Die Hard

Couch reviewer

5 Stars

*****

Die Hard, aw man, one of those movies that goes without saying that you HAVE to watch on Christmas.  This movie is one of Bruce Willis's best movies, and one of the best of all time.  If you will notice, the image above lists this in the 5 star collection, that has GOT to tell you something.  John Mcclane, the police officer from New York, invited accidently to a Christmas party in Los Angeles, YIPPEE KI YAY, mother f....., meets up with some no good dirty thieves out to steal $600 million dollars.   One of the best movies for replay value.  Watch it again, and again, mother f...........s!  In the words of Joker, "it brings a smile to my face, again, and again.  

Contagion

Couch Reviewer

2.5 Stars

**&1/2

This movie had so much potential, and failed miserably.  The movie is 2 hours long and the previews were 1/2 hour long!  This movie was boring to the point that I fell asleep and had to watch the other half the next day.  This film was slow and the ending sucked.  *SPOILER*  I was hoping for a better ending, but it just kind of ends.  I expected that with this film it would go through the process of the beginning and then end up along the lines of The Walking Dead or 29 Days Later, I am talking mass devastation.  There isn't much more to say about this film.  They spend a majority of it trying to figure out what it is, how it started and how to vaccinate against it.  Save your $1.00 don't rent unless you want to be bored.  

Hostel III

Couch Reviewer

3 Stars

***

"Do you feel lucky? Well, do ya, punk?"  I would have to say for Hostel III, no, I don't.   This Hostel was definitely not as good as the others before it. Not nearly as creepy, and not as gruesome, but still gruesome enough that I would rather sit through SAW.  This movie gets 3 stars just because its a horror flick, its a Hostel flick, and has the nerve to do something along the lines of SAW.  Now the downside, this movie does not do justice to the others because A. they tried too hard to confuse us on who was the bad guys (role-reversal) and B. they tried to make us think that there is an underground Hostel ring in of all places, Las Vegas.  Puhleese..... The second thought is that the Hostel series as a whole is just an excuse for bloodshed.  When I say I would rather watch SAW, I would rather watch SAW, simply because SAW has a point.  I am not going to review SAW here, but suffice it to say that Jigsaw has a meaning behind his "games" and he never kills anyone.  The idea behind Hostel is that some rich guy can afford to buy the life and death of another person just for mere sport, and get away with it, and murder them, or have someone else murder them just on a rich guys whim.  Boring!  I would rather watch The Game with Gary Busey.  The characters in the movie are unforgettable and are not audience friendly in the least.  The comments made by some of the guys are old and cliche' and straight just juvenile.  The married guy who hates his wife because she gained 30 lbs and is out on the town with the guys, *rolls eyes... classic.  He has a potty mouth like a sailor.  The others are just a bunch of pretty boys you cannot wait to see hacked up.  Watch this movie just because its a Hostel flick, but don't go in thinking it has a point, or will live up to past Hostel films.  

Rise of The Planet of the Apes

Couch Reviewer

4 Stars

**** 

The latest blockbuster from Twentieth Century Fox, Rise of the Planet of the Apes is a good movie in and of itself, but as with most movies that try to continue on a franchise, such as The Thing, the Rise of the Planet of the Apes falls short.  As a sci-fi movie it was good, therefore, it warrants its 4 of 5 star rating.  The story is about an ape who is given a serum that is intended to cure diseases of the brain, but gets out of control.  The movie has no continuity with the previous Planet of the Apes movie as you would expect.  The previous movie was about an ape who travelled into space and colonized a new planet of apes, in this movie, which I can only assume is supposed to be a prequel to the other does not follow this premise and follows the rise of apes on the planet Earth.  The downside to this film is that the credits roll and you think the film is over, and if you are like me, credits means, movie over, eject disk, so if you do not like to watch credits, then in this film you will miss the last throw out that attempts to explain what happens after the fact.  So many of these films use the name of previous films to get bigger audiences and then disappoint when we realize that one has nothing to do with the others.  I wish someone would use the original Planet of the Apes movies staring Charlton Heston as the premise for the prequel and any subsequent sequels to the franchise.  The original film was an intellectual film that left you with several questions such as, how did the planet get to be this way?  We were shocked when we realized that Heston all along was on Earth.  Directors are trying to make a fast buck and dumbing things down so much which is why the movie is not connected to the previous films.  As a continuation on CGI, for this film, the apes seemed cartoonish, and CGI has never been good at recreating real life. Final note, as a sci-fi movie, it was good.  

