idrow Reviews

The Owners (2020)

A real disappointment

[1/10 · 11 September 2020]

Of all the projects Maisie Williams could have signed on for, she chose this mess. It starts off in generic fashion and goes downhill from there. The twists are not interesting or cohesive and the way this was put together is sloppy and confusing. At one point, the old woman is tied up and gets the false teeth slapped out of her mouth and in the next scene she's wearing them. This is just as confusing as the writing, so maybe it was intended to be another indecipherable 'twist'. Who knows.

No effort was put into this story on any level and why Maisie Williams signed on to this is a mystery. I'm an avid fan of horror/thrillers and I thought with her in it, it couldn't fail. Boy, was I wrong. It's like they went out of their way to make this a bad movie.

And if Maisie is reading this, please fire your agent. They're destroying your career and clout.

Battle Los Angeles (2011)

Huge disappointment, don't bother with this one

[2/10 · 13 March 2011]

I was so looking forward to this one. There's hasn't been a good alien invasion movie in a few years and this could have been great. Unfortunately, this was just as bad as Skyline. Yeah, that bad. No character development. I just didn't care about any of the characters at all. Shaky closeups and confusion dominate this film. When they finally show an alien, I thought really? That's what they came up with? I wanted to be rewarded for sitting through pointless dialogue and seizure inducing camera work. I wanted to see something cool, but they couldn't even come up with an interesting alien. With all the technology available to Hollywood, the sky's the limit when it comes to creating cool creatures and this movie disappoints on all levels.

If it's done right, I don't mind the hand held camera perspective. I loved Cloverfield. For character development and storyline, Independence Day was fantastic. And both of those movies had really cool aliens as well. The fact that some reviewers are comparing this to those two is an insult to those movies. I just can't believe all those involved with this production watched the finished product and thought it was a good movie. Has Hollywood given up?

Paranormal Activity 2 (2010)

Nowhere near as good as the first

[4/10 · 24 October 2010]

This is just my opinion and a few observations about this movie. I did love the first PA movie and was very excited to see the second. Between the previews and the hype, I had high hopes for this one.

PA2 starts off well enough, but never really gets going. A lot of time is spent on shots of rooms where nothing happens. This is time that could have been spent on character development. This is a short film and way too much time was spent on 'empty' scenes. I didn't really care for the characters - the father was annoying and I found myself hoping he would become a victim. What really put a chink in this movie for me was the fact that it supposedly takes place in 2006. In one of the conversations, the father says 'release the Kraken', which is a line from Clash of the Titans. Now I know that the 2010 movie was a remake of the original in '81, but who was saying 'release the Kraken' before the remake? I'm a huge fan of the original and had never heard that line quoted until the remake in 2010. It may seem like a very small thing to focus on, but I thought it really brought down the credibility of the movie. It did for me anyway.

I was never made to care for any of the characters and was kept strictly in observation mode of them, which made me apathetic to their plight. There was one scene an hour into the movie which made me jump, which is why I'm giving this movie 4 stars instead of 2. With the anticipated profits of this movie, they could have afforded better writing I would think. But then again, the budget of the first was minuscule and was brilliant. Yes, a little more 'action' happens in this movie, but the family reviews the footage only twice. And the footage they do review is relatively tame and dismissed by the father. The major things that you would expect them to want to review is never done and that element of fear is never really built up. I would have like to see them review footage of one of the scarier events and have them be frightened by it, this in turn would have frightened me. That concept worked very well in the first and was never repeated.

This movie could really have been great, but fell flat. I'm truly disappointed with this prequel.

The Strangers (2008)

The Strangers - Predictable and stupid

[1/10 · 3 June 2008]

I couldn't even get through this movie. The whole first 45 minutes revolves around trying to explain the fact that they can't go for help and it's just ridiculous. First of all, nobody leaves their house without their phone charged. Liv Tyler's character goes out to dinner and when she comes home her phone is dead. Sure. Second, she manages to get to her land line when someone is trying to break into her house. Does she call 911? Nooooo....she calls the boyfriend asking him to come home. Then the land line goes dead. The boyfriend manages to make it home, but *gasp* leaves his cell in his car. He goes out to get the cell and *gasp* it's gone. While he's outside does he go to a neighbor's house for help? Noooo...he goes back inside. Then they decide they have to get out of there so they make it to the car. When they get to the street, they see a car coming at them, so they stop instead of trying to avoid the other car and go around. Then they see a car coming at them from behind. Do they gun the car and go around the one in front? Noooo....they sit there and get hit from behind. What to do now? Run back into the house, of course. I couldn't take any more at this point. Both of them are so useless I don't even care if they get killed at this point.

This movie is just frustrating and predictable. Can't Hollywood even make an attempt to come up with something original any more?

Untraceable (2008)

Some things a movie should NOT do

[3/10 · 28 January 2008]

I was looking forward to seeing this one. It looked like it was going to be the first good thriller of the year.

The first 10 minutes were VERY hard to get through. There are just some things that shouldn't be done in movies. Showing the torture and killing of a kitten is NOT one of them. I actually considered leaving. If they were trying to recreate the bunny scene in Fatal Attraction, they got it wrong. I am a huge fan of thriller and horror movies, they're my favorite genre, but I found this unacceptable.

There was also a scene that was just flat out unbelievable where the guy shuts down her car's electrical system, bit by bit, starting with the windshield wipers, and magically starts it again. This just cannot be done unless you physically go into the engine and rip specific components out. There would be no such things as police chases if it were possible to simply 'hack' into the car and shut it off. Yeah, the guy was good with a PC, but come on, he doesn't have supernatural powers.

Is Hollywood this desperate that they think showing the torture and killing of kittens is good cinema? They need to start bringing smart writing and directing back. The premise was very good, the delivery failed miserably. I will never watch this movie again.

Cloverfield (2008)

Very Disappointing

[7/10 · 21 January 2008]

I'm a huge fan of monster, apocalyptic, and doomsday movies, so naturally I was very excited to see this one. To summarize in one word: Meh.

This movie with such a huge premise was exactly 1 hour and 13 minutes long. WTF? With such a short movie, the writers choose to spend the first 20 minutes on literally nothing of interest. You're taken to a going away party for someone with an irritating personality. A party I would have left after 10 minutes if I was actually there. So, after a quarter of the movie is wasted here, an alarm goes off and everyone starts running. The shaky camera work at the party is annoying, and it just gets worse...and worse...and worse, and my annoyance just kept growing.

So much could have been done with this story, but the writers and director had it out for the audience and gave everyone a big F.U. There was about two minutes collectively where the movie was cool, but that's only if you're into special effects. If you're into extremely shaky film footage where you have to strain to see anything, then you'll love this one. This was ten times shakier than the Blair Witch Project.

I bet this movie was made for less than 100k, and most of that was spent on CGI, because the actors shouldn't have been paid more than 5k apiece. This movie jumped from totally boring to chaos without any explanations. Where did the monster come from? Why, after seeing it blown up, did it show up again unscathed? Where did it go at the end and what the hell happened? Why were buildings being blown up? Could the monster shoot fire balls out of it's ass or something? We never find out.

Apparently, the budget ran out because the movie just ended abruptly. No resolution or answers whatsoever. The characters were so weak that I didn't even care when they died. This may be a candidate for a Raspberry award. Very, very disappointing.