Paige Hurd .................. Vanessa Fait
It just dawned on me that in every Jet Li movie, maybe not in Lethal Weapon 4,
there's just gotta be a sex scene. A really, really, explicit and boundary
pushing sex scene. That bothers me, because just like in Romeo Must Die,
Kiss of the Dragon, and The One, it wasn't needed, it was actually very
frivolous and didn't contribute anything to the plot or suspense or anything.
It was just there for it's own sake. It also bothered me that of course it had
to be a BLACK WOMAN taking her clothes off as a cheap whore.. Gabrielle, have
you no DIGNITY??....Arrrrggghhhh.
Anyway, aside from that somewhat HUGE flaw, this movie was good. Actually,
it would have been a really sucky movie if not for these three people:
Jet Li, Anthony Anderson, and Tom Arnold. I mean, especially Anthony & Tom.
They were hilarious. As a matter of fact, during the credits, there was an
improv scene between the two and it worked!
Jet Li, proves once again he can kick butt while looking absolutely bored out
of his mind. The man is incredible when it comes to martial arts, and what is
so good about him is that he speaks English with virtually no accent yet can
switch right into Mandarin without blinking. DMX is just DMX. I mean, he's good
in the first couple of minutes of the film, but it just kind of drops off. I
just can't see him as a kind of a street-wise "honorable" thief. And as for
Gabrielle, FOR SHAME!!! The only black woman in the film, and she's a whore?
So what if she fights Kelly Hu at the end in her own fight scene? She's taken
off her clothes so what's the difference?
I also think that Jet Li is trying to find new and exotic ways of killing off
the bad guys. In Kiss, Li sticks a pin in the bad guys neck supposedly cutting
off circulation and causing the guy to undergo endometriosis. Then in Romeo, an
extremely graphic (with X-ray special effects included) of Li precisely crushing
the bad guys neck causing a huge gash in the corotid artery insuring instant
death. However, in Grave, Li goes a step further. He forces a radioactive element
down the bad guys throat causing the bad guy to undergo severe radiation
sickness. There seems to be another recurring pattern in his films: Fire and Rain.
In the last and final battle scene, there's a "ring of fire" with an incredibly
localized low pressure system directly overhead which doesn't seem to extend
more than 100 yards in either direction. Same thing in Romeo Must Die
with the pigeons and the fire with the rain?
Overall, I liked the movie. It doesn't really matter what the plot was. Jet Li
can FIGHT.
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Cast
- Elijah Wood ........... Frodo Baggins
- Sean Astin ............ Sam (Samwise Gamgee)
- Billy Boyd ............ Pippin (Peregrin Took)
- Dominic Monaghan ...... Merry (Meriadoc Brandybuck)
- Ian McKellan .......... Gandalf (Gandalf the Grey)
- Ian Holm .............. Bilbo Baggins
- Viggo Mortensen ....... Aragorn a.k.a. Strider
- Orlando Bloom ......... Legolas
- Liv Tyler ............. Arwen
- Christopher Lee ....... Saruman
- Kate Blanchett ........ Galadriel
- Sean Bean ............. Boromir
- John .................. Gimli
- Andy Smerkis .......... Smiegel/Gollum
- Hugo Weaving .......... Elrond
This film is quite possibly the best film I have ever seen so far.
I was quite concerned when I first heard that they were going to try and make a
film out of the famed Tolkien series quite possibly the Holy Grail of
filmmaking. The story is so complex and is on such a wide scale, like Star Wars,
LOTR: The Fellowship of the Ring is breathtaking, and really manages to
make us quite concerned for all these characters. The special effects are top-rate.
The battle scenes are epic, the filmmaking superb and smooth, director Peter Jackson, a
Tolkien fan himself, really does a great job. As one critic puts it, "Any decent director
could have filled the movie with glamourous costuming, shocking dentistry and dust kicking horses. But
thankfully, he doesn't."
