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shank210
Reviews
Hulk (2003)
worst movie ever seen
This is safely one of the worst movies I ever seen.
**********spoilers ahead***************
In the beginning we are treated to an excruciating 45 minutes explanation of the lame science which created the Hulk. It is so utterly lame. Unlike Spiderman there is very little human angle or emotional factors which bond the character with the viewer. Eric bana is a poor actor - wooden almost.
The remaining parts are also very very tedious, the previews showed the best clips. Most amazingly the Hulks dad, an expert scientist works as a janitor in the same University secretly doing high class research superior to other scientists. The Hulk himself is a brainless creature, turned on when he gets angry and keeps on smashing stuff and leaping around and has no moral considerations unlike Spiderman or Daredevil.
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The Matrix Reloaded (2003)
Poor attempt at a sequel
This is a poor attempt at a sequel to the original Matrix which was intriguing with a novel concept.
The Matrix reloaded sequel is almost brainless, as it simply attempts to squeeze out whatever is left from Matrix-1. There are no more original ideas. Only mindless action sequences and car chases and fist-fights with many agent Smiths. The ending is a gaping hole with provision for the next sequel. So breathtakingly greedy.
****Spoilers ahead*****
Something severely annoyed me in this movie from the logical point of view. Why does our hero and the villain (the brain of Matrix) have all these car chases and endless fist fights? Both know the cars and roads are merely programs residing in the brain of the computer, and not real. Why not simply kill the car program or bridge/road program or the brainless agent Smiths subroutine and bypass the chases and fist fights? Beats me.
****Spolier over******
Signs (2002)
unbearable boredom - cheapo movie
"Signs" or "How to make a sci-fi movie with an Old house, a farm and a man in a rubber suit".
I was conned into watching this movie after seeing the slick trailer, bursting with suspense and excitement about aliens, crop circles and Mel Gibson.
****Spoilers*******
What a waste of time...2 hours seemed like 20. The movie meanders around boring stuff, a priests (Mel Gibson) doubts with his Christian faith after his wifes untimely death in an accident. Aliens producing crop circles right in his backyard is a secondary issue here. We are shown tantalizing but hazy TV clips about aliens appearing all over the world and taking over it....and then......nothing. Ha! Just a load of sentimental bull about our priest coping with his religious beliefs.
With major events of world takeover by aliens happening, there are absolutely no explanations about who these aliens are, their spaceships, why and how they make crop circles, why they mysteriously left.....absolutely nothing. Mr. Night Shyamalan makes a brief appearance as a particularly unimpressive and unnecessary character further spoiling the story.
There is an ultra lame ending to the movie, where an "alien" is finally shown - a guy dressed up in a cheapo rubber suit - and what happens to him is unimaginably lame and stupid.
Night Shymalans career is steadily going downstream, with lukewarm success of "Unbreakable" and now this flop "Signs". Science fiction is not a suitable area with B movie budgets and cheapo sets. You cant work around or compensate for it by inserting religious themes.
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Scooby-Doo (2002)
cheap and mediocre
Cheap and mediocre adequeately summarize this movie. Everything is cheap and mediocre here: a dull plot, lifeless humorless characters, crude special effects. The dialogue and script seems to be meant for 1 year old kids, perhaps to keep the feel of a cartoon. However, incomprehensibly, gross humor is inserted at places. All in all, a total waste of time.
Gladiator (2000)
average action movie
For me this is an action movie with good special effects and nothing more. There are some good views of imperial Rome which were particularly nice. The acting was average, but the story mediocre. The charcters of this story are all black and white - extremely pious or very bad.
spoilers********** Marcus Aurelius Roman emperor, the father of Commodus (the villain of this movie) was a nice guy who wants to transfer power back to the Roman senate, nicely suiting our 21st century values. Russell plays a General, with liberal politically correct views and a nuclear family living somewhere near the suburbs of Rome. Commodus kills his father, and then turns against Maximus and kills his family and he is forced to flee and take employment as a gladiator. Maximus finally comes to Rome and fights in the Colosseum, Commodus recognizes him, foolishly challenges him to a fight and gets killed. Much of this doesnt make any sense, and the acting is pretty wooden. I do like the fighting scenes; but it is no better than Arnies "Predator" which seems better off than the fake scenes here.
rating 6/10
The Scorpion King (2002)
watchable
Scorpion King is quite a watchable movie. The characters are shallow but generally likeable, and perform an acceptable level of acting. There is non-stop action without gore. It is a sort of prequel to Mummy-2 and is supposed to explain partly the origin of the "Scorpion King" (played by the rock) who is the villain in Mummy-2. The Rock gives a reasonable acting performance in this movie.
