dchipps1945

The cinematic equivalent of seeing a blank canvas in an art museum and then reading about what a masterpiece it is.

I left this film wondering, "They hire professional people to make these things--directors, actors, technicians, editors--so how do they all get together and make such a piece of unwatchable garbage?" Grindingly slow, completely uninteresting, and, at times, just ridiculous. What a waste of time and money. If you took all the good parts out of "Seven," then all the mediocre parts, you'd be left with this film.

I knew this film was a comedy, and it's got a few hilarious bits. Still, as a coming-of-age study of friendship, I thought it would be more serious and thoughtful. Instead it's a mixture of Clueless, Animal House, and American Graffiti, only on speed and set to the beat of a jackhammer. That is, until the third act, when we learn everybody's really a nice person. Oh, and it ends at an airport, which I've never seen a movie do before. To call the story formulaic would be understating the case. Not a bad film, but nothing special at all, in my opinion.

It's certainly interesting to be introduced to the day-to-day tribulations of men who fought in the trenches during WWI, accompanied by some great images. I love war documentaries, and this one was the first of its kind I've seen. Very positive review for that. The negative thing I need to mention is, the trailer for this film shows a few shots of tanks and soldiers that look fantastic--like they've been restored practically to the point of perfection--looking just like a modern piece of film. However, the majority of the visuals in this film are of significantly poorer quality, with still shots and illustrations often substituted for action shots. Obviously there couldn't have been a cameraman available in many of these situations, but when we're looking at an illustration of a combat scene with a voiceover, this is indistinguishable from many other WWI documentaries I've seen. I was hoping for something really monumental, visually. This isn't that. Definitely worth seeing for WWI buffs, but not the visual masterpiece it's been promoted to be.

This is apparently DC's attempt to mix together "Thor" and "Black Panther," set the story underwater, and see what floats to the surface. It arrives belly-up. "Bloated" is the first word that comes to mind, with no pun intended. The first 1-1/2 hours of this film could have been shortened to 1/2 hour and left the rest for a story about Aquaman battling Black Manta, who is the coolest thing (maybe the only cool thing) here. The story takes forever to get going and makes so many side trips along the way that the central conflict is forgotten, and that's not good for a story. A few random complaints: The undersea scenes are a mass of special effects adding up to a larger blue-purple special effect. It's like watching an attempt to replicate the original TRON, only more expensively. Nicole Kidman's plastic surgery is on full display. It's hard to believe what people will do to their own bodies. The female lead's hair looks awful--don't these creative geniuses realize that real red hair is more than just one flat red color? How much did this hair design cost? Aquaman's emotional transition from guzzling brawler to stand-up leader of the fish folks happened somewhere, but I didn't notice it until he basically stated this in his final narration. He and fish-girl have no charisma whatsoever. She is so off-the-shelf it's hard to understand how someone thought this was a memorable character. After about 2 hours of this film it seemed to me the crowd in the theatre was just numb. As many millions of dollars as we saw splashing and exploding on the screen, there was very little to watch, because we were just waiting for the splashes and explosions to end in a big splash and explosion. If you like this version of Aquaman's hunky-dopey-but-sincere (and-all-but-original) schtick I suppose you could get into it. Personally, I was reminded of other massive-budget bores like Dune, not to mention most of DC's superhero offerings. By the way, I was looking forward to seeing this movie, thinking DC had a chance to do something other than make another grim, black-leather version of one of their heroes. It wasn't like that, but it was bad in a different way. Maybe this is progress.

There is no point in pointing out that **** atrocities actually occurred, or that cliches abound here. Everyone knows that! What this movie delivers is ****, atrocities, and lots of cliches, done in the way lovers of schlocky horror/sci-fi, like me, love. I'd personally much rather have these cliches dug up every few years than sit though yet another post-apocalyptic, dystopian-future zombie flick. I'll take the WWII hardware and tech over present or future stuff any day. Don't criticize this film because it doesn't satisfy your aesthetic or moral tastes. The acting is solid, the story can be followed, and the monsters and gore and exploding **** are wild fun. Period. Best **** horror/sci-fi since Iron Sky. I'm gonna see it again.

