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Reviews
District 9 (2009)
Exceptional movie, smart directing and great acting
Really well put together movie, unexpectedly well acted, directed and filmed. A kind of "Alien Nation" but updated with great CGI, and a truly "earthy" feel to it, a la "Alien". I think its well worth seeing.
I would have given this a 10, but there was one massive plot flaw that undermined much of the motive force of the plot. Simply put, why the hell didn't the aliens use their weapons?????? They clearly knew how powerful they were, in this vein, there was something incomplete about the movie, the super precious liquid was made in a grungy shack and hidden carelessly by these clearly very smart aliens. Such inconsistency is fine is a typically lousy summer movie, but this movie is better than that. I get the fact that this was inexpensively made and solving the plot for a more nuanced "weapons" situation would have made this a better movie. To be clear, typically oppressed populations do not have access to weapons of this caliber, if they did, they wouldn't be oppressed. For example, if the Palestinians had a real military, real power, there wouldn't be an Israeli occupation, there might be a real war, but it wouldn't essentially be a war of prison guards against prisoners. Hezbollah, no matter what one thinks of them, had real weapons and backed Israel down. Although, this seems off topic for the movie, the movie is actually trying to say something foundational about humans. I think it mostly works at this level, but the plot simply blows up regarding power.
Angels & Demons (2009)
leave your brain at the door and you'll like it well enough
major plot flaws, simply astounding frankly, but for those who like this, it won't matter.
the movie didn't start off too well, the guy who got his eye plucked out was inside near the anti-matter, how could the assassin get in???
the assassin could not have gotten around Rome that fast on his own putting up elaborate death scenes, especially after he was shot. On the hour, Jesus!
lots of other shoddy stuff but the actually worse thing was how they manipulated the characters, the bad guy was ideologically pure, but he was forced to act cynically, you really can't have both. Further, he risked his life with no assurance of his living. Didn't make any sense, the movie is a mess. But I have to say the heaven explosion scene was very cool, but was of course, undermined by the "plot twist" which was telegraphed.
vaguely enjoyable, if only because there were so many "mistakes" that one could then discuss.
Shooter (2007)
good cinematography and music, a lost opportunity otherwise
The main character should have died, he was a stone cold killer of at least multiple tens of people, a sniper covering for genociders, even if unintentional, a noble yet inevitable death a la "Perdition" was required, the ending was truly awful and there was one glaring plot flaw, at least, Wahlberg was shot twice, the second shot in the stomach seems to have magically repaired itself, although the movie took great pains to describe the repair of the shoulder area wound. Pena was great in his role, what a wonderful actor, he made the movie come alive. Otherwise, its an airport novel "thriller" book brought too directly to the screen. The setup was interesting but then the plot lost its way. The whole idea of the "good" super killer sniper compared to the "bad" super killer sniper made explicit how absurd this notion was, how could one honestly root for someone who was responsible for so many dead people under dubious circumstances. The outside shots, especially in the mountains, were gorgeous, the closing credit music by Otis Taylor, my man! was unexpected and made me smile.
Chaos (2001)
unexpected, smart, sublime, leaves a nice aftertaste
Chaos is a gem, mostly undiscovered, very smart, every so often I see a movie that is simply great. A great melding of art and entertainment. This movie takes female rage and bonding seriously, but not stridently, very cool movie
We Were Soldiers (2002)
Some good, a bunch of bad, a dash of schizophrenia
My sense is that this production was rushed to the theaters for obvious reasons. In a previous life, this movie probably wanted to be closer to "a thin red line" more irony, introspection, you can still see parts of this straining through the glop, Mel Gibson's plea to god to "ignore the prayers of those Heathens" was clearly in this mode. The problem is that much of the movie is half-baked, there is no way people get death notices in real time, for example, and some of the scenes were simply made up whole cloth, SPOILER coming, they never did a frontal assault on the enemy using Gatling gun equiped helicopters, why not, well, according to the book, this never happened and at the time, only airplanes carried these weapons, further, we were given the impression that this mythical attack was not planned in conjunction with these mythical machines, which is completely out of character for the colonel. By the way, sadly, the colonel in real life thought he won a victory because they killed lots of Vietnamese and got lots of weapons. A very sorry commentary on the whole war, which was actually represented well in the last moments of the film.
Pearl Harbor (2001)
A cynical disaster of a movie, a definitive must not see
Do not see this movie, it is a waste of time, it is the acme of summer hollywood shlock calculation. There is no drama, the acting (except Jon Voight) sucks, the writing is wooden, and its simply boring. It would be an appallingly bad movie at 2 hours, at 3 it seems like you have been consigned to a lower circle of hell.