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This is an amateur movie shot on video, not an "electrifying drama" as the DVD liner notes falsely boast. I have seen much better stuff from undergrad film students. The bulk of the story unfolds with an all-nite taxi ride around Jakarta. This movie could have been made using a single video camera, but there are a few sections where two cameras were used and the content was bounced together later. The editing is extremely rough. The final edit was probably done with two cameras, bouncing content back and forth, instead of with a proper editor. Perhaps they did the editing in the taxi too? The English subtitles were written by someone not fluent in English, e.g., "Where you go now?" To say the production quality is on a par with Blair Witch is generous. If you're not scared away yet, this film was an ambitious and creative endeavor, with lots of cool and funky images from all over Jakarta.
0neg
This isn't one of those reviews about poor special effects or technology, or being dated, issues that only the dorkiest people could relate with, but rather a review on the story telling, which most of us are truly interested in.<br /><br />The plot is about a combination of WWII Allied and German Navy members, and two civilians (the hero and heroine), who are thrust together on a German U boat and wind up in a savage land of dinosaurs.<br /><br />The manipulations aren't so bad by film standards, and we know from the plot that realism isn't going to be high. What films like this need are credible and likable characters, along with some semblance of reason in the actions.<br /><br />This film lacks both. For a full length film, only 6 characters are given any time, and 3 of them are barely looked into. McClure's hero is beyond "routine", and doesn't make much sense in any era.<br /><br />The female seems to be looking for an answer to a riddle about the land of dinosaurs they entered, but the riddle is not much of a riddle, and we could care less.<br /><br />A lot of failure in a film that should have been better, even for its time.
0neg
This was recently on AMC's vibrant movie classics and I had to laugh. I had high hopes for this adventure that follows in the vein of "Voyage to the Earth's Core" and "Mysterious Island". I was sorely disappointed not only in the acting credentials but in the silly story line that reads from a five year old's comic book. Be sure to catch sight of the wires that are holding on to the Pterdactyl's wings when they grasp "Ogar" a half idiot pre-modern man who befriends the lost adventurers. The ending left it open for further rehashing of the same effects in "People that Time Forgot". Don't waste your time.
0neg
Another day stuck indoors, another film to watch. Having finally completed my Christmas shopping yesterday on a cold and foggy afternoon, I had nowhere else to go to escape "The Land That Time Forgot". Or rather, I had nothing else to watch.<br /><br />Doug McClure, that bastion of leading-man actors, leads a handful of Allied sailors sunk by a U-Boat somewhere in the Atlantic in 1916. Capturing the U-Boat (in a scene that defies logic and reason), they eventually find themselves on a strange island, apparently untouched by human hands. Together, they explore the land and discover dinosaurs and Neanderthals! Can they escape before becoming a permanent resident of the land that Time forgot? <br /><br />Despite being made few years before "Star Wars", these films are light-years apart in terms of special effects. The model shots are little better than anything you would expect to see in an episode of Gerry Anderson's "Stingray" and the creatures aren't much better either. When the T-Rex (I'm assuming that's what it was) was killed, it fell in the same way that zombies do when you kill them - frozen in mid-walk and collapsing, arms and legs held out like a sleeping cow that's been pushed over. Granted, the sets aren't too bad but the lousy acting and endless explosion noises (which all sound the same) do their best to ruin credibility and your enjoyment of the picture as a whole. Characters are neither believable or worthy of your sympathy as they fire their guns at seemingly anything that moves. In the end, I just didn't care if they got off the island or not and by the time the end came, I was more relieved than entertained.<br /><br />Costumes are authentic enough until the cavemen arrive and it is bear-skin bikinis and loin cloths all round. And although it was fairly obvious from their actions, you wouldn't have known that some characters were German from their accents. The whole thing just lacked some polish and cohesion, leaving the viewer confused in places and nonplussed in others. Overall, this film barely registers a ripple of excitement these days although you can find some small amusement in trying to work out where Colin Farrell is. I spotted his name in the credits and half expected a baby to appear with an Irish accent and suspect facial hair. Oh well. Nothing particularly great here to see then, but just about OK if you're eating your lunch and the weather is preventing further activity.
0neg
I had a recent spectator experience with The Perfect Witness (2007) because the NetFlix computer recommendation engine suggested I watch this film. Apparently, at some point, I told it how much I liked Michael Haneke's, Benny's Video. I don't know about you, but this parallel being drawn provoked in me a maelstrom of emotion and excitement over Thomas C. Dunn's film and made the allocation of my time toward it virtually impossible to refuse. Just this kind of recommendation from the NetFlix computer intelligence, for me, had the aesthetic/moral movie bar set to level so high that, upon reflection, it represented something pretty much unaccomplished in every film produced in the year 2007.<br /><br />Having prefaced my response to the film that way, I'm going to proceed in knocking this picture down as poorly executed and banal; and I really hate to do that because I think our boy, Wes Bentley, happens to be not only one of the most interesting young faces in contemporary cinema, but also one its most overlooked and underrated screenacting talents in the US. I'm more than moderately concerned that the poor guy's going to miss the fame ship if he keeps fiddling around with first time movie directors like this.<br /><br />The Perfect Witness is about Micky (Wes Bentley), who, about thirty, still lives with Mom ("You're not drinkin' again area ya's?"), but he's a "filmmaker" or at the very least some kind of street-level voyeur with a pension for shooting would-be Johns in the seedy back alleys of Philadelphia with his DVX 100B. Out there, doing his private investigator-like drills, Micky "inadvertently" video-tapes a brutal murder on a hapless early-twenty-ish coed with his hand held camcorder. Baring the notion in mind that snuff and movies as cultural currency can be his equated with his ticket out of the white urban ghetto (and not to the debts of his unwitting friends and relatives who put up the money for his atrocious films), Micky approaches the assailant, James LeMac (Mark Borkowski: also takes a writing credit) or "Mac the Knife" –whichever- and blackmails the killer into making a documentary about his murder impulses, holding this found footage over the attacker with threats of the police.<br /><br />The problem with this movie is not that no interesting ideas exist because they do. While both the writing and direction are amateurish, that alone doesn't make a film bad. It's that these guys commit a rather poor assumption that what they are presenting is shocking in the context of a culture in which just about any person in the free world with access to a private computer can log-on to the web and catch the veracity of the action of a beheading on their little Mac or PC. No film relies on shock value alone any more (unless of course, ironically, it's a film about torture on animals) and therefore cinematic images of violence (real or fake) have less and less cultural capital with each year that passes. Also, we've got this astounding actor-talent in the lead all styled-up, real hip guy: his two inch beard and skull cap with the little bill on it, backwards, just like the dork from high school who craved after the potential services of my primary love interest –same guy who just now calls himself a "poet."<br /><br />Spare me. "I'm an artist," "I'm a filmmaker." Okay. Please do, carry on with that shtick, Cronnie. Seems to have bought you a lot of expensive 35mm stock. And go ahead, you can wear all the accrutements of a "creative" but don't expect us top respond to you, to follow your below average character through your two hour movie while you take down Wes Bentley's career. Why don't we just let history speak to the merits of what you do, filmmaker guy. My guess is history will eventually have say something about that –like, probably that's in not is good as you think it is. And yeah, odds are you'll be laying the blame on your dear ole ma, end up like our man Micky here in The Perfect Witness; hooked on smack and covered in your buddy's blood with a video camera in your hand. Great.
0neg
Having just wasted a couple of hours watching this and for 80% of that time in complete disbelief, I can give this garbage the turkey of the year award, no problem. To say the plot was unbelievable is some big understatement. Frankly I am lost for words to describe this utter tripe. Not only are the characters completely and utterly without any semblance of originality (this sort of stuff has been done much better in dozens of 'serial killer flicks')but the acting was dire. For those who pay to see this, I hope you get your money back, for those who were paid to do this, I hope you GIVE your money back. Believe me folks there are many new releases out there that are much, much better. Go see.
0neg
Wow, i'm a huge Henry VIII/Tudor era fan and, well, this was .... interesting. The only one I watched was the Catherine of Aragon one. And wow...just wow. I've seen bad acting before, but this reached new heights. When the actress who played Catherine was umm.. crying? she wails and screams and i have to admit i rewinded many times... many, many times .... funny, funny stuff. The only person who even showed any slight sliver of talent was the actress playing Anne Boleyn (i might be prejudiced though, i do have a slight obsession with Anne Boleyn, she was a really facinating woman, read up on her, it's worth it!) Also, i have read a lot about the Tudor time period and i think that the characters weren't very acurately displayed, they were all very stereotypical. Only see this movie if you are prepared to see a very important time period, and the important lives of those involved turned into a laughing stock.
0neg
The beginning of this movie is excellent with tremendous sound and some nice humor, but once the film changes into animation it quickly loses its appeal.<br /><br />One of the reasons that was so, at least for me, was that the colors in much of the animation are too muted, with too little contrast. It doesn't look good, at least on VHS. Once in a while it breaks out and looks great, but not often Also, the characters come and go too quickly. For example, I would have liked to have seen more of "Moby Dick." When the film starts to drag, however, it picks up again with the entrance of the dragon and then the film finishes strong. <br /><br />Overall, just not memorable enough or able to compete with the great animated films of the last dozen years.
0neg
About 4 years ago, I liked this movie. I would watch it over and over and over. But now... I don't. Actually, I think this movie would have been great for Mystery Science Theater 3000. It has a bunch of comment-heavy actors (Macaulay Culkin, Christopher Lloyd, Patrick Stewart, Whoopi Goldberg), and a pretty cheesy plot. My favorite part is when Culkin is riding his bike and he comes across a gang and a gang member says, "Hey, Tyler! Where ya goin'? The MOON??" Also look out for the classic line, "Do you have feeling in your toes?"<br /><br />On the other hand, it's better than "The Good Son".
0neg
Richard Tyler is a little boy who is scared of everything. He doesn't like riding his bike or climbing on his tree house because he knows what kind of accidents might happen to him. So one day he is riding his bike and because it is starting to rain, he decides to wait in the library until it stops raining. In there the whole story takes place. He experiences all kinds of staff and in the end he is not scared any more. But the whole story is unbelievable and even good actors like Macaulay Culkin could not make the story better than it is.
0neg
"I'm a cartoon!" "You're an illustration!" what does that suppose to mean?! This plot could not be worse as a boy, who's afraid of everything, becomes very brave at the very end of the film because he went into a library. The only purpose of this waste of celluloid was to encourage American kids to read, when a cheaper, and more effective way of doing this could have been a series of adverts! Even the talents of Macaulay Culkin(as the kid), Christopher Lloyd (as the so predictable "that he's a the Page Master" librarian), could save this pointless film from the dull plot. Even the voices of Whoopi Goldberg, Patrick Stewart,(even) Leonard Nimoy, or the Hollywood God of voices, Frank Welker as the cartoon characters don't save it ever. I can only describe it as a 1990s equivalent to the even ghastly 1978 adaption of the Water Babies, because the bland animation makes the film worse, not improving the dull plot!
0neg
There is a really good movie lurking just beneath the surface of the layers upon layers of cheese that is "the Pagemaster".<br /><br />I found this out when I watched this again this morning after neglecting it for years and years. I remember hating it with a passion when it first came out, but this time, I found that the special effects are quite good. The plot is just "the Neverending Story" with a creativity-endectomy, but it's an okay little flick for anyone who just wants some really awesome eye-candy. The animation is amazing, and I especially liked how the animators let their characters look and act a bit more surrealistic than the norm. I'm giving it a grade of three as I *would* have given it a two (just for parody value) if I had ever decided to watch this movie expecting it to absolutely blow my mind story-wise.
0neg
Ghost Town starts as Kate Barrett (Catherine Hickland) drives along an isolated desert road, her car suddenly breaks down & she hears horses hoofs approaching... Deputy Sheriff Langley (Frank Luz) of Riverton County is called in to investigate Kate's disappearance after her father reports her missing. He finds her broken down car & drives off looking for her, unfortunately his car breaks down too & he has to walk. Langley ends up at at a deserted rundown ghost town, much to his shock Langley soon discovers that it is quite literally a ghost town as it's populated by the ghosts of it's former residents & is run by the evil Devlin (Jimmie F. Skaggs) who has kidnapped Kate for reasons never explained & it's up to Langley to rescue her & end the towns curse...<br /><br />The one & only directorial effort of Richard Governor this odd film didn't really do much for me & I didn't like it all that much. The script by Duke Sandefur tries to mix the horror & western genres which it doesn't do to any great effect. Have you ever wondered why there aren't more horror western hybrid films out there? Well, neither have I but if I were to ask myself such a question I would find all the answers in Ghost Town because it's not very good. The two genres just don't mix that well. There are plenty of clichés, on the western side of things there's the innocent townsfolk who are to scared to stand up to a gang of thugs who are terrorising them, the shoot-outs in the main street, saloon bars with swing doors & prostitutes upstairs & horror wise there's plenty of cobwebs, some ghosts, an ancient curse, talking corpses & a few violent kills. I was just very underwhelmed by it, I suppose there's nothing terribly wrong with it other than it's just dull & the two genres don't sit together that well. There are a few holes in the plot too, why did Devlin kidnap Kate? I know she resembled his previous girlfriend but how did he know that & what was he going to do with her anyway? We never know why this ghost town is full of ghosts either, I mean what's keeping them there & what caused them to come back as ghosts? Then there's the bit at the end where Devlin after being shot says he can't be killed only for Langley to kill him a few seconds later, I mean why didn't the bullets work in the first place?<br /><br />Director Governor does alright, there's a nice horror film atmosphere with some well lit cobweb strewn sets & the standard Hollywood western town is represented here with a central street with wooden buildings lining either side of it. I wouldn't say it's scary because it isn't, there's not much tension either & the film drags in places despite being only just over 80 odd minutes in length. Forget about any gore, there a few bloody gunshot wounds, an after the fact shot of two people with their throats slit & someone is impaled with a metal pole & that's it.<br /><br />I'd have imagined the budget was pretty small here, it's reasonably well made & is competent if nothing else. Credit where credit's due the period costumes & sets are pretty good actually. The acting is alright but no-ones going to win any awards.<br /><br />Ghost Town is a strange film, I'm not really sure who it's meant to appeal to & it certainly didn't appeal to me. Anyone looking for a western will be annoyed with the dumb horror elements while anyone looking for a horror film will be bored by the western elements. It's something a bit different but that doesn't mean it's any good, worth a watch if your desperate but don't bust a gut to see it.
