Change Your Image
TerminalMan
Reviews
Infection (2005)
Fascinating...
...but that by no means makes it good or even mediocre. This doesn't rise to "complete crap" status. And that's the fascinating part: it's such a non-movie that you keep watching and waiting for something to happen so the movie can get started. But it never does. It actively avoids everything...period. I can't stress enough that isn't an exaggeration, this lack-of-a-movie avoids it's own characters and plot, even just abandoning them completely by the side of the road and goes for a long, slow drive through the countryside. Yes, that literally happens, it's actually a pretty succinct summary of the entire 70 or minute runtime.
The most interesting thing about the whole thing comes from the fact that it was made at all: who thought this was a good enough idea to make a movie? Who heard the pitch and invested real, actual money to make it happen? How can an absolute absence of story and characters and events be anything but boring? Was this just another attempt to scam the foreign video market with a fake movie made for $20 and a tank of gas?
If nothing else, "Invasion" raises a lot of questions. "Can't there be an IMDb rating BELOW 1?", for example.
Just Cause (2006)
A step back for game development
Ahh, yet another 'sandbox' game! Basically, the story (if you want to call it that) is: you must single-handedly liberate an entire country and kill the current dictator. Given that you can roam around approximately 400 square miles, this should have made a halfway decent game. HOWEVER, once you factor in abysmal player and NPC animations, unbelievably buggy scripting, baffling level design, bizarre and laughable physics, endlessly repetitive missions, almost no enemy AI, long outdated graphics, etc. etc., you are left with a boring, antiquated-before-it-was-even-released game that is sure to disappoint. To call this game a pile of...you know what...is slandering that very substance. I give this a 1/10, simply because IMDb doesn't have a lower rating. Avoid at all costs.
The Black Dahlia (2006)
Flawed, but not unwatchable (Some very minor spoilers)
The IMDb is full of negative reviews of "The Black Dahlia", and while I agree with a number of the complaints, I still didn't find it nearly as bad as described by the masses.
True, it is indeed flawed, and much of this is the result of Josh Friedman's screenplay. Granted, James Ellroy's novel is extremely complex and has a great many subplots that are very important to understanding the characters and their motivations, so trimming the material down to accommodate the approximately two hours of screen time means the removal of many of these scenes. This results in characters whose motivations and actions are sometimes questionable and baffling, relationships between some of the lead characters somewhat unclear, and an ending that, while relatively appropriate to the actual Black Dahlia murder, is still a bit unsatisfying.
Also, some of the casting decisions go from questionable to downright absurd, which of course results in some awkward and almost laughable character interaction.
But, despite these flaws, there are also many things about the film I enjoyed. Vilmos Zsigmond's cinematography is absolutely beautiful, and Brian De Palma's direction, while not his best work, handled the story quite well. I was particularly impressed by the fact that the tortured and mutilated body of Elizabeth Short was not flaunted across the screen for shock value at every possible opportunity simply to appease the blood and gore fans. Rather, the main focal point is the growing obsession of the two main characters to find out who would do it and why. Also, there are some very good performances that deserve more credit than they have been given.
All things considered, the film falls short of being the crime-noir suspense/thriller it was intended to be, but is by no means unwatchable, or even a "bad" film. There are certainly much worse examples of failed film-noir efforts.
While it's not "The Maltese Falcon" or "The Killing" by any means, it's a decent, entertaining film that doesn't deserve such overwhelmingly negative criticism.