Out of Africa (1985)

Rating: 30%
Well last night I saw Out Of Africa. That one that dared defeat The Color Purple for Best Picture. How was it? Let's find out.

Plot: In Denmark back in 1913, a wealthy woman Karen asks her friend Baron Bror into a marriage of convenience with her. He agrees and they plan to move to Africa to work on a dairy farm together. But shortly after they get there and are married, Bror tells them that he bought a coffee plantation instead and plans to become a game hunter where he'll be gone most of the time. But then Karen is saved from a lioness by a big-game hunter named Denys with whom she develops a close friendship with.

Now please understand that did try at least a tiny bit to be reasonable about Out Of Africa beating The Color Purple, but the truth is, I couldn't do it. This movie is freaking boring. It's dull, the romance is not interesting, all 161 minutes couldn't have gone by soon enough. Sure the cinematography is nice with the landscapes and all around views of Africa, and hey, nothing wrong with Michael Gough (the lord rest him in peace) in a movie that's not a Tim Burton or a Joel Schumacher movie for once, and hey, there's rarely anything wrong with Meryl Streep or Robert Redford on a normal basis. Actually I won't even bother with a Actors/Characters section because that's basically it. It's good acting wise just because of those two characters, nothing else to say acting wise.  And really, that's as good as it gets. The story isn't too interesting, the characters are nothing that incredibly special, maybe some people dig this kind of romantic drama, but for all I know, I may not entirely care for this movie even if I saw it without a clue as to what it did at the Oscars. I am very well aware I'm being very biased, but I would like to think that, that would not really matter. Because the romance - especially with how it started - is not original, a lot of the things happen slowly, and really just all around, even calling it entertaining is not exactly ideal.

Music: It was nice. But like the movie itself, it was nothing terrible original. I know it won Best Original score, but that doesn't mean that I found it unique an awful lot.

Editing. It is slow paced. Which isn't always a bad thing, I mean it's fine with movies like Lord of the Rings or Titanic. But considering this movie, seeing the land-scape is as good as slow pacing got editing wise.

And that's my review for Out Of Africa. It's dull, it's boring, it's unoriginal, and it's just the big actors in the movie that would possibly make it worth while. I may be being biased when I am saying this, but that doesn't change that fact that it really shouldn't even be considered a good movie. I started this believing the whole matter between this movie and The Color Purple to be an outrage. And if I didn't believe it before, then bob-frick it, I would be putting it more than politely when I saw I believe it so much more than before.