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Reviews
The Book of Eli (2010)
Let's hope it's another 10 years before the Hughes boys make another movie!
It's unoriginal, pseudo-stylized, predictable drivel.
If you take Denzel Washington out of this film, you have an utterly forgettable straight-to-DVD flick. As it sits, you have an utterly forgettable should-have-been-straight-to-DVD flick with Denzel Washington.
The most absurd, unreasonable element of the film is the shockingly pathetic concept that the whole film is based around - there is only ONE Bible left on the planet. Of course, there are many other equally far-fetched and almost equally as silly plot holes, but that one alone is bad enough to warrant giving up on the film early. Sadly, I didn't not and watched it to the end hoping for some payoff that never came. We won't even get into the fact that we're never told why it's taking Eli 31 years to travel across country (yes, that means he averaged 1/4 mile a day).
As far as post-apocalyptic films goes, it lacks the originality of the "The Road Warrior", the human element of "The Road", the energy of "Escape from New York" and the great ending of "Planet of the Apes." The thing is, it seems to strive for all these elements and fails miserably.
Please, someone take the Hughes Brothers DGA card away...they're talking good actors in making bad movies.
The Boondock Saints II: All Saints Day (2009)
Yep...it sucks.
My expectations were low going into this film but I recall liking a single element of the first film enough to see if the director had come up with anything else clever in the 10 years since the first film. (I originally like the element where Willem Dafoe's character appeared in the actions scenes as we saw them in flashback)
No surprises at all in the film. Much like the first film, I don't think it's going to have much appeal to anyone not in their teens or even pre-teens. The dialogue is terrible. Either the writer is deluded and thinks he's witty or simply doesn't care. To call many of the lines "cliches" would be an insult to the word since they were much more pathetic than a standard cliché.
The actions scenes were dreadful. It seems the only creative input the director has when it comes to directing action is slow-motion. Yes, every actions scene is a series of slo-mo shots which kill the pacing. Anyone who knows film knows slow motion is a tool used judiciously for impact. Even John Woo, who probably uses more slo-mo than any A-list director, knows it's used as a tool in an action scene, not the only element in a scene.
Like the first one, the characters, with the exception of Willem Defoe, are bad. They're corny (in a bad way), stupid or just not interesting. I can only assume Clifton Collins was running short on rent to take this role as he had some of the worst character moments in the film.
Let's hope it's at least another 10 years before this director gives it another go. Maybe he'll learn something about film in that time.
Bitch Slap (2009)
A perfect example of how to fail at the exploitation genre
It just goes to show no matter how low you set the bar, incompetence can still make you come up short. This film is so bad I actually had to start an IMDb account to let people know just how terrible it really is.
The reality is, it wouldn't have taken much for this to be a decent film. The box cover promises sex and violence and delivers far too little on both. The cheesy direction, bad acting, bad dialogue and low- budget effects are laughable...and that would normally be okay! It's exactly what's expected. All the film had to do was deliver on the action and skin. The film gets a 3 out of 10 for the action and a big 0 for the skin. Was this film made for the Spike channel? There's NO NUDITY in this film to speak of despite the fact that it's exactly what the box promises. Yes, three, hot vixens in an exploitation movie and none of them get naked. There are hotter sex scenes in the 10 pm network TV slot. How does a director fail this badly? And the "unrated" label was just another ploy to let the viewer think they're getting something edgy. Either that or the money man saw how bad the film is and wouldn't pony up a few grand more for an MPAA rating.
If there was a filmmaker jail, Jacobson would be on death row. Shameful.