Reviews

First off, for anyone who's not a fan of South Park the TV series because of it's profanity, irreverence, etc.; don't bother going to see it because this movie is South Park on steroids and you'll likely be moved to write inflammatory reviews condemning the movie and anyone who enjoys "potty" humour.

However, if you're a fan of the boys I'm sure you'll get a kick out of "Bigger, ..." The movie's plot is simple and reminiscent of an early episode where the parents of South Park take on the cable network that shows Terrence and Phillip for the constant fart jokes in the "Canadian" comedy.

This time, Terrence and Phillip put out a movie where they pull all the stops in showing profanity and even more fart jokes (Hmm, familiar?). The kids go see the movie and begin cursing and farting and once again, led by Kyle's mom, the South Park parents are on a rampage. This time they wage war on Canada itself, the home of Terrence and Phillip.

Beyond this point the movie slips back to its standard of irreverence and crudeness. On the face of it, there's nothing particularly redeeming about this movie, but I still laughed 'til I had tears in my eyes.

Parker and Stone have tried to pull this movie off as something of a musical, but this sure ain't no Gilbert and Sullivan score. With songs like "Uncle F**ka", and a world spanning rendition of "Kyle's Mom is a Bitch", you can bet there'll be no Oscar nominations for best musical for this one but you'll still be humming the tunes afterward and no doubt giggling like a maniac from time to time.

In the end, South Park: Bigger, Longer, and Uncut remains an acquired taste, if you're easily offended, forget it; there's something here to offend just about everyone. However if you're a fan, I'm sure you'll love it; they've left no politically-incorrect stone unturned.

I'm going to ignore the nay-sayers and rabid fans both for this review and tell you, yes, this is indeed a movie worth seeing. In describing what's good about it, well, it's hard to do so without simply copying other reviews.

The special effects are impressive, not so much for their flashiness and so-on. You CAN achieve that without CG and the like. The thing I liked was that this was the first time I've seen such consistent use of CG that doesn't advertise itself as such. The fact that such work was put into this movie for the sole purpose of hiding the tell-tale markers of CG was impressive. Other, previous movies have made use of the new effects technology, but there was always little signs; like the black border around such characters and the like that you simply couldn't ignore them. SWE1 melded real-life and computer generated life wonderfully.

Aside from the effects, the movie had other merits, McGregor has done a bang-up job capturing the essense of Guinness' Kenobi while providing a glimpse of that same character as a head-strong apprentice Jedi. We can see the Obi-Wan to be in Ewan's acting. The other characters are portrayed well, even young Anakin although as an old Star Wars fan it's difficult to see the Vader to be, but there's time and two episodes to go. Darth Maul's battle scenes were truly awe-inspiring bringing a real sense of battle that was slightly lacking in IV-VI.

Otherwise, Maul was disappointing. Previews, trailers, and yes, hype made Maul out to be a larger villain than he turned out to be. He ended up little more than a henchman and not much of a menace (although I suspect the movie's name sake was meant to be Palpatine more than Maul). Nevertheless, Darth Maul hardly seemed worthy of the Darth title.

As for other points, the movie is fun, but you can definitely see the influence of parenthood on Lucas in this episode. George admitted this movie would be geared more towards children this time and such intent is understandable considering his own children. However, I think he underestimated the intelligence of today's children, unless he was aiming for the pre-school bunch. The Gungan's simply couldn't be taken seriously at all with Jar-Jar's annoyingly cute bumbling and the incessant mugging of the Gungan leader. Humour in the previous movies was subtle, but hardly out of the grasp of even children in their first decade. TPM seemed to rely more on obvious physical comedy that just looked out of place in the Star Wars universe.

If the last paragraphs made you think I didn't like SWE1:TPM, sorry, I enjoyed it a lot although I'm somewhat biased being a fan from my first big screen experience when A New Hope was simply Star Wars. Hopefully though, Lucas listens to the fans when he puts together the next two movies. Ignore the "professional" critics. Any criticism from them is simply a few sad sacks hedging their bets in case this movie doesn't do well so they can say "I told you so." Reviews like the ones found here on IMDB are from the real people who actually shelled out their own hard earned cash and Lucas has claimed that's who he's interested in.

I still have hope for the two episodes to come.

I can't say I was actually disappointed in this movie because I went in fully expecting it to be junky, wunky, and what's that other word, oh yeah, stunky. So in a sense, I got more than I bargained for because it was even worse than that.

If you're a loyal Wing Commander games fan (I'm not, but you may be), don't bother seeing this one because you'll be disappointed. Only the names haven't been changed to protect the innocent.

It almost seems Roberts (creator of the Wing Commander series)at some point was attempting to make a movie that was as far removed from the actual idea of the game as he could get just in case he didn't want the Wing Commander name tacked on it. The strange thing is he still called it Wing Commander and stuck his name in the credits. This movie might have done well as an anonymous, direct-to-video B science fiction action flick if he had.

I can't criticize the plot as there wasn't much of one other than the Earth is at war with the Kilrathi and the hero has to do something or other just in the nick of time to save everyone.

Characters: nothing much there either. Pouty kid fresh out of the academy with cocky friend. Straight-laced commander types and a couple women who have bigger balls than the guys.

Sets, take some cheesy WWII submarine sets and put flashy lights in them, done.

Fighters, take fighter models from same cheesy WWII flick, tear off the propellor and put some jet engine type things on it, done.

Special effects, film explosions through a green filter to make them look like they might be atomic or something.

There, now you've seen the movie and saved $8.00. You can thank me later.

Payback, while admittedly one of the more violent movies out this year, was definitely an entertaining flick.

Like the promo catch phrase says, this time you'll root for the bad guy. If Gibson's character has any redeeming qualities, they are on a very short list. Porter (Gibson) is violent, at times even cruel and the other characters aren't much better; some are worse. Every character is from the wrong side of the tracks, even the cops are on the take and there are no punches pulled. The only character you can really feel is a "good guy" is Rose, the stereotypical Callgirl with a heart of gold (although it's maybe only 10 karat, not a real 24 karat heart).

Nevertheless, you will root for Porter. Frankly, I don't think anyone else could have pulled off this role and still kept the support of the audience like Gibson did, but then he generally always plays the good guy with a twist. This time, the twist is a little more savage than usual.

All in all, if you enjoy the occasional violent romp on the big screen and you're a fan of Mel Gibson; Payback is worth seeing.