A prime example of a popcorn movie. If you liked the Underworld series of movies then this one runs right around that same vein. Aaron Eckhart delivers a cold and emotionless performance which I suppose is correct for his character but he comes across as a bit dull in every scene. The coolest special effect of the movie is when the gargoyles turn into humans.
A perfect example of a totally generic spy/thriller action movie. Nothing here that we haven't seen before. It tries to capture some the intrigue and suspense of the Jason Bourne movies but Chris Pine is no Matt Damon and the movie lacks an interesting plot and character development is almost non-existent. Maybe 15 years ago it would be a solid action movie but in this current age of cinema it's late to the party and offers nothing new.
Before you even watch the movie the PG-13 rating should tell you a lot. In an effort to cater to a larger audience they've left out a lot of gore and violence that you would typically see in any traditional zombie flick. In my humble opinion, the rating constraints end up killing the movie. Some of the wide shots of ravaged cities are very well done and the scenes regarding a large area being totally overrun with zombies are pretty slick. However, the film is bogged down with a heavy travel oriented narrative which will probably end up being far too drawn out for fans of the zombie genre. As I said before, the overall lack of blood and gore makes the zombies appear unrealistic. When you've got creatures running around and biting every human they see then there's going to be blood, it's inevitable.
One of those movies you should see, but only once. The picture plays out like a sort of documentary and action movie at the same time. There are over a dozen main characters spread over 3 different military branches which can really confuse the viewer and wreaks absolute havoc with any form of character development. The action scenes are well filmed but can get extremely repetitive. As I said, only need to watch it once.
Mildly entertaining, at its heart It's a long infomercial for the corp with Eastwood beating the crap out of anyone who gets in his way (no matter how imposing they are). Definitely one of the movies where Eastwood's acting doesn't quite jive with his behind the camera directing skills. Every other phrase out of his mouth is usually an insulting one-liner directed at another character. After a while it wears on you.
The whole movie is as cold as, well, a robot. Everything is dumbed down from the acting to the character development to the action sequences. Nothing here that we haven't seen done much better in other films. In the end it adds up to just another needless Hollywood reboot.
Kwai is an absolute masterpiece. What is perhaps the movie's strongest point are the visceral portrayals of so many characters that are busting at the seams with their own motivations and idiosyncrasies. Possibly at the core of the tangled moral web is Colonel Nicholson. Is he insane? Is he a traitor? Does he truly care for his men? The answer is seemingly obvious and yet totally shrouded at the exact same time. This is probably the only 150+ minute movie I've ever watched where I don't notice the time at all. It's just brilliant and enthralling filmmaking.
All of the movie's characters give solid portrayals and with very few scenes filmed on sound stages, it is very easy to place yourself in the distant jungles of Ceylon under the crushing weight of the tropical elements. All of it culminates in one of the most meticulously planned and well executed explosions in the history of cinema.
It can certainly be enjoyed by anybody who hasn't immersed themselves in video games, but to the gamer who knows what it's like to fail again and again it will hold a special meaning. The action sequences are enjoyable enough though being things we've seen before. The movie in itself isn't selling the action or the strong character backgrounds but more the interesting concept of the plot. Emily Blunt plays a great role and proves that the strong, hard hitting, silent type can still be a total badass. Probably the best thing about Blunt's character is that they didn't go out of their way to make her the stereotypical attractive-yet-killing-machine type of female character. They wrote her as a tough yet normal soldier with a big reputation and it pays off big time.
The movie in itself can be described as a "Monty Python"-style parody of the James Bond films. It never takes itself seriously and ultimately the audience shouldn't judge it as such. For those of us who grew up with being exposed to every Bond film it should be an entertaining and comical parody.
A movie that has no clue as to what it is or trying to accomplish. It isn't thrilling enough to be classified as a thriller nor is it funny and romantic enough to be a romantic comedy. Depp and Jolie give a perfect example of what it looks like when two lead actors have little to absolute zero chemistry between them. The movie's one and only redeeming factor are the gorgeous shots in the city of Venice. Save yourself the 100 minutes and just watch a travel commercial for the Italian city and you'll get just as much out of that.
If one word could describe the movie as a whole it would be "overstuffed." There are way too many villains and things happening that even the nearly 140 minute runtime seems like not enough. You've got villains being created, villains showing up into the series for the first time, and even characters being written off entirely all within one film. The movie tries to juggle 7 balls at once and ends up dropping almost all of them, but the dropped balls overshadow the remaining ones that managed to be kept in the air.
