Kevin Roegele
Do you mind if I don't?
- Joined
- May 2, 2000
- Messages
- 23,882
- Reaction score
- 76
- Points
- 73
I don't know about you, but sometimes I can have a very strong reaction to a film, only for it to change substantially either many viewings or many years later. I wasn't a fan of the first Spidey flick in 2002, but over time I've grown to understand what Raimi was doing with it, instead of looking for what I think should be in such a film. As such, I've been watching some of the films I didn't think much of previously, to see if my opinion has changed.
8/10/2011 - Ghost Rider (2007)
I saw this originally in the cinema, and it was almost the first and only time I had walked out. I found it hokey, cliched, wafer-thin and above all, boring.
Having just viewed it again four years later...it's just as bad. It honestly seems like the film makers don't know what they're doing. The film begins with forced, stale father-and-son advice about Making Important Choices, and it never gets any less cardboard. Ghost Rider only shows up once in the first hour and a half, and the rest is Nicolas Cage doing a toned-down Elvis/Eval Kneival hybrid, and Eva Mendez standing in front of the camera (you can almost see contempt for the movie in her eyes, and she speaks her dialogue as if she's embarassed to say it). The villains are laughably awful, emo-kids in leather dusters, and they are easily defeated with lame CGI effects. Ghost Rider's first act is to be strung up with chains and hit by a truck - very heroic. The film has no style whatsoever, it looks like a TV movie from the 80's.
And above all, it's just very, very dull. There is nothing imaginative, surprising or original about the movie whatsoever, just a string of cliches and CGI effects. Cage seems to realise the essential pointlessness of the movie means he can do whatever the hell he likes, and does so - you can tell the director pretty much let him have free reign to wear cowboy hats, Elvis glasses, drink jelly beans, watch monkeys doing kung fu - none of it is needed in the movie, but because the script does nothing to establish a character for Johnny Blaze, it's only Cage's weird ideas that give him any kind of personality.
It says it all when the two most impressive sequences - Ghost Rider driving up a skyscraper, and riding alongside a Ghost Cowboy - lead nowhere and have no effect on the plot whatsoever.
A very poor excuse for a film.
9/10/2011 - The Incredible Hulk (2008)
I originally found this movie a dull collection of poor action scenes with minimal linking material. A product. Marvel's attempt to give audiences what they wanted back in 2003.
After watching it again, and watching it for the story, I found it far more effective. The action scenes, even the climactic fight with the Abomination, are not especially good. You can see how careful the makers had to be with the budget - even in the second Hulk scene in broad daylight, fighting the army, there are not many shots with him in.
But looking past the action scenes, the story of Bruce Banner is well told. His relationship with Betty was simple but believable, and Tim Roth's arc from being below Hulk's notice to being an even bigger monster was a good way to make the excitement build throughout. I recalled General Ross' role as being basically shouting at soldiers, but William Hurt does a solid job.
The thing I hated most on previous viewing was Tim Blake Nelson as Samuel Sterns; I found him embarassing with his coin flipping motion, and the sequence where he starts to become the Leader is awfully forced and lazy. And I still hate these parts of the movie. However, Sterns' part in the story is well placed; he is a scientist very much like Banner, but who does not share his ethics, and becomes fascinated by the power of the Hulk. He has also replicated Banner's radiated blood to use on others. This is good stroytelling, the man who we thought was Banner's potential salvation turns out to be nothing of the sort.
Overall, I enjoyed The Incredible Hulk much more than before. With the Hulk, you always (or atleast I do) want to rush through the non-Hulk parts to see the big green guy, and when those scenes are not especially good, you're left disapointed. This time I watched for the story as a whole, and the Hulk scenes became more effective as parts of the story rather than CGI spectacle. It's just a shame it could not have thrilling action and an effective story, like Terminator 2 for example.
Next up: Elektra.
8/10/2011 - Ghost Rider (2007)
I saw this originally in the cinema, and it was almost the first and only time I had walked out. I found it hokey, cliched, wafer-thin and above all, boring.
Having just viewed it again four years later...it's just as bad. It honestly seems like the film makers don't know what they're doing. The film begins with forced, stale father-and-son advice about Making Important Choices, and it never gets any less cardboard. Ghost Rider only shows up once in the first hour and a half, and the rest is Nicolas Cage doing a toned-down Elvis/Eval Kneival hybrid, and Eva Mendez standing in front of the camera (you can almost see contempt for the movie in her eyes, and she speaks her dialogue as if she's embarassed to say it). The villains are laughably awful, emo-kids in leather dusters, and they are easily defeated with lame CGI effects. Ghost Rider's first act is to be strung up with chains and hit by a truck - very heroic. The film has no style whatsoever, it looks like a TV movie from the 80's.
And above all, it's just very, very dull. There is nothing imaginative, surprising or original about the movie whatsoever, just a string of cliches and CGI effects. Cage seems to realise the essential pointlessness of the movie means he can do whatever the hell he likes, and does so - you can tell the director pretty much let him have free reign to wear cowboy hats, Elvis glasses, drink jelly beans, watch monkeys doing kung fu - none of it is needed in the movie, but because the script does nothing to establish a character for Johnny Blaze, it's only Cage's weird ideas that give him any kind of personality.
It says it all when the two most impressive sequences - Ghost Rider driving up a skyscraper, and riding alongside a Ghost Cowboy - lead nowhere and have no effect on the plot whatsoever.
A very poor excuse for a film.
9/10/2011 - The Incredible Hulk (2008)
I originally found this movie a dull collection of poor action scenes with minimal linking material. A product. Marvel's attempt to give audiences what they wanted back in 2003.
After watching it again, and watching it for the story, I found it far more effective. The action scenes, even the climactic fight with the Abomination, are not especially good. You can see how careful the makers had to be with the budget - even in the second Hulk scene in broad daylight, fighting the army, there are not many shots with him in.
But looking past the action scenes, the story of Bruce Banner is well told. His relationship with Betty was simple but believable, and Tim Roth's arc from being below Hulk's notice to being an even bigger monster was a good way to make the excitement build throughout. I recalled General Ross' role as being basically shouting at soldiers, but William Hurt does a solid job.
The thing I hated most on previous viewing was Tim Blake Nelson as Samuel Sterns; I found him embarassing with his coin flipping motion, and the sequence where he starts to become the Leader is awfully forced and lazy. And I still hate these parts of the movie. However, Sterns' part in the story is well placed; he is a scientist very much like Banner, but who does not share his ethics, and becomes fascinated by the power of the Hulk. He has also replicated Banner's radiated blood to use on others. This is good stroytelling, the man who we thought was Banner's potential salvation turns out to be nothing of the sort.
Overall, I enjoyed The Incredible Hulk much more than before. With the Hulk, you always (or atleast I do) want to rush through the non-Hulk parts to see the big green guy, and when those scenes are not especially good, you're left disapointed. This time I watched for the story as a whole, and the Hulk scenes became more effective as parts of the story rather than CGI spectacle. It's just a shame it could not have thrilling action and an effective story, like Terminator 2 for example.
Next up: Elektra.
