Mini Movie Reviews 2 - The Reviewening

[Easy E]

Let the Right One In

Many other forum goers heaped praise upon this flick, so I thought I would give it a whirl. I think I went into the film with the wrong expectations based on the trailer I saw for the film. I was expecting something a little more.

That being said, I enjoyed the mythology it used about Vampires, and found it to be much more Traditional than you get in a lot of Vamp flicks now days.

The flick has a slow pace, with the focus being on how Elli "sucks" people into her. The subtext seems fairly clear about how easily adults can manipulate disillusioned children for their own selfish goals.

Over all, the movie was kind of bleak, slow, and not very uplifting. That isn't good or bad, just an observation.

Pass

[SandQueen]

The Boondock Saints II: All Saints Day

Good:
1) Good, visceral shoot 'em up action. While Troy Duffy might not be able to construct elaborate dialogue or a mysterious plot, he is good at setting up a fabulous shoot out.
2) Funny. Between the swearing, racial humor, sight gags, and infighting between the brothers the movie is quite funny when it wants to be.
3) Romeo. They needed to replace Rocco somehow because the saints need a sidekick. Why not give them a Mexican so that you have two of the most stereotyped minorities in the US (Irish and Mexicans) working together. Plus his "We are a colorful people" moments with his car and his handguns made him really stand out.
4) Good to see short male actors getting work. There's an exceptional amount of short guys in it, guys that might have a hard time getting cast for more traditional action films. Good to see that they devoted an entire aspect of the investigation to one of the villians being "Wicked short"
5) Sets up for a sequel. Hopefully it wont take until 2019 to come out. Otherwise I'll have to speak to Mr. Duffy personally.

Bad:
1) Ends too soon. Its good that the movie leaves you wanting more I guess though.
2) Dual compensated .357 magnum Desert Eagles? They filmed well and added to the over the top nature of some of the shootouts but they were almost too big to make sense.
3) The movie took forever to come out. I dont know if Duffy or some of the key actors were in prison but it should not take a decade to come up with a sequel.

Overall: See it. Perhaps buy when it comes out on DVD/Blu Ray

[Easy E]

Tale of Despereaux

I probably butchered the title.

This movie set up a lot of interesting plot threads that led into a very "meh" conclusion. I'm not sure if this is the fault of the original story or the adaption to the screen.

Also, Matthew Broderick's voice was simply.... uninspiring. Most of it was interesting, but his just left me cold.

Pass

[The Dude]

Shutter Island - A US Marshall travels to an island-based insane asylum to investigate a missing inmate. As his investigation progresses it becomes clear that a deeper conspiracy is afoot, and the Marshall himself has another reason for taking the case.

Not a bad movie. Well paced and didn't feel like over 2hrs. Unfortunately there is pretty much only 2 ways it could resolve, and I feel it was pretty obvious which it would be. Regardless of this, it's a visual delight, with lots of subtleties I will be watching again to pick up.

Rent it

[Tokugawa100]

OK watched a couple of movies over the week.

Dragon Wars
2 Word's for you.

Horrendously Horrible.
Dragon Wars is possibly one of teh top 5 worst movies I have ever seen in my life, despite poor actors, horrible creature design and a ridiculous nonsensical story its CGI which it relies on is not that great either.
Apparently 3 people from Korea are reincarnated as 3 Americans who must right the wrongs of their former lives by defeating the evil snake dragon and helping the good snake dragon.
The story however takes itself way too seriously and ends up being irritatingly bad.

You have an enormous dragon snake who makes killing people seem horribly difficult despite his titanic maw and the fact that he can strike like a snake.
and....
You have evil dragon warriors which remind you of the villains of Power Rangers.

Overall its horrible. I give it a 0/10 for poor everything and give it a solid
Avoid at All Costs.


The Final Destination
I love this series, its not scary, its hilariously ridiculous and the characters are ******.
I think you hear "Im never going to die...ever" at least once in every movie.
Though this last installment of the series kept the traits of its formers it also did alot of things bad which set it apart.
It was corny, it used the same character group we have seen 3 times already..

