Reviews

I saw the uncut version - maybe I don't know enough about this activity, but I found the topic gently approached. The sex scenes I felt were appropriate, not shied away from, yet not over done.

Beyond that is the story content. This could have easily been a story of any 'Beauty and the Beast' scenario - the gentle girl trying to get through the savage beasts rough exterior.

If you want to see another-shade-of-grey, see the movie 'Secretary' (2002) staring James Spader as Mr. Grey. At last check, that movie was rated 7.1 and was much more over the top. (BTW: The 'Fifty Shades of Grey' books came out in 2011 - a possible rip-off of 'Secretary').

I wonder if the bad rating for this movie was due to mixed expectations. For me; the ratings, the topic, and the social commentary all over the net, kept me away for a long time. When I finally did watch it though, I couldn't believe how mild it was, and how it was a rather okay production.

If 'Secretary' gets a 7.1, then this certainly deserves a 6.0.

I multi-task, so I was busy while watching this.

I can understand why someone wouldn't like this - it is slow. It's one of those 'day-in-the-life-of' movies. Watching it as a side distraction though, the story unfolded. It was an interesting perspective of friends coming back together after they've made their way out into the world.

There's the successful one, the one that got an acceptable job and life, and the drop out. Success isn't all it's made out to be, a drab career can be satisfying, and dropping out may be an honest approach. Or, maybe there is no clear path..

Worth at least the 5.5 it has.

It's amazing how all of these actors have the same level of barely passable acting skills. You'd think a few could speak a whole sentence without pregnant pauses..

The main characters are likable and the comedy spin is OK if you're not looking for comedy. Special effects are minimal, which is fine.

New twists - it has talking zombies, and it puts up the name of each Ex as they get taken out.

Bottom line, it's actually got a little depth in the story line, an OK under-current of humor, and OK acting for a high-school play. (Much better acting in the out-takes!!)

Rated at 3.3 you'd think that this is one step away from a movie made by high school kids. Actually it's pretty good. What the critics are harping about is the science and they may have a point. There are only two real science issues: 1) The unlikely case of the shuttle being able to get close enough to the sun to penetrate it. 2) The relatively itty-bitty tiny speck of their special drive unit being able to have any effect upon the sun.

For the shuttle getting close; that' the one 'gimme' (suspension of disbelief) that all sci-fi asks for. If they'd used teleporters, nobody would have said anything.. They actually qualify this by stating that the drive unit - which is what goes into the sun - is designed to take tremendous heat.

The ability for the drive unit to disrupt the sun is another 'gimme', but it is explained throughout the movie as a unit that harnesses solar radiation and multiplies it. So IF the unit survived the entry into the sun, THEN it would cause a chain reaction.

Beyond those two points, your critical eye really shouldn't see too much to cut down this movie. The acting is rather good, although corny in a few places. This is certainly not a 7.0 movie but it deserves a lot more than a 3.3 rating. I'll give it a 6.4 - on the edge of a good quality movie, almost worthy of looking forward to seeing again.

A 3.5 rating goes to those films that have acting from a high school play, crappy special effects,

and a weak story. This film may be a bit slow, but it's not overly so. The acting may not be

Hollywood, but it's rather decent.

The bad rating is probably in part because it's not an action film. This is more a 'day in the life'

story. As they say; 'combat is 90% boredom and 10% shear terror', and so this story goes.

The bad rating might also be because the bad guys story isn't strong and distinct, with each

character not fully fleshed out. This makes the overall story weak. Add in the slow pace and there you

have it..

Generally it was interesting, and it deserves at least a 5.3 rating.

This has a group seeing pieces of the future, and so, by it's nature, leaves the story untold, as the present turns into the future. Because of this, the story is a bit difficult to follow, but not much more than any mystery, with clues as you go.

The movie otherwise is fine. It's put together with serious effort, with good direction and acting. It moves along at a good pace, and keeps you interested. It's nice to say it has few of those 'dumb blond' moves typically seen in horror films.

The low IMDb rating of 4.7 is probably because it's a weird approach to the 'cabin in the woods' story line. Since there is no specific antagonist (just a hinted at evil), there's nothing specific for the cast to fight against, and so it's hard to root for them..to do what?

Then again, it may be because of the dumb ending. You decide..

Still, I'll rate it at 6.2 until the end, then it gets a 5.9.

Being a person who's heard of Halo, but knows nothing about it - this was the movie to watch!! Or, so I thought. It's a miniseries, which allows for all kinds of back-story and exposition. Instead they spend all the time on brief character development in a recruit center.

They come under attack, but since the Halo story hasn't been explained, it's just another sci-fi story. One of the core parts of Halo, so I'm told, are the Spartan's. These are shown in bad pirated video, and not explained.

When the action starts, it's pretty wild, but again I really didn't know what was going on.

Summary: For a Halo fan it's too much about the recruits, and not enough action. For the newbie like me, it was too little background. So, it fails for both potential audiences. Good flick though, for a generic sci-fi. Bad flick for a signature presentation of a iconic name like Halo.

Follow-up Note: If you can watch "Halo Legends" (2010) before this movie, then it will make sense. It fit's in rather nicely as a side story in the larger story.

This was not 'Snakes On A Plane' it is 'Tentacles on a plane' at best. There were parts that were similar to other shows, but then again - it was just 13 minutes, not a lot of room for inventive development.

For a 'short' the production was very similar to a full blown movie including some pretty decent CGI. The previous reviewer must have had an ax to grind, or simply was expecting way much from a simple quick script.

I give a a 6.5 for it's entertainment value.

I also give it another line because IMDb insists on it. I also give it another line because IMDb insists on it. I also give it another line because IMDb insists on it.

