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Reviews
Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991)
Landmark in science fiction and action/adventure
Terminator 2: Judgment Day is a standard based on how great science fiction and action/adventure movies are. T2:JD was perfect and revolutionary using both special effects and casting. The T-1000 is a frightening villain who is nearly invincible to any known weapon and special effects show him using horrible weaponry form from his composition - stretchy sharp thick knives, disguise, and handlebars.
The Terminator (T-800) isn't working with the John Connor who is hard core and experienced with the battle, he's forced to protect the John Connor who is just a little timid kid who doesn't know anything about fighting. His mother Sarah Connor isn't much braver than him but is angrier. Working with a mother and son who are frightened by the T-1000, the strong rough and tough T-800 is their only defender.
The police are not shown as noble and powerful like they are stereotyped into narrow sense in reality, in the film the on-screen police are weaklings and idiots who think anyone associated with violence other than them deserve to get hunted down. The T-800 spreads how much he dislikes the annoying police to the audience, so the audience cheers for the T-800 to kill and injure whoever he intends to.
The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie (2004)
Reminder of SpongeBob's Golden Age
The movie was released during the separation between SpongeBob's Golden Age (seasons 2-3) and his suffering age(seasons 4 to present). Everyone now wishes that the movie was the ending for SpongeBob because the confusing, unfunny new episodes of SpongeBob totally soiled his name.
The film is enjoyable yet it isn't perfect, unlike Seasons 2 to 3 which were perfect and enjoyable. SpongeBob's desire to be the Krusty Krab 2 Manager is an extremely large plot element but the audience cannot relate to his desires since it is hardly explained out. The film does however do better in explaining out the plot with SpongeBob and Patrick going to Shell City in order to stop Plankton. However, Plankton is an extremely average villain aiming to claim world domination and this doesn't make the film remarkable enough. These are the main weaknesses of the film. Still, the film is enjoyable, especially for the young kids who have strongly been fans of the series.
Killer Klowns from Outer Space (1988)
Spooky fun that explains why clowns are weird.
Killer Klowns' entire concept shouldn't be judged as a movie on acting and script, because every once in a while the movie's art and design speaks entirely for the plot. The monster movie genre is usually unsuccessful in receiving applause such as Critters and Killer Tomatoes.
Killer Klowns is an ironic film, which puts the conflict of the plot into action. The true reality of clowns having been annoying and weird is really told by the film to be extraterrestrial behavior to slaughter humans and store them like meat carcasses inside cotton candy. Clownish acts including spraying water from flowers, throwing pies at people, riding cars without space limit and pretending to drive something all form how humanity is not alert. The characters don't trust each other, which is a big problem since this allows the Klowns to go kill everyone in town. Overall, great film especially on visual effort.
King Kong (2005)
The CGI effects are as fascinating as its' dynamic plot
One of the most excellent action/adventure/science fiction films that proved even better than its' original source King Kong (1933) with its' visual technology although that was considered a revision of Beauty and the Beast, which is more popular towards young girls while King Kong is more popular towards maturing men.
The CGI effects of dinosaurs, extremely complex fictional settings of Skull Island, New York City destruction and military battles have helped the major motion picture industry gain popular reviews because it had combined with a plot that received the same amount of acclaim. Kong and Ann are extremely lovable since they are dynamic characters whose relationship changed from negative to positive by experience. In the 1933 original, the original Ann always hated Kong from the beginning while in this 2005 film that makes it more similar to Beauty & the Beast, Ann's dynamic personality change from fearing Kong to mourning over Kong's death helps the audience know that Kong was completely misunderstood.
TMNT (2007)
TMNT proves strong in its' art format but extremely weak in its' plot
I give TMNT 2007 a slightly higher rating than TMNT 1990. TMNT 1990's main weakness was being too faithful to the 1980s cartoon and comics it was based on. TMNT 2007's main weakness is putting in too many villains and the scenes with both fighting and no fighting did not fascinate me.
The Stone Generals have extremely bland personalities, as their only goal is world domination and their entire methods of attempting to do so seem very unique as the addition of 13 monsters who would easily be mistaken to be part of the challenges for the turtles did not work very well in the plot.
