Oh, yeah

[learnedax]

Forgot, I also saw another movie yesterday.

tpau, dkapell, knobhdy, and I saw The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. It was a McMovie, part of the growing trend of churning out homogeneous ensemble action films nominally adapted from something else. X-men the first, Ocean's Eleven, and The Italian Job (which I saw on Wednesday and thought was quite enjoyable) are other examples of this problem. Even LOTR has clearly been straining against hollywoodism. I thought that LXG was a particularly egregious case in that they mangled such an erudite source. Why not have Justice League: The Film if you are going to be vapid about it? The original comic is subtle and victorian, where the film could be modern day, with modern characters for all the style they impart. I disrecommend it. Even more strongly, if you are ever interested in reading the comic, don't see the movie. Some have said they would rather see the movie first so that they aren't disappointed by it, but this film is not worth such sacrifice. The comic is in large part a puzzle, with many persons' identities kept mysterious for a long time. If you see the movie that will be ruined for you.

As a side note, I've noticed that modern movies have shockingly bad fight scenes. They tend toward choppy, close-up, and incoherent. It's frequently very hard to tell who's killing whom. LXG is certainly a good example of this, but by far not the worst. My suspicion is that Gladiator, which as you may recall was praised for its "fantastic" action sequences, may have been a major influence in this area. Seeing Pirates of the Caribbean drove home that it is indeed possible to make complex but interesting film combat.

Comments

Mass Violence Mess

[cristovau.livejournal.com]

It's frequently very hard to tell who's killing whom. LXG is certainly a good example of this, but by far not the worst.

I agree that violence scenes have lost their impact and effectiveness. My entry for worst is The Patriot which was all over the map and stupidly gorey. There was a mass battle scene that cut far too much, which created the effect that when a man's head gets bowled off by a cannonball, it smack more of Monty Python than gritty realism. Camera action is a cheap excuse to be sloppy with the fight scene.

[metahacker.livejournal.com]

hear hear.

I hated the action sequences in Gladiator. I've been in pitched melee, admittedly without so much dying involved, and it's nothing like that. For one, you don't feel the need to reach through the screen and throttle the cameraman. And I really hated the fact that everybody thought that reducing the frame rate 4 fps was somehow GOOD.

Part of it is that we keep expecting _closeups_ of people swinging a giant sword, or whatever, and (a) you just can't frame that without a *very* mobile camera (though a bullet-time track camera might work, if they just used it for placing the camera and not screwing with time sense), and (b) it reveals the fact that our movie stars aren't expect swordsmen/martial artists/whatever and no three months of karate lessons (sorry Daredevil) are going to make them one. So we get cut-up scenes - "He starts to throw the punch...cut to shot from back...cut to close-up of his fist...cut to victim flying cross-frame, unintelligably...cut to CG person bouncing off wall...cut to next villian" which are impossible to parse.

If combat is like that when you're in it, you're dead. It would be nice to see the *hero's* perspective, since one assumes they have at least as much field-vision as *I* do, which isn't much -- but it's much more than these directors have, evidentally. Go watch Kurosawa's confusing melee scenes again, everybody. See? No sea-sickness.

Ugh.

TMH

[mr-teem.livejournal.com]

I have no intention of ever seeing LXG--I enjoyed the comic far too much to ever inflict the filmed...attempt...on my eyes. Not only was the buzz in the comics news bad, but the commercials kept saying "Sean Connery has assembled the world's greatest heroes...". "No," I say aloud in a voice usually reserved for Sunday talk shows, "Allan Quatermain is assembling them, you morons!"

Always a bad sign when they refer to the actor and not the character. I mean, was it Harrison Ford and the Temple of Doom? Was it James Earl Jones Strikes Back? Was it Sigourney Weaver's Aliens Die Die Die!? Was it Elijah Wood and the Rather Plain But Portentious Trinket (with Viggo Mortenson)?!?! (Deep breathses...deep breatheses, my precious.) Okay, I'm better now.

Now, if Sean Connery were suddenly transported back to Victorian England and had to solve a crisis based on his knowledge of twentieth-century action films he's starred in and decided to gather up noteworthy historical authors drowning their worries in local pubs and then mix those with the fantastic ideas those authors had for their fictional creations--maybe intercut with scenes illustrating their novels--that might be a movie.

Shockingly bad fight scenes: Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle. 'Nuff said.

[metahacker.livejournal.com]

likewise, very public falling-outs between lead star and director are a sure sign of something bad coming this way.

TMH