Isn’t it figuratively suicidal to shoot a historical epic film without having a decent budget in 2011? Isn’t it even more bizarre to have a similar plot to 2010 movie that already flopped? Some decisions studios are making, bring a deep gasp form the movie critics and disappointing indifference from the audience. But director Kevin McDonald was obviously fine with while shooting The Eagle which centres again around the legendary disappearance of the Ninth Legion in ancient Caledonia.
In 2010 director Neil Marshall created a historical film Centurion with the same old Ninth Legion story. That time Dominic West, Michael Fassbender and Olga Kurylenko were the main stars. The film failed to attract movie goers and did not return even half of the 12 million dollars budget. But they never learn, don’t they. So, the next year new searchers for the 9th Legion brought us The Eagle spending 25 million dollars this time. What they were hoping for?
In the Eagle the main roles were played by Channing Tatum, Jamie Bell, Donald Sutherland and Mark Strong. This cast could not save the movie with another sucky plot about Roman-ruled Britain. Tatum was was trying to convince as that he is a young Roman soldier who endeavors to honor his father’s memory by finding his lost legion’s golden emblem. His performance left much to be desired, especially, his horrible monologues that made audience turn away in disgust.
Sanctum is a great 3 D nature film – the beautiful scenery and splendid camera work are amazing. However, bad acting and lifeless script mixed with cheesy dialogs “inspired by actual events”. By the way, the sign “inspired by actual events” usually means that some events in the plot have been over-dramatized and producers know that this did not work out for the movie. It is like a last and usually futile attempt to avoid the commercial disaster of the film. And then cross your fingers and hope for the better outcome.
I don’t expect any commercial profits from DVD and Blueray sales either. First of all, tight spaces and drowning are among the greatest fears of many human beings. So, don’t expect people buy and watch this movie over and over again. No way.
In the supernatural thriller film Season of the Witch, there are two main heroes – 13 century knights played by Nicolas Cage and Ron Perlman. They are Crusaders from Middle Ages. What’s there not to like? Even if audience got tired of Nicolas Cage and mass media stories about his tough financial situation. The movie is entertaining, which means that it is worth seeing, especially if you have a couple of hours to kill.
So, the premise of the story is not bad either. Two tired of killings middle-aged knights have deserted the Crusade. They return to their beloved Germany only to find that Black Plague is killing people in masses. The plague is also of supernatural quality as it is caused by a suspected witch who needs to be escorted to a remote monastery and receive a fair trial…
I think, the movie could be a runaway hit except producers made a wrong choice of a director. For whatever reasons they went with Dominic Sena who recently directed a huge flop named Whiteout. The latter was so badly directed that it nearly ruined the career of the main star Kate Beckinsale. The directorial problem is that Season of the Witch as the Whiteout is completely devoid of any humor. Absence of it instantly turns the film into a B movie, even though the effects and costumes are of good quality.
In 2010 movie critics applauded King’s Speech, the historical drama about stammering King George the 6th. The movie received many awards and nominations, mostly for Colin Firth. King’s Speech won four Oscars in the major categories including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor for Firth and Best Original Screenplay. The film also won seven BAFTa awards and Colin Firth also won Best Actor in Golden Globes.
I see this as a sign of the ongoing fall in the quality of films. The King’s Speech was fine, but there was nothing special special about it: it is pretty robust and middle-of the-road. As for the cast, I think that Geoffrey Rush delivered an excellent performance, while Colin Firth was the same as in all his other movies.
And the monarch himself was also a pretty average man with no special talents. In fact, during his reign the power of the British Empire declined tremendously. The whole state practically disintegrated. To name a few events that happened while George the 6th was a king… Ireland became an independent republic. Even though Britain won the war, it lost its influence while the United States and the Soviet Union rose as world powers. India and Pakistan became independent as well as many other colonies of the empire which ceased to exist and transited into the Commonwealth of Nations. The only achievement that I can name was his “contribution” to the birth of the future queen Elizabeth who managed to preserve whatever was left of the empire that ruled the vast territories around the globe.
I must admit that Gulliver’s Travels is one of my favorite books. The complete one – not the carefully edited by hypocrites version that contain only parts of the Lilliput voyage. Somehow throughout the centuries somebody eliminated most parts of the book and converted this complex proto-scifi, extremely philosophical and satirical masterpiece into a toothless children’s story. Imagine my surprise, when in 2010 somebody chose this stupid Victorian adaptation as a base for a dreadful movie and spent 112 million dollars producing it. Powerful Swift’s satire is replaced by so called “fantasy comedy” with ridiculous plot.
Yeah, we all get it, Lilliputians are tiny little people and Jack Black is a modern Gulliver. Aren’t we getting tired of his same old song and dance in each and every movie he participates? And even though the movie is not funny – it treats its audience as idiots adding to the dull redacted story a modern mail room guy and his love feelings towards the travel editor.
I know that this movie got what it deserved – it practically did not cover the budget. Still, by ruining Swift’s story this movie ruined any chances for us to see a real deal somewhere in the near future.
