Showing posts with label Liev Schreiber. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Liev Schreiber. Show all posts

Sunday, June 5, 2016

THE 5TH WAVE (2016)

I have a weakness for alien invasion stories and having recently finished reading Robert McCammon's awesome alien invasion novel "The Border" I was in the mood for a good alien invasion movie, so I sat down to watch THE 5TH WAVE and...I'm still in the mood for a good alien invasion movie.

Told in possibly the blandest way possible, THE 5TH WAVE is the bland story of a bland teenage girl who is living a bland life when some bland aliens invade and then not much happens.  She gives a brief narration about the first four "waves" ("waves" are ways that the aliens tried to wipe out humanity: lack of electricity, tidal waves, sickness, aliens looking like humans), but it's covered so quickly that it has zero emotional impact.  So the main chick ends up in a refugee camp with her family.  Her dad is killed and her little brother is taken away by soldiers.  She now has to walk to the military base to rescue her brother.  How exciting.

Boring aliens, children trained as soldiers, earthquakes chasing people, a tough female soldier wearing 40lbs. of eye make-up, piss-poor dialogue, soldiers creeping around at night with bright LED lights on their helmets, an open-ended ending that was a total disappointment, slow pace, PG-rated violence, Liev Schreiber's talents wasted, zero nudity, zero blood.  Honestly, I can't see why anybody over the age of 15 would ever want to watch this movie more than once.  It's not a bad movie, but it's just so soulless and unoriginal that it's pretty much nothing.  The alien mothership did look cool though...for the entire 45 seconds that it was in the screen.  Skip it.

Friday, November 1, 2013

THE SUM OF ALL FEARS (2002)

Completely disregarding the first three Jack Ryan films, THE SUM OF ALL FEARS casts Ben Affleck as a young CIA analyst who is an expert on a a little known Russian figure (Ciaran Hinds) who is suddenly announced as the new Russian president, after the old one unexpectedly kicks the bucket.  Because of this Ryan is summoned by the CIA Director (Morgan Freeman).  At the same time, a nuclear bomb gets into the hands of the Nazis.  Yes, the Nazis.  Anyway, tensions rise between America and Russia, so it's up to Jack Ryan to save the day.

I really enjoyed the first three Jack Ryan films, but TSOAF was pretty lame.  Not only was Affleck unable to fill the screen character first played excellently by Alec Baldwin and then perfected by Harrison Ford, but the story was just boring!  Yeah, there's a few explosions and a gun or two fired, but overall, TSOAF is a snoozer.  Blah, blah, blah, bomb missing, yelling and posturing, helicopter crashing, fast typing...I don't know, the supporting cast (all except Ryan's girlfriend) were really good, but the direction was so bland and the story so played out that there was zero tension.  It made money at the box office, but it's easy to see why this reboot failed to garner any sequels.   

Part 1 - The Hunt for Red October (1990)
Part 2 - Patriot Games (1992)
Part 3 - Clear and Present Danger (1994)
Reboot 2 - Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit

Tuesday, October 11, 2011

SCREAM 3 (2000)

Yep, they're beating a dead horse with this one. Sidney is now in hiding and in an attempt to draw her out a copycat Ghostface is killing the actors of the film-within-a-film STAB 3, which is currently in production. Yawn.  Why the fuck does this story have to be so complicated?  Despite six returning characters from the original film and an impressive cast of new characters (Lance Henriksen, Roger Corman, Parker Posey, Emily Mortimer, Patrick Warburton) SCREAM 3 is a snoozer that wouldn't please even the most forgiving of horror fans.

The surprise ending is telegraphed a million miles away, zero tits, stupid kills, zero gore, very little blood, lazy script filled with unfunny (and unneeded) jokes like a cameo by Jay and Silent Bob (Hahaha...so funny.), a cameo by Carrie Fisher where she references Princess Leia (Oh man that's hilarious!) and a Terminator-like statue in Lance Henriksen's office (ho-ho!  What a knee-slapper!). Honestly, I can't think of a single reason to watch this. I was actually looking forward to reviewing the SCREAM series, but this energy vampire turd sucked all the excitement out of me.

Part 1 - Scream (1996)
Part 2 - Scream 2 (1997)
Part 4 - Scream 4 (2011)
Part 5 - Scream (2022)
Part 6 - Scream VI (2023)