Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to "Tales of the Longbox" here on Reaction & Review. Tonight, guys, I'm gonna be covering a British comedy from 1966. That movie is "Modesty Blaise".
Now, from everything that I was able to look up about about the character in question, Modesty Blaise started off as a comic strip from 1963. She then got 11 novels and 3 movie adaptations. And of those 3 that exist, this is the very first one of hers that I'm gonna be covering for this marathon.
As for the movie itself, I don't know very much about the plot. Although, from what little information that I could find, this movie is considered to be a very loose adaptation of the comic strip that this character is based of off. So chances are that this thing is gonna have very little to do with the character from the comic strip. That said, I care very little about accuracy to the source material, so long as the movie is entertaining. Plus, I've never read anything involving Modesty Blase, so I couldn't really pinpoint any inaccuracies, even if I wanted to do.
So now, I get to see if this movie is any good on it's own merits. I'm hoping that it is, but I won't know for sure yet, unless I shut up and I push play, and I'm gonna do that right now. So, without further ado, it's time to kick back, relax, and check out "Modesty Blaise".
5 minutes later
O...K, I totally wasn't expecting that guy to blow up after ringing the doorbell with his umbrella. That totally caught me off guard! We're certainly off to an explosive start, guys.
19 minutes later
I just saw someone snap a mime's neck and then throwing him off a cliff. If that was meant to be funny, it really wasn't. In fact, it was kinda stupid and pointless, really.
18 minutes later
Guys, this is the first time in a long time since doing this series that I've ever had to admit something. I have no clue what the fuck is going on in this movie. Nothing is making any sense here. And the more that I continue to watch this movie, my brain is just going to sleep because the movie seems allergic to make sense of it's own nonsense. And the worst part about this is that I still have less than an hour and 20 minutes to go here until it's finished. This may, in fact, be very painful, guys.
20 minutes later
So, guys, we're over an hour into the film right now and I feel like I need to ask this. This thing is suppose to be a comedy, right? So when the hell does it start to get funny? I haven't laughed once since the movie started and my patience with it is starting to run thin. This movie is so mind-numbingly dull that I'm not even sure if I want it to be funny anymore. If it can produce one joke that'll genuinely make me laugh, or perhaps even garner a smile out of me, then this movie has already accomplished enough. I'm hoping that it does that, otherwise, I'm gonna be a little bit angry here.
12 minutes later
So those packs of cigarettes that Modesty and Willie had with them when they were taken into separate cars turns out to be colored tear gas. That's...a little creative. It still isn't really funny, mind you, but at least it's a little creative.
20 minutes later
Why the hell isn't this thing finished yet...? You guys seriously have no idea how boring this fucking movie is. And the fact that it's *still* going on is just making me question why the hell am I still watching this? There still isn't a single joke that has made me laugh yet and I feel like I'm not going to get that either. And I can't shut the film off because, as per rules for Reaction & Review, I have to watch the whole movie through until the end credits show up. There's still less than a half an hour to go and the end credits can't come soon enough. This is just painful, guys.
10 minutes later
Oh my god...the editing in that shot was terrible! OK, so we just had a scene where Modesty was using a custom-made bow and arrow that she Willie had built, and the arrow that she shot was nowhere even *near* to where it was suppose to be hitting the guy! How the fuck do you screw something up so easily and thought that it was worth putting in the movie? That is just...god, that was just horribly put together.
The Review
Oh, thank you fucking god, it's done! Holy fucking shit...well, that was "Modesty Blaise", guys. Let me shut this garbage off now...OK. Finally...now, I actually have to talk about this fucking movie. Oh...fun. Well, I guess, if you somehow haven't gotten the message yet, this movie was shit. Plain and simple. I don't know if it will reach the Bottom 5, because it's still very early in the year, but this one is already in contention for that unworthy prize.
Now, let's actually talk about the film itself here. I'm gonna start with writing. What fucking writing...? There is nothing here that I would constitute as a story that is worth even caring about. It is so shallow and nonsensical that I can't really pinpoint anything worth mentioning, other than Modesty, and her partner Willie Garvin, trying to retrieve some jewels from our main villain Gabriel. And that's just an abridged version of the whole plot. There's nothing else that I can say about the plot that I would try to struggle into trying to remember anything worthwhile. I haven't been this dumbfounded by a movie's plot since I watched "Fright House" a couple of years ago. And mind you, "Fright House" was shit in it's own right, but at least I was able to kinda sorta make sense of some of it. This thing, though, refuses to make any level of sense. And I probably would not have minded it as much if the humor was at all funny, and it really isn't.
