The Last Valley
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Movie Reviews of The Last Valley
Movie Review: Medieval
Summary: 4 Stars
The setting is beautiful. The valleys are green and lush but the air is fill with feelings of bad auguries. The man in rags running away from a decimated town takes your thoughts to the days of the Black Plague in Europe. It is a slow pace movie full of intrigue and treachery. Michael,Caine,Omar Sharif, and the rest of the cast performance is good. The story, a chapter in Europe's dark history.Movie Review: The Last Valley
Summary: 4 Stars
I like adventure movies and those that has suspense thrilling actions. This is one of the good choice to own.Movie Review: Clavell! Great Writer and Inept Director All Wrapped Into One!
Summary: 3 Stars
James Clavell (author of Shogun) wrote this story specifically for this movie and handled all of the production and direction with mixed results. The Thirty Years War presents a unique setting for a movie and showing how religious fanaticism with political ruthlessness brings out the worst in people. The Thirty Years War is by far the bleakest conflict to touch Europe prior to the Napoleanic wars of the 19th Century. The war brought utter misery and devastation across a vast stretch of Europe during the early 17th Century; mostly fought by mercenaries who had about as much religious ethos as their petty patron kings.
The script is rich in characters and the dynamics of their interaction keeps the tension and drama moving smoothly for the most part except the end could be said to be somewhat abrupt. The story follows the story of Vogel (Sharif), a scholar who flees the carnage and pestilence of the war and comes upon a secluded and pristine valley populated by Catholics. At the same time, a band of mercenaries led by their captain (Caine) fighting for the Protestants arrive to wrek havoc. With blood about to spill and his life at risk, Vogel acts as an intermediary and is soon found useful by the Machiavellic captain who sees the valley as a valuable base of operation. The pristine beauty and prosperity of the valley acts as a sharp contrast to the bleak outside world devastated by war. The mercenaries decide to an uneasy truce with the villagers to hold out for the oncoming winter. Tempers boil and rivalries begin to flare in all sectors. Great plot development but the casting of Sharif as a German scholar is not entirely convincing. He doesn't really look the part or act the part. Caine plays his role quite well as the Captain and even keeps up a good German accent. All in all though, almost all of the main actors did a good job.
The worse aspects of the film are in its direction and editing as well as the costume designs/special effects. Although some takes of the valley can be quite breath taking, Clavell's selection of other scenes demonstrates his amateurish talent as a film director. What could be panoramic scene shots to add to the force of the script and the actors are inexplicably reduced to awkward takes having neither background or focus on the actors. The absolute worse aspects of this film are in make up and costumes that are either blatantly and badly fake or completely inapposite to the period of the film. Plague bodies are covered in plastic sores with ruby nail polish for blood; this of course rendered worse by Clavell's horrible direction where he actually guides the camera and action right against stage lights. The mercenaries in the film look more like they came right from the set for the Road Warrior with ridiculous leather garnments and punk haircuts carrying flails and axes instead of musket and rapier. The battle scenes are equally horrible and were clearly indoor particle board sets that seem just about to fall on the actors. The special effects and props seemed too poor even for a 1971 production and seemed more like something for the stage or television perhaps. Worth watching at least once but I personally regret having purchased it: it makes a better rental. Too bad the film wasn't directed by a competent director such as Kubrick, Lean, or even Pekinpah instead of Clavell: it would have been a better movie.
Movie Review: "revolution for the hell of it"
Summary: 3 Stars
This picture shows a group of men who kill people simply because they are there. But even more scary is those people who torture others in the name of some fervently held beliefs. Perhaps there is more here for our time than most now suspect. As logic and science are forbidden to be taught in the schools and colleges of the fanatical left and of the religious right, any humanistic or reasoned restraint will be absent from the minds and hearts of future generations. The wars that are now being fought with words and books--could they eventually become battles of blood? It seems impossible, but I'm sure that the events of the Thirty Years War would have seemed preposterous to the people in the Renaissance.
Movie Review: The Expurgated Cut
Summary: 3 Stars
This is very much a movie worth seeing, but I am not at all pleased that some ninny took it upon themselves to censor this film. This is not the movie as it was released to theaters and shame on ABC Pictures for failing to release this in its original form. The image of the DVD itself is grainy and apparently no effort was put into trying to clean the film up (from a technical stand point at any rate).
Having said that, IMO this is the single best performance Michael Caine ever turned in, and he is a darn fine actor. See it if you get a chance, but look for a version beside the MGM/ABC Pictures release.