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Mr Pan Cakes
Reviews
House of 1000 Corpses (2003)
Rather griddle my face on a waffle iron
This is, without doubt, the WORST MOVIE I HAVE SEEN IN THE PAST FOUR YEARS. Yes, I'd rather watch Zombi 3 (it does have that sweet sweet machete zombie scene, after all) or Rats: Il Notte Di Terrore, Burial Ground: Il Notte Di Terrore, or Roberto Begnigni's Pinocchio: Il Notte Di Terrore than watch five minutes of this ever again.
SPOILERS
Wanna know why this got delayed so much? Huh? It sucks, that's why. Violence? Oh come on -- unless that whole 'blood-squirting razor blade' scene was supposed to be gross (or is that another 'homage' to Texas Chainsaw Massacre? IDIOTS!!!) And the 'No, I'm not really wearing a 'skinless-mask' over my real face to reproduce being 'skinned'' part? I mean, Burial Ground had zombies with rotten teeth overlaying the actor's real lips, but I was willing to buy that . . . though I don't really know why. But this . . . this . . . movie . . .
Let's start from the top, eh? Characters: None. Oh, wait, those two-dimensional cutouts masquerading as 'characters' count? Oh, well, then here: Movies like this depend on one of two things -- that you'll sympathize with the heroes, or think the villains are 'super sweet'. Problem is THEY ALL SUCK! The heroes don't have any personality (read: ANY, though the 'main girl' is kind of hot) and the villains are INFURIATING!! Whose bright idea was it to have Chop-Top star as the main villain? Oh, that's right, Rob Zombie, I forgot. Problem is, 'Chop-Top' was the worst part about TCM 2 (the ass-chainsawing being the best, by far) in a poor-ass movie. He's bad and annoying and infuriating -- there's a reason he hasn't been in anything else of note. Yeah, sure that evil girl has a nice rack and ass, and if that was all the movie claimed to present, then we'd all be fine and dandy. But -- guess what -- she's ANNOYING AS ALL HELL TOO!!! The only character I sympathized with was the cyborg man with the axe, who somehow always manages to set the heroine free at the last minute -- which begs the question, is he a bad guy, or just a confused cyborg with sewer-angst issues? And I like how he peels off his face for no reason other to bleed (well, it hurts like a sonofabitch, but the ladies scream real nice when I do it, soo . . .). Like him, I felt as though someone had given me all kinds of gears and struts soldered into my flesh and let me loose in the dank, p***-infested sewer that is this film . . . but I didn't get 'crushed' by timber at the end. 'Crushed' because the stuff misses him and he kind of stumbles to the ground. (P.S. Someone else here mentioned that serial murderers aren't cool, and that it's not cool to be Leatherface, which is an excellent point. If you don't think mass-murderers are cool, and then don't sympathize with the crazy family here, then you'll be like me -- hating this film. But if you have the brain of a zygote, and the maturity of a wild boar, like Rombie, and think serial murderers are the 'shizz', then you'll love this movie!)
So then Plot: None. Or a flimsy pretext for 'horror', or extreme, head-slapping boredom. As an 'Homage' to the 'golden age' of horror movies? POOR-ASS. Stick to the real thing next time, and you'll definitely see that Rombie totally missed the target on that aspect. He even rips off the whole family mocking the hero's pleas for mercy part too, but whereas in TCM it was real scary, here it's just . . . you guessed it! INFURIATING!!!!
True, there are 'scary scenes' in this film, ones that had me thinking 'yes, this scene is theoretically scary, but in practice . . .' like the sewer-coffin scene. Could have been good, but fails miserably because it, like everything else in the movie, is just a scene tacked on after others that make no sense and yet are supposed to have some cohesion. Failed. Dude gets 'scalped', but apparently no one told Rombie what 'scalping' actually entails, because the guy is just bald for the rest of the film. Huh. Girl is lost in an EMPTY FIELD (with crosses, knee-high though) and somehow manages to miss the other girl, IN HUGE FLOWING WHITE ROBES, AT NIGHT sneaking up on her. Two cops and one father go into the 'House' and promptly die in the MOST over-long scene in Film history, but no one ever bothers to check up on them. Eh, whatever, it was their asses anyway. Time for some doughnuts. Yum.
