by Jack Garcia
The two movies I’ve seen that came out this past weekend were both horrific. One—Paranormal Activity 3—was actually trying to be scary, while the other—The Three Musketeers—was frightening in how flat-out awful it was…
Paranormal Activity 3 AWESOME!
I know these movies aren’t everyone’s cup of tea, but I find them to be very effective; the third installment being my very favorite. Sisters Katie (Chloe Csengery) and Kristi (Jessica Tyler Brown), whom we’ve gotten to know as adults in the first two films, are young girls living in 1988 with their mother Julie (Lauren Bittner) and her boyfriend Dennis (Christopher Nicholas Smith). Kristi has an imaginary friend named Toby whom she talks to incessantly. While this behavior is seemingly innocent at first, the strange displays of paranormal activity quickly cause Dennis to believe that there’s something more going on. Being a wedding videographer, he’s well equipped with cameras and editing software to catch on tape the extraordinary happenings.
The movie follows the same basic format as the other two films, but really does it well. The film does a great job of slowly building the tension, scaring us here, scaring us there with its low-key special effects until the finale literally had me so scared I stopped breathing! Seriously, I enjoyed every minute of this movie, particularly a scene playing “Bloody Mary” in the bathroom (and for those who’ve seen the trailer, it is nothing like you think) and quite a few startlingly violent attacks. Some of the scares are arguably cheap scares, but in my opinion, a scare is a scare!
Considering the horror movies out in theaters this Halloween season, this movie is by far your best option. Dream House was mediocre at best, The Thing was just plain boring, but Paranormal Activity 3 is packed with plenty of things to make you jump, make you scream, and make you pee your pants!
The Three Musketeers AWFUL
I hated Abduction. I hated I Don’t Know How She Does It. I hated Shark Night 3D, yet somehow a movie about a lake full of sharks with cameras attached to them to film their kills is surprisingly less idiotic than the newest retelling of The Three Musketeers by director Paul W.S. Anderson.
D’Artagnan (Logan Lerman) is a young hot-head who goes to Paris in hopes of becoming a Musketeer and fighting for the king. He meets up with Athos, Porthos and Aramis—but you can forget about the last two since the screenwriters sure did… they are pretty useless here—and soon they are fighting alongside each other as a fantastic foursome. There are also a few mustache-twirling villains who literally twirl their mustaches and say dumb things like “the game is afoot” including a cardinal named Richelieu (Christoph Waltz), the Duke of Buckingham (Orlando Bloom) and a sexy double agent named Milady (Milla Jovovich)—who makes up for her lack of a mustache with a prominently displayed set of hooters.
I could try to explain the plot to you, but it’s completely irrelevant and nonsensical. Just know that there are flying pirate ships involved, lots of clunky dialogue, action sequences akin to The Matrix or even Mission Impossible and a plethora of poorly-executed CGI effects. All of this ridiculousness might be okay if it was at least funny or entertaining, but the result is just big-budget boredom.
1 comment:
Good reviews. :)
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