Bloodrayne - DJ

Let me just start off by saying that this movie is terrible. It’s so terrible that it managed to get me motivated out of my laziness to write another review after 4 months. I knew going into this movie that it had to be pretty bad. I mean the combination of being directed by Uwe Boll and being pulled from almost every theater in the area the night before its premiere just says awful. I decided this was a movie I had to see.

Where do I start? How about the acting. None of the actors or actresses in this movie are actually that bad at acting, but about 5 minutes in I started suspecting that they may have actually been computer generated and voiced by an old Macintosh with its brilliant speech abilities (think 1980’s talking computers). I mean seriously, this was Chuck Norris bad. Not only does the script not account for contractions in the English language, but it almost sounds like the Michael Madsen in particular has never spoken without them. I think he actually may have just been drunk the whole time. Michelle Rodriguez seemed completely confused as to where she was and why she wasn’t playing the most badass chick in the movie. Ben Kingsley….oh Ben Kingsley....my theory on his acting in this movie is that he was actually asleep for the whole time and they just painted his eyeballs on the outside of his eyelids. I think the Romanian prostitutes that Uwe Boll hired to sit around Meatloaf naked did a better job acting than a single one of the actors or actresses in the movie. Really, watching Natalie Portman in any of the Star Wars movies was more bearable than this.

As far as the rest of the movie, I’m not really sure what the plot was as I was so distracted by the terrible lines and the impressiveness of how terrible of a performance Uwe Boll gets from his “performers.” All I know is that at least the fight scenes had plenty of blood and gore. This was an improvement over Ultraviolet at least. Unfortunately it doesn’t seem as if any of the actors had more than maybe 10 minutes worth of practice with the fight choreography. I think if they had given me a sword and thrown me out there I could have been just as believable….and by that I mean not at all. I felt like I was watching the two children outside Revenge of the Sith with their plastic lightsabers (which mysteriously broke and ended up in the trash can). The amount of gore was the only entertaining part, but quite frankly the amount of it reminds me of the geyser of blood in Army of Darkness. It was incredibly ridiculous. As if the flashing between beheadings, axe dismemberments, and geysers flowing from everyone’s chest wasn’t enough, at the end of the movie, for some reason Rayne sits down and thinks about everything that’s happened so far. This to the watcher just means they make a compilation of the goriest scenes and replay them all in slow motion. I finally couldn’t hold in the laughter anymore. As if the 3 guys chopping what’s left of a theoretically still alive guys organs wasn’t funny enough the first time (with random geysers of blood coming from random areas), there’s just no holding in the stupid laughter of seeing it again in slow motion.

As a horror film this gets one star, but I’m also going to give it three stars for excessive blood and gore. Overall enjoyment I’ll (look, a contraction!) give a mere one star. In the end I’d say the movie could have just shown the summary from the end and perhaps the ridiculously misplaced scene of Rayne getting her shirt ripped open and you really wouldn’t have missed anything. In fact, I think it would have made the movie better in that it would have been reduced to nudity and excessive gore with no form of dialogue whatsoever. Maybe I’ll recut the film that way and post it on YouTube.

Horror: *
Excessive Blood and Gore: ***
Overall: *

V for Vendetta - DJ

I have to say, after seeing Ultraviolet, I couldn’t bring myself to go back to the theater for almost a month…just too many bad memories.  Finally though, I decided to go see V for Vendetta, fearing that if it was bad, I may never go to the movies again.  Fortunately for me, I will be returning to theaters, perhaps more regularly.

V for Vendetta is based on a graphic novel written by Alan Moore and another guy whose name I don’t remember.  The only reason I remember Alan Moore is that his graphic novel was also the basis for The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen.  Yeah, you remember that pile of crap?  This of course made me somewhat tepid to base the future of my movie viewing life on the newest movie from him.  It didn’t help that he refused to even be involved with this movie after they screwed up that last one so badly.  Anyway, the movie is set in Britain in the near future after plague and war have ravaged the world.  Britain is still in fairly good shape thanks to a government that took complete control of the country and “saved” the people.  Unfortunately this has resulted in a totalitarian government where virtually every freedom has been suspended and people are randomly kidnapped if the government decides they are a threat.  The main character, V, is a modern day Guy Fawkes who believes it is time for the people to fight back and reclaim their country.

The first and most obvious theme to note in the film is whether you consider V a freedom fighter or a terrorist.  This theme continues through the entire movie as each character is presented the question of whether the government is indeed always right and V is a terrorist or if perhaps it is the government that is the problem.  While I personally found this interesting, it does keep the movie fairly slow moving through the middle.  Granted, there are fight scenes and explosions in the movie, but they are more prevalent in the beginning and the end leaving the character development to the middle.  I had no problem with it, but those going in expecting the entire film to be fast moving and action packed as the commercials seem to suggest may end up bored.

