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Resident Evil: Extinction (2007)
Road Warrior plus Dawn of the Dead = Bad but Entertaining Film
As I was watching this film, I was initially excited by the Resident Evil 1 sort-of flashback, but as the film progressed, I realized that there was very little to be excited about. When the writers sat down to pen this tale, they must have just finished watching Road Warrior (need for gas as people wander through a wasteland with a heroic helper who leaves them at the end) and Dawn of the Dead (Helicopter ride to safety, character mix, dead congregating, etc.), which are two excellent films. Of course, in those films, you get to know the characters and recognize social satire. This film is but a gore fest with MTV piecemeal action set to a sound track and predictable setups and outcomes. The film earns (and I do mean earns) two stars simply because of the quality of the audio and special effects elements. It gets another star because I'm a guy and the women are beautiful. But that is all it gets. As little as 10 minutes of added screen time could have made this a good film all around by giving us a little character depth. Instead, we have CGI birds that miraculously only attack you if you fall off a small runner between two vehicles and a never-ending supply of living dead out of a semi trailer that must in some way be related to a clown car as the undead seem to come out of it in numbers far exceeding the available space. If you love special effects, violence, and have little to no attention to detail, you will love this film. Otherwise, wait for it on video and then only see it if you have seen the first two films. You need the first film to understand the context and the second film to understand the few characters that are in the film. If you haven't seen the first two films, good luck understanding anything. But then, there isn't much to understand. Put your brain on the seat next to you and enjoy this film on testosterone alone.
X-Men: The Last Stand (2006)
The only trilogy ever that got better with each one
Have you ever gone to a movie saying to yourself, "Well, it's probably not going to be very good, but I'll give it a shot and try to be entertained." This is probably how many will feel going to this movie. After the second movie improved on the first, it would be ludicrous to think they could keep moving up. Well, they did.
***** Possible Spoilers Below *****
Here are just a few reasons why this movie moves beyond great entertainment and into classic.
First, people die, and not just the ones you expect or the ones that you don't care about.
Second, it defies expectations. Anyone with a firm knowledge of the X-Men Universe (and I am not such a person, but have the beginnings), can probably guess that they are not going to bring in aliens with a Pheonix saga or mysticism to rationalize Juggernaut, but when a certain mutant actually loses his/her powers (I didn't want to spoil too much), I was surprised for the first time in a long time at a movie. A little disappointment follows when a certain other mutant starts to possibly regain powers, but apparently they didn't want to rely on too much originality of villain in the next one, which there is most likely to be if only as an aside on individual characters.
Third, I, like many fans was a little disappointed in the choice of Beast. Well guess what. Just about everyone involved in this film puts forth a good performance (possible exceptions include Pyro overplaying the bad guy part, some porcupine character, and the underemotional part played by what should have been a key role in the mutant power removing child whose name I can't even remember due to a stand where told and say what your supposed to performance.). At one point in the movie, I forgot who was behind the Beast mask.
Fourth, it actually manages a plot in a somewhat rushed experience. I was expecting a somewhat longer film. In fact, if there was a negative, it was the 13 minutes (yes 13) of previews I was forced to watch before the actual movie began.
I could keep listing reasons, but I think by now you can get to point.
Oh, one last point. I keep an ear on the family friendly reports by certain parties with a religious following. Well, there is violence in this movie, but it is done in a way that could easily have been gored up, but wasn't. Furthermore, the language is soft. In general good triumphs at a cost. In so many ways, this movie is family friendly, and yet many reviewers will tell you otherwise. I have a feeling that they are too (well, too something) to accept a character named Angel and can't get past the association of special powers with magic to accept that this is a family friendly movie. Yes, there is a bit of sexual tension and violence, but they resist going overboard, and present it in a proper light.
L'uomo puma (1980)
Pretty bad
I can't really add much to what has already been said about how bad this film is. Watch MST3K version on video rather than the regular version (I think that there's an MST3k version, but it could have just been me and my friends playing MST3K while watching it).
