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Reviews
Superman Returns (2006)
No action, but a metric ton of heart.
Before I begin this review, let me make it very clear that I am not a Superman fan. I'm familiar with him-what comic book fan isn't? But outside of a few select stories, I've by and large considered him a fairly boring character. As someone once said, "How do you write for someone who can destroy a galaxy by looking at it really hard?". He seemed to me to be the epitome of wish fulfillment on the part of the creators.
With that said, it should be very clear what I mean when I say this movie absolutely blew me away.
From the moment Clark put the tights on to the beginning of the credits sequence, my eyes were at no point dry. I am not one to usually get emotionally attached to what I am watching but I simply could not help crying in my seat. It wasn't even so much what Superman was doing, it was the people and their reaction to it. Like when he is falling to earth and everyone lining the streets stands and watches him fall. It's the reaction of the common man in the face of powers far beyond their comprehension. He's a symbol, the emblem that unites all the people of Metropolis, and indeed the entire world.
This movie is almost entirely bereft of action(I don't think Superman punches anyone once) but it doesn't matter. This is a movie with a metric ton of heart, and it gets by just fine with it.
Kevin Spacey does a chilling and entertaining job as Superman's nemesis, Lex Luthor, and both Brandon Routh and Kate Bosworth do an amazing job as Superman and Lois lane, respectively.
Don't walk into this movie expecting a action-based slugfest, because you won't get it. But even without it, this is a must-see for anyone who's ever heard of Superman.
The Final Cut (2004)
A movie with interesting ideas, and some very good visuals, but unfortunately it doesn't really go anywhere
Imagine that every single moment of your life is recorded. An implant within your mind records every sight you see and every sound you hear, from birth until your death. And upon your death, these recordings are spliced together by a professional video editor(or 'Cutter') and shown at your funeral.
Now imagine that one in ten people has one of these in their heads.
If you insult them, it'll be on camera. If you get rejected by them, it's immortalized in celluloid. if you sleep with them...well, let's just not go there.
How would you live your life? It's an interesting concept, and one that could have been expanded into an excellent film. Instead, it seems Omar Naim could not decide where he wanted to take the film.
Robin Williams plays Alan Hakman, a Cutter and one of the best in the business. he takes the clients the others turn down, and turn complete scumballs into saints for the sake of their loving families. He himself is haunted by a tragic event in his childhood, one which he has never disclosed to anybody. When he accepts the job to do a Rememory(the films of the person's life) for Charles Bannister, a lawyer for the company that sells the implants, he discovers within the man's memories a secret about his own childhood that makes him question his own memories.
The good news about this movie is that it is visually amazing. The scenes of Alan doing his cutting remain memorable, and the tattoos that adorn the faces of anti-implant protesters are at one disturbing and very telling. The images recorded from the buggy implants were surreal and also strangely beautiful.
There are also many memorable scenes. For example, the scene near the beginning where he shows the beginning of a client's Rememory to the deceased's wife, and then once she is gone considers a clip of him horribly abusing her. His finger hesitates over the Delete key, as if considering leaving it in and telling the world the truth about this man, but then he presses it and dooms the woman's plight to obscurity for the rest of her days.
Unfortunately, the film felt pulled in too many directions at once. There was just too much going on, and while it sustained itself for the first three quarters of the film, at the end it begins to unravel and various plot threads are not given a satisfactory conclusion. Even more depressing, the ending is almost frustratingly ambiguous. Is the protest movement in the right? Or are they the monsters they wish to prevent? THis very important question is never answered, and I think it's because Naim does not himself know.
Robin Williams puts in an impressive performance here. THose who saw him in other serious films such as Bi-centennial Man or One Hour Photo will not be surprised by this, but I was caught throughly off guard as the last think I saw him in was Jack. The supporting actors also chip in good performances. Mira Sorvino's anguish when her character discovers that Alan discovered her through someone else's memories is palpable.
This movie could have and should have been much better. What was good was very good. THe acting was impressive, and it was well-written. You really felt an attachment to the characters, and the movie packed an emotional gut-punch every now and then. Unfortunately, the writer/director's inability to decide where he wanted to take the film in its final act rendered the impressive beginning a disappointment.
Equilibrium (2002)
I'm sorry, but I cannot condone this level of theft
There is a grand total of nothing original in the plot or setting of this movie.
Zip.
Nada.
Zero.
The movie was stolen wholesale from far superior dystopian works, namely 1984, Brave New World, Farenheight 451 and Terry Gilliam's surreal masterpiece Brazil. Toughtcrime becomes Sensecrime, but the oh-so-subtle relabeling can't hide the fact that Kurt WImmer is a plagiarizer.
I recognize that almost all stories are derivative in some way, but there's a difference between that and outright theft. And this falls into the second category.
