Amateur movie reviewer: Land of the Lost

Viewed 06/05/09. Premiered 06/05/09. A fun, smart updating of the Sid & Marty Kroft’s kid show from the 70s; The tweaking of the characters made sense, an outdoorsman father and his two kids would not survive long in such an environment. So in this updating, the human characters were not related: two were scientists and the third a survivalist (though I didn’t see much evidence of that in the film). There were a lot of really funny scenes throughout, especially Chaka’s few seconds in the spotlight as he demonstrated his singing prowess. A fun movie I would recommend for Will Ferrell fans as well as those wanting a trip down memory lane. Beware of taking young children to this flick, there’s some adult language (mostly from Ferrell) and some really, really mild adult situations (the initial meeting with Chaka come to mind); gotta love the ending though. Can “Sigmund and the Sea Monsters” be the next Kroft show to get a reboot? The world may never know. Gave this flick three stars!

Amateur movie reviewer: Terminator: Salvation

viewed 05/22/09. Premiered 05/21/09. The movie director must’ve been a big fan of the franchise to pay homage to the previous films and redeemed itself from the third "Terminator" flick, “Rise of the Machines.”I certainly enjoyed the humble origins of the famous phrase of the franchise, “Come with me if you want to live,” as well as the obvious nod to the first Terminator flick with the phrase, “I’ll be back” from Kyle Reese (Connor’s father) and the semi-guest appearance of the original Terminator – Arnold as the T-800 in the form of a digital effect (speaking of which, is a great improvement over the digital effects of a few years ago – anyone remember the cheesy, fakey and highly primitive attempt at a digital Dwayne Johnson from “The Scorpion King”?). Sure, there are still a few holes in the plot; like why John Conner seemed to have a lapse in memory when it came to the events that transpired in the Terminator 2 & 3 movies at different moments of the film. He, of all people, in the war against Skynet would have insider knowledge of the Terminators. And why did he act surprised when he discovered that Marcus was a Terminator. I enjoyed this flick, but there wasn’t any and many scenes that made it really memorable.

Amateur Movie Review: Star Trek

Viewed 05/08/09. Premiered 05/08/09. Most hardcore fans of the original series are griping about the changes the writers made to reinvigorate the franchise featuring their favorite starship captain! I guess I’m not that big a fan since I embraced the change with open arms. To the hard core fans: get over it! The change is a lesser evil compared to the alternative of having your franchise die off completely; besides the change is meant to bring over new fans while giving the loyalists what they want: new adventures with Captain Kirk. If it escaped most of you die hard trekkers, Romulan Captain Nero came from the future with complete utter disregard for the changes he would cause in the time line. One fan was trying to rationalize Nero’s lament about waiting 25 years for exact his revenge. Anyone who’s a Trekker or a fan of the Sci-Fi genre knows that time travel alters the traveler’s perception of time; as the older Spock explained “what seemed like years for Nero, only felt like minutes for me.” And as the younger Spock stated, “Nero’s presence has altered our destinies.” A cue from the writers to let the audience and the fans know that this will now be an alternate time line for the Federation (which was evident in the opening sequence as another fan complained that Kirk was born in Iowa not in space [and in the middle of a battle which again is symbolic of Kirk’s destiny in this new timeline]). A good amount of action, a tweaking of the design of Federation starships (I still have yet to warm up to the more fluid design of this "new" Enterprise) gives new life to an old and stale franchise. I’m looking forward to the next installment! This flick I give four stars.

Amateur Movie Review: X-men Origins: Wolverine

Viewed 05/01/09. Premiered 05/01/09. As a casual fan of the X-men comic books, I wasn’t too enamored with the movies that came out – especially the third installment “X-men: The Last Stand.” No, the three movies weren’t bad, but they didn’t necessarily blow my socks off either. No, my main displeasure from the third movie revolved around one of my favorite bad guy mutants - the Juggernaut. His live movie debut was an utter disappointment. X-men Origins: Wolverine however is a spinoff of sorts, focusing on the most popular of the X-men: Wolverine. As usual, the writers of the movie caused a lot of inconsistencies in continuity – as far as comic continuity is concerned. This annoyed me a bit since I am a casual fan of the comics. A friend stated that the movie was based on the comic “Wolverine: Origins” if I remember correctly. In entertainment value, the movie delivered the goods in terms of action and to the uninitiated, told the story of Logan’s origins. Unfortunately, there were no “Holy shit! That was awesome!” scenes or moments. Gave it three stars.

