tjl30 Blog

Under discussion:

She's All That  (1999)

The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers  (2002)

In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale  (2008)

    Ok where do I begin to describe this movie called In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale…

    Well I decided that I wanted to see this movie because it has Jason Statham who is a complete bad ass and I have yet to see a movie he was in that wasn’t great, well until now. In the Name of the King seemed to have the budget and special effects from the Hercules TV show with Kevin Sorbo (the acting was almost as bad as well). But what do you expect when you cast people like Burt Reynolds as a heroic king and Matthew Lillard as the Duke Fallow (whenever I see this guy I can only think of Brock Hudson from another great movie She's All That.

    Oh I forgot, the movie starts out the same as the Hercules: The Legendary Journeys (well similar), the Farmer’s (Jason Statham’s) family is killed by these beasts called Crug. The Crug are basically a rip off of the Orcs from Lord of the Rings, and are created by the Maji (Wizard) Gallian. Anyways the farmer whose name is Farmer (lol) lived peacefully as a farmer (who would have thought) until his son was killed and his wife was captured (so technically his whole family wasn’t killed). Anyways he goes to save his wife and that’s the plot, kind of.

    I want to talk a little bit about the great special effects in this movie for a second. The graphics are fantastic especially the way they pulled off this amazing zip line feat across a deep canyon (two people fell probably like 100 feet into a shallow river and were perfectly fine). The amazing graphics can be seen again with the Elve like people and their ability to wield vine snake creatures to grab people, then swing on the vines to get around the forest.

    Now this movie would not be complete without some ridiculous action and weapons. Farmer wields a boomerang which I am pretty sure he mastered the technique when he was in Australia hunting dingoes. This magical boomerang has the ability to take out Crug with a single hit and always comes back, which could only remind me of one of my favorite shows of all time, Xena Warrior Princess and here circle thing that she threw at people.

    The battle scenes in this movie were also epic, especially when the Crug started lighting themselves on fire and shooting themselves into trees (lmao I wish I was kidding). Now to make another Xena reference the elves in this movie were all hot women who never leave the forest, which reminded me a lot of the Amazon women from Xena.

    The story continues as everyone tries to kill galleon which essentially is a combo of king Saromon and the ring itself (if you kill him all the orc, I mean crug die and everyone lives happily ever after). I can continue to make Lord of the Rings references because this movie is basically a lower budge film of the same stuff (they even had a wizard fight which was like Gandalf v. Saruman round two).

    So in conclusion there were a lot of really unrealistic scenes, bad special effects, cheesy dialog, a predictable ending, generic bad buys, and bad acting. When Farmer realized his father was the king, is probable my favorite scene of the movie because it reminded me of when Zorro (in the Mask of Zorro) was he was reunited with his daughter who remembered the smell of the flowers by her crib, it had that kind of silliness to it only they were reciting a saying). My final problem with the movie was the fact that it was over 2 hours, I mean honestly why prolong the this crap you already stole the peoples money why take two hours of there life?

Under discussion:

Lars and the Real Girl  (2007)

    Lars and the Real Girl is a movie about a man named Lars Lindstrom who for most of his life went unloved. He lived for a long time in the garage of his brother’s house, keeping to himself. The conflict begins when Lars develops a delusion that this doll Bianca is a real person. Lars tells his brother and sister-in-law that he met Bianca on the internet and that they are dating. Lars brother Gus and his sister-in-law Karin were very worried and consulted the family doctor who is also a physiologist.

    Lars begins to go to the doctor with his girlfriend every week because she needed treatment, because she was sick, or so he thought. While in the doctors, the family doctor began an informal psychology sessions with Lars. Eventually the whole community begins treating Lars’ girlfriend like a real person and Lars begins to realize that people really do care about him.

    So I had the impression from the description of this movie and the trailer that it was a comedy. The trailer made me laugh, and I really looked forward to seeing this movie. After about 20 minutes you realize that this movie is not a comedy, there isn’t any comedy. The movie is sad, and about a man with a real problem. The whole movie is basically about this guy living with a blow up doll who he thinks is real. Finally at the end of the movie Lars begins to interact a little better with real people, and his blow up doll “dies” ending the movie. In the end he is a little bit better, and potentially might end up with a real girlfriend.

    I would not recommend this movie to anyone because it is boring, there is little drama, there is no comedy, and the ending was mediocre. But it was not just the ending that was mediocre but every aspect of the movie was mediocre, and in the end you find yourself regretting sitting through the whole movie.

Under discussion:

Riding in Cars With Boys  (2001)

Juno  (2007)

Juno is a movie about a girl in high school who gets pregnant. The story line was pretty simple with a few twists and turns, nothing drastic but it keeps your interest. I think the most remarkable thing about this movie was that its believable, this could be any 16 year old girl. Not only was the story believable but also the characters. There was no cheesy dialog in this movie (well maybe here conversation with dwight shred), and it just seemed real. The movie was kind of like a less depressing version of Riding in Cars with Boys, and it also felt a lot shorter. Anyways this movie is kind of a drama/chick flick but I think anyone would enjoy it, there is nothing really cheese about it, because like I said again its believable. Also the movie stylistically is really rad. I think this movie is good, a lot different from the last movie I saw with Ellen Page where she drove a child molester to suicide... Anyways in conclusion you will probable like this movie.  [THP]

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