CagedinSanity

The Night Of is a miniseries HBO put out recently that aired every Sunday. It's a prison/court show around a Pakistani-American named Nazir Khan who blacks out during a drug-fueled outing with a strange girl and wakes up to find her viciously cut up. In a panic, he grabs the knife and runs, as well as a few other mistakes that hurt his case as the show surrounds his attempts to survive in prison as well as deal with his community on the outside.

I WILL be spoiling the end of the show, and various plot points throughout because some of my thoughts revolve directly around some of them.

I have mixed feelings on the show. On one hand, it's beautifully shot. The highlight, for me, is John Tuturro's portrayal of John Stone, a jaded Attorney to finds obviously guilty people that mess around with drugs and contraband and pleads them out for easy money.

In fact, I'm pretty sure he's the only one who's awake for the whole show. This gets to the core of my thoughts;

Everyone is asleep in this show.

Naz's parents just look dumbfounded the whole time. The mother does a good job of looking exasperated sometimes but the father just walks around his scenes looking confused. You could excuse this for 'shock' but he doesn't act. He does nothing at all.

It makes a point to highlight the mundanity(sp?) of everyday life. Every cop, social worker, and civilian you see look bored and asleep. I can respect the show's attempt at realism but this problem goes beyond mere escapism; I want to enjoy myself. I was not enjoying myself through most of the show. Certain points were engaging, like the various prison scenes and seeing how corrupt Naz would allow himself to be as to not get stabbed or, at one point, gets home-brewed acid thrown at him. Some of that was engaging but even the Guards and prisoners looked half-assed. It hardly went in depth there, as shows like Oz and Prison Break did. You barely see much of the Prison at all, mostly revolving around Naz and his benefactor, a prisoner named Freddy.

After that, it cuts to bored investigators taking picture of boring houses. John occasionally does something interesting, like getting up close and personal with some suspects but it ultimately cuts to Detective Box looking bored while watching boring surveillance cameras. Everyone looks tired and I feel like there's a lot of fluff that could have been cut to make this a five episode series rather than eight.

Half of the investigation scenes are all fluff, too. At one point Naz's Attorney investigated a Mortician that was in the area during the titular "Night of". He barely gets five minutes of screen time to establish his intense and possibly dangerous misogyny, before he just disappears until the last episode for a brief few statements at the Stand. This happens a couple of times before focusing on what might be the actual killer; Some kind of financial adviser of the deceased woman's stepfather.

That all could have been interesting but the show just kind of… ends. The show ends with the jury being 6 to 6, locked in their opinions and not budging. The DA had the option of pressing further but gives up in an interesting twist; During the last episode she physically holds the knife and notices that the knife would not have cut Naz's hand like it did in the photographs. I actually hated the DA's actor but I was actually excited to see the spark of emotion in her face when this actually dawned on her. Again, they could have explored this further but it ultimately culminates in the fact that she decides not to continue the charges and drops the case after one good, hard look at Naz. That was it. She gets one spark of decent acting and the show just shrugs and gives up. It does this a lot, you see. A lot of fluff and distraction.

So he goes free and by this point, there's 13 minutes left I notice on the bar. I'm waiting for some kind of final revelation that never comes. I expected one of the other suspects to assault him or strike again in some manner. I expected some kind of twist where Naz actually picks up another woman, has a strange look on his face, and BOOM, smash cut away? This does not happen.

Instead the show ends establishing that Naz continues a newfound drug habit he picked up in prison. Detective Box and the DA go after the 'real' killer, whom we see walking away and then nothing else. No real comeuppance, no payoff. Naz just gets mad at his mother for her brief moment of thinking he actually killed the girl, and he stomps away into the night to score some drugs. (Which could have been a moment of a scenario or theory I stated above). Nope. It just… stops.

Ultimately I'm glad this was just a mini-series. Nothing happens. I was as bored as the actors on the screen.

I feel a 6.3/10 is fair.

Like many others, I am a big fan of Repo! The Genetic Opera. And sure, it didn't get as much of a famed release as this one did, it still had a numbered following that will most certainly call it out when they see ideas ripped straight from others.

And to be fair, Repo Men remains fairly unique. The major difference that 'sold' me to stop being so angry about it is the cause of the system: There is no major disease that caused organ failure. Indeed, there is no organ failure at all. A company called "The Union" simply created augmented organs to effectively remove the wait list of transplants. A very viable solution, despite the legalized murder.

Everything else was adequate, and I'll say a couple more nice things before I ram the spike of hatred into the heart of this movie, which will effectively spoil the entire thing so stop now if you wish.

Jude Law and Forest Whitaker had WONDERFUL chemistry. Their characters felt like brothers, and the flash back to them as children just added some much needed depth. I enjoyed every scene they were in together.

The fight scenes were pretty wonderful, especially the one at the end with the hallway. Not much to say other than it was 'pretty cool'.

The acting is really what saved it. However there's one major detail that I still don't like about the movie. Incoming spoiler.

There's a scene where Remy and Jake fight each other, as Remy is on the run from his former employers. The scene ends with Jake throwing a rusted metalpiece onto Remy's head. He awakes and finds that the girl's interference caused him to miss, so they get back up and escape.

Turns out, everything from then on was a dream-hallucinated sequence from a recent 'implant' for those with brain damage. So, in effect. Remy is now a vegetable and the love interest the movie spends all its time characterizing probably gets murdered for her various implants.

Sure, maybe it was supposed to give me this reaction. However I -hate- it when movies TRICK me. "Next" with Nicholas Cage did something very similar, where the movie just swings back to what happened in the first hour and just, ends. It makes me feel like my time was wasted. Unhappy endings are fine, but again, not when it has to trick me.

That is all.

I can just imagine somebody, somewhere, pitching thus, "Imagine - Rock 'em Sock 'em Robots. Live action!" A common comparison I know but that's what it is, in effect.

The plot is simple, and yet leaks in some various complexities that I definitely appreciate.

A washed-up boxer owes debts to several people because he is, essentially, losing every robot boxing match he's entering. He's cocky and arrogant and loses the first first we see him in because he's too busy wiggling his eyebrows to a couple ladies in the bleachers.

