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Shi er shengxiao (2012)
Its Operation Condor but gayer.
I'll keep this short and in layman's terms. This movie is terrible. I'm actually 2/3rds into the movie as I write this because I cannot focus my attention towards this disaster anymore. I don't know much about technical aspects of cinema like cinematography, vfx, or video processing, but this movie's final cut looks bad. It looks like a standard grainy DVD res on a full HD blue ray setup (which is what Im viewing)... so there's that.
Where do I begin? I can start by saying that the plot is very similar to Operation Condor (the one released in the US). Chan has lost his ability to pull off amazing fight scenes. No doubt that he's in shape for his age, but the action choreography in this movie was beyond corny. Chan relies on a group of young pretty Asians to team up with to do the heavy fight scenes. Also, they can't act worth a sh*t. Even by watching a dubbed version of this movie, all I see is a bunch of hysterical people pantomiming as if it was a silent film. This brings me to another major technical problem with this movie, which is the audio dubbing. The dubbed voice audio levels are very bad. I could hardly hear the actors talk throughout the whole movie. I was guessing what was going on most of the time. Worst of all, the blu ray of this movie doesn't come with subtitles. There's also the unnecessary usage of CGI. Its everywhere in this movie, even in simple scenes where they throw stuff into a river (no kidding).
Jackie Chan plays some sort of Indiana Jones grave robbing archaeologist that has to acquire a bunch of bronze busts. Along the way, a European heiress tags along with Chan's crew to go treasure hunting with them. Its Operation Condor all over again. Except this time instead of Nazis, its French aristocrats. They jet set to a bunch of expensive looking locations like Paris, and a micro island with an active volcano, but still skimp out scenes by using unconvincing CGI. Ie: the skydiving scene which was fake and entirely redone w/ VFX graphics.
So after a bunch of (maybe a dozen) mediocre PG fight ballets, the movie ends. Its followed by the ending blooper scenes which weren't even good. The best part of it was the blooper montage from Chan's career where some of his old stunts were shown. I'm sure it was perceived as a master piece in his mainland China, but this movie was just an overextended and over budget crapfest.
Oblivion (2013)
Great looking movie.. even if it has Tom Cruise doing his usual thing.
This is such a good looking sci-fi movie. It was directed by the same crew that made Tron Legacy, so it was visually stunning. At least, on HD. This is one of those movies that should be watched in 4k theaters or at home in blu ray.
I really liked the plot, although it featured Tom Cruise and his checklist of signature moves and contractual obligations. He did his usual scenes like flexing his short little body, the dramatic shower scene, riding a motorcycle(so we can be reminded that he's a biker and "does his own stunts"), his ambivalent attitude, his confused twitchy eye glare, etc.
The movie itself, was visually surreal in a very expensive looking way. The setting is not the usual post-apocalyptic wasteland we're accustomed to see in movies. Instead its a bleak, but natural looking landscape. The landscape is surrounded by dessert, sierras, snow, and futuristic architecture which were erected and terraformed by mysterious overlords called "Titans".
Tom Cruise inhabits a Jetsons style sky home above the clouds with his partner who runs security operations for the "Titan", a hovering utopian space station. Below is the Earth's natural wasteland where most of the movie takes place. Cruise's character is supposed to be Titan's mechanical technician who maintains and repairs Titan's security drones that protect some hydro energy plants used to power the HQ's orbiting in space. Below, a conflicted Cruise starts meddling and stirs up trouble to create an action adventure movie. Its kind of Minority Report all over again. Cruise does his PG13 action scenes and we pretty much know where it leads to.
This movie features some themes about religion and loneliness, but Cruise becomes a one man army and takes a dump on all of that. It even features a cruise solo shower scene. As if the one in "Jack Reacher" earlier in the year wasn't enough. Unlike Jack Reacher, this movie did not suck.
Overall, its a good movie. I thought the whole mood of the movie was depressing(in a good way) and very stylish. Some of the things that ruined it, for me at least, was the corny costars Tom Cruise and Morgan Freeman. I don't mean to hate on the guy, but he makes the movie very predictable and PG13. He usually gets his way at the end and saves the day, world, or whatever..... Im not saying that is what happens in this particular movie, but i mean we all know whats going to happen just by seeing Cruise in the movie trailer. Btw, there is supposed to be a twist in the end... or like halfway through, or third way into the movie or something so its not like a spoiled the movie or whatever. I just recommend watching this on Blu ray with a good HD TV in 1080p.
Dnevnoy dozor (2006)
Super corny sci-fi fantasy movie about a piece of chalk.
