Film Reviews - AvPGalaxy's Own Critics!

[TJ Doc]

Yes those were the only gadgets. Ironic, when you consider that Q gets his largest role of the series in LTK.

[First Blood]

That's right!  interesting...

[SpaceMarines]

I should see it. It's one of the few Bond films I haven't seen.

[First Blood]

I should see it. It's one of the few Bond films I haven't seen.

You might like it. For once Bond's not taking any orders from MI6 

------
Just finished this today...

*Contains Spoilers*


1994

Storyline: A  military force known as the Allied Nations has managed to enter the fictional South East Asian nation of Shadaloo to combat the armed forces of a drug lord turned General named M. Bison, who has recently captured several dozen AN workers. Via a live two-way TV broadcast, Bison demands AN regional commander William F. Guile secure a $20 billion ransom in three days, or he will kill the hostages and the world will hold Guile and the AN accountable. One of the hostages, Carlos "Charlie" Blanka, an AN trooper and Guile's best friend, is used as a test subject for Bison's super-soldier experiment, conducted by a reluctant Dr. Dhalsim. Guile's assistant. (Wikipedia)

Visual FX: Well, this movie doesn't have too many effects, since it's a fighting movie. But there are a few dodgy ones. I thought when they made M. Bison fly through the air it was pretty neat!

Sound: Great sound, every snap crackle and pop!

Acting: This is where the movies falls short. Van Damme (Guile) strangely is the weakest part of the film. His acting is a bit cringe worthy in the film. Raul Juila (M. Bison) gave one last great performance. He was dealing with cancer at the time, but one wouldn't notice because he did such a fantastic job playing a maniac.



Violence: There's little blood if any in the film. Mostly hand to hand combat with gun battles sprinkled in. Mostly at the end, with an assault on M. Bison's fortress.



Overall Rating: Truth be told I like this movie a lot. It's actually a really good adaptation which is funny. It has the colorful campy costumes like in the games and so forth. It features Ken and Ryu. I think despite what the "critics" said, this was a fun movie. One of my favourite Van Damme films despite his acting.

7/10

[Harkus]

I haven't seen it myself but the review from the Nostalgia Critic is hilarious stuff.

[SpaceMarines]

That film was painful to watch.

[First Blood]

Tee-hee 

[Harkus]

STARSHIP TROOPERS

Do you want to be a citizen?

Starship Troopers begins in the middle of a bloody battle between the Human race and giant man-hungry bugs. The humans are over-powered and a reporter who is acting as a narrator to the audience is killed off in an awesomely dramatic style. Flash back a year and we meet Jonny Rico (Casper Van Dien) a school student with dreams of joining the Federation and becoming a citizen, oh that's right, during these early school scenes we learn that to legally be considered a citizen one has to join the Federation and serve in the military. This world we see is very military focused and those who don't join up, I guess face scrutiny and scorn from society in addition to the lack of some basic human rights such as having children! However what seems on the surface as military propaganda is in fact a satire condemning it. The satire is subtle, almost unnoticeable, however it works perfectly. A prominent theme of the film is is the human practice of senseless violence without reflection or empathy, which parallels the senseless aggression of the "Bugs". Some critics missed this however and condemned the films apparent support of such behaviour. The message in fact was simple -  War makes facists of us all.

Full Metal Jacket

Against the will of his parents Jonny Rico joins the Mobile Infantry branch of the Federation, saying goodbye to his girlfriend Carmen (Denise Richards) who joins the fleet, and his best friend Carl (Neil Patrick Harris) who is psychic and joins the federation as a high ranking officer. He feels it is his duty to serve in battle and ultimately become a citizen. During Rico's training we meet Zim the training instructor, the steretypical kind, almost exactly the same as the instructor from Full Metal Jacket. The good thing about these training scenes is that they are light hearted and fun with great character development. Rico shows outstanding promise and becomes Squad Leader, a posistion that he does not keep for long. During a live fire excercise Rico tells one of his squad to remove his helmet due to malfunction an act that results in said squaddies death. Rico is repramanded in the form of whipping and is stripped of his leadership. In shame he leaves the mobile infantry with the intention of going home. Cue, plot device to make him stay. The bugs launch an attack on Buenes Aires and destroy Rico's hometown killing his parents. Now they've done it! Game on. Rico stays and the battle begins!

PROMOTION!!!

