The Movie Review and Discussion Thread

[Lepidopterous]

I saw Megamind earlier tonight. Very funny and enjoyable! I'd level it with Monsters vs. Aliens, maybe better. Not exactly memorable, but surely worth a watch nonetheless. The script was a bit dry sometimes but some golden jokes made up for it big time. One particular running gag had me laughing so hysterically every time it came up, my gf got embarrassed. I just couldn't stop laughing at one point. I may buy it on blu-ray for that joke alone. It had a number of throwback references throughout the film, including one to Donkey Kong. Random cast--didn't even realize Brad Pitt was in it until the end credits, but they all did a great job. Very random soundtrack (AC/DC, Guns 'n Roses, Ozzy Osbourne... which movie are we talking about?) which gets a bit lame but some song choices are bearable for the sake of its family-friendly vibe (i.e. Michael Jackson's "Bad"). Megamind is not incredibly original but it is certainly clever enough to please adult audiences. Very happy we picked this over Due Date.

4/5

[Diesel]

Glad to hear that the

[Show spoiler]puppy

has a soul at least even if Surf doesn't

At least you really enjoyed the movie


I managed to squeeze in a movie yesterday after all. I watched The Mummy.

Reviewed it before.

It's fun, its funny and it has some good adventure/action to it. Brendan Fraser is by far the best part of the movie


Rating - 4/5

[Batman1980]

Originally Posted by Diesel

Glad to hear that the

[Show spoiler]puppy

has a soul at least even if Surf doesn't

At least you really enjoyed the movie


I managed to squeeze in a movie yesterday after all. I watched The Mummy.

Reviewed it before.

It's fun, its funny and it has some good adventure/action to it. Brendan Fraser is by far the best part of the movie


Rating - 4/5

Rachel Weisz is the best part of the movie. Jonathan and the warden are both much funnier than Brendan Fraser is in that movie anyway.

[iam1bearcat]

The Thin Red Line

first viewing.

i'm gonna try and keep this short since a lot of my reviews become whole freakin' page blabberings

+ loved the score. sometimes you forgot it was even there and then it just sneaks up right under you and smothers you. loved it. but then again, i'm a huge fan of film scores, so i was glad to see (hear, actually) that TTRL had one and it wasn't just bullets whizzing by for 3 hours.

+ atmosphere. i used to never really think that "war" films could have a different feeling than that of, war. Apocalypse Now changed all that, and TTRL continues that trend. i'm sure there's more, but there was something very haunting about TTRL. a different type of haunting than: being in a war.

+ some incredible performances. don't really need to say anything else here: Penn, Caviezel, Nolte, Cusack and many more.

+ i always enjoy a good monologue, and TTRL has... at least 3(?) and all of them were very moving and almost depressing in nature.

even though i enjoyed it immensely, much like mafia movies, there's something about war movies that make me :sigh: and just not really connect with them maybe as much as other. i don't know why. i was watching and enjoying TTRL but i never once was like, "wow. not only is this movie awesome and really well made, it's also a favorite of mine". and i really, right now, 6 hours after finishing, have no interest in seeing it again. at least not for awhile. so my $4 dvd will suit me just fine, as i won't be upgrading.

4/5

[iam1bearcat]

Originally Posted by tbizzle

Hey bearcat, I've been meaning to get back to you on your response to my thoughts about the The Mist's ending a while back... my bad. When I'm on this forum, for some reason I have a bad habit of procrastinating and not writing on certain topics because it feels like work to me. Hell I still have like 4 films I haven't posted on... dunno why but if I can't write what's on my mind immediately, it kinda feels like schoolwork or somethin so I put it off. Sometimes I just wanna write "Film - 5/5. Loved it. Done." Plus, I have ADD and I get distracted sometimes and I end up listening to music or going off and clicking on other threads

haha, i hear ya tbizzle. i'm the same way at times. as much as i like writing reviews, sometimes i think during a movie, "man... how long is this review gonna be? " and hate the thought i'm gonna spend 20+ minutes writing it, but then when i do start writing a review, i can't stop! but yeah, sometimes just writing, "really good. i liked it. 3.5/5" seems like it would be a lovely thing to do. but i just can't

Anyways, here's my overdue response.

