I've decided to put my movie reviews on a separate page, so we can keep them here as historical oddities or whatever. I'll try to keep the review short, not give away major plot points, and rate them on a scale of zero to five stars. Here's the breakdown:
Without futher ado, here's more than a few reviews:
The Incredibles is well worth the praise it's received - it's pretty funny and the animation is very good. It's not as "special" as "Finding Nemo" was, though, and I don't know why. Anyway, three and a half stars.
Shall we dance? No, we shall not. One star. I never realized Richard Gere's nose was that big.
I guess Anchorman is just one of those films that you either love or hate. Guess which camp I'm in? Here's a hint - one star.
Constantine was another comic book adaptation, although most of the general public probably never heard of the comic until Keanu Reeves started waving the "holy shotgun" (or whatever that thing was) around. Still, the movie was pretty good. Along the way it had a thing or two to say about organized religion, although it wasn't nearly as blatant about it as "Dogma" (see below for a review of Dogma). Overall, four stars.
If you liked "Amelie" (see below), you might like A Very Long Engagement - it's got the same actress (waifish Audrey Tautou) playing almost the same character, except a few years older and about 80 years earlier. Sometimes depressing, in part due to its depictions of the aftermath of World War I, but a very good film overall. Four and a half stars.
The third Harry Potter movie, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, is just as good as the first two. It's visually stunning, and it keeps reasonably close to the book compared to many of Hollywood's "adaptations" (I, Robot, anyone?). It's just a shame that Richard Harris died, he really was Dumbledore. Gary Oldman is pretty cool as Sirus Black, though. Four stars.
Aliens Versus Predator. I have been waiting for this movie for something like fifteen years - ever since the comic first came out. I've read all the books and comics, collected the toys, played the games. So, was I disappointed? Actually, no. While I do wish they could have made the comic into a movie, I also understand that they were positioning this movie as a "bridge" between the Predator and Alien movies. They did a pretty good job, and the pyramid was pretty cool. It didn't suck - it wasn't "Aliens"-great, but it wasn't bad. I'll give it four stars.
This was a good summer for comic-based movies. Not only did Hellboy and AvP come out, but so did The Punisher. This was actually the second Punisher movie - the first, starring Dolph "what career?" Lundgren as my favourite vigilante psychopath, went direct to video and has grossed almost $50.00 world-wide in the past decade. This one is much better, even though I'd never heard of the guy who wears the skull in this one. I actually saw (most of) it three times in a row on a flight from Johannesburg (South Africa) to Heathrow (England, duh!). It's an eleven and a half hour flight, so this was a nice distraction. At least three and a half stars, maybe four. I'm gonna have to watch it again to see. Update - watched it again with Lynne, I'll give it the other half-star.
On the way to Johannesburg (again, almost 12 hours trapped in British Airways cattle-country purgatory) I got to watch (was forced to watch?) The Day After Tomorrow. Meh. Not too bad, although the physics is pretty wonky. If you are going to make a film which purports to be a scientific warning, you should probably check your science first. Two stars. Barely.
The Matrix: Revolutions. I think someone owes me my rental fee back. While this movie does tie up all the loose ends from the first two movies, it does so in such a way as to accidentally incorporate some of your grey matter in the knot, and not in a good way. One and a half stars ('cause Trinity is still pretty hot).
Kill Bill: Volume 2 isn't nearly as bloody as the first one, but don't let that stop you. The movies really do make a nice pair of "book-ends". I just hope they release a cheezy DVD double-pack with a Japanese sword replica. Four stars.
Hellboy is a darn fine film, with a lot to recommend it. Ron Perlman is, in retrospect, the perfect guy to play Hellboy, probably because he already looks like he was beat repeatedly with the "ugly stick". Ok, that's probably not fair, although it is mildly funny. Anyway, the movie's good, go see it if you haven't already. Four stars.
Pulp Fiction - hey, I think I'm now caught up on all the "edgy" movies from the 90s. Now I just have to make it through the first half of the "naughties" (well, what would you call this decade?). Anyway, it's pretty good, a little screwy. Quentin Tarentino does have some talent, I'll grant him that. But it doesn't compare well to his most recent work, Kill Bill (see below for review). I'll give this one three stars - really, it isn't "standard Hollywood schlock", but it's pretty rough in spots. Also, putting yourself into your movies was cool when Alfred Hitchcock did it - now it's just egotistical.
Trainspotting, the smash hit movie that introduced the world to Ewan MacGregor, better known as "young Obi-Wan" in the most recent Star Wars movies. It's a pretty cool movie, kinda majorly screwed up though. Somewhere between three and four stars - I have to figure out if it was really trying to glorify the life of a heroin addict, or just be ironic.
Underworld, the "Vampire-vs-werewolf" movie that got Sony sued by White Wolf Games, is actually not that bad. The action sequences are decent. However, they only seem to run out of ammo when it's convenient for the script (and there's LOTS of shooting going on - apparently vampires and werewolves don't have any natural defensive or offensive capabilities, like claws, teeth, or supernatural strength, so they just shoot each other). I'll give it three and a half stars.
