Movie Reviews
Content Warning
Some of the movies I review have partial nudity, violence, bad
language, etc. I am not going to tabulate the particulars for you.
If you are concerned about content, follow the hyperlinks to
www.imdb.com and view the MPAA ratings presented there.
My Scoring System
5/5 = highly recommended
4/5 = recommended
3/5 = worth watching
2/5 = not recommended
1/5 = may cause brain damage
2012-10-09; The Hangover (2009)
Genres: comedy
The Hangover is a great, over-the-top comedy about 4 young guys who
drive to Las Vegas to have a bachelor party. The basic gist is that
the four get to Vegas, rent a very upscale suite, go up on the roof
of the hotel to have a symbolic shot of Jagermeister liqueur, then
wake up the next day in the trashed hotel suite with the groom-to-be
missing, a tiger in the bathroom, and a baby in a closet. None of
the three groomsmen can remember a thing about the night before, so
they try to retrace their steps in order to find the missing groom.
The cast has a long list of character actors who did a great job.
The script does an excellent job cranking up the absurdity knob from
start to finish.
Bottom Line - highly recommended.
overall score: 5/5
story: 5/5
characters: 5/5
action/special effects: 4/5
scenery/cinematography: 5/5
2012-10-06; The Last Boy Scout (1991)
IMDB link for The
Last Boy Scout
Genres: drama, action/adventure
The Last Boy Scout is a stereotypical Bruce Willis action movie from
his prime years. Willis plays Joe Hallenbeck, a former Secret
Service agent now working rather unsuccessfully as a private
detective. Halle Berry plays Cory, a stripper who hires Hallenbeck
to deal with a stalker. Damon Wayans plays Jimmy Dix, a former
football player who is Cory's boyfriend of sorts. Cory's case is
handed to Hallenbeck, and the story is off to the races. Its a
simplistic story populated with superficial, stereotypical
characters, juvenile dialogue, and lots of over-the-top action. It
would be a complete waste of time if not for the brief flashes of
competence. Here and there, when the script allowed it, Willis and
Wayans demonstrated some acting competence. The story occurs in Los
Angeles, and the director Tony Scott was well-respected for his
cinematography, but the shortage of exterior shots showing LA was
disappointing. As long as you grit your teeth and suffer through the
trope-laden script, it can be an entertaining watch and sort of
historical lesson on the action films of the 1980s and early 1990s.
Bottom Line - worth watching.
overall score: 3/5
story: 2/5
characters: 3/5
action/special effects: 4/5
scenery/cinematography: 3/5
2012-10-02; Rob Roy (1995)
IMDB link for Rob Roy
Genres: drama, action/adventure
The 1995 movie Rob Roy is an adaptation of the novel written by Sir
Walter Scott in the early 1800s. The story revolves around Rob Roy
MacGregor, a Highland Scot of the early 1700s who finds himself in
conflict with one of the local aristocracy. MacGregor is played by
Liam Neeson, who does a fine job. His wife is played by Jessica
Lange, who not only acts skillfully but provides a major amount of
eye candy; unlike her normally straight blonde hair, she had a huge
pile of striking red curls, a rarity for a Hollywood flick.
MacGregor's nemeses were played by two veteran character actors; the
Marquis of Montrose played by John Hurt, and Archie Cunningham, a
murderous sociopath played by Tim Roth. MacGregor's eventual
benefactor, the Duke of Argyll, was played effectively by a Scottish
character actor named Andrew Keir. As is expected for a Walter Scott
tale, its a big, romantic story; honor, treachery, love, and hate.
The "hidden character" in the movie is the Highlands, both the
geography and ecology and the people. The best part of the movie is
the visuals; beautiful scenery, good cinematography, costumes and
castles, etc. This is a movie which cries for Blu-Ray playback. The
various fight scenes were pretty good overall, though with some
obvious (and common) flaws. The soundtrack is good, but I thought it
was intrusive at times (most movies overuse their soundtrack, in my
opinion). The story is perhaps the weakest element, simply because
of the various plot holes. MacGregor and others makes some tactical
errors that seem extremely unlikely to me, in order to set up
dramatic conflicts. Unlike most movie critics, I enjoy classic
stories from the Romantic era, but simple stories do not require
simpleton characters; quite the opposite. For whatever reason, this
film didn't do all that well at the movie theaters, but it is
definitely one you should watch in your home theater.
Bottom Line - recommended.
overall score: 4/5
story: 3/5
characters: 4/5
action/special effects: 4/5
scenery/cinematography: 5/5
2012-09-24; Van Helsing (2004)
IMDB link for Van
Helsing
Genres: drama, action/adventure
Van Helsing is a story from the Dracula universe, with other
monsters woven in. Set in the 19th century, the movie looks at the
intersection of the Dracula storyline with Frankenstein's Monster
and werewolves. Hugh Jackman plays Gabriel Van Helsing, a man with
no past who hunts and kills monsters and other forms of evil. He
works from Rome, and is authorized and supported by a secretive sect
within the Vatican. Kate Beckinsale plays Anna, a Transylvanian
princess who continues her family's hopeless fight against Dracula.
Dracula is played by Richard Roxburgh, who really stole the show.
Van Helsing's nerdy helper Karl is played by David Wenham, most
famous for his role as Faramir in Lord Of The Rings; Karl is pretty
much the exact opposite of Faramir, and Wenham did a great job
"selling" the new character. This movie has good points and bad
points. The dialogue was clumsy at times, and Beckinsale's faux
accent is now a legendary object of ridicule. The script never has
time to fully develop the characters, since there are so many
important characters to cover. And that's really unfortunate, as the
Van Helsing, Dracula, and Frankenstein's Monster characters have
enormous potential. Some of the action scenes were badly done in
CGI, looking like amateur "wire fu" (again, learning a little
freshman physics would do wonders for Hollywood). And the ending was
pretty inept. On the good side, the movie offers a lot of good
visuals; costumes, buildings and scenery, etc. I found the character
premise of Van Helsing to be interesting; a man suffering from
amnesia, with a remarkable ability for battle, working for the
Vatican while trying to recover his memory. And there is certainly
the "eye candy" provided by Beckinsale, along with a few brief shots
of Dracula's brides in human form. As long as you can overlook its
flaws, Van Helsing is an enjoyable movie.
Bottom Line - recommended.
overall score: 4/5
story: 4/5
characters: 4/5
action/special effects: 4/5
scenery/cinematography: 4/5
2012-09-21; Point Of No Return (1993)
IMDB link for Point
Of No Return
Genres: drama, action/adventure
Point Of No Return is an unusual sort of spy thriller, and an
American remake of the French film Nikita (known in the US as La
Femme Nikita). The main character is Maggie, played by Bridget
Fonda; a young drug addict and violent criminal who is saved from
lethal injection by a nameless US government agency. She is trained
to be a covert agent, primarily for assassinations. She painfully
makes it through her training regimen and is sent out to live a
fictitious life and await assignments. One by one, she begins
receiving assignments that involve killing people about whom she
knows nothing. It is a very interesting premise, and in the peak of
her youth Fonda was remarkably beautiful. Unfortunately, the story
has many flaws. Her handler is played by Gabriel Byrne, who works
for the American spy group but speaks with a Scottish accent. His
superior is played by Miguel Ferrer, who is a fine actor but plays a
rather odd and immature character quite inconsistent with his level
of responsibility. The action scenes are pretty well done, and in my
opinion the movie could have used more of them. Another annoyance is
the soundtrack, which becomes really intrusive during and after the
action scenes. One of the good points of the movie is a cameo
appearance by Harvey Keitel, who plays a cleaner sent to dispose of
bodies and evidence at a botched kidnap mission. All in all, its a
movie worth watching, and probably better than the French original.
Bottom Line - worth watching.
overall score: 3/5
story: 3/5
characters: 3/5
action/special effects: 4/5
scenery/cinematography: 3/5
2012-09-18; Open Range (2003)
IMDB link for Open
Range
Genres: western, drama
Open Range is a western, a sort of "third wave" evolution from
early, simplistic westerns as well as the later revisionist (and
mostly erroneous) westerns from the latter half of the 20th century.
The story revolves around a small outfit of cowboys moving a small
cattle herd around Montana, and their unfortunate interactions with
a corrupt cattleman and his toady sheriff. Robert Duvall plays Boss
Spearman, the head of the outfit, and Kevin Costner plays Charlie
Waite as well as directed the film. Along with a goodly list of
character actors, Annette Bening plays Charlie Waite's love
interest. Along with interesting and quirky characters, the story
itself is interesting. The front story is a fairly straightforward
conflict between Spearman's outfit and the corrupt cattleman, but
the back story is a subtle one about a conflict between ways of life
and the rapid changes people experienced in the second half of the
19th century. The cinematography is pretty much as good as could
have been done with Costner's budget; its good on DVD, I expect it
to be spectacular on Blu-Ray. The outdoor scenes, town &
interior scenes, the period costumes et cetera were all well
done. I particularly appreciated a western set in the northern parts
of the American West, rather than the clichéed desert town
stereotype. The action was very well done, and not cartoonish as
most westerns become. I have some gripes with a couple of scenes in
the big gunfight, but overall its substantially better than most
westerns. The dialogue kind of stumbled a couple of times in my
opinion, but ironically most of the dialogue was more realistic than
most Hollywood flicks set in contemporary times. Overall, a great
take on the western.
Bottom Line - highly recommended.
overall score: 5/5
story: 4/5
characters: 5/5
action/special effects: 5/5
scenery/cinematography: 5/5
2012-09-08; Lost In Translation (2003)
IMDB link for Lost In
Translation
Genres: drama, comedy
Lost In Translation is the story of two lonely and depressed people
meeting and sharing a little slice of life before returning to their
unhappy lives. The story takes place in Tokyo, where the cultural
and linguistic differences further their isolation. Bill Murray
plays Bob Harris, a famous American actor in the twilight of his
career, and Scarlett Johansson plays Charlotte, a young woman fresh
out of Yale and searching for direction. Both are married, and
unhappily so. Harris is in Tokyo for an advertising shoot, Charlotte
is there as her photographer husband is also doing a photo shoot.
Both stay in the same hotel, and meet in the hotel bar. To combat
their boredom, they begin spending their nights exploring Tokyo
together. They quickly make a platonic but intimate connection. The
movie is essentially an examination of how people go though a life
mostly tedious and humdrum. While the front story is serious and
sad, it is hilarious at times and does a great job of finding humor
in a number of absurd and surreal scenes. Both Murray and Johansson
do a great job, as did the writer/director, Sofia Coppola. One of
the many good things about this movie is that it uses plenty of
stillness and silence. Rather than being jam-packed with nonstop
dialogue, it mostly uses sets and facial expressions to set the
mood. Whlile this is a very unusual movie, it offers an excellent
viewing experience.
Bottom Line - recommended.
overall score: 4/5
story: 4/5
characters: 4/5
action/special effects: 3/5
scenery/cinematography: 5/5
2012-09-02; Pulp Fiction (1994)
IMDB link for Pulp
Fiction
Genres: action/adventure, comedy
Pulp Fiction is a movie set in 1990s Los Angeles, in the style of
the pulp fiction magazines and novels of the mid-20th Century.
Written and directed by Quentin Tarantino, it has all the hallmarks
of a Quentin Tarantino movie; iconoclasm, cynicism, bad language,
sexual crudity, and extreme violence. The movie tells several
stories which intersect and various points in the tale. The two main
characters are hitmen, played by John Travolta and Samuel L.
Jackson. As they go about their business one day, their stories
intersect with the other stories and characters. The cast is full of
character actors, plus a few A-listers; Tim Roth, Bruce Willis, Ving
Rhames, and Harvey Keitel. As is the case with all Tarantino film,
his lack of limits means that the extremes in the movie both detract
from the potential quality and create some innovative scenes. The
movie is very well shot, unfortunately it takes place mostly indoors
and so we don't get to see LA from the viewpoint of a highly visual
director. Still, almost 20 years later the movie holds up very well,
and mostly entertains.
Bottom Line - recommended.
overall score: 4/5
story: 4/5
characters: 3/5
action/special effects: 4/5
scenery/cinematography: 4/5
2012-08-28; X-Men (2000)
IMDB link for X-Men
Genres: Science fiction
X-men is the first movie of the X-Men comic book franchise. The
central character is Wolverine, played to perfection by Hugh
Jackman. The world has become aware of human mutants that have
developed a wide variety of seemingly supernatural powers. Wolverine
has almost limitless healing powers, and has had his skeleton
replaced with an indestructible metal framework, along with metal
"claws" that come out of his hands. He encounters a group of mutants
led by Charles Xavier (played by Patrick Stewart) that are working
to avoid a human/mutant war, as well as another group of mutants led
by Magneto (played by Ian McKellen) who are plotting to start such a
war. Jackman, Stewart, and McKellen all perform brilliantly in this
movie. Even though this is a comic book movie with the usual
emphasis on action and special effects, there are some remarkable
dialogue scenes. One noteworthy scene is between Stewart and
McKellen very early on in the story. Two veteran actors delivering
their lines to perfection, with perfect timing, inflection, etc. Of
the cast, the one disappointment was Halle Berry, who played Storm.
While providing the expected eye candy role, her lines were poorly
written, and she did not do a great job delivering them. Overall,
though, this is a really good movie, with all the action and visual
detail you could want.
Bottom Line - recommended.
overall score: 4/5
story: 4/5
characters: 4/5
action/special effects: 5/5
scenery/cinematography: 4/5
2012-08-24; Arlington Road (1999)
IMDB link for
Arlington Road
Genres: suspense
Arlington Road is the story of a history professor who believes his
new neighbor is an anti-government terrorist planning some sort of
bombing in Washington, DC. Jeff Bridges plays Michael Faraday, a
professor at George Washington University in DC who specializes in
the history of domestic terrorism. His wife was an FBI agent, killed
in a botched raid on a rural gun collector. Obviously, this movie
meant to leverage the paranoia the country had in the 1990s, in the
wake of the Ruby Ridge shootings and Oklahoma City bombing. But only
sort of; I guess in order to avoid a too-predictable story arc, the
script blames governmental ineptitude for the death of Faraday's
wife. The suspected terrorist is played skillfully by Tim Robbins,
and Joan Cusack plays his wife. Unfortunately, the way Bridges
played his character was far too unhinged; 3 years after his wife's
death, he was really not functional enough to be realistic. He was
certainly too whacked out to have been allowed to continue teaching
at an expensive private university. On the larger scale, the script
is pretty creative; an academic specializing in domestic terrorism
with emotional issues becoming paranoid about a neighbor who seems
to fit the profile of a domestic terrorist. Down in the details,
however, there were too many plot holes and other script flaws. The
movie presents domestic terrorists as being simple, unintelligent
rural people, even while they are staying two or three steps ahead
of the government. The main FBI character in the movie constantly
acts as if its an absolute career ender to perform even the
slightest investigation into Faraday's concerns, when in reality it
would be quite the opposite. Most of the movie is filmed and acted
in a very realistic manner, but a couple of scenes are done in a
very surreal manner; this disrupted the flow of the story in my
opinion. The movie also relied on weirdness with respect to
telephones and cellphones in order to set up a couple of key scenes.
All in all, the script began with an excellent premise but ended
with poor implementation. Worth watching, as long as you look past
the script flaws.
