Reviews

First off, compared to directors such as Cameron, Spielberg or Scorcese, I always considered Peter Jackson over rated and a total scam. For one simple reason: he can't write a story.

Let's just review his 3 biggest hits: 1) Lord of the Rings > Book from Tolkien 2) Kink Kong > well, a cover of a cover from the 1933 movie 3) Lovely Bones > another adaptation from a book

I mean, can't Jackson write his own story for god's sake???

Spielberg and Cameron are great story tellers, but Jackson is just good at directing a CGI team for his visual effects, but that's about it, no 'vision' whatsoever behind them.

Anyway, back to the movie...

I'm an atheist, thus my opinion about the story is off course slightly biased, but still, I can appreciate a good screenplay dealing with after-life, such as the movie 'Ghost' with the late Patrick Swayze or The Sixth Sense with Bruce Willis.

With this movie, at best Jackson succeeds in achieving a bad M. Night Shyamalan movie. A lifetime B-series rehashed story about a ghost not willing to 'let-go'.

The girl is OK, but besides the opening scene when she saves her brother, I wasn't really convinced. She was... meh.

Mark Wahlberg's acting skills are close to pathetic. Seriously, Peter, what were you thinking?... Wahlberg should've sticked to his already pathetic career as a member of New Kids on the Block. This guys has no place in a movie, period.

Rachel Weisz is a different story, I'm deeply in love with her, so I can forgive her pretty much anything, including bad career moves such as this terrible movie.

If you want to really see stunning visual effects with a compelling story, go rent 'The Fountain' instead, also with Rachel Weisz.

Lovely Bones has visual effects so terrible (not in quality but in CONTENT) that they reminded me of Robin William's "What Dreams May Come", a movie from 12 years ago with a similar story and visuals as pathetically uncreative as this one.

For me, Jackson is an over rated average director. And don't start with the CGI, because if you worked in this field, you'd know Jackson has ZERO knowledge on 3DStudio, Maya etc... whatsoever. At best, he was good at recruiting a guy who supervised a guy who was the project manager for a team of CGI graphists. And even that is not so sure, as most of the time, these teams are imposed by the studios.

What's left then? Poor character development (you won't care neither for the girl, nor for the parents. Too bad for a movie that's supposed to be a drama) and scenes with nothing original, neither in direction nor in camera moves or angles.

Really, go see Avatar instead.

Man, what a scene ! FYI she's a polish actress and singer, born in Tampico, Mexico on May 12th, 1983.

Her debut was at the tender age of 6, as she performed at a children's music festival in her home-country Poland.

Awarded several times, for her acting as well as her singing, Bachleda-Curus' talents have taken her around the world, and she has performed on such occasions as the UNICEF concerts in Warsaw.

She did her own stunt in the final sequence of the movie "Trade" where she had to take a very high jump!.

Personal Quote : "I didn't even feel the pain when I got hit by accident by my partner and my lips were split open and I was bleeding, I didn't even realize that because I was so into the character and in those scenes you really want it to seem very, very real. (talking about the rape scene in the movie "Trade") "

While indeed this movie is slow paced and we finally have no clue of the real motives of the main character, I think that's clear enough. She probably lost her parents, eventually her brother and/or a boyfriend somewhere in Palestine or Irak, I'd say.

The point is to make the viewer, for 90 riveting minutes, face what it's like to be desperate enough to become a suicide-bomber and thereby raise this ultimate question : what the hell went wrong with our foreign policy to generate such monsters ?

I think it's time for self-analysis and admit that for a 95% catholic country, we have forgotten Jesus words, eventually generating more bloodshed around the world than our own "enemies", spreading each day a little more hate against ourselves.

It's time to stop : drop the backpack, and let's have a serious conversation !

This movie is very well done, even though this kind of fake documentary ain't new.

They're very inspired by the amazing "Man bites Dog" (1992), where a crew is following a thief/serial-killer. "Man bites dog" was much better though because it is all about dark humor and the actor is extremely witty and funny while explaining techniques of kills or robbery. Another similarity is how the crew is eventually becoming involved in the illegal acts of the main actor.

Check this pure classic here : http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0103905/ because, in my opinion, nothing will ever top "Man bites dog".

But this one is a nice try and definitely worth watching.

No, this movie has nothing to do with Hostel ! In fact, I found this great movie to be closer to "THE BEACH" with Leonardo Di Caprio (2000) ! There are lots of similarities, starting with its visually stunning photography. Believe me, this director will become a master soon.

The screenplay is very realistic and plausible, while Hostel isn't.

In fact, it's more a thriller than a slasher/gore/last-man-standing type of movie. Yes, there are some graphic moments, but just a few, and i can understand why gore-fans expected more. I think this movie has just been wrongly advertised by the studios.

And yes, there's plenty of action, so this makes this movie very original, a hybrid between a horror, action and thriller movie.

I really enjoyed it because the screenwriter took some time to develop characters and that keeps you connected to the story from start to finish.

The only flaw, in my opinion, is maybe the final underwater scene, which is a little too long, but visually stunning.

I'll definitely recommend this movie for rental (and i'm a huge fan of slashers), but i'll warn you it's more a thriller, so don't expect to see all-film long gore scenes as in hostel or saw. There's much more story in this film than simply blood.