Reviews

For months and months, my girlfriend put on the pressure. I finally broke down and bought her the DVD during a 2/$20 Valentines day sale at Best Buy. I should have bought "My Big Fat Greek wedding". I should have bought "Just Married". I should have bought a second copy of "The Princess Bride". There is no way that my money or time could have been spent in a worse manner than in the purchase and viewing of this movie.

Elle Woods is planning her wedding and she wants to track down her dog's relatives so she can invite them. She learns that the mother is a test dog for the cosmetics industry (funny, I thought Beagles were the test dog of choice, not Chihuahuas). She wants to get the dog out so it can come to her wedding so she tries to get the law firm where she is employed to pursue this cause and she is fired as a result. The fact that she would be fired in this situation was the last remotely believable part of the movie. She goes to Washington to pursue this selfish crusade and ditzes her way through the process using primarily hairdresser and sorority connections and luck to circumvent normal Washington legislative procedure. You figure out just about every single thing that is going to happen when you are fifteen minutes into the movie. I recommend turning it off at that point and saving yourself an hour and twenty minutes of pain.

This movie was painful. There was no humor or intelligence in attendance. I laughed once. The way that the legislative process is interpreted is silly and inaccurate. I found it interesting that some of the most convincing arguments in support of animal testing were brought up and then basically forgotten. Everything is too fluffy and simplistic to work as satire. There really was not a single redeeming quality. If you have a Y chromosome, stay far away from this movie. Even if you consider yourself fully in touch with your feminine side, or you enjoy chick flicks, it is likely that the heavy dose of alternative lifestyle "humor" will offend you (I do admit that the one joke I laughed at was the transgendered caller on the sorority hotline).

When the end credits were rolling and I let out a sigh of relief, my girlfriend asked me what I thought of it. I diplomatically replied: "It wasn't as good as the first one". She said: "I am so sorry that I put you through that". It turns out that she hated it as well. I spoke to a few female co-workers and they also hated it.

Yet another in the endless string of films intended solely for the 15-25 year old female demographic. Males need not apply unless they want to indulge in brief views of the beautiful bartenders scantily clad during the bar scenes. Although not unpleasant, nothing upwards of PG here. Nothing thought provoking or otherwise fulfilling either.

Small town Jersey girl comes to the big city to realize her dreams of becoming a screen writer. She overcomes adversity to find a somewhat meaningful life as a waitress at the Coyote Ugly bar and eventually realizes her ultimate dreams with the help of those she meets along the way. Have I seen this movie before? Probably. Done better? Almost definitely.

Maria Bello and John Goodman do what they can with one dimensional roles. Adam Garcia also delivers an adequate performance considering the genre, but the rest of the acting is atrocious, especially that of Piper Perabo. Her miserable performance in the lead role is what brought my rating way down.

3/10

I popped in the DVD expecting a die-hard chick flick. I was pleasantly surprised.

Mel Gibson plays a hilarious jerk. He is so selfish, egotistical and male chauvinistic that you can't help but laugh. He carries the movie from beginning to end, and does so with complete success.

Gibson plays a marketing executive who is passed up for an expected promotion because he needs to learn to market to the female demographic. While brainstorming an assignment related to this deficiency, he is electrocuted and blah blah you know the rest. What struck me about this movie was how realistic his personal transition was as a result of his newfound "skill". he didn't turn into a completely sympathetic mushmouth right away because that is not the sort of person he was.

The supporting cast, especially Alan Alda and Mark Feuerstein are all pretty good. Helen Hunt is adequate, but not completely believable as the tough savvy executive who takes Gibson's expected promotion right out from under him. She just does not come across as a particularly strong character.

The movie does dissolve into a cliched romantic comedy towards the end, but the journey up to that point makes it worthwhile. 7/10

I could never quite get into this movie because it was not at any time, in any way believable. Most of the characters were one-dimensional and performed actions that did not seem realistic. James Handy as the fire chief was absurdly overbearing (and over-acting), as was Avery Brooks as De Niro's partner. I am usually a fan of Brooks no matter how silly his role, but here it just added to mess. De Niro goes through the motions and does not give the audience enough to like or dislike his character. Kelsey Grammar was great in his first scene but somehow falls flat in the rest of his execution. Burns is adequate, but not yet strong enough to truly carry a movie such as this. I liked him much better in "Saving Private Ryan" and "Life or Something Like it." The eastern European criminals were just silly. They repeatedly killed people brutally but I just could not find myself being scared of them.

