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Reviews
Lost Continent (1951)
Inspiration for Cliffhanger? Uhhh...no.
A riveting adventure filled with joy, Lost Continent is probably best remembered for one thing: rock climbing.
In one of the most amazing shows of padding out a film, this 83 minute feature contains about 20 minutes of pure mountaineering. Doesn't sound too bad until you realize that almost nothing happens during those 20 minutes than a bunch of guys walking from rock to rock.
So what is this film? It starts as a political-military flick filled with disjointed semi-back-stories and speeches, runs right into the boring uncut mountaineering and finally ends up as it was advertised, as a fantasy-adventure.
A good fantasy-adventure? Nope, not really, but it's not bad either. It contains all the flat one-dimensional characters and bad effects and filming of the 50's, but it's no worse than any of those. If you're really into these classic adventure flicks, the movie is worth watching once they're done rock climbing.
Nochnoy dozor (2004)
Nochnoy dozor...god-awful
Having seen this film in Russia, it is an honest fear of mine that it'll gain any popularity or even a hype in the West.
The popularity of this film has to be understood and can't really be shared in the West. The Nochnoy dozor books were awfully popular in Russia. I can't really comment on the quality of those books, having only casually read the first few a bit, but I can say that if you look at the popularity of those books you would realise that it didn't really matter to the Russians how good or bad the film would be. They *wanted* a film and any would do. In my opinion, the Harry Potter movies weren't bad, but imagine they were. Would the first Harry Potter film not still have been a huge hit and even hugely hyped by the avid book readers, just because it managed to put the books into film-form? The same holds true here, but it has to be remembered that the West doesn't share the hype that the Night Watch books gained in Russia. I would be highly surprised if this movie popped in on the Oscars, as I've heard many Russians suggest, and would definitely be insulted if next to the many quality films produced by foreign countries including Russia this one would be listed. Many recent Russian films, like Sibirskiy tsiryulnik or Zvezda or Vostok-Zapad or even Voina, deserved the Oscar more than this film.
It is interesting to Sibirskiy tsiryulnik (the Barber of Siberia) in comparison to this. Mikhalkov's ambitious project was seen by many to be little more than an attempt to impress the West. This assertion is not fair, but it does reveal a lot about the flaws of that film, which sometimes hung right in between Western and Russian styles, and other border-crossing attempts, like Viona or this film. Voina fails in giving an otherwise excellent film an American ending. This films fails by giving a somewhat usable premise a heavy Hollywood coating.
The acting is, to be honest, not that good and the storyline is confusing for those that are not avid readers of the Night Watch series, e.g. everyone outside Russia. This does not kill off the film though, it is killed by the script (which I will not go into in detail except to say that it is confusing and implausible up to a point of annoyance) and by the awful camera-works, which feels like mix of Russian styles, Matrixized actions and shocky Blair Witch filming. The net result is one hell of a head-ache and no clue as to what you just looked at.
Maybe, just maybe, this film has a leg to stand on as a simple action-film with a nice fantastic background, weren't it for the confusing plot and the poorly directed action scenes. I would advise everyone except the Night Watch-fans to stay well away from this work.
The Matrix Reloaded (2003)
Highlander 2 all over again; a terrible movie
When the Matrix 2 was announced, many years before it was actually finished, everyone seemed really excited. I did not understand why. It seems that every few years everyone together forgets the first rule of film-making: `If the 1st movie was great and a hit, it is followed by a terrible sequel'. Highlander 2 is the prime example of this, as it tastelessly tore apart the first installment of the trilogy (ignoring Endgame here).
Now this film fulfilled my expectancy in being really bad, but it overshot that target. The first film wasn't as brilliant as most people claim it to be, but this one was terrible. Maybe if I was capable of turning off my higher brain functions I would've enjoyed it, but try as I might, I couldn't. The problems of the Matrix are many, and to view them best would be to look at them systematically; I shall discuss several points, from easy to hard; the special effects, the dialogue, the acting, the plot holes in both movies and the originality of this work (and it's philosophies).