SWAT, based on the short-lived 1960s TV series of the same name, is actually a pretty darn good action movie, some glaring plotholes notwithstanding. I liked it. Four stars!
I actually enjoyed Finding Nemo a lot more than I thought I would - it's pretty funny, and Ellen Desgeneres does a pretty good job of being a scatterbrained fish (hmm, I could say something nasty here...). Anyway, four stars.
On the other hand, Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle didn't surprise me at all - it's exactly what the movie trailers promised. Lots of action with barely concealed jiggly bits. Not as good as the first movie, despite all the cameos. The only saving grace was the complete and utter lack of Tom Green. Two and a half stars.
Basic, starring John Travolta, is a surprising movie. All throughout it twists and turns and weaves. Then, in the last five minutes, it takes a huge leap back and you see that, rather than a giant knot, they've made a macrame rug with a smiley face in the centre. It is a good movie, with or without that funny ending. Four stars.
Daredevil. Hmm. Marvel's movie adaptations of comics are getting better, and Jennifer Garner does look good in black leather, but is that really an excuse to pay Ben Affleck? I think not. Three stars.
Santa Claus 2 is a hokey little Christmas movie, sure, but it's not a bad hokey little Christmas movie. It has its moments. Three and a half stars.
And then there's The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. What a horrid movie - even Peta Wilson in what appears to be a leather corset can't save this one (although she does a very nifty impersonation of Sean Connery). One star.
Tears of the Sun. Don't bother. Bruce Willis is way too old to be a SEAL team commander. One star.
Pirates of the Caribbean pleasantly surprised me. It's still not great cinema, and Johnny Depp spends most of the movie sounding drunk, gay, or both. But the visual FX are tres kewl, and the story doesn't drag too much. Four stars.
X2 - X-men United (or something like that) is a fairly run-of-the-mill excursion in comic-to-movie translation. As a longtime reader of the X-men comics I kind of expected certain things to happen - after all,they're trying to get people caught up on a couple of hundred comics worth of material in a couple of two-hour movies. While the movie's okay, it's not great - it only just borders on being "good". Three stars.
Tomb Raider - Cradle of Life. Trying to kill another franchise, are they? Another movie like this one and apathy may win out over Angelina Jolie in a rubber wetsuit. Two and a half stars.
The Lord of the Rings: The Return Of The King (which has nothing to do with Elvis' 1968 comeback special) requires two ratings - one for the three-and-a-half hour standalone movie, and one for the totality of the three movies put together. Fortunately, they both get five stars, so this movie gets a ten-star rating on a five-star scale. :-)
Kill Bill, Volume 1 - Quentin Tarantino has finally made a movie I liked. It's not a *great* film (I never have been a fan of Hong Kong action films), and it's very gory, but overall it's a nice little film about an assassin out to avenge the murder of her whole wedding party at the hands of her ex-employer. No, it doesn't make sense. Shut up and pass the popcorn. Four stars.
Twenty Eight Days Later (not to be mistaken for the stupid Twenty Eight Days, which screams "chick flick"). Geez, what a film. Very intense. It's about a guy who wakes up out of a coma to find out that most of the people in England (where he is, duh!) are either dead or infected with the "Rage" virus. You never know where the plague zombies are gonna pop out next, and it's quite well filmed. Somewhat gory (although not nearly so much so as Kill Bill Volume 1). Four and a half stars. Watch for nightmares.
The Matrix Reloaded. Yeah, shut up, I'm just watching it now (November 2003). It's good - better than some said it was. A very heavy helping of philosophical musings makes it somewhat hard to stomach at times, but the fight scenes are hilarious. Probably not what the director wanted to hear. Oh, well. Four stars. (BTW, if you've watched The Animatrix there are a few references to some of the mini-films in that one, in this one. If you haven't watched it, do so. It may help. Or maybe not.)
Reservoir Dogs - well, I finally saw it. Wasn't as good as I was expecting. Stylish, somewhat, but otherwise not so good. Two stars.
I had been putting off watching Fight Club, I think because of the advertising campaign when it came out. I don't know why, but Hollywood seems to love making good movies look like crap in the ads. Anyway, this one is pretty good (and Meatloaf puts in an appearance as the "huggy guy"). Watch it - just for the soapmaking. And for Meatloaf's breasts. Four stars.
And then there's Quills, the story of the Marquis de Sade post-French Revolution. This movie is not for everyone, but it definitely has its moments. I described it as "delightfully f*cked up", and I stand by that assessment. Four stars, for people into that sort of thing.
Watched the 90's remake of The Avengers. Does Sean Connery need the work, or what? The only thing this movie had going for it was Uma Thurman in the black leather catsuit, and she's not in it (the suit, that is) that much. One star. Ralph Fiennes is no Patrick McNee.
