| RavenBlog |
|
| Comments on Thursday 25 December 2003: |
| And another movie review: The Medallion. Jackie Chan's latest mindless fluffy fantasy action movie. Given an appreciation for that genre, it's a pretty good movie. The timing is good - particularly in contrast to yesterday's Kill Bill. There's an aeroplane flight in this one too, but in The Medallion it consists of a shot of a landing aeroplane, and the subtitle "Dublin, Ireland". Three seconds max. That's how these things should be done. There's a bit of Lee Evans mugging up the movie with his unfortunate brand of pulling-faces comedy, but it's okay because he's mostly upstaged by Chan, and is certainly less annoying than Chan's other 'comedy' partners, Chris Tucker or Owen Wilson. Evans is largely playing the same character as in Mouse Hunt; somewhat inventive, a lot cowardly, very clumsy and/or unlucky, and bloody annoying. But unlike Mouse Hunt, it's occasionally funny in this. The action is what one should expect from modern Chan - a bit dodgy, with cuts and quite possibly strategically positioned cameras and fake legs for some of the non-Chan characters. A few moments of fighting bordered on Matrixised, but nothing quite so slow-mo as the bloody Matrix sequels. And a lot of random leaping, spinning and improvised weapons - it's Chan-formulaic, but at least it's a fun formula. The plot, too, is what one should expect from a modern Chan fluffy-fantasy-action - about on a par with those of Jean Claude Canned Ham's movies that pretend to have a plot, such as that one about evil fashion designers, or one of the several in which he plays twins. It's extremely extremely fluffy, and involves superpowers and talismans. You can't beat that for a mindless action movie, really. It's like Spiderman without the pants CGI. In case you couldn't tell, this was a positive review. First new movie I've enjoyed in quite a while. Don't take this as a recommendation, though, unless you liked The Tuxedo, or at least Rush Hour. [14:35] |
| AttackOfTheSpam |
| I stand corrected - you DO review some things well. Or if not well, at least moderately. By the way, what's wrong with fluff? I like fluff. It helps me forget the Conservative party. |
| RavenBlack |
| Nothing wrong with fluff - that's what I was saying. I like fluffy movies. It's mentioned so repeatedly because I know a lot of people don't like fluffy movies, and saying "the movie is great" would be misleading to them. |
| AttackOfTheSpam |
| Ah - I feel better about life now. |