[Show spoiler]I totally see where you're coming from, but I completely disagree. As Squid said, people react differently. Some would do exactly what he did in the film and some wouldn't, it seems to be about half and half. This makes for an excellent ending to the film because there are arguments for both courses of action. yep. agreed. i actually kind of wish some of my friends would've hated the ending so we could have had a discussion on it but they didn't they all loved it, which kind of sucked

Everyone's different... there are weaker people in this world and there are stronger ones. As I've stated before, I believe that you must push forward in this kind of situation. yeah, i'm definitely weaker ironically enough, right when we first learn the teacher has a gun in her purse, one of my friends was like, "load it up. take me out now." and i had a hard time not losing it to the giggles because i was thinking, "hmmm... you haven't seen anything yet! and then, "i wonder if she will change her mind later...

and i understand where you're coming from, but they already did push on. and they got god knows how far and didn't see any sort of civilization, no signs of hope, and more creatures, webbing everywhere and destruction. so they did push on. and i would be with them. i wouldn't be able to push on any longer.

It's easy to give up when facing evil. The survivors and heroes are not the ones that simply lay down and die. It could easily have gone bad 30 seconds after leaving the car, but you'll never know unless you try. As I stated before, there could be another vehicle nearby, or a cabin with weapons and supplies 100 feet from the road...you might find a weakness of the creatures, you might have to fight some more, but you gotta try. I mean, LOOK HOW IT ENDED The military showed up, tanks and all. And that outcome is at the extreme end of the spectrum, what if you just found a group of people in trucks with guns? What if you found another group of survivors such as yourselves? Anything can happen, but you have to try. true. but i think you're being overly optimistic if they did find survivors, what would make them just say, "hey! hello stranger! come join us! we have weapons and food! we have plenty for everybody!" usually what you see in these situations is the complete opposite and they'd tell them to F off or take their gun and then tell them to F off. i mean, look what happened in the grocery store with the crazy cult lady. i'd imagine elsewhere in the world there were people JUST LIKE HER or worse! and i'd think you'd run into them more than a nice family inviting you in. but maybe i'm overly pessimistic (which i am)

Pulling the trigger is the easy way out. It only leads to DEATH. You're actually murdering people in the end.... saying no to life. I can not, and never will do that. Yes, pulling the trigger may look like more of an attractive alternative to what may be out there in the mist, EXACTLY! hell, i'd probably be too afraid to leave the grocery store to get to the car but that's just me. and while yes, it can be see as an 'easy way out' i would sign up 100 out of 100 times for the easy way out instead of getting acid attacked and spider infested. or god knows what else but what's out there is not a certainty that is a great point. but there is also no signs that there would be a military rescue mission 100 feet away! why don't they have lights on and making announcements?! i know, that may attract the creatures, but they didn't really seem to give two sh*ts about the creatures when they're just casually walking down the street. think of what they've seen before the car ran out of gas. where is there hope? and then that giant creature?! if i saw something THAT LARGE i would not be thinking, "oh, i'm sure the military is handling thing and cleaning this up" so while yes, nothing is a certainly. they thought it was a very high probability.. That's where the hope is, and you have to have faith.... push on... fight longer... survive... not stick a gun to your kid's head!!

my responses are in bold in your spoiler
of course my thoughts are not to try and change your thoughts, and i know you're not trying to do the same to me. we're just having a great discussion on which side of the line we stand on

[Foggy]

Due Date

It's well made, some of the direction is great, cinemotagrapy great, charactrization good, I was never bored. But it sucks at being a comedy. I only got 1 big belly laugh and a few other smiles, and you will need a lot of suspended disbelief if you want to get though this movie. A good film, a lame comedy.

