hoju_31 Reviews

Knowing (2009)

Cage's character summed up the movie when he said "There's no purpose.".

[2/10 · 29 August 2011]

I'll start by saying this could have been a good movie; even an excellent one, but the execution was downright awful. The first 90% of the movie was an absolute waste and it would have been more integral to the ending if the main characters had just sat out in the front lawn the entire time watching the grass grow. It seems the entire purpose of the predictive numbers was to get the kids to those coordinates at a certain time. Although, even that didn't matter because the aliens intervened and did it themselves anyway. It would have made a lot more sense for the aliens to do nothing since the parents wouldn't have suspected anything that way and said aliens wouldn't have had to engage in a car chase. The point is, I have a difficult time seeing the good in a movie that unravels itself completely in the last 10 minutes. It's lazy and a borderline dues ex machina.

Insidious (I) (2010)

Ugh...

[1/10 · 28 August 2011]

Why does Hollywood have no concept of money or common sense? This family lives in a $500K - $1 Million house, depending on where the story is supposed to take place, they have three kids, one of whom requires constant medical care and the wife doesn't work. The wife claims she needs to move because the place is haunted. So, does the husband, who hasn't seen anything to indicate ghosts in the house, maybe question his wife's sanity as the most plausible explanation? Of course not! Instead, he does the following: "Well, sure honey, any reasonable person would think you're insane, we have thousands of dollars of medical bills to pay per month for our comatose son, and I'm a freaking teacher, so yeah, OF COURSE we can just up and leave this house and move into another mansion. It's only money, baby!". Despite all that, this movie is just your average, cliché-ridden mess full of *gasp* jump scares which are the laziest horror staples money can buy.

You Don't Mess with the Zohan (2008)

Terrible, even for Adam Sandler.

[1/10 · 17 August 2011]

I still don't really understand why I even gave this movie a chance; morbid curiosity I suppose. The movie is racist, but I can't decide against whom. Don't get me wrong, I can handle some racially charged humor, when it's actually funny, but come on. On one hand, the middle eastern characters are walking stereotypes (terrorists, cab drivers, etc.) and on the other hand, the only white people in the movie were the evil rich guy, the evil lawyers cruelly trying to shut down the minority-based neighborhood and a gang of drooling, racist rednecks with mullets that had no idea why they hated people different from themselves (an obvious crack at the TEA Party, which was absurd, even for liberal Hollywood). That aside, nothing in this movie was funny. Literally nothing. The whole business about him having s*x with the old women was completely unnecessary and a pathetic attempt at gross out humor. Not that I care about hairdressing, but shouldn't that at least have been part of the movie, considering it was one of the primary themes? All we ever see is him washing the hair of women and having s*x with them. All in all, this is yet another terrible Adam Sandler movie (there are many) that seemed to have been written while someone was stuck in traffic one day.

Storm of the Century (1999)

King, what did we ever do to you?

[1/10 · 28 April 2011]

I think King has finally realized in recent years that he need only take a dump in a bag and it will sell for millions. The guy's not even trying anymore. This is no clearer than in this horrid disgrace for a screenplay. I realize this is a miniseries so I can forgive quite a bit, like low-budget special effects. However, what I can't excuse is the awful acting and painfully slow pace. I'm not a person that needs explosions every five seconds; in fact, I hate that, but when nothing at all happens for 3/4 of the movie and most scenes seemingly only exists to fill time, I have a problem. The build-up, if you can call it that, of what the demon wanted was as boring as the pay off. The worst part for me, however, had to be the end scene in the town hall. The constable, who's side I assume we were supposed to be taking, was a baffling idiot. He was more than willing to let every single person die (including the kids) to avoid giving up a child (who would die otherwise) to the demon. His mind-boggling justification was "maybe he's bluffing". Um, excuse me, but were you not awake for the first 3 hours of the film's events? I know I wasn't, but I was still able to ascertain that the demon meant business.

Battle Los Angeles (2011)

Oh dear...

