Displaying Category: Rating_2

Talk about a title that leaves you out of breath! So here we have director Chris Columbus taking on another series of young adult novels only instead of bringing us the excellent Harry Potter, he drops a mediocre Percy Jackson at our feet and smiles uncomfortably. I realize we shouldn't have very high expectations for adventure movies targeting kids and teens, but I suppose I was hoping for more. Straight up, this movie suffers from a bad script full of forced jokes that feel very played out. There's also the overall story, which suggests that demi-gods are as common as... witches and warlocks in the modern world. But in this case, we're squeezing in a lesson in Greek mythology and the true meaning of family. Awwww... It felt like a stretch to me too. There were some moments that weren't as bad as others, but they were fleeting. Any time I started to feel like something might actually get interesting, it was quickly suppressed by crappy dialog. So sad. Well, I've moved on.

2/5

The Book of Eli is another movie set in post-apocalyptic North America. Unlike The Road's east coast setting, The Book of Eli takes place in the barren west as Eli, played by Denzel Washington, travels toward the coast in a divine quest to simply "go west." The villain Carnegie is played by one of my favorites, Gary Oldman, as the de facto mafia mayor of what looks to be an old prospecting town. Of course, Eli's interest in spreading the word for the good of all is somewhat in conflict with Carnegie's desire to gain power through the control of the weak-willed and ignorant. The story goes that, after "the flash" all copies of The Bible were burned because some thought religion caused the war. Make of that what you want. So now all that's left is this one copy of The Bible and it must be saved because it is good. Or something. Honestly, I'm not sure what the message is here. So, on top of the foggy message and motivations, we're slapped in the face with a huge twist at the end that makes you want to go back and watch the whole movie again to catch all the clues... and then you realize you really didn't enjoy the movie enough to have any interest in watching it again.

2/5

Let me just say up front, I'm not familiar with the Roald Dahl book this movie is based on. I also probably shouldn't have seen this movie in the afternoon on a weekend. Lots of kids who don't know what an "indoor voice" is. The movie itself? I guess it was alright. A few "adult" jokes, but not really enough to hold my attention. Actually, I felt myself driving off three or four times. I feel like maybe there were some serious pacing issues? Probably. In technical terms, the stop motion animation felt, well, primitive, but it is fun to see something different. The voice acting was fine, but obviously couldn't carry the movie on its own. And what was the thing with the wolf at the end? Someone?

2/5

The thing is, I'm not sure what the point of this movie is. It's funny and kinda kooky and maybe they want you to think "Really? This is what the US government has been doing with my tax money?" or maybe there just wasn't a point. I came out confused because I couldn't decide if I had enjoyed myself or not. I really wanted to feel something about what was going on, but instead, it was just funny and kooky and that was it. Nothing emotional, nothing to get you thinking, no real drama, and in particular, a scene in which a soldier (on LSD and naked) starts shooting up an Army base (without actually hitting anyone) seemed unfortunately timed. So in the end, this movie was entertaining, but not especially interesting.

2/5

Your basic geek loves cheerleader story complete with geek's sexually ambiguous best friend and the cheerleader's own doltish hangers-on. In short, nothing I haven't seen already. It clearly wants to be something like Superbad, but doesn't even come close. I'm moving on.

2/5

Though I have seen some episodes of the Dragonball anime, I can't at all claim to be knowledgeable in the story or characters, so I won't be judging the movie on any of that. So is the movie entertaining? Surprisingly, yes. Is the movie silly? Definitely. Is the movie satisfying? Not really. This isn't because they botched the execution somewhere, there just wasn't enough of the movie to get to the really entertaining parts. I felt like, you know, this would be really fun if it were a 26 episode series, but as a 90 minute movie, the compression of events is just too severe and we lose too much characterization and plot buildup.

I thought Justin Chatwin did a decent job with his character. I don't really care for the Master Roshi character, but I thought Chow Yun-Fat did a good job with it at least as far as my memories of the series go. I can't say much for the female characters, but they seemed the weakest to me. James Marsters as Piccolo was interesting and I would say he did a good job if he had more than a few sentences of spoken dialogue. And Ernie Hudson? Seriously? That was a surprise...

I can see how children would really enjoy this movie. It was entertaining and it showed glimmers of being more enjoyable, but never really made it to satisfying. Of course, it's clearly set up to be a series of movies, so I expect we'll get some future opportunities to see where the live action Dragonball franchise goes.

2/5

"I have a great idea, let's make another movie about undercover cops and criminals driving tricked out cars in underground street races!" "Brilliant!" Well, they succeeded. Fast & Furious is a completely predictable and formulaic movie featuring the return of some parts of the original cast doing what they've already done. On that count, it's a great success. The rest of the movie is poorly executed with bad writing and vehicle stunts that are, unfortunately, too far over-the-top. It's not bad if you just want to see the cars, but I still feel the first movie did that much better.

2/5