SecularTheocrat's Reviews

The Waterer Watered (1895)

10/10

Over 100 years later and this is still funny

31 August 2018

I remember watching this as part of film studies in high school and completely forgot about it until 10 minutes ago when my friend mentioned it.

Comedy now is (well not always) more complex, but sometimes the simple stuff is just as funny

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Superman III (1983)

5/10

Where this series starts to go downhill

28 August 2018

Warning: Spoilers

This movie is in my opinion, not as bad as I often hear, it still has some enjoyable moments and stand out scenes, however when compared to the first 2 instalments it is of noticeably poorer quality.

I will start of with some positives, because despite popular belief there are a few of note.

The special effects, like the first 2 instalments were spectacular, or at least they are when you consider the context of the pre-CGI period when this movie was made.

Christopher Reeve is once again outstanding and this time was not overshadowed by any villains as the villains in this movie were mostly dull and 1 dimensional (I'll get to this later).

The Score is still good (Done again by Ken Thorne).

I know i'm probably in the minority here, but I did find the Leaning Tower of Pisa jokes incredibly funny, I can't explain why though.

Now that that's done with, I guess it's time for the bad stuff.

The movie overdid it with the comedy, there was comedy in the first 2 instalments, however it was used appropriately and never detracted from any serious scenes. Many of the jokes (with the exception of the misfortune of the Italian stall owner) didn't land for me and came off as forced.

This movie lacked a convincing and likeable villain like Zod or Lexy Richard Pryor was overly comedic and seemed to bumble his way through the movie (I attribute much of this to the writing rather than Pyror himself) and i'm not buying him being a computer genius. It seems completely out of place with the character that is established. The CEO guy was relatively one dimensional and was the generic evil industrial magnate with very generic motivations. The computer was like a disabled Hal 9000 or something. It was also to some extent unclear who the main villain was, in I it was Lex Luthor, in II it was Zod with luthor playing a secondary role. In this movie it starts out as Gus Gorman, then the CEO of the company he works at, then randomly in the last 20 minutes, the computer built by Gorman turned on everyone.

Overall this movie is bad, but not terrible, it is till watchable and fairly entertaining, also compared to IV it is Citizen Kane. The movie is salvagable and the plot could have worked (Albeit with considerable changes).

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Superman II (1980)

7/10

A good sequel to a great movie

27 August 2018

In my opinion this movie is still not quite as good as the first movie, it still manages to keep the flavour and charm of the original.

For me what really stood out about this movie was the villains, which are Zod and his gang and Lex Luthor. Terrance Stamp stole the show as General Zod and really sold me on the character's arrogance in relation to Earth. This arrogance was best depicted during the whitehouse scene when upon learning that superman would challenge him, he merely retorts "Who is this imbecile?". What I liked about the Kryptonians in this movie was that all 3 of them were their own character with differing personalities, something which I felt was lacking in Man of Steel (No disrespect to Michael Shannon). Gene Hackman once again is brilliant as Lex Luthor, although for me he was overshadowed by Zod (Which is OK as Zod is the main villain of the movie).

Ken Thorne's score is great and manages to hold up next to the John Williams score of the original.

The special effects, while appearing dated by todays standards are very good for the time and still look very believable. These effects stood out during Superman's fight with Zodd in Metropolis and with the depiction of the Phantom Zone at the beginning of the movie.

Unfortunately this is the last of the Christopher Reeve Superman movies that was of high quality. If you're planning on watching these movies I would recommend that you watch all 4 at least once, but for every subsequent viewing just watch the first 2.

Also RIP Mr Snake, all he wanted to do was say hi

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Superman (1978)

8/10

A great take on Superman

26 August 2018

What can I say that hasn't already been said?

This movie is great, and while Superman isn't my favourite comic book character, this is one of my favourite comic book movies.

In my opinion it has the right tone for the character of Superman, lighthearted and a little goofy while still being able to have serious moments that don't feel out of place.

The casting in this movie is good, to this day I still associate Superman with Christoper Reeve (No disrespect to Henry Cavil), I extend this praise to Margot Kidder, Marlon Brando and Gene Hackman. I personally liked this movies portrayal of Lex Luthor despite the fact that it deviates from the Industrial Magnate super-genius that i am more familiar with I felt that this direction worked more with the tone of this movie. Lex Luthor is still the classic evil genius but it is done in a comedic way and at times it can be hard to take him seriously despite the fact that he is literally planning on destroying the American west coast.

While this movie is 3 hours long I never felt board or got the impression that it was bloated, it had a lot of s**t to cover.

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Sausage Party (2016)

7/10

WTF did I just watch?

26 August 2018

Warning: Spoilers

Seriously I just watched a food orgy

Is it weird if I was kind of into it?

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Planet Raptor (2007 TV Movie)

3/10

Review I guess

31 July 2018

I think my main problem is that the Velociraptors depicted are inaccurate and more closely resemble Deinonychus without feathers.

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