[1/10 · 14 March 2011]

Other than the fact that this was a long commercial for the USMC, there were plenty of things wrong with it. As a former military member, I can tell you that no one calls anyone "Staff Sergeant". They are referred to as simply "Sergeant", regardless of what level of Sergeant they are. For some reason that irritated me; most likely because it happened 5000 times. Also, the guy spends 20 years (or more) in the military and only got to the rank of "Staff Sergeant"? Who did he p*ss off? The way they displayed the major characters names on the screen bothered me, mainly because I realized that was the film's idea of character development. Next we have the alien aircraft. For a species that has mastered interstellar travel, why do their aircraft look like they were assembled out of spare parts at the nearest junkyard? The "emotional" scenes made me wince. I realize this was an action movie, but come on writers. The special effects were sub-par but tolerable. The shaky camera gimmick was old the first time it was used; now it just causes rage. However, my biggest problem with this movie is it brought nothing new to the table. It was merely a boring hodgepodge of other alien invasion movies, namely "Independence Day", which this movie surpassed (but what doesn't?), and "War of the Worlds".

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (2008)

George, how could you?

[1/10 · 8 March 2011]

After George Lucas succeeded in ruining the Star Wars franchise with his hilariously terrible prequels, I guess he figured he should go for broke and destroy every beloved franchise he had a hand in. First of all, I'm willing to overlook quite a bit of implausibility in movies, but the scene with the refrigerator is inexcusable. Even if it could somehow survive the blast (it couldn't), inertia alone would have liquefied Indiana's organs, or at least turned all of his bones into tiny shards, yet this 60 year old man walks away unscathed after being thrown several miles through the air in a metal box. Also, it was supposed to take place 10 years after the last movie, yet he clearly aged at least 25 years. Was he drinking and smoking 24 hours a day for those 10 years? Also, he moved like a mildly retarded tree sloth. In this day in age, especially with the overuse of CGI in this movie, couldn't they make him at least look somewhat younger?

Sicko (2007)

Michael Moore is the physical manifestation of hypocrisy. Why is it so fat?

[1/10 · 21 September 2010]

Regardless of which side of the political spectrum you happen to be on, you should still be appalled at the fact that this Marxist doughnut ingester cares as much about truth and factual information as Obama does about the average person. In other words, not at all. He takes the worst possible examples of our health care system and the best possible examples of the Socialist systems and presents them as if they're the norm. Cuba? Really? Do you think people flee that place because it's TOO awesome? How stupid does Moore think people are? Pretty stupid, and judging by the rating this "documentary" has on this site, he's absolutely right. Try waiting 6 months to see a doctor in the United Kingdom unless its a life-threatening emergency, and that's in a country with 65 million people. Try that same system in a country with 300 million+. Just a little common sense does wonders. Fans of Michael Moore should try it sometime. Most people believe what they believe and don't need pesky facts getting in the way. People that don't like George W. Bush are obviously more inclined to believe he orchestrated 9/11. It doesn't matter that there's no evidence of this or that terrorists TOOK CREDIT FOR IT. It's really pathetic that any leftist propaganda film made in Hollywood, regardless of how absurd, will automatically make money, because its trendy, just as voting for Obama was, and how's that working out for you?

Braveheart (1995)

Hi, my name is Mel Gibson. My hobbies include DUIs and taking sh*ts on history.

[3/10 · 23 August 2010]

I'm an American but with a Scottish heritage so I suppose it would be easy for me to overlook blinding disregard for history in the case of this movie. However, I just can't. There's no excuse for this. If you want to make a hack/slash film, either make the characters fictional or make them at least kind of historically accurate, not neither. William Wallace and the princess didn't even exist in the same time period, let alone fall in love. What the h*ll is going on here? The film itself really isn't bad. The cinematography is outstanding, but I just can't suspend disbelief enough to enjoy it. This ranks up there with the awful movie "Pearl Harbor" in terms of historical accuracy, if "Pearl Harbor" had included a scene where the Japanese dropped a hydrogen bomb on Hawaii.

The Twilight Zone (2002–2003)

I really wanted to like this but...