Now, I liked Hugh Jackman immediately. He's best known for being Wolverine these days but it's definitely a testament to acting ability when I saw absolutely no Wolverine-esque personality leak in. (As opposed to Johnny Depp, whom I'm still seeing Jack Sparrow in every role he's in, even if it's for a couple of lines).

He loses the fight and is fleeing the scene because the arrogant dumbass opted for a 20,000 dollar bet rather than taking the lower, free few- thousand he would have gotten just for arriving because the Bullfighting arena was just itching for a robot (Since the big "League" robot fights are expensive to attend). He punches one of his chasers and it turns out, his wife is dead and he's the next of kin to take up the son. But he sells him to the uncle because he values paying debts and buying robots more than a son he never knew, or learned to take care of. But he has a week (or so?) with the kid because the potential future parents have a vacation to go to. Why they didn't just bring the kid? I forgot. And if I forgot, it must have been a silly, contrived reason that wasn't worth remembering.

Still, the guy 'selling' the kid actually made sense to me. Maybe I am a cynic? After all, more than decade of not knowing a kid and him suddenly being dropped in on me - I'd probably make a similar decision. It's not every day a rich family will pay me $100,000 to take a kid I know nothing about. Besides, he was thousands of dollars in VARIOUS debts so he clearly was not fit to take care of him.

Anyway, he buys a famous bot that gets killed the first fight (Again, because he's an arrogant idiot). He takes the kid to a scrap yard (With a hilariously stealth-based scene of dodging searchlights that reminded me of some games I play) to search for spare parts to build his own, effectively for free.

Another interjection into the plot description (This is actually my first review I've outlined the plot like this, I usually assume people watch the movie and THEN come read).

I really liked the Junkyard scene. It leaked in some backstory and exposition of the setting that we're in, while making the conversation feel natural and realistic. After all, the boy was eleven years old (Or something), of COURSE he wouldn't know why some of these parts look different from the rest. He asks, his father answers, and the audience gets more context for the setting. Bravo, film. Well done, and thank you for doing that properly.

Anyway, boy locates a fairly intact sparring bot, which was designed to take a beating but doesn't do a lot of damage on its own. The father, really not expecting anything to come of it. At this point, he's just along for the ride so he doesn't mind escorting his kid around to get his bot killed. Again, this whole dynamic felt organic and natural - the father had a reason to go along. Either the bot lost and got destroyed, to which he'd just resume what he was doing in the first place. Or it would win, and he'd continue to escort his kid to win some more. While his thought process may not have been that complex, it still makes a lot of sense. Once again, good work to the filmmakers.

I'm gonna skip through the plot to the end, now. I had reached the word limit so I had to remove a couple parts. Seriously, go see the movie if you want to know the rest. It's worth it.

Predictably, the underdog challenges "Zeus" a super-bot built by an intelligent (and of course, Japanese) mind that has never lost. Indeed, no robot has ever survived a single round! Atom does (of course), mostly due to its design, for the ability to take a lot of punishment. It survives several rounds, in fact. Frankly, I saw the end result coming, which stung the enjoyment a little but because I was hoping the filmmakers would know this and give a tiny little twist. Basically, I knew Atom would lose but it would be in such a way that they would celebrate anyway.

Sure enough, Atom survives the last round and offscreen judges score the performances and the champ-bot still wins, complete with the boos of the crowd.

I was hoping for either or, frankly. This is a family movie and while predictability may be the name of the game, I was hoping for a complete win or a complete loss. If Atom was destroyed, the boy and father would still have enjoyed themselves and rekindled their family bond. If they won, all the better. It wouldn't have effected the overall plot anyway.

It was a good movie, I felt myself cheering for the characters, laughing at the villains when they got what was coming to them, and enjoyed everything in between.

Go watch it.

It's a bit refreshing to finally see a Hero that causes the death of a few others without looking like a total idiot. He is, after all, a newborn that the rest of his comrades are aware of. So, "9" is not stupid, but he is most certainly naive and it's just fun to watch a unique set of characters wander around a post apocalyptic wasteland that probably only encompasses a single street.

But hey, it's a fun ride even in it's simplicity.

The movie is just over an hour long, and while I wanted to see more; The short run-time only means that it didn't outstay it's welcome and the pacing was more than adequate. Exposition was given to us in acceptable doses. The characters were given a minimum of characterization, just enough to realize, and remember that there ARE indeed souls behind those clockwork eyes. Which, again, I'd like to see more of them. Perhaps even a sort of prequel (Which would omit the naive friend-killing 9) with the other 8 (And possibly finagle a few more in whatever plug-in plot you wish, even I can think of a few to justify more sackdolls).

There's... little else to say. It's an hour long animation and my first paragraph sums it up.

If I could describe this movie in one word, it would be "Adequate".

I did some research after seeing the movie, specifically how the team behind this animation really did their own research - specifically how some animals work. They incorporate cats, dogs, birds, and a small menagerie of other animals into how their dragons act, and it's a fascinating watch.

There's very little to say bad about this movie.

I loved how pretty much every little thing was relevant. Hiccup's skill comes into play. The one teenage viking who acted like a Dungeons and Dragons player - his nerdy behavior came into play. Everything just... came back and it's nice to see a setting actually remember to use itself, you know? Too many times I watch movies with heroes and villains forgetting that they have certain powers. (For example; Cloud in Advent Children; Why didn't he just use that 'instant kill' move in the very beginning of the fight?)

I also liked how the Nightfury didn't befriend Hiccup immediately, as the trailers had me believe. It felt like a realistic portrayal of an animal to human relationship. I was reminded of how a horse doesn't always immediately trust a potential rider until a respectful hand-to- snout happens. (I didn't research that, I just remember seeing it in other media)

I loved the sarcastic snark of Hiccup, how his entire life has forced him to use his brain precisely because he didn't have the muscle to back anything else up.

While it was fairly predictable (This is essentially a kids movie after all), it didn't take away from the experience and I'm a sucker for animated movies. It's not perfect, but I don't go in expecting perfection.

Definitely worth a watch.

