Keanu Reeves gets a lot of crap I definitely do not believe
is deserved. He is an actor that is
clearly successful, well wanted in Hollywood, and decently well liked. But among my theatre and actor friends,
associates, or just generally, the consensus seems to be that he couldn’t act
his way out of a paper bag. I couldn’t
agree less. I find Reeves to be a
nuanced and internal actor, capable of playing a lot of different styles,
though all with that same internalized emotion.
Don Jon from Much Ado About Nothing is incredibly different from Falco
from The Replacements is incredibly different from Neo from the Matrix is
incredibly different from Johnny Utah from Point Break is incredibly different
from Bill from Bill and Ted is incredibly different from the character he plays
in this film, Kai.
"Whoa! That's a lot of proof that'll get ignored by someone who disagrees with that guy!"
Plot, quickly: A half-breed is brought into a feudal Japanese
lordship as a servant. He falls in love
with the Lord’s daughter. Later on, the
Lord is dishonored through treachery and an evil neighboring Lord gets the girl
in one year. The disgraced samurai of
the disgraced Lord come together to bring honor to themselves, their Lord, and
their families. Now take all that, add a
dragon, an ogre, a Kirin, and some Tengu.
The problem with the movie is that it is trying to do two
different things at once, but it doesn’t truly succeed in either. It wants to be this big fantasy film with
dragons, witches, demons, and half-breeds.
But it also wants to be this historical recounting of the legend of the
47 Ronin, a very real thing that happened in feudal Japan. The film fights between its Fantasy and Historical
narratives, going so far as having two different protagonists, one for each
genre. In the end, this is truly a
historical epic with some fantasy stuff peppered in. And both versions of the film would have been
stronger without the other. This is no
Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup of films. It
reminds me of Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves or Pirates of the Caribbean, which
had the tug of war between its more fantastical bits and its more realistic
bits. But both those films are far
superior to this one.
Watching the movie, there are other small issues. A couple of terrible CGI establishing shots,
a bunch of actors who all have the same basic mannerisms, some overused
Jackson-ian style swooping “epic” landscape shots, a few tropes that are a
little too old to be interesting, Act 1 pacing that is a little hard to sit
through. But really, they all don’t add
up to much problem. And most if not all
could certainly be forgivable by some viewers.
I know my wife loved this film, love love loved it. Me, I thought it was good, but I’m not sure I
feel like watching it ever again. I
liked it fine watching it the first time, though. There is just something missing, some extra
step to take it to a level of really great.
Grade: B
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