Netscape_Navigator Reviews

Escape Room (I) (2019)

Fun escape movie

[8/10 · 25 October 2021]

This was fun and suspenseful. The characters are written in a very basic way, but just enough to move along with the plot.

The most annoying character was the businessman. It's unrealistic that a person in that position wouldn't know how to talk to other humans. In general, the writers had characters say things that made so little sense. For example, the businessman made a comment about "survival of the fittest," after one of their friends had died, except she died sacrificing herself. One of the characters corrects him on that, and so then he says let's not waste her sacrifice. Ok, that line makes sense, but why would he even say that first line in the first place?

There was another part where the businessman tried to insinuate that another character had caused the death of another. So that character the starts defending himself, and the businessman cuts him off and says to forget all that and to get back on task or something. Wait, YOU'RE the one that just accused him of MURDER, what do you mean "forget all that," ***you're the one that brought it up.***

The biggest thing that annoyed me was the way the girl reacted at the end when she went with the police back to the initial escape room, which is now in a completely burned up state since that's how they left it originally (it burned up after they left). She storms in and starts frantically talking about how this was the lobby, and how such and such was over here, and just going on and on. Let me break this down....

* First off, why is she so SURPRISED that the room looks like this now?? How's it supposed to look? You have no idea exactly what happened to the place after you and your friends crawled through the duct. But, you have some idea that it probably burned right? Then.....how is the way the room looks now NOT consistent with that? In other words, what is it about the way the room looks now that immediately triggered her alarm bells that "omg, someone is trying to cover their tracks by making it look like the escape room never existed and that I'm crazy." What are you talking about, this looks EXACTLY the way I'd expect an escape room to look after an inferno had gone through it. And if she didn't know that an inferno had gone through it, then she has even less reason to be surprised about the way it looks now since she has no idea what happened to it after they left. It looks like a crazy room where crazy stuff happened. Her reaction would've made more sense if the place had been in *pristine* condition.

* She's frantically going on and on about what the room looked like as if someone had already doubted her. No one had even said anything yet, and she's already reacting like her story is suspicious, trying with all her might to convince people that for all she knew, already believed her.

* When she does mention some area of the room and what it used to be, the policeman IMMEDIATELY says there's no evidence of that. So that's it. You're not going to ask any questions, you just immediately assume she must be crazy?

It's really not that hard to write good dialogue. Yes, it's hard to write a story, but dialogue isn't hard. You just picture what a normal human being would say given that circumstance, however fantastical or not.

Safer at Home (2021)

Why didn't they call the ambulance???

[4/10 · 22 October 2021]

That's my number one screaming plothole in the hole movie that I can't ignore - why didn't they just immediately call 911?

Evan and his girlfriend gets into an argument, and at one point he takes a step towards her and she steps back quickly and falls and hits her head. Why wouldn't you call 911 for help? Is it because they had done illegal drugs so was afraid of the consequences for that, whatever that may be? If you had done illegal drugs, and something happens to where your sister or daughter is not moving, would you not call 911? And how can you even assume for sure they're dead? You're not a medical expert, even if the person doesn't seem like they're breathing, wouldn't you call for help just for any potential life saving techniques? Wouldn't you EXHAUST the possibilities instead of assuming the default position of, "they're not breathing, must be dead." Again, imagine if you find your daughter lifeless and not breathing, are you going to conclude that they're dead, or go to the ends of the earth to do whatever you can to save them (call 911)? You have no idea what methods or techniques are used, or what miraculous thing might happen.

Also, tied for the most annoying thing in this movie is the fact that Evan doesn't actually clearly tell his friends watching on video chat, "no, I didn't do anything, she slipped and hit her head." Not ONCE does he say this in this critical time. He passively mentions it much later in the movie, but at this time when some of his friends are sort of suspecting him, or just generally unsure of what happened (since they only heard it, and then saw the aftermath), he never actually says anything to clear up his name.

The type of excuses he's giving are the kind you'd give if you did accidentally go a bit too far, and now are unsure if you would have legal liability. For example, if he had sort of brushed her off or dislodged himself from her if she had been getting physical with him, etc. Yeah, that I can see. Because technically your physical action of shoving them off made them fall and hit their head and die, apparently. But nope, he literally did NOTHING here. And this idiot not only doesn't deny it, he also doesn't call for help, AND he goes running off into the night like some lunatic, as if he's already a known fugitive. And unless I missed something, even though I thought people weren't allowed to be driving during the quarantine, his friend clearly was, so why was Evan driving as if was afraid to get caught? And his friends are not any smarter since none of them brought up the points I brought up.

Also, the whole argument that started this off was unrealistic to me. The girlfriend admits that she had a threesome in high school, and the boyfriend, Evan, understandably gets a little upset about it and can't stop asking her about it. Then, a bit later, two of their friends on video chat starts getting intimate with each other before finally shutting off the video. When the video is shut off, Evan makes a comment about how it was just getting good. She takes offense to that (for some reason), and he claims it was a joke. The girlfriend's mood was completely unrealistic here. She had no reason to even feel unhappy, LET ALONE mad. Doesn't this sound confusing even reading this? You're wondering, "wait, she's mad? About what?" Yeah, my point exactly. Her whole mood DARKENED after the comment Evan made about the two friends that had been getting intimate on video. Ok, that's weird, yeah, but why would you be MAD at him for saying that, or mad at him for joking about it (whichever way you, as her, would've interpreted it). You might be playfully disgusted, but not the piercing anger she showed towards him.

Along those same lines, when he got mad at her for keeping the high school threesome she had a secret, her reaction to him is all wrong. Just put yourself in her shoes. So now your boyfriend is really upset about this news. Wouldn't you react more like, "hey, this was a long time ago, come on, it doesn't matter." Not exactly pleading with him, but just trying to maybe "bargain" with him to get him to see your side. Instead, she's taking OFFENSE to him being upset about the threesome. It's just not a natural reaction to me. You don't get OFFENDED at someone being mad at you, at least not at this point, and especially not with the way it was presented (on a tiny, tiny, level, there would be a super tiny bit of flattery you'd feel because someone is upset/jealous, which is rooted in how they feel about you. I think we all know that feeling). So given that, you'd almost playfully wave it off (secretly enjoying maybe just a little bit, that this person is jealous). However you might personally respond, turning cold, dark, and hateful is probably not what most of us would do.

Fractured (I) (2019)

Why didn't he go to the *BASEMENT* immediately ????

[7/10 · 19 October 2021]

I'm starting right off the bat with what to me was the biggest issue, I guess it's a plot hole.

When the police are there and they're talking to Sam Worthington and the hospital staff/doctors about his supposedly missing wife and daughter, eventually he tells everyone that he saw his wife and daughter get in the elevator so the daughter could get a CAT scan. So the police asks the doctor where that room is, and he says it's on the 3rd floor. Sam Worthington then tells everyone that that's not true, because he watched them get in the elevator and the elevator indicator lights showed them going to a basement level. The doctor argues and says he must be confused, because the CAT scan room is on the 3rd.

So then they all still go up to the 3rd floor, and to no one's surprise, his wife and daughter are not there. As soon as the little debate started about where the CAT scan room was, shouldn't Sam Worthington have said, "ok, forget about what the *NAME* of the place is that you took my wife and daughter, because WHEREVER that place is, it's in the basement. So if that's not that CAT scan room, because you say that's on the 3rd floor, then whatever, that's fine, but the BASEMENT is where I saw them go, so let's go there."

Why would he even waste time going up to the 3rd floor? After going, why didn't he then plead with them to now let's go please check out the basement, like he mentioned earlier? I guess that's probably not a plot hole, more like bad writing.

As anyone who's read my previous reviews knows, I don't care how outlandish, unbelievable, or magical a plot is as long the human beings in it make normal, human being choices and have proper reactions to what's going on around them. This is why the CAT scan thing was so frustrating to me.

In general, EVERYONE'S reactions were so frustrating to watch. It's just unrealistic to think that everyone in the hospital and even the police, would act with such coldness and no sympathy. They were actually annoyed by him. Everything he would tell them is met with an attitude, "oh geez, what now, you're disturbing me." Here's a man looking for his lost wife and child, and ok, if you suspect he's confused because of a head injury, you wouldn't react with a, "oh god, what do you want, you're talking crazy" type of a demeanor, you'd be more sympathetic. The reactions of the male policeman are particularly unrealistic. At one point he actually tells him to "pull himself together."

