Beautiful to look at BUT...

Rating: 7/10 (9 December 2018)

This film was sumptuously beautiful to look at but the whole way through it I couldn't help thinking how film makers today are cheating with CGI. I firmly believe that part of the magic of cinema is knowing that what is on screen once existed to some degree in reality. Admiring the work of a talented model maker, make-up artist or costume designer is, at least for me, part of wonder. I can see a lot of advantages of computers in cinema but I am really tired of watching films that imitate the magic of talented human beings using silicon chips. Compare the images in this with say Ridley Scott''s Legend (1980). Knowing many ARTISTS were employed to construct the sets, make-up & costumes, etc made for a jaw-droppingly beautiful movie.
The movie going experience is not simply watching a moving photograph. It is also an impression of what someone has made &/or done with their own hands & talent. Enough with the CGI please. While I thought this was a very entertaining film, it could have been wonderful (in the true sense of the word) if the makers had not used so much, or any, computer graphics.
P.S. I am not a luddite. I simply think cinema is about more than making pretty pictures in a computer. So there!