The direction is awful. Did you like the Dragula video? Cause get ready for a two hour Dragula video right here, yo! Strange negative filters, jump-cuts, fuzzy filters, strange interview like segments with the characters expressing their 'creepyness' (because how else were we supposed to tell that they were creepy, yo? From the script, or the plot, or the acting? Hell no, brotha -- from awkward quasi flashbacks, bro). The only time this film scares anyone is when Rombie is cheap, and gets 'em with a sudden loud noise and movement. Oooh -- real tough. He's an auteur of horror cinema, all right.
Well, at least that Captain Spaulding was somehwat enjoyable. Though not enough -- NOT NEARLY ENOUGH!!! This movie should have foregone the 'wacky family' (which was only infuriating and boring anyhow) and gone straight Quake 2 ripoff style and had people shotgunning cyborgs in the sewers -- I mean, they do look like they got lifted from a videogame anyway, so why not go the whole ten yards, yo? Much better movie, and probably shorter to boot. I mean, how long is this film -- six hours? Seven? It could have been fifteen minutes for all I care -- it felt like forever. And I was not the only one to run from the theater when it was over. No one liked it. No one.
This ranks with 1492: Conquest of Paradise and Jurassic Park 2 as movies that I either tried to fall asleep during or thought about demanding my money back. I stayed only to be able to say that I had seen it, and to warn, WARN! all others potentially interested in this film due to its notoriety (like I was) into avoiding it. I wanted to run screaming from the movie telling people to not see it, but something tells me not many people are going to anyway. Thought Bats was a waste of time, brotha? Well, hell, you AIN'T SEEN NOTHING YET. Now that's a tagline right there.
It takes a rare movie, and a rare director, to make a film go from boring, to stupid, to boring, to annoying, to infuriating, to boring, to ridiculous (I laughed during the cyborg scenes, and was not the only one) to annoying, to boring, to infuriating in one strip of celluloid. Rombie, congrats. I will never buy anything with your name on it ever again, and I suppose I'll now have to sell my Rob Zombie tee-shirt too. Sniff. The shirt was better than the movie -- another great tag-line.
The Transformers: The Movie (1986)
Best Movie EVER! For Real.
No fooling around here, no lying or facetious commentary --
THIS IS THE BEST MOVIE EVER.
Well, one of them, at least, right up there with Conan and Hellraiser 2 and Star Trek 2: The Wrath of Khan (yeah, that's right) -- movies that kick a## and don't bother to worry about whiny questions like 'why did that happen?', or 'that's just a two hour excuse for a toy commercial' . . . Well, it IS actually that last one, but what a Commercial! I saw this when I was seven and I don't remember blinking through the entire thing. I do
remember crying a lot, though. And when I discussed it with my second grade friends later, the only word we could come up with to describe it was 'massive'. Yes. Massive indeed. That word was never again used by my 'posse' after that, a sign of dignified respect. Ask any male age 18-27 maybe (women to a lesser extent, but sure, lots too) about the movie and they'll probably sum it up with one word -- "Sweet."
Now, I tend to get very angry when I see these 'new' transformers the kids have nowadays . . . so lame. And why did they have to cross-breed such greatness with the crapulence known as Pokemon? Now, really, would you ever hear a Pokemon ever say any of the following lines to one another?
"I've got better things to do today than die!" "Why throw away your life so recklessly?" -- "That's a question you should ask yourself, Megatron!" "Spare me this mockery of justice!" "Let the slaughter commence!" "Die, Autobots!" "I'll tear out your optics!"
All right, so Megatron has the lion's share of good lines in the film, but . . . all of them are good! Like when Prime says, "Megatron must be stopped. No matter the cost." And then proceeds to dispose of several decepticons straight vehicular-manslaughter style (to the wonderful accompaniment of 'The Touch'!), and then leaps into the air and dispenses mighty . . . well, I tend to get too excited about this film. As you can see.
And there are so many great scenes, played out perfectly as kids wanted to see them (and the scenes don't age), such as when Starscream says "How does it feel, mighty Megatron?" and then proceeds to kick his dying body and leave him to rot! That's so excellent! And it has Citizen Kane himself, yo, as Unicron! How much better can you get?
And the music? It's absolutely perfect. I own the soundtrack. Yes, that's right. I own it. And love it -- except for one song, which most people probably skip too . . . too emotional. This music out-metals Heavy Metal and Heavy Metal 2000 combined and heaped together with, well, almost any other movie soundtrack.
