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Reviews
Bedazzled (2000)
Entertaining but nothing more
Overall an enjoyable movie with laughs and smiles but nothing extra-ordinary to keep myself coming back to it.
I like Brendan Fraser and the looks of Elizabeth Hurley sure stole quite a bit my attention (this fact alone might make me watch it again to catch anything I missed).
The movie is all about Brendan playing a miserable guy named Elliot, hopelessly trying to get together with people but don't make it. The character is quite sad since I see too many real life people in him. Fast forward and Elliot gets a chance to fulfill his every dream trough seven wishes offered by the Devil (Elizabeth Hurley) in exchange for his soul.
The movies is all about the wishes, the make up the comedy and laughs. It all ends happily of course (I don't regard this as a spoiler since it is a comedy without any claims for irony or dark twists) which is appropriate for the movie but not very unique. I must recommend the DVD version that contains deleted scenes since they cut out a whole wish episode that probably didn't fit in but it was quite fun and actually added to the movie even if it is watched after the main movie is finished.
I would like to see the original movie that this one was based on, starring Dudley Moore whom I'm not very fond of but still this idea is a good one and it just might have something extra.
Rated 5/10 for being fun and enjoyable to watch but nothing more.
Knights (1993)
My worst movie experience
This movie is probably the worst I have seen. Bad acting, bad script, bad everything. Comparing it to mainly two other movies in the same genre and from approximately the same time is interesting. Both Cyborg (Van Damme, 1989) and Nemesis (Olivier Gruner, 1993) are much better and seems more robust in both story and directing and still it's Albert Pyun who has directed these two as well!
The story is not original. The world has become a terrible place, possibly due to an environmental disaster or a nuclear war, and people live under medieval circumstances. A special breed of robots (cyborgs) live on human blood and there's the story... The cyborgs need to get a lot of humans to fulfill there "prophecy" and the humans need someone to stop them. One girl together with a robot (Kris Kristofferson) built by the creator of the cyborgs has been appointed by destiny to save mankind.
In this movie the director tries some Hong-Kong stylish fighting scenes with the participants flying high and leaping far. The movie fails miserably in this attempt.
I recommend this film with the only reason that most people will get a new "worst ever" movie to relate to. And to fans of the genre I recommend "Cyborg" since I think it's a very underestimated movie with quite a high entertaining factor. And if you can't stand Van Damme then check out "Nemesis".
I rated this movie 1/10.
Resident Evil (2002)
Not horror, but damn good action!
I am not a great fan of the games, I know about them and have spent a few hours in front of them. Not that they are bad but I did lack the time.
The movie acctually manages to capture the feeling of the games, very well indeed. The hopeless situation and the dejectedness of the people trying to survive. The movie also has a game like look and feel to it in the beginning. Watch the first scenes with Milla in the mansion and tell me if you agree...
The game style diminishes when the action picks up in pace though. And it really do keep a nice pace trough the rest of the film.
I was afraid that the end would spoil the movie in some way but it acctually lifted the overall impression one notch!
One thing (the thing?) that I think could have been done better or even have been left out was the "Big Monster". It wasn't really state of the art and didn't really fit in. It didn't affect the overall feeling though and I can live with it.
The story is good, it follows the original story with the evil Umbrella company performing illegal experiments and the effects of them is what we see. Screenplay lacks some but this isn't a drama, it's action so it doesn't really shine trough. Even the effects aren't that spectacular but they don't need to be. Less is more. Finally the movie score, I loved it! Hard, fastpaced and matched the movie close to perfectly.
This is proof that computer games (console rather...) do make great movies. Just give the idea to the right person!
7/10
The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001)
Magnificent
This movie simply is a new classic. The effects, the scenery, the actors, everything combines to a truly epic tale of good and evil.
From the very beginning of the film when the narrator's voice begins you're spellbound by it. I can't remember when I last felt like this watching a movie during my 26 year long life.
Being a Tolkien fanatic or not, you most likely will embrace the movie, and probably love it. The movie does lack the book's ability to fully describe the characters backgrounds and personalities and in the short time of the film, even though it's three hours long, the fellowship's travels is cut quite short and you don't get the feeling of travelling along. This however is when you compare it to the text of the book and since it's two totally different media they shouldn't be each ones mirrored copy.
I could write about the movie for hours, about the splendid scenery, the awesome actors (Ian McKellen and Christopher Lee, wow. And my personal favorite, Viggo Mortensen as Aragorn) and the dramatic but not overdone effects. But instead I will recommend that you see it for yourself, because unless you totally hate dream worlds with fantasy creatures you'll gonna like this film, having read the books or not.
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone (2001)
This generation's classic
Excellent movie that appeals to both children and adults as the beautiful story it is.
I saw this movie together with my fiance who had read the four books released which I havn't. Saying this, I don't have the books to compare with (but I ensure you that if I wanted to read them before I want to do it tenfold after seeing the movie!).
I usually find something to complain about, especially panorama scenes when you get to see a lot of scenery and buildings. The two things I did found disturbing in the movie was the computer generated face of Voldemort and the centaur in the forest. Apart from this everything was, in short, beautiful. Both sceneries, buildings, costumes and creatures.
Being twenty-six years of age today I relate to the movies of my youth and I am willing to place a bet on that the Harry Potter movies will be for the children of today's generation what the original Star Wars movies are to my generation.
Ending my comment, I just want to say that I embrace the movie and I hope that with the success of Harry Potter and the forthcoming Lord of the Rings movies we will see a growing support for great fantasy films, as we havn't exactly been spoilt with this.
BattleTech (1994)
A positive experience
If you're a lover of the books and the battletech world in general, you will probably like the animated series. It has it flaws of course but still they don't spoil it all.
The series represent the inner sphere houses' fight against the clans' invasion.
One thing that I liked about the series is that the "war" scenes are computer animated. They aren't the best, nothing compared to what you see today but it must have been rather small a budget and it was a couple of years ago and, keeping in mind the speed of how computer technology advances it's quite good.
Unfortunately the series are hard to find.