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Reviews
American Ninja 3: Blood Hunt (1989)
Is this a freaking joke
Never in my life have I just for one second think, seeing such crap is possible. It's important to stay cool right after killing fifty weird-funny looking men in pidzamas. Of course one cannot abide the fact that movie is nothing more than the lecture for kids that studying in school is more important than training for NINJA status. That lesson comes in as the last quote of the film: 'you can find me in the school any time.' Putting grade on such disaster-piece would be degrading, so my opinion of it is none other than awful. Cedric has really outdone himself this time and only one thing comes to my mind in time of writing this review, SOMEBODY STOP HIM! PS: Three days after seeing it, I still couldn't stop laughing...
Just Like Heaven (2005)
who needs heaven when we have immortals
First director confronts us with cute short story of young hardworking girl that is so overreactingly honest, it makes your heart bleed seeing her smashed later on. One would think, they cannot stop overreacting with fairy-tale characters and how wrong would he be. Young attractive successful and totally confused man enters his new domain, where he at his amazement finds out that his apartment is being shared by a ghost of previously mentioned gale. Obviously from there on we enter the world of romance where two completely opposite characters that do nothing but argue at first, start growing strong intimate feelings towards each other. Predictable? Of course. One never doubts there is anything but happy ending, after series of some huge desperate disappointments. Yadi, yadi, ya, they both start loving each other, kiss and live (un)happily ever after. Harsh as my perspective on film seems, I cannot abide myself form not giving credits to a talented young performer well known to us all, Reese Weatherspoon. Once again she achives impossible and improves non-watchable movie to a quite decent one, like she did in the past for legally blond series.
Kiss Kiss Bang Bang (2005)
What About Those Kisses?
I guess the whole idea of a movie is to shock audience, or even better to let them know this isn't another cliché Hollywood waste of time kind of movie. One way or the other they got the idea and presented it perfectly. Scenes are definitely hilarious and at some point I was actually thrown of my bed. Actors deserve credits for realistic performances, Val Kilmer especially. I still don't know whether he was a 'fake throughout the movie or a 'real deal, which was kind of an idea, since the whole movie turns out to be rather disturbing having no true connections between the begging and the end. Of course there is something that bothered me quite a lot. It's no secret they were under the influence, well the similarity is obvious, of pulp fiction. The thing that bothered me is that they stroke in the middle between standard and non-standard picture. At first sarcasm was convincing, but as the events got clearer, so did the fact that there is no turning to other direction. What I meant to say was that it actually becomes predictable and that lowers its value in terms of quality. However it's still a damn good movie and quite a refreshment from all standard American shots. I have to give one prop more. In the end Val slides his way on a wheelchair to meet Robert Downey, and they actually warn us that forcefully happy endings like this suck and that they are well aware of it and they are more than right. 99 cases out of 100 where fleeing, shooting, fighting and any other abuse for that matter happens, end is either sad or disastrous. Than how come in movies in such circumstances only one in hundred ends in peril. I believe I can answer that. Its because most movies suck.
Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels (1998)
locked stocked and smoked
Now I've seen just about everything. After watching Snatch last week I thought movies couldn't get any funnier than that. Well, I was most certainly wrong. They can, and Lock Stock Two Smoking Barrels has. The array of its dynamic scene proportion is just amazing. At first you can barely follow the storyline since there are so many characters present and so many plots, that keep getting more and more complex. But as the time passes, it all comes to logical disentanglement. Camera moves strictly according to the momentary state of the character in momentum.
Though actors were unfamiliar to me, they did their part one hundred percent flawlessly. Their lines are absolutely hilarious, yet clinging to the edge of tasteless swearing. However ending seems rather confusing, since audience doesn't get to see whether its happy or.... well a bit less happy. My judgement tells me this is a solid nine and I hope to see more movies in such genre in future.
The Island (2005)
We are going to Jamaica!
Before watching the movie, I haven't had a clue what it was all about. They collected some celebrities, pumped some ultra awesome explosions, of course there is no escaping from using the necessary romance, happy end and so on. Once you learn the true identity of the film itself, which is imprisonment of clones, so that rich people can harvest internal organs, the movie itself becomes dull and most importantly: SO PREDICTABLE; combat of good versus evil, in which we all know who prevails. I was rather disappointed, knowing that the idea behind the scenes was promising and had a lot of unexplored potential. Comparison could be made to The Matrix, the legend of science fiction movies and the outcome would be somewhat harsh, since one rocks and the other stinks. I guess finding out which is which isn't a task to hard to comprehend.
The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (2005)
Unforgettable adventure, or just meddling kids
The expectations were really high remembering how thrilling the originally made cartoon was. Scenes were spectacular. All those cute animals communicating in English and those joyful enthusiastic children trying to help everyone they either have, or haven't met. Yep, they really did it this time. Or have they....
I couldn't stop myself from catching the fact that the film was dull. I mean, they really stayed faithful to the original, which can be as far as I'm concerned, only a good thing, but the result was vastly disappointing. Maybe it was just a bad mood, or too high expectations, but still:"Boooooooooooring"! However I must give credits to Tilda Swinton for her performance in acting the Snow witch. Her deeds were as cruel and as hysterical as I remember them from cartoon. As the snow laied throughout the Narnia was melting, so was she getting more and more repulsive. Her attractive blistering pale skin from beginning was steadily turning into a red burned dermal cancer.
"And I would have gotten away with it, if it wasn't for you meddling kids." Don't we all remember that line from Scooby Dooby Doo. Why did those pesky children had to interfere. Who is to say that wood animals are better in views of good versus evil, than mountain goblins, minotaurs and other black marked animals. The way I see it, all they did was playing a role of a revolutionary, stepping on a side of anarchy. Fairy-tales can get disturbing sometimes. What I resent them the most is that if they wanted to film a movie for children, why did they have to make it so violent. I get the filling like they wanted to make an universal film, for anybody to watch. If they really wanted that, why filming a fairy-tale??
Æon Flux (2005)
Aeon Flux; shocking and amazing
After watching the movie my impressions were leaning to almost worshiping. From the beginning it seemed like just another conspiracy movie, such as equilibrium or Orwell's 1984, so I said to myself; what the 'heck', those were solid movies anyway, therefor I preceded.
The turnout was, however, quite shocking. I would never imagine the whole idea behind setting was to warn people of how cruel cloning can get, by controlling population and choosing which members are actually appropriate to be a part of such tyranny. Aftewards I read in one of the reviews that whole idea of a movie was a remake, of MTV's cartoon, which seemed rather funny learning they are actually capable of such minimized-Hollywood-stereotype picture. Of course there was ever present romance between good and bad, adrenalin rising explosions, and the prevalence of the righteous, but all in all it was far from being obvious.
My compliments go to Charlize Therone as well. Not only has she proved her multi orientated talent to preform in any kind of movie genre, but she looks damn hot too. I would rate this movie 'a must see' for any sci-fi enthusiast.