The acting in the film was far better than I had expected it to be.  Hugo Weaving did a brilliant job of expressing emotion without showing his face a single time.  It takes a fair bit of talent to express emotion as a character behind a rigid mask.  Surprisingly, even Natalie Portman did a good job.  Personally, I can’t stand her in most things.  I wanted to strangle myself every time she talked in the Star Wars movies, though granted that was also very much George Lucas’s fault for the terrible dialogue.  Anyway, I’m still not sure I’d say she did a brilliant job (especially next to Hugo Weaving), but she did a good enough job as to not distract me from the movie like she usually does.  Also of note was John Hurt playing the Prime Minister.  As always he did a good job, though for some reason I was constantly reminded of Ian McKellen as Richard III (without the hump of course).  I’m not sure why other than that they looked very similar and Richard III also had a fascist Britain setting.

The fight scenes were fairly good and in general I could actually see what was going on unlike the Bourne Supremacy.  It’s good to see some directors still bother to have the actors learn a good fight sequence instead of just zooming in to cover for it.  The special effects were also very good and they didn’t drown the scenes like is so common in many movies these days.

Apparently there have been many gripes by hardcore fans that there were deviations and whatnot from the novel, but as far as I’m concerned, if I wanted the same thing, I’d read the novel.  As a movie, I thought it was an excellent movie, though some people may think it drags on a bit too long in the middle.  As a graphic novel/comic book movie, I give it 4 stars and I also give it 4 stars for enjoyment.  I think it brought a lot more depth to what could have ended up another mindless action comic book movie.

Graphic Novel/Comic Book: ****
Enjoyment: ****

Ultraviolet - DJ

Wow…..wow…..I’m actually left speechless after seeing this movie.  I had heard before I went in that this movie was what Aeon Flux should have been.  No, this was what Aeon Flux was….a giant pile of crap.  I’m not sure I can actually convey in this review how bad this movie actually is.  It’s so bad that I went out and started drinking immediately after walking out of the theater.

Ultraviolet is about a woman who is a vampire like thing and is fighting against a controlling government who is trying to exterminate all of her kind.  Of course going into this I wasn’t expecting any brilliant screenplay.  I did go in expecting at least some cool fight scenes.  You know how she kills off all the guys when she’s surrounded?  I’d tell you, but I actually have no idea.  She spun around and everyone fell over.  The scenes she did actually fight were unfortunately hampered by the same problem found in The Bourne Supremacy and Resident Evil: Apocalypse.  The camera is zoomed in and shaking around so you have absolutely no idea what’s going on.  The only thing I was sure of was that for some reason there are a lot of ceramics in the future and anytime someone gets hit, they shatter and chunks fly everywhere.  Much like the land of Narnia, apparently there is no blood in soldiers in the future.  Despite wearing bright white uniforms there wasn’t a mark on them after Violet allegedly slashes them all with her sword that magically appears when she needs it.  Given that, I’m not sure why they were so worried about this vampire disease….if no one has blood, how does it spread?

Ok, so the fight scenes were pretty crappy, but I know you’re wondering, how was the acting.  I don’t expect much from action movies of this sort.  What I received was lower than that expectation.  Perhaps the most dramatic exchange was the generic villain telling Violet that it was on….after which she spun her sword around a bit and replied “yeah, it is.”  I kind of felt like stabbing myself at this point.

The story, oh the story….I’d tell you more than my opening synopsis, but that’s about the extent of what I could figure out.  I don’t really know what was happening in the movie and I’m not sure if that was because it wasn’t well written, I was distracted by everyone leaving the theater, or I was trying to determine if I could crush my head in a folding theater seat.  I think it was all three.  There’s really nothing else I can say on this subject.

I quite frankly don’t care which genre this movie is in….it gets zero stars.  My enjoyment was also zero stars.  I think it says something when the 12 year olds walked out early.  The most enjoyment I’ve gotten out of this movie was writing this review and reading other reviews that tore it apart.  In fact, I’ve included some of my favorite quotes at the end of this review.  This can’t even be called a popcorn flick, but instead perhaps a feces throwing flick.  As far as I’m concerned, the movie should have ended with an apology by the director and a prize for managing to sit through the whole thing.  I think I’ve been punk’d.

Any genre: 0
Enjoyment: 0

Choice IMDB quotes:
“I signed up to IMDB for the sole purpose of warning anyone that wants to see this movie.”

“If you liked The Transporters, Underworlds, and Resident Evils, then you won’t like Ultraviolet….”

“This movie is absolutely horrible. The magnitude of its suck is unbelievable.”

Underworld: Evolution

Underworld: Evolution isn’t so much a sequel to Underworld, but more of a direct continuation.  The original ended with an obvious setup to the next movie and as such, Evolution picks up almost immediately after the events of the first film.

