POMO

Not bad at all. Actually, Waterworld is a nice exotic adventure with an excellent subject. If it had been directed by Steven Spielberg, it could have been an unforgettable contribution to the genre. But even so, despite the spasmodic final third, it’s still a bombastically presented and rather intelligent Hollywood blockbuster that, unlike many others, I can watch again and again, and never get bored or irritated. And Kevin Costner fits it perfectly!

I Spy is dumb and easily forgettable, but it’s rather entertaining. The central duo go together superbly. Their joint infiltration of Famke Janssen’s bed brought me to my knees with laughter. A less sophisticated comedy than Showtime, but much funnier.

Human Traffic is a moderately provocative, very apt social comedy about stoned young Londoners. Rather than some sort of plot or grand message, it’s about capturing the stoned states, views on life and general modern obsessions of young people in the most believable way possible. It’s something like Trainspotting, but less artsy and serious.

Magnolia tore me up emotionally and Boogie Nights entertained me fantastically. But Punch-Drunk Love – regardless of how innovatively and imaginatively it was directed – didn’t move me at all. It’s a spectacularly stylized void, both emotionally and intellectually.

The Two Towers is faster-paced, more action-packed and more spectacular than The Fellowship of the Ring. The film’s three hours flowed by like water. Not to mention the fact that The Two Towers is bursting at the seams with gems like the duel with Balrog in the first film. But I still liked The Fellowship of the Ring better. It was more drawn out and slower, but fuller and more consistent in terms of its content. The Two Towers is concise and serves up all that breathtaking action and spectacle in the form of a concertina book of beautiful but narratively less cohesive visual gems. Even if this drawback could be forgiven, because the film is “only” a bridge between two monuments, I still have another criticism – the humor, which detracts from the dignity and drama of the film (Golum cooking fish, Gimli on the ramparts). Visually, however, The Two Towers is a real gem with by far the most sophisticated and “best acted” digital character (Golum) to ever appear on a movie screen.

At 160 minutes, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets is just too long. It’s brilliantly filmed, the characters haven’t lost any of their charm and the darker approach suits the film, but it still seems more routine and static. As a fan of J.K. Rowling, I was definitely excited to see it. But as an impartial viewer, I missed having a remote control with a rewind button in places.

As of 2002, Die Another Day was the most bombastic, most spectacular and most elaborate and flashiest Bond flick yet. It’s also the goofiest and most entertaining. Within the franchise, it’s a similar turning point as Lethal Weapon 4 was in that franchise. Bond chases two Batman-esque villains in an invisible car and when he eliminates them, the head of the American National Security Agency, Michael Madsen, contentedly lights a cigarette, referencing his Vic Vega character from Reservoir Dogs. Halle Berry gets special recognition for attractiveness, as she beautifully combines feminine fragility with the diligence and aggressiveness of an agent. Conversely, the casting of Madonna was a mistake here. For me, the only thing that keeps this exciting movie (though it is a bit drawn out in the last third) from getting the highest rating is its slightly over-the-top silliness. By the final scene, I had started seeing both of the bad guys as Power Rangers action figures.

Though Full Frontal is not as experimental and cold as Mike Figgis’s movies (e.g. Hotel) and it’s more on target and entertaining, it’s still just a small, insignificant and unnecessary flick that’s not worth the price of admission.

Entrapment suffers from the fact that its screenplay is full of holes. But there is such a spark between Sean Connery and Catherine Zeta-Jones and so many of the scenes are easy on the eyes that I can’t give it a lower rating. A film that’s like a good perfume.

The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms is a spectacular and deadly seriously intended monster movie. But it’s just not very entertaining. The attempt at a semi-documentary approach goes hand in hand with keeping a certain distance from the characters, which doesn’t even matter because the main character here isn’t a scientist, detective or journalist, but the titular primordial beast. Paradoxically, there are too few of the scenes in which we can enjoy the monster, with high-quality visual effects, no less. I would have enjoyed this film if I could have seen it in the 1950s, but in the modern age of Jurassic Park movies, this relic is an overly chatty and stale attempt at a Hollywood blockbuster. The banal scenes of the monster walking through the streets of New York are no longer the delight for viewers that they were back then. And the climax in an amusement park could also have been more imaginative and better developed.