The Island -- 2005 -- PG-13

From the moment I saw the first trailer, I knew this was a remake of a film I saw on TV a long time ago called Parts: The Clonus Horror, and the film followed that plot line perfectly. However, this being a modern movie, it really improved upon some of the cheese that permeated that old plot and made for a better and more satisfying film overall.

We begin in an environment that reminds me of a cross between 1984 and THX-1138 where people are in a mostly sterile environment wearing nothing but white jumpsuits. They all long to go to a place called "The Island" which they believe is the only place to have survived a catastrophic contamination that destroyed much of the earth and forced them into the world they now live in.

While I had an idea of where this was going based on this earlier film, this movie was still satisfying and had its own surprises going along making it not a total waste of over two hours. Some of the chase sequences ran on too long, but they had some great effects here and there.

So in the end, a lot of it is very familiar, but it is tied together in such a way to make it worth watching.

The Interpreter -- 2005 -- PG-13

A political thriller following a woman who works for the UN as an interpreter who overhears a plot to assassinate a controversial head of state. The Feds try to protect her, but she shields from them her complex past making their job only that much more difficult.

This is a film with multiple layers and pretty solid characters. The plot centers itself more around this woman as uncovering her past than it does who is following her, and this is pretty much on purpose. The questions linger throughout: did she hear something or not? Is she in on it or not? And the beauty of it all is that we really don't know until it's all over.

I found this to be a well-constructed plot that finally ties itself up fairly well by the final frame, though the denouement is a little shaky. Fortunately, for a political thriller, it doesn't bog us down in the politics. In fact, the movie centers around a fictional country, which while some complain that this is a poor device, works a little better than placing a real one in there since it allows for a statement to be made without centering anyone out.

Overall, good flick.

It Happened One Night -- 1934 -- NR

This 1934 Romantic Comedy starred Clark Gable and Claudette Colbert. It was directed by Frank Capra, famous for It's a Wonderful Life and was a big director in the 30's and 40's. It was the first film to win the 5 major oscars: Best Picture, Screenplay, Director, Actor, and Actress. 

It deserved them. This film was amazing. It was very funny, had a solid believable plot, good characters, good drama, and really tugged at the heart strings at several points. If you like romantic comedies, and have seen every Tom Hanks/Meg Ryan film, then grab this one. It puts modern romantic comedies to shame.

I, Robot -- 2004 -- PG-13

This sci-fi outing concerning the ancient plot of robots gone mad has a refreshing character element to it making it practically a high concept movie. Sure, we have lots of action sequences and impressive CG effects, but we also have the story of a man who must overcome his personal prejudices to solve a mystery. The casting of Will Smith as the prejudiced detective strikes an ironic note given his own race and its prejudiced past. 

Overall, the movie was well-constructed and stayed right on track to the end with even a few zingers of twisted plot thrown in for good measure.

The Incredibles -- 2004 -- PG

A family of superheroes tries to keep a low profile when another opportunity to save the world comes up forcing the parents back into action, and the children to use their powers productively for the first time.

This is an amusing tale of what happens when you try to be someone you're not. The father figure here tries to be "normal" but continually tries to find something that will allow him to be the hero he once was. This causes his wife to suspect any number of things especially when his contact is quite the sexy voice. One thing leads to another and while she finds no affair, she does find him mixed up in something bigger than both of them.

Pixar has become quite known for their solid Disney distributed films, and this one measures right up there with the others that have come before. Excellent plotting and character development along with a good amount of action for the short attention spanners give this movie something everyone can get into. Add to it the subplots and backstory, and this film comes highly recommended. This is not typical "cute" Disney fare. This is Pixar, and they have yet to not deliver a fine picture.

I Know What You Did Last Summer -- 1997 -- R

What is basically Kevin Williamson's follow-up to Scream is a rough adaptation of a novel about a group of teens who hit a guy crossing the road in the middle of the night. I saw this film a few years ago, and with the coming of a third film in this franchise, I decided to watch it again through my more informed viewpoint of films as a whole.

