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Reviews
Gun Woman (2014)
What a mess!
I decided to watch this film, because the concept struck me as interesting. As a scriptwriter and film buff, I'm always open to unconventional ideas.
I forgive low budget results, but I don't forgive sloppy film making.
The basic premise of this movie revolves around the promise of nudity, blood, and action. The nudity is fine. The blood is fine. The action is eh with some interesting nude fight scenes. The music, lighting, and photo direction is low quality.
The story is where things really unravel. We're told early on the 'master mind' is a cripple. He can barely walk, but during the training sessions he can fight like bruce lee.
The training sessions are far from interesting and take up a good chunk of the movie running time. Yawn, yawn, and more yawn.
We're told she must bury the weapons in her own body to smuggle it. The guards use guns linked to their own finger prints to ensure that they can't be used against them. Fair enough. Ever heard of a knife? She manages to take out one bulky guard in hand to hand combat with no weapons. Why not cut off his finger to use it on the gun? There is also a lack of emotional connection with the main characters. The mastermind is seeking revenge over the death of his wife, but he coldly kills a naked woman to showcase how long it takes for someone to bleed to death from a breast wound. Yikes! I'm not sure what is more creepy, his psychotic Japanese lectures, or the mad laughter of the necrophiliac that peppers the film in disturbing frequency.
The suspension of belief hit another brick wall with the whole bleeding thing. How can the woman tear up her flesh to extract the gun parts without shutting down from pain? The amount of so much blood pouring out of her in seconds makes it hard to believe that she can still stand let alone fight. At the rate of blood flow, which magically disappears later, 22 minutes seem impossible.
Overall, this is a 1 star movie. It's worth watching for the nude fighting scenes. I'm of the opinion that this idea should be transplanted into a different story, which is better executed, and hopefully with a coherent script.
The Door (2014)
Engaging Setting - Bad Execution
I am sure this movie was made because the idea itself was a nice pitch. Pay someone 100,000k a year to guard a door in a building in the middle of nowhere.
Someone in a studio though wow what a novel concept. They are right. The idea and the setting gives the director and scriptwriter a huge potential to pull from.
The actors do a decent job. All we need now is for the director, script and the special effects to kick in, and give us that horror ride they promised. Yeah right! They spend most of the movie playing the 'did you this noise', 'no I didn't', 'let's go look', 'oh there isn't anything here', 'oh there is that creepy noise again', oh c'mon!
There were some attempts at 'ghost like' scares, but lacking cgi, they used human actors with almost no makeup, and it was pretty much lacking in fear factor. Realizing this was the case, our script writer, director, decides to switch tack in Act 3, and gives us some answers and a nice twist, and then turns the movie into a 10 minute slasher flick. What a total let down! There is no pay-off for watching this film.
The truth is that yes there are many bad movies out there and they are just bad with no potential for being better, but this, had potential for a cult classic, and they didn't deliver. If I was the producer, I'd just pull this film off the self, reshoot this film in the same location using a different modified script, get funding for some serious CGI, and learn from the Asian horror masters THEN re- release it.
Jinn (2014)
Jinn Pretty Cool - if Tame
I kept hearing mixed reviews about this film. I know when it comes to the Jinn, Muslim directors tend to want to throw in religious overtones, and this film follows the same line. Islamic recitations are used to banish or keep the Jinn at bay and Quranic references to the Jinn are key foundation of this film. There is also the usual Islamic dig against Jews toward the end since the good Jinn is Jewish and the Priest sorta mocks his attachment to his faith.
Part of the problem is that the film maker doesn't really know much about the Jinn. He has to invent them and invent them using the most basic Islamic belief of beings of Fire. Of course, Islam says God made us from mud, but it would be foolish to depict a human being as a dirt golem.
I realize this a movie and not a factual depiction, but the reason I brought it up, is because overall the film doesn't know what to do with its Jinn. We keep bouncing back and forth on what they look like and what they can do and what they want and this impact the storyline and the movie itself in a negative way.
Then we got the problem with a hero that we really couldn't care less about or identify with. It became a bit messianic toward the end.
Special effects are fine and the music score is good. Action doesn't disappoint and there is one or two scenes that makes you jump. It was a well executed film, but it could have been much much more. It is a nice popcorn rental, but don't be passing it around as an educational material on the Jinn, because that is the last thing this is.
