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A fine ghost story, told well by experienced director Uli Edel. Focus is on suspense and emotion, as the grief and shock experienced by the parents is explored strongly in the first half or so. It has been described in negative reviews as a poor man's Insidious, but that misses the point of the movie entirely. This is a classic Halloween ghost story, and not supposed to be a shock fest about demons or Satan. The only thing that made me shake my head is how college or university professors in Hollywood get away with giving ridiculously amateurish and shallow lectures, and are still always portrayed as successful, admired and beloved by students... Well, so be it.

It starts out as an intriguing Whodunit, with lots of secrets from the past getting finally unearthed -- like the corpse being finally discovered at the beginning.

But after some episodes, sadly it becomes all too obvious that the script writers actually had an oversexed, schlocky take on The Bold and the Beautiful and similar dailies in mind. The dead DJ and his teenaged friends are actually nothing but shallow, self-absorbed amateurs, his sister is a naive, self-centered bunch of nerves, and the former teenagers have grown up into somewhat daft, unlikeable posh addicts. To keep the viewers going, one crazy, over the top twist or side plot is introduced after the other, the most hilarious one being the incest storyline involving a nymphomaniac bored housewife.

People seem to praise the character Boxer unnecessarily high. Despite the good looks of the actor, the man is nothing but another whining narcissist populating the garish, decadent island Ibiza is portrayed to be here. In the end, you wish the protagonist wouldn't just scatter some ashes and babble on about the free life here, but blow up this Venus fly trap for the naive and party addicted.

Which is very very unfair towards the real island of Ibiza, it's cultural inheritance and it's locals fed up with the crazy tourists overload, of course.

It starts well, with a gripping premise, a strong sense of threat and really fine performances of the whole ensemble cast. As soon as you notice that the stories the caretaker tells his client about his childhood sound like taken from some weird soap opera, you get to the problem which ruined the second half of the movie. It all doesn't make much sense, the big conspiracy boils down to a pretty childish and even crazy love bombing / stalking situation, and the whole thing just cannot reasonably be explained. It is a good allegory of how a relationship with a narcissist, either by relation or through marriage, would function and feel like. But just like a narcissistic dream world, it doesn't stand the light of day or reason. It was probably made for teenagers or young adults, as this audience will more easily buy into the scriptwriters superficial and messed up use of classic thriller ingredients.

There is hardly any original content in the plot of this Danish remake of Australia´s "Picnic at Hanging Rock" mixed with all the failures of a more recent production, "Midsomar". Now, that Australian movie and also the series would annoy viewers with their slow, mesmerzing style of storytelling, but at least both were very competently made, were driven by strong characterisations and tried to get a point across.

The only point of "Equinox" seems to be, that life as a teenager pretty much s*cks 24/7, especially if you are the victim of dreadfully bad parenting, and fancy rituals or to dabble into the occult doesnt help much, either (surprise surprise!).

While it all started out very intense and interesting,the whole story got lost into repetitive re-tellings of everybodys bad childhood, pointless but equally sad side stories and characters, with the true mystery behind it all explained pretty quickly, but also in a quite unsatisfying, throw-away style.

As the two protagonists, the doomed sisters, are very flat and unlikeable characters (one is pretty, blonde and unhappy all the time, the other one is nothing but a nervous, very self-centered wreck), it seemed quite fitting that in the end they could find their "happiness" (?) in the arms of some weird, blurry Celtic God. Whatever they may find there, it all reminded me too much of another equally drab, superficial and longwinded waste of time, Midsomar.

Yes, it´s visually stunning, but that´s about the only positive feature of this overlong and far too pretentious pile of explosions and stupid slow motion shootings and fistfights. Well, the Bromance / gay romance subtext was very well handled, too.

Otherwise, they threw out everything which made the first part good, and turned the sequel into a long, boring successsion of chases, explosions, exotic scenery etc - you get the picture. Holmes rehearsing most fights in his mind before actually doing something doesn´t make things better. When you just don´t care anymore at the final confrontation and just want him and that stupid, queeny narcissist to stop their rambling, you know the script was a big failure.

