I managed to spend quite a bit of time this past weekend watching movies and get in holiday shopping. Most would likely debate the QUALITY of movies that I got in, but this way I didn't have to pay a lot of attention to the movie.
One of the things that I like to do on Saturdays is to watch the Sci Fi Channel's movies on Saturdays. They usually end up showing movies all day long and end the day with one of their original movies. I won't say that most are great, but they can be entertaining.
Before I start to talk about them, I will talk about how I rate the movies I see. The Internet Movie Database uses a rating scale of 1 to 10 for movies. Since the worst you can give a movie is a 1 and the best a 10, an average movie then is a 5.5. Any movie I see that is average, I decide if it is slightly above average (a 6) or slightly below average (a 5). I would put a good movie at an 8, and a bad movie at a 3. Here is where I seem to differ from several of my friends -- I have movies running the range from 5 down to 1, while from at least listening to them talk, if a movie isn't at least average, it deserves a 1. That is not what I think -- just as there are scales of good, there are scales of bad (although I don't think I have given out a lot of 3's... usually by that point movies are jumping down to 2's and even occasionally 1's.)
Chameleon II: Death Match (1999)
The first movie I caught was Chameleon II. (I'm not sure if the original aired and I missed it or not.) It has your attractive female lead who is a genetically-engineered butt-kicker. It is set in the future, and like most set in the future, the EVIL CORPORATIONS have taken over the world. Over all, not a bad action movie, but not a great one either. I ended up giving it a 4.
Chameleon 3: Dark Angel (2000) (TV)
That was followed up with Chameleon 3. Bobbie Phillips was back in her role as Kam. She's a bit more upset in this movie about her co-workers treating her as less than human -- the genetic engineering project that created her specifically calls her a sub-humanoid since she has animal DNA spliced to her. Wait a minute... female genetically fighter-type with animal DNA in a TV show subtitled Dark Angel? And this came out the same year that "Dark Angel" debuted as a series. I wonder who copied whom??? Aside from that, it was a better movie than Chameleon II, so I gave it a 5.
Darklight (2004) (TV)
I didn't get to watch Darklight on Saturday (shopping time, it got taped...) but did end up seeing it the next morning. Another female lead who kicks plague-infected demon butt. I thought it was interesting seeing some Lilith legends brought to screen, but I would not call it a good movie. I was going to give this a 3, but I enjoyed John de Lancie's performance, so it got a 4.
The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (2005)
Of course the big movie this past weekend was The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. After getting our Christmas shopping done Michele and I went to see it with a bunch of friends. It was a good movie, but I was disappointed. I think I got my hopes up too high and was expecting something REALLY great after the Lord of the Rings trilogy. I found Mr. Tumnus' ears annoying, and I was disappointed that there was no mention of his horns being cut off as punishment (I think I am remembering that correctly...), but I thought that the animals looked GREAT! This movie got an 8 from me.
"The Triangle" (2005) (mini)
the Sci Fi Channel did their whole mini-series back-to-back on Sunday which I managed to catch. Right before it started, I had this idea for the Bermuda Triangle about it being a black hole or wormhole, just sucking things down. Apparently I was psychic for the moment, since that was where this went. It was very much like a Star Trek episode (particularly the last two of the show). The first part of the mini-series was pretty good, the second part OK, and the third part just got weird. I ended up giving it a 6, but mainly due to the first half or so.
The Big Bounce (2004)
Rented The Big Bounce to watch on Monday (there is NO good TV on Monday!) Of course, I'm not sure that this movie was much better. It had going for it the fact that it was shot in Hawaii (instead of Detroit where the novel takes place.) Owen Wilson's comedy helps the movie out a bit here too, and Morgan Freeman had a pretty good character as well. The whole plot is pretty twisted up by the end. I gave this movie a 4.
So quite a few movies of the few days. Most of them on the bad side of average. As I tell my friends though, you have to see the bad movies to truly appreciate the good ones.
Posted by huber at December 14, 2005 3:56 PM | TrackBack