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Alone in the Dark (2005)
I knew this was bad ...
... and I must say, if you watch it without any expectations, you can enjoy several parts. There are a few shocking moments that made me jump up ... cheap, but effective. Put everyone inside a dark room, add some sudden monster sounds, there you go. I liked the helicopter scene, finally something you haven't seen before. The love scene though ... disappointing and unnecessary, Tara Reid can definitely do better.
Most of the movie reminds you of The Relic and Starship Troopers, but if you liked them, don't watch this one, they were better and at least had SOME depth. The end looked artificial and I seriously hope they do not make a second part, I'm pretty sure they would not get Tara Reid and Christian Slater, who did an OK job here, back anyway.
If you concentrate on the good parts and ignore the bad ones and stop asking questions like "Why?" and "How?", you get to my 3/10 rating.
Cruel Intentions (1999)
Watch it
I 've seen Cruel Intentions about five times now, and I can still enjoy it.
This is an excellent example of how good actors should be placed within a story of mistrust, love and ... cruel intentions. The characters were portrayed believable and and clearly distinguishable, the twists never made you lose the character. Great job from the whole cast (thank god Tara Reid had such a short appearance ...).
The beautiful sets, well chosen soundtrack and the satisfying ending round all this up to a good movie, even though the ending was not a typical happy Hollywood ending ... good job done here as well!
I'll never understand why you have to jeopardize the success of a movie by making sequels without the original cast and sophistication. If you want to see Cruel Intentions, make sure you get part one. 9/10
Ong-Bak (2003)
Disappointing
Oops, they did it again ... they got some new action guys, fetched an old storyline and let some John Woo fan put all this together, but they missed a point: They forgot to hire actors!
The dialogs were stupid and looked like manually added in between the action shots. I'm pretty sure this movie would have been a lot better without these ridiculous conversations at all. There was almost no background information flow explaining how the side characters got into all this, the plot kind of jumped from scene to scene. But then there are the fighting and action scenes, the scooter-car-chase scene in the middle of the movie looked good, but a little cheap. The fighting clearly reminds you of Jackie Chan and Jet Li, though I prefer Jackie's approach of not taking himself too serious.
All in all nothing new in this one, the action cannot make it up for the poor acting and washed out story, 4/10
Shi mian mai fu (2004)
Forget the story, view this for the action
I made up my mind when I saw my first Jackie Chan movie: Don't let them do too much of acting, let them spin around, let them fly through the air and forget about physics.
The dialogs were stupid and mostly useless and I in general considered them as "brakes between the action", some pretty long, some rather short. Some "twists" even made me laugh. Its hard for a producer/writer of this kind of movie to come up with new ideas after "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" and "Hero", and I have to say: House of Flying Daggers just isn't that good.
But if you don't take this movie too serious and you like martial arts, you might want to check this one out. The action sequences cannot make up for the confusing and/or useless plot line and dialogs.
Sideways (2004)
Good combination
This is what a good low-budget film should look like: You got 2 very talented main actors and ... that's it. This movie is far from being spectacular, and I guess that's in fact what they were trying to achieve here: It's the story of 2 contrasting friends on some kind of bachelor road trip.
The story is not too spectacular either, but it's the way it is shown from the characters point of view that keeps you watching to the end. There are several funny scenes who really spice the partly slow and boring passages up. I rated this a 7, I know its a good movie but there was too little action in it, the story evolves pretty slow. It's a good but not my kind of movie, go see this with your girlfriend.
Elektra (2005)
One of the few good comic book movies
I have to admit: I was impressed. I checked a few comments and the IMDb rating before I saw it, I also saw the 1st minute of the movie and some trailers ... and I consider this a good movie.
No need for any excuses like "Dont expect too much, its from a comic book" or something like that, I really enjoyed it: Jennifer Garner is an excellent kick-ass superhero I would compare to Lara Croft's Angelina Jolie, she acted believable looked awesome. The shots in general were convincing and well chosen, the visual effects were OK, but not that breathtaking any more (hey, we live in the post-Matrix and StarWars I/II time now). The villains worked out great and though there might be some plot holes here and there, the story was not not as clumsy as in other superhero movies (or movies in general), though I did not like the (somehow obligatory for superhero characters) romance part. A little less of that and a little more of the action scenes, and I would rate it 7+.
If you liked Tiger & Dragon, The Matrix 1 and Spiderman you should definitely take a look at "Elektra".
The Clearing (2004)
There are many better kidnapping movies
Do not watch this movie, go see something else ... I was very disappointed, I cannot rate this movie any better than 3. The acting was quite good and I really liked William Dafoe as the villain, but I cannot see why this movie made it to the big screen. The story was old and has been shown in 100+ other movies and 1000+ TV series/movies. The main problem was basically: Nothing is happening. Take a kidnapping, let the villain make the wife of the kidnapped man deliver the money, make the police look stupid and boring and extend this to 95 minutes, you got your "Clearing" movie. The only 2 reasons I did not rate this a 1 was a) Dafoe and b) the "plan-B-ending". There are not many endings you can give a kidnapper movie ... 75% of these kind end with ending A, 20% end ending B and 1% ends with something unforeseeable. Boring, boring, boring.
Blade: Trinity (2004)
OK film, bad part 3 of a trilogy
The film is almost what you expected of a Blade: Good action, OK story, nice special effects, kick-ass fun Wesley. Characters: Good choice, not too strong besides the main character, not too well-known, just being there kicking ass near Mr Snipes, excellent choice for the villain as well. Story: Not too hard to get to ... could use some more surprising twists here and there, but in my opinion it does its job: Keeping you to the action. Effects: I always enjoyed watching the vampires in Blade die :-) I recognized some glitches here and there when the action is going on behind the termination of a vamp, it sometimes looked a little crappy.
