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Reviews
Pompeii (2014)
This is what you'd expect, and worse.
I have no idea how Paul WS Anderson keeps getting work. I guess if Uwe Boll is busy, they call him.
He made one okay movie in Event Horizon and one passable movie in the first Resident Evil of the franchise...and then proceeded to make ten more of those since that's apparently all he can do.
This pile is no exception. It is loud, slow moving (esp with Anderson's trademark slo-mo in play), nonsensical, with wooden characters and fight scenes seemingly staged by a 10 yr old boy.
The storyline and script would have required Scorsese to make interesting. Instead they used Paul Hack Anderson and the result is, well, see for yourself.
The Boondock Saints II: All Saints Day (2009)
Ten years later and we get this?!
I actually enjoyed the first one. I thought the brothers' relationship and Dafoe's bad guy were well written and performed. There were some funny and well placed lines.
Unfortunately the action set pieces were where we saw what an amateur Troy Duffy was. They were a John Woo level of outrageous but without any of Woo's almost poetic beauty and instead came off as cartoonish.
With this mess, it seemed Duffy decided to get even more ridiculous and idiotic instead of toning down the terrible instincts he had making the first movie. You'd think he would have learned from earlier mistakes but he read too many fanboy letters and decided to up the Three Stooges quotient. The only difference between this and a Stooges short was Moe and Curly tried to be funny.
Thankfully it seems Troy Duffy has ended his already too long film career.
Old (2021)
It had it's moments
Like any M Night Shyamalan flick, there are moments so beautiful and perfect it's hard to describe. You have to just experience it. But unfortunately they are mere moments where the rest of the movies are just flat out awful.
This is another example.
From previous movies, I knew his dialogue was sometimes awkward and unnatural. And that is probably the biggest issue with Old. People in M Night's movies use words and speak in a manner that no one in real life ever does. It comes off as stilted and weird. Like they are reading out of a book. It may not be the acting as others have noted, but simply the dialogue they are given. Plus they are asked to respond to events like no one I know ever would.
And in some scenes, the actors positions in relation to each other is frequently nonsensical. It's clear they are where they are so a particular camera angle could be used. Some of it was so odd and out of place it was painful. It's like we were watching the work of a film student who was still learning how to block scenes.
It's shocking that Shyamalan, with the number of films under his belt, would still stage scenes this badly while giving his actors such awful dialogue. But looking back at his previous work, I should not be surprised. He has a history of this.
I gave it 4 stars because of it's originality and the concept. Although, once I accepted the concept, I predicted almost every thing that happened in this story. The ending explanation was better than I thought but the final wrap up was, eh.
All in all, worth 90 minutes of your life but if you never saw it, you didn't miss a lot.
Nope (2022)
It's worth a second viewing
I liked this movie. Or maybe I should say I liked parts of it. But I can't give it more than a 7/10 because as a whole, it left me kind of cold.
No matter the genre I have to either like or have some sympathy for the characters and the situation they are in. Especially sci-fi and horror (of which this is somewhat both) where outside elements are a huge part of the story. Lost spaceship, inhospitable planet, monsters, serial killers....you get the idea. Poorly written films put the above at the forefront and story and characters are secondary, by a lot. I won't say this is a complete letdown in those areas, but I just wasn't engaged enough to care that much about the eventual outcome. It could have been so much better.
But I will follow the lead others here and the professional reviewers suggest...that a second viewing will help my appreciation of the movie.
I may also have had too high expectations with it being from Jordan Peele. 'Get Out's tension was supported by our connection with the protagonist and his friend. 'Us' not as much but you still felt the main characters' plight.
Despite all the other fantastic scenes and the movie keeping my interest, 'Nope' didn't have the same feeling as Peele's first two.
Event Horizon (1997)
One of the best looking sci-fi movies I've ever seen...
...but other than that, eh.
I was in awe especially with the look inside and out of the title ship. It combined a lot of the visual elements of the movie Alien and cyberpunk. It was a big, ugly, noisy, greasy grotesque thing that could be described as a floating haunted house. Which in effect, it was.
