isaacbbabcock Reviews

The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou (2004)

A dryly played undercover masterpiece

[10/10 · 10 November 2009]

I've become a big fan of this movie, and most of Wes Anderson's films, because they just get it. The understanding of human behavior and sociology is just incredible. He knows people so well, that he can accurately parody any scenario against the absurdities behind them.

The Life Aquatic is no different. The humor is so dry it only registers if you're truly paying attention. The script rewards you later for doing so. It's like a true documentary that occasionally checks up on you, and it's damn hilarious. You won't laugh out loud at it, but you damn well should appreciate it.

Again Bill Murray is stellar in a leading role. Though he's threatening to pigeonhole himself with these types of lazy, narcissistic depressives, he plays them more realistically than anyone in our time, transforming dry scripting into a sly masterpiece.

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (2008)

Disappointment verging on anger

[5/10 · 10 January 2009]

I'm a big Indiana Jones fan. I have the first three on DVD, and have watched them maybe 100 times total. Needless to say Raiders of the Lost Ark gets the most plays.

Compared to those movies, Kingdom of the Crystal Skull was seemingly written and directed by a totally different group of people.

In the first five minutes of Raiders of the Lost Ark, maybe half a dozen lines are spoken. It's all mystery and leaves the audience to figure things out for themselves.

In the first five minutes of Kingdom of the Crystal Skull there had already been dozens of cheesy lines, and the majority of the bad guys' plot had already been revealed in nauseating detail straight from the characters' mouths.

The characters are all there, though some of them shouldn't have been. The Marion and Mac characters were completely superfluous and added nothing to the plot, except to fill holes in it, in Marion's case.

The important characters, like Indiana, Mutt, and the ruskie that Cate Blanchett plays do a good enough job and give it that sense of adventure that is otherwise forced by increasingly unrealistic predicaments. I just wish Blanchett's character could have held a candle in the intimidation department compared to the Nazis in the first or third Jones installment.

The movie was also distractingly self-aware, giving a tedious amount of screen time to nods to the previous films, as opposed to playing on its own merits. The music was also an almost entirely recycled amalgam of the previous three films.

That could be a good thing for some people though. It's just that most of those nods to the previous films are about Raiders of the Lost Ark, manifested through petty, forced relationship squabbles between Indy and Marion.

On its own merits, the film falls flat. The movie starts out with many similarities to Raiders, but the plot then becomes convoluted and far fetched, and as a consequence of that most of the dialog is spent explaining what's happening in the current scene, and what's going to happen next.

Almost nothing happens without being explained directly by a character in the scene, almost like George Lucas wanted to make sure first graders would be able to keep up. But the plot turns so much supposition into unbelievable reality that it's hard to keep following without asking why.

The smart, dryly wrought mix of drama and comedy that made the original so special is tossed aside in favor of lame one liners and pseudo-emotional power plays.

Many of the action scenes are either logically flawed or extraneous. When Indiana Jones tries to evade a hail of machine gun fire in one scene, he essentially runs directly in the line of fire when he could easily have jumped two feet sideways and ran behind a barrier. When a sword fight scene breaks out during a chase, the fight keeps going even after one of the characters gets what he wants, as if lengthening the runtime of an already stale sword fight would somehow make it more intense.

That seems to be the philosophy with the plot as well. It just goes on and on. It doesn't intensify. It doesn't reconnect with itself at any point. The plot never builds toward anything. It just runs through a scene and then switches gears. You're only really told about what's going to happen next once the scene you're in is about to end. It doesn't build tension and then release it, because there's no tension, just confusion and then a quick scene cut.

Apparently the producers thought it would be acceptable to turn it into a kid-friendly film by disappointing the rest of the viewers with CGI monkeys and prairie dogs too. That monkey in Raiders did an admirable job. Why not just bring him back? Well, aside from the fact that he's probably dead by now.

Despite all this, The Kingdom is still worth visiting, but only to deepen your love for the original three films in the foursome, and to deepen your hatred of Spielberg and Lucas for screwing up a good thing.

This movie could have stuck with the style of the other films, and turned out a winner even if it plagiarized the others heavily. Instead it eschewed the tried and true 1980's style epic film- making and instead tried to capture modern, presumably intellectually inept viewers with big explosions, worn out lowbrow humor, cartoon animals, and a total disregard for physics or reality in general.