So, that King of evil is a respected university professor, but at the same time he owns several military stations, an artillery never seen before, and can perform unheard of face transplations? And the aristocracy of Europe meets in a weird castle hidden somewhere in the mountains to discuss - yeah, what exactly, anyway? There is a fine line between light entertainment and treating the audience as gullible and dumb, and this script obviously was aimed at the latter. Teenagers interested in cool moves and suave outfits probably enjoyed the movie the most.

Downey looks hung over or desperate for the next shot (pun intended) the whole movie. The only interesting character with some kind of depth was that Colonel who became Moriarty´s private assistent, as he would not talk much, but act, and you were never sure what his motivation or character really was.

The equally bland score is the usual Zimmer muzak, just like in the first part.

If you enjoyed the first part, don´t waste your time on this typically bad sequel.

What annoyed me the most about this movie was the drab, very dark photography. There are lots of scenes where you can barely make out what is happening onscreen. It's fine to make a movie using only natural candles (and low light bulbs) as lightning, but it should be done professionally, and without everything looking gray and washed out.

The plot begins nice, moody and intriguing, but the minute Ms Duret is on the screen, it starts to border on the comical. Her flat character acts, talks, sounds and dresses like a cynical parody of a dumb, pompous headmistress who has no clue what she is doing, but wants to appear competent no matter what.

The script looses focus, basic reason and coherency in the middle of the movie, and it all pretty much falls apart in the end. The last scenes are very touching, but hardly make you feel satisfied or rewarded for watching a dark screen (with some fire and candlelight on it) and listening to Duret blabbering about being a Genius or feeling inspired. She is a deluded narcissist living in a dream world, but how she could ever establish & run this surreal, otherworldly school is another of the many questions the sketchy script does not care to answer.

The score is very classy and stylish though, unlike the rest of this forgettable production.

It´s a shame somebody was able to attract lots of talented actors (and quite some money) to turn a very flat, clicheed and uninspired script into a movie. Furthermore, the director makes his movie even more unwatchable by relying solely on flashy, shaky camera effects (and very drab, dull photography) which he thought were stylish, but they only make this boring mess more confusing.

The beginning is interesting, but of course the basic idea is nothing new. Right after the second murder (the woman in the bathtub) the script completely looses focus and we are thrown into a muddled and unfocused mixture of a unanswered serious topics (Is mercy killing murder?), pretty pathetic clairvoyance mumbo jumbo and routine car chases, gunfights, explosions etc.

Since every character is so flat you wonder they even have a name, dialogue is sparse and the general mood is one of depressed lethargy, you are very relieved when the somewhat surreal and pointless (but deliberatey "meaningful") last scenes are finally over.

The only lively scenes were the sex scenes connected to the bathtub murder, as we get very hot and steamy gay (and straight) sex thrown into our faces for not much of a reason. (Who was the actor who plaid Davids lover btw?) Since everything must lead to cancer, hereditary diseases or other tragedies in the curiously nihilistic worldview of this movie, the scriptwriters just dished out another flat stereotype and portrayed the affair as some sort of HIV related death sentence. The interview leading to this "confession" by the husband David was equally cynical, as the clairvoyant would not simply stop at the fact the husband was having an affair and wanted to leave his wife, but turned the whole thing into some sort of confession of a shameful secret (he runs away with another guy) which inevitably had to lead to the death of everybody by HIV (in 2015?!).

I wondered whether the script was actually quite old, maybe from the 90s, as it had the same cynical, misanthrophic but very superficial quality a lot of other thrillers had back then. If that´s true, they just should have left it in the drawer.

It might only be a children´s movie, but it still boasts great production values, including a very lyrical score. What I found to be especially captivating is that the script does not treat the viewer as somebody who is either dumb, naive, or strangely cynical, as is sadly often the case with children´s movies or books nowadays.

