Movies

We went to see Flushed Away today. It was really, really, really good; I'd recommend this film to everyone, whether or not you have kids. There are funny bits for the kids and funny bits for the adults. There were short pauses for the kids to talk, which meant that they didn't have to talk during the entire movie :) The story itself was also quite funny. I especially liked the slugs :)

The movie is from Aardman studios, which did Chicken Run and the Wallace and Gromit shorts and movies. The difference this time was that the animation was not stop-motion claymation, but actual animation. They made the characters look very much like the clay figures they usually use, down to the brush and thumb prints. The character movements were also very much like their usual stop-motion films, which meant that it felt like you were watching one of their usual movies. It didn't look animated. One of the other things that I was really impressed with was the cloth; everywhere, the cloth had realistic texture. These things make this movie a real technical achievement.

Later on, we watched Saw (the original one). It has an interesting concept; people are being forced to do things that they wouldn't normally do (mostly in the area of killing other people) to prevent themselves from dying. The puzzles forcing the character's moves are very tricky, well-thought-out, and interesting. There is also a lovely twist at the end. The movie was less gory than I thought it would be.

Where this movie failed was in the acting and makeup. The fellow who played Dr. Gordon was a terrible actor, as was the child who played his daughter. The makeup on Dr. Gordon wasn't quite right; it looked like a high-school production. And I could clearly see his supposedly sawed-off foot in the bag. Sigh. Had there been good actors and technical people, this would have been a very interesting, creepy movie. I wonder whether Saw II and Saw III are any better?