Predator-11

The smartest thing for Fred Leuchter to do when confronted with the notion of providing proof as to the reality of the Holocaust would've been to simply say no. But since he was clearly unwilling to do so, the next best thing would be to would be to approach the situation objectively and scientifically. In the film he says several times that he was looking for evidence to prove the existence of gas chambers in Auschwitz, and was unable to find any. He also states that the sites were exactly the same as they were back in the 1940s, although he offers no evidence to back-up this assumption. He has absolutely no way of knowing what has happened to the chambers over the course of 40-50 years. A scientist would've realized this and come to the conclusion that the evidence he was gathering could potentially be flawed. Instead he approaches his task with the assumption that any information he gathers is 100% correct and that no tampering is possible, which is a fatal mistake. The fact of the matter is that Fred Leuchter has absolutely no idea what he's talking about, the way in which he gathered evidence and conducted his investigation was fundimentally flawed. He should've understood this and testified to that effect. For whatever reason he decided to jump to the conclusion that he was correct under any circumstance and propagated lies because of it. For this reason he is deserving of any repricussions that resulted from his actions. I have no sympathy for a man that is blinded by his own ego, or whatever it was that caused him to close his mind to many legitimate possibilities.

Browsing through the user reviews here on IMDB, I noticed a very recognizable trend. For every 3 or 4 rave reviews, proclaiming the show to be the funniest thing to hit television since Seinfeld, there is always that one scathing review, denouncing the show and, most predominantly, its unappealing main character, Larry David.

Many reviews, both negative and positive, will draw comparison to the Seinfeld show, and both seem to agree that its humor seems more or less derived from a similar source. Detractors claim the show lacks the innocent humor of Jerry Seinfeld and many of the supporting actors, and loses it's charm to simply become grating. Supporters claim that it has a sharper edge than the Seinfeld show, and delving into the more uncomfortable situations makes it more entertaining. However, one thing that never seems to come up, is whether or not the viewer likes or hates what they see, the show does its job perfectly.

The intention of CYE is to cause one of two specific reactions within the viewer. The first reaction, one shared by people who dislike the show, is usually one of disgust. The viewer will strongly dislike Larry David, seeing him as shallow and distasteful. The dialog will seem messy and awkward. The main reaction is one of confusion, questioning how anyone in their right mind could enjoy such tripe. The viewer will then stop watching the show, tell his/her friends not to watch it and possibly even post a harsh review on an internet movie website.

The opposite reaction, one shared by those who like the show, starts as simple association. The viewer will begin to recognize traits that look familiar. Usually these traits will start associated with fictional characters, most commonly those in the Seinfeld show. Soon these associations will begin to spread, to people you know, and finally to yourself. Once the viewer has become a true fan of the show, they will have made numerous connections between Larry David's personality and their own. At that point, Larry David ceases to be the annoying little jerk that he starts out as, and suddenly becomes a representation of all the little things that can, and frequently do, go wrong during the tasks of everyday life. From here you will not only grow to empathize with Larry David, you will actually appreciate him. For all the little mishaps and blunders that can seem so frustrating in life, Larry David can come along and twist them into a huge tangled mess that you couldn't have possibly imagined.

The trick of the show is to display those two main reactions, especially the ones from people who hate Larry. It's no coincidence that Larry is constantly surrounded by people who hate his guts, it makes for better entertainment. Sheryl, Jeff, Richard, and (for those watching Season 3) Mel Brooks, are Larry's fans. Nearly everyone else is an antagonist. The situations and dialog in the show, while fictional, are not made up. There is no doubt that Larry David has had plenty of similar situations in his real life. So you see, if everyone loved Curb Your Enthusiasm, there would be no show.

I recently picked up The Godfather DVD Collection, having seen (and loved) the first two films. I proceeded to watch the first two over again, enjoying every minute almost as much as the first time around. Then I watched the third one, which I had never seen before. I'd heard how bad it was, and how Coppola ruined the series with Part III, so my hopes were less than high, even though the brilliance of the first two films was still fresh in my mind. So I watched it all the way through, trying to keep an unbiased oppinion.

Well, it's not great, that's for sure. But I wouldn't call it horrible either. It certainly lacks the wonderful mood and appeal of the first two films, and it doesn't hold together nearly as well. The first two are so masterful that it takes a very keen eye and many repeated viewings to find even the most minute flaws in them. In Part III, there's plenty of cheesy scenes, forced acting and hammy lines. On the other hand, a lot of the scenes were really good. I liked most of the time spent in Rome, especially the confession scene with Michael and the soon-to-be Pope. The construction of the story itself was pretty decent as well, although it's ruined a little bit by some bad acting.