Bottom Line - worth watching.
overall score: 3/5
story: 3/5
characters: 3/5
action/special effects: 3/5
scenery/cinematography: 4/5
2012-08-23; A Fish Called Wanda (1988)
IMDB link for A Fish
Called Wanda
Genres: comedy
A Fish Called Wanda is good old English farce. A quartet of low-rent
criminals does an armed robbery of a diamond vendor, with two of the
criminals plotting to steal the take from the gang leader and escape
to Brazil. The four gang members, played by Jamie Lee Curtis, Kevin
Kline, Michael Plain (of Mony Python fame), and Tom Georgeson,
execute the armed robbery but run into various problems. Curtis's
and Kline's characters are romantically involved, and make an
anonymous phone call to the police naming Georgeson's character as a
perpetrator in the heist. Since a little old lady was able to
identify him as being near the scene of the crime, he is arrested
and kept in jail awaiting trial. Meanwhile, Curtis's and Kline's
characters try to find out where the diamonds were hidden, while
Palin's character is tasked with killing the little old lady
witness. Georgeson's character ends up hiring John Cleese (also of
Python fame) for his barrister. Jamie Lee Curtis tries her feminine
wiles on Cleese to get him to divulge the location of the diamonds,
and the farce is on. The film title comes from a tropical fish owned
by Palin's character, named after Curtis's character. There's some
cheeseball content, but generally the comedy is pretty well done.
The performances of Palin, Cleese, and Kline were notably good.
Bottom Line - recommended.
overall score: 4/5
story: 4/5
characters: 4/5
action/special effects: 3/5
scenery/cinematography: 4/5
2012-08-21; Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome (1985)
IMDB link for Mad
Max: Beyond Thunderdome
Genres: action/adventure, science fiction
Thunderdome is the third movie from the Mad Max series. It begins
not far from where the second film, Road Warrior, leaves off; Max
living in the desert, fighting off bandits. In this movie, he is
living out of a sort of covered wagon, pulled by camels. It is
stolen, leading him to Bartertown, the roughhewn town where he
expects to find his rig and its thief. He immediately becomes
embroiled in the political struggle for power. Thunderdome presents
yet another take on the post-apocalyptic challenge; how will people
behave, when civilization is stripped away? Just as the first Mad
Max movie examines civilization as it collapses, and Road Warrior
looks at a band of still-civilized people immersed in a barbaric and
chaotic world, Bartertown presents a hypothesis of how civilization
would arise out of chaos. Thunderdome has all the features of the
first two movies; great panoramas and strong visuals, extremely
creative custom vehicles, over-the-top chase scenes, oddball
characters, senseless violence, and of course Mad Max himself,
played by Mel Gibson. Along with the first two Mad Max movies,
Thunderdome is pretty much a must-see film.
Bottom Line - recommended.
overall score: 4/5
story: 3/5
characters: 4/5
action/special effects: 4/5
scenery/cinematography: 5/5
2012-08-20; Wanted (2008)
IMDB link for Wanted
Genres: action/adventure, suspense
Wanted is the story of a hapless young office drone who is recruited
aggressively by a shadowy group of assassins known as The
Fraternity. James McAvoy plays Wesley, a customer service rep who is
dying inside and suffering from extreme panic attacks, poorly
controlled by prescription meds. While getting a refill, he is
approached by Angelina Jolie, who plays Fox, one of the assassins. A
shootout soon commences between Fox and the man who is believed to
have murdered Wesley's long-estranged father, also an assassin. This
movie offers plenty of action, lots of scene changes, and a certain
amount of skulduggery, as Wesley pursues his father's killer. McAvoy
does a good job playing a man who was struggling to survive a mean,
meaningless existence, then thrown into the deep end of an
incredibly dangerous pool. Some of the special effects are very well
done, in concert with good cinematography. And the script offers
some brief but amusing wit at various points in the story. As
expected, Angelina offers some extreme sex appeal, but only for
brief moments in between all the running and shooting. This is an
enjoyable movie, better than I expected given the reviews during its
theater run.
Bottom Line - recommended.
overall score: 4/5
story: 4/5
characters: 4/5
action/special effects: 5/5
scenery/cinematography: 4/5
2012-08-20; 16 Blocks (2006)
IMDB link for 16
Blocks
Genres: drama
16 Blocks is the story of a severely troubled NYPD detective on his
last day of work, assigned to transport a prisoner to court for
testimony. Bruce Willis plays Jack Mosley, the depressed,
self-loathing, and alcoholic detective with a bad leg who is just
trying to make it to his pension. Mos Def plays Eddie Bunker, the
career small-time criminal scheduled to testify in court concerning
police corruption. The movie title comes from the distance that
Mosley and Bunker must travel through heavy Manhattan traffic. The
corrupt cops are led by David Morse, a consistently good actor who
does a good job playing a rather limited character. Needless to say,
the corrupt cops plan to eliminate Bunker before he can testify, so
the chase is on. The first part of the movie is excellent. You can
almost feel Mosley's fatigue as he begins his last assignment, and
the movie does an unusually good job of transitioning Mosley's
existence from mindless inaction to total chaos. The chase between
the crooked cops and Mosley and Bunker is pretty good, with several
well-made action sequences. There are a handful of plot holes, but
nothing too drastic. The ending, however, is one big plot hole. The
DVD offers the theatrical version ending as well as an alternate
ending; neither really did justice to the acting or story in my
opinion. Still, skillful acting from the three main characters, and
kudos due to Willis and Def for playing character roles rather than
"leading man" roles.
Bottom Line - worth watching.
overall score: 3/5
story: 3/5
characters: 3/5
action/special effects: 4/5
scenery/cinematography: 3/5
2012-08-19; War of the Worlds (2005)
IMDB link for War of
the Worlds
Genres: science fiction, horror
War of the Worlds is the latest remake of the brilliant story by H.
G. Wells. This remake was directed by Steven Spielberg, and is a
typical Spielberg movie. What that means is that the action, special
effects, scenery, and cinematography were all top notch. It also
means the script relied on rather stereotypical characters and a
number of tired and stupid tropes. I should probably call them
clichés, but tropes is easier to type. Tom Cruise plays Ray
Ferrier, a crane operator on the docks of NYC. He is divorced from
Miranda Otto, with whom he has two children; a teenage boy, and a
young girl.Otto has moved on and married an upper-middle class white
collar professional of some sort, and moved to a big McMansion out
in the upscale suburbs.
And there is the first trope; Ferrier lives in a modest
working-class row house in the shadow of a freeway bridge, whereas
Otto lives "with the classes". The problem with this is that a man
in Ferrier's position would be making wages well in excess of six
figures; barring a gambling or drug addiction, if he were living in
relative poverty it would have to be due to punitive alimony/child
support payments. And that's where the second trope comes in, that
of the deadbeat dad. The script was written to take the Ferrier
character from irresponsibility to responsibility in response to the
alien attack, but that conflicts with reality.
Another trope, and one of my major pet peeves, is that of the
screaming child. Ferrier's daughter, played by Dakota Fanning,
spends most of the movie screaming her head off in response to just
about everything. Any time a child appears in an action or horror
movie, its almost guaranteed they're going to do a lot of
screaming. I guess Hollywood writers believe all that
screaming will generate empathy for the character. It usually makes
me root for the alien/monster/dinosaur/axe murderer instead, and
this case is no exception. And as usual with Hollywood tropes, its
orthogonal to reality. Going back millions of years, mammals have
developed behaviors to keep youngsters alive by hiding, remaining
motionless, and shutting the hell up. If human or proto-human
children screamed in response to predator attack, the species would
have been wiped off the planet long, long ago.
Another trope is the belief that overall, humans en masse
will panic and react badly to widespread danger. That is a central
theme of Wells' original 1898 novel, and certainly the accidental
outcome of Orson Welles' 1938 radio play. But things don't
necessarily work that way. For every example of panicked or
primitive behavior in response to a crisis, there is counterexample.
For example, the debacle of the evacuation of New Orleans in advance
of hurricanes Katrina and Rita can be compared to the evacuations in
response to numerous wildfires in San Diego County in 2007, in which
over a half million people spread over hundreds of square miles were
safely evacuated and returned home. The city of London experienced
massive death and destruction during the Blitz, yet Londoners
maintained order and civilization in an almost spectacular fashion.
And just to pile on, another tired old Hollywood trope is that of
the crazy gun owner. This character, played by Tim Robbins, repeats
Hollywood's long fixation with badmouthing gun owners. Done with as
much subtlety as the proverbial turd in the punchbowl, Robbins'
character is presented as both a creep, mentally deficient, and
ultimately deranged. His main prop is a pump-action shotgun, which
of course is never employed against the aliens. This is particularly
ironic since Spielberg is well-known to own and use a number of very
expensive Italian shotguns (Google "spielberg" and "beretta" or
"fabbri" for example). This overt anti-gun bit dovetails with the
arc of Cruise's character, who begins the movie armed with a
snubnose revolver in his inept and irresponsible phase and then
finishes the movie responsible and disarmed of his gun. It would be
funny, if not so tragic, that Robbins volunteered to do a hit piece
on law-abiding American gun owners while befriending Fidel Castro
(who had thousands of innocent people executed with a pistol bullet
to the back of the head in the aftermath of the 1959 revolution,
possibly tens of thousands).
Speaking of tropes, a favorite web site of mine is
http://tvtropes.org. Likewise, there are a number of sites
tabulating TV and movie cliches, for example moviecliches.com.
Despite my many complaints, its an entertaining movie and at times a
visual masterpiece.
Bottom Line - recommended.
overall score: 4/5
story: 4/5
characters: 3/5
action/special effects: 5/5
scenery/cinematography: 5/5
2012-08-07; Bedazzled (2000)
IMDB link for
Bedazzled
Genres: comedy
Bedazzled is a remake of the 1967 movie of the same name. Brendan
Fraser plays Eliot Richards, a hapless and unhappy tech support
worker. He is hopelessly infatuated with co-worker Alison, played by
Frances O'Connor, and tormented daily by several of his co-workers.
One evening after work, he encounters the Devil, played
spectacularly by Elizabeth Hurley. She offers Eliot 7 wishes in
exchange for his soul. Each of Eliot's wishes involve changes that
he thinks will make Alison fall in love with him, but each wish ends
disastrously. Fraser does a great job playing Eliot to the max, with
cringeworthy scene after cringeworthy scene. But Hurley definitely
steals the show; she plays the Devil as a sexy, vampy woman complete
with English accent, in a sequence of sexy outfits. In my opinion,
you really can't go wrong with this comedy.
Bottom Line - recommended.
overall score: 4/5
story: 4/5
characters: 4/5
action/special effects: 5/5
scenery/cinematography: 4/5
2012-08-05; Black Rain (1989)
IMDB link for Black
Rain
Genres: drama, action/adventure
Black Rain is the story of an NYPD detective who captures a Japanese
yakuza
(gangster) in New York and then loses him in Tokyo while delivering
him to the Japanese police. Michael Douglas plays Nick, a somewhat
shady and streetwise cop who becomes obsessed with recapturing Sato,
the young gangster who is making a power play against his old gang,
run by Sugai. Andy Garcia plays Charlie, Nick's young and ambitious
partner, and Ken Takakura plays Masahiro, the Tokyo PD detective
assigned to shepherd the two New Yorkers around. The movie shows
Tokyo in its prime in the late 1980s, when Japan's economy was the
envy of the world. As with all large cities, there are the upscale,
polished areas flowing with money, and the dirty, noisy areas of the
working class. The movie provides excellent visuals for its time.
There are a number of well-made action scenes, though the action is
secondary to the story and the characters. Unfortunately, the
characters are a bit flat for the most part; as is common with
Ridley Scott movies, the characters and dialogue are not quite
right. A key player in the story is that of Joyce, a nightclub
hostess played by the lovely Kate Capshaw. Her knowledge of the yakusa
and interaction with Nick are essential to the plot, but her
character never really gets developed. Despite its limitations, its
an enjoyable movie, and a vividly visual flashback to the 1980s.
Bottom Line - recommended.
overall score: 4/5
story: 4/5
characters: 4/5
action/special effects: 4/5
scenery/cinematography: 5/5
2012-08-04; The Mask Of Zorro (1998)
IMDB link for The
Mask Of Zorro
Genres: action/adventure
This remake of the classic Zorro franchise stars both Anthony
Hopkins and Antonio Banderas as the old and new Zorro. Zorro being
the legendary masked aristocrat defending the people of 19th Century
California from villainous aristocrats turned autocrats. Catherine
Zeta-Jones plays the daughter of Don Diego de la Vega, the elder
Zorro. Stuart Wilson plays the evil Don Rafael Montero, a schemer
who dreams of becoming king of California as Mexico struggles with
independence from Spain. Intrigue, lots of swordplay, horses,
colorful costumes and sets, and pretty girls. This is a well-crafted
movie, with excellent performances by Hopkins and Banderas.
Bottom Line - highly recommended.
overall score: 5/5
story: 5/5
characters: 5/5
action/special effects: 5/5
scenery/cinematography: 4/5
2012-08-03; The Jerk (1979)
IMDB link for The
Jerk
Genres: comedy
The Jerk is a typical Steve Martin comedy, done in the late 1970s.
Martin plays Navin Johnson, a slow-witted white orphan raised by a
poor black family on a small farm in Mississippi. Navin doesn't fit
in, so he hits the road looking for somewhere to fit in. He bounces
around from job to job, passing through St. Louis and ending up in
Los Angeles. He goes from rags to riches back to rags again. His
main love interest is played by Bernadette Peters, who does an
excellent job playing straight woman to Martin's follies. The movie
features a long list of established character actors as well as
cameos from Bill Macy, Carl Reiner, Rob Reiner, and Jackie Mason.
The story and its many gags are very politically incorrect, it would
probably be pretty difficult to make this movie these days. I tend
to like Steve Martin's humor, so its no surprise I enjoyed this
movie. I particularly liked seeing all the things from the 1970s;
period cars, the old mechanical gas pumps in an old-school gas
station (or rather, service station; the station where Martin's
character briefly worked had service bays and did tire sales!), etc.
It was interesting to see Bernadette Peters at the height of her
career; in her prime she was exceptionally attractive. Simple,
juvenile humor, and a retrospective to the 1970s; what's not to
like?
Bottom Line - recommended.
overall score: 4/5
story: 4/5
characters: 5/5
action/special effects: 3/5
scenery/cinematography: 4/5
2012-08-01; Eye of the Needle (1981)
IMDB link for Eye of
the Needle
Genres: drama, suspense
Eye of the Needle is a thriller set in WWII Britain, based on the
novel by Ken Follett. Donald Sutherland plays a German spy who
masquerades as various English characters during the war, trying to
track Allied troop movements in advance of the pending invasion of
the European subcontinent. Sutherland's character sneaks onto a
massive military base in northern England where American forces are
staged in preparation for the invasion of Norway or Finland, except
there are no troops and the planes and vehicles are all wooden
fakes. Sutherland's character takes a roll of photos proving the
deception, and arranges to be collected by a German U-boat to
hand-deliver the photos back to Germany. He steals a small fishing
boat and heads offshore during a storm, only to be castaway on Storm
Island, a small isolated island with a lighthouse. The screenplay
does not follow the novel very closely, which is a mistake as the
novel was excellent IMHO. The storyline does not develop the
characters particularly well, except for the young married couple
living on the island; Sutherland's character remains an enigma to a
large extent. Action was minimal, unfortunate given the subject
matter. What saves the movie is the scenery, both in the various
city locations and the spectacular coastal scenes shot in Scotland.
Bottom Line - worth watching.
overall score: 3/5
story: 3/5
characters: 3/5
action/special effects: 3/5
scenery/cinematography: 5/5
2012-07-31; Gorky Park (1983)
IMDB link for Gorky
Park
Genres: drama, suspense
Gorky Park is one of those Cold War films showing the interaction
between the Soviet world and the free West. The story begins with
the discovery of 3 bodies buried in the snow just outside Gorky Park
in Moscow. The faces and fingerprints have been removed from all
three victims, along with any identifying papers. William Hurt plays
Arkady Renko, the Soviet Militia officer who is forced to
investigate what he believes is simply another KGB assassination. As
Renko learns who the victims were, and begins to assemble their
connections to others, the case quickly becomes political. Lee
Marvin plays a highly-connected American furrier doing business with
the Russians to obtain sable fur for export to America. Marvin's
character seems to have connections to both the murder victims and
the KGB. Despite all the talent involved, the movie is kind of a
disappointment. Understandably, the film crew wasn't able to film a
whole lot of Moscow during the height of the Cold War, but that
would have set the stage and the mood far better. Many of the
characters were kind of "off" in one way or another, and the
dialogue didn't work much of the time. The few action sequences were
fairly well done, but there weren't enough of them to make a
difference. Still, a mildly interesting movie that reminds the
viewer that the Cold War and the Iron Curtain were no laughing
matter.
Bottom Line - worth watching.
overall score: 3/5
story: 3/5
characters: 2/5
action/special effects: 3/5
scenery/cinematography: 3/5
2012-07-30; Edge of Darkness (2010)
IMDB link for Edge of
Darkness
Genres: drama, suspense
Edge of Darkness is a movie that starts out looking like a
conventional crime/mafia story but turns out to be a conspiracy
thriller type. Or tries to; the script relies on a lot of worn-out
cliches about the defense industry in order to create the bad guys.
Mel Gibson plays a Boston PD detective whose daughter is murdered,
so he goes on the hunt for her murderer. She had been working at a
big defense contractor, who of course are then the main suspects.
The defense contractor is in cahoots with secretive government
agencies and a Republican Senator. This sort of thing is right up
Gibson's alley, as he is staunchly anti-war and anti-government. Its
not his first trip down this road, either; he starred in Conspiracy
Theory which was released in 1997. Despite that, there are plenty of
idiots out there think Gibson is a traditional conservative. Anyway,
the movie really doesn't present anything new, and really presents a
world that doesn't correspond very well to reality. The daughter
character, as an intern at the evil defense contractor, not
only wouldn't have any knowledge of the evil plans of the company,
she wouldn't have been in a position to assist anyone in breaking
into the evil company facility. And anyone who has worked in, or
even visited, modern defense plants would know that they are never
furnished like upscale lawyer's offices; most look a bit run-down
and stodgy. Gibson runs around town investigating and interacting
with all sorts of suspects, witnesses, etc., yet almost never
interacts with his police department or writes up notes; this would
be greatly out of character for a middle-aged detective. Danny
Huston plays the CEO of the evil corporation, and his portrayal of
such was beyond caricature; few people with such extreme
personality dysfunctions could make it to the top of a publicly held
corporation. At any rate, this movie is a waste of the talent
assembled to make it.
Bottom Line - not recommended.
overall score: 2/5
story: 2/5
characters: 2/5
action/special effects: 3/5
scenery/cinematography: 2/5
2012-07-28; Dark City (1998)
IMDB link for Dark
City
Genres: drama, sci-fi
Dark City is a very creative science fiction story about a man who
learns that reality is not what it seems. Rufus Sewell plays John
Murdoch, the main character. Murdoch wakes up naked in a bathtub in
a prostitute's apartment, blood dripping from his forehead, a
syringe on the floor, and a ceiling lamp still swinging, apparently
due to someone bumping it rather recently. He does not know where he
is or who he is. He finds some clothes in the bathroom that fit him,
and on the way out the door he finds the prostitute, murdered. All
in all, an interesting opening scene of a sci-fi flick! The story
takes place in The City, an unnamed city styled after American big
cities of the 1940s. There's a lot to like about the movie; a
thought-provoking story, interesting characters, excellent scenery,
and some excellent special effects. My primary complaint about the
movie is pretty minor; while most of the special effects were very
well done, there were a few in critical moments that were too
rudimentary, especially in contrast to the other SFX. Otherwise, its
a great view. Note that that vast majority of the movie takes place
after dark and in dimly-lit interiors. While this works fine in the
movie house, when you watch the DVD at home I think you'll find you
need to watch it in the dark to really appreciate all the visual
detail.
Bottom Line - highly recommended.
overall score: 5/5
story: 5/5
characters: 4/5
action/special effects: 4/5
scenery/cinematography: 5/5
2012-07-25; The Time Machine (2002)
IMDB link for The
Time Machine
Genres: drama, sci-fi
The Time Machine is a recent remake of the classic H.G. Wells
novella of the same name, published in 1895. An American university
professor of science, Alex (played masterfully by Guy Pierce)
invents a time machine and travels back and forth in time. As a
piece of speculative fiction, like much of Wells' work, it is
breathtakingly advanced for his time, and with a few tweaks to
adjust for modern times holds up amazingly well in the space age.
When Alex time-travels to the past (Wells invented the term "time
travel!"), he encounters a paradox that he cannot resolve. So he
travels to the future to ask what he expects are smarter and wiser
scientists about the paradox. The movie presents the passage of time
in a very visual and creative way. Alex inadvertently travels far
into the future, after the Earth has changed radically and the human
race has evolved as well. The movie examines the scientific issues
of time and space, as well as the human issues of fate and destiny.
It is an intellectual masterpiece, as well as a visual feast.
Bottom Line - highly recommended.
overall score: 5/5
story: 5/5
characters: 4/5
action/special effects: 5/5
scenery/cinematography: 5/5
2012-07-21; Heartbreak Ridge (1986)
IMDB link for
Heartbreak Ridge
Genres: drama
Heartbreak Ridge is the fictional story of an aging Gunnery Sergeant
in the Marine Corps, starting to deal with the coming end of his
career and the uncertainties of retirement. Gunny Tom Highway,
played by Clint Eastwood, is a hard drinking, brawling stereotypical
Old Corps Marine. Having served in Korea, Dominican Republic, and 3
tours in Vietnam, and relegated to a desk job, Highway gets
transferred back to his old Recon platoon in the Marines infantry.
Things have changed drastically for the worse since he's been gone,
and the men in his platoon are undisciplined, unskilled, and
insubordinate; the platoon commander is a young bookish sort, and
the company commander is a martinet out for Highway's scalp.
Returning to Camp Pendleton also puts him in the same town as his
ex-wife. So, as you'd expect, Highway whips his Marines into shape,
leads his men to victory in the Grenada invasion of 1983, starts his
Lieutenant on the road to becoming a leader, and woos his ex-wife.
The few battle scenes were poorly done, and the main characters were
mostly just caricatures. Plot holes also abound. But beyond all the
negatives, you have Clint playing an over-the-top crusty old Marine,
with a million great one-liners. Can't go wrong with that.
Bottom Line - worth watching.
overall score: 3/5
story: 3/5
characters: 4/5
action/special effects: 2/5
scenery/cinematography: 3/5
2012-07-20; Hot Shots! (1991)
IMDB link for Hot
Shots!
Genres: comedy
Hot Shots! is an over-the-top, juvenile parody of Top Gun. Starring
Charlie Sheen as the troubled, renegade US Navy fighter pilot, the
movie uses a never-ending sequences of puns, cliches, references to
classic movies, and slapstick. It is pretty skillfully done, with
every groaner delivered deadpan. Valeria Golina plays Sheen's love
interest, and performs her sexpot role well (and convincingly; her
acting career never took off, pardon the pun, but she was and is one
of the most beautiful actresses in Hollywood). Cary Elwes plays the
smarmy, obnoxious equivalent to Val Kilmer's role on Top Gun. The
supporting cast includes a range of comedic and character actors, as
well as two heavyweights in Lloyd Bridges and Efram Zimbalist Jr.
Note that my high score for action/special effects is due to the
slapstick humor. Likewise, my score for scenery/cinematography is
due to the movie's replication of scenes from Top Gun. If you enjoy
movies like Airplane!, you'll enjoy this one too.
Bottom Line - recommended.
overall score: 4/5
story: 4/5
characters: 4/5
action/special effects: 4/5
scenery/cinematography: 4/5
2012-07-19; The Cell (2000)
IMDB link for The
Cell
Genres: horror, drama, sci-fi
The Cell is an extremely creative film about a hypothetical
technology that allows therapists to enter the minds of patients.
Jennifer Lopez plays a child therapist that is employed by the
company developing the technology to work with a child who is in a
coma. The FBI capture a serial killer who turns out to be both a
psychopath and an extreme schizophrenic, who suffers a seizure and
also goes into a coma. Vince Vaughn plays the FBI agent tasked with
finding the killer's last victim, hopefully before she dies. Lopez
is asked to go into the killer's mind to find out where the killer
has hidden his last victim. The mental worlds of both the child and
the killer are represented by surrealistic, colorful, and incredibly
detailed. In the case of the killer, it is also a world full of
horrors. This movie is definitely not for the weak of stomach, both
for the scenes in the real world were the serial killer is doing his
thing, and in his mental world. All in all, this is an extremely
creative story, with impressive visuals.
Bottom Line - highly recommended.
overall score: 5/5
story: 5/5
characters: 4/5
action/special effects: 5/5
scenery/cinematography: 5/5
2012-07-18; Sherlock Holmes (2009)
IMDB link for
Sherlock Holmes
Genres: drama, suspense, action/adventure
Sherlock Holmes (2009) is the latest attempt to bring Arthur Conan
Doyle's literary character to the big screen, and its a good one.
Directed by Guy Ritchie, the screenplay does a very good job of
bringing Holmes and Watson back to the way they were written by
Doyle. Most prior Holmes movies and TV series have strayed much too
far from Doyle's writing. The movie uses characters from Doyle's
various short stories and novelas, but the story itself is a new
creation from the writing team. Robert Downey Jr. plays Holmes, and
Jude Law plays Dr. John Watson. Downey does a very good job of
portraying Holmes' many character strengths and flaws, and Law does
a great job of playing a very interesting and substantive Watson.
Rachel McAdams plays Irene Adler, Holmes' sporadic love interest and
yet criminal nemesis; she was breathtakingly beautiful in period
costume and whatnot, but her character was not really of equal
magnitude to the other players. Mark Strong does an excellent job
playing Lord Blackwood, the polished but sociopathic baddie. There's
little to criticize in this film; great period sets and costumes,
excellent dialogue, great fight scenes, and a well-handled suspense.
Bottom Line - highly recommended.
overall score: 5/5
story: 5/5
characters: 5/5
action/special effects: 5/5
scenery/cinematography: 5/5
2012-07-14; One Night At McCool's (2001)
IMDB link for One
Night At McCool's
Genres: comedy
One Night At McCool's is a bleak, surreal comedy about the chaos
that a hot but sociopathic woman brings to the lives of several men.
Liv Tyler plays Jewel, a seductress who begins the movie as the
girlfriend of an armed robber. She becomes involved with Randy, an
underachieving bartender played by Matt Dillon. Her sphere of bad
influence grows to include a widower cop (played by John
Goodman) and Randy's lawyer cousin (played by Paul Reiser).
Jewel drives her men into increasing levels of farcical conduct.
Their lives become intertwined, to their detriments and Jewel's
gain. Michael Douglas does a great job of playing a middle-aged
hitman, perhaps the only well-adjusted man in the story. This movie
is a lot of fun, and does a good job of connecting some thematic
elements into the final scenes.
Bottom Line - recommended.
overall score: 4/5
story: 4/5
characters: 5/5
action/special effects: 3/5
scenery/cinematography: 3/5
2012-07-12; Bad Santa (2003)
IMDB link for Bad
Santa
Genres: comedy
Bad Santa, also titled Badder Santa in its DVD version, is a black
comedy about a criminal duo who burgle department store safes while
posing as a department store Santa and elf. Billy Bob Thornton plays
Willie, a depressed, binge-drinking safecracker who grudgingly plays
Santa in order to have access to the department store safes full of
Christmas sales cash. Tony Cox plays Martin, who uses his small size
to travel through air ducts and disable alarm systems, and plays an
elf who takes the photos of kids sitting in Santa's lap. The
supporting cast is pretty good, notably with the late comedian
Bernie Mac playing the mall's security chief, and the late John
Ritter as the mall's manager. Lauren Graham plays a bartender who
gets involved with Willie; while her beauty provides some eye candy,
her character was badly written and really detracted from the movie.
Both Thornton and Cox did excellent work portraying a disfunctional
duo; while their banter was very profane and raw, it was
entertaining. Thornton in particular did a remarkable job of a
depressed and broken man circling the drain. The latter 2/3 of the
movie take place in suburban Phoenix, which provided a big contrast
between the dystopia of Willie's crumbling life and the world
outside his grasp. All in all, Bad Santa is one of my favorite
comedies.
Bottom Line - recommended.
overall score: 4/5
story: 4/5
characters: 5/5
action/special effects: 4/5
scenery/cinematography: 3/5
2012-07-11; Silverado (1985)
IMDB link for
Silverado
Genres: western
Silverado is a classic western movie. Made in the 1980s, after
Hollywood had burned out on Westerns and had run its course on
reactionary anti-hero westerns, Silverado was a return to the
classic formulae; good guys and bad guys, gunfights, horsemanship,
saloons, and saloon girls. It is an ensemble piece, with a full cast
of experienced character actors as well as a few headliners. The
four main characters, all good guys, were played by Danny Glover,
Kevin Kline, Scott Glenn, and Kevin Costner. The story is pretty
simple; evil grasping rancher uses violence and political corruption
to steal the land of his neighbors; good guys intervene. Done on a
pretty big budget for its time, the movie is well-made. It offers
great visuals in both the outdoor and indoor scenes. The two towns
created, as well as the period clothing, furnishings, horse gear
etc. were well done. The characters were generally well-written, and
well-acted. Notable actors are Brian Dennehy, who plays a corrupt
sheriff and saloon owner, Linda Hunt who plays a saloon manager, and
Lynn Whitfield who plays a prostitute. On Whitfield, she looks
fantastic in period costume, and is yet another one of those
Hollywood beauties that should have been an A-lister. A minor flaw,
and to be expected from Hollywood, is that the gunfights weren't
realistic. Aside from that, its a fun, well-made classic western.
Who can say no to that?
Bottom Line - highly recommended.
overall score: 5/5
story: 4/5
characters: 5/5
action/special effects: 5/5
scenery/cinematography: 5/5
2012-07-10; Nighthawks (1981)
IMDB link for
Nighthawks
Genres: suspense, action/adventure
Nighthawks is a somewhat obscure film, but one worth knowing about.
It is the story of an NYPD cop and his partner who are transferred
to a multinational anti-terrorism unit tasked with capturing or
killing Wulfgar, a terrorist. Sylvester Stallone plays Deke DaSilva,
a Vietnam veteran who performs high-risk stakeout and decoy work on
the mean streets of Manhattan. Rutger Hauer plays Wulfgar. Since the
main gist of the movie is suspense, I won't get into the plot. While
the action sequences were disappointing, and in one case poorly
acted, the movie has some strong points. Stallone did a good job in
his role, as did Hauer. Much of the movie was shot on location in
NYC, everywhere from rooftops to construction sites to discos, so it
gives the viewer a bit of a history lesson on what New York looked
like way back when. If you weren't aware of this film, and like the
genres, its a hidden gem.
Bottom Line - recommended.
overall score: 4/5
story: 4/5
characters: 4/5
action/special effects: 3/5
scenery/cinematography: 4/5
2012-07-06; The Patriot (2000)
IMDB link for The
Patriot
Genres: drama, historical fiction
The Patriot is a heavily fictionalized story of a South Carolina
plantation owner who grudgingly gets involved in the American
Revolutionary War. The main character, Benjamin Martin, is based
very, very loosely on a real Revolutionary War hero, Francis Marion.
Mel Gibson performed the Martin role fairly well. The cast
includes numerous talented character actors, notably Tom Wilkinson
who played General Cornwallis, Jason Isaacs who played Colonel
Tavington (again, based loosely on the real-world Colonel Banastre
Tarleton), and Chris Cooper, who played Colonel Harry Burwell (based
loosely on the real-world Colonel Henry "Light Horse Harry" Lee of
Virginia). Martin avoids participating in the war until a violent
encounter with British troops on his front porch prompt him to
action. Since the Continental Army troops in South Carolina were
mostly captured in Charleston, Martin assembles a group of ruffians
and frontiersmen to engage in guerrilla warfare using lessons he
learned from fighting in the American militia during the French
& Indian Wars. Its unfortunate that the screenplay is so heavily
fictionalized, as the real story is more than interesting enough.
