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Reviews
The Rover (2014)
Post apocalyptic case of road rage
What a bleak future this film portrays.
Felt like an apocalyptic Western meets old school Road Warrior. Filmed in the Australian desert, I think they could have financed this film from loose change at starring actors Guy Pearce and Robert Pattinson's houses.
Without a doubt the best performance from Robert Pattinson I've seen. Granted, I've not seen too many Pattinson films but he does a really good job of playing the half wit brother of one of the dudes jacked Guy's car.
Mysterious drifter shows up at the filthiest, dingiest outback pub in Australia just for a glass of water. Three shot up dudes in a truck crash outside the pub, steal his car and he will stop and nothing, nothing to get it back.
It's a wonderfully dreary world in which this film is set. Everyone is so dirty. They should get an Oscar for make up when all the actors did was not shower for what looks about three months.
Lots of long shots, tension filled chords supply the majority of the soundtrack.
I really dug it. Most folks are gonna hate it. Very gritty. Very dirty. Very violent. Very non-Hollywood.
It's a nice piece of cinema. And there's a midget.
Terminator Salvation (2009)
left me feeling a little flat...
better than terminator 3: rise of the machines. not near as good as terminator 2.
the whole thing looked a little too much like the matrix after they got neo into the "real world." all post apocalyptic and all. which is what the world is after judgment day i suppose. but still.
i did really enjoy all the "shout outs" to this films predecessors. i'll not spoil the cool parts for ya but be on the look out for "i'll be back." in one scene john Connor, played very seriously by Christian bale, is baiting a terminator with a boom box blasting out "you could be mine" by guns and roses. that's from terminator 2 for you newbies out there. and the coolest shout out of all i thought is also the most obscure. only die hards i think will catch it. in the original terminator the character of kyle Reece, john Connor's father who was sent by john Connor from the future to protect his mother, is played by Michael Biehn. this time around the teen age kyle Reece is played by Anton yelchin. who by the way plays Chekhov in the new star trek film. (that kid has had a busy summer already) the first words spoken by both actors in each of their respective films is the same exact words. and it's really cool if you catch it.
other than that, this film kinda left me feeling a little flat. the actors are all very good. Sam Worthington does a great job as the secondary male lead. moon bloodgood makes me want to work out harder at the gym. Bryce Dallas Howard is good at john Connor's love interest. she's pregnant with his baby in the film and it looks like she actually is pregnant. her hands look swollen. so that's either a spectacular make up job or she got pregnant before the film started shooting and they just went with it. either way, that is a beautiful woman. way to go little opie Cunningham.
maybe i'm just spoiled by star trek being so good and this film will be better on DVD. but for now i'm giving it two severed T-800 heads out of a possible five.
there is one big surprise treat near the end of the film that i won't give away but you may find yourself pumping your fist in the air and shouting "yes." i did anyway.
Angels & Demons (2009)
kinda sucks
maybe if i hadn't seen star trek last week this film might have been better. but then again, it's not as good as the da vinci code anyway. well, it's actually pretty much the same movie as the da vinci code but since we've already seen that one, this one seems just a little flat.
it's basically tom hanks running around rome looking for ancient symbols leading him on a path to other symbols that point him in other directions. and if you saw da vinci, then you can take out the knights of the templar and replace them with the illuminati and you have angels and demons.
angels and demons was the first of the two books by dan brown made into movies yet in this film angels is set up as a sequel. which is no big deal. but some key elements from the book are simply left out. for what reason, i do not know. it's in this book that professor langdon has a serious romantic interest in his female lead. but there is none of that in the film. there was more of a relationship for him in the da vinci code.
all in all, it's still a pretty good film. like i said, if i hadn't seen star trek last week this might be a better movie to me. but star trek just blows everything out of the water so far this summer. it's not even close.
the history and things like that just don't seem as interesting to me this time around. meaning, the da vinci code was just way better. sorry ron howard, you just missed on this one a little bit. i'm sure you'll still make a hundred million bucks, but maybe not.
one of the things that makes da vinci a better film is there is a compelling villain in the albino. but there is none such in angels and demons. the pieces to the puzzles just don't seem to fit as well in this one as in the last film. and it's a shame. it's a pretty good story, they just missed a little.
two dead catholic popes out of five.