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Reviews
Brick (2005)
Like a Bad Dub
This film was greatness except for one thing, they put adult dialog into the mouths of children. I mean this is some hard bitten stuff flopping out of the mouths of teen-agers. Maybe a world weary Sam Spade but some dumb punk kid? The plot is intricate and sophisticated and way, way, way too convoluted for a bunch of suburban American teens to come up with. The action is violent, gritty and uncomfortable but these kids hardly seem up to the task. You toss the guys in the Usual Susepects into this dialog, plot and action and you start to buy the whole thing.
The film might have been a parody. I wasn't sure at times. The shadowy bad guy of the film runs an office in his parents' basement for example. Overall, the film never winked at you, gave you nod to let you know they knew that high school kids don't act this way.
I wanted to like this film but it was like they'd dubbed good old fashioned black and white noir dialog onto an episode off some WB show.
Serenity (2005)
Good not Great
Disclaimer: I've never seen the Firefly TV show.
This movie wasn't bad film but it is grossly overrated here by the Joss Whedon fanboy types.
The world is interesting and reasonably well imagined -as much as you'll get in feature film. There's nothing ground breaking and new. The Alliance is just the Empire in a new dressing and the Independents are the Rebels. The main character (Mail) is a Han Solo rapscallion type with a bit more edge and some good dialog. The secondary characters are where the movie falls flat - I can't tell you one interesting thing about any of them. There's a couple, there's the Bill Paxton from Aliens wannabe, there's a doctor and then there is River the LeeLu from the 5th Element knockoff who looks like Wednesday Addams all grown up. None of them are really interesting.
The plot line is a space Xfiles where the Alliance build a super- well I'm not sure super what- being but River is it. He's psychic and a killer kung fu artist. She knows a terrible secret the alliance wants to protect and she escapes and gets taken abroad Mal's ship. The secret is pretty juvenile in sort of a General Jack Ripper kind of way. Pretend you can't replace secret about the alliance with "plans for the Death Star" because the effect is the same.
The best character is Chiwetel Ejiofor (Dirty Pretty Things) as a fanactial assassin for the Alliance who is the best acted and by far most complex character in this work. He's got all the good lines. Whedon wants this film to have snappy dialog but his actors can't deliver the lines or he can't get the right timing. Either way you might smile once in awhile but the dialog isn't real crisp and it is at times very obvious when it is trying to be funny and failing.
The human action sequences are tolerable. The kung fu action is well filmed (no shaky camera, close ups and quick cuts) but Wednesday Addams just isn't very good at martial arts so the fights are dead slow as she goes the motions. The gun fu action is pretty good. Space characters with bullet firing weapons is a nice touch. The space action looks great but is very limited except one huge battle and then not very meaningful - and sort of the end result of a Galaxyquest like twist.
Chiwetel Ejiofor's efforts put this film over the top from being just average to being above average.
Hotel Rwanda (2004)
An incredibly dignified movie
This was a really powerful film. The word that leaps to mind is dignified. A film about the genocide in Rwanda could have taken a lot of roads to hit you in the gut. What impressed me is that you don't get a lot of graphic shots - actually no graphic shots. There is less blood in this film than most episodes of CSI. The film assumes you are capable of understand the horror of the event without showing it to you. Don Cheadle has worked in crap like Mission to Mars, Ocean's 11, and Swordfish so the way he pulls out his role Paul Rusesabagina might shock. He really brings out the character who isn't some crusading hero but a normal man who brings the same talents to saving Rwandans that he used to serve guests at his hotel. He plays the role with such grace and ease that the character is wholly credible. The film's biggest emotion for me was less one of sadness than anger. Listening to an actual US State Department broadcast talk about "Acts of Genocide" get interrupted by a reporter asking, "How many acts of genocide does it take before something is genocide." was maddening. You realize how little effort- manpower and money- it would have taken to avert the killing of almost a million Rwandans but the world sat by and did nothing but make noises at the UN. Pitiful.
Dog Soldiers (2002)
Excellent Low Budget Horror
Simply put this movie is very slickly done. In large part I think because the makers eschewed the over-use of CGI and used actual costumes for the werewolves. The decisionpiays off as the wolves look very, very good.
The film, as a plot, actually holds together pretty darn well for what is basically a remake of Zulu with werewolves. The people in the film act rationally and don't make the sorts of boneheaded mistakes most people make in horror films that leave me rooting for the bad guys. The fact that they behave well and that their parts are acted well mean that you give a furry rats-backside about what happens to these people. The plot is not without holes and things you'll go, "Wait, why don't you do X" but they are mostly small and easily overlooked.
