Reviews

This movie is really in a mess. First off it jumps all over the place and needs the narration of Anthony Hopkins to try and keep the audience aware of what exactly is going in. This is a true weakness and makes this movie look more like a documentary than a real bio-pic. It covers some key-points, or what the makers feel are the key points, of Alexanders life. This is not offered chronologically or in any other logical order (it even starts with his death). And while Hopkins is narrating away, his mother played by Angeline Jolie decides to do voice overs as well. Heck, we only lack the expert-historians to make this a true documentary.

All characters seem very artificial and evoke absolutely no sympathy whatsoever. The movie looks OK and the battle scene is quite good. Even the music by Vangelis is just mediocre and can be described as a cross between his music for 1492 and funnily enough some John Barry 007 themes.

Not really worth investing time in I would say; try the Discovery Channel instead.

Although it explores some of the same themes (someone seeing ghosts and being 'stalked' by a specific one) it is anything but a sequel to The Eye. A woman has a near death experience and starts seeing ghosts. She seems to see one more than the others and as she discovers this one has a connection with her without her even knowing. The scares in this movie are not really there. There are no 'jump up' moments anywhere and it all becomes quite dull when our main character just keeps on screaming for every little thing she sees. Not really a must-see movie, although the concept of reincarnation as explored in this movie is an interesting one.

This is a very confusing movie. It starts off with a lot of bearded men acting like they just escaped from an insane asylum. One seems to act crazier than the others as he starts screaming to someone half hidden behind a wall. This is, as we later learn, Jesus and we leave him there for a moment as we now focus on another bearded man, Judas, who gets 30 coins from men in funny hats.

The two bearded men then meet up and Jesus gets arrested. He is then paraded in front of everyone and it's sister through the city and everyone either is indifferent to him or wants him dead. One stop is to what seems to be a Roman, the other to a character escaped from Xena-Warrior Princess During all this time he barely utters a word. When he was paraded around the town long enough, he then just gets beaten the hell out of him, he gets crucified and that's about it.

You never really get to know any of the characters and all these men with beards all look alike so in the beginning you don't really know who's who and what their role is. The beating is very bloody and will satisfy every sadist to the extreme.

It is quite apparent that you need to know every single character in this, what their connection and role is as nothing is being revealed about this in any way. As far as good story telling goes this is a real flop but I gather this is only directed to Christians who know their Bible in and out, and I am not such a person.

So, this is the end and what an anti-climax it is. The Two Towers showed some promise, although half of it bored my pants off.

Here again only half the movie is interesting. The Frodo and Sam part is so boring and repetitive I just needed to use my Fast Forward button to get through it. This is what happens in this part: Sam screams at Gollum, Frodo defends Gollum, Gollum speaks to himself, Frodo is in mortal danger and Sam saves him. They've been doing the very same thing over and over again since the beginning of The Two Towers.

Then the other part: also a replay of The Two Towers, I'm afraid. Orcs attack a human stronghold and the humans barely survive. The battle is even the same: everything is almost lost and then re-enforcements arrive saving the day.

It's also quite obvious that Viggo Mortenssen was a very bad choice for a pivotal part in this movie. His acting is wooden and his courageous speech before the battle is so powerless, mainly because of his wimpy voice and his foreign accent doesn't help either.

The ending starts about half an hour before the credits and just keeps going on and on. Aragon is crowned king and that should have been it. But no, they need to sugar coat everyone's exit till it almost made me throw up.

Ok, the source material does dictate how it ends (although the ending of the book was better), but it could've been made better by just ending after the coronation.

So 3 out 3 movies that were only half interesting. So, maybe time for a new cut with only the interesting parts (about three hours for the whole lot would do).

When I heard that Identity lends a lot of the Classic Agatha Christie novel Ten Little Niggers my curiosity was aroused. I like this novel very much, but never really saw a good presentation on film. This movie does start off as a take on the novel: ten people are stranded in a remote location, they all have something in common and then the killing starts. It's quite suspenseful and keeps you wondering who the killer is. But there are little hints and another storyline that makes you suspect something else might be afoot.

