Change Your Image
Vilian
Reviews
Noleul bola america (1991)
Not that bad
I saw this movie on late-late night television. For the most part, I enjoyed it. There weren't any useless scenes or many cheesy moments in this movie. The story flowed well and the script was quite realistic. The acting wasn't top-notch, but the performances of the majority of the characters were quite memorable.
The fight scenes in this movie were brilliant. They were well-choreographed for being in a seemingly low-budget movie. I must admit that I was actually laughing at some parts, though. Some of the hits were so unexpected that I couldn't help but laugh. The part I probably laughed the hardest at was this awesome man-to-man slap. It was hardcore. Another scene I found funny was a scene with no sound. For some reason a guy was yelling in slow motion (with no sound): "You motherfu*****!!". The situation wasn't funny, but I thought it was humorous considering it was on television.
Then there's the rest of the movie. The story is about Paul, the son of an Asian immigrant. His entire life involves constant harassment from everyone. The people he can trust are few. It's basically white males consistently beating up on Paul, and the only two people he can talk to are two white girls and his Korean friend. The racist undertones in this movie are quite imminent. The main villain, Billy, has a severe vendetta towards Paul, and is pretty much the reason for this movie to be so sad. Since the movie is based on a true story, my guess is that it is supposed to give a strong message against racism. The point is delivered quite efficiently.
All in all, it's a good movie. The music was very 90's-ish, almost annoying, but it does the job.
I rate it 7/10.
Dungeons & Dragons (2000)
Effortless to make and painless to watch.
****MINOR SPOILERS WHICH ARE MINOR AND DON'T RUIN ANYTHING THAT COULD EVEN BE POSSIBLY RUINED***
Never in my life have I seen a movie that is supposed to be dramatic and serious, but ended up finding it funny. I'm talking almost-spat-soda-on-the-new-carpet funny. From start to finish, this pathetic attempt of a movie manages to give the viewer a feeling of having their intelligence insulted. The first scene, involving a dragon, still leaves me confused to this day. When the main bad guy attempts to do something cool, it ends up falling apart. Then, the CGI dragon (which wasn't too bad looking) ruins the entire scene by having an unrealistic blood-turns-water-into-oil-burning-on-top-of-water effect, therefore lighting an entire lake on fire. 100% nonsense.
Then the heroes are introduced. They speak of robbing a place the viewer has no clue about, then suddenly the local government is explained in 5 lines. Cut to the cheesy moment of breaking in, with fake sound effects from a video game I used to play (I got quite angry when I heard the sound effects. They were quite out of place). From there on, the movie goes into a whirling vortex of bad acting and useless special effects.
What amazes me is how much they actually cross-referenced from other video games into the movie. The main character at the end of the movie (mysteriously he changes clothes in the middle of a scene) has clothes on that make him look...moronic. I'll give you a clue: Squall.
On top of that, the acting is terrible. Whenever a certain bad guy (baldy with flaming blue lipstick) would appear on the screen, I would cringe at the oncoming lines that would be poorly executed by him. I have never seen someone so boring in such a cool suit of armor. Then they actually had the nerve to mix in CGI with the guy..ohh...what a mess...
Before watching this moronic journey of stupidity, I hadn't seen a movie so ill-conceived. I hope some day this atrocity will be avenged, and possibly a Peter Jackson-esque director will pick up the D&D title and make something good out of it.
Overall grade: 20% F- (For pity, and marketing effort)
Gothika (2003)
Terrible. Just Terrible.
I rented Gothika on DVD over the weekend, and after watching it, I realized that I wasted 1.5 hours of my life. From the very start of the movie, I had a feeling that it was going to be ridiculous. Once the massive open-lipped kiss in the office scene flashed across the screen, the movie immediately went downhill. If I could draw a line graph of the downward slope, I would draw a 90-degree dropoff.
Anyways, the film proceeded fine. It didn't hang anywhere, and it was actually pretty well-paced. However, the whole idea behind it is what was terrible. It was like they castrated the first hour of "Candyman", removed any form of reality, and made the "bad guy" not even scary. In fact, there were no bad guys to be afraid of, or even an incentive to be afraid during the entire film. They even managed to screw up the scene when the "bad guy" was finally revealed. I busted out laughing during some parts; I found most of the movie to be funny. Especially the ending.
The main plot in the movie can easily be figured out from within the first half hour. I was sitting there just waiting to turn off the movie once my ideas were proved correct. Of course, I was right. This movie may be all right if you're trying to have some background noise. However, if you want to see a (possibly) thought-provoking and scary movie, steer away from this one.