The Dark Knight

By Sandor Hugert

 

This is by far the most anticipated movie of the year, and it actually managed to deliver most of its expectations.  It’s a fairly long movie as it is about two hours and thirty minutes but it was worth it as it had enough time to cram many things into this great movie.  The story was top notch in the movie and the action was amazing as well, except that there wasn’t as much action as one might expect from an average superhero movie.  The actors all gave a top-notch performance except Batman’s deep voice still just doesn’t really fit into the movie just like in Batman Begins.  You cannot talk about this movie without mentioning Heath Ledger’s performance as the Joker.  He really nailed the Joker and just added something extra to this already great movie.  There was just something about his performance that made you laugh every time he showed up on screen because that is just how good he did playing the Joker.  This movie without the Joker would not have even been better then Batman Begins but because of the great character it managed to top the first Batman movie.  I’m sure that there will be a Batman 3, but I’m not sure if it will even come close to how good this one was without Heath Ledger as the Joker if they even put the Joker into the next one which I highly doubt.  Overall, this one of those few times when a highly anticipated movie actually manages to deliver and it really was an awesome movie.

 

Score:  9 out of 10

Hancock

By Sandor Hugert

Once again, Will Smith is lighting up the movies on the July 4^th weekend.  This movie is not up to standards with other great Will Smith movies such as Men in Black, I Robot, and Independence Day.  Hancock could be separated into three different parts as the movie makes big changes every thirty minutes in a movie that is only one hour and thirty minutes long.  The first thirty minutes is great as it is just a straight out comedy movie that makes fun of all the superhero movies that were recently released.  The comedy is great, but in the next hour of the movie everything just fell apart.  In the second thirty minutes, it becomes just a normal action movie, which is okay except for the fact that it is better in other superhero movies such as Iron Man, and the tagline for Hancock is that he is not your average superhero.  In the last thirty minute the movie just fell apart with a twist that was obvious from the beginning but I will not spoil it here.  They tried to add some drama into the last thirty minutes which did not fit well, and in the end they made Hancock just an average superhero just like every other superhero movie out there.  Overall, this movie could have been great if they just kept the comedy from the first thirty minutes, but instead they tried to make Hancock an average superhero, so the whole thing just kind of felt short in the end.

Score:  6 out of 10

Rambo

By Sandor Hugert

This was the first real good movie of 2008.  It was a little weird though that Sylvester Stallone was still the main character since he’s a little too old for this type of movie.  The movie had really great action, but it was just way too weird because Sylvester Stallone should not be playing this type of a role at an age like his.  The move was actually really good, but not as good as First Blood or Rambo 2.  The action was really intense, but there really was only one huge battle scene, which was the final scene of the movie.  The movie actually felt really short since it was only around 90 minutes long.  News is coming in daily that Sylvester Stallone now wants to make Rambo 5, but that would really be taking it a little too far.  It does look like it’s going to happen so we’ll see how it turns out in a few years.  This movie overall though was fairly good in every way:  good story, good action, really just the fact that Sylvester Stallone is too old for this movie was the problem. 

Score:  8 out of 10 

 

National Treasure: Book of Secrets

By Sandor Hugert

This movie was really just one of those typical sequels where Disney saw that the first National Treasure was a hit, so they really just redid the first one with a new treasure and hoped for the same success.  The movie itself really wasn’t bad, but Disney also made the mistake of making the sequel so much like the original that there really weren’t any cool new ideas in the movie so it was just boring overall.  The storyline was cool since you did get to see the treasure and overall it kept the movie interesting as they were searching for all the clues.  Nicolas Cage still did a great job as the main character.  There were some cool scenes in the movie though which made it better, but really Disney just redid everything that worked in the first movie and then made a sequel.  The ending basically gives away that there will be another sequel so hopefully that will actually have some new ideas in it.

Score:  6 out of 10 

I Am Legend

By Sandor Hugert

This was one of the most anticipated movies of 2007.  It had a very interesting story line to it as Will Smith plays the last person on Earth.  Somehow the movie just didn’t turn out to be as interesting as it could have been.  It was actually boring at times as he was just walking around with his dog, and just trying to find entertainment somehow.  The zombies in the movie looked unrealistic which by today’s standards in movies should not happen.  The story line of the movie should have been very interesting, but instead they didn’t even really explain everything that entire well.  The action scenes were cool, but there was barely any in the entire movie.  The ending of the movie was pretty disappointing, but I won’t talk about that here so I don’t ruin the movie for you.  I will say that the movie’s ending just could have been a lot better.  Overall, this was an okay movie at best, but it seems that there were leaving room for a possible sequel which they are thinking about making due to the box office success that I Am Legend had.