I wouldn’t say the film really breaks new ground in the storyline as much as it goes back and explains details that were glossed over in the first movie.  This means that despite his character being killed in the first Underworld, Bill Nighy is back with a fairly large part.  This also means that if you didn’t like the first movie, you probably won’t like this movie.  If however, you did enjoy the first movie, this fills in many of those little gaps in the storyline while providing more gunplay, werewolf vs. vampire battles, and of course vinyl clad Kate Beckinsale.

The focus of the film is the awakening of Markus following the deaths of the other two vampire elders.  Markus is the original vampire son of Alexander Corvinus that was mentioned in the first film.  As such, his brother William is the original lycan whose inability to control himself basically started the war between vampires and lycans.  Through several flashbacks we learn that while Markus was technically the leader of the vampires, Viktor (played by Bill Nighy) was in control.  Following the death of Viktor, Markus now begins to run amok in the search for his imprisoned brother.

In addition to explaining more of the origins of vampires and lycans, the film also explores Selene’s (Kate Beckinsale) background and the importance of her family being slaughtered.  As they started hinting that the act was not random I became hesitant that they were suddenly going to turn her into some kind of chosen one or something.  Quite frankly I’m tired of sequels where they take a hesitant hero from the first film and, following the first film’s success, create a back story in the second film that somehow turns him into some chosen one.  Of course now that I’m actually trying to come up with one, I can’t, but I still say it’s an overused sequel plot point (I just blocked all those crappy sequels from memory apparently).  Anyway, rest assured, they don’t turn Selene into any form of chosen one in this movie.  In fact, Michael, the hybrid from the first movie who could be considered a “chosen one,” is downplayed into Selene’s sidekick.

As I said, this movie is very similar to the first.  I was happy to see that they didn’t think they needed to go overboard with the fights and effects in an attempt to outdo the first as action sequels often do (I’m looking at you Matrix Reloaded and your completely useless 10 minute long battle/CGI extravaganza).  The only noticeable change is that the gore factor has definitely been stepped up.  While the first movie only had a guy’s head cut in half, this one has plenty of bodies being blown up or cut apart in addition to replaying the head coming apart from the first film.

If you’ve seen the first film and enjoyed it, I recommend this film (if you didn’t like the first film, don’t bother seeing this one).  If you haven’t seen the first film, while you may enjoy the film, you may end of fairly confused.  The flashbacks that review the first film’s events are enough to remind those who saw the first film, but not enough to explain events for those that did not see the first film.  As a vampire/horror movie, I give this four stars.  Enjoyment is also four stars and I’d venture to say I enjoyed this almost as much as the original if not as much as the original.

Vampire Horror: ****
Enjoyment: ****

Serenity - DJ

I’m just going to go ahead and say it right up front, if I had seen Serenity before I wrote my best and worst of 2005 list, it would be near the top of the best list.  As far as sci-fi action movies go, this is the best one I’ve seen in a long time.

Serenity is basically the movie created to appease all those disappointed when Fox cancelled Firefly a couple years ago.  I watched Firefly when it was on, brilliantly placed in Fox’s Friday time slot that guarantees a short existence.  True to Fox’s reputation, the show didn’t even last the whole first season.  This may seem blasphemous to Firefly militants, but to me, the show was ok, but not great.  I enjoyed it, but more out of the fact that it wasted an hour with a bit of amusement than the fact that I was really into it.  After seeing Serenity, I’m now full blown pissed that Firefly was cancelled.  My reasoning is that plenty of shows take a little while to really get up to their potential.  The Simpsons is always my best example.  In my opinion they didn’t hit their stride until somewhere in season 2 or 3.  The obvious improvement between Firefly and Serenity leads me to believe that this was a show that was on its way to greatness.

While the movie continues the story of the TV show, don’t worry if you haven’t seen the show.  The movie stands on its own just fine, even if you never even heard of Firefly.  As the story has moved from the TV screen to the big screen, obviously everything is done bigger and better.  The effects (while good in the show) are excellent and the story is far more engaging than the plots of the show.  What hasn’t changed is the dynamic of the actual crew.  While two members are no longer aboard (they make appearances later in the movie), all the original actors and actresses have returned and work well together.  This movie proves once again that you can make a movie with basically unknown actors and actresses and not lose an ounce of quality.  In fact, I prefer a group of talented unknown people over big names simply because I can more easily see the character instead of the actor.  The only two people I really recognized were Adam Baldwin (no, not one of those Baldwins) and Alan Tudyk (the pirate in Dodgeball).  My one problem, which was unfortunately unavoidable, was that some of the important crew members from the show have been basically relegated to minor characters.  When limited to a 2 hour movie, it’s pretty much impossible to explore 9 different major characters properly.

