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Reviews
8MM (1999)
Long, boring and bad...
Nick Cage is another one of those guys who's movies career has been on a downward spiral over the past several years. Yes, he keeps getting roles but the movies are uniformly bad. "Gone in 60 Seconds", "Captain Corelli's Mandolin", and especially "8mm". The premise is intruiging, as any mystery is at the beginning of the film. By time you get to the end, which is a very loooooooooong time from the beginning, it's a different movie and you really don't care if he solves the mystery or not. You just want the movie to stop.
Half Past Dead (2002)
How does he keep getting into movies?!
Steven Segal's movie career is a tribute to horrible cinema. I have been tragically bored with every one of them as soon as I realized that they were even more unrealistic than Jean Claude VanDamme's. Has anyone else ever noticed that he never gets hit?! I mean, give me something to root for...a hard fought battle with a bad guy who's scary. TWENTY YEARS and he's still filming the same fight scenes. Fight scenes can often distract you from the fact that your hero cannot act. The boring choreography of a Segal film places his painful lack of acting skill in sharp relief. Worse yet, he's woefully out of shape. Just what we need, a fat stiff who THINKS he's a leading man. There's not one iota of redeeming cinematic value in all this movies ninety or so minutes. Do NOT watch this unless you feel like throwing away an hour and a half of your life.
Scotland, PA (2001)
Fails as an adaptation.
I was very dissapointed with this film in that it failed to capture any of the malice and madness of the original. Most of the characters were weak and most of the performances forgettable. What saves the movie are the performances of Tierny and Walken. They are intense and played to the hilt. However, LeGros fails utterly as the main character of the film, Walken and Tierny steal the show. Tom Guiry makes very little impact as Duncan's eldest son. This movie did have it's entertaining parts. All of them center around McDuff and Pat McBeth. All the time that those two are not center stage are times when you will miss nothing. On the whole, I think this movie is an okay "Sunday Afternoon Rental", but I'm glad I didn't pay to see it in the theatre.
Ginger Snaps (2000)
Entertaining twist on werewolf flicks...
I've seen just about every werewolf film ever made. There are a great number of bad ones, a host of mediocre ones, some good ones and a couple of great ones. Ginger Snaps lands squarely in the "good" range. The new take on the traditional story is refreshing and the chemistry between Perkins and Isabelle presents us with some first rate screen moments. As most effective monster movies do, the beast remains hidden for the majority of the film. The weakness here is the supporting cast. As a whole, they were bland and very forgettable. However, Perkins and Isabelle will keep your attention glued to them so forgetting everyone else is not a great loss.
In the Mouth of Madness (1994)
Greatly missed aspirations...
I think I saw the name of HP Lovecraft on this movie's box. Well, there's only one problem. Lovecraft's books are scary. Very, very, very scary. This movie is dull and drags horribly. Worst of all, it is NOT SCARY. I thought it was filed under "Horror" and not "Mild Unpleasantness"...which is where it should have been placed. Skip it. It's a dud.
xXx (2002)
Stinks out Loud.
Vin Deisel, oh how your career began with such promise. Your turn in Saving Private Ryan was an example of what a good actor could do with a very small part. Pitch Black was a suprisingly suspenfull horror flick. Everything else you've done since that time has been, not only dissapointing, but flat out awful. XXX is the worst of the bunch. None of the actors make an attempt to perform here. Perhaps it's because they realize how moronic their lines really are. Samuel L Jackson, such a solid actor, must have needed money to take on this colossal piece of schlock. People, stop going to see movies like this so they'll stop making movies like this. Force good actors like Jackson and Diesel to take on challenging projects that might just be worth seeing.
Signs (2002)
Whatever happened to scary aliens?
I finally saw this film after it was released on DVD. After throwing away two hours of my life, I determined three things. First, most people wouldn't know a good movie if it fell on them. Second, Mel Gibson's carreer is on the skids. Thirdly, aliens are no longer scary. There was no suspense to this film. Only one pitiful little plot device. There was no fright, no terror. The aliens could be beaten by a washed up baseball player and couldn't fight their way out of a locked pantry!!! Leave this on the shelf, go rent the original "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" and count yourself lucky to have dodged this stinker.
Dog Soldiers (2002)
I didn't know what was in store!
