Review of Melinda and Melinda (2004) by Devin D — 30 Mar 2005

[color=#999999][font=Arial]Quick reviews haha I?ve had too much homework lately to post, but here it is. No pictures sorry :P [/font][/color].

[color=#999999][/color].

[b][u][color=#999999][/color][/u][/b].

[b][color=#999999][u][size=2][font=Courier New]HOSTAGE * * *[/font][/size][/u][/color][/b].

[color=#999999][/color].

[color=#999999][font=Courier New]This movie has the ability to work in one of two ways: 1.) it can be viewed as a laughable, action-packed, should have been a straight-to-video release film, or 2.) a welcomed roller coaster ride of a diversion. For me, ?Hostage? worked both categories, but the important thing here to remember is, both categories provide for good entertainment. If you laugh, even for the wrong reasons (whether it be due to an actor?s overacting or a death scene that somehow made you chuckle instead of mourn), you at least get something out of it. Laughs are good; they make you feel good, and although making you laugh is not on ?Hostage?s? priority list, it does also manage to provide some genuine tension thanks to a quick, focused pacing of a rather silly story. [/font][/color].

[color=#999999][/color].

[color=#999999][font=Courier New]What makes ?Hostage? lose its credibility as a competent thriller are a few things actually. The first of which are the actors who play Bruce Willis?s wife and daughter (odd as it is, she is played by Rumor Willis, Bruce?s real-life daughter). For what little screen time they have, they?re acting is so stale and cheap, only a few seconds of screen time is needed to ruin a scene. When thrown into a scene with Bruce Willis, an actor with very little range outside of the action genre, the interaction between them seems so unequally balanced, Willis almost seems worthy of an Oscar next to the two. On the bright side, as I mentioned earlier, they have very little screen time, and so the majority of the picture is safe in their absence. The second fault lies in the made-for-a-horror-movie performance from Ben Foster, who plays the film?s villain. Don?t get me wrong, his performance, diabolical and psychotic, is chilling, but feels out of place. Perhaps a more appropriate film to have appeared in would be one of Wes Craven?s ?Scream? films? The third mistake ?Hostage? makes, is in it?s climax, where the film goes way over the top, reducing itself to a generic, formulaic film everyone expects? or doesn?t expect, depending on how much the film strived for realism before it shot itself in the foot. [/font][/color].

[color=#999999][/color].

[color=#999999][font=Courier New]That said, there comes a point in ?Hostage? where these mistakes are set aside to embrace the idiocy the premise dishes out and once this occurs, Florent Emilio Siri?s film becomes an enjoyable experience. Starting out, ?Hostage? feels like a dark, brooding cop drama, reminiscent of ?The Negotiator?, ?Training Day?, and even the more recent ?Assault on Precinct 13?. Bruce Willis plays a negotiator, who experiences guilt to its fullest infliction, when a little boy is killed on his watch. After this incident, Willis?s character, much like Ethan Hawke?s in ?Assault?, secludes himself to a county police station, steering clear from FBI affiliation. His new life, or at least a fresh new attempt at the same one, isn?t all that great either, with his marriage on the rocks. Meanwhile, three trouble-making teenagers decide to steal a rich man?s Escalade, but one thing leads to another, and the next thing they know, they?re holding the man and his family hostage. Little to their knowledge and ours however, the rich man has got something that a group of high powered Mafioso villains want, and so they too become involved in this tangled web of hostages, with Willis?s wife and daughter kidnapped for good measure. Saving the family, who are being held hostage in their high-tech mansion, and saving his own family, who are being held hostage by the high-powered Mafioso villains, become missions of redemption for Willis?s character, who defies death, on several occasions, to accomplish mission impossible. [/font][/color].

[color=#999999][/color].

[color=#999999][font=Courier New]However mindless and contrived the plot gets as the running time ensues, it is an undeniable fact that ?Hostage? is a fast-paced action pick with a little something for everyone. It?s tense, it?s creepy, lots of people die, there?s more fire in it than in ?Ladder 49?, and there are laughs. Even if you find this movie to be incredibly stupid, you?ll find it thoroughly enjoyable due to the amount of times it unintentionally makes you chuckle. [/font][/color].

[color=#999999][/color].

[color=#999999][font=Courier New]So, what we have here in other words is a film that should have veered towards one direction (particularly drama), but instead heads down another (action-thriller) and although it?s not exactly the wrong decision, it isn?t executed well-enough to be taken seriously. Should you see it? If you?re into lots of stuff blowing up, guns, and Bruce Willis, go for it. However, if you are expecting something more, ?Hostage? will do just as the title suggests, and hold you captive against your will for two hours. [/font][/color].

[color=#999999][/color].

[color=#999999][/color].

[color=#999999][/color].

[b][color=#999999][u][size=2][font=Courier New]MELINDA AND MELINDA * *[/font][/size][/u][/color][/b].

[color=#999999][/color].