Spiderman, the Marvel superhero film, wasn't bad (although the ending was kinda stupid). They really set it up for a "Son of Green Goblin" sequel, didn't they? Three stars, anyway.
Men With Brooms is a hilarious film. It's also Canadian. Stars Paul Gross (the Mountie from the TV series Due South) and Leslie Nielsen. Basically, it's these four guys who used to be a great curling team (it's a Canadian thing, you wouldn't understand), who reunite after their old coach dies to fulfill his dying wish. As with most Canadian films, the characters are all generally screwed up people. Four stars.
Star Trek: Nemesis. Well. A Star Trek movie that realizes (sort of) there is no "up" or "down" in space. They apparently hired a physics student. Shame they had to skimp on the plot in order to pay him. This is basically a two hour excuse for an action movie, and not a good one either. The effects are pretty cool, overall. Two and a half stars.
Cube wins a special award for me for "most screwy movie I'm liable to see this year". It's psychological sci-fi thriller, if that makes any sense. It's about a group of people trapped in a maze who must work together to get out. Except, you know, they're human, and thus can't work together to make a kite. Good movie, though. Made in Canada, too, and on a set budget of something like $20.00 (you'll understand when you see it). Three and a half stars - the "gore" is a little overdone at the beginning.
Windtalkers is the story of how Nicholas Cage led a ragtag team of misfits to singlehandedly win the war in the Pacific and preserve democracy. Too bad it was supposed to be about Navaho Code-Talkers. Two stars.
Amelie is a delightful move, but hard to describe. If I said "it's about a girl in France who decides to make others happy", it would be technically correct, but completely miss the intent and scope of this film. Just watch it. You'll enjoy it. Four stars.
Reign of Fire wasn't quite as bad as I thought. Still wasn't good in any way, but not that bad... Dragons and automatic weapons, oh, my! Two and a half stars.
Men In Black II is worth three stars, if for no other reason than to see Lara Flynn Boyle running around dressed as a biker chick. Just ignore her tentacles, unless you're into that.
Star Wars: Attack of the Clones has a title which screams "B-movie", an angsty teenage Jedi wanna-be, and Yoda-the-super-fun-ball. That pretty much sums up the whole movie, actually. Two and a half stars.
Best in Show is an amusing little movie about the "dog show" circuit. Given that my parents show dogs (Shar-Peis), I probably shouldn't say much more. It's amusing, but nothing special. Three stars.
Good Will Hunting - actually, I only saw about half of it. A decent enough film, given the material (i.e. actors) they were working with. Robin Williams should go back to comedy, though. Two and a half stars.
The Scorpion King, starring The Rock (the WWF - oops, I mean WWE - wrestler) as.... um, well, er... actually, he's playing Arnold Schwarzenegger, as far as I can tell. But Arnie did it first and better in Conan. Rent that one, not this one. One star.
Wag The Dog is pretty funny, and very cynical in its view of the American political system. I'm gonna give it four stars, because it really is pretty funny in parts - hey, Dennis Leary is in it! Anyway, the movie is about media manipulation within the last two weeks before an election to divert public attention away from a scandal. Instead, they manufacture a war with Albania. Strange stuff. Loses some points for complete and utter lack of plausability (no American president would be out of the country less than two weeks before the polls - he'd be too busy "pressing the flesh").
A Bridge Too Far is a classic war film about the Allied Airborne Assault on several bridges in Holland, called Operation Market Garden. The film stars (in no particular order) Elliott Gould, Sean Connery, Robert Redford, Gene Hackman, James Caan, Michael Caine, Anthony Hopkins, Denholm Elliott, Ryan O'Neal, Maximilian Schell, and Liv Ullmann, as well as the late Sir Laurence Olivier. It's another one of those "Hollywood can't make this kind of film anymore" films; big cast, big sets, lots of historical accuracy throughout, and no "rah-rah-U-S-A" B.S. I'd have a very hard time justifying giving this less than four stars, but I don't quite think it deserves five. So I'll split the difference and give it four and a half!
The Lord of The Rings: The Two Towers. A tough one to review. First thing to remember is that this is not actually a three hour movie - it's really the middle third of a nine-hour movie, which explains the plethora of action and virtual absence of plot exposition. Having said that, it's a very good movie - worthy of four and a half stars. But, as a Lord of The Rings movie, it's only worth two stars. Apparently the director decided that slavishly following the books was no longer necessary after the first movie... Gollum was kinda cute, particularly in his "Good Gollum vs. Bad Gollum" moments.
Black Hawk Down is a very powerful movie, that almost never resorts to standard Hollywood tricks to manipulate the audience. For those who don't know, it's based on the true events in Somalia in October 1993, when a Special Operations team attempted to extract (okay, kidnap) a warlord, only to have things go horribly wrong. Four and a half stars, and kudos to Ridley Scott (the man is, like, a minor diety of film, okay? Alien, Gladiator, now this.)