I gave it 5 stars just for the production design alone. And 1 more for everything else. The acting was even subpar... from top tier actors such as these? The line readings and reactions from many of the characters were completely inappropriate for what was happening at the time. And you could get s-faced if you had a drinking game for every time Fishburnes character said "C'mon people". No fault of the actors but they were written as the stupidest inhabitants of a spaceship ever.
Plus anytime you cue up a Paul W. S. Andersen flick, prepare yourself for truly boring and cliched 'action' sequences. All in slow motion of course.
After all this Event Horizon bashing, you'd think I hated this thing. I do not. I was more disappointed at such a missed opportunity.
Django Unchained (2012)
Some of his best, and some of his worst
I always have somewhat mixed feelings about QT's movies but only in scrutinizing specific sections or scenes. The overall effect for this movie lover is pure joy. Quentin loves the same movies I did growing up. His obvious admiration for them is always welcome. Not sure which of his are my favorite but I'll start with Pulp Fiction as my number 1 (yeah, easy and safe i know) and then maybe Jackie Brown. Followed by The Hateful Eight and Inglorious Basterds. Of course all of them including Django Unchained are not far behind. I think my only criticism of Django and some others is based on the same issue - QT has a tendency to oversell certain scenes and points. The easy to pick on ones from Django are the scenes with Big Daddy and his gang complaining about their hoods, and the Mandingo fighting. They could have been trimmed or in the case of the hood scene, cut altogether. Also the final scene at the dinner table hosted by Candie was unnecessarily long. I know QT is in love with language and the scenes with his characters talking are sometimes a highlight, they also can drag the movie down.
That said, I again love Tarantino's flicks and a few are on my desert island list. There are minor quibbles in comparison to the overall effect of a viewing of any of them. Just my opinion.
Hang 'Em High (1968)
Could have been better
I watched this movie the first time when I was a teenager, maybe a few years after it was released. I had seen the Leone Trilogy and another personal favorite - High Plains Drifter. My all time fav is still The Good, The Bad And The Ugly.
At the time, I thought Hang Em High was one of the Spaghetti Westerns and was surprised to find years later it was an American production. It was so clearly modeled after the Leone pictures, it was an easy mistake. So I watched Hang Em High about a week ago and as an adult can see how inferior it was to the Leone pics. Like those movies, Hang Em High had a secondary character that almost stole every scene he was in. In this case Pat Hingle's judge. He was the most fleshed out characterization and had some of the best lines. As with Eli Wallach's Tuco, he just stood out over Eastwood's silent, stoic type.
The later viewing and with it a more speculative take, Hang Em High simply doesn't hold up well to any of Leone's films, especially the last one of course. This was an American production with American actors, shot in Arizona, no audio dubbing and yet it doesn't come close to Leone's classics. Just take the The Ugly alone....in Wallach, we have a Jewish man playing a Mexican, filmed in Spain, by an Italian crew and director, dubbed in English later, trying to mimic American westerns. And yet Wallach, Eastwood, Lee Van Cleef and Leone deliver an epic for the ages. By comparison Hang Em High is just a poor imitation.
Pacific Rim (2013)
Saw it twice and my opinion hasn't changed
Guillermo del Toro has made some of my favorite movies. It seems like everything he touches no matter the genre is the best of it's kind. Although granted most are in the horror, supernatural, Sci-Fi, fantasy realm. All have full well-drawn characters and fascinating stories told with a delicate touch even if during an action or scary scene.
But then he tries to out-Michael Bay a robot movie and the results are very disappointing. Typically for del Toro it was a beautiful movie but the characters and story were so cliched and stupid it was insulting. It was like he took a Transformers script and characters and added big monsters. The result was the same, except prettier.
