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Reviews
Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time (2010)
Excellent film adaption of a great video game!
Summary: Dastan is the adopted son of the King of Persia and falsely accused of murdering him. A mysterious dagger which can move a person through time seems to be the key proving his innocence.
Review: Great, absolutely funny film adaption of the famous video game. For someone like me, who grew up playing Prince of Persia, the integration of the jump & run game play in the movie is an absolute highlight. All in all it's a solid, flawless movie with great acting performances. Just don't take it too seriously, it's not meant to be a historical documentary, nor a realistic epic movie. Historical accuracy is not given, naming some of the inconsistencies with actual history: -The time in which the movie takes place has to be around 350 BC, considering the facts that the map in the movie shows an extend of "Persia" that roughly applies only to the immediate pre-Alexander period; as well the mentioning of "gods" and not "god" shows, that it can neither be the Sassanid Empire nor the Caliphate, as both were monotheistic.
-The Hassansin (or correctly Hashshashin): Existed from 1100-1300 AD
-Alamut: Wasn't build till 840 AD
-Greek fire: The only plausible explanation for the hand grenades the assassins used; invented 670 AD
-Mughal Empire (Where the fat guy eating walnuts was from): Not established until the 16th century. AD.
-And how south African warriors got to the hindukush - don't ask me. Maybe they rode on ostriches.
Highlight: The Jump & Run scenes
Notable Actors: Jake Gyllenhaal (Jarhead), Ben Kingsley (Shuter Island), Toby Kebbell (Dead Man's Shoes), Gemma Arterton (Quantum of Solace)
Planet Terror (2007)
Robert Rodriguez did it again
Summary: An airborne bio-weapon is released, turning the inhabitants of a small town into murdering Zombies. A group of survivors try to find out what happened and have to fight of any number of Zombies while doing so.
Review: Robert Rodriguez did it again. Yes! After "Once upon a time in Mexico" he screwed up another movie with good actors in it. Boy, what a complete and utter waste of a lovely cast. They did act good, never mind that, but the whole movie, the story, the special effects, OMG, what a mess. Granted, Tarantino and Rodriguez set out to make a parody of really bad 70s Horror and Splatter movies. But that doesn't mean that you have to make a bad movie as well. And this one is really bad; everything is really exaggerated. The killing scenes, the Zombies and especially Rose McGowans M16 leg. Roddy, stick to your Spy Kids since you didn't do any decent films after "From Dusk till Dawn". And SHAME on you for casting Michelle Rodriguez, a.k.a. "The Artist with no acting talent" for Machete!
Highlight: Barbecue
Notable Actors: Jeff Fahey (Lost), Michael Biehn (Terminator), Naveen Andrews (Heroes), Bruce Willis (Hart's War)
Gore Level: 4/5
Død snø (2009)
Nazi Zombies in the snow
Summary: A bunch of med students hike to a solitary hut in the Norwegian mountains for a fun weekend. What they don't know, is that there is already someone in those mountains, and they are not here for fun.
Review: What's worse than a big bad Zombie? Right! A big bad Nazi Zombie! And there's a plenty of them here. The movie is really funny, makes you overlook the many plot holes and inconsistencies, like the Nazi Zombies having the strength to rip someones skull apart with their bare hands and in the next moment get knocked around by little girls. Or that the Zombies don't die, then they die by head wound, then they don't die even by head wound, then they die from everything... Anyway, I recommend it to any Zombie fan, though it's not your typical dead meat Zombies, but intelligent, tool using smarts.
Highlight: Intestant rope
Notable Actors: None
Gore Level: 5/5
Boy Eats Girl (2005)
A nice movie for a Sunday afternoon
Summary: A mother brings her son, who died in a drunk accident, back to life using a voodoo ritual. The bad thing is, he develops a taste for human flesh.
