Reviews

I went to see this movie without reading the books first and with only a vague knowledge of the historical events the novels are based upon. Apparently, the director thought that it would be a good idea to condensate the five Alatriste novels in a single film, in order to give depth to the characters. A big mistake. The pace is for the most part too fast and anecdotic, and the action jumps from here to there without ever giving a clear reason why everyone behaves the way they do, from the romantic plots scattered along the movie to the great political conspiracies. It is never very clear either why Alatriste, who is little more than a soldier and hired assassin, is so important to so many people of high rank.

In spite of all this, I cannot give the film a bad rating because it is certainly a pleasure to watch. The technical aspects, the general "look" of the film, the music, and the acting are splendid. The casting can be a controversial point, but the chosen actors do wonders.

I haven't seen any other films by Antonioni and the people that saw this one with me agreed that it shares themes and imagery with the rest of his works. Maybe if I had seen other stuff by him I would have enjoyed this one, knowing what to expect.

I saw it as an almost complete failure for so many reasons. First of all, the film introduces interesting, deep issues about social relationships, feelings, the nature of reality versus fiction, but this is very often done in the clumsiest of ways making the characters speak as if they were delivering speeches, rambling on and on, juxtaposing declarations rather than having dialogues. The scriptwriters seem to be so worried that we will not get the point that they prefer to tell instead of showing.

Secondly, the movie has no rhythm, especially in its first half. It is not only that it is slow. Some slow films have been made with an excellent sense of pace and rhythm (El Sur by Victor Erice Or Scorsese's The Age of Innocence are examples I like), but for that to be successful it is necessary that we find the characters so engaging or the story so moving that we can adapt to it. This does not happen in Beyond the Clouds, where the first episode seems to drag endlessly, and the relationship between John Malkovich's "reality" and the love stories "fiction" is at times fluid, others abrupt, others confusing.

If you have read the book, it's almost impossible to judge this as a movie that can work on its own; it's too tempting to comment on it according to whether it is a visual version of the novel in your mind or not. But that is not the point.

The Return of the King has three distinct aspects that differ greatly in quality. There are the action scenes and the spectacular look of the film; the script, the plot, and the editing; and then there is the emotional relationships between the characters.

The visual aspect and the action scenes are faultless. Battles with lots of different weapons, Nazgul screeching, a reasonable amount of blood, hideous Orcs, oliphaunts, you name it, it's there. But it's never too gorey, or so fast that it's confusing to follow.

How-the-story-gets-told is a bit less perfect. There are a few flashbacks that seem completely pointless to the overall film (because nobody really needs to see those scenes to understand anything that happens later) and a few useless flash-forwards (because there was no need to anticipate what's in them). Moreover, the way the movie jumps from scenery to scenery (trying to tell what is happening in three places at the same time) does not flow as well as it did in The Two Towers.

The worse element in the film is probably the emotive one. The actors are very intense (to the point of overacting on occasion), and their lines are sometimes better, sometimes worse. But the problem with all the emotional scenes is that they are too similar: the external world turns down the volume and moves in slow motion and the characters look at each other in the eye with devotion and desperation. It does not matter if they are two teenage friends or two lovers or an (adoptive) father and daughter, if it is a moment of triumph or of mourning.

I will probably change my mind if I see the movie again, but overall it seems too irregular.

This is not a memorable film, but it does its job very well: just a lot of froth and glitter and a few laughs. The actors are very well chosen; just seeing that Billy Bob Thornton has been cast as a slimy American President was funny. Everyone looks very cute (well, the ones that are supposed to), there are plenty of declarations of love and the soundtrack is light and romantic.

It actually does what it says on the tin: very romantic, very comedy. Just don't expect it to be plausible or deep...

The best I can say in favor of this film is that I came out of the cinema with terrible back pain because I had been so extremely tense while watching it. The actors are absolutely brilliant, communicating all that needs to be told, and the plot is never simplistic.

Most European social cinema seems influenced by Ken Loach's movies and this one is no exception. The way time passes slowly and characters try hard to improve their situation reminds a lot of Loach's "Sweet Sixteen", among others.

If there is any weakness to the movie is that I can't say if people who do not share the director's opinions on gender violence would appreciate this movie as much as I have.