2012 (2009)

What kind of seriousness can anyone expect from a disaster movie based, not just on a usual bogus prophecy, but a rumour involving a not at all existing prophecy? Nonexistent.
That’s the whole deal of a movie that was specifically created in relation to an upcoming date-event point, that because it is THAT pointless, nobody bothered to show any genuine attention to the overall decency of the undertaking. Repent, because the world will end in a biblically childish, corpse-less and bloodless global destruction, backed by a brain-offending scenario, overblown drama, overflowing shallow performances among which even Woody Harrelson’s looks like an artistic magalith, tons of quaky special effects with ambiguous quality and detail, extremely painful, slow and lengthy progression, factual error cataclysm and the most apocalyptically, ridiculously blown out of proportions nail-biting escapes I’ve ever seen! All these, all over, again and again, without mercy or a long longed world end to save us from this misery of the intellect. Emmerich staffed the entire possible extravaganzas in one last destruction film that unfortunately won’t self destruct in just a few seconds. Comparing to this, Independence Day is a masterpiece already and even The Day After Tomorrow seems SO much more appealing to me.

Trust me once on this one pals and don’t wait until 2012 to find out, about just how globally big bullshit this movie really is!

Highlander III: The Sorcerer (Highlander: The Final Dimension) (1993)

I had a very bad feeling, earlier, from Highlander 2: the Quickening but somehow Sean Connery managed to bring there something from the immortality of the original.
Not any more. Not any-fucking-more. The Quickening led into a quick-sand with no bottom. The downgrading experience offered from then on, from the Highlander franchise, is so tormenting, that it makes you feel that every movie last for centuries. Additionally, the inevitably B-figure of Lambert looks nothing like a hardened-millennia-surviving warrior and Peebles looks more than a high junkie than a low-character, cunning sorcerer. The not so sharp but inventive and well executed production of the original, turned gradually to that of a C(heap) movie triviality, with the literally original saga turned into a far-fetched ridicule of one encounter after the other, after the other, after the other till – desperately and seemingly – the End of Times. The otherwise “rare” breed of immortals seems virtually uncountable, spawning in every new instalment from everywhere with more than unbelievably cheap excuses – from the by all other means – excellent Highlander the Series, made things a lot worse, and the movie sequels came later to mark the tombstone of the franchise’s immortality. What a dreadful waste of… just everything! Don’t even dare bringing this sequel’s sequels in your mind guys – you might just end up B-headed.

Get Rich or Die Tryin' (2005)

The title marks a breakthrough in social ethics and that’s the only mark that this movie can leave in the viewer’s consciousness. Even the hard-core rap fans won’t be all that excited about the idealization of a full-of-meat dog that he can’t act for shit – hell! – He can’t even narrate his, supposedly, own life story in a straight and convincing way! All the qualified qualities of uncultivated, barbaric, moronic goons are hailed and present: crack, coke, dope, nope, respect, criminal justification, dark heroic bullshit and star-dusted epics from the gutter to the stage. Thankfully, directed better than hoped or deserved, this up-close-and-personal movie has to be in every dead from a shoot-out nigga’s showcase, so that the others may draw some cool inspiration out of it. I really don't think that this movie worth even 49 cent worth of laptop electrical power to download it.
Get ditch and die cryin’.

FeardotCom (2002)

I fear that that this movie doesn’t even worth a dot – even worse, a whole review.

A haunted web site (!!!) drives mad and kills its viewers with an effect that looks like an Alien Disease Haemophilic Stroke backed up by Dementia Episode, because a psycho doctor (how original!) tortured and killed a girl many years ago, and still keeps doing it to others on camera.

A cheap rip-off of the “Ring”, executed in a tornado of visual mess with pretended atmosphere, shallow and colourless performances by Blade’s vampiric arch enemy and a next door scientific lady that probably would have been better as a wife than as a leading actress, a script full of over-preposterous contradictions, chaotic gaps and ridiculous inconsistencies, absurd plot points and story-unfolding and really unauthentic scares using pacing, angles and tricks that the average horror movie fan has been sick and tired of them many years now. The film colours and the initial development are pretty promising, only to sell you out pretty quickly afterwards, with a totally unconvincing story stuffed with the worst things imaginable which – by the way – neither can make any sense in a link, nor can be explained as stand-alone plot features. The villain is a mad, weakling, hilarious piece of shit that nobody knows how he stayed out long enough to commit so many crimes online, and the ghost drama – well this ghost (too hot to be dead mrs. Cukrowski!)has so many issues and so forced and deliberately complicated ones (yeah, that’s the real drama of wannabe “intelligent” films) that it would have been easier for it (and more logical to the viewer) to self-banish itself killing its nemesis with a psychic fart, than creating all this fucked-up-broken storyline of events.

Fear this movie beforehand people, because this is a horror flick that may not pull a scream out of you, but will definitely nail a fat headache in your scull.

P.S. Is that a Harley Quinn poster from the Batman comics, or that of a transexual Joker??

Epic Movie (2007)

Epic - Fail! I rarely have the most unwanted chance to witness such a genre-generic disaster. This means a thriller that doesn’t thrill, a horror that doesn’t horrify and, speaking of the Devil (not in Prada but in a Carmen-electric-blue tight latex-epic boobies!), a comedy less than comical. Despicable and disgusting cliché humoristic approaches, way over the regular offensiveness of the “wannabe a parody” tradition, lines cheaper than a beggars’ shoe, gags for retarded fags and jokes worst than the last slime & puke displayed in this film. Hey, we‘re not talking about “well, things got a little overly…whatever” or “this is always a risk with punch-like humour”. We are talking about the total absence of the inspiration and momentum that makes a good satire, well, a good satire. We are talking about everything looking so effortlessly bad that even all the intentionality is self-destroyed in a nuclear mushroom of nonsense – nuisance. Damn me if this movie did even try to force me into just a one and only hearty, reflexive, sincere laugh. And if you think I think all of these because I am European – who knows? You might be so fucking hilariously right!
Dumpshit spoof – is really gross!
Dumpshit spoof – I hate the most!

Dragon Wars (D-War) (War of the Dragons) (2007)

Lets scorch quickly through this draconic carcass: Lord of the Rings orc-like armies (yeah, they wish!), Crouching Tiger-Hidden dragon flying martial art wannabe geniuses, over-the-top-of-my-patience behemoth artillery, non-function pulp fiction story, Sauron’s little brother starring as the main villain, non-important mysterious shape shifting helper, ancient amulets of idiotic power (something like the Double Dragon), traditionally unlucky old men for more drama, false romance, false acting, IQ (de)testing improbabilities, a great struggle between good an evil that could have ended in 5’ with a couple of shells, and most of all, not always convincing special effects for a movie that totally celebrates CGI. A rotten egg that wanted to hatch Godzilla (unlike), Lord of the Rings (like), Cloverfield (unlike), Jurassic Park (liked the first one) and all the last decade’s oriental genre (like/unlike) simultaneously, but, well, it is rotten with absolutely no chance in succeeding at whatever, (obviously something very bombastic and fantastic) the producers had in mind. Save for the surprisingly good direction, which proves that even failed epics do not have to be epic failures, D-Wars overestimated itself very seriously with pretty hilarious side effects. Steer clear of this glossy, draconian pulp.

