1056 replies to this topic

[Shadow]

Well your forgetting the matrix wasn't real so they had the liberty to break realism to just show off. Yeah I agree the Smith fight was cartoony, but it actually reminded me of the oldschool kung fu movies of one guy fighting off a huge gang charging him with weapons.
But, the rule of sequels is that they can never live up to the original can they? Unless its Terminator 2...

[FreakyFilmFan4ever]

Terminator 2: Judgment Day is simply the gold standard of sci-fi action films. It probably isn't the best at handling everything it had, but it was well-rounded in what it had and did handled it all pretty well while keeping the focus on the action and the characters.

[John Roberts]

I just had the pleasure of watching the The Millennium Trilogy. The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo; The Girl Who Played With Fire; and The Girl Who Kicked The Hornet's Nest. I say pleasure because that is exactly what it was viewing these movies - a real pleasure. An excellent cast and a dead-set enjoyable story that never once got boring throughout it's almost 7 hour run (yes, I watched the whole thing in one sitting - minus bathroom breaks and food runs of course!). If you like crime thrillers then you will not get much better than this. They are Swedish films - based on the same Swedish novels, so if you hate subtitles then this in probably not for you. Though, I did read that Sony Pictures are making a US adaptation of the first book. Could be good. Could be a complete disaster, too.

Now if you excuse me I am going to hunt down the e-novels, load 'em up on my Kindle and enjoy the story all over again - probably not in one sitting though!

[Gojira007]

"Super 8": B+
Pretty clearly a loving tribute to the Steven Spielberg films of the early 80's ("E.T." and "Close Encounters of the Third Kind" being the most obvious, but there are elements of "The Goonies" in there as well), but it actually manages to work on its own merits pretty damned well. The third act doesn't quite manage to answer all the questions the first two acts so effectively raise, but it nonetheless holds together nicely that you don't walk away dissatisfied. Definitely recommended.

[Inhibitor]

I heard Super 8 was pretty good, I think I might check it out now that you also gave it a good review. I was also impressed by the interactive teaser that was bundled in Portal 2. Definitely seems like my kinda movie.

[Inhibitor]

100 Feet: B

A pretty decent horror flick. Not exactly that scary in my opinion, but I'm not a horror movie guy, and It caught my attention while flicking through channels. It has a decent story and seeing the protagonist fight off the ghost in the house is entertaining, and sometimes, pretty frightening. It just gets a little predictable about 30 mins before the movie ends, but other than that, you ought to check out this no-so-scary-but-entertaining horror movie.

[Hammer]

Haven't seen Kung-Fu Panda. Not sure if I'll like it.
I practice Kung-Fu myself, so I don't know how the portrayal will be

[Gojira007]

X-Men: First Class: C+
The good stuff is really good, the bad stuff is really bad, and they're both in the movie in about equal measure, though because most of the worst elements are in the set-up of the first half of the movie, that does wind up undercutting the more effective second half's follow-ups. The central Xavier/Magneto relationship is done exceptionally, but the rest of the characters don't fare nearly as well and the plot is something of a bore for most of the running time. Worth watching, but don't expect to walk away fully satisfied; I sure didn't.

[DLTN]

I liked First Class... I think Magneto was done really well in this fim.

Also seen Battle: Los Angeles, Not quite as bad or cheesy as I thought it would be.

[John Roberts]

Astro Boy (2009) - My memory is a little blury of the old cartoons, though I remember loving the shit out of them when I was little, so it was a very fun journey enjoying the character all over again. There were some nice moments to be had, moments that could have been great if they weren't so rushed over for the sake of the next plot point, but nice nonetheless. More Bill Nighy as Dr Elefun would not have gone a tray - 'cause Bill Nighy is brilliant and stole every scene he was in, and Nick Cage didn't exactly grab me as the grieving/obsessed/conflicted father as much as he could have (Cage is good at what he does but this kind of role is not his strength as an actor).

Not a bad movie at all by any means, let down only by a few minor annoying things - such as that god awful 'I have machine guns in my butt?' line, and the goofiness of the soldiers went a little too far. Fortunately the lame and corny humour was out numbered by the funny humour, mostly delivered by Donald Sutherland's President Stone character: "The surface fellas are firing at us? Oh, this is what I've been waiting for. Declare war on them! This is gonna get me re-elected!"

True Grit (2010) - I love me a good western. The Deadwoods, the Unforgivens, the Appaloosas... just love 'em. The backdrops, the characters, and the use of dialogue that has an almost poetry quality to it (although nothing is able to match Deadwood's mudslinging, abusive and down right brilliant dialogue - and probably never will as far I am concerned). So I am happy to add True Grit to that list of good westerns. The premise is a very simple setup: Someone is killed at the beginning and a family member looks for revenge - in this case being a father biting the wrong end of a bullet and a grieving daughter out for justice. So, yeah, not exactly a whirlwind of surprises here but not every movie plot needs to be the fucking Matrix. What's important here are the characters and the actors that portray them. And perhaps with the only exception of Matt Damon's character falling slightly behind, the cast is made up of just the right acting chops you would expect from a good western. Jeff Bridges brings his best along, and Hailee Steinfeld, who plays the justice seeking daughter, completely steals the show.

