Review – Saved!

For a movie about the finer points of faith, this one isn’t the worst I’ve ever seen. And considering that it’s fairly obviously aimed at a teenage audience, I was actually surprised that it wasn’t a lot dumber than it was. Sure, this isn’t a serious consideration of deep theological questions. But it does recognize that at some point in their lives (often in their mid to late teens) many people begin to question the simpleminded religious doctrines that have been spoon-fed to them for years. The movie’s conclusion – that you don’t have to abandon all faith just because some of what you’ve been taught about God turns out to be nonsense – is an important lesson delivered without overwhelming amounts of kiddie-corn. Serious-minded adults may find some of the humor a bit beneath them, but for the target audience this should be a good experience. Mildly amusing

Review – Pulse

As is not exactly unusual with Japanese ghost stories, this production’s way more atmosphere than anything else. The plot involves ghosts from an overflowing afterlife leaking over into our world via computers. Not that it comes as much of a surprise that Windows machines are inhabited by evil spirits. The spooky visual gimmicks carry the picture for 20 or 30 minutes, but after that the creepiness wears off and nothing steps in to maintain the remaining hour and a half. Indeed, the subtitles tell a dreary tale of angst and ennui worthy of the legendary Werner Herzog himself (though the most famous name that actually shows up in the credits is Kurosawa, and even then it isn’t Akira). The production might also score a point or two for coming up with a new way for the world to end. Beyond that, however, this is just a big bunch of boring. Mildly amusing

Review – Syriana

This comes across as the international intrigue version of Crash. Sure, assassination plots, high dollar mergers and the like are inherently more interesting than Los Angelinos squabbling abut race relations. But that doesn’t make this a good movie. I was particularly disappointed by the lack of complexity in the plot. Other reviewers led me to believe that the story involved so many twists and turns that it was sometimes difficult to tell what was going on. There was some wheeling and dealing and double-crossing and the like, but at no point was it hard to follow, rarely even hard to predict. Overall this isn’t a bad movie. It just wasn’t all it was cracked up to be. Mildly amusing

Review – Underworld Evolution

Not much evolving going on here, truth be told. Vampires. Werewolves. Vampires fighting werewolves. Vampires fighting vampires. The only real change this time around is slightly less plot, story replaced by action and a dash of nudity. The switch is welcome, but it isn’t drastic enough to count as evolution. Thus if the first one floated your boat, this one will likely keep you comfortably sailing along. Mildly amusing

Review – The Omen (2006)

Here we have yet another movie that didn’t really need to be remade, particularly not like this. Aside from a couple of dream-sequence spots, the scares in this one are no more sophisticated than they were in the original. The casting is odd at best. Mia Farrow’s supporting-role return to devil child cinema was entertaining, but the main characters simply fell short. I wasn’t expecting anyone as good as Gregory Peck, but if Liev Schrieber continues the trend from this production and The Manchurian Candidate he’s going to develop a reputation as the cardboard cut-out god of crappy remakes. In Julia Stiles’ defense, I’m not sure if she was actually wrong for the role of Damien’s mom or if I’ve just got her cemented in my head as the kid from 10 Things I Hate About You and can’t get past that picture of her. I also felt profoundly let down by the soundtrack. The music in the original was ground-breaking stuff, making the fake Gregorian chant into a horror movie cliché. Rather than develop on that, the score here is at best unmemorable. Overall this is a grey little disappointment of a movie. Mildly amusing

Review – The Hills Have Eyes (2006)

The addition of the strange nuclear test site town was vaguely entertaining. Otherwise I don’t have much to say about this that I didn’t already say about the original. See if desperate

Review – Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1920)

John Barrymore stars as the doctor/fiend in this early adaptation of the Stephenson classic. Though thoroughly infected with the technical difficulties of the silent era – particularly histrionic acting – this production holds up surprisingly well even decades later. The one notable difference between this and subsequent versions is that Barrymore’s Hyde is actually less physically imposing than his Jekyll, the former a hunched-over creature with spindly limbs while the latter is your typical “man’s man.” Otherwise this is a straightforward version of a familiar story. Mildly amusing

Review – The Devil Doll

The scariest thing about this movie is Lionel Barrymore parading around in drag more than half the time. Of course as an escaped convict seeking revenge on the trio who had him wrongfully imprisoned years ago, he can perhaps be excused for disguising himself as an old lady. What is harder to excuse is his decision to employ the shrinking technology developed by one of his convict buddies and try to reduce his enemies to doll size. For the most part this is a special effects vehicle from 1936, and though the composite shots aren’t all that impressive by 21st century standards, they were probably pretty hot stuff in their day. Overall I’ve seen better horror movies from this period in film history, but I’ve seen worse as well. Mildly amusing

