Reviews

I think the movie started out great. I was captivated, intrigued, and was curious when the so called 'twist' was going to happen. The problem I have with this movie started in about the final 30minutes. SPOILER ALERT - The stage has been set, we're in a 'real world' with 'rules'. From out of nowhere, we have an insane person transforming and climbing on walls, bending bars, and brushing off two shots from a shotgun. For me, interest just went out the window. I was intrigued that this could happen to anyone, but a choice was made to bring in the supernatural. OK, fine... I figured this was all some artsy metaphors and perhaps all of the multiple personalities belonged to the girl which was intriguing. In the final moments it is revealed this is not the case at all, and we're in fact in the same movie world as "Unbreakable" from 17 years ago. Really? That was the big clever twist? Tying a movie with so much potential to a 17yr old film that no one really cared about to begin with? Confusing the hell out of likely 70% of the audience with this seemingly random tie-in? I think Shyamalan failed here miserably. Why would you put in the effort to bring this together with another 'average at best' movie from so long ago? Hugely disappointed. This was not even remotely close to his best work.

What to say... first of all I'm not into the "fluffy/artsy" type movies and I feel this was certainly one of them. The first episode was intriguing enough, although because of the violent secondary character who was never developed beyond the first episode - hence needless violence and sex that had no real purpose? The second and third episode increased our interest to continue watching, but from there the rest of the show declined, slowed down, and fell into complete ridiculousness. The acting was great, but I felt the plot was loosely held together with the belief that so many of these people, both captives and visitors of the house, would actually buy into these 'movements'. Obviously people liked the show with an '8' rating, but perhaps those are the only people who liked it enough to actually watch the 8 episodes. I was very close to turning the show off after five episodes and wouldn't have bothered to rate it, but here I am after watching the whole 8... 8hrs of my life I will never get back.

The original is still considered a top 5 western of all time, so why mess with that? It's opening night of this movie in a half full theater, and from the number of one liners that only got a few laughs from the two elderly ladies a few rows back, to the cliché action sequences ripped off of other great westerns, my eyes are sore from how much they rolled over 140mins. The writing was as lousy as the directing in my opinion. The dialogue looked amateur compared to what was delivered in something like "Tombstone". Poor Vincent D'Onofrio was using some ridiculous voice that he could hardly deliver the lines in, and *spoiler alert* his death was over dramatic and CHEESY!!! Good guys and bad guys dropping like flies from bullets, but Chris Pratt rides in o ten(?) men firing at him, sustains at least six bullets before falling... he has just enough strength to muster trying to light a smoke, and light some dynamite with a casual trouble free grin -- CHEESY! And then to top it all off, let's add in a few native Americans in nice clean clothes that look straight off the shelf from the local trading post - navy blue felt was it? What, did they run out of money on wardrobe? The lines, the Indian war cries, and the native vs native fight was insulting in my opinion.

So, what did Hollywood accomplish with this? Antoine Fuqua's took a top western and destroyed it. When the current generation hears of "The Magnificent Seven", they will remember a garbage film and that's what people will remember -- well done.

Hollywood laziness! "Oh, it's a Bond film, it'll sell". I'll echo what so many others have said... "the film insults your intelligence". I see the current rating is 7.3/10, so maybe there's just so many terrible movies out the past year or two (likely), that this average at best film gets a higher rating?

Aside from the mostly non-existent plot, my biggest beef was the believability. Ya, I get it, it's a Bond film. But, the Mission Impossible and Bourne series make it look believable. Bond's on a building that's about to collapse, he's gonna die! Nope! There's a couch that he lands on. Bond's got the girl, they're both gonna die!! Nope! There's a net that catches them. Where the hell did that net come from? COME ON! But, the biggest eye roll in the entire film was the love interest that was introduced 80mins into the film. The audience is supposed to believe Bond falls for this girl so hard in 20mins, and they have chemistry of any sort?

The finished product was sloppy eye-rolling garbage. Bond was the king of spy/espionage films, and of late they're going down the toilet fast!! I won't pay to see another Bond film. I was severely disappointed.

