DVD Collectors Online

The Living Daylights, a review by Rich

The Living Daylights



In this installment of the James Bond series, Agent 007 (Timothy Dalton) is assigned to protect a Russian defector (Maryam d'Abo) from the KGB. When the defection proves to be an elaborate ploy, Bond woos her anyway, and together they follow a trail to a crooked American arms dealer supplying weapons to Afghanistan. Dalton finally assumes the role of Bond after refusing it 16 years earlier with DIAMONDS ARE FOREVER. The film is loosely based on Ian Fleming's short story.

Dalton brought a certain charm and seriousness to Bond, but never seemed to have an edge either in action or delivering the one-liners. The opening scenes racing across Gibraltor were excellent, and the cast work well together in what must be perhaps the last 007 film shot during the cold war.
This decent spy thriller would have deserved a better mark, but was really let down by what I thought was a disappointing ending.
 


(From Riches Random Reviews on May 14th, 2009)

Man of Steel, a review by Silence_of_Lambs

Summary:
A young itinerant worker (Henry Cavill) is forced to confront his secret extraterrestrial heritage when Earth is invaded by members of his race.

My Thoughts:
Now I never ever want to hear anything bad about Tarantino again while on the same time celebrating Snyder as the health-bringer of modern cinema.

Snyder is using so many quotes in this flick that its hard to find anything he did on his own. Even worse he is trying to sell us these quotes as his own ideas.
As example let us take the opening sequence which is a wild mixture of Star Trek (2009), Taxi, The Fifth Element, Matrix, Gladiator (similarities found not only because of Crowe), etc.
At least he didn't copy from bad movies.

The acting is overall terrible.
The whole cast is constantly looking like asking themselves "What the hell are we doing here?"
Michael Shannon whom I adore since his appearance in "Take Shelter" is overacting so much that it's already on the funny side.
Henry Cavill, who showed us in "The Tudors" and "Whatever Works" that he is quite capable of acting, obviously wasn't allowed to show any of his capabilities here.
Don't even get me started about the most bored appearances of Costner, Crowe and Lane.

I didn't expect "Man of Steel" to be comparable to "The Dark Knight", even though Nolan was involved in MoS too, after all Superman was (to me) always the boring sidekick of Batman. He is always so clean you could use him to do your washing.
What I did expect though was a kind of decent story. Sadly the whole "storyline" is only an excuse to put as much (partially only mediocre) CGI into a feature as possible. And again most of the destruction sequences looked like a replay from several other disaster movies (If there was any justice "The Avengers" and "War of the Worlds" should have been mentioned in the credits).

Obviously Snyder is continuing his path to meaningless CGI-fests.
I loved his work in "300" and "The Watchmen" but found "Sucker Punch" absolutely unbearable.
Now after this rather disappointing experience with MoS, I'm sure it will take a loooong time until I will watch one of his movies again.


My Rating: (out of possible 5)

(From Michael's random reviews on October 31st, 2013)

Tom's Random Reviews, a review by Tom

Title: Knight Rider: Season One
Year: 2008
Director:
Rating: 15
Length: 769 Min.
Video: Anamorphic Widescreen 1.78
Audio: English: Dolby Digital 5.1, English: Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo
Subtitles:

Stars:


Plot:
An iconic TV classic is back and better than ever in the reinvented, updated and super-charged Knight Rider Season One. From executive producers Doug Liman (The Bourne Identity franchise), David Bartis (The O.C.) and Glen Larson (Battlestar Galactica) comes this action-packed series about the coolest car ever created K.I.T.T. (Knight Industries Three Thousand), that's equipped with artificial intelligence capable of hacking into any computer, the weapons system of a jet fighter, and incredible custom body technology that allows it to transform into other vehicles. Relive every Season One episode as an elite team of crime-fighters work with K.I.T.T. (voiced by acting legend Val Kilmer) to track down elusive, hight-tech villains. Presented in uninterrupted Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround Sound, you won't want to miss this fast-paced ride to the wild side!

Awards:
Extras:
Commentary
Featurettes
Outtakes

I have seen the pilot when it first aired. Even though I had some problems with it, I was excited overall for a new series. But when the reviews of the actual series came in, I didn't bother picking up the DVD set when it was released.
But when it was on sale now and it's only a single season, I decided to give it a chance.
I have to admit, that I enjoyed the pilot more than I remembered it being. I thought it did a good job setting up the series and also acknowledging the 80s series.
But when I saw the episodes from the actual series, I was heavily disappointed. Bad acting overall. Especially bad was the guy who played Sarah's father. He always had to do the exposition and he always looked like he didn't know what he is talking about. Hard to believe that this guy is supposed to be the inventor of both KITTs.
Horrible scripts which sole aim seem to have been to get the lead actresses into a bikini or down to their underwear. Also I think it is a terrible idea to make KITT a transformer, being able to transform in any kind of Ford car (pick-up truck and even a big van etc.). They should have left it with the "attack mode" (which essentially is the updated version of the "super pursuit mode" of the original KITT). Although the attack mode could have looked better. I looks cheap and ugly. It almost seems like they wanted to top the series Viper, which also had a super car which transformed into the Defender mode. So they couldn't leave it with one alternate forms, but had to have multiple. Or they wanted to get in as much product placement for Ford as possible.
They even had KITT's evil twin KARR be an outright transformer! A robot in disguise of a car. It even has Optimus Prime's voice! Though to be fair this is a nod to the original series, where Peter Cullen also did the voice for KARR.
I liked that they used the windshield as a head up display. But I think it is very stupid to take up the whole windshield for incoming calls. They hardly couldn't see the street anymore when talking on the phone.

After the first 13 episode they retooled the show. Kicked out all the bad supporting cast and kept the ones which were the only fun back in the headquarters scene. And moved the direction of the series more to be like the original series. They even did a bit with petty criminals trying to steal KITT, which was a running joke in the old series.
I have to say, that I enjoyed the last five episodes. And if they would have done it like this from the get-go, maybe the series would still be on today.
I loved how KITT seems to constantly put down Michael at the end. Like when Michael told him to track something, and KITT was like "No shit, dickhead. I am already on it. You don't need to tell me every little thing."

One other thing: I liked the new intro. I starts out as an updated version of the original theme and sounds like the theme of "IT Crowd" towards the end.

#	Episode	Rating
01	Prometheus (Pilot Episode)
02	A Knight in Shining Armor
03	Journey to the End of the Knight
04	Knight of the Iguana
05	A Hard Day's Knight
06	Knight of the Hunter
07	Knight of the Living Dead
08	I Wanna Rock & Roll All Knight
09	Knight of the Zodiac
10	Knight Fever
11	Don't Stop the Knight
12	Day Turns Into Knight
13	Knight to King's Pawn
14	Exit Light, Enter Knight
15	Fight Knight
16	Fly By Knight
17	Knight and the City
18	I Love the Knight Life

(From Tom's Random Reviews on July 11th, 2010)