ratpac03's Reviews

Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End (2007)

8/10

25 May 2007

After being disappointed by Spider-Man 3 and severely disappointed by Shrek 3, I was pretty much ready to sit and watch a big action-fest that would wrap up the series but ultimately disappoint. Dead Man's Chest was a little mindless for my tastes so my expectations were low here. Boy was I wrong.

Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End returns to its roots, remembering what made the first movie so great: the storytelling. Many have called the story confusing. It certainly is tricky to follow, but it's not any more convoluted that fits a finale that sets its sights as high as PotC has. A movie that calls itself "At World's End" simply has to be grand in scale.

There is action, to be sure, with a grand final battle between the East India Trading Co and the pirates, and this time it's well done. While I found myself bored during Dead Man's Chest because the scenes dragged on, this film suffers no such problems aside from a rather unnecessary scene between Will and Elizabeth.

Performance-wise, surprisingly, Jack Sparrow and his eccentricities aren't left to carry the film between action sequences. Geoffrey Rush's Barbosa becomes fantastic in a near-hero position, while Keira Knightley and Orlando Bloom shine once again. Keith Richards also wins for the best cameo in my memory, making a memorable performance out of little screen time, one that is so good that his own celebrity has nothing to do with its quality. The movie is devoid of weak performances, even among minor characters.

There are few flaws in this film, mostly little pieces that I felt were left unresolved but nothing crucial, likely passed over because the film is already nearing three hours. While I would have had no problems sitting through 180+ minutes, most likely wouldn't have.

All in all I'm glad to hand At World's End a solid 9, a score I haven't felt a movie deserved in some time. After being disappointed by a string of films this year from the aforementioned sequels to renting Babel on DVD, a film like PotC:AWE is a true breath of fresh air. Looking forward to the DVD edition.

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Saw II (2005)

7/10

Brutal, twisted, exhilarating.

30 October 2005

I should preface this by saying I have been watching horror movies since age 4. I've seen everything the genre has to offer. From the old Romero movies up to Hide and Seek, I've got it handled.

Saw 2 is not a horror movie. It is far more.

I liked Saw a lot. One of my favorites. Knew it was flawed, but liked it a lot. The claustrophobic setting was beautiful and the twist was heart-pounding. I had my doubts about Saw 2, as the cast seemed "contemporary" and the setting of a house rather than a bathroom made me fear it would be too open to be enjoyable.

My fears were wrong, much to my delight.

A strong stomach IS required. The plot is already known from the previews, a bunch of people in a house and they need to save themselves with the clues as per the game. One of the best features is the lack of a recognizable actor save Amanda and Jigsaw himself (you might recognize Donny Wahlberg, granted). This gives the movie a fantastic "anything goes" feel where the audience doesn't feel as though any character is safe from Jigsaw's traps.

In addition, the nature of the house gives a horrid feeling of dread at all times, that a trap could spring from a doorknob or a tripwire that we don't see, and every idea that a character has to free themselves that doesn't seem like Jigsaw would have wanted it makes the viewer want to look away and wait for the loud noise and the scream. Saw 2 mastered fear, period. You wait for bad things to happen, even when they don't you don't feel as if the danger is gone.

Saw 2 is sadistic by and large. It's not the goriest movie ever, the bloodiest, or the darkest, but it is the most sadistic. It revels not in killing people, but HURTING them, causing pain both physical and mental. One thing of Saw (perhaps not the unrated version, I've not seen that yet) was that we weren't shown much of the direct actions. If we did, it was fast and brief. Not so here, we have to watch it happen right along with the other characters (group setting and all).

The plot is bigger here, more convoluted and the movie has more twists and turns. The games are harder to stomach and the characters, sadly, less developed. We only know of the characters what they tell each other, and they don't say much. That's the only complaint. An extra 10 minutes could have been spent giving us info on some of them.