Overall I did like the suspenseful plot. Would've given it an 8 if not for the bad directing of the actors here. They all had the wrong emotional reactions, which had to be the fault of the director, since it's not just an actor or three doing that, but EVERYONE.

Chappie (2015)

Chappie's accent made him sound like a total IDIOT

[2/10 · 2 January 2016]

His voice, accent, and mannerisms makes him completely unlikable.

It makes him seem like a complete and utter buffoon. An unintelligent clown, almost as cringe worthy as Jar Jar Binks. They intended for him to be cute and precocious in a child-like way, and failed miserably. He's annoying as hell and I lost all empathy and connection to the character. The fact that he had a muddled and unfocused character arc didn't help matters either.

I can't think of too many examples of robots/AI in stories that have been given human qualities or the ability to speak, and NOT care about them. Usually they are endearing.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2014)

Megan Fox must've taken an ONLINE ACTING CLASS.

[5/10 · 2 November 2014]

I went into this thinking it would probably be a little bit better than what the reviews suggest. Just based on the nostalgia factor alone, I thought this movie would at least be a 7 out of 10 for me. Unfortunately this movie is extremely dull, boring, and has bad acting.

Megan Fox is terrible. It's like she took an online acting class that taught her how to say lines convincingly, but since it's only an online class, one very essential part of the lesson was missed: FACIAL EXPRESSIONS. She can speak (I guess), but she can't emote with her face.

Let's stop for a second, I'm going to quote a line from my review of the first Transformers movie from 2007, so you can see a theme here:

"...that girl couldn't act at all. Look at the moment(s) where she encounters the Transformers. Instead of looking shocked and in complete disbelief at seeing a several story tall live robot, she has the same expression you would have if you saw someone at work, who you previously could've sworn had the day off, but you see them at work anyway. She had that SAME subtle look."

I guess she took a couple more online acting classes, since she upgraded her facial expressions for this movie. This time, instead of looking like she's wondering if her co-worker had the day off, when she encounters unbelievable things in this movie that for anyone else would've been HORRIFIC, she looks like someone who's troubled at not having any vacation days left for the year, and so is pondering if they should just call off next Monday and hopefully not get in trouble.

The first time she meets the turtles, she doesn't look appropriately shocked. When she goes on that rooftop, she essentially sees a monster. That's what they are. For all intents and purposes, these turtles would appear to you as monsters. So she meets these talking green monsters, who are no shorter than 6'3'' , but she just has the SAME stupid expression of *mild concern*. She also didn't scream. At all. I don't care who you are, if you're a woman, meeting four very tall green MONSTERS with dangerous WEAPONS, you're going to scream. But not Megan Fox, she just has the face of someone who's sorry that a very distant cousin she never met passed away.

**Splinter looked weird in this movie. His eyes were a bit TOO rodent-like and realistic, those perfect black orbs that were his eyes. Very unsettling.

**I don't like the minimal amount of martial arts done in this movie. Most of the fight scenes consisted of the turtles brute forcing their way through their opponents. Off the top of my head, the only impressive shot was when Mikey did some jumping attack with his nunchucks and took out two people before he tripped or something. Everything else was just punches, and throwing bad guys against walls.

**When April is first "kidnapped" by the turtles, and had the mask put on her head, why wasn't she afraid?? Shouldn't she show a BIT of concern? Sure, she doesn't really see these monsters as necessarily a threat, but even then, you just had a mask put over your head by monsters, you should at the very least ask "WHERE ARE WE GOING?" All of Megan Fox's interactions with the turtles are just so SUBDUED, as if she's too cool to play it as a fidgety, scared person. As if she's too cool to open her eyes really wide to show fear, and move her body in jumpy ways to look like someone who's in disbelief at meeting a talking green MONSTER. When Leo put his arm around her, she didn't even care that much.

**I didn't like how in typical cartoon like fashion, all of April's co-workers mocked and ridiculed her story when she tried to explain herself. When does that EVER happen? Your close buddy might rib you, but when does an entire office laugh AT you, and not with you?? Play that out in your mind as you in your own workplace, and you'll see how ridiculous this movie trope is.

**When April called Whoopi Goldberg over to show her the "evidence," why didn't she show her the cellphone picture of the turtles??? Why START OFF the explanation with a pin up picture of a real turtle on the wall and point to it and say that's the vigilante? OF COURSE Whoopi Goldberg is not going to believe you!!!! She already laughed your story off the first time, what makes you think you seem any MORE credible now??

**I hated how the ending pretty much gave April a very important role in the bad guy's defeat. I would've rather seen the turtles be able to accomplish this on their own.

Ugh, I can't see this franchise getting any better. To this day, the only good live action turtles movie was the original, I gave that a 10 out of 10, because that actually had a purposeful narrative and non-offensive acting.

Resident Evil: Afterlife (2010)

time to change the writer/director. such a boring story

[3/10 · 10 October 2010]

Or something. I don't know. Something needs to be done. That's two bad Resident Evil movies in a row.

There's something about these last two Resident Evil movies that are lacking. There's this weird sense of bland, hollowness as you're watching it. Nothing about it engages you, it leaves you feeling like a distant spectator. I was bored out of my mind.

There's just no feeling of purpose or goal. The characters are just wandering from scene to scene, with some vague sense of some nebulous destination in the near future, but it just doesn't feel significant. The relationships between the characters are never fully explored, such as between Chris and Claire Redfield, and you just generally don't care about anything that's going on, you're just "watching."

I like the inclusion of Michael Scofield, and his being "broken out of prison." Nice nod to the Prison Break series, of which only the first two seasons count, as everything after that are just abominations to mankind in its purest form.

Nine Dead (2009)

Oh I remember her from my childhood - "Clarissa Explains it All"...I didn't know she was the worst actor alive

[4/10 · 24 May 2010]

I'll get to that in a moment.

For about as many unwanted Saw sequels we've had, it feels like we have about twice as many clones. Surprisingly, this one was executed in a way I haven't seen done prior, but it all ultimately goes back to putting strangers in a room.

**Rant about Melissa Joan Hart's acting**

Despite what I said in my other reviews where I might've mentioned that someone might've been the worst actor I've ever seen, Melissa Joan Hart in this movie takes the cake. I don't know if she's just not good in portraying the emotion of fear, but her acting singlehandedly kept me intrigued and glued. It was a guilty pleasure, very rarely do I get to see someone perform so badly at their craft. Her facial expressions were RIDICULOUS. She gestures and contorts her eyes, mouth, and particularly her EYEBROWS in unnecessary, cartoon-like ways. She puts the wrong emphasis on the words she's speaking, and delivers every line 'Nickelodeon style,' as if she's "giving it her all" on each line so you don't miss anything. Complete overacting, no nuance or subtlety. I haven't seen her in other movies, so I won't flat out say she's the worst actor ever, but this was the worst PERFORMANCE I've seen.

**Problems with the movie**

The story within the story was actually pretty decent and competently written, but the movie itself reeks of amateurishness. No wonder the writer of the script has this movie as his only credit for work he's done. I'm going to bookmark his IMDb page and periodically check to see if he does anything else, I'd surprised if he does. The story of how they were all connected to each other and how it relates to the masked kidnapper was intricately woven. That part was fine, it was the dialogue and the acting that killed this movie.

Here's the most infuriating thing- So the kidnapper comes in every 10 minutes to kill someone if they haven't figured out why each of them are being held captive right? Well, every time he comes in and chooses the person to kill, he gives them one last chance to explain why they're there, and if they get it right, he'd let them all go. All that these characters did was just try to reason by saying things like, "we need more time to figure it out." Don't you think you'd be speaking a hundred miles per hour on all the atrocities you might've done in your life and hope you guess right??? I'm sure anyone can imagine if they were in such a situation, you'd be nervously stumbling and stammering over words, but to not even so much as venture a GUESS is ridiculous. And yes, I realize the rules the kidnapper layed out was that each victim, upon their turn, had to not only guess why he or she was there, but why *everyone else was there as well. I have two counters to this:

1) When your life is on the line, and you think you have something to offer the killer as to what he's looking for, are you going to play by the rules? So what that you didn't meet the second qualification of knowing why the others were there, would you not tell this guy what "evil" things you think YOU might've done and hope you guess right? Clearly EACH person had a good idea of why they themselves were there, it was clear through the dialogue.

