The following is a list of all entries tagged with reviews.
CommentReplicants, more human than human robots do humanitys dirty work. Given time, they will develop their own emotional responses. To prevent revolts, they are given only a four year lifespan. When they’re a hazard, Blade Runners are sent to “retire” them.
Blade Runner has been through its share of troubles. The first one with the voice over was marred by producers wanting to control the young art director, Ridley Scott, whose experience hadn’t yet been proved (not even by Alien). The second version, “The Directors Cut”, felt rushed and the DVD release was grainy and VHS like. The Final Cut has finally been given the proper treatment. Tweaks and fixes have been made and a near-perfect, cleaned-up transfer make this the ultimate version of Blade Runner.
Blade Runner works on many levels. There’s the gorgeous dystopian design. There’s atmosphere oozing from every sound of Vangelis’ soundtrack. There’s the vision and the philosophical aspects: life, death, the time we’re given. They don’t make movies like this anymore and Blade Runner is the peak of a period. It’s an absolute delight to marvel in the polished and crisp picture and to notice details like the eyes of replicants reflecting light differently. Who’s replicant and who’s not? And does it matter? And what’s that about a unicorn? Find out.
1 CommentTony Stark is a billionaire inventor, industrialist and weapons manufacturer. After seeing first-hand what his weapons do, he decides to don a crime-fighting metal cape.
It’s hard to fault Iron Man as it has very few shortcomings. It’s Hollywood at its best: finely tuned action, expensive special effects, golden-haired girls and entertainment made for the big screen. On the flipside, it’s really not a deep movie; in fact it’s all surface. For what Iron Man tries to be, however, such depth is moot.
Iron Man works in all the ways Spider-Man 3 didn’t. It’s well paced, entertaining, believably unrealistic and with a story that doesn’t feel like it’s quilted together in the last minute. Robert Downey works well in his role and surprisingly: so does Gwyneth Paltrow. Now watch out for a cameo early on by director Jon Favreau. In the mean time, I’ll wait patiently for the sequel. Added note: I’m told there’s an extra scene after the end-credits.
1 CommentThe latest from the Coen brothers, No Country For Old Men, tells the story of a drug deal gone bad. When bystander Llewelyn Moss comes upon $2M in drug money, what follows is a game of cat and mouse when Moss is hunted by hired psycho-assassin Anton Chigurh.
I wouldn’t normally go watch a movie like No Country. Sad, you might note, as this is a rather good movie, but usually the plethora of pseudo-intellectual would-be Oscar films simply saturate the market. The bulk of them bore me out of my skull. There exists a very finite limit to the number of ways in which one can poetically spell out — punch label even — the dire straits of our society.
No Country, however, oozes cool from every crevasse. From the beginning, and for most of the movie, it’s even engaging and entertaining in ways that are theoretically impossible. It’s quite an impressive feat and it bears the mark of genuine skill behind the camera.
Alas, it’s only most of the movie that’s this good and in the end, No Country does suffer from some of the same problems all the other ones do.
7 CommentsCloverfield is the codename for a Manhattan event, documented using handheld camera by 5 young New Yorkers throwing a going-away party the night a monster attacks the city.
Essentially that sums up the entire movie. That’s both good and bad, mostly good. The handheld feel and the fact that we don’t see the monster in anything but short flashes, works really well, almost as well as it did with Alien. Despite the premise of the film, the plot is actually somewhat believable, which is impressive considering it’s a monster-flick.
Cloverfield works on many levels, and it’s definately worth 5 stars. To have earned the sixth star, however, I would personally have wanted a more fleshed-out and detailed ending, possibly one that wasn’t so predictable.
CommentThere are many parallel universes, all connected by the mythical golden substance: dust. In one such universe, souls are separate from humans and walk beside them as animals. In this world, Lyra is given a Golden Compass, a device that can unveil truth and the true nature of things as they really are. Their power threatened by this compass, the evil Magisterium seeks to gain control of it.
