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christian-356
Reviews
Rambo (2008)
Mutilations abound
If you are fascinated with guns, mutilations, and flying body parts, this is for you. If not, it's not.
There was a lot of high packed action scenes and an overwhelming amount of gore to which there is a very high level of realism, something I have not yet experienced before. Some people may feel offended, some nausea. I was surprised that I wasn't more appalled. I went to see it with some friends. We laughed our way through it, fascinated with all of the action scenes, and to some extent shocked by the abundance in variations over the theme: body decomposition.
As to the acting, it was very thin, and the dialog thinner.
- Specifics - In the boat scene with the mercenaries, there was a bit of tension, but the scene, although cut up, was too long.
Julie Benz' performance especially in the beginning was below average, but it gave the scenes a kind of realistic effect.
The big explosion effect was particularly good. And as mentioned, the body parts flying around.¨
4: Rise of the Silver Surfer (2007)
Oddities
A nice blend of action, effects, and a bit of flirting as in the first movie, and the rest of the Marvel movies. However, there are a couple of oddities in the story which made even me think: How unrealistic is that! - And I'm a pretty mindless guy. I guess some ideas travel better through time than others...
Weak point 1: Here we are, in the middle of our top lock-down facility, we're the army, we've brought in the alien. Let's place it in a room without camera surveillance. That makes sense.
Weak point 2: During the movie we can assess the powers of the Silver Surfer. At the end of the movie, we have a pretty good idea of what he is capable of. So how can the Silver Surfer destroy a planet-eater, come on! The Silver Surfer is not powerful enough for that. Flying up the crack of Galactus wont get you anywhere, little guy. That ending simply doesn't work.
Weak point 3: The combining of the four powers against Victor made great visual effects, but kind of ruined the idea of the Fantastic Four. This is more like Superman.
Weak point 4: In the end, it's not the Fantastic Four who deals with the bad guy, it's somebody else - they only do it indirectly. But worse, it's all a StarTrek-like riddle with a self-contained cliché psychological solution.
Weak point 5: What does Galactus actually look like?
Weak point 6: Richards invents a flying machine. Wow.
Weak point 7: Surfing is a universal pastime.
Weak point 8: Victor doesn't really get to show off with the surfboard. I'm telling you, that guy is not evil, he's just misunderstood.
Weak point 9: How can the Fantastic Four combine their powers at the end? We have only seen them swap powers until that point.
Weak point 10: So Galactus needs thermo and biological energy. What's wrong with the sun's energy? Why destroy earth? Why not just harvest it?
Marie Antoinette (2006)
Modern music gets me every time
I only want to state one point about this movie at this point. And its about the music used in it.
Having learned little from the fiascoes of movie history of mixing historic eras, Coppola and crew decided on using contemporary music in the setting of the French Revolution.
Here we have yet again a movie with potential but rendered ridiculous from the very title screen. Abhorrence. When will the world learn that fat and water doesn't mix. The other, but worse commercial movie which comes to mind is A Knights Tale, with the rock dances in the banqueting hall.
There's few enough quality historic movies being made already...
A Knight's Tale (2001)
Sir RockALot in Camelot - omg
Somebody said it "is ridiculously unbelievable, thin on plot, shamefully predictable, historically inaccurate in so many ways...yet it all works".
- That is just the kind of conclusion you can't take seriously. It must have been written by one of the investors. Indeed the movie is ridiculous, thin, predictable, and has little to do with historical facts... How can any of that work? And it truly doesn't.
Jake-60 said "You don't rent Dirty Harry for its dance numbers" and how right he is.
The way the characters demonstratively break a scene into a dance to David Bowie's Let's Dance - well it just takes the prize as the most horrid Rocky Horror Picture Show middle ages ballet I have only seen in the types of movies rated on ColdFusion.
An embarrassment to all participants.
Serenity (2005)
Han Solo meets River Maxtrix is anything but Serenity
I have seen that some people have rated this movie a 10 out of 10. It has made me think that maybe you have to be a fan of the series to really be a good reviewer of this movie. I never knew there was a series before reading the reviews here. Am I disqualified? 10 out of 10?
This movie comes across somewhat as a quilt or patchwork, especially in the beginning of the movie, with the River dream sequence and the shifts in time. This continues somewhat, however it's nice to know that although you may not get the feeling that you really know where you are, who you see, or what's going on, you get back to the characters at a later point. There's consistency in that respect.