1. The Jerk who loves being a spoiled rich Jerk.
2. The Bimbo who was the girlfirend of the Jerk until their near death experience.
3. The comforting Girlfriend who saids we need to work together.
4. And last but not least the Guy who kniws whats going to happen and understands it but keeps saying he doesnt know what he saw.

The deaths arent as inventive as the first 3 movies and the characters are more annoying then ususal, possibly because for once they seem to take themselves seriously.

All 3 of thes movies have ended in the same way and so did this one, they cheated death once so they think they get to live to be in old age. .
They dont think Death who in this seems to be an omnipresent and vengeful being would let you go after you cheated death twice.
"No its ok, we cant die now, we cheated death" "doi"

I give it a 5/10 and a solid Rent it The 3d Is fun and if you like the series its a good addition jsut not the best by far.

The Last King of Scotland
This is a movie based on the traumatic experience fictional character Nicholas Garrigan experienced during his stay in Uganda during the rule of the insane, deadly dictator Idi Amin.

Anyone familiar with Idi Amin knows he was responsible for the deaths of
300 000 of his own people and reduced Uganda which was once one of the most prosperous nations in Africa to a civil war ridden cesspool.

Idi Amin played by Forest Whitaker is both fascinating and disturbing as he paranoia and decadence brings him further to madness and the atrocities he causes are nothing short of insane.

One of the graetest movies I have ever seen with excellent acting and a compelling story, a 10 out of 10 and a solid Buy It.

[Aurellis]

The Last King of Scotland
This is a movie based on the traumatic experience fictional character Nicholas Garrigan experienced during his stay in Uganda during the rule of the insane, deadly dictator Idi Amin.

Anyone familiar with Idi Amin knows he was responsible for the deaths of
300 000 of his own people and reduced Uganda which was once one of the most prosperous nations in Africa to a civil war ridden cesspool.

Idi Amin played by Forest Whitaker is both fascinating and disturbing as he paranoia and decadence brings him further to madness and the atrocities he causes are nothing short of insane.

One of the graetest movies I have ever seen with excellent acting and a compelling story, a 10 out of 10 and a solid Buy It.

Thanks for the tip, i'll defintely have to pick it up now as it's one of those films i've been meaning to watch for some time.

There's way too many things I currently want to watch and there's too little time to watch them all

[Tokugawa100]

Thanks for the tip, i'll defintely have to pick it up now as it's one of those films i've been meaning to watch for some time.

There's way too many things I currently want to watch and there's too little time to watch them all

You wont be dissapointed

[Tokugawa100]

Alien Vs Predator 2

Just watched this last night.

Let me just say, a Teen Drama thrown into a Alien movie does not work even if you throw in a few tonnes of gore.
The storty is a simple AVP story and continues from the first, the Predalian which burst from the Predator at the end of the first wreaks havoc oin the Predator transport ship killing the entire crew.
The ship crashes on Earth near a small country town and the Predalian pluss two FaceHugger specimens escape and find victims fairly quickly starting nest in the sewers beneath the town.
A Predator is sent to find the Predalian and kill it because in Predator society these are unholy abominations which must be destroyed at all costs.

The parts with Alien and Predator are fine, not as compeling as their respective original movie series but they get the job done.

The humans though ruin this movie.
Its a huge Teen Drama with the down trodden guy in love with the jocks girlfriend who secretly loves him so the Jock goes to kick his ass.
Some of the worst acting in a movie, sometimes I wish they would stay well away from a human point of view and just do the whole movie from the Predators perspective.

Once the aliens begin to come out a bit more the plot improves but not greatly even though possibly half the town populace is dead in about 5 minutes.
Possibly the only time I have been sickened by a movie is the Predalian scene where it invades the nursery pavillion.

This was pretty disturbing and part of me though why did they need this, its just sick.

Overall if your fan of both series its worht a watch but prepare yourself to be horribly dissapointed.

I give it a Rent It. I bought it because I dont like to Rent things.

[Tymell]

Alien Vs Predator 2

The parts with Alien and Predator are fine, not as compeling as their respective original movie series but they get the job done.

The humans though ruin this movie.
Its a huge Teen Drama with the down trodden guy in love with the jocks girlfriend who secretly loves him so the Jock goes to kick his ass.

Some of the worst acting in a movie, sometimes I wish they would stay well away from a human point of view and just do the whole movie from the Predators perspective.

Aye, I felt much the same way about it. I liked it better than the first AvP, if only because of the obvious ways it was trying to be closer to Aliens (i.e. the second Alien movie), which was a good move. But still, the humans were badly written, badly acted...the first Predator movie and first two Alien movies show that such a thing can work fine when the human characters are interesting. They don't even have to be deep or particularly emotional, just realistic.

It's a shame, because there are plenty of good AvP stories out there. They just seem to pick bad ones for the movies. It needs characters we can actually give a damn about, not one-dimensional cut-and-paste slasher movie stereotypes.

And some directors really need to learn the basics of lighting in movies. Horror movies should not (with rare exceptions) try to be as dark as possible. The point of lighting is to show the audience something, but leave certain things in the shadows. It's not horrifying when you're straining your eyes trying to make out what's going on.

Possibly the only time I have been sickened by a movie is the Predalian scene where it invades the nursery pavillion.

This was pretty disturbing and part of me though why did they need this, its just sick.

Heh, I love reading all the reviews saying how utterly sickening they found that scene. My girlfriend and I saw that movie in the cinema, and were both watching with big grins of glee at that part, we thought it was wonderful

But then we don't like children, so maybe we were a little biased

[Kohhna]

Ponyo

Lovely if somewhat slight offering from Studio Ghibli. Definately not the epic adventure story of Mononoke or Tales From Earthsea, its very much a domestic story, revolving around a family and their contact with the supernatural, like My Neighbor Totoro. And like Tthat film its absolutely lovely. The style is very intteresting, the characters are deceptively simple but that adds a lot to the characterisation, real parsimony, doing a lot with very little - the mark of a master.

Amazing, go Watch It and bring some kids with you, they'll love it.

[nagash66]

Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief


Ok lets get 1 thing straight from the get go, i am Greek and i like the Olympian mythos.

I went into this with high hopes, i mean ok so it sounds a bit corny and it is a overdone story.

Young not to well kid finds out BIG secret, get his powers, meets hot babe, saves world, babes falls for him, even had a comic relief sidekick. But still i mean its not like they dint have a fantastic mythos to fall back on and pull out some great story telling.

Their failare will haunt me for a long time, the story is what i said above to a dot, the creatures and mythos are just abused in order to replace wizard/warrior/chosen one with demigod, i mean it was just bad.

Why does hollywood think that just as long as they put in some nice effects and 2-3 big names we will be happy?? I for one have made it my mission to make as many people as i can NOT see this movie.

It is Eragon with Olympians. I can feel pages with the plot holes, the offhand explanation THAT MAKE NO SENSE, the way percy just walks away from his mother death with a shrug, the stupid handling of the history.

Ok i need to take a walk and cool down.

DO NOT SEE THIS MOVIE

[Hellebore]

Possibly the only time I have been sickened by a movie is the Predalian scene where it invades the nursery pavillion.

This was pretty disturbing and part of me though why did they need this, its just sick.

Because the film is a giant piece of **** only defeated in turdery by Revenge of the Fallen?

They went for shock value over fear. There are generally two places horror movies don't or haven't gone, children and pregnant women. Because Requiem was so crap they decided to try and hide it's shoddiness under a veneer of shocking gore.

Watching that movie I could almost see the brainstorming the creators had. 'So let's kill a kid in the first 10 minutes and when a pregnant women gets impregnated down her oesaphgus we'll have it burst out of her uterus because that makes total anatomical sense. People will freak out!'

'But why stop there when we can up the anti by having an entire BUILDING of pregnant women impregnated.'

It was ridiculous, not the least of which because the predalien somehow bypassed all the reproductive rules of aliens for um, no reason?

Hellebore

[Dai-Mongar]

Because the film is a giant piece of **** only defeated in turdery by Revenge of the Fallen?

I don't know, I've seen Crossroads with Britney Spears.
But yes, AVPR was utter crap. I'd put it in my list of worst movies ever (along with Crossroads ).

[HK-47]

I don't know, I've seen Crossroads with Britney Spears.
But yes, AVPR was utter crap. I'd put it in my list of worst movies ever (along with Crossroads ).

Agreeing with what other people are saying the reason why the first Predator and first two Alien movies are so good is because of the characters, the characters don't have to be deep, but they have to be entertaining. The predator and xenomorph can't express emotion or talk they are there to look cool and be shot at, building the whole movie around them is asking for failure.

Also, did anyone else hear the rumor that they are making a third Predator movie?

[The Dude]

I heard it is a remake/reboot of the original called Predators

More info here

[HK-47]

I heard it is a remake/reboot of the original called Predators

More info here

Doesn't look as cool as I thought it would? I mean Topher Grace? They couldn't get someone better then Eric Forman.

[Tokugawa100]

I heard it is a remake/reboot of the original called Predators

More info here

Ive actually read somewhere and seen advertised on tv that its not a remake but goes like this...

A Man wakes up to find he is on the Predator Homeworld with several other humans. Apparently Predators have been abducting humans for many years and they take them to a reserve to hunt for fun and the story is about the humans suceeding.
There is also a rumour that Arnie will be maing an appearance as an older version of his character from the first movie who has survived on this planet for many years killing many Predators after his impressive performance from the first movie.

[Tokugawa100]

Agreeing with what other people are saying the reason why the first Predator and first two Alien movies are so good is because of the characters, the characters don't have to be deep, but they have to be entertaining.

I agree with the statement but why is there so much hate for Alien 3, Alien ressurection and Predator 2.

Alien 3: Was incredible, it wasnt the same story weve heard a hundred times and it also had that nagging thought "how will they win" they have no weapons or any way of killing this new speedy version of an alien and they're trapped.

Alien ressurection: Though not the best of the series I cant understand the hate because it was still a fantastic movie which made me jump more then any of the other movies.

Predator 2: I personally thoguht this was a vast improvement from the 1st and was actually better. Better setting, more interesting story and also had great characters though they werent as good as the 1st movies.
Its one of the best in both series.

[ankara halla]

I agree with the statement but why is there so much hate for Alien 3, Alien ressurection and Predator 2.

Alien 3: Was incredible, it wasnt the same story weve heard a hundred times and it also had that nagging thought "how will they win" they have no weapons or any way of killing this new speedy version of an alien and they're trapped.

Alien ressurection: Though not the best of the series I cant understand the hate because it was still a fantastic movie which made me jump more then any of the other movies.

Predator 2: I personally thoguht this was a vast improvement from the 1st and was actually better. Better setting, more interesting story and also had great characters though they werent as good as the 1st movies.
Its one of the best in both series.

I too, am quite fond of both Alien 3 (especially Finchers cut) and Predator 2 and do think they are among the best in the series.

However, Alien Resurrection I didn't find that great (I actually walked out of the pre-screening, to which I was invited thru a few twists, the very second the credits started to roll in... I was literally wearing my jacket for the last half our of the movie just waiting it for to end) mostly because of the way the story and mood of the film so greatly separated itself from the rest of the franchise. It just took a concept we were all familiar with, and turned it into an action comedy (with poor drama chucked in there) in space...
It greatly failed my expectations at the screening.

Later, I have come to somewhat appreciate the film as a standalone movie, but I still don't think it "fits" (for a lack of a better word).

[HK-47]

I actually don't remember why I didn't like Alien 3, I have to watch it again one of these days.

Alien Resurrection is a horrid film in terms of story, I hated the idea that they brought back Ripley, and the way see acted with that arrogant attitude combined with Winona Ryder's constant preaching and whining made me want to put my head through a wall.

The biggest thing about Predator 2 is people simply not knowing about it, that and Gary Busey, but he always overacts.