Reviews

I had low expectations before viewing, and it did turn out better than I expected. However, once finished I did find a certain emptiness with the story and characters. The movie goes from action scene to action scene with very little in-between moments that show us the characters. What we do see is an interaction between two characters that is meant to only setup the next scene, but does nothing to show us who they are. Missing were those short meaningless moments that help build the story for each person. While visually stunning, at the end of the film I just did not see any attachment to any character, meaning whether they lived or died, whether they would return or not meant nothing as I hardly see them as existing in the story (although they did exist in an action scene).

Summary pretty much sums this movie up. Now keep in mind I have at the time of this writing only seen the first part. The reason the is that what I have seen so far does not justify my time to watch the remaining 2 hours.

In this first film at about 115 minutes in, I was watching a part of the movie that should have started 40 minutes earlier at the latest. So I ask myself, why did I have to sit through really what was an hour of nothing just to get to this point. Of all the stories, this certainly was not mini-series material.

As for the acting, don't expect an improvement here. Some seem to have simply sleepwalked through the film. Often it is people just merely reading lines with very weak attempts at emotion or feeling to the words. In other words, I got the sense that the actors realized how this movie was going to be, and saw no point in spending much time actually acting.

The end result is a movie you can't care about, characters that are half awake, and a plot that has been stretched to unbelievable length. This is after all a 90 minute movie drawn out to 240 minutes. Well, do the math and you can easily figure how boring this movie will be to watch.

Obviously there is another case of people behind a film registering here to skew the actual score. This movie is in no way shape or form anything close to it's current 6.1/10 score. The one thing I just can not get over is the feeling they ran out of money in the first week of filming, and thus really had to cut corners on everything. At the moment 24 people have given this a 10/10. The only reason to do that is if you have a financial investment and hope to fool people into renting or buying this. No doubt as more people give an honest review, I suspect the score to easily drop below 3 or 4. Some of SciFi channels own wretched made for TV films are more watchable.

I wonder if this movie was a case where they intentionally tanked it so as to recoup the cost from insurance companies. Other than that, there just is no explanation as to how such a film could be made, much less released.

I felt compelled to write a review after seeing some of the comments here that have prematurely anointed this movie a classic. Since a few filmmakers out there abuse this site to generate more positive spin on what is otherwise horrible work, I feel it is important to comment.

As for this film, if you can call it that..I am quite sure it will end up in the top 10 list of worst movies of 2008 for many critics (in fact it already has for a few). I had the strange coincidence of viewing this the day after watching the musical Rent with a few friends. The first thing I notice in this film was just how poorly written and constructed it is for a musical, this is something done by high school drama clubs.

Now it is not a rule that every word in a musical needs to be sung. You can have people actually talking from time to time. But, if the decision is to have no spoken words, then you best be able to construct a flow of the songs to create a story. Jesus Christ Superstar is a perfect example of a musical with NO spoken words done right. In fact in my opinion it is close to perfection how the songs came together to form a story. This is not easy, each song must not only contribute to the moment, but more importantly must fit properly into the flow of the musical. This movie on the other hand seems like merely a collection of songs thrown together and patched to form a complete movie.

As for the music, I was even less impressed. Best way I can describe it is music written by people who have no respect, interest, or preference to this type of music. It came off very much like in a network TV show they have in the script for a Heavy Metal band to play, so they hire some guys who have no clue how to write hard rock, and simply have them wear some wigs. In other words it was like having Hall and Oates write and perform Iron Maiden-esquire music. Sure some songs could be written, but listening to them would torture.

I do have to add that the greatest irony of this movie was that Paris Hilton of all things was actually not that bad. In fact I could have had more Hilton and less Paul Sorvino who was poorly cast for this role. She definitely does NOT have a voice to become a professional singer, but there is talent there enough that she could easily do other musicals. But, I guess you could take this as a sign of this movie that Paris Hilton is the highlight! Uggh.

From what I read there is a plan two more in the series. My advice if they desire to gain any respect or positive reviews would be to hire professional Broadway writers and musicians to come in and at the very least polish and plug the holes. This movie did have potential, and I must say I was eagerly waiting for it's release. But in the end the execution was so miserable this will certainly be in the top 3 of worst movies of 2008 for me.

Only thing I find more disturbing and disgusting than this movie are the people that defend this garbage. This movie was checked out completely by accident, and I surely regret the whole $1 I spent on it. I will even admit I did not finish the movie. Watching plaster dry has more redeeming value.

These movies are made for one audience- psychotic future and current serial killers, rapists, and other vile humans. I wish movies, and the audience members who enjoy this crap would all instantly combust in flames and burn for eternity. There is no single shred of argument that can be made for this vile crap.

I sincerely beg anyone, with so many good films out there, do not watch this movie. If anything, I would encourage people to boycott this movie, and everyone involved in making of this.

Please contact your local mental health facility and make an appointment as soon as possible to have a full examination. That way when you are diagnosed as a sick psychopathic personality they will lock you away. Then the human gene pool will be one step smarter and healthier.

Seriously, I had the unfortunate luck to have had to view this film, although I admit much of it I simply did not pay attention to. Take the gore away, this was simply a bad film. Add in this sick snuff extras and what you have is a recipe for people with mental health issues to indulge themselves.

If you seriously enjoyed this movie, fact is you are NOT a normal healthy human. There is something wrong with you.

What can I actually say about the movie? Nothing, because this movie deserves nothing. This new breed of snuff films are simply disgusting and despicable geared towards sick people. Sad that in the world today there are so many people that find these enjoyable. I remember at least back in the 1970s when a film like "I spit on your grave" came out, it was hardly noticed. I can say though that a good point to show how bad this is, watch the movie 8MM which deals with the production of a snuff film in a compelling and serious manner.

In short this is just a horrible waste of time. When you consider that there is so much good quality entertainment, why waste time out of your life on this trash. Hell, even mediocre run of the mill junk like Spiderman 3 are worth your time more.