badguy-1 Reviews

The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (2002)

Beautiful, but Dull

[6/10 · 23 December 2002]

What can I say? As much as I would like to enjoy these LOTR

movies, I just can't seem to get into the spirit of this series. I found

the first one beautiful to look at, but ultimately dull and not

involving. Even gave it a second chance by watching it on DVD.

Nothing. Glowing reviews and the promise of a "better film" got me

into the theater for this one. Well, Gollum "is" a technical wonder.

This CGI marvel is by far, the most engaging character in the

movie. The battle near the end of the movie is also wonderful to

look at. Lots of good "eye candy" there. But the rest of the movie?

(Yawn!) Why would director Peter Jackson, spend over two hours

building to the climax of this movie, the battle, and then keep

cutting away from it to show us the two Hobbits and Treebeard

walking & talking? For me, it kept grinding the film to a halt.

And extended DVD's? Are you kidding me? These movies are

plenty long enough as is, thank you very much. One thing's for sure, I don't care how good the reviews are for the

next chapter. I won't be rushing off to see Return of the King. 6/10

Beauty and the Beast (1991)

Definitely Worthy of it's Reputation

[10/10 · 30 October 2002]

I enjoy this movie more every time I see it. I cannot believe some

people have voted this movie a 1 on your scale of 1-10. What does

it take to entertain you? I just watched this again on the special

edition DVD and I could not stop smiling. It truly deserved it's oscar

nomination, even before there was an animation category.

Definitely worthy of it's reputation as one of Disney's best. And I'll

even go as far as to say it's one of the few movies, animated or

not, that I would rate a 10. They did everything right in this movie.

From the beautiful animation, to the character designs, to the voice

cast, to the songs. It has drama, romance, humor, all in equal

doses. Highly recommended.

Red Dragon (2002)

Not as good as "SILENCE...", but better than "HANNIBAL".

[8/10 · 4 October 2002]

Only having seen "Manhunter" once, years ago, and not remembering much about it, I won't attempt to compare that film to it's remake, "Red Dragon". I've also never read any of the Thomas Harris novels that they are based on, so I won't compare them to the books either. But I will compare it to the other, more recent films in the Hannibal Lecter series, "Silence of the Lambs" and "Hannibal".

I think most would agree that, "Silence..." is a classic. It's one of those movies where everything came together beautifully. The director, the actors, the story, etc. It's to serial killer, suspense films as "The Godfather" is to mafia movies. I feel the only other movie of it's type to have even come close after "Silence of the Lambs"' release was "Se7en" with Morgan Freeman & Brad Pitt. So, it was with a lot of disappointment that I left the theater after seeing the long awaited sequel to "SOTL", "Hannibal". Jodie Foster didn't return to play the part of Clarice Starling, Jonathon Demme didn't direct, and worst of all, Sir Anthony Hopkins' portrayal of Dr. Hannibal "The Cannibal" Lecter was almost cartoonish. On top of that, the film was just "ugly". It felt nastier and dirtier than it's predecessor. More concerned with gore and blood than telling a decent story.

Well, I'm happy to report that "Red Dragon" has put the series back on track. This time around, Hopkins plays Hannibal, more as we first remember seeing him in "SOTL". meaning more subtlety and slyness and less of the scenery chewing and over-acting that went on in "Hannibal". Edward Norton is just fine as FBI agent, Will Graham, who puts Lecter behind bars and then comes out of retirement to help solve the case of "The Tooth Fairy". Ralph Fiennes gives a very creepy and effective performance as Francis Dolarhyde, so good is he IMHO, that I expect him to get an Oscar nomination for best supporting actor next year. It helps that his character is more fleshed out, pardon the pun, than Ted Levine's serial killer in "SOTL".

The director, Brett Ratner, has done a fine job of ending, (hopefully), this series on a high note. I say, hopefully, because as much as I enjoyed "SOTL" and now, "Red Dragon", one more trip to this well, will probably produce nothing but mud.

The only thing that stands in the way of higher praise on my part, is that it's a sequel, er prequel, to a well loved and admired film. We've seen some of these characters and situations before. The meetings between Graham and Lecter are good, but they don't enthrall me the way they did between Starling and Lecter. All in all, a fine job on everyone's part. It may not be as groundbreaking as the original "SOTL", but it has helped to wash away the "bad taste", sorry, left behind by "Hannibal".

Spider-Man (2002)

Raimi's Spider-man swings!!

[8/10 · 5 May 2002]

Sam Raimi has done it! He's created a film based on a comic book that fans and non-fans alike can enjoy. It sticks close enough to the original source material, while introducing some new ideas to the Spider-man mythos. Tobey Maguire is perfectly cast as our favorite wall crawler. He is shy and clumsy as Peter Parker and exuberant as Spidey. The early scenes showing Pete learning how to use his newly acquired abilities are very well done and quite funny. The few scenes with his Uncle Ben are touching. Like Nicholson did when he played the Joker, Willem Dafoe chews up the scenery, the furniture, the props and his fellow actors as the over-the-top Green Goblin. J.K. Simmons is pefect as J. Jonah Jameson. And Kirsten Dunst is good as Mary Jane Watson. The CG effects are just fine, even though I've read other's criticisms that the web-slinging scenes aren't convincing. As far as comic book movies go, I would rate this higher than the recent X-Men and Blade movies, but not quite up to the level of the original Superman movie with Chris Reeve. A solid three stars out of four.

Planet of the Apes (2001)

"Apes" is a fun movie, but not as deep as original.

[6/10 · 27 August 2001]

Even though this version did not try to be as thought provoking as the original, I enjoyed it as an action-adventure version of basically the same story. The makeup by Rick Baker is amazing and the CGI effects are used well. You can hardly tell they're there at all. Tim Roth practically steals the show as General Thade. My quibbles: Mark Wahlberg wasn't the best choice for the lead. Burton should've cast someone a little older, with a little more presence. George Clooney perhaps. The humans being able to speak in this version (as oppossed to the mutes in the original) added nothing to the story as they really had nothing interesting to say. All in all, a fun time at the movies. Peace.

Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope (1977)

The Summer of '77. A Movie Fan is Born.

[10/10 · 27 August 2001]

Star Wars? What can I say about this flick? Plenty. This is the film that made me a die-hard movie buff. I was 10 when this was released in '77 and it changed my whole outlook on going to the movies. Until Star Wars, I mostly saw movies at home on TV, edited and with commercials, mind you. This was during the dark ages before VCR's and Cable TV. Sure, we would go to the movies every once in a while, but my folks weren't real big on checking the local listings or reading movie reviews, so we'd usually end up seeing whatever happened to be playing at the local theatre. As a result, I ended up seeing a lot of bad Kung Fu and B Horror films, which is probably why I didn't care if I went to the movies or not.

But seeing this movie on a large movie screen with an audience made me want to go to the movies EVERY weekend! I didn't want to wait until they were shown on TV anymore. I thought everything would be as amazing as Star Wars (It wasn't). The characters (Vader is still my favorite!), the cool story, the Special FX, the spacecraft, the aliens! It was almost too much for my 10 year old mind. Almost. To this day I still collect SW memorabilia, but more importantly, I still love going to the movies. Nowadays we get a movie that wants to be "SW for a new generation" on an almost weekly basis. But nothing can compare to the summer of '77 when we got the original.