Movies of 2008 Review

10,000 B.C.

• Prehistoric Epic

Feels like the films "Apocalypto" and "300" combined. Somewhat generic "bad guy kills tribe, kidnaps girl, and main hero gets angry, gathers troops, and kills the other tribe" but in the ancient world with some anachronistic creatures lurking about. The first half takes place removed from civilization and is enjoyable. Disappointing ending with supernatural bringing back to life of the female character. Camilla Belle was a good casting choice for the main girl, making the film better, and as much as viewer won't want her to die, once dead, she should have stayed dead. Every thing's perfect happy endings get mundane. Roland Emmerich isn't the best director but does something worth watching every now and again. Ironically, he directed and produced "The Patriot" starring Mel Gibson, who later went on to do Apocalypto, which Roland Emmerich seemed to barrow from to some degree for this film.

Cloverfield

• Sci-Fi Horror

Similar to a docudrama, this film starts off somewhat painful. Viewers will likely be critical of the initial ways the director tries to make a film, from the perspective of one of the characters with a video recorder, incorporate elements of standard cinematography. If viewers bear with the weak opening, the film gradually gets better. The final result of all the characters efforts is done in good taste. Unfortunately, the film doesn't offer viewers an explanation for why a giant creature comes to New York, the origins of the creature, and if there is any hope for mankind. The film just ends. The are also some questionable issues with potential bad movie physics in how a giant creature would impact buildings, subways, and objects in a large city. This is a movie worth watching if you have the imagination to play out the final battle of man versus creature in your own mind. Maybe it deserves another half star, I can't decide.

Rambo

• Action

Hey I avoided watching this for the longest time and for all the obvious reasons. Then, there was nothing else on so I committed 91 minutes of my life to Rambo Part 1000 and was pleasantly surprised. It was actually a good action flick. When compared to the mindless action films that have been spun out of Hollywood lately, Rambo does pretty darn good. It's been 20 years since John Rambo's story was first told. Now, if you take the first Rambo movie, and this one, and discard all the Rambo films in-between, the stigma might not be so bad. Sylvester Stallone has kept in better shape than Schwarzenegger and looks the part of an X-Vietnam war bad-*ss. The mercenaries that join his crusade to rescue some naive meek Peace Corps volunteers look tough and have experience, yet they haven't been where Rambo has. He is sort of like the grandfather of mercenaries that has to set his arthritis aside long enough to bail out the younger generation of heroes. There was a lot of unnecessary gore and guts spilling out of bloody human bodies type of violence, maybe even more so than in an actual battle, but perhaps nothing worse than Saving Private Ryan. I could have done without seeing all the gore. Still, it was fun to see the old man kick some butt one last time (and I really hope this will be the end of Rambo movies.)

The Ruins

• Horror

A group of American college youths are vacationing in Mexico when they meet up with a German tourist whose brother previously went missing while exploring an undiscovered Mayan temple. The group of Americans includes one musclular med student, his slutty and dizzy girlfriend, a rather ordinary young guy, and his attractive blonde adventurous yet somewhat levelheaded girlfriend. The med student is the most logical, practical member of the group. Everyone dies except for the dizzy slut who escapes with the help of her smart med student boyfriend. This movie is based on a very long novel. Good movie, solid acting, but a somewhat generic ending. I understand much of the novel was left out, but the movie works as is.

Shutter

• Horror

The stupid blonde from Transformers and Joshua Jackson get together for a mediocre horror movie that follows the same basic forumula as so many before. His neck hurts because the dead girl is sitting on his shoulders the entire time. Watch if nothing better is on.

Untraceable

• Cyber Crime Thriller

What is interesting is that the writers actually did some legitimate termonology research. However, there were many typical Hollywood's misunderstanding of computer science elements in this film, but perhaps fewer than average. In Hollywood, we are to believe that hip, l33t net savvy babes are a dime a dozen. Whatever. Call me sexist if you want, but show me the same ratio of l33t female computer geeks in the real world while you attempt to back up your accusation. Okay - this movie was fun to watch, but seemed a lot like the movie Saw, were a bunch of over-elaborate situations are set up to torture human beings. This movie just takes the Saw situations and puts them on youtube or something. I guess the movie is well done for what it is, but I am getting tired of over elaborate human torture crime drama's that are so unrealistic that one really has to stretch the imagination to enjoy.