I could even deal with the stupid lines and characters as del Toro just playing with the genre and having fun if at every turn, the plot mechanisms as well the mechanisms in the movie itself weren't so boneheaded. I won't get into the hundreds of glaring examples of silliness except for one, the biggest one - Why, if for all the tech our future holds, did they decide to combat the creatures with oversized robots in an urban cage match? Then while the two 'pilots' are mind melded, why do they have to yell at each other during battle? And with everything drive-by-wire, including our own cars, do they have the pilots 'walking' on these giant mechanical shoe platforms?
I can play along with monsters from another dimension coming from the earth's core, but the basic concepts of the robots are so stupid it's hard to get past.
Oblivion (2013)
Beautiful to look at
....as long as you don't think too hard.
I actually enjoyed a lot of this and probably would have loved it, 25 years ago. There were too many dead spots and "Oh, c'mon!" moments and confusion to come away feeling better about the experience. It was of normal length but at times felt like it was 5 hours long. They didn't explain enough early on and then later over explained it to a point where it became predictable. Add to it major plot holes and over reliance on the visuals and it was just a bore overall.
But there is enough here if you are a sci-fi fan like myself to keep you somewhat engaged.
1941 (1979)
A bit of nostalgia for film buffs
I saw this when it first came out and was convinced walking in it would be the funniest movie I've ever seen. It was not. It was mildly humorous and a couple times funny but not much else. Not the disaster I'd read about, just disappointing.
Jump ahead a few decades and I watched it again in 2022 and I saw things I didn't see before. The great actors throughout from Saturday Night Live, Second City, Spielberg's previous flicks, everywhere. Some older (Slim Pickens), some younger (Mickey Rourke). Just a great cast. I loved the plot, the setting, the effects using miniatures and matte work as opposed to CGI. It is a fun movie to watch! I enjoy it more than ever.
That said, it still isn't funny. The jokes are flat and obvious and the slapstick stuff is a little too vaudeville for my taste. Plus now it doesn't play well in today's society being flat out racist and sexist. I'd still watch it again though.
I also noted that the reviewers here rated this thing at two extremes. There is a ridiculous number of 1/10's and just as many 9/10 or 10/10. Really? 10 of 10? Lol. I'm not sure those people saw the same movie I did but whatever.
The Silence (2019)
Once again, too much and not enough.
This thing's faults have already been covered by everyone else so I won't go into how stupid and how many there are. But I have to bring up one....
Because this is a requirement of this type movie, the always reliable trope of Creepy Apocalyptic Cult pops up barely 48 hours after the bat things start to take over. The timing is a little vague but how is it possible for a group of people obsessed with breeding come together so quickly? It's not even an apocalypse yet ! Okay, sorry, done.
So I watched this right after seeing World War Z and it's always evident when something is based on a book. They just try to cover too much ground in too short a period. They bounce from one location to another, one set up to another, and add these characters they are ridiculously underwritten. The 'Uncle Glenn' guy...the boyfriend....grandmother...cabin lady...Creepy Apocalyptic Cult phone girl and priest? All unnecessary and underdeveloped. Hell, even the younger son was a waste of script. I had the same issue with World War Z. Because it's a 2 hr or less movie, they fly past these characters before we barely know their names. Or care about them.
Plus they simply have too many locations for there to build any tension.
Too much equals not enough.
World War Z (2013)
Amazing set pieces, but....
...that is kind of it. Amazing set pieces.
The craftsmanship that went into this is evident throughout. Great effects on a huge scale. You could see every dollar on the screen. But despite the good story, cast and acting, production values etc...it comes off as nothing more significant than a Michael Bay Big Robot movie by the end.
First off, our hero apparently cannot die. He is in a half dozen situations where he should have died and everyone around him does, but he survives. He survives - as well as the one person right next to him. The Navy plane pilot, the Israeli soldier, etc. The lesson is - sit next to Brad Pitt and you'll make it.
But the biggest issue is the filmmakers just try to do too much. I have never read the book but I'm guessing everything covered in the movie was probably from the book? As I understand it, the scale of the book was already big. So to cram it all into 2 hours is insane.
