mrohlee Reviews

Stagecoach (1986 TV Movie)

Improves as time passes

[7/10 · 3 April 2016]

When the movie was first made virtually the entire cast was very familiar and it was difficult to see the people as their characters since they were so famous. Now that time has passed I watched it again and found it very enjoyable. The movie is a remake of the John Wayne classic and when it came out that version was still being played on TV and was popular on DVDs. Since then a flood of other movies have come out and made that one a little more distant. I love the John Wayne-John Ford version and this one sticks pretty close to that story but with the "Highwaymen" taking 4 of the lead roles. It's a really interesting cast with lots of family and friends popping in for small parts.

The basic story of a group of people wanting to get across a piece of country where Apaches have been raiding. They have different reasons revenge, wanting to repay old debts, escaping from the law, running from the past, etc.

There are changes from the original as the doctor (Willie Nelson) is now Doc Holiday rather than the town drunk. The gambler (Waylon Jennings) is openly a card shark with a very shady past rather than the rigid southern gentleman.

The stagecoach crew has to contend with many problems and the story never lags. There is a nice "Hollywood ending" but that was fine with me.

If you feel like sitting back and enjoying a modern "B" western this is a good one. It's a throwback to the old TV Westerns like Gunsmoke and does a very good job of it!!

Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (2016)

meh

[6/10 · 25 March 2016]

For a movie like this I normally ignore the very first reviews as there are too many "10"s many of whom I assume are connected to it one way or another. Its definitely not a 10. Pros - The CGI is pretty good but nothing really cool that wasn't in the trailers. Ben Affleck did a good job as Batman. Gal Gadot was good in the action scenes. This version of Lex Luthor is unique which was a good way to go.

Cons - The make up department. Superman with a receding hairline, Lois with a blotchy complexion and crows feet. This is supposed to be a comic book movie right? But that is minor. The main con is that it seemed to drag, the build up to the big fight was a lengthy process. Doomsday started out looking like a cave troll from Lord of the Rings.

One thing I did notice was that it seemed like an unusually large amount of people got up to use the head toward the end of the movie which tells me it wasn't holding their interest very well.

It is worth seeing one time, but it's not something I will pay for a second time.

The 5th Wave (2016)

Good alien invasion - end of the world movie

[8/10 · 25 January 2016]

I went with the expectation of an end of the world movie and it delivered. I am surprised by some of the other reviewers who apparently went with the expectation of not liking it. If you saw the trailer and it looked good you should go see it. In this case the aliens show up and destroy the earth's civilization without much effort. Some alien invasion movie have them show up just a generation or two ahead and the humans are able to make a fight of it. In this case there is no fight. It winds up with a few human survivors scattered around and since the aliens can appear like humans it has a Walking-Dead type feel where you can't trust anyone.

Chloe Moretz was great in the main role. The only problem with that was that she pretty well out-shown the two leading men. In their defense one of them was so devastated by the deaths he went by the name "zombie".

Aside from that the whole apocalypse scenario was well done and there were a couple of twists and you could pretty much see coming but they were still well done. The only problem for me was the sudden ending which resolved a few things but obviously was intended to spark a sequel.

So if you like apocalypse movies and or Chloe Moretz you should enjoy it.

Pixels (2015)

This Adam Sandler fan really enjoyed it!

[8/10 · 25 July 2015]

This looked good in the trailers and everyone in the audience seemed to have a great time. It's different from most Adam Sandler movies as it have heavy CGI but still had some solid laughs. It had some real good 1980s moments as the aliens not only used arcade games but when sending messages had clips of various 80s icons providing their message which added some funny moments. Like most Adam Sandler movies there was some interesting casting. I loved seeing Brian Cox and Sean Bean in a few scenes together bringing back memories of "Sharpe's Eagle". There was also a nice cameo from Serena Williams. The CGI was great and it was pretty original, not a rehash of the aliens blowing things up. I will definitely see it again.

