Change Your Image
eflemieux
Reviews
The Tomorrow War (2021)
Well made but botched screenplay - spoilers
It's sad when a movie expends so much money on the cast and special effects but no money on polishing up the screenplay. I'm all for an action movie and suspension of disbelief but that does not excuse the plot holes in this movie. It's full of them...
Time travel movies have to find a good way of solving the paradox of people going into the past without changing the future - this movie does not take into account any of these consequences. It would be really easy to build up an enormous arsenal in the present, to prepare for the invasion. It would also be easy to nuke the area where the creatures first appear - especially considering that humanity would otherwise be facing extinction. The military in this movie are moronic and lazy beyond belief - they do not plan for the future, they do not train citizen soldiers, they do not try to eradicate the very first creatures... The whole mechanism of the "one week trip" is laughably lazy and looks like a cheap plot trick.
A few hundred thousand dollars spent on screen doctoring could have fixed the plot holes and made the movie a way better experience.
This being said, the creature design and special effects are amazing - no expense was spared. I would have loved to see it on the big screen.
The Rig (2010)
This is Dumb and Dumber 3...
This movie makes absolutely no sense and was written by people who have absolutely no idea of work safety regulations... people die all the time on that drilling platform and the staff acts like if they simply deserted - there is no emotion, no stress, no documenting what happened, just sex scenes and stupid dialogue.
I understand they had no budget, but that no excuse for lazy writing and pathetic acting. Roger Corman made movies on shoestring budgets but never sank that low.
I'm surprised the director ever found another job.
The Last Ship (2014)
The dumbest show of the year...
This series is simply dumb. The story is laughably impossible. The casting is horrible and the acting sucks accordingly.
Where should I start? 1. It is impossible for a ship to remain hidden at the south pole for weeks - the Russians have had satellites for close to 50 years... 2. It would be impossible for the crew of a ship to ignore a worldwide catastrophe for months on end - there is always short wave radio and simply listening to the general radio signals. 3. The US military cannot be wiped off the surface of the earth by a contagious disease - the personnel from isolated posts, ships and submarines would survive for months. Should I go on? Rhona Mitra sucks at an Olympic level - she looks like she's living with a permanent case of constipation. The Captain looks like he took coolness lessons in a Popsicle factory.
In short, this program suffers from a terminal case of dumbness - it is insulting to intelligence.
Immortals (2011)
Horrible - stinker to avoid
OMG - what a waste of time... I see about one movie a week and I see my fair share of stinkers but this one takes the cake.
I saw 300 and Clash of the Titans. I can put up with over-the-top acting and actors who look lost working in front of a green screen but Immortals is in a special class by itself.
I am not a big specialist of the ancient Greeks but i doubt that their life would have the constant gay undertone of this movie. There must be a full 10 minutes of body-worshiping close-ups on abs and shoulders in this movie.
The sets are impressive but totally unrealistic - who would run within 12 inches of a precipice? Who would live in a cliff-city over a mile up in the air? What to they eat? Birds? The costumes are nice, but Mickey Rourke helmet is worth the price of the admission. Imagine a 2 feet high helmet in the shape of a lobster claw! Like several people who posted before me, i strongly suspect that some of the early comments on this movie were made by studio drones. Nobody can be that positive about this movie unless being motivated by money, drugs or a very badly performed lobotomy ;-)
Daybreakers (2009)
Easy pun: It sucked :-)
The base of the movie is good and interesting but the execution and casting suck, big time.
I was amazed by the simplicity of the basic idea: "what if everybody turned into vampires? What would the world look like?" but then, the execution was very, very bad. The casting is good, on paper, but somewhere, it went amiss. Sam Neil used to be a good actor but i keep seeing him in weird, badly executed movies, where it looks like a parody of good acting (In the mouth of madness, Event Horizon), clearly, he's not made for horror or SF.
As for Willem Dafoe, we don,t know if he's playing a weird character or a some dumb clone of Woody Harrelson's character in Zombieland. It's weird.
Ethan Hawke plays as usual, a mix of stiffness and talent, he looks like he's not involved in the story.
The effects are nice but the "vampires turning into ashes" thing is getting kinda ordinary.