Yeah, sure, maybe the animation isn't all that good, for the eighties or beyond, but who cares? And sure there are plot holes aplenty, but, wha? Who cares?! If you focus on these it's either in retrospect, and easily dismissed, or beacuse by hating the movie because of them you believe you can prove how cool you are. And the violence -- well, life is violent, yo. And who doesn't love, somewhere in their soul, seeing Starscream take Megatron straight gangsta style and cap all those autobots? Sure, maybe that whole 'execution' scene was a little much, but it sure left me knowing what to expect from the rest of the film. And the Sharkticon scenes (Guilty - or - innocent? Innocent!)? And the entry of the Dinobots - who knew that the simple utterance of 'Excuse me' could be so thrilling?
Know this -- though it might be a toy commercial, and an excuse to introduce a whole new line of toys, it never once treats kids as too dumb (look at recent movies, yo! How do they treat their 'adult' audiences? Like the Core? Come on now.) and if it has a fault in that, it sometimes treats them as too adult. And remember . . . Prime does come back in the series and does something almost unspeakably cool to a certain lamewad 'new' transformer . . . but nuff said.
Pan Cakes give it his full 40-shots of Jagermeister seal of approval!
Silent Assassins (1988)
The true meaning of love . . .
***SPOILERS*** ***SPOILERS*** . . . is leaving your new karate friend on the couch with your half-eaten raw hotdog and a jar of peanut butter so you can have sex with Linda Blair.
For real. That's what Flash (King of the Universe, yo!) does to his new friend in this movie. And he does actually dip the raw hot dog into peanut butter and eat it. And his new friend's facial expression as he's handed the 'food' items is priceless. Kind of like, 'Oh, that wacky Flash Gordon and his Linda Blair!' And then he EATS THE HOTDOG, YO!
I bought this movie for my sister one year, because it's just that damn good. For real. But enough about me, let's get back to the 'film':
1. The 'silent assassins' are anything but. Watch! as they murder people with fire hatchets and machine guns in the most unsilent fashions possible, i.e. cutting down doors and shooting up a karate studio for no apparent reason.
2. Watch! as everyone's favorite Mako (Conan, yo! oh, and unfortunately Pearl Harbor as well . . .) valiantly tries to stop the said 'silent assassins' before they hatchet murder him . . . poor Mako!
3. Watch! the villain. Really. Especially in the opening scene where he hurls a very loud baby into a harbor to distract Flash Gordon (He'll save every-one of us, so don't worry), shrieking and gibbering the whole time. Oh, and the spectacular line 'It's time to party!', which kind of sounds like 'It's time to parrt-iee!'. It's unbelievably good. He's a baby-tossin', party lovin' machine, yo!
4. Watch! the spectacular ending! (Spoiler, I guess) Where Flash Gordon (he's just a man, an ordinary man) as he uses a bazooka with unlimited ammo to blast apart all kinds of guard towers and dudes hanging around, before he chases the villain on foot (he's shrieking and gibbering here, too, yo) all night long to a helicopter, where, of course, he blows it up using his unlimited bazooka! They literally start this chase scene in the night, and end as the sun is rising. Now that's dedication right there!
5. Watch! the BEST rationalization for going to kill all the bad guys EVER! Something like, 'Well, they're coming to kill us, so we might as well kill them first.' That's UNBELIEVABLY BRILLIANT! That even manages to one-up Cobra, yo!
6. There's really just too much else to love in this film. The way one of the main heroes maybe dies, but just kind of drops out of the film in the end, never to be heard from again. Or the exploding computer scene, with the Villain's reaction (priceless, yo!) And so, so much else!!
Please, please PLEASE go see this. You haven't ever seen a film as gloriously, spectacularly crapulent as this one. It gets the Mr. Pan Cakes 'Milkoline' seal of approval, yo!
It's time to partiee!!!
Feeders (1996)
This is it. Number One with a Bullet. Maybe to your head.
Ohh, Feeders.
I've posted some other comments here, but for some reason (though I've referenced this film in them) I haven't come back to this little beauty.
Feeders.
It must have been 96 or so, because dates escape me in my age (and from all the gasoline-milk mixtures I've had over that time), and my sister and I saw this . . . apocryphal miracle in the new releases section of a more-than-common video rental chain. How could we not have rented it?
Feeders. How I miss thee.
