Post by Vits on Mar 1, 2019 19:17:42 GMT
More historical movies should do what IL PRIMO RE (ROMULUS & REMUS: THE FIRST KING) does: Have the actors speak in the language of the time and place (in this case, Latin). Producer/Co-Writer/Director Matteo Rovere was probably inspired by some of Mel Gibson's movies. Unfortunately, both also share the love for graphic violence. No, I'm not offended by it. Quite the opposite. Since it's so frequent, it ends up feeling monotonous. The combination of that and the fact that the plot comes to a halt every time there's violence resulted in constant boredom. At the beginning, the mythological twins nearly drown, they're taken prisoners and they're forced to fight with each other but they manage to escape. Since this section of the movie doesn't have that much character nor story development (nor much dialogue for that matter), it could've lasted a lot less than 25 minutes. After that, it takes a long time for them to arrive to a village, which is where the real plot begins. Why not start the movie there and tell the other scenes via flashbacks? Not only it would've made the pacing better, but it also wouldn't have made REMUS feel like the sole focus.
5/10
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Anyway, he designates himself the new king and he's against the gods' wishes. The people don't like that, and he feels that they should fear him. The people tell ROMULUS that he should be the new king. Keep in mind that ROMULUS was on the verge of death throughout many scenes, so the audience never got to really know him. As we're watching this scene, we don't know if he has what it takes to lead. Due to their disagreements, REMUS tries to kill ROMULUS, who kills him in self-defense. Some of REMUS' men are also killed. All of this happens after ROMULUS convinces the people to go save REMUS and his men from some soldiers. Let me rephrase that. The audience has to watch a battle/rescue mission before the characters that are meant to be saved die anyway, making that long sequence pointless.
Luckily, a good chunk of the dramatic moments are compelling. The technical aspects are good (the cinematography and sound design in particular are great) and so are most of the performances. The exception is Vincenzo Pirrotta, but I think the directing is to blame, not him.5/10
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