It's worth 90 minutes of attention but it's not worth seeing twice...
Screamers: The Hunting (2009)
Another cheap tax credit ripoff...
OMG what an awful movie. The story is moronic, the acting is laughable and the casting is pathetic (except for Lance Henricksen, who rocks, as usual).
When I saw that the writing credit went to one of the producers, I should have known that the main objective of that production was to rip-off the Canadian tax payers and the viewers of their hard-earned dollars. It confirms my opinion that English Canadian cinema is mostly a bargain basement version of Hollywood, that only survives on subsidies and because Canadian pay-TV channels have to invest in local production.
The story is a festival of clichés, any idiot could guess the finale 30 minutes before the movie ended. We even get a sex scene but the producers must have cut the unavoidable t&a images so they could get a PG rating. It's an horrible movie, really... The only reason people watch it is because the title has some notoriety (and i must say I hated the first one).
Physical effects are well done, though.
The Last Legion (2007)
Bride of CesarStein
This movie is a pain. It's 30% "Princess Bride", 30% "Conan" 20% "Sinbad" and "20% "Lord of the rings".
It's hard to believe that producers like the Weinsteins let that stinker be released under their name. OK, the De Laurentis name is also attached to the movie, so it guarantees a fair amount of cheese but this is a pain to see. The acting is laughable, the sets scream blue screen and amateur CGI while the story is straight out of Saturday afternoon toga movies.
I still have 30 minutes to watch and I came on IMDb to see if i was wrong in having stomach pains but I see i'm not alone. There is comfort in that ;-)
Iron Man (2008)
Perfecto!
This movie is flawless! Robert Downey Jr. is reborn as the great actor he was before his... troubles. The story rocks, it is fast paced and coherent. Supporting characters are credible and actually add to the action.
The time frame of the action is also pretty funny to look at, several items are straight out of 2008 but some aspects of the technology are light years away. It's fun to watch.
The little flaw is the good'ole cliché of the Arab terrorists but it's not like nobody else does it.
I'm counting days until #2 and I hope they're filming #2 and #3 back to back.
I'll go see it again this week.
Rambo (2008)
Is this like.... a joke??
Good Lord... what's Stallone's mental age? This movie is idiotic! I've never seen a dumber movie since I stopped watching Ninja action flicks.
The bad guys are so bad, they're laughable. The mercenaries are walking clichés. The missionaries are straight out of the "Singing Nun" and Stallone... well... he's Stallone. The guy can't act and he doesn't speak, he mumbles. Julie Benz is eye candy but her character is a complete idiot.
The whole movie can be summarized as 40 minutes intro followed by 40 minutes of senseless violence. I've got nothing against violence in movies but this is a pure massacre, without any purpose except blood splatters.
Only one funny thing - there is a huge typo in the credits. "armourer" is spelled "Amoureur" - for a French guy like me, it's hilarious.
Oh, and the movie is made in Thailand, with a local crew, so not only did they make a dumb flick but they did it for cheap. That's the way of the future, let's outsource the crappy work to Asia :-) A movie to watch on evenings after your brain has overheated - no risk of additional pressure on the neurones!
The Mist (2007)
Another idiotic Stephen King flick...
ARGH... Each time i get caught... Stephen King has amusing ideas but they can rarely be stretched beyond 20 minutes. After that, the stories get too thin, the explanations make no sense and the clichés become obvious.
This movie is an insult to intelligence. In classical Stephen King style, extraordinary things happen and are not explained or worse: the explanation is "...cuz...". The clichés in this movie are horrible: aggressive lawyer, smart ass city man, cute crying kid, sweet motherly teacher, nerdy grocery store clerk, hysterical religious nut.
Spoilers (not that there's any fun to be spoiled...) The story does not make any sense. Monsters appear, they are strong but they can't break through plate glass windows. The monsters are invincible and numerous, but the army just shows up and solves everything in 5 minutes. Monsters appear out of nowhere, but they think of cutting down phone lines. The whole preacher thing is an insult to religious people (and, being an atheist, I have no sympathy but this is way too much). The first monster is a cheap rip-off of several low-budget movies of the 80's.
