- May 18, 2001
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This is a spoiler filled review. If you haven?t seen this film, please feel free to go back to all the other threads about cars, computers, and masturbation. Thank you and have a GREAT day!
I?m going to cut to the chase and let you know immediately that I recommend this movie, which I saw on DVD this weekend. You are probably wondering why I disclosed this information so early on in the review. Well, it is this simple: I was very entertained by this movie, but I have a lot of gripes about it, some of them major. I didn?t want anyone to read all the gripes first, then find out (to their surprise) that I actually liked the film. So let me definitively state for the record, this move is well worth a rental. Go check it out.
I?m going to keep the positives all in one short paragraph. The story is cool. Nicole Kidman gets nekkid ? even more so than I would have ever imagined. There is a whole bag full of great acting and cinematography; this is a beautifully filmed movie. Nicole Kidman gets nekkid (wait?did I say that already?). The setting is during the American Civil War, a time period with which I am particularly interested. And Jude Law is dreamy. If I had any homosexual tendencies at all (which I assure you I don?t), I would have posters of a bare-breasted Mr. Law pinned up all over my hair salon. As it is, Nicole Kidman gets surprisingly nekkid, and I?m a happy uber-straight guy.
My first major gripe is that this movie is so freaking predictable. For example, there is one bad guy who visually stands out from among all the bad guys by his icy blue eyes and his peroxide-enhanced locks. Didn?t even Civil War-era men make fun of guys who looked like this? The moment I saw this guy I knew in my gut that he was going to have The Showdown at the end of the movie with Jude Law. And the other hugely predictable part was that Jude Law had to die at the end of the movie. I suspected this all along, but the moment near the end when Jude and Nicole are reunited and make the sweet sweet passionate love, I turned to my wife and said ?she?s pregnant, he?s dead.? And so it came to pass.
So Jude Law?s character spends most of the movie undergoing this monumental, epic journey to be reunited with Nicole Kidman?s character for one night of sweaty, cheap sex, thereby knocking her up before dying a pointless death. To me, this kind of invalidated all the struggles he endured during his travels. It was a disappointing ending.
I imagine the more butch ladies love this film. It more or less is a feminist fantasy. It reinforces the idea that no matter how bitchy you are, as long as you look good and do a man a small favor, he will fall madly in love with you and owe you for life. For example, Nicole?s character treats Jude?s character like crap every time they meet early on, but she looks ravishing and gives him a cup of cider. Jude spends the rest of the film pining over a woman who spends the rest of the film proving that she doesn?t need him nearly as much as she at first thought. In fact, the only thing for which she has a need for Jude (and the only thing her doe-eyed female companions cannot give her) is a baby. As soon as she is pregnant, BAM, Jude is breathing out a new hole and out of the picture, again. Has it occurred to anyone else that the only time Nicole?s character really seems happy is in the final shot of the film, when she is surrounded by her female friends, her daughter, and the ?love of a lifetime? is cold in his grave? Bah.
Anyway, in spite of all the bitching, this movie kept my attention.
I?m going to cut to the chase and let you know immediately that I recommend this movie, which I saw on DVD this weekend. You are probably wondering why I disclosed this information so early on in the review. Well, it is this simple: I was very entertained by this movie, but I have a lot of gripes about it, some of them major. I didn?t want anyone to read all the gripes first, then find out (to their surprise) that I actually liked the film. So let me definitively state for the record, this move is well worth a rental. Go check it out.
I?m going to keep the positives all in one short paragraph. The story is cool. Nicole Kidman gets nekkid ? even more so than I would have ever imagined. There is a whole bag full of great acting and cinematography; this is a beautifully filmed movie. Nicole Kidman gets nekkid (wait?did I say that already?). The setting is during the American Civil War, a time period with which I am particularly interested. And Jude Law is dreamy. If I had any homosexual tendencies at all (which I assure you I don?t), I would have posters of a bare-breasted Mr. Law pinned up all over my hair salon. As it is, Nicole Kidman gets surprisingly nekkid, and I?m a happy uber-straight guy.
My first major gripe is that this movie is so freaking predictable. For example, there is one bad guy who visually stands out from among all the bad guys by his icy blue eyes and his peroxide-enhanced locks. Didn?t even Civil War-era men make fun of guys who looked like this? The moment I saw this guy I knew in my gut that he was going to have The Showdown at the end of the movie with Jude Law. And the other hugely predictable part was that Jude Law had to die at the end of the movie. I suspected this all along, but the moment near the end when Jude and Nicole are reunited and make the sweet sweet passionate love, I turned to my wife and said ?she?s pregnant, he?s dead.? And so it came to pass.
So Jude Law?s character spends most of the movie undergoing this monumental, epic journey to be reunited with Nicole Kidman?s character for one night of sweaty, cheap sex, thereby knocking her up before dying a pointless death. To me, this kind of invalidated all the struggles he endured during his travels. It was a disappointing ending.
I imagine the more butch ladies love this film. It more or less is a feminist fantasy. It reinforces the idea that no matter how bitchy you are, as long as you look good and do a man a small favor, he will fall madly in love with you and owe you for life. For example, Nicole?s character treats Jude?s character like crap every time they meet early on, but she looks ravishing and gives him a cup of cider. Jude spends the rest of the film pining over a woman who spends the rest of the film proving that she doesn?t need him nearly as much as she at first thought. In fact, the only thing for which she has a need for Jude (and the only thing her doe-eyed female companions cannot give her) is a baby. As soon as she is pregnant, BAM, Jude is breathing out a new hole and out of the picture, again. Has it occurred to anyone else that the only time Nicole?s character really seems happy is in the final shot of the film, when she is surrounded by her female friends, her daughter, and the ?love of a lifetime? is cold in his grave? Bah.
Anyway, in spite of all the bitching, this movie kept my attention.
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