I've never seen a movie as tense as Saw 2 (not even the aptly titled High Tension), and with the exception of Fight Club, I have never been so shocked at an ending (again, not even High Tension, or the famed Sixth Sense). Indeed, near the climax of Saw 2 was the first time I've ever made an incoherent noise in the theater out of my utter speechlessness.

I can't say the movie is flawless, as I said the characters are rather undeveloped, the traps will seem unnecessarily brutal for many, the entire setup will seem over-the-top for those who somehow thought Saw was more "grounded", and the twists may be too intricate for many people to pay attention to (the internet is alight with discussions on this).

For any fan of thrillers, horror, and those with strong constitutions, I say go see it. You won't be disappointed.

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Fahrenheit 9/11 (2004)

9/10

Unbiased? Of course not. Amazing? You bet.

28 June 2004

The best way to start this review is to point out that there is NO SUCH THING AS UNBIASED DOCUMENTARY. The only unbiased documentary is one in which only footage is shown, nothing is edited, and there is no music or narration. I myself have never seen a documentary like this, and most likely, neither have you.

As for the movie itself, calling it a documentary would still not be entirely accurate. It's a cinematic declaration of war. Moore sheds his heavy involvement a la "Bowling for Columbine" and prefers to let the majority of the movie just be facts speaking for themselves. Outside of an interview or two, the Patriot Act reading, and asking the Congressman to sign their kids up for the war, he mostly stays behind the scenes, narrating the scenes.

And that's what makes this one so compelling. Where as Columbine was impressive mostly for the things Moore himself said and did, Fahrenheit is amazing for what simply happened. If Columbine was an attack, Fahrenheit is an all-out assault. The first half hour is arguably the most compelling, drawing ties between Saudi Arabia and the Bushes, the financial aspects of it all, the negligence and outright corruption that filled all events post-9/11.

There is no starkly new information here if you read a lot, but for the masses, there will be a lot of things on the underbelly of the administration that they have not seen before. Moore doesn't make any effort to balance his opinions, right from the get-go we see that he will be tearing Bush down piece by piece. And it does.

Naturally, Moore injects his humor in where needed to break up the heavy-handed subject matter. Occasionally he just needs to let Bush talk and that's that, but some segments (the bit on the Coalition of the Willing is priceless) are simply hilarious. And the movie ends with one of the most incredible Bush quotes of all time.

Simply said, go see this movie. 9/10, for a few parts that drew on too long. But in my small town, this is the first movie I've seen get the kind of ovation it did.

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Fight Club (1999)

10/10

Underrated, one of the best films ever made.

16 June 2004

Yes, I did mean that. And yes, I have seen a LOT of movies.

One of the quick complaints to dispel is that it's a "complain-fest" as one reviewer-said. No, this is NOT a movie about the middle class white man being held down. It's a movie about responsibility, cause-and-effect, and what happens when you do nothing with your life and just let yourself slide into a hole without even once scraping to get out.

That said, as others have mentioned, very little can be said of this movie. The fight scenes are not like most movies, intended to be action sequences as a nice break between plot development, they're as much a part of the story as anything else. Ed Norton is our "protagonist" of sorts who finds his life miserable and eventually meets the one and only Tyler Durden.

Fight Club, coincidentally enough, gained success much like the following inside the movie itself. The ads for it were terrible, making it look like a mindless action movie. Reviews seemed half-hearted. I didn't know many people who saw it in theaters. But after renting the DVD on a suggestion, I actually felt changed. VERY few movies can alter your perception of the world around you like this one can. By the time the credits were rolling, my heart was pumping furiously.

Do not watch this movie unless you can sit down and watch it without interruption. It's not a party movie, nor one to watch with someone who has already seen it unless they stay silent. The beauty of this movie is the shock as the scenes go on. It's a tornado of a movie, where we get to watch the decay of a man. Each scene is more unraveled and chaotic than the one before it. Each shot is done perfectly, the filming style and the color is gorgeous (in its own sick way), the sound and music are a perfect match. I can watch this movie at any time and not get sick of it.

Again, watch this movie. And don't have any preconceived notions, because guaranteed this movie will surprise you.

