DrSmooth Reviews

Wushu Warrior (2011)

This would have made sense in 1980, it's unacceptable for 2008.

[2/10 · 6 May 2011]

I was relaxing at home at midnight with a plate of take-out and a beer. I figured that this was a great time for a turn off your brain movie, so I started flipping through the wasteland.

I landed upon a 12:05am showing of Wushu Warrior on The Movie Channel. I figured this would be great. Cheesy kung-fu movies and beer are a winning combination. Unfortunately, what I got was a cheesy kung-fu movie that took itself way too seriously.

If ever there was a movie that should realize that it didn't have the budget, fight choreography, acting talent, writing and post production work needed to take itself seriously, it should be this one. I mean, in the opening "I want to learn your ways" bit a guy teleports, and then tells the main character that there's a dragon inside everyone.

The movie's big fight sequence is literally about 60 seconds long, apparently both because there wasn't anyone on the film that could fight convincingly and because the screenwriter thought his plot was freaking amazing. The story's hackily-written cliché upon cliché, and when it isn't being poorly dubbed in English, it's being delivered with all the ability of a elementary school performance.

Bottom line, this isn't even worth killing time at midnight, and the laughs from the poor production can't justify wasting your time on this. Much sadness.

Linda Linda Linda (2005)

Awkward Silence: The Movie

[2/10 · 14 October 2009]

(This review will have some very obvious spoilers, so beware.)

A friend brought this over, and we made it through 45 minutes of the movie before we decided that Fast Forward 8x Speed was the only way that this film should be watched. There were points when we were watching the movie at normal speed where I would leave, prepare part of lunch, and return, to find that literally nothing had happened. 2 lines of meaningless dialogue were exchanged. Nothing happened the background, no important facial gestures were made, nothing but mind-numbing awkward silence.

This is NOT how to make a thoughtful film, especially when the movie's plot follows all the same basic Hollywood movie tropes. If I told you that Disney was making a film about 4 girls starting a band, and the singer was a French exchange student, what you would expect to be the "conflicts" that arise?

The lead singer has to overcome stage fright? Someone has an unspoken crush? The band is late for their performance, and a side-character has to buy them time?

*SPOILER ALERT*

All of those things happen in this movie.

At no point in this film do you have even the slightest fraction of concern that these girls won't be able to accomplish their goal.

*THIS ENDS THE SECTION OF SPOILERS*

I like Japanese films. I've spent a lot of time in Japan. I work for a Japanese company. Heck, I even know all the bands referenced in the record collections and MDs that they're going through, and I've sung along to the title track with friends at karaoke.

This is probably the worst film from Japan I've ever seen. Do not be confused. Though the characters will have points in the movie where they do typical Japanese high school things, this is not a "typical day in the life of" movie. This is "a day in the life of 4 extremely random, heavily-conflicted, awkward Japanese students."

There are noticeable problems with the DVD, as well. Viz decided that a great extra would be a producer reading aloud the Wikipedia entry about the Blue Hearts. What a value! In addition, they care so little about the subtitling that the band's name in the subtitles, "Paran Maum" is different than it is in the chapter selection menu, "Paran Marum". In the final auditorium scene, there is a VERY visible reflection/ghosting effect on everything, but this seems to be the fault of the original film.

2/10, do NOT view if you do not absolutely love awkward silences.

Transformers (2007)

When did Bay fire the editor?

[7/10 · 8 July 2007]

Overall, I liked the film, but instead of a 7, this could easily be an 8-8.5. There are so many pointless scenes in this movie that are supposed to be "developing characters" but the majority of them are so awful and awkward, you're more wondering why the heck they were included rather than learning about the characters.

There are long, extended sequences with Megan Fox and Shia LeBouf that drag on unconscionably long. The sequences with the hackers are abysmal, as well. That whole story arc has almost no bearing on the film, and the most annoying part of it all is that the development of the Transformers was sacrificed in order to develop an abundance of useless characters.

