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jblippman
Reviews
Lucifer (2016)
Tinting is off and casting leaves something to be desired.
This is a clever show, although they do rely a bit too heavily on Tom Ellis' charms to carry the hour. He's tap dancing as fast as he can to keep the action lively, but at the end of the hour I feel tired FOR him. The stories are engaging, but the rest of the cast is just not up to his level. Kevin Alejandro is poorly cast as the ex-husband. He is ordinary, and it is difficult to imagine our bold, confident heroine going for him in the first place or choosing him over Lucifer at the end of the day. For a triangle to work, both candidates need to be equally compelling.
My primary complaint is that the show is tinted a sickly green. Is this a creative choice? To make the female lead look like she's finishing up her third round of chemo? Whatever the thinking, it is wrong. It is distracting. Try some healthier tones please.
If they can adjust the tint and raise the level of acting around Tom Ellis, I think the show will make it to a second season.
X: First Class (2011)
Can January Jones act? Not judging by her performance in THIS movie.
The movie was good fun and obviously aimed at X-Men fans. BUT. January Jones is absolutely dreadful. It isn't a difficult role. Any BAYWATCH actress could have done a better job. Yes, she is THAT bad. Dull, flat, without any nuance or charm. Really distractingly awful. Is she any good on Mad Men?
Kevin Bacon is wonderful as always and James McAvoy steals every scene he is in. He is the real deal. But I guess there wasn't enough money in the budget for the CGI and to hire good actors for the supporting roles, because most of the rest of the cast was not quite Gossip Girl quality. Compared to Halle Berry, Ellen Page, Danny Huston and others from the previous installments, the cast was very low caliber and it showed.
One other complaint. If you want to make multiple movies with one mythology/story, be consistent with your events. Things happen in this movie that belie events in the other X-Men movies. Again, distracting.
But what do you want. It's X-Men, not ACTUAL rocket science.
I'm Reed Fish (2006)
Who did the casting for this movie?
A cute, small, character driven movie about a guy who looks 15 but is apparently in his mid 20's. On the eve of his wedding, his high school crush comes back to the small town where they grew up. Predictable angst ensues. The soundtrack is good if you like emo country soft rock. The performances are fine, too. Alexis Bledel is very lucky to get so much work considering she only has the one persona. Jay Baruchel channels Zach Braff, which brings me to the main problem with the movie. Unfortunately, it is hard to accept the reality of a town of gorgeous women who inexplicably love scrawny unattractive boys. Worth seeing if you can get it for free, otherwise wait for it to be on Lifetime or MTV.
Transformers (2007)
Effects were spectacular, but the story could have been MUCH tighter.
The difference between this movie and Star Wars - why this will be a cult fave with a certain segment of society and not a timeless classic - is the lack of a tightly crafted story to hold the terrific special effects together.
There are characters that do not forward the story and disappear part way through the movie. There are new characters that should be introduced in the first three scenes that don't appear until mid way through and therefore don't have the impact they should.
Every film maker learns that job one is to make every scene move the story forward, and Michael Bay fails to do this, which results in a 2 hour+ movie that leaves you feeling a vague lack of something instead of a tight 1 hour 50 minute movie that ties up all loose ends and gives every story thread the expected pay off.
It's worth seeing if you love great special effects and "Independence Day" style alien a$$ kicking, but don't expect the completely satisfied feeling you get from seeing a great story brought to life on screen.
Superman Returns (2006)
Awful disappointment
This movie breaks so many basic rules of good movie making, I don't know where to begin. 1. Don't assume all your viewers know the movie loosely picks up after Superman II. If that's what you're going to do, then at least set the stage with a brief recap set 5 years ago and then come to the present. 2. No respect for who the title character is. There is NO WAY Superman would leave earth without saying goodbye to Lois Lane. He doesn't lie, but he bugs out without a word? Don't think so. 3. Every scene should move the story forward. There is waaay too much meaningful-glance-but-no-dialogue scenes that do nothing for the story. 4. Too much nonsense that any Superman fan would balk at:
*He comes back to earth in some sort of spaceship and collapses into his mother's arms. Uh, he flies in space around earth but can't make a safe three point landing in a space ship?
*He ends up in a human hospital? And even lying there without his suit on, Lois doesn't see Clark?
*Lois Lane hooks up with someone else soon enough after her Fortress of Solitude night with Superman to be able to pass the child off as the second guy's?
*Lex has already found his way to the Fortress of Solitude once before, but Superman STILL leaves the crystals unprotected? And on and on and on... 5. It is all CG and action, but no story. Kevin Spacey does the best he can with the minimal dialogue he has. He carries the movie. There can't be a total of 20 pages of dialogue in the whole movie. 6. Every image must have a reason, but this movie is just a string of reaction shots; there are henchman who get their own reaction cutaways but not one word of dialogue. Disorienting. 7.Again, too much is assumed or just hinted at, but little is actually expressed. This is not some deep character study. It is an action adventure movie so we need dialogue and character interplay - not meaningful glances and ultra subtle minimalist dialogue. Why would anyone chose Richard White over Superman? We barely get to see his appeal here so what's the point?
Bryan Singer, go back and watch the original Superman and take notes on why is was so good. Clark Kent got actual scenes to show who he was. Superman got actual scenes to show who HE was. Ditto Lois. The story and the characters are always the most important thing, and the only character that got developed in this movie was Lex, and I think that was simply because Kevin Spacey is a genius.
If you choose to watch this movie, don't expect it to fulfill any desire you may have to see the saga of Superman advance in any meaningful way.
Van Helsing (2004)
Waste of time
Too bad the writer/director didn't pay closer attention to the great movies he was homaging in this stinker. Way too much over the top action and NO legit storyline or character development left us not caring whether anybody lived or died. There were tiresome holes in the story you could drive a team of horses through - clearly Summer trying to shoehorn suspense into his story at the expense of continuity. Just another "League of Extraordinary Gentlemen". Lots of special effects and good actors wasting their time with a lousy script. The fellow playing Dracula wasn't too great though - lots of hissing his lines venomously without any interesting inflection or nuance to make him more than a cardboard villain. But you really can't blame the actors here. I doubt they got much direction and just had to do the best they could.