Review: Irish zombies, for a change. Fun to watch a high school lovers quarrel in a zombie environment. Of course the teens are played by actors in their mid-twenties, good old Melrose Place style. It's hard to tell, actually, if this movie takes place in Ireland or the US. I noticed back in 2002 that the Irish are getting more and more influenced by the yanks, it seems that trend continued. High school prom, cheerleaders etc. Better look to the UK for influence. Acting is OK, editing good, special effects very good. Especially the scene where Samantha Mumba takes down the zombies with a harvester - memorable! Btw, what's up with Samantha, it looks like she's growing a beard, dark shadows around her mouth.
Highlight: The Harvester
Notable Actors: None
Gore Level: 4/5
Repo Men (2010)
So bad it is actually funny...
Summary: Jude Law and Forest Withaker star as Repo Men for an artificial organs producing and distributing company. Their work is a bloody one.
Review: I never really understood "So bad it is actually funny".
Until I saw this movie. Especially the organ-scan-mambo at the end; that was really worth not turning off in the middle of the movie when I cursed myself for watching yet another crappy movie cause I'm to lazy to finish the latest Bolitho novel.
Possibly the worst acting performances of both Law and Whitaker. The director apparently really knows how to drown the last bit of acting talent in anyone...
Never mind the implications of being a guy who kills for a company with the sanction of apparently most governments of the world. If you can't pay for something, you give it back. End of story. It's always the same with people, they pay for every crap but as soon as it concerns health, they want it all for free.
Nevermind motivation for developing cures (money), reason for developing cures (money) and what you need to develop cures (money). And a question that bothers me since A.I.: Why does Jude Law look so Slavic when he is supposedly a pure bred Brit?
Well, the postman always rings twice.
Highlight: The Mambo
Notable Actors: Jude Law (A.I.), Forest Whitaker (Ghost Dog), Liev Schreiber (RKO 281)
Ca$h (2010)
Forget Snatch or Pulp Fiction, Sean Bean tells you how it really is
Summary: A crook drops a suitcase full of cash over a bridge when chased by the law and recruits his equally criminal twin brother to find the case and get it back. Meanwhile a young couple has gotten their hands on the loot and has spent some of it, which Beansie Boy makes them pay back.
Review: Sean Bean times two, oh my god, we've been waiting for that, haven't we? Our favourite villain on the lose, twice. One dies, surely, but the other one, oh, he'll be back and show Mr. and Mrs. Phelan what a real felon does when he's twinnie is killed (sorry bout that pun, had to be done; here I go again).
I'm not too fond of the ending though; it would have been great (geez, I nearly said "awesome" there; watching too much Yankee TV lately), it would have been great if Bean#2 visited the Phelans at the end. Kinda like: Doorbell rings, male Phelan opens, Bean #2 stands there, says: "I think you have something that belongs to me". To Hollywood though, probably, though that hasn't to be a bad thing. Not all of the times at least.
And what about Beansies lines? You watched Snatch, Lock Stock, Fight Club and the rest, thinking, wow, those guys really know how it works. Well, it took Old Bean to tell us how it really works.
Quotations:
1.) "Listen, Glenn the beeping Plumper. You blacks think you all so beeping bad? Well, you aren't. You think all white people fear ya? We don't. Now shut your beeping mouth or I'll put you in the beeping emergency ward. Got it?" - Oh yeah, THAT HAD TO BE SAID sometime. Thank you so much Beansie, bash that afroamerican/afroeuropean stereotype! 2.) "It's easy for a woman, isn't it? No physical threat, no fear of reprisal. You can just open your big beautiful mouth and say what ever foul things comes into your head. Right?". - Yup, that's true. 3.) "Why? Because you're a woman? You think your vagina gives you special privileges, is it? You American women, you all want equality. Well, I'm giving it here." - See above. Plus: Why did I have to spent a year drafted in the army when women can already go to college and get a head start on us? And don't come with that "women get pregnant" crap. Firstly, I'm thirty and NONE of my female friends has dropped a baby yet. Secondly, using natural differences between sexes as an excuse for something is what is attacked most by feminists. 4.) "Physical power over others tastes sweet in your mouth. Especially for a woman, who doesn't often get the experience. Feeds you, like mothers milk. It's almost sexual, isn't it?" - Hell yeah. Just look at all those spoiled brats in the RAF in Germany.