Forgiving the plot holes and other weirdness (Why would the Secretary of Defense be constantly addressing the nation in a time of crisis?) the movie's decent.

I really wish Bay would have tossed far fewer "Oh look, nobody noticed the GIANT CG ROBOT IN FRONT OF ME" sequences and slowed down the robot fighting sequences so you could possibly see what the heck was going on. In nearly every sequence, all you can see is, "Oh, there's a mass of metal." If Bay would have cut the hackers, and trimmed the some of the awkward character sequences this would be a fine 1 3/4 hour film with some nicely fleshed out Transformers, with more than 4 lines to differentiate explain why the Autobots were not jerks, and that the Decepticons were.

Also, the lips do look weird.

Chicken Heart (2002)

Enjoyable Off-Kilter Comedy.

[8/10 · 18 October 2005]

This movie's about 3 guys who can't seem to get their lives untracked because they can't or they just don't want to. Iwano is a 27 year-old ex-boxer who dodges and absorbs punches from drunken salarymen for the reasonable rate of 2,000 yen. Maru is an ex-teacher who can't find a job or a new apartment, much to the dismay of his parents. He's got a crush on a girl at the local convenience store, but doesn't have an ounce of smooth. Sada is a older guy in his 50s who just wants to live a carefree life, and basically does, providing the film's most memorable comedic moments. The three of them meet each night to drum up business for Iwano, and to eat oden afterwards at the same yattai stand, "Bar" with the constantly tinkering shop owner.

I saw a trailer for this in Japan in 2002, a really short clip with just the name of the movie, the release date, and Sada chucking out tissue packets at people whether they wanted them or not. Having been to Japan, that was enough to convince me of the comic potential of the movie, and for the most part it didn't disappoint. The movie goes kind of somber 2/3 of the way through in order for the message to get delivered, but all in all, it's a good movie about the awkward situations people get into while trying to find their way in life.

House of Flying Daggers (2004)

Knife Try.

[3/10 · 6 December 2004]

For the most part, I really enjoy movies out of Hong Kong. Romantic comedies, action movies, off-the-wall comedies, I love them all. I guess it's probably the way the movies are made. They're done cheaply, and with an emphasis on good writing, and a lighthearted tone. The movies I enjoy most don't take themselves too seriously, and never take on a pretentious feel.

Unfortunately, House of Flying Daggers failed in that regard. House of the Flying Daggers comes off as an excessively heavy love story, with uninspiring combat, and enough out of place cheese that would make a Packers fan groan.

The movie starts simply enough. The Tang Dynasty (The longest running Dynasty in Chinese History.) is fading, the Emporer is incompetent, and corruption abounds. A group of hero-outlaws, known as the "House of Flying Daggers" is trying to bring down the oppressive government. Two police officers decide to investigate the local house of showgirls (which, by the way, is the most phenomenally opulent house of ill-repute I have EVER seen.) because the new girl they have in is rumored to be one of the members of the resistance group.

So, the Senior of the two officers, Lee (played by Andy Lau) orders his subordinate "Wind" (played by Kaneshiro Takeshi) to check out this new showgirl, named Mei. (Zhang Ziyi) Mei is strikingly beautiful, yet, blind. Wind gets a little too much liquor in him, and acts as if he's trying to take advantage of Mei.

Lee shows up to take charge of the situation, and arrest the two of them. Mei, in response, tries to kill Lee. Lee locks up Mei, and Wind "sets her free" in order to have her lead him back to the leader.

The movie tries to make a lot of hubbub about its action pieces, but for the most part, they all fall flat. The prison break is an excellent sequence, but aside from that there isn't a single fight in the movie that felt anything but sterile to me. Reinforcements materialize off camera, enemies spawn infinite supplies of ammunition, but no matter what the odds or how close the impending death is, you know everything's going to be OK.

I don't mean just in the typical sense either. There's no drama at all in the fighting because, if I recall correctly, there are no fewer than 4 "and a miracle occurs!" moments. I'll give a movie one of those, and still retain some denial, but more than 3, and you're just asking for your movie to have MST3K-style jokes bandied about inside the theater.

