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anton-79
Reviews
Star Trek Into Darkness (2013)
Not bad, not great, partly broken 3D
Story: I was not bored, but OTOH I did not find the story at all memorable. So, while this film borrows quite a number of elements from the series and earlier films, I doubt that it contains any story element that will be cited in the future. Anyway, it is a typical modern action film.
I find the way that Kirk and especially Spock are characterized questionable. Maybe it's modern Hollywood standard to show people controlled by their emotions rather than controlling their emotions, but for Spock and even for Kirk it's out-of-character.
Visuals: There are a number of cool things to see, where the 3D effect enhanced the experience; I especially liked the machine room, which was more detailed than I remember it from earlier Star Trek films. However, in a number of scenes the 3D is broken: e.g., double pictures instead of 3D effect (my friend beside me confirmed this, so it was not just that my brain failed to resolve the 3D effect); a series of individual pictures instead of the illusion of motion (missing motion blur?); lens-flare-like effects. Come on, if you want to sell us 3D, do it properly.
Star Trek (2009)
Entertaining, but ...
OK, I was entertained. This film had good visuals, entertaining and well-introduced characters, lots of homages to earlier Star Trek stuff.
OTOH, the main storyline was pretty weak and derivative. I was reminded of the Star Trek: Voyager two-part episode "Year of Hell", but that episode was far superior, especially in the portrayal of the villain.
The most annoying part is that the film presses the reset button for the whole Star Trek universe (at least starting with TOS). While "Enterprise" worked pretty well at staying consistent with the later developments, this film just resets the whole thing without need.
Some details (spoilers): This is the second film in a row to have a ship ogg another (has this ever happened before ST X?). Of course the guy who does not make it wears a red space suit.
Timecop (1994)
Good setup makes shortcomings more disappointing
Still, I did not regret watching this again recently. For me the good and bad points all have to do with the story and the way it is told:
Good: The film does not take forever to ramp up, it just explains a few basics about the TEC setup, and then fast-forwards in the middle of the action, showing the rest on the go.
Bad: The main bad point I see is that Walker has no plan for solving the McComb problem after Sarah Fielding dies, so the eventual resolution was just luck (from the in-film view) or bad writing (from the outside view). Also, his plan for saving his wife did not make sense.
A good plan that the plot was pointing at would have been to disable the prototype time travel installation (which, OTOH, would have posed the question which the TEC has not done this much earlier).
OK, Walker's lack of good plans might be explained by his stupidity, which he also shows when he tells McComb that he knows he is the villain. But that still makes the solution a lucky deus-ex-machina.
There are a number of other plot-holes:
What was the purpose of the original raid on the Walkers, and why did they go after Melissa and blow up the house? And why do the thugs appear in the shopping mall.
Why is Commander Matuzak no longer a friend of Walker after he returns from 1994. Walker still works for the TEC, and Matuzak still knows him, so why wouldn't they still be friends?
Getting a blood sample of Sarah Fielding would not help if McComb completely erased Fielding from existence; the blood sample would then vanish, too. BTW, what did he do instead? Fielding still exists, so McComb apparently has only eliminated her from the staff of the TEC.
BTW, this variant of time-travel logic, where any changes instantly affect the future, including persons who have come back from the future, except that they remember the pre-change future, is quite problematic as far as plot-holes are concerned (already the fact that the memory of the time traveler is not affected can be seen as a plot-hole). I wonder why authors choose to go this way (It's also used in Back to the Future) rather than one of the other variants; I guess this variant is more dramatic, because the characters are directly and instantly affected by changes; the memory is necessary, otherwise the character could not pull a plan through.
Some not so bad ones:
Increasing your wealth by buying in 1929 requires that you have funds in 1929 (not that much, but still). Also, I think that it is easier and has less effect on history if you buy later (say, after the 1987 and after the 2001 stock crashes, or at the Google or Red Hat IPOs). Still, the 1929 setting was used for good effect with the contemporary execution of the death penalty.
