Why the ? You're not the only person who loves this fine film.
"He’s a man way out there in the blue, riding on a smile and a shoeshine. And when they start not smiling back—that’s an earthquake. and then you get yourself a couple of spots on your hat, and you’re finished. Nobody dast blame this man. A salesman is got to dream, boy. It comes with the territory." Death of a Salesman
Outstanding drama directed by some old guy who used to ride a horse. If a screenwriter wrote this story as an original script you would think it was unbelievable. The LAPD replace a missing child with an imposter whose three inches shorter than the original child. When the mother complains they have her locked up in a mental institution. Then a decent cop (the outstanding Michael Kelly) stumbles across a another child who claims to have helped a serial killer. Angelina Jolie is excellent, as is John Malkovich as a campaigner against police corruption.
Six criminals, who are strangers to each other, are hired by a crime boss Joe Cabot to carry out a diamond robbery. Right at the outset, they are given false names with an intention that they won't get too close and concentrate on the job instead. They are completely sure that the robbery is going to be a success. But when the police show up right at the time and the site of the robbery, panic spreads amongst the group members and one of them is killed in the subsequent shootout along with a few policemen and civilians. When the remaining people assemble at the premeditated rendezvous point (a warehouse), they begin to suspect that one of them is an undercover cop.
Good soundtrack
LoeffelholzThe United States, With LovePosts: 8,998Quartermasters
edited January 2009
"Captain Blood"
The film, from 1935, that launched unknown actor Errol Flynn into overnight superstardom in the role of Peter Blood, a physician with an adventurous past who gets caught up in a political quagmire when summoned to tend to the wounds of a rebel against King James. Imprisoned, then sold into slavery, Blood leads a band of desperate men to escape their chains, commandeer a Spanish ship and commence a career of piracy on the high seas.
Co-starring the luminous Olivia de Havilland, the ever-villainous Lionel Atwill---and featuring a late middle-act virtuoso appearance from the great Basil Rathbone as the ruthless French pirate Captain Levasseur, this is one of the great soundstage action epics of the era. Based on a novel by Raphael Sabatini (who also wrote "Scaramouche" and "The Sea Hawk"), Captain Blood is expertly directed by Michael (Casablanca) Curtiz, and was just the ticket for the boys and I on a dreary winter Saturday.
Rathbone, widely regarded as the best swordsman in the movie business, steals the show when he kidnaps de Havilland, and forces a great duel (filmed on Laguna Beach in California) with Flynn. The miniatures used for the sailing ships seem quaint by today's CGI standards, but the film remains a very effective and entertaining way to spend an hour and fifty-nine minutes. This sort of narrative pace (Blood doesn't escape captivity until halfway through the film!) has completely vanished from film storytelling, and more's the pity, IMRO. If made today, this film would run two hours and forty-five minutes---the extra running time packed with more and more action set-pieces---but it would almost certainly lack the chemistry, character development and sheer charm on display here.
I love the classics.
Check out my Amazon author page!Mark Loeffelholz
"I am not an entrant in the Shakespeare Stakes." - Ian Fleming
"Screw 'em." - Daniel Craig, The Best James Bond EverTM
I'm sorry, Bondaholic, we are not going to let you get off without offering an explanation. 8.8/10? 4.1/10? Why so exact? Why not rank the films 4/10 and 9/10? )
In fact, I just noticed you gave exact scores to two other films on this page. Do you have a system where you add or deduct units of .1/10 if you like or dislike certain aspects?
"He’s a man way out there in the blue, riding on a smile and a shoeshine. And when they start not smiling back—that’s an earthquake. and then you get yourself a couple of spots on your hat, and you’re finished. Nobody dast blame this man. A salesman is got to dream, boy. It comes with the territory." Death of a Salesman
If there is a part I don't like then it goes down 0.1. I just didn't like the Snakes On A Plane, the best bit was Samuel Jackson and the dead bodies. I like rating films like this makes it more exact and easier to compare in which you like best.
If there is a part I don't like then it goes down 0.1. I just didn't like the Snakes On A Plane, the best bit was Samuel Jackson and the dead bodies. I like rating films like this makes it more exact and easier to compare in which you like best.
Snakes On A Plane - 4 / 10
Eragon - 4 / 10
or
Snakes On A Plane - 4.1 / 10
Eragon - 4.4 / 10
It shows which I like best in this scale sortof.