There were great individual set ups and characters throughout the movie that could have been expanded - The family's escape and subsequent hiding in the apartment building. The scenes with the soldiers in South Korea. The Jerusalem section. The scenes and characters at the WHO lab in Wales. All of these by themselves would have for a much more interesting and suspenseful movie. Instead they skimmed past them and got no depth from either the locations or the characters. If they insisted on covering all that ground, they should have made it into a mini-series.
I never felt invested not did I care about anyone because they just didn't sink in. We are introduced to a situation and characters...then bam...all gone. Next?
To make matters worse....the zombies were not scary. That's not good.
Santa Claus Is Comin' to Town (1970)
A stop motion classic
I have to say, I have tried for years to love this as much as others and it still doesn't completely click for me. My wife loves it but then she was born in 1962 so she was 8 yrs old when it first aired. I was already in high school. My favorite was naturally going to be Rudolph The Red Nosed Reindeer and it still is. It seems like a lot of people love these based more on the impression it left on them as children.
I still give it 7/10 mainly because the animation work is astounding and the story is actually good for what it is. I love that this and Rudolph 'explain' the origins of some of our Christmas fables. And do it imaginatively.
But I find myself picking this one apart much more than Rudolph and again, it's the difference in age.
Some of the choices they made are odd. Like why do they make Kris Kringle a cartoonish redhaired teenager and the future Mrs Kringle a more realistic hottie with huge boobs? And at one point she has her hair down and is singing in the middle of this psychedelic animation that looks like a cartoon version of '2001'. A long and completely unnecessary scene at that.
The middle section is long and padded with the Burgermeister's nonsense taking up way too much running time. He is goofy and funny with his purple felt mouth but honestly is just a Nazi caricature and a bumbling moron who is not the least bit threatening.
Some of the songs aren't that great either. Although sometimes catchy, lyrically they are somewhat cringeworthy and kind of slow the whole thing down even more. It's like this was padded for the first network it aired on.
But that aside, that this amazing stop motion work was made for a tv show is a credit to Rankin/Bass and whoever else was involved in it. Their work is a huge improvement over Rudolph too. And the story was well thought out. It just needed a lot more editing.
Again, I have watched it 3-4 times with my wife and I have to censor my poking fun at it as she still enjoys it. Oh well, every generation has their version of 'classic'.
Law Abiding Citizen (2009)
Outrageously....
...stupid and beyond plausible. But I was entertained the whole time.
There are so many plotholes in this thing, I started to wonder if it was a comedy. Bad casting, too many unneeded characters, 'silly' cannot be used enough. However, still worth seeing. But leave your brains in your armchair.
There's Someone Inside Your House (2021)
Too much and not enough
First off, there are thousands of genre pics out there, esp in October, that are so much better than this. So skip it.
But I didn't and it was a waste of an evening.
The title alone is so stupid it should have been a warning sign. It sounds like an english lit major decided on it. But it also has nothing to do with the events of the movie except maybe a few moments from the opening.
There are also too many characters and too much story jammed into 90 minutes. Most of which we could care less about. And not enough time to dig very deep into any of them. Why movie makers try to cram so much into a short movie is beyond me. I don't care that it was based on a book or comic or whatever. Just single out a night or two, a small group of people or a much smaller setting. The best horror/scary movies do it this way. The original Halloween and Psycho are two prime examples.
I've already spent to much time writing about this thing. Just follow my opening and avoid it.
The Tomorrow War (2021)
There is always one thing that people cannot get past
I have one issue I have to single out like everyone else. But there are many including Chris Pratt's terrible acting, familiar plot points bordering on theft, silly CGI creature effects, lazy writing with enough plot holes for ten movies, cheesy dialogue, weird tonal shifts, and on and on.