These battle scenes consist of Rico's awesomeness and Rasczak's (Michael Ironside) badassery. They are extremely entertaining, nothing is better than seeing a solider jump on the back of a building sized bug and throw a grenade into it's innards, there just isn't! Rico's potential shines and every other scene (it seems) he get's a promotion. 

SFX

Not much to say here except phenomenol. Simply put the special effects are flawless. When i first watched it thought the bugs were real! They have not aged poorly they still stand on their own merits.

Conclusion

Couple the action scenes with Rico's personal troubles with Carmen, his friendship with Ace (Jake Busey), his new love interest Dizzy (Dina Meyer) and his goddamn promotions and we get a grand epic that not only entertains but contains a deep social message. The acting can be questionable at times, however it is generally unnoticeable. Van Dien does a perfect job as our hero despite being given some bad dialogue. Did I mention, it is quite a cheesy film.

10/10

[Crainy]

Time to review my most favorite movie of all time (and im DEAD serious about that):



This is a hard one to review in the standart formular of the reviews, so i gonna make it different.

At first: When i first watched this movie, i didnt knew who Micheal Bay was and i never watched another Micheal Bay movie before. The first time i heared the name was in the trailer, which looked actually really cool. So i gone with an open feeling into the movie.
And as soon as the movie ended, i was never the same again, believe it or not, this was kinda a live changing movie for me. This movie got me really interested in directing movies and in movie making in general, even if i had made some small small movies before. Also, it helped me a bit to find my own philosophy. When i got the movie on Blu-Ray, i started to like it more and more, because i saw that there is much more to this movie than just action and fx.

At first, the storyline: Actually, i dont think that the storyline is so bad, it is also not so simple. It fits perfectely into the rest of the movie. However, the first time somebody watches Transformers, he usually just pays attention to the visuals. I, for example, needed to watch the movie three times to get the whole plot, not because its so extremly complex, but because of the way its telled. The plot in this movie is more realisticly telled than in most other movies, not everything is downright explained to you, you really need to pay attention to get everything.

Also, many things focus around "coincidences", and i mean this in the good way. The characters in this movie have a general idea what they want to do, but nothing works out like planned, like in the reality. When does something always work like planned? In a different movie, like Indiana Jones or something, the plot would be a straight-lined, but here, many things that had meaning in prior chapters of the movie just loose their importants because of coincidences. Its an unique attempt at storytelling which really works in this movie.

The characters in this movie are hard to rate. I like how Shia plays Sam, but its not extremly outstanding. Also, the main characters are the Transformers, however, their voice work really fit well to each robot, especially peter cullen which voices Optimus Prime. You can really feel the emotions behind that character, and he has two really cool and meaningfull speeches in the movie.

Of course, there is much outstanding action in this movie and perfected CGI, but the movie has also its really beautifull moments. In fact, my favorite scene is not an action scene, but the scene were the Autobots arrive on Earth, its just pure Atmosphere, so beautifull. The music is also a big part of this movie and i think perfectly matches to the images they are set to, this mix of beautifull images and outstanding music always gives me the chill.
The sound design in this movie is also really REALLY good, watch this movie with a good sound system, or else you will miss alot.
Micheal Bay really did a great job at directing all this, nobody could have made a better Transformers movie, NOBODY.

Also, i wouldnt say that the music, sound and visuals are the only things this movie is based on, the real faszination of this movies comes from somewhere else: I actually know many people who dont like visual heavy movies AT ALL, they didnt liked Avatar, Aliens or Predator or LOTR. But they liked Tranformers. And i think i know why:
Its the overall concept. The concept of having giant robots in the main acting roles as well as good and bad guys is an extremly unique concept in the movie world. Its like a childrens cartoon, but for grown adults which have a brain. It lets you somehow feel like a child again, and that is really a big part of it. Every scene where a transformers is on the screen is just magnificend. As Steven Spielberg said to Micheal Bay: Transformers is a new genre in the movie world. So, this movie is acutally really original. And that mixed with a good telled story, outstanding Visuals, Music and Sound, thats the perfect movie.

However, its not without i flaws.

At first, i like to point out that i think some of the humor in this movie is horrible misplaced. I mean, i mostly works well, BUT A FAT GUY WHICH CAN HACK INTO A SUPERCOMPUTER??!!! ARE YOU f**kING KIDDING?! Yeah Micheal Bay, why, why do you do this to us? Do you really thought that would be a good idea? The rest of the movie is perfect, but then you throw A FAT GUY WHICH CAN HACK INTO A SUPERCOMPUTER at us?!
Also, i dont like how some of these humor interrupts action scenes. I just dont like it. But i dont know if thats bad script writing or just Micheal Bay. I would like it if this movie had a bit darker tone to it.