Say what you want about Tarantino, but he's one of the only Director's where I can tell, without knowing firsthand, that he directed a certain movie. For better or for worse, he has style.

For the better, the movie fascinated me. There's very little to say to compliment than the usual stock of "great" things. Acting was fine. Brad Pitt was a bit of an exaggerated caricature, but it served well enough.

I will mention Christoph Waltz as Colonel Hans Landa, as he bears mentioning. He was a FASCINATING character. He felt like a genuine threat in every scene that he was in, and it was very unique to see a skilled detective play in a Villainous role, as "Detectives" are usually reserved for heroes. He definitely stole every scene he was in and like I mentioned before, every line of dialog seemed relevant because he was investigating everyone he came across. I loved watching every scene he was in.

Now, my 8 out of 10 may come as to a shock as I go into more detail about what I didn't like about the movie. But as a rule of thumb, anything I don't mentioned I consider fine. Make no mistake, it IS a fine movie. As always, everyone has more to say about the bad parts.

First the minor complaint. I expected more Nazi killing. We get all of two good, solid, Nazi-bashing scenes and the rest are quick 4-second snippets for comedic effect. Which kind of leads into my major complaint...

The "for worse" part of Tarantino's style is there's a whole load of talking. A lot of filler time. I had this same exact issue with his two Grindhouse movies. Specifically "Death Proof" with the second set of potential girl victims just... talking. I fast forwarded for a few seconds and they were talking about nothing. I did this a second time, and nothing. I did it a third time to where the next scene began, re- winded a little bit, and started again, and missed NOTHING.

*Spoilers Ahead*

It was the same problem here. Every "chapter" only has a few minutes of relevant conversation, the rest padded pointlessly. Specifically, the bar-basement scene where three of the Basterds and the actress were plotting, and the REAL German officer walks in and hounds them. While it was fascinating in itself, they could have removed perhaps the short "game" they played, and a few minutes of pointless banter. To it's credit, it was very intense. But they could have done it better by doing the same thing they did in the beginning with Col. Hans Landa, whose every single line of dialog felt relevant.

I mean, Tarantino did this same thing in Reservoir Dogs, near the beginning. THAT conversation, too, was fairly relevant throughout. Every now and then he just misses that particular charm.

That's all I didn't like. I enjoyed the movie all the same, even though you could cut thirty minutes out of it without harming the film, I would think.

It's not usually wise to open with a disclaimer of any sort, but I feel the need to add to some humility alongside moderate credibility: I know nothing of the source material, beyond only the slightest bit of research (After watching the movie). I read some of the differences, and how the fans of the source material have basically disowned this movie's existence. Partly, I can understand that. Eragon was a decent book series that was slaughtered with its movie. Difference in this situation however, is that this movie is still fairly functional.

It's trailers fascinated me a few years ago but the ability to watch it has slipped beneath my radar several times. It played on TV but I could never catch the beginning, thus missing vital explanations and I lacked context for the snippets I did see, but every scene was captivating and I saw around twenty minutes without knowing what the hell was going on.

That has been remedied, at last. And my fascination remains. Again, I cannot speak for the inaccuracies it may hold. However the movie itself has decent writing, effects, and acting. To wit, I am not even a fond of most child-actors. These kids do fairly well. Daniel Craig was advertised for being in the movie very heavily, and was displeased with his general lack of screen-time. To be fair, he wasn't the main character but I was under the impression that he was very important, but had little time to prove it.

My main complaint is that the movie is expectantly incomplete. I think it will benefit from multiple movies because for those of us unfamiliar with it all, we'd like to see how some of it ends.

All in all, I give it around a 6-7 out of 10. 6.2 may seem a bit harsh as its average rating, but I think it might be a fair measure. For those with a couple hours to kill... You could do much worse.

A minor spoiler on a single character, it's not a big one.

It took some convincing from my sibling to bother giving this series a try, and I've missed a scattered couple near the beginning, but it's pretty easy to follow. Moreso than some more complex shows in more mature settings. I did need my brother to explain a couple of characters, but that's about all you need.

I give the series a 6-7 out of 10, and here's why.

The "Modern" part of the show? Mostly fine. A bit cheesy at times but doesn't take away from the segments.

The strange part? All the fantasy settings are almost cringe worthy. It's as if the writing and acting go into the toilet and someone with a minimalistic knowledge of "Old English" wrote a single draft and the show just goes, "Yea, let's do that." The bad effects I can excuse (I watch SciFi/SyFy, after all) but the horrible acting and dialog that come with the fantasy scenes, I cannot. It's like the budget just goes to the Current Day scenes.

A couple of exceptions. Robert Carlyle steals every scene he's in, regardless of which setting. I've been a big fan of him, and he makes the fantasy segments bearable. It's as if he's the only one that bothers to act in those scenes.

Glad to see Jennifer Morrison. I mostly know her from House MD, and her profile says she has, indeed, been in other things. Still, glad to see she's still around.

Going back to a complaint, which is a character complaint rather than a functionality issue. The Evil Queen? The show keeps trying to show us how brilliant she is (She effectively "wins" somehow in every episode so far) but there's a lot of things she could do better. She's supposed to be evil, not stupid. Many-a-time has my family pointed out, "Why didn't she just...?" and that does translate into a writing issue. They need to be more clever.

That's a lot of complaints for a 6-7/10. One thing is for certain; the show keeps me wanting to see what's going to happen next. Clearly, something is going right.

I wanted to like this. I really did. I love Denzel Washington and Ryan Reynolds is good enough not to be type-casted while still holding onto his own style.

Unfortunately, nothing works here.

This movie is incredibly simple to summarize, due to it's simplicity. Ryan Reynolds plays a caretaker of a Safe House. He's a CIA agent trying to prove himself, and that chance comes when Tobin Frost (Denzel Washington, and the only character who's name I can even remember) is caught through some suspiciously specific circumstances comes his way.

Sounds cool, right? It's not.

Specifically? It's nothing we haven't seen. Corrupt government, predictable plot points and you'll figure out who the bad guy is halfway through the movie, which takes away some of it's sting. It predictably tried to make us think the woman-agent (I don't even know their names) was working against the office but it wasn't, because the movie pressed to much into her "hardass" attitude. It wasn't believable.

