Movie Review - "Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events" 12/17/04

Here is a movie review for "Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events", released Dec 17, 2004.

Trailer:

Cast:


Jim Carrey ["Dumb and Dumber" Lloyd, "The Mask" Stanley Ipkiss] - Count Olaf
Liam Aiken ["Road to Perdition" Peter Sullivan, "Sweet November" Abner] - Klaus
Emily Browning ["Sucker Punch" Babydoll, "The Uninvited" Anna] - Violet
Kara Hoffman [General Hospital (TV Series) Kristina Ashton / Kristina Corinthos-Davis] - Sunny
Shelby Hoffman [General Hospital (TV Series) Kristina Ashton / Kristina Corinthos-Davis] - Sunny
Jude Law ["Spy" Bradley Fine, "Sherlock Holmes" Dr. John Watson] - Lemony Snicket (voice)
Timothy Spall [Harry Potter series - Wormtail, "Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street" Beadle] - Mr. Poe
Catherine O'Hara ["Home Alone" Kate McCallister, "The Nightmare Before Christmas" Sally / Shock] - Justice Strauss
Billy Connolly ["The Boondock Saints" Il Duce, "Brave" Fergus] - Uncle Monty
Meryl Streep ["Mamma Mia!" Donna, "The Iron Lady" Margaret Thatcher] - Aunt Josephine

What a star-studded crew list! While preparing for the review, I found out that Emily Browning was the one who played Babydoll in "Sucker Punch" and that Kara and Shelby Hoffman are twins. Learned something new! :-)



Plotline
Three young children - Klaus, Violet and Sunny - are suddenly orphaned when their house is burned down and their parents are killed {though never recovered according to the movie?}. The three of them are brought by Mr. Poe (played by Timothy Spall) to Count Olaf (played by Jim Carrey). Count Olaf, an actor, is under the impression that if he takes guardianship of the children that he will get their inheritance. However, he finds out that he can't just inherit the inheritance right away so he tries multiple things to get the money. When the three are put in danger to the point that Mr. Poe realizes that it wouldn't be a good fit for the children, they are brought to another "uncle". More unforutunate events happen because Count Olaf is trying to get the three childrens' inheritance, with his acting skills and disguises. Through it all, the children (armed with ingenuity, knowledge, and a skill to bite {Sonny}) manage to survive together and foil Count Olaf's attempts.

Honestly, I can't recall the music from this movie or any noteworthy items. So, rating.





Criteria:
0/5 – No value whatsoever. Absolute waste of time.
1/5 – Barely worth any time.
2/5 – Pathetic but has a bit of something to hold the attention a little.
3/5 – Somewhat kept the attention but could definitely have used more.
4/5 – Good, but not awe-strikingly amazing. Could have maybe used a bit more to the movie.
5/5 – Go see it! Wonderful movie all around – characters, music, theme, storyline, etc.


4/5 - I rate this movie a four-star because it was an interesting tale. The opening ("happy elf") was strange and was very unexpected. Since this was based on young adult books, the movie doesn't actually show the parents' death or evidence of it. I personally think that it could have shown the actual gravesites because I was thinking that maybe it was a mistake and that they would have shown up again. The letter at the end, from the parents that had "gotten lost" coming home, made me think that maybe [just maybe] the parents would be coming home too. That was not the case, so I was left hanging at the end of the movie. Aside the whole "no closure from parents' death" thing, this was a wonderful movie and it was hilarious to watch Carrey's performances. Highly recommended!

I heard that Netflix is going to come out with the series based on the books also, so that would be interesting.

Movie Review - "Man on Wire" 08/29/2008

Hubby chose a random movie on Netflix to watch so here is a movie review for "Man on Wire", released August 29, 2008.

- This was made before the movie "The Walk" released in 2015, but is the same tale. I watched the trailer for "The Walk" and it looks to be a more higher budget thriller version of the story but I hope to bring you the review for that one eventually, as I want to see how Sony Pictures portrays it. "Man on Wire" is the documentary telling about how this man got to this feat, versus getting everyone interested in the actual feat itself. -



ANYWAYS....



