Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on April 6th, 2006
Hmm. Another made for television sci-fi series. Most of the recent sci-fi made for television series have been quite disappointing mainly because they usually run too short, are horrible condensed forcing the creators of the show to either A. introduce characters very quickly, B. have extremely poor set design, or C. have another random plot that has been done a million times over. While The Triangle plot is nothing brand new, the director by Craig R. Baxley with production by Bryan Singer (X-Men) and D...an Devlin (Independence Day) help bring a bit of higher quality to the project.
The basic plot to this mini-series is; A team of specialists races to solve the mystery of why an alarming number of cargo ships are disappearing into the Bermuda Triangle. Made by Craig Baxley and genre veterans Dean Devlin and Bryan Singer, we naturally get scenes filled with tons of FX effects. One of the more surprising positives for this series was the cast. Boasting such actors as Sam Neill and Catherine Bell, the acting level is taken to the next level. The direction was quite surprising with a lot of the scenery and acting feeling top notch. The show, if you didn’t know it was a mini TV series, could have easily passed off as a film.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on April 6th, 2006
Synopsis
Roy Scheider is the police helicopter pilot and Vietnam war vet (cue flashbacks) who is tapped to test Blue Thunder, a new helicopter equipped with every conceivable weapon and means of surveillance. He discovers that the machine is at the heart of a conspiracy to undermine all that is good and free, and chief bad guy here is Malcolm McDowell, for whom Scheider has a more than cordial dislike thanks to what happened back in 'Nam. The stage is set for high-tech showdown in the skies over LA..../p>
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on March 23rd, 2006
Synopsis
Above the Zu Mountain range, on floating peaks and the like, live various clans of immortals. They must unite to fight off the attack of a returning enemy: the dreaded demon Insomnia. The united efforts of the clans meet with plenty of problems, including star-crossed lovers, and humans from down below wind up being dragged into the battle, too.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on March 6th, 2006
Ever since making the Lord of the Rings trilogy, Director Peter Jackson has almost become a household name that seems to always guarantee success. Don’t get me wrong though, Jackson has not always been successful. Before making the Lord of the Rings trilogy, Jackson had the film The Frighteners and a few smaller films where he only produced. The idea of giving this not so successful movie director hundreds of millions of dollars to remake the Lord of the Rings trilogy, made many turn their...heads simply wondering why. But, after the gigantic success of the trilogy, Jackson targeted another remake, a remake to a film he says was the reason he wanted to become a film director. The film in question is the 1933 classic King Kong
When news first arrived of this remake, many fans, including myself, were very excited to see what Jackson could come up with. However, I don’t need to spell out how many remakes, including the recent Pink Panther, are extremely horrid. With the news coming out that Universal wanted Jackson to trim the film down (from the final run time of 182 minutes to 140 for a quicker turn around audience) and that the film’s budget had sky-rocketed forcing Jackson and his partner Fran Walsh to fork over their money, a lot of fans started to worry if Peter Jackson’s King Kong was going to go down in history as simply another poorly made remake. Can a one-time nobody director, now an extremely famous director turn a black and white classic into a modern age epic? Read on to find out.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on February 15th, 2006
Synopsis
Inspired, rather than based, on the life of bounty hunter Domino Harvey, this exercise in monumentally brain-dead excess sees Keira Knightley in the title role. The daughter of Manchurian Candidate star Laurence Harvey, she rebels against the posh Beverly Hills life of her mother (Jacqueline Bisset) to become the bounty hunting partner of Mickey Rourke and Edgar Ramirez, working for Delroy Lindo. Christopher Walken is the TV producer who designs a reality show around the trio and two ...ormer Beverly Hills 90210 stars, and then everything gets insanely complicated when our heroes are sent to nab the wrong guys, who happen to be mob-connected.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on February 8th, 2006
One of the unfortunate responses to the emergence of a successful movie is the appearance of copycat films. When Gladiator won the Academy Award for Best Picture, all these sword and sandal flicks went into production. Now we have epics such as Troy, Kingdom of Heaven and Alexander to show for it. Sometimes, the backlash is even worse when the hit film is a bit of a surprise hit. Such was the case with The Fast and the Furious. Now, I really enjoyed Furious, but I knew on the...front end of my viewing experience that I was not in for a serious filmgoing experience. The point of the movie was hot cars, over-the-top action and plenty cool shots of Vin Diesel and Paul Walker doing stuff in slow motion. My expectations were met, it was a fun popcorn flick, and I went home happy. When The Fast and the Furious 2 came along, it was a much worse film, but just as the trailer suggested, the film was both faster and furious-er.