Overall, when you already watched the movie and sayed it "sucked" because its a micheal bay movie, watch it again, and if you havent seen the movie yet, go check it out, because this is really one of the best (action) movies ever made, probably the best action movie of the 2000 decade.


VisualFX The visuals are fanastic and CGI really was perfected in this movie, this quality of CGI still hasnt been surpased, but often copied, like in movies like "Iron Man" or "GI JOE". The transformations scenes in this movie are just outstanding, they are the most beautifull thing ever put into a action movie.

Storyline Simple, but originall (for the movie world of course) and nicely telled.

SoundFX Wow, this is great.

Violent Factor Not much violence, exept if you cant Transformers vs Transformers violence, then this movie knows no mercy. However, this movie has no need for blood and gore.

Overall Well, everything has been sayed, its awesome.

Overall rating: 95%

[Harkus]

I thought Transformers was alright but nothing special. My main gripe with it is that the human characters are pointless and unnecessary. It would have been better if it was like the old cartoons. I'd porbably give it a 6/10. It is a decent flick, definately worth watching. The sequel however is utter rubbish and I hate Michael Bay with a passion.

[Crainy]

I thought Transformers was alright but nothing special. My main gripe with it is that the human characters are pointless and unnecessary. It would have been better if it was like the old cartoons. I'd porbably give it a 6/10. It is a decent flick, definately worth watching. The sequel however is utter rubbish and I hate Michael Bay with a passion.

Mh, i have also mixed feelings about TF2, but i dont think its Micheal Bays fault, but the fault of weak script writers. I mean, the story is pointless and doesnt work together with the story of the first movie, the humor in TF2 is just soooo lame, whoever was responsible for that, omg. However, the first half of TF2 has some nice action scenes (the forest fight was just incredible) and some good dialog, but all these beautifull scenes are non existend and the transformation scenes are rushed. Also, the acting in in TF2 is a joke, especially from Megan Fox.

And second half is just bad, the action is bad, the acting is bad, story is weak, the only cool thing, however, way to short is the Devastator transformer. Seriously, i cant watch the second half of TF2, its just boring, the first half atleast entertains. When i watch TF2, i usually stop after Prime died, because it just gets boring then.

But there are some things that i like about the movie: Again, i think the Transformers are magnificent as always, especially Optimus Prime. I really love his argument with that CSI/Whatever guy.

However, one thing i want to point out: Transformers 2 might have the most well made action scene i have ever seen in a movie, and i think, that is the only scene which stands out, of course, the forest fight.
It was one of the very few moments in my live where a movie really took away my breath, and i mean that how i write it here, i couldnt breath after Optimus Prime sayed that awesome one-liner + the following kick ass(the scene i mean comes at 2:55, im serious, everybody who likes action should watch this scene on blu-ray on a big screen): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R9TCYPkRMnY

I would give TF2 maybe a 4/10 or maybe a 5/10.

[Harkus]

TF2 does have some redeeming features but personally I felt it was a wasted oppurtunity, yes the script writers are at fault but so to is Michael Bay. On principal I hate him, he makes borderline mediocre movies and acts all arrogant about it as if he is awesome. I will say Bad Boys is the only movie of his I will say is better than mediocre, it was pretty awesome in fact.

[Crainy]

TF2 does have some redeeming features but personally I felt it was a wasted oppurtunity, yes the script writers are at fault but so to is Michael Bay. On principal I hate him, he makes borderline mediocre movies and acts all arrogant about it as if he is awesome. I will say Bad Boys is the only movie of his I will say is better than mediocre, it was pretty awesome in fact.

THATS EXACTLY HOW I FEEL.

However, as i said, i dont know any other micheal bay film than TF1 and 2, and i think TF1 is way better than mediocre.
Well, i think Micheal Bay is a master in his work (action films), he perfected the action. But he mostly fails to add more to his movies than that and action alone never makes a good movie. TF1 is the exeption for him, i think.

[Harkus]

He is generally good with action, Transformers and Bad Boys being films he makes successfully. watch Pearl Harvour though, arguably the bastardisation of modern cinema, but maybe that is me being over dramatic.

[OmegaZilla]

Pearl Harbor was worth watching only for Beckinsale.