Poseidon

The original Poseidon Adventure was an interesting study of sociology, as it relates to disaster situations. The new version is an action movie, a special effects spectacular, with little plot and lots of eye candy. If you see it with this in mind, you'll probably enjoy it. Otherwise, you'll be disappointed.

For example... In the Poseidon Adventure, there's nearly half an hour of discussion before the main characters leave the ballroom. In Poseidon, there two lines of dialogue, after which the main characters just sneak out of the ballroom. The director thought he was just cutting out some useless exposition, and he was right - but that's only because modern audiences are dumber than they used to be, and prefer to get right to the action. The original Poseidon Adventure is a great movie, but it just wouldn't fly with today's moviegoers.

That being said, Poseidon has a lot of good directing techniques, especially when it comes to tension. I can't remember the last time I saw a movie that had me on the edge of my seat like this, wondering how the heroes were going to get out of their predicament. At several points in the movie, my heartbeat sped up to match that of the people on the screen. Note that I saw it on IMAX, and that probably made a lot of difference. I've seen several action movies on IMAX, but never one that seemed so suited for the format. If you have the opportunity, I highly recommend it.

A couple of problems... Poseidon was very predictable. I usually knew when a certain character was about to get killed, and I was only surprised by one death. Minor spoiler - there is a bit towards the end that was almost directly stolen from Armageddon. Also, I'm not quite sure on some of the realism, I think that more science-minded viewers will think it's silly... but this movie wasn't written for intellectuals anyway.

Despite those issues, I really had a great time. So if you like disaster movies, big special effects, and lots of tension, you should definitely consider this one. But if you're a big fan of the original, you might want to skip it.

Note

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Firewall

Eh. Just a movie. Harrison Ford plays a computer genius (I don't buy it, he couldn't even fix the Millenium Falcon), whose family is held hostage, while he is forced to hack into bank files against his will. I've seen the same plot done a lot more cleverly, and I felt it was a waste of Ford's talent.

While the movie does add a few new elements, it also takes some liberties with reality. Okay, the average Joe won't know which stuff is really possible, and to be completely honest neither do I... but I will say that when my IT guy at work saw it, he couldn't stop laughing.

Ford does a great job as usual. I don't know if it was intentional or not, but he's also showing his age. They did a good job by not making him a normal guy - unable to jump off roofs and keep running, or use kung fu moves on the bad guys. I might add that he was one of the clumsiest characters I've seen in a serious movie.

Maybe I'm just getting more jaded as I get older, but the foreshadowing was too obvious... Early in the movie Ford picks up a toy car's remote control, and notices that it's signal interferes with the TV signals in the house. Hey, you think that might come in useful later?

Bottom line, I'm not sorry I saw it. It wasn't flat-out stupid, or boring, or a waste of time. But I will have forgotten all about it within a few days.

Silent Hill (Movie)

Warning: Spoilers Throughout

Well, it was more spooky than scary. The translation from video game to screen was the best I've seen - they took all the right elements from the game, and a lot of the shots, camera angles, sets, etc were spot-on perfect.

On the other hand, a lot of the acting was atrocious. Boromir and the Borg Queen did a great job, but most everyone else was disposable. Rose and Cybil, who had most of the screentime, were particularly bad. The voice actors from the games would have done a better job. But then, bad acting is part of the standard horror movie experience.

And while I'm on the subject of horror movie cliches, Silent Hill had more examples of "why did she do that?" than any movie in recent memory. Characters made weird decisions throughout.

Also, it seemed to cater to the dumbest members of the audience. I'm not saying that the movie was dumb, I'm just saying that every time a slightly complicated plot point would come up, the director would hit you over the head with it until he was sure you got it. The characters would have the same line of dialogue six times in a row, or they would beat you to death with the fact that there were two dimensions.

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Okay, now the real spoilers:
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I thought they were particularly cruel to Cybil. We were already led to believe she was dead after she was beaten by the cultists, and then they show that she's alive just so they can graphically kill her again. After drawing out her death so long, I was sure she was going to get rescued, but they decided just to be cruel instead. I don't need to see every second of a face bubbling and burning off to have fun at a movie.

And I didn't care for the ending. Okay, the idea that she stays in the alternate universe was cool, it's just the way it was presented that got on my nerves. They drew it out for too long, and once again, they beat you over the head with the fact it was two worlds. You knew as soon as she entered the house that she was still in Silent Hill, just by the lighting. But they kept going back and forth, husband on couch (lit in bright sunlight), Rose with empty couch (lit in grey), husband, Rose, husband, Rose, husband, Rose, until the audience wants to cry out, "WE GET IT ALREADY!!!!"

Also, it seemed like the ending was setting it up for a sequel. This bothers me, because Silent Hill doesn't need that kind of setup. If they want to follow the "feel" of the video games (or comics, etc) then each movie should be it's own self-contained story with its own set of characters. The only common thread would be the spooky ghost town of Silent Hill.