2) Even if you don't agree with my opinion above, then how about when there came a time in the movie where the characters more or less had the whole damn chain of events of the puzzle solved, with just a few missing pieces (at that point they still didn't figure out how the medical dude fit into the story). So they have 90% of it figured out, the killer comes in, and not ONE PERSON EVEN TRIES TO SELL HIM ON THEIR THEORY. The idiot cop just said something about, "we have most of it figured out, we need more time." WHY DON'T YOU TELL HIM WHAT YOU KNOW SO FAR YOU MORONIC IMBECILE. What, do you think he's going to prematurely kill you if you get the story wrong? And going even deeper into my abyss of madness (i.e., logic), I could sort of even understand why the other people who's turn hadn't come yet wouldn't say anything, so as to not bring attention to themselves by offering the solution (and potentially getting it wrong, and yeah, maybe being killed for it), But, if it's YOUR turn to die, and the killer is in your face, giving you one last guess to solve the puzzle, WHY WOULD YOU NOT TELL HIM WHAT YOU THINK YOU KNOW SO FAR??????????? Patrick Wehe Mahoney is probably the dumbest person on the planet. He's the writer..

Another stupid part:

Melissa Joan Hart said something about how a jury wouldn't rely on the testimony of a "60 year old woman." OMG, 60!! She's practically a dinosaur right? There's no way a 60 year old can remember something. Right…is this writer like 15 years old? Only young, dumb kids would think 60 is "senile and old."

The Book of Eli (2010)

A shallow, pseudo-action movie protected by the guise of religious pretense

[3/10 · 20 January 2010]

(i.e., just like when one of those criminally ignorant athletes makes the ridiculous proclamation of having "god" on their side that day, that enabled him to score the winning goal unit for his team).

Yup, I began my review as a footnote to the subject line.

I had no knowledge of this movie beforehand, but I did have a couple of expectations based on what I saw of the commercials, and what a friend of mine told me.

1) I expected an epic, post-apocalyptic tale that completely engages you, and draws you into its gritty, dark world.

2) A friend of mine said he's never seen a crowd that quiet after the show. I took that to be a positive thing.

Only one of the two items listed above turned out to be true.

Let me cut straight to the chase- you take the religious aspect out of this movie and you're left with an average flick with bad pacing, ZERO character development, and poor directing.

What does it matter if it's The Bible or not? It's about a dude carrying a book and headed West because that's what god wants him to do. That's the story right there. And then you've got Meg from Family Guy teaming up with him, who rivals Kate Bosworth in Superman Returns as far as epic miscastings go.

**Usually in a movie where you're following one central character in a huge, lonely world, you really get engrossed with that character and really care about what happens next. Here they forgot about character development so nothing really mattered. We're just watching Denzel with glasses and a beard.

**While the fighting scenes were flashy, I don't like their choice of how they shot it, or how they portrayed his character. It's definitely fun to see Denzel as a total badass on-screen, but I don't get how his fighting skills are up to the level of being able to dispatch enemies in seemingly mere nano-seconds with absolutely RAZOR SHARP precision and accuracy, with NO MISTAKES. With or without the spoiler, that still doesn't explain it. This portrayal took away from the realism and made him seem like some superhero, or invincible. Was there any explanation given as to why he's able to operate in this manner? Was it because god was protecting him? That's a cop out answer. Is god the answer to anything that can't be explained with rational logic? Oh wait..

**Denzel and Meg from Family Guy had no chemistry in this movie. She plays the cookie cutter 'young, attractive girl fascinated by mysterious older man' role to a tee.

**How is it that a no name wannabe movie critic can see a a movie and easily point out the number of unnecessary (and embarrassing) slow motion shots in a movie, yet professional movie makers can't, and in fact, readily DOUSES the movie in it.

**My reviews aren't complete until I whine and moan about a character's decisions and illogical actions in a movie. Well we're at that point. The morning after Meg from Family Guy leaves Denzel's cell and goes to see her mother and Gary Oldman, she gets questioned by Gary Oldman about whether or not Denzel had a book. Just look at this scene, she could've EASILY just lied and said no. But instead, here she is cowering like a mindless retard, even as her mother gets threatened, she's standing there as if she's trying hard to hold in a secret, when in fact, all she had to do was adamantly state that THERE WAS NO BOOK and she has no idea what he's talking about. The kind of actions seen here would be the kind where some powerful mind reading overlord has someone captured, and that captured person knows that the overlord can easily see past his lies due to his supernatural abilities, so when questioned, he's very hesitant to lie because he knows the repercussions of lying, and so is more or less paralyzed with fear, not knowing whether lying or telling the truth would be the better choice. THAT SCENARIO DIDN'T APPLY HERE WITH MEG GRIFFIN AND GARY OLDMAN.

Hughes Brothers, lol. These clowns should've stayed retired.

Joy Ride 2: Dead Ahead (2008 Video)

I enjoyed part 1, but this one made me want to harm all involved in making this

[1/10 · 3 December 2009]

Story: Four idiots break down on the road, they break into a house, steal a car, after which the psychotic owner kidnaps one of them, and the rest of the movie is based on them trying to recover their friend.

Although I've seen plenty of bad movies in the past year, I'm not sure if any one of those had the combination of being this flagrantly bad in terms of BOTH acting and writing. Usually it's a combination of both, where one aspect might be pretty bad, while the other only makes you want to kill yourself just a little bit. This pile of trash is literally at the lowest end of the scale for both acting and writing, and here are some reasons:

**As a bad writing example, the fact that the main girl left her number for the owner after they stole the car. If anything, she should've left a note saying they'd return the car as soon as they could, and apologize. Since this is basically the catalyst to jumpstart the movie, I'll let this pass.

**Bad acting by the main girl after she runs into the parking lot after learning her boyfriend is kidnapped. In general, her dialogue and emotion didn't fit- at times where she should've been panicked and desperate, she comes across sounding angry, wrong choice. By the way, when her cell phone rang in this scene, why did she answer "Bobby are you OK?" as if there were any chance that it would even BE Bobby on the other line? She just got done talking to the kidnapper, why is she assuming it's her boyfriend that would be calling?

**I don't see how that emo dude should've so confidently talked trash about truckers in a diner FULL OF THEM. Also, I thought it was unrealistic how the two girlfriends were sort of going along with the emo dude's insults about the truckers, just smiling. It came across like they genuinely though it was funny, most girls would've told him to shut up and get his act together.

**In that strip tease scene, when she approached the truck assuming that Rusty Nails was behind the wheel, when the decoy shows his face, her reaction is just..all wrong. Yes, WE as the audience are taken by surprise that it's not the actual kidnapper and instead it's some hillbilly retard, but HOW DOES SHE KNOW?? Why did she immediately come to the conclusion that they'd been tricked and he wasn't the actual kidnapper? And the way she screamed "Bobby" was worse than Darth Vader's "noooooo."

**The scene I hated most was when the emo dude was chosen to dress up in a wig and dress, and the way the main girl went into movie cliché 'badass' mode to convince him to do so. After he refuses, she puts a scalpel to his neck and calmly tells him what he needs to do. Any other emotion would've been fine, she could've acted hysterical by screaming at him to please do what the kidnapper says, cry, panic, act desperate, but for her to calmly and confidently tell him in the stereotypical low voice that he's GOING to do this, made me want to kill her myself.

**When the emo dude gets captured, and the two girls are watching, who's holding who back? WTF were they doing? Girl #1 acts like she wants to go run to him, only to be held back by Girl #2, but then Girl #2 is now trying to run towards him, only to be held back by the Girl #1. Who's holding who back? WTF was this?? I can only imagine what the director must've told them to do in this scene ("yeah, just act panicked and stuff, that's all I've got.")

**After the main girl's sister got killed in the collision, she had NO EMOTION. Ridiculous.

**When they had the two captured guys in Rusty's shed, how coincidental was it for the emo's favorite game to be craps, since Rusty's wall was covered with the consequences for each dice roll outcome. So what if he would've said his favorite game was Monopoly or something?