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, at two and a half hours, is a long time to wait if you got the super-sized pop at the concession stand. But it's worth it. This one deviates a little more from the book than the first movie did, but it's all good. Kenneth Branagh is excellent, the late Richard Harris is magnificent, and Alan Rickman's Professor Snape is not to be missed. Overall, I give it four and a half stars, but people who don't like spiders (or snakes) may want to avoid this one entirely.
Eraser, the Ahnold Schvartzenbooger movie. Finally caught (the last half of) this movie the other night. Didn't miss much in the first half, from what I can tell. Two stars. Some of that is for the "railguns", which were kinda kewl.
Ants (or Antz, or whatever - you know, the other bug movie that came out at the same time as A Bug's Life - see below). I don't know - didn't like it at first, but it sort of grew on me (much like a fungus). Two stars.
Being John Malkovich - Lynne and I watched this in July 2002 - it was on TV while we were packing for the Big Move. An interesting, offbeat, odd movie. The scene where John Malkovich crawls into his own head is rather disturbing. Didn't care much for the ending. John Cusack is a very strange person. Somewhere between two and four stars, depending on my mood.
A Beautiful Mind - I really liked this movie. Lynne liked it too, but probably not as much as I did. I could really identify with John Nash for some reason - his attitude towards those who make a career out of incremental, derivative works rather than ingeniously new discovery struck a chord with me, I guess. Anyway, four stars, and highly recommended.
Jin-Roh is a very nicely crafted Anime tale of morality and the lines we must sometimes cross to do our duty. Some rather gorey sequences of people getting shot, but no demon tentacles raping people. Four stars.
Resident Evil reminded me a lot more of John Carpenter's Ghosts of Mars (see below) than of Aliens, which is what everyone else compared it to. It wasn't bad. Wasn't great, but some of the FX were kinda kewl. Three stars, because that's what I gave the John Carpenter version.
Blade II had a stupid plot, but kewl effects, but stupid acting, but some actors we really like, but an actor we really hate (one of the Coreys - Haim or Feldman, I can't remember which). But they blew Corey up real good... Three stars. Except it turns out it wasn't one of the Coreys, just a clever look-alike. Damn clones.
Behind Enemy Lines. All I can say is, thank the merciful Gods for Morpheus, because I'd really regret having to pay to see this "movie". Gene Hackman must really need the money, because I can't see why he'd be in this turkey otherwise. It's just - BAD. One half of a star, because some of the action scenes are okay. Hint to the director: once you run over a hill and start down the other side, the bad guys can't shoot at you until they get up the damn hill, okay?!? Actually, I consider this film to be somewhat disrespectful of history, since such a bad film uses such a dark time (genocide in Bosnia in the late 1990s) as its major plotpoint.
Black Hawk Down, on the other hand, is very good. There are no "heroes" in this movie, unless you count the entire cast. It's simply a retelling of a very black day in US Special Ops forces. Nice, pretty accurate, doesn't go too over the top. Four stars. Oops I reviewed this one twice. So shoot me.
Mission to Mars is really bad. I mean, it's bad, and not in anything approaching a good way. The worst part of the whole movie is the rather stupid zero-G "crisis" about half-way through the movie, but the rest of it is not much better. With all the millions of dollars Hollywood spends on movies, can't they afford to hire a darn Newtonian physicist? They probably spent more on plants (Plants. On Mars.) for this movie than a physicist grad student would have cost. Oh, well. One star.
Lynne just saw Labyrinth for the first time. She liked it. She gives it four stars. She also makes a rather lewd comment about David Bowie that I won't repeat here.
I saw The Tailor Of Panama a while back, but forgot to review it here (this was during that 6 months of not updating...). It's a pretty good movie, mainly a character study. Jamie-Lee Curtis is nice eye-candy, as always. Three and a half stars.
Since Lynne and I bought a DVD player last summer, we've been slowly building up our stock of DVDs. One of my favourite movies, La Femme Nikita is available on DVD, and it's quite cool in that you can choose to watch it in English or French, with English or French subtitles. However, they seem to have changed some of the subtitles from what I remembered... There are a couple of glaring inconsistencies in the movie, but overall it's still a fun movie to watch, very deserving of four and a half stars and a place on my "Top Ten of All Time" list (together with "Aliens" and "Ghost in the Shell").
Of course, Lynne just had to get The Mummy and The Mummy Returns on DVD as well. I already reviewed the Return (see below), but now's a good time to review the original. Other than the fact that the main "hero" keeps shooting nine shots out of a six-shooter, it's still a solid movie. The CG looks a bit dated now, of course, but it's a nice chance to see how far the art has come in only a couple of years. Four stars.
Anybody who really knows me knows what movie I bought first for the DVD player - Aliens, the wide-screen director's cut special edition. Hoo-yah! This is without a doubt my all-time favourite movie (even though I can point out half a dozen on-screen mistakes and another half-dozen consistency problems). Five stars, because I can't go any higher!
