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David V
Reviews
Poltergeist Activity (2015)
Apparently all they needed to do was leave
The ghost part of this film is really cheesy and was done without much of any special effects. If the story was a little better written in that aspect, it could have been a pretty good low-budget thriller. As it is, the whole haunting part is just weak. Basically, there is a porcelain clown doll that goes around ogling the girl and trying to choke guys. The back-story is about a family that kept slaves in a UK farm in 1900, and one of the slaves escaped and killed the family he had served. Now the ghosts of the murdered family and the slaves are apparently angry spirits attacking anyone who moves in, under the leadership of the ghost of the sadistic patriarch. Based off how the movie solves the problem, the solution was simply to move away. However they apparently had to kill 3 people and beat up the girl first. I would rate the movie lower, but there is a beautiful undercurrent in the backstory of the relationship between the dad and the girl that culminates in a very touching scene about 3/4 of the way through. The acting of the two leads is solid, although the costuming for the dad is dubious. Also odd is the fact that the dad looks to be maybe 10 years older than the daughter... Anyway, their character growth is worth watching, the rest of the movie... meh.
Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl (2003)
The best movie I've seen in a long time!
I can't remember the last time I had this much fun watching a movie. All aspects of it were played out to near perfection, and the only things I can think of negative about it are only minor quibbles that for the most part I didn't think of until trying to force myself to look at a bad side of things.
At 2 1/2 hours, this movie does what only Fellowship of the Ring has succeeded at in recent history, it runs the exact length that it needs to for the movie to feel just right. It is neither too long where you feel like they are padding just because it's becoming a fad to make big movies, nor does it run too short and feel like things were wrapped up too quickly or easily.
The acting is superb from all participants. This is an ensemble piece, with multiple main characters, and it delivers an appropriately diverse and layered performance. Every player fills his or her role to perfection, with several standout performances by all leads, as well as by numerous supporting characters (good and bad guys). There were too many memorable characters to go into listing here, but they really did an excellent job of giving the feel that there was more going on in the world they created than just what they showed in the film.
The story was well thought out and developed much further than your average or even above average adventure films, yet it never got cumbersome or confusing, and was perfectly paced. It's also incredibly fun looking for the easter eggs from the ride which they cleverly blended into it.
And one final, major plus... The soundtrack is truly epic. My entire group that I watched it with kept commenting, "I gotta get the soundtrack!" Very exciting, catchy music that will stick with you for a long time! We don't see much of that anymore.
This movie is a breath of fresh air, and highly recommended viewing!
The Sum of All Fears (2002)
It's not the warfare, but the THREAT of warfare...
This was really a very good movie illustrating the way a tragedy can very nearly lead the super-powers of the world to outright nuclear warfare. The only part that I didn't agree with was in the beginning, where an Israeli fighter jet carrying a nuke gets shot down, and the nuke is never recovered. I would expect the Israelis to know exactly where there plane went down and quickly retrieve their weapon. That said, the path the weaponry and terrorists follow has been proven to be very accurate. This is a well thought out story showing how uncomfortably easy it could be to get a weapon into the U.S. and detonate it. It also shows that Russia is not the threat we Americans really need to be worried about, but smaller bands of extremists. Clancy used clever twists as usual to make it perfectly logical why things HAD to happen the way they did. When the bomb detonated under the football stadium in downtown Baltimore, it was this surreal, and rather sickening feeling of "This isn't real, it has to be a nightmare" and was all too familiar. They explain why the blast is able to send out enough force to damage buildings all through the city, without completely leveling it, or even putting off that much radiation, that it was an incredibly small bomb. Even that makes sense, as a terrorist wouldn't smuggle an ICBM into the country. In the end, this movie has far less to do with the blowing anything up, as the real struggle is to get the two super-powers to stand down before World War Three is started, since their open hostility for each other has made it so easy for them to be puppeted into conflict. This was a great movie for people who like high-stakes political intrigue movies, like Crimson Tide, and all of the actors involved are stellar.
Lancelot Link: Secret Chimp (1970)
Who doesn't love chimps?
I remember watching this show on Nickelodian, and I loved it. Think "Get Smart" done entirely with chimps. I still every once in a while see the villain character used in a promo for some tv station, I think it may be ESPN, but I'm not certain. Anyway, the stories were always funny to begin with, but made even funnier by using chimps as the actors. They never showed any humans, and you never missed them. If you find this show anywhere, check it out. It's definitely worth it!