It takes guts to remake one of the most famous John Wayne movies in our day and age. It also takes some guts to shoot a psychological Western film that, let’s say it, does not have a lot of fans in the place it originated. However, Paramount Pictures decided to proceed with this idea brought to them by Coen brothers as far back as February 2008. The movie received critical acclaim but we at Cinema Genius did not like it much.
They totally miscast Matt Damon who starred as Texas Ranger LaBoeuf. It beats me how anybody can get into the mood of the movie seeing Matt Damond as a 19th century cowboy-type guy. And Jeff Bridges who took on Duke playing Marshal Reuben completely ruined the movie. Nobody could understand what he was mumbling about. He looked more like a self-indulging clown than a tough U.S. Marshal and the only resemblance to the famous John Wayne was that iconic eye patch. So the only believable character in the remade True Grit was that amazing young Mattie Ross played by young brilliant actress Hailee Steinfeld who practically came out of nowhere and saved the day.
Latest update… We often disagree wit the way Oscars are distributed. However, this time we are in sync. Although there were 10 nominations for True Grit in various categories, the film did not win any Academy Awards.
American comedy movie Little Fockers does not make you laugh harder than its predecessors – Meet the Parents and Meet the Fockers. Don’t get me wrong, it is still somewhat OK with the moments when Hoffman or Wilson get a laugh. However, on the whole, this sequel film is weaker and with fewer good jokes. For whatever reasons, Jay Roach, the original director of previous two films, was replaced by Paul Weitz. The latter known to us as a co-director of great movies as American Pie and About the Boy, somehow spiraled down with the huge 2009 movie flop named Cirque du Freak: The Vampire’s Assistant.
During the production of Little Fockers studio announced that Dustin Hoffman would join the cast. However, they could not reach an agreement with him, probably, because they offered him peanuts instead of money – this is how they tread old respectable actors nowadays. Luckily, at the final stage they obviously negotiated some kind of deal and managed to bring him back for the film.
In the end all the powerful cast of movie stars was gathered together again: Robert De Niro, Ben Stiller, Owen Wilson, Blythe Danner, Teri Polo, Dustin Hoffman and Barbra Streisand. Yet, Somehow I could not get rid of the feeling that actors are not keen on using all those tired jokes and want to finish the film and leave it be as soon as possible.
Little Fockers did good internationally, although it got less profits than original film or the sequel. Who knows, maybe it is time to end this tired franchise and start something more creative than a story about a registered male nurse with an unfortunate name.
When Walt Disney Pictures released science fiction film Tron in 1982, it was very moderately successful. The visual effects were stunning for those times but the storyline was pretty pathetic. Truly speaking, the story was primitive and characters undeveloped. Tron did not become a hit and the Motion Picture Academy even refused to nominate this film for special effects. Nevertheless, Tron spawned into a franchise producing multiple video games and comic books. It even got a status of a cult movie and acquired some following. Yet general audience quickly forgot it.
Over a quarter of the century after , weak on fresh ideas Walt Disney Pictures decided to produce a sequel and named it Tron Legacy. In December 2010 we saw a new baby of the franchise. WDS spent around 200 million dollars on its production and hired the previous director Steven Lisberger as the film producer. This was possibly a big mistake as the sequel repeated in details the mistakes of the original: Tron Legacy was loaded with visual delights but fell short of the mark in story and viewer involvement. The plot sucks so bad that the human characters in the movie simply get lost amidst its state-of-the-art production design.
I am the science fiction buff but this did not help as I could not wait for this movie to end. All those visual effects did not have any effect on me – they were bright, loud and empty, and they were all this movie had to offer.
Some of the movies produced by Hollywood puzzle me. I am talking about the latest thrillers and action films that we don’t care about in America, still bring a lot of dough internationally. This is quite a mystery, and hopefully movie critics will solve it or at least try to explain this phenomenon in the near future. As an example, here is the pathetic film The Tourist, that was a huge flop in America. And I still have my doubts about this movie genre. The film cost its creators over 100 million dollars and probably even more if we take to consideration its tense marketing and advertising campaigns. However, the film barely grossed some 65 million dollars domestically, despite presence of two big stars as Angelina Jolie and Johnny Depp and beautiful European scenery.
These figures showed that American audience did not give a damn about The Tourist and its idiotic plot. However, this very movie gathered around 140 million dollars internationally, so the total earned amount of gross profits does not make it look bad at all. I wonder why. There was no visible chemistry between Jolie and Depp, besides Jolie’s performance sucked like never before, while Johnny was somehow keeping it together. Sometimes The movie was practically without any humor, full of apathy with and noted absence of real dynamic action. In two words, nothing worked in this movie. Angelina Jolie could not even walk the straight line in all these expensive looking gowns – as if she never had a chance to wear a dress before.
I think The Voyage of the Dawn Treader – the 3d installment of The Chronicles of Narnia – has killed all hope restore the movie franchise to its former fame and glory. During its run this 3D fantasy-adventure film could not even bring back those 140 million dollars that were invested into its production. And I heard that its promotion by Fox Studio cost another 100 million dollars. So, if it was not for returns from the international release, this Christian fable movie would just fade away instantly.
