The Movie Review and Discussion Thread

[iam1bearcat]

Originally Posted by surfdude12

thanks jhiggy! Squid gave some answers too, but you both gave me different angles plus you gave me the bookworm answers I love that bolded part you wrote. Excellent! I guess

[Show spoiler]even though its salt water and not drinkable, its the symbology of the water, not the literal drinkability of it?

i thought they went South because

[Show spoiler]there was a chance people were there. and people in better situations, which meant hope. but i could be wrong, or that could be a part of it. in the movie i thought Viggo's character said something about it being warmer down there and it might not be as bad. it's funny how almost every movie that involves "end of the world" type situations the solution is to go south even though it does make sense. but i'd like to see a movie about a killer heat spell and everyone flees to Canada just to mix it up a bit

[surfdude12]

Originally Posted by iam1bearcat

i thought they went South because

[Show spoiler]there was a chance people were there. and people in better situations, which meant hope. but i could be wrong, or that could be a part of it. in the movie i thought Viggo's character said something about it being warmer down there and it might not be as bad. it's funny how almost every movie that involves "end of the world" type situations the solution is to go south even though it does make sense. but i'd like to see a movie about a killer heat spell and everyone flees to Canada just to mix it up a bit

took the words out of my mouth! I know, you're right about the over-use of south. as far as the reason for going south, yes they did say that in the movie. i think jhiggy is talking about the fundamental/ideological/symbolic reason for going to the coast, rather than the scripted reason the characters talk about. huh?

[Diesel]

Very long post, so most of it will be under spoiler tags.

Originally Posted by iam1bearcat

Iron Man 2

one of my biggest issues is the lack of a real, long standing story / arch nemesis. IM's villain was a family friend, IM2 has... Ivan Vanko. a super smart Russian who appears to have some longstanding issue with the Stark family - but not Tony himself. but because Tony is the only Stark left, he's all he has to attack. again, Tony has no real issue with the people who are attacking him. it makes these films feel "light" on story and substance and more about big, obnoxious explosions and parties that serve no purpose.

[Show spoiler]
He has an issue with the family and Stark.

The family - they stole his father's work in his eyes and had him pretty much kicked back to Russia to die a slow unknown death while he should have been just as praised as Howard Stark in Ivan's mind.

Stark - He is parading the technology that "he created" around for all to see. He wants vengeance for his father because of this.

why is Ivan attacking Tony? we never know.

I just answered that one.

how did he get his own suit? because he's smart? okay.

He built one with Hammer's resources because he's a genius almost on Stark's level.

the government wants the Iron Man suit... why? is that going to stop anyone else from making their own? that's a dumb defense that makes zero sense. but i guess you're not supposed to think about logical things when watching a superhero movie

So they can use it and have better ones than other countries will make.

Does having nuclear weapons stop others from using them on us?

Probably.

and as much as i enjoy seeing Don Cheadle in films, him replacing the ever boring Terrence Howard was pointless. i could see if Cheadle actually had a significant role to play here, but he didn't. so for continuity sake, just leave Howard in there.

Howard wanted too much money. He was canned for good reason.
And he didn't do good enough with the role, he doesn't have Stark screen time but he's still an important part of Tony's story.

[quote]the opening party / expo? pointless.[quote]

It's about who Tony Stark is. The opening of the film fit him very much. Far from pointless.

the random @ss car race that Tony just randomly joins? pointless. and how did Ivan know he would be there? great, great writing and logic there...

He had a car in the event, thus he was there. Everyone knew he had a car in the event. Vanko got the ticket to be there and attacked Tony's car, he didn't know Tony was IN the car when he made the arrangements to go there because Tony wasn't going to be in it. It was a last minute decision that played into Vanko's hand.

for me, IM2 was somehow worse than IM. i didn't think that was possible! but they somehow pulled off that magical feat. both films have felt hollow, filled to the brim with cliches and built on terrible story telling, badly structured story flow, and contain no heart, just some witty comments (half of which didn't even register as "chuckle worthy" ), explosions, fireworks, shattered glass, big dumb robots, missiles, and fast shiny cars. it's slick, but tells no story. it's fast, but has no rhythm to it. and it's loud, but is loud for the sake of being loud.

