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The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies (2014)
A work, worthy of Sauron!
This "movie" is definitely worthy of being thrown into the fire! My in-laws gave us the tickets (to be fair - we would have been so stupid and payed for it ourselves... so... there you go: We FINANCED further abominations like this!) Whatever happened to good, decent filmmaking? This was a terrible, over-the-top, soulless WAR MOVIE!!! It feels as numb and un-emotional as a general anesthetic. There were main-characters dying? Oh, true... well, who cares? Remember anyone the death scene of Sean Bean in THE FELLOWSHIP OF THE RING (yes, he always dies - but he died really well in that one) Oh, or who the F cares about some CGI-Mega-Orc fighting a dwarf on ice Flash Gordon Style? And also: Did he touch the ground of that frozen lake before he jumped back to ruin some more or less decent CGI-Death-Scene? - or did he do the Legolas "I don't care about gravity" thing? Questions above questions - yet now answers! I'd like to ask Peter Jackson what the hell happened! Was he forced with a gun to his head to make this? Or did he just direct it from a smart-phone, while sitting on his couch at home and counting his money? Yes, I'm aware that the TRUE EVIL, the true Morgoths are the Studios and the endlessly greedy film industry! If young people like Playstation graphics and action, shaky-cam and *beep* 3D - let them have it! Who cares about nice cinematography when the highest grossing movie are made in absurd-looking 3D and with completely over-the-top everything! In the last 14 years since the FELLOWSHIP OF THE RING came out, I was telling my nerdy friends (and everybody else) how amazing the Lord of the Rings movies are, how muche love and effort went into them.
I was amazed about the fact, that Peter Jackson said NO to too much CGI, that he used real sets, models, amazingly detailed costumes and beautiful cinematography.
ALL of that went down the drain with this one... this boring, crappy looking CGI-disaster, this Mexican Standoff in Middle Earth.
What was the "story" again? Some greedy dwarf does not want to come out of his cave - and suddenly all kinds of armies show up... to fight each other in a ridiculous way...
The last 10 minutes then felt like some different move... somehow like the original Trilogy... BECAUSE THERE WERE REAL LANDSCAPES.
It felt like something really beautuful standing next to something really ugly. But this short moment of "how to make a nice, decent, GOOD movie" did not save and also not redeem this perversion of cinematic history! This could as well be titled: WORLD OF WARCRAFT - THE MOVIE.
Other titles: Legolas, Dwarfes, CGI-ORCS and other stupid stuff in: TO HELL WITH GRAVITY! Watching THE FELLOSHIP OF THE RING makes you believe in the good things in this world: Friendsip, beauty, decency, good filmmaking... everything that is right and just and good. Everything a guy like Aragorn would put into an epic speech before a battle that mattered.
The battlescenes of the CGI-Creatures did not matter. And having too many trolls with too many artificial limbs - or an Orcs with a Klingon Bathleth-Prosthesis (and I usually like STAR TREK references... maybe just not in a Middle Earth Movie) I am not just disappinted. I am shocked by this mess. How can the SAME director that made the BEST TRILOGY EVER do this? Well, the same question has been asked countless times about George Lucas.
Good Job, Peter - you killed filmmaking. I am also not sure if you are honest about promoting this disgusting gimmick called 3D or you just have to do it because the industry wants you to do so! Damn it - this is the time of bad movies gone too far, the age of darkness... J.R.R. Tolkien could write some words of truth about this - but he's dead (lucky him... so he does not have to bear what they did to his beautiful vision!) This is the age of darkness indeed. The age of greed! I tend to believe that it is not completely Peter Jackson's fault - it is the perverted, greedy film-industry. They do not think in art or beauty or decency - they think and care only about profit! They exploit everything.
The sad part is the people defending all that because the wrongly connect it to something that is good and beautiful. But the connection is wrong! Just because it has partly the same actors, the same director and is supposed to play in the same universe as the good trilogy does not make it the same.
George Lucas tried (and failed) in doing the same. Overkilling something with CGI and bad writing is not filmmaking - it's a shame! Personally, I do the same here that I do with this terrible STAR WARS PREQUEL TRILOGY: I never watch it again. I imagine the events of Bilbo's adventure with the dwarfes from the visual and artistic perspective of Ian Holm in THE FELLOWSHIP OF THE RINGS - there could still be something great being made - but please by another director.
Somebody young and hungry and talented. Some person like the Peter Jackson of the 1990s. Somebody who LOVES the source-material and has a vision of it - but not a financial one! What also works - and it's totally for free: Imagination. Having a good actor talking about something rather than showing it invokes a million times more beautiful images than cramming it down your throat with a CGI funnel! Anyway - whatever. This needed to be said! And somebody like RED LETTER MEDIA should really make a review similar to the STAR WARS PREQUEL reviews! May the Force be with you - Gandalf
Tie bu jin ying (1978)
This movie goes to eleven!!!
I finally had the pleasure to watch this masterpiece last night. It is the movie I always wanted to make, to see, to watch.
It is one of these many Chinese movies Quentin Tarantino must have watched and always strived to recreate their amazingness! But he only came close; never was able to 100 % capture the magic.
This movie has it all: Amazing Kung Fu - or to be more precise - Wuxia action, great dubbing with extremely serious lines like: "You're the only one, 'til now, who could hurt me." The cinematography is great, real landscapes, professional "wire-fu" stunts, perfect sound- editing, magic hand grenades, drama... Simply put: The perfect movie.
But what makes it go to eleven on a rating system from one to ten is the unique combination of Chinese action and actors with American dubbing and western soundtracks.
There's music from Ennio Morricone and Jean Michelle Jarre in this one! Many years, before Tarantino came along and did the same thing (combining eastern and western)
It's so bad, it's good. And it's so good in it's bad-good way that it's perfect.