Basic Instinct 2 (2006)

This movie belongs here marginally. But even so, here is where it belongs. Do you know what really, REALLY bugs me about this movie? The fact that it really could have had been an awesome MILF-Thriller.
First and foremost I can’t help but saying that this movie marks the most monumentally outrageous, non-chemistry couple of all times. Sharon Stone (Catherine Tramell – quite like the overconfident young diabolic bombshell from Hell, from Basic Instinct) and David Morrissey (Dr. Glass – cold, tasteless and transparent as his classy, glass office) are otherworldly remote from each other. The possible casting failure of Morrissey is just fairly considerable (no news from him since then. Bummer.) Like two actors, in two different movies, which are Basic Instinct and this flick that didn’t turn out so well – not even in the consuming US box office. The main stars don’t meet on screen, don’t meet artistically, don’t meet as figures, don’t really meet in attitude, don’t meet when they meet, don’t meet when they speak and worst of all – they don’t meet when they fuck. I mean I have heard and I knew that “Antithesis bears Attraction” but this seems like the destruction and disproval of all I had heard and known.
All the amazing material from the first BI, now can be considered a tearful case of disappearance investigated by the CSI. All the hands-on magic and suspense, all the talent and ideas of the BI1 set of contributors (Verhoeven, Goldsmith, Eszterhas) are absent, if not awkwardly overlooked. Someone has to teach all these – rather capable of course – Michael Caton-Jones directors, that a sequel owes to be something further and better, not just something suchlike or totally dislocated from the original, with the always easy excuse of the “director’s personal view and vision”
It is not easy to ignore Sharon Stone but it’s not hard to notice the fake, hyper-bitchy, over-sexiness that she pulls through all way long in this painfully slow and nerveless film. No murderous confidence, no authentic manipulations, not that cold iron will, not really interested in psy-machinations anymore and with no useful help from the writers. In some scenes she shines, but mostly she just acts moistly, like the plastic, pathetic, loveless middle aged used-up executive whore from Catwoman, ready to succumb to drugs, alcohol and smokes, just to forget her past, present and future. Why not? Because, the supposedly deep psychological backbone of the script, may be sometimes catchy, but not good enough to support Killer Stone, or anyone else.
The whole script is a mediocre mess of improbable and aimless spins and turns, ups and downs (after fourteen years, we didn’t even get to see any of the other, the most wanted “ups and downs”) without really grasping the viewers’ eye and needed anxiety of a dark and dirty mystery film. It is the usual made-up illusion of an open-ended and thoroughly full of branches and interpretations plot, where there is no such thing available.
Supporting turns by David Thewlis and Charlotte Rampling, waste these fine actors on talky exposition scenes and cliché-heavy posturing, without adding all that a great colour in this blunt, dull and cloudy atmosphere of the movie.
Don't watch this film for carnal thrills and spills - there are none noteworthy and what there is, well, it is pretty lame, unintentionally funny and all that clumsy.
If Stone Cold Vanity partially inspired Sharon Stone to remake her powerful, domineering image with this movie, you must be stone called crazy to believe that any face, shot, margin, shade, resource and aspect of this movie is not centred on her. Frankly, she doesn’t seem to appreciate it all that much and the result is that everything else in this movie suffers more or less.
Basically, follow your instinct and see where the movie will lead you, but don’t make the mistake expecting some cult-status wet, overshadowed, urban and long lost Verhoevenian paradise.

You Got Served (2004)

Back in the old days we had the martial art competition b-movies usually ending up in one on one showdown. Interesting, even if not original, after the first hundred times. The trend of crowdie dance competition movies that followed, put the 00s era one step closer to boredom and repetitiveness, and without the interesting mentors that marked the aforementioned genre.
Everyone has a small part in the crazy dance floor: Blob-made story of street glory, teen-tin-seem script writers with MTV life experience and lower than average sex life expectancy, ghetto with no innuendo, breaking-ma-nerves brake dancers, high school chicks one step from total bitching even if they try pretty hard not to show it, street wise-assness, sub-zero amateur performances, show off moves with heavy continuity and direction issues, romance from the can, good fellas gone bad, kingpins, macho niggas, milk-white pricks and all the gangsta clichés from da hood parading in the most mediocre, light, tasteless and odorless fashion. I mean, I usually get terribly bored in such movies, but actually the genre has showcases that demonstrate real dancing fever and dark back alley social colors like Dangerous Minds, Save the Last Dance 1 & 2 and much more. This is just way less than enough, even for the passionate fans of dance and dancers alike. Not even a colourful dance video clip and certainly a bad basket case of a movie, You Got Served gets the viewer served in every single line and scene.
“Who’s bad”?
Well, this one – but in a really bad way.

Anaconda (1997)

I admit that initially the trailer led me to pretty high action expectations, but fortunately I was saved by an unmistakable rule of a thumb, before going to feed the “snake” with eight euros: no matter what, when the main actors of a movie are not actors at all, you know you are heading to a dead end in the jungle. Here is a slithering example of casting disaster. Along with the usual bait is Jennifer Lopez, who is just the cute face of the vogue that goes well with any dish – something like a Coke with a great ass – and as for Ice Cube, I think that sugar cubes have a sweeter impact and act a lot better. Owen Wilson doesn’t act that silly yet – so he is irrelevant, Eric Stoltz is asleep in the whole movie – well so much of this lucky bastard – and Jon Voight is the prick that everybody suspected he would be – maybe the only non-void and interesting figure along with the Danny Trejo appearance.If you think that you will witness breathtaking action and eye-popping special effects, you have just been snake-charmed by something long and gruesome that isn’t even close to a snake. An anaconda couldn’t and wouldn’t ever push its luck that far, stalk certain targets with such determination or storm in a bolt-action chase. Actually its top-speed crawl is slower than any healthy man’s pacing. Plain and simple – what we have here is just an unusually – even for Hollywood – blown out of proportions movie demonization of an animal, that contrary to the first Jaws – for example – it is all the way the opposite to ANY cinematic achievement. The three (one movie-two tv) sequels that emerged right out of the Big Bad B Bog are just hilariously despicable.Please, don’t let boredom constrict you.

Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen (2009)

After the first Transformers movie – although feeling CGI filled and fulfilled – I practiced the apparel act of wisdom and roguery to download a really good copy of this one. Riskless beat careless big time, this time!

I was already aware of director Michael Bay's tendency of making mindless popcorn props with huge explosions, scantily-clad women, and awful cheesy dialogue. What’s so bad after all in cashing in a rather great action resume including Pearl Harbor, Armageddon and most of all the Rock? But experience has taught us that when we lay back for “what’s so bad after all", here comes the worse to end all in a digital hurricane of the most ridiculous campy, poorly-written and poorly-directed piece of crap to come out this year. Where the special effects mark a cinematic achievement and blow your senses sky high, every other single aspect and little detail of this movie is a handful of shame slapping you scene after scene.The writing is so unbelievable and unbelievably stupid; you almost have to see it to believe it. A one-day human endeavour no more than four months old – it mentions Obama and the swine flu (!!!) – hastily keeping the production’s pacing. We are not talking about comic, unrealistic or just badly written and executed. We are talking about immense falsehood to the extreme unluckiness of the offended. It's truly amazing that near the “climax” the film manages to shove aside the one interesting dilemma in favour of more stupid exposition: The evil robot demands that the humans turn over Shia Labeouf, and the world responds by trying to catch Shia. Nobody has any luck until the oompah-loompah in Egypt stops his car and some detective, sitting for absolutely no reason in the corner of a shady room under an old fan, notices him. Right from the very beginning, improbabilities swarming the viewer’s brain, risen right from the murkiest tomb of stupidity and irrelevance. Reading this review so far, you‘ve just spent a lot more time considering the plot problems than anyone in the movie. For some reason the time-filler soldiers and Shia Labeouf himself never even consider the possibility of following the robot's decree, and for some reason the rest of the world and the time-filler slimy guy instantly go along with it.The bottom-of-the-barrel clichés and outrageous stereotypes grind you in every line like a milestone. Reading over the screenplay, you would think it was some terrible Transformers fan faction written by a retarded, choke-full of puberty issues goblinoid from Arkanso hills. The dialogue is drop-dead HORRIBLE. This would be a great movie if it was targeted to ten year olds at best, but the overt sexual references and language suggest an older demographic. Maybe it's because Bay is trying to please a wide range of people, and maybe that's why we have jokes made about Transformer Testicles (!!!) and there's a scene where a miniature transformer (with a Jersey accent much less) tries to hump Megan Fox's leg. The cheap laughs seem like an extraordinary nightmare that has no end, becoming cheaper and cheaper as the movie rolls, terminating to absolute mental zero. I honestly would not have been surprised to see a transformer fart in this film, or maybe a scene where a transformer gets high or fucking a space apple pie. Extreme hilariousness acts properly as self-defeating purpose. But don't worry, because there are plenty of scenes – like – of Sam's mother accidentally getting high at college and proceeding to follow the overacting formula of physical humour. Then there are Skids and Mudflap - two Decepticons who can't read, speak in "jive," act like gangster-wannabes, and fight a lot. One of them even has a gold tooth (I am not stoned guys, neither I’m making this up!). And this is the “idea” of the whole film as a crime record against intelligence and originality, already popping up in the prequel: an alien self deployed robo-race that actually doesn’t have any alien or mechanic disposition at all. They all imitate the worse, most blatant and kitsch stereotypes of the multicultural humanity, through the eyes of the below average billybob teenager. The robot characters just suck. They're boring and talk in clichéd voices that pretty much tell you everything you need to know about them (the snivelling, weak bad guy; the menacing bad guy; the solemn good guy; the comic relief twins, etc). Their faces look awful, and they're all completely devoid of personalities and thus impossible to empathize; cheer for or against. They're just CGI blobs, feeling more like fucked up caricatures of humans and animals, than metal at all. Pathetic excuses of sci-fi, assaulting pathetic viewers, who desperately long for a juicy Megan Fox ass burger – a wishful thought that never really comes to pass satisfyingly in this sequel. Every time she's on camera she looks like a makeup crew just touched her up. She has no interesting dialog, no quirks or traits worth mentioning, and does nothing but pose. She may be stunningly gorgeous but interestingly this film leaves you too stunned by stupidity to care enough. Well boys, I’ll be the first to embrace Jennifer’s Body, but regarding Transformers 2, the last sucker may close the door firmly behind him.This disaster is also insanely long, at a running time of 2.5 hours. This probably could have been avoided if there wasn't so much slow motion footage of people running, and running, and running and leaping yet to ground and continue the race against all reasonable action odds. The problem isn't with the quality of the visual effects, strictly-speaking. The gigantic robots and elaborate explosions are all convincing, but the camera never pauses long enough to give us a good chance to take a look or reflect on the characters. The entirety of this movie consists of boring humans we don't care about running from explosions caused by boring robots we don't care about. I could politely state that the visual effects overwhelm the story, but to say so would imply that the film has an existing story to begin with. Yes, I know that the evil robots want to blow up the sun yadda yadda yadda but it's inarguably a paper-thin premise. I would say that the visual effects overwhelm the characters, but then I run into the same problem. The actors themselves act happily hopeless in such a thunderous mess. Clowns with a 200.000.000 dollar crown. Yes, Shia Labeouf does his best, but he's given nothing to do aside from running around and fulfilling the action hero role in the most shamelessly generic romance in recent memory. The human soldiers receive so little to do that I wonder what they're even doing in the movie at all. Their weapons and efforts are hilariously useless, and the movie has to go to the trouble of inserting the aforementioned slimy guy just to give the commander an antagonist to humiliate. The action scenes, while sharpened by Bay’s trademark ever-moving eye, are lost into the sand and scrap chaos. Someone though that “confusing” means “complex” and “diffused” means “detailed”. The robot mumbo-jumbo-commercial-gorillas are so “un-metallic” dexterous and over-articulated that you can't tell what is happening since it's so fast and blurry, you can't figure out for sure.

This year’s Transformers are not “more than it meets the eye”. They bit some eye candy but in the long run are less than the last robo-freak’s childish micro-minimum demands. A flash bang, degrading cinematic experience that utterly transforms you into something bitter.

