Cloverfield (2008)

I am going to do this review in two parts. The main review here will be vague and reveal as little as possible, while sharing my overall feeling of the film. However, there are many things I want to talk about that would be spoilers for the film. So I will post a comment with those points. If you don't want to read spoilers, just dont read the comments.

This movie was a great, intense story that dragged you right into the plight of the main characters. It was probably one of the most realist feeling movies I have seen in a long time. Which is amazing considering the story was so fantastical.

Here is the big warning. Sit in the back. And if you get motion sickness, take your Dramamine. Or don't go. My brother-in-law had to leave the movie toward the end, and get a little fresh air.

Without revealing to much I think I can get away with saying that the entire movie is supposed to be from the visual point-of-view of the people in the story holding a camcorder, recording what is going on. However, the filming in this film was much better than Blair Witch. In fact, I thought the filming was fantastic.

The very first of the film had the video quality of camcorder, although perhaps a really nice one. I was worried because visual quality is something that can wreck a movie for me. But that first part was just to establish the framework of the film, because not a minute into the movie and we were at full qualify. What was really nifty was they sneaked the switch in so I didn't see where the switch was made, and I bet no one else in the theater even noticed.

The really masterful thing about the filming was that you never once got pulled out of the idea it was these people just holding a camcorder while experiencing the intense events. And yet, while it felt like some amateur holding the camera, you saw exactly what you needed to understand the story. It was masterful. Even that does not describe how this movie felt to me. Emotionally, it felt to me like maybe I was the one holding the camera. Maybe I was there going through this too.

I don't know how soon I can see this film again. It was very intense. And I really empathized with the people and their plight. When it was over I was exhausted. However, the ride was fantastic.

Die Hard with a Vengeance (1995)

It used to be that if you were watching a movie on TV, you were stuck with full screen and stereo. Nowadays you can watch in glorious 16x9 wide screen, HD and full surround sound. It's nice for those of us that would rather see a cleaned up, edited version of a film like the movies from the Die Hard series, but want the full experience. Only problem is, there are some films that just don't work when they get cleaned up, no matter how good your sound and picture are.

I think I have seen most of Die Hard films on TV at one point or another, and I seem to remember thinking I liked this one the best. It definitely has some great twists, and the conflict/cooperation between McClane and Zeus keeps things snappy. Unfortunately, whoever wrote this script must have been a big fan of swear words, because every sentence seems to have three or four words blanked out. These are not just interjections, they are adjectives, verbs, nouns, and everything in between. And with them gone the dialog is often very hard to follow.

The other problem is the violence. There were times where they cut huge chunks of time to get rid of something excessively violent, and the jump in the editing leaves you confused as to what just happened. At one point you see McClane is bleeding very profusely from a wound to his shoulder, but we missed the scene where the injury happened. And John's big fight scene on the boat must have been quite extreme, because half of it was gone. I have no idea what happened in any of it.

Is it better than being assaulted if the words and violence were left in? Oh, very much so. However, after the editing are you left with a good movie? Not really. Of course, while many people would disagree with me, I am not sure it was that great of a movie to begin with.

There were times where I had to say to myself, "come on!". McClane gets blown out of the tunnel by the rushing water, flying twenty feet into the air, and just happens to land by the side the of road where Zeus is driving at that very moment? What were the chances of that? And the film was that way throughout. Although I think the weakest part of the film was the dialog. With the swear words gone, it was obvious just how thin most of the dialog was.

Over all, I would not say it is a terrible movie, but not a very strong one either. And unfortunately, they tried to pad it with the very stuff that gets cleaned out when they show a movie on TV. So unless you like that kinda stuff and are going to watch the rated R theater release, I would say this movie is not really worth watching. Of course, I would say the rated R version is not worth watching either.

Mars Attacks (1996)

Ok, my review for this movie will be short: This was the dumbest, more boring movie I have ever seen.

I only saw the last half-hour. I dont need to see any more. This movie was trying to be cheeky, playing on the style of classic Sci-Fi 'B' movies. It failed. The jokes did work, the style didn't work. Every weird idea just fought against every other one, and the whole thing just made you feel sorry for all the big names that got roped into it.

If you want an intentionally bad movie that is actually funny, check out "Attack of the Killer Tomatoes." However, ignore "Return of the Killer Tomatoes." That one is dumb too.

Earthquake (1974)

What a boring comedy.

This movie was one of those great disaster movies, back in the day when they made a ton of them. This might be the granddaddy of them all. You know the formula: get to know the complex lives of a bunch of different people, then WHAM! Big monster disaster that puts everything into Chaos. Now we get to see how these people we care about cope with this life changing event.

Problem is, I think it is a dumb formula. I dont really care about these people, and time spent getting to know them is now a chunk of my life forever lost to me. In a well made story character development leads into the major conflict or plot of the story, and is a major aspect of the story telling process. In a movie like this, the first hour of the movie is spent bouncing from one person to the next, showing little mini-episodes in soap opera fashion, with no rhyme or reason to anything that is going on. There is no real plot development from beginning to end.

Of course, once the earthquake hit, I really started laughing. I mean, how can you not laugh to see a little mini truck full of cows drive off a miniaturized elevated freeway, and plummet to their little, mini, plastic deaths? Or when there is a group of people in a falling elevator, when the elevator hits the bottom we get to see animated blood flying at the screen? Honest. Cartoon blood. Or those houses on the hill that are raised up on stilts? Why would you build something like that in southern California, in a fault zone? When I first saw those I knew what was going to happen. I mean, come-on! I really enjoyed the people on the dam, flopping hither and thither, as the camera shakes. Or how about the guy that runs into his house to turn off the gas with a lit cigarette in his mouth!? Ka-Blam!

While some of the visuals of the city in chaos were spectacular, views of block after block of buildings in ruins and flames, and the shear number of extras was staggering, it couldn't make up for how dumb this movie was in general. Why would one group use a fire hose to climb down several stories without actually tying off the end? Why would the city have as an aid station a multi-storied mall that was still standing after the quake. Dont they know about after-shocks? (Oh wait, it was supposed to be quake-proof!)

I think the biggest problem with the movie was they tried to make you care about the people, and then they just killed most of them off. So how can I care? I can't. So instead it is just boring.