I picked this film based on what I had planned for the evening (nothing) and because of the dearth of new movies worth seeing. If there was a cinematic lottery, I had won it. Excellent acting, tight story and engrossing action all combined to make this movie one worth a few viewings. The filmakers don't try to distract you from their substandard script or dreadful acting by running an endless series of special effects at you. There's just suspense, acting, suspense, action, gore and more suspense. On top of all that, the characters are very likeable (or hateable). In the current cinematic climate, where movies seem to be video game cinematics starring a few actors, this movie was absolutely refreshing. If movie watching is on your mind, put down that copy of Star Wars II: George Lucas' Apostacy and pick up Dog Soldiers!! You will not regret it!
My Big Fat Greek Wedding (2002)
Sweet...and Boring.
Ethnic humor at it's least offensive. Everyone's nice, everyone's understanding, everything pans out in the end. It's a happy film, through and through. Sort of like cinematic novacaine, I'd say. It does have funny parts, and is and outstanding date flick. But that's it.
Pearl Harbor (2001)
Bad on SO MANY levels!
Hollywood should be ashamed. You would think that our greatest national tradgedy might receive better treatment that this. In a single package, you have bad acting, terrible writing and revisionist history. One verrrrry long package I might add. When is someone going to stop Ben Afleck from making movies? His work has been downhill since "Chasing Amy". Of course, his supporting cast is no better. Kate Beckinsdale, Josh Harnett and Afleck do nothing with the material they are given. Yes, the writing is dreadful, but their performances do nothing more than make that even more obvious than it already is to the viewer. What was up with that "love triangle"? Did they hire and eighth grader to write that portion of the screenplay? This movie should have been forty minutes long. Let us ooh and aah over the explosions. The parts where the actors speak will only induce sleep or, more likely, actual physical pain.
Minority Report (2002)
"Boring Report" is More like it.
Too long, too long, too long, too long...by about forty minutes. This would have been a much more effective movie had Spielberg opted for "addtion by subtraction". Because he opts for the extra length, this film collapses under it's own weight. It begins well enough, ends typically, everything in between is muddled, predictable and boring. Hence, most of it was expendable. I don't understand why this film got such rave reviews, the actors gave journeyman performances and the special effects were good...but not great. There was nothing here to set this film apart from any of the other mediocre, over long, self important sci-fi blockbusters that have been inflicted on us over the past few years. Count yourself fortunate if you missed this in the theatre. On DVD, at least, you can fast forward through the plodding, boring middle of the film.
Star Wars: Episode II - Attack of the Clones (2002)
I'm Going to Pretend This Never Happened...
I'm 33. I grew up with Star Wars. It was an integral part of my childhood. Heck, I understood the concept of the force before I was able to grasp the religion I was to dutifully learn each weekend. Now, Mr Lucas has followed up two of the best movies ever made (Jedi wasn't so good) with what should have been a sequel to his "Howard the Duck" film adaptation. I'm not sure what caused me more discomfort, the insipid dialogue or the wooden way the cast spewed the insipid dialogue. Star Wars had compelling characters and a story line that left you begging for more. This movie, and it's most recent predecessor, left you begging for the end of the movie and of Lucas' career as a writer. Not only was this movie simply awful, with no redeeming value, everyone who grew up loving Luke and hating Darth Vader has been betrayed. Rent the first trilogy for your kids and deny that there were ever any other Star Wars movies made since that time.
Braveheart (1995)
More, sappy, revisionist history...
Sorry guys, this is another one of those movies that really takes a dive whenever anyone speaks. Well, not anyone, just Sophie and Mel. The supporting cast is solid, Cox and McGoohan in particular, but there's no escaping the fact that they are burdened with a script made to inflame the hearts of Scotland-ophiles everywhere. Mr Wallace basically lifted a whole bunch of names from the pages of history and then remade events to suit his film. Sorry, sorry work. I sat through this thing hoping that Gibson would be captured at each turn so that it would end. Did no one else notice that Gibson's Robert the Bruce was a snivelling wimp? The real Bruce was a frightful warrior and powerful King who has got to be spinning in his grave over this travesty. Not to mention that Wallace never got within a country mile of Princess Issabelle...much less fathered her child. Sorry. Wrong again. This is another movie that should have been shortened by removing all the spoken lines. The battle scenes were excellent...sorry about the rest.