But what bugged me about this and does frequently with these type movies is how the characters are written. Chris Pratt for example. He is an ex Special Forces Brilliant Scientist High School Teacher ? Really? First off, how many friggen Ex Special Forces guys are out there? It seems like every action hero since Martin Riggs is one of these guys. It's like there are more of them in movies than there is in real life. Can't they make of them an Ex Systems Analyst? Then in keeping with the silliness, the grown Forester daughter is also Brilliant Scientist Commander Soldier person. And at one point when the fate of the entire human race is in the balance, she is the only one working on The Answer To Everything in a room alone? When of course the actual answer is to just blow up the spaceship but whatever, that's getting into Plot Holes #82-83.
It just drives me crazy to see these supposedly normal people getting drafted to save the world and they suddenly become almost superhuman and the smartest people on the planet. One of the worst offenders is Independence Day which is littered with ridiculously written characters including a drunken cropduster who remembers to fly a jet somehow.
He was probably Ex Special Forces.
Sweet Girl (2021)
Typical Netflix
This would be a passable time waster except it took too much time to get where it was going. I think it was an hour and 50 minutes. They should have trimmed it to 1 1/2 hrs. Way too much padding which both creates boredom and exposes plot holes big enough to drive a vintage Olds through.
The acting was good enough and the story was fine. Better suited for an early aughts action/conspiracy/revenge hybrid. All this has been done before, and better. They just assumed they could get away with it by planting Jason Momoa in it. Though likable, not enough star power yet for the guy. He is no Dwayne Johnson.
Not giving away much but there is a twist late in it that is just stupid and clumsy and kind of ruins everything you saw in the previous hour. Somehow it fits this movie. (insert eye roll emoji here).
The only thing clever once you consider the twist was the movie's tagline from the poster - "Family Fights As One".
Netflix is the new 'Direct To Video' dumping ground for movies with some name stars in action, sci-fi, horror and revenge flicks. If you go into these things with relatively low expectations, you'll be satisfied I guess.
The Whole Truth (2016)
If you have an extra hour and a half
There are worse things to do than watch this.
It was competently made with few frills, how could it with a 90 min run time? And the acting was passable. It actually ended with a result that should make everyone happy. Thankfully it ended quickly too as it could have gotten monotonous. Keanu Reeves doesn't exactly light up the screen with electricity. In fact no one does except Jim Belushi who was the best part of the movie, and the worst of course. Renee Zellweger looked like Renee Zellweger's sister. There was no character development at all except for Belushi's and even his was overly simplistic
The problem for me was the story. It was ridiculous, simple minded and predictable. Again, probably due to the short running time. It was like a bad episode of Law And Order. In fact, I doubt they would have accepted a script so goofy. It was completely forgettable.
Again, not a bad way to spend an hour and a half. But don't expect much.
The Midnight Sky (2020)
Not awful, not good either.
This movie has been heavily criticized for scientific inaccuracies some of which I understand, some I don't.
The easiest ones to pick on....That huge Jupiter moon just appearing out of nowhere. The protagonist falling into a frozen (and conveniently thawing) lake and not dying immediately. The world's most elegant and inefficiently designed spaceship with enough room for 200 yet has a crew of 5.
The list is endless and a lot of it is simply not forgivable. The "It's just a movie" argument has it's limits.
Another hard to tolerate element was the decision making on the part of some characters. Like the two fellows who decided to jump on the shuttle and fly down to earth was simply ridiculous. They could see what happened to the planet, read their instruments and from Augustus' accounting had to know everyone down there was dead. And they were going to join them. What the ###?!
Another critique was the movie being emotionally void and lifeless. I didn't find that too much. I did think the acting was quite good and there were some moments of true emotional impact. If it was a little cold, it was a consequence of a story that can't stay in one place long enough to establish anything.
But I also had a problem with the young girl. Or rather her presence. If she was a figment of Augustus imagination, there should have been NO scenes or shots of her perspective without her father in the scene. Like her approaching that downed plane and seeing the pilot. Never should have happened within the context of who she was. Namely, just in his mind. The movie cheated.
So some unforgivable plots holes, decisions, inaccuracies and cheats made this hard to take seriously. But that stuff didn't ruin it for me. I still enjoyed it.
