The past few months have been very quiet on the movie-front, so gathering this review round took quite a while. Again a few great movies but they unfortunately came balanced with a few downright disappointments.
As a sidenote, I’m constantly annoyed by a couple of things: the terrible Finnish translations in both movie titles and subtitles and the fact that DVDs sold and rented here typically don’t include English subtitles. Why? It wouldn’t cost them anything to put them there, so I can’t figure out why they’re always left out..
Accepted
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Accepted tells a story of getting accepted to a college or a university – and the problems if one is not. The plot was believable enough, at first anyway: like many Americans, Bartleby worries about getting to a good college after high school. The only problem is that a) he’s a slacker and b) he isn’t getting into any. And I mean any. With everyone on his case on what he’s going to do after high school, he comes up with a plan that’s not so far-fetched these days: invent a college. So he fakes an acceptance letter from “South Harmon Institute of Technology”, their website and things go smoothly at first – but then his parents want to see the place. And meet the dean. Just how far can he take the scam?
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A slightly below average, funny-at-times, comedy at 2½ out of 5.
Little Miss Sunshine
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Olive is a little girl with a dream – and a member of a rather dysfunctional family. When she gets to the Little Miss Sunshine final competition in California, the family must try to find the means to get her there; and the only one they can afford is to drive there in a beat-up old VW. Strange things happen and tempers flair up when you put even a normal family inside a small vehicle for extended periods of time, but the Hoover family is far from what one would call normal..
- Kind of off-beat especially towards the end, Little Miss Sunshine was nevertheless a delightful road-movie and one that definitely deserves the critical acclaim it has received. There’s some hidden and not-so-hidden criticism at many cultural oddities in US and many of them hit right on the mark. 4 out of 5.
The Devil Wears Prada
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A comedy/drama with at least some elements based on reality; the movie is based on a book by Lauren Weisberger that tells of working in an international fashion magazine. Andy (Anne Hathaway) gets a job as an assistant – against all odds – for Miranda Priestly (Meryl Streep), editor of Runway, one of the hottest fashion magazines. Little does she realize that the job will soon enroach into her private life in a fundamental way with not exactly happy consequences. Free time becomes an illusion as Miranda’s quirks need to be fulfilled immediately. The Devil Wears Prada is a good combination of comedy and drama and manages to pull off a thoroughly believable story with good flow and great performances. The critical acclaim came for a reason; 4- out of 5.
Angel Eyes
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A man, “Catch”, is involved in fatal car accident and is saved by a police officer; later, he becomes obsessed by his savior and starts following her (Jennifer Lopez as Sharon), eventually ending up saving her life also. The two develop an odd relationship with Catch’s past blocked from his mind, too painful to remember. Sharon slowly and patiently tries to build up an image of what happened and tries to help Catch come to terms with it also – but it’s a painful journey, one that he’s not willing to take.
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A much better movie than I had anticipated, Angel Eyes is a somewhat slow-moving thriller with solid performances by the lead cast. 3½ out of 5.
Children of Men
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I had high hopes for this movie, as it touches a somewhat topical subject: the setting is Britain in 2027; it has been 18 years since there was a birth and the world has been flung into a chaos. Tensions are high after the death of the youngest person in the world and with illegal immigrants facing a crackdown. An ex-activist is semi-reluctantly recruited to what becomes a difficult and dangerous but crucial mission – to deliver a pregnant women, an illegal immigrant, to a secret safe have of “Human Project”, the existence of which nobody seems quite certain about.
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The mood of the film captures the general despair, apathy and violence very well and the performances by all lead characters are very good. However, it suffers from a somewhat slow-moving plot and plunges at times into irrelevant-seeming scenes of pure war. IMO, the ending also leaves a lot to be desired from, but might appeal to some people. Nevertheless, Children of Men is a depiction of future that’s almost believable and is a quite powerful in that. I don’t know whether to give it a 4 or 3 out of 5, so I’ll settle for 3½/5.
Helmiä ja Sikoja
- A Finnish movie about four small-time criminal brothers whose father is thrown into jail and they’re left with not only the task of getting by themselves but also to take care of their fathers young daughter, suddenly dumped on them by her mother. The girl, Saara, turns out to be a talented but reluctant singer, so the guys set their eyes on the sorely-needed price money of a talent competition.. The movie suffers from a beginning that’s too damn slow, but once it actually gets going it’s quite ok. Offers some funny moments but nothing spectacular in terms of performances or storyline. 2½ out of 5.
