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Reviews
The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (2003)
can you control yourself?
LXG is a film that cannot be explained in 1,000 words. The film cannot be explained properly without spoilers or the use of obscenity. For these reasons alone, LXG is brilliant entertainment. On the other hand, LXG is an insult to anyone with any imagination whatsoever. It is an insult to anyone whoever picked up a book and read it. The Production Company, producers and director of this movie are very obviously illiterate and imbecilic. To spend anymore time reviewing this film would be like kicking a blind asthmatic bed wetting midget leper with no arms and legs and irritable bowel syndrome in the balls.
Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines (2003)
It took 12 years to make this???
OKay... I wasn't expecting Days of Heaven.
Terminator 3 is hollow and overblown and did not interest me from the opening shot. Too many characters and elements were missing from the story for this installment to be interesting. The script was contrived, weak and all over the place. There was nothing ground breaking about the film; although the action was consistent. The film lacked atmosphere. The direction was a let down and a cover up. At least, Cameron had a vision... Jonathan Mostow hardly has a clue. There was no story just mayhem. The story line was weak and uninspired... I can't believe it took five writers to come up with that script was an end product.
ACTUAL DIALOGUE: "There's my father's plane! I trained on it!"
The plot was just a bunch of contrivances to paste and thread together action scenes. I think more time should have been spent in the Animal Hospital -- the only original idea in the script. Granted it's inexplicable... but I admire the bold choice in a movie that made NO OTHERS. EVEN the FX in T2 were better.
The new characters were boring and uninspired. John Conner was hardly inspiring as the savior of mankind. The sending of a new Terminator should have been developed more. Why is the new Terminator sexy? I mean that's pointless. Do something with the sex appeal. The big problem is you can't take any of the Terminators seriously. Ah-nuld is too funny and the other is way too sexy. Robert Patric in T2 was vastly superior in so far as his performance.
The biggest let down was that Ah-nuld NEVER REALLY KICKED ANY ASS. He just made corny jokes. There were funny jokes but funny jokes do not a good film make. I wanted my money back. Unfortunately, Henny Youngman won't be around to make the eventual Terminator 4 as he would make a great Terminator to duel with Der Ah-Nuld.
As a whole, the film lacked so much that I saw no need to end it... it was phony from the start. 170 Million Dollar Opium for the mass-market masses (and the 1rst Terminator was a lo budget Cult Film and vastly superior).
Within a trilogy, this film is worse than Godfather III was; but more way funny.
MOSTOW NEEDS TO GO BACK TO MAKING LAME AND REPETITIVE SUBMARINE MOVIES!!!
Boa (2001)
No Bacon?
Like Anaconda but in Antarctica and the women are in parkas. But this movie was much better than Anaconda because of the ensemble acting. There were some funny accents just like in Gladiator.
We had to rent this movie like we rent any movie with hunky Dean Cain (who should have been in Gladiator).
We were expecting the movie to be a lot better than it was judging by the packaging on box that depicted a cool looking snake that kind of looks like a box if you know what I mean. Even though the movie wasn't "Oscar" material, it did depict realistically what would happen if an Antarctic prison colony was invaded by a giant prehistoric snake. I, myself, did not think that New Alcatraz/Boa was Epic in the same sense that Gladiator is epic. In that context, New Alcatraz/Boa is no War and Peace. However, New Alcatraz/Boa had a strange twist of irony unlike any film I've seen in a longtime.
If there is a sequel to this movie we would like to write it... imagine a biblical thriller in space with a giant snake.
End of Days (1999)
Satan is...an Investment Banker
Satan is...an Investment Banker. Great concept! But unfortunately, this is another Ah-nold film that can't make up its mind which direction it's going to go in. Instead this movie is half-baked and indecisive - when it could have been much scarier or much funnier. The script was the weakest part of the film, especially the plot. Not that Ah-nold's films tend to be that believable to begin with
especially when his accent seems noticeably thicker - but this action for the sake of action in his films has compromised the films. In an Ah-nold film - it's not good when the acting is better than the plot and the script. I mean there was no tension in the film because there was nothing believable to begin with - just weak action and cheap one-liners. It's okay to entertain
just make a better product.
