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Saturday, March 28, 2009

Renny Harlin...and why I hate him

There is only one director that can cause me to go insane with rage. A director whose movies are almost guaranteed to suck. No not Joel Schumacher, if we forgot Batman and Robin he's pretty good. But the guy I'm talking about is Renny Harlin where so far I have not liked any of his movies, not one. Granted, out of his famous movies, I haven't seen Nightmare on Elm Street 4(I have minor hope for that), Mindhunters(I do have hope for that), Exorcist: The Beginning(no hope for that) and of course 12 Rounds(It's like The Marine without any laughs!) but I've seen enough to say he should never direct again. Especially with this exceedingly large amount of proof.

Die Hard 2 - The first Die Hard was an action masterpiece. Die Hard with a Vengeance was a lesser masterpiece. Live Free or Die Hard was entertaining in an over-the-top way. I will not be using any of those words in regards to Die Hard 2. I'm not sure what's more disheartening, the fact that Dennis Franz and that other guy who played his brother was in it or how un-Die Hard it actually was. Sure the Die Hard movies had stupid characters but they were competent in their own way. The police chief from the first tried to hold McClane back but he knew what he was doing, Dennis Franz and that other guy were in the too dumb to live category. And the big twist where the National Guard turns out to be terrorists involving McClane to kill most of the bad guys at once! At once! That's not Die Hard, McClane kills terrorists ones and twos at a time & killing about 100 at once is a slap to the face of everything that Die Hard stands for.

I hope I will not be talking as much with the rest.

The Adventures of Ford Fairlane - Ok, I have to admit I almost like this despite me never really getting Andrew Dice Clay's act. But Clay is pretty good for the most part but there's one fatal flaw, his annoying voice-overs. Those follow his stage persona and they get annoying real fast. Other than that, I can't hate it too much.

Cliffhanger - But this I can hate...a lot. The worst thing is that it had the tools to be good, and it fools you in thinking it was until John Lithgow's evil plan went awry and he landed in Stallone territory, but something went horribly wrong. The first problem is that they're surfer dudes masquerading as snow-boarding dudes. This doesn't work for the simple reason that they're on snow which is not a beach. There's no oceans, just a mountain. Nothing about these makes sense with those surfer/snow-boarding dudes. Then somehow Stallone has to climb a mountain with his T-shirt and I'm thinking: body heat comes from fat, not from muscles! He should be armless from all the frostbite he gets it. Not to mention that Stallone gives his worst one-liner ever "Takes a fortune to heat this place." while he's burning money...even worse than the Cobra one-liners, not "You're the disease, I'm the cure." that's awesome, but the rest were lazy and horrible.

Cutthroat Island - There's pirates, a monkey and Frank Langella as a pirate, what can possibly go wrong? Then it failed spectacularly and took down Carolco studios with it and seeing it, I guess I'm not so surprised. It's pretty much so God-awfully boring that kills it, nothing pops, nothing dazzles and nothing entertains. Also, Geena Davis says one line like she was doing Speed Racer...and you know how awesome Cutthroat Island would've been if it was treated like Speed Racer? Extremely awesome, that's how awesome it would've been.

The Long Kiss Goodnight - I'm just going to copy and paste my review on the Facebook's Movie application cause I said it all there:

It's a battle between the awesome screenwriter Shane Black and the extremely non-awesome director Renny Harlin. Shane Black might actually have a chance! Amnesia movies always have compulsive entertainment value and in comes Samuel L. Jackson but more importantly Brian Cox, being all awesome saying the best line in the movