Reviews

So people are putting down JP3 because it allegedly does not stand up to the original. Well, it is different. It is short, less philosophical, centered on the family quest, and the concept is already known. It is part of a series! So why not do things a little differently? There are new accents: the raptors are not shown as monsters but as intelligent beings, and in general, the animals appear more like real animals rather than dinosaurs. There are even quiet moments with a Tyrannosaurus. What you get, is a short, compact film with elements from horror and nature documentary. It does not have to have the gravitas of the first movie, or the exploratory nature, as the ground work has been laid. So, if you're able to get past the fact that this is not a clone of the other two films, it is actually quite good.

I loved the original Ladykillers. Yet no film is sacrosanct, you are always entitled to re-imagine the story. Remakes are possible. There needs to be no justification. But a remake often falls in the trap of being nothing more than just a remake of another film. This one isn't. It's both a remake and a Coens film.

Transplanting the story to Mississippi is a bold move, but it works. Mrs Munson is not Mrs Wilberforce, but she's just as lovely. And Tom Hanks surely can meet the standards established by Alec Guinness. In fact, there are some things the remake does even better than the original. There is more character exposition, more room given for development, and more concentration on details. The original was more heads-on to the story, this film actually depicts the world it talks about.

And how it is done! The attention to detail, the minute observations, the overall love for the characters, and for the characters' goofiness, as if beams of light would grow out of the screen. Unmistakably a Coens film, to every inch.

There's just one problem: You have to watch the film with an open heart. That's how it was made. Otherwise, you probably won't give a darn.

I have to admit, I cannot avoid to compare this show, in a way, with some other stuff. I've recently finished re-watching the first season of Millennium, as it came out on DVD, and I'm still shaking in disbelief over a show that is just that triumphantly ingenious and carries so much weight and depth, at least throughout its first season, that I cannot express how indebted I feel to Chris Carter and all the others that made that series possible.

I was reminded of that, once again, now having started watching 24, by an episode written by Chip Johannessen, someone I remember from Millennium, now writing for 24.

So what about it? Surely, the 24-hours idea is neat, but once you're into some episodes, it gets somehow tiring, at least to me. Where I am supposed to feel suspense, I just feel tired of yet another forced turn of events. Ridiculous plot elements, unbelievable characters, an unbelievably naive understanding of the inner life of an agency, all subjected to the ticking of the clock, leaving no time for reflection and depth?

Is the ticking clock supposed to relieve this show from creating any sense of relevance besides the clock representing its new approach? I mean, the show looks neat and shiny, but is that really enough?

At its core, if you set aside the terrorizing clock, and start looking at the great amount of mistakes and goofs, this is a badly and lazily, yet superficially grandly executed show about nothing, wasting its cast and its concept. Yet another thriller without substance and soul, another of those tiring whodunits - while the much more interesting approach, once undertaken by Millennium, for instance, would be the whydunit.

Should the show - and I'm just beginning to watch it - indeed grow to show some sense of reflection and relevance, it better be earlier. A good show has its essence contained in each episode, even the bad ones. I can watch a bad episode of Trek, The X-Files, Millennium, Buffy, Angel, Magnum or The West Wing, and still catch the idea that this might be a misstep. The drop should contain the ocean. In the case of 24, I strongly suspect that there's no ocean at all.

This is junk food entertainment, enjoyable only if you have time to kill. The ticking clock will do that job for you just fine.

... how bad a film can actually turn out to be, and not in the trashy-kind-of-funny way. With this one, sky's the limit, or hell rather. Take every possible cliche imaginable, and multiply it by infinity, and you will end up with a film that's derogatory of women, straight men and gay men alike. The aesthetics seem to be taken right out of the worst possible feel-good made-for-tv advertisements, the acting is beyond wooden, and to finish it off, the dubbed dialog (a favorite element of German films, not just when it's applied to foreign-language material) at most times doesn't even match the lip movement. That's all apart from the fact that the emotional and rational motivations of the main characters are utterly incomprehensible, and that this film, in the end, like so many other stories, dares to heroify once again the emotional violation of a woman's wishes as romantic. I don't recommend against seeing this film, on the very contrary: Go see it. Stare into the abyss. Well done, modern German cinema, yet another masterpiece from the country that brought us Metropolis...