Sci-fi action may be my favorite genre of movies, which means I have seen many many movies of this type.  Joss Whedon has managed to craft an engaging story full of action, plenty of comedy, and a good cast.  Even if you’re not a fan of Buffy or Angel (I didn’t like either), give this one a chance.  As a sci-fi action movie, this is a solid four stars.  If you’re into sci-fi action, I highly recommend you pick this one up.  I’m sure you’ve already figured it out by now, but my personal enjoyment of this one is also a solid four stars.

Sci-fi Action: ****
Enjoyment: ****

King Kong - Fargus

Even those among us who've never seen the original King Kong know the story. Truth be told, the story's not that hard to know. A group of filmmakers goes to a mysterious island to make a movie. A beautiful actress is kidnapped by a giant gorilla. The gorilla is captured and put on display in New York City, where he eventually falls off of the Empire State Building and dies (or the World Trade Center, if you watch the remake from the 1970s). It's a simple story, really. Ape meets girl, ape loses girl, ape finds girl, ape falls from the tallest building in the world.

In my view, it's the simplicity of the story that's the only real detriment to Peter Jackson's otherwise brilliant remake. That's not to say that there's anything wrong with the story; rather, the story's not really enough to support a movie longer than three hours. If Jackson had introduced some measured complexity to the plot, it could have served him quite well, I think. But as it is, much of the middle section of the film, though visually brilliant, feels like so much padding.

The film opens in what feels like a photorealistic version of 1930s New York City. Jack Black is magnificent as the near-sociopathic filmmaker Carl Denham (although, I admit, I may be a bit biased toward anything Jack Black does, just because of how hard he rocks). Naomi Watts is beautiful, as always, and compelling to watch. She's naive, but her character (vaudeville performer Ann Darrow) is given much more depth than the screaming beauty in the original. Adrien Brody, in his portrayal of playwright Jack Driscoll, isn't really action hero material, but that's not his role here. In fact, the film does a pretty good job of lampooning the film-within-the-film's action star, Bruce Baxter (Kyle Chandler), as an opportunist and a coward. He looks the part, but that's about it.

My main gripe comes with the middle of the film. After the first hour, the crew finally reaches Skull Island, and the special effects machine kicks into high gear. Don't get me wrong; there's a lot to enjoy in the middle hour of the film. There's a wonderful scene between Kong and Ann, where their relationship is established. There's a pretty marvelous fight scene between Kong and a number of dinosaurs, and it only runs a little bit long. But even with as spectacular as the effects were, I felt myself yawning a bit during this portion of the film.

The final hour of the film was brilliant, though, in my opinion. The great triumph of Peter Jackson's remake was in making Kong more than a monster. It goes without saying that Andy Serkis (on whose motions and facial expressions Kong was modeled) is the best digitally-altered actor in the business. Kong's movements and gestures are realistic, and his eyes convey a deep well of emotion that's never been possible to show until now. This is what made his death scene so poignant and heart-wrenching. Along with Kong's palpable agony, his relationship with Ann Darrow makes the scene work on another level than it ever had in the original film. Not only was Kong misunderstood by those who sought to exploit him, he'd actually found someone who did understand him, and who didn't want anything more than for him to be happy. I thought that the development of that relationship made the end of the film far more satisfying than it otherwise would have been.

There's a smart and subtle allusion to Fay Wray and the original King Kong, which was probably my favorite detail in the whole movie, and one that most viewers would miss. I didn't want to finish the review before mentioning it.

In the final reckoning, King Kong is a very good movie. I believe it could have been a great movie, had it been about a half hour shorter, which is a bit of a shame. But if nothing else, the film cements Peter Jackson's place as one of the great filmmakers of our time (even if he may need to be reined in a bit sometimes).

King Kong movie: Better than the original
Action/adventure: ***
Overall: ***

King Kong - DJ

Growing up I always loved the original King Kong.  Heck, I even enjoyed the 70’s remake, but it lost something when they took it out of the 30’s setting of the original.  I was happy to see that Peter Jackson had decided to return to the original time period and Kong would once again be atop the Empire State Building at a time when it towered far above any other building in New York.

I’ll say right up front, this is a good movie, but it could have been an exceptional movie with some editing.  The only thing I found wrong with this movie was that it was too long.  Everything was done just a little too much and it eventually just overwhelmed me and I started to get bored.  

The first half of the movie involved the setup of the characters and their interactions.  Drawing this part out never really bothers me in movies as it usually makes me actually care about the characters and what happens to them (unlike Black Hawk Down where I couldn’t even tell the difference between them let alone care what happened to them).  I figured that was Peter Jackson’s purpose in drawing out the sailing toward the island.  Unfortunately as I realized later, he drew out everything in the whole three hour movie.

