For every ying, there's a yang, For every good there's a bad! So obviously, if there are best films of the year, There MUST be worst films of the year! So Once again the same rules apply, only I only have 4 films this time around, sorry kids, Jason has 5 though.
5)Charlies Angels:Full Throttle-I loved the orignal, perfect brain candy, unfortunetly they mussed it up and has been forgotten in every mention about this movie season.
4)Beyond Borders- Angie I love ya girl....so why did you have to make a message movie with a love story also.(and again Angie babe, you'd look better in africa without your $6,000 make-up job)
4:Terminator 3: Rise Of The Machines: It's not that this film is bad, but compared to it's predecessors, it's relatively simple. A cyborg faces against a superior robot (YES kids she is a robot by definition!) to once again fight for the fate of the future. As much as I did enjoy it to a degree, I deduct points based on the fact that the film does not skirt the issue, and hide behind hyperbole or innuendo or false advertise. The machines rise kids, the world gets blowed up. OOOOPPPS did I give it away? My bad. And compared to the Cameron films, it is really just an f/x film compared to the two
3)Bad Boys 2-again....why screw up a good concept, funny parts and action parts, none made any sense in transistion.
3:Hulk: If it was just a straight laced drama about a man who has problems dealing with a repressed past and the father that disappeared, that's fine. But here's the thing: Apparently these problems (coupled with a gamma charged experimentaion from daddy) makes the man into the world's biggest brat, having tantrums all over the place because his daddy din't love him enough. WHHHAAAAAAHHHHHH!!! Apparently Ang Lee wanted it to be like a Reese's Butter Cup, two great tastes that taste great together, but alas, you can not marry a personal drama with a would be action film without taking away from one or the other.
2)The Matrix Revolutions-why, just why did they have to mess up a perfectly great trilogy....sigh
2:Underworld: At first, just the idea seemed like something that would pull me in: vampires versus werewolves in an ages old blood feud. But I found nothing in the film that was even just a little bit compelling, really no one to care about. And the vampires only have fangs (I take it) for show, just to show you that oh btw......I drink blood. But I will say that the costumes are sensational! But then again, I say that about anything black and trenchcoaty, right?
And this year's WEINERS ARE...........
1)House of the Dead-must.....not.....remember.........plot.........NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOooooooooooooooooooooooooo
1:THE MATRIX REVOLUTIONS!!!!!:
You might say to yourself, ok you put Reloaded on your top five, but are you out of your flippin' ghourd in making this the worst film of the year? How bad is the film, PLEASE let me count the many, many ways, and I may repeat myself, just so you can understand how it ranks in suckitude!:
*Ok, the main plot of the film (actually in reloaded too) concerns the attack of 250,000 sentinels on the city of Zion, descimation, destruction, chaos, yes you get that kids, bang for your buck in the battle between the army of sentinels and the city's protectors. So why do I see fault in it? Because after the sentinels are destoyed (in what is easily the closest moment in movie history to having a Homer Simpson moment) the much hated Commander Lock, (never wanted to hate a person on the side of good more) tells Morpheus that now the machines will send MORE (yes, kids you heard me right, MORE sentinels to finish the job on a now helpless and powerless Zion, (thanks to baldy's EMP in the city). It's like what if after the Death Star got destroyed in Star Wars, another one appeared out of nowhere? Or if in Raiders of the Lost Ark, after the ark kills the nazis, Jones in confronted by another army of MORE nazis? See what I mean? It's almost as if they built up that this attack was a big deal, and then deflated the importance like a balloon.
*You take one of the most enigmatic villians to appear since the days of Darth Vader and have him appear in TWO SCENES?????????? I have said it before, I will say it again: SMITH is Fucking GOD!!!! Granted, the sentinel attack might have garnered more interest..........Wait a minute I just figured out why the film does not work!!!!!!!!!! The crashing of the Matrix is an attack on par with the attack of the sentinels. Think about it: every person plugged into the Matrix is prey to Smith's copying. No one can hide. If Neo is truly the bizzaro Smith, why not have him copy himself using "programs" created in a truce with the machines in order to save their precious virtual world????(whoa....too much thinking)
*most of the film takes place outside of the matrix itself. Why not call the film "the siege of Zion" instead?
Everything that has a beginning ........has an end.....and the end it is, (and not a moment too soon). Don't get me wrong I absolutely LOVE "Matrix" and "The Matrix Reloaded" which had me psyched as hell to see "The Matrix Revolutions". As I sat in the theater and saw the "WB" logo swing by in the classic matrix green color, I got shivers thinking "wow the perfect end to one of the best series of movies ever to be filmed" (In my opinion). I started to get irked at the extremely slow begining. I can usually sit through any amount of babble and try to figure out the meaning, as I did in Reloaded with the architect (to most people who was either boring or incomprehensible), but I remember why I sat through that scene 5 TIMES in the theater: It was a riddle that I was trying to figure out, and wanted to figure out. But alas I was wrong. Granted "The Matrix Revolutions" does have it's strong points but where those points end is where the problems begin. I'm calling this segment "what pisses me off".Actually let's take turns with this!
(Jason says)What pisses me off: Is that the the beginning starts slow as hell, it's a 20 min conversation basically going down to "Neo is stuck inbetween the real and machine world" I could see the people in their seats just sitting listening to that indian dude ramble on, give me the architect anyday, at least what he says COULD be interesting.
(James says): You know what PISSES ME OFF?: I can not for the life of me figure out how the hell he got there in the first place. It's a between station between the Matrix and the end of the line. In Reloaded, he WASN'T plugged into the Network to be able to have been taken into the limbo. Ok, there is a theory that the Merovergien (I hate that I can almost pronounce his name!) got access Neo "contacted" the sentinels, So now Neo is like a cell phone? He doesn't do this for the rest of the film so it can't be!
(Jason says)What pisses me off: Is that the main formula, and oddly enough the title of these movies, "The Matrix" itself is featured in approx. 20% of the film. THIS IS WHY I LOVE THE MOVIES!!!! And the parts that coulda been cool, like a big shootout inside the club, or say maybe agents hunting SMITH down.
(James says)WHAT PISSES ME OFF: I gotta agree with him here. Well except the agents part. I told my counterpart that the agents would not last three seconds as they would be assimilated just with extreme proficiency. But anyways, the first film taught you the rules. The second one let the players explore the rules to the limits. But if Smith is breaking the rules, how would it affect anyone else in the matrix? why does most of the action take place in the real world?
(Jason says)What pisses me off: the damn battle scene, had to see it twice before I realized this was someones realized Mech-Warrior fantasy gone horriblly awry.
(James says) WHAT PISSES ME OFF: I had a revelation, earlier today, an epiphany (yes here's a spoiler kids). Neo has the ability to stop the sentinels just by think about it. And yet during the epic battle between dozens of the "mech suits", he's off flying to the machine city? With this I though hard about what SHOULD have happened: Neo should have gone to Zion with the rest. There are sentinels after the ship, Neo destroys most of them, guns can take out the rest. WHEN the ship enters the dock, again a mass mental destruction of the machines!! without the use of the emp!
(Jason says)and finally What pisses me off: is that the war was brought to an end but DAMMIT even the 1st movie hinted at not only the end of the war, but an end to the matrix itself which woulda been cool to see all of humanity cheering above the smoldering hulks of the machine city (oh great just gave the "brothers" another idea for 3 more movies D'oh)
(James says):I would have to agree with my cohort. At the end of the first one, Neo tells ...(presumably the source) that he was going to to show the denizens a world "without rules or boundaries or you." But you get bubkis! But as I thought about it over the years, I guess the film had to end the way it did. You can't have a mass freeing of all the people in the matrix! You have the world with the scorched sky, many would probably have psychotic episodes. And I do not think Zion is big enough to accommodate everyone. So over the years, I grew the understanding that the Matrix cannot to be destroyed, just a altered. .