The main problem with the story of Part III was that it wasn't about anything the audience really cared about, and it certainly wasn't anything new. Part I gave us the story of an aging Mafia crime boss, who's family goes into chaos when he's shot. And Michael, the moral son who doesn't want to get involved with his families business, but feels it's his duty when he sees the corruption in the law and the government. Part II gave us the continuing story of Michael Corleone, trying to vanquish his enemies, and it also had the side story of Vito Corleone as a young man coming to America and his rise to power. To me the scenes with De Niro as Vito was the best part of Part II, and I don't think the film would've been nearly as great without them. Part III was the story of the aging Michael Corleone, but we'd already seen the same type of thing in Part I. So we start looking for parallels between Parts I and III, but they're just not there. So we start looking for originality and redeeming qualities of Part III on it's own, but we have a hard time looking past some of the flaws.

Frankly I just didn't really give a damn about any of the characters in Part III. Michael was an old man, and I could guess he would be dead by the end of the film. Connie had suddenly turned into this hard Mafia consultant, which didn't seem to fit her character from the originals at all. Vincent was basically James Caan's character, Sonny, from the original, only Andy Garcia isn't as good an actor and didn't pull it off as believably. Also it seems hard to believe that Michael would leave the family in the hands of someone so brash and forward as Vincent. The character we were really supposed to care about, Mary, was completely blown by a terrible acting performance by Sofia Coppola, that has to be one of the worst casting calls I've ever seen. I literally laughed at the end (you all know what scene I'm talking about), her acting was just so canned and cheesy it was really pathetic.

On an up note, the cinematography was great once again. Although the film didn't have the same play on light and shadowing that the first two had, it did have some amazing shots of Rome and Sicily. The film was very pleasent to look at throughout. The music was also very good, although I think they used Nino Rota's original theme a bit too much.

Of course, if you compare Part III to the first two films, your going to come up with tons of problems with it and probably won't like it very much. But on it's own it's a pretty decent movie, there have been tons of better Mafia films (Goodfellas, Casino, Donnie Brasco etc..) but it's still alright. What's so disappointing is that the first two are amazing, and the third one is just pretty good. But it says a lot about a series when the worst of the bunch is still a good movie. On a scale of 1 to 10, I give The Godfather Part III, 6 stars.

That was the only question I was asking myself after watching Scary Movie 2. This movie is bad, VERY BAD. It rarely has jokes that are funny and the shock value is overdone and comes off as desperate. James Woods is the only good actor in the movie and he's also bad in it, he does have the only really funny line in the movie though. He walks into the room with The Exorcist girl, she spins her head around and he takes one look and says "F**k this!" And walks out, I actually laughed at that part. The rest of the humor is just horribly crude and rarely funny. The movie is just one big spoof on many different movies done very poorly. Both of these traits can be very good if done correctly, crude humor is funny in the hands of the Farrelly brothers. Spoofs are funny in the hands of David Zucker. But unfortunatly neither is funny in the hands of the Wayans brothers.

I can't recommend this movie to anyone except for the most immensely immature and perverted. On a scale of 1-10 I give Scary Movie 2 a 3.

Holy Grail is easily the silliest of all the Python movies, save And Now For Something Completely Different which isn't really a movie at all but a series of some of the better sketches from the Flying Circus. Of course saying that Holy Grail is silly certainly isn't insulting it in any way, it may be the funniest Python movie ever made, although the humor isn't for everyone. The pure randomness and all out impossibility of everything that happens is what makes it so funny, this is definatly present in their other films but generally not to the degree that is seen in Holy Grail. I have a hard time deciding whether Holy Grail or Life of Brian is the better movie, while Holy Grail tends to get more overall laughs, Life of Brian's jokes seem more intelligent and well thought out. I would say that Holy Grail is better for a first time viewing, but Life of Brian tends to be funnier over repeat viewings. Both movies are simply fantastic and nothing made nowadays can come close to rivaling the all out hillarity that was Python.

I don't know how you people can not like the ending to Holy Grail, in my oppinion it fit in so perfectly with the rest of the movie. You guys love other odd quips of the same sort such as the holy hand grenade, the animator suddenly dying to kill off a monster, the black knight and cocconuts being used in place of horses yet a completely random and unexpected ending doesn't sit right with you? That just seems strange to me. Personally, I think having a big budget, flashy fight scene at the end would've made the movie seem stale and unoriginal, it simply wouldn't fall in with the style of the rest of the film. They needed to put in something that would make audiences say "What the hell was that all about?" at the end at that's exactly what they did.

While the members of Python have now gone their seperate ways you can still see the same type of wackiness coming up in newer movies they've contributed to. I would say the most prominant would be the films Terry Gilliam has directed, most of them aren't meant to be funny but the aching attention to detail he puts into his strange, chaotic sets will often remind you of something out of Python. The best examples would be Brazil and to a lesser extent Twelve Monkeys, both strange, fantastic movies, even though they're not particularly funny.

