Movie review: Hitchhiker's Guide & Final Cut & The Jacket & Ong-bak

Alright, so I watch alot of movies. Me gots to have my stories!

Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

Hitchhiker fans are like a cult, speaking in tongues of their own, and giggling like little girls at inside jokes. It's hard to describe, but only that it's like the humour in the Princess Bride, boiled and concentrated 10X; a delicacy for those who like to indulge in over-thinking every statement.

As I am one of those, I enjoyed the movie. I also read the book, although couldn't quite recall enough of it to verify how faithful the movie was. It's definitely not for the uninitiated, but I thought it was worth seeing! No point saying more. If you haven't read the book, don't see it. If you've read it, you probably already saw it before me.

5/7

Final Cut

Good sci-fi movies are rarely about the science fiction. Robin Williams plays a serious role in this one about an age when implants at birth will allow audio visual recording of an entire life. Like a home movie, to be edited by "cutters" and presented at the person's funeral as a tribute to a life. It's an interesting concept to be sure, raising questions of consent of an implant before a person is aware, and how one might behave if they knew that everything's being recorded. Execution could have been better though. A bit choppy in story line, and a few lose ends untied, it could have used a longer runtime, considering it's fairly short anyway. An enticing movie that leaves you wanting a deeper exploration.

7/11

The Jacket

This wasn't what I had expected. This movie is much more Butterfly Effect than the horror it was peddled as. Which is good since Butterfly Effect was a pleasent surprise as well. For this type of movie, saying too much will just ruin the punchline. It's a bit slow to get started but makes some sense by the bitter-sweet end.

5/7

Ong-Bak

If you looped the trailer for this movie for a couple hours, there's no need to see this movie. Touted as a showcase for the next Jackie Chan, this just didn't deliver. Sure, the stunts are very cool, but c'mon, two hours of the same stuff, complete with slo-mo replays is just lame. And I'm a Jackie Chan fan, partly because of his stunts, but more because he puts them into often comical situations while he pounds on the baddies. Ong-Bak had none of the personality of Jackie Chan movies. Even cheese would be better than this boring story-line and disconnected gratuitous stunts for the sake of stunts.

3/10