[2/10 · 23 August 2010]

I really wanted to like this, but it's just so poorly done. It is done in a similar way as the (far superior) Outer Limits but missed virtually all key parts. Firstly, the "twist" endings could be seen from miles away. Secondly, the episodes were too short to be effective. Finally, key necessary explanations were omitted. A perfect example of these was the episode where the woman had bandages on her face. A toddler would have realized within minutes that the staff were the freaks (it wouldn't show their faces until the end) and the woman was the normal one. Did they really think they were fooling anyone? At the end, Forrest Whittaker says, "Why were the ugly ones considered normal and the beautiful ones the minority? It doesn't matter". Bull sh*t it doesn't matter! You can't just gloss over key plot points because you're too lazy to provide even the slightest bit of explanation. I'm all for forcing the viewer to use his or her imagination but this is just too much. The episode "How much do you love you kid?" was the worst thing ever. I get that these things take place in "The Twilight Zone" but give me something, anything, that can make these scenarios even the slightest bit plausible? I don't know, say a wizard did it or something. Anyway, if it wasn't bad enough, she just murders her own husband at the end and right afterward, seems surprised that it happened. I get that you're p*ssed at the guy, but who does that?

Double Jeopardy (1999)

Utter garbage

[1/10 · 13 July 2010]

Let's get the obvious problem out the way. She would not, no way no how, walk free at the end. Even IF (and that's a big if) the murder of her husband actually qualifies as double jeopardy, she committed a pile of other crimes. She violated parole, stole a car, caused tens of thousands of dollars in property damage, assaulted a federal agent, resisted arrest AND was in possession of AND used a hand gun despite being a convicted felon. With that list of charges she would have gone to prison for far longer than she had the first time around, especially considering her prior record. I realize there has to be some suspension of disbelief in movies but this is just too much.

The Haunting in Connecticut (2009)

Oh dear...

[2/10 · 27 May 2010]

I didn't give this a "1" because the mother was hot. Other than that, there are absolutely NO redeeming qualities in this. If you want to scare people, you have to show them something new. Horror movies have been around as long as movies have been made. Showing people the same crap over and over again is a bad decision and makes for a terrible movie. The kid was irritating. In order to be scared by a movie, you have to be able to relate to the characters. They clearly knew well before the end that there was something wrong with the house but chose not to leave for some reason. Therefore, natural selection should take over and wipe out the entire family due to sheer mind-numbing idiocy. What in God's name was the point of the father coming over and breaking all the light bulbs? We already knew he was a drunk, so why show that pointless scene? Also, why was that idiot trying to kill himself at the end? He could have easily just set fire to the place and left, so why kill himself in the process? Nothing in this made any sense. Pure garbage.

Pearl Harbor (2001)

I hate you Michael Bay

[1/10 · 26 May 2010]

Why, oh why, do they keep letting this man make movies? I get that there has to be a certain level of deviation from reality when making a movie about a historical event in order to make it more exciting, so I'm willing to overlook that part, but there are so many other things wrong with this. I don't know how many more times I can say this, but, STOP PUTTING BEN AFFLECK IN MOVIES FOR THE LOVE OF GOD! He's terrible and he ruins otherwise good movies (not that this qualifies, of course). Does there really have to be a ridiculous love story? Is it a requirment made by the suits in order to get funding for your movie? It adds nothing at all to the story. This is a movie about the Pearl Harbor attack (sort of), not some awkward love story between two insanely irritating characters.

The Ring Two (2005)

What in God's name is going on here?

[1/10 · 17 May 2010]

This movie is nowhere near the worst movie ever made, but it still gets a "one" due to the fact that it's such a complete and utter disappointment compared to the first one. Sequels tend to be, as a rule, worse, but it didn't seem as though the filmmakers were even trying. The most laughable part of this is when Samara possesses the boy. If I was the mother I would keep the possessed kid (who says "I love you" and actually wants to spend time with her new mother) and kick her ungrateful brat of a son to the curb. Besides, her son was creepier than the girl to begin with. That Max person had to be the dumbest person in history, having lied to the kid who he already suspected was a supernatural being. He didn't think that would, I don't know, p*ss it off? The viewer shouldn't really feel bad when that guy kicks the bucket. It's called natural selection, people. I take it back; the most laughable part was at the end when Samara says "mommy" in that hilarious voice and the mother says "I'm not your F*cking mommy", before closing the lid to the well. I thought we had progressed past the era of stupid one-liners. Apparently not.