Its a fun movie, if you like action vampire movies, this is definitely a must see. Its actually more like part 1, good decision in my opinion ... I'm always afraid of producers messing up sequels, this is not one of them. I'm a little disappointed with the ending: As part 3 of the trilogy you would expect it to be special, answering and bringing it all to a satisfying end, but instead this movie could easily go through as part one or two. Still 8 out of 10.
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004)
Extremely well done
There is not much to criticize on this movie (I rated it 9/10), so here are my two cents:
a) A+ story from the man who wrote "Being John Malkovich". The story is not "easy" ("like poor underdog gets great girl in the end and they live happily thereafter"), but if you keep up and follow the story, its great. Its realistic, its fun, its never too technical (the movie actually is about brain surgery here!) ... good mixture of everything!
b) The cast ... if you wanna see a great main actor couple, go watch this one, Carrey and Winslet are amazing. They are on a completely different level than Elijah Wood and Kirsten Dunst, its hard to believe that this is Mr Ace Ventura and Cable Guy together with Titanic woman (I know, both did great movies since then, I'm just pointing out their origins). Carrey will never lose his little craziness, but as this movie showed, he is capable of much much more. When you see him together with Kate Winslet as "the couple", you doubt nothing they do or say: They ARE Joel Barish and Clementine Kruczynski! Affleck, watch this and see how its done!!
c) Visual Effects: As this is a more serious (but still funny!) movie, there is no place for alien blasters, explosions or space ships ... but that doesn't mean that producers do not try to fit in as much FX as possible (I'm not judging, I LOVE Michael Bay's Bad Boys :-)) But not in this movie, the crew showed great respect to the storyline but managed to fit in little gimmicks that help the viewer develop its view on the characters. At no time of the movie you get the feeling like "ahhh thats sooooo unrealistic" or "nahhh take it away that doesn't fit!) ... from minute 1 you are more like "hmmm, actually this could happen in the apartment above me!" and "great idea, that a FX that adds an unforeseeable fun element". The changes of point of view (inside Carrey real, inside Carrey dream, out of Carrey) lets the viewer explore the characters and their surroundings without things getting overwhelming (side story lines ...).
Shark Tale (2004)
A funny lame great rocking movie
What a cast for an animation movie ... but does it matter? Actually, no. Robert Deniro, Renee Zellweger, Angelina Jolie, Will Smith, Martin Scorsese ... those people are top notch, but in this movie, they are exchangeable and not what they bring to their characters in non animated movies. Without them this movie would be yet another fun movie, but with a cast like that you could expect more: This is "just" one of those Hollywood movies, an underdog story with a uber-super-duper-happy ending. been there, seen that about a million times.
But on the other hand, its just too fun to rate below 7. The jokes and sidekicks work from the beginning, you laugh about the ideas these crazy Dreamworks guys came up with, but you did so in all the other animation flicks, too. I guess if that movie came 3 years earlier, it would have been great.
To sum it up: Give it a different story, rework that Lola/Angelina Jolie character (what in the name ...), but keep the gags in it.
Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow (2004)
Don't watch it.
To be honest, I expected more ... a LOT more: The cast looked more than promising, the story sounded good, Angelina was in there ... how could this get wrong?
First thing you notice during watching this movie: Stop thinking, this movie is so packed with unrealism, it hurts your head. I mean this would fit nice if it was intended to be that way ... but in my opinion, the movie takes itself too serious.
Jude's and Gwyneth's performances were OK, but Angelina's part was too short. And what's up with her name, Captain Francesca? Come on, this is the kick-ass bitch from Tomb Raider, Gone in 60 Seconds and Hackers! How can you be a "Francesca" after you have been Lady Croft?? Giving her more text, action and less clothes would have resulted in a higher rating, I'm sure.
Last but not least, the visual effects or "the way all this looks". To be honest, I do not like movies that have been made entirely in the computer (that's why Star Wars 4-6 will always rule Episode 1-3!), with the exceptions of fun movies like Shrek or Toy Story. They are still not successful using computers to "create reality": They did not in Final Fantasy, they did not in this one and they will not for at least 10 years. Use it as the spot on the i, but don't render the whole "i"!
L.A. Twister (2004)
Fun Movie meets outstanding acting
Big props to the 2 main actors, Tony Daly and Zack Ward. To be honest, I didn't recognize either of them in their past movies, but they did surprisingly good in this movie. Though being put in the "independent movie" box, I would put this one a few boxes higher: The well known story of 2 "losers" making it in the big city (aka American Dream, The) got spiced up with funny dialogs, action sequences and well chosen locations ... the story does not get in the background, but focusing on the characters of Ethan and Lenny instead of their actions helps the movie staying interesting to the end.
The movie gets to you from the beginning, I can highly recommend it.
Paparazzi (2004)
Innovative story meets medium-acting
Don't expect too much, the main characters acting ... well, lets call it medium. I liked the cameo of Chris Rock and I also enjoyed the Peter-Falk-Columbo-Detective snooping around and investigating. The no-1 bad guy (Tom Sizemore) did the best job being nasty, antisocial, all up for the money and ... scared. The story is good and entertaining but could go a little deeper, some twists here and there would have spiced it up a little ... it's too linear. The ending is OK, I don't think there will be a Paparazzi 2, but you never know these days :)
All in all a good, enjoyable movie you can watch without overpowering your brain.