This movie, in my opinion, fails from the start because it's built upon a false premise; that a scientist would lie about odd results in an unexplored field. His training tells him that every piece of data is important until proved otherwise. Far all he knows, what he thinks 'might be his imagination' could be the answer to what they're looking for! It's his job to collect the data NOT cherry-pick what he thinks is significant.

If this was a test-subject off the street, it might have been believable, but as a team member, with grants and Pulitzer prizes on the line.. I don't think so.

Certainly plenty of successful movie plots have had a scientist break- ranks. Those movies though, get you to suspend your disbelief, by always clearly justifying motivations. In this movie they don't do this, and that's where IMHO this movie fails.

In conclusion: The surrealism of this movie, as with many like it, is hard to get used to. Add in the weak premise, sparse dialog, flat emotional tones, and it was tiresome, hard to feel connected to the characters. I actually had to force-feed myself the middle of the movie, waiting for it to develop. IT does a bit, but not with any shattering payoff...

'Altered States' (1980) and 'What Dreams May Come' (1998) did a much better job with surrealism.

I give it a 6.0 for imagery, and 5.5 for story development = 5.8

I don't know how this rates as high as 5.7. A rambling, incoherent mess .. Actually. underneath the lousy story development. there does seem to be a quite complicated story. The problem is that you're left with only badly constructed fragments as you move along. IMHO it has bad character development, an unclear plot and barely decent acting. A lot of the elements are just left, with little or no explanation.

The main character Ellie Parrish is shown to be just a crash survivor but the description says she's a 'rookie journalist' - which isn't truly suggested until 35 minutes into it. Also it isn't until then that we see her show ANY reaction to the fact that her husband died in the crash.

Since you don't get a real feel for who these characters are, or what they're goals are, it's hard to follow. The story wanders giving it an unfocused series of side events. The acting is stilted and drags between the characters and the scenes.

I've seen other movies of this quality - generally westerns - that are rated at about a 4.2, so that's what I'm giving it. It's too bad - they probably had a well written story, but failed to flesh it out properly.

For those that read the comic series, neither this nor the 1995 version is a perfect fit. For those who just know the movie, then this is NOT Judge Dredd.

This is not the same city, and it's not a convincing repeat of the same character, Judge Dredd.

This would have been a GREAT sequel to the 1995 movie if they would have just done 2 things:

1) Display the city in the same way as the 1995 city: futuristic buildings and traffic.

There was no reason to present a different look, and actually instead of looking 'futuristic' it looked like any run down city with modern traffic (low-budget?). Also, since the bulk of the movie is within the mega apartment block - the change in city-scape was not even a needed 'artistic interpretation'.

2) Dredd introduced as 'the son of' would have allowed for any oddities between the two actors, Stallone and Urban. They try to pass him off tho, as the same man, but he comes off as another excellent Judge (possibly of the Dredd clan) but NOT 'THE' Judge Dredd.

Final Note: This does seem to be the American version of "Raid Redemption", but despite that (and my objections), it was a good movie.

Bad reviews aside, if you're into zombie movies, then you'll find a nice spin to this one. First of all, it plays out as a real WWII movie - the action, drama and dialog are all what you'd expect from a basic WWII movie.

Of course though, there are Nazi zombies to fight. But the nice twist on the zombies is that they are fast-movers, and relatively intelligent in their attacks.

As far as low budget, it seems pretty high budget for a zombie movie. In the trivia it even states that this is the "Most expensive film ever produced in Lithuania." Now that may not be saying much but, the trivia also states that "The film's original title was 'Stone's War', but was changed to 'War of the Dead', after Stan Lee had suggested it." So, if Stan Lee gave it the nod, and if the Lithuanian's spent their national budget making it, it's worth a look see.

If you look at the review on IMDb you would be certain that it is a superbly done drama, or at least well done. Instead the initial scene has the 'hero' talking with his wife, and it seems like a high school play. The guy is trying to act well, but he just doesn't have it in him. The whole movie is about a court action against the Devil but the lawyers do not act like lawyers but prima donnas. There are also many legally questionable points and some blatant incongruities.

It is an interesting topic, and it could have been a powerful movie, if the acting wasn't so amateurish. Of course the legal oddities could be fixed by just following formula staging from any standard courtroom drama.

I give it a potential 7.0 for story line, but a 3.5 for execution.

This is not a professional documentary, but then again, it's not like the other reviewer states; that "..this movie is about some guy visiting Cuba to get laid..". Despite a lack of in-depth research, the guy does show a decent interest in what's going on.

A few interesting points are, you are likely to have trouble walking down the street at night with a woman. You can't just claim that she's your 'wife' - you have to have a document to prove that. The one girl states that they just live to eat, that they are like animals, with little hope.

Surprisingly, there is little nudity, and some actual revealing points about Cuban life.

Nothing great here, but also nothing really terrible about this 31 minute 'documentary'.

Six years after a violent car crash claimed her parent's lives, Jesse is still trying to put her life back together. The situation is complicated by the fact that her parents virtually vanished, as did the accident wreckage, so there's no evidence for the police and certainly no closure for her.

Jesse meets her fears head-on when she and a group of filmmakers break into an abandoned mental institution, she immediately experiences a visceral deja-vu. The asylum seems somehow connected to her missing parents and furthermore, the building is far from deserted.

The group discovers that a sinister doctor has taken up residence in the building's vast underground and he is using extreme science trying to bring his wife back from the dead! The basement also contains the countless remains of the doctor's failed experiments, all of which are now slowly coming back to life when they make contact with a murky substance that has begun to leak out of several holding tanks!