Tag: Rufus Sewell

In 2019, Netflix dropped a delightful yet strange movie called The Two Popes. One of the popes, the old pope, was played by Anthony Hopkins.

And now, Anthony Hopkins is starring in a different film, called The Father. Huh, I guess he played a father, technically, in multiple movies. That isn’t that impressive, lots of people play fathers. But are they all the papacy?

I really did go into this movie thinking this movie would be about Catholicism in some amount. Turns out it isn’t and it is just about a dad. What’s up with that?

Yeah it is about a dad. You can see him lounging in a dad chair.

The Father is about a father (Anthony Hopkins) who is getting up there in age. Hey, the actor Hopkins is older and a father as well. Nice type casting.

He lives in his flat, maybe alone, maybe with his daughter (Olivia Colman) hard to remember sometimes. He is pretty sure she watches over him and helps things out, but she is trying to get a new person to help out. An in house caretaker (Imogen Poots). You see his daughter has found someone and they might be moving to France. And yeah, they don’t even speak English in France, why would she do that?

At least an in home caretaker would allow him to stay in his flat, very important to him. But he hates all the past caretakers, he lashes out, he screams, he is not a good guy in his old age. Maybe this one will work. Maybe.

Also starring Olivia Williams, Rufus Sewell, Mark Gatiss, and Ayesha Dharker.

Oh shit, he is in the Red Pope Robes. What does that mean for the church?

I’ve seen movies about dementia and/or Alzheimer’s before. I am not sure what specifically this one is about. I don’t know anyone thankfully close to me who has gone through this and had to see the deterioration over time, so I only have movies to help me in this regard.

And honestly, The Father has to be one of the better movie depictions of what might be going on in someone’s head during dementia bouts over time. We are trapped in this father’s head along with him. And we are there to try and figure out what is the truth, what is old news, what is being forgotten, and just who everyone actually is.

Despite me wanting to hate him, Hopkins was amazing in this role. Just absolutely amazing. I want to hate him because I see this as the only threat to Chadwick Boseman winning an Oscar. If Hopkins ends up getting best actor, I guess I won’t be too mad, because this is the sort of role that should definitely warrant it. But he already has an acting award, share that stuff.

Colman also gives a pretty good performance, but her role is far more limited compared to Hopkins of course. Colman continues to give good performances in everything she does lately. She is hitting a career high at an interesting time in her life and I am all for it as well.

The Father is a dizzying maze of how your mind eventually may betray you, along with the rest of your body. And life sure does suck at some points.

As a ancient history major, I also love me some good mythology. The stories people used to tell are just as important as what those people actually did. They tell us so much about the culture, how they thought, what they valued, and how they were raised.

Gods of Egypt looks to not celebrate any of this and just go for an expensive CGI fest to tell a bastardized version of the mythology. Now, I have no problem with a movie making up its own stories from actual mythology. After all, if I don’t judge a film based on the book that inspired it, I should also be able to ignore the “real mythology” as well.

It is however quite well known from anyone who sees the trailers that barely any part of this movie is real. Just the actors, and honestly, probably barely at that. It was however one of the first of many new films to film in Australia. It had a budget of 140 million, but apparently thanks to tax incentives and many other offers from the Australian government, it only cost the studio overall 10 million to make. That means they will see profit. Maybe not in week 1, maybe not week 2, but by golly, at least by the DVD sales.

In honor of this film, here is an image that is 100% CGI.

Way back in the day, way back. Pre-Greek stuff. Egypt was a rocking country, parties day and night all down the nile. And Osiris (Bruce Spence), God King of Egypt, was about to pass the kingship on to his son, Horus (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau), God of the Air. But Set (Gerard Butler), God of the Desert and War and brother of Osiris, showed up a bit pissed off. He wants the crown, so he kills Osiris in front of everyone. He then challenges Horus to a duel, uses a few cheap tricks to win and secure his kingyness. He also pulls out Horus’ eyes, making Horus blind and unable to use most of his powers.

Now, a year or so later, Set is a very bad king. He is starting wars, he has reduced most of the population to slaves, and has changed the way the afterlife works! Under Osiris’ rule, you had to give a token after death to pass into the after life, big or small, it didn’t matter. Set made it so that only he very wealthy could pass on to the after life. Quite a dick.

Which brings us to Bek (Brenton Thwaites) and Zaya (Courtney Eaton), two poor mortals, now slaves, in love. Bek is a quick and nimble thief, Zaya is just smoking hot, but they make it work. Zaya even convinces Bek to break into Set’s palace to steal Horus’ eyes back. She loves the gods and want Horus to make a come back to rule the world. Bek does what Zaya says.