Of the four films, I'd put this at a solid #4. It's still better than most action/adventure movies, but it's not as good as the other three in the series.

But my opinion might change, since I plan on watching it again. Hopefully it's better the second time.

Rushmore (1998)

One of the deepest, best made films I've ever seen

[10/10 · 20 November 2008]

I'll preface this by saying how this film could be ranked below a 9 is beyond me. The level of depth of character in the lead and supporting roles, coupled with stellar acting and a brilliantly simple but nuanced story combines to make it a cinematic masterpiece.

Mind you it's a low key masterpiece that really won't go over well if you're a fan of movies that frequently score sixes or worse on IMDb. It's a movie driven entirely by dialog. If that doesn't suit you, don't go trashing the movie after you find out there's not a car chase scene or somebody getting their face kicked in or getting a big laugh by falling face down into a pile of dog turds.

This movie delves into how we look at the characters and ultimately how we see ourselves and those around us. I could see a little of myself in every character. They weren't just people on the screen; they were inherently human in their depth of emotion, with nothing sappy or hyperbolic about it.

If you like movies that sweep you in with witty, intelligent dialog and strong musical scores, this is a film for you, and a film for the ages.

Enchanted (2007)

Classic storytelling blended perfectly with modern reality

[10/10 · 26 November 2007]

I'm not in this movie's target demographic. I'm a guy aged 24-30. Yet the preview sucked me in, and I'm glad I did. Why? It's a movie that tells us a little about ourselves, and makes fun of how we distinguish fantasy from reality and why we hold onto our dreams.

We all want the fairy tale to come true, but as we get older, we learn that reality is much less beautiful than the idealized world of Disney fantasy. This movie plays to that duality expertly, examining what we believe, asking us why, and making us laugh along the way.

Giselle the would-be princess will win you over with her idealist naiveté. She steals scenes with her energetic personality, and makes you wish you believed how she does. Her musical scene while cleaning house will have you laughing along as fantasy and reality clash in a brilliant mockery.

Prince Edward will have you rooting for the wrong guy because he's just so likable. He's played by James Marsden, aka Scott from the X-Men (who was a dick), which really showcases his versatility. He can sing, dance, and play naive romantic to a T.

Patrick Dempsey once again removes himself from the limelight with a too low-key performance, but he's the straight guy that grounds the film, so that's the point. He still changes as Giselle's giddy make believe world intrudes on his life and the way he thinks, so you get to feel for him as if he were you.

By the end of the film you'll find yourself wondering if you still believe in the fairy tale style romance, or if you're a modern realist. The best part is, this movie gives you that choice.

Everybody comes out a winner from this film, including the audience. It's a perfect date movie, unless you don't like who you're dating, in which case it'll be really awkward, because this movie is unrelentingly romantic.

Virtuosity (1995)

A rare chance to root for a compelling antagonist

[9/10 · 13 September 2007]

My impression of this movie may be tainted by the fact that I saw it ten years ago and was fairly crazy myself at the time.

I thought it was an intriguing, stylistic masterpiece of a psycho thriller. Russell Crowe does a brilliant job as SID 6.7, essentially cementing his prowess in morphing into multiple personalities on camera. No wonder he's so sought after these days.

Though SID is maniacal, he draws you in as you just want to see what he'll do next. The symphony of screams was brilliantly psychotic. SID's absolute menace makes you either hate him or love him for his sly evil.

Denzel Washington does an always solid job as the opposite of SID. He's a disreputable cop trying to get his good name back.

They parry repeatedly in scenes which become less memorable than when SID holds the limelight alone. The ending is predictable but fun, and well worth sticking around for.

If you ever wanted to root for the antagonist, this is the film for you.

The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975)

One of the worst movies I've ever seen

[2/10 · 22 July 2007]

If you enjoy disjointed plots that make no sense, comedy that falls flat on its face behind garbled lyrics and bad sound editing, and if you think that weird for the sake of weird is funny, you'll love this movie.

For those former theater majors who go giddy over the mere sight of stage singing cross dressers, this movie will be a visual delight.

If you're looking for a movie that's anything beyond a demented, kaleidoscopic blur of random thoughts and inside jokes between the writer and himself, shat into screenplay form and brought tragically to life by a largely career-suicidal cast, spare your brain from the nightmare that will echo through it for decades. This movie is not for you.

