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Reviews
The Patriot (2000)
Overrated and Inconsistent
The Patriot is a film with flashes of brilliance and powerful performances intermixed with a bevy of cliches, melodrama and saccharine human interaction. This film had the potential to be great. The screenplay was daring, but tried to hard to hit on all cylinders of human emotions much like another overrated movie - The Cider House Rules.
The touch of the director, Roland Emmerich, known for creating such cookie cutter Hollywood cheese such as Independence Day and Godzilla, could be felt in this film. There was little subtlety in the film. It felt like immature and oversimplistic filmmaking. It is a summer popcorn movie in the guise of a heroic epic and serious film and the result is a bloated and stilted production.
Mel Gibson and Heath Ledger (the eldest son) do shine in the movie. The scenes with them really work as they are able to dominate the screen. However most of the other performances in the movie are weak.
6/10
Day of the Warrior (1996)
Poor, but funny
Easily a terrible movie, but also extremely funny. This has become a classic among me and my friends because it is so bad. There are moments when you can't help bursting out with awkward dialogue and gratuitous clothes changing. Elvis Fu is a virtual bevy of ethnic jokes.
The dialogue is so bad it's entertaining. I quote:
"Back in Kansas, it's so flat, when your dog runs away you can see him for THREE DAYS." "Wow, that's flat." End of scene. Just one of many awful exchanges. I recommend it.
Three Kings (1999)
Mismarketing at it's best
Three Kings was perhaps the most inaccurately marketed movie of 1999. Going into the theater, without having read any reviews of this movie, I thought I was in store for a run of the mill action film, climaxing with the much ballyhooed "We Three Kings be stealing the gold" song.
What I got was a pithy, moving movie on modern war and American hypocrisy. One of the best movies of 1999, Three Kings is essentially a journey of American soldiers who begin the movie viewing war as comic opportunity to strike it rich, but by the end know the realizations of a war.
Three Kings does for the Gulf War what Platoon did for the Vietnam war. Except everyone going into Platoon knew the horrors of Vietnam. Three Kings completely turns the war, and allows the view with at least some distance away from American propaganda.
Highlander (1986)
Overrated
I was expecting a lot going into Highlander, having heard myriad praise for this cult classic.
However, I was greatly disappointed at the last half of the movie.
The first half was the cult classic was what I was expecting. With a cute parallel story of his McCleoud's (sp?) life in Scotland and the present, the movie present compelling mythology in combination with expert storytelling.
The great flaw in this movie is the villain. Although purposely flat and simplisticly evil, he (I even forgot his name) is distractingly so. A more complex villain would have made the story far more engaging leading up to the climatic last battle. However, the villain is capable of little more than grunting and breaking things, which becomes rather tedious. By the end, I was just wishing for the movie to end.
A solid and enjoyable ending would have propelled this movie into the realm of timeless classics for me, but it ended so sourly that I have to give 5/10 stars.