It's low budget, I get that. I don't know what the budget was, but I can tell you it was enough to make this a decent low budget horror. I've given some low scores before, but never a 1, and this film deserves it. Let me start at a high level. The film is 71mins long including the credits, and in the first 21mins (I went back and checked), we've established that the girl's car has been towed, no one has the $800 to get it out except for "Trust Fund", and "Trust Fund" is a pretty lousy friend who bets his friend $1,800 he can't spend a night alone in the woods were a supposed killer lurks. In fact, these three basic concepts were beaten to death so many times in the first 21mins that foreigners would have enough time to learn enough English to translate what was going on. I'll spare you the math, over 30% of the movie was redundant "on the nose" dialogue that a skilled writer and director would handle well within 5mins. Add another 2mins and our protagonist (?) has convinced his other friends to stay a night out in the woods were "Trust Fund" has bet him $1,800 he won't survive the night "ALONE" -- sure, why not... guess we need more people to be hacked to bits, right? This is followed by a scene of two hikers approaching a man standing still in the middle of the forest in the middle of the night -- because everyone hikes through the woods, and not even on a trail for that matter, at midnight. "Oh, maybe he's just a hiker." Yes, of course... I'll repeat... because hikers like to stand in the middle of the forest in a daze at midnight? Let's say we buy all this... I'd be creeped out and would take a wide circle around such an individual, but these no name confusing characters pass within arms length of the creepy guy standing there, just close enough that he can conveniently stab them. Next scene, let's throw in a random scene where two characters bet $50 they can win a 40yard dash along the quiet residential road... because that's what young 30yr olds do? I wonder if this was just an excuse to get the actress to remove her top so she could be filmed running in a sports bra? I can go on and on, but the dialogue was horrendous, two of the seven(?) actors could actually act, the plot was senseless, and there wasn't enough story to fill an already extremely short 71min feature(?). This is a prime example when you have a director with a little bit of money who knows nothing about story or writing... there's no one to give him a reality check. I see there's an "Into The Woods II" in production? Really? I guess in the end, everyone has the right and ability to pursue their dream, and good on him for doing so. He had a goal, and he got it done. But, this is a review board, and my review was a solid "1(awful)"!!

I love war movies, and having served in the Armed Forces I won't pretend to know the ins and outs of everything that is WWII, but I know enough to support my opinion. From the first 30seconds of the movie I felt like I was the fly on the wall within a Sherman tank. For me, that's all that mattered, it made the movie, it was original, and it felt authentic. Loved it! I will warn you, the movie was pretty light on story and goals, and surprisingly stronger on character. I liked it, and the lack of story didn't matter as I was happy to be along for the ride. The acting was top notch as expected.

For the few people that posted that the movie was a disgrace to the American serviceman?? I presume you are referring to the 'guy talk' about female refugees, what nearly happened in the 'home', and the treatment of German prisones of war? You weren't there, and I wasn't there... but if you think this kind of thing didn't happen, you're a little delusional. Soldiers who lived this life and death volatility day after day? Suffering from inhumane conditions, sights, and sounds? They're going to be a little messed up. No disrespect to any US service people as we totally appreciate what you're doing (or the service personal from any nation out there)... but Iraq, Afghanistan... the situation was nowhere near the WWI or WWII environment. Just sayin. Look at the body count.

So, the movie was awesome until the end. The final battle scene? Wow. Who wrote this? You did such a wonderful job up until now, but then... wtf? What a disaster. SPOILER alerts! Here are the numerous ways you demolished a perfectly good war movie, that had my eyes rolling and the audience whispering about how ridiculous things got. 1. War Daddy's tank disabled via a landmine. Send the young guy to the top of the hill as a lookout. Young guy spots 200-300 infantry (every 4th SS soldier is carrying panzerfaust/bazooka), a few mounted officers, and a few armored vehicles. Young Sherman crewman runs down the road, discusses the oncoming force with the Sherman crew, the crew debates staying with War Daddy, they prep the Sherman tank disguise, they sit in the tank and discuss life for nearly 4mins... hmm, this is a lot of time, and I'm surprised the young crewman outran the Germans in the first place. 2. 200-300 SS Infantry descend upon the tank, and surprise... the Sherman is manned and able to mow down a large number of SS. Beautiful! OK, but we already saw that every 4th or 5th soldier had Panzerfaust/bazooka, so why is it when you showed us a single German soldier with panzerfaust blowing to smithereens a tank with a single shot in the first battle scene... that now 200 infantry can't do the same thing to War Daddy's tank? 3. The Sherman is about to be swarmed with SS Infantry, let's toss out fragmentation grenades. OK. But since when do fragmentation grenades explode in a fiery explosion? I know, it's Hollywood... but, you lose points in a war movie in my opinion. 4. War Daddy's crew runs out of ammo, so they jump on the external guns. Four exposed soldiers versus 150+ SS Infantry. Wow, these Germans have TERRIBLE aim. Hey, let's get all suspenseful and show a German sniper crawling along the grass. Will he shoot War Daddy? Come on, there's no reason 150+ SS can't take out a stationary War Daddy on the .50cal. The sniper crawls to within 100ft of War Daddy. He aims through his scope, slows his breath. Bang! Hits War Daddy, but he's injured. Shoots War Daddy again, and he's injured... more? Hits War Daddy a third time and he finally slumps into the Sherman. Obviously 150+ infantry have such lousy aim, I'd expect the sniper would be just as bad? RIDICULOUS!

