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Reviews
Surrogates (2009)
it is good to be Bruce even if you old
Watched "Surrogates" yesterday. It is kinda funny to go to the movie when you know it would be a failure (which was obvious after a minute of trailer), but in person "Surrogates" somehow managed to be even more pathetic. The only reason why producers gave money on this project is because Jonathan Mostow (our favorite T3 director! ) somehow convinced bruce willis to be a part of it. Everything in Surrogates is bad. Barely alive script, very rare and badly directed action segments, lazy dialogues with actors on the edge of going to sleep. This movie is long boring travel from one antiutopian clishe to other, each plot twist is predictable as it only could be. Each element of this movie was 100 times before in other movies and in most of them it was much better. In a week you can't remember anything about it (so this why I'm writing about it right now). In my opinion the first and the most important goal of each antiutopia (even bad ones) - to make viewers to see why their world is not right. Superdirector Mostow somehow managed to fail where even pathetic and blurry "Gamer" get a pass. He couldn't convince me why I must prefer to be old, ugly loser instead of being superstrong, superfast always young and good looking Terminator-look alike robot. He constantly repeats "we lost our humanity, we lost our humanity" but we never could understand what is exactly this Mostow's humanity. And the only message i've got from this movie - "don't be afraid to be a human, if you're Bruce Willis of course". I sincerely hope that it would be another 6 years at least till Mostow will decide to direct something. Or actually it would be better it he'll never direct a movie again. The guy just doesn't know what he is doing.
G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra (2009)
Don't ask why or it all will fall apart
This movie positioned itself as mindless fun. And as much I agree with "mindless" I found really hard to see this movie as "fun". And there are a lot of reason to it. Steven Sommers forgot the 1st rule of good action - the movie needs a HERO. Yes, formally there is one, but he is no different than dozens other characters with silly names (which I honestly try but couldn't remember). Characters are probably the weakest element of this movie (primitive script doesn't count no more, since now it is a genre standart) . This movie has so many popular names in it but there isn't a good (or decent at least) character. I sometimes even confuse good guys and bad guys. I was a little amused by J. Gordon-Levitt's appearance in Darth Vader's style mask and small (and absolutely unnecessary) cameos of Arnold Vosloo and Jonathan Pryce but that's all. And what even worse, instead giving personality to characters, Sommers made pathetic soap opera flashbacks about them which not only make them looks even more unpleasant but also waste valuable screen time. The most important thing that you must not do during watching this is asking "why?" because if you do, nothing make sense. How dumb man could join elite military squad? Why Gordon-Levitt's character turns evil? Why somebody would build a secret military base in the middle of Egypt? Why somebody would build a secret military base underwater in Alaska where is could be easily buried with one shot in ice? And the most important - why in the vocabulary of ancient Celt was a word for emergency catapulting? There are much more but this I remember after only a few seconds. Yes, this movie has nice action sequence (especially chase in french) but not of the action is that good, for example final fight is a one big mess, nothing of what happened made any sense so the only thing you can do just look on explosions and bright colors and wait till it's over. In total this movie probably a little better than "godawful Transformers 2" but just slightly but still I hardly could imagine any reasonable human being who will want to watch it second time
The Steam Experiment (2009)
Val vs Steam Room
Unfortunately, this movie is a fail. Especially unfortunately because Val Kilmer acted awesome. This movie is separated on two parts - first happened in interview room where Kilmer is interrogated by Assante and second happened in the same time in the steam room between six other people. And as much I enjoyed really good Kilmer\Assante scenes as much I disliked steam room. Except cute steam effect and and yellow color of screen all rest there was very predictable for this genre - screaming, yelling and everybody went crazy one by one as usual. Boredom. And Eric Robert unfortunately dissolved among nameless actors there. Combining it with pretty ambiguous plot with very dissatisfying twist plot in the end this movie really hasn't a chance. Val Kilmer couldn't save it.
