Hey, everyone. "Moriarty" here with some Rumblings From The Lab.
This is a harsh review. I mean... harsh.
I’m going to end up seeing this film. My girlfriend turned to me after the trailer today at the El Capitan (where we saw the 70MM SLEEPING BEAUTY print... more on that later) and said, “It’s beautiful,” which is code for, “So you’re seeing it, no matter what.” Disney’s showing this to critics in Toronto during the upcoming film fest, but I’m hoping to see it here before then. Still... a review like this definitely came from a place of passion. This movie GOT to this viewer...
Hey Harry,
This is my first review for aintitcool, and hopefully not my last. I actually write reviews for www.naturalbornviewers.com, and I totally expect this sentence to be edited out, because it plugs another website.
So I saw a preview screening of TUCK EVERLASTING last nite. Packed audiences sat through this picture, and I am surprised no one really made a commotion or stirred in their seat. Its an awfully dry story, an adaptation of a popular children's novel.
Anyway, halfway through this film, I was disillusioned enough to make up my mind. I had decided on a bite-sized quote...
"This film is a craptastic slice of crap pie with an unsatisfying side order of Sexy Beast."
But I reevaluated, and I realized what a spoilsport I was. I didn't realize that maybe some people like their films slow, meandering and directionless. Maybe some people don't mind when awful cutting neglects necessary dialogue, situations, and character relations.
Maybe there are people out there who enjoy paying full price to see dinner theater style acting from the likes of television stars like Alexis Biedel ("Gilmore Girls"), Johnathan Jackson ("7th Heaven"), Victor Garber ("Alias"), and Scott Bairstow (every canceled show in the past five years). Maybe they like the girlish Jackson forgetting his character is indeed 104 years old. And maybe audiences have enjoyed seeing Oscar winner William Hurt continue to burrow his career in a succession of mumbling, half-dead, defeated characters.
Maybe there are audiences who enjoy this listless, empty crap.
Alas, there are some good points to this flick. Sir Ben Kinglsey is deliciously villianous here, in a role any actor would have used as a tired excuse to chew scenery and generally embarass the rest of the cast. Also notable is a warm, engaging turn in a role that essentially amounts to little by the wonderful Sissy Spacek, who is turning out to be a better actress even as she ages.
Alas, the imagination and scope necessary for such a project is absent here.
It is strictly TV movie material, and would be unnoticed being aired on a CBS Hallmark Hall of Fame presentation. Is it a nice story? Yes. Are there talented people involved? Yes. Otherwise, its amateurish, unimaginative filmmaking.
I have spoken, and my name is FABFUNK.
Fabfunk has spoken, and he likes the word “Alas.”
Anyone else seen this and feel the same? Or differently? Let me know...
"Moriarty" out.