The ending will go down in history as one of the dumbest cheap shot I have ever seen.
I could try to rate this movie on my crap-meter but the needle is stuck in the red.
Halloween (2007)
Good creative job
I'm not gonna make friends here :-) I can't stand Rob Zombie (so i'm not a fan boy expressing my mad love for the man) and I'm not a complete fan of the original series, which i found slowly lapsed into exploitation and ridicule...
This movie goes back to the roots of the original version but it updates it to modern realities. The 2008 audience has seen it all - crazy mass murderers, serial killers, people blown to bits by blind bombing - and they saw it on the news! We need something more than gore and craziness to be scared.
Zombie reinterpreted the myth and added to it. Myers in the first series was a soulless monster - a robotic killing machine. The new Myers is closer to Ed Gein, as a human being that was driven on the wrong road. He is believable because he is a creation of the real world. I couldn't help but sympathize with him until he (SPOILER!!!) takes out the nurse,,, I could have done without the regular nudity, especially considering that the characters (not the actresses, please) are close to being underage. It made me feel uncomfortable, like watching illegal porn.
Sherri Moon can act - wow - and the kid is creepily good. Let's say i'd never babysit him after seeing this movie... McDowell is amazing, he definitely outgrew Caligula ;-) Aesthetically, this movie is artsy, in a trailer park kinda way. It looks like Tarantino on a regular day. For people who find the characters cliché, pleaaaaaase... 90% of action/horror/thriller movie characters are cliché. If i wanted to see character development, i'd rent Six Feet Under...
There are major plot holes though... SPOILER: (I repeat, SPOILER!!!!) How does he know who Laurie is? I pray it's not some kind of supernatural crap "à la Halloween 5-6...". Also, the number of security staff in the asylum is pretty low, considering the type of place... Finally, how many members in this police department?? Three? And finally, finally, the ambulance people would have called for help after arriving - there couldn't have been the 15 minutes lapse we see in the movie.
In conclusion, good job for a third movie.
300 (2006)
Welll made but i'm disappointed
I feel like a Spartan facing the hordes of fans who will run me over after I dare criticize this movie...
The 300 is a very well made movie - no doubt about it - but, as a cinematographic work, it suffers from sticking too much to its origin as a graphic novel. Graphic novels are a special form of expression, with impressive graphics and short texts, but the reader knows he's looking at a graphic novel and suspends his/her disbelief to follow the story. Movies on the other hand, are expected to look and feel realistic. The 300 is somewhere between the two, a comic book with photographic images but not an epic movie like Gladiator.
The preview contains 80% of the best scenes of the movie and, furthermore, it does not prepare the viewer for the look and atmosphere of the movie. The CGI is too oppressive, it is "too much" and it crushes the performance of the actors and ends up looking phony. The characters are "flat", they miss personality (besides Leonidas), they each have one personality trait and that's all we see.
The character of Xerses is laughable (but it's not the director's fault, the character comes straight from the graphic novel)and most of the villains look as real as any bad guy from a Batman book. The Spartans are noble and all but once you start looking closely, they start looking unreal and cartoonish. Leonidas' wife is major eye-candy though, and she sticks out like the only realistic character in the whole movie. Also, the dancing oracle is wonderful to look at but if you observe the image too closely, the filming technique used becomes obvious and it ruins the feeling.
In short, this movie is an excellent "moving graphics-graphic novel" but don't go in looking for Lauwrence of Arabia, you'll be disappointed.
Guide de la petite vengeance (2006)
Well made, well acted but not a U.S. blockbuster.....
My friend dragged me, kicking and screaming, to see this movie as i'm so not a fan of Quebec-made movies. I was mistaken (in this case).
This flick is very well made, no questions about it. The writing is witty, the characters are believable (except the jeweller, who is beyond words), the production is all around perfect, so it's worth the ticket price.
Spoilers ahead.
Essentially, the story revolves around an accountant who decides to take back control of his life (and reconquer his wife)by exacting a little vengeance on his psychotic boss. He does so by setting up a break-in in his employer's store with the help of a weird assistant. The story has many surprising twists and discussing them here would spoil your fun.