When movies are about entertainment, this one wins the universe!
There's not enough motion picture awards in all of existence to praise Xia gu rou qing chi xi zin enough.
Wow, just wow.
This movie is like one of these things you were looking for since the day you were born - but did not know; so instead you tried to find movie-happiness in the IMDb Top 250 or wherever.
I at least did. Until last night... when I finally found it.
THAT is how good this movie is.
2012 (2009)
Weirdly entertaining (contains spoilers)
Very often, movie reviews or threads start with apologetic sentences like: "...I also enjoy artsy movies from Stanley Kubrick and totally unknown, independent flicks from Europe."
Yes, indeed, me too. So, is it a guilty pleasure to like this movie? Well, no!
To put it as simple as it can be: "2012" entertained me. Me. I don't care, if millions of others did not feel entertained.
The thing is: I enjoy movies that are well made and so over the top cliché that they cannot be taken serious. Or movies that just parody movies like "2012"
Indeed, Trey Parker and Matt Stone wanted to do a shot-for-shot parody- puppet version of "The Day After Tomorrow" before they decided to do "Team America" - which tells a lot about the "quality" of Emmerich movies - they transcend the catastrophe genre.
At the same time I have to say that I also enjoy it because of this really basic, almost archaic "Apocalypse Wow" trope.
Yes, sure, the characters may be cheesy and cliché as heck. The whole movie is one big cliché.
For me, such movies - also movies like "Armageddon" - play in a certain parallel universe where the U.S.A. are the really good guys, where the president is a good guy, where the government is a "good guy" (even if they have to kill people off to keep the biggest secret ever, namely: Building super-arks to save a bunch of chosen people - and billionaires.)
In Emmerich movies, our whole, actually very bad way of life - the western way of life, the "American Way Of Live (TM)" is a good guy!
I was wondering why I love this movie and do not hate it. The simple fact that disgustingly rich and powerful people, that can't contribute at all in this "brave new world" lying ahead (politicians, royalty, oil-barons, Russian oligarchs) get saved should me make it hate.
But maybe the unspoken, off-screen fact, that they may be saved in the first place - but sail into a new world, where everything that has once been is gone - even the monetary system that made these rich guys pay their tickets (one billion Euros - not dollars - per person!) - so, what good will be a bunch of rich, old farts in a world, where the very first and basic things will be survival, building shelter and finding / growing food?
Maybe that makes me like it: 7 billion die - and around 300.000 survive - in three arks. What kind of "happy end" is that? There were rumors back in 2009 that there will be a TV-series about the events after "2012" - which never happened - and quite sure will never happen... it could only be cheap and boring anyway.
Watching this movie in 2014 makes it a bit less thrilling - sadly. I guess it was this subtle wave of "2012-mania" ...all this "it's the end of the world" frenzy that was building up towards the long awaited year 2012. And then nothing happened! How disappointing. We still live in a world, where a few chosen ones use up the resources and billions live in pure s***, have no clean water and no food, so a bunch of movie-geeks like me can rant about or praise movies like this particular one.
It's funny that I write a review about some movie that could only age badly. Everybody knew already back in 2009 that it would.
Back in 2009 even the worst "end of the world movie" had an aura of suspension and unconscious fear about THE end... now, "2012" is just another, old Emmerich product, well not "just" - it's entertaining. To me. And that is, what counts.
Because let's just take all these really bad rip-offs, these cheaply produced B-Movies with extremely bad-looking CGI and titles like "2012 - the end of the world disaster" or "Independence Daysaster" - where the only good and entertaining thing is the title. They have usually actors that were maybe famous 20 years ago - or aged porn-stars. And they are just bad - in a bad way.
"2012" is bad in an amazing way. It's bad in a good way. A very good way. The special effects are amazing. The actors act out the cheesy script in a funny way - heck, the whole movie is one big fun-ride!
Star Trek (2009)
Best STAR TREK ever!
I'm a lifelong Star Trek fan. I grew up in the early 80s watching the adventures of Captain Kirk, Spock, Bones - Star Trek (and Captain Future) made me a true science fiction fan. Then came THE NEXT GENERATION which I even love more. My favorite series is DS9.
And now, after a few years, and after the failure of ENTERPRISE, the terrible (and boring) ST: NEMESIS I thought "this is the end of STAR TREK. Time to bury the franchise." I would never have thought that someone would be able to reanimate this over 40 year old universe, but they did it! This is the Star Trek I always dreamed of. Full of good action, emotion, fun. In the last years (as much as I loved TNG)it was getting worse and worse).
And before some hardcore TOS or TNG fans say I am just for the action: Among my all time favorite episodes are TNG's THE INNER LIGHT, DS9's FAR BEYOND THE STARS and the feature THE UNDISCOVERED COUNTRY. But such episodes worked for TV (I hope TV would be that good nowadays - I don't watch TV since many years now) For the big screen I want action, drama and emotions. This new Star Trek has all of this - and it is good!
Sidekicks (1992)
Much better than Karate Kid!!!
I can absolutely NOT agree, that SIDEKICKS is a "Karate Kid" rip-off - it is thousand times better than Karate Kid!
I am training martial arts since many years, and I can say, that Sidekicks is one of the better movies of this genre. The martial arts sequences are great. Maybe the humor is too much slapstick sometimes, but because of it is in Barry's dreams, I can look over it.
AND Sidekicks is a movie showing all the weak and helpless kids, that you can make more out of yourself. You don't have to be a loser all your life. You can fight!
I can identify with the character of J. Brandis. And I think, every movie who helps people to find faith in their selves, is a good movie...for those people.