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From Beneath (2012)
Very bad cheap movie and IMDb rating is flawed
About 3 seconds into this movie I knew it was a bad movie and was checking back on IMDb like "what convinced me to check this movie out again?" I don't know how this movie got the rating it has.
This movie has that very easy-to-capture atmosphere of "cheap movie made by high-school kids." It's not a fun kind of bad movie. This one is just bad. Bad script (but not bad enough), bad acting (but not bad enough), poor quality everything.
This is the first time I have watched a movie that was rated over a 6 on IMDb and found it to be anything but great. Why did this exception have to be so exceptional?
This movie will almost definitely NOT make it into the elite group of bad movies which become cult classics.
Don't waste your time on this movie.
Children of the Corn (2009)
one poor casting choice ruins the works
I was able to get to the end of this movie, but... only because I wanted to see how this version differed from the 1980s version, and to also see if this version was any truer to the original Stephen King story.
The two main characters were definitely more true to the original short story. Their bickering was pretty nasty, but the woman was overdone in her acidic nastiness, to the point of straining the boundaries of disbelief. Anyway, their acting was sincere and created a believable tension where the events that followed had their opening.
The movie was better in many ways than the 80s version, all except for one main glaring error. The casting of whoever played Isaac, the child leader/preacher. His line delivery was slush-mouthed and weak, words trailing off too quietly, with no believable passion. For the casting of a evangelical preacher, this particular child was an absolutely terrible choice. Every time he had any screen time or lines, I just kept saying "nope, no, nuh-uh, NOPE" in my head. I just couldn't suspend my disbelief and the obvious failure in the casting choice just kept bringing me out of the story.
The casting of Malachi was too much a mimicry of the 80s version.
Its difficult to cast children for TV movies, I assume, but at least get some kids who don't speak as though they've been novacained.
If you're a Stephen King fan, this might be worth exploring. If you were a fan of the original movie adaptation, well maybe then, too. Otherwise, there are much better choices.
Tai ji 1: Cong ling kai shi (2012)
this movie did not know what it wanted to be
When I watch a kung-fu movie I'm looking for some simple elements. Good fight scenes, entertaining characters, a hero to cheer for and a villain to hate. Ultimately, a movie that takes me out of reality a little bit.
The "hero" of the movie starts off as the mindless unstoppable killing machine who is the secret weapon of the cultist army. But then we get some backstory involving his mother and his tragic past and suddenly he is just a simple boy who is kind of cute and naive in a charming way? It's a strange shift. He is told he needs to learn Chen style kung-fu to realign his energy flow or he will die. His army and master are killed so he is free and so he travels to Chen village.
The "villain" in this movie was way too easy to empathize with.
The small village we are supposed to be rooting for as they are bullied by the westerners just comes across as elitist and snobby. They treat the "villain" as an outsider because of his family origins even though he lived there his whole life, and even bully him with the kung-fu they refuse to teach to him or any "outsiders" They also refuse to teach our "hero" and actually try to beat him up many times.
We could probably easily respect their tradition of not teaching outsiders but no screen time is given to developing or explaining that tradition so it just seems cruel.
The movie escalates into a tragedy which will draw the attention of the foreign soldiers and most likely lead to the destruction of the village, and it's all just too GRAY. In kung-fu movies I like things black and white, good and evil, right and wrong... this movie left me unsure of who to even care about or who to root for.
The production value is high, so the movie looks good, visually. The fight scenes are mediocre and too few, with too many effects that just don't add to the experience they way they are supposed to. There are even cartoonish freeze frames and game-like text (reminiscent of Scott Pilgrim) which would make this movie seem like pure entertainment, but it keeps bogging itself back down in muddy reality by balancing the good and bad of each character.
The ending is a cliffhanger, leaving everything mostly unresolved.
In the end, its the story which is too much like the gray of real life, its the lack of clearly defined characters who I can easily love and hate, which kills this movie for me. Maybe real life is like that, but if I wanted to feel the complex tragedy of the human condition I wouldn't be watching a kung-fu movie.
I just don't know what this movie wanted to be, and I get the feeling the director didn't either.
Paul Blart: Mall Cop (2009)
uncomfortable, unfunny
At about 8 minutes in I was not once amused, and beginning to be uncomfortable. At about 16 minutes in, I'm fully uncomfortable with the main character and his inappropriate attention to the woman, not to mention her completely unbelievable response, and his complete lack of perspective after supposedly ten years as a mall cop.
There has not been one funny moment. This is the kind of movie which seems to derive it's humor from just putting a loser idiot character in embarrassing situations, reminiscent of Meet The Fockers and other such garbage.
At about 22 minutes in I'm thinking about turning this trash off. I only watched it to see what the jokes were about but it's not worth this discomfort.