Very few reviews available for this Ridley Scott-produced pet project, which opens wide from Fox on Friday.
I can't assume that's a good sign (or the mere fact that it's being released on January 13th), though the story line is intriguing and Kevin Reynolds -- for all his faults -- usually makes an interesting, watchable film, even if it's bad (though I quite enjoyed THE COUNT OF MONTE CRISTO).
TRISTAN & ISOLDE
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Paul MacLean
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Re: TRISTAN & ISOLDE
AndyDursin wrote:Very few reviews available for this Ridley Scott-produced pet project, which opens wide from Fox on Friday.
I can't assume that's a good sign (or the mere fact that it's being released on January 13th), though the story line is intriguing and Kevin Reynolds -- for all his faults -- usually makes an interesting, watchable film, even if it's bad (though I quite enjoyed THE COUNT OF MONTE CRISTO).
When I was in LA last February, I met-up with someone who works with Ridley Scott, and I asked him what was happening with Tristan and Isolde.
He told me it was a production fraught with problems, "like all Kevin Reynolds films" he added. At that point Reynolds was fightig the studio over the final cut; the studio wanted to release it at around 90 minutes. That's not a good sign either!
I've been interested in this production for a long time, being a huge fan of the King Arthur legends (Tristan & Isolde is actually a chapter in Mallory's "Le Morte D'Arthur", tho the film's publicity refrains from mentioning its Arthurian origin...as does the film itself I suspect).
Ridley Scott was going to make this film himself back in the 70s, as a follow-up to The Duelists. His take on the material was *wacky* tho, incorporating sci-fi elements. I've seen preproduction sketches made for the film before it was abandoned, which looked like something out of Heavy Metal.
Scott abandoned the film after seeing Star Wars, sobered by the reality that audiences would probably not go for the abstract "art" film he envisioned. Then of course he was asked to direct Alien...
With fantasy films now gaining repsectability, I really hope Scott turns his hand to the genre again. Clearly the Legend experience burned him -- note how he turned to "reality"-based films in its wake (Someone to Watch Over Me, Black Rain, Thelma & Louise) but Legend is not nearly as bad a film as critics labeled it (especially with Goldsmith's score restored).
I'd love to see Scott tackle a traditional medieval fantasy again.
Paul
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AndyDursin
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It's apparently 125 minutes, so maybe that's a sign of hope. 
Even in the 2 reviews out there, both praise Rufus Sewell's performance -- apparently the character is a nice guy and a change of pace from the usual romantic rival.
Even in the 2 reviews out there, both praise Rufus Sewell's performance -- apparently the character is a nice guy and a change of pace from the usual romantic rival.
Last edited by AndyDursin on Wed Jan 11, 2006 10:03 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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AndyDursin
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Here's one of the only reviews out there from the Philadelphia Weekly by Sean Burns.
I do agree with his point about the lack of CGI. Even if the movie is a wash you can at least appreciate that.
Battle of the Celts
While attention is on the Oscars, studios sneak their flops into theaters this month.
by Sean Burns
http://www.philadelphiaweekly.com/view.php?id=11368
Tristan & Isolde
C-
Director: Kevin Reynolds
Starring: James Franco, Sophia Myles
Opens Fri., Jan. 13
Welcome to January. With all their Oscar hopefuls slowly rolling out across the country, movie studios typically use these next few weeks to clear their shelves of unwanted product-as most audiences are otherwise occupied catching up on the previous year-end glut.
It's the one time Hollywood assumes nobody's looking-and true to form, two of last week's releases (BloodRayne and Grandma's Boy) weren't even screened for review. Now we have Kevin Reynolds' underwhelming Tristan & Isolde, a film I hadn't even seen a poster for before attending the advance preview.
A very loose reworking of the 12th-century Celtic legend (bearing almost no resemblance to the Wagner opera of the same name), Tristan & Isolde is a musty sword-clashing forbidden-love saga. There's a smattering of bloodshed, one very cool beheading and a core of yearning that remains maddeningly out of reach for the film's lightweight leads. James Franco (best known as the excess baggage in Sam Raimi's Spider-Man saga) stars as a brooding warrior prince, tormented by his love for his adopted father-king's new bride.
