Reviews

Australia. A big budget movie with lots of adventurous potential. It could have been a spectacular flick, but instead it turned out to be extremely mediocre. Why?

First of all the story really isn't that interesting. There is nothing new about a group of rookie ranchers who have to drive their cattle from one point to another.

In the lead role we have Nicola Kidman who is a great actress. No doubt about it. But we have already seen her in this role as an aristocratic woman from England, who has to set foot in a rough western like world. We saw that in Far & Away.

Hugh Jackman is the other Australian star in a leading role. He is really squeezed into an extremely boring character named Drover. This guy can't settle anywhere because he has a past influenced by death, war and lost love. Just a few minutes and you know how he will react to everything in the rest of the movie. He is kinda like a horse-loving Han Solo lost in the Australian outskirts.

Those were the two main characters, and then we have a complete stereotype bad guy Neil Fletcher (David Wenham). This villain is so evil that he gladly will see his own son dead, and he will do anything to advance in social status. And the lust for revenge is more than ever filling this character.

The characters add absolutely nothing new to cinema. They are so boring, and I am surprised that no more depth has been added to them. Director and writer Baz Luhrmann tries to compensate for this by adding several subplots to the main plot. Baz Luhrmann tries to wrap it all in as a criticism of the racial divided Australia during the years the movie takes place, but it really just seems like a bad excuse. The movie fails completely to get under the skin of that black chapter in Australian history.

We instead end up with a big budget movie that could have taken half of the time without any problems. The result would not have been worse, and they could have saved several millions of dollars on the budget of CGI. And much of the CGI isn't impressive anyway. The background often looks like a computer game, and that is a shame when Australia has some of the most beautiful landscapes in the world.

My conclusion is that this movie has nothing new to offer, and I just don't care a bit about the characters because they are so damn boring.

Overall: 5/10

Steven Seagal is back as a dad who seeks revenge for his killed son. He wants justice to be done. It sounds like a new Death Wish movie supplied with some kung fu, and that is what it probably was supposed to be.

It could have been a decent movie, but it really fails in almost every aspect. The acting is as you could expect in a Steven Seagal movie, but the fight scenes are way below the quality in movies like the two Under Siege movies. It seems like that Steven Seagal is either too old or too unfit to perform action like in the old days. Instead he is always standing and just lifting a leg or punching. Therefore the fight scenes are also very short and cut in a quick way, so we do not see how old and slow the action star is today. We also have a car chase in the movie, but it is really not worth mentioning. The pursuit is slow, and at times you can see that the picture has been accelerated so it looks faster than it really is.

The story is also pretty simple and straight forward, but the script is not what you would consider Oscar material. It is of course not what you expect from a Seagal movie, but it could at least have been a bit better. Well, it is not.

There was a time where you could find something good in a Steven Seagal movie, but those days are over. Today his movies are just as bad as the worst from Van Damme and Chuck Norris. It is a shame, but maybe Lord Steven should consider retiring and instead focus on his music.

I remembered Django to be a pretty good movie, but it wasn't exactly as good as I remembered. Actually it's not anywhere near the work of Sergio Leone.

Instead the movie is pretty mediocre with some pretty big flaws. It takes place right after The American Civil War, where Django seems to be a ghost wandering around trying to cope with his past. He's carrying a mystical coffin, but we don't know what's in it.

He visits a town, where two clans are fighting each other just like in Kurosawa's Yojimbo and later Sergio Leone's A Fistful of Dollars. But the story never gets as exciting as in Leone's remake of the Japanese movie. The English dubbing is poor and it affects the intensity of conversations, and there is at least one major historical incorrectness. I might also add that we don't get music anywhere near Ennio Morricone's scores.

That said it's still worth watching. Sergio Corbucci has another approach to the western genre as Leone. Where Leone's westerns take place in the dry desert, Corbucci's world is muddy - and for some reason it's never really night.

Watch it to extend your knowledge of this great Italian genre of the 60's, but don't expect a Leone masterpiece.