The action in the film is pretty well done. The action scenes are well shot and paced nicely so that there is a constant tempo of action despite a lot of downtime between the fight scenes for character development. There is some resort to the "enter Sandman" style of shake the camera action but by and large you can see the action very well.
Finally, the film is gory. The makers got their money's worth on stage blood. If you are queasy this film isn't for you since there is a lot of blood flowing and some pretty gory effects of disembowlments but, if you can handle that (and it is no worse than something like Saving Private Ryan for that matter) this is really a film you'll enjoy.
What the #$*! Do We (K)now!? (2004)
We $%^@ing Know this Film Stinks
OK, as everyone no doubt knows the scientists in this film are something less than reputable. That's fine but does it work as a movie? Hell and no are my answers.
The scientists are shot in clips that are edited by a ferret on crack. These cats are allegedly dealing with deep issues of quantum mechanics and each gets a bout a 30 second -1 min snippet of time to explain this mind-mending concepts of space and time. Even if the scientists weren't bogus that would stink.
Worse, between each science guy there is an annoying as all heck tasnition effect of your being whisked down a pipeline/wormhole/universe/whatever but the effect looks like the Lawnmower Man traveling down a cord or wire from way back whenever that movie was done. These transitions seem to last as long as the scientists talking.
In between the talking heads and transitions, there are some really, really bad pure movie scenes that are infested with poor acting, ridiculous dialog and the worst special effects since, well, since almost never because even things as old as Tron looked better.
The film got a lot of buzz but I can not for the life of me figure out why.
DarkWolf (2003)
One Notch Up from Softcore
This flick reminded me of those lame "erotic thrillers" I used to stay up late and watch on Cinemax when I was 13. I'd label this flick softer-core since there is just no simulated bump and grinder. There is, however, a ton of nudity- the opening scene is in a strip club, we see Kane Hodder's keester (or at least a stunt butt) and then an inexplicable 10 minute lesbian dance scene in the middle of the film and a nude female werewolf who looks like they mugged on of the Munster's for a costume. 13 year old boys rejoice.
Other than that the werewolf transformation scenes have the worst CGI I've seen in years. The shots look like FMV's from the video game Resident Evil in terms of quality. The wolf is too bad to be explained and, despite the poor quality of the suit is shown way, way too many times.
The plot and acting make no sense. There is some oddball back story about werewolves and hybrid-werewolves- the Darkwolf is the latter but from what I can tell hybrids do the same thing all werewolves do- look human, change to a wolf an kill people. The Darkwolf is trying to find a mate but oddly can't find the mate but can sniff out anyone she touches. Once more, this skills proves less than useful since the Darkwolf winds up killing several folks his target never touched, met or even saw as best I can tell. The mate doesn't know she's a werewolf and she's fighting the transformation or something.
You'd think it'd be hard to mess up a simple monster movie s bad as this but, well they did. Want quality low-end werewolf-ism, go rent Dog soldiers want a ton of T&A this is your flick.
Napoleon Dynamite (2004)
Just Uninteresting
I'd heard good vibes about how quirky and original this film was. Well it was quirky but it was so intentionally and over the top quirky that it never washed for me. It had the stink of the Royal Tenenbaums to me...a film that was trying way, way too hard to be quirky and unique that it forgot to have any story.
The characters are all painted with the same laconic brush. The lead characters all sort of mumble away while looking at the ground. The dialog becomes grating just because listening to the characters is painful. Then, they aren't actually doing anything interesting so it really tends to not matter all that much who they are.
If you dig on Wes Anderson's films: Rushmore, Royal Tenenbaums, Bottle Rocket, Life Aquatic you will likely jones on this film so it has an appeal, just not to me.
Touch of Evil (1958)
Great Looking but Empty (minor spoilers)
Touch of evil is a film that, IMHO, does not suffer to watch muted. Wells has a great visual style in this movie. The opening tracking sequence is a sight to behold and really has a great bit of tension to it. All throughout the film the locations, sounds and lighting really give this film a feel tbat few if any other movies you watch will have. It is so film noir it hurts.
Or maybe it is just the acting that hurts. Wells has a great visual sense but his control over his actors almost totally fails him. The perfomances are all flat- none of the actors is helped by a script that is poor. Heston is an unstable actor and here he's at his melodramtic worst. Wells' mumbling character is hard to understand and also overdrawn. Janet Leigh is totally off kilter and sounds just silly on almost every line. None of the other actors rises above the script they have and the night man at the motel gets special kudos for apparently having failed 8th grade drama.