This is a positively strange film. It is littered with beautiful pictures and delicous Jules-Verne-style retro-decorative elements, yet there’s no time to dwell on the pretty vistas. It is extremely well produced, starring big-name actors, yet it feels like they could have cast anyone and it would be all the same. It touches upon grand themes like what religion does to a childs mind, yet at the same time it all feels like I’ve seen this fantasy story a dozen times before. The entire film is told in a distinctly child-friendly way, yet there’s just enough violence that one starts to ponder who this film is made for. It’s has all the elements of a great fantasy story: good is good and evil is evil, yet I find the story rather hard to follow. Finally, it seems to me that spending $200M on the first film in a trilogy is a rather big gamble, when it can hardly stand on its own — should the second one not be made.
Make no mistake, this is a gorgeous movie, and feels just right for this time of the year. It’s also a good movie, that could have been great had it been paced differently with just a tad more character development. I want this movie to succeed, just to see what happens next. So here’s hoping the film makes enough that Lyras golden compass can point to the symbol that says “sequel”.
CommentGood concert. They seemed to have some trouble with the tech, though. Best song of the evening: Kelly Watch The Stars.
2 Commentsrating(4)
Tillbaka Till Samtiden (Back to our contemporary age) is the title of the 7th studio album from swedish band Kent.
To Kent fans reading this, first a guide to listening: this is not a traditional Kent album. Listen to it as you would a new Depeche Mode or Radiohead album. It’s not the same old, [...]
12 CommentsThe Bourne Ultimatum is the third film about Jason Bourne, secret agent extraordinnaire. It immediately picks up the events of the first two movies and further explains Bournes background, memory loss and role in a secret training program.
For people who haven’t seen the first two, there are flashbacks to fill in the gaps. For people who have seen them, there’s a slightly odd chronology, as Ultimatum begins right at the end of the car chase in that Russian tunnel (which is not where Supremacy ended).
Jason Bourne is a modern James Bond. They share initials, great film score and rad car chases. That’s where the similarities end and the road forks. If I had to pick one road to follow, I’d go with Bourne.
Ultimatum brilliantly succeeds where Supremacy (which was a great movie, make no mistake) fell slightly short. It has (almost) the same mystical feeling the first one had, and it certainly has the action and pace of both movies.
Ultimatum is eminently watchable and very worth your cinema bucks.
3 CommentsThis review isn’t as simple as it looks, so before you brush off Google Docs with a 3 heart rating, read the last paragraph.
Just last week I had my project management final (which went well). Leading up to this, me and a few colleagues worked together in Google Docs on the project assignment.
Google Docs is part of a free mini-office suite that contains a word processor and a spreadsheet. It’s all web-based and collaborative, meaning several people can edit the same document at the same time. Documents are stored on Googles servers.
This is what I learned from working with a 40+ page document…
12 CommentsThe first movie happened 28 days after a zombie-virus outbreak in Britain. This one happens 28 weeks after the incident, at a time where all zombies from the first film have supposedly starved to death. Of course things aren’t so simple and due to human error a new outbreak occurs, in which our heroes will have to try and stay alive.
What a mess. What a damn shame. What a miserable disappointment. I enjoyed 28 Days Later and I was looking forward to what seemed like a good idea. Sadly a ridiculous story and infuriatingly stupid characters obliterate all worthwhile elements. 28 Weeks Later is only marginally better than House of the Dead, which I’d give zero hearts. This film gets one heart for Rose Byrne and one heart for production value. As such, watching 28 Weeks falls miserably short of other interesting activities such as watching specks of dust move around in sunlight.
6 CommentsTransforming robots from the planet Cybertron have traveled to earth in search The Allspark, a robo-mythical device holding ancient powers. The evil bots, the Decepticons want to use its power for their evil deeds, whilst the good bots want to protect it.
