Reviews

In honor of the masterpiece television show, Twilight Zone, Flight World War 2 is a good film filled with believable characters facing a situation where fantasy becomes reality.

A few points that stood out: In the opening sequence, the US Army soldier is reading a newspaper with the headline "Megalodon". For those who blast the film for inaccuracies, bear in mind it is a world where 900 foot sharks swat battleships like ping pong balls. This is the production company's homage to itself and it made me chuckle.

When the Army soldiers subdues the group of men who want to take the fight to Hitler, the sergeant makes a good point about how seemingly the odds are in favor of those from the future, but one mistake could deliver 21st century technology into the hands of the Nazi's. A valid point and well delivered by the actor.

In general, solid acting. The friendship between Faran Tahir and Matias Ponce was quickly established and believable with Faran delivering a strong performance throughout. And I hope to see more Aqueela Zoll and wish her well for her career to develop and to land some lead roles in films with broader circulation. Her acting throughout was steady as she played the young, but strong stewardess. Through the entire film, I do not recall any hammy lines or acting on anyone's part that was not on par with a quality film.

Flight World War 2 is a science fiction film along the lines of Twilight Zone. Against the modern grain, this film does not have loads of action. Instead, it is steeped in tension and does cause the viewer to ask, "What if ...?" What if 75 years of R&D in avionic, computing, telecommunications, fabrics, lighting and electronics were delivered to our ancestors? The airplane alone is a boon of technology, but the 200+ people and their personal belongings and knowledge of social and economic history would have an unimaginable impact on our past.

Ultimately, this movie serves well as a science fiction romp. It delivers tension, good acting, and does open the conversation to what alternatives the past would have if the movie ended differently.

Ghost Rider is a lot of things. My friend loves the comics, but I never got into them. I like your more basic comics like Groo or Spider-Man. This story would seem to be right up my ally as I like spiritual stories, but I know enough about the Marvel universe to know that Mephisto is not the Christian Devil, and this is why I cannot find any comfort in this story.

My main gripe is Marvel's version of the Devil. With the Living Tribune, what is the concern for all those souls, other than to sell comics to those who confide in this story type. Marvel might as well tried to script their own version of the Illuminati, which Cage was involved in, coincidentally.

In the case of this film, I liked my friend's stories more. The image of a man on fire, able to wrangle in demons with a chain lit on fire, seemed better in mind than in my eyes. Quite honestly, the CGI was so transparent that it edged on "Uck" status. Not sure how a camp used a technology that would not stand up against a few years time.

The story was thin, which was comparable to Constantine. All in all, thanks, but I'll pass.

It is too bad about IMDb that by default reviews are set from best to worst. I suppose it is in their interest to have good movies/TV series in the world to keep people interested. Upon filtering on Chronological, I found a lot of nay saying about The Walking Dead, and it reliefs me that I am not alone. If you are looking for an insightful review, read the one from 20 February 2012 by captain-balrog. In my opinion, he laid out the pros/cons of the show well.

Though the votes for and against a comment are single digits, those who give low scores and real criticism get 2+ "usefuls". Those that slather on a 10 score do not actually add much to the conversation and their peers give them no credit for simply writing. It appears, from my reading of 3 pages back, that low scores are making genuine observations and really got bored with the show and its sudden, grinding pace. I agree.

What is it about the zombie genre that compels us? Simple minded brutes who individually are not as great a threat. But in numbers, the zombie hordes are a menace. When being pursued by the crush of numbers, it is all about opportunity, luck, intuition, intelligence, and some other stuff. The first season was full of tension. The sewer scene, the department store retreat, the "gang banger" asylum were all rife with terror, surprise, and tension. The destruction of the CDC added to the bleak state of the world and left you wondering what could possibly get worse.