Troy is extremely loosely based on Homer's writings, so do not expect a movie based on the book. Instead Hollywood have made a screenplay the Hollywood way, and I am so lucky that I have not read the book, so I was not disappointed about the characters.

The movie has a huge budget and I am sure that the producers expected to make an epic movie like Spartacus, Ben-Hur or Patton, but they failed to succeed on this level.

An epic movie needs to be big in every sense, and not all directors have understood what makes a big movie big. Battle scenes with huge armies are often a good way to make the movie big, and Petersen understood this very well. You can enjoy the visual part of the battle scenes, I can only say that the battle scenes are impressive.

An epic movie should also have a good story, and this is one of the weak points in this movie. I am sure the story has a lot of potential, but it does not work that well in the movie. It is maybe because the movie is too short with less than 3 hours. Ben-Hur is almost 4 hours long, and I miss 30 minutes or more of Troy. Some scenes were simply too short, which often is a bad habit for modern cinema.

The casting should also be right in an epic, and I am not sure that the choice of Brad Pitt was right. He would be credible, if Achilles was presented as a god, but he was not. Instead he was presented as a great warrior, and I cannot see Brad Pitt as a legendary warrior. The other actors worked better with Eric Bana as the best. Sometimes I felt that Orlando Bloom was more Legolas than Paris, when he was using his bow. I think it was a bit dangerous to choose an actor who just has been a main character in a recently released trilogy, but this will maybe change over the years. You do not think that Indiana Jones is Han Solo today.

Still I feel that the movie was not that good. As a part of the audience I felt that some parts of the story were not really explained, instead the movie continued to the next phase, where I was sitting back disappointed that some part of the plot was not explained more in details. This is not the feeling I want to have, when I watch a potential epic movie.

The movie had the potential to be legendary, but something went wrong during the production. I do not think it is Petersen's fault, it is more likely that it was the script. I think the movie was acceptable and maybe a bit more than that, but it will possibly be forgotten in 10 years.

7/10

"The Great Escape: The Untold Story" is about the real great escape, which the Sturges movie is based on. This 60 minute show gives us the real names, interviews with some of the survivors and the story about the tunnel escape.

Much of the story is the same as the movie, but you can find some differences. The names are changed and it was actually snowing when the 76 prisoners escaped in 1944. Some of the escapers turned them selves in because they would have freezed to death outside.

If you want to know about the real escape, then I can recommend this show. It can be found on the special edition of The Great Escape.

It is not easy to interpret my summary, and I actually have the same feeling after watching Kill Bill: Vol. 1.

I had very big expectations to this new Tarantino movie, I had hoped it would be just as good as Pulp Fiction. It was maybe a bit much to expect, but you should not expect less from such a talented director.

The actors chosen for this movie are chosen wisely, I really like Uma Thurman, she has "it" as Bobby Bowfinger calls it. It is hard to describe what it is, but it us a combination of personality and talent. The rest of the cast was also good, but Uma Thurman is especially a fantastic experience.

The action is good too, but it is actually a problem. Tarantino seems to be obsessed with impressive fight scenes, so he forgets to get flow in the story. At the same time I must admit that I am not a fan of the fight scenes used in "Matrix" and "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon", I prefer fight style ala Indiana Jones with fists, it is much more cool. It is maybe not as artistic, but it is how fight scenes should be.

Another Tarantino obsession is blood, and I actually like the use of blood as in Pulp Fiction or the Verhoeven style, but the use of blood in this movie was more like the Monty Python style, and it does not work in the long run in this movie. I could laugh a few times because of the extreme use of blood, but it could not keep the comical element for all 111 minutes.

As you can read from my review, I was not as pleased as I had hoped. The movie was without doubt beautifully made, but the plot was maybe a bit too thin and the story moved too slowly. Despite all this the movie deserves 7/10, but do not expect this to be a classic like Pulp Fiction.