0neg
I was at this film's premiere at the Toronto Film Festival in 1997. After the screening, when the writer/director and some cast members offered to answer questions, no one could even be bothered to ask any. Rarely has a film been so poorly directed (why on earth were random frames snipped out of some scenes?), wretchedly acted (David Arquette, to paraphrase Dorothy Parker, does not run the emotional gamut from A to B. He parks at A and brings a lunch) and utterly pointless. Characters behave completely out of character for no reason except to force the plot to move in certain directions. At long last, the film comes to a completely random and pointless end that's supposed to "really make you think." Unfortunately, what it makes you think is, "Well, there's 90 minutes of my life I'm never getting back."
0neg
THE ALARMIST is so abysmally scripted that you have think to yourself why on earth did an up and coming actor like David Arquette agree to be in it. It has to be one of the weakest plots I have ever seen and without any humour at all, it borders on the brink of tedious. It staggers along to a dreadful conclusion which appears to only happen because the director got bored and just wanted to wrap up quickly in order to get home for his dinner. Stay away!.
0neg
David Arquette is a young and naive home security alarm<br /><br />salesman taken under the wing of Stanley Tucci. Arquette is a<br /><br />golden boy, scoring a big sale on his first call- to widow Kate<br /><br />Capshaw and her dopey son Ryan Reynolds. Things are going<br /><br />well for Arquette, he is appearing in commercials for the security<br /><br />firm and he is falling in love with Capshaw.<br /><br />Then Tucci and his right hand woman Mary McCormack let him in<br /><br />on a little secret- they sometimes break into the houses of their<br /><br />clients in order to scare them and to get their neighbors to buy<br /><br />security systems from the firm. Arquette decides not to get<br /><br />involved, taking Capshaw to meet his family, and going through life<br /><br />with a goofy smile on his face. Then, someone breaks into<br /><br />Capshaw's home and murders her and her son. Arquette suspects Tucci, and sets a series of traps, resulting in a gun to his<br /><br />boss' head as Tucci pleads his innocence.<br /><br />Based on a stage play, "The Alarmist" is not opened up well. The<br /><br />scenes where Arquette takes the Capshaw to meet his parents<br /><br />are badly played and completely unfunny. They are also out of line<br /><br />with the character Capshaw is playing, as she gets drunk and tells<br /><br />sexually explicit stories to Arquette's mom Michael Learned. Other<br /><br />than these scenes, Capshaw is not given much to do, but she<br /><br />does a lot with the little she is given.<br /><br />Stanley Tucci, looking just like Terry O'Quinn, is a riot as the<br /><br />security firm owner. He is a creep who really does not understand<br /><br />Arquette's moral revulsion. However, when he turns into a<br /><br />sniveling whiner after Arquette kidnaps him, he is hilarious. Mary<br /><br />McCormack seems to have been groomed for a bigger role, but<br /><br />she mostly stands around and agrees with Tucci. Ryan Reynolds<br /><br />is too old to play a dumb teenager, but he is funny, especially<br /><br />telling his own explicit sexual story to Arquette.<br /><br />The screenplay lurches from romantic comedy to dark comedy too<br /><br />soon. Capshaw meeting the parents is completely unmotivated,<br /><br />except to give her a reason to get out of town so someone can<br /><br />break into her house. Capshaw and Reynolds are in the film just<br /><br />to give Arquette a reason to take revenge on Tucci.<br /><br />Arquette, who has proven he is a good actor, is awful here. He<br /><br />relies on the constipated mugging that got him through those<br /><br />AT&T ads, and he is not a strong enough presence to build this<br /><br />weak film around. Actually, Reynolds might have been a better<br /><br />choice in the role.<br /><br />Dunsky's direction is good, nothing that will win an Oscar soon.<br /><br />Christophe Beck's light jazzy score recalls the type of film noir this<br /><br />film tries to be, and it is really catchy on top of that.<br /><br />Despite the pluses, Arquette's failure as a lead and the script's<br /><br />schizophrenic quality sinks the film. I do not recommend it.<br /><br />This is rated (R) for physical violence, gun violence, some gore,<br /><br />strong profanity, brief female nudity, sexual content, strong sexual<br /><br />references, and adult situations.
0neg
What begins as a fairly clever farce about a somewhat shady security monitoring company turns, almost instantaneously, into an uninteresting and completely inane murder mystery. David Arquette and the great Stanley Tucci try mightily to make this train wreck watchable, but some things are just not humanly possible.<br /><br />What, for instance, causes Gale to turn suddenly from a sweet motherly figure into a drunken shrew at Tommy's parents house? Why would Heinrich, although admittedly a sleezebag, want to destroy the business to which he devotes his life, by robbing and possibly murdering his customers? Why does the seemingly sensible Tommy believe that Heinrich could be a murderer (based almost entirely on a dream), and even if that were believable, why wouldn't he go to the police? And why didn't Gale activate the alarm when she got home, especially after scolding Howie about it being off? Of course, all of these events are necessary for the plot (and I use the term very, very loosely) to unfold. And it might be forgivable if it resulted in even the slightest bit of comedy. But everything, from Howie's description of his date rape, to the coroner's misidentification of Gale, to the final "joke" about Gale and Howie still being dead, is more tasteless and pathetic than anything else.<br /><br />I checked the box indicating that my comments contained "spoilers", but there's nothing more I or anyone else could do to spoil this thing that already stinks to high heaven.
0neg
...am i missing something here??? "unexpected plot developments"? "plot twisting with subversive glee"? are these viewers watching the same Arquette vehicle to which i just subjected myself (in an now-obvious sub(un)conscious bout of sadomasochism)...I just joined this site simply to make sure that no one else ever rents this stinker...this movie was an embarrassment to every single person involved...quick question: did Sir Stevie read the script before he gave the thumbs-up to Kate C.? if so, then it must be the same Spielberg who greenlighted "howard the duck"...don't give me that, "it was a hit play" crap--i'm guessing Mssr. Reddin ain't too pleased ...the DVD cover promised "surprising corners" and a "twisted story..." Story!!Story?? It's crap like this that make old Bobby McKee and his wandering band of Structuralists sound like geniuses...Sundance??Berlin??Toronto?? I have a home video of my cat farting that evokes more interest than Arquette's negatively-dimensional portrayal of anguished loss...and, talk about deux ex machina for Mr. Stanley T.; thank god, just in the nick o time he thought to have Dave call the cops! and thank shiva that the cops had just caught the true killer...what!!! up until the credits i was still waiting for it to be some kind of grift against Arquette and his "hidden millions"...no, Mrs. Spielberg, you don't escape unscathed: what the hell was that kitchen scene with the "athlete's foot in my crotch" gag??? are you worse in this or "just cause"?? i dunno...hey film lovers: why don't you make it a blockbuster night and rent this along with "jersey girl" and "white chicks" and then commit sepukka (or is it seppuka)...and take E. Dunsky with you....
0neg
What a horrible comedy. Totally lame. The supposed "humor" was simple and stupid. Stanly Tucci (a great actor) had the only parts worth chuckling at. And he was tied up and gagged at the time. Don't waste your time with this one. It deserves a 0/10.
0neg
Pointless, humourless drivel.....meant to be a comedy; but not one laugh in the whole film. Gratuitous violence often with guns. What kind of warped mentality can either make or say this is a good film?! 1 out of 10.
0neg
Very poor effort that offers pretty much nothing to anyone but a hardcore fan of Stanley Tucci, who tries, but can not save the poor structure, dialogue, direction, or talent of our leading man.<br /><br />Pretty much the only trick this plodding tale of a naive new salesman for an alarm company has, is its quirky side characters. But without a realistic backdrop, such characters are pointless.<br /><br />Nothing to see here, keep moving...<br /><br />
0neg
I caught this Cuban film at at an arthouse film club. It was shown shortly after the magisterial 1935 Silly Symphony cartoon where the Isle of Symphony is reconciled with the Isle of Jazz. What with the recently deceased Ruben Gonzalez piped through speakers in this old cinema-ballroom and a Cuban flag hanging from peeling stucco rocaille motifs, the scene was set for a riproaring celebration of engaged filmmaking and synchronised hissing at the idiocies of Helms-Burton. But then the film started. And the cinema's peeling paint gradually became more interesting than the shoddy mess on-screen.<br /><br />The storyline of Nada Mas promises much. Carla is a bored envelope-stamper at a Cuban post office. Her only escape from an altogether humdrum existence is to purloin letters and rewrite them, transforming basic interpersonal grunts into Brontëan outbursts of breathless emotion. Cue numerous shots of photogenic Cubans gushing with joy, grief, pity, terror and the like.<br /><br />The problem is that the simplicity of the narrative is marred by endless excursions into film-school artiness, latino caricature, Marx brothers slapstick and even - during a particularly underwhelming editing trick - the celluloid scratching of a schoolkid defacement onto a character's face.<br /><br />Unidimensional characters abound. Cunda, the boss at the post office, is a humourless dominatrix-nosferatu. Her boss-eyed accomplice, Concha, variously points fingers, eavesdrops and screeches. Cesar, the metalhead dolt and romantic interest, reveals hidden writing talent when Carla departs for Miami. A chase scene (in oh-so-hilarious fast-forward) is thrown in for good measure. All this would be fine in a Mortadello and Filemon comic strip, but in a black-and-white zero-FX flick with highbrow pretensions, ahem.<br /><br />Nada Mas attempts to straddle the stile somewhere between the 'quirky-heroine-matchmakes-strangers' of Amelie and the 'poetry-as-great-redeemer' theme of Il Postino. Like Amelie, its protagonist is an eccentric single white female who combats impending spinsterdom by trying to bring magic into the lives of strangers. And like Il Postino, the film does not flinch from sustained recitals of poetry and a postman on a bicycle takes a romantic lead. Unfortunately, Nada Mas fails to capture the lushness and transcendence of either film.<br /><br />There are two things that might merit watching this film in a late-night TV stupor. The first is the opening overhead shot of Carla on a checker-tiled floor, which cuts to the crossword puzzle she is working on. The second is to see Nada Mas as a cautionary example: our post Buena Vista Social Club obsession with Cuban artistic output can often blinker us into accepting any dross that features a bongo on the soundtrack. This film should not have merited a global release - films such as Waiting List and Guantanamera cover similar thematic territory far more successfully.
0neg
Unbelievably bad acting, a no good, unclear story and flashy images and slow-motions where they are needed the least: Adrenaline is everything a movie should not be.<br /><br />Georgina Verbaan (a so-and-so dutch soap actress who hasn't attended her English classes) plays rich girl Freya, who has the habit of 'thrill-seeking'. Which basicly is doing dangerous stunts, break stuff and annoy people. And not in a fun Jackass way. Then there's Dracko (Rivas). He kinda leads the bunch but has other illegal activities on the side. Then there's Freya's dad (Lockyer), who plays a dubious role as well. And, in the end, we got Jason (debutant Fyall), the boyfriend of Freya.<br /><br />One day, Freya gets disappeared and everybody seems involved but we, the viewer really don't care as nobody of the cast is either likable or believable, and the story doesn't make any sense.<br /><br />Why was this even made? 2/10.
0neg
This is one of the worst movies I've seen in a long time. Not just the story, but the acting is shockingly bad. The dialog sounds like someone reading the news.<br /><br />This is rated as comedy/drama/romance, it's not of those things ! It's a little action, that's it. There's really NO comedy and drama at all.<br /><br />If you went to the cinema to see this I feel sorry for you. I would not recommend it at all. Pretty much anything else that you choose to look at will be better. This is pretty much a action/crime movie. The actions scenes sucked, and crime story part of it was very predictable.<br /><br />If you are not really interested in a good story, or good acting. And you simply want to look at a 'foreign' film for the appeal of being foreign. Then this might be for you.