The Prince (I) (2014)

Excellent Unstoppable-Man Genre Movie

[7/10 · 30 May 2015]

If you like the genre you should enjoy this movie. The story movies right along and Jason Patric is solid as the man going after his daughter. When I saw the description 'retired hit man has to return to his old life to save his daughter' and saw Bruce Willis as in it I thought oh Jez how many times will he play that same character. I was pleasantly surprised that Willis is playing the "bad" man here. I say "bad" like the good-the-bad-and-the-ugly where the "good" man isn't really good. In this case his motivation is good but back in his day he was "the" bad guy.

John Cusack has a small part as the "the ugly" I guess you would say. Another bad guy but decides to give Patric some help. I think he took the part to deliver a pretty good little speech talking about Hadrians Wall in a very effective scene to give part of Patric's back story.

Jung Ji-Hoon/Rain (who is a big star in Korea) has a nice part as Willis's sensible, loyal, and deadly right hand man.

If you like this type of movie don't be bothered by the negative reviews. If you don't like this type of movie don't watch it, if you do, then just sit back, relax, and enjoy!

Age of Tomorrow (2014 Video)

It's good low budget sci-fi - stay with it

[7/10 · 27 September 2014]

I watched the movie because Kelly Hu was top billed. She and Robert Picardo didn't have the most screen time but they actually had more then I expected. It starts quick and appears to be a remake of Armageddon as a giant rock is heading for the earth and a motley crew going to be sent to drill into the rock, plant charges and blow it up.

Picardo is the ranking military man and Kelly Hu is a scientist who goes with the crew to the asteroid. Pieces of the asteroid start hitting the earth which leads to the 2nd plot where a firefighter who has a wayward daughter is trying to help stop the many fires breaking out.

Things begin to twist as it's not an asteroid but a transport full of alien fighter drones and it switches to an Independence Day type movie complete with a rousing speech to the troops by General Picardo.

Some people are being killed and others appear to be disintegrated. The firefighter now is trying to make it to his daughter while the alien drones start blasting people. There were a couple of good shots where someone (somewhat) unexpectedly gets their head blown off.

It takes another twist as it turns out the people are actually being teleported to the alien homeworld and Kelly Hu and the team of rough necks make it there. They do a good low budget job of making the alien world look alien by odd colored plants. The budget is low and one of the things they saved some money on was to use some "alien" music from the 1950s-1960s but maybe it was a tongue in cheek homage.

There are plenty of moments when you yell out oh-come-on but but normally they are things to advance the plot without raising the budget.

There are more twists and I did enjoy the ending. Overall it was a fun time filler and it's certainly way more entertaining than the rating would suggest. One of the things that tells me is that the production company didn't pay anyone to post a bunch of positive reviews on sites like this. In fact some of the reviews seem to be trying to settle a score so maybe they were going to get a crew to do that and ran out of money so the professional reviewers turned on them. In any case don't be turned off by the low rating.

The acting isn't the greatest and there is quite a contrast when Kelly Hu or Picardo are expressing emotion with their faces and the others have either blank expressions or look like they are feeling constipated. But there aren't any characters or actors that are real turn offs.

If you are looking for some high budget effects and an all star cast this isn't for you. But if you can enjoy a low budget film with a decent story and good twists give it a try.

Godzilla (2014)

Just watch the old movies for free

[2/10 · 17 May 2014]

I had high hopes for this as someone who liked Breaking Bad and the trailers I had seen for this movie. I had thought it was going to be a throw back to the 1950s where Godzilla was actually a monster and people where having a hard time figuring out how to kill it. But it turned out to be another of the kiddie Godzilla saves the world battling other "evil" monsters. There were a lot of people in the theater that seemed to enjoy it and cheered whenever the big guy made an appearance. However...

There was an hour of set up before the monster action started. The actor I was hoping to see save the world got killed in a simple fall. The "hero" I guess you would call him comes home after a 14 month deployment promises his kid he will be there in the morning but hops the first plane to Japan to bail his Dad out of jail. Aren't there bail bondsmen in Japan? This same kid is stuck on an evacuation bus by his mother because she thinks its better to send the kid off by himself and wait for her husband to come home. The entire US military seems to consist of a few army units with machine guns an a bazooka, the navy of ships that has no guns, and a few tanks that decide to take up defensive positions on the golden gate bridge! The Air Force does actually try to use some technology but are helpless as the monsters give off EMP which knock the plans out of the sky.

