TIFF Day 6

Two Sci Fi movies to start Day 6

Renaissance

Christian Volckman Sci Fi Animation is set in Paris. A young woman searches for her kidnapped sister with the help of a cop. The visual look of the movie is stunning and it's something that you don't see everyday. However, the story is just regular thriller with a touch of Sci Fi in it. The main flaw is that we don't really connect with any of the main characters and thus we are feeling kind of empty after watching it. Still, the visual make it worthwhile to watch it on a big screen.
Grade B

The Fountain

Wow, where do I start?

This is a bigger bomb then I could have imagine. I am a big fan of PI and absolutely loved Requiem For A Dream, but this is bad. Aronofsky needs to rewrite the entire script, the story is incoherent and the characters are not well drawn. The plot interweaves with 3 stories in 3 different time frames, the Past, The Present and The Future. The past consists of a Spanish soldier finding the Tree of Life of his queen. It turns out that this is a story written by the present storyline by Izzi (Rachel Weisz) who is dying of cancer. Her husband is trying to find a cure for her, and then in the future story line, a bald Jackman living in clear bubble and the only company he has is a tree. My head is hurting as I tried to describe this story. I can see what Aronofsky tries to do here, but weaving timeline to tell a love story is a very difficult thing to do and it's definitely not possible to tell a coherent story in 96 minutes. I have a feeling that there is a longer cut somewhere. However, I am not sure I want to see that, as the 96 minute cut is already too tedious to watch (talk about catch 22). Anyway, like Lady In The Water, this is a film that will have a hard time finding its audience. Grade C-

Exiled

It reminds me of a 80s Hong Kong Gangster movie, that's not necessary good news. While the theme of friendship and honor rings pretty strong throughout the movie, it's not exactly great cinema. I consider this a minor Johnny To movie; Election and Election 2 have a much stronger storyline than Exiled. The shootout scenes are ok, nothing I haven't seen before. Grade C+