End spoilers.
The movie was filmed (at least the exteriors) in Old Montreal but it does not really give a touristy view of Montreal. You'll see bits and pieces of two or three neighborhoods but no postcards there.
The cast is made of a few well known faces but their appearance does not detract from the story telling. The main character is played by an experienced actor which i never noticed before. He looks the part and shows a nice image of an intelligent man who let himself get devoured by a boring job and turned into a boring wimp. His turnaround is a feel-good moment.
Like many Quebec-made movies, it is well crafted but cannot compete with U.S. made blockbusters and does not even try (which does bug me a tad, but that's a debate for another place than IMDb). I'm not sure the movie will be released outside of Canada but the concept could easily be adapted to foreign markets, as the theme of revenge and crazy bosses is pretty well universal.
The Grudge 2 (2006)
Idiot sees, Idiot dies...
Spoilers ahead JEEEEEEEESUSSSSSSSSSS.... I have a saying: "Insecticides kill insects and Moronicides kill morons..." The "ghost" in this movie kills morons. Several of the people who get killed in this movie are actually ASKING to get killed, by running into abandoned houses, going after ghosts, etc...
On a strictly cinematic aspect, this movie sucks real bad. The three story lines are shown to be parallel and suddenly, we learn they are separated by at least a few days. It's a cheap shot...
Also, the "thrills" are so cheap, they are laughable. Even "Nightmare on Elm Street" didn't sink so low as to show someone being attacked by his own sweater... it's pathetic.
Save your money, stay home, and you won't have a grudge against the filmmakers..
Slither (2006)
I must have missed something...
This is an honest movie. Well made, well written, well acted... but I just didn't get the jokes i guess.
The art of parody is delicate - Shaun of the dead went over the top and it worked well - some other movies tried the same formula and just bombed. Slither does parody but with such professionalism that it just doesn't work. FX are perfect, in fact, they're not cheesy enough. The same for the acting - it seems the actors didn't want to look silly, so they acted as best as they could and the end result is great - but lacks cheese...
Finally, the movie feels like an episode from Buffy the vampire slayer. The story is nuts but the whole product is so well made that you wonder if the director forgot he was doing a parody.
Still, it's worth the price of the ticket - unlike Ultraviolet, which is a piece of... crap (i HAD to say it :-)
Man on Fire (2004)
A great Greek tragedy
This is one of the best movies i've ever seen...
Denzel Washington lives the role - a broken, used-up former special ops man, who lost his will and reason to live. Dakota Fanning goes beyond her terminal cuteness to deliver a very convincing performance. Christopher Walken remains one of the best - this man deserves a lifetime award.
The direction is very NYPD Blue-style. Very nervous, broken in bits and extremely effective. The writing is top-notch, with good one liners peppered regularly, the best one being "Forgiveness is between God and them - i'm just there to set-up the meeting".
The religious undertone brings out the tragic side of the story. It made me want to read the bible...
I'm a bit disturbed by the portrayal of the Mexican society. Is it really this bad? One a more technical note, how did the filmmakers secure Mexican authorities' collaboration when the movie displays their police as a HUGE sea of corruption? Please listen to the second audio comments track on the DVD, Dakota Fanning is adorable and the chit-chat with the writers is real cute.
SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER!! Overall, this movie is a Greek tragedy - sacrificing one's life to become the angel of extermination, delivering punishment to the bad guys and saving the day at the end - while paying the utmost price.
Sahara (2005)
Painfully bad
I love Dirk Pitt books because this character has charm and flair. None of that is present in the horrible movie.
Casting: Matthew McConaughey has the body but that's all he has. Dirk Pitt is an old-school adventurer, kinda like Humphrey Bogart. Matthew McConaughey turns the character into some kind of x-gamer wild child, complete with the leather neck lace and the oh-so-cute 7 days beard.
Pelope Cruz is simply laughable... Was she ever any good? well, it does not show in this flick. Her accent seem completely out of place. I have only one word: DIALECT COACH. The rest is the cast is so-so.
William H. Macy is a caricature of admiral Sandecker. In a recent interview, Macy said he would take commercial roles just for the money -well this is one.
