Out of character for a Gordon film...
928232
I understand that Stuart Gordon wanted to make this a "straight" film. No cheap gags like in _Re-Animator_ and no black comedy like in _From Beyond_. This is actually a very well-made film despite being a straight-to-video B-horror flick.

A problem for me is that it is not pleasant to watch. It is in fact a decidedly *unpleasant* viewing experience. This point can not be overstated. I'm not a squeamish person but the sheer brutality exhibited in this film rivals that seen in _The Passion of the Christ_ or _Blood-Sucking Freaks_. Meanwhile, I found myself entirely un-sympathetic toward the very tortured protagonist yet disturbingly sympathetic toward the "castle freak" who was by the end of the film far beyond any kind of redemption. Granted, I am often inclined to root for the "bad guy," but this is different. The characters are all thoroughly developed and very real, so that is not the problem. I kept feeling that "I'm SUPPOSED to identify with this guy, but [on some level] he deserves what he gets."

This is, however, not the main reason why I chose to deduct 2 stars. I only gave this film 3 stars because 1) the story and direction is not of the same caliber as Gordon and Comb's other colaborations and 2) the plot is entirely too predictable. I was also expecting something "Lovecraftian" in this film (that is, after all, Stuart Gordon's bread-and-butter) since had read that it was "loosely" based on _The Outsider_. Yet there is nothing of that or any other H.P. Lovecraft story here save the setting of a castle and Lovecraft is not credited at all (if Lovecraft had been even a remote inspiration, trust me, they would have credited him). Perhaps I had false expectations for the film that have colored my reaction to it.

I recommend this movie IF you are A) a die-hard Stuart Gordon fan or B) a vicariously inclined sado-masochistic horror/snuf aficianado. The movie is cheap here, but it will be even cheaper at Blockbuster. I wish I had rented it, actually, because I don't plan to ever watch it again.
339979
This was an "okay" movie.  I would have given it three stars had they done one simple thing, eliminate Paul Walker's character.  I haven't read the book, but it seems to me that this character was added as an afterthought simply for Walker's star power.  Normally I would overlook this, but Walker was a constant distraction.  Are we to believe that the son of a Scottish academic turned out to be a California beach bum?  He resembles an overly macho Ted Theodore Logan (Keanu Reeves in Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure) who throws around the word "bro" like Ted threw around "dude".  We find this character in of all places, an archaeological dig in France.  He had no skills essential to the mission, nor did he seem to affect the plot in any way whatsoever.  He was an altogether useless and out of place character.
Reeves was stuck in the character of Ted for a decade until The Matrix.  Like Reeves, Walker is stuck in the role as Brian O'Conner from Fast and the Furious, and unless he learns how to act his career will quietly diminish as his boyish good looks fade.
I can't totally overlook the film just because of the shortcomings of a single actor, but he just got too much camera time....and too little attention from the writers.  This is far from one of Richard Donner's better works.
2369871
My wife and I saw this in the theater.  The handcam viewpoint almost made my wife ill with the shaking and occassional spinning around looking for the bad guys.  I just thought it was cheesy - an attempt by a usually good director to jump on a supposed hot trend.  When you are shooting a monster movie where you are supposed to SEE and CARE about what they are running from, giving the audience a good shot of the monster for a few seconds TOTAL TIME is... lame (I have no better polite word for it).
I would not recommend this movie to anyone except a diehard fan of the director or someone that just has to have every movie of a particular genre.
4789840
I watched Pitch Black last night solely because it was filmed in outback South Australia and now wish I hadn't have bothered. I was expecting a bit of an Alien type blockbuster knowing they made a franchise out of this and this Vin Diesel guy but if not for a gloriously sweaty Radha Mitchell running around I wouldn't have got through the whole thing.
3937081
Robert Downey Jr has made quite the name for himself over the years. However, I find myself disliking his performance in Sherlock Holmes. He was not as eccentric as I hoped he would be.  I went into this film with overly high expectations and came out feeling extremely disappointed.  I even saw this film twice just to make sure I wasn't having a bad day when I saw it the first time. Maybe its Guy Ritchie's vision, but this was not at all what I was expecting Sherlock Holmes to be. I found the casting of this film to be a bit peculiar. I didn't feel that Downey and Jude Law really had any chemistry and Rachel McAdams felt more like an annoying little sister rather then a former love of Holmes. The story line is hardly anything to rave about it and I felt bored throughout the entire movie. It's extremely predictable and the twist is nothing that surprising. Of course, I am extremely picky with movies and hardly seem to like anything.
3780496
I missed the point... characters felt like pawns of a gratuitous and pointless universe.
"faith is believing in something beyond yourself, like hope or love"... really?
that's a pretty weak philosophy to hang a film on!...
and to be repeated twice!
3594239
Having seen the first two movies on DVD, I have to say that watching the third film in the series, the Return of the King, was probably the most baffling and dissapointing experience in all my years of watching film.
First off, whatever contract negotiations that were involved in making the third film animated were just completely wrong headed.  The animated characters look nothing like thier real life counterparts, and Aragorn gets far less screen time then the title would suggest.  Even so, it would have been nice to have the original stars (Ellijah Wood, Ian Mckellen, et al) at least lend thier voices to the characters.  One can only surmise that the Producers of these films thought that audiences would be so wrapped up in the story that they wouldn't care if the final installment was mailed to people on cocktail napkins.
And there is also so much that has not paid off in this third installment, not the least of which is:  Where is Arwen?
I put the third movie next to the others in my collection, but somehow it doesn't seem to fit.  Maybe I have to watch it a few times more.
4777328
The premise is, indeed, very cool -- but the execution just seems very off.  Clancy Brown has delivered much better performances than he does here, and it's hard to take him seriously as the main villain.  The character development in the flashback sequences is OK, but it makes no sense why anyone does what they do in the modern era, and some of the dialogue is just ear-gratingly bad.  Worst of all, though, the gathering itself just doesn't have the sense of drama you'd expect it to.  There doesn't seem to be much of a sense of urgency to any of the characters, and that makes the film itself seem kind of slow.
I was also disappointed by the film quality, as I think other reviewers have observed . . . haven't really looked at the other DVD extras, but I don't see them overcoming the general disappointment I had in the movie itself.
974085
I purchased this DVD based on some trailers I'd seen last year around the time Casshern was released in Japan. The latest work of Enki Bilal, renowned graphic novelist, the film has some very interesting concepts, a striking use of color and an apparent total lack of budget...

The film takes place in the New York of tomorrow. The actual vision of the city is compelling, the execution is cheap with poorly rendered effects that simply do not convince...ever.

These short comings are made more obvious by a mixed cast of real actors and CG characters. The CG characters are laughably low resolution and animated so poorly, it is questionable if these animators were learning on the job. The level of articulation in the actual meshes for the 3D stuff is not even up to modern video game standards.

What is most odd, is that the majority of the CG characters are just odd looking humans. I have no idea why they didn't just hire actors and dress them up for the shots as needed?

The story, acting and script, while trying to be hard and serious, are dead and without feeling. The film was created in English by a non-native English speaker, so the use of slang feels forced and the craft of the lines is...well rather sophmore :(

Blade Runner this is not.

And sadly that is what this feels like it was going for. A more surreal Blade Runner meets the Fifth Element. It gets close to neither.
2382221
I was expecting so much after hearing al the news about this film. I was really let down. It was different and unique in its own way. However, it was not that remomorable for me. It had a great feel to it, I mean color/camera work, however, the stories were just not that interesting to me. In many ways it felt like an 80's horro film, so I should have liked it. Let me just say this, I recently watched "The Gate" agaain after several years. After watching this film I had that same feeling. Sort of like, okay, but.....where is the punchline..
2332865
This is a very silly film.

 It is a film about the Arthurian search for the Holy Grail, and involves many fantastic events that relate to this search: an appearance by God, sorcerers, evil knights, three headed giants, a many-eyed beast, a vicious killer rabbit, etc.

 But more subtly than that it also involves a fantasy element which is not often discussed, and sometimes misunderstood. Danny Peary, for examples indicates that the movie is actually the result of a group of filmmakers that do not have a budget for horses, forgot to get permission to film from the local authorities and in their zeal to tell the story manage to kill a historian narrator.

 I do not think that this is correct at all.

 There are plenty of other examples that use similar fantastic premises to tell their own stories. For example, there is a Twilight Zone episode in which a Western actor manages to get caught inside an alternate reality that somehow emerges from his experiences filming movies and ends up in the real West (not a particularly good episode, I'll admit.) TZ also brings us parallel worlds in which mannequins or dolls have their own reality, parallel, but independent of normal, human reality, and which sometimes intrude upon one another.

Another instance of something similar is Cline et Julie vont en bateau (1974) in which our two leading ladies somehow get caught inside a ghost story that is being played/acted out. They retain their memories of who they are outside of the ghost story and mess around with the ghost story events as they play out.

Another instance has already been mentioned on the site and is probably the direct inspiration for the Pythons. Start the Revolution Without Me (1970) also features a narrator getting killed by the events he is attempting to report.

More recently The Lego Movie also shows similar  parallel realities: the toy perspective reality and the god-like perspective of the child playing with them.

 But the Pythons themselves had already played around with a similar concept. In a sketch a constable attempting to catch a ring of pornographers goes undercover in Edwardian  Elizabethan dress only to be caught/transported to Edwardian  Elizabethan  times. his identity becomes confused about who he is, and eventually he returns to modern times.

 I think the only way to interpret this movie is to see that the Arthurian events are, somehow, just as real as the parallel, modern instances of an intruding modern world of historian/narrators and investigating police. The low-budget documentarian explanation does not really make sense, as it does not explain why murder would happen, or how the instances of fantastic intervention of God, sorcerers or fabulous monsters could happen. At the very least, all the scenes presenting multiple performers acting out scenes of medieval life would have to be explained via the use of extremely sincere madmen as actors. Other fabulous events would simply go unexplained.
1157698
... in a production that is an OK time passer but is based on entirely archaic ideas on the subject of marriage. If I'm going to watch a film from 1936, I guess I should be prepared to deal with the values of 1936, but this is just too much.

Mike Martin (Gene Raymond) is an engineer who basically nags model and long-time girlfriend Carolyn (Barbara Stanwyck) into marrying him. The arguments begin at their quickie civil marriage ceremony and continue as Mike's estimate that $35 a week is enough for them to get by on is incorrect. Plus no wife of his is going to work! It's a Martin tradition. Before this film is over I felt like if it was a Martin tradition to walk a tightrope strung between high rises on your 30th birthday Mike would be up there doing it. He's not exactly a deep thinker.

Meanwhile, Carolyn is stuck making Mike's maxims work. Mike gets to live the dream of supporting a wife that doesn't work, but his dream is really a mirage. Carolyn is the one that actually deals with overdue bills and the bill collectors coming to the door threatening repossession. After their furniture is repossessed and is only returned because wealthy friend Hugh McKenzie (Robert Young) pays the amount due - all happening before Mike gets home and thus without his knowledge - Carolyn decides to go to work so their budget will stretch and hide the fact from Mike. When Mike beats Carolyn home one day and discovers the truth, it is actually the knuckle-dragging groom that walks out.

All through the film there is the involvement of wealthy Hugh, who loves Carolyn but wants her to be happy whatever she decides. Let me tell you, Robert Young does not play a drunk well at all. In fact he's quite annoying as drunken partying Hugh. But when he plays a sober Hugh he's a stark and pleasant contrast to the Neanderthal Mike.

Now this is a 1936 production code era romance, so you know it's going to work itself out in some conventional way already, so I'll just let you watch and find out how that happens.

I give this 3 out of 5 stars because Barbara Stanwyck makes almost any film watchable, plus there are the hilarious antics of Ned Sparks and Helen Broderick as Paul and Mattie Dodson, friends of the couple who don't seem to like each other at all and can't even remember what town in which they were married. When Carolyn asks them why they get married in the first place they say "because it was raining", whatever that means.

I would consider this film a take it or leave it proposition.
2854363
Blood Feast (Herschell Gordon Lewis, 1963)

Sometimes I wonder why I still watch Herschell Gordon Lewis movies. While I understand that Lewis' movies were the progenitors, pretty much singlehandedly, of the entire gore film genre. But just because something is important or influential, it doesn't necessarily follow that it's good. And when it comes right down to it, Lewis was the Edward D. Wood, Jr., of gore.

In this forgettable exercise, an Egyptian caterer is trying to resurrect a goddess by killing his clients and using their body parts to make a sort of modern Frankenstein's monster. He's almost done, just needs a few last bits from his latest client. Meanwhile, a couple of idiotic police detectives try to apprehend him before he turns his latest client into, well, a goddess.

