Salma Hayek has an uncanny talent for starring in disappointing films with enticing trailers. Previously it was Everly, with a stylish action trailer that misrepresented a mean spirited, miserable movie. This time it is Tale of Tales, an intriguingly alien set of fairy stories which turn out to be far less interesting in the telling.
Not that it is Hayek's fault. She's fine in this movie, even if everyone she is working with comes off as stilted and awkward. The editing and direction is worse a problem, lingering on poorly positioned actors and forcing each scene to move at a languorous pace. The dialogue too is a bit weak, sounding as though it was translated several times over before finally being penned for English speakers. Considering the international French/Italian/English production, this was most likely the case. Basically there are a whole raft of technical faults which result in a poorly told, plodding set of stories.
And that's a shame because the fairy stories aren't like anything you've seen before. There's a mother who dines on sea monster in the hopes it will make her pregnant, a pair of ugly sisters trying to get into the King's bed, and most intriguingly, another old King who keeps a giant flea as a pet. These are stories from a time before Grimm and Anderson, full of orgies and thoroughly demented morals (morals such as: pointless edicts are bad, ugly people don't deserve happiness, and violence solves most problems). In the hands of a more competent team of film makers this could have made a cracking surrealist horror anthology. Unfortunately the only moral worth taking away from this is to never ever trust a Salma Hayek trailer - it only leads to ruin.
Film Tall Tales
Salma Hayek has an uncanny talent for starring in disappointing films with enticing trailers. Previously it was Everly, with a stylish action trailer that misrepresented a mean spirited, miserable movie. This time it is Tale of Tales, an intriguingly alien set of fairy stories which turn out to be far less interesting in the telling.
Not that it is Hayek's fault. She's fine in this movie, even if everyone she is working with comes off as stilted and awkward. The editing and direction is worse a problem, lingering on poorly positioned actors and forcing each scene to move at a languorous pace. The dialogue too is a bit weak, sounding as though it was translated several times over before finally being penned for English speakers. Considering the international French/Italian/English production, this was most likely the case. Basically there are a whole raft of technical faults which result in a poorly told, plodding set of stories.
And that's a shame because the fairy stories aren't like anything you've seen before. There's a mother who dines on sea monster in the hopes it will make her pregnant, a pair of ugly sisters trying to get into the King's bed, and most intriguingly, another old King who keeps a giant flea as a pet. These are stories from a time before Grimm and Anderson, full of orgies and thoroughly demented morals (morals such as: pointless edicts are bad, ugly people don't deserve happiness, and violence solves most problems). In the hands of a more competent team of film makers this could have made a cracking surrealist horror anthology. Unfortunately the only moral worth taking away from this is to never ever trust a Salma Hayek trailer - it only leads to ruin.