| 4/05/2005 |
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BELIEVE IT... OR NOT?!
The Talented Mr Ripley – (B) Where to begin? That’s probably not a big resounding exclamation of a positive review to come, but hold on. It gets better. Let’s start with the actors. What a great combination of fresh faced A-listers to bring in the bucks. Matt Damon, Gwyneth Paltrow, Jude Law, and Cate Blanchett round out the main characters cast. I’ve seen Damon in serious roles, but to see him where he’s just a liiiiittle bit off in the head was a first for me. He’s got such intense eyes and a mouth vs. face proportion thing that he can use to the movies creepy end.
The story of the movie was excellently displayed for all to see. It rolled out at just under 2 ½ hours. This was a bit long for me to hold my interest. The characters were ‘real’, yet they were somewhat hard to identify with. Unless you are, like the characters, the child of a wealthy socialite who runs in the kind of circles where people have birth names like, Bitzy, Muffy, Freddy, Chance, or Margie. I got the impression that the intentional cutening of a name was a sign of how much money a person had in that era. That should’ve been their first clue that something was amiss. Tom (Damon) didn’t go by Tommy.
I love Europe, and this movie does have that feel. Cinematically the mood is set quite well for the creepiness to unfold. There were quiet a few times that you just know something is going to happen without any eerie sound effect or ominous music to cue you when to take your rightful place on the edge of your seat. The downside to that (and I know that this is mainly me who thinks this) is without musical cues, I get lolled into a very serene state of mind. Thus, the thrilling parts just walk up beside you, tap you on the shoulder, and introduce themselves before they make you wish you’d peed before watching the movie. So for me the last effect is not what I would’ve hoped to feel from a thriller. It’s a more sedate version of frightened or creeped out.
It’s definitely a movie that I would recommend to people. But I would add to that recommendation that they make sure they have the time to commit to sitting down and watching it.
Good… movie on the box. Very intriguing story and the actors to back it up.
Bad… that it took its Stephen King-esque time to get to the psychological tension.
Watch it… when you’ve got the time to commit and the brains to wrap around some of the twistedness. |
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I posted this @ 4/05/2005 02:56:00 PM.............Need a link?..........
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