Wednesday 18 October 2017

Reviewing Half a Film.

I watched some more of Lost in Translation tonight, until I reached the half way point. And then I switched it off.

When I picked it off the shelf I had high hopes for this film. I like the two stars and the synopsis suggested the potential for something moving, meaningful and subtly humorous. What I’d seen by the half way point was too loud, too brash, too superficial, too predictable, too overheated; in short, too Hollywood. I found it cheap and about as compelling as wet candyfloss.

Scarlett Johansson was wasted as an empty-headed creature merely bored, pretty and nothing much else, and Bill Murray played the older man with what for me is the poorer side of his professional range. The direction was little better than soap standard, the script was verging on the incoherent at times, and the only funny character was Murray’s wife who we never even see except through the faxes and letters she sends from the good ol’ US of A. And please strike Tokyo from my earlier post. The cold mountains of Nepal would probably suit me better after all.

Maybe the second half is better, but once the tone is set…

No comments: