They don’t make ’em like this anymore – they should. Gorgeous epic of land & sea. Possibly greatest footage of sea battle committed to film.
“The simple truth is not all of us become the men we once hoped we might be.”
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Peter Weir doesn’t make a movie very often, but when he does it is something truly special. What a remarkable film.
Based on the novels of Patrick O’Brian, this may be the most accurate depiction of this era of naval warfare. Richard King justifiably won an Oscar for Sound Editing, as sound is such a crucial element of making these ships come alive. (DP Russell Boyd also won an Oscar for the beautiful cinematography.)
Long, but this sort of film should be. Doesn’t flinch from showing the cruelty of war. Great action, but even greater explanation of the tactics and the thinking.
I would have loved to see a sequel, but it doesn’t appear to be in the works. Crowe & Bettany are so good together. There were 20 books about Captain Aubrey, so there’s no lack of source material. Pity, but at least we’ve got this one…
Heavy-handed but very funny roasting of “Christian values”. Rookie feature filmmakers show inexperience; comes off as a bit mean-spirited…
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First off, this is a very funny movie. You need to be willing to laugh, of course. The topic and comic treatment of Christian values will keep many potential viewers away and send a lot of those who stick around in a tizzy. I can certainly understand those who have no interest in seeing movies like this. If you think you’re going to be offended, you’re probably right and should just stay away.
It’s a message movie, clearly. And I think that’s the problem. The creators seem to have an axe to grind. It keeps it from being entirely great. It’s not the irreverence; the close-minded and judgmental views of those portrayed in the movie are ripe for satire. The issue is that because the creators appear to be so invested in their message that the whole thing comes off as a bit single-minded. It’s really a one note story; there’s no depth. The movie has one thing to say and does so – repeatedly. The characters are rather one-sided. It’s all send-up and no subtlety. Again, there’s nothing really wrong with this, it’s just a missed opportunity. This subject matter is such a great source of potential material, but it is handled much better in films like Easy A or Juno, where there is a much more full-featured story.
My exhaustive 10 minutes of internet searching indicates that this is the first feature film from director Brian Dannelly, who also wrote the film with partner Michael Urban (this is also their first feature film as writers). All of his previous experience was in short films, which I think may shed some light on the approach to story-telling. This highly focused story would probably have made a great short film.
I don’t want to be too hard on Saved!, though. I really did enjoy it. It’s simply that by the end I was really hoping for an opposing viewpoint or a devout Christian character that was a bit more textured and less of a caricature.
One of world’s most beloved franchises is revived by the creative teams behind Forgetting Sarah Marshall & Flight of the Conchords. #whoknew
“You always believe in other people, but that’s easy. Sooner or later, you gotta believe in yourself, too, because that’s what growing up is. It’s becoming who you want to be. You have to try.”
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I think many of us were cautiously optimistic about this. I was really pulling for it. The Muppets were a HUGE part of my childhood and I never stopped loving them.
Hoped that the impressive talents involved would do justice and not try to be hip. My expectations were comically leapfrogged…
What comes through clearly is the obvious love that everyone involved has for the Muppets. Writers Jason Segel & Nicholas Stoller, along with director James Bobin take the absolute perfect approach: love but not reverence. They are fulfilling a geek dream of restoring a franchise, but are simultaneously updating it for today. That sort of phrase usually scares me, but in this instance updating is not a dirty word. They’ve brought these characters back and made room in our world for them. The characters are unchanged but not entrenched.
One of the best film-making tools for trying to find out if something old can be renewed? Approach the question directly. By having the characters themselves search for and ponder their relevance, the audience just gets to come along for the ride. I love when Chris Carter even sneers about the old-fashioned, Dom DeLuise era of variety shows.
The music numbers by Bret McKenzie are show-stopping, and though he won an Oscar for “Man or Muppet”, I still feel he was robbed as he wasn’t allowed to perform it on the show.
The movie is something less than perfect, of course, but it is so much fun that you will never notice…
Wish Sandler would knock off the crude stuff; he’s funny enough without it & it nearly kills good stories like this one. Real mixed bag…
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Adam Sandler movies – you have a pretty good idea what you’re going to get. Most people have decided by now if these appeal or not. The only surprise in these is whether or not they are successful at what he sets out to do.
I personally have a difficult time with his stuff; he’s unquestionably a very funny and talented comic. But with all comics I have a requirement that the straight funny outweighs the stupid funny. I love stupid funny; it just can’t be all you’ve got.The bigger problem, though, is that he’s just crude. I have such a low threshold for scatalogical comedy. With care it can be a great irreverent lightning bolt. Overdone it’s just stupid and off-putting.
With this movie, he’s demonstrating this problem. By this point in his career, he had shown that he could stretch into meatier stuff. He’s proven his ability to go for emotion, but it seems he feels he needs to include crude humor in order to either satisfy a perceived requirement of his fan base, or perhaps he simply just likes doing this crap. Either way, it’s disappointing, because this could have been quite a good movie.
You know, Jerry Lewis once advised Jim Carrey to keep the comedy clean; be as zany as you want, but be careful not to turn people off. Sandler could have used a mentor…
This was written by Steve Koren & Mark O’Keefe, tv writers who scored big a few years earlier with Bruce Almighty. In that film, they took a zany comic and used a supernatural twist to make him realize what’s really important. Well, if it worked once…
Despite being derivative of that film and having strong Capra-esque overtones, the premise of Click is rock solid. The execution may be clumsy and obvious at times, but it is a good story. In other hands it may have been better handled.
Through it all, I really like this movie, and often have a hard time explaining why. I can’t defend the fat jokes and the fart jokes and the Rob Schneider cameo and all the usual Sandler hallmarks. I can and will stick up for Kate Beckinsale doing great understated stuff, Walken being Walken, and a wonderful appearance by Henry Winkler. Most of the effects are great, the Hoff is in the haus, and there is a magnificent swing style version of The Cranberries “Linger”, sung by Dolores O’Riordan that slays me.
Here’s the main thing, though; this is a story about a good guy named Michael trying to do right by his family and really struggling with the work/life balance. At the time when it came out, it hit a nerve with me – it was a little close to home. So that’s why it gets a lot of leash from me. Feel no obligation to follow my lead…
In 1988, Murphy was so dominant he must have felt he needed to take on multiple roles just to keep life interesting. Wrong, but movie great.
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It’s sort of a vanity piece, as Eddie & Arsenio play all sorts of roles with increasingly ridiculous makeup. That’s their right, of course, but most of the characters are really just distracting and stupid. (Except for Randy “Sexual Chocolate” Watson, of course.)
It’s an 80’s John Landis movie, through and through. Nothing wrong with that. It’s funny as hell.
