tachytron Reviews

The Mist (2007)

Masterpiece thriller is ridiculous yawner.

[3/10 · 26 July 2010]

I had a free evening. All the kids are away, and so is the wife, which means I can watch a really scary movie, all by myself, with no one in the house to complain. I made a special trip to the store to buy this "scary" movie. I didn't read King's book, but I read the jacket for this movie. And I bothered to log in after watching this movie to tell you that the film adaptation is not even close to what is claimed on the jacket: masterpiece, scariest movie of all time, thriller. That would be a big "No", "No", and "No". Stephen King wrote in "On Writing" that even when you are writing fiction you still have to write the truth-- Oh my god; this story come up short on King's aphorism. Whether it was the novel or the screenplay, I don't know (because be sure I will not read the book after sitting through this ridiculous movie)but I will tell you that in this miserable piece of fiction the truth was overlooked again and again and again. In simple terms, the thriller portion was dulled away by literally in-credible scenes and situations. This so-called thriller horror movie was a giggle fest of silliness. Alert: People don't act this way. Seriously; the story doesn't work and the movie is flagrantly unbelievable. And if you can't stand loose ends, The Mist will leave you with a whole warehouse filled with sweaters coming undone!

Dance Flick (2009)

How bad can a movie be? This one is hard to beat.

[1/10 · 24 May 2009]

My wife and I, along with our 4 sons, walked out on this movie. This movie was misogynistic and pornographic.

Guess what? Our kids hated it as well; they were stunned and said it was "just weird". We came home and explained to our kids we don't approve of this garbage. The trailers didn't convey whatsoever the degradation celebrated in this trashy film.

I enjoyed "Something about Mary", love Monty Python, Fawlty Towers, and Hot Fuzz etc. Assuming you can look past the tired, sophomoric attempts at pornographic humor, the not-so-funny gratuitous violence, "Dance Flick" simply is not funny and it certainly isn't intelligent.

Seems that we are not alone in our assessment of this terrible movie. We spoke to the manager after walking out, he agreed with us, apologized, and gave us compensation for our movie tickets. This movie shouldn't be rated PG-13; I recommend a rating of R. But still, I can't imagine any adult deriving any real entertainment value from "Dance Flick". Do not waste your time; it isn't even worth renting when it comes out on DVD. Yeah, it's that bad.

The Trouble with Harry (1955)

An alternative critique of this "classic" comedy.

[2/10 · 20 May 2009]

All the subtlety and detail imbued in this screenplay matters little when it is lost in tentative and banal acting. Comedy is particularly satisfying when it deals with the shortcomings of human nature, not when it denies natural emotions and intellect as this story does so inexcusably. This could have been good, had the story adhered to a few requirements for good storytelling. First, develop characters so that I care about them. Second, in all good fiction, always tell the "truth"; that is to say, the story must be believable. Third, do not appall the audience with lackluster, passionless actors who mete out stilted lines and gestures. I think this movie could have been twice as effective had Hitchcock used cardboard cutouts of the actors with stop-motion animation.

The Bucket List (2007)

Two great actors who unfortunately find themselves in a highly improbable story.

[3/10 · 18 May 2008]

My wife and I had heard so many good things about this movie so we had high expectations last evening before we saw it. Unfortunately, I think the Bucket List represents perhaps the worst movie that either Nicholson or Freeman has starred in. The story is literally incredible and oftentimes bits and pieces of the movie make very little sense or are simply impossible. There are aspects of this movie that we found so improbable or impossible that they were distracting and undermined our ability to take the movie seriously. For example, two guys in their condition simply are not going to lounge around in a hospital room for weeks on end (they likely would be moved into an in-home care or hospice environment). They are terminally ill yet well enough to travel internationally; the viewer of this movie is supposed to be appeased by the overtly explicit plot-manipulation suggesting that both are asymptomatic. Well, now that we know they are asymptomatic, the sky is the limit! Both cancer patients are subjected to extreme physical activities, such as skydiving (and the Freeman character has a chest catheter!). In one situation, Nicholson and Freeman are racing in muscle cars on a racetrack; driving alongside each other at very high speeds, they maintain an effortless conversation (without shouting) through the open windows of the cars (impossible); Freeman rams his car into the side of Nicholson's car, yet they both maintain perfect control, no wipe out or tailspin. The dents are not even consistent from one scene to the next. And once you get beyond the implausibility issues, the continuity problems here and there sink this movie to the bottom. Well, you get the idea; throughout the movie there are several continuity goofs, obvious manipulations, and mistakes you can evaluate for yourself. For these reasons we thought the movie was rendered ridiculous. I am a fan of Rob Reiner movies (except this one) and enjoy Freeman and Nicholson and will always consider them as some of the finest actors in the industry. But I hated this movie. Our entertainment came not from the movie but from making fun of its many shortcomings. It is very clear by the low-quality of the script that it took only two weeks to pen.