It bounces interminably between inexplicable, downright awkward and frequently painful scenes that range between unintelligible psychotic bisexual rantings and drug-induced musical numbers seemingly written during the filming of the scene.

For those who understand the value of entertainment and think actively melting their brain is a negative instead of a positive, every scene is horrific. I have plenty of gay friends, but many scenes in this movie were so slathered in useless, preachy sexual androgyny that it made me practically turn my head away in disgust.

If you haven't shot your DVD player or thrown it off a balcony by the one hour mark, spare yourself any additional emotional drama of panning your eyes between the screen and the nearest clock and just shut it off. The final hour of the film is almost entirely superfluous.

Only in the final five minutes of the film do gaping holes or just plain missing pages from the plot become hastily written into the accidental trick ending. It turns out that the horrific mess you've endured through your now bleeding eyeballs was all just a farce of a farce of a farce that you frankly shouldn't have given a damn about in the first place.

Some movies make you laugh. Others make you cry. The better ones do both, and send you out of the theater fulfilled and with maybe a sense of greater purpose in life. This one makes you wish you'd died before your soul got its first glimpse of hell, burned though your retinas onto the back of your skull forever.

I gave this movie two stars simply on the merits of my girlfriend somehow liking it, and I like most movies she does. Maybe there's something I'm just completely missing here, like my IQ is too high or I'm handicapped by not having taken drama class for four years in high school. With my possible fallacies taken into account, I have no idea why she not only can endure this, but thinks it's harmless enough to force upon unwitting victims.

People call this movie "the ultimate cult classic." There's a reason it's a cult classic. Cults tend to be full of nutcases. I like a ton of crazy, nutty movies - even campy B movie comedies like "Cannibal! The Musical" - but this film is flat out atrocious.

I Heart Huckabees (2004)

Bizarre, deep, intriguing comedy

[8/10 · 29 March 2007]

It's hard to categorize a film that tries to shake you at every turn. This movie defies explanation short of it being written in a nut house, but it's nonetheless slap happy entertainment at its most intellectual.

Existential detectives hunting down a string of odd coincidences involving a very tall black man? It's odd, it's funny, and it works.

This movie juggles a handful of subplots swirling around the main characters as they all try to figure out just what's right and wrong about them. You'll enjoy every minute of it. Never have I seen a movie so deeply interested in the characters' development. Since that's the crux of the movie, that only makes sense, but it's all rendered with a wit and wisdom seemingly antithetical to the movie's occasional (and intentional) crudeness.

The all-star cast gives a combined knockout performance, and you'll be laughing along the way.

The Sound of Music (1965)

Pulls you in with its irrepressible optimism

[10/10 · 29 March 2007]

I've never been a musicals kind of guy. I thought The Rocky Horror Picture Show was one of the worst movies I've ever seen. I've avoided most others like the plague.

The three hour runtime of this movie always put me off, but I finally saw it with my girlfriend a few weeks ago and was astonished at how likable the film was.

The fact that it was good wasn't a shocker since it's an all time classic that won half a dozen Oscars, but the fact that it could pull me in amazed me.

The story is compelling because of Julie Andrews' performance. She pulls you into her plight, which seems a bit one dimensional at the start but fills up with more emotional depth as the story presses on and becomes more wrapped up in everyone's lives.

It discusses formerly taboo subjects like the Nazi occupation of Austria and what it felt like to be an appeaser versus a renegade in a time where people's true patriotism was tested.

I couldn't think of this movie being more fulfilling and well-done. See it. It's a classic.

Team America: World Police (2004)

If you get it, you'll love it. If you don't, you'll say it's too 'crude'

[10/10 · 29 March 2007]

I was looking forward to this movie for a while when I saw it, and for the first time in a while I wasn't disappointed by high expectations. This movie will make your head practically explode with laughter. I was in pain from laughing so hard in the theater.

The comic timing and the subject matter converge to make a comedic masterpiece. It's mostly crude, sometimes deep, and always right on the money. It plays upon Hollywood stock characters and takes them to ridiculous extremes. The parodies and stereotypes are expertly done, and the puppets won't scare you, honestly.

Just see it. If you don't get this, you don't get comedy.

Casino Royale (2006)

Bond goes gritty and realistic, and works wonders

[9/10 · 28 March 2007]

My girlfriend is a Bond freak. She owns every DVD, and almost every VHS. She has three copies of some of them. Thusly, I've seen all of them, from the first to the last.