***spoilers*** The story line is quite sketchy and in my opinion does little to explain what a scorpion has anything to do with the Rock's character(Mathayus) who ultimately becomes king of Gomorrah after killing the villainous Memnon. The violence is well presented without any gore, which makes it more acceptable to young viewers. There is an interesting mix of characters - British, American, Chinese, Black, Mediterranean, Arab ... all roaming ancient Egypt "before the time of the pyramids". But such unrealisms dont affect the flow of the movie, with main emphasis on sorcessors and sword-flick. In my opinion this movie is somewhat better that Mummy-2 which relied too heavily on CGI effects and no character development. ********************
rating 6/10
Spider-Man (2002)
Very good
Very good. A pleasant surprise compared to the boring Batman series. Toby is quite convincing and gives some serious acting in the role of a wimp turned superhero.
This movie is action-packed, combined with humane characters. The characters could be better, but as the overall emphasis is on action, this is more than adequate. However the Spiderman concept of leaping from building to building by shooting a web and then swinging on it, appears quite far-fetched when seen in the movie. Stuff like this is better left to ones imagination in the comic book. But I suppose, this is a common factor in all superhero movies.
The audience in the cinema really liked this one, judging by their comments and reactions when they were filing out.
rating 8/10 shank
Star Wars: Episode II - Attack of the Clones (2002)
Glorified video game
Tons and tons of special effects. CGI soldiers, puppet like creatures with laughable goats and dogs heads. The SFX especially battle scenes gets better towards the end.
The script could have been written by a 10 yr kid. Wooden acting and a non-existent plot. Grand empty phrases like "Republic, freedom, the_Force, politicians_must_care_about_the_people" are tossed around.
I truly regretted watching this movie. A similiar mediocre movie which depended largely on special effects is: Dungeons and Dragons. Even that had a reasonable plot and acting.
shank
Scariest Places on Earth (2000)
questionable, fake with no critical evaluation.
I have seen some episodes of this series.
Most of the episodes are questionable and based on second hand eyewitness accounts and there is absolutely no attempt to get a balancing neutral/critical opinion. It is the paranormal equivalent of Von Daniken.
I noted a particularly laughable episode on "ghosts of the colosseum" where a pyshcic with a lenghth of string comes to the conclusion that he "can feel" a ghost somewhere in the dungeons and finally "it" leads him to a street (somewhere else) where "it" was apparently buried. I mean who the hell is this guy and how do you know it is true? Then there are a whole bunch of "paranormal investigators" with infrared scanners and electromagnetic detectors claiming they see ghosts and presences everywhere and we just have to take their word for it.
There are pics caught on cam of people running scared when they "felt" the presence of a spirit. These people have been already hyped up by being told the place is haunted and there is a ghost waiting for them somewhere. There is no effort to go back and analyse what happened or interview the people involved. All the episodes follow this pattern: shallow and full of tricks.
A Beautiful Mind (2001)
nice film, but all lies (?)
Great movie to watch, great story. Russel Crowes acting was very good, although I can very well imagine Kevin Spacey to be more suitable to the role of an academic. However a lot of the movie seem to be lies, and a selective representation of Professor Nash's life. Another point is that the real Prof Nash's wife is a Ph.d holder who doesnt look like a bimbo. I belive that a movie which tries to sell itself as a "true story" must not try to fool the public.
The Time Machine (2002)
that sinking feeling again...
The first 30 minutes of this movie are good. The time machine, nice special effects, a cause for our hero....and all that. Then the movie rapidly takes in water and sinks. The Morlocks and Eloi are presented in due order along with a talking computer that seemed to have survived for 800,000 years? The end degenerates into an incomprehensible blizzard of events, where the Morlocks are all blown up by the skilfull rigging up of the time machine, which I cannot faintly understand. The Morlocks look like they have rubber masks on and unnecessarily aggresive.
The movie misses a number of promising plot branches, like the destruction of the moon and its effect on earth. Instead it gives a vague and incomprehensible fare and a rushed ending as though the producers have run out of ideas.
Office Space (1999)
great movie
This is a little gem of a movie and I really loved it! Dilbert brought to life through the travails of ordinary blokes slugging it out in cubicles, cringing at the so called 'efficiency experts" who come to cull out the less fit. A nice overview of modern office life through the eyes of the Common Man !! It is not difficult to identify ourselves with these hapless guys. The ending however could have been better; one gets the impression that the director simply gave up and wanted to bring the story to an end somehow.
Pitch Black (2000)
below average sci-fi
I saw this on wide screen TV. It is a pretty average, or just below average sci-fi. The fact is, it has nothing new to offer and a combination of dinosaur movies and sci-fi flick with poor characters.