I couldn't disagree with that more actually.

and that final fight scene? what a terrible excuse for a final showdown. what was it? 12 seconds? amazing
i guess they thought the "awesome" (sarcasm) finale of IM was too much for the audience to take so they had to bring it down a notch.

This scientist just built his suit a few days ago, how long do you expect him to last against a guy who's had it for just under a year and an army colonel with combat training armed with his own kick *** suit?

But I would also have liked to see it last a little longer...as you'll see in a second.

i know there will be an Iron Man 3 (sadly), but there really shouldn't be.

1/5

I feel the polar opposite of the film.

My review after having seen it back in May:

Alright, here's Diesel's take on the movie.

I'm going to spoiler tag it for both details and length

[Show spoiler]It was 98% what I wanted it to be...and I had high expectations of the movie.

Let's start with the main man himself, Robert Downey Jr. Of course he was fantastic as Stark, the man IS Tony Stark, it's so natural for him. I thought he did even better this time around than he did in the first film, he definitely stepped it up a notch over an already great performance in Iron Man. From the highs of the Senate debacle, to the lows of him staring into the mirror at himself when his blood toxicity was getting really high; all around great. Zero problems with his performance.

Don Cheadle - There was one part about Cheadle's performance that left my head hanging in disappointment...the fact that I have to watch Terrance Howard in the role every time I re=watch Iron Man instead of him. Howard's Rhodey was...not cool. He was a lame character, he didn't act it that well (he wasn't terrible, but wasn't good either...he was passable), and I just generally didn't care for him. That all changed this time. Rhodey was a great character in the sequel. Anytime he wasn't on screen I was waiting for him to come back. Cheadle's interactions with Downey were great, MUCH better than Downey and Howard were together. This time they cast the role 100% on the money, I can't wait to see him in Avengers and Iron Man 3 regardless of the capacity of his role. Part of that 2% I didn't get was more screen time for Cheadle, I wish he had been around more. But when he was around he did great.

Mickey Rourke - No his character wasn't particularly deep...but he didn't need to be. His father helped create the greatest technology in existence and got no credit for it whatsoever....in fact he got kicked out of one country and screwed over by another. Now the son of the man who DID get credit for being a genius is world famous for utilizing Vanko's father's technology and passing it off as his own. Then to top it off his father died in his arms after a long slow death apparently. I've read a lot of people say his motivations were weak...they were VERY strong imo. As for Rourke's acting, he did what he needed to do superbly. And that was...be a bad***. He was an infinitely better villain than Obadiah. Like Cheadle, he was a fantastic addition to the cast that I would have liked to see a little bit more on screen.

Paltrow - First time around she wasn't that great. Mostly because I didn't really care for the character. She also did a decent job, but as most of her scenes where with Downey, she had the impossible task of trying to keep up. This time around, she managed it much better and did well...and didn't become a screaming little school girl in the end again thank God.

Favs - Happy kicked ***, 'nuff said.

Scarlet Johansson - She may not have been around as much as some would have wanted but I thought she was around the just shy of the perfect amount. She was only supposed to be a supporting character and that is exactly what she was. I thought she did well with her role as well. No there was no Russian accent like the purists probably wanted but I liked that she didn't have it, one bad*** Russian accent is enough If they plan for her to reappear later on in other films, I'm all for it and would love to see her return.

Sam Rockwell - He was annoying, a loser and lame....and I LOVED IT. Great job by him as well. Unlike Rhodey, Vanko and Widow, I thought he had the right amount of screen time for his role in the film. And he was utilized properly for that screen time.

Sam Jackson - I know he wasn't a star or anything and his role was just a glorified extended cameo again, but he is really good as Nick Fury so I felt he should at least be mentioned

Alright, now for the movie itself.

It was definitely better than the first film (Diesel's Iron Man score - 4.5/5).

The first had problems that could not be ignored....3rd act anyone? Obadiah screaming "I'M THE BAD GUY!!!!!" from the first time you meet him to even people who don't know his story. Dragging in parts early on.

This time around, none of those were an issue or even present imo.

The film never once drug on for me, and was always exciting or interesting to watch and pay attention to. Which is a great accomplishment as the entire 2nd act is mostly devoid of action (save the fight between Rhodey and Stark) and is almost completely character and dialog scenes. I've read some of the reviews and it holds this against the movie. A lack of action....yet if a movie has a lot of action they will complain about that too. Some people are never pleased. I thought the movie had the perfect amount of action to dialog scene ratio that it needed.

Speaking of the dialog...I love that the dialog in this movie (and in the first, but more so this time around) has them talking over each other so much. Because that's how it is in a real life conversation. People talk over each other and try to get a little louder than the other person and get their say in and not always 'ok you talk. My turn. Your turn'. And these movies capture that perfectly imo. Especially the scenes with Stark/Pepper.

The issue that plagued the villain of the first film is that they wanted you to be surprised by who it was...but they executed it VERY poorly. This time around, we meet the villain from the very first scene and know he's the bad guy. So it isn't an issue.

The 3rd act was a drastic improvement upon the first films. Much, much, much better. I would have liked the fight between War Machine/Iron Man and Vanko to last a little longer, say 30 seconds more? But it is just a small nitpick as the rest of the sequence with the drones was great imo, and a very fast paced fun ride.

Another complaint that I read was that they tried to shoehorn too much Avengers' plugging into the film. Not so I say. The movie did much more to set up Avengers than Iron Man or Incredible Hulk obviously, but the movie was very much about

So, the only things I would have liked to see the movie improved on are:
Tto maybe have another 10-15 minutes for more Rhodey (particularly Rhodey/Tony scenes), Widow and Whiplash. Besides that I wouldn't change a thing, as everything else worked (for me at least) and the perfected the imperfections that plagued the original. I said a while back I hoped and prayed that Iron Man 2 was to Iron Man as The Dark Knight was to Batman Begins (a greater sequel to an also great movie). And it is my opinion that it achieved that.

And to also the Monaco sequence. Someone explain to me how Happy pinned Vanko to the wall TWICE (once while moving pretty quick) without breaking his legs or killing him? He didn't have a suit on or anything, just pants. That part made me sit up and say...wait a second...

Not a deal breaker or anything, but just a simple head scratcher. And also, as a nitpick from a NASCAR fan...as soon as Vanko was out on that track, a yellow (or red) flag would have been thrown in any auto racing series to slow down/stop the other cars from coming around several more times, yet in the movie that didn't happen. It was probably to just be more dramatic, and I can understand that but when I saw it that's the first thing that came to my mind


...oh and let Stan Lee be in it for a few more seconds

On a technical note, the audio of the film was fantastic. Dare I say better than The Incredible Hulk?

....not better than Terminator Salvation though of course

The dynamics of it, the bass of the effects/explosions, the clearness of the dialog...

I can't wait to hear the blu-ray come September (when I think it'll be out).


To finish....

I also liked it more than my favorite 2009 movie, Star Trek, by quite a bit.

Rating: 5/5

In case you don't want to read my whole long post (Microsoft Word says it's 1,487 words ) here's a summary:

[Show spoiler]

I respect any of you who have the patience to sit and read that whole thing

[iam1bearcat]

Originally Posted by surfdude12

took the words out of my mouth! I know, you're right about the over-use of south. as far as the reason for going south, yes they did say that in the movie. i think jhiggy is talking about the fundamental/ideological/symbolic reason for going to the coast, rather than the scripted reason the characters talk about. huh?

