DVD Collectors Online

Assassins, a review by GSyren

Title	Assassins (Disc ID: 3A65-7065-A4AB-C7DF)
Director	Richard Donner
Actors	Sylvester Stallone, Antonio Banderas, Julianne Moore, Anatoli Davydov, Muse Watson
Produced	1995 in United States
Runtime	133 minutes
Audio	English DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1, French Dolby Digital 5.1, German Dolby Digital 5.1, Italian Dolby Digital 5.1, Japanese Dolby Digital 5.1, Spanish Dolby Digital 5.1, Spanish Dolby Digital Dolby Surround, Portuguese Dolby Digital Mono
Subtitles	Danish, Dutch, English, Finnish, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Norwegian, Portuguese, Spanish, Swedish
Overview	Robert Roth (Sylvester Stallone) is the best hitman around, but the code and sense of duty once part of his deadly career are lost in a post-Cold War world of freelance guns. He wants out. Not so Miguel Bain (Antonio Banderas), a driven killer who knows how to claim the top spot of his shadowy profession: eliminate Roth. Julianne Moore turns up the heat as a wily hacker swept into the duo's running battle. Co-written by the Wachowski Brothers (The Matrix) and Brian Helgeland (L.A. Confidential) and directed by Richard Donner (the Lethal Weapon series), this awesome action tale plunges you into a world where what counts isn't making the first move, but surviving the last.
My thoughts	Sometimes you forget almost everything about a movie except a key scene. I had such a vivid memory of a key scene in Assassins that I was convinced that I has seen it. But no. When I just watched it on BD I realized that I had never seen it before, after all. I must just have seen the trailer. So I'm glad I got it in the Stallone box set. This may not be the best film that Richard Donner ever has directed, but it's a good enough action movie. Banderas is really good in it. Julianne Moore has done better roles, but I like her anyway. And Stallone is Stallone. Like most action movies, this one requires a little bit of suspension of disbelief, but not too much. There aren't any real roll-your-eyes moments. Well, at least not unless you stop to question how you get $16,000,000 in bills into a hand held bag. And I didn't, until afterwards. That's 160,000 $100 bills. Or if it's easier to visualize then in bundles of 100 bills each, that's 1,600 bundles. But that's part of the Hollywood myth, right? Ridiculous amounts of money take hardly any space at all. It's right up there with cars exploding like a bomb if they're driven over a cliff, or bodies flying backwards when shot by a shotgun (or even a pistol). So we let it go, even though we know it's hokum. So to sum it up, this is a better than average, but not really great, action film. A little bit too long for my taste, but at least it never gets boring.
My rating

(From Reviews and ramblings by Gunnar on April 24th, 2014)

The Dark Knight, a review by Dragonfire

The follow-up to Batman Begins, The Dark Knight reunites director Christopher Nolan and star Christian Bale, who reprises the role of Batman/Bruce Wayne in his continuing war on crime. With the help of Lt. Jim Gordon and District Attorney Harvey Dent, Batman sets out to destroy organized crime in Gotham for good. The triumvirate proves effective. But soon the three find themselves prey to a rising criminal mastermind known as The Joker, who thrusts Gotham into anarchy and forces Batman closer to crossing the fine line bewtween hero and vigilante. Heath Ledger stars as archvillian The Joker, and Aaron Eckhart plays Dent. Maggie Gyllenhall joins the cast as Rachel Dawes. Returning from Batman Begins are Gary Oldman as Gordon, Michael Caine as Alfred and Morgan Freeman as Lucius Fox.

My Thoughts

This was an absolutely wonderful movie and shows just how good a superhero movie can be.  They don't have to just be mindless action movies with someone running around wearing a mask.  Not that I don't like a lot of the other superhero movies too..but this one was just on a different level in every way.  The story was wonderful and everything worked together well.  The characters and cast were wonderful.  The  movie had a dark tone, but that was needed for the material to be dealt with properly.  I had a feeling that a few things were going to happen before I first saw the movie, but there were several surprises and I wouldn't call the movie predictable at all.  The one minor issue I had was that I felt the...resolution to what was going on with Harvey seemed just a bit rushed.  I think it would have been interesting if that had been saved for the next movie, which would have allowed the character to evolve and develop more.

I absolutely loved Heath Ledger as the Joker.  He took a fairly well known character and made it his own.  His version was completely different from every other Joker I've seen and I think so much better than too.  Ledger's Joker makes Nicholson's Joker look like a goofy guy playing dress up.  For me, not only was Ledger the best Joker, he was the best villain from a superhero movie and one of the best movie villains in general.  I truly feel this is one of the best movies of 2008 and it is one of my favorites.

 

I posted a review on Epinions after seeing the movie in the theater back in July - the movie was amazing on the big screen - if anyone wants to take a look.

The Dark Knight

(From Dragonfire: What I've Been Watching on January 12th, 2009)

Tom's Random Star Trek Reviews, a review by Tom

Star Trek: Voyager
4.09 Year of Hell, Part II
Writer: Brannon Braga (Writer), Joe Menosky (Writer)
Director: Mike Vejar
Cast: Kate Mulgrew (Captain Kathryn Janeway), Robert Beltran (Chakotay), Roxann Dawson (B'Elanna Torres), Robert Duncan McNeill (Tom Paris), Ethan Phillips (Neelix), Robert Picardo (The Doctor), Tim Russ (Tuvok), Jeri Ryan (Seven of Nine), Garrett Wang (Harry Kim), John Loprieno (Obrist), Kurtwood Smith (Annorax), Peter Slutsker (Krenim Commandant), Lise Simms (Wife), Majel Barrett (Narrator (voice))

The most part of this episode is nothing really special. But the ending makes up for it big time. This is one time, where the episode reset button is used to great effect and makes sense story-wise.


Rating:

(From Tom's Random Star Trek Reviews on November 29th, 2011)