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Zwart water (2010) Directed by Elbert van Strien

Posted by: Frank Veenstra Posted date: 7:00 AM / comment : 0 , , , , , , , , , , ,



Here we have yet another haunted house flick. Only difference is that it's a Dutch one but other than that, it has no real creativity or originality to offer, despite the fact that the story still showed plenty of potential.

On the one hand I'm somewhat surprised this movie didn't do better at the box office and isn't more well known but on the other hand, it doesn't surprise me at all. Aside from its quality or originality, Dutch horror movies have never fared too well with the average moviegoer. For some reason everyone immediately assumes the movie is going to be bad, while in all truth and honesty this movie really isn't any worse or less effective than, lets say, the average Hollywood horror production. Yet, all those very same Hollywood horror productions continue to do well at the Dutch box offices, which is a bit of a sad conclusion. Hard to say what is needed to change this trend, since there already are plenty of pretty good and effective Dutch horror productions, of which this isn't really one of, by the way.

I wish I could praise this movie more, since it actually looks and feels like a very slick, well made, horror production, with the right kind of tone and atmosphere to it. Besides, it features a pretty promising and interesting horror story but it unfortunately isn't always handling its story too well.

This movie makes a couple of pretty big mistakes. One is that it pretty much tells the whole story from a young girls perspective (though it also, ineffectively and very randomly, keeps switching between its other main characters, from time to time), played by Isabelle Stokkel. Now, generally speaking young children just aren't the greatest actors around. Sure, they often effectively deliver their lines but when it comes down to showing and handling emotions, such as fear, their performances, more often than not, fall short. It can actually totally ruin a movie its atmosphere and horror, as sometimes also is the case for this movie. Not saying that Isabelle Stokkel is a bad actress, she was pretty good actually, as were all of the the other actors but it seems to me she is better off playing roles in non-horror films.

Another mistake the movie makes is that is shows its 'ghost' too early on in the movie already. And not only just that, she becomes a pretty prominent character in the movie as well. It really is taking away a lot from the movie its tension and other horror aspects. The movie starts off as a pretty mysterious and subtle one but this all soon gets abandoned once its ghost reveals itself for the first time. Really disappointing, especially once the movie starts to show more and more inconsistencies and other weaknesses with its story. It actually turns into a pretty lazy and formulaic genre movie after a while, with only a few effective scare moments but no real surprises, throughout.

Also somewhat annoying how by the end the movie truly seems to think that it wrapped everything up perfectly and leaves nothing open to debate but in fact the ending leaves far more question than answers and quite frankly, a whole lot of things just don't make any sense anymore, by the end of it. Perhaps it was trying to cram in too many surprises and twists and started to lose its plot, somewhere around its third act.

But really, despite all that criticism, I still don't feel this movie is any worse than the average Hollywood attempt. As a matter of fact, Hollywood has already shown interest in doing a remake, with Scott Derrickson as a director and Charlize Theron set to star. Seems like a pretty silly and pointless thing to do, since this movie really isn't anything that's more special, original or effective than the average and generic Hollywood genre script that's already floating somewhere out there. Guess it could work out, with a few story improvements here and there but I doubt it's going to turn into something that we have never seen before, or something that's genuinely scary to watch.

Also the look of the movie- and the way its buildup, is all typical Hollywood-like. Normally this isn't really a positive thing to note about an European movie but in this case it does in fact works out well for the movie. Its slick look, with its fine cinematography and good editing, gives the movie a real pleasant and professional look and feeling to it, despite the fact that this was only director's Elbert van Strien first full length movie.

It's not the worst genre movie you can run into but the flaws and inconsistencies within its story- and with its storytelling still makes this an ultimately disappointing- and for most part ineffective, horror attempt.