[iam1bearcat]

Diesel, needless to say, we don't agree on IM2. let's just leave it at that

[Diesel]

Originally Posted by iam1bearcat

Diesel, needless to say, we don't agree on IM2. let's just leave it at that

Done

It's ok, you like Lost, your still good in my book....for now

[Show spoiler]

[iam1bearcat]

Originally Posted by Diesel

Done

It's ok, you LOVE Lost, your still good in my book....for now

[Show spoiler]

fixed that for ya
and i may be out of your book soon: just realized i have never seen a single Vin Diesel movie in my life! (aside from SPR)

[Diesel]

Originally Posted by iam1bearcat

fixed that for ya
and i may be out of your book soon: just realized i have never seen a single Vin Diesel movie in my life! (aside from SPR)

My mistake!


...it's like I don't even know you



I'm going to go out on a limb and say you probably wouldn't like the Fast and Furious movies


You may perhaps enjoy Pitch Black. A lot of people seem to like that one.

[iam1bearcat]

Originally Posted by Diesel

I'm going to go out on a limb and say you probably wouldn't like the Fast and Furious movies

for whatever reason, i seem to like most Paul Walker films, so maybe i'll enjoy the first one
(and maybe the 5th? i thought he and Diesel returned for another one? no idea though)

[Diesel]

Originally Posted by iam1bearcat

for whatever reason, i seem to like most Paul Walker films, so maybe i'll enjoy the first one
(and maybe the 5th? i thought he and Diesel returned for another one? no idea though)

Maybe you will then

The first, fourth and next year fifth have Walker and Diesel in them.

It's just Walker (plus Tyrese) in part 2 and Diesel has a cameo in the third.


The first and 4th are definitely the best of the series. The first actually got a 4/5 on the site review
In the fourth Walker actually doesn't sound like he's reading queue cards


At worst you'll piss off the neighbors with the audio

[iam1bearcat]

My Bloody Valentine

the good:

+ Kerr Smith
+ the actor who plays John Locke's father on LOST

those are the only two things good about this horrendous film. i feel sick after watching such an atrocious movie. and even spending time writing a review for it makes me ill.

acting? atrocious. Kerr Smith did a decent job, as did Locke's dad. the rest? piss poor.
directing? hard to tell since the film has a lot of "look! it's 3D! so lots of closed in shots that have sh!t thrown at the camera!" but pretty crappy none the less.
writing? laughably bad. but then again it is a horror movie, big surprise

scale of 1 - 10 how scary is this? 0
worth owning? absolutely not. no redeeming value.

it's movies like these that make me hate the horror genre, hate films in general and make me hate everything about life. some really bad movies you can at least laugh at how bad they are, this doesn't even have many "so bad it's funny" moments. truly depressed i now am because of this. ugh.

0/5

[tbizzle]

Originally Posted by jhiggy23

I was indifferent about the film, 3 stars (out of 4) for me. Very overhyped imo. As for the voice-over, NO foreign film should EVER be watched dubbed!

Totally agreed on both points.

[tbizzle]

Originally Posted by iam1bearcat

My Bloody Valentine

[Show spoiler]the good:

+ Kerr Smith
+ the actor who plays John Locke's father on LOST

those are the only two things good about this horrendous film. i feel sick after watching such an atrocious movie. and even spending time writing a review for it makes me ill.

acting? atrocious. Kerr Smith did a decent job, as did Locke's dad. the rest? piss poor.
directing? hard to tell since the film has a lot of "look! it's 3D! so lots of closed in shots that have sh!t thrown at the camera!" but pretty crappy none the less.
writing? laughably bad. but then again it is a horror movie, big surprise

scale of 1 - 10 how scary is this? 0
worth owning? absolutely not. no redeeming value.

it's movies like these that make me hate the horror genre, hate films in general and make me hate everything about life. some really bad movies you can at least laugh at how bad they are, this doesn't even have many "so bad it's funny" moments. truly depressed i now am because of this. ugh.

0/5

Yeah I thought that film was horrible. The 3D was gimicky and lame. The only thing that kept me interested was the gratuitous nudity and some of the amusing deaths.