The plot here is also nothing special- corrupt cops doing bad things vs the good cop doing the right thing.
A few semi-serious comments: Heston looks 100% silly as a Mexican since they use some sort of makeup to make him darker(one suspects in color he'd be orange) and his makeup looks so bad becuase none of the other "Mexicans" gets the same makeup treatment so his contrast is all the more striking. Throw in that the bad guy's gang member all sport the jeans, greased beack hair and white t-shirt and you'll think more Sha-Na-Na or West Side Story than menacing gang-bangers.
The Order (2003)
There can be no forgiveness- mild spoilers.
OK, I didn't have high expectations but this film descending into depths I could not imagine.
The plot, as it were, involved a priest of an obscure 2 member order investigating the death of the founder of the order by a Sin Eater. The Sin Eater allows for Catholics to achive salvation outside the authority of the Church and is yet another immortal in film with loads of ennui. Nevermind that this makes no sense since then a Baptist could give you salvation....we'll move on.
I'll layout the plot w/o giving much away: the priest goes to Rome with his buddy to investogate. He brings with him a mental patient (I'm not making this up) who shot him during an excorism and who loves him (not one lick of this BTW is explained), a drunk Irish priest and Peter Weller as a Cardinal. They get to Rome, find some creepy kids who do nothing in the film, meet with a bondage gear S&M anti-pope that the drunk Irish guy knows (not explained) and who gives information by killing people (oh, BTW, he's a bad guy so he has an industrial/techno soundtrack) and then...umm, seriously, I'm not sure. the plot meanders about. Heath chills with the Sin Eater, flies to New York with the Sin Eater for an overnighter and then some other stuff happens and then (all off camera) the anti-pope falls and the film ends.
About 1 hour into the film one really wonder if anything has happened. By the end something has happened but you can't be at all certain that it matters and since most of the drama takes place either before the movei or off-scren you're really feeling cheated.
Memento (2000)
Good not Great
The praise of this film is overblown...without a doubt. Easy way to judge the film: play it in the proper order and see how highly rated it is. Answer: not very. Played forward the film is afairly predictable and easy to see coming. So the story itself isn't compelling. None of the characters are particulary anything other than Guy Pearce- mianly becuase Pearce's character "sees" all the other characters and doesn't know anything real about them so neither do you.
All that said, the arrangment of this film is what sets it apart and makes it not something dull and boring. Other films have used this technique but the technique does work in this case and it adds a level of interest to the film that the story itself does not wholly deserve.
BTW, most of the "talking" about the film afterwards has to do with the open questions left by the film's plot. The question isn't what happens in the film and what you missed (6th Sense or Usuaul suspects) but what happens before the story that you are never told all that muhc about. There are "supporting" materials at the offical web site that add depth to the tale and make some of the questions- well frankly not very questionable.
28 Days Later... (2002)
God awful and dull
I'm a sucker for a good zombie-type film but I was cheated on this flick. Minor spoilers.
First off, this is not a zombie flick anymore than the Blair Witch Project was about the witch or Signs was about aliens. In all three cases the "monster" is used as a device to explore human problems (and in fairness Night of the Living Dead does the same thing). I like the latter three films becuase while they aren't just monster movies the monsters are sort of omnipiresent and you feel their influence constantly in the film. 28 Days Later doesn't do that. The "rage" infected (the zombies are vicitms of, shocker, a bioexperiment gone wrong and unleashed) are intermittently in the film and there are times you totally forget about them.
Second, the main conflict in the film arises sort of out of nowhere- I won't divulge what it is. It makes no sense what so ever and the "good" guy's solution to it is to kill all sorts of non-zombies by working with the "zombies". You might be able to rationalize some of the actions of the real bad guys but when you realize that society has been gone for all of 28 days at most it gets hard to accept that all societal norms could vanish so quickly- escpeially among folks not in the heat of the moment, spare me about riots and such things.
Third, Danny Boyle has the camera sense of the guy who filmed Battlefield Earth. Too many shots on tilts. His handling of action is outright abominable. He's not good with action so he resorts to the classic close shots, bad lighting and frequent cuts to obscure his failures. I don't know why folks still do this since the end result is that you can't see anything happening in the climax. That would assume you care since the zombies are killing bad guys anyway. In BWP, Signs and NotLD you are emotionally invested in the trapped would-be victims but in this flick you don't care a lick about the zombie show and might even be rooting for thier demise. Scarey it ain't.