5/10

[iam1bearcat]

The New World

wow. thank god for the power of rentals, and thankfully i no longer blind buy because this would easily go down as one of the worst i would have ever made. The New World is not a badly made film, it's really just not my taste, but i went in with an open mind. and it was a bad choice by me. sometimes, when you don't like something, you just gotta let it go, and move on to something else.

honestly, The New World was a bit coma inducing for me. i don't think a single character raised their voice once. nor was there any real big action sequences. ironically enough the film is rated PG-13 for "intense battle sequences" maybe my dvd skipped a whole bunch of scenes (sure didn't feel like it at 2.5+ hours ) that were entertaining, but i didn't see any reason for the film to be PG-13.

but i'm fine with no action. a lot of my favorite movies are slow moving films that work on dialogue and characterization, but i guess you have to have an interest in the 1600's and a love story and i sure didn't. i could almost instantly tell that Malick directed this, and after watching The Thin Red Line last night (one of his other works) i can tell he's someone who likes being outdoors and slow plodding films. but the characters i didn't care for. the story was something that yes, has been done a lot before (although it did kind of change it up when i wasn't expecting it), it looked great, the score was solid, the directing was good... it just wasn't for me.

add this to my "one and done" collection EASILY. individual merits are all good, but the total package and story itself just didn't win me over. and it certainly didn't help that it moves almost too slowly for its own good. i would be cautious for those thinking about seeing The New World. look into it a bit and see if it suits something you like or want to see. because even with areas that usually create a great film, if the story doesn't interest you, this will be a long, comatose journey.

3/5

[Diesel]

Originally Posted by Gandalf Stormcrow

Rachel Weisz is the best part of the movie. Jonathan and the warden are both much funnier than Brendan Fraser is in that movie anyway.

She wouldn't even be in my top 5 characters from the movie.

Jonathan and the other guy had a few laughs but not close to Brendan Fraser imo



______________________________



Transformers

I really, really enjoy this movie. I like the plot of the Autobots coming to Earth in search of the cube and the Decepticons already being here and attacking the humans to get it and find Megatron. Which of course leads to a confrontation or two or three. And I even like the human stories that are in the movie. The final act, which is pretty much the final battle, is really well done imo. Michael Bay knows how to make an action movie. I'm sure there are some of you in this thread that would HIGHLY disagree with my last few sentences...but oh well I'm a Michael Bay fan and I've enjoyed all of his movies that I've seen to different extents (I haven't seen Bad Boys II or Pearl Harbor) and that's all that matters to me

The action is very fun to watch. I don't understand the "I couldn't tell what was going on" complaints, its pretty easy to follow if you are actually paying attention

The majority of the humor is pretty darn funny.

The robots and the voice actors for those robots are great. Peter Cullen has the second coolest voice known to man behind James Earl Jones The work they did with Weaving and then the post effects make him sound pretty
Besides Optimus, who is the obvious choice, Ironhide is my second favorite of the robots because he's a bad***

And Megan Fox's character isn't a pain like in the second film where she basically became a big want-to-be sex symbol for guys to over.
Yea well, it didn't work for me because 1) the character was so bloody annoying in the second movie with her needy act and the way Fox talks in the movie, I suppose she was going for sexy or something but, again, it didn't work. She's pretty different than the character in the first film. I actually liked her and her character in the first film. This was before the world became Megan Fox worshipers of course so they had to make her a "sexier" character for the second film apparently
And 2) She didn't look as good in the second film



Rating - 4.5/5

[iam1bearcat]

Originally Posted by Diesel

Transformers

I really, really enjoy this movie. I like the plot of the Autobots coming to Earth in search of the cube and the Decepticons already being here and attacking the humans to get it and find Megatron. Which of course leads to a confrontation or two or three. And I even like the human stories that are in the movie. The final act, which is pretty much the final battle, is really well done imo. Michael Bay knows how to make an action movie. I'm sure there are some of you in this thread that would HIGHLY disagree with my last few sentences...but oh well I'm a Michael Bay fan and I've enjoyed all of his movies that I've seen to different extents (I haven't seen Bad Boys II or Pearl Harbor) and that's all that matters to me

what did you think of The Island? i think that's my favorite Michael Bay movie

The action is very fun to watch. I don't understand the "I couldn't tell what was going on" complaints, its pretty easy to follow if you are actually paying attention

hey now. i was paying attention, but it's impossible to tell what is what and WHO is what when there's 600 million pounds of metal and whatnot 2 inches from the screen flying by at 200 mph! i didn't know when i should cheer because i couldn't tell if it was the Autobots or the Decepticons winning the fight!

