Hey look, an obviously bad movie in Vampires Suck. Looks like I can use the Q&A format again!
Truth talk.
Question 1: Oh gee willikers, is this another one of those Spoof movies? Does it just spoof Twilight, or is there at least some other things to look forward to?
Heck yes it is one of those spoof movies. Spoofing on Twilight also happens to be one of the easiest things to do. Seriously. I’ve tried to make fun of it three times myself, with at least one more coming soon. But don’t worry, if you don’t want to just rewatch the first two movies, but even stupider, there are also some other references to other things.
Like Gossip Girl, Buffy, Vampire Diaries, Alice in Wonderland, and Dear John. Pretty much stuff that “Teen girls” like, or at least vampire stuff. I am sure there is more stuff that I missed, but I don’t know all of the pop culture yet. Also, none of these references last more than a few seconds / quick scene, so after them it is just straight up Twilight stuff.
Question 2: The plot is just the first two twilight movies? Really? Do that thing where you explain the plot kind of anyways.
Certainly! All the characters you expect are in this movie. Jenn Proske plays Bella, and Diedrich Bader is her dad. Matt Lanter is Edward and Chris Riggi is Jacob. Also Ken Jeong plays random high up vampire guy. So yeah, the two people you might know are playing the least important roles.
Bella moves to Oregon, is all sad, likes the mysterious Edward kid, falls in love, turns out he can’t protect her, he runs away, falls for hairy Jacob, tries to kill her self (kind of but not really), makes Jacob all sad, tries to reveal himself to others, and she stops him. He turns her into a vampire, and bitches get crazy. So pretty much the first two movies. Also some villains in there. But just all of the scenes go from angsty to stupid.
Question 3: Well that doesn’t sound swell! Does the movie have any redeeming qualities?
Oh well. Erm. No. Not really. I guess it is good that they reduce the first two movies into one film, which is what I thought they could have done with the first 2 actual Twilight movies.
And that guy.
Question 4: I think you went in knowing this movie would be bad, and thus never gave it a chance. Shenanigans!
That’s not a question!
Question 5: Your mom’s not a question.
Alright, I get that the badly edited scenes and the jokes being inconsistent with the plot are on purpose, but holy crap. Why? Can’t they be wittier like the…well everything Mel Brooks has ever done?
Ooh, a movie called The Stranger. Turns out there is a bunch of those. But what are the chances of this one being based on the Albert Camus novel? Well. Zero.
I mean, come on. That is never going to happen. Right?
Not if this man has anything to do with it.
Erica Cerra is a FBI person who is the “main character” but also not really. Because who cares about her. People are going to see this movie for Steve Austin (The Stone Cold variety). She is trying to find and detain this guy.
Why? Because he is “Dangerous”. Kind of. Or he knows something? BUT NOT REALLY.
Because he has something wrong with him. He keeps forgetting everything that has happened to him. This isn’t some disorder, I can’t remember why they said it happens. But it means he can’t remember the info they want to get out of him, that he has a family, and he keeps getting confused when the lady agent is near him, every little bit when it is convenient for the plot.
Adam Beach plays another FBI agent trying to help detain him, but he isn’t Steve Austin. Also some other people besides the FBI are trying to stop him. So that is where action comes in. Lots of shooting. Confused shooting.
Apparently torture doesn’t break Amnesia. Yet.
Are you confused about the plot? Good. Because so was I. I watched it, and I just thought it was a mess. This straight to video pile didn’t even feel action-y enough to be entertaining in that regard. Didn’t help that the cinematography was poor, and the obviously bad acting / plot (if it existed).
Only watch this if you ar- never mind. Don’t watch this.
Welcome to my 300th movie review! I know what you are thinking. “Hey! But this is 3 movies? Shouldn’t this be 300, 301, and 302??”
Well, originally sure. But I really wanted to make sure my number of posts was equal to my number of reviewed movies. Easier for me to keep track of.
So my 300th movie review will be three movies that I count as one, and will just call them different Acts. If you missed it, here are my 150th, 200th, and 250th reviews. Why is this not the next twilight movie? Because I will be damned if I watch that in theaters where people can see me. Nope, alone in the room is the only way to go.
