriously. Yeeeeeeeeah. No. Just no.
Bill Nighy - Having read Eagle Strike and one or two of the other books, I've NEVER gotten the impression that Blunt was either incompetant or in anyway weird. Here, he's played for laughs - and it just doesn't work.
And so to the plot.
If you can call it that.
It actually looked and felt like every single James Bond cliche you can think of (the insane, but bullied at school, megelomaniac out for world domination - or at least to kill millions of people [Rourke]; the bumbling professorial gaget maker [Fry - in a roll he could have probably done sleepwalking]; the efficient spy controller [Okenedo]; the German bitch/fighting machine/sadist [Pyle in full on scenery chewing mode - I've never seen her in anything before and I don't ever, EVER want to see her in anything again]; the creature designed to kill the hero [Portuguese Man-o-war, in a tank, in Rourke's character's home {no, I'm not kidding}]; a super lethal virus; goons who [apart from Lewis' character] couldn't hit the side of a barn door...), with a few NEW cliches tossed in for good measure, cribbed straight from Andy McNabb (because I'm just SURE the SAS are willing to train a 14 year old kid - no, no really I am... /sarcasm)
Then there are the plot holes, the most MAJOR of which is how Ian Rider [McGregor] dies. Follow that with the idea of a spy secretly training his nephew to become another spy. Toss in the fact that the launch is clearly said to be happening on a Friday and there are kids in school - yet Alex's friend Sabrina is having her riding lesson instead of being in school, just in time to help him thwart the bad guy, on horseback. Add a dash of a climax where Alex is being chased by goons with guns THAT THEY ARE NOT USING!...and yeah.
You have a spectacularly STUPID, cliched film.
I enjoyed it, up to a point, but beyond that point...no. And I can't help but think it could have been so much better.
Also, I made a SLIGHT error of judgement: I went to the 6pm showing, forgetting the movie's PG rated and thus the 6pm showing was liable to be filled with kiddiewinks who don't know how to shut the hell up.
On the upside, I was actually COLD for the first time in a good ten days or so. Thankfully, I know what the a/c can be like at the cinema I go to and I'd brought a sweater with me!
So, from that ridiculousness to my weekend's plans.
Right. Off to rustle up some dinner and then time to get down to work...
OK. Start off with the good:
Robbie Coltrane was perfect as the prime minister (noooooo! he wasn't lampooning our beloved leader! Noooooooooo!) - the eight year old beside me was decidedly bemused when I suddenly [and for no reason SHE could see] cracked up at when The PM said "Education, education, education". [for any Americans reading, who are similiarly bemused, our beloved leader made a speech on party policy regarding education - and yes, he began it with "Education, education, education".]
Stephen Fry was excellent as Smithers (even if I'm sure the hardest part of his role was banking his pay at the end of it).
Alex Pettyfer was good as Alex Rider, reluctant teenage spy, and Alicia Silverstone was exactly how I imagined Jack to be.
Lastly, Sophie Okenedo was good as Mrs Jones.
The not so good:
Ewan McGregor - I couldn't buy the way his character dies (spy escaping from complex and nearly dying turns up his stereo so far he can't hear the helecopter tailing him? Pulease) and it was unutterably pointless casting someone with his talent in a role that had about eight lines and who dies pretty much before the opening credits!
Ashley Walters and the rest of the actors in the SAS troop [see below] - they do the best with what they've got but good GRIEF it was cliched.
The bad:
Mickey Rourke - Blue eyeshadow. Long hair. I just...yeah. I have no words.
Damien Lewis - When you can actually hold a Russian accent consistantly, come back and we'll talk. Also, though I'm sure it's not mentioned in the book, I just didn't picture Yassan Grigorovich with red hair. I could have lived with that, though, had the accent not been so cod and failing...
The HUH?!:
Missi Pyle - What.The.Hell?! Think Helga from 'Allo 'Allo. But you're supposed to take her seriously. Yeeeeeeeeah. No. Just no.
Bill Nighy - Having read Eagle Strike and one or two of the other books, I've NEVER gotten the impression that Blunt was either incompetant or in anyway weird. Here, he's played for laughs - and it just doesn't work.
And so to the plot.
If you can call it that.
It actually looked and felt like every single James Bond cliche you can think of (the insane, but bullied at school, megelomaniac out for world domination - or at least to kill millions of people [Rourke]; the bumbling professorial gaget maker [Fry - in a roll he could have probably done sleepwalking]; the efficient spy controller [Okenedo]; the German bitch/fighting machine/sadist [Pyle in full on scenery chewing mode - I've never seen her in anything before and I don't ever, EVER want to see her in anything again]; the creature designed to kill the hero [Portuguese Man-o-war, in a tank, in Rourke's character's home {no, I'm not kidding}]; a super lethal virus; goons who [apart from Lewis' character] couldn't hit the side of a barn door...), with a few NEW cliches tossed in for good measure, cribbed straight from Andy McNabb (because I'm just SURE the SAS are willing to train a 14 year old kid - no, no really I am... /sarcasm)
Then there are the plot holes, the most MAJOR of which is how Ian Rider [McGregor] dies. Follow that with the idea of a spy secretly training his nephew to become another spy. Toss in the fact that the launch is clearly said to be happening on a Friday and there are kids in school - yet Alex's friend Sabrina is having her riding lesson instead of being in school, just in time to help him thwart the bad guy, on horseback. Add a dash of a climax where Alex is being chased by goons with guns THAT THEY ARE NOT USING!...and yeah.
You have a spectacularly STUPID, cliched film.
I enjoyed it, up to a point, but beyond that point...no. And I can't help but think it could have been so much better.
Also, I made a SLIGHT error of judgement: I went to the 6pm showing, forgetting the movie's PG rated and thus the 6pm showing was liable to be filled with kiddiewinks who don't know how to shut the hell up.
On the upside, I was actually COLD for the first time in a good ten days or so. Thankfully, I know what the a/c can be like at the cinema I go to and I'd brought a sweater with me!
So, from that ridiculousness to my weekend's plans.
- Writing:
- The Coming Storm 3
- The Coming Storm 4
- A Chinese Adventure
- Tidying:
- Computer desk
- Filing
- Bathroom
- Bedroom
- Put away laundry
- Clean car windscreen
- OU:
- Continue with block 4
- Write TMA 5 pt 1
- Strictly Southworth Update:
- Trailer The Movie
- Charmed
- House of the Dead?
- FAQ
- General:
- Collect parcel from the post office
- Pay credit card bill
Right. Off to rustle up some dinner and then time to get down to work...
(no subject)
Date: 2006-07-24 05:33 pm (UTC)As for the film itself, it's probably one to rent rather than see at the cinema (unless you really need to spend 90 minutes in a nice, a/c'd cinema!).