Having been given the benefit of understanding the progression of the films to the most recent, I was pleasantly surprised when I saw Casino Royale.

Gone were the goofy gimmicks of invisible cars and x ray sunglasses, and gone were the unrealistic, corny plots.

This Bond got real in a big way, and revitalized the franchise.

As everyone knows, the films rest heavily on the performance of the title role, and Daniel Craig was definitely a risk. He's blond, he's got blue eyes, and he definitely hasn't played this role before.

He also hit the ball out of the park with his performance. Gritty, raw, but with an emotional depth that was lacking in Timothy Dalton's far-too-serious Bond, Craig split the emotional double role right down the middle, making his character more human in the process.

That doesn't mean he can't be tough. His fight scenes and chases had a brutal reality that was totally absent from perhaps the last six Bond films, which had relied on increasingly stylized fighting to wow the audience with visual flair that defied reality.

Craig and the film crew brought the brutal realism back with a vengeance. You felt the informant's head crashing through the porcelain of the sink. You raced into the room with Bond as he chased the bad guy.

He brought you into the scene with him.

My complaints lie in the latter parts of the film. I consider this film to be essentially two in one. I can't tell you what that is, or I'd spoil it, but considering this monster's record length, you can figure there's a lot of plot in there. It could have been split in two, had 20 minutes added to each end, and been two very successful films.

When it does transition over is the problem. All too quickly does it race into the romantic aspects, only to be tossed into act two with breakneck speed. I didn't expect this, and was wondering why the movie kept going.

Not that every moment wasn't really necessary. There's no filler material here, but it's so high energy the whole way through that it's exhaustive just to watch. But it's worth it. See it and understand. Bond is back, and Craig has made the role his own.

Trainspotting (1996)

Brilliantly witty, oddly funny tale of heroin addiction's dark side

[10/10 · 28 March 2007]

When I was still in high school, this came out in the theater, and I remember desperately wanting to see it. My mom saw it, told me it was "too depressing" and so I didn't.

A few years later, I found a good reason to slap my mom when I remembered the film and rented it on a whim.

This is comedy and drama as beautifully blended as I've ever seen on film.

I was shocked at how brilliantly this movie flowed from the first moment of it. The opening monologue voiced over a foot chase scene was unforgettable, as Mark Renton rifled off in meth-juiced prose his reason for becoming a drug addict - his revulsion for choosing life as others saw fit, ending in a characteristically dry punchline to echo his whimsical understanding of his otherwise dour seeming situation.

The movie immediately plunges you into the world of the druggie, crawling along the floor of a heroin house as people pass out all around. You get to meet some of Renton's friends - all deep characters in their own rights.

One of this movie's biggest strengths is the depth of the characters from their very introduction. You get to know them all as if they were your own friends, each with their own strengths and weaknesses, played upon expertly by Irvine Welsh's scripting throughout the film.

It balances brilliantly the duality between straight people, drug addicts, and alcoholics with a holier than thou attitude toward illegal addicts, touching in depth upon the stresses of a druggie lifestyle, while never falling too far away from the whimsical nature of the film to make a joke out of place.

If you've ever had an angry moment, you'll love Francis Begbie. His raw, inappropriate rage is comical because you get to see it from the outside.

If you've ever had a moment of doubt, you'll love Mark Renton. He's the perennial introspective psychologist, keenly aware of his condition, struggling with whether he wants his lifestyle, always laughingly dry about it.

If you've ever had a 'bad' friend, you'll love Sick Boy. He's pushy, disloyal, always right, always wrong, but you can't get away from him.

If you've ever had a naive friend, you'll love Spud. His weakness makes him ever funnier as the movie goes on, particularly in the speed addled job interview scene, which is a comedic gem.

This movie pushes you to new places, and you'll beg to keep going. It's raw, witty, and undeniably compelling. Don't even bother renting it. Buy it.

The Master of Disguise (2002)

A comedy that makes you wish you were dead

[1/10 · 28 March 2007]

If I could give this movie a negative rating, I would have.

I loved Dana Carvey on SNL. He was funny, had great timing. He did a great job in the Wayne's World movies too. He worked great when his movies stayed within the 15-30 demographic.

Then he destroyed his career with the Master of Disguise.

This 'comedy' was so bad that it made me feel terrible just for watching it. I was embarrassed to be watching this movie in public. There's nothing funny about openly pitying an actor as you watch him force the run time to 80 minutes with jokes so flat they don't even register above the painfully boring dialog.

"Painful" is a good way to describe this movie. Nothing works. Sometimes you can't even tell when the jokes had happened. That's how bad they were. I watched this with my brother and found myself asking "was that supposed to be a joke?" I guess so, because it happened over and over again.

I don't find his fake Italian accent as annoying as many of the reviewers, but how the hell is repeating the word "turtle" over and over again while dressed in a turtle suit to get into a turtle club supposed to be funny, let alone plausible in the plot? Was everybody involved with the film consistently drunk as this was being made? Surely somebody must have said something like "Guys, this really sucks. Lets burn it and never speak of it again." I suggest anybody who accidentally came into possession of this bumbling nightmare do the same, to rid the world of its horrors forever.

Cannibal! The Musical (1993)

A 'B movie' masterpiece that'll leave your sides aching with laughter

[9/10 · 28 March 2007]

I watched this with friends one night when we were having a B movie marathon. Little did we know how much this would take us by surprise.

The opening scene is somewhat scary but corny, and the corniness and wit of the jokes just expands from there. For musical fans, this is a sing along movie if I've ever seen one. I'm not really into musicals, but the songs are so funny and nonsensical that it makes the movie all the more entertaining as an experience.

The characters don't really develop, but who cares? Trey Parker's Alferd Packer is hilarious and impeccably timed with his cheerful, naive humor. The adventure they go on through what looks like rural Colorado finds plenty of laughs on the way, with brilliantly nuanced jokes that show a level of sociological understanding that's missing from a low brow comedy. This is not one of those.

Watch it, and don't be shocked if it's the funniest independent film you've ever seen.

Down Periscope (1996)

If you like jokes that fall flat on their face, you'll love this film

[2/10 · 28 March 2007]

I gave this film a two because the plot made perfect sense and arrived with the proper pace. I docked it eight stars for being one of the most agonizing films I've ever sat through in a theater. That's right, I saw this more than ten years ago when it came out, and remember it to this day because it was so bad.

Close to none of the jokes caused a change in the silence of the audience. At one point somebody even booed a joke it was so crappy. I remember actually counting the seconds of awkwardness after some jokes where the movie almost seemed to pause, hoping for the laughter that would never come.

This movie would have done much better as a drama that had extremely mild comic relief, if only the premise weren't corny already. I'm surprised Kelsey Grammar got any work after this, because absent his deep baritone he obviously can't carry a movie on his own.

Alias (2001–2006)

Compelling television that leaves you begging for more

[10/10 · 28 March 2007]

I rarely watch TV. I think most of it sucks these days. It's dumbed down copies of itself over and over again, tendering itself to the broadest audience possible to get the most viewers - lowest common denominator entertainment. NASCAR dominates a formerly awesome Speed Channel. Jim Belushi sitcoms soldier on uncanceled. News shows get closer to elementary level 'infotainment' every day.

I never saw this show on TV. I wish I had, so the marketing people must have screwed up royally while it was airing. Thankfully, my girlfriend has every DVD of Alias, because she loves it. I wanted to find out why. I'm very glad I did.

I'll recommend to any of this show's detractors that they watch it from the absolute start of the series, because this is one of the most chronologically linked shows I've ever seen.

It starts out quickly, the story of a college girl being recruited into the CIA, and grips you from there, drawing you into the story with the ever developing characters of an incredibly deep cast as you learn more of the secrets of organizations designed to keep you in the dark, and push toward ever complicating plot twists that leave you guessing what's going to happen next.

Jennifer Garner's Sydney Bristow is a powerful character you can't help but empathize with. Her plight is real, you feel her emotions with the brilliantly expository scripts, and she plays them expertly. It's as if Garner was made for the role. She's decently attractive too.

Every character from her father to the head of SD-6 to Vaughn to Marshall to Irina Derevko are written as if from inside the character outward. You learn about these people as you follow what they're doing.

The dialog is very well written. Mostly concise, just the facts type talk, it mirrors the urgency with which the characters live their lives.

The action is very well choreographed, never cheesy, always realistic and interestingly shot. The plots take you all over the world, to interesting locales, making you feel as if you're going there with the characters.

With every new adventure you're drawn more deeply in. I'm only on season two and I can't wait to see the next episode.

I can't think of a TV action/drama that was more well written, and I've been alive for 28 years.