Needless to say, an eye is stolen, Horus gains some vision back, but Zaya is killed in the ordeal. Horus promises to bring Zaya back from the dead if he can get the eye and defeat Set, as long as this spry mortal continues to help him on the quest. But they have a time limit. Zaya is now walking the path of the dead, and if she gets to the end with no gold, her life will be lost forever.

Also featuring Chadwick Boseman as Ttoth, God of Wisdom, Geoffrey Rush as Ra, God of the Sun, and Elodie Yung as Hathor, God of Love. Also Goran D. Kleut as Anubis, Emma Booth as Memphis, Lindsay Farris as the narrator, and minor-ish roles by Rufus Sewell, Yaya Deng and Abbey Lee.

Look! Real people! Or at least I think these are real people!

First I would like to tackle the white washing controversy. A big deal is made about Butler and Coster-Waldau being white people and playing Egyptian gods. Because Egyptians aren’t that white. And that is true, but they are playing Gods, that tower over the regular Egyptian people as completely separate entities. They could all be blue, as it is all completely fictional and irrelevant. Besides, it is a film that is no way historically accurate and based completely on fiction.

They should be mad that Thwaites is super damn white, because he plays an Egyptian unlike most of the cast. None of this controversy affected my rating.

Instead, what affected the rating was the overly bloated film, the over use of CGI, the terrible plot, and the mediocre acting.

My wife asked me how long the movie was, and I guessed that it surely must be only around 90 minutes or so given the trailers. But no, it is 127 minutes long, full of side plots and side characters with barely any resolution being worth your while. Thwaites is playing our mortal lead, who is spunky and surprises all the Gods who think this mortal man is beneath them. He is there to be for the audience to root for, but his character is incredibly one dimensional. His charm is pathetic and most of the audience by the end probably just want to see him get punched in the face.

The main “plot” of the film involves Horus and Bek going on a journey to extinguish the flames of the desert to weaken Set’s power, so he can be defeated. Needless to say, things don’t go as planned, due to character stupidity, and they have to wing it all at the last minute to save the day instead. This is lazy writing. Twists and turns can and should exist in your story, but throwing away what everyone worked towards for bad reasons is only infuriating.

In fact, by the end, none of Set’s motivations make any sense. He wants to be immortal and to live forever. Somehow he will achieve that by ending all life as we know it. Go and figure that one out.

It is like a very CGI heavy Lord Zedd costume.

Anubis was in this movie! He was also the only God to be in his animal-esque form 100% of the time. For whatever reason, the other Gods (only Set/Horus) just change into their animal form when they feel like it, and everyone else is always human looking. So for Anubis they were just lazy I guess, and definitely inconsistent with how every other God acted.

And finally, the CGI. I can’t imagine any scene set on a real stage or outside. Even the desert scenes seemed to be completely CGI. Why the hell are you going to a desert country and not using its many resources? Oh yeah, tax breaks. The animation is bright, flashy, and ends up looking quite shitty most of the time. I enjoyed the giant snakes, if anything. Part of the craziness around Ra was also well done, but everything else is below quality.

Fun fact: Two of the women that Mad Max and Furiosa freed in Fury Road have parts in this movie.

2014 was going to be the year of the Hercules movies. Two films, doppleganger movies, going head to head, months apart, to see who could make the best Hercules based movie. Kind of silly, when nothing could ever beat the clearly superior Hercules Disney movie from 1997. Zero to Hero, bitches.

But two things were odd about this competition. One, the releases were almost 7 months apart, January to July. And two, holy shit, The Legend Of Hercules was very very terrible. Yes, it came out the second week of the year, but it firmly established itself as the worst movie of the year, and at this point, still has to be top 5 worst films of the year on most people’s lists. So no matter how janky this version of Hercules would be, it would probably be the superior film.

Because everyone know, with doppelganger films, one has to be good right?

They did pick a fantastic person for the role though, no lion about that.

This story begins quite annoyingly going over the Legend of Hercules (Dwayne Johnson), not the other movie, the actual legend, and the 12 Great Deeds he had to do to get Hera off his back. But what if Hercules isn’t a demi-god, but just a mercenary with a great storyteller nephew (Reece Ritchie) to talk him up and make him seem more awesome than he actually is?

Well, according to this movie, yeah. And Hercules has friends! Including Autolycus (Rufus Sewell), an orphaned Spartan warrior, who likes to joke around, make money, and throw daggers. And Atalanta (Ingrid Bolso Berdal), an Amazon warrior, so of course she uses a bow. And Tydeus (Askel Hennie), of Thebes, who is now more animal than man and quite vicious. And of course, OF COURSE, Amphiaraus (Ian McShane), a seer who saw his own death already, so a fearless warrior in battle.

