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Stargate SG-1: Grace (2004)
Overall one of the calmer episodes.
"Calm" is the word I'd use if I had to describe this episode in one word.
The beginning is a little shaky and could have done things differently to show (with 100% confirmation) that this is a stand-alone episode with the Prometheus on a new mission. That information does get added later, but the "previously on Stargate SG-1" part doesn't make this clear at all. My initial impression was that this episode was going back to an earlier point in the series, which it didn't.
After the crew of the Prometheus encounter the alien vessel and Sam wakes up, this episode takes on a slightly surreal and slow (but not sluggish) pace to go with the mysteries of what's going on.
There are a lot of unanswered questions here but that's not necessarily a bad thing, since it's done in a way that allows people to draw their own conclusions without being too curious about everything. Usually having unanswered questions is annoying, but it's fine here.
The Prometheus' mission should have been clear from the first minute or two, and it wasn't - that's pretty much my only major complaint. While this episode probably isn't for everyone, and can be skipped if you're concerned with the main storyline, I thought it was pretty well-directed and well-acted.
If I could I'd probably give this episode a 7.5 but I'll round up to 8. It's definitely not a 'bad' episode.
Stargate SG-1: Red Sky (2001)
Wormholes aren't the only holes here.
This episode could be better if it didn't have obvious plot holes.
Plot: SG-1 travels to a planet named K'Tau by overriding certain Stargate safety protocols. As a result, they accidentally create a life- threatening problem for the inhabitants of K'Tau by altering their sun's chemistry. SG-1 manages to get in contact with the Asgard Freyr, who brought the people to that planet.
Freyr says that K'Tau is under the Protected Planets Treaty, so the Asgard can't help SG-1 fix the problem they caused, despite being capable of fixing the problem. Otherwise the Treaty will be void, leaving the Goa'uld free to attack Asgard planets.
Now, this is where the first plot hole appears. The Asgard say they aren't allowed to "artificially advance" people by nullifying "natural disasters." While O'Neill accepts this explanation, it doesn't make any sense at all - especially considering that the problem was caused by humans and would never naturally occur. It's not a natural disaster. The Asgard should therefore be free to help SG-1 without voiding the Protected Planets Treaty, yet for some reason they claim otherwise. (Since this is a really obvious hole, it seems like lazy writing in creating this episode.)
The next plot hole appears when people begin traveling between K'Tau and Earth. Since this is exactly what caused the problem in the first place, wouldn't continued travel from Earth's Stargate result in the problem with the sun worsening?
O'Neill asks - several times - how the Asgard pretending to be gods is any better than the Goa'uld lies about being gods. There are some interesting directions that could be taken here, but these questions pretty much get ignored in favor of advancing the plot (which is already flawed).
There are some other issues with this episode but they're mostly forgivable considering they require suspension of disbelief or happen off-screen so we don't understand exactly what happened.
At the very end, SG-1 believes the Asgard helped after all, but it's entirely possible that they didn't. It's open to speculation, however it doesn't matter since the Asgard could have intervened at any time. Instead, they told SG-1 that they'd rather condemn the people of an entire planet to death instead of help with a small issue, which seems very out of character.
The Descent: Part 2 (2009)
The Descent 1 was better.
This picks up not too long after the first film. The main character (Sarah) has managed to escape the caves, but claims to remember nothing of her time in them. Local authorities take her out of the hospital when they determine she's well enough to walk and demand she accompany them into a cave system so they can search for the bodies of her friends.They believe they found one of the exits, and descend ASAP.
—BEGIN SPOILERS—
Sarah soon begins to have flashbacks. She panics as a result and runs off, leaving everyone else to search for her. In their short search, they find the video camera the group left behind. It contains footage of all the women hanging out followed by some of their journey into the caves, and the video ends when the monsters attack. It's like a 5-second recap of the first film.
Predictably, the monsters soon find this new group of people, and attack. While they have the same glaring problems from the first film, they're slightly more competent.
Everyone runs around, finding/losing each other, begin to die off, and try to escape. Just like the first film, except there wasn't much build- up/exploration, so The Descent 2 is less interesting. It's just a monster movie with humans attempting to escape things that want to eat them, and doesn't really have the elements I liked from The Descent 1. This does include a few references to the first movie and works them in somewhat believably, with the exception of what they did with Juno. It does add to the story, but it's haphazardly wiggled in.