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The Ring (2002)

A new breed of terror.

15 June 2004

Let me preface this by saying: if you think slasher movies are horror movies, you will not like this movie.

The Ring is not intended to scare you during the movie itself, first off. It's the first horror movie I've ever seen wherein the real scare is what you get out of it later. That feeling of looking at your TV late at night and just waiting.

The plot needn't be explained, both because it's already been shown and because it's best to go in not knowing what's there. But what should be said is that this is a paced movie. It's not like your Dawn of the Dead where the scares are from gory makeup and chase scenes. Rather this is a movie that gets to you by breaking down the gap between the movie and the viewer, it manages to invade the concept of "well it's only a movie" that gives you that safety net after viewing.

Trying to explain what makes The Ring so incredible is like trying to explain Stephen Sondheim to TRL pop fans. It's so different from the formulaic "horror" movies most are used to and is so much better made that most won't know what they're looking at, and will chalk it off as poorly done.

I've purposefully said very little about the movie itself, because that's what YOU should see. But rest assured, it is incredible. From the slow beginning to the heart-stopping finish (which may be the most terrifying bit of cinema ever captured on film), The Ring is something special.

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Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (2004)

7/10

Absolutely fantastic. But not 100% faithful to the book.

7 June 2004

When I saw previews calling PoA one of the "best films of all time", I was worried. Since then, I've seen the movie twice, and could easily go a third.

There are those who will watch the movie and realize a lot was left out, and complain that the chronology was changed. And yes, it was, but the movie was beautifully streamlined and devoid of the plot-cramming that plagued Chamber of Secrets. This time around, the plot was coherent, although did move along at a good clip.

I'm continually impressed by the casting, I hope for big things from the main three. Even the new man for Dumbledore did a fantastic job. I can't complain in the least. Again, those overly faithful to the book will complain about this and that, but realize their complaints are not that the movie was bad, just not the same. On film, things need to change, and no crucial story elements were lost.

The mood change between the second and third films is stark. Whereas the first two had a very jocular feel to them throughout, PoA maintains a steady grasp on the darker side. And although it's a minor point, the small things such as scene transitions and the movements from location to location are beautiful (the scene in Lupin's class with the mirrored closet particularly). Even the smallest details were tended to.

Again, it doesn't follow the book exactly, which helps more than anything. Go see the movie, it's amazing.

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South Park (1997– )

Funny, and startlingly intelligent.

19 March 2004

South Park has developed into nothing short of a masterpiece.

While the first few seasons seemed to rely mostly on shock humor and running gags, the show has turned into a brilliantly written 30 minute political cartoon of sorts, lampooning everything from the president to Rob Schneider.

But let's not forget the characters and the show itself. The main four are definite entities, and I wholly believe that as angry as you may get at Cartman, he embodies that little selfish voice in our heads, the one that makes horridly tasteless and offensive jokes that we try to suppress. Cartman merely brought it out into view.

Trey and Matt could be some of the smartest people working in television now. Do they use crude humor? Of course, but note HOW it's used. It's not just thrown in there, it always has a purpose. This is one of the few instances where low-brow humor is done well and intelligently. I hate to mention another show, but their other effort That's My Bush was another illustration of their intelligence. Rather than do the obvious and lampoon just Bush, it became a parody of sitcoms, with Bush being the lovably goofy husband. I consider it one of the best comedies ever made along with the short-lived 'Police Squad!' series.

Anyway, I'm getting wordy. Simply put, watch the show. It's amazing.

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Snatch (2000)

The way movies -should- be made.

14 March 2004

Read this review carefully, please.

First off, Snatch is an amazing movie in every sense of the word. There are very few movies made where the director obviously did not let one FRAME onto the screen without a reason, and Snatch is one of them. Nothing happens onscreen without it having an effect on the plot.

By now you know the plot, or plots. We follow a diamond-heist and the various characters trying to get theirs, at the same time following participants in an illegal boxing ring. The incredible part of the movie is how every scene ties in with the rest somehow, every character connects with the rest at least once.

