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Reviews
Maria Full of Grace (2004)
Completely eye-opening
Smuggling drugs via "mules" is a common story when discussing the drug trade, but never before have I seen a movie quantify the experience from the vantage point of the young women who reluctantly becomes part of the process. The movie illustrates the entire drug smuggling process, in frequently graphic detail.
The poverty in many parts of Colombia, the miserable working conditions, and limited job opportunities makes one realize how one can enter this sort of life, despite the unbelievable risks involved.
After watching the movie, one can not help but feel sympathy for the main character, Maria. The story is an eye-opener that leads to conversation long after the end-credits have run.
X-Men: The Last Stand (2006)
Huge disappointment
Despite the critics panning this movie, I was certain it couldn't be as bad as they were saying. Well not only is it every bit as bad as they said, its quite possibly even worse.
The resurrection of Jean Grey as The Phoenix seemed to be a plausible, even clever way to continue the series of movies. Unfortunately, the character is never developed. Other than being incredibly powerful, the most powerful of all mutants, the Phoenix plot goes nowhere. Why does she join Magneto? Most of the time she's with him, she's just standing there in a long, ugly dress. She has no identifiable emotion other than anger, but we're never sure what she's all twisted up about. The flashback to 20 years earlier when Xavier and Eric first meet the teenage Jean held promise, but it was all downhill after that.
The movie was a total waste of the Cyclops/Scott character. If anything, Scott's love for Jean should have been what saved her. Instead, he's killed (we assume vaporized, though its never shown) by Phoenix very early in the movie. I can't believe James Marsden agreed to do the movie after reading the script.
The same goes for Xavier's death at the hands, nay mind, of Phoenix. What was the point? We do see Xavier get vaporized, but it doesn't make any sense. Despite Magneto telling Jean to stop, he seems to easily recover from Xavier's death without much of a problem and whisks Phoenix away and into hiding. Xavier has always been the central, moral character. His loss so early on in the movie, let alone his loss at all, was foolish. He should have held a key role in the movie as to guide the other characters in how to handle the Phoenix, and further explain her torment.
Rogue has almost no role in the movie, nor does Colossus. They're there, but the characters are flat and come across as nothing more than filler for the scenery. The same can be said for all of the other mutants that join forces with Magneto.. they're just filler. The Multiple Man character could have been interesting, but I don't think he said more than ten words.
Angel seemed to be a promising character, if the movie's trailers were to be believed, but despite Angel's fantastic appearance (wings and all), nothing much comes of that character either.
Kelsey Grammar as Hank McCoy, The Beast, seemed a logical casting choice. However he comes across as nothing more than a hairy, blue guy, with nifty gymnastic abilities. The Night Crawler character in X2 was much better developed and thought out. That character had a viable part in the movie whereas Beast doesn't.
Storm is way overplayed in the movie and as a result becomes the de-facto lead character. Despite her vastly increased screen time, the Storm character should have never had this much focus. If reports are to be believed, blame Halle Berry for this. She allegedly balked at signing on to do the movie unless her character was given a key role.
Wolverine is the second lead character in the movie after Storm. If anything, Wolverine should have had a more prominent role, but the character is cliché (too cartoonish), full of one liners but not much else. I can't fault Hugh Jackman for this. If this was the script he was given, how much can be done about it?
Interesting plot turn with Mystique losing her powers to the mutant serum, and also interesting was how quickly Magneto dumped her since she was no longer "one of them". If anyone was all about being a mutant, and a great villain, it was Mystique.
I liked the Kitty Pryde/Shadowcat character and thought she added to the movie. Her chase scene with Juggernaut was one of the movies bright spots. The same goes for Bobby/Ice Man. We got to see the inevitable showdown between he and Pyro, and of course Iceman was the victor, but it was still a decent scene.
Magneto lifting the Golden Gate Bridge and moving so that the mainland connected with Alcatraz Island was a waste of special effects. Yeah, neat idea, but totally unnecessary mutant grandstanding. His loss of powers to the mutant serum was nicely played, credit Ian McKellen's acting ability to pull it off.
By the time the movie was nearing an end, which came fairly quickly, I found myself hoping that the whole thing was nothing more than an X-Men Danger Room simulation. Unfortunately, that never came to pass.