Thank you, script writer!
Highlight: Sean Bean's lines
Notable Actors: Sean Bean (Sharpe)
Dead Man's Shoes (2004)
Low Budget CAN mean Great Cinema!
Summary: An ex-soldier returns to his home town to teach the lowlifes who bullied his handicapped brother years ago, a lesson.
Review: Greatly done how this movie turns violent so suddenly! Granted, Paddy Considine got freakishly angry in the billiard club, but other than that he seemed to be a reasonable guy. Plus the audience (including me) still thought, his brother is still alive and thus wondered, why Paddy went all Postal. I knew something was going on, with Tony Kebbell wearing the same clothes and hasn't aged since he was bullied. But I admit I got it wrong. I figured that Paddy actually was dead or didn't exist and Tony was fantasizing about these revenge streak. Well, Shane Meadows, you got me there! Please make more movies! And Toby Kebbells acting: EXCELLENT!
Highlight: The drugs in the kettle
Notable Actors: Toby Kebbell (RocknRolla)
Tu£sday (2008)
This could have been so much better
Summary: A notorious gang of robbers known as "The Cowboys" rob a bank that is already been robbed by someone else.
Review: Boy, what a mess! Confusing and erratic back flashes, the same scene in the bank shown over and over from different angles and perspectives and a whole lot of unnecessary or unfinished plot strings. Starring John Simm and Philip Glenister, the great Duo from "Life on Mars" this could have been such a great, funny and entertaining movie. I think this movie is meant to be funny as well, but you don't get much of that. Interesting, how 74 minutes can take that long to pass. Boring.
Highlight: The Security Guard
Notable Actors: John Simm (Doctor Who), Philip Glenister (Life on Mars)
Arn: Tempelriddaren (2007)
Entertaining epic movie
Summary: Arn, the son of a Swedish noble is sent to a monastery to be educated, where his fighting skills become obvious and he is trained to be a knight. Following political intrigue, Arn has to travel to the Holy Land to serve as a Knight Templar.
Review: Firstly, the movie I rate and the movie that is internationally published is made of 2 Swedish movie: Arn (2007) and Arn 2 (2008). The original movies are about 4 hours each, with the international movie being little over 2 hours long. I browsed through the 2 Swedish movie and have to say, you don't miss much in the 2 hours that have been cut out. It's mostly romantic stuff and a lot of talking. The international version is probably better, 4 hours of this movie would definitely be too long for me. Anyway, it's a good movie, surprised to see one this good from Sweden, where the only movie export seem to be a lot of third rate Wallander thrillers. I like the multilingual aspect of the movie; English, Swedish and some Arabic. The acting is good, editing, filming, script, everything decent, nothing really to criticize. Watch it on a Sunday afternoon.
Highlight: The Templar ambush
Notable Actors: Stellan Skarsgard (Mamma Mia)
Layer Cake (2004)
A pleasant movie
Summary: A cocaine dealer plans to retire, but has to carry out two assignments by his boss before he can do so. Naturally, things go wrong.
Review: It's a good movie to watch, but don't expecting anything special. Sit through it on a slow night with a slice of pizza and a cold beer. Not that American light crap though, real beer. Acting is good, story plays out, cockney style dialogues.
As to XXXXs death: The angle from which he was shot and the point of impact clearly show that the bullet has hit or rather scratched the sternum then ploughed through his right chest and lung. It was a small caliber so it didn't leave the body. With medical attention he will survive. If they leave him lying on the steps for half an hour he'll die of course. But as this is an English club and not the jungle of Cambodia, paramedics will come, take him to the hospital where he'll be operated and live.
