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wackeychan
Reviews
Flickan som lekte med elden (2009)
A Big Letdown From the Original
I'll start off by saying it's been years since I've written a review on IMDb. But after seeing The Girl Who Played With Fire, I'm compelled to step out and give fair warning.
I found the films predecessor, The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, to be a real masterpiece, and in a year where the expected great movies are falling flat- Iron Man 2, Robin Hood, Knight and Day, etc- and the real sleepers are making their mark- Solitary Man, Winters Bone, The Killer Inside Me come to mind- I expected "Fire" to join the latter group. Unfortunately, it did not.
"Dragon" was by far the best movie I had seen in the year. Well shot, well edited, acted, and directed- it took a synopsis that sounded trite and ridiculous, and made a fantastic sleeper thriller that no one could have guessed would be so great. It knew when to cut, knew what to show, and made all the right choices to avoid silliness. Unfortunately, "Fire" instead makes those silly choices.
I promise, I do not speak in hyperbole when I say that this is the most unnecessary sequel I have seen. Though things happen in the plot- thematically, there is no change in our two main characters. Some may argue that we learn more about Lisbeth and her violent past- but the information is immaterial, as it does not change her, affect her, the audience, or the rest of the story for that matter. Unfortunately, this may simply be a case of "this works in the book, but not the movie"
I feel that the switch from "Dragons" director Niels Arden Oplev to "Fires" director Daniel Alfredson may answer to the real awful discrepancies between the two films. While "Dragon" feels like a film- this feels like a plodding made for TV movie- very little progression, and while there is some interesting action occasionally, it feels that it's for nothing, as the characters have made no progression from the end of "Dragon" to the end of "Fire". I will absolutely hold out for the next film, "The Girl Who Kicked The Hornets Nest" and hope that there is less of a superficial progression that will justify the mundane plodding of this film, but as of now, I'll be forgetting who played with fire.
The Burly Man Chronicles (2004)
Great For Matrix and Movie Fans!
The Burlyman Chronicles is an hour and a half documentary on the making of The Matrix Reloaded and The Matrix Revolutions. The film serves almost as a sequel to the documentary the Matrix: Revisited as well. Over an hour and a half the documentary covers from August 2000 leading up to the November 2003 release of Revolutions, giving us the inside scoop on every aspect of production. And I mean every. From the storyboard artist, to John Gaeta's new special effects, to the Wachowski's interactions with the evermore perfectionist, Keanu, you really get a feel for what this four year production was. Unfortunately for many of you, it's only available on the Ultimate Matrix Collection, a ten disk box set, (ready for the mind blower? The 4th and 6th disks are Reloaded and Revolutions revisited, and there's STILL enough content for this and more!)
It's well worth a watch if you're an avid Matrix fan, or if like many of you, are a huge movie buff. This movie covers absolutely everything, and it's not a slow watch either. However, if you don't have a huge interest in behind the scenes stuff or the matrix, it's definitely not worth your time.
Transporter 2 (2005)
Ridiculously Entertaining aka 2005's final summer action flick
When I say "Rediculously entertaining" I mean exactly that. The things that these people are doing are so stupid- and the fight scenes- my gosh they're impossible! Example? Our hero frank has a bomb on the bottom of his car, which he manages to get off by flipping the car and catching the bomb on an overhead hook, then landing right side up once again. However, these are all guilty pleasures, and if you let yourself go, then it is quite enjoyable.
Without going into a lot of detail, there's a virus that a Colombian assassin type drug dealer type (our bad guys are rather anonymous) has been paid to unleash to an official of some sort, and does so by getting through to his son, which Frank happens to be 'transporting' these days. Our virus scenes are reminiscent of the chimera in M:I2, but not quite so thought out or understandable. The dialog between the young boy's divorced parents is incredibly horrible, and the transitions from scene to scene may very well put Ed Wood Jr. To shame.
But I'm not the critical type. If you're looking for a nice September/summer action movie- this is the place for you. I give this a 4 simply because in terms of everything but the fight scenes- it's horrible. If I were to rate this against Jet Li's Unleashed, or xXx- state of the Union, it would be in the 7/8 category. Make no mistake- the quality of the transporter series I've always regarded as quite high. But don't go looking for something to wrap your head around.