What I find is not a standard teen hack-n-slash, but more of a cat and mouse thriller where the mysterious killer opts to mess with his victims' head before they die. There is one death that I don't get and served little purpose beyond freaking a character out later, but the film was decent enough to get over that rather uneventful end.

It differs from other horror movies in another way too. Rather than isolating the characters from the world as most horror flicks do, this one isolates them psychologically. They can easily get help if they need to, but based on their assessment of the situation, they can't or they'll be in deep trouble. One might argue deep trouble is better than dead, but it works in context for awhile.

There were several hiccups in the direction, however, that were nothing short of clumsiness. A character can bust out a car window, climbs through it, and then land in the broken glass, and runn off without a cut on her legs or feet. Another character swam through the water, but when he climbed out, his hair was in perfect place. The final bit of dialogue before the tag ending was also incredibly cheesy as if everything else got a rewrite but that. I also found a dislike to the way the adults are portrayed. As usual, they are goofs who believe nothing the main attackees have to say.

Finally, the real part that bugged me more than anything else was the Egan house and that it was SOOO necessary to go there...twice. Te first time they went, it was a normal house. It had four sides, and nothing special when the characters walked around it. Sure, Missy was creepy, but hey, it's that kind of movie. The second time, it had this weird Texas Chainsaw Massacre thing going on with all kinds of bird corpses hanging everywhere. I think the visit was a detriment to Julie's character since she didn't seem like the type to be extroverted enough to go. Maybe that was my big beef.

So, the base plot works fairly well. It has an orignial angle to it that is usually not explored in this type of film. I liked the suspenseful moments where you know where the killer is and you are waiting on edge for him to strike...or not. The cat and mouse stuff was great. The shortcomings were very, very minor, and could have been easily corrected had the powers that be taken the time or attention to do so.

As a final side, I can't spoil it, but there's a fabulous irony in with the guy who was hit when the history is revealed. It's never brought up, but I get a personal kick out of it.

I'm With Lucy -- 2002 -- R

Well, it was high time for another chick flick to cross my path, and this time, I got a tale about a woman who recalls five blind dates she had over the previous year, and early on, we learn that she is marrying one of them.

This is a very simple romantic comedy that despite its five simultaneous date stories, it is very easy to follow and understand what is going on. Through these dates, we get a sense of who Lucy is and her character traits. Each date she goes on exhibits one aspect of her personality. We get drunk/wishful, sexual/professional, asexual/cultural, family/angry, and jealous/societal. Those are the most prominent characteristics displayed anyway, though others are thrown in related to those. It is a very clever way to go through someone's personality and character quickly and easily.

The guy she ends up with ends up fairly decently developed as well, which most of the guys turn out one dimensional. Even with these five dates making up the bulk of the film, we still get the classic RomCom structure of the inevitable separation from perfect guy at the third act mark and she has to decide who is right during the last quarter of the film leading up to the final wedding.

The only confusing point here has nothing to do with the film; why was this film rated R? The blurb at the beginning states "some sexuality." There's a slim outburst of profanity near the end, and some implied sex throughout one bit, but R? I've seen PG movies more risque than this one. Seriously, this is not R material. Likely, the 'F' word was spouted one too many times in a single scene. With that exception, the film has no profanity, no nudity, and only the relationship bits would give it a PG-13 at most. R? Someone made a mistake there.

RomCom's seem to be a very easy genre to not go wrong in as the story flows very easily and simplistically without a plot hole I could find immediately. Some of the dates end, but what happens with the guys feels a little unresolved, but the main plot satisfies well enough.

I'll Always Know What You Did Last Summer -- 2006 -- R

This was a direct-to-DVD special that I watched after viewing the first two in the franchise, and to be honest, I didn't find it to be as bad as everyone was afraid it was going to be. I always tend to review from a story perspective, rarely getting into production stuff unless it becomes distracting.

This version has nothing to do with the "Last Summer" mentioned in the first two films. It rather uses those films as a backstory to provide a foundation to what happens in this one. At one point in the film, they pull out a scrapbook of sorts of articles mentioning "the fisherman" and the murders committed in the coastal town and Bahamas island of the first two films.