The special effects were great, from a very basic point of view. Once you start to look closely, you notice how this movie is more a glorified video game than a piece of cinema. The CGI imaging is thrown smack in your face. None of the subtle camera-tricks of the Matrix 1 could be found anywhere.
I mean, be honest, how much CGI effects were there in the first Matrix? Next-to-none. I'll admit the CGI was necessary in some of the scenes of the Matrix Reloaded, but they were made without any care or love, just slapped on the movie. At times the faces and clothing look so unrealistic that it becomes more of a joke than an effect.
The dialogue all through the movie might've been one of the biggest flaws. The biggest speeches and monologues of the film are tasteless at best, and usually just circle around the point to express it in such a meandering way that half the audience won't get it. There are three key speeches in the film, one of them about freedom and not being afraid, two of them being about fatalism. Those last two fall short of even explaining the concept of fatalism (and the first one is completely pointless), despite a handily taped in Neo going `Whoa, you mean...' every now again, for the real dunces.
The acting...well, actually, I won't discuss this point much. Carrie-Anne Moss is as bad as she is in the first movie, which is too say horrible. Keanu Reeves is his usual self and as such doesn't add or detract much from the movie. Fishburne is alright. Hugo Weaving stands above the rest as a shining beacon of light, and is the only one even worth mentioning. The acting of this movie made me glad the Academy never hands out awards for SF-movies.
The plot holes in both movies, though nobody ever realized this, are gaping huge. It's incredible how anybody with half a brain could watch this movie and not pick up on this. Take the whole concept of the Matrix in the first place; how do you get energy out of humans? There is no possible way to get more energy into humans than they have consumed through food beforehand? And food? How could the robots grow food for the humans without the sun? And haven't the robots ever heard of nuclear energy? Gee, maybe that'd work a bit better than the odd human battery. A computer program also pointed out to me how the whole idea of a programmed Matrix in which people die when being unplugged suddenly was ludicrous, but I'll not get into that.
Next point; anyone that paid attention at the first movie might've noticed how it ended with Neo being (or becoming) the One. You might also remember Morpheus saying that the One had the power to bend the Matrix to his will. If so, Neo has no need to fight with people, he can just kill them instantaneously. It's as simple as that, if he can freeze bullets in the air, then why not freeze Agent Smith? There are many small holes like these, but these two alone invalidate the entire plot, especially that of the second one.
The originality and philosophy of both movies left a lot of people sitting with gaping mouths. For instance, the whole idea that the world might not be real is original...right? Not at all, it goes back to, for example, Lewis Carroll's `Alice's Adventures in Wonderland' and `Through the Looking-Glass'. In the second book, one of the twins Tweedle-dee and Tweedle-Dum, remarks `Do you think those are real tears?' when Alice is crying. While Carroll made his point a lot less subtle, the Matrixes just push it into your face. As for the idea of the world consisting of number, that was thought up some centuries before Christ by the Greek philosopher Pythagoras.
The Matrix 2 inserted another idea; the whole struggle of fatalism (cause-and-attempt theory; because everything is caused by something else, free choice doesn't exist) and the free-choice theory, which basically stems from anthropocentrism (i.e. everything is fixed, except human choice). You must be a social recluse with no schooling whatsoever never to have gotten in touch with either philosophies before, so this is not renewing. And I'm not even going into the way this awful film portrays the free-choice idea as ultimately good and fatalism as ultimately evil (and while fatalism might be, the directly-related determinism certainly isn't).
All-in-all, this is a definitive `stay away no matter what happens' film, and though I was willing to give the Wachowski Brothers a chance in this film, I now know there's no hope whatsoever for the Matrix 3. Hopefully, once the hype is completely over, people will come face-to-face with the fact that this is a terribly-made stupid action flick.
De boezemvriend (1982)
Best Dutch comedy ever?
Possibly, this is a point of discussion, but I don't think there are a lot of Dutch people that don't remember André van Duin's old shows, and most of those will remember this gem; de Boezemvriend.