Hoffman was absolutely brilliant. A perfect example of when you can't see the actor behind the character no matter how hard you try, he vanishes into the role.
Just when you've had about as much cheesiness as you can take, you find out there's a whole 70 minutes left to go. Can't understand why Pryor was cast in this one, a Superman movie is about the last place you'd expect to see him. The movie's only redeeming factors are seeing Reeve back in the iconic role, and the darker portrayal of the hero that he was able to pull off.
Taking a look at the genre of graphic novel-style movies, it isn't as bad as Suckerpunch but it's still pretty terrible. The majority of dialog is downright laughable and most of the movie tries so hard to be as cheesy as possible. It's a perfect example of a movie that abandons literally everything for the sake of style. Just like Suckerpunch, hopefully it'll be a movie that future directors will learn what *not* to do when dabbling in this genre.
I'm convinced that during the writing sessions for this movie all the writers got around and said "ok guys, what ludicrous things can we have Snake do in this movie?" Somehow surfing through LA and attacking a mock up of Disneyland with flying gliders were both written down. It earns every bit of its "box office bomb" status.
Chock full with as many problem points as things that appear to work out. You can kind of see the Nolan influence in the writing and the direction the film takes. As long as Nolan (and also Snyder apparently) is convinced that you are focused on the one-on-one action then everything in the background can slip into being ridiculous. For example, there's a strong moral plot in the story of Kent being the good guy and being more of a protector of the human race. If that's true, it doesn't make much sense that he killed untold thousands of people in Metropolis by insisting to have a clash in the middle of the city instead of taking it elsewhere. Lois Lane was mishandled as well, I won't spoil but let's just say their whole comic book relationship seemed to fly by pretty quick when we finally get to the end of the movie.
More or less the ultimate Western movie. Everything is present that Westerns focus on like the wide open landscapes, the grittyness, the "wild west" roughness, etc. Surprisingly not as much gunfighting as say The Wild Bunch, but it's well planned out. It does drag on a bit at almost 3 hours long, don't go into it expecting a short and quick western movie by any means. Back when I first watched this it was my 2nd movie seeing Henry Fonda so the shock of him being a villain was lost on me. Re-watching it again it must have been really fun for him, he pulls it off in spades.
It was probably a mistake to watch this and "Kick-Ass" in the same week as the latter is far more entertaining and I think takes a better storyline. Harrelson does a great job acting the part but the whole movie comes off as being flatfooted and drags on in several key areas. While "Kick-Ass" was rooted in a real-life world with splashes of comic book influence this movie is even more rooted in reality and somehow ends up not being as entertaining.
It's better than the 3rd and 4th movies in the franchise but that really isn't saying much. At the very least it still has Roy Scheider in it and the shark effects aren't half bad. A fairly decent sequel that couldn't possibly live up to the original but at least it attempts to.
It's precisely what you'd expect from the 4th installment of a franchise that should have always been just one original film. The acting is sub-par along with the characters and the shark prop technology.
It's one of the movies where Shyamalan's specific style of storytelling fits perfectly and the concept, characters, and plotline really come together well. Looking back this was more or less the height of Shyamalan's career. Not hard to see why people think it's the only good movie he's every made.
Ultimately you have to judge a movie based on what it sets out to accomplish. Shyamalan has repeatedly said he was trying to make a "B horror movie." After watching it I was convinced this was intended to be a comedy. It fails epicly as a horror movie on every level. The whole concept of nature being the "horror movie bad guy" was interesting, but it couldn't have been executed more poorly. When you think about Shyamalan and how he can't understand why people hate this movie it really makes you think how insane he must be, and how downhill he's gone since the beginning of his career.
I have a feeling that Will Smith's performance in this movie will be shown in acting classes as how NOT to act in a movie. Will couldn't have delivered a colder and more unemotional performance if he tried. Since Will Smith had a lot of free reign over the film while working with Shyamalan, it's hard to believe that he didn't see firsthand what the movie was turning into. The plot is 100% predictable with no surprises and Jaden's performance leaves much to be desired. It seems that Will might have deliberately tried to place the weight of the film on Jaden's small shoulders but in the end he couldn't carry it, he got squashed by it.
