Audio:

Seriously I've never seen a movie with worse audio. There are scenes where people are walking through the grass, and you can hardly hear them over their footsteps. They must be miking their feet.

You know how in some movies they forget a line, so they have to dub it in on a shot of the back of someone's head. Here the editors were not that clever. There is actually a scene where Shannon Tweed's character says her line without moving her lips at all!

I'm pretty sure for their background sound they played effects loops live while shooting, because in a lot of scenes the sound effects will either be different or be absent whenever the camera changes angles.

I could write a lot more on how bad the audio is in this movie.

Other Nuggets:

In this movie they probably consider the opening credits to be special effects because they seemed so challenging to produce. The main title and the first few names in the opening credits are in white text over a white sky, and they wobble as if they were carefully hand painted on each frame.

The reuse of extras in this movie is incredible. There are about 15 rebels in the cast, and yet in any given battle thirty or more of them will be killed. If only the film were high enough quality to distinguish which ones were dying over and over.

It's also interesting to note that the rebels are usually killed by explosions that are always between 30 and 200 feet away. There is one scene one scene when some of the rebels are running out of their huts in the rebel base, and one huts shakes as the rebel exits the door. It makes you wonder if the hut will last long enough to encounter the inevitable explosion.

There is a blue helicopter that looks as menacing as a pair of running shorts, but somehow is equipped with an infinite supply of missiles. When they show the missiles being shot out of the helicopter's missile bays, the often shoot of in unpredictable directions very closely resembling large bottle rockets. They still manage to hit their targets with ease, which as noted above is always a very safe distance away from the rebels they kill. Note the recycled footage of the pilot pressing the LIVE button to fire the missiles (because it's printed vertically, the first few times we saw it, we read it as the "EVIL" button).

Notice how the grenade launcher they use, produces identical explosions to those that are created by the helicopter missiles. It's also fun in many scenes how the actor in the foreground is shooting in a completely different direction than the group of enemy soldiers that he is killing. And frequently, characters shoot a disproportionate number of bullets to the soldiers who are killed (like when a short burst fire kills a large group of enemies).

Yes this movie is very very very bad. The plot was thought out almost as well as a 5 year old's soccer game, and the editing is the worst I've ever seen. But honestly, sometimes it's fun spend 90 minutes laughing at a group of adults who sincerely took part in such a terrible movie.


In yet another case of misleading marketing, this film is included in a 10-movie DVD set called "Women Who Kick Butt", but even in its original cover it seems to promise Shannon Tweed in an action role. Actually, during most of the movie Tweed plays the typical whiny and prissy female character who has to be rescued by the male lead, and even when she's trained in jungle warfare she still has to be dragged around by him! There is one female rebel who is a stronger character, but she's mostly kept in the margins of the movie. The male lead is Reb Brown, and he does have some (unintentionally, I think) funny moments (like when he gets electrocuted). The action scenes are badly directed and poorly acted: some of the stuntmen needed a few lessons on "how to get shot and die convincingly". I suppose if you're in the right mood you can find some things in "Firing Line" to laugh at (at one point, we can hear Tweed speaking but her lips are not moving!), but mostly I was just bored. (*)


Found this film for one dollar ($1.00) and the film was a complete waste of time. Reb Brown,(Mark Hardin), played a military adviser in South America and was successful in capturing the leader of rebel soldiers operating out of the dense jungles. However, Mark joins the opposite side after some horrible tortures were inflicted or women and men. In one scene as Mark is having a drink in a hotel bar, his eyes catch the glimpse of sexy long legs Sandra Spencer (Shannon Tweed),"Dead Sexy",01. Mark and Sandra have the extreme hots for each other and even make passionate love on some very hard rocks, with no time for the comforts of a bed. This is a horrible film and not worth wasting the time to even look at IT.


Bottom-of-the-barrel stinker is so bad it's beyond funny. The "plot" is about an American mercenary, played by Reb Brown (in the film he's called a "military adviser" but it's not really clear if he's in the American military or not), helping the army of a Latin-American country fight guerrillas who winds up joining the guerrillas when the government turns on him, imprisons and tortures him. Shannon Tweed is a "sports equipment saleswoman" he picks up in a bar who gets caught up in all the intrigue. That description actually makes the movie sound better than it is, because it's really a stinker of almost Biblical proportions. How bad is it? Well, Shannon Tweed turns in the movie's most professional acting job. If that isn't an indication of just what a 12th-rate piece of junk this turkey is, nothing is From mismatched sound effects to a music score that sounds like it's from a 1940s "Z"-grade horror flick (and may very well be) to the same footage (i.e., armored personnel carriers going down the same jungle trail) reused constantly to some of the most ineptly staged "action" scenes in recent memory, this laugh-a-minute sludgefest has to be seen to be disbelieved. Tweed looks bored, Brown looks hung over, and by the time this thing is finished--if you can last that long; I couldn't--you'll know just how they feel.

Although there are a lot of explosions and gunfights, this can't be considered an "action" picture by any stretch of the imagination. It's boring (there's a scene in the back of a truck where everybody just stares at each other for three or four minutes), repetitive (the same "rebels" and "soldiers" being killed over and over), illogical (when a group of rebels is caught in an open field by a government helicopter gunship, instead of breaking for cover they just stand there staring up at it), inept (soldiers and rebels falling "dead" when no gunshots are heard, a gun battle inside a house where combatants standing against walls are machine-gunned but miraculously the walls escape undamaged) predictable (when the "Governor" says to offer a reward for Brown's capture because "someone" might turn him in, you know exactly who that "someone" will be, and it turns out to be exactly who you thought it was) and just downright stupid (pretty much everything else in the picture). Inept, brainless and stupid beyond belief. Don't waste your time.


THE SCREAMING is a very low budget horror movie that was shot on video. It features passable acting, poor lighting, a weak story, and some of the worst monster effects I've ever seen. The plot has a college student being pressured to join a cult by his attractive landlord. The cult is a parody of Scientology with a book similar to Dianetics. This would have been a funny shot at that group were it not for a dumb script and the cheapness of the production. The monster effects look awful and the picture quality makes it feel like you're watching a home video or a public-service announcement. I think anyone who sees this will agree that movies should be shot on film.


Jeff Leroy wanted to makes fun of Scientology so built a horror movie around a cult similar to it. The twist is that instead of frail old L. Ron Hubbard as the cult leader, there's a centuries old space monster who turns his followers into vampires. Our hero is a dirty living college student who is doing research into the occult. His landlord is an attractive blonde who tries to get him to clean up his life with the help of the cult. It doesn't take him long to figure out that she's only after one thing: his blood. "The Screaming" was shot very cheaply on video and I just plain ugly. The space monster (which looks like a giant winged cat that looks perpetually mad and has no skin) is alternately a clay-mation miniature and a large scale animatronics puppet, both of which look awful. The acting and writing are both terrible and the director doesn't even try to disguise the fact that this movie was made for nothing. Avoid this non-scary, pitiful little excuse.


This digital horror film brings us into the Micro-budget film genre where the more blood and chicks in distress the better. The story is weak, the acting is respectable and the special effects, well, they're special alright. A quality horror film for the fans that already know what to expect.


Fortunately, I haven't seen this film in a movie, big screen, just on a small screen on video. I doubt that I would have been able to sit through the film in a cinema and watch all the violence present in the film. After watching the first 30 minutes, I became both disappointed and curious.

Disappointed because of the hard to follow story line, the hardly understandable screens, the huge amount of aggression - I still don't know why I had been shown the Daesu (main character) pulling out raw the teeth of another person, his beastliness on women, him cutting out his tongue. And also curious, to see what will the film say as a conclusion, what is the ending summary of all this brutality.

Unfortunately, though the movie was not boring, I didn't get any answer to all these cruelty that I had to watch from the beginning to the end. To my opinion, if you want blood and want to laugh, there is Kill Bill 1-2, if you want blood with more meaning, you can take any recent war movie, and if you want an Eastern movie, there are much better titles out there. Afterwards I will take the ratings from the Cannes film festival with more precaution, as while Oldboy got a lot of praise from the jury, it had not much to say to me and had only 4/10 on my scale.

I am hungry to see something beautiful, harmonious, with true feelings and a clear message.


By Jove, what an unholy mess! Revenge, incestuous love, mechanical games-like fighting, ceaseless and utterly unnecessary violence, some primitive "music" hammering away at the bewildered victims, big "surprises" (which actually tend to be about as "revelatory" as The National Enquirer's headlines). Add some shoddy camera movements pretending to be stylish and creative and you've already impressed the crowds. This movie's totally undeserved popularity powerfully indicates the very low level pop sub-culture has succeeded not only in achieving in the last decades, but also in imposing as dominant taste on an impotent audience. (For by far deeper insights into human sufferance under mental sickness, without "Oldboy"s vulgar excesses, I recommend an older Dutch/French movie, "The Vanishing".)

Well, don't believe there's absolutely nothing good to say about this movie. In fact there is. The (in)famous scene in which the hero (is really a "hero", an abject father who sleeps with his daughter and then attempts to obtain forgetfulness rather than redemption?) eats a live octopus benefits greatly from the vivid presence of the best actor in the entire cast: the octopus itself. Too bad the poor beast, having been eaten, couldn't survive its one and only act in order to obtain yet another worthless diploma, for the "best actor", at the Cannes festival.

Which festival, by the way, between Moore's propaganda nonsense and this epitome of worthless if somewhat exotic weirdness, became a festival of the vapid and of the ludicrous.

Sic transit gloria mundi!


This movie was awful, plain and simple. It will probably be revered by those who only see "films" and not "movies" and will therefore feel sorry for me for having such a limited understanding of the theatrical brilliance of this film, but I am secure enough in my intellect to say that this boring, self-aggrandizing and painfully drawn-out movie was a waste of two hours and nine dollars.

I was suckered into seeing this by the inexplicable good reviews it had been receiving and came out of the theater thinking that those reviews had to have been written by over-excited film students and the aforementioned group of individuals who shun regular movies, perhaps for fear that they may actually enjoy one someday.

