jagooch's Reviews

The Amazing Spider-Man (2012)

4/10

13 July 2023

The movie feels like they added a plot after coming up with the special effects. It checks the boxes of the expected plot points, but the acting and character development are non-existent. The movie doesn't give you a reason to care about the main characters, so you are left with just enjoying the special effects or taking a nap.

Emma Stone looks nothing like Mary Jane from the comics, and doesn't have a believable character arc. She goes from not liking to loving Peter Parker for no apparent reason. I guess it had to happen for the plot to move forward, but it does not happen in a convincing manner.

My advice is to watch the original movies or , even better, read the comics.

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Darby O'Gill and the Little People (1959)

9/10

A Magical Story for the Family

12 January 2020

Be transported back to simpler times where people mostly play small-town games with each other with good intentions. The references to Irish culture are refreshing and inspiring in these times where some would see it erased. The acting is bright and energetic. The story meanders a bit but plot threads all have satisfying ending, no loose ends.

The special effects are very dated, but they achieve their intended effect without breaking the suspension of disbelief.

Sean Connery, Janet Munro, and Albert Sharp all turn in great performances. This is a magical film for the whole family to enjoy. I highly recommended seeing it , several times!

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Joker (I) (2019)

9/10

The Joker Stands On His Own

27 October 2019

Joker

The Joker is similar to the DC Joker character but is not a criminal genius.

The movie was a great depiction of how a person who has been mistreated, lied to, and ignored, totally lacking access to human compassion, can snap.

The acting is top notch, the plot follows the journey of a mind into madness. Not only that, but it makes a statement about the society we live in. There are some really good plot twists and thought-provoking moments here that will prompt self-inspection.

It puts a spotlight on the importance of addressing mental health issues in modern times.

I highly recommend seeing this movie, and not for the comic book tie-in, either. This movie stands on its own and didn't need the context of a comic book character to get it's message across.

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Captain Marvel (2019)

2/10

Decent, but Breaks the MCU

9 March 2019

Pros I liked the CGI special effects and a few of the plot twists they threw in keep it from being too predictable. Cons: Completely neglecting the source material, appropriating the existing character and twisting them to send a message. Capt Marvell was a male super hero and they should have ran with Ms Marvel or made a new super-hero character for this film. Breaking canon - Facts established in previous MCU films were contradicted in this film, so now I don't know which film's telling of history to believe. Handling of Nick Fury's character was poorly done. I won't see him as the gritty, battle-hardened vet that he was in previous films.

Advice - Skip this film. It causes confusion by disrupting everything that came before it. It's like a reboot of the marvel universe ... or a parallel dimension. Save your money for another movie.

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The Green Hornet (2011)

3/10

High Expectations Dashed Against the Rocks

22 January 2011

I went to see this film based on comments from friends that it was a good movie. It sounded silly but entertaining.

What a got was a movie that wanted to be that, but didn't pull it off.

Pros: Doesn't take itself seriously Good premise Action scenes Interesting plot Decent special effects

Cons: Acting is really bad, especially Seth Rogen. He can't act. Please stop casting him as he ruins every movie he is in. We don't need a role model who's an idiot. Kids/teens need a hero who is smart and has his act together. It reflects makes being an underachiever "cool" American society needs to idolize physical, mental, and moral excellence to get us out of the cesspool we're in. Yes, that is a lot of weight to place on films, but think about how many people watch them, who watches them, and their effect is on their audience.

Green Hornet is completely incompetent. That moves the film from suspension of disbelief to actual disbelief. The movie convinces you his partner can operate completely alone and you spend the entire movie wondering why he doesn't.

The stunts are a bit iffy, but maybe that was intentional. However, for me they detracted from the film.

There you have it. I touched not only on the Green Hornet, but on films in general.

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Tron: Legacy (2010)

7/10

Definitely Worth Watching Despite Imperfections

25 December 2010

I watched this twice on the same day, once in Japanese(which I barely know ), and once in English. I think this gave me the ability to look at the visual and audio components separately, making for a clear picture of both.

Story Fairly simple, though you have some good subplots between father/son and user/program. There is even a conflict between decisions made during youthful idealism and current values(if I had known then what I know now). It's overall premise is very similar to the Matrix/Terminator, though the mechanics are different.

Eyecandy From some beautiful women in skin-tight suits, to vast panoramas and believable CGI, I think there is something for everyone here. If you know the history of the making of the original Tron, you'll appreciate the Klu's suit.

