After many more or less foolish comedies and snobish/posh (although often beautiful) dramatic movies, Italy has the courage to try a new genre, the superhero genre, usually considered a Hollywood prerogative.
I really hope it will be entertaining. Italian films are really in great need of something new and fresh.
"Spoons? Where we are going we don't need spoons"
Matrix to the future
I don't want to discourage you about this movie, but unfortunately Salvatores already explored the superhero genre in 2015 with Il ragazzo invisibile (2014) and it was a terrible movie experience.
I don't see a different future for "Lo chiamavano Jeeg". This one is just supported by obsessive marketing and astroturfing. Every italian review proclame it as " a masterpiece" (oh yeah, of course) just to bring people at cinema and let the movie at least cover the bill (1.6 millions).
What really grind my gears is the obstinacy to put Roman dialect in almost every actual italian movie (big) production.
Use clean and correct italian, damn.
Or if you want to use dialects, at least before learn to make movies.
Rijja275 have you seen JEEG?
shareYep, just yesterday night and I can confirm my ideas about this movie. The use of actors from "romanzo criminale" and the roman dialect to give more depth to the product is just smoke and mirror for the italian audience.
The fx are ok, the acting is ok just for some characters, it's much better than "il ragazzo invisibile" (that was an easy task), but unfortunately we are still in the "italian standard", with always the same topos and errors...
my personal rating would be 5.5/10.
I haven't seen the movie yet, but I have seen Il Ragazzo invisibile. Well, I would say that Salvatore's film is to the Superhero genre what Spy Kids is to the spy/action genre.
That said, I agree that the outcome was less satisfying than what I expected.
All I can say about Lo Chiamavano Jeeg Robot, is that I saw the trailer by chance long before the movie became really adevertised. And it caught my attention.
Usually, I don't root for a movie and this film makes no difference. I would simply be pleased if, just for once, Italy managed to create something different. I really had enough of the same people doing always the same films. I long for something fresh.
About the accents.. I'm not roman but if the action is in Rome with roman characters, why shouldn't they use roman accents? Americans and English use different accents in their films, so I don't see the problem in using italian accents. Would Benigni's or Troisi's films have had the same appeal if they were spoken in "proper" italian?
Anyway, thank you for giving me your point of view. I appreciate it.
Spoons? Where we are going we don't need spoons
Matrix to the future
To be clear i've nothing against the movie :), It is obviously a nice little step forward for the italian cinema and i can deny it, you probably should see this.
About the accent, even if isn't of course the main problem with this movie, in the contex of Jeeg is ok because is set in Roma, anyway my assertion was more a general statement. Actually in Italy 4 on 5 (let's say big) movies where a crime vibe is present (last one e.g. Suburra (2015), that is even more overrated) are always in roman dialect.
This probably because of the boom after Romanzo criminale (2005) and the homonym tv-serie. I'm not saying i don't like it, but i just found it REALLY foregone in the crime genre.
About Benigni and Troisi i think it's a different matter, their dialect was an element of their real characters and not the glue or an excuse for the background of the story. (Talking of them unfortunately i don't think we'll reach again the level of masterpiece like "non ci resta che piangere")
Concluding, Lo chiamavano Jeeg Robot (2015) with just the addition of the superhero ingredient fits perfectly in the recipe of the standard contemporary Italian crime movie but we're still very far to call this product fresh or revolutionary.
I think that with this movie here it all depends how you look at the glass: half full or half empty. The superhero genre, as clakappa already mentioned, is a relativelty new genre for italian cinema, in part because of there is no big money here, in part because it's impossible for a superhero to live in Modena (that's my modification of a famous phrase of two italian writer, Fruttero&Lucentini).
I think we have to be honest, if you compare the movie with Man of Steel or even the more recent Deadpool, well there's a big difference, but I think that's a mistake, because here we are in a different league, maybe even a different sport.
The acting is really good, definitely above italian standard, the characters are somehow exaggerated but nonetheless they feel real. The background is super. Certainly, as they say in Rome, "de no 'antri" but, again, real and alive, a little bit trashy and dark.
"Lo chiamavano Jeeg robot" is also made for an adult audience and that's interesting and somehow courageous too (when I was at the cinema two mothers with kids decided to leave the projection, I guess they were thinking of another kind of Jeeg).
Maybe not revolutionary, but it his own niche a little masterpiece, yes.
Probably a flaw of distribution not mentioning that the film isn't appropriate for kids (at least, if it was mentioned i didn't notice, here on imdb is correctly rated T), but on those situations i tend to blame parents' lazyness for not collecting adequate info on the movie they were going to show to their children.
shareIt's a good movie. No news about distribution outside of Italy as far as i know, though.
share