Nathan wrote:- What kind of character did Dolph play?
- Was it violent?
- Did it look and feel professional?
- Does Dolph fire a machine gun or have any cool
weapons?
Thanks again!
Aloha! Ok, I should be working on a lecture. But this is more fun.
1. Dolph's character
A bit like his role in Men of War but with a better tendency: Ex-Marine, likes to drink, has a dark past and a frustrated presence. Fights for money but still is in debt and in frequent trouble with the law (no stranger to the judge). But pretty much from the beginning of the journey we notice that he's a good guy. He knows and honours the locals, certainly is no saint but he dislikes the violence that he is forced to use and that happens around him. He doesn't approve for all the killing and violence that comes along with the hunt for the relic.
2. Was it violent?
Hm, like I said there were a few shootouts, some hand-to-hand fights and one attempted rape. But those things happened somehow... well, detached? Jox mentioned that the movie will probably be altered, that there's not much left from the good story in the script e.g. So I had the feeling that the fights in this movie were just thrown in without a good concept. That's why it didn't move me much. Like: There was the story of the hunt for that relic, there were two parties that wanted the thing. There was a bunch of highwaymen who caused a short "irritation" and there were the paid fights in the beginning. So... hm... hard to say. I'd call it a treasure hunting story with occasional violence thrown in in order to label it an "action movie". I've watched "28 Weeks Later" the night before. That WAS violent. But hardly better than Diamond Dogs. Just a bigger budget.
3. Did it look and feel professional?
Obviously not if you compare it to Die Hard or something. BUT: after all the bad things I heard I was surprised about the quality they still managed to bring to the screen. I had expected something cheaper than Detention, something really, really bad, but it wasn't at all. Ok, I haven't studied film so what I say is really just what I noticed and how I feel about it as an average fan.
They really had some very nice landscapes, a beautiful sunset and some very nice local costumes. The locations seemed very authentic to me (just a feeling because I have never been to Mongolia) and the little festival reminded me of the friendly and lovely atmosphere of those parties in "Black Cat, White Cat" (by Emir Kusturica - check it out!). So, the locations and things (cars, rooms, props) often looked cheap & dirty but that was totally ok because this was Inner Mongolia and not New York City. It was confincing and good, IMHO.
Especially during the last fight I thought "Man, did you forget to bring the tripod?" - that was not the (also very annoying) shaky cam that pesters screens since The Blair Wich Project. This here was just unsteady. And during one fight I thought "Hm, that looks like it was a very slow, very short and lame fight but they shook the camera, used obscure angles, we don't know what's actually going on and they wanted to keep it that way".
SPOILER WARNING (mild though):
I was absolutely not confinced by the boobie trap (not actually a spoiler because they talk about it in advance). You have never seen such a slow boobie trap before and I thought that you'd move with the speed of a Zombie in order to walk into it. And you wouldn't believe how easy it is to get out of a cave after a landslide...
END OF SPOILER
Some people died unexpectedly and quite unspectacularly. They wasted some good opportunities.
The actors were ok, some were very good. I think the problem with the Chambers guy was that he talked in a funny way and came across too friendly. Hard to describe. One problem was caused by the script: When Chambers was introduced he taunts Dolph and kind of blackmails him into joining the project. So you'd expect that he's a bad guy. But he isn't. Not really. He often seems (too) friendly, but then again he wants that relic no matter what. From his appearance and voice he reminded me a bit of Ben Kingsley. Same underlying friendlyness - but Kingsley can suddenly appear very menacing. Shriver can't. Or Kingsley has better scripts.
Chambers's stepdaughter seems uninteresting at first but during the movie she is more and more appalled and despaired about what's going on. I thought she was very good. The bad guy, well, he's the 100% bad guy and he's good at that.
Dolph's part: Very good. And please don't think "Ah, she's a die hard fan, she'll love every performance". Nope. I think I've often enough critizised some aspects of Dolph's acting, so when I say he was very good in this role, you can believe me.
For example the part of the "frustrated ex-hero who drinks and wastes his days". I thought he wasn't too convincing with a bottle in MoW, Sweepers or Jill Rips. But this time I really believed it. Yes, he came across as guy on the wrong side of the street. For the very first time. And he was good. There's only one thing I have to complain about: To grieve for someone doesn't mean "Look weird, blink, shake head, go on". Nope. Has to practice grieving. Or maybe avoid those scenes completely. Lost cause.
From what we've heard about that movie in the past I think they made the best out of what they got.
Does Dolph fire a machine gun or have any cool
weapons?
Nope, not that I noticed (but I'm not interested in weapons, so maybe you should ask someone else). Some old piece of wood that he called a sniper gun. Hm. That thing in Silent Trigger was a sniper gun, right? This one here looked to me (who's only experienced with air and small bore guns) like a historic exhibit that is good for beating someone to death. Than he had a knife... shorter than a saber, bigger than a kitchen tool.
Not impressive. A pistol, nothing special. Guess that's it. But honestly, I don't spend a lot of attention on weapons. I would have preferred more martial arts. Gosh, that was Asia and he's a Karate champion. What a wasted opportunity. Again. Did I mention that he should team up with Mark Dacascos for a nice SiLT-style movie?
Ok, thank you very much if you managed to stay with me for this lengthy review.
I'd really love to watch the movie together with all of you nice guys here and discuss it afterwards over a nice bottle of red wine. But we have to wait until somebody finally comes up with the Star Trek beamer.
Gosh. Time for my lecture. *sigh*
PS: I don't know if any of you voted 10 on the imdb. I think it doesn't help the movie because a) it is not believable and b) the imdb has a weighted average (see Tom's old, excellent post about that) and you help more if you vote 8 or 9. I stick to my personal truth and voted 5 (almost 6 but... no).
by Mosquito on 10 Sep 2007, 21:05 
