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Banjo's Replies
I'd certainly agree that the screen time (and fight scenes) given to Kong himself is a direct response to Godzilla's biggest and most often-voiced problem (the constant cutting away from every fight and Godzilla himself).
While Skull Island isn't a great movie, IMO, it's a lot better and more entertaining than Godzilla 2014.
Sadly, I agree. I really enjoyed the opening, but from the moment Chapman dies (making his previous scenes pointless, as he's entirely alone) the movie started going downhill for me, as it seemed to just be going through the motions to reach the end. In fact, the movie felt a bit like it just wanted to be over by the time Jackson was setting up a trap for Kong, so the big epic battles just rushed by. I wonder if there was a better movie here at one point, and some folks just wanted to get it done to move onto the stuff we see hinted at in the post credit scene? Goodman's character, for example, just abruptly ends his storyline as if he asked to go home early rather than a well-written end!
The movie is far from awful, and is entertaining enough even if it reminded me a bit of a lesser version of Jurassic Park 2. It was certainly better than Godzilla IMO... At least we saw Kong front and centre for most of the movie here!!! But I found it much less satisfying or even well made (despite some lovely period art direction, the 'Nam era setting was an odd choice but looked great) than Peter Jackson's less than perfect King Kong film. That just felt like a movie someone wanted to write and make, where this quickly degenerated from epic and interesting to feeling rushed and pointless.
Just saw the movie and laughed out loud at this scene. Shea's character just randomly decided to sacrifice himself for no reason (why not have him badly burned from the previous Kong fight at least and feel he's slowing them down?), and the guys he's buying time for completely waste his sacrifice by not making a run for it. And he dies totally pointlessly because the monster doesn't even try to eat him and whacks him away with its tail to explode?! It's not even played for tragedy, just a momentary beat before more Kong vs monsters CGI.
I found it especially funny though because poor Shea, ever since Boardwalk Empire, seems typecast as "sad sack" characters who end up either dying tragically or bottoming out as life's losers. It's just become funny to me that the moment he shows up in something, you can almost predict a pathetic end to his character. A shame, because he's a great actor and to be honest his character is Skull Island is one of the few that actually stood out (aside from Jackson wonderfully chewing the scenery). I wish they'd paid off his mouse/elephant story instead.
Sharon in Total Recall is just my idea of a Goddess. Just stunningly hot, IMO, eighties hair and all. She's been hot in other movies before and after, but that was for me her "ultimate".
I can see that. I personally "prefer" Aliens but Alien is a flat-out amazing movie and probably objectively the better made of the two. Just masterful on all levels, from the gorgeous art direction and cinematography to the tense atmosphere and realistic performances.
Which I'd rather watch differs day by day for me. Both are in my top twenty favourite films, though Aliens is the one I'm probably more likely to pop on to be honest and I'd seriously put it in my top three "desert island" films. I also love Alien 3 despite its obvious and glaring flaws.
Mallory is really talanted, especially when you see/hear her as Agnes (her real accent) and I love how she's even different as Madame Hydra vs AIDA (ie how she wants to be and sees herself vs how she really is).
The actress was good and a LOT of fun in the musical comedy series Galavant too. Such a fun character, too.
And yeah, she is also gorgeous! I was awestruck by her smoldering look as Madam Hydra, but she was super hot as Aida and in Galavant as well.
An enjoyable film that took me back to the westerns of the 80's/90's... maybe it was the colour grading? A straightforward tale, but well done.
Loved Travolta in it (channeling Broken Arrow era Travolta, IMO), and the always great Burn Gorman is lots of fun, but of course the real highlight is Jumpy, the dog. If you liked the film, check out Jumpy in his other movies or even his YouTube videos. I got the feeling ITVOV got green lit based on Jumpy being in it, actually! :)
The thing I always remember him most for was his performance in Battle Beyond The Stars, where he pretty much played the same character from The Magnificent Seven. But of course, he was just awesome in everything, really. Loved him in UNCLE!
Early Doctor Who did those kind of stories as well.
I just rewatched the movie on a brighter tv and it was much less horrible an experience. The fast cutting is still IMO a terrible artistic decision but this time I could tell what was going on at least (I had no idea how the toothy BOW was killed the first time!). That said, the BOW fight is still unpleasant to watch, at one point the cuts are so fast the picture strobes! Most other fast fut action scenes I just found slightly confusing, rather than actually visually uncomfortable, so it seems the brighness made a big difference for me.
Really? Maybe it's just me, because I can't watch 3D without a headache anyway, and The Hobbit's high frame-rate experiment was something I found utterly uncomfortable to watch. I seriously had to look away from the TV a couple of times during fight scenes in The Final Chapter, hence thinking the big screen would have been an awful experience!
Accident? Did Shawn have an injury? Is that why what seems to have been his final fight with Alice/Milla is strangely her versus Isaacs/Ian Glenn?!