Lambert Wilson ads one more title on his list of self-parodies... He sounds like the Merovingian who just got a job working for Union Carbide. Theeee frenche accentee soundes just a little bitte like inspectore Clouseau...
Direction: Bad, bad times 50... For a rare occasion, it is obvious that the director didn't direct any of the acting. The music track is also horribly distracting.
Story: I know that Cussler's stories can sometimes be over the top but i'm sure he never wrote anything close to this moronic predictable stinker. One last point for the director: French speaking people speak french between themselves. They surely not speak highly accented English... Also, tanks do NOT surrender to men on horses, even if they have a few RPGs...
Plot holes: Why did the ship end up there?? Why the crew die?? I'll stop listing the plot holes... let's say that this movie asks for more than suspension of disbelief... It MAJOR levitation that's required.
Finally, this movie is borderline condescending. We are tired of the old "african countries when left to themselves end up in dictatorships, headed by cruel a--holes at the head of armies made out of morons." I'll never watch this crap again, not even for free on TV.
Ultraviolet (2006)
Gooood God, who greenlit this P.O.S.?
I saw this movie with a fellow reviewer who likes to point out goofs in movies. At one point during the movie, he asked me if I noticed any goofs - I answered "yes, all that stuff after the opening credits".
This movie makes Universal Soldier II look like Citizen Kane. It is painful to watch, not "painful" as in "boring" - "painful" as in "driving car bumpers under your fingernails".
Mila Jojovich attains new levels in the art of sucking and beating her performance in Resident Evil must have been a challenge. The kid actor playing number #6 is really, really, really...bad. He looks like the kid in The Sixth Sense when he sees ghosts, but permanently. As for the villain... well.. any actor with plastic plugs up his nose will look stupid (Remember Dune, anybody?).
And poor William Fitchner... Jesus man, READ_THE_BLOODY_SCRIPT_BEFORE_ YOU_SIGN!!! You rocked in Black Hawk Down and Armaggedon but this movie... I'll give you an easy trick: "Mila Jojovich"... you read that name on the door of a trailer and YOU RUN AWAY. Let your agent and lawyer sort it out, but don't show up on the set.
The only good point is the visual research of the movie, but instead of ending up with a product that is visually challenging (like Skycaptain), it ends up as just looking phony.
I hate blasting away at a movie which tries to go beyond the usual "bang bang boom boom" action movie style, but this flick is so off the mark, it's sad to see.
This movie won't make it to next Friday, so run (don't walk) to the theater to see this train wreck... (insert irony here).
Kudos to the opening credits and the music. Actually, so few people will see this bomb, the soundtrack could easily be recycled for Underworld 3.
I noticed the movie was filmed on digital media. Is it why it looked so phony?? And that moronic obsession with religious symbols... Did the director get beaten up by catholic schoolboys when he was a kid?
OK,enough bad mouthing this movie but... I WANT MY MONEY BACK!!! I WANT MY TWO HOURS BACK!!! This ain't funny... it makes me look forward to Universal Soldier 3..
Hostel (2005)
Over-hyped flick - makes Saw look original
I went to see Hostel with a friend who insisted we go. Personally, I was a bit afraid after hearing all the hype about this flick and comments like "the goriest movie ever made" and bla bla... Was I wrong.
The story is pretty ordinary and predictable, it's more a return to slasher movies of the 70's like "Texas chainsaw massacre". It does play on a common fear of being helpless and at the mercy of a sadist but it does it in a very "lazy" way, without any originality. It also re-uses the 1970's cliché of showing boobs without much connection to the story.
The characters are sympathetic but they are "offed" so fast that we don't really have time to empathize with their fate. It's a lot of building up a capital of sympathy only to see it written off in a minute or two. The main evil female characters are two-dimensional bitches, and no justification is offered for their actions except pure greed.
The story is also very thin and would have easily fit into a 60 minutes TV format.
In summary, this movie is part Tobe Hopper, part Russ Meyer and part run of the mill B-movie. Seeing it made me appreciate the originality of Saw and Saw II.
King Kong (2005)
OK, lapidate me....
