Monday, January 03, 2005
HeroWhat a pile of shite.
My ass hurts just from watching it, in sympathy to all those who paid to sit through it in the cinema. The whole film could have been done in 30 minutes, and it still would have been a stupendous waste of time. As Dani said, this is the cinematic version of a foxymoron. And it's not even over yet. Christ, what a pile of shite. Update: I've now checked out some ratings for the film around the place and it seems to get universally high marks, so what did I find so abhorrent about it? Am I being an arse? Am I mistaken? Or is it just that time and time again throughout the whole film I kept thinking "You've just shown me this, for 15 minutes, in sloooow motion, and now you're doing it again!" and "Oh fucking christ, that's not a reason". Of course, I could have been suffering through some atrocious subtitles (it was a downloaded OGG file, with nothing in the intro to introduce the plot, which I suspect was what all the scribbles scrolling up at the start were about). And now I've read some review snippets at Rotten Tomatoes, one thing is clear: The film has garnered rave reviews only from those prepared to completely ignore the plot and dialogue. Sadly it would appear that this comprises most published reviewers these days. Admittedly, it is visually stunning in composition and you could hang many stills of the film around the place if you were so inclined without having to wear the t-shirt, but I'd say the film was only mediocre in special effects and fight scenes by today's standards, and atrocious in terms of plot and dialogue. That's not enough for a good film by my standards. It should carry the equivalent of a Parental Advisory notice: "This Film Suitable As Eye Candy Only" |