Then all of a sudden half way through the movie you're hit on the forehead with an enormous revelation and plot twist of almost `Sixth Sense' proportions. This changes the `who's the killer' routine completely and unfortunately also reduces the tension felt before the twist. But still a very good thriller until the decision of the writers to put in another plot twist at the end that completely spoiled the movie for me.

The performances in this movie are anything between average and very good, but it's John Cusack, who seems to get better with each movie, again who really carries the movie. Both sound and vision are very well balanced to serve the mood of the story.

So would I recommend this movie for your viewing pleasure? I would even with that extra twist at the end that spoiled it for me.

Welcome, Jean Reno, to the league of actors who put on an excellent performance even if they're in a bad movie.

Wasabi is such a movie. It starts off fine, with Mr. Reno as a hard hitting, non compromising cop, who of course is not liked by his superiors and is ordered to take a vacation. The tone of it all is quite light end resembles a lot of French cop movies.

Unfortunately it all turns bad when Reno's character goes of to Japan to see what happened with his long lost love who died and why he was in her will. In Japan he meets up with a French side-kick and an annoying daughter he never knew he had. Well, he then has a run in with the Yakuza and saves the day.

This movie has no script to speak off, but the actors try to get through it anyhow. They do this by using every cliché in the book, and so there are no surprises to be found there. To make things worse it's all accompanied by one of the most annoying soundtracks ever (sound like someone tried to make music on a food processor).

Still Jean Reno gives a solid performance and that is the only grace of this movie, but you won't miss anything if you give this movie a miss.

'The Three Musketeers" is one of my favourite books and I'm always weary when I see another adaptation for the screen. The only worthy version for the big screen was The Three/Four Musketeers double bill from the early seventies, as it followed the storyline of the book very closely and made for very entertaining viewing.

And so we come to this version. This is the freest adaptation of this story I ever came across. It seems like they only kept the names and setting (18th Century France) and used a very flimsy story to tie together one sword scene after another. I did try to follow the story while trying to forget the original, but it truly is nothing else than hollow characters fighting each other. Not that the fighting scenes are bad, but most of them are hidden by the very bad lightning that haunts this movie throughout. Because of this much of the choreography is invisible and it's hard to follow who's who and what is happening. Then about the acting: not much of that going on as only Catherine Deneuve (giving quite a funny rendition of the Queen), Stephen Rae (as Richilieu) and Stephen Roth (as a new character and overall nemesis Febre) can convince that there was actually a script in existence somewhere in the production. What makes it even harder to comprehend is all the different accents used:: some are American, some English and then of course English with a French accent. Only some of the actors don't seem to be able to make up their mind which one they are going to use, even changing in mid-sentence.

I would like to give a strong point why this movie is worth watching , but it's very hard as there is nothing really original to draw your attention. Even the final fight scenes featuring a lot of ladders has been done before in more than one Chinese Martial Arts movie (One Upon A Time In China2 for example). Come to think of it: the music is excellent, but if that makes this movie essential viewing is another matter.

This movie fails where Part I failed too: only about half the movie is interesting. This time round the boring bit was Sam and Frodo who seem so stupid (they get into mortal danger each time we see them) and their journey tells nothing interesting. Even the appearance of Gollum can't save this dreadful story. The second of three stories is Aragon and friends who meet humans and then battle it out with orcs. This is quite interesting, but the battle and the end takes too long too keep me awake. But then there's the third story with Merry and Peppin and their fantastic story in meeting Treebeard. This part definitely saves the story from boring me to death and the end with the destruction of Saruman's Lair (the name escapes me) by the ents is one of the most impressive scenes I ever saw.

Overall not a bad movie, but could be a bit more exiting in the Frodo Sam story line, I almost hope when they do something stupid again they just get killed or featured much less in Part III.