—END SPOILERS—
The ending leaves room for another Descent movie (no big surprise there) but needed some slight work. It was okay, in my opinion, but slightly underwhelming as written - I would have changed it just a bit for extra oomph. There's also a big "why" that goes unanswered and leaves some things up for speculation. I'm not sure if they should be answered or not, as it could go in any direction. (For details, see the last entry of the IMDb FAQ for this film, and note the FAQ has spoilers.)
Overall, The Descent 2 is somewhat entertaining as a sequel to the first movie, but fails to impress since it didn't solve any of The Descent's problems and didn't work off the first film's strengths.
5.5/10
The Descent (2005)
Almost there, but not quite.
The first half is actually rather good, playing with claustrophobia and fear of heights
until the creatures start attacking, just before the 1 hour mark. Then you realize that the film's antagonists are inconsistent, nonsensical, and incredibly incompetent until the script calls for them to specifically kill someone.
The monsters appear to be some kind of subhuman carnivores (who have been around for a long time, judging from the amount of animal remains and blood we see). They've evolved in the darkness to be blind night hunters - but they suck at using every single sense except hearing. One actually places its hand on a girl's head while looking for her, then starts to move on. Seriously, you can't tell the difference between a human head and ROCK? The monsters also don't seem to have a sense of smell. One of the humans says "they must navigate through sound" but the monsters don't appear to have developed any kind of echolocation whatsoever, which in real life would make a blind predator unable to even navigate the network of caves it calls home. And despite living in darkness, the creatures (1) are shown to hunt outside of their caves (2) don't exhibit the traits of light sensitivity despite their eyes giving the impression that they should. Instead, they seem almost drawn to light, and don't recoil when it's shoved in their faces. So despite being blind, they also rely on sight, but can't seem to see anything properly
yes, this is a massive plot hole.
The monsters are literally impossible. There's no rhyme or reason to how they navigate, why they attack the way they do, or
pretty much do anything that they do. They're shitty unrealistic villains.
Even The Cave (2005) had better monsters, and those things looked much less realistic. Yet they had echolocation and were fittingly competent within the narrative.
I also disliked the ending of The Descent. I'm not sure if it's a good or bad ending, but my first impression is dislike. There's a theory about the monsters not being real, but I'm pretty iffy about the validity of that considering a sequel was made. At any rate, as some IMDb users have said (see the discussion board for this movie), the monsters sucked and should have been (1) excluded, or (2) completely rewritten. Their appearance was fine - the costume/prop department did a good job - just their behavior was terribly written. Almost every scene with a monster should have been redone.
The Descent could have been a terrific horror film. Instead, it's closer to mediocrity. The film IS still entertaining but the monsters are remarkably disappointing, as are a few other things in last 30 minutes or so.
Dante's Inferno: An Animated Epic (2010)
A Disappointing Animated Epic
This is a R-rated animated film based on an M-rated video game based on the classic story of Dante Alighieri's Inferno. As one might expect, this isn't quite faithful to the 14th-century source material.
The reinvented plot is this: Dante is a knight in the Crusades, and when he returns home he finds dead bodies. The soul of his girlfriend/fiancé Beatrice is in the process of being taken by Lucifer, so Dante runs after her in an attempt to prevent Beatrice from being taken into Hell. He's stopped at the gates to Hell, which are puzzlingly close to where he lived. You'd think someone would have noticed, since they're very large and it's not like they're hidden very well. Weird stuff unnecessarily happens and he quickly passes through the gates. The film then follows Dante through the nine circles of Hell on his quest to save Beatrice's soul, which is always just out of reach, and later fight Lucifer.
Plot holes and inconsistencies abound. The characters don't make up for it either.
Dante as a character isn't all that interesting. He has to face his many sins as he goes ever deeper, but he's relentless in his pursuit of Beatrice and as a result there isn't much character development. He's very single-minded.
Beatrice is even more boring, relegated as nothing more than a busty damsel-in-distress plot device. She's praised by Lucifer for her "purity" but supposedly she sold her soul for Dante's safe return from the Crusades — that doesn't sound very pure. How did she sell her soul, anyway? It's never explained, as far as I can recall. Did she summon demons? How would she know how to do that?
Virgil is in his role as a guide, and that's fine. He directs Dante through Hell and gives periodic advice, nothing more. He's also basically the only character who's always fully clothed.
As for everything else, it's actually somewhat interesting. The environments could have been a little better, but that's personal opinion. The artists did a good job overall of portraying what Hell might look like if based very loosely on the original Inferno. The demons and various monsters look pretty cool with a few mildly comedic moments. The character designs themselves are nicely done (visually).
