dmcdesgn Reviews

Atlas Shrugged: Part I (2011)

The book was finally made into a solid and enjoyable movie

[8/10 · 15 April 2011]

There are other reviewers which have chosen to discount this movie because it was made on a relatively small budget, has no major Hollywood stars, or because it takes place just slightly in the future, instead of the distant past.

However, as a big fan of the book and given the current US and global political climate and turmoil, I would rather see this movie made now, under the conditions described above, than have to wait another 50+ years to see it hit the silver screen.

The filmmakers plausibly weaved the original Ayn Rand novel into the present without sacrificing much in the process. Combine that with solid acting and the overall feel of the movie, and they have delivered an enjoyable movie that I will see more than once in the theater, which is rare for me.

Not once did I feel that I was watching a movie that was "thrown" together as some have suggested, or that sacrificed quality or story. Instead this had nearly all of the look, feel and polish that you would expect to see in a big-budget Hollywood movie, with the sole exception of the A-list actors.

My fear though is that many people will skip this movie either because they have not read the novel or because they just don't hear about it. My wife is a perfect example as she does not plan to see it with me because the premise of the novel (which she has not read) did not interest her when I described it.

My biggest criticism is that this movie is too short (90 minutes long) and ended fairly abruptly. Given the amount of material involved, and that it is being split into 3 movies, the first movie could have/should have been at least two hours long.

The Fountain (2006)

Quite possibly the most confusing movie every made

[1/10 · 24 November 2006]

I will keep it brief, despite my desire to write a full blown essay on this movie. I'm an avid movie goer (weekly) and have been for my entire life (in my 40's), without hesitation I say this is the most difficult to understand movie every made.

I'm okay with being confused by a movie, even deep into the movie, but the responsibility is increasingly placed on the Director to clean it all up and tie the pieces together so that they make sense at the end. This movie attempts to tie the disparate pieces together at the end and utterly makes the mess even worse.

Don't be fooled by anyone writing a review here that suggests that anything about this movie is good, other than the pure beauty of it and one or two particular scenes with Hugh Jackman that really indicate just how good of an actor he is.

It is my opinion that a movie that has you shaking your head, considering leaving and requires this much constant thinking about what is going on, is not good entertainment.

Zoom (2006)

What could possibly be the motivation for making a film like this?

[1/10 · 13 August 2006]

It is conceivable that a movie about four misfit young people turned superheros could have been made into an enjoyable family film, but someone made a serious wrong turn early in the film-making process here. To make matters worse, rather than abandoning this sinking ship early on, or starting over at square one, the filmmakers appear to have blindly moved forward producing what can only be described as a disaster that will quickly find a home among the most poorly rated movies at IMDb and leave theaters quickly.

The biggest question I have is why? Why was this movie made? Why was no one minding the store? Why was this screenplay ever permitted to see the light of day? I took my five year-old to the movie because the previews looked okay and we love movies. The fact that it took less than five minutes for him to get fidgety after the movie started was probably a good clue to what was ahead. He never did calm down and I'm not sure he paid attention to more than ten minutes of the whole movie.

The script and sets are both beyond ridiculous and rarely make any sense at any time during the movie. Some of the acting is really over the top absurd, Rip Torn and Chevy Chase come to mind. With the exception of Courntey Cox, this film seems like it exists purely to provide a vehicle for over the hill actors to bring in a little up front income. However, since this movie will not turn a profit, it is the studio that will pay price in the end and I suppose they deserve it.

There are a few moments in the first 15 minutes of the movie where you have a hope that something good will happen in the movie, but we quickly discover that the purposes behind bringing this group of kids together are entirely unsound and unexplainable and the rest of the movie has been constructed around random events placed in the film for no apparent reason other than to fill the obligatory 90 minutes minimum required for all non-animated movies.

Besides all of the rest of what makes this movie rotten, the worst thing of all is that there never turns out to be any plausible reason to have brought these four kids together in the first place to make them superheros.

By the time we arrived at the end of the movie, I cared so little about what happened to any of the characters, that I was just bouncing around in my seat, looking over at my wife and child and praying it would end any moment.

There are real reasons that this movie is nearly universally hated by professional critics and movie-goers alike and that is that this movie is entirely unoriginal, incoherent and borders on being unwatchable.

The Best Two Years (2004)

Top Quality - Excellent Film

[10/10 · 19 September 2004]

The string of LDS comedy films that have arrived on the scene during the last couple of years have been fun and have always carried some sort of a positive message even if it takes a little work to figure it out. The film the Best Two Years achieves everything these other movies did and then quite successfully keeps on going. Certainly this film is best described as being on par with God's Army and is probably the only other movie besides Charly that can make this claim. The movie is beautifully shot, well scripted, well acted, quite funny and just the right length. The movie did not draw me to tears as God's Army or Charly did the first time I saw those movies, however that doesn't make this movie anything less. This is an LDS movie for an LDS audience, so don't be surprised if non-members friends/acquaintances don't take well to the movie. It is an excellent family film and would be particularly good to make sure that your LDS teens get a chance to see this one, whether they are thinking about a mission or not.

The Terminal (2004)

Ridiculous plot prevented actually enjoying the moving

[5/10 · 19 June 2004]

What could go wrong in a Spielberg/Hanks film? You would expect the movie to be a sure thing, unfortunately not this time. I sat down to really enjoy this movie and found myself increasingly frustrated throughout the film. This movie doesn't attempt to be fiction which is the source of my issues. It attempts to show us an extremely unlikely (yet possible) situation where a man is stuck between two countries at an airport terminal, but where it fails miserably is in the handling of the situation. I grew increasingly frustrated by the ways in which this ridiculous situation were played out. I never could suspend my disbelief of how ridiculous the whole scenario was and throughout the film I could not enjoy the laughs that came. I found myself mumbling out of frustration and heard many others in the theatre speaking out loud at their own disbelief of how the movie played out. I realize this review is weak in content, so let me say only that if you are expecting a Spielberg/Hanks masterpiece...skip this movie.