Miami Vice Review

Wow, this movie was disappointing. I was really looking forward to this movie. There were a couple of really good action scenes, but I was expecting more. The plot is decent, detailed and seemed pretty sophisticated to me. A lot of law enforcement and criminal lingo was used to add to the realism. The biggest problem was the romance subplot, the bad acting and terrible dialogue. There were so many accents in this movie that subtitles would have been helpful. Colin Farrell continues to disappoint as an actor and even Jamie Foxx showed a couple of weak moments. Edward James Olmo should have been brought in as the boss and a good 30 minutes could have been cut out if Sonny Crockett's womanizing character trait was eliminated. This movie could have been so much better. Watch Heat and Collateral until Miami Vice comes out on DVD.

Miami Vice = Wait for DVD

Lady in the Water Review

This movie isn't nearly as bad as the critics described, although it isn't that great. Out of the five M Night movies that I've seen, I would rank Lady in the Water third ahead of Signs and Unbreakable. The Sixth Sense was the best with The Village coming in second, despite a lot of people thinking it was terrible.

Lady in the Water has several really tense scenes that made people jump in their seats and there are some humorous moments. Overall, the plot does seem like it was contrived out of a bedtime story and there isn't too much behind it. The way the story unfolds did hold my attention and made it somewhat entertaining.

Lady in the Water = Good DVD Rental To Look Forward To

Pirates of the Carribbean: Dead Man's Chest Review

Wow, this movie was packed and the previous three showings were sold out so we had to hang around the mall for a couple of hours. I guess I don't really understand all the hype. Disney seemed to do a good job of appealing to the masses. There was a little bit of humor and action for both children and adults. Pretty much all of the great characters from the first Pirates were back and there were several references to the events in Curse of the Black Pearl. Dead Man's Chest is pretty similar to the original Pirates of the Carribbean with more elaborate action sequences and more creature effects for the bad guys. At the beginning, there were some clever little action sequences, but in end it was a bit overdone and just added to the length of the movie (2.5 hours). If you liked the Pirates of the Carribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl, definitely see Dead Man's Chest in the theatres. Otherwise you could wait for it on DVD and have a good rental. Unfortunately the movie was overshadowed by the teaser trailer for Transformers. Too bad that doesn't come out until next summer (7.4.7)

Pirates of the Carribean: Dead Man's Chest = Worth the Price of Admission

Superman Returns Review

I’m really glad that Superman Returns kept the music and opening credits from the original movies. One of my fears was that the entire movie would be altered like the Batman movies have changed. Bryan Singer does a pretty good job with the action scenes and the new CGI technology available since the days of Christopher Reeve. I probably should have been looking forward to this movie rather than X3. Superman Returns does run long and you feel it in the beginning, but this might be for the younger generations that haven’t experienced much of the storyline. There isn’t too much repetition of old information and I was pleasantly surprised that there was a decent amount of new plotlines that were introduced. Brandon Routh, the new Superman, was an excellent pick and he continues the precedent that Christopher Reeve started. Besides the special effects being improved, the fights and general action scenes seemed to be more realistic, if that is possible for a comic book story. Overall, Superman Returns is a good addition to a classic set of movies (I’m not counting Superman III and IV since they don’t really exist in my mind, sort of like Rocky V).

Superman Returns = Worth Seeing In Theaters

The Break-Up Review

The Break-Up wasn’t as funny as I expected considering the last Vince Vaughn movie I saw was Wedding Crashers, which was hilarious. The movie is not bad, although I would say wait for it on DVD. At certain points, the fighting got a little too realistic and stopped being funny. Instead the audience felt more awkward as if they were really observing a real fight. Despite some serious arguments, Vince Vaughn does bring about most of the laughs. Besides Vince’s co-star Jennifer Aniston, the rest of the cast is surprisingly recognizable. Jason Bateman, Joey Lauren Adams, Vincent D’onofrio and Jon Favreau all make appearances. The Break-Up does a fairly good job characterizing general relationship problems, which helps the audience identify with the characters. Because of this, Vaughn and Aniston don’t seem as crazy with the extremes that they go to. In the end, I did like seeing the results of both character’s arcs.

The Break-Up = Wait for DVD