Double Dragon (1994)

“Unholy Ug-Lee-ness”
My first acquaintance with the Double Dragon feature film was during my vacation, in an open summer theatre, in 1994. I remember that when I walked out of that theatre, it took me some time to come to my senses, to think what I had just had seen, and then I reconsidered throughly all my ill fated experiences in cinema up to that point. Then in a realization of utter disappointment but also amazement, I told to myself, “Damn. This is the worst movie I’ve ever seen!”
Back then I was only thirteen, and since then I have witnessed many horrors on the silver screen. Now, I would have had a pretty endless and pointless struggle answering to myself about just which is the worst movie I’ve ever seen, and if Double Dragon hasn’t moved one bit down the fail-scale all over these years. After trying to watch it one more agonizing time, I came into conclusion that Double Dragon isn’t the worst film I’ve ever seen, but it is surely the most stupid film and certainly the most horrid and unworthy video game adaption.
Double Dragon was a great, addictive, cult status video game that shaped the fighting video games genre and personally cost me a lot of time and coin to walk right through its end, hitting buttons like hell. It was the first video game I came to see its credits by my own right, and – damn – it felt good for a kid! So, I’m double biased. But that doesn’t change anything. Although video game based movies have a totally deserving infamous rumor encircling them, this movie sets a total new abysmal record. Super Mario preceding this movie was a moronic gross, but still more decent that this one. And what can I say about Bam Bam Van Dam’s Street Fighter and Lambert’s Mortal Combat? The first had smoking hot Kyle and cheesy Julia and the second had at least pretty good fight choreographies and soundtrack. Both landmarks of silliness, sloppiness, kitsch and dreadful execution – both look like masterpieces to Double Dragon.
Nothing can prepare the viewer for the purely emetic experience that the film proper represents. The only faithful features of the video game adaption are the title, some names and some… villain innuendoes. The first problem lies in the screen writing. What made the video games so compelling was that they made as little effort as possible to differentiate its setting from the reality of the player. The story, such as it was, was secondary to people beating each other senseless. In the feature film, the writers attempt in the most ridiculous fashion to give the story of Double Dragon a background, a motivation, or a reality. All these are getting drowned right from the first scenes in totally punk-pulp shallowness and silliness. They manage to get all three in the trash can, as everything in this film comes out the same way: incredibly ugly (or “ug-lee” as stated one of the worst, recurring lines of the film) and inconceivably stupid. Making matters worse is some incredibly awful costume design. I do not know who designed Alyssa Milano's attire for this flick, but I am just betting they spent much of the time when they first saw what they had made laughing their ass off at poor Alyssa. How can anyone go further than Charmed after such an appearance? Whoever designed the makeup effects for the Abobo character should have been arrested for crimes against the 7th Art. I do not know exactly what they were trying to achieve with all the lumpage on his body, but whatever that was, they failed. Perhaps his “best” scene is when Milano is force-feeding him spinach in a torturing (mostly for the viewer) full of farts and burps scene. By the way, heed this warning: don’t even dare to think that the words “satire” or “purposely” can have anything to do with this movie – it is blown way out of proportion, hope and expectation.
The direction is just a cinematic abortion of the worst kind. Loose-ended fighting scenes make everyone look like fighting potato sacks, shots erupt in a chaotic walkthrough, and total chaos embedded in puke jokes and petty dialogue make you feel pity even for the wires and cameras that got involved in this thing.Casting was an even more disastrous element that totally destroyed fans’ brains and actors’ career. Alyssa Milano is a teen-street-clown, Kristina Wagner is a boring 80s blonde chick right out from a rock video clip, Scott Wolf is a perky-karate-kid-Tom-Cruise who never cried wolf again after this film, Marc Dacascos doesn’t even bother do all those great choreo that usually does in every film besides trying to act, and Robert Patrick is just an unlucky lame. What a fucking shame of uneasiness we‘ve got here. Dacascos just after the Crow and Patrick after Terminator 2 could have easily fired up their way to permanent stardom and success, at a point that both their careers still had a chance. But what seemed an obvious choice after the Crow and T2 to them and their agents? Double Dragon. Double the idiocy, misfortune and ill-fast-decision and you‘ve got two sparkly cine-figures, ridiculously self-destroyed in the same movie to blame. Even Julia Nickson-Soul that miraculously managed to pull her part through decently… do you even remember her?? Bad & Sad. Anyway, the word “terrible” can not instil or describe the double terror of the natural retard-ness of a wanna be unintentional comedy and a freaking fucked-up flick. You must be wicked hardcore if you can seriously sit through this. I was back in those days, but not anymore.

Alone in the Dark (2005)

I am really glad that I threw another one and a half hour of my life in the shit-hole, because without this movie I truly would have forgotten of how great naturally untalented examples like Christian Slater, give contradictious meaning to the whole Hollywood display.
I haven’t played the video game, but I really hope that this movie is very loosely based on it. If I had, maybe I would have sacrificed more of my time in this article risking permanent brain damage – a terrible loss indeed! Probable license defilement present though – as usual for VG adaptations.
Every thriller and mystery movie cliché is stuffed and stiffed here in the most inexperienced, discontinued, retarded fashion: childhood trauma, a mad scientist, a HOT scientific chick with an attitude (Tara Reid, please keep on sucking, but NOT in such a movie!), life–beaten hero with amnesia, tricks & tracks & artifacts, military heat, old & new gizmos and weapons of peculiar uses, ancient evils that lurk in the dark (when they show their face you know they should have been kept in the dark), CGI enough to suck, sudden moves, black-op macho-bullshit, unearthed arcana, hosts, psy-zombies and possessors all in one flick, pyramid origins (anything from Mumm-Ra and Gi-Joe to Transformers seem to have spawned from an Egyptian or South American lost civilization these days, just for the supposed coolness of it) paranormal poo, superstitions backed up by one-liner nonsense, quirky action, cheap sentimentalisms and video game cut scenes dressed in video clipping soundtrack.
Nice title though – but not even slightly close to make a cult legend out of this one.
The plot doesn’t have any holes or gaps at all. It has gorges Grand Canyon style. Improbable set-ups, explanations from the outer space, captive monsters which you don’t even know how they come to be in captivity, a love scene out of the blue and out of order, open ended chaos and total mess in every aspect.
The direction is on top of the worst, looking like a remarkably awful patchwork of B-series episodes, and when I say B, I REALLY mean BAD!
Of course the performances are to be forgotten even before you notice them, if you even get to notice them among the zero chemistry between the protagonists and the provocative shallowness of the characters in general.
Better alone in the dark than in the company of the non-talented-lot. Call me a sick person, but after this one, I deeply missed Silent Hill, Blade Trinity and even Resident Evil 2.

