Reviews

SPOILERS ALERT! Read no further if you haven't seen the film!!!

I am getting tired of seeing nothing by 10 star ratings for this film. Was nobody else as disappointed as I was by the ending? The story was brilliant from the opening until the point where Woody Harrelson visits Josh Brolin in the hospital. This is where the story just sort of trickles out and...stops. We never get the showdown that we so badly want to see between Brolin and Bardem.

Some of the scenes in this film were terrifying, true edge of your seat suspense. This movie starts off so well and keeps delivering genuine thrill after genuine thrill, but after abruptly killing off the hero and then trickling away into nothingness, I felt cheated, disappointed, and stupid for having sat through the entire film. The Coens failed to tie it up whatsoever. Instead they tried some stupid film school/David Lynch BS, and the movie suffers as a result. The book may have been disjointed and open-ended, but this is a movie and should have been better adapted for the screen.

If Jaws the movie had been given the same ending as Jaws the book, it would have been a monstrosity of an ending, and that is just what the Coens have produced here...

**POSSIBLE SPOILERS** The Day After Tomorrow is an undeniably entertaining movie, with great special effects and a half-way decent story. However, this film should have been about the plight of all of mankind rather than the shared adventures of Jake Gyllenhall and his school friends; it could have been an epic science fiction story rather than a popcorn flick. Using global warming as the foundation for a movie about Dennis Quaid falling into a crevasse, a helicopter crash, a wolf attack, and a few storm sequences seems to trivialize the actual consequences of a large scale climate change. Global warming is an epic phenomenon and it should have been treated as such. For example, in the end, when the people are leaving New York, I would have liked to see the pack of wolves trot across a street (without snarling viciously or attacking anyone), thus signaling the return of wildlife to soon-to-be-deserted cities. With that said, I was still very entertained and enjoyed the movie's not-so-subtle criticism of George Bush and his cronies. The Day After Tomorrow is no classic, but it will certainly rule the box office for a few weeks.

**!!SPOILERS AHEAD**!! The story of the Amityville Horror consists of a family moving into a haunted house where, a few years before, some people were murdered while they slept. For the first day or so after moving in, everything is fine; the kids play in the yard with the dog, and the husband makes love to his wife. Then strange things begin to happen; the wind blows stronger than usual, it gets cold in the house, flies buzz around, and the phones don't work. None of this is scary in the slightest respect, and we never even learn why this is happening. I guess this is just what haunted houses do.

The script is exceptionally lame, introducing characters and situations that never pay off, such as the missing fifteen hundred dollars, the little girl and her evil imaginary friend, the murderer who looks identical to the James Brolin character, etc. Lots of strange things happen, but we never actually see anything scary, unless you count the glowing pig eyes in the barn. Something can be said for not showing the monster until the end of the film, such as in Jaws, but to never show the audience anything is a sign of poor filmmaking indeed. This film borrows a lot from the Exorcist, with the priests and the Columbo-like detective ("Fadda, could I ax you some questions?") and what not, but it doesn't add up to anything. I couldn't believe the film was over at the end. The family just packs up and leaves. That's it. Nobody dies, no ghosts show up, and the house doesn't even catch on fire and explode (a typical ending in modern horror films when no other ending is obvious). Sure, the dad falls into a pit of goo in the basement, and it's raining really hard, but that just doesn't cut it. And the old "Give-me-a-break-it-was-made-in-the-70s" excuse doesn't work because Jaws, The Exorcist, and Halloween were all made in the '70s as well.

Surprisingly, the writer and director were not children (as one might suspect from watching this film) when they made The Amityville Horror. They were full-grown adults, aged 52 and 43, respectively. Yet they collaborated to make one of the slowest, most boring, most amateurish, and most childish horror films I have ever seen. Watch this movie only if you are an aspiring filmmaker who wants to know how NOT to make a horror film.

**!!SPOILERS AHEAD!!** I had heard so many great things about this film that i had to go out and rent it to see for myself what all the hype was about. Well, I can't say I'm shocked that everyone involved in this movie has done nothing since 1998. To begin with, the dialogue was AWFUL! There is not one line of credible, intelligent dialogue in the entire film. Everything that Buddy says is something like "Groovy!" or "Let's go"(with a finger snap) or "Swell!," always with a tough guy tone of voice that Jeffrey Falcon fails to pull off. They were obviously trying to create a character like Ash in the Evil Dead trilogy, but they fail miserably. In Army of Darkness, while there are lots of silly one-liners, there is also the necessary amount of character development that "Six-String samurai lacks. The action was pretty lame, too. Every action scene was exactly the same, with Buddy jumping around and swinging his sword at bad guys, obviously not really hitting them. Nothing about the movie was exciting or suspenseful. The only moment I was eagerly anticipating was Buddy's arrival in Lost Vegas, but he never even gets there, so that glimmer of hope dies as well. I think the back story, with the Russians dropping the bomb, and Elvis becoming king of Lost Vegas, would have made a far more interesting story than this string of boring, virtually identical samurai fight scenes, but I guess they didn't have the budget for that. So, to sum it all up, don't see this movie. Read a good book or go to bed early instead.