300 (2006)

A great idea wrought shamefully on the silver screen

[3/10 · 27 March 2007]

I love epic style movies. I loved Gladiator, Clash of the Titans (as a kid) and any movie that makes history come alive. I love sports movies that have to do with comebacks, overcoming tough odds, and the like. I also have a thing for violence.

Those three factors alone made me think 300 would be one of my favorite movies. Little did I know it was possible to make an epic historical movie about fighting impossible odds with extreme violence that I would hate.

Well done, Warner Brothers.

I'll make this easy for people who want a list pros and cons, starting with the latter because it outnumbers its more optimistic forbear so heavily:

Cons:

1) The dialog is agonizingly juvenile and cliché. During a dramatic entering into the fray, the leader of the Spartans' reinforcements shouts "Lets show the Spartans what we can do!" Lines in perfect moments to drum up the drama of a scene fall flat like that over and over again until you're basically expecting it by halfway through. After the queen's impassioned speech to the senate, I found myself thinking "you've gotta be sh!^^ing me." It resonated with all the power of a fifth grader reading a George W. Bush speech off a blurry cue card. I understand that the five lines in the movie (the ones not stolen from an odd combination of recent movies and elementary school history assignments) were reported to have been spoken at the battle itself. If the entire rest of the movie weren't just as awkward and simplistic, they may have worked.

2) Points of the plot that didn't even require mention were either mentioned explicitly or repeated ad nausea. The narrator seemed very interested in reminding you that there were only 300 Spartans throughout the film. It was also made well known that the Spartans wouldn't surrender and would keep fighting, over and over again. It was as if the screenwriter were drunk and forgot he'd mentioned those points, and didn't bother to check the script before taking it to press.

3) Casting made some huge mistakes. Dilios, played by a then 40 year old David Wenham, had the faked voice of a grizzled chain smoker twice his age, seemingly to make him sound more imposing than he looked and to correspond with the narrator's voice after the fact. Considering that everybody else on the battlefield looked and sounded correct for the part, the fourth-billed actor in the film came off like Burgess Meredith with ripped abs. Needless to say, this was confusing and unnerving.

4) The sex scene when the king and queen say their intimate "goodbye, I may never see you again" should have lasted about ten seconds. Instead it was stretched to more than a minute of near pornographic detail, including the king lovingly banging his wife doggy style. I don't know what message that was trying to convey, but it was pretty out of place. For some viewers that may be seen as a plus, but my sexually adventurous girlfriend and I looked at each other and mouthed "WTF?"

5) Most of the fight scenes were so poorly explained beforehand that they seemed only to extend the runtime of the movie. I understand that there were supposedly three days of fighting, which corresponds with the alleged true story of the battle, but the plot glossed over this, instead just blindly flashing between scenes.

6) The "effects" were pathetic facsimiles of those from real movies. Every scene was filmed in a green screen sound stage. No scene had more than 20 real actors in it, when there appeared to be tens of thousands. Every "giant" in the movie was a CGI modified regular sized person. This was painfully obvious when the seemingly 8' tall King Xerxes puts his hand on Leonidus' shoulder and it just kind of floats there.

7) Plot elements were either rushed or non-existent. Without any real reason the Spartans are already going off to war within the first ten minutes of the movie. The deepest a character gets is the five seconds of doubt the king has before his freaky session with the queen, or when one character cries after his son gets decapitated. Everybody else is one dimensional. Come movie's end, a full two hour investment later you still don't give a damn about any of them.

8) The music throughout the film was at times either inappropriate or ripped straight out of a U.S. Army commercial.

There's too much else to criticize about the film so I'll mention the positives.

Pros: 1) Lots of random hot naked chicks.

2) The fighting itself was pretty cool, and they attempted to stylize this with rapidly changing camera speeds, which you may or may not like. (I didn't).

3) Some cool fake CGI mythical creatures.

4) Finally a hunchback gets a co-star nod in an action film.

5) Gerard Butler's King Leonidas is a decently strong character.

6) Abs galore.

I gave it a 3 out of 10 merely because it was "faithful to the book", which apparently should never have been adapted to film. I don't really understand the draw of mature adults reading comic books, which they've defensively re-dubbed "graphic novels", but I guess if you do, you might like this movie despite it being so poorly rendered. I liked the X-Men series a lot, and look forward to the fourth one, but this movie sucked.