5/10

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Carlito's Way: Rise to Power (2005) (V) Directed by Michael Bregman

Posted by: Frank Veenstra Posted date: 1:54 PM / comment : 0 , , , , , , , , , , ,



It's probably a fact I'm one of the few persons who prefers "Carlito's Way" over the other Brian De Palma directed crime epic "Scarface". In other words; I absolutely love the original "Carlito's Way" and I'm sad to say that this prequel is nowhere in the same league as the first and original movie!

Not just story, character or actor wise but more quality wise! This is a very simplistic, low budget production, that never even was played in cinemas. And rightfully so. This movie has no right to appear in any cinema and it even has absolutely no right to exist in the first place.

It's not like I completely hated this movie but it's simply being such a pointless on to watch. It has almost nothing to do with "Carlito's Way" at all and totally has a different tone and style to it. But also when you look at this movie as just a crime/thriller, it's being a terribly lacking one, that poorly got put together by both its cast and crew.

The cast is most obviously lacking. It consists just out of a bunch of guys, trying to act tough, which does not work out all, simply because they aren't very good actors. They are all terribly unconvincing in their roles, which also really takes away a lot of the tension for the movie and it's being hard to feel involved with anyone or anything in it.

It's not even being a very good 'origins' movie. So supposedly this movie is to show you how Carlito rose to power and gained control over the New York drugs world. But the movie doesn't show you how he slowly rises and gained more and more power and respect but it just simply shows how stuff just happens to him. He doesn't ever come across as a cunning and tough drug-lord, who isn't afraid to steal or kill.

They tried hard though. I mean, there is a scene in which out of nowhere Carlito suddenly shoots and kills a couple of guys. It really came out of the blue, which might sound like a positive thing, ala Michael Corleone in "The Godfather" but it really doesn't fit the character, the moment and just the overall style and story of the movie. It doesn't make sense for him to kill and he never does anything outrageous like that again, later on in this movie, which lets the scene feel all the more out of place and out of character for him. For the rest of the movie he actually comes across as a very nice guy, which probably is being another good indication how miscast Jay Hernandez is in his role. Throughout his career he has always played friendly guys, so why even consider him casting in a tough gangster role, that first got immortalized by Al Pacino, in 1993.

The movie also absolutely tells you nothing about the background or youth of Carlito. In that regard, this movie feels all the more pointless as a prequel. It doesn't tells you anything new, at least nothing interesting and you are obviously way better off watching the original "Carlito's Way" instead and forget about this movie.

But it's not just simply the casting or characters themselves that make this movie a poor and disappointing one. It also really could had used a more tight script, that offered some good moments and surprises and some better storytelling as well. This movie really doesn't get pleasantly told, which makes you feel glad when the movie is finally over.

Bad as a genre flick and even worse as a prequel to "Carlito's Way"!

4/10

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Boogeyman (2005) Directed by Stephen Kay

Posted by: Frank Veenstra Posted date: 1:13 PM / comment : 1 , , , , , ,



This movie makes one big mistake, by completely taking the wrong approach. It tries to be more of a realistic and 'quiet'horror movie, with dramatic elements in it. Nothing wrong with that of course, since we have all seen it work out before but this movie just really doesn't have the right type of story for that.

Honestly, I would had probably liked this movie far better, had it been done as a very formulaic slasher. The movie after all is named "Boogeyman", which implies that there is a horror character in it but in fact, he is hardly in the movie at all, which also makes him far from a threatening or scary villain.

But this movie was clearly going for a different approach. The drama and realism could had worked out within its story, if only the movie was ore of an interesting one. Now the story really doesn't seem to go anywhere and you just never get the sense a big mystery needs to get resolved, or a killer has to be stopped. Absolutely no sense of urgency and danger in this movie, which makes it a lackluster one as well as an incredibly ineffective horror movie. It feels like such a pointless movie and it starts to become a boring one as well, very early on already.

The movie is truly lacking some direction and focus. It feels like they really weren't sure what to do with its story and how to achieve certain things plot-wise. The movie falls flat at basically every level because of that.

