mrtobrien Reviews

The Day After Tomorrow (2004)

Well, that was awful

[2/10 · 1 June 2004]

8.50 I'll never see again. And if there's any mercy in this life, I won't see this "film" again either. This is one of those movies where the script is bad, the acting is worse, the direction/editing still worse than that, and the effects pretty good. The foreshadowing they try to pull off is done with all the subtlety of a smack in the head with a sledgehammer. Most of the script just seems to be thought up to get a cool effects shot(but the tornadoes really, to me, look just like the ones in Twister, and the flood looks like they just re-used the footage from Independance day of the cars being picked up and tossed down the street, but with a wall of water behind them instead of fire.) And it would have been nice if it had been the least bit plausible- I mean, a guy freezing solid in seconds? The fuel in the helicopter instantly freezing(at 150 below zero)? I like disaster flicks and all, but they have to be good. This one, people in the theater were laughing at. And not when they were making jokes. Funnier than any joke in the movie is a scene where they go and use the "Evil Dead" technique of showing you the monster's point of view as it chases the terrified teenagers down the hallway. This works well when the monster is an undead zombie or some sort of mysterious evil creature. It doesn't work so well when the "monster" is, in fact, really cold air.

Anyway, if you want to waste your money and time on this drivel, feel free. Just know in advance that you have to drop about 50 IQ points to reach the required level of suspension of disbelief to enjoy this movie.

Wild Things (1998)

Wow... That was... uuuh... bad.

[2/10 · 21 July 2003]

Ok... here's a movie I saw at the theater. I paid a dollar for it. I got about half my money's worth in the form of nude scenes of some hot chicks. Outside of that, there was a garbage story with both blatantly obvious twists and stupidly unreal twists such that you become fairly certain even the guys writing the script didn't read page 12 when they were writing page 13.

Overall, I'd say avoid this movie at all costs unless you're one of those guys who likes to see 3 minutes of gratuitous nudity thrown into the middle of an hour and a half of utter garbage.

Dark Angel (2000–2002)

Had one thing going for it...

[2 December 2002]

This is a show that, despite horrible writing and terribly obvious plots, had a hot chick starring in it. Outside of that, I could not find any reason to watch this show. The first season, there were a few things to watch outside of the realm of the horny 14 year old boy, but in the season finale the first year, they destroyed the one thing that kept the series going. It's one thing to see someone fight a conspiracy, but once they win, well, there's not a whole hell of a lot to be said, without getting completely ridiculous. Which is what happened with this show... And made it completely suck

The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001)

I would've liked this a lot more if I was 12

[6/10 · 15 August 2002]

Ok, so I finally rent this movie after hearing for 8 months how great it is. And it bored me. It looks neat, the acting is ok, but the material they're given is just far too dungeons and dragons for me. I don't think I'll bother to pay money see parts 2&3, though if this were done as a made-for-tv miniseries, I could see myself plopping down on the couch to watch it over the course of a week. A big problem is that the movie doesn't tell a whole story- it begins the story and gets to somewhere in the middle. Those who say this is part of a trilogy- it's not. A trilogy is three complete stories, which are related to each other. This is the beginning of one long story. And a pretty dull one at that. With far too much slo-mo. Maybe if I'd read the books before, I'd be more interested, but probably not. On the other hand, from what I've heard, Tolkien is tremendously wordy and overdescriptive, so I would have probably been bored by the books as well. So- to sum up- 4th best movie ever? nope... passable, but pretty dull when all is said and done. speaking of which, not much GETS done in this movie.