This film opens with the "fisherman" story and a chase through a fairground (and by the way, what the hell is with all these fairs? Is 2006 the year of the fair or something? Final Destination 3, When A Stranger Calls...anyway) until he corners one of the friends on top of a building. Well, this friend miscalculates his escape and ends up impaled on the top of a tractor. We learn that this fisherman chase is a big prank, but one that, with the death of the friend, has gone horribly wrong.

It begins to stand out more as a remake when many of the characters'...well, characters...resemble the four of the original film. This, however, does not detract from the enjoyment of the film, but rather serves to add to it, since it provides a sort of grim familiarity to what's going on.

One concern I started to have was how this killer can be everywhere. He pops up in the strangest places, and at one point, he attacks our heroine on a gondola quite a few feet above the ground. I was all set the poo-poo the ridiculousness of this whole unlikely crap when finally the reveal came. As with all of these teen scream flicks, there's a question mark leading us through the film of whodunit and this one is no different. It points the finger quite deliberately at just about everyone within the plot, revealing that their "secret" was not much of a secret at all. Several other people knew about the prank and knew who was behind it. What did this do? Give our fisherman more fodder to hack up. The reveal did what it should do: clean up the loose ends it was dangling throughout the film and allow what appeared to be stupidity to get itself to making sense.

I will admit that the film provided very little suspense, and barely classifies itself as a horror movie. It's kind of like the latter Nightmare on Elm Street films where it's basically a low-key action movie, and accepting it from this perspective will add to its enjoyment. You want a horror movie? Well, it has some blood in it, I guess.

Take it for what it is: a continuation/remake of the best part of a franchise, and a decent enough twist to give it its own legs to stand on. It's not the greatest film ever made, but it was a fun romp to chew up an hour and a half. The way they worked the franchise was just the next logical step it had to take.

I Still Know What You Did Last Summer -- 1998 -- R

This was an incredibly uneven sequel to the rather decent "I Know What You Did Last Summer" of the previous year. It starts out pretty good with Julie James being the girl haunted by what went on in the previous film. She kind of lives in fear since the body of her haunter was never found. They win a radio contest and that's when the contrivances begin. These are things that happen for the sole purpose of furthering the plot, but the chances of them happening in reality are slim to none.

We actually start with Ray's trip to meet Julie. The last word anyone got on Ray was that he's working all weekend, and yet, by some freak coincidence, the fisherman blocks his path on the highway to meet Julie. This is where the movie started to lose it and we're not even 20 minutes in. There is no way anyone could have known that Ray would be on that road at that moment. None. Not even Ray would have known that.

Julie gets a warning on a Karaoke screen. In the midst of a song, it spouts "I know what you did last summer" before blanking out. Sorry, karaoke lyrics are preprogrammed for the song. In order for this to work, the killer would have had to pick the song for Julie to sing and have reprogrammed the lyrics. Yeah...no. Spooky, but unbelievable.

I just love the way everyone yells in this one. Ty yells at Julie and makes fun of her. The weird part here is that at the beginning, Kara knows about Ben Willis and what happened the previous year. Then Julie tells the whole story and no one seems to have known about it. They are accepting at one moment, then Julie is a bad friend or something for keeping the truth to herself. Would friends completely discount the words of their friend so quickly?

Gotta love the whole "we'll go this way. Stay here; you'll be safer." Yeah, this guy's been running everywhere and one place is any safer than another? Why don't people just stick together in these movies?

And finally, the creme de la creme of stupidity: Kara jumps off a balcony and lands of the glass roof of the greenhouse. Of course, she flips out about being on this glass roof; who wouldn't? Then she performs the "my director told me to do this" move. She steps directly in the middle of a glass panels and watches it splinter under her feet. She then places her other foot right next to it. Guess what happens. If you said the panel broke under her weight and she falls into a locked building, you win the prize. An intelligent person would have had her walk on the support beams.

So, this movie failed miserably to deliver any more than an average slasher to an above average first installment. Most of what happened occurred because the plot required it. The "slicker guy" had no rhyme to his death choices and it was mainly a "kill everyone and take no prisoners" plot that is the fare of slashers. Nothing new. Nothing innovative. Just an average movie.

