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Reviews
Mr. Deeds (2002)
Irritating, obnoxious, not worth your time.
I have this on dvd. I think I got it from a thrift store very cheap.
This film only adds to the many garbage movies Adam Sandler has somehow repeatedly starred in.
A major problem is Sandler. There is just nothing special or talented from him. His sweet and simple guy schtick or gimmick doesn't resonate.
Obviously, there was a nice sized budget but my guess is the writers and producers were stuck in their own stupid sense of humour. Mostly someone getting attacked/hurt humour but not funny. JB Smoove is in this. I've seen him perform live and he is very funny. They should've used him more.
Also alot of supporting cast is not entertaining. Steve Buscemi's gag falls flat hard. He could've been utilized better.
I didn't even know that this was a remake. That's insulting to the original. Just keeps getting worse and worse the more time you spend on this poorly executed money grab. 1 star, I did watch twice. The 1 star is due to being disgusted with Sandler getting to repeatedly make these trash movies.
Prison Song (2001)
Could have been Amazing.
Musical segments don't always work that well. I think it's Amazing that SNOW of Informer is in this as a guard. He is very talented has like 5 Albums. He should've had a musical scene. Even if he did play a guard, it could've been a dream scene where qtip dream the guard sang his reggage rap.
I had it in DVD then sold it.
Dumb and Dumber To (2014)
Co writted by Family Guy writers and it suffers for that. Dissapointed and dissatisfied.
Let me some it up in one sentence: The sequel has a much weaker storyline filled with lamer gags, jokes, and plot twist although "plot twist" is probably too strong a term.
The bonus features mention that Family Guy writers wrote or co-wrote. It is why this sequel does not have staying power. In the original there was a better story with better characters and actors, and more yet memorable minor characters such as the Highway Cop, Seabass, the undercover cop lady. The fact that those characters were played straight and not silly worked out well. But in this one, an antagonist character has a fetish for sucking toes. It seems the jokes are mostly gross out and crude in this one and cartoonish in this one as if the writers were just trying to go for Fam Guy style cut aways.
I gave 4 out of 10. Not rewatchable.
Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy (2004)
Ruined by some of the stupid, gross jokes and gags.
They try the same joke twice. Ron Burgundy says "I don't speak Spanish" to his dog in beginning, funny. Then he says it again to Danny Trejo towards end of film, lazy.
It's not a boring, lifeless film because it has a story, good effects, visually appealing and lots of physical comedy. However, it doesn't have staying power. Eating a turd on a plate is not funny. It was just dumb. Brick's character (Steve Carell) was not funny and in fact lame. I like Steve Carell and think the character could have been better.
Of all of Ron's crew, I think David Koechner is the funniest and most entertaining. Paul Rudd is a dud. He is very overrated and the amount of work he gets doesn't match his talents.
Christina Applegate is great. A pleasure to look at and her role is well acted. Her physicality in fight scenes is great.
A few cameos and familar Apatow faces. I'm just glad that fatass from Superbad wasn't in it.
Ashby (2015)
Good for 2-3 viewing then gets annoying. Try hard, tasteless writing at times.
Ashby is a coming of age, odd couple drama/comedy with rated r humour and dialogue but not necessarily mature humour or dialogue. I bought this dvd because I like Rourke. I watch on a large screen on my projector.
I rated 5 stars mostly because I am a Rourke fan. Rourke's performance is good. His appearance is...sad. He looks like crap. The cast is ok. The Assistant Football Coach is Lester from Rourke's '96 film with Tupac, "Bullet".
The reason why I said this film is only good for upto 3 viewings is the feelings it provokes: cringe, disgust, a desire to not give in, when the film is proding a certain reaction. I didn't think some of the crudeness worked. Rourke asking a priest if he " ever got his dick sucked?" Or the crude oral sex scene. It wasn't graphic but the spitting into a glass was gross.
On another cast note, the girl is Julia Roberts' niece I believe.
Also the good things I can say is the film is entertaining. The less you know going in, the better.
The location for shooting looks great. The film itself looks great but it's annoying that some shots were obviously just for the trailer. Don't watch the trailer, it basically shows you 90% of the movie.
I'll end by reinforcing some points. The film tries to hard to be: special, warm, funny, and touching. It tries to force the viewer to believe. For instance, the romantic relationship. The leads meet for the first time in the beginning, and the viewer is just supposed to believe that the girl finds the boys funny, quirky, and incredibly interesting as she tries to "figure him out". Seems cliche. The initial situational comedy about how they meet at school was not enough to make me believe she found him that intriguing. I thought Nat Wolf was not the best. He was good but, if he were great, Id want to keep the dvd, instead Id trade or sell for $2.
Wanted (2008)
Full of action and entertainment.
Beginning was slow. But establish character. The most memorable aspect was the supernatural ability to fire a pistol a certain way.