The humor and the underlying themes behind the characters conflicts and witty verbal exchanges were often very serious and sensible. The strong tendency towards a quirky, somewhat absurd sense of humour is certainly not for everybody, but since John Cleese is in it, I guess potential viewers would know to expect that.

I took away one star because the speed is very very fast. The story, including an epic conflict between to races, is told in a breakneck tempo, and new characters and settings including their background stories are sometimes introduced in every new place the protagonists travel to, and they travel a lot! On the other hand, this means there is never a dull moment, as also the costumes and scenery (and the performers) are always a pleasure to watch. This still makes the script loose depth. Either this was actually meant to be a longer film, maybe even split in two parts, or the filmmakers decided on giving the movie the feeling of a very very fast ride, where only the beginning and the end is told in a slower tempo.

Anyway, if you like highly entertaining and funny high fantasy tales with a strong sophisticated and off-beat flavor, you shouldn´t miss it!

The production values seemed decent, the storyline interesting. But I had to switch it off after some time, as the flat, unlikeable characters and the dialogue is just to much to bear when you are sober or reasonably sensible. Everybody behaves and swears like some living trailer park trash clichee, with the female detective taking the clinically depressed punk / emo part. The police work depicted is equally amateurish. I couldn't help but wonder if this was supposed to be a honest depiction of Polish society? Very sad. Even more saddening that somebody wasted money and talent on producing this lurid script.

This "thriller" was a huge disappointment. Photography is great, the actors are fine, the slow editing is pleasent - but the script is so poor, it feels like a rough first draft which was never finished.

The characters are 100 % flat and their (verbal) interaction strangely liveless, clumsy and short. The whole setting starts to look surreal as only about 5 men gather at the same spot to do more or less nothing, except the occasional sex. The murderer is the only interesting character, as you begin to wonder about his motives and state of mind. The police inspector seems more like a creepy old man or sex researcher hanging around and prying into peoples private lifes just out of curiousity. But just like everybody else, you cannot take him serious nor does he look and act remotely like somebody would do in real life in such a situation.

As the whole thing gets mildly suspenseful, the movie suddenly ends. Like, heck, they just ran out of ideas for a somewhat satisfying conclusion for this autistic mini drama. And an explanation for Michels behaviour.

Sadly, the joke is on the audience. I really loathe filmmakers who show such a glaring ignorance and contempt for their viewers. Avoid by all means.

After a fine, slow start with lots of good characterizations and great production values the series pretty much fell apart for me. The plot becomes muddled, leans heavy towards childrens books clichees and lacks basic plausibility, logic or depth. In the end the viewer gets one wildly insane suprise after the other thrown into his face, and I for one understood the last decision of Ada to join the "dark" side, as the witches for me became more and more holier than thou Hippie narcissists who love to whine and blame, but in the end care only for their own dubious, unclear cause and their smug little circle of "enlightened" women. The way they manipulated and exploited Ada for their own, pretty much unknown cause was more than enough to make her despise them.

The muddled, stereotypical plot heavy on romantic and high fantasy clichees and the soundtrack's sappy, wailing female rock musician can be explained by the series based on a romantic fantasy novel for teenaged girls. But this does not justify the gross, cheap misandry.

As the young boy is turned into some sort of pagan drag queen in the conclusion (and yes, it looks as lurid as it sounds), its really the evil, violent, dumb and hateful men against the kind, loving, enlightened and gentle witchy women now.

Never mind that they look like a bunch of prematurely aged, unkempt recreational drug users or that you never really get to understand what their mission, their enlightened knowledge or simply their daily routine in their fantastic mansion really is. They love to have arguments for no good reasons, though, and entertain grandiose fantasies of their superiority and meaningless pseudo spiritual discussions. And they love to exclude anyone not fitting into their "holy" group (because of their male gender?) with superficial reasons ("There is a dark spot in your heart..." -> Can she do X Rays? Did she really want to say "There is a penis down there"?).