This story begins not in a high school. Our star, basketball hot shot Zac Efron (Troy) is at a ski resort for New Years. He just wants to play basketball with his dad, but his mom makes him go to a youth social. That is where he randomly has to perform a duet with Vanessa Hudgens (Gabrielle), who is nerdy. Neither wants to, but it turns out they both kick ass and sing well together. If only they hadn’t just met.
NOW TO HIGH SCHOOL. Oh man, Gabrielle randomly transfers to their high school. Awkward. No one knows Troy sings. He quickly sticks with his own group and friend, Corbin Bleu (Chad), and she gets an overachieving friend, Monique Coleman (Taylor). This is already too much plot. They get forced to try out to sing in the Spring musical kind of, much to the dismay of Ashley Tisdale (Sharpay) and Lucas Grabeel (Ryan), twins who run the theater at this school. But maybe if the composer, Olesya Rulin (Kelsi) can write the perfect duet, they can out perform the twins and get the lead roles. Even if the callbacks are during the championship game, and the quiz bowl thing.
Best Song?
My favorite song from this was “When There Was Me And You” by Gabrielle. Pretty much everything she sings is way too good for most of the other people, since they focus less on gimicks. This takes place after the friends have successfully tricked Troy into locker room talk, and saying he doesn’t care about her. Because boys with feelings are dumb! So the school is stoked, so he can “Keep his head in the game” and win the state championship! And she is all wtf. (This is after they make callbacks, but before they happen. Yes they fix it before callbacks).
Worst Song?
The worst song in this movie has got to be “Stick To The Status Quo” sung by everyone not Troy/Gabrielle. First, it takes place in the worst looking cafeteria ever (not practical, but they use that in each movie). Second, the message is horrible (on purpose, obviously). If you don’t feel like watching, it is people who are now willing to talk about their weirder passions, since Troy is a singer now, and everyone telling them to keep that shit inside. Bury it way deep. Cant be cool if you step outside the bounds.
Also, fun fact. In a South Park making fun of this, they show a scene from the first movie…and I thought it was fake. But that shit is pretty much identical to this song.
Yay everything from the first one worked out and nothing happens this movie! Just kidding. Taking place almost immediately after, the only High School part of this movie is the beginning (opposite of the last one). No, it is summer. Much like what the first song will drill into your head. But everyone has to get a job. Everyone. And because Troy is a big star now, they all can get jobs at the country club where the Twins planned on relaxing in peace.
WELL TOO BAD. YOU NOW HAVE THE WHOLE HIGH SCHOOL THERE. And eventually a musical is going to happen there too. Troy keeps getting all these awesome gigs, because he is awesome, and gets farther away from his friends, stuck with shitty jobs. Until he realizes that, and fixes it, and everyone has a good time again. Except for the Twins.
Worst Song?
I have to do the Worst Song first, because it happens early on. This is woman twin, being the worst kind of person ever. But the song “Fabulous” seems like it was written for the most stereotypical gay guy ever, not her. Either way. Holy shit is this character not only a Bitch, bu clearly way too annoying. Next thing you know she will get her own spinoff.
Other Worst Song?
Hah. Just kidding. As you will find out I HATE this movie. Either way, this is another early song. All the people are mad that they have shitty jobs, but don’t worry. Why don’t worry? Because Troy isn’t worried. It will all be good. They just have to “Work This Out”, together. (And as you know, it works out for him, not them. FORESHADOWING!!)
Ah, summer is over…and well shit. This one begins the final basketball game of Senior year. Afterall, they don’t care anymore that a guy can sing and play ball. Its all good.
What bugs me though is they make it seem like Troy is a freshman in the first movie. Made it seem like he was the youngest on the team. BUT NOW THEY ARE ALL SENIORS SO WHO CARES. Because now they won two years in a row. So to celebrate after the season, of course another musical is in the works. But this time after this is college. Where will people go? Gabrielle is smart and got into Stanford! Troy is not smart, and his parents want him to go to their old school and play ball.
But wait there is more! Julliard also will be coming by to watch the final musical. Why? Because they have only one scholarship for between Ryan/Sharpay/Troy/Kelsi (for composing). Yes. They are all being looked at, just them four, for one spot. No, that doesn’t make any sense. But whatever.