The Turtles' main conflict where they are unable to cooperate together doe however prove to be a plot element that works to not put too much pressure between the Turtles only focusing on defeating the villains. However, it seems that Splinter has lost his touch because he allowed the Turtles to go their ways, so Splinter's presence in the film was a paradox to this story.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (1990)
Lambbasted by theater-wide movie critics, beloved by fans. I agree with the critics.
TMNT (1990) is hardly a remake at all, it's connected to the cartoon and comics 99% like a printed copy of a scanned paper. I was never really a fan of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles because of its' flat reasons for trying to make people eager to like turtles just for their personalities and being cool superheroes just because they can take down weak ninjas called the Foot Clan which (even though ninjas are known for being disciplined since ancient times to be experts in military skills). The very few heroes of good quality defeating very common villains of pathetic quality is overused in so many cartoons/movies, not only the superhero genre.
TMNT's protagonist heroes do little to (and obviously don't have to) explain their origins, yes I get it already I just read the title of the movie so I already know that Splinter & the Turtles were mutated into humanoids. The movie's plot is extremely narrow with criminals stealing precious items combating super strong heroes who are supposed to be loved by their sense of humor which is targeted at very young kids. This film is overrated, it should have been rated G not PG.
Overall, this was one of the most boring films I have ever watched. If you already loved the Turtles starting from the first comics or the 1980s cartoon or the future installments in the franchise, then you'll obviously dig this film. I really can't understand how TMNT got popular in the first place, as I never really liked the series.
Critters (1986)
Critters show spooky monster visual art, but the script and acting is unpolished
Critters is an average-level monster movie that is really serious in proving that it did not use the story of the film Gremlins. The acting and writing are not glorious enough to cover up the only strength of the film, the monsters' visual effects and art design.
There are almost non-stop explosions that define the highest points of the film. Explosions have now been used in so many films that it is no longer entertaining to be the "biggest" scenes in a movie. The plot is very simple, too simple. It's about humans trying to defend themselves from a monster attack. Yes, it is proved that it's not usually possible to come up with a marvelous idea about a monster movie, but the makers of Critters shouldn't have expected such a great critic reception. It seemed that they focused more onto using the monsters as the real definition of the film and as a result have ignored making the characterization important.
Cloverfield (2008)
Aims to be realistic, but the characters are undeniably unlucky
One monster movie that aims to be just as fresh as Japanese Kaja films, such as the amazing Godzilla starting in 1954. This movie however uses monster movie elements that were not original, but that's acceptable because no story is original.
The plot is as realistic as it aims with the exception of how the characters experience the story of the movie. The characters were the only human beings who have encountered the monster 3 freaking times. The first was when the military was trying to kill Cloverfield with very loud gunfire and monster screams in the battle. The 2nd was that the monster crashed down the helicopter the main characters were on. The 3rd was when Hudd got eaten by the monster, and the camera actually survived the fall. How the characters keep getting unlucky more than the other unseen citizens of New York is far from realistic, just to decorate the plot.
There were 2 weaknesses in the film. The parasites falling off of Cloverfield only had 1 scene in the film and were an unnecessary part of the story just to keep the audience paying attention before the monster strikes. Also, the Nuclear bomb that was dropped on Cloverfield was not technically explained in the film, the audience was not told that of the military's ultimate plan to kill the creature.
Other than that, this is a pretty good movie. Not very brilliant, yet not too boring.
Critters 2 (1988)
Script and acting were not as marvelous as the monsters' art design
The characterization is no better than the original film and Critters 2 is one of the literally hundreds of monster movies that have no entertaining plot and only focusing on the creatures as the antagonists as trying to be the film's definition in the horror genre. I've seen several movies that are way better than Critters 2, such as Gremlins 2, now THAT was a masterpiece. However, I've also seen several movies worse than Critters 2, such as the sequel to Attack of the Killer Tomatoes.
We feel little sympathy for the human characters who are both prey and warriors against the Crites, or called Critters. The bounty hunter Ug is depressed that his partner Lee was killed off by the monsters. However, the audience don't get the special message of why they should actually love Lee played by Roxanne Kernohan as much as Ug does. The only fact the audience can know about Lee is that she was naked and the audience was supposed to be perverted by the clearly-shown-close-to-camera shots where you see her breasts and butt. A very very unlikely reason that someone would like this movie is that this is a PG-13 and not R rated movie with porn on it unlike today's movies. So should the audience just be sad that her boobs & butt were eaten by the Critters and they'll never get a close view on them again? Even if the Critters had a deeper impact and made the film scarier and darker, the film wouldn't have been that interesting because of how the script and acting were written. The title has described the entire movie's story, it's about monsters chasing humans to eat.
