Cancer is fun, money buys you happiness and even the nastiest selfish billionaires are actually kind and warm people

The Bucket List (2007)

Right from the start I must say I didn't like this movie. It's a story about Carter (Morgan Freeman) and Edward (Jack Nicholson) who are both terminally ill with cancer. Edward is a selfish lonesome billionaire who owns the hospital they are staying in and Carter is the "everyman" a smart mechanic with a loving family. As these two opposites are put into the same room to recorver from surgery and chemo, they of course become friends. One day Carter writes a "bucket list" a list of things to do before he kicks the bucket and Edward of course uses his billions to pay for all that. Then the cancer and families are forgotten and the adventure around the world begins. The main characters of the film are nothing like real people. The cancer is nothing like real cancer. And the story is about as impossible as it can get. After devastating chemotherapy and being diagnosed with terminal cancer you of course want to climb the Himalayas. I don't know but at that situation climbing out of bed sounds hard enough for me. Anyway the story is ridiculously far fetched and I surely hope no one with real cancer sees this. And worst of it all, the message this movie is sending out is that money buys you happiness. The only thing good about this movie is the acting with both of the lead characters giving out good performances, but that's not worth seeing the movie.
21%

Satan's baby doll is surprisingly dull

Satan's Baby Doll (1982)

Nearing the end on my Shameless marathon and I must say the last five movies have been a bit of a let down (The Bronx movies and those two from Sirpa Lane). Unfortunately this one continues on the same track as the Lane movies. The idea is that after Maria's (Marina Hedman) death her spirit posesses her daughter Miria (Jacqueline Dupre) who then goes about to avenge her mother's death. The plot is thin to say the least but it's merely an excuse for showing some skin. And about the skin, maybe it's because I watched three of these in a row, but the sex scenes were just dull. For a movie like this that's most certainly not a good thing. At parts the movie tries to build some tension and suspense, but most of the time it just ends in stupidity. The score was annoying as hell and it's played so often that I was ready to turn off the volume completely. Wouldn't have mattered that much as pretty much everything anyone says in this movie is just time filling text book nonsense. I must give it some credit for trying to create a creepy atmosphere and for the efforts of building tension, but still it's a bad movie.

20%

The Finnish star of sexploitation

I just watched two movies from Sirpa Lane, Finland's gift to the world of sexploitation and 70's B-movies, so here's my brief thoughts on them. I must say I'm not really a fan of sexploitation movies, so pardon me if I don't understand the “brilliance” of these two.

The Beast in Space (1980)

Well the camp values surely are strong with this one. Hilarious costumes, funny cheap special effects, some weird light sabre ripoffs, a half man half horse with a big dildo between the legs and a computer robot monster of some sort with some humanoid robot minions, just to name a few. Add to that all the naked ladies of course, so the entertainment values are high. But really even with all that it was rather boring most of the time, that says a lot about the story of the movie and the horrible pacing of it all. The story is some nonsense about people on a space ship looking for some rare material called Antallum, but everyone seems to be focusing on drinking in the bar and having sex. Eventually they then visit a planet which is ruled by some computer monster thing which controls people's minds turning the whole place into one big orgy. I watched the Shameless release of this movie which said it's the most complete “softcore” version with some shots inserted from the hardcore version which contains additional porn footage added to it. It was rather apparent where the actual movie switched to the porn inserts as you can clearly see it's different people having sex than before. And the weirdest part were the “stunt tits” used in some scenes which didn't look anything like the tits of Sirpa Lane which of course are already presented very thoroughly. I mean for example a scene where she is laying on the ground on a green background while a man rubs her tits cuts to some other tits being rubbed with a blue background while the actress is clearly standing and then cut back to the ground and rubbing the actual tits. What the hell is the point of that? Now I did laugh quite a lot watching this and wasn't bored at all but still I'd rate this among the average of it's kind.

48%

Can't find a trailer for this one.

Love Goddess of the Cannibals (1978)

Talk about a misleading name, apart from two scenes which were borderline cannibalism, this movie has absolutely nothing to do with cannibals. This is nothing but the usual Joe D'Amato sexploitation romp. Well there is a slight try for a statement as the movie is kind of anti nuclear energy, but the focus is of course on the naked ladies and softcore sex. The idea is that there's a nuclear plant being built on some exotic island and the natives have a leader (Melissa Chimenti) who seemingly likes to have sex with the scientists before her minions kill them. Amongst all this is Sara (Sirpa Lane), whose purpose being on the island in the first place is rather vague, except for having sex with everyone. So yes, it's not a great plot and neither is the movie. Apart from a few unintentionally funny scenes, the only thing I liked about the movie was the score by Stelvio Cipriani, though that as well was rather repetitive. Sexploitation fans might get something out of this, but can't really recommend it to anyone else, It's not even bad enough to be funny. I have to give some credit to the music and Sirpa Lane who's always pleasing to the eyes.

23%

Apparently I can't link the trailer here as it has an age limit on it, so search for it on YouTube if you want to see it.

Remaking a horror classic

Psycho(1998)

First a word of warning, this spoils the movie, both the original and this one as they are basically the same, so if there really is someone out there who hasn't seen the original stop wasting time reading this and go watch it. Anyway, when I first and last time saw this in the 90's I condemned it to be nothing but a worthless piece of crap made only to get more money from the modern audience. I thought while it looked like an exact copy of the original it still ruined the three key scenes, the shower scene with these pointless image inserts, the Arbogast murder for the same reasons and the final big reveal with the ridiculous set. I also thought the actors did a horrible job and none of them fit the parts and all the little additions didn't really work. I promised I will never watch this movie again. Well here we are now and I watched it again. The reason why I did so was because Mark Cousins mentioned it in The Story of Film: An Odyssey (2011), which by the way is an incredibly brilliant series. I was puzzled how the hell would someone pick this as a notable movie from the history of cinema, especially since his other picks seemed to be quite spot on perfect. Well as it troubled me for quite some time and as I read Alfred Hitchcock andthe Making of Psycho a while ago and since I saw Hitchcock (2012) not just recently, I decided to give it another chance, even though I still feared I shouldn't.