I already know i'm gonna get flamed to death but i do have to say I hated this movie. Peter Jackson seems obsessed with the idea of making some big epic out of his King Kong but this is not Lawrence of Arabia... This flick is over-long, over-blown and so incredibly pretentious.
Someone buy this guy a pair of scissors - so many scenes are crying to get cut out... I once heard from a director that the real job starts when a 5 hours long first cut comes out of the editor's shop. Peter Jackson cannot cut... so we are stuck with a three hours movie that could easily be reduced to 2 hours without even breaking a sweat. I was with a friend when i saw the movie and at the end, all he said was "Remind me never to watch anything with the name "Peter Jackson" attached to it again".
The casting is a bit weird too. Jack Black is funny but he plays this role like a parody of Orson Welles - it's way too much.
Naomi Watts is super-hot and she delivers but i have a major question that killed the movie for me: what the hell does she have under the sole of her feet??? This girl runs for like an hour in the jungle without even getting a cut? please.
Also, it's fun to see the movie accelerate once Kong gets to NYC. I can hear the producers yelling in the background: "OK, GET THIS THING FINISHED NOW!!".
I'm sure the producers are getting ready to release a "special edition director's cut" version that will probably run 15 hours long. Personally, I'm waiting for the "Ok, we-got-an-editor-to-recut-this-thing version" - about 90 minutes long.
Red Eye (2005)
Well directed movie based on an incredibly moronic plot
MAJOR SPOILERS AHEAD.
Wes Craven is an experienced director. I personally dislike most of his work but it's more a matter of personal taste than intrinsic value.
This movie is an exception. The directing is excellent, and the end result is an interesting thriller if (capital "IF") you turn you brain off.
The two main characters are soooooooo stupid and brainless... I'm amazed they lived past puberty (thanks to "The Rock" for the quote).
The supposedly experienced hired killer/mercenary finds the most complicated way possible to get hold of the girl. It would have been so much simpler to simply abduct her and threaten her with a gun... Why do it all in an airplane?? There is no logical explanation for his action. Furthermore, why go after the girl once the "mission" has ended?? Is he dying to go to prison??
As for the girl, I cannot believe such a moron could land any job of responsibility in the civilized world. Once she learns the killer's plan - and once she learns that his buddy is waiting for his call to act, she just has to get up and yell. Voilà - end of the movie, no more thrill, just pure logic. And why run out of the airport? why not just grab a phone?? I though US airports were filled with cops and security agents... Why not just ask for help?
Wes Craven delivers good direction in a "B" movie but he could have used his experience and "juice" to request improvements in the script. It is also what I dislike in his "Nightmare on Elm Street" movies: No way to have the bad guys come into the locked room?? Let's have him crawl out of the electrical socket! Kinda lazy, no?
This movie is pure drive-in theater material - spectacular, well made and brainless but I suggest you pass, considering the price of gas.
The Island (2005)
Popcorn Heaven :-)
I didn't believe Michael Bay could come back after making Pearl Harbor (the worst disappointment of my movie watching career)... and god, was I wrong.
This movie is a perfect summer flick. It has action, a story that makes sense, high entertainment and... a babe ;-) More seriously, the story is amazing and the acting is pretty good.
Many reviewers say that The Island is actually two movies stuck together - one, an exploration of a pretty dim universe and the second, a totally run of the mill action flick. I must agree with that. The first half is a very well made exercise in imagination and set design. The second part suffers from terminal Michael Bay-ism - way too many car chases, way too many explosions, way too many "boooms, bangs and wowwwwwwws".
Contrary to many summer movies, The Island does NOT require a major suspension of disbelief: the story really makes sense. I'll try to see other movies written by the same team.
The acting is very good. The two principals deliver as well in action scenes than in funny scenes (there are a few :-) Sean Bean plays a variation of his typical bad-guy role but he excels in it. Djimon Hounsou (the other Gladiator :-) is good but he has his ups and lows... Steve Buscemi is, as usual, a genius.
The special effects are... too good? Micheal Bay seems to have mastered the art of milking too much money from producers - the car chases scenes are well made and are obviously expensive but they kinda distract from the story line. Personally, i would have removed a good half of them.
