|
|
Techtite's DVD Reviews! |
"How do you end a spectacular movie like this? Clint Eastwood didn't know either. But it's still one superb story." --from the review ------------- Sidebar :: ------------- A guest review... ...which you can offer too. Just go to the submissions page for details. ...
----------------- Feel free to contribute. As always, review submissions are accepted! ------------------
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Million Dollar Baby
A Guest Review by Darth MacabreThe FILM: I don't want to send the wrong message here. Million Dollar Baby is not a bad film. It's a pretty darn good film. Its script is good. Its acting is great. It has fine directing by Clint Eastwood. Yet by the final act it not only loses track but changes rails completely. I'm glad I saw it but not at all interested in ever seeing it again. As for the DVD someday I hope it has good extras or else I'm not buying. So why see it at all if I only wish to have seen it only once? In one word that would be the acting. We truly care for all the characters. We feel for Maggie (Hillary Swank), a middle aged waitress and aspiring boxing star. We empathize with Scrap (Morgan Freeman), the ex boxing star who worries that Maggie will suffer the same fate as he did: leave boxing after that one last fight he should never have agreed to. We like Scrap's old trainer Frankie (director Clint Eastwood), who is reluctant to train Maggie for more reasons than he can probably count. What great characters! I know what you're thinking. "Another sports movie." Not exactly. After all there really aren't any new stories to offer about sporting events. If a sporting film was all this was, there wouldn't be much point. We'd know Maggie was going to win or lose since that's the only two outcomes of any sport: win, or lose. If seasoned well the story could have Maggie losing big or winning big. Upgrade it more, and she could either become the next sports superstar or die an indignant quitter. If the story did not turn in the direction it does (cryptic enough for you, spoiler hunters?) this film could only have been either another Bad News Bears or another Rocky. There's nothing that we have not seen before in sports movies. This is where the film takes a controversial turn. The last whole segment of the film has nothing to do with boxing at all, but rather the lives of the characters. This is understandable. We're not interested in another story about boxing as much as the characters within it. We want to know what happens to Maggie, Frankie, and Scrap. If their lives leave boxing during that time then that is where the story must go. I'm not the least bit disappointed that the film took a different route as much as where that route leads to. It's a bold storytelling technique that results in less it than it could have. Will I spoil what happens in these final moments? Not in a thousand film reviews. But it is not a spoiler in itself to say that I found the ending to be a word I do not want you to take lightly. I felt the ending was crap. This is not a spoiler. I'm not telling you the ending at all as much as an opinion. This opinion is not based on my love for happy or unhappy endings as much as my love to have my questions answered. A good ending should leave you with no questions yet this left me with dozens. Let me offer an example without any coherent spoilers. Near the finale one of the lead characters makes a choice that is totally out of character. Furthermore: what leads to them making this choice should not have happened at all. There was too little of "This makes sense" and too much of "This cheap storytelling ploy might win us some nifty Oscars." The script was written by Paul Haggis based on a book by an ex boxing trainer. We can therefore presume the story is based on real events. Yet if that is true I would not be looking at the choices made in this movie and asking "why?" Any superior picture would've answered this beyond a simple music sound cue that tells us when to feel happy or sad. There are questions I've been left with. For the film to have not answered those questions ruins an otherwise superior story. The DVD: I don't mean to complain. This film won as best picture and got special edition treatment as a result. That's cool. Just so you know though: the three disc edition's third disc is not a DVD. It's an audio CD of the movie soundtrack. If that isn't your cup of tea then by all means buy the regular two disc editions which include the following:
Hope to see you all again, for my next guest review! ..
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Burnout
Near
Miss
Small
Crater
Large
Crater
Deep
Impact