The humour, when looking back, is typically van Duin and by that logic, won't appeal to a lot of people....and with people I mean adults. But it will appeal powerfully to all van Duin fans and maybe even to all Dutch people. This movie was quite immensely popular and still is quite a hit on Dutch television.
The story line is ludicrous at best, the movie takes place in the time of Napoleon and has as little to do with reality as might humanly be possible.
As for the international audience...I don't know, I would advise you to take a look, even if it is only to see the once-hot Vanessa (you don't want to see her now).
Overkill (1996)
Damn! What a waste of...everything
This is the kind of movie that's so bad it's funny, and that almost makes it worth watching. Every move and every line is such an unrealistic clichè it will haunt you for days...
And the acting...Don't get me started.
Die Another Day (2002)
This movie is só incredibly bad it's kind of funny
I never liked Pierce as Bond anyway, yes, he has the looks and attitude for it, but he's too slick, too fast, too...ugh...American.
But enough about Pierce, because he has done at least on ok Bond movie (Goldeneye, duh), I can't seem to be able to figure out if this film was meant as a joke and parody on Bond-films (kind of like Never say never again, but less funny) or if they were seriously trying to make the "best Bond film ever" (as some critics were acclaimed to say over here) by combining everything which makes Bond great and stuff it into one big movie.
Oh yes, it contains everything a Bond film needs, and when it comes to that, it's a good Bond film. Ok performances, a funny Cleese, a reasonable Brosnan, good action sequences and good Bond-women, so why am I saying it's the worst Bond film ever (I am saying that)? Because of the plot. There were so many things that made no sense or where just really violating all the laws of physics it almost wasn't funny anymore. I don't expect a lot of intelligence from a Bond film, but this was pushing it just a bit too far.
*spoiler spoiler spoiler*
A few examples:
_I'm sorry, but I hate it when the bad chick is actually hotter than the good chick, as was seriously the case here. _I'm sick and tired of these nerdy super-villains, first there's a guy that has no real special powers, then we get a man with a bullet in his head that can't feel pain, and now a man that doesn't sleep. Ooooh, scary...not. Even the voodoo-people from Live and let die (best Bond-tune ever) were better than that. _Terrible, terrible tune _"Yes, let's make a machine to edit someone's DNA and build a big magnet on top of it" _"Yes, let's make a suit to control a sattelite with and now that we're at it, let's place a big red button on it which, when pushed, gives the wearer of the suit electrical shocks. Make sense" _Yeah, it sure is possible to start a helicopter that's falling out of a place, just like it's possible for those cars to land without a dent _The puns were terrible, even by Bond-standards "Mr Kil? A name to die for" _Bond sneaks into a high-security hospital which is host to some of the biggest crime-bosses in history by pushing a wheelchair at the guards and climbing in through the window _Excuse me, but what does face-changing have to do with changing the DNA in your bone-marrow (incidentally, since the rest of your body has your old genetic make-up, the chance that your old body would reject the new DNA is wheeehey-big) _The laser aimed at Sfinx turns around in seconds, then takes an hour to try and reach her face. Incidentally, how does Sfinx know how to operate the controls of those lasers, and how does Bond know how to drive the car ("He's a cool guy" is not a good reason). And why can Sfinx, a normal secret girl, defeat the sword-fighting champion of the world in sword-fighting...Really? _It's not a good idea to put a freezing person in a thermal bath, I'm pretty sure that would cause her heart to arrest...Nor is it a good idea to drive through a wall of ice without a front-shield window (or with one, for that matter).
This film was so terrible, it should be removed from the Bond archives.a
Bicentennial Man (1999)
Corny as hell...
Robin Williams and the not-to-miss Oliver Platt give good performances in this movie, and the way the robot was made using Robin Williams face was quite good, though not too impressive.
Overall, I don't think this movie is really too long, nor does it contain much bad acting, it's just the incredibly bad, corny writing which makes it so terribly, and the bad directing from Harry Potter-man Christ Columbus, make it a movie that just hurts you to see.