I recently was left alone for a weekend (never a good idea), and rented U-571, Pearl Harbour, and Tora! Tora! Tora! Let me first say that there is no f***ing way I'm going to join the Navy - there's no place to go if (when) things go bad. Now, to review the individual movies: Pearl Harbour gets two and a half stars, because it has very cool flight footage but a very stupidly tacked-on love triangle. Tora! Tora! Tora! is a much better (although somewhat dated - you can really tell the boats are models) treatment of the same event (Pearl Harbour, duh!) and so gets four stars. U-571 is a badly handled movie that could have been much better than it ends up (not just because it runs roughshod over real history), so gets two stars.
A Bug's Life is yet another very funny CG (Computer-Generated) animated movie. Although when you think about it what it really is is a re-telling of Kurosawa's Seven Samurai (see below). Unfortunately, it's not quite funny enough. Three stars.
Seven Samurai is an oft-mentioned cinematic classic. The story still holds up well even in the age of $100-million movies, although it looks a bit dated cinematically. Five stars.
Chusingara (not sure about the spelling) is a re-telling of Japan's most famous moment in history - the 47 Ronin (masterless Samurai) who avenge their master's death. If you want to understand Japanese culture, there is probably no better place to start than with this story. This is only one of several movie adaptations, but it's well worth finding any of them. Four stars.
Cats and Dogs is a hilarious movie, despite Jeff Goldblum's inept performance as an inept inventor. The animals really steal the scenes here, particularly the Ninja cats. Three and a half stars.
Kippur is a portrayal of two soldiers caught up in the Yom Kippur war of 1973. With such a fertile background it should be easy to come up with a good story, but the movie maker apparently failed completely. In fairness, I only saw the first half of this one (had to return it to the video store), but from what I saw it wasn't that impressive. One and a half stars.
Monsters, Inc. "Kitty!" At least, that's all Lynne has to say on the matter. Overall, quite funny, and I'm looking forwards to seeing the "outtakes" some time (the version we saw in theatre didn't have them out yet). Of course, there is still something disturbing about "outtakes" in an animated movie... Four stars.
Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone. You know, a lot of reviews have been written about this movie, and the worst thing they can say is that it is exactly like the book. So what? Any movie that can make pre-teens sit still for over two hours is a good thing! Four stars.
The Fellowship of the Ring. 2001's other major Fantasy offering (see Harry Potter, above) gets the same rating - 4 stars. It's a nice, solid movie, but nothing to go completely ape about.
Gosford Park gets four stars, but you must understand that the TV commercials advertising it are complete BS - it's not really an Agatha Christie-ish murder mystery at all, but an interesting character study of British upper- and lower-class citizens (all of them more-or-less insane) in the "between the wars" era. There is a murder - about 3/4 of the way through the movie, and almost entirely incidental to the plot. The police never solve it (although it's rather simplistically revealed to the audience at the end), either.
Mists of Avalon. Ugh. One and a half stars.
Ghosts of Mars. Hey! John Carpenter re-made Aliens, using evil spooks instead of bugs! Cool! (Well, not really, but it's actually not bad, but somehow not that good either. I get the feeling that I could have made this movie, given a decent camera.) Three stars.
Shrek. Not bad - outtakes on the DVD made it even better. Four stars.
Red Planet. I wanted to like this movie. I didn't. Two and a half stars.
The Messenger: The Story of Joan of Arc. Cool battle scenes liven up an otherwise dull movie. Not enough John Malkovich to make it interesting. Three stars.
Volcano. Don't get me started. One star - and half of that is out of respect for Tommy Lee Jones.
Meet the Parents is just as bad, unfortunately. We actually voluntarily turned it off half-way through. One star, half of that for Robert De Niro (AKA Bobby D. to all you Sopranos fans out there).
Planet of the Apes (the 2001 version with Mark Wahlberg and a bunch of people you'll never recognize 'cause they're all apes). Hmm. Saw it in theatre, and I'm not sure how I feel about it. Like all of Tim Burton's films, it's visually spectacular and well worth a viewing. However, make sure you check your brains at the door (why did they let a monkey have a gun?), and really suspend your disbelief for the last five minutes. I can see at least one or two sequels arising out of this... Four stars, if you turn your IQ off. Two, otherwise.
Final Fantasy. Amazing computer graphics, a decent story and script, really crappy science adds up to three stars. From the small (Gallileo was not arrested for saying the Earth went around the sun, he was arrested for being an asshole) to the huge (Gaia hypothesis? Please!) this whole film lacked scientific credibility. But it was cool to look at.
Miss Congeniality. Not bad - Sandra Bullock looks good; it's hard to believe she thinks of herself as a "geek". Candace Bergen is appropriately bitchy, Bill Shatner is appropriately clueless, and Michael Caine is appropriately, uh, um, well, gay. Three stars.
Shadow of the Vampire, with John Malkovich and Willem Dafoe. A strange little movie with a neat premise: the original vampire movie, Nosferatu, was shot using a real vampire as the star. He starts eating the crew, hilarity ensues. Or something like that. I pretty much ignored this, but Lynne says it was worth three and a half stars - she says the concept was "f***ing brilliant."
