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edwardtom9
Here is my vote history
http://www.imdb.com/mymovies/list?l=33986482
Ratings
Most Recently Rated
Reviews
Adoration (2008)
boring and pretentious
i'm gonna try and keep this review short, Basically i found this film pretty terrible, it tries too hard to be arty and symbolic but only comes off as pretentious and feels fake, who burns their phone to forget a video on it, there's a delete button hahaha.
But in all seriousness, the music suited the film but was pretentious along with the film, the acting was really the only redeeming feature for me, i thought they did the best they could with the material they had at their disposal, however the story was poorly written and tried to be very symbolic which it pulled off to some extent, but a lot of the symbolism was unnecessary and as i said earlier tried too hard.
Overall i think the acting was OK the rest was pretty terrible, and as i've stated before i believe that the attempt to be arty and meaningful just resulted in a cheesy, melodramatic and pretentious film.
The Karate Kid (2010)
Surprisingly Good!
I went into this film with fairly low expectations, being a huge fan of the original, I naturally thought this movie would be terrible. I went into the film trying not to compare to the original so I would get a completely fresh view on it.
I found this extremely hard to do for the first 30 minutes not because of differences from the original but because of it's similarities, it was basically exactly the same, the only differences being the actors had changed and setting had changed. This is probably one of the biggest flaws with the film.
The other problem I had with it was the 'subtle' exposition. They tried to hide their exposition subtly inside the dialogue which is a big mistake, they treat the audience like we're idiots to some extend, like we need information served to us. I know this film is primarily aimed towards kids, but kids are quite perceptive to emotions (see Pixar films like Wall-e for example), the film could easily use the "show don't tell" rule.
Now to get to the positives, Jackie Chan was great! He really hits the right notes for his character, he may not be Mr. Miyagi from the original,but that doesn't matter since he's not Mr. Miyagi, he's Mr. Han. Jackie Chan did a brilliant job in his big drama scene, but I don't want to spoil too much.
And the score was great; it had a very epic feeling and when necessary was downplayed to underscore the emotional content. But nothing less is expected from James Horner.
Overall the film was quite good. As I said it would be a lot better if the start wasn't so similar to the original After the start, the story was captivating and it kept me hooked which was great, they hit the emotional beats well most of the time and I loved the inspirational scenes for example right after Jackie Chan's big drama scene they begin having the training session seen through shadows on the wall which I must admit I got a bit choked up about hahahahaha.
The cinematography was great, they really utilized the beautiful Chinese landscapes to the full of their ability, not only have they created beautiful images to look at, but they've created an aesthetic or atmosphere, something that makes us feel like we've experienced what we're seeing, a fantastic device to draw audiences into the film and something that is not often seen in modern movies.
Not as good as the original but still a great effort, especially for a remake, I'm impressed! 6/10
Seven Pounds (2008)
Very Good Film
This film was incredible. I was very happy to see the director (Gabriele Muccino) make a film that made me think, it treated the me (the audience) as if i was intelligent, we weren't just spoon-fed all the junk that the majority of Hollywood films tend to do.
The story had great depth and emotion; it had great concepts and brilliant characters that every actor could portray flawlessly.
I would say without a doubt that Will Smith has shown that he is one of the greats in Hollywood with his performance in this movie. He started to show us his true acting ability in The Pursuit of Hapyness and I for one am very glad that he has started to take more serious roles as he's matured. He is a very capable dramatic actor.
I was also pleased to see that the casting director had put a lot effort into getting good actors to work along side Will Smith. Rosario Dawson who did a great job playing Emily Posa, an ill woman who finds someone to comfort her, Woody Harrelson who played Ezra Turner, a blind salesman, Harrelson did a brilliant job and should probably be a more recognised actor in my opinion as some of his moments in the film were very touching and there was Barry Pepper who played Dan, Ben Thomas' (Will Smith's) best friend who has been forced to keep a very dark secret, yet again another flawless performance, although he was not seen in the film a lot he played a significant role. These are just some of the standout actors for me personally, the rest are also very capable.
The cinematography was very well done, there is a scene in the film where will smith and Rosario Dawson are sitting outside in a field with a tree behind them. this scene has some of the nicest cinematography I've seen in a long time with a very shallow depth of field and beautiful lighting. The statement here is obvious and very poignant, two people in a field full of life.
its hard to comment on the story without giving away too much so all I'll say in respect to the story is that its well written, the dialogue flows well and it doesn't seem written, everything seems very realistic and natural. It is both unique and beautiful
Although Gabriele Muccino did an outstanding job of bringing emotion to the screen through the camera, the music and the great performances, There was one thing that got on my nerves a little bit. Some of the music that was added at times just didn't fit, for example when Will Smith is on the beach reminiscing about his sad life, there is a song playing that seems quite happy and it should be a sad moment, having said this, the original score was great and was certainly more than capable of portraying the emotions that the audience should feel, it was just this one moment that felt a little odd to me personally.
Summing up, this film was brilliant, it had excellent story elements, excellent cinematography, excellent acting and excellent music (at times) and I would highly recommend this film to anyone who wants to see a very sad, emotionally charged drama film.
G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra (2009)
very bad modern movie
i went into this film with very low expectations that were ultimately fulfilled. The film is riddled with chunky badly designed and badly created props and costumes with the exception of the non-futuristic military costumes. the design of all the machines was not practical and everything that has to be piloted looks like the pilots are riding those terrible low-to-the-ground, three-wheeled, green machine bicycles. To add to that 95% of the CG was terrible especially for this era of CG imagery.
The things that were good about the film is the fight choreography which at some points was brilliant and.... no that's all.
The writing was very bad, the characters were badly written, the dialogue is incredibly cheesy, and there are subtle racist and political aspects throughout the entire film, mainly revolving around the Comic relief black character "Ripcord". One thing that i picked up on was that the president in the film held a resemblance to John McCain, an elderly, balding, white haired man, perhaps a statement as to what the Stephen Sommers thought should have happened?, i don't really know because I'm an Australian, but that's what i picked up.
Also when you see the ending of the film you will notice MANY MANY MANY scenes directly stolen from Star Wars: A New Hope, Star Wars: The Phantom Menace and Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back which i found extremely annoying, if they were just little nods, then fine but no they were directly stolen, what a stupid film to steal from it's only one of the largest and most recognizable franchises in history.
Day of the Dead (2008)
worst zombie film ever seen
This is possibly the worst horror / zombie film I've ever seen, there are so many parts that make my eyes roll for example...
A vegetarian zombie that falls in love, sped up footage, horrible Computer generated head explosions and be-headings, gun shop to stock up on unlimited amounts of ammo, zombies can climb on walls like spiders and many more.
the film was actually decent before the zombies appeared. Ultimately this film was very disappointing, i pretty much love all zombie films with the exception of this and the 28 days/weeks later films.
1/10 stars