Everything leading up to this final battle was awesome! But then they had the audience groaning at the final disaster. All in all, still loved the movie and will buy it when it's out. Just goes to show, "Saving Private Ryan" and "Band of Brothers" are still the best WWII movies out there.

I stumbled upon the film and watched it not having ever heard of it before or any of the critiques. If I had never seen the Blair Witch Project, I'd say the film was pretty decent. However, after having seen the BWP, nearly 2/3 of the movie was the same and severely lacking in originality. Then again, how would one shoot a Big Foot documentary? OK, so I'll give them that. What didn't make sense was, why would you have the camera and lights on filming yourself when something's outside like that and potentially attracted to the light? In Blair Witch, the girl was afraid of the dark and actually interviewing herself (i.e there was a purpose). I thought the Big Foot sounds were pretty cool until... a lion? Seriously? I mean a lion's roar is so recognizable. Poor choice in my opinion. Why does it matter? I don't know, it took me out of the film as I rolled my eyes and pondered that a moment. What was with the naked woman at the end? I suspect it was merely to fuel buzz and conversation/debate about the ending, but it didn't make sense. All in all, a very v..e...r...y slooooow setup to a marginal 30second payoff. In my opinion, the film would've been more interesting and frightening if the couple had been messing around with the camera and perhaps filming themselves having... you guessed it... sex. Not being dirty, but come on... two people alone in a tent at night with a video camera and a light, why not? It would've been a little more intriguing and right when they're getting into it throw in the Big Foot hand swipes across the tent. The alternative? 20mins of... zzz zzzz rocks in the distance? footsteps? I just think more could've been done to make it more interesting.

Having travelled to Pompeii, and very much enjoying history... I was looking forward to this movie. Plus, I'm a Game of Thrones fan and look forward to seeing some of these actors thrive on the big screen.

At the 8min mark, "They call him the Celt". We see Milo nonchalantly enter the ring, cut up three gladiators, dump his sword, and walk nonchalantly out. I can't imagine very many gladiators actually wanted to be in the ring, but they way in which this is all done is a mirror image of... "They call him Spaniard". You guessed it... "Gladiator". The more I watched it, the more it seemed like a very cheap over-priced ripoff of a far superior film. Whether it be the writer, the producer, or the director... someone had to know they'd crossed the line into "Gladiator" at some point. Milo meets a seasoned gladiator who at first opposes him, but they become friends - kinda like Gladiator. They even re-enacted the Celtic rebellion and the Governor says, "I don't recall the battle going quite like this", just like the Emperor does in "Gladiator". To start this Celtic Rebellion re-enactment, Milo has the men form a line and raise their shields like Maximus does re-enacting the Battle of Carthage. And when the copycat couldn't get any worse... the governor, Keifer Sutherland, thrusts out his fist as the crowd chants "Live! Live! Live!", and he gets the thumbs up.

There wasn't a shred of Pompeii in this film until the final 20mins. Sure, we saw hints of the earth trembling here and there. The whole Pompeii 'thing' seemed to be JUST a setup to payoff with the two lovers at the end, encrusted in ash for eternity.

Poor films, are poor films, but at least the majority of them are original poor films - and we can commend the attempt at creativity. With "Pompeii"? Shame on you people. It's as if you flipped to Wikipedia to get the geography and a little history, watched Gladiator, and then studied the "Titanic" to see how to create tension in a 'no escape' environment.

I wouldn't given the film a '5', but there is no excuse for blatantly ripping off at least one other film. I would've preferred a character flick. Show us the culture, the every day life, the people... FAIL!!!

I'm not one for low budget sci-fi, but Arrowstorm Entertainment is filling a Hollywood void with good ole Dungeons & Dragons fantasy and I had to see it.

Truthfully, my expectations were fairly low, and the movie exceeded my expectations. I thought the cinematography, costumes, and make-up were pretty d@mn good! Not sure what the budget was, but from having seen plenty of 'behind-the-scenes' clips, stunt choreography in someone's living room... it's gotta be low. Kudos to all involved in giving this film the fantasy 'look'! The acting? Well, whatever. One shouldn't expect an Oscar winning performance from a relatively unknown low budget sci-fi/fantasy film. I think the acting exceeded the dialogue in the script. I particularly enjoyed Danielle Chuchran and her fight sequences. She's extremely graceful and deserves a lot of credit for keeping the film interesting.