The characters are mostly very interesting, and the movie does a
very good job of including the long list of supporting actors in the
story. One great example is the character of John Billings, played
by Leon Rippy; Billings fought in the French & Indian Wars
alongside Martin, and there are a couple of dialogue interactions
between Billings and Martin that were very well done. The action
scenes were essentially all battle scenes, and the director did an
excellent job showing realistic small unit engagements with
18th century weapons. Warning; there are a couple of scenes where
the Continentals and Redcoats were in battle and English cannonballs
mowed through the American ranks, with rather grisly outcomes. I
didn't give the movie 5 out of 5 stars on action/special effects
simply because the scale of the battle scenes was too small; the
battles between the Continentals and the British involved many
thousands of infantry, not hundreds. The scenery and cinematography
was excellent, well deserving of high definition viewing. As a
representation of history, this movie is a debacle, but as a
representation of 18th century life and 18th century soldiering, it
is a very worthwhile effort.
Bottom Line - recommended.
overall score: 4/5
story: 2/5
characters: 4/5
action/special effects: 4/5
scenery/cinematography: 5/5
2012-07-04; Equilibrium (2002)
IMDB link for
Equilibrium
Genres: drama, sci/fi
Equilibrium is the story of society after a vaguely described World
War 3, in which violent crime and war have been eliminated by
forcing everyone to take a medication that suppresses emotion. The
government seeks to destroy all things that might provoke an
emotional response, including art, music, literature, etc. An
underground resistance is formed, which the government tries to
eliminate. The main character is John Preston, the government's most
senior "cleric" (i.e. a sort of combination policeman-assassin) ,
played by Christian Bale. There is a mystery inside the drama, as it
is implied that some of the government agents may not be taking
their medication. It is an interesting story, hampered somewhat by
rather stiff characters; this can't be helped, since that world
involves people with no emotions. There are many excellent
fight/gunfight scenes, and some visually interesting backdrops.
There are some obvious plot holes, one of which was so obvious it
should have been re-shot during production. The movie simply died at
the box office, only grossing a small fraction of the production
cost; as I recall, it received very little advertising, and being a
thinker's type film of unclear genre, audiences avoided it. Despite
that, its worth watching, and more interesting than most Hollywood
output.
Bottom Line - recommended.
overall score: 4/5
story: 3/5
characters: 3/5
action/special effects: 5/5
scenery/cinematography: 4/5
2012-06-30; Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000)
IMDB link for
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon
Genres: action/adventure
CTHD is a somewhat convoluted story with 5 main characters, set in
China during the Qing Dynasty. The front story is that of a famous
sword that keeps getting stolen and recovered. The back stories are
two romantic relationships. I won't try to explain further, as it
would take half a page. The film features a lot of martial arts
fight scenes, mostly of the amusingly unrealistic Hong Kong style
"wire fu" type. There were a couple of fight scenes where the fight
choreography was well done. The characters were mostly pretty flat
and uninteresting. The romantic relationships were simplistic at
best. Fortunately, the visuals were stunning. The locations and
interior sets were spectacular, and the cinematography was
excellent. This movie got a huge amount of buzz when it came out,
and received high scores from critics, but in my opinion things got
a bit out of hand. You'll be disappointed if you expect a top
quality story, so just watch it for the few good fight scenes, and
the great visuals.
Bottom Line - worth watching.
overall score: 3/5
story: 2/5
characters: 3/5
action/special effects: 3/5
scenery/cinematography: 5/5
2012-06-28; End Of Days (1999)
IMDB link for End Of
Days
Genres: action/adventure, horror
End Of Days is an odd combination of an action thriller and a Man
versus The Devil sort of thing. Arnold Schwarzenegger plays Jericho
Cane, a presumably former special forces soldier now working as a
top tier personal security detail pro. Robin Tunney plays a girl
born literally under a bad sign; a particular planetary alignment
that makes her useful to the Devil as a potential mother to the
Devil's offspring that will bring Armageddon. Gabriel Byrne plays
what the viewer must assume is the Devil, or at least the Earthly
manifestation thereof. As the calendar careens towards New Year's
Eve of the year 1999, the stars are aligning in the proper order for
the Devil to do his thing to Tunney. As is necessary in this sort of
tale, what initially seems to be the Good Guys against the Bad Guys
turns out to be the Bad Guys against the Worse Guys. Along with some
bogus theology and history, there is plenty of action. The front
story is the hunt for the woman and then the task of keeping her
safe from the Devil, the back story is the struggle that Jericho
Cane has with his loss of faith and dealing with the temptations
that the Devil has to offer. This film has a surprisingly strong
supporting cast, including Rod Steiger, Kevin Pollack, Derrick
O'Connor, and Udo Kier. The special effects in the two cathedral
scenes were pretty impressive. All in all, a simple but enjoyable
story with a good blend of plot and action.
Bottom Line - recommended.
overall score: 4/5
story: 3/5
characters: 4/5
action/special effects: 5/5
scenery/cinematography: 4/5
2012-06-27; Twister (1996)
IMDB link for Twister
Genres: action/adventure, drama
Twister is the archetypical summer blockbuster movie, both
figuratively and literally. The front story of a gang of university
meteorologists in Oklahoma, studying and chasing tornadoes. The back
story is the fractured relationship between two of the
meteorologists who are going through a divorce. Bill Paxton and
Helen Hunt play the divorcing meteorologists, and Jami Gertz plays
Paxton's fiancee. Paxton's character, Bill Harding, has left the
team and has only returned long enough to get his wife Jo to sign
the final divorce papers so he can marry his fiancee Melissa. In the
process, the team along with Bill and Melissa go chasing after some
probable tornadoes with their new measurement system. As expected,
they tangle with all sorts of tornadoes, with plenty of action and
adventure. On the soft side, both Bill and Jo struggle to deal with
the finality of the divorce and the reality that Bill will soon be
gone forever from the team and the marriage. Its a pretty simplistic
story, fortunately the characters are colorful enough to make the
non-action scenes interesting. The centerpiece of the movie is the
special effects, with many scenes involving close-range displays of
tornadoes tearing up farmland. While the special effects were pretty
spectacular for the mid-1990s, in an attempt to maintain and
escalate the excitement level throughout the movie, the script used
some pretty absurd elements that prevented me from giving it a full
5 out of 5 stars for action/special effects. The scenery &
cinematography were really good; its a rare movie these days which
shows American farmland in such a beautiful way. While my copy is a
regular DVD, this is a movie which really must be watched on Blu-Ray
with surround sound. Not perfect, but Twister is an enjoyable story
and a fun, mindless romp.
Bottom Line - recommended.
overall score: 4/5
story: 3/5
characters: 5/5
action/special effects: 4/5
scenery/cinematography: 5/5
2012-06-26; Mad Max (1979)
IMDB link for Mad Max
Genres: action/adventure, horror
Mad Max is the seminal first movie in the Mad Max trilogy. Filmed in
1977 and released in 1979, the story is about a highway patrolman in
rural Australia who battles an extremely violent biker gang. The
story reflects western culture of the 1970s, a time when the
permissive mindset of the late 1950s and 1960s spawned a rapid and
frightening rise in violent crime in western industrial countries
during the late 1960s and 1970s. Recall the many crime-oriented
movies of the 1970s, including the three Dirty Harry movies, the
Charles Bronson movie Death Wish, and so forth. Mad Max is often
described as a post-apocalyptic story, but I disagree with that. It
is the story of the gradual breakdown of society, pre-apocalypse you
might say.
Mad Max was a milestone movie for several reasons. It was the first
Australian movie to succeed in the US. It used some apparently new
editing techniques, including short, rapid cuts between shots during
action scenes. Also, it launched the career of Mel Gibson. It also
pushed the envelope of how much violence, particularly the
sociopathic violence that plagued the 1970s, could be shown in a
wide-release film. Note that the writer and director used a lot of
implication to indicate violence rather than show it directly;
however, this is not a movie for the weak-stomached.
The main elements of the movie are: the cops versus the bikers, the
stark and desolate rural environment, the breakdown of civilized
society, and Max' de-evolution from lawman to vigilante. Mad Max is
an enjoyable movie, with lots of action, car chases, scenery, social
criticism, and violence. It is also the necessary pre-requisite to
understanding the second movie in the series, Road Warrior. Not only
is Mad Max a cult classic, it has importance in the pantheon of
modern filmmaking, and is the source of quite a bit of pop culture.
For example, around the world there are numerous cars customized to
look like the police cruisers used in the movie; supposedly there is
a museum in rural Australia in which the centerpiece is the special
high-performance police cruiser used by Max in the latter act of the
movie. So if you haven't seen Mad Max yet, you definitely should.
Bottom Line - recommended.
overall score: 4/5
story: 4/5
characters: 4/5
action/special effects: 4/5
scenery/cinematography: 5/5
2012-06-25; Dolemite (1975)
IMDB link for
Dolemite
Genres: blaxploitation
Dolemite is one of those movies that is so bad, its good! Because of
its awful story, acting, action, and cinematography, it has become a
cult classic of sorts (not unlike Plan 9 from Outer Space). Made in
1975 after the blaxploitation genre got going with movies such as
Shaft and Coffy, Dolemite is the brainchild of Rudy Ray Moore, who
receives credit for acting, producing, writing, and just about
everything else on Dolemite. Moore did some singing and standup
comedy, and was one of the earliest (and possibly the first) rappers. The
movie contains a few scenes where Moore performs some rap, and there
are some historian types who believe that the Dolemite movie was the
first recording of rap on film.
All that said, prepare yourself for a truly awful movie. There's
really no aspect of the movie that is done professionally. The
story, dialogue, cinematography, lighting, editing, you name it, its
all bad. For example, in multiple scenes the boom mic with its foam
windscreen bobs down into the viewable picture. There are many
inexplicable tangents from the story line, all sorts of continuity
errors, long awkward pauses between dialogue lines, you name it. Its
kind of a lesson in how not to make a movie. And that's a big part
of the fun, really; catching the hundreds of booboos. Another big
part is seeing all the period cars, clothes, furniture, haircuts,
and whatnot. The clothes are probably exaggerated some, but the
1970s had all sorts of style nightmares.
My rating is 1/5, simply because my rating system doesn't have a
zero. Despite that, its almost a must-see movie for movie buffs.
Take it for what its worth, laugh and groan your way through it, and
join the cult!
Bottom Line - will cause
brain damage.
overall score: 1/5
story: 1/5
characters: 1/5
action/special effects: 1/5
scenery/cinematography: 1/5
2012-06-23; Wicker Park (2004)
IMDB link for Wicker
Park
Genres: drama, suspense
Wicker Park, a remake of the French film The Apartment, is the
rather convoluted story of a young couple who appear to be headed
towards a happy life as a couple when careers and circumstances
split and estrange them. The movie uses time jumps, mostly as
replaying of memories, to gradually present all of the events
leading up to the estrangement, while showing the main characters as
fate brings the estranged two almost back together. The male lead,
played by Josh Hartnett, has moved on and is soon to marry a
colleague when he experiences a near-miss of his true love, played
by Diane Kruger. He ignores his work and romantic obligations in the
obsessive quest to find Kruger. Also involved in the suspense are
his best friend, played by Matthew Lillard, and Lillard's
girlfriend, played by Rose Byrne. The story and script are pretty
interesting, but I found the time jumps to be too distracting. I
also found most of the characters to be rather two-dimensional.
Hartnett's character was kind of unrealistic, I thought; somebody
with his life history and situation wouldn't have acted the way he
did, and I thought his character was kinda wooden. The saving grace
in this movie was Rose Byrne, who made her character come across as
a flawed but real, feeling person.
Bottom Line - worth watching.
overall score: 3/5
story: 4/5
characters: 2/5
action/special effects: 3/5
scenery/cinematography: 4/5
2012-06-22; Punisher: War Zone (2008)
IMDB link for
Punisher: War Zone
Genres: action/adventure
Punisher: War Zone is the second Punisher movie from the second
go-round (there was a first Punisher movie released in 1989). The
Punisher is a comic book character from Marvel Comics, though the
movie character in all movies to date apparently differs
substantially from the comic books. Also note that Punisher: War
Zone is not a sequel to either of the earlier two films; it is
essentially a somewhat alternate take on the same stuff. And that's
one of its main flaws; it neither presents a better story nor
leverages viewer interest in characters they've already seen. The
main character is Frank Castle, a.k.a. The Punisher; an extremely
violent vigilante who obsessively tracks down and murders organized
crime figures. In this movie, Castle is played by Ray Stevenson, a
British actor best known for his excellent work in the HBO series
Rome. Unfortunately, his talents went to waste in this effort. Lots
of gratuitous violence, and some interesting plot elements, but the
story just doesn't keep me interested.
Bottom Line - not recommended.
overall score: 2/5
story: 2/5
characters: 2/5
action/special effects: 3/5
scenery/cinematography: 2/5
2012-06-20; Presumed Innocent (1990)
IMDB link for
Presumed Innocent
Genres: drama, suspense
Presumed Innocent is the story of a state prosecutor who is accused
of murdering a female colleague. Harrison Ford plays Rusty Sabich, a
dedicated senior prosecutor who is initially tasked with
investigating the murder and eventually indicted for it. The movie
has an excellent cast, notably Raul Julia who plays Sabich's lawyer,
John Spencer who plays a police detective who Sabich assigns to the
case, and Bonnie Bedelia who plays Sabich's wife. The acting and
dialogue were excellent, and I very much liked the sets and
cinematography. While watching the movie the first time, you may be
disappointed that the murder mystery is rather secondary to the
political skullduggery surrounding the indictment of a public
official. Hang in there, as there are sufficient plot twists and red
herrings to make it an interesting suspense story. One thing that
the story missed out on was the role of Sabich's secretary, played
by Anna Maria Horsford. I have little knowledge of the lawyering
game, but my observation of white collar professional office work is
that the senior professionals tend to have a pretty tight
relationship with senior secretaries. The secretaries usually have a
substantial behind-the-scenes role, as well as having an ear bent
towards office politics. Given the back story of the murder, and the
front story of the personal and political interactions between
friends and foes, it seems likely to me that Horsford's character
would have played a larger role. Aside from that, its a good script
and a good ride. Note that the DVD version has a run time a bit over
two hours; unusual for a drama, and really nice as there are enough
scenes to flesh out the several main characters.
On Bedelia, this movie came out just after the first two Die Hard
movies, so 1990 was probably Bedelia's "Elvis Year". She was in her
early 40s when this movie was released, yet she really lit up the
screen, better than many of the young A-list actresses of her time.
I remember being strongly attracted to her back then, and still
today. Bedelia had both the acting chops and beauty that would hold
up on the big screen. Hollywood accidentally stumbled upon an
actress that in my mind could have been promoted as an older matinee
idol, but they sadly missed the boat.
Bottom Line - recommended.
overall score: 4/5
story: 4/5
characters: 4/5
action/special effects: 3/5
scenery/cinematography: 4/5
2012-06-18; Swordfish (2001)
IMDB link for
Swordfish
Genres: action/adventure, suspense
Swordfish is the story of a computer hacker who is hired by a
shadowy criminal/terrorist gang to hack a bank. Stanley Jobson,
played by Hugh Jackman, has been convicted of hacking an FBI
computer system and is struggling to survive after his prison
sentence. Gabriel Shear, played by John Travolta, is the charming
and ruthless leader of the criminal gang. Jobson ends up being
watched by an FBI team led by Don Cheadle, who then stumbles on the
presence of Shear and then begins trying to figure out who Shear is
and what his game is. The characters, particularly that of Shear,
are interesting and complex. This is one of Travolta's best efforts,
perhaps his best ever. Jackman did a good job, but the script
limited his character development I think. The movie
skillfully alternates between dialogue and big blockbuster action.
