cwardley

OK this my second review of this movie. The first time I wrote it straight after seeing it at the cinema, then later I watched it again when it was released on DVD. And then I thought what a turkey!

After re-reading my first review I believe I was delusional. I must have hoped that the movie was going to be so good that it at first I had some sort of placebo effect. But seeing a second time I realized it was terrible. Three things make a good movie, the actors, the director, and the script. You can occasionally escape this trio if you get an inept director or a bad actor, but NEVER with a bad script.

The actors were good, they had to be to able translate this wham bang script to a believable level. The director, OK, he too, was good, but frankly he was in charge, couldn't he have looked the script and asked what high school kids were responsible for this.

The script, well it was almost religious text. That is because it was so holy. Plot holes galore.

Previously I used the term Wham Bam. That's what this was, all lights and sound, no content. The plot was ridiculous, every time they wrote themselves into corner they use techno babble to get themselves a freebie and trust me there was a lot of those. See "intergalactic beaming to a starship at warp"

I have looked back on the writers previous efforts. Mediocrity springs to mind.

And finally it is uniquely obvious the writers and director have no idea of plausibility. They create such a plot holes that Nero's Star Ship could fly through.

How can Kirk possibly jump from Cadet to the Captain of Star Fleets newest Starship just because he did a great job. In the movie he was able to jump 6 levels of promotion. Spock who a Commander, 5 levels above the cadet happily handed over command? Why?

Was it just Spock and Pike who were on board the Enterprise above the rank of Lieutenant? I am sure they have other Captains and Commanders in Star Fleet with the experience and seniority available.

I can imagine the scene in the Board of Review. "We have 2 applicants for the new post of Captain. One guy has had 20 years of Service and has had 3 commands OR CADET Kirk with 3 years of recruit school, who has a history of fighting authority, has no experience with handling ships personnel but who, with the help of some other young recruits and a Commander with emotional issues saved Earth."

Gee lets pick Kirk, cause it's a movie.

OK a few viewers have canned it for its predictable script, one dimensional characters.

But let us be fare, its the Poseidon Adventure in a cave system. Georges Polti claimed there is only 36 dramatic situations that can be written. With the amount of movies people see nowadays, yes there will be similar story lines. I mean look at Avatar, the Last Samurai and Fern Gully: The Last Rainforest. As far as predicable, well I knew people were going to die because of the opening sequence and it was about people in a desperate situation with limited resources.

One dimensional characters? Well I found them multidimensional. This was a movie about disaster and individuals facing their mortality and their reactions to that concept. An example of this is the attitude of the 2 main characters. Frank's attitude was "no-ones coming, never give up", while Carl's was, "hopefully someone will come and help, why don't we wait". And watch how the sons hero worship slowly transferred. Now that is multidimensional.

3D also has its critics but as my teenage daughter said, it really lifted the urgency of the movie, like Avatar there was no 50"s tricks it was just there. To me 3D is the same as when movies went from square to wide screen it creates involvement. I have caved dived and let me tell you the vistas in Sanctum are not what I experienced but I wished I had.

At last a movie about people not monsters. No strange man eating creature anywhere, this about the monsters from within, fear and expectable behaviour that may need to be changed to survive or to help a friend.

I recommend this movie to anyone and I will be buying the DVD. I just got to buy the 3D TV and DVD Player.

Forget special effects they are just eye candy. Three things make a good movie, the director, the actors and the script. You can occasionally escape this trio if you get an inept director or a bad actor, but NEVER with a bad script. Sound of Thunder had the bad script. Where do they get these idiots we laughingly call writers. And how does anyone convince investors to put money into such rubbish. Frankly I get insulted. Do the people who decide to produce this stuff believe the viewing public are that stupid not to see the large gaping plot holes and the inconsistencies. Where is the intelligence?? This is Burtons "Planet of the Apes" all over again.

Spoilers – They go back & kill the same Allaraurous dinosaur 3 times. Now assuming the time continuum does some sort of reset to compensate for a paradox which allows this, how come he can go back and warn himself in the third visit to save the world. And if it does reset every time, what they do in the past does not matter because all you have to do is visit at the same time after, do nothing and cause a reset.

I am a SCFI fan but frankly, can't they get some bozo's other than 6th graders to write a better script??

