Month: August 2004

Well, it turns out that today is a movie day. I am writing my third post in the “Movie review” category and it is only few minutes past 11 AM. I wonder what else will I see today.

Anyway, just to spring in some action I watched “Cradle 2 the Grave” with Jet Li. Overall it is rather average, but it has few nice bits to it.

It starts of with a rather usual and boring beginning which displays few guys robbing a bank by drilling a hole in the floor and blah blah blah. There are a couple of minor fights which do not impress and do not matter. The only thing to enjoy in the beginning is how Jet Li climbs few floors down from the roof of the building by just using his hands. Very nice.

By the time you get really bored and start thinking about fast forward button, film makers realize the problem and throw in a nice car chase. Lots of police cars, quad-wheel bike and motocross bike. Driving through the buildings and on the roofs is nice. Then you are back to boring.

And by the time film slowly gets to the end, you already think that it was a waste of time… And than it starts. The final scene was made into a mega fight in complience with all the standards. There is everything. There is a sniper. There are two girls fighting (good and bad). There is a tank in the middle of the city shooting down a private helicopter. There is a ring of fire from the helicopter crash in which Jet Li has a Final Fight with a Bad Guy.

I haven’t mentioned another couple of scenes which are all over reviews and comments for the film. There is a megafight of Jet Li against a bunch of unlicensed fighters and there is a scene with a girl stripping. The problem with both of these was that they were not shown properly. They were mixed with happenings of other characters. By the time I was done focusing on details of the scene – BOOM! – it was switched to something else; then back; then forward again. This switching ruined both of the scenes.

I’ll give this movie a 5 out of 10. It could have been better if action was distributed evenly over the time, or if there was just more action, or if there was any acting (which there was none, especially on the part of Jet Li), or ifmartial arts were better (they are good only in the Final Fight). Watch something else, if you have something else.

P.S.: The title of the film is totally random. It has nothing to do with the film what-so-ever.

Feeling a need for a comedy, I watched “Head of State“. It is a very good film, which you wouldn’t want to watch a second time. As far as I can guess, it is culmination-like thing of Chris Rock‘s stand-by comedy shows.

The film goes through a very unlikely story of some good guy being picked up from the street and ran for president of the USA by a democratic party. But it is not the story which matters here. It’s all the little phrases that are spoken. In fact, this film is so full of excellent quotes that I felt a need to write them down once in a while.

If you want to see a sitcom or stand-up comedy show, but there is none on TV, then watch this film. It’s pretty much the same. Timings are good and music is, though not my favourite, fits nicely. I’ll give it an overall of 6 (floored from 6.5) out of 10.

P.S.: If you want to know more about Chris Rock, then there is a nice biography here.

P.P.S.: Every time he called “Security!” was hilarious. :)