Naturally, this film is a fairy tale slash fantasy for families, especially the youngest members. But for the rest of the movie audience, this film is pretty boring and can easily put you to sleep right in the cinema house. Nowadays studios hate to admit that the flop happened because of its unreasonable expectations. So there is a chance that we will never see any new Chronicles of Narnia again. And this is for the better because the Christian moviegoers constitute just a tiny part in the global cinema audience.
I gather something went wrong with the intuition of Barrie Osborne – the producer of the famous film trilogy Lord of the Rings. For God’s sake, the man was the recipient of the Academy Award for Best Picture, which he shares with Peter Jackson and Fran Walsh. Of all people, Osborne must know a thing or two about fantasy action films! I am telling you all this because I still can’t get over how crappy his latest produced movie was under so “non-assuming” name as The Warrior’s Way. There is no doubt in the film’s not B but C quality. In fact, the first 5 minutes of it completely brings to this conclusion anybody who knows anything about movie industry.
I am not going to comment on dialogs, except stating their complete and utter idiocy. The plot is ludicrous, to say the least: In the 19th century, an assassin Yang is ordered to kill the last member of an enemy clan but it turns to be… a baby. The warrior refuses to kill a baby and flees with the child to a god forsaken town in the American West. It’s not your Jackie Chan type film. The Warrior’s way plot sounds hilarious, however, there is no sense of humor or even the slightest hint of a laughter in the whole movie. It stays solemn throughout all its 100 minutes of running time.
Forget about the profits, Warrior’s Way with the budget of 42 million dollars had barely made 9. Don’t watch it or rent it. If you do, you will regret it and waste your money that could be well spent on something better. I was even reluctant to add the trailer to this post…
There are many layers to the comedy-drama movie Love and Other Drugs. Basically, it is a Pfizer infomercial for Zoloft, Zithromax and Viagra masked as a love story between Jamie and Maggie, played by Jake Gyllenhaal and Anne Hathaway. The plot this Hollywood cinema masterpiece sucks – it is highly unbalanced and can be easily split into 3 infomercials, each entangled into a lot of gratuitous naked scenes. Audience, be prepared to see a lot of Jake Gyllenhaal’s butt and topless Anne Hathaway flashing us with her butt and tits throughout the movie.
First infomercial part tells us about Jake becoming a sales rep for Pfizer. Second is about miracle qualities of Viagra, including this 3 hour erection that they always talk about in the regular ads. The third one is the most hilarious – it tells us that it is awesome to become a doctor because he can get free Viagra and organize orgies with many sexy young girls at his humongous mansion.
And then, there is a drama but not really a heart breaking one. It is like a Love Story but without a tragic end. In fact, the drama does not even look real. Maggie is sick with Parkinson disease and does not have a health insurance. However, she has rolls of cash, as works at a small coffee shop (mind you with Parkinson disease) and lives in a very spacious place. At the second part of the movie she does not even go to the work anymore, but financially she is fine although none of the close relatives are around and nobody supports her.
I can go on rant non-stop, but why? Just avoid this movie at all costs, unless you are tempted to get thoroughly acquainted with naked bodies of two movie stars or watch a simulated masturbation scene of fat guy.
Nobody knows what is the most expensive movie as Hollywood tends to hide fact and figures from the general public. However, according to the estimates, animated film Tangled produced by Walt Disney Animation Studios, cost 260 millions to make and is considered to be the second most expensive movie ever made. It also holds the title of the most expensive animated movie ever made. This family movie is pretty loosely based on brothers Grimm fairly tale Rapunzel.
When the movie went into production it was called Rapunzel Unbraided. Somewhere in the middle of the road the original title Rapunzel was restored. And pretty close to the release studio changed the name to Tangled. It was the most bizarre decision. A lot of movie critics still struggle to understand the marketing decision to change of the title. As film authors explained they wanted the movie to appeal both to boys and girls. It seems that after spending so much dough they got cold feet. In addition, to the change of title they also decided to emphasize stronger the movie’s main male character Flynn Rider, whose original name in the fairy tale was Bastion.
The development of Tangled took almost six years. However, in the end the film turned out to be all right. It is pretty cute. In spite of all those CGI effects, Tangled still kept that traditional touch of the old ageless Disney classics. I would not go too far and call it a groundbreaking movie masterpiece but it is rather pretty and enjoyable.
I did not suspect about the existence of Eric Balfour until SyFy ran first season of a very bad supernatural TV Series Haven. A young guy with musketeer mustache was appearing there on and off in a supporting role and his acting was as pathetic as the aforementioned show itself. Exactly at the same time they started showing TV ads of the upcoming movie Skyline. To my surprise it seems that a young musketeer is going to play one of the leading parts in this alien invasion science fiction film.
Skyline had somewhat good monster alien effects for such a low budget movie. As for the human characters – I did not believe any emotions they expressed for 2 hours – I only wished that aliens would chop them and kill them as soon as possible. All their jumping, screaming and hiding looked stupid too. This is probably what the audience experience because the movie barely returned back the money spent on it. It turned out to be just another dud.