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The Wolfman, a review by Achim

The Wolfman (2009)

Saw this in the cinema and found it to be a rather mixed back (the friend I watched it with thought the entire film was utter garbage).

The story follows the original fairly loosely, with some rather liberal changes (unless I am remembering the original wrong), such as
. Lawrence Talbot is once again injured by another werewolf, which in turn obviouisly will make him the same. He returned home after his brother had died (turns out he was killed by a vicious creature) to help his father and the fiancee of his now-dead brother. He is institutionalized in an asylum for thinking crazy thoughts, turnign into a werewolf is just ridiculous; or is it? The professor of the asylum presents the crazy man to his colleagues on a night of a full moon...

All the main elements are there. We even get good acting from Benicio Del Toro, Hugo Weaving and others in the cast and Anthony Hopkins is there too. The special effects are up to standards and the transformation scenes look painful and ferocious. The killings are extremely violent and ferocious.

But why do we get the werewolf shown as a rabid animal, killing everyone in site, even hunting them down, without purpose, like a lunatic serial killer? I always felt a werewolf kills for food or because he's provoked, so this was just wrong to me. Then there is the highly underdeveloped love story, which should have been given more attention to more powerful at the end. Then there is the music, which painfully reminded me of Bram Stoker's Dracula more often than it should have.



(From The Wolfman (2009) on February 24th, 2010)

Watchmen, a review by Tom

Title: Watchmen: Director's Cut
Year: 2009
Director: Zack Snyder
Rating: R
Length: 186 Min.
Video: Widescreen 2.40
Audio: English: DTS HD Master Audio, French: Dolby Digital 5.1
Subtitles: English, French, Spanish

Stars:
Malin Akerman
Billy Crudup
Matthew Goode
Jackie Earle Haley
Jeffrey Dean Morgan

Plot:Awards:

Scream Awards	2009	Nominated	Best Comic Book Movie
Scream Awards	2009	Nominated	Best Ensemble
Scream Awards	2009	Nominated	Best F/X
Scream Awards	2009	Nominated	Best Fantasy Movie
Scream Awards	2009	Nominated	Best Superhero	Billy Crudup
Scream Awards	2009	Nominated	Best Superhero	Jackie Earle
Scream Awards	2009	Nominated	Best Superhero	Malin Akerman
Scream Awards	2009	Nominated	Best Supporting Actress	Carla Gugino
Scream Awards	2009	Nominated	Fight-to-the-Death Scene of the Year	"Ozymandias vs. The Comedian":
Scream Awards	2009	Nominated	Most Memorable Mutilation	"Arms Cut Off by Rotary Saw":
Scream Awards	2009	Nominated	Scream Song of the Year	"Desolation Row": My Chemical Romance
Scream Awards	2009	Nominated	The "Holy Sh%t!" Scene of the Year	"The Destruction of Manhattan":
Teen Choice Awards	2009	Nominated	Choice Movie Actress - Action/Adventure	Malin Akerman

Extras:
BD-Live
Featurettes
Maximum Movie Mode
Music Videos
Scene Access

Even though I enjoy this movie, I feel it is much too long. The graphic novel on which this movie is based on, was always said to be unfilmable. They have proven this incorrect. As a matter of fact this is almost a panel-by-panel reenactment (at least it feels like it). And this is in my opinion just playing it too safe. A good film adaption, in my opinion, takes a source material and takes parts which are essential and provide a good and stream-lined story. Here they almost did not take any liberties, which is just too lazy for a film adaption. This approach would have better fit in a mini series.
A good comic book adaption, where they still have the general storyline and ideas in the movie, but have enough changes to better fit the constraints of a movie, are in my opinion the two Death Note movies.
But I have to give it to the movie, that the one big thing they have changed was for the better. And that is the ending. I like the movie version better. Coincidentally I thought the same thing about the Death Note ending.

Rating:

(From Tom's Random Reviews on October 10th, 2009)

Smallville Marathon, a review by addicted2dvd

12. BULLETPROOF
Clark Kent, undercover cop. He poses as a police officer to find who shot Det. JOHN JONES, AKA MARTIAN MANHUNTER. Tess discovers that she is linked to Lex in a surprising way.

My Thoughts:
A good episode. I liked the whole going undercover as a cop thing. Even if it has been done before (Lois & Clark).

My Rating:

13. POWER
Can move at superspeed and snatch a bullet out of the air: That person is...LANA LANG. She uses the empowering nano-thechnology skin graft of the Prometheus Project on herself. But Clark worries that her new abilities may be too much for her.

My Thoughts:
While I did enjoy this episode... I didn't like it as much as most the others. I don't know that I like the whole super-powered Lana idea. I don't know if this is something that follows the comics or if it is a Smallville thing.

My Rating:

14. REQUIEM
A toymaker turns his creation into kryptonite-laced bombs. One detonates inside the LUTHORCORP boardroom with deadly results. Another will take down the Daily Planet building if Lana and Clark don't find it. But finding it will have consequences....

My Thoughts:
I am not sure why... but the person that plays the Toymaker looks familiar but can't place him. While I still don't care for the whole superpowered Lana idea... this is a pretty good episode. And is this the last time we see Lana? I really can't remember if she been back on the show since or not.

My Rating:

15. INFAMOUS


My Thoughts:
I found this episode to be excellent. I liked how it showed Clark what would happen if the world found out his secret. It seems normally shows like this goes one of two ways an alternate reality or time travel. In this case they decided to go with time travel and set it up back in the episode of Legion.

My Rating:

(From Smallville Marathon on January 21st, 2010)