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andreas-hoddevik
Reviews
Rovdyr (2008)
Damn it !
Again ! As I've said before, apparently nobody in Norway are able to make a good movie that works. Hence, this movie disappointed me as so many other Norwegian ones.
I saw this one yesterday. My girlfriend looked puzzled at me as i unaffectedly ate popcorn looking somewhat bored, while a host of girls covered their faces in horror. My calm popcorn eating behavior should not be puzzling; this movie is not scary.
I jumped a few times in my seat, but for the same reason that you would react if someone bang together two frying pans while standing behind you. If a horror movie has to scare the audience in this way, it's not good in my view. While such movies as 'Alien' are gut wrenching and thrilling to watch, 'Rovdyr' goes for the two frying pans approach. It's low budget, and the acting is poor. The dialog, especially in the beginning is straight out of amateur night. There are a few somewhat uncomfortable scenes in it that's not suited for the younger audience. But having seen my fair share of zombie movies, I wasn't to bothered.
And I have a few other problems with it, such as the lack of a little realism, which isn't uncalled for. In one scene a girl is being held by the hair while a hillbilly is using his sawed-off shotgun to fondle her. She has both arms free, and could have disarmed him in less than a second.
In another scene she is shown escaping a camp site. Although two axes, a huge knife and a shotgun are readily available and she has plenty of time to choose from the inventory, she chooses to head into the forest unarmed. Argh ! The logic ! And no, it's not the panic psychology excuse that she can't think straight; she was armed with a big knife in one scene before the camp site, but that knife magically disappears. That should have been one for the blooper reel, but instead it ended up in the final cut.
Finally, all of the hillbillies attacking the campers appear to be super stealthy or close to invisible, as they attack at point blank range from nowhere, even when the persons they attack have close to a 360 degree angle of view. And they move way too fast through the forest grounds, given their out of shape hillbilly physique.
Horror movies, especially the low budget ones, tend to have unsettling logical flaws, but this one is littered with them.
The verdict: Watching it was a waste, even though the popcorn was really good.
The Shining (1980)
Excellent, simply excellent !
I will admit that only two horror movies has ever given me severe scares; The Ring, and this one right here.
Kubrick does an amazing job on this movie; the photography is superb, the location is perfectly picked, and the ambiance will give grown men the heebie-jeebiez !
Already during the opening scene, beautifully filmed and sporting a very creeping sinister background music, you get the sneaking feeling that something is not right. And it is not !
A family of three is going to spend a serious amount of time at an isolated mountain resort hotel, as the husband of the family (Nicholson) works as a caretaker.
It soon becomes clear that something is not right at the hotel, and the family soon notice some very chilling changes in their environment.
That's all I'll reveal !
I highly recommend you see this movie ! If you don't, you will miss out on your basic horror- movie-education ! Don't show it to your kids; they'll never fall asleep again, and probably you will have some trouble too...
Honestly, this movie scared the living daylights out of me, so if you haven't seen this one yet, you know what to do tonight !
Hitman: Blood Money (2006)
Who hasn't dreamed of being a hit-man ?
This is a great game, to say the least.
Shortly summarized, you play a cloned human working as a hit-man. "Blood money" is the latest part of the Hit-man series, taking place mostly in the US, with a few missions abroad.
The sneaking around part may be "easier" than, say Splinter Cell, but it offers a lot more in its own way. You don't work for any government, only yourself and your hit-man agency. Rivaling another agency, the Franchise, which you will be pitted against several times during the game.
The game can be played in either stealth or full assault mode. Each mission offers a lot of different ways to complete them, at 4 different difficulty levels, meaning that you don't get bored with this one after a few days. Always a lot of new things to discover.
A rival Hit-man bureau is trying to take agent 47 (you) down throughout the game, and you follow the storyline from their point of view as well as they sum up your recent hits, trying to catch and kill you.
BIG WARNING right here and a possible SPOILER ! When you get to the final mission, and are a little disappointed about the way it ends, check around the internet for the real ending. It doesn't end the way you think it does the first time you play through it; notice the mission "flatline", and you get the picture. If you don't get it, check out a walk-through on the internet, they're readily available.
The game: keeping a low profile, staying silent and unknown are the secrets to making the most money and having the most fun here. Your client won't be happy if you're supposed to take out a protected state witness, and you leave him AND 57 FBI agents in pools of blood. No Christmas bonus for you ! The key is to minimize fuzz and public attention.
You can kill your targets in a wide variety of ways, and the more it looks like an accident, the less witnesses, no evidence no nothing, the better your ranking, the better your pay. The optimal solution is to have your target(s) die in a freak accident, without any other kills. In this game you only whack bad guys as well. Drug dealers, mobsters, child molesters, drug runners, arms smugglers and so on.
The game features lots of different weapons; custom firearms that you own and can upgrade e.g. buy silencers and such for them, the weapons you can collect from dead/stunned/ sleeping hostiles, and melé weapons you pick up along the way. Having the ability to upgrade your weapons allows you to carry out missions quicker, cleaner and more effective.
This game got a rating of 18 years and above in Norway, something like and R in the US. Make no mistake, if you play it that way, this game can be extremely violent, very graphic, and definitely NOT intended for kids. No, 15 year old shouldn't play it in my opinion. If you shoot a target through the head with a 0.50 caliber gun, there will be spatter. And if you kill somebody with a hedge-cutter, kitchen knife, meat cleaver, screwdriver... the list goes on.... as I said, the game doesn't leave much to imagination.
After each hit, you can read the local paper to see what the police say about the hits, and you'll get a statistical wrap up to see how good you are.
The scenery, ambiance, music and locations are very neatly done. Lots of well created details, monologues, great choices of personnel by Eidos for the voice over.
So if you fantasize about being a hit-man, aren't bugged by blood and gore, and are above 18 years of age, I highly recommend it ! If you're looking for a Christmas/birthday gift for your 12 year old nephew, I don't recommend it; really most of the hits can be made truly gruesome if you want to. That being said, it's worth the money, and it'll keep you playing for hours.