One of the ironic parts was that even though the adult monsters are invulnerable a gasoline fire can take care of all their eggs without a problem. And oh my God what a twist when it turns out the nuke may actually go off while it's still in the city.

It's the kind of movie where the whole city is being evacuated but when the monsters fight there was still some shots of people working in a high rise office. Those are dedicated workers!! Another big disappointment was the big airdrop with the guys trailing red smoke. Since there was still tons of people in the city including the hero's wife there doesn't seem to have been a reason why they don't just have jogged in. They also try to hide and remain silent when on the ground but for some reason decide to trail the red smoke so everyone including the monsters can see their trajectory. It does look cool on the screen but it really had no purpose.

In addition to killing off Bryan Cranston early in, Ken Watanbe has nothing to do but have a worried look on his face and tell people to let Godzilla handle things. And David Strathairn has much too wimpy of a persona to be the tough Admiral who the US Government has delegated all responsibility to. Aaron Taylor-Johnson had no charisma in this role and it's hard to tell if the writing made him bland or he just is bland. They also had a little subplot of him helping a little boy separated from his parents which did nothing but add to the running time of the movie.

I got the impression that they wanted Sam Shepard for the part of the Admiral and Channing Tatum for the part of the hero and went down the list of that type of actor until they got these two.

The production team also chose to have a lot of shots of buildings that have already been destroyed, cut aways from the monster fights, and many many scenes of reaction shots of people looking on in shock and what is coming. I was hoping to see more of the monsters actually doing these shocking things then just the aftermath and the looks on people's faces.

So if you want to see another Godzilla versus the Smog Monster type of movie you will probably enjoy it. If you want a serious monster then this one isn't for you.

House of Bones (2010 TV Movie)

Charisma Carpenter completely wasted

[3/10 · 23 January 2010]

I watched "House of Bones" after seeing a mention in USA Today that Charisma Carpenter from Buffy/Angel was starting in it. What a let down. I do not understand why the producers would put her in the movie then give her virtually nothing to do. As a basic "haunted house" movie it is okay. In this case the house doesn't have ghosts living in as the house itself it sort of alive. A team of ghost hunters come after going to 50 other houses none of which showed any real paranormal activity. Charisma sort of shows up with no back story as some class of medium. She is wearing baggy clothes and there is no attempt to glam her up. Okay as the story starts to unwind the ghost hunters are running around the place and about every ten minutes the script has Charisma holding her head and complaining about the evil presence. I kept waiting for her character to step up and take over or become possessed or do something else to become the focal point of the story. But no, it never happens. The part wasn't any kind of a show case, it was something they could have pulled anyone off the street and stuck in there and there wouldn't have to change any dialog. I don't understand this as they could have kept the story virtually the same but have character that gets the most screen time and is alive at the end be played by Charisma. That I would have enjoyed, this is just disappointing.

So if you want to see a "C" movie about a haunted house it's okay as a time filler. If you want to see Charisma Carpenter as I did this is not something to watch.

PT 109 (1963)

Excellent little war movie

[7/10 · 13 January 2010]

This movie has some great characters, some nice action, humor, and is really enjoyable to watch. The fact that it's based on real life incidents from JFK's time in the Navy makes it that much better. There are some nice touches that show that the boat wasn't the best in the fleet and JFK wasn't shown as a Superman. One of my favorite movie lines is from this movie. The boat has been sunk, several men are hurt and JFK gives a little speech to try to raise everyone's spirits and concludes his positive spin by saying the "odds are with us". Robert Culp very irritated says "We are trapped behind enemy lines, no food, no medical supplies, no one knows where we are, Japanese patrols are all around us, how can you stand there and say the odds are with us??" JFK says "I guess it's a character flaw".

The 60s and 70s would have been so much better for everyone if JFK had 8 years in the White House.

The Longest Day (1962)

Excellent WW2 Movie

[9/10 · 2 November 2009]

The Longest Day has been one of my favorite WW2 movies of all time. There is so much packed in that you can see it multiple times and still pick up things you may have missed. The only weak point for me is the casting of Red Buttons as a US paratrooper. Aside from that excellent work from many people some of whom include: Henry Fonda as Teddy Roosevelt Jr demanding to be included in the invasion with his men.