I won't tell you what happens, but basically, Frodo, a mild mannered Hobbit,
gets a hold of a special (and dangerous) Ring by Bilbo Baggins his uncle. The
"Ring of Power" is a gold ring created by the evil Lord Sauron and is encribed
with these ominous words, "One ring to rule them all." Sauron, whose
ultimate goal is total domination and conquest, seduced Saruman the head of the
Wizards in his quest. This leaves Frodo with the daunting task of voyaging to the land
of Mordor, to the very peak of Mount Doom where it
must be destroyed. He is joined by six others forming a fellowship, where the movie takes
its name, The Fellowship of the Ring. Unfortunately, this journey is filled with danger and the Ring
which has very seductive powers, is taking it's toll on poor Frodo who is the very
unwilling bearer of the Ring and his other companions who have their own motives
for joining this quest. The movie ends with an epic battle with good vs. evil
testing the true bond of the Fellowship.
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Cast
- Tim Allen ............. Jason Nesmith
- Sigourney Weaver ...... Gwen DeMarco
- Alan Rickman .......... Alexander Dane
- Tony Shalhoub ......... Fred Kwan
- Daryl Mitchell ........ Tommy Weber
- Sam Rockwell .......... Guy Fleegman
This film is so funny in it's suspicious appearance to Gene Roddenberry's classic Star Trek series. You might as
well type cast this crew to the original Star Trek characters: Tim Allen who plays actor Jason Nesmith corresponds to
William Shatner (Cpt. James T. Kirk), Sigourney Weaver plays a character with a cross between Yeoman Rand (Magel Roddenberry)
and Nurse Chapel and Lt. Uhura (Nichelle Nichols).
I thoroughly enjoyed it. Tim Allen really does a good job imitating the gung-ho "Never say Never!" Captain of the NSEA
Protectorate (can you say Enterprise?);) who finds himself in the role of a lifetime.
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Cast
- Jet Li ............. Han Sing
- Aaliyah ............ Trish O'Day
- Delroy Lindo ....... Isaak O'Day
- Isaiah Washington ...Mac
- Russell Wong ....... Kai Sing
- DMX ................ Silk
Plot
When Po Sing becomes the first casualty in a gang war involving African American and Chinese
families, Han Sing (Jet Li) wants to find answers. However, things are not as they seem, and
when another casualty Isaak O'Day, this time an African American, gets murdered, Han finds
himself teamed with Trish O'Day (Aaliyah). Two families locked in a battle, with players
and double crossings on each side, this makes one spectacular film.
Some things that I liked about the movie:
- Girl gets to fight!: Alright, alright, so maybe Jet Li was helping Aaliyah a little
bit, but I think that she does a pretty good job, for someone who *never* was in a martial
arts movie before. This was really, really, good for her.
- Also, not all the bad guys are Asian, or African American. I think Jet Li did a *good*
job in not only having bad guys on both sides, but also showed that even the ones who
thought they were in control of the situation, weren't and that they were in turn, being
used by: THE WHITE MAN...hehehe. I just found it SO funny that behind all of these gang
violence and skirmishes, the land dealers who were actually interested in the waterfront
property were rich, white folk.
Really good film. My sister is raving about the opening shot, which you must see.
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This is quite possibly the worst movie I have ever seen! Not that I'm not a martial
arts fan I am. It's just that this movie totally threw me for a loop! I guess it was the
expectation of a real *genuine* martial arts film with actual good choreographed fight
scenes, a little imagination, a real plot.....
I don't know. There are so many things wrong with this movie, but it actually had a half-way
decent plot. It's basically Hong Kong's answer to the Mod Squad. Same plot, to kick bad
guys' butt, must use reformed "bad guys" to infiltrate gang, etc.
Here are some of my comments:
- What was the plot?: During the entire film, I had no idea what it was about. The plot
was way too complicated. Make it simple. Don't have all these loose ends. In this film they
managed to have three seperate major events occur: a love story, an action adventure film,
and a tragedy all in 113 minutes (which to me seemed like a week).
- Bad writing: The Japanese terrorists lines got on my nerves. He would always talk, talk,
talk, before he did anything. And this tendency to "wax poetic" before committing a crime:
annooyyyinnnggg. He would say something like "Now you join the skeletons in the dark..." or something
really stupid like that. Also it would help if the actor playing the Japanese guy actually
spoke Japanese and didn't have such a thick unintelligible accent.