0neg
Given the people involved, it is hard to see why this movie should be so messed up and dull. The writer, David Ward, wrote the amazing caper film "The Sting" two years later, Jane Fonda had just won an Academy Award for Klute, and Donald Sutherland had just done excellent work in films like "Klute," "Start the Revolution Without Me," and "Kelly's Heroes." Plotwise, the movie is a caper tale, with a small gang of bumbling misfits planning a big heist. At the same time the movie wants to be hip satire, a series of comedy sketches of the type that the NBC television show "Saturday Night" would do so well two years later. The bad result is that the plot makes the comedy bits seem awkward and forced and the disconnected comedy bits destroy any kind of suspense that the heist might have. It is quite literally a movie that keeps smashing into itself, just as the cars in the cars in the demolition scenes run into each other.<br /><br />The only real interest for me was watching Jane Fonda. Her "Iris Caine" is supposed to be a light hearted version of her dramatic Bree Daniels prostitute character in "Klute" Yet, one doesn't believe her for a moment. It is always Jane Fonda pretending to be a prostitute that we are watching. It is as terrible a performance as her performance in "Klute" was terrific. It would be a good lesson for acting teachers to run the two films together to show how the same actress in the same type of role can be great or pathetic. It suggests that actors are only as good as their writers and directors.
0neg
This film started out very promising with the story about a director who loses his sight and a blind woman who is bound to help him. However, somewhere in the middle it seemed like the script writers didn't know where to go from there.<br /><br />One unbelievable event followed the next (Russia must be very small because they are all bumping into each other all the time), the motivation of the female lead character comprehensible (why does she still follow him after they got off the ship? Why doesn't she try to borrow a mobile phone on the ship to call somebody?), the side stories were completely ridiculous (was the story with the mother and the boyfriend supposed to be funny? And what was the story with the younger sister about?). Still with all this seeming arbitrariness of the plot, the movie managed to be completely predictable.<br /><br />The saddest thing about it is that there was a lot of potential. As I said, the idea of the film was good, the visuals and the score were very beautiful and the actors of the main characters were good, too. So this could have been a really good film... but it wasn't.
0neg
Although the actors were good, specially Fritzi Haberland as the blind Lilly, the film script is obsessively pretentious and completely arbitrary. A famous theatre director (Hilmir Snær Guðnason), becoming blind after a car accident, is on the run for himself and his destiny. Lilly, being sightless since her birth, is teacher for blind persons, and wants to make him "seeing" again. (Blind persons are seeing with their fingers, nose and ears.) Here this movie is becoming a roadmovie; and the longer the road becomes, the closer their relation develops, which was predictable since the beginning of the film. The theatre director is on the road to his mother (Jenny Gröllmann). His mother is living somewhere in Russia on the sea and making artistic installations - of course, what should she do other! - and she is still living, because she is waiting his son, to die. My God! This are destinies!<br /><br />Finally the son arrived! Mum is celebrating a big party! At the beach. Wind is blowing and a pianist is playing on a real piano in the middle of a dune. Yes, they are celebrating her farewell. The son arrives just in time. Mother can finally swallow the pills administered by a pretty nurse. Now a great artist can die in the arms of her great artist son, speaking sad contemplations about live in perfect German, while the son is answering with a rough accent. Because the son is unable to see, he is not falling in love to the nurse, - the film script would have become also too complicate! - but is looking for Lilly on the way back to home.<br /><br />Parallel to this roadmovie the sister of Lilly, staying at home is asking a gawky schoolmate to deflower her, who has first to booze himself to courage. The occasion is favourable. Because Mum (Tina Engel) is on journey together with the lover of Lilly, Paul (Harald Schrott). They are after Lilly, to bring her back. Paul and the mother of Lilly are not falling in love, because the film script would have become too complicate. The film script missed to make out of Paul something exceptional too. I would suggest an architect or a Pianist, or course a famous one! When they finally find Lilly, they want to convince her, to come back to Paul, because he has two eyes to see and is able to care for her. But Lilly felt in love to his pupil, the theatre director; did I mention, that he was even a famous theatre director?<br /><br />This is German film art! As you may see in this pretentious production, that the German film subsidy fund is not always producing good films, because they subsidy just such kind of pseudo intellectual films. This film is really embarrassing. I have the impression, that the film script has been cobbled together from some highbrows in coffee shops and restaurants. Everybody is entitled to contribute with an idea. Probably also Til Schweiger has contributed with some intellectual flash of wit, being a co-producer. I was reminded by this film script to an other German film of absolute painfulness: "Barfuss" - already the spelling of the title is not right! "Barfuss" DVD cover writes proudly: "A Til Schweiger Film". This film got also subsidies of Filmstiftung NRW, Filmförderung Hamburg and the FFA.<br /><br />Please don't spoil your time with this film! There are really good films in Germany. Watch out for film directors like Marcus H. Rosenmüller, Joseph Vilsmaier, Hans Steinbichler, Hans-Christian Schmid, Faith Akin ...
0neg
In this short an urban man and his wife have their weird lives set akimbo when the man takes to wearing an old red pants suit of his mother in law's.<br /><br />I kept watching this hoping that I could see why it had been made, or why the other reviewers found it funny. For me it was a total waste of time.<br /><br />Not everyone's tastes are the same but this was clearly not to mine.
0neg
I have seen many a horror flick in my time, all of them absurdly bad, but none reach the depths that this piece of trash lowers itself to. This movie made me angrier and angrier as I watched it as I tried to wrap my head around exactly what this movie was about. Now, after I've seen it, I understand - sort of - what was going on and why, but the movie itself is just too confusing to be enjoyable when you're watching it. Yes, there are the customary scenes of gratuitious violence, one-liners that show the mind-blowing insightfulness of its characters ("The highway belongs to me...ME!"), and enough nudity to sufficiently distract us from the "plot", but still you'll leave this movie feeling alone and taken advantage of, like a puppy who isn't wanted anymore and is left in a box by the side of the road. Blech.
0neg
I saw this movie a few months ago in the town which appeared as Greendale in the movie, which is the only reason I went to see it. Another local who was there just forwarded to me an email announcement of a repeat showing because the first had sold out and people were turned away. His editorial comment in his forward is a good summary:<br /><br />"Yuk."<br /><br />Unless you're a Neil Young fan or live in/near "Greendale" (if the latter you know the real name), skip this movie. It's mostly an ego trip for the filmmaker. It has no discernible plot, the music is merely OK, and too much of the lyrics are unintelligible making it impossible to follow what little shreds of plot there may be.<br /><br />I don't need to put in a spoiler warning because there are no surprises to give away.<br /><br />I'd give this a 1.5/10, but that's just for the amusement value of seeing the locales made into a movie. It wasn't worth the $6. I could rent a video camera and drive around "Greendale" and make a better movie myself.<br /><br />If you want to see a *good* environmental-message movie with no plot, go rent Koyaanisqatsi.
0neg
I had the distinct misfortune of catching up on two of 2004's worst films back to back this morning: first, the incoherent CGI-driven emptiness of The Chronicles of Riddick, and then, the embarrassing vanity project known as Greendale. One cost multimillions and the other cost pennies, but they're both bad. Really, really bad. <br /><br />Up front I should state I'm not the world's biggest Neil Young fan, but he has contributed his share of classic tunes: from Buffalo Springfield (whose best recordings were Young compositions) to Rust Never Sleeps, Harvest, and Mirror Ball, the man has penned some really great songs. Sadly, there are no great songs in Greendale, and precious few good ones, and the film around which they are built is truly cringeworthy and simplistic political sloganeering. Completely without merit as art and unimpressive as polemic, Greendale is best left forgotten. Buy the book if you feel compelled to contribute to Young's bank account.
0neg
I'm a big mark for the music of Neil Young, and with that and the glowing praise the film received in many alt-indie press circles, hit the first showing of Greendale I could find. My excitement was short-lived, as this turgid storyline and weak lyrical momentum left most filmgoers either asleep or disappointed.<br /><br />Neil says the film started as a soundtrack, and the characters came to life so much that they just filmed the soundtrack. Not the best way to craft a story. No character really has an arc, and when "significant" events do happen, the viewer doesn't cared, because film technique annoyance levels are so high by that point. The film is all song, and to that end, the characters on end mouth the lyrics as they're sung...the technique works for the first stanza it is done, and is grating on the nerves after that. It doesn't feel real or fake, it just feels unwelcome.<br /><br />Terrible acting, with characters finding one mood and playing all of it. Poor lighting at times. The only kudos I can give the film are in regard to several scenes shot as newscast, but the technique is so used in cinema today that this film did little to further it. An alright soundtrack, but nothing I'm quick to buy. A bad film.
0neg
A film written and directed by Neil Young, "Greendale" is little more than an 87-minute music video set to a doxen or so of the songwriter's works. In lieu of dialogue, the film relies exclusively on Young's lyrics, which are heavily laced with sociopolitical commentary, to tell the "story" while actors act out the scenes.<br /><br />Given the hammy performances and the shoddy graininess of the picture, the effect is the equivalent of Young blowing up some of his own home movies and releasing them for public consumption. Although there is allegedly a "story" running through the film, we really have no idea what is going on thanks mainly to the unpolished look of the film, the lack of dialogue and the amateurish ineptitude of the acting. All we get for eighty-seven minutes is a bunch of aging hippies cavorting silently through an incoherent narrative while Young's songs play endlessly on the soundtrack. The whole thing turns into a tedious exercise in self-indulgence. "Greendale" gives off-Hollywood, low budget movie-making a bad name.
0neg
My commentary has nothing to do with the political sentiments found in the film. In fact, they're quite congruent with mine. What gets me is the fact that in terms of a movie, it is stupid and devoid of any semblance of story, motive or dialogue. Maybe someone should tell Neal that substituting lyrics of songs which are failing to inspire anyone outside of a dwindling audience isn't the same thing as creating characters who are motivated to speak because of events created by the writer or director. A silly narrative remains as such despite the iconic legacy of Neal Young. The most childish scene is the one where the devil dances his way into a bar, slips a tonic to an unsuspecting hero, who then finds his way onto the dance floor to mouth the words to Young song to the heroine, who is unaware of what's taken place. Somehow these two dream up a scheme where they will go up the West Coast in search of????? Sorry Neal, stick with music and leave film making to Steven Stills.
0neg
I give this movie a 3 as it is worse than the cult movies that deserve a proper 2. It does not make sense to you? Well, it doesn't have to. This is another vampire movie with a stupid plot, no, let me rephrase, incredibly idiotic plot, where space cowboys (complete with cowboy hats) battle a space race of moron vampires.<br /><br />Does it get any uglier than this? The only good thing in this movie was Natassia Malthe, with her stunning Norwegian beauty. God, I wish Michael Ironside and the DeLuise brothers would stop accepting dumb roles in dumb movies! I mean, at least SeaQuest was nice! I know Mr. Ironside from a lot of movies, he has acted in 164 movies at this date!! It's true that he was rarely in a major role, but still!
0neg
Bloodsuckers has the potential to be a somewhat decent movie, the concept of military types tracking down and battling vampires in space is one with some potential in the cheesier realm of things. Even the idea of the universe being full of various different breeds of vampire, all with different attributes, many of which the characters have yet to find out about, is kind of cool as well. As to how most of the life in the galaxy outside of earth is vampire, I'm not sure how the makers meant for that to work, given the nature of vampires. Who the hell they are meant to be feeding on if almost everyone is a vampire I don't know. As it is the movie comes across a low budget mix of Firefly/Serenity and vampires movies with a dash of Aliens.<br /><br />The action parts of the movie are pretty average and derivative (Particularly of Serenity) but passable- they are reasonably well executed and there is enough gore for a vampire flick, including some of the comical blood-spurting variety. There is a lot of character stuff, most of which is tedious, coming from conflicts between characters who mostly seem like whiny, immature arseholes- primarily cowboy dude and Asian woman. There are a few character scenes that actually kind of work and the actors don't play it too badly but it mostly slows things down. A nice try at fleshing the characters out but people don't watch a movie called Bloodsuckers for character development and drama. The acting is actually okay. Michael Ironside hams it up and is as fun to watch as ever and at least of a couple of the women are hot. The space SFX aren't too bad for what is clearly a low budget work. The story is again pretty average and derivative but as I said the world created has a little bit of potential. The way things are set up Bloodsuckers really does seem like the pilot for a TV series- character dynamics introduced, the world introduced but not explored, etc. <br /><br />The film does have a some highlights and head scratching moments- the kind of stuff that actually makes these dodgy productions watchable. -The scene where our heroes interrogate a talking sock puppet chestburster type creature. Hilarious. - The "sex scene." WTF indeed. -The credit "And Michael Ironside as Muco." The most annoying aspect of it all though is the really awful and usually inappropriate pop music they have playing very loud over half the scenes of the movie. It is painful to listen to and only detracts from what is only average at best.<br /><br />Basically an okay watch is you're up for something cheesy, even if it is just for the "chestburster" scene.
0neg
If it were not for the "Oh So Gourgous," Natassia Malthe, this B- movie would not have been worth one sector of my Tivo disk space! In what low rent, back lot warehouse was the supposed space port filmed in? "Continuity People!" It's a basic principle in real movie making! By night an alleged space port and by day (night and day on a space station?) a warehouse!??!? People Please! The only thing I will commend this movie for, is the wardrobe dept. for continuously, keeping Natassia in those tight shape revealing outfits! Even the women who saw this bomb had to appreciate the outfits that she obviously spent some time getting into, each day of filming! The Sci-fi channel would have been better off showing SpaceBalls! At least there would have been some real humor in watching something so unbelievable.<br /><br />P.S. Michael Ironside, please Fire Your Agent ASAP! You are so much better of an actor, to be even associated with this level of movie making.
