Change Your Image
9ofeverything
Reviews
The Prestige (2006)
Confusing, idiotic, and pointless.
Before I forget: Somebody said this was the best twisting movie since Fight Club. Honestly, must you make such a pointless comparison? Not only was Fight Club a hundred times better than this movie, the only thing it shares is the fact that people look like other people. Deal with it.
I thought it could be a good movie - but then, of course, I watched it.
This was a chance to make something great. It had good acting, famous actors, pretty cinematography and and a pretty neat premise about Tesla and his magic electricity/ duplication machine stuff. It failed, though, rather miserably.
Now, it would have been a good movie, had it been muted, all the death and violent scenes, cut out, and simply been a showcase of interesting shots and pretty colors. And, of course, Tesla' cloning machine. In fact, the premise of the movie was pretty stupid. Seriously, there was no reason to make them magicians at all. Anybody can kill people, it just provides more interesting deaths if they can drown people in tanks or have people shot with their own guns. Take a hint from Pan's Labyrinth. Just grab the other guy and stab them in the face outright.
It was confusing throughout. I eventually got it, but I had to pause the movie a few times. I'm not stupid, it was just so unexpectedly confusing I had to pause and think. Okay, so some guy called Angier drowns in a tank. The other guy, Bordon, goes to jail, and reads the dead guy's journal. The bits from the past switched between the dead guy reading the diary of the guy in jail, and the events leading up to him getting the diary. Both the past and present have a lot of unneeded jumping around all over the place, and in between all of that, the magicians end up hurting and killing a bunch of random people. They steal each others tricks, most notably the "Transporting Man trick". Eventually, Angier finishes reading Bordon's diary which ends with something like "I KNOW YOU HAVE THIS, I GAVE IT TO YOU ON PURPOSE. MWA!" As Bordon finishes reading Angier's diary, he gets a similar message. Finally, the movie confesses outright (although it hinted throughout) that Angier had created doubles that died every time, and as actually alive, (he most likely framed Bordon) and he steals Bordon's daughter for revenge and Bordon prepares to be hanged. Cutter refuses to let Bordon be hanged, but then doesn't care that Bordon (who had a double; one always posed as his agent. this is also how he did the transporting man trick.) gets the happy ending because he shot Angier, who made a ridiculous speech about how he never wanted Bordon's trick and just wanted to 'see the audiences' faces'. "OMG, they clap for me! Must kill more people!" After Bordon shot Angier, Cutter should have shot Bordon. Then they would have both gotten what they deserved. Except poor little girl would be all sad with no father. Cutter wouldn't want that.
Oh yes, and one of the Bordon's loved Emily, their wife, and the other loved Olivia. Emily got mad because of the "affair", if you could even call it that, and so she hung herself. Rather stupid if you ask me.
Speaking of the deaths, I thought the whole "Oh noes, Angier's wife is dead" thing to be idiotic. It started the whole stupid story. Throughout the whole movie, Bordon repeats "I don't know which knot I tied." Wow, I think you would, considering you specifically changed your frigging mind about what you were tying halfway through. I mean, seriously.
What's wrong with you people? Get over it! I mean, seriously, you can't be that crazy obsessed, since the movie didn't mention the origin of this insane obsession. Oops. Never mind. Bad move, Nolan.
The only reason this deserves a three is because of the actors, the cinematography, and the fact that it made me mad enough to slap everyone involved. Except David Bowie, because, in all honesty, the Tesla parts were all pretty cool in premise. They should have made the movie all about him. Three Cheers for "Tesla: The Movie".
Was I really the only one who thought Scarlett looked a bit like Keira Knightley?
Dora the Explorer (2000)
Ugh.
I've only seen the show maybe once, but my sister tells me horror stories when she comes home from babysitting. Now, most people are like, "I HATE THIS SHOW" and the rest are either saying, "My kids love it" or "YOU'RE NOT A LITTLE KID YOU CAN'T APPRECIATE IT!!!" But to tell you the truth, even if I was a little kid, I would honestly hate this show. If I got a question wrong, Dora would say, "Good job, you got it right!" And that means there's a chance the kids could think they were right and you would have to convince them their idol was wrong.
The whole interaction premises is a rather dumb one in the first place. I don't think it's a great idea to make your children think the TV can talk to them. I mean, sure, it's good to get kids involved, but do you really need to involve them so much, they'd be trying to climb into the TV to be with Dora? You could easily just leave out the interaction and the kids would still love it. I doubt that interaction is that important, or else most shows wouldn't be around anymore. Thomas the Tank Engine wouldn't be in it's 10th series. (Don't even get me started about how THAT show got ruined)
So, basically, I'm not saying that Dora will brainwash your children, I'm saying that there are many other shows that are more than just learning Spanish and how to jump over a pit of snakes or whatever.
Hoodwinked! (2005)
Good, no matter what everyone says.
First, I'd like to say something: STOP COMPLAINING. The CG isn't Pixar-quality, but it was made on a low budget. Jeez, people. They started with $5,000! Of course, the stop-motion style and the character models (which a lot of people hate) added to the charm of this movie, I found. Also, another thing people complain about is that it's not for kids, and it's boring for them. *BEEP* I'm sorry, wrong. The billy goat's song has made every kid I know who seen it laugh, and Twitchy the squirrel in very entertaining, especially for the smaller kids.
On to the story. Well, I'd have to say that the writers could have made it less obvious it was the bunny. They gave him an evil look when Red falls out of the cable car, he says a very obvious line in the woodsman's story, and he knows way too much for an innocent little bunny. Of course, the rest of the story more than makes up for it. I like how each story fits together in unusual and unexpected ways; it made it a whole lot more interesting. Some nice touches were granny's "Fo' shizzle" line, and the woodsman work off experience while pretending to be Dolph: "Uh boss?" "What is it?" "Paul's Bunion Cream is a soothing formula..."
I enjoyed this movie, and so did numerous friends of mine. All of them who have seen this movie, in fact. One last thing II have to say is: Make your own judgements instead of listening to the whiners. A lot of the time, they make trivial points, or trash the movie entirely with no backup. (Not always though; I'm only trashing the clueless ones, no the ones with reasons to back them up.) I would suggest renting it first to see if you like it.