Rating - 4.5/5

i remember the first time i watched Transformers i gave it a 5/5 simply for being super entertaining. of course on repeat viewings i picked it apart like a starving buzzard (seriously, who thinks it's a good idea to

[Show spoiler]take the Cube to a MAJOR CITY?! especially when you know you're being attacked? and i'm not sure but i think they say the city is somewhere that would be hundreds of miles away from the Hoover Dam, which would obviously be an error because they get there in like, 10 minutes, but not sure

and the fact that

[Show spoiler]Megatron knows English even though he's been frozen in the ice for god knows how long and Optimus Prime clearly states they learned it from the internet

) but the "flaws" don't ruin the movie for me, just fun to pick apart because it humors me to see how no one making the movie missed these things

and i'm a big Shia fan, so that helped to. oh, and that Fox girl everyone talks about.

[KilloWertz]

Originally Posted by Diesel

Glad to hear that the

[Show spoiler]puppy

has a soul at least even if Surf doesn't

At least you really enjoyed the movie


I managed to squeeze in a movie yesterday after all. I watched The Mummy.

Reviewed it before.

It's fun, its funny and it has some good adventure/action to it. Brendan Fraser is by far the best part of the movie


Rating - 4/5

I disagree. I think the Camel Trader was by far the best part of the movie.

[Show spoiler]That is the last person listed in the credits on Yahoo.

[Batman1980]

Originally Posted by killowertz

I disagree. I think the Camel Trader was by far the best part of the movie.

[Show spoiler]That is the last person listed in the credits on Yahoo.

Only you guys would say this wasn't the best thing about the Mummy trilogy

[KilloWertz]

Originally Posted by Gandalf Stormcrow

Only you guys would say this wasn't the best thing about the Mummy trilogy

[Show spoiler]

I was joking, although it would be hard for me to choose. I really liked both Brendan and Rachel in them.

[Diesel]

Originally Posted by iam1bearcat

what did you think of The Island? i think that's my favorite Michael Bay movie

I like it a lot. It's my second favorite behind Transformers.

hey now. i was paying attention, but it's impossible to tell what is what and WHO is what when there's 600 million pounds of metal and whatnot 2 inches from the screen flying by at 200 mph! i didn't know when i should cheer because i couldn't tell if it was the Autobots or the Decepticons winning the fight!

Like I said, I don't understand that

There's only a handful of moments in the battles where the transformers are actually fighting in close proximity with each other (most times they are shooting at each other). And each robots design is pretty distinctive. And in addition to that, all of the Autobots are brightly colors whereas the Decepticons are different shades of grey.

Are you sure you aren't thinking of the second films final segment with a bunch of no name robots that were in the proto-forms so that they actually DID look the same?

In either case, I've never been lost once.

i remember the first time i watched Transformers i gave it a 5/5 simply for being super entertaining. of course on repeat viewings i picked it apart like a starving buzzard (seriously, who thinks it's a good idea to

[Show spoiler]take the Cube to a MAJOR CITY?! especially when you know you're being attacked? and i'm not sure but i think they say the city is somewhere that would be hundreds of miles away from the Hoover Dam, which would obviously be an error because they get there in like, 10 minutes, but not sure

and the fact that

[Show spoiler]Megatron knows English even though he's been frozen in the ice for god knows how long and Optimus Prime clearly states they learned it from the internet

) but the "flaws" don't ruin the movie for me, just fun to pick apart because it humors me to see how no one making the movie missed these things

and i'm a big Shia fan, so that helped to. oh, and that Fox girl everyone talks about.

The logic was

[Show spoiler]that it would be difficult for the Decepticons to find the cube in a city as opposed to an open place (where it would be incredibly easy for the Decepticons to just swoop in and take them out since all they had at the time was Bumblebee) and give them the time to get it taken away by the military to a better location. Keeping evil alien robots from gaining ultimate power is more important than some damage to the city and a few lives


The city is 22 miles away.


