Although there are some changes that I personally don’t like, I think they did a great job overall. (Still, the original was better.)
DreamWorks did less revamping than Disney has been doing in their live-action remakes of animated classics. It may be that few changes seemed necessary because 2010 wasn’t that long ago (the live-action Cinderella movie was made 65 years after the 1950 original), or it may be because DreamWorks made a conscious decision to change as little as possible, or it may be both. (Often it’s both.)
So what did change, and why?
You probably don’t want to read this post if you haven’t seen the new movie, and it won’t make sense at all if you haven’t seen the new movie or the old movie. Instead, please enjoy this photo of the counter where I bought gelato after exiting the cinema.
I chose sea-salt coconut, tiramisu, and blueberry. Mmmm!
I was disappointed with this movie for two reasons, one general and one personal:
The ending didn’t feel final, after so much buildup.
There was entirely too much water.
To elaborate on the lack of emotional finality: Some reviews say the ending was a gracious and moving send-off that tidily wraps up the whole movie series with meaningful callbacks and clever retconning. That is, of course, what they are supposed to say, so even if such assertions are sincere, they sound hollow. It’s an expensive movie, made by experienced people; naturally, we are expected to like and approve of it. But other reviews agree with my view: whatever the moviemakers may have been trying to do, it didn’t work as well as one might have hoped.
To elaborate on the excess of water: Classic case of “Well done, thanks, I hate it.” I personally hate underwater scenes. Hate hate hate them. They make me disproportionately anxious. I do not find them fun and entertaining, unlike other forms of danger (e.g., precipitous heights, car chases). I enjoy action movies in general, and action movies are exciting because the fictional hero (and in the case of Tom Cruise and Jackie Chan, to an unprecedented extent, the actor playing the fictional hero) is placed in life-threatening danger. But I hate water scenes. And this movie had one that went on for… I dunno, 20 minutes? I Googled and couldn’t immediately find the duration online, but one article said there was a single take in the movie that was 4 minutes long, so I don’t feel like 20 minutes is an unreasonable guess!
Canvas poster on display at my local movie theater, Wanda Cinema Yuhang.We watched MI:8 in the biggest cinema hall the evening after the movie opened in China. Sadly, the theater was mostly empty. (Where my Chinese Tom Cruise fans at???)
More thoughts on Final Reckoning below, including plot spoilers.
This 1990s TV show is a wholesome romance thinly disguised as science-fiction. Specifically, it’s about the relationship between two capable and kind-hearted but emotionally vulnerable young professionals. Rewatching Season 1 filled me with the glow of nostalgia.
See below for more on the characters, plot, and themes of the show. No spoilers.
It’s a niche classic. A strange blend of a lot of things at once.
It’s sci-fi, it’s action, it’s horror; it’s hand-drawn and computer animation; it’s made in Japan but set in Hong Kong; it’s about evolution but upholds the idea of the soul; and it’s futuristic but looks and feels and sounds like the past.
I wish I liked it, but I don’t; I still think it’s clunky and weird. Here are some previous thoughts (because apparently this is my third blog post on this same movie, omg):
I didn’t see this 2010 movie for the first time until 2014, and I’m not sure I fully appreciated it at the time. It is probably one of my top five favorite movies ever.
It has a dragon who is unbelievably powerful and cool but also catlike, silly, and adorable; it has a geeky underdog protagonist with a gratifying self-actualization plot; it has a romantic subplot featuring an immensely capable and hardworking girl; it has an awesome soundtrack; and it has the best aerial joyrides!
Siqi put in the DVD of HTTYD to test our new living room audio setup: he connected a new (used) pair of speakers behind the sofa, so now our system is 5.1 instead of 3.1. Pretty awesome! 🙂
This was advertised as a Keanu Reeves movie, but he’s not really the main character. The movie’s original title, “Daughter of God,” better reflects the fact that the movie is mainly about a young Catholic Spanish-speaking woman who has a strange experience late at night on a subway platform and starts seeing angels.
The movie turns out to be about rape and child abuse, not, as the standard summary claims, “police corruption.” So it was very heavy, with one particularly disturbing scene. You could argue that the movie has a happy ending, but the net effect of watching this movie was definitely the opposite of happiness. I would unwatch it if I could.
Incidentally, this movie is an interesting case of the use of unreliable narration in film. If it weren’t so disturbing, I’d want to watch it again and look for clues that what we’re shown initially isn’t what happened. It’s clever. But I hate the story.
Recently I made the mistake of listening to the soundtrack of Chicago on my computer. The songs are incredibly sticky. Hearing the songs echoing in my head for several days, I decided I wanted to rewatch the movie itself. This, of course, just reinforced the echoes in my head.
Watching the movie, I decided my favorite song, because of its sheer energy, was “Cell Block Tango,” which repeatedly insists that “he had it coming.”
Also, I remembered that, although the movie is incredibly good at what it does, I actually really don’t like the characters. See below for more on that.
According to Wikipedia, the movie is based on a 1975 stage musical, which is based on a 1926 play, which is based on some actual events in the news.
I remember bits and pieces of the previous John Wick movies, perhaps the first one especially, but they don’t have a lot of plot or dialog. They are mostly full of stylized violent action. Some of it’s cool and some of it’s too brutal for my taste, but I like the character, and I like Keanu Reeves.
Siqi and I saw this movie when it was newly released in theaters in China (two years after its US release). According to Wikipedia, it’s the first of the series to be released in China at all. Apparently the reason it was allowed to be shown, and the basis for a lot of the marketing, is the fact that it stars popular Hong Kong Chinese actor Donnie Yen.
Mainly the difference is that the book has a big battle in the middle that the movie doesn’t have at all, and the movie has a love story that’s nowhere in the book. See below for complete plot summaries of the book and movie.