I can't remember the details, but I strongly remember at the time that the studio didn't want Jill back in the last film (either recast or drop thencharacter)!and Milla was among those who campaigned to get the actress back... Is that right?
I wouldn't consider any of them good films, though the first is a pretty solid low budget horror film with (IMO) a "Japanese horror" vibe to it and a decent cast.
The others vary, but almost all of them have at least one memorable visual or fun action scene.
The Final Chapter is my least favourite due to the blatant retcons (good on them for trying to at least make sense of Umbrella's motives finally, though), almost non-existent characters and the waste of Wesker. Most of all, though, it's my least favourite because the editing is absolutely TERRIBLE to the point I sometimes couldn't tell what the hell was going on (at best) or had to look away with a sense of nausea (at worst) during the worst of the jumpy, 0.1 second cuts during certain action scenes!
I genuinely pity anyone epileptic who saw this, hell anyone who saw this flashing retinal assault on the big screen should get medical compensation! Please tell me it wasn't shown in 3D too?
While I wouldn't consider the movie series even "good" overall, it certainly had some fun moments. Having just seen the Final Chapter though, I felt it was the poorest, and mainly due to the sidelining of Wesker in favor of retconning in Isaacs as the main bad guy.
Now, I am a HUGE Iain Glen fan, and he was great hammy fun in this, but suddenly making the forgettable bad guy of one of the weakest films the main villain for the final act seemed quite jarring to me, especially as Wesker had been nicely set up over the previous three films for a showdown with Alice.
The fact they gave Isaacs "superpowers" (straight from the RDJ Sherlock Holmes movies, of all things!) to fight Alice when Wesker could - SHOULD - have done so just seemed even more jarring. Could Wesker's actor not be in the film more than he was for some reason?!
I think they should have had Wesker fight Alice in the classic laser room, have her trick HIM with the grenade, then either finish him with the laser grid or leave him to die either then and there or when Alyssa self-destructs the facility. Then have Alice chase Isaacs to the surface, where he is confronted and stabbed by his zealot clone.
This would give both characters fitting ends, not change the script apart from one fight scene, remove the ridiculous "I'm a cyborg" WTF powers of Isaacs (who should not survive a grenade exploding in his pocket regardless!) and keep the same ending.
But then, as I said, plot, script and - well - planning wasn't really this series' strong suite! I mean, pretty much each film retconned or rebooted the previous one!
Got to agree with Mr Pink. Buscemi is always entertaining, but his performance is especially good in ResDogs. Plus, he's the guy I found myself agreeing with for most of the movie!
Runner up is Mr White, for Harvey's awesome performance as a likeable, honourable guy who's still a vicious killer, though he's just a touch more awesome in Pulp Fiction as Wolfe. :)
I'd honestly consider The Wicker Man remake to be one of the finest "unintentional comedies" ever made, not just since 2000. Like Bane voice/quotes, even the most random clips and lines from TWM 2006 *never* get old or aren't funny.
Actually, Nic Cage punching out a woman while wearing a bear suit or asking about a shark in the most random way ever is funnier than anything in any genuine comedy, I think.
If anyone hasn't seen it, hopefully YouTube still has that fake TWM2006 trailer that reimagines the movie as a comedy. It is so perfect!
Star Crash is awesome nonsense. Caroline Munro's character is not only a gorgeous badass, but I think its a shame the character was never given more movies, a series, a comic, etc. could have made a great, cheesy spinoff (even now, if they did comics).
But Star Crash I will always remember for Christopher Plummer as the emperor at the end, when he pulls the most random superpower out of his ass like its nothing, when he calls his flagship to politely ask if they'd "Stop the flow of time"!!! Even better, he explains this when asked with a simple "You don't get to be emperor without a few tricks." I nearly wet myself laughing!
I saw it in the cinema when it came out!
Never quite understood the hatred it gets, not because its any good (its really not) but because it is a great "good bad movie" and all the stuff with Travolta is pretty damn hilarious. Plus, Kim Coates is in it.
The human "drama" stuff is very silly and can be boring at times, but every time we cut back to the villains, something hilarious is about to happen!
Also, notably, most of the biggest logic flaws are changes from the book, which isn't amazing wither, but I was interested to read it and see that stupid things like the humans flying old jets that already got defeated when used by proper pilots is a film invention (in the book, they use the aliens' own tech against them).
I far prefer Cyborg 2 to the original too. Young Angelina isn't in her Tomb raider prime here yet, but she is still hot and certainly can act just as well as JCVD can here! Plus you get Billy Drago (as a hitman with his face in tatters, if I recall!) and Elias Koteas as the co-star... and he's always great. I really like the bittersweet ending, too.
I discovered this movie in my teenage years when I used to rent piles of VHS tapes from my local video library, often ending up with rubbish but sometimes finding hidden gems (back before the internet, so no way to know about a lot of these movies if they were obscure or straight to video stuff).
I have never seen the third Cyborg movie, even though I own all three on DVD. I've heard it's rather terrible, though...?