The biggest disappointment was the whole plot point, the MOVIE'S TITLE, was barely utilized. I went in expecting a psychological thriller, maybe 60-75% of the movie taking place in the Safe House as Tobin Frost messes with the minds of everyone around him. That's what the trailers implied anyway. I got no such thing.

Instead, the Safe House is broken into within minutes of Frost entering the building. There's a second safe house later in the movie and it, too, serves little point except the placeholder of the climax. All in all? I doubt we get 10 minutes worth of what is supposed to be the movie's title. Frankly, the movie should have been renamed.

Let's not forget that Frost barely proves his reputation, which we get in a quick scene of exposition as it explains that he "rewrote interrogation protocol" or something. At most, he says about four mindscrewing lines to Reynolds' character, and not much happens with it.

It just felt everything this movie was supposed to be was abandoned.

That's what I didn't like. The fight scenes were fine, the actors were fine, even (some of the) writing was fine. But when I left I found it difficult to like this movie.

Spoilers in this review, pretty much immediately.

The only reason I allowed myself to watch this movie is because I read firsthand that the rape victim gets her revenge. That alone got me through the scene, and her revenge was much more glorious than the 'parental guideline' implied (It was just a bare-bones 'this is what happened' anyway).

Barring that, it was a great movie. There's little else for me to say beyond one minor complaint; It took too damn long for the two main characters to become connected. Beyond the fact that the titular "Girl" investigated the journalist, they remained unconnected throughout most of the movie, which I didn't like. I expected more interaction, so that when their sexual encounters came along I wouldn't be as confused.

And I was very confused. Obviously this is a girl who shook of her rape to an extent and was, as I read somewhere, "Sexually overt", so it's not the fact that she was 'back on the saddle' right away, but more so WHY she's giving herself to this man. I just can't figure that out. That will bug me for a while, as I try to figure out some logical conclusion.

In the meantime, Daniel Craig should have put forth some effort into an accent, given his name, location, and pretty much no sign that he was anything but Swedish. But it didn't bother me too much, as his acting was fine.

Other than all of that, it was a grand movie. Very dark, and didn't screw around with the subject material. I applaud it for that.

I read a review talking about things like release dates and such, contributing to the flop that this movie is. None of that really matters to me, I am an unemployed young adult (22) so I mostly go see movies whenever I am able, and whatever month I damn well please.

And even that doesn't matter. I saw this movie on a showing on Starz on Demand, and was not nearly as bad as everyone claimed. Disney is no Pixar, but the movie gave me some giggles, smiles, and even a little tear while I knew exactly what was going to happen next. (This is a kid's movie, after all).

They say the core of the complaints were on the CGI itself. Again, it's not Pixar but it was far from horrible. I could tell what emotions many of the characters were trying to convey and that's what mattered to me. The Overseer's wrinkled face moved with her every expression, I could tell when the human characters were angry, it was far from 'horrible'.

Naynay, if anything my complaint comes straight from a couple of plot discrepancies. The lack of stealth for the most part. The abductions were loud and bright, I found it very hard to suspend my disbelief. At night, a little easier. But near the end of the movie as they were returning to Earth, it was in the morning. The sun was shining. Nobody say that giant CO-Canister land? I admit, with the trees, someone could easily assume the tip is some kind of water tower. But when it's landing or taking off? Really? NOBODY saw that? Meh.

Beyond that, everything else was fine. Predictable, when I accept as a children's movie. Gribble stole every scene he was in and was joyful every time I saw him.

A solid 7/10, to be frank. It's good to know that movie reviews are not always to be trusted.

Spoiler regarding the Third episode reveal.

The good kind of infuriating.

I'll get to that. At first, the trailers didn't really do the show justice as It didn't really hook my attention or interest. Though the "Nobody is dieing" concept did grab me a little. When I mustered up the patience to the show, I was pleasantly surprised.

The first episode was a bit fast paced, mostly due to the wounded CIA agent rushing across states... When I feel out of breath just watching him, I marked him down as a damn good actor. That, coupled with the effects and such, but still. The bad part is fast paced-ness can also be hard to follow (My main gripe against the new USA show "Suits), but I figure I did pretty well.

It got better. After we figure out who the characters are, it stops to catch its breath to leave more room for actual content.

The only infuriating part is not being able to personally figure out the cause. I'm seeing "alien" mentioned in other reviews, so how did the Pharmaceutical company know they were coming if at all? It'd make more sense if it was a virus but even in all zombie lore, disconnecting someone's head while "undead" is enough to "kill" them. So, its both fun and annoying to try and theorycraft around this show's particular lore.

So that's going to keep me watching. It's a double edged sword. Finding out how this happened may make me stop watching... But so will it being drawn out with various, mixed mysteries. That's how many potentially great shows kill themselves, by making things overcomplicated just to pump out another season.

I wish this show the best.

So, anyone else remember the scene with Eden with her power of "Suggestion" from Heroes? The scene where she suggested Matt Parkman not write her a ticket and go eat donuts? So. Remember the scene introducing the woman with the power of suggestion in Episode one? It was almost frame by frame, I swear.

That particular bit of near plagiarism out of the way, it's actually a passable SciFi (I refuse to spell it the 'new' way) show. I watched the first two episodes and I am genuinely interested to see what happens next. The "Prediction" guy is actually a very compelling villain and I'd like to see him again.

Little else to say. It's only four episodes in and I've only seen two. I just really had to express the scene-steal from Heroes.

It's a shame because almost every movie gets between a 7-8 out of 10 for me (Half-Blood Prince gets a 6.5 because, well, it had little to do with the Half-Blood Prince. Snape had a much bigger role in the book) for it's general accuracy and decent action that was paced well with the general school-time shenanigans.

TDH:Part 1 falls on it's face with this. NOTHING HAPPENS. It's two hours of... very little. They could have taken 20 minutes from this movie and just tack it onto Part 2 and call it one movie.

I've always been opposed to this whole idea of "splitting" the movies, but I at least understood why. Even the book was just one big scavenger hunt. Why devote two extra hours to this nonsense? Well, if they had just automatically found every Magical McGuffin, people would complain about it being too easy. But as it is, we're complaining because it was boring.

