Franklyn (2008)

The events taking part at present are often slow and boring, versatility has been created too complex making the film difficult to follow - especially in combination with Meanwhile City fuzz which, to be admitted, is slightly more interesting. It took even some time to realise that there are 4 main characters in this film - normally, I can consider myself as a fast grasper... The actors are also nothing special - even Sam Riley's performance is just average. Or perhaps the characters do not allow to achieve more. And final/settlement scenes and ending... Brr, not to my taste at all.Perhaps two separate films could have been a better and more interesting option. In the present form, Franklyn is just a film for art's sake, just "different" in the artistic sense. There are so many good British films available!

What's FRANKLYN about? I doubt the scriptwriter even knows for sure, because this is a muddled and uninteresting would-be science fiction film that attempts to lift itself out of a genre to become a movie of real merit. It's deliberately quirky and obtuse, and annoyed me in much the same way as the similarly unappealing V FOR VENDETTA: I take an instant dislike to films that think they're better than they are.FRANKLYN tells the stories of four people who initially seem totally unconnected, although unsurprisingly it transpires that each story hooks up with the others in some way, shape or form. So far, so routine, so they decide to have one of the stories take place in a fantastic worldscape where everybody seems to have started up their own religion (probably the only interesting idea in the whole movie). In an attempt to keep viewers' attention, they also throw in some half-hearted fight scenes to keep things moving along.Frankly, I was quite embarrassed to be watching this. Eva Green, an actress I like very much, plays an utterly embarrassing role as a whacked-out art student and has to do some painfully silly (and once again pretentious) stuff. I felt quite sorry for her. While the fantastic world stuff is more fun than the mundane London scenes, the movie lacks interest, hinging too much on a plot twist that turns out to be not very good at all. None of the cast really shines: I've never been a fan of Phillippe and his performance here doesn't change that, while Bernard Hill gets almost nothing to work with. As for the overrated Sam Riley, all of his dull scenes could have been cut without making a jot of difference.Let's face it now: it takes substance to make a real movie, and a movie that's all style is never going to be successful. That's why FRANKLYN turns out to be a real bore.

I could say this movie had action, romance, some horror, a little flair of mystery thrown in, and I certainly wouldn't be lying. There are essentially two worlds: Modern day London, England, and a strange futuristic looking place called Meanwhile city. London is the domain of Milo, a romantic who's been down on his luck with every girl since leaving his childhood friend, and Emilia, an art student with a tendency to try to kill herself on video. Meanwhile City is the domain of Preest, a faithless man in the midst of a city ruled by hundreds of different religions and patrolled by the "clerics". In London, there's the mystery of the strange red haired girl from Milo's past, Emilia's "art", and Peter Esser trying to find his missing son. In Meanwhile, Preest avoids Clerics and traitors while tracking the leader of a religious group that sacrificed a young girl. All these elements were confusing at first, but weird and fantastic enough to keep me occupied until the pieces began to fall into place, and suddenly these two "separate" worlds became one, and it all made sense. Preest is actually Peter Esser's missing son, and his mind has created it's own world after the traumatic death of David Esser's (Preest's) younger sister, then blaming in on his father, Peter, who is the leader of the religious cult in Meanwhile. This worked fine and dandy, until just about the last minute or so of the movie in an anti-climatic, "oh dear, that was sort of weird. Are you alright?" and paramedics who decide "Ok, even though this guy just got SHOT in the ARM and is most likely losing BLOOD, we'll let him have a tender moment with that girl who just stumbled out of a building that EXPLODED. Anyone else want to give this realistic B.S. a go 'cause I'm pretty damn sure I'M FIRED :D (did I forget to mention it turns out 2/3 of the main characters are clinically insane? No? Oh. Well, it also turns out that 2 out of the 3 main characters are just insane, and the 3rd is definitely pushing it.)

With a slow and confusing buildup, this flick threatens to be too clever for most patrons. But somehow getting lost in this flick is more a wonderful bliss than discombobulating tragedy. As it moves forward, there exists a sense that this confusion will soon be assuaged, a definite tribute to the confidence that the director inspires in his viewers. The story is of four lost souls that share the same canvas of a portrait comprised of four seemingly different palates. As the story unfolds, hints of intertwining fates tantalize the viewer, but the denouement is nothing short of spectacular when our heroes actualize fate's appointments. The acting was sublime, whose exclamation point was punctuated with Eva Green's exhilarating role. The direction offered a pace that kept the viewer perfectly in the dark, without losing interest, but instead in rapture with intrigue. The use of color to differentiate different worlds was amazing, bringing the notions of reality and fantasy into the same conference room for a sort of treaty mediation. The score was nothing less than the voice of this movie's soul, escorting us along its emotional byroads. For those comfortable outside of the realms of Hollywood's safety zone of commercial entertainment, Franklyn offers a clever and entertaining mug of fantasy in collusion with every man's quest for safe passage in life. Merci beaucoup.Genruk of Evil Eye Reviews