However, when you watch it, listen closely to the theme music. I found it suspiciously similar to the theme song of Titanic, which came out after this one.
Is this film so bad that it is good? No. You can usually get the same enjoyment with more comedy out of a Kung Fu Theater film. Perhaps some humor would have been added if the hero had been wearing PUMA shoes. If I ever find myself locked in a room with nothing to do but watch this movie, maybe I'll check his feet or maybe I'll gouge out my eyeballs.
War of the Worlds (2005)
Special Effects and Acting fill in the Holes
War of the Worlds (2005) takes a classic science fiction drama and does what most remakes do, add a preponderance of special effects and explosions in an attempt to bring in the audiences. In this case, it proves effective. Perhaps the most positive aspect of this movie are the ultra-realistic and more importantly, believable, special effects. Add to these effects an all-star cast including Tom Cruise showing that he has come into his own as an actor, making anyone seem foolish to be a naysayer on his abilities anymore. Furthermore, I half wonder if Tim Robbins didn't submit himself to shock therapy to come across in a manner quite creepy to me. Finally, Dakota Fanning shows that she, much like Haley Joel Osment, can pull off a singular performance that at times holds the center of attention, despite being somewhat one-dimensional. It is on these features alone that I would recommend this movie, despite the many flaws that many will find so annoying that they, like me, will walk out before the final credits roll.
Let's start with the numerous holes in the science of the film. Now, a science fiction film must deliver some sense of suspension of disbelief for the audience to buy into the experience. Science can be thrown on its heels left and right, but some semblance of order must remain. Too much disorder occurs when science is twisted more for dramatic effect than believability. For example, an electromagnetic storm knocks out all of the electrical devices, including those that are not running at the time. However, replacing a part fixes the problem. A part that was damaged if it was sitting in a vehicle shut off at the time of the storm, but not if it was sitting on a shelf. Then, a man who spends his nights loading crates at the dock is more knowledgeable than the local mechanic who comes off as a country bumpkin. Apparently mechanics are too stupid to even notice a massive explosion occurring behind them. We then find that Tom was the only one within driving distance smart enough to fix a vehicle, and that driving distance seems to go on forever without filling a gas tank, although perhaps they managed to reach an area with power in time for this. But when they reach an area with power, they are the only ones around. If the area has power and has not yet been attacked, it should be swarming with refugees, but not this neighborhood. The issues continue until the end, when the space craft no longer has a shield. Why would the aliens getting sick affect their shields. Let's give a benefit of a doubt and say that they were somewhat biological, but then we have to wonder how such a biological device survived buried under us for so long. Explain to me why anything would bury their ships on a planet, and then come back. First off, why not just terraform the planet to begin with. Why wait for civilization to build up on a planet just so you can come back later and risk your own life with equipment that would be severely outdated by your standards. Maybe they like the challenge like some intergalactic genocidic, sadistic hunter, but then why terraform it the second visit. One science flaw that many have mentioned is that right after all of the electrical devices go out in an area, for some reason, digital cameras and camcorders still work. Television crews can even get slow motion footage of lightning strikes during the storms that knocked all other power out. I almost had to leave at that point. Spielberg obviously put the whole scene in just as a jab at the media.
One flaw that really stuck out was when Robbins calls to Tom and Dakota to hide in the cellar. A small editing flaw then occurs since he enters the cellar, but when the angle changes, he is at the door shutting it, but those are to be expected in any movie. The problem is that hundreds of people are running in every direction, but for some reason, Robbins chooses to only call to this one family, and then shut the door before anyone else could be saved to join his cause. Hellooooo. Next, we have the ironic plot point that wasn't even made point of. Right after Tom takes Robbins out, they are discovered anyway, making his murderous attempt at saving his family all for naught. You'd think he would have had a hard time dealing with that, but it never hits him apparently. But then, right after taking the camera out, it takes a good two minutes for the tripod to show up. Apparently they weren't concerned much about it. Then we have Tom, being the only person in the world smart enough to throw some grenades in the machine after being captured, even though other soldiers were captured along side of him. Then everyone falls 50 feet in a metal cage onto pointed branches and walks away.
