BostonScott Reviews

Into the Blue (2005)

Beautiful Scenery, Moderate Adventure

[6/10 · 2 October 2005]

Paul Walker and Jessica Alba play a struggling young couple living in the Bahamas. Friend Scott Caan shows up with latest girlfriend Ashley Scott, and when the four go diving they find buried treasure. Not only do they find a recent plane crash filled with drugs, but also a long lost pirate ship rumored to contain gold. "Into The Blue" is wonderfully shot, with beautiful scenery of the water and diving, and it's barely dressed actors. The film drifts around for it's first hour or so without too much going on. Most of the movie at first consists of the two couples arguing over what to do with the lost treasure. Caan and Scott, playing the selfish couple want to take the drugs immediately, while the more responsible couple(Walker and Alba) want to go about things the right way by filing a claim. Then the film really picks up at the end leading to a very exciting, and surprisingly violent final half hour.

Cry Wolf (2005)

Lots of twists, but doesn't amount to much

[5/10 · 20 September 2005]

"Cry Wolf" looks like a standard teenage slasher film, but is actually more of a murder mystery. It tells the story of a new student at an exclusive private school who gets drawn into a game played by a group of students. When a local girl from town is found murdered, the students decide to play a trick on the entire school by saying that it is the work of a serial killer that will strike in the school next. Once strange things start occurring in real life, the hero has to figure out which of his new friends is causing all this trouble for him. "Cry Wolf" is shot much better than the weekends other horror release "Venom", but after a while I found all the twists tiresome, and they do not really amount to much. The two lead characters are unlikeable, and I found it distracting in that some of the actors playing high school students look in their late twenties or early thirties. The biggest plus here was the credible performance by rocker Jon Bon Jovi, who is believable as an English teacher with questionable motives.

Venom (2005)

Cheesy but still entertaining

[6/10 · 20 September 2005]

"Venom" is not as well made as the other horror release this weekend "Cry Wolf," but I have to admit that I enjoyed this one more. "Venom" deals with the same voodoo storyline as the far superior "The Skelton Key." It is about what happens when a car accident between a truck driver and a voodoo priestess lets loose some nasty looking snakes, and ends up attacking the usual group of teenage friends. As the leads the usually solid Agnes Bruckner and Jonathan Jackson are weak here, although they are not given much to work with. The best performance comes from the alluring Meagan Good, who does the best work of her career here. DJ Cotrona is another standout as the angry son of the truck driver. "Voodoo" is cheesy looking, but more satisfying than "Cry Wolf". Two sequences in particular were exciting, both involving the aforementioned truck.

The Cave (2005)

Makes "Anacondas" Looks Like A Classic

[3/10 · 28 August 2005]

"The Cave" was disappointing in that it was never mildly entertaining as last summer's similar "Anacondas" was. It was never clear to me exactly what the group was doing in the cave. The film was shot in a very dreary manner and the endless shots of the group diving, running and arguing with each other are never interesting, and quickly become annoying. The film's lead Cole Hauser seems even more bored than he did in "Paparazzi", and displays no charisma whatsoever. The only actor that seemed credible was an athletic Piper Perabo, who did good in a climbing scene. Other than that there is little to recommend here. This can take its place next to "Alone In The Dark" as the worst movie of 2005 so far.