"Hell Hath No Fury" or "The Making of The Outlaw Josey Wales" is a good documentary, which gives you new interviews with cast and crew from the movie. Furthermore we get some behind the camera footage from 1975 where we see Clint Eastwood giving instructions to both cast and crew.

The interviews are pretty new, because most of the cast look pretty old, but they all like to tell you about the movie. Clint Eastwood is of course in the center, he is both the director and the leading actor, so it is not a surprise.

It is maybe a bit short with only 30 minutes, but it succeeds to focus on the important issues.

"Hell Hath No Fury" is available on the "The Outlaw Josey Wales" DVD, which is a part of the Clint Eastwood Collection from Warner Brothers.

I had seen the good rating of Shipping News before I watched it, and I would like to give it a shot.

Lasse Hallström did a good job when he directed The Cider House Rules, and Kevin Spacey is of course a good actor with movies like The Usual Suspects, LA Confidential and K-Pax. Furthermore we got supporting actresses such as the lovely Julianne Moore and talented Cate Blanchett, it was promising.

The movie is mostly a drama, but it succeeds in giving the audience some laughs when needed, which is important to me. Dramas can be too depressing sometimes, but it is of course sometimes needed to make a statement. Anyway, it is not needed in Shipping News and Lasse Hallström understands this very well.

The acting is great, the stars I mentioned earlier deliver good performances, but we also get the pleasure to watch other good actors too, so the cast really gives us a good movie.

Actually there are mainly positive things to say about this movie, the picture quality was good and the environment at Newfoundland created a good atmosphere. The only thing I would critisise is that the movie maybe could have been a bit longer, there were a few issues that I would like to have seen sorted out.

I have rated this movie 7/10, but it maybe deserved a little more. It is definitely worth watching.

Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl has been regarded as the best film this summer in the US, and many IMDb users have praised the return of the pirate genre.

With this in mind I went to the cinema and watched this movie, and once again I disagree with the IMDb users and possibly also a lot of critics. The story had a lot of potential with ghost pirates and stuff like that, it is a pirate movie and you can accept things like this, but the movie fails to impress me for several reasons.

First of all the cast was not chosen wisely. Johnny Depp is without doubt a great actor, but he is simply the wrong choice for an old pirate. He does not look old, but according to the story he should have been captain on the same ship where Geoffrey Rush was chief officer. The rest of the cast was chosen more wisely, but I never liked Orlando Bloom's character either.

One thing that really annoyed me was that almost every character should be funny, it was very annoying and at some points unbearable to watch. First we have some stupid English soldiers, later Johnny Depp has to be funny, and we also have to watch some funny ghost pirates all the time. Suddenly all characters have to be funny, and the ghost pirates are just comic sidekicks in this movie, they are not scary at all. The idea to make the English soldiers stupid has also been seen so many times before, and I really dislike it.

If that was all of it, then I maybe would not be that grumpy, but that was not all of it. The whole idea of immortal pirates was actually not good even though I accept stuff like that in this pirate adventure genre. I can ask a simple question, why do people take a fight against these immortal pirates? There is absolutely no point in doing that because the outcome has already been decided. Am I the only one who is asking these simple questions? Hopefully I am not.

After having criticised the movie I also have to point out some of the good sides. The movie is well done in both sound and picture. The effects are good and the ships can fascinate most people.

Anyway, the movie does not deserve a good rating, because the plot is too thin and all scenes have to be fun, which is a disaster in a 143 minute movie. Beautiful scenes and a few laughs however make this an acceptable picture, which should not be treated as an memorable movie of year 2003. - Rating: 6/10.

Hollywood Homicide is a typical buddy cop comedy with Harrison Ford as the experienced cop and Josh Hartnett as the rookie.

They have to team up for an assignment, and their differences are some of the sketches in the movie. Sometimes these sketches work and sometimes they do not. I think that the scenes with Harrison Ford are the best, Josh Hartnett seems to have some difficulties with his role in some of the scenes. I would like to question his acting ability, I am not sure if he is a future star of Hollywood.

