2.5 Razors

DOA: Dead or Alive

/ / Movie Reviews
  • Title: DOA: Dead or Alive
  • IMDb: link

This movie’s got disaster written all over it.  The acting is average, the plot is ridiculous, and the dialogue will have you laughing and groaning.  But it does have beautiful, and scantily clad, young actresses, some nice sets and attractive scenery, and some pretty good stunts and wire work.  Fans of B-movies, and adolescent teens, might find a film that that can laugh-at and enjoy yourself while doing so.  Is it a good film?  Not really.  Is it a good time?  For the right audience, yes it is.

We’ve seen martial arts tournament flicks many times before.  Hell, Jean-Claude Van Damme made a career off them.  DOA isn’t a great film, in fact in many ways it’s quiet laughable and absurd, but it is an enjoyable experience that knows exactly what it and doesn’t try to be anything more.

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Not Craptastic, but Far From Fantastic

/ / Movie Reviews
  • Title: Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer
  • IMDb: link

“All that you know is at an end.”

rise-of-the-silver-surfer-posterI love the Silver Surfer. He is one of my favorite Marvel Comics heroes (though not my favorite Marvel character).  When news broke that the team that created the suckfest known, at least by me, as Craptastic Four was getting a chance to ruin this character as well I started stocking up on ammunition.  The film is far from the total desaster I imagined, and in truth the makers have made some great strides from the first film (this one is actually watchable without raising my blood pressure to dangerous levels).  I guess I could give it a pass just on improvement and effort, but although it’s not craptastic, like its predecessor, it’s far from fantastic.

Things pick up some months (years?) after the last movie.  Reed Richards (Ioan Gruffudd) and Sue Storm (Jessica Alba) are preparing to marry, Johnny (Chris Evans) is still a media-whore, and Ben (Michael Chiklis) is still made of what appears to be orange spray-painted foam.  To be fair, the look of the Thing is an improvement from the last film (they must have spent at least $50 on his costume this time), but what is up with Jessica Alba’s eyes?  Is she a scientist who can turn invisible or some weird alien creature?

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Pirates of the Caribbean: Trainwreck at World’s End

/ / Movie Reviews
  • Title: Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End
  • IMDB: link

“There was a time when a pirate was free to make his own way in the world, but our time is coming to an end.  Our enemies are united; they vow to destroy us.  The Pirate Lords from the four corners of the Earth must stand together.”

pirates-at-worlds-end-posterThe film begins, after a bizarre introduction about singing coins and eight pieces of nine (don’t ask) which is never satisfactorily explained, with Will (Orlando Bloom), Elizabeth (Keira Knightley), and Captain Barbossa (Geoffrey Rush) in Singapore.
Their visit has two purposes.  The first is to gain the maps and ship necessary to travel to Davy Jone’s Locker and rescue Captain Jack Sparrow (Johnny Depp).  The second involves a poorly thought out, and even worse explained, plotline about a meeting of pirate lords, mysterious artifacts, and a goddess which Barbossa wants to use to fight back against Norrington’s (Jack Davenport) control of the seas.

After making a deal with Captain Sao Fang (Chow Yun-Fat) the group sails to rescue Jack (who doesn’t make his first appearance until more than 20 minutes into the film) who is lost in a bizarre land where he is haunted by mirror images of himself and stones which turn into crabs.

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Spider-Man 3

/ / Movie Reviews
  • Title: Spider-Man 3
  • IMDb: link

The curse of three.  This is where all comic book movie franchises begin to break down.  Though Spider-Man 3 is much better than third installments of other super-hero movie franchises (Batman Forever, X-Men: The Lamest Stand, Superman III) it struggles mightily with an overambitious plot which contains enough storylines for at least three films. Sure, we get the alien symbiote, the Sandman, Gwen Stacy, a wedding proposal, a new Goblin, and Venom, but we get them all at once and all on top of each other.  The film would have been better served if the creators had been a little more selective and told a more in-depth, concise, and fleshed-out story, rather than rushing through a half-dozen tales all at once.

As the film opens Peter Parker’s (Tobey Maguire) life is golden.  He’s got a good job at the Daily Bugle, Mary Jane (Kirsten Dunst) is acting on stage, the city has fallen in love with Spider-Man, and he has decided to ask MJ to marry him.

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Haven’t I Seen This Before?

/ / Movie Reviews
  • Title: Deja Vu
  • IMDB: link

deja-vu-posterA cop goes back in time to prevent the murder of a woman who will give birth to the future leader of the human race and lead them against the machines run by Skynet … um, I mean a woman who, well, isn’t really that important at all.  But she’s cute, so there’s that.  Yeah…

When a ferry explodes killing Naval officers and civilians, ATF agent Doug Carlin (Denzel Washington) is called in on the case.  The discovery of a woman (Paula Patton)  killed moments before the explosion leads Carlin on the path of a terrorist (James Caviezel), but even if he succeeds he can’t save the girl.  Or can he?

A new top secret military project (headed up by Val Kilmer and Adam Goldberg) allows a team to look back exactly 100 hours into the past to discover the events that led to Clarie’s death and the identity of the terrorist.  Doug joins the team to find the identity of the killer, but also begins to wonder if it might not be possible to journey through time and chance the past.

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