Unfortunately this movie carries with it a small pet peeve of mine. You know, when one of the characters say the movie title in a line of conversation? "You have 'True Grit'." Yeah, I hate that.

Also seen Battle: Los Angeles, Not quite as bad or cheesy as I thought it would be.

Ohh yes yes, completely agree. I was worried it would be either another cheesy Independence Day alien invasion flick, or some random 'America! Fuck yeah!' action movie. I was happy that it was neither.

Off to see Transformers 3 tomorrow. Expectations are very low thanks to that crap-of-a-mess that was Transformers 2 (doesn't deserve the italic treatment on the case that it was fucking crap). But! I did enjoy the first one, so my reasoning for seeing part 3 is based purely on my 1:1 (Good:fucking crap) score card. And, c'mon, Peter Cullen as Prime? How can I not at least give it a chance? However! If I see even the slightest hint of Transformer scrotum I will be storming out of that cinema so fast it'll make a cupcake special next to a fat clinic look like a, um... yeah, I don't know where I was going with that. I'll be very unhappy!

[FreakyFilmFan4ever]

If I see even the slightest hint of Transformer scrotum I will be storming out of that cinema so fast it'll make a cupcake special next to a fat clinic look like a, um... yeah, I don't know where I was going with that. I'll be very unhappy!

BALLS.

[DLTN]

Decepticles

[John Roberts]

Tranformers 3 was the sequel we should have gotten instead of Revenge of the Fallen. It was effing awesome, and went to some truly dark places I was not expecting (humans getting wasted left and right, Autobot POWs executed, Decepticons actually feeling like a threat instead of superimposed CGI set pieces).

There was a lot to enjoy about this movie. Michael Bay did what he does best in the action sequences as the new writers breathed some much needed maturity to this series after the embarrassing juvinile crap from the last film. Oh, and Leonard Nimoy was an excellent addition to the cast.

The score card is now 2:1.

[Juice16]

Oh, and Leonard Nimoy was an excellent addition to the cast.

ooooh now I might have to go see this...

[FreakyFilmFan4ever]

I'll probably watch Transformers 3 with a buddy of mine when he gets the Blu-ray release. I think I might feel like it's too little too late within terms of the "sequel we needed rather than Transformers 2," but I don't enjoy a whole lot of Michael Bay's directorial tactics anyway. But I'll see it later and give it a chance. I'm just not gonna spend money on it is all.

[Prime]

Transformers: Dark of the Moon

So after the mind bendingly crap 'effort' that Michael Bay gave us with Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen back in 2009, and after plenty of bottles of brain bleach to make the pain of that movie go away, I was a little wary to even see DotM. Afterall, Transformers (2007), while not a terrible movie, kind didn't do much with the Transformers themselves, hell, the Autobots didn't really turn up till half way in. But that's okay! We set the whole premise up with the first movie so average joe movie watcher gets the whole deal, then the sequel will surely give us more of the Transformers! I mean, this movie series is about the Transformers! Otherwise they might as well of called it The wacky adventures of sissy boy and the chick with the nice arse to look at, with special guest stars THE TRANSFORMERS!

So then comes Revenge of the Fallen (2009) and everything that was right with Transformers (2007) has been stripped away, and everything wrong with it has been doubled! And we get dogs humping dogs (LOL!) and a robot humping a chick's leg (MOAR LOL!) and two twin robots who totally aren't racist sterotypes at all! Oh, and sure, we get more Transformers, like 40 of them! FORTY TRANSFORMERS!!! GOTTA SELL TOYS BABY! But around less then 10 of them have any character development! The Transformers feel more like spectacular eye candy and set pieces the characters in a movie that's all about them! Bay spends the whole film giving us more Shia La Boeuf to follow, and don't get me wrong, looking at Megan Fox's bum is nice and all, but her character is about as appealing to follow as Jake Lloyd or Hayden Christensen in the Star Wars prequels. I don't wanna follow the human characters, I want to follow the Transformers since this is their movie!

See, this is way Transformers: The Movie (1986) is awesome, there's only two human characters involved, the rest are Autobots or Decepticons and the two humans aren't central to the main story.