The movie has been criticised because it chooses two paths; the more serious path with murders and the less serious comedy path. I can agree with this to some point, but I would say that this third way works too. It is possible it would have worked better, if it just was a comedy without the more serious thrills.

Anyway, I can assure you that there is no doubt that the idea was to create a comedy, and I would say that Ron Shelton succeeded, but it is definitely not one of the best comedies I have seen. You will get entertained when watching this movie, but not much more than that. - My vote: 6/10

Today I decided to watch Bad Taste directed by the internationally recognized director, Peter Jackson. I really admire Lord of the Rings, but could he make a good movie with an extremely low budget back in the 80's?

I can answer this quickly: NO!

It is possible that it is impressive how much Peter Jackson got from the $150,000-budget, but that does not make this a good movie. Maybe some people call this movie cult, but I will call it a cheesy low-budget movie without a story.

The story is the first point I want to slate, it was maybe the worst story I have ever seen. It is one of those stories where you are given a very little piece of information, and the rest of the movie is not really connected to that story, but the story becomes an excuse for the director to fill every scene with some pointless action and ridiculous splatter effects. I would compare the level of the story with Hercules in New York, both movies have tons of scenes not really important for the movie. Actually they should not have made these scenes at all, a short movie would have been far better.

At this point I think I have been very objective and fair to this movie, but there are still some things that I have to point out. The acting is possibly the worst ever performed in New Zealand. I am not familiar with other New Zealand movies, but this one really hits rock bottom. The actors are just annoying, and you do not even care if they are going to survive or not. It would even be a relief if one of the leading actors was killed, because it would make the end come closer.

There is much more to criticise about this movie. The music is horrible, the splatter effects become indifferent and the story disappears after 20 minutes.

My overall impression is that this movie is one of the worst ever made. I feel that my good taste should result in 3/10 to Bad Taste.

Arnold is back as the Terminator, but this time it is not with the same success as the previous.

I liked the first two movies, and I also like the actor Arnold Schwarzenegger. Anyway, I feel that three people really have created the Terminator universe, and these three people are Arnold, Cameron and not at least the composer Brad Fiedel. The last two were missing in this third movie, so I was very sceptical of this one.

The movie was entertaining though, so maybe I should not complain, but I was not impressed. Kristanna Loken did an acceptable job as TX, but it was not as good as Robert Patrick as T-1000 or Arnold's previous performances.

A thing that I did not like in this movie was that the Terminator was made a bit comical. It was fun to watch some of the scenes with the Terminator where he did some funny things, but it was more like a take-off of the old Terminator. It created a dilemma, I was entertained, but at the same time I was a bit frustrated, that the movie was not serious like the old Terminator-movies by Cameron.

Compared to the old movies this movie is not like them. The movie does not have the ideas of James Cameron and the music of Brad Fiedel, I missed them both. A last thing that I missed was Arnold as the Terminator, I did not feel he was a cyborg/robot, maybe he missed the instructions from James Cameron.

I may sound very disappointed, but that is not quite true. The action was maybe the best ever filmed, and the story was acceptable. The atmosphere from the old Terminator-movies is however missing, and you will not get the same feeling when watching this one.

I would rate it 6/10.

I had seen that this movie had 7,7 on IMDb, so I decided to buy it on DVD - a big mistake.

It is actually hard to say what I do not like about this movie, but one thing must be my missing enthusiasm and love for baseball. I am not a bit interested in baseball, and that might be a problem when watching this movie. I love some sport like football (the European kind), but I do not get baseball, it is maybe very un-European.

If you have the passion for baseball it might be a good movie, but if you are an European like me, then you may have a problem with this movie.

There are also other things that I do not find interesting. The plot is not very interesting, a man builds a baseball field because God says so. It is a very odd plot.

My €10 were not spent good, but at least I did not pay full price. The movie only deserves 4/10 because it is boring from the first minute even though the actors do an acceptable job.

Today I watched Dogville in a Danish cinema, but I did not know what to expect before I went to the cinema.

