The Tempest (2010, U.S)

I'll be honest, I had a very hard time focusing on this film. I think I'm just too stupid for Shakespeare, so I had difficulty understanding what was going on a lot of the time. I read The Tempest for my Shakespeare class in college, but my memory of the plot was vague at best. Perhaps I should have read the Cliffs Notes before watching this.

For the most part, however, I have nothing but good things to say about this film. Helen Mirren is incredible, and I absolutely adore Djimon Hounsou. (Side note: I can't believe this is the first new movie I've seen with him since I've started this blog. He is a show stealer—The Island, Blood Diamond, even Tomb Raider, and especially The Four Feathers. Love love love him.) He was a very engaging Caliban. The rest of the cast was also made up of very solid acting talent, although to be honest I could live without Miranda. The sets were also beautiful. Ariel and all his accompanying special effects were a bit weird, but I guess they're supposed to be.

So I don't know if I would recommend this to anybody or not. Shakespeare fans would probably be unhappy about the gender change of Prospero (although it is Helen Mirren, people), and non-Shakespeare addicts would probably be underwhelmed. So there you have it... a quality film that I just can't get too excited about. Very sad.

Rating: 2.5

Plunkett and Macleane (1999, UK)

I liked this one, but I would have liked it a lot more if it was set up better. The first 20 minutes and the entire rest of the film seemed like two different movies. The beginning was incredibly violent and graphic, popping out eyeballs and digging up smelly corpses. All of this leads to an impoverished gentleman and a run-of-the-mill poor guy start crime scheme in 1748 London. The gentleman (Miller) gets into the social events of the aristrocracy, finding out who is carrying a lot of cash and where they hide their money, and the two become gentleman highwaymen. The poor one (Carlyle) wants to earn enough to go to America, and impoverished one just wants to be a gentleman.

The grittiness lent extreme realism, but it also turned my stomach a little bit. The plot took awhile to pick up because the first scenes were so irrelevant, but when it got going, it was engrossing. It mixed action, a hard-luck drama (with class wars), romance, and a bit of black comedy too. I especially loved Jonny Lee Miller, who was adorable and hilarious. Alan Cumming was interesting as an aristocratic, flamboyant bisexual. Liv Tyler wasn't annoying like she usually is.

One thing that really stuck out was the music, which was partially modern pop/rock (like they were going for the A Knight's Tale feel, though not as successfully) and partially instrumental music that sounded like the type of music you would hear in a modern crime comedy where the "bad guys" are really "good guys." (Instead it was an historical crime quasi-comedy where the "bad guys" are really "good guys.")

If you're looking for something different with a strange feel, this one is worth a watch.

Rating: 3.5