Terminator Salvation (2009)

I won’t even start with the – whow about a hundred word script?? Better movies had less. I don’t even attempt to tread in this endless minefield full of plot holes and troublesome inconsistencies. The Terminator timeline already laid in a shattered loop of dismay since T3, and SCC only made things worse – all things considered, a pretty satisfying series besides this.
But here, the timeline of mishap becomes a highway to hell because the only thing that feels like Terminator in this movie is the title and the very short – but by the time it takes place, rather NEEDED BABY – CG Arnie cameo.
Although video-clipper McG does his best to make a difference here, his best is hardly enough, enough only to succumb to the also video-clipping plot. In the first two Terminators the suspense was nerve wrecking and the feeling of everything running right to a dead end was eminent. Here, this spirit is not even a suspicion. “Quick” and “easy” dough. Everything run so darn fast and easily in this movie, not in an action packed sense, but in a sense that someone – maybe McG himself or the producers or even both – tries to get it over with. “If they want this Kyle Reese, he has to be my father”. Easy. Infiltrating Skynet’s HQ? Easy. Nukes laying around for a quickie blast? Easy. Fast & easy pacing through post apocalyptic hell on earth, quick & easily proved correct assumptions that will put the story going. A story better dragged by its own hair that is. The whole easiness makes you more and more uneasy as the film progresses, leading to maybe one of the most scrawled and blown out of proportion endings in film history.
McG still tried pretty hard to prove something, proving only that he just hasn’t got neither the grip nor the experience on certain techniques and executions. He seems like experimenting in many paths, but not yet deciding which one to take, leaving the movie with bits and bytes of angles, takes and effects that do not hold on each other and certainly do not help the already loose and lost story. We witness an inner struggle between the clipper and the director he wants to become, or maybe again just the usual struggle between direction and production. Either way, DD (Director’s Dichognomy) plagues the film. Sometimes the lengthy extra full-close ups remind the viewer that a clipper is always a clipper. Other times the film zooms out to a more world-cinematic experience, but without really a good point. Sometimes the landscapes feel like taken out of some epically correct Fallout 3 artwork. Other times, they feel fake and overly stylized. Sometimes the action, the fights and the intense moments feel gritty & grind to the point that you think Pvt. Ryan will pop up and save Connor and the day. Other times the action is choppy, loose ended to the point of unfulfilled and well, all the figments, ideas and set-ups are rather silly and showing off all around without the appropriate artistic or plot incentive back up.
But even if all these were just me, there is a certain “detail” that squeezes every good intention back to the wall: PG-13. McG vs. PG, score 0 - 13. Well, PG-13 is becoming a cancerous factor for the whole movie industry by ruining realism and action integrity in countless movies, but especially for an instance such as this, it’ s like 13 nails in the casket.
Counter to my long last last expectations, not even the effects succeed totally. CGI was all over the place in WHOWs, Ka - BOOMs and too many uber – unreal CG stunts performed by humans, android and machines alike – Connor himself throws a whole volley of napalm just to kill Marcus, and, naturally, he misses. The hovering robo-ship presence is too much as well in the movie, and not very convincing either, and there are certain, and far from few, scenes where the special effects weaknesses are more than obvious. And after all this quick processed larger than life mediocrity, at the end titles the movie is dedicated to Stan Winston. I’d rather it didn’t. Really.
As the viewer is caught between momentous amazement and continuous puzzlement, so are the characters. A, by all means, not any more story driven action movie, gets jammed with what it seems to be too many main characters and none of them properly distinguished or just interesting, leading to, well, more “quick” and “easy” decisions trying to "un-jam" the whole undertaking. Is it a “duet” movie? Does “Wright & Connor” means “Denim & Leader” or something?? Everyone again seem to try their best, once more at no satisfying end.
Christian bale pulls through a pretty steadfast, resilient and appropriately doubtful John – lieutenant-to-be-leader - Connor, for the purposes of this movie, although his cocky/frisky/butchy/barky Batman accent is becoming a running joke in his performances. By the way, if you watch Christian Bale’s interview for the behind the scenes TS Making Of, you will certainly get the tip that he was at long last aware that he made a mistake signing in a pretty doomed boat. Sad to watch that one.
Cameron’s future mega star, Sam Worthington, seems worthy of his recommendations. But, for hard evidence on this, better look in to a past or future film. By all means, Worthington is absolutely right for the part. It is Marcus Wright that is wrong. A wrong, misplaced and “quick” and “easy” unfolded character that, hell, everyone knew what his “great mystery” was all about in the first place! Hunk and funk guy that both my girlfriend and my boyfriend would want to do him, wearing Mad Max trench coats and boots, lacking the Max attitude because, well, he is a shy, good and determined boy and because, oh well, he can’t be Mad Max because he is kinda Rick Deckard from the Blade Runner too. What the fuck does all these say about just how fucked up this character is?? I really don’t think that even the most “prog” of the fan base will miss this guy.
Helena Bonham Carter acts her goth/psycho self as a Cyberdyne exec and later Skynet avatar, where I certainly wanted a more cold, less talk and more calculative and domineering approach. Shit, I think I even missed the old-fart "godputer" from Matrix 3!
Bryce Dallas Howard is a good actress on her own right and a more worthy “woman behind the great man” than princess Claire Danes in T3, even if there, John Connor was far from a “great man” in every way. Howard gives the right emotional touch to now-made-man-Connor, and that’s pretty much all of it concerning her or the uh – supporting cast in general.
For the rest of the cast, is full of the usual typecast, unnecessary necessities. Everyone was there:
Michael Ironside usual overall cult tough-assness is a little bit put aside, laid back to a point of disappointment. Not tough enough, not smart mouthed, no Command & Conquer militarism, not the Richter that we all love to see in the parties.