The second part involved the characters’ adventures on Skull Island in an attempt to rescue Ann Darrow.  This was good….for a while.  By the time they started getting attacked by giant bugs I was starting to check my watch.  I mean I understand that the island is full of plenty of dangerous animals, but there are only so many times they can be attacked by something and I’m still going to care.  By the time it was the bugs, it just didn’t matter to me.  There’s one more thing that really bothers me still about the Skull Island section of the movie.  The first thing that happens to the team is that they’re caught in a narrow ravine in the middle of a dinosaur stampede.  Ok, that makes great action, but my problem is, they had just come out of a cave on the side of the ravine and were standing next to the entrance when the stampede started.  Wouldn’t a normal person just duck back into the cave instead of trying to outrun an entire pack of dinosaurs?  It’s like when people run away from a pillar as it falls toward them instead of just taking three steps to the side.  This, in my opinion, made the entire 15 minute sequence completely unnecessary.

Finally, after god knows how long, Kong was finally brought back to New York City.  Of course this is the classic part of any Kong film (except the 70’s one where I seem to remember the city was abandoned or something and Kong found the girl in a bar….hmm…that movie seems worse the more I think about it).  I obviously have no idea what 30’s New York looked like, but the visuals in the movie made me feel like I was there.  Unfortunately my same problem with the rest of the movie came back at a most inconvenient time.  The scene with Kong at the top of the Empire State Building was once again too long.  It actually got to the point where I didn’t care by the time Kong fell off the building.  I was actually rooting for them to shoot him so the movie would be over.

What could have been as good if not better than the original was unfortunately bogged down and entirely too long.  As a Kong movie, I’d say the settings, acting, and visual effects put it above the 70’s remake, but the lack of editing don’t allow this movie to beat the original King Kong.  Thus assuming the original is a four out of four, this remake is only a three out of four for a Kong movie.  As an action/adventure movie once again, it loses a star for lack of editing and thus I give it a three out of four.  Same reason for why it gets a three instead of a four on my enjoyment scale.

King Kong movie: ***
Action/Adventure: ***
Enjoyment: ***

Best and Worst of 2005 - DJ

Well, it’s the end of the year, so everyone is doing their best and worst movies of the year. We have of course also decided to do such a thing, but to better fit our site, we're going with most and least satisfying movies of the year. That's right; I'm changing the system just to get Sahara on the good list...because I like it that much. So here are my most and least satisfying movies of the year.

Least Satisfying Movies
Be Cool
I think the nicest way of saying this is that there was absolutely no reason for this movie to exist. In a feeble attempt to suck some more money out of Get Shorty, they made a movie that no one knew or cared about. Not only that, it seems like in the middle of the movie they added a dancing scene with Travolta and Uma Thurman for what I'm guessing was either an attempt to lure the nostalgia of Pulp Fiction's famous scene. Either that or Travolta and Thurman couldn't manage to come up with any other excuse to dance together in an attempt to look back to a movie where Travolta revived his career. Unfortunately this dance was done in a movie that seems to be the death throws of his career. If I hadn't blocked this snoozefest from my mind I might be able to give a little more insight into why you shouldn't see this movie, but fortunately for my sanity, I don't remember much of it.

Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe
I'm not sure there's much I can say that wasn't already said in my review. Looking back on this now a couple weeks later, this movie still wasn't good. I wanted to stab half the characters within the first couple of minutes. Come to think of it, I should have asked for weapons to do it from Santa this year as apparently he delivers weapons to kill people according to this movie. Funny, I always thought he delivered toys. Anyway, my amusement of the exceptional special effects and the unbelievable craptasticness of the other movies on this list managed to keep this movie at the bottom of the list.

Cursed
I'm not sure why I didn't just stop this movie and watch something better. It wasn't one of those morbid curiosity things waiting to see how bad this movie could be. It wasn't even waiting for the good part of the movie. After about a half hour, I had written it off and just didn't care that it was on the TV. I think I started playing a computer game and ignored the rest of the movie. At least that's my theory. I know I saw this movie and yet I can't tell you a single thing about it. For a movie that was completely reshot after being finished once, this movie is still completely forgettable. Although I guess that's better than some of the movies here that I wish I could burn from my mind.

Kingdom of Heaven
What is it with good directors making really boring epics recently? First Oliver Stone made Alexander (see below), then Ridley Scott made Kingdom of Heaven. God this movie was boring. My girlfriend fell asleep after the first half hour and stayed asleep through the remaining two hours. If only I had been so lucky. The battle scene at the end was about the only redeeming quality. I guess after he was criticized for making Black Hawk Down one long battle scene with barely anything else, Ridley Scott made a movie that was everything else with barely a battle scene. Maybe combining the two would turn two bad movies into one long decent one. I will give Ridley Scott credit for one thing though; he managed to make Orlando Bloom look badass. I know what you're saying, even as he was taking out half the Orc army in the Lord of the Rings he looked like a pansy. Despite looking like a woman in every other movie he's been in, he actually looks pretty badass with a beard and armor. My recommendation is that you should just take a three hour nap instead as it would basically be the same thing...and that Orlando Bloom should always wear armor now...even if its not a period piece.