The Iron Giant -- 1999 -- PG

This was an easy going, kid flick kind of movie, though it has some violent points that point it towards the older child crowd. It follows a boy who discovers a large metal man in the forest and befriends it. From there, we get the cliche "government-wants-to-destroy-it" plot while the boy tries to protect it and discover where it came from and teach it how to communicate.

The weakest part of this story comes at the beginning with two back-to-back contrivances. If one accepts that this is a kid movie, then you can overlook these things since everything else works fairly well on a first viewing.

1) The kid sees something outside, and so he takes his BB gun, his helmet, and a flashlight to check it out. He walks into a dark forest in the middle of the night to find out what's there. Um, yeah...no. Kids don't walk into scary places at night. Besides, the way that flashlight was strapped to the BB gun, any shots he fired would have clocked him in the head.

2) He saves the robot by pulling down a large on/off switch on the side of a power plant. Ok, first, while powerplants might have an on/off switch, they would not be so accessible, and if they were, there would be a big lock on it to stop passers-by from just turning it off like that. That was almost harder to buy than the kid walking into the forest at night.

After these two hiccups, the movie flowed just fine. Kid hides metal-eating robot in scrapyard, makes friends with owner, government tries to destroy robot, robot fights back and saves day when government guy does something stupid. The end.

It's a cute little movie with a feel good ending once you get to it. This one has been called overlooked and underrated, and I tend to agree.

Innerspace -- 1987 -- PG

Kind of a science-fiction/romantic comedy going on with this one. When we open up, we find Tuck Pendleton making an idiot of himself and we realize right away that he's probably the main character. Shortly thereafter, we get him and Lydia making out before she dumps him. Nice little RomCom setup. Then he gets into a pod and gets miniaturized to be injected into a rabbit, but instead, bad guys show up and he ends up in the body of a supermarket assistant manager.

What follows is a Jack, the manager, running from the bad guys while trying to figure out what to do with his little passenger. It's a great little ride and not a bad film. Very imaginative and neat to see the inside of a body and someone travelling through it.

The ending was a little ambiguous and only marginally ties up the loose ends, so that's a slight weakness. But overall, it worked farily well for me.

The Innocents -- 1961

This is a freaky little horror flick that keeps you glued and wondering what the heck is going on during its odd little plot. And I mean that is the best way possible.

We get a new governess in Miss Gibbons who is charged to go out to a country estate to look after two orphans. Their uncle, who hires her, just wants to be left alone. She is in full charge. Once she arrives, she finds the children endearing at first, and then begins wondering what happened to the last governess when strange things begin happening. People begin appearing in odd places; a man on a rooftop and through a window; a woman in the hall and across the lake. The children claim they can't see these apparitions but are they telling the truth? Did their last governess really die accidentally, or did someting else happen to her? These questions build and build throughout the story until we get a final resolution to the bizarre situation.

The plot seems carefully laid out to lay questionable suspicion on the children and force Miss Gibbons to simultaneously suspect them, believe they are innocents, and even think they are victims. As it unfolds, she becomes more and more desperate, but the plot continues to hold back only giving us nibbles the whole way.

The leads are fairly well drawn. We get a sense of Miss Gibbons and her desire to help the children. The children are essentially the same character in two bodies with little difference except that they are boy and girl. The staff is very tight lipped and drawn fairly thinly, only giving us enough to acquaint ourselves with them, but not really know them. Only the housekeeper gets much screentime, the being spoken of, but rarely seen.

I did enjoy this film. It held my interest from one end to the other, and maybe I expect too much of character. It creates a very creepy atmosphere that is maintained, and a climax that is downright frightening.

Identity -- 2003 -- R

Ah yes. After a slew of crummy F13 movies, I finally watch this one. I've had it in my library for awhile now, but never had a chance to watch. This was an awesome flick. While not perfect in every way, it does serve to explain itself and every inconsistency you think you see.

This movie involves a group of people who become stranded at a remote motel in a rainstorm. One by one, they start dropping like flies to some unknown killer. Is it one of them, or is it someone on the outside? We know eventually, or at least we think we do. Loads of misdirection going on here, and I wouldn't even think of spoiling any of it.

