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yeomanflood
Reviews
Blood and Bone (2009)
Very Good Action/Fighting Movie
I have watched a lot of martial arts movies. And I mean a real lot, ranging from old school Kung Fu, to the classics of Bruce Lee, to the cheeziest Seagal movies. I've been a fan of White because in his movies, the editing isn't done in an overly cut/choppy manner - which is so standard for fighting scenes these days. Nor are his moves sped up to look like a cartoon. The bonus in this movie is that the story line was actually good enough to keep you interested in what was going to happen next - which is more than I can say for most martial arts movies. Let's face it, most fighting movies have clear good guys and bad guys with a little revenge thrown in. It's awesome when you have good fight scenes with a story line with some interesting elements in it that are able to draw you to some of the characters. So is the case with Blood and Bone - as the acting and dialog is good, especially for a movie in this genre. If you like martial arts movies, this one will not disappoint you.
Journal of a Contract Killer (2008)
Better than expected
So I'm a huge watcher of movies. I've probably been going at a run rate of over 300 movies per year for the last several years. I enjoy assassin movies - who doesn't? I had relatively low expectations for this movie given the poor ratings here on IMDb. In general, I find that about 80% of the time I'm directionally aligned with IMDb scores, so I use them as a proxy for what I choose to watch, but sometimes the scores are just totally opposite of what my opinion is and I'm compelled to write a review. I haven't even written that many reviews and I only seem to be motivated enough to write them when I totally disagree with scores. Anyway, JOACK was much better than expected. The acting overall was done well. And while there were certainly aspects of the storyline that could have been better developed (such as the mother-daughter relationship), the overall storyline was quite good. Even if the acting seemed a little too flat sometimes, even for a cold-hearted killer-type movie, the dialogue and timing of the actors was done well, for the most part. I also liked the slight twists and turns of the story over all. In summary, I thought the movie, especially compared to how many bad movies are cranked out every year by Hollywood, was good and worth watching. I score it a solid 8, but give it a 9 here to try to offset the bad score average it has right now.
Stardust (2007)
This movie is excellent!!!
All I can say is WOW! I didn't know what to expect about this movie after having read a ton of reviews. I was afraid it would be too cliché, cheezy and predictable. I was pleasantly surprised. Alone on a Saturday night, I had the pleasure of watching the movie myself - left alone to laugh out loud several times. Sure the movie was predictable at times and had its cliché moments, but overall it was incredibly well executed. The casting and acting was very good - Charlie Cox did well in the lead, Michelle Pfeiffer did as well as you would expect, as did Robert DeNiro; Claire Danes did an amazing performance whether you're a fan of hers or not. Overall, the supporting cast did a great job as well. And although the story was a fantasy and therefore had familiar elements to it, it definitely, as several other reviewers have commented, has a uniqueness that I have not seen of late. There were no real parts that dragged, the special effects were well integrated into the story line and did not seem forced and the details were simply awesome. When you watch the movie, you can really see a lot of detail work was done on the sets and you notice the details when you observe the subtle body language of the actors. Like most reviewers I would say it might not become quite the classic of Princess Bride (with it's most awesome quotes) or have the romance of Say Anything, but it is likely to continue to hold its own in the future due to its unique style, story line and execution. Great date movie, though the violence (even if it is relatively cartoonish overall) will turn off some and makes it inappropriate for kids. I really liked this movie for its combination of fantasy and romance...and that's coming from a guy.
The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor (2008)
Not bad at all
I have decided that I need to start adding my comments on IMDb (which I had rarely done before) just to offset all the comments from other people that I tend not to agree with. Sure, when I see a solid 7 or 8 on IMDb, the movie seems to warrant that type of score, but lately I've been seeing a lot of movies that are not bad that are getting unfairly hammered on their scores. On average I probably watch over 300 movies a year - now that doesn't give me a Masters degree in film or whatnot, but to be able to have an opinion about an art form it doesn't take a degree.
So to all of you scanning IMDb comments like I do, consider pausing with this one cause I'm gonna try to give you my view straight up. Enough of that. The key to all movies is expectations. Going into the theater or before renting the movie - what were you expecting? Before you go and see a mummy movie that is an action/adventure, I do not think expecting a lot of great acting and academy-award winning chemistry is reasonable. I do, however, expect decent/good acting; if you get great acting/chemistry - that's icing on top. Like others commented - at a high level this movie follows the formula of the previous ones. That's not a bad thing since I cannot imagine a new and amazing mummy story featuring an Indiana Jones wanna-be couple. I also think some of the casting might not have been the best, but I did not see any blaring failures. John Hannah was a refreshing character this go around whereas I think he might have been a little too much of a winner in the past. I also do not think Maria Bello did a bad job at all - I tend to think that when a major character is covered by a new actor or actress, you should not expect the same result. Thus the question to me isn't whether or not she was as good as Rachel Weisz or whether she would have done a better job, the question is whether or not Maria added or detracted from the character in the story. I found her to be attractive, pleasant and physically capable for the role. She seemed to meet the threshold for me. Now the weakest link was Luke Ford - with the worst chemistry with the other characters - so there you could argue he did not meet the threshold of "good enough" for me; poor casting in my opinion in terms of both his acting and age.
In sharp contrast to other reviewers, I found the humor in the movie to be good - though perhaps not as often or funny as I would have liked. Pace of the movie was great - either the action or the environment of the movie kept me interested. Some of the sets were very detailed although not historically accurate. The action and the CGI was excellent - the choreography and editing was done very well. I truly despise the tendency of modern action to either focus too close to the action, cut too often or overuse camera angles - this movie did none of those; anybody who complains of the use of wires in this movie needs to stop watching action/fantasy movies that involve thousands of undead - that's like complaining about the use of stunt people.
If you are looking for another action/adventure movie (cause you've seen a ton of them like me) or you like the Mummy movie series enough to want to see another, you probably won't be disappointed. If you're looking for amazing acting with action/suspense/adult themes go watch Lantana, The Blackbook or 300. Solid 7.5 (7 is a solid "good-enough-to-watch" for me. Gets the 0.5 for the fact that I like the Asian theme without being over the top, i.e., racist, and I like the Mummy series, Michelle Yeoh, Jet Li and Brendan Fraser).