Well, you have my compliments. {[] I don't think I could be as exact (unless I had particular critera on which to base my rankings) but I admire anybody who ranks/lists the films they see.
"He’s a man way out there in the blue, riding on a smile and a shoeshine. And when they start not smiling back—that’s an earthquake. and then you get yourself a couple of spots on your hat, and you’re finished. Nobody dast blame this man. A salesman is got to dream, boy. It comes with the territory." Death of a Salesman
Allegorical tale set in the Depression-era 1930s, in which a hard-working, conscientous guard on a long-distance train finds his livelihood under threat by a ne'erdowell (Lee Marvin) who stows away on his train. The tramp is the 1930s equivalent of an internet virus, a parasite out to harm his host - at one point his activities nearly bring on a horrific headon crash with another train.
The scene where the hobo humiliates a cop by making him bark would make Quentin 'Reservoir Dogs' Tarantino blanch. By the end of the film the guard's work colleagues are maimed or killed, but the guard bravely battles against the odds, as Marvin's hobo is in the process of passing on his savage learning to a new young recruit who resembles Gareth out of The Office.
The finale is superb
as the guard plunges to his death, but not before making sure that the hobo fails to pass on his skills to the next generation of scum
represents how the US held its nerve to come through the Depression era.
This film is currently being remade, with Samuel L. Jackson as the train guard. "Get those goddam bums off of my goddam train!!"
Not a movie, but a short prequel to Wes Anderson's The Darjeeling Limited. It combines Jason Schwartzman, Natalie Portman, Natalie Portman's bum and Peter Sarstedt's 'Where Do You Go To My Lovely' to excellent effect. Beautiful. Especially Portman's arse.
Actually, the phrase is damp squib isn't it? What's a squib? A damp squid would be a good thing, it lives in the water.
Anyway, a faded writer struggles to hold his family together while his newly successful wife embraces adultery in cavalier fashion... okay, okay.. Screwed up family that takes the fun out of dysfunctional, very watchable didn't quite go anywhere much in the end but didn't outstay its welcome. V good acting, annoying father a bit one-dimensional or rather the mom too nice but other than that fine.
With Claude Rains and Vivien Leigh taking the leads in this George Bernard Shaw play, and a supporting cast made up of Flora Robson, Stewart Granger and Frances L "Did I do right, Pip?" Sullivan from Great Expectations, it would be a crazy film buff who didn't make this a priority viewing, right? Not really.
The whole thing feels very stagey and the direction never gains any momentum. It's hard in way that this comes from the same era as Casablanca or Great Expectations, it just feels so twee, almost like a secondary school play. I like Rains but prefer him in his sly, side-on roles rather than benign and heroic. Vivien Leigh is a pouty, annoying Cleopatra, very much like Jean Simmons as young Estella (okay, that was a year after). All you wish for her is that Caeser would put her on the receiving end of a dozen rough Roman soldiers.
Otherwise this is all fodder for the Carry On and Monty Python brigade. There's even a young Robert Morley lisping the name of Caeser, and an old dodderer who is a dead ringer for the geezer who helps hide the People's Front of Judea in Life of Brian. Look out for John 'We're doooomed!' Laurie as a centurian at two minutes past the first hour. Looking old even then.
Things do pick up a bit towards the end, with ruminations on power and mortality, but until then it seemed a bit shallow. The print seemed bleached out or overexposed for most of it, too.
I can only say the following:
-- I had no idea what to expect, so appreciated everything a bit more.
-- I never sit on the edge of my seat in movies, but I did tons of times in this.
-- At the end, I wanted to laugh, cry, scream, dance, run in circles, and perform community service.
-- Freida Pinto! :x
Absolutely one of the most thrilling, exhilarating, fun, depressing, happy, sad...and brilliant films I have ever seen. And I've seen a lot of them. Danny Boyle and everyone associated with this masterpiece should be beaming with pride.
Five days later, and I am still in semi-shock at how good it was.
Firstly, I'm really sorry Hilly, but Slumdog Millionaire did nothing for me. Call me a cold-hearted b**tard, but I just didn't care. The only impression it left on me was that they found somebody to present a version of 'Who Wants to be a Millionaire' who is more annoying than Chris Tarrant.