It's been a while since I've seen this, so bear with me. Lemme see. Some Commodore 64 special effects, hastily scribbled onto the film strip, signal that aliens have arrived . . . with the noble intention of brutally eating everyone they come across . . . or to burst out of their bellies . .. or to use 'lasers' to raze the whole planet . . . or to impersonate one of the heroic characters . . . any one, or all of these may be their master plan. Since obviously a higher power spurred the creation of this film, who am I to question the intricacies of the plot, me a simple heathen?
My absolute favorite scene is the one with the fat truck driver (well, he might not drive a truck, but I do recall him being obese). This man gets mauled by a 'feeder', and is rescued by the 'heroes', who rush him to a 'doctor', where he 'dies'. I say 'dies' because, as the doctor ceremonially intones 'I'm sorry, this man is dead', and reverently pulls a sheet over his body, THE MAN IS STILL OBVIOUSLY BREATHING -- QUITE DEEPLY! YOU CAN SEE THE SHEET MOVE, PEOPLE!!! Oh, but maybe that's a signal that the alien inside of him is about to burst out, via the magic of uber-superimposed (uberimposed?) post-production editing. The wound, literally, does not overlay the body. It is uberimposed.
Feeders . . . the one. The only.
Two other points -- one being the blowtorching of a 'feeder', which must have been the final scene, seeing as though the feeder puppet is totally ruined, which must have made the special-effects whiz who made it cry like a baby for hours and hours, what, not being told ahead of time that his hand-crafted buddy would be cauterized in such a horrible manner. And the straight-out-of 'Night of the Living Dead' scene with the corpse at the top of the stairs . . . and I mean that as in 'This Scene was directly sheared from the reel of Night of The Living Dead and messily inserted into Feeders', straight-out-of Night of the Living Dead . . .
Feeders . . . where for art thou on DVD? For I would own thee, verily, in a fortnight.
I heard there's a sequel. Taking place during Christmas. But I'll be a Warlord of the Deep if I can't find it here. Or something.
In summary, I would like to say that this movie is apocalyptical; to be collegiate (if at all), I use that term in it's original Greek sense, meaning, rending of the veil. If you see this film, firstly consider yourself lucky. That also means you might have seen other beauties, such as Parts: The Clonus Horror, or Judgment Night, or Rana: The Secret of Shadow Lake, or some other, horrible poison that I haven't sampled yet. And two, realize that, having seen it, you can never go back to how it was before. Now your veil has been torn asunder, and the guttural truth of life pours through . . . Feeders will ruin you, like it did me, with the fact that there are movies like this, being made by people, for some reason or another, and that the only solace comes from either seeing more or drinking the ever popular milkoline.
Feeders. God how I miss you.
Code Name Vengeance (1987)
Oh man oh man!
Since I just saw this on local cable, and that I'm the first to write a comment here, I'd guess that not too many people have seen this spectacular movie!
No really! The producers, and the 'star' Ginty, must have decided that things like 'plot', 'characterization', and 'narrative' were all either overrated or outdated concepts holding back true filmmaking with their stodgy and rigid definitions of 'cinema'. There have been other films that have shirked the conventions of the masses in such a fashion, like 'Silent Assassins', 'The Destroyers', and almost anything starring Micheal Dudikoff, that brilliant man.
Is it fair to say that Ginty is a poor man's Barry Bostwick? Not to Ginty! He's more like a Barry Bostwick stand-in that you'd find discarded, and a little beat up, in some 10 for a dollar bargain bin in a local arts and crafts store. That's right -- you could probably cobble together your own Ginty with random odds and ends that you have laying in between your couch cushions. You'd need a lot of hair, though, to approximate the whole 'Whoa dude -- are you a shag rug?' reaction that most people have to Ginty when they first see him. Actually, if you did this, the resultant lint-and-ear wax monster might actually have some life, and deliver its lines without Ginty's trademark 'flat delivery'. Which means that anyone else in the world who said lines in a script would interject some of their own personality into them -- except for Ginty. Ginty is the acting equivalent of absolute vacuum, which is to say that the lines come out of his mouth with no urging, and simply exist with no inflection or modification possible. If you've seen him (oh, I don't know, probably not in this, but maybe 'WARRIOR OF THE LOST WORLD'!!) then I hope you know what I'm talking about. Maybe I've just watched too much Ginty!