Ladies and Gentlemen, I'm not a director. But from 6 previously decent movies, the director could have done this better.

Here's the general outline of this movie; Intro. Fight scene. Wedding. Fight scene. Escape. Camping. More camping. A fight scene. A chase scene! More camping. Dark Lord gains major magical McGuffin. Movie ends.

Oddly, my favorite scenes weren't the fighting or the camping. I'm a sucker for character development and it was sparse, but present. For example; Harry going to his birth-town. That was a strangely fascinating scene, even in its simplicity.

So, very clever. People are still required to sit through this crap in order to be caught up with part 2. Although, someone can just read reviews and summaries and miss very little. So you have that option.

Complaints out of the way first.

I understand the concept of 'using what worked' from the success (if a bit underground) of the first, but they seemed to be copying set-pieces entirely too much. There was a very quick replacement of "Rocco", in the form of a loud-mouthed Mexican. They replaced the hilariously gay FBI agent with a southern chick. Now, when I heard about that I was like; okay. Sure. Makes sense. They'd almost have to to keep the original charm.

However, the Mexican always felt unnecessary. They tried establishing he was a bit more combative and competent than the original Rocco, and it becomes true for the most part but quite frankly, the character just becomes annoying.

The female FBI agent CLAIMS she's "so f***cking smart, I make smart people look retarded". Which was a cool line, but she never actually PROVED it. Y'see, in the first film you actually saw the agent walk through the scene, looking at particular points of interest. The new girl did none of that. She put on some headphones, then five seconds later she takes them off and explains everything, complete with "cut-to-4 hours ago-montages". Normally this would have been okay, if she actually solved the scene instead of sounding like she was handed a script (ha. ha.)

The three cops were a bit too 'animated' from the first film. I sort of excuse this because of their predicament they were in, but in the first one the two cops were a lot more cool and collected. And the third incompetent was just there for comic relief as he always was so I excused his behavior.

That's the main problem I had. It copied too much and the characters were needlessly over the top.

But I liked it anyway. I liked seeing II Duce's past, and I really loved the 'end-boss' Italian. Very well acted. And before that, the scene with II Duce and the short Italian assassin playing Russian roulette with each other also seemed like a very well done scene, and thus was my favorite of the movie.

Fans of the original will like it. Those who haven't seen the first one, watching this one, definitely won't sell them on the series. Watch the first, have it gain your respect, then try again.

Yes, spoilers. But I usually write reviews in the assumption that any readers I get may have seen the movie already.

So I'll start with the very first thing I didn't like - The ending. This whole movie, I was believing the "fantasy" portion was "real" in this movie's particular reality. I thought the girl was in sufficient danger with the child-eating demon. I even thought the Faun was more sinister than he let on. And I would have been fine with any "sad" ending. What I did not like is the movie treating me like a moron. At the very end, the girl's death puts her in her Princess-like station with a father and a mother who looks amazingly like her previously dead real-life mother.

As in: It's basically her "Heaven".

As an atheist, I'm not prudish. I don't get angry when people say "God Bless You" when I sneeze, and sometimes I even visit my friend's church to socialize. But somehow this movie succeeded in offending me. It tricked me. It all turned out to be the imaginings of a girl.

Or was it?

How did she get the chalk? How did she escape a locked door? How did the "Mandrake root" actually seem to work, and it's effects immediately diminished as it was burned? Was all of it real, or imagination?

I don't mind multiple interpretations to things but It would have been nice to be directed to one or the other.

...But I digress.

I read a lot of the reviews under "Hated" (as I often do, because I already know what I liked in a film so I don't need to read a dozen reviews of "this was amazing"), and I don't believe the movie was completely awful.

The acting was fine, especially that of the Captain. They did a good job making you hate him, but his acting was superb. His facial emotions, his movements were all fluid and believable for a man with that personality. He stole every scene he was in, and despite his cruel bludgeoning at the beginning, I couldn't wait to see him in the next scene.

Everyone else was mediocre, which was fine in this semi-realistic portrayal of War-life. I liked the girl, but the split War-Drama/Fantasy was jarring, but I ran with it.

And one final, minor complaint; Wasn't this advertised as a children's fantasy? Goodness me, I can't imagine what people thought after seeing it in a theater.

So, I've watched Ghost Whisperer. A few episodes. Enough to judge, anyway.

It interested me once I first saw previews for it, I was expecting it to be buffy-ish, with a side of House MD (Or any investigative show like CSI, NCIS). Two shows I love. But every episode starts the same. The middle is the same. The ending is always the same.

Each episode starts off, not with a person dieing but with the main character seeing a ghost. It does some creepy voices, yelling, or some speedy head twitching. Awesome. At first they seem even hostile. Like most lore paints ghosts, they go mad. All that.

But the very second they find out someone can see them, lo' behold the sanity. Suddenly they can speak clearly. Hell, one episode went as far as the character's burn wounds completely went away by the end of the episode.

So anyway, they find out how they died, their name, and their family. This happens a lot where the protagonist lives, but it only makes sense that ghosts would wander around where they actually lived. (And to be fair, we do see her travel out of town a bit.) So this particular point I cannot blame them too much for. It makes sense.

What doesn't however, is how they're able to find everything about the victim and family from a quick google search. I'm going to propose an experiment to myself. A year after anyone I know dies (Hell, just a month or two), I'm going to do an internet search on them and see if the media even bothered to give them an ENTIRE news article on it. My skepticism says no. Because, y'see... House is a doctor. He also has a team working for him. The CSI people, are part of the police force. Obviously they have connections to find out what they need. Buffy and her gang had tomes and old books, and they OFTEN showed us some kind of research montage to show us that it did indeed take them a while to identify whatever they were looking for. Ghost Whisperer has none of that. You see "Melinda" (I think I spelled it right) at her computer once and within 1 minute she's rattling off her findings to her husband/friend. I wouldn't mind this so much if they give a pseudo-science explanation. Might be fake but at least pseudo-science is still entertaining.

