fatvegan

It was my first movie in over six weeks and for that very anticipated. I was a book fan before it was cool and then somehow, somewhere along the way I got too cool for them. But that doesn't mean I don't have very fond memories and the first book really was pretty great. However, if you're too cool for the books then you're definitely too cool for them film. It's good but way daggy. Aimed at the mid-teens I'd guess and probably squarely at the boys.

The whole film was soaked in teen hormones to the point of silliness. But it was an amusing backdrop to some pretty quality Australian film violence. I was surprised to find out the budget was $20m because it looks more expensive than that to me, particularly the CGI.

I really enjoyed seeing the Blue Mountains looking so sexy. I don't tend to think of the area as very photogenic (although beautiful), but the film did a great job with the aerial shots. And also a great job hauling so much of the lighting and makeup gear from Home and Away all the way out there into the bush. Heavy stuff lighting gear. Good to see that even after weeks of fighting war from the bush without any sleep the whole cast still looked immaculate.

I thought the Ellie character was slightly absurd. It felt like a fair amount of character development in the books was about them not being beauty queens and underwear models. There wasn't a single point in the film where Ellie actually looked down to earth or practical. Although I know that beauty and usefulness aren't totally orthogonal.

Scenes like the Swinging Playground Seat of Lost Innocence just made me laugh out loud but they all added to the hammed up sense of drama.

Alice saw it too. Alice the 16 year-old boy gave it 11/10 and Alice gave it 5/10. Me the 16 year-old also gave it 11/10 and I gave it 7/10.