The film uses some segues between future and past early on to flesh
out the story, so your first watching may be a bit unsettling until
the movie gets onto the main timeline. The action and special
effects are absolutely first rate, as is the cinematography. All in
all, a great movie.
Bottom Line - highly recommended.
overall score: 5/5
story: 4/5
characters: 5/5
action/special effects: 5/5
scenery/cinematography: 5/5
2012-06-17; Last Man Standing (1996)
IMDB link for Last
Man Standing
Genres: crime, action/adventure
Last Man Standing is the story of a hired gunman during the
Prohibition era who stops off at a small town in west Texas on the
way to Mexico, on the run from unspecified trouble back East. The
town of Jericho is near the Mexican border, and thus relevant to
bootleggers, such that two organized crime gangs occupy and control
it. The Italian-American gang led by Strossi and the Irish-American
gang led by Doyle have been working up to a final battle to
determine who will control the town. Bruce Willis plays the hired
gunman, traveling under the pseudonym "John Smith". Its a pretty
simple story; bad guy, worse guys, innocent victims, and lots of
gunfights. The story itself is based on the Yojimbo story by
Kurosawa. The gunfights are highly stylized and not particularly
realistic. Two things make this movie worthwhile; the scenery and
cinematography, and the many excellent character actors. Bruce Dern
turns in a good performance as the crooked town sheriff, and Ken
Jenkins does likewise as the cynical Texas Ranger assigned to the
region. Another plus is the soundtrack, with instrumental theme
music by Ry Cooder.
Bottom Line - recommended.
overall score: 4/5
story: 3/5
characters: 4/5
action/special effects: 4/5
scenery/cinematography: 5/5
2012-06-16; Runaway (1984)
IMDB link for Runaway
Genres: sci-fi, action/adventure
Runaway is a sci-fi story written by Michael Crichton (The Andromeda
Strain, Westworld, Coma, Jurassic Park, 13th Warrior, etc.). It is
the near future, at least the near future as seen from the early
1980s, where robots are a pervasive and invasive feature of everyday
life. Runaways are robots who have gone out of control, and the Los
Angeles Police Department has a special squad that corrals and
disables runaways. Tom Selleck, at the height of his Magnum P.I.
fame, plays Sergeant Jack Ramsey, the team leader of the runaway
squad. Cynthia Rhodes (known for Flashdance and Dirty Dancing) plays
Ramsey's new partner. Gene Simmons, bassist for the rock band Kiss,
plays an evil programmer who develops corrupted computer chips for
sale to terrorists and enemy governments. Its a fairly simplistic
story; good guys, bad guy, gunfights, car chases, and robots. It
really suffered from a shoestring budget; had it been funded like a
major blockbuster, with better technical aspects and special
effects, it could have been a substantially better movie. At any
rate, it is fun to watch for a variety of reasons. One is to simply
enjoy a look back at life in the 1980s. Another, at least for me, is
the substantial number of screen close-ups of Ms. Rhodes, who is
barely known these days but in my opinion was one of the top 5
Hollywood beauties of that decade. She is just striking to look at.
She may or may not have been a great actress, but Hollywood made a
mistake in failing to put her in more pictures.
Bottom Line - worth watching.
overall score: 3/5
story: 3/5
characters: 3/5
action/special effects: 3/5
scenery/cinematography: 3/5
2012-06-16; 300 (2006)
IMDB link for 300
Genres: action/adventure
300 is the semi-fictionalized story of the Battle of Thermopylae in
the year 480 BC. The movie is based on the comic book
fictionalization by Frank Miller. Since few are exposed to ancient
history these days, a brief interlude for context is given in the
next paragraph.
Xerxes, the emperor of the Persian Empire, had built his empire up
sufficiently to take on the Greek city-states. His intent was to
strike at Athens, via Sparta, which was ruled by King Leonidas. The
Spartan council did not want to go to war against the Persians, due
to the overwhelming size of the Persian army, so Leonidas "went for
a walk" with 300 of his best soldiers to Thermopylae. That site
featured a narrow mountain pass, a natural bottleneck on the road
between the coast where Xerxes had landed his forces, and the inland
areas belonging to Sparta. The movie takes substantial liberties
with the history, in particular the role played by the other
city-states in resisting the Persians. As everyone should know,
Leonidas and his 300 were all killed, the Persians marched their
army through the pass and into Spartan territory and on to Athens;
however, the combined Greek navy inflicted massive damage on the
Persian fleet, causing Xerxes to pull most of his army back to
Persia. The remainder of the Persian army left in Athenian territory
was defeated by the unified Greeks.
The movie's front story is the tale of Leonidas and his 300 in the
last few days before the battle, and the days of the battle (3 days
of direct combat). There are two substantive back stories. One back
story is the presentation of the militaristic and stoic culture that
developed in Sparta, as an explainer for the mindset and abilities
of the Spartan soldiers. This is probably necessary to make the
battle outcome believable. The second back story is the political
wrangling and skullduggery in the Spartan council before and during
the battle against Xerxes. I scored the story itself only 3 out of 5
stars, because the real, historically accurate story is even more
interesting than the fiction. The action sequences and special
effects were very well done. Note that the cinematography used a
technique of extreme saturation and contrast, I guess to emulate
comic book graphics; this is one of those things you either love or
hate, and I kinda hate it; thus both the action/special effects
score and the scenery/cinematography score were 4 rather than 5
stars.
Bottom Line - recommended.
overall score: 4/5
story: 3/5
characters: 4/5
action/special effects: 4/5
scenery/cinematography: 4/5
2012-06-14; Hot Fuzz (2007)
IMDB link for Hot
Fuzz
Genres: comedy, action/adventure
Hot Fuzz is the story of a zealous, overachieving London policemen
who gets promoted and reassigned to a small town so that his peers
don't look poorly in comparison. The cast includes some of the gang
who made Shaun of the Dead, including the two main characters,
played by Simon Pegg and Nick Frost. Sergeant Nicholas Angel, played
by Pegg, looks around the idyllic small town expecting to find some
hidden undercurrent of crime, and eventually he is not disappointed.
The movie satirizes both big city bureaucracy and small town
archetypes. A noteworthy element is the role played by Timothy
Dalton of 007 fame, in this movie playing a creepy supermarket
owner. I enjoyed the first half of the movie more than the second;
the leadup to and execution of the big gunfight between Angel and
the criminals failed to maintain the quality of the slower part of
the flick. Overall, it was a bit of a letdown compared to Shaun of
the Dead, but still entertaining enough to watch.
Bottom Line - worth watching.
overall score: 3/5
story: 3/5
characters: 4/5
action/special effects: 3/5
scenery/cinematography: 3/5
2012-06-13; Blade Runner (1982)
IMDB link for Blade
Runner
Genres: fantasy, sci-fi, action/adventure
Blade Runner is, quite simply, one of the best movies of all time.
It is based on a novel by Philip K. Dick,
whose literary output also resulted in the films Total Recall,
Screamers, Minority Report, Imposter, A Scanner Darkly, and The
Adjustment Bureau among others. Blade Runner tells the story of
Deckard, a retired Blade Runner called out of retirement. Blade
Runners were special policemen tasked with eliminating
out-of-control replicants, man-made androids used as slaves. Deckard
is given the task of finding and "retiring" four replicants who
violently captured a spaceship and returned to Earth. Directed by
Ridley Scott, the film is a visual feast, showing a dystopic Los
Angeles of the future. The front story is the action/adventure story
of Deckard hunting the replicants. Scott does this very well, with
incredibly detailed sets, excellent camera work, and fight
choreography. The back story is that of mankind struggling with the
existential question of perception and identity. In the course of
his "replicant hunt", Deckard is introduced to Rachel, who is a
replicant who does not know she is such. Thus, along with the action
movie elements, there is an examination of dystopic futures, and a
look into existential questions. For good reason, Blade Runner has
become a cult classic. Note that there are now quite a few versions
of the movie. The US theatrical release and some versions on VHS
tape and DVD have a narration track by Harrison Ford (who played
Deckard). There are also several Director's Cut versions lacking the
narration. For a first viewing, I recommend a version with the
narration track. I believe the viewer will get a much better
appreciation of Deckard's character, which is critical to
understanding his actions in the latter half of the movie.
Bottom Line - highly recommended.
overall score: 5/5
story: 5/5
characters: 5/5
action/special effects: 5/5
scenery/cinematography: 5/5
2012-06-11; Hulk (2003)
IMDB link for Hulk
Genres: fantasy, sci-fi
Hulk (just "Hulk", no preceding "The") is a movie adaptation of the
comic book series and TV series. Eric Bana plays Bruce Banner, the
scientist who is genetically altered by an accidental dose of gamma
radiation. Jennifer Connelly plays Betty Ross, his lab partner and
former girlfriend, Sam Elliott plays US Army General Ross, her
father, and Nick Nolte plays David Banner, Bruce's father. The movie
was directed by Ang Lee, who used a wide variety of advanced "cuts"
between scenes, as well as heavy use of "split screen" sequences
where the screen shows two or more scenes simultaneously. The
special effects ranged from excellent to mediocre. The
cinematography was very, very good, particularly the desert
sequences. The Hulk story itself is very interesting to me, in that
the superhero isn't a hero but an ordinary guy struggling to control
his superpowers. I thought that Bana did a truly excellent job
portraying a man with serious internal demons. Elliott is a good
actor, but I thought his character was two-dimensional at best.
Likewise for Connelly, who is stunningly beautiful for sure, but her
character in the movie was lackluster. Nolte's character was well
done. Overall, a good story and good movie, but I think severely
hamstrung by the last act and particularly the final battle between
the two "monsters".
Bottom Line - recommended.
overall score: 4/5
story: 4/5
characters: 4/5
action/special effects: 4/5
scenery/cinematography: 5/5
2012-06-04; Le Pacte des Loups {Brotherhood of the Wolf} (2001)
IMDB link for Les
Pacte des Loups
Genres: fantasy, horror
Les Pacte des Loups, released in the US as Brotherhood of the
Wolf, is a fictional story woven around an actual legend, the
Beast of Gevaudan. The movie was made in France, and in French,
but DVDs available in the US have English dubbing that was well
done. The Beast of Gevaudan was a cryptozoological mystery
involving many attacks on humans and livestock in central France
during the 18th century. The movie weaves the horror story with
religious and political intrigue, along with plenty of fight
scenes, spectacular country vistas, castles and mansions, and some
creative cinematography.
Bottom Line - highly recommended.
overall score: 5/5
story: 5/5
characters: 4/5
action/special effects: 5/5
scenery/cinematography: 5/5
2012-06-04; Mars Attacks! (1996)
IMDB link for Mars
Attacks!
Genres: comedy, science fiction
Mars Attacks! is a really enjoyable parody of commonplace sci-fi and
disaster movies from Hollywood. The front story is the visitation
by, and eventual attack from, Martians. There are several back
stories, each involving one or more characters from the ensemble
cast. Jack Nicholson plays two characters, the President of the US
and a crooked real estate developer. He does a great job in the
latter character. Another character worth mentioning is the White
House Press Secretary, played by Martin Short; really over the top,
and hilarious. Pretty much everyone gets drilled by the script;
politicians, the military, TV journalists, etc.
Bottom Line - recommended.
overall score: 4/5
story: 4/5
characters: 5/5
action/special effects: 4/5
scenery/cinematography: 3/5
2012-06-02; Eraser (1996)
IMDB link for Eraser
Genres: action/adventure
Eraser is one of those classic Arnold Schwarzenegger movies. Arnold
plays a federal agent in the Witness Protection program, Vanessa
Williams plays an executive in a corrupt defense contractor
corporation who is informing to the FBI concerning illegal arms
sales. Arnold's job is to "erase" people who will testify or have
testified in federal court, deleting their identity and placing them
in a new life, isolated from retribution. The plot is totally
formulaic; evil corporation, corrupt law enforcement types, etc.
Likewise with the action scenes; wildly unrealistic, over-the-top,
and generally pretty fun. As is obligatory, numerous quips,
catchphrases, and funny lines. This was Vanessa Williams' first big
movie, but it didn't propel her into mainstream movies (the curse of
the action flick, I guess). All in all, a fun movie that could have
been much more.
Bottom Line - worth watching.
overall score: 3/5
story: 3/5
characters: 3/5
action/special effects: 4/5
scenery/cinematography: 3/5
2012-06-01; Saving Private Ryan (1998)
IMDB link for Saving
Private Ryan
Genres: war, action/adventure
Saving Private Ryan is a fictional World War II story about a team
of US Army Rangers sent to pull a soldier off the front due to the
deaths of his three brothers. Private James Ryan of the 101st
Airborne Division, played by Matt Damon, parachuted into Normandy
and his battalion was scattered widely, making the task of finding
him a main theme of the movie. The Rangers, led by Captain John
Miller (played by Tom Hanks), are decimated in their landing on the
beach during the Normandy invasion, and what's left of Miller's
company is tasked with finding Ryan and bringing him to the rear
area so he can be transported home. The story is based rather
loosely on a true story from the war, but gets a variety of things
wrong. There are a number of tactical errors made that simply
wouldn't have been made by seasoned Army Rangers at that stage of
the war. The characters were hit-and-miss, in my opinion. I thought
the interaction of Captain Miller with his sergeant was well done,
but some of the other characters did not come across as realistic to
me. However, the cinematography, sets, action, uniforms and weapons,
all combined to create an exceptional visual portrayal of battle in
the European theater. In some areas there was spectacular attention
to detail, for example the "ping" that occurs when an M1 rifle
ejects its empty en-bloc clip.
Bottom Line - recommended.
overall score: 4/5
story: 4/5
characters: 3/5
action/special effects: 5/5
scenery/cinematography: 5/5
2012-05-28; The Man in the Iron Mask (1998)
IMDB link for The
Man in the Iron Mask
Genres: action/adventure
The Man in the Iron Mask is one of the D'Artagnan stories written by
Alexandre
Dumas (The Three Musketeers, The Count of Monte Cristo). As an
aside, if you are not familiar with Dumas' life story, I highly recommend that
you look into it. Not only did Dumas write larger-than-life stories,
he himself lived a larger-than-life life. The story is that of the
Three Musketeers in their sunset years, dealing with an evil King
Louis XIV. A plot is hatched to replace the real king with his twin
brother, who has been kept anonymously in a prison, wearing an iron
mask riveted to his head in order to prevent the guards from
speculating on his true identity. There have been many movies made
from this story, going back to the 1920s and silent films. This
version is notable due to the "star power" of the cast, and the
modern cinematography, set design, and resources used. Leonardo
DiCaprio plays both Louis XIV and his brother, Phillipe. Gabriele
Byrne, Jeremy Irons, John Malkovich, and Gerard Depardieu play the
Musketeers. As should be expected from a Dumas story, the themes are
courage, honor, and duty, and the movie presents spectacular sets,
tons of period costumes, swordfights, and brawls galore. This
particular version had a lot of potential, but fell a bit flat.
Still, a worthwhile movie to watch. I recommend watching one of the
many versions of The Three Musketeers first, to have a handle on the
time period and characters; off the cuff I would suggest the 1973
version as possibly the best of the lot.
Bottom Line - recommended.
overall score: 4/5
story: 4/5
characters: 4/5
action/special effects: 4/5
scenery/cinematography: 5/5
2012-05-27; Mr. & Mrs. Smith (2005)
IMDB link for Mr.
