Atonement

The first thing I must mention while watching Atonement is the thing that maked or breaked the movie, the acting. You’ll be glad to know that James McAvoy and Keira Knightley gave astonishing performances, and had great chemistry. Not to be outdone all of the actresses who played Briony Tallis all did fantastic. One especially good performance was from Oscar winner Vanessa Redgrave, she may have had only one scene, but it was amazing. If Ruby Dee can be nominated for her five minutes in American Gangster, Vanessa Redgrave can be nominated for her five minutes.

My second favorite about this movies were the sets and costumes. The war scenes where all looked fantastic. Also, what would taking about the costumes be without mention Keira Knightley’s green dress? Well, it looked fantastic, I went "Ahh-woo-ga!" for it.

The major flaw of this movie is the directing. I hated Joe Wright’s job. I could barely tell if we were living the past five minutes from a different perspective or what was going on. The good thing about that though, is that it didn’t happen very often, so it didn’t confuse that much. Also, if you viewed it a second time you would know when it was flashback.

I also liked this movies cinematography. Once again, the fantastic war scenes, show through, what would they be without Oscar nominee (for this movie) Seamus McGarvey’s way of capturing it. Also, McGarvey made the already beautiful sets, more beautiful.

The lesser flaw of Atonement lies in the music. The typewriter effect used by Oscar winner Dario Marianelli (who won for this movie) was cool for the first couple of times. I found it to be way overused.

Maybe a bit better than okay, but not a best picture Oscar winner.

Fantastic movie. Well worth the money to see this on the big screen.