Then two extraordinary true life tales rendered a lot less gripping than they should be.
Valkyrie cost a fortune, but looks like it was made by the BBC drama department. It's fine, but considering the story they had to tell, this could have been something special. The ending is moving though. And Cruise is quite good. Who cares if he's talking American? Its no less risible than the rest of them talking like they used to be in the RSC, not the SS.
Defiance Edward Zwick is the biggest hypocrite directing films at the moment. His films always start off telling you bad violence is and then turn into action films with tons of gunfire and explosions. Daniel Craig and Liev Schrieber are both excellent, but this is a slog.
I'd not seen Garbo before really, she is one of those acting legends one always heard about as a kid but the films never seemed to be on telly, or now for that matter.
She's great, quite contemporary in her voice and manner. Kind of Scandi-American. She plays the Swedish monarch in the 1600s 30 Year War that raged, bankrupting Norway my flatmate tells me. Though it's a 1933 film it is quality stuff, far more so than the gaudy rubbish from 1945 I watched a couple of nights ago.
Great stuff for the first hour, then it kind of lost me as court intrique intervened and it becomes a downer. The actual ending left me bemused, too.
Junebug, the movie that more-or-less put the cuter-than-cute Amy Adams on the map. Really, a very good comedy-drama about a Chicago art dealer (Embeth Davidtz) who goes to North Carolina to connect with a folk artist and to meet her husband's family. It's refreshing to see southern characters not depicted as inbred hillbillies and to see their quirks and religion treated with respect and gentle humor. Amy Adams is indeed good as a young mother-to-be (who reminds me a lot of Luanne from King of the Hill), but I was most taken by the folk artist who paints quasi-religious-pornographic depictions of the Civil War. You gotta see it to believe it!
A wonderfully uplifting movie, that at times is also sad, shocking and funny. I am not familiar with director Danny Boyle's other work, but he deserves high marks for this. I also agree with Sir Hilary, Freida Pinto is mesmerizing. This film is deserving of its Best Picture nomination.
At the end of the film as the credits roll, the cast does a little dance routine to an upbeat song. Unlike most films where the audience runs out the instant the film ends, in this case 75% of the audience sat in their seats and watched. I think they were still taking in the film and all they had seen. Highly recommend.
The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor. I went into this one with very low expectations--I didn't like the first Mummy and I positively loathed The Mummy Returns--but I guess I figured that a new director, a new location, and a new villain might make for a somewhat better film. Was I ever wrong. I'll say this for the first two films: they weren't boring. This one is, with an energy level so low you'd think it had been embalmed. While the storyline isn't as aggressively stupid as was TMR, this one still sacrifices logic for the sake of pushing the story along (Example: once the O'Connells unknowingly deliver to the bad guys the mystic stone that will resurrect the emperor, do the villains just let them go? Do they kill th O'Connells? No--they make the loving couple open the sarcophagus!) and doesn't bother explaining its own hokey mysticism. "He can't be killed--except by this knife that was never mentioned before and which has properties we won't bother to explain!"
To add to everything else, there's Maria Bello going through the movie with a goofy smile on her face and a fake, chirpy English accent that sounds like Mary Poppins on speed; Jet Li showing up every now and then to take the place of his CGI counterpart; fashions and vehicles from the 1930s, even through the movie takes place in 1946; and so many ripoffs from the original Indiana Jones trilogy I kept thinking Short Round would show up to save the day. And what, pray tell--since the title character has been turned into a terra cotta statue, and his soldiers are terra cotta, and they end up fighting an army of zombies--does this movie have to do with mummies?
Boris Karloff, Lon Chaney, Jr., you are much missed!
Vox clamantis in deserto
LoeffelholzThe United States, With LovePosts: 8,998Quartermasters
Boris Karloff, Lon Chaney, Jr., you are much missed!
Amen to that {[]
I'm really not inclined to even glance at this one...I saw the first two---okay (I have a personal boycott against the dreadfully boring, lazy and awful internet go-to, 'meh'), but not really what I want from The Mummy...
I'm a big fan of Anne Rice---of course her fascinating Vampire Chronicles---but some might not know that she did a cracking good Mummy book called Ramses, The Damned B-) Now...that would be a film to adapt...
Check out my Amazon author page!Mark Loeffelholz
"I am not an entrant in the Shakespeare Stakes." - Ian Fleming
"Screw 'em." - Daniel Craig, The Best James Bond EverTM
Kind of a hit and miss review for me, I am not big on humor that is generated from someone being stupid, so some of the humor escaped me. But, I did laugh at some of the scenes. Once again Jack Black's performance left me cold, but the rest of the cast was fine. The movie was written, produced, directed and starred Ben Stiller, and to think I didn't think he had any real talent. Shows you what I know. A marginal thumbs up.
I have the Ilsa boxset and own one-sheets from both Harem Keeper of the Oil Sheiks and Tigress of Siberia. Hope that doesn't disturb anyone! But I like the art.
For those interested in zombie nazis, the BEST one would be Shock Waves with Peter Cushing in a pre-Grand Moff Tarkin role as a German scientist marooned on a secluded island. We're talking underwater bionic super zombies eerily filmed with hardly any blood at all. It's all about atmosphere.
I have the Ilsa boxset and own one-sheets from both Harem Keeper of the Oil Sheiks and Tigress of Siberia. Hope that doesn't disturb anyone! But I like the art.
For those interested in zombie nazis, the BEST one would be Shock Waves with Peter Cushing in a pre-Grand Moff Tarkin role as a German scientist marooned on a secluded island. We're talking underwater bionic super zombies eerily filmed with hardly any blood at all. It's all about atmosphere.
I have the Ilsa boxset and own one-sheets from both Harem Keeper of the Oil Sheiks and Tigress of Siberia. Hope that doesn't disturb anyone! But I like the art.
For those interested in zombie nazis, the BEST one would be Shock Waves with Peter Cushing in a pre-Grand Moff Tarkin role as a German scientist marooned on a secluded island. We're talking underwater bionic super zombies eerily filmed with hardly any blood at all. It's all about atmosphere.
The Mummy:Tomb of the Dragon Emperor.I enjoyed this a lot more than I expected I would.Although I've always put the original Boris Karloff/Ziva Johann 1931 The Mummy movie in a class by itself,I'm not a bit perturbed to see a new film series trade on this famous title.In fact,I think the newer Mummy films are clearly superior to any of the sequels to the Karloff classic Universal cranked out during the 1940s.
Is Dragon Emperor great?Of course not,but it is entertaining, and I think that it accomplishes its goal.I don't believe the Dragon Emperor is in the same league as The Mummy Returns,but I thought the change of locale was cleverly handled.There really weren't many "mummies" per se,involved in this story(mummy is a very loosely defined term here) but that didn't much bother me.As for the cast-Michelle Yeoh and Jet Li make a terrific pair, and while I prefer Rachel Weisz's Evie to Maria Bello's version--who sounds at times like an okay imitation of Katherine Hepburn rather than an authentic Brit--overall,I think Bello was just fine.
Of course,Brendan Fraser really held this together.He's one of the most underrated actors working today,which,quite frankly astonishes me.I've rarely seen him give a bad performance, and I've seen most of his films-from Dudley Do-Right to Gods and Monsters and The Quiet American.He's something rare-a character actor who can also convincingly play leading men and do comedy and drama as well as adventure films.There aren't too many actors around today who can also make that kind of claim.
I like a lot of adventure films,but I don't believe for an instant that the Indiana Jones character holds a monopoly on period action movies involving heroic explorers.It's interesting to see what filmmakers other than Lucas and Spielberg can do with similar themes. Obviously the Rick O'Connell character Fraser plays in The Mummy series draws some inspiration from Indy;there's no chicken-or-the egg argument here.But in complete fairness,both Indy and Rick individually owe a tremendous debt to the serial heroes of the 1930 and early 1940s.That said,I very much enjoy Raiders of the Lost Ark and The Last Crusade but am not nearly as impressed by Temple of Doom and Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.Different strokes.
But back to Dragon Emperor.I got a kick out of the Yeti and the appearance of Shangri-La--(if only someone among the supporting characters had mentioned a mysterious Englishman named Robert Conway...)Did Dragon make sense?Sure.Occasionally.Certainly enough for me.Movies like this one tend to have their own interior logic.Either you like this kind of stuff or you don't.And I do.:)
Comments
Outstanding drama directed by some old guy who used to ride a horse. If a screenwriter wrote this story as an original script you would think it was unbelievable. The LAPD replace a missing child with an imposter whose three inches shorter than the original child. When the mother complains they have her locked up in a mental institution. Then a decent cop (the outstanding Michael Kelly) stumbles across a another child who claims to have helped a serial killer. Angelina Jolie is excellent, as is John Malkovich as a campaigner against police corruption.
8.7 / 10
Also Directed by Quentin Tarantino (Pulp Fiction)
15 January 1993 (UK)
Six criminals, who are strangers to each other, are hired by a crime boss Joe Cabot to carry out a diamond robbery. Right at the outset, they are given false names with an intention that they won't get too close and concentrate on the job instead. They are completely sure that the robbery is going to be a success. But when the police show up right at the time and the site of the robbery, panic spreads amongst the group members and one of them is killed in the subsequent shootout along with a few policemen and civilians. When the remaining people assemble at the premeditated rendezvous point (a warehouse), they begin to suspect that one of them is an undercover cop.
Good soundtrack
The film, from 1935, that launched unknown actor Errol Flynn into overnight superstardom in the role of Peter Blood, a physician with an adventurous past who gets caught up in a political quagmire when summoned to tend to the wounds of a rebel against King James. Imprisoned, then sold into slavery, Blood leads a band of desperate men to escape their chains, commandeer a Spanish ship and commence a career of piracy on the high seas.
Co-starring the luminous Olivia de Havilland, the ever-villainous Lionel Atwill---and featuring a late middle-act virtuoso appearance from the great Basil Rathbone as the ruthless French pirate Captain Levasseur, this is one of the great soundstage action epics of the era. Based on a novel by Raphael Sabatini (who also wrote "Scaramouche" and "The Sea Hawk"), Captain Blood is expertly directed by Michael (Casablanca) Curtiz, and was just the ticket for the boys and I on a dreary winter Saturday.
Rathbone, widely regarded as the best swordsman in the movie business, steals the show when he kidnaps de Havilland, and forces a great duel (filmed on Laguna Beach in California) with Flynn. The miniatures used for the sailing ships seem quaint by today's CGI standards, but the film remains a very effective and entertaining way to spend an hour and fifty-nine minutes. This sort of narrative pace (Blood doesn't escape captivity until halfway through the film!) has completely vanished from film storytelling, and more's the pity, IMRO. If made today, this film would run two hours and forty-five minutes---the extra running time packed with more and more action set-pieces---but it would almost certainly lack the chemistry, character development and sheer charm on display here.
I love the classics.
"I am not an entrant in the Shakespeare Stakes." - Ian Fleming
"Screw 'em." - Daniel Craig, The Best James Bond EverTM
Snakes On A Plane - 4.1/10
Blade Runner - 8.8/10
In fact, I just noticed you gave exact scores to two other films on this page. Do you have a system where you add or deduct units of .1/10 if you like or dislike certain aspects?
If there is a part I don't like then it goes down 0.1. I just didn't like the Snakes On A Plane, the best bit was Samuel Jackson and the dead bodies. I like rating films like this makes it more exact and easier to compare in which you like best.
Snakes On A Plane - 4 / 10
Eragon - 4 / 10
or
Snakes On A Plane - 4.1 / 10
Eragon - 4.4 / 10
It shows which I like best in this scale sortof.
Allegorical tale set in the Depression-era 1930s, in which a hard-working, conscientous guard on a long-distance train finds his livelihood under threat by a ne'erdowell (Lee Marvin) who stows away on his train. The tramp is the 1930s equivalent of an internet virus, a parasite out to harm his host - at one point his activities nearly bring on a horrific headon crash with another train.
The scene where the hobo humiliates a cop by making him bark would make Quentin 'Reservoir Dogs' Tarantino blanch. By the end of the film the guard's work colleagues are maimed or killed, but the guard bravely battles against the odds, as Marvin's hobo is in the process of passing on his savage learning to a new young recruit who resembles Gareth out of The Office.
The finale is superb
This film is currently being remade, with Samuel L. Jackson as the train guard.
"Get those goddam bums off of my goddam train!!"
Roger Moore 1927-2017
The best of the best
Not a movie, but a short prequel to Wes Anderson's The Darjeeling Limited. It combines Jason Schwartzman, Natalie Portman, Natalie Portman's bum and Peter Sarstedt's 'Where Do You Go To My Lovely' to excellent effect. Beautiful. Especially Portman's arse.
7.9/10
Actually, the phrase is damp squib isn't it? What's a squib? A damp squid would be a good thing, it lives in the water.
Anyway, a faded writer struggles to hold his family together while his newly successful wife embraces adultery in cavalier fashion... okay, okay..
Roger Moore 1927-2017
With Claude Rains and Vivien Leigh taking the leads in this George Bernard Shaw play, and a supporting cast made up of Flora Robson, Stewart Granger and Frances L "Did I do right, Pip?" Sullivan from Great Expectations, it would be a crazy film buff who didn't make this a priority viewing, right? Not really.
The whole thing feels very stagey and the direction never gains any momentum. It's hard in way that this comes from the same era as Casablanca or Great Expectations, it just feels so twee, almost like a secondary school play. I like Rains but prefer him in his sly, side-on roles rather than benign and heroic. Vivien Leigh is a pouty, annoying Cleopatra, very much like Jean Simmons as young Estella (okay, that was a year after). All you wish for her is that Caeser would put her on the receiving end of a dozen rough Roman soldiers.
Otherwise this is all fodder for the Carry On and Monty Python brigade. There's even a young Robert Morley lisping the name of Caeser, and an old dodderer who is a dead ringer for the geezer who helps hide the People's Front of Judea in Life of Brian. Look out for John 'We're doooomed!' Laurie as a centurian at two minutes past the first hour. Looking old even then.
Things do pick up a bit towards the end, with ruminations on power and mortality, but until then it seemed a bit shallow. The print seemed bleached out or overexposed for most of it, too.
Roger Moore 1927-2017
I can only say the following:
-- I had no idea what to expect, so appreciated everything a bit more.
-- I never sit on the edge of my seat in movies, but I did tons of times in this.
-- At the end, I wanted to laugh, cry, scream, dance, run in circles, and perform community service.
-- Freida Pinto! :x
Absolutely one of the most thrilling, exhilarating, fun, depressing, happy, sad...and brilliant films I have ever seen. And I've seen a lot of them. Danny Boyle and everyone associated with this masterpiece should be beaming with pride.
Five days later, and I am still in semi-shock at how good it was.
Firstly, I'm really sorry Hilly, but Slumdog Millionaire did nothing for me. Call me a cold-hearted b**tard, but I just didn't care. The only impression it left on me was that they found somebody to present a version of 'Who Wants to be a Millionaire' who is more annoying than Chris Tarrant.
Then two extraordinary true life tales rendered a lot less gripping than they should be.
Valkyrie cost a fortune, but looks like it was made by the BBC drama department. It's fine, but considering the story they had to tell, this could have been something special. The ending is moving though. And Cruise is quite good. Who cares if he's talking American? Its no less risible than the rest of them talking like they used to be in the RSC, not the SS.
Defiance Edward Zwick is the biggest hypocrite directing films at the moment. His films always start off telling you bad violence is and then turn into action films with tons of gunfire and explosions. Daniel Craig and Liev Schrieber are both excellent, but this is a slog.
I'd not seen Garbo before really, she is one of those acting legends one always heard about as a kid but the films never seemed to be on telly, or now for that matter.
She's great, quite contemporary in her voice and manner. Kind of Scandi-American. She plays the Swedish monarch in the 1600s 30 Year War that raged, bankrupting Norway my flatmate tells me. Though it's a 1933 film it is quality stuff, far more so than the gaudy rubbish from 1945 I watched a couple of nights ago.
Great stuff for the first hour, then it kind of lost me as court intrique intervened and it becomes a downer. The actual ending left me bemused, too.
Roger Moore 1927-2017
Good film, I really enjoyed it -{ :x
9.3 / 10
A wonderfully uplifting movie, that at times is also sad, shocking and funny. I am not familiar with director Danny Boyle's other work, but he deserves high marks for this. I also agree with Sir Hilary, Freida Pinto is mesmerizing. This film is deserving of its Best Picture nomination.
At the end of the film as the credits roll, the cast does a little dance routine to an upbeat song. Unlike most films where the audience runs out the instant the film ends, in this case 75% of the audience sat in their seats and watched. I think they were still taking in the film and all they had seen. Highly recommend.
To add to everything else, there's Maria Bello going through the movie with a goofy smile on her face and a fake, chirpy English accent that sounds like Mary Poppins on speed; Jet Li showing up every now and then to take the place of his CGI counterpart; fashions and vehicles from the 1930s, even through the movie takes place in 1946; and so many ripoffs from the original Indiana Jones trilogy I kept thinking Short Round would show up to save the day. And what, pray tell--since the title character has been turned into a terra cotta statue, and his soldiers are terra cotta, and they end up fighting an army of zombies--does this movie have to do with mummies?
Boris Karloff, Lon Chaney, Jr., you are much missed!
Amen to that {[]
I'm really not inclined to even glance at this one...I saw the first two---okay (I have a personal boycott against the dreadfully boring, lazy and awful internet go-to, 'meh'), but not really what I want from The Mummy...
I'm a big fan of Anne Rice---of course her fascinating Vampire Chronicles---but some might not know that she did a cracking good Mummy book called Ramses, The Damned B-) Now...that would be a film to adapt...
"I am not an entrant in the Shakespeare Stakes." - Ian Fleming
"Screw 'em." - Daniel Craig, The Best James Bond EverTM
Kind of a hit and miss review for me, I am not big on humor that is generated from someone being stupid, so some of the humor escaped me. But, I did laugh at some of the scenes. Once again Jack Black's performance left me cold, but the rest of the cast was fine. The movie was written, produced, directed and starred Ben Stiller, and to think I didn't think he had any real talent. Shows you what I know. A marginal thumbs up.
Dreadful exploitation movie set in a concentration camp. I do however look forward to seeing the recent remake with Kate Winslet.
Also the sequel of sorts, Isla: Tigress of Siberia. Winslet, remake this one next!
Where did you get hold of that anyway? Ahem - I looked for it on lovefilm but even they have certain standards it seems...
Roger Moore 1927-2017
For those interested in zombie nazis, the BEST one would be Shock Waves with Peter Cushing in a pre-Grand Moff Tarkin role as a German scientist marooned on a secluded island. We're talking underwater bionic super zombies eerily filmed with hardly any blood at all. It's all about atmosphere.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0076704/
Good to know if I ever a question on underwater Nazi Zombies I know where to turn.
I also take Lesbian Vampire questions.
Is Dragon Emperor great?Of course not,but it is entertaining, and I think that it accomplishes its goal.I don't believe the Dragon Emperor is in the same league as The Mummy Returns,but I thought the change of locale was cleverly handled.There really weren't many "mummies" per se,involved in this story(mummy is a very loosely defined term here) but that didn't much bother me.As for the cast-Michelle Yeoh and Jet Li make a terrific pair, and while I prefer Rachel Weisz's Evie to Maria Bello's version--who sounds at times like an okay imitation of Katherine Hepburn rather than an authentic Brit--overall,I think Bello was just fine.
Of course,Brendan Fraser really held this together.He's one of the most underrated actors working today,which,quite frankly astonishes me.I've rarely seen him give a bad performance, and I've seen most of his films-from Dudley Do-Right to Gods and Monsters and The Quiet American.He's something rare-a character actor who can also convincingly play leading men and do comedy and drama as well as adventure films.There aren't too many actors around today who can also make that kind of claim.
I like a lot of adventure films,but I don't believe for an instant that the Indiana Jones character holds a monopoly on period action movies involving heroic explorers.It's interesting to see what filmmakers other than Lucas and Spielberg can do with similar themes. Obviously the Rick O'Connell character Fraser plays in The Mummy series draws some inspiration from Indy;there's no chicken-or-the egg argument here.But in complete fairness,both Indy and Rick individually owe a tremendous debt to the serial heroes of the 1930 and early 1940s.That said,I very much enjoy Raiders of the Lost Ark and The Last Crusade but am not nearly as impressed by Temple of Doom and Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.Different strokes.
But back to Dragon Emperor.I got a kick out of the Yeti and the appearance of Shangri-La--(if only someone among the supporting characters had mentioned a mysterious Englishman named Robert Conway...)Did Dragon make sense?Sure.Occasionally.Certainly enough for me.Movies like this one tend to have their own interior logic.Either you like this kind of stuff or you don't.And I do.:)