Mini-Reviews: MoviesMay 24 '08 Write an essay on this topic.
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The Bottom Line Short & Sweet
During the time I was away from Epinions, I tried coming back many times. I started numerous reviews that never really took off. I’d have a short burst of inspiration and never come back to it. Deleting a lot of files from my hard drive in order to make my computer run a bit faster, I’ve come across these reviews again and decided I need to get them out of my system, but I know full well I’m never going to be able to write a full review for all of them. I probably could, but I’d be struggling through them, and doesn’t result in one’s best work. So, what I’m basically going to do below is a series of Express Reviews. Some of them aren’t going to be much longer than a couple of sentences, some may warrant half a page. The point is simply to get my opinion across, and to try and prove to myself I can do “concise” and lose the padding that a lot of my reviews have contained in the past. I’ll also be doing another one of these sometime in the near future for all the music reviews I’ve got unpublished. Agent Cody Banks 4 stars Better than kid’s fluff has any right to be. Great performances from Frankie Muniz and Hilary Duff enhance decent script with one particularly hilarious scene involving a bunch of male opinions on how to talk to girls. Flightplan 4½ stars Kind of a like a really good sandwich made with horrible bread. What’s in the middle is all good, but the start and end slow it down almost unbearably. Sean Bean gives one of his best performances as a captain who seemed to command the whole damn screen every time he popped up. Fun With Dick & Jane 3 stars While Jim Carrey has certainly done a lot of better work (I can’t recommend Bruce Almighty highly enough), he’s done a lot of worse work as well. The story here took far too long to get to the point where Dick & Jane begin to steal, but it makes up for it with some great dialogue from Carrey and a memorable role for Alec Baldwin. Tea Leoni was somewhat forgettable, but watch out for the elevator scene. Easily the best use of R. Kelly’s song I Believe I Can Fly in a movie for a long time. King Kong (1930’s) 1 star Absolutely abysmal. The special effects look pretty decent for the era, but the story seemed like it was set in the dark ages with it’s attitude towards women. They’re only good if they look good and looks are everything – that’s what this film will have you believe, and it spend such a harsh focus making sure that’s what it was telling us. How any of this added to the story with the big gorilla, I had no idea until the final line was uttered, which reinforced everything wrong with the movie. King Kong (2005) 3 stars Director Peter Jackson’s version may have doubled the running time, but it nearly completely did away with the "looks are everything" storyline I hated so much in the original. In fact, the best scenes in this version are the ones with no dialogue whatsoever. Kong has some truly spectacular battles with the dinosaurs on the island, but there were also some touching and emotional scenes between Kong and Ann Darrow (and full props to Naomi Watts for that). However, I found a couple of scenes almost too suspenseful for a remake. Zooming the camera in and typing the words "Skull Island" seemed pretty pointless to me. Still, Jack Black was a joy to watch as director Carl Denham. It looked like he’s finally found a serious role he could really get his teeth into and truly act. As for the CGI, you can take your Shrek, your Monsters INC, and even your Star Wars, and take a running leap with all of them. King Kong outdoes the lot of them – it’s the most visually amazing movie in recent memory. If only Jackson had taken out that final line of dialogue. Napoleon Dynamite 0 stars Easily the biggest pile of crap I’ve ever seen. I don’t even know if words can do it justice. No story to speak of, laughable acting (how Jon Heder got more roles after this, I’ll never know), and a dance scene so shocking you’ll have to pick your jaw up off the floor afterwards. Horrendous. Simply horrendous. Shrek The Third 0 stars Firstly, the person who hired Justin Timberlake to play a prince and a teenage brat needs their head read. If you really want to enlarge the ego of someone who already has a pretty big one anyway, you may as well hire Kanye West as God. Secondly, can we please have a decent story before the fourth movie comes around? When you have to fill in time having the frog king croak three times, you know you’re in trouble – and that was right at the start, meaning John Cleese was criminally underused. Speaking of, I was completely shocked to see Eric Idle in the cast list. He played Merlin? Yet another Monty Python great wasted on a useless role And what happened to the musical numbers the Shrek series was famous for? The best we get here is a rather forgettable number by Puss and Donkey during the credits. The quality of the CGI has maintained it’s standard since the series started, but that’s about the only redeeming feature the film has. Sin City 4 stars Not the kind of movie I’d usually watch, and certainly not an easy movie to watch, but extremely impressive nonetheless. Mickey Rooney, Bruce Willis, Jessica Alba and