**SPOILERS** This movie had some very scary and suspenseful moments. The opening scenes in which the truck is chasing the kids down the highway had me on the edge of my seat, and was also a well done nod to Spielberg's Duel. But once the movie started in with its Scream-like dialogue where characters say obvious things like "this is like the part in horror movies where...," it began to go down hill. And the Creeper doing backflips and Matrix-style karate moves after the cat lady scene had me sighing with shame. The ending shot in which the camera dollies into the creeper's workroom and we see that he has cut out Derry's eyes redeems the film a bit, but seeing too much of the monster earlier on (the Karate scene) really spoiled it. Salva had a chance to make a genuinely scary film but instead jumped on the bandwagon with this one. Maybe he'll do better with the sequel.

A friend of mine recommended Vertical Limit, claiming it was a high octane, rollercoaster thrill ride, similar to Renny Harlin's Cliffhanger. I was sorely disappointed, as this movie is downright awful. **CONTAINS SPOILERS** The opening scene in which Chris O'Donnell has to cut the rope, thus sacrificing his father's life to save the lives of himself and his sister, is taken right out Cliffhanger. The acting is pretty mediocre, the special effects weren't great either as the blue screen shots were obviously fake, and the action scenes, which usually involved some sort of climbing equipment malfunctioning as the climbers dangle precariously from a rediculously high cliff, were hardly suspenseful. The editing is pretty atrocious too. Too many scenes cut from the characters hanging from a cliff with no clear way out of their predicament to them relaxing back at camp, without explaining how they got there. The scene of Chris O'Donnell leaping across a five hundred foot wide canyon happens so quickly that before we have a chance to laugh at it it's over. Bill Paxton starts out playing a believable nice guy but suddenly turns bad and starts killing his climbing partners for some reason. The rescue mission on which O'Donnell embarks to save his sister involves the climber carrying six canisters of nitroglycerin (which is always on the verge of exploding) up the mountain. Apparently they plan to blow their way through the mountain to save some idiots who fell into a crevasse. I don't think this is a standard rescue routine. Anyway, it is all very predictable, with lame characters, stupidly unrealistic situations, and boring action scenes. Overall, a terrible piece of filmmaking. I don't recommend it. 3/10

**!CONTAINS SPOILERS!** To me, this was one of the best films of 2000. The acting, casting, and the direction are all great. Christian Bale was perfect for the role of Patrick Bateman, and I cannot imagine Leonardo Dicaprio(who was originally going to play the part) in this movie. He would have ruined it.

This movie is a hilarious satire of the 80s culture. Nothing in the movie is that graphic. There is some blood and violence, and while the sex is explicit, the scene with Bateman flexing his muscles while having sex with the two prostitutes is hilarious, as are all his speeches about commercial music of the time. The business card scene also rates high on my list.

Compared to the book, which is horrifying(but darkly funny as well) in its description of the murders, the movie is really rather tame.

I would recommend this film to anyone who is tired of all the brainless teen slasher and comedy movies coming out today, and would like to see something different.

The first time I saw Army of Darkness, I really didn't like it because I was actually expecting a George Romero type zombie film. However, I have seen it plenty of times since and now consider it one of my favorites. !!**THIS CONTAINS POSSIBLE SPOILERS**!! The reason I like it so much is because the film doesn't take itself seriously. Sam Raimi and Bruce Campbell probably knew they were making a rather stupid movie and made it laughable rather than serious. If you watch carefully, there are inconsistencies in plot and continuity EVERYWHERE. Ash's shotgun comes out of nowhere after he climbs out of the pit, the demon climbs out of the pit even though it was crushed moments earlier, and Ash constantly fires more rounds than the gun holds. Even the back of the box doesn't describe the plot accurately. But you can tell that they had fun making this film and as a result it's fun to watch as well. I think it slows down and gets a little too silly in the middle, but picks up again for the ending battle. The S-Mart ending alone is worth renting this.

So if you like action/horror with plenty of laughs and one-liners, rent Army of Darkness, and if you like it, check out the Evil Dead prequels. 8/10