Rating: Summary: Excellent in Every way Review: Terry Gilliam is probaly the finest director we have in cinema today. The films he has made, to name of few; Brazil, Fisher King, Time Bandits, Jabberwocky, and 12 monkeys are all masterpeices in there own right. And now we come to his latest film "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas" The film is excellent in everyway possible. Right from the opening line "We were on the edge of the destert when the drugs began to take hold" we are thrown into the world of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, and there is no escape for the next two hours. Like Hunter S. Thompson said, "Buy the ticket take the ride." It's a nice little DVD. It's got some great deleted scenes that were cut from the film. Gilliam says they cut theese because they were to "normal" The making of Fear and Loathing is okay, it only runs like 10 minutes, and I think they could have made it 30 minutes. I was kind of dissaponited that Gilliam did not do a commentery for this. He does the best commenteries I beleive, there is never an gaps. If your a Gilliam fan get it. If your a drug fan get it I guess. And if you don't know great cineama, stay away.
Rating: Summary: Lost in Space Review: First of all, I expected to like this movie. I loved the book, I think Depp is one of our best young actors, I was in Las Vegas at the time the book was being written, I admire Terry Gilliams's visual techniques, etc. But ... This was one of the worst movies I have ever sat through, on every level. Flashy visual effects and snippets of decent period music don't make up for a one-trick pony plot, seemingly off-the-cuff improvised acting, mumbled "dialogue," endless closeups of wrecked rooms and people and the detritus amongst them. It was painful to watch this movie, and at the end of it (blessed relief!) I wished that I had spent two hours doing something more meaningful, like watching Batman & Robin TV reruns.
Rating: Summary: huge disappointment Review: I was really looking forward to seeing this film.With all the talent behind it,how could you not?I'm a big fan of anything different and original,but I have this weird,crazy problem with things that are insanely boring!The performances are top notch and the drug trips are somewhat entertaining,but even that wears off after about 30 minutes.After an hour I was just begging it to be over(like a bad acid trip)!But,nope...more scenes of knife wielding and drug hallucinations.This movie may be great if you're still living in the sixties or if drugs are the absolute center of your life,but I'll take a good story over a hit of ether any day!
Rating: Summary: Loathing Is Putting It Mildly! Review: Johnny Depp is a very talented actor. Benicio Del Toro won the Academy Award for best supporting actor in the movie "Traffic." Terry Gilliam, former illustrator for Monty Python, has directed many memorable movies. Their considerable talents were totally wasted in one of the worst movies of all time. In fact, all they did throughout the whole film is act totally wasted! How anybody can be entertained by watching two hours of drug addicts ingesting every drug known to man is beyond me. Worst of all, this movie committed the unforgivable sin of being BORING! This film not only gives Las Vegas a bad name, it gives movies a bad name.
Rating: Summary: well try this... Review: I'd heard much hoo-rah about Fear and Loathing, but, having never experienced it myself, I rented it one night that I had nothing to do, and watched it alone. It was ok. But, because I'd heard so much about it, another night, when I had plans to take a trip with some friends, I made a request for Fear and Loathing. Well, the only thing I can really say, that sums it all up, is that it is a completely different movie when you take a different view. Our drive was 20 times better because we watched the movie on the way, and, with no distractions, we were able to read more into the movie and appreciate small details we wouldn't have if we'd been just sitting on the couch watching it. Take it from a fellow traveler: watch it the next time you go somewhere, and you will NOT regret it.
Rating: Summary: One of the worst f**king movies ever made Review: Damn! When I went into this, I figured "Okay, Terry Gilliam, great director, Johnny Depp, good actor, should be funny and at least all right. .... It is funny in the beginning, especcially Depp's drugged-out warning "We can't stop here, this is bat country!", but after about 20 minutes or so you realize that it's just one drawn-out drug trip and the only question on your mind (well, my mind anyway) is "When will it end?" To Depp's credit, he does do a good acting job under the circumstances (I hardly even recognized him with his bald head), but the story was just bad and Terry Gilliam has a tendency to keep his films going long after they should have ended (in the case of this one, it should have stopped when he got the script). All in all this was a most disappointing movie experience; if it came out a couple years after the novel did, it probably would have done well, but not in today's world. Sorry.
Rating: Summary: naked lunch for optimists Review: i'm not exactly sure how to review this movie, aside from saying that it is my favorite movie ever. i have watched Fear and Loathing 151 times, soon to be 152. my favorite things about this movie are... 1.) the performaces, johnny depp and benicio del toro blow my mind, they a nearly unrecognizabe (depp is bald) and almost unintelligable (i recommend watching the film with closed captioning at least once) and it all works perfectly. and the people performing around them are so real that you actually find the main characters plausible. 2.) the visuals, there is so much stuff in each of terry gilliam's frames that i find something new to see everytime i watch. 3.) the fact that nothing means nothing. there is so much visual symbolism and so many american lifestyle icons are blasted in this movie that you'd think it was about something, or trying to make some statement. alas, the characters making these statement are so tripped out that they can never finish a though or opinion (which is the point of each of these exercises), the characters just forge ahead, making their way through based on their optimistic energy (and mescaline). this is a perfect statement in itself, illustrating the generation that hunter thompson was writing for, beautifully and without satire or malice (see johnny depp's "high water mark" speech near the end of the film). but mostly i love this film because it is bombastic and absurd entertainment about two men who just want to have fun and do what ever they please...
Rating: Summary: The American Dream - My Dream Review: Fear and Loathing is probably the funniest, most accurate depiction of "severe drug culture" I have ever seen, I would recommend it to any open minded adult.
Rating: Summary: Plot? Review: Who needs a defined plot when the movie is interesting enough without one! A weird, drug-crazed trip through Las Vegas... you just have to see it to really understand. There is no plot, no sub plot, just an odd experience put into film.
Rating: Summary: Confused and overlong Review: It has been said of Fear & Loathing that either you get it or you don't. I got it, all right. It plays like a comic strip with unpleasant characters turning mundane situations into vehicles for crime and folly. Parking a car, entering a bar, watching a motorcycle race, etc. become major "plot points," as our drugged-up drunk heros render themselves incompetent for these simple tasks. They berate each other, threaten each other with knives and mace, and likewise threaten innocent bystanders. Meanwhile the narration, laid on with a trowel in homage to the book from which it is taken verbatim, struggles pathetically to impose a higher meaning on these daft proceedings. Ralph Steadman's grotesque illustrations for the book are accurately realized in the film, and this is the root of the problem. Steadman drew caricatures of the book's characters; the film brings these caricatures to life as though they are realistic, Rockwell-like portraits of the characters -- and this fatal misrepresentation sinks the film. Burlesque is diluted with meditation, and as a result the film is neither amusing nor enlightening. The film is entirely superficial, but even so it veers between hallucinatory distortion and gross caricature, leaving the viewer to wonder at the mental age of the people responsible for this farce. Alas, some very talented people were involved, not least of whom is Hunter S. Thompson, and they all should hang their heads in shame. This movie has its share of funny scenes, but five minutes of amusement won't justify two hours of Fear & Loathing. The scene with Dr. Gonzo vomiting over the side of his convertible as he cruises The Strip, while screaming gibberish about Vietnam and heroin at a carful of middle-aged tourists, is alone worth the two stars I've awarded the film. But overall, Fear & Loathing is a major disappointment.
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