Final Destination 5

FINAL DESTINATION 5

Couch Reviewer

3 Stars 

*** 

What can be said about the Final Destination series other than, "creepy?"  The final piece of the destination series leaves a little to be desired.  The other movies had people that it was easy to relate to or have a minor connection to, not in this one.  The film is hard to follow and seems randomly put together.  They are on a business retreat on a bus crossing a suspension bridge when all hell breaks loose, literally.  The confusing part is that we thought they all worked for this paper company, Presage, but yet one guy is a chef, another worked in a factory, we had a gymnast.... um, what?  On top of that, the rules changed, in the previous movies, the only thing that "saved" someone was if they were skipped because someone else saved them, forcing Death to move onto the next in line.  In this movie they have added the stipulation that if you kill some innocent, you get their life and whatever number of years they have left.  Not that it really helped anyone is this film.  I won't give out the spoiler.  The first films leave your skin crawling and makes you be extra careful for awhile afterward, but this one just tried to find the worst possible ways for people to die.  Aside from the rule changes and the plot, and character likeability, the movie drags on forever!  The beginning is slow, the middle is slow, they spent too much time trying to build up the suspense prior to the first girl dying that I was bored to tears.  It picks up toward the end, and then its too late, its the end.  We see The CandyMan resume his role as the creepy mortician who knows all about Death's plan.  For the end of the series of films, it seems pretty haphazard and the actors/actresses are a bunch of people you don't recognize except for their boss who falls into that category of "hey its that guy" because you only recognize him by his face not by anything substantial he's done.  It's an okay movie but doesn't live up to its prequels in the "creepy" department. 

Apollo 18

Couch Reviewer

** 2 Stars

This movie sucks, it is so boring, and has an absurd premise.  Found footage of a space mission, really, do you honestly think that NASA would not have a better handle on its recorded evidence?  I wish I would have done some reviewing on it before I spent $4.00 to rent it.  Thankfully it isn't too difficult to watch from a video camera viewpoint, it is probably one of the best "found footage" films ever made, the standard for these types of films are normally "shaky cam" making them a motion sickness disaster.  Oh my god, the scandal, www.lunartruth.com, like anyone now would give a shit.  This movie was terrible.  However, in comparison to the Paranormal Activity films now gaining widespread popularity, this movie is far superior, because the PA movies win the special ROTTEN EGG award. Spare yourself the money and the agony of watching this film.  

Cowboys and Aliens

****

Couch Reviewer 

4 Stars

We have been waiting a long time to see Cowboys and Aliens, and it was definitely worth the wait and worth it not to have it ruined watching it in the theater.  At first we were kind of skeptical about the idea of a sci-fi western movie as this seemed to be the current trend, but who can go wrong with Harrison Ford and Daniel Craig?  The movie starts out good with some action in the beginning, then slows down for some time almost to the point of boring.  The downfall for this film is the 20 minutes of complete darkness where you cannot see what is happening, and you have to kind of guess for yourself what is going on.   The main character, Longren, remains a mystery for way too long and it begins to wear on your nerves as people continually ask him who he is and where he came from which results in the same response, "I don't know." Yet the woman in the film insists that he knows who he is and where he came from.  We were pleasantly surprised that the love interest portion of the film did not overrun it.  The aliens were some of the best we have seen, although CGI, the directors did not disappoint by having them be pathetic humans, but a savage race of creatures never seen.  Disappointment that the ending is the classic hero riding into the horizon, leaving the story kind of incomplete, we never really know why the aliens are there except to mine gold.  However, very nicely done movie, we are happy with the change and creativity/imagination from the same old bullshit of date movies.