And never mind that their hunters look much more impressive and serious, and also display more of a truly bonded, trusting group spirit. Still they are exploited and manipulated to conduct a crazy hunt for no good reason, and you never get to understand what the true cause for all the conflict actually is. It gets explained away as mens evil nature, which is a very easy way out. A scheming, manipulative bishop who is actually the devil in disguise comes handy as a further plot device, but what he really wants with that damned book everybody is after is also never fully explained. It is probably a book you can rule the world with, which would fit the cheap script.

In the end I could just hear the female filmmakers applauding themselves for their great feminist pseudo pagan work of art with surely would empower girls to hate men and express their wonderfully witchy, egocentric personalities. I, for one, was sad I wasted my time on this.

Already after the first scene, the only truly apalling scene in the movie, I wanted to switch It off. And I should have. The pointless but sadistically detailed depiction of a hate crime, which also looks and feels like directly lifted from the 80s or 90s (the root of the conflict, the hairstyles, the clothing, the queeny, weak gay men vs the tough, braindead hetero men stereotypes), doesn't make any sense at all. It might actually be the rebirth of It, as it feeds on the evil in the small backwater town, but the uninformed viewer never gets much of a chance to understand that. But as the script generally is full of holes, meaningless hints or pointless "horror", this is simply what you get. The only thing really made clear is that men are only allowed two things: die or mope around as depressed losers, dreaming of romantic relationships which will never happen.

The rest of the movie is mostly unintentional comedy. It now looks and feels like a clownish freak or who loves whacky costumes and fake gore. Large insects with clown faces or small town weirdos acting as his standins are not that scary either, they are either funny or pathetic (or somewhere inbetween). The scene where the female protagonist is locked in a restroom stall with her menstrual blood sloshing around everywhere and some silly creeps shouting obscenities through the door really had me chuckling, as it felt just stupid. The two stupid, self-hating gay guys, who in the end nearly died adoring a puppy ("So cute!") before one of them actually dies with probably the most hilarious last words on his lips ever uttered ranged somewhere between homophobic comedy and sarcastic black humor. Actually, most of the overblown "horror" in the movie felt like a black comedy making fun of schlocky CGI horror fests.

But, after the unintenionally hilarious final death blow to It (remember: simply call evil beings from outer space who were even too much to handle for tough Native American sorcery "clowns" and they are gone for good - life can be so easy sometimes!) we get some very superficial hints that the adults are happy now (except the gay guy, of course), and that's it. The story, I mean. Why it took the lousy team of filmmakers so long to tell this trashy 80s comic book plot is another mystery never explained.

If you liked the first movie, or if you liked the original novel, or even if you simply value your time and sanity, stay far away from this dull mess.

But remember,. before you die, tell everybody who's hot that they are hot or carve their initials into wood while weeping - if you are gay. If you are straight, just enjoy the good things in life like saying "I love you" on the telephone (for no apparant reason) or sunbathing with your equally hot partner on your yacht. And if a monster shows up, just say "Clown". Perfect, another lesson learned!

After a strong beginning and getting to know the protatonists, the plot soon comes down to the usual slimy blubbering demons who love funny voices and to rant and rave in Latin (why are they always so educated?) and the one and only good people in the world (Roman Catholic priests - seriously lol?) fighting them with fire, brimstone and melodramatic posturing.

The worst demon finally (most slimy, dirty and grimy) is called Jungler. Can you believe it? As the boring ending is only about the leads pompously reciting Bible quotes and throwing their hands meaningfully in the air, this one actually had me chuckling.

What is that demons story or mission? We never get to know, except that it originates from Iraq, so of course it loves to invade American homes.

The protagonists never rise above the level of stock characterizations (the handsome but tormented young rebel priest who got saved by Catholicism, the tough but sensitive cop whose biggest mistake in life was to kill a serial child murderer instead of letting him marsh to his death sentence), and while the dialogues are well written, they never get very meaningful either, and in the end it turns into one big ad for the Catholic church who fights evil (read slimy stinky things lurking in the dark). Great. Did the Vatican finance this?

