dralla-1 Reviews

Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014)

Great Movie with a little fly in the ointment

[10/10 · 27 March 2014]

Amazing Twists, big story. You heard the audience go "Oooh!" on some scenes that you never saw coming. It is a big movie. Still it didn't feel as great as watching Iron Man I or the Avengers. And I wondered why. I think the difference is in the lead actor. Although Scareltt Johansson has a big part in the movie and is fantastic in it, Chris Evans is just not that good. He has a great body. He does a decent Job. Maybe he doesn't understand the essence of what makes Captain America a great man. But he just isn't as good as RDJ. Maybe you'd argue that nobody is. But I think that Marvel should try to cast great actors first. Not just a good actor with a spectacular body, but the other way around. We have seen that great actors are willing to transform themselves into Greek gods, but it is much harder to get a decent performer with a great body become a charismatic actor. Anyway it is a great Popcorn movie. It is highly entertaining. This is not the best Marvel movie but you should watch it, just don't expect to be completely amazed.

El cantante (2006)

Not for you if you don't know much about Hector Lavoe

[4/10 · 26 May 2010]

Now that I have seen the movie I would really like to learn something about Hector Lavoe's life. The funny thing is that I thought the movie would provide that kind of information. But I only learned this: He used a lot of drugs, he was a good singer, he didn't feel appreciated by his dad and his wife had to struggle a lot with him. What I did not learn: Who were the other people in the movie? Besides his wife and his son nobody is properly introduced. Maybe people who know a lot about him recognize the other characters. I know only two of his songs and his name. For me big parts of this movie were a mystery.

Some bearded guys were discussing how talented he is, then later on the bearded guys were discussing how broken down he is. I guess that one of them was his producer, one or two might have been songwriters or musicians. I don't know. There is a scene where Ruben Blades goes on stage and performs the song "El Cantante". A song that should become a very big hit for Lavoe. But hadn't I had seen a documentary on Latin music a few day earlier again I wouldn't have known who the question that was. The guy goes on stage like it is amateur night and he is lucky that Hector is there to listen to the song. My sister was watching the movie with me, and I had to tell her "hey that guy was huge too."

OK, I get it. This movie is showing Hector's life from the perspective of his wife. But she either didn't care much about his origins, his musical connections, the people he worked with, his influence on music or the musics influence on him, or she didn't know. If you don't know much about Hector Lavoe and you hope to learn about his life this is not the movie for you.

On the other hand: Marc Anthony does a great job in this movie. I wouldn't have expected that. But after a few minutes i forgot it was him and had to remind myself it was not actually Lavoe. Well done. J-Lo is very annoying. But maybe this woman was too. If so, well done too.

Legion (2010)

Good! if you have a fast forward button

[4/10 · 2 March 2010]

If you don't want to spend money on good writers, at least cut out the bad dialogs. For example: One of the characters tells a childhood-memory about his dad asking him every night if he was proud of himself today. The character that tells that story is a really nice man. He tells that story to a kind of thug-character and then tears come from the nice man's eyes. Why? it was not touching. Not at all. If the tough guy was telling that story it might have been interesting. But not this way. The audience in my theater was laughing. Even the women. How bad is the writing if you let your character cry and the audience starts to laugh? And there are more lines like that in this movie. I remember the time when people were saying that adult movies were bad because they had no storyline. Then the industry started to produce those kind of movies with storielines and the movies got worse. Why was that? because a story is not good simply because you let your characters say "anything". This movie feels like one of these "adult" movies with a "story". You just wish you could skip most of the dialogs. The action scenes are OK though. Paul Bettany does a very good job by playing a somewhat bizarre Archangel, who looks strangely at you so you have the feeling he really isn't from this world. Not as good as Christopher Walken in "God's army" but still very good. His wings look stupid though. But that's just a footnote. I did like the outline of the story, but the bad dialogs ruined it. As i said, it might be good if you have a fast forward button. Or if you have the habit of repeatedly falling asleep for a minute.

8th Wonderland (2008)

First one i walked out on

[1/10 · 15 February 2010]

I hope many people go see this movie. Because: A sorrow shared is a sorrow halved. If this movie was written by a five year old and made by a bunch of high-school kids, then it is OK. But I don't think that is the case. I can't tell you much about the movie, because I have seen only 30 minutes of it, but so have many people in the audience. After 20 minutes of this I have been betting with my friend that people would soon start to leave. But nobody moved. And since we were in the middle of a big packed theater I didn't want to be the first one to stand up. 10 minutes later my prayers were answered and the first few started to stand up. Within a few minutes I think a quarter of the audience left the theater.

So what is the problem: Well the idea doesn't sound too bad. SPOILER > A group of people want to change the world and try to force it into changing the way they think by various acts of terrorism. So far so movie-realistic. But why are they people like: a model? (who has the time to join live-chat-conferences with the rest of the group during a runway presentation when she is supposed to change) a guy who is going to college to become a doctor and his fiancée. A Muslim girl who lives with her dad. And so on. How do these people find the time to organize crimes that involve abducting three of the best football players without getting caught? < SPOILER Never mind, I agree that it only takes great minds and determination to do all that. But the people of that group seem like they are hardly able to use the computers that connect them to one another. And then they go on discussing their aims and their beliefs in discussions that seem to last for half an hour, which can't be true because I have only seen half an hour of this school-production and there were at least two discussions. And also there is some really bad acting. Most actors did well, but two were so bad that I didn't know if they were supposed to be drugged and hysteric or simply annoyingly bad. There is nothing more I want to say about this. Only that I really like movies and up to this point there were only two movies I haven't watched till the end, both of them because the people I was with didn't want to stay until the end. But this one is the first I walked out on. I did have the thought with a few movies but I never actually did it. And with this one it took me only half an hour. Once again: if the filmmakers are under 18 years old I apologize if not: see above.

Perfume: The Story of a Murderer (2006)

acceptable

[4/10 · 16 September 2006]

When I finished the book I was amazed. When i saw the movie I was unsatisfied. It's not really bad, and it does tell the story, but without any subtlety. It lacks the book's magic. In the first scene we see a face in the shadows, it moves forward until we can see the nose and it breathes in. Now that is original. I confess I didn't believe in the movie before i saw it. I had my prejudices. But I was willing to let myself be won over. It didn't happen.

And to those of you, who argue that a movie can't make you smell odors, well ... how come a book can? Because that's the artistry of "the perfume". Thats the point. Think about it before you say you can't make the audience of a movie smell something.

Still I believe it will be a huge hit, because everybody who read the book will want to see the movie.