kurteren Reviews

The Master of Disguise (2002)

Truly awful

[1/10 · 8 March 2014]

This movie is terrible. The only semi-funny bits are juvenile fart jokes (which they repeat throughout the movie as a running gag). I've seen serious drama that was funnier than this movie. Even Greek tragedy is funnier than this movie.

Basically, this movie is supposed to be funny, but instead it's cringe worthy. The raison d'être of this movie is that Dana Carvey is good at impersonating people, so that's what he does throughout the movie - but it just isn't funny at all. Yes, there is a really stupid throwaway story about a lineage of "masters of disguise", but that's just a setup for Dana's impersonations. And they're not funny.

He does an impersonation of Scarface which people seem to like, but even that one is overacted - which is kind of impressive when you consider how Al Pacino did chew the scenery in the original movie. Dana Carvey just CANNOT ACT, and he doesn't even try. He can make stupid "mime" style faces, that's all.

I cannot imagine who their target audience was? This is way too juvenile for the Wayne's World crowd, but this wasn't presented as a children's movie, but rather a Dana Carvey vehicle?

The producers of this must be blamed. What were they thinking?

Avoid this movie at all cost - you have been warned!

The Wicker Man (2006)

A really bad waste of time

[2/10 · 6 February 2014]

This movie is plain bad. I only saw it because of the original, just to see what they would do with the idea. I had heard that it wasn't that good, but I honestly didn't expect it to be this catastrophically bad.

The motivations of people are non existent. They're just there, and they just do what they do - primarily to scare and be creepy. Much of the (over)acting is laughable. Cage hams it up in some scenes. He has made some good movies, but in this movie, he just plain sucks. At least it sucks consistently, from start to finish!

The movie lacks subtlety, is very clichéd and is grossly overdone. It becomes completely bizarre towards the end. Some of it seems like an unintentional(?) parody of horror movies, similar to Scary movie (I'm not kidding).

>>slight spoiler<<

The tagged on story, about the girl Cage's character couldn't save, does NOT ad depth or back story, it's just utterly pointless. It's just a "vehicle" for some boo scares/dreams later, and it becomes annoying.

(Update: There's some theory going around that those people were part of the plot to get him there, and that they didn't die in the explosion - honestly that doesn't make any sense at all, unless they're supernatural beings.)

Maybe the director hated the original, and wanted to spoof it? Why would anyone want to finance this crap? It just baffles me.

Don't see this, unless you want to see an unintentionally (I think) funny movie. It was more sad to me, sad that I spend all that time watching the whole movie. What a waste of time.

I repeat: This movie is REALLY, REALLY bad. You have been warned! See the original instead!

Flipper (1995–2000)

The first season is good, but...

[6/10 · 1 October 2012]

The first season of this show has its charms. The character dynamics are interesting, and many of the characters are believable. The occasional villains are sometimes a bit over the top, and the dolphin is underused at times. It's more like a Flipper LITE compared with the original show. Despite some occasional overacting the show is still watchable, as the four main characters are fairly interesting and there's some continuing character development as well.

However, the change from season one into season two makes the show completely different. Some of the characters are more like caricatures - in the first season there are such characters as well, but they're mostly the villains, while that also applies to the reoccurring characters in the second season.

In the second season it's also completely unbelievable that this is supposed to be Florida, as most people speak with HEAVY Australian accents. It's like they don't even try....

The second season seems inspired by Baywatch more than Flipper, as there's constantly bikini "babes" walking around in the background of the shots and they even have beauty pageants! That season also features some search and rescue team as main characters, similar to Baywatch as well. Even Maya is featured in an exploitative way for no real reason. Inexplicably, Alba's acting is worse than it was in the first season.

Just watch the first season - it has an ending which serves well as a final ending for the show. There are no real unresolved issues at all, as almost everything unravels through the season. The last episode is a bit odd, but it works as a conclusion. Just forget about the other seasons, regard season one as sort of a stand alone show.

I gave this a six out of ten, but that applies only to the first season.