17 November 2012

Skyfall, Wreck-It-Ralph, Masquerade

Here I sit. Time to write.

small_masquerade01Masquerade struck me as very similar in concept to The Devil’s Double, which is another foreign film I knew next to nothing about before I saw it. This one’s a lot less soul-destroying, and more heartwarming than its predecessor. I guess the writer also worked on Oldboy, so it’s got some pedigree, and while it doesn’t rise nearly to the heights of that masterpiece, it’s a wonderfully rousing tale of good-hearted commonfolk versus ancient Chinese politics. The main character is very likeable and the humor element makes it very watchable. Going in I expected it to be a lot more stuffy. Good stuff, if you can stand subtitles.

Wreck-it-Ralph-1I’d heard Wreck-It-Ralph was on-par with Brave, which made me a little less excited about it. Brave was pretty darn mediocre, especially for PIXAR. This, while certainly not another Toy Story, was better than mediocre. The use of familiar video game properties was as brilliant as I’m sure it was costly, and every character was incredibly loveable. The amazing Alan Tudyk as Ed Wynn as the King of Sugar Rush was a real treat, and I always love Sarah Silverman. John C. Reilly did a great job as well with Ralph. The only problem with the film I had is similar in a way to how I felt about How to Train Your Dragon; the moral of the story is off. In the aforementioned film, the takeaway was “Your parents are wrong and probably idiots. Do something dangerous and it’ll work out fine.” I’m not entirely cool with that. Here, the message is going in the opposite direction but still not particularly great: “This is your job. You have to do it. If you do anything else everything will suck.” Communism anybody? Still a very enjoyable movie.

Skyfall-007Skyfall is good. I don’t think I liked it as much as I was supposed to. Casino Royale hit me hard, Quantum of Solace fell flat, and this one just kind of breezed by. It did a good job with legacy fanservice, and the action was pretty good. I’m a big fan of Javier Bardem. His role in this reminded me a bit of Heath Ledger’s Joker here and there. The finale was the best part, keeping the scale of the action down and simple. Jolly good show, old bean. Props to Tank Dong for having the best name in the acting business.

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