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Reviews
Stalin (1992)
Great biography on Stalin's life
I'm not a great fan of biography films, but Stalin is an exception. This film was fantastic when I first watched it in History class. This film basically showcases the important aspects of the life the Russian leader Joseph Stalin. From his early political career to the rise of the Soviet Union and eventually the Moscow Show Trials, the Great Purges and the last stages of his life, told through the eyes of his daughter. Stalin features a powerful and riveting performance by Robert Duvall, as well as similarly great performances from the supporting actors including Maximillian Schell and Julia Ormond. The music by Stanislas Syrewicz is epic and suits the film very well. The screenplay is very gripping and well-written. The cinematography by Vilmos Zsigmond is wonderful as well as the atmosphere. Also look out for Kevin McNally in an small role before he played Gibbs in Pirates of the Caribbean. Overall, Stalin is must-watch film for those interested in biographies, historical figures and well, good movies.
Wrath of the Titans (2012)
Wrath is better than Clash
I didn't even enjoy 2010s Clash of the Titans, it was a clunker and full of crap, and I think the script-writers did better in Wrath of the Titans. At least Wrath showed Bubo for a much longer time, also with a better cameo, talking with Bill Nighy! Wrath is better than Clash in the sense that its more serious and epic, although it still retains the stupid dialog and has some idiotic scenes. The idiotic scenes, actually I can only remember one, the most memorable one. That scene involves Perseus blocking the Chimera's fire with.....that's right! A wooden door!(If I'm not wrong) Guess what? When the door is hit by the flames of the demon, it simply turns black and charred! I doesn't turn into ash or whatever thing. Best scene ever. The most pathetic scene is the one involving the Minotaur, which has the screen time of less than two minutes. So, what should you do? Watch Wrath of the Titans cuz its awesome! Great movie, epic battle scenes, few touching moments (Don't even know if there's any), better script, good actors and good performances, and the best part: Monsters! Spoilers: Minotaur! Cyclopes! Kronos! Makhai! Chimeras! To sum up this review-Go watch Wrath of the Titans!
Journey to the Center of the Earth (2008)
Journey to the Center of Boredom and Fun
I purposely bought this DVD as I'm a fan of low-budget movies. This Journey to the Center of the Earth is an attempt to cash-in on the blockbuster film starring Brendan Fraser.
This movie copies a few elements from the blockbuster, such as a T-Rex and man-eating plants. The script is alright and a little thrilling, but the performances and the visual effects stink.(obviously) So... Greg Evigan and Dedee Pfeiffer are an ex couple scientist who travel in a driller that resembles the Iron Mole from 'At the Earth's Core' for about half an hour of the whole movie to rescue a group of six FEMALE soldiers(??!!) who are accidentally teleported into the center of the earth when they are suppose to be in Germany. In there, the FEMALE soldiers(??!!) encounter man-eating T-Rexes, a swarm of giant alien-looking spiders, carnivorous snapping plants and other dinosaurs and prehistoric creatures. The acting is atrocious, the editing is really bad(For instance, the scene of the plants only lasted about 30 mins!! Then the show another scene, which is confusing due to the horrible editing) but the special visual effects are mediocre. The T-Rex scenes was kinda disappointing as they only appear in the first parts of the film and not the climax.
Overall, the script is bad but still has enough fight scenes. The giant creature scenes are action-packed too. I do not really recommend this film but if you're a true low-budget movie fan, go for it
King of the Lost World (2004)
King of the average B-movie World
Despite the title and being an absolute rip-off of King Kong, this B-movie is pretty good. There are a number of awesome-looking creatures in the film. The story is sort of far-fetched but the jungle-adventure filming locations and actors Bruce Boxleitner and Rhett Giles' performances make the movie entertaining. The story is about a group of survivors of a passenger plane who try to find their way out while battling numerous creatures. I really love the creatures: a giant spider, man-eating plants, giant cave scorpions, flying reptiles, a giant gorilla (actually its a gigantic Bigfoot with abs) and although not creatures, a tribe of vicious natives. This are some of the few things that make this movie atrocious: the natives are plane survivors who crashed long ago??!! Are you kidding?!! That is stupid. Why can't it just be a tribe of religious Native Americans who lived in the Amazon Jungle? Simple as that. The second stupid thing about KOTLW is that the cave scorpions are afraid of camera flashes??!! OK, that makes a little sense, since they probably are adapted to live in caves, so the bright and sudden flashes hurt their eyes. 'The Lost World' has dinosaurs, prehistoric mammals and Native American and Ape Man tribes. But KOTLW has dragons??!! Dragons make this movie look like fantasy, rather than sci-fi and adventure and the giant 'gorilla' is just an over-sized monkey-man. The CGI for the monkey-man is blurry and I can see its face clearly, the animation for the giant cave scorpions could not be seen clearly, since scorpions are black and caves are pitch black. But despite the numerous flaws, King of the Lost World still makes a good sci-fi flick.
