To watch a man with a face like mine being chased down a busy street...

Action / Science Fiction

I’m not usually taken with these particular genres. Even the best action or science fiction movie leaves me wanting more. No. Actually they leave me wanting less. I find action sequences incredibly boring. They can make anything look real now. What’s the fascination anymore? And fight scenes just get longer and longer. Is this what people want in a movie or are the filmmakers just forgetting how to write dialogue and are covering it up with more ass-kicking? Anyway, I’ve come not to bury these genres but to praise them…sort of. You’ll see.

5. Batman Begins (2005) – Well, it wouldn’t have taken much to improve on those last two Schumacher attempts. Does this movie seems so good by comparison or is there really merit? I’d say it has merit. Although they could have taken out Katie Holmes and about 100 ninjas and it would have been a lot better. Still, very enjoyable.

4. The Bourne Identity (2002) / The Bourne Supremacy (2004) – I guess these are odd choices for a man who doesn’t like action sequences. Truth be told I did get a bit bored at times during the especially long action sequences, but this movie gets a lot of usually tired, thriller clichés right. It gets things so right that I can leave all logic at the door and just be entertained. I hope the next one is as solid as the first two.

3. Spiderman 2 (2004) – I had to do a little fast forwarding through some action sequences here, but I thought it ran circles around the first Spiderman movie. Maybe it’s because I had some extra time to get used to Tobey Maguire as Spiderman or maybe it’s because Spiderman is just more human in this movie. I know that probably sounds incredibly dumb, but that’s what made the film unique. How often do you feel sorry for a superhero? I’ve liked Superman my entire life but I have rarely thought to myself, “It must suck to be him.” Who knew that was what was misssing?

2. Black Hawk Down (2001) – After I first saw this movie I couldn’t decide if I really liked it or not. When I walk away thinking that, I usually end up really liking it. This is what happened with Black Hawk Down. It’s an action movie with no hero. An action movie that makes no real attempt to make sure the audience knows what is going on. It’s an action movie that as accurately as possible portrays what really went down in Somalia in 1993. Also, it’s beautifully shot which sounds awful to say considering the subject matter, but it’s visually stunning. I just checked imdb and the cinematographer is Slawomir Idziak. After looking at his credits I’ve only seen two other movies he was involved with. He was the director of photography on Gattaca which was had a lot of rich blues and purples (and a small appearance by Gore Vidal) and he was cinematographer on Men With Guns. I don’t remember much about that movie visually, but that could have been due to budget constraints considering it was a John Sayles movie.

1. The Lord of the Rings Trilogy – There’s absolutely nothing about these movies that would make me want to go see them, but I took my brother-in-law to see the first one and then I ended up asking him to go see the last two with me. My words would be wasted talking about the merits of these movies. Just the fact that this kind of movie is usually not my cup of tea and yet I loved all three and eagerly looked forward to the last two should be enough.