[lDlisturb3d]

Originally Posted by Diesel

My review after having seen it back in May:

Im with you again. Iron Man 2 Rocked im glad i own it

[jhiggy23]

Originally Posted by surfdude12

thanks jhiggy! Squid gave some answers too, but you both gave me different angles plus you gave me the bookworm answers I love that bolded part you wrote. Excellent! I guess

[Show spoiler]even though its salt water and not drinkable, its the symbology of the water, not the literal drinkability of it?

That bolded part I believe is directly from Mccarthy. I think squid provides solid reasons too. Remember in Children of Men where they were going to--same thing, albeit they had a tangible purpose for going there. The ideology is the same.

Here's something that may be of interest to a thinker like you. Focus on the use of water in films. For example, take Baz Luhrhmann's Romeo + Juliet. He purposely uses water throughout the entire film to represent life and rebirth. When Romeo first sees Juliet, it's through the fish tank. Romeo falls in a pool. Another character whom I won't name dies and falls into water. Movies are riddled with blatant as well as obscure references to water because it's quite literally one of the top 2-3 most important symbols since language (pictoral then written) was developed (the other being the sun, and another being the earth).

[iam1bearcat]

A Perfect Getaway

i knew nothing of this film when i rented it today. i was pleasantly surprised to learn that i knew, and enjoy the work of, all four main characters

starting with the great Timothy Olyphant, who always brings some laughs to the screen, Steve Zahn who is underutilized in a lot of films and shows here he can do something other than the goofy guy (Joy Ride, Strange Wilderness), Milla Jovovich who is always fun to watch, and then there is the old "who the F is this character?! " from LOST we have Nicky - i mean Kiele Sanchez who isn't the greatest actress in the world, but is very much fun to look at

taking place in beautiful Hawaii (or more precisely "island #5 of Hawaii" or something...) Cliff (Zahn) and Cydney (Jovovich) are on their Honeymoon. everything seems perfect for this odd couple except that there has been a murder of a newlywed couple just a few days earlier, setting an ominous tone over every interaction the couple has with new people also gallivanting around the island.

they soon meet up with Nick and Gina who are a spontaneous, wild island living couple who certainly know how to handle themselves. Nick, an apparent Iraq war veteran seems to have quite the past. but of course, is it true? or are these the very killers? Cydney and Cliff seem to think so, but when can they escape?

the film isn't terrible by any means, but it also isn't very good. this is supposed to be a "thriller" and possibly have a claustrophobic feel. i never once felt tension, anxiety or suspense about what was happening. did i care? yeah. but it felt more like a random, okay action movie, not a movie that contains a HUGE twist and never really builds up any level of creepiness or tension.

and that twist? i'll admit, i didn't see it coming at all. is that a good sign? i guess so. we meet a lot of characters in the film, and eerie, ominous music surrounds them all, but once we figure out what's happening i actually laughed not because it was bad, dumb or ridiculous, but simply because i was so baffled by how it came out of absolutely nowhere.

this of course is followed by a black and white 15 minute flashback that shows us repeatedly what we learned in minute 1 of the flashback (talk about beating us over the head as if the audience was too dumb to follow along ). and then there is the last 20 minutes... it was like Uwe Boll suddenly was directing this! i have never seen so many slow downs, zoom ins, ridiculously cartoonish facial expressions and body movements in my life. i didn't know if it was amazingly out of place, or wildly originally cool

all in all, it was a fun film to watch, and maybe it would be fun to watch again once you know what's going on, but the film feels disjointed, and never really settles down into what it wants to be. one minute it's super serious - and while it's serious there's a humorous line of dialogue and a dorky camera trick. is it a thriller? a suspense thriller? an action comedy? a horror adventure? a reason not to go to Hawaii? all of the above?

i've seen a lot worse, but of course there are better. worth a rental. i personally wouldn't but it. and i'd say if it wasn't for the performances of some great actors / actresses, this film would have probably been a lot worse.

3/5

[Marcus Wright]

Iron Man 2.

It was the most fun I had in theatres this year.
Enough said.

5/5

[Freekman]

The Exorcist - 4/5
Interesting movie. Favorite thing about it was the music, but the character development was complete genius.