The Ice Harvest
Oh Harold Ramis, what have you done? Bedazzled was one thing, but this is quite another. A good director, good writer, good actors, well acted and yet this movie was not good. Hell, it was even engaging. I wasn't checking my watch like on every other movie here and yet for some reason, this movie still sucked. I just don't understand how a movie with so much potential can end up so worthless. It was to the point where despite trying to develop the characters, I still didn't really care when one died. I was more of the mindset of "kill him so we can move onto something good." I guess that might be the heart of the problem. The entire time I was engaged waiting for them to develop the story enough to get rolling and it just never did. The climax came and went and I finally gave up hope that the good part of the movie was coming.

Waiting…
I was going to make some bad joke about waiting for the movie to be funny, but I decided not to sink to the lack of comedy of the movie itself. Plain and simple, this movie sucks. The funniest parts of the movie can all be attributed to Luis Guzman, who I don't find very funny. I'd expect this stupidity from Anna Faris as she still hasn't jumped ship on the Scary Movie franchise (even the Wayans jumped ship...doesn't that tell you something?), but I figured Ryan Reynolds would at least bring up the funniness a bit. He didn't. For someone who in my opinion saved Blade: Trinity from complete worthlessness (they should have centered the movie on Ryan Reynolds and not bothered having Blade in it), the writers gave him absolutely nothing to work with in this movie. My opinion? Don't ever see this movie.

XXX: State of the Union
The first XXX was by no means a good movie, but I still enjoyed the over the top stunts and big explosions. Its success actually led them to market it as the replacement for Bond...though MGM smacked that down pretty effectively with Die Another Day a couple months later (which upped the stunt ante even more and securely showed James Bond would not be outdone). If there ever was a chance for Bond to be upstaged, XXX: State of the Union proved that it would not be done by this franchise. The first half of the movie actually wasn't too bad. It was passably entertaining…then came the second half. Stunts that are done completely through CG are not impressive. If it can't be done by a stuntman, it shouldn't be done in a movie like this where the main character is a normal person. I understand using CG for stunts in something like Superman or The Matrix as the character is supposed to be superhuman, but XXX is not superhuman, thus if they can't actually do the stunt, it makes it completely unbelievable that XXX can do it. This was made even worse by the god awful special effects. I think this movie and The Transporter 2 tie for absolute worst CG of the year. While I gave the movie a chance through the first half, by the second half, I had completely written off the whole franchise.

Alexander
I just don't even know where to start with this one. It was actually released in late 2004, but it’s so bad (and I saw it this year on DVD), I'm including it on this year’s list. Oliver Stone what have you done? Now normally I'm a fan of Oliver Stone (yes, even Any Given Sunday), but this movie just had nothing for me to like. Is it a bad sign when the director's cut is actually shorter than the theatrical version? In this case, the director's cut is still too long...and not good. I understand how Stone was trying to show another side of Alexander with his mother controlling him and his homosexual tendencies, but he seems to have forgotten that its not enough to fill 3 hours. It ends up bogging the movie down to the point where I was bored stiff and quite frankly just wanted Alexander to die so the movie would be over. My recommendation? If for some reason you want to believe that Alexander should have been killed at birth, watch this movie, about a half hour through you can't wait for him to die.

Alone in the Dark
I expected absolutely nothing from this movie and somehow it managed to be even worse than I thought it could be. For those of you that don't know, Alone in the Dark is based off a video game that very much resembles Resident Evil, but came out years before Resident Evil popularized the survival horror genre. Unfortunately, everything went downhill as soon as the movie started. The story is ridiculous and completely forgettable (all I remember is a pit and some monsters or something) and Uwe Boll has managed to motivate his actors to completely forget any discernible skills they may have had. I like Christian Slater (yeah, I said it, I don't care what you think), but c'mon man, did you really think Uwe Boll was going to make a worthwhile movie? Not to mention Tara Reid as a scientist. Granted, it’s far more believable than Denise Richards as a nuclear physicist in The World is Not Enough, but that's not saying much. Not to mention, she has a sex scene in the movie that she doesn't even take her bra off for. With the frequency of her boobs popping out in public, what's the point of hiding it on screen? I guess she just prefers to give it out for free. At least House of the Dead (Uwe's previous orgasm of craposity) had lots of guns and boobs to distract me from its crappiness and somewhat entertain me. Alone in the Dark on the other hand may be Uwe Boll's best attempt to snatch the title of worst director ever from Ed Wood.