Lewis' movies are, every last one of them I've seen, marked with three traits: horrendous gore effects about as realistic as one might find in a catsup fight, acting so horrid it should be used in acting classes as examples of what not to do when in front of a camera, and oddly compelling soundtracks. Whatever else Herschell Gordon Lewis did not have, he had great taste in music. (I still have his rendition of "Old Joe Clark", from the Two Thousand Maniacs! soundtrack, on my mp3 player, because it's awesome. Nothing else about the movie is, but that version of that song? Priceless.) If you're stuck for anything else to do if you find yourself watching this, close your eyes and just listen to the music, because as with all Lewis' movies, there's nothing else to recommend it. (half)
982941
I had wanted to rent or buy this movie for some time, especially since Anthony Hopkins and Nicole Kidman were in it. I don't remember hearing too much about it when it came out originally and, after seeing it per chance on TV a few days ago, I know why. Despite of many glowing reviews here, this movie did not work for me on several levels.
1. Anthony Hopkins and Nicole Kidman were totally miscast in this film, Ms. Kidman more so. She was so unbelievable as the out and down cleaning woman. This part needed a true character actress, like a young Meryl Streep or Susan Sarandon.
2. The dialogue seemed wooden and contrived to me, as well as the sexual tension between the two.
3. The flashbacks made the movie feel choppy, even though I really liked the actor that played the younger Coleman very much.
I would recommend this movie as a rental only.
1163044
The good news was the cinematography, set designs and CG was excellent.  In terms of direction, production, script writing, fight choreography and costume design ... all terrible.  Ben Aflac is either too old for the choreography (too slow and it looked staged and lifeless) or they hired the wrong person to design the choreography.  They should fire the script writers ... totally out of touch with the American public.  Batman's judgment reeked signs of immaturity. Batman is a drunk and has been for awhile.  Batman's costume looked plain and ordinary.  Batman had a second costume for the Superman fight, but there was no development I can recall of why he went with a fatter version of the costume.  Batman looked really fat in this second costume ... reminded me of The Hulk.  Yiiikes!  It seems like DC wants to degrade the image of super heros, maybe to make it look more like Dead Pool?  So, kill a superhero and then have Batman (who was probably drunk at the time) say he made a mistake in judging superman????  Have Alfred say there won't be any wine left in the cellar for the next Wayne ... if there is another Wayne.  Batman is such a loser, he cannot even procreate!  Even though it seems like superman may come back to life, DC screwed up the script so much, I don't think I want to see a sequel, unless they get new leadership.  Hollywood is really disconnected from main stream USA and Hollywood is doubling and tripling down.  Seems like DC is intentionally committing suicide ... is that where they came up with the idea for Suicide Squad?  Yiiiiiikes!
763093
I'm not going to write some kind of professional analysis of this movie. All I can say is that after seeing the trailers, it was not anything like what I was expecting.  I think people who like movies about death and dying are looking for one of two things - either an inspired answer to their questions, or a thrill.  This gave neither.

I watched this just a couple of days after the Japan earthquake, so perhaps I was looking for something to answer that kind of devastation.  The special effects of the filming of this tsunami was good...perhaps the best part of the film.  But having subtitles while they spoke French was distracting and unnecessary since she spoke English during the rest of the movie. Between her, the child who loses his twin, and the psychic, there were three very interesting characters, but the storyline between the three just didn't make much sense.  Compared to Travolta's "City of Angels" or even "Michael", it didn't hold a candle. I'm not religious, so wasn't looking for that angle...I just wanted some new idea, new revelation about the afterlife, or at least a riveting story, and I'm afraid it didn't deliver any of them.

I know it's politically incorrect to say so, but I think Clint Eastwood was a better actor than he is a filmmaker.  I don't recommend it unless you just want to watch a movie to pass the time. I'm glad I didn't pay $8 at the theatre to see it.
1249466
*Spoilers*

I watched the film hoping to see a science fiction tale.  It turned out to be something else, so I'm disappointed.  It also is very slow, and I jumped forward alot by clicking on the 10 second fast forward button.  I don't like movies where alot of the action turns out to be in the character's head.  It's dishonest to viewers.

This movie is very overrated.  I research the movies I watch before I watch them, and this movie got good ratings.  I guess if you want to be politically correct, you could say it's a good movie.  But to me, NO.