Lastly, the MOST ANNOYING ENDING IN HISTORY. Apparently, while the rest of the world is in turmoil, Tom's ex-wife and her family are dining in luxury and safe. Not only that, but his son miraculously survives massive explosions that took out a military division, and then finds his way to his mothers, apparently not much sooner than Tom, since he hadn't changed his clothes, which must have smelled to high heaven by then.
Heres the worst part of all of this. Despite all of these flaws, I liked the movie, simply because of the background, but I didn't like it enough to get the DVD when it comes out.
The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie (2004)
Good, but not that good
My daughter loves SpongeBob, and I must admit that so do I. I have now watched every episode at least 30 times, having much of the dialogue memorized. That being said, I doubt that I will be watching the movie as much.
This movie has two things going for it. A million rabid fans, and a rather slow holiday movie start. This movie has two things going against it. A poor script that drags on and David Hasselhoff. I'm actually a fan of DH, growing up watching Night Rider and even having seen Star Crash at a drive in theater when it first came out and liking it. But his character is sort of creepy in this film in his attempt to possibly poke fun at himself. To be honest, it was the kind of creep out you would feel if Adam West donned the Batman costume, and I'm a fan of West too. On another note, some of the voice work was excellent while other voice work didn't seem to fit the characters.
Basically, it appears that the SpongeBob formula doesn't work as well in long format, while working exceptionally well in the 30 minute format. The dragging on of the movie did not hold the interest of my 3 year old daughter, while she has sat continuously through 4 hours of the 14 minute episodes.
7 out of 10 for the jokes that work, the cute factor, family friendliness, and animation.
The Matrix Revolutions (2003)
Why does the last movie in a trilogy have to stink?
I've only got 1000 words even though 10000 would be needed, so I'll limit myself to logical flaws in this series at first. In fact, the only way to do the flaws justice would be to spend this entire space going off on one flaw and letting everyone know that there are about 100 others that just keep building as you go from the first masterpiece to the third piece of garbage. I saw the movie for free and still almost walked out. The first movie was so clear in concept, sly in its adherence to a Biblical Messiah story interpretation, creative in special effects, et., but the writers just gave up on vision and went for money as the movies progressed. Either that or they just lost their touch as seen so prevalently with George Lucas.
Let's just tear apart the one flaw that really could have been changed for the better. I'll leave the other 100 flaws for others. Wait, there is one flaw that I'll hit real quick before hitting the other. 150,000 sentinals against about 1000 slow, machine gun toting juggernaughts. For some unknown reason, there are no more EMP's at the base. Any moron would know that doesn't make sense, even if they had sent every single hovercraft out on the failed intercept mission, which also would have been stupid. Anyway, the battle should have lasted about 1 minute or less, but had to go on for 30 minutes like a long drawn out kung fu theatre sequence that was more for the purpose of dance and show than for sense. Machines were just flying around like schools of fish rather than attacking in any intelligent way. Even when they took out the leader, they all (at least 100) went at him in a single file. About 10 coming from different directions at the same time could have taken him out. And why not use the lasers? O.K., may they were programmed to be cruel and slash things to death. And why only one drill came through in the beginning. We saw at least 3-4 in the second movie. Did they disappear like the mystery EMP's?
O.K., back to my other point.