- I think expectation had alot to do with why I hated this film. The whole action (fighting)
in this film was with guns. Lots and lots of shootouts with guns. During the last 4 minutes
of the film, it's like the directors remembered, "Oh my God, we gotta put in a martial arts
fight scene!" and just threw one in for no reason.
Finally, DON'T SEE THE MOVIE!! I can't stress that enough. Jackie Chan does make an appearance
and it's funny that he says in effect that these new "young heroes" were NOTHING like he was.
Actually I had to laugh, because Jackie is STILL good, and I KNOW that in a hand to hand, foot
to foot with NO GUNS, which the Chinese and others seem to shun anyway, for good reason, it's
almost like cheating. You're not killing the person yourself with your own muscles, the gun
is, Jackie Chan would beat every single one of them.
Another especially painful part of the movie was the ending. Totally pointless. Ends with
a party on the beach. Sounds 80's to you too?
Okay enough of the painful memories.
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Cast
- Gary Sinise ....... Jim McConnell
- Don Cheadle ....... Luke Graham
- Connie Nielsen .... Dr. Terri Fisher
- Jerry O'Connell ... Phil Ohlmyer
- Tim Robbins ....... Woody Blake
Plot
When NASA's first manned mission to Mars (year 2020) team of astronauts goes missing,
Mission Commander Luke Graham (Don Cheadle) is sent to investigate. However, they soon
go missing too, with only a cryptic message from Luke. NASA hurriedly launches a rescue
mission headed by best friends, Commander Woody Blake (Tim Robbins) and Jim McConnell
(Gary Sinise) who recently mourned the death of his wife.
When they finally reach Mars, they discover something so profound that it changes their
lives forever.
Here are some of my comments:
- I think they did a pretty good job of showing just how long it takes us to reach the
red planet and the communications lag time. I enjoyed the camaraderie between the astronauts,
AS IT SHOULD BE, and I think that's due to Gary Sinise's experience in acting in Apollo 13.
- I liked the special effects, especially towards the end of the movie. Really spectacular.
- Black guy doesn't die, AND he's not the bad guy! Hooraay!
Here are some not so good things about the movie:
- Way too much hype. It didn't live up to the hype. If they had just released it, then maybe
I would be raving about it. However, it just didn't fit the bill in my opinion.
- Way too much artistic license with regard to their "heroic journey through space" AS USUAL.
The tether sequence was especially annoying.
- It really wasn't about Mars. It (of course following Contact) wanted to show how
this exploration drive was really humanities way of searching for "meaning" whatever THAT
means...
- I didn't like the evolution bit. Okay, okay, I know that's the current accepted scientific
theory of how life's origins, but c'mon. Microevolution is self evident (variation in species: like all the different
types of dogs) but macroevolution (dogs turning into algea) has *never* been proven.
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For NOW, check THIS site!
JUST LIKE THE MOVIE!!!
Cast
- Keannu Reeves ............. Mr. Neal Anderson
- Lawrence Fishburn ......... Morpheus
- Carrie-Anne Moss .......... Trinity
- Joe Pantoliano ............ Cypher
- Hugo Weaving .............. Agent "Smith"
Plot
Neal Anderson (Keannu Reeves), full-time computer programmer for a large conglomerate
software company/part-time computer hacker uneasy feelings that the world in which he lived
was not quite right are dramatically confirmed when a mysterious woman calling herself
Trinity (Carrie-Anne Moss) hacks into his computer and sends him a message warning him of
impending danger his questions are causing and refers him to another mysterious man called
"Morpheus"(Lawrence Fishburn), who according to the "police"/"FBI agents" is the center of
a ring of computer hackers undermining national security of the United States. As Neal goes
deeper and deeper into the world of virtual reality, reality/unreality/dreams merge together
until one can't tell the difference between the two. As a result of meeting with Morpheus,
Neal finds out that the world in which he lives is not real and is part of a vast
tailor-made artificial virtual world called "The Matrix" designed and implemented by
a huge artificial intelligence computer (AI) who spawned more and more sentient computers
who in the late 20th century enslaved the entire world by making a virtual world and uses
the bio-electrical energy produced by the brain to fuel their world while humans, unaware,
are living their own lives.
This information sends Neal to find out who he is and what the world "really" looks like.