I am probably one of the very few Star Wars enthusiasts that prefer Phantom Menace to Clones. Why, well I never could put my finger on the issue. Now comes Revenge. Now let me say from the start I thought it was good. Better than Clones, but again Phantom Menace somehow had more of an effect on me. Again why? Revenge had all the elements that I would say to anyone go see this movie, but hey, you will need to see it a couple of times, as it has so much going on.

After Revenge and a couple of days of reflection I realized my unease was with the characters. Lets face it Anakin, Padme and Ben are no Luke, Leia and Han. I liked the twins and the boyfriend more than the parents and their guardian. I cared what happened to Luke & Co. But with Anakin & Co I was an observer not a participant. The final fight between Darth Maul and Obi-won in Phantom had an emotional context, which may explain my preference. Clones & Revenge lacked any emotional connection. There was a story behind the flashy effects you just had to keep your eye on it. The most uncomfortable aspect was the relationships between the 3 main characters. Luke & Co really liked each other, Dad and friends put up with each other.

Lets face it Anakin was not a person to like. He was arrogant, selfish, ignorant and just plain vain. Obi-won did a lousy job training him and Padme was a victim. She reminded me of the batted girlfriend syndrome, abused physically and emotionally by a bully who would fix things up by apologizing and telling her he loved her after the abuse. I had no respect for the characters, whether this is the fault of the actors or script is debatable.

But may be in the end its to do with Lucas casting of Hayden Christensen he just never invoked any sympathy in his character.

At the end of the movie I could understand why Kenobi\McGregor just left Anakin\Hayden, his supposed friend on the bank to burn rather than put him out of his misery. Think about it, faced with his greatest failure who bashes pregnant women, kills little children, defenceless women and bad acting, old Ben\Ewan went on the dark side and thought "Burn you little s^*t."

Okay as I always say in any review 'it's a movie, it isn't Shakespeare'. But sometimes I wonder if the scriptwriters understand the word Sequel. You would think that they would think, 'Goody, the back story is written now I can really get down to it'. That is, they build on the story, writing a script, which is continuation of the popular myth the previous successful movie created. In AvP they had the perfect opportunity, but instead of fitting the script to the myth, they, and they are not alone in this, (I sometimes think the screen writers guild must run a course called 'Sequel Writing – How to ignore the blatantly obvious'). They tinker with the details of the previous successful movies to fit their substandard script, (IE the gestation period of an Alien is changed to 30 seconds) rather than be constrained within the back story.

What this does is create an environment that produces plot holes. Because when you start tinkering with the basic story this leads down to making other changes that eventually creates more and more compromises. This movie had plot holes a plenty, but I just ignored them and enjoyed the shallow movie it was.

One comment though, the Predators better speed up the testing their Warriors. If the 3 Predators are an example of their best then these boys must be in decline. In previous visits they took on Aliens in there 100's. These guys had trouble with 9. I would ask their Coach, have they become too reliant on their shoulder cannons?? And whomever makes their Armour should be speared, please at least give these novices acid resistant Armour.

It seems that every time I do a review at IMDB, I always have to advise the previous reviewers to lighten up.

It's not Shakespeare, it's an Action Movie. Action Movies are made to make the public want to spend money and see the movie. I expect the makers are not really interested in the Academy Awards; it's a movie for fun.

With that in mind I enjoyed it. The story line, well the interesting part is I thought that if this was made in 2 years time and the main character name was Indiana Jones instead of Quatermain you probably wouldn't notice. Let's face it, Worlds in trouble, call in the hero's, fight the bad guys who are terrible shots and win.

The special effects were good, some of the previous reviews complained but hey everyone is using the same software and how real is real. The real originality was in the characters. The Victorian Hero's with a bit of class and mystery about them. I'd have loved to know who were the previous Extraordinary Gentlemen were, after M's comment to Mina that her old friend was a reluctant member of the previous League. (Dracula?)

Anyway, sitting around, raining? Want to see a movie with a bit of fun, go see Indy, oops I mean, Allan and his League.

I am the first to say, its only a movie don't try and analyze it like a Shakespeare play. But with the blatant holes in the script, I walked out of the movie shaking my head. How could a director of Tim Burton's character make this version of Planet of the Apes with a script that made Lost in Space (TV Series) look good.

