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Lord of the Rings (animated)

I'm sure this movie was better in 1978. It's very condensed leaving little room for the development of secondary characters. In some ways it follows the book better than the live action movies in that it doesn't add anything new (which makes it rather predictable) but it also leaves out many parts of the story. For example, Arywen (sp) makes no appearence in this movie.
The dialog is rather flat at times, leaving much to be desired.
The animation is increable smooth and detailed, but problems lie in the rotroscoping. This one of the first movies to use this techique, it was also one of the last. Many of the background characters have very little enhancment to them, and look very out of place. This is a very noticable in the battle scences especially.
I would recommend this movie to people who want to know why rotroscope animation is rarely used and to people that want evidence to supporte just about every maleXmale couple imaginable. Maybe it's just my imagination, but this movies seems to be full of homosexual subtext. The male characters are consintily hugging, huddled together or holding hands. The best line in the whole movie: "It's no good groping in the dark...my presious." I think Merry said it.
Anyways, 2/5.

Yes. They are all live-action with animation over top but the minor characters, like the orcs, look like s**t.

Once, we watched Honey I Shrunk the Kids in french at school. I didnt understand it. (I speak french.) It was horrible, but I was sad when the ant died. He was cool.

Our teacher showed us the Lion King because she thought it would be easier for French n00blets like us to see something we were familiar with.

And besides, aren't all French films about snooty, wine-sipping American-haters who smell almost as bad as their beloved cheese?

Amelie and Brotherhood of the Wolf would like a word with you.

Equilibrium

Equilibrium is a movie that enjoys a great deal of cult success, but was sadly overlooked by the mainstream. Among other things, this movie is why Christian Bale won the role of Bruce Wayne in Batman Begins. If you thought he proved his acting chops in nothing but sneakers and a chainsaw, you haven't seen him in a pre-Matrix mandarin collar with a pair of semi-automatics. His performance as the top agent of a brutal Brave New World meets Farenheit 451 dystopian regime quite literally learning how to feel is powerful. Sean Bean and Taye Diggs turn in impressive performances as well, especially Diggs whom I had yet to take seriously as an actor.

The premise of a society that deliberately drugs itself into an utter lack of emotion and a man that breaks away to discover what being alive really is is similar to the last movie I reviewed here, Unleashed, but accomplishes it in a very different manner. Unleashed used a juxtaposition of brutality and tenderness to awaken the protagonist who was guided by the supporting cast, while Equilibrium introduces subversive stimuli to cause a journey of self discovery.

The action is pretty magnificient, as Bale is a kind of ascetic monk trained to dodge bullets by predicting the angles that return fire come from and execute what are called "gun katas". The gun katas are a series of moves like you would have in most martial arts, like a John Woo sort of Tai Chi. The choreography is much smoother than The Matrix and the action sequences manage to be fairly jawdropping without fancy camera work. In one of my favorite scenes he spars against Taye Diggs with black bokutos in black kendo outfits, only Bale is holding his sword upside down for the whole fight and holds his own easily. Not only does it show just why and how he kicked so much a** as Batman, but that he should have been cast as Neo in The Matrix. He's more attractive, a better actor, and a better fighter. Hell, he should have been John Constantine too. The man knows how to play tough as a coffin nail as well as emotionally vulnerable.

This is one for the books kids. If you have not seen it, do so and do so NOW.

Christian Bale, guns, swords, and a puppy. See you must.