Brittany Murphy all put on truly exceptional performances, but the acting highlight as far as I was concerned was Elijah Wood, who totally immersed himself in his role, to the point I couldn’t even recognise him. The interweaving stories of drugs, murder, violence, and sex may have showed a world that was too corrupt for some, but there’s places in this world where that’s a very realistic take. Snakes On A Plane 4½ stars Let’s get one thing straight – this was not made to be a serious movie, and works so much better for it. This is one of those times where mindless entertainment reigns supreme. Think too much about the plot here and you’ll miss the point. However, for those who want to know, the plot revolves around a Hawaiian surfer who witnesses a gang murder. Now, the FBI must get him safely to the mainland so he can testify in court and put the gang leader away. However, said gang leader has arranged for a whole lot of poisonous snakes to be unleashed on the plane once it’s in the air. This was the most fun I’ve had at the movies in a long time. From a flight attended who’s so camp no-one believes he’s straight, to a representative of Paris Hilton and all her kind, and a famous rap artist, the minor characters here are more like stereotypes, which turned out to be a fantastic move. It’s actually our camp guy who has the movie’s best line, first microwaving one of the smaller snakes, then exclaiming "Ha ha! Who’s your Daddy now, bitch?!" In saying that, Kenan Thompson made his character – part of the rapper’s entourage – more complete than any other you’ll see here and made his performance rise above heights not seen for a long time. Mark my words, if this guy was given his own comedy leading role (and NOT Fat Albert), Hollywood would realise he’s their next big thing. The other thing this movie has going for it is the snake attacks – from the downright squeamish (leaping out of the toilet currently in use, apparently a lot of males on the cinema held their crotch at this point), to the "well, he deserved it!" (the prick of a businessman getting eaten whole by a huge python) to the utterly hilarious (the "mile high" scene). Spider-Man 3 3½ stars Considering how much I hated the previous film, even I can’t understand why I even went to see this one. I guess I’m just a superhero / comic book movie geek. The story here is multi-layered, with Peter trying to propose to Mary-Jane while also becoming his alter-ego Spiderman to protect New York from three new villains – New Goblin, Sandman and Venom. We also learn the truth about Uncle Ben’s death, and deal with two characters battling their own evil sides. I really struggled to find someone to root for in this movie. Peter is an idiot who can’t come up with an original idea to save his own life, or his relationship, Harry is a prick who – again – goes after Mary-Jane, knowing how Peter feels about her, and Mary-Jane can’t see through him. J. Jonah Jameson was the real highlight, but even he wasn’t really doing anything differently to the other two films. I guess if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. However, the stories and their multi-layering are interesting enough to keep the movie from being unwatchable, even with the supposed "heroes" we’re given, and the special effects are particularly impressive, especially where the creation of Sandman and Venom are concerned. Stranger Than Fiction 4 stars I’ve never really like Will Ferrell. Too many immature roles and silly movies, but here he proves he could be quite at home doing serious films that have a slight comedic nature. Admittedly, I did enjoy his part in The Producers, but he can take his Anchorman and Talladega Nights etc and stick them up his… Anyway, Ferrell plays Harold Crick, a tax agent who suddenly finds his life being narrated, down to the most minute detail. Meanwhile, Emma Thompson plays a writer struggling how to work out exactly how she’s going to kill off her latest character – Harold Crick. Trying to figure out exactly how this is happening is akin to figuring out how Keanu Reeves and Sandra Bullock can possibly be writing to each other in The Lake House. It’s not important, and you’ll probably give yourself an aneurysm if you think too hard about it. Just let it happen, and you’ll enjoy the movie so much more. Also features a great performance from Maggie Gyllenhaal, playing a possible love interest for Crick. Superbad 0 stars Never before have I seen a movie so appropriately titled. Two horrible storylines, two immature policemen, three idiotic kids, three extremely hot girls with no personality, a multitude of horrible jokes – mostly involving sex – more penis drawings than you’re ever likely to see, and enough counts of the word "fuck" to make Jay (of Jay & Silent Bob fame) tell the kid to clean up his language. Avoid at all costs. Transformers 5 stars This is a no-brainer – could anyone have screwed it up? What we need here people is a who bunch of robots who transform into different shapes, a kid who makes contact with the robots and a government official who won’t listen to him, a scorching hot love interest, and a big apocalyptic battle to end all battles. What do we get? All of the above? Right then, very good thanks. ----------  |
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