Vlad-58 Reviews

Today You Die (2005 Video)

I have just seen Today You Die, it is bad, but Steven is very good!!!

[4/10 · 11 September 2005]

I have just seen Today You Die. It is bad, almost very bad.

1) The direction and editing are awful, just awful. Almost made me turn off the movie, Fauntleroy (the director) has no idea what he is doing, he seems to be filming things at random and some scenes don't make sense at all. Also, I hate it when the same scene is used again in the same movie, in this movie some scenes were used 3 or 4 times. Pretty bad.

2) The dialogue is sometimes good, sometimes awful. I like the fact that they wanted to make Seagal's character and Treach's character seem like they were in a similar relationship to the characters in Lethal Weapon, but it did not work simply because some of the dialogue DID NOT MAKE SENSE, and I speak English very well, it's not that I did not understand the words, it was the fact that the jokes and dialogue lines had no meaning whatsoever.

3) The script is pretty bad. Why do they always try to complicate DTV action movies? Seagal's wife in the movie has psychic abilities, why? Is it useful to the movie? NO. Seagal eliminates a whole bunch of people who work for the guy who betrayed him and he knows these people without having ever met them in the movie. STUPID. The story sometimes goes off track and the jumps back without any reason. The story is messy and pointless sometimes. They should have kept it simple and it would have worked.

4) In some of the action scenes it is not Seagal, it is his stunt double. You can tell because they only film him from behind and never show his face. He also beats the guys with movie martial arts, not real ones like the aikido Steven knows. The stunt double uses cheesy kicks and punches.

5) Steven is good in the movie. 90-95% of the lines are said with his real voice. The rest is dubbing but it is not that bad. This was good. Also Steven seems to be enjoying himself in the movie and is more into the action that he was in Submerged. He likes Treach as a partner; at least he does not seem to dislike him. Also, he seems to have been in better shape than in some of his recent movies. I hate the fact that he wears clothes to hide his body, but in the same clothes that he wears on the DVD cover he looks more than OK and he should have wore those clothes for most of the movie not the stupid long leather coat.

I really think that Seagal was willing to make a good movie. The fact that he came late and took off early from the set ON TWO MOVIES directed by Fauntleroy does not look like a coincidence to me. I think he realized that the crew were amateurs or only in it for a quick buck and he did not give a damn anymore.

In the hands of a better company and crew this might have been a damn good action movie for Seagal. Something like Out for Justice or Above the Law. I honestly believe that. But the people who made the movie are not very good at their jobs or they did not have enough money to do the job properly. Too bad since I liked Steven in the movie and Treach was cool (Ice Cool ) too, but the rest was bad. Hey, at least this gives me hope for Black Dawn and Shadows of the past. I think that Mercenary might be just as badly handled. But hey, Steven seemed to be back into the same mood he was in while making his better movies and at least THAT is reason enough to watch the movie.

I liked it, but it could have been SO much better. 4/10

Star Trek: Enterprise (2001–2005)

Wrongfully hated, great show! It MUST last longer than 4 years!

[20 August 2004]

I simply do not get why people hate this show. It isn't award wining material and I still consider it somewhat inferior to StarGate Sg-1, but after viewing seasons 1 and 2 in the same week and starting on season 3 now (I am up to ep 5 and loving it) I have to admit that it IS up to par with any other Star Trek series. I love it. Some great direction in certain episodes, some nice story lines and special effects to compete with some made-for-cinema Sci-Fi movies, there's nothing really wrong here except the fact that the characters seem to develop too fast during the course of one episode then revert to their primordial status in the next episode. Although this happens in every TV-series it is a little more obvious here...

Here's hoping that Season 4 will be great and that the show will have many more years. I really love the characters Trip, Malcolm and T'Pol, Hoshi is OK, Cpt. Archer is great, but a little too nervous during the 3rd season and Travis is a little too innocent for my taste.

Star Trek is not back, it never left people. Sure this show could be easily improved, but as a fan of TNG and of the 10 movies with a little experience with TOS and DS9 (I don't really like Voyager) I have too admit that this show is great. Just watch it with an open mind, stop fussing about details or time lines, at least the show is great entertainment and done in the same principles as TOS and TNG. Look what AvP The Movie did, it took what was great about the Alien and Pred franchises and ruined them. Enterprise has respect for the source material. I honestly like it.

All the comments about time lines and history which were established in the the other series are correct. But considering that this show is the result of Berman and Braga I have to admit, it could have been much worse. The acting, directing and story lines are above average. The stories are good mostly, some very good and only a handful are below average. The entire cast is doing a proper job,certain episodes are more than wonderfully acted.

I really thought that this show must be bad if so many people hate it. I really don't get why they hate it. It works on every level. I really feel that this is a prequel to TOS despite all the SFX work, but come on! If it had looked like something from the 50's (TOS was made in the 60's so a prequel should look more dated) would you have watched? I would have not...

Give this show a chance, it may surprise you, it surprised me and I now love it. The UNTITLED STAR TREK PREQUEL scheduled for a 2006 release should be with ENTERPRISE.

Come on, help the ratings rise, help make ENTERPRISE lat longer than VOYAGER, it deserves as much... (since it is better)

My vote 8/10.

