Reviews

Yawn! So this is supposed to be an Action-Thriller?? Gimme a break boys, this was neither Action nor Thriller, it was just plainly disappointing. The idea of "what might happen if martial law is declared nowadays" is great and it could make a really great movie...just why didn't they make one? First of all, the title-giving event, the declaration of martial law and Bruce Willis moving into the city is located somewhat near the end of the movie. Beforehand, there's not much to see, because of all the big, bad explosions the terrorists cause, we only get to see one bus-explosion of the kind you will find in every late-afternoon action series as well. The only interesting thing to see in this first part is that Oscar-Winner Denzel Washington is being matched out big time by that guy (I forgot his name, sorry) who plays his collegue (whatever his name was: He's great). When finally the siege occurs it does not deliver any action but it just rounds up to a nazi-like imprisonment of most of the arab society in (nice little irony) a football stadium. Finally, after holding the typical Why-I-bacame-a-fanatic-bomber speech (and after shooting the Annette Bening character which , in this movie unlike her other is a real treat) he gets shot by Washington - that's it. Really original, ain't it? I'll give this one a two as a punishment for screwing up on such a great idea!

Alright, I'm the first one to comment on this movie - I guess that's 'cause nobody wants to disclose he realy wasted any money on this piece of junk. The story manages to be even worse than in the first part and the would-be martial arts heroes of this movie don't even try to hide their inability to act. Especially the lead actor, being the successor of J.C. van Damme (!), is so incredibly bad in both fighting and acting that you start wishing, this movie had never been made during the first 5 Minutes already. There is absolutely nothing I can think of, that would give anyone a reason to watch this...except a) You're a producer and you're looking for a movie, that makes even yours look good by comparison or b) you want to witness Gary Busey's career go down the wash.

AVOID THIS MOVIE AT ANY COST

Oh Boy - who did this film to us?

Whoever wrote the screenplay must have thought something like this: " Okay, I've thought of a new way for a differently cloaked killer to stalk teenagers. Now I'll write the standard "who is it?" story around it and I'll earn just as much money as this Wes Craven guy with his "Scream" movies". Well buddy, you thought wrong! This movie is as mediocre as it gets. The whole plot is based as much on "Scream" as the killings on urban legends. At the end of the movie there's even one line of dialogue that has been almost literally transferred from "Scream" (remember: "Scream": "We prefer being called "psychos" "Urban Legend":" I prefer the term eccentric"...same situation in both movies as well). But "Urban Legend" never succeeds in its efforts to get close to Craven's movies. What it comes down to is a lame horror movie without any real scares or interesting sequences - a real yawn. It's mot a complete bomb afterall because of the solid camera work but everything else...uh-oh. This one is even worse than Halloween H20.

Common - you belive everything you read?

I've read many comments saying: "I didn't like it"

Ignore them! Personally, I think the idea of the bad spirit, always trying to make the worst out of your wishes is quite original (you don't think so, name another movie which had a similar story). But it's not the story that makes this movie so great - it's the villain! This one is one of the most interesting bad guy I've seen since Freddy Kruger (let's hope he's more fortunate in his future incarnations than poor Freddy who was only granted two (okay, okay Part 7 wasn't THAT bad as well, but were talking about the term "good", ok?)). Andrew Divoff is a real show stealer as the cynical Djinn and let's us all forget about the standard heroine "Alexandra". Another big cheer for the screenwriter who invented the dialogue! There are so many cool lines in this movie (most of them for the "Djinn"-Part), it's really impressive for somebody like me, who's writing scripts as well. Even Robert "Why Won't anyone let me play anything else but horror movies?" Englund is in quite a good form (unlike in the more recent "Urban Ledgend") and does not ruin the scenes he's in. All in all what I'm saying is: If you like quality horror movies, take a look at this. It's only flaw (for me it isn't one, but one might think so) is, that it's definitely too gory for the "normal" viewer but doesn't suit the needs of the splatter addicts as well. It's somewhere in between...and I like that.

WOW, this is it! All the time, you hear someone announcing his movie to be "stylish" and "cool", meaning "I've used some camera filters that made the whole thing look completely weird" etc. "Blade" is the first movie, that really got it right: Although director Norrington uses a style usually used on MTV or in a commercial for cars, it really seems to fit into the neo-vampire world. The hip techno-soundtrack adds to that feeling and Blade himself is, I'm happy to say so, really cool! Okay, okay, he's just another macho-hero of sorts, but one shouldn't care,if he's up to watching this movie! "Blade" is a fun-movie: Don't think, enjoy! The story isn't that bad, but certainly the worst flaw of the movie. The martial arts delivered by Snipes (he choreographed it himself) is ranking from "all right" up to "hey, that was really good", but without ever reaching the quality of the earlier van Damme movies. I keep thinking that Snipes could even do better than that, but wants to stay "realistic", something van Damme never even tried. The film is really worth watching, especially for Action and Martial Arts Fans. Only you Horror-Addicts beware: As a horror-movie it really sucks, cause there's not much to be afraid of in it.