Then even more copycat flicks began popping up. I was hoping that this trend had hit rock bottom with the release of Torque, but Steve Boyum (whose only notable films up until this point were Meet the Deedles and Slap Shot 2: Breaking the Ice) has somehow managed to find a level somewhere below the lowest common denominator with Supercross. Anyone with half a brain could churn out this plot in moments. A reckless kid and his “play it safe” brother work hard, but only one of them makes it to the big time in supercross racing. Once he gets there, he looses sight of what is really important, and he has to find his way back to his brother, and what they loved about the sport in the first place, thus making their deceased father happy... wherever he is.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on February 1st, 2006
I will be honest and inform you that I have yet to like a video game based film since 1995’s Mortal Kombat. It seems that no matter how closely they try to follow the story based on the game, the director always fails. One of the more famous director’s in the video-game to movie based series is director Uwe Boll, who has brought us The House of the Dead and the recent Bloodrayne, These movies, as the popular consensus agrees, were extremely awful. They lacked anything redeeming, despite the orig...nal source material being pretty good. When I heard of a film being made on the game series Doom, I began to worry as I figured it would follow the typical trend of terrible video-game based movies. Can Doom reverse the horrible trend of terrible video-game based movies? Read on to find out
Doom begins with a fly in shot over the red planet Mars. We move in more and see the Olduvai Research Station, which is a remote scientific facility on Mars. And that is the last scene we see of the planet Mars. For a movie based on a game that takes place on the red planet Mars, we never fully see the planet except for the opening scene. Maybe this is me wanting what I saw in the game series. But every film director has to take a few creative liberties right? Well, I am very disappointed to report to that director Andrzej Bartkowiak and Universal seem to have taken a few too many creative liberties when making this film as the film is nothing like the game at all.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on January 27th, 2006
When news of a sequel to 1998’s The Mask of Zorro was first announced, I was very excited as I really enjoyed The Mask of Zorro. The film had an interesting story and great acting from Banderas and Hopkins. But as I learned more and more about the sequel, I became extremely worried as neither of the two screenwriters (Ted Elliot or Terry Rossio) were returning. Also, we would be introduced to their cute little child (and EVERYONE knows how much adding little children to sequels can do for a film’s likea...ility). Could The Legend of Zorro take all these usual negatives and make a positive sequel? Unfortunately, the answer is no.
The first big problem with this film is the character of Elena (Catherine Zeta-Jones). Elena, in the first film, was delight. She was funny and Zeta Jones’ performance was a joy. In this film, possibly because Zeta-Jones has blown up since then, it seems like the screenwriters don’t have anything better for Elena to do than nag her husband. This scenario results in Elena becoming the type of wife that says “NO!---YOU still need Zorro!” to her husband. To sum up her role in the film, she wants Zorro to stop ‘Zorroing’ because he is neglecting their only son. She threatens to leave Zorro if he puts the mask back on again. Naturally, Zorro promises not to.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on January 21st, 2006
Having originally seen Underworld on HBO one summer night, I recall myself finding the film fairly dull and vapid. When I heard of a director’s cut coming out, I thought back to my original viewing of the film Daredevil, which was made that much better via more explanation of plot and the characters. Maybe this could occur for this film. Unfortunately, Underworld is not that much better this time around.
Underworld stars Kate Beckinsale as Death Dealer Selene. We learn, at the be...inning of the film, that there is a ancient blood feud that is occurring between vampies and Lycans (creatures we call werewolves). Unlike the typical werewolves we are use to seeing on screen, these Lycans can change form at will. Cue in the Death Dealers who try to kill off all of these Lycans. Why so much animosity toward the Lycans you may ask? Well, according to Selene, the Lycans are planning something big and this may be in correspondence to the ‘Awakening’. A vampire named Kraven (Shane Brolly) is in charge until the ‘Awakening’. Naturally Kraven doesn’t get along with Selene.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on January 8th, 2006
It seems that every action movie that is being released out of Hollywood nowadays always has to feature out of this world stunts that no real human could ever do. Now this is not necessarily bad if the action is done in correspondence to the film in a skillful manner. When the original Transporter was released onto DVD, it quickly gained a reputation through many action fans that caused the film’s sales to skyrocket. The sales skyrocketed so high that Twentieth Century Fox quickly greenlit the sequel to a film...they had no interest in making a sequel to after the rather poor theatrical performance.
Quickly recapping the first film for those of you have not seen it. The Transporter starred actor Jason Statham (Cellular) as Frank Martin a.k.a The Transporter, a man who would transport anything at a price. He had three rules if you wanted to hire him. 1. Never change the deal. 2. No Names. 3. Never look in the package. Martin is hired to deliver a large duffel bag. The bag tends to complain and squirm. The bag contains a Chinese woman named Lai. Martin cuts a hole in the tape over her mouth, thus violating his third rule of never looking in the bag. What occurs next is a movie that tends to have too much action at some point that it brings the film to a near dead standstill.