Not since about six months ago-when Orlando Bloom vogued his way through the crusades in Ridley Scott's mega-bomb Kingdom of Heaven-has the hero of an ancient period epic looked so much like he got lost on the way to the mall. With a bizarre coiffure that makes him look like the lead singer of an '80s New Wave band, Franco flares his nostrils and pouts for the majority of the picture. This young actor first emerged to great acclaim in Mark Rydell's 2001 television James Dean biopic, but his Tristan performance is riddled with so many Anakinisms you'll think he's auditioning for The Hayden Christensen Story.
Sophia Myles co-stars as Tristan's precious Isolde, trying her best to play an abstract ideal of freedom and independence. Alas, the actress is such an uncanny ringer for Arrested Development's Portia de Rossi, I couldn't help writing half a dozen Lindsay Bluth Fünke jokes in my head while all the love scenes unspooled, wondering what might've happened if-instead of the new king of England-Tristan's romantic rivalry was with David Cross' analyst/therapist (aka "analrapist") Tobias Fünke. But then again, that's just me. Sometimes my mind wanders.
The most interesting corner of this love triangle is Rufus Sewell's Lord Marke, played with a modicum of restraint by the bug-eyed scenery chewer as ... a pretty nice guy. The marriage of Marke and Isolde is a strategic maneuver designed to bring peace between the ruling leaders of Ireland and those warring disorganized clans in ramshackle old England. (Funny how things change over centuries.)
Sewell's Marke favors Tristan even more than his own son-and he doesn't seem to suffer from any illusions that a pretty young thing like Isolde would be even remotely psyched to get stuck marrying a dude twice her age, who's also missing a hand. (Keeping the Arrested Development thread alive, write your own Buster joke here.) Marke's no villain-just a decent guy trying to do right by his country-lending the story a slight edge of complexity that's unexpected from a movie trying so blatantly to appear edgy and youth-marketed, it stuck an ampersand in the title instead of a word.
Director Kevin Reynolds is most famous for being fired by his old pal Kevin Costner from both the screamingly godawful Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves and the not-near-as-bad-as-everybody-said-it-was Waterworld. Reynolds makes odd choices. Shooting spectacle pictures in the flat 1.85 aspect ratio instead of the wider, more advantageous CinemaScope, he likes to compose his would-be epics using mainly medium shots. Where are the sweeping vistas? Despite Artur Reinhart's evocatively washed-out blue-green cinematography, Tristan & Isolde is visually close-quartered and clunky. It's lit like a film, but framed like television.
Reynolds' constricted, workmanlike approach at least spares us from the post-Peter Jackson physically impossible CGI swarms of battling hordes. Indeed, the nicest thing you can say about Tristan & Isolde is that whenever the armies get it on, we're just watching a bunch of extras slogging away at one another-not some digitally rendered panorama.
Speaking as a viewer fatigued by the recent preponderance of massive computer-generated battle sequences (an effect that's become the new bullet-time in my personal been-there-done-that department), it's nice to be able to trust your eyes again-even if you're not seeing much.
I do agree with his point about the lack of CGI. Even if the movie is a wash you can at least appreciate that.
Battle of the Celts
While attention is on the Oscars, studios sneak their flops into theaters this month.
by Sean Burns
http://www.philadelphiaweekly.com/view.php?id=11368
Tristan & Isolde
C-
Director: Kevin Reynolds
Starring: James Franco, Sophia Myles
Opens Fri., Jan. 13
Welcome to January. With all their Oscar hopefuls slowly rolling out across the country, movie studios typically use these next few weeks to clear their shelves of unwanted product-as most audiences are otherwise occupied catching up on the previous year-end glut.
It's the one time Hollywood assumes nobody's looking-and true to form, two of last week's releases (BloodRayne and Grandma's Boy) weren't even screened for review. Now we have Kevin Reynolds' underwhelming Tristan & Isolde, a film I hadn't even seen a poster for before attending the advance preview.
