Maybe I've been spoiled by In Treatment, maybe I've just not been watching very good films this week, but I'll blast through these. One of the more obscure channels played a couple of films this week back to back, which I've wanted to see for years. The prospect of Faye Dunaway as Milady de Winter in The Three Musketeers and The Four Musketeers was an intriguing one for a fan of hers and they were finally played so I finally watched them. They're "spot the star" films with the likes of Oliver Reed, Christopher Lee and Charlton Heston and frankly, not quite what I was expecting.
Dick Lester directing should have tipped me off to the fact they're not the most serious of adaptations and they're basically romps. The first one is very slapstick-driven (Raquel Welch probably being the most adept at it) and extremely silly and light in tone. It's just about watchable, and Heston comes to play as Richelieu but Dunaway is hardly in it and it always goes for the lowest common denominator. The second film is much better, it's less reliant on the comedic tone and has better action scenes as a result. Dunaway has a LOT more to do and delivers on the promise. Watched together they do fly by, but they're rather unsubstantial and it's probably only really worth seeing the sequel again.
After that I saw another film I've wanted to see because of one actress, this time Charlotte Rampling in Angel. Unfortunately I wasn't aware the ever-dull Romola Garai and Michael Fassbender were effectively the leads, so even reuiniting Rampling with Under the Sand-director François Ozon wasn't enough on its own to save this. It's one of those trying-to-be-quirky, soulless drags of a period drama and unlike something like Cheri (where one of the leads was terrible and one was very good and thus saved it to some degree), the acting from the leads is so insipid it kills any interest. This sadly ends up being one of those films seemingly only made to give art directors and costume designers something to do. Ozon's direction is limp, Garai *is* the film and she's awful - horribly mannered, self-aware and lacking any chemistry or natural contact with the other players or her surroundings. She's fake, and so is the film: it's borderline-unwatchable.
On to a pair of films I didn't expect to necessarily love but thought could possibly be at least entertaining. First of the two was 13 Going on 30, which I'd always avoided as it sounded like a total rip-off of Big, but chronic boredom coupled with the inclusion of serial scene-stealer Judy Greer enticed me. Now it *is* a rip off of Big (and Samantha Who? borrows more than a little of this with the caveat of everyone still knowing her but her not remembering) but it does enough new stuff to distinguish itself in its own right. Really liked Mark Ruffalo in this (which is a surprise for me, I think he's a decent actor but I've never really *liked* him in anything before), Greer was all kinds of fun, Garner ... well, she did what was required - like the film, cute but nothing too out of the ordinary.
Lastly, the multiple Razzie-award nominated I Now Pronounce You Chuck & Larry. Even more boredom prompted this one. This clearly isn't a good film, but I didn't think it was *that* bad. Adam Sandler's angry-man schtick has gotten very old, Kevin James is fairly charmless and Jessica Biel's role requires her only to a/ answer to the description of "smoking hot" and b/ have an ass worth showing off. I should have hated this film, but for some reason I didn't. I do think it revelled in the homophobia a bit too much in the beginning (the way, say, Spike Lee did with Malcom X's more radical views before the last half hour smoothed them over), I do think they consistently went for getting Biel in various stages of undress rather than going for the funniest possible option, but I can't bring myself to lambast it. Maybe because it's so reminiscent of the 30s and 40s dramas of this kind, maybe it's just so generic it's not even offensively inoffensive, it's not really worth thinking about too much.
I agree on Chuck and Larry! In spite of my general hatred of all things Sandler, I watched it because I wanted to ogle Jessica Biel, it really wasn't anywhere near as bad as I expected it to be! Like you say, I wouldn't give it much thought or it'd probably fall to pieces, but there in the moment it was perfectly watchable.
I did love 13 Going on 30. I avoided it for the same reasons as you, but eventually relented because I just loved the leads, and I thought they sort of went enough different places to Big for me to be able to watch it without constantly thinking of that.
Haven't watched the Musketeers movies in yeeeeeeears, but I certainly remember Dunaway standing out in the second.