The Common – a common black rapper/hopper that, as I stated in the past, every film got to have one just for anti-racism correctness – but otherwise “fuck him if he ain’t no hoppa ‘cause da fool hommies won’t swarm in to da theata”.
Moon Bloodgood is a not that bloody good actress or even model, but certainly a bit above the average hottie that one encounters in Maxim pages during his morning masturbation workouts. Too hot to be needless, in an otherwise needless part.
The cute little Goonie girl that, again, every movie got to have one to Stand by Me and the protagonist, playing aaalways a keeey role at the end of our tale, dad. Swarm you too kiddies! Well, I was born in the 80s too guys, but fuck me if I hadn’t enough of this crap already!
Anton Yeltchin is the only kind of “supportive” support actor. Seems he did his homework on the previous Kyle Reeses and the outcome…well the outcome just deserved a little more screen time – as a Skynet’s “public enemy number one” ought to have. After all, this wasn’t a John Connor centred Terminator movie, and just sadly enough, not a terminator centred Terminator movie.
But, why’s that… Was this really a Terminator film after all or just a film with terminators present from now and then??
When Cameron ruled the world, the terminator endoskeleton looked like a metallic, meta-human evolution infused with the humanity’s own demonic appetite for destruction, furious never ending expansion and domination. A nightmarish self-image of a scientifically gorged human being, losing control and getting controlled in fingers snapped Armageddon. The genius in Cameron’s vision was not machines destroying humans – every last sci-fucko has done that before and many more will keep on doing it – but actually humanity destroying itself through its own end-game, iron-godly image. Cameron didn’t lack the technology back then to pack his movies with all kinds of popular-to-be, flying, walking, and swimming bullshit-bots. After a decade of Star Wars, Star Treks and all kinds of shooting stars and the b-punk-culture that emerged afterwards, the “quick” and “easy” blockbuster step would have been doing another fucking creature & robo gallery movie. But he didn’t. Because this wasn’t the point. T3 made a hell of a bad start. And now T4 spoiled it all entirely. Semi-transformers, MDK like behemoths, bots, dots, flagships, flying saucers, “reptilecans”, and other fan deceptive Decepticons parade throughout the whole movie, performing all kinds of anti-physics tricks, most of the time in just better than average CGI.
And what about the today’s salvaged terminators? (Not even a decent joke that is!) Where the terminator was the out most mocking and threatening icon of humanity, the new “production line” lost all the menacing, destructive, emblematic and even metaphysical qualities – for they literally had a meta-physics status considering them over the top of common human technology and invention. Here, there are some early modelled T-600 pieces of junk, that keep on engaging in hand-to-hand combat with humans, a strategy in which iron and steel proves surprisingly incapable over flesh and bone. Sometimes ammo sweats to penetrate, sometimes the same ammo turns them into cheese, either way you can hardly be convinced that this tin-heads can enforce total human annihilation in a global scale even after a nuclear holocaust. Shooting targets. Scrap for rap and take away. But that’s really ok in showing Skynet’s own evolution and pointing out the difference later with I-don’t-stop-no-matter-shit, T-800 model. And to be the most devilish of the devil’s advocates, I owe to point out too that showing how Skynet got more and more knowledgeable on human nature, evolving its agents from petty zombie-like human imposters to Marcus’ perfection, was the one and only great idea of the film, pretty well executed.
But, even that is not the case I’m grumbling about. It is the hard boiled metallic backbone of the core concept, gone soft, weak, melted down all the way to dump and dumper resolutions. The mocking, cold, threatening but all so familiar metallic scull, had given a clear message: Humanity has all the capability to totally fuck up, and if it does, it’s done. In a total of less than five minutes of flash forwards in the post apocalyptic future, Cameron gives in T1 & 2 a sense of bleakness, dread, despair and hopeless annihilation that McFuck totally fucked up to do so in a 115-minute film. When you first see the shiny metal crushing the bleached, equally mindless human scull, then you know it: there is no turning back. Even Sarah Connor's last gaze into the stormy horizon does not give promises or raise expectations. No second chances. No prophecies to be fulfilled do fulfil and amend things. No deus ex machina. No priests to once more wipe clean your sorry, all sinful and yet again sinful ass. No fucking JCs (John Connors or Jesus Christs) to hug you firmly in your last downfall to moral darkness and mental forfeit. Every decision is a turning point that cannot be undone. That’s a hell of a difference and not a movie that any fucking kid will go see and sleep comfortably in its bed right after. The last light and pop corn instalment goes on exactly the opposite direction. No matter how hard you fuck up there is always hope and, by the way, it metaphors in the following, movie concluding, and bombastic reasoning: Connor is iron-staked right through his heart and not only survives the wound and the transfer to the HQ – oh because the transfer chopper was totally unaffected by EMP triggered by the last, totally easy, nuclear ka-boom – but taking his time, the next day Marcus gives his own heart in a tearful self-sacrifice, through a totally easy, cool and fantastic heart surgery, in ideal post apocalyptic facilities and conditions, that, of course, we don’t even get to see just how a heart is swapped like a video game cartridge. Eat your heart Magdi Yacoub! Then, when at last the good ol auntie Hope is restored, the messiah rides on his chopper in the coal-red sunset, mumbling last minute epic gibberish.
Was THIS what you’ve been waiting for six – or should I say eighteen – years?? Now think again – when you lowered your expectations with a little help from T3, was still THIS movie up to your minimum expectations??? Maybe some all-bright, hot-shot movie execs thought that if I just heard “You could be Mine” and cult past lines, and saw some old Sarah photos and a little phony Arnie, that would sent me off to shit my pants in joy and gratitude. Well, these guys and their briiilliant movies are the reason that the word “fanboys” tends to become synonymous to “retarded”
Well then, see you each other guys in the next sequel in a theatre near you, because I’ll probably download that one illegally once more.