Trailer:

Plotline:
"The film chronicles Philippe Petit's 1974 high-wire walk between the Twin Towers of New York's World Trade Center. It is based on Petit's book, To Reach the Clouds, released in paperback with the title Man on Wire. The title of the film is taken from the police report that led to the arrest (and later release) of Petit, whose performance had lasted for almost one hour." - Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Man_on_Wire


This movie was an interesting documentary. I am not usually one for documentaries, but my hubby chose for us to watch this. I found it absolutely fascinating to see the Twin Towers in their construction phase. [Want to learn about 9/11? Watch this movie to see the construction, simply as it was.] I also found it crazy awesome to watch a guy walk across the Duomo and a bridge in Australia {I highly doubt those would be in "The Walk"}. I personally would never be able to walk a tight rope even just a foot off of the ground without falling, much less at the top of two sky scrapers! It was so beautiful to see him so calm and composed on the wire up there. Like pure art. Super lots of dedication needed for that!




Criteria:
0/5 – No value whatsoever. Absolute waste of time.
1/5 – Barely worth any time.
2/5 – Pathetic but has a bit of something to hold the attention a little.
3/5 – Somewhat kept the attention but could definitely have used more.
4/5 – Good, but not awe-strikingly amazing. Could have maybe used a bit more to the movie.

5/5 – Go see it! Wonderful movie all around – characters, music, theme, storyline, etc.


My Rating: 5/5 - The criteria above doesn't really lend itself to documentaries but the way that the film was set up and the intrigue of the tale leads me to believe in a "You should definitely watch this" conclusion. Even if you are afraid of heights, the art form of tight rope walking will amaze you. ;-)

Movie Review - "Repos" 07/04/2006

Hubby decided to chose a random movie so here is a movie review for "Repos", released on July 04, 2006.




Trailer:

Couldn't find a video for just the trailer so the first minute of this video below is the trailer. The other stuff is for other stuff, not this movie.

Cast:
Michael Blackson - Coffee
Master P [the writer/producer/actor Master P, like "Lil Romeo's B House" from Scooby Doo (2002)] - Tea
Katt Williams [Comedian, "Norbit" Lord Have Mercy] - Mr. Henderson
Anthony (AJ) Johnson ["Menace II Society" Tony] - Tick Tack



Plotline:
Two guys in California do repos as a job. They are trying to get a cash bonus by getting a certain amount of repos done by the week's end. Coffee repos his own mother's car, since she was behind on her payment. Tea hooks up with a girl, who had to get her tire changed, instead of repoing her car. They end up repoing a vehicle from a tank of a man and it turns out to be something way more than just a repo. Now how to deal with the consequences of the repo....?
That pretty much sums up the plotline. Not much more to say. See the movie to see the rest.




Criteria:
0/5 – No value whatsoever. Absolute waste of time.
1/5 – Barely worth any time.
2/5 – Pathetic but has a bit of something to hold the attention a little.
3/5 – Somewhat kept the attention but could definitely have used more.
4/5 – Good, but not awe-strikingly amazing. Could have maybe used a bit more to the movie.
5/5 – Go see it! Wonderful movie all around – characters, music, theme, storyline, etc.


My Rating: 3.5/5 - It was an interesting movie. I would not have chosen to watch it myself but once we got into the movie, I definitely wanted to finish watching it. On retrospect, I think it was a good movie but maybe have used a bit more. I don't know what it could have used but....yeah.

Movie Review - "Mission: Impossible II" 05/24/2000

In preparing to watch Mission Impossible Ghost Protocol and Rogue Nation, I have decided to watch the older MI movies. Link to the first Mission Impossible movie is here. This is the review for the second of the franchise: Mission: Impossible II, released May 24, 2000.




