Reviews

*SPOILERS*

I'll say this right off the bat. Whatever problems I had with this movie (and there were a few), I nevertheless was impressed deeply with Jackson's handling of CGI and camera. I don't care if you're a naysayer of the series, or a fan. If you're not impressed with the choreography and direction of the battle of Helm's Deep, you need some serious help. No director, to this date, has done what Jackson has done on the screen. He doesn't just throw rambunctious CGI as you would throw a bucket of paint on a murel and call it art. He has a formula. He knows what fits, and what works. Call it good instincts, or maybe he's just a genius. The most important trait for a director is being able to tell the story without the script. Can the audience understand the feeling, or the gist of the story just by looking at the scene, and the actors, and the lighting? Can you integrate CGI into this and still achieve the same effect on the audience? If you mention Final Fantasy, or Star Wars, you'll probably say "Heck no". This movie stands alone. The Two Towers, if not going to be recongnized for its good storytelling, is cinematic masterpiece by biblical proportions. That said, I believe Andy Serkis needs some serious, serious consideration for the best supporting actor role as Gollum. It's not just Jackson's employment of some of the most realistic CGI ever used, but the script and acting was done perfectly. We're not just looking at a mindless talking CGI, like Jar Jar, for that whole moment. We really believed we were actually seeing a living, breathing Gollum.

Now on to the story itself. Some dedicated Tolkien purists will probably have a few beefs with Jackson for the myriad of changes in the characters. For those who have never read the novels, these changes are only additional subplots for the audience to remember. These aren't detrimental to the actual storyline (to some degree), but nevertheless not very subtle and made rather obvious. I'm a bit on the neutral side in this, but I thought Jackson could have done a lot better. Two things that stand out:

1) Legolas - I find it disturbing that fangirls seem to like this character only because Orlando Bloom is "cute" despite the horrible dialogue Jackson and Walsh provided for him. This only cheapens Legolas. If he were any other movie character concocted by any other writer, it can be excused. Not Legolas. I thought Jackson should've given more thought to him. Give him one personality (he seems to bounce back and forth between optimism, and pessimism at the whim), and make him kick more butt. He's an Elf. His combat prowess and reliability should be paramount. Why make him act and look ridiculous (the surf scene with the shield bugs me to all Hell)? I'm not saying give Legolas the powers of Jet Li, but at least enhance his fighting abilties if you are not going to give him good lines. Just wishful thinking. This brings me to the next point:

2) Legolas / Gimli - I can somewhat see the need of comedy relief in something as dark and morbid as the Two Towers would eventuate towards the final hour of the movie. I have no problem with that. However, because Legolas seems to shift between personalities, and Gimli seems to be more focused on creating comedy relief, their friendship is virtually non-existant. As a result, their whole "how many can you kill" little adventure in Helm's Deep is out of place, and awkward.

Not exactly detrimental. None of this detracts me from enjoying the movie, but it stuck in my mind even at the closing credits. Oh well.

The Two Towers succeeds in telling the story, and that's important. Not exactly Tolkien's story, but Jackson interpretation of the novel series. He provides enough, without going overboard, or cutting too much. The dialogue isn't exactly top-notch, or memorable (in fact, it's actually quite subpar in my opinion) but it gets the job done.

Anyway, I'm not going to go anymore deeper. For me, I'm not going to remember this movie for the story. I'll leave that to my leather-bound collector's series (yes I am a Tolkien fanatic). I'll remember this movie for its technical achievements, and the way Gollum stole the entire show.

8/10

SPOILERS... After a year since I last saw this mockery of film-making, I figured maybe a second-viewing would help me tolerate this film. That had to be the second biggest mistake of my life next to agreeing to go see Wing Commander. The mistakes and flaws in the film were made that much more obvious with a second-viewing I nearly had to gouge my eyes out in spite of its sheer medicority and utter ridiculousness.

I tried to like this film... it was, after all, based on the cheesy video game from Japan that had some pretty good moments. I guess it was too much of a task to have both actors and a script in a movie even though Anderson has made some horrible films with some decent acting (Event Horizon) or cheesy acting with a pretty good film (Mortal Kombat). Resident Evil has neither. The plot is generic, and serves only as an excuse to develop a senseless sequel, have Milla pose half-nude (to appease the RE fans I figure) and have plenty of zombies go ballistic. With some stretch of the imagination this COULD be tolerable and FUN but there are two very glaring mistakes in the film that stand out like a leper in a crowd:

1) Their choice of Actors - Cheesy, screwed up action films have only 2 saviors, excellent action sequences (to some degree), and at least average acting. Brotherhood of the Wolf, as ridiculous of a story as it was, had very decent acting and incredibly well-done sequences and cinematography. Resident Evil, with its silly storyline, had characters with the uncanny power to read their lines off script cards. Impressive. Can they act that horribly, or did they put effort into it? The leader of this ragtag bunch of soldiers was pretty cool. He could deliver all of his lines in monotone and display one facial expression. Needless to say, he was killed off quick. In fact, nearly all of the useless soldiers were killed off quickly (just like John Carpenter's Vampires) which I guess was a plus for Anderson. Michelle Rodriguez, playing in vain as the Vasquez-hack of Aliens (more about this later), tops him by emoting one emotion along with her delivery of lines in monotone. Sad, she was wasted in this film. A myriad of other characters share this same profile, including the dear Milla who can kill zombies with martial arts even though an entire clip of a MP5 will do nothing. By the way, why was she trained to do this? She could kick some serious behind for no explicable reason yet her partner/husband (this was never explained either) had none of the training? I assume all of this was discarded to ensure the people will return for the explanation in the sequel. At the other end of the spectrum, we also have Eric Mabius, who could display two emotions... slightly confused, and very confused. You know I've read the early drafts to this heinous monstrosity and he annoyingly keeps adding about how the suspense of this movie will freak you. Sorry, buddy, your whole crew of actors actually made us laugh more.

