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Post by gamedave on Dec 26, 2007 14:44:16 GMT -5
So, yesterday Jeremy and I went to see Alien vs. Predator - Requiem. Needless to say, Bad Movie. Jeremy enjoyed it; I didn't. OK, Bad Movie, so no need to belabor the lack of plot, the cardboard characters, etc. I expected that stuff going in. My real problems - bad light. The movie is very dark, taking place mostly at night and underground, with quick cuts during the action scenes, so it is usually very difficult to follow exactly what the heck is going on. And with the ridiculously fast gestation and maturation times for aliens in this movie (face hugger to chest burster to full-fledged alien in literally about half an hour or less, so that in a single night the town is overrun by dozens of aliens), the movie turns into a bad zombie horror survival movie instead of, you know, an aliens vs. predator movie. Bad Movie! Bad Movie!
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Post by gamedave on Dec 26, 2007 14:48:07 GMT -5
After AvP, we watched the Marine on cable. It was freaking AWESOME!!! Ok, it was actually an awful movie, so bad that the opening scene actually seemed like an intentional paradoy of bad action movies. But, unlike AvP, which was dark and dreary and kind of depressing, the Marine was fun! The plot was paper-thin, the action sequences were over the top, the acting passable to awful, but at least I could follow what was going on on-screen.
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Post by gamedave on Dec 27, 2007 13:48:30 GMT -5
Ok, so yesterday (26 Dec), Jeremy, Mike and I went to National Treasure 2.
First, a little history (ha, ha!). When I was deployed to Kuwait, my biggest enemy was boredom. There was a free DVD lending library with a limited selection, and a free on-post theater with limited offerings, so I saw a number of movies I probably wouldn't have otherwise. One of those was the first National Treasure. A movie starring Nicholas "I have forgotten how to act" Cage? A movie, judging by the previews, with only a casual relationship with reality and actual history? I went in with very low expectations. And was pleasantly suprised.
Yes, the history was every bit as awful as I was expecting, but the acting and dialogue was, for the most part, passable, the story kept moving, the plot was, for the most part, internally consistent (even if it made no actual sense in relation to actual history), and, above all, it was FUN. It was an old-fashioned adventure movie. I actually enjoyed it.
So, heading into NT2, even though intellectually I knew I should have low expectations, I couldn't help kind of looking forward to it. That was a mistake.
NT2 still had Jerry Bruckheimer's slick production values, and it actually managed to maintain some sense of fun and adventure, but the plot was an incoherent mess that didn't even have internal logic.
Who built Cibola? Why? Why did they hide it? Who found out about it? Who left all the clues? How did Queen Victoria (apparently) find out about it? Why did she send some hidden clues to the U.S. President (without telling him she was doing so), some explicit clues to a random Confederate general, and keep some clues in Buckingham Palace? How exactly would finding Cibola clear the Gates family name? I could keep going for a while.
Bad movie. Almost enjoyable as a silly adventure romp, but the total incoherence of the plot sinks it.
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