& Mrs. Smith
Genres: action/adventure
Mr. & Mrs. Smith is the tale of a married couple, both
professional assassins leading a double life, hiding their true
profession from their spouse. I cannot describe the plot to any
extent without spoiling the experience for the viewer, so I'll just
note the notables. Mr. Smith is played by Brad Pitt, who seems to
excel in these quirky roles; likewise for Angelina Jolie, who plays
the Mrs. Sadly, the supporting cast is pretty weak, notably Vince
Vaughn who plays Pitt's sidekick. The front story is that of the two
assassins dealing with the consequences of their profession, and the
back story is the couple dealing with the fracture of their
marriage. The movie is chock full of action sequences, with
gunfights, explosions, and car chases; all expertly done. But it
also has many humorous moments, and no shortage of satire on modern
suburban life. In a way, the best scenes in the movie weren't the
action scenes, rather the scenes when the two were in the office of
a marriage counselor. While neither of the two lead actors are
considered to be at the top echelon of acting, their performance in
the contrived and challenging setting of the marriage counselor's
office was really excellent. This movie could easily have scored 5
out of 5, were it not for two flaws. The glaring flaw is that the
ending of the front story was essentially a giant plot hole, and the
poor writing and acting of the supporting characters was another
avoidable flaw. Still, a great romp.
Bottom Line - recommended.
overall score: 4/5
story: 4/5
characters: 4/5
action/special effects: 5/5
scenery/cinematography: 4/5
2012-05-25; Léon {also titled "The Professional" in the
US} (1994)
IMDB link for
Léon
Genres: drama, action/adventure
Léon, distributed in the US as "The Professional", is a story
of an Italian hitman working in New York City. Jean Reno plays
Léon, who is on the run from unspecified troubles in Europe.
He grudgingly meets Matilda, played by a pre-teen Natalie Portman.
Matilda's family is killed by a gang of corrupt cops involved in the
drug trade, forching Matilda to seek Léon's help. The front
story is the relationship between Léon and Matilda, which is
discomforting since Léon has almost no people skills and
since Matilda is infatuated with him and plays the Lolita thing. The
back story is Matilda's hunger for revenge against the cops who
killed her little brother. While the characters of Léon and
Matilda are really well done, the movie strikes out with the other
characters; Léon's handler is played by Danny Aiello, whose
part was not convincing, nor of the cop gang. The lead cop was
played by Gary Oldman, who played him as a pill-popping psychopath
that was just too over-the-top. The other cops were also more
caricatures than characters, unfortunately. The movie's strengths
are the stoicism and quirkiness of Léon, and the several
gunfight scenes. There were some enjoyable location scenes too,
showing gritty low-income areas of NYC.
Bottom Line - recommended.
overall score: 4/5
story: 4/5
characters: 4/5
action/special effects: 5/5
scenery/cinematography: 4/5
2012-05-21; Training Day (2001)
IMDB link for
Training Day
Genres: drama
Training Day is the story of a young LAPD cop who is chosen to join
a special narcotics unit. Ethan Hawke plays the young cop, whose
first day with the new unit becomes a nightmare. Denzel Washington
plays the leader of the narcotics unit, a larger-than-life,
streetwise cop who moves freely and effectively in the ghettos of
south central LA. In one day, Hawke's character is exposed to
violence, crime, and corruption. For once, I agree with the Academy
of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (which presents the Academy
Awards, a.k.a. the Oscars); Hawke's performance was good,
Washington's performance was truly great. The movie is also chock
full of skilled supporting actors and cameos. While the main thrust
of the movie is the psychological journey that Hawke's character
takes on his training day, there is plenty of action interspersed to
keep it from being just a dialogue movie. I gave Training Day 5 out
of 5 points for scenery/cinematography because there were so many
location shots in LA. The director, Antoine Fuqua, did a great job
contrasting the nicer middle-class neighborhoods of LA with the
gang-dominated areas.
Bottom Line - highly recommended.
overall score: 5/5
story: 5/5
characters: 5/5
action/special effects: 5/5
scenery/cinematography: 5/5
2012-05-21; The Last Samurai (2003)
IMDB link for The
Last Samurai
Genres: drama, action/adventure
The Last Samurai is the story of an American retired US Army officer
hired to train the modernizing Japanese Imperial Army in 1876. The
Imperial Army is struggling with an insurrection from the samurai
cast, led by Katsumoto (played skilfully by Ken Watanabe). Tom
Cruise plays retired Captain Nathan Algren, a veteran of the Army's
Indian Wars following the Civil War. Algren is devastated by the
brutal tactics of the punitive expeditions, and is slowly drinking
himself to death. The challenge of training Japanese conscripts in
the methods of modern war brings him back from the brink, but in the
first battle between Algren's new trainees and Katsumoto's samurai,
Algren is wounded badly and captured. Katsumoto keeps Algren
captive, to study western culture and military thinking. The movie
has several intertwined stories. The main story is the political
conflict between the traditionalists and the modernists within the
Japanese government and their relationship to the young emperor, and
secondary stories include Algren's relationship with Katsumoto,
Algren's relationship with the family that grudgingly boards him
while he is captive, and Algren's struggle with his internal demons.
Unfortunately, the story falls into the trap of casting western
culture as thoroughly evil, and the alternative culture as
thoroughly good, as is all too commonly done in Hollywood in the
post-1960s era. In fact, due to its many similarities to the movie
"Dances With Wolves", The Last Samurai called "Dances With Samurais"
by a number of punsters. Thus, the story doesn't get that good of a
score. The characters were pretty interesting, both of the main
characters and the supporting cast. British comedian Billy Connelly
puts in an excellent performance as Algren's seargeant. The acting
by Watanabe and Cruise was excellent, I would say one of Cruise's
best efforts to date. The best aspect of the movie is the fight
scenes, both the large scale battle scenes and the individual sword
fights; the fight choreography in conjunction with the
cinematography was just spectacular. The DVD runs about two and a
half hours, which is long but is necessary to do justice to all the
sub-plots.
Bottom Line - recommended.
overall score: 4/5
story: 3/5
characters: 4/5
action/special effects: 5/5
scenery/cinematography: 4/5
2012-05-19; Gattaca (1997)
IMDB link for Gattaca
Genres: suspense, science fiction
Gattaca tells the story of an "Invalid" (pronounced "in-valid") in a
world where universal and instantaneous genetic testing has resulted
in a world where your genes totally control your fate in society.
People with few genetic flaws and good genetic markers are Valids,
who enjoy a normal life, whereas Invalids are less than second-class
citizens. Ethan Hawke plays Vincent, an Invalid who infiltrates the
Valid world using illegal means, taking on the persona of Jerome, a
Valid with exceptional genes who has become marginalized due to
paralysis from an accident. Vincent, as Jerome, ends up working for
Gattaca Corporation, a firm that does outer space exploration, and
is chosen to travel to Titan, one of Saturn's moons. A murder occurs
at the corporation, bringing heavy police presence and thorough
testing that threatens to expose Vincent. The movie examines our
propensity to select out an elite class and an "untouchable" class
or caste, and I think hints at a future of relative ease (for most)
that delivers not happiness but rather dissipation. Note that, along
with the usual small errors and goofs, there is a big hole in the
story concerning the police investigation, but as long as you ignore
it you'll get the value from the story.
Bottom Line - recommended.
overall score: 4/5
story: 4/5
characters: 3/5
action/special effects: 3/5
scenery/cinematography: 5/5
2012-05-18; Lists: Top Five Bond Films
Again, in no particular order, and only a tentative list;
- The Man with the Golden Gun
- Goldeneye
- Quantum of Solace
- On Her Majesty's Secret Service
- Tomorrow Never Dies
2012-05-18; Lists: Top Five Bond Girls
I know I'm skating on thin ice here, but what the hell. In no
particular order;
- Sophie Marceau
- Jill St. John
- Jane Seymour
- Tanya Roberts
- Gemma Arterton
The above list is based simply on beauty. A list based on the
appeal of the character might look something like;
- Diana Rigg
- Maryam D'Abo
- Isabella Scorupco
- Michelle Yeoh
- Honor Blackman
2012-05-15; Snatch (2000)
IMDB link for Snatch
Genres: suspense, comedy
Snatch is a caper film wrapped with a comedy. It is an ensemble
work, with a really talented cast. Jason Statham plays Turkish, a
small-time crook and promoter of illegal underground boxing. Brad
Pitt plays Mickey, a "pikey" (i.e. an Irish gypsy, equivalent to the
Irish Travellers in the US). Teh story intertwines Mickey's
inadvertent entry into underground boxing, the heist of a diamond
dealer, the armed robbery of an illegal bookie joint, and a broad
spectrum of offbeat characters. Its quite a romp, with shootouts,
bare-knuckle boxing, and a really creative multi-car crash scene.
Note that I gave it 5/5 points for action/special effects due to the
few but extremely well-shot boxing scenes.
Bottom Line - highly recommended.
overall score: 5/5
story: 5/5
characters: 5/5
action/special effects: 5/5
scenery/cinematography: 4/5
2012-05-14; O Brother, Where Art Thou (2000)
IMDB link for O
Brother, Where Art Thou
Genres: comedy
O Brother, Where Art Thou is a brilliant adaptation of Homer's
Odyssey into a story of 3 hapless convicts who escape prison in
hopes of recovering $1.2 million from a armored car heist. The
screenplay was written by the Coen brothers, i.e. Ethan and Joel,
who have written and/or directed many successful movies including:
No Country For Old Men, The Big Lebowski, Fargo, and Raising
Arizona. As the tale's real value derives from the deviations from
the classic story from Homer, I won't outline the plot here. I will
mention the excellent attention to detail on the period clothing,
sets and backgrounds, and the exceptionally good soundtrack. On the
latter, a blend of folk, bluegrass, and blues music was used. Of
special note is the rendition of an old, old blues classic, Hard
Time Killing Floor Blues, played by Chris Thomas King. Rather than a
full band, the song is sung by King with only his guitar playing the
melody.
Bottom Line - highly recommended.
overall score: 5/5
story: 5/5
characters: 5/5
action/special effects: 4/5
scenery/cinematography: 5/5
2012-05-14; Underworld: Evolution (2006)
IMDB link for
Underworld: Evolution
Genres: fantasy
Underworld: Evolution is the second film in the Underworld
franchise. Underworld is a set of stories revolving around the war
between the vampires and the Lycans, i.e. werewolves. This movie
brings to light two brothers, one the original vampire and the other
the original werewolf. The two lead characters from the first
Underworld movie, Selina the vampire hitwoman and Michael the
vampire/werewolf hybrid, find themselves hunted once again. Like
many second movies from a trilogy, the story by itself falls a bit
flat, as its job is to flesh out those details left out of the 1st
in the series, and to prepare the viewer for the 3rd movie. As in
the first movie, lots of gunfights, blood and body parts flying,
detailed and complicated sets and locations, and of course it all
happens at night. Two rather remarkable cameos, both from veteran
British actors, are Derek Jacobi (probabl ymost famous in the US for
his leading role in "I, Claudius") and Bill Nighy. Jacobi's
performance was as expected, whereas Nighy was obviously
uncomfortable in this work.
Bottom Line - worth watching.
overall score: 3/5
story: 3/5
characters: 3/5
action/special effects: 4/5
scenery/cinematography: 3/5
2012-05-08; True Lies (1994)
IMDB link for True
Lies
Genres: action, adventure
True Lies is the quintessential Arnold Schwarzenegger movie. Arnold
plays a super-agent for the US government by day and a mundane
family man by night. His long-suffering wife, played by Jamie Lee
Curtis, believes his cover story of being a computer salesman. A
super-agent needs a super-villain, who arrives in the form of a
splinter Islamic terrorist group that acquires some Russian nuclear
warheads. As expected, the movie takes the viewer through
over-the-top gunfights, chase scenes, explosions, and the requisite
catchphrases. In other words, good, clean fun. Two notable cameo
appearances are by Charlton Heston and Bill Paxton. It was directed
by James Cameron, who did an excellent job with the action
sequences.
Bottom Line - recommended.
overall score: 4/5
story: 3/5
characters: 4/5
action/special effects: 5/5
scenery/cinematography: 5/5
2012-05-05; The Kingdom (2007)
IMDB link for The
Kingdom
Genres: drama, action
The Kingdom is a story about an FBI team sent to Saudi Arabia to
investigate a terrorist bombing that targeted American employees of
the oil companies. Jamie Foxx plays the FBI agent leading the team,
and delivers a good performance. Other familiar faces with
substantial screen time include Chris Cooper, Jennifer Garner, and
Jason Bateman. The real treasure of the movie is the actor Ashraf
Barhom, an Israeli Arab, who plays a Colonel in the Saudi National
Police; the Colonel is the primary liaison between the FBI team and
the various Saudi organizations. Most of the characters were
two-dimensional, both the Americans and the Saudis, but Barhom's
character was really noteworthy; thus my 4/5 rating for characters.
The story itself was a bit lackluster. The writer and producers
deserve credit for taking on a controversial issue, but I wish they
had used more realistic characters, and avoided the rather clumsy
nods to moral equivalency. I think the movie should have cut out
most or all of the State Department/FBI politicking, and used those
minutes to further develop the two Saudi policemen and their
campaign against terrorism. And they should have deleted the
character played by Jason Bateman and developed a more believable
persona. A lot of reviews complain about the "shaky cam" style used
in the car chase and combat scenes; since I only saw the movie on
the small screen, that didn't bother me as much (and I'm generally
hostile to the shaky cam thing). On the positive side, the action
and battle scenes were well done, and I think most viewers will come
away feeling that the movie at least tried to take a serious look at
some Middle East issues.
Bottom Line - recommended.
overall score: 4/5
story: 3/5
characters: 4/5
action/special effects: 5/5
scenery/cinematography: 5/5
2012-05-05; My Scoring System
5/5 = highly recommended
4/5 = recommended
3/5 = worth watching
2/5 = not recommended
1/5 = may cause brain damage
2012-05-05; Pan's Labyrinth (2006)
IMDB link for Pan's
Labyrinth
Genres: fantasy, drama
This movie, originally titled "El Laberinto del Fauno" in Spain, is
a pretty remarkable film. It weaves two stories together; that of a
little girl who is swept up in the residual fighting following the
Spanish Civil War, and that girl's interaction with a fantasy world
populated by fauns, fairies, and other mythological creatures. The
timeframe is 1944, after the Nationalists (i.e. fascists) have
defeated the Republicans (i.e. socialists/communists). Her
stepfather is a captain in the Spanish Army, who has an Ahab-ian
obsession with chasing down the remnants of the Republican movement
(i.e. communists, socialists, and anti-Catholics); he moves his
family to a rural location in the mountains, where a band of rebels
remains. And therein lies one of the main problems with the movie;
it overtly casts the Republicans as the Good Guys, and the
Nationalists as the Bad Guys. This is pretty much ahistorical, as
both sides were guilty of countless crimes. The other problem is
that the script didn't have me caring any about the main characters.
The girl was more of a caricature than a realistic character, so her
trials and tribulations were only of dispassionate interest.
However, the upside is that the fantasy world she visits was
detailed, surreal, and interesting. And the special effects were
truly excellent. The story was both written and directed by
Guillermo del Toro, who is probably most famous for directing the
comic book movies Blade II and Hellboy. del Toro has an excellent
eye for both action and extremely detailed sets, and it shows again
in this movie.
Bottom Line - recommended.
overall score: 4/5
story: 4/5
characters: 3/5
action/special effects: 5/5
scenery/cinematography: 5/5
2012-05-02; Confidence (2003)
IMDB link for
Confidence
Genres: drama, suspense
Confidence is a story about a small gang of con artists who rip off
a guy that turned out to be an accountant for a mobster. This movie
is definitely the archtypical ensemble piece, with a cast full of
established actors. Ed Burns plays Jake Vig, the leader of the con
artist group. Dustin Hoffman, Paul Giamatti, Andy Garcia, Rachel
Weisz, Morris Chestnut, Leland Orser, Louis Lombardi, and Brian Van
Holt fill out the roster, along with Donal Logue and Luis Guzman.