0neg
This movie is not as horrible as most Sci-Fi Channel movies. I am used to seeing the gray CGI blobs and the amateurish special effects such as close-ups of fake blood that make it very obvious that the blood is strawberry syrup or some other syrup variation. However, I had thought that I had seen all the possible lows that the Sci-Fi Channel could hit. Then I saw this movie.<br /><br />Imagine a hand inside a rubberized sock that is glazed with syrup? Those are the main Alien Vampires in this movie. You can clearly see the fingers inside the rubbery sock puppets. A talking hand comes out of the guts of victims, and the Vampire who is on the Vampire Hunter's team can talk to these Rubber Sock puppets in Transylvanian. How did Alien Vampires learn Transylvanian? And isn't Transylvania in Romania? So shouldn't they be talking Romanian? Why would some little town have their own language? If you can suspend your gag reflex and get past the talking rubber socks with the fingers clearly moving inside the Aliens' heads; then you have to deal with the other alien vampires. There are the "Leatherfaces" who like to wear the faces of their victims. Then there are the just plain ugly ones that all seem to have a lot of facial scars. Then there are the annoying Valley Girls and their boyfriends who are human traitors and sneak into space colonies so that they can sabotage the Defense Systems so that these Space Vampires can attack.<br /><br />Finally, if you think all of the above is funny and worth a laugh, you have to deal with the third rate cast of Network TV rejects that make up this team of stereotypical angry heroes which are constantly fighting among themselves. Why does almost every Sci-Fi Channel movie have to use lead characters that are annoying, abrasive, crude, or just totally unsympathetic? I found myself hoping the talking rubber socks would win.
0neg
I saw this a couple of nights back, not expecting too much and unsurprisingly it didn't deliver anything too exciting. The plot set up of a crew of vampire hunters (V-San, for vampire sanitation), going around in their spaceship periodically killing space vamps and rescuing people, is quite sound and had the film been handled better it might well have been something quite ace. Unfortunately after a fairly decent opening the sense of actual quality starts to drain away from the film, leaving something behind that, though vacantly watchable, is quite laughably bad. I don't expect anything too special from these films that pop up on the Sci Fi Channel and at least this wasn't one of their creature features with an atrocious cgi beast shambling about, but it was still pretty bad, mostly due to the writing and acting, but with a sterling contribution to the overall badness made by the horrible music. When the film opted just for a typical science fiction sounding weird noises approach to the soundtrack it did OK, but all too often hilariously bad soft rock intruded and pitched scenes into silliness. I would have tolerated the general cheesy acting and writing more were it not for the choice of music, which was a serious miscalculation, turning things from cheesy to lamely comical. Of the acting, Dominic Zamprogna was OK but bland as the nominal hero, whilst Leanne Adachi was pretty irritating as the tough girl of the vamp busting team and Aaron Pearl played another member who wasn't well written or interesting enough to make an impression. Though she didn't seem that good at the acting lark Natassia Malte did well through having a less irritating character than the others, and the fact that she is seriously nice to look at. The only serious name in the cast is Michael Ironside and he is underused though he does nicely, pretty amusing in a manner one suspects was intentional. He seems to have fun and earn his paycheck and his role is entertaining. The effects are OK on the whole, they are at least of the standards of the average science fiction TV show, and there are also a few scenes of blood splatter and a bit of fun gore as well. Things move along nicely, and I almost feel harsh rating this film badly, but then I remember bursting into laughter at regular intervals and realising that unless the film is an intentional comedy, which I don't think it is, then it simply doesn't succeed. Too much is lame, daft, unconvincing, its an OK effort I guess but it didn't appeal to me. Only give it a go if you really dig Sci Fi trash or unintended chuckles I'd say.
0neg
I picked this movie up to replace the dismal choice of daytime television and to go with my thirst for femme fatales. Well, for the previous, it is better than daytime television....though I'm not sure how much.<br /><br />It does have its points but after about the first 20-30 minutes, the good points pan out and one comes to the conclusion that they are watching a made for TV movie that was put together with not much time to make something that will hold together. In short, a terrible Sci Fi channel type movie.<br /><br />It has its points such as the future is dirty, like "Blade Runner" showed ..... of course, this is no "Blade Runner". The Captain looks, sort of feels like actor Robert Forster, the kind of person one might want to be around.<br /><br />But unfortunately, it rather ends up feeling like a bad "Andromeda" rehash where the muscle of the crew consists of poor copies of the smart gunners of "Aliens", the mystic is vampire Willow sexually intensified, and the new Captain might as well be like Jan-Michael Vincent running around on "Danger Island" in the "Banana Splits"; he only put on the uniform with the epaulets; he's got very little right to it. All of them running around with their version of force lances inside a ship that looks very much like the 'Eureka Maru' as they are fighting a class of 'people' who occupy the universe and are broken up into several different tribes or sects of different evolutionary qualities.......just like the Nietzcheans in "Andromeda".<br /><br />It might have a redeeming feature with Michael Ironside, but after a while, one gets the feeling that he took the part as a hoot! He probably had fun doing it, but it doesn't help the movie much.<br /><br />It's ..... "okay". Okay in the way that one might watch the DVD once without turning it off; if they watch it with commercials, they will probably change the channel. One might watch it once .......... but a few hours later, be wondering what it was that made them watch it all.<br /><br />For me, that was the femme fatale ............. when she was fighting.
0neg
#1 Vampires vs. Humans<br /><br />#2 Military-reject roughneck squad as first responders to dangerous, unknown Vampire incursions.<br /><br />#3 Sexy female Vampire on the side of the "good guys".<br /><br />#4 Plenty of gore and action.<br /><br />There are four (4) major plot devices that may help you decide if you want to watch this movie. If you want all four, then the next plot device may not deter you...<br /><br />#5 In outer space.<br /><br />That last one almost got me too, but I'm glad I watched. In a pile of terrible direct-to-video horror that is the Sci-Fi channel Halloween marathon... this movie is a breath of fresh air. It will stand-up against any of the other Sci-Fi channel offerings, and even against the other Vampire movie Natassia starred in (who keeps giving Uwe Boll money?).
0neg
Man has been to the farthest reaches of the earth and now he is traveling to new worlds. But with new worlds come ancient evils... the vampires of space. And not just a handful but entire tribes. In this film (which I saw as "Bloodsuckers" but I guess also goes as "Vampires Wars") we see what happens when the imperialist earthlings meet the imperialist vampires.<br /><br />I will make this review very short because it's undeserving of a good review. The best I can say for this film is it has a good cast of b-list and upcoming stars. Natassia Malthe was Quintana, and was far more attractive here than in "Bloodrayne 2". Michael Ironside is Muco, and is always a fan favorite (as I say, he's the poor man's Jack Nicholson). And we even get Carrie-Ann Fleming as "Damian's wife", who horror fans will now recognize as the eponymous Jenifer from Dario Argento's "Jenifer". So this movie, as bad as it is, isn't without some names attached... but the same can be said of Uwe Boll's work.<br /><br />The concept of the military tracking and killing vampires in space isn't necessarily a bad idea, but it easily falls into the realm of "cheese" and this film falls hard. The acting, especially from the vampires, is over the top and I just didn't find the explanations of their existence very convincing. Worst of all, the vampire tribes have the names "Voorhess" and "Leatherfaces". I understand this was supposed to be a clever reference for the horror fans, but it wasn't clever at all. It just sounded dumb and out of place (unlike the much more subtle references in James Gunn's "Slither", such as naming stores after lesser-known horror directors).<br /><br />That's all I want to say. If you can stand lots of cheese (on this day I couldn't and I'm from Wisconsin) and want to see average actors with poor costumes fight vampires in space (although "space" looks a lot like any other forest on earth) check this one out, if you can find it. I don't personally recommend this when you can watch other cheesy vampires films (Jon Carpenter's "Vampires") or other cheesy space movies. Or maybe even some good ones. But, hey, do your thing.
0neg
Second movie in the boxset. Originally titled Bloodsuckers, This movie was pretty average. It is kinda boring in some parts but there is some good gore effects, but they're not great though. <br /><br />The movie takes place in the year 2210. Vampires have pretty much taken over the whole world. The V-SAN (Vampire Sanitation) Squad, which also has their own spaceship and is lead by Churchill, who is captured by the vampires, receives a message from an Earth and the team, formed by Quintana (Played by the very hot Natassia Malthe), the rookie officer Damian and the rebels Rosa and Roman (Roman being played by Aaron Pearl from Wrongfully Accused.) V-SAN later meets up with the leader of the vampires Muco, played by Michael Ironside from Total Recall. He has no plans of living peacefully with humans, as he is bent on world domination. <br /><br />While this movie was not a waste of time, I doubt I'll be putting back in the DVD player anytime soon.
0neg
Perhaps I missed the meeting when the meaning of "B-movie" was explained, but what I just saw was ridiculous. You want a good synopsis of this movie? Take Aliens, replace the xenomorphs with vampires, then remove everything that was good about it, and that's pretty much it.<br /><br />5 minutes into the movie, the "V-SAN squad" (that's the dumbest acronym I've ever heard) checks out a "base" thats been massacred by vampires and then they climb down (DOWN? What?) a ladder obviously attached to a billboard with an obvious present day train in the background. When is this supposed to take place? 2210. Okay...(hold on, I'll get back to that)<br /><br />Yeah. the characters. Wow, well there's the token lesbian Asian chick, the redneck cowboy wannabe, the weathered captain, the goth vampire/Hot Topic part-time cashier, and the wussy noob second in command. All of them are played by their respective actors with the same lack of ambition. It almost pained me to see Micheal Ironside in this flick. Isn't he getting enough money being the voice of Sam Fisher in Splinter Cell? Pretty much the only thing original about Vampire Wars is about how bad it is.<br /><br />Watching this afterbirth of a film, the only amusement I got was from the feeble attempts at set-making. Since when does taping PCI computer cards on a wall count as a ready room on a starship? The money required to do this film could have been put to much more better use.
0neg
I think Micheal Ironsides acting career must be over, if he has to star in this sort of low budge crap. Surely he could do better than waste his time in this rubbish.<br /><br />This movie could be far better, if it had a good budget, but it shows repeatedly through-out the movie. There is one scene at a outpost, which looks like, its outside the front of a railway station, and i bet it was.<br /><br />There is one scene which made give this movie a 3, and it shows the space craft landing and taking off over a lake, surrounded by forests. This was well done, but the rest of the movie, forget it.<br /><br />There is another scene, which looks like a engineering plant, which i bet it, and does not look like a space outpost as the character say it is.<br /><br />This movie is stupid, has a serious low budget, makes no sense and God Help Micheal Ironsides.
0neg
Whoo-boy, that was definitely one of the worst flicks I've seen all summer. Granted, it was on Sci Fi, and I don't watch much Sci Fi, but man, talk about a razor thin plot and two dimensional characters to the max.<br /><br />The characters were stereotypical and overdone, the plot and setting were unbelievable, the vampires were less intimidating, more funny-looking, the gore was unnecessary, the special effects were down-right horrible, and the ending? Well, the only thing unpredictable about the ending was when suddenly the tomboy becomes a lesbian and starts to do it with the female vampire, which, by the way, isn't really all that hot considering it occurs for about three seconds, in which you're closer to "What the hell?" then "Man, that's hot." If this ever appears in reruns, God forbid, DON'T WATCH IT.
0neg
Man I must say when I saw the trailer I was excited. Futuristic soldiers, taking on bad ass Vampires led by genre vet Michael Ironside....In Space. I mean I wasn't expecting high art, but It looked like a potential B movie classic. This was no doubt a TV pilot, reedited some time later into a feature film, after it wasn't picked up. Alright I'll start with the films few good points, the action was competent for a lower budgeted film, and the CGI and locations used were passable. Now onto the bad, first off Michael Ironside was barley in this, and his performance here....well it was cheesy not in a good way. But as I said he wasn't in it much anyways, so I can't blame him. One thing that was really stupid, was the PETA type group for Vampires', no I'm not joking, it's the dumbest most unbelievable thing I've seen in along time, and it's taken seriously. Also this film commits one of the major B movie sins, it teases a lesbian scene, and doesn't deliver. Most of all what sinks this film is nothing really happens. Since it was meant to be a pilot the script is almost nonexistent and it doesn't have a regular ending. Even the main villains, only come in towards the end. If ever a movie needed to up the Sleaze and gore factor, it's Vampire Wars. In closing I will say the main crew on the spaceship, were all very capable actors and could very well put this mess behind them, and go on to bigger and better things. They just had nothing to work with here.