There are complaints that the movie is confusing, or muddled. There are a lot of things that they don't tell you (such as what the dog has to do with anything, but he's a VERY important character), and that's a good thing. Too many movies force feed the audience its plot points (Think The Ring vs. Ringu, did we need the "How long could you survive down there all alone?" line?). Rather, we just watch occurrences, and have to piece together what ties everything together, the plot weaves together beautifully.

The cinematography and performances are fantastic as well. Even the soundtrack is perfect. The camera style during the fight scenes (slowdown/stop/go) makes it difficult to stop watching, the sound effects fit in quietly in the background without being overwhelming. And it will be IMPOSSIBLE to watch this movie without repeating many of the lines around your friends. I found myself saying "Zee Germans" and things like "It's not like he's a set of car keys, now is it?" quite a bit. Naturally, Brad Pitt's pikey is one of the most outlandish I've ever seen.

Summary: watch the movie, and don't expect to be TOLD everything, expect to have to pay attention.

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The Matrix Revolutions (2003)

Long one. Many spoilers.

15 November 2003

Warning: Spoilers

It's one of those movies that you walk out of thinking "damn, that was a lot better than I expected" until you take a moment to think about the entire plot that resulted in this one. If you watch the three movies in sequence, you'll realize that the three seem like a story told by someone who doesn't know how he wants it to end. Someone told me "they intended a trilogy." Well if they did, they intended it without having written it out.

I'll start out with the good. Smith is badass. Period. Everything with him is awesome. The way the clones were EVERYWHERE watching the fight looked cool as all hell, and the fight itself was well done. I liked the environment of the Train Man. The Bane revelation was awesome. The creator was one of the coolest things I've ever seen in a movie.

Now, the bad. The explanation for the Oracle having a new actress was awful. I would have easily bought that we simply had a new Oracle with no memory of the first, not that it was the same one in a different "shell". Whatever.

The idea of the war was pretty bad also. At the end of the first Matrix, the idea was that Neo would lead us to the liberation of the human race and that we would defeat the machines and get our planet back. I guess the Wachowski brothers decided that wouldn't work, because now the idea is that we just want our little hole near the earth's core and leave us alone you can have the surface thanks.

The Architect scene from Reloaded stands the test as being awesome, since everything he said happened. This is the shortest summary possible of the movie: Neo and Trinity die, Zion gets blown all to hell, Smith vanishes, and the Matrix reboots, starting all over. Now, maybe I'm not catching something, but how can the Architect promise to liberate any humans who want to? If the machines need humans to operate... it seems to me that maybe a few weeks after they all get liberated the machines are going to want some humans back. So hooray, we start from square one.

I suppose that's the intent of the movie, if you want to look at it as an apocalyptic story: we lose, we can't win, and the best we can hope for are a few glimmers of peace between war.

But there's other stuff that makes no sense, such as Neo being able to blow up everything in the real world, but back in the Matrix he gets his ass kicked every time he's in a fight. And maybe it's just me, but after following the cable lines and doing all that, and then we find out that we can get rid of them by just flying above them, why didn't we just fly above them? Apparently they can't go in the sky, so get our asses up in the sky.

And I also think the humans should have more than just one of those damn EMPs. One of them took out that whole swarm of sentinels and the two drill things, so just have a few more. Hell, fly up in the sky and start dropping those things like firebombs over Germany. If I was in charge, this war would have ended pretty fast.

Speaking of stuff ending fast, Trinity's death sequence took up nearly 75% of the movie. 20% was the big fight in Zion, and the remaining 5% was some hit-and-miss storyline development. The good storyline developments, as in all three movies, were explanations of what keeps the Matrix going and what its various parts are. The bad parts are when we start up with this war crap. I remember in the first movie a single sentinel or two being simply disastrous. Now all of a sudden a ship can outrun and escape a few thousand of them. And don't even try to tell me that in a few months our technology got that much better.