Jack the Giant Killer (1962)
Jack the Giant Killer
Even though this film's budget is not less than The 7th Voyage of Sinbad, the producers still managed to make an excellent movie. Jack the Giant Killer is just an attempt made to cash-in on the success of The 7th Voyage of Sinbad made 4 years ago, there are two Cyclops in Sinbad and there are two giants in Jack. Both films have an evil magician. In Sinbad, a Cyclops fights a Dragon, in Jack, a Two-Headed Giant battles a Sea Monster. And in the final part, the hero slays a Dragon, a similar theme in both films. Despite the similarities, Jack the Giant Killer is almost as good as Sinbad. The stop-motion animation are not up to Ray Harryhausen standards, but the three animators did their best. The animated creatures include Cormoran, the first giant Jack killed, an unnamed Two-Headed Giant, a Sea Monster with tentacles for limbs and a Dragon which is actually Pendragon that Jacks slays at the climax of the film. The plot is very entertaining, the acting is solid, Kerwin Mathews is perfect for fantasy movies like this and is charming as Jack, Judi Meredith is almost as beautiful as Kathryn Grant and Torin Thatcher is forever terrifying as the evil wizard Pendragon, the evil grin on his face and his Bela Lugosi Dracula stare makes him a perfect villain. Coupled with some dazzling visual effects and wonderful animation of the creatures, this action filled family-fantasy movie is sure to entertain children with its fantasy theme and please adults with the plot and special effects. I highly recommend this film.
Robot Monster (1953)
Robot Monster is so bad that it's so good!
Despite utilizing a number of stock footage from earlier movies like from One Million B.C. (1940) and Lost Continent (1951) etc for special effects, having a stupid plot and lousy costume design for the Ro-Mans, I have enjoyed this movie! The plot is pretty simple, the Ro-Mans of the planet with an idiotic name (called Ro-Man too!), has wiped out every single human on Earth with their 'Calcinator Death Ray'. The 'Great Guidance', leader of the Ro-Mans detects surviving humans on Earth, a scientist and his family, a young assistant to the scientist, two unseen assistants and an unseen garrison of soldiers. The two assistants escape on a rocket ship with the soldiers but got killed by the 'Great Guidance' by blowing up the rocket ship. Ro-Man, the main antagonist, decides to kill the remaining humans using physical means after unsuccessful negotiations for a painless death. Ro-Man kills off the young assistant and the youngest daughter of the family, but does not kill the oldest daughter of the family, he instead kills the young boy while the scientist and his wife free their oldest daughter. Disobeying the 'Great Guidance' instructions to kill the oldest daughter then the young boy, Ro-Man is killed by his leader. The 'Great Guidance' personally finishes off Ro-man's task of killing the humans by summoning fighting dinosaurs and some lightning and a massive earthquake. But in the end, the story was just a dream from that young boy who had suffered a not-so-serious concussion, but Ro-man is shown walking out of the cave they were camping in. So I don't care what other people say about how this movie stinks, this movie is full of thrills, despite the extremely low-budget of $16,000! Robot Monster is so bad that it's so good!
The 7 Adventures of Sinbad (2010)
Stupid movie, but great action scenes
At first I was really excited to see this movie, reading the reviews and seeing clips of the movie. But I was really disappointed after seeing the movie. The performances by the actors are crap, the plot is too boring and not well written. the action scenes were awesome but they were absolutely short, each of them being about less than 5 minutes long! The beginning was stupid and so was the ending. Details for the monsters were not enough. Even when my aunt saw it both of us agreed that it was Z-grade movie. Don't waste your time watching this lame movie and go watch the stop-motion Ray Harryhausen Sinbad movies instead.