A very loose reworking of the 12th-century Celtic legend (bearing almost no resemblance to the Wagner opera of the same name), Tristan & Isolde is a musty sword-clashing forbidden-love saga. There's a smattering of bloodshed, one very cool beheading and a core of yearning that remains maddeningly out of reach for the film's lightweight leads. James Franco (best known as the excess baggage in Sam Raimi's Spider-Man saga) stars as a brooding warrior prince, tormented by his love for his adopted father-king's new bride.
Not since about six months ago-when Orlando Bloom vogued his way through the crusades in Ridley Scott's mega-bomb Kingdom of Heaven-has the hero of an ancient period epic looked so much like he got lost on the way to the mall. With a bizarre coiffure that makes him look like the lead singer of an '80s New Wave band, Franco flares his nostrils and pouts for the majority of the picture. This young actor first emerged to great acclaim in Mark Rydell's 2001 television James Dean biopic, but his Tristan performance is riddled with so many Anakinisms you'll think he's auditioning for The Hayden Christensen Story.
Sophia Myles co-stars as Tristan's precious Isolde, trying her best to play an abstract ideal of freedom and independence. Alas, the actress is such an uncanny ringer for Arrested Development's Portia de Rossi, I couldn't help writing half a dozen Lindsay Bluth Fünke jokes in my head while all the love scenes unspooled, wondering what might've happened if-instead of the new king of England-Tristan's romantic rivalry was with David Cross' analyst/therapist (aka "analrapist") Tobias Fünke. But then again, that's just me. Sometimes my mind wanders.
The most interesting corner of this love triangle is Rufus Sewell's Lord Marke, played with a modicum of restraint by the bug-eyed scenery chewer as ... a pretty nice guy. The marriage of Marke and Isolde is a strategic maneuver designed to bring peace between the ruling leaders of Ireland and those warring disorganized clans in ramshackle old England. (Funny how things change over centuries.)
Sewell's Marke favors Tristan even more than his own son-and he doesn't seem to suffer from any illusions that a pretty young thing like Isolde would be even remotely psyched to get stuck marrying a dude twice her age, who's also missing a hand. (Keeping the Arrested Development thread alive, write your own Buster joke here.) Marke's no villain-just a decent guy trying to do right by his country-lending the story a slight edge of complexity that's unexpected from a movie trying so blatantly to appear edgy and youth-marketed, it stuck an ampersand in the title instead of a word.
Director Kevin Reynolds is most famous for being fired by his old pal Kevin Costner from both the screamingly godawful Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves and the not-near-as-bad-as-everybody-said-it-was Waterworld. Reynolds makes odd choices. Shooting spectacle pictures in the flat 1.85 aspect ratio instead of the wider, more advantageous CinemaScope, he likes to compose his would-be epics using mainly medium shots. Where are the sweeping vistas? Despite Artur Reinhart's evocatively washed-out blue-green cinematography, Tristan & Isolde is visually close-quartered and clunky. It's lit like a film, but framed like television.
Reynolds' constricted, workmanlike approach at least spares us from the post-Peter Jackson physically impossible CGI swarms of battling hordes. Indeed, the nicest thing you can say about Tristan & Isolde is that whenever the armies get it on, we're just watching a bunch of extras slogging away at one another-not some digitally rendered panorama.
Speaking as a viewer fatigued by the recent preponderance of massive computer-generated battle sequences (an effect that's become the new bullet-time in my personal been-there-done-that department), it's nice to be able to trust your eyes again-even if you're not seeing much.
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AndyDursin
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Paul MacLean
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- Location: New York
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AndyDursin
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- Location: RI
It opened here, but I wonder how many screens it's on.Paul MacLean wrote:Well I was planning to see this movie tonight since I have to review it (for Renaissance Magazine)...but its not even opening in my town! And we have an eight-screen multiplex, as well as two "art house" cinemas (with five screens between them).
Paul
Doesn't sound like you're missing a whole lot, though, from the sounds of it
