imdb-178478 Reviews

Bad Boys II (2003)

Not bad, definitely not great, definitely racist

[5/10 · 15 November 2010]

Whatever the director wanted to tell us about in the storyline, since it was far too boring to watch the second half of this movie. Anyway, shallow action movies, full of gratuitous violence, overdone explosions and tasteless one-liners is exactly my kind of entertainment. Usually. But in this case, it didn't work, it didn't entertain, it was just a series of graphical highlights with not much to connect them.

Maybe it a less than brilliant idea to re-do a Black version of Miami Vice in the 2000s, applying a thick layer of stereotypes and string together an endless series of scenes targeted at the tastes of a similarly stereotypical Black demographic or whatever the director assumes about them.

Expect the full range of action flick stereotypes: heroes with a lifestyle light years above the average income of any real policeman, policemen driving Ferraris on duty, policemen immune to bullets, policemen that can do everything, everywhere, in record time. Then lace it with stereotypical Black stereotypes and you're set: have them kill a few KKK members, let them wear Basketball shirts all the time, focus on every girl's booty and have some minutes of screen time for literal truckloads of money.

In short: the classic ingredients of any run-of-the-mill rap video, just extended for what feels like 2 hours and then some.

Salt (2010)

Who is able to suspend their disbelief for more than 5 minutes in to this?

[1/10 · 6 November 2010]

While this movie starts off rather interesting, with good setting, sharp optics and good introduction, it snuffs every bit of enjoyment after only 15 minutes into the story. And then it's all downhill from there.

Let's be honest for a while: - Someone escaping a major CIA installation without any amount of pre-planning or warning time? - The entire CIA and police lacking any and all choppers or officers on motorcycles? - No one in the entire CIA trying to shoot a suspected spy that is escaping with full force only seconds after being uncovered? - One assassin able to overthrow all the protection the Secret Service and the CIA can provide even if they are warned weeks in advance of that assassination plan, even knowing the assassin personally, while said assassin has only two sticks of C4 and three simple handguns at her disposal? - After killing the Russian president, the assassin and Russian spy and prime suspect is only escorted by two lousy city police patrol cars with no armor and no back-up? - This Russian spy and assassin getting so badly handcuffed it can not only escape the patrol car, but disable everyone including the driver within seconds AND gain control of the car? - The Russian spy agency needlessly, thoughtlessly killing the long and truly loved spouse of their best agent for no reason, after she completed the mission she was supposed to - without the Russians even trying to use the husband as bait or blackmail, alienating their perfectly placed mole and thereby ultimately ruining a perfect plan that spans the entire NATO leadership and took more than two decades to put into action? - Since when are Soviet-Russian spies doing suicide bombings? - One man is able to infiltrate the inner sanctum of the US administration, kill the entire cabinet in seconds, wall himself in, start the nuclear countdown? - That man still unable to fend off one women that has just lost her husband, job, mentor and political orientation even though he is inside the most protected structure of the US and she is not? - The CIA and secret service AGAIN unable to handcuff that women so she can AGAIN kill someone while restrained?

The director should have hired a group of ten-year-olds as advisers in plain old common sense. If they seem to be smarter than the CIA agents portrayed on-screen, re-work the plot to spare the average audience from disbelief-induced brain cramps.

Smokin' Aces 2: Assassins' Ball (2010 Video)

Absolutely revolting abomination of a movie

[1/10 · 16 May 2010]

While I thoroughly enjoyed Smokin' Aces No. 1, this movie gave me brain cramps. I don't even no where to begin, since all parts of it were equally wrong.

I'm no quitter, I watched the movie in it's entirety, the whole uninspired story, the sickeningly corny dialogs, the cheapest-possible special effects, the mind-boggling "twist" ending and everything. I could literally feel my brain strangling itself with the spinal cord so the pain would end. I just now signed up at IMDb to warn you, for that taking one for the team wasn't completely in vain.

Let's review it in a more structured fashion:

First: The Plot. It has nothing to do with the events from Smoking Aces 1 and it's only very loosely related. We have several insane assassins competing for the kill, several FBI agents and a mark. There, the similarities end and the convolutions begin.

More than the entire first half of the movie is introduction of the assassins. And you get to sit through very long scenes of unreflected, extreme gore. In a flashback scene, one of the killers is driving several ice picks into the brains of a restrained but conscious man describing the process in every intricate detail. While the camera watches it without blinking. I enjoyed Rambo 4, but this made my stomach turn. It's unneeded and doesn't manage to transport any emotion, not even shock or hatred towards the killer. The rest of the idiocy is stereotypical White Trash Nazis that fornicate their siblings and The Black Widow, a Femme so incredibly Fatale, they had her kill a child molesting, Black Widow-seducing priest right before the altar. Then the FBI assembles to escort the mark to a not-so undisclosed, not-so safe location, but need to hand in their FBI badges and their brains first. Any climactic moment is either ignored (see: Brain Ice Picks) or ruined by one-liners coined by the directors three-year old nephew (see: Black Widow poison-kissing the priest)

Second half of the movie is watching brain-deprived FBI agents trying to secure the bunker below. They could've appointed Chief Wiggum from The Simpsons and he'd made less screamingly dumb things. FBI Special Agents AND professional assassins are shooters worse than Imperial Stormtroopers. They're shooting live midget clowns strapped with bombs into the bar above the bunker. Explosion CGI are worse than the special effects on Windows Minesweeper. Dumb FBI agents again, then corny one-liner, then another endless firefight among Imperial Stromtropper marksmen and then the forcefully contorted ending that will leave you feeling mentally molested for at least several hours.

The last seconds are the best of it: the main villain is simply shot like a dog. Two bullets put him and his shame of a movie down. No one-liner, no looking back.

By adding Jar Jar Binks and Wesley Crusher, this movie would have GAINED character likability.

Remember: what has been seen cannot be unseen. Friends don't let friends watch this.