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klercker
Reviews
Abandon (2002)
It does deserve a 6
Although a bit confusing sometimes, this movie was a little better than the average rating here, if you'd ask me. Maybe I didn't pay enough attention. Personally, I did not find it predictable, but then again I didn't see the end of THE SIXTH SENSE coming either so... :)
Some parts were a little bit silly, but now and again the movie sent shivers down my spine. The "world" it took place in was pretty eerie actually.
This could be a good choice of movie to watch with your girlfriend, guys. And even if I'm not a big Katie Holmes fan, she was kind of sweet in this movie. ;) 6/10
Dracula III: Legacy (2005)
Very weak
I've just sat through all three movies and I have to say that the Dracula 2000-series' best before date was... well the year 2000.
I chose to comment on the last movie since it's the one not deserving the rating it has here. My guess is it will go down quite a bit as more people actually have seen it.
The first movie, although it did contain some really bad and ridiculous elements, still was pretty entertaining imo. The second movie was... decent at least. This was well below the line of what is acceptable. The story was rather dull and pointless and also full of clichés - bad one's that is.
Furthermore, the movie never scared me. Well, there was one point where I wasn't prepared, but that was it. Isn't this still supposed to be a horror movie? I guess they tried to make sort of a surreal feel to the movie with the amusement park vampires and the setting in the ending with the blood hoses and that "orgie", but it all came out rather cheesy and silly to me - not frightening as intended.
Also, the whole background story about a civil war (or whatever) in Romania and the resistance movement was totally ridiculous! And unnecessary. A simple straightforward we're-going-to-Dracula's-castle-to-finish-him-off-once-and-for-all approach would have sufficed actually. The focus of the movie was flawed in other words.
... and who casted Rutger Hauer as Dracula??? Oh my god... And how did Dracula suddenly get so old after a couple of years? Compared to the second movie that is. The should have kept the same guy throughout the series instead.
3/10
Slipstream (2005)
Hey, at least I TRIED to be optimistic...
The relatively bad rating didn't stop me from watching this movie. I like sci-fi movies and time travelling is also compelling! As many people have stated here, the movie was off to a good start and all was well. However, this ended when with the spinning camera scene inside the bank. Totally ridiculous and uncalled for.
After that the story never really evolved and instead all we saw was a bad action movie without a shred of tension... I agree - they totally wasted a good idea for a movie! As one guy said before me, I too would like to travel back to before I watched this movie.
There are a lot of good comments about this movie, most of which are suspiciously positive about things in this movie that there really cannot be any discussion about whether they're good or not... I believe these people are giving us their subjective thoughts derived from their involvement in this project and therefore they are not to be trusted.
If you're interested in irritating flaws in this movie, you should read some of the other negative reviews really. It's all been said before. However, there is one thing I was wondering about. I'm far from an airplane expert, but would a plane really crash if someone fired a shout through one of the windows? Sure, it might be a bit windy in the cabin, but even that shouldn't be a problem due to the low altitude at which they were flying at the time. No air masks would be necessary anyway. As I said, i'm no expert, but this just seems wrong.
Finally, I'd just like to say that when Astin's character managed to drop the time travel PDA thingumajig for like the eleventh time, I really started to hate him...
3/10
Cellular (2004)
Some qualities, but all in all bad
The first I noticed thing was how fast the movie picked up in pace. You had hardly learned anything about the family before the kidnapping occurred a couple of minutes into the movie. I liked this choice of approach in the story, since you kept learning more and more about the actual background of the characters and why things where happening as the story progressed.
In retrospect however, the story was flawed and the background of the characters actually redundant. The movie would be exactly the same even if you did not know one thing about them. This applies especially to the character Ryan's (the hero I guess) deal with his ex girlfriend and that whole charade in the beginning. Some ways into the movie, I was sitting and wondering when SHE would become a part of the story line. When was she gonna be kidnapped as well? This never occurred however I would learn, and it made me wonder why later on. I'd enjoyed that predictable move more than what actually did happen - nothing much. The little background story that did exist felt superfluous for some reason, since all of a sudden everything was dropped in the movie except for the communication between the mom and Ryan. Strange how the unexpected can be less desirable... :) However, I feel that unexpected is the wrong term to use here. It seems more or less like the other characters and the background was... forgotten... something that definitely made the story less intriguing.
