Before they were Starsky and Hutch, they were Derrik Zoolander and Hansel. I feel like this movie is not as widely acclaimed as others of the same ‘frat pack’ genre. But it might be the best of them. The number of jokes/gags/expressions showing how dumb these guys are is off the charts. And unlike a lot of screwball comedies, this one is paced really well. Just as we might start getting bogged down with intrigue and the Zoolander-Matilda dynamic they add Hansel and the plot gains steam instead. And I didn’t even get into Will Ferrell.
I usually enjoy the meticulous mind of Tarantino. Though the guy seemed a little in love with himself in this movie. I enjoy seeing cartooney effects applied to real people as much as the next guy. But after what seemed like the 5th beheading it started feeling a little absurd, which may be his point. I thought it was kind of cool to throw a little anime clip in there, even if it was even more unrealistically violent. This is also an overall reprehensible story line.
And yet, I found myself wishing I had also rented volume 2 after I watched this. So I obviously found the absurdity of it all to be enjoyable. I guess that while one part of my mind says, “this is wrong” another part says “cool.” And I think that is what the director wants me to think.
Coincidentally, this is the second Peter Weir movie for me to review in a row. Maybe I should watch Dead Poets society to make it a triumvarate. Gallipoli paints an interesting picture of World War I. Weir spends most of the movie showing how these guys end up in the army, how great they are and depicting the ealy 1900 Aussie lifestyle.
Eventually, they end up in trench warfare in Turkey. The Aussies are part of an offensive and if you know anything about WWI, you can probably guess how that turns out. The trench lifestyle seemed a like it should have been a bit more unpleasant, but perhaps things were nicer in Turkey than they were in France.
One thing that was interesting is that the characters who really seemed to see the conflict accurately ended up being somewhat marginalized. The beautiful young Mel Gibson does a good job of being conflicted with some of his trademark hyper laughing and urgent yelling in anguish. Still even though you could see the stomach punch coming from the first third of the movie, it gets ya.
I was also a litte surprising that this thing was rated pg. The movie was literally swimming with male asses. There were also some Egyptian whore t and a thrown in. So be wary of showing the film to middle school students like I got to yesterday.
So I really like the books by Patrick O’Brian. I am on like number 13 out of twenty, trying to savor them for summers to come. The thing I like about the novels is both the universe of the Royal Navy during the Napoleonic wars and the interplay between the two main characters Captain Jack Aubrey and Dr. Stephen Maturin. The movie comes up a bit short with the two characters, though in the book we have several volumes for them to develop. Where I thought the film did a real nice job was creating life on the British man of war. The boat was appropriately crowded, the battle scenes were terrifying and the sailors were sailorish. There were a couple things that annoyed me. But I definitely understand why they had the characters make pointless explanatory comments and I did not notice a wake from the prop that my father-in-law complained about. The only thing that I really took issue with was the casting of all around tough guy Barret Bonden with a hobbit, Pippen no less. That just didn’t fit my vision of the rough and ready, yet loyal coxswain.