[Al_The_Strange]

Originally Posted by CZAR

Man great job again. This is easily Denzel's best performance in my eyes and he shouldve won an oscar for the performance. The film is also great but what makes it great is Denzel. Again props for knocking these films out. Keep em comin. Got Em!!

Originally Posted by lDlisturb3d

i thought this was a great movie! Denzel really showed a different side of himself.

It was great!

And now it's announced for BD!

Originally Posted by iam1bearcat

Iron Man 2

[Show spoiler]

it's amazing how bad a film with a budget of 170-200 million can be

let me get the few good points out of the way first:

+ RDJ
+ Scarlett Johansson (although she was pretty blah here acting wise and her eyebrows are exceptionally annoying)
+ directing during Natalie's fight sequence
+ Sam Rockwell! (although his character became extremely obnoxious towards the end which made me hate the movie even more...)
+ some cool effects
+ looks really good on blu (of course)

now the bad:

i went into IM2 with an open mind. yes i disliked IM (2/5), but i was willing to give IM2 a shot. but once it was finally (FINALLY) over, i absolutely hated the film and would have been completely happy with all the characters being killed off. i feel absolutely nothing for anyone we met in this movie.

one of my biggest issues is the lack of a real, long standing story / arch nemesis. IM's villain was a family friend, IM2 has... Ivan Vanko. a super smart Russian who appears to have some longstanding issue with the Stark family - but not Tony himself. but because Tony is the only Stark left, he's all he has to attack. again, Tony has no real issue with the people who are attacking him. it makes these films feel "light" on story and substance and more about big, obnoxious explosions and parties that serve no purpose.

the first hour did almost nothing for the film. and if i counted correctly the number of stupid plot points the writers had characters do in IM2 it topped out around 112. it's like the writers said, "hey, everyone loves RDJ, let's just have him jump around saying witty things in a suit!" and that's the majority of IM2. why is Ivan attacking Tony? we never know. how did he get his own suit? because he's smart? okay. the government wants the Iron Man suit... why? is that going to stop anyone else from making their own? that's a dumb defense that makes zero sense.

but i guess you're not supposed to think about logical things when watching a superhero movie

and as much as i enjoy seeing Don Cheadle in films, him replacing the ever boring Terrence Howard was pointless. i could see if Cheadle actually had a significant role to play here, but he didn't. so for continuity sake, just leave Howard in there.

the opening party / expo? pointless.
the random @ss car race that Tony just randomly joins? pointless. and how did Ivan know he would be there? great, great writing and logic there...

for me, IM2 was somehow worse than IM. i didn't think that was possible! but they somehow pulled off that magical feat. both films have felt hollow, filled to the brim with cliches and built on terrible story telling, badly structured story flow, and contain no heart, just some witty comments (half of which didn't even register as "chuckle worthy" ), explosions, fireworks, shattered glass, big dumb robots, missiles, and fast shiny cars. it's slick, but tells no story. it's fast, but has no rhythm to it. and it's loud, but is loud for the sake of being loud.

and that final fight scene? what a terrible excuse for a final showdown. what was it? 12 seconds? amazing
i guess they thought the "awesome" (sarcasm) finale of IM was too much for the audience to take so they had to bring it down a notch.

i know there will be an Iron Man 3 (sadly), but there really shouldn't be.

1/5

My thanks goes to Diesel for providing all the answers that I had in my head myself. Two great minds think alike.

But I agree that the film's plot is a little weak.

Still awaiting the German double-feature steelbook...

Originally Posted by tbizzle

Yeah I thought that film was horrible. The 3D was gimicky and lame. The only thing that kept me interested was the gratuitous nudity and some of the amusing deaths.

Agreed. I think I gave it a 3/5, mostly for entertainment value, but 2.5 or less is probably more reasonable.

[Batman1980]

House of Wax - 4/5
PQ 3.5/5
AQ 3/5
Be aware these scores come before I see the ending though. This movie is better than I expected it to be.