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Reviews
Candyman: Day of the Dead (1999)
Barely Candyman
For years I thought I'd seen all three of the Candyman movies, but on a whim I watched them through again recently. I wish I'd stuck with my assumption and stopped after the first two, for the Day of the Dead was an utter disappointment.
My first impression, given during the opening credits was: "They dropped the Philip Glass music, and all they can show me is a shiny red hook from about fifty different angles. This movie is going to suck."
My second impression was from the very first shot of our new 'heroine', Ms. D'Erico. Seeing her trying to act I was reassured that this must be the obligatory 'stupid person calling Candyman and dying instantly to prove what film it is' scene. To my horror, this was entirely not the case.
My eyes were assaulted by the unfortunate attempts by various people to act throughout this poor excuse of a sequel.
My ears were assaulted by each and every high-pitched squeak of a scream that Donna uttered when she was told to act scared, or surprised, or happy, or mildly confused...
My sense of common was assaulted when Donna dropped her keys through a heating vent in her corridor, and I had to watch the horrifying effort she put into wedging her hand through the tiniest gap in that vent after she knocked into the hinged section leaving a gap large enough to fit her head through. Twice!
Tony Todd, the legend himself, did however do a valiant job for about half the movie, before he gave up from being given the same lines to parrot he'd had in his previous two movies, over and over. He was still a formidable presence though, and kudos to him for giving it a go.
I realise that I'm being quite negative about this awful awful movie, though that is probably because it hurt my brain so much to watch it. I can't recommend this movie to anyone, but there's a chance you might enjoy it anyway. If you were very drunk. Or not watching it.
Get Smart, Again! (1989)
Looks like good weather today
As most comments here mention, this is a film for the fans of the original series, and if that's not you, you're unlikely to enjoy this film too much. It's not bad, as a film, but as a one-off it's a bit poor.
That being said, this movie was a really nice re-visit to the old gang of Control. Ed Platt's sad passing leaves him sorely missed as the Chief, in this film and the travesty of the Nude Bomb of 1980 (though it's unlikely that even he would have been able to save that one).
The story picks up the lives of Maxwell Smart and Mrs Maxwell Smart, and shows that Kaos reigns still, with Siegfried and Shtarker continuing to fill the world with evilness and badness. Control has been disbanded, but the old members are needed to take on their mantle of anti-espionage agents once again! Kitted out with new gadgets and old jokes, the fun gets rolling! The jokes are often direct repeats from the series, but for the most part that just doesn't matter.
This was a really sweet return to the Get Smart franchise, with the 20 missing years showing on everyone's faces but not hindering anything at all; Don Adams still taking the knocks as well as he always did, with his ever-visible stunt-double taking the longs-shots like usual ;) Fans, don't miss this movie! :D
Knowing (2009)
Not at good as I'd hoped, but better than I expected
It started very strongly in the set-up scenes, giving a delightfully freaky introduction (though not terribly much). It followed up with some refreshingly gory disaster incidents, too.. The score was nearly perfect, but tried too hard towards the middle-end to pile on the tension. This could spoil the mood for some, as it did for me. In fact that, and the lunatic brandishings by Mr Cage with his shiny revolver, were almost all that spoilt this for me... And perhaps the very last visual before the credits rolled, too.
I can't claim to have an in-depth knowledge of the source material from which the last quarter or so of this movie was based. That said, the smattering of my knowledge that relates directly to the visuals in that section left me quite liking what I saw. (This is me trying to tell you nothing, if you haven't seen it yet). In fact, I think that those images probably bumped it up a point on my 1-10 scale. It will undoubtedly have an opposite effect for many others though, I suspect.
Oh, and it's also a really predictable movie... But a fairly nicely done one at that..
Slumber Party Massacre II (1987)
No. nonononono no no no NO NO
So the original movie had a killer who escaped from a mental hospital and teleported into a phone-repair-woman's van, then preceded to kill -everyone- he saw. He wasn't completely insane, as he went to great lengths to hide every one of his victims, but there was so little apparent reason behind his motives that I actually wanted to watch to the end to find out the answer to my "wtf?" But this... this 'sequel'.. 5 years later and following the youngest of the original movie's survivors. She has her nightmares still about it, but the original killer is inexplicably replaced with the rock&roll cowboy with a totally insane enormous guitar drill. I can only assume it's a crossover of her own guitar-playing drill-massacre hallucinatory state of mind that explains this. But whatever.. That doesn't let them off the singing psycho.
It all started reasonably enough. Flashbacks to the first movie to explain her state of mind, an extended introduction to all the lame characters and their setting. The oh so unexpected "Crying Wolf" to the police, etc.. And after not getting very far up the hill in the first place, it quite successfully turned right around and rolled straight back down again.
OK yes, and the chase scene at the end.. The incongruity of him appearing in front of them at every point up until then mixing with his needing their blood-trail to find them was slightly odd... That was perhaps an irrelevant issue to raise when it came to the very end however... It seemed to try to make a little sense of the events, then pull that apart until it stops explaining a damned thing.
I like a good, weird film. I really do! This was just wrong, though. It's a shame.. I nearly thought this was going to be fun. Bleh
Pet Sematary (1989)
King does it again
Now, I haven't read the original short story to know all the literary points that went wrong here, so I'm not going to go down that path here.
But I have some time ago learnt that Stephen King movies simply -are not- horror films, with perhaps a couple of exceptions. This was not one of them. It started well enough, and for once I'm not going to complain about the acting, although Fred Gwynne was as usual wonderful.. Also I will forgive the total lack of parenting skills, as they were necessary to make the story here move forward...