I'll be honest, this movie is a mess. If it was made by Americans, people everywhere would be saying things like: "..Those f'n fat Americans and their shitty soul-less movies, they're greedy, they run out of ideas, etc...". However, since this is a foreign movie, it has been overrated. This movie tries hard to one-up American movie clichés. Its even based of a book, something that American film makers rip off frequently and then get blasted by people. This movie is like "Harry Potter"+"Constantine" on crack.
The start of the movie looked interesting. It begins w/ an Asian legend about a horde of Mongols bum rushing a temple to retrieve an artifact that controls the world. They bypass a puzzle(maze) w/ brute force and take the artifact through outside of the box violence. I was told a very similar legend by a US Marshall instructor, except his legend involved Genghis Khan, a Buddhist temple, and a knot instead of a piece of chalk as the artifact. I'm guessing it was based of the Gordian Knot legend. Either way, it was a memorable war speech and the lesson of the legend is the same.
The movie started w/ that irrelevant introduction, which barely had anything to do with the rest of the film. The movie just seemed to be a bunch of scenes thrown together as a pretext to show off a lot of fake looking CGI sequences. IE: birds turning into ninjas, a Mazda driving on the side of a building, flying yo-yos destroying Moscow, etc.
After the opening act, we see a tormented detective driving a yellow garbage truck w/ his rookie partner, a homely looking woman who is also his lover. The garbage trucks in the movie are used by some covert Russian police agency that is... to be honest its never really explained what they are enforcing. I'm guessing they're some kind of guardians that keep the vampires in check or something. It seems that they have a truce w/ the vampire mafia, so that makes the protagonists role useless. It seems like an interesting idea, but the slow boring pace of the movie, absurd scenes, and the bad dialogue captions make it incomprehensible and hard to watch. The movie gets worse as it progresses. It builds up to this really weird final scene at a big sweet 16 birthday party where they battle it out.
I'm not going to spoil the finale, but its super predictable. Any one reading this probably guessed how it ends. Its over 2 hours of incomprehensible scenes and lame cgi.
Sniper: Reloaded (2011)
Worthwhile movie, especially if your intrigued by sniper legends.
Almost every guy I've known has seen the original "Sniper" movie and enjoyed it, despite it's cheesiness. The original was a TV movie with corny acting, yet it became a well known classic that set forth the role of the modern military sniper. It focused on the technicalities of the sniping profession. I never wrote an IMDb review before, but I decided to share my brief thoughts because its low IMDb star-rating might deter viewers who would miss out.
"Sniper: Reloaded" may not have memorable sniping/sharpshooting kill shot scenes like "Full Metal Jacket", "Enemy at the Gates", Saving Pvt Ryan", etc. However, it gives the viewer some romanticized insight to the sniping profession. That is what made the first movie so interesting. We will always remember the scenes about peeing in parasite infested rivers and smudging feces on the face to evade search dogs. "Sniper: Reloaded" teaches us similar macho lessons. Its an educational experience, even if it is an improbable survival lesson.
The movie begins with Beckett's son, a US Marine Sgt, that is deployed to Africa to train the Congolese Army as part of some UN thing.
Without spoiling the plot, Beckett's fire team is sent to rescue a VIP plantation owner when a mysterious rebel sniper pins down the group. The sniper pwns the whole squad, picking them off one by one. Beckett Jr is shot and left for dead, but is later rescued by a big game European poacher. The news reaches Richard Miller (Billy Zane from the old movie) who is now a veteran CIA spook and shooting instructor at Ft Benning sniper school. Miller is now portrayed differently. He isn't the same effeminate bureaucrat that wore Ray Bans and a silk scarf during a jungle mission. This time he looks like an old veteran killer. He's buffer and balder than he looked 20 yrs ago, but still has some eccentric flair because he now rocks an anchor mustache. This time he's got the cool fallacious phrases like "One Shot, One Kill!"
Apparently, Miller is a master that teaches a new generation of elite snipers how to excrete their urinary and bowel movements while aiming a rifle. I'm not making that up. Its these insightful situations that make "Sniper" films a must watch "man" movie. Miller then gets interrupted by an urgent telegram in the middle of the lesson that summons him to Africa.
Miller arrives in Africa to manipulate Beckett's vengeful son. Miller tells Beckett the true identity of the enemy sniper and how to take him out. Its a reuse of the classic "Sniper" scene, in which Beckett Sr tells rookie Miller the identity of the skilled jungle sniper. Beckett Jr then embarks in an unofficial vendetta against double agents and govt assassins.
I rated this movie an 8/10 because it was a decent and enjoyable foreign film(I think it was foreign). We see some interesting stuff like creating sniper dummies, and evading night vision scopes which I found more interesting than the fictional characters. Its not a great movie, but it is definitely worth watching.