Reviews
Batman & Robin (1997)
What a travesty.
I despise this movie above all others. More than any other film I have yet seen (with the possible exception of the near-criminal Dungeons & Dragons movie), this film represents Hollywood at its worst. Trampling the original concept upon which its movie is based to turn a quick buck. It's an example of an incredibly over-hyped director being given another chance to direct a movie featuring one of the strongest comic book licenses in existence and failing on every conceivable level. In fact, Schumacher fails on some levels that no rational moviegoer could have dreamed of. How can Mr. Freeze, one of Batman's most intelligent and menacing villains be represented as some sort of pun-slinging imbecile? How could the three main heroes be so petty and shallow? How can the batmobile, indisputably one of the coolest hero cars ever, be made to look like a shoddy piece of Day-Glo plastic? And it's not just the batmobile, everything in this movie has the same sort of glow in the dark, cheesy look that you could expect if this film were being directed by a group of Swatch-wearing pre-teen girls at a slumber party. The only difference is that they may have been able to come up with some better dialogue for our hapless actors to speak. Everything about this movie screams of being designed to make a quick buck solely based on the success of the previous movies. Movies that have been getting worse and worse by leaps and bounds as they move away from any pretense of being true to the actual story and concepts behind the comics that inspired them. Simply pathetic.
If you gave this movie a ten, I can not even begin to wonder what other movies you've seen which make this movie rate, by comparison, as the best a movie can get.
Shi ba ban wu yi (1977)
Nevermind the misleading title, enjoy pure chop-sockey goodness!
This film's title would lead one to believe that the movie is full of great weapons-based fight scenes in true martial arts movie style. Not quite. Sure, there are some (excellent) weapon-fighting sequences early in the movie, but they are short and have nothing really to do with the actual "plot" of the movie. But you know what? It doesn't even matter! This movie is a classic because it doesn't care about the title, the script, or even the acting! All it cares about is kick-butt kung-fu fight scenes. All your favorite stereotypical martial arts types are here: the main character who has people attacking him everywhere he goes for no apparent reason, the young actor dressed as a venerable kung-fu master, the two guys who always fight together against their opponents, and some of the worst editing you'll ever see (Watch the main character's outfit get dirty as he falls down and magically become clean again as he's getting up to resume fighting.). All that being said, you will also find some of the absolute coolest fight scenes this side of Sonny Chiba's "The Street Fighter." I honestly can't recommend this movie highly enough. It is a prime example of the chop-sockey movie and will remind you why you love them so much.