So why did I watch it till the end? First, the detailed, nuanced photography and sets are great and a pleasure to watch. Second, the two male leads are not only a pleasure to watch, but also to observe in how these two actors masterfully breathe air into their dull characters. Great craftsmanship.

But, I really would not recommend it otherwise. Produced by Jerry Bruckheimer - so you should know what to expect.

Some boring young adults break into a supposedly super devilish house to confront the worst warlock ever.

Turns out that said warlock loved to live in trees and play stupid guess the word games with his daft victims. As the house was built using "haunted" wood, everybody who stays inside for too long starts to act like some sort of possessed Sonic the Hedgehog, screaming stupidly and running blindly against walls. Why oh why did somebody greenlight this script?

After they have bumped into walls long enough and guessed such amazing words like "evil" (or was it "veil"?) they are free to go again.

Maybe the warlock was not a warlock at all, but a looney elementary school teacher?!

But no oh no, the neverending horror continues - the mother of one of the girls has catched the virus now and runs into walls screaming and scratching. Demonic possession or Dementia? We will never know, but, guess what, if I were a warlock, I would gladly make them suffer eternally for this kind of crap they made me watch - and a bunch of fine (veteran) actors perform.

The nutthouse would at least have been an adequate title.

This movie is really not worth all the fuss made about it. It is no Life of Brian in production values and, most importantly, not in intelligence and wittiness either. It feels more like teenagers doing some raunchy toilet humor jokes on well known biblical episodes including tired old queeny clichees about male homosexuality. If you want to be offended by this comedy, your point should be why adults come up with something like a silly stage play written by teenagers who want to embarrass their religious or gay parents.

The production values of this movie are amazing - also on a large TV the costumes and setting are a feast for the eyes. The two cute leads also charm their way amazingly well through a script that is neither funny nor intelligent in any way. The thin and bland plot full of "romantic" stereotypes is further riddled by clicheed dialogue in nearly every scene and cardbox characterizations. The most unintentionally funny scene for me was when the mother tries to soothe her daughter with the tired old feminist / narcissist mantra: "You can be anything you want to be!" And what if she wants to be a toaster ;o) So, this Christmas movie is really not worth wasting your time on, even as family entertainment.

After seeing the movie I was baffled it got advertised as a comedy. The only laughs in it is Martina Gedecks cynical, helpless snickering about her unhappiness in the pretty amateurish therapy sessions. But lets start at the beginning. Gedeck is a wife and mother with a sick, pale face, eerily dead eyes and lots of nervous mannerisms who is shocked that her dull, overweight husband is having an affair with a young coworker. It is rather shocking, since she is a rather strange woman who never combs her hair and has a strangely dumb, absent minded look on her face. I know I sound nasty, but I was buffled about how ugly and plain, or overdressed and somewhat silly everybody looks in the movie. The only attractive person is the veteran actress who plays the therapist, and she is around 70 - but she radiates the intelligence and contemptness the whole movie, including its garish, drab photography, lacks. The high strung and annoyingly superficial characters engage in the usual mini dramas and screaming fits, which are pretty hilarious considering that they life in a posh designer house, have both good and interesting jobs and no truly serious problems. I guess that is the problem - they are both spoiled and have everything in life, but fail to realize that. Instead they engage in childish fights e.g. about how they never did that trip to Egypt they planned once. Going to Egypt? Now? Are you kidding me? Their children and friends are equally unpleasent. The son is a student who only cares about expensive clothing and playing golf, the daughter is a weird and somewhat loudmouth and know it all, who has no education in the field but wants to run an office as a posh life counsellor. Both seem pretty happy living of their parents money, though. The couples best friends are a girlish, prematurely aged TV journalist caked in too much make up and her submissive, weak husband. The wives new lover is a nihilistic narcissist only playing with her using pseudo philosophical ramblings about the meaninglessness of live and the usual love bombing / devaluing strategies. She loves it, which was rather painful to watch. In the end, the family dog dies, and for the first time in the movie the family shows some true emotions. But were they really mourning him or their hollow, shallow lifes? The narcissist choses the daughter as his next victim, which she loves (like mother, like daughter?), the dumb coworker leaves the husband because he is not her dream lover at all (what a surprise), and the wife decides that running an artsy fartsy online blog about her work at the museum will be her path to true happiness. Good Luck. Her first post is a video showing her running through the exhibition screaming, trying to steal objects and playing catch me if you can with the baffled guards. The world of online journalism has probably just been waiting for this. Maybe she should try recreational drugs instead? At least it would give her weird behaviour some explanation. So, if you want to engage is some masochism and get a detailled account of the wrecked, wretched lives of Hamburgs rich and beautiful upper class, go for it. Otherwise, this movie is a waste of time and talent.