The thing that "killed" every fight scene for me were the daggers. They get the Matrix treatment in the movie, and also have been infused with homing capabilities that outstrip anything the "Magic Bullet" would have had. The damn things turn on a dime and perform more moves in the air than the actors engaged in wire-fu.

Wind, a dyed-in-the-wool playboy *shock and gasp and other exclamations of disbelief* starts falling for Mei. This sets up my biggest complaint with Asian cinema, the make-out scene.

For some reason, in 95% of all the Asian movies I've seen (HK, Japanese, Korean.) the director does not know how to film a PG or PG-13 make out sequence. The two players look like they've been given the direction, "Ok, you're starving, and the other person is a steak. Go."

The resulting love sequences end up looking like a bad zombie movie. Andy Lau looks like he's chewing on Zhang Ziyi's eye at one point. Much in the way American actors never seem to grasp the fact that they look HORRIBLE shooting kung-fu sequences (I don't care HOW "intensive" your little 6-week course is, you look stupid when you're in the realm of a Jet Li, who's been practicing this stuff for more than half his life.) the Asian actors don't seem to grasp that they look like 2 schoolkids who are trying to have sex by recreating a bunch of chatroom logs, and they don't know the slang terms.

This wouldn't be so bad, except that there's a zombie style make out scene nearly every 15 minutes after the jailbreak. At one point, there's back to back love scenes which just served to make everyone groan.

Then comes the ending. The most non-sensible piece of garbage in the movie.

Not only will it not answer any questions, it's just completely absurd. The ending would actually make MORE sense if the people involved were attacked by Godzilla. Or Daleks. Anything but what happened.

All in all, save your cash. If you must see the piece of Asian cinema that everyone is talking about du jour, make sure you do it at a matinée, or hopefully off a rented DVD. Or go with a group that enjoys MST3K. Otherwise, knife knowing you...

Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence (I) (2004)

Guilty...of being pretentious.

[5/10 · 21 September 2004]

Here's the really quick and dirty summary:

If you count the first Ghost in the Shell in amongst your top movies off all time, see this one, you'll like it.

If you enjoy watching the TV Series, Ghost in the Shell: Standalone Complex, do NOT watch this movie. You will pine for the days when Togusa wasn't a little fraidy cat, and makes non-enhanced humanity respectable.

Here's the more in-depth version:

I thought Ghost in the Shell, the first movie was decent. It was made better by the fact that they had a pretty enjoyable video game that followed it up, but I'm not one of those people that would consider using the word "masterpiece" to describe it without using "not" in the same sentence.

As far as this film, it could do with a bit of dialogue. Apparently, Oshii doesn't understand the difference between having a conversation, and playing a game of "Pretentious Quote Battle 2: Electric Boogaloo". Somewhere along the line he must have gotten the idea that perhaps the audience wouldn't understand how smart his films was supposed to be, so he has the characters repeat the same concepts over and over again, just quoting different authors.

What makes this so horrendously annoying is that the film's concept is so simple. The heart of the film is the question of existence. What is is and do these malfunctioning robots have it? If so, does that cheapen humanity because humanity is capable of being broken down into 1s and 0s?

While this may seem like a spoiler, it's fully explained within the first 10 minutes of the movie, and done so over and over every 5-10 minutes after then, each time with an exchange of literary quotations. Heck, Batou even tells Togusa that it's hard to follow his conversation since all he does is sport random quotes. When you have THAT many quotes in a movie, it's time to rewrite the dialogue...perhaps giving some of the characters their OWN lines.

The movie IS visually stunning, however, it is only that, and the little bits of fun piecing together the connections between this movie and the first that make this movie barely worth seeing. Barely.

5/10.

I, Robot (2004)

Invasion of the iMac-styled Robots.

[6/10 · 17 July 2004]

I, Robot was one of those big summer movies that you saw the trailer for and knew just about how good it was going to be. The hype would try and build it up, it would claim to have a plot, but you knew what it all was going to come down to was Will Smith shooting some CG robots.