The storyline is quite a promising one - a man is imprisoned for 15 years, never knowing his captor nor his crime. He is then abruptly released and given just five days to discover the identity and reason of the man who imprisoned him. However, the great concept soon disintegrates into a pathetic joke as Oh Dae-Su runs around beating people up, trying to have sex with a young girl who is attempting to use the toilet and eating a live, writhing squid (presumably for dramatic effect, as there is absolutely no other reason for it). All the while he is trying to figure out this horrible thing he did to earn himself fifteen years in jail, and when he finally finds out it is both ridiculous and a major letdown. His nemesis, a man who supposedly went to school with him when he was a young man, looks like a Banana Republic model twenty years younger than him. Hey, I know prison has been hard on Oh Dae-Su, but is it too much to ask to find an actor that looks a bit closer to his age? Of all the things wrong with this movie, this one seems like the easiest one to fix.

And the big secret - the one that kept me in my seat for 90 minutes when I could have been out doing something productive - is some joke of a plot line involving incest and a rumor started in high school. Come on! Throw us a bone here - was that really the best they could do? I sat through stupid dialogue, over-acting, gloomy sets and gratuitous violence for this? (By the way - I'm not at all against violence in a film if it seems to fit the story, but in this case it seems I was forced to watch our hero knock out someone's front teeth and cut off his own tongue with a pair of scissors in order to distract me from figuring out I was wasting my afternoon watching a pretentious piece of garbage).

Take my advice - do something else with your time and money. Or take your nine dollars and go see a lowly "movie" - one that you might actually enjoy.


This comment is meant mainly as a warning to the people who might be attracted to the title by its (temporarily)high user rating which I find frankly puzzling. The reasons why I didn't like this title are following:

1. The directer must have had some doubts whether to make a Jackie-Chan-type of a flick or a dark Oedipian tragedy. As a result, in terms of genre, the film falls between two stools, as the tragic and comic elements clash and cancel out each other rather than make a harmonious whole.

2. The characters' motives and behaviors are incoherent and unconvincing. Psychological truth and logic are sadly missing.

3. Absurd casting. I don't blame the actors, for it is a hard thing to create a convincing character by acting alone, if there is scarce logic in the script. However, why is there an apparent age difference of about 15 years between the leading two actors, whose ages in the film can't differ by more than 3-4?

4. To me the film was poor entertainment primarily because of point 2. If you can't find a character you could sympathize with it is hard to follow the story with interest. When you finally learn the reason of what happened to the main protagonist, it turns out to make no sense.

5. Some films apart from being entertaining are also thought-provoking. Having seen this film, I began to wonder whether the thought the director tried to provoke was not that incestuous relationships could be perfectly wholesome and delightful. I cannot put any other construction on the ending.

6. The film is rife with totally unnecessary violence. Violence in a film (and elsewhere) is a good thing, if it serves an important and worthy purpose. Purposes can be different and I don't want to enter into this broad subject. Let me just say I don't object to violence in such films as "Saving Private Ryan", "The Passion of the Christ" or "The Pulp Fiction". In "Oldboy" the scenes of torture and suffering are prolonged and graphic (or aural). What for? I do not know. Personally, I don't derive any satisfaction from watching teeth being extracted with a hammer or hear a man cut off his tongue with scissors and then see him choking on his own blood etc. etc.

7. The film reminds me a little of Japanese porno mangas in its fixation on incest and young Asian girls' panties, urinating and the like. It appears there is a minority who actually enjoy this kind of thing. If you're one of them, you might find this film enjoyable.

In short, I do not recommend this film either as entertainment or "food for thought". Where it isn't silly, it is disgusting. Don't waste your time.


I am sorry to rain on everybody's parade. Just a little background about me: I like and know a lot about Asian cinema, especially Japanese, Chinese and Indian. Admittedly I am a novice when it comes to South-Korean cinema but, if this is the best of the best, sorry. I just want you to know that I am not at all narrow-minded when it comes to appreciating foreign movies and I do not fit the stereotype of the "dumb American" . . . well, not perfectly.

I cannot believe the high praise this piece of nothing is bestowed upon. This is a disgusting *and* ludicrous movie. Hammy acting - everything is badly done and overdone, like begging for the uneducated viewer's attention. Horrible camera-work, with an insistence on meaningless close-ups derived from the MTV aesthetics.

The plot is more full of holes than a gigantic piece of Swiss cheese. Nobody expects a thriller to be 100% realistic, and for the sake of entertainment I'd be happy to close my eyes to small unfitting details. But, excuse me, what's happening here that *can* stand even summary scrutiny? This story of an unbelievably intricate and contrite act of revenge is worse than the worst tabloid story one can read in a line at the supermarket. (Don't want to spoil your "enjoyment", if that's the word, so won't go into details of the plot.) The fighting scenes are violent, unbelievable, downright stupid (the main "hero" taking on dozens and dozens of opponents in the same time, after he ONLY trained while imprisoned, punching a wall ! ) The truly "outstanding" features of this movie are two: the lurid and incestuous sex (brother on sister and father on daughter, well, we've evolved since Oedipus, didn't we?) and the graphic violence. The cut off body parts - hands, teeth, tongues - together with industrial quantities of spilled blood (how many tens of thousands of tomatoes had to die for this movie to be made?) have no esthetical function/motivation whatsoever.

A feast for the S & M inclined, admittedly, but, even for those, a feast of no merit nor subtlety. Heavens, even Mel Gibson's recent and much-discussed work on an almost similar theme wasn't THAT bad.

The invariably good press this pretentious, overblown, overlong piece of gratuitous gore coming from Korean shores obtains makes me wonder what's happening. I don't think of myself as being the ultimate paragon of taste and often I am ready to accept that a movie I didn't enjoy may be better than I was able to perceive. However, I have no scruples whatsoever in calling this one as I see it: bad, bad, bad. No redeeming qualities. My 2c? Find something better to do with your time.


It seems that some viewers assume that the only thing which can make the viewer dislike this movie is the graphic violence. In fact violence, both disturbing and cartoonish, is the last of "Oldboy"'s deep flaws. The characters are unidimensional, underdeveloped, primitive. The "intensity", an obsession and a goal in itself with this director, is served up with the cheapest of means. Let's not confuse a mindless shot of adrenaline with artistic worth. By the end of the movie, it seems that all the cards were exhausted so the script becomes almost inadvertently funny in its efforts to find new levels of "horror", to continue to "shock" an audience which is already numbed by the plethora of dumb soap-opera "revelations" already served up in big bunches. It would be hard to imagine anybody even vaguely familiar with the masterpieces of the last fifty years of Asian cinema being enthralled by this pompous piece of trash. Imagine Homer Simpson hesitating in front of the cinema theater: "should I go in or should I buy five cones of ice-cream for the same money?" Be smart, Homer, go for the ice-cream.


Unbelievable. "Philosophy". "Depth". "Genius". "Masterpiece". People must have seen another "Oldboy" because the one I've seen was a badly written, poorly conceived, over-the-top-acted, sordid piece of "Kraapola" which, even ignoring for a moment the ludicrously violent scenes which makes it unsuitable for the eyes of a child, could barely satisfy the imagination and the thirst for plot consistency of a seven years old.

The "depth" of this sorry concoction was exhausted in one little piece of wisdom, "Laugh and the whole world will laugh with you, weep and you'll find yourself alone", the type of boring fortune cookie saying which a great author, be him Shakespeare or, more to the point of IMDb, Kurosawa, would have thrown in the garbage can with no second thoughts. Where this movie should have landed too, if we wouldn't live in an era in which the cheaply shocking and the perversely disgusting are confused with what used to be named once "great art". In short, yuck.

2 out of 100. It's not 1 out of 1000 only because of some occasionally expert camera-work. In no way enough to save this infantile failure from worthlessness, though.


Please do not blame Korea for this bad movie. I am in Korea (please excuse bad English). It sadden me to see these movies which make Korea look like obsessed with blood and sex. It sadden me even more to see animal killings and hear Americans say that is how Korea is. We do not eat live animals!! So please stop excusing movie for its crime by saying it is the culture! There is scenes with the man eating live animals and non Koreans think it is normal. No it is disgusting to us too. The director is a misfit, sick individual who has obsession with killing and sex with family members. I wish America and France will stop glorifying this bad man who is laughable in his own country. Please watch ANY OTHER movie from Korea, that will give you ideas of how artistic we really are. This movie is rubbish.


This movie was one of the longest movie watching experiences of my life. While I like how the director, Chan-wook Park, handled the revenge, the move as a whole was TERRIBLE. Oldboy is only billed at 1 hour and 55 minutes long but it feels like it takes at least 3 and a half hours to tell this story. I will say that the English dubbing was done very well and the movie was easily understandable. I felt that some of the scenes were unnecessarily long and a lot of the dialogue repeated itself. Also, if you have an aversion to annoying voices, then avoid hearing Hye-jeong Kang (she plays Mi-do) speak. If you are looking for a movie to kill time and make you feel morally superior to others, then watch away. If you don't want to watch a movie filled with incest, bad dialogue, unnecessary fight scenes, gross torture scenes and confusing flashbacks, then this is not the movie for you.


Oldboy is set in Korea & starts as a drunken Dae-su Oh (Min-Sik Choi) is bailed out of the police station by his friend only to be abducted, Dae-su wakes up & finds himself in a small room which he will be imprisoned in for the next fifteen years. Dae-su is fed & looked after by his unknown captors but is never allowed out of the room, Dae-su begins to train himself to avenge himself after he gets out which he intends to do by scrapping away the cement from the brickwork with a chopstick. However before Dae-su finishes he is gassed & rendered unconscious, when he wakes up Dae-su finds himself free on the roof of a tall building dressed & all moneyed up. Dae-su instantly sets about trying to find out who imprisoned him, after meeting the pretty Mido (Hye-jeong Kang) the two fall in love & together with her help Dae-su finally finds what he is looking for but the truth comes at a price...