It is unfortunate that what I enjoyed least about the movie is the only major component to the film that is NOT dependant on budget. The script/story itself. So often when you have a producer(s) that writes his own script, no one's really in a position to give them a reality check on something that doesn't work - our heroes are attacked by one-armed dwarf dude (who was actually one of the coolest characters... who sort of didn't matter at all in the story... I guess they just really wanted a cool dwarf dude?) and our heroes say "What is that... some kind of magic?", and 5 seconds later "Quick! He's reloading!". So, Kullimon is now fully aware it's a gun? What? Let me start with dialogue and subtext... there was so much 'on the nose dialogue' in this script, I'm considering comping both Mr. Faller and Mr. Griffin a class on subtext at The Writer's Store. For example... poor Nemyt has been shot multiple times, and slashed/cut-open and lies still on the ground. Kullimon cradles her and is forced to say the line... "she's dying".

The character development was kind of there, although all three protagonists from the get go weren't allowing audiences to bond or feel for them. Nemyt for instance is the crude bounty hunter that likes to spit on people. Once, perhaps... but I think she did it three or four times? So why do we care that she's been cursed, other than the fact that she's cute, and the audience knows that she's supposed to be the protagonist? Moving along to the story itself... I think I was at about one hour before I thought... where the heck are they going exactly? The only thing I clued into was that Nemyt wanted rid of her curse. I know there's some evil God that's going to rise up, but there's really no sense of urgency or timing on this event. The demon God just appears as our heroes arrive out of convenience it seems. In fact, most of the plot occurred out of convenience. "Oh look, here's Kullimon tied to a pole right in front of us... we could use another hero, come with us." There were a few scenes that added nothing to the plot, and they had the worst special effects - the first big bad dude that kinda sorta looked like a minotaur? Don't know who he was, exactly, or why he was there... but that was the worst SFX in the movie, when I was pretty impressed with the other effects that were pulled off.

I really wish they had worked harder on the story, or had a professional writer. IMDb indicates the movie scores a 4.7/10. For me, with a better script this movie could easily be a 6/7. Again, it's a shame the greatest weakness was NOT the budget. Having said that, I was entertained and I enjoyed the movie because I was impressed at what Arrowstorm achieved with the resources they had.

I was intrigued by the synopsis when I stumbled upon this movie. I typically enjoy these 50's/60's coming of age period movies ala "Man in the Moon". That was my expectation, a different spin on "Man in the Moon". The movie started out pretty good and I was intrigued. Around 20mins in, story elements just seemed scattered all over the place. In the introductory scene, Lewellen discusses bruises on her body and how she's going to kill her daddy. I'm all set to witness a young girl who's obsessed with meeting Elvis, kill her dad. One of those two things ought to be her goal? Nope. That's the last thing we hear or see about her resentment towards her dad. In fact, she's quite fond of her dad through the rest of the story. So, maybe it's about her journey to see Elvis? I recognize his music is what comforts her, but the story is setup for an Elvis meeting... and when she misses out on the Elvis concert at the midpoint, I figure the ending will also involve Elvis. As a screenwriter myself, her missing out on Elvis at the midpoint has me suspect that she will not be successful in this goal, and she isn't. In fact, Elvis is really never mentioned in the last half of the movie. The snakes throughout were kinda cool, but what did they mean? Symbolism for sure... but extremely vague in my mind. Throughout the last half of the movie, I'm waiting for something to happen. I want clarity on what her goal really is, what the story's about, and I'm waiting... still waiting... and end credits. What? It's a shame that such beautiful scenery, music, and acting talent was wasted on such a lousy story. I didn't get it at all. So, I do some brief investigating and this is what I found...

I've already mentioned I didn't like the story or the screenwriter's (Deborah Kampmeier) attempt at putting together a story. OK, so who's the director? Hmm, the director is also Deborah Kampmeier. Hmm, OK so who's the producer that actually liked the project enough to through some money at it? also, Deborah Kampmeier. I'm sorry to say it, but this leads me to believe that no one in the industry wanted to get on board this project. This explains the strange use of 'symbolism'(?) throughout the movie, because it was weird enough that only one person understood it... Deborah Kampmeier. I couldn't figure out if the snakes represented evil, poison, personal demons, etc... who knows? With 20mins remaining in the film, I suspected the snakes were actually symbolic for good? Perhaps a cleansing of the soul? But then at the very end, when dad goes to pick up a dead snake and the snake has a 'dead reflex' to strike... the dad is bit. Yet, Lewellen skips happily along and into the house... roll credits. What? Backup. OK, so maybe... just maybe... if she actually disliked her abusive father this would make sense. But, he wasn't abusive and she loved her father. What? It almost seems like there was an original script with a major rewrite, and no one bothered to fix the ending?