Many people see Silvester Stallone as just another action movie hero who can't do anything but that. However, unlike other action movie stars, (Schwarzenegger, Van Damme, Seigal etc..) Stallone made his breakthrough with a movie that wasn't really an action movie at heart. He gave forth an excellent performance in Rocky and set a standard for himself that just seemed to fall and fall as his career progressed. He starred in cheesy action movie role after cheesy action movie role until finally people began associating him with nothing but that. Now finally, over twenty years after Rocky, Stallone comes back and shows people that he can be more than an action hero if he wants to. Stallone's performance in Cop Land shows vulnerability, anger, admiration, fear and many other emotions that were rarely present in any of his movie except Rocky. I'm sorry to say that I was one of the many people who took Cop Land for granted when it came to theaters simply because I didn't believe Stallone could do anything but cheesy action movies. Today, I finally rented it out of pure curiosity and was shocked at how far I was from the truth.

Cop Land is a very well made film about a small town that corrupt New York City cops have made their haven. Stallone plays the sheriff of the town, Freddy Heflin, who wanted to be NYPD but couldn't due to a hearing disorder. When Murray 'Superboy' Babitch (Michael Rapaport) shoots and kills two drugged up teenagers when he mistakes a steering wheel club for a gun in a high speed chase, his friends come in to help him. But their far-fetched plan starts to come down on them when Moe Tilden (Robert De Niro) from Internal Affairs begins investigating Superboy's alleged suicide. Things begin to go seriously wrong from here and Freddy is caught right in the middle. I thought that Stallone would have been upstaged by all his great co-stars like Harvey Keitel, Ray Liotta and Robert De Niro, but I was wrong. Stallone comes out perfectly as an aging cop with smashed dreams faced with a moral dilemma he doesn't know how to solve. In many ways he idolizes these big time New York cops but he knows that many of the things they do are wrong. In many ways Stallone's performance is far superior to that of his co-stars as he exhibits more depth and character development than any of them.

Cop Land is a somewhat unknown gem that many people overlooked for the wrong reasons. If you have any interest in the genre I would highly recommend it. Cop Land is probably the second best police murder/crime drama I've seen, only behind L.A. Confidential. At times the story has something to be desired and unlike L.A. Confidential is drags in some parts but the fantastic performances by every cast member more than make up for these minor flaws. I give Cop Land 8 stars out of 10.

Well the first of many exciting summer blockbusters has arrived and it delivers on the special effects front, but not much elsewhere.

Pearl Harbor is a story about two friends (can't remember their names in the movie and don't care enough to check) who like to fly planes. One of them gets a great girlfriend but decides to go off and fight the war, after his plane gets shot down everyone assumes he's dead and his friend decides to put the moves on his girlfriend. You can probably guess where the movie goes from here. Oh, I forgot to mention that they all wind up at Pearl Harbor on December 7 1941. The story is predictable and hokey but not quite as laughably cheesy as Titanic. Ben Affleck, Josh Hartnett and Kate Beckinsale all deliver better performances that Leonardo Dicaprio or Kate Winslet, but that's really not saying much.

Anyway, enough about the stupid story. On to the battle scenes! The movie really delivers on this aspect with some of the biggest, most fantastic special effects I've seen to date. It's got huge explosions, wizzing bullets, crashing planes, fast paced dogfights, sinking ships, falling bombs and anything else you can think of. The Pearl Harbor attack scene is the highlight, of course, lasting about 40 minutes or so. However there are a couple other scenes that are quite impressive as well. Don't expect perfect historical accuracy though as this is something of a watered down version of the attack. One thing most veterans claim is the most memorable aspect of the attack is the oil spread all over the water igniting and burning sailors alive. There are no shots of this but there are a few inside the hospital of sailors covered in oil. This is a PG-13 Disney production though so expect the actual blood and gore to be at a minimum.

My biggest problem with Pearl Harbor is the length. They essentially took a love story that could've been packed into less than an hour of footage and extended it over two hours. This can get quite annoying for the first 2/3rds of the film is extremely slow and uninteresting. If they had trimmed even half an hour off it would've made the film much more enjoyable. Oh well, I'll probably buy the DVD so I can skip straight to the good parts.

So if you're looking for a big special effects extravaganza then Pearl Harbor will surely hit home, although you might consider walking in an hour late. If you're looking for a truly excellent movie with lots of depth, I would recommend you steer clear of Pearl Harbor and find a theater playing Memento instead. I'm going to do something I haven't done before which is give Pearl Harbor a couple different ratings. My final rating for the movie as a whole is a 5 out of 10. If they had chopped 20-30 minutes off the useless crap I would've given it a 6. 30-45 minutes would've gotten it a 7. And 45 minutes to an hour would've gotten it an 8. That's my opinion, enjoy.

I didn't really expect much walking into Driven. In fact only one thing was on my mind, watching some killer racing scenes with some bad ass crashes. I certainly got what I wanted, not much more though.

The acting and story are fairly average. I'm not going to complain too much but it was certainly cheesy in many parts. Stallone does a decent job as an old, retired racer returning to help Kip Pardue get his sh*t together on the racetrack. I found him entertaining at best but his performance in this movie certainly doesn't compare to Rocky. Pardue's character is fairly bland and predictable, as is pretty much the entire plot. The rest of the cast fall in line the same way.

Now on to the good stuff. THE RACING! There certainly is enough of it. There's probably at least one race every 15 minutes in the movie. That's a good thing though, especially after gone in sixty seconds which I didn't think had nearly enough racing. The races are fast and exciting and the crashes are breathtaking, if not 100% realistic. Many people complain about the CGI being too obvious but let's put it this way, whenever there's a shot where there's no way in hell they could get a camera there, it's CG. All in all I thought they did a good job on the CG, it's a perspective that you wouldn't be able to get under any other circumstance and it's definatly fun to look at, even if you know it's fake.

One thing that bugged me was the constant jump cuts and jerky camera angles. During the races it's expected and didn't bother me but they even shot slow, talking scenes that way which can get pretty irritating. It's like that whole movie was just a big party in the editing room.

My recommendation is to go see it with your friends and don't analyze it too much, otherwise you'll ruin the fun. On a scale of 1 to 10 I give Driven a 7.

I went into Hannibal with high expectations, I'd been waiting for it since I saw the first preview trailer god knows how many months ago. Let me first start by saying that I wasen't disappointed, however it also wasen't anything like what I expected it to be.

First off, it's really not a scary movie like Silence of the Lambs was. It has a few tense moments but they rarely end with a jump and by the end you're not really fooled by the slowly-building music anymore. It may not be a particularly scary movie but it's certainly a horror movie. I had heard

all this stuff about how horribly gory it is but I was surprised at how little gore was actually shown, apart from the ending of course. The rest of the gore was usually just really quick cuts, dark scenes and jumpy camera angles, so while you know what's happening your never get a really good look at anything.

The acting is superb, hands down. Anthony Hopkins once again fills the shoes of the intelligent, subtle, creepy Hannibal Lecter. He manages to maintain the base character he established in Silence of the Lambs while adding to, or even enhancing him with new aspects you wouldn't have thought would fit Hannibal. The most noteworthy is the comedic aspect which, while it seems odd, fits Hannibal's charactor quite well. There are several scenes which will definatly have you chuckling. Julianne Moore certainly does a fantastic job in place of Jodie Foster as Clarice Starling. I believe that the she really studied Clarice's character very in depth in preperation for this role. She seems very comfortable playing the part and does an excelent job making the character her own while adopting many traits that Jodie Foster established, and the audience expects from Clarice.

The overall story and feel to the movie is much more lighthearted than Silence of the Lambs. You can tell that everyone involved in the making of this film was having a blast just being a part of it, especially Hopkins. It's not the gritty, realistic crime thriller that Silence of the Lambs was. But more of an exciting, well-paced chase film. You've got Giannini, Moore and Oldman's characters all trying to get Hannibal and Hannibal just messing with them as soon as they get close. It makes for one hell of a good time at the movies. The problem is that it probably won't appeal to people who want another Silence of the Lambs. I loved Silence of the Lambs, and hoped that Hannibal would be like it. I didn't get that, what I got was a really good film that didn't NEED to stand on the shoulders of it's predecessor.

***WARNING SPOILERS AHEAD***

Well, I have to say SOMETHING about the ending since in my oppinion they went WAY overboard. I thought that they should have put in something more intelligent (no pun intended) than just an ultra gory finale. I find it hard to believe that Liotta's character could actually survive having his entire brain exposed. I don't know if this is true but I heard somewhere that the human brain can't be exposed to anything but PURE oxygen (filtered by the lungs). It seems like the numerous chemicals and toxins that are in the air would almost certainly kill him the second his brain was exposed. Also I heard that the brain is actually more liquidy and would more than likely spill out when Liotta's character starts leaning around after his "lobotomy". Of course that would have made the scene even more gruesome and unpleasent. I thought that they should have spent more time thinking up a psychologically creepy ending instead of just a big grossout.

***END SPOILERS***

All in all Hannibal is a damn good time at the movies. It's not Silence of the Lambs and I don't think it's Oscar calliber material but it certainly has many redeeming qualities of it's own. I would've given Hannibal an 8 but because of the ending I lowered the score to a 7.

Now, I'm not usually a fan of Jackie Chan movies, I think he makes movies that are entertaining to a certain extent, but get old fast. Why is this? Because he generally does Chinese drama instead of actual fighting styles. This makes his movies look good, but also unsatisfying to hardcore martial arts fans like myself. Using such dramatic fighting tends to take away from any realism the film might have. Now, while Legend of the Drunken Master may have some outrageous situations, at least the fighting is very similar to what you would see if you watched real masters of their particular styles fight.

I, personally think that Drunken style Kung Foo is great. If done correctly it's extremely effective and equally entertaining to watch. Perfect for a good martial arts movie. I was happy to find that Drunken Boxing isn't the only real style used in the film, most of the people use real and very recognizable styles as well. One worth mentioning is the fight with the head bad guy at the end, he shows off his fantastic talent in Kickboxing, with a very elaborate fight sequence.