[color=#999999][font=Courier New]I am a fan of Woody Allen?s work, call me a loyal one for enjoying his latest efforts (?The Curse of the Jade Scorpion?, ?Hollywood Ending?, ?Anything Else?), while many did not, but normally, I enjoy his films and it wasn?t until I saw ?Melinda and Melinda? that I realized I enjoy them to a point. Each of Allen?s films lately have been steadily declining, with mainly the parts that are supposed to be humorous, falling flat on their behind. In ?Melinda and Melinda?, Woody Allen creates one of his most inventive and intriguing premises, and yet manages to piss all over his own work by filling in the blanks with his style, which nowadays lacks modernization and believability. [/font][/color].

[color=#999999][/color].

[color=#999999][font=Courier New]The setup is as follows: a group of playwrights begin to discuss stories with comedic and tragic implications as to prove a point: life is equal parts comedy and tragedy. They start out with a situation; a girl (Melinda who is played by a radiant Radha Mitchell) interrupts a dinner party? and from then on out, the playwrights begin to veer off towards their designated genres, telling the same story only from a comedic standpoint, then from a tragic one. There is no transition between the two paralleled worlds, except for the fact that Melinda?s hairstyle is like this in one story and like that in the other. [/font][/color].

[color=#999999][/color].

[color=#999999][font=Courier New]With a setup like that, Woody Allen ruins everything by applying his humor, which is either extremely low-key or otherwise nowhere to be found. The comedic aspect of the story isn?t funny at all and yet the attempts are still very visible and very discouraging when you physically watch the ?jokes? die on screen. In the tragic arena of the film, Woody?s a bit more successful, but this is hardly due to his credit than it is Radha Mitchell?s, who gives a performance that becomes the single redeeming quality of having to sit through this film. The comedy isn?t very funny and the tragedy isn?t very tragic, which pretty much throws the film?s thesis in the garbage. Life, according to ?Melinda and Melinda?, is neither comic nor tragic? it?s boring.[/font][/color].

[color=#999999][/color].

[color=#999999][font=Courier New]The major problem here is that every character, not just Will Ferrell?s, but the ladies can be included in this as well, talks like they are Woody Allen? duh, he wrote the screenplay, so maybe that has something to do with it, but by writing a little bit of himself into each character, Woody ruins his own creation. He should have just titled the picture ?Me and Me? because every conversation, the flow of it, the tone of it, is pure Woody Allen. What he needs to do, before it?s too late, is write a screenplay that does not include himself in it at all, no reincarnations of himself, just a modern story, fused with his ingenious concepts. Until then, every picture he makes will feel the same; every line a regurgitation from a previous effort, every story, no matter how differently narrated or structured will feel just like everything else he?s directed. [/font][/color].

[color=#999999][/color].

[color=#999999][font=Courier New]?Melinda and Melinda? is a great concept with stale content; like biting into a wax display of fruit.[/font][/color].

[color=#999999][/color].

[color=#999999][/color].

[b][color=#999999][u][size=2][font=Courier New]BE COOL * ½ [/font][/size][/u][/color][/b].

[color=#999999][/color].

[color=#999999][font=Courier New]Because I don?t want to waste my time writing a full-length review, let?s just say that this movie is wrongfully cocky in thinking it?s as cool as its title suggests. Vince Vaughn, The Rock, and Cedric the Entertainer are the reasons to see this movie, but it is extremely unfortunate that their combined screen time doesn?t compensate for the other dull, wannabe cool 45 minutes spent in the company of John Travolta who seems to have taken on the role of Chili Palmer simply because doing so granted him success nearly a decade ago? boy how times have changed. [/font][/color].

[color=#999999][/color].

[color=#999999][/color].

[b][color=#999999][u][size=2][font=Courier New]THE RING TWO * ½ [/font][/size][/u][/color][/b].

[color=#999999][/color].

[color=#999999][font=Courier New]Gore Verbinski?s direction is sorely missed in this cheap Americanized horror-sequel to the superior 2002 hit ?The Ring?. Naomi Watts and the little midget dude who comes off as a Haley Joel-Osment and Chucky hybrid, return to face Samara, the evil, ghost-girl who haunts video tapes, one last time? hopefully. None of what goes on in ?The Ring Two? seems relevant to the progression of ?The Ring? storyline, which I could of sworn ended three years ago, but we know how sequels go. There are a few scary moments, but in all honesty, watching a girl who looks like she went for a swim in the Labrea Tar Pits come out of a television loses its effect after the fourth, fifth, and sixth time it?s done. I actually did enjoy the last fifteen minutes or so of the film, which sent Naomi Watts into TV-Land and had her trying to escape Samara who creepily crawls up the well wall like Linda Blair doing her impersonation of Spider-Man, but alas, fifteen minutes do not compensate for the other eighty. This is nothing special here folks, just like the other 680 horror flicks that have been released over the past month. [/font][/color][color=#999999][/color].

[color=#999999][/color].