Jeffery Hunter - very good as a member of the demolition team on Omaha beach who has to take over when his officers are killed. The movie did a very good job of showing how regular/nameless people like Hunter's character would play such a big part in winning a battle and no one other than the people there ever knowing about it.

Richard Burton as the last of the RAF pilots from the start of the war. He doesn't have a big part but gets a lot in on the few scenes he has.

Sean Connery - excellent as a little comedy relief Curt Jurgens as the German general knowing re-enforcements were needed but caught between Hitler throwing a tantrum and his boss who refuses to speak to Hitler personally "Get on my knees to that Bohemian Corporal?? Never !" Richard Todd as the Brit told to "hold until relieved" and not know if the relief would ever come.

A short scene where a group of nuns arrive during the middle of a battle showing as much courage as anyone there to try to help with the wounded They had people from the French Resistance, Rommel, war correspondents, the beach masters, it seemed like they tried to cover just about every aspect, most for just a few minutes but very well done. Robert Mitchum, Robert Wagner, Roddy McDowell, John Wayne, etc.

If you like WW2 films and don't mind black & white with no gore you should love this movie.

The Tournament (2009)

Action packed and Kelly Hu is smoking!

[8/10 · 26 October 2009]

The plot involves a tournament for assassins. Each has a tracking device implanted so they can find each other. The movie revolves around three people, Ving whose wife has been killed and is in the tournament to settle a score, a priest who accidentally gets one of the implants so is mistaken for a player, and Kelly Hu who tries to help him out. Kelly kicks ass and still looks great even beat up and disheveled. Most of the action scenes involve her fighting off one or more killers while trying to protect the priest. If you are a fan of hers definitely get this movie.

The movie actually has a lot of special effects and is almost non stop action. Ving is starting to look old but he is supposed to be in pretty bad shape most of the movie so that is okay. I think this is the first movie I have seen him in where he keeps a long sleeve shirt on the whole time.

People running the tournament hit the right note and the other assassins that get screen time all do a good job. They tried to make each assassin have their own style - grenades, RPG, high powered rifle, shot gun, machine pistol, etc. In addition to the action there is a nice sub plot about redemption - the priest, Kelly, and Ving are looking for it and it's woven nicely into the story. There are no extra elements tacked on for their own sake.

If you like this genre you will like this movie!

Terminator Salvation (2009)

CGI done by a master, plot & script by 3rd grader

[3/10 · 23 May 2009]

This movie makes you appreciate how great James Cameron is. In the first movie Kyle Reese says he is coming from the 2024 and the Arnold model terminator was new. This movie is set in 2013 and Kyle Reese is a teenager. The basic frame work is there and the CGIs were excellent particularly the motorcycle robots. Part of this sequence is in the trailer. Another nice point was using Michael Ironside as a leader of some kind of quasi official resistance movement.

Now how the heck did they mess this up? It starts in the year 2003 where a guy is about to be executed via lethal injection. A woman doctor begs him to donate his body to science. You think oh she will be a part of the plot but no, she is not seen as a living person again. Now the guy is killed via lethal injection. He is dead but somehow the doctor must have jumped in and cut out his brain and heart and in spite of the lethal injection apparently neither organ is damaged. Flash to 2013 and the guy pops up with a functional human brain and heart in what turns out to be a terminator-lite body.

So here are the first couple of problems. In the first movie Reese said the early terminators had rubber skin and were easy to spot but this body appears perfect not rubbery at all. Ignoring that you ask why did they use the guys heart? The brain you can understand but why would they bother with the heart when there are no lungs? Well it's a plot device.

The robot with a human brain guy hooks up with teen age Kyle Reese is living in burned out LA with what seems to be an eight year old girl. Between the two of them they work out some pretty elaborate booby traps. Why are they there? You would think Reese would be the type of person to try to save an eight year old rather than turn her into a front line fighter but what the heck.

He has a series of adventures and winds up with John Conner trusting him to help rescue teen age Kyle Reese who is a captive of the terminators. Another captive is Jane Alexander who is introduced, has a couple of lines and you think, if they put in an actress of her status they would use her later in the movie. But no it's just a delightful cameo for no apparent reason.

