tomimt

I have a small dilemma in what comes to reviewing Dune: is it a 9 star or a 10 star movie. In the end, I decided to go with 10 stars, as it is a magnificent adaptation of the book and it is a vastly better adaptation than the highly flawed Lynch movie from the 1980s. The reason I'm having a small debate is, that it's only a half of the novel, waiting to be concluded in a next movie, which is something I truly hope will happen, as Villeneuve's Dune deserves to be completed.

Dune is a tremendous achievement and a first movie in ages, that has managed to leave me speechless. It is a massive epic in every sense of the word, leaving you craving more. It's definitely a movie you need to watch, as Dune really rises the bar to a whole new level.

Considering the reviews Warcraft: The Beginning has received and the general consensus of thinking that video game based movie aren't very good, I was fully expecting to see some what of a cinematic pan cake. Surprisingly enough, Warcraft works pretty well. It's no LOTR mind you, but it is relatively entertaining, at places a bit cheesy, fantasy flick with pretty good special effects.

Warcraft is at its best when it revolves around the orcs. The humans are really the weak link of the whole thing, as very few of the actors chosen feel that they don't fit in a fantasy setting like this. A Finnish director Markku Pölönen said once, that some people have epoch faces and some do not. By that he meant, that certain people suit better on a movie set in the past (or in a fantasy world), where as some just look too modern. Most of the human actors here feel a bit too modern for the setting. Also the writing on the humans side feels more rushed.

But the orcs. Now they're fantastic. They're gigantic beast, with tusks and huge weapons in their hands, riding on over sized wolves (or wargs, I'm not really sure, as I'm not huge Warcraft guy). The orcs themselves aren't really evil at all, they're just misguided by the fell magic using Gul'Dan. In any case, the movie just seems to work better every time there's orcs on scree, be it Durotan, Garona or Gul'dan.

The pacing of the story is also a one big issue. It's easy to see, that there's a lot of story material been cut out from the movie and that really feels like it's hurting the overall experience. Some additional material might even make the humans feel more compelling as well, but now there's no real connection to them here, as the story keeps jumping quite a bit.

Anyhow, Warcraft really isn't even half as bad some sources have touted it as. It's relatively easy to follow for even a person like me, who played the original RTS game years ago and has only skimmed WOW briefly before getting bored with it. At times it did feel like it expected me to be more familiar with the franchise than I am, but in all it still is fun.

Jupiter Ascending is a frustrating movie, as it's almost a good movie. Not great, but good. It has some very lovely visuals and pictures in it and almost good piece of pulpy sci-fi plotting, but what it comes down to is, that it's also terribly boring mess, that doesn't seem to know what it wants to be: a twilight style romance, an adventure, socio-political commentary, Star Wars pastiche. It has elements from everything, including some whimsical things that remind of Terry Gilliam (with the man actually playing a role in said bit), but nothing really holds intact.

The biggest problems, alongside the acting done by most of the lead actors, not least by Redmayne with his croaking villain Balem, is the plot and the action. The plot revolves around universe scale industry where humans are harvested as resource for products that lengthen life. Earth is such a planet. Jupiter herself is some incarnation of a dead queen, who owned Earth. She can stop that from happening.

I mean, the plot by itself is simple. You'd think that would serve for a decent movie. But no. It's just so stuffed with things, that don't go any where and with characters you're supposed to care, but can't as you have very little idea who they are and why you should care.

When I think about it, the movie feels like it has a compressed plot from several other movies. This leads into situations where you feel like you something important was left out. Some one was left introduced and suddenly you see that someone and think why that someone is in focus for the rest of the story.

Also the action scenes are problematic: it's almost impossible to think the scenes were directed by same people who directed the Matrix. Almost all action scenes feel overdrawn, dull and predictable. Almost all scenes are built by the numbers style and nothing about them comes as a surprise. They flow forward in a predictable fashion and nothing really seems to be at stake, especially because there's one too many "close call for main heroes" type of bits.

So yeah. Jupiter Ascending is almost a good movie. It's just a damned shame the makers of it didn't really seem to know how to make it one.