Lost In Space must however
take the biscuit for The Most Disappointing Film of 1998.
Apart from the poor offerings, detailed above, the films I saw were certainly
entertaining and all had their own points worthy of special mention, even if
they weren't the best of the year.
The biggest complaint I have is, Hollywood's inability to make a film which does
not reek of patriotism or jingoinsm or is nothing more than a visual feast
with little substance.
Even Saving Private Ryan fell foul of the patriotic ideal although
Spielberg had obviously pulled the reigns in tightly.
Dreamworks' Prince of Egypt was the most
difficult film of 1998 to digest; whilst being a visual feast, it attempted to
tell a major religious story. My problems were with the screenplay; if such a
story had been concocted then I would have taken serious umbrage to what it
was trying to say and how it was saying it.
As it stands, I am still not sure how I rate the film; the problem is in
separating the film from the alleged story. Certainly, it has provided many
thought provoking issues of debate.
I'm not a professional film critic ( my reviews have been based upon how I have
enjoyed films which I wanted to see ) so there are those films that never got
reviewed because I wasn't particularly interested or they never made it to my
local cinema.
I missed both The Big Lebowski and Jackie Brown, I'm told they
were excellent films which I really should have seen, and both
Elizabeth and Zorro were said to have been a lot
better than I thought they would be. I finally went to see Elizabeth, on
a retrospective re-run, and can honestly say it was the worst film I had to sit
through.
Neither, the critically acclaimed, Cube nor the lesser
offerings of Deep Rising and Virus made it to a screen near me
and have missed out on a review of any sort.
In all though; 1998 offered a variety of films and, nearly all of those which I
got to see, were enjoyable and made the cinematographic experience one worth
partaking of.
There are some films scheduled for 1999 which I am looking forward to, although
I suspect, from the trailers of Star Trek - Insurrection and Star
Wars - Episode 1 at least, there will be some which have already fallen
victim to the Hype Machine.
Even so, if the productions which make it to the UK in 1999 offer the same
degree of entertainment as those of 1998 did; I'm going to have a happy time
viewing, and reviewing, the releases of the year.