This South Korean production was co-written & directed by Chan-wook Park & has gotten any number of glowing reviews (the sort that distributors can pick quotes out & plaster them on the video box) & even won the Grand Prize of the Jury at Cannes while it was also nominated for the Golden Palm so surely Oldboy is a true classic? Well not for me it isn't since as I can't understand why it's so liked & I would go as far as to say I pretty much hated it apart from one or two isolated moments. For a start I couldn't get into the story at all, I just didn't like it as I thought it was slow & boring & while many out there would have you believe Oldboy has the bestest most shocking twist ever I thought it was rather plain & not very well executed either. The ending in which Dae-su goes to the New Zealand Alps to be hypnotised feels tagged on as well almost as if the makers wanted some sort of happy ending. At almost two hours I almost fell asleep I was so bored, the violence is tame & it's the thought of what's happening that I would imagine most people have a problem with rather than what is actually shown. In fact Oldboy has a very low body count of about seven & one mild sex scene, it's really not that graphic or memorable. I didn't warm to any of the character's & while I accept Oldboy has an alright concept & premise it fails to deliver & it's one film that I will never understand why so many people seem to like.

Based on a Japanese Manga of the same name Oldboy the film looks alright, there's one or two nice visual moments here although while everyone raves about the hallway fight that takes place in one continuous shot I was pretty unimpressed & thought the fight choreography was quite dull. The actual on-screen gore violence amounts to very little, Dae-su eats a live Octopus which is apparently quite normal in Korea anyway, there are some fight scenes, a severed hand, someones teeth are pulled out & there's a bit of blood at the end.

The budget was supposedly around the $4,000,000 mark which is actually a fair bit, filmed in South Korea & New Zealand. The acting looks alright but it's hard to tell when actors are speaking a different language.

Oldboy is a film that I found an absolute chore to sit through, I don't mind subtitled films or foreign films or paying attention to the plot as I followed the thing perfectly but I just didn't like any of it & it's as simple & straightforward as that. Apparently the second in director Choi-wook Park's revenge trilogy which also includes Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance (2002) & Lady Vengeance (2005).


There's a thin line between being theatrical and being just plain forced. Forced acting. Forced takes. Forced plot. Even forced photography. There's people who say "the movie develops that way because it's from Asia" but I don't see any kind of forced elements on Seven Samurai or Sonatine. There's a thin line between being fiction (and every work of art it is, in it's way, fiction) and being just unlikely.In a more personal way, I just don't feel anything with the movie, it doesn't take me anywhere, and I just can't believe in the fictional world it is proposed. It just doesn't feel right, there's something in it or through that just doesn't click.


*****Classic ****Excellent ***Good **Fair *Tragic

Review:

Oldboy is not for everyone. It's pervasive violence, its live octopus eating and it's unimaginary story.

The film focuses around a man who's been kidnapped and is imprisoned for 15 years, Oh Dae-Su is released, only to find that he must find his captor in 5 days. Now the story though may seem gripping to start with but once watching this bloated and un-original blood fest it develops into a mash of bitter blood and a forceful film.

It's directing is on par of average and by no means the standards of what a South Korean thriller should be. Oldboys acting scenes are paralleled with dull humour and a poorly writtern script.

Oldboy is occasionlly presented with thin straw performances that one could only feel shameful about.

Verdict:

Not for everyone but it's scope and vision isn't clear enough to see further than the grey abyss of fog.

*Tragic


When one of my friends recommended this to me, raving about how well it was filmed, the underlying themes and the general greatness of the film, I obviously expected an amazing, at least entertaining film.

The two hours I spent watching this turned out to be a huge disappointing waste of my time.

I understand that this movie is meant to be surreal, but even in surreal movies, there is something which anchors it down, even if it is only in the slightest. This movie, on the other hand, felt forced and fake. A lot of the shots were unnecessary and watching it made me think the director was trying to hard to be artistic.

The acting was poor, and the relationships between characters were not nearly developed enough. Maybe that's just me missing something that others could see but I hadn't even realised there was any sort of attraction between Dae su and Migo before they started getting at it like rabbits randomly half way through the film. Then again, maybe this film was just bad.

I am not against violence in movies, but in this one, almost all of it was just unnecessary. Throughout all the fight scenes I felt myself cringing at how painfully cliché it all was.

And the plot? The word laughable comes to mind. I would be amused if I hadn't wasted two hours of my life following this poorly thought out and ridiculous plot. Despite all the movie's flaws, by the end of it, I was expecting something interesting to conclude it. I won't discuss the ending, because I wouldn't want to "spoil" the movie for those who haven't seen it. Just that the metaphor "Be it a rock or a grain of sand, in water they sink as the same." cannot be used as an explanation for everything.

This entire movie was made for shock value and shock value only. I just hope sooner or later people will stop being so pretentious and recognise a bad movie for what it is. I've seen many other great Korean films and it depresses me that people have hailed Oldboy as the best.


... So some people might argue that this can't possible be the worst movie ever made, and no it's not. I have seen movies with weaker plots, worse acting and so on.

So why do I hate this movie über alles? Well, it's basically about a man, who gets kidnapped for many years, and when he comes out, he tries to find out who did it and why, to get revenge. The problem I have with this movie has nothing to do with gore or horror, but

***MAJOR SPOILERS STOP READING IF YOU DON'T WANT TO KNOW***

our main character basically gets tricked into having sex with his own daughter, and he wants to cut out his own tongue so his enemy won't tell her, because she didn't know. It is so humiliating as he crawls on his knees like a dog in total submission. And why did he deserve this? Because many years ago, he saw a brother and a sister have a tender moment - in the wrong way. He went on and told some people, and as a result she commits suicide. And viola, it's the brother who put our main character through all this just for that. I have wondered: Maybe I hate this movie so much because I think his punishment is way too harsh. Maybe because I feel this movie doesn't condemn incest, but somehow confuses it with love. Maybe it's because I expected something else.

***END OF SPOILERS***

Believe me, nobody deserves what happens to our main character in the end, and I'm very serious; you know how some movies just go under your skin and stay there? Well, I felt goddamn dirty after watching this movie, and I REALLY wish I'd never seen it. It stayed with me for days, and some might ask: well, isn't that the purpose of a good movie? The ability to affect us in such ways? Yes, it can be, but this movie not only made me sick, it made me feel violated.


Let me get this out of the way before I trash this film: I love Park Chan-Wook's work as a director. While I disagree with the masses saying he's is the best director working in our time, I can't deny that he understands how to use a camera very effectively. I really liked one of his other films, Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance. Also, Min-sik Choi's acting was the only thing that allowed me to take this film seriously . . . for 1/5 of the runtime, that is.

Now the bad: The plot is simply the oldest cliché used in cinema/literature. I'll never understand how critics can trash a Hollywood blockbuster for being cliché, then hail movies like Oldboy which are just as unoriginal and clichéd if not even more so. Regardless, Oldboy is flat-out one of the most generic, unoriginal movies ever conceived. *Spoilers* Man is held captive, man seeks revenge, man finds out he had sex with a family member, man's life is over. *End spoilers* Simply put, this plot line has been used in everything from Greek plays to modern melodramatic soap operas and countless movies/books in between. It is so melodramatic and unoriginal when the major reveal happens, I laughed out loud. Does that mean I'm a desensitized freak without emotions as some reviews of this film say about people like me? No. What it means overdone plots make people laugh. The Scary Movie franchise proved that, and Oldboy proved it as well. Why can't people think of something that is truly disturbing instead of just spewing out tried clichés masked with fancy camera-work and classical music? That brings up the issue of blood/gore. Simply put, it isn't there. The director is too timid to even point the camera at the screen when something "gory" happens, as if we're watching a children's movie or something. Maybe we were. Anyway, I've heard Oldboy called the "most brutal movie of all time" and "the most disturbing movie ever" but when I watched it I failed to see ANYTHING even remotely gory or disturbing. All the "gore" is off-screen, and even then the violence level is nothing you haven't seen in PG-13 movies like The Dark Knight or Casino Royale before. Why this even got an R-rating confuses me, much less "the most brutal movie of all time". Seriously, I've seen movies that just make Oldboy look cute on every level when it comes to violence/gore.

The other huge glaring, cheesy flaw is the main villain. The majority of his screen time he's showing his bare butt off for the audience in comedic American Pie-style, but I'm supposed to think he's oh-so-evil? When he's wearing clothes, his hair is slicked back like a bad Asian mix of the cheesiest James Bond villain mixed with something out of Austin Powers. He talks like a brain-dead teenager recovering from an acid overdose, and his dialogue is so bad it had me laughing yet again. Seriously, Oldboy had me laughing more than any comedy this year . . .

In the end, Oldboy is for those of you who sip fine wine, have no sense of humor, and talk about how boring your lives are at dinner parties. It's for those people who are so stuck up in their own ego they forgot how unoriginal they are, and consequently forgot how unoriginal and boring the "films" (never "movies") they enjoy are.

To those people all I can say is this: I like "films" and also like "movies". I like thoughtful dramas that actually say something about the human condition, and I also like pointless action movies that thrill me into a coma. But the thing is, for me to like both "films" and "movies", they have to be original. They have to be something I haven't seen so many times I lost count of the number of times the plot has been used. When something isn't original, it's expendable. If it does exactly what everyone else does, it's forgettable and boring. Before you give Oldboy yet another perfect rating because it "touched" you, maybe you should think about something: wouldn't a movie equally as touching, but at the same time original make you think more? I just wish someone other than me would understand this.

Overall: Oldboy is forgettable and cheesy.

1/10


I have been reading comments on IMDb for some time now. An 8.3 average for this movie just plain gets on my nerves. I don't mean to pull one of those "I just signed up for an account so I can post on this movie" bits..... but, i just did. The only theme you will come away with from this movie is that incest does not deserve to be ridiculed.

Now, I realize many 'hoity-toity' film people love this movie; nevertheless, it is crap. The thing that REALLY gets to me is the fact that the director expects you to have sympathy for the 'villain' in the movie. If you do have sexual relations with your sister, you should probably be an outcast from society. Just my personal feelings I guess. Yet, I sat through 2 hours of this *expletive* expecting some really deep reasoning behind Dae-Soo's imprisonment.

I tend to like a lot of foreign movies, but this is my first encounter with a Korean flick and it has put them last in line in my book. Oh... i feel better already after a little venting.