The camp that the machines have doesn't sound anything like the one Reese described in Terminator 1 but again you can ignore that. Now we find out that the robot with a human brain was programmed by the machines to trick John Conner to come in. Okay so they built the robot and got a feed from what his robot eyes saw. Why didn't they just explode his power source when Conner was inches from him instead of this elaborate ploy? Now in the high light of the movie a Arnold model terminator gets loose and attacks Conner. That is fantastic CGI. Now Arnold kills the robot with the human brain & heart with a heart punch. Conner brings him back and together they defeat the terminator and get loose after Conner is impaled.

At this point the movie was okay but here in the last 5 minutes they completely lost me. Conner is in the desert under a canopy and his wife/doctor says his heart is damaged. Now we understand why the robot with the human brain was given a heart!! He says he will be an organ donor! His wife doctor immediately agrees and apparently they had a team of surgeons and a heart/lung machine standing by in the desert there. The blood /tissue types match and wham bam thank you mam the heart transplant is successful.

What kind of doctor would ripe a heart out of a living person in order for a transplant? The only time I saw this before was in "Monty Python's Meaning of Life". That time it was funny this time it was like a 3rd grader wrote it. What kind of leader would agree to take a living heart from one of his followers?? It was just too stupid for me.

Why was the human brain the machines choose the one from the lethal injection guy that was in a pickle jar or someplace for 10 years when they had hundreds/thousands of captives to choose from? Did you see "Frankenstein"? Or "Young Frankenstein"? Maybe the robot sent out to get a human brain accidentally dropped the good one and picked the lethal injection one. Why have the human brain at all when they could make the outside of him perfect? The outside was really all that mattered.

So if you are interested in CGI effects you might enjoy it. I did not.

Bandolero! (1968)

First Draft of Lonesome Dove??

[7/10 · 23 May 2009]

When I first watched the movie I thought it was an okay pot boiler. Raquel Welch is as hot as a woman could be dressed in 1860s clothes. Then I watched it again after reading someone's comments about how some of the characters are the same as Lonesome Dove. If you enjoyed Lonesome Dove, watch this it will become much more interesting. The credits show it was scripted by James Lee Barrett based on a story by Stanley Hough. No mention of McMurtry but there has to be some connection.

In both you have sheriff July Johnson with deputy Roscoe chasing a woman who is running with an outlaw named Dee. It's Dee Bishop instead of Dee Boot. Watch it and you will probably find more similarities.

If nothing else Raquel Welch is smoking hot and the rest of the cast is really solid. Take a look sometime.

X-Men Origins: Wolverine (2009)

Another example of too much focus on CGI

[3/10 · 4 May 2009]

There was one reviewer who said that this seems like a Steven Segal movie made in the 1980s. I think that is pretty accurate with $150 mil of CGI thrown on top of it. The CGIs are great but you come out feeling blah about the whole thing. After the studios butchered one of the first Tarzan movies Edgar Rice Burroughs told them they could do anything they wanted with Tarzan as long as it had nothing to do with any of his actual stories. I agree with him. Either stick to the story as written (and why not since it's been popular for 20 years) or just make up something completely new. Trying to twist things around so that they sort of fit just doesn't improve the situation at all.

The actors are all pretty decent. The movie starts with a pretty strange sequence and then flips into the war montage that I had been looking forward to. I thought they would use this to explain the characters a little more fully but basically what you see in the trailers is all there is.

So where is the blood thirsty Wolverine we had expected? I thought the back story was going to set that up but other than he seemed to like being in combat they didn't show it. I had hoped his girl friend/common law wife would be Japanese but no, there is no conflict with the Samurai type anti-western father.

Ryan Reynolds seems wasted in a small part. The Blob was one of my favorite villains in the comics but here I don't know what he is. Some really strong guy with an eating disorder rather than a mutant who cannot be moved.

No explanation of why/how Sabertooth turns into the character in X-men part 1.

One of the real let downs was the cameo of Professor X at the end of the movie. He shows up just to give some of the mutants a helicopter ride in the last 5 minutes. So he knew what was going on there the whole time but just shows up then why? I have no idea, it just seems tacked on for no reason.

