Movie Reviews in One Line

May 28, 2008 | General | By: Mark VandeWettering

I’ve seen a bunch of movies lately. Rather than give details of each, I just thought I’d give a single line review of each.

Iron Man: I was wildly entertained, but inexplicably couldn’t tell you why afterwards, other than to say that Robert Downey Jr. is great onscreen.

Chronicles of Narnia, Prince Caspian: Snoozefest, lots of shots of people walking in front of CG imagery.

Speed Racer: Underrated, yes, lots of visuals, but enough story to make it tolerable.

Fido: A funny, quirky movie which answers the question “what if Ward and June Cleaver owned a pet zombie?”

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull: Not genuinely bad, but pales by comparison to the original three, keep expectations low (think “National Treasure” rather than “Raiders”) and you might have fun.

The new A&E remake of The Andromeda Strain: Every element added to the original blew chunks, a catastrophe of a script, ludicrous beyond the measure of things. It needs a second line to describe just how mind numbingly terrible it was. Or even a third. Did you guys have writers? Really? The tagline is “It’s a bad day to be human”, but it should have been “It’s a bad day to remake Andromeda Strain”.

Comments

Comment from david koblas
Time 5/28/2008 at 7:24 am

A few more from my recent viewing:

Cat Baylou: A fun movie, it’s totally amazing that movies like this aren’t really made anymore. Lee Marvin has the role of his life (won the Oscar) and worth watching just for his performance.

Before the Devil knows your Dead: A twisted tail, most interesting is how the narrative is told from all of the characters viewpoints.

Belive in Me: Another fine coaching story based on real life events, touching as most of these stores are.

Comment from Rev. BigDumbChimp
Time 5/28/2008 at 9:05 am

I can not agree more on Iron Man and Andromeda Strain.

AS was such a piece of garbage I can not for the life of me figure out why they marketed it the way they did. There must be no critics employed at A&E.

I kept telling my wife from about 5 mins into the show that I immediately could tell this was a made for TV movie. And it just went down hill from there. It’s so bad I only watch the first half of the second part and I doubt I’ll be revisiting the DVR to finish it.

Horrible.

Editor’s note: I’ll expand a bit on why it was bad. The original, imperfect movie that it was, has always invoked a kind of Cold-War-retro-nostalgia. It was a time when scientists were in some sense admired for the work they did in helping to win the war against the Axis powers, in staving off the “Red Menace”, and in working to put men in space and on the moon. It was also a time where scientists begain to seriously consider the ethical consequences of the seemingly limitless horizons of their achievements. The original version of The Andromeda Strain was set against that backdrop. The scientists acted like reasonable facimiles of real scientists: with all the requisite ego, temper and conflicts. Even amidst the relatively fantastic story, their performances grounded the original movie in a realism that I appreciate.

The A&E remake simply tossed this elements into a grinder, and seasoned it heavily with absolute mindless drivel. The “twist” of Andromeda’s origin is so impossibly absurd that I can’t even relate it: it’s so stupid it makes my head hurt. Rather than sticking with the original theme, which was basically on the ethics of science and the dangers that it presents, the new A&E throws in jabs at the military and security, jabs against science, jabs against environmental exploitation, it’s all over the map. It’s just a useless mess. I watch a lot of bad films, films that I find entertaining because they are whimsical and fun. This movie is just bad.