Monday, May 5, 2014

Movie Review: 47 Ronin

Over the weekend, I watched a little gem of a film called 47 Ronin, which arrived on DVD via Netflix. Rarely does a movie inspire the Angry White Loner to write a review of it here on his blog, but this was one of the select few that made the cut. Add to that the fact that I watched this one by myself, ergo there was no one else present to hear and chuckle at my various witty remarks.

So, here they are.

In a nutshell, 47 Ronin stars Keanu Reeves as one of 47 samurai seeking revenge for the death of their sensei. That is the plot summed up in one sentence.

I wanted to like this film. I did. But as soon as Gedde Watanabe, who also played Kuni in UHF, appeared, all I could hear was him telling Keanu "Stupid! You're so stupid!" over and over again in my head.

Among the other highlights:

 - The ronin sign a contract in blood using their thumbprints, which coincidentally is also the way by which you can exchange old DVDs or CDs at Graywhale store. True story.

 - The plot is actually somewhat parallel to The Princess Bride. Yes, *that* Princess Bride. Really. There's a wedding that the good guys try to stop, with the hero, once thought dead, trying to save his beloved from marrying a Humperdinck of a weasel of a bad guy. There's also magic and miracles and all of that stuff. Only it appears that 47 Ronin is the rejected first draft of that script and is set in Japan.

 - Ronin apparently both have choreographed dressing and undressing routines that they perform in unison. I did not know this.

 - The white dog/dragon from The Neverending Story apparently appears to help Keanu fight one of the baddies.

 - Not since Star Wars: Episode II - Attack of the Clones have special effects been wasted so needlessly to help a character eat something by lifting some food to one's mouth via the Force (or, in this case, hair, or magic).

A bunch of other stuff happens in between, but I fast-forwarded through all of that. Isn't technology amazing?

On a scale of 1 to 10, I give it a 47.

2 comments:

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  2. I’m quite sure that a film on the making on 47 Ronin would be way more entertaining than this movie.

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