The Sixth Sense. What, it wasn't completely obvious from the very beginning that the guy was dead? Come on, people! Oops, I guess that one's a SPOILER. Three stars - it needed more ghosts.
Ghost Dog: The Way of the Warrior. This movie is right up there with La Femme Nikita and Six String Samurai on my top ten list of movies. The concept is capital-K kewl - a hitman in modern-day America follows the ancient code of the Samurai in his dealings with a mafia lieutenant who saved his life once. Four stars.
Titus. A film adaptation of William Shakespeare's Titus Andronicus, this is a very intense piece of work. It stars Anthony Hopkins, and it's a real mix of imagery from Roman times and 50's cold-war imagery. Difficult to watch - Lynne says she won't be able to watch it again for at least five years - but worth it. Four stars.
Beowulf, starring Christopher Lambert (1999). Well, it's better than The Thirteenth Warrior (see below). How come Christopher Lambert only seems to be in post-apocalyptic cyberpunk adventure movies? Eh, whatever. Two and a half stars - I'd give it three except for the really stupid weapon designs. A wierd film - it places Beowulf, the epic poem, some time in the distant future - kind of a Road Warrior meets Camelot, sort of.
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. The third of the top three movies of 2000 (Gladiator and Traffic were the other two - see them below.) Wow. Was this ever overhyped. And depressing... What is it about Hollywood and not having happy endings any more? Anyway, a visually spectacular movie (mainly due to the setting, which any halfways competent director should have been able to exploit) with ludicrous fight scenes and a barely tangible plot. Three stars, and I can already hear the flamers. Just go away.
Mystery Men. Two and a half stars - Paul Reubens was better than I expected, but it was a little slow. Janeane Garofalo, well, nothing more to say there. :-P A sequel might be nice - develop some of the characters a little (okay, a lot) more...
A Knight's Tale. I am going to do something just to piss off the SCAvians here - I'll give it four stars. For those of you that don't know, the SCA, or Society for Creative Anachronism is a bunch of medieval recreationists. Some of them are genuinely cool people who make mead and armour (two of my favourite things). However, some of them are real jerks who say things like "Well, he's wearing a shirt with a buttoned collar, which wasn't invented until 67 years after this movie is supposed to be set." Those people can bite me. Anyway, where was I? Oh, yes - A Knight's Tale. A pretty good movie - however, the romantic plot felt highly tacked on. Of course, the soundtrack to this movie is probably the best part, all that 1970's cheezy stadium rock! Anyway, if you haven't seen it, it's not bad. Not bad at all.
Charlie's Angels. There are six reasons to see this movie, divided into 3 sets of two. If you don't know what they are, ask your parents to explain biology to you. Two stars - it would have been three if not for Tom Green's presence.
Saving Private Ryan. Another in the Hollywood school of "No happy ending = a great movie", I guess. Anyway, this one wasn't bad. I recall when it first came out that combat veterans said it had very realistic combat scenes. By this, you can gather that in combat you have no idea what the hell is happening. Anyway, I'll give it four stars because I'm feeling generous, and because I think WWII is pretty much ignored by society, which is a shame. "Those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it." Or something like that.
Tomb Raider. I'm going to commit what many will view as sacrilege here. I rate Tomb Raider as highly as Crouching Tiger, No Plot (three stars). Why? Well, seeing Angelina Jolie's (ahem) ability bouncing around on the screen is fun, but I really was astonished to see a Hollywood film showing a gun running out of ammo. Repeatedly. Even if they don't know a 9mm from a .45. (And just where DID she get that clip-disbursing backpack? I want one!)
The Mummy Returns. This movie is all about special effects. They are good special effects, to be sure, but... The "Rock" (some WWF wrestler) is hyped to be in this movie - for all of 5 minutes at the beginning. He's a (badly rendered) CGI effect for 10 minutes at the end as well. He speaks two lines of dialogue (in Middle Egyptian, so I can't call him on his grammatical abilities, or lack thereof). And for this they're talking about giving him his own movie. Sheesh. Give me a Tomb Raider sequel first, please. (Two stars)
Independence Day. Yup, I finally saw it - it's amazing what sort of crap is on cable TV late at night when you're ensconced in a hotel room thousands of miles from home. Anyway, this is a visually spectacular movie, but be prepared to leave your brains at the door with a side order of disbelief. Two stars.
Traffic. Wow. What a depressing film. This is not a "feel-good" film. There is no happy ending. In fact, there really isn't an ending - plot lines are gathered in a bunch and taped in place, rather than being tied up somehow. It's a gritty story. Unfortunately, so's some of the camera work. Segments have a very "shot on camcorder" appearance, which tends to detract, particularly when you're trying to make out white subtitles in the desert. I'm gonna give it three and a half stars - it did its job, but I don't appreciate it.