0neg
Although it really isn't such a terribly movie (especially considering it was made directly for TV-distribution), it'll be very difficult to point out one aspect in "Bloodsuckers" that is actually original or refreshing. Vampires in space isn't exactly a new formula, and even after so many movies dealing with these monsters in this particular setting, still no one seems to realize it's an incredibly stupid premise that can't possibly result in a halfway decent horror movie. "Bloodsuckers" even goes one step further and shamelessly imitates every imaginable motion picture that either revolves on vampires and intergalactic warfare. The plot and characters are mainly stolen directly from John Carpenter's "Ghosts of Mars" and James Cameron's "Aliens", as a crew of futuristic vampire hunters are crusading through space and regularly holding to eliminate a mutated species that peculiarly named themselves after notorious horror icons, like the Voorhees and the Leatherfaces. The good guys are a bunch of pathetic stereotypes, constantly dealing with clichéd issues and endlessly arguing about dreadfully unimportant matters. Captain Damian is the unpopular rookie, who'll really have to prove his leadership capabilities now after being more or less responsible for the death of the previous (and far more loved) Captain Churchill. The other annoying characters include a typical cowboy-style and trigger happy macho pilot, a tough female warrior with more balls than any of the males on board (she's of Asian descent, like the girl in "Aliens" was Latino) and the army's most valuable secret weapon: a Blade-girl! Quintana is a beautiful and deadly vampire who chose the side of humans. She can spot enemies when they're still light-years away and she can also do wickedly sexy things with someone's wet dreams. They eventually all learn to work as a team when forced to face the ultimate vampire-meanie: Michael Ironside (in yet another downgrading role). "Bloodsuckers" is an irredeemably stupid film, but it manages to entertain as long as it features gory killings, infantile dialogs and OTT make-up effects. It only gets intolerably boring when the frustrated soldiers blame the captain for the umpteenth time and bla bla bla. This film is a non-stop series of lame clichés and uncreative ideas, but at least it's watchable.
0neg
I'd passed this title 15 or 20 times while in Blockbuster, looking for something halfway decent to watch. All I can say is that they were all out halfway decent films the night I chose to rent this.<br /><br />I will give it credit for being leaps and bounds better than "Dracula 3000", but in actuality that's pretty easy to say since this one DIDN'T have Caper Van Dien in it. The other things it lacked in spades were: an interesting cast, interesting story, good dialog and originality, but I suppose you can't have everything.<br /><br />***SPOILERS AHEAD*** The misfit crew of vampire hunters (one of which was a vampire... go figure) flew around from mining colony to mining colony trying to wipe out all the vampires it could find. The crew consists of: the cocky, ne'er-do-well captain (who dies early on), his by-the-book, yet inexperienced first mate, the aforementioned vampire vampire hunter (not a typo), a wannabe cowboy and a REALLY, REALLY butch Asian commando, "tough guy" female... it almost sounds like the cast for MTV's 'The Real World'. After the captain dies in a violent confrontation with a mob of bloodsuckers (and as it turns out, lovers of the finer parts of human anatomy) his first mate takes over... blah, blah, blah... everyone hates him... blah, blah, blah... I could go on, but as I said it's the same storyline used in about a hundred other 'films' of the genre.<br /><br />The effects were cheese and why Michael Ironside was in this movie is beyond me. The vampire vampire hunter (still not a typo) was pretty hot, but of course if you're waiting for her to expose more than just her cleavage, look elsewhere.<br /><br />I can't say that it was the worst film I've seen, as I actually rented 'Starship Troopers 2', but wait for this one to come on the Sci-Fi Channel.
0neg
This is just flat out unwatchable. If there's a story in here somewhere, it's so deeply buried beneath the horrid characters and jarring camera work that's it's indiscernible. There's a group of vampire hunters who go around doing their thing, and the vampires they kill have little aliens inside of them. They pop their heads out and talk like Speedy Gonzales. If you can imagine a blood and gore covered alien sock puppet screaming in horror as a cowboy dude zaps it with a cattle prod, well, that's what you get here. These folks are loud, obnoxious, violent, and just extremely annoying. Then there are some anti-human humans, who stand around in their CGI spaceship being so incredibly pompous that it's impossible to take. These folks make Hillary Clinton seem like a right-wing extremist in comparison. They're friends with some vampires, or something...who cares.<br /><br />Then there's the camera work. Remember how everybody hated the thousand-cuts-a-minute crap from the recent Rolleball remake? The folks who made this movie LOVE that stuff. There's enough of it in here for three really crappy nu-metal videos on MTV.<br /><br />Nuff said. This thing smells. In comparison, Dracula 3000 is a masterwork.
0neg
I gave it a 2 just because Natassia Malthe (as the vampiress Quintana) looks sooooo sexy in this movie.<br /><br />Certainly there is very little logic to this movie, but so are most of the sci-fi vampire flicks. The movie probably tried too much to break away from the traditional vampire stories. Unfortunately, it went too far and made the whole story not just unreasonable, but ridiculous.<br /><br />There is too much gore and too many rip-off-the-body scenes that made me feel sick. A good vampire movie should be more sensible that you don't need to see a lot of blood -- we all know when a vampire jumps on a human he/she is going to do what a vampire will do. A few moans or screams are all it needs to describe the scene (like the one at end when Quintana tries to sexually arouse Rosa, all it needs is a few moans, the rest is your imagination). Anyway, it's just my personal taste.
0neg
Well, this movie started out funny but quickly deteriorated. I thought it would be more 'adult oriented' humor based on the first few moments but then the movie switched into a bad made-for-Disney Channel type mode, especially a go-kart racing scene that was incredibly long. Alana De La Garza is gorgeous but has a really fake Italian accent. The movie looked and sounded very independent and low budget. There was one very cute moment which I'll just call the serenading scene but overall this one was a yawner. The laughs are very few and far between. The end surprise for "Mr. Fix It" is so ridiculous it left me more mad than anything else. Might be worth a look if you can catch it for free or TV but don't waste your money buying or renting this movie.
0neg
I was eager to see "Mr. Fix It" because I'm a huge David Boreanaz fan. What I got, though, was a 1-1/2 hour nap. The premise seemed enjoyable: Boreanaz is Lance Valenteen, proprietor of a business called "Mr. Fix It", where dumped men enlist his help to get their girlfriends to take them back.<br /><br />Among the problems with this movie are the editing, script, and acting. Although I've found Boreanaz delightful in his other film roles (with the exception of that "Crow" movie he did), this was disappointing. At times, his character was interesting and others, flat. The supporting cast reminded me of soap opera day players. I realize it wasn't a big-budget film, but some of the scene cuts and music just didn't seem right.<br /><br />My advice: watch at your own risk.
0neg
Complete waste of time.... This movie is not comedy, it's not drama, it's not romance...not even teenage comedy at least!!! Story... it should be some turn-over one end... but it's so disappointing! When movie has a turn-over on end I expect that turn-over to make movie even better (exp. "Fight Club") but this turn-over makes movie even worse.... When I watch teenage comedy, and I don't do that very often, I expect lousy jokes and bunch of nudeness... Jokes are too lousy and there is no nudity... You got only one....very good looking I must admit... girl, and that's that! And she's fully dressed whole movie! Acting is bad... like soap series... Don't waste your time! There are porns with better story and acting!<br /><br />(sorry on my bad English)
0neg
I'm a big fan of camp, but when every plot 'twist' is predictable and bad, while obviously not trying to be, even I lose interest. I was going to rate this a 3, but the ending dropped it a point easily. Its only saving grace is that I hated other movies more. Not enough beer in the world for this one.
0neg
<br /><br />What is left of Planet Earth is populated by a few poor and starving rag-tag survivors. They must eat bugs and insects, or whatever, after a poison war, or something, has nearly wiped out all human civilization. In these dark times, one of the few people on Earth still able to live in comfort, we will call him the All Knowing Big Boss, has a great quest to prevent some secret spore seeds from being released into the air. It seems that the All Knowing Big Boss is the last person on Earth that knows that these spores even exist. The spores are located far away from any living soul, and they are highly protected by many layers of deadly defense systems. <br /><br />The All Knowing Big Boss wants the secret spores to remain in their secret protected containers. So, he makes a plan to send in a macho action team to remove the spore containers from all of the protective systems and secret location. Sending people to the location of secret spores makes them no longer a secret. Sending people to disable all of the protective systems makes it possible for the spores to be easily released into the air. How about letting sleeping dogs lie?! <br /><br />The one pleasant feature of ENCRYPT is the radiant and elegant Vivian Wu. As the unremarkable macho action team members drop off with mechanically paced predictable timing, engaging Vivian Wu's charm makes acceptable the plot idea of her old employer wanting her so much. She is an object of love, an object of desire -- a very believable concept!<br /><br />Fans of Vivian Wu may want to check out an outstanding B-movie she is in from a couple years back called DINNER RUSH. DINNER RUSH is highly recommended. ENCRYPT is not.
0neg
I see where a few people involved in this debacle wrote reviews to share their side of the story, and I thought what they wrote was helpful in understanding it. The fact that they basically came up with excuses -- rewrites, budget constraints, production formats etc -- simply underlines how bad this movie is. And my criticisms in panning it are not personally directed but simply a warning that this one doesn't make the cut.<br /><br />It's watchable, but barely so. There are plot holes in every corner, the dialogue borders on the ridiculous, and the ending is telegraphed a mile away. The modestly interesting feature of a hologram interacting with a recon team get drowned in silly dialogue like who makes a meal in the midst of what is supposed to be a tense and deadly encounter with an unknown enemy. Would ya wrassle us up some Hamburger Helper Sally, between us getting killed by these automated carpet sweepers? Apparently this elite team equipped with the latest gizmos and red plastic tubed wonder armor has no access to MREs. Once they get into the last rooms they treat the place more like a four star motel than a deadly encounter zone.<br /><br />The rationale for the encounter with the fearsome Rook is that it can't be killed single handedly. Yet only one scene ago, the hero making that case abandoned King to do exactly that. Huh? Vivian Woo was attractive and hands down the best acted character in the movie. But that's not saying much.
0neg
If you really enjoyed the 2002 Resident Evil movie, then you should just see it instead of waisting 2 hours you'll never get back. I can not believe that no one has commented that this movie is just a cheap knock off of RE. First, a "special" commando force is the unique defense for a facility with a computer matrix that has an AI and holographic projection. And this "Hive" rip-off has a series of traps that inevitably kill off one member of the squad at a time. There's even a chess reference in the code names, which was in the dialog of RE. Despite the fact that there are no zombies, the "Rook", the movie's nemesis, is some sort of bio-creature, very pail in color suggesting necrotic tissue, with a lot of cyborg components just like a super mutant of RE. So, a wag-of-the-finger to Mr. Richard Taylor for claiming any credit for this story.<br /><br />They are not the same movie obviously, but the writer got the idea watching Resident Evil I think.
0neg
A stuttering plot, uninteresting characters and sub-par (to say the least) dialogue plagues this TV production that could hardly have been interesting even with a billion dollar production budget.<br /><br />The characters aren't believable, in their motives, actions or their professed occupations. The plot reads like a bad Dungeons and Dragons(TM) hack but with plasma rifles and force fields. There are severe continuity issues and the degree of pointless interaction between the characters has this author, at least, wincing. <br /><br />Avoid it like the plague. Watch any episode of Dark Angel and you will have better acting, dialogue and plot. Yuck.
0neg
This was quite possibly the worst movie I have ever seen. I watched it with a large group of friends and after it was over not a one of us understood the plot. Aside from the lack of plot, the acting was atrocious, the "special effects" were not so special, and the writing was absolutely horrible. The movie's only redeeming factor is that it's so incredibly bad that it's quite funny. You can't help but laugh at a zombie being run over while actors are spewing crappy dialogue. I wouldn't recommend this film to anyone looking for a good movie, but it's something that a group of friends can get together and have a good laugh about. It's now a running joke among my friends and I. 1 out of 10.
0neg
In this strangely-lackadaisical apocalypse, the world suffers from a dual plague of zombies and vampires, but no one seems to be too worried about it in this Grade-Z film which bares less resemblance to Sheridan Le Fanu's famous short novel than my mother's lasagna recipe. Bored attendants still run gas stations and doctors still make house calls and helpful police officers still show up with radiator fluid just when you need it. The plot, and I use that term loosely, involves a father and a daughter trying to rendevous with "the general," whose daughter is missing, at a church to kill a vampire who, very conveniently, happens to be traveling with the father and daughter. I must confess that a moment or two of genuine humor can be found between vast stretches of unintentional humor. The film also boasts just enough nudity to keep a boy of fourteen interested. Anyone older beware.
0neg
This is by far the worst movie I have ever seen!!!! <br /><br />I can honestly say I have never seen a movie worse than this one!!!<br /><br />AND I MEAN NEVER!!!!<br /><br />I'm a BIG fan of "B" horror movies. As you may imagine.... I've been exposed to some of worst that the movie industry has to offer.<br /><br />I was lured to this movie by it's title. I mean c'mon... what true fan of horror wouldn't be intrigued by a title like "Vampires vs. Zombies"??? Images of the "undead" battling each other to the "undeath" danced in my head. I thought to myself... "this I've got to see"!!!!<br /><br />Well.... sorry to say.... "this I wish I hadn't seen"!!!!!<br /><br />This movies title is very misleading to say the least. There was no vampires fighting zombies. In fact, there is no plot!!!! If you were to ask me what this movie is all about I could honestly tell you I have no idea!!!<br /><br />There was no plot!!!! <br /><br />There was no story!!!! <br /><br />This movie absolutely makes no sense at all!!!!<br /><br />At the end of this debacle... I found myself feeling sorry for the poor souls who had invested their money into this project for they surely have no business sense!!!
0neg
The above seemed a much more appropriate title when me and my suicidal underlings decided to watch this masterpiece of modern bullshit <br /><br />Erotic,Scary, Suspenseful, Well thought out, these are all the things this film fails to be.<br /><br />It is however incredibly funny, the slow sound effects and bad dubbing add to this to make one of the greatest comedies I have seen in recent years. And yet this film doesn't even try to be funny and that is one of the movies grand achievements, it becomes a comedy without even attempting to amuse.<br /><br />Throughout the film an old guy who looks amazingly like Santa Claus goes around ploughing over zombies and smashing vampires into the ground. This made me fail to believe the films title, if this was vampires vs zombies why were the vampires and zombies not fighting? Oh well whatever, besides there were more flaws to this rental than the title. Such as this one; there has been a virus sweeping through America creating zombie like beings who go around acting a lot like your average tourist. And yet there's only four zombies in the entire film. Another problem is besides one shop everywhere is deserted. Surely you'd see zombies roaming about in the woods or in the background a bit. In fact I believe they just drove around in a circle of forest over and over again since they didn't have a high enough budget to film in a wider location, that or the director didn't want to waste his precious time filming in different areas of wood he was to busy sitting in a trailer jerking off to be bothered with such trivial matters.<br /><br />In fact the director had so much fun doing this that he didn't have enough time to hire a big enough cast or even an editor. And so he told the eight members of the cast to dress up as different people and try not to act inconspicuous, whilst I assume he changed his name and began randomly snipping at the film reels "editing isn't a hard job anyway right?" The only reason this "movie" found it's way into our bag was because somehow we got it confused with Freddy vs Jason, strange how these things happen isn't it. And the only way we made it though the night was by strapping gas masks on and bolting them to our skulls to avoid the stink of this nauseating mess.<br /><br />Oh yes we did laugh at the end, but I'm sure one does that a lot when he has lost his sanity...................
0neg
Yes, this movie is bad. What's worse is that it takes no advantage whatsoever of its own title!! In the ENTIRE movie, zombies and vampires fight each other ONCE OR TWICE. On top of that, we're never really sure if the main character in the movie is DEFINITELY a vampire. One might argue they were trying to "tone it down" or make it "realistic," but it ends up just boring. More than half of this movie takes place IN A CAR. The scenes that take place anywhere else aren't much to brag about, either. Also, there's no clear antagonist, and in the end you have no idea what really happened for the last 30 minutes of the movie. <br /><br />However, I will say that for a film this low in production value, the soundtrack was surprisingly appropriate and instrumented (with either an origonal score or sampled music from elsewhere). <br /><br />I'm all for independent films, but it doesn't look like this was ever intended for a mass audience (if any). <br /><br />"worse than Scarecrow slayer."
0neg
OK, I knew this would be a back alley F-film (well below B-film standards) going into it, so I thought, "Man, I could use a good laugh, so let's see some nether-beings kill each other." Well, what I got could have been found at your local "love toy" store. Random lesbian scenes, very little fighting, and no plot.<br /><br />For example, one scene in particular I remember (for its sheer stupidity only; I've seen better porn on ABC) is where the two main characters (I can't remember their names offhand...great movie, huh?) are driving along, as they mostly did, and the driver was tired of driving and stopped:<br /><br />Driver: "Let's pull over, I'm tired. You want to take over?" Passenger: "Sure, I can drive for a while." (Once pulled over, the driver starts grabbing the passenger's boobs) Passenger: "What are you doing? I'm not like that!" Driver: "It's OK, everyone does it sometime." Passenger: "OK then." (Proceed to take off shirts, fondle, kiss, and perform fellatio)<br /><br />Now, last time I checked, horror films were not in the porn section of Hollywood Video (unless you're into S&M, then you go elsewhere), and it definitely shouldn't be in the mainstream videos at Blockbuster. Don't get me wrong; I'm definitely not one of those people who hate porn, but I only watch it when appropriate and definitely don't want to watch it if I'm looking for a movie in the mainstream stores, as this one I rented was at one of the two retailers I named (and probably at the other too if I went and looked).<br /><br />Worst movie ever, no one should rent it, and it should only be bought for a public burning ceremony. If I could give it a 0, I would, but I can only give it a * of 10.
0neg
Vampires Vs. Zombies wasn't the original title. It was actually... <br /><br />Nasty Lesbian Semi-Vampires and Two Zombies Getting Hit by Cars: Special Guest appearances by Bob the Lesbian Gypsie-Witch and her dog, Random Woman with special powers and the Catholic School Girl Short Skirt Zombie Choir. <br /><br />Also on the Box: Warning: No Plot- only the writer and director will understand the end, or anything else in this movie.<br /><br />Seriously though, I love bad movies. I love Vampires. I love Zombies. Hell, I even enjoy the lesbians. This movie combined all three with a vague and confusing (or non-existent) plot, horrendous (I mean REALLY BAD) dialogue, and random STUFF and PEOPLE that have nothing to do with anything (or do they... I didn't know what in the world was going on). Oh, and I can't forget the green oatmeal 'Zombies' in latex gloves (yes, the film makers were so cheap they couldn't even cover their Zombies hands in oatmeal and paint). Any way, the result was this excruciatingly BAD film, if you could even call it that. <br /><br />Was the end supposed to not make sense? The Vampire was really Nurse and the other girl was really a mental patient? Where were the Vampires Vs. Zombies? Hell, where were the Vampires at all... you really couldn't call any of the girls vampires. Whatever. <br /><br />Don't ever rent or buy this movie. If you are REALLY curious... okay, I'll understand. Seriously, even lovers of BAD movies won't be able to stand this one. It should be number 1 on the bottom 100.
0neg
I really have no idea how to comment on this movie. The special effects were lackluster, the acting was terrible and if there was a plot to it all, it was on the back of the box. I don't think I can remember a movie being THIS bad in a long time, and I'm a big fan of lesbian sex and boobies!! ;) Even that couldn't save this movie from being just a terrible excuse to pay someone to stand (or lay in this case) in front of a camera.<br /><br />I was pretty much let down by the overall "zombie" effect. Since apparently in this movie, zombies are so commonplace that running over a couple here and there, and casually talking about it at a gas station (one with an in-house windshield repair but no interior bathroom), the zombie-movie genre isn't even a factor until the end. Even then, a cameo by a dozen zombies ripping off a girl's clothes doesn't really constitute being a zombie movie.<br /><br />On to the vampires: Apparently all the zombies are male and all the vampires are female, which is OK by me. I'm not sure how vampires are out in the daylight, or the why/how of a soldier vampire came to be standing in the middle of the road, still holding his gun with a stake through his heart, just waiting for the Queen of the Vampires to flick it all the way through. The last segment in the old nunnery made no sense, and when one hot lesbian vampire asks the other hot lesbian vampire "Do you think we did the right thing?" by killing the two apparent heroes in the movie, that about put it over the top.<br /><br />The acting and special effects were at an all-time low also. You could almost see the hoses that the fake blood was pumped out of during the closeup of the zombie who got ran over by the General. Speaking of the General, where did they find THIS Kenny Rogers look-alike anyways? No idea what he was the General of, aside of generally confusing and misplaced.<br /><br />All in all, watch the movie if you have nothing better to do or if you have the strong urge to waste $3. Just my $0.02.
0neg
First off I must stress how rare it is that I take the time to comment on a movie that I have seen, it takes a very special case for me to take the time and write about how I felt about a film. That said, of the hundreds of movies I have watched I have seen some of the most brilliant, Shawshank, the scariest, The Woman in Black, the funniest, Shark Attack III: Megaladon, and now the worst: Vampires vs. Zombies.<br /><br />The first thing that must be said is that this movie is not funny! For those that are looking for a light hearted movie that will just be fun or at the very least so bad that it's funny, look elsewhere. It is true that a movie such as this is not trying to be subtle and brilliant, with a title such as this you should know what you're getting into. That said, there is no excuse for a movie to abandon any and every rule that governs the movie making world. This is not an argument between the traditional movie making process and newer and more "artsy" methods to creating a film, this is an argument between bad directors and companies being held accountable for making terrible movies.<br /><br />This movie suffers from the over used saying "I don't know where to start." Truly everything about this movie is broken. From the acting and to the editing there is no reason any movie should ever fail to deliver a cohesive series of events such as Vampires vs. Zombies. Some of the following problems are; 1. Scene misfires- It's clear that the director, the camera crew and the actors were not on the same page. In one scene in particular the scene begins with the camera resting on the ground looking at the passenger side door of a car. You are expecting the person inside to get out, but there is a, and this is NO exaggeration, 10 second, at least, delay between the camera comes on and the director says "action" to where anything happens on screen. The viewer is left staring at a car door for the entire time with no sound, no movement, just the stereotypical "dead air" that radio or TV commentators dread. Where was the editing? 2. Acting- A forgivable offense in most cases, you can't expect a movie like this to have Oscar winners after all, but Vampires vs. Zombies takes bad acting to a whole other level. These "actors" were barely able to read their scripts obviously because anyone with any ability to read and to speak would have been able to pronounce the lines better than these fools. My only comparison for acting would have to be the opening scene from Resident Evil on Playstation. But that acting was even better.<br /><br />3- Story- Wait, what? Story? Again you can't expect this to be The Greatest Story Ever Told, but is it too much to ask that we have some semblance of a narrative? Why the Vampires? Who are the characters? Who are the bad guys? Are there good guys? Why all the lesbians? But most importantly, what's the deal with the zombies? If you have seen this movie then you will understand what I mean, but to those who haven't I'll be plain, there are no zombies in this movie aside from maybe five minutes of it. It was almost as if the director forgot about the name of the movie and was forced to throw some zombies in without explanation at the very end.<br /><br />There's so much more, but I hope I've done enough to keep anyone from seeing this movie.
0neg
This is probably the best horror film made since Ed Wood died. <br /><br />I can't spoil the ending, because I have absolutely no idea what happened. I'll try my best, though. There are some kind of lesbian vampires, but they keep swapping bodies, so any character might or might not be the character you're supposed to think it is, or it might be a lesbian vampire. <br /><br />Sound confusing? It's not as confusing as you might think, since none of the characters make any sense to begin with. There's no plot, no character development, and random people show up, speak a few lines, and then disappear, never to be heard from again. There are also zombies, who are *possibly* the enemies of the vampires, but there's also a dream-within-a-dream kind of sequence in a mental hospital, so maybe none of this actually happened, and it's all the main character's hallucination. <br /><br />The upside? Both of the lead girls take their shirts off briefly. The special effects are simply mind-boggling (I particularly liked the incredibly slow, awkward fight sequences). Everyone has a really silly Canadian accent, which adds to the general level of hilarity. <br /><br />Well worth the price of rental. We laughed until we cried.
0neg
Oh it really really is. I've seen films that I disliked more, due to whatever reason, but never have I seen a film that just fails in every single aspect of film making. It even fails to fail at film making, in a Way the Hercules in New York could be said to do. It's not the film I like the least, but it is the very worst film I've ever seen.<br /><br />The acting is the first thing that strikes you. I've never seen a worse acted film outside of pornography. In fact I've plenty of pornographic films that are acted a damn site better than this. It really is awful.<br /><br />Technically, it's terrible. The camera-work is amateurish. The editing is nonsensical. I presume they couldn't afford proper sound equipment, and this meant that every scene in a car (and there's a lot of them) has them driving at about three miles per hour and every scene set outside by the same patch of woods (and there's a lot of them too) is actually dubbed from a studio, again lending more to the bad porn vibe.<br /><br />The plot is nonsensical, as many have pointed out. I'll defend vampires walking in daylight by the fact that despite it being popularized by Nosferatu, this was never originally an intrinsic part of the vampire mythos.<br /><br />Speaking of vampire mythos, the writer had evidently read Carmilla, or at very least seen The Vampire Lovers. I'm not sure how I feel about this, swaying from impressed that a movie this dire has at least some aspirations to a Gothic novel I'm very fond of; or annoyed by its at best sledgehammer references and at worst total desecration of source material. At very least 'the General' is an insult to Peter Cushing though.<br /><br />It gets two stars however, merely because I can't bring myself to vote one star for a film that has, or at least purports to have, both vampires and zombies in it. Incidentally I watched Lifeforce (another film that tenuously has vampires and zombies in it) on the same day as this, and despite being a rather flawed film itself, really comes out a masterpiece compared to this.<br /><br />So in the end, this is not a film so bad it's good, or so bad it's in any way enjoyable, even drunk. It's just a mess, and worth no-one's time watching.
0neg
Dear me. Where do I start? The dad isn't anywhere near old enough to be the girl's dad. He corpses on camera in the first 5 minutes of the film. The favoured exclamation in this film is "Jesus Christ!!!". Zombies are agile, stupid and few and far between. Motives are utterly incomprehensible and a narrative does not exist. People 'rush' to their destination in jeeps driven at 3 MPH. The world seems to be carrying on as normal yet these are supposed to be the end days. Breasts appear for the sake of breasts. Normally such an approach would provide some redemption but the rest of the film actually made me uninterested in breasts or the future of humanity. There's a dog for no reason and thin, orange blood that turns the stomach. The General and his catchphrase of "Shut the f**k up!" is the only redeeming feature. As for the rest, I sincerely hope to hear that they had done the decent thing and killed themselves.