Well surprised as I am I must say I'm glad I did watch it again, as I think I got the whole idea of this movie. And believe it or not it just might actually not be just to make some more money on the success of Psycho (1960). This movie really is quite an experiment in filmmaking. Now knowing what Hitchcock had to leave out of his version, some of the additions made perfect sense. The camera flight across the city to the hotel window actually looked exactly what I imagined Hitchcock wanted but had to leave it out because of the costs. Other parts like the conversation between Cassidy and Marion where Marion says "Thank you, but I think I'll spend this weekend in bed" and Cassidy replies "Only playground to beat Las Vegas". That last line was actually cut from the original by the censors, so again that was a great addition. But the problem is that some of the additions and changes still don't fit the movie, no matter how you see it. Like the discussion between Marion and Norman where in the original Marion relates to Norman's points of view and she sees that it might be better to return the money, but in the remake she just seems to be scared of him. Making Norman menacing this early was not good for the shower scene. Another thing that really eats the effect of the shower scene is that Norman is clearly masturbating while watching Marion undress, the original hints towards it cleverly, but this remake makes it very clear what's happening. That lessens the shock effect from the shower scene immensely, subtlety is an art form after all. Also the new setting for the final reveal of the mother, the taxidermy room instead of the basement in the original, didn't fit it in any way. It misses the grave aspect of it totally which Norman sets up earlier by saying he couldn't leave his mother in a cold and damp place like that. And speaking of Norman, Vince Vaughn didn't fit the role at all, first of all he's too big and menacing to start with and second he's not even trying to act or sound like a little momma's boy. So the movie adds some parts to the original that fit it very well, especially since they were supposed to be there, but got left out because of censorship or tight budget, but still it adds other aspects that don't fit at all. But I think I get it now why it's like this.

There's two ways of making a remake of an old classic, either copy it shot by shot or tell the same story again with modern story telling methods. This movie actually does both, well lets say it tries to do both. As I see it, there are characters which are exact copies of the original, like Marion, Arbogast and Sam in a way as well. Anne Heche tries to copy Janet Leigh even to the smallest detail as does William H. Macy with Martin Balsam. Viggo Mortensen is also very close to what John Gavin was in the original. But then there's Norman and Lila, who are nothing like the ones in the original. I guess Vince Vaughn didn't even see what Anthony Perkins was doing in the original and just created a character of his own as did Julianne Moore who has little to nothing in common with Vera Miles. I'll bet that was all intentional as it does show some very nice things about how differently people react to the content of the movie if it's a modern movie like this remake or if it's a classic like the original. Some things that work in a black and white 60's movie simply doesn't work in a modern movie and on the other hand all modern characters don't really fit a 60's movie. Like Julianne Moore would have been just as good in both of them, but Vince Vaughn wouldn't fit in the 60's one at all. Same goes the other way around on the cast that copied their performance, Marion works well on both of these, Janet Leigh could have just as well been in the new one or Anne Heche on the old one. Arbogast on the other hand seems extremely outdated for a modern movie, no matter who plays the part, but William H. Macy could have just as well replaced Martin Balsam in the old one.

And there's more. Those inserted images in the two murder scenes, sure they might have some suggestive meaning to them and everyone is free to make their own interpretations, but really I couldn't care less about that. I saw them as nothing more than distractions, but they were very interesting distractions and I would bet that they were deliberate distractions. On the shower scene the random cut to clouds takes you out of the scene for a second, but the very next shot brings you right back into it. Those two cuts show how powerful the scene actually is, they distract you but they don't take you out of it completely, that proves that the scene even taken out of it's context is still extremely effective. The cuts on the Arbogast murder however take you out of the scene and just leave you wondering what the hell was that? Then again the sheep and the woman in a mask are so much more out of context than the clouds that it could be just a poor choice of images. But as I saw it was that the scene just doesn't work in a modern movie as well as the shower scene. The same scene in the original is very effective, but in this remake it just seems rather dated.

What this movie does best is pointing out how brilliant the original is. Also as a test on how old style movie making works today with modern equipment this is great. But seeing that it actually misses quite a many subtle touches that make the original so brilliant, I just can't shake off that feeling that this is not an homage, but just an attempt to cash in on a classic. And since it's just rubbish as a modern thriller, so that makes quite a dilemma. On the other hand it's bad but in a way it's extremely interesting as well. In the end I'm glad I watched it again as it opened up in a completely different manner this time, but then again that's just for me as a huge Hitchcock fan, for everyone else I guess this is nothing more than garbage.
20%

By the way, I must say this trailer is just beyond stupid for a movie like this.

Gossip journalism presented as a historical biopic

The Girl (2012)

What do you get when you present one side of a story as a historical fact and leave the other side out? Well provocative propaganda and this movie right here. It focuses on the relationship between Tippi Hedren and Alfred Hitchcock during the filming of The Birds (1963) and Marnie (1964). Hitchcock is presented as a disgusting monster and Hedren as the damsel in distress. This movie feels like a personal attack towards Hitchcock and I really can't see any other reason for it. Hitchcock basically makes Hedren's life a living nightmare in it. Only those two know what really happened, but I must say it just feels rather convenient that Hedren first waited for Hitchcock to die before even coming out with all of these accusations.

Now I have to give out my opinion on the historical accuracy of this movie, it is after all presented as a historical biography. But as the subject matter involves only 2 people and happens mostly outside the cameras, how can anyone prove it to be wrong? Well everyone can prove one part of the movie wrong, the nightmarish screen test for Birds. You can watch the original screen test right here and if you compare it to the one in this movie you'll see they have close to nothing in similar. Now that's only one part of the many in this movie, but it's the only one anyone can prove either way and if they got that wrong, I'm willing to bet that not many other parts of this movie are true either. I know as a hobbyist filmmaker myself that the bird attack scene was nothing but absurd, anyone who knows anything about how movies are made should also notice this. If you are shooting a scene where a well groomed woman is attacked by a flock of birds pecking her into a bleeding mess, how the hell can you take 40+ takes on that without a single break for makeup and wardrobe to get her to look like she did at the beginning before the attack started. It's simply impossible, not to mention the share insanity of risking an extremely expensive production by disfiguring your leading lady at the beginning of filming. The set producers would have called it quits before take two.

The part about Hitchcock destroying Hedren's career you can also get some idea what really happened by looking at Hedren's filmography. Her best performance by far was funnily enough in Marnie and pretty much everything after that was mere posing and looking pretty no matter what the role was. If you are not a good actress you won't get good parts, it's rather simple. Late 50's and early 60's was the turning point when it wasn't enough to just look pretty, actors had to actually generate true emotions to sell the role to the audience. Now Hitchcock was known for trying out different, sometimes crazy, directing tricks on his actors. Marnie called for a strong woman getting very insecure and vulnerable, maybe Hitchcock tried to get Hedren as insecure as possible outside the cameras to get her best performance on camera. I highly doubt he used the means depicted in this movie, but who knows I wasn't there to see it, all I know is that Hedren gives out a brilliant performance in Marnie. After Marnie turned out to be a box-office disaster, it was bad for both of their careers, I highly doubt that there were many directors asking Hedren after Marnie, they tend to avoid failures after all. Hitchcock was desperately trying to find a new project and as most of the promising ones didn't kick off, mostly because of the studios said no, he took on Torn Curtain (1966). There simply isn't a role for Hedren in Torn Curtain, she wouldn't fit in it as there are no roles that would suit her talents, hence she's not in it. Then the “contract” with Hitchcock ended and she got the chance to prove herself in A Countess from Hong Kong (1967). The role was pretty much perfect for a stand out performance, the movie itself is quite dull, but her role was towards the end with some of the better lines in the whole movie. And what does she do? Pose, look pretty and deliver the lines like reading a phone book. If anyone destroyed her career, it was she herself.

