Movie Reviews 2005


30 June 2005

Swades (UTV 2004) - When writing a movie for a specific audience, you can ignore certain details that are unimportant to that audience, but you run the risk of alienating other possible audiences. Such was the case with Swades. The main character was supposed to work for NASA before rediscovering his Indian homeland, but the English everyone spoke at NASA was psuedo-scientific gibberish. This ridiculousness was only exacerbated by that fact that every white person at NASA who opened their mouth had a discernably British accent. The movie's main premise, that Indians need to be more like Americans and solve their own problems instead of looking to the government, was also detracted from because the writer of the film thought NASA was a private company! While I cannot help but sympathize with the movie's Libertarian theme, my suspension of disbelief was too often ruined by the poor portrayal of NASA to really enjoy the film. No doubt this did not hamper the enjoyment of the average Indian though, and probably had the desired effect of boosting sales by capitalizing on the interest in NASA in India in the wake of the Columbia shuttle accident wherein an Indian astronaut lost her life.


27 June 2005

Madagascar (Dreamworks, 2005) - not a movie worth seeing. Sure, it's a cartoon, so anyone under the age of 10 will enjoy it, but that doesn't mean it's any good. The poor animation is not offset by good writing. Nevertheless, the comic relief is funny and will leave you laughing even if the main plot arc of the story is left unresolved (will they make it back to the zoo?). I imagine this is to leave room for the obligitory sequel which will hopefully go straight to video.


This page last modified: 30 June 2005 by Bradley James Wogsland.

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