Bandidas
Poseidon
The Omen
Bandidas
"Bandidas" is a comic, lighthearted take on the Western. As usual with producer/writer Luc Besson this feature is less concerned with character and story than with action and slapstick. In 1880s Mexico, evil Americans start killing landowners to steal their land, but rich-chick Sara (Salma Hayek) and farmer-girl Maria (Penelope Cruz) join forces to take some revenge. Teaming up Hayek and Cruz, considered among the sexiest and most beautiful women in the world, is pretty smart. They play well off each other and deliberately use their sexuality for comic effect. There's enough to keep you interested, the movie is never boring, but it never quite gets beyond its own sense of fun. There's just nothing truly thrilling or entertaining here.
( Julie Vinten )
"Bandidas" is an anagram of band-aids, which I recommend you take with you if you go see this film. It's bad enough to make your eyes and ears bleed. The sole novelty of this bafflingly stupid and pointless picture is the pairing of Penelope Cruz and Salma Hayek as the leads. Cruz plays the feisty peasant out to take revenge on the evil Gringos who killed her father to steal their land, while Hayek plays the wealthy socialite also out to take revenge on the same Gringos for murdering her papa. The most ironic thing about "Bandidas" is that it shamelessly plunders every Western set south of the U.S. border. There isn't a single scene you haven't seen countless times before. "The Mask of Zorro" looks like a masterpiece of Neo-Realism in comparison.
( Tim Ochser )
Poseidon
This movie is unbelievable: Unbelievably horrible. Director Wolfgang Petersen really has been making some bad movies lately, but this one tops them all. In this film, he comes across as an inept storyteller with no visual imagination. No one seems to have even bothered thinking about character development or narrative flow. There's screaming, crying, running from water 's that's it and it's boring. Here's the summary: A ship filled with rich people is tipped over by a giant wave. A group of people takes the long arduous journey to the surface. They get rescued and we end with some good cheers. But then there were all those people who didn't survive 's wait, but they're not important. There, now you don't have to waste your time or money watching this piece of trash.
( Julie Vinten )
"Poseidon" is a big-budget remake of the 1972 film about a luxury liner that gets capsized by a freak tidal wave. A handful of passengers decide to make their way to the ship's hull to try and escape. The original film was very much a period piece, a strangely gritty and glossy '70s disaster film in which the characters sweated by the bucket. The remake, however, is decidedly dull in comparison. The characters are all too clean cut and two-dimensional to sweat: there simply isn't any room for sweat glands in them. The special effects are impressive, as you would expect from a film with a reputed $160 million budget, but so what? The moral of the story is: don't be from an ethnic minority if you find yourself in a Hollywood disaster situation.
( Tim Ochser )
The Omen
According to the Bible, 666 is the sign of the Devil. So we all knew that the date 06.06.06 simply had to trigger a remake of the 1976 horror movie "The Omen" about a high society couple (Liev Schreiber and Julia Stiles) that raises the son of Satan, an omen of the forthcoming apocalypse. John Moore, who began as a music video director, knows how to make visuals nice and glossy, Hollywood-style, but storytelling isn't his forte, as he proved with "Behind Enemy Lines" and "Flight of the Phoenix." This remake lacks complexity, interesting characters and legitimate scares. The original did a better job on those fronts. There's also some pretty bad miscasting. The decapitation scene is fairly good, even if it doesn't exactly make the rest of movie worthwhile.
1/2( Julie Vinten )
As far as I can tell, this thoroughly pointless remake of the 1976 "classic" only got made to cash in on the felicitous calendar combination of 06/06/06. It's almost a scene-for-scene reproduction of the first film but without any of its shock value or cheesy '70s charm. Damien (Seamus Davey-Fitzpatrick) boasts an impressively brooding fringe, which is a necessary accessory for all child misfits, but he doesn't square up against his demonic predecessor. In fact, none of the cast does, although there is a welcome cameo from Mia Farrow (think "Rosemary's Baby") as Damien's nanny. Still, at least "The Omen" gets you thinking about numbers. Is 06/06/06 some sort of combination to a safe? Or will it help the Lord of Darkness get his social security number and get to work?
( Tim Ochser )