The latter two play rather hapless, crooked cops who often work in
league with Vig's crew; in a way they stole the show. The movie is
kinda neat in that it presents the structure of the standard
confidence game in a simple, easy to follow fashion. The downside is
that, once the viewer knows how the standard con works, the script
has to construct a fairly convoluted and interwoven set of story
lines to keep the viewer from jumping ahead to the grand finale.
Another problem with the film was Rachel Weisz' performance; a
British actress playing an American character, her diction was
strained and painful to hear. While her role in the movie was a
crooked, scheming femme fatale,
her unnatural delivery of her lines just ruined her part. Dustin
Hoffman plays the mobster ripped off by the crew, and he does a
surprisingly good job playing a sociopath. Andy Garcia also turned
in a good job playing a crooked US Customs agent.
Bottom Line - worth watching.
overall score: 3/5
story: 3/5
characters: 3/5
action/special effects: 4/5
scenery/cinematography: 3/5
2012-05-01; 12 Monkeys (1995)
IMDB link for 12
Monkeys
Genres: science fiction
12 Monkeys is a brilliant movie! The story revolves around James
Cole, played by Bruce Willis. Cole is a violent convict from the
year 2035, 39 years after a viral pandemic wipes out most of the
world's population. He is repeatedly sent back in time via a time
machine to try to capture a sample of the original virus before it
begins mutation, so that scientists of his own time can develop a
cure. The movie was "inspired" by the short film La Jetée.
Terry Gilliam of Monty Python fame was the director, and was
probably the perfect choice for this story.
Willis puts in a remarkable performance as a violent, confused man
who increasingly cannot distinguish between reality and fantasy due
to the side effects of his time travels. Brad Pitt plays Jeffery
Goines, a schizophrenic or manic deppressive who meets Cole in the
year 1990 in a mental hospital. Pitt also provides an astounding
performance (Pitt was nominated for Best Supporting Actor in 1995,
but the award went to Kevin Spacey for The Usual Suspects).
Madeleine Stowe played Katheryn Railly, the psychiatrist assigned to
treat both Cole and Goines in the mental hospital. Cole repeatedly
crosses paths with Railly during his time travels. The supporting
cast was well-staffed, including Christopher Plummer, David Morse,
and Frank Gorshin.
Not an easy movie to watch, as you start right off knowing the
apocalyptic future of humanity before you even get to know the main
characters. But the front story is really a framework for the
multiple back stories. The back story of James Cole slowly
unraveling due to the destructive effects of time travel is
interesting, particularly as we viewers know that he was damaged
before he ever was tasked with time travel. The back story of
satirising modern culture via the rantings of Jeffery Goines is part
commentary and partly just plain old fun. Jeffery's character utters
countless quotables.
Bottom Line - highly recommended.
overall score: 5/5
story: 5/5
characters: 5/5
action/special effects: 5/5
scenery/cinematography: 5/5
2012-04-25; Last Action Hero (1993)
IMDB link for Last
Action Hero
Genres: comedy, action, fantasy
Last Action Hero is one of my favorites. The premise is that a magic
theater ticket opens a portal between the real world and the world
inside a movie. Arnold Schwarzenegger plays Jack Slater, an
Arnold-esque movie character who is your stereotypical
cigar-chomping, criminal-bashing, rule-breaking LA detective. While
advertised as a Schwarzenegger movie, the main character really is a
young boy named Danny Madigan, played by Austin O'Brien. Danny is
given the magic ticket and inadvertently activates it, and ends up
in the laughably fictional world of Jack Slater. Incessant
gunfights, car chases, and explosions galore follow. So there's
really 3 plot lines going on. The main one is a boy who lives a less
than ideal life who exercises his escapism at the movie theater.
Then there is the fantasy story of "breaking the fourth wall"
between the stage and the audience (as the film and theater folks
call it). Lastly, and perhaps the best part, is the satire on modern
Hollywood and its dependence on formulaic blockbuster movies. Lots
of little cultural & literary references while in the movie
world of Jack Slater; Arnold as Hamlet is one of the funniest short
bits ever, in my not-very-humble opinion. Back when it was released,
critics were not kind to it, and audiences didn't really flock
to it, as the marketing didn't make it clear that it wasn't a
straight-up action flick if I recall correctly. But wrong they were.
Along with good performances by Arnold and Austin O'Brien, the movie
is chock-full of good character actors. Two that really stole the
show were Robert Prosky, who played the owner/operator of a run-down
movie house in Manhattan, and Charles Dance, who played an urbane
yet sociopathic professional assassin from Jack Slater's world.
Prosky you will certainly recognize from a million TV roles, as well
as The Natural (reviewed previously).
Bottom Line - highly recommended.
overall score: 5/5
story: 5/5
characters: 5/5
action/special effects: 5/5
scenery/cinematography: 4/5
2012-04-24; This is Spinal Tap (1984)
IMDB link for This Is
Spinal Tap
Genres: comedy, mockumentary
This Is Spinal Tap is perhaps the definitive mockumentary. It is the
satirical pseudo-documentary of an English rock band in their
twilight years, made as if it was a serious documentary but poking
fun at rock bands, their hangers-on, documentary filmmakers, and
just about everyone else.
Bottom Line - recommended.
overall score: 4/5
story: 5/5
characters: 5/5
action/special effects: 3/5
scenery/cinematography: 3/5
2012-04-24; Killer Elite (2011)
IMDB link for
Killer Elite
Genres: action
Killer Elite is a rather odd story about professional assassins
and the British SAS (Special Air Service, roughly equivalent to
the US Army's Delta Force). While the movie has a cast chock-full
of A-listers, the screenplay wasn't up to the task. Robert DeNiro
and Jason Statham play assassins who often work together, and
Clive Owen plays a retired SAS operator who becomes their nemesis.
The driving issue in the story is a rather contrived tale of war
crimes committed by the SAS in the Middle East, which then becomes
the usual tired tale of a military/industrial/governmental
conspiracy. Some of the fight scenes were really good, but along
with the lame story, the scenery and cinematography were
disappointing. A pleasant surprise was the role played by Adewale
Akinnuoye-Agbaje, who you may recognize from The Mummy Returns
(2001) or the TV series "Lost".
Bottom Line - not recommended.
overall score: 2/5
story: 1/5
characters: 3/5
action/special effects: 4/5
scenery/cinematography: 2/5
2012-04-24; The Wrestler (2008)
IMDB link for The
Wrestler
Genres: drama
The Wrestler is a rather grim story about an aging pro wrestler,
struggling with and failing to deal with his unraveling career,
health, and life. Mickey Rourke plays Randy 'The Ram' Robinson, and
did a pretty remarkable job transforming into a believable pro
wrestler. His not-quite-love-interest is played by Marisa Tomei,
whose character is a stripper nearing retirement. For most of the
movie, the story looks like a somewhat predictable tale of
redemption, except that Rourke's character does everything he can to
screw up any chance of redemption. While the movie is about the
drama, there is enough coverage of the ugly side of pro wrestling to
be a bit tough to watch. Overall I think the screenwriter and
director did very well in presenting a visual tour of that world,
but one facet where it didn't work is the back story where Tomei's
character was getting too old to be of interest to the customers at
the strip club. Despite the awful lighting and fake tattoos, Tomei
still looks like a world-class beauty.
Bottom Line - worth watching.
overall score: 3/5
story: 2/5
characters: 4/5
action/special effects: 3/5
scenery/cinematography: 4/5
2012-04-16; The Saint (1997)
IMDB link for The
Saint
Genres: action, adventure
The Saint is a derivation from the TV series of the same name (that
starred Roger Moore in what I think was his best role). Simon
Templar, played by Val Kilmer, is a very successful thief hired to
steal the formulae leading to a practical system for cold fusion.
Emma Russell, played by Elizabeth Shue, is the scientist who has
developed the formulae. As expected, the movie involves some
suspense, some action, and a love affair of sorts between Templar
and Russell. On the positive side of the ledger, Kilmer gets to play
a variety of characters as disguises. Another positive was Rade
Serbedzija, who played the main villain, Ivan Tretiak.
Unfortunately, the romance between Templar and Russell was poorly
written and not believable.
Bottom Line - worth watching.
overall score: 3/5
story: 3/5
characters: 3/5
action/special effects: 4/5
scenery/cinematography: 3/5
2012-04-15; I, Robot (2004)
IMDB link for I,
Robot
Genres: science fiction, mystery
I, Robot is an adaptation of work by famed science fiction writer
Isaac Asimov. Will Smith plays the lead character, Detective Spooner
of the Chicago police department. The time frame is the year 2035,
and anthropomorphic robots have become commonplace in everyday life
for most people. The genius behind the robot industry, Dr. Alfred
Lanning (played ably by veteran actor James Cromwell), commits
suicide. A recorded message from Lanning to Spooner found at the
scene of Lanning's death brings Spooner onto the case. Spooner
quickly realizes that Lanning's death was not suicide, and the story
then becomes a murder mystery in which both people and technology
are suspect. The script was very well written, particularly the
dialogue. Extensive use of CGI, and the visual styles involved, made
this movie a little odd to watch, but the movie really relies on the
intellectual concepts and the murder mystery more than the special
effects or action. As usual, Will Smith performs well playing the
lead character.
Bottom Line - recommended.
overall score: 4/5
story: 5/5
characters: 4/5
action/special effects: 4/5
scenery/cinematography: 4/5
2012-04-15; The Score (2001)
IMDB link for The
Score
Genres: drama, suspense
The Score is a heist film, starring Robert DeNiro as an experienced
and high-skill thief, and Edward Norton as an ambitious young
up-and-comer in the criminal world. Norton's character brings inside
info to a possible theft that requires the safe-cracking skills of
DeNiro's character. Marlon Brando plays a slightly eccentric
"fence", and Angela Bassett plays the love interest of DeNiro's
character. The story occurs in Montreal, with lots of good exterior
shots and scenery. The director and crew also did a lot of creative
cinematography and lighting on the interior shots, making this a
surprisingly rich visual experience. The interplay between DeNiro,
Norton, and Brando is excellent; all three did a really professional
job. Unfortunately, Bassett's character was very secondary; she
looks great, as usual, but didn't add much other than visual candy.
While there were the usual plot weaknesses, the plot allows
sufficient character development and examination of the personality
types and situations.
Bottom Line - recommended.
overall score: 4/5
story: 4/5
characters: 4/5
action/special effects: 4/5
scenery/cinematography: 5/5
2012-04-13; The 13th Warrior (1999)
IMDB link for The
13th Warrior
Genres: action, adventure, horror
While it didn't break any records in the box office, The 13th
Warrior has become a cult classic, for good reason. It is based on
the novel "Eaters of the Dead" by Michael Crichton, which bears some
thematic similarity to the historical saga of Beowulf. Antonio
Banderas plays the main character, Ahmed Ibn Fahdlan, who is an Arab
courtier banished from his homeland (I will guess that his home town
was Baghdad during the height of the Abbasid caliphate, probably
well before 1000 AD). Ahmed travels north and finds himself swept
along by events with some "Northmen" who are essentially Norse
pagans. A Norse kingdom is beset by an unnamed evil, and the band of
Northmen along with Ahmed Ibn Fahdlan go to help. As one might
expect in a tale of Dark Ages battle between good and evil, this
movie is pretty gory. But the story is really a character study,
both of Ahmed and the Northmen. The combat is well-staged, the
scenery is excellent, and the characters rich and entertaining.
Bottom Line - highly recommended.
overall score: 5/5
story: 5/5
characters: 5/5
action/special effects: 4/5
scenery/cinematography: 5/5
2012-04-11; Das Boot (1981)
IMDB link for Das
Boot
Genres: war, action
Das Boot is a fictional story about the crew of a German U-Boat in
WWII. Note that it is a very long movie, a bit over 3 hours in
length! The story is almost entirely set at sea, aboard the
submarine. The combat scenes involve attacks against Allied merchant
ships and counterattacks by British destroyers and aircraft. The
film production spent an enormous amount of money on the submarine
interior sets, creating an extremely realistic visual background.
Perhaps due to the English dubbing of the original German recording,
the characters are interesting but I didn't get much of the usual
subtle cues on personality. There is plenty of drama and suspense
when the sub is dodging depth charges and playing cat-and-mouse
games with British destroyers. One of the best war movies I've seen.
Bottom Line - highly recommended.
overall score: 5/5
story: 5/5
characters: 4/5
action/special effects: 5/5
scenery/cinematography: 5/5
2012-04-09; The Ghost and The Darkness (1996)
IMDB link for The
Ghost and The Darkness
Genres: action, adventure, horror
This movie is based on a true story, though the screenplay adds some
fictional elements. The story revolves around the British effort to
build a railway from the Kenyan coast into the African interior, at
the tail end of the 19th century, and the horror of two man-eating
lions that decimated the laborers who were building the railway. A
basic rundown of the Tsavo lions can be found on Wikipedia.
Val Kilmer plays John Henry Patterson, an Irish civil engineer in
the British Army sent to build a rail bridge over a river. Soon
after he arrives, the lion trouble starts. Michael Douglas plays a
fictional character, Charles Remington, an American hunter brought
in to get rid of the lions. The scenery is excellent, but the movie
doesn't emphasize it as you might expect given the locale
(apparently filmed in the Republic of South Africa rather than
Kenya). As is perhaps necessary, there are some gruesome scenes, so
this is not a movie for those weak of stomach. But the gore is not
gratuitous as is all too common to Hollywood. The movie has some
flaws that could have been avoided. Neither Kilmer's Irish nor
Douglas' southern US accent are consistent nor convincing, and the
scenes where the men set traps and ambushes for the lions were not
realistic (for example, both characters made far too much noise and
movement while waiting for the lions to appear). However, the movie
is entertaining and is one of the few movies that treats that time
and place with any sort of accuracy and respect. Those wanting to
learn more about dangerous game hunting in Africa would be well
served by reading any of the nonfiction books by Robert Ruark and
Peter Capstick. Similar reading is available for dangerous game
hunting in India, written by Jim Corbett.
Bottom Line - recommended.
overall score: 4/5
story: 4/5
characters: 4/5
action/special effects: 4/5
scenery/cinematography: 5/5
2012-04-04; The Natural (1984)
IMDB link for The
Natural
Genres: sports, drama
Hard to believe that its coming up on 3 decades since this film hit
the theaters! The Natural is, on the face of it, a baseball film, a
fictional story set in the 1930s about an older player getting a
shot at playing in the major leagues at the end of his youth. But,
to use a weaving metaphor, baseball is the warp and the human
condition is the weft. The main character is Roy Hobbs, who begins
the movie as a promising young pitcher making his transition from
high school ball to the minor (and eventually major) leagues. Hobbs
is played brilliantly by Robert Redford, who played baseball in high
school and college. Hobbs' life takes a wrong turn, and so he gets
his shot at the majors in his late thirties (for another movie,
based on real life, that touches on this, see The Rookie). The
human interest stories woven into the baseball story combine both
personal life trajectories, and relationships. Since the movie is
set in the 1930s, primarily in the venues of New York City and
Chicago, its a visual smorgasbord of period cars, clothes,
architecture, and interior design. The Natural combines a
sentimental look at America's pastime, a cynical look at
professional sports and the society that rubs shoulders with it, and
a sympathetic look at regular people making their way through life.
Eventually I will work up a Top Ten list of sports movies, and The
Natural is guaranteed to be on it.
Bottom Line - highly recommended.
overall score: 5/5
story: 5/5
characters: 5/5
action/special effects: 5/5
scenery/cinematography: 5/5
2012-04-03; Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World
(2003)
IMDB link for Master
and Commander
Genres: war, historical drama, action, adventure
Master and Commander is based on a series of well-loved novels by
Patrick O'Brian. The novels revolve around a British naval officer
who commands of a Royal Navy frigate during the Napoleonic Era.