I think this is the only comedy where I watched until the middle part and then finally got so annoyed that I stopped. I didnt know the actors, I didnt know the original, I dont care. But I do care about a lousy script that includes nothing but shallow, flat or stereotyped characters lifted from the 50s, which some references to STDs and modern technology thrown in to set it in our day and age. I also care about men being nothing but stupid, naive, and randy, and women being nothing but money-obsessed, cynical and hilariously superficial. I also care about everybody living in some kind of surreal fantasy world where you do nothing all day long except sitting in your empty house and enjoy your supposed wealth, fly around the globe in search of the next stupid rich man, or talk to your strange, near-mute assistants about how awful your flight was. This all seems like some bizarre narcisstic daydream, or a students try at writing a script. If it had been made ten years ago - fine, the times were different then and so were the female / romantic comedies. And mostly they werent known for their quality or their intelligence. But to make a bloodless movie like this today - why?

Mr Cages career must be really hitting rock bottom if he stars in a movie like this. Ok, it does have a classic plot, but it executes it with a minimum of effort storywise. There is some tension in the beginning, but its minimal. The flat, uninspired direction is only interested in trippy color and image effects and showing as much gritty violence as possibly in a strangely detached, disinterested way. There are adult movies which exude more excitement and passion as this strange movie. As the uninspired direction and performances are further stretched by very sloppy editing and writing into an overlong mess of a movie, the only feeling at the end is relief that its finally over. I believe it was made by recreational drug users with sadistic tendencies for a similar audience, so its appeal is very limited. One further curious detail is that the main actress already looks aged and lifeless when her character actually is still alive. Waste of time and money.

After watching this far too long and pretty dull movie right to the disappointing, meaningless ending I do wonder what it is I actually was watching. This is certainly not a horror movie nor is it a thriller. In that genre you need a plot and also some sort of conclusion. I guess the best description of this movie would be soft porn for sadists, as the seminude protagonist does get mentally and physically tortured a lot. Drug users also might find the nonsensical storyline appealing, as it defies any logic or reason. Being high probably also helps with the laughably amateurish acting. I have seen better acting in professional adult movies. Actually the only professional thing about this movie were the very elabourate sets. They didnt make sense, as the interior design of the house is a curious mishmash of mixed up floor plans (Grandmas bizarre tower room is just impossible constructionwise) styles, time periods and religious themes, but somebody actually spent a lot of effort here, which cant be said about the sloppily thrown together bag of ideas in the script and the hilarious casting.

I didn't know Falcon Studios wants to "get real" now - and brings all their actors along, too ;o)! Forget about history. Forget about silly details like wearing armour when you want to show off with all your great, hairless (!) bodies. Forget about the historical background, anyway, when you can fill the movie with great fights at sea including men wearing strange masks (were they Gangsta Rappers?).

