Reviews

First off I liked this movie. Can't say I loved it or plan to see it again. But it was good. But at the same time it's not worthy of the Oscar-buzz it's been receiving either. It painted a lot of pretty and pretty awful pictures, but in the end I really didn't feel emotionally attached to the two lead characters. I just felt like everything surrounding them was contrived, even the end. For me what resonated the most were the other stories, especially that of Natalie Portman's character...that was real heartbreak. Kidman was fine as usual and so was Law, but again the suffering that others around them had to endure seemed so much more that in the end I felt a bit flat about them.

A good movie, but not great.

This past weekend I had to sit through two hours of dreck in Beyond Borders. ELF more than does the job of uplifting my battered movie-going spirits! This is a great movie! Ferrell is great, the story is great, and I absolutely loved the tongue-in-cheek nods to those old Rankin/Bass Christmas specials we past-30-folks grew up on. "Leon The Snowman"?! Give me a break, what a hoot!

Like others have said, I don't think anyone but Ferrell could have brought the kind of innocent, childlike, borderline-weird quality that's perfect for the role. He's the star and everyone else is backup, well, except for the great script and visual direction, especially early on in the film.

Overall, a wonderful experience as the Christmas season draws near.

I'm sorry folks, but there's no defending this movie. Blame it on the poor writing and frankly shame on the makers of this movie for using the plight of starving and terrorised peoples around the world as a backdrop for a romance movie that is in the end totally pointless, unbelievable, and infuriatingly stupid.

This played like a version of "Same Time Next Year" except the meetings happened every few years with the backdrop going from a really bad Ethiopia to a really, really bad Cambodia to an even worse Chechnya. Which the point of it all was to allow the two leads to hook up for a few days over the span of years to develop and explore their relationship amidst and despite of the harrowing poverty, starvation, sickness, violence, and mayhem surrounding them.

The worst insult is the "dedication" blurb at the end where we're lead to believe this whole romantic tripe is to honor the hard-working relief workers around the world. Give me a break.

I'm no wordsmith, so I'll just say this, Oh My Ged, this movie rocks out the yin-yang!!! Not only is it the funniest movie I've seen in years, but it made feel so good at the end I was applauding with the rest of the audience! And if anything, Black's Gospel of Rock'N'Roll goes to show, the modern music scene needs to get over it's self-centered-boring-stale state and rediscover the majesty that is ROCK'N'ROLL!!!! YEAH, BABY!!!!! AWESOME, MOVIE, SIMPLY AWESOME!!

I guess the best way for me to sum up my feelings about UNDERWORLD is to say it was much more entertaining and intelligent than I expected.

Despite it's Matrix-like tones, I figured I'd give the movie a shot. Well, my wife wanted to see it, so who was I to deny her. :)

Plus, I thought the whole supernatural gang-war concept pretty interesting.

Where the movie worked the most for me was presenting a story that didn't allow the effects to define the story...well, like the Matrix Reloaded unfortunately did to stupefyingly boring results.

The story had me attentive throughout and I found myself actually caring about the characters, even ones that on the surface seemed like baddies.

The biggest barometer for me is whether I'd be willing to see a sequel, Underworld 2 would have me in the seats.

DUNE is an odd film. After having watched it several times over the years, I'm not afraid to call it a very flawed classic. That sounds strange, but it fits for this movie. Lynch got so many things right, but in the end the shortcomings of trying to squeeze an epic story into a little over 2 hours was simply too daunting a challenge. Besides, I'm sure many went into the theatre expecting a film in the vein of STAR WARS.

DUNE is not a story with which one can delve into brainless. It does require thought, for it's inaccurate to portray it as anything less than a thinking person's story. It's not space battles, laser-gun shootouts, funny aliens, etc. There's nothing wrong with those things, it's just not what DUNE is about. It touches on everything from politics, religion, ecology, the true power of the human mind and will when fully realized, God, etc. Some heady stuff.

So imagine trying to fit all that in a movie.

Lynch got the feel, the imagery down, but wasn't able to cohesively bring the story around w/o really making it a Cliff Notes version of the story. You get the main gist, but don't get the "full story", the themes, etc. So in the end it does disappoint because you're left wondering what may have been had the movie conventions of that time allowed for a 2 or even 3 movie epic. Oh wait, STAR WARS did that. I guess DUNE wasn't viewed as bankable enough to make such an investment.

Anyway, I still like the film a lot. The visual realization by Lynch makes it a classic in my book, too bad it couldn't be matched by an equally strong script. I wonder if Peter Jackson would be willing to tackle another 3 film epic? Hmmmmmm.....

