Admittedly, I was scared a little when I saw Dean Devlin’s name in the credits, but his influence seems surprisingly restrained and minimized only to special effects. “Eight Legged Freaks” is a loving and raucous homage to the fifties giant features and a rather great one at that. Rather than try to depict a stern narrative about a spider invasion, director Ellory Elkayem embraces the silliness and instead provides a pulpy monster movie with vicious violence, and some damn good dark comedy.
Director Rob Bowman gives us a very sleek and highly visual world of dragons and war. We get to see the cool looking dragons as they take over the world. Possibly, the best part of the movie, if any, is when the remaining survivors take on the King Dragon. A tried effort. I was looking forward to this when I first saw the trailer in the theatres; unfortunately, I was very disappointed. The movie gives us a promise we’ll enjoy this with a unique apocalyptic world, but it’s a big let down.
Two kids discover their supposedly uncool parents are famous secret spies. When the parents get caught by an evil genius, they must band together and rescue their parents. This is such a nice movie. Not for its action or acting, but for its simplicity. It makes so many attempts at being nonviolent even though there is a lot of martial-arts scenes, and no guns. James Bond would be proud of these kids. The two offspring of enemy secret spies turned lovers obtain the elements of being a spy, though they don’t know it yet. Alexa Vega’s character is the oldest sister and contains the physical abilities and ferocity of a spy, and Daryl Sabara’s character obtains the mental and technological abilities it takes to be a spy.
Jet Li is an incredible martial artist but so far he’s managed to disappoint me, as he uses wires and computers to enhance his scenes, which often becomes redundant and goofy. The only two movies that I’ve enjoyed from him so far are “Lethal Weapon 4” and “Kiss of the Dragon” which was possibly the best action movie I’ve seen in years. Li is solid in his role performing with finesse. He gives great personality switches throughout the film and kept me entertained throughout the entire story.
Riddle me this: Strip away the science, intelligence, mood, and logic that made the original so unique and what are you left with? This piece of inane tripe. Now, granted I didn’t like the original, but it was much better than this. The movie is heavily dependent upon the creature effects which are sub-par at best. In the straight to video sequel to the original science fiction movie, we meet Remi (Mimic, Blood Work), the character from the original who is now a science teacher at an inner city school.
Jedi’s, and Sith’s, and Clones, oh my! In this chapter, we meet Obi-Wan (Ewan McGregor) and his young apprentice Anakin (Hayden Christensen) once again on a mission. There is a conspiracy in the republic; Someone is trying to kill the now Senator Amidala. They suspect a traitor within the force and they do not know who it is. Now, the republic assigns Obi-Wan and his defiant padawan Anakin to investigate. Unfortunately, Anakin and Amidala are falling in love, something that is strictly forbidden in the Jedi order. Ewan McGregor once again gives great merit to the role of Obi-Wan Kenobi by showing great humility in his role and giving Obi-Wan a warrior-esque look. Natalie Portman returns to the role of Amidala or Padme with more life to her role. Where as “Episode one” lacked life and structure, this one improves on it supremely.
“With Great power, comes great responsibility.” – Uncle Ben
Superhero and American icon, Spider-man is born finally in the new box-office smash movie directed by acclaimed and cult director Sam Raimi (Evil Dead). In case you don’t know the famous story, Peter Parker, a geeky photographer at his school who is constantly bullied and has eyes for the neighborhood good girl Mary Jane, is bitten by a hybrid radioactive spider on a field trip to a science lab. The next day, the effects make him a superhuman giving him all sorts of spider powers. Meanwhile, a new evil is born. Multi-millionaire, Norman Osborne, while trying to explore a new experiment, gets hit with a split personality and becomes insane with power. Now Spider-man must stop this new menace before the Green Goblin hurts the people Peter holds so dear.