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sam-levesque
Reviews
Insurgent (2015)
Underwhelming
For Young Adult Fiction, I really liked the first movie. It's probably my favorite of its genre (though that does not say much). So I am not speaking out of disdain.
But I have to say this movie was underwhelming for so many reasons. It was bad for many others, but I feel like I could have forgotten some of its faults if only it didn't feel so flat, bland and boring. After all, lots of big movies can still be enjoyable even if they aren't that great. But this movie suffered from a total absence of style. It felt like it had no identity, no traction, no momentum, nothing, really, to offer the watcher.
It clearly lacked substance, what's with the poor dialogues and the transparent plot. Nothing came close to remind us the few interesting themes barely explored in the first movie (friendship, love and family against social roles, divergence and conformity). So yeah, this movie really was a no-brainer.
But as I've already said, I could have overlooked that. I couldn't overlook, however, how every single scene was boring, every dialogue fell flat and every action sequence seemed so passive. And the actors are not to blame on this. They seemed like they did the best they could.
1) But the dialogue is about as insignificant as can be, merely serving to hold the story together. Not memorable at all. It only felt instrumental, explaining to us verbally what is happening and why.
2) The CGI is poorly done and overly used (and feels in fact to be superfluous most time). This is a deadly combination for sure.
3) The music was weak. So weak. I believe music often turns out to be important to give tone to a movie. Well, the music here was not fitting for the scenes most of the time. And when it was, it was timid and insufficient.
4) Incredibly dull, spiritless and unexciting action scenes. Honestly, I don't remember a time I have seen such monotonous action sequences. Something just seems so passive to 95% of the action. Most of it feels soft and safe, not dangerous at all (though the obvious plot, the CGI, the poor music and the insufficient camera work do not help). Also, some scenes were really just "bullets-can't-touch-me-so-I-don't-care- yo".
Anyway, this movie was bad for many reasons. But really, it was underwhelming. And so, incredibly boring.
Gwaenchanhah, Sarangiya (2014)
I was surprised at first, and even more so at the end by how good this was
This is not a typical korean melodrama. I went into this expecting a fluffy romantic comedy, and there was much, much more to this than I expected. There are themes (I won't spoil them for you) that add quite the depth to the romance and the comedy. Stil, when it wants to be fun and light-hearted, it is, while never feeling sugarcoated. And it also never falls into the expected melodrama of most korean drama. In the last few episodes, I was quite impressed by how powerful some scenes were (scenes I did not expect at first, and then dreaded later on because I fear consistently melodrama). Yet, this show is able to pull out the wealth of emotions from a scene without ever feeling cheesy, cliché or meek.
From beginning to end, this show is on point. It has its own identity and it is worth watching. Especially for the wonderful acting of every single character on this show. Every single actor plays incredibly well, and mostly, every character is deeply interesting. I tried to do this review while shying away from anything that could spoil it for you, but, unless you are looking for a thriller-adventure TV show at the moment, I don't see how you could not love this. This is a korean classic and do not look over this one only because it has only a few people who rated this. It will become known over here soon enough, I'm sure.