And what little isn't stolen outright is horribly cliché-riddled. Cleric Preston, discovering emotion, finds the hidden art chamber inside a sense offender's house. He looks through it and...oh listen....BEETHOVEN. And a SNOWGLOBE. Wimmer, please.
The acting is uninspired, and visually this movie is as stolen as the plot and setting. Set designs were taken pretty much directly from Brazil, and the movie version of 1984.
Decent action could have made this watchable, but the much-lauded 'Gun Kata' is indecently boring the watch. Wimmer's "special martial art" is just Preston standing in one place, pointing his guns in random directions, and miraculously not getting shot. This is compounded by the silliness of the explanation Wimmer gives for how it works.
Although not nearly as unwatchable as a lot of movies, there's really nothing here to enjoy that you can't get somewhere else. Somewhere better.
Open Water (2003)
If you can sit through this movie, you can endure anything
Last semester, I had the misfortune to have the most boring Philosophy professor in existence. The man clearly knew his stuff, but his presentation was so awkward and useless that it made me feel like drilling a hole in my head just to escape it.
I would sooner sit through a 24-hour long lecture given by him than watch this film again.
This is possibly the most boring film you will ever watch. As soon as the boat takes off, it's just them bobbing in the water. 79 minutes, give or take, of talking heads. Now, I wouldn't mind this so much if any of them had anything interesting to say. Mais non. The dialogue is stilted at best, and mind-crushingly horrible at worst. By the end of the movie, I was practically shouting for the sharks to just EAT THEM ALREADY, and end my torment.
Gothika (2003)
Premise had promise, but the execution fell as flat as paper
Jus to make things clear, I'm not a horror buff. I'm not even a fan of horror. I only saw this movie because my girlfriend wanted to see it, and because I felt like torturing myself.
But, honest to god, this movie was a predictable, boring rehash of every horror cliché.
I'll admit, the premise had me intrigued. Doctor wakes up and finds herself a patient at the very same asylum she used to work at? Could be interesting! Unfortunately, it didn't turn out half as good as that. I was expecting her to wake up, in a bed at the asylum, and have nobody remember who she is. Sadly, that is not the case here. Instead, on the way home from work one night, she takes a detour under a covered bridge, and suddenly spots a little girl in the road ahead of her. She swerves off the road and WAIT JUST ONE MINUTE HERE. I already saw this when it was Silent Hill, thank you.
Anyways, after an exceedingly weird encounter with the aforementioned little girl, she wakes up in the asylum, where she immediately goes about the business of acting like a crazy person. Personally, if I woke up in the middle of the asylum I worked for, I would do my best to seem as calm and rational as possible. I suppose there are other schools of thought.
Basically, the way things worked out, the good doctor went home, chopped her husband up, and then got arrested and sent to the asylum, where she is STILL being haunted by the little girl.
My first major complaint about this movie is how inaccurately they portrayed the inner workings of a mental ward. My girlfriend(whom I watched the movie with!) spent two years in one (deemed a danger to herself and society), and so is familiar with the inner workings of psychiatric wards. I was fairly bombarded with objections, which I'll spare you.
The second is the incredible predictability. I spotted the end plot twist coming a mile away, and by the movie's midpoint I was literally calling "jump moments" five minutes in advance.
Don't get me wrong, this movie's not all bad: Some scenes are actually good, like the good doctor discovering the rapist in Solitary Confinement or the car scene near the end. it actually managed to shine, albeit very dimly, in a few scenes. But most of the movie was a boring, predictable mess.
Fainaru fantajî sebun adobento chirudoren (2005)
Really, not all its made out to be
I'd heard a lot of hype about this movie. People were raving about it long before it ever saw a screen, and an awful lot more after seeing it. So I was somewhat disappointed with the product when I finally saw it.
Don't get me wrong; On a technical level, this movie is incredible. The CGI is far beyond anything I've ever seen outside of a Blizzard cutscene. The music fit the scenes beautifully, and if you are capable of suspending your disbelief enough to allow for some of the ridiculous things these characters do, you'll love the elaborately-choreographed fight scenes. And, honestly, if you can't suspend your disbelief that far, what the hell are you doing watching a Final Fantasy movie in the first place? Where this movie falls down, and falls down hard, is story and characters. This movie was clearly envisioned as the Cloud Show, and really its not hard to see why. After all, he's sort of FFVII's iconic figure, with his ridiculous hair and sword that Freud would have a field day with. If there's anything of importance to be done, Cloud's doing it. At some point between FFVII and Advent Children he's changed from a powerful-but-human SOLDIER into a superman that no one can stop. Every fight scene of consequence is his, and his alone, with the exception of Tifa's, which was just Henchman #1 toying around with her so they could fit in a victory music gag. Even when all the other main characters of FFVII show up, they can't stop the Giant Monster until Cloud appears and solos the huge thing.
