DaViD´82

For Somalis a provocation, for anorexics a nightmare, for the consumer society a tease and for me, after a long time, finally an animated film that is properly swinging, has an imaginative style (even if technically it lags behind its counterparts) and is brimming with ideas. Basically, and Aardman film, but without Aardman.

The best movie of its kind? I wouldn’t say that. The second best? That I can say without a doubt.

National Socialist John Rabe is like the humanist counterpart to John Rambo. Above all, he is a man who should not be forgotten. And if nothing else, where else will you see Chinese people being rescued under and unfurling of a giant Nazi flag?

It is brimming with proper funny ideas and gags, but I couldn't get rid of the impression that if it was taken seriously (and the premise is there), I would have had more fun in the end.

Approximately 3650 reasons (based on the director's info that it's about ten years of Groundhog Day) to hate the song “I Got You Babe”, but at the same time the same 3650 reasons to love this movie. And to watch it again, and again, and again. And then once again. And then again, and again...

A horror which in purely screenplay terms has no weaknesses. Excellent actors. Atmosphere mostly powerful (when not spoiled by superfluousness like the contents of the “child’s" coffin). First-class music. But it fails in one fundamental respect. It’s not in the least funny. Which is a problem mainly because it’s trying much harder to be a comedy than a horror (a genre that suits this picture much more).

Unbalanced. If the creators hadn’t been afraid of cutting out all those dumb age-old wisecracks, completely ignoring the three dames and letting the aspects that work shine through, this could have been much better. It had the material for it. I expected improvisation, I got it. But I didn’t expect that the creators were going to have something to say. And they certainly do. It doesn’t work as a comedy even for a second, but as one big melancholic nostalgic sigh, it plays its role surprisingly well.

Such a good idea for a punchline certainly deserves better than this family (non)idyll with a stupidly behaving herd of adults and zero atmosphere. Or if not better, in any case shorter. While the first hour still works great, it gradually starts limping during the last half hour from one dumb cliché to another, in the last ten minutes becoming a parody of all of the worst genre clichés known to man. An unintentional parody, I should add. P.S.: It’s crying out for a Czech remake, we even have a perfect main protagonist (!SPOILER!) already.

For all the tripping up, dancing around and hitting of heads with a imaginable things, they forgot about... Well, about everything, in fact. All hail the exceptions in the form of the original dubbing, what was written on the rocket and those few good nods to the monster/UFO B-movies of the fifties.

The square root of film adaptations of Phillip K. Dick, both the good and the bad ones. A generic and stupid sci-fi B-movie with a not stupid idea that the right hands could be the base of a new Blade Runner. In the end, it’s actually like Total Recall, but without the action.