etherman23 Reviews

Dark Mirror (2007)

Good enough to watch if you're bored one day.

[5/10 · 29 October 2010]

I stumbled upon this movie thinking it was a new TV show in the genre of the Twilight Zone or Tales from the Dark Side. It has the production value of a TV show but it soon became apparent that it was a movie that I'd just never heard of before.

It started out promising enough (though clichéd) with a family moving in to a new house, which happens to be haunted. Strange things start happening to the wife involving mirrors. Pretty soon the writers find themselves tripping over the plot twists and story lines. The husband's complete lack of concern over the safety of his family, even as he suspects that his wife is a sociopath, makes no sense. The wife struggles with trying to figure out if the house is haunted or if she's crazy. A struggle shared by the writers, I might add. Much like Pirates of the Caribbean 2, the writers threw together a bunch of random story lines and never got them to gel together or make any sense.

I will say that the movie was interesting enough to keep me watching, but the ending was disappointing because it never tied the story lines together.

Planet of the Vampires (1965)

Not Very Good

[3/10 · 24 October 2009]

It's not the bad acting, bad dubbing, or misleading title (there are no vampires in the film) that got me. It was the terrible script. As the ships crash on the planet they are subjected 40 times the acceleration of gravity. This should have killed everyone on board. Apparently after filming this someone must have realized that everyone would be dead so the doctor mentions how weird it is that everyone survived. Later, when the origin of the weirdness is explained, nothing that is revealed actually explains why the crushing gravity didn't crush them.

The captain is a complete idiot. There's weird things going on, deadly things, and he keeps leaving people on guard duty alone. Even when they disappear or die, he leaves them alone.

When he investigates a downed alien ship he and one of the women get trapped aboard. He figures out how to open the door, but the whole sequence makes no sense. Why would aliens use that particular technology to open a door? At one point we see that the humans have communicators on their wrists. That would have been useful to have earlier and later in the movie. They also have some kind of flame/laser rifle that disappear from scenes without explanation.

There are two plot twists at the end of the movie. One was kind of cute, but the other didn't make any sense within the explanation of how the vampires function.

Deuces Wild (2002)

Mediocre Gang War

[4/10 · 2 October 2009]

In a nutshell the movie is about a gang war in the 1950's. Leon, the leader of the Deuces, starts the gang after his brother OD's on "junk". He vows to protect the neighborhood. The leader of the rival gang is just getting out of prison and wants revenge.

The movie didn't really do it for me. The "Good Guys" weren't any more good than the "Bad Guys". Very little was shown to suggest that the Deuces really cared for the community. I suppose the writers were going for realism here, but I just didn't care which side won. None of the characters were likable, or even capable of drawing my sympathy.

On the plus side the courtship between Annie and Bobby had some snappy dialog, and the acting overall was well done.

Pineapple Express (2008)

Dreadful

[1/10 · 20 September 2009]

There's nothing in this review can do justice to how bad this movie really is. I think I laughed twice during the whole movie. Most of the "humor" revolves around someone saying something not funny, but lacing the statement with curse words. Apparently the writers think that if a kid or an Asian swears then it's inherently funny.

The movie opens with an unfunny scene in a secret underground military lab (complete with an officer with an eye-patch). They're doing some tests on the effects of marijuana. This scene has nothing to do with the rest of the movie, aside from this secret lab being the bad-guy's lair. There's no explanation for how any of the characters know anything about this lab.

We soon discover that Seth Grogan is a fat unkempt process server who somehow manages to have a hot 18 year old girlfriend. The believability of the film does not increase after this.

I won't bother discussing the plot any further because there's so little plot to discuss and none of the characters are either interesting or likable.

Don't waste your money or time on this one.

Bug (1975)

Why is everyone so negative about the ending?

[8/10 · 7 July 2004]

I saw this movie once about 20 years ago. If you read other's comments you'll find that just about everyone hates the second half of the movie. For me it was the reverse. The first half wasn't particularly interesting. Bugs starting fires, BIG DEAL. Then the movie apparently ends and you're wondering what else could happen. That's where it gets interesting. I liked the doctor's slow descent into madness. It was highly original and refreshing twist. The bugs on the wall just rocked! If you want to make more sense of the doctor's actions read the book, The Hephaestus Plague. The book actually continues on beyond where the movie ends. I'd really recommend this movie unless of course you want stupid CGI instead of plot and character development.