As with most martial arts films, the story and philosophy (if any) falls short, although I can't really say I've seen a film get it right since Enter the Dragon. This can't be completely blamed on the film since I'm sure a lot was lost in the translation, kind of makes me want to learn Chinese. But I didn't expect much from it, I just wanted some great fight scenes and that's exactly what I got.

I gave Legend of the Drunken Master 7 stars out of 10.

Although I was extremely impressed with the incredible 3D effects in this movie. It seemed sort of forced. I suppose the technology is so new that the creators just wanted to see exactly what they can do. So they took a bunch of cool looking CGI sequences and made it true 3D, instead of just computer 3D. Some of these sequences I'm sure you'll recognize, Antz and a scene from The Simpsons (guess which one) are the two most likely.

The downside to Cyberworld is that it lacks anything but eye candy. There was an attempt at throwing some life into it with a stupid plot about our "cyber-host" fighting off the clumsy "code bugs" who are worse than Jar-Jar Binks, so watch out. They could have at least attempted to put in a plot that might interest someone over the age of 3, but they didn't. It's all cheeseball, poorly done G-Rated c**p. At least Disney makes it funny and entertaining, Cyberworld just makes it stupid.

But I doubt most people are going to spend $10 to see Cyberworld for it's fantastic plot. We all know that they just want to see cutting edge 3D effects that will blow them away, and there's plenty of that. That's why I saw it, and it was definitely incredible. So now that they know what they can do, maybe they can do something interesting.

American History X is by far one of the most memorable films I've ever seen. It stuck with me for days after the first time I watched it. The story is fairly simple. A highly respected Neo-Nazi named Darek gets out of prison and attempts to mend the damages done to his family by his hate-filled life. It's told through a mix of Darek's younger brother recalling the events leading to his arrest (in black and white) and current events just after his release (in color).

Edward Norton gives a fantastic and moving performance as Darek. This is one of those movies where the actor get's so into the role that you completely forget you're watching a movie. In the flashback scenes he spouts extremely powerful dialog in a manner that will make you think he just thought of it on the spot. And in the present scenes he gives an emotionally moving performance as a loving brother. Norton was absolutly robbed of the best actor Oscar.

The story is incredibly touching and honest, with scenes that will arise dozens of emotions in you. The manner in which the story unfolds is executed perfectly, cutting you off part way into the plot, but never leaving you confused or uptight. Each moment is just as interresting as the last. The ending leaves you with so much to think about that you'll want to see it again, just to make sure you took everything in.

I recommend American History X to anyone who hasn't seen it, but I'll warn that the violence and intense, and sometimes angering subject matter might be too much for some. But since the film was obviously meant to be realistic, it succeeds in every aspect. I give American History X a perfect 10 stars out of 10.

Let me start by saying that Supernova is not, by any means, a good movie. But I'm going to give it some credit because it's very evident that there were serious production problems. I mean the origonal director had his name taken off it, and the other two (one of which was Francis Ford Coppola) also refused to be credited, the name Thomas Lee was used in replacement.

At least they had their head on straight for the effects, which are gorgeous and very well done. However, the story falls horribly short, the acting is forced (no one looks like they even want to be there), and there are plot holes galore. It seems to me that there may have been a good movie there, initially. But due to major problems during production, the directors vision was smashed and everything went to hell.

I watched the DVD version and the deleted scenes make the movie a little better, I really prefered the alternate ending to the one used in the movie. But if they wanted to make it good, they would basically have to start again from scratch, but they could hold on to the special effects. All in all, Supernova is a valiant attempt, but an awful failure. I give it 3 stars out of 10.

I consider this film superior to Forrest Gump (the big oscar winner that year) in almost every way possible. Granted, Forrest Gump is a good film, but The Shawshank Redemption is an absolutely brilliant piece of art (yes I said art) that, in my opinion, is one of the greatest films ever made. Judging from the scores it got here on the IMDB, many people agreed with me.

This just prooves how ego-centric the Oscars actually are. They really aren't about which film is the best, they're about what the simple-minded audience wants to win. Forrest Gump made an absolute killing at the box office, Shawshank did quite poorly. It's likely that the results at the Oscars satisfied more people than it would have had Shawshank won, but that's only because not many people saw it. I'd like to see you find someone who hasn't seen Forrest Gump.

If you think this is a one time thing for the Oscars, look at the results for Titanic, a film that I thought was absolute trash, James Cameron's worst. It won a bunch of oscars because everyone on the planet saw it. LA Confidential was the FAR more deserving film of that year, Good Will Hunting was also very good. But since the academy wouldn't want to upset all the idiotic fans of Titanic, it takes the oscars over the deserving film. The only "NOMINATION" that lousy movie deserved was for visual effects and I thought Starship Troopers deserved the win (which it didn't get, of course).