Music It fits the movie perfectly, and I've been a Daft Punk fan for a very long time. 2 thumbs up on the score.

Script This is a weak point. It does well enough, but there is nothing quotable here. Also, Flynn is out of character in several places, you may not like this at all, I was mostly OK with it. A lot of time has passed, and perhaps he's become a full-blown hippie in the meantime.

Immersion This film does a good job of drawing the view in. You either care enough about characters to watch what happens, or can't wait for more special effects. Overall suspension of disbelief is achieved, though., as many have mentioned, the young Flint is not very believable. Another minus might be that many properties of the physical world exist, clouds, water, exhaust, and even visors that fog up.

Camera I love the camera work, its a strong point. you see exactly what you need to see to pull in the story. The 3D isn't that prevalent, and I found myself taking the glasses of for long spells to get a better movie viewing experience.

Loyalty to the Original: If you've seen it, then you'll be fairly happy with the consistency between this film and the original. I didn't notice any revisionist history, which is good.

Overall I recommend watching this, they didn't do every thing perfectly. It could use more polish(like a script review and maybe using another method to make the young Flynn effect. It kept me interested all the way through, and the ending was fitting and not entirely expected!

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Space Battleship Yamato (2010)

5/10

Disappointed By The Changes

7 December 2010

Warning: Spoilers

**** Contains Spoilers ****** Disclaimer: I am not fluent in Japanese

First, some background. I watched all of the episodes of the US of "Star Blazers" when back in elementary school. When I heard from a friend that it was being released as a movie in Japan( where I currently live ) , I just had to go see it. So much so, that I rewatched the TV series, and did some research about it on the Web. Some interesting facts:

The Argo in the US release was originally called the "Yamato"

The Yamato's namesake was a WW2 Destroyer.

The Yamato was built right where I work at today!

There is a museum near Hiroshima dedicated to the ship

Now for the movie. I watched this last week in Yokosuka, JP. Despite being in Japanese, I felt confident I would be able to follow the storyline even if they changed it to adapt it for cinema. OK, I go into the late showing and it's the theater is practically empty. Not a good sign of the 3 day after the release. The beginning was promising, but slowly it became obvious that they made some major revisions to the story. That in itself isn't bad or unexpected, but they removed several key elements, or neutered them. They had a huge palette of source material, and made a film that felt half-full.

Let me explain. First, the good: *Wildstar was still pretty crazy shoot-em up kind of guy. *The Wave motion gun still owns. *Nova( Yuki ) was still hot. Plus, now she punches people and flies a fighter ships! Special Effects/CGI were well done.

The Bad: * Starsha? Where are you? Your sister is also missing. Thanks for still managing to get the Wave motion gun blueprints to us without appearing in the film. * Dessloc is no longer the witty arch-enemy, he's some weird crystalline hologram. * Gamelons look like the flying lizards from Pitch Black. * 5 fighter ships can take on the entire Gamelon fleet * The radiation purifier is inside of Wildstar. Weirdness. * Everyone gets drunk for no reason. * The music...you have got to be kidding me * Long scenes of a character staring into space for some unknown reason. * The spaceship only has 12 people on it, apparently. I would have been an extra...for free! * The ending...I won't spoil that for you. It's a major disappointment. * Don't pick up random ships and let them inside of yours...it could be a trap. Or a bomb.

There is no reason it had to be this lame. I'm still glad I went to see it as it was my first Japanese movie in a Japanese theater. The experience was good, but the film was lacking.

My recommendation is to wait for it on DVD/Netflix, unless you want to donate money to the film in hopes they make a worthy sequel.

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Kickboxer (1989)

6/10

80's Action Flick Alert - Bring Popcorn

10 November 2010

Warning: Spoilers

Back when I watched this, martial arts were all the rage. They had 2 basic formulas - person who was a complete novice and knows it learns ow to fight, or person has some skill but they aren't as good as think they are so they need to learn how to fight well. Van Damme was one of my favorites in this genre, and this movie doesn't disappoint, throwing the main characters into fights in and out of ring.

The rape could have been left out without hurting the movie, but I guess they wanted to make you hate the already very hate-able character even more.

Van Damme is in amazing shape, there is some lame humor here, but the great action and scenic shots make this an interesting movie.

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The American (2010)

1/10

Skip This, see Day of the Jackal

11 September 2010

This movie does invoke deep thought about what is going on in the characters minds. It needed to be a thriller to make you interested in what is going on, but it isn't. Instead you get a slow drawn out character-study that is not unlike a staring contest. Not much is said or done, and you are working hard to read the characters face to figure out what is going on inside.