If you have never read any of the comics and want some mindless CGI filled action movie you might enjoy this. Other than that, don't get your hopes up.

Battlestar Galactica (2004–2009)

Jumped the Shark

[2/10 · 14 December 2008]

The show started out as one of the greatest, best written shows I have seen. Some where along the way they either ran out of ideas or had a fear of success or something. The original concept, that the Cylons were fighting a genocidal war against humans was thrown out when it was revealed that several key humans were actually cylon sleeper agents. If they had been activated the war would have been over the first week. It was one of the changes that completely negated the earlier, excellent episodes. It was similar to when the movie Aliens 3 starts starts off with meaningless deaths of key characters from Aliens2 or when Brad Ratner had Xmen start killing each other off in Xmen3. These things are bad by themselves but also taint all the earlier episodes. How can you go back and enjoy the first seasons of the show knowing that most of the actions by key characters are lies and completely illogical since you now know they are cylons. A bitter, bitter, disappointment.

Quantum of Solace (2008)

All action - which can be a bad thing

[3/10 · 17 November 2008]

The movie was action packed. The stunt work was great. With CGI it's difficult to tell how much was real but it sure looked like there were people taking most of those bumps. There was a nice sort of tribute to "Goldfinger" in there with the manner of death of a woman Bonds meets and hops into bed with about 20 minutes after meeting her.

Those were the positives for me.

On the down side - I am sorry to say I didn't remember who was who from the last movie so I wasn't sure which people Bond was after due to the current movie plot and which were left over from the last movie. The main villain was kind of a shady business man. He wasn't interested in taking over the world or anything, just wanted to make money by taking over the water rights in 3rd world countries. He was connected some how to a larger group of shady business people. I don't think he will wind up ranking with the top Bond villains.

Bond hooks up with a woman who (I think) was in the Bolivian secret service but apparently was out on her own seeking revenge. She and Bond cross paths a few times but in the end he drops her off in some slum area of a city with no explanation, I guess she lived around there but that seemed a bit strange. The actress was good, looked great, but what the heck was going on there? The fight scenes were shot in the style where everything was made blurry fast by camera movement to the point where I had a hard time telling who was hitting who. At one time "steady cams" were a great improvement as they eliminated the jerky camera movements but it seems in this movie they intentionally went for an anti-steady cam look. I don't understand this style but this isn't the only movie doing things that way.

In the fights Bond seems to always get his gun kicked or knocked out of his hand at the beginning of the fight. I had to wonder why he didn't carry a backup piece or a knife or something since he had such a hard time holding onto his gun.

The climax takes place in a hotel built in the middle of know where that had tanks of easily pierced/exploding tanks of hydrogen scattered about. The secondary villain was an army general who the business people were going to turn into El Presidente with the agreement of the British and American governments. He was about to launch a coup but had just a couple of guys with him. At the time when the coup was about he take place he takes time out to try to rape a hotel waitress. I thought maybe he should be thinking about taking over the country first and raping later but apparently he wasn't taking a hands-on role in the overthrow of the government.

While Bond does kill off the 10 or so bad guys at the hotel there is nothing said about the rest of the organization that was supposed to be over throwing the government. So did that coup go on and another guy got made the new El Presidente or was the whole thing postponed? That was just left hanging. The business people still apparently had control of the countries water supply. Bond apparently blows town leaving the locals dying of thirst.

The CIA puts a kill on sight order on Bonds because he was going "rogue" trying to stop the overthrow of a government. Hasn't that been done before? In Die Another Day and License to Kill wasn't he going rogue in those too? How many times can they do that? You would think Bond would be getting fed up with his own people turning on him like that.

Bottom line is that I don't think I will watch this again even if I was given a free ticket. Once is enough. If you like mindless action you might find it enjoyable but if you are looking for a "James Bond" movie, this isn't it.

The Idolmaker (1980)

Ray Sharkey is great!

[7/10 · 29 March 2008]

I remember going to see this movie when it first came out. It's sort of a formula picture with the struggle to get to the top, the fame/power corrupting, the fall, then the redemption. Two things made this work, first the musical numbers were very good. This is a very difficult thing, making a movie about hit records and having to write original music that sounds like a hit. The movie shows how much work goes into the preparation and planning required to make it. This aspect was surprisingly good.

