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christianvillagomez
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Shrink (2009)
Very, very memorable example of filmmaking
First of all I've been very aware of how critics gave this film lackluster reviews yet I beg to differ, and thankfully so do most people rating this on IMDb. It's essentially a Hollywood dramedy revolving around the couple of individual lives including Dr. Henry Carter played oh so charismatically and sharply by Kevin Spacey with many other characters such as Jeremy, an ongoing writer played by Mark Webber and Jemma: an emotionally struggling teenager girl played by the very identifiable star Keke Palmer. Be aware though, I watched this on T.V and was very close to passing this up due to it's not-so-appealing 2/4 star rating on Dish but I really felt like I needed to see this at least once due to its interesting premise and after watching it I was proud to say to myself that it exceeded beyond any short-term expectations I may have had for it at the moment. The most identifiable trait that really characterized it is that it may be just over an hour-and-a-half but it feels just over 2 hours, most people would assume that's a bad thing and would immediately go on to bash it for its slow pace, I prefer to call it STEADY pacing since the characterizations are done so right considering director Jonas Pate's very realistic and, should I say, very TRANQUIL style. You really hang on throughout this whole journey of a movie embracing what next step each of these people have to face in their lives and I couldn't help but feel satisfied by the end of the movie, which is indeed the sure plus way of knowing it was a good movie wait, change that: a fantastic movie.
Max Payne (2008)
There'll still always be a sense of regret though...
Honestly in a world where adapting video-games to movies is as hopeless as the words' definition itself you'd have expect this BAFTA award winning film-noir oriented game "Max Payne", which was basically already a playable movie, to be easy to translate to the big screen. But no: instead of 20th Century Fox just bothering to ask the original games' creator/screenwriter Sam Lake if he could take the time to convert his original masterpiece into a version easily fitted for give or take 2 hours, they go to Beau Thorne: a man who seriously needs work on a story's coherence and hardly could've played the whole game himself. Just like basically everybody else, the movie will always stay inferior to the game no matter how much more I learn to appreciate this for its own story. To me there's only 3 things the film did that was faithful to the game: 1.) I cannot begin to tell you how perfect Mark Wahlberg was as Max Payne! 2.) Director John Moore perfectly recaptured the look and feel of snow-trenched nighttime NYC 3.) The (very few) action scenes do kinda feel like levels out of the game. Other than that, the only original idea they included in here that I enjoyed were sunnyside moments of May Payne still in his dark clothes visiting his wife & daughter in an almost heavenlike version of their house. The story's just so different and though this movie could've been so much shittier given it's still game-to-movie material but there'll always be a sense of regret given this movie could have been done SO much better and SO much easier.
RoboCop 2 (1990)
Oh while I probably would've paid to see this in theaters back then if I was around...
... There were a few specific flaws that prevented this decent sequel from being up to par with its brilliant sequel. Now first I'll mention what I liked about this movie: the action and visual effects are still very well-crafted if not better, and say what you will about how Irvin Kershner handled this movie but you gotta admit he did a near flawless job at capturing Future Detroit in the daytime. And now, viewers beware some of these notes for they can count as spoilers, here is every single detail I think could've strongly been avoided but alas wasn't that doomed the movie to not going beyond an "alright" to me: * In the beginning part they shouldn't have did that idea of crook after crook stealing from each other * The gun robber should've just nailed Robocop's car 1 time instead because dammit while Murphy can't go down easily he's still no freaking superman! * Irvin shouldn't have made Peter Weller's motivation for being RoboCop be that he still talks robotic cause all us fellow fans are aware of how Murphy regained his human personality and voice back in the end of the 1st film * At the very least the character Hob should've looked 16 and not 12 * I liked the Magnavolt commercial at the beginning but damn they should've just cut the horrifically corny ad for that really powerful sunblock * Filmmakers needed to have that small 5 minute subplot of Murphy's last ties with his family get stretched to like 15 minutes which dragged throughout the whole movie * Biggest beef I had was towards Frank Miller (writer of this movie) was him practically turning the Sweet Old Man in to a Senile Old Bastard * This movie really shouldn't have been a part 1 to the very crappy part 2 that was RoboCop 3, it really should've been its own story and in the end OCP needed to have just get what they deserved or at the very least the character Juliette Faxx (who, for better or worse, was portrayed great by Belinda Bauer)
There, those were all the things that kept RoboCop 2 from being one of the most perfect sequels ever in my book. Hope you can side with me on that part.
Gamer (2009)
Had the potential to be one of the most defining movies yet in today's action genre...
Let's all be honest: the trailer completely hooks us in! It's supplied with that one song "Sweet Dreams" that sounds rocking and its lyrics seem to perfectly describe Gamer's main idea while showing lots of thrilling action scenes. And after watching the actual movie, I must say that if you had normal standards for another eh-ish action flick, then this would of satisfied. But in terms of living up to the trailers' standards, then in that case the film was, quoting the infamous gamer term here, AN EPIC FAIL. I know Neveldine/Taylor always try to pride themselves on keeping their action flicks low-budget and that was perfectly exceptional for the "Crank" movies. But this movie's aim was much bigger than some British hit man going around on a killing rampage! At times the couple of sweet uses of visual effects (Slayers moments & Ads completely covering buildings) but what we have to get in return for those cool yet very brief moments are lots of normal-length moments where it just involve 2 or more people talking in a room where the direction of Neveldine/Taylor feels really dead. And what really made the movie feel uncomfortable to watch was "Society": honestly, even in 2034 I don't think people in general will grow up to be corrupt, drunk and weird sluts! Seriously almost everything in Society was unnecessary and while I'm not saying they should have taken that out but just tone it down A LOT! Plus that was just being pretty stereotypical to make Angie's user a fat, perverted slob. And apparently the film was decided to be a compact hour- and-a-half and that wasn't right for 1 reason: after Kable did all his necessary business (rescuing Angie, having his and her nanotechs buzzed off, yadda yadda yadda) he decides to go to Ken Castle's mansion to settle it once and for all.... but that was just the problem: when he decides to go, he gets there no questions asked! They should have devoted at least 10 minutes to Castle's technical team trying to hunt him down or something like that.
So that's all Gamer: a high-budget idea supported by a lousy low-budget, had the potential to put in scenes that could have made the movie (as a whole) flow much more easily, and just in general considered to me as good half of the times only.
Ninja Assassin (2009)
This flick's made simply to entertain the action-lover in you.
Okay, if anything else, the trailers are faithful to what "Ninja Assassin" seeks to give the viewers: slick, stylish and bloody action. While to this day I question the Wachowski brothers' adaptation to Speed Racer, a very cheesy and candy scrambled visual effects, I must say this film is a step up. On a (slightly small) budget of $40 million the Wachowskis this time take advantage of modern technology to make visual effects a complete reminiscent of "The Matrix"(which was $63 million back in 1999, considered almost $80 million now). Asian pop star Rain has made his first lead role as an emotionally stalled yet greatly skilled Ninja Assassin. And while the story's somewhat familiar, it's the kind of familiar you feel comfortable with, not the kind that seems to have you frustrated over how cliché it is. But personally, if the Wachowskis had went through a lot of work for this movie I think they should might as well have directed this themselves because what critics really didn't like about this movie was of how sloppy director James McTeigue handled the (impressively choreographed, I might add) fight scenes, and while I thought the fight scenes looked well handled enough, I like this movie enough to feel hurt that it got mediocre reviews.
So in a nutshell: "Ninja Assassin" delivers the stylish fights it promises, followed by a fair enough story with interesting enough characters played well by talented actors.