Posts Tagged ‘terrible movie’
starship troopers 2 »
Friday, May 23rd, 2008
… is an impeccable example of what not to do. It should be used as a mold for movies that suck and should be avoided like the herp. There are a series of no-name, low-level stars and some nudity from Kelly Carlson. Terrible.
The acting is sort of what I imagine a high school play version of Saving private ryan would be like. The story is uninteresting and the direction is utterly terrible. The set itself looks to be made from cardboard, rusted metal and ignorance.
The first one didn’t have anything going for it, but it tried to be grandiose and meaningful. It failed. This one tried the same thing, but with less money, no writing and a series of terrible ideas.
From what I can tell, there’s talk of a third. This is a prime example of why our empire will fall. Prepare yourself for a historic and bloody end while watching these classy flicks. It’ll be a traditional send-off, non-traditionally.
* (because Kelly Carlson, while a terrible actress, is from ’round here and wicked hot)
happy endings »
Thursday, May 8th, 2008
… is an interesting movie; not good, not bad, but interesting and bland. It follows three separate almost-tragic stories that intertwine and end well. The stories themselves aren’t too intriguing and didn’t bring me in. The characters are bland but have some depth.
I usually enjoy story-merging movies. 13 conversations about one thing, happenstance and others are more entertaining because of the layering of plots. This one doesn’t work very well. The meshing is predictable and none of the plots stand out. It becomes murky and lame.
I did like the “narrator” (bits of text that helped the story move along) angle because it gave breadth to the whole thing. It explained things in context and gave future or past information. It was actually sort of funny. It wasn’t funny enough to balance out the dead-eye acting and blah story.
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10,000 b.c. »
Tuesday, March 11th, 2008
In one word, terrible. In quite a few words, it wasn’t interesting, was too epic for its own good and was about as historically accurate as Apocalypto. The special effects in day after tomorrow at least made the entire thing interesting (except for those damn wolves), but this one couldn’t hold up its end of things. The budget seems to have been spent entirely on the mammoths, the saber tooth and the giant structure in the ending (don’t want to ruin it for you…). It tapped into my pet peeve of movies that are obviously in a different language speaking English the entire time except for random words.
The acting, as mentioned, wasn’t all that great. It wasn’t believable and barely kept up with what was going on. You would think it’d be easier for actors dressed in elaborate costumes to get into character. You’d think wrong. They action scenes were decent, but too jazzed up in a lot of spots. The acting took an unnecessary step back to focus on the effects, which fell short of expectation. For more of the sequences in front of scenery, they took a page out of a 1930s playbook and had the actors in front of an obvious blue screen. I guess they ran out of money for location shooting.
The story is preposterous, and if it’s historically accurate I’m going to have to rent it and take another look. The sequences, characters and ending are just too out of reality to actually fit any historical record. The story itself, in an odd way, seems to justify racism or something. The build up is so broad that I have to think there’s a greater meaning behind the film. The only one I can think of is that white people were born out of a legendary destiny.
It has the effects of a 3-hour History Channel special, the historical accuracy of King Kong and tries desperately to be so much more. It’s a waste of your time to watch it, it’s a waste of your bandwidth to download it and it’s a waste of your money to rent it. It’s boldly defiant of any market strategy so far concocted.
1/2 (for the effects, because the saber was badass)
the salton sea »
Wednesday, January 23rd, 2008
I have no idea how to describe this one. I don’t even know what they were trying to do. I added it to my queue only because it referenced the odd man-made mistake that is the Salton Sea south of Palm Springs. I think it was brought up in casual conversation, but I don’t remember the specific person to blame. There may have been a point to this, about redemption or loss or retribution. Maybe.
The story starts out with Val Kilmer (kiss kiss bang bang, the doors) sitting in a room ablaze, playing a trumpet. His narration is in a sort of whispy, stalled, meandering sort of voice. He goes on about how things started (yes, another flashback movie) and where to begin. He’s a speed freak spending time with other speed freaks. Later on we find out many things about his character that paint an elaborate picture. There’s so much going on that it doesn’t technically make sense at any point, but is somehow predictable.
The cast is stacked with names you’ve heard of or actors you see on television. Peter Sarsgaard (Garden state, jarhead), Anthony LaPaglia (without a trace, so i married an axe murderer), Doug Hutchison (green mile), luis guzmán (waiting…, punch-drunk love), adam goldberg (dazed and confused), vincent d’onofrio (men in black, thumbsucker), and r. lee ermey (full metal jacket, mail call) all have a piece of the action. Even meatloaf is listed, but I don’t remember his character.
The acting isn’t great and was barely enough to bring me into the story. Val does a decent job in a dichotomous character, but still comes off with a dumb look on his face half the time. For a film with so much B-list talent, no one stands out. It’s just a mass of people, working together, to make a large pile of mediocrity.
The story itself, with all the twists and turns and manufactured suspense, is lacking. There’s too much going on. The narrative is jumbled and uninteresting. It sort of goes along the path of least resistance with injected “twists” that fall short of actually twisting. It’s not that it was hard to watch, though. It was so tweaked out that it became awesome. I don’t have a reason to watch it again, but I (like I almost never do) don’t regret seeing it. I can’t think of a movie that it’s like, but its uniqueness doesn’t make it good.
There are a lot of odd superimposed scenes, flashbacks, and weird asides. The direction is pretty bad. Caruso did Disturbia and I liked that one, so i was expecting more. He used visual cues. A lot of visual cues. To help us follow along. Sort of like David Lynch if Lynch were to reach through the screen and slap you in the eye when you were supposed to be paying attention.
If you were to go through IMDB.com and watch every val kilmer movie, take the time to watch this one. Otherwise, you’ll probably be okay forgetting it exists.
**
ghost rider »
Sunday, February 25th, 2007
To be honest i was sort of impressed. Not in that this movie somehow became a quality film or was even remotely different than any other cheesy comic-based movie that’s been made. I was impressed with how absolutely terrible it is. I never expected something even sub-par, but this was just ridiculous. The effects were terrible. The acting was something out of high school musical.
Cage was horrible and one of the worst choices i can think of for the part of Blaze. Even his quips had very little going for them. Mendes was at her usual, so at least she’s attractive. The writing couldn’t have been worse.
I guess that pretty much sums it up. A short one. I could go into more depth about how preposterous the entire film was and how generic each plot was, but i think you get the point.
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