userrating Reviews

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (2008)

Moronic.

[8 July 2008]

Completely and utterly moronic from start to finish. This is Lucas tripe at its worst...people call this guy a filmmaker? Please. Even "Crusade," as goofy and campy as it is was a more fitting end to the Jones story. This is like Lucas and Spielberg handing you a cinematic turd and smiling while they're doing it. This can't possibly be the script everyone was waiting on after all these years. You're telling me Lucas, Spielberg and Ford finally agreed to flush the toilet on one of the best cinematic characters created? This is "film" is a complete insult to intelligence. But judging by the current score here at IMDb, I guess that's what most people wanted. Congrats, you got it.

There are only two true Indy films; "Raiders of the Lost Ark" and "Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom." Period, end of story. At least I wish.

Feast of Love (2007)

A complete shallow mess.

[10 October 2007]

This film features a very impressive and talented cast with wonderful (and some very brave) performances by nearly everyone on screen (particularly from Alexa Davalos, Radha Mitchell and Billy Burke). Unfortunately, "Feast of Love" is such a complete and shallow mess from start to finish you almost don't care how well performed it is. The film attempts to be so deep and meaningful that nearly every scene, scenario and line of dialogue are simply ridiculous. It tries too hard and achieves very little. I can't comment on Charles Baxter's original novel, but I think it's safe to say that Robert Benton (director), Allison Burnett (screenwriter) and Andrew Mondshein (film editor) conspired to make the most incoherent mess they possibly could. Cut this feature to an hour running time including commercials and throw it on USA Network or Lifetime, because it doesn't cut it as a film. This is a prime example of poor film-making and storytelling that just wastes some truly great performances by a very dynamic and talented cast.

Resident Evil: Extinction (2007)

Nothing original here.

[26 September 2007]

Firstly, I was pretty sure what I was walking into with this film. At the worst, I expected a sub par action/zombie flick, and that's exactly what you get. Well, almost that good, but not quite.

Spoilers ahead?

This was a text book example of just how unoriginal the Hollywood horror genre has become. Not only that, this film actually flaunts that fact. It basically plunders most of George Romer's "Day of the Dead" (1985) for ideas, sets and story lines, and even finds time to rip an action sequence directly from the "Dawn of the Dead" (2004) remake. Fusing all that with the blatant "Max Max" approach does not make it original, fellas. Not content with those two obvious rips, the "filmmakers" do their worst to nip a bit from "The Birds" for a laughable sequence, nick their final monster design from "From Beyond" and "The Swamp Thing" and kill him off with a method right out of "The Cube." Have I missed anything? I'm sure the filmmakers would use the word "homage" to no end, but those who don't buy into the Hollywood copy machine would use the word "insult" instead.

I only have two questions. A) Who green lights this crap? B) How much of the effects budget went to digitally smooth Milla's skin on all her close-ups (it looked ridiculous).

Milla did a decent job and the costume design was nice, so a generous 3 out of 10 for me.

Halloween (2007)

Not horrible, but certainly not needed.

[31 August 2007]

I am not a classic purist, as I can appreciate someone giving a new take on a classic story. There have been a few horror remakes in recent years that have done the original justice while at the same time updating it for the times. This is not one of those remakes.

There could be spoilers here if you don't want to know Zombie's story additions to the original:

There is very little merit in Zombie's version of "Halloween" that wasn't already put in place in 1978. While the film does add the grittiness and brutality of today's films, none of its new aspects bring anything of merit to the table. The first forty five minutes of the film are dedicated to a story of origin that doesn't work in any capacity whatsoever; even Carpenter himself deleted his background sequences for the original film with good reason...explanation takes away the mystique of Myers. Not only that, Zombie's background fails miserably with the extremely tired and cliché "bad childhood" story. There is no defining moment for the young Myers, nor is there any catastrophic event to set it him off...the least he could've done in the waste of almost an hour is make it interesting.

The cast is fun, though not fully impressive. It's great to see some old faces of the horror genre stuck everywhere throughout the film, but it is to the point of distraction. Some of the actors do a good job in their cardboard cut-out roles (Malcolm McDowell is quite good in the beginning sequences, but a little campy in the second half). Others don't do so well; Sheri Moon is particularly dreadful to watch, as always. Daeg Faerch (young Myers) does a good job in his role despite the material, and gives a good, creepy performance. It was interesting to see Danielle Harris from the earlier Halloween sequels in a new role.

I'm sure this will be a good film for Zombie as he makes his way through learning film-making, and this will certainly have a good audience. "House of 1000 Corpses" was a miserably horrible film, but his followup "Devil's Rejects" really surprised me. It's a shame he couldn't keep the upward momentum. He's getting the look down, the editing, action sequences and general skills, but he is severely lacking in the storytelling and dialogue department, and he needs to learn to let go of sequences that simply don't work...or hire a good editor next time.