DrkTr14ce's Movie Reviews

Hello everyone.

Seeing as how I might as well make the thing official, welcome to my little section in which you'll see all of my wonderous reviews of Movies. Down the line I also plan to discuss certain Television shows and maybe even things related to movies, like Movie-liscenced games.

the Rating system will be broken up as thus:

Plot (What I thought of the story or reasons for the movie.)
Graphics (If a movie has a lot of CGI in it, do they make good use of it?)
Entertainment (Did I at least find it funny, terrifying, or watchable?)
Overall (Is it worth it?)

Now, my Overall Score will be biased a bit on the account that I'm shelling out $9.50 for these films.
So let me put it this way:
8/10 is worth the money. This is where stuff like Up and The Dark Knight go.
5-7/10 is worth a Rental or seeing it at one of those discount theaters. Twilight goes here.
3-4/10 is for Hardcore Fans only. The Resident Evil series falls here.
0-2/10 is reserved for the worst. We're talking Dragonball Evolution levels of unwatchableness.

Please stay tuned for future updates. And I'll remind you that most of these movies are reviews because I wanted to do them. But if you've got an idea, please suggest it. I may consider it.

DrkTr14ce

(Re-uploaded at 5:40 P.M. due to Violation of ToS. Sorry again, Thoul.)

Movie Review #1: Grownups (PG-13)
Chris Rock, Kevin James, Rob Schniedier, Adam Sandler, David Spade.

Might as well get this out of the way. NONE of these actors on their own are funny to me. Except for Kevin James when he did Paul Blart: Mall Cop. Plus I never even heard of Mr. Spade. I'm told he's on some TV show or something. Anyways...

Plot: The plot isn't anything fancy, so here goes: A group of 5 friends used to be on the same basketball team and were good friends. They grew up and are now doing a "get-together" at Sandler's character's summer home. Plot done. Does it work? Sure. It's nothing edgy, and it moves the movie along.
7/10

Graphics: No CGI here. Nothing to note.
NA/10

Entertainment: Remember what I said earlier about the main actors? Well, I don't know how, but all 5 of them together like this REALLY WORKS. The comedy isn't as annoyingly slapstick as one might expect. Heck, even Schnieder managed not to get on my nerves, and that's a challenge. There were times during the film, in which there wasn't pure slapstick, that it literally felt like 5 old friends just talking, which felt kind of natural and smooth. Good show, gentlemen.

However, I'm docking one half a point for repeating a urine joke. A urine joke that was only funny the first time.
8.5/10

Overall:
I considered it worth my money. Although I know for almost a fact that these guys will never again make a movie this great. Except for maybe Kevin James, he still seems to be doing allright.

This is DrkTr14ce saying: "Stop throwing Popcorn at me everytime I shout 'Symbolism!' during a film."

(Reuploaded at 5:44 PM.)

Niiiice, Drk! I always get a kick out of reading your reviews. *, seriously, why don't you do this professionally? ^^)

Have you seen the Bourne movies? Man, those movies rock. I'd love to read your review on those.

Interesting review, DrkTr14ce!

I don't know if I would spend money on buying this film, but it's worth considering possibly renting it once, or whatever.

My main problem, if you want to call it that, with this film is the same as you stated in the beginning....."None of these actors on their own are funny to me". On first glance I wouldn't buy or see a movie with any of them in it, unless there was something else that attracted me to the movie. Although your positive review may just make me change my mind on that.

Once again, great job, DrkTr14ce! Looking forward to future movie reviews.

Thank you, everyone.

As for the Bourne movies, I've seen all three. I'm not reviewing them. One can only deal with so much Matt Damon at once.

Preview Reviews #1:


This will be a side segment in combination with movies in which I quickly state my thoughts on trailers for upcoming movies. These will be very brief, informal, and non-graded. Enjoy.

Note: For the first bit, most of the movies are being shown in 3-D.


Nanny McPhee Returns:

I've never actually seen the original film, so I can't use that one as a guideline. On it's own, however, it doesn't seem so bad. There's attempts at humour within the trailer, although the overall plot is..shallow and predictable. I'd suggest a Rental, unless you're a huge fan of the first one.

Tangled:

Appearantly Disney needs another Princess for their list or something. The trailer they used just don't impress me. The jokes are corny, the characters are barely likable, and the 3-D effects aren't that great. Maybe it's just me.*
Skip it.

Rio:
I really don't know what the plot on this one is. All it shows from the trailer is a pair of birds and some Tropical one. One of the paired birds can't fly, so the other two are forcing him to learn the hard way, I guess. I don't know.
3-D Effects, again, aren't impressive. I'll wait and see.