A pretentious but - to varying degrees - watchable collection of mostly pointless "stories".

But let's start from the top.

Kaurismaki: If one ever wondered what Finnish love/romance was like, perhaps this dull little oddity is some indication. Subdued feelings, non-emotions, apathetic faces and a very depressing prospect of moving from Finland to Siberia! I guess the sequel to this story will be "For Our Honeymoon We Move From Siberia to Greenland". Aki obviously had no clue what to write for this little movie, so he just made up some half-assed non-"story" centering around a band he particularly likes (or maybe they're his friends) because we get to watch them and listen to their music more than the two principal characters.

Erice: First off, I've never heard of this guy before  and now I know why. Nice black&white photography and pretty much nothing else - unless being bored silly can be considered an asset. But you'd be surprised how many movie-critics and film students love boredom in movies so I hotly recommend Erice's 10-minute snooze-fest to those two groups of humanoids.

Herzog: Not a movie but probably a slice out of his documentaries about tribes in South America. This isn't a short film but a report, but considering how dull the first two entries were, Herzog's bit is almost refreshing and does have some interesting moments, and if nothing else fits into the movie's pretentious "time" concept very neatly.

Jarmusch: As was to be almost expected, this once-interesting film-maker (with the brain of a peanut; a talented idiot savant) serves us yet another doze of pointlessness. He has become lazy and can't be bothered to write anything interesting, either for his own movies or a collection such as TMO. The only bright side in watching how a dumb veggie actress spends 10 minutes in a trailer is that she is played by the lovely Chloe Sevigny. Otherwise, skip this nonsense. Oh, and btw: I don't believe that any young actress listens to classical music; was Jarmusch trying to be surreal by making Chloe listen to that kind of music? Does Lindsey Lohan perhaps listen to opera? Maybe Drew Barrymore is a jazz fan? Who am I to say they aren't?!

Jim Jarmusch is a moron. Oh, right... I already mentioned that...

Wenders: Here is the actual shock of the whole movie: Wenders can actually make something good!!!!!? Everything else I've seen from this overrated charlatan has so far been dull and pointless. However, this short little story is done with style(!  atypical) and is the best part of the movie. It leaves one wanting to see more of it, even though the story has a resolution.

Spike Lee: Oh, dear Lord What can I say here? Lee makes anyone seem talented by comparison. Like Herzog, he chooses not a story but submits a report  and a left-wing political propaganda report at that! CNN, but in black and white, and one-sided, of course. Naturally, "We Wuz Robbed", the retarded title of this little sleep-inducer, is about how the poor, gullible and infinitely idealistic Democrats WUZ ROBBED by Bush and his EVIL EVIL team of THIEVES. This is by far the dumbest and dullest entry in this movie, and I had to utilize the fast-forward button so as not to doze off. Spike Lee truly is a product of Affirmative Action. God knows how many really talented (black) directors never had a chance to make movies because this pretentious and talentless little runt keeps getting opportunity after opportunity to make them. And he gets it wrong EVERY TIME! Now that does take some kind of talent, right?

Kaige: The Chinese story has a solid premise. It's okay, nothing more.

All in all, there are many and far better movies to spend your time on, but if your time isn't that valuable (as is apparently the case with my own) you can check this little film out.

"Ten minutes sure can be an eternity in the hands of anti-masters of cinema. Time is precious. Waste it on better movies." - Fedor Miklowitz, 1588


Watched this film with an audience of....5 in total! Had a choice between Lakshya and Asambhav...(realized then I should have gone for Lakshya). A typical plot...India v Pakistan..but just isn't cricket as you have Kashmir in the middle. An Indian super hero goes on a mission to save the President of India from some Pakistani rebels who are involved in a mass drug smuggling racket. I left the film half way as it was simply boring and the plot was confusing and all over the place. The songs were also awful, the film tries to hide the flaws with its special effects but unfortunately they are outdated too.

Overall...avoid it if you can, has to be the worst film I've seen this year.


What has Rajiv Rai done to himself? Once a hit director of films like Tridev and Vishwatama is now making one bad film after another. I was initially excited at the thought of Rajiv Rai returning to the action genre but that soon fizzled out. As a Rajiv Rai fan I thought I should at least give it a go but I left after an hour. One reason for me leaving the film so early so the amount of Paki- bashing in the film, this was not in Rai's previous venture.

A lot of directors have tried Paki- bashing but I did not expect it from Rajiv Rai Another letdown was the music. Rajiv Rai's have always had good music until now. There is only one good song and that is Tere dekh dekh Ladgayan. The performances are not upto scratch, not even from Rai Loyalist Naseer-Uddin- Shah. Avoidable fare from once my favourite director.


Avoid this film if you are looking for entertainment.

It is filled with wannabes trying to be something that they are not and Emraan is just wasted in the role of a tour guide who falls for a newcomer who needs to go to acting school. Seriously, where to they get these people from? Just because you're pretty doesn't mean you can act or should be an actress.

Asmit Patel needs to send an apology letter to everyone who accidentally watches him makes a fool of himself in this poor excuse for a film. He plays an insipid wannabe gangster who drugs girls and forces them to fall in love with him and sells them off to the highest bidder.


Taran Adarsh a reputed critic praised such a dubba movie

The film has a weird story wherein a lover sells his love to a brothel cos he wants money to save his mother and then also gets forgived for it LOL

The movie is crap

the entire first half has it's focus on romance, comedy which fails to work The twist shocks but the entire second half is a mess and the climax is clichéd

Direction by Aditya Datt is bad Music is typical Himesh

Emraan does his serious role well but his wardrobe, his way of walking through songs.etc is similar to his previous films Geeta Bhasra annoys Ashmith Patel fails to convince this actor was good in MURDER only so far and then a downhill Mithun some screen time and he is okay but his breaking down into a song is forced Ranjeet is okay


This movie is an example of small budget,ineffective star cast,weak storyline and poor entertainment. This kind of movies are made for commercial breaks and not for any entertainment of die-hard fans of bollywood movies. I went to this movie because i thought the earlier one gangster was tolerable so this is also. Only thing I appreciate the way new actress put herself in the movie in a very bold way, she very much resembles bollywood actress nandita das. she is good ,sexy and acting well. she definitely go up in her career. our mithunda was all time good at his work .atleast he has some good to the movie. I didn't like imraan for his role must advise him to improve himself now as he has done many movies as new actor and he has been seen as established actor This movie has nothing except the bold scene done by new actress Never try this movie


James Stewart plays Johnny Mason, lawyer. Carole Lombard is Jane Mason, wife. Lucile Watson the mother-in-law Harriet Mason. Johnny sees Jane and quickly marries her. Mother is disappointed. Mother lives with them. Many troubles are ahead. Jane can't cook. Can't set the table. Can't do many things according to mother. The interaction between daughter-in-law and mother are the highlights of this film. Stewart and Lombard are married but just don't have any real magic on screen. Stewart is Stewart. He is good as a timid husband and son but this doesn't carry the film. Can baby Mason build bridges between Jane and Harriet? A believable film for those that are married.


This film doesn't have a very clear picture of what it is or wants to be. There are some good bits when Stewart is on screen and they give him some lines to work with. It works best early on as romantic comedy, but the story keeps heading for more dramatic territory and gets itself lost in the process. By the last fifteen minutes or so, the plot twists are just a series dramatic clichés.

The part with the airplane feels like some leftover footage from another film spliced in.

The main reason I can think of to watch it is if you want be able to say you've seen all of Jimmy Stewart's films.


When I bought 4 DVDs for £5.oo in a local shop it should have been warning enough that this movie was not up to the usual standard of David Selznick Productions. With a cast containing such names as James Stewart and Carole Lombard I was looking forward to a real treat. As many other commentators have said it is an odd mixture of plot and scenes that doesn't quite convince. HOWEVER, I am so glad that I did view this film as I now have the memorable saying 'Never let the seeds stop you from enjoying the watermelon.' to live by. This should sum up everyone's life. Pick out those seeds or spit them out or swallow them - and then enjoy the watermelon - life itself.


Carole Lombard and James Stewart gamely try to inject some life and meaning into this bizarrely constructed film about the tribulations of a newlywed couple. The scenes play as if they were parceled out among various directors, each with a different goal. Some are Capra-cute, some screwball, some melodramatic, and some surprisingly noir. There's even an extended adventure sequence, when the plot suddenly focuses on a small plane flying through a blizzard. It's hard to say which scenes are the most incongruous, when the film as a whole is so erratic in tone, and the storyline not exactly believable. Only worth watching for film students or fans of the actors--some smaller parts, such as Judge Doolittle and the intrepid pilot, are also very well played.


Extremely formulaic with cosmic-sized logic holes and a pretense at comedy. Aw, poor NYC lawyer! He's just scraping by, and when he gets a reduction in pay he doesn't go out to find another job, though he's one of the most respected lawyers in the area. We see him arguing in court so that others come up and congratulate him on his fiery, winning delivery, but he can't stand up to anyone in his firm. At home, problems are ignored until people storm out of the house.

The only character you want to root for is the final maid, who seems an actual human being who uses logic and communication to survive in the world. How laughable that the maid should bring the lawyer and his wife a chicken and wine on New Year's Eve because she feels sorry for them! (The bit's not played for laughs.)

Sorry, just too unbelievable and with a **SPOILER** pat, everyone-turns-180-degrees ending. How'd they get top-notch stars for this? If I'd been at the studio I'd have sent this one back for a complete rewrite.


I decided to watch this movie because I'd not seen Carol Lombard before in any movie. I'm sorry it had to be this one because, quite frankly, this is a dog  and even with Jimmy Stewart and Charles Coburn, both of whom were great actors.

The problem with the film is simple: it tries to put too much, too quickly, in to a story about a young lawyer (John Manson played by Stewart) who marries Jane (played by Lombard) within an hour of meeting her. What's that cliché? Marry in haste, repent at leisure...

In short, the story is a series of episodes that show the couples' worsening financial status, their troubles with John's live-in mother, their struggles to pay the bills, John's diminished status at the office, the arrival of their baby son, John Jnr (unexpected and causing additional friction at home with mother), the couples' angst about their marriage, the baby's sickness which worsens, thus necessitating an heroic flight by a lone pilot (in a fierce storm) to bring a special serum to save the child, and finally John being accepted as a junior partner at the law firm.

