The Core Dump

The Core Dump is the personal blog of Nic Lindh, a Swedish-American pixel-pusher living in Phoenix, Arizona.

By Nic Lindh on Thursday, 17 July 2008

Movie roundup, part eight

Resident Evil: Extinction, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, I am Legend, Battlestar Galactica: Razor, The Kingdom and Revolver.

Resident Evil: Extinction: The world is overrun with flesh-eating zombies and the Evil Corporation is lurking in underground bunkers working on a way to exploit the zombies. And on the surface Milla Jovovich runs around helping human survivors by chopping zombies to bits.

It’s well made and has some interesting scenes, but in general there’s not much of a “there” there. Still, not too painful to watch.

Gaaaarrrr!

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull: Spielberg does to Indiana Jones what Lucas did to Star Wars.

The movie has some nice chase sequences, but the plot is infernally dumb and the cast is phoning it in.

Sad, really.

I am Legend: Will Smith puts in a solid performance, and the CGI is well done, but apart from that it’s one of those frustrating movies that could have been great if they had taken the concept all the way instead of punking out.

Am I the only one who thinks the Darkseekers moved exactly like the robots in I, Robot?

Battlestar Galactica: Razor: It’s a bit mystifying why this was created as a film instead of being two episodes in the regular run of the show. That being said, it’s solid and provides an interesting look at the Cylons as they used to be. Getting more of the back story of the Battlestar Pegasus makes the movie a given for fans of the series.

The Kingdom: Intense thriller about a terrorist hunt in Saudi Arabia. Even dares touch on some of the, ahem, “issues” regarding the Saudis and global terrorism. Well worth watching.

Revolver: Extremely frustrating film that likes to think of itself as very, very clever indeed while it has its finger up its nose to the knuckle.

Take MTV-style editing, some very interesting camera work, add in the kind of metaphysical musings that go on in freshman dorm rooms late at night, and a plot that’s … well … infantile, and what you end up with is the kind of movie that gives you a headache.

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