The Legend of Tarzan

The Legend of Tarzan  - 110 min - PG13

This is a reintroduction of this classic tale to the modern age. Does it hold up to the dramatic change in tone and a more modern sensibility? For the most part, it does. Some of the less savory views of the original material have been brought up to date. 

Margo Robbie is a force to be reconded with, Jane is no wilting flower in this retelling.  Read my review here on Balckflix

Django Unchained

Django Unchained – 165min – R

The 70’s pulp or exploitation films Quentin Tarantino has based his career on were not really focused on making well made movies as much as just banging out movies to get them out there. What was once just an excuse to make a quick and dirty movie he has worked to make a legitimate art form. This is one of his better films. I am not a fan of this style or his gratuitous nature in his films, but he is an excellent wordsmith when it comes to dialog. This movie is still dripping in blood but he is refining his filmmaking skills to include a good story. I enjoyed the ride even if I was uncomfortable with the subject matter. This one gets a green light from me.

Django (Jamie Fox) starts the movie as a slave in a chain gang being marched across the land from a slave market. He is abruptly “bought” by Dr. King Schultz (Christoph Waltz), a bounty hunter who needs Django to identify three fugitives. After Django identifies the three people he is set free, but the two have developed a friendship. Django is going to go and try and free his wife, Broomhilda (Kerry Washington), from slavery. The two go to the plantation that owns his wife and try and trick the plantation owner into selling her. Calvin Candie (Leonardo DiCaprio) owns Candie Land *RIMSHOT* a plantation he uses to train slaves to fight to the death. He is brutal and ignorant -- a deplorable person. His house slave is Stephen (Samuel L. Jackson), he plays the weak and subservient slave but he is the one who is really in charge. After copious buckets of blood and swearing there is a resolution that ends as a revenge picture.

Christoph Waltz is wonderful in this movie. He has a wonderful presence on the screen and it is very nice to see him as a good guy for a change, I think it fits him better. Jamie Fox is great as two types of characters the naive slave and the then the refined world wise bounty hunter. Leonardo DiCaprio does a great job of wearing the vile skin of the completely appalling character. I wonder if he had to use mental floss to get Calvin out of his head. Samuel L. Jackson can do no wrong, but the thing about him is even of he is in a bad movie he is going to play it to the hilt and own it. It’s great to watch him get his.

Warring Spoilers!!!! Only Grindhouse fans beyond this point!!!!!

I am going to use this section for talking through something that’s bugging me, excuse me for not talking about anything more than this, but as it is my blog I can use it. Forgive me for the self indulgence.

I am completely uncomfortable with the word nigger and they use it in almost every scene. At the beginning of the movie, I flinched at every instance but I got more used to it as the movie went on. I did not like it but it was a very common word in the time the movie was set. I can see using it in this context but as a person in the modern time it’s hard for me to see past the ugliness of the word to enjoy the story the movie makers are trying to tell. I recently watched Blazing Saddles and it was not on Network TV. They used that word over and over again and I was just as uncomfortable. Lenny Bruce said “the suppression of the word that gives it the power, the violence, the viciousness.” I have to look at myself and examine why I was uncomfortable. It is because I have given that word power over me. I am not going to start using it but I am going to look at how I am affected by it. I would like to think that Tarantino was trying to desensitize the viewer to it but I really think he is just using it as set dressing and a way to shock people. Regardless at least as a viewer, it made me think.

Do you think that he will ever make the movies of his youth a true and respected art form, or is he just looking back with nostalgia that will never really have a place of honor?

The Three Musketeers

The Three Musketeers – 110 min - PG13

Take a story that has been done a few times, and add in a new mix of pre steam punk and you have the new Three Musketeers movie. The mix of archaic futuristic technology (I think I made up a term there) and the very stylized fight scenes make this the visual extravaganza that you expect. I was mildly entertained by the CGI shininess but overall this movie left me with a Wild Wild West feeling and that’s not a complement. I wonder what Mr. Dumas would have thought about the result of his work. Could he sue for defamation of character? As much as this story has been redone, just being the eye candy explosion is not enough to make this story worth wile. Other people have done much better with this same story. Red light is the best their cutting wits can muster.

I am sure that everyone is familiar with the story by now. D’Artagnan (Logan Lerman), a young boy with some skill with a blade goes to Paris to join the Musketeers. He runs into Athos (Matthew Macfadyen), Porthos (Ray Stevenson) and Aramis (Luke Evans) and challenges each to a duel. He finds out that he has challenged the famous three Musketeers and is now in a tight spot. Luckily the Cardinal’s (Christoph Waltz) men come and arrest all of them. They join forces and take on the guards and become fast friends. The cast did a good job with what they had to work with and Walz did a great job as the bad guy again.

The main story line is the same but the sub plots are quite different and varied: they uncover a plot by the cardinal to split up the royals; they get revenge on a person from their past; start a war with England. None of these are very interesting and are nothing more than an excuse to use more CGI effects.

Paul W.S. Anderson was the director for this and it is one more in his resume of eye candy blockbuster films. It seems like he feels that a story is that wee little thing that you deliver gratuitous visual effects on. It’s a shame because he does have a good eye for the large effects. He needs to join forces with someone who can tell a good story. Andrew Davies has plenty of writing credits under his name but his touch seems to be absent from this film. Alex Litvak has only two works that I can find so his experience at writing still needs to be explored. I am hoping this is not a representation of his future potential.

Spoiler Warrning!!! Only The Musketeers are welcome here. Click on these words to reveal the spoilers.

It was fun watching some of the theoretical machines of Leonardo Da Vinci. I am a Sci Fi fan so suspension of disbelief is one of my strong suits. It was hard for me really get into the tech aspects of the weapons and air ships. It was fun but only for a bit and not enough to really base a movie on.

The almost super powers of the musketeers were hard for me to enjoy. It seems less like someone who is very skilled with fighting skills and blades and ore like they had superhuman powers. It was almost like a super spy movie than a swashbuckler.

One person who I thought could have done better was Orlando Bloom. I think I did not like him because of his character more than the acting. It was a flat performance -- almost like he was trying to be overly flamboyant. He can do better than this.

What movie would you like to see remade with some eye candy effects?