Change Your Image
theerwproject
Reviews
V (2009)
Really well done
I've seen the original, so I wasn't expecting much. While I loved V when I was younger, I've seen it again and found it really lacking something.
SPOILERS This was great. Instead of an intrepid journalist, we have a concerned-with-his-image cable news anchor. We have an FBI agent, a Visitor resistance fighter, and instead of a teen-aged girl as the potential love interest for the Visitors we have a teen-aged guy. And, while I thought the original leader of the Visitors was hotter, the new one was pretty enough, I suppose. END SPOILERS
The pacing is great, and the story is fresh enough even for one who has seen the original. Just different enough. And it kept my interest all the way through. I'm hoping this keeps getting renewed, if they can keep the quality up.
Harpies (2007)
Some movies rise above their humble origins...
...and end up surprisingly good movies.
Stan Lee's Harpies is not one of them. **WARNING: SPOILERS FOLLOW**
Let's see...where to start?
Ah, yes -- The Harpies themselves. You'd think, given that they are the title characters of the film, that there would be great time and care and attention given their design. Instead we get abominable CGI, and the live action harpies looked like emo girls wearing badly-done halloween wings.
The Action Sequences. When the harpies attack, it doesn't show us anything that convinces us that there's a battle going on. You see a bunch of people waving their swords, then you see a shot of the harpies giggling and flailing their arms. Yeah, real convincing.
The battle scenes, such as they are, show a bunch of guys bumping into each other with swords drawn. One poor nameless extra got skewered by a sword, and when he fell down, he fell at an angle showing that he was holding the sword between his arm and torso, rather than sticking out of his trunk, as it should have been.
In the museum, we're supposed to believe that these mercenaries are not only bad shots, but that an ancient cup, hit by a bullet, is just going to fall as if it were knocked over, and protect our hero.
The Casting Not too much wrong here, other than they're rather unseasoned and ill-suited for a fantasy film. Also, they got the cast wrong on here. Scott Valentine (yes, the guy from Family Ties who said "Ay!") played Vorian.
There are other stretches of the imagination, people jumping when they're supposed to be "sucked in" or "thrown clear" of the blast, etc. But this movie was just "That Which Should Not Be Made" on so many levels. My friend and I made better student films than this in college. Did anyone notice the dearth of slavic names in the crew? I thought only the Italians made ridiculous movies ("Naked Gladiators" and "Texas Rangers 2020", anyone?).
Ah well, I suppose that if they enjoyed what they were doing, that's what counts. I didn't.
Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl (2003)
Not a particularly brilliant movie
I wanted to like this film. I'd wanted to see it since I'd heard about it, it got glowing reviews from friends of mine, and it really stands as a mediocre piece of cinematography. Depp just changes from ship to ship, and any eye-popping special effects are detracted from by fog, silly lighting, and Disney.
The story, what little there is, is amusing, but I always felt this little element of wrongness, as if at any moment the main villain would be unmasked and say "I would have gotten away with it if it weren't for those damn kids!"
I was amazed that I stayed awake the whole way through.