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jsmits
Reviews
Fugitive Hunter (2005)
Obeseploitation
As others report this is quite an impressive effort, there are much worse movies you can watch. It is entertaining, and the plot is good enough. You will not even notice much that there was not a lot of money. In a car chase the fugutive hunters deliberate about putting a helicopter in the sky. "There is no time", they conclude.
All males are obese. Is this the start of a new genre? After blaxploitation now obeseploitation? Fat good guys hunting fat bad guys? Let's have donuts, hot dogs and shoot our guns? Heavy weight kung-fu? Quite a change after the skinny martian arts specialists and the regular American six-pack action heroes.
That all male characters are obese is not very disturbing, sometimes I noticed though, which pulled me away from the storyline. I'm not sure if this new attempt to a genre is a good idea, therefore.
K3 en het ijsprinsesje (2006)
Great fun and more balanced
Since the movie is intended for the very young, one should not object to read some bits that for other movies might be spoilers. The audience of this movie does not read... English...
In this second K3 movie the peppy trio returns and again plays themselves. This time they have to save a princess in fairy land. In the process they meet several characters from well known fairy tales, and they have to beat the bad wizard who has no name.
What was strange with the previous movie (K3 and the Magic Medallion) was that these song and dance galls hardly sang and danced. Which missed the point a bit for the very young intended audience. Although nicely styled as a comic book, there was not much to enjoy the children's parents or whomever they would watch the movie with.
This time there is a lot of fun. New songs at logical intervals, jokes that go over the heads of the youngest, and even some anarchy. That is delivered by Belgian's bad boy, and now "bad nestor" Urbanus. He plays the bad wizard ardently, but his intonation, dress and magical wand (watch this closely) challenge the fairy tale setting. Special pats on the head for the two royal servants Lak and Kei. These guys are funny.
Now what we have here is the best in children's cinema: it takes the youngest audience seriously and succeeds in grasping their attention and amusing them. On a higher level there are enough jokes for the older companions.
Finally: the movie has a nice style, is dynamic, nothing wrong.
"Spoiler", or something you should not miss: watch the screen of the on board computer when Kathleen steps on Aladin's flying carpet. Hurray for K3's apparent attitude to take their fame lightly.
The Da Vinci Code (2006)
Good summary
Hollywood has its limitations. They dislike dialog. Well, The Da Vinci Code book contains lots of puzzles that need to be presented, explored, solved and explained. Ron Howard does an admirable job in condensing these parts of the book a bit, and stretching the chases and escapes a tad, and thus creating a very consumable "summary", "reader's digest" of Dan Brown's book. I saw lots of movies of this length that were boring at times, but The Da Vinci Code is entertaining and interesting from the start. Tom Hanks adds another type of character to his long list. Also admirable for a Hollywood movie is the use of original language: English, Latin and French. The only scene where they probably messed up was in the church dialog with the nun, but I would have to re-read the book to see if maybe I am mistaken.
Meteor (1979)
Work for their money!
I warn for a spoiler, because there is a must see scene in this movie.
People do not seem to like this movie. That is too bad. In many disaster movies with a big budget the cast does not get their hands really dirty. Sometimes a bit smudged, sometimes a bit wet, but that's it.
In Meteor they give the cast a mud bath they will never forget. You can see the disbelieve on their faces, and it adds to the credibility of the scene. These people even try to act during the ordeal. They should all have gotten an Oscar. You never saw this, and you will never see it again in this time of computer effects.
The Sum of All Fears (2002)
Suspense, and some realism
Yes, well, the comments made by others are true, of course. It is strange to see a much younger Jack Ryan. They changed major things from the book. And that the electronic gizmos kept working after the nuclear blast is not very strong. But, what I really liked, was the depiction of the hotline. In many Hollywood movies this is a red phone. In fact, the hotline between Washington and Moscow is a teletype system. Call it a "text chat" system.
This allows for proper translation, and reduces the chance of misinterpretation. It is still tested hourly, usually by operators exchanging recipes or testing each others translation skills.
After all these movies with a red phone on the president's desk, finally something that looks like the real thing.
Backtime (1998)
Wait until the end!
One word of advice: watch the movie until the end. When the movie started I felt disgusted by the crummy costumes and the hopeless storyline. A typical B-movie. Boy, was I wrong. It may still be a B-movie, but one of the best. There is a good reason why the story is as it is, and why the costumes look the way they look. I can not tell you more, as it would spoil the fun of watching right through the end. Please believe me, and be warned that the first 30 minutes are not promising at all. It is worth it!