So now that we got the important parts out of the way, we can focus on this movie here. First of all Toby Jones was surprisingly good, he doesn't even remotely look like Hitchcock but he surely does sound like him, sad to see a performance that good wasted in a movie like this. Sienna Miller was quite ok as well, even though her screen presence is miles away from that of Tippi Hedren. Rest of the cast were nothing to rave about. The cinematography was quite dull and TV-like most of the time (well it's a TV-movie after all) and the only peaks it had were direct copies from the man the movie slanders. I know I'm a Hitchcock fanboy so I of course can't like a movie which is like a stab in the back of the guy, but even if you look at it without the “fanboy goggles”, there's a big problem in the structure of the movie. It's the same problem as it's historical accuracy, the one sided view of things. It's rather dull to watch a movie where the line between good and evil is so strict with nothing in between. I mean if someone's career making movies is like a nightmare and makes her scared of her own well being, why the hell wouldn't she just quit? I highly doubt it was the intention of this film to portray Tippi Hedren as an idiot, but unfortunately that's how you end up seeing her. In the end this movie is a provocative piece of garbage with some nice performances from the leading duo, no matter how you see it. Lets hope Hitchcock (2012) will be a better view into the life of Alfred Hitchcock as I surely would like to see a good movie about the “Master of suspense”.

23%

The filmography of Michael Bay

I was thinking which director's filmography I should go through next and at first I thought I'd take some other master of the art out of the best of the best. But then I thought it's not good to just focus on the brilliant directors as watching a masterpiece after a masterpiece tends to raise the bar too high for everyone else. So that's why I decided to take a look at Michael Bay. The man who is associated with explosive hyper active action, racist type casting without any character development and idolizing Americana. Not forgetting helicopters flying slow motion in the sunset, the light streaks and flares to spice up dull conversations or the camera that just doesn't stand still for a second. I must say I have a hate/love relationship towards the man. At best he does properly funny action movies which are very entertaining, but at the same time he has no idea how to tell a good story or build drama or characters for that matter. Even the action has been bad in his later films where it's just a CGI mess with no sense of what's going on. But I must say they are still fun, intentionally or not. His commercial and music video background shines through his movies, and that's what they basically are, a mix of commercial product placement and music video. So for what ever it's worth here's Michael Bay's filmography.



Bad Boys (1995)

His first movie actually already has everything he became famous for. There's the sunset, the low flying helicopter, no character development, product placement, light streaks and big explosions. The story is simple crap and surprisingly even Bay himself has said that he didn't like the script. But that's not the point in this movie, it's the action and the comedy. Which it has plenty of both. The chemistry between Will Smith and Martin Lawrence is quite great and they actually put up a buddy act that's one of the better ones I've ever seen. And that's the real driving force of this movie, without it this would be just another crappy B-action flick. Speaking about the action, it's nice to see that at start Bay didn't have his hyper active shooting style and the action actually makes sense on screen. So yes the action worked quite well also. What didn't work in addition to the thin story was the character development. Or the lack of it, there is absolutely none. Luckily the characters are so strong to begin with that you really don't need it that much, but that did leave the characters way too one dimentional to bring any drama into the action. The main duo is certainly great and Joe Pantoliano and Tcheky Karyo were quite ok as well. But the damsel in distress, Tea Leoni, was completely useless, her role was basically to look good. It's actually hilarious in the end where she's inserted in all those slow motion shots where the two cops walk with their guns drawn. Just what's her purpose there? Well that gave me laughs, even though I guess it wasn't intended that way. Despite it's quite serious flaws, it's still an entertaining and especially fun action movie. So it does what it's supposed to do even though it doesn't give you anything extra.
66%



The Rock (1996)

Say what you will but this is one of the best action movies ever made. Having said that, this movie is also the movie where Bay first introduced his frantic editing style with most of the shots not more than 2 seconds long and rarely visiting the same angle twice. Something I've later started to hate from the bottom of my heart. But for some reason this is one of the very few movies where it actually doesn't matter at all. This movie is just tons of fun. The overly cheesy patriotism of USA turns into comedy and supports the movie as an extra comic punch very nicely. And believe it or not I really like the story behind all the explosions. I don't mean the story of a lab rat and an old fart fighting a team of highly trained marines, that's pure comedy, but the driving force behind the characters. The bad guy is actually a good guy with a noble cause but with bad means for it, the old Brittish agent wrongfully imprisoned for most of his life and even the lab rat were all genuinely interesting characters. Something you can rarely say in a movie like this. The casting is one of the best of it's kind, Ed Harris, Sean Connery, David Morse and even Nicolas Cage back in the days when he at least still tried to put some effort into acting. Add to those the old legends like John Spencer and Philip Baker Hall and of course my favourite hero actor from the 80's, Michael Biehn, and you have a stellar casting. Another thing that I absolutely love about this movie is the soundtrack, Hans Zimmer's best by far and one of the best I've ever heard. Pure brilliance every note of it. The movie has some idiotic moments that are not saved even by the comedy, but to tell you the truth I can't remember them even though I've seen this movie about 10 times already. That's saying something about the entertainment values. And even though this movie kind of populised the highly annoying fast cutting in action movies, I still can't stop liking this movie, it just works.
98%



Armageddon (1998)

So after making one of the best action movies of the 90's, Bay decided to make a movie about rednecks saving the world. I could write a novel on how hideously horrible this movie is, but to be honest it stinks so much that I don't want to waste my time and energy on it too much. First of all the whole concept of the movie that astronauts, some of the world's smartest and most technically trained men, couldn't drill one god damn hole in the ground is just silly beyond belief. But no, rednecks are the guys who can drill anything, drilling holes is an art after all, so they rather send them in space. The rednecks are of course stereotypes with no depth at all to them, you have your over protective father, reckless hero type, a cowboy, a divorced father with a gambling problem, a sex addict, a dumb fatso who lives with his mother and a big black man right from the days of slavery. It actually made me angry how insulting this movie is towards people, if Bay's world would be the world we live in, then please just let the asteroid wipe us all out. And it's just not the rednecks and the racism towards black people and rednecks themselves, the Russian cosmonaut was just as appalling. It says a lot about the movie that Billy Bob Thornton, a great actor but quite characterized as a redneck, is cast as the director of NASA. Fuck yeh! Ok, so the characters are horrible and even though there are some good actors in this most of the cast is horrible as well. Though at most parts I blame the script and the direction, not the cast. Of course Ben Affleck is hopeless no matter what, but for example I have never seen Steve Buscemi giving out a worse performance. He's a fucking character actor, usually playing himself, so that has to be an achievement. And when I say the script is bad I mean it stinks so bad it makes dog shit smell like roses. Just one example, the pilot pulls a gun on Harry and Chick says "What are you doing with a gun in space?". Nothing wrong with that except that they have freaking miniguns on their spacebuggythingies. Oops, guess they forgot... Well it's just one example out of hundreds, but as I said I'm not going to waste more time on this shit. It's one of the worst movies I've ever seen and actually now seeing it for the second time it borders on being brilliant as it really is so bad that it becomes funny. But I'm not going to give it that honour just yet. Though one thing I must still mention, for some weird reason this movie is in The Criterion Collection, a collection of historically important movies from around the world. The Rock (1996) is in there also from Michael Bay and that I can understand why as it really is one of the best action movies, but why this movie is in there I have no idea. Maybe those people at Criterion have a very twisted sense of humour or something.
1%