So she uses these findings to interview and interrogate the people being haunted or local loved ones. Obviously they are skeptical at first but a few correct words that Melinda relays from the ghost, and lo! We have a believer! Now, the logic IS sound but this just gets annoying when they do it every single bloody episode. Every episode ends with half a family tree gathered in some living room, giving us an extremely boring relay of ghost-to-Melinda-to-family dialog. People cry. People hug. Ghost goes into the light.

One more side note; It does make sense that Ghosts can only see or remember what they WANT to see or remember (Supernatural covered this, yet another show with a similar concept but does it a lot better), but I found it kind of odd after FOUR different occasions a ghost CONVENIENTLY and completely remembers a certain situation that would help Melinda either convince the family she can actually see ghosts, or help further her investigation in helping it.

It might be worth trying to watch a couple of times. The acting is decent, has several thousand good looking women in it... making this a borderline soap opera but they mix it up with the occasional old guy or fat girl. (And even THOSE are by no means ugly).

The show tries to mix things up by getting Melinda a husband, having one of her friends die, or having one of the haunted people be a possible murderer. But at the end of the day every episode is the same.

It's a neat concept but it's been done before, and better. Time better spent re-watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer or catching up with Supernatural.

Since I get Starz on Demand for free due to some tiny extra payment on my cable plan, it's generally my biggest source of movies and other time-wasters while I'm waiting for something else better to do. No offense to Starz in particular, because that's all TV is to me these days. Filler-time until something else comes up.

I started seeing previews for Spartacus in front of my movies and was instantly intrigues and slightly troubled that they seemed to be taking notes from 300 a bit too much. A lot of people add "Gladiator" to the mix, but Spartacus has enough differences in story... so I disagree. However, the "300" inspiration is painfully obvious.

Now, I liked 300 for the most part, minus that borderline pornographic sex scene... And now Spartacus is trying to take too many notes and try to fit in at least one sex scene, one set of breasts and maybe one bare penis for good measure at least in every single episode. I'll never understand this. Yes, sex happens from time to time, we get it. I'm not going to sit here and type "Think of the children!" because I'm a 21 year old who STILL thinks there's no room for it in this.

The worst part is, they seem to be trying to hard. It's like all the sex was filmed after the REAL episode and everyone thought "Let's just plug this in anywhere". 90% of the sex in this has no place. Scenes like that should be used sparingly, and it's not.

Pointless sex aside, the rest is admirable. Good actors, they all seem to fit in the role they're in. I don't mind the liberal use of slow-motion, but can understand how it might be annoying for some people. Like the sex, the slow-motion should get some more careful use. Still, I find it neat.

The actual character development could use improvement but the story seems to be going forward rather well. I don't expect this to last more than a season or two, but it'll be a fun ride.

My 6/10 might be harsh but I did like the movie. The problem was I didn't even start liking it until thirty minutes in or whatever, and that's not a sign of good storytelling. I'll explain.

The movie begins with a neat concept, if unexplained. You see Vin's character (Toorop) march with a mission to a hip-hop beat. It's rainy, it's gloomy, and he's surrounded with guards and civilians, all trying to buy or sell different types of weapons. Casually. Like they were selling oranges on the street corner or something. I can only assume so much. The movie implies it's in the future but this could just be how harsh other countries are. Some drama later, Vin punches a guy, he goes back to his crappy apartment.

This is where the red flags began. The story didn't explain itself, it almost never explains itself. Now, I can excuse this because that's "just the style", but I still can't find myself to forgive it. It just progresses with Toorop getting some job to protect a girl and head on over to America, where he's actually a wanted terrorist (He's actually a mercenary).

Very little is explained, and you only get little hints here and there. The girl he's escorting mentions that Siberian Tigers went extinct in 2017. And... that's all you get. That's a fair clue to a time-line but where are THEY? Year 2020? 2050? 2200? No idea. Shortly after that dialog, you see a long shut-down Nuclear plant with a giant crater right beside it. It's unexplained and we are left to assume Nuclear War, but even that might be inaccurate. (I've read some other reviews but I haven't actually researched the movie and it's background Lore).

And that's all you get for a while, after some minor plot twists (The escort has a father, America is being led by some religious leader) and some action.

And the action IS fine, along with the acting.

But my major problem with this movie is there was no context. No explanation. I vaguely liked some of the characters but I feel like I was trying to catch up on a TV series I never watched. (Go ahead, I dare you to even attempt to start watching, say, Heroes from season 3 onward. You won't know what the hell is going on). As a result, the characters went about their merry way without explaining themselves to the audience. So most of the time I felt nothing for them.

Without context, without background, I have nothing to compare the story to, nothing to base it on. Nothing to work with. And I'm someone who LOVES background lore and history. If they had just done some cheesy beginning scroll-text like Star Wars or what Underworld did. I don't like those as much but at least it would have helped.

That brings me to the final problem. By the time we GET anything resembling the explanation, it's spouted by a cyborg'd doctor who explains EVERYTHING and I mean EVERYTHING within two sentences. Just like that. One fell swoop and now I feel like the first whole of the movie was practically wasted.

How could they have improved that? Drop us more hints and explanation THROUGHOUT the movie, not in a single line on the script sheet.

Yet, the movie isn't a complete waste of time. It'll just take a long time and you'll need to force yourself to stick with it. It just needs something like a "prequel", that would help immensely.

Again, it was well acted and directed, it was just in pieces. It needs context, background, and gradual explanation.

Massive spoiler in this one, I pretty much give away the ending in this review. But frankly, there's not much to give away.

It was 'okay', I guess. In an acting standpoint it was pretty good, especially Idris Elba who played Dereck Charles. I would like to see him in future roles similar to the one he played here. He did very well.

It had decent cinematography, and... that's about where the quality ends.

Overall, it just seems like a movie that tried too hard. The soundtrack was ridden with "quiet quiet BOO" type music, and the creepiness loses it's sting after it does it four times in a row (Specifically, the attic scene. By the gods, by the time Ali Larter's character finally bothered to pop out I was bored to tears).

Most of the movie was slow and not very horror-like. It should have ditched the creepy atmosphere and it might as well have just been a normal movie about an affair.

