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Reviews
Ben-Hur (2016)
Wake me up when they get to the charioteering
This is a well shot, well acted and generally good film, but is let down rather dramatically by the overly pointed religiosity, slow pacing and lack of empathy for the characters. Coincidence is pretty central to the plot too and even having not seen the original, I was never in any doubt as to what would happen next.
It starts as a buddy-film with the old "opposites thrust together" kind of thing, then moves into a betrayal section before the main dude learns an important lesson about rowing (I think. It may have been slavery... or drumming?) and finishes as a sports film featuring some revenge and Morgan Freeman.
So all that would have left me with a "meh" rating of about 6. Not an epic, but a pretty OK history-based drama film (also: Morgan Freeman). However, with the blunt insertion of a 1950's style Jesus; everything takes on a heavy moralistic tone where subtlety is largely absent, the story becomes a string of parables and sexiness is replaced with leprosy.
So I'd say avoid unless you really like Morgan Freeman or watching a bunch of dudes row (warning: not a euphemism).
Johnny Virus (2005)
Hopefully not infectious...
It took me some time to engage enough to work out which of the performers was indeed the eponymous character, by the time I had however the lack of tension or purpose in any of the scenes made me want to eat my own shoes rather than watch anymore. The "gangsters" were about as terrifying as a muzzled and sedated Chiwawa and the plot dull and eye gougingly predictable enough to be a passable stand in for any bureaucrat. There seemed to me to be an awful lot of scenes where people were just standing about waiting for something to happen which invariably was not worth the wait.
This film is attempting to prop up the Sin City, graphic novel, genre with the same type of voice-over, style of dress, use of shadows and four swear words per line of dialogue etc. but it falls some way short. I'm also wondering if this film is sponsored by some tobacco manufacturer as all the characters seem to be smoking all the time.
The obviously small budget is a mitigating factor and if the whole film had been like the title sequence it could have been quite good but I'd still classify this film as Ed Wood poor without the kitsch value.