If you go into the movie knowing that, you'll get a little bit more out of your movie buck out of this film.

Throughout this movie, what stuck with me most was the horrendous lack of acting ability. You'll see a lot of other people in the trailers...but really, if your name wasn't Will Smith or Bridget Moynahan and you were in this movie, you're on screen maybe, 5-10 minutes tops.

Will surprisingly botches a role he's done so many times before, the unorthodox cop who's got a hunch. Half the movie it looked like he had a bad head cold or something, and he just wasn't able to deliver his lines properly. All he had to do was summon up Mike Lowry from Bad Boys, and he would have had it done.

Bridget Moynahan on the other hand, put on the worst fake "overcome by sorrow" display I've seen in a movie in a long time.

I don't know if it was the acting or the directors saying, "No, no, you're supposed to be going from completely calm to almost moved to tears!" but, it wasn't good.

The CG and the plot save this from being awful. The plot is average. Which in this movie, passes for a good thing.

That's not to say there aren't plot holes...Will's reason for distrusting robots is stupid, laughingly so. He blames a robot for making a poor judgment a situation while neglecting the fact that a regular human was completely incapable of GETTING TO THE POSITION OF MAKING THAT SAME DECISION.

Then in the climactic final battle, 2 groups have to team up to achieve their end goal. The call for security goes up, and Team A has hundreds upon hundreds of robot pursuers. Team B, who is in the same building...exactly 2 robot pursuers.

The robots do a good job of looking fairly menacing at times, so, kudos to the CG team for figuring how to make them look as innocuous as iMacs and yet as threatening as any other good swarming menace in film.

So, contrary to what other people are saying, this is not a good action flick. You don't want to turn off your mind. You just want to toughen up your skin, so you can tolerate some miserable acting. Leave your mind on so you can take in the story a bit, and just keep waiting for that one part where Chi McBride does his thang with the pump action shotgun. Rock on, Chi.

6/10.

Cowboy Bebop: The Movie (2001)

A Lot of Style, Not Much Substance.

[7/10 · 22 March 2002]

Cowboy Bebop: Knockin' on Heaven's Door is supposed to be one lengthened episode of the series. Instead of being typical Bebop, witty, action packed, and entertaining, it strives to be something more in light of the fact that it takes up more time.

The main bad guy, Vincent is pretty messed up. He has no real motivation. Why does he feel that the only way to figure out the solution to his dilemma is to kill off the entire world? He doesn't know. If you're going to create a villain who has decided to kill the world, he has to have a real reason for it, dementia, revenge, money, etc. Having a guy who wants to kill the world, except for a few people he pretty much randomly picked to stay alive, doesn't make sense, and it isn't very fulfilling. The ending too, is very abrupt, and doesn't have the same wrap-up as even the episodes do.

Adding to my disappointment is that much of the film ends up feeling like it has been lifted from other places, namely, Neal Stephenson's "The Diamond Age". Even the part where the Vincent gives Faye the "cure" for the nanomachines, is pretty much exactly the way the main female character gets her cure from the evil nanomachines in Diamond Age, a book published first in 1996.

I would definitely have to recommend seeing this movie, but don't get your hopes up too much by reading all the rest of the lavish praise being flung about here, if you do, you're in for a real letdown.

7/10.

Shiri (1999)

Man, This Movie Didn't Even TRY...

[5/10 · 8 March 2002]

I went to see this movie after a friend of my, who had purchased Failan, decided that he wanted to go and check out this movie, which he'd also heard about. Well, I didn't watch Failan (hey, just what I need on a Friday night...a depressing movie, woo hoo!) but if this is any indication of the best Korea's film industry can offer, I'll pass.

I was surprised to see this movie in one of the "non-art" movie theaters in the area, and watching it, I know why. This isn't artsy, this has about as much art in it as Terminator 2. There is just so, so much utterly bad action in the movie, it's not even funny. I've seen more accurate gunfire in a Jackie Chan movie.

