Bit-size impressions: Ballistic: Ecks vs Sever

Okey.. Ballistic is about Sever (Lucy Liu), a rogue DOA trained-from-childhood agent who kidnaps the DOA leader's son (or possibly FBI leader? He commands DOA agents, but he has a FBI back-story, so..?) as revenge for his involvement in the bombing of her family, and Ecks (Antonio Banderas), a former FBI-agent who's called back to active duty to hunt Sever who he thinks has information about his not-really-at-all missing wife, and some missing nano-bots I thought were brain-control bots, but seemed to be internal assassination bots? And then enemies turn out to be friends and friends turn out to be enemies and the bad guy is married to Ecks wife and the kid might not be the bad guy's son, but is carrying a nano-bot, and, and..

I was trying! I was genuinely trying to pay attention to the plot, I gave this movie my full attention, but it's just. so. boring! It's like the movie is actively -trying- to make you disinterested.

The camera-work and cinematography feel like a tv-movie, the acting is non-existent, the pyrotechnics are all flash and no bang, the "action" is laughable, the editing is incompetent, the story is convoluted and overly-complicated... and I just put more into this review than anyone did during this production.

Towards the end of the movie Lucy Liu and a DOA hench-man throw down their weapons to have a martial-arts fight-off, and you just sit there baffled that the movie still thinks it can get away with a scene like that.

After sitting through one and a half hour of this nothingness I wasn't angry, I wasn't annoyed, I wasn't even disappointed, I literally felt nothing. I just went "well, that was boring, lets watch something else."

A 2002 full cinema-release action movie with Lucy Liu and Antonio Banderas.

Do. Not. Watch.

Osmosis Jones ramblings

(Small note: I'm trying to actually post everything I write, so this is my draft of a review on Osmosis Jones which I wrote the day before Nostalgia Critic posted his review. See that for a more coherent take on this stupid thing)

Osmosis Jones..  OMG. Just why?

This 2001 movie with Chris Rock in the main role featuring obscure buddy-cop movie humour, references to 80s and early 90s movies like Blade Runner and Titanic, a surprisingly good performance by Shatner channeling Nixon, and the worst performance by Bill Murray I've ever seen.

Horrible 90s rap music and an extremely invasive orchestral score make this one of the worst musical film scores I've heard.
Bill Murray muddles through a character who seem to simultaneously be trying to get both the "worst father of the year" award and a razzie award, with just gross-out humour after gross-out humour and nothing else, while the animated sequences (inside Murray's body) are playing out a buddy-cop setting, that unfortunately never manages to push past the established cliches.

The majority of the movie (the animated part) has some good ideas, and features some good performances, notably Drix and the major's aide, but is marred by its lack of focus and too-adult humour.

By the end of the movie we've totally lost track of our target audience, featuring a scene where the villain strangles the protagonist, and then threatens to kill the 9-year old girl.

Bit-size impressions: Jack the Giant Slayer

Cliché script, extremely referential and horrible main actors, but the supplemental cast makes it worth watching.

The Dark Knight Rises

It's a good film, a strong film, Gordon-Levitt does an amazing job, and Anne Hathaway's Catwoman is really a new start for a previously muddled character (give her a film!), Gordon and Fox are still amazing, as is Alfred and Bruce, but the ending let me down so much.

I was waiting for one sentence, one sentence the whole movie, and it never came; "that's the Question"

Where you overridden Nolan?

Also missed several characters that deserved an appearance, at least a cameo: Barbara, Renee Montoya, Maggie Sawyer (!!), the Penguin (somebody would have taken care of Gotham's richest) and Harvey, whose been missing the entire series.

The ending felt like such a cop-out, it just... It made me really, really sad.

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Star Wars: the Clone Wars

The Clone wars is the newest production from Lucasfilm, a company known for beating dead horses. And they don't disappoint with this animated feature. Set between the second and the third film, this one tells the story of Anakins and Obi-Wans fight to save a little Hutt child together with Anakins new apprentice, the fiesty Ahsoka Tano.
Featuring already known characters in a different filmstyle is dangerous enough on its own, and the voice actors trying to sound like Ewan McGregor and Hayden Christensen manage to make the experience completely unreal. While the animation on its own is very good (though the characters look more like puppets than animated characters) the strange similarities and differences in the animated characters as opposed to their actors takes some time to get used to.

The biggest problem with this film isn't its voice actors or animation, it is its story. This film is a film made for children, through and through. There is no context, no conflict and no psychology. Set between the second and the third film, this film could have given us a strong storyline further describing Anakins path to the dark side, especially considering his trip back to Tatooine, or at least a bit more about the war. As it is it introduces a completely new character that has no impact on the story or the world (or Anakin for that matter) and tells us how the Jedi secured the flight routes through Hutt territory, which apparently gives them a big advantage and might even win the war for the Republic (have you ever heard about this before?).
Riddled with plot holes, the relationship between Anakin and Ahsoka develops hugely in what is shown as only a few days, with Ahsoka learning Anakin's character and actions by heart after their first fight, to such a degree that she can predict his moves and thoughts.
The war parts are also disappointing with extremely old tactics and with the whole droid army as comic relief. With all their faults, slow reactions and general stupidity (a droid not understanding coordinates?) you end up wondering why the clone army is loosing. Even when taking their low numbers into consideration, the enemy's uncanny ability to get themselves and others killed should give a low-numbered smart army the upper hand.

The story and the idea is on its own not a bad one, but it is badly executed. If the point of the film is to recruit new, young Star Wars fans, why put it in-between two films with a story line that requires some knowledge of the Star Wars universe to follow, but if the film is for the old fans, why make such a disconnected story that doesn't develop the world or the characters we know? I also question if the Clone wars are the right place for a children's story. Is watching one and a half hour with non-stop violence and war okay for children as long as we make the ones killed comical and stupid, and remove the blood?