Jurassic Park III (2001)

Rented this recently

[2/10 · 14 June 2002]

And I want a refund. The first one was good, the second was not, this one I don't know what I was expecting, but it wasn't much. And that's exactly what I got. Gee... the kid was still alive after 2 months alone on an island filled with giant predators. Gee... his stepdad was dead 10 minutes after they landed there. I don't know why they continue to insist on the raptors as a focal point for the movie, or why they continue to make them 4 times as big as they should be(large dog size ~50-60 pounds). Now they've even made them smart, to the point of full fledged emotion. Though, if they were really that smart, they simply would have slaughtered the people the first time they saw them, and gotten their eggs back. I also don't get how all these people can consistently outrun things that are going 30-40 mph. over uneven ground. Don't waste your money on this, it's not good, and it's not bad enough that you can laugh at it enough for it to be good.

Alien (1979)

Creepy as hell...

[8/10 · 14 June 2002]

I didn't see this movie in its entirety until I was in college. Home on break, I saw it on HBO(starting at 1 am). If you haven't seen this movie before, and you're thinking of watching it, by all means, do so alone at 1am. Horror movie directors now NEED to see this movie- the way for the first 40 minutes nothing happens, and those are 40 of the most nerve-wracking minutes I've ever seen. Though, it has lost some of its effect through repeated viewing. A few scenes it's real obvious the alien is a guy in a suit, but they do a good job of hiding this by keeping it off camera for more than a second or two in all but one scene.

All in all, a great creepy movie, followed by one good and 2 terrible sequels.

2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)

It LOOKS good...

[3/10 · 22 January 2002]

But that's about it. I'll grant the special effects were very well done, and the realism of the space travel was good, but I need a good story to go along with it. And while in theory, a computer going berserk and killing the crew of a ship on their way to Jupiter to find the source of a mysterious transmission may sound cool, put into practice it's very slow. And the ending scenes... I had no idea what they were supposed to be until I ended up reading the end of the book in a class in college. And even then, I wasn't entirely sure that that's what they were trying to do. I know this is supposed to be one of those classics and way ahead of its time and all, but it's just plain dull.

Slap Shot 2: Breaking the Ice (2002 Video)

Worth the price I paid...

[5/10 · 20 January 2002]

Of course, I saw it for free. Pretty funny in parts, but it needed more focus on the Hansons instead of Stephen Baldwin. As in the first one, there are a lot of parts that could have been cut. It needed to be more focused on being a comedy, and not worried so much about trying to have a plot. Still, there were a bunch of good one-liners, and Gary Busey was a great casting choice. Would be worth the rental for a bunch of guys hanging around having a few beers on a weekend, but I probably wouldn't buy it to watch over and over.

Highlander II: The Quickening (1991)

2nd worst movie i've ever seen

[1/10 · 31 July 2001]

This movie should thank God for "Attack of the Killer Tomatoes", because that's the only thing that's keeping it off the bottom of the list. I rented this a few days ago, seeing it in the store and wondering how they made a sequel to a movie that had a definite end to the story. I found out, it's by making up a bunch of complete drivel that makes no sense, and adding a bunch of stupid characters who apparently don't have the slightest hint of logic to them. Like the main bad guy, who, realizing that McLeod is about to die of old age, decides he can't wait two weeks and sends some guys to kill him. This, of course, makes him immortal(again). And, somehow, brings Sean Connery back, who looks remarkably good for a guy who's been dead for 500 years. I'm still not sure why they apparently have gotten rid of jet engines, but apparently they have, because there they are, flying across the Atlantic in a small turboprop. Not to mention the whole enviromental scare thing about the ozone layer that is the basis for the movie. If you're planning on seeing this movie, even out of curiosity, hit yourself on the head with a frying pan until you're unconscious. It'll save you a couple bucks on the rental, and it's probably more fun.

Blazing Saddles (1974)

Funniest thing I own

[9/10 · 31 July 2001]

This is a movie I've seen more times than I can count, and it still has me laughing so hard I'm almost crying. I'm curious as to why the TV version has scenes in it that weren't in the video though. Must be scenes off the floor used to fill in the half of the movie the network execs decided they needed to cut out. I would've thought they'd be added into the DVD again though. Oh well, I guess I don't need to see Mongo get blown up 8 different ways in ten seconds.