After looking into a lot of the promotional interviews and material for the movie it becomes obvious that from beginning to end this entire movie project was a shameless plug to put Jaden Smith on his path to stardom. And when I say shameless, I mean shameless, it's nepotism on a grand scale.
It's a horror movie that plays nearly 100% on your own personal imagination. That's probably the cause for it having just as many fans as people who really don't care for it at all. *YOU* personally have to fill in the blanks. If you are a movie watcher who can fill up the entire absence of an antagonist on screen in your mind, then you'll most likely enjoy it. On the flip side if you need even the slightest hint of what kind of evil is hunting the characters then you'll be kept waiting for something that won't be shown. To me, there really isn't enough happening on screen to give some sense of what kind of danger the 3 characters are facing. Even when we make it to the end it appears that at least a few things will be explained and shown, but we are left pretty disappointed. Personally, I need at least a little bit to go on if I'm going to be scared or creeped out and in the end I got nothing, almost like it all could have been some elaborate prank on the characters involved. On the bright side, it does showcase beautifully what kind of blockbuster can be made with a simple portable camera and a few relatively no-name actors.
In a way there is a place for graphic novel movies of this caliber because it can be used as a teaching tool of what can go wrong when you get lost in the stylistic environment. Snyder was clearly attempting to go for something epic here but the small amount of strong points the movie has are beaten to death by the messy camerawork and plotline. Everything that makes a bad graphic novel movie is showcased here. The extreme slow-mo to the point of being boring, the overused CGI environments to the point that the watcher's eyes start to hurt, and the fatal flaw of totally abandoning substance for the sake of style.
Comments 701 - 725 of 734
Movie comment on I, Frankenstein
DisneyStitch
A prime example of a popcorn movie. If you liked the Underworld series of movies then this one runs right around that same vein. Aaron Eckhart delivers a cold and emotionless performance which I suppose is correct for his character but he comes across as a bit dull in every scene. The coolest special effect of the movie is when the gargoyles turn into humans.Movie comment on Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit
DisneyStitch
A perfect example of a totally generic spy/thriller action movie. Nothing here that we haven't seen before. It tries to capture some the intrigue and suspense of the Jason Bourne movies but Chris Pine is no Matt Damon and the movie lacks an interesting plot and character development is almost non-existent. Maybe 15 years ago it would be a solid action movie but in this current age of cinema it's late to the party and offers nothing new.Movie comment on World War Z
DisneyStitch
Before you even watch the movie the PG-13 rating should tell you a lot. In an effort to cater to a larger audience they've left out a lot of gore and violence that you would typically see in any traditional zombie flick. In my humble opinion, the rating constraints end up killing the movie. Some of the wide shots of ravaged cities are very well done and the scenes regarding a large area being totally overrun with zombies are pretty slick. However, the film is bogged down with a heavy travel oriented narrative which will probably end up being far too drawn out for fans of the zombie genre. As I said before, the overall lack of blood and gore makes the zombies appear unrealistic. When you've got creatures running around and biting every human they see then there's going to be blood, it's inevitable.Movie comment on Black Hawk Down
DisneyStitch
One of those movies you should see, but only once. The picture plays out like a sort of documentary and action movie at the same time. There are over a dozen main characters spread over 3 different military branches which can really confuse the viewer and wreaks absolute havoc with any form of character development. The action scenes are well filmed but can get extremely repetitive. As I said, only need to watch it once.Movie comment on Heartbreak Ridge
DisneyStitch
Mildly entertaining, at its heart It's a long infomercial for the corp with Eastwood beating the crap out of anyone who gets in his way (no matter how imposing they are). Definitely one of the movies where Eastwood's acting doesn't quite jive with his behind the camera directing skills. Every other phrase out of his mouth is usually an insulting one-liner directed at another character. After a while it wears on you.Movie comment on RoboCop
DisneyStitch
The whole movie is as cold as, well, a robot. Everything is dumbed down from the acting to the character development to the action sequences. Nothing here that we haven't seen done much better in other films. In the end it adds up to just another needless Hollywood reboot.Movie comment on The Bridge on the River Kwai
DisneyStitch
Kwai is an absolute masterpiece. What is perhaps the movie's strongest point are the visceral portrayals of so many characters that are busting at the seams with their own motivations and idiosyncrasies. Possibly at the core of the tangled moral web is Colonel Nicholson. Is he insane? Is he a traitor? Does he truly care for his men? The answer is seemingly obvious and yet totally shrouded at the exact same time. This is probably the only 150+ minute movie I've ever watched where I don't notice the time at all. It's just brilliant and enthralling filmmaking.All of the movie's characters give solid portrayals and with very few scenes filmed on sound stages, it is very easy to place yourself in the distant jungles of Ceylon under the crushing weight of the tropical elements. All of it culminates in one of the most meticulously planned and well executed explosions in the history of cinema.