**Again, not something I can criticize too much since every movie is guilty of it, but when the main girl knocks out Rusty with the shovel, of course she doesn't make sure he's out cold or dead, she just throws her shovel away.

**Along with death and taxes, here's something else that's guaranteed; I can guarantee that during the scene where Rusty was on top of the truck, anyone watching that scene was thinking the same thing: "hit the f*****g brakes."

**In this same scene, it was nighttime when he was on top of the truck, then early daytime when he was inside. OK, so she must've drove throughout the night right? Well how the F**K did her boyfriend show up seconds later after she jumped out of the careening vehicle? That's gotta be miles that he would've hobbled on one leg, OVERNIGHT. Nevermind the fact that he appeared seemingly within seconds.

**I'm gonna give this movie the benefit of the doubt and assume that the ridiculous ending line where the boyfriend asked "is it over," as she looks heroically over the cliff and kicks the wallet and says "it is now," was tongue in cheek. I really, REALLY hope this was meant to be campy and not a serious scene.

**It's ridiculous that they made this trucker into an omnipotent supernatural demigod, being able to see your every move, come in and out of cars without being seen, and able to survive crashing in an exploding semi going over a cliff.

My god, that main girl is one of the worst actresses I've ever seen, and that's saying a lot.

The Unborn (2009)

ugh, just another GENERIC, thoughtless, horror movie

[1/10 · 11 January 2009]

I can't say I was expecting much. You can just tell from the commercials that most of the scares in this movie consist of those "boo" scenes where something unexpected flashes quickly across the screen, or some loud noise.

It's gotten to the point where the mere EXPLANATION of these types of scare scenes has gotten cliché. What I mean is, go look at any negative review of this movie, or similarly bad horror movies, 99% of those reviews will explain in their own version of words, how the only scary scenes consists of scenes like:

1) Something scary flashing across the screen.

2) Some loud, unexpected noise that the character has to go investigate.

3) Spooky little children.

EVERY review will say something like this. You know there's a problem when the REVIEWS of these movies become cliché and indistinguishable from each other. But it's through no fault of the reviewers, what else can be said to describe these identically bad, cliché horror movies? It's not like new ways can be invented to describe how bad they are, when every single one of these unimaginative pieces of trash are basically clones of each other.

**Most of the "scary" images in this movie are things that didn't even exist, they were in the character's IMAGINATION. Way to go, you're taking your already unscary scene, and rendering it pointless by not having it EXIST in the first place.

**The story had potential. A vindictive, unborn twin trying to...do stuff. Too bad everything was treated with zero intelligence.

**I thought the acting from the main girl was pretty good. She delivered her lines pretty believably. Her friend, however, was HORRIBLE. Why'd they have to portray Megan Goode's character as so obnoxious? Some of the lines she said (like at the nursing home) was just so childish and STUPID.

**Stupid lines were repeated in the movie. How many times did we hear the girl say "I'm causing all this, it's dangerous to be around me, it's my fault, BLAH BLAH BLAH." This was said no less than three times.

**When the girl goes to see Gary Oldman to see about hopefully getting an exorcism performed, he says something about not being able to do it because the person having it performed truly has to believe she's possessed or something. HELLO??! Isn't the fact that she's here, crying and begging for an exorcism to be performed, evidence of the fact she BELIEVES? WTF.

Spider-Man 2 (2004)

I gave the first one a 10 out of 10, this one is even better

[10/10 · 3 January 2009]

It would be way too predictable for me to use an exaggeration here like, "since this is better than the first, and I gave the first one a 10 out of 10, then I'm giving part 2 a 15 out of 10!!" I won't quite say that. There's only one movie that deserves such an outrageous claim of actually scoring OUTSIDE the scale of numbers allotted for the rating, and that's Back to the Future part 1. Sorry, I got a off on a tangent, Spike Lee style. Back to Spider-Man 2.

This truly outdoes the first movie in terms of scale. And I guess that's how it works, you tell the origin story, after that you're free to explore different themes in that universe you've created. I don't like to use this word to describe a lot of things, but truly only one word describes this movie: epic.

There's a single driving force in this movie that instantly gets you worrying, and hoping for a good outcome: Peter Parker's tragic downfall, or to be more specific, him hitting ROCK BOTTOM with Mary Jane. He literally lost it all here at one point in this movie. I mean it doesn't get anymore serious than being told "Oh, I'm getting married.." As if that weren't enough, he couldn't even be in her life as a friend because of his constant disappointments he caused her because of his responsibilities as Spider-Man. Add to that his stressful friendship with Harry, his identity crisis, and you've got a pretty complex story, superhero action movie or not.

**You feel the full spectrum of emotions in this movie. Or at the very least, you feel the maximum emotion at one part of the spectrum, sympathy. I've said it already and I'll say it again, Peter Parker's crumbling relationship with Mary Jane was executed perfectly. There's two scenes that captures this feeling of desperation perfectly:

1) At that dinner party thing they were at, Peter gets hit with a 3 part combo: A) his friendship with Harry takes a further dive after being slapped by him twice, B) his friendship with Mary Jane takes a further dive after being told by her while they were outside on the balcony that she pretty much doesn't want anything to do with him anymore, in so many words, and finally, not too long after, C) gets hit with the ultimate crushing blow as he hears the announcement that Mary Jane officially agreed to marry her boyfriend. I think anyone can imagine how embarrassed, humiliated, and heartbroken Peter must've felt standing there, as his world slowed down to a dreamlike state, vaguely hearing J. Jonah Jameson shouting to him to snap a picture of none other than Mary Jane and her new fiancé.

2) After falling to the ground after his webs failed him again, he picks up that newspaper and sees how he's hated by the city and gets no appreciation, with the scene then cutting to him sitting on his bed, tossing that paper away in disgust. It's at this point that we're on the edge of our seats, just wondering what he's gonna do next. His life was a complete tragedy.

**Amazing, lengthy action sequences.

**A sympathetic villain, much better than Green Goblin.

**It takes a certain expert hand to be able to have lines spoken by one character (Aunt May), then have those very same lines repeated by another character (Peter) to another character (Doc Ock), which is what finally gets that other character to see the error of his ways, all without seeming forced or convenient. There's certain elements of the plot that do seem convenient, but it's never contrived or forced. It's like a complex tapestry that all fits together and makes sense somehow.

**If I had it my way, I'd change the ending. I think it would've struck a better emotional chord had they ended it with the scene of Mary Jane hugging her fiancé, after being dropped off by Spider-Man, as she sadly looks up to her love that would never be, as he then shoots out a web and flys off into the night. It would've been a great place to end, the music was PERFECT right at that instant she looked up into the sky at him, with that bright light illuminating her face. This angelic, melodic tone or music, whatever that was that played. Either end it there and move the scene with Harry and his father up BEFORE this scene (because you can't skip the Harry scene no matter how you end it), OR, end right after the Harry scene, after discovering all the Green Goblin equipment. Have that whole cancelled wedding and running scene be the START of part 3 (obviously it's too late for that). I guess the argument for keeping it the way it was shot is the fact that you then wouldn't have the shot of Mary Jane in Peter's window, looking out with a look that you can't quite tell if it's happiness or fear, in regards to her new life.

Spider-Man (2002)

what a refreshing step back to a time of innocence

[10/10 · 3 January 2009]

What an odd way to describe a Spider-Man movie of all things huh? Well, let me explain.

After I saw Spider-Man 3 in 2007, the disgusting display of incompetent film making and lazy attempts to make money and simply get by on the name alone, left me with nothing but a raging hatred in my core for everyone involved in that abomination of a movie. Watching part 1 again reminded me of how magnificent this franchise used to be. I can't believe these characters that I fell in love with- Peter Parker, Mary Jane, Aunt May, Harry, J. Jonah Jameson, are people that I actually wanted to commit felony acts of violence against in part 3 (particularly Mary Jane and Harry). It was so bad and personal, that I even said that if they continue making more Spider-Man movies in the future, that I would like nothing more than Kirsten Dunst NOT to return (a complete contrast to my views of her in parts 1 and 2, where I loved her). Seeing part 3 even made me second guess myself as to whether the first two actually deserved perfect 10s as I originally scored them. Well, seeing them again reminded me that they ABSOLUTELY deserve 10s, and that's why I'm writing this review. I'll stick to talking about part 1 here.