Being the X-Men universe, who knows if Jean, Scott, and Xavier really are dead. If there are plans for an X4, they had best try to bring back the dead characters right from the start with a plausible explanation and just make pretend the rest never happened. Maybe some of the script writers from Dallas who brought back Bobby can be recruited to develop ideas. Jean wakes up and goes to the shower, and there stands Scott, and we discover it was nothing more than a dream.
Its a shame that X3 is where this series ended, at least I'm assuming this was the last installment, after the first two excellent movies. It could have ended on a high point, but instead it was by far an unworthy part of an otherwise fine series.
She-Devil (1989)
Underrated
This movie was made early on in Roseanne's TV career. The movie character of "Ruth" is not far off from her TV character, i.e. overweight, frumpy, but the movie has a far different plot from her cohesive, despite dysfunctional TV family. In the movie version, she is a doting yet overwhelmed housewife, devoted to her husband, until her cheats on her and subsequently leave her and the kids for a more promising life with a romance novelist.
I think this movie has been given a bum-rap by critics. Roseanne is funny, the supporting cast is good, and Meryl Streep is her usual excellent self.
This movie is a good one for a rainy day. Highly watchable, hard to fault. Those that expect perfection from any movie with a plot such as this are overreaching.
Moonraker (1979)
An under-appreciated contribution to the Bond franchise
Many people have written about this being the weakest of the Bond movies, but I must respectfully disagree. Yes, it latched on to the "Star Wars" fascination by being an outer space adventure, but it certainly stands on it's own merits. The special effects are terrific, but this is not just a special effects movie.
Bond's nemesis in the film, Hugo Drax, is a wonderfully overconfident, determined, bad guy in the truest sense of the word. The main "Bond Girl" in the film, Lois Chiles as Dr. Goodhead is by far the most capable Bond girl, up until Halle Barre in "Die Another Day". She is a CIA operative, immune to Bond's charms for most of the movie, and not only able to pilot a space shuttle, but also able to take out two of Drax's henchmen on her own without any help from James.
This locales used to film this movie were appropriate for the story line, but they were all equally exciting.. from space shuttle centrifuges in California, to ancient ruins in the Amazon. No wonder it is one of the highest grossing Bond films ever.
The Secret of the Sword (1985)
Once upon a time, this was a cool cartoon
A hundred million years ago, I thought He-Man was cool, but She-Ra was even cooler. I don't even know why I thought so.. maybe because I also dug Wonder Woman, The Bionic Woman, and Batgirl.. but I digress. When the movie came out, pre-multiplex, kids of all ages rejoiced when Adora 'held aloft her magic sword and said, "For The Honor of Greyskull!" Yeah, that was cool. She-Ra had a more upbeat theme than her brother, He-Man, and quite honestly, her special effects were better too. I coulda done with Cowl, the owl, and "Swift Wind", the lame-ass talking horse, but the rest of it was decent. Bo had a rockin' bod, Castaspella (don't you just love the name?!) could kick Shadow Weaver's butt, and Queen Angella, with her wannabe English accent, defended Castle Bright Moon till the cows came home. Mixing the original He-Man series with She-Ra was done effectively, meaning it was a buyable story-line... and when all was said and done, and Adora, nay She-Ra, realized her true identity, she decided to stay and "defend Etheria against the evil forces of Hordak." Pure cheese, but when you're a kid, who cares?!
Rainbow Brite and the Star Stealer (1985)
Rainbow Brite was the grooviest
Um, hello.. Rainbow Brite.. the name alone is hard to take it seriously, like she could be the cousin of Strawberry Shortcake.. but when you're a kid, this is definitely serious stuff.
So, there's this vile, snotty, spoiled girl and she wants Rainbow Brites belt, amongst other things, ie the light of the whole universe, and Rainbow Brite and her friend Cris are bound and determined to stop her. As I remember, Murky and Lurky had a minor role in this production. Maybe they wanted too much money?
So anyway, snotty, evil girl has a powerful jewel and she channels it's power to take Rainbow's belt.. imagine? But somehow, Rainbow gets her belt back and re-energizes it with "star sprinkles" and kicks the bad girls' butt with the help of Cris and his prism bracelet, and they also save the whole universe in the process.
So good triumphs over evil, niceness triumphs over rudeness, and Rainbow Brite and the Color Kids are once again safe to spread color and joy for all mankind.