If you like pure-hearted feelgood movies, you'll love this one, it has a certain cuteness and heaps upon heaps of charming moments, but for the average film-watcher, this just hurts.
Oblivion (1994)
An orgy of bad special effects and terrible acting
The special effects of this movie are, especially for its time, laughable and used in such an over-emphasized way that you can't deny their terrible existance.
The acting redefines the term "terrible overacting" at the hands of Meg Foster and Richard Joseph Paul, where julie Newman and Andrew Divoff just redefine "bad".
***spoilers***
The charm in this movie can be found in two things: First is the excellent casting of Carel "Lurch" Struycken as the mysterious psychic Gaunt, who can sense where and when people will die and is always there.
The second are original finds, the combination SF-Western is obviously original, if terrible, but other finds are more original, like the gunman Zack Stone being able to sense the pain of the people he shoots (though his acting falls short here).
Overal...don't see this movie, except if you love that ol' hunk-o-brutal Carel Struycken, as any self-respecting Dutchman should.
Steel Dawn (1987)
Hmmmm, very interesting...
It's actually kind of funny to think this movie was released in the same year as the world-hit Dirty Dancing.
This Mad Max-esque film does have a view things going for it. The atmosphere of a post-apocalyptic world isn't torn apart as bad as you would expect Swayze to do, and he's not a walking catastrophe in the film either, as you would expect, though his acting is weak.
Come to think of it, all the acting is weak, and the movie has one of the weakest story-lines ever. Still, it's not a complete loss, it's worth watching if you're really bored or just can't get any sleep (which is when I saw it, 12 o'clock (midnight))...
Ghost Fever (1986)
Why, God, why?!?!
This movie is só incredibly unfunny it makes any man want to cry, the cliché are put on thicker than 5-year old peanut butter and in such a way that it actually sucks humour out of your heart, every single joke was badly timed and wouldn't have been funny if it were timed correctly.
Don't see this movie, there's a real chance you'll never be able to enjoy going to comedies again...ever.
Labyrinth (1986)
One of the greatest fantasy films of all time
The makers of the special effects of the LotR movies and the new Star Wars movies should definitely watch Labyrinth and the Dark Crystal (1982), they could learn a trick or two.
This movie, together with the Dark Crystal, just radiates such a feeling of complete wonder and mystery, it grabs you and encloses you into a fantasy world and doesn't let go.
Both in this movie and in the Dark Crystal the world created is so complete, so incredibly finished, that you would believe yourself to be in it.
These works of art should be held in high esteem, and still stand up high after two decades. Must see films, especially for those people that think "Peter Jackson is a great director"
Commando (1985)
Forget Rambo, this is the real thing!!!
This is probably one of the greatest shoot-em-up action movies of all time, Arnold is a genius (why did he feel like stripping down to row a boat, though...hmmm, perhaps to show his muscles to passing dolphins) and fits perfectly into this action film.
Obviously, it's not something to take seriously, this piece of art, just watch it and be enthralled by the combination of action and just things-that-are-supposed-to-be-serious-but-are-funny-as-hell.
A must-see, especially for action collection people.
Conan the Barbarian (1982)
One of the greatest movies of all time
My brother was once talking with a friend about what are some of the greatest movies of all time, and he said "Conan the Barbarian is one", the other replied "Conan? Isn't that a stupid movie"
And a lot can be said for this, Conan has a simple linear plot which sidesteps rarely and doesn't exactly lead you into a trance of afterthoughts (though it has some speeches that are great in their shortness and power, however, when you look closely at the movie, you'll notice certain things. I draw up one example: Kiyoshi Yamazaki, the Sword Master in the movie, was actually the one helping in making the sword fighting realistic.
And that's what makes the movie great, brilliant action that looks authentic, coupled with an atmosphere that runs all through the movie and has an enormous, powerful authentic feel. This is a must-see film for any fantasy lover, Arnold Schwarzenegger has never been so good.