“300”, “Valkyrie”, and “How to Lose Friends and Alienate People”

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Table of Contents

Introduction
Movie: 300
Movie: How to Lose Friends and Alienate People
Movie: Valkyrie
Conclusion
References

Introduction

Film critique plays an important role in attracting audiences to theatres. Whether a film is a high budgeted movie with flooded cast or a small movie which is released limitedly, the analysis of the movie play a crucial role in the future business. There are various independent organizations that carry out the analysis to provide a guideline so that one can decide, accordingly.

Analysis of a movie involves critically reviewing different aspects of the movie including cinematography, script, provisioning of dialogue, strength and delivering of characters, the background music and its genre (Boggs & Petrie, 2006). Movies with different genres are filmed differently and something that would have been crucial in the action movies might not be as useful in the comedy movie, therefore the reviewing movie is quite different in each scenario (Pollick, 2008). This paper will look into the movie reviewing and evaluating processes that will involve the complete analysis of different movies.

Movie: 300

In order to review, the first movie that I watched again was 300, a movie directed by Zack Synder in 2006 mainly focused on a fight that took place between the Greeks and Persians. Persia was the most powerful state of that period but the Greeks were considered great warriors.

Greece was divided into many tribes in those years that used to fight against each other but against a single enemy they fought collectively, though in this instant, Sparta was the sole tribe fighting Persians this time. The movie starts with focus on life of Sparta, as it is portrayed that man were born to fight and save their country. At this point movie seemed to be moving slowly, however, when a messenger of Persia is pushed into the well by King Leonidas, the movie events start to change in an express way.

The role of King Leonidas was played by Gerard Butler, who is well known for his muscular build and pure characterization of the role. The movie used some animated graphics to a greater extent, as the muscle structure of all the soldiers in Sparta was same with all having six abs.

This sometimes felt funny to have such an army with having same bodies but different faces. However, this was critically to determine how men were taught all their lives to fight against enemy by going through years of harsh training in Sparta. All the characters tried to emphasize on their accent as well with moving jaws as they speak, quite resembling to the British speakers (Boggs & Petrie, 2006).

Lena Headey played the role of the wife of King Leonidas, who was very loving and caring, however, her role has been exaggerated by showing her authority over his king, may be to illuminate facts that the love of their wives is second only to the love of their motherland for the man of Sparta or it was may be an attempt of overacting from Queen Gorgo, Lena Headey.

It is very important that cinematography should be excellent in movies like this. The viewers don’t know historical events to much extent but the portraying of the roles and camera movements can greatly depict how the real incident would have taken place.

Same case was observed here as the locations that were used seemed real in accordance with the real event. The tight space of the fight that was chosen for the final fight was in between two mountains having a little pathway that would lead to Sparta. The sea near the mountains helped Spartans disperse their enemies but more importantly the picturing of the fighting instances were good with the blood coming out seemed real, however, bit animated.

Camera even showed slow movements when King became violent and killed numerous enemies on different occasions. The battle movies sometime have low level scripts (Piper, 2008), but in 300 the dialogues played a crucial role in describing the objectives of both Spartans and Persians. The conversation between King of Sparta and King of Persia were influential for both the armies.

Characterization of the movie was strong. As stated earlier that accent was tried to change, but it seemed good. The roles of the king and queen by two experience actors were played with good courage and they both knew what their role should be like.

The background music as the fight was in the middle was phenomenal as well; in fact one of the major reasons for its success was its music which makes it even more influential when seen in theatres. The movie therefore was a great success as box office after it gathered more than $400 million worldwide whereas its budget was just around $50 million (Piper, 2008).

This success immediately made Zach, director, an immediate success with more projects coming through. Zach exactly knew what he wanted his actors to do because it then really comes to the director to showcase the events with greater professionalism. On the whole, the reviewing of 300 was quite easy because everything seemed near to perfect, however, the integration of animated graphics has been of some criticism but it by no way went completely against the movie (Piper, 2008).

Movie: How to Lose Friends and Alienate People

In another movie, “How to Lose Friends and Alienate People”, the story teller tried to describe the life of a young man who had distinctive ability to repel people. The comedic genre of the movie made it even more emphasizing if it would have been of serious nature. The romantic instincts and the absolute characterization made this movie one of the best in the limited release category movies (Boggs & Petrie, 2006).

The movie showcases the life of a British journalist who is trying to achieve respect from his counterparts but because of his gestures of irresponsibility, he hasn’t got any attention from anywhere. The movie takes a turn when after publishing a sarcastic photograph of a huge Hollywood magazine owner, the magazine owner hires him. The journey of this young journalist, Sidney Young starts in America.

The role of Sidney has been played by Simon Pegg. Simon has been pretty obsessed with Sophia Maes in the movie, role played by Megan Fox. Movie moves forward as Simon tried different ways to impress people but because of his truthful exuberance, he merely succeeds. Kirsten Dunst plays the role of Alison Olsen who is a colleague of Sidney Young. The relation between both of them grew stronger as the movie progresses and soon changed into love and devotion.

The movie is full of comedic gestures by Sidney who acted inappropriately in different occasions. However, in reviewing the movie, it became obvious that Sidney excellently created the situations which he deemed to be performed by the movie director. The annoying behavior of Sidney made it possible to alienate people from him.