Effects were good, story was good but somewhat far fetched, and weak explanations.
Has an early Chris Pratt role, Common, Terrance Stamp, dark humour, rats and Peanut butter.
A good once in awhile. Fun film.
Blues (2008)
1st review. Fan of The Beat by same Director.
Another stylish film by Brandon Sonnier. As a fan of The Beat, I was interested. Had some of the actors from The Beat, who were enjoyable. Steve Connell is entertaining. Ty Hodges was believable and good as the lead.
At times, the dialogue/ story seemed a little forced. Some aspects and developments were far fetched. I liked that Rahman Jamaal had a little rap segment. During that time, it seemed that Ty Hodges' Chile, was going to bust out into some surreal "Blues" singing, which would've been raw and emotionally but nothing happened. It felt like a crescendo that never peaked.
Overall, I gave it a 6 out of 10 stars. The PROS for me were: style, subjective fascination/interest as a fan of The Director's other work, mostly fun dialogue.
Ty Hodges gave a solid performance.
The non linear narrative made the story more entertaining.
The Cons:
The "blues" device/metaphor, whatever, fell short. Most young people don't know water the "blues" music genre really is or means and the film didn't really show us any real blues music.
The ending was confusing. What exactly happened, was the character in the far future? Was he truly in that position? The twist where "Chile" is not turned in is dumb. Also they must've filmed the ending alot before most of film. It's supposed to be after the main events but Chile seems very young.
Some of the sound (in early convience store scenes) was too noisy and rough, over loud mic, may have been a stylish choice, but in reality, it just sounded cheap and later passed as "style".
I'm not sure if this film is very rewatchable.
I have it on DVD and watched on my projector with surround sound so, I think I had a very good viewing experience.
Independence Day: Resurgence (2016)
Terrible writing. Hardly feels related to 1st film.
This film kept reminding me of all the recent SCI-FI/ Alien films. It seems regurgitated, cliche, hollywood trash. Pick any sci-fi movie from last 10 years prior to this (2016).
Prometheus, Pacific Ring, Alien Covenant...etc...
The characters seem cliche. The writers: Devlin, Emmerich, James A. Woods, Vanderbilt...they all share blame! The visual effects/ concept artists also share blame for the cliche look/vibe. The opening credits were right out of Pacific Ring, I was thinking thered be a voice over talking about a portal deep withing the earth...
Vigilante Diaries (2016)
Soo many characters haha. Too much of everything.
The good things: Does not look cheap. Looks beautiful. Effects are great.
Bad: Keep in mind, I own the dvd. Am writing this after my third or 4th viewing. By now, I know what im getting into.
Too drawn out. But possibly still entertaining...but also possible to lose interet.
I gave a 7 star because, of the sheer dedication. Soo many locations, costumes, and it NEVER looks cheap or filmed cheap. The props are all great. But kind of funny how many characters there are. There is a prologue, a literary device with the story being told in a bar, then another character does the narrating. There are flashbacks, and even Danny Trejo shows us for 1 scene at the end. I don't understand how this got made. The script must have sounded crazy, super complicated. But must have has good funding.
Enemies Closer (2013)
Bulgaria, Bulgarians, thin plot, bad actor choices...
I really didn't like Tom Everett Scott. Ex Special Forces, yeah right. Then theres Van Damme's son in the movie, just not very fun to watch. He's just a guy, not very good. The one top henchman was good.
Orlando Jones was ok. The girl sounded annyoing cause she's a mediocre english actress trying to play American.
I looked up "Kings Island", pretty sure it was made up.
Also the body doubles were soo damn obvious and used way too much! Van Damme hardly did any of his own action. Same with Tom Everett Scott.
Predators (2010)
Very fun and exciting the 1st time, less spectacular after 1st viewing...
Overall, a fun watch. Especially going into it the 1st time with minimal information. I thought A. Brody's was terrific.
Some of the humour/ dialogue is distasteful.
The cast is good overall.
However, I think that a surprise appearance by a famous actor, was miscast or at least unprepared for role. He was too fat for the situation his character found himself in. He should have lost 15lbs at least...other actors with greater commitment would have lost far more to be believeable.
Role Models (2008)
Entertaining but some parts were lousy...
Paul Rudd and Stifler are not exactly magnetic....Paul Rudd more so is soo bland. I saw the unrated DVD version. Some jokes were lame. Paul Rudds singing at the end was very dull and confusing. I was not rooting for Rudd and his girl to get back together. But that scene was terrible. What was the CV point of his singing? It was not good singing and the bad singing was not funny, it was just corny and supposed to be endearing but it was simply lame. The lyrics sucked. That entire scene took away from the film....
Why would u want to be with a girl that dumped u after rejecting a marriage proposal....