***spoliers ahead****
Among the flaws, what immediately depressed me was the ordinariness of the planet (looks like earth), with breathable air and a deserted colony with drinking water and food and a truck all ready and waiting, within walking distance of the crash site. A far cry from, say, Red Planet where an alien landscape was painstakingly presented. The adventurers face only one problem, to cope with the monster creatures which come out during the utterly dark eclipse period (which coincidentally happens exactly when they crash) and are scared of light. The creatures are also typical Alien or Jurassic park rip-off's, looking like pterodactyls and dinosaurs. Sci-fi is really scraping the bottom of the alien barrel - cant they come up with something new?
Many of the scenes are simply not convincing, like the one where bottled glow-worms are used to scare off the creatures...jeeez you can barely see their glow. In a planet brilliantly lit with 3 suns, I thought creatures having such an adverse reaction to even feeble light could not exist in the
first place. The characters are also generally pointless and shallow, with the typical Hollywood trend of glorifying serial killers as keen intellectuals.
This movie could have been better made as a thriller set on Earth without the sci-fi angle and avoided many flaws. Plenty of hostile deserts and isolated islands here to make the same plot with stranded travellers.
Rating 6/10
Collateral Damage (2002)
Fairly good Arnie movie
This is a fairly good Arnie movie which is worth the ticket price. What were the critics expecting...Quentin Tarantino? The plot is rather thin in the beginning, and as usual it all boils down to Arnie taking down all the terrorists single handed. This is what you pay to see a good old Arnie movie. The ending has a nice unexpected turn which sets your heart racing. Of course a lot of things seem too good to be true, like fireman Arnie singlehandedly winning when all the CIA and FBI agents have failed. I wish there were more fight scenes though (stunts) involving Arnie. Then there is an unflattering representation of Columbia - but from what I hear of the country it is much worse than the depiction with drug mafia controlling the government. I would rate this movie 3/5.
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone (2001)
enjoyable, but nothing special
This move is quite enjoyable for all ages. The quaint and magical atmosphere with wizards and spells is quite a new experience, although the special effects appear below par generally. Most views involving buildings of the college of magic somewhat look like paintings. For those who have never read the novel, nor are fans of Harry Potter (like me) this is a sort of "above average" movie. I would rate is 6.5 out of 10.
Legally Blonde (2001)
nice movie, could be better!
**SPOILERS AHEAD**
This is a nice light hearted movie to pass time. There are of course a few glaring holes in the story line (like: would first year law students be asked to give key help in a murder trial? Would the much experinced senior professor handling the trial omit to investigate the background of the key witness and not know he is gay?). Another criticism I have is Reese Witherspoon overacts in a few scenes, giggling and grimacing and trying to be too girly. But the overall drift is good and entertaining. I would give a rating of 6/10 because it is overall a nice movie.
Evolution (2001)
mediocre
A mediocre movie, trying to combine sci-fi and humor and failing in both. Not a close shadow to Mars Attacks. The sci-fi plot was laughable and irrelevant. The alien goo likes fire and is afraid of selenium. The government scientists couldnt possibly find that out? Humor was pretty much non-existent. I'd rate this movie 3 out of 10.
A.I. Artificial Intelligence (2001)
overall above average
I saw this movie recently and is quite entertaining while watching - while you are carried away with the flow of the movie. The philosophical questions it raises are good (wether robots are capable of love), but fail to make sense in the context of what is presented in the movie.
A number of commentators have pointed out the glaring technical glitches in the movie, hence I will refrain from giving more comments.
**SPOILERS*** I would like to point out another vexing error of this movie: the movie is about the latest model boy-robot trying to find 'reality', having a capacity to love, how he wants to become real like human beings ......and how he finally ends up getting it. But excuse me, all the other 'primitive' robots in the movie already seem to possess these human attributes like love, fear,humour etc in good measure and appeared 100% human to me. The pleasure-robot even predicts that robots will take over the world. Can a robot get more advanced than that? The crude teddy bear displays an excellent ability to love and cherish (he keeps mommys lock of hair until the end of the movie). So what is the big deal about this boy-robot trying to be 'real'??? He seems extraordnarily dumb compared even to the teddy.
The Mexican (2001)
overrated
I found this movie generally lame and tedious. Julia Roberts overacts and is not funny at all (if it is meant to be funny). Brad Pitt is OK and carries the film along. Photography is very good, but is Mexico and Mexicans supposed to look unflatteringly like this? This is not a comedy (a very mild one), not a human drama (not so intense with relationships) but grinds along with painful slowness around retreiving an ancient gun called the "Mexican" and the mishaps that follow. The movie is vaguely meant to be a comedy, I can see, but the humour is thinly stretched. The end is quite vague and anticlimatic -I couldnt get it about mixing up the assassins- but by then I was hoping this drudgery would end. I would rate it a 4 out of 10.
