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john-3047
Reviews
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (2009)
Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince Good special affects but Disappointing Harry Potter Movie
Up until now the Order of the Phoenix was my least favorite Harry Potter Movie this one has now taken that position. I know it is difficult to compress a large book into the time frame of a movie deciding what to leave out and how to close the plot holes created. This one however deviates further from the book than its predecessors it not only leaves a lot out as expected, it has added scenes that are not in the book and appear to have been included only to enhance the 3D effects in the cinema, make things difficult for the next director to stick to the original story line (e.g. The sequences at the borough) or like the scene in the railway café for no logical purpose; and is out of character with the book. Each new director has understandably put his own stile on the movie, but at some point I ask is this a continuing story following the lives and adventures of a group of teenage wizards over a seven year period, in which case there should be some consistency and continuity throughout the series, if so Hogwarts and locations and objects within it should not change from movie to movie. If on the other hand the movies are not meant to be a continuing story but separate adventures that just have the same character's then this movie OK, but there were so many inconsistence's and contradictions to the books and the other movies that I found it very jarring to watch as part of the Harry Potter series and as such was disappointing.
Quantum of Solace (2008)
Good action movie, better than many, not James Bond
Quantum of Solace is a good action movie better than many as it has some good actors in the principle rolls. But that's all it is, an American style action movie with a series of special effects linked together with a tenuous plot and a high body count, with a few plot devices pilfered from earlier JB movies throne in for good measure. If action movies turn you on then you will love this movie, you may even believe the studio hype that it is "The perfect Bond film" and I have no doubt it will make a lot of money for the studio. As a James Bond fan the things that set the Bond films apart from the rest and has kept the franchise going for over 45 years wasn't just the stunts and the special effects, it was the element of fantasy, the portrayal of Bond as a intelligent, charming, sophisticated character rather than a macho thug. It was Q, the gadgets and the cars. It was the clever dialog and the humour in the script. All these things are missing in this movie. The studio must have decided it was more profitable to go with the trend more violence and effects and less plot and intrigue, where the thrill of the ride was more important than the dialogue. This movie would have worked just as well whatever the lead character was called. As a current generation American style action movie I would give it eight out of ten but as a James Bond movie maybe one or two if I am feeling generous. Bond, James Bond, I don't think so.
Murphy's War (1971)
Good Movie, bad plot description
I enjoyed the movie very much, but then Peter O'Toole is a grate Actor and his films are usually worth watching. The one irritating thing was not with the movie but with the plot description on this site. The plot states that "he was the sole survivor of his crew, that has been decimated" this is impossible the word decimated means to reduce by one tenth so you could never have just one survivor. The writer could have used Destroyed, wiped out, all killed or slaughtered; any of these would have made more sense. If one is going to put things up on an international site you should make sure that you know what words mean before you use them. There were also some spellings mistakes in the plot even web browsers have spelling checkers these days so there is no excuse
In Her Line of Fire (2006)
If you like action flicks it is quite entertaining
Why the plane crashed in the first place is uncertain, when the plane crossed over the island it's engines where running and the pilot had both elevator and aileron control judging by the way it maneuvered around obstacles on the island. The crash was of course necessary to set-up the main plot of the movie. This is a pretty standard action flick except the main Rambo type hero character is female. Like most movies of this genre the hero's seem to be immune to pain or serious physical injury even when they jump out of a moving jeep and slide down the side of a cliff, apart from the occasional cut or scratch. The hero's never miss a shot while the villains can take out a sundry character with a single shot, but can't seem to hit the hero's even when there are several of them using machine guns. If you like action flicks it is quite entertaining, but like most of this type of movie one is not expected to take them seriously. I must admit I was a little surprised by MagicStarfire's review and his obsession with lesbian sexuality, I was not sure we had watched the same movie. I saw Mariel Hemingway's character as a well-trained ex-marine as capable, tough and resourceful as any, regardless of gender. I have never subscribed to the belief that unless a woman is weak and helpless she must be a lesbian. The tension between the to female character's I saw as territorial in that the reporter was encroaching on her relationship with the Vice-president. However I guess one sees what one wants to see. As to the suggestion that it should have had a sex scene I feel that given the time frame the events are supposed to have occurred, the plot scenario and the pace of the film any sex scene regardless of sexual orientation would have been inappropriate, Evan if MagicStarfire would have given more points. PS:- with apology to MagicStarfire it appears that we were not watching quite the same movie in the Australian release for some reason all references to Mariel Hemingway's characters sexuality has been edited out so the character comes across as a strong resourceful woman and in the context of the plot (such as it is) the characters sexual orientation is irrelevant, there is no reason why a strong resourceful woman has to be a lesbian.