And there it is. The plot for a two hour over-the-top action extravaganza featuring giant robots skating, fighting and blasting each others to pieces. It works for me, in fact I think it’s one-hundred times better than Armageddon, the emphasized being an actual line from the movie. For what it tries to be, Transformers is so good that I’m willing to look past all ridiculous things in this movie. Things such as bots that coincidentally choose to transform themselves to only GM cars, one funky bot called “Jazz” and an Xbox 360 bot.
Finally I thought it interesting to see Michael Bay poke fun at the current president (”Could you wrangle up some ding-dongs, darling?”). I also noticed the apparent lack of American flags, present in most other Bay movies.
All in all, Transformers is eminently watchable, especially on the big screen. Make no mistakes: 4 stars is a lot for a movie based on plastic toys from the 80ies.
8 CommentsIn many ways, Pirates 3 (subtitled At World’s End) is a better movie than the second one. It puts more weight on story and character development. It also takes itself slightly more seriously; after all, it is the end of a trilogy.
Personally, however, I never went to see the Pirates movies solely for their gripping storyline. I went to see the battles, the pirate coves, the leviathan sea monsters and odd mythical Caribbean locations we all remember from the Monkey Island games. Based on this, I actually preferred the lighter spirit of Dead Man’s Chest. Three stars is not bad, it’s just not great either.
4 CommentsI wish I had been 15 years younger when watching this movie.
Spiderman 3 miserably fell short for me. I enjoyed the first one, I loved the second one, and while there is going to be a Spiderman 4, it’ll most certainly be without the same lead actors. Spiderman 3 should have been the end to a trilogy. Instead it was a dizzying, confusing, messy roller-coaster ride that didn’t quite tickle where it should.
Crash! Pow! Boom bang! Poof! More villains! More jokes! More explosions! Did anyone forget about less is more? It didn’t help the movie either that Sam Raimi and Danny Elfman had a falling out; Elfmans gorgeous theme only graces parts of Spiderman 3.
There have been mixed reviews. Some think it sucks, others disagree. Personally, I’d like to take a guess at why I think this movie divides people. To do so, I have to compare with Spiderman 2.
In Spiderman 2 things were falling apart for Peter Parker. As he struggled with the mantle and the responsibility, we developed real emotional attachments to the characters. When he finally decided to take up the mantle, in sickness and in health, the action started with an incredible sequence that could have ended in a trainwreck. Peter Parker, unmasked, managed to stop the train just before it derailed. In Spiderman 3: trainwreck!
Comment300 is based on Frank Miller’s comic-book of the same name. It creatively re-tells the story of the Battle of Thermopyl?, where 300 spartan warriors held their ground against a persion army of millions.
300 is an extremely stylistic action porno with lots of slow-motion and gallons of blood splatter. It’s the sort of movie that garners grunts, snickers and “Hell yeah”s from the cinema audience. For what it tries to be, it succeeds immensely. It’s one of the best action movies I’ve seen in a long time.
For the action, I give two stars. For the style and art direction, I give another two. This leaves room for two more stars that should’ve been depth and character development. As it stands, 300 is an extremely cool looking exhilerating action flick. Unfortunately, that’s also all it is. The emotional attachment in say, The Lord of the Rings, could really have done wonders for 300.
See also Mr. Cabanillas more indepth review.
10 CommentsLet’s try and forget about Mel Gibson and his drunken stupor for this one.
Apocalypto depicts events around the last days and months of the Maya civilization. Specifically, we follow Jaguar Paw and his family. As the movie unfolds, we see his village burnt to the ground, the inhabitants violently abducted to be taken to the city and sacrificed to Kukulkan. Jaguar Paw escapes and then follows a race against time as Jaguar Paw is chased through the jungle.
Apocalypto is brutally harsh, gut-wrenchingly and crunchingly bloody. It feels realistic and one immediately sympathizes with the villagers living in harmony with nature vs. the religious extremists of the big cities built from chalk and stone.
The first half of the movie is a rough but fascinating look at the Maya culture whilst the second part is a thrilling ride towards the inevitable end. Apocalypto is very watchable (though not for the faint of heart) and a generally great movie.