Oh, the movie? Tremendous. I guarantee that your jaw will be agape as Ginty slips out of his jail cell during . . . some fracass that causes everyone to NOT LOOK AT GINTY!!! And then you'll see lots of grenades and explosions, sometimes where people are, and sometimes killing them or dummies hurled out of train cars. And even though this is Qatar, or 'Katar' as the movie lists it, watch in awe as Ginty immediately comes into possession of a suit and tie, and goes to some strip-club. He briefly watches a honey-roasted aerobics instructor shimmy (sorry, it's not really 'stripping') in terror, and then meets up with Shannon Tweed. Now Ginty is of course irresistable to women (just ask Persis Khambata . . . if you could find her), and so they dance slowly to poor 80's pop before they !get it on! in some room. Gotta wonder how Tweed restrained herself from asking if Ginty was actually some sort of ambulatory shag carpet . . . Oh, and this is within the first fifteen minutes of the movie!!! Awesome!
And then there's shooting! And killing! Lots! Some dudes in black get-ups and turbans appear! Ginty ain't gonna have none of that though, and how! You'll be blown away by his nonchalant attitude to death as he shoots in random directions and, every time, manages to shoot a guy off a roof! Amazing! Someone should have told those black-robed guys not to stand on roofs around Ginty!
The producers did make some concessions to filmmaking standards though, as there's enough plot for Ginty to be the good guy and be an American to boot, but, it really fades in comparison to the whole 'Black-robed dude turns corner, get shot by Ginty' aspect of the movie.
Well, gotta go. Tired of saying Ginty. But remember -- the shag rug you see walking down the street might not be a magical carpet; it just might be the most brilliant actor any human has ever seen - GINTY!!
Warrior of the Lost World (1983)
We are bad mothers!
My favorite episode of MST3K was this one, simply because I had the pleasure of seeing this gem way back when I was a little kid, and knew what to expect. I mean, for a five year old, this movie sounds pretty awesome, right?
Okay maybe not. And admittedly, I thought the best part about it then and when I saw it on MST was Megaweapon . . . and the fact that you still see the bullet holes in the 'Warrior's' jacket throughout the movie from the beginning. Truly spectacular.
If you haven't seen the MST version, then I pity you. You're missing out on having everyone cheer for Megaweapon (and who doesn't?) and the infamous 'Do you have any fruit?', and 'We are bad mothers' -- 'Bad mothers, and the fathers who love them.'
And if you haven't seen this movie at all, why are you sitting here reading this? Go track it down! Hire professional bounty hunters to find it! It features a walking shag rug as the 'hero', the bald chick from Star Trek and . . . oh yeah, MEGAFORCE!!!! with hair, and everyone's favorite Donald Pleasance as -- count 'em -- TWO bad guys (well, they're clones, so I guess that's just one). It's got a junkyard scene full of karate school rejects, fat women, midgets and other weirdos that should (if you didn't already know) tip you off that this movie is from Italy. Oh, and it's got a TREMENDOUSLY ANNOYING 'JIVE' TALKING MOTORCYCLE, which fortunately (spoiler - but I hope no one actually wants to maintain an element of surprise with this movie's plot) gets crushed under the MEGAwheels of MEGAWEAPON!!! MEGAWEAPON!!! But the bike makes a mysterious comeback at the end of the film, so don't get too happy.
They should have just called this movie 'Megaweapon', and followed the travels and times of that loveable fire-belching truck.
Anyways, I'll go, cause right now I'm watching 'Codename: Venegeance', another 'Ginty' movie that has no comments as of yet! Ahhh, to be the first!
Rollerball (2002)
Like Drinking a Quart of Gasoline Mixed with some Milk
Okay. I've seen bad movies before (Feeders, Castle Freak, Jurassic Park 2), and rented Rollerball because I heard it was bad. But hey, it might be bad-fun, right? As in at least funny and easy to mock, right?
Oh no. Oh no no no. Rollerball is an entirely different breed of film altogether. While it at least has some good lighting, and a soundtrack not ripped right out of another film, every single other aspect of this 'movie' (cause it has moving frames of still pictures running together to create a flow) is like a car accident. Some people turn away in disgust and shock, some look, then turn away, and some can't turn away because of the sheer appalling nature of what they see. That's Rollerball -- a cinematic 15 car pileup.