I also noticed that pretty much any film Deborah Kampmeier has been associated with, has also been written, directed, and produced by herself. She's also teaches a master scene study class in New York City. Who am I, a newbie screenwriter (who can spot 20+ things wrong with this story), to critique Deborah? Hmm, maybe it's just me?

I was so excited to see the new Lone Ranger. Even though the movie's been done a number of times before, I think it's somewhat fairgame since it's been 30yrs? Then I saw the trailers for it and was immediately turned off. Instead of simply writing the movie off, I explored what turned me off on the trailer. It looked funny, not necessarily funny 'ha ha', but funny/ridiculous. Secondly, the action looked over the top and borderline ridiculous. Thirdly, the Tonto character looked extremely similar to Jack Sparrow. I picked this all up from just the trailer, this is what turned me off before I had even read a review. Then, the reviews poured in. 25% on Rotten Tomatoes... critics calling it the worst movie of the year. Curiosity got the better of me and I decided to see it.

There are certain things that a western MUST have in order to be good, in my opinion... and if you look back at any successful western, they all have these features: 1. Good vs Evil is the spine of the story. 2. It's got to be realistic, especially if you are dealing with western legends. 3. PEOPLE see westerns to see an active protagonist that they admire. A cowboy that will take us back into time and let us imagine what it would be like to be a bada$$ gunslinger. 4. The story has to be gritty with violence and our hero has to be put in jeopardy. **This holds true for True Grit, Tombstone, Young Guns, Unforgiven, pretty much any Eastwood or spaghetti western. Note: I wouldn't say Django Unchained was a western, it was a Tarantino flick (and I personally hated it).

I figure there are four key reasons why this movie is a flop and I'm dumbfounded why Disney couldn't spot this in the script, before they sunk $250MM into this picture. 1. The Lone Ranger bumbled through most of two hours without doing ANYTHING... it was Dumb & Dumber and Dumb was being dragged through the story by Dumber the entire way. The Lone Ranger didn't fire a single shot until the final 35mins of a 2.5hr flick? So, who cares about this guy fighting for Justice... because he didn't fight for anything the entire movie. He was talking the talk without walking the walk. 2. John Reid's brother has just been shot and your cracking jokes 5mins later? The Comanche have just been slaughtered and Tonto is cracking jokes 5mins later, at least it seemed as such. You couldn't take anything seriously throughout the entire movie. The worse predicament the duo got into was they were buried up to their necks with small scorpions crawling over them while they cracked jokes at one another. Why should we invest any empathy in these clowns? 3. We want to see something original, not the high priced JACK SPARROW thrust into a bad western, and that's exactly what it was. Take the dead bird and makeup off of Tonto, give him an accent, a sash, and a sword and you have the exact same character. Even their mannerisms were the same. This is great for Jack Sparrow who is original to Pirates of the Caribbean, but Jack Sparrow is not Tonto in anyone's mind. 4. Unfortunately, westerns are a hard sell and thanks to this catastrophe of a movie, it will be an even tougher sell going forward for the good westerns. Knowing that westerns are a hard sell, why would anyone sink $250MM into it? Are the train scenes and sfx really worth the price tag? Which brings me to my other point, we want something realistic... not horses standing on trees, horses getting drunk, horses climbing onto the roof of a barn, horses leaping off the roof of a 2.5 story barn, horses diving from a train car the second the train is going through a tunnel.

As I watched the movie, I had a couple of story logic questions... how did Tonto get out of prison, for one. The movie immediately addresses this when the kid at the fair asks the same question, as if pointing directly to the fact that they don't even know or care to tell us how.

For those who haven't seen the movie and are familiar with the Dukes of Hazzard... the new Lone Ranger movie is like the recent Dukes of Hazzard movie in comparison to the original TV series... except worse.

Overall, I'd give the movie a 5 (watchable) and it would score higher if it didn't have a masked man named the Lone Ranger. If this was titled anything else that made us believe this was more comedy than western... the movie would have scored higher but still would've flopped, because who in their right mind would sink $250MM into this... and I'm curious what cost $250MM? Surely it wasn't all Johnny?

Seriously Disney, you can't advertise a historic classic like The Lone Ranger and give us slapstick comedy that is Dumb & Dumber on horses. What a shame.