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Reviews
Exodus: Gods and Kings (2014)
Even at 3 hours 40 minutes, time flies by watching The 1956 Ten Commandments movie, and absolutely C r a w l s by watching this one...
I could Not have been more disappointed in "Exodus Gods and Kings." It's impossible for me to not compare it with "The Ten Commandments" since it's exactly the same story, so here goes...
"The Ten Commandments" movie of 1956 at 3 hours and 40 minutes, with No CGI, and No battle scenes is easily 10 times more enjoyable than "Exodus Gods and Kings."
Every moment of "The Ten Commandments" is so captivating with top quality story, scripts, acting, directing, sets, costumes, visual effects, and music that time really flies by when watching it. "Exodus Gods and Kings," however, is so desperately dull, with horrible script, cheap looking sets, lack luster performances, I can honestly say that it's the worst movie I have seen in a very long time.
Even the music was forgettable (except when it sounded like the original "Stargate" movie soundtrack, which it did a lot of times).
And don't even get me started on the visual effects in "Exodus Gods and Kings." The plagues are done so well they're stomach churning, but they don't even happen in the way that the original Bible stories say they happened. But the ONE scene in the entire movie that's really spectacular CGI is directed so completely without thought that it makes no sense whatsoever...
SMALL SPOILER ALERT: The water in the Red Sea is rapidly receding to the right, sort of like what happens before a Tsunami. It only takes a few minutes for that area of the Red Sea to be shallow enough for the thousands of recently freed Hebrews to start walking across. This is disappointing as far as visuals go, but does make sense so far. Then just before the giant wave comes we see absolutely spectacular storm clouds and multiple tornadoes and waterspouts develop. These visual effects are some of the best ever in the history of CGI, but the tornadoes didn't actually do anything at all in this scene. They did not pull the water away in the first place, like the storm clouds created by God (or spaceships) did in "The Ten Commandments." They simply appeared in the distance for no reason, just before the huge Tsunami wave crashed down on Pharaoh's soldiers.
To show the outright sloppiness of this movie again, in scene after scene there are one or two guys spying on Moses, and nothing ever happens as a result. It's a big set up to a big nothing.
LAST BUT NOT LEAST: If you happen to be a fan of the "Ancient Aliens" show or believe in Hebrew Mysticism you will be sorely disappointed in "Exodus Gods and Kings." Mostly because, the only reason Moses sees a burning bush or talks to God the first time is that he just got conked on the head by a huge rock. Then, every time a miracle happens, this sassy little boy (who is just now angry at the Egyptian Pharaohs after 400 years of Hebrew enslavement) is the one doing the miracles, not even through Moses. Moses really does none of the miracles in this movie. He has a sword through most of it, and never even carries a staff.
In the Bible, when Moses came down from Mt. Sinai his face was shining. This is important no matter what your beliefs are. They at least touch on this in "The Ten Commandments" but in "Exodus Gods and Kings," the only thing that happens on Mt. Sinai is that the little boy dictates the ten commandments to Moses as he carves them onto the rock tablets. And they don't even show him actually saying any of them. He's just sitting there watching Moses work.
Finally, I have to say that it would have been very nice to actually see the Ark of the Covenant in a movie about Moses. Moses is shown riding with presumably the Ark in a basket on a veiled wagon, but still the only time in the history of the movies that we get to see the actual Ark is in an Indiana Jones movie, which is also easily 10 times better than "Exodus Gods and Kings."
So if you feel like seeing a Biblical movie or a movie about ancient Egypt, definitely buy or rent "The Ten Commandments" (1956). Also, "The Robe" (1953) is not a Bible story, but is the best portrayal of true Christian principles of faith and unconditional love that I have ever seen. Both have amazing, high quality stereo and surround sound for their time. Their original soundtrack albums are two of the all time best in the history of Hollywood also.
In fact, as inaccurate as it may be, I even found the 2008 adventure "10,000 BC" hugely more enjoyable than "Exodus Gods and Kings." Likewise the 1994 sci-fi film "Stargate."
Perversion for Profit (1965)
Dangerous film filled with bold face lies
Many people know of the old "educational" film Reefer Madness. It's so outdated and exaggerated that it succeeds only to incite hilarity in those who view it today. But I have just seen a film that is so full of bold face lies and hateful misinformation that it is truly tragic.
Perversion for Profit was produced in 1965, an interesting time for "Pornography" where one could purchase nudie magazines and stories of sexual encounters, but there were not yet any magazines with pictures of people actually engaging in sexual acts.
It is remarkable then that the host of this short film equates these nudie magazines with murder... And he does so several times.
He also has several extremely hateful and totally incorrect things to say about homosexuality. In fact, I'd say that more than one gay man or lesbian could very easily have been murdered after a closeted, or homophobic, or religious man saw this film.
As truly bad as this film is in every way, it's good to see it now to learn how far we have come and what type of misinformation to totally ignore if anyone should ever attempt anything like this again.
I cannot give it more than one star however, because no matter what it's historic significance, if even one gay teenager committed suicide after seeing it, or if even one man killed a man simply for being gay because of this film, then it is quite literally the "WORST" film ever made.
The Fog (2005)
The first half is really bad. I thought the second half was somewhat exciting.
This review contains a potential spoiler in the form of an analogy. I do not say what happens in the movie. But my analogy of the ending might spoil it for you...
The first half of this movie is just boring. The acting is bad. The script is terrible. The story and back story are weak. Even Tom Welling's amazing face and body, plus the beautiful Oregon coast can't save it.
The second half is exciting. The story and back story become stronger. The effects are convincing, creepy, and scary, and begin to make sense.
The ending is very disappointing however. I will use an analogy...
The bases are loaded. This is the most important game for the home team in the past 100 years. All the team needs to win the World Series is for the batter up to hit a home run. Instead, his girl friend runs onto the field and kisses a guy on the other team. No home run. Game over. They live happily ever after. Doesn't make much sense, does it? And that's pretty much how this movie ends.
I don't remember much of the first Fog movie. But I know that the big miracle at the end of that movie was a thousand times better than the silly, pointless, illogical end of this movie.
The Hustler of Muscle Beach (1980)
A wonderful "bad" movie
OK, so the acting is silly, the script is weak, and the director probably wasn't there most of the time... But if you are into body building or body builders, and like seeing hustlers turn into good guys, this movie is actually very enjoyable. It is heart warming at times, and it's almost too much seeing Richard Hatch doing an over the top performance of a common hustler (no not that kind... the kind of "hustler" where a guy does everything he can think of to legally extract money from people's pockets).
The focus of the movie is a huge body builder (Tim Kimber) with an adorably cute innocent face who was sadly only in 3 movies his entire acting career. He plays a developmentally delayed man who needs guidance to enter a body building contest and win. And he is really about the best actor in this movie.
10 minutes later...
On further investigation, Tim Kimber seems to have done phenomenally well for himself. He is co-author of a couple of body building books, and (get this) he has been co-owner of the Gold's Gym chain for over 20 years.
Good for him!
A Sound of Thunder (2005)
If you like Time Travel Movies, do see it on a big screen soon (before it disappears).
I am giving this movie 8 stars, only because it is so much better than most of the Time Travel movies of recent years. And I really did enjoy it.
If you like Time Travel movies, this is a good one. Plus, it is an extra wide screen movie with awesome bass (much more bass than most movies in the same screen of the same theater that I go to), and good surround sound effects, so don't miss seeing it on a big screen if you like Time Travel movies (or if you want to see major hunk, Edward Burns on the big screen with his shirt off).
Ironically, the only bad visual effects in this movie are the cars driving by on a normal day in the futuristic city. And one elevated train looks like a toy. But most of the other effects are very good, and very scary. The dinosaur may not be quite as good as Jurassic Park. But the other creatures in Sound of Thunder have evolved millions of years past the computer generated stuff in Jumanji.
I can understand the bad reviews. It's certainly no Oscar contender. The way that some of the changes happen in the future, because of the change in the past, don't make much logical sense. But very few people have traveled back through time, so who knows if it's right or wrong? And the theories are interesting. Plus it was a great way to make a really scary movie out of Ray Bradbury's original short story. This movie is 20 times more scary than Dark Water!
And I enjoyed this movie more than:
Primer (4 College Students build a Time Machine in a depressing mess of a story), Time Line (another mess with acting and directing that makes this movie look like an Oscar winner), The Island (fell apart in 2nd half), Mystic River (bad guys get to do anything they please and get away with it), Adaptation (horrible ending), Sideways (boring first half, depressing end), Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy (they totally screwed up the story, the BBC miniseries was infinitely better).
Ironic tidbits:
The relatively unknown star, Edward Burns (3 episodes of Will & Grace this year), does a better job of acting than Ben Kingsley in this movie! I agree that Ben should not do camp.
Last year's Butterfly Effect with Ashton Kutcher (one of the all time best Time Travel movies) has the same Title as the Ray Bradbury short story that this movie was based on, but the two do not have similar story lines at all.
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