4/10

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House of Wax (2005) Directed by Jaume Collet-Serra

Posted by: Frank Veenstra Posted date: 11:10 AM / comment : 0 , , , , , , , , , , ,





(Review originally written at 27 August 2009)

Hard to say why this movie is being said to be a remake of the 1933 movie "Mystery of the Wax Museum" and the 1953 one "House of Wax". It's only similar in title but its story and characters are all totally different. Seems like a cheap advertising trick, claiming this movie to be a remake of 2 classic fine genre movies. But oh well, having said that "House of Wax" isn't a too bad genre movie, even though it also hardly stands out.

It's a typical genre movie, that is being a teenage slasher flick, with all of the usual ingredients in it. It doesn't really try to stand out and more remains on the safe side. It's mostly the reason why "House of Wax" is being a very average movie to watch.

The movie drags on quite long in its first halve, that only seems to be in the movie to fill up its time. There is hardly anything happening in the first halve and it really takes its time to build up things and sets up its characters. It really isn't until the movie its second halve that the movie becomes a true slasher. It however also isn't the best slasher around, since the movie is lacking really in some good main characters. Instead it has far too many characters in it that are all too much alike each other.

It's a well made movie though, that is professionally looking and obviously cost a couple of hand full of dollars to make. It has a decent atmosphere, although the movie is being a bit too dark at times.

No, don't watch this movie expecting a couple of good and original scares or true great gory moments. As an horror movie it simply isn't being much good but as a slasher-flick it's simply decent enough.

6/10

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The Proposition (2005) Directed by John Hillcoat

Posted by: Frank Veenstra Posted date: 7:24 AM / comment : 0 , , , , , , , , ,





(Review originally written at 1 August 2009)

An Australian western. How weird does that sound? Still the atmosphere and nature of Australia seems to fit the genre perfectly. It's a dirty, raw and bleak movie all in one.

It's also a movie that's a bit too much aware of its own style. It often prefers its artistic and deeper meaning approaches over its true story. The movie at times definitely feels like its style over substance and it prevented me from truly finding this a great movie. Of course westerns are often about its style and atmosphere but this movie definitely over does this at times.

No, the movie was not as great as I had initially expected it to be. It had a more than great concept and enough elements in it to expect this to be a fresh and original movie. It's still fresh and original all but the whole package still slightly disappoints.

Having said that, "The Proposition" is simply still a good movie to watch. It doesn't have the best written story but the way it's being told still makes this a good genre movie. It's of course slow, doesn't always feature a lot of dialog and features some typical characters from the genre., that all makes this a good watch, especially when you're into 'modern' new westerns, such as movies like "Unforgiven", "Open Range" and "3:10 to Yuma".

The movie has a surprising cast, with mostly Australian actors that are also well known beyond the boundaries. Best known is of course Guy Pearce and John Hurt but it's really Ray Winstone who gives away the best and most impressive performance of the movie. To me he also was the main character and I'm not too sure if the movie would had worked out as well without him.

A good and original western from Australia.

7/10

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The Great Raid (2005) Directed by John Dahl

Posted by: Frank Veenstra Posted date: 11:55 AM / comment : 1 , , , , , , , , , , ,





(Review originally written at 1 February 2009)

Ever since "Saving Private Ryan", war flicks and WW II movies in particular have become really popular again. This has had some good results but also lots of failed attempts. "The Great Raid" is really one of those failures. It's an overlong, overblown and just plain boring war movie, that even becomes annoying to watch in parts due to its moralistic undertone. This movie really deserved to flop.

The entire movie is just basically one big build up to it's 'great raid'. And well, no offense, but is that even a battle at the end? It's more a massacre in which the Japanese are completely surrounded and are being totally surprised and overwhelmed by the American forces, who are being helped by Filipino guerrillas. 523 Japanese got killed, while only 2 Rangers, 1 POW and some guerrillas died. Yet the allied loses in this movie are being portrayed as some big tragedy and all died as heroes. Yeah well, it's of course not like I was sympathizing for the Japanse but it shows how incredibly overblown and overly moralistic this movie is.