How many more clichéd situations could the writers include? Maybe Mother dying soon after? There wasn't much comedy; the drama was lacklustre, at best; the dialog was painful to hear. Only the acting of the four main players was adequate.

This was the period at the end of the Great Depression with the USA coming out of its long downturn  during which many people experienced all of the events portrayed in the movie.

So, it made sense for Selznick to reaffirm good ol' home spun American values of family, relationships, heroism, perseverance, and initiative  all against the backdrop of the "average" American family. Who better to use than Jimmy Stewart and Carol Lombard?

And, it should be noted that the film was released in early 1939; so, it was planned in 1938  soon after the USA began to get production going for the coming World War II. Hence, this sort of film was a great booster for the general public, at that time, many of who would soon have to join England in war. As many here would know, Hollywood and Washington formed an uneasy alliance before, during and after the war.

However, I'm glad I saw it  as a piece of disguised socio-political propaganda. But, I'll have to see other Lombard films to gain a better appreciation of her acting range.

As another reviewer noted: see this one just to say that you've seen all of Stewart's movies; otherwise, don't bother.


Ineffectual, molly-coddled, self-pitying, lousy provider Jimmy Stewart is having a bad marriage to Carole Lombard. After falling on hard times, he endures a demeaning job, a fault-finding, passive-aggressive, over-bearing live-in mother who is in dire need of an epic smackdown, and an endlessly-crying baby. The movie trowels on failure and squalor to no discernible end. Do you want to watch a couple bicker with his mom for ninety minutes? Many scenes feature a shrieking baby. The movie fails to elucidate why we would want to endure the mother from hell, or why Jimmy Stewart can't grow a pair. Who wanted to see this? Who wanted to see Stewart and Lombard without laughs or charm?

It's absolutely depressing and unendurable.


Since I'd bought the DVD, I watched as much of this as I did out of a sense of obligation to my wallet.

The plot has Kirk Douglas as a successful first novelist who hired Laraine Day as a secretary, falls in love, and marries her. Complications ensue.

Douglas is usually thought of as an intense actor, given to heavily dramatic roles, sometimes hero, sometimes rat. He's not bad in this thoroughly comic part. The problem is that the part isn't particularly comic and neither is anything else.

The plot rambles on. A dozen "quirky" characters come and go -- most prominently Keenan Wynn as Douglas's friend who does nothing but make wry comments. Thelma Ritter was better at this sort of thing.

Well, if the plot is weak it could still have been rescued by some sparkle in the dialog but there is none to speak of. Some gags are silly. Others don't clear that bar. Here's what I thought of as an amusing line. Douglas has just hired Day and wants to get her down to the beach house and seduce her. Day is disturbed and remarks that she's never heard of a writer working in a beach house. Wynn asks if she liked Douglas's previous book, "Last Year's Love." Yes, of course she did. "Well, most of 'Last Year's Love' was done in the beach house." Ha ha.

Nice cast, including support, but a failed comedy. There have been better sitcoms on television.


I'm starting to wonder, after reading some of the opinions here, if I watched the same film as the other reviewers but after checking my facts I am forced to the sad conclusion that I have.

This witless wannabee screwball comedy has to be one of the the longest 94 minutes I have spent, and one of the most unfunny things I have seen, for ages. Now don't get me wrong, I love screwball comedies, but this boring, set-bound drivel falls so far short of the dizzy heights of Preston Sturges and Howards Hawks that it doesn't deserve (to mix my metaphors) to be thought of in the same breath as those greats. Writer / Director Charles Martin's dialogue is neither witty, subtle or interesting - and there's so much of it. He doesn't know how to end a scene either, with some ruthless cutting, especially of people exiting rooms and saying goodbye to each other, the pace of film would have been lifted and then the fact that the limited number of characters are doing stupid and motiveless things for no other reason than this is supposed to be a comedy would have been a little less obvious. Characters in this movie fall in and out of love with each other, and move in and out of apartments, at a moment's notice only to move what little plot there is forward. One moment people are desperately yearning for one person, the next they are getting married to someone else - having wooed and been wooed off screen so we know nothing about it until one of the characters tells us - "Oh, they're getting married!" (usually after someone has made a faux-pas or jumped to the wrong conclusion). If we had known that these two characters were in love or supposed to be engaged before hand we, the audience, might have enjoyed the experience of watching someone making a fool of themselves in front of them. As it is the characters just come over looking like selfish, petulant idiots and we have no sympathy for any of them.

The sets are limited and the action confined to them in a way that makes the whole thing look like a badly filmed stage play. The only moments of relief from the tedium are Keenan Wynn who looks like he has wandered in from a different movie and has decided to hang around and be slightly funnier than all the unfunny stuff going on around him.

Highly avoidable.


... BREAKER MORANT and ROMPER STOMPER . It has also given us watchable films such as BOOTMEN and THE ODD ANGRY SHOT . Unfortunately for everyone involved in this debacle THE WOG BOY won't be joining appearing in either list .

I was looking forward to seeing this movie simply because of the politically incorrect title , so politically incorrect that when it was broadcast on BBC 2 late at night the announcer didn't even mention the movie's name so I was expecting something so offensively anachronistic that my jaw was going to drop in disbelief . It did drop in disbelief , I found myself not being able to believe that the financiers thought this was going to be a major international hit

The problem lies with the cast and the script . I do know that Australia with its small population doesn't have a large pool of actors so I'll be forgiving for the most part , but this doesn't stop my criticism of Nick Giannopoulos as Steve . For this type of comedy to work you must be impressed with the comic skills of the lead actor and I'm sorry to say but Nick G just doesn't have the skills . I'd never heard of him and seen nothing else he's been in so perhaps he's much better at other performances . Here however he's just plain irritating , unconvincing and I lost count at the number of times he mugged for the camera . The jokes themselves are very flat and predictable and getting back to the script it seems very under developed , I mean who thought a running gag about a female Minster Of Work who's having it off in the back of a limousine was funny to begin with ? You do get the feeling that someone in the production should have been more honest and said " Look mate , this screenplay's not nearly good enough . Go and make it more subtle and structured "

I've been harsh and harshness has been called for in this review . I gave the movie four out of ten and it would have only got three if it wasn't for the one genuinely funny sequence where Steve is watching a current affairs show only for himself flashing up on screen and labelled a " Dole blodger " . This shows that the screenwriters were aware of comic timing and social comment . Such a pity that they didn't come with a much better written movie


After seeing the TV commercials for this film I marched to my local cinema expecting a lot of laughs. In the end it was one of the longest 90mins I have ever spent. The Wog Boy really did fail to provide a story line with enough substance to hold my interest and predictable and sometimes tasteless jokes didn't fill this void.

A scene where the two 'Wog Boys' dominate the dancefloor of their local nightclub was the only one that impressed me at all. The only character that was worth watching was 'Nathan', played by The Castle's Stephen Curry, his struggle with the opposite sex providing most of the few laughs.

A word for this flic is boring. Save yourself the time and just watch the TV commercial as the only laughs are shown on it.


This is the first movie I have watched in ages where I actually ended up fast forwarding through the tedious bits which there are plenty of. Very ordinary movie. I'm glad I missed it at the movies & got a 2 for 1 video deal which included this movie instead.


This totally UNfunny movie is so over the top and pathetic and unrealistic that throughout the whole 90 minutes of utter torture I probably looked at my watch about 70000 times! Lucy Bell is so much higher than this crap and for her to sink this low is quite depressing. I have to admit that the whole audience I was in was laughing hysterically but the majority were Greek or Italian so I guess that this humour will probably make them laugh but not me. All this movie does is make you sick watching all these slackers make excuses for their stupid actions for 90 minutes. God, and I can never get that 90 minutes back!


I really wanted to like this film however after an amusing opening few minutes I hardly cracked a smile. I agree there was no chemistry at all between the two leads and the other characters were cliche ridden. The script totally wasted the talents of Bud Tingwell and Kim Gyngell.

It must be said however that there was plenty of laughter around me and even a smattering of applause at the end. Perhaps I just couldn't relate to it enough. I'm just glad I went on cheap tickets.


I'm glad I didn't pay to see 'The Wog Boy'.

I sat there hopefully waiting for something original and/or funny to happen.

It reminded me very much of those predictable English comedies of the 1970s.

I won't bother with a synopsis of the plot, I suggest you do something else for 90 minutes


Humour is a very individual thing and the audience at the sneak preview of The Wog Boy seemed to enjoy it more than I did. I found it an anachronistic affair, more representative of the old fashioned racial humour of the Australian cinema of the 1960s and 1970s. The boy meets girl plot never takes off because of a lack of chemistry between Lucy Bell and Nick Giannopoulos while I found laughs thin on the ground. If you want to spend your money on this, wait until it's on video.


This is another of those films I can remember from when I was a kid and I recently managed to acquire it off ebay - 20 years on, it's nowhere near as good as I remember it being.

The story is 'vaguely' kick started, by a 'cosmic event' (there's another extra film-crew member in the credits for 'weak story development') which makes collective ants become super intelligent. Ant species who used to war with each other have ceased rivalries and are now working together. The thing I wanted to know throughout was, TO DO WHAT EXACTLY? You never find out what they want. Nigel Davenport and his sidekick travel out to the desert where bizarre ant activity has been noted, and begin to study the ants from an impregnable igloo shaped laboratory. Probably the most chilling scene in my opinion was when the two scientists visit the giant square in the crops (like a square version of a crop circle) a result of the ants chomping away.