Captain Jack Aubrey, a.k.a. "Lucky Jack", is played wonderfully by
Russell Crowe. As I understand it, the screenplay is based on a
composite of stories from O'Brian's series of novels. At any rate,
the story finds HMS Surprise in the South Atlantic near the South
American coast, and on a foggy day the Surprise is ambushed by a
larger and faster French frigate. The Surprise survives, and it is
punch-counterpunch all the way to the finish. Paul Bettany plays the
ship's doctor and the captain's intellectual and musical foil. The
movie offers colorful characters, fantastic cinematography, and
realistic naval battle action from the Age of Sail. This movie is a
must. Note that Crowe has tried to get 20th Century Fox to fund a
sequel, to no avail as of yet.
Bottom Line - highly recommended.
overall score: 5/5
story: 4/5
characters: 5/5
action/special effects: 5/5
scenery/cinematography: 5/5
2012-03-31; Big Trouble in Little China (1986)
IMDB link for Big
Trouble In Little China
Genres: comedy
Big Trouble In Little China is marketed as a combination
action/adventure and comedy movie, but I think its really just a
comedy movie. Kurt Russell plays an egotistical, macho truck driver
who gets involved with a kiidnapped woman and a wizard, in the
Little China section of San Francisco. Its pretty much a standard
farce, but it delivers better than average due to the laughably
over-the-top script and Kurt Russell's comedic acting chops. Yeah,
its campy, but its fun. No surprise there, it was directed by John
Carpenter; one thing comes through in Carpenter's films, he is a
movie buff and his movies always entertain.
Bottom Line - recommended.
overall score: 4/5
story: 3/5
characters: 4/5
action/special effects: 4/5
scenery/cinematography: 4/5
2012-03-31; I Am Legend (2007)
IMDB link for I Am
Legend
Genres: horror, science fiction
This movie is a remake/revisitation of the novel
by Richard Matheson. The basic gist is that a genetically engineered
virus intended to cure all cancers turns into a highly communicable
and lethal pandemic. Most victims die during the pandemic, while
some survive in a rather sub-human devolved and extremely aggressive
animalistic state. Zombies, in other words. The main character,
played by Will Smith, is an Army doctor specializing in
epidemiology. His character developed an immunity to the virus, so
he studies the virus and works on a treatment or cure, while also
looking for survivors. This novel has certainly been around
Hollywood, forming the basis of multiple movies already (the most
famous of which, so far, was Omega Man starring Charlton Heston).
This run at it worked out extremely well. There were certain scenes
that I thought were unrealistic in one way or another, but overall
its an interesting movie start to finish. The outdoor shots when the
main character drives around Manhattan island were really
exceptional. The movie made the most of CGI and compositing,
creating a vision of post-apocalyptic New York that was very
realistic. But while the horror and special effects aspects of the
movie are what draws viewers in, the real story is that of a man who
has lost everyone and is trying to keep it together.
Bottom Line - highly recommended.
overall score: 5/5
story: 5/5
characters: 4/5
action/special effects: 5/5
scenery/cinematography: 5/5
2012-03-31; The Faculty (1998)
IMDB link for The
Faculty
Genres: horror, science fiction
The Faculty is sort of a derivative or homage to John Carpenter's
The Thing. Again, extraterrestrial parasites take over human bodies,
only this time its at a midwestern high school. The first victims
are the teachers and administrators, thus the title. Too formulaic
for my tastes, particularly the all too common situation of a bunch
of actors in their early/mid 20s playing high schoolers. The cast
was chock full of well-known actors, particularly those who played
the adults. But the script really didn't allow them to do anything
with the characters.
Bottom Line - not recommended.
overall score: 2/5
story: 2/5
characters: 2/5
action/special effects: 2/5
scenery/cinematography: 3/5
2012-03-11; Watchmen (2009)
IMDB link for
Watchmen
Genres: drama, science fiction
Watchmen is another movie based on a comic book (a.k.a. "graphic
novel") serial, written by Alan Moore in the 1980s. The premise of
the story is that of alternative history. America had the benefit of
a group of masked superheroes fighting crime, the Watchmen, until
the dissolution of the second generation of that group after the US
won the Vietnam War (with the aid of two of those superheroes). The
alternative history part of the story is so childish, painting
Richard Nixon as sort of the exemplar of evil and Ronald Reagan as
the impending bringer of certain doom, I'm not sure if the comic
books and/or screenplay were written to sell the point of Republican
presidents being fundamentally evil, or if they are parodying people
who believe such. My guess is the former, but who knows. Despite
that, this is a great movie. The story begins with the murder of one
of the original Watchmen, and two of the second generation begin
investigating his death, finding traces of a complex conspiracy
seemingly aimed at keeping the most powerful Watchman from
preventing nuclear war between America and the Soviet Union. The
movie has lots of action, some pretty extreme violence, and
fantastic special effects. Most of the characters are a little
two-dimensional, simply because the story requires so many scenes
and action sequences. The one Watchmen whose character is fully
fleshed out is Rorschach, played by Jackie Earle Haley. Rorschach is
pretty clearly a sociopath, who continued fighting crime in a
vigilante role after the US government required the Watchmen to
stand down. His character is surprisingly compelling. Haley also
acted in a show-lived TV series I enjoyed, Human Target.
Bottom Line - highly recommended.
overall score: 5/5
story: 4/5
characters: 4/5
action/special effects: 5/5
scenery/cinematography: 5/5
2012-03-09; Bowfinger (1999)
IMDB Link for
Bowfinger
Genres: comedy
On a lighter note, Bowfinger is a comedy about a rather washed-up
movie writer/director/producer wannabee who takes his last shot at
making a Hollywood movie. Steve Martin plays the main character,
and Eddie Murphy plays two roles, that of an A-list leading man,
and his hapless, nerdy brother. As always in this sort of thing,
Martin delivers the comedy in effortless fashion. While the front
story is that of Martin's character failing at life, and his
retinue of fellow losers, the two back stories are that of
redemption and satirization of Hollywood. The movie spends a lot
of time making fun of the movie industry and the characters that
inhabit it.
Bottom Line - recommended.
overall score: 4/5
story: 4/5
characters: 5/5
action/special effects: 3/5
scenery/cinematography: 3/5
2012-03-09; Strange Days (1995)
IMDB link for
Strange Days
Genres: drama, science fiction
Strange Days is an excellent movie, if you can stomach the uglier
scenes of violence (I'm rather inured to scenes of violence in the
movies, but a couple of scenes really had me cringing). At its
simplest, the movie is a murder mystery; a dead prostitute is found
in a hotel room. The centerpiece of the movie is the concept of an
electronic recording system that can capture sensations directly
from the brain; sights, sounds, touch, everything. While that
technology enables a seamy underculture tied in with criminality, it
also presents the issue of such recordings providing proof of crime;
in particular, the killer of the prostitute was wearing the
recording device. The main character is played by Ralph Fiennes, who
does a professional job of portraying a disgraced cop turned into a
panderer and addict. His counterpart in the movie is played by
Angela Bassett, who pulls off an action role exceptionally well. I
confess that I am biased towards any movie with Ms. Bassett, as I
think she's one of the most beautiful and compelling actresses in
Hollywood. Tom Sizemore plays a pivotal role, setting the tone with
exposition in many scenes and giving needed background on Fiennes'
character.
Bottom Line - recommended.
overall score: 4/5
story: 4/5
characters: 4/5
action/special effects: 4/5
scenery/cinematography: 4/5
2012-03-09; Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004)
IMDB link for Eternal
Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
Genres: drama, comedy, science fiction
This movie is quite an interesting story. The basic premise is that
there is technology that can selectively erase unwanted memories.
The two lead characters, played by Jim Carrey and Kate Winslet, get
involved romantically and then erase their memories when the
relationship turns sour. The movie seems to have been marketed as a
comedy, but its a dark comedy at best. I'd call it more sci-fi
and/or drama, because it delves into the ethics and pitfalls of such
a technology. There are some excellent special effects in the latter
part of the movie, but mostly it just shows the two main characters
in various stages of their relationship. In my scoring, I gave the
character aspect of the movie a mediocre score; this is partly due
to the two main characters being rather two-dimensional, and partly
because the supporting characters were just not interesting.
Fortunately, the story will keep viewers interested.
Bottom Line - recommended.
overall score: 4/5
story: 4/5
characters: 3/5
action/special effects: 4/5
scenery/cinematography: 4/5
2012-03-04; Cinderella Man (2005)
IMDB link for
Cinderella Man
Genres: drama
Cinderella Man is the story of James
Braddock, a professional boxer from New Jersey who experiences
a rags-to-riches-to-rags arc to his career, parallel to the nation's
in the 1920s and 1930s. Braddock was played by Russell Crowe, his
manager played by Paul Giamatti. Both turn in excellent
performances. Braddock's wife was played by Renée Zellweger,
who gave a good but not great performance. The boxing scenes will be
tough to watch for those who aren't inured to violence on the
screen, but they are exceptional in the field of cinematography. I
am a sucker for period clothes, cars, and locations, and this movie
does not disappoint in that regard.
Bottom Line - highly recommended.
overall score: 5/5
story: 5/5
characters: 4/5
action/special effects: 5/5
scenery/cinematography: 5/5
2012-03-03; 1941 (1979)
IMDB link for 1941
Genres: comedy
Given all the talent involved, 1941 ought to be the funniest movie
of all time. Directed by Steven Spielberg, written by Robert
Zemekis, John Milius, and Bob Gale, and starring John Belushi and
Dan Akroyd, the credits are pretty overwhelming. But having watched
the DVD recently, I was very let down. There were a few hilarious
scenes that I remembered fondly, but overall I lost interest in the
movie.
Bottom Line - not recommended.
overall score: 2/5
story: 2/5
characters: 2/5
action/special effects: 3/5
scenery/cinematography: 2/5
2012-03-03; War of the Roses (1989)
IMDB link for War
of the Roses
Genres: comedy, tragedy
War of the Roses is a story of the unraveling of a marriage. The
married couple is played by Kathleen Turner and Michael Douglas,
who were just about perfect for their parts. The story begins with
their meeting in youth, brief courtship and marriage, through
their summer years and middle age, to the fracturing of their
marriage. I have not read the novel on which the screenplay was
based, but I think the screenplay was very well written. I think
this movie shows why Kathleen Turner was such a superstar in the
1980s; not only world-class looks, but excellent comedic acting
chops. Likewise for Douglas; in the 1980s, he was an A-list actor,
yet demonstrated real comedic talent along with his drama and
action skills.
Bottom Line - recommended.
overall score: 4/5
story: 4/5
characters: 5/5
action/special effects: 3/5
scenery/cinematography: 4/5
2012-03-02; Letters From Iwo Jima (2008)
IMDB link for Letters
from Iwo Jima
Genres: history, war
Letters From Iwo Jima is marketed as a "bookend" to match the movie
Flags Of Our Fathers, concerning the US Marine Corps' assault on the
island of Iwo Jima in the Pacific, and the men who raised the iconic
American flag on Mount Suribachi. I have not seen the latter movie,
but I suspect that there the problem lies. Had the writers and
Clint Eastwood, the director, really just stuck to the original
premise of showing the experience of average Japanese soldiers and
their lives, in my opinion it would have been much more interesting.
I didn't really connect with the main characters, and I was hoping
the movie would show the most common experiences of the Japanese
Army soldiers in the Pacific island campaigns. What I got out of it
was more art than story.
Bottom Line - worth watching.
overall score: 3/5
story: 2/5
characters: 2/5
action/special effects: 3/5
scenery/cinematography: 4/5
2012-03-02; Shaun Of The Dead (2004)
IMDB link for Shaun
of the Dead
Genres: comedy, horror
Horror flicks aren't generally my thing, but this movie is really
2/3 comedy and only 1/3 horror. Shaun is an electronics store
supervisor, working a dead-end job, living a dead-end life. Britain
is overcome by a zombie infestation, with plenty of allegory between
the staggering zombies of the infestation and the workaday lives of
regular people. A little of the dialogue is tough sledding due to
the use of British slang, but overall a really fun flick.
Bottom Line - recommended. A fun horror movie!
overall score: 4/5
story: 4/5
characters: 4/5
action/special effects: 4/5
scenery/cinematography: 2/5
2012-03-02; The Big Lebowski (1998)
IMDB listing for The
Big Lebowski
Genres: comedy
One of the Coen Brothers' productions, The Big Lebowski is an
ensemble piece that revolves around the kidnapping of the wife of a
wealthy man. The story has many threads that are loosely woven into
a whole, with almost all characters being very quirky. The
kidnapping part of the story really is the back story; the front
story is this collection of broken people muddling through life and
doing the best they can. The beachside cliff scene at the end is, in
my opinion, one of the greatest movie scenes ever.
Bottom Line - recommended. A fun romp.
overall score: 4/5
story: 3/5
characters: 5/5
action/special effects: 4/5
scenery/cinematography: 3/5
2012-03-01; Enemy At The Gates (2001)
IMDB listing for
Enemy At The Gates
Genres: history, war, drama
Enemy At The Gates is a story about a Russian sniper fighting the
Germans in the Battle of Stalingrad. Jude Law plays the main
character, and Ed Harris plays his nemesis, a German sniper. Its a
pretty well-woven story, with several supporting actors having
important roles. I particularly enjoyed the performance of Ron
Perlman as a fellow sniper and sort of impromptu mentor to Jude
Law's character. The visuals of Stalingrad after it had been bombed
and shelled by the Germans were pretty convincing, having seen
numerous photos of similar destruction of German cities in history
texts. The main flaw, I feel, is that the broad sweep of the story
line, wide ensemble, and alternation of scenes from battle and
respite, didn't allow enough character development.
Bottom Line - recommended. A worthwhile war movie.
overall score: 4/5
story: 4/5
characters: 3/5
action/special effects: 4/5
scenery/cinematography: 4/5
2012-02-29; Signs (2002)
IMDB listing for
Signs
Genres: science fiction, suspense, horror
Signs is the 3rd big movie from M. Night Shyamalan, writer/director
of The Sixth Sense and Unbreakable. Signs didn't do all that well at
the box office, nor with the critics. But I found it to be an
excellent movie. The main character is played by Mel Gibson, a
former minister who lost his wife, and his faith, to a car accident.
Crop circles appear in his cornfield, and around the world. It
becomes apparent that this time around, the crop circles are no
prank. The suspense comes from not knowing where the aliens are, or
what they are up to. But in this movie, the back story is really the
front story; that of a man dealing with grief and the loss of his
faith. Despite the heavy subjects, the script intersperses some
brief moments of humor fairly skilfully.
Bottom Line - recommended. One of the better sci-fi flicks of the
last 10 years.
overall score: 4/5
story: 4/5
characters: 4/5
action/special effects: 3/5
scenery/cinematography: 4/5
2012-02-28; John Carpenter's The Thing (1982)
IMDB listing for
The Thing
Genres: science fiction, suspense, horror
With another take recently released, apparently a prequel, it was
fortuitous that I stumbled across a DVD of the 1982 version. I
enjoyed seeing it back in the 1980s, but had forgotten most of the
details. Having watched it again, I was really entertained. The
overall story, the suspense, and even the special effects hold up
pretty well. Thirty years later, its interesting to note how many of
the cast members have made it into a sort of emeritus status for
acting. Its also interesting to me that the original story, written
as a novella by John Campbell in 1938, holds up so well.
The basic premise is that a crashed extraterrestrial spacecraft is
found buried in the ice in Antarctica, and near the crash, a frozen
alien life form has been found by researchers at a remote station.
When it is thawed out, hijinks follow as the saying goes. The
suspense comes from both not knowing where the alien is at several
points in the story, but which of the station crew might have been
co-opted by the creature.
Bottom Line - highly recommended. A cult classic deserving of movie
buffs' enthusiasm.
overall score: 5/5
story: 4/5
characters: 4/5
action/special effects: 5/5
scenery/cinematography: 5/5
return to Devon's home page