His ability of being a journalist was never doubted by Clayton Harding, owner of the Hollywood magazine, role played by impressive Jeff Bridges. This allowed Sidney to showcase his skills in a very unconventional manner; however, the most impressive part of the movie is his unconventional deeds, he attracts the viewer to watch for what is coming next.

He treated people with utmost authority and confidence and made them feel that he has to offer much more. The movie moves on slowly as Sidney moved to America.

The scripts were simple beautifully written where the actors try to clear their viewpoint quite efficiently. The dialogue delivery was good as well even though the central character was not famous he did whatever he could to justify his role by his easy shaping into his role. The cinematography was not very good though, where the colors used in the movie depicted the fact that movie is a low budgeted one.

The color scheme of sets throughout the movie was regular with nothing very special about them. The camera movements however, were very good as it moved from person to person throughout conversations quickly. Throughout the movie, Sidney seemed to talk to the audience whenever he thought that something has done wrong. The autobiographical aspects of the movie makes it even more interesting as the audience was made known by Sidney what he was thinking when he committed a new gesture.

The movie was filled with continuous changing of mood by Sidney Young. The transition between the good and evil side of Sidney were also showcased stating that he always had many things going through his mind. There are some differences between 300 and this movie regardless of the fact that both were slowly moving towards their climax, 300 was evolved from a historical event and was full of action and this movie of Sidney Young portrayed the life of struggling man.

The motives and cinematography of both movies were very far apart, however, strength of characterization was nearly the same. The focus of 300 was to visualize the events with far more conviction in a way that it could allow audience to become involved in fighting and strong violent background music, where as in this movie, the emphasis was on the delivering of dialogues and comparisons between different states of mind that allowed Sidney to perform what he did.

The difference between an ordinary and an exceptional movie critically depends upon how the characters performed their action and delivered their tasks. “How to Lose Friends and Alienate People” may not have been a success at the box office because of its low advertising budget but still was a success because of the same reason of professionalism and justifying of its script (Boggs & Petrie, 2006).

Movie: Valkyrie

The movie “Valkyre” was released in 2008 and showcased the last failed assassination attempt on Adolf Hitler in 1944 (Comey, 2009). The movie is based on the late period of Nazi control over the Europe as it was losing major occupied areas in Northern Africa and the time where silently people were going against the dictator.

Tom Cruise played the role of Lt. Gustafaunberg who was deployed in Northern Africa and was against the policies of Hitler because of his growing violent activities that had led various Germans to lose their lives. The movie is filled with the portraying of the real events.

In many movies, the facts are being exaggerated in order to make the movie more commercial like in a movie “American Gangster”, the protagonist was made an unbelievably strong character which he was not. However, in Valkyrie, the real events have not been exaggerated at all. The movie starts with the appointment of Tom Cruise into the Reserve Force office because he was unable to fight as he lost his arm in Northern Africa.

Tom Cruise later became a central figure in the plotting of the attempt and plays a major role in the bomb blast that would have killed Hitler. The movie portrays different statistical events that were happening on that time. However, the strength of scripts was not influential though the delivering of dialogues was outstanding and with Tom Cruise in the movie, the authoritative approach allowed him to become the leader in this plot.

The cinematography was exceptional during one battle that took place in Northern Africa and in later parts of the movie when he confronted Adolf Hitler at many places. The movie also depicted the power of Adolf and how he was feared. Hitler with the killing of Jews never stopped killing the traitors even including those who only spoke against him. With power, Hitler was still very highly popular in the army and faith in him from his army was clearly observed in the movie (Comey, 2009).

Valyrie depended upon the events, therefore because it showcases Berlin where nothing serious was happening, it moves pretty slow towards it climax. If someone hasn’t read anything about the assassinations that were plotted against Hitler, this movie makes everyone attached to their seats.

The changing of faiths has been established with great emphasis where persons shifted their approach with and against Hitler with no time. Determination lacked in various officers because of the frightening Hitler had created on their minds. The movie shows excellent cinematography of the events with breathtaking reality facts and the artificial sets which resembled that of Hitler.

The movie had great narrations; the script was balanced and was written in the essence of original facts. The genre of the movie can be regarded as suspense as no one knew what will be happening next. The movie was released with great hype because Tom Cruise was taking a part in movie after a long time.

Conclusion

The reviewing of the above movies showed their different aspects. The complete analysis of the movies mentioned above depicted that in order for a movie to be regarded as a success, emphasis should be made on it every aspect, including sound quality, the acting, the role of director, cinematography, script and dialogue delivery (Jaikishan, 2009).

This is the reason why the experience artists are preferred as they can easily change their approach to something very new quite easily by analyzing the requirements of the character (Comey, 2009). This is the reason for success of 300 and Valkyrie and the strength of Sidney Young in “How to Lose Friends and Alienate People” stated that young and new actors can significantly impact the movie as well if they have what it take to successfully deliver.

References

Boggs, J., & Petrie, D. (2006). The Art of Watching Films. New York: McGraw-Hill Humanities.

Comey, J. (2009). The Art of Film Acting: A Guide For Actors and Directors. Atlanta: Focal Press.

Jaikishan, M. (2009). How to Analyze a Movie and Write a Movie Review – 5 Expert Tips For Beginners. Web.

Piper, J. (2008). Get the Picture?: The Movie Lover’s Guide to Watching Films. Los Angeles: Allworth Press.

Pollick, M. (2008). How To Analyze a Movie. Web.

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