The entire underlying theme that the public view matters more than reality did not seem to make much sense as presented by the story. It is not believable that some mugger without a shred of proof could get a respected fireman with a spotless record into such trouble just because the news media played up his barely news-worthy story. Would a news show host really throw down a million dollars of his personal money in the situation where Kelsey Grammar's character did? I just don't buy it.

The movie was not a complete waste of 2 hours. There were some interesting scenes and some decent action to keep things moving. John Gotti's actual attorney represents the criminal in a clever touch. The booby-trapped apartment fire was very cool. You could definitely tell that it was a 2 hour movie, though, and it could have probably been cut down to an hour and a half without too much trouble.

Overall the movie was not enjoyable. There were just some things missing. Maybe style. Maybe substance. Definitely believability. 5/10

My goodness! I cannot even think what to say about such a movie. I guess I will draw from a personal example. I am a fan of hard-core action movies and offbeat action movies. I went to see this movie with a group of friends having heard good things about it, yet not exactly delighted to be seeing it. My goodness! What a movie! Although it was quite long, I was never bored. The story was gripping and filled with suspense. I was legitimately scared by a movie for the first time in ten years. The ending completely caught me by surprise, which NEVER happens. It seems to me that "Sixth Sense" would have something to appeal to everyone besides sane children who would undoubtedly not be able to sleep for about a week after seeing it. If ANYONE has not seen this movie I would strongly suggest it. FORGET Blair Witch. 10/10

This is a funny movie but it contains many recycled gags from the first movie and it over-uses some new comedic conventions that are not very funny. Worth seeing once or twice if you want brainless comedy, but not the sort of movie which can be watched over and over. 6/10

I do not think that I received the full effect of this movie because I am too young to have experienced Andy Kaufman. It was well done, though the beginning was VERY weird. I believe that those like myself who come from the younger generation might do well to bypass this movie although I appreciate some of its merits. 6/10

I believe that much of the nation is beginning to tire of Sandler's films which are all variations on the EXACT same theme. If you play football and consider yourself intelligent, you may be offended by this movie. But, of course it is very funny. If you find yourself alone or with a bunch of male -NOT female- friends with nothing to do, and you feel like earlier on that particular day your brain has leaked out of your ear, go and rent this movie. This film contains practically every comedy cliche, and the plot is almost identical to that of "Happy Gilmore" yet it is funny. 4/10

The first time I saw this movie, I thought that it was hilarious! the second time I saw it, I thought it was funny. The third time it was kind of funny. Ever since, if I see it more than once a year, it makes me sick. Michael Myers is a very funny talented individual, however many of the jokes in Austin Powers just are not funny. The jokes that are funny are not sophisticated enough to endure. "All right, you tell that turd who's boss!" is only funny so many times. I am a college student, and I own about 110 VHS movies. This movie is not one of them. However, it seems that most of my friends have "Austin Powers in their collections no matter how small they are, and I have not once seen any of them watch it. Hmmmm. If you have not seen this movie and feel you must, rent.....don't buy. 6/10

If you are a fan of the first two Beverly Hills Cop movies, DO NOT watch this one. It was so bad that it made me like the first two less. The first two movies were comedic action movies. This one tries to be funnier but comes off as the sort of film Disney would make if Michael Eisner became a fan of action movies. Awful, awful film. 1/10

I entered my local movie theater with very high expectations. A couple of my friends had seen this movie and declared that it was the best James Bond movie since the days of Connery. THEY WERE WRONG!!!! I was very disappointed. The quips were forced and very cheesy. The gadgets were pitiful, any "super" boat that takes ten minutes to take out a cabin cruiser is good for nothing. The two bond girls although quite aesthetically pleasing acted their perspective roles terribly. Sophie Marceau may be a good actress, but she was supposed to be the daughter of a British lord and she has such a thick French accent. It seemed at times that she might be trying to fake a British accent but this just slurred her lines and made the character worse. The villain was utterly ridiculous. Oh my goodness.... he has a bullet in his head... well, whoopty-doo I am just petrified! His accent was also pretty stupid. Valentine, who was quite believable in Goldeneye came off as some sort of chump. He utterly hated Bond and suddenly he is his ally? I don't think so. This movie represented the first time I was steered wrong by an Internet Movie Database Rating. I think that most of the people who wrote reviews for this movie accidently walked into the theater where "Fight Club" was showing and wrote their reviews based on that beautiful movie thinking it was "The World is not enough". Jolly bad show. 3/10

I bought this movie because it was very cheap at Best Buy. I expected a low-grade Vietnam based shoot-em-up and I got a high-grade Vietnam based shoot-em-up. Any movie that shows someone's head being turned into spaghetti sauce by an M60 at close range deserves major accolades. 8/10