Ned Kelly (2003)

Thinking man's Robin Hood, as good as Tombstone

[4 May 2004]

This movie was a delight. I was not familiar with the legend of Ned Kelly before seeing this movie, but that did not stop me from loving each second of this film. This movie flows from story point to story point while other recent movies of a similar theme seem to jump between said story points. The cinematography is tremendous, the acting SUPERB on all accounts. I was very much impressed with Orlando Bloom. I did not expect him to be this good. I you look at his acting in Saving Private Ryan and compare it to his acting in The Lord of The Rings Trilogy and Ned Kelly it's almost as if you're watching 2 completely different actors. He proved to me that The Lord of The Rings Trilogy was not a fluke, not a one off. Heath Ledger melts into his role and is brilliant. His voice overs are some of the best ever. Not to mention the way he builds Ned Kelly from start to finish. This may seem as your usual movie about a wronged man turned outlaw then hero, but it isn't. It has moral questions. It makes you think if what Ned Kelly is doing is correct. SPOILER

One good example is when Joe kills Aaron for betraying them. I did not think that Aaron deserved to die. On the same point is the final showdown, and the way Joe dies (wonderfully acted by Orlando, although a bit strange).

END SPOILERS.

The storyline is simple and to the point so I won't give anything away. But the in-between-the-lines stuff is just great... In my mind this is a movie on par with Tombstone and Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves(a movie hated by many because Kevin Costner plays Robin without an accent. Sure, it is a big flaw, but the movie is great anyway). But this one makes you think about what the hero is doing, makes you question him. SPOILER

I just loved the fact that Ned Kelly did not fall for Naomi Watts' character. I mean he loved her, but he understood that he could not have her, just plain great....

END SPOILER.

So for me this movie is easily worth an 8/10. If Mr. Rush had been given more screen time and more lines (he is terribly under used) and if it had been completely faithful to the legend, it could have been worth more... But, as it is, it's very, very good.

Get Carter (2000)

Effective. Complex. Layered. Well acted. Sharp. Smart.

[7/10 · 2 March 2004]

I simply do not get what certain people have against this movie. Sure, it's not a cinematic breakthrough, but it is very sharp, smart and focused. Jack Carter's brother, Richie, dies under mysterious circumstances. Jack goes back to his home town to check things out and perhaps find out the truth. What he finds is not all that easy to get to grips with.

This is not your usual run of the mill revenge movie. The story has some layers to it and I am surprised to see that people did not appreciate that. Jack Carter is not a good guy. He is a bad man working in bad town doing bad things. Always was a bad guy. But he reaches a moment in his life when the things that take place between him and his boss's girl Audrey, the things that he finds out about his brother and his brother's family, all of them act as a catalyst. For once in his life he tries to set things right. How does he do that? By doing what he knows to do. He does bad things. The guys he goes up against are a little a out of the reach of the law. To wait for justice to set things right is not a concept Jack is familiar with. The only things he knows is to take care of his own dirty laundry. And at the moment his life is his dirty laundry. He was not there for his brother, for his niece and he missed some oportunities... Time to set things right. But he does only bad things in this movie. He kills people by shooting them, by throwing them out of the balcony, by beating them up in the elevator. WHY? Because these are the same things that would happen to him if he let his guard down.

Great acting performances form most guys in the movie. Stallone seems to have found some serious acting genes within himself. This is some of his best work and his best is very good. Not only for the genre. Although when looking back at Oscar (his 1991 comedy), D-Tox (a very underrated movie) and Copland I have to say that this is not a one off. No sir. When the script, the director and the rest of the cast are good he can act big time. Michael Caine made a very good movie called get Carter back in 1971. I love that movie and is always one of my favorites to watch on Turner Classic Movies. The remake, I felt, is just as good. Sure it has the sort of usual happy ending, but that is just the American Way of ending action movies. They love a hero. Mickey Rourke, Alan Cummings, Michael Caine and Rachael Leigh-Cook are very good in this one. Somehow Miranda Richardson seemed a little over the top in her angry widow/mother scenes.

Michael Caine acted in this one simply because he knew it was good. The movie could have been done without him, without a doubt. But he did it because unlike other remakes, this one is just as good as the original. It has it's own style, a somewhat different story and a happier ending. Otherwise, they are two very similar movies. And even if some consider the original as better, they should not write this one off. The layers are there, you just have to dig. And this only because the producers did not get this movie. The director, the cast, everybody got this movie and knew what they were making except for the producers who seem to have been thinking of another movie. Michael Caine seems to have given his seal off approval to Stallone's acting in this one. The producers wanted a classic 80's action movie. At least that's what I feel. So, this is a very good movie. Just as good (or almost as good, depending on how you look at it) as the original. It has great acting, sharp directing, nice car chase scenes, nice action scenes, some great moments, some wonderful music, a simple yet effective storyline that keeps you guessing and wanting to see more. And as someone put it, crap like XXX, The Fast and The Furious (+sequel, at least is has some cars), Charlie's Angels (+sequel. could not even watch) and other such teen-hormone-slang-flash-driven movies have a higher rating, IT SIMPLY ISN'T RIGHT!!!!!! 7.5/10