animatrix: beyond

one of the longest and most unusual film in the series, it clocks in at 13 minutes (most of them are right around the 9 minute mark). it follows a young woman who is looking for her cat. she comes across some kids who are playing in a 'haunted' house. there are many strange things going on there, gravity doesnt quite work right, the walls and hallways sometimes become pixelated, an opened door leads to a room of huge nothingness. the kids love it and play around with it, throwing bottles at the ground watching them break and then reform, and levitating. the idea behind this 'haunted' area is that it is actually a problem in the programing of the matrix which causes agents to show up and replace the area with a parking lot. this idea plays a part later in the films when they make mention of different viruses that can show up.

animatrix: a detective story

a pretty straight forward detective tale, the setting of the story is a cool mixture of forties crime noir, and modern technology. it follows a detective as he get a call to track down a mysterious hacker called 'trinity'. he gets some clues and finds where he can meet her, on a passenger train. as he and trinity are talking some agents show up, one of them even tries to inhabit the detective's body. trinity tells him that what she had planned isnt going to work out, but that she thinks he could have handled the truth if she told him. this one is kind of a nice companion to the 'world record' segment, in this one the detective is a guy who isn't aware at all of the real world, but is almost capable of awakening anyway.

animatrix: matriculated

i dont quite get this one. its very strange, and in my opinion, the least interesting of the whole set. but at least it has a cute little monkey in it! i think its meant to be a look at how a robot falls in love with a real life woman. but there are also a bunch of crazy robot thingies, some strange golden metal bozo the clown looking thing, and a bunch of other stuff too. at the end he finds that the woman does not share his feelings. awe, sad robot!

chronicles of riddick

overblown and boring. somebody sure got suckered into spending a ton of money thinking that vin diesel was a star. the plot takes all the lamest elements of sci-fi and throws them all together. to be honest, if i were about 10 years old watching this, i would have loved it! unfortunately, i am not 10 years old, and this movie is a clunker. by about 10 minutes in it was pretty obvious where this story was going thanks to the oh so subtle writing (sarcasm), unfortunately it took two more hours to get us back to the very predictable ending. i had a very hard time sitting through this movie, there was really nothing of interest to keep me watching. even after watching the first movie and the animated prequel, i still had no real interest in how riddick's story played out. i even got up and mowed the lawn in the middle of it, and i HATE to mow the lawn! that should tell you something...

riddick: dark fury

a kind of cool animated short story that ties pitch black and chronicles of riddick together. as i was watching it i kept thinking 'man, this looks like it was done by one of the guys who did a short film for 'the animatrix'!' and after a quick look at my dvd shelf, low and behold, it is! peter chung directed this short, as well as 'matriculated' on the animatrix collection. the story looks at how riddick and the other two survivors from the first movie make it off the planet only to be picked up by a mercenary ship. there are a few fights, which look pretty cool. they did a good job of integrating computer effects with old fashioned hand drawn animation. over all though, its a fairly meaningless story, and one that could have been told in a sentence or two at the beginning of 'the chronicles of riddick', they certainly didn't need to make a thirty five minute film to give us this info.

pitch black

this movie is a bit of a sci-fi horror type movie. it follows the story of a ship crew as they crash into an unknown planet. they are carrying a very dangerous criminal and as darkness sets in, the planets killer wildlife comes out to get them. they must rely on this criminal and his ability to see in the dark in order to survive. along the way there are many run ins with the alien creatures, some of them played for scares, others for gore. over all its a pretty good b-movie that at times takes itself to seriously. the creatures themselves are actually pretty cool, they do a pretty good job with the creature effects. the characters themselves are not that interesting, and if 'the fast and the furious' hadn't hit it big, vin diesel would never have been given the opportunity to resurrect this riddick character and we would have been spared the follow up movie and we would probably look back at this one as a nice little sci-fi movie.