I just finished watching the extended DVD cut and I have to say that it makes a huge difference.

The movie feels more complete and the extra scenes do add a lot to the characters plus adding extra plot-lines too.

Some changes are just adding an extra sentence or reaction shot, but what a difference it makes.

This movie has redeemed itself in the Alien universe, and will no longer be seen as the weaker of the 4, in my humble opinion.

This version gets 8/10

Well, the very disappointing Episode I really got me off wanting to see more new Star Wars, but as I had some free time I watched it on television when it was on.

This movie does not show any promise in the beginning, and after the ridiculous chase sequence I already gave up hope. The things that happen in this chase are totally preposterous: after the 'shortcut' Anakin jumps out of his craft and drops a mile and still ends up to catch the one they chased; moments later he loses his lightsaber. But no fear, Obi Wan incredibly has caught up to them and can catch the saber with two fingers. OK, the force is great, but this is stretching it a bit, isn't it?.

The movie then splits in two stories (as Empire did): One follows Anakin and Amidala and as the two young ones just need to fall in love, no one bothered to write any interesting dialogue. Anakin turns into a sissy for a while and whines a lot as Amidala wants to stretch the running time of the movie and holds of falling in love proper. Anakin then wants to prove he's not a sissy and decides to go off and rescue his mother, never forgetting that he needs to fall in love by the end of the movie. To makes sure this happens Amidala just tags along not doing anything really.

The other story then: Obi Wan leaves the two kids and promptly goes off visiting a lot of special effects. After walking around in corridors for about ten minutes, talking to a few CGI characters, he decides to fall of a roof and then chases Fett Senior and Junior around some more special effects. In the planet he's lead to he then discovers Christopher Lee, also talking to CGI characters. He then gets caught by some more special effects and needs to be rescued

Meanwhile Anakin is getting quite desperate and decides to take Amidala and go and rescue Obi Wan from all the special effects. After being captured and being reunited with Obi Wan, they decide to all fight the same special effects for once. After a while they temporarily turn into CGI characters themselves.

Finally, The Jedi and a huge army show up and save the day long enough to warrant a sequel.

Oh yes, almost forgot to mention: Anakin an Amadila get married at the end of this part. So do R2 and 3PO in he same ceremony, that explains why they argue so much in the original trilogy.

Well, now you know what happens, so you don't have to watch it. You can thank me later.

I was expecting quite a lot from this movie and boy was I disappointed. This is a boring story with very bleak performances by actors who don't really seem to be willing to do anything but just read their lines. The 'action' is sleep invoking and you don't even care that anything could go wrong. You can't help comparing it with the original and although that was not the best of movies it stands with head and shoulders above this remake. The Rat Pack version did have the different casino's they robbed, but here it was all compiled into one 'megavault' that seems to be able to be cracked by a granny in between her nap and afternoon tea. There's nothing original about this movie and as said the actors are much underused. The ending is even more boring than the rest of the movie. The cast (sans Clooney and Roberts) just stand there in a line looking at nothing for about ten minutes and then look at each other as if to say 'are we supposed to have any lines in this scene'. Looking at the line-up I even wondered who half of them were as I probably just blinked when their brief appearance was up.

Again the original has a wonderful ending, actually together with the original Italian Job's ending my top favourite ending for a caper movie. Give this one a miss and watch the original; at least there you have the chemistry between Sinatra and co (ánd a proper ending).

After watching this movie I just sat in silence weeping. Such an emotional uppercut I did not expect. Everything in this movie just screams `Masterpiece': the acting, photography, direction, choreography and the fabulous songs by Björk. I cannot add this to my DVD collection fast enough and this is one to keep.

This is one bad movie. I've seen better acting in adult movies. The plot if there is one is totally pointless as you just see skinheads do exactly what the cliché tells you they do: going round being racist and aggressive to everything and everyone. Stay clear of this one because it's a real stinker.