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ivankovacevic
Reviews
The Last Duel (2021)
Unfulfilled Potential
Although there is nothing specifically wrong with the film, it ends up feeling like a huge missed opportunity given the cast, the director, and certainly the plot.
While Ridley doesn't disappoint with impressive scenes like the final battle, and arguably some of the most immersive costumes and set production despite the greyscale scenery and lack of scene variation. However, it is hard to overlook the odd decision to have the entire cast using English accents despite the emphasis on the story taking place in Medieval France. This is only exacerbated by Damon and Affleck, who in my opinion weren't entirely bad in their respective roles, but did struggle with the accents and broke the immersion. While many complain that Affleck's role as Count Pierre is out of place and a Caligula-type of character in Medieval France, I found it to be one of the more believable areas within the plot. In the second act in particular it shed plenty of light on what was going wrong in de Carrouges' (Damon) life for him to be so universally disliked, for the Count to be favouring Le Gris (Driver) so heavily through their shared mischief and for Le Gris to be so expecting of love from Marguerite (Judie Comer) due to his lack of proper relationship etiquette. In general, de Carrouges could do with more adventurous scenes, given his act doesn't really delve into the detail the others do, and his role as a noble knight even from his perspective isn't properly substantiated.
Therefore, my take on the biggest missed opportunity was in the usage of the Rashomon-style throughout the film. As mentioned, I thought the film was generally good all-throughout, but when looking back on the third act in particular, it just felt too repetitive in the content without sufficient narrative variation to actually warrant the stylistic usage of Rashomon. While Comer does a good job and is very sympathetic portraying the modern message of the film in her act, the rest of the film, especially the first act feels a bit pointless in comparison.
Reading more about the plot, it is clear that there was huge potential to create a more vague and inconclusive ending with the duel by portraying Marguerite's intercourse with Le Gris as more consensual, and for de Carrouges to be either more or less likeable, rather than an average tolerable man as the film suggests. This would give Le Gris more of a motivation other than his love for Marguerite which is too unrequited to make sense for his seemingly intelligent character and more reason to be so unapologetic come the ending. And it would leave Marguerite's puzzled complexion in the end actually making sense.
Temptation Island (2019)
Second season loses the spark.
I recently streamed both seasons of this show and while I can say I thoroughly enjoyed watching all the contestants in the first season develop their relationships deeper through the show, the second season was a complete chore to watch as nobody really seemed to have that same emotional growth or evoke as much sympathy for their evidently difficult decisions. I wanted to watch another season of "Temptation Island", not a season of Adultery Island, and I lost complete respect for everyone on the second season of the show very quickly, and the casting department should definitely be scrutinized for picking such terrible contestants. Ashley H. was the only person seemingly growing from the experience but I was hugely disappointed by the outcome of her experiences as described in the Reunion.
I really enjoyed the first season so I would be interested in watching a third as long as there are serious casting improvements. I would prefer to see more intelligent people capable of self reflection, with stronger relationships, and stronger moral values be truly tested by the conditions of this show rather than some unintelligent and emotionally weak imbeciles run around having threesomes on a free vacation and pretending to be remorseful.