Reviews

What's good about this movie: The strongest point of this movie is the well-developed emotional arch for the female lead, which makes a rather nonsensical plot line somewhat relatable at least on the emotional level. Now on to the bad: The idea of friendly and benevolent alien face off with idiotic, paranoid and violent human is nothing new. Also, as some may have already mentioned, many of the plot details are laughable at best and rather insultingly nonsensical at worst. Crossing of barrier of space-time continuum, traveling billions light years to earth, an alien technology so advanced that they can defy the law of gravity and suspend aircrafts the size of a big island in midair, yet somehow, all the greatest minds and biggest decision makers on earth believe that such advanced being can be deterred by bullets, bombs and explosives. More unbelievably, even with the tightest security control, some idiotic crew members somehow managed to sneak in a c4 explosive and hopefully blow the aliens away with a single C4. Near the end, soldiers can just ride up in 4x4s like whole bunch of cow boys and spray bullets at the alien air crafts while the Colonel sit in the room like a dumb ass without any control over the situation. The whole movie is a smear campaign of China and Russia. It just feeds right into American's fear of the rising Chinese power. Somehow Chinese are scarier than the aliens, even though they are just fellow human beings. Communicating with Chinese or Russian somehow proved to be more difficult than communicating with aliens. What a load of bullock. Yeah, China is going to destroy earth, but alien saves the day. The fear and alienation of Chinese presented in this movie borderline racism. But don't worry, one single phone call to the Chinese General and some whisper of his wife's dying words will change everything and finally we accomplished the ever elusive world peace! Hurray! Except the two main leads: The scientist guy and the linguistics girl, every single human character in this movie come off like stupid arrogant ass and a disaster waiting to happen. Nobody seems to possess a single ounce of sense. And why bring a bird into the aircraft? If you want to test the air, shouldn't you let the bird in "before" human?

Another A-fing handy cam gimmick, that adds no sense of realism! Guys, wake the f up! You are not fooling anybody with this freaking old gimmick. It is just annoying and stupid. The director looks like a moron. Sorry, I have to say this, you are a moron! Why do you think it is a good idea to use this cheap "found footage" trick? It was so freaking tired and predictable. 3 minutes into the movie, I already know the whole thing coming. I know what you were thinking too. You must be thinking: oh, time travel movies have been done so many times before. I got no talent, but I want to do the same subject but still want it to stand out from the rest. You know what, let me do the handy cam footage trick, that's never been done before! Well, news flash, it's been done many times before and it was never a good idea because it is so cheap, so annoying and so obviously trying too hard.

All great artists are masters of illusions and trickeries. Their creations mimic the reality so well, that they give hope and despair. They illicit real emotions like lucid dreams that makes you laugh and turn laughters to tears when you wake up in the nightmare. In that sense, all arts are forgery of reality.

Giuseppe Tornatore's "The Best Offer" is one of those rare piece of art that makes you suspend your belief by way of stunning cinematography, beautiful story telling and skillful characterization. I can guarantee that you have not seen something like this in a long long while, and will probably won't see something similar for even longer while.

Mr. Oldman is a stuffy and rightfully arrogant art connoisseurs and renowned auctioneer, who made a reputation by his craft as well as a fortune by his cunning. Years of training gave him sharp eyes to spot authentic art and forgery. But when it comes to dealing with people, he's somewhat handicapped and clueless, especially towards women. He's more interested in moldy oil painting than the flesh and touch of a human being. That all changed when he met Mrs Claire, an enigmatic recluse who suffers social anxiety so severe that she locked herself in her room ever since she's 14. She entrusted all her family belongings, among which there are many worthy antiques, to Mr. Oldman to be cataloged and auctioned off. Throughout the dealings between two, often sparked with intense conflicts and confrontations, the odd "couple" developed rapport and passion that is as eerie as it is heart wrenchingly beautiful, almost as if they are made for each other by their flaws in common.

An artist's rendition of reality must be anchored by something that is truly believable in order to to invite the audience in and draw out the true emotional response. Geoffrey Rush's performance is so naturally brilliant and effortlessly authentic. His character hides explosive emotions and crippling vulnerability underneath a cold and snobbery veneer, just as many other characters he portrayed throughout his career. Sylvia Hoeks' Claire is startlingly effective, switching between a hollowing ghost of a mental patient and warmth and passion of young lover, toys and haunts Mr. Oldman's senses and sensibility as well as the audience. Worthy mention also goes to Jim Sturgess and Donald Sutherland, who vitally completes the whole puzzle with their truly believable on screen presence.

It is a puzzle indeed, that will leave you thinking for hours after wards. Not because you are trying to make sense of what you have just saw, but because it confronts you with difficult questions about life itself to reconcile. If you ever asked a question "why" even when the answer to that "why" is so obvious, but you can not help but kept on asking the same question over and over, this movie will be a worth while experience for you. If your life has always been simply black and white and true and false, you will loathe the movie and everyone in it. To appreciate art, you must surrender your senses, and allow you be fooled with joy and pain. To appreciate life, I guess you will have to risk being fooled as well. I will let you be the judge.