Oh, BTW, one last little gripe at a key moment a British solider has his gun jam- and of course can not clear the jam. This is a really tired movie cliche and deux et machina effect but worse is that all soliders act like they've never been trained to clear a jam.
Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within (2001)
More a technology demo than movie
This movie really rises and falls on the merit of it's animation and that it first rate. Everything is stunningly well done. The spirits/phantoms/aliens are incredibly interesting as are the locations and vehicles. There are times that you will forget your are looking at animation. In particular, the best scenes are early on with the soldiers in armor moving through a ruined city. The animation isn't perfect and it is mostly in the humans that you notice it. Speech (mouths moving especially) is still rough. Expressions are better but they still can't get all the nuances of the human face. Little details (like sweat) are still missing. You'll notice it but the people still move and look more like people than anything you've seen before in computer animation.
The plot and characters are pretty incidental and almost meaningless. The script reads like a video game- find these items and combine them to win. The writers try to give the characters emotions and deep feeling but they fall flat and seem glommed on to the movie. There are lines of dialog that hit like a brick they are so bad.
This film is at it's best when it focuses on the action sequences and lets you marvel at the technological wizardry behind it. When it tries to delve into philosophical and emotional areas it just rings flat. Still, it is a worthwhile flick to see.
Dungeons & Dragons (2000)
The Showgirls of the Fantasy Genre
I'm baffled at the comments of the folks who claim this was watchable. This movie stole $1 and 2 hours of my life-- and I want them back!!!!
This movie deserves comparisions with Battlefield Earth, Showgirls and Nothing but Trouble. If you like these films, well you'll love this- the sane readers out there will recognize trouble when they see it.
I expected cheese but, well this was something more.
The plot is a direct ripoff from Episode I- all of it. There are scenes lifted from Star Wars and Indiana Jones (badly I might add). There is a dwarf that seems too tall and frankly for most of the film has no lines of dialog- which might be good given the quality of dialog from the other "actors".
The film can't decide if it wants to be a dark action film (note: no blood, no real action of any kind) or a light hearted romp (the spare Wayans brother's insulting Jar-Jar Binks impression).
Bottom line: first time director/writer (I forget actually) will hopefully never become a second time writer/director.
Shanghai Noon (2000)
More Comedy Than Action
Shanghai Noon is wildly funny, funnier than any Chan film I can recall. The action, on ther other hand, is not as good as any of his other films. American directors have issues with with martial arts scenes and that doesn't help Chan but one also suspects that Chan may be slowing down too. He has some very good fight scenes but nothing that will make your jaw drop. Still, the good but not great fight scenes and the almost constant run of jokes makes this a very entertaining film.
Mission: Impossible II (2000)
Dreck, Plain and Simple
Ok, MI2 isn't going to be high art, no problem. Sure it will have improbable moments, no problem. I can accept all of those features. Bond films fall into similar categories and I generally like those. MI2 is simply unlikeable. The plot barely exists as a meaningful feature. The characters are hideous- one wonders how much Anthony Hopkins needed a pay day to show up in this one. OK, fine so the plot is swiss cheese and the characters stink is a good action film? No. The movie opens with the use of the all concealing rubber masks/voice changers and continues to overuse them as a plot device. These masks, BTW, have the incredible ability to make folks taller/shorter, thinner/fatter and come pre-scorched so they are just right for any scene. The device is not only hackneyed but obvious in every use. The martial arts sequences are again boring. Woo loves the spectacular but the fight scenes seem more designed to show off Tom Cruise's whipping hair than any martial arts skills (which I doubt Cruise of the villian-actor had much of). The motorcycle chase scenes are dull but include: an obvious computer animation gaff where the cycle hovers during a jump, a silly wire trick for a front wheelie and Tom's cycle becoming bulletproof while he hides behind it?!?! There are, by my guess, 2 action sequences (one which includes the trademark Woo two gun action)and the finale plus one short and pointless car chase in a movie that runs around 2 hours. The rest is a lot of talking by characters you'll struggle to care a whit about. Skip it.