Movie comment on Edge of Tomorrow
DisneyStitch
It can certainly be enjoyed by anybody who hasn't immersed themselves in video games, but to the gamer who knows what it's like to fail again and again it will hold a special meaning. The action sequences are enjoyable enough though being things we've seen before. The movie in itself isn't selling the action or the strong character backgrounds but more the interesting concept of the plot. Emily Blunt plays a great role and proves that the strong, hard hitting, silent type can still be a total badass. Probably the best thing about Blunt's character is that they didn't go out of their way to make her the stereotypical attractive-yet-killing-machine type of female character. They wrote her as a tough yet normal soldier with a big reputation and it pays off big time.Movie comment on Casino Royale
DisneyStitch
The movie in itself can be described as a "Monty Python"-style parody of the James Bond films. It never takes itself seriously and ultimately the audience shouldn't judge it as such. For those of us who grew up with being exposed to every Bond film it should be an entertaining and comical parody.Movie comment on The Tourist
DisneyStitch
A movie that has no clue as to what it is or trying to accomplish. It isn't thrilling enough to be classified as a thriller nor is it funny and romantic enough to be a romantic comedy. Depp and Jolie give a perfect example of what it looks like when two lead actors have little to absolute zero chemistry between them. The movie's one and only redeeming factor are the gorgeous shots in the city of Venice. Save yourself the 100 minutes and just watch a travel commercial for the Italian city and you'll get just as much out of that.Movie comment on The Amazing Spider-Man 2
DisneyStitch
If one word could describe the movie as a whole it would be "overstuffed." There are way too many villains and things happening that even the nearly 140 minute runtime seems like not enough. You've got villains being created, villains showing up into the series for the first time, and even characters being written off entirely all within one film. The movie tries to juggle 7 balls at once and ends up dropping almost all of them, but the dropped balls overshadow the remaining ones that managed to be kept in the air.Movie comment on Capote
DisneyStitch
Hoffman was absolutely brilliant. A perfect example of when you can't see the actor behind the character no matter how hard you try, he vanishes into the role.Movie comment on Superman III
DisneyStitch
Just when you've had about as much cheesiness as you can take, you find out there's a whole 70 minutes left to go. Can't understand why Pryor was cast in this one, a Superman movie is about the last place you'd expect to see him. The movie's only redeeming factors are seeing Reeve back in the iconic role, and the darker portrayal of the hero that he was able to pull off.Movie comment on The Spirit
DisneyStitch
Taking a look at the genre of graphic novel-style movies, it isn't as bad as Suckerpunch but it's still pretty terrible. The majority of dialog is downright laughable and most of the movie tries so hard to be as cheesy as possible. It's a perfect example of a movie that abandons literally everything for the sake of style. Just like Suckerpunch, hopefully it'll be a movie that future directors will learn what *not* to do when dabbling in this genre.Movie comment on Escape from L.A.
