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robodog-5
Reviews
The Dark Knight (2008)
Best Movie ever - this week
OK, I'm on a "dark" theme today. See my other comments. There is nothing bad to say about this film. it is pure cinema gold. I've been reading batman comics for a long time and this has soooo nailed it that the comics in fact are starting to gear towards the more realistic approach to Gotham's crime fighter. Bale is dependable but as with Batman begins, the supporting characters steal the show. I'm not going to go on about ledger as everyone else has. Commissioner Gorden is on fire! I want them to do a movie just on Jim Gordon. I thought the score to the first movie was perfect, how do you trump perfection? Easy listen to this soundtrack. I bought the soundtrack before i thought of buying the movie. Wow. I'm still having problems with the rounded cowl, but its getting better. Christopher Nolan is some form of God that god down from the clouds and said "I'll give them cinema" and then threw a lightning bolt a the screen.
Transmorphers (2007)
cinema gem? Not likely
My eyes hurt! I think that was from trying to cut them out to end the pain. I should have known better due to the title but i though - its probably so bad its good right? Wrong. The worst crime is, the first VFX shot is awesome. no lying. And then the next one comes up and you go "ah spent it all on the first shot hey?". I also just want to point out to people that i want to live in the future and joint the military because it seems that you can make general by the age of 25 and command an air wing at 20. The best thing this movie has going for it is the hot chicks. There are loads of them, none of them can act, but they're porn star hot. I bet the girls have just made the step up from there. I would have loved to have been in the casting office for this one to listen to the producers list the merits of potential actresses. There are also 2 sets where all the set design money went to and they should be commended for that. There's a cool corridor that must have cost 100 dollars because its made of fluro and agricultural pipe cut in half but it looks really really good. is it bad? yes. is it watchable? kinda. Should i expect anything? i'll stop now.
Friday the 13th (2009)
Well done Jason
Slasher done right!!!! You betcha. Body count, actually seeing blood, an unkillable monster. Yes yes its all been done before but when you hit all the right marks you get something that stands out a little bit more from the rest of the pack. This is a true Friday the 13th, exploitative to the max! Just as they were always meant to be, only now with added budget. There is nothing to say other than this is a very solid piece of work. Did i mention funny? There's wit in some of these lines. Everybody has a zinger at some point and the cast pull them off rather than them falling flat out of the page. I wasn't expecting much out of this because there's been a lot of horror rubbish around as of late. I picked it up on a whim and i'm all the happier for it. Marcus Nispel can Direct the hell out of horror. This is two for two with him an platinum dunes now and i want to see what he can do next. I'd like to see him dabble in a bit of dark sci fi. Shame about Patherfinder though, everybody has a hiccup.
The Dark Lurking (2009)
Don't expect scares this in not a horror its an action movie.
Scifi tools will probably rubbish this thing but gore hounds should enjoy. It took about 9 1/2 minutes and then it got me. The camera work in the first scene is meh and then there's some creds and some running around corridors and then BAM! 2 minutes of full on Chaos. Need i say plasma cannon (i guess that's what it is) in close corridors? Splat splat and splat. I was in from there and despite what drawbacks this movie has, i.e. lack of budget and sub par acting (bald bad guy was good, fat chick not so much) its definitely punching above its weight. The creatures are cool and there's lots of them and they mutate for some reason to do with demonology but this is all just a pretext to letting things explode with glee. In the middle there's the inevitable 2nd act dip where things get explained for about 5 minutes too long but the 3rd act is all gunpowder baby. (i saw some french guy cut together 2 minutes on you tube of monsters getting wasted and blown to shreds). The story is pretty standard but i don't think that was the point. I had my beer and my pizza and two others of us and it was cool. The only thing is, it could have been much much much funnier. They missed the boat by making it a bit too serious. It looks good for the most of the time, lots of dark corridors/tunnels and stuff but its more about monster fights rather than BOO scares(i.e. there aren't any). if you added another 0 to the budget and a couple of names i bed you'd be watching this in the cinema. Maybe.
Race to Witch Mountain (2009)
the bay effect
Director of said film watch a lot of Michael Bay movies much??? Wow, what a completely wrong way to go. Kids adventure movie usually = sense of wonder and awe, excitement and characters you can enjoy. That's on the surface and i could go much much deeper. How ripe is the concept with two alien shapeshifter children landing on earth and the government after them. If the director wanted to borrow style and them he should have looked to either ET or close encounters and you could have had a heartfelt, compelling journey of discovery and adventure. That's not what you get here. Here you get bay-lite, even down to the Trevor Rabin score (i don't think i've heard a more wildly inappropriate score for a movie). The first 20 minutes is a blinding blur of wild editing and camera movement that completely loses any sense of wonder. eg. when the human beings encounter the downed spacecraft you should have amazed characters marvelling at something they've never seen before accompanied by some kind of horner or williams heart strings. Nu-uh. Not here ladies and gentlemen, actually i can't think of anything more i want to say about this except for "what a missed opportunity"!! so i'm going to stop writing,
Prey (2009)
Aussie film-making has hit new depths
I have never felt the urge to write a comment on IMDb before because i either like a film and vote or hate it enough to enjoy it and vote and leave it at that. Until i met Prey, that is. This is the most inept piece of film making to come out of Australia since the good old 80s 10ba system was throwing us some trash. there is nothing redeeming about this film and at 76 minutes it has overstayed its welcome by a good 20 minutes. The entire cast is Australian but for reasons never explained, of the 6 people 4 of them are Americans in Australia (you know they're not really because the accents are atrocious). This film, and i call it that loosely, was developed with Film Victoria. How? Why? I cannot comprehend. This is a movie that is begging for a bit of T & A but can't muster the courage to be the blatantly exploitative movie it needs to be. For gods sake you can even see people swearing when the rerecorded voice is trying to cover it up. This is a testament to Australian film-making at the moment. no courage, no balls and no talent. No matter how flawed they may be, indie produced no budget genre fare (like Gabriel, Undead and The Dark Lurking)are at least trying to be a hell of a lot more than the sum of their parts should be, and for the most part they are succeeding. No wonder all these guys are trying to get to the states, and good luck to them i say!