Where to start? How about the 15 (or 30...It felt soooooo long) min stretch of film done in Night Vision? Who has the night vision? The director? God? Who is using the night vision to relay the scene we're watching? Normally, a director uses altered modes of filming to depict altered states of mind of characters, or monsters (Alien 3 fish-eye lens), etc. Here, it's just a scene done in night vision. I thought it was going to be a gimmick, like the characters were being watched by a helicopter, but that hope, that fiendish desire, faded after the night vision just stayed on the screen...WHY????!!!!!!
Oh what else? What next...okay, how about the premise of the movie. Violence is bad, especially in sports...but wait...people watch NASCAR for car crashes (some of them) and hockey for fights...and I love football, partly because it's a violent sport...and isn't the whole point of Rollerball (not having seen the original) that the sport distinguishes itself from others through violence? Rollerball in the movie isn't nearly as violent as a cricket match until the incomprehensible last 15 min...so is McTiernan trying to seem 'smart' by showing that people like violence in sports and that's bad? Is Rollerball an art form, being corrupted by the violence of filthy eurotrash capitalists (sorry Jean Reno, but this was not your finest hour)?
To be fair, I was drinking Maker's Mark during the movie, thinking it might help...and it kind of did. I at least began to overlook Chris 'Little Keanu' Klein's 'acting', but couldn't handle the 'editing', which seemed to have cut the original shoot of the movie apart, threw the shreds in the air, and then glued them together as they picked them up. And the plot also got easier to handle...after the insipid opening where Klein goes from homeless to superstar in one fade cut...WOW! I wanna try...I'm typing right now...gentle fade to black...fade in, and I'm Sultan of my own province in Asia! Hey!
This whole pile of crap smacks of having been birthed in a corporate startegy meeting at MGM, where McTiernan was just sitting, listening to 'Think-tank' solutions for MGM's flagging profits: 'Hey,' says one thirty-ish blonde executive, 'the kids LOVE night-vision nowadays...(snaps fingers)How about a whole scene in Night-Vision!' 'Sure!' says McTiernan, desperate for a hit. 'How about we also get those bands the kids love nowadays...you know, that Pink girl, oh and Slipknot!!! The kids love Slipknot!!' 'And we'll film it like an hour and a half music video,' says another short-haired exec. 'You know, with the 'jump-cuts' (doing the whole quote-finger manuever) and all! So the kids will love it! And it'll save out on costs typing the screenplay and editing, cause the kids don't like those anyways!' (execs give each other high fives, McTiernan scuttles away to start shooting)
I digress. Don't watch this 'movie'. Even if you like bad movies, you won't be entertained. Don't watch it if you like pain -- you're better off cutting yourself with a razorblade. Don't watch it if you want a trippy, incomprehensible series of images and sounds that leave you with a headache -- drink the 'milkoline' I suggested at the top here.
No Telling (1991)
Infantile
There are some spoilers here, but like someone already said, the whole movie is already spoiled. And no one should want to see this movie anyways.
I saw this movie as part of IFC's 'Weekend of the Dead', and not knowing anything about it, I thought it might have something to do with Zombies, or something to do with anything entertaining. Boy was I worng. Instead I sat through a two-hour PETA commercial hoping for something good to finally happen.
I won't summarize it, because god forbid anyone who hasn;t already seen this trash would have a fiendish desire to see it. I hate any film that forces you to feel a certain way; in this movie, although maybe it has some grey areas thrown in, 'science' is bad and torturous to all life, either through poison, or through animal experiments (which were so fake looking I have no idea how anyone could have done anything but laugh). There is no room to mistake that; throughout the movie you are forced to empathize with the wife because her husband becomes more repulsive minute by minute -- why? Just because he represents science and animal testing and that's bad, apparently. He's not human enough even to visit his wife who lives ten feet away. Why? Cause, duh, science is BAD!
But the main scientific experiement that he's doing is so ridiculous and idiotic that the main premise can't help but be undermined. I'm not sure if the filmmakers wanted you to shriek or cry when the battery-operated dog-cow is revealed at the end, but I laughed. It was fake, and the point (that science is bad) was so overboard by then that all I wanted to do was take the filmmakers and turn them into battery-operated man-cows. That's the result on me when I see films like this; I didn't empathize with the wife simply becuase that's what the filmmakers tried to force you to do. Instead I wanted to go out and eat a bunch of veal just to spite them. Like a great movie once said, "Meat is meat, and man's gotta eat."