The movie itself is pointless. It want to keep you in suspense and deep thought in lieu of giving you action, but it succeeds in doing neither. I left the theater wondering why most of the events happened, as there are not clear indicators why they do what they do, especially at the end.

It made me think of the old movie, Day of the Jackal. Which has striking similarities and is a hell of a lot more interesting. It makes you think and keeps you engrossed in the plot. This film, however, does not.

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Married... with Children: Proud to Be Your Bud? (1993)

Season 8, Episode 3

Pretty Funny

23 April 2010

I loved the long wait Al goes through on the phone to get a car part. The more serious subplot is Bud trying to cope with his inability to get a date. It ends leaving you wondering if it will be continued in the next episode, but apparently they dropped it with no explanation. Also Kelly's motivation to save electricity is funny. Darcy and Miss Bundy don't play a big part in this episode. Al and Bundy's plots are the majority of the episode. This story show a new turn for the series ,as they attempt to add a serious note to the show. I highly recommend this episode. And think you should purchase the series just for this episode.

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Avatar (2009)

9/10

Food for the Eyes and Brain

2 January 2010

The panaoramic view of space, planets, forests, and skies is just amazing to look at. I conveyed this to a friend by saying they could have just turned the sound off and looped the movie to keep me the theater in awe for hours.

The story really pulls you in, though it moves more slowly than necessary, I explain this away by saying they wanted to show off the visuals, buying time with a slow-moving story line. You get a good background story on the main characters, giving the viewer a idea of where each ones loyalty lies, their background, and why they act the way they do. There is revenge, the hope for a new life, defending your land and family, rivalry, and compassion.

Is the plot without holes? Definitely not, but for me, it wasn't a big deal. Avatar does a great job of suspending disbelief, which is my short way of making unbelievable things seem possible. This keeps your mind from rejecting what it sees, and crying out something like "puhleaze, there's no way he made that jump!" .

If you seen many movies and/or read many books, the general flow of the story becomes apparent, and you can predict most of the key parts of the story line, e.g. who will live, who will die, and who will marry who.

Maybe I am just one of those "ohh, shiny object!" people, but I was very impressed with this film, and plan on seeing it again. It has an excellent message, thought not new, is worth being retold so that we don't forget it.

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Brothers (I) (2009)

2/10

Not Moving at All

2 January 2010

Watching this movie was a last minute decision by my group of friends, and I went in with no idea of what it was going to be about.

The short version of my review is that this movie intends to be gritty, emotional, and controversial at the same time, but it fails to get you attached to any of the characters. Since you don't care about them, the film fails to achieve any of its goals. I'd compare it to reading a newspaper article about something controversial, like "man robs store". You don't like that the store was robbed, you would probably feel bad for the storekeeper who was held at gunpoint, and you might be curious as to what drove the thief to commit the armed robbery, but you don't know enough to pursue really get emotionally involved. You conclusion might be "that sucks, I hope they catch him." The beginning is supposed to understand what leads up to the act that the rest of the movie pivots around, but it fails to connect you to the mind of the main character. Good luck trying to figure out what he's going through mentally by the expression on his face.

The next part tries to develop another controversial moment, but again you don't connect to the characters, so they could doing the most atrocious things and you wouldn't feel anything.

The last part of the final is supposed to be a psychological journey that puts you in suspense as to how things will end up. I was only in suspense to see how the theater manager would respond to my request for my money back.

It's sad to leave a negative review since I've been a Natalie Portman fan for quite a while, her acting is fine, but she can't make the storyline interesting. I think they really wanted something Oscar worthy with this film, and ended up with a $5 bin movie.

Someone should have been asking questions like "how do they know what the character is feeling?", "why does the viewer care?", and maybe through in a "how can we create the feeling of suspense at the end?"

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Million Dollar Baby (2004)

5/10

Scarred

29 May 2009

Warning: Spoilers

This movie mentally scarred me for life. After a friends birthday party, we decided to see what is playing and this was the only movie everyone could see before they had to go home. So, we watched it.

It starts great, has some Rocky-like character development and conflict between the trainer and the boxer, and finally it ends in tragedy.

To put it plainly, they took Gia's storyline and moved it from the world of fashion to boxing. It's sad they could not come up with something original, or at least presented a repackaged story well enough that the audience would not care that it was a rehash.

If you like disappointment, this movie is for you.