The main thing that holds your attention though is Ray Sharkey. I just saw it again on Encore. I knew Sharkey was good in the part but looking back now I can see he is very good. It almost seems that Bruce Willis copied Sharkey's style from this movie in several of his own. I could see Sharkey in the "Die Hard" movies. He brings so much energy to the part and is totally believable as wise guy with a quick temper.

When I first saw this movie I thought Sharkey was going to have a great career. I don't know if it was the drugs, a poor choice of parts or both but he really had talent and charisma. If he hadn't gotten hooked on drugs and contracted AIDS he could have been a Joe Pesci if not a Jr Robert DeNiro. If you think I am making this up get a copy of this movie and take a look. He did show flashes of what he could do in some television work but just couldn't keep it together for any length of time.

If you have any interest in the pop music of the late fifties early sixties or just want to watch what a talented actor can do with a formula picture take a look at this.

Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles (2008–2009)

After 2 episodes poor casting has made me lose interest

[3/10 · 17 January 2008]

I watched the pilot and wasn't impressed but thought that sometimes the pilots are bad but the series is good so I watched the first episode but that hasn't changed my opinion. The basic plot is that a bunch of people & robots have been sent back in time to either kill or protect John Connor. It is supposed to follow the time line from the first 2 movies and uses a trick to jump the characters from the time period of T2 into the present day.

My first problem is with the general concept that whole groups of people/robots have jumped back into time. In order to get the characters from 1999 to 2007 they put in a bit where the future people sent someone back who could make a time machine (back in 1963!) which the group uses to jump to 2007. Okay let's think about that for a minute, time machine technology has gotten to the point where someone can recreate one with 1960s parts? In the first movie the time machine was smashed so no one else could go back. Well if both sides have one working again why do the robots bother with John Connor? Why not create a neutron bomb or some bio-chemical weapon to make all the human die or become sterile or something, why waste time with guns? But there are always problems when you get into using time machines a lot so putting that aside my main problem is with the cast. The actor playing John Connor seems okay, but the mother and the teen-age girl/friendly terminator seem to have zero charisma. The Sarah Connor character really needed a strong actor and in the first 2 episodes I am not getting any thing like that from her. The teen age girl terminator is even worse. When she is introduced she is acting like a normal human. When she shows she is a terminator she starts with the blank expressions. Why was she able to act normal only at first? Maybe my problem is that the only 2 shows I have been watching are Battlestar Galactica and Smallville. They both have excellent casts who can carry a poor script and enhance a good one. The Sara Connor chronicles just doesn't have anyone like that.

I really wanted this to work. The show could improve but I think they lost me. I will wait until someone tells me it has gotten good before I spend any more time on it.

The Final Season (2007)

Excellent, good cast, good story

[8/10 · 14 October 2007]

The story of a small town high school baseball team in the school's last year. The school, against the wishes of the towns people will be closed and the students transferred to another town's larger school. Sean Austin looking and acting like Vic Morrow has to pull together the depressed, fragmented team. The whole cast contributes. The focus is on the baseball team but it gives a nice picture of life in a small farming community. Tom Arnold is really effective in a small role. This shows what can be done with a small budget and no special effects. I will definitely buy this when it comes out on DVD.

The movie has the climax in the big state championship game. The fact that a town with 500+ people could have a high school state champion baseball team once is something but this one had 19. The opposing teams pitcher was unbeaten in the regular season. The person playing the pitcher was excellent. He just had one line but the expressions and body language was very effective. I liked it quite a lot.

I am sorry to say that I never saw this advertised and I think there was 3 other people in theater. The only reason I saw it was because I had a free pass and the movies I really wanted to see weren't accepting passes yet. After the movie I felt like going back and giving them the $8. It's a good movie but due to either no big stars or no money for advertising most people will never hear of it.

Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer (2007)

Big Disappointment

[3/10 · 5 October 2007]

The Silver Surfer coming to Earth is one of the classic comic stories. It was one of my favorite stories and the way it was butchered in this movie really bothers me. If you didn't know the story you might like the movie better, it's hard for me to say.