Most Satisfying Movies

Mr. and Mrs. Smith
Now really, who doesn't want to see Angelina Jolie being badass in a movie that doesn't have Tomb Raider anywhere in the title? As much as Tomb Raider: Cradle of Life didn't work, Mr. and Mrs. Smith does work. Granted, the excessive tabloid coverage of Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie threatened to overshadow the movie, but conveniently for me, I don't really care about the tabloids so the movie did quite well standing on its own to me. Full of plenty of jokes, guns, and explosions, I have to say that I just had a lot of fun watching this movie. This is the type of movie that this site was made for. No, it’s not going to win any Oscars, but quite frankly, I'm getting really tired of pretentious movies that are made simply to win an award. This movie was made to entertain and it did a darn good job of living up to that.

Land of the Dead
Following the recent surge of zombie and horror movies, including a remake of his own Dawn of the Dead, George Romero decided to finally make another part in the original zombie franchise. While recent zombie movies have switched to featuring fast moving and super strong zombies, Romero stuck to his classic slow moving zombies that we all remember and love. It's true, slow moving zombies aren't as scary and it’s a lot harder to make a good movie involving them, but c'mon, this is George Romero. Understanding this is what sets Romero's movies apart from all those that came after him. Instead of having the same general plot of zombies rushing in and attacking, he has slowly introduced new concepts such as the zombies having the ability to think and learn. While this was first shown in the unfortunately lackluster Day of the Dead, he pushes the concept more in Land of the Dead, even showing the zombies communicating with each other. Once again, Romero has managed to use the same old zombie concept, but tweaked it enough to make it fresh again. Hopefully he'll still be directing in 10 years when it's time to make the 5th movie.

Wedding Crashers
In a time where everything is getting censored and god forbid someone sees a boob, the R rated comedy is making a comeback through the backlash. Yes, I'm one of those guys that enjoys lots of cursing and nudity in my comedies. Sure, there's a place for the PG-13 or even the PG and G rated comedy (in fact there's one here on my list), but I'm glad to see R rated movies and R rated comedies in particular are making a comeback. In almost a blatant show of its nature, Wedding Crashers early on shows a montage of topless women hitting the bed. Right about there, I knew this was going to be a quality movie. While I haven't gotten a chance to watch it numerous more times yet, I'm predicting that this one is going to become one of my classics like Old School. No matter how many times I watch that movie, it's still hilarious, and I'm pretty sure Wedding Crashers is going to be the same way. Part of that I'm sure is the driving force of Vince Vaughn, who in my opinion rarely disappoints and has two movies on this very list (the other being Mr. and Mrs. Smith where he was equally brilliant). Until it comes out on DVD, I won't truly know the staying power of this one, but after seeing it once, I'm pretty sure this is going into my classics collection.

Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit
Many of you I'm sure just walked right past this one with its G rating, but let me just say you made a huge mistake. Obviously there's something funny about Wallace & Gromit if they had managed to become internationally famous after only being in a couple animated shorts. For those of you who still have never heard of them, its a cheese loving inventor and his dog…kind of like Inspector Gadget where the dog is the far smarter of the two. Fortunately however, Wallace & Gromit have not been marred by a god awful movie as Inspector Gadget has. As much as I love Wallace & Gromit, I have to say that the first half of the movie did drag a bit. You wonder how a movie that drags for the first half made it onto my list I'm sure. Well, no matter if you like the first half or not, the last 20-25 minutes of the movie are hilarious. I was laughing hysterically pretty much the entire way through the last part of the movie. This one, despite its G rating, is still funny for adults and at the same time you could watch it with your kids...although I have no idea who has kids that would be reading my review.

Sin City
Moving back to movies that you shouldn't watch with your kids, Sin City is chock full of violence and nudity. I know everyone else has made a point of it already, but the exceptional attention to detail in making it look like a comic book (or graphic novel if you prefer). Before seeing the movie the first time, I had never seen the graphic novels, but since I bought the extended edition of the DVD which came with one of the novels, I'm absolutely amazed by how close they look. Anyway, even if they had been filmed with my cell phone, the three stories of the movie are great…disturbing, but great. All the acting was good, though Mickey Rourke had a brilliant performance that I had completely forgotten he was capable of. The only thing that bothers me about this movie is Jessica Alba taking a part that involves nudity then whining for them to take it out. Yes, it's true that the nudity really wasn't necessary, but when trying to make a movie look exactly like a graphic novel, you generally make it look exactly like a graphic novel. If you know going in what the part requires, don't take the part if you're not willing to do it. Of course that's just a minor annoyance of actors and actresses changing parts after accepting them. Anyway, with the combination of amazing visuals and engaging stories, this is a brilliant movie.