This film was not very scary quite simply because you don't know whether to fear the ants or like them. All you know is that the ants want people to leave the area so they can get on with their hijinks - but you don't find out whether they are really baddies. It ain't a sci-fi because the 'cosmic event' explanation is too vague to be properly taken into account. It is deffo more of a chiller. TBH the flares, daft hairstyles, tight shirts with big collars and Nigel Davenports unnaturally big facial hair-do freaked me out more than the ants! Did you notice that there are only six actors listed in the credits? Yup, that right - SIX, and you won't see any other human beings in this film at all. Not even in the distance! This is a plainly obviously low budget film which is a bit watchable because you probably won't have seen one like it. I can't think of any anyway. The filming of the ants is pretty good, they must have done months and months of filming before they had the shots they needed to stick in the film. You may well say to yourself 'how the Hell do they get the ants to do that?' over and over, but it is all quite simple. You will also notice that the film makers sacrificed millions of innocent lickle ants to make the film too, so animal rights peeps STAY AWAY! Good for novelty value, but you may not watch it more than once.


If you really really REALLY enjoy movies featuring ants building dirt-mirrors, eating non-ants, and conquering the world with a voice-over narrative, then this is the movie for you. Basically, a couple of scientists working out of a bio-dome communicate with highly intelligent ants (the most intelligent actors in this film) in an attempt to try to thwart their plans of conquest and extermination. Throughout the movie the two scientists (and a girl they rescued from the ants) use everything at their disposal (computers, green dye, and horrid acting), but to no avail. I guess they just couldn't afford any pesticides because the movie would be over too quickly.

The title of the movie "Phase IV" is something of a mystery. This is not a spoiler, but "Phase I" starts right after the opening credits whereas you don't reach "Phase IV" until the end credits roll. Apparently the director knew the movie would be tedious to get through and so placed Phases 1 - 3 throughout the movie as a kind of progress report: "Hang in there buddy! Only 1 more phase until final credits!" As a MST3K episode, this one wasn't very good for two reasons: 1) This one is from the Season 0 on KTMA when they were first starting out so the riffing is not as good as in later seasons; and 2) This movie is so bad not even J&TB can lighten it up. There are one or two Gamera references as they had just finished riffing 5 Gamera movies.

The movie does have a trick/surprise ending, but I was so glad to reach the end the effect was lost on me.


Ants are shown in cartoons as being able to carry away chicken legs, watermellons, people, etc. This may be an admirable characteristic because ants carry the film Phase IV. This is not because they want to, but because they have to.

The movie opens with a narrator cryptically explaining that some cosmic event has come over the earth, and that a fellow scientist has been working on the effect this disturbance has on the ant population. The movie is broken up in segments; the first part after the cosmic event is Phase I, and so on until the end of the movie, which is Phase IV.

What is Phase IV? Who knows? We don't get to see that part; presumably it has something to do with the bonding of one of the scientists studying the ants and a girl who lived in the area. The girl, who looks like a cross between Alicia Silverstone and Liv Tyler, is mad at the ants because they killed her horse, but except for one angry outburst, goes around the biodome with a blank ("Clueless"?) look.

These ants are pretty smart; or the scientists are rather dumb. I'll give credit to the ants. Why? Anything that usually ruins my picnics that can then build reflecting towers, blow up trucks, and adapts to poison with the greatest of ease gets my vote for being the smarter species, at least in this movie.

Sterno says stomp on this anthill.


To me, this movie was just plain confusing, slow, and uninteresting. Why did the aliens choose to communicate through ants? It makes no sense. The ending was muddled and made no sense whatsoever. In the end, I was hoping that the ants would kill everyone.

Avoid this one at all costs. Not even MST3K could save it.


I'd heard this Japanese flick is edgy, creatively interesting, a "cool new thang" on the Asian movie-making scene ... maybe even something as innovative as Hideo Nakata's "Ringu" or Chan-wook Park's "Oldboy", especially the latter.

You can imagine my disappointment when, instead, I found the movie disjointed both narratively and cinematically (though not in a way that a film aficionado appreciates), cliché-ridden, even sadly silly instead of funny --- on the whole, a very bad knock- off of the "Pulp Fiction" style.

I stopped watching after 30 minutes, when I gave up on it becoming something more than it is.


Let me first state that I REALLY REALLY wanted to like this film. For the most part the actors and actresses looked their parts, and did fairly well in their roles, but the movie lacked any real plot. It seemed so wraped up in seeming 'wacky' that no interesting story ever shone through. Also, the camera work was often sloppy, attempting snatchlike camera work and failing miserably. Most of the time, shots meant to look cool ended up being confusing. Perhaps something was lost during translation, but some of the characters were just... stupid. The crazy pretty boy who sniffs people like a dog? Uhhhhhhh. OK. Overall, a fat stinking 1/10. Not worth your time.


Although I found the acting excellent, and the cinematography beautiful, I was extremely disappointed with the adaptation.

One of the significant portions of the novella is the fact that Ethan and Mattie decide to kill themselves, rather than go on. This is never presented in the movie, they show it as if it were a sledding accident.

The character changes in Mattie and Zenna are almost non-existent. While in the novella they almost change places, at the end of this adaptation it appears as if they are both invalids.

Lastly that Mattie and Ethan consummate their relationship fully nearly destroys the power and poignancy of the finale.

The change of the narrator being a preacher was one effective change.

Neeson and Arquette are superb in their portrayals. Joan Allen was also wonderful, however her character was much watered down from Whartons novella.

I do not expect films to faithfully portray novels, but this one went to far and in the process nearly destroyed the story.

Overall, I would not recommend watching this film unless you have read the book as you will come away confused and disappointed.


This is bad movie. There is no denying it as much as I'd like to. Tommy Lee Jones is about as good as he possible can be with the script they gave him, and he had a couple of decent action sequences that felt really out of place due to their acceptable quality.

Somewhere along the line someone figured that all of the shortcomings of script could be counteracted if they were to hire every single workhorse actor in the business, unfortunately even truly, deeply talented actors like Goodman, Beatty, Sarsgaard, Gammon, Steenburgen, MacDonald, Pruitt Taylor Vince, and lest we forget Mr. Jones himself can't fix the wooden dialogue, and plot progression that went absolutely nowhere.

In fact at one point I looked up, sure that the movie had been running for the past 2 hours only to find that I was 51 minutes into it.

Perhaps the most painful point of the movie was the subplot about the ghost confederate soldiers that seem to be of little to no help to the story. Other than slightly detracting from the confusing business at the end with the picture. *if you haven't seen this movie disregard this past statement which may seem tantalizing and know that it is not, you will not understand it any better after having watched the movie.

The most interesting thing about this movie may be that it is actually a sequel to the movie "Heaven's Prisoners" starring Alec Baldwin in the same role carried by Tommy Lee Jones in this movie. I may have to watch it now, first to see if it is as bad as In the Electric Mist, and second because I can't seem to (no matter how hard I try) break my man crush on Alec Baldwin.


I have read and enjoyed many of James Lee Burke's Robicheaux mysteries. When I read 'In The Electric Mist With The Confederate Dead' was being filmed and Tommy Lee Jones was playing the lead, I was thrilled. After watching it last night, I ending up turning it off with about twenty minutes left, not wanting to see any more people shot or beaten up. Don't get me wrong, I don't mind blood and gore-I love 'The Untouchables' and 'The Godfather Trilogy'. Perhaps it was just that I had previously seen 'Birth' and 'What Just Happened' before watching this. I know that Burke's books are violent, lyrical, and especially in the case of 'In The Electric Mist', can be like the Cajun swamps he writes about, full of things that are never fully explained. In a book, that's fine. In a film, that's confusing. Many of the previous reviewers are also ardent admirers of Dave Robicheaux, which makes it more understandable that they really liked the movie. Or they are admirers of Bernard Tavernier or both. Even as a fan of all the actors (and especially Vince), I felt it was such a waste of their talents overall-they gave good performances in a film that didn't hold together. Now, I say this, having only seen the USA DVD and hoping that Tavernier's cut will make a huge difference. On the plus side: The soundtrack was wonderful. The scenes at Robicheaux's place were perfect-just as I imagined the bait shop to look like. Mary Steenburgen was excellent as Bootsie, as was Walter Breaux as Batist. If you read the books, you know why Robicheaux is an even-tempered person in the beginning of the film, and then starts whacking people with various instruments. Overall, I wish that they had filmed more of the 'Electric Mist and the Confederate Dead' and left out large portions of Robicheaux's methods of interrogation, explaining Elrod's gifts and his bond to Dave, as well as Dave's to the General. Then I wouldn't be feeling today as I did last night when I turned it off, "What just happened?"


I've read all the Dave Robicheaux novels and consider James Lee Burke to be my favorite contemporary fiction writer. I've also visited New Iberia and much of Acadiana to be able to better visualize the setting in most of these books. Needless to say, I greatly anticipated seeing "In the Electric Mist," especially since I thought Tommy Lee Jones would be terrific as Robicheaux.

I was greatly disappointed. The story was very choppy; the interplay with the "ghosts of Confederate dead" was shallow and lost the impact and nobility it added to the book; and Tommy Lee Jones was doleful, expressionless and difficult to understand as DR. The best way to describe this forgettable film is to add my "ditto" to an earlier user comment that this movie was like one of those old made-for-TV movies. I expected Jill St. John or Cameron Mitchell to show up at any time.

The location settings were accurate, and the photography at times captured the essence of the steamy bayous, smoky juke joints and eerie above-ground graveyards of South Louisiana. Too bad the story's disjointed presentation and Tommy Lee's sub-par performance interfered with the unique mood and spicy zest of the region.

Next to final comment: In the novels, Dave Robicheaux's nickname is "Streak," because of the distinct streak of silver-gray hair on one side of his head. (Similar to how the Sopranos' Paulie Walnuts would appear if he were seen only in profile.) Tommy Lee had no such streak in this film, probably because the editors are James Lee Burke fans and they airbrushed the streak out after witnessing Mr. Jones's poor imitation of Dave Robicheaux.

Final comment: While I generally find Alec Baldwin to be pompous and obnoxious in most roles, he was by far a better Robicheaux in "Heaven's Prisoners" than Tommy Lee was in "In the Electric Mist." Also, Heaven's Prisoners is much more interesting and exciting, with uniformly believable performances and more evocative atmosphere than this new movie.

"In the Electric Mist" is okay to watch when one feels like "veging out" and there's nothing better on TV. But then, so are infomercials.