At the end of part 2 when Neo stopped the sentinals, I was really hoping that they would go with the most plausible explanation, that the real world was in fact just another faction of the matrix. In that way, the choices that were belabored in part 2 would only be on false pretenses. I suppose that this concept could still be a possibility, and in fact, may be the only one if we assume that a program such as Smith can traverse the two worlds. Neo could have been the first One to have recognized the pattern. In fact, perhaps he is the first one to self-actualize out of the double matrix and into the real world by his final sacrifice. It surely would make the tag line make more sense. Sure, it splits completely from the Messiah story they started with, but it takes it into a new realm that was only touched on by The Thirteenth Floor and other movies. Imagine the possibilities. The messiah could then form peace in the real real world and release the humans into the paradise that the real real world may be now that machines have been in control of for so long. Machine control linked to Satan influence on Earth. Yada Yada, we've now gone deep into philosophical contexts. That would have been cool. But alas, they decided to just give him the ability to blow up sentinals. O.K., just how did this happen? Why did this happen? In what plausible way does the ability to program in the Matrix parlay into the ability to blow up in the real world. Alright, so that wasn't his only power. He could also see things while blind. But now he can only see machine world items. Once again, making no sense. We could try to make sense by saying that he was somehow seeing energy patterns and that maybe his blowing up of sentinals ability was related to his new sense of electric fields. But wait, he was seeing more than that, like the floor. Was there energy in everything in the machine world? Must have been I guess? And apparently, Neo could see them, and make them blow up. But even after they kill his woman, he decides that rather then use that power to just blow everything up, he'll save humanity. That's about the only time in the movie he wasn't sucking on a bottle being told what to do at least.
List of other problems 1 - The machines don't need us for power. This is obvious, although the architect and the humans seem oblivious to the fact. I won't even get into the biophysics of it, but clearly, if the machines are so advanced and so ahead of humans as eluded to in the Animatrix, they could do it. Perhaps the keep us around as part of their programming. A fail-safe inability to completely irradicate humans. But that is what they were in the process of doing. Maybe they just hate us. If so, why not just kill us and use another power source that caused less problems? O.K., they just hate us. But then, why keep their bargain with Neo? O.K., they hate us, and they can't lie, even to us. Sure, why not?
2 - Neo destroyed the something at the end of part 2, but it must not have been the Matrix since people were still popping in and out of it.
3 - What in the world was the purpose of the train station? I know what they told us was the purpose, but why would they need something to move programs in and out of the Matrix. It's called I/O and they should have been able to do it at the speed of light. And exactly what were they coming to or from? One was the Matrix, and one was the real world, which I guess was the mainframe, but apparently, this all powerful mainframe can be fooled by a train station program. I don't even know what I'm saying anymore because none of it made sense. And even though Neo can blow up Sentinals and reprogram the Matrix, he has no power whatsoever in the train station. Sure, why not.
4 - I'm sure I'm out of space by now.
Shu shan zheng zhuan (2001)
Will there be another one
I've read the the director made this film in order to present a vision that was not possible in the first iteration due to special effects limitations of the time. Apparently, he concentrated too much on special effects and left off the story. That being said, does anyone know if there will be a third movie that tries to concentrate on both story and effects?
Scooby-Doo (2002)
If not for Shaggy and Scooby, one of the worst adaptations ever
The summary pretty much sums up my feeling about this movie. Any classic Scooby fan will like this film for its entertainment, but not for anything to do with Scooby Doo, and here is why I feel that way.
After watching about 30 episodes in one week, I performed a small role analysis on Scooby Doo once for a psych course, and things don't pan out well with the movie. Most of the time in the series, Fred was the one who kept the group together and was a natural leader. What some won't recognize is that when it came to getting his hands dirty though, it was a sign of fear on his part that the group was always using Shag and Scoob for the dangerous parts and maybe a little machismo in that he always went with Daphne. But Fred as a vain, self-centered, retard as in the movie? Hello, Fred solved half of the mysteries. It wasn't all Velma. Fred was the leader because of his likability. Here, Fred is not likeable at all and Freddie Prince was a horrible choice for the part. I like Prince as an actor, he simply didn't have the physique to play the part and his emotional spread wasn't there. I don't know who to blame, but I'm going with the writers since I think he's done better. Furthermore, I did NOT want him and Daphne to get together, as I always hoped in the cartoons.