The 40 Year Old Virgin
If it was indeed possible, they managed to make a movie that talked about sex more than American Pie. The key here is however, that this movie is a heck of a lot better than American Pie (what can I say; I was never a fan of any of them). Written by Judd Apatow and Steve Carell, this movie just screamed potential before they even started filming. For those of you that don't know, Judd Apatow was the creator of such short lived TV gems as Freaks and Geeks and Undeclared. Unfortunately despite being hilarious, both were cancelled long before their time (I suggest picking them up on DVD). Luckily for us, Apatow makes a triumphant return with this movie which, despite sometimes being overshadowed in the media by the Wedding Crashers success, was a blockbuster success in its own right. I actually enjoyed this movie much more than Wedding Crashers, though I've talked to many who decided the opposite. For those of you who aren't big fans of Steve Carell, throw yourself off a cliff...err...I mean, this movie may not be for you, but for those who have no idea who he is or think he's brilliant such as myself, definitely rent this one. My only caution is that if you don't enjoy listening to people talk about sex for two hours using many many descriptive terms, this will be a living hell for you. Fortunately for me, I never matured enough to stop finding such things funny.

Sahara
I have read pretty much every book Clive Cussler has ever published (except for the two I just got for Christmas) and I've loved them all. Sahara or perhaps Inca Gold stand out as my favorite of his books, which is quite an accomplishment since I think all 28 or so of his books are excellent. They just feel like they should be fast paced funny action films. Unfortunately, after one of them (Raise the Titanic) was turned into what I'm told is a god awful movie sometime in the 70's or 80's, Cussler has refused to allow any other books to be turned into movies unless he had complete control. Finally finding a studio that would meet his demands however, Sahara made it to the big screen (though there were some legal disagreements between the studio and Cussler so this may be the last movie for a while). It was pretty much everything I imagined it would be. Not only is this a great action film, but its really funny too. I dare say that this may have been the most fun movie I've watched since the 5th Element. Fortunately Sahara makes much more sense and doesn't have more plot holes than you can count as the 5th Element did (despite which, the 5th Element is still a highly entertaining movie). Much like Mr. and Mrs. Smith, this movie's sole purpose is to entertain its audience, and it does it even better than I was hoping for.

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
Yes, I'm one of those people who is hooked on Harry Potter. I started reading the 6th book last summer the day it came out and finished it in a couple days (it would have been quicker, but I had to sleep, go to work, and not ignore my girlfriend for a book). Until the Half Blood Prince came out last summer, the Goblet of Fire was by far my favorite book. After what I considered a disappointing showing for the Prisoner of Azkaban two summers ago, I'm glad to see that the movies are back on track. Needless to say, I was at the midnight showing when it was released and showed up to work bleary eyed and half asleep the next day. It was worth it. I had already agreed to see the movie a second time with my girlfriend as she wasn't able to make the midnight showing (I guess some people care more about their jobs than movies), and after seeing it the first time, I was really looking forward to going again. There are few movies that I see more than once in theaters, but I think I would have gone to see this one again even if my girlfriend had seen it the first time with me. Anyway, the Goblet of Fire is far darker than the previous three movies and forgoes the mundane details of classes and lesser plot points to focus on the major plot points. While the Prisoner of Azkaban did the same thing, I think the problem with that movie was that the most important points are all near the end of the book so it felt as if the movie rushed to the last 45 minutes. The Goblet of Fire is more balanced, though that may be because the important points are more spread out in the book. This movie also added much more humor to the mix. Granted, it was all fairly subtle humor, but it helped distract me from the dark undertones of the movie in parts that were less serious. Whether or not you've read the books, this is just a great movie.

Batman Begins
It's been 8 years since the Batman franchise finally crashed and burned in a spectacularly terrible movie called Batman and Robin. The movie was so terrible that it completely killed off one of the early blockbuster comic book franchises. Following such egregious errors as putting nipples on the batsuit and having more heroes and villains than you could keep track of, this movie was stalled for years going through multiple writers and directors. At one point they were even going to let Joel Schumacher (the guy that made Batman Forever and Batman and Robin...and put nipples on the batsuit) make it. Finally, intelligence prevailed and Warner Brothers decided to just start over. Batman Begins obvious deals with the back story of Batman, but it is not a prequel to the earlier Batman movies. It just doesn't acknowledge they were made. With the exception of he first movie in 1989, this is probably for the best. The movie gives you a far better idea of who Bruce Wayne really is and spends time developing him long before he puts on the mask. True, this ruins some of the mystique he had in the 1989 movie, but it really ends up working out for the better. It’s good to see that in a time when pretty much any comic book is turned into a movie, one of the crown jewels of comics is back in good form. I can only hope that Superman returns in equally good form next year.