This is a disappointing adaptation of the James Lee Burke novel "In the Electric Mist of the Confederate Dead". It is rather poorly acted mainly due to the miscasting of the principal players. Tommy Lee Jones, a normally fine actor, just doesn't capture Burke's "Dave Robicheaux". As Robicheaux's main nemesis, John Goodman does a sloppy job as the "heavy". The guy who plays Robicheaux's actor-buddy doesn't look like a former "A" lister leading man. The rest of the movie is mainly cast with no-name locals who just don't do justice to a big-time novel.

The movie and Jones' performance is way too hurried for one thing. Robicheaux in Burke's series of novels, gives one the feeling that he fits well into his environment most of the time, being laid back and slow-moving. This is just like the deep south and southern Louisiana. Then at times Robicheaux is nearly manic in his exertions. Jones just moves at a fast pace through the whole movie. He doesn't vary. Ned Beatty is wasted. Mary Steenburgen is out of place. About the only good thing about this is the setting. On the whole the movie gives one the impression of a TV movie.


If you've ever listened to any of the James Lee Burke books on tape or CD and the reader was Will Patton you may agree with me that Will is the personification of Dave R.

Tommy Lee Jones is a native Texan (or so I've heard) and no one portrays a Texan better IMHO, but he's not a Cajun. His delivery is all wrong. I lived in the state for several years and I can still hear the strange patois that a Louisiana accent contains. TLJ doesn't have anything like that.

I thought Marry Steenbergen was a good choice for Bootsy, but I missed seeing Cletus (who will be cast in this role? The Rock? Mickey Rourke? whoever, he'll have to be big).

Overall, I thought the movie was only a 4 - the plot flopped around like a fish out of water and didn't have the normal interesting, yet non-linear continuity that the book typically has.

Hopefully, Hollywood will try another JLB book, "Last Car to Elysican Fields" would be a good choice. We'd get to see some of the best villains from JLB ever.


I have to be honest and admit that this movie did basically nothing for me except baffle me completely. It's burdened with a plot that revolves around the mysterious murders of several young women, which then gets linked to the discovery of a body over 40 years old. The story never really seems to make much sense, especially when Robicheaux (played by Tommy Lee Jones) starts having his conversations with Confederate General John Bell Hood (I never really did figure that out.) Jones was OK in his role, although I thought he was really starting to show his age here. Horribly miscast was John Goodman as Julie "Baby Feet" Balboni, who I guess is supposed to be some sort of local mob figure. I simply didn't think Goodman worked in this role, although I'll admit that just could be because I'm not much of a John Goodman fan. Somewhere in the mix appeared Justina Machado as an FBI agent, although I never really did understand what the FBI was involved in, which could mean simply that my attention kept wandering from the screen. If it was explained, though, I missed it completely. Fortunately, this is a fairly short movie, so you won't waste too much of your life on it. 2/10


I saw this movie last night at the Berlinale as part of the competition. It was billed as the "world premiere" of the movie by the host (though it seems that people here have seen it previously). I have to say, I still don't really know what to make of the movie. I am unfamiliar with the book, purchased the ticket only two hours beforehand and had only limited knowledge of the plot. Not enough, as it seems, as I had problems getting into the movie. The movie is sometimes being narrated by Jones' character but somehow that perspective did not fit for me. And I really cannot say if some of the laughs the movie got were calculated or not. The cuts were abrupt and disruptive, the scenes seemed somehow slapped together and the storytelling did not always make sense right away (even leaving out the supernatural parts) - the actors were really good but could not really save the movie somehow. It was entertaining but sometimes only in the sense that I sat there thinking about technical details of movie making and what went wrong with this one. I still do not know what kind of mood the director intended the movie to have. It was a strange mix of light, dark, supernatural. It sadly did not draw me in at all and I rather watched it with a technical eye. But thinking about what is wrong with a movie while watching it is the best sign that a movie somehow has failed. I would have definitely expected something else with these actors involved...too bad!


Detective Dave Robicheaux is trying to link the murder of a local hooker to New Orleans mobster Julie Balboni. But during his investigation Robicheaux is led into a series of surreal encounters with a troop of Confederate soldiers??, What a awful plot and it was worser than i had expected. it was real slow and had minimal skill in the acting i could not watch through it it was waste of my time. Another FLOP, i would give it under 1 if i could please people don't waste your time its 1:42m of wast-full time. Actor Elrod Sykes and his girlfriend driving under the influence. As Dave takes Elod to the station the actor tells Dave he found some skeletal remains while on the set of a movie he is filming


This is a tedious movie. The real villains are the clunky adaptation (it's embarrassingly easy to tell that the source material was a novel) and witless screenplay.

On the credit side, considering the budget was tight due to wartime austerity, the look of the film isn't at all bad. And the performances are, by and large, OK, except for Phyllis Calvert, who is terrific - a miracle considering the potential for winsomeness, a pit into which she most definitely does not fall. Ms Calvert, with a lot less to go on, is as accomplished as Olivia de Havilland in Gone With The Wind.

The one absolutely unbearable aspect of The Man in Grey is the dreadfully conceived depiction of a black serving boy. No matter that he's meant to be a sympathetic character. Played badly by a white boy in black-face make-up, it is impossible to by-pass this example of condescending racism.

Grim.


Conquerer of Shamballa shows what happens when creators of an Anime fail to understand what their fans want. I as a fan did not want a 1920's Evil Nazi movie. What I would have liked to see is a real final showdown between Ed and Dante, as we don't REALLY know what became of her. I also would have liked to get Ed back to his world much sooner and have him stay there, to finally get a chance to be normal. You know, raise a family with a certain blonde mechanic, that sort of thing. No, instead I got a convoluted plot involving Nazi mystics, Fritz Lang and about ten minutes of Al, a joke of a Cameo by Roy Mustang and only one Armstrong joke, one short joke and no Winry hitting Ed with a wrench. Above all, it just didn't feel like Fullmetal Alchemist to me.


First off, I am critical of this movie because I really had high hopes and instead, this movie sucked.

*possible spoilers* (if you haven't seen the TV series) Where to begin??? Well, let's start at the quality. The movie was barely better than the original TV series and the two fight scenes were very nicely crafted. However the CGI was horrid.

Then there is the plot holes and questions that still remain after the whole movie is all said and done. This movie does not close off as a successful conclusion to a very broad universe known as FMA and only returns to expand the universe more before leaving us with nothing but our imaginations to decipher what would happen in the future.

And then there is the stories biggest fault. Adding WWII and Hitler... WHY ?? The series was perfect... and didn't need Hitler. It didn't even need Germany.

Overall the entire movie was sorely lacing in what a true FMA movie could have been and if I were the directors, I'd scrap CoS and make a new, more "ending", ending.


This movie came as a huge disappointment. The anime series ended with a relatively stupid plot twist and the rushed introduction of a pretty lame villain, but I expected Shamballa to tie up all the loose ends. Unfortunately, it didn't. It added more plot holes than it resolved, and confused more than it clarified. The animation and voice acting were great, but with an idiotic plot, dull setting (most of the movie doesn't even take place in dull WWII Earth rather than the Alchemy world), and disappointing ending (Ed is useless for the rest of his days in a world with no alchemy, and he ditches Winry?), it was altogether pretty lackluster. Do yourself a favor-- disregard the last half of the anime as well as this movie, and read the manga.


The plot involves a new, hipper franchise barbershop that is moving across the street from Calvin's barbershop. So, he feels like he has to change and improve his shop by getting newer stuff and such. Sounds real exciting huh. As for the rest of the film, a lot of it involves the same material from the first film. The people that work at Calvin's stand around, talk loud, and mouth off to each other and the customers. Once again Cedric the Entertainer was mildly funny, but it is more like he's doing a stand-up routine than anything to do with the movie. And Calvin is faced with another moral issue involving taking a large sum of money. He's already shown that he will do the right thing in the end.

FINAL VERDICT: Nothing new. I don't recommend it unless you thought the first Barbershop was the best thing since sliced bread.


The first movie of this series was well written and original. This show drags on, poorly written gags, boring flashbacks, not the comedy that I expected. Even the young folks found it boring. There are certainly bright moments, historical elements and some good acting, but overall I can only recommend this for DVD/tape at home.


Barbershop 2: Back in Business wasn't as good as it's original but was just as funny. The movie itself lacked little things which the original held which made it much more enjoyable. Back in Business seemed to be just another worthless sequel made to bring in money with a very thin plot. Cedric the Entertainer's terrible excuses for flashbacks ruined the movie and seemed to be a bad way to try and get the audience to adapt more with the character. Overall Barbershop 2: Back in Business was a sequel not needed, without the originals charm, soul & spark.


This movie was completely stale and uninspired. The central premise of this movie was basically a bunch of stereotypical black people sitting around a barbershop exchanging painfully unfunny repartee. I did not laugh one time during the entire movie. I could have sat in any barbershop in America and have heard this banal banter, and maybe have even come out with a decent haircut. I cannot understand why this mess got any favourable reviews, much less why so many people have wasted money on this. None of the characters here were funny or worth caring about. I really didn't care whether the rival barbershop across the street would cause Nappy Cutz to go out of business. Don't waste your money on this one, folks, as that is the only way to get Hollywood to stop churning out these shambolic pieces of rubbish. 1* out of 5


The first film was quite hip and had amusing moments, this film doesn't exactly have the same standard. Calvin Palmer (Ice Cube) is still trying to keep his barbershop going, but this isn't just against stylist Gina (Queen Latifah) with a beauty shop next door, but soon enough a big barbershop chain called Nappy Cutz opening across the street. Calvin, along with co-workers and friends Eddie (Cedric the Entertainer), Jimmy (Sean Patrick Thomas), Terri (Eve) and Isaac Rosenberg (Troy Garity), they are doing everything they can to keep regular customers coming, and ultimately their business running against the competition. Also starring Michael Ealy as Ricky Nash, Leonard Earl Howze as Dinka, Harry Lennix as Quentin Leroux, Robert Wisdom as Alderman Brown, Jazsmin Lewis as Jennifer, Kenan Thompson as Kenard and Bad Company's Garcelle Beauvais-Nilon as Loretta. I didn't like this film as much as the first because of the unnecessary flashbacks about Eddie, and it isn't as witty, I just got bored of it. Okay!