River, a psychotic girl, escapes from what appears to be a research lab somewhere in the universe, aided by her brother, a young doctor. Black Guy, a government MIB, kills the head of the research lab, and now wants to kill River. She knows too much. Han Solo, now all matured and solemn, flies around without measure, they will have us believe. For unknown reasons, the young doctor and his sister are on Han Solo's ship. And for inexplicable reasons, Han Solo and his crew let them stay, although they are wanted by the authorities. And so it continues.
Another reviewer, Manosdvd whom, among others, rated it 10 out of 10, gave the this description: "There's no grand theme or clear cut good and evil. There's just a band of fugitives trying to make their way in a dangerous sky. It's something folks can relate to, [...] The point of the name Serenity is the name of the ship, though in a deeper sense that's what our characters are in search of. Finding freedom and a home, and that's what the ship represents to them, and to the fans."
I simply have to comment on Manosdvd's review. I really doubt that ordinary people like myself can relate to being fugitive. Indeed, there is no grand theme in Serenity, that much is true. There is hardly the theme that Manosdvd describes. The characters are not really looking for a place to settle down. Come on. They are simply not motivated. And there is no serenity in the movie, which makes it in a sense a bad title.
Pros:
- Likable characters
- Likable actors
- Nice effects
- Believable action, except perhaps for the River action sequences.
Cons:
- There are too few distinct personalities. There's Tough Guy (Han Solo/Black Guy), there's Psychotic/Hidden Dragon Karate Girl (River), and there's Trusted Assistant, tough but not as tough as tough guy (Everybody else).
- The woolly speeches given by Han Solo, with a voice like Thorne Forrester (the Bold and the Beautiful), and the looks of Eric 'Rick' Forrester, and the empty, homespun philosophies for content, it's too much to bear.
- The characters' actions are not motivated.
- None of the characters are build up. We don't really know anybody and never know what to expect of them.
Blunders:
- In the scene with the dying old reverend, getting the doctor to come takes an exorbitant amount of time. They've all just stepped outside the Serenity, he can't be that far away and the only reason must be, that the director wants the old man dead.
- When Han Solo's girlfriend joins the Serenity, it is most surprising that nobody on the ship has any spare clothes for her. Not even a boiler suit. She is compelled to go on adventure in her décolleté evening gown.
- When River points out the planet Miranda to Han Solo, the reason for them to decide to go there is really not substantiated.
- Throughout the movie, Black Guy, the government emissary, never reports back to the government. The government is never seen although it is so important for the storyline. It becomes just a word.
- Black Guy uses an old school Bruce Lee karate trick to paralyze his victims: He forces his hand into the right side of the lower back of his victim. Everybody knows that the correct area is the neck.
Doom (2005)
"Alien 2 - Aliens" meets "Bad Taste" and growl
The Pros: There's a fine mix of suspense, action, fun, Pike, some visual effects not in Aliens, a nice story/action build-up, and even some acting.
The Cons: Even when you try not to think, as you really shouldn't with this kind of movie - There's a couple of gaping holes in the Doom storyboard space-time continuum. The blunders include:
- They must secure an area in an operational hi-tech facility, yet they never turn on the lights, unless to show the viewer something is not scary after all.
- This is the future, but they don't have infrared goggles.
- They discover hell on Mars, but they never once report back to the authorities or any commanding officers. And you never know why.
- You almost never know where any of the characters are, areas seem disjoint.
- The team is supposedly the best there is, but the team is so not pro - comprised of rabble, madcaps and untrained and all. Always split up, seldom cover each other, seldom communicate vital information, and, and, and...
Red Dwarf (1988)
Talking cat... Says it all
This series was just not working for me - Neither characters, cast, storyline, nor jokes did it for me. Sorry. I would like to stop here, but since IMDb requires 10 lines of text in every comment, here goes... The series bugged me, but maybe that's because I'm not too fond of series and fond of sci-fi movies. I think, in order to have anything work in a sci-fi setting, you have to make an extra effort to put in something new for the geeky outfits etc. to work. For me, Star Wars pulled it off most of the time (although my wife would probably argue), Star Trek never quite did it for me ["Captain, we've never seen anything like this life force before" -"Oh, well I have, last episode"] Red Dwarf doesn't pull it off, it's neither funny, nor new in its sci-fi ways, but it takes the price as the only blend of Space Balls, Eastenders, herbal tea, and James Brown. And since sci-fi comedy series has not been done a lot, I guess there is something new here after all - so I give it a 3. Cheers.