I think it's really sad that our society has become so corrupted by mass hysteria that it can't even figure out which films are great, and which aren't. Forrest Gump is good, The Shawshank Redemption is great. Titanic is crap, LA Confidential is very good (not as good as Shawshank though).

Ok, first off I must admit I am a HUGE Star Wars fan and have been since I saw A New Hope. However I also have a hobby of giving movie reviews, so just before the movie started I forced myself to consider this just a normal movie until I'd seen it. With all the mixed reviews that have been thrown around in the last couple of weeks I got pretty nervous that Phanton Mennace would suck. Fortunately it definitely did not. Lets start with the best part of the movie and I hate to repeat what everyone else has already said but I will, the special effects. Visually this movie is nothing less than spectacular, the underwater scene was stunning, the lightsaber battle at the end was the best one yet, the pod race was one of the coolest things I have ever seen in my life (even people who hated the movie liked that part), the creatures were seamless, and the ships were overwhelming. Lucas and ILM didn't leave out any details no matter how small, the shadows, the light coming from different angles, the chrome on shiny ships, take a look it's all there. Everyone always cuts down on the acting but I didn't think it was bad at all, Neeson was really good as usual, McGreggor was playing a very different role than he's used to but he still did a good job, Portman was great, she was one of the big highlights of the film, Lloyd wasn't as bad as people made him out to be, I mean come on people, the kid's only eight how good do you expect him to be? The plot seemed a little bit weird considering the whole thing was about trade taxation, doesn't really seem like a star wars plot does it? But I'm pretty confident that everything will get straightened out in the next two films. My biggest complaint about the movie was a floppy eared alien named Jar Jar Binks, this character was just flat out stupid, I really think he should have been left out of the picture entirely, I couldn't believe that Lucas would throw in a character that bad just for a few laughs from his 6 year old audience. Another smaller flaw in the movie was the incredible luck all the characters had, when they're underwater a big fish attacks them and a bigger fish eats it, then they get attacked again and the same fish eats the second one. Also there's a part where Jar Jar Binks gets his foot attached to the wires of a downed attack droid and when he tries to shake it off the blaster in the dead droid's hands goes off three times killing three more droids, I wish that one of those shots had hit Jar Jar right in his stupid looking face, god I hate that guy. All in all it was definitely a very entertaining movie with all the charm of the original three and with cool new special effects to boot. On a scale of 1 to 10 if Jar Jar binks hadn't been in it I would have given it a 10 but because of that clumsy freak I give it a 9.

I've been looking forward to Hollow Man since I first saw the trailer for it before Gladiator. I usually like big special effects blockbusters and I've enjoyed several of Paul Verhoeven's films in the past, namely Starship Troopers, Total Recall and Robocop. However, Showgirls is one of my least favorite movies of all time.

The movie starts out pretty good, showing off the impressive special effects with an invisible gorilla being brought back. The transformation from invisible to visible or vice versa were astounding. I was very surprised at how real everything looked and was prepped for another fun Verhoeven SFX extravaganza. Unfortunately the movie plummets into a vertical nose dive from there.

The premise is simple, scientist doesn't want to lose funding, tests new invention on self, goes horribly wrong. I'm not saying that plot is an important factor in the success of blockbusters but this one really didn't cut it. The change from normal scientist to psychotic killer isn't well defined. They should have put in more scenes of him messing with people on the street, there was one scene but it was confined to a small apartment. I walked into the theater ready to see an invisible man wreaking havoc on dozens of unsuspecting people, but it didn't happen. The whole movie just kind of slides by without a single really interesting thing happening. It just jumps from, him being normal to him being crazy without any real middle ground. I think it would have really spruced up this film to put in a whole period in which the camera follows Sebastian around while he lurks the streets, scaring people left and right. And during this middle period, we see a very frightening sense of power grow and grow in him up until the point that he snaps and goes completly insane. I guess they wanted to make the movie shorter or something because they cover this whole period in one 5 minute scene.

So how about the end action and violence? Well, they waste all the really impressive special effects in the beginning of the movie so there wasn't really anything there. The action is fast and bloody but it tends to end before you really get a satisfying look at what's going on. It's very disappointing because as soon as the final showdown between Sebastian and the other scientists begins you already know how it's going to end. It's very easy to guess exactly who's going to live and who's going to die.

All in all Hollow Man was a big disappointment. The special effects were very good but it didn't make up for an incredibly thin plot and a lack of explanation. I give Hollow Man 4 stars out of 10.

There is only one word that can be used to describe Nutty Professor 2, disgusting. This movie was filthy, every joke in it was about fat, flatulence or sex. And on top of that the jokes were not funny, they were just gross. Do I really want to hear about how long it takes for a 90 year old man to get an erection? NO!

I like Eddie Murphy, and this movie shows off that he definatly has talent. The scenes where he plays just about everyone are very believable, you'll even forget that he's playing them all at times (except for the similar voices). Unfortunatly the jokes weren't any good so his talent in playing multiple charactors didn't really matter.