Streets of Blood (2009)
What doesn't kill me...
I really liked this one. Surprisingly this movie could turn all it's disadvantages to a benefits. For example, movie is really cheap - hand camera and almost all shooting was made on real streets . And because of that it looks much more realistic and atmospheric than all "Training Day" clones. The plot is a mess, it is very hard to understand who are the heroes and villains, but this only add realism to this movie. All character are bad (like in noir movies of 50th). Actors didn't do anything special but because of that they look really believable. Val Kilmer is playing cop who never took bribes but constantly brakes laws, makes illegal searches and plants evidences to get drug dealers or simply kills them. But despite of it he is a man of strong principles. His own principles. 50 Cent is playing his partner (I must say I hate 50 cent, since he is a disgrace in music, but in this movie he actually had buff down and looked pretty decent) who torn by Kilmer's methods but always covering his back and secretly stealing money from dead dealers when he had a chance. And it is really hard to understand who is even worse cops or FBI. As I say, what really made this film special in my eyes among dozens of Training Day clones, this movie feels real. And because it felt real all it's disadvantages looks insignificant. And for everyone who felt this way, must especially enjoy the ending
Star Runners (2009)
Tired Trip Show
I just watched new Connor Trineer movie and must honestly say it is awful. Movie tried to be "Fifth Element" and "Starship troopers" in the entourage of "Serenity" but very, very cheap. Instead it one big mess. The plot could be placed on fortune cookie, action was unbearable to watch, computer graphic in space was tolerable more or less but decorations... my god, it looked like fan made movie, well at least they didn't make any humanoid aliens. And I can bet they use the same desert as shooting locations at least in 2 other Sci Fi channel movies. Acting is horrible, everybody except Connor acted like their only acting experience was school play in 4th grade. In all this mess only Connor was normal even if he played very tired Trip who obviously want to be somewhere else (on Enterprise I suppose :P ). And yeah, there was a lot of bugs. Bad drawned and bad animated bugs... So let's be honest the only reason to watch this garbage is if you Connor Trineer fan but even if you are, it would be very hard to get positive emotions during this "movie"...
Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen (2009)
Toilet explosion
I have a hard time to count new Transformers as a movie. It was more a combination of explosions and toilet jokes (since any scene in this hmm, "project" ends with either one of them). And so highly praised action sequences after Wolverine, Star Trek and especially Terminator Salvation, Bay's work wasn't so much impressive. All transformers except Optimus Prime and the Yellow One(don't know his name) looked absolutely the same including the Worst Villain of the Year - The Fallen (forget the motivation, he couldn't even transform into anything but he had a BIG STICK instead and his loyal sidekick Megatron whose reasons to be in the "project" actually mysterious for me. Most of the human characters could be cut from "the movie" and it probably would be for good since it would be less toilet jokes. The dialogs could easily lost a competition to a school play. I mean each time character opened mouth to say something I had a strong urge to slap them to make them shut up. Another problem - the unbearable length of Transformers. 150 minutes. I could only wonder what Michael Bay cuted from his "movie" if he thought that the rest was OK. For example the last battle which lasted almost 40 minutes could easily be done in 10 , all college sequences could be easily cuted (another horrible half-hour). In the end it could be only 90 bearable minutes of explosions but unfortunately Spielberg gave his golem to much freedom and Bay simply didn't have enough taste, or objectivity or simply a common sense to see what he had done. Personally for me the most dramatic moment of the movie was a scene where an amazing actor John Turturro dropped his pants. Without any reason. For another silly laugh. Just because M.Bay can make him do it. It is actually my strongest impression which I've got from Transformers - Revenge of Fallen. Not robots, explosions or Megan Fox. It is A John Turturro staying on the street without pants. Michael Bay proved once again that he is still the Worst director in Hollywood today and his new work for me is #1 contender on the title THe Wors Movie of the Year. It is 1/10, 1/5 , it is 1 in any scale of grades I know...