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Reviews
The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (2002)
Good movie, but the weakest of the three
The Two Towers is a good movie, but out of the three LotR movies it is by far the weakest.Peter Jackson's terrible choice in casting Elijah Wood as Frodo (a truly terrible choice that you would realize if you have read the books, given Wood's weak acting ability) is overlooked due to the mesmerizing performance of Andy Sirkis as Gollum, and Sean Astin's increasingly strong performance as Sam Gamgee.
Other weak points include the Battle of Helm's Deep, which is completely changed for the simplistic cinema-goer having only a dozen remaining men ride out on horses (absolutely done for Hollywood's sake)as well as being poorly designed strategically. Then there is Peter Jackson's choice to make Faramir tempted by the ring, which completely changes the character from the book. As well, having to have Treebeard actually see the cut down trees to make him go to war (I can only suppose that having it this way instead of all the Ents deciding to go to war at their meeting, as done in the book, was done to accurately reflect the views of many people today: don't go to war unless it's right in your face, don't do anything to prevent loss unless it affects you). Then making Rohan look pathetic and having 2000 elves show up to help out was a little weak.
Overall though, this movie is strong, and anchored by Gollum. Good but not great, though I would still place it above most movies these days.
Ying xiong (2002)
The word for today is ostentatious!
Ostentatious pretty much sums up "Hero". Ostentatious being something that is made to be flashy/showy. That's this movie in a nut shell. Made to look pretty, but the fire shown in the fight scenes in "Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon" isn't here. In fact the fights all look and feel astonishingly staged to the point that you are rolling your eyes. The performances are over-dramatic. Example: Jet Li is fighting another guy on a lake (and I mean on it, they're jumping off the water) and a drop of water from their fight lands on the body of the guy's dead lover, so this guy ignores Jet Li only to run over to his lover's body and wipe the drop away while looking mournful. That's not deep, that's asinine. The shallow depth of all the characters is attempted to be concealed by fancy dialogue and incomprehensible actions by the characters. Overall weak, and over-dramatic.
Shin seiki Evangelion Gekijô-ban: Air/Magokoro wo, kimi ni (1997)
I loved this movie!
I loved the ending to the television series, even if was just a psychoanalysis of the main characters. But I find this ending is more satisfactory as we get to see exactly what the instrumentality project is and does. We also get to see great action and some mind bending sequences. This movie makes you think and question what humanity means to you. We also see the internal and external conflicts of the character get resolved (for the most part, it's still a long road ahead for Shinji). And for those who say this isn't a happy ending well it isn't for the most part, everyone dies. But if you listen to the ending dialogue from Shinji, Kaworu, and Rei it's saying that Shinji wants the world to remain as it is (in terms of people remaining separate entities because he misses his friends and that was one of Shinji's main struggles in the series, with dealing with other people. From Kaworu and Rei we hear that you have to find your own happiness in the world, and it doesn't just fall into your lap. And that is so true. So in a way it is a positive ending. I'll admit that this movie isn't for everyone but this is such a well done movie, and you should at least check it out, but not before you've watched the TV series. And if you watch the series and find you didn't like it, well then you know that this movie isn't for you.
Shin Kido Senki Gundam Wing Endless Waltz (1998)
It's okay. Better than a lot of other stuff.
Let's get one thing straight. I enjoyed this movie, it had some great action sequences. But it definitely had its weak points, namely its characters. The characters are alright, better than characters in DragonBall Z (but that isn't saying to much), but the writers obviously tried to make the characters appear deeper than they actually are by having them say and do things that really don't make a whole lot of sense (they did this much more in the show, the movie wasn't nearly as bad on this subject). They also have the characters spew out lines that sound philosophical, but are really just common sense. But overall the movie was pretty decent, but it shouldn't be portrayed as more than it is; a good action movie (and it often is made up to be more). The last thing that really bugged me (and if this were different I might have given this an 8) is that none of the good guys die. They all survive and live happily ever after. There needs to be sacrifice and heartache in a story like this to make it more effective.