JStiles85 Reviews

Vampires Suck (2010)

Good Parody

[7/10 · 5 September 2010]

Most of the time when we judge a film, we rate it based on its own merits, but in the case of Vampires Suck, there are two very important prerequisites to potentially enjoying the film:

1. The viewer is familiar with the source material being parodied. In this case: the Twilight series.

2. The viewer understands parody and satire.

If you understand parody, and are familiar with the Twilight series (as in you've at least seen the movies or read the books), then this film does a wonderful job as parody of the original source material. It criticizes some of the largest weak points of the source material, without too much inane crude humor.

I have read Twilight (but avoided the films like the plague) and found the film to be quite entertaining as parody, but not as a film in it's own right. Where this movie could have really grown would have been to work more on a plot capable of standing on its own. So, I would recommend this movie, but first go pick up the Twilight books, read them and have your own critical opinion of the source material before seeing this movie.

(I can't believe that I just told people to go read Twilight...)

Eragon (2006)

I didn't think it was bad, but then again, I like Dragonheart

[7/10 · 23 March 2007]

I'm going to start this review with a few disclaimers that may "discredit" me in the eyes of some readers. 1) I have not read the novel, so I can't make any judgments on how it holds to that (although I generally don't try to hold movies to their novel counterparts due to limiting factors that for the most part cannot be avoided) and 2) I happen to like another dragon movie people bash a lot: Dragonheart. With those things said, on to my review.

I went into this movie with an open mind, trying my best to block out the mixed reviews I've heard (some of my friends loved it, the internet at large seems to hate it), and I was pleasantly surprised.

Acting/Dialog/Script - The acting was on par with the genre. It's an unavoidable truth that the script and the acting will seem bad in fantasy and science fiction if the audience is unwilling to suspend disbelief. One has to take into account that this is a fictional land, and therefore the speech patterns may be a bit out of our norm. In addition, as a fantasy, the dialog is usually over-dramatized in order to press a higher sense of consequence. If one honestly looks at it, the same things that people are complaining about with this movie are present in such highly exalted films as Star Wars and LOTR.

Plot - As far as the storyline goes, I liked it. It could use a little bit of fleshing out and expansion, but it has a good solid backstory that really gives that sense of medieval lore that drives so many good fantasy stories. Other than the plot seeming a little rushed from time to time, it really does have a good solid feel to it.

Special effects/battle sequences/etc - Nothing here particularly "blew me away", but it certainly didn't leave me sitting there thinking how fake it all looked. There are a few shots during battle where the camera changes almost made me sick, but it was visually exciting.

Overall, I would call Eragon a good piece of entertainment. If you're looking for an Oscar quality amazing drama, this is not it, for that I would recommend The Departed (which I also just watched recently), but if you're looking for a fun story with dragons, sword fights, archery, and a tyrannical monarchy that must be overthrown, Eragon is your film.

Roger & Me (1989)

Biased and Fictional

[1/10 · 6 September 2005]

I was forced to watch this film for my World Reigonal Geography class. This film is what is wrong with America today, instead of figuring out the best way out of hard times or situations we would rather complain about how it is someone else's fault. This film goes through the downfall of Flint, Michigan and blames it 100% on General Motors. In the process of doing so Moore goes to great lengths to make the executives of General Motors out to be villains just because they are doing their job in a capitalist society. Moore films several evictions throughout the film and does not ever even ask once if the person is being evicted because of a GM layoff. Additionally, he never interviews the landlords of the tenants filmed. Moore goes to great lengths to twist historical events to fit his political agenda in this film of pure propaganda.