Review of The Two Faces of January (2014) by Jack D — 12 Jun 2014

The Two Faces of January is not a good film. The plot is thin, the cinematography is completely meaningless, and the pacing is so dull that you'll want to smack both of January's faces with a bat. There are some really odd writing choices too, such as the European guy's Dad having died.

At first you assume this is just to get the viewer to sympathise with that character, but it quickly becomes apparent that the writer wants to worm this into everything. It implies that Aragorn is like a father figure to Europe-guy, and this weird implication becomes stronger (and less apt) as the film progresses. At the end, Aragorn says "I'm sorry for disappointing you", reinforcing for one last time that this really was intentional! One weird thing about this theme is that Europe-guy was in love with Aragorn's wife (MJ from Spiderman), meaning that he fell in love with his... Mother figure? Bit odd.

You'll probably have noticed that I didn't remember the characters' names, because the whole affair was just dull. I mentioned the cinematography being pointless, by which I meant that none of the shots really mean anything. Sure, they sort of look quite pretty sometimes, and admittedly the scenery is beautiful, but they are just not using the medium to even half of its capabilities. There's one scene in which Europe-guy goes after the King of Rohan down a tunnel, and it's amateurish to the point that I almost cringed into myself, creating an implosion and sucking everything into it. And that wouldn't have sucked half as much as this film. Anyway, this scene, which could have effectively been done in one shot (Following him from behind, building tension, maybe the odd cutaway), and instead they used about 16 4 second shots from different angles, stitched together. It was pointless, unnecessary, and it just didn't work.

Which could explain the whole film really. The acting was okay, but not even Viggo Mortensen could save a plot this dull. Kirsten Dunst was pretty pants. And the other guy was alright, I suppose. I would not watch this again. In fact, I'd pay good money NOT to watch this again. Ever.