Movie: "All the King's Men"

[WarEagle]

The reviews are spilling out on this movie today. I've read 3 so far, and they're all very negative.

Boston Herald: "(Sean Penn is) miscast and often incomprehensible."

Boston Globe: "It doesn't have anything urgent or even interesting to say." Penn is "twitching spasmodically in a furious display of capital-A Acting."

National Review: "...remarkably cliche-ridden...gets upstaged by its own inflated ego."

Black Dahlia also got slammed. I guess I'll wait for them to show up on cable in a few months.

[akhhorus]

See, thats interesting. Everything I've heard is how great the movie is and especially Penn. Unless its a bust, its an oscar contender for sure(probably the favorite). I'm not surprised that the Herald and NR hated it, Penn is very liberal, Carville was a producer and they are both very conservative.

[whitskins]

I saw both movies. Black Dahlia was just a straight up piece of crap. Hated almost everything about that movie after the first 20 minutes. Terrible.


I liked All the King's Men a bit better than most of the reviews (it has like a 15% positive rating on Rotten Tomatoes) but it's still nothing special. I found it equal parts very interesting and horribly dull. Sean Penn's performance goes from good to laughable over and over again. The story has compelling moments and then drops the plot for long periods of time in order to show more stupid scenes of Penn screaming his redundant speeches. Still, I didn't hate it, but it's not Oscar material, or even close.

What is puzzling is that All the King's Men was delayed for a year and it still feels like something of a mess. If this is what we're getting now then I'd hate to see what shape the film was in when it was originally supposed to be released late last year.

[whitskins]

See, thats interesting. Everything I've heard is how great the movie is and especially Penn. Unless its a bust, its an oscar contender for sure(probably the favorite). I'm not surprised that the Herald and NR hated it, Penn is very liberal, Carville was a producer and they are both very conservative.

It is getting absolutely trashed. Penn's performance is getting some love but the movie itself is getting slaughtered with negative reviews right now.

I just checked again and Rotten Tomatoes has it at 12% positive. 12 positive reviews and 91 negative. It is out of the Oscar race already (except for Best Actor perhaps).

[dj_stouty]

It is getting absolutely trashed. Penn's performance is getting some love but the movie itself is getting slaughtered with negative reviews right now.

I just checked again and Rotten Tomatoes has it at 12% positive. 12 positive reviews and 91 negative. It is out of the Oscar race already (except for Best Actor perhaps).

Yikes...even Lady in the Water got a 25% positive rating. ;)

BTW - If I had to choose a movie to watch this weekend, it would be Jack*** Number Two!

[akhhorus]

It is getting absolutely trashed. Penn's performance is getting some love but the movie itself is getting slaughtered with negative reviews right now.

I just checked again and Rotten Tomatoes has it at 12% positive. 12 positive reviews and 91 negative. It is out of the Oscar race already (except for Best Actor perhaps).

Thats a shame(if it is a turkey, but I'm not taking Rotten tomatoes' stats as anything serious until I see it). Great cast and story and they messed it all up. Oh well, not long until The Departed or The Good Shepard comes out.

[whitskins]

Thats a shame(if it is a turkey, but I'm not taking Rotten tomatoes' stats as anything serious until I see it). Great cast and story and they messed it all up. Oh well, not long until The Departed or The Good Shepard comes out.

The cast is under utilized. Penn and Law run the movie, but only Anthony Hopkins outside of those two plays a significant role. Kate Winslett and Mark Ruffalo were gutted from the story. Patricia Clarkson is almost irrelevant. James Gandolfini is somewhat of an after thought as well.

Winslett and Ruffalo were the most disappointing, they played big roles in the story and were extremely underdeveloped. I'm assuming that they had many more scenes, but were largely cut from the film.

I've heard some very good things about The Departed recently, I can't wait to see it, the original Hong Kong film that it is based on is awesome. Little Children also looks really interesting.

Oh yeah, and the most talked about film of the year will be Borat. I saw an early cut months ago and it seriously might be the funniest movie I have ever seen.

[WarEagle]

What is puzzling is that All the King's Men was delayed for a year and it still feels like something of a mess. If this is what we're getting now then I'd hate to see what shape the film was in when it was originally supposed to be released late last year.

One of the reviews said that the director took a full year to edit King's Men. He must have had a real mess on his hands.

The Boston Globe even questioned the wisdom of dropping British-born actors (Law, Winslet, and Hopkins) into a movie about the American South. The accent-mastering was distracting, or something. Ouch!

Go Borat!

[akhhorus]

The Boston Globe even questioned the wisdom of dropping British-born actors (Law, Winslet, and Hopkins) into a movie about the American South. The accent-mastering was distracting, or something. Ouch!

Actually, that usually works. Michael Gambon, a british actor, played LBJ to a Tee on the accent(it sounded just like LBJ to the point of being creepy). And the American Southern accent and British accent might sound very different, but they are related vocally.

[whitskins]

One of the reviews said that the director took a full year to edit King's Men. He must have had a real mess on his hands.

The Boston Globe even questioned the wisdom of dropping British-born actors (Law, Winslet, and Hopkins) into a movie about the American South. The accent-mastering was distracting, or something. Ouch!

Go Borat!

Law's accent was the only one that didn't ring true to me. But the British actors could have played their parts in corsets and powdered wigs and they still wouldn't have been as poorly cast as Josh Hartnett and Scarlet Johannsen in The Black Dahlia. They were painful to watch.

[WarEagle]

Law's accent was the only one that didn't ring true to me. But the British actors could have played their parts in corsets and powdered wigs and they still wouldn't have been as poorly cast as Josh Hartnett and Scarlet Johannsen in The Black Dahlia. They were painful to watch.

I read about the miscasting of Hartnett in Dahlia. Why was he so wrong for the part? I'd hate to get on the bad side of James Ellroy! :imshock: