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LughNatic
Reviews
Black Mirror (2011)
No silk purse from the pig's ear
My first review to let you know that someone's managed to add 8 to the rating-you should fix to save adults wasting their time, or alternatively have a separate kids' section.
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~15 years ago, while babysitting a teen girl, I got to see more Hannah Montana than any adult should have to endure. However, the HM writing was better than Black Mirror's-something I never anticipated saying about a show I freely picked.
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Comparison to The Twilight Zone piqued my interest, altho warily since neither remake matched the original. Then I saw it was a Brit show-sold, they're usually so good.
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Nice cinematography, but you can't make a silk purse out of even that pig's ear. The writing is so very bad, I've seen much more solid stuff from first-year college students. Nothing interesting, no humor, no tension, no insight, no credibility... Just really bad.
2012: Doomsday (2008)
How dare people rate this 1
This movie is clearly a 2, and here's why:
1. Budget $250K, they must have spent it on something, right? 2. The jeep looked in good shape. 3. Number of shapely female legs was in double figures. 4. The guys looked real--guy hat, guy apology, guy beard. 5. The Monkees connection is just too cool, man. 6. Most "1" raters criticize the acting. There wasn't any, so your argument is void, boo yah. 7. You guys knocking the special effects: ping-pachoo! I just made all your complaints disappear. 8. Vegetation. Excellent trees, leafy plants. Being vegetarian kept one gal from getting sick. 9. Time travel thrown in for free--loved the 1pm shadows in San Diego while it was after midnight in Mexico. 10. It's true. The world must end in 2012, else no way any of the 50+ crew would have allowed their names to be added to this "movie".
I declare each of those points is worth 0.1 votes, thereby bringing us up to 2. QED
PS a freebie: I watched this for the 45 minutes it took to eat dinner, and it didn't make me throw up. Yeah I spluttered some milk, but hey...
MegaFault (2009)
Utter garbage
I didn't think a movie could be this bad and still see air time--thanks SyFy.
I won't waste my breath on this, other than to pad the review out to the required 10 lines. Hopefully I can help someone avoid considering this to pass a couple of hours. Within 10 minutes, I was cheering for the quake and looking forward to the ad break. Avoid, everything is dismal in this.
Btw when I checked in before the movie, it had 20 votes and a score of 7.5 here. Is that some standard default initial setting for a title?
There is nothing to review here, one line is sufficient. Have I got 10 lines yet?
Alien Apocalypse (2005)
No, it doesn't improve
If your reaction to the first 10-20 minutes of Alien Apocalypse is "It can only get better"--no, it doesn't. That I sat thru the full two hours on SciFi channel last night has me furtively looking up psychiatric clinics today.
Yes, it's that bad. Another reviewer said "possibly the worst scifi movie I've seen," and I'll join that club. The script is unbelievably bad and the direction dire.
Some such movies can be good because they're so bad. Not this one. There are just too many embarrassing moments to find enjoyment in the awfulness.
I'll exempt Bruce Campbell from blame, he tries with what he hasn't to work with. Renee O'Connor was only poor. But the rest of the cast... guys and gals, there's more involved than turning up for your first day before a camera, saying stuff, and going home again. Yes, that's how it seems anyway.
The alien bugs are well done, and take the acting credits too. But if you're hoping for some indication of how they were able to completely subdue planet earth--to the degree that twenty years later, nobody knows what a doctor is--don't hold your breath.
Some nice scenery too at times. Hmm, psychiatrists are damn expensive...
Alien Siege (2005)
Pretty dire
Just saw this on SciFi channel. Big disappointment after reading some of the promising reviews here. I always give scifi movies a bit of extra leeway as I like the genre, but Alien Siege is just plain poor.
I agree on two points others have made. Good story line which deserves to be made into a decent movie some day, and good visual effects.
That's about it though for the good bits. The direction was pedestrian, no build-up of tension or drama. Terrible screenplay, you'll find better dialog in comic books, and the characters never engaged me in caring about their fate. The acting was generally well below B standard, although in fairness the cast had very little to work with.
I rate this 2/10 for the story and visuals. I kept waiting for it to improve, but it didn't happen. Oh well, sometimes the bear gets you...
Helen of Troy (2003)
A big disappointment
I watched the second half of this 4-hour mini because I like Greek mythology & ancient history--decidedly not because the production was any good.
A great story with timeless themes, some usually decent actors in supporting roles--that's the good news. Major plot gaps, unconvincing or puzzling motivations, and generally bad acting--that's what we got.
This is a love story and tragedy much more momentous than Romeo & Juliet--what a huge let-down then to find almost no chemistry between the two principals. This story needs leads with charisma and passion if it's to be credible as the moving force behind ancient history's most epic battle.
Helen especially needs to be convincing as the recipient of universal male desire. Sienna Guillory is an attractive woman, but she doesn't convey an ounce of magnetism or mythical quality. Matthew Marsden as Paris, her 'chosen one', is similarly uninspiring.
Some of the fighting scenes are good; others seem like someone yelled to the extras "Look like you're fighting". One mid-battle freeze-frame segment falls completely flat, and kids with cardboard swords would be more convincing than one particularly ludicrous assassination scene. And not a single car chase...
Epic mini series can be brilliant without huge budgets or stars, as Band of Brothers proved. I hope someone else takes another shot at this great story--there's easily material for 10 hours of top-quality viewing to be found in all the peripheral but important characters and events of that time.
2 out of 10 for the story and some fine locations in Malta.