LoginEven though this movie didn’t get much love when it was released, since I have always been interested in Terrence Malick's work, I was still eager to check it out. Well, unfortunately, it turned out to be a major disappointment. Indeed, after ‘To the Wonder’ which already barely worked, it seems that Malick finally really lost me here. Basically, once again, he gave us his typical impressionist directing style which is equally mesmerizing and frustrating, at least in my case and, even though you might think that there was no plot, there were in fact 3 plot-lines or threads. First, it seemed that the movie was about a movie writer struggling with his work in Hollywood and I have the feeling that it was supposed to be the main focus in this movie but Malick, I assumed, got bored, pretty much dropped this idea so it was barely developed at all. Then, you had some family issue between the main character, his brother, his father and a deceased brother. It was pretty obvious that this time Malick was recycling some material from ‘The Tree of Life’ and even though it worked better than the movie business stuff, the improvement was only minor. Then, the biggest chunk of the movie was about the main character struggling with his love life and, this time, it felt really reminiscent to ‘To the Wonder’. However, if ‘To the Wonder’ was mostly focusing on the relationship between Ben Affleck and Olga Kurylenko, in this movie, the main character had some various romances with 6 different women which was just way too much. Basically, you would get Christian Bale wandering around for about 20 mins with one girl and then he would switch to another girl for 20 mins and so on and so on… As a result, you never had the opportunity to invest yourself in one of these relationships with such a short time and the fact that there was barely any dialogue and mostly some voice-overs didn’t help either. At least, as usual with this director, the cinematography was just gorgeous (with 3 times Oscar winner Emmanuel Lubezki, it was to be expected). Then, there was a really impressive cast and it was pretty obvious that the actors greatly enjoyed the freedom provided by Malick’s directing style. To conclude, in spite of its flaws, I can’t completely dismiss the whole thing, I still think it is worth a look, even if it was seriously disappointing.
Knight of Cups Reviews
An average movie
Posted : 7 years, 11 months ago on 11 May 2016 08:31
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Knight of Cups review
Posted : 8 years, 2 months ago on 24 February 2016 09:37
I really didn't know much about this one except for the cast and the director. Many of whom I really enjoy. I mean it has some of my huge crushes like Natalie Portman, Freida Pinto, and Imogen Poots! Terrence Malick tends to write and direct most of his work. He has a certain style that is interesting to watch. My favorite of his work so far was The Tree of Life. The worst was The New World. Now his stories tend to lean to the stranger side, but the actors are what really grab your attention. Anyways I hope this one leans more towards entertaining than just stylish. No it already seems to be going for mainly visuals and strange storytelling. It narrates like it takes place in medieval times which given the title makes sense. I do think all the visuals are kind of neat. So I have this feeling even though I like the cast that this isn't going to be my cup of tea. Oh there is my girl Imogen Poots! Well the internal dialogue seems to be the more important stuff to pay attention to. At least the characters are interesting. A half an hour in and really I'm just bored. Terrence Malick is an acquired taste. He sometimes doesn't hit the mark for people and for me this is one of those times. Okay that just reminded me of American Psycho instead of a guy just having fun with two girls like I assume it's meant to. Well there goes my other lady Freida Pinto! Hmm I wonder if that was really good prosthetics or real burn victims. So if it really is true that there was no script then it does make this a little more interesting. It would also explain why it doesn't make a lot of sense at times. Is the glimpses of nudity supposed to add interest? I don't think it does. Well that scene was a bit random and silly. Well hello there Teresa Palmer. I think now I get why Christian Bale originally thought she was a real stripper lol. Okay that stripper cocoon things was pretty neat. Finally Natalie Portman although it kind of feels abrupt. It's funny this movie says it's about a screenwriter, but really not much here actually deals with that except maybe a few lines in the beginning. Also I doubt I would consider the events of his life strange. It's pretty much a journey of love and discovery I guess. I really couldn't get into this. I guess you have to be a huge Terrence Malick fan to appreciate this. It's beautiful to look at and the cast is excellent. It's just a tad bit convoluted and it kind of takes away from the experience. That and the plot description gives this feel like something more than just the drama/romance it is. I respect the film though for what it tries to do.
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