There must be a more subtle way of showing how science can go too far in seeking answers and solutions than the beat-you-over-the-head-style of this film. But hell, since every scientist in the movie is a cruel callous inhumane animal beater, I guess I should just let the movie make my mind up for me. And by the way, the credits ARE reprehensible, especially the man-pulling-the-cow emblem at the very end, symbolic, apparently, of man's desire to have nature conform to his desires -- or something. Why would I even bother to think after seeing this?
No screwdrivers, cause it's not worth reviewing. Just want to have people stay away from this one.
Star Wars: Episode II - Attack of the Clones (2002)
Like smoking a joint dipped in embalming fluid
CONTAINS SPOILERS
Here's a little experiment that you can try at home -- repeatedly hit yourself in the head with a hammer for 30 min, and you'll begin to experience, a)the state of mind that the two main characters seem to be in during the movie; b)the state of mind you'll be in after seeing it; and c)the state of mind needed to enjoy this cinematic atrocity.
For real though -- this movie is terrible, bad as in Spielberg Bad. What is good about it? Nothing. What is tediously, sometimes hilariously awful about it? Everything. This movie now ranks alongside Jurassic Park 2 and 1492: Conquest of Paradise as one of the worst films I have ever seen in a movie theater. You may want to see it twice just to make sure it's really happening.
I kept asking myself 'Why?' during the course of the movie, as in 'Why is any of this happening?', or 'Why do I care?', or 'Why don't I demand my money back?' Why does Obi Wan not notice Fett's armor and jetpack (apparently) when they're right out in the open? Why does Fett just decide after rappin' with Obi Wan to close the very open door? What is the point of that scene? Why is there the scene with C-3PO? Why do we get to see this, and why would we want to? None of these scenes have any importance!!!!
The dialogue is right up there with Feeders, and the delivery is straight out of Lifeforce. The whole "die a little every day" speech is supposed to be romantic? Sure, when I like a girl, I always think about killing myself, or how it's so like dying. Turns her on too. They're not supposed to be together, so they very wisely decide to spend their time near fireplaces with mood music and revealing attire. Sounds foolproof to me.
I feel bad for Hayden. He fluctuates between rampant underacting and rampant overacting, with a little 'acting' in between ('Obi Wan is like a dad to me...but I hate him...but he's like a dad...but I hate him' -- for TWO HOURS). Which is SO much better than Natalie Portman, who Quaaluded out before every scene, spoke her lines, and then 'got tired' and had to lay down. Ewan McGregor -- well, he's the best actor here, but who does he have for screen partners? If you said 'not-real humans', you win! Is that bad when the best acting is done with a blue screen as a partner?
Oh yeah, we also get Christopher Lee (who looks like he just wanted his paycheck), Samuel L. Jackson (same), and , glory of glories, Jimmy Smitts as some foppish renaissance fair reject who looks about as out of place as, well, the whole '50's diner scene. In a galaxy far, far away, you will eat at Johnny Rockets ALL THE TIME!!
How can you tell what the subject of any of Yoda's sentances is? Who is he talking to, and what does he mean? I know for sure I would have gotten killed during that 'battle' just trying to understand his gibberish -- 'at the nearest ship must shoot you', 'uh...okay, who now?' BOOM! BTW all those war machines looked really, really bad. I would have killed myself out of shame if I was driving one of those big loop-wheel dealies, driven myself straight off a cliff -- apparently where all the missing plot structure, acting, and character development went as well.
Alright that's enough. To sum it all up, reference the arena scene where Natalie is riding the hairy beast, and Hayden is shooting out of the chariot. It's all CGI, all stupid, and it's completely uninvolving. It's just another wham-bam CGI 'action' scene that gets thrown after another in order to make a 'movie', replacing plot and acting, cause who needs that crap anyhow? I can't understand how anyone actually likes this film, except for that, because its SOOO BAD, Star Wars fans can't accept that Lucas would lay this raw bloody tripe out for them (because he's 'The Master' -- ooooh! He might want to see into getting that goiter taken care of), so they reverse their normal, human reaction to intense, fanatical love. Now that's a Jedi mind trick more frightening than anything in this piece of garbage. There's a reason this one lost so much money in the first two weeks.
I give it one screwdriver, because zero is somehow less demeaning.