Evil Cats, Shouting Germans and Peasant-Punching

I haven't seen a ton of movies lately, but here's a few that I saw recently. Before you read any of my movie reviews, you should know that my favorite three movies of all time are The Empire Strikes Back, Return of the King and Destroy All Monsters. I also have two young kids, so I watch and enjoy a lot of cartoons and kids movies. Hopefully that'll put things in perspective for you....

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DAS EXPERIMENT

I wouldn`t call myself a fan of foreign films, but I enjoy them occasionally. I never have a problem with subtitles like a lot of folks do - I think people just don`t want to read anything other than textspeak anymore...In fact, if a movie is filmed in a language other than English, I would prefer to see a subtitled rather than dubbed version. (Maybe not all of the time - in Godzilla movies, the bad dubbing actually makes it all the more fun.) Anyway, let`s just say that I normally don`t go out of my way to see many non-English language movies, even though they are usually far more original, at least from my point of view. This certainly was pretty ``out there``....

In case you didn`t know, Das Experiment is the original German movie that inspired the recently released American film appropriately titled The Experiment, starring Adrian Brody. (I haven`t seen that one and didn`t even know of it`s existence when I watched the German one.) The story is about a social experiment in a mock prison environment. The volunteers are seperated into groups of inmates and guards, and are pretty much left alone to figure things out, all the while being monitored by surveillance cameras. Basically, things go wrong - horribly wrong. After only a few days there emerges a bitter power struggle between the two groups that results in torture, humiliation, severe beatings and the deaths of several participants. Was the experiment a complete failure - or a resounding success? (I think I stole that line from the back cover of the DVD)

Certainly, the filmakers succeed in creating an intense thriller that passes from being psychological into being more than a little psychotic - a rousing tale of sadism, violence, domination and other nasty human tendencies. .....Well, okay, so it's not Saw or anything, but it seems far more real to me and that's what makes it far better (I am not a fan of the Saw films, BTW). Das Experiment is in fact based on a an actual experiment conducted at Stamford University in 1971 (read about it here). I highly recommend this movie, and I`m sure the American version is probably pretty good too - but it likely doesn`t have a bunch of angry Germans yelling in it. Somehow that makes Das Experiment that much more intense.  

A-

(minus because it`s a little disturbing)

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SKYLINE

It`s Independence Day (without the All-Star cast) meets Cloverfield (without the shaky camcorder video) meets Dawn of the Dead (without Zombies) meets War of the Worlds (without Tom Cruise). That last one`s not really a detraction; I prefer most of my movies to be without Tom Cruise (insert rimshot). There`s no real surprises here. It fairly easy to recognize all of the standard elements of the Sci Fi/Horror/Monster genre present in Skyline, but there's nothing in this film that we haven't seen before, except the actors....

At least it has gigantic, freaky-looking alien monsters in it. That's always a plus for me.

C+

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TIME BANDITS

I have always been a fan of Terry Gilliam's films. His  name is synonymous with dark, dirty-looking fantasy imagery and an irreverently silly sense of humor that could only have developed within the bowels of the Monty Python comedy troupe. Although not one of his best films, Time Bandits is a good example of his early post-Python work.

It's about a little British boy who's generally ignored by his parents and a little unhappy with his life, finding solace in the pages of ancient history books. Six dwarves suddenly appear through a dimensional vortex in his bedroom one night, being pursued by the Supreme Being. The boy gets swept up with them and whisked through time, meeting noteable historical figures such as Robin Hood (played by John Cleese), Napoleon (Ian Holm) and Agamemnon (Sean Connery).  Along the way, the group is also pursued by Evil (the bad guy - that`s his name) and must confront him in the end.

It`s not ROTFLOL funny - it`s a little dry, but witty, like most Brit comedy and Python-related material in particular - but it holds up alright. Not nearly as good as the later produced Adventures of Baron Munchausen, but still better and more lighthearted than the pointlessly bizarre Tideland.

Best scene in the movie: Robin Hood and his band of Merry Peasant-Punching Men.


B+


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CATS & DOGS : Revenge of Kitty Galore

Basically, this film is mostly-CGI dogs and cats voiced by well-known actors playing out a pseudo-Bond/Spy Kids sort of mission. It may sound really lame to an adult, but its good for the kids and watchable enough for mom and dad. I must say that I prefered the first Cats & Dogs to this one. They`re both cheesy, but I enjoyed them both, being a confessed long-time fan of talking animal movies. (Yes, I`ve even seen both Garfield movies...) I liked that they brought back Mr. Tinkles in this one (the supreme evil cat from the the first movie), but his Silence of the Lambs tribute scene is a little questionable for a kids movie.

 That being said, evil cats are funny. C`mon - they just are.


B


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That's all I got for you right now. I'm going to be working on some action figure photos and comic pages this week, so stay tuned for some fun stuff!

May the Force be with you...