DisneyStitch
I'm convinced that during the writing sessions for this movie all the writers got around and said "ok guys, what ludicrous things can we have Snake do in this movie?" Somehow surfing through LA and attacking a mock up of Disneyland with flying gliders were both written down. It earns every bit of its "box office bomb" status.Movie comment on Man of Steel
DisneyStitch
Chock full with as many problem points as things that appear to work out. You can kind of see the Nolan influence in the writing and the direction the film takes. As long as Nolan (and also Snyder apparently) is convinced that you are focused on the one-on-one action then everything in the background can slip into being ridiculous. For example, there's a strong moral plot in the story of Kent being the good guy and being more of a protector of the human race. If that's true, it doesn't make much sense that he killed untold thousands of people in Metropolis by insisting to have a clash in the middle of the city instead of taking it elsewhere. Lois Lane was mishandled as well, I won't spoil but let's just say their whole comic book relationship seemed to fly by pretty quick when we finally get to the end of the movie.Movie comment on C'era una volta il West
DisneyStitch
More or less the ultimate Western movie. Everything is present that Westerns focus on like the wide open landscapes, the grittyness, the "wild west" roughness, etc. Surprisingly not as much gunfighting as say The Wild Bunch, but it's well planned out. It does drag on a bit at almost 3 hours long, don't go into it expecting a short and quick western movie by any means. Back when I first watched this it was my 2nd movie seeing Henry Fonda so the shock of him being a villain was lost on me. Re-watching it again it must have been really fun for him, he pulls it off in spades.Movie comment on Defendor
DisneyStitch
It was probably a mistake to watch this and "Kick-Ass" in the same week as the latter is far more entertaining and I think takes a better storyline. Harrelson does a great job acting the part but the whole movie comes off as being flatfooted and drags on in several key areas. While "Kick-Ass" was rooted in a real-life world with splashes of comic book influence this movie is even more rooted in reality and somehow ends up not being as entertaining.Movie comment on Jaws 2
DisneyStitch
It's better than the 3rd and 4th movies in the franchise but that really isn't saying much. At the very least it still has Roy Scheider in it and the shark effects aren't half bad. A fairly decent sequel that couldn't possibly live up to the original but at least it attempts to.Movie comment on Jaws: The Revenge
DisneyStitch
It's precisely what you'd expect from the 4th installment of a franchise that should have always been just one original film. The acting is sub-par along with the characters and the shark prop technology.Movie comment on The Sixth Sense
DisneyStitch
It's one of the movies where Shyamalan's specific style of storytelling fits perfectly and the concept, characters, and plotline really come together well. Looking back this was more or less the height of Shyamalan's career. Not hard to see why people think it's the only good movie he's every made.Movie comment on The Happening
DisneyStitch
Ultimately you have to judge a movie based on what it sets out to accomplish. Shyamalan has repeatedly said he was trying to make a "B horror movie." After watching it I was convinced this was intended to be a comedy. It fails epicly as a horror movie on every level. The whole concept of nature being the "horror movie bad guy" was interesting, but it couldn't have been executed more poorly. When you think about Shyamalan and how he can't understand why people hate this movie it really makes you think how insane he must be, and how downhill he's gone since the beginning of his career.Movie comment on After Earth
DisneyStitch
I have a feeling that Will Smith's performance in this movie will be shown in acting classes as how NOT to act in a movie. Will couldn't have delivered a colder and more unemotional performance if he tried. Since Will Smith had a lot of free reign over the film while working with Shyamalan, it's hard to believe that he didn't see firsthand what the movie was turning into. The plot is 100% predictable with no surprises and Jaden's performance leaves much to be desired. It seems that Will might have deliberately tried to place the weight of the film on Jaden's small shoulders but in the end he couldn't carry it, he got squashed by it.After looking into a lot of the promotional interviews and material for the movie it becomes obvious that from beginning to end this entire movie project was a shameless plug to put Jaden Smith on his path to stardom. And when I say shameless, I mean shameless, it's nepotism on a grand scale.
Movie comment on The Blair Witch Project
DisneyStitch
It's a horror movie that plays nearly 100% on your own personal imagination. That's probably the cause for it having just as many fans as people who really don't care for it at all. *YOU* personally have to fill in the blanks. If you are a movie watcher who can fill up the entire absence of an antagonist on screen in your mind, then you'll most likely enjoy it. On the flip side if you need even the slightest hint of what kind of evil is hunting the characters then you'll be kept waiting for something that won't be shown. To me, there really isn't enough happening on screen to give some sense of what kind of danger the 3 characters are facing. Even when we make it to the end it appears that at least a few things will be explained and shown, but we are left pretty disappointed. Personally, I need at least a little bit to go on if I'm going to be scared or creeped out and in the end I got nothing, almost like it all could have been some elaborate prank on the characters involved. On the bright side, it does showcase beautifully what kind of blockbuster can be made with a simple portable camera and a few relatively no-name actors.Movie comment on Sucker Punch
DisneyStitch
In a way there is a place for graphic novel movies of this caliber because it can be used as a teaching tool of what can go wrong when you get lost in the stylistic environment. Snyder was clearly attempting to go for something epic here but the small amount of strong points the movie has are beaten to death by the messy camerawork and plotline. Everything that makes a bad graphic novel movie is showcased here. The extreme slow-mo to the point of being boring, the overused CGI environments to the point that the watcher's eyes start to hurt, and the fatal flaw of totally abandoning substance for the sake of style.Showing items 701 – 725 of 734