Flicka
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Katy comes home for summer to the ranch from her boarding school – which isn’t going to well – to find that her home farm is also in some trouble, not doing too well financially. Then one day, she helps catch – what she thinks is a wonderful training target – a wild horse, Mustang. Unfortunately, her father considers Mustangs be purely bad news and is planning on selling the horse. Flicka is a nice family movie but one that never really manages to get off the ground. There’s also the straightforward, slowly-moving plot that contributes to its score of 2½ out of 5.
Hooligans
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Matt (Elijah Wood) is expelled from Harvard as he takes the blame for an incident where the true guilty party is “too important” to be expelled – in essence accepting a bribe from him, he finds himself in London at her sisters place. Unfortunately for him, her sister’s husband doesn’t want him around on the night of his arrival and bribes his brother, Pete, to take him to a football game – and that’s where trouble begins. Turns out Pete is pretty intimately involved with football hooligans and after some reluctance on both his and his friends’ parts, he takes Matt in as a sort of a apprentice. Trouble soon finds Matt from more than one direction and it begins to look like he’s in over his head..
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The plot of the movie is good, but I was bothered with how fast Matt gets into the “firm”. Also, Elijah Wood’s performance as Matt is mostly quite mild and unenthusiastic which doesn’t fit the role he’s leading at all. Nevertheless, Hooligans manages to bring out a couple of new viewpoints to the issue and present the story in an emotional, gripping way. Therefore a good movie at 3½ out of 5, but not as great as I had expected from the reviews.
Imagine Me & You
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Rachel and Heck, best friends and lovers for a long time, are – finally – getting married. Especially Rachel is a bit unenthusiastic about it and her father’s attitude doesn’t help brighten the mood. To add to the mix, something that begins with an innocent single glance at the wedding slowly starts developing into something more serious over time. What does Rachel do? Does she follow her newfound spark with someone else – even though really, nothing could happen as she’s married – or does she settle for being safely together with Heck?
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The movie very nicely portrays that sometimes, there need not be a “bad guy” (or a girl) in case a relationship doesn’t work; as the plot unravels, you don’t end up hating any of the lead characters. A very nice romantic movie with good performances. 4 out of 5
The Departed
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Critically acclaimed, The Departed tells the story of two people on two sides of the law – or, actually, both on both sides of the law.. William Costigan (Leonardo DiCaprio) is assigned to work undercover at Costello’s (Jack Nicholson) mafia-style organization, while Colin (Matt Damon) is working for the police trying to bust the operation – and for Costello. As both sides start to understand there’s a mole in their organization, the hunt for them begins. Who finds who first and how do the undercovers on each side face this challenge?
- The plot is by no means crystal clear or simple and it’s not laid out in a way that would make it easy to follow for the viewer; chances are you’re left wondering at some point as to what is going on, which in my books is a good thing. The seasoned cast performs brilliantly, as expected. This is a movie that probably would survive another viewing easily, one with an interesting and complicated story but one that still didn’t feel as good as I was expecting it to be. But the expectations were set so high that even with the disappointment, I’ll give it 4 out of 5.
Pretty Persuasion
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The idea is a good one, one that I’m sure has been tried in real-life somewhere: a bright female student decides to accuse her teacher of sexual harassment, and manages to draw in a bunch of other people in her plot for revenge.. but revenge for what? And just who is she playing?
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While the plot could’ve been good, the production spoiled it. There are problems with the acting, the directing, the cast and pretty much everything else too. First, the acting was at times downright bad and at best a bit wooden. The storytelling wasn’t too hot either with the “flow” missing from most of the movie. As a whole, maybe 2 out of 5 and a definite disappointment.
Hard Candy
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The idea is certainly equally timely and disturbing: girl meets boy. Online.
- Oh wait, there’s nothing disturbing there so far. The disturbing part is that the girl, Hayley, is 14 years old while the “boy” is a 32-year-old man, Jeff, who works as a photographer. Hayley meets Jeff in a cafe, they seem to get along well, and she ends up going to his house and maybe pose for a couple of photos..
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At this point you think you can already tell much of the rest of the plot, but Hard Candy is something different.. The movie is upsetting, even shocking, thought-provoking and surprising. Highly recommended but not for the faint of heart. 4 out of 5.
