Mini Movie Reviews 2 - The Reviewening

[The Dude]

Props to Easy E for the original. Here’s his system for all to follow:

The movie rating system is easy:
Destroy it- Terrible in almost every level. The perfect storm of incompetent film making, uninspired, thoughtless, and boring.
Pass- Watchable, with some mild entertainment value. Don't go out of your way to see it.
Rent it- Worth your time and energy. You will take something from this movie. It may not be entertainment, but it will be something.
Buy it- This movie deserves to be watched again and again.
WOW- This is simply one of the best movies ever, and everyone in the entire world should see it.

Please make sure you use [SPOILER] tags!!!

Let’s try to keep this one out of P&R

To kick things off:

Zombieland – A young shut-in is travelling across country after a zombie apocalypse. He meets an ****-kicking zombie-killer with a twinky fetish and hilarity ensues.

A good bit of fun, this film. I’m a bit of a traditionalist with my zombies, which means no running and definitely no climbing, but I have learned to put that out of my mind these days. Characters were all great. Well developed and with good arcs. The movie is a glimpse, rather than a story, but I didn’t mind that. The fact that I was left wanting to know what happened next tells me I was successfully engaged.

Buy it

[HK-47]

Great to see that someone resurrected this wonder of a thread so quickly.

Say a couple of movies this Thanksgiving weekend, most have been out for awhile but this is my first time seeing them.

The Fountain: A very deep and complex film, exploring death and how it effects us. Beautiful music and imagery, the movie is very allegorical and it's really up to the viewer to determine what everything means. If anything that's the biggest problem with it, that whole thing is a giant mind screw.

Rent It: Note that multiple viewings may be required to real figure it out.

Repo! The Genetic Opera: Was expecting a lot more, the music is bland and the characters flat. The only saving grace is Alexa Vega's great performance at the ending. Indeed if you are going to watch the movie you might as well skip everything else and go straight to it, since nothing really happens in the beginning.

Pass.

G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra: It actually wasn't that bad, a lot better then Transformers: Rotf. Some funny moments and good action keep the story going, and the twist at the end really brings everything together. Worth watching if you have nothing better to do and want to watch something fun and simple.

Rent It.

[Thud]

Pride and Glory
Cop flick with Colin Farrel and Edward Norton. Two hours of crooked cops, Edward Norton's worst acting (though still better than most Hollywood top names) and Farrel trying to pass as a Yank.

Not very impressed, but not totally horrible either.

Rent - But only if you like cop films.

[Culgore]

X-MEN Origins:Wolverine It was an okay movie. If you have seen the previous movies/know anything about X-Men and particularly Wolverine, you know how/why he becomes what he is. I feel like Deadpool could have been done better (I hear there's a movie in the making, probably a "heard from a guy wo heard from a guy" thing) as he becomes the main adversary. A major gripe with the movie would have to be the "everything blows up" factor. Wolverine's claws make a HMMWV explode into and then jumps onto a helicopter that ends up exploding, but only after the helicopter fires a couple rockets into a barn, that was apparently storing a massive amount of hydrogen or some other very explosive material, you better believe that it is going to blow up. If you like X-MEN as I do you will probably want to see this movie. I have been a little disappointed with this movie and the third one.

Pass

RocknRolla Guy Ritchie Film. If you like the English gangster films, its got a decent amount of humor, not a big action film, very little, but it is effective when there is action. I was a huge fan of Snatch, watched that more times than I care to admit to. I saw Revolver some time back and really did not care much for it. RocknRolla is pretty good, not as good as Snatch, but good enough to own.

Buy It for me I need to see a Guy Ritchie film a couple of times to get most/all of the humor

Conan the Barbarian So this past year saw me become obsessed with Conan, not just the movie. I was so excited for Age of Conan, it saddened me. My girlfriend's dad read all the Conan stories when he was younger, so I read them they are pretty awesome stories. The movie with Arnold is really fun to watch, an amazing adventure. It's just entertainment, pretty awesome action, little dialogue to muck up the movie. If I am not mistaken this movie made Arnold famous, everyone who has enjoyed a movie because of him should see this movie!!!

WOW its a little dated special effects wise, but I would watch it over piles of movies made with better special effects. you can probably rent Conan The Destroyer....really not as good as the first.

[The Dude]

Personally, I think you can Burn Conan the Destroyer. They were going to do them like Bond movies, with a new one every year or so, but they made the mistake of aiming for a PG rating, and it all fell apart.

So sad to think what may have been

[Culgore]

Hah, yeah that is probably good advice, I think you get fairly comparative Conan action, with all the middle school "what is a boy like?!?" situations.

[HK-47]

Personally, I think you can Burn Conan the Destroyer. They were going to do them like Bond movies, with a new one every year or so, but they made the mistake of aiming for a PG rating, and it all fell apart.

So sad to think what may have been

Agree there Conan The Destroyer is so bad,the whole idea of making a PG Conan Film as just laughable that I'm shock people didn't see it was going to be bad from a mile away.

Another thing that makes the first one so good, for me anyway, was James Earl Jones who is a really great villain.