Anyways. In this movie, they almost break up again and have prom, and eventually all decide on their future. Troy picks a college for ball AND theater, near Stanford. Ryan and Kelsi both get into Julliard, and Sharpay sucks. Because she is mean.
Best Song?
“High School Musical.” No I didn’t repeat myself. The actual final song of the movie (this being the only one not made for TV) is called High School Musical. It has nice closure, but is still a bit repetitive. I said its the best song on the movie, not the best song ever.
Worst Song?
Maybe it is just everytime they try to be all hip and rap kind of, but songs like “The Boys Are Back” in these movies make me cringe. The background music is terrible, so is the song in general. Only positive is that this clip is in HD and some of the dancing is cool. This is them pumping each other up, to make their own decisions, or something.
Conclusion
Well, as I said, I hate the second movie. HSM2 was SO MUCH worse than the first one, it hurts me that it broke all those records due to hype alone. Because it was bad. Every song. Here is a link to a third one, Humuhumunukuapua’a, that is just WTF. It like that movie is a nice piece of shit, and a 0.
The third movie had a bigger budget, and therefore could do bigger/crazier numbers with their song. And they did. But too much. What was seriously wrong with the finale is that the plot was stupid. The final musical was supposed to just be them, doing high school things. So it had a song about prepping for Prom, and graduating, and shit. A different graduation song than the one above. It was stupid to watch. People in the audience would have left if they actually watched what we got to see. Especially the graduation song they did. Very awkward to single out the people and tell them of their scholarships. Very 1 rating.
The first one, however? It wasn’t all that bad. Especially for a TV movie. I mean, even the song I think is the worse at least has a decent enough beat and lyrics going on it. They probably spent a lot more time on the songs here, especially all the ones with Troy and Gabrielle. The plot, very kid feeling. Theres no way the ending conflict could have happened. Instead they would have said “Hey. Don’t change the callback dates. We have this game and this math shit to go to.” and problem solved. But the chemistry between the leads was great. So I’d call that a 2.
Final final thoughts:
I had to remind myself a lot that the twin characters were supposed to be twins, not lovers. It was a fine line in these movies. I linked three extra people up there, because their characters really don’t matter much. But the composer chick? She is stupid hot. Musicals about musicals shouldn’t be allowed. After Phantom of the Opera did it, it was fine, but now it is just creepy.
When someone sees the title Shark Night 3D they will assume certain things about it. One, that there is a a lot of gore, peopl getting ripped up in bloody disgusting ways. Two, if it is about college kids, sex and naked swimming is bound to happen, and then those people will die. Three, probably they will die because of having sex, or doing drugs, or being bad people, not just dying for no reason.
I can say that this movie has none of the three expectations, and for one obvious reason. It is rated PG-13.
WHY THE FUCK IS A MOVIE LIKE THIS RATED PG-13??
This is about all you will get on option 2.
So yeah, group of college kids going to…a lake house! The “main character” is Sara Paxton, from the picture above. She used to live in this area of Louisiana, and left for college to get educated! It shows, because no wone they meet in town seem to have any brains. Not even local sheriff, Donal Logue, or that guy from Grounded For Life.
The main guy, if any, is played by Dustin Milligan, but they also have Joel David Moore, or that guy from Dodgeball / Grandma’s Boy. So yeah. Eventually a shark attack happens. Not sure whats going on. Sharks take out boats too. Other twists and turns. And then it ends, on a very very vague note. Not in “oh man, what happens?” way, but a “okay, they won! Hey look another shark” kind of way. Boring.
Oh no watch out!!!!!!
Also, the sharks in this movie. They look horrible. Fake and bad. Not even scary, just dumb. Obviously CGI’d, and CGI’d badly. Might even make you throw up. Which is a reaction the movie might be going for, since there cannot be any gore.
The plots for the characters and how they die are stupid. One guy, for some reason, wants to get vengeance so badly that he takes a spear and walks into the lake, just to try and fight it. What the hell? His whole character doesn’t make sense.
Usually I give it a 0 only if I am angry at it. While I am not as angry as I normally am for an 0, I am angry that they attempted to do this sort of movie, with the rating restrictions in place.
