Damn Owls

Hey, for this post I figured I'd take a break from games, mostly since I haven't been able to play any games lately.  I'm gonna talk about the movie Legend of the Guardians.  Now, I also did a review on this for our assignment, but I figured I'd talk about it in a more casual setting.

First off: I hate Zack Snyder.  The man hasn't made a single good movie.  Ever.  Dawn of the Dead remake: bad.  300: awful (I don't care what you say, 300 is one of the worst pieces of trash ever filmed).  Watchmen: boring.  He's the epitome of style over substance.  All of his movies look great, but they all lack a soul, and have nothing to say.  There's no real character development, no emotion, nothing attaching the audience to the action.  But, is Legend of the Guardians any different?

.....Nope.

This movie is a mess.  First there's the problem of trying to squish three books into one 90-minute movie.  This is the same problem with the Airbender movie: why do you feel the need to make the movie so short?  You're adapting a dense piece of work, no one will care if you make it 2 hours or over.  It gives you the necessary time to better flesh everything out and tell the story more engagingly.  As it is, the movie's rushed, particularly in the last half.  The first half takes its sweet time (the first half is entirely based off only the first book) and I thought the movie might not be that bad, but then it's a mad rush to the end with characters that whizz by and plot elements spewed out with machine gun speed.  There's no time to connect with anyone, and no time to care.

When will Zack learn that just because your movie is pretty it doesn't make it good?  Almost every single moment of the movie relishes in extreme close-ups on the owl's faces, so we can see just how realistic they are (seriously, over two-thirds of the shots in the moie were close-ups).  So what, Zack?  So what?  Why should I care how good your owls look?  Are they memorable?  Are they engaging?  No?  So what's the point?

By the way, this movie suffers from definite Uncanny Valley effect (the idea that the more realistic something becomes, the more glaring its inhumanity becomes).  The effects are so realistic that it's almost not like we're watching a cartoon.  It's like we're watching owls.  There's a kind of disconnect when they're so realistic (for one thing, real owls can't make human expressions.  If there weren't so many close-ups I'd have no idea what was going on on their faces.), and it pulls the viewer out of the movie.  If they were a little more cartoony, it'd be a little better.

The one good thing I will say about this movie is that unlike his others, it's actually almost good.  He's starting to refine his craft, and at least is trying to inject some real emotion into his characters.  Maybe he'll get it next time.  What's his next movie?

...damn it.