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saltandpepper66
Reviews
Tron: Legacy (2010)
Unbelievably Awful
This is one of the worst movies I have ever seen, a typical example of Hollywood's ability to use special effects gloriously but at the service of an incomprehensible, boring and inane plot. What happened in this movie? I dare anyone to explain it. All I know is that "important" things kept happening and Jeff Bridges kept having sudden explanations for why things happened that came out of nowhere. Well, not out of nowhere, out of the desperation of screenwriters who had no idea what their movie was about. In the annals of special effects blockbusters that have no ideas, no plot, no emotion, no characterization, Tron: Legacy is the ultimate disaster. Don't go to see it.
Murder on the Orient Express (1974)
The best
I'm shocked by the people who don't like this movie or suggest that Death on the Nile (inferior in every way) and Evil Under the Sun (truly campy and bad) are better films. To say that Finney is bad in the part (despite his Oscar nomination) is to miss the whole point. He is brilliant as Poirot. He commands the screen in every scene, particularly during the explanation of the crime. It is wonderfully directed by Lumet in a stylistic, effective way other Christie films totally lack. The script is the real gem, reducing the complicated story into a comprehensible and fascinating crime investigation with the best exposition of a crime in any detective story movie. The cast plays their parts perfectly, creating instantly recognized types that are endlessly entertaining and word perfect. The script's witty and all the cast handle the dialogue wonderfully. This movie is an homage to Christie and to the 1930s and is (along with Witness for the Prosecution) the best of Christie adaptations.
Evita (1996)
Evita Not Quite Rainbow High
A spectacularly adult, witty, satirical examination of politics (both governmental and sexual) becomes a confused attempt to see "all sides" of Evita in the film. Trying to make her more dimensional and sympathetic in the film ruined it; this material should not be a character study, a history lesson or a balanced portrayal of the woman. The lyrics, songs and structure are Rice's attempt to satirize power and glamour and sexual politics. The film is unfocused as it wildly shifts mood for no reason; for example, Evita finds her way to Buenos Aires (poorly sung by Madonna), then gets dumped and depressed (but why? She didn't love Magaldi anyway), then bounces back and uses a string of lovers. This sequence, so brilliant on stage, is a mess on film as it doesn't make sense. Madonna's confiscating the "Another Suitcase" song eliminates the score's greatest satirical moment when the mistress, the only sympathetic character, has the only moment of real emotion, and she is the victim of sexual politics, namely, Eva's. The film would have been better sticking to its original vision, one of satire and examination, rather than character study. Madonna's performance is flat throughout. While some of her vocals are effective, they are never matched by her bland, blank acting, even if in costume she looks a dead-ringer for Eva. Her Don't Cry for Me is passionless and captures none of the irony. Clearly, she interpreted it as a sincere plea by Eva, not the duplicitous expression of rhetoric as originally written. Some of the scenes and direction or cinematically brilliant, suggesting that a great film lies in there (the funeral, A New Argentina, The Waltz) but all changes from the stage show reduce its power. The Rainbow High number is one of the least effective as Madonna cannot sing it and the direction, always cutting away from her and mostly done in voice over, takes away from the conniving. While an ambitious effort, the director Alan Parker didn't know what kind of movie he was making and with a star who had no idea how to act it.
Jaws: The Revenge (1987)
The worst
The movie is one of the worst I've ever seen. The attack scenes are worse than what I used to do with Fisher Price Town and a stuffed seal from Marineland. The shark follows them to the Bahamas; apparently for revenge...revenge for being killed in earlier movies! Or is the shark exacting revenge for his friends who were killed? Or maybe (and here's something they could have pursued) it was the WIFE of the previous shark who decided the wife of her husband's killer should suffer. Well she did suffer, by appearing in this movie. For Jaws 5 I suggest the surviving family members of Mrs. Brodie swim back to New York and start biting sharks.