Review – The Shaft

A little more time spent on the script might have made this into a genuinely view-worthy horror movie. I suppose the plot – biotechnology run rampant in a skyscraper – isn’t the most ingenious ever conceived, but it ends up being a blend of clichés just odd enough to seem fresh. The acting’s not too terrible; indeed, several of the supporting roles are played by talented and/or moderately famous thespians. The technical details were okay, and so on. Where this production drops from solid piece of low-budget horror to just another crappy straight-to-video fright flick is in the excessive screen time devoted to go-nowhere twists and turns. I suppose some of it might be excused as red herrings (though the “mystery” here doesn’t really call for a lot of diversions) or character development. But even a limited re-editing of the tale could easily have cut out a big chunk of uninteresting wastes of screen time. Mildly amusing

Review – Ocean’s Twelve

Second verse, same as the first. If you like to look at celebrities, wow are you in the right place. On the other hand, Entertainment Tonight has celebrities without some of the pesky drawbacks of movie-making, such as the expectation that the production will have a plot of some kind. Beyond the parade of stars, this plays like a two-hour-long music video for a genuinely terrible soundtrack. If you liked the first one, this one might have a chance with you. Otherwise there isn’t much here. See if desperate

Review – Tears of Kali

Wow, a movie that’s actually so terrible it can make the goddess of death and destruction cry. I’ve never seen a German horror anthology movie before, so I don’t have anything to compare this to. However, I hope they aren’t all this terrible. The bracket starts out on the right foot (lots of strangeness and nasty gore), but then the stories themselves turn out dull and dumb. There’s some weak and somewhat inconsistent use of supernatural stuff borrowed from Hinduism, but otherwise there isn’t much to distinguish this production from any number of other low-budget splatter flicks from either side of the Atlantic. See if desperate

Review – A Sound of Thunder

Monsters that are half gorilla and half velociraptor. Do I really need to say anything else about this? Though I’ve never read it, I expect the Ray Bradbury short that supposedly inspired this production had something going for it. However, whatever potential it might have packed is swiftly squandered on the usual combination of bad script, bad acting and bad production quality. At least half an hour of this show is so dark that it’s difficult – at times even impossible – to tell what’s going on. I suppose that saved them some money on special effects, but it didn’t help make the weak story line any easier to swallow. The plot puts a new twist or two on the whole traveling-back-in-time-and-changing-things-via-the-butterfly-effect thing, but otherwise this one’s missable. See if desperate

Review – I Eat Your Skin

I remember reading somewhere that this movie was re-titled to fit on a double bill with I Drink Your Blood. That would stand to reason, given the complete absence of skin-eating in this production. Rather than chewing hides, the zombies here appear interested only in killing white people, especially blonde women. The story is dreadful, the acting on par with the script, and the racism more than a little hard to take. However, there’s an odd effectiveness to the zombies. Their cheap make-up – particularly the cloth patch eyes – should inspire laughs, but there’s something delightfully creepy about them. Otherwise, however, this one’s missable. See if desperate

Review – It Waits

This movie helps me prove a point I’ve asserted several times in other reviews: a little decent writing goes a long way. The acting, directing and special effects here aren’t exactly top drawer. The monster looks like a bargain basement Pumpkinhead. The producers obviously had at least some budget to work with, but this isn’t a slick, Hollywood production by any stretch of the imagination. But with Richard Christian Matheson co-writing and co-producing, at least they got enough of a story to make it worth the telling. For the most part this is a run-of-the-mill monster in the woods tale, but it has some elements (such as the excuse for the creature’s deliberate cruelty) that help keep it interesting. Though this isn’t the best horror movie I’ve ever seen, it was a darn sight better than several other movies I rented in the same batch, including at least a couple with much higher budgets and much worse scripts. Mildly amusing

Review – Shallow Ground

They should have buried this one deeper. Then maybe nobody would have dug it up. I rented this because the box promised me gore and one of the critics’ blurbs described it as “intelligent.” The gore was sort of there. They spread the Karo syrup and red food coloring around like they bought a tanker full of it and the sales contract included a promise to use every drop. But rarely if ever was it put to good use. Indeed, as in other productions – Dead Alive comes to mind – the red stuff flows so copiously that it loses its impact. It doesn’t help matters that a lot of it squirts – often apropos of nothing – out of a mysterious boy who wanders around naked for most of the picture. And “intelligent”? Maybe, but only if that’s a synonym for “ponderous” (which is certainly a synonym for “boring”). Wish I’d skipped it

Review – Aeon Flux

Sadly, I have little trouble believing that an additional four hundred years of perfume ads, video games and cell phones might actually do this to the human race. Like the animated shorts that spawned it, this production isn’t real long on plot. Indeed, careful editing could probably break it up into isolated, nonsensical episodes just like the original series. It’s a pretty picture, and some of the effects are entertaining. It just doesn’t hold together as a feature-length movie. Mildly amusing

