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alphawoolf2001
Reviews
Cloverfield (2008)
An interesting failure
Certainly this is the most "realistic" giant monster movie I've seen attempted yet. It takes the matter-of-fact intensity of the Shibuya district sequence from "Gamera 3" and expands that into the better part of an entire film. In that respect it's quite impressive. But unfortunately even the spectacle of the monster attack scenes is scaled down to the events of a home movie. Realism doesn't necessarily make a better monster movie.
Please note the viral marketing campaign I've read about here on IMDb completely missed me. I suppose that might have gotten me worked up a bit more before seeing the film, but ultimately it must stand on its own apart from whatever clever advertising is devised. The "Blair Witch" documentary style of filming was a bit to get used to, since I was not expecting this. And the biggest flaw of "Blair Witch" reappears here - whiny, obnoxious characters that just never shut up. I had no real stake in seeing whether these people survived or not. And since the film makers here take a tip from Spielberg's "Jaws" and dole out appearances of the creature sparingly, most of the film is watching these people.
Ultimately it's less of a traditional giant monster movie and more of a conventional Hollywood thrill ride movie that just happens to revolve around a giant creature. It's good for one viewing but I have no interest in seeing it again.
P.S. And man, what an ugly monster. I'm not talking cool ugly, I'm talking ugly ugly. Sorta like Harryhausen's Ymir meets Star Wars' Rankor, done ugly.
King Arthur (2004)
Enjoyable historical fiction
I thoroughly enjoyed this movie, set in a period that is not often covered in film. In the waning days of the Roman Empire, Arthur and his horsemen are sent on one last mission north of Hadrian's wall. Their experiences along the way and back are convincing as the "true story" that supposedly inspires the Arthurian Legends. I'm sure this movie is shot through with historical inaccuracies beyond the ones I recognized (and I saw a few logical ones as well), but the overall "feel" got me to buy into the story. The comraderie of the knights was well-acted, and though Clive Owen's Arthur seemed a little superhero-like (i.e. wooden) at the beginning he quickly became a believable character. As events unfolded I enjoyed recognizing the "true" fictional events that would evolve into the later legends.
The ending was a little flat, primarily due to the overly-restrained violence and the performance of the Saxon king. He really should have gone Bezerker instead of the slow burn he'd done successfully in previous scenes. And the battle scenes lose a fair bit of punch without any blood being shed anywhere, save but some red-stained swords. Clearly this was done to secure a more profitable rating. Here's hoping for a bloodier DVD release.
I've hated virtually every Dark Ages/Medievil/Renaissance/Roman Empire/Swordplay movie since John Boorman's excellent "Excalibur", and I liked this one.
The Swarm (1978)
Will History blame me or the bees?
While others have already brought out some of the choicer bits of Irwin Allen's expensive epic about styrofoam pellets threatening the world, I just have to add a few things:
1. As expensive as this movie was (more than Star Wars!) very little of it shows up on the screen. Despite being set in Texas, the movie never for a second convinces you that the events are happening anywhere but Southern California. Most of the film takes place on studio back lot settings or the hills around L.A. One must conclude the big cost was the stellar cast, frantically overacting to try to ring some good out of the ridiculous script.
2. There were a lot of dangerous stunts done for this movie. Consider the "burning Houston" sequences in which soldiers with flamethrowers torch various pieces of old back-lot sets. Hats off to those guys who faced more danger than killer bees could ever pose.
3. This movie has one of the highest death tolls in movie history. Oh, it's presented so shabbily (or not at all, offscreen) that you hardly notice but do the math:
Missile base - total loss
Nuclear power plant - total loss + surroundings
Marysville - total loss (don't forget the train wreck)
Houston set ablaze
Gulf of Mexico poisoned (and if you thought Houston has air pollution now...)
In fact, all but two of the major cast members die!
Irwin Allen, truely the Master of Disaster!
The Curse of the Komodo (2004)
Stinkeroonie! Avoid! Avoid! Avoid!
Probably the worst of the straight-to-video CGI monster movies I've seen yet. The script was churned out of a MS Word template set for Jurassic Park/Heist/Military Coverup/Zombie ripoff. Absolutely atrocious CGI of the giant Komodo Dragon makes Irwin Allen's old "Lost World" utilizing live monitor lizards and alligators with fins glued on their bodies look good in comparison. Obvious matte shots, copious amounts of stock footage (I'm guessing from "Bat 21"?), and seemingly endless shots of people pretending to fire automatic weapons are used to help pad out the runtime.
Keep an eye out for the small house with a fence around it in the background after the helicopter has landed on the "deserted" island.
Il pianeta errante (1966)
Dull Italian grade Z space opera
The plot as listed in the description is inaccurate. It's really about energy beings (well, green lights and smoke) trying to take over the Earth's space patrol on New Year's Eve. After some space stations and their zombified crews disappear, an emissary zombie invites the hero and his men back to their base on Mars for no apparent reason. Once there, the aliens give the humans every opportunity to defeat them, which they eventually do by breaking a window and running away. The whole place goes up like a model with gasoline poured on it, which is exactly what it is. Our heroes make it back to a posh hotel lobby to laugh about it all over drinks. Phew! Stinkaroonie!
That brief description leaves out some of the funnier details: the actors' endless knob-twiddling on the goofy sets, attempts to suggest weightlessness by walking funny, and demonstrating high-G forces by grimacing or merely sinking a bit lower in their chairs. Oh, and don't miss the New Year's Eve TV special featuring space dancing in the first few minutes!
The model special effects are sparse but passable by the standards of the time - at least there aren't any visible wires on the spaceships. The actors appear to be speaking English but are dubbed, presumably due to their Italian accents. Even then the dialogue seems to have been written with a flawed understanding of English ("Retro! Retro! Retro!"). If you watch this in the right frame of mind (i.e. MST3K) with friends, you may extract some enjoyment from it. Otherwise, this makes "The Green Slime" look like "Lawrence of Arabia"!
Interesting note: The stated goal of the aliens to take everyone over "For the good of the whole" is a fore-runner of the Star Trek's Borg "You will be assimilated" threat.
Xanadu (1980)
One of my favorites
As an adult now watching this film I'll concede that this is a bad film by conventional standards. BUT, if you first saw it while you were 13, and ELO was your favorite band, and you had a keen interest in Greek mythology, and you fell in love with ONJ, and you admired the great Gene Kelly, THEN it would be one of your favorite films as it is mine. Some of both ELO's and ONJ's (and others) best work goes into the soundtrack. This was one of the last hurrahs of the Disco era, and a lot of people slam it for just that reason. That's too bad, because Xanadu fun place to visit (watch).