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robertbrantz
Reviews
44 Minutes: The North Hollywood Shoot-Out (2003)
Great rental - As good as SWAT was bad.
Rented the DVD and enjoyed it immensely. The story is well told and scripted. This is by far the best police drama/action movie of the year. Unbelievable how this was released directly to DVD, while garbage like SWAT received millions of revenue during a major theater release. The only thing this movie lacks is star power. Everything else is good. I vaguely remembered reading about the true story the movie is based on, but although I knew the result (the movie is true to the facts) I was highly entertained and excited watching this flick at home. Dear studio bosses: fire whoever made SWAT and get Simoneau for your next police drama.
Ewoks: The Battle for Endor (1985)
And I thought Attack of the Clones was bad...
This movie is awful. At first I thought it may appeal to children, due to the cuddly Ewoks, the fury little people from Stars Wars. After sitting through this monstrosity of a movie, I am certain that not even a 4-year-old would find this movie interesting. The special effects are by far the best of this movie and compare well for other 80ies TV movies. The script is bad, the actors, especially Aubree Miller and unbelievably bad and the flick is so predictable that I still can't believe I was able to not touch the forward button on my VCR. However, I came close to switching this mess off more than once.
Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle (2003)
How can this go so wrong?
This movie is a testament to the lack of ideas in Hollywood. The cast is amazing and I wont even begin to list every star. Just imagine that Bruce Willis is cast as a guy who dies within 20 seconds of his appearance. Can a movie with that kinda luxury still suck? Yes, it can. Full Throttle is boring because the storyline fails. It is not exciting, I didn't care at any point what happened. Of course it was supposed to be light entertainment, but this was so light that it was a MTV video, which can entertain for maybe 3 1/2 minutes. However, this monstrocity lasted almost 1 1/2 hours!
Kiss of the Dragon (2001)
Jet Li's version of Frantic
This movie is the perfect action combination of east meets west. Jet Li and his fighting skills hit Paris, France and the movie features great fighting scenes and cool Paris shoots. It reminded me of Frantic when Ford wandered into the criminal underworld of Paris. Jet Li does similar and again, we love to hate the bad frenchmen.
Jing wu ying xiong (1994)
My favorite Jet Li movie
The dubbed version is very well done and easier to follow than some of the older Jet Li movies. This movie is very entertaining and has some of the best fighting scenes. The fighting is exciting, but not as rediculously out there as some fantasy fighting scenes in other Jet Li movies.
Confessions of a Dangerous Mind (2002)
One of the best movies around
I did not expect much of George Clooney's directorial debut, and was blown away by this movie. Everything seems to fit, a great story well told, great casting and a superb handling of the movie by Clooney and his croonies.
The movie is about a talkshow host and TV producer in the 60ies and 70ies who also worked as a secret agent hit-man for he CIA. How much better can a story get? Of course being a womanizer helps spicing things up, too.
Steven Soderberg is one of the producers and one can see that Clooney watched his work this great interest. He is able to tell the story by cutting back and forth through time without confusing the viewer. I personally love how Soderberg tells the story in Movies like Out of Sight and Traffic. Clooney copies that to some extend. However, he still has a unique way to keep the story moving along in a twisted and fascinating way.
I would have given this movie a few Academy nominations, although this kind of movie always fairs poorly with the Oscars and its conservative crowd.
The Bourne Identity (2002)
Please let this movie end!!
Boring! The only reason why I gave the movie 4/10 was because of the nice shots from Europe. Just because one tries to make a story as confusing as possible doesn't make it interesting. Halfway through the movie I wanted to stop it and pop "Frantic" in. Broume has two leading characters one doesn't really care for, doesn't understand their motives and actually after a while even stops caring about what they are doing in the movie. The German actress was running back and forth through Berlin in Run Lola Run. Now she is running through Paris, but this time the movie around her doesn't work and her acting is way too stiff to elevate the film from its low.
Reign of Fire (2002)
One word = Awful
I don't have much to say about this movie. Its basic idea is stupid. Jurrasic Park was based on a brilliant, if hardly believable, idea. This movie tries to tell us that one dragon, yes its a big one and its offspring can defeat the human race into near extinction. The remained of my comments: acting is really bad, the storyline assures poor charcter development, which is good since one doeas not care once some of the leading men die. Actually there not only no suspense, but also no excitement created by this movie. I would go so far to vote it as one of the worst movies of this century. Granted that I don't see the scum of hollywood (not even released on a big scale), but for a mojor release this is as bad as it gets.