What I knew about this movie going in was that all of these people have something in common, and they all arrived at this hotel for a specific purpose. I was waiting to find out how this little phenomenon would be explained, since even by coincidence, this was a long shot to occur since the rain played an integral part of getting them there as well as a slew of other coincidences. Bottom line, in my head, this could not have been planned by anyone...however, the plot came through and gave me an explanation I could accept. Imagine that.

We get the idea pretty quickly that not everything is right with this motel. It happens right about the time the killer escapes, runs away from the motel, sees lights in the distance, and ends up back at the motel. When bizarre things like this happen, I start enjoying it cause this is the kind of story I really like. The deeper I got into the story, the more I liked it. I'm actually a sucker for this type of film.

The characters were all fairly clever. There were a few cliches thrown in to make it easy to relate to them, but on the whole they worked really well with a couple of surprises here and there.

So this was a great film. I thoroughly enjoyed it. It was so refreshing to get something good after all the clunkers I've sat through lately.

The Illusionist -- 2006 -- PG-13

A love story set against the backdrop of a magician's trade exemplifies the basic idea behind this tale of a master magician and his childhood lover lost due to her place in society. The magic is more than just his stage tricks, though, as an elaborate tale unfolds that seems conventional, but you learn once the secret is out, that a lot more went on than we initially suspeected.

Eisenheim is the stage name of a boy who left his young life to pursue all the greatest secrets to being an effective master at the slight of hand arts. He was driven to this departure primarily due to threats by the family of the girl he had fallen in love with (and we're not talking unrequited love here; think Romeo and Juliet). Fifteen years later, he comes to town to find her engaged to the local ruler who is said to be somewhat violent in his private dealings with women. When the pair recognize each other, they vow to to what they planned fifteen years before: run away together. But with scrutiny of the crown and local police everywhere, they can't get a moment alone much less plan a getaway. Meanwhile, Eisenheim shows no fear of the ruler which only serves to make the ruler want to shut him down and throw him out. After a turn of events, Eisenheim finds that he doesn't wish to leave, but corrode the ruler's position from the stage in a most subtle way.

Really, this is the story of our Illusionist, his girl, the ruler, and the detective who wants to figure out what the heck is going on with these three. These four are fairly well rounded throughout the tale. We get a good balance of plot and character moments so we get some measure of understanding of these people, and once it all falls into place like a well planned game of Tetris, we understand these people rather well.

It does have a surprise ending to it that unfolds like a Japanese thriller; that being it feels like a sudden psychotic episode as it is all visually explained at the last minute. Despite the suddenness of the final explanation, it was all put together very cleverly to make it work the way it did, and I do have to admit a certain amount of pleasure at seeing it laid out there.

The film moved pretty quickly from point to point, so I didn't get bored watching this. It focused on the characters using the magic as a backdrop instead of it being one long, overdrawn magic show, which is a good way to have done it.

One point that bugged me, but could have been deliberate within the story, was a point where the lovers are exchanging a case of some kind and they kiss on the street in front of everyone. I thought that was toeing the line of disbelief a bit much.

Another interesting thing I noticed in all the films I've watched is that it rarely matters the time frame when people have these sex scenes; it actually matters more when the film was made. Anymore, these types of scenes seem rather obligatory, and in the framework of this tale, seemed very much that way. In older films, these scenes are implied rather heavily when they are necessary for the plot, and completely non-existent when they aren't essential for the story...and most of the time, they aren't. During the period this story was set in, it is unlikely that this pair would have done anything. It is possible, yes, but since they weren't exactly in the time or place of free sex, it seems that there would be more retraint on their parts. Did the scene lend much to the story of their characters? Not really. We already had a tale of separated and frustrated love. We already understood their connection and situation. This scene seemed like it was thrown to satisfy a particulr demographic element. Twenty or thirty years ago, it wouldn't have been here at all, and we would have lost nothing to the story.

The film was actually quite good despite its shortcomings. The magic sections were completely enjoyable and even more so when some things got explained. Tension ran high and I was riveted for the last half of the film to see how it all played out. So it was, overall, very good.