**Great job adapting the comic to the big screen. They captured the campy humor of the comics perfectly, with lovable corny one-liners done just well enough to be corny, but not excessively that it becomes a joke.

**At it's core, this movie is basically a love story about a nerd awkwardly trying to win over the girl he loves, with things getting a tad bit complicated having to deal with the fact that he's got superhuman powers. This is a romance story story running parallel to a superhero movie, and it's interwoven with expert craftsmanship, it completely engrosses you.

**I've gotta give it to Tobey Maguire and Kirsten Dunst, they did some great acting here. All of their scenes feel so genuine. Who can't relate to those little moments that they had together? Like every time they happen to meet up by chance, they would say "Oh hey!!!" with a genuine look of surprise as their faces light up with happiness, followed by awkward, nervous conversation masked by their smiles, with Peter consciously making sure to minimize dead air in the conversation. Again, the most authentic thing in all of this is the "oh hey!!!" part. Not sure about everyone else, but in my experience, this is THE default greeting between a male and a female that are moderately close, upon unexpectedly meeting each other (less close could result in a simple, less upbeat, "hey what's up," and more close could be running up and giving them a hug).

**There's a certain *simplistic nature to this movie that you become fond of. There's a very dense, linear approach that pretty much forces you to love the characters, and want to see the nerd win the girl, and save the day.

**If I had to do one thing differently, I would change the Green Goblin's costume. It was too over the top and cartoonish, they should've modernized the look, make it look like something that would be issued by the military for combat. They wouldn't wear a mask that looked like that..

Parts 1 and 2 compared to part 3 are like day and knight. Regardless of The Dark cloud which is part 3 hanging over this franchise, these first two installments are the best superhero movies made in terms of pure enjoyment.

The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian (2008)

there's a reason why I avoid fantasy movies

[3/10 · 31 December 2008]

And this movie is a great example why. I lucked out with the first Chronicles movie, it was good enough that I gave it a 7. It did everything that a movie like that should do, without any major mistakes. This sequel however lacks everything that made the first one good. It has no human element. It literally feels like they just went through the motions and decided to make a fantasy movie for kids, with no regard for script revision, character development, meaningful dialogue, etc. It's a BASIC kids movie, which means nothing truly has to be fleshed out. This approach will ALWAYS result in a fundamentally bad movie.

**All the charm from the first movie was gone, and other than Lucy, these characters just aren't likable very much at all. The girl playing Lucy did a great job here like last time though, I hope she gets many more roles.

**What's up with the constant, sweeping, forced, emotional music?

**Edmund and Susan felt like role players. They got lost amidst the shuffle of all these characters. It got to the point where I was consciously watching to see what lines they would speak next. And those lines mostly consisted of soulless, interchangeable lines that could've been spoken by one of the bears or cheetahs for all we care.

**I really hate to compare it with the Lord of the Rings movies, but it's really hard not to do when you have walking trees going into battle, a water creature summoned to wash away bad guys on horseback, and bow and arrow tricks being performed which doesn't involve actually shooting the arrow..

**Susan's kiss to Caspian at the end goes in my book as one the most contrived kisses I've seen in awhile. There was nothing that happened for her to even develop these feelings. From what I can recall, there was no more than one or two times that they even specifically looked at each other. And during the times they did that (looked at each other), I was actually praising the movie that they didn't overdo it with these forced exchanges where the girl shyly looks at the handsome hero, with just a hint of a smile on her face, as she then walks away as the hero searchingly gazes at her, with a wondering, thoughtful look on his face, before the scene fades to the next. I was glad they DIDN'T go this route and kept it subtle. Well so much for that; she ends up randomly KISSING him on the mouth at the end. Contrary to what movies may have you believe, this NEVER happens. Ever. No girl does that. Think about it from a real life perspective, this would be the equivalent of you helping a female friend unpack her things after a move, during which time her female roommate is also there (which sets the scenario for you sort of knowing this other girl), and then after all the unpacking is done, the roommate comes up to you and just plants one on your mouth. How realistic does that sound? Bottom line: no girl walks up to a random guy and just kisses him on the lips. This whole clichéd romance angle hurt this movie's credibility even more.

**I haven't seen a forced romance this...forced, since Winona Ryder inexplicably fell in love with Edward Scissorhands after she saw him on TV and he said he would "do anything for her."

Seven Pounds (2008)

this has everything that I HATE about a movie

[2/10 · 27 December 2008]

This has the two things that I hate most about movies: 1) A movie so full of it itself that it abandons traditional story telling techniques and just defiantly exists on its own with no consideration for the viewer; 2) A plot so muddled that you don't even start to get an idea of what's going on until very late in the movie. I hate movies like that. There's no REASON for it.

Story: Will Smith was in a car accident which caused the deaths of everyone involved, and so now he's guilt ridden and suicidal, and decides to donate organs, body parts, and houses to people to help them.

Apparently all of this is supposed to be deeply impactful and emotional, and other stuff like that. I don't know if it was Will Smith's acting, or the writing of the story or what, but about the only emotion I felt was the one that made me shake my head several times during the movie. I guess the ending just had no value to me because all I kept thinking about was how we just came nearly two hours for THIS. Two hours of confusing, meandering, mysterious story telling all just to reach this point.

Complaints:

**I respect Will Smith, but there's one thing in his performances in dramatic roles that I don't care for, and that's that look he does when he looks like he's trying to suppress tears. Let me be clear, all his other faces are fine, his dramatic face is fine, his sad face is fine, his sympathetic face is fine, every face he makes related to the sad category is just fine. It's his TEAR-SUPPRESSING face that is completely out of the question. It just looks so forced. It's like he's consciously moving his face like that, you can almost see him making real-time decisions on which facial muscle to move next. He needs to tone that down a bit.

**Well, speaking of faces, it was silly having Will Smith have that sad face the whole movie. I just explained that his sad face was OK, while his tear-suppressing face was not. This is still true, problem is, it's completely unrealistic to have him with the sad face the WHOLE MOVIE. At any given time, he looks like he could easily be led to tears. From the movie's perspective, how can ANYONE in his universe take him seriously? He literally acts like a mentally handicapped teenager who's on the verge of crying at any given time. Maybe we don't know people as sad or depressed as this, but I just can't imagine any adult with this kind of blatantly sad look affixed to their face permanently, no matter how depressed.

**When his brother found him at the end, Will Smith was trying to convince him to please leave. He said, "just go home, you have a beautiful family, go home and join them." What a bad line. With the weight of the situation, do you think giving your panicked brother such a simple directive is going to get him off your back??

**I hate the scene where Will Smith indignantly brings the dog into his motel room. They're portraying this scene as if a previously oppressed person is finally standing up and opposing the injustices done to him, but Will Smith is 100% wrong here. The motel CLEARLY has a no large dog policy, yet he still boldly takes the dog into his room, as he utters the ridiculous line "show me the no horse policy" to Manche from Prison Break Season 1..

The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (2005)

a satisfying, solid fantasy movie that even the harshest critic can enjoy (like myself)

[7/10 · 26 December 2008]

I don't think I've ever used the phrase, "a movie everyone can enjoy" to describe a movie, but I'll do it here. OK, done. I'll give props where it's due, for a PG movie for kids, this was surprisingly engaging, non-cliché, and very, very well written.

There aren't a lot of fantasy movies I like, and that has to do with the way they're presented to you. They present the world to you in an already existing state, bombarding you with everything without gradually introducing you to its various elements. They present these life or death scenarios without truly exploring why we're supposed to care about the world's inhabitants in the first place. I like this movie because we're learning about the world at the same rate as the four kids here (assuming you haven't read the books, which I haven't). In fact, it was the great acting done by the kids that kept me interested enough in the "pre-fantasy" portions of the movie before we finally entered the fantastical realm, after which I cared enough about the characters to be invested in their ultimate outcomes.

**The character Lucy single-handedly kept me interested with her GREAT acting in the beginning where she was prominently featured. She was better than a good 70-83% of grown actresses that I've seen, and probably 98% of child actresses not named Dakota Fanning and a select other few. I loved her response when asked by the faun about the human beings' hand-shaking ritual. "Yeah, I don't know, why DO we do that??"