Highlight: The dutch drug factory
Notable Actors: Daniel Craig (The Trench), Tamer Hassan (Clash of the Titans), Colm Meany (Law Abiding Citizen), Tom Hardy (Band of Brothers)
PS: Would IMDb please include British (or as some call it: English) English to it's spelling program? Thank you!
RocknRolla (2008)
Guy Ritchie does it again
Summary: A deal between a resident crime boss and and a Russian immigrant gangster goes out of hand, setting in motion a spinning wheel of deception and fate.
Review: Great movie, loved every bit of it! The scene where the russkies are chasing the wild bunch - hilarious! Smooth dialogues, good story, great acting. There seem to be some minor plot holes, p.e. how the painting got to One Two, but that was probably cut out, and the viewer can guess as much anyway. Watch it! There was a mentioning of a sequel at the end, but apparently none is coming.
Highlight: The second Job
Notable Actors: Gerard Bulter (300), Mark Strong (Sherlock Holmes), Tom Hardy (Band of Brothers), Toby Kebbell (Dead Man's Shoes)
[Rec]² (2009)
A rare case where the sequel is better than the, already very good, original.
Summary: The movie continues immediately where the first part has left off. A group of special forces under the leadership of a guy from Health Department enter the building from Part 1 to look for survivors.
Review: One of the fastest movies I ever saw. The movie starts on a slow pace then speeds it up and gives the viewer hardly a pause during the rest. You're glued to the screen, one scene following the other, suspense and action have you totally captivated. Excellent movie, one of the best in years. It's not as heavy on the zombie side as the first part, still recommendable to zombie fans though.
Highlight: Shooting the wrong guy
Notable Actors: Manuela Velasco (Rec)
Gore Level: 4/5
Dead Set (2008)
Big Zombie is watching you!
Summary: During a season of British "Big Brother", a zombie outbreak occurs, leaving the inhabitants of the "Big Brother" container unaware of what goes on outside their voluntary prison.
Review: Great! Great, great, great! The whole "mini series" (Total runtime is a little over two hours, so you could consider it a movie, actually) is fun to watch. I'd consider it zombie splatter movie with a good hint of sarcasm. Character development is nicely done, acting is solid, and for the British audience there are a few celebs from the actual British "Big Brother" series. I'd recommend it any day!
Highlight: Preparing a Zombie meal
Notable Actors: None
Gore Level: 5/5
[Rec] (2007)
That's what "Diary of the Dead" should have looked like
Summary: A Spanish camera team accompanies firemen to an apartment building where an old lady apparently injured herself in her locked flat. But things take a turn to the worse when the old lady attacks her helpers and sets in motion a chain of bloody events.
Review: Great movie! Pure suspense from the first to the last minute. Solid acting, good script, very good editing. Have to say that after all that American-made zombie crap I saw lately, this is really a refreshing surprise, a top grade movie, highly recommended! I'm excited to watch the sequel, as many critics rate it higher than this one. I just hope that the reporter won't talk as much as in this movie. I recommend that you watch the subtitled version as the English dub is really really awful and ruins the whole movie!
Highlight: The cameraman
Notable Actors: Manuela Velasco ("Rec²")
Gore Level: 2/5
Night of the Living Dead (1968)
The beginning of a new film genre
Summary: The dead come back to life and try to eat the living. A few people hold up in a farmhouse and try to fight off the incoming zombies.
Review: This is the first real zombie movie made. It started off a new genre and inspired many follow-ups. The script and directing is good, so is the editing. One has to wonder how much Romero really contributed to this film, as all the movies he made after this were crap. Probably John Russo had more to do with it than Romero. Acting is decent enough, typical for the early 60s. The whole movie is great, seeing a zombie apocalypse in the America of the 60s really is fun. Special effects are good. A must-see for any zombie fan! Oh yes, and THANK YOU BEN for punching Barbra in the face! I sit through any number of Horror flicks just WAITING for someone to shut up those annoying screaming women. Finally someone did! Thank you, you are my hero!