It's moral themes are totally wrong and misplaced. Japanese are noble and proud people but in this movie they are being portrayed as animals, while all Americans are extremely honorable, helpful and heroic persons. At least as gets portrayed in this movie. The movie is so incredibly simple and black & white with these themes. Also quite amusing how the camp commander is being portrayed as a James Bond type of villain, who in the end is personally battling the Americans, as the last man standing basically. It truly becomes annoying in parts and because of this approach this movie also can be seen as propaganda, while the movie tries to let you believe that this is a very accurate and honest portrayal of the true events, that occurred in late January 1945, near Cabanatuan. It's an important and great story but in this movie it's just being portrayed completely wrong, even though the intentions were all, no doubt, good.

It's approach is what makes this movie so bad to watch. It is not just its extremely black & white handling of its moralistic themes but also its main approach. The movie is like a mix of a realistic made war movie, that never feels realistic or authentic, and a spectacular made big blockbuster. Because of this very mixed approach, neither of those two really work out really. Because of this the movie also really never feels like one. On the one hand you have a story following a bunch of character being held captive by the Japanese and on the other hand you have a bunch of Allied soldiers, planning the attack and rescue. Oh and then you also have Connie Nielsen walking around in this all somewhere. Amazing that they even managed to throw in a love-story in this movie. The movie tries to be epic but just never becomes so. Instead the movie is overlong and above all things quite boring to watch, also since you just never really care enough for any of the characters. Not really the actor's fault, I mean the movie has some great actors involved but I more blame the simplistic script and approach of the movie for this.

It's also quite clichéd all. I wished the movie had some more good ideas of its own, that way this movie might had been able to still distinct itself from other modern war movies.

Too slow, too dull, too moralistic, too overblown, too clichéd. In other words a real failed genre attempt.

4/10

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Maiden Voyage (2005) (TV) Directed by Colin Budds

Posted by: Frank Veenstra Posted date: 9:05 AM / comment : 0 , , , , , , , , ,





(Review originally written at 6 December 2008)

Problem with these type of movies is that literally dozens of them are being made each year. Luckily for use only a handful are given a theatrical release, while the others are being pushed straight to video or TV, such as this movie.

The foremost problem of this movie is really its originality. It's one of those movies which uses the "Die Hard" formula of a tough but troubled guy being at the wrong place at the wrong time. In this case it's a character played by Casper Van Dien, who works for a security agency that thoroughly test safety procedures for companies and individuals. In this case he's being send to a cruise ship, which of course gets hijacked. You can see this movie as a sort of mix of "Die Hard" and "Air Force One" and the movie doesn't even try to conceal that those two movies were probably its biggest source of 'inspiration'. So really, you can't regard this movie as an original one at all. It uses all of the clichés out of the book and this movie really doesn't offer any surprises or anything that remotely resembles anything original.

Like you can expect from a movie such as this, it has a very weak script. Or rather said, it features some very lazy writing. Like I said before, the movie features nothing original but also the actual story itself features some elements which are far from likely and are just plain ridicules truthfully. I mean, hijacking an huge cruise ship with only about 8 guys, of which halve only carry some small guns and then ask for a ransom of 'only' 10 million dollars, for a ship that is about worth 10 times that amount is itself already quite ridicules. How do they even intend to split that money afterward? Every person gets just over a million or something? That's hardly profitable for such a big and risky undertaking. And then there is the case of taking the passengers hostage. Somehow they manage to take all passengers on the huge ship hostage and they manage to put them inside one room, with only one guy with his pistol, which he can't even seem to be able to hold right, watching them. You never see more than like 30 hostages however, as if they were all the people who were aboard at the time. Also when the Van Dien character goes looking for his son and vice versa, no matter which room they walk in through on the huge cruise ship, they always bump into each other instantly. Just some examples of the lazy writing within the movie.