Yeah, Hercules and his band of merry men, or something like that.

Well, Herc and his mercs for hire get offered a shit ton of gold to help the nation of Thrace defend its borders from warmongering centaurs and some super evil dude. This means they have to train an army of farmers, so that Lord Cotys (John Hurt) can bring peace and prosperity to the kingdom.

But can Hercules do it? Can he? Punk? I don’t know that one for certain, but I do know that The Rock could probably do it.

Rebecca Ferguson plays the daughter of Cotys and Joseph Fiennes as the King of Athens.

“You’re a phony! A big fat phony!”

I think this movie actually had an interesting take on the Hercules mythos. A lot of what you see in the trailers is actually just from the first few minutes, going over his deeds and accomplishments. A lot of the story had been left out of the trailers, giving an almost fresh experience when I went in, not sure what to expect. I like what they did with it, and because it specifically said it wanted to attack the legend of the man, it made it seem like they were taking explicit jabs at the other film this year. Which is kind of hilarious.

The action scenes were pretty on point. The Rock did make a good Hercules, but he wasn’t the best part of the film. Ian McShane stole every scene he was a part of thanks to the comedy of the seer role and Rufus Sewell was pretty on point as well. The plot wasn’t too unique, could guess how it would play out and for the most part kept in line.

Outside of the action, most of the film just felt okay. It felt pretty short for the scope that it was going for, so that was disappointing. It had interesting characters to relate to though, so that is one redeeming quality.

Basically, what I am saying is that if there is a sequel, which there easily could be, I’d be glad to watch it. Obviously I’d watch any sequel, given the point of reviewing movies, but I wouldn’t go into this one with disdain.

But until that happens, looks like there is a shitty Asylum version of this movie too, Hercules Reborn, that I can spend my time with.

History is written by the victors, definitely something you’ve heard before. If not get some education, damn it.

But it is true. Just like dead men tell no tales. Undead men can tell tales, however.

Alternative histories are usually exciting to watch, as you watch events you know definitely occurred, with other questionable events spliced in between. Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter is no different. What this movie is, is a ‘biography’ of the secret life of Honest Abe, as he protected America both from itself and from the blood sucking swarm of the night.

Training is best when it is also practical.

Abe Lincoln (Benjamin Walker) grew up in Indiana, with his parents on a plantation. But when his black friend’s family was being sent to the slave trade, despite being free citizens, Abe put himself in harm’s way to protect his friend Will Johnson (Anthony Mackie). This caused his dad to get upset with the plantation owner, Jack Barts (Marton Csokas), who then threatened the Lincoln family if they left his services. Which they did.

But that is a shame, because Jack Barts is totally a vampire, who got his revenge on Abe’s mother that night, and pushing Abe to enact revenge. Nine years later, he tries. And motherfucking Jack Barts is a vampire! And doesn’t die! No worries, mysterious stranger Henry Sturges (Dominic Cooper) saves him, and after some time, agrees to train Abe in the art of vampire hunting. But only if he ignores his revenge, and is willing to listen to everything he says. Sure.

But then after training he moves to Springfield, to study up being a “lawyer”. Ends up finding a job at a local store run by Joshua Speed (Jimmi Simpson) and falling head over heels in love with a Mary Todd (Mary Elizabeth Winstead). During his vampire killing duties, he develops relationships with people (oh no!) and even becomes more politically involved. Gotta stop the slave trade. Real people. And its run by vampires in the South to eat from.

But if he were to stop the slave trade, the vampires would no longer be satiated and move more north. He’d be putting a hex on the entirety of America if he were to give equal rights to people. Hell, that’d probably cause the vampires to join the South in war. Lead by the head vampire, Adam (Rufus Sewall), will Honest Abe be able to stop slavery, end the vampire threat in America, and maintain his presidential life style all at the same time?

“Bitch tryin’ to kick me? Don’t you know who I am? I’m a muthhafuckin Vampire Hunter!”

Alright, so obviously this is kind of a dumb movie. You know vampires aren’t real, and you know this didn’t happen. But hey, if it was well done and had good action scenes, probably worth it. Why not, right?

Well unfortunately, as a budget saving measure I guess, the action scenes were lacking in luster. They had good ideas, but making them work with CGI? Ehh. Half of the fight scenes, you cannot tell what is going on. Either general blurryness, lots of dust, or fire. Fuck that noise. Movies have proven they can do intense fight scenes and make all of it easy to see. Some movies don’t want to put in that effort, and gimp out when it comes to them. So that is a negative for the movie.

Somewhat slow plot at times, and historical time frame that doesn’t seem consistent with reality. Other things that bug me. But doesn’t change the fact that the idea for the movie was an interesting one, just a poor execution at some of the parts that really mattered.