I was aware of the way the town was build with the chalk lines, and I was very sceptical. I am not a big Lars von Trier-fan, even though I have seen several of his works like Riget (The Kingdom) and Idioterne.

The whole town was one big scene, where chalk lines marked the houses, and the furniture in the buildings is there for a reason. Things which are not important for the movie have been let out, so the audience do not get distracted and focus on the wrong things. It is a bit hard in the beginning to watch people opening doors which are not there, but you get used to it after about a half to one hour.

When you only have one big scene, then the acting is very important to keep the movie going, and the acting is really superb. I cannot say anything bad about the acting, all the actors really did a great job. Most noticeable is of course the acting by Nicole Kidman, but there are also a lot of really experienced actors like James Caan, Philip Baker Hall and Lauren Bacall. The rest of the cast are also really good actors, I would like to give them all some credit.

Visually it is also a successful movie, it is really a great view, when you are watching the town from the overview camera. There are also different times of the year, and you can see from the environment what time of the year it is, once more a point where the movie has been successful.

Those were the positive things, there are also some negative things about this movie. I have to admit that the movie was maybe a bit too long, there were some periods where I felt that nothing really happened. The movie also failed to make me feel real bad or sad, I just sat and watched the cruelty without being touched that much, some more music might have helped the atmosphere.

One of the things the movie has been criticized for is that it was an attack against USA. I am not anti-American, and I still did enjoy watching the lives of the people in the streets. Lars von Trier will surely try to send some messages with this movie, and I think it is healthy - you have the choice to agree or disagree.

Dogville was an interesting intellectual movie, and it makes you think about several things. I would like to recommend it, but I do not see it as a master piece, so I will give it 7/10.

I must say that this movie is really well written, directed and performed.

The movie starts with evidence that looks like a clear case, but one juror is not sure. It would be wrong, if I said more about the story, but it develops in a very interesting way.

Each of the jurors have their reasons for finding the accused guilty or not guilty. You see the jurors small talking with each other, and each little story reveals something about the persons. This is perfect character building, it was really made in an impressive way.

The concept is very simple, 12 men discussing a case in a room. It does not sound interesting, but it for sure is. The actors perform excellently, each actor creates an unique character, it is simply just amazing to watch their discussions. I think it would be unfair to mention one actor, because all of them do a fantastic performance.

You could say that it does not require a good director to create such a simple movie, but that is very wrong. Director Sidney Lumet really understood how to focus on the right discussions at the right time, he builds the characters with the camera, he did an excellent job.

"12 Angry Men" is an impressive movie. I have rated 454 movies, and only 11 movies have been rated 9/10 or above, and this is one of them. I will rate it 9/10, it's one of the best of all time.

I have just watched "Punch-Drunk Love", and I was not impressed at all. Here at IMDb the users had given it 7,8, but I must say that I do not agree.

If I should tell what the movie was about, then I could not say much more than extortion and that you should be careful to give away your credit card number. The rest of the movie is just silly like a stupid dream, which really does not make sense. I am sure that most people would agree that making a film of a dream would make a horrible movie, and that is the result with "Punch-Drunk Love".

The actors actually do an acceptable job, but the script is just horrible and doomed from the first line. The director and writer Paul Thomas Anderson must have a sick mind, because this movie is really terrible. I do not know how he could accept this final cut as being near acceptable, but the script was doomed from the first line as I mentioned earlier, so it was maybe impossible for him to save it in the editing room.

Apparently many IMDb users like this type of movie, but I think these people just like something twisted and in some way bizarre. This movie is both twisted and bizarre, but not good.

"Punch-Drunk Love" is the worst movie I have seen in 2003 so far, and hopefully it will not change. It deserves 2/10, and it is not because I give extremely poor ratings normally, but I really hate this movie.

Lately I've noticed that Franklin J. Schaffner was a fantastic director. I've loved "Planet of the Apes" for some years, and some months ago I watched "Patton" for the first time in a long period.

