A lot of people compare "Spartacus: Blood and Sand" to "Rome", however the 2 have nothing in common. "Spartacus" was never designed to even remotely resemble "Rome". While "Rome" is a drama about politics and conspiracies, "Spartacus" is one man's journey. The series is inspired by the story of the gladiator Spartacus, who led the gladiators rebellion and who died in their last stand in southern Italy. Although there are numerous facts about his deeds there is nothing about the man himself. Even the notion that he was from Thrace isn't a fact. The 2 inspiration points for the series are clearly "Gladiator", for the concept, a man fighting for something and using the crowd of the arena to achieve his goal, and "300" for the special effects. Although in the first 2 episodes it was more about fights and sex scenes, things changed in from the third becoming more focused on the character and toning down the violence and nudity. The show feels different from anything at the moment, and if it keeps improving it could easily become one of the best shows around.
Reviews
3 Reviews
Event Horizon
(1997)
Tries too much, achieves too little
29 July 2009
OK so first of all, this movie has the effect of keeping you glued to your chair while your watching. But if we look at it from a critical perspective we can see that it isn't that great.
The films tries too accomplish several things, but in the end it fails. It tries to be both subtle and direct, but it ends up as being too direct and too over-the-top (too much unnecessary gore). It somehow tries to merge religious and scientific ideas, but it does not finish the job. The ideas presented are too blunt, too rough to fully understand and swallow. Too much Clive Barker and too little Lovecraft, if you know what i mean.
So what is the result? A have baked film, with a lot of gore, a couple of scary moments, a wide range of scientific and religious ideas (taken from horror writers) that don't mix very well, which starts out excellent but ends up as being over-the-top, and concluded with a weird ending.
It's not a bad film, it will entertain, but it feels like it could have been so much more.
The films tries too accomplish several things, but in the end it fails. It tries to be both subtle and direct, but it ends up as being too direct and too over-the-top (too much unnecessary gore). It somehow tries to merge religious and scientific ideas, but it does not finish the job. The ideas presented are too blunt, too rough to fully understand and swallow. Too much Clive Barker and too little Lovecraft, if you know what i mean.
So what is the result? A have baked film, with a lot of gore, a couple of scary moments, a wide range of scientific and religious ideas (taken from horror writers) that don't mix very well, which starts out excellent but ends up as being over-the-top, and concluded with a weird ending.
It's not a bad film, it will entertain, but it feels like it could have been so much more.
The Spirit
(2008)
Bad marketing campaign
4 April 2009
From what i have read here most people were expecting this movie to be Sin City 2, but that was never the Miller's intention. A few weeks ago i got my hands on a "The Spirit" comic from the new series. When i saw the movie i felt like the comic came perfectly to life, everything seem to fit: weird dialog, over-the-top humor, cheesy acting. Although this movie doesn't rise to be as good as Sin City or 300 it is simply a great comic-movie adaptation. The original comic didn't have any dark characters (actually, it had surprisingly little character development) and as a result the movie characters stay the same through the film. In he end it will be hate it or love it. Personally i loved it.
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