elcee1987 Reviews

Tiger Cruise (2004 TV Movie)

Standard Disney fare

[6/10 · 13 September 2015]

First, this movie is an excellent demonstration of Hayden Panettiere's acting prowess. She carried this movie, even when no one else did. Conversely, I was disappointed in Bill Pullman's acting. I'm pretty sure he just phoned it in and showed up on payday. After seeing his inspiring leadership performance role in Independence Day, I was expecting, we'll, anything that might indicate a pulse. He failed to deliver. The plot was fine, but there were a lot of little holes that the movie glossed over in the interest of time. Like how the kids became so close so fast. From the foreshadowing on the plane ride, I expected there to be a bit more friction between the kids, but in the next scene, they were best friends. Hayden and her brother had cute chemistry but it was also a little unbelievable considering they apparently didn't know each other before the trip. Overall, the movie is worth watching. Just don't expect any life from Bill, and prepare to be amused with the cheapskate backgrounds used, particularly the unmoving sunset and repeating wave movement from the back of the ship.

200 M.P.H. (2011 Video)

don't be a glutton for punishment

[1/10 · 16 June 2011]

This is like Fast and the Furious minus the sexy, which means we've got two guys wandering through a junkyard, wondering if they have enough money to soup up their 88 mazda, and all the scantily-clad women in the film work at a cheap strip club with the main guy's mother and girlfriend. Plus, the use of nitrous, which is a requirement for any decent car movie, is only vaguely considered by the mechanic at first. The title is misleading; none of the cars featured could even HIT 200 mph. And the racing scenes are painful to watch with all the jerky cornering and dull, almost apathetic driving. This movie really is the small-town version of Fast and the Furious. When the winner crosses the finish line, a crowd of like 30 extras swarm his car. Probably family of the filming crew or something. And when friends are sitting around, talking about the guy's "killer," (honestly, the guy just lost control of his car/CG animation) they come up with these gems: "what an asshole!" "I know, what a douchebag." I'm sorry, did a NINTH-GRADER write this script? The one good part in this movie is when the girl is being pursued by the bad guy, and every time he gets close, she pops him one in the face. Sure, it's unrealistic, but as a woman, it's hard not to cackle with glee at that. Then she kicks him in the nads as he tries to get a lap dance from her. Luckily, those girl-power scenes redeemed the fact that her vintage Suzuki bike managed to outrace a Nissan "Skyline" The star's one fairly okay actor, Tommy Nash, is hidden behind a Jesus beard, then killed off, which is a shame because he's hot in real life. Editing seems to be done by an overzealous film school student (lots of fades and flash-cuts), and not sure who cleared the CG for the Nissan car crash, but he must still be using a 1993 Packard Bell computer. And the person who played the Mexican drug dealer who thinks it's cool to cruise in a toy Mazda is what I only laughing call an actor. His lines were the most painful to watch in the entire movie, and that's saying something. Also, I can't imagine anyone connected to this movie has ever even driven a car or watched another car movie, because whose bright idea was it to have him hit the NOS in the middle of a corner, or just as he's still correcting from turning that corner? Even I know you do that at the top of the fastest gear, when you're flat out going as fast as you can go. I could go on all day dissecting this movie, because as I said, there is only ONE good part of the movie, and the cars ain't in it. (also, how is it that he's going 160 in one moment, then standing still at an intersection in the next, with the guy ramming his car continually the whole time? Any idea how long it takes to slow down from 160 mph? It isn't one second.) I had low, low expectations for this movie, and it even went lower than that, so you've been warned. However, you might make a good drinking game out of it (for instance, anytime a line is delivered poorly, but you definitely won't finish the movie).

End Game (2006)

No secret this was low budget

[3/10 · 20 December 2009]

Wow, what a sad film. I particularly enjoyed the lack of precision by actors playing Secret Service agents. They seemed like they were acting in a high school play. The same goes for most of the other actors, even Cuba Gooding Jr and Angie Harmon (of whom I am a huge fan, normally). The lack of chemistry between the two was painful and both of them seemed to have read the script moments before shooting.

The accuracy of facts when it comes to Secret Service and presidential policies felt embarrassingly off. I can only assume the low budget is the reason for having approximately 3-5 Secret Service agents surrounding the President, despite the fact that he was outside the White House. The lack of people outside of the main cast was very obvious. For instance, during the car chase supposedly set in downtown Washington DC in broad daylight, there are only 3 cars seen, all of which are involved in an plot line accident.

This movie was filmed entirely in Spokane, WA (except for aerial shots of DC) so as a native Spokaneite, I got a kick out of seeing a car chase scene outside of the downtown Rite Aid and a hot dog cart outside of Olive Garden (hot dog carts are a rare commodity in Spokane, as is foot traffic). I enjoyed watching this movie solely so I could say hey I know where that's at, or oh wow that's where I got my senior pictures taken, but if I hadn't been able to do that, I would have wanted those 90 minutes back.

Also, the blue tint to the movie made it feel dead and empty, rather than chilling and intense, like the director intended. PS. The low- budget phone conversations (where the camera tackily goes back and forth between two callers' mouths) were the highlight of my laugh fest while watching this movie.

Pandemic (II) (2009)

Boring and not interesting

[2/10 · 28 October 2009]

See here's the thing. I don't mind a really truly terrible movie, because at least it's so bad it's funny. This one though, just elicited NO reaction in me. It wasn't awful, it wasn't disgusting, it wasn't funny, it just...was. I couldn't even muster up the emotion to rate it 1/10 for awful.

After watching this I still don't understand what was going on. The military good/bad aspects might have been a nice twist, but it was handled all wrong and didn't have any sort of a plot setup to make it feasible. The spooky scary music did nothing for me and the acting was pretty, well, boring. Plus, the suffering, dying animals at the beginning of the movie did not bode well for me, a card-carrying member of the Humane Society. I should have turned it off when I saw that.

When I saw the cover and the title I thought it might have a bit more energy and maybe horror or zombie parts than it ended up actually having. This movie just didn't have...anything..

Center Stage: Turn It Up (2008)

Eh. Wasn't great

[3/10 · 14 January 2009]

This movie had poor and stiff acting from the leads but the dancing was well done. I think if you're a dancer, it's probably worth the hour and a half, but if you're looking for a quality movie, this isn't really it. Rachele Brooke Smith, the main actress, needs a few more acting lessons before I'll watch her in a movie again. It felt like I was at a middle school play watching her act and she never stopped smiling during the whole movie, making it seem really fake after a little while. Her dancing was excellent though. Kenny Wormald is also an excellent dancer and his acting was better but his character came off as your average randy teenage boy, and I'm not sure if that's what the writers had in mind. The shiny diamond earring in his ear didn't help. The story is the same as most other dance movies, just with more ballet dancing than hip hop. But unlike other dance movies, the soundtrack really isn't worth it.

War of the Worlds (2005)

This movie is Crazy

[7/10 · 2 July 2005]

I have to admit Tom Cruise was not quite as good in this movie as he normally is, but Dakota Fanning was an amazing actress and quite frankly did a better job than Cruise. If you go for nothing else, go to see her. The movie itself was lacking in some dialog areas and there were more than a few holes in the plot sequence, but the action was amazing, Steven Spielberg did a stunning job coordinating the action sequences. The movie contains elements of the cheesy movies from the 60s but it makes them seem more real with the higher budget! Sure, the entire time you're thinking, yeah right, but at the same time, there's an eerie element of realness to the whole thing. On the whole, I don't know if I would buy the DVD when it comes out, but it's worth the price of a movie ticket. It was pretty good. Though I have to agree with others, the ending was pretty lame.