Highlight: The whole movie
Notable Actors: None
Gore Level: 2/5
Automaton Transfusion (2006)
Finally people know what a zombie is!
Summary: Some teenagers and zombies. That's really all of the story. Notably the zombie virus is man-made.
Review: I give this movie one extra star for actually referring to the zombies as "zombies". I think it's the first zombie movie I saw, where people have heard about zombies (dah, there's about a hundred movies about them as well as books, comics and so on) and are not wondering what wondrous creatures these might be. Thank you! Other than that, the flick is crap, except it has definitely the highest gore level I've seen in a zombie movie so far. Even Dexter would faint at the sight of so much blood (as he is known to have before).
Highlight: Intelligent Zombies
Notable Actors: Actors?
Gore Level: 5/5
Dawn of the Dead (1978)
A painful 2 hours
Summary: The dead come back to life (as should be the case in a zombie flick). Four survivors decide to hold up in a shopping mall and sit out the catastrophe.
Review: Bad acting, very bad editing, bad script. The idea is good, though. Character development was probably intended by the director/writer, but you really can't make it out in the movie. The score is awful, annoying the viewer throughout the whole movie, so do the sound effects. Suspense is none in sight.
It might have been a top notch movie in the year it came out, but I strongly doubt that. With decent actors, a good writer and someone who knows the meaning of "special effects" it would have been a hit, and would still be.
If you started watching Zombie Movies with this flick, you probably disagree, saying, nowadays only special effects make up a movie. Well, if you have the choice between a bad movie (like this one) and a bad movie with good special effects, you'll probably choose the latter. Thus, I recommend the remake ten times over this one (yes, who wouldn't like Ving Rhames with a shotty in his team).
Highlight: Hare Krishna Zombie
Notable Actors: None
Valhalla Rising (2009)
Congratulations!
Amazing how the director managed to expand a 5 minute short into one and a half hours of suffering for the poor viewers.
There is no story, no acting, no nothing.
Granted, some viewers will find it "astonishing", "no Hollywood b...t", "ingenious", as is always the case with bad movies. Just swim against the stream for the sake of it.
I can't remember watching such a boring, useless movie since I made the mistake to watch a movie by Uwe Boll.
Give me back the 90 minutes of my life! Or at least the 60 minutes I was awake during the movie. Maybe I'll keep it as a sleeping pill. Just hearing the title will probably put me fast asleep.
The Mist (2007)
Solid Horror/Post-Apocalyptic Movie
Solid movie, fun to watch!
Don't expect anything great of it. The actors do their jobs well, the script is good, except for the usual plot holes to be expected in such movies.
The major plot hole would be, the army base. Unexplainable gas-like mist containing murderous beasts and an army base nearby where top secret research is done. Yet it takes the cast one and a half hours (or rather one and a half days) to suspect, that those two could be connected. They rather gather around the town madwoman and listen to her babbling about the apocalypse.
And, of course, as is seen in EVERY movie of this sort, a bunch of people try to get help for a wounded guy, who will die anyway, and some of them won't make it back.
Other than that, nice movie. Nothing new, though.
Law Abiding Citizen (2009)
Good movie screwed up completely in the last 15 minutes
Just watched LAW ABIDING CITIZEN. I don't know why i still bother watching American movies. It's a decade-long Hollywood tradition to screw up good ideas by illogical plots and happy endings. The WHOLE point of the movie, bringing DOWN the legal system could only be proved if Shelton was to walk free after all he did. To show that the legal system was unable to hinder him murdering people though being in custody AND had to set him free, because the DA and the judge broke the law to stop his series of murder thus ignoring his civil rights which would ultimately lead to dismissing all charges. The supposed plot to blow up the mayor and homeland security does not at all fit neither the character of Shelton nor the plot of the movie. Good movie screwed up completely in the last 15 minutes. Hollywoods Epitaph.