these are comming peicemeil as I don't want to lose the whole thing again.
Review of Zathura:
I had low expectations for this film. I really liked Jumanjii. It was orgional, high paced and action packed. For Zathura I thought it would be pretty much Jumanjii in space. Man was it a let down.
The plot was more simplistic than jumanjii and packed full of schlock holly wood motifs. First off we only had two players, instead of the plot twisting 4 of jumanjii. Just two brothers, neithor of which could act his way out of a box. Directing kids should be simple one simple phrase should do, "Act natural", but no. This film is full of over acting, under acting, and just plain bad acting.
In fact the only decent actor in the film, Tim Robbins, is only in about the first 10 minutes and is never seen again.
They replaced the robbin williams type character with some C class actor. By C class I mean he looks farmiliar, but I can't even remember a bad film he was in. He was probably some sidekick's sidekick in a scifi channel film.
What should have been a big plott twist ended up being increadibly predictable, so much that I called it probably an hour before it was reveiled.
Next we go to the directing. Seriously I could have done a better job. This film is full of unneeded camera moves, pan up and zoom in on his eyes shots. It looks like a bad film school reject's project. BTW those zoom in on the eyes shots are only good if you have a good eye actor and placed in spots where some thing dramatic just happened. "Hey my ship token just moved for the third time" *pan and zoom* "Blank expression" excelent directing.
Or we have overly dramatic music in not so dramatic situations.
"Look out window, sees space, try another window more space, the front door more space, about 5 minutes go by and we keep playing the game. There is a pull back shot from the room going out the front door to see the house floating in space" *Dum Dum Dummmmmmm* And nothing happens, back inside we play the game some more. This music idiocy continues through out the film. Its like they weren't watching it when they did the score, or maybe they just fast forwarded through it because seriously I couldn't sit through it again and put in dramatic music where they thought the remembered it going.
"Ok as we zoom into the eyes, key the music"
"Are you sure this is the right zoom?"
"Sure how many could there be"
Answer: probably 15 at least.
So you're probably thinking well at least the special effects should have been good.
Wrong.
The first big effect was a metor shower inside the house. Seriously it looked like they had cut holes in the floor, covered them with paper and taped fire crackers to it. Then lit the fire crackers off and told the kids to run around in a circle and scream a lot. I'd have to watch it again in slow mo, to be sure but that sure as hell isn't going to happen.
Shots of space looked mainly like mat paintings. Technology that was advanced maybe in the 50's. "Look we've gone to idaho just by walking form this set to the next.
They were using a spraypainted fire extinguisher for a jet pack. Hell they could have at least sprung for a smoke machine.
The evil aliens looked like they ripped them off from a "TMNT2, the secret of the ooze" garage sale.
Seriously for something done by sony with the budget they had, this is just poor. I had better effects in the film I did and we just whiped them up on my mac.
So all and all this film isn't worth your time to wipe you ass with.
I'm suprised it wasn't a straight to video release.
Review of Zathura:
I had low expectations for this film. I really liked Jumanjii. It was orgional, high paced and action packed. For Zathura I thought it would be pretty much Jumanjii in space. Man was it a let down.
The plot was more simplistic than jumanjii and packed full of schlock holly wood motifs. First off we only had two players, instead of the plot twisting 4 of jumanjii. Just two brothers, neithor of which could act his way out of a box. Directing kids should be simple one simple phrase should do, "Act natural", but no. This film is full of over acting, under acting, and just plain bad acting.
In fact the only decent actor in the film, Tim Robbins, is only in about the first 10 minutes and is never seen again.
They replaced the robbin williams type character with some C class actor. By C class I mean he looks farmiliar, but I can't even remember a bad film he was in. He was probably some sidekick's sidekick in a scifi channel film.
What should have been a big plott twist ended up being increadibly predictable, so much that I called it probably an hour before it was reveiled.
Next we go to the directing. Seriously I could have done a better job. This film is full of unneeded camera moves, pan up and zoom in on his eyes shots. It looks like a bad film school reject's project. BTW those zoom in on the eyes shots are only good if you have a good eye actor and placed in spots where some thing dramatic just happened. "Hey my ship token just moved for the third time" *pan and zoom* "Blank expression" excelent directing.
Or we have overly dramatic music in not so dramatic situations.
"Look out window, sees space, try another window more space, the front door more space, about 5 minutes go by and we keep playing the game. There is a pull back shot from the room going out the front door to see the house floating in space" *Dum Dum Dummmmmmm* And nothing happens, back inside we play the game some more. This music idiocy continues through out the film. Its like they weren't watching it when they did the score, or maybe they just fast forwarded through it because seriously I couldn't sit through it again and put in dramatic music where they thought the remembered it going.
"Ok as we zoom into the eyes, key the music"
"Are you sure this is the right zoom?"
"Sure how many could there be"
Answer: probably 15 at least.
So you're probably thinking well at least the special effects should have been good.
Wrong.
The first big effect was a metor shower inside the house. Seriously it looked like they had cut holes in the floor, covered them with paper and taped fire crackers to it. Then lit the fire crackers off and told the kids to run around in a circle and scream a lot. I'd have to watch it again in slow mo, to be sure but that sure as hell isn't going to happen.
Shots of space looked mainly like mat paintings. Technology that was advanced maybe in the 50's. "Look we've gone to idaho just by walking form this set to the next.
They were using a spraypainted fire extinguisher for a jet pack. Hell they could have at least sprung for a smoke machine.
The evil aliens looked like they ripped them off from a "TMNT2, the secret of the ooze" garage sale.
Seriously for something done by sony with the budget they had, this is just poor. I had better effects in the film I did and we just whiped them up on my mac.
So all and all this film isn't worth your time to wipe you ass with.
I'm suprised it wasn't a straight to video release.
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