The good news is that the action in the "fight for the dock" was amazing, on par with Star Wars:Attack of the Clones, and very visual. It harkened back to the old WW2 films with the battle for the pacific (for those of you non WW2 inclined, we had a bit of a tiff with the guys who make our DVD players and game systems).
(James says)As cool as the scene was, the eternal bug up his ass Commander Lock has a hissey fit that now they are defenseless against another probable attack. WHOA!!!!!!!!! I was under the assumption that this was suppose to be a life or death battle, but I guess I have blinders on to the world. Talk about a victory for nothing!
The club gun room shootout was a cool nod to the lobby shootout from the orignal.
(James says): Can the brothers sue each other for plagarism?! The gun room shootout was basically the lobby scene from the original EXCEPT, No Neo, (Morpheus and Seraph instead) and the villains are Upside down! Talk about lack of originality!!
The Smith vs Neo fight was amazing and IS one of the reasons to see this flick. The big plus is that they let Smith (Hugo Weaving) have his fun, he took the character of a usual bland but cool agent and made him human and even more dangerous.
(James says) AGENT SMITH is the most underused character in the film!!! I think he is one of the most original villains ever created! Is he bland? No, he's just an indifferent program that only shows glee in making the populace suffer. One way or the other. But he is really only in the film for two god damn scenes!!!! (technically a Smith has control of a real world rebel, and he does a decent channel of Hugo, but Hugo is the GOD DAMNED MAN!!!!!!! Who do I talk like from the film? Morpheus? trinity, or even wooden puppet acting Neo? No Smith!!!! All worship the God that is Smith!!!! Kneel before Smith!!!! Find him some more god damn scenes for the dvd!!!!!!!
Cons: the rest of the damn movie, from the opening flurry of word trading (love is not an emotion...it is a word....why why and again why did we even NEED to know this.) and the sappy "everyones happy, even the machines" I WANTED THE MACHINES TO BE IN AN ALL OUT WAR AND SEE EITHER TWO SCENES 1) ALL OF ZION DEAD AND NEO STANDING IN THE MACHINE CITY ALONE OR 2) ALL OF ZION FREEING ALL THE PEOPLE FROM THE MATRIX AND SMASHY SMASHY ON THE MACHINE WORLD!!!!!! BUT NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO WHAT WE GOT WAS THE FREAKIN DISNEY ENDING FOR CHRIST'S SAKE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
James's cons: I thought I got seriously gipped with the ending. Not looking for an allout war, but wanted somekind of resolution to the trapped people in the Matrix (even though i had concluded long ago that it really is not possible as I already have stated). Not enough Damn Hugo!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! The longest Death scene in History (I Shit you not!!! it even beats Star Trek Generation's death scene in hamminess and length!) The film takes all the questions I had asked from the first two and just throws them int he big toilet and flushes them away!!!*floosh!* And there is really nothing new to learn fromt his one it's really all about trying to find the easiest way to tie up loose ends. BAH!
Ok,ok relax....breathe in breathe out....or is that even air I am breathing............
Rating for this "motion picture" (remember folks the higher the rating the crappier the review.) 6 and I'm bein good about this because I love the series. so in calculation Neo, trinity, morpheous, and Smith each earned their points...ok so smith had 3 of the 4.
James' rating: Judging by Mr. Morgan's rating he feels very guilty for panning the film. I do not. i went into a state of being catatonic after seeing it (he can attest to it!) I felt like I had wasted my time like the filmakers wanted to laugh at me, to make fun of me! No I will not be kind to the brother Wachowski. I gave the film a 1 1/2 mondo rating on my review, I have only given one film a negative mondo rating. so one is really as low as i can go, so I will use the Morgan Massadre scale and give the film an 8.
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