This cannot in all honesty be said to be aimed at either the fans or the non-fans, it's aimed at, well, dunno. Hard to tell. Stupidity? Trying to define rock bottom with a vengeance, or rather, a wrath? That of Shinzon, as it seems. Unbalanced direction, brutal editing, bad dialog, uninspired acting, and scenes of utter stupidity make this the nemesis of all that is Star Trek. Don't avoid it. See for yourself. Witness what must be the death gasp for the Next Generation, what might even be fatal for Star Trek as a whole if things proceed like that. It's not even a movie, it's just something coming out of the recycle bin; and it should have stayed there. The horror...

I've seen each and every episode of Trek, with the sole exception of most of the Animated Series, which even hard-core fans will excuse. Now here's a twist. Unlike those praising Roddenberry to the extreme and sponsoring the Trek-wide religion of "Hate Berman", I believe Trek survived Roddenbery through Berman. It was Berman who basically defined TNG, everything good about it, Roddenberry deserves credit for bringing along Patrick Stewart, that's it. TNG surged once Berman gained full control, DS9 was a brilliant cast and story (though I suspect stolen, in part, from B5), and Voyager, after having survived watching 3 seasons of growing up (as with TNG and DS9 also, only TOS declined while having started strongly), Voyager did deliver just as grandly. Maybe most didn't get a female captain for a concept, or whatever. Trek fans are hard to please, if impossible.

Enterprise now has a theme song which is so much defining what Roddenberry's and Berman's creation is all about. The series itself is a welcome anti-climax to all those shoot-em-up action flicks and series devoid the cerebral components. It is always political, I was stunned to follow the episode on the Suliban prison camp, Suliban being imprisoned because some of their people were terrorists; and then seeing yet another episode of the Palestine/Israel tragedy unfold on the news. It doesn't have the amount of girl power DS9 and VGR had, but said bluntly, it's not a Joss Whedon show, it's a Western in sf disguise. And for a Western hero, Archer is a brilliant counterpiece to some current leaders.

If you want insanity, perplexion, complex dialog and stunning action, watch Farscape and Firefly. Trek just isn't about that. Trek is about exploration, human interaction, and that certain Hippie-inspired notion that there is a better world out there, that it is possible, and that we must have hope. Everything can be achieved by the means of logic, by communication and reason. It's the '60s version of the Enlightenment, brought up in a flower power surrounding.

And one further thing concerning the prequel aspect. Get a life. Enterprise stays true to most of the technological and historical aspects of Trek history, the look, however, is advanced. It's shot more recently. See, it's just a television show. It has a budget. It has sets. There are more options available now than there were then. It does look better. And Klingons have ridgy foreheads. Accept it. It's called a "prop". Trek isn't about alien looks or exotic places. It's about allegory, about politics, and about humanity. That's the point of the entire endeavor, and Enterprise argues it very well.

There are just not enough words to describe how bad this film really is. There's nothing new, the code talker theme is dealt with very superficially, they are just the excuse to make a really violent yet pointless movie with no visible attempt at realism. There's no story, the characters have neither depth nor motives for their actions, and every single stupid war film cliche is used ad nauseam. The music by James Horner is OK, and that's the best part. I see no John Woo in here, not the one who made "Broken Arrow" and "Face/Off". This is pointless from beginning to end, a truly bad film in the tradition of Pearl Harbor.

1 of 10. Don't trust the positive reviews. From beginning to end, this movie is dull, boring, derivative and uninspired. The characters aren't introduced properly, their actions remain erratic, their motives unclear. Ed Harris' performance, though not excellent, is the only one standing out in a star-powered yet helpless cast. James Horner's music is a wrap-up of previous works of his, mostly Titanic, lacking almost every possible bit of originality.

The movie lacks pace, most of all, and the entire situation seems rather unrealistic - where's the battle, where's the fight? The sets may seem impressive, the effects solid, yet not breathtaking, money surely went into this. But money isn't enough.

It's not about just telling a story about aspects of the Stalingrad battle. It should be about doing it right, making a great film instead of just telling a story. This is nothing but a piece of uninspired Euro-Trash, unable to hold up to films like Saving Private Ryan and Braveheart. I won't say not to watch it, on the contrary: It can be extremely funny, unintentionally, for it is truly, sadly, really bad.