http://ambival.net/movies/leon-the-professional Just another WordPress weblog Fri, 16 May 2008 04:33:26 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.5.1 http://ambival.net/movies/leon-the-professional#comment-10454 Ambival.net » Movie Reviews » Man on Fire [1987] Sun, 13 May 2007 23:56:15 +0000 http://ambival.net/?p=89#comment-10454 [...] Something had led me to believe the girl in this version was much older, something I always thought would take away a lot of the power of Scott’s version. But Jade Malle, who plays the girl here – 12-year-old Sam, not 9-year-old Pita as played by Dakota Fanning in the 2004 version) – really looks the part more than I’d thought she would. Malle looks incredibly like Natalie Portman in Leon – and while it’s easy to criticise her performance (it is a little wooden sometimes), I think it’s as much if not more to do with the way her character is written (that is, badly) that makes the emotional connection between her and Creasy, though not entirely absent, never match the sheer beauty of that found in the 2004 movie. [...] [...] Something had led me to believe the girl in this version was much older, something I always thought would take away a lot of the power of Scott’s version. But Jade Malle, who plays the girl here – 12-year-old Sam, not 9-year-old Pita as played by Dakota Fanning in the 2004 version) – really looks the part more than I’d thought she would. Malle looks incredibly like Natalie Portman in Leon – and while it’s easy to criticise her performance (it is a little wooden sometimes), I think it’s as much if not more to do with the way her character is written (that is, badly) that makes the emotional connection between her and Creasy, though not entirely absent, never match the sheer beauty of that found in the 2004 movie. [...]

]]> http://ambival.net/movies/leon-the-professional#comment-7130 Ambival.net » Movie Reviews » My Top 100 Movies [current] Wed, 18 Apr 2007 01:57:18 +0000 http://ambival.net/?p=89#comment-7130 [...] Léon: The Professional Luc Besson [...] [...] Léon: The Professional Luc Besson [...]

]]> http://ambival.net/movies/leon-the-professional#comment-6943 Ambival.net » Movie Reviews » .45 Fri, 13 Apr 2007 15:49:03 +0000 http://ambival.net/?p=89#comment-6943 [...] I had to think about this one a lot before reviewing it. There’s something about the presentation of the movie – straight-to-video, Milla Jovovich, revenge thriller – that doesn’t exactly invite a lot of post-credits dissection but I think if you go into this expecting the simple, trashy revenge thriller it purports to be, you’re only in for some disappointment and might be better off renting something like Léon, which this movie actually sort of resembles in places. This has far more meaningful things on its mind. [...] [...] I had to think about this one a lot before reviewing it. There’s something about the presentation of the movie – straight-to-video, Milla Jovovich, revenge thriller – that doesn’t exactly invite a lot of post-credits dissection but I think if you go into this expecting the simple, trashy revenge thriller it purports to be, you’re only in for some disappointment and might be better off renting something like Léon, which this movie actually sort of resembles in places. This has far more meaningful things on its mind. [...]

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