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nickheathcote
Reviews
Hell on Wheels (2011)
Come back the way you came
Hell on Wheels begins as an intriguing drama but falls apart half way through the first season. It's not enough to have a good idea for a drama, the key is to have worthwhile characters. No character on this show deserves sympathy or praise. Our main character is one-dimensional and hasn't grown. Other characters are archetypes and don't comment on America at the time. Story lines are thin and come and go. SPOILER ALERT: one does not simply kill off a character and bring him back. That is a death sentence in writing. You're bound to drive your audience to self-castration. Not only that, but consider if you show a primary character being brutally injured (say, an arrow wound to the forearm)and continue the series never mentioning it again, you are lying to your audience. I can understand a continuity error, but not a catastrophic one.
The season ends with a disappointing conclusion. No character has developed or grown, there is no event that reels us into the next season, it is just a flat stopping point. Did I mention that the entire show is gray and the visual effects are sub-par at best. Not to mention this show is a rip-off of the less-than-perfect HBO series Deadwood. Simply put, this series had good intentions but failed on all fronts. I will not be returning for next season.
Yogi Bear (2010)
Flat
Let's see, where to start...this is a movie based on a bad cartoon. It's flat, to be frank. A pointless, phoned-in plot, and hideous visual effects. Dan Akroyd tries to pay tribute to the original voice for Yogi- Bear, but ultimately comes off as annoying and voice acting with little substance. I tried to watch this movie from a kid's point of view, but even then I felt the filmmakers were disrespecting me by making me watch the same story and dialog I've seen a hundred times before. Trust me, I could've written a better script. This film doesn't know its audience, and therefor spreads its humor too thin. Wait a minute, what humor? Tired themes of corporate greed and the lovable loser trying to get the girl are done and are so boring. This review doesn't contain spoilers, because the plot is so predictable, everyone can see the 'spoilers' coming from a mile away.
The Expendables (2010)
Just hear me out
Now, I went into this movie, hoping to get a throwback to old Arnold movies like Commando and Predator. Okay, if that's what you're hoping for, you will be disappointed. The Expendables is about a group of steroid-pumping tough guy mercenaries led by Sylvester Stallone, who plays a character named Barney. Honestly, I am not intimidated by a guy named Barney. Nor am I intimidated by his Dave Navarro-esquire facial hair, or his leather skin, which resulted from too much time under a tanning bed. In addition to the characters not being intimidating, the story tries to take a movie that had a fun, trashy concept and tries to cram too much story into it. I don't care about the Melodrama behind Jason Stathom's character, Lee Christmas (that is his real name). The climax would have saved the movie, had it not been ENTIRELY CGI. Blood, explosions, people, everything was added in. Any throwback attempt would be completely wasted, because of CGI. The Expendables has a fun concept, unoriginal but it had potential, but it disappoints...
My Bloody Valentine (2009)
No Fun at all
There are bad movies, there are campy movies, and then there is My Bloody Valentine...3D. Don't get me wrong, I love violent movies and senseless violence as much as the next guy. Being a writer, it is hard enough for me to watch horror movies, let alone terrible remakes that have a poor story line. The first fifteen minutes I was asking myself "Is this a dream?" "When is this dream sequence over?" and to my astonishment, that dream sequence never ended. The twist at the end is hardly a twist, it is more of a predictable let down. I love violent movies. I love bad movies. This one was so bad, but good enough not to enjoy as a campy movie. Oh yeah, I saw it in regular D and you can tell it was shot just for 3D. I am, however, looking forward to Drive Angry 3D. But Nicholas Cage nor any number of brutal kills and tits can't save this movie.
I wasted an hour and forty minutes of my life, twenty of which could have been cut down.
The Donner Party (2009)
Historically inaccurate
The film is not based on any true historical fact as far as I could see. Even in the opening, the eventual place the Donner party hoped to get to was written as 'Sutter Fort.' Twice. Most Californians know the fort was Sutter's Fort. Glaring typo from the get go or laziness with regard to historical accuracy. You don't even have to be a Californian to know it is Sutter's Fort because the site is mentioned in grade school textbooks.
The rescue party consisted of much fewer members than were portrayed. The cannibalism occurred in the Donner camp and it was only as a very last resort and the 'victim' was already dead from exposure and starvation.
The film would have been much better if the director had focused on the powerful stories of the survivors instead of resorting to a sensationalistic cannibalism tale. There was so much more to this drama than starving humans compromising all they believed in by eating human flesh.
I could not even watch the entire film because it was so dreadful.