Review – Left Behind

Based on the first volume of “the most popular fiction series in history” (at least until Harry Potter came along), this movie treats us to the run-up to the end of the world. As the title implies, the main plot point in this production is the Rapture, the moment in neo-Christian mythology when all good, Bible-believing folk (not to mention all innocent children without regard to religious conviction) suddenly vanish off the face of the earth before the dreaded End Times begin. As a result this movie is mostly set-up for more interesting tales that are – presumably – yet to come. The production is rife with the right-wing conceits one would expect from such a thing, but otherwise this didn’t have to be an absolutely terrible movie. Except for one thing: these folks just cannot stop themselves from preaching. It’s such a big part of the culture that spawns these books and movies that writers and actors and directors just can’t help but do it. The plot has to be interrupted while the characters minister to one another (and thus to the audience as well). Honestly folks, if your story isn’t compelling enough to make the point you’re trying to get across without pausing for sermons, then you need to go back and re-write. Compare this production to The Passion of the Christ or even The Ten Commandments and I hope you’ll see what I mean. So what we’ve got here is a movie designed to preach to the choir. If you’re a choir member, enjoy. Otherwise skip at will. See if desperate

Review – Return of the Living Dead: Necropolis

I’ve lost count. What is this? Number four? This time around some evil corporation is turning corpses (and even injured-but-not-dead folks) into a zombie army with an eye toward world domination. But when a teen injured in a motorcycle accident is stolen from the hospital, his friends band together to rescue him. The rest of the picture is an extra-gory episode of Scooby Doo minus the dog. The scariest thing in the whole production is the bizarre emoting of Peter Coyote as the mad scientist in charge. Wasn’t this guy considered an actual actor at one point? Oh, and speaking of the acting: it’s par for the terrible course (as is the script, the direction, the effects, and everything else). My special favorite (aside from Coyote) was the bargain-basement actress playing a role clearly reminiscent of – if not in fact designed for – Paris Hilton. Was the real thing too expensive? Or is this movie stunning proof that there are some things so terrible that even Paris Hilton won’t do them? See if desperate

Review – Hostel

I liked this movie a bit better than I thought I would, but that’s probably because I expected it to be fairly terrible. Oh, and I’d just watched something else that was even worse (see Shallow Ground, or better yet don’t). The premise of this production has potential: witless American tourists are being lured into a dungeon in Slovakia where rich patrons pay for the privilege of torturing them to death. Our young protagonists prove to be annoying enough that seeing them meet with painful misfortune is actually something of a guilty pleasure. I’m not sure we’re supposed to sympathize with the killers, but the sympathy is there nonetheless. The production is notable for its emphasis on reaction shots, stressing the pain of the experience rather than just the gory details. And though it’s long on the set-up (nobody dies until nearly halfway through), there’s enough nudity and blood to thoroughly entertain anyone easily impressed by such elements. Mildly amusing

Review – X-Men 3

After the first two, I was actually looking forward to this one. And to put it bluntly, I was disappointed. I liked the previous installments at least in part because of the rare presence of character development in the action genre. However, that element was almost completely absent this time around. The new characters are almost all villains. Normally that would be great, but this crop is a pack of duds. Rather than focus on characters, this production devotes most of its screen time to special effects – naturally – and to sustaining a plot that serves primarily to kill off (or otherwise do away with) as many of the series regulars as possible within the limits of what audiences are likely to put up with. They’re calling this the “last battle,” and though movie-goers have seen words like that used deceptively in the past, this time around the producers appear to be serious. Overall this wasn’t a complete waste of a couple of hours, but it was inferior to its predecessors. Mildly amusing

Review – Mission: Impossible 3

The thing I admired most about this production was the film-makers’ complete refusal to explain the McGuffin. What exactly is the “rabbit’s foot”? And don’t give me any of this “doomsday device” nonsense, either. Why is it valuable for the purpose it’s supposed to serve in the story? Why is it being stored in an office building in Shanghai? Why is it being guarded by private security? Ask away, audience. The only response you’ll get is, “honestly, do you really care?” To which we have to reply that no, we really don’t. It’s not like anyone who ever watched an Evel Knievel motorcycle stunt found him- or herself wondering “did the school buses do something to make him mad?” or “wouldn’t it have been easier to ride around the buses rather than jumping over them?” Just give us Hollywood celebrities, exotic locations (all helpfully identified by nation for the geographically-differently-abled who don’t know that Berlin is in Germany or that Shanghai is in China) and lots of expensive special effects. Plot, character, dialogue – all of which might have been obtained for a fraction of the cost of one stuntman-flinging chunk of pyrotechnics – apparently aren’t worth even a minimal investment anymore. I also have a serious gripe about the demise of the villain, but I can’t include it in this review without giving away the end of the movie. Finally, at the screening I went to, a preview for the new Superman movie accidentally ran through the projector upside down and backward. At the end of the show I was left curious about how the entertainment value of the movie I’d just seen might have been affected if the main attraction had suffered the same fate as the preview. Unfortunately, “not much” is my best guess. See if desperate