Goofs In the opening scene's in the aircraft despite the apparent turbulence affecting the passengers the cards and glasses did not slide around on the polished wood table, although the liquid in the glasses did slop around slightly.
Incorrect procedure
When the six passengers put on their life jackets they all inflated them immediately. If you inflate the life jacket before you leave the plane it will pin you to the ceiling with the rising water making it extremely difficult if not imposable to get out.
When the plane crashes into the sea with enough force to rip the engines from the wings, the cards still do not slide off the table, even as the water rushes in the cards are still there.
A Sound of Thunder (2005)
It may not be academy award material but it is infinitely better than another time paradox movie I watched recently that had a rating in the high sixes.
It may be a simplistic plot and it is true that there are some holes in the logic of it. However if one accepts that this is after all a fantasy so what the director and or writer says is possible is true for the duration of the film, then it is a watchable yarn that is entertaining without requiring any major effort on the part of the viewer; to work out what is going on (Pure escapism). Anyway as time travel is not possible at present (as far as I know) no one can really know what would happen or what would constitute a significant enough change to affect the present, or for that matter if any change you make has already happened in the past so is required to maintain the present we have. Although I doubt that killing a butterfly would produce the extent of change depicted in the film (or if butterfly's even existed in the caroticus era), this is fantasy and anything is possible, if you accept that; this is not a bad movie. It may not be academy award material but it is infinitely better than another time paradox movie I watched recently that had a rating in the high sixes.
Primer (2004)
I love movies about time paradoxes but this one just left me confused.
If this is "one of the best American films of the year " then the American film industry must be in a very bad state. Shane Carruth did an excellent job to produce a film of high technical quality on such a low budget, unfortunately: when one person writes, directs, edits and plays a lead role in a film they tend to lose sight of the fact that the audience is not as familiar with the plot or story line as they are. This film spiraled out of control from about two thirds of the way through by the end I had no idea what the point of the story was and felt that I must have missed some vital piece of information that would make some sense of it. I love movies about time paradoxes but this one just left me confused.
According to the trivia Shane Carruth claimed he shot 80 minuets of film and only edited out 4 minuets of it (math's is obviously not his strong suet as the movie is 78 minutes long). Maybe he should have taken out more to reduce the confusion or added extra 10 minuets or so to explain to the audience what the plot was ultimately about. This is a one out of ten in my book.
Rapid Exchange (2003)
I found this to be a watchable all be it very predictable movie, some good stunt work but many inconsistencies in the plot.
I found this to be a watchable all be it very predictable movie. There was some good stunt work that gave a fair degree of excitement and suspense to the story. One did however have to suspend ones credulity on a number of occasions for the plot to work. For example despite losing their transfer cable, couplings and harness when the pilot retracted the undercarriage manually, they fortunately found a spare on-board the aircraft complete with Caribbeans. According to the plot drilling a hole in the ceiling of the vault would disable the alarm system in the vault when the system was reactivated (I can't think why), according to Daltry there battery operated drill would be unable to drill through the vault ceiling however they just happened to have a hydraulic drill complete with hoses and fittings to fit the equally convenient take off points in the planes hydraulic system located above the vault. As the plane has a closed hydraulic system it is hard to see how this could be accomplished without affecting the control systems or at least setting hydraulic pressure alarms in the cockpit. Accepting this for the sake of the plot it takes them several minutes to drill a small hole through the top of the vault (tension will they be able to drill through before FED's get there to check the false alarm), yet from the time the vault door closed and before the FED's had walked the few feet to the second security door they had cut a squire hole in the roof of the vault big enough for them to get through. One can accept all theses and other inconsistencies for the sake of a good yarn, however what spoiled the movie for me was when what appears to have been an effort by the script writers to discuses what up to that point was a fairly predictable ending, they killed off the two hero's (If one can refer to crocks as hero's) Ketchum & Brooks one was shot and thrown out of a 747 at 10,000 feet the other wiliest sliding down the cable between the two planes the villain Daltry with one hand manages to unhook the cable carrying the weight of a full grown man with the air pressure of several hundred miles per hour pressing on him, and letting him fall to his death. And yet in the next sequence these two without any kind of explanation (however tenuous or implausible) have miraculously survived the full from 10.000 feet and had time to set up an elaborate scam to get the money. The only comment on there survival was to Sophie that her brother is a bad shot. Don't expect an Oscar nomination for this one.