The Legend of Bagger Vance. I thought I'd hate this movie, but I didn't really, even though it's all about golf and stars Brad Pitt-the-Git. It was a nice diversion on a recent plane ride. Three stars.
Billy Elliott - y'know, given the critical raving, I thought I'd like this one better than Bagger Vance (above), but I didn't. Two stars.
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, the Hunter S. Thompson tribute to the excesses of the late 60s and early 70s, is the film that the word "interesting" was coined to describe. Directed by Terry Gilliam, it is a visually rich film. It features a number of cameos by famous actors, including Christina Ricci and Gary Busey. Perhaps the movie is summed up in a quote from Mark-the-intern, who said "It makes me want to go out on a drug-induced binge and not take any responsibility for my actions." Or something like that. Rating? e. (It's a math joke - e is an irrational number, and the movie is irrational. That, and I can't find the character for "pi" on my keyboard. In case you're curious, the numeric value for e is approximately 2.7182818.)
X-Men. Let me get it off my chest - they should have used an updated version of the theme from the cartoon as the theme (maybe jazzed up like the Mission: Impossible theme was by the guys from U2?). Other than that, the movie was well put-together, and easy to follow if you didn't know the X-Men from the comics (Lynne liked it), but still preserved enough of the original to make it worthwhile to fans (I liked it). Four stars.
Rules of Engagement. Most of this is a great movie. It gets slow near the end, though. The end seems a bit of a cop-out as well. I was originally going to rate this higher than X-Men (above), but I'm more likely to watch X-Men again than this one, so I'll give it three and a half stars.
Mission Impossible 2. Wow. That's pretty bad. Made worse by the expectations brought about by it being a John Woo film. Ignoring the bad mountain climbing, the bad science, and the bad acting, (if you can) my main question was "When is he going to take the blue pill?" I.e. this is a poor Matrix wanna-be of a film, lucky to get two stars.
Titan AE. Y'know what? It's not bad. Not great, but not bad. One of the interesting things about this movie is its use of both computer-generated and hand-drawn animation. It simultaneously shows that CG is incredible, and that we still have a LOT to learn from the Japanese in the hand-drawn world. It's got some good lines in it, altough (as the critics noted) the plot tends to be a bit sophomoric. I'm gonna give it three stars, which is more than most critics gave it.
Gladiator. Yup, finally saw it, on the big screen (gotta love the repertoire cinemas). A fantastic, spectacular movie, with a depressing ending. The only problems I have with it are some ugly camera work near the beginning, and a couple of factual errors (Caesar is pronounced "Kaiser", and the Gladius was not used to chop off heads - it had a sharp point, relatively dull edges, and was used for thrusting). Minor inconsistencies? Sure, but it holds me back just enough from the coveted five-star rating. So, four and a half stars. There are some other problems with historical accuracy, but it is Hollywood, so I wasn't expecting much.
The Matrix. No, I didn't just see it for the first time. However, I finally saw it on the big screen for the first time. Even better than on video, and that's damn good. I'll give it four and a half stars - there are a couple of inconsistencies if you know what you're looking for.
Spice World. Yup, I rented it. And it's not as bad as you expect. It's still not good, but it's not bad. Watch for lots of cameos, including Richard O'Brien (aka Riff Raff from The Rocky Horror Picture Show), and Meat Loaf. Three stars, mainly because I expected worse.
The Longest Day. They really don't make pictures like this any more. This is a massive, sprawling three-hour epic of the first day of the Normandy invasion in World War II. It has many stars (present and future) for its time, and the thing I really like about it is that the movie isn't "How the Americans won the War". It follows American, British, French, and German troops through the day, and there is even a mention of the Canadians. Much better than the current revisionist trend in American movies typified by U-571 and The Patriot. I'm really tempted to give this one five stars - what the heck! Five it is!
Ninja Resurrection: the Return of Jubei and Ninja Resurrection: Hell's Spawn are sequels to the original (and far superior) Ninja Scroll. They deal with the death and subsequent return (as Satan) of the Japanese Jesus Christ. They are annoying, strange, hard to follow, and episodic. I'd prefer they'd have put this out as one full-length movie rather than three (or more - I've only seen the first two so far) forty-minute tapes. Two stars.
Sleepy Hollow. A Tim Burton film, with Danny Elfman providing the music, you might expect a visually spectacular film, but with a dark, convoluted, and needlessly complicated plot. And you'd be right. Christina Ricci has certainly grown up, though. Three stars.
Soldier, Starring Kurt Russell. Kurt got really pumped up for this futuristic puppy, and Goldie Hawn must be very proud. The movie could have used some steroids on its own, though. While it was exciting (Lynne didn't reach for her cross-stitch once), some of the editing was jumpy, and there were plot-holes you could drive a truck through. Three stars.
