FlixFix

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Dark Tide (Review)

The Rant: If you are going to make a movie about shark attacks, you have two choices.  You can make a great 'A' movie, or a good 'B' movie.  That is probably one of the most important decisions, because every other decision like script, casting, budget etc. depends on it. If you choose to make an 'A' movie, then you better be sure your film can withstand the onslaught of unavoidable comparisions to previous hits like Jaws.  If you choose to make a 'B' movie, then the comparisions would shift to movies like Deep Blue Sea, etc.  Dark Tide is a lesson in how making the wrong choice (based on your skill level) can doom your film even before shooting begins.

The Plot: IMDB - "A professional diver tutor returns to deep waters after 9 years, following an Almost fatal encounter with a great white shark. The nightmare from the deep is still lurking - more carnivorous and hungry than ever."

The Point: Halle Berry (Kate) does an adequeate job, though you expect more from some of her caliber.  I guess you can't blame her though.  Even an oscar worthy performance couldn't have saved this disaster. 

There is probably about 30 minutes worth of scenes that move the story forward.  All other scenes are just fillers.  After the initial attack, the action takes forever to get started.  Some of the night sequences, were so poorly lit, that it was difficult to tell exactly what was going on.  The climax was nosencical.  No professional guide would take such risks, with the life of the crew and customers, especially one that is as remoresful as Kate is shown to be.

The Verdict: 1/5 - This movie is a waste of time.  I would have avoided it had I know that it had a 0% rotten rating.  That's right 0%.  Learn from my mistakes and avoid this like the plague.

The Trailer:

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Haywire (Review)

The Rant: Action movies are great. I love everything about them. The car chases, explosions, gun battles, sword fights, hand to hand combats and the list goes on. So naturally, an action movie directed by Steven Soderbergh (director of the Ocean's 11 series) and starring Mixed Martial Arts champion Gina Carron, peaked my interest. Add to that the fact the movie has an 80% fresh rating in rotten tomatoes, you'd think it would be an awesome film. Well, I guess you can't always be right. The Plot: IMDB - "A black ops super soldier seeks payback after she is betrayed and set up during a mission." The Point: Cast - Gina Carron was a good choice for the lead. She is not a great actress, but is certainly capable of doing justice to the role, given her MMA background. She does great in stunt scenes, but not so great in anything else. She is also easy on the eyes, which is a plus. As for the rest of the cast, except for Ewan McGregor, I don't think anyone else stands out. They really do fade away, just like they do in the movie's poster. What was the point of having Michael Douglas in the film? The weight of his character didn't justify his presence in the movie. The same could be said about Michael Fassbender as well. Script - While the action was relentless it didn't need to be so prolonged. Each sequence would start off fast, but lose momentum and seem almost pointless by the end. A little bit of trimming could have made it better. The background score reminds us a lot of the Ocean's 11 series. While it may have worked well for the suave look and feel for Ocean's 11, I don't think it worked so well here. They had a great oppurtunity to make a film on par with The Bourne Identity, but sadly it was not utlized. The Verdict: 3/5 - Action movie buffs will certainly find this worth a rental, but I highly doubt the movie deserves the 80% fresh status it currently enjoys on Rotten Tomatoes. The Trailer:

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We Bought a Zoo (Review)

The Rant:

I can tell Matt Damon prefers doing drama over action, but I wish he did more action films. He has more releases per year than most other actors I know of. So why not throw in a couple of shoot'em ups in the mix. I'm not suggesting he pick some random script just for the sake of it however (I'm looking at you Guy Pearce). His last full fledged action film was The Bourne Supremacy in 2007 and his next one is probably going to be Elysium in 2013. That's a span of 8 years without blowing up anything. Green Zone and The Adjustment Beurau come close, but for me they are just teasers, not the real thing. You can do drama even when you are 60 years old. However, an action star has a limited life span (even Clint Eastwood had to put the gun away at some point). So wouldn't it be better do more of it while you are still young?

The Plot:

IMDB - "Set in Southern California, a father moves his young family to the countryside to renovate and re-open a struggling zoo."

The Point:

Cast - Matt Damon does a great job, as always. One of the very few actors who has great range. He was funny, serious, emotional, uplifiting all at the same time. There isn't much I can say about him that hasn't already been said. Scarlett Johansen. I'm not so sure if she was a the best choice for this character. You can take off all her makeup, cover her is horse pop and she still looks hot. I believe David Fincher said it best "...the thing with Scarlett is, you can't wait for her to take her clothes off". The rest of the cast did a great job as well.

Script - On the surface, this sounds like a unique film. However, the script is full of tired old formulas. We have the single father, the cute adorable daughter, the rebelious teenager, the father's hot love interest and a bad guy who wants to shut down the zoo. Its too predictable without any element of surprise. Having said all of that, I think it delivers on its promise. An emotional, heartfelt, tear jerker that will keep you fighting to hold back your tears till the end.

The Verdict:

2.8 - Looking for a good film to watch on your weekly wednesday family movie night? Can't go wrong with this one.

