Reviews

Visually very nice and a really great premise, but that's it. The storytelling leaves huge gaps and, at times, you are left wondering: "When did that happen?".

It starts off very nicely and shows the closeness between Kevin and his best friend, his girlfriend and her father, the coach. Then disaster strikes in more ways than one.

Kevin goes back to school and, although it seems relevant to the story, we're never given the amount of time he was out or the reason he goes to a different school.

Meets a girl, or, as it is portrayed, a new girl forces herself on him. Although they tried to show Hannah as a nice girl who falls for the troubled guy and tries to help him, she comes off as a needy groupie chasing her idol, yelling: "We belong together, we belong together!"

His need for running is explained well enough, but everything else around it is inconsistent. The way he doesn't care about competing, yet the first thing he does after starting new school is join the team; hates it, but fights to stay on it; allows himself to get exploited by the grubby father-daughter team of Coyote and Lynskey.

The character of Jol, the new best friend is thrown in from time to time without any explanation. he just pops up and tells some of the things going on in his life and disappears.

All in all, not unwatchable, but you'll find yourself trying to fill the gaps and finding sense in what you saw.

Oh, and there is such thing as too much indie folk music. While it suited some of the scenes, the movie depended too much on it as a mood setter.

In this movie, the most credit goes to the director, camera and cinematography dept., because it was really beautifully filmed. Acting was also decent, considering the story. My score is based only on that.

The story itself is quite dumb and unrealistic. Not the first part. In it we have two girls, both in serious relationships, who meet, feel the attraction and have a weekend fling. I can buy that, it happens all the time, no matter the sexual orientation.

It is the second half of the movie that bugged me. In it we're to believe that after a roll on the hay and (I have too mention this, because it is important) very few words in between, these two feel that they're meant to be, that they're soul mates and that they can't live without one another. The words they exchange, in both love and anger, and the havoc they wreak after is something that might happen after a long affair, but not after 2 days.

To me, this movie is nothing more than a filmed pulp romance novel - lesbian edition.

I really loved this movie. But I went into it expecting something else because of what I'd read in the IMDb summary.

While there are moments that will make you feel like you'll die laughing, this is, actually, a very serious movie. It shows different sides to people through the one denominator that binds us all - our sexuality. And, while there are some scenes of sex - I feel like I have to mention it - they weren't made to arouse (so skip the movie if you wanted to get that out of it).

This movie shows how far people will go in their selfish need to get their own satisfaction, but it also shows how far people will go to satisfy the ones they love. It shows the lengths they'll go to re- connect with the ones they love, and how easily they can lose contact with the world around them.

All of this, of course, would not have been possible without the cast, which was chosen superbly and it shows why, IMHO, Aussie actors are taking over the world stage.

Being Serbian, I went into this movie with some prejudice: Serbian people being demonized, the entire war blamed on them etc. Saw the first 15 minutes and got a bit irritated with Travolta's accent, some portrayals of Belgrade, but had to stop watching and it wasn't until a few days later that I finished it. In the meantime, I decided to put my prejudice away and just watch it.

And I'm glad I did. It's an OK movie with a story that could be applied to any war in the world. Granted, a lot of things were twisted, but Hollywood isn't famous for it's fact-checking. Neither DeNiro, nor Travolta gave their best performances, but they were quite decent. The scenery was amazing and, as someone mentioned, very reminiscent of First blood. Even the music sounded similar.

I expected it to be a classic good guy VS bad guy movie, but was pleasantly surprised that it wasn't. There is no winner in this movie, just two people, scarred by war, coming to terms with their past.

A lot of things were exaggerated for the sake of suspense, but, in many ways this isn't a true action film (although there is a lot of action), but more of a drama.

I hope people get passed the nationality issue and get the true point of the story - that war is an awful piece of business which no one leaves unscathed, but, if you try, you can put the past behind you and move on.

Big guy's packing even more punch now that he's older. When you see bodybuilder in his prime, movies tend to be a bit generic, but now, that he's older, Schwarzenegger gives even more character to the action. Even his acting seems to have improved, but I guess that's politics. :) This movie, like The Expendables, proves that, to get a pure action movie, you need to turn to the people who truly represent the genre. The cast is great, the plot is very simple, the comedy is easy and, in many ways, even personal. I hope the Governator makes more movies like this. I really don't have much more to say, I'm just trying to fill my 10 lines of text required to post this.

Whenever I see a "how it was made" on TV and hear the cast and crew talk about the movie, the characters and each other with adoration, I just know the movie will suck. When I heard Rachel Nichols talk about her character, it reminded me of Keri Russell talking about hers in Mission Impossible 3, and I was right - just like Lindsey Farris, Monica Ashe dies in the first half of the movie. And you can just see it throughout the movie that her faith is sealed.