Halloween II (2009)

ack

[2/10 · 5 March 2010]

I'm thinking it's a bad sign when shortly after the movie begins, you are wishing death upon the main protagonist and that feeling grows until it finally happens. She couldn't have been made to be less likable unless it was revealed that she was somehow committing the murders herself after a hefty dose of Human Growth Hormone. I have a tip for Rob Zombie: Don't create pointless side characters for the expressed purpose of casting your wife. Also, making Michael Meyers a grizzled hobo isn't helping matters either. I get that Meyers is crazy and large, but Zombie makes it a point to constantly remind us that he is still in fact human. That being said, no person can take multiple blows from a baseball bat to the spine and head seemingly unharmed. You need to choose whether he's a person, or he's not, Zombie. You can't have both.

The Happening (2008)

It hurts

[1/10 · 3 March 2010]

I know this man is capable of making a decent movie. "Unbreakable" was very good, "Signs" was decent and even the much-ridiculed "The Village" had it's charm, but this movie was so excruciatingly terrible that it almost has to be a cruel joke played on an unsuspecting public (although, with his latest slew of bombs, we now expect garbage). It's a well-known fact that Marky Mark can't act his way out of a wet paper bag, but his performance in this is nothing short of genocidal. Watching the "actors" perform in this was embarrassing to watch, to put it mildly. For a movie titled "The happening", nothing happens at all. The movie just ends for no apparent reason. Essentially the same thing happens in "Signs", but at least that one was entertaining and well-acted. Even the little girl in that was Oscar-worthy compared to Wahlberg. Even the suicide scenes were hardly B-movie material. The scene where the lions rip the guys arms off was supposed to be frightening but the special effects were on par with a high school play. This director (I can't spell his name and don't feel like looking it up) should be ashamed. If he honestly put effort into this, his career is finished, or at least should be. Although, they keep paying Michael Bay to make movies, so I guess this guy has a long career ahead of him. Sigh.

2012 (I) (2009)

Oh dear...

[1/10 · 14 December 2009]

I went into this with very low expectations for obvious reasons. I don't ask much from my disaster movies, but can you please show me something new? Please? The bombardment of clichés is overwhelming. There has to be a checklist somewhere in a Hollywood vault that displays the requirements for any disaster movie. The main protagonist has to be a divorced or separated dad whose life is in disarray but who is redeemed by the end of the movie. The step-dad must be devoid of all personality lest we start caring when he is inevitably killed off so the main character can move in on his ex. Any antagonist in the movie (who is this guy supposed to be anyway, the Secretary of Defense? I don't think it ever says, but I easily could have missed it, as I started zoning out) MUST be white and secondary protagonists (the President of the United States, the geologist, the doctor from India, the Tibetan man who helps the main characters and the President's daughter) must be minorities. Murphy's Law must apply and everything that could go wrong, does. However, since we know everything will turn out fine at the end anyway, there is no tension whatsoever. Finally, there should have been a disclaimer at the beginning that read: "WARNING: In the following movie, product placements will attack your senses at every opportunity". I guess when your budget is a quarter of a million dollars, you'll take any money you can get. I get that this is a movie, but some plausibility would be nice. Is Jackson Curtis secretly Aquaman? The old world record for holding your breath was around 5 min. After his stunt, it's apparently up to 20.

Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen (2009)

What in God's name is going on here?

[1/10 · 29 June 2009]

I was actually excited about this movie as I really enjoyed the first one. Where do I begin with what's wrong with this movie? It was essentially the U.S. Military vs. the Deceptecons. There were basically three Autobots in the movie: Bumblebee (who somehow couldn't talk again, even though he could at the end of the first one), and TWO Jar-Jar Binks's. Ironhide and Ratchet were in it but inexplicably absent for most of the movie and some other one that never transformed so I had no idea what it was supposed to be. There were a pile of new Decepticons but little to no new Autobots. Oprimus Prime was dead for most of the movie but was resurrected to defeat the "bad guys" is less than two minutes by somehow acquiring some advanced weaponry from an "old" Deceptecon with a cane for God's sake! Ahh!!!. Shia Labouf and Megan Fox were awful. First of all, Megan Fox couldn't act her way out of wet paper bag so watching her trying to emote was just painful. The special effects somehow turned out worse than the first movie. Michael Bay's attempt to add comedy to this was laughable, and I don't mean that it in a good way. The scene where the kid's mom gets high on marijuana was the FIRST time I wanted to walk out, but certainly not the last. It's really depressing because the first one was so good. Shame on you Michael Bay for destroying a perfectly good series. Finally, what was the deal with a transformer turning into a person? I don't remember them having that capability when I was a kid. I guess they double as Terminators now.

Deep Impact (1998)

meh

[5/10 · 14 April 2009]

Firstly, "Armageddon" makes this movie look like an Oscar-winner. That being said, there are plenty of problems with this one as well. Why would you give yourself only one chance to stop a comet? If the entire human race were at stake, you would think countries would be throwing money around hand over fist to build as many spacecrafts as possible. The whole estranged daughter crap was pointless and had no place in a disaster movie. Why can't you just give people what they came for, a disaster movie? I think Morgan Freeman is a great actor but he didn't do very well here. I think a funny scene was the toward the end when the astronauts were saying goodbye. Doesn't the Russian get to say goodbye to his family? Of course not, because he's not an American. Robert Duvall did the only decent job in this movie. I wanted to kick that kid in the skull (the one they named the comet after). Why did he run away from the ark to find that girl? Did he think it was better if they both died instead of just her? Good thinking. At least it didn't have that spontaneous death-inducing Aerosmith song in it or the antichrist, Ben Afleck.

Miracle (2004)

pretty good

[8/10 · 14 April 2009]

I was really excited for this to come out because I heard stories about this event from my dad when I was growing up, who went to that fateful game. Kurt Russell did a great job as Herb Brooks and even got the accent down pretty well. The players didn't do too awful given that they aren't actors; they're actually real players (besides the goalie). I've watched the actual game on tape and the one in the movie is stunningly close. They must have worked really hard to make that happen. All in all a very good movie. By the way, some tool in another post complained that they didn't know the game was about to end because it was the end of the 3rd period and there was a period 4 on the scoreboard (for basketball). If you don't know the absolute basic rules of the sport you're watching, don't blame the sport. Did you realize they were on ice or not?

Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace (1999)

What in God's name?

[1/10 · 14 April 2009]

The movie's rating on this site proves that George Lucas need not do anything more than take a crap in a paper bag and people will love it. I was young enough when this came out in the theater to be genuinely excited about seeing it. I stood in line for hours and the whole bit. I went in thinking this was going to be the greatest thing since sliced bread and came out cursing the day George Lucas was born. This was so shockingly bad that I boycotted the rest of the series until a few years ago when I was forced to watch them by my Star Wars obsessed wife. First of all, casting a child in ANY role, let alone a lead role, is dangerous territory to be treading on, but I know there was no choice in this case. However, can you at least cast someone who can act? This kid was so annoying it made me want to go upstairs and destroy the projector. There are so many awful aspects to this movie that they can't all be listed here, but Jar-Jar Binks is easily the most annoying character ever devised. Whoever created it must be living in a bunker somewhere because I assume there plenty of p*ssed off people looking for revenge. Both Liam Neeson and Ewan McGregor are talented actors, but they sleepwalk through this performance, and with good reason. Would you be proud if you were acting in this?

Armageddon (1998)

Michael Bay, you've done it again

[1/10 · 1 April 2009]

I got the feeling watching this movie, that there must have been a room full of people brainstorming a list of all possible movie clichés and found a way to throw them all into one movie. Ben Affleck is so bad that he has the ability to single-handedly ruin a movie. Although he wasn't even the worst part about this. I have a sneaking suspicion that NASA isn't going to leave the fate of the world into a bunch of nobodies after about a minute of training. Bruce Willis is wooden, as usual, Liv Tyler's acting is hilarious and Ben Affleck, well, he was Ben Affleck. Steve Bushemi, who I normally like, was annoying, but I blame that on the writers. That scene with Ben Affleck and Liv Tyler and the animal crackers was easily one of the most embarrassing in the history of film. "Deep Impact" has some similar clichés in it. The goodbyes at the end, the astronauts sacrificing themselves, etc., but it was still mildly entertaining. This movie was just an embarrassment. Liv Tyler trying to act sad at the end actually made me feel bad for her, because if it was me acting that badly, and I went back and watched, I wouldn't want to go on living. Probably the worst part of it was that Aerosmith song that makes me want to shove knitting needles in my ears to end the torment. That song is so bad that it caused me to retroactively hate Aerosmith.