Trailer:

Cast:
Tom Cruise ["Mission Impossible" Ethan Hunt, "Top Gun" Maverick] as "Ethan Hunt"
Thandie Newton ["Chronicles of Riddick" Dame Vaako] as "Nyah Nordoff-Hall"
Ving Rhames ["Mission Impossible" Luther Stickell, "Pulp Fiction" Marsellus Wallace] as "Luther Stickell"
Anthony Hopkins ["Hannibal" and "Silence of the Lambs" Hannibal] as "Mission Commander Swanbeck"
Brendan Gleeson ["Troy" Menelaus, "Braveheart" Hamish] as "John C. McCloy"



Plotline:
Agent Ethan Hunt is back. After receiving a message from Mission Commander Swanbeck, he comes in for the mission. "This is not Mission Difficult, Mr. Hunt. This is Mission Impossible."
I was not pleased with this movie so let's just get down to the nitty gritty. *SPOILERS* MI meets 'Resident Evil', in a pretty badly played out way. The plot is a virus called Chimera and it will kill you, nastily, in a certain amount of time. If you don't get the antivirus within a certain amount of time of contracting the virus, it won't save you. Oh, and who has it but a man who has been a body-double for Ethan Hunt and has recently left the agency: Sean Ambrose. [Who didn't see that one coming, honestly?]
So, let's get a woman who had previous relations with the agent-gone-bad. Good news is she's a fairly strong woman but not as strong as I wish she were. That's to be in the character review of this...



Characters:
Let's start off with the ONLY female in the whole movie: Nyah Nordoff-Hall
*COMMENT NOT PC!*  What is she? Basically a vagina. Nyah is introduced as a good thief that Ethan catches but he only goes after her because she had a relation with the bad agent Sean. So Mission Commander suggests her to get to Ambrose and Ethan falls for her because she is that 'damn hot'. So the main reason for her to be in this plot, after getting Ethan to get his hots for her, is to give Ethan an emotional conflict. One thing that led to her getting together with Ethan was the car chase, spinning around on a dirt road and him saving her from the car. It was VERY pathetic, honestly, and didn't seem realistic.

[In the trailer, there is a woman dancing in a red dress. I thought she'd be an interesting character but we had to go with the thief instead...]

Ethan - Same as the first MI but more egotistical and cocky. In the first movie, he was trying to prove his innocence. In this one, we hear that he has multiple contacts worldwide and he just has a strut that shouts "I'm all that, b***ch*". I would have liked it if they had dealt with that and made him more humble, but that wouldn't work. And all he really learned all movie was the fact that he liked this girl and would like to spend more time with her (no commitments? not sure).

Luther - LUTHER is back! I was so glad that he returned with MI:2 but at the same time, they didn't give him much action. Great vibe from him, though.

Mission Commander - Merely there to give Ethan the mission at the beginning. My least favorite part of this movie was a quote from this man - "To go to bed with a man and lie to him? She's a woman. She's got all the training she needs." WTF was the playwright/producer/director thinking, stereotyping a woman like that! *screams in rage*

Ambrose - Bad dude. Inferiority complex to Ethan and he wants mega loads of money by viral terrorism then selling the cure. No regrets hurting people, not even the gal that he used to like (who showed up out of the blue back in to his life). Like, really dude, get a life and a new job. Why resort to terrorism? It might be money but that's pretty underhanded.




Action -
I was not impressed with the action in this movie. The car chase on a dirt road *almost* sliding off the road, but not, was pretty pathetic. The bike fight / fight in the dirt scenes were BAD. Like "I was ready to turn off my movie" bad but wanted to see how it turned out. How cheesy can you get to have the guy holding on to the motorcycle (or was it a crotchrocket?), feet skidding on the road, and ducking next to the bike to avoid being shot?! I will say it: CRINGE WORTHY!



It took me almost 2 months to do this review because it was so bad. Might give the DVD to a friend of mine who likes action... In my opinion, the first MI movie was WAY better than MI:2. Hopefully they don't progressively get worse as we go through the series.






Criteria:
0/5 – No value whatsoever. Absolute waste of time.
1/5 – Barely worth any time.
2/5 – Pathetic but has a bit of something to hold the attention a little.
3/5 – Somewhat kept the attention but could definitely have used more.
4/5 – Good, but not awe-strikingly amazing. Could have maybe used a bit more to the movie.
5/5 – Go see it! Wonderful movie all around – characters, music, theme, storyline, etc.

My rating: 1/5 - barely worth anything. It would be great if the woman was more than a sex toy prop and if the plot/action was more realistic. If you want to watch this, borrow it from a friend. DON'T spend $$ on this. I regret that I spent the $2 on it from the pawn shop.
That is, unless you are into over dramatized action and "who cares if she is just a sex toy because she's hot".