Although the film is split into several parts, with a different animation studio (there are 5: Film Roman, Manglobe, Dongwoo Animation, JM Animation, Production I.G.) responsible for each part, the storyline remains linear and is pretty easy to follow. The art styles changing periodically is mildly distracting but they don't differ excessively. Unfortunately, the quality suffers a lot in certain parts — the characters look noticeably different, proportions are wildly inaccurate, etc.
Some parts are much better than others. With regard to the whole, this film is vaguely entertaining and has neat ideas
but fails in a lot of aspects. It might be worth at least one viewing depending on your interests but I certainly wouldn't recommend it to everyone. If you want an rated-R animated epic I'd point you in the direction of the series Berserk (1997) instead of this.
4.5/10
Dracula 3000 (2004)
Comedy or serious film? We may never know.
The characters might seem progressive - black, white, male, female, disabled, ablebodied - if they weren't stereotyped to the point of almost being offensive.
Naturally there's foreshadowing (about as subtle as a punch to the face) and no one follows through on anything remotely related to logic or critical thinking.
Plot: A crew of 6 people (the captain being named Van Helsing) flies on a salvage ship to a long-lost cargo ship (which had been flying from "Transylvania station" to the "Carpathian galaxy") in attempt to claim its contents before the government gets there.
--SPOILERS BELOW--
As they explore the cargo ship, their own ship is somehow disconnected and flies off. Two of the crew find a bunch of coffins filled with sand, and they open some. The guy known as 187 cuts himself doing so, and bleeds on some of the sand. Of course it's a vampire, and reanimates offscreen; it bites 187 and disappears.
The crew rushes to 187 at the sound of screams and all proceed to act like idiots (for example, they look at his newly-broken leg and ask what's wrong). Eventually he turns into a vampire and does absolutely nothing which makes any sense.
We see the vampire who bit 187 and it's assumed that this is Dracula himself, although someone calls him Count Orlock, and apparently some people know vampires exist. Orlock is allegedly the last of his kind, despite all the other coffins around. Personally I'm curious to know how he's been doing all this stuff (like disconnecting Van Helsing's ship, etc, unless he didn't do it... but that makes even less sense) if he was dust/sand in a coffin, and this is never explained.
187 is done in by a pool stick (a wooden stake in space, how convenient) and the second-in-command is revealed to be a robot because somehow that makes sense to the writers.
Then nothing interesting happens. All the characters are terrible and unlikeable, and I find myself wishing the ship explodes and kills them all. There are plot holes and continuity errors so large you could pilot a 747 through them.
By the last 20 minutes I'm convinced this was made as a comedy instead of a serious sci-fi film. When the end of the movie comes, it's so sudden and unexpected I'm not sure what to feel except relief that this awful thing is over. My wish has been granted.
--END OF SPOILERS--
I'm not sure what to rate this film. Is it horrible? Is it supposed to be a parody of vampire movies? Am I supposed to enjoy this ironically, like The Room? Watching Dracula 3000 simply leaves me confused.
Daybreakers (2009)
Starts strong but never quite crosses the finish line.
The idea behind Daybreakers is definitely a good one. It takes place in 2019, a decade after humans around the world began to be turned into vampires. As the epidemic spreads, humanity dwindles, and now humans are only approximately 5 percent of the total population. Those who aren't "farmed" (similar to what happens at one point in the Blade movies) are on the run attempting to avoid this same terrible fate.
The vampires behave, for the most part, as if they were still human. Aside from needing blood and avoiding the sun, not much else has changed. They go to work, ride the subway, etc. The normality of vampirism is pleasantly different from the traditional vampire stories where vampires are the minority. Technology has evolved to help the vampires survive, although some of it seems rather poor (specifically, the home security systems - you'll see what I mean if you watch the movie).
The crisis in Daybreakers is that the blood supply is almost depleted, and a blood substitute (think True Blood) is required before the vampires essentially go extinct in a nasty way. Eventually researcher Edward Dalton (Ethan Hawke) stumbles upon a cure, found by Elvis (Willem Dafoe). The cure itself is weird and difficult to accept, but it kind of works.
And here's where the movie begins to fall apart.
Pointless scenes, plot holes, things that don't make sense, etc. There's some great cinematography here and there, but there's so much inconsistency and generic plot devices that the movie becomes difficult to enjoy. The last third or so of Daybreakers is terribly average.
For about half of the movie, I'd give it a 7/10 or 8/10. For the other half, no more than 5/10 because it's uninspired and recycled. Some ideas are used well and some aren't used so well, so overall I'd give the film a 6/10. Maybe a 6.5 if I could.
Daybreakers is worth watching, but it's a bit disappointing that something with so much potential didn't end well.