P.S. Is there a certain feeling in watching post apocalyptic themed movies in good quality cam, or is it just me?

Angels & Demons (2009)

Science and Religion. Light and Darkness. Truth and Lies. Matter and Antimatter. All destined to cataclysmically neutralize each other in a single touch, with any small or epic scale, “evil” or “good” plan to compromise these values, destined to fail in the long run. Those were the simple, core concepts of the Angels & Demons novel by Dan Brown. Or shall I rather NOT elegantly put it – Matter of Fact and Matter of Fucked. Oh well, by the time Camerlengo Patrick McKenna proclaims, like a fairy queen on a white unicorn among the holy, devil-clad male hags “Open the doors, and tell the world the truth” you know that something is terribly wrong, preposterous and sometimes outright ridiculous about this movie.
The official Christianity all over the world that lunched a counter campaign against The Da Vinci Code some years ago, now can as well lunch a promotional campaign for this movie which is not just out of the novel’s text, but totally out of context. A backed up by research statement that puts churchyard imagery, tailored ethics and primeval beliefs right to the stake, seems to be reduced to a mumbo-jumbo dynamic dialogue taken from a light or even trash tv show, starring loud-mouthed “religiosos” and I-only-care-for-my-show-off, coward, venal and fallen scientists. Everyone will walk happy from this movie, so safe of the punditry of their beliefs, so sure that two millennia of contradiction and collision between reason and unreasonable, progress and legalized doctrine violence, is just a misunderstanding that can be mended with peace, love, “laughiness”, understanding and unconditional pot. A novel that advocates and advances common sense through an entertaining, masterwork thriller, turns into just an entertaining thriller dressed up in common sense the way a wolf fits in sheep’s clothes. Apart from the obvious light-hearted and heavy-pocketed producers, the architect of this “diplomatic achievement” is ones more the infamous from Batman and Robin Akiva Goldsman, bane of all franchises and originality as a virtue. Koepp, the co-writer, had his time with Spider Man and Jurassic park, but here they both act like mercenary nuns, who tread lightly between the “religiosos’” softness and umbrageousness and everyone else’s nerves. Needless to say that if Goldsman haven’t had so unexpectedly pointed out the best of the Da Vinci Code in the prequel, he would have added a new fan base in his mortal enemy collection – the Dan Brown fans. The not so willing caretaker of this “diplomatic achievement” is the main protagonist itself. I think that the possible miscast Tom Hanks looks more like Robert Langdon in this movie than the previous one, though he neither speaks nor acts in a Professor’s magnitude. But it is actually the screenplay again that, especially regarding his part, turns everything upside – down to, should I say, sacrilegious proportions. Movie Langdon is so deliberately naïve for a Harvard professor that you couldn’t pass the criticism even if you wanted to. When Langdon argues his worst in front of priests bragging on years ago downfallen clichés, it is really a shame for the novel reader to watch. For example, when the Camerlengo says something like “Science is too young to understand religion*” Langdon immediately self-destructs in jerkiness and political correctness. Well guys, in a more than 6.000.000 years humanoid span, high intelligence is also “very young” to understand religion (even if it understands it and promotes it veeeery well if need be), but it is still the best thing we’ve got, the thing that parts us and protect us from beasts and elements, the thing that can even expose our own fears and religious follies. Ok, Langdon occasionally gives historical facts and figures that will shake people from now and then, but generally he acts like a freshman, unsure of his knowledge and abilities. His overpowered by priesthood’s punch lines figure, goes well along with the lack of scientific backup the movie suffers, back up that every Dan Brown hands-on is full and proud of. By seemingly not being aware of the critical close to conclusion Universal Model of Existence, the Origins of Species and so much solid evidence of the chanceful structure and mechanics of evolution – in which a god factor doesn’t fit not even in the bottom line references – Langdon becomes both the bread and the butter of dogmatic mumble. In the novel, Langdon is an academic icon, a well made archetype of how a successful researcher owes to be. A self-confident man, who knows the nature of things and puts them to good use, even near the end at HIS long-shot escape from the helicopter. In the movie he is a less than meets the eye wuss, ready to succumb to punny inner faith struggles and crumble like an old lady, the first time a wise looking smooth talker hits him with a slick verbal sophistication.
Ayelet Zurer plays the totally diminished and unrecognized character of novel’s Vittoria Vetra by doing nothing important in the whole movie apart from showing off her charming Italian accent and elegant figure. Even the romance with Langdon was totally out off the picture so… so much for the appearance anyway! Easy task. Easily executed. Easy to watch.
I’ve never liked Ewan McGregor, and this movie makes no difference. Not as a bon viveur. Not as a Jedi. Not at all. He is typically less than the circumstances call for, so held back, always in such an unwanted control. Well in this movie he got more control than his naturally asks for. Akiva Goldsman, who still tries to make peace with the movie gods, now once again takes the downward slope putting everyone on a pretty short lease – except maybe from the numerous police/security b-characters that were surprisingly well highlighted in the movie – I give you that Aki! The fact that the screenplay was caught between the Writers Strike last year is a good excuse, but good excuses generally spawn bad themes and characters. Pope’s aide in the novel is a methodical, power hungry, criminally malevolent MAN WITH A PLAN. Not an under acted 40 year old virgin, who tries desperately to balance and convince as a conspirator, murderer, schemer and master hypocrite, lost between all predictable religious politeness, village spiritualism and personal gain.
In this movie “Something is rotten in the state of Denmark” and this is certainly not the Danish actor Nikolaj Lie Kaas. The blind pawn, fooled and doped with Vatican mischievousness, fanatic Islamite Hashshashin, through typical for the movie politically correct process, became a colourless and ideologically harmless every day assassin that suited the movie just fine. But this time the actor really plays his part – even a small one like this. He is cold, cool, pretty threatening on the screen and even dominating sometimes, a steadfast stand-out figure among the rather un-cool, hot-shots. I don’t think that it would be an exaggeration to say that he single handedly delivers the best action packs in the movie without acting boastful or unrealistic.
And when almost all else fail (except from the assassin and the great soundtrack) Ron Howard comes to save the day. At least, until you think about the movie twice. He is Goldsman’s accomplice – no doubt about that – but he is illustrious, has a golden eye for action and his pacing – although the movie sometimes feels pretty long – pays the only authentic tribute to the novel. Without doing very much of anything else than acting sensibly, he does the trick and earns his money. The whole movie becomes grandeur of Rome sightseeing, clever commerce, especially rregarding Lancia, is everywhere and the thrilling moments are always catchy and well-shot but without an overall satisfying climax. Flat-out against the clock action, that does not share the prequel’s long philosophical pauses for discussion and controversy, but then critical content of the novel and plot points are missing here to allow a different treatment. Howard lets all characters breathe at the best of the movie’s abilities – so sad that they aren’t allowed by the screenplay to say all that “was initially on their mind”.
All things considered, the Da Vinci Code was a calculated punch in the stomach as a novel and an uppercut for the masses as a movie. The movie Angels & Demons is, at times, just a politically correct puke from the stomach. It looks good and exhilarating, it promises dramatic detoxification, but in the end it just smells bad, leaving a bitter taste in your mouth. A masterpiece that never chewed its words and intentions turns into a mass entertainment image, that pampers religious people for all that is worth. Even if this movie doesn’t belong to this blog – and this is probably true – it doesn’t belong where it should and that’s a great loss and even greater annoyance.
For a few dollars more and a few law suits less, an opportunity to adapt a “people changer” novel into an equally powerful movie, is forever lost.


P.P.S. Actually science is much older than religion. When the hominidae ancestor before the human-chimpanzee genome split, took a stone for the first time and use it to brake-open fruit, he applied – without realizing – the scientific rule and reasoning: she saw and visualized the stone against the fruit (observation), she tried the stone against the fruit (experiment), when successful she put it again in use (retrial) and after succeeding multiple times she adopted this way (method) of braking-open fruits. This was long before standing on her hinder legs, using a stick or having even the most basic inquiry about things such as the origin of the sun, the moon and the rest of the natural world, including her. We can flash back on this principle by looking at today’s chimpanzees. They learn to use crude tools and can teach their use to each other, but they are far from any abstract conception of the divine. On the contrary to the popular, media infested, belief that science is an ultra highly perplexed obscurity, remotely far from the human average, the truth is that the scientific…Holy Triad (observation, experiment and retrial) in its core concept, is accessible and useable even by animals. Cause & consequence, evident reality and practicality are simple and reachable. Complex delusions are those requiring complex brains.

