Still As Life

On Thursday last week, I went to see Speed Racer at the cinema. Much to my surprise, the showing at Garden City was virtually empty, considering it was the first day that it was running.

My main impression after leaving the cinema is that this movie was absolutely amazing!

It has a PG rating and is child-friendly, though a lot of the more in depth plot and concepts may be over a child’s head, the more obvious elements should keep a child, especially boys entertained. From my recollection, there is virtually no language (though it does have a language warning on the rating notes), and while there is some violence, the majority of it is either not shown, or is not gruesome or bloody.

Underneath the flashing lights and impossible (but really, really cool) driving, it has fast paced action, excellent digital effects, superb acting, and a brilliant, relevant story. To top it all off, the cinematography is stunning. Lots of bright filming, and effects build the various atmosphere’s excellently. Also added is a combination of comedy and romance, though they play minor roles in the plot, they add so much more to the story.

I’m not going to go into the story line or plot, and I will admit that some fans of the original TV series may not be as eager to praise the movie as I am (though I am also a fan of the TV series), but really, the Wachowski Brothers have done an amazing job of the movie.

As I mentioned earlier, kids may not understand, or even pick up on some parts of the plot, but many of the mystery elements that begin early on in the movie, they will be able to understand and will be guessing at them most of the way through, but they are not so obvious that an adult won’t enjoy figuring it out. Just in case the kids did miss it though, it is explained at the end, but not in a way that makes you feel silly or stupid for not figuring out, it just feels like part of the story.

I can’t really think of any movie’s off-hand that have produced an appearance anything like that of Speed Racer. The closest, cinematography wise, is probably Sin City or Sweeney Todd, except that Speed Racer does not just emphasise certain colours, but every colour (also it is child friendly). The techniques used, while they are based on lots of common techniques, have formed together to produce a very interesting and unusual style.

The average user rating on IMDB at the time of writing this is 6.6/10, which I personally think is much lower than the movie deserves. Of the 11,700 voters, 24% gave it a 10/10, and the drop off from there is understandable, then there is a large 11% that gave it a 1. As I said, I feel this is not a true rating and judging from some of the comments, I think that this is in part due to people expecting something very different from the Wachowski Brothers with movies like the Matrix under their belt. However, I don’t believe that Speed Racer was ever intended to be anything like the Matrix. The film techniques that have been used are far superior to those used in the Matrix, the story line and plot are intended to be suitable and interesting for both children and adults, and, it is working within a PG rating rather than M. In my opinion, it is actually one of the best examples of a PG movie to be released in a while. Many of the more recent PG movies would not that long ago have been closer to an M, whereas Speed Racer is, in my opinion, closer to a G.

If you haven’t seen it yet, I highly recommend it. In fact, I want to go see it again. I would give it a 9/10.

Popularity: 32% [?]

I went and saw Iron Man at the Victoria Point Cineplex on Sunday night, let me just say now, it is an excellent movie, it did not disappoint at all. Robert Downey Jr. plays the part of Tony Stark/Iron Man superbly. Marvel did a great job on the rest of the cast and they all work together like magic to create one of the best superhero films I have seen.

The start of the movie seemed a little slow, however it made for the perfect build up of Tony Stark’s character and the consistent build up set up the rest of the movie extremely well.

From the trailer and movie posters, I was expecting it to be quite flashy and heavy on the CGI, but it isn’t. It is very believable and none of the graphics are over the top or excessively flashy.

Being one of the no doubt many that have not read the Iron Man comics, I was not sure what to expect as far as the story goes, but I was not disappointed at all!

To my understanding it was changed slightly to the original story to be set in Afghanistan rather than the Vietnam war where it was originally set, so as to make it seem more current and relevent. I think this was a great idea as everyone today can easily identify with it today and it thus allows us to better relate to the movie, especially for those of us that are not in the USA.

The current average user rating on IMDB is 8.4/10 at the time of writing this where 36.2% of the votes gave it a 10 and less than 10% of the votes were below 7. I think these ratings are pretty accurate.

It runs for 126 mins so it is a two hour movie, and it is definitely worth the two hours to see it in my opinion.

I’m not going to ruin the story on you, but lets just say, I want to go see it again and I can’t wait for the obvious sequel! Here’s hoping they don’t mess it up.

Have a look at the trailers if you haven’t already had a chance to do so:

Popularity: 29% [?]

Today while downloading the latest version of Adobe’s Acrobat Reader for a computer at work that didn’t have it for some reason, I noticed that Adobe have started to bundle their new Adobe Media Player with it.

From the Adobe website:

“With a broad catalog of videos and shows from the leading media companies and networks, you have endless choices. Pick the episodes you love to watch, and Adobe® Media Player software will track new episodes and download them so you can watch whenever you want.”

It’s the first time I’ve come across it and it sounds like it is intended to be a similar idea to Apple TV/iTunes Store, except that it is taking a slightly different approach by providing it as a software package installable on any computer, rather than using the specific Apple TV hardware component.

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Popularity: 35% [?]

I went and saw 10000 BC last night, what can I say? It was average.

The CGI in it was great, but that was probably the only redeeming quality of the movie.

10-15 minutes into the movie and there were already things that I can only call silly mistakes.

For example, when they decide to hunt the mammoth and the mammoth appear over a hill and that is when they are first seen and heard. That’s all well and good, but the amount of noise they were making, it would have been impossible to not hear them sooner. Then when they are actually hunting them, they are creeping towards them from upwind. It is established earlier on that they have hunted mammoth before, every time the mammoth pass. So naturally, wouldn’t the mammoth associate their scent with a threat and panic before the tribe got anywhere near close enough to them? Seeing as how they are upwind from the mammoth and all. It is particularly obvious that they are upwind because the grass can be seen blowing in the direction of the mammoth. Now, I know it’s just a movie, but that’s a pretty simple thing that could have been avoided.

Another thing I had a particularly big problem with is that there were ships, ships more advanced then the Egyptian ships of later times, yet Egypt had the first real ships.

Then of course there was the final section of the movie where it was quite evident they were meant to be in Egypt, with the Nile river and the pyramids being built, along with a cartoonish Sphinx.

Aside from all these things, there is the language question. D’Leh, the hero of the story, in his travels meets up with around 6 other tribes, the first of which is many days travel from his own tribe. Now, the leader of this tribe, Nakudu, is explained as being able to speak his words because D’Leh’s father, the previous leader of his tribe, had come to find new lands and had taught the leader of the other tribe his words. That’s all well and good. Then there are the other tribes, including ones that are days away from the first, where Nakudu is able to translate for. He is even able to translate the words of what I can only assume are the Egyptians, a people he is established as having never met and never gotten anywhere near where they are from. Maybe he is just a linguistic whiz, but I doubt it.

Of course there were then plenty more anachronisms, but to go through all of them would take a long time, and even then I would still undoubtedly miss some.

The acting was fairly reasonable. There were occasional spots where it was bad, but most of the movie retained the same average level of acting. I would not put any of it in the outstanding, or even above average categories, but in general it was reasonable.

The average user rating on IMDB at the time of writing this is 5.0/10, and I agree with that rating entirely.

If you haven’t yet seen it yet, here’s the trailer:

Popularity: 20% [?]