resident evil: extinction

this one picks up a few years after the last one. we follow a few of the characters who made it out of the last one alive. they have picked up a few more people and have created a caravan looking for any survivors who may still be around after the virus from racoon city got out and infected the rest of the world. they find themselves in las vegas (or at least what used to be vegas) and must try and stop the umbrella corporation's desert base. the great twist of this movie is that it all takes place is broad daylight- fairly unusual for a zombie movie! the zombies have had time to adapt, and can now move quicker and put up more of a fight, which adds a ton to the action scenes. i actually found myself enjoying this third film the most in the series.
each of these movies do a great job of blending from one to the other. while watching them it felt more like i was watching a few episodes of a television series- they lead right into each other. the last five minutes of all three movies are purely there to set up the next one. with this in mind, i eargly await the fourth resident evil movie!

resident evil: apocalypse

where the first movie was a simple twist on the haunted house genre, this one is just flat out action! alice goes back above ground after the earlier incident, only to find that the virus has infected the whole city! after raccoon city is quarantined, she and a few other people who are uninfected (including the kick-ass chick jill valentine, who i believe is from one of the games). they must save a little girl and try to flee the city before the umbrella corporation drops a bomb to wipe out all those effected by the virus. as a sequel, this one doesn't really hold up. the story is paper thin, it seems more like just an excuse to blow up zombies. the final showdown between alice and the terrible looking creature called 'nemesis' (which i've heard again, is from the game itself) was pretty lame and unnecessary. this is certainly the weekest of the resident evil series.

resident evil

as far as b-movies go, this one is a fun little gem. its basically an old
fashioned haunted house movie. instead of ghosts though, it has zombies! having never played any of the video games this movie is based on, i had no idea what to expect, and no expectations about what it should be. the story starts with alice waking up and not remembering much about herself. as she explores through this mansion she finds herself in, she is taken and brought to an underground facility owned by the umbrella corporation. there was a biological outbreak and everyone died. she is somehow connected and is enlisted to help destroy the rogue a.i. that is running the place. as they try and stop everything, it leads to some cool zombie encounters and a memorable scene in a killer hallway. i thought it was a fun movie, it dealt with the story well, and also leaves enough mysteries and confusion for the inevitable sequel.

the wrestler

a heart breaking look at someone who is far past their prime try and relive their glory days just one more time. a glimpse at what it is like to feel passionately about something and then be told you cant do it anymore, like an artist who is forbidden to paint, or a musician forbidden to play. the main character has spent his whole life in the ring, and found much success there, but that was twenty years ago. he continues to follow that dream thinking that he will once again rise to the top. his focus on this goal has put his family to the side. now, he wants to reconnect with his daughter who wants nothing to do with him. he is a loser who knows hes a loser, deserving of this lonely sad life he finds himself in. as he tries to seek redemption it becomes a story of a man who knows whats best, but cant resist the pull of the long dead dream. this is a brilliant study of a broken man who knows what he needs to do to fix himself, but he just cant get himself to do it.

angels and demons

some people have an aversion to violence, some have an aversion to cussing. diana cant watch a movie if there is anything bad that happens to animals. i figured out my aversion: breaking old stuff. for some reason when ever there is an old artifact or ancient building that gets damaged i cringe! i know its fake, but i cringe in fear anyway. i've always loved history, and i guess my respect and admiration for ancient things gets the best of me. with this in mind, it made watching this movie incredibly difficult for me!i had gone to see 'di vinci code' and thought it really sucked, but i was still drawn to see this one. i had read both books, and this one is definitely the stronger source material of the two. when i read this book i had gotten it at an airport bookstore and read it the whole time aaron and i were in europe visiting my brother. what was really cool was reading about these places in rome where the story happens, and then going out the next day and seeing this places for myself in rome! that excitement returned as i watched the movie, constantly thinking 'oh! we were there!' as far as story goes, i think this movie is actually a pretty good puzzle solving thriller. the story follows a logical line, there are pleasantly of twists and turns through out, but all of it plays (somewhat) realistically. another thing about the movie that i found surprising was the fair handedness used in dealing with the church. there were some jabs at the faith, but they were reasonable and ones that i myself have raised against some of the more unusual traditions of the catholic church. in the end there is definitely a feeling of respect paid to most of the men of faith portrayed in the film.

mummy: tomb of the emperor king

this movie seemed to be an exercise in lack of self restraint. not fans of the whole 'less is more' idea, instead they seemed to go with this approach: more is more, and more than that is even morer! i can just imagine the boardroom conversations as they were writing this one: lets have this one be about a chinese emperor! ok! how about a million terracotta soldiers? ok! how about an immortal witch? ok! with an immortal daughter? ok! got to have the obligatory love story. ok! how about having big foot? ok! and shangri-la? ok! and a three headed dragon? ok! wow, this is going to be the greatest movie ever!
its not. it starts off poorly, and then gets worse from there. i think we all know full well that this thing sucks, so there really is no reason to go through and explain why. i'll just leave it at that.

x-men origins: wolverine

there was some great potential here, but unfortunately, as with most big summer movies, they have to appeal to the lowest common denominator. apparently that common denominator is 'explosions are cool!' the story revolves around how wolverine and his brother sabertooth got to be who they are today. there are many showdowns between the two of them. but with all the showdowns, it raised a big question: how many times can two people, who are apparently indestructible, run at each other with growling faces before its no longer interesting? the answer: one time. unfortunately, it happens about six times in this movie. the brother stuff is good, but then they go off topic and it just becomes a movie about explosions. the first half of the movie is actually quite interesting and rather compelling, but they gloss over all the good stuff in about the first 10 minutes! this is an origin story, so why not really dig into the characters early life? nope, we just get brief glimpses of the two of them in the civil war, world war two, vietnam, etc. they could have just explored those times and it would have been a great movie! there is so much potential, but it falls flat! instead they seem to have to take five or ten minutes to introduce a dozen other characters so as to prepare them each for their own spin off movie. deadpool and gambit get that treatment, merely introduced so as to prepare them for their own movie. deadpool could be good (ok, only because its ryan reynolds), but the guy they got to play gambit was terrible! i was embarrassed for him.
over all, it was a good first half, but then all the good stuff they had built up is squandered during the last 45 minutes.
ps. seriously one of the worst love stories ever! she was brainwashing you to love her so they could set you up for joining the bad guys? why would you even care about her after that?!?

the sum of all fears

my dad never read much for fun, but when he did, it was always tom
clancy books. for this reason, i have always been interested in tom clancy book based movies. it started with 'the hunt for red october',
and continued with harrison ford's entries into the series. i was
disappointed that he didn't continue the series, but was ok with ben
affleck as a replacement to reboot the franchise. this one was all right,
you know, as far as political intrigue thrillers go. it follows a group of
terrorists who get a hold of a nuclear weapon and detonate it inside
america's borders, and the start of jack ryan's career in the
government. its a pretty good yarn, nothing to interesting, nothing too terrible. a note of interest: this was the first big action movie to come
out in america after the attack on the world trade center. the depiction of terrorism in our borders was an unfortunate coincidence.
as a result of the events, many of the special effects that were to show
the destruction of the city were tamed down or scrapped all together.

in bruges

this film is a story about two assassins who are sent away to lay low after a hit goes wrong. the two guys are very different, but are good friends. colin farrell plays the young brash assassin who made the mistake in the first place, and brendan gleeson is the more mature reasonable fellow accompanying him. to lay low, they head to bruges, a quaint beautiful town in belgium. gleeson likes the mellow feel of the place and enjoys the brake, but ferrell hates it and is itching to get out of there. what follows is a slow, beautiful character study about what it really means to be an assassin, and how it has effected these two guys. its no wonder farrell won a golden globe for his work here. there are some great moments of humor along the way as these two figure out what's next. by the ending we have found a respect for both these men, and a twisted strange little tale told well.