Despite Eddie Murphy's fine acting skills, I really disliked this movie. I thought the humor was crude, rude and even insulting at times. The whole thing was just one sickining toilet joke after another. A word of warning to parents who want to control what their children watch, this movie should be rated R. There is no doubt in my mind that the only reason it wasn't rated R was because of Eddie Murphy's name on it. There isn't much swearing or anything like that but the humor is very inappropriate for younger children. It got so racy at times that even I was embarresed.

So unless you're extremely immature and feel like spending an hour and a half hearing about the details of extremely old people having sex, than avoid this movie at all costs. I give Nutty Professor 2, 3 stars out of 10 because I thought it was better than What Lies Beneath which I gave 2 stars.

Walking into the theater I wasn't really sure what to expect from this movie, the previews made it out to be a horror/suspence/thriller/mystery which I definatly like. I wasn't all that impressed with the previews but I figured anything with Harrison Ford and Michelle Pfeiffer couldn't possibly be that bad. Boy was I wrong!

From the very beginning I started realizing how poorly made this film was starting with the bland dialog. I've seen great talent get wasted on poor scripts or direction many times before but this was just rediculous. Harrison Ford is one of my favorite actors of all time, he can really get into a charactor and make you truely love, or hate him and that's what makes him brilliant, but in this film he falls short of even a good performance. But who can blame him, he had nothing to work with.

Next comes the "horror" scenes. Talk about predictable. There was absolutely nothing in this movie that hasn't already been done a dozen times before. All the parts that are supposed to be startling are just the same old, "look one direction then look back and theres something standing there", camera angle trick repeated over and over. Both me and my friend who have seen a lot of horror movies could sit there and count down to when the startling part was going to happen.

The plot is also incredibly predictable. Partially due to all the spoilers included with the trailer. Both of us had the whole thing figured out half an hour into the film. I never walk out of movies because sometimes they'll get better towards the end but this one goes from bad to worse with plot "twists" you saw coming a mile away.

Undoubtably the worst film I've ever seen Harrison Ford in and it's just one step above Battlefield Earth as the second worst film I've seen this year. I give What Lies Beneath 2 stars out of 10.

To be completely truthful I though this movie was going to be lousy, I mean really lousy. I saw the preview and thought "oh boy, another cheesy comic to film adaptation." I had no intentions on seeing it but decided to give it a shot because I loved the comics (and had already seen everything else). I'm happy to say that I was very pleasently surprised.

X-Men really stays true to the comics with well developed characters that act like they did in the comics. The casting was good in that aspect but I though everyone, except Xavior and Magneto looked too young. In the comics Storm is supposed to be a very old woman but she was cast with Halle Berry who is in her early 30s. But this is only a small let down.

The effects are wonderful, big, exciting and flashy. If you can I would definatly recommend seeing this film in a THX certified theater as it really adds to the sound quality.

The plot is good, making it feel like a long comic. Very satisfying.

My biggest complaint was the absence of my favorite of all the X-Men. Gambit!!! Who's idea was it to leave him out? That guy really kicked some serious ass. Also I though it was too compact, they should have extended it into a 2+ hour movie.

All in all it was a very nice change from all the poorly made comic to film adaptations. I give it a 7 out of 10.

I was really hoping I would like this movie, but I didn't think I would. For one I'm a HUGE fan of John Woo films, and I really enjoyed Mission Impossible 1, but when I saw the preview it just didn't grab me and make me say "I have GOT to see that movie". But none the less I paid the $7 and checked it out.

First of all this movie is NOT like M:I1, sure we've got Tom Cruise running around with a bunch of cool gadgets but the similarities end there. What we don't have is the intriguing and complicated plot of the first movie, in fact I thought the plot was fairly bland and uninteresting. We also don't have the shocking plot twists, yes there are attempts at plot twists but they're all way too predictable to be even the least bit shocking. It felt to me like Woo just tried to palm off all the twists with a bunch of mask scenes (you know the ones where you think it's one person but it turns out to be someone else), I thought the first one was good but I found it very easy to guess all the rest.

However, most of the action scenes, although extremely unrealistic, were exciting and well done. You can really see John Woo come out in the action, particularly the last scene. There are tons of big, cool explosions, gunfights, stand offs, and slow motion effects. By far his flashiest, but not his best movie. A downside to M:I2 was that it had to be rated PG-13, most all of Woo's other films have R ratings which adds a level of brutality to them, and in that, realism. I found it took away from the movie to have such obviously far fetched scenes in it. I mean come on, you expect us to believe that two men can collide in mid air at a good 60 miles an hour, fall off a 20 foot ledge and then proceed to get in a ruthless fist fight? In reality they would be extremely lucky to be alive, and I mean EXTREMELY LUCKY!!! But who really cares, it's not like action movies are about realism, and by no means am I saying that Woo's other movies are realistic, but they were certainly more realistic than this one.