Killing one of the founders of a startup (in this case Parker) is likely to make the startup fail, and McComb could have avoided this murder.
The 6th Day (2000)
Pretty good science-fiction action film
This is a pretty good science-fiction action film. The setting is interesting and leads believably to decent action sequences that are not too long and boring, and the plot is resolved pretty decently.
The weaknesses of this film are: 1) a lot of the premise is presented in exposition form where the villains tell our hero unbelievably willingly the why, what, and how of what is happening to him. 2) The plot background is far less far-reaching than what I expected at first (it ends with Drucker); OK, my expectations are probably coming from other films with similar topics, so this is probably not the fault of this film. 3) The murder of Hank at the start of the film makes no sense: First of all, murdering Drucker was pointless, because he was going to be replaced with another clone anyway; moreover, through Drucker's murder the assassin blew his cover anyway, so there was no point in murdering Hank to keep his cover; oh, and while we are at it, if Drucker's people did not know who was Hank and who was Adam, how did they know whom to clone? Anyway, by Hollywood standards these are just minor nits.
This film seems to be the first in the modern wave of science-fiction films that explore a specific issue based on some hypothetical technology, e.g., Minority Report (2002) and I, Robot (2004); there were earlier films of that kind in the 70s (e.g., Soylent Green (1973), and most appropriately here: Westworld (1973) and Futureworld (1976)), but I don't remember much of this kind in between. Some other films I was reminded of were Blade Runner (1982), especially in the ending, and Total Recall (1994).
Forces of Nature (1999)
Interesting concept, but not well narrated
Looking at this film from the ending, I think that the intention was that this is mainly a story about Ben's cold feet before a wedding, with the moral that worrying to much if you are marrying the right person is not helpful (because you cannot know in advance).
So, viewed this way, the film presents this as a kind of road movie to the wedding, with lots hurdles along the way, including Sarah, and also lots of people (including Sarah) telling Ben how bad marriage is. If narrated believably, this might have been a great film.
Where the film fails is in actually showing that Ben loves his bride and also making it believable that he loves Sarah (I love Bullock, but I failed to see that a character like Ben was really attracted to Sarah enough to jeopardize his marriage). So just before the end, the situation presents itself as a decision between Ben marrying a woman without us knowing anything about their relationship, or leaving her at the altar for another woman for which he did not have believable romantic feelings. Not really a way to make us care for the result.
Still, the ending made some kind of sense out of the story fragments that had been shown before and did a lot to reconcile me with this film.
Syriana (2005)
Failed to find an interesting story? That's because it is not there.
We get to see pieces of the lives of some people in an interleaved fashion. The main problem with this film that I have is that I hardly cared for the characters. We mostly don't know what their intentions, hopes, and plans are, we only see what they do, and that is either not very interesting or does not make much sense. And unfortunately the film fails to make up for this problem in other ways.
The story (or what goes for it) is a little hard to get hold of, given the style of telling it, but after talking with a friend and reading the comments here, I pretty much understood all of it already when watching the film. It's just that there is not an interesting story to understand. As for the political content, this film does not tell me something I don't know. Overall I felt somewhat bored while watching this film.
This film reminded me of the book "The Sheep Look Up" by John Brunner, both in it's style of interleaving the story lines of different people, and in the way that this style is used to paint a picture of society and politics. However, I did enjoy "The Sheep Look Up", in contrast to "Syriana"; I think the book made me care for the characters, but I have read it a long time ago, so I am not sure.
Bimboland (1998)
Good scenes, but incomplete story
This film has some nice and funny scenes, and a setup for an interesting story, but unfortunately the scenes do not combine into a story. Actually there are fragments of three stories: Cécile's research, the romance between Cécile and Laurent, and the friendship between Cécile and Alex. A brilliant film could have told them all, a decent film one or two of them, but this one completes none of them.