...this one just isn't worth the cost of a movie ticket. What these filmmakers have done cannot properly be called filmmaking; rather, they just chose sixteen students of some diversity (though not quite as much diversity as the reviews have suggested) and set them loose. The results are, to be brutally frank, far more often boring, self-indulgent, overwrought and off-puttingly grainy than truly insightful.

There are, of course, moments of recognition and identification of the sort only possible in documentary film, but overall there's not much more truth here than in "Bully" or, for that matter, a decent TV documentary of the same sort. Though full of talk about sex and sexual diversity and racism, the film brings nothing to the table that will be of use to anyone who has thought about any of these issues with any seriousness. And while certain segments serve absolutely no purpose other than to inject a bit of (admittedly welcome) comic relief, most often the five-minute limit keeps up from becoming emotionally involved with any of the students. An interesting idea, but thumbs down for CHAIN CAMERA.


As one of the victims of the whole Enron scandal, my mother forced me to watch this movie with her. How many times can I say awful? The script was so weak, using cliche after cliche. It seems as though the writers pieced this story together with a few articles on Enron. Watching the movie, we honestly were able to complete about half of the one-dimensional characters' lines and thoughts. I realize this was supposedly adapted from a book, but was the book this bad? I don't know what to say. Just terrible. The best thing about the movie? Shannon Elizabeth actually kept her clothes on. Other than that, this movie gets a big fat F.


I just watched this movie last night. Within 30 minutes of the start, I was hoping it would end.

It had a promising beginning; the first 10 minutes. The premise of this movie (friendship that goes nowhere after they've spent days (and Years) together in "Separate" beds in hotel rooms) is just not believable. He does kiss her somewhere along the way, and she feels Ohh, so terrible about it.

Very little substance to grab your interest. The acting just does not hold up. He is very passive. Regardless of how much of the movie is shown, the viewer never develops any type of a caring connection with the characters on the screen. You learn that her next utterance will be as boring as her previous one. ("Do you have a cigarette ?", He doesn't smoke, He wants her to stop smoking, Doesn't she know this by now.)

She calls him in the middle of the night to visit him after a year's absence, she comes in through the door, they don't even hug or kiss or express any type of emotional connection. He doesn't even lean forward to lift her suitcase to help her in. That is not how real people behave, This is not how best pals behave.

When he receives her phone call in the middle of the night (she is in town for one day), he shows little interest to see her face, acts more like she will be a burden for the night. At this point they've known each other for two years and he hasn't seen her for a year. Not Believable, not real.

Supposedly, he has written a book on Entropy and Enthalpy, yet we never see him write or read or discuss any of his interests in Physics with her, not that she would be able to handle the discussion. We learn that a watermelon in L.A. costs $50, (It wasn't the Silicon Type mind you) he has no problem affording that Fruit. We also learn that the airport shuts down when a few really really fake snow flakes fall off the sky. I'm Sorry but was that in L.A. too?

We never see how these two characters survive, we never see them at work. We never see them struggle, They are always on vacation. They have infinite time, they have no worries whatsoever.

Nice life. Unreal life. Unreal Characters. Bad Title. Bad Movie.


When this show began it was fairly interesting: we got to see what crab boat fisherman had to go through during the crab-catching season. Soon after, however, it lost focus on the fishing and focused almost entirely on the drama in the lives of the fisherman. Episodes became nothing more than 'the captain doesn't like the new greenhorn' (this one happens way too often), 'someone is injured or sick', 'a fisherman gets word of some problem at home and is frustrated that he is stuck on a boat', repeat. I don't know how people can find the newest seasons watchable, as every episode seems to be essentially the same as those before and after it. This show should be moved to a different channel and renamed to "Crab Boat Drama", or, even better, it would have made a perfect one-time segment on Dirtiest Jobs.

Shouldn't the Discovery Channel have learned their lesson after American Choppers?


I was wondering if there was a place or a link that someone can send me or post for me so i can watch this show . it seems to be a missing show i have been looking for years now its about oz and a girl who has to help save it . it was really good . but i found a good oz type thing on the web but i cant find it again or seem to remember a lot of it due to being years and was thinking that this one maybe it and from reading all this it sounds good and maybe the missing show that i really liked please someone help me thanks so much so please anyone that can help me or give me a link that would be so helpful again thank you so much....or if anyone has an oz based good videos please post as well.


The first time I saw this was when I was with a date, and she thought it was an awesome movie. I didn't.

The second time I saw this was last night on TV. It still sucks.

As a love story this sucks. As having Julia portray a street hooker, this is repulsive. To me she was a librarian with a miniskirt and heels. She had no tough shell to her. She wasn't tortured, anguished, enraged, starving or anything else. Her "HOOKER" character was so flawed, like comparing a cubic zircon to a diamond. The two simply don't fit, no matter what they look like.

The ONLY cast I felt was worth watching was the 2 bitchy saleswomen, whom were excellently cast. They did such a fine job that I hated them for the few seconds that they were on screen. They had real definition, for the minor roles. OK, so the movie wasn't entirely trash...the two ignorant saleswomen saved the film.

Aside from those two women sales people, the rest of the cast...including the big names was just crap. Either everybody was an ass-kisser or had absolutely no reason to fill any dialog in the movie aside from just complimenting Julia Roberts or kissing ass to Richard Gere.

This was a movie about how when you walk around in high-heels and a tight skirt in Beverly Hills, people leer at you and guys who work in hotels gawk as if they just had a baseball bat struck to their face.

While in reality, the women who are dressed to the nines in Beverly Hills are hookers and prostitutes to a higher degree, but since they aren't wearing the gaudy Madonna looking jewelry or the patent boots, they can look down on the others who do.

The hotel cast was sickeningly sad to watch, and anybody who had any real character had less than a minute of screen time.

This is an insult to romantic movies, comedies, dramas and even to prostitutes who face wealthy customers on a daily basis with hopes of having their lives work out perfect.

The story is about Julia Roberts being PIMPED (yes PIMPED) by a multimillionaire in a business suit and limousine.

She is still owned, still told how to act, how to move, what to wear, what to say, where to go and what to do. He is more controlling than a street pimp, but the folks at Disney/buena vista butter it up to make it easier to swallow.

Had Richard Gere been a black man with a gold tooth and an AK-47 at his side instead of an attaché case, this movie would be about how a woman has to struggle to get away from the harshness of prostitution. Same story, different characters will make a very different outlook.

Oh yeah, change the white man for a black man or Asian or Spanish, have the land business deal be changed to a deal of weapons or narcotics and the entire concept of romantic comedy is thrown away.

As far as I'm concerned, Pretty Woman is still trash, dressed with ribbons and bows.

I didn't like it 15 years ago, when I didn't understand it and was led by the Hollywood hype. I hate it now that i can see past the pretty decorations that is called "love".

This movie is NOT a romantic comedy. It's a story on how to control a woman as long as you have the means and income to do so.

This is an insult to strong women, weak women and women in general, as well as to my television screen.

Do I hate it? Yes. Does it suck? Yes Would I recommend it to you? NO...well maybe if I really hated you.

Will this review get posted? We'll see.

Anywayz, that's all for now.


I have just given a 10 for Thieves Highway, I mention this for two reasons one to prove I'm not a git who only gives bad reviews but 2 because the theme of the film has the same thread namely the falling in love with a woman of the night.

We all know pretty Woman is a chick flick but you can't avoid them all, they'll eventually get you. Pretty Woman for me does two things, two terrible horrible ghastly things, firstly it portrays prostitution as a career more akin to that of a dancer, you know with absolutely great friends, leg warmers lots of giggling, borrowing each others make up. You see in the reality of Pretty Woman the prostitute and this is a street walker Prostitute we're talking about here, has a great life, she's healthy happy with only the occasional whimper to explain her predicament. My feeling is this 'happy Hooker' type protagonist is a lot more palatable than an even nearly realistic character, which for me begs the question if you make a movie about a type of person but are too chicken scared to adorn that player with the characteristics familiar to that role then why do it? If I make a film about a chef but don't want him to cook or talk about food or wear a white hat then why make a film about a chef in the first place? By bailing out and turning the hooker into a respectable dancer type the story misses the point completely and consequently never indulges in any of the moral or social questions that it could have, what a cop out, really really lame.

Secondly, 'Pretty Woman' insults romance itself, Edward Lewis played by Richard Gere has no clue how to seduce or romance this 'lady' that is without his plastic friend, yep don't leave home without it, especially if you are a moron in a suit who has no imagination. 8 out of 10 of his romantic moments involve splashing cash in one way or another, even when he first meets her it's the Lotus Esprit turbo that does all the work, necklaces here diamonds there limos over there, money money money, where's the charm? where's the charisma, don't mention that attempt at the piano please.

Girls who like this film will also be girls who like shopping more than most. Guys who like this film will not even have realized that old Eddy has less charm than a calculator, as they probably don't either so it wont have registered. More importantly anyone who likes this film will hate 'Thieves Highway' a wonderful story of which part is based on the same subject.

I'll finish on a song:

Pretty woman hangin round the street Pretty woman, the kind I like to treat Pretty woman, I don't believe you You're not the truth No one could spend as much as you Mercy

Pretty woman, wont you pardon me Pretty woman, I couldn't help but see Pretty woman, and you look lovely as can be do you lack imagination just like me

Pretty woman, shop a while Pretty woman, talk a while Pretty woman, sell your smile to me Pretty woman, yeah, yeah, yeah Pretty woman, look my way Pretty woman, say you'll stay with me..and I'll pay you..I'll treat you right


If a movie can't hold your interest in the first 25 minutes, it's over as far as I'm concerned. This concept that you have to simply deal with a slow first third of a movie and be rewarded later is nonsense. A good movie has to start and end strong. It all seem interesting and some decent shots and lots of promise, but ultimately muddled and irrelevant. There are so many other movies from Asia to watch, many of which I am sure most of you have not seen, that I would really skip this one and look elsewhere. Why exactly does IMDb require a 10 line minimum for reviews? I said my piece and I hope this helps a few of you move on to the next film.