13 Going on 30 (2004)

I don't want to live anymore

[1/10 · 1 April 2009]

I'm beginning to see a pattern in the movies I give a 1 to. They are almost all movies that my wife made me watch. Maybe I should stop having faith in her taste in movies. Anyway, this is typical drivel aimed at pre-teen girls but done even more poorly than usual. Once again, the writer broke the cardinal rule of any movie. He/she made the main character unlikable. She starts off by being a complete b*tch to her friend at the beginning, and then finds out when she becomes 30, that she's basically a sh*tty person (having affairs, etc.). Why the F would we feel for this person? OK, let's say we can get past that. Jennifer Garner is about as far from attractive as you can get without having some sort of deformity. I don't know if it's her or the writer's fault, but her character goes well beyond my threshold for annoyance. Here's a tip for future filmmakers: 13 year olds are NOT entertaining, they're annoying. Far and away the most embarrassing moment in the movie came when they danced to "Thriller". Holy crap that was painful. It showed her practicing that dance at the beginning. That explains why she knows it, but an entire club full of people?!? Argh!!! The Macarena would be more believable! All of a sudden she's completely incompetent and has no clue how to do her job and no one notices? At least Tom Hanks' character on "Big" had a job that made sense to a child. These body-switching/child becoming adult overnight movies are really getting out of hand, and this is by far the worst one yet.

xXx (2002)

drivel

[1/10 · 27 March 2009]

Where do I begin? Let's start with Vin Diesel, shall we? His acting was astonishingly bad. There had to have been cue cards just off screen, there's no other explanation for that level of ineptitude. The NSA recruits a criminal to go on a mission? Apparently that agency doesn't require security clearances anymore. Also, as someone who actually does work for a government agency, the CIA or DIA does the kinds of things he does in the movie, not the NSA. I can overlook mistakes like that in a mindless action movie however. What I can't overlook is when action scenes start breaking into Matrix territory. I enjoy mindless action scenes as much as the next guy, but when they break the laws of physics several times over while ripped off James Bond music plays in the background, it becomes hilarious, and not in a good way. Even if, by some miracle, this was a great move, I still wouldn't be able to get past Diesel's acting. He makes Keanu Reeves' "performance" in "The Matrix" look Oscar-worthy by comparison.

Star Wars: Episode II - Attack of the Clones (2002)

wow

[1/10 · 23 March 2009]

After Episode I successfully crushed my fond childhood memories of the Star Wars franchise, I was obviously reluctant to give this one a chance, and didn't. Unfortunately, my wife is a die hard fan and I was forced to watch it. Now, Episode III was actually decent aside from the dialog (but you have to expect that from Lucas) and Christianson's wince-inducing acting, but Episode II was so jaw-droppingly bad that I was actually uncomfortable during some of the scenes. The dialog between Annikan and Obi Wan had to have been written by a child, there's no other explanation. Even Lucas can't be that bad, can he? Oh wait... Aside from that, nothing much happened for the entire movie. The one thing I ask from a Star Wars movie is that it not be dull. Is that too much to ask? Apparently, it is.

Changeling (2008)

overrated

[2/10 · 20 March 2009]

Let me start by saying Angelina Jolie cannot act to save her life and I can't for the life of me understand why they keep putting her in movies. OK, she's attractive, but that doesn't give you a free pass. The movie actually had potential but then it flew off into every direction possible. Why was the LAPD credited for finding the kid in the first place? Wasn't it the police in Illinois that found the fake one? Wasn't the fact that she was going around publicly telling her story a million times more damaging to the LAPD than for them to just admit they made a mistake? The only way the police would have gone to such insane lengths to cover it up is if they had been the ones that killed him. The whole thing makes no sense. Besides, it's her own damn fault for leaving a young child home alone with the DOOR OPEN. Seriously, way to parent.