Change Your Image
NickNasty
Reviews
The Adjustment Bureau (2011)
C+ maybe B-
I really really wanted to like this. I rented the DVD, lit the fireplace, cozied up to the wife on the sofa and popped the disc in. Being a fan of Philip K. Dick I was expecting to be blown away or at least have my mind bent for a while. That was my biggest mistake.
What I got was nothing really mind bending. Sure it had an interesting plot and some minor buildup but the whole movie had a been there done that feel to it. Almost a paint by numbers "Lifetime meets Syfy" movie of the week with a bigger budget. And scenes that should have been thrilling and adventurous were ruined by it's artsy-folksy" soundtrack. I felt no real chemistry between the leads. And it had about the cheesiest ending imaginable. And God did I hate the soundtrack. I think the Chairman missed correcting that mistake too.
Terence Stamp stole the movie with an almost phoned in performance. Of course the few moments he was actually on screen had me glued. A tribute to how talented he is. After all he was General Zod.
I wouldn't say the movie sucked but I did expect a lot more. And I have to say the mostly poor music score really unsuspended my disbelief over and over. And is unsuspended even a word? Who cares. They just could have and should have done so much more.
POSSIBLE SPOILER ALERT!!! What is fate? What is destiny? Can anyone or anything really control it? Was the adjustment bureau a fail-safe device for the grand creator to fix what once went wrong? Dr Beckett... Paging Dr. Beckett! Only in the end to figure out he was right, then wrong, then right after all? And to prove it he just changes the ending. Sadly these concepts were only lightly tip-toed on.
I haven't read the Philip K Dick novella yet so I can't compare the two. But I can't imagine this is quite what PKD imagined when he wrote it.
Well, yeah, that's just like, my opinion, man.
Warriors (2008)
While not terrible there is nothing special or new here either.
I am basing this review as someone who had never seen any previews and only found it by channel surfing, seeing the title, reading the description and then watching it. In other words I did not know about the show beforehand and went in expecting a documentary on a particular battle and warrior from history.
Another nouveau-documentary series which almost seems to focus more about the host (in this series) or crew than the actual subject. This seems to be the new style, at least in America.
Each episode is supposed to be about a particular warrior and/or battle in history. Yet, most of it is spent with the host showing you how cool the weapons were and how they were used with very little time actually spent on the battle or warrior in question. It all seems a bit misleading.
The host seems like he is having fun and is energetic but treats the viewers as if they were school kids with his dialogue and constant use of the word, "cool". It feels as if he is trying to make history seem, for lack of a better word, cool for today's kids. There is nothing wrong with that but there is also nothing really meaty here and you won't walk away learning much about history. The weapon info is interesting but too much time is spent on them.
At the end of the show you get a brief historical lesson on the subject battle or warrior. Which begs the question...
Shouldn't the title have been, "Look at me playing with all these cool weapons from history" instead?