MovieComment

S.W.A.T.

Posted by Player under Action

Another summer action movie which stars Collin Ferrel, Samual L. Jackson, Michelle Rodriguez, and a few other recognizable actors. The movie centers on Ferrel, who plays an ex-navy seal by the name of Street. He is pretty much the quiet character with the skills to make it in SWAT, but his chief hates him and assigns him to desk duty early on. That all changes when Jackson, who plays the old style SWAT captain returns to lead a new squad. Street along with five other officers become the new squad and they are handed a tough assignment to escort an international crime lord, and this is where the action starts.

The film itself does not really rewrite the action genre, nor does it have special effects that take away from the story line. Pretty much all the characters are not really gone into, but the over all story is not cheapened. In fact SWAT does something that most other films don’t do, it actually shows you some cops doing their job with a little action thrown in of course. There are no big heroes like in most other films, most of the time Ferrel plays such a quiet tough guy, you start to realize this is how most heroes are suppose to be, pretty quiet about their jobs.

Sound wise, the film sounded good, and the soundtrack which is a mix of the usual techno, grunge, rock was okay and not too annoying in most places. Visuals were crisp and sharp and colorful.

SWAT will make a good DVD to watch and if you like cop movies, then this one is not too bad.

Though I have to wonder why Ferrel looks surprised through out most of this film. The guy just has this look about him.

Tropic Thunder

Posted by Player under Comedy

The war movie is as classic as the war novel, but just because something is classic, does not mean we can’t make fun of it. I suppose Ben Stiller had that in mind when he put together this satire of a movie about making a movie of a war movie. Together with Jack Black, Robert Downey Jr., Nic Nolte, and even Tom Cruise, Stiller tells the hardship of Hollywood actors trying to survive the physical dangers of acting and the emotional heartbreaks of not being able to cry on camera or have a real friend.

Stiller plays the action star whose acting abilities are in doubt and whose time in the spotlight is quickly fading, while Downey Jr. plays the talented actor who has no real friends in real life. Everything goes astray, once their director places them in harm’s way, in order to save the film from being a catastrophe. Too bad the drug dealers do not play along and end up capturing Stiller and holding him ransom. What ensues is a series of great explosions, out of Rambo II and Platoon, and eventually Jack Black in his underwear, screaming “My Ass!!!”.

Overall, Tropic Thunder is not the greatest movie ever made, but if you ever saw a war action movie in the last two decades, you’ll laugh at the satire that shows up in this movie.

Spider-Man 2

Posted by Player under Action

The biggest summer movie of 2004 is definitely Spider-Man 2. On its opening day alone, it made a cool $30 million! But is it worth the hype? Well, yes!

In this film, we get to meet Peter Parker, the struggling college student and moonlighting super hero. He is well on his way to a nervous breakdown as he can’t seem to keep a job or keep up with his school work. On top of this he knows his relationship with Mary Jane Watson is falling apart. In total, his personal life is really in shambles and this starts to effect his superpowers as well.

He gets to meet a brilliant scientist, Octavious, who is transformed into the evil Doc Oct by an experiment that goes wrong. Together, the two have some very amazing battles, which all lead up to a final confrontation, with MJ being once again the beautiful maiden in distress.

In all there’s a lot of action, a lot of story, and some humor thrown in as Peter Parker’s life is anything but glamorous.

As to what not to like about the film:

For any kid, there really is not anything. This is really a kids film. The action is very cool to kids and the love story is interesting for adults, and everything else is just a little too over the top or make-believe. The fusion experiment does not make sense, in fact most things about Doc Oct don’t really work in the real world, and so the comic book aspect of the movie is pretty solid. In other words, this world does not exist, but its problems do come across as being very real. We all have doubts, we all fail, and so in a sense we may not live in Spider-Man’s world, but we do relate very well to Peter Parker.

Some fans will surely point out that the unmasking of Spider-Man was not necessary, but in the real world of Peter Parker, it does. You can’t keep lieing to the ones you love, right?

There was a couple of times where I thought I was watching The Matrix, specifically in the train scene, where Spider-Man is carried, and with the whole heroes speech, which is cheesy and reminded me of Morpheous’s War speech in Reloaded.

As for the technical aspects of the film, the film could not look any better. Danny Elfman provides yet again another interesting and diverse soundtrack, which is neither harsh nor out of step with the scene.

In the end you have to give it to Hollywood for finally coming up with a film that appeals to almost every age group and taste.

Hidalgo

Posted by Player under Drama

I kind of compared this movie to Tom Cruise in The Last Samurai, cause the story lines are similar, but overall I liked Hidalgo better than Last Samurai.

Hidalgo is the name of the horse, a wild mustang, which Frank Hopkins races in the race of all races. As part Native American Indian, Hopkins is conflicted in the beginning of the story, as his actions help lead to the massacre of Indians at Wounded Knee, it is at this time that he and his horse are challenged to enter the 3000 mile race in the middle east.

Hopkins arrives as the only American to enter a race where only the fastest and best stallions ride and where most men do not even survive the race. Hopkins is befriended by the Skiek’s daughter as he tries to learn the rigid culture of Arabs as well as avoid the pitfalls of a 3000 mile race through the desert.

Viggo Mortensen of LordofTheRings fame plays Hopkins and the rest of the cast is very well casted, so the film is very well acted. But I must confess that I can hardly hear what Hopkins is saying half the time. Mortensen plays Hopkins as a quiet American, and as a man of few words.

Visuals throughout the movie look very authentic (with the excepton of CGI scenes, like the leopard scene), but I often wondered if they could have been better. The grandness of a 3000 mile trek through the desert, could lend itself to some very cool backgrounds, but somehow the film delivers only a few.

For the audio, the DVD includes a 5.1 DTS track that is as good as it gets for a drama/action film. Some surround effects though are pretty impressive, even in the first opening scene even.

In the end, I thought Hidalgo was a pretty good film, nicely made, and nicely performed. The story may be more fiction, than truth, but the sometimes it’s really all about the moral of the story, and as movies go these days, this film has a pretty good moral at the end.