Body Double (1984)
So much to hate, and so much to love about this movie.
I first saw this in the mid 80's on VCR tape. First thought - like every other young man who saw it naturally freeze framed Barbara Crampton's 10 second scene, among others. That was also my overriding impression of the movie - that it was borderline adult movie. It was also vile and perverted, scary and gross, and held an almost mythical place in my memory of 80's cinema. I wasn't entirely fooled by the plot (spoiler-I thought Gloria's husband in the early scene was Sam but didn't know the Indian was the same guy) but I also loved how it manipulated both Jake and the audience to get where it needed. The story and it's contrivances was a weak point to the movie but also one of it's charms. It was so silly and far fetched but it made me chuckle too. Some other nits to pick was the casting of the lead. I know he was supposed to be Joe Average and a likeable schlub but he was so frustratingly weak and stupid it drove me a little batty. At the same time, the movie wouldn't have felt the same without Wasson and how he played Jake so maybe my criticism of him is exactly what DePalma wanted. I just found him distractingly limp. However I loved Gregg Henry as Sam. He was perfect...charming, sleazy, unnerving. Much has been said of Griffith and whereas I also found her to be perfect for the role, her voice in this (and her entire career really) drove me crazy. So the question has to be when it comes to a 30+ yr old film...how does it hold up today? In a way, it doesn't for a modern audience member that can see plot twists coming a block away. But the twists of the story are not the only thing to like in this as I already mentioned. There is also a history of years worth of DePalma bashing since this came out. Many saw this movie as the apogee of DePalma's excesses. But for a fan, it was 2 hours of nirvana. It was fun, funny, stupid, exciting, sexy, self-indulgent, grotesque...everything that people who love DePalma, love him for.
The Recall (2017)
Absolutely
...one of the dumbest movies I've ever seen. Seriously awful.
Desolate (2018)
Incoherent
This movie was a mess. It had a lot of potential.... family of brothers amid this awful landscape fighting for survival.
But the script was simply unintelligible. It had enough plot and story for a 3 hour movie which makes me wonder if this thing got butchered in the editing room. There were leaps in logic and believability that were jaw dropping. Made no sense. I loved some of the characters, a couple of tense scenes, and some beautiful outdoor cinematography.
But it was so disappointing.
Bright (2017)
Pretty awesome set up and world
Ayer and Landis created a very cool world for these characters to inhabit. Fairies. Orcs, I even saw a dragon at one point. Pretty decent makeup and visual effects. Honestly, this would make for a great Netflix tv show. It all kind of follows the themes and patterns of Alien Nation.
Unfortunately the execution of the whole thing was a mess. It's impossible to cover how many things went wrong. The action scenes made no coherent sense, the characters motivations and interactions changed constantly, the humor was forced, the overall tone in constant flux. And there were just too many groups and storylines: Bad cops, Hispanic gang, Orc gang, Fairy gang, Magic Task Force (lol)... i mean, what the F###?!
I so wanted to like this and was so damn disappointed in it all.
The Laundromat (2019)
I was never bored.
Found the subject matter very interesting and loved how it was presented. Oldman and Banderas made a funny and sweet Greek Chorus that walked, or maybe strolled, the viewer through their characters world. It was so fascinating I just wish it wasn't so short. The individual smaller stories were so brief but still with full vivid characters they could have easily talked me into a mini-series. For that exact reason, my rating is a little lower. They just tried to cram too much into 1 1/2 hrs. It could have been stretched out a little past 2 hours and that 30 minutes would have made a difference. Maybe still not enough though. Just too much material for one sitting. Still, loved it.
Dreamcatcher (2003)
What an odd movie
This thing is so odd and undefinable it's hard to put into words so this will be brief. I assumed when I first saw this years ago that with Kasdan and King and the budget, this would be epic. And it is epic in scale. It's just not that good. Some of it is so bad in fact, I am wondering if Kasdan approached this like a spoof. I mean, the whole gun-phone scene? wtf? The guy with the stomach worm? Like I said, odd.