The Trailer:

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Lockout (Review)

The Rant

Guy Pearce. Before writing this, I went through and counted how many of his films I had seen. I recall seeing about 5 or 6 of his movies, and was surprised to end up at the number 12. Now, that may sound like he wasn't memorable enough in half the movies I saw him in. Wrong. He was just so good at playing those characters that I forgot he was Guy Pearce. I could confidently say that there wasn't a single movie of his, that I didn't like... until today.

The Plot

IMDB - "A man wrongly convicted of conspiracy to commit espionage against the U.S. is offered his freedom if he can rescue the president's daughter from an outer space prison taken over by violent inmates."

I saw the trailer for this movie and thought, finally, Guy Pearce is going to be in a full blown commercial action film. Can't wait.

When I saw the 36% rotten rating once the movie was released, I didn't want to believe it. Why should I? I know the quality of work Mr. Pearce is capable of. Besides, I've actually liked some movies that have been critically bashed in the past. So I thought, to hell with it. I'm going to see it anyway.

The Point

Where shall I start? What could have been a great film has been turned into utter crap. They've managed to take a great actor and turn him into a cliched, punch line spewing machine. The graphics were laughable. The action doesn't make any damn sense and list goes on and on. To put it mildly, I did not enjoy this flick. However, I do not blame the director, writer or producer for my disappointment. I only blame Pearce. When an actor of his caliber gets involved in an project, you have certain expectations. This is the result, when those expectations are completely ignored.

This brings me to my final point. Expectations are key. Case in point: I went in expecting a Guy Pearce movie and came out disappointed. My wife on the other hand, tagged along expecting a dumb action flick and came out satisfied. She even thought Guy Pearce was funny. That says it all.

The Verdict

2.5/5 - You've been warned. This is a Wesley Snipes or Van Damme-ish B movie. The poster says it all. A bad ass, a big gun, a big bang and a blond. Expect nothing more.

The Trailer

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The Woman (Review)

The Rant:

Let’s start off by saying that I’m not a big fan of torture films. I don’t mind watching them, if they are presented in more like a survival film (ex: The Descent), and I may even love watching them if it’s the bad guy being tortured (ex: I Saw the Devil). Also, I absolutely hate watching movies that have anything to do with women/children being raped. If I do hear about a good movie, that happens to involve such content (ex: The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo), I wait until I’m mentally prepared to watch it even if it means waiting days, weeks or months. So needless to say, I wasn’t necessarily thrilled to watch The Woman. I say this, so you can take my review below with a grain of salt.

The Plot:

IMDB – “When a successful country lawyer captures and attempts to "civilize" the last remaining member of a violent clan that has roamed the Northeast coast for decades, he puts the lives of his family in jeopardy.”

Now, that makes it sound like the family needs to be saved from the wild woman, but then you watch the movie and realize the woman and everyone else needs to be saved from this family.

The family gives off the weird vibe right from the get go. They let you know right away that this is anything but a normal family and they kick up the weirdness factor progressively as the movie goes on. By the end, I felt like the woman was actually the sane one of the bunch. Well, except for maybe the youngest daughter.

The Point:

Cast – A great performance by Pollyanna McIntosh and everyone else involved.

Story – A nice script that could have been made better with a bit more action, IMHO. **Spoiler Ahead** - Did they really need to show the woman being tortured for so long? The torture scenes seemed to drag on forever, while the revenge sequence only lasted about 5 minutes. However, the gruesomeness of the father and son’s death, did somewhat make up for it.

The Verdict:

2.5/5 - If you don’t mind the torture porn, then this is probably one of the better scripted movies out there. If you do mind it, then it’s not really worth grueling through all the pain.

The Trailer:

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Background

Added a festive background to give my blog a personal touch.  This picture was taken on my recent trip to India.  What do you guys think?  Nice, I know.

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Linked and Loaded

Linked my tumblr blog to my twitter account (@flixmix).  Yes, I'm FlixMix on Twitter and Blogspot, but FlixFix here since FlixMix was already taken. 

Anyway, I didn't really like I hated the the last layout I had, so I switched it to this most used one on tumblr. Original, I know, but hey this will have to do until I figure out what I like, ok.

I actually wanted to go watch Cowboys & Aliens this weekend, but the bad reviews are making me reconsider it.  After my last outing with Captain America, based on reviews, I'm reluctant to trust them too much though.  What do you say?

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So ... saw Captain America: The First Avenger over the weekend.  I had not planned to see it when I first saw the trailers, but after seeing the rating on Rotten Tomatoes, I decided to give it a shot.  Well, long story short, I should have listened to my gut.  While it was a decent movie, I don't think its worth watching in the theater.  What did you guys think?

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The Beginning...

Its the beginning of a new era. FlixFix is on tumblr.  All hail FlixFix and respect my authority and awesomeness.  Ok, now that I've met my self gloating quota for the day, lets see what else there is do around here.

Oh and btw if you didn't already know, you can expect to see movie related news here and ..... you know, basically get your Flix Fix.