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September 13, 2004

Movies; Hero

This movie has a 95% rating at Rotten Tomatoes (a site I really like) and I just can't understand why as I thought it was basically stupid and boring. Some of the visuals are very pretty but, for me at least, not on the Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon level and the plot is absolutely ridiculous. There are 3 main (and 3 additional) martial arts characters and the movie seems to want to have almost every combination of two characters fight against each other. Since these are almost all supposed to be fights to the death, this of course is a problem which they solve with a 'dream sequence' equivalent copout where we see one set of fights only to then realize these weren't real and then see another set and then this happens AGAIN! Ridiculous! In addition, the fights for the most part aren't that interesting since either they involve two very unevenly matched opponents (the fights with Moon) where the outcome is obvious and/or in 80% or so of the fights one person is trying to lose for one reason or another. In the end, all three main characters die to absolutely no purpose. The scene of Flying Snow and Broken Sword attacking the palace and killing 3000 guards is utterly insane as well, particularly as Broken Sword then chooses to not kill the King. In fact, none of the scenes involving the Qin army make any sense at all. The visuals here are good but not nearly enough to overcome the ridiculous plot. Also, the main theme of the movie could have been made IMHO much more easily and effectively in a 100 different ways. I was bored almost throughout and actually considered walking out. **

Posted by aarondf at September 13, 2004 12:45 PM

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