0neg
I picked up this movie with the intention of getting a bad zombie movie. But I had no Idea what I was getting myself into.<br /><br />I started the movie and soon I had been pulled into a world of pain and visual torture.<br /><br />I finally know what hell is like. It's this movie. For eternity. This movie has no value. It didn't even really have a plot. There was stuff going on in each scene but no overall explanation why anything happens.<br /><br />Instead of watching this movie I suggest that you line the nearest blender with oil and try and stuff as many bullets in it as you can. You will find that the outcome to be far more pleasant than this movie.<br /><br />Don't even watch it. Not even to see how bad it is. I beg you. If you watch it, then it means they win.
0neg
I am an avid fan of horrendous movies, anything cheesy and down right ridiculous is my game. So imagine my spirit I went to the local Rent Shop, and found Vampires vs. Zombies. The name is just too entertaining, you know that no one in the world could pull off something like it, it just has to be bad.<br /><br />And boy, is it BAD. After viewing this horror-ific movie, I was speechless, literally. Me and my pal sat outside without saying a word to each other for several minutes, both of us contemplating the future of our lives after watching this movie. I broke the depressing silence with the words, "...dude....What?" Yes, i am an enthralling individual.<br /><br />Heres a quick 'street review' The Plot; There is none, at all, ever, constantly in "WTF" mode. The Characters; No development, forgettable. The Music; Worse than porn. The Vampires; Theirs vampires? The Zombies; Theirs Zombies?<br /><br />In the end; Everyone should see this movie, honestly, its so bad I yearn to see it again. So do yourself a favor, watch it and get Depressed.
0neg
After watching this thing, then reading the summary on the back of the DVD, then thinking back to actual movie....I became a bit dizzy. I thought, maybe I fell asleep and dreamed I was a down syndrome baby waltzing through a never ending forest where people drive 11 miles an hour and stop for no purpose other then occasional tasteless lesbianism. Where (zombies?) come out of nowhere and (vampires?) who (seduce?) pure hearted citizens on their way to save the world. Neither zombie nor vampire notably encounter each other. The only fighting i remember was getting that walrus Bonny Giroux's panties off. Coo Coo ca FAT! All of them! Maybe that was because we were watching it widescreen stretched and were too lazy to change it to its native resolution, but that actually made it more entertaining... In conclusion my trailing thought thesis had more continuity, plot, character development, antagonism, subject matter, and acting then the entirety of this film. It made Bloodrayne look like Citizen F***ING KANE
0neg
Okay, I've watched this movie twice now, I have researched it heavily on the net, I have asked several people on there opinions. I have even gone to the length of reading the original Sheridan Lafanu Classic 'Carmilla', a book that this movie is supposed to be based on. I feel that the best way to review this movie is to describe a game to play whilst watching it. As the plot of the movie doesn't seem to make any sense at all, here is the plot of the book.<br /><br />Laura lives in a castle in Syberia with her Father, Mr De Lafontaine. They carry on with their lives blissfully and peacefully. One day they get a letter from the 'General' a man who has made it his mission in life to avenge his daughters death. He makes claims of supernatural powers being at work, and explains that he will visit them soon. Meanwhile, a chance encounter with a strange woman results in the Lafontaines looking after her Daughter, Carmilla, for several months. Soon Laura starts to be overwhelmed by strange dreams, and begins to come down with a strange illness. Who is this mysterious Carmilla? And just what has she to do with Laura's condition, and the General?<br /><br />I have invented this game and would like as many people as possible to play it, and let me know what their results are. I even have a catchy name, and would have a jingle too, but I can't be bothered with that. It's called the "this movie doesn't make any sense" game.<br /><br />All you have to do is, whilst watching the movie, try to come up with a complete plot that explains what is happening. I mean complete, all questions answered, everything makes sense, absolutely complete.<br /><br />It will have to answer such questions as ... <br /><br />* Why can vampires walk around in day light?<br /><br />* Why are they all lesbians?<br /><br />* Why is a girl called Bob? and why does she shoot herself?<br /><br />* When is the movie a dream and when is it real?<br /><br />* Why does killing zombies appear to be an accepted part of life that doesn't make anyone bat an eyelid?<br /><br />* Why does Travis Fontaine spot and run down a zombie without slowing down whilst driving his car, yet when faced with a woman with an obvious hostage in the back of her car, accept the excuse that she is a zombie too?<br /><br />* And why does he then let a girl, which he later openly reveals that he knows is the head vampire, drive with him in his car?<br /><br />* And then let her drive off, alone with his daughter in a stolen car?<br /><br />What the hell is the asylum scene all about?<br /><br />* What the hell is the green goo all about?<br /><br />* Why does the head vampire suddenly start dressing like a nurse?<br /><br />* Why are there never any vampires fighting Zombies?<br /><br />* What is the significance of the necklace? what is it made of? why does it kill vampires? and how does Jenna know that?<br /><br />In fact sod it, it's just as much fun trying to come up with as many questions about this movie too.<br /><br />I have my plot, and I have to admit it is not quite there, but it is a pretty good effort.<br /><br />In Conclusion<br /><br />'Vampires vs Zombies' has no moment in it where there are actually Vampires fighting Zombies. Everyone in the movie seems to know exactly what is going on, yet they seem very reluctant to let the audience in on this. And somehow it is based on a classic 19th century horror novel. How? Why? What the hell is going on?
0neg
Vampires Vs. Zombies starts with the breaking news that the unidentified disease that is spreading across America leaves the sufferer with homicidal & cannibalistic tendencies... Travis Fontaine (C.S. Munro) & his teenage daughter Jenna (Bonny Giroux) listen to the radio as they drive along the isolated backwoods roads to try & escape the disease when Travis runs over a guy who I assume is meant to be a zombie. Slightly further down the road he stops to help Julia (Brinke Stevens) & her teenage daughter Carmilla (Maratama Carlson) who are waving at the side of the road, at this point there is also a third teenage girl named Tessa (Melanie Crystal) sitting in the back of Julia's car bound & gagged. To me this situation would seem strange but Travis, like the trooper he is, takes it all in his stride & agrees to 'take' Carmilla off Julia's hands &, well I don't know actually. So, with a complete stranger, Travis drives off leaving Julia & Tessa. Carmilla seems like a nice girl but she turns out to be a Vampire & she likes to bite people & turn them into Vampires, oh & she's partial to a bit of lesbianism too. Travis, Carmilla & Jenna continue to travel while some guy who calls himself The General (Peter Ruginis) who appears to be some sort of Vampire killer & probably has something to do with it all but the film is such a mess it doesn't really matter & I really don't know how to carry on this plot outline as my head hurts just thinking about it...<br /><br />Co-edited, co-executive produced, written & directed by the supremely untalented Vince D'Amato Vampires Vs. Zombies is one of the worst horror films ever & therefore one of the worst films ever period. The script by D'Amato was apparently based on a classic story entitled 'Carmilla' by Sheridan Le Fanu (he should sue) & is an absolute mess, the holes in the plot & logic are so big you could drive a tank through them! What is the disease that turns people into zombies? Why is Carmilla a Vampire? Who is Julia to her? Who the hell is The General? What does he want? Where are Travis & Jenna going? How can Travis run a man over & yet not have the slightest bit of human emotion over it? What's with the mental ward at the end? There are also some confusing & unnecessary dream sequences just to annoy the viewer even more. There are just so many things wrong with this film, the narrative doesn't make a blind bit of sense, the concept is terrible & never really explained properly plus it's incredibly boring. I have not one positive thing to say about Vampire Vs. Zombies, not one. Forget about any Vampires fighting Zombies because it just doesn't happen, tell me again why is this film called Vampires Vs. Zombies?<br /><br />Director D'Amato has served up one of the most incompetent, rubbishy, badly made, poorly thought out & excruciatingly painful viewing experiences ever made. Vampires Vs. Zombies really has no redeeming qualities at all, there is not one single aspect that I can praise. The gore is really fake looking, there are some blood splats which look like red water, some really cheap staking effects & a half decent climax where the zombies feast on Carmilla's & Jenna's intestines, this fairly gory scene is probably the best part of the whole wretched film but it only lasts for a couple of minutes & in no way makes up for the other turgid 85.<br /><br />The budget on Vampires Vs. Zombies must have been small, in fact did it even have a budget because most of it is set on a road in a couple of cars. This is one of the most badly made horror films it's been my misfortune to watch, the entire thing just sucks. The acting is predictably awful, & I mean awful.<br /><br />There isn't much else left to say, Vampires Vs. Zombies is easily one of the worst films ever made. The (V) next to the title on the IMDb's main page for Vampires Vs. Zoimbies indicates that it went straight to video, well that's far too good for this pile of crap as it deserves to go straight on the nearest fire.
0neg
As myself and my other half are big fans of trash horror we couldn't resist getting out a movie that contained both of the greats we were thrilled! However for a 2004 movie with a rip off cover of Freddy Vs Jason this is a disgrace! The worst film I have ever seen but worth a look for a laugh if you are able to sit through it!<br /><br />The acting is awful the effects...well I could do better on my camcorder in fact its so bad they only bothered to put make up on the zombies faces and left out neck, hands etc. No story line, weird flashbacks that make no sense and terrible script!<br /><br />"you broke my tooth!" from one vampire "you broke my cigar" was the response from the human who looked like uncle Jessie from Dukes crossed with Santa!
0neg
This is the absolute worst movie I have ever seen!! There was absolutely nothing good to say about this movie. I have seen some bad movies but this one takes it. There is no plot and most of the movie you are either fast forwarding the movie to get it done faster or you are wondering what the hell is going on because you can't seriously think that someone thought of this movie and you are watching it. I feel sorry for anyone who has to sit through this painful hour and a half. Please take my advice and DO NOT WATCH this movie for I know you will think it is the biggest waste of time you have ever spent in your life.
0neg
Well...the movie was a fun watch. The main problem with this movie is the fact that it goes against everything that most vampire myths abide by. Like vampires that walk in the sunlight. Though there are parts that just make you enjoy the way society makes movies. A scene where a vampire gets stabbed and screams "Ow this hurts...It's really stuck." Then there seems like there might be scenes missing but you get used to after a while. And there are random dream sequenes' that really don't help with the plot. Come to think of it, nothing really made sense, but i just got a bunch of friends and watched it twice to get the full effect. Come to think of it the fight scenes were aweful, and the zombies were just fun to watch. Slowly as i write more of this I like this movie more. But you know, all in all you can't expect Schindlers List but its a fun watch.
0neg
As you may or may not have heard, there is no actual fighting between vampires or zombies in this film. One may then ask why the title suggested such a thing, but really it's kind of appropriate because nothing else about this film made any sense either. There was absolutely no story or plot, just things happening. The acting was incredibly bad, worse than safeauto commercials bad.<br /><br />Not only were there no fighting between vampires and zombies but I think there was only one scene with zombies even in it. Their make up looked as if it were applied by an 8 year old girl. The scene was totally random and out of place and featured one of the characters fighting the zombies off with a hedge trimmer (I'm not kidding) but they used chainsaw sound effects.<br /><br />This was undoubtedly the poorest movie I've ever seen in my life. The only circumstance that I wouldn't totally ridicule every person responsible for production of this film is if I learned that it was produced entirely by 11 year old's.<br /><br />Really though, even with all of the criticism I offer here, I'd suggest watching this movie solely based on the fact that it may very well be the worst movie ever, and because of this is quite comical. Even just counting the flaws in it should keep you entertained.
0neg
OK, look at the title of this film.<br /><br />the title says it all right? the title is great... i mean, a lot of things should come into your head after readin it. in fact, you might be extremely anxious to see it.<br /><br />well, sadly, you won't see any of that.<br /><br />just a bunch of bad actors, some blood spilling, some hot chicks, and some lesbo action.<br /><br />oh, well, i think there are about 5-10 minutes of zombies and vampires indeed...<br /><br />get away from this if you want to see a good movie. else get it.
0neg
I though this would be an okay movie, since i like zombies and horror movies in general. But i did not think it would be such a piece of sh!t like it was. The only zombie in the movie is at the beginning and he gets ran over by a god damn car!!! The movie looks to be written by a porn director and filled by porn actors, i wouldn't ever call them actors! The costumes seems to be stolen from a local school play. Its seems like a road movie with almost no monsters. There is no fun at all in this piece of sh!t, only horror, but not in the way the director intended. I would rather be raped by a pedophile than see this movie ever again!!! ugh!
0neg
I have a high tolerance level for crap, so I was looking forward to this. It did not disappoint. Apparently based on Sheridan Le Fanu's classic Carmilla, it follows a father and daughter hunting a female vampire who, luckily, happens to be travelling with them. Then we have Santa Claus (or the General, as he likes to be called here) running over random zombies. Did I mention there was a zombie outbreak? The dead are returning to life but nobody seems too concerned. We have construction worker zombies, soldier zombies and even St.Trinian schoolgirl zombies. Apparently Santa Claus is looking for his daughter who has been turned into a vampire. Oh wait there are no vampires, the girl is in a lunatic asylum and Carmilla is her nurse, or is she? The zombies are back and Santa's mad. Lesbian sex, I like vampires and I like zombies but I especially like lesbian sex. Nothing like some simulated cunnilingus to get the juices flowing. When are we going to see vampires fight zombies? Is she a vampire or is she a lunatic? Or both? Is Carmilla a hot sexy lesbian vampire or a nurse? More cunnilingus, you can never have enough cunnilingus. Here come the St.Trinian zombies. Chainsaw time!! More lesbian sex then the zombies kill and eat the vampires. I guess the zombies won, or did they? Plot? Who needs a plot when you've got lesbian vampires and schoolgirl zombies? And cunnilingus?