But it of course is an action flick, so the story of course becomes secondary. But then again, it's not as if this movie features any good action at all. Halve of the actors look as if they had never hold a weapon before and the movie is filled with some ridicules slow-motion. It really becomes laughable at points.

Of course the movie also doesn't feature the best actors, though I must say that Casper Van Dien really isn't a bad 'action hero' and actor, as far as the genre and B-movie circuit is concerned. He just however also suffers from the same problem as Tom Cruise; no matter how old he is, he just never looks convincing enough to play the father of a teenager. Van Dien once started out as a promising new young actor but starring in movies like this really doesn't help his career much. He's probably capable of something better, though he is never really given the right opportunity to show it. All of the other actors also do a fair enough job but their characters are just so formulaic that they never truly become interesting.

Oh well, it's not the worst genre movie I have ever seen but it also ain't exactly the most original or memorable one either.

4/10

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Four Minutes (2005) (TV) Directed by Charles Beeson

Posted by: Frank Veenstra Posted date: 8:53 AM / comment : 0 , , , , , , , , , ,





(Review originally written at 25 November 2008)

I'm actually quite fond of sport movies and have a weak spot for it, no matter how formulaic they all are. Lots of them are the same, even though they concentrate on totally different sports. This movie is also like that but with as a difference that it also features some very sloppy and simplistic storytelling, which makes the movie seems like a totally unoriginal and uninspiring movie.

The movie actually does have an original sports story, after all it's about the man who was the first to run the mile under the 4 minute mark and he developed some new training techniques to achieve this but yet the movie and its story do not work out very original because the movie decides more to feature all kinds of different less interesting sidetracks, such as on Bannister's love life. It basically features all of the clichés from the book, which causes this movie to not work out as the most original or inspiring one the genre has to offer.

Not that it is an horrible movie, it still is a maintaining one but it also feels like a waste of such a fine and original sports story. After all, it's all based on real events and real life persons.

The story also doesn't flow very well and feels quite sloppy at times. This is mostly due to the fact that the movie tries to tell too much in a too short amount of time. The movie is only like 95 minutes short but yet it tries to put Bannister's whole athletics career into the movie. This also causes the movie its story to progress in an highly unlikely movie. I mean, just because he ran well once during a school event he's being labeled as a great talent and shortly after it he already runs the Olympics. Like I said, it all happens too fast and sudden because of it that the story tries to tell and achieve too much in a too limited time span. It causes the movie to make some big leaps at times and because of this it partly fails to bring over the story of Bannister's groundbreaking achievement in the '50's.

Further more it's obvious that the movie didn't had a big budget to spend. It's a made for TV movie, which means that the movie features some simple film-making. Nothing is out of the extraordinary and at times the movie decides not to show any of the races (such as the Olympic run), which obviously got done because of budgeting reasons and because it was virtually impossible for this movie with its limited resources to recreate an Olympics event from the past.

The acting is quite good, though Jamie Maclachlan isn't the most charismatic actor. My guess is that he got picked because he looked like the real Roger Bannister, rather than that he got picked for having the best acting skills. But it needs to be said that the movie doesn't handle his character always well. For instance, in the beginning he is still a shy young man, who blushes when a girl even looks at him but later on he's a real player who uses cheesy lines and actions to get the girl he likes. And by the way, his looks also don't exactly makes it very likely that these type of girls as shown in the movie would ever fall for such a man like Bannister. Just one of the silly and unlikely aspects of this movie.

The movie does get better though when it heads towards its ending, to its inevitable world record attempt. But here also lies a problem, you already know in advance that he is going to achieve to run under the 4 minutes mark. So despite the film-makers good efforts, the last run doesn't really work out that exciting and the tension that gets build up seems completely redundant.

It's not a movie that I hated watching, it certainly is maintaining enough but as a sports movie it simply is not original or inspiring enough.

6/10
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