This is definitely a one of a kind movie. So I can see how reviews can deviate widely on whether it works or not.
First I would say - Dafoe A+ Ruffalo A- Stone C.
Jerrod Carmichael F Rammy Yousef B
Willen Dafoe is great in this movie. He is funny and bizarre and I can say I don't think there is another actor who could have pulled this part off as well.
Mark Ruffalo as an actor has never impressed me. Almost every role he has done he has just a kind of been there, never bad but never standing out. For the first time, I saw him really go for it and stretch and be different and he was very good. I really enjoyed his performance as 'the Cad' of the story.
What to say about Emma Stone? I'll start with this...I believe there are 10 other actresses who could have done what she did as well as she did. I'll give her credit for baring it all and hiding her beauty and letting them make her ugly and weird at times. It is a brave performance, but I wouldn't see it as special.
Everyone else was fine except Carmichael, who's stilted delivery of lines was jarring. He was completely miscast.
Now the movie is clever and fanciful and it made me think of Terry Gilliam. Odd machines and a strange sometimes dream-like setting and the bizarre outfits that our Heroine, Bella wears. There are strange vivisectionist made hybrids wandering around. This little world is certainly well realized, and is used to let us know that this is all fantasy and has nothing to do with our reality.
The Plot has some issues, though. At the end (without using a spoiler) the character who has been built up to be the main antagonist suddenly becomes irrelevant as another manufactured bad guy is exchanged for him. It obviously would have played out more strongly if the final plot point involved a resolution with the antagonist we knew, not this new character.
And then when everything concludes, we get some strange little happily ever after finish...that's it folks...go home...where we are left feeling this somewhat dark frankenstein nightmare probably would have been more effective expressing its theme with a more dystopian outcome.
The movie is definitely not boring. Whether there is some girl power message in it, or whether a philosophical twist on Gods or the darkness of humanity will be up to each viewer.
I'll probably come back and re-watch it at some point in the future because the acting and style were good enough to call for it.
First I would say - Dafoe A+ Ruffalo A- Stone C.
Jerrod Carmichael F Rammy Yousef B
Willen Dafoe is great in this movie. He is funny and bizarre and I can say I don't think there is another actor who could have pulled this part off as well.
Mark Ruffalo as an actor has never impressed me. Almost every role he has done he has just a kind of been there, never bad but never standing out. For the first time, I saw him really go for it and stretch and be different and he was very good. I really enjoyed his performance as 'the Cad' of the story.
What to say about Emma Stone? I'll start with this...I believe there are 10 other actresses who could have done what she did as well as she did. I'll give her credit for baring it all and hiding her beauty and letting them make her ugly and weird at times. It is a brave performance, but I wouldn't see it as special.
Everyone else was fine except Carmichael, who's stilted delivery of lines was jarring. He was completely miscast.
Now the movie is clever and fanciful and it made me think of Terry Gilliam. Odd machines and a strange sometimes dream-like setting and the bizarre outfits that our Heroine, Bella wears. There are strange vivisectionist made hybrids wandering around. This little world is certainly well realized, and is used to let us know that this is all fantasy and has nothing to do with our reality.
The Plot has some issues, though. At the end (without using a spoiler) the character who has been built up to be the main antagonist suddenly becomes irrelevant as another manufactured bad guy is exchanged for him. It obviously would have played out more strongly if the final plot point involved a resolution with the antagonist we knew, not this new character.
And then when everything concludes, we get some strange little happily ever after finish...that's it folks...go home...where we are left feeling this somewhat dark frankenstein nightmare probably would have been more effective expressing its theme with a more dystopian outcome.
The movie is definitely not boring. Whether there is some girl power message in it, or whether a philosophical twist on Gods or the darkness of humanity will be up to each viewer.
I'll probably come back and re-watch it at some point in the future because the acting and style were good enough to call for it.
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