Emmanuelle in Space (1994)
poor
Very low level softporn, although Krista Allen is hot. The erotic scenes are brief and hasty, poorly made. Also, irritating shots of a spaceship control panel manned by wierd operators, frequently interrupt the already patchy erotic scenes. What is the point of this????
Pay It Forward (2000)
sort of wishy washy
*******Warning Spoilers******
Kevin Spacey and Helen Hunt acted well in their respective roles of school teacher and alcolohic single parent. Apart from that, the premise of the movie, repaying favors forward, seemed to go out of steam midway thru the movie. Spaceys young student, Trevor, who gets this idea of passing on favors to stangers, i.e, 'pay it forward', apparently from his mom and grandmom (as we are later made to beleive), picks up a tramp and brings him to his home and it turns out to be a model tramp, all kind and grateful and eager to pay back the favor. There are various weak, pointless characters thrown in like the high-profile lawyer and the criminal all secretly doing favors to the world. This type of moralizing occupies most of the latter part of the movie and makes one feel embarassed as it piles up. In the end the kid is unneccesarily killed to give a rather pointless ending to the movie.
The 6th Day (2000)
good entertainer!
Arnie is back again in '6th Day' after his recent flop of 'End of days'. However I found this quite entertaining (overall) and the theme of human cloning and the mind boggling social issues are well introduced. For example the mega-corporation guarentees immortality - although not quite as it injects diseased genes to make the subject die every 5 years and come back again for resurrection- for the price of money and loyalty. Such concepts ring true to me. Some ideas and sequences are lame, like the huge tanks where hundreds of clones are being mass produced which are more suited to cheesy B movies. But Arnie has matured and mellowed and shows a delightful human nature and sentimentality. I would recommend a rating of 8 out of 10.
Red Planet (2000)
weak plot!!
I found the movie disappointing because of a number of glaring omissions which simply cannot be ignored. If the story were pure fantasy, common sense could take a back seat - but this movie attempts to be realistic.....However the scenic views of Mars are pretty impressive - canyons, valleys etc etc and convey a sense of desolation...and the special effects are OK. On the whole, below average.
Among the blunders, a) a crew member who is a skeptic of science and spouts philosophy and religion and God. This is a very embarrassing person to have on a hi-tech "Mars mission"!! The movie also harps about the existence of some mystical power beyond science, mandatory in modern Mars movies, but there is nothing mystical here beyond the inanity of the plot and many avoidable deaths. b) Another crew member is a crook and murderer and even by observing his basic behaviour he wouldnt be allowed on such mission. c) This one is a beauty: they take to Mars a robot designed to hunt and kill human beings, utterly incapable of identifying friend or foe.....what is the point of this unneccesary danger???
****WARNING SPOILER, VIEWERS YET TO SEE MOVIE MAY SKIP THIS*****
d) A 50 yr old Russian Cosmos lander (1970' stuff) all waiting ready and primed for Gallager to escape in the final moments. Well, firstly it is Russian, secondly it is all rusted, thirdly Cosmos was an unmanned, DISPOSABLE Mars lander! e) The crew are launched on Mars and find the "Habitat" (where they are expected to stay and eat and breathe), utterly destroyed and in tatters - and seals their doom. Later, Cmdr Bowman is shown viewing the tattered Habitat via telescope from her orbiting spacecraft and bemoaning the fate of her crew. If only she had CHECKED OUT the Habitat BEFORE she launched the crew???? Glaringly obvious....criminally negligent. f) Oxygen atmosphere was created on Mars in merely 20 years sending algae there!! Whoa!! It took many millions of years for earth to have a breathable oxygen atmosphere, converted from carbon-di-oxide. **************************
The Ninth Gate (1999)
disappointing!!
This was a really disappointing occult movie in spite of good acting by Depp and Seigner. The plot - the search of the three copies of a book called "Ninth Gate" - has good prospects in the beginning but runs through a predictable line of murders and mysterious incidents. Balkans final intention is also transparently predictable quite early in the plot. Balkans end due to 'an error' in the copies is a damp squib - one expects a climatic encounter at this stage! The ending is very vague and we are made to believe (??) that Depp's guardian angel played by Seigner is the "whore of babylon" who lets finally lets him in through the Ninth Gate to the Prince of Darkness (ironically the Ninth Gate is shown as a blindingly bright place!!).