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Das Cabinet des Dr. Caligari (1920)
For me, it was just an academic experience.
I wanted to get an idea how film has evolved over the past century and this served as a great data point. I was intrigued how the opening and closing of the camera shutter was used to transition between scenes and how black makeup was used to emphasize the character's facial features, especially the female lead's eyes. These, along with the contorted buildings, windows, and landscapes artistically created from white and black, made full use of the filming technology they had at the time.
I felt that the plot was quite slow. That may be in part due to being accustomed to more modern film with sound, color, and special effects. However, my biggest gripe with this movie is that it makes practically no attempt to foreshadow the twist ending, an ending that essentially undoes all the scenes that come before it. Why drag the plot just to show us at the end that everything we thought we knew was wrong?
The Count of Monte Cristo (2002)
This Film Adaptation Subverts the Book's Revenge Theme
In its own right, it's an OK film. However, it's obvious the director(s) changed the plot from the book to make it more appealing to the masses and in doing so eliminated what I felt made the story so meaningful. In true Hollywood fashion, Edmond gets both his revenge and his woman back. The book is not like that. Edmond gets his revenge but in so doing completely burns the bridge between himself and Mercedes. He recognized that life would never go back to the way it was before he was falsely accused and incarcerated; he knew that Mercedes had most likely moved on. In the novel, Edmond finds a another woman in the end but still insisted on carrying out his revenge plot against his enemies.
Several other plot points were changed as well, which I will not take the time to discuss. The acting and dialogue were just meh. This film can help pass the time on a dull Saturday afternoon, but it is a pale imitation of its source material.
Star Wars: Episode VIII - The Last Jedi (2017)
Let The Last Jedi Die
Like many of the other reviewers, the main problems I had with this movie are:
1. The humorous parts are cheesy and feel very out of place. If the Star Wars universe revolves around the eternal struggle between light/good and darkness/evil, then the jokes in the film undermine the central theme.
2. The little character development there is in the film is not convincing at all. I am referring specifically to Luke and Rey.
3. In certain scenes, the director tricks the audience into believing that a character is about to die solely for dramatic effect and then does a Deus ex Machina. It is the cinematographic equivalent of saying "Psyche! I fooled you, didn't I?"
4. The gaping plot holes.
Not only does Rian Johnson dismissively tear out all the plot threads left dangling by J.J. Abrams in the Force Awakens, but he also disregards most of the lore established by the previous Star Wars films. What we are left with is plot and character dynamics that are wishy-washy and take us in no compelling direction. After seeing the Last Jedi, I am no longer all that interested in seeing what happens next in this storyline.
Just because Disney now owns the franchise does not mean that whatever they produce is authoritative. I do not recognize this film as canon.
The Scorpion King: The Lost Throne (2015)
Stung by the Scorpion King 4: Quest for Power
Terrible acting, cheesy dialogue, shallow characters, uninteresting plot, unrealistic fight scenes, and crappy special effects. No redeeming qualities, whatsoever. It doesn't even deserve to air as a Sci-Fi original movie.
Do you know how Hollywood tends to ignore the Laws of Physics? This movie just took it to the next level. We see our heroes engage in fist-fights, fall from great heights, and fly out of catapults and afterward walk away completely unscathed. It turns out the "dragon" is a medieval-age mechanical construct powered by geothermal steam that could never have functioned in the way the movie portrays. The same goes for the old man's steam-powered mill.
When we first see the lead female character in the dungeon, she was wearing a skimpy outfit. After escaping and deciding to join Mathyus on his possibly-dangerous quest, she changes into another skimpy outfit. That along with the cage match between her and another hot, scantily-clad woman, the scantily-clad acolytes of the female goddess, and the periodic sexual innuendos are blatant, pathetic attempts to keep the movie interesting for young male viewers.
I feel like this movie insults its viewers' intelligence and I regret watching the whole thing, even though it was for free. One couldn't pay me to watch it again.
Captain America: Civil War (2016)
Contrived Battle between Marvel Superheroes
I saw the First Avenger but not Winter Solider before seeing this film. From what I understand, Bucky was Captain America's ally during WWII before being captured, brainwashed, and then transformed into the Winter Solider by the Russians. Even though Bucky causes so much mischief in this film (and I'm assuming the previous one as well), Captain America still places his greatest loyalty in him above everyone else and I mean EVERYONE ELSE. Granted, the mental conditioning that the Russians subjected Bucky to compromised his ability to think for himself, but that should have been more the reason not to trust the man. I don't care how good of a friend he would have been to me all those years ago. If I was Captain America, I wouldn't be the one protecting him; I would have been the one turning him in!
The plot is centered on the villain's elaborate, nonsensical plan that would never have realistically worked by any stretch of the imagination. It involves framing Bucky, make-believing the villain's master plan was to topple the principle governments of the world, and sending the Avengers on a wild goose chase. All for what?: to simply show Tony Stark security footage revealing that it was Bucky who killed his parents while under the influence of Russian mind control. The villain could have simply mailed the tape to Tony Stark with the message "Watch This." (I did not need CinemaSins to point that out for me.) That would have been enough to drive the wedge between Iron Man and Captain America.
The only reason I give this movie a 2 instead of a 1 is because it does have some fairly intense fight scenes. The plot, however, is fundamentally flawed and a lame excuse to fulfill a comic-book nerd's dream of seeing which of his favorite Marvel heroes would win in that fight.