2012: Supernova (2009)
Like eating socks.... more chewing doesn't make it taste any better
I like all movies from highest production to cheesy C-. This movie had potential to be a fun sci-fi flick. This potential had a sad collision with a supernova and the supernova won.
The first sin of this movie is to display a shelf-full of stock stereotypes. You got the devious Chinese scientist that will betray the US even at risk of her own country's annihilation, the vodka guzzling Russian scientist that looks like a semi-bold Albert Einstein whose IQ score married a '-'. My favourite are automatic weapons wielding Palestinian-dressed Iranians who after ambushing our hero asked him WHY is he smuggling nuclear weapons in his jeep into a high secure US base? Yes, a terrorist cell in search of answers! The second sin of this movie is setting dichotomy. No matter where the events are supposed to be taking place, your brain is going - but ...but...that isn't WHERE you are! I mean yes a bit of suspension of belief is normal when watching movies, but it takes 3,000 meters of suspension rope to convince you that an obvious empty metal workshop is really the headquarter for the most advanced secret space computer lap. It doesn't help that the computers look older than Tandy. Yes, I was waiting for the tubes to burn out...
The third sin is irrational dialogue and behaviour that causes enough double takes to produce double vision. Example, heroes are complaining that their car has been transformed into lightning magnet, so they make a decision to get out of their fully functioning car to hail another car that might NOT attract lightning this time... My favourite is when the hero successfully eludes the terrorists running after him by finding a truck then drives for a few minutes then turns into another spot of the same area to get out and resume being chased on foot...
To be fair, the movie did have one redeeming value. The cgi graphics were pretty well done for the scenes of havoc. The only thing is when they appeared you felt like someone switched the channel without warning. The quality and background and the impact of the visuals were so out of the sync with the poor excuse for a home made sci-fi movie attempt that you wished all the actors died so you can just focus on the only thing worth watching...our solar system going kaboom! If I was the guy in charge, I would cut out all scenes involving actors, keep the special effect reel and put it on you tube as a resume for a job in a real movie.
*drinks lots of water*
The Objective (2008)
The Objective - Plot About Djinn
Many people don't get what the supernatural events were about in this movie. It is normal because it contains elements of common themes of ghosts and ufo. However, it deals with neither. Many of the events of the film makes sense if you understand occult lore of the Middle East surrounding creatures known as the Djinn.
Forget about the Aladdin version of the Djinn. Mythological and occult lore of the Djinn is entirely different. Djinn are said to be of fire that doesn't burn. That is an ancient reference to electricity or magnetism. The word jinn in Arabic has the linguistic meaning of 'invisible' and it also shares the same linguistic root as the word 'mad'.
Let's take a closer look at the movie...
1) The man in the cave is actually a sorcerer. The beings he was communicating with are the djinn. They are invisible to the naked eye, but they registered on the solider's equipment. He provided them water that turned into sand. Djinn in ancient lore are able to materialize things ranging from food to gemstones. However, they eventually turn to dust.
2) Evil tribes of the djinn such as the Beni Ghilan (followers of al-Ghoul) are believed to consume dead human flesh.
3) Ancient records detailing djinn materialization talk about strange sounds like 'buzzing bees' before they appear. In this movie, it is the buzzing sound of a chopper.
4) Magnetic phenomena....there is a little known Arabic text called the Green Island dating back to medieval morocco. This book talks about a man who was kidnapped by the djinn and taken to a magical island. He was returned to his village many years later. He left behind a make-shift map trying to point out where this magical island was. Modern researchers of the story tried to correlate the map with modern geographic data. They discovered that the instructions placed it somewhere in the middle of the Bermuda triangle. The mountain range appears to be another secret home of the djinn and thus seem to reflect strange magnetic phenomena.
5) Weird lights...the same old occult texts when discussing djinn manifestation refer to lights that suddenly appear and shine upon the sorcerer from which emerge strange figures (the djinn).
6) Ending....djinn are reported to have strong telepathic abilities and to be very secretive of their reality. The film's ending is about a man whose brain was scrambled by the djinn after being touched on the forehead by one of them. He got too close and he was neutralized and left behind as an example...
I don't claim to know exactly what the script writer intended with all of those references. I am making an educated guess here based on the similarities (coincidental or intended) between the events of the movie and the ancient mythological narrative.
Check out books such 'Book of Deadly Names' for more info on the djinn.