Batman & Robin (1997)

Holy Crap Batman! This is your typical "absolutely cannot fail" franchise (Alien, Terminator etc) film gettingass-raped by studio execs making crucial content decisions, when they have no talent, gut or sufficient background to do so. The Cape Crusader got crucified head and thumbs down, in the wake of a crusade for dollars, not even half as successful as each one of the previous attempts. If you wanna know how this miraculous anti-miracle happened and caught everyone off guard, read more and swear, or forever be silenced.
The Batman series started as a reinvention by Tim Burton. He took his dark mood and adapted it to a tortured comic book hero. The results were breathtaking. Batman was a fleshy, noir, psy, multilayered, new age medieval, over the top acting and setting movie, that if you didn’t want to follow it deep, it was also a fun flick to watch. Batman Returns was too dark too soon, (because a little later “dark” became a must, synonymous to movie realism), and so a motion was put forth to lighten up the next film, Tim Burton walked away for better (for him) or for worse (for the fans). Anyhow, in both cases we are talking about a mountainous achievement throughout all movie aspects, a cornerstone in not only how a comic reproduction should be made, but how an action movie should be treated in general.
Enter Joel Schumacher.
Exit reason.
Now, not that Joel Schumacher is an evil director, but he is kinda. His idea to turn Batman into a big-starred parody somehow managed to go by with little scrutiny in Batman Forever. Bad pop-ups out of nowhere. Ok, the Riddler played by the Mask was not a bad idea at all. The Saint was not a sinful of acting either – but that’s not entirely true. The shots and overall pacing were not Burton, but they were certainly up to the task. The soundtrack was a collection of dark jewels shining a disturbing light. But Two Face was an impalpable disgrace and the fun park sets and the dialogue right from the shit-dump of idiocy, oh they were right there from the beginning. TOO much unwanted facts and figures everywhere, bad add-ons and contradictions all over.
So, from early on, the hellish gayness (did I just say GAY?) seemed to unfold slowly, not so discretely, and painfully in a way nobody was used to up to that time. But still ok. Probably all, because there was so much hype and chat around Burton’s veil of dark genius. Not much of an excuse, that is.
And then Batman and Robin aka Shit & Shack aka Nipple & Dickle. Flat & Furious that is, just like that neon toy bat mobile, that neon toy bat pods and the comically unnatural and over proportioned action scenes taken right from a Friday-night stunt men show for urban freaks. Gay (oh, did I say GAY again??) vs. bad day, throttle vs. ice skating, action vs. common sense, acting vs. dignity, production vs. taste and EVERYTHING vs. the stunned, shocked, disgusted, freaked out fan and even worse, the unaware movie bystander. In this quasi dark, pink and purple mess that every faith in Hollywood and humanity is lost, no need for a good actor either. George Clooney says he'll do it. Square-jawed. Popular with the ladies. Fair and square. But Looney Clooney just plays George Clooney. Which is the road he usually takes, but in this case this suave, dashing, and charming Batman seems more like a James Bond by day-Captain Amazing by night trendy dandy, than the tormented knightly investigator of legend. And that's not just it.
In the history of comic & movie bad ideas, Robin is probably one of the worst, but watching this is like staring at a happy graffiti tombstone amidst a desert of a post apocalyptic Eden, set to be chaotically reconstructed. Robin is acted like an all childish, bad tempered punko, and the only thing that he actually beats the crap off is O’ Donnell’s lost bet of a career (at last for †uck’s shake!)
Alicia’s forced, out of place add on of a role, seems surprisingly and exhaustingly too much for her zero talent, grace and charm, and her tough-girl-rag-doll kicking performance is sprinkled with not so kind reminders of her Clueless days. Batman’s shameful spirit and Holy Fan Fury ended her career too.
Uma Thurman, who the last we knew of, she COULD act, is hamming it up to ridiculous proportions. First, when she's playing the nerdo-weirdo Dr. Pamela, exaggerating that part to a level I thought impossible. And then she inexplicably turns into an extremely sexualized villainess whose master plan, by the way, would kill all the plants she advocated protecting.
Arnold wasn’t a bad casting idea at first. His acting is always frozen (no surprise here) and his structure is that of an iceberg (not only the tip of it). When you see Freeze in comics and Arnold’s stills from the movie, somehow it makes sense and it also fired up another great hype wave of fan anticipation back in these days of innocence. But that's all. When you hear Freeze tell Batman "Yew arr not zending mee too da cooola" the urge to laugh, scream and press the red button uncontrollably, is almost indiscriminate and insurmountable. What Arnie can’t terminate, the script can.
Akiva Goldsman should have been banned from Hollywood after this script. Damn, I am so into sarcastic and maybe cheap poetics in my free time, but here I encountered a level of expression so laid low, that it could hardly giggle my balls. It was a completely brainless jumbled crack. Everyone was – miraculously once again – drown in shallow waters. The story, which was pitiful at best, gets completely lost in entirely too many characters. It was so frustrating seeing the origins of certain characters burst to pulp as Goldsman attempted to jam them into the script. Batgirl, who should have never been in this film in the first place, was changed from Commissioner Gordon's daughter to Alfred's niece, which made absolutely no sense. In an attempt, to explain why Freeze was so muscular it was pointed that he was an Olympic gymnast. How freakin' stupid is that? Gymnasts by necessity need to be small in stature to perform well in gymnastics and Arnold is a enormous Bareback Mountain (I said BAREBACK – don’t take pride on it Schumie!) This is indeed a movie full of shit in every single detail from papers to paper sets and paper actors. Goldsman's use of dialogue was highly irritating consisting of nothing but kitsch and pesky juvenile one-liners, one after another, and another, and another, and yet another, till the end of fan.
Even Bane was a misshaped waste. Bane is a much more vicious villain in the comics (read Knightfall epic and weep) with a pretty edgy background but this movie reduced him to a mindless c-gorilla no more important than the costumed bad-ass-my-ass clowns throughout the whole movie.
Finally, when the ghost of Batman past, Alfred, enters the scene, you just want to cry in pain and nostalgia.
It’s just too FOCKIN’ late.
The outcome is a cataclysmic, worth shuttering, mind splitting disaster, making all believability and style Batman had, go out the window – without a bat chute. A conspiracy level act of malevolence that took almost ten years of waste and woe and a miracle man called Nolan to set things right in to the glory ride. Joel Schumacher other than building up a hill of pennies (and not at all the satisfying lot), just didn't give a penny about the characters, dialogue, integrity and the minimum given watching ability of the film. Seriously, I'd have more respect for Schumacher if he had stated that he hated Batman outright, and had intentionally ruined it with his shoot-cute-world of garbage. I‘d hate him again, but this might actually have been just his own personal joke, his what-the-fuck-for-anyway, anti-super hero statement of all time. Instead, it borders harshly on gruesome scars, in a tragic travesty, that anything that is good and worthy in and around the movie business, will never forget or forgive. So, I LOATHE the misacted, miss casted, insipid, disgusting, intentionally flawed, sea full of shame, butcherly disrespectful, provocative to the core of the minimum human artistic condolence, Batman & Robin.
Well Schumie, you miserable little clown, if you want to really know how a great clown is made and what a great clown is being made of, try watching the last Batman instalment. As for us, if Hell hath no less than seven pits, we shall certainly dig and tear you a new one called Arkham Asylum for the Criminally Insane Directors. Cut.