Here's just one example of what the film had to offer. Three N.K. agents come in to take out an informant. They can see the informant from where they are, but choose to walk up on them, so they can all be engaged in a gun standoff. But it gets better! There are S.K. agents with automatic weapons in perfect perches waiting to shoot. And they do, but they can't hit ANYTHING!

After the fourth or fifth time this happens, you just ignore the movie. If Korea wanted to imitate an American movie to make a blockbuster out of, they really should have picked something better than an Arnold Schwarzenegger movie. If you're into this, you'll really love Fox's "World's Greatest Explosions Where Nobody Gets Hurt."

Universal Soldier: The Return (1999)

Pray that the Universal Soldier never has to return again.

[2/10 · 23 August 1999]

The sole reason for seeing this film is that it will make anything else you go see ever seem worthwhile...with the possible exception of that Dennis Rodman flick.

The acting in this movie is SO bad, that the best performance is given by Bill Goldberg, a professional wrestler, and the only acting he really does is when he smirks. Maybe it's all the acting background he's received in whatever stupid wrestling federation he's from...

The rest of the movie leaves you shaking your head thinking, "I'm sure some little 12-boys would like to see that again, but is that REALLY your target audience?" The fight sequences between Michael Jai White, and Van Damme are unexciting, and inordinately slow. One scene has them kicking lawn chairs at each other...and not just like one either...a whole bunch of them. If White's character is supposed to have a body 5 times faster, stronger than a normal human, then why does he decide to block Van Damme's slow lazy kick with his face?

This movie is so riddled with inaccuracies and plot holes that it makes an episode of Kung-Fu, the Legend Continues look good. I'm not going to even comment on that part of the film. Don't see this...even for the sheer unintended laugh value...it's not worth your cash.

Mystery Men (1999)

The best thing I've seen this summer.

[9/10 · 12 August 1999]

Oh man. This was an example of a bunch of really funny, non-household name guys getting together and punching out an awesome movie. Ben Stiller as the impotent Mr. Furious, Hank Azaria as the knife-throwing Blue Raja, William H. Macy as the deadpan, but incredibly funny Shoveler, Janeane Garofalo as the Bowler's daughter, who constantly gets lectured by her dead father's skull...I mean, this cast was great, and their chemistry was better.

Some people will complain about the lack of plot. That is because they are stupid. They're the same people who go see Jackie Chan movies and complain about the lack of plot. Plot is not key to a comedy or action movie, people...it's just there to string the action or comedy sequences together.

The comic intensity of the movie slows down for parts, such as Stiller's involvement with Claire Forlani's character, and the part where they rediscover teamwork. Other than that, I haven't laughed this hard consistently at any other movie I've seen. There are so many memorable quotes for this movie, that there will be fuel for my e-mail signature fil es until the Y3K bug hits. (Yes, 3 not 2...the 2 one is all media hype.)

There are some unexpected plot moments in the movie, stuff you want to see in big budget flicks that nobody ever does, counter cliche stuff. But, that's not what you're seeing the movie for. Go for the comedy, stay for the comedy. If you're going for the plot, you're the type of person that criticizes nutritional label information for lack of descriptiveness.

Angel's Dance (1999)

The ending is the way a movie lover would want it to be.

[7/10 · 27 May 1999]

This movie started kinda slow. In fact, I didn't really care about it all. Then I started watching it as the plot got going a bit. I mean, at first I was thinking, Ok, movie about a guy who's trying to kill a random girl in the phone book. Whoopee. Then I saw him (Tony) trying to snipe from across the street, in plain sight. Man, this guy's got MAD assassin skillz. Anyway, once the target starts fighting back, the movie starts getting REAL good. I mean, aside from the fact that these people couldn't hit the ground if they were falling, everything else falls together. They've even accounted for the proper amount of bullets in the gun!!! How many movies have THAT amount of foresight? And the ending is killer. My roomates and I were yelling about this one at 1:30 in the morning, and undoubtedly p****d off a whole bunch of our neighbors. The movie is just incredible for the ending alone.