Guy Ritchie

As pointless as most of the Disney live action remakes, but by a pleasantly decent margin not among the worst (blandest) executed ones. Will Smith in particular does an impressive job being an entertaining take on the Genie without being too similar to the incomparable Robin Williams. The frame story is also a nice touch, as is the subplot about the princess' charming handmaid. But as is always going to be the case with such a film, there is both too little new here to warrant the remake, show more and too little of the old for those scenes where the individual viewer subjectively would have loved to see it in live action (for me and my wife, this movie's biggest transgression in the latter regard was not giving us the Cave of Wonders rising from the dunes). Some of the new stuff does also feel rather forced and ham-fisted, in particular Jasmine's flight-of-fancy girl-power song felt jarring and poorly placed (though this song aside I'm otherwise happy for her beefed up plotline). I liked this film a touch better than I'd expected going to the theatre, but even so I'd be quite hard-pressed to think of a situation in which I'd want to watch this (perfectly fine) retelling rather than the (utterly amazing) original. Ironically, I think Disney milking more money out of this by making a (hopefully good) prequel or sequel which to a much larger degree could be an original story would be the one way to retroactively make this film feel more worthwhile. So fingers crossed those (when they inevitably come) are good enough to warrant this film's existence as a launching point. As it stands, though, the film remains unfortunately pointless. show less

A jewel thief named Franky Four Fingers steals a massive diamond, only to end up dead when he attempts to take a detour to satisfy his gambling addiction. The stories of multiple characters intertwine before the diamond finally ends up in someone's hands: there's Turkish, a boxing promoter, and his pal Tommy; an Irish gypsy named Mickey; a couple small-time crooks accompanied by their getaway driver and a dog; and more, all of them with their own goals and motivations.

I bought this years show more after first seeing it, based on vague memories of it having great energy and fun-but-violent heist story vibes. Either my tastes have changed, or my memories weren't very accurate, because, while it wasn't bad, it wasn't as good as I remembered.

It was also a lot more confusing than I recalled, not so much because of the diamond but because I couldn't always keep track of who knew what and how and whether characters knew each other. My vague memories of my initial viewing told me that Jason Statham's character, Turkish, was the main character, but in reality, although Turkish did the movie's narration, this didn't really have a "main" character.

The first thing I thought of while watching the opening credits was the anime TV series Baccano! - if that show's overall feel wasn't inspired by Snatch, it was at least in a similar realm. Which makes me wonder how I'd feel if I rewatched Baccano! now. Although maybe the issue is Snatch's humor - while some parts worked for me, it got a little too dark at one point (Mickey's storyline). Plus, I'm not as tolerant of certain animal-related humor anymore - I had completely forgotten the whole "dog and squeaky toy" thing (FYI, somehow, despite everything, the dog ends up fine). And the rabbit-hunting scene worked really well in context but seemed like it would be difficult to do without harming an actual rabbit (some googling just now tells me that, uh, I'm unfortunately right about that).

One thing I know for sure didn't even occur to me when I first watched this movie: I wonder how offensive Brad Pitt's scenes were? Because I'm pretty sure the first time around I was just amazed at his accent (which seemed impressively done, although, granted, I have nothing to judge it by).

Overall, this was okay, but not the level of fun I remembered it being.

Extras:

Huh, I just noticed that the subtitles available are "English, French, Pikey." Anyway, my edition had a director and producer commentary, production notes, and "Stealing Stones - enhanced branching mode." The only extra I tried was the enhanced branching mode, which apparently is supposed to show scenes in an order that makes it easier to track the diamond. I didn't get far enough in to see whether that was the case, because I wasn't in the mood to watch the whole movie again just for that.

(Original review posted on A Library Girl's Familiar Diversions.) show less

I want to start with the information that I am a huge fan of the original stories. This was the first adaptation I saw. Guy Ritchie took a lot of liberties with the stories, which I usually hate, but I feel like Jude Law and Robert Downey Jr. were charming enough to make it work. (for the record I like the BBC Sherlock as well) I like that someone finally made Watson a young guy. Newly made doctor just back from the Afghanistan war, why would he be old? And I think that Robert Downey Jr. show more does a good job with Sherlock’s lack of emotion, while keeping him a funny and likeable character. I like that they took his boxing ability and made it into an interesting piece of the story, but they over-do it a little bit on the fight scenes and making it into an action movie. I didn’t like that Irene Adler is kind of a love interest—not a huge fan of romances, but I did like that a female character was given a stronger role than they ever get in the original stories. show less

A very strong and memorable opening sequence (which I say in _spite_ of my general dislike of car chases) that unforuntately then gives way to a fairly bland and unmemorable plot. That said, the performances stay strong the whole way through, and leads Hammer and Cavill continuously and without fail make their every scene land -- especially the (many) fun bits. Because of that, the film ends up being quite enjoyable, and while its box office performance makes it a near impossibility, a show more follow-up that keeps their excellent chemistry going and wraps it inside an a bit more interesting plot, could have been something rather special. show less