[Zink]

And the sound track. I love that music. Conan's still one of my favourite movies even if it didn't follow the REH stories I love that closely.

[Tokugawa100]

Please accept my apoligies The Dude, I always enjoyed that thread.

I hope were cool

[Dai-Mongar]

I'd go so far as to say that Conan the Barbarian is one of my all-time favourite movies. I've rented it several times, definitely need to buy a copy. A must-watch for all fantasy players.

[Ghod]

Nice to see the thread back...

Sunshine

Directed by Danny Boyle

Almost seems like an 'Intelligent Armageddon' with a crew of eight astronauts and scientists trying to deliver a bomb, which if all goes to plan will reignite our dying sun, but if the mission is a failure then the earth is doomed.

So a fairly typical plot, but this film handles it in a refreashingly 'realistic' way, Deep Impact this is not.

For me, the best thing about Sunshine is the beautiful visualisation of the film. From the very nice title sequence to the detailing of the ships interior and most of all the brightness of the sun itself.

Aesthetically Sunshine is very pleasing...
It has a refreashingly economical introduction to the plot and the crew, with a slow and brooding build up within the first half.

but...

Then it all goes a bit slasher movie, which if I'm honest, spoiled it for me.

You knew as soon as they boarded Icarus I what would happen, with a crew member himself joking about being taken down one by one if they split up.

Personally I think that there was more than enough internal conflict and tension within the crew,
Which could have been used to make an interesting and enjoyable ending. Without the need of a crazy with a knife.

Why use a monster when man is monster enough?

But overall it was an enjoyable film, with its visuals as the highlight for me.

I would say rent it... or watch it on T.V like I did

Now...

Brüno

On second thoughts, maybe not...

[Patriarch]

@The Dude
Please could you edit your first post - along with the ratings guidelines, it would be handy to add a prompt about the use of spoiler tags. Most of us use them anyway, but it would be a shame to do a "Homer" on someone.

Planet 51
CGI children's film about an alien planet visited by a human astronaut, told from the aliens' point of view. A jokey version of E.T. with the roles reversed.
Gary Oldman, Jessica Biel, John Cleese.


Probably not a classic in the way of Shrek, but a decent pic all the same. Lots of references to classic SF films (E.T., Alien, Day the Earth Stood Still, Invasion of the Bodysnatchers) which were well done but lost on the film's core audience. The alien world was quite imaginative (50's America with all vehicles being variations on flying saucers). Wholesome message about being afraid of the unknown.

My only real issue is a bit where

the aliens are about to cut the astronaut's skull open to get to his brain

- standard B-movie stuff, but not something I want to have to explain to a young child halfway through a U film.

Verdict: Watch if you have kids into Sci Fi, otherwise Pass.

Edit: Agree with Ghod on Sunshine, including the spoiler bit. Plenty of scope for things to have gone wrong on their own.

[Condottiere]

Conan the Barbarian was a great film and the OST was fantastic (possibly better than the film). Also, great material for quotes.

Ownable.


Conan the Destroyer only exists in stills and film clips.

[Aurellis]

The Taking Of Pelham 123
This was totally not what I was expecting, then again I'm not sure what that was. I knew the film involved an act of terrorism but that was it. Washington and Travolta were on top form and didn't let me down, keeping the plot both tense and humerous for long periods. I'd definitely see it again!
Buy It

District 9
Ever since I saw a large poster advertising this film in my local cinema I wanted to see this film. I must applaud Peter Jackson on this great film because it is hugely entertaining, full of visionary sci-fi and has plenty of action to boot, whilst exploring ethical issues with real connections to debate on freedom and immigration.

I can't wait for the potential sequel it sets itself up for.

Buy It

[marv335]

I agree about D-9, it was a fantastic film.
Not what I was expecting at all.

[Easy E]

I am saddened that the original is no more.

There, now that that is behind me...

The Bucket List

I am convinced the Jack Nicholson does not act. He simply is, and they tape it.

Overall, about what you would expect if you read the synopsis or saw the preview.

Pass

As for Conan the Destroyer all I have to say to make this movie a "great piece of... cinema" is Wilt the Stilt Chamberlain. This movie is horrible in a way most horrible movies aspire to be horrible. I love every painful second of it!

[IncrediSteve]

I must applaud Peter Jackson on this great film

Ah, but Peter Jackson was only the producer, Neill Blomkamp is the man you want to applaud for his breakout direction. He's always done fantastic Special Effects work on amazingly low budgets, you can see more of his smattering of shorts here.

[Aurellis]

Ah, but Peter Jackson was only the producer, Neill Blomkamp is the man you want to applaud for his breakout direction. He's always done fantastic Special Effects work on amazingly low budgets, you can see more of his smattering of shorts here.

My bad.

Praise to Neil Blomkamp

[Brother_Chaplian Raimo]

Praise to Neil Blomkamp

Praise be indeed. I'm really hoping that some of his other shorts lead to awesome full-length films like Alive in Joberg did for District 9. Yellow, especially.

[Ozorik]

Terminator: salvation

WTF was that? I wasn't expecting a masterpiece but I really wish I rented Moon instead.