Season two begins and maintains a much slower pace. I kind of think it should be that one episode represents one day in the characters' lives. But it seems seven to eight (maybe all thirteen?) will encompass less than a week. And really, looking for the girl, Sophia, for five episodes just drained me of any will to continue. Grimes seems intelligent, but the writers just stalled the series. Perhaps in TV-time that was a day or two, but to watch and wait for months is not worth hinging one's life around it and waiting. What really urked me was how that started: a wandering pack of zombies that suddenly appears 50 feet away, for them to pass with little incident, only to have all hell break loose by the two last dawdlers.

I thank IMDb users for adding plot synopsizes as I would rather read five sentences in two minutes rather than fast forward through an episode in fifteen minutes. At this point, I will sit on the sidelines, waiting and reading to reengage the series. November 20th, "Secrets", was my last show and I feel caught up, even if I miss the small details.

This movie was not good.

Tons of posturing. If you want to see scenes of the actors standing just right, this movie is packed with meaningless shots that look great. The one that put it over the edge was with the replacement to Megan Fox. The new girl was standing there with explosions behind her and a car flipped over. She blinked, but other than that there was nothing. However, from this she moment, we can make the connection that she went on to manipulate Megatron into action, which means she actually saved the day. During a literally explosive situation, this girl did two things: thought up a plan and looked nonchalantly amazing while doing it.

Difficult to follow action sequences. The fight sequences were like watching spaghetti get tangled around itself and other noodle in a thick, rich soup of tomato sauce. Putting it in slow motion, "it" being punches that blast robots apart or transformations from and to car form, did not make for good entertainment. If you did not get enough slow motion transforming in either of the first two movies, this may be your fix.

And, a tired franchise. Belligerent Sam. Boring/cliché jokes.

Energon detectors. Autobots doing the dirty work of the US government. Going to the moon only to peep aliens. Sam lands another model grade girl friend.

JJ Abrams, Mike Bay, and Jerry Brukhimer, love to take kind of controversial topics and use them as a platform. I cannot wait until one of these guys gets hold of a script about Christopher Columbus just to see how he gets into the minds of pre-teens, high-schoolers, and other impressionable demographics. Maybe they'll think up that Columbus left Europe to flee the zombie hordes only to discover an alien race building hydro electric dams on the bottom of the ocean and enslaving sea horse to carry the electricity on saddles made of silver to power a matter altering camera which would be meant to destroy humanity at a point just before it became to powerful to match, only find out they were too late; the humans were already too powerful because of their will to live, love, endure, and make movies about it.

Sam Whitwhicky had something funny about him in the first film. When Megan Fox was in his bedroom in the 1st movie and he had to deal with his parents, that was funny. But he grew quick tempered. His belligerence grew to be pretty excessive by the second movie, and in this one, he would have been tazed by any normal law enforcement agent with a zapper.

The over use of mini Autobots as a source of humor is akin to the Star Wars prequels using Jar Jar Binxs as a source of humor. Mildly amusing at first, but not enough to last for parts 2 and 3, for almost 5 hours. And, the minor character jokes get rehashed, too. The fat guy doing donut jokes was funny in the first one, by now all the jokes were forced and weak.

ON THE POSITIVE SIDE, sorry to ALL CAP, but this was mostly a nag so far, the brutality was great. I do not like on screen violence, so the humans being evaporated is not what I liked. Rather, it was some of the robot deaths that were pretty good. When you know a bad guy has got it coming and he only bleeds out -- that is not as satisfying as seeing his robot skull being taken apart. Plus, Optimus leveled the boom on some bad guys and the degree that he kicked butt had good "Wow" factor.

All in all, a less than average movie. What started as a good series should have stopped after number 1 and stayed in the realm of imagination or comic books. However, the money it pulled in for the movie company must have worth it for them, this site reported an income of over $1 billion, and that is what they they are in the business for.