For example, the Helicopter scene was a pointless
especially when Ah-nold and Kevin Pollack's characters are supposed to be protecting The Investment Banker whoopsie! End of Days was somewhat disappointing but the second half of the movie was much better than the first part - mostly because it was funnier. The best that I could say about End of Days is that it was both more enjoyable and funnier than the two worst movies of 1999 - THE PHANTOM MENACE and WILD WILD WEST. I guess that the main reason I was disappointed is because I got this movie to go as a double bill with Paris, Texas because I needed a more upbeat `bleak' film.
Joan of Arc (1999)
visual candy but one dimensional on many levels
To be honest...I'm not a fan of institutions like the Catholic Church...I also haven't known any prophets or saints. If anything, I could more easily relate to the concepts of martyrdom and mental illness. With that said...I like movies that have a point and that are meaningful. And I don't feel like I need to be spoon-fed "the deeper meaning." But I feel like I missed the point to the Messenger because the movie made almost no impact on me in any way other than being nice to look at. To me, the film seemed like a fixed fight but such is life (especially for Joan) because young Joan seemed a lunatic from the start. Honestly, it appeared to me as if the film was trying her again...but this time as a lunatic instead of a heretic.
The Messenger was visual candy but one dimensional on many levels. Besson is a talented director but the Messenger was uneven. In contrast, Carl Dreyer's The Passion of Joan of Arc despite being 70 years older picks up where Besson's film stops. I don't know what Besson was actually trying to say about Joan of Arc because he depicted her so seemingly one-sidedly as hysterically mad.
I was surprised at how one-dimensional the characters were -- including the 3 Academy Award Nominees. John Malkovich was funny in his role but came across as prissy spoiled brat, which I'm sure, was affectionately accurate. Faye Dunaway was also just a bit too overly obsessive in the scenes she had. Dustin Hoffman was merely condescending. These three are some of film's finest actors...but Besson presented their characters with too a narrow POV and in so made the actors themselves look bad. One-dimensional characters such as these are an example of bad fiction. I didn't understand the point of any of the characters since they were flatter than most of the characters in the Hollywood Blockbusters. Given the cast in The Messenger, I assumed this was going to be an actor's movie but Besson, I feel, sold his principal actors short.
Mission to Mars (2000)
I laughed through the entire 2nd half of it.
I saw Mission to Mars... my thinking was that no film could be as bad as I've heard and plus I hadn't heard specifically what was so bad about the film. So I figured maybe this film went over the heads of the preview audiences. However, Nothing could prepare me for how bad this film really was...I laughed through the entire 2nd half of it. I feel sorry for Brian De Palma, for being the director of another meaningless movie. I wish he would do something meaningful and not go for the cheap and pointless. This movie left a stain on the Science Fiction genre. I won't even compare and contrast this movie to a 2001; the film is simply not worthy. De Palma desperately needs to make a good film again and not some hackneyed piece of garbage. His usual jerky camera work was there but there was way too much silly digital crap edited in which I felt undermined an already weak film film. By turning his film into a digital cartoon, De Palma compromised the work of some of the hardest working actors in the business. He only succeeded in making the actors look silly. Despite a few good sequences, Mission to Mars was hardly a movie; it was more like a video game or a phony Disney cartoon. I half expected Jiminie Cricket and Michael Jackson to burst into a tune and to see Bing Crosby soft shoeing with an Alien. That was the silliest looking Alien since Jar Jar Binks
what a terrible, terrible year for Science Fiction. How unimaginative and compromised it has become. This movie was crap; it was bad all the way across the board and it certainly had potential given all the names involved. Even though the end was intended to be thought provoking -- I laughed myself silly (And I assure you that others joined in). I kept closing my eyes and hoping that Cleopatra would appear on the screen. Really, I was just wishing Richard Burton and Liz Taylor would just show up as the Aliens.
Bride of the Monster (1955)
Technically Brilliant for Ed Wood Jr. Anyway
Bride of the Monster, for the most part, just comes across as your average lame-ass 1950's horror flick but it has that Ed Wood Jr. stamp...the silly stock footage the hammy acting and very little continuity whatsoever...still it has probably the best Production Value of any film by Ed Wood Jr. (and because of that it lacks some of the campy humor). Still...the film has Bela Lugosi and his hammy close-ups and the wrestler who tries too hard...I still prefer Orgy of the Dead and Plan 9 From Outer Space (which lacks total sense) for laughs!!!