Overall I liked it, but that doesn't mean I thought it was "good". There's a lot of "bad" movies I love.

Slither

Depending on your point of view, this is either one of the greatest bad movies ever made, or just one of the worst movies ever made. Given my love of bad horror movies, you can probably guess which way I feel. It's every bit as dumb as the trailers made it out to be; but I loved every minute of it. Take some of the funniest unintentionally-funny classic horror films, add lots of intentional humor, and better special effects, and you'll see what I mean. Kind of like "Eight-Legged Freaks" or to a lesser extent "Tremors", but I liked this one better. It felt like what Tim Burton was trying to do with "Mars Attacks", only with a funnier script.

I usually hate it in horror movies when they're able to kill all the aliens by just killing the leader. "The Faculty" for instance. But in this movie it actually made sense, because the movie keeps reminding you that all the worms are just extensions of the head alien, who controls the minds of all the infected humans. That's especially cool because in an intentionally-bad movie such as this one, things really didn't need to make sense.

Anyway, you can probably tell from the previews alone if this is your cup of tea. I know not many people share my love of bad sci-fi/horror, whether intentionally-bad or not. So, to paraphrase Abraham Lincoln, "If you are the type of person who likes that sort of thing, then that's the sort of thing you will like."

Superman Returns

After 19 years without a Superman movie... 19 years! Can you believe it? It's Superman, for cripe's sake! With all the comic book movies coming out... and Supes being THE mascot for comic books in general... How on Earth did it take so long? He's one of the biggest cultural icons in the world! I guess that tells you just how bad "Superman 4: The Quest for Peace" really was, that nobody wanted to touch the property for such a long time. I'm so glad Batman was able to recover after "Batman and Robin", I'd hate to have had to wait 19 years for "Batman Begins"...

I'm getting off track here. *Ahem*

After 19 years without a Superman movie, the series returns with huge success. And I do mean "series". Unlike Batman Begins, which starts the series over, Superman Returns is more or less a direct sequel to the Christopher Reeve movies. And it does it sooooo well. It really feels like one of the series - same musical score, same sense of humor, same feeling of over-grand fantastic-ness. Brandon Routh does a great job in emulating the Reeves version of Clark Kent. The rest of the cast reinvents their characters, and in most cases it's a great improvement. Nothing against Gene Hackman - I loved his Luthor - but Kevin Spacey is a god. And the new Lois is nothing like Margot Kidder, but she still makes a great Lois.

Okay, I'm gushing. I swore I wouldn't gush.

But here's what I really liked... the special effects. Superman needs good special effects. In the movie's best action scene, he saves an airplane from crashing. Hey, didn't he do that in the first Superman movie? Well, sure. But in the original movie, Supes grabs onto a wing, and acts like an engine. Nice, but kind of boring. In Superman Returns, he's fighting G-forces, the wings are shredding off, the tail is on fire, and so on. While the original movies made everything look so easy for Supes, this one showed how difficult things really were. Having super strength and being able to fly does NOT mean you can just grab an airplane and carry it to the ground; you're going to have to overcome a lot of laws of science.

Which is not to say the movie gets the science right. It's still a fantasy, and if you have a reasonable understanding of physics, you'll see plenty of holes. But if you're looking for holes, you shouldn't be buying tickets to comic book movies.

Seriously, the only thing I didn't like about the movie was that I saw it on IMAX. This "select scenes are shown in 3D" is for the birds. Having a flashing indicator telling you when to put the glasses on was very distracting. Also, the 3D wasn't that great. This was supposed to be the first movie shot with some new sort of 3D technology, but I was not impressed. Note, this might vary from person to person, or from theater to theater... For still images, the 3D looked like a picture from a viewmaster. Each layer of the scene looked like a 2D cardboard cutout, floating in front of the other cutouts. But when there was movement, it was just a blurry mess. My eyes simply could not focus fast enough to keep up with the action.

Where is the new technology? There's been great 3D movies in Disney theme parks for decades. The 3D in Superman Returns wasn't even half as good as the films I saw at Epcot 20 years ago. A tip, if you do see it on IMAX: don't push the glasses all the way up the bridge of your nose. Experiment with different distances from your eyes. I had to rest the glasses on the tip of my nose to see the 3D properly.

I also question their decisions of which scenes to film in 3D. There were only four (possible spoilers)... the space plane scene, the flashback with young clark running through the fields, the scene where the boat broke in half, and the final shot of Superman flying off right before the credits. I was surprised they didn't make the opening in 3D... with all the computer-rendered planets and the opening credits flying out, it seemed like a natural for the 3D treatment. And it would have been a great way blow the audience away right from the start.