Which is disappointing thing A about the movie: All the main characters except for Cloud might as well have not been there. Tifa and Vincent get some loving, but the rest got cameo roles at best. This was extremely disappointing. FFVII was chock full of interesting characters, and this movie should have had more than enough room for a major role for the rest of them. I would have preferred them to be completely absent, instead of relegated to stock appearance. Also saddening was the almost complete exclusion of Elena and Tseng, my two favorite Turks, although Reno, surprisingly enough, really made it up to me on that one.
Disappointing thing B about the movie was the villains. To be blunt, they sucked. Hard. Henchmen #1(the guy with the defibrillator on his arm) was somewhat interesting, but the other two were just Sephiroth clones. No, they aren't even Sephiroth clones, they are Sephiroth COSPLAYERS. Their motivation? None as far as I could tell. And you could never tell what the hell the guys were DOING, and why. I don't mean their over-riding motivation here, I mean 'what is the bloody point to what they are doing?' because their actions are nonsensical half the time. For example: Why are they kidnapping the children and hypnotizing them with pond water? I can't see any purpose to it. They used them as a human shield against Cloud, but Cloud wouldn't have come there in the first place if he hadn't taken the children. And later, they used them as a human shield in Midgar, but when you can summon dragons the size of a few houses, what need have you for human shields? And the last disappointing thing is the plot. It's hackneyed, and reads like bad revival fanfiction. It was also pretty nonsensical, and had deus ex machina up to the eyeballs. Mind you, that's pretty in keeping with the original game, but still.
Of course, its not all bad. As previously mentioned, the technical elements were astonishing. Also, the voice acting was pretty good. Cloud's dialogue was incredibly whiny, but the VA managed to mask that. Tifa's tended to chew the scenery a bit, but apart from that they kept in character and sounded more or less just like what I imagined the characters would sound like(Although Barret's vice needed increased quantities of Samuel L. Jackson). Reno really stole the show, surprisingly enough.
See if you're a FFVII fan. See if you like mindless movies with great fight scenes. Don't see if you like something with an emphasis on character or plot, because neither are to be found here.
Underworld (2003)
Ugh. A nightmare.
Underworld was bad. Terrible. Even if you ignore the clichéd dialogue, it was atrocious. The whole thing smacked of looking good on paper, but not translating to the screen. See: The werewolves doing their retarded wallrunning. I'm sure that seemed a good idea in someone's head, but it just looked silly. See: Selene escaping by shooting a hole in the floor. I'm sure that seemed cool when they stole it from Trigun, but when you think about it, you realize she could have gotten away much easier, faster and using fewer bullets just by SHOOTING the gorram werewolves. See: Big Blue Goku Immortal. Sounds nifty, but he just looked retarded. See: THe fact that Big Blue Goku Immortal, despite being supposedly the biggest badass around, goes down almost immediately, and common vampire Selene has to pick up the slack.
Then there was the script. Oh, the script. Every single movie cliché in existence was used, from "Time to Die" to "Leave us!"(Three times, I should point out!). In fact, I think this film's defining moment is when KravenSays "Leave us!", has everyone leave the room, slaps Selene and then walks out. What the heck was that? Nothing else about the movie encapsulated just how silly it was. It's either that or when they used the ridiculous bit with Victor's head sliding off. THank you for reviving yet ANOTHER horrible cliché. That's JUST what the industry needs.
The action was mediocre at best, and since that's pretty much all this movie's got going for it, the whole thing was a cinematographic train wreck.
I'm giving it three stars. Really, it would get one or two, but it doesn't do anything to actively offend my senses the way, say, Space Mutiny or The Hulk does. It simply fails wholeheartedly to be good at all.
Earth vs. the Spider (2001)
Horrificly poor
Me and my friend rented this movie in hopes that it would provide an hour's entertainment. And from the premise, this movie could have been good. Emphasis on could have been.
Basic premise: Comic-book geek, working as a night-shift security guard at some sort of biotech lab sees his partner gunned down in front of him and impulsively injects himself with super-spider juice. he comes down with a fever, and when he recovers, he's got superpowers! yay, right? Wrong. his transformation into a spider continues progressing, and his behavior becomes more and more bestial. he considers himself a threat to everyone around him, and eventually winds up killing people. I don't know how it ended because I turned it off about 3/4 of the way into it.
Frankly, it's amazing we lasted that long. We survived mostly by making fun of it relentlessly, but is really not much fun with this film as it lacks the outright ridiculousness of similarly poor movies such as Boa Vs. Python.
The camera-work is poor, the acting is terrible, and the plot such a clichéd mess that even the old Captain America cartoons have trouble competing in terms of sheer lameness.
if MST3K were still around, I'm sure they could make this comedic genius. Me, I just don't have the patience to sit through it.