Ronin. It sounds strange, but Lynne and I actively search out movies starring Jean Reno (AKA "Viktor, the cleaner" from La Femme Nikita). He's in this one, and he doesn't die. This movie has been highly rated for its car chases, which are spectacular. The cast is quite good, a bunch of people you normally see in supporting roles (plus, of course, Robert De Niro). I'll give it four stars, but I think they could have had more fun with De Niro's character.
Six-String Samurai. Four stars - it was a contender for five, except for the ultra-cheesy ending. Anyway, this one will probably be hard to find at your local Jumbo or Blockbuster - it tore up the alternative film festivals. The basic premise is that, in 1957, the Soviets nuked and invaded the US. The last free area is Lost Vegas, and Elvis is its king. Fast-forward to 1997. The king is dead, and they need a new one, so fightin' musicians from all over are travelling to Vegas to be the king. Our hero, Buddy, is one of them. Along the way he'll meet psychopathic bowlers, cannibals, desert people, and Death himself (who looks suspiciously like Slash from Guns and Roses...).
Austin Powers: the Spy Who Shagged Me. A solid three stars - I'd have been tempted to go to four, but there's way too much toilet humour, and I stopped finding that stuff funny around puberty. Yes, I know, I just got around to seeing it now (June, 2000) - I don't watch many films on the big screen.
Dogma. This is the film the Catholic Church flipped over - and it deserved it. Having said that, it's also VERY funny, except a bit in the middle which is boring. I'll give it four stars, particularly for the scene where "Loki", the former Angel of Death, messes with a nun's brain near the start of the movie.
Spawn, the live action movie (Director's Cut, no less!). I didn't like it that much. I found a couple of pretty glaring continuity errors, and the climactic fight scene in Hell was hard to follow. I suppose it's because the movie's a few years old now, but some of the computer graphics in that scene were, well, cheesy. I give it two stars out of five.
Three Kings, the movie with Ice Cube, Mark Wahlberg, and George Clooney. Now, I don't have a lot of respect for any of these guys, but I liked this movie. The ending was a bit hokey, but when I think about it all the other possible endings would have been hokey as well. I'll give it four stars out of five, plus a bonus cookie for the exploding Nerf (tm) footballs. Definitely not your standard war movie.
We also recently watched The Thirteenth Warrior, starring Antonio Banderas and a bunch of people you've never heard of, which is a shame because they're all better actors than Banderas in this puppy. About the only thing I really liked was the "Viking Funeral Prayer", which they say before the final battle. Apparently, this movie was based on Michael Crichton's Eaters of the Dead (no surprise there, since I hate M.C.'s stuff, too), which was in turn based on Beowulf. Having read Beowulf, I can say that yes, they have Vikings, too. Other than that, the only similarity between that book and this movie is that the king's name is Hrothgar, and his son is Wiglaff. Two stars for the funeral prayer and 'cause it was filmed in Canada (but Canada doesn't look like Scandanavia!). UPDATE (April 2003) - interesting point - recent finds of Arabic coins in Viking coin hoards indicate that the Vikings and the Arabs may have actually had contact, although probably not as depicted in this movie.
We saw Galaxyquest back in January 2000, and I found it quite funny. I'd gladly give it four stars, even if it wasn't such a perfect parody of the "Trek" phenomenon (which it is). And this is even though I don't like Tim Allen... And as for Sigourney Weaver - it's hard to believe she's over 50!!!
We rented Star Trek: Insurrection in April 2000. I don't know, but I expected more than what was essentially a two-hour Star Trek: The Next Generation episode. Two stars, and they should count themselves lucky to get it. I still prefer Star Trek: First Contact or Star Trek II: Wrath of Khan. But you probably know my opinion of Trekkers/Trekkies (whichever is more insulting) from the review of Galaxyquest, above. By the way, does anyone else wonder why they stopped using numbers in the titles of the Star Trek movies? Unless maybe they don't want to remind us how many bad Star Trek movies there have been... (Oh, come on, did you really like Star Trek V: the Undiscovered Plotline?)
The Thin Red Line. Lynne and I agree, this is what happens when Hollywood tries to make an "art film" about the horrors of war. It's disjointed, uneven, and displeasing. And how can George Clooney be called a star of the movie when he's in it for two minutes near the end. I am also disappointed that Sean Penn's character didn't die - if he had, I'd give it two stars, but I'm not feeling generous today, so one star it is.
Star Wars: The Phantom Menace. Finally saw this one. I'd heard a lot of things about it, but overall it's not bad. I'll give it a four out of five stars(although that may be slightly generous), with a couple of thoughts: first, kill Jar-Jar and the rest of the Gungans. Second, what is up with Darth Maul? He's in the movie for, like, three minutes tops, has one (dubbed?) line, and he has fan clubs? Huh? I think the expression "Get a life" would be entirely useable here, if I hadn't used it so many times with the Trekkies. Third, if R2 (and, for that matter, C3P0) had been on Tatooine before, how come their first response wasn't "Great, not this hell-hole again!" in episode IV? I am looking forwards to episodes II and III, but that's partly because once they're out of the way, JMS may make a Babylon 5 movie or two...