It failed at trying to be a Horror. What makes horror, well, y'know, horrific, is the Mystery. There was no mystery here. From the very start of the trailers you knew who the Ax-Crazy woman was. But she wasn't dangerous. They could have done something like what "P2" did (Similar concept, excellent execution), but it was all very pointless. P2 had a parking garage worker locking the entire area up tight. However, this Tempgirl was, for the most part, normal. P2 had an excellent finale. All Obsessed gave us was a painfully long chickfight that could have ended if Beyonce had pushed the panic button on her Alarm system.

And yes, that's all they gave us at the end. A chick fight. Good girl prevails. Movie over. Thanks for wasting my time.

I just watched 4 movies in 2 days so excuse me if my brain is a little fragmented.

It's really hard to give this movie a number, because it has rattled between 5-8 in my head. So let's go with a 7. Every time I think it's a 5 because it's rather odd ending and lack of violent fight scenes, I just think of how well it presented itself.

So we got Mr. Swagger, a retired sniper. He's retired because his command left him and his partner to die (and his partner does) after a mission. 3 years pass and he's an isolated mountain-man complete with a loyal dog and a ponytail. A bit stereotypical but whatever, we'll roll with it.

So Danny Glover comes on the scene with a cracking voice that kind of tells me he's about to die any second. That said, he's an awesome actor... I just call it like I see it. Anyway it's rather obvious from the get-go, that his moral compass is so F'd up, it's amazing he finds his way to his car. (That's a line actually used in the movie, and it's so brilliant I'll be using it in the future). Danny's character wants Mark's character to plan a presidential assassination so they can actually PREVENT one. But the movie did a good job in making me NOT expect he was a double crossing asshole, but I had some hints. I wasn't expecting it, but I wasn't surprised, if that makes sense.

So. He get's double crossed, shot twice out of a building, and is framed for the murder of some African prince (who was 2 feet away from the president). So here comes the action, warts and all.

First, it actually gets SLOWER after he is shot. He goes through the entire middle of the movie running around bleeding and repairing himself... and eventually meets up with his dead partner's wife because, for some reason, he needs a second person to sow him up. Not sure why, plenty of action heroes patch themselves up and he was doing fine himself. But whatever, we need that OBLIGATORY love side-story. Once again, movies find themselves going a specific formulaic story and hope it works. And it doesn't, because they even go so far as having the woman CAPTURED and tormented for a while. Yea, totally didn't see that coming the second she let Swagger in her house. Sigh.

So that's pretty much the whole movie right there. Him running away. To be fair, he eventually does get all better, recruits a new sniper spotter (a pointless FBI agent, because they needed swagger to have more than a female ally, I guess), and does wreck some shop. But there's only, like, two good fight scenes that actually involve Swagger, doing... something.

Now this sounds pretty harsh for my 7/10, so let me get the redeeming quality out of the way before I drive the last spike through this movie's heart (Being the completely retarded ending).

It was a FINE movie. A good mindless conspiracy-action akin to Jason Bourne (Gods, I must have referenced the Bourne movies in my last 4 reviews, but it's hard not to) that simply spends too much time on the conspiracy and not the action. Doesn't hurt it too much, as it's got good actors with a fine script and the dialog fits every character (even if the rookie FBI guy was pointless).

However, the movie reminds us several times that this "conglomorate" cannot be defeated, and Swagger is just shooting at specters. This was a fine idea, showing us that not every enemy can be defeated. One of the enemies is a US Senator and killing him would be an instant-death-penalty or Life in Prison, as the characters imply throughout the finale. It tells us that the villains are practically unkillable. So what the FFFFF... is with the ending? Swagger storms a cabin full of the movie's villains bragging about how they won, and kills them all. The Senator's last words are "Are you out of your mind? I am a U-S Senator!", to which Swagger replies "exactly", and head-shots him. WHY? Sure, he bombs the cabin but if it's not perfectly obvious who was behind it, the people in the world of "Shooter" are complete F'ing morons.

I wouldn't have hated that so much if they just cut off that ridiculous ending. A better ending would be Swagger walking down a street, or walking back up to his home, and someone giving a final monologue about how the good guys don't always win. But no, this is America. Guns solve everything. Apparently.

I just watched 4 movies in 2 days so excuse me if my brain is a little fragmented.

One of the main problems with the first movie is that there wasn't enough screen time of the robots in their own movie. People can say what they want, but they really fixed that in this movie.

It's got it's share of human side-stories but I believe some of that is somewhat necessary. And it doesn't waste TOO much time in the beginning with it. I never saw the original cartoon so I'm not sure if the protagonist human had a romantic other, but it does fine and fits (to an extent... I doubt normal teenage girls want to fly 3000 miles so they can wrap themselves up in a robot war... again. I think any sane woman would be filing for a break up at that point). It's also in the humans where we find a lot of the humor, which is FINE. The ex-Sector 7 guy is a wonderful actor and pretty much an instant comedy-relief character who always does well with the part he is given. Exaggerated? Sure. Overacted? Maybe. Awesome? You bet your ass. (Or his, actually. Haha.) So, one can go on all day about the effects... but chances are, even if you hate the movie you can already admit they're good. If not decent at best. And they are great.

So let's get to the nitpicking.

The 'twins'. Are you serious? I suppose it makes a little bit of sense, trying to wrap in the younger crowds (and absolutely nothing else), but really... Someone want to explain to me how perfect transformer robots have gold teeth and are accent-ridden? (The small blue decepticon, while cute, was DUMB). In my opinion most of them should probably sound the same, Megatron and Prime happen to have the only voices that make SENSE to their robotic nature.

I loved the 'old guy' decepticon. I also know how he's supposed to be old but can someone explain to me why a robot is COUGHING and has a random obligatory old-guy 'beard' and wheel-cane? Is that really necessary? Though, I loved the character and is probably my favorite in the entire movie... now if only I can find out his name.

A lot of people say all the 'action' is blurred and looked like those cartoon clouds that covered all the fights with big "POOF"s and "BAM"s... But I'm not an idiot, and actually PAID ATTENTION to the battles. I could actually make out what they were doing, unlike a lot of you idiots. The battles were great, and the giant robot that use several vehicles was awesome and immediately reminded me that the TOYS actually used to DO that. I'm glad they remembered to fit that in.