But anyways, onto the main movie! So I went to Dark of the Moon on Wednesday (release day) and was expecting the typical Michael Bay fare, a lot of noise and explosions with a very flimsy and silly plot, and I got just that. The main thing different this time around was the Transformers actually felt like characters! Well done Bay, only took you TWO MOVIES to figure that out! I think what really sealed the deal for me was all the little references that were thrown in, be it Transformers related, or even Star Trek related. See, Leonard Nimoy, who is best known for Spock in Star Trek, voices the character of Sentinel Prime in this movie and it feels like the film makers had to accknowledge the fact they have Nimoy voicing someone! At one point an old episode of Star Trek is playing on TV (with Spock on the screen), Sam makes a reference to something looking like the starship Enterprise, and even Sentinel Prime says the famous line "The needs of the many outwiegh the needs of the few." Okay movie, I get it, you got Nimoy, but hows about a Galvatron reference? You know, he voiced that guy in Transformers: The Movie? That'd be a little more fitting for the fans of this franchise!"

Not gonna give out too many spoilers and such, but of the three live action Transformers movies, this one was the most enjoyable. A silly plot regardless, but at least the plot threw in some stuff from the old G1 show. And tt didn't make me suffer the twins, and it gave me the Wreckers! And Wreckers are always badass and cool! Why? Because they originated in the British Transformers comics! We Brits make all the cool stuff.

Final rating: 3/5

[Jman1236]

I agree you prime, it's the best of the three but that is not saying much. Also it's nice to hear from you again man.

[FreakyFilmFan4ever]

I saw Sucker Punch. Meh.

[Inhibitor]

Max Payne - B

Yeah, yeah, everybody says the movie is bad yadda yadda yadda...I didn't think it was that bad. The action was decent and Whalberg's performance was decent. Of course, the weakest part was definitely the script. It could have used a lot of work. Besides that I thought the movie was entertaining, pretty decent, and worth the two hours.

[Prime]

Tales From The Crypt: Demon Knight (1995)

Okay, so recently I've been rewatching HBO's awesome Tales from the Crypt series from 80s/90s. You know, the series that because it was on cable, it was pretty much safe from the FCC and could take away with showing us things like movie level gore, tits, cursing, but the most important thing about it? It was fucking entertaining! Well it must of been to have run for 7 years. Soooo, around the time when the TV series was winding down, someone said "Hey guys, you know what would be badass? If we took our series to the big screen!" And that's what they did, and in 1995, Universal Pictures released (in what was planned to be a trilogy) the first Crypt movie.

Now effectively, what works on TV doesn't mean it'll work on the big screen. Case point? Mystery Science Theater 3000. As much as I love the MST3K movie, it's a format that doesn't work well on the big screen. Sure, it allowed them to tackle more well known movies and such and give it a bigger budget and all, but studio interference resulted in cuts, reshoots and the like and in a way, feels out of place compared to the TV series. The charm of the series is it's low budget look that fits perfectly with the low budget Z-grade movies they showed. Plus, MST3K was really a show for people who got it. The big screen version? Well if you were unfamiliar with the show, the movie must been confusing as hell...

But this is Tales from the Crypt! And if any thing can work on TV and the silver screen, it'll be this!

...Right?

Well yes and no.

Demon Knight is the ultimate story of good versus evil. A mysterious drifter named Brayker (played by the excellent William Sadler) is in the posession of a very special key, and he is being hunted by a demon known only as The Collector (played awesomely by Billy Zane) who wants the key and once he gets it, the forces of Hell will be allowed to invade the Earth and consume the human race. Brayker ends up in a run down hotel where The Collector finds him and summonds an army of demons to take the key. Brayker must lead the residences of the hotel against the demon army until sunlight, but The Collector will try everything and anything he can to get the key...

Demon Knight was intended to be the 2nd Crypt movie, but was bumped forward because it was actually the stronger of the two scripts they had. It's cheesy as hell but at the same time extremely enjoyable and the story, while not the most original thing ever, stands up pretty well. William Sadler (no stranger to the Crypt series, having appeared in the pilot episode, another episode and cameos in the next movie) makes for an excellent hero. Sadler is one of those actors who you've seen before but his not a huge name that brings in the crowds. A little underrated? I dunno, but his also an actor that can do his job, act extremely well in everything he plays and here is no exception. The remianing members of the cast also fit their roles excellent too. Zane especially plays The Collector and you can tell his having a great time with it. Personally, I think this was one of his best roles.

Where Demon Knight suffers however is not it's faults at all. Being a movie version of Tales from the Crypt you'd expect it to do everything the TV series did and top it. And the problem is, like I said before, with the TV series being on cable and thus outta the reach of the FCC, they could do anything they wanted, especially compared to other horror related shows at the time which ran in syndication, like the Friday the 13th TV series or the Freddy's Nightmares show. So while there was a higher budget and thus they could do something which the show couldn't tackle, it didn't really feel like a movie, more like an extended version of the TV show.

Overall though, it's a fun little movie and more enjoyable then most of the horror shit Hollywood puts out today.

Rating: 4/5