flyingdj Reviews

The Art of Flight (2011)

The art of making a beautiful snowboarding movie

[8/10 · 2 October 2011]

Get into a helicopter, get dropped off at the top of the mountain, skate down.

This movie once again makes it seem so easy, yet so impressive at the same time. With a good mixture between big mountain downhill and some of the most impressive jumps you will ever see, "The Art of Flight" is not an educational snowboarding movie. It's a piece that shows you several athletes constantly looking to push the limits.

Whether it is skating down while avalanches are being kicked off left and right, whether they are closely avoiding crashing into rocks on a slope that's not even as wide as a car or whether they land jumps that you thought impossible, this movie will leave you in awe most of the time. Adding to that is the spectacular cinematography in beautiful places like Chile, Patagonia and Alaska. This is hands down the best looking snowboarding piece ever made.

That said, "The Art of Flight" could use a little more direction at points and some of the scenes seemed rather pointless. Other movies build up to a grand finale, this one merely shows you a bunch of guys on the hunt for snow - which does not make it any less of a great movie, but leaves you with a feeling that more could have been achieved. There is very little being said about the personal lives of the athletes as well.

If you're simply looking for big mountain and big air, this is not to be missed. If spectacular images of mountain scenery are your thing, this movie will make you happy. If you're looking for an entertaining movie about snowboarding, you should still go and see this. You might be disappointed though if you're expecting a big story behind it all.

Avatar (2009)

Visually stunning but ultimately empty

[7/10 · 2 January 2010]

Avatar is like that girl you've always wanted to date in high school. Beautiful, head of the cheer leading squad and everybody's darling. Once you've gone out with her though, you'll realize she has little to offer besides looks. Sure, that might make you stay for a while, but she won't be the love of your life. Years later, you will hardly remember her.

Avatar is surely an experience to be made. The first ever movie not shown in an IMAX which really made you feel as if you were in it and not just watching a big screen. The world of Pandora, though almost entirely CGI, is an amazing creation that will pull you in like few movies have done before.

The movie's story and characters though, and that is where Avatar stops being amazing, are unimaginative to say the least. It is almost impossible to spoil anything story wise for Avatar: If you've ever seen a movie or read a book, you will know exactly what's going to happen next. There is not a single unexpected twist or at least an interesting way of re-telling an old story in the whole 162 minutes of this movie. While this alone would not be grounds enough to dismiss the content aspect of Avatar, the characters unfortunately aren't much better. Zoe Saldana and Sam Worthington do a good job as the two lead roles, but the rest of the cast, though many of them are quite talented, is forced to play cliché characters saying lines that often make you cringe. Stephan Lang as the Colonel, Sigourney Weaver as the Doctor and Giovanni Ribisi as the Corporate Guy are alternating between over the top and painfully wooden in a way that you won't feel any connection to them at all.

There are a few other, minor aspects that rob Avatar of some of its quality. While you probably shouldn't question how realistic a SciFi movie is, there are more than a few problems of plausibility even within the rules the movie establishes for its world. And it could have been much shorter as many scenes were obviously just put in to show off 3D elements - successfully, but still dragging out the movie towards the three hour mark.

The most important question is probably what people will remember of Avatar, and they will remember an awesome 3D movie. When watched in 2D or when 3D becomes the standard, Avatar will have to stand out through its story and characters - and it will do so with shortcomings in both.

A great 3D movie: Yes. A good movie: Yes. One of the best movies ever: Not a chance.

7/10

Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem (2007)

Expect To Be Disappointed

[1/10 · 28 December 2007]

When you go to see a movie like Aliens vs. Predator, you don't expect Oscar worthy dialog, top notch actors or complex story lines. You expect to see the meanest killing machine in this universe to fight the creepiest creatures one can imagine, with some humans caught in the middle. There's blood, pus and gore and a big showdown at the end.

That's what you might get.

But you might also get Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem. The story begins with a Predator ship bearing the spawn of an Alien infesting a Predator crashing somewhere in Colorado, followed by the immediate killing of the first two humans we've been introduced to. Meet the rest of the cast - Big Brother, who has been in and out of jail and has not done anything worth remembering in his life so far. Little Brother, who is a pizza delivery boy and a pussy in general. He gets beaten up by Three Random High School Boys who see him as a threat regarding his possible relationship with Blonde Dumb Teenage Bitch. Then there's Mexican Looking Sheriff, whose only hard task so far has probably been to catch a cow that had escaped from some farm. Meet Army Mother, who returns from combat only to bring home night vision goggles as a present - for her seven year old daughter. The rest of the cast consists of some dudes who are high on weed, a chef, some frightened wives and girlfriends, a pregnant woman, some nurses and doctors and a lot of army personal.

Where was I? Ah yes, the story. So the ship crashed and aliens have landed on Earth. The Predator ship sends out one last call for help which is immediately picked up on the Predator home planet. What is obviously something like the Predator King decides that dozens of aliens and the mutated alien spawned from a Predator are just about enough to keep one of them busy, so he goes on his mission - alone.

Meanwhile the humans are realizing that something is going on. Two of the city's inhabitants have died (and three homeless people living in the sewers, but those don't really matter). When the Predator arrives, he destroys the crashed ship, covers his tracks by pouring blue liquid over bodies and then shits on all that secrecy by skinning a cop alive and hanging him from a tree. So much for that.

The film continues like that. We see characters being introduced to be killed seconds later, the Little Brother is about to bang Teenage Bitch in the school's swimming pool when Three Random High School Boys arrive to beat him up again, but then the aliens come and interrupt that little party. Of course the black guy dies first. They make it out alive, they meet up and really, I can't tell you the rest of the story without falling asleep.

Let me rather concentrate on the highlights this movie has to offer even despite its heavy flaws. The Lonely Widow saying "The government wouldn't lie to us!" is, be it intentional or unintentional, the funniest line of the movie. The two Dudes On Weed getting their heads blasted away by the Predator comes in a close second, the little girl saying "There's a monster outside my window" with the parents reacting like parents would react to something like that makes it a third place. The Teenage Bitch being nailed to the wall is also a very satisfying experience.

Apart from that, the movie is really that bad. The fighting scenes do not build up suspense, they're awfully cut and the fear that came with the Alien movies is literally non-existent because they are always behind you. Literally no one escapes in the last second, they all either die or make it out alive quite comfortably. None of the characters has depth, humor or any other trace of humanity that would make him distinguishable from the aliens. You won't care who makes it out alive because they're all the same, I have almost forgotten who survived.

The ending is sad. Why? Because the ending is a spoiler that tells us there will be a third part. Please, please, leave the Predator alone and let the Aliens rest. I cannot bear another butchering of those classics. Avoid this movie. Really, even if story, dialog, yes acting itself doesn't matter to you, avoid it.