matthewmacgyver

Uwe Boll's best Movie. Better than "You Don't Mess with the Zohan". Neither of those statements are saying particularly much, but to say the least, this movie is actually worth watching. Postal is essentially an absurdist farce comprised of characters designed to be caricatures of the worst parts of humanity. Assuming this was not some cosmic coincidence whereby Uwe Boll managed to write and direct a movie that actually entertains it's alleged target audience, I feel confident in saying that this movie actually hits it's mark. Knowing the spirit and tone of the source material, this is actually a pretty decent video game adaptation. The movie is essentially a Bollian journey into Tromaville territory: from the crass socio-political commentary, through the excessive violence, coarse language, gratuitous full frontal Dave Foley nudity, right down to the self deprecating director cameo. It's intentionally offensive to everyone. Despite itself, on some level this movie works. It's weird that I seem to only have good things to say about this movie, seeing as it is not a good movie... but, dare I say, it's not bad either. 5/10

The Mummy 3: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor - I liked the first entry to this series. About all I can remember of the second one was that it sucked, and it's loose spin off "The Scorpion King" was merely O.K. in a "I get a kick out of Conan-type movies" sort of way. Compared to the first, the Mummy 3 trades off memorability in it's characters for larger action sequences. Being the 3rd entry to this series, this is somewhat forgivable as most of the characters are already developed. The movie still suffers though as it seems as though they have less to do as characters and more to do as props, and this unfortunately also goes for the new characters introduced.

This movie knows what it is, and as such, carries with it a level of self awareness. There is even one scene where the new actress playing Evelyn addresses the audience, almost winking, and says "I'm an entirely different person", poking fun at the obvious point her character has been recast. It was cool seeing Jet Li as the Emperor, and as a villain. But that's really all he was, the villain. Unlike the first Mummy movie, where they treat the mummy as an actual character with identifiable motivations, the movie does very little to develop The Dragon Emperor as anything but the antagonist for the action set pieces. But Jet Li is good, he somehow makes the few scenes he was given work, his villainous sneers and smirks work well in portraying a one-dimensional popcorn villain... I felt the movie would have been much stronger if he had more screen time than his CG counterpart.

The martial arts and sword fighting sequences were filmed in a typically Hollywood style with far too many cuts and closeups. The action would have benefited from pulling the camera back a bit to see more of the action. There are a few points about the plot where you find yourself asking questions that simply can't be answered, but the movie's plot is the kind you're not supposed to think about, but instead are just supposed to sit back, relax, suspend your disbelief, and enjoy the ride. If you are able to do this, there are a few parts in the movie that will have you cheering.

It would have been a lot better if there were 15-20 minutes more character development and exposition, but that would have put the movie over the 2 hour mark, and it's pacing might have suffered, and it's box office definitely would have. As it is, the Mummy 3 hits it's mark as being mass market (barely) digestible popcorn. The movie's story plays as somewhat of a cross between Dragon Wars and Indiana Jones 4, and with respect to quality, it falls somewhere in between... although is admittedly closer to the Indiana Jones 4 end of the spectrum. The movie is what I would call "well made mediocrity". It managed to entertain me. If the Mummy 1 was 8/10, Dragon Wars: D-War was 5/10, Indiana Jones 4 was 6/10, then I would have to peg The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor at 6/10.

The Host is a decent mix of family drama and monster action with a little bit of slapstick comedy thrown in. The comedy comes at times almost entirely from certain characters over-acting. There is one scene in particular, which although I'm sure it was supposed to be a sad scene, I couldn't help but laugh at the exaggerated responses.

I liked this movie. That being said it is definitely overly long. It dragged severely in the after the 1st hour. It could have done with about 30 minutes trimmed from the middle. And although I wasn't a fan of the ending, I can't really think of anything that would have made it better. Overall, the movie is good, but not spectacular.

On my patented scale of 1 to 10, (which excludes sevens and decimals), I'd say this movie is a 6/10. About on par with Emmerich's Godzilla (1998), and Reitman's Evolution (2001).