Thank the gods, I'm not alone in my opinion of this movie. I was worried this might turn out to be one of those "artsy" movies that everyone gets but me. From the beginning, the situations just don't ring true and the story just never grabs. There's far too much of basically nothing happening. There's no tension, no suspense. By the time something does happen, the execution is so off-the-wall it's simply confusing and distracting.

The effects confuse more than intensify and reminded me of an arthouse version of the irritating rock-video tricks so loved by the late 90's, early 2K's horror movie revivalists.

I don't doubt the intent was to make a good movie here. Too bad they failed miserably. Everything from the title to the story description screams horror/suspense, but what we get instead is far from it. I guess it tried to be something like Blair Witch, Deliverance, and the Manitou all at the same time. Heck, I can't figure it out. In the end, you're just like "what was the point?". A strange question to ask after seeing a horror film, because we all know what the point of a horror/suspense film is, but this movie was trying really hard to be "meaningful" about something and in the end just ends up as one really bad movie.

This movie if anything left me dying for more Terminator!! Okay, no, it's not art-house, it's not a brainy film, but is it entertaining! Many critics call it a B-Movie. Well, so what. It's fast, fun, and escapist to a hilt.

Most critics feel a need to view movies as "art" and critique it on that point. For me, movies are escapism and if they make me forget about the outside world for a couple of hours, they've done their job. Terminator 3 does it wonderfully!

The chase scene blows the much-lauded scene from Matrix Reloaded out of the water. Just awesome.

Arnold is back, baby!

It's amazing how short a time it has taken for many a comic-reading fan to get jaded about movies base on comics. It wasn't so long ago that we had no comics-based movies to moan and whine about. Now that we've been treated to an impressive string of quality comics-based films, the nitpicking has begun. So the CGI isn't totally convincing, but how in the heck do you make a 2-ton, green behemoth realistic looking? It's just not possible given that we have no frame of reference to compare it to in the real world. So sit back and run with the fantasy. It's just a movie! And a great one at that!

Won't retread what others have said. This is simply a masterpiece. Why Hackman was left of the Oscar ballot, nonetheless win the whole thing is beyond me. A superb production all around. Rushmore is a great film, Tenenbaums is far better. Bravo.

I've heard some critics say that K-19 won't or perhaps shouldn't do well because Soviets are portrayed as the heroes of the movie. Well, that's a bunch of kaka. The fact is this is a movie about men who made tough decisions and acted heroicly to save each other from certain doom. Perhaps they were thinking outside the sub and wanted to save the world too. I don't necessarily want to get that romantic about it, but still these were brave men who acted admirably under far more stressful situations and conditions than we will probably ever face in our lives. That being said, kudos to Kathryn Bigelow, Harrison Ford, Liam Neeson and the entire cast and crew for making an intelligent, taut movie. It doesn't dumb itself down at any point. It is more a movie about bravery than a true action movie (i.e., Crimson Tide or The Hunt For Red October). Personally, I wouldn't mind saluting the real crew of the real K-19 for being the brave men they were. I know it's a movie, so perhaps the real events and motivations were romanticized or glossed over. I wouldn't know that. But if the real men on K-19 acted with a fraction of the bravery this movie exhibited, they'd still be deserving of our most sincere respect. A fine movie.

As a concept, this movie should have rocked the house. Instead it ends up a limp, bland movie.

I loved the idea of a crew of ghostly baddies each with a theme and history running amok in an enclosed space. Many were visually realized in an effective way (especially the Jackal). The story just didn't utilize them in any effective way.

Maybe I just didn't care enough about the main characters to want to see them survive. Maybe the ghosts just weren't scary enough (except for the Jackal and maybe the Angry Princess, the Jackal especially reminded me of the Face of Death from the Exorcist). It just fell flat for me.

This movie is a good example of why today's directors who seem to think gimmicky rock-video camera tricks (slo-mo and the like) won't ever get it. It's mood, stupid! Cool house though.

Isn't the point of a Star Wars flick to take us to another world filled with adventure, intrigue, noble & diabolical characters and plain kick-butt action? Well, this movie delivers in spades upon spades upon spades! Just seeing Yoda let out his masterful Jediness was worth the price of admission!

And I don't care what folks say, Christensen was awesome as Annakin. Watching Phantom, you just couldn't fathom mannaquin-Anakin ever becoming Vader, but Christensen leaves no doubt in your mind Anakin is headed down a bad road. If anything, I see Darth Vader as being a more tragic character than ever before. Not just an extremely-cool-but-bad bad guy who happens to come out of his badness-trip at the end. Seeing the conflicts Anakin goes through not only with his inherent personality playing tug-of-war with his Jedi teachings, but with the events in his life, you can understand why Vader comes into being.

The CGI was awesome. Yes, sometimes it overwhelmed me, but especially in the last act of the film, it was simply unbelievable. Eye Candy Supreme!