Pearl Harbor (2001)

Ok, this movie is supposed to be some kind of a big homage to the soldiers of the war and the people involved with it. I saw an overly long cheesy piece of crap that does nothing even remotely like that. It's just about the same as if Bay would have taken a dump on the entombed U.S.S. Arizona. The thing is that the only sympathetic characters in this movie are the Japanese, now I must say I was surprised that they weren't depicted as monsters and for that I have to give it some credit. But really everyone else seems to be one dimentional obnoxious idiots. Anyway, the movie starts off with a quick buddy establishment, we are given glimpses of the past to make us belive that Ben Affleck and Josh Hartnett are good friends. Well I kind of missed that part which should bind them together, at a later point it didn't matter much as they are supposed to be mad at eachother, but then they are supposed to be buddies again and it just doesn't work. The buddy bit just a small problem compared to the "romance" that is what I would imagine a 12 year old girl might write in her diary. And we have to endure this torture for the next hour or so. I can see that they are trying to go for the 40's romantic movies with that, but really why would someone even try to do that? The modern audience expects a bit more depth to the romance than they did back then. The concept of a romance hasn't changed one bit since then, but the way people buy it surely has, so I just have to wonder what the hell were they thinking with this horse shit. So then the bombs start to fall and all hell breaks lose. Luckily the sound effects were loud enough so people who fell asleep in the first hour and a half should wake up by now. But what we get is not a dramatic recreation of the attack, there's certainly no drama in it, hell there's no feeling at all. It's nothing but an explosive war masturbation by Bay. I can imagine him getting all excited like a little kid about all the shit he can blow up while making it look as "cool" as he can. What's "cool" about an attack that killed more than 3000 people? Well unfortunately after the overly long action sequence the movie isn't over and we have to endure an hour more of this utter garbage. There of course needs to be a payback from the attack so the movie can end with an up note, not that there was any tragedy in the attack in this movie in the first place, but lets just imagine there would have been for good sport. Well the two "buddies" are supposed to bind together again, but again I missed it. Was it after they beat eachother up and woke up in the car? Was it while they were killing the Japanese in the air? Was it when they got recruited for the secret mission? Or was it when Doolittle asked them if everything was ok? I mean come on, the viewer has already lost every bit of interest to these characters at this point so why even bother going further. Well they bomb some Japanese factory, Hartnett gets killed, Affleck gets the girl and USA kicks ass, woo-fucking-hoo. They conviniently "forgot" to mention the real reason why Japan surrendered, the two a-bombs. But then again as that would make the audience see how the mighty US of A answered a sucker punch with quite an inhumane act of monstrosity and you can't have that in a movie about heroes. Saddest thing of it all is that the total amount of money spent on production and promotion of this movie roughly equaled the amount of damage caused in the actual attack. They would have made a better homage by spending that money on the veterans themselves and some new history books for the schools.
2%



Bad Boys II (2003)

Bay takes another swing at the Bad Boys and of course the budget is now a lot bigger so there's tons more of everything. After the last two monstrosities this movie actually feels like a breath of fresh air and seeing it right after Pearl Harbor (2001) it feels like a masterpiece. But it's certainly not a masterpiece, it's just an ok action flick. So how does it compare to the first part? Surprisingly well actually. The chemistry between Will Smith and Martin Lawrence is still there, even though it not as funny as it was in the first part. They are clearly trying too hard at parts and it goes a bit overboard, but they still have their moments and give out plenty of laughs. The story was still crap, but maybe a tad better than the first part. Not like anyone would have expected a realistic take on things anyways so it doesn't matter that much. I didn't like the main villain, played by Jordi Molla, he was lacking charisma needed for the part and thus it was kind of a miss. Rest of the cast is quite ok with some familiar faces from the first part. Even though it can't top the first part in the buddy act, the action in this one is so over the top that it's crazy. There's three huge car chases all well worth mentioning. The first one with the car transport truck is quite great with all of it's carnage. The second one is brilliant in it's macabre dark comedy with all the bodies flying around. But the third one is just insane with the Hummer crashing into everything in it's path. Total destruction and that's what I liked about this. Michael Bay likes to blow shit up and call me crazy but I enjoy watching that money burn. So this is a good sequel and even better than the first part, but still it's lacking in too many other departments except action, so it's nowhere near as good as The Rock (1996). The saddest thing is that after this movie the big budget R-rated movies pretty much died. Well they didn't die, but only a very few were made since. Which is a shame of course.
69%



The Island (2005)

After the explosive violent and surprisingly brutal fun ride Bay went back to the more easy going action. This is a story about a man and a woman who find out they are clones, made only to act as spare parts for the people who ordered them. The company which breeds the clones assures the public that the clones are vegetables without any feelings, but yet they must raise them as "normal" humans because of some nonsense about the parts not working if the person is kept sedated. The two clones escape and set on a mission to uncover the whole business of cloning people for medical purposes. I actually liked the story quite a bit, the moral dilemma of taking "spare parts" from a copy of yourself to extend your own life. Also the vanity of mankind that a woman would buy a copy of herself to give birth to a baby so she could keep her form. But that whole cloning dilemma isn't really a new idea and actually it was ripped straight from The Clonus Horror (1979). Now this movie is actually better than The Clonus Horror (1979), but as this movie doesn't mention any connection to it, it's basically the same as a stealing the idea which kind of watered it down. Anyway into the nice idea there's inserted this absolutely ridiculous action adventure plot that is just too silly to keep the interest up. Sure there's tons of action and explosions, it's Michael Bay after all, but I really got just bored watching it as there was no feeling to it. Ewan McGregor and Scarlett Johansson try to do their best with the crappy dialog they are given and do a fairly ok job regarding the script. Rest of the cast were quite disposable. The ultra fast editing gets very boring and the movie looks like a Michael Bay movie looks, tons of light streaks, overly saturated contrasty imagery and the camera doesn't stay put for long. Quite a waste of time and money.
23%



Transformers (2007)

I loved Transformers as a kid in the 80's. I had pretty much all of the toys and the cartoon show was the high point of the week. Then of course I grew up and got other interests so Transformers was left behind. Even though I knew I wouldn't be the target group of this movie anymore, I still wanted to see it. My expectations for it were very low, mostly because of Michael Bay. And surely enough it wasn't a good movie, but much to my surprise it wasn't a bad one either. This is a movie I would have loved to death when I was 10, it has everything I loved in movies back then. But now as it takes a bit more than explosive action to get my attention I saw a bit too many things I didn't like. First of all this movie is racist. I mean if a guy like me who is whiter than white from a country like Finland can see that, then there really has to be something wrong with it. All the black people in this movie are portrayed as one dimentional stereotypes who are there just for entertainment values for the white folk so they can feel better about themselves. Even the robot, Jazz, that's clearly another black stereotype is the only one to be killed. Only black person who doesn't seem to be type cast is the soldier with the credit card, though his character's biggest moment is screaming "left cheek!" over and over again after which he disappears. Not exactly a world image you want to give to your children. That being said I still liked Bernie Mac as the used car salesman, he was simply hilarious. And in general the comedy in the movie was actually quite good. John Turturro's character was also hilarious and he did a great job with the part. Shia LaBeouf was also a nice surprise and pulled off the hero role quite well. Which can't be said about Megan Fox, sure she looks great but can't act at all. Also Jon Voight was quite bland, though the dialog given to the character wasn't helping the part one bit. Then the main thing, the robots. Well I think they looked somewhat ok. I mean I would have hoped for a bit cleaner versions of them, now they just had too much going on in details that it was hard to make sense of them. But that being said they did look a lot more realistic than the smooth cartoon or toy versions. The reason why I would have hoped for a bit cleaner versions is that they are never really introduced apart from Bumblebee and Optimus Prime. Now they just tend to blend in with each other and it makes it sometimes hard to tell them apart. And that's where one of the major problems of the movie lies, the way the action is shot. It's just one big CGI mess. There's tons of stuff going on and it's shot with a hyper active shooting style, that results in a total chaos which makes absolutely no sense at all. Sure the kids might like it, but the thing is when you have no idea who hits who and where, you really lose interest and just watch the fireworks without any idea of what you are supposed to see. And what's up with the Autobots, am I the only one who thinks everyone else but Optimus Prime were completely useless? Sure they shoot, do flips and set up a show, but mostly they just got their asses kicked while Optimus was the only one who managed to actually kill the Decepticons. This movie also features one of the most annoying characters I've ever seen, right up there with Jar Jar Binks, that little robot that just doesn't seem to die. So there are huge problems with the movie, but still I didn't get bored and had some fun with it. It even managed to raise the little kid in me as I almost cheered when we see Optimus Prime for the first time. But unfortunately in the end it's still a bad movie with some quite good moments.
42%



Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen (2009)

Didn't see this one when it came out, but decided to watch it now as I'm going through Michael Bay's filmography. Being a sequel to a big action movie it of course tries to top it by being even bigger. There's more robots, more army, more action, more explosions, more goofy characters, more product placement and more "Bayhem". And of course the robots are bigger, the army has bigger weapons, the explosions are bigger and the goofy characters of course are a bigger nuisance. But the movie just doesn't go bigger, it also goes smaller with tons of smaller little robot critters which are there to show how diverse their race is or some other nonsense like that. Just as I had declared that little robot in the first one as one of the most annoying characters in the history of movies, this one goes better. There's actually 3 robots that all are way more annoying than the one in the first part. There's the "twins", two robots that make you want to go and get a can of gasoline so you can burn yourself from the misery of watching them. And for fucks sake they even have goofy teeth, one with a golden tooth for that matter, what the hell does a robot do with teeth anyways? That little toy car robot is no better, even worse actually, but luckily it spends quite a bit of time in a box so we don't have to watch it. Apart from those the new robots seemed quite ok, even that old fart Jetfire who was also idiotically stereotyped, but at least he didn't make me want to go on a killing frenzy. But as before it really doesn't matter much how good the new robots were as you don't really see them, only glimpses of them spinning around while fighting. So the annoying CGI mess action continues right where it left on the first part and is actually even worse on this one. Most of the time I had no idea what was going on when shit blew up and CGI mess was spinning on the screen. I'm not a young kid with ADHD so I can't keep up with this lightning cutting pace. Then again if it was a bit slower and smoother it would bring out all the mistakes and inconsistencies of the action, so I kind of understand why they use it. But instead of covering up the mistakes, maybe they could have just properly planned them and shot them in a way that they would look good. That's Michael Bay's worst problem (well in addition of being a racist and sexist and all the other stuff), he just can't direct action. I actually watched the extras of the blu-ray i rented and there was a big segment on this huge explosion that made the Guiness book of records as the biggest explosion ever shot with live actors next to it. In the movie it's nothing special, you've watched non stop effect assault for the last 30 minutes with a hideous fast pace cutting. So when this big bang comes it looks like a nice breath of some easy action, not spectacular or huge or anything like that, only that it's nice that we actually get to watch a shot more than 2 seconds. On the extras however it looks absolutely brilliant, but in the movie it's simply lost in the "Bayhem". Not going to go into the story, it's what it is, not like you could write anything about the meaning of life in a movie about transforming robots so lets leave it to what it is, entertainment. The cast is the same and those who were good on the first one are good here as well and Megan Fox didn't learn how to act in the two years in between so nothing has changed. I must mention the huge amount of mistakes there are in the movie. It clearly was rushed to get finished as you see the cameraman's shadow on multiple occasions and that one slow motion explosion where Megan Fox goes transparent is just something hideous. Also many of the effect shots are very poor. For example when the Devastator is digging up the machine from the pyramid, the falling "stones" look like something I could do better on my own computer. I would love to bash this movie to the ground for the horrible piece of garbage it is with all of it's product placements and formulaic exploitative nature. But I still found it to be somewhat entertaining, however a good movie it surely isn't.
30%


After watching all of the Bay movies again I must say I'm more on the hate side, despite him making one of the best action movies of the 90's and two fairly good action flicks. The thing is that the shit he has also poured out smells so bad it tarnishes the glory of those few good ones. Well anyway that's something to think about when Transformers: Dark of the Moon (2011) comes out. I'm not going to see it in the theatre as I'm planning on keeping my promise of not watching any sequel/prequel/comicbook/cartoon/toy/remake/etc. movies in the theatre this year.

Jason Voorhees - The man behind the mask part 2

Friday the 13th Part VII: The New Blood (1988)

Passed the half way marker on the series and I still haven't lost my sanity, that's a great thing I guess. But damn, the timeline goes absolutely crazy in this one. I mean it was around 1997 when Jason ended in the bottom of the lake and in this one Jason was already in the lake when Tina was a little girl so that adds at least 12 years to it again when Tina is grown up and this story begins. So that would mean this movie is supposed to take place in around 2009. Well didn't see any cellphones or ipods or digital cameras or anything like that, just the usual 80's stuff. Either those country folk are really behind in development or I should just stop trying to figure out the timeline. Anyway this part goes back to traditions with a flashback start, though this time there's a new narration to it. The plot in this one is that a young woman, Tina, with telekinetic powers comes to the lake with her mother and doctor in order to get her powers in control. Of course on the next door there's a group of teens hosting a surprise birthday party so that's a definite check on the fresh meat. Tina ends up resurrecting Jason with her powers and the killing starts again. We get the first kill already at around 7 mins, but it's not Jason who does it. Jason's first kill comes at around 20 minutes, that's the slowest thus far from the parts where Jason is actually doing the killing. But once he gets started he's not wasting any time, so it's not a big problem. Again there's plenty of good kills, but the best is the sleeping bag slam. Brutal. Though I really liked the skinny dipping kill also but for a very different reason. Speaking of that, the t&a department is back in order again which was a big plus. The story borrows quite a many themes from Carrie (1976) and of course goes totally over board with the powers, but I still quite liked it. The movie was cut to a torso by the damn MPAA, so many of the quite innovative kills are mere flashes on the screen and it seems very mild in modern standards. This movie is also remarkable because it's the first movie with Kane Hodder as Jason, who of course is the most known actor to play Jason and ended up reprising his role in the following movies as well. I must say this was actually even more entertaining than the first part and turned out to be my favourite thus far. It doesn't try to be funny, but it doesn't take itself seriously either, so when ever it goes to the unintentional comedy it actually works quite well, just like a no brainer slasher flick should.
77%



Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan (1989)

The story continues where the last one left, Jason is at the bottom of Crystal Lake and a boat anchor cracks a power line which jump starts him again. There's not exactly a flashback in the start but the guy in the boat recaps the past events to his girfriend, and he was even kind enough to bring a new hockey mask for Jason. So of course they end up dead and Jason takes a swim to a nearby cruise ship where a group of teenagers are heading for New York. The title is actually quite misleading as only a very small part of the movie happens in New York, it's mostly on the ship, at the docks, back streets and sewers which could be from what ever city. This part was a major let down, only thing it had right was the t&a, but even those were quite few and far between. We actually get tits before the first kill which also happens a bit late at around 10 minutes. I didn't like the look of the movie, it was too dark and dirty. That would have fit it well if the director would have even tried to build some suspense, but as he goes only for the gore effect (which of course got cut out by MPAA) it fails quite miserably. The timeline of course gets even weirder, but even though I decided to not care about it as they clearly just ignore the previous sequels, it still made an idiotic turn on it. I mean Rennie, the heroine of the story, was supposedly getting drowned by Jason as a little kid, well that all fine, but Rennie is 20-something and Jason drowned in the 50's. She sure looks young for a 45 year old. Anyway that's not even the most idiotic thing about this movie, the ending is just something colossal in stupidity. And saying that for this series where the stories are quite far from smart is something special. Also what the hell is up with Jason's teleportation skills? I mean immortality and super human strenght I can take but that's just too much even for me. Crappy movie and even the kills weren't anything worth watching. For the best kill, as a Finn the sauna kill warmed my heart, though I did like the boxing kill in it's goofiness also. But other than that, there's nothing to see.
28%



Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday (1993)

First there was The Final Chapter and now it's The Final Friday with Jason going to hell. Don't they ever learn this series will never die? Anyhow the biggest question with this was what New Line was going to do with the franchise after buying it from Paramount. The movie starts up great, we get some nice suspense, a very nice shower scene and most of all Jason is back (and not as a fucking kid like in the last part). But then it all goes to hell. Jason gets blown to pieces and we get this nonsense about his soul or what ever switching between bodies as hosts. Then there's some killing and even more idiotic plot about Jason having a sister who is the only one who can kill him. Horrible excuse for a Friday the 13th movie as this has very little to do with it. People want to see Jason killing teenagers in his hockey mask, not some Body Snatchers ripoff. There is some fine t&a which was well needed as there's really not much else to look for. The first kill was probably the slowest of the series at just before 17 minutes. Best kill was by far the safe sex kill, which in a real Friday the 13th movie would have been one of the best in the series but in this it's just a waste of a good idea. This was the second fully uncut movie in this series thus far, but that didn't really help much as the kills aren't that great, apart from that safe sex bit. This was a crappy waste of time and money.
17%



Jason X (2001)

The last part ended up in a scene which set up the idea of a duel between Freddy and Jason, but for some reason they decided to send him into space instead. So the story goes something like this, Jason gets cryogenically frozen and his icicle is found 450 years later when Earth has become uninhabitable. He is taken to a space ship and defrozen, and of course the killing starts again. I didn't really like this part, the whole idea of taking him into the future was a bit too silly and felt like a desperate attempt to bring new life to the series. Jason belongs to the countryside, not to a space ship. Anyway, what I liked was that the body skipping bullshit was abandoned and it's the main man himself doing the killing again. And there are some quite good ones in this part. We get the first kill around 6 minutes so it surely doesn't waste time and the body count is quite high, actually if you count in the whole space station he indirectly destroys it's more than in the whole series alltogether. Best kill was the frozen face slam, though the guy spinning in the drill was also fun. Even though there's a lot of sex scenes and sexual references, there's not really any t&a. One set of fake robo-tits and two pairs of hologram simulated titties, so very weak in that department. I didn't mind that they took a comedic approach to the series, other parts did that as well, but the comedy in this one is a bit too idiotic. The SuperJason was just retarded, sure it made me smile but it was so unnecessary. This part was way better than the previous, but still far from the better ones from this series.
36%



Freddy vs. Jason (2003)

The fans had been awaiting for this movie since the 80's and after being disappointed that the previous movie wasn't what part 9 promised, they surely were anxious to see this one. And I must say I was also. I mean I had long before lost interest in the Nightmare on Elm Street movies as apart from the good first part they are very bad, but still to see Jason and Freddy fight it out in one movie sounded great. Freddy is pissed as no one seems to remember him and thus he has no one to kill, so he decides to call in some help. He appears in Jason's dream and convinces him to go to Elm Street to do some killing. So Jason takes a little trip and sure enough bodies start to pile up and the first suspect is Freddy as the older people in the town haven't forgotten him. But then Freddy has another problem, Jason is an unstoppable killing machine that cuts through the teens in such a speed that he can't get a kill in between. So Freddy needs to stop Jason so he can have the kids to himself and the battle is on. I actually like this movie, it's very entertaining and doesn't take itself too seriously. There's also enough t&a to keep things going and surely no shortage of kills. We get the first kill already around 5 mins, but it turns out to be a dream. The first "real" kill is around 13 mins and it's also one of the best kills in the whole series. I liked how the story tried to stay true to both of the franchises and at least I interpreted the ending that Jason won. At least he won the bodycount as Freddy manages to get only one kill in the whole movie. Sure it had it's flaws with some stupid dialog and idiotic actions that the characters make, also the acting was quite far from great. Anyway, this was a surprisingly good spinoff, very entertaining and fun, just what it's supposed to be.
73%



