Reviews

The Marksman

Another attempt to match the mood for war and destruction with an appropriate movie, and another failure. This time it was a Wesley Snipes’ flick – “The Marksman“. The funny thing here is that I actually saw this movie before, at least twice, and I couldn’t remember it at all. There are only a couple of moments that fire flashbacks, but both of them are towards the end of the movie. Hopefully next time I will remember it.

This film had some budget, but it ended up seriously boring. There isn’t much happening at any moment, and there isn’t much going to happen at any next moment. On top of that, there is a lot of idiocy about military intelligence and Russian-American relationship.

Rating: 4 out of 10. Save your time and money for something else.

The Hunt for Eagle One

Picking random movies of the DVD rentals shelves has its consequences. One of those consequences is an ever increasing chance of picking up a really terrible movie. And that’s precisely what happened to me the other day. I was in the mood for a war movie, something with US Marines, helicopters, one of those extremely poor Asian countries hidden under the cover of jungles… The DVD cover of “The Hunt for Eagle One” looked promising, even though I was a little bit suspicious about the title.

It turned out to be a really bad movie. The surprising fact about it was that I actually recognized a few actors in it. But it was still really really bad. The sound was bad. The acting was terrible. Special effects sucked real bad. And the dialogs were disgusting. Sometimes, bad things can be so bad that they actually end up good. But this movie is not one of those cases. It’s just terrible bad.

And even having the principle of watching every movie from start to end uninterrupted didn’t help me this time. After about watching it for two minutes I started fast-forwarding. After watching a few random scenes for roughly another minute, I gave up and switched it off.

Rating: 1 out of 10. Avoid at all costs.

The Simpsons Movie

Are you a fan of Simpsons? If so, this ,”The Simpsons Movie” is the absolute must see for you. But then again you probably already watched it. Me, on the other hand, is not a big fan. I like to watch an episode of Simpsons now and then, but I am getting tired of them pretty soon. And that is probably the reason for it taking almost a week for me to watch the whole movie.

Normally, I allocate time for movie watching in such a way that I won’t be interrupted. But during the last week I simply didn’t have that luxury, even though the movie was already rented. So, I decided that technically this movie is not a film (it’s an animation), so the normal guidelines can be bent a little bit. I saw the whole thing in about three or four sessions, with a little bit of overlap to get me back to where I stopped the previous time.

I have to say that this movie is nice. It is not disconnected from the cartoon series. It’s just longer and has a bigger story, but overall it looks and feels like the usual Simpsons. The animation is the same, the humor is the same, and the sound might be slightly better than the TV version (I don’t have anything at hand to confirm it). So, what’s more there to say? It’s the Simpsons. If you like them, watch it. If not, then not.

Rating: 7 out of 10.

Alpha Dog

I just watched “Alpha Dog“. It wasn’t the movie I was looking for, I just grabbed it by accident. It had a cheesy title, way too many people on the cover, and an overall B-movie feel to it. I got it anyway, just to have some extra movies to watch over the weekend. I’m glad I did.

I think there should be more movies like this. And then, hopefully, there will be fewer cases such as the one shown in the film. Nobody wanted for things to go bad. But those people who could have kept the situation under control, weren’t near enough. Then things started spinning down. Then they continued. Then nobody knew what to do and how to get out. The result – dead teenager and a few more broken lives. Who’s fault? Everybody’s. The kids themselves are guilty of what happened. Most of their parents are guilty. The society as a whole has the part of that guilt…

The film like this, with all its messages, thoughts, and story developments could have easily survived with weaker technical sides. Gladly, the film was done excellent on all levels. The cast was very good, and even though Bruce Willis, Sharon Stone, and Justin Timberlake are in, they aren’t the highlights of the film. OK, maybe with the exception of Justin. The photography was very interesting at places, and helped to create the atmosphere (especially that scene with parents waiting for the kidnapped child at home). The soundtrack was great too.

Overall, a strong 8 out of 10. A must see for parents with kids, fans of criminal drama, and those who simply like good movies.

Live Free or Die Hard

I just watched “Live Free or Die Hard” DVD, also known as “Die Hard 4.0”. I was trying to catch it in the cinema, but somehow that didn’t happen. I’m glad I finally caught up with it.

I was something anxious and worried about this new “Die Hard” episode. After all, the previous parts were so good, and it’s been more than 10 years since the last one (the last one was “Die Hard: With a Vengeance” dated 1995). With this new one be as good as those parts? Isn’t Bruce Willis too old for this? I had no clue, but follow-ups to some other films of the past proved to be worthy (*cough*Rambo*cough*) – that gave me hope.

“Live Free or Die Hard” turned out to be as good as the previous movies. And maybe even better. For one, special effects and the whole visual craft went a long way since John McClane had a gun in his hand. Even watching it on a 15″ screen gave me shivers sometimes. I imagine how impressive some of these scenes looked in the cinema! Sometimes, of course, it goes a bit too far – like in that scene with a fighter jet, truck, and bridge – but in action movies with Bruce, Sylvester, and Arnold it is always better to go a bit too far rather than not come close enough.

Another thing that I was worried about before watching this film was the computer theme. The 4.0 is the title of the film suggested that there will be a lot about computers. Plus I saw the trailer, and it was obvious that we are back to square one with graphical user interfaces for searching, tools with progress bars for password breaking, and all sorts of communications, security, and general IT terminology. Well, the computer side of the film was as bad as you can get it. But, on the other hand, it was so unrealistic from the very beginning, that I had no problems abstracting it away from the real life. Meaning that in my mind there was this natural separation of how computers work in real life and how they work in this particular movie. So that wasn’t a big problem.

Overall, the film was very nicely done, entertaining and in the same mood as the previous ones. So I got what I expected and even more so. I’ll give it a firm 7 out of 10.