Then there is Daphne. For goodness sakes. Buffy is hot and a good actress, but Daphne was in no way a "woman of the 90's". In the newer Scooby Doo movies, they did a really good job of modernizing her, especially in Zombie Island (where the monsters were also real). She was an individual career woman and her wealth was underplayed. She was still able to be attractive without being a ditz. She had just enough vulnerability to make her endearing to Fred. But here she comes off much more self-centered (although not so much as Fred by a long shot in the movie) and a martial arts expert. Why would she even hang out with the rest of these misfits? The whole universe is thrown out of whack. To put it in the words of another favorite modern kids cartoon, it really WOMPED.
Next, there's Velma. Her vulnerability is shown through her glasses dependence, along with a little comic relief. She is the intelligent one. Here is another place where this film upset me. They go to all the trouble of modernizing Daphne, and then they go and throw back Velma. Here was the woman of the 90's invented in the 60's, but in this film, she is prone to peer pressure and just wants to be cool. Well, Velma always was cool and sure of herself. She didn't need the accolade of others, she had her own intrinsic motivations. With the exception that Velma is totally hot in this film, they screwed her. The actress did an excellent job playing the part that was directed and we will definitely being seeing more of her, but the part itself stunk. I in no way pitied the character and wanted her to be liked, instead, I wanted her to just get the you know what slapped out of her until she came to her senses.
Finally, there is Shaggy and Scooby. Yes, I saved the best for last. Lillard and Scooby were excellent. Lillard, although somewhat type cast when you look at his parts (and he needs to do more without Prince) is the key to this film. His interplay with Scooby is believable. The computer graphics are believable. But even here the writers and directors messed up a good thing. The drug scene was always an implication in the toons. It in no way needed to be anything more than that. Most children under 12 do not pick up on the drug hints in the cartoons. Well, there is no way to miss it her. Boo on hollywood for this one. Should have been PG-13, and then maybe they would have rewritten it a little to get back a PG rating, like getting rid of the drug parts. I don't remember weed smoke coming out of the Mystery Machine, do you? For that matter, they're sort of saying then that all of the kids did drugs if only second hand, which is sort of implied in the series as well, but it doesn't need to be in the movie this way.
Lastly, we all hate Scrappy. Can we agree on that one. I especially liked the handling of him on the Cartoon Network when they did the Scooby Doo Project. Velma and Daphne go running when they hear da-da-da-da---da-da. Velma tells Daphne, It's only Scrappy, and then Daphne replies as she is running, "I know." Made me laugh and laugh.
I know some other commenters didn't like real monsters. Well, that didn't kill this film. Zombie Island had real monsters and it was good. Witch's Ghost had a real witch and it was good. This had real monsters and it stunk, flat out. If I didn't have free tickets, I wouldn't see it. I have every Scooby available on DVD, but I will NOT be buying this on DVD unless it is under $12, and even then, I will only get it for Lillard/Shaggy and Scooby. Lillard's Scooby was even better and made me laugh more than SNL's parody.
South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut (1999)
The most intelligent comedy of the year
No one has the ability to turn something absolutely absurd into comic satire like the writers of South Park. Most people won't even see the deeper meaning behind most of the movie, especially the fact that TV tends to follow the main theme of the movie, that sex and violence are O.K. as long as we don't say any dirty words.
Grease 2 (1982)
Yes, the movie sucks, but not as much as some
Yes, this movie sucks. Pretty badly too. But a weighted average of 3.2. Is this film really as bad a Sorority House Massacre II. I think not. The lead actress alone deserves at least a 5, and it's the songs that suck more than the singing. Anyway, I gave it a 10 just to try and raise it above a 3.2. I've spent hours trying to find a movie with a lower weighted average and haven't been able to yet.