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Reviews
Smokin' Aces (2006)
Senseless waste of time
I can't believe how bad this movie is. I gave it 3/10 because it was sometimes interesting but overall, it was just a bloodbath of violence and cliché. The plot twists are completely predictable and I kept hoping the movie would be over quickly. There really is nothing positive to say about the film other than: "At least it wasn't 2 hours long." Some of the dramatic/climactic wind-ups were so long that they completely destroyed the tension or drama of the moment.
Don't waste your time watching the film. There is nothing original here and the acting is mediocre at best. The director managed to stretch 20 minutes of material into 1 hour 40 minutes, which was 1 hour and 20 minutes too long.
Dogville (2003)
Intriguing but deeply flawed
The setting of the movie was refreshing and simple. It allowed the audience to use their imaginations. The movie started out well but by the end of its 3 hours became quite tedious. The acting was good but the style of the film was disjointed, which hurt the overall flow of the film.
The film is a thinly-veiled pessimistic, cynical, and depressing commentary on humanity and specifically the U.S. What is almost laughable, however (if it wasn't so sad) is that the writer and director of the film so completely misunderstands the U.S. as well as the rest of humanity. The sociopolitical commentary is as one-sided and flat as the stage the film is acted upon. In the end, the film turned into a preachy lauding of the supposed virtues of moral relativism.
Early in the film I thought how wonderful and refreshing it was; however, those thoughts quickly faded away as the message of the film was bludgeoned over and over while the film turned more cynical and depressing (I don't mind a good depressing movie - this movie just wasn't that good). So, no matter how much I really want to have liked this movie, I can't bring myself to like it very much. I gave it a 6/10 for the play-like scenery and good acting, without which it would have fared much worse.
Tombstone (1993)
Interesting but shallow
I just watched this movie on television recently and was not very impressed. Sure, I was interested but the movie was more like a photo montage than anything else. There was almost no character depth and little character development. It was if the director was trying to cram as much action in as possible. I felt as if I were watching one big commercial for over two hours. While I am a fan of many of the actors in the film, they weren't given much to work with by the director so their performances were less than stellar (but they did a valiant job). I did like Val Kilmer's acting a lot though. So, the acting was good but mainly the character depth was terrible.
6/10