Meatwadsprite's Slow Review Thread

If you're willing to accept that people in power will always opt for the safety and well-being of people over the promise of making more money (and ergo gaining more power), you're probably living in a slightly too idealistic reality. There are countless instances where the little people have been screwed over by "The Man" for the sake of profit - Zimbabwe under Mugabe's rule is the first thing to come to mind. I find Mayor Vaughn's motivations to be the complete opposite of "uber-fake" - what's he going to do, deny his town the promise of an immensely profitable tourist trade simply because there may be a shark around (and keep in mind that a group of fishermen caught a tiger shark, thus alleviating the fears and suspicions of everybody except for Brody and Hooper, so it still seemed rather reasonable to open up the island for tourists at the time).

Wonder how you can keep finding the characters unrealistic though, I feel the total opposite. No matter, glad to know your rating is now on the right side of .

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Akira (1 1/2 views)



This movie is a disaster , a beautifully animated meticulous frame-by-frame style makes this a visual wonder - but one of the worst scripts (was there a script ?) of all time and turtle speed pacing bog this down too much to even watch the whole way.

It starts out great , neo-dystopian Japan : what a great place to make a movie. Especially with an amazing animation team behind you , the sky's the limit. Akira's limitations are easily found once you get about a half hour in - the story is nowhere to be found. I only made it through the first half of two hours and had to turn this off. Even if there was the least bit of good dialogue , a simple plot , or any worth while character - I would stick around just to see the great animation : beautiful as it is , it's not worth it.

Character's are about as important as their names , but the huge factor in why this film is so bad - is the complete lack of energy. It starts out with a bang and then it quickly unwinds , no music , no excitement - just complete dullness. Maybe there is a good movie somewhere to be found in this mess , but it's definitely not two hours long - maybe there is 50-60 minutes that would actually make a good movie , given you add music somewhere in there.

Anyway around it , it's a disappointment to see something look great and have no story to back it up. If Akira is the biggest and best anime film out there , I really do not want to see another ever again.



Das Boot - The Director's Cut (1 view)



I'll start by saying it's the best war movie I've seen , it doesn't try to go through the usual themes you always expect from a war film either - it gives you some deep honest characters to care about and a terrifying suspenseful tale of plain survival.

There several existing versions of this film , the original 150 minute version , the miniseries version weighing in at a heavy 5 hours , and the director's cut which is still an enormous 209 minutes. Each version is a different spin on this huge story , but the director's cut is the essential version in my opinion. It's streamlined for one singular film experience , but delivers on the strong character support missing from the original version. Of course if you really love the story and want to see more there's always the option to watch the miniseries version which I think is amazing (1 movie tuned to 3 different tastes).

Most of it takes place in a small German submarine , with the rare occasional shot of the exterior. It shoves you into it's claustrophobic setting not 20 minutes in and along this crews trip they will go through a teeter totter of fun , sickness , adventure , suspense , friendship , injury , hope , and the final run to get back home. You already know their fate is doomed , but when it hits you - it knocks you down. It never strongly presses it's anti-war message , until the brief final scene - but it's more powerful than any I've seen on film.

Aside from the masterfully bloated story , Das Boot packs a gigantic array of sights and sounds. Picture perfect cinematography and a catchy exciting musical score , won't let you stop watching once you've started. The small interior shots of the u-boat serve their purpose and the few gigantic moments could be framed on your wall without hesitation. The submarine setting is wonderfully constructed , detailed to the last inch - the boat is one of the characters you will grow to care about.

A daunting achievement in film right up there with Lord of the rings , it's a complete originality in the war genre and deserves a viewing by anyone looking for a great experience.

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He's meat. Does he really need a "reason"?

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Good call.

Come on, dude, you know that when it comes to bad scripts you can do way worse than Akira. I honestly wonder how closely you were actually following the story - while it's not exactly on the same level as something like Chinatown, it's not like the script's braindead or non-existent. There's a plot to Akira - it revolves around the supernatural powers of Tetsuo and the old-looking kids, and the attempts to control them (by government and resistance alike). However, they try to control something that is quite simply uncontrollable, resulting in total pandemonium as a result of man's attempts to try and best nature. The only reason Akira slows down at all is to develop the plot and characters - the fact that you shut it off halfway through saddens me because it's the second half where things go completely insane.