So what did I think of this movie overall? Well, it's not bad. I didn't leave the theater feeling completely ripped off like with Battlefield Earth. However I also didn't leave the theater already wanting to see it again like with Gladiator. All in all it was a pretty average action flick, nothing really special like M:I1. If you're a big action movie buff I would say go ahead and see it, but if you want another M:I1 by all means steer clear of this movie because you will be horribly dissapointed. I give it a 6 stars out of 10.

Ok, first off I must admit I am a HUGE Star Wars fan and have been since I saw A New Hope. However I also have a hobby of giving movie reviews, so just before the movie started I forced myself to consider this just a normal movie until I'd seen it. With all the mixed reviews that have been thrown around in the last couple of weeks I got pretty nervous that Phanton Mennace would suck. Fortunately it definitely did not. Lets start with the best part of the movie and I hate to repeat what everyone else has already said but I will, the special effects. Visually this movie is nothing less than spectacular, the underwater scene was stunning, the lightsaber battle at the end was the best one yet, the pod race was one of the coolest things I have ever seen in my life (even people who hated the movie liked that part), the creatures were seamless, and the ships were overwhelming. Lucas and ILM didn't leave out any details no matter how small, the shadows, the light coming from different angles, the chrome on shiny ships, take a look it's all there. Everyone always cuts down on the acting but I didn't think it was bad at all, Neeson was really good as usual, McGreggor was playing a very different role than he's used to but he still did a good job, Portman was great, she was one of the big highlights of the film, Lloyd wasn't as bad as people made him out to be, I mean come on people, the kid's only eight how good do you expect him to be? The plot seemed a little bit weird considering the whole thing was about trade taxation, doesn't really seem like a star wars plot does it? But I'm pretty confident that everything will get straightened out in the next two films. My biggest complaint about the movie was a floppy eared alien named Jar Jar Binks, this character was just flat out stupid, I really think he should have been left out of the picture entirely, I couldn't believe that Lucas would throw in a character that bad just for a few laughs from his 6 year old audience. Another smaller flaw in the movie was the incredible luck all the characters had, when they're underwater a big fish attacks them and a bigger fish eats it, then they get attacked again and the same fish eats the second one. Also there's a part where Jar Jar Binks gets his foot attached to the wires of a downed attack droid and when he tries to shake it off the blaster in the dead droid's hands goes off three times killing three more droids, I wish that one of those shots had hit Jar Jar right in his stupid looking face, god I hate that guy. All in all it was definitely a very entertaining movie with all the charm of the original three and with cool new special effects to boot. On a scale of 1 to 10 if Jar Jar binks hadn't been in it I would have given it a 10 but because of that clumsy freak I give it a 9.

WOW! That's all I could say as I left the theater after seeing Saving Private Ryan, this movie is what film making is all about. As I walked out of the dark theater with my grandfather, who experienced the horror of Omaha Beach first hand over 50 years ago, I turned to him and said, "Was it really like that?" What he told me was just about the best way to describe this movie you can get, he said "Mathew, that movie was just about as close to war as you can get without the fear of taking a bullet." I must say that Stephen Speilberg has outdone himself once again, not only was Saving Private Ryan the best war film ever made, I'm trying to decide if I think it's the best movie ever made. Of course the movie's highest points are the brilliantly realistic war scenes, especially the Omaha Beach scene but the visuals aren't it's only good parts. The story is quite well thought out and the reactions from the charecters are very realistic, ie. The soldiers aren't too happy about having to risk their lives for one private who no one has even heard of. The charecters are very well developed and you really get to know and love (or hate) each and every one of their personalities individually. Speilberg got his point across so well that by the end you're screaming "KILL SOME NAZIS, THEN KILL MORE NAZIS, THEN AFTER THAT KILL EVEN MORE NAZIS." Believable story, amazing visuals, top notch acting, superb directing, touching dialog. All in all a true masterpiece, see this film at all costs I recommend it to everyone.

OK, now, I've heard a lot of bad reviews of this movie and I'm not gonna say it's a great movie or anything like that. I just want to tell the truth about Event Horizon, personally I enjoyed it and I'm not just saying that because I like blood and gore, the plot made you think also. Sure it's filled with action and violence and blood and it's not a film for 10 year old kids but come to think of it all horror movies are the same way, go to the video store and try to find a good horror movie (or even a bad one) that isn't filled with the same stuff. Well now that we got the blood out of the way lets get down to buisness, the plot revolves around the theory that when you try to break the laws of physics you have to pay and that's exactly what happens to the Event Horizon and it's crew when it trys to travel faster than the speed of light. When you actually look into it the scientific idea behind Event Horizon is fairly sound, if we had the technology to create a black hole it might actually work. The horror part of Event Horizon is scary and it has suspence and good nail biting action, it's not oscar caliber and it's not five star but it is a good hour and a half of entertainment.