Interview With A Serial Killer (White Angel) -- 1993 -- NR

I ended up with this one because while I was perusing the titles on Netflix, the synopsis listed there sounded interesting to me. Like so many titles I watch, that's all the info I had to go on. What I got was a film with some very interesting points to it, along with some really weird stuff to make it work.

Basically, we have a woman who is a writer who kills her husband one dark and stormy night, and ever since she has been unable to turn out another novel. Meanwhile, London is besieged with a serial killer the papers are calling the White Angel, due to his/her Modus Operandi of killing only blonde women dressed in white. It turns out that this writer had killed her husband and bricked him up in the wall of her house and this fact is discovered by the White Angel killer, who threatens to turn the writer in for murder unless she writes a book about the White Angel's life. It was a very nice spin for twenty minutes.

A fair job is done from there to keep the plot going, but it can hardly be said to be running at full tilt. In fact, several very strange things happen in the course of the plot that make you question its validity. The weirdest of them all is the computer that matches fingerprints. They find fingerprints of the White Angel on a weapon used in one of its murders, and this is what prompts the Angel to ask our writer girl to write the biography. This is placed into a database that checked about a print per second in a database of 100,000. So they have this computer working day and night for a month to match this print. Seriously? So no other cases come up that would require the use of this computer. Very weird.

In addition, either this killer is really dumb (which most serial killers aren't) or just blind as the writer got away with a whole lot of stuff that I doubt anyone would get away with in the presence of any other human being, especially one whose moves are being watched. A particular oddity was this safety deposit box key. It looks like the writer made an impression of this key early on, but she seemed to have to do the same thing later as well. She acquired the second impression in a really weird way and had to return it to its place is a highly unlikely fashion as well, It didn't make a lot of sense that she'd even remotely get away with that.

Anyway, our leads were fine character-wise as the writer and the killer engaged in diatribes related to their individual issues of knocking people off. It served to get insight into who they were, and the interview setting of several of these scenes served to make what would normally be blatant exposition fit into the fabric of the storyline.

In the end, it wasn't a bad film at all. It had some fairly tense moments, but these were balanced by the occasional bit of weirdness of plot or action that continued to knock the film down from good to just ok.

Ice Age 2: The Meltdown -- 2006 -- PG

It's another CG animated flick that is all the rage these days. You don't get much cell animation anymore except on TV and even that's rapidly going to CG. What's the gist of this one? Well, it's clearly a kids movie, and not just because it's only PG.

The plot behind this one involves our trio of mammoth, sabretooth tiger, and sloth living in a community of critters near an ice dam. The ice is melting revealing vegetation and that sort of thing, but the real danger is that ice dam. There is water behind it that will cover the entire plains where they live, especially since their environment is a big bowl that will serve to contain the water when the dam goes. So they begin a journey to a large log that will serve as a boat to ride out the flood when it comes, but while everyone else sets right off, our trio gets sidetracked by girl mammoth and her possum "brothers." Hence the romantic subplot as the mammoth believes he is the last of his species, and the discovery of this female introduces the idea that there is hope for repopulation...if he can convince her that she is not a possum.

It's got some decent humor and the characters are fun in their construction. It gets emotional in regards to the mammoth subplot, but that is only a small piece of the larger whole in this one. Some parts of the plot are a bit contrived in order to give the kids a happy ending, but it works for the most part. Of course, we still have the nut-loving Scrat, who provides interludes to the big story as he chases down his one nut, and this time, even factors into the ultimate climax of the story (albeit in a rather cheap way).

The issues in this one are rather numerous and lead to some of the plot contrivances. The main issue I had was with the antagonistic force. As the critters all set out, pieces of the ice dam had fallen into the small lake they used for water. In one of these frozen pieces were two nasty looking carnivorous fish. They were completely encased in ice, but somehow were totally on when they thawed out. In addition, this lake appeared to be walled in where the water had come down over the ice dam, but later, the trio encountered these nasty fish while crossing another frozen body of water. How'd they get there? Then again, where'd this body of water come from?