The Decepticons have been on Earth before and a long time time ago, it would be pretty easy for him to be familiar with the language. The Autobots, however, haven't been there before, so had to learn it themselves.
This information is presented in the second film though, so if you've only seen the first, you would be right about it not making sense

[Diesel]

Originally Posted by killowertz

I disagree. I think the Camel Trader was by far the best part of the movie.

[Show spoiler]That is the last person listed in the credits on Yahoo.

Yea, he was a great character. Can't believe I forgot about him

Originally Posted by Gandalf Stormcrow

Only you guys would say this wasn't the best thing about the Mummy trilogy

Or anyone else who watched the movie for the actual movie instead of just looking at her

[Batman1980]

Originally Posted by Diesel

Yea, he was a great character. Can't believe I forgot about him



Or anyone else who watched the movie for the actual movie instead of just looking at her

Especially in the second movie, I thought she was the best character, the entire story even seemed to kind of center around her and her connection to Nefertiri. Oh and the Island is a much better movie than either of the Transformers films, need to import it at some point.

[iam1bearcat]

Originally Posted by Diesel

Like I said, I don't understand that

There's only a handful of moments in the battles where the transformers are actually fighting in close proximity with each other (most times they are shooting at each other). And each robots design is pretty distinctive. And in addition to that, all of the Autobots are brightly colors whereas the Decepticons are different shades of grey.

the scene that comes to mind is the fight betwen Optimus Prime and... erm.. the fight that takes place on the highway and the crash off the side of the over pass. there's a shot of a kid and his mom in the car and they see the fight, if that helps. it's earlier in the movie too, i know. and that few segments there were close ups and i couldn't tell what the fudge was happening

Are you sure you aren't thinking of the second films final segment with a bunch of no name robots that were in the proto-forms so that they actually DID look the same?

In either case, I've never been lost once.

positive. because i haven't seen the second film

The logic was

[Show spoiler]that it would be difficult for the Decepticons to find the cube in a city as opposed to an open place (where it would be incredibly easy for the Decepticons to just swoop in and take them out since all they had at the time was Bumblebee) and give them the time to get it taken away by the military to a better location. Keeping evil alien robots from gaining ultimate power is more important than some damage to the city and a few lives


The city is 22 miles away.


The Decepticons have been on Earth before and a long time time ago, it would be pretty easy for him to be familiar with the language. The Autobots, however, haven't been there before, so had to learn it themselves.
This information is presented in the second film though, so if you've only seen the first, you would be right about it not making sense

i guess that makes sense. although i'm sure citizens of the city didn't like that
and like i said above, i haven't seen the second, so yeah, from what we learn in the first, i never understood how Megatron would instantly know how to speak English after being frozen all this time. i'll get to the sequel eventually, even though all i hear are bad things. but that makes me more curious to see it.

[iam1bearcat]

Originally Posted by Gandalf Stormcrow

Oh and the Island is a much better movie than either of the Transformers films, need to import it at some point.

i'm holding out hope it gets a proper U.S. release. i would think Bay would want his baby on blu over here. he better be working on it

[Batman1980]

Originally Posted by iam1bearcat

i'm holding out hope it gets a proper U.S. release. i would think Bay would want his baby on blu over here. he better be working on it

Wasn't it kind of murky at the box office? Too bad it didn't come out 3 years later than it did, we'd already have a proper US release for it then.

[iam1bearcat]

Originally Posted by Gandalf Stormcrow

Wasn't it kind of murky at the box office? Too bad it didn't come out 3 years later than it did, we'd already have a proper US release for it then.

eesh. no wonder it came out overseas and not here!

from Wikipedia: "The film, which cost $126 million to produce, earned only $46 million at the United States box office, but earned $127 million overseas, for a $172 million worldwide total."

wow. that's a huge difference.

[Foggy]

Originally Posted by iam1bearcat

i also don't know did the addition there but 46+127 equals 218. not 172