2) Hacking other movies - I can point out at least a half dozen different scenes where Anderson (who loves to recycle other people's work) pulls from Aliens. These aren't subtle attempts, or clever renditions. I'm assuming his thought process was like this:

Anderson: Wow, I just thought up of a cool and gruesome way to kill off all of my useless actors! What can I do to make it "suspenseful" and filled with "tension".

Anderson's Brain: How about watching the movie Aliens and copy the scene where the marines were attacked for the first time?

Anderson: Good idea! Let's see, I'll take the Hive, the Queen, and even the Aliens popping out of nowhere and snatching people. I could even recycle the lines without changing them! I am a GENIUS!

Pretty pathetic, and I'm not even going to bother pointing out the stupidity of some of the plot elements or the other movies it borrows heavily from (like Odyssey). By the way, if this T-Virus was so powerful we are led to believe, why does it take a millennia for it to take effect on a live person?

All in all, I couldn't find a single shred of entertainment in this. Why would I? If you took a recipe for Chicken with sauce diable and you thought it'd be neat to recycle it and throw in tang and peanut butter, it's not going to taste any good.

3/10

SPOILERS....

I can't decide how I should look at this movie, but whatever happened in the two hours of seeing this, I ended up enjoying the movie in the end despite its over-the-top production and rambunctious directing.

Brotherhood of the Wolf is about a secret society of noblemen/gypsies (???) under the leadership of a manic priest (yes you heard me), for no explicable reason seem to think the current King of France needs to be taught a lesson in religion. Their weapon? Some lion, we assume, from Africa (it was never fully explained) that is trained to be super evil and to eat women and children. With a stretch of imagination we can accept this as the plot. The King of course is horrified by its powers and so hires the two heroes, Francos (the scientist/lover/semi-ninja) and Mani (the quiet-American Indian who has the uncanny ability to kick your ass in a couple of hundred different ways), to investigate. Needless to say, conspiracies follow and a whole lot of subplots are resolved through an abundance of martial arts.

The action alone in this movie was handled pretty well, although there were way too many scenes involving Mani, or Francos tearing someone a new one. None of the characters in the movie were adept with their respective fighting styles, but excellent camera work by Gans took care of that. I was actually genuinely surprised by this.

Everything else is over-the-top and lavish... the costumes, the women (Bellucci is especially delicious here), the blood, and the parodies (keep the rhyme "Mary had a Little Lamb" in mind when you see this movie, heh). It's almost an equivalent of an orgasmic frenzy of violence and action. I can't stress enough how well the cinematography was in Brotherhood. The scenes and choice of locations were incredible and a perfect fit for this dark and murky movie.

This movie is about personal taste. You either like French-directing, or you don't. For me, the movie was nothing to write home about, but it was entertaining and it did not leave a sour taste in my mouth as many action movies do (like Swordfish).

By the way, anyone who is claiming this a rip-off of the Matrix needs to have their head examined.

7/10

*Spoilers*

The movie is an incredible film and it serves as an excellent piece to show you how a great director and writer like Mann can take many characters, and give each of them enough depth so you understand and pity them when their time comes. Examples, Breedan (played by Senator Palmer from 24) has about 10 minutes of total screen time altogether in the movie but we know he's an ex-con, and we know he's trying to get his life back together. However, as we can see in the film, not everyone has a welcome mat for him, and he struggles. The short dialogue between him and his loyal girlfriend afterwards serves as a great scene as he vents his frustrations which ultimately leads to his decision to rejoin De Niro's crew. Subplots like this, done smoothly and all tie in with each other, help establish each of the great characters. Val Kilmer is a reckless gambler and a horrible husband, but his wife still loves him and he finally acknowledges that when the world's coming down on him. Sizemore is the complete opposite. He tries to be a good father and husband, BUT he has trouble balancing his loyalty to De Niro whom he has worked with for years, and his family. His job is dangerous, how long can he continue doing this? And there are plenty of others, all question their obligations towards family and their work which is good. I simply don't understand how anyone could consider this "boring"? Would people have preferred no character development and just mindless explosions and shootouts? Let's not forget Heat is a drama/action film (by the same man who brought us Miami Vice), not an action film.

And to all of the other naysayers of this movie, based on your inane and asinine remarks of various scenes, it's quite obvious you have NOT seen the movie. If you intend to criticize a good film, try to watch it instead of taking what little negative remarks (when they are themselves fabricated out of their bungholes) out there and using it as your own. You sound like a complete moron when you do.

Heat is a great film, with memorable characters.

9/10

SPOILERS!! This is without a doubt one the funniest thrillers I've ever seen on television. The basic premise is this... each person has something called a Glow (sort of like a soul) that keeps them youthful and energetic and as we age, we lose that Glow. So how do the villains of the story (cliched old men and women) retain that Glow? They steal them from their youthful neighbors, HA-HA-HA-HA, and them dump their wasted bodies into the basement dumpster. The directing was pretty good actually considering how incredibly horrible the script was. The acting was equally atrocious. Every sort of cliche you can think of (dump cops, clueless neighbors, silly contrivances of the story) can be found in here. It's amazing, LOL.

This movie is about as ridiculous and ludicrous as its horrible ending where the nosy cop bites the big one but luckily for the female protagonist who needed a weapon, the body was buried with his gun together.

1/10