I also felt no sympathy for the girl. She's a program, I don't care if we save her. Actually, I want her dead. And her parents, Smith, the Oracle, and everyone else. They're the Matrix, the idea is to get rid of them, not save them. I don't care if her purpose is to make rainbows, she's still on the side of the machines.

I, honestly, would have much preferred the trilogy to not have moved so quickly. If the second movie had involved Neo pulling people out of the Matrix and slowly gathering the army, and the third was the army preparing for war, and we were left with a ready-to-roll army about to wage war on the machines, with a glimmer of hope that we would win, I would have been 100% satisfied. In fact, in each succeeding Matrix movie, we're in the Matrix less and less. In the first one, the bulk of the war was fought in the Matrix itself. The second was half in and half out. The third was entirely out, with the very beginning (retrieving Neo and the Oracle stuff) and very end (fighting Smith and the Oracle with the Architect) being our only glimpses in there.

Neo being able to control the Matrix actually ended up being pretty pointless. The only thing it got us was a few answers out of the French guy. The entire war was fought in the real world.

In fact, the only thing Neo did in the Matrix that had any bearing on the plot was make Smith really powerful so they could destroy each other later. Actually that was all Neo seemed to do. He showed up, the Matrix made Smith to balance things out, and they killed each other, along the way completely destroying Zion and at the end giving us the impression that the machine would let us live in our hole for a while. That's all that happened in the end. In exchange for help destroying Smith (which only existed because Neo existed), the machines let humans survive. Actually, had Neo been killed anywhere else in the movie, Smith would have died and the machines would have killed everyone.

Let's review the Neo/Smith/Creator conundrum. Neo was created, creating Smith. As one increased in power, so did the other. Smith was powerful enough to take over everything, including the world. The machine saw this and let Neo fight in exchange for safety for a while. Neo and Smith are equal opposites. In order for Smith to be capable of taking over the world, Neo must be capable of stopping him. It's not like a situation of "Smith can do this, let's hope Neo is strong enough." If one is capable, so is the other. If Neo dies, Smith can't take over the world and he dies. Actually, not "if". If you stopped to think about it, Neo -COULDN'T- win that fight. And Smith didn't really win, either. Had they just kept fighting, it would have gone on forever, they were complete equals. So Neo let himself be destroying knowing Smith would die also. You following? There was no mystery about that fight. They both were going to die, it was foretold as soon as the Oracle said "Smith is your negative". Why? Hell, it's math. What happens on one side happens on the other. Neo dies, Smith dies. Neo lives, Smith lives. In order for it to end, both had to die. And as a result, we got absolutely nowhere.

ACTUALLY, Neo's presence totally screwed everything up. In the FIRST Matrix, the machines weren't attacking. The only danger of them was when ships ventured out to liberate humans and go scavenging. Neo shows up and the machines wage war on Zion. So now we've determined that Neo accomplished nothing. Let's break that down a bit, okay?

1) A few humans are still alive near the Earth's core where the machines can't go (but they do later, so we'll ignore that), and live a miserable life, but aren't attacked. Meanwhile, everyone else is still in the Matrix.

2) Neo shows up, Smith happens, and the machines wage war on Zion.

3) Neo and Smith both die, Zion is totally destroyed, and the Matrix reboots.

4) A few humans are still alive in Zion, live a miserable life, but aren't attacked. Everyone else is in the Matrix, but now they can be liberated if they want. At least until the machines lose too much power and need them back, then they'll wage war again.

If I had to grade Revolutions, I'd give it a 7. Totally objective review. If I had to grade it in terms of how it took the story along, it would get a much lower score. Sorry to make you read all that (if you did at all), but that's my review.

PART 2: Many of my complaints still hold (the shoddy explanation of the new Oracle actress, why only one damn EMP, those things), but my idea that the plot as a whole went nowhere, though true, could have been the intention.

I truly doubt that, since the ending was portrayed as though that was the victory that they had all hoped for, but if you back up a bit and think about it, it's a pretty cool apocalyptical message: The machines win, and the best we can hope for is to be allowed to survive.

