Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on November 25th, 2003
The Tomb Raider film franchise was based on the popular adventure video game. This second Tomb Raider film, however, owes more to Indiana Jones and James Bond than anything else. Cradle of Life does an excellent job of moving along an adventure story. With exotic locations in Africa and China, Lara Croft has plenty of opportunities to show case her Bond-like bag of gadgets. Critics didn’t like this film much, but then again most film critics don’t seem to appreciate a film as a thrill ride. Angelina Jolie keeps the pace and adrenalin pumped up for the entire 2 hours. Sure, some of it is rather silly (The CGI shark scene was downright corny) but that doesn’t mean it can’t be a lot of fun. Jolie isn’t that hard to watch, either.
Audio
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on November 22nd, 2003
Who wants to see the middle of a movie, anyway? The beginning of the movie introduces the characters and presents the conflict. The ending holds the resolution and the conclusion. But the middle? Who wants to just see the middle? Nobody comes late and leaves early at the Cineplex. Nobody sane, anyway. This is not just any film, though. This is an Epic. Literally everything about this production is huge. The original text of the story was actually so long that it had to be divided into three volumes. The companion fil... is equally as massive. It also covers three volumes, with each volume clocking in at a length much longer than most rational people are willing to tolerate.
Yes, this is a film of Epic proportions, and the Extended Edition DVD is no different. Over 43 minutes of extra footage has been added to The Lord of the Rings – The Two Towers, bringing the total run time to 3 hours, 43 minutes. It's not just filler footage, either. Over 200 new digital effects were created for the DVD release; more than most films have in their original theatrical versions. The added material helps the film instead of hurting it, providing more room to develop characters and plot lines. In this case, more is more.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on November 21st, 2003
Synopsis
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on November 19th, 2003
Escape from New York not only made the career of Kurt Russell, and helped to grow the John Carpenter legacy, but has also gain cult status amongst many film fanatics. This film, with its unique plot, and raw style, was the first of its kind… and continues to be a fan favorite 22 years after its theatrical release.
”In a world ravaged by crime, the entire island of Manhattan has been converted to a walled prison where brutal prisoners roam. But when the U.S. president (Donald Pleasence) crash-lands ...nside, only one man can bring him back: notorious outlaw and former Special Forces war hero Snake Plissken (Russell). But time is short. In 24 hours, an explosive device implanted in his neck will end Snake’s mission, and his life, unless he succeeds.” – MGM
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on November 11th, 2003
Soylent Green is an… interesting movie. Its one of the seventies movies that’s funny to look back on and recognize that people in the seventies thought that people in the year 2020 would still be dressing like… people in the seventies. Soylent Green steps beyond the traditional seventies sci-fi flick and into the boundaries of social activism, however, adding a further layer of irony to the film: as an apocalyptic tale its interesting to see how we haven’t traveled down the frightening route envisioned in Soylent Gre...n, and alarming to see how we still could. Not to suggest that in the next 17 years we’ll breed ourselves into oblivion and poison all of the farmland – but the points that the movie makes about resource use and pollution are valid, no matter how exaggerated. What isn’t particularly valid are the movie’s population – at least not in North America. Soylent Green’s out-of-control population visions might be more valid if the film was set in Mexico City or Calcutta perhaps. A more realistic vision of 2020 New York might be of a smaller and grayer populace than today – in any case, I’m rambling, but the point is Soylent Green is entertaining to watch from historical, social, political, and ecological standpoint.
As for the film itself, there’s some great cinematography and some sketchy acting. Check out the opening sequence photo montage – awesome, very well done. Similarly, the movie works well within the filmmaking technology constraints of the time to create a believable 2020 New York. Directory Fleischman has some interesting comments on this in his commentary. Acting is dominated by Charlton Heston, who personally I find to look wooden and contrived most of the time on screen. He does have one of his famous lines though – “Soylent Green is made of People!! Its people!!” My god, it must be in his contracts that he get one ridiculous line per film. His supporting cast is fine – no standout performances to my eye, but all solid.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on November 10th, 2003
X2:X Men United is the follow-up film to the original X-men film from 2000. The original film did a good job of setting up the universe of the X-men and introducing us to the core characters that the comic books have always centered around. This film expands on this universe and brings along some of the coolest characters from the comics, this being Pyro, a brief glimpse of Juggernaut and lets not forget Nightcrawler. In this film we see the good and band mutants joining forces to defeat a common enemy. This is a little disappointing as we get to see cool new good characters but not really any super new baddies, but it also keeps the storyline fresh instead of it just being the good mutants versus the bad mutants.
l
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on November 4th, 2003
Synopsis
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on October 27th, 2003
Harrison Ford is the top selling actor in Hollywood these days. He owes this distinction in no small part to a couple of trilogies he did early in his career. While Star Wars might have been a chance for Ford to break out, Raiders of the Lost Ark and its sequels defined his abilities. Indiana Jones is the perfect hero. He’s strong, intelligent, and above all moral. Unlike the stereotypical hero Jones is also vulnerable and at times flawed. Credit Steven Spielberg for the iconic stature Indy occupies today. Left to his own devices, George Lucas would have given us Tom Selleck as the cigarette-smoking morally bankrupt Indiana Smith.
Raiders of the Lost Ark brought back the cinematic tradition of the 2-reel serials. These shorts would combine with a newsreel, a cartoon, and a feature film to provide a splendid moviegoing event in the early days of talkies. To those of us too young to remember them, the Indiana Jones saga is a time machine to a much simpler day of good guys and bad guys. While even Spielberg himself admits that Indiana Jones and The Temple of Doom was inferior to the rest of the trilogy, even this weaker film provided a historic filmmaking moment. Because of its dark nature and gore elements the film did not fit neatly into the PG rating. The filmmakers did not want this “family” adventure labeled with R, so the ensuing conflict brought us PG-13, now the most widely used rating on films. Indiana Jones and The Last Crusade dared to show us a much more vulnerable hero with the addition of his father. The relationship is a complicated one, but a relationship every father and son can instantly recognize and relate to. Right Dad?
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on October 24th, 2003
It Runs in the Family is a film that combines three generations of the Douglas family – patriarch Kirk Douglas, son Michael Douglas and grandson Cameron Douglas (Michael’s son from his 1st marriage). It’s not clear how much this movie resembles their real-life problems but chances are the emotions involved are quite similar.
The movie follows the story of the Grombergs. Mitchell Gromberg (Kirk Douglas) is the founder of the law firm that his son Alex (Michael Douglas) works at. Alex is quickly involved in...an affair with a fellow volunteer at a soup kitchen (Sarita Choudhury). This is an event that gets the movie rolling.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on October 20th, 2003
William Shatner refused to reprise his role of Kirk in Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home without a promise to write and direct the next film in the franchise. Against their better judgment Paramount agreed, and to this day wish they had not. The story is absolutely silly and the direction very one-dimensional. The truth is, however, that there still are some very endearing Trek moments in the film. DeForest Kelly gives a superb performance as McCoy must face his past decision to allow his terminal father to die. Even the Kirk / Spock moments are often quite compelling. Unfortunately Shatner couldn’t help but show with how little regard he held his minor cast mates. Sulu, Scotty, Uhura, and Chekov are reduced to comic parodies of themselves. The f/x are some of the franchise’s weakest.
Audio
