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Saw II (2005)
Phew - not really good
Uhm, well the headline of this comment says it all. Not a good movie. The beginning has another one of those wretched contraptions that made Saw 1 original/noteworthy - and then it all becomes a bit daft and even illogical.
It was made so blatantly obvious that the detective's son will be safe, just like it was made bleedingly obvious that it's not actually a live transmission from the house that the police are watching. In the beginning, I was watching it while also doing work on the computer and I still got that figured out about halfway through the film. Not good. Equally, it's just too predictable that Obi is not going to survive his very first challenge.
And then there's those leaps of (il)logic. Like - a single detective manages to get away with a terminal cancer patient whom he has just beaten up severely. Without being intercepted by one of the SWAT guys abundant inside the house. Without being followed by other police staff. Despite the fact that it probably did take some time to move said beaten-up cancer patient through the house and into the van. And no need to hassle with SWAT/police agents securing the outside of the building - conveniently, there were none (otherwise, they would have a) seen and intercepted him b) been at least informed by walkietalkie). Sure thing, we're only talking about a building in which THE prime suspect for the notorious "Jigsaw" cases is being held. Hey, he's terminal, he's got lots of monitors inside the building, no need to secure the outside of that building. D'oh. And no - nobody tries to take up the lead on where that detective goes, nobody so much as hints at a trap or a set-up and nobody is watching him particularly, although it could be anticipated that he might do something unwise as the guy's son is involved. Nope, the detective can just get the Jigsaw guy and leave without anybody caring much, whereas half of the police team stays in the house and the other half is tracking down the place from which the transmission is coming.
But no, that's not enough. As soon as the detective enters the house, it is abundantly clear that he will NOT get out again. Not in Saw 2, anyways. So, with about 15 minutes left before the end of the film, almost every scene is screaming "sequel!". Which is quite annoying.
But even that's not all from the repertoire of annoyance the writers could think of - they even put the Dark Side equivalent of "wise Yoda teaches you" in there. Amanda went through the jigsaw ordeal before, survived and apparently thought it was a good idea, so she's taking up what monsieur jigsaw started.
Who would have thought that there would be a way of wriggling out of the death of jigsaw (which was imminent) to produce a sequel. There's two alternatives: quickly introduce a scholar-of-jigsaw character _or_ make the sequel a prequel, i.e. make it about something that happened _before_ the "plot" of Saw 2. Amazingly, the Saw franchise did more or less both at once.
Have I talked about colour saturation filters and quick cuts (that make the film look like an episode from any given MTV series) yet? Well, there - I just did.
Now, why 4 stars... good question. I watched it on a rather unmotivated Sunday afternoon. It wasn't boring as such, which is a plus on Sunday afternoons. There were also some cringeworthy moments (needles). And, by giving me the urge to write this review, it actually gave me a reason to procrastinate work a little longer.
Achtung, fertig, Charlie! (2003)
First movie I walked out of
Seriously - avoid this movie at any cost. I just saw it in my first "sneak preview" ever and although I paid non-refundable money for it, I walked out of the cinema after a mere 15 minutes. Which already includes 2 minutes of discussion among my friends whether or not to leave. First time EVER I walked out of a movie. And I lived through some pretty bad ones.
It's one of those films that is dubbed (and badly so) even though it is shown in its original language. It relies on the oldest, simplest and cheapest jokes in the book. On the military ("What do we do once we reach the fighting zone?" - "You get out of the car and die"; actually, it's much funnier to read here that the way it was delivered in the film), on drugs (a guy eats some "space cookies", behaves really silly and misses his wedding or has to live through it while high - all badly written and acted), on women in the army ("Why do we only get trumpets? We were promised guns!" - "That's the way it is, that's the way it'll stay")... Argh. Okay, you might actually find these genuinely funny, but in that case you seriously scare me.
Additionally, I have seen better acting in the kind of soft porn films you get on European late night TV. So it had lame jokes (delivered badly), beyond lower average acting, lacked pace, was badly dubbed and edited It just didn't work. At least not on any level used as a measure for films.
I would even be so bold as to say that this flick proves that there are people who can be a lot less funny zan zee Germans. And that's saying something if you like stereotypes. (Which I don't, it's nice to play with them, though. Just in case somebody thinks I'm not being PC enough.)
Instead of going to see this film, do something useful. Try to teach crocheting to prawns, paint your toenails in a really irritating colour, disassemble your bicycle, change some light bulbs, try to understand Einstein's theories, convert to a different religion and back - in fact, go and listen to "Last Christmas" by Wham! on endless repeat. Anything, but don't watch this awful flick.
Crocodile Dundee in Los Angeles (2001)
This is SOOOOOOOO 80s!
I quite enjoyed the first CD movie and liked the second one. 13 years after CD II, there's now CD III and only two things you could possibly expect: - it is phenomenal. they had so much time to work on it and spent it very weel, finely crafting every little thing - it is bad Although it's not half as bad as other movies I've seen (Scream 3 for instance), it's still hopelessly out of date. Everything looks, feels and acts as if we're still in the 80s. There's a number of rather good punch lines in there, but that doesn't really save the film.
As an Aborigine says to Mick right at the beginning: "By the way, Mick, it's the 21st century."
So he knew it and made an 80s film nevertheless. Pity, he could've done much more. Stayed in Australia, for instance, I enjoyed the movie until he had to go to LA for a rather far-fetched and uninspired reason. Hogan can be genuinely funny but only very rarely is in this flick.
The worst bit, BTW, is the end titles music. You guessed it - Men At Work 's "Down under" - Rather unnecessary.