Morpheus believes that Neal is "The One", the prophesized human leader who would come to
free all the humans from this virtual prison
.
Overall, this movie was really good, especially in the special effects department.
Here are some of my comments:
- Now I have to say that at first I did not want to see this movie at all. I wasn't
interested, and I hated Keannu Reeves not only as an actor, but as a person as well. ;)
However, when a certain member of my family insisted on my coming and my friends kept
bugging me about it, I finally waved a white flag in truce and promptly went to see it in
the Uptown with my family including my parents. Here are some positive things about the
movie.
- Two words. SPECIAL EFFECTS. This movie's strength was in the special effects department
. I give my hat off to you guys. Especially the opening sequence was especially masterful.
I especially enjoyed the fight sequences. If you like fight scenes, this movie is for you.
With clarity almost to rival Jackie Chan's this all the fight scenes which consisted of
kung fu were superbly choreographed. The girl got to do some MAJOR fighting, and I love it
when they freeze frame right in the middle of a kick. AWESOME! (Take a look at the girls
first fight scene fighting the secret agent (Smith) in the beginning of the film). First
rate.
- One thing I must grin at: The movie never really did explain the way that the people
interacted in the Matrix and the physical characteristics of it. I guess the main reason
was if it wasn't clear, people can't really criticize it much!;)
- Women fights. YESSS!!
- Normally I hate Keannu Reeves, but he handled the part very well and the role made him
bearable.
However, there were some down sides: (for me), of course.
- - Dark, dark movie. (But I guess that's just the nature of the film. Can't make
something like this look cheery if you know what I mean! ;) ) However, I don't watch
horror films, or X-files, or anything like that. I didn't like the fact that these humans
are facing a humungous gargantuan task that they (or their children if they have any) will
reap the benefits of. Here you have a race of humans living in an artificial world unawares
, and the controllers are artificial intelligences (computers)! Here are these band of 6
humans, who don't even have a decent ship to navigate in (a hover craft for pete's sake),
and have to constantly be on the look out (since they escaped) from routine submaintenance
drones whose sole purpose is to "search and destroy" with only an "Electro Magnetic Pulse
emmitter" and can only use it when no one is in the Matrix. Keannu Reeves (Neal Anderson)
has a heck of a job cut out for him.
- The time frame doesn't make sense. First Morpheus tells Neal that the artifical
intelligences wanted to make it seem like the golden age of human civilization which they
believed was the late 20th century. However, Morpheus tells Neal that the year is NOT 1999,
but two-thousand twenty-something. How did the artificial computers do it? How can you make
people believe year after year that it's the same year? Say the computers came in 1999 and
took over the world real quick. Then for the next year, 1999, they would go along as
planned. However, when the year turned to 2000 what did they do? Reset to 1990? That would
be kind of suspicious and tedious. Constantly resetting to 1990 after 10 years? Wouldn't
someone pick up on that?
- What is the connection between people in the matrix and their body? Morpheus tells Neal
that his real body is encased in a vat of fluid and that his mind has been taken to this
nepharious virtual world where an "mental ingram" of himself that he holds in his mind is
what makes him appear to be what he is. This seems to imply that the body is literally
seperated from the mind. Why would the computers even bother with keeping the bodies?
If they have mastered digitizing the whole human DNA sequence then why not just keep the
minds in this matrix and have no bodies? Second, there is a discrepancy on what the
connection is between the body and the "mind". In one case, a punch that Morpheus gives
Neal causes Neal's lips to bleed. (in the simulator). However, Neals real body also develops
bleeding lips and even shakes with every punch that Morpheus gives him. However, after
what appears to be a grueling sparring match, Neal is tired and starts to breathe hard. Then
Morpheus asks him, "Is that air you're breathing?" seeming to imply it's not. But if it's
not, then in the virtual world people can do things they wouldn't be able to do with their
"real" bodies, because after all it's just their minds. So this seems to indicate that the
body/mind is connected somehow. However, when Neal "seperates" himself from the matrix
and into the "real world", the animations seem to indicate that his mind (consisting of
electrical signals) are actually traveling back to his body.
- Taking from a scientific point of view, such a matrix cannot be possible. What protocols
must be developed to accomplish something like this?
