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Riftmann
Reviews
Teen Beach 2 (2015)
Meh...
I loved Teen Beach Movie. I grew up with the cheesy 60s beach movies and it was a perfect homage. I was far outside the demographic for the movie and drove people nuts watching it over and over and singing the songs and dancing constantly.
I've waited a long time for #2 and meh...
No Barry Bostwick. Confusing addition of more characters that add nothing to the story. The 60 vibe is gone. Mack's rapid fire witty dialogue is gone. Message is same exact message as the first movie. The ending is... pointless and confusing, worthy of a Russel T. Davis Doctor Who script (which is not a good thing). Tanner and Leia are the only 60s kids with any air time. Doesn't start with the ending of the first movie. The whole thing just doesn't jell. Ross Lynch is ripped and shirtless, or in a tank top, way too often.
On the plus side- Choreography is still great. Songs aren't bad, just not 60ish. Message is still need it just is the same old same old.
Just blah, no magic like the first one for me.
Right at Your Door (2006)
Promising start, becomes boring and unrealistic
A great start, but moves into a boring, predictable poorly scripted, poorly acted mess. The reactions of the people are realistic for the most part, it's the science behind the whole premise that is bad. Dirty chemical bombs? Biological bombs? Dirty bombs are radioactive waste spread by explosion. Chemical and Biological agents would be hurt by explosions not spread. For a low budget movie the effects of the start are good. The acting and realism of the character's actions are good, but then it all goes down hill very rapidly. I have a hard time believing that other reviewers were actually scared by this movie. It enters a surreal, 'twilight zone' predictable last half, which wouldn't be so bad if it was trying for realism. Without spoiling things, I figured out the 'surprise' ending half way through the movie, or maybe sooner than that... I suppose people that like this sort of thing would appreciate the movie more than I did, but the flaws ruined it for me... I can't really fault the bad script, bad acting, since it was such a low budget attempt, but just too many logical unrealistic errors...
Noah (2014)
From great to meh
Half way through the movie, I was thinking this was the best adaptation of the Noah story I had ever seen, even beating John Houston's excellent adaptation and portrayal of Noah in the 1966 'The Bible' and was expecting to end up giving it a 9 or a 10. Ironically shortly after the actual flood started it turned into a weird soap opera on board the Ark. So 10 for the first half, a 3 for the second half, for a rounded up average of 7.
The turning point for me was when Ham's love interest, Na'el asked for help from Noah, he refused, and she was trampled to death. It was all downhill from there. I'm not sure I've seen an Aronofsky movie before, but the second half was very dark.
I guess I was expecting the Sunday school version, but with action. I wasn't expecting the drunken scene with Noah to be in it, or the nudity scene (The curse of Ham, which is a misnomer, but a contention for over 2000 year of what actually happen). Instead of ending with a feel good happy ending, it ended on a somber, depressing note.
While I'm not an atheist, none of the departure of the story from the Bible bothered me. Anybody who seriously thinks the Noah's Ark story really happened is, well, bonkers.
There were parts I really liked, Noah's telling of the creation story with current cosmology and evolution worked into it was great! The Watchers were wonderful. I loved the special effects. But most of the second half... was just a huge soap operatic mess.
Some of the complaints I've heard are silly. Magic smoke putting the animals to sleep is wrong, but you believe all the animals could fit on the Ark, and water came from nowhere to flood the entire earth and then went to nowhere when it was dried up is okay? Any Noah movie that upsets Kenneth Ham and Ray comfort is doing at least something right.
Spend more time with the cool animals coming to the ark scene, let Ham and Jepheth have a dang wife, and loose the stupid soap opera second half, and I would have given it a higher rating.
And while not a bible freak in the least, people are wrong when they say that the baddie, Tubal-Cain is made up. He is named in the bible.
I liked the acting, especially Emma Watson, Jennifer Connely, Logan Lerman, and of course Anthony Hopkins.
My main problem was with the script in the second half. Poor Ham. Got a worse deal than he did in the actual bible...
V (2009)
Yawn pie with snore sauce
What is it with remaking cheesy late 70s and early 80s sci fi TV shows like V and Battlestar Galactica only badly, and even worse? Pretty sad when the not-so-great original was better than the gawdawful remake.
Can't people come up with, oh i dunno, original ideas? V is hideously ugly, almost as ugly as they've made Morena Baccarin from Firefly... Something I thought impossible.
Oh and while we're at it let's make people even more paranoid of flu vaccine and health care. Even Fox (pox) News has picked up on this and think it's an anti-Obama show even though it has the same exact plot as a 26 year old show. Way to be responsible citizens, writers, and I use both terms loosely.
More happened in the first hour of the 1983 miniseries then this entire 4 hours heap of garbage.. Tyler hitting somebody is the most exciting thing that has happened yet.
And when the 'epic' series returns in March 2010 I fully expect to see Marc Singer and Faye Grant because no way can they talk about a show being epic when the ending credits are still rolling. They have to be talking about the 1983 show, in no way shape or form is this show 'epic'. Boring yes, but not epic.
I'll be doing something else in March, thank you very much. Like watching grass grow.
The Beast of Yucca Flats (1961)
Beyond Awful
Easily the worse movie I've ever seen. No on screen dialog, a horrible plot (a mesa that the police have to skydive to get on it, yet a family with a station wagon somehow get on it), bad acting, bad narration. I would go on but you get the idea...