Unfortunately the directors/writers made it seem like that was a "victory" and gave us that damn rainbow ending. That might have been my problem. After three movies, we still lose. This "one" was no more special than the others. And, as such, we'll come across another, and the whole thing will start over again.

Although, the thing I don't get is that if there was more than one "one", why in the first Matrix, they determined that all this had happened a few hundred years ago? Are all these "ones" happening and Zion is being destroyed and rebuilt happening every year or so? Why didn't Morpheus know? If he didn't, that means that it would have had to have been before his time, and I doubt "ones" were happening a few weeks after the Matrix was up and operational.

Actually, a whole lot of the explanation would have had to have taken up MUCH more time than Morpheus had said. Logically, there are kids around in Zion now (The Kid, for instance), who would remember Neo if another "one" comes around. We didn't get any indication that they recognized what was going on, so they must pop up every hundred years or so. As such, there's no way there could be any before him, unless the layered Matrix theory holds true. In that case there could be a "one" in Zion right now, and the cycle will continue forever until the end of time.

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Fight Club (1999)

10/10

Incredible

8 June 2001

I had actually rented this movie without any real idea as to what it was about. Like many people, I had seen the ads and heard reviews which focused 100% on the violence in the movie, and had assumed that it was a shallow romp about guys beating each other senseless. I was quite wrong.

To give an incredibly short summary: Nameless narrator (Norton) suffers from insomnia and an incredibly bland life with no meaning behind it. He goes to support groups for ailments he doesn't have and is okay, but after a woman shows up who is also faking he can no longer go. He meets up with Tyler Durden (Pitt) and they create Fight Club, gaining an extraordinary amount of members, and from there things continue to get more bizarre.

Now that doesn't tell nearly anything about the movie, simply an idea of what happens. It is easily the most cerebral movie I have ever seen (possibly tied with Being John Malkovich), and once it starts you can't stop watching. Every aspect of the movie is 100% original and you will find yourself watching it numerous times, because you cannot possibly catch everything the first time through.

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The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1996)

Best Disney film yet

15 December 2000

Just to start off with a quick summary of what I'm going to say: I have seen and I own just about every Disney film (I own all the full-length animated films) and this is the best so far. For the ease of reading I'll separate my praises into categories.

Animation - I loved the Lion King, but the only truly impressively animated part of the movie was the opening number. Here the whole movie keeps the quality high. To akin it to another Disney flick, Beauty and the Beast had the famous computer animated section, but it was so obvious that it was computer animated. Here there are sections using computer animation (man I've overused that phrase) that are impossible to differentiate from drawn sections upon even the first three viewings. It is just that well made.

Story - Despite the changes from Victor Hugo's version, this was very well written. If looked at totally independently from the original novel it can be better appreciated. Not because it is worse and it looks better when not compared to something better, but because if you are not expecting to see an animated version of the original it seems a lot better. And for the record, while the new ending was nice, it would have been neat to see Disney make a movie without a happy ending.

Characters - Okay this was the weakest section, but still great. Phoebus was changed greatly, but it worked. Esmerelda is fun to watch, and was done very well by Demi Moore. Quasimodo is incredible, Tom Hulce did an amazing job at both acting and singing here. And of course Frollo is amazing, easily the best bad guy in any Disney movie. Tony Jay has a great "evil guy" voice. But my personal favorite character was Clopin, played by Paul Kandel (kan DELL). He is just a joy to watch, and has a sort of mesmerizing quality that I see where I can't stop watching him.

Songs - The best part of the movie. Stephen Schwartz and Alan Menken did a fantastic job on the score, setting the mood perfectly. The title track is great, especially the last note for Clopin (a really high D, still gives me shivers to hear it). Every song is very well done, even the mismatched "A Guy Like You" works to just be goofy. Out there and Hellfire are beautiful songs, and I used "Topsy Turvy" as my audition piece for a musical. I'll write another review to say how I did, heh.

and just for the record again, I'm 15

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