Ink of Blood

(This review may contain spoilers).

I saw the first film when it came out in the cinema and even though this film is almost entirely unconnected to the first (apart from being in the same area), I liked the first film so much, I immediately went to see this one when it came out at the cinema. Interestingly enough, I think I actually saw this on Halloween. Go figure.

Almost no one I know likes horror films, so I end up watching most of them on my own. About the only thing horror-based I can get people I know to watch is Supernatural.

I liked this film so much that I bought it on DVD today and just finished watching it.

The subject matter that’s dealt with in this film is, again, not very unusual. The period of slavery is one of the very worst time periods in history and if someone believed in ghosts, it wouldn’t be surprising for the ghosts of slaves to haunt places and even people.

I found parts of this film to be particularly effective when it came to creepiness. There were quite a few moments that made me jump, even watching it for the second time. (I spent most of the film thinking about one scene in particular that still made me jump when it happened…)

There was little that was truly gruesome in this film. It relied very heavily on the imagination of the viewers, I felt. That isn’t a bad thing. I actually think that less is often more. It’s when you don’t see the killer that he or she is scariest.

I liked the family aspects to the film, as well as the fact that members of the family had their own gifts. I think the actors did particularly well at portraying the characters they played. I also particularly liked the ending of this film and I thought that the camera angles and image colour worked really well.

If you like horror that’s less heavy on the gore and violent murders of the main characters, I’d definitely recommend this film as one to watch.

(This review may contain spoilers).

I haven’t actually read the book that this film is based on, so I’m afraid I don’t know how true the film is to the original media.

Germany during the Second World War is a place and time that I’ve seen revisited often, in both film and literature. Just on that alone, the plot of this isn’t really unique, but the way it’s handled is.

The asides from Death during the film were pretty interesting. It’s probably hard to establish a character just through voice alone in a film, but I felt that the voice actor did a particularly good job of that.

The strongest part of this was, I felt, the relationships that Liesel formed with the other characters. I especially liked her friendship and possibly more with Rudy. There were a lot of sweet moments involving them in the film.

I also liked the books aspect. Being an avid reader, I cringed at the sight of all of those books being burned – and I thought it was really good where Liesel was learning to read.

One specific nitpick I had – and I’ve noticed this used a lot in different things – was the random inserts of German speech. Since this film is set in Germany, I would assume that they were, in fact, speaking German – and therefore, it’s unnecessary for random words to be spoken in German.

I felt that the actors did a really good job in this. The variety of attitudes towards the war and Hitler came across really well, too.

The ending did make me sad and I think there was much more of the story that could have been told. This film did make me really want to read the book, though.

(This review may contain spoilers).

When I saw this film advertised for the first time, I did think it was something that I wanted to see… but I didn’t expect to find the time, what with all the other films I wanted to see as well.

Many comedy films use toilet or gag humour to generate laughs. In my opinion, that’s fairly cheap humour and really not the kind of thing I enjoy.

I was quite happy that the humour in this film came more from the characters themselves. I particularly liked the actors in this. There were more serious moments than I was expecting and that’s always a good thing.

I did notice, however, that there was that whole screechy-voice thing that I see a lot in films with comedic characters. It was interesting that that was played upon a bit, though.

This film definitely isn’t a serious portrayal of police work and one of the main characters did break a ton of rules. Then again, it probably wasn’t supposed to be a realistic portrayal.

The film was an entertaining one to watch. The actors were really good and the comedy moments worked really well without being too over-the-top. I would recommend this if you like comedy with action.

(This review may contain spoilers).

I did see this film when it first came out in the cinema – actually with my niece, when she lived close enough to make going to the cinema easier. The first preview of this film appeared several months before it actually began showing in the cinema, so I assumed it had already shown… and had finished.

I’ve seen a few different things based on this particular myth. I did feel that this was an entertaining one. Admittedly, it didn’t contain any twists – the bad guys were fairly obvious – but I still really liked it as a fantasy film.

The actors in this film were particularly good and I felt that they played the characters especially well. Of course, there was the insta!romance, which I would have liked to see a bit more development of.

There were some really good humorous moments in this film. Even having watched it before, I was still able to enjoy those lines.

The characters were interesting and engaging, even though they were the very basic good-guy versus bad-guy. I find the well-balanced characters more interesting, personally.

I particularly liked the ending of this film. In my opinion, it was cleverly done.

If you’re looking for a simple fantasy film, I think this is definitely worth seeing. There are some violent moments, though, so it’s definitely not good for younger children.

(This review may contain spoilers. Also, contains content not suitable for younger people).

It might be worth noting that I did, in fact, watch 300. It was a number of years ago, but despite the historical inaccuracies, I remember it being very entertaining to watch.

I can say the same about this film. I’m sure that anyone with even a small amount of knowledge of the time period this film was set in could probably name more than a hundred things that were wrong with this film.

If I’m watching a film that’s primarily about battle, it’s not the fighting itself so much as the tactics that interests me. Yes, there were lots of blood and gore in this – but I also felt that it stayed true to the realities of fighting.

I felt that the scenes of the slaves who were forced to man the oars were really effective. One of the things that struck me was the blood on their skin where the chains bit in. That might be a small and somewhat morbid detail, but I personally felt it really brought home the harsh realities of that time.

Artemisia was a villain with an interesting history who was portrayed really well by the actress who played her. This was an example, I think, of a character who could have been awful if the wrong person had been chosen to play her. However, I did feel that it contained the trap I keep seeing nowadays – the fact that every film now has to have a romantic subplot, even when the general storyline doesn’t really call for one. (I did keep calling the main guy an idiot while I was watching this in the cinema. Under my breath, of course).

I felt that the camera work in this film proved particularly effective. There were specific angles that I thought enhanced certain scenes; and I also felt that the slow-motion aspects worked really well.

Although I didn’t actually watch the film in 3D, I did think that there were quite a few areas where that aspect would have been very effective.

For a film set so far back in history, I did think that some of the language used was far too modern. I’m not going to name any examples here, but the language did throw me out a little.

I did think that the actors did really good jobs in their roles. Even the actors I’ve seen in other media didn’t cause me any trouble in seeing them as completely different characters in this.

I can’t speak for the historical accuracy of this film, but the entertainment factor was really high, in my opinion. I’d recommend watching it if you enjoy this type of film and don’t mind something that doesn’t necessarily stay true to history.