Everyone who's ever been a 12-year-old boy has written this story in his head. This film plays like a pre-adolescent super-fantasy, including sexual encounters with hot teenage girls, enough substance abuse to knock out a horse (with no effects whatsoever), and accidents and mishaps that would kill the horse and the whole posse. I get the impression this was an old screenplay Jonah Hill wrote in film school, and he could now produce (I have no idea whether Jonah Hill went to film school). It has events without consequences (the mishaps, substance abuse, and the film's great tragic event), resolutions without understandable cause (the character-transformation of the kid's brother and the final scene between the mom and the kid's friends), and situations without explanation (Just who owns the skateboard shop? Is there such a thing as school in this kid's life? Just how old is he supposed to be, anyway?). I expected a sort of gritty-but-realistic portrayal of this life, not some squealing little kid's wet dream.

I just saw this movie which I can’t remember the name but it has Agent Marky Mark in it and a girl who looks hot but she’s dangerous and can’t wear makeup but if she was in a makeup role she probably could maybe be as hot as the Black Widow girl. Also that girl wrestler who’s trying to act now who should just keep wrestling. They work for a secret organization that’s more secret than the CIA that’s called the ADHD. The story is there’s hardly any killing for the first two minutes and then lots when they go out and get in cars and trucks and fight guys on motorcycles. The hot girl has phone calls with a mean husband and wants to talk to the daughter but he won’t let her but that part goes away. The big boss is cool because he’s called Mother (the guys are called chess pieces and then children) and he has all these cameras that say their heartbeats and stuff and he’s super cool because he has bobble-heads that go into a special case and he wears old-fashioned sneakers. The style is sometimes Mother says philosophy and I think Marky Mark does too but he talks really fast and lots so I couldn’t tell. And Marky Mark always snaps a rubber band and the bad guy is always touching his fingers to his thumbs and that was the only dumb part of the movie that I wish they didn’t have because I wanted it to stop all the time. No scene lasts for more than five seconds so the movie goes by really fast and I won’t give away the ending but I will say what a surprise. The only thing I couldn’t figure out was why there were no policemen or ambulance men or firemen. And I don’t think there were any people on the street. But to sum up WOW GREAT MOVIE TEN STARS UP.

Your take on this movie will probably depend on what you expect to get from a horror movie; meaning, if you want shocks and gravity-defying acts by people affected by supernatural forces, this is for you. If you want a scary-but-logical story you can follow from beginning to end, it's not. For me, the peril in the best horror films is fairly easy to explain: The girl is possessed and the exorcist is going to try to save her. The hotel is haunted, the father is under its spell, and he is threatening his wife and son. I couldn't figure out what the main peril was in this one until literally the last minute of the film, when it was explained to me, and still didn't add up. I don't agree that the performances were fantastic. Every scene seemed to have a silent "dun-dun-DUN!" sound effect at the end, and with everything so overwrought, I just didn't see a lot of emotional range or transformation going on: Mom: Manic, freaked out Dad: Detached, uncomprehending Son: Dazed, terrified Daughter: Creepy, man! Just CREEEEEPY! Mom's friend: Superficially caring, but obviously EVIL We've seen these characters before. I was obviously disappointed. I went in hoping for a great horror film, and experienced a film that loads up on common horror elements and practically screams at the audience, instead of the other way around.

As a 3-time survivor of Action Park (with a permanent scar on my thigh from flipping on the Alpine Slide and landing upside-down on the concrete track), I felt I had to see this. This film simply hijacks the name and basic theme of Action Park and turns out a cheap, lame, waste of time. Action Park was dangerous, of course, but it wasn't a junkyard populated by toothless morons and wild animals. The customers were kids like me from the suburbs who wanted a thrill they couldn't get from the big amusement parks. The movie "Action Point" dreams to be is "Meatballs," except "Action Point" has little to no plot, god-awful acting, and not a single character you'd care about in any way. The laughs you'd expect to get might work for some pre-teens, but this thing doesn't deserve attention from anyone else. Check out the online documentaries about Action Park (and "Meatballs if you haven't seen it), and pay to see something--anything--else.