Score:  6 out of 10

Beowulf

By Sandor Hugert

 

This was one of the weirdest movies I’ve seen in a while.  Beowulf had a very good story line, but that’s basically all it had going for it.  The movie really would have been way better if they didn’t make the whole movie digital.  If they had made it a normal movie such as 300 or Troy then it would have been way more enjoyable.  The whole video game look to the movie just ruined it, although I personally really wish that video games had graphics that looked like the movie.  The action scenes in the movie were cool, but they took some of the parts too far.  They tried to explain everything very well in the first half of the movie which made it really boring, but then when the movie just cuts forward like 20 or 30 years then it just tries to wrap it all up really quick which didn’t make much since.  The movie should have showed more closely how Beowulf really loses everything once he’s a king due to all of the characteristics that he holds, but instead they just wrapped up the movie so quickly in the end.  I was really expecting a better movie than this, but in the end when I look back on the movie it wasn’t too horrible.

 

Score:  6 out of 10  

Knocked Up

By Sandor Hugert

 

This movie was sort of disappointing as I had pretty high expectations for it.  I’ve heard from lots of sources that this was the best comedy of the summer, but it really wasn’t that great.  There were some really funny parts in the movie, but there were many times when the comedy just didn’t work that well.  I was expecting the movie to be a lot funnier than it really was.  The actors fit their roles fairly well, and they were all pretty funny.  The movie overall was really dumb and the storyline was just very linear.  There were many other movies in the summer that were funnier than this one.  Overall, if you’re really bored then you should rent this movie, but I don’t advise you to buy it.

 

Score:  5 out of 10

Next

By Sandor Hugert

 

I just saw this movie this week on DVD, and it was actually fairly good.  The story line was pretty cool, and the action scenes were amazing.  Nicolas Cage did a really good job portraying the main character.  The whole movie was pretty cool, but somehow it just wasn’t as good as many other action movies that have come out recently.  Every actor and actress in the movie did really good.  Like I said the story line was cool, but I’ve seen better movies that have to do with seeing the future.  The main problem I had with this movie is that it had a horrible ending.   I thought that the movie was really cool, but then the ending just sort of ruined it all.  I don’t want to spoil the ending so all I’m going to say is that it tried too hard to set up a sequel which they probably won’t even make considering that the movie wasn’t that popular.

 

Score:  6 out of 10

Balls of Fury

By Sandor Hugert

 

This movie was actually a lot funnier than I thought it would be.  It was probably one of the funniest movies this year.  The story line was probably one of the dumbest ever made, but that just made it even more hilarious.  I thought that the actors actually did a really good job in just playing the role that they were supposed to play.  Some of the characters though were just a little bit too weird, and not necessarily that funny.  The whole movie was sort of focused on Def Leppard a lot, which is pretty cool since they are a really good band.  The movie is basically funny the entire time, which is obviously what made the movie pretty good.  The ping-pong scenes were also funny as you got to see some really funny characters face off each other in ping-pong.  Overall, I would have to say that this was probably the funniest movie of the year so far.

 

Score:  7 out of 10

 

Rush Hour 3

By Sandor Hugert

 

This is the long awaited sequel to Rush Hour 2 that came out in 2001.  This means that it has been six years since the last movie came out.  Not too many people expected the sequel to come out now but it still came out.  Surprisingly I thought the movie really wasn’t that bad.  I’m not sure if it was better than the first one, which is the best one, but it was still pretty funny.  There weren’t that many good action parts in the movie this time around but it did have some really funny parts.  Jackie Chan obviously wasn’t that great in the fighting scenes any more, but that makes perfect since he did get a lot older since last time.  Chris Tucker played the same exact role that he played six years ago so he was still pretty funny.  The movie itself was fairly well done, but the story was pretty weak and the movie was way too short.  Overall, I’d say that this was a pretty mediocre movie, but it wasn’t as bad as most thought it would be.

 

Score:  6 out of 10