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Reviews
Watchmen (2009)
Leave the popcorn, bring a notebook.
I rarely bother to leave feedback on IMDb, but Watchmen more than warrants it. Like most other people, I never heard of the comic book and I feared it would turn out to be another blank in the current whirlwind of super-hero themed movies.
I was wrong.
Great art direction and surprisingly well-rounded characters make for a terrific movie that demands your attention from beginning to end. Like most movies featuring a large group of main characters, the diverse story lines mixed together make it hard to 'get involved'. This movie doesn't pamper its audience with snappy one-liners and stale clichés: You really have to work to keep up. And don't count on many comic reliefs to ease the ever-building gritty tension either.
This is not a popcorn movie to watch with your kids or your talkative better half. But bring your imagination and your full attention and you will be rewarded with a very rich and refreshing movie-experience that makes all other caped crusaders out there look like superficial cardboard cut-outs.
Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip (2006)
Great dialogue, wonderful setting, one-dimensional characters.
A great series with wonderful dialogue and a decent cast of slightly too likable characters. Despite the wide range of characters, the show is clearly about the two lead ones. The others are somewhat too bland to identify with and lack diversity: all of them have a single 'big issue' and they are all so upfront and well-meaning that it makes you cringe sometimes. The series centers around the lives behind the scenes of big-time TV, and is a great window into the life and frustrations of producers and writers (not just the characters, I'm guessing). It's balancing the line between a soap-series and high-brow cultural criticism to great effect. I very much hope the team behind the show can keep it up. I, for one, am definitely hooked: 8/10 from me.
Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest (2006)
Disappointing
I was looking forward to seeing this movie. I had a great time with the previous Pirates and saw that movie a few times over the years without tiring of it.
But this movie had noting in common with the previous one. It had pirates, sea and beaches, but otherwise it had nothing of the well-balanced and fun storyline of the previous film. It was dark, grim and unsympathetic. Despite it being a Disney film, I wouldn't recommend it for kids. People die. A lot. In a variety of nasty scenarios. And as seems to be the trend with trilogies, it hardly had any plot at all. It felt like an uninspired filler between the beginning and the end of the Pirates-saga.
Missing in America (2005)
Sugary Sweetness
Considering the often harsh votes on movies here on IMDb, I was looking forward to this unknown movie scoring a 6.6. After watching it, though, it's completely beyond me how this movie ever got that rating. It lacks pretty much any kind of involving story-arc, seemingly patching a series of rather unrelated events together. Despite the seasoned cast, acting is wooden and dialog contrived. The girl in the lead role is just too old to get away with her part, though the layers of make-up probably didn't help her any.
As mentioned, the story lacks real surprises. Despite dealing with the serious subject of Vietnam veterans, it is just too sweet to be credible. This movie could go straight to Hallmark Channel and never be noticed.