Archive for the 'Action' Category

Fantastic Four

Friday, November 30th, 2007
State of body A super-powered corpse that won’t trouble you with too many deeper questions.
Detail of Inspection Inspected twice.
Forensic Investigator winstoninabox
Comments Family friendly fun.

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Highlander: The Source

Wednesday, November 28th, 2007
State of Body Not so much decapitated as cut off at the knees.
Detail of Inspection Inspected twice, with the body parts in distinctly different arrangements.
Forensic Investigator Jon Blum
Comments How hard is it to make a sequel when nobody watched the last one?

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RoboCop 3

Wednesday, October 31st, 2007
State of Body Worked over pretty bad and then neutered.
Detail of Inspection Inspected 3 or 4 times. Probably this time was watching it for the last time I ever will in this lifetime.
Forensic Investigator winstoninabox
Comments How hard is it to make a sequel? You just have to copy the first one, don’t you? Hey, didn’t I already say that somewhere else?

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RoboCop 2

Sunday, September 30th, 2007
State of Body Like so many other sequels this much maligned corpse can’t escape negative comparisons to its far superior progenitor.
Detail of Inspection Inspected 4 or 5 times. Difficult to remember after such a long hiatus.
Forensic Investigator winstoninabox
Comments How hard is it to make a sequel? You just have to copy the first one, don’t you?

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Die Hard 4.0

Thursday, August 30th, 2007
State of Body Certainly not stale, but as this corpse was always going to be a success it could have taken a few more risks.
Detail of Inspection Inspected once.
Forensic Investigator winstoninabox
Comments Fun, but can’t make it to the next level. What more could one expect with “4″ in the title? That’s what the writers, producers and director hoped you’d be thinking.

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Spider-Man 3

Saturday, July 7th, 2007
State of Body Watchable. Enjoyable. Unmemorable.
Detail of Inspection Inspected once.
Forensic Investigator winstoninabox
Comments Great action. ’nuff said.

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Snakes on a Plane

Monday, May 21st, 2007
State of body Oooooooh, where to start. Um, dead? Yeah. Very dead. Strange puncture wounds. Mysterious.
Detail of inspection Inspected once.
Forensic Investigator shellshear
Comments So much potential! Well, I thought so anyway. A classic example of a movie playing it far too safe; of failing to properly explore the premise.

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X2

Monday, May 7th, 2007
State of Body Viable, but has signs of future instability.
Detail of Inspection Inspected a few times.
Forensic Investigator winstoninabox
Comments This body is in pretty good nick. If only it had kept to the cast established in the first one. I think I’m mixing my metaphors. Oh well.

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Underworld: Evolution

Tuesday, January 9th, 2007
State of Body Not dead, but not truly alive.
Detail of Inspection Inspected once.
Forensic Investigator winstoninabox
Comments This body’s DNA matches that of an earlier victim. Similar wounds are apparent.

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Highlander 2

Monday, August 14th, 2006

State of body No, we’re not going to do the obvious joke, okay? It hasn’t had its head cut off. Just its brain.
Detail of inspection Inspected twice.
Forensic Investigator Jon
Comments There’s been serious reconstructive work to put its body parts back where they belong, but they still don’t quite fit.

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You Only Live Twice

Sunday, April 30th, 2006
State of Body A secret agent who while not even close to death, or even a fatal wounding, does have a very slight tell-tale whiff of silliness to come.
Detail of Inspection Inspected many times.
Forensic Investigator winstoninabox
Comments Subject, despite minor flaws, will remain a classic Bond corpse.

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GoldenEye

Monday, March 13th, 2006
State of Body Looks a little more decrepit with each inspection.
Detail of Inspection Inspected numerous times.
Forensic Investigator winstoninabox
Comments Bond was back! But not on screen long enough.

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Unleashed

Thursday, February 23rd, 2006
State of body A little malnourished, occasionally beaten, but mostly healthy. Killed by a couple of ticks and an infestation of nits.
Detail of inspection Inspected twice.
Forensic Investigator shellshear
Comments Competently done, until the usual mess at the finale. Why do action movies so often fall apart at the end?

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Kong

Sunday, January 22nd, 2006

It’s been a week since I’ve seen King Kong. Unfortunately what I’ve got to say, has been said on other boards, but since it hasn’t been said here at FF I thought I would in the hope it might get a little discussion of the film going.

I want to like King Kong, but its length really wore me out. A movie of over 3 hours needs pretty hefty character interactions and/or a lot of plot. But neither are required in the telling of Kong, and their addition to this film in fact hamper the film’s impact.

For plot, there is nothing that can be added to the original 1933 film version of King Kong without it appearing extraneous. Let’s face it, its a pretty simple story. Even when watching the original film, short though it is, some Skull Island scenes have the feel that they are there for no other reason than to show the wonder of stop-motion. And so too with action scenes in the new King Kong . Almost all go beyond a length that maintains interest. In a film of this length action scenes need to add something to the plot, in such a way that can only be provided through the action. But its not so.

The brontosaurus charge was the major offender; it added nothing to the movie except the CG. The upshot of the brontosaurus charge was to set up Baxter as a coward who leaves (to return with the rescue party). But this set up could have been done without this overly long scene. The insect pit too, falls into this set. Once Baxter has gone, then he has to come back and save them from another drawnout CG peril.

And so the plot becomes a slave to the minor characters that so much time was used on to introduce. If Baxter had been kept in the background, then he would never have had to been given something to do to justify the time spent on him.

King Kong would have been better spending more time on its leads, keeping eveyone else in the background, and so keeping its running time down. In this respect I think the 1976 version is far superior. Its length is right for what it has. Lest you should think I didn’t like this new version, there is actually much of it I did like. Still, sometimes less is more.

The Punisher

Sunday, January 15th, 2006
State of Body Punished (Sorry, I couldn’t resist)
Detail of Inspection Inspected 3 times.
Forensic Investigator winstoninabox
Comments This body was unable to survive the multiple cuts of budget and length.

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The Island

Sunday, November 27th, 2005
State of body Multiple organ failure. Apparent efforts had been made to surgically replace organs, which were rejected by the host.
Detail of inspection Inspected once.
Forensic Investigator shellshear
Comments A Hollywood film about cloning. The irony will only be exceeded when they do the remake.

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Mr and Mrs Smith

Wednesday, November 2nd, 2005
State of body Both bodies had multiple gunshot wounds - none to vital organs, but enough to have caused blood loss and death.
Detail of inspection Inspected twice.
Forensic Investigator shellshear
Comments As with many of the subjects here, wounds appeared self-inflicted.

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Hulk

Sunday, July 31st, 2005
State of body Killed by a bizarre mutation - partly normal, and partly something very, very strange.
Detail of inspection Inspected five times.
Forensic Investigator shellshear
Comments Seems to be a normal comic-book movie that has been partially attacked by another Film Forensics reviewer who wanted to turn it into something infinitely stranger. More power to them.

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The World Is Not Enough

Tuesday, March 29th, 2005
State of Body Secret agent assassinated by supporting cast.
Detail of Inspection Inspected six times.
Forensic Investigator winstoninabox
Comments As Moneypenny said, “Close, but no cigar.”

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Catwoman

Tuesday, March 22nd, 2005
State of body A pathetic shrivelled husk, drained of vital fluids.
Detail of inspection Inspected once.
Forensic Investigator shellshear
Comments Mediocre in every respect - given the wealth of existing material to draw on, it is bizarre they could have come up with something so bland. An ideal FF candidate.

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