Star Trek I should have been sped up and edited. Star Trek II showed the cunningness of Kirk and the sacrifice of individuals. Star Trek III talked about loyalty to friends, those friends closer than family. Star Trek IV was just plain cool and a bit funny. Star Trek V taught me that I need my pain. Star Trek VI showed the length to which friends go to help friends. The Original Series was best at drawing from very human source material, and exceeded the status of awesomeness when the three best friends that anyone ever had did it together. The Reboot lacked all of this, but most of all, it lacked heart.

I went in totally trailer-blind, so the Star Trek Reboot seemed exciting: To see the exact steps Kirk took to beat the Kobayashi Maru; To see just how Kirk became the youngest captain in Star Fleet history; I was genuinely curious to see just how that happened – to learn how one of the galaxies best strategists cut his teeth. I imagined Kirk played Kobi Maru calculated - like a tense poker hand - feigning a little sweat. Rather, he did a Cool Hand Luke and was all calm and nonchalant. (At least Luke was bluffing and there was a chance to lose.) The Kirk reboot was eating an apple! Ack! What reasonable outcome could he expect than to be expelled?

Yes, Star Trek needed a new breath of life. The TOS actors should not do another film, but Paramount and Gene Roddenberry's ghost should not have allowed that travesty. (I don't blame you, Gene.) The Reason Why: I spent my youth watching TOS, really came to appreciate the camaraderie of all the characters, including helmsmen, and genuinely enjoyed The Next Generation also. What the Reboot did was take 40+ years of history (1966 till present) and threw it out the window – completely erased my knowledge of a fictional universe and said, "Thanks for your money. Now it is time to go." My pop knowledge of Mirror, Mirror, The Naked Now, The Apple and all those hours watching premier episodes of TNG – it is all irrelevant. It does not exist. Thus, they do not respect us and the agreement that was in place. They create stories within certain guidelines, and we'll believe them.

What the reboot did was break the contract that existed between the Star Trek franchise and every self-respecting fan of good, quality writing. By changing the time line, none of the stories that were written 40 years ago mean a thing. By changing the time line, they stole the soul, the essence of the Captain Kirk everyone knew – one that grew up with his father as a guiding influence to join Star Fleet, who had and lost a brother, who may have handled the Kobayashi Maru with real poise (now we will never know) – and turned him into a joke. I really wanted to see how the Kobi Maru happened, and not some sloppy excuse by a weak writer who can call upon "alternate realities" to get away with anything.Very simply, the "writers" (and, yeah, I have to put that in quotation marks) took the super easy road and hacked out this... less than average movie.

To me, I do not give the reboot any credit to qualify as a Star Trek movie. More than anything, it was just a movie that happened to have some familiar names. If the Trekies accept it into the chronicles, then they can say good-bye to Captain Picard, Commander Riker, Mr. Data, and the whole of the Enterprise-D. Given such a loose and fast story, nothing is safe to take for granted. And that is too bad. They burned down the library and threw away the reel-to-reel tapes for a quick buck, for a director who happened to be on a hot streak and for writers who wrote Xena: Warrior Princess episodes! Ack! I like the classics, but look forward to new stories. I did not mind that this reboot pre-dated the whole series. Learning how Kirk became the youngest captain was a new story to all of us. But they absolutely melted and destroyed any semblance of TOS. TNG, DS9, Voyager – all gone.

What is worse about the reboot is that I went into it for some reassurance. For a message that said, even though the world is changing, here is something that is rock solid. Instead, they pulled the rug right out from under everyone and said, "Ta da! Here is a malformed ash tray that a high school freshman could write."

Clinging to the past isn't always healthy, but in this case, simply put, "Old Star Trek – Good. New Star Trek – Bad." IMDb does not allow for zero stars. Too bad since that is my assessment of those folks riding the coat tails of others. Star Trek V taught me I need my pain. It makes me who I am. So, sure I am a bit disappointed, but out of respect to Star Trek V, and all the other good work out there, it helped/inspired me to write this review and I hope this particular view can help others gain their own perspective.