Cargo (2009)
If you disregard the ending, it's great!
Cargo starts out promising. The acting is decent with believable characters, the atmosphere is incredible (reminds me of Alien), and there aren't any big complaints to be had as things get moving. The plot accelerates nicely and the film rolls along smoothly. For a somewhat low-budget film (~5 million USD) this is well done.
The plot is essentially this: In the distant future, the Earth has become uninhabitable and people live on space stations until they can afford to go to a Utopian planet named Rhea. Cargo centers around a spaceship ferrying building materials from Earth's orbit to a distant space station (designated "42") which is supposed to be a waypoint-in-progress, although things don't quite go as planned.
--MINOR SPOILERS--
Unfortunately, many important points are never actually explained: how the Earth's ecosystem was destroyed, how the space stations were built, how people were moved there from Earth, when Rhea was found, what happened on Rhea, etc. There's a LOT of missing background information and this detracts from the film.
The CPR scene is just embarrassingly bad. The ladder scene not long after is unnecessarily dramatized. The crew members of the ship don't seem to remember that the cargo moves (supposedly to avoid freezing?) and that it could be dangerous to investigate the cargo bay. So there's plot hole number one.
Aside from these two bits, and the emerging this-doesn't-make-sense love story between Laura/Decker, the movie continues to do well. Then some bigger problems begin to arise.
--MAJOR SPOILERS--
When the stowaway is discovered and dies, Laura decides to not wonder who shot him. Instead she finds pictures and video of Decker and the stowaway, who somehow inexplicably have built a farm on Earth. It's never explained how they travel between Earth and the space stations, or how Decker got his position and ended up on the ship.
The colonization of Rhea turned out to be a failure and a space station was built orbiting it. As people arrive at the planet, they're hooked up to a simulator on the space station instead of being brought out of cryo-sleep and sent to the planet surface (as they would have expected). This process is flawless enough that no one notices.
The first problem here is that this isn't made too clear. The other problems are HOW and WHY? Nobody seems to operate the station (which we assume is the aforementioned 42, but there's no way to tell for sure)... so is the process automated? The unloading of cargo from the ships appears to be automatic, but someone or something would have to open the containers and hook people up to the simulator. We never see how this done and it's difficult to imagine that everything would be automated. Leaving all those people and all that technology alone without people to even perform maintenance or anything? The people in the simulation seem to be decomposing so there definitely isn't much - if any - upkeep. Shipping more people to this space station seems like a gargantuan mistake.
As for the "why," this is important. Since it's never explained how the colonization of Rhea failed, it must have been pretty catastrophic in order to justify building a space station to house everyone. But why stay near Rhea? It takes YEARS to travel from Earth to Rhea, which is a massive consumption of time and resources. What's the point of keeping 42 so far away from Earth? It would have been much cheaper to build it in Earth's solar system. The government could control space travel to the point where no one would find out what was going on.
So we don't know what happened on Rhea or why people were put in a simulator, why 42 is so far away from Earth, among other things. But wait, it gets worse.
The plan to blow up the antennae after entering the simulation is a bit silly. First Laura has an issue with her thrusters, but she's conveniently found and saved by Decker. When she's exiting the simulation he gives her his fuel and tells her to go on without him, because the ship could leave at any moment. Laura had a problem with her navigation/thrusters, though, not fuel. There's no guarantee that she can make her way to the ship, and probably never will if there's actually a problem with her suit. Why is the ship leaving so soon, anyway? Is it programmed to drop off the cargo and leave? That seems stupid in case something goes wrong.
Decker says "I love you" even though there isn't any reason for it and his bond to Laura is tenuous at best, then he spins off into the planet and obviously dies. When Laura enters the ship, she's attacked by the current captain, the last remaining crew member, who amazingly finds an axe out of nowhere and swings it around with no regard for... well, any part of her environment. Because the film is being run into the ground with horrible writing, she dies. Laura is the only person left now, along with the little girl who never has a single line of dialogue and trusts strangers way too easily. Who's flying the ship now? The computer? How? What's going to happen to Laura when she gets back to Earth's space stations? Thrown in jail, most likely, and/or killed. Assuming she survives the trip back. No doubt the government didn't appreciate her little transmission.
--END OF SPOILERS--
The last 30-40 minutes were rather bad. Overall though I'd give Cargo 6.5/10. There are some enjoyable parts and I might give this another viewing.
The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug (2013)
A different kind of "desolation" happened here.
The first three Lord of the Rings movies were excellent. Gorgeous scenery, solid acting, wonderful soundtrack, and a decent script true to the books. The trilogy really brought Tolkien's world to life.
