D Movies
Domino (2005)
Who’s in it
Kiera Knightly, Mickey Rourke, Ian Ziering and Brian Austin Green of Beverly Hills Fame
What was good
How they made fun of Ziering and Green, for starters. The style of the movie, the color, the elements and how it was shot was different and engaging. The opening sequence was really sweet too. The story was pretty good, pretty basic and quite a stretch to believe at times, but still something you don’t see everyday. Girl from preppy family goes awol and becomes a hot bounty hunter.
What sucked
The movie didn’t really keep my interest in a lot of ways, the characters were hard to relate to, everyone was a tough guy and the interaction didn’t seem very genuine. Knightly looks good with a couple of guns, but you never believe she is the character. Plus, you have seen the previews where they keep repeating the dialogue “My name is Domino. I am a bounty hunter.” It’s annoying in the previews and equally so in the movie. It just seems to be a lot of disjointed violence, double crossing, and stupid characters that don’t know which way is up.
Who should go see this
If you thought the previews looked interesting, you probably should feed the need and just see it. But I think the previews were a tell all, and if you weren’t hooked then, then you probably wouldn’t be at all. I can’t think of anyone but college guy friends I might recommend this one to, otherwise this movie barely got three stars for me. I wouldn’t watch it again.
The Deal (2005)
Who’s in it
Christian Slatner, Selma Blair
What was good
Selma Blair. She was cute, likeable, a sweet girl that you wanted to believe could exist on Wall Street.
What sucked
Slatner’s acting. I don’t think that Hollywood knows what to do with him now that he is clean, I am surprised he even gets roles. In this movie you don’t get any background about him, you are left trying to figure out throughout the movie if he is a tool, or a nice guy trying to do something good, every other minute or so.
Who should go see this
No One. I wouldn’t recommend this to anyone. Neither casting is big. The plot is kind of interesting to think about, it is a few years in the future, gas prices are over 6 per gallon and it is illegal to trade goods with the arabs states. What would politicians do to get the gas supply to people, and who would they kill? The movie is really disjointed and told not shown, so by the time you figure out what is going on, you don’t care.
Derailed (2005)
Starring Jennifer Anniston, Clive Owen, Vincent Cassel and Melissa George, it’s a movie of lust, blackmail, and revenge.
I may have seen one preview for this movie, tops. I saw Jennifer Anniston in a dramatic role, and Clive Owen is ok, I knew that I would probably try to see this. But I didn’t enjoy the movie as much when I was actually watching it, as I did after I went home and thought about it.
I am sure this concept has been done before. I just know that I didn’t guess what was going to happen, and was surprised at every turn. Jennifer Anniston is evil. She seduces these stupid men looking for the “Greener Grass” and then just as they are about to have their time in a dumpy hotel, a man breaks in, beats the hell out of the man, and what looks like a rape for Anniston.
Soon, the rapist / blackmailer (Vincent Cassel who was equally devious in Oceans 12) starts calling Owen’s house, making money demands. Owen tries to protect his family, his little girl who has serious diabetes, and Anniston who he thinks was raped. His life starts to spiral our of control, his friend is killed, his job is in jeopardy, and he is loosing all of his money.
After the final drop off of money, he finds out Anniston was involved. But, this is what I thought was strange, Anniston and Cassel stick around the city for more victims. Owen follows Anniston and has a plot to get revenge and to stop them. At this point I was cheering him on, so scared and angry that something like this could happen to a semi-decent man (if you forget the cheating). He is involved in a shoot out at the hotel that kills Cassel’s associate in X-ibit, and Anniston.
You think that everything is finished there, but soon we cut to a scene with Owen teaching in a prison rehab center. He has lost his job at the advertising agency, and you aren’t sure where it is going, and how the different opening all ties together. He receives a workbook that has the whole story among many other notebooks with the criminals assignments. Cassel is waiting for him as Owen ventures into the back, where the laundry is done. But Owen walks out alive, all along he had planned on seeing Cassel again. The audience thinks he is dead in the shoot out scene, but he survives at the loss of an eye. Owen knew this, and knew what he had to do to finish it.
I may watch this movie another time, I don’t know. I was caught off guard, and it wasn’t what I expected. It ended good, the regular Joe wins, but it is hard to watch at times, and is pretty brutal and in your face with the violence. If you can handle some violence and like twists, this movie is for you. Sarah actually liked it for the most part, it kept her attention. But I wouldn’t recommend this to my mom, nor to most of my friends. I gave it high markings for an original idea and good acting, so if you like what I rate, you may want to see it just once.
Dark Water (2005)
Starring Jennifer Connelly, Dougray Scott, Tim Roth, and John C. Reilly, this movie was middle of the road. I knew that it was supposed to be a thriller, and I really like Connelly, and the disturbed and imperfect characters she often plays, but this movie seemed like it never really got off the ground.
It reminded me a lot of movies I have seen before, but can’t place, other than The Ring. A little girl is lost, left behind by her confused parents, and she drowns on top of a Gestapo looking apartment building on an island in Seattle. Connelly’s daughter talks to the girl even though she is dead, and they have a connection that as a viewer, can never be good. Eventually the dead girl wants to become the real girl, and to have a mother again, just like in The Ring.
Connelly does a good job of the single mom, she is really convincing, but most of the movie revolves around the damage that water causes to an apartment building, and a ton of climax that revolves around the water itself, but never comes to pass. One of the final scenes is pretty cool when Connelly tries to save her daughter and dirty water shoots out of every outlet in the bathroom, but that is too little too late.
Unless you are a big Connelly fan, this movie won’t be particularly rewarding for you. I wouldn’t recommend this for my parents, and Sarah didn’t like it either.
Dodgeball : A True Underdog Story (2004)
This is a fun movie. Ben Stiller starts out really funny as this over the top macho gym guy. By the end of the movie, you feel like the end of every one of his other movies, irritated like nails on a chalkboard.
But a movie about one of the greatest childhood games ever, is really enjoyable, in particular, a sequence during the training of the underdog “Average Joe’s Gym” team that involves wrenches, balls, and incessant hits on the characters.
Vince Vaughn is his goofy self, and Christine Taylor (The Wedding Singer)is the hot girl with the smokin arm. There are the predictable parts, but it is fun to watch all of the bizarre cameos that have become a part of the ring of movies done by Ferrell, Vaughn, and Stiller. From Shatner to Chuck Norris, they’re all there.
Day After Tomorrow (2004)
Thirty minutes of action that goes from solid special effects and intrigue to a typical drama and really bad dialogue. Tomorrow is a good movie in a sense, but even for a destruction movie it was anticlimactic, not really showing that much destruction in context, instead giving more global verbalizations of future destructive events.
With interesting theories on the Atlantic current and instantaneous freezing temperatures, this movie isn’t all BS. It is also good for enormous tornadoes destroying a metropolitan city where the country setting of Twister fell short. But with a weird ending I would say rent for a dollar but don’t even expect two and a half hours of good summer movie fare.
