2 Brief Movie Reviews: Sicko & Day Watch
When xhollydayx and I were in Chicago our hotel was across the street from a massive Crocker Park style mall, complete with movie theater, so we saw Sicko late one night after a nice dinner. I have to admit that I am not a particularly huge Michael Moore fan. I didn't much care for the boringly polemic Fahrenheit 9/11 and enjoyed Bowling For Columbine. I wasn't really expecting a great deal from this movie, but was pleasantly surprised.
Let's start with what Sicko isn't. It is not, strictly speaking, a documentary. It is certainly not a balanced look at the health care system. I am personally somewhat sceptical of the claims he makes about the health systems in other countries. Too much anecdotal evidence is used and it wouldn't surprise me at all to learn that Moore cherry picked information to make his points, or took it out of context. However, this isn't really the point. Even if you disagree with every single thing Moore says about the health care in other countries, he convincingly makes the point that the profit driven system here in America is broken and needs to be fixed or replaced. In a best case scenario, people angry about what they saw in Sicko will force the 2008 presidential candidates to address health care in some way as part of their platform. More likely, the movie will simply move health care up a few notches on the national priority list. In either event, this is an entertaining film that will easily be the most important propaganda/political film of 2007, and you will rightfully be hearing a lot about it in the upcoming months, especially when it hits DVD. Even if you loathe and despire Michael Moore (and I sympathize), you could do much worse as an entry point into learning more about the current health care system.
On a lighter note, last night we went and saw Day Watch, the sequel to the Russian hit Night Watch. In the first movie it was shown that Light and Dark armies made up of vampires, psychics and magic users have been fighting for thousands of years, with a general truce keeping the violence low enough that the world isn't utterly destroyed. At the end of the film, the Light army suffers a major defeat. Night Watch was enjoyable because it has cool special effects, the right balance of plot and action, and when seen in the theaters simply the coolest subtitles ever, with words that bounced all over the screen and turned colors, inverted and otherwise transformed. I'm told the cool subtitles didn't make it to the DVD version, so this made seeing Day Watch in the theater a priority.
Sadly Day Watch doesn't meet those high standards. Oh, there are some cool subtitles, and some sweet special effects. I especially liked the car driving over the side of the buildling. However, the opening five minutes tell you exactly how the movie will end, and not in a subtle, realizing after the fact sort of way. They come right out and tell you in narration. To wit: Tamerlane (aka Genghis Khan) had a magical doohickey that could so this amazing feat, so it's pretty damn obvious that our hero will have to find said magical doohickey and use it to accomplish this amazing feat. Now, you may ask so what? Lots of movies are obvious about what needs to happen. It's sort of obvious that Indiana Jones will find the Holy Grail and probably use it, just to pick an obvious example. Telling you would be a major spoiler, even if it is in the first five minutes of the film, so the action and my complaint are cut here.
SPOILER ALERT!!!!!
The Chalk of Destiny allows someone to redo any previous action. The hero finds the chalk, and redoes the action that led to the Light Army's defeat at the end of the first movie. He essentially retcons it so that both Night Watch and Day Watch NEVER happened. This irritates me no end.
END SPOILERS!!!!!
So: bad plot, irritating ending that is telegraphed a mile away, some pointless car chases. Was there anything good here? Well, yes. The sequence where the hero's soul is swapped into another body is pretty funny, and leads to a classic shower sequence. The effects do look pretty good. I particularly liked the birds who turned into soliders. There are some great supporting characters and random strangeness. It's not a terrible movie, it's just not nearly as good as the original, and that's not a crime at the movie theater.
If you absolutely loved Night Watch, check out Day Watch. You can probably wait for DVD unless you are in love with the subtitles. If you didn't see the original or didn't care for it, don't bother with this.
By the way, I'm completely positive that I'm the first person to review Sicko and Day Watch in the same post.
Let's start with what Sicko isn't. It is not, strictly speaking, a documentary. It is certainly not a balanced look at the health care system. I am personally somewhat sceptical of the claims he makes about the health systems in other countries. Too much anecdotal evidence is used and it wouldn't surprise me at all to learn that Moore cherry picked information to make his points, or took it out of context. However, this isn't really the point. Even if you disagree with every single thing Moore says about the health care in other countries, he convincingly makes the point that the profit driven system here in America is broken and needs to be fixed or replaced. In a best case scenario, people angry about what they saw in Sicko will force the 2008 presidential candidates to address health care in some way as part of their platform. More likely, the movie will simply move health care up a few notches on the national priority list. In either event, this is an entertaining film that will easily be the most important propaganda/political film of 2007, and you will rightfully be hearing a lot about it in the upcoming months, especially when it hits DVD. Even if you loathe and despire Michael Moore (and I sympathize), you could do much worse as an entry point into learning more about the current health care system.
On a lighter note, last night we went and saw Day Watch, the sequel to the Russian hit Night Watch. In the first movie it was shown that Light and Dark armies made up of vampires, psychics and magic users have been fighting for thousands of years, with a general truce keeping the violence low enough that the world isn't utterly destroyed. At the end of the film, the Light army suffers a major defeat. Night Watch was enjoyable because it has cool special effects, the right balance of plot and action, and when seen in the theaters simply the coolest subtitles ever, with words that bounced all over the screen and turned colors, inverted and otherwise transformed. I'm told the cool subtitles didn't make it to the DVD version, so this made seeing Day Watch in the theater a priority.
Sadly Day Watch doesn't meet those high standards. Oh, there are some cool subtitles, and some sweet special effects. I especially liked the car driving over the side of the buildling. However, the opening five minutes tell you exactly how the movie will end, and not in a subtle, realizing after the fact sort of way. They come right out and tell you in narration. To wit: Tamerlane (aka Genghis Khan) had a magical doohickey that could so this amazing feat, so it's pretty damn obvious that our hero will have to find said magical doohickey and use it to accomplish this amazing feat. Now, you may ask so what? Lots of movies are obvious about what needs to happen. It's sort of obvious that Indiana Jones will find the Holy Grail and probably use it, just to pick an obvious example. Telling you would be a major spoiler, even if it is in the first five minutes of the film, so the action and my complaint are cut here.
SPOILER ALERT!!!!!
The Chalk of Destiny allows someone to redo any previous action. The hero finds the chalk, and redoes the action that led to the Light Army's defeat at the end of the first movie. He essentially retcons it so that both Night Watch and Day Watch NEVER happened. This irritates me no end.
END SPOILERS!!!!!
So: bad plot, irritating ending that is telegraphed a mile away, some pointless car chases. Was there anything good here? Well, yes. The sequence where the hero's soul is swapped into another body is pretty funny, and leads to a classic shower sequence. The effects do look pretty good. I particularly liked the birds who turned into soliders. There are some great supporting characters and random strangeness. It's not a terrible movie, it's just not nearly as good as the original, and that's not a crime at the movie theater.
If you absolutely loved Night Watch, check out Day Watch. You can probably wait for DVD unless you are in love with the subtitles. If you didn't see the original or didn't care for it, don't bother with this.
By the way, I'm completely positive that I'm the first person to review Sicko and Day Watch in the same post.