Cats & Dogs 2:
I forgot the full title, and I really don't care.
After watching the trailer and thinking it over, I figured out why I don't want to see this. First of all, the first movie was hardly that funny. Sure, some of the animal training involved is impressive now that I think of it, but overall it wasn't that great.

What this movie, to me, seems like is someone picking up a 7 year old script, dusted it off, and threw in some horrid 3-D effects. Seriously.
I'd suggest an angry letter or two.

Alpha and Omega:
Wow. Another shallow plot....two wolves of different "Rankings" being forced to work together to go home. And they grow to like one another. Trailer featured bad jokes, and I honestly couldn't see much use of 3-D.
Skip it.

And there you have it. Stay tuned for "My Thoughts on 3-D" and the eventual review of the film Despicable Me.

* See "My Thoughts on 3-D".

DrkTr14ce Presents:

My Thoughts on 3-D


Allright, let me get this out of the way. I wear glasses. And ever since I was a child, back when they'd occasionally do 3-D. And back then it was annoying trying to even wear those glasses over my glasses and getting the two to line up well enough to get the desired effect.

Fast-forward about 10 years, and it's THE SAME PROBLEM. I kind of figured by now that someone would've either invented something that's not "one size fits all". Or at least clipon glasses, I'd settle for that. So you can imagine my frustration while trying to watch the movie. My eyes still hurt a bit from it all.


Now, I might as well talk about the actual effects. And for me personally, and this is probably due to my glasses, it's really hit and miss for the effect.
Sometimes it's rather subtle, like peering into an empty bag.
And there's the blatant ones, like someone shooting a gun at you. I hate the latter with a passion because it makes the product comes off as gimmicky and cheap. And that was my main concern with this sudden interest in 3-D. the Trailers aren't helping at all with alleviating my doubts. Thanks, guys. >>

Now, there's something I noticed during both Despicable Me and a few 3-D Trailers. Some of the backgrounds appeared very....not 3-D. As if they were paintings and cardboard stage props. I hope that makes sense to someone. And it's because of this that kills the Immersion of the films for me.

But as a whole, there were a lot of subtle 3-D touches that actually helped it. Despicable Me used it with, say dust particles and confetti. And i'm sure that down the line they'll get better at it. But for now, I'll remain a skeptic. At least until I get contacts or something.


This is DrkTr14ce saying: "Why yes, I AM the fellow sitting in the front row with a notepad and pen writing down things. Why do you ask?"

Movie Review #2: Despicable Me (PG)
Steve Carrell

This one caught me off-guard because it's actually not a Pixar or Dreamworks animated film, but some smaller company that's owned by Fox. Seriously.
Anyways, off we go.

Plot: Gru (Steve Carell) is an aging Super Villian, though not the greatest one in the world. He's got gadgets, sure, but he's being outdone by the younger guys. So he figures he should go for broke and STEAL THE MOON. Yeah. He's going to use a Shrink Ray and shrink the moon, then steal it. However, the Ray is stolen by a younger Villian named Vector. He wants to get it back, but can't. but he notices three orphan girls, one of whom is surprisingly enough is voiced by Miranda Cosgrove from iCarly, sell cookies and are allowed inside. So he adopts the girls and uses this advantage to steal back the Shrink Ray. But while he's cold-hearted at first, he does eventually soften up to the girls.

Overall it's actually like a Coke with a lemon and lime added to it: It's familiar enough but with a nice change.
7/10

Graphics:
I'll give you a few minutes to read "My Thoughts on 3-D".

Done? Good. This film...actually did most things right. It had some of the problems above, but as I said, I think that's due to Double Glasses. There were also some obvious ones, but I loved the more subtle touches. And a part where there's a roller coaster ride. That was a nice feature. It had some good glass/ice physics in this one, as they all shatter beautifully. And it also had some nice CG work for a small company. Good show.
8/10

Entertainment: The minions. Enough said.
9/10

Overall: This is getting high marks for some excellent entertainment. Carell did a fantastic job with his character by making him really likable. Oh, and the little girls.

"IT'S SO FLUFFY!!!"

I love that line.
8/10


This is DrkTr14ce saying: "Why does Time Crisis III have to cost a bloody Dollar a game?"

I have to agree with you on the double glasses part Drk. It annoys me. >=(

Good review, I'm looking forward to some more.

Despicable Me sounds like it has an interesting story. Although, I'm not too fond of 3D stuff either. I haven't actually seen a 3D movie in a theater since the days when you couldn't make out any details without the glasses. Most of the 3D movies I've seen since in the last few years have been on DVD and they all looked pretty cheesy when using the effects.