Amateur Movie Review: Crank 2: High Voltage

Viewed 04/17/09. Premiered 04/17/09. From time to time, I take my mom to watch a movie or two. Now the kind of movies she likes to watch are the kind where the lead character/good guy/hero beats the living snot out of the bad guys – especially his minions – through the copious, liberal use of martial arts. Going way back in the 80s, my mom became a fan of the various cheesy kung fu movies that came out since the mid-70s along with Van Damme and Steven Segal movies. In the late 90s it was the various Jackie Chan reissues and the newer, American made Jet Li flicks. Today her favorite ass-kicker do jour is Jason Statham of the cult “Transporter” franchise. Previously seen as a supporting character in various movies such as “The Italian Job,” “The One,” as well as a slew of other films, Statham has managed to keep himself from being known for the one character he’s widely known by so far: that of Transporter Frank Martin. By playing and personifying the character of Chev Chelios, he hopes to be remembered for roles other than Frank Martin long after he’s past his prime. The Movie on the other hand is a ludicrous, leave-your-logic-at-the-door circus freak show that was fun to watch albeit made you shake your head at the impossibility of the plot. Many of the characters from the first Crank movie are back and picks up where the last movie left off; taking the lunacy of the plot up a notch. Great popcorn movie for those who enjoy slightly over-the-top juvenile humor; but for the rest of the movie going public, better wait for it to come out as DVD rental. Movie earned two stars.

Amateur movie review: Monsters vs Aliens (3D)

Monsters vs Aliens 3D viewed 04/11/09. Premiered 04/11/09. This is my very first 3D movie ever! I’ve been aware of 3D movies since I was in grade school, hearing about it through my friends as they commented on how they ended up with headaches from staring too hard and too long. Thankfully, vast improvements in this visual technology have made it less harmful to the senses. The goggles given to us for viewing were not the disposable, paper type. However, the goggles need to be tweaked a little. By that I mean they should’ve made them wrap-around types to keep minor light-reflections that are coming from behind the individual’s head. Unfortunately, in this movie, there were only a few scenes where the 3-d rendering really stood out (no pun intended). For those in the audience too young to know or care, the movie paid homage to many sci-fi and horror B-movies from the 50s. I may not be a connoisseur of such B-movies, but I am aware enough of them to know which character and scene came from what 50s B-movie. I thought the funniest character in the movie was that gelatinous monster named B.O.B. as voiced by Seth Rogen. Another was the homage to Mothra creature called Insectosaurus. As for the movie, I gave it two stars.

Amateur Movie Review: Watchmen

This review may be late in the posting, but that's because I was off the island, had a hectic work schedule when I returned, and was battling a lingering flu. Anyway, on with the review: Since seeing the previews in the theaters and after months of anticipation, I finally get to see this much awaited flick. I've known about the Graphic Novel for a long while now but never got around to reading it; the book was just too esoteric for me - especially the art. I tend to favor the more mainstream comic books since that's where I cut my teeth on as a youngster. Obviously, the plot/story line was a radical deviation from comic book norms - especially back when it was first published in the mid-80s. Listing my favorite scenes, one was obviously the scene where Silk Spectre was gettin' the "bizznez" from Night Owl after a night of superheroing in his ship that he affectionately called "Archie." During that 'delicate' scene, I saw some guy walk out of the theater with a young boy (no doubt some embarrassed father or adult accompanying the boy). He obviously had no clue that this movie was for mature audiences (didn't he bother to read the ratings? Guess not). Another favorite scene was when Nite Owl and Silk Spectre was trashing the inmates at the prison where Rorschach was incarcerated in an attempt to rescue him; and the scene with the whole team together in Ozymandias' lair. Of course there were many, many other scenes, but that would be giving away too much of the movie. Anyway, my favorite character of the bunch? Rorschach (I'm still wondering how and why the inkblots on his mask kept shifting around, after all, it's only a cloth mask right?). Another character (or more accurately, the actress) that piqued my curiosity was one of the first generation Watchmen (back then called Minutemen) called Silhouette played by Apollonia Vanova. Whoever, cast her in that role, however short in the flashback scenes, should get a raise! Without giving out too much of the movie, it certainly did not follow any clichéd story/plot lines which disappointed me a bit, but on the other hand, such deviation made for more compelling characters and story. I give it 4 and a half stars. I docked 1/4 star for it being a bit too long and dragged out in some scenes and another 1/4 star for not being too clichéd (which actually turned out to be a good thing).