A Gaggle of Reviews
Catching up some more on my Netflix reviews, which are way behind by now:
MightyThor’s Rating: 4 / 5 FireFly Class Spaceships
Firefly wasn’t on TV for long, but built a big cult following, and the fans of it are devoted. I thought the show was pretty good, getting better as it went along, but the movie Serenity that spun off from it was excellent, one of the better Sci-Fi outings I’ve seen in a long time. I recommend watching the TV show episodes first (there are only about 15 of them) to get the full flavor of the show, which really adds to the movie, but all in all, definitely worth watching.
Review: Eragon
MightyThor’s Rating: 2.5 / 5 Dragons
It was a pretty average fantasy movie. Honestly, it was better than I expected, and based on the terribly written book it was drawing from (which I could only choke down about half of), you might call it an admirable adaptation, but in the end it was no better than average. I didn’t love it or hate it.
Review: The Last Legion
MightyThor’s Rating: 1.5 / 5 Excaliburs
This was a really lame movie from top to bottom. You know how studios do that lame copycat thing where they release the same movies under different titles to piggyback off each other? (Think Rob Roy vs. Braveheart, Wyatt Earp vs Tombstone, Volcano vs. Dante’s Peak, The Arrival vs. Independence Day etc.) Well this was a really poor answer to King Arthur, I think. The acting was lame, the fight coreography was innane, the plot was weak. You’re casting Colin Firth as the lead action hero and hoping Sir Ben Kingsley can save the day by his mere presence, but unfortunately Kingsley’s credibility isn’t too high with me anymore after he somehow agreed to do Bloodrayne. At any rate, skip this one.
Review: Twilight
MightyThor’s Rating: 2.5 / 5 Vampire Teeth
I was fully expecting to hate the crap out of this movie, because I read the book, and to put it kindly, I hated the crap out of it. That’s not entirely fair. In truth, I never should have read it, because I am clearly not the target audience, and whatever I have to say against it, Stephanie Meyers knows exactly who she’s writing for. But I actually liked the movie better than the book, mostly because the movie was able to distill the pages and pages of teen vampire love angst (”Oh Edward! Oh Edward! He touched me, and my breath caught in my…*HURL!*) down into a manageable few moments. There are still a lot of aspects of the whole Twilight story that come through in the same way that I hated from the book, but by virtue of cutting away all the excess to fit the story into a movie frame, the movie was much more tolerable than the book.
Review: Live Free or Die Hard
MightyThor’s Rating: 3.5 / 5 Exploding Computers
Exploding computers, you ask? Well yes, because that’s what this movie is, really. The same old formula of Bruce Willis blowing stuff up or running from stuff blowing up, but this time, the enemy is a sophisticated and COMPLETELY PLAUSIBLE cyber-terrorist. You just have to set aside all the ridiculousness of the plot and watch this movie for what it is: a glut of action. I knew all along how awesomely lame the stunts and plot twists were, but I was quite entertained all the same, and I thought this one was better than Die Hard 2 and 3.
I have a few more to do, but this post is lengthy already, so I’ll add next ones another time.
May 7th, 2009 at 12:28 pm
I can’t believe you saw Twilight. You are now officially fired for no less than eighteen minutes, which happens to be six times the maximum allowed number of ridicule-free viewing minutes for that movie.
May 7th, 2009 at 1:14 pm
How would you know the allowed number of ridicule-free viewing minutes unless you too have seen the movie? Huh? Huh?
May 7th, 2009 at 2:52 pm
It’s just a rule. I don’t have to have seen it to know the rule. You’re allowed three minutes of viewing before the ridicule is allowed to start, but after that, no mercy.
So here goes: Poopoo!
May 7th, 2009 at 5:16 pm
You do realize of course that you have no way to prove how long it took you to write that “poopoo.” For all I know it might take you like an hour to write that. I think your system is flawed and you are a big idiot. And that only took me 2 minutes and 49 seconds to write, so there.
May 8th, 2009 at 5:46 pm
I liked the Twilight the movie better than Twilight the book too. It cut out some of the most annoying teenage mushy (and ridiculous) love and just did the best parts. I would give it 3.5 stars (or vampire teeth).
I liked 17 Again and would give it 4 (out of five, right?) stars. P.S. Devin saw it with me and liked it too
May 11th, 2009 at 7:54 am
I think you were too kind to Eragon but I’ll let that one slide because you were waaaaaaaay too kind to Die Hard with a Ridiculous Plot. That show made 24 look like an episode of Mr. Wizard. True, the technology was insultingly implausible, but the real killer of this show is that Elepha(u)nt guy who strikes about as much fear into ones heart as Miss Teen South Carolina. OK, you’re right. She’s much more terrifying than him. Nothing ruins a movie faster for me than an antagonist with a complete lack of menace. Especially when the fate of the nation and/or the world is supposedly at stake.