movie reviews
I am taking a page here from Sir Lyrea's journal and reviewing some of the videos I have seen lately...
King Arthur - WONDERFUL MOVIE... Occationally, you see a movie that really hits you and this is one of them. I like the historical significance of the movie as well as the handling of the various aspects of the Authurian legend. It is definitely worth seeing.
Alexander - That is three hours of my life that I will never get back. Save yourself the trouble. The eye candy (Angelina Jolie, Colin Feral etc) is pretty but it is basically a history book on film - and just as boring. Unlike Authur, the plot seems stilted, the dialog seems contrived and unnatural, and the characters are two dimentional - when you care enough about them to even notice. Big thumbs down for this one
Submerged - As a Steven Seagal fan, I was extremely disappointed in this one. His latest movies have over done the whole "Disgraced Hero" routine and this one is no exception. While the subject matter - mind control - is interesting, they really don't do it justice and even the fight scenes are not believable (At one point, Seagal and his crew of five or six are holding off an entire army - including a Main Battle Tank - and it is really over the top. I miss the old Seagal. Those movies were at least enjoyable from a martial arts aspect.
XXX State of the Union - I really enjoyed the first XXX. I liked the concept (using an extreme sports hero as black ops agent - and Vin Diesal carried the part off. In the second installment of this series, the organization itself is under attack and they call in a new XXX - a special forces soldier that is in Jail for punching a general (sound familiar to any of you Seagal fans?}. If this plot isn't cliche enough, the disgraced soldier is a "boy from the hood" (Ice Cube) and recruits his old "hood" buddies to help him. It would have been more believable had Ice Cube looked the part of a bad ass soldier but he doesn't. There were a few redeaming scenes in the movie (the boys from the hood jacking an M-1 Abrahams tank comes to mind...) but overall the story was contrived, the actors were not believable and the story was severely lacking. It definitely did not live up to the standard set by the first one.
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire - If you missed this one in the theater, you really did miss something. This movie does lose something when it comes to the TV VS the Big Screen. The story (like all the Harry Potter Stories) belongs on the big Screen and is truly epic in quality. The movie, itself is easily the darkest so far in the series (you actually get to see "He who is not named") and even the music was changed for the this movie. The Trio (Ron, Hermione, and Harry) are definitely growing up and the bad guys are getting bolder. I really don't like the new actor playing Dumbledore but no one could ever have really replaced Richard Harris but they could have at least tried to do better than the one they found. While I expected some of the plot lines to be cut out, I was truly disappointed how much of the story suffered to make the movie short enough to show in the theatre. Hopefully the next movie will be better about that. Don't get me wrong, this is a "must own" movie for me, but it wasn't really up to the standard set by the first three.
More movie reviews later.....
Avalon
King Arthur - WONDERFUL MOVIE... Occationally, you see a movie that really hits you and this is one of them. I like the historical significance of the movie as well as the handling of the various aspects of the Authurian legend. It is definitely worth seeing.
Alexander - That is three hours of my life that I will never get back. Save yourself the trouble. The eye candy (Angelina Jolie, Colin Feral etc) is pretty but it is basically a history book on film - and just as boring. Unlike Authur, the plot seems stilted, the dialog seems contrived and unnatural, and the characters are two dimentional - when you care enough about them to even notice. Big thumbs down for this one
Submerged - As a Steven Seagal fan, I was extremely disappointed in this one. His latest movies have over done the whole "Disgraced Hero" routine and this one is no exception. While the subject matter - mind control - is interesting, they really don't do it justice and even the fight scenes are not believable (At one point, Seagal and his crew of five or six are holding off an entire army - including a Main Battle Tank - and it is really over the top. I miss the old Seagal. Those movies were at least enjoyable from a martial arts aspect.
XXX State of the Union - I really enjoyed the first XXX. I liked the concept (using an extreme sports hero as black ops agent - and Vin Diesal carried the part off. In the second installment of this series, the organization itself is under attack and they call in a new XXX - a special forces soldier that is in Jail for punching a general (sound familiar to any of you Seagal fans?}. If this plot isn't cliche enough, the disgraced soldier is a "boy from the hood" (Ice Cube) and recruits his old "hood" buddies to help him. It would have been more believable had Ice Cube looked the part of a bad ass soldier but he doesn't. There were a few redeaming scenes in the movie (the boys from the hood jacking an M-1 Abrahams tank comes to mind...) but overall the story was contrived, the actors were not believable and the story was severely lacking. It definitely did not live up to the standard set by the first one.
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire - If you missed this one in the theater, you really did miss something. This movie does lose something when it comes to the TV VS the Big Screen. The story (like all the Harry Potter Stories) belongs on the big Screen and is truly epic in quality. The movie, itself is easily the darkest so far in the series (you actually get to see "He who is not named") and even the music was changed for the this movie. The Trio (Ron, Hermione, and Harry) are definitely growing up and the bad guys are getting bolder. I really don't like the new actor playing Dumbledore but no one could ever have really replaced Richard Harris but they could have at least tried to do better than the one they found. While I expected some of the plot lines to be cut out, I was truly disappointed how much of the story suffered to make the movie short enough to show in the theatre. Hopefully the next movie will be better about that. Don't get me wrong, this is a "must own" movie for me, but it wasn't really up to the standard set by the first three.
More movie reviews later.....
Avalon