Saw II, Enemy at the Gates, Independence Day
Saw II
[ 2 stars out of 4 ]
I decided to rewatch this movie hoping that I would like it more than the first time but I didn’t. In fact, I found it even more tiresome this time around. Sure, the gore and the interesting ways of torturing people are still present but story-wise, it’s full of plot holes. Not to mention that this film is teeming with detestable characters so I thought they deserved to be in the movie to be tortured for the audiences’ amusement. The soundtrack is annoying, the script is contrived, even the lighting and camerawork aren’t that great either. The only reason why I’m not giving this a one star out of four is that I thought the needles scene was absolutely brilliant. It definitely made me want to look away from the screen because it was so horrific to watch… but even worse when it lingered in my mind. Other than that, all the actors either overact or not act at all; most of the time we see all the characters either walking around the house or just sitting in misery. For a movie that’s less than an hour and thirty minutes, I couldn’t wait for it to end because it’s redundant and trite.
Enemy at the Gates
[ 3 stars out of 4 ]
I really liked the fact that this movie was set in World War II but the point of view was from the Russians. I haven’t seen many films that tried to tell the story of what happened in Stalingrad so this was refreshing and fascinating. I also liked that the core of the picture is the duel between two snipers: one is Russian (Jude Law), the other is German (Ed Harris). It’s not that hard to root for Law because of his usual puppy dog charm and Harris was an effective villain because of his cold, steely eyes. Rachel Weisz is also great in this because she is both quite bookish and able to wield a rifle. Lastly, I liked Gabriel Thomson and his spying ways. It provided something different among the exploding bombs and bullets piercing people’s bodies. Even though I thought Law and Weisz looked good together, sometimes the movie dragged a bit due to their romance. At the same time, I couldn’t help but laugh at their really awkward sex scene. Even though the ending is somewhat anticlimactic, I didn’t mind it overall because there were thrilling scenes that could be found throughout the picture. It may not say anything particularly new about the war but it doesn’t fail to entertain.
Independence Day
[ 2 stars out of 4 ]
Even though this made millions of dollars in the box office, it’s a very disappointing film overall because it’s pretty on the outside but has nothing to offer inside. I think the filmmakers focused too much on the visual effects to the point where they totally ignored the emotional core. When it tried to be sentimental, it just didn’t work because most of the characters are one-dimensional so the audience can’t relate to their struggle. I expected this film to have more teeth and bite–the closest it came to reaching my expectations were scenes where we see the aliens up close. There’s real suspense during those scenes because we’re as curious as the characters that are interacting with them. As for its pacing, I couldn’t believe nothing happened during the first fifty minutes of the picture. In those minutes, characters are merely walking around or panicking. After those suffocating minutes, the film got a bit better but not by much. The action scenes were uninspired and the characters had out of place one-liners that weren’t funny. I was glad for the film to end, which unfortunately took two hours and thirty minutes. It wasn’t worth it at all because we had to wait for long periods of time for three-minute somewhat above average payoffs.
