Most overrated film on DVD

[calimac]

Whale Rider. Not enough whales in this movie. Instead, this tired old plot: stubborn old man refuses to believe his granddaughter can be just as good as a boy. After being beaten over the head with her talents and abilities for an interminable two hours, he finally gets a clue. The end. All the other characters got it in about the first fifteen minutes. One could make a good story on this theme if there were only any more to it, but there isn't. Cliche after cliche. Two thumbs down. As B. put it, "We could have watched an episode of Xena instead. It would have been shorter, and much better paced."

One does learn a bit about Maori culture from this film. For one thing, I hadn't known they fight with quarterstaffs while making faces like John Belushi's parody of a samurai. I could have lived a long time without learning that. Also memorable: the old man's keening wail, left untranslated but clearly renderable as "Oy vey is mir! My grandson, that should have been, is a girl!"

If there's such a thing as multi-cultural education that subtracts instead of adds to enlightenment, this is it. If only I had read Mick LaSalle's killer review before, instead of after, renting this pretentious film. Should have rented Freaky Friday instead.

Comments

[liveavatar.livejournal.com]

I've never seen this movie and don't feel much need to, because this is one of the movies where The Trailer Tells the Entire Bloody Story. Someday it'll come around on cable, and I'll be lolling around, not much to do, and let it wash over me as I knit or something.

[sartorias.livejournal.com]

People last summer kept encouraging me to see it, but they used words that are suspicious to me, like 'poignant' and 'meaningful'. When I want meaning I read an essay. I don't want a two hour visual hammer. And poignant is a direct turnoff. So I went to see pirates of the C. twice, instead.

[kalimac.livejournal.com]

Trailers that tell the whole story seem to be the only genre of trailers there are these days. However, there are films that appear to be nothing but the trailer plus padding, and at least this is not one of those.

However, it is a film whose title gives away the whole story. Knowing the title, and learning at the start of an ancient chief who literally rode the whales, one waits for the girl to do it, and knows the film is finally almost over when, of course, she does.

[kalimac.livejournal.com]

You know the preaching you always accuse Le Guin of doing? This film actually does it.

I saw Pirates once and felt like I was gasping for air, it was so thin and meandering. There was a great short film hiding in there, about the length of the actual Disneyland ride.

[sartorias.livejournal.com]

You have to really like swashbuckling swordfights and swinging from ropes, etc, to properly enjoy P. of the C.... from the first use of "okay" right at the gitgo you know it's not exactly authentic, but at least for me, at Johnny Debb's first appearance, I knew I would be hugely entertained.

[kalimac.livejournal.com]

It wasn't inauthenticity (it never pretended to authenticity) or my lack of interest in swashbuckling that sank Pirates for me: it was plotting and pacing. It wandered around too much, repeated itself, didn't go anywhere. The ideal recent film of that kind for me was The Count of Monte Cristo starring James "Jesus Christ!" Caveziel and Guy Pearce.

[sartorias.livejournal.com]

I liked that one too. But then show me a movie with swashbuckling action and some laughs and I am happy.

I am probably the only person in the entire world who liked Cutthroat Island. Not only liked it but bought a copy.