To sum up, I loved the movie but hated the theater. So bring on the sequels! (And try not to screw it up this time!)

Transamerica

Warning - As with all my reviews, possible spoilers, read with caution.

Transamerica certainly treated transgenderism with more respect than most movies, but there's not a lot out there for comparison. The only other transgender-related movie I've seen recently was HBO's "Normal", which was decent but glossed over a some of the realities... for instance, there was no mention of the main character ever seeing a therapist.

Transamerica, on the other hand, did a lot more homework. The main character, Bree, was played rather convincingly by actress Felicity Huffman. So convincingly that I bet some viewers will wonder if the actress was actually male or female. (And as if to further confuse the audience, she has two full-frontal nude scenes in the movie - one pre-op and one post-op.)

It took me a long time to get used to her voice. It must have been challenging for Huffman - a woman playing someone born male trying to sound female. Makes me think of Victor Victoria. But her voice was so flat and monotone (think Daria), that she often came across as emotionless.

The plot in a nutshell: With just days to go before her gender reassignment surgery, Bree (short for Sabrina, formerly Stanley) discovers that she has a near-adult son. And he's in jail. And Bree's psychiatrist won't let her get the surgery until she resolves this loose end. So Bree flys to New York, bails him out of jail, and takes him on a cross-country drive. In accordance with standard movie rules, the boy starts out rebellious and disrespectful, until you find out about his traumatic past, and you gradually discover he's a sweet boy at heart.

Meanwhile, Bree, desperate to keep from complicating her life even further, avoids telling him that they're related, or even that she's biologically male. Of course the boy finds out about the transgendered part in a scene stolen from Mrs Doubtfire. Bree comes off as a bit of a jerk for much of the movie, but it is a movie about personal growth. Think Jerry McGuire, except Bree is transforming both emotionally and physically. The movie's final message - that the surgery won't solve all her problems - is one all transsexuals should take to heart.

The movie is a bit uneven, like it can't decide whether it's a comedy or a drama. But the humor is realistic and down-to-earth; not the over-the-top stuff you're probably used to seeing in movies involving this subject matter. Some of the scenes with Bree's family were comic gold, maybe a little too much so... it almost felt like they were trying to change the movie's tone halfway through.

Take away the transgender issues, and you've seen this movie before. Actually, you've probably seen several movies about parents reuniting with children they never knew existed, getting to know them, and trying to save them from their own self-destructive behavior. But there's a lot of other movie plots that have been way more overdone.

Overall, I thought it was an enjoyable afternoon. I don't know if I'll buy the DVD, but I am glad I saw it.

Final Destination 3

I figured I would only post if I had just seen the movie, while I'm still buzzing over it. That's the best time to review a movie - when you still have the raw emotion swirling around your brain. Wait too long, and you get influenced by other people's opinions. Also, logic starts to set in, and you start overanalyzing it. You know, "Why didn't she just go to the police?" or "Why did that truck explode?" ...the logic that, if ever actually implemented, would strip the entertainment off the movie's bones, leaving a boring (but believable) skeleton.

So it's actually somewhat fitting that my first review here is of Final Destination 3, a movie with little logic but plenty of entertainment. Well, if you're into that sort of movie.

I could easily sum up this movie in four words: "More of the same." Make no mistake, this is practically a remake of FD1. Another group of teens narrowly avoids an accident, and then gets picked off by Death one by one. But who cares, right? If you've seen the other two, you know what the movie is really about: Seeing what new, creative, and gory ways the FX artists can kill people. And on that, it delivers.

I'm not going to try to justify my love of bad horror movies here. Slasher films are a great time for rebellious teens, and a guilty pleasure for those same people once they grow up. I was never a rebellious teen, but I've always loved bad horror.

But back to the movie. FD1 was innovative - Freddy, Jason, Michael Myers all have their weak points, but what do you do when you're being stalked by Death himself? How do you prevent getting killed by "bizarre coincidence?" The death scenes were both graphic and creative, and the subject matter made it one of the most frightening of the slasher genre.

FD2 may have had the same plot, but it did throw in some creative twists - most notably the relationship between the new victims and the ones from the first movie. FD3 added nothing new to the series. It could probably have been a direct-to-video release, if not for the high-budget death scenes. The slayings in FD3 are even more contrived than before. Each death plays out like a Rube Goldberg device. During some of the drawn-out ones, I kept playing the tune "Powerhouse" by Raymond Scott (the factory music in Bugs Bunny cartoons) in my head.

A couple of issues - the two generic valley girl characters were so incredibly stereotypical, that they weren't even remotely believable. Also, a lot of the scenes were drawn out to extreme lengths, in an effort to add more drama and suspense... Hey, guys, it's not that deep a movie!

This is already more space than this movie deserves, so let me sum up: It's a bad movie, but I like it.