**I loved the interaction between the kids. I loved the tension there. In most PG movies the good guys are usually black and white, you don't have ugly things like traitors, jealousy, and greed.

**A mark of a well-written movie is how many times you DON'T have to say to a character on screen, "why are you doing that?" or "why AREN'T you doing this?" Prime example, in the beginning after Lucy returned from Narnia as she re-entered the wardrobe, the character specifically knew that she had been gone for apparently hours, so as she re-enters, the first thing she does is to shout out to everyone who inevitably will be worried about her, that she's OK. After they question her, she then realistically asks, "wait, what? You mean to tell me that after our hide and seek game, from your perspective I must've disappeared for hours, and you didn't wonder where I was???" That's perfect. That's exactly how a real person would behave, and the actress pulled off the well-written lines just as perfectly, as she questioned her siblings with a confused look. I'm pointing this out because I can specifically think of other movies with analogous situations where the lines the character would've said would've been ALL wrong, and the intonation with which the actor delivers the line would've been so unrealistically understated.

I only have a couple complaints:

**When the lion is lying dead on the concrete slab, and Lucy and Susan go up to him, I don't understand why Lucy was so easily talked out of using the injury healing potion she was given by...Santa Claus earlier. She first begins to use it, but then is told by Susan that it's too late, implying that since he's already dead, the potion would do no good since it's meant to heal injuries only. But how did she know the exact boundaries or properties of this magic elixir? It's MAGIC. How do you know that it won't revive him? No one specifically ever defined its limitations. Besides, what's the worst that could happen? Just pour the liquid on his wound, worst-case scenario is you get red dye on his fur (I didn't know until later you're supposed to consume the potion, not apply it directly to the wound).

**I didn't like the sword fighting scene between Peter and the witch. It just looked weak, like they were struggling to swing the sword(s). Peter, I can understand, since he's a kid, but the witch should have been a lot smoother using the dual swords.

**This one is minor, but, the grown versions of the kids at the end just looked very goofy.

Those are hardly plot holes or badly written scenes however. If my only major gripe about a 2 hour+ movie is the non-use of a Phoenix Down on a fallen Red XIII, then it's a pretty good movie. Sure the overall arc of the story may have been predictable, but there were still plenty of dramatic moments along the way and you enjoyed the ride. The plot didn't feel contrived, it was believable for what it was, and the characters are extremely likable, to the point where I was hoping that even the CGI animals don't get hurt or killed. This movie has a lot heart and certain charm to it that leaves you happy for seeing it.

***Random personal trivia: I finally saw this three years after the movie had come out, but it wasn't random. I've always had it in the back of my head that I would eventually get around to seeing this, and it was all because of an enduring three second image in my head that I remembered when they advertised this movie on TV. It was the scene at the end showing a front view of the lion and the four kids as they walk towards the camera, towards the coronation area. As corny as it sounds, there was just something noble and inspirational about that scene.

Lakeview Terrace (2008)

if only they could've come up with a more CREATIVE ending

[7/10 · 15 December 2008]

There's an inherent problem with making a movie of this kind: unless you're a creative genius of your time, these sorts of movies have the potential to turn real generic, REAL fast.

Reminiscent of Denzel Washington from Training Day, we see Samuel L. Jackson play an overly aggressive cop with an agenda, with the movie focusing on the problems he's causing for his new neighbors. A completely realistic situation that can take place anywhere. Problem is, because a movie like this is completely character driven, after you have the nice slow build up to the climax, once the tension snaps, you're relegated to basically a generically default final act of the movie where "the bad guy finally comes out of the proverbial shadows and literally chases the hero." (i.e. Disturbia, The Glass House). It's a shame too because the buildup on this was very good. Samuel L. Jackson was really scary here, he played that bullying, obsessive character perfect. The only acting problems I saw were 2-3 moments from Kerry Washington where her sad face was done poorly, with overly done lip quivers and facial movements (similar to Kirsten Dunst's crying scenes from the Spider-Man movies, except done in a BAD way).

With a movie like this, you pretty much have these possible outcomes:

1) the generic, semi-predictable ending (like we got here). 2) tragic ending with hero dying at the end. 3) an unpredictable twist coming out of left field (this has the potential to be very good or very bad). 4) a Great ending.

Unfortunately we usually get number one, since they wanna give the satisfying, safe, effective, tried and true, Hollywood ending. Most people are content with those types of cop out endings. I'm not.

While She Was Out (2008)

Red Toolbox of doom

[1/10 · 19 November 2008]

It says that a girl named Susan Montford both wrote and directed this "movie." No wonder she has no other credits to her name for writing or directing. She made a severe vocational error in choosing this as her career. This is one of the worst human creations of this millennium.

The fundamental thing wrong with this movie other than its ridiculous story of a woman running away from four weak thugs, is the blatant and complete lack of LOGIC.

**After she leaves the mall, she gets approached by four thugs as they surround her. Tell me, what woman would aggressively SHOVE a potential attacker while being surrounded, and insult them verbally? I don't mean after an attack had already started, because then of course it's completely normal for someone to fight back. But she shoved that guy and pretty much escalated it to the next level. No woman would do that unless she 1) had a weapon, 2) has the confidence of knowing that backup is very close, and so is relatively safe from harm, or 3) the attackers are so young, and weak looking that she's pretty sure she can take them. None of that applied in this situation, so she was just acting like someone that's asking to get raped or mugged. And by the way, when the security guard approached, as SOON as he came within viewing distance of Kim Basinger, why wouldn't she immediately either run towards him for help, or scream??

**When she drives off after the security guard gets shot in the head, she drives into a deserted part of town, and crashes. She had a good three minute lead on the pursuers, instead of simply running off on foot in a diagonal direction behind houses and climbing fences and continuing, she gets out her Red Toolbox and starts messing around under her hood. I understand she was trying to fix her car, but she should've ran.

(I didn't even mean this to be a chronological summary of the movie, because I loathe people who do that in their reviews, but it just so happens that every main sequence of this movie has something so blatantly stupid that I have to comment on it).

**Why would she carry a loud, Red Toolbox as she's trying to sneak away in the dark? When she does get caught, one of the jokers demands for her to open the toolbox. First she resists, then eventually opens it. And takes out a wrench. This scene here is so rich in subtle overtones of the complete failure of dramatic effect I have to break it down, it's one of the dumbest scenes in the entire movie. When asked to open the box, she's resisting at first as if it were her plan to somehow get one of the thugs to open it themselves out of anger after she didn't open it, in the same way that someone in some action movie might have some device that an enemy demands that person to touch/push/open/manipulate, and once that hero refuses to open it, the enemy grabs that device, only to have that device automatically dispense a chemical/shoot him in the face/render him unconscious, which was the hero's plan all along. It feels like that's what they tried to do with Kim Basinger here, as she opens the toolbox dramatically and quickly takes out a WRENCH and dispatches one of the thugs, and somehow GETS AWAY from him and the three other thugs.

**Throughout the rest of the movie, basically what you see is this suburban house wife, sneaking around the woods as she carries her Red Toolbox, taking out various tools used as weapons to KILL HER ATTACKERS.

**When she was running away, how did she end up moving BACK to where the thugs were? I think it was the scene where they had that radio playing loudly in tribute to the dead dude. She somehow crept up on them when I thought she was moving AWAY from them.

**Finally, this whole premise is so weak because the whole reason she's being chased in the first place is because from the thugs' perspective, she was a witness to a murder they committed against the security officer earlier, and so they felt they had to kill her. How ridiculous. As one of the thugs even said, they could've just left town and returned back to whatever city they drove from, no one but her had seen them anyway, and she probably didn't get the license plate. Even if these possibilities wouldn't work in their favor, how is raising hell and hunting down someone to kill them improving your chances to get away with the original murder?

Funny Games (2007)

the rewind scene = higher rating for this movie

[6/10 · 14 July 2008]

Here's a trend I've noticed about movies and the ratings they get from the general public (well the IMDb population to be specific). Anytime there's an average or mediocre movie, whenever there's even the SLIGHTEST attempt at some underlying higher meaning to the movie, or some kind of social commentary, or something as blatant as the director saying "well here's where I was going with this," the movie AUTOMATICALLY gets about half a point to a full point higher in average rating than it probably deserves. It's like people realize, "oh crap, so that's what he was trying to say in this movie? I totally missed that, let me give this a higher rating so people don't think I'm dense for missing the point."