I could probably ignored some lapses of common sense in a movie but when the whole premise of the story has so many gaping chasms you cannot ignore them. The effects were good, but I would wait until they had a movie double with Battlefield Earth. That way you can feel really ripped off.

Spoilers don't read on unless you really want to see this movie. When you see a movie the last thing I hate thinking is how silly, why did the hero do that. Example, After he escapes the ape city then he gets his survival kit from his ship rather than when he crashed. The Holes - If they descended from the original space station and the only animals they had on board were chimpanzees. Where did the horses, gorilla's, orangutans & parrots come from? The worm hole? It was so convenient. I can imagine the scriptwriter, William Broyles saying to himself, "gee I have painted myself into a corner here, I'll just use the worm hole, nobody knows how they work". And worse of all he did a couple of times. Very weak writing, with no understanding of plausible continuity.

Finally I could see why they were training chimps to fly the Pods (That incidentally can reach speeds 6 times that of light. (Saturn to Earth in under 30 seconds). Because lets faced it, at least the chimp could land the thing; Wahlenberg had two goes and crashed both.

This was a great movie, why? Because it catches the book perfectly, how? It follows the book religiously. Yet we get some user critics complaining it `was a bit flat' or `I didn't like this portrayal' I also notice that the critics that rate this movie low, have the comments `I haven't read the book _ _ _ _'. Well that's the point, the movie is biased on a CHILDRENS book, therefore it is not an original screenplay. One reviewer actually suggested changes!!! If the film makers had made the film any different there would have been howls from here to Timbuktu. My first suggestion is to some of the User critics, don't be so picky. My 2nd suggestion Read the Book, See the Movie, you would appreciate the whole experience more.

I had the happy experience sitting next to my 8 year old daughter, to watch the movement of emotions across her face was well worth the price of the Ticket. Go see it.

I saw this on cable the other night. C'mon give the movie a break, it wasn't that bad. This is not Shakespeare; it's a Vampire movie, for Pete's sake. It's not after the Oscar, its entertainment. Sometimes a lot of the User commentators lose sight of what some movies are about.

An example of this is a review of Santa Clause 2, where one guy wrote `The North Pole was a very distracting, annoying place to be. It seemed so far from reality'. Well I don't want to spoil his Xmas but Santa isn't reality. It was a MOVIE!

Dracula 2000 was a lot better than the old Hammer movies or in fact a lot better than a lot of other Vampire moves. If you could ever do an original story on Vampires, this was close. I mean, what is in a Vampire script. Spooky guy/girl gets out of coffin, kills people (usually girls with great bodies) another guy/girl tries to kill them before they kill again. Oh and I forgot the part about the heroine is a reincarnation of the Vamps long lost love. (See Blacula, Fright Night, Dracula 1992 etc etc)

Dracula 2000 was more original. At least he had a real reason for wanting the Heroine (his blood, her blood) and his origin was an interesting concept, better than Coppola's, which I still find confusing. This was never going to be An Interview with a Vampire, but it was a hell of a lot better than Queen of the Damned. If you like Vampire movies this should be on your viewing list.

I am the first to say, its only a movie don't try and analyze it like a Shakespeare play. But with the blatant holes in the script, I walked out of the movie shaking my head. How could a director of Tim Burton's character make this version of Planet of the Apes with a script that made Lost in Space (TV Series) look good.

I could probably ignored some lapses of common sense in a movie but when the whole premise of the story has so many gaping chasms you cannot ignore them. The effects were good, but I would wait until they had a movie double with Battlefield Earth. That way you can feel really ripped off.

Spoilers don't read on unless you really want to see this movie. When you see a movie the last thing I hate thinking is how silly, why did the hero do that. Example, After he escapes the ape city then he gets his survival kit from his ship rather than when he crashed. The Holes - If they descended from the original space station and the only animals they had on board were chimpanzees. Where did the horses, gorilla's, orangutans & parrots come from? The worm hole? It was so convenient. I can imagine the scriptwriter, William Broyles saying to himself, "gee I have painted myself into a corner here, I'll just use the worm hole, nobody knows how they work". And worse of all he did a couple of times. Very weak writing, with no understanding of plausible continuity.

Finally I could see why they were training chimps to fly the Pods (That incidentally can reach speeds 6 times that of light. (Saturn to Earth in under 30 seconds). Because lets faced it, at least the chimp could land the thing; Wahlenberg had two goes and crashed both.