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an actor. I thought he
played the character of Aragorn fairly flat while
Tolkein had painted a really emotionally complex
character that shouldn’t be overshadowed by every
other character in the movies. I also didn’t see much
development in his performances in A Perfect
Murder or Hidalgo, and G. I. Jane
was an adequate performance but nothing spectacular.
However, that’s all I’ve seen of his (if you don’t
count somewhat bit parts). I’ve been told to check
out Albino Alligator and The Indian
Runner to change my tune. After this movie I’m
definitely planning on that because Viggo did a great
job here. Ed Harris also delivered quality as
he always does. But my favorite has to be the
magnificent acting we see from William Hurt in
the funny bad guy role. It’s a hard character to pull
off and Hurt shows us why there was so much buzz about
him almost 20 years ago. Anyway, this really
emotional drama could be lost without spectacular
performances and not only is it not lost, but it
exceeds all expectations.
Despite what I said about the grittiness of the
violence, the movie isn’t really about violence, and
doesn’t have that much. It’s more about how
violence can affect a perfectly normal family. As
soon as violence enters their lives, things start
changing and this movie is a portrait of both the
evils of violence and the ability for it to emerge in
even the most innocent of people. I know this is
getting long, but I have one more thing to say:
So I read the comic after thinking all these thoughts
about the movie and it’s a good comic. It’s very
comic-y though. I expected something a bit more
around the lines of 100 Bullets. For example, the
book doesn’t progress the exposition past a certain
point because it’s boring, and Ed Harris’ character
where’s Viggo Mortensen’s missing finger in a jar
around his neck. Also, there’s a huge propane tank
explosion. There is no missing finger in the movie,
no jar around the neck, the propane tank explosion is
changed to a bit of shooting and a vicious beating,
and the exposition and side stories are really
developed because you can do that in a movie. As a
result, this adaptation did a fabulous job of taking
out stuff that doesn’t work in a movie, adding stuff
so the movie works, and staying faithful to the comic.
Any little detail it changed I actually liked better
in the movie, although I have to say I did enjoy what
I read of the comic.
Anyway, see this movie, it’s spectacular. If you’re a
bit squeamish, you’ll have to cover up your eyes a
couple times, but that makes it more fun. If you’re
into violence, I’ll let you know that there’s not a
whole lot of boring scenes, because the “boring”
scenes aren’t. You actually care about these
characters and in fact if I have any criticism of this
movie, it’s too short. An hour and a half for a
horror movie is perfect, but for a character drama it
seems a bit little. However, you don’t really care in
this movie because the story that needs ...
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