However, despite your claims that you'll never want to see another animé again, I will recommend to you Ninja Scroll - it's shorter, more focused on simple entertainment than Akira is and an energetic blood-soaked action movie. While we're at it, I might as well tell you to forget about Ghost in the Shell - considering how far over your head Akira seems to have gone, God knows what you'll think of Ghost in the Shell.

He must have an extremely short attention span if he thought Akira was boring by any measure...

Insomnia (1 view)



Nolan's weakest movie looks good but not how it should , two fantastic lead performances from Pacino and Williams can not save this suspense/thriller from it's ending.

Atmosphere is what Insomnia wants to capture , but it really doesn't it do it that well. Pacino's performance may convince you of his lack of sleep , although he gets no help from the visual style used. Lots of cool clear shots throughout , I mean it looks good - but doesn't fit the theme of sleep deprivation.

The script does well enough to keep me in though , until I arrive at the conclusion - where Nolan usually turns the entire thing inside out. Not this time , you get a run of the mill cheap way out.

Ask me what this movie is about , I couldn't tell you. Brief entertainment with a dumb ending , might be fun if your really desperate for a mystery thriller. Then again you could always watch Se7en again (and again and again).

Watch the original, as it is much better.

but is it actually good ?

That would be up for you to decide, wouldn't it? Me telling you it's good is another thing. Then again, no offense to you personally, but I don't take you or your reviews that seriously to begin with.

Definitely agree with Justin on the original Insomnia, unfortunately like so many others you have watched the inferior remake of a good foreign film before the original, so it's impact will be lessened. It's like watching Vanilla Sky before Open Your Eyes, or, dare I say, City of Angels before Wings of Desire (these two being compared just seems so wrong). Hollywood kind of sucks sometimes.

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"Don't be so gloomy. After all it's not that awful. Like the fella says, in Italy for 30 years under the Borgias they had warfare, terror, murder, and bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, and the Renaissance. In Switzerland they had brotherly love - they had 500 years of democracy and peace, and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock."

Haha - City of Angels. That was horrible.

Oh God. I love the Nolan Insomnia. It's one of the most-pumped-up visual/aural feasts available to 2000-ish American films. I like the original too, but somehow I prefer the remake and don't understand how it's so easy to differerentiate between the two. Once again, I don't have problems with meaty's "feelings", but his ratings continue to ignore the middle ground which is where almost everything falls into. meaty, you have evolved into a solid reviewer in words; please try to adjust the ratings appropriately.

Original (4/5) Remake (3/5) - I like it too, although I did see the original first.

I'd agree the remake isn't bad - so I'd say it's in the B-, or C+ range.

Watchmen Motion Comic (1 view)



Snyder's Watchmen is from word of mouth extremely faithful to the book , but the motion comic is the book. Although it might not look as cool , it's extremely entertaining - with moments of cinematic brilliance.

Tom Stechschulte narrates the entire thing and plays each character , which might seem dumb at first - especially with women characters : but he's extremely talented , some of the characters are spot on perfect.

For the most part you are watching still images of the original book reproduced for HD resolutions , which means they almost had to entirely redraw the book. It looks great for it's simplistic style (see Waltz with Bashir , Persepolis) , even though it's obviously at a much lower budget than the others I mention - it's easily superior due to it's heavy similarity to the original GN illustrations.

Extreme fans of the book who don't want a single thing out of place should rejoice this , it's almost a frame-by-frame narrated and animated reproduction of the book - that you can watch on TV or Monitor. Oh yeah I almost forgot the great musical score used , I'm not sure if they are songs from the actual movie or original to the motion comic - but it's classic , I hope they use some of it in the actual film.

Alan Moore might pass on a viewing of Snyder's , but I hope he will see this 6 hour transfer of page to screen.

Good review Meat; I'm still on the fence about buying it though. I think I may just wait for Tales Of The Black Frieghter and Under The Hood to come out. I saw a part of it, and that narrator just sucked, IMO. He had like no emotion while reading it all; I couldn't listen to him talk for 6 hours.

Moments of cinematic brilliance?

It's just the comic with a bit of motion to it.

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