Rating: 
Summary: Philosophical fun
Review: An entertaining, high-energy film in which characters crash off each other like balls in a pinball game, spinning each other's lives into new trajectories. This film tackles some serious issues but refuses to take itself seriously, thereby remaining light and entertaining at all times. To what extent are our lives ruled by chance, and to what extent are our fates determined by personality? Watching the different versions of Lola's run through town, we can see that the lives of various secondary characters take dramatically different turns depending on such apparently innocuous details as whether Lola runs by at a certain point in time or five seconds later. Yet the fate of Lola and her boyfriend, Manni, always seem to be the same. This is a rewarding film whether you or in the mood to ponder such issues or just to be entertained.
Rating: 
Summary: Slammin' vid
Review: A nice break from the average boring flick. Simple, and easy to watch, even for non-native English speakers. I originally saw it subtitled in Japanese, which mine is far from perfect, but still thoroughly enjoyed this film. A nice look at the random nature of life, and how one event can change many others. Soundtrack is top notch as well.
Rating:
Summary: I loved this movie!!!
Review: When I first started watching the movie, I thought it was gonna bore me. But was I wrong! The movie is awesome and gets really interesting. And, I loved Lola's hair.
Rating:
Summary: It Moves
Review: Every year I see countless flicks that pass for entertainment. I see too many people going to see... and liking it, but every year I also find something out there that brings back my faith in talented filmmakers making good movies. Run LOLA RUN is a really incredible film. While not preying on petty emotions and cheap plot devices to involve the audience director Tykwer relies on something more important, he gives his film a vitality I rarely see in American film. This move has a pulse. We feel it in every seen and then there's that red hair. I love this movie and I try to get everyone I know to see it. Don't miss it.
Rating:
Summary: It Moves
Review: Every year I see countless flicks that pass for entertainment. I see too many people going to see crap and liking it, but every year I also find something out there that brings back my faith in talented filmmakers making good movies. Run LOLA RUN is a really incredible film. While not preying on petty emotions and cheap plot devices to involve the audience director Tykwer relies on something more important, he gives his film a vitality I rarely see in American film. This move has a pulse. We feel it in every seen and then there's that red hair. I love this movie and I try to get everyone I know to see it. Don't miss it.
Rating:
Summary: BOOM BOOM BOOM!!!!!
Review: I LOVED IT! My mom loved it. My high school classmates loved it (which surprised me). Come on people, it's just a fun film. Why the heck does every film have to have some artsy - fartsy deep meaning? (I'm talking to you 1 and 2 star reviewers!) Why does it have to be a smashing hit with an epiphany that makes you spill your latte on the floor of your overpriced arthouse in order for you to enjoy it? Why does it have to rival other German directors simply because it's German? Well, I suppose the same people who said such nasty things about such a cool movie think that techno/drum n' bass is mindless simply because it isn't written and performed by a self - centered, barefoot wannabe gen - X hippie with a pretentious hypocritical attitude. Well guess what -- SOME PEOPLE LOVED THE SOUNDTRACK! Maybe it's just a generation gap here, maybe not...my aging hippie (genuine 1960s/1970s) mom isn't a techno/dnb fanatic, and she even liked the soundtrack. (I love you mommy!) I guess everyone to their own... *sob*
Rating:
Summary: AWESOME!!!
Review: This is the greatest film out of Germany- BOTTOM LINE! This film is already making it's way to the top of my favorite films ever list. Franka Potente gives a heart stopping performance as Lola and doesn't stop till the bitter end. Kudos to Tom Twyker, he has done it again. If you havent seen this movie-SEE IT NOW! i promise you, you have never seen a better piece of German Cinema ever! Best movie of the year!
Rating: 
Summary: One word: TRIPE
Review: I see a lot of glowing reviews for this movie and I just don't get it. It's not "deep", ingenious, brilliant, or anything else that I've heard it called. Anyone who thinks this movie is thought provoking probably thinks Barney the dinosaur is a great philospher (seriously, get an education). This is a gimmicky, kitchy film that is a combination of concepts that have all been used before. The funny part is that they weren't great concepts the first time I saw them in other films. But hey, nothing suceeds like excess...so lets bring it all together and make a really really bad movie!