Friday the 13th (2009)

After Jason had been to space, hell and the future among other things it has become time to reboot the series. I actually don't know why, it's not like the other sequels were that loyal to eachother anyways or that the origin story was worth telling again, so they could have just taken Jason and slap him where ever they want and have a guy recap the past in a few sentences like before. At least I would have been perfectly happy with that. But they went for the remake which got me worried. I hadn't seen this before now as even though it had some interesting people working on it I thought it would still end up pissing on the horror icon. Marcus Nispel did a surprisingly good remake, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (2003), so I thought he was quite a good choice to helm this reboot. Also it's written by the same lot that did the previous which I enjoyed quite a bit. But enough about that and on with the movie. I kind of liked the fact that they compacted the first three parts into one, we see the mother, Jason with a potato sack on his head and the legendary hockey mask. Then again that raised the question why is this a remake as it mostly focuses on the adult Jason slaying teenagers it could have just as well been part 12 as far as the story goes. I also liked the fact that they kept the horror as horror and the comedy was in between the killing, I mean it was nice for a change that they didn't make fun of Jason. The movie doesn't waste time getting the first kill as it's in the first 3 minutes into the film, but it's not Jason doing the killing. We have to wait a bit over 12 minutes for the first kill by Jason, but then again there's plenty of them so it didn't matter at all. Best kill by far was the machete to the head at the pier, one of the best in the whole series. There was enough of t&a also, so everything could have been in order, but it really wasn't. I mean now that I've seen all the parts back to back I've of course formed a view of who Jason is and this movie didn't really fit into it. First of all Jason doesn't torture people, he kills them, I mean he's a very efficient guy so when he comes at you with a machete he will chop you up, not set up some sleeping bag barbeque. Also he doesn't kidnap people, he just kills them, especially anyone who tries to impersonate his mother. Nor does he collect bodies, the only body he keeps is his mother's, the rest he buries into the woods or leaves out in display for the teens to get scared of. This new "personal" Jason felt like the director had mixed the characters from his previous remake as this wasn't the Jason we've seen before. Had there not been the hockey mask this could have just as well been another part of Texas Chainsaw Massacre. I also hated the corny product placement ala Michael Bay, at least in the previous movies they were power tools or some other gadgets used to kill people, not just to market a beer brand or something like that. Anyway the movie was still somewhat entertaining modern day slasher with all the cliches it brings with it, too bad it was called Friday the 13th as it kind of missed the essence of this series.
38%



His Name Was Jason: 30 Years of Friday the 13th (2009)

This 90 minute documentary hosted by Tom Savini goes through all 12 parts of the franchise. Right from the start it's obvious that the fans of the franchise will get the most out of this as I kind of doubt that there is anyone out there that would watch a documentary like this without knowing what's it about. And those who know what's it about either like the franchise and watch this or hate it and pass this one. So that being said I was a bit disappointed that it also tried to fish in new fans going through the obvious stuff everyone who has seen even one of the movies already knows. But luckily there are quite a bit of interesting info as well, some of which even I didn't know about even though in the early 90's I wore out the tapes and digged up every bit of info I could get. The interviews are great and they have really dug up pretty much everyone who was anyone in the series. There's all the directors, all the guys who played Jason, many actors from each part and lots of horror fans who all give out their take on the series. It's fairly well made and luckily they got to show clips from each part as I think some of them are from different production companies so it must have been a hassle to get the rights. Even though Tom Savini does a good job hosting it, I felt that the theme park thingy was a bit out of place and felt a bit too corny. Also it was funny that he was hosting in character but he was also being interviewed from the effects while being himself, so it looked a bit goofy. Anyway, fans will get at least something out of this, even though it's not the best it could have been.
68%


So, 12 movies and one document later I think I still have my sanity. And further more I still think Jason is the ultimate slasher icon. What makes him different from his colleagues is his efficiency he has in his work and the fact that he kills without any pleasure of killing, it's just an action for him. While Freddy, Pinhead and Jigsaw toy around with their victims getting pleasure from the thrill of the kill or feeding from their fear, Jason just gets the job done without any fancy bullshit. He's a working class mass murderer that doesn't put up a show, he just gets the job done and there's something you got to adore in that mentality. Michael Myers is actually quite similar to Jason, but I guess it's the woods and the hockey mask that ultimately makes Jason better.

The dilemma of lost comedy and missing drama

The Dilemma (2011)

Wanted to see this solely because of the cast even though I knew it probably had nothing more to offer. And that's pretty much what it was, a bad movie with an interesting cast. Ronny (Vince Vaughn) and Nick (Kevin James) are best friends and business partners on the verge of a big break. When Ronny sees Kevin's wife Geneva (Winona Ryder) cheat on Kevin, the "dilemma" comes wether Ronny should tell Kevin what had happen and make his life even harder than it already is or just keep quiet until things settle down. Ronny of course has his own "problems" too like how to propose to his girlfriend Beth (Jennifer Connelly). Things of course get overly complicated in the interest of "comedy" and everything seems to go wrong. Well the problem is that the "problems" the movie presents are not exactly problems that hard to solve and the fact that the movie spends almost 2 hours on it is just stupid. Another thing is the comedy, sure there were a few somewhat funny scenes, but I really didn't laugh too often. Actually funniest thing was to spot all the not too subtle product placements this movie had and there were tons of them. And the real joke came when I saw the budget of the movie, 70 million dollars. Holy shit, there's really nothing big happening in the movie so where the hell did the money go? Guess it went to hire the cast, which was indeed quite good. Too bad the script wasn't and surely the direction wasn't either. Those corny flashback scenes made me feel embarrassed for the director. So it's a big budget garbage with only a few funny scenes, not much drama, a stupid story and a good cast.
22%

A whole lot of Screams

I went to see Scream 4 (2011) couple of days ago and wrote the review of it, but when I was thinking about the other parts I actually didn't remember what happened in which part. And as I remembered at least two of them being somewhat good, I though it's time to check them out again as well.



