Change Your Image
adrian-87
Reviews
A Town Has Turned to Dust (1998)
Weak story, nice art direction
A town turned to dust is an average scifi movie, with a weak story. I did not like the story, because the same story has been the story for tons of other movies. But to my opinion, the art direction is good. So after all i did not feel watching this movie was a waste of time, altough some parts are boring and the acting is not always at a descent level. My advice is: watch it, if you like nice art direction, otherwise skip it.
Black Hawk Down (2001)
Second best war movie ever
To start with: I have never seen a better war movie than 'Das Boot'. But, Black Hawk Down is a very close second best in my all time list. (maybe after seeing it a couple of more times, it will be my personal best...). Except 'Das Boot', none of the known war movies deals better with the subject 'war'. The only movie which is able to stand in Black Hawk Down's shadow is Saving Private Ryan (only because of the beach part, after that, spr is to my opinion a little bit over the top).
What makes Black Hawk Down such a great movie? Well, I think it is the intensity of this movie. In war, people die. Because of the fact that death and war are going hand in hand, it is not possible to make a good solid war movie without showing the horror caused by war. Due to the amount of realistic violence and gore, it will make you think about the terror war brings to people all over the world. Because of the fact that Black Hawk Down is based upon a real story, it makes you even more think.
Some people complain about the lack of character development. well, I think that war does not need character development! War does not need deeply developed characters, only fighting skills count. Other people complain about the patriotism in this movie. This movie does a great job in showing the way in which the Americans tried to reach two downed Black Hawk hellicopters. And, offcourse, the Americans are portraied as the heros, but, in this case, they actually are the heros! Those brave men where fighting for their lives in order to establish peace in a foreign country... so why complain about patriotism? 9.9/10
Spider-Man (2002)
A new standard is set
To start: this is by far the best comic book adaption I have ever seen. The fact that this movie is situated in a real life city, makes it far more attractive than other super-hero movies. Sam Raimi did a very good Job creating a fantastic, visual fantastic action movie. OK, other super hero movies like the X-MEN offer nice visuals to, but when it comes to the acting, spiderman makes the X-MEN bite the dust! All acting is on a very high level. Tobey Maguire IS Peter Parker, the nerdish student, Willem Dafoe IS The Green Goblin/Norman Osborn (Osborn talking with his alter-ego is very cool) In fact this movie actually displays all the characters known from the comic books in the exact same way as you would imagine them out of the comic books. And, the art direction.... tremendous! The way spidey swings through the streets is very, very , impressive. Certain parts of this movie feel like if you are in a very cool rollercoaster ride. Now the question rises: does this movie have any weak sides? The answer is yes. EG, a microphone swinging through the screen. Do these weak sides bother? HELL NO!!! Spiderman is a fantastic piece of top-entertaining eye-candy.
Well brothers and sisters, I think Spiderman is the new standard in how a comic book should be translated to a great movie. Therefore this movie deserves a 9.5 out of 10
The Fast and the Furious (2001)
Now this is what I call entertainment
First of all: The Fast and The Furious does not have a good story. The plot is very thin and the dialogues are terrible. Now, the question rises: is it therefore a bad movie ? The answer (for me)is NO! The main reason why this is quite a good movie is the MTV ish style in wich this movie is recorded. The style is fast, with a couple of very nice camera movements. besides that, this movie offers great cars, great action and a fine soundtrack. Therefore, this movie offers exactly what it pretends: great, non complex entertainment.
So, if you are looking for a movie without a very complex storyline, but with great visuals and great entertaining value, this is the one.
8.5/10,
Gone in Sixty Seconds (2000)
Slick, but enjoyable
To start with: "Gone..." is way too slick. The main problem is that the action in this movie is too statical. A second problem is the fact that the story has a lot of potential for a great action movie, but since there is enough potential action to make this movie 2 times the normal length. I have never seen the original "Gone.." and therefore I can not judge the quality of that movie, but I think that of all possible action, the remaining action destillate in this remake is to slick and almost never real exciting. Overall this movie is enjoyable to watch, all acting is on a reasonable level and the art direction is ok. For sure, the cars steal the show, so I would say, a must see for car-lovers. Overall it's not a bad movie, but certainly no masterpiece. 7-/10
Panic Room (2002)
makes me think of Hitchcock, without being a copy
I went to see the panic room because I was wondering how David Fincher mannaged to translate this relative simple idea to a movie. Therefore I was a little bit sceptical about this movie. But after the first title screen was displayed, I knew this one was going to be OK. The title part is a verry nice piece of art wich sets the standard for the rest of the movie. David Fincher has done a great job on the camera movement through the house, with a camera flying through a coffee maker and through a light bulb as absolute highlights. The story is simple, but yet verry good translated to the white screen. In some way this movie makes me think of Hitchcock, without being a 'Hitchcock-copy'.
All the actors display a good level of acting skills, (Jody Foster is good as always) and especially Forest Whitacker does a very good job, playing the 'not-so-bad-badguy'. The only negative part of the movie is the ending, wich, in many ways, does not fit the overal quality of this movie.
So, the question rises: Ís this Fincher's best movie ever?' For me, the answer is yes, since he managed to create an even better atmosphere (mostely, because of te briliant camera movement) than in his other masterpiece, the fightclub.
9.0/10