I got the impression that Michael Bay did not actually do much directing in this movie. He was actually sitting at home and getting high the whole time while some computer geeks working feverishly on the special effects. There is no sign of a written script. Dialogues seems to be made up on the spot. Throw in some stock military footage of jet fighters and helicopters taking off and flying around, and some crazy editing of random shots of actors confused facial expression, running around in slow motion, yelling at each other in nonsensical gibberish, you have the movie! The editing and camera crew ought to be lined up and tested for substance abuse. No sober person could come up with this jumbo heap of mental diarrhea.

There is a strange consistency in Michael Bay's work. It has the look and feel of a US army's recruiting commercial. He is one of those current generation directors who make the whole movie looks like an ad campaign. The style works for ad campaign because the audience get an vague impression of what is going on but to find out what is really going on, they will have to go to the store and buy the product. It does not work for the movie because here, the movie IS the product. Michael Bay's character are also very loud and hyper. Come to think of it, I think they should send the whole film crew for drug testing, especially the director himself.

Also, I sense some cynical sarcasm in this sequel. It is so bad that it seems to be some sort of self deprecating parody. It is like Michael Bay is trying to paint a cartoon picture of himself that exaggerates all of his flaws. You know the kind of pictures in Mad Magazine. It is a pretty expensive joke consider the budget of this movie. But then again, like the title suggested, Michael probably scammed all those money away because this movie, though looks like very expensive on the surface, can probably be made with much less money consider 95% of the screen time are filled with computer generated effects. He could have out sourced the special effects to India or China, where mad 3d animation genius are working for peanuts. Hence my accusation of him being a scam artist.

My dad, being an old man from Asia, had never heard of Michael Bay before. He watched the movie for a bit and asked me if the movie was directed by a lunatic. He was very serious and sincere when he asked that question. I couldn't help and started laughing hysterically, while my poor dad looking at me, truly scared and concerned.

This movie has pretty much caught everyone by surprise as it was released months later in North America in low key after being released in Europe in 2008.

There are few things that made this movie really enjoyable and stand above the rest of Hollywood's action flicks. The lead actor, Liam Neeson, has such a overwhelming presence on screen. He commands attention and respect with such authenticity. Contrast to other younger Hollywood pretty boys, he's what you would call a real man. In this case, he a father who's on a mission to bring back his daughter from the hands of smugglers. He's confident, extremely motivated, skillful and brutally straight to the point. The no nonsense take on screenplay, directing and acting has really impacted me like a punch right on the nose. There's no fancy bullet time tricks and high flying kicks, every hit is simple, effective, and cut right to the bone.

Being directed and written by Europeans also gives us a different perspective in portraying the European underground crime world. The underlying tone was pretty dark and desperate, pit the lone Liam Neeson against the world of evil. The grittiness of the reality helps intensify the emotion and make the bloody revenge more satisfying. This is not Guy Ritchie's British crime drama which was trifled with smart mouthing and comical coincidences. This is life or death, all or nothing. Bring back home my daughter, or die without ever seeing her again. On top of all these, this movie also has a break neck pacing. It draws you in right from the start and won't let go. It could be one of those rare movies that can be just as entertaining watching it the second time.

Go watch this movie, and have a good time.

To be honest, I'm rather divided by this film. On one hand, I'm intrigued and fascinated by the characters, on the other hand, I'm slightly disturbed.

There's not much story here. Basically, a young video store clerk became obsessed with a rather weird and introverted woman who is a frequent customer. And then he decided to stalk her.

Fair enough, we all have had weird crush on certain somebody we met in our lives and we all may have mentally stalked someone. But to act it out like in this movie is rather disturbing. The movie turned it into a rather awkward but nonetheless sweet love story, but in real life, who knows how ugly it can get.

Both characters have some severe issues which I won't spell out the specifics. Suffice to say that we all have some personal demons that made us do some stupid or weird things or act in some unhealthy ways. That's why at some level, I can relate to certain scenes or certain dialogue. On the other hand, to put it bluntly, the two main characters in this movie are pretty sick mentally. When I say sick, I didn't mean they are disgusting or anything. I basically meant that they are not healthy.

There's a major problem with this movie: it basically copped out in the end by cheating its way out with a rather cliché ending. But I assume it's the only way out by then, since both characters, though likable, are so damaged to the point that it simply can not be fixed within two hours.

If I had watched this movie few years ago, I would be totally lost. Now after going through some really messed up things and messed up people, I am able to understand the characters in this movie. Trust me, I am sympathetic to the girl though I find her to be a lost case. To our stalker boy, he's an emotional train wreck with criminal potentials. This movie, save the ending, can be a great case study for a shrink.

Though I enjoyed the movie, I have to say that the mind behind this movie is rather disturbed as well. That's probably why she's great too as the female lead. I got a feeling that she playing herself to a great extend.

Our society is always in need of someone who can do the dirty jobs that no one else wants to do. In this case, Dane Cook's Tank got a special talent in doing one of those despicably dirty job that calls for a real shameless and insensitive man (or real asshole in short). You pay him to go out with your girlfriend just so that after the horrific dating experience, your girlfriend will either crawl or run back to you because compare to him, you are a saint and knight in shining armor. But, there's more to Tank than meets the eyes. He's not only an asshole, he's also a player and quite a lady's man. He supposes to be smart and funny and witty and defiant, he's like a breath of fresh air among the rest of lamer (aka you and me) in the dating scene. At least that's what the movie trying to sell to you. Oh, btw, he also is somewhat sweet and closet romantic.

To be honest, this movie is not a complete loss. I was somewhat amused and provoked. I don't usually go out my way to catch a romantic comedy but this movie attracted me due to the unusual subject matter.

I'm not really familiar with the lead actor/comedian: Dane Cook. I vaguely remember him being on a stage running around yelling and the audience was laughing while I was scratching my head and thinking: Is this supposed to be funny? To be honest, he has a distinctive look and personality that stand out from the crowd. Well, if you have to ask, he got one of those "likable jerk" kind of look about him. He's not Will Smith in Hitch, he's definitely not John Cusack in High Fidelity. He's shallow and obnoxious, but you can't just picture him as a complete joke yet because he got something hinting that he's not a complete loser.

Jason Biggs here as Dustin, type cast into our stereotypical nerdy, clumsy, desperate, clueless nerve wrack of guy, who is also very sweet and innocent. In another word, he's the complete opposite of Dane Cook's Tank. Oddly enough, they are roommates and best friends. How the unlikely duo became best friends is unbeknown to us like many other logic holes in this movie. But fear not, we leave our senses at the door when entering Hollywood.

Alexis, played by Kate Hudson, is the love interest of Dustin. When Dustin screwed up his chance with Alexis by blurting out "I love you" like crazy and inviting her to move in with him only to be shut down (yeah, big surprises), he panicked. Then, he hired Tank to do a dirty number on Alexis, which eventually turned out to be a bad idea, which pretty much is this whole movie about: turning bad ideas into disastrous reality.

This movie worked on certain level for me, due to the fact that it intentionally or not, revealed a lot about human nature when dealing with relationships.

At the mean time, it also failed on many aspects that eventually turn itself into a big joke. Nothing in this movie can be taken seriously, even the so called love and eventual awakening seems crude and oddly shallow.

There are quite a few problems about this movie. To list a few: Kate Hudson's Alexis was by no mean an angel that the movie is trying to depict. She's manipulative, cynical, vulgar and rather slutty. Compare to Cameron Diaz's There's something about Marry, in which the movie gave us a lot to like about Marry. She's kind, caring and all around a wholesome girl. But Alexis? What do those two guys see in her beside the fact that she's blond and jogs everyday? Also, Kate Hudson looks rather old and tired in this movie.

Jason Biggs plays a desperate loser that the audience though may relate to one way or the other, but not necessarily care for. His character is not the least likable. He's rather pathetic, dishonest and all around weak. Alec Baldwin had a small appearance as Tank's dad, an old, overweight and bloated womanizer who uses his position as a college profession to get women of his daughter's age. There are some other minor characters that provide more inappropriate comical material, which are all good. I don't mind dirty jokes but some of them are just plain silly. Good thing about this movie is that it has a good excuse for the lame and inappropriate behaviors: he's playing an asshole. Okay, we got the point.

All in all, the subject matter is rather interesting and it is a fresh take on relationships and the movie is not afraid to push a few hot buttons. But overall plot is pretty weak and none of the characters are likable except THE asshole himself (that's saying something). It has some funny moments and at certain points it's as gross and honest as real life (reminds me of certain reality shows). But many jokes are not humorous funny but rather "wtf that's screwed up" kind of funny.

I give it a five out of ten for being different, somewhat entertaining and not afraid of being silly (in other words, not taking itself too serious). I had a good time. Good for a rental.

Watching Benjamin Button's life unfolding on screen is like watching a reverse process of sunset. Wouldn't that be "sunrise"? You may ask. No, it is not sunrise, it is a reverse sunset. What exactly does it mean then? That's the question that got me scratching my head upon the moment the credit started rolling on the screen.

Mystically affected by a giant clock that was built by an agonizing father who wish to turn back time so his son would not have died in WWI, Benjamin was born with a rare condition. He was born a dying old man who would then grow younger and younger everyday. Does this unique ability offer Benjamin any special perspective on life? Well, one can not really tell as Benjamin pretty much lived the same way like you and me, except the apparent anomaly noted above. His uniqueness or weirdness was rather well accepted by everyone he encountered. People treated him absolutely like any other human being, sometime even better. Following the same line of complaint, everybody got along surprisingly well from early 20's all the way to present time. Consider the racial tension, war time and economical depressions throughout the era, the movie's fairy tale like peaceful setting makes me feel rather disconnected from the time and space it was trying to depict.

In the early part of this film, looking oddly like a well behaved and well dressed Gollum, our Benjamin mostly sit quietly an observer. He's more like a senile old man than a reckless child with an old man's body. He pretty much persisted in that way throughout the rest of the film, never angry, never overly joyful, and never showed any true anguish, conflicts or depression, nor did he showed any fear. He pretty much accept life with a tired smile and life pretty much treated him the same way. Such complacency nullified any dramatic undertone that the director may try to paint.

The second part of the movie was driven by the love story between Benjamin and his childhood friend Daisy. Though know her since very young age, Benjamin's life was pretty much parallel to her until they collide in midpoint, at conveniently ripe age for love.

Now, the story of Benjamin's life was told by the narratives from hospital bed ridden old Daisy and her daughter's reading of Benjamin's dairy. I don't know why director chose to tell the story this way. It never added anything to the story. As matter of fact, it completely ruined any surprises and fail to draw emotional response from viewer by way of the unknown twist and turns of the love story. Because from the very early on, we already know that this old woman is Daisy who must be a significant part of Benjamin's life, they must have fallen love with each other and they must have spent big chunk of their lives together. This really had taken away the effect of the love story between the two on audiences.

After the high point of the relationship between Benjamin and daisy, the movie pretty much proceed like a receding tide, there are some spots of minor waves here and there, but mostly, Benjamin fades into obscurity.

This movie, like Benjamin's eventful yet oddly emotionally bland life, can be likened to a peaceful sunset in reverse. It is not quite a sunrise, because though Benjamin grows younger, he ages mentally pretty much the same way like rest of us. This special gift of reverse aging doesn't seem to award him any special wisdom nor give him any dramatically different perspectives on life. His life is pretty much void of any conflicts. Things come and go quietly. Nothing on the screen really stirs up a big storm though Benjamin had been through plenty of storms throughout his life and eventually came out all unharmed and hardly even bothered. Because of this, I considered the movie somewhat a disappointment because the it failed to fulfill the potential of the unconventional premise of the source material.

There are few points to note, though they are never really fully fleshed out. Benjamin seems to have a very keen sense of the causal effects of time and events. At certain key points of movie, he's able to reconstruct a seemingly random event from the perspective of an agnostic determinism. Upon investigating a little deeper, I realize that Benjamin, though age reversely, did not actually live life reversely. Therefore, the perspective came rather unnaturally, forced and out of place, especially the sequence proceeding the third encounter with Daisy. (I shall not spoil any plot).

From the technical point of view, this movie deserves a sound applause. From the music score, set design, special effects and the cinematic, they are all well polished and skillfully executed. The make ups and the facial special effects is extremely well done consider that this movie would not be possible at all without it. The facial special effects can be a little distracting from time to time, but it is still among the best I've seen in Hollywood.

Overall, it is one of the better movies in 2008 though failed to fulfill its full potential.

From a technological point of view, this movie fulfilled its mission of being somewhat entertaining. It's not particularly thought provoking nor did it offer anything new, partly due to the fact that the subject has been done to death. While it does not excel among the abundant cache of spy movies of Hollywood (one of its favorite subject and stable of annual production to fill the quota of the genre), it is not any worse either.

May I impose a rather philosophical question before we delve into the judgment of the movie: Is Hollywood capable of making a real thought provoking movie concerning the subject of politics and religion? Movie is ultimately a commercial entity. When a director is facing the choice of being truthful and being commercially successful, what would he choose? Often than not, most directors, especially the big names, would choose the latter as the more famous he is, the more is at stake.

Now let's take a quick look at Ridley Scott's track record. Being one of the better directors in Hollywood, he's very good at sensationalize a controversial subject. He's very skillful at making a movie look more serious and truthful than it really is. To be honest, I enjoyed Gladiator immensely. But what exactly is Gladiator about? Probably nothing that's really relevant to our daily life. Now, let's look at some of his other pictures (I will come back to this later to illustrate why I want to do this): Black Hawk Down (a propaganda movie that though depict the cruelty of war on the surface, is actually glorifying the war machine - soldiers, by not asking the real question of why do we fight for wars that seems serves little or no purpose, instead, praising the heroism of soldiers and loyalty of brotherhood between them). Let's take a look at another big budget movie of his: Kingdom of Heaven, a more "sophisticated" historical epic. What's so sophisticated about this movie then? That though there are some corrupted, greedy, scheming and cruel militants, crusades in general are decent, trustworthy, kind, loving and generous? Are they not grand inquisitors, liars, thieves, robbers, rapist and plunderers that kill and rape in Christ's name? Now let's come back to this movie, in which we witness Hollywood master doing what he does best yet again. From the surface, we see a cunning yet conscience CIA operative fighting against all odds, trying to capture a top level terrorist leader. Let's forget about all the silly tricks of Hollywood such as hacking into anyone's computer by running some software and tracking anyone down by pushing a joystick. Leonardo DiCaprio's Roger Ferris is so unbelievably self contradictory to a point that no matter how good Leonardo can act, he can not make this character look real. DiCaprio is such a naturally charming actor, he can make you like him within a few seconds of screen time. Without his charm, this character will literally become such a laughing stock. In one scene, he's angry at his supervisor and accusing him of being deceitful. He seems to conveniently forget that he's also all about lies and scheming. I guess that's what this movie is about: lies after lies. But the problem is, the director also want you to believe that he's also very decent, righteous and truthful.

The romance, seems to be rather out of place, turn out to be a major trickery to propel the plot along.

The whole movie is just inches away from sinking down to the level of recent Hollywood popcorn garbage such as Eagle Eyes. Like I said, it is entertaining, but you have to suspend your intelligence and logic for 2 hours in order to enjoy it.

Ben Thomas, a flawed human being, with gifts to change people's lives, for better or worse, had chosen 7 people to be the recipient of his gifts.

He's not a saint, and he's far from perfect. He's not a messiah, he's not playing God, he's not here to teach anyone any lessons. Got over that, then you will stop criticizing this movie, and you will eventually get off your moral high horse and see this movie through the eyes of an ordinary human being, a very flawed one just like rest of us, going through some extraordinary circumstances. Ben Thomas got some hard decisions to make, and he has been struggling. This is where Will Smith truly shines. He has the capacity to go into some really really dark corners, which made some of the audience feel very uncomfortable judging by some of the criticisms here.

Here, we witness a process that deal with life's most challenging subject, deep deep in the soul level. Hopefully, by seeing this process, we will be able to reflect upon our own life, our own soul and ask ourselves some really challenging questions as well. Maybe we are lucky enough that we don't ever have to deal with those questions. But if we are, would you expect yourself to make the perfect decisions that is approved by not only God, but also by all moral standards? I guess not.

Truth be told, there are no perfect decisions and life is not perfect. It never will be perfect! If you can accept that, then why would you expect Will Smith's Ben Thomas to be perfect? He is just like you and me, trying to find the redeeming value in this harsh reality which we call "LIFE"! There's no ultimate right or wrong decisions, only the ones that make sense to yourself.

This movie, through dramatic story telling, let us peer into a slice of life and force us to think about difficult issues concerning life and death by thrusting us into these extraordinary circumstances.

It made me think deep and hard, and force me to come to terms that Ben Thomas, though probably one of the most sincere, charming and earnest human being you will ever meet in your life, is also deeply flawed and sad and unfortunately had to deal with some of the most difficult dilemma in life. He is probably just like you and me who is trying to do his best and make most out of what he consider himself to be capable of offering to the world. Under the same circumstances, you may make different decisions. You may very well live your life in a different way. That's exact what life is about, making the decisions that make the most sense to you.

Fortunately, through Ben Thomas, I saw human quality shine through, which not only illuminated my inner world, but also makes me treasure life more.

Sidney Lumet's depressing tale of 2 dysfunctional brother's attempt at crime down spiraling into the black hole of desperation and disaster, send your emotion from shock, disgust, bewilderment all the way to utter resentment and disbelief.

Impeccably played by Philip Seymour Huffman and Ethan Hawk, the on screen duo immediately drew you into the bizarre and surreal world of trouble. From then on, you got to witness the two weeks worth of life events unfolding in front of you, told not by chronological order, rather layer by layer in order of emotional intensity. You were often presented with the most explosive segment of a key event, followed by back tracking of what led up to that moment. It's a great way to get audience's attention and keep them alert and thinking.

The subject matter is harsh and rather difficult to deal with. It is this level of discomfort that challenges you to relate your own life to that of on the screen. Though I believe not that many people could have had such dramatic event in their life (hopefully not!), nevertheless, you can still find yourself relate to the state of minds of the characters.

I have to warn you though, this is a movie that nobody in it wins, it is depressing to the core. But as a movie, it is masterfully shot and perfectly casted. The characters are so believable, that there are times the sense of tension and despair just overwhelms you. For those who smokes (though I don't), you may find yourself compelled to take couple of cigarette breaks during the whole viewing. It is almost too emotionally draining to watch the whole thing in one sitting.

The music use is kept to a minimum, and it remains to be very effective in building up intensity in key moments. I noticed the kind of music style is very old school, using repetition of simple tune with increasing tempo. It serves well to aggravates you and draw out the sense of panic and disorder.

I do have a couple of minor complaints in terms of obvious plot hole in ending and overall tune of the movie. I won't comment much on the plot hole as it will spoil the plot. The overall tune of the movie is overly dark with little to no sense of redeeming value to be ever found in any of the characters. As I commented earlier, in this movie, nobody wins. It pits the audience against the great odds of involuntary evil, men of great weaknesses that do stupid things. It like looking at a masterfully painted picture depicting something truly ugly and pathetic. A fine piece of movie art it is, but offers very little enjoyment. I found certain imagery to be very disturbing and distasteful, especially the ones depicting Huffman's naked body and prolonged shots that followed him in the den of a drug dealer. A fine actor he is, I just can't stand his mannerism. I guess he's still somehow trapped in Capote's ghost, or maybe that's just how he is.

To be honest, this movie deserves more than a one star, but I gave it one star anyways as I see more than what's wrong with this movie but pop culture in general in today's world.

This is a movie that's solely about a man's obsession, to the point of perversion.

The director used a very simple trick. He created a monster that defies all valid social context but somehow thrived and survived against all odds. The movie's minimalistic presentation gives an impression of authenticity and realism, yet you have a character that's unrealistic to a comical extend.

There's this man who hate, distrust and despise everyone, yet he confront them constantly as he wishes to prove and validate something he believes to be non existence to begin with. From there, all manners of confusion and oddity arise. A man who had everything easily obtainable yet often frustrated and angry as if life has been depriving him of opportunities. Talking about not making sense! He's more cynical than the Satan himself. Thank God that he's been occupied by all these oil business. Otherwise, he would make a perfect serial killer.

The first 30 minutes have no dialogs. We are presented with this character that comes off as very little human like, and he persisted to be that way through out the whole film. Once he started talking, he's all of a sudden a man of great persuasion skills, oozes with will power and determination, and some kind of unapologetic charisma. He's an opportunist, cold and calculated. Yet he comes off to be extremely emotional and are set off by the slightest detection of insincerity. When you fuse all these contradictory personalities into one man, you would end up with a Picasso piece, a monstrosity of a character that's devoid of any real human qualities that you can relate to. For those who can't see through all these trickery are easily taken by the bold style and brute force. For me, it's a disaster.

The music is as nonsensical, menacing and crude as the character. It is there to built tension when there's actually little or nothing happening on the screen, just like the scrutinizing cold stare of Daniel Day Lewis, it offends and provokes with little or no reason.

The whole thing may very well work for those who are easily manipulated, as it can be witnessed here. Beyond the facade of cinematic trickeries that feeds off the fear and bewilderment of audience, there's nothing of substance here. Same can be said about "No Country For Old Man". It is a trend of directory style that's heavy on niche trickery, very little on character development. Because they believe that you don't need to understand the character, you just to be overwhelmed by it. It is indeed becoming a trend, spreading at an alarming rate. Before long, the screen will be filled with psychopath with very little human like qualities. I fear the worst, when those characters are to be admired and imitated by the feeble minded, and hyped by the spineless.

The whole story evolves around a freakish petty little lie of a jealous, cowardly and spoiled 13 year old girl that costed 2 people's happiness. The end. I'm not sure if I'm watching the same movie that got everybody praising about. There's no bigger meaning, no redemption, no resolution, no moral high ground and certainly no atonement! Instead, it made me feel rather cheap and ridiculous. The character is rather spiteful and cowardly as she eventually admitted in the end.

I really don't mind watching a movie that reveals the ugly side of humanity, as long as it's done in a honest and proper way. The problem with this movie is that the story and character is so petty, but the music score and cinemaphotography makes you feel like you are watching an epic tale. It ended up rather strange and disconnected.

It is the epitome of English hypocrisy: Petty, dishonest, self indulgent and meaningless. The whole thing has nothing to do with the Second world war. It was thrown in there in a desperate attempt to rub a little bit meaningfulness off the war. But since the premise is so petty, ugly, meaningless and unnecessary, it appears rather awkward. Everything is cheapened, incuding the war. I would rather go to the extend that it perverted the sacrifice of those who died fighthing the war. Remember, the whole story centers around a jealous 13 year old girl who try to destroy the man she couldn't get because he loves her sister. It is eventually a rather perverted little drama that built off such petty intention. It never reached any moral high ground.

Enlightenment comes from experiencing. If you never had anything, how can you ever give up anything? I recently watched a movie that tells a totally opposite story. It was about a young Tibetan monk who walked away from the life of detachment and lived for a while like a normal person, fell in love, got married and had children ... until one day, he walked away again, back to the life of detachment and seclusion. On the contrary, Into the wild tells a story about a young man who try to run away from civilization and be alone with the nature.

Deep in the core of these two opposite stories lies the same bare naked truth of humanity. There are something one can never seem to escape no matter where you are and what kind of life you are living.

Here's our young hero, torn and tired of the inconsistency, viciousness and lies of his parents and the toll that it's taking on his conscience, decided to just walk away, far far away from everything as humanly as possible. He took on a symbolic journey to seek the absolute truth that's free from the contamination of human touch. He walked "Into the wild" with all of his arrogance and earnest, equipped with nothing but his stubborn grip and fascination on a place called Alaska, where true meaning of life can be found.

On some level, it reminded me of my younger self, and all the anguish and suffocation I experienced after the teen years. The time when we were old enough to supposedly bear the burden of decision making yet not quite experienced enough to weigh in all the choices. The time when life was all of a sudden upon us.

On a very personal level, quite strangely, this movie hit me hardest not with its depiction of the wild but the depiction of human interaction. To me, that's where it truly shines brightly, so brightly that it washed out the dark and lonely hours of "Into the wild".

This is not the kind of movie that gives you any closure. There's no triumph nor enlightenment. It present a slice of life as it is, charming and flawed like the main character. Contrast to young McCandless' bleak and cynical world view, you will only remember his bright and innocent smile, the warm sparkles in his eyes, the brief yet achingly beautiful moments of human interaction that he often abruptly run away from.

You may not necessarily learn anything from the main character, but you will definitely draw something truly valuable from his experience. Somewhere in a dark and obscure corner of the earth, there's a Chris McCandless lay underneath the stars, gazing on its vast tranquility, dreaming of his Alaska. For me, Chris McCandless didn't go "Into the Wild", he went into himself, searching for an idea, a moment of pure authenticity, something that had eluded him.

Human perceive things in most wonderfully creative and erogenous ways. That's why a flawed art can be just as effective, if not more, in sending your conscious through a range of emotions so fast and furious that reason have no chance in hell to ever catch up. This film is one of those flawed art that through its deranged and surreal vision and narratives, you live the love and pain of Bob Maconel, a quiet man who was not so quiet within.

The presentation is often cartoonish and stereotypical, yet the emotion that was conveyed are often bloody raw to a fault that you just can't simply escape. Bob is a troubled man who's life is as boring as it is tormenting. We don't know his past and how he became what he is. The sad truth is that the only colorful and interesting thing in his life is his homicidal and suicidal anguish, the held up energy and intensity that dramatically contrasted his drab and introverted appearance, until one day, he let it all loose, in a sort of unexpected way.

In a society full of able thinkers and feelers competing for limited opportunities, there are those who express in terms, those who express against the terms and those who are simply ignored. Bob is an ignored soul. But the trouble is, being ignored doesn't diminish his ability to think and feel. Bob gave us a chance to explore the mind of those who's life are often invisible until they made the front page news, with increasingly frequent occurrence in today's society. Only here, we are not only presented with the dark and ugly side of it, but also the vulnerably romantic side as well. Through all of its oddity and obscurity, we get a glimpse of its human quality, and were left scarred by its sheer beauty.

I can only describe the style of directing as creative honesty, as honesty is in such short supply in today's media. What was expressed outwardly is exaggerated in order to stay true with what locks inside a person's mind. For this alone, I was over joyed by the experience.

Go see it, with a understanding mind and compassionate soul. Let the range of emotion washes over you, be it pity or wonderment, don't haste to judge. Just let it haunt you for a while.

Making a movie is definitely a team project, which involves a group of talented professionals spending considerable amount of time and money in shooting, editing and post production finishing, presumably test viewing of something that theoretically, should at least turn out to be reasonably acceptable judging by common sense of an average person. It is exactly this nature of movie making that makes me the more bewildered and dumbfounded whenever I witness something that's truly awful. Unfortunately, this movie turn out to be one of them.

The whole movie is made from the perspective of a rather loud and dimwitted individual defies all common sense, shakes and bumps his handycam throughout 10 hours of ordeal of his friends trying to survive an apocalyptic event. During the 2 hours sitting, I've been constantly asking myself, why hadn't anyone who participated in the making of this movie tried to ask this one simple question: isn't it more plausible for him to ditch the camera and run for his life? Why on earth did he keep recording instead of offering a helping hand like a normal human being when his friends needed his help the most.

Common sense aside, the viewing experience is crude and downright torturing. It is actually physically nauseating. I kept wishing that the cam is just a deploy before the real movie begins. I was wrong. By the end of the movie, which is one of those wtf ending, I felt violently ill.

I understand the intention of the director, which is trying to make this movie appear to be as real as possible. It turned out to be a really cheap trick and gets so obvious and old 30 minutes into the movie. How can you convince your audience the experience is real when the very gimmick to draw your audience in totally unreal at the same time. A real person would have put down the damn camera as soon as the hell broke loose. Instead, the guy kept shooting and mouthing and yelling and violently shaking the camera for 2 hours.

There're just so many this type of movie out there nowadays. So the director choose to do something different, which is understandable. But he ultimately failed when he decided to put all of his eggs in this one shaky basket. He bet the whole movie on the "Blair Witch Project" inspiration. I know the comparison had probably been made by others already. They are not the same. The difference is: it works well for Blair Witch Project, it totally failed for this movie. Blair witch project had a purpose of filming through the handycam. This movie had no purpose and it's very unappropriated for the guy to keep shooting the cam under this circumstances.

I've watched this movie quite a while ago and had been trying to get this off my chest but kept putting it off. To put it in a few simple words, it's absolutely one of the worst movie I've seen and it's pretty much an insult to my intelligence.

I've noticed that this movie has been rated quite high in this site. But then I also noticed that there were mostly Russians that gave the raving reviews. I understand the sentiment and the sense of nationalism. But at the same time, it's rather pathetic to grasp on a movie in hope of finding some national pride. Coming from modern day Russia, this movie is just as disorganized and confusing as the country. It is pretty apparent that the director is making stuff up as it goes. The end result is not only nonsensical, but extremely unbalanced 2 hours of screen time filled with fancy camera tricks that serves little or no purpose in terms of story telling. It is a typical example of style over substance, only in this case, there were no substance.

It all started with some kind of far fetched myth about a supernatural chalk and some barbaric Mongols who tried to steal it. The premise of this sequel really had nothing to do with the rivalry of night and day forces told in the Night Watch. Now fast forward to the present day, without giving up too much of the plot(only if it had any), some one tried to set someone up and some weird stuff happened and then some more weird stuff happened and then we are all of a sudden all fighting for that same old chalk again. Imagination is one thing but incoherency and inconsistency is totally another. You could imagine that one can walk on water. It would be perfectly fine if you stick with that story. But in this movie, one minute one can walk on water but only to get drown in the next scene. Obviously I'm using an analogy. There were no walking on water of drowning in this movie. But you may find plenty of inconsistency in that nature. One person can be extremely powerful in one minute but only to turn out to be totally vulnerable in the next.

In the end, all I've got from this movie is that everything in this movie serves one purpose and one purpose only: that is to let the director show off more camera tricks and special effects. Forget about coherency, forget about consistency, forget about the plot and forget about everything. As long as it looks cool, then consider it mission accomplished. But the problem is, 2 hours of MTV style camera tricks can only be cool for 5 minutes and then it's quickly becoming an annoyance. In the end, it's so superficial and fluffy that I felt myself walk away a little dumber.

Don't get me wrong, the cameraman and special effect technician got mad talent. Too bad they were working for an idiotic director. Every single frame of this movie can be very cool by itself. It can be very inspirational for anyone who want to learn cool camera tricks. But for someone who wish to get a rewarding movie experience, please look else where.

If you went to see the movie expecting something like Mel Gibson's Apocalypto, you will be disappointed obviously. But why would you expect it to be Apocalypto if you've seen the trailer? It tells a mythical tale of a legendary Norseman who was raised by native Americans. They called him ghost. And it's this ghost who ended up protecting the tribes from the destruction of the Viking Clang who shared the same lineage with him. The plot line is just that simple. What kept me entertained was the action sequence, absolutely stunning cinematography and the overall presentation and atmosphere. The overall tune of the movie is dark, mythical and menacing, fit perfectly well for the theme. Vikings are presented more like beast than man, with giant statue and equally ghastly giant armors and weapons.

Some may argue that the vikings in this movie kill senselessly without any purpose. Does having a purpose makes evil more sensible? I have good news for people who are looking for reasons behind evil: they all have purposes and reasons, so don't waste time seeking one for them. Bad news for you: it absolutely makes no difference! Throughout human history, all aggressors had plenty of reasons to invade, ravish and destroy other culture and lives, the list goes from Vikings to Hitler... and it will probably go on forever. But does having reasons and purposes to kill make the killing more sensible? Absolutely not.

In this movie, Vikings are symbolic evil. Giving it a reason to kill doesn't make any differences as I stated above: they all have reasons, pick one and get over with it. On the other hand, the movie was trying to suggest that not only there's this battle of good and evil going on in the physical world, there's also a battle of hate and love in one's heart. When asked: who would won, Ghost was given the answer: the one you feed the most. It's a very interesting theme that I wish the director would explore a little bit deeper. But in the end, violence prevailed the screen time. The thought of inner struggle and loftier redemption was lost in the midst of killing and vengeance. No sin was forgiven and no bad deeds went unpunished. Though it's a more satisfying end, but a shallow one.

Overall, I enjoyed the movie for what it is. I'm not looking for complicated plot nor deeper character development. For an action movie, its visually stunning, fast paced and immersing. It kept me interested throughout the 90 minutes and left me pondering about some unfulfilled premises. It's not as bad as some have painted it to be.

An ambitious and ferocious reporter's life took a strange turn after one of her story got shut down.

It has a set up of an intriguing thriller, but turned out to be an 90 minutes long advertisement campaign. There not much a coherent story here. And it requires a great deal of leap of faith and suspense of believe to drag the plot along. Eventually, it ends with a killer twist that makes you go "what the heck?" Within these 90 minutes, Halle Berry parades with different sexy outfit, alternating between night gown, tight skirts and cocktail party dresses. There are few scenes the camera literally fixated on her butt for quite a few minutes. Beside that, you got bombarded with blatant product placements.

The plot is propelled along basically by the unrealistic hacking capability of Halle Berry's psychotic and geeky coworker played by Giovanni Ribisi. He's the sole excuse of all the impossible tricks the director pulled. It's like "oh well", we got a geek here, so we can hack into everything. Therefore, anything is possible. So don't expect anything in this movie to be able to stand test of reason.

It's obvious that this is one of those movies that were made for the sole purpose of making a quick buck. For this reason, I rated 1 notch lower than otherwise innocent failed attempt.

Do you really have to watch the whole movie before reviewing it? What if it's so bad that it became painful to watch it any longer? And you felt obligated to warn other people not to waste their time either. This is how I felt about this movie. I quit right after the guy wrecked his car, which is about 30 minutes into the movie. It became apparent that this movie is going no where.

The good: Sean Bean is perfectly charming and creepy as usual.

The bad: Just about everything else.

What exactly about this movie that turned me off? In the short 30 minutes of my total viewing, it managed to cram in all the Hollywood horror clichés that's known to man. And the characters are so annoyingly stupid, you just give up on them very soon. What other reason left for me to keep watching this movie if 1. it became predictable with all the clichés and 2. I don't care about the characters anymore and sort of expect them to be killed anyway? The movie opens by killing an innocent rabbit right in front of your eyes. So I got the message that the director's not afraid of being gross and irrelevant. Few minutes later, he killed a giant dragon fly on the windshield. Just so he can show you how the meathead boyfriend try to wash the dead bug off the windshield using a bottled water, while driving on the freeway! He ended up with dirty water splashed all over his face. Surprise! It's not particularly funny either. It's just annoying and stupid. It's no wonder that he eventually managed to drove the car off the road and drove his windshield right through a tree. At least the stupidity is very coherent and persistent.

I turned the movie off right there, because I already knew what atrocities follows. (The usual cat - mouse chase with a few cheap scares and more stupidity wearing on your nerves).

It's kind of annoying to see a good classical horror theme got man handled into such predictable wreckage. It's also sad to see Sean Bean in it.