Then we had The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey in 2012. It introduced some new elements Tolkien never thought of and elaborated on some things he merely alluded to. This was a mistake, and many parts of the movie suffered from these artistic liberties brought it. There was potential though, so I hoped the next film would do more. Unfortunately, it didn't do anything good.
Desolation of Smaug continues what An Unexpected Journey began, sinking a fantastic series of movies even deeper into pathetic mire of misery that will make most Tolkien fans wince. This film is just terrible and 80% or more of it can be skipped over with no real loss.
Suspension of disbelief is out the window. Some scenes are BREATHTAKINGLY awful. I can't even begin to describe how utterly ridiculous and campy they are. Particularly the barrel-riding sequence. Desolation of Smaug devolves into something so unbearable, calling it "typical Hollywood" would be a compliment. It's trite. Banal. Hackneyed. Clichéd. Vapid.
I would rather watch The Room (2003) or Rubber (2010) every day for the rest of my life than sit through the entirety of this film again. I only give it a 4/10 because some of the scenery is decent, the actors did alright, and there's Lee Pace + Benedict Cumberbatch.
Script: 1/10. Acting: 8/10 if you consider how they acted instead of what they acted. Special effects: 6/10. Music: good, but not used appropriately in most spots, so 6/10. Amount of clichés: unbearably high.
Dead Space: Aftermath (2011)
Forgettable
Overall this is a fairly mediocre film. It's short, under 80 minutes, so it's not a waste of time even if you hate it. Dead Space: Downfall is much better even though it's 3 years older. The plot is more cohesive and so is the animation style, a very important aspect.
While there can be some complaints about the plot in Aftermath (mostly regarding repetition), it's reasonably decent, and the biggest complaint is the visual aspect. The film is divided into multiple parts and each is made differently - some with 2D animation and some with 3D animation. The 3D is completely awful despite the lighting (inexcusably worse than cutscenes from some PS1 games) and the 2D is weird in the last portion (not objectively BAD, but the style isn't fitting and heavily conflicts with previous sections). Most people would probably rate this as a 7 or 8 if Aftermath used the first part's 2D animation throughout.
If you're a fan of Dead Space it's probably worth watching Aftermath, but I wouldn't recommend it; I'd recommend Downfall instead. It's not amazing, but it's much better than Aftermath in all aspects.
Resident Evil: Retribution (2012)
Just awful. Barely entertaining.
Easily the worst Resident Evil movie yet. The first one was okay, the second less so, and I really enjoyed most of the third. Retribution picks up right where the previous movie left off with an overly long and useless title sequence that takes up almost 10 minutes.
The plot is **spoiler alert** almost exactly the same as the first movie: fight your away out of a large complex, with the same exact enemies (zombies and the Red Queen). The only difference between Retribution and the first movie, is that the complex is underwater instead of underground and there are a few minor differences in what actors are used. Clichés are abundant and you can easily predict at every turn what's going to happen next. Plot holes are also rampant and extremely glaring.
Paul Anderson put absolutely zero effort into this movie, wasting time with useless references to better movies (Dead Snow and Alien were really obvious) and video games (Starcraft in the final scene, with the **spoiler alert** mutalisk-esque flying zombies), and the actors followed suit. I know they can act better, but for some reason (the movie being crap, maybe) they delivered their lines with all the enthusiasm of a man giving a eulogy for his newly dead wife of 60 years. Every line is forced and wooden - they're terrible lines, but c'mon. You're actors, so why are you acting so badly? Maybe the movie could have almost been saved a little bit if there was some effort on someone's part. Milla and the little girl did alright, but for everyone else it has to be their worst acting yet.
The digital special effects were also bad; clearly someone didn't allocate enough of a budget to that department. The action was decent some places, but horribly fake in others. There's also the usual action-movie suspension of disbelief with jumps, flips, and rarely reloading; but I can forgive that just because that's typical these days.
You'll also notice that I haven't made any comparisons yet between this film and the actual Resident Evil games - that's because it's best to pretend that the movies are only very loosely based on the games, because you'll probably just get angry otherwise at how bad Paul Anderson screwed things up. As stand-alone films go, Resident Evil: Retribution is bad enough. One of the worst films I have ever watched.
Overall the movie is a waste of time, but it's mercifully short with only about an hour of actual movie (intro/credits take up almost 30 minutes). Thankfully I didn't waste extra money to see this in 3D. I dearly hope that the next movie is going to be better, but I have serious doubts after seeing Retribution.