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Reviews
AVP: Alien vs. Predator (2004)
Sheepdom at its finest
Another great movie spoiled by bad initial critique. And most people jumping on the bandwagon. They moved production of this movie out of Hollywood and lots of people virtually lost jobs to some east European studios where they shot most of the scenes. Lots of anger was present in Hollywood about this, no surprise that initial reviews were strictly negative. This movie is superb in nearly all aspects I watched it more times then all the prequels combined. I like the lead actress and Henriksen as Bishop Weyland, some crew man are actually more interesting then the crew in some Alien prequels, and of course the CGI is finally watchable and say state of the art, not some lame blinking LEDs all over.
Into the Blue (2005)
Nice adventure movie
I've kinda enjoyed it, nice looking actors and beautiful picture,
I mean the nature, ocean-diving, Bahamas...
It's relaxing and funny at times. Story about the lost treasure and drugs will keep you interested up till the end.
This is the type of movie to watch with your girlfriend on a hot summer night.
I've found that parts of this movie works really well on my in house led projection screens. Very well done, I've turned this flick into a "motion picture" some of the sea shot are just amazing and work really well as a living room "decoration".
7 points because it is not a some real movie masterpiece, but it works for what it is.
National Treasure (2004)
Bruckheimer's team scored another best picture
Can't help myself, but this movie is bold number #1 in my 2004 watch and watch again list. The pace of the film is just perfect, there is no hesitation, no scene that leaves bad taste, no weird moment, just pure entertainment. I have no more time left so i will summarize the rest:
Great cast, Nicolas Cage, Diane Kruger, I loved every scene.
Trevor Rabin's music brings the magic (again), big time score.
I think that Bruckheimer's team focused (purposefully) on "cleverness", "unpredictiability" and "originality" (as critics always used these for lack of other weak points), filmmakers succeeded in every domain, no doubt, yet critics and their sheep are still complaining, so whats the point Jerry ? Stay strong on your course.
Armageddon (1998)
Big Hollywood Roller Coaster
Well, in retrospect, this was a really big movie. There was no match for it in it's time and now it's classic (at least for me).
This action/sci-fi was made under probably the most powerful production/direction in Hollywood today Jerry Bruckheimer / Michael Bay with mega cast on stage --
Bruce Willis, Ben Affleck, Liv Tyler, Billy Bob Thornton and Steve Buscemi. All top actors play their parts well, Thornton and Buscemi truly shine.
Soundtrack is flawless to say at least, while Trevor Rabin delivers memorable classical theme and brings the atmosphere to every picture (this is his best so far), Aerosmith, Bon Jovi, Patty Smith and Journey bangs out their biggest hits.
Film is overly very well made, flawless cgi (nice tackle to Emmerich's Independence Day). Everything nicely explodes and sounds, some small overtones are seen on the asteroid, like those "in space sounds", "in space fires", low gravity issues, but hell, if it was all made correctly it wouldn't be such a fun. So stop complaining, film-makers know that there is no sound in empty space, no oxygen to burn fires and much less gravity, yet they do it this way.
Big time movie.
Van Helsing (2004)
Filmmakers "used" Prague's St. Nicholas holy ground for "Vampire carnival"
Dear God, I still can't believe this can be true(!)
I've recognized it at the first moment, the "Vampire carnival" scene is filmed entirely in the interior of the ancient and one of the holiest grounds in the old Europe, in the great St. Nicholas cathedral of Prague of Bohemia. They even removed the ancient benches. I feel really disgusted and say angry of what those ignorant cinematographers did.
This is and it was one of the most admired and one of the holiest grounds in the old "Holy Roman Empire" and the "Kingdom of Bohemia". This was the Church of choice (besides St.Peter's) for Emperors and Kings in the middle ages when the Prague was capital city of the Roman empire from the Baltic to Adriatic sea. This is master-piece-church of the Gothic/late baroque, made by the most skilful artists of Italy, Germany and Bohemia for God sake!
Church people said that they have no idea of what filmmakers will do in the inside. They "rented" the cathedral for some big money so the church people were happy for the "donation". My brother said that he saw a spot about it in our local television. I am surprised that the city is not suing producers for this.
So what now mr. Sommers ? Will you go to Vatican and use the Sixteen Chapel as your next playground ? Because the old town cathedral at the very heart of Europe is ready for a new dedication after this.
Another clear example of ignorance of American filmmakers is the scene where the ancient emperor's Charles IV bridge of Prague and the (obvious) city landscape of Prague is shown and "the vampiress" named the city Budapest (!). So the filmmakers now trade Prague for Budapest ? It's like show landscape of New York and say Moscow. Bohemia's Prague has nothing in common with Magiar's Budapest for God sake! It would be better if they use no names at all.
The CGI made castle scenes looked fabulous so why they decided to use those well known Prague sightseeing and renamed them.. ? It is odd, it's unoriginal and it feels horrible (at least for mid European).
I admire Sommers for his previous flicks, but he will be send to hell for what he did in Van Helsing.
:-)
Jurassic Park III (2001)
Very underrated and a very classic adventure film
I enjoyed this one much more then the previous two. This third installation doesn't waste time in explanations and dinosaur "making of" innuendos, it doesn't pretend to be something special, doesn't show exact bioengineering science in work and doesn't want to be educative. This seemingly fools many people to think that there is nothing special or something "never seen" in this movie.
The fact is that there is nearly perfect adventure with good to great cast (Neill) and unrivaled CGI. Obviously the CGI people learned well from previous films of "what" and "how" to do it, so you can enjoy the best dinosaur CGI yet (2003), and there are not seconds but minutes of those prehistoric animals lurking and upsetting the crew as they venture through the island.
The story is well, adventure like, they got on the island, that is full of dino-beasts so they try to survive and escape them. Yes, that's all, it's that simple, so Crichton addicted storyhounds may leave, but the rest of us stays and enjoys the adventure.
I give it 9/10 for the year of 2003.
The Mummy Returns (2001)
Another magnificent piece from Sommers
Truly an adventure film with instant action, fast paced, makes you forgot about time and drags you right in.
The cast is good to great, I can't complain about The Rock (a wrester in real life) is perfectly cast (representing a great warrior), Voslo and Velasquez as villains are also very good, less fits in my opinion the good characters represented by Frazer and Weisz.
A blazing cinematography (CGI used everywhere, battles of tens of thousands (!) of warriors). The ancient Egypt and pyramids never looked so vivid and great as in this "motion picture".
Story is simple and straight as a good tale and adventure should be. There are also some grotesque side stories (John Hannah really makes me laugh at times), the film seams to never get boring for me (I've seen it more then once, it even gets better when you see it a second time).
Sound soundtrack from Silvestry (a very adventure like one, his style seams to fit to this kind of films well, he scores another adventure film L.Croft Cradle of life recently with soundtrack very close to this one).
You can also look at it as a great tale and watch it with you young kids, they will be well entertained too.
I give it 9/10 for the year of 2001.