SimpleWeblog

Movie Review: Casanova

It has been a while since I have done one of these, but looking back at 2005 these past few days made me realize I missed having some better accounting of what kind of input I had this year. So we will start off with an easy one here:

Casanova is a very insubstantial film. A few entertaining scenes in the first two thirds give way to a final third that falls apart. Heath Ledger is not particularly dashing as the famed lover, making every female character's response to him somewhat puzzling, and Sienna Miller doesn't seem intriguing enough for him to want to give up his lifestyle anyways. The action scenes feel a bit clumsy and the special effects used to create the old Venetian backdrops is never too believable. Of course, the single worst effect had to go to a ridiculously small hot air balloon supporting most of Casanova's weight as he leaped off a balcony. At least it happens early enough in the movie that you can give up all hope for plausibility in the character development as well as the lack of physics before everything falls apart at the end.

All that being said, Jeremy Irons does have some extremely frightening hair, which makes his inquisitor role somewhat believable. Oliver Platt is believably fat for his role as a fat man. Casanova's assistant was entertaining to watch, but seemed to run out of things to do too early.

I guess none of that was terribly unexpected, though, so it wasn't like I hated the movie, although finding out it was by the director of Chocolat made it seem a lot more disappointing. Where was the passion? Or, at least, where were the loving shots of melted chocolate?