Speaking of which, let's talk about the film's humor next. As I mentioned at the start of this thing, this movie is suppose to be a comedy. More specifically, it's suppose to be a spy comedy. And when you think of spy comedies, most people would immediately think of something like the "Austin Powers" movies. Now while this movie is nowhere near as raunchy as those films are, it is at least trying to be funny in it's own campy sort of way. Unfortunately, however, none of the humor really lands all that well. The closest that this movie got to me smiling a little bit is when during the beginning of the movie, some guy exploded after ringing the doorbell with his umbrella. And the only reason why that kinda worked was because it comes right out of nowhere. But beyond that, nothing else here in terms of humor is really all that funny. It tries, mind you, it's just not trying hard enough.
And that's where we come to the next problem with this movie: The runtime. This movie clocks in at just about 2 hours long. This thing felt so long, and so boring, to where the movie felt like it was going on for over 2 and a half hours long. It is that painful to get through. We have tons of padding here, which makes the movie all the more a chore to get through. Maybe if this movie were about 90 minutes long, it would probably be a bit more salvageable. It wouldn't necessarily make the movie good, mind you, but at least it wouldn't be as boring as it is currently. And it would also be less of a chore to get through, too.
As for characters, well, much like with the lack of writing, there are no characters here that are worth caring about. In fact, I could barely remember character names, outside of the ones that I already mentioned not too long ago. Modesty Blaise, William Garvin, and Gabriel. Everyone else I can just write off as filler because nobody else has anything resembling a personality or an interesting backstory. It's possible that these characters might've had more depth in the comic strip and in the novels. But as I've said before, movie adaptations of anything should stand or fall on it's own standards, and this falls flat on it's ass hard because it fails at being interesting in every way, both in it's characters and writing.
So yeah, that's the best way I can summarize the writing in this movie. It's slow, it's boring, it's painful to get through. And the humor just doesn't work here. Now yes, it's possible that you *could* get a laugh out of this movie, but that's gonna be a bit of challenge for you once you try to go through the whole two hours that this movie has for a runtime and not fall asleep through any of it. Trust me when I say that I struggled to stay awake and I almost couldn't do it. But, I kinda have to because that's just how I am when it comes to doing this series for you guys. But yeah, in short, writing here is terrible from just about every aspect.
Now let's talk about the acting. And I'm gonna say that, even though I think the writing here is terrible and the humor isn't really all that funny, I am willing to admit that the acting here is actually pretty good. I can see that just about everyone here is trying to work with what they've been given and it's a pretty decent effort. So, as much as I can slam the writing here for all of it's missteps, the acting kinda makes up for it. Not by much, mind you, but at least it's something resembling a positive.
Costuming here is pretty good, too. And when I mention the costuming, I'm mostly referring to any of the outfits that Modesty Blaise has to wear. Almost all of her outfits look pretty good. And while the effect of her changing into her outfits is nothing more than a standard jump cut, at least the outfits themselves are fine. So, I'm not going to harp on that issue too much. That said, I *do* want to mention that one bit of editing that was incredibly noticeable. As I mentioned earlier, Modesty was using a bow and arrow to shoot at one of Gabriel's guards to take him out. Now to give you guys an idea what the scene looks like, the guard is left to where our heroes are suppose to be and Modesty Blaise is aiming away from him. And this is where the awful editing comes in because, as soon she fires the arrow, the arrow is suddenly in the chest area of the guard. And again, Modesty was aiming the arrow *away* from the guard. She was not aiming at him when she was doing this. And yet, somehow, as soon as the arrow releases, it then suddenly shows up on the guard's chest. It's so badly edited that it almost comes off as being hilarious for all of the wrong reasons. And it makes me question on who, when they edited this thing, thought it was a good idea to greenlight that scene and no one tried to stop them? It just boggles my mind that they got actually away with it, too.
But other that, guys, the camerawork here is fine. Lighting here is also decent. Sound-mixing here is OK. The music here is, well...it's OK, too. Though I will say the opening song really kinda sucked. I don't really know how to describe it other than that. So yeah, the music here is just average at best.
Ultimately, guys, when all is said and done, can I recommend "Modesty Blaise"? No. There's no way in hell I can actually recommend this film to you guys. Not even for morbid curiosity's sake. The story is non-existent, as are the characters. The humor doesn't really work and it's an overall chore to get through. If you want to watch a better spy comedy, the only ones I can think of are the "Austin Powers" movies. Provided, of course, if you're into raunchy humor and all. But yeah, I would totally recommend those over "Modesty Blaise" any day. I know this character also has a couple of more movie adaptations, but to be honest, after watching this movie, I really have no interest in ever watching them. This thing put me off on ever giving the character another chance, and I'm not really gonna lose any sleep over it. Speaking of which, I'm gonna go and get some rest. Because this thing tried to put me to sleep and I need to shut off my brain as is. So, I'm gonna go do that next and hopefully I can be rid of the thought that I actually had to sit through this movie.
And with that, guys, we come to the close of another Reaction & Review. Until next time, ladies and gentlemen, take care, and I will see you all later. Peace.
No comments:
Post a Comment