Rating:
Summary: Little known treasure
Review: In this German movie, a young girl named Lola (Potente) must get 20,000 marks to her boyfriend Manni (Bleibtreu) in 20 minutes or he will die. The premise sounds kind of dumb, but the execution is phenomenal. In the great tradition of Bill Murray in Groundhog Day, Lola is given multiple chances to get things right. Lola's first attempts, which end in tragedy, place her right back where she started. All along the way, the audience gets to see how the smallest and seemingly insignificant actions can have the largest consequences. This film speaks volumes about the potential that each human being has to change their life and the lives of others. When I first saw this movie, I couldn't help but become completely engrossed in the film. In some movies, the simplest plots produce the most complex and interesting story lines. This is definitely one of those. Through the simple and seemingly silly premise, the characters bring up very interesting questions about love, family, society, and human needs. Like the other movies I have listed, I recommend this one full heartedly to anyone who is looking for a unique film. I recommend you watch this movie in German dubbing and English subtitles for the full effect however, rather than simply English dubbing.
Rating:
Summary: This Is NOT Groundhog Day!!!!!
Review: I don't know how the comparison got started, but Groundhog Day resembles Lola Rennt (its original German title) about as much as much as cooking sherry resembles a good merlot. Both will get you drunk, and how you get there is up to you -- but the low-rent route may not agree with your stomach all that well. This may sound as if I'm getting ready to slam Groundhog Day -- not at all. It was a good movie, though not great, but there was a certain amount of formula to it -- i.e., Bill Murray plays one of his stock cynical jerk characters, who because of an extraordinary series of circumstances, undergoes a complete personality facelift by the movie's end. This is all well and good, and it makes for a fun movie -- but nobody will ever confuse it with a really classic comedy like It Happened One Night. Okay, so how does all this blathering relate to Lola Rennt? Well, as I said, the comparison is absurd, a true case of apples and oranges if ever I've seen one. GD was a comedy which pretended to have serious overtones; Lola on the other hand is a serious, experimental film which refuses to take itself all that seriously. It has a definite sense of humor about itself, and even seems to parody itself at certain points. Also, Groundhog Day is about a man trapped in repeating the same day over and over again -- whereas Lola (and this is where the confusion started, I think) is about a woman faced with a difficult choice, who runs through possible scenarios of how her choices will work out -- but (and I wish I could use italics here to emphasize this) only the last of these occurs in real life! The first two are Lola running through these possible events in her own mind, speculating on how it will go -- will I get killed, will my boyfriend get killed, etc.? This is a small but crucial point that a lot of people seem to miss, and it's also the biggest reason why Lola Rennt is cut from a completely different cloth than Groundhog Day. So, having said all that, let me now talk about the movie. The plot is simple: Lola's boyfriend Manni loses 100,000 Marks through a stupid accident (it's made obvious straightaway that Manni isn't the brightest bulb in the lamp), and Lola must help him come up with the cash in 20 minutes or he will die. There then follows three separate versions of how that happens, two speculative on Lola's part, the final one the way it really happens. Subtle and major changes happen in each successive version of these events, but the connecting thread between all three is that Lola must run to get where she is going. I won't spoil the fun for you by telling all that happens, save that one involves blackmail, another involves a robbery, while the third involves a coincidence that stretches the bounds of believability. Franka Potente is amazing in the title role -- she's a very good actor, and handles the physically demanding role with ease. More than one review has compared what she does to Olympic-quality athleticism, and I have to agree. The film itself, both in terms of script and direction, is highly imaginative -- and you don't have to be a pseudo-intellectual, as one of the other reviewers suggested, to appreciate it. There are lots of lovely touches throughout -- the way the car accident happens differently each time, the hobo on the bicycle, the Bergmanesque conversations between Lola's father and his lover. Best of all are the brilliant "AND THEN:" sequences, which in several seconds of snapshots show the possible futures of minor characters and extras in the film, which again are different every time, and which swing wildly from hilarity and irony to tragedy and chilling sorrow. These are some of the movie's best moments, and they really add to the pulsing rhythms of the main story. Another nice touch is Lola's scream, which shatters glass -- suggesting that Lola has become a force of nature, and woe betide the poor S.O.B. who gets in her way. These moments make you laugh, but the laughter is of a decidedly nervous variety, because you sense that such tremendous passion will lead Lola to trouble (as if it hasn't already, considering what her unreasoning love for Manni has led her into!). A lot of "art-house" films have the tendency to take themselves way (and I mean WAY) too seriously; Lola Rennt, if anything, almost goes too far in the opposite direction. It does a lot of its work with a sly-wink-and-a-nod feel that is amusing (and as I said above, there are moments of self-parody that are very good), but this playful tone at times almost upends the story's more serious aspects. That, along with the hard-to-swallow moments in the third storyline, has led me to give Lola Rennt four stars instead of five. However, it's still head and shoulders above most of the other experimental art films I've seen lately. I wholeheartedly reccommend it to you, and I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.
|
