2004

The club shootout is one of the more memorable scenes in a while. The music is perfect, and Tom Cruise does well with his suave bad guy role.

Undoubtedly Disney/Pixar's best offering since Toy Story (at least until Bird's Ratatouille came along) The Incredibles is smart, funny, fast-paced action that also has a strong sense of morality and family values.

Extremely moving, powerful film with a great performance by Don Cheadle.

Beautiful and imaginative, like all Miyazaki's wonderful films. I wish that plot had been explained a bit more (even a line or two about what Sophie's curse actually was would have been nice) but the real joys of this film are nearly all visual. You can just see the art bursting to life on the screen.

Nearly as funny as the first but the novelty is gone, replaced mostly by densely packed pop culture references.

Credit goes to Depp and Turturro for what interest there is here, but after one watch it really loses any potency it once possessed. More eccentric than suspenseful. "You stole my story."

Everyone talks about Bale's enormous devotion to his craft as evidenced in this role. And they should be talking about that, because it's the most impressive thing about the movie.

A very nice, clean action movie that isn't very involving.

Eastwood's style may be subtle, but this script is anything but. Everyone is pretty much a caricature, especially the supporting characters of Maggie's mother, Danger, the priest, and whoever Anthony Mackie was supposed to be. The movie intentionally kills its upward momentum with about 40 minutes to go in order to keep the dirge-like feeling of this heavy film. Obviously Swank and Freeman are good, and Clint is, well, Clint. The movie is pretty enough to look at though it can be a tad dull at times - the same can be said of the story. There's nothing really awful here but not much to get excited about either. Decent drama.

Tom Hanks is a scream in this but on the whole it's forgettable.

It was interesting at first, but the unique visuals are really all the film has going for it - and even those can be pretty bad at times.

Terribly disappointing. The direction and editing completely derailed what could have been a solid revenge film. All the needless flashing and motion literally gave me a headache (and I have endured films like Cloverfield with no ill effects) and on top of that the story wasn't that compelling. Worst of all, the music video feel dilutes the impact of the violence. Somehow even a guy getting tortured and blown up manages to seem tame here. Once the revenge plotline finally starts, it isn't nearly as tense on screen as it sounds on paper. Glad I rented this instead of blind-buying.

Dull, dull, dull. This movie drags on and on and, despite some good performances, is utterly unremarkable for about the first 95 minutes. First of all, we know basically what is going to happen. Secondly, even if we didn't, we never really get to know any of the characters which are already hard to distinguish in their matching uniforms. Third, even if we did get to know them, they're all Nazis, so we don't give a damn what happens to them anyway. It's all drab bunker interior with nothing in the script or cinematography to make it stand out. It's like a reenactment of someone's memoirs. Then, *SPOILERS FOR LIFE* after Hitler commits suicide *END LIFE SPOILERS* you'd think the movie is finally going to end - but it goes on for another 40 minutes! The good part is, the movie actually picks up at this point and becomes much more interesting. It starts to establish a real sense of the dread and despair as the regime falling apart around these people's heads. Unfortunately it's too little too late. Downfall collapses under its own solemn weight.

I believe Viggo Mortensen as a cowboy more easily than Aragorn, king of men. However, the Lord of the Rings films are great and this movie is not. At all.

Why?

Everyone who told me this was funny and original was apparently on crack. Mean Girls is one stupid high school cliche after another, amounting to an occasionally diverting but mostly empty experience.

This movie is almost completely unoriginal and has very few amusing moments. Its characters emotional developments come out of nowhere, totally anti-climactic, and nothing anyone does makes much sense. I can easily eschew sense in a comedy if the result is funny but here it is tired and rote. Nothing to see here but lame physical gags and forced sex jokes.

Preposterous.