Tyler Perry and Rob Cohen praised Morgan Freeman's portrayal and said that Perry will bring a new perspective and freshness to the role. Let me tell you, I really would have preferred to see Freeman, even at his age - especially at his age - wield a shotgun and fight Picasso. Tyler Perry just doesn't have the same emotional depth, though, I have to admit, he does look scary when he's out for blood.

I won't say it was a complete waste of time, but it still was. There were some scenes that reminded me more of a soap opera, than of an action thriller. Everyone overacted their parts and the dialog was pretty cheesy, but I can't really blame the actors for that, because it's the director who, well - directs.

I have nothing against bad movies. It is the best way to see what is good, but, please, at least make them cheap! I hate to see all that money go to waste when there are people with more creativity, but less funding.

P.S. A month ago, when I wrote the first part, I hadn't yet read a single Alex Cross book. Since then, I read the first 3 and started the 4th and, though most of my previous statements still stand, I do have to say that Tyler Perry is physically closer to the image of Cross I had while reading the book, than Morgan Freeman.

I watched the 1997 show, not all of it, but enough, and the thing that I like in this version more than in the old one, is that it's more outdoorsy. La femme Nikita was filmed too much in a studio.

I'm not comparing the two, they're based on the same premise, but still different shows. I saw the first season and actually liked it, but season two is getting annoying. I'll keep watching in hopes that it'll get better, but from my experience with other shows...

The thing that annoys me the most (as it does in most shows) is that you have a good idea and destroy it with too much bling, coolness and BAD DIALOGUE. Compulsive recapitulation of what happened in previous episodes gets on my nerves. For that, we have Latin soap operas.

As for the characters, I don't really believe Maggie Q is Nikita. Her acting is OK, but in the fight scenes... Well someone as tiny and skinny as her would have a lot more trouble in taking down big, well trained soldiers than she does. (I'm a martial artist, I've seen women fight) Peta Wilson could pull it off cause she's more brawny. Maggie should have, at least, eaten more for the role.

Shane West is OK. He has that good guy aura (though he should lose the goatee :-)), which is good, because this Michael is not a cold killer like the old one (and Roy Dupuis pulled it off perfectly). Bad dialogue ruins the part.

They really should have hired someone else instead of Melinda Clarke for Amanda. Her plastic surgery kills the cold confidence and screams "insecure about her looks". It adds to the maniacal aura, though.

Xander Berkeley is good. I like him as Percy. They should have evolved the character a bit more.

The character of Alex annoys me. For a junkie sex slave, she's too much of a spoiled brat. Lyndsy Fonseca is good in the role, it's just poorly written. Very inconsistent.

All in all, good idea that needs just a little more believe-ability.

A part of me was cheering for the "bad guys" because I'm Serbian and I agree with the things Kozlow (not a Serbian name, by the way) said to Nathan at the game, but I mostly wanted some resemblance of an actual life threatening situation. For instance, that guy on the train should have cut off Karen's finger - I know I would if I were an evil henchman.

I'm actually very disappointed to see great actors like Sigourney Weaver and Alfred Molina be in such a movie. But, I guess that's how you promote next big stars - you put better actors as supporting cast. I really hope that Lautner will live up to the hype everyone's creating around him.

I liked the idea, but like so many others this was sweetened up and made into an action chick flick.

I'm a fan Reese Witherspoon and Tom Hardy's been making some good performances lately, but this is one movie that they should just write off as poor judgement. And I'm really sorry to say this, because it was a good idea and I certainly hope that someone, sometime in the future will take the idea and make a good movie out of it.

The comedy of the movie was too forced, which, I have to say, has been happening to most of the American comedies. I really haven't seen a truly good and funny American comedy in years.They moved to TV.

I'm trying to find specific things to say what was so wrong, but there was too much of it. Firstly, I don't buy the bromance between FDR and Tuck. You just don't see the closeness they talk so much about. No.2, Chelsey Handler is soooo annoying, I actually hoped she'd die when Tuck blew her tires. The whole movie has just too much talking and talking and talking without saying anything (a good movie for politicians LOL). For me, personally, a good movie is quite the opposite - saying with very little talking (guess that is why Woody Allen annoys me so much).

Actually, the only decent performance came from Til Schweiger and I hoped he'd be the last one standing.

And, one more thing, since I'm from Serbia and can't help mentioning, since Sokolov and Tuck talk in Serbian: Sokolov is not a Serbian name, it's Russian. Russian language is not the same as Serbian language. Serbian people, who speak English fluently, speak it with almost no accent and, if thay do, it certainly doesn't sound Russian. I'm surprised that Mike Dopud messed it up.