The final climax, of course, involved the breaking of the dam and the water flooding this encased plain. Given the size of the journey, and the landscape they crossed, there is no way the entire area would flood. One striking feature that would make it impossible was during the vultures' song, it is revealed that the "bowl" has a huge depression where another lake of water flows and looks more like it empties to the ocean. It also has some enormous crevasses where the water would have little hope of overflowing. Basically, given the terrain they crossed and the tense moments this terrain gave us, it would be impossible for this area to totally flood the way it did.

Some other issues are more just me and minor. The constant references to popular music got old very quickly. The vultures' song was very amusing, but since we had been force fed song reference after song reference to this point, it became just one more song thrown in among so many. Another oddity was a direct reference to the dinosaurs. None of these animals would have any memory of the dinosaurs, nor would they be able to comment about the getting sloppy.

It's a cute movie with a feel good flow to it. A lot of silly slapstick comedy, one liners, and toilet humor make the kids laugh while some subtle (and even overt) innuendo gop right over their heads, but they'll still enjoy it despite its implausabilities.

The Invisible -- 2007 -- PG-13

What a cool premise. A guy wanders out of the woods after a bad night only to find no one can see or hear him. Is he dead? Is he a ghost? He thinks he is, but much to his surprise, he learns that the wait on this side of the afterlife is quite short...unless you’re still alive. So begins the race to find his body to save it before he dies and passes away entirely. Big problem, though. No one can see or hear him...no one, except one girl. But can he convince her he is real and to save him before it’s too late?

It’s very hard to talk much about this movie without giving too much away. When I read the blockbuster sleeve, in fact, it gave away a bit of the plot I didn’t want to know before hand. What I said above is what was in the trailer, and that’s about all I’ll give away. The plot, itself, runs a bit on the slow side. It tries to be a slow-burning fuse, but that only works if it attached to something that actually explodes. This one works to build, but fizzles out on a continual basis.

Our boy wanders the world, and reacts to it in a weird way. It’s like he is still in it, but not really, which is somewhat true. God, I love ambiguousness sometimes. The trouble is he seems to be able to pass through some objects, but not others. He has to open some doors, but at other times, he just appears in rooms with people. He seems to have to find people, but at other times, he can just be by their side. It’s an inconsistency you want to forgive because "he’s a ghost," but based on his interactions, find it difficult to let go of.

When it comes to characters, our main couple is fairly well drawn. We understand who they are, their family life, their ambitions, what brought them to where they are, why they do what they do. It’s very refreshing to find so much work put into these people. Everyone around them was filled out to a much, much lesser extent. You have a basic idea who everyone else is, but they are clearly only bit players and receive about that much attention too. Their existence is there to fill key plot points, and then they are let go of almost completely.

The ending rings very bitter-sweet, and it can be argued that it could not have gone any other way, although as an audience, we would definitely want it to end differently. The climactic scene where everything was building to only served to give us the final fizzle as all the momentum comes to a grinding halt while our little couple gets their moments to eek out the final bits of plot to close the film. It takes a film with questionable believability to begin with (it’s a ghost story), and drives us right out of the moment with a contrived bit that lacks the punch it is intended to provide.

On the one hand, I liked the movie. I enjoyed how it unfolded, and how, in a Hitchcockian way, we actually know almost everything and everyone placing us in a superior position to the characters involved. The problem is, this knowledge is not used in a suspenseful way, leaving us to watch as these characters just play out their story as we expect them to, instead of throwing any surprises or twists at us. Would I recommend a watching of it? Sure, it has its moments, and I’ll admit that I did enjoy the ride, but it’s not something worth watching more than once.

I Know Who Killed Me -- 2007 -- R

When I saw the name of this film, I had just seen the trailer for The Invisible. I assumed that this film was going to be somewhat similar, but with the minor star power of Lindsay Lohan and an R rating attached. I assumed wrong.

Where The Invisible involved a ghost-like kid, this one has a girl who was kidnapped and mutilated, but when she shows back up, she thinks she is someone else entirely. She acts different; she talks different; it seems like she created an alter ego to deal with the trauma of her injury. Not only is there an alter ego, this alter ego has an entire history laid out in great detail. The stories have no inconsistencies. They know that she is the missing girl, but how to get through to her.