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Westworld (1973)

7/10

Nostalgia and Entertainment - Together!

24 May 2008

I first watched this movie when I was very young, and just finished watching it again. The premise of a resort where you can kill, steal, fornicate,etc without consequence while playing a role in a make believe world is tempting, to say the least. There are quite a few underlying themes, man vs machine, fidelity, controlling the environment, to name a few. I think that they are all well represented in this film. Its presented in a way that will pull you in and keep you glued to the screen until the end! Are there plot/techinical problems? Sure, as in any film. There are times a deactivated robot is blinking or breathing, a gun that shoot bullets until the battery dies, etc, you could even challenge the idea that power to the robots could be "cut off" since they are not plugged into any thing. I recommend you ignore this small issues and enjoy the film on all of its levels.

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Hot Fuzz (2007)

1/10

Bad Movie

10 May 2007

This movie sucks big time. I don't know if the 20000 voters are Englishmen, but people, have you ever seen a real MOVIE? I see the movie is cataloged as action, but is ridiculous, not funny, ridiculous.If it was to be a comedy i wouldn't comment so harshly about it, but given the context ... The story is totally ridiculous, everything about the movie is ridiculous. The acting isn't so bad, but this is about the only thing about the movie that isn't bad, the rest is just ridiculous. I can't go any further without adding spoilers, but there wouldn't be anything to spoil, trust me. So i finish this comment here, not without warning you first - don't go to this movie - you'll regret it

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300 (2006)

10/10

300 - Best Action Movie in a Long Time!

14 March 2007

After seeing 300 on the big screen last weekend, I cannot get it out of my thoughts. The movie worked on multiple levels, from the surface level of combat to deeper, more symbolic ideas such as ideals vs politics, corruption, and the value of freedom.

The movie flips between past and present, politics and idealism, Sparta and Thermoplae.

You get all of the eye-candy that you could ever want, tons of action, and a lot to think about, all in one well-wrapped package. Is it worth the price of a ticket? Heck yeah! Don't let the nay sayers discourage you, they do not realize that this movie is a comic-book adaptation designed to use exaggerated, large-than-life imagery to make a point. I refer these whiners to Maximus ( from Gladiator ) "Are you not entertained?"

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Decoys 2: Alien Seduction (2007 Video)

7/10

Excellent Sequel

7 March 2007

The sequel is much like the original, but without the sentimentality. There are no sympathies for the aliens this time, but you still get the college stereo types and hormone driven students doing anything to score.

Overall, I felt this film was worth watching for those who go in expecting a B horror movie type atmosphere. Oscar material this is not, so those looking for a deep plot and character development should just stay away.

FYI, Kim Poirer is back and looking as good as ever. I'd watch this just to see her again.

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Rocky Balboa (2006)

8/10

Loved It

24 December 2006

I just finished watched this wonderful movie, and recommend that other go see it. Its a mix of the past and the present, well-balanced and thoughtfully written so that the story moves along well while tugging at your heart. As others have pointed out, the Rocky series started losing heart at the third film, with the 5th one a feeble attempt to regain lost ground.

This film success recaptures the spirit of the first, and gets and keep the audience caring about what is going to happen next. All the way up until the end, you will wonder how things are going to turn out, a feat often attempted but rarely achieved by filmmakers.

While I am more geared to fast-pace, beat everyone up action movies like the Matrix, I am sure periodically view this film in the future.

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Stormbreaker (2006)

3/10

Turning Gold into Lead

20 November 2006

I was hoping this movie would faithfully interpret the books into film, as I loved the books.

However, they decided to alter the film to and they changed it in a bad way, and really did not bring the image of a teen thrust into danger to the screen.

Moreover, the acting did not impress me. It practically put me to sleep. The story lacked continuity, and often the events and the reactions did not go together. Even the ending was confusing to anyone who did not read the books.

The action scenes were over the top, with useless footage that annoyed me.

Too bad, it could have been a good movie.

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Idlewild (2006)

2/10

Nice Music Video - Wait For the DVD

3 September 2006

This would have been a great straight-to-DVD movie, but somehow it made it into theaters. While there is action, music, and some humor, there is no plot. That is not a problem if the film can keep the viewer entertained ( instead of involved ). This film fails to do that. Much like a music video, things are going on but with no background, and after a few minutes, you want to change the channel to something more interesting.

The music is good, and so is the dancing, but it would serve better as a background to something like food at a fine restaurant rather than being the main attraction.

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jagooch

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