Q: when i first heard about this movie i thought it would be like The Duchess(2008), but when i saw the first 30 minutes of The Young Victoria i knew this wouldn't just be a solid movie. Almost everything in this movie is great, the costumes are really amazing and the settings are also beautifully shot.

The only thing that really let me down are the performances. Emily Blunt(The Devil Wears Prada) is the star of the film, bringing Victoria to life and with this movie she shows that she is a great actress and maybe picking a first Oscar nomination for her performance. Rupert Friend is almost bland as Prince Albert but he has great chemistry with Emily Blunt. Paul Bettany is also solid as Lord Melbourne although i expected more of him. Jim Broadbent and Miranda Richardson both have supporting roles but are forgettable.

To me the film feels like unfinished. Maybe that the screenwriters changed too many things in the script, i don't know but that's how i feel about the movie.

But overall it's a great movie about the early years of Victoria with a Great performance from Emily Blunt.
A: positive
Q: Wow, it's been years since I last saw this movie. Watching it in 2008 is certainly different than watching it in 1986. Initially I didn't' think I would make it through the movie. Hunt Stevenson (Michael Keaton) was so obnoxious, arrogant and disrespectful that I found it hard to watch him. He embodied every negative stereotype of Americans. If that wasn't bad enough, once the small American town's finest workers were shown the image only got worse. On the opposite spectrum the Japanese were presented as emotionless, robotic workaholics. The movie wasn't even all that funny, I only hung in there because of the nostalgic value of it. And I'm glad I continued the watch.

Just like boxing, judges are swayed by how you finish the round. This movie went from about a three up to the seven I rated it because of the ending. The end was excellent. You always want a harmonious ending and this was just that. It was great that the town got to keep there jobs and keep the factory, but what was most special was the marriage between the Japanese customs and values and the American customs and values. It was a mediocre movie that ended on a high note.
A: positive
Q: I've seen most of Ryuhei Kitamura's work and I've come to the conclusion that he has a knack for action. Scenes are kinetic and fast often combining elements of martial arts, gun fights and samurai fights with camera work that effectively captures the on screen carnage. With "Versus" and "Aragami" Kitamura demonstrated that creativity and showed that he his more than capable of working with a low budget. So what happened in "Alive" ? To be more blunt, the answer would be - nothing. Nothing happened in "Alive" it was a two hours plus movie with little to no action and little to no characters and plot.

Adapted from a comic book by Tsutomu Takahashi "Alive" is an examination of the life of one Tenshu Yashiro (played by Hideo Sasaki) a death row convict who survives his execution. He is then given a choice of either to repeat the execution or to subject himself in a bizarre series of experiments. He chooses the latter and soon after that is placed in a room along with a rapist and later with a girl infected with a strange parasite that in exchange for it's host's humanity grants supernatural powers. Naturaly at some point that parasite moves into Yashiro, the bad thing is that doesn't happen very soon.

Similar to "Aragami", "Alive" sets it's first half in establishing the basic exposition. Characters are introduced, their motivations are set and their relations between each other are uncovered. The whole thing even takes place in just one set. The first major problem of that comparison is that while "Aragami" was just a 70 minute movie, "Alive" drags on for more than two hours thus making the first part over one hour long. That length could have been justified had the characters been made a bit more interesting but alas that is not the case. Dialogue is dry, monotonous, delivered without any sense of emotion or depth, characters themselves aren't much interesting. There were some small attempts at making "Alive" a bit more moral ambiguous but in the end it all came down to the classic : evil government people against, super-powered protagonist, whom yes you guessed it, saves the girl in the end. Like I previously said the entire film practically takes place at just one set, and after two hours that does get boring, even worse the set design itself wasn't even interesting to begin with, and doesn't do much to improve on other aspects of the film.

Now, after that first part is over, one might think that Kitamura would at least make some entertaining action scenes to make up for the boring beginning. Sadly that is not the case. The two only fights are actually rehashes of similar fights from Hollywood movies, complete with bullet time effects and psychic powers. They're just not interesting or fun, Kitamura's creativity from "Versus" is gone, the small set even limits his often very impressive camera-work and it all boils down into generic and expectable fights, a shame really.

Evidently "Aragami" was better on all accounts and "Kitamura" had learned something from "Alive". So it wasn't at least a total loss watching this movie. If only to understand the errors made, how to fix them and create a better more entertaining movie.
A: negative
Q: The beginning of this movie is excellent with tremendous sound and some nice humor, but once the film changes into animation it quickly loses its appeal.

One of the reasons that was so, at least for me, was that the colors in much of the animation are too muted, with too little contrast. It doesn't look good, at least on VHS. Once in a while it breaks out and looks great, but not often Also, the characters come and go too quickly. For example, I would have liked to have seen more of "Moby Dick." When the film starts to drag, however, it picks up again with the entrance of the dragon and then the film finishes strong.

Overall, just not memorable enough or able to compete with the great animated films of the last dozen years.
A: negative