For the
sake of not having to write the same intro a million
different ways throughout the rest of time, just know that
this column avoids the overly long and sometimes dull
process of full film reviews and instead opts to break
things down based on what I thought going in, what happened
while I was there and what I learned at the end of it all.
Thanks for reading!
The
Breakdown - Warrior's Way
The Impression:
From trailers own this is a movie I would never, ever, ever,
ever see. Shoddy computer-graphics, Kate Bosworth as a lead,
some sort of spotty hodgepodge of cowboys and ninjas - no
sir, I’d rather a sharp kick in the head.
The Reality:
You know, perhaps in this season of more weighty,
artistically oriented films, a bigger-dumber film like
The Warrior’s Way just works. Eases away the need to be
intellectually challenged with a story about a rag-tag town
of carnies and misfits, a brilliant but honorable killer on
the run, and several mobs of villainous killers all
colliding in a dusty cowpoke town called Lode. I’ll say it
flat outright, this is not a brilliant movie, the dialogue
is dusty, the computer graphics almost video game like, but
there’s a certain charm that only a good ninja versus cowboy
film can invoke. And to be, sigh, a little film-snobby for a
moment, there’s a real respect for the various genres of
film in the way in which the end battles are fought - the
Western characters drunk and derelict swimming in a sea of
blood, the ninja characters honorable and swift, there
swords falling like sliced bamboo.
The Lesson:
Books and covers and blah blah blah. Perhaps its something
more like, ninjas make everything a little bit better. Even
Kate Bosworth.
Noah Sanders is the blog/news editor at Light In The
Attic and a contributor at Sound On The Sound and
the KEXP blog. He also has his own
Criterion-based film site, Criterion Quest.
If you'd like to contact Noah in regards to his
writings here at Side One: Track One then please do
so
here.
- Noah Sanders
-
Unless
otherwise expressly stated, all text in this blog and any
related pages, including the blog's archives, is licensed by
John Laird under a
Creative Commons License.