Scream (1996)

I must say I quite liked this movie when it came out, it was a well needed breath of fresh air to the slasher genre. But right from the first time I saw it I knew it's not going to hold multiple viewings. The whole concept of making fun of other slasher movies while working around the cliches of them and the end twist felt like a trick that works only once. I mean you can only trick the slasher fans once into thinking you have a superior movie than any other slasher out there. Sure enough the second time I saw it, it didn't work nearly as well as the first time but I still remember enjoying it. So now I gave it a third try after more than 10 years. Well I really didn't enjoy it that much this time around, there were quite a few very bad moments that actually made me think why the hell did I ever liked this movie. First the things I liked about it. I like the way it doesn't try to hide who the killer is, but still offers quite a few other suspects as well and gives alibis to the ones you think are the killer. I remember when I first saw this that I guessed the killer right from the first scene we see him, the romantic version of Don't Fear the Reaper gave it away for me, but then he gets put into jail so that didn't work. I also liked the suspension building in some of the scenes. Even though the movie resorted into cheap scares quite often it still did take some time to get proper suspension also. Also I quite liked the mood of the movie, it's very easy going and even fun at times, but still it manages to be scary when needed. What I didn't like was the fact that it tries to convince you that it knows every trick in the slasher movie handbook and yet it falls into quite a many cliches itself. I mean sure it worked the first time, you give the audience a few scenes they didn't expect and they will let some nonsense pass as well, but on the second time it just doesn't work. When you build tension with a character that's being stalked, the character's actions are the key into the suspension, if the character does something stupid that you wouldn't do it spoils the whole suspension for you. After that you turn to the killer's side, kind of like "oh fuck this shit, kill that stupid bitch already and get this over with." And to be honest there weren't many wise characters in this movie. Speaking of characters I absolutely hated Deputy Dewey this time, thought he was funny but yet somehow heroic character first time I saw this, now I noticed he's stupid as a boot and way too goofy. Actually his quest to get into Gale Weather's undies ends up getting a guy killed, another thing I didn't notice first time around. And to be honest the whole ending after that was quite idiotic. I got the feeling that the writer had a great idea on the motives of the killer and the whole plot, but didn't know how to break it down to the viewer. So he decided to put this cliched ridiculous ending where the killer explains the motives and stupidly enough demonstrates what's coming after it's all done even though it's not yet done. How fucking retarted can someone be that when he/she has the situation under control and the last victim ready to die, he/she decides to stab him/herself first to get the alibi part out of the way and thus giving the victim a chance to escape. So the ending sucked big time. But despite it being quite a bad movie on the third watch I'd still recommend it to anyone who hasn't seen it yet as it does have it's moments on the first viewing. And I do have to give it some credit as it really had it's impact on the whole horror genre, maybe not the best impact, but still way better than for example what the Saw series had.
61%



Scream 2 (1997)

So of course as the movie was so popular the one trick gimmick got a sequel and thus kind of watered down the first part by doing so. This time it's the horror movie sequels that are being made fun of while the movie itself of course uses many of those cliches. All the survivors of the first part return and of course there's a copycat who wants to finish what the first part couldn't do. The recipe is the same, make the audience think the movie is on the "next level" of slashers by making fun of the cliches and then use the other cliches to ride past the unaware viewer. And sure it works once but as at this point it has been done before the viewer isn't tricked as easily. Too bad it doesn't try to fix the problems of the first part, only use the same idea with another story in it. What I liked about this movie was the soundtrack, some of the comedy and again some of the suspension building. What I didn't like was again the stupid over explaining killer. Once more he/she had the thing all wrapped up but of course he/she needs to tell his/her life story before finishing it. Idiotic. Though I did like the first motive of the killer quite a bit and actually that would have been an interesting dilemma to go into a bit deeper. It's a shame it's only covered breafly in the end and then just forgot. Another thing I found quite idiotic was the whole car sequence, I mean how stupid can the women be and really how stupid do the film makers think the audience is. As that wouldn't have been enough it's followed by a scene where the movie takes exactly the same routes it made fun of in the first part, stupid beyond belief. At this point I had to struggle to keep watching as that many idiotic scenes in a movie that wants you to believe it's a smart slasher is just ridiculous. So the first half was quite ok, despite some bad acting and horribly corny dialog, but the second half is just colossal in stupidity. So in the end the movie falls to the same problem it makes fun of, failing to fix the problems of the first part and just focusing in giving the viewer more of what the first one had without even trying to bring anything new to the table.
33%



Scream 3 (2000)

I remember the first time I saw this I didn't have my hopes up and it still ended up dissapointing me. So wasn't surely expecting much this time around either. Surely enough it was still a bad movie. The only thing I liked about this was to try and guess who the killer is and how nicely false leads are given to the viewer. Other than that this was just garbage. Survivors of the second part of course return and the rest of the cast is filled with stock actors doing performances from bad to absolutely horrible. Sure again there are cameos of some familiar faces but they didn't really help. And yet again the dialog at times was simply awful. The worst thing was that it again completely forgot what it was trying to teach in the previous films. It seemed that everyone in the movie was about as dumb as a rubber boot. "You take the gun and go look that way, I'll go unarmed this way so the killer can get me first." I mean it surely doesn't take a genius to write a believable stalk scene, but please don't let braindead retards have a shot at it, ok? Had to really struggle to get through this, so luckily the guessing game worked somewhat great, but a good movie that doesn't make.
20%



Scream 4 (2011)

After almost 11 years they try to revive the series that made slasher movies popular again. So is it just a bad attempt to cash in with the old formula or do they actually have something new to the genre? Well it was bit of both, but unfortunately more on the first part. The beginning was quite nice with it's funny movie within a movie within another movie trick, though as "layers" are the hot thing in movies today that was kind of predictable. None the less it kicked off the movie quite nicely. The old cast of course return and then there's the fresh meat for the grinder. That's actually one of the biggest problem with this series, the three characters from all of the parts just won't die so you just don't fear for them anymore. Though that "immortality" was used quite nicely in this one with a bit of a moral dilemma that what's the point of surviving if all your loved ones always end up dead. But for some reason the movie just states that once and never really goes into it any deeper. In my opinion they should have killed them all right from the start and get a fresh cast to the new "revision", at least that would have made it clear that all bets are really off. Now you can basically figure out who's going to die and who's not right from the start. That being said the movie almost took an unexpected turn with the main three characters, but then again it didn't dare to go with it. This part actually had learned a bit from the mistakes of the first three and didn't always go for the cliched route after making fun of it first, but still it wasn't really innovative either. Actually before the "first ending" this movie was on it's way of being a very good and quite fresh new look on the slasher genre. But why the hell in this part as well the motives need to be discussed in long dialogs before the job is done? Is it really the only way to tell them to the viewer or were the writers just lazy and borrowed the formula from the previous films? I actually really liked the motives, they fit the modern day problems very well, but despised the way they were told. That being said I thought the movie took a very good turn after the motives dialogs, but too bad again they got scared to really go that way and the "second ending" watered the movie down all together right to that category of cash in with an easy concept. That's a shame as the movie had it's moments and at parts really looked like it would go to a different direction, but unfortunately it ended up in the same slot as the previous ones. For fans of the series this is well worth watching, but the rest might not enjoy it that much.
58%


After watching all four of them I must say I'm quite surprised how bad they were. I mean sure the first and the fourth were ok, but I remembered the first and the second being a lot better. But I guess that's how it goes, times change and things don't work as good anymore as they used to. But I must say I agree to what they say in the fourth part, I'd watch any of these movies over another gorno movie (gore porno or torture porn) like from the Saw series for example. And that just shows in how bad shape the "big" horror movies are today.