The Transformers: The Movie (1986)
Depressing first, then confusing and becoming more uninteresting
The Transformers: The Movie was not as good as any of the episodes from the Generation One cartoon episodes from Seasons 1 to 2. Season 2 was an abundance of entertaining adventures of the Transformers in which both evil and justice battle each other while suffering the same troubles.
The movie had clearly killed off so many beloved characters besides Prime, these included Prowl, Brawn, Ironhide, Ratchet, Wheeljack, and Starscream. However, the music and dramatic atmosphere of their death scenes were made to appear as if their deaths would not be tragic for the TV show audiences. The film quickly rushed into bringing upon new characters that hardly were introduced as well.
The movie seemed to have just taken a not-so-much-of-an-advantage portion of its' length to add in complex plot structures that don't affect the main story of the movie, but instead to make sure this will be a bridge to Season 3 in the TV show. The Quintessons' entrance was clearly unnecessary in the plot and was only put in so that Season 3 can be established right away. The main villain of the story, Unicron, is really simple, he's just a misanthrope who wants to destroy EVERYTHING. Why? We don't know, that's just trying to make a character as a big, simple problem, which is a weak point common in several fictional stories.
His voice actor, Orson Welles, was correct that this story is about a big toy attacking smaller toys. A lot of the plot was cheaply winged off of Star Wars such as the light sabers sounds, Arcee's cinnamon bun hairstyle like Leia's, and especially the climax between Hot Rod and Galvatron.
Gremlins 2: The New Batch (1990)
Better than the first film! A very underrated entertaining motion picture.
This film is heavily underrated, as it has gotten mixed reviews. Gremlins 2: The New Batch is highly enjoyable, even if it very much abandoned the horror atmosphere that helped the first Gremlins movie be lively.
Gremlins 2 shifted more to comedy and diminished on horror as reverse to the first Gremlins film. Everyone's favorite character Gizmo is perhaps the main reason why this movie was enjoyable for me to watch. There's even creativity and decoration on the new batch of Gremlins, such as Daffy, Lenny and George (parodying Of Mice and Men), The Electric Gremlin, Mohawk the Spider Gremlin, and best of all, the BRAIN Gremlin, who actually is popular among the fans of this movie. This film seems to have somewhat tapped into the future skyscraper view of the world where people are caught up in the time where the future is focused on advancing civilization's buildings and technology.
There is a lot of energy and effort seen in how this movie was produced. Both the human characters, Gizmo, and the Gremlins are all as lively as possible, even improved on as from the 1st movie. Highly enjoyable and a perfect film.
Transformers: Dark of the Moon (2011)
An improvement over the 1st and 2nd films, with dazzling special effects and emotional atmosphere
Dark of the Moon began very strongly in rewriting history of the 1969 Apollo 11 spacecraft landing on the Moon and adding more to Cybertron's history. The special effects and soundtrack are very impressive. There were extremely amazing scenes including where Sam and Carly are falling down a building before the Driller attacks them. However, one weakness of the film is that, similar to Revenge of the Fallen, the Autobots do not have enough characterization. Dino, Ratchet, and the Wreckers were the least seen. Optimus actually was brutal and violent, he just killed off Megatron when he was offering a truce, didn't Optimus say in the 2007 movie, "You left me no choice brother..."??, well he DID have a choice, a good one, and he said no! This film concentrated on getting the audience extremely angry at the villains except for Megatron and Starscream. That's a great way to develop a villain's presence in the movie, though not always the only way. Sentinel is hated very much for killing Ironhide, Dylan is more like a princess story villain rather than a science fiction villain as he kidnapped a girl wanting to marry her and the hero has to stop him. This has actually helped boost the characterization of humans in the film, as in Revenge of the Fallen the human cast was very uninteresting.
This film is seriously underrated and more people need to give this movie a chance. The script is not horrible at all, it was written in acceptable manner to be suitable with the special effects.