Some things just seem to be missing: E.g., both the quarrel between Cécile and Alex and their reconciliation were pretty unmotivated; and we did not know that Alex should be saved from the operation, so the ending was an anticlimax. Also, we hear about Alex' mother, and it sounds meaningful, but it has no effect on the rest of the film.
Of course, for me the main attraction of the film is Judith Godrèche, and she is beautiful as usual (more as Cécile than as Brigitte, so Bimbos don't work for everyone), and she was in every scene, so that made up somewhat for the story problems (for me).
Falling Down (1993)
Can be viewed in two ways
The first time I watched this film, I watched it as a revenge fantasy, and was quite disappointed by the ending, where the film turns into a more serious drama, and the protagonist becomes the bad guy.
However, re-watching (a part of) this film with a more serious approach and with more distance to the protagonist is actually more interesting: You watch the protagonist going from a person that most viewers can identify with to someone nobody can identify with in small steps.
Of course, the way I saw it at first, was that the protagonist was getting more and more unrealistic in classical action-film style, and that viewpoint broke down at the end (which caused the disappointment). Of course, if you ignore the last quarter of an hour or so (after the country club), you can still enjoy it as a revenge fantasy action film.
Knight Rider 2010 (1994)
A different title helps
This film was shown here with the title "Metal Force - Apokalypse in L.A.", so I did not expect a Knight Rider film, which was good, because it is not one. Instead this is more like Mad Max.
I watched this film mainly to see what Hudson Leick has done apart from Callisto in Xena. She was very different here, mainly beautiful, and not much else.
The main problem I have with this film is that I don't understand the villains (another parallel with the original Mad Max). What are their goals, and how does killing the senior McQueen and Hannah help them?
I find one parallel with Knight Rider, though: In the pilot of Knight Rider, Michael Knight is almost killed, and then reconstructed with essentially a new body. Here, Hannah's body is killed, and she gets the car as the new body.
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (2005)
Some good elements, but also somewhat boring
What I liked about this film were the visual elements, from the forms of various things (e.g., the spaceships and the missiles chasing it, Deep Thought, Marvin and the Vogons), the effects of the space drive, the design and effects of the Guide, how the action of the Vogon fleet is shown, the planet construction yard.
I also liked the portrayal of Zaphod Beeblebrox, and some of the jokes.
However, in some parts of the film I felt bored, and I was thinking how long it is going to drag on. I am not sure why, but maybe a weak story is more of a problem in a film than a book, or maybe the book made up for it in other ways that the film did not.
It also seems to me that some of the jokes were cut short (to their detriment), e.g., the location of the plans for the bypass.
Supreme Sanction (1999)
Enjoyable
I found this film quite enjoyable. You might like this if you like Alias (2001) or The Long Kiss Goodnight (1996), although I found the latter a little better because Samantha Caine/Charly Baltimore is a more complex character.
Mild spoilers ahead. I liked the ruthlessness and efficiency of Jenna in disposing of her former colleagues and would-be-killers; since she is doing this with guns, this is not as unbelievable as Sidney Bristow beating up men twice as big as her. Also, Kristy Swanson looks great as always.
Unlike other films of this kind, the agonizing by the protagonist over her past evil deeds is refreshingly short. Also, I found the plot pretty believable (by Hollywood standards). In the beginning, I wondered a little about the quick side-switching of Jenna, but as the film proceeds, we see that this was not on-the-spot, but she actually has been thinking about and working for this for some time. The plot then proceeds pretty straightforwardly, and I have not noticed any unbelievable (and few other) twists.
Detailed spoilers of irrelevant stuff ahead: There are two scenes that could have used better editing (or better something): First, near McNamara's house, Jenna sends McNamara ahead for no obvious reason, then does some other things for no obvious reason, before following him (without any significant change in the situation). Second, near the end of the film, Jenna has a firefight with Dalton, runs out of clips, and gets a clip from some dead body; this goes on for much too long.