These were the thoughts running through my mind as me and my friend were watching what transpired. Sure, a race against the clock with the cell phone was a decent idea for a movie in my book. There was nothing wrong with the setting in other words if you ask me. It wasn't until somewhere inside the police station I started to twist in my seat. Something was just off by the whole thing, but I could decide upon what it was... The whole thing just continued to spin out of control with the hero starting to break more and more laws in his desperate endeavour. I guess I started questioning the overall credibility of the movie. Could this actually happen? I mean with this single cell phone call being Jessica's only hope? How would I react if I was Ryan? By this time I was also dead tired of the mom's constant questions like "What...?" and "What's happening?" while pathetically snivelling (I counted them but lost interest after a while). This did not seem believable and was just poor acting on Basinger's behalf.
Then something incredible happened. The phone call got intertwined with some egomaniac lawyer's call about his new Porsche, ending up with Ryan carjacking him and stealing HIS cell, since the call had now been totally transfered to his phone... This is when I lost all hope with this movie. I mean, I'm no telecommunications engineer here, but is that even possible today? Ever? At least in Sweden virtually no commercial cell phone traffic has been analogue since the eighties. And even if it was possible, I'd put my money on that, since it's digital, the call would not slowly transgress with a lot of static to the other phone - it would just happen instantaneously.
As you might have guessed, I could not be quiet about this, but instead ventilated my frustration over this blunder to my friend next to me. Now feeling insulted, I guess this catalysed my senses since I realized this movie's greatest flaw - why in (enter words you see fit) didn't he just hang up the phone, check the number, and call the police??? I felt pretty ashamed over myself that I hadn't thought of this earlier, right away. How can you base the whole movie's basic dilemma on something this obvious, something so simple, something so easily solved??? Even if the number hadn't been shown in his telephone, the phone company definitely has some sort of record of all calls. Why didn't he come up with this and hand the case over to the proper authorities? No, instead he drives around like a madman across the city putting both himself and others at unnecessary risk over this kidnapping thing. Why would he do that? For example, if he so much want to help other people in trouble, why didn't he focus on helping all the people in that major car accident on the freeway which HE btw caused...! Why did he behave in this way? He himself could have died so many times actually! :D I guess he's just a natural born hero... Not the regular young dude he was depicted to be in the first place. Bad movie...
As I previously stated, the movie would probably have been better if his ex girlfriend had been kidnapped, perhaps as an extra twist at the end of the movie, and with an extra car chase scene too! The editing of the car scenes was one of the few qualities of this movie actually. Fast paced and exiting! This could have been extended. But anyway, besides the girlfriend, what they also could have done, and which would probably also have been beneficial was to use the lawyer character more. A little more comic relief wouldn't had hurt. I was dead sure Ryan was going to steal the Porsche with him in it, complaining all the while of course, but later on getting more and more involved. I guess I would have liked that better than what I was given in this movie.
The stupidity of this movie was topped of with some extra whipped cream in the form of the bad guy getting thrown clear across the room (or boat house to be exact) by like three or four handgun bullets fired at him. Also, as someone pointed out here, Ryan's revolver was actually see-through in some scenes, i.e. no bullets. :)
Assault on Precinct 13 (1976)
Dumbfounded by the high rating(!)
Disclaimer: I had to register and write this review since I was dumbfounded by the high rating this movie had received, so please bear with me on my poor reviewing skills.
I stumbled upon this movie at IMDb and noticed the 7.3 rating (aug 2005), which is pretty impressive actually. This ought to be a good movie, I thought. When quickly browsing the comments on it, I was promised suspense and hard-boiled action in a classic Carpenter movie.
What I got out of the movie however was no suspense whatsoever, a pointless story, an incredible scenario, flat characters, a predictable script, and poor editing and effects. And this got 7.3? I want my one and a half hours back.
In its defense (I guess), it IS a low budget movie and it sure is old. I'm sure I'll be flamed by writing this by all Crapenter fanatics out there.
All in all, this movie HARDLY deserves more than a 3 or a 4 maybe, but that's stretching it in my opinion (which I'm entitled to).