What a great equalizer. Whenever that "point" exists in your piece of crap movie, it gets elevated to this pristine level of existence where you can't *dare criticize the movie, otherwise you totally missed the director's point. Mulholland Drive and Babel immediately come to mind as one of those pointless films that's gotten exalted to a higher status because of the "point" those movies were making.

Tearing down portion of the review:

**I don't care what his previous work was, Tim Roth (the father) was a JOKE in this movie. I'm not even talking about his character decisions yet (i.e. criticizing things his character in the movie did), I'm talking about the actor himself. What's with the teary eyes the entire time? If he didn't look like he was about to cry he looked like he was falling asleep at other times. There's other miscellaneous scenes in which his body language, tone of voice, facial muscle contortions were so off that I was laughing at his character's plight.

**The father in this movie has got to be the most pathetic male in the history of mankind. In the beginning when he initially gets punked out and whacked with a golf club, did you see how he tried to protect his son? First of all, ideally, you'd actually be fighting back from the ground, but worst case, you'd try to jerk your son away from the attackers, and then/or shield him with your body. Instead he casually held his arm out in the same carefree way you would casually open your umbrella upon first hint of a few raindrops. I was wondering when he planned on grabbing the leg of the attacker and trying to bring him down to the ground.

**Exactly WTF kind of injury did he sustain anyway?? What kind of pain does a grown man sustain from a golf club that keeps him silently weeping and giving up while your wife and son are in danger right there with you? You'd think he was whacked on his head the way he was mentally debilitated the whole time.

**That kid was the worst hide and go seek player in history.

**When she was about to make a call on the newly obtained cell phone near the end, why did Naomi Watts have to ask WHO to call, as her pathetic husband gruffly tells her to call the police.

**There should've been many more moments with a lot more screaming from the parents, in which the captors would tell them to be quiet. Instead they are just like phantoms just going along with the ride, periodically throwing in generic comments like "why are you doing this?" or "take what you need and leave."

**What type of person, let alone an entire family, gets held hostage by a nine iron? There were way too many occasions where Naomi Watts had a great opportunity to attempt something.

**When the son is killed, the parents show no grief. There's no NOISE at all. Later when Naomi Watts was consoling the grieving husband as he moaned like a fool, I assumed that his mouth was gagged or duct taped. Nope. That was just that stupid character (or actor's) "method." He was really getting the grief across there with that moaning.

**I liked the main villain in this movie. Good acting. He was much scarier than a lot of other killers in other traditional horror movies.

Rest Stop (2006 Video)

You Missed

[1/10 · 28 June 2008]

Just gonna point out flaws, this doesn't even deserve a traditional review:

**The main character, was she not one of the most annoying characters ever? What a whining, complaining, unlikeable person. How many times did she swear in the movie? Notice how from the very beginning of the movie she would have these mini temper tantrums of varying degrees, which would continue to the very end of this terrible film.

**There was a point in the movie where I stopped giving my full, undivided attention, so maybe I might've missed something, but when the Phil Lamarr from Mad TV lookalike cop came into the picture, why weren't one or both of these items brought immediately into play: 1) his gun (before gasoline was an issue), 2) his walkie-talkie. Was there a reason why after he was injured, and they were both in the bathroom, that they didn't try to call for backup?

**What bad acting from the Phil Lamarr lookalike cop. Tons of examples, but when they were in the bathroom, he said, "don't let him trap you Nicole." What is he, her COACH for some athletic sporting event? I guess it's the inclusion of her first name, but that, combined with his tone was just wrong for this situation, it makes him sound like some motivational speaker, or a corner-man giving advice to a boxer: "watch for his jab, Nicole."

**What exactly was the killer waiting for? Why did he keep leaving her there and driving off? He could've got her anytime he wanted.

**That random girl at the end they showed walking towards the bathroom must've been someone they picked up off the street. She had exactly 0% acting skills. The worst acting I've seen has been a tie between the cop from Cube part 1, and that little child girl from Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai. I might have to change this list. Just listen to her explain to the cop about what she heard behind the door. When someone says "what?" in disbelief of what they're hearing from you, your first instinct isn't to tell the GENDER of the person (she said "It was a girl!"), you usually will reiterate the seriousness of the situation by saying, " I said, I heard a voice trapped behind the door, there's SOMEONE back there! I heard a VOICE!" Not, "it was a girl." Because then the reaction could be, "WTF are you talking about,*WHAT* was a girl?" Then look at her reaction after the cop checks behind the door and concludes it was a joke, she says, "but I heard it!" Yeah, they need to go ahead and just send her back to the streets.

**"You missed."

The Ruins (2008)

Solid horror movie, even has good acting

[7/10 · 28 June 2008]

Overall good horror movie, for the most part the characters behaved how actual people would, which is all I ask for out of any movie. There were only a few exceptions:

**When Jeff chased Amy down the temple as she tried to go for help, he's sitting there trying to reason with her, pleading for her to come back up so she doesn't get shot. Unrealistic. If that's your loved one doing that, you YANK and physically snatch that person and drag their ass back up the temple by any means necessary.

**Same thing with the other guy and his girlfriend. When they came out of the tent and saw the girl with the knife cutting herself, you don't try to reason with someone who's obviously irrational and not in their right mind. You don't slowly walk towards them casually, only to be stabbed, you walk CAUTIOUSLY towards them, then get in position to tackle her ass, and restrain her knife wielding arm. They both approached facing her back side, so they had plenty of opportunity to subdue her without drawing aggro.

Rambo (2008)

this reminded me of RESERVOIR DOGS

[5/10 · 24 June 2008]

If it weren't for the violence, people wouldn't praise either movie. It's as SIMPLE AS THAT, don't overthink it, because you know it's true.

It's like the gore in this movie was its gimmick. It's not a Rambo movie with a little gore thrown in, this is a gore movie with a tiny sprinkle of Rambo thrown in. I don't necessarily mind it, in fact that's what kept me from falling asleep watching it. It's the story that's the problem.

No wonder this movie felt so short, how can you base an entire feature film around some guy saving some other guys from a village? And that's what this is, this is totally devoid of any character development, no emotional growth, no lessons learned or anything. And don't tell me this is based on real life, that's an excuse to give this movie more substance than it has. This almost feels like some extended flashback sequence shot to be used in some hypothetical, future Rambo movie, and instead of watching the condensed down 5 minute version recounting the events of Rambo rescuing some missionaries from a village, at which point they go back to telling the main story, we're seeing the full, uncut, 90 minute version of it. That would explain the lack of emotion in this movie. It's only a glorified flashback.

Thoughts:

**I like the most recent Rocky movie, gave it an 8/10, so I'm not biased against Stallone.

**I have zero memory of the original Rambo movies, so I'm not biased against a new movie from this franchise.

**I kept thinking the story would take a twist and take us in a different direction at some point. I kept thinking it couldn't possibly be this simple, there's gotta be more to this story? Nope. What happened was the equivalent of saving Zelda from Hyrule Castle in Link to the Past, and that being the end, never even going back to Dark World..

**Was it just me or was this movie unusually short? I know it's listed at about 90 minutes, but I could've sworn that Rambo had looked at his mailbox with a smile and had begun strolling down that road at around the hour and sixteen minute mark?

Juno (2007)

I should've brought a damn BOOK to the theater

[1/10 · 22 January 2008]

I don't feel completely comfortable being on the same planet with a race of beings that can actually generate this high of an average rating for such an empty waste of time.

This is the most BORING piece of crap I've seen in a long, long time. I only chose it for 3 reasons: 1) it had Ellen Page, 2) J.K. Simmons, and 3) had a high IMDb rating of 8.4 at the time of this writing.

A story about a teen getting pregnant, and how she deals with it- can't you do something with that premise? It's like the creators were more concerned with showing off their cool, modern dialogue they wrote for the movie, than the actual story itself. I was amazed at how many scenes could go by, and how much TALKING could be done by the characters, without anything interesting ever developing in the movie. I mean you literally have these scenes that go on for minutes, and it's showing all these inconsequential things that don't develop character or introduce the next beat to the story. I remember watching every scene and feeling like there was something that was about to happen, a lot of potential energy, but it goes nowhere. There were moments that were interesting to watch, like between Ellen Page and the lady's husband, which were well acted and genuine, but again, it's like the focus of these scenes are to show just how 'cool' these characters are, and it's at the expense of substance and realism.