But there was one consistent point that I couldn't help but get annoyed with. And that came pretty close to the end of the movie, and at least 2 characters partook in the activity of dumb stupidity. The moments I refer to are thus: There is a tiny zombie running around the house. You suspect it is under the bed. Do you
(a) get as close to the bed as you can before blindly raising the duvet cover up, exposing pretty much your whole body to whatever damage such a teeny undead cannibal might inflict on you, or
(b) move a little away from the bed so you can peer under the completely open end from a position of slightly increased safety, or at least see the mini terror coming at you, giving you a little reaction time.
I know, let's go with (a). I feel like offering myself up for the slaughter today. Bleh
Fun enough film though... Just not very scary.
Sometimes They Come Back... for More (1998)
What an idiotic waste of time
As everyone seems to indicate, the beginning of this very strongly smelled of The Thing, but once people started turning up not-dead-anymore the smell went bad.
This was only a sequel to the second of the "Sometimes They Come Back" films, by way of the demonic characters wandering about in it. Those who have seen it will probably be aware that the original movie in this 'trilogy' had nothing to do with demons coming to Earth, unless you consider the ghostly bullies being sent Hellwards at the end demonic. But the film makers did try to make this one fit in with the franchise by inserting, at around 44 minutes, the names of the leading characters from the other two films (Jim Norman and John Porter) on the pentagrammed-up map of the demonic world. Nice try, but it's a bit of a weak connection.
Plus the whole movie ends up generally ruined by curious spacial continuity (eg. Demons run faster than elevators), general predictability (guess where the ring ends up), unfortunate acting ("Oh my, I can't go on" *collapse* (to be fair, that must have been in the script)) and a dire ending. And, as has been noted by others, Leeta was a much better female lead than Ms Faith Ford. Sorry, I meant Chase Masterson, not Leeta... Silly me.
Don't avoid this movie. Just be aware you might not enjoy it...
Watchmen (2009)
Why did I watch the Watchmen?
First let me say I have read the graphic novel of this story, and fairly recently (in relation to seeing the movie) and I will relate my comments to this a bit too. I had heard that there were various bad reviews of the movie before seeing it, but I avoid actually reading such comments until after watching for myself...
This movie was visually very impressive, and it was apparent that quite a lot of effort had gone in to keeping close to the mood and the storyline of the comics. There was some success in keeping to the mood, but without explaining anything in any depth and barely grazing at the back-stories provided in the comics due to time constraints, the overall effect was to show a very long sequence of vaguely connected events in a tremendously violent manner which left an incredibly unsatisfactory feeling in the entire cinema.
Again, the effects were beautifully done, and for fans of the comics this surely is important, especially where Dr Manhatton is involved. Unfotunately, more effort seemed to be put into showing our fluorescent nudist than making the characters appear to think with any depth. I accept that even at 160 minutes, there wasn't exactly enough time to do every character justice, but it seemed that in the end, no character was quite filled out.
Rorschach was by far the movie's saving grace, though even he was ruined by a poor back-story and what felt like total character-failure in his final scene. For example, the scene where he is explaining to the psychiatrist the night Rorschach took over ended very abruptly, and with psychotic flailings taking the place of furious, flaming indifference... The result was this character, who should have been incredible, was reduced to being merely great.
Also, the attempts at showing any of the flashback scenes was also pretty confusing, as there was no indication that they even -were- flashbacks (it seemed that only someone who had read the comics would be aware of these plot-points as they happened). Jumping between 1985 and the '50s like that might work in the comics, but it was just... annoying... in a movie.
Of course, as bad as this movie was, I -do- want to see it again at some point. After all, this is the Watchmen we're talking about! I didn't enjoy it the first time, but I am willing to give it another go... Just not at cinema prices next time :P
Penny Dreadful (2006)
A complete disappointment
I was waiting for the suspense. I was waiting for any kind of "unexpected events". I waited for 90 or so minutes. I needn't have bothered. Some people found the dire awfulness of this movie funny. I wasn't even able to enjoy it for that...
The movie begins with a vaguely reasonable premise; that this girl is travelling with her psychiatrist to help her finally get past her phobia of cars... But once that has been established, anything you can imagine happening next would be better than what this movie puts you through.
-Stop at a gas station. "Help! I'm in a car, I can't carry on. Oh OK, I'll get back in." -Hit a pot-hole (twice). "Help! I'm in a car, I can't carry on! OK OK, let's carry on." -Clip a hitchhiker with the car. "Help! I'm in a car, I'm going to die! Oh OK, let's take the slightly creepy yet apparently harmless victim of hit-and-don't-run and drop them deep in the mountain forest where there's nobody else around. I don't mind" -The car has a flat tyre blatantly caused by harmless raw-meat-eating (but generous to offer to share it. Sweet psycho ^^) silent hitchhiker. "No, don't leave my in this terrifying car by myself to find signal for your phone! Let me take one step away before falling on nothing and spraining my ankle to make this into a -real- horror film!"
And so on.
There was so little to enjoy, especially as Penny spent so much of the time whimpering or screaming at the slightest noise. Perhaps she can be forgiven a little, as she spent half the movie sitting trapped in the evil car with a decaying Mimi Rogers (refering to her character's lifelessness. Mimi's not that bad), but her tireless stupidity was grating.
I'm afraid, as this was even the area where Penny's parents died in the car accident all those years ago, that I was waiting for any kind of linking of the two events. Some kind of mystical correlation that could perhaps explain what happened when she was a wee girly. It never came. I feel robbed. Kinda. Oh well.