When you see that a movie title is “Pete Smalls Is Dead” and see a midget on the cover, you probably groan. Who is Pete Smalls? Is he the midget? Why does his death matter, midgets die everyday[needs citation]. Well he is not Pete.
Pete Smalls is a director. He dies. Dinklage owns a laundry mat, but owes someone 10k, and they stole his dog. He wants his dog back. Goes to LA for Pete’s funeral, and meets his friend there. They work on trying to get the money, and trying to get the rights to Pete’s last unfinished movie. And some other stuff happens.
Also, some panda nonsense.
This movie is super Indie, and it shows. The soundtrack hurt my head, mostly because it annoyed the poop out of me. Just felt like crime drama background music, non stop, always going, never really feeling appropriate. Tim Roth is obviously barely in this movie. Since his character is dead. But even in a lot of the scenes with Pete Smalls, it seemed like it was just a stand in.
Some other celebrity cameos are in the movie, as other people, but none really warrant a tag, as none of the scenes were really good.
I think Drive Angry is the last Nick Cage movie in the last few years (outside of Bangkok Dangerous) that I have not yet reviewed. I have come to expect a certain amount of apathy from some of his movies, but not all of them. For every Knowing, there is a Kick-Ass. For every Season of the Witch there is a Sorcerer’s Apprentice. So who knows what the next movie will be like? He forces you to watch them all, damn it.
Cage: The human embodiment of an enigma.
This review probably has some spoilers, but I doubt those reading it will care. The movie stars Cage as a man who has escaped from Hell. His daughter was killed by cultists, and they took his granddaughter, a baby, to be sacrificed in three days in order to bring Hell on Earth. Satanists! Also an enigmatic group of people. So he, along with his Godslayer (a gun that can remove a soul from existence, stolen from Satan) are on a quest to catch up with the cultists and end them completely. Or at least just Billy Burke, the head guy.
He meets up with Amber Heard and borrows her car / helps her out quickly on the journey. There is also The Accountant, played by William Fichtner, a mysterious suited man following Cage and trying to bring him back to Hell.
This movie is a grindhouse-like movie. It is gritty, over the top action, bad effects, all on purpose. But what made the other “Grindhouse” movies entertaining was that besides all of that, the plot was decent and the action was awesome. This isn’t true for Drive Angry. It had all of the right parts, but the plot and action I found to be pretty boring. As you would guess, there is a lot of driving and chasing too, and even that seemed lackluster.
When you take the words “Hell”, “Driving”, and “Nick Cage” together, most people are going to expect Ghost Rider, another bad movie, and not this. This is accidentally too close to Ghost Rider (not in plot, just in keywords). That seems like another mistake on Cage’s part.
Wait, is that him with a badass gun in Ghost Rider too? What the hell?
It is obvious what kind of movie they were going for. They definitely succeeded in that. But Drive Angry just is not as entertaining as the other films of that genre. Probably the real reason Cage has been in a lot of movies since this one, to cover it up.
The general rule of thumb is that movies based off of video games are bad. It is very hard to think of a good example. Technically Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children can count, but that isn’t live action. The only reason I like DOA: Dead or Alive is because its funny (to make fun of or watch with others).
So the stakes for Max Payne to be an awesome movie aren’t looking good, before even popping the DVD/Blu-Ray in.
Is he looking at the camera, not where he is shooting?
Max Payne stars Mark Wahlberg as the title character. Dude is a cop. His wife and child were killed. That pisses him off. Rightfully so. So he spends the next few years trying to find the killer. Once he does? He is going to give him maximum amounts of pain.
Also there is Mila Kunis as someone called Mona Sax. What a yucky name!
This movie is a disaster. Kind of CGI heavy, and I guess going for a noir-y feel. The plot is very hard to discern, actually. Was a very messy movie in that regards. Just know its a tale about vengeance, and you will get the overall message.
That guns are all you need to be successful!
Seriously though. I know it sounds like I made up my mind before watching, but this movie was dreadful. Acting was shit, plot was shit, action wasn’t interesting, bad special effects. I don’t know the plot of the Max Payne games, but if the plot is at all similar, I can understand how it would work as a game. Just not a movie. Please skip this trash.