Oh, yes, and forget about scriptwriting, too. Porno actors aren't used to talking, probably this is why the main actor (Demostecles?) sounds like an angry plumber all the time - he looks like that, too. His strategic analysis was fascinating: "The Persians are coming from the North and the South!" *That* surely means trouble, and those Persians must be really clever to accomplish that! But as Eva Green says: "The battle skills of the Athenians are creative!" Her character must feel very creative, too, sitting on her throne as if she was wearing a fake penis secretly.

*But* Eva Green not only is unusual and strikingly beautiful, she seemed to be the only professional actor in the movie, obviously having the time of her life skillfully overacting to be the b*tchiest b*tch of the Wild Sea. And her eyes are haunting. Her "King", though, was quite handsome as a human, but as a "God" he looked (and acted) like a transvestite high on a mix of steroids and crack. (Crack smoking probably ruined his voice, too.) Demostecles had this very hot guy around all the time, with long black hair and beard, but the character didn't do much than stand around like posing for erotic fotos and looking at his surroundings as if he was in deep pain - maybe he was the philosopher of the crowd. I actually think the only thing the "director" did was to tell his actors how to stand there to look sexy and how to look into the camera to look good. Well, as a porno director, I guess this is your daily business. He just didn't get it right with the "good" Queen, boy, was she ugly, and the actress performed like a salesgirl frustrated with her life. But that character had the strange line (near the beginning of the movie):"You've come a long way to stroke your cock watching your soldiers train" (or something like that). That was completely out of place and didn't make any sense, but I guess the Falcon executives wanted to have it in the movie. Actually none of the good guys seemed to have a sex life (they are probably to young for that?), since also the sex scene with Eva Green looked like a weird soft porno on fast forward. (I actually expected *her* to d*ggy Demistocles.) They never really got their clothes of, anyway. Probably made for teenagers, as was the whole movie, I guess.

Forget about it. The typical case of a sequel gone BAD.

To start with, I think "Plan 9 from Outer Space" is a highly underrated movie. But watching this movie I really couldn't help thinking of watching the worst movie of all time.

First of all, the direction. Peter Jackson's cheap and uninspired made-for-TV style hasn't improved at all since the first part of LOTR. Nor has his poor script writing. Time and time again the actors have to dramatically mumble silly one-liners like "The war is coming!" and stare into the camera as if they were in pain. They probably were, since all the actors generally seemed to be decent. The script also is just a loosely connected series of fights and battles time and time again containing pseudo-dramatic situations of the kind "all is lost", but since it's all so overdone, you know it will be all right and of course the story has to go on, too.

Particularly the queeny elves with their perfect hairstyles annoyed me, their king is more of a queen, anyway. At least that leader of the dwarfes, the guy with the black long hair and the beard, was super hot.

It all ended with lenghty conversations with a dragon high on coke, I hoped he would kill them all, especially since the Hobbit looks like a German trash comedian (Bully Herbig) whom I detest. The dragon flew away in the end, my buddy, who knows the book, said this actually more or less is the end of the book, the next part probably will be filled with more battles and with more silly dialogue.

It's actually very sad that a great work of literature is reduced to such silly and trashy film making and script writing. If they had just made a fantasy movie based on their own script where you know it will be a superficial action fantasy movie with perfect hairstyles flowing around that would have all been well and good. But now Mr. Tolkien will have a very uneasy rest, shame on Peter Jackson! Ed Wood would have done a better job with all the money Peter Jackson had available!

I would like to sue the German DVD company that sold me this movie as some kind of men's drama about father-son and brother-to-brother relationships. In fact it's only a movie telling me how nasty homosexual men are. Nothing much is happening in the movie, the jerk brother is slowly dying of AIDS, miraculously looking quite healthy in the process, the good brother stays with him, but they don't do much serious talking. We get to know nothing about their family story, their relationship, their relationship with their father, only in some small hints here and there.

