Saturday, June 29, 2013

Where the Red Fern Grows Part Two

I hate to say it but this movie was terrible in every way. The story was weak and underdeveloped, the characters were not very dynamic, and the love story between 'little sister' and Rainie was extremely cheesy. The soundtrack to this movie was even worse than the first one. The filmmakers had some interesting ideas, but they just didn't portray them well. For example the big train opening was a good idea, but it was slow and not used very purposefully so it made audiences disconnect before the movie even truly started. Also in the opening, the flashback was quite clever, but the music was mixed in rather loudly, and was therefore quite distracting. It didn't seem like the filmmakers trusted these dogs as much as they did in the first movie. They were nearly always on leash or locked up, and since it is supposed to be a movie about coon hunting dogs, that really took away from the story and slowed it down. The script prolonged  the protagonist's reluctance to accept the dogs as well, which also caused the movie to move REALLY slowly. There was one scene when Grandpa was talking to Billy after Old Dan died, and the way the scene was shot the viewers could see very little of the actors faces and expressions due to the lighting and the poor choice of camera angle. Also in this same scene, when Grandpa hugged Billy, he completely blocked Billy from the screen. This was very poor direction; in such a scene as that the protagonist's face is far more important for the viewer to see than Grandpa's back. The story was not very original either; the elements were all stolen from either the first movie, or other famous films (for example the opening train sequence is a classic film opening). Overall it certainly is not a movie I will ever find myself watching again; it was slow, and not well made at all. 

No comments:

Post a Comment