Yearly Archives: 2012

Immortals is a Greek myth period piece.

I found that they didn’t give preferential treatment to any one lead character; the hero, the villain, or the hero’s girlfriend to be. Usually that’s a sign of a story that never works for the audience. In this case it didn’t matter. The movie is riveting even though it’s uncomplicated. The action scenes are fantastic. Battle scenes are often slowed down, and we see complex fight choreography between many duos on the screen at once that seems impossible. Perhaps the impressive and well choreographed fight sequences are pieced together, but you can’t tell, and it looks fabulous.

My only complaint may be that there are too many whispered scenes that were hard to hear. Whispered scenes in movies should not actually be whispered to the audience, we should see the illusion of them whispering, the audience shouldn’t have to strain to hear what’s going on. This was a constant annoyance, and I would rate the movie a 10 if it wasn’t for this shortcoming.

If you like this style of movie, ancient quest and battle stories, this one is absolutely outstanding.

9/10

Poor Sinbad must be rolling in his grave (if he ever was a real person that is) cause this Sinbad adventure movie is ridiculously bad. If a high school theatre group was given a budget that allowed them to make a movie, and add some really bad special effects, this is what you would get.

The only, and I mean only thing that makes this mess worth sitting through is our Sinbad actor, Manu Bennett. Manu also plays the character Crixus in the Spartacus TV series. He is excellent in Spartacus. He has an obvious talent for playing these period characters, even aside from the muscles. But even a good actor can only do so much with a terrible script and horrible production values.

Unless you are a fan of Manu’s, pass on this painful piece. It’s akin to neighbourhood kids making a backyard movie, and doing it baddly.

2.5/10

I’ve seen many versions of The Three Musketeers in my lifetime. But this is the first where some characters had Middle Age “James Bond” style gadgets or fought like Ninjas.

The Three Musketeers in all movie versions had “James Bond” style luck and above average skills. After all they are our heroes. But they went to far to endow the villainess with Ninja skills and futuristic gadgets inspired by Da Vinci.

Let’s not leave out the airships. Not one but skies full of gas filled airships. Gas filled airships weren’t even possible in that era. With gas bags only slightly larger than the actual ships below them. Yes actual sea going sized ships made from huge wooden beams. Anyone with only the slightest understanding of science would scoff at these images.

The entire movie is fantasy, and not even “believable” fantasy.

The movie is mildly entertaining, and the action scenes are fine. If they would have dropped the ridiculous fantasy gadgets, unbelievable airships and Ninja skills, and simply made a Musketeer remake, it could have been a grand movie. With the actors they had and the money they obviously spent, there was so much potential for a far better storey. The movie was ruined with these mistakes and could have been so much more.

4/10

Cameron Diaz stars as a ladder climbing, back stabbing, wallet snagging, short sighted, opportunistic pretty woman. Who is teaching till she manages to snag up the next half witted guy with some money. While we watch she matures enough to see yourself for who she is, drops some expectations and settles for a run-of-the-mill nice guy. Ya like that happens a lot. We see below average looking guys with no money in relationships with hot women all the time don’t we? But it makes for a good romantic comedy.

It’s fun and holds your attention.

7/10

I enjoy a good vampire/werewolf movie. Once again, I did not find that experience here in the Twilight series. In fact they are getting worse, if that is even possible. Every character is sad, depressed and brooding, as per usual in this saga, accept for Taylor Lautner who plays Jake. In fact he is the only character with any emotional range at all in the entire movie. But calling it range is giving it too much credit, as he simply shows some passion, as opposed to all other actors being dead behind the eyes.

This movie is incredibly show moving, and just as boring. I actually fell asleep, and was unable to watch it all the way through in one sitting.

The popularity of this series still amazes me, and is the main reason I continue to watch the Twilight movies. I’m intrigued by the attention they get compared to how bad they are. The quality of everything in these movies is very low. An average TV series is of far higher quality in every way, and yet people are desperate to see them. I can only imagine they are most popular with depressed teenage girls. Seeing how the lead female character is a homely depressed girl trying desperately to be pretty, and yet has not one but two cute boys constantly fighting over her. Then add to that the fantasy, the promise of a cute boy staying fit and attractive as he grows older, unlike the reality of the average straight relationship, where the husband gets fat and lazy after mar rage and making a few kids. Why wouldn’t a young girl wish for such a thing? Hoping for more than an average guy that will lie on the couch and grunt at the kids to bring him the TV remote and another beer. Ahh the dream and the reality come together in the sub context of the Twilight Saga. And to the rest of the viewers, it’s simply a really bad movie.

3/10

In Time has a pretty interesting plot. What if the economy revolved around the trading of time left to live, instead of standard currency. Other than that, there is very little Sci-Fi like about this movie, unless you include the Bat-mobile turbine sound that all the cars make. Though there is a huge oddity. You can deduce from the characters dialog that it takes place at least 150 or more years into the future, based on the characters claimed ages. Yet the world looks identical to the current world, accept for the the currently of “time” and the sounds of the vehicles. In fact the Bat-mobile sounding cars all look like the cars we have today. Funny that! Regardless of this, it’s actually a good storey in general and somewhat thought provoking.

Justin Timberlake’s performance for the most part is pretty good. But his crying was so fake I thought it was a joke at first, and was noticeably distracting during a grieving scene. Next time perhaps he should try a masculine silent weeping sort of thing, and not the loud ugly cry he must have been practicing in acting class. It was a little awkward to listen to, and for me ended up being one of the more memorable moments of the film…unfortunately.

7/10

The star of this werewolf tragedy is now one of the characters on the Sci-Fi TV series Terra Nova, Landon Liboiron. A reasonably good actor, but starring in a really bad movie. But you have to start somewhere.

It’s a shame that this piece of crap shares the same name as the original Howling movie. The Howling Reborn is very poorly written, and the special effects are surprisingly bad, bad enough to be on par with an early 1970’s TV series.

I like a good werewolf movie, but this isn’t it.

3/10