The heterosexual brother is a good, if not to say perfect man. He's ruggedly masculine but sensitive, very good looking and thoughtful, he pulls his life together now that he's out of rehab, gets a job and plans to start a family with the absolutely nice girl he has always loved. He's also the only male in the whole movie who looks good and actually dresses attractively (fashion in the 1990s must have been hilarious). The homosexual brother is an ugly, bitchy, whiny queen who is proud of being a sex addict ("I've slept with over hundred men!"/"I'm not a relationship kind of guy.") and who, although he's HIV positive, regularly has prostitutes coming round and visits seedy sex clubs. He obviously played the perfect son for his father, who's dead now, and never came round to fully accept his sexuality, never told his parents about it, and therefore indulges in this self-defeating, self-hating behaviour. Once he's honest, I think, and shouts "I hated myself so much!", but as usual in this movie it isn't explored further.

The thing is, every gay man in the movie is like that. It's revolting. They look and act all the same - weird, queeny -, talk trash ("I'm the fairy godmother!") and cruise around. The gay sex club the bad brother visits looks like a vampire's den where young men looking and staring at the good brother as if they would like to drink his blood just do nothing although the bad brother nearly had a heart attack or something.

The bad brother does nothing but sit at home and whine around ("Do I still look OK?"), he never reflects on his life, his mistakes, his relationships etc. The good brother is like a saint and puts up with him, writes poetry and politely ignores how the jerk friends of the bad brother try to cruise him.

In the end, the good brother just gets rid of the bad brother with an overdose of heroine and cleans the sheets. Now he can get on with his good, decent heterosexual life, the bad and nasty homo brother is dead and nobody is going to miss him.

Do *not* watch this movie! It's a relict from a seemingly horrible, homophobic time, the 1990s. And/or it's the director getting even with a brother he hated, I strongly suspect that. But do I as a viewer need to get abused by the wounded ego of a producer/director? I think not.

Basically this is a really charming fantasy tale, well acted and directed and with a handsome cast. What annoyed me were Robert De Niro's scenes. Actually a friend recommended this movie to me because there is a gay pirate in it, so I was really curious about this character, and I wonder, why does a family audience - which is I guess what this movie is intended for - need to get the same tired old gay stereotypes hammered into their brains? Of course De Niro's scenes were funny, and it was funny to see De Niro acting such a part, but still I think the writers wasted such splendid opportunity to create something off-beat and intelligent, because *of course* the gay pirate captain has to be queeny and likes to cross-dress. The writers should just have left it at the nice hints that something is going on between the captain and the Skinny Pirate. But what was the allusion at the end that something is going on between the captain and snotty Humphrey about? This was really bizarre. The writers obviously couldn't handle this topic.

I must admit that I just wanted to watch the movie because of Heath Ledger. Maybe his tragedy makes this movie more well known - at least I hope so, because it is a masterpiece! Six (?) struggling artists are portrayed in interwoven episodes, which makes the first minutes of the movie utterly confusing. They are tied together by the fact that they are all inspired by Bob Dylan's life, and by the movie's wonderful conclusion, which I'm not going to spoil for you. Photography and direction are wonderful, the powerful images in sublime colors are so much what contemporary movies with 'stylish' subdued photography lack. At one point I was beginning to think that this movie could just go on forever, again and again switching from one character to another and showing small but meaningful incidents in their life. Acting is wonderful overall, and I especially liked the actor playing James Baldwin - yes, it was a silent extra part that isn't even credited here, but the actor still was performing - marvelous. The character of Michelle Williams seems to be a mix-up of Nico and Edie Sedgewick, which was great, since the song "I'll Keep It With Mine", which Bob Dylan wrote for Nico, could be heard in the movie, too.

The episode starring Richard Gere is the most fantastic and also features surreal masquerade, but I liked the episode starring Heath Ledger best, because the real man and artist began so much to shine through in his performance and it all had a somewhat foreboding and farewell-saying character. Anyway, it's so fitting that this off-beat piece of great art is one of Mr. Ledger's last movies, even if it's also very sad, of course ...