The Last Mimzy
Jan. 15th, 2008 01:07 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
moominmuppetI'm exhausted today, and the things I want to write about my trip are too complicated to get into, so I'm just going to talk about one of the movies we watched instead.
I read Mimsy were the Borogoves in high school, and liked it well enough to still recall a good bit of it more than a decade and a half later. So, when I saw ads for The Last Mimzy, I suspected it was based on the story. Given my fondness for children's fantasy movies anyway, I was very interested to see it. Although I definitely have comments and critique, I have to say that I really enjoyed it regardless of any of the following, and do recommend it for kids who enjoy this sort of thing, and to adults who are willing to give the movie some leeway for not being rigorous enough science fiction to stand up to adult scrutiny very well*. Basically, the movie has a bunch of likeable actors playing very likeable characters with some fun special effects, some mild adventure, and some moderately nifty ideas (although not as nifty as those in the original story, sadly). If I needed a three-word review, "fun and pretty" would basically cover it. That said, it's still quite likely I'll buy it sooner or later; I enjoyed it that much, at least.
That said, I did have to make fun of it at several points. Although the kids behaved in ways that mostly made sense given the situation, the adults were another story altogether, and left some pretty big plot holes as a result. I was sorry to see the accidental nature of the influence lost, but I can understand why they created the framework they did -- it works better, especially as a kids movie. This also explains why they made a major change to the end of the story -- again, not a kid's ending in the original. There were three choices that really bothered me, though. First of all, I think they could absolutely have worked in Jabberwocky in almost exactly the same way it appeared in the short story, and without doing that, the reference to Alice, and indeed, the entire title, made less sense than if they'd remained true to the source in that regard. Besides, it would have been a fun addition to the puzzle-solving that was at the heart of the story. Secondly, the new-agey twist was unnecessary and I found it detrimental to the story, and downright irritating at times, especially the idea that what was going on had to do with Emma, at least, already being somehow "chosen". That ties in closely to my final complaint; I think they made it seem too much like the kids were just getting smarter, and as a result they almost entirely lost the fundamental fascinating concept in the original novel; the exploration of radically different ways of thinking, and what might happen if children were taught something that different from a young age, before they'd already learned our methods of interpreting and processing the world.
So, gripes voiced. Read the story and see the movie; they're radically different, but both worthwhile.
*tears as the effective way to retrieve genetic material? Seriously? Come on!
I read Mimsy were the Borogoves in high school, and liked it well enough to still recall a good bit of it more than a decade and a half later. So, when I saw ads for The Last Mimzy, I suspected it was based on the story. Given my fondness for children's fantasy movies anyway, I was very interested to see it. Although I definitely have comments and critique, I have to say that I really enjoyed it regardless of any of the following, and do recommend it for kids who enjoy this sort of thing, and to adults who are willing to give the movie some leeway for not being rigorous enough science fiction to stand up to adult scrutiny very well*. Basically, the movie has a bunch of likeable actors playing very likeable characters with some fun special effects, some mild adventure, and some moderately nifty ideas (although not as nifty as those in the original story, sadly). If I needed a three-word review, "fun and pretty" would basically cover it. That said, it's still quite likely I'll buy it sooner or later; I enjoyed it that much, at least.
That said, I did have to make fun of it at several points. Although the kids behaved in ways that mostly made sense given the situation, the adults were another story altogether, and left some pretty big plot holes as a result. I was sorry to see the accidental nature of the influence lost, but I can understand why they created the framework they did -- it works better, especially as a kids movie. This also explains why they made a major change to the end of the story -- again, not a kid's ending in the original. There were three choices that really bothered me, though. First of all, I think they could absolutely have worked in Jabberwocky in almost exactly the same way it appeared in the short story, and without doing that, the reference to Alice, and indeed, the entire title, made less sense than if they'd remained true to the source in that regard. Besides, it would have been a fun addition to the puzzle-solving that was at the heart of the story. Secondly, the new-agey twist was unnecessary and I found it detrimental to the story, and downright irritating at times, especially the idea that what was going on had to do with Emma, at least, already being somehow "chosen". That ties in closely to my final complaint; I think they made it seem too much like the kids were just getting smarter, and as a result they almost entirely lost the fundamental fascinating concept in the original novel; the exploration of radically different ways of thinking, and what might happen if children were taught something that different from a young age, before they'd already learned our methods of interpreting and processing the world.
So, gripes voiced. Read the story and see the movie; they're radically different, but both worthwhile.
*tears as the effective way to retrieve genetic material? Seriously? Come on!