Pitch Black (2000)
Not much to recommend it
Is it scary? No, not really. Everyone who dies is pretty much set up to die so when they do buy it you aren't surprised too much. Most are doing something stupid when they do: not staying down, looking in tunnels (when will folks learn?) or running away from the light, for example. You always needs a few of these type deaths but a good grab from the pitch black might have helped too. Are the effects good? Well, kinda. The aliens are pretty free form. There appear to be three varieties: bats, pterodactyls and ground based critters that move too much like the Alien. The right one always seems to be about to make the kill required by the cast member stupidity. When you see them they look o.k. but don't really challenge the genre too much since they do look rather Alien-eque. Characters? Well let's not pretend this matters in a good ole aliens eating people film but these aren't very good at all. Vin Diesel has been praised but this is an easy role to nail and the other characters are mostly flat with stupid attempts at depth: he's an Islamic cleric not a priest (yawn), he's a bounty-hunter with a drug habit (yawn). None of these wrinkles make a lick of plot difference. Plot? Does it make any sense. No. First, struggle to imagine the evolutionary path that creates rabid, photo-sensitive, multitudinous predators on a planet that is pure light for 22 years in a row and has no visble prey items. Ignore that and then try and figure how as little light as the crew has keeps these things at bay. A Jack Daniels bottle used as a torch? This fear of the light seems to kind of come and go being more or less at needed plot moments. Throw in a few twists that don't matter (spoiler): one of the boys is actually a girl...oooh and its pretty silly. Pay a dollar and yuck it up some but don't waste full price on this.
Alien³ (1992)
A more honest sequel than Aliens
Alien3 felt a whole lot more like Alien to me than did Aliens. Aliens is Ripley as Rambo. What made the first movie so good was that the humans outnumbered the enemy but were helpless to stop it. Alien3 returns to that feel. Aliens was an action film while Alien and Alien3 are both really more SciFi/Horror films. Set on a convict world with no weapons and little external contact Alien3 has a good mix of feeling "in the future" but somehow very primitive. David Fincher does dark very well. The Alien has changed a bit physically but it still has the same bad attitude and need for food. The loss of Newt and Hicks didn't bother me at all the way others seem disturbed by it. Dead folks are just part and parcel of this series. The best part of the entire movie is the final "chase" scene through a maze or corridors beneath the iron works. The chase rapidly becomes disorienting and even more so when you shift to alien-cam and the aliens runs up onto the ceiling with you. The effect is outstanding all the more so because it throws you into the sense of the poor convicts trying to figure out which corridor they are in and where the alien is in relation to them. It is a wonderful effect and one that Fincher carries elements of with him into the chase scene in Se7en.
Cyborg (1989)
High grade action
Ok, so there is a weak plot, poorly drawn characters and an unoriginal post-apocalpytic setting. So what? You expected something great from a Van Damme film? Face it, Van Damme is where you go when you want fight scenes. This film has them in spades. Van Damme is at his kickboxing best doing his trademark spin kick, a set of splits in a doorway that is hard to believe and other nasty brawls. The actions sequences are good to great and the film can be mocked easily during the non-fight moments so you don't have to watch Van Damme try to conjure up emotions. ."
Gymkata (1985)
Bad, but so much fun.
Bad only begins to describe this film. Forget the plot, dialog, direction and anything else. They are uniformly bad- I challenge anyone to get about 3/4 of the way through and recall the plot. The real thrill is seeing how many ways that gymnastic equipment (pommel horses, uneven bars, etc) can work their way into a kung fu film. I can't explain why I love seeing this film. The action isn't even redeeming but I do so enjoy the pure idiocy of the flick. Watching Kurt find a pommel horse in the village of the insane is a moment that can't be described. Watching him scissor kick the entire village is even worse. If you enjoy bad films and can laugh at them then watch this film and enjoy.
The Blair Witch Project (1999)
As good as Night of the Living Dead
Some folks who I saw this film with left disappointed. It is not your typical horror film. There are no cheap scares or really jump out of your seats moments. Gore is almost totally nonexistent. Instead the movie is almost two stories. First, the story during the day about three college students who are lost in the woods and the dynamics as they slowly disintegrate as a group and as individuals. Second, the story at night where something is sitting just beyond the range of their cameras and lights hunting them. Blair Witch, like Night of the Living Dead, focuses more on the group dynamics than on the horror that lurks outside. It isn't clear which is more frightening- the unseen witch or the slow descent to madness of the individuals. The first person point of view created by viewing the "documentary" footage really puts you into the setting and leaves you straining to see what lies in the dark just like the characters do in the film. It is a startling vision and one very much worth watching if you are looking for horror along the lines of Night of the Living Dead, Psycho, or The Thing- horror that is more psychological than visual.
The Mummy (1999)
An above average popcorn special effects flick.
The plot is hokey, the acting isn't always first rate, and we've all seen this film before. All that said, the movie is fun. The film doesn't try and take itself too seriously. Beni (the Renfield character) provides most of the light moments but Fraser has some good lines as does does John Hannah. The effects are seamless and the action is pretty much non-stop. It isn't Oscar material but it is fun.