0neg
I read the reviews before i watched this movie, and i didn't believe them. I love crap movies and i expected this one to be average. It wasn't. This film makes Camp Blood 1 and 2 look like greats. The film contains bad acting, poor sound, poor confusing storyline, bad makeup- and it bored me so much i turned it off. even the nudity was rubbish! Did they even have a budget for this film? I don't think they did. You can tell if your gonna like this film or not in the first 5 minutes. if u want a good cheesy gory film go watch toxic avenger 4 or even camp blood. Avoid this trash - I watched it on TV and felt riped off, so don't spend anything on it. The best part is probably the end.
0neg
This film was so bad i had to fast forward most of it to get to the good bits. Hah what good bits? the only bit that was worth it was the ending (those who have seen the film will know what i mean). I expected a lot from this film like a underworld meets dawn of the dead meets Freddy vs. Jason but what i got was this crap. Story was forgettable, the cast was used badly and what was the director thinking when he made this. This could have been a great but i turned out to be the most boring film i have ever watched. OK so what if there was a nice bit of T and A, I was after the gore and i was bitterly disappointed. Don't expect a film thats good but if you want a bad cheesy horror then by all means watch this and see how a horror movie SHOULDN'T BE DONE.
0neg
I honestly have to say that I could not stop watching this movie from the second that it started. Simply for how bad it was!!! It's kinda like watching paint dry only a lot more confusing. I mean you sit there and just wait for something to happen, anything in fact, preferably something that makes the whole film make sense! At the end of the film I actually sat there wondering if there was any chance at all that I may have missed the first hour that explained everything or whether I may have inadvertently passed out during the film and missed the parts that glued the plot(if there was in fact one)together! The main thing that really confused me about this movie, is nearly at the end the main girl (if there was indeed a main girl) was in some sort of alternate reality, i mean what the hell was going on at this point?! all of a sudden she awoke and was in a mental institute, chained to a bed being drugged by doctors or something, then quicker than it would have taken me to slit my wrists, it flipped back and she was getting eaten out by some random vampire!it made no sodding sense! I'm tempted to email the makers and demand my time back, i mean i wasted 2 hours of my life watching this rubbish!i am kinda interested to know if the filmmakers themselves actually knew what it was all about! just seemed someone had edited out all the bits that could have made it make sense though i think the film would have had to have been 4hrs long to make that happen! I side completely with the other person who wrote the other review, i was duped royally with this film by its title, and that alone. I'm just so sodding grateful i didn't actually buy the film, no matter how many times iv seen it in the local pound shop. You would have thought that would have given me a clue that the film was a complete pile of steaming movie rubbish but to be honest I think £1 was way too much money to spend on this film!!!! what a sodding huge waste of time and a good razor blade, i mean i wish i OD'ed, its less painful than watching this film!!!!
0neg
I watched this movie with some friends a couple months ago, I still laugh today thinking about some of the utter stupidity. The first few scenes alone were hilarious. I won't spoil anything for those who wish to see it, I wouldn't want to ruin the laughs. Needless to say the entire time I watched this movie I was trying to figure out exactly what the point of anything the characters in this movie were doing. Towards the end we all got bored however, as the initial hilarity and shock of a movie being this random wore off. There is no plot and not a trace of decent acting. The characters are about as well developed as those in a kindergarten "Learn to Read" book. They even managed to make a lesbian sex scene uninteresting.
0neg
Feature of early 21 century cinema of lets pit different evil creatures and bad guys against each other. We haven't seen stuff like this since Godzilla v King Kong and the like. Always sounds great on paper when you're splicing up and in a haze of the good stuff you have an inspired idea and see the whole playing out before you like Beethoven's symphonies. Then you come to writing it. Great ideas like all vampires are female. Ergo hot, seductive deadly but in a way I want to perish sort of way. And all zombies are men. well thats what men are like to a woman just after shes been dumped or cheated on right? So it all looks good up to actually making it. Then the rot starts to set in. Mosters have fight. Nothing much happens. Another fight. Philosophical noodling and cods wallop. Eureka we've found how to win. Big fight again and the End. Sounds great doesn't it? If it was made an indie company it would be great. But this is Hollywood with the eye on the bucks: gloss instead of what the fans want. It all could have been gore soaked beautiful.
0neg
This movie should be nominated for a new genre: Complete Mess! Except for a few chuckles and one or two scenes of gore, this movie is a complete waste of time. Calling it "Campy" doesn't even cut it. "Campy" implies fun which this movie was not. You spend the first half of the movie thinking "Its got to get better, right?". In fairness, it does, at the very end when its finally explained who the "brother/sister" team are and what they want but by then, you hardly care anymore because you've spend the entire second half of the movie wondering exactly what did Mr. Onorati & Ms. Pacula do to tick someone off THIS badly to be stuck in such a horrible movie.<br /><br />
0neg
A top contender for worst film ever made. Joanna Pakula's character seems to have an I.Q. of 3 which is only one less than the writer and director. The screenplay would not have passed in a high school writing class; the "jokes" are juvenile; the concept corny. These performers were obviously desperate for work. I stayed to the end only to see if it would get worse. It did. Life is too short to spend any part of it watching this film.
0neg
After watching about half of this I was ready to give up and turn it off, but I endured to the end. This is a movie that tries to be a romantic comedy and fails. The acting is poor---much worse than the acting in 80s T&A movies.<br /><br />There are several attempts at humour that fail miserably and the movie is 100% predictable. Perhaps if you are a teenager this movie will hold some appeal, but for those that have seen many movies, you will know how the film turns out after the first 10 minutes. The rest of your time will be spent in agony waiting for the ending credits to roll.<br /><br />Don't waste your time watching this.
0neg
This movie is one of the most awful I've ever seen. Not only is the dialogue awful, it never ends. You'll think it's ending, but it's not. How long is it, 140, 160 minutes? I don't even know. I do know that I'll never watch it again. It's like someone took a romantic comedy, took out the comedy, then decided to downplay the romance, leaving us with the pile of crap that managed to make its way to the screen. But don't take my word for it, find out for yourself how terrible this film is.
0neg
A film as bad as this should be withdrawn from all stores world wide. So full of boring, dull, unimaginative characters, and with a lead character with such an annoying attitude and dry voice constantly giving a thoughtless voice over for every action and feeling, this film holds the record for the most challenging film I have ever watched. As I had payed money to own it, I felt a duty to see it through, and how I regret it. My head hurt throughout because of the terribly dull characters and their pointless, plot less lives. A bunch of kids who have zero knowledge about anything, are all frigid and worst of all, have terrible dialogue throughout, just mulling around as the main character tries to get a date with the girl. Boring, so much so my friend was shaking with hatred and I was red with embarrassment that I'd thrown away £6. The DVD was on eBay the following day, and I didn't make much of my money back. Avoid like the plague.
0neg
Absolutely nothing happens in this sloooow, annoying, thrill-less thriller directed by Amenabar's usual collaborator Mateo Gil. The film, which in some way deals with the effect of boredom and the quest for thrills, actually delivers none, and seems like an exercise in boredom. The only mildly suspenseful moment is the movie's climax, which takes about 30 seconds of the whole agonizing 100-plus minutes, and is resolved too simply. The plot lacks sophistication or credibility, and while the idea is original, the way the story unfolds is arbitrary and every plot device or twist is a result of outside interference (deus-ex-machina). The hero is always passive, everything happens to him without forcing him to show any initiative or resourcefulness. If you're fans of the genre, watch "Tesis" instead.
0neg
Holy crap! What a terrible, terrible Spanish thriller! I've had it for about four years and finally started it the other night. I watched an hour or so before heading to bed. I was pretty intrigued by the whole thing. I finished it last night and couldn't believe where I stopped it the night before. Literally, I stopped it the second before the movie went completely downhill.<br /><br />Like I said, I was pretty intrigued and curious as to where this mystery was going but stopped it right when Simon receives the package in the bar. I picked up when he opens up the package to reveal a laser gun and then plays a "menacing" game of laser tag. Whew! Then the big reveal is that the whole thing is a terrorist plot by role playing game nerds. WHEW! You can tell the Spanish industry was definitely behind director Mateo Gil (co-writer of Amenabar's two big previous hits). There is an excellent score and great photography. But this scenario reeks of silliness. How anyone sat through the last 40 minutes with a straight face is beyond me.
0neg
'Nobody knows anybody' is a conspiracy theory thriller about a Satanist/nut bomber targeting the religious festivities of Seville during Holy Week. He also happens to be the best friend of the film's hero. The plot is set up by the bomber as a computer game, with himself and the hero as players, and Seville as the virtual environment. The very real alleys and streets of the city begin to take on the labyrinthine qualities of those old Pacman-type games. Looked at this way, the scene where the hero and his female sidekick are chased by black-hooded penitents with rayguns may not seem as silly as it plays. <br /><br />From the start, we are aware that the narrative is being constructed as a game - the hero's job is to create crossword puzzles for a popular newspaper; at one point, the crossword grid on his screen becomes the chessboard on which he is later playing against his girlfriend's father. Clues are liberally scattered, as the camera mystifyingly closes in on images that are only later shown to have been significant (e.g. the advert in the bar). The detective/paper chase elements are made part of a game in progress, rather than an investigation after the fact. The film borrows heavily on 'Se7en''s pattern narrative, and anyone with a Catholic education will presumably get the significance of certain events happening on certain days in the run up to EAster.<br /><br />In this reading, the game is on the level of narrative, with the hero fighting against an enemy (in this case, the computer) to win and save the day. But there is a second game, the film itself, which subvert the first. There are another set of of clues which point not to the killer's intentions, but the filmmaker's and his hero's. In the first ten minutes there are references to chess, a writer called Navokov and a cult leader called Sarin. If we remember that the chess-loving Nabokov's 1930s pseudonym was Sirin, we see another game afoot, one where we suspect not the villain, but the hero himself. <br /><br />In a Nabokov novel like 'Pale Fire', an author-figure creates a text which is designed to hide his own motives, provoking a game between writer and reader to uncover the real text. Throughout the film are scenes which are visually distorted (e.g. the image contracting), or which are ambiguously defined dreams and hallucinations that make us suspect the hero's point of view. The opening references to games are all linked to him. In the early sequences, much is made of the character's sexual and creative impotence, so the film could be his attempt to master his life, to be a winner, in a way he can't for real. No sooner has he won the game than his writer's block vanishes; the words he types are the title of the film, suggesting he is the overall author. Further, that title in Spanish reflects on itself negatively, a very Nabokovian involution that suggests a hero, like Kinbote, trapped in his own solecism.<br /><br />This jumble of post-modern literature (Borges, Eco, Pynchon et al are alluded to also), Fincher, 'X-Files', 'Run Lola Run', Chris Marker (the idea of the city and its history as a map and a text; and as a cultural history haunting the present), Bunuellian anti-clericism, and Alex de la Iglesia's 'shock' films result in a film that is just that, a jumble, each clever-clever allusive element cancelling out the last, dissipating interest. The lack of clarity about the game's rules renders it incomprehensible, and eventually wearing. <br /><br />Ironically, in a work of such overdetermined artifice, the film's main interest lies in its documentary quality, as a record of a narrative taking place in a real city with its own events taking place independently. Such an ambiguous blurring of fact and fiction can create a masterpiece like 'Sans Soleil' or 'London', but, ultimately, you need to have a light touch to match your cleverness.
0neg
Although the beginning suggests All Quiet on the Western Front, this silly and superficial version of war falls far astray of its much better contemporary. This depicts the funnest war ever fought, with the first hour and a half devoted to romance and good times.<br /><br />When we finally see some battle, it is lame: An enemy plane flies over? Shoot it down (in one shot). Sniper in the tree? Kill him before he gets a shot off. Enemy soldiers in the woods? Not to worry, they gladly surrender. Ho-hum.<br /><br />Tepid, turgid, predictable...<br /><br />
0neg
Motocrossed was fun, but it wasn't that great. I guess I just didn't understand a lot of the Motocross racing "lingo" (and there was A LOT of that in the film)! The plot wasn't what I expected from the Disney Channel previews, so that could account for some of my disappointment.
0neg
Some fraud girl tries to compete in the big leagues of motorcross by swiching places with her brother. She gets to the top by lying and manipulation. She should have been disqualified. The movie promotes lying and cheating to win. also the idea of a 9 yr old mechanic is absurd. it takes many many years to get good. Go back to the tonka toys.
0neg
Absolutely horrific film. Ameteurish and it isn't funny at all. Lead character played by Mehmet Ali Erbil is very annoying. Edits by E.T and star wars is just plain stupid.<br /><br />Actor Yilmaz Goksal is the only good think about this movie. He should master his English and move to Hollywood. Hollywood can not find an actor with his qualities. Other than Goksal this movie is a garbage.<br /><br />Director Gani Mujde is a comic writer and this movie is his worst written work to this date.<br /><br />Music of Cem Karaca is another plus of this waste of money. Actor Sumer Tilmac also have some presence. Actor who plays the three sons has no talent what so ever.
0neg