So there you have it. I liked what people hated... all the while still recognizing its flaws. But there are not many perfect movies out there... which is OKAY. Not all of them have to be mind blowing. And Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen is a worthy watch.

I just watched 4 movies in 2 days so excuse me if my brain is a little fragmented. So I'll get right into this.

I liked the character development. Everyone from Shaw to the robot.

I'm not sure how absolutely everything is connected (minor complaint here, but minor. Minor) but I think it was clever and very Jason-Bourne-esquire (Movies of which I loved) how the AI was weaving Shaw around town. Using a crane to bash through a building? Rockin'. Forcing a train to go backwards and make everyone on the train get a call about HIM; Just to prove a point? Hells yes. I also loved how they were forced to rob an armored van on-the-fly without knowing beforehand? Awesome. But then, why are these two mentally strained people so quick to decide to ROB men with GUNS, even while trying to refuse before (and still try to later). It just seemed inconsistent.

(Big spoiler;) I think it was very brilliant how the AI organized the situation to have the mother wear the explosive and her own son have the trigger. That was deliciously violent and sick minded, and I loved it.

The problem? It was a bit obvious from, like, the first or second call, that the person calling was a robot. From the introduction that was calculating all possibilities and using every position to characterize their target (and still got it wrong, the idiots)... It was just easy to guess. The only thing I WASN'T able to predict in this movie, is what she was leading Shaw and the 'female' (forgot her name, but she was pretty much THAT unimportant) to wherever. So that was an interesting finale.

Worth a watch if you like conspiracy-chase movies akin to Jason Bourne (I know The Bournes may not be the first ones to do that, but they are so ridden with quality I usually use them as a basis of comparison anyway)... It's not perfect but it's enjoyable all the same.

I'm going to use a line from my favorite game reviewer, Yahtzee at "Zero Punctuation"; "It is not exactly BAD. What it is is average. Run of the mill" (Not an exact quote but it's the best I can do from memory) I went into this expecting, and knowing, that it would be very Heroes-like. A lot of it seemed to be inspired from it. It looked neat and stylized, but I knew from the trailers that it would be a sloppy rush job. And that's really what it felt like.

First, time traveling, future telling... always makes for an extremely flawed storyline. The new Star Trek (while a good movie) is going to ruin itself by splitting its canon with the original, Heroes ALMOST killed itself with it (but seeking to fix it from Volume 3 on up)... So how can writers still think its a good idea? It creates more contradictions and plot holes than any writing technique. And it did the same thing here in Push.

It was brought about a very interesting way, a 13 year old, a notebook, etc... But it didn't work.

I could go on the numerous inconsistencies, but if you really want to... go read some other reviews under the "Hated" category... you'll find them.

Secondly, the pointless love-interest side-story that really felt forced and unnecessary. I mentioned in my Pineapple Express review that these cookie-cutter formulas that movies love to use and think it's going to guarantee a good movie, when it just comes out sub-par.

Thirdly, the screamer guys were heavily exaggerated. I know they probably did that on purpose, to show the fact that they really have to exert themselves to use the power, but even that's cut off at the knees when the healer was able to stop one of them from starting, easily.

The one redeeming quality is the two separate fights with Nick and the other telekinesis guy. It was a couple of unique fights that really refreshed the feel of the movie. They needed more of that type of action. But instead, they drowned it with storyline, dialog, and future telling bullcrap.

That's a lot of BAD for a 6/10 review. But as I said, it was "okay". Won't win any awards but it's worth one good watch.

Not sure if this has spoilers but, better safe than sorry.

I have never seen any of the Cheech+Chong films, but I know that this was to be up that alley. The previews had amused me, but not really being a whole fan of the "make weed legal" subculture, since drugs seem to shut down the mind of all rational thought (Hell, Seth's character Dale said it himself in the movie, saying "We don't think right when we're high!", or something along those lines). But, I actually did finally sit down and watch it.

And I was impressed. I was going in expecting some mindless comedy with two stoners going across the city dodging gangsters. What I got? A bonified action movie. I mean seriously, there is a fight every fifteen minutes. And not just stupid slap-fights, I'm talking actual in-home brawls and 20on20 gunfights.

This movie started slow but definitely picked up later. In the beginning, Dale Denton calls a talk show and spews pro-marijuana nonsense which I didn't care much for. He also meets with his high school girlfriend, Which I didn't like, but oddly? I have to admit they had some chemistry. I find myself silently rooting for their relationship. I make myself sick, haha. Anyway, the third stage of the introduction is meeting his drug dealer, Saul (James Franco).

James? Are you serious? The first movie I ever saw him in was Spiderman, and I didn't like him. He barely improved. But in this? Holy crap, he led a hilarious performance and thought he happily stole every scene he was in. It was great to see him in a role that required more than just starting at the screen with a fixated scowl.

Anyway, they talk some more drugspeak which, again, I didn't care much for, but being already slightly enthralled, still amused me. So finally, Dale goes to this one man's house who he's trying to report a subpoena to, and witnesses a murder. It snowballs from there into a big action-chase movie.

It doesn't let up. With anything. The humor, the brilliant violence.

If I have any complaints; it's this. The ridiculous falling-out section of the movie where the two leads get into an argument and temporarily part ways. Why do movies still do this? Does every director exchange an exact movie formula, that uses a cookie-cutter scenario in every separate genre? I mean seriously. Watching that segment was like trying to stomach a children's Disney movie. The argument, and the reunite with a bunch of "sorry"s and "I love you, man"s thrown around. It wasn't needed and it was annoying to watch, and it just. Wasn't. Funny. Bringing a dull spot within the movie.

They also seemed to have jumped the shark with Dale and his girlfriend. Halfway through the movie they exchange a final call and then they just forget about her. As I said before, they did a good job making it seem like they had a good relationship, which I wasn't expecting. And at the end,the whole ending seen just kind of dropped abruptly.

In conclusion, I didn't appreciate -anything- this movie stood for. Older men dating high school girls, pro-weed, all that nonsense... But I enjoyed this movie a great deal.