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Strnad
Reviews
The Monster That Challenged the World (1957)
On the A-list of B pictures
Of course The Monster That Challenged the World is slowly paced. With a budget of about twenty dollars there's a lot of filler. But what little budget there is, is well used in creating a great animatronic monster.
The story is basic but well-structured and it works. I can watch this one over and over without wanting to throw things at the screen or yell at the characters for doing stupid things. My intelligence is more seriously insulted by modern horror films and their idiot protagonists than it ever is by The Monster That Challenged the World.
Among low-budget sci-fi flicks of the 1950s, The Monster That Challenged the World ranks near the top!
Jan Strnad (aka J. Knight)
Armageddon (1998)
Loud and boring
I hold action/effects films to a pretty low standard. Heck...I love those Blowing Up Buildings specials on television! I don't expect deep insights into humanity or world class filmmaking, just a decent story and a few characters I care enough about to worry about them.
ARMAGEDDON still managed to trip over this very low bar.
You know, a roller coaster doesn't demand much from a person intellectually, but then again, it doesn't INSULT you intellectually, either. ARMAGEDDON presented me with such a mess of a story and with such pasteboard characters that, to call it a "comic book" would insult comic books.
It WASN'T exciting. A lot of loud explosions don't make a movie entertaining, and that's all that ARMAGEDDON offered. I don't care how much money it made at the box office. It bored me stiff. What a waste!