Category Archives: Fantasy

Fictional stories from fictional worlds.

Pan’s Labyrinth (2006)

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aka El Laberinto del fauno

2007 #80
Guillermo del Toro | 119 mins | DVD | 15 / R

Pan's LabyrinthEmpire’s second best film of 2006; IMDb’s 43rd best film ever;* winner of over 60 awards… Pan’s Labyrinth comes to any viewer with a serious amount of critical acclaim and genuine hype. As you might expect, this is a problem.

I’m not going to disagree that it’s a very good film, but I wasn’t blown over by it, as I probably expected to be. Nonetheless, it’s definitely worth seeing. The cinematography is worth mentioning especially. If there’s one pro in the sacrilegious argument for a dub over subs, it would be that you could watch the pretty pictures properly.

If you manage to not let the buzz take effect, you might find you love the film too.

4 out of 5

* Re-posting this on 27th March 2013, it had dropped to 112th. ^

C.S.A.: The Confederate States of America (2004)

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2007 #79
Kevin Willmott | 89 mins | DVD | 12

C.S.A.: The Confederate States of AmericaMockumentary about the history of America had the South won the civil war.

While an intriguing idea, in practice it’s disappointing. Apparently such a victory would have led to everything the nation did since being in order to maintain slavery. There are some neat ideas (a Cold War with Canada) and some genuinely amusing or cleverly satirical bits, but the focus is too narrow and, consequently, unbelievable and sometimes dull. It also seems unable to break away from reality far too often: Wall Street still crashes, JFK becomes President and is assassinated, etc.

The acting is frequently dodgy and it all has a very amateurish feel. To top it off, considering it’s pretending to be a British documentary, the style is too like cheap American TV documentaries.

All in all, a disappointment.

2 out of 5

C.S.A. featured on my list of The Five Worst Films I Saw in 2007, which can be read in full here.

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (2007)

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2007 #78
David Yates | 138 mins | cinema | 12A / PG-13

Harry Potter and the Order of the PhoenixThe main problem here lies in trying to condense a 600+ page novel into a bit over two hours. While the book feels padded, watching the film it becomes apparent that this actually builds mystery and suspense, most of which is lost in what feels like a series of extended montages that create an abridged version of the book. The direction is stylish and there are still some neat action sequences, but it lacks much of the fun or flowing coherence of the previous two entries.

Hopefully the next novel can be translated to the screen better, though I’m beginning to fear that anything less than using two films to adapt the final book will be a mistake.

3 out of 5

Night Watch (2004)

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aka Nochnoy dozor / Nochnoi dozor

2007 #73
Timur Bekmambetov | 110 mins | DVD | 15 / R

Night WatchUrban action fantasy from Russia; the first part of a trilogy (though, apparently, film two wraps the plot up and film three will be made in the US, looking at a different part of the story).

It makes for a pretty entertaining tale, with a neat ending that both concludes this film’s plot and leaves everything wide open for what’s to come. It also has some very snazzy subtitles (sadly only available on the two-disc DVD; I won’t waste too much space ranting about how crap the one-disc is here).

If you don’t like Films With Subtitles, this one might surprise you.

4 out of 5

Ringers: Lord of the Fans (2005)

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2007 #64
Carlene Cordova | 98 mins | DVD | 12 / PG-13

Ringers: Lord of the FansMade by the people behind the large Lord of the Rings fansite TheOneRing.net, you’d expect this documentary to focus itself on Lord of the Rings fandom. To a degree it does, but it also encompasses a history of the books and their popularity, as well as various thematic issues contained within them, and also takes in the various adaptations (though, criminally, doesn’t even mention the BBC radio version).

It’s a bit unfocussed, sometimes coming across as a selection of featurettes strung together with occasionally random linking interviews. There’s stuff of interest in here, but certainly not to everyone — only fans need apply.

3 out of 5

Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End (2007)

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2007 #59
Gore Verbinski | 168 mins | cinema | 12A / PG-13

Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's EndCurse of the Black Pearl was a surprisingly great film. Dead Man’s Chest was a lacking attempt to recapture that glory. At World’s End is the worst subtitle of all three, but mixed in quality.

The first half hour is great fun, but then it gets weird, adds in hefty doses of over-complex plotting, and drags along fairly slowly until it finds an exciting climax a little late on. It’s not all bad — beautiful to look at, with some of the most impressive CGI ever, and there’re some good action scenes.

In the end it’s the attempts to drag what was an entertaining fantasy action film to the mythological levels of Lord of the Rings that has made both sequels inferior to the first offering.

3 out of 5

Eragon (2006)

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2007 #1
Stefen Fangmeier | 104 mins | cinema | PG / PG

EragonThe first film I saw in 2007, and I saw it on New Years Day!

Eragon wants to be the next Lord of the Rings / Harry Potter / Narnia, especially with its utter lack of resolution at the end, but it just isn’t. It has its entertaining moments, but it’s also lumbered with huge lumps of bad dialogue, bad acting and fantasy clichés abound.

I have no idea how it compares to the book.

2 out of 5