Alright, from the description of the movie it made it seem like White Lion would be about a boy from a local village. The village wants to protect a local white lion from harm and pachers, as a white lion is rarer and more valuable. So this kid protects him / follows him living on the plains to ensure good health to the village, or something. THen eventually there are poachers and he has to stop them to protect the lion.
But that isn’t really what it is about.
This movie is a fake documentary…kinda. It is definitely 85% like a documentary, with an “authentic African” telling the tale. But he is also telling the tale to a group of kids and goes back to them frequently in the movie, interrupting the story. It is also fake. It is obvious when watching this movie they made the story, then went out to film it using their own lions in the wild. A normal documentary that would add a story to narration based on the events that occurred while filming, not create events (such as a “threatening fire” or being left from the pride, etc).
And it really bugged me. Normally with documentaries they are allowed to move at a lot slower pace. Just showing scenes of the lion growing up and music should be good enough. Every once in awhile narration, and that is all. But this took that same format, for fictional events. I don’t get the same feeling knowing that this, because it just feels like lazy story telling. This version is way different than the plot, because we expect a lot of human interaction with the animals, and don’t have to worry about the possibility of a boring area. Because we know its fiction, we assume it will be filmed like a normal movie.
Maybe I am the only one who would complain about something like this, but it just feels like both a forced and half-ass job movie. African Cats seems like a better movie because it adds a story to real great footage of cats in the wild. This is just real footage of trained cats in the wild, pretending to be a natural story. Sure it has its morals in line, like certain kinds of hunting being bad, but that is it.
Sometimes the narrator spoke for the few humans in the movie, sometimes they spoke themselves. That was off.
And it just seemed really really long, in the bad way.
The lack of realness is also distracting. I was too busy thinking “there is no way this is real” based off the things the lions did and the way they interacted with the few humans. Just. Ugh.
Wow. That is one of the easiest words to utter after seeing a movie like The Tree Of Life. To say anything else would be a surprise. I can assure you, if you watch this movie, it will be unlike any movie you have seen before. The movie is so ridiculously different, for people watching it, I doubt there is any middle ground. No one is going to watch it and go “Eh, was okay. Kinda good, kinda lame”. No, the only responses you could possibly get are very good, or very bad.
I am fully with the latter.
I hope my opinion isn’t universe shattering for you.
Alright. First off the plot is pretty loose. In real people time lines, I think it is about Sean Penn, an adult, thinking about his upbringing as a child. His parents were radically different, his mother a hippy, his dad, Brad Pitt, very stern and strict.
And uh yeah. Scenes of him growing up. Hanging out with friends. Getting into trouble. Being mad at the dad. Being mad at the mom. Being mad at siblings. Missing the dad. Etc.
Also, a couple times in the movie they switch to the universe. Being born. Making planets. Life beginning on the planet. Animals moving from sea to land. Killing other animals. And near the end, I think the sun exploding, earth ending. ANd other WoOOoOoOooooOoo space stuff.
Throughout the movie is a lot of operatic / religious music, and random people (narrators?) asking questions. This is true for both the real life and space scenes. The real life scenes are meant to like snapshots of life, small scenes, built together. Lot of camera angles changing.
Life?
Obviously the movies not about the actors in it. Also, not about making a traditional movie narrative. You either “get it” or you don’t. I didn’t get it. Probably just means I am not smart? I dunno.
This film is WAY TOO ARTSY. And out there. I just can’t imagine recommending it to any one of my friends for an enjoyable experience.
My original review of this movie was just the first four words. But I asked three people and one wanted me to elaborate.
Neeson’s wife (Laura Linney), a shoe designer, died. He finds out she may have been sleeping with anOther Man. He finds out it is Antonio Banderas in Milan. He goes to Milan. He stalks him, talks to him, finds out the truth. And that is about it.
Spoilers???
The movie is slow. I don’t care about any of the characters. Liam Neeson is just raging, but it leads to nothing. Eventual closer, that is it. It is super boring. 90 minutes was far too long for about 15 minutes of actual activity it seems. Just don’t watch this movie, because the emotion you will feel is anger.
