Calling the original Sin City (based on a comic written by Frank Miller) one of my favourite movies is a bit of an understatement. I loved the style it was filmed in, the stories it told and the whole "bad people doing bad things for good reasons" vibe from all the stories. So to call the latest instalment of Sin City- A Dame to Kill For (from now on called Dame) underwhelming would also be an understatement.
Dame is set in the same style as the original, telling 3 (or maybe 4, I am struggling to remember) separate stories that are kind-of interwoven. There is the titular Dame story, the story about a gambler trying to win big against a congressman, and a sequel story about Jessica Alba also getting revenge against the congressman who killed Bruce Willis in the first movie. Some of these are prequel stories to the original movie as well, just to try to keep riding on the coat-tails of a better movie.
The immediate problem Dame has is how much the sequel feels like it has condensed the world. Instead of telling 3 unique stories that might have passing tie-ins to the original, it instead recycles most the characters and locations. Instead of Sin City feeling like a city where anything can happen and anyone can be brought, you are left with a story where everything seems to revolve around the one seedy place. This is in contrast to the original where 3 separate stories were told that just happened to go through some of the same locales.
Along the way, it also seems to lose the sense of style that defined the first one. Without this style, even the first movie would have felt mediocre. Of the new stories told, the Dame story is the best, and even then it feels like it lacks any real depth. Too often it seems to fall into hero worship of the original characters (such as Marv and Miko), and it never feels like there is any real threat to them. When any of your characters feel like they can blast through the most dangerous henchmen that the most dangerous man in the city can muster, then the gritty style of the original movie is lost, and that feels like a problem for this kind-of movie.
There are other issues also present. Most of the acting isn't very good. The special effects look decidedly second-rate. The movie seems to go out of its way to prove that the main characters aren't bad people. But this could have all been forgiven if they nailed the gritty style of the original. They didn't so it ended up being quite a bore and easily missable.
1 out of 5 Waffles To Kill For.
Friday, 24 October 2014
Thursday, 16 October 2014
The Magicians
As much as I enjoyed the Harry Potter novels. I always struggled understanding why Harry was a rather slack student. He loves magic, yet never seem to enjoy school. Sure school sucks, but at least he had magic.
In Lev Grossman’s book The Magicians he creates a fantasy world that feels more real and rewarding by combining popcorn fantasy and the mundane. It’s like someone wrote a book about all the boring procedural things that make life boring and wrapped it in a layer of magic . Like Law and Order but more interesting because they would solve crimes with magic.
The Magicians is heavily inspired by the Narnia series, with a dash of Harry Potter and a gooey Tolkien centre. The story centre around Quentin and a bunch of kids who attend a college designed to teach them how to use magic, and who later visit a magical world populated by talking animals. The biggest difference is that Grossman treats his magical world very seriously.
More than anything, it’s about the revelation that even a world containing magic is a cold, harsh place, where true love doesn’t always conquer all. Being noble doesn't mean you’ll defeat the big bad. Found that is one of the few fantasy books I’ve read that really ponder the psychology of its world.
Really loved Magicians episodic nature. Gives the book a brisk pace that leaves you wanting more. Felt it gave the character and you the reader some space to reflect on the protagonist journey. Each character was given more depth than just your usually cookie cutter archetypes, the young man raised by non-magical parents who discovers a world of wonder, a smart girl whose super smart yet socially awkward, and a sidekick .
Eventually these characters are fleshed out to include a self-loathing alcoholic, a drama queen and assorted of others personality flaws. Their connections are tenuous but real, the hurt they deal to each other stings, and there’s no Dumbledore to help save the day. Everyone in The Magicians is capable of great damage and great kindness, but not everyone realizes it.
After years of watching and reading about fantasy character that go on amazing journeys, it was refreshing to read one that brought the world of fantasy crashing down to reality.
3.5 out of 5 alcoholic Dumbledore riding a self-loathing Aslan
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