The first foreign film I used my Movie Pass to see (I have since seen one more), I didn't really go into "The Attorney" with much of an idea what to expect. Based on the beginning of a very brief synopsis and the poster, I was expecting a comedy. The first part of the film seemed to confirm this--it was never hysterical, but seemed to be a gently comedic, inoffensive film. Around a quarter of the way through, however, it turned into a serious legal drama. It was an interesting way to set up the film and let the audience get to know the major characters. The dramatic portions get pretty dark, and these moments have more impact when compared the light-hearted scenes that began the film.
The main story is nothing that hasn't been done before, at least in its broad strokes. It's a standard courtroom drama that pits the one attorney willing to fight for the case against incredibly powerful, corrupt government officials. It handles this story well, but doesn't stand out as drastically different from other courtroom dramas I've seen, aside from the fact that it's in Korean. Still, it is a good film, with its most original feature being the switch from comedy to drama.
"Pompeii" got mostly terrible reviews, and I went into it expecting the worst. As it turned out, I enjoyed the movie quite a lot. Yes, it's kind of cheesy and the love story is absolutely ridiculous, but I don't think this is entirely unintentional. I read some criticism online that referred to Kiefer Sutherland's performance as the villain as terrible. I disagree. I think he's being deliberately bad, and there is a difference. It's not the biggest scenery chewing performance of all time, but he's clearly having a good time and not taking the film too seriously. This is true of the whole film in general: it doesn't take itself too seriously, and is thus able to just concentrate on being silly and showing the audience a good time, even before Mount Vesuvius erupts.
As I said before, the love story is ridiculous. The whole relationship between the two leads is built on wistful glances from afar--they barely exchange two words until over halfway into the film. But the film knows the relationship is just an excuse to set up frantic action scenes near the climax, and it doesn't expect us to really invest emotionally in the lovers' plight. "Pompeii" acquits itself especially well when compared to the Roland Emmerich school of disaster films ("The Day After Tomorrow", "2012"). In those movies, you get the big, well done disaster scenes you came for, but you also have to deal with bloated runtimes of over two hours, with too much time spent trying (and failing) to tug at your emotions. "Pompeii" doesn't bother wasting time with any of that. It tells enough story to set up a few well choreographed gladiator battles before letting the volcano do its thing. It then has the requisite visually impressive disaster sequences, with a few more fights and a chase scene thrown in for good measure. Before these can become too repetitive, it has the good sense to end, coming in at a brisk 104 minutes. All in all, a pretty fun movie.
Haha, "letting the volcano do it's thing"
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