I didn,t notice any major plot holes, besides the fact that the main characters are pretty indestructible... I wouldn't take life insurance on them, it would be a bad bet...
There is a lot of product placement in this movie and, at one point, it gets laughable. Watch for a character to be using MSN Search in 2050... Please... Contrary to Minority Report, the cars of the future are not Japanese, there good ole' Cadillacs - I knew the US car industry would come back on top! ;-) Finally, I may buy the soundtrack... The background music is very effective.
In summary - an excellent popcorn movie, by a director who delivers the goods.
Land of the Dead (2005)
Good Job George!
I just came back from seeing Land of the dead. It's good to see a real pro at work.
The casting is very good. Not a chance anybody gets a nod from Oscar but the acting delivers great. Asia Argento is hot, in a punk bar kinda way :-)
The effects are perfect, the story is... well... a zombie story. A major suspension of disbelief is required to be able to immerse in the story but such is the price to pay for a great time.
Being filmed in Toronto, this movie should serve as a lesson to movie makers trying to disguise a Canadian city for a US one. In Resident Evil, Bank of Montreal logos kept popping up while in 28 days later, the early morning time of the shoot was so obvious that it ruined the movie. No such problem in Land of the dead. A great job by the whole production team.
The big rig (no spoiler here, it's in the previews) is quite credible and not as laughable as the train in Ghosts from Mars.
It's an overall great job. OK, i admit, Shauwn of the Dead is great too - on a different level.
Jersey Girl (2004)
Honest work, gotta love Affleck :-)
I'm a big fan of Kevin Smith but yet, i waited for the DVD... Why? Well, that Jenny person irritates me and I have to say that the story looked sappy.
This movie is good, in it's genre. It suffers from terminal cuteness but in a nice way. The dialogue is good and Affleck rocks :-) After seeing him in awful p.o.s. like Pearl Harbor, it's good to see him in something that is good. Smith is right on target in the DVD interview when he says that Affleck is at his best when he plays... himself.
The supporting cast is excellent - in fact everybody is excellent, it's just that the story is very sappy. In a way, Kevin Smith seems to have wanted to make a movie for himself, after having madeJay and Silent Bob strike back for the fans.
The DVD extras are wonderful - they are worth the price of the DVD.
I'll buy this DVD, so Miramax can finance Clerks II :-)
Resident Evil: Apocalypse (2004)
How do you spell "moronic"??
Oh my god... When i think that my $ 9.25 could have bought some starving child a couple of Big Macs and I spent the money on watching this bomb...
My mommy always said to start any comments on two positive notes: here is the first: "the cast looks well fed". Now the second... Wait a minute, I cannot find anything positive to say!!! Finally, he is a second positive comment: "the trucks are clean and the wheels are well balanced".
This movie is really bad. Really... Milla Jovovich is laughably bad. Her last scenes are absolutely horrible. Sienna Guillory is painful to look at, please someone feed this chick!!
On the other hand, Oded Fehr isn't bad.
Being Canadian myself, I believe I have the right to criticize the typically Canadian-made cheap-*** look of this movie. The rule is simple: you can blow up stuff, you can shoot at stuff but never, never break anything expensive. During the movie, I could hear bean-counters in the background, worrying the movie was gonna break its low budget. The helicopter crash scene is a complete joke - you can hear the producer say "well, show the chopper in the air, then show it crashed, the audience will... imagine the crash".
The choice of location is an insult to intelligence for the Canadian audience... we can see about 10 Canadian companies logos in the backgrounds. Please.... "Raccoon City, Ontario"??
The plot holes in the story are wide enough to float an aircraft carrier sideways through them. The guy who wrote this movie should go back to writing stories for "Clifford the big red dog" or become script editor for the Teletubbies.
One last mean comment: how can a director screw-up the acting of zombies??? The zombies in that movie are the worst i've ever seen. In Raccoon City, "dead" equals "moronic looking". The extras on this movie should look for other jobs, like... playing heads of lettuce in grocery commercials.
Please, stay home and hit yourself on the head with a telephone book!! You'll save money, you'll have fun and you'll see stars that act way better than any of the cast!!