September 30th, 2007
Posted by
Ian W |
DVD Viewing Journal |
no comments
I’ve seen several films during my “French week” that put style over substance but this takes the cake. What a pretentious load of twaddle, wrapped up in flashy CGI visuals.
The gods return (the Egyptian ones, you know like in Stargate?) and Horus decides he needs to sow his seed and takes over the form of a human in order to mate with the blue haired woman. She it seems is that rare thing, a woman who can mate with a god. This all takes place in the future, a future where many it seems now look like CGI creations. I assume this is supposed to show that they have been altered but it just doesn’t work, the CGI people and the real actors just don’t gel, it’s hard enough to get over Charlotte Rampling in a silly wig.
Based on the comics of Enki Bilal that have, according to IMDb, influenced Blade Runner and Stargate (no surprise there) this just doesn’t work onscreen. Bilal directs the film himself and perhaps tried to get too much of his vision into the film, to such an extent that it overdoses on visual splendour at the expense of any emotional connection with the characters, whether real or computer created. Even the films effects don’t really live up to Luc Besson’s The Fifth Element (another film influenced by Bilal perhaps) made seven years previous.
A disappointing end to what’s been a disappointing week of French films.
September 30th, 2007
Posted by
Ian W |
DVD Viewing Journal |
no comments
A French western very loosely based on Jean ‘Moebius’ Giraud’s classic comic character, with Vincent Cassel in the titular role, that fails to work as a traditional western or much else either. The story is slim - Mike Blueberry’s prostitute girlfriend is killed in a confrontation with head villain (Michael Madsen) injured he makes his way into the desert, stays with the Indians for a bit and then becomes a Marshal of a small town before inevitably crossing paths with Madsen again for the films denouement.
This simple story isn’t a problem in itself, many a classic western has had an equally minimal plot, the real problem is that not much happens, with the film avoiding the usual genre staples like shootouts and fistfights. What the film does have going for it, at least early on before it devolves into a mess of hallucinogenic CGI for the typically unorthodox final confrontation between Blueberry and Madsen, is some awe inspiring cinematography. The West here looks as majestic as a Ford movie, the difference being Ford could hang a story on those visuals.
As well as Cassel and Madsen the film also features Juliette Lewis as a love interest for Cassel, with her dad Geoffrey Lewis appropriately enough playing her father. Colm Meaney, sporting a fake looking beard and equally fake accent, and a wheelchair bound Ernest Borgnine play deputies, while Eddie Izzard turns up as a German searching for Indian treasure and gives Meaney a run for his money in the crap accent competition. You’d think Cassal would be in the running too but given that he’s supposed to be a Louisiana Cajun he doesn’t do too bad, even if he never totally convinces.