Both movies were very good especially "Planet of the Apes", so I thought that I should try watch another Schaffner-movie and the choice was the 3rd placed movie on his IMDb ranking, "Papillon".

The movie was well directed and the cast was right. McQueen was good in the role as the strong Papillon, and Hoffman was really the right man to play the intellectual Louis Dega. You could say that the movie is very dark, but there are actually some funny moments in the movie which works just fine.

I will also pay some tribute to the composer Jerry Goldsmith, he has also composed the great scores for "Planet of the Apes" and "Patton". He is one of the reasons why Schaffner's movies are great.

There is no doubt that this movie is good, I could write a lot about some interesting scenes, but that would spoil your experience with this movie. I recommend this movie, 8/10.

First of all I need to say that Tremors 3 is very poor in every way. Some reasons why the movie isn't good:

1) The acting is very bad, you can almost laugh during some scenes because of the poor acting, I really missed Kevin Bacon.

2) The music composed for this movie is really bad, it doesn't create the atmosphere needed.

3) The sand worms don't follow cars, unless the car contains something which creates ultrasound.

4) The sand worms are evolving into lizards and farting birds.

Do I need to say more?

Tremors should be two movies and not a trilogy. The third one was a scandal, and I fear a fourth movie.

The final words:

Tremors 3: Back to Perfection: I'll give it 3/10!

I have just watched Sling Blade, and I was really impressed.

I didn't expect much from Billy Bob Thornton, but I was wrong. His performance is one of the best I've ever seen, he deserved an Oscar for this work. He is of course not the whole movie, but his performance as Karl Childers was just fantastic. I will from now on have a lot of respect for Mr. Thornton.

The rest of the cast also performed very well, maybe I should mention the performance by Dwight Yoakam, he really performed well in the evil role.

You won't have the same feeling after watching this as you had after watching Forrest Gump, but you will be touched.

I would rate this movie 8/10, but it is almost 9/10.

I thought 'Rejseholdet' was serious, but I was very wrong.

I've seen one episode of this series, and I must say that it is NOT realistic.

The episode I watched was a crime riddle that was solved by a cop's dreams, it was terrible.

I would recommend one of the American shows, or if you like crime riddles, then you should watch the good old Columbo.

I've just watched 'A Perfect Murder', and once again I'm impressed by Michael Douglas' performance.

Maybe Michael Douglas is very good at reading scripts, because almost all his movies are good or at least average. New Douglas movies like One Night at McCool's and Traffic confirms Douglas' skills to choose roles.

It shouldn't all be about Douglas, but I needed to praise this great actor. The movie is pretty exciting with some thrills throughout the whole movie. Gwyneth Paltrow and Viggo Mortensen are good supporting actors and their performances shouldn't be missed either.

If you like an exciting crime story with some complications, then 'A Perfect Murder' is a good choice. It is good, but there are better movies on the market. It deserves 7/10.

I went to the cinema this evening to watch K-19: The Widowmaker, and I had mixed expectations.

The reviews were mixed here in Denmark, but I was willing to give it a shot, I always look forward to watch a Harrison Ford movie.

One of the things I have read about was the Russian accent, and I just think you should ignore this. Americans can't talk like Russians, and that is just something you have to accept as a watcher.

K-19 was a slow starter movie, and I thought it would be a disappointment after the first half, which was too long with not much happening. In the second half problems occurred and the movie developed in a positive direction. I can't say much because it would spoil the movie for you.

The performances by the actors were good, and the movie was also well directed. You felt inside the sub when watching the movie, and that was the whole idea. K-19: The Widowmaker is an average movie because of it's length, I would rate it 6/10.

I like most of Steve Martin's work, and I also liked this movie, but I was not impressed.

Novocaine has it's moments where it is really funny, but there are also some periods where not much is happening. It's not a typical Steve Martin movie where you laugh all the time, Novocaine has some serious and thrilling moments that we don't see in most other Steve Martin movies.

The movie is a different Steve Martin movie, but there are still some good moments in Novocaine. I think this movie deserves 6/10, it is worth watching.