Reviews

Jason Isaacs plays Mark Asprey in this adaptation of Martin Amis novel of the same name.

Moderators: thunder, fruitbat, Chari910, Marie, Helen8, Gillian, kjshd05, catloveyes

Post Reply
User avatar
thunder
With her wheelbarrow full of surprises!
Posts: 7295
Joined: Mon Jan 12, 2009 1:08 pm
Location: Norway

Reviews

Post by thunder » Tue Sep 15, 2015 4:16 pm

Unless they are trying to be ironic... I don't think they liked it. (TIFF review)

http://blogs.indiewire.com/theplaylist/ ... s-20150915
Following along with the plot only serves to enrage, as you quickly realize that nothing and no one you see has any substantial or thematic purpose for existing other than the shock-value of their gaudy superficiality. Think of the film as a perfume ad for poison, directed by the deformed spawn of David Cronenberg and Kurt Vonnegut.
Ouch... :shock:

They found something positive:
With a few great lines of dialogue, and something of a self-deprecating tone (the film becomes its own best critic when Samson tells Nicola that she'll be perceived as a one-dimensional male fantasy in his book), "London Fields" may not be as disastrous as it immediately feels to be. Buried underneath the glop are interesting notions on reality, creation, and the nature of death. And thanks to its aesthetic, it's at least a very beautiful catastrophe.
Hoping it's one of those that gets polarized reviews...


EDIT:

This wasn't so negative as the first:
http://www.screendaily.com/reviews/lond ... 68.article
London Fields overflows with interesting ideas but they are frequently buried under lurid fantasy sequences, blunt-edged satire and the sense that it is much more amused by its own wild daring than we are.
EDIT x2:
Variety doesn't like it either:
http://variety.com/2015/film/reviews/lo ... 201594094/
Martin Amis' novel proves even more unadaptable than expected in this misbegotten mess starring Amber Heard and Billy Bob Thornton.
And a last one for to night...
http://www.theguardian.com/film/2015/se ... -treatment
London, even the nightmarish incarnation Amis imagined, feels a long way off. The canny location scouting (Pope’s Road in Brixton, the stone dinosaurs of Crystal Palace park, the Emirates Air Line cable car) can’t make up for the lack of any sense of real meaning.

I think I can just as well go to bed now... :snore

User avatar
Marie
I dig animals--sometimes hundreds of feet down
Posts: 6584
Joined: Sat Jul 23, 2005 11:37 am
Location: Indialantic, FL

Re: Reviews

Post by Marie » Tue Sep 15, 2015 7:43 pm

Ouch that first one was a doozy! Got to love your deformed spawn........

User avatar
thunder
With her wheelbarrow full of surprises!
Posts: 7295
Joined: Mon Jan 12, 2009 1:08 pm
Location: Norway

Re: Reviews

Post by thunder » Thu Oct 18, 2018 2:51 pm

Looks like they try to release it again. Another review that slaughters it... but the review mentions Jason, though, and doesn't say anythig bad about him. So that's good. I think it's probably not a bad thing that he doesn't have a big role in this. :roll:

The review starts like this:
The aggressively awful “London Fields” is, once again, proof that not every successful novel should become a movie.
http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/mo ... story.html Then it's pretty much downhill from there.

User avatar
Marie
I dig animals--sometimes hundreds of feet down
Posts: 6584
Joined: Sat Jul 23, 2005 11:37 am
Location: Indialantic, FL

Re: Reviews

Post by Marie » Thu Oct 18, 2018 6:17 pm

Ouch, I don’t think i’ll Try to hard to see this one.

User avatar
Helen8
Pillar of the Community
Posts: 10293
Joined: Mon Jul 25, 2005 11:18 am
Location: SoCal

Re: Reviews

Post by Helen8 » Fri Oct 19, 2018 11:34 am

Wow! The reviewer didn't hold any punches. He just beat it to death.

User avatar
thunder
With her wheelbarrow full of surprises!
Posts: 7295
Joined: Mon Jan 12, 2009 1:08 pm
Location: Norway

Re: Reviews

Post by thunder » Thu Nov 15, 2018 8:53 am

Another review. They list the good thing first, and Jason is one of them.
Jason Isaacs is gloriously arrogant and self-involved as paperback author/success story Mark Asprey. He is wonderfully charming in pure narcissism.
Then there's a lot of bad things...
https://comicsverse.com/london-fields-odiousness/

User avatar
Marie
I dig animals--sometimes hundreds of feet down
Posts: 6584
Joined: Sat Jul 23, 2005 11:37 am
Location: Indialantic, FL

Re: Reviews

Post by Marie » Thu Nov 15, 2018 8:59 am

Well this one sounds like a stinker. I'm glad at least one reviewer mentioned Jason among the positives.

User avatar
Helen8
Pillar of the Community
Posts: 10293
Joined: Mon Jul 25, 2005 11:18 am
Location: SoCal

Re: Reviews

Post by Helen8 » Thu Nov 15, 2018 12:38 pm

Not gonna rush to a movie theater to see it or later click over to Amazon for the DVD. Shades of Hotel where I've only seen a portion of one scene. :finger: Guess it looked better on paper.

User avatar
thunder
With her wheelbarrow full of surprises!
Posts: 7295
Joined: Mon Jan 12, 2009 1:08 pm
Location: Norway

Re: Reviews

Post by thunder » Thu Nov 15, 2018 2:14 pm

..and some other review mentioned that Jason has not a lot more to do in it than a cameo, and some voice messages. I'm not in a rush to see it, but I'll probably end up seeing it in the end anyway.

Post Reply

Return to “London Fields”