Meanwhile, our injured heroine deals with the idea that she is who everyone else says she is, not who she thinks she is. Regardless, she looks around for clues to her mutilator, and as the movie progresses, comes up with reasons why things happened and how it affects her. It’s enough to make David Lynch sing a bit with the number of turns her history takes, and given the setup, it works. After all, she’s the same person; she’s just lost her mind for a bit.

While somewhat interesting for a time, the plot grew quickly tiresome. You’re not yourself; we got it. No, instead the movie drives that point home over and over and over again, like a stake in the railroad tracks. Rather than spending time moving the investigation forward or exploring who she really is, we take continual trips back to her doing something out of character for the other one, or the obligatory "I need to create interest in the male populace" strip-club scenes, in which Lindsay Lohan dances...over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over. And not just for a few seconds here and there. When we hit the club, we’re there forever...and nothing happens.

You can only watch Lindsay wiggle her butt for so long before you want the movie to move on...please? You can move on now. Yeah, go on.

Characters? Well, there was a basic sense of the lead character...characters? Lindsay’s Aubrey/Dakota characters had enough to make you wonder "what the heck?", but everyone else lacked severely. I didn’t even know the boyfriend was the boyfriend before he was declared as such later. She had friends...their names? I’m sure they were in the script. Her parents were Daniel and Susan. I got that because the Dakota character made a firm point of using them every time. Lots of cardboard cutouts though. Very little tie in to anything form anywhere.

The third act was out of no where. She leaves the house, but how? I thought she was watched. As soon as I wonder why she isn’t followed, Dad shows up. Convenient. Now he’s playing along. The killer was easily predicted. They didn’t even make it difficult. That whole bit was far too easy, although they pulled the stupid move of splitting up. Well, actually dad left her in the car (why?) while he explored, and then she randomly got out of the car and explored too.

Ending? Oh, dear, don’t get me started. Let me say when I watched the deleted scenes, and saw what was likely the INTENDED ending, it made much, much more sense, albeit taking the chance of making the audience feel cheated. The way the ending felt is that they wrote it one way, but when the studio heads saw it, they flipped out and wanted it changed to the more ambiguous, weird ending. Bad news fellas. Since the film built to the intended ending, the weird one didn’t work at all. The credits rolled and I said "huh?"

So this had the potential of being something interesting, but with the character sucked out, and a sorry ending that didn’t work, it only holds the potential without delivering it. Oh well.

I Am Legend -- 2007 -- PG-13

Here is a fascinating one. A virus hailed as the miracle cure to cancer has an unexpected side effect: it’s deadly to anyone not naturally immune to it. We’re left in a very empty New York City with only one man and his dog to lead us through the story. 2/3’s of the tale is a one man story, and they pull it off incredibly well as we feel the loneliness of his situation of being what appears to be the only person left alive on Earth.

But we’re quick to learn he isn’t truly alone. Something else is out there. Something causes him to reinforce the doors and windows to his home with steel shutters and locks. Is it just the wildlife running free out there, or is there something else out there at night? What else did this virus create?

We have one character, really. And his backstory is laid out very clearly in the way of flashbacks to how the world, and New York, got to be the way it was and well as setting us his personal situation and what happened to his family. This sub story is revealed in little bites to make us curious as to whether his family is out there or not.

Really, the heart of the story is his looking to find a cure for the viral condition that’s out there and showing us the world he lives in. There’s a lot for us to discover as he does little more than go about his daily life, and really, the fact that it’s his daily life makes it all the more interesting as we are consistently wowed by the weird world science has created for them.

As could be expected in a situation like this, we also find that not only is his world messed up, but he is slowly but surely losing his mind. This is also given in little bites, but we get the idea that he not only is subject to some of the rules of this world, but he has created some rules of his own that serve to give him some measure of human interaction that he desperately desires, but cannot have in a world popuated by one. Apparently, his dog is just not enough to talk to, but this microcosm he made for himself almost leads to his downfall.

It’s a movie that gives the worst case scenario to a miracle drug gone horribly wrong, and makes us wonder whether all things should be cured or whether life is just life and we should leave well enough alone. Curing cancer may be the ultime milestone in medical science, but a cure that leads to a decimation of the world’s population is hardly worth it.