In the classic Stan Lee-Jack Kirby comic, the Silver Surfer arrives and over the course of the comic tells his story. Galactus is an ancient super powerful creature who needs energy to survive. To the extent he consumes the energy of an entire world. He arrived at a world where people had become jaded and only one person went to meet him. This person impressed Galactus and promised to go out and find other worlds if Galactus would spare his. Galactus agreed and turned him into the Silver Surfer. The Surfer returns to say good bye to his wife/lover and leaves forever. He condemns himself to a lonely existence to save her. When he arrives at Earth he had been looking for a suitable planet for a long time. Galactus needs to feed, there is no time to find another planet. The Surfer had made a point of finding worlds with no intelligent life but has no options. He condemns the Earth to save his home world. The Fanatasic Four fight Galactus and the Surfer, convinced by Alicia (Ben's girlfriend) he joins with them and they drive off Galactus who takes his revenge by forcing the Surfer to remain on Earth.

In another story Dr Doom steals the powers of the stranded Surfer. In this movie rather than spending time developing the character of the Surfer they decided to combine both stories, and cut Galactus completely out of the picture. They took 2 good stories and by smashing them together and then adding in some comedy and the wedding of Reed and Sue created a complete mess.

Whey don't they trust the material, why did they feel the need to cram 3 movies worth of stories into one? If they don't like the material why not create a new story?

So this truncated/corrupt version has some nice special effects but I didn't think the Surfer was particularly well done as a CGI. And Galactus is turned into a dust cloud? What a let down. It killed the whole series for me. I just wish they would let someone who liked the comics actually make the movie.

X-Men: The Last Stand (2006)

Much worse than you were afraid it would be

[1/10 · 26 May 2006]

I started reading the x-men comics back in the 60s up through the middle 90s. I loved the characters. I really liked the 1st X-men movie, and loved the 2nd. This one seems to have been made by people that never read any of the comics, or enjoyed the first 2 movies. I don't know what you would think of it if you weren't familiar with the characters. The special effects were good, but that is becoming routine. SPOILERS it really bothered me that they would kill off Professor X and Cyclops. Anyone who has read comics knows that much can be done without resorting to killing off main characters. That was what made Jean Grey's "death" in the 2nd movie so powerful. Okay, so to follow the story she had to come back, that is okay but then to have Magneto turn on Mystique, have Jean kill Cyclops, then have her kill professor X, and a company or two of the US Army, I really don't understand it.

They have said this is the last movie, I really hope it is, but then since they have pretty much wrecked the team I don't know what they have left to do. I thought Brett Ratner was going to mess it up, but I thought maybe it would be dull, but I never guessed he could make it in a way that would make me regret seeing it. I really, really wished I had not seen this movie.

From the number of people that gave it a "10" I guess some people like it but then a lot of people give "10"s to just about any movie out there so that doesn't mean too much. I hope the movie bombs and Ratner never directs any thing other than music videos for bands I never heard of. That is probably too much to hope for but I do know I will never pay money to see anything he directs again.

Saving Private Ryan (1998)

30 minutes of gore followed by 120 of stupidity

[2/10 · 25 August 2001]

The movie starts out with a recreation of the Normandy landings. Plenty of gore, some humor which may have been untintentional. The US army platoon shows they know how to stay alive, use cover, not take foolish chances, etc. The whole landing was better shown in "The Longest Day" without the gore but this first sequence was effective. Next the platoon is asked to find 1 particular solider. At this point the boys seem to leave all their brains behind. They decide to fight to the death over some meaningless bridge, commit one act of stupidity after another. This would make some sort of sense if they were green troops but they spent the whole first half hour showing how good they were at fighting. Everyone I know thought the whole last section of the movie, irritating, stupid, or worse. How it got such a high rating is beyond me. After you sit through it once you will never want to see it again.

Edge of Darkness (1943)

Nazi's occupy small town

[10/10 · 25 August 2001]

Errol Flynn, Ann Sheridan, Walter Huston are all great. The whole aspect of the towns people having to control their anger at the Nazi's is an good plot, and the action scenes are very well done. A very different war movie, well made, nice cast, well written.