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alderson
Reviews
The Farmer's Wife (1928)
Underwhelming, but interesting moments
Of the 30 or so Hitchcock films I've seen so far, this was by far my least favorite. It has some rare Hitchcock touches, as with the superimposed "candidates" in the chair (I loved it when Minta sat down to take their place). Overall I found it predictable and boring, and entertaining only in spots. I knew pretty much exactly what was going to happen as soon as they started making the list.
Still, it serves as a window into the world of 70+ years ago, and is an interesting glimpse into the early career of the greatest director who has ever lived.
Jurassic Park III (2001)
Much better than I expected
The ads for this movie made me think "Uh oh," but I went and saw it anyway. Cuz, you know, dinosaurs. The cast was the best of the three movies so far; the chemistry just felt right.
The plot was still standard fare, but was better than The Lost World's, or at least more straight forward. It still doesn't compare to the original, but was a fun ride nonetheless. It wasn't long, which was a good thing in this case -- many more "Oh no, another surprise attack!" scenes would have bogged it down too much.
The most satisfying summer blockbuster I've experienced so far. I give it an 8.
The Mummy Returns (2001)
Too many problems to count
I had so many problems with this movie, I don't know where to begin. Let me say that I am a fan of The Mummy (1999)... it's definitely a guilty pleasure. That movie had a good plot, a good build up to the "reveal" of the mummy, hilarious one liners ("It's still... juicy"), and fun action sequences.
The Mummy Returns doesn't have any of that. We see the first supernatural beings about thirty seconds into the movie (the sand-doggies), and the first mummies about two minutes later. And they're the same soldier mummies from the first movie. Sigh.
The action is so relentless that it gets boring, and rarely leaves time for any dialog at all, let alone anything funny. The plot is rather painfully contrived, and not much is explained. The romance between Evie and O'Connell is just plain sappy ("Cue violins... now kiss!" got old after the 4th or 5th time, thanks), and loses the spark their relationship had in the first movie.
And you know, I could suspend my disbelief about the whole supernatural ancient egyptian magic thing; after all, it's rather essential to the central theme of the movie. I *refused* to suspend my disbelief about the hot air balloon with after burners. That was just plain stupid.
Don't get me started on the horridly inconsistent CGI work. It was VERY bad at times, to the point of it looking like a video game. The Rock as the scorpion king (at the end) looked so jarringly fake that I wanted to run far away from this film. They must have just painted The Rock's face onto a CGI model, and it showed. Mr. Potato Head from Toy Story had more emotion in his facial expressions.
Oh well, this movie will make its millions. But it doesn't deserve it.
-John