Get Him to the Greek (2010)
Would be way better without fat slob Jonah Hill.
Jonah Hill is excessively overweight in this. It was distracting. His neck and chin were one mass of fat. I was wondering why he got casted. He's not that believeable in the role. A slob like that would not have a girlfriend.
PDiddy, was not funny, bad casting. The songs were funnier in Forgetting Sarah Marshall. "The Clap" was not funny or memorable. Only rewatched it cause it came on the disc with Forgetting Sarah Marshall.
We Die Young (2019)
Watchable but terrible casting. No soul.
I'm a 35 year old Guatemalan-American. If Lior Geller was making a film about MS13, at least put a majority a real latinos in it.
Rincon, the main bad guy was good. The fat kid with blond dye hair was believable and the 2 main kids were ok, but not great.
Alot of the supporting cast was no where near hispanic. Spider, the guy in blue shirt who who gets beat down towards end is Israeli and his accent sucked ass, his acting was a characture of a cholo, nothing believable.
The supporting actress was terrible. FAKE, pointless accent. She says Latinos the way an American would say it,it was so pathetic.
I'm prettysure Lucas says "Salvatrucha" wrong. He ssays "salvatruka."
Jesster, was just a white guy acting angry with fake tats. The problem is because it was few real latinos, it lacks soul and truth. And when was JCVD supposed to have been in Afghanistan? If he is 50 and was the in 2004, when he was 35, then damn, suffering from PTSD 15 years later? Not understanding his out of place character...not realistic.
Rambo: Last Blood (2019)
Dissapointing mess.
Movie is poorly written. Could have been a non Rambo movie easily. Not convincing performances. Weak storylines. I took issue with so much. From poorly written, stereotypical characters to coming off as rushed, cheap, cliche, and not smart or original.
Too mindless.
The Man with the Iron Fists (2012)
RZA, is painful to watch. Bad film, looks expensive, some names are intersting but project fails.
Basically a Kill Bill wannabe. The RZA is a terrible casting choice. He just is not a good fit, he looks sleepy and not believable.
Leprechaun: Origins (2014)
Very Generous 3 of 10 stars Monster creature in woods flick.
I saw this movie because it came in a 7 movie Leprechaun Set from WalMart for about $10. I saw a youtube video where all the films were ranked and this ranked as the worst one. I AGREE. What I liked about the other Leprechauns is the fun vibe and Warwick Davis giving the Leprechaun personality. In this film the "Leprechaun" is a growling creature. A monster creature, nothing leprechaun about it. WWE Studios keeps assuring me that their films are garbage.
Does NOT belong in the series. It was terrible. Why do they try to my the wrestler "Hornswoggle" come across as the star , when they treat the creature as something that you only see in the shadows and with a shaky cam. Or the view see his predator like night vision. Even has a "Predator" rip off spine pull out kill. The creators were confused and this sucked!
Timecop (1994)
VERY GOOD Movie even for non die hard Van Damme fans!
This film is well written , has an interesting plot, of course as with any time-travel film- you can find plot holes if you really try! But this film is very good. Great acting by Ron Silver, nothing cheesy...
The action is superb A+ and the special FX are great for its time (1994 release. I believe this is one of JCVDs highest grossing films!
It looks good, is well paced, had great characters, and keeps you interested. It is far from mindless junk...a smart/dramatic action/ sci-fi thriller!
I have seen it thousands of times and am never bored. I am a big Van Damme fan but must admit that not all of his films a fun to watch...
This one is a gem!!! Van Damm at the top of his acting and action game!
Welcome to the Jungle (2013)
Huge JCVD fan. Had to give a chance, was let down.
However, it was not JCVD's fault. He was OK. But as others have mentioned, the writing - both the lines and the plot could have been way better...
At times it feels like it was written by someone who wanted to make a funny movie but has no comedic sense, so they tried to force the funny.
I think the best humor comes from actual actors ( but not these), especially when they play with the material/do different takes. Instead, here they just say dumb things. I disliked the wimpy lead/too nice cliché..,he ends up playing it very unlikeable. Jason Biggs in American Pie was wimpy and awkward, but funny and you want to root for him! But again, that's writing.
About the casting...
I think most (85%) of the cast was bad. I like JCVD, Dennis from All State...the funny- allison hanigan like girl, and the Asian guy...but everyone else- that is, another 6-9 character sucked. And JCVS's Son -I don't like him...I've seen him in a few of his dad's films now.
Ir just seemed cliché, poorly written, and not believable. The leads friend has disgusting man boobs-like meatloaf in Fight Club. told ..and I felt like the director told him to act like Seth Rogen...
I gave it a 3 out of 10. It looked good, locations wise, camera wise...all it needed was more interesting costars and better writing.
JCVD says "i was tripping balls" it made me cringe because, I donor believe he'd ever say that...