Eh, I thought it was only okay.
Far too episodic, with very little background texture and zero emotional arc for Harry (or anyone else).
Granted, it's a huge and massively plotty book, and streamlining it for the screen couldn't have been easy, but they essentially stripped away everything that gives the book interest, leaving only set pieces. Even at nearly 3 hours, it felt rushed because so little happened in-between the major action scenes. It felt like just slogging through events, rather than a smoothly flowing narrative.
Newell also isn't even remotely able to get as good performances out of the kids as Cuarón did. Radcliffe in particular is in over his head in several scenes, which hurts the climactic scenes immensely.
I saw
Kiss Kiss Bang Bang
and
Jarhead
last night. Enjoyed them both.
Kiss
is all about nothing except how clever Shane Black is, but since he is pretty clever and Val Kilmer and Robert Downey Jr. are having so much fun, it's a good watch.
Jarhead
is a bit too long, but gorgeous to watch and not a bad perfromance in it. It is interesting to see a war movie that is not about war at all but is about what the condition of being a soldier is and what that does to you.
I read soldierly responses to
Jarhead
that said that it wasn't really about the condition and effect of being a soldier.
I can see that--everyone's experience of war is singular in some way. And the film is filtered through the lens of the hyper-aware, analytical and poetic eyes of Tony Swofford.
Nah, they were just saying that it wasn't like that. Not that
their
situations weren't like that, but that it rang false as a whole.
I don't know how closely the film ties to the memoir. I know the book got all sorts of praise from soldiers for its truthfulness, so maybe they tarted it up for the film.
What song does Willie sing in the opening scene of Temple of Doom? It's been bothering me all day.
