Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on May 2nd, 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...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on May 2nd, 2006
Synopsis
Over 400 years in the future, the remnants of humanity live in one last city. This is under the total control of the Goodchild regime. Innocents are constantly disappearing. The government is fought by the Monican resistance, and super-assassin Aeon Flux (Charlize Theron) is sent to assassinate supreme leader Trevor Goodchild. At the moment of her victory, however, she hesitates, and it soon becomes apparent that nothing is as she though it was.
This financial dud is unlikely to be...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on April 29th, 2006
When The Passion of the Christ was released on DVD several years ago, I didn't buy it, opting instead to wait for the strongly-rumored special edition release to come. Here we are almost three years later, and no such release is being discussed. The funny thing is, The Big Question is essentially an extra for that non-existent DVD package. This documentary, which discusses questions of faith, was shot on the set of The Passion of the Christ, amongst the actors and artisans that were gathered from all parts of the planet for the production. This is a wonderful idea, and it makes for a great documentary featurette to support the film, but I just don't feel that there is enough here for a stand-alone release.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on April 29th, 2006
In the era we live in, the eventuality of a movie about war was going to come, whether or not we wanted to see the film. Since the war in Iraq is such a hot button topic with a majority of people, regardless if you were for the war or against the war, Universal thought this would be the perfect moment to capture our interest in war. Enter director Sam Mendes (American Beauty) and stars Jake Gyllenhaal (Brokeback Mountain) and Academy-Award winning Actor Jamie Foxx (Ray) and you know you have a m...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on April 25th, 2006
Clint Eastwood’s film Million Dollar Baby tells the story of an aging fighter trainer named Frankie Dunn (Eastwood) who eventually decides to train a hillbilly girl (Swank) who thinks she can be a boxer. Dunn runs a gym in the Los Angeles area. One day a girl named Maggie Fitzgerald, from Missouri, approaches Dunn informing him that she has been working at a waitress job since the age of 13. She tells Dunn that boxing for her is the only way she can escape this type of job her life has thrown at her.
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Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on April 25th, 2006
Battle For The Planet Of The Apes was the last of the original Apes films. It has been far too frequently maligned. While I will admit that some of the high concepts are a little too undisguised, there was still some life left in the franchise. Of course, the novelty had worn off by now. It didn’t help that the films’ budgets kept falling as Fox was looking for cheaper ways to sell the same ideas. “Battle” was a violent film, but it was really a film about peace and the violent rite of passage often necessary to ac...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on April 24th, 2006
Steven Spielberg has always been a surefire type of director to go to if you want a high quality film. I was first introduced to Spielberg’s work via his groundbreaking film Jaws. Since then, Spielberg has continued to churn out hit after hit from 1993’s Schindler’s List which was awarded a Best Picture Oscar to his most recent film 2005’s Munich. Both of these particular films have gained numerous political and critical praise for the messages and raw power they both contained via the film’s int...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on April 22nd, 2006
A critically acclaimed Adam Sandler film? I’d never would I have thought I’d see the day. I guess if The Truman Show is one of Jim Carrey’s dramatic stabs, then the star of Big Daddy can give a romantic comedy a try. Written and directed by Paul Thomas Anderson (Magnolia), using a story from the “Strange But True” category, combined with adding a touching tenderness to his characters, wrapped up with Sandler, playing a quiet, soft spoken man prone to fits of blind rage.
Sander is Barry ...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on April 21st, 2006
With HD-DVD gaining a lot of press and discussion over the past few months, many wondered what would be the initial title for release that would help showcase the power that Toshiba wanted to showcase. Some figured a big blockbuster like The Star Wars Trilogy could be released. (wouldn’t that be nice?) But with Fox being exclusive to Blu-Ray, HD-DVD’s main competition, no one could figure that a moderately successful film like 2003’s The Last Samurai would ever be thought of as a player seller. Well, af...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on April 19th, 2006
Mel Gibson stars as reluctant guerilla fighter Benjamin Martin in this story of courage, passion, and war, which dramatizes elements from the American Revolution into a gripping fictional narrative that will manipulate every emotion you have until its rousing finale. Martin endures great personal tragedies at the hands of the British - in particular, the despicable Colonel William Tavington (played with the vile gusto of a demon from Hell by Jason Isaacs). Tavington has already killed one of Martin's sons, and it is ...