My 4 cents:

**There's nothing worse than a movie that's supposed to be a comedy but not funny at all.

**Cool, Ellen Page plays the same character she played in Hard Candy, even had the red hoody. That's where the comparisons stop between the two movies.

**Jennifer Garner's facial reactions...failed. That was stupid and overdone. You got the camera showing her confused reactions and expressions to what Ellen Page was saying or doing, with this feeling that we as the audience are in the "know" of some joke, and her character is left out and doesn't get it, so we are laughing along with Ellen Page's character, except...there's no JOKE. There's nothing. So basically all you've got is this airheaded looking woman overacting and doing exaggerated contortions to her face, and it's just embarrassing and awkward.

**The only pop culture reference that was missing out of this movie was the word "Ebay." Other than that they've covered it all.

I should've just used the 10 dollars I spent on this worthless movie and just made a paper airplane out of it and tossed it right into the toilet. What a piece of crap.

The Kingdom (2007)

aw how CUTE, it's trying to be gritty

[4/10 · 17 January 2008]

How to fool viewers into thinking your movie is important:

1) Have your movie subject either be about a) a tragedy (possibly based on real world events, doesn't have to be though), or b) a bread and butter subject that deals with the human condition.

2) Add that extra sense of realism and 'in your faceness' by kinda shaking the camera around on closeups of people and inanimate objects.

3) Actually that's about it. That's all it takes. You adhere to these two things, especially number 1, and you WILL create a movie that has a sense of moral significance to it, which will completely distract people from how mediocre the movie truly is.

If this were the NBA, and these sorts of movies I just described were NBA players, then basically these movies are getting "superstar calls" in the 4th quarter, and I'm screaming for a foul. Two other movies that fall into this category are United 93, and Elephant. Truly pathetic movies that are given a pass and gets by just on sympathy points because of their subject matters.

Things:

**As usual, in a movie like this where there's a group of people who are seemingly close, there's this forced sense of friendship among the group of characters, where you see them in a very 'buddy buddy' type of environment. They take turns talking, going in order, and everyone gets a chance to contribute their completely meaningless, shallow piece of dialogue, with someone periodically adding in a joke, in an attempt to show how 'cool' and natural they all are with each other. Good job, I've seen more believable companionship between that "group of friends" they always show in the beginning of most teen horror movies.

**Jennifer Garner's one liners sucked.

**I never thought I'd see Elektra utter the phrase "Zero Sum Phase."

**The best part of this movie was the intro.

Saw IV (2007)

ENOUGH already, we've seen enough Saws, damnit

[7/10 · 8 January 2008]

I watched this with the same disdain and spiteful attitude that I watched the second season of Heroes and the third season of Prison Break with, just thinking, "ok, let's see how much worse this gets."

This series has progressively got worse with each sequel, not only the writing and the story, but the traps. The most iconic thing about Saw are the traps, and they don't even make sense anymore. These traps are about as arbitrary as the placement of those impossibly hidden items in Super Pitfall. The traps used to be clever, and the theme of the trap used to tie in with the recipient of the trap. For example, from Saw 1, a person who had slit his wrists was ironically in a razor wire trap. In Saw 4, a prostitute was in a trap that... rips her scalp off, obviously.

The story isn't even coherent anymore. When 90% of the movie is told through flashbacks, you've got a problem. With all these flashbacks, they're creating this false sense of artificially created depth and lore to the characters which is simply not there. You can't just arbitrarily concoct a character's history and customize a story already told by just creating a flashback on the spot and saying, "see, see all that? That's the history on this guy, isn't it interesting what all is going on with him and how it ties in to everything else?" No not really.

Parts I hated:

**Jigsaw's wife was annoying. She had that one expression the entire movie, that unrealistic sneer on her stupid little face.

**When that one cop lady got shot through her mandible with that bow and arrow, the two other cops' reactions weren't realistic, they didn't appear as startled as they should be after witnessing something so gruesome.

**In general, I hate how this series now relies on gore to scare you. It's no longer the clever writing, the atmosphere, or the logical traps, now it's just relying on showing you the uncensored dismantling of the human body to creep you out.

**Isn't it about time they done away with that little camera effect they use where it speeds up and does that panning 360 or whatever around the person/trap and then slows down. Isn't that just a bit old now? No?

**The guy named Rigg that's going around trying to save everyone- so basically he wants to save everyone's life, and has the kind of disposition and values that drive him to do that, yet this same guy would put another human being in a TORTURE DEVICE? I'm not saying I wouldn't do it (whether the unlucky person was a rapist or not), I'm saying, these two actions should be mutually exclusive. A person who's sooo blindly caught up in having to save the lives of all these people he's coming across, yet he's twisted enough to knowingly put another person into a device that will most likely leave them significantly lighter by several pounds? I don't buy it. You're either the kind of person that does one or the other, but not both.

Death Sentence (2007)

ah so close, this was ALMOST interesting

[4/10 · 27 December 2007]

This was almost an interesting movie, it had my attention for a good majority of the time until it eventually lost momentum and headed into the home stretch with no goal or purpose.

Strangely, it's AFTER his family is killed that this movie became boring. How is that? Up until then it was somewhat interesting, borderline exciting, because of the tension of not knowing what the enemies would do next and how Kevin Bacon would protect his family. In general, anytime someone is being stalked in a movie it's always fun for me to watch.

Up until this point of the movie, everything had been relatively not horrible. But once his family was executed (which I loved by the way, I loved seeing that overacting, annoying wife get shot), and Kevin Bacon goes into 'revenge mode,' it becomes a predictable, stupid, mindless, video game gunfight, with choreographed scene after scene. It was just anticlimactic and it didn't mean anything. And it didn't help that we never really cared about the characters either.

Moronic things in this movie:

**When the one son is temporarily missing, and Kevin Bacon goes and finds him at the gas station where his other son was killed. Why did they use the biggest cliché in movie history by having that son say "would it have been better if *I had been the one that died?" Um, how about no. Who ever implied that?? And then he says something about how Kevin Bacon always preferred the other golden boy over him. Where was it EVER implied ANYWHERE in this entire movie that this kind of underlying jealousy/tension was ever being harbored? What a cheap way to try to add depth to a character. Fail.

**The scene where Kevin Bacon wakes up in the hospital after being shot, with the detective lady there. Why is she sitting there preaching to this bed-ridden, critically injured person? Bitching and warning him about "what he's gotten himself into." No idiot, THAT was the conversation that should've taken place back at his home when she initially visited him after his call (and it did). All of THIS is the result of preventive action taken that they both agreed to. In other words, in this isolated incident, which led to Kevin Bacon being hospitalized and his family shot, he did nothing wrong. All of this occurred as a result of the bad guys unrealistically murdering the cops outside and coming into his home. What exactly is she so mad about? What exactly was he to do? Did he deviate in any way from the plan? How can he help it if his house is broken into? She's sitting there bitching to him as if he had gone insane and did something completely irrational, when in fact all he did was get shot.

**A few scenes after that, the part where Kevin Bacon is in the hospital room with his dying son, and he asks the detective lady for a few moments of privacy. WHY THE HELL did she shake her head and roll her eyes, as if to say "you've gotta be kidding me," then leave in disgust?

**Too many slow motion montages with loud, overbearing, pretentious music.

**I hate that moment in movies where "the hero is preparing for war," and you have these montage shots of the hero that inevitably shows him buying/preparing his weapons, and strapping up (well I hate it in this movie). These shots are usually accompanied by a surprised merchant, surprised at the audacity of the hero to actually be buying all this stuff. At this point the merchant will usually question the hero about his choice of arms, to which the hero will reply back in a very cool way about how he's going to need all this stuff for what he's about to embark on.

**Why does every hero in a revenge scenario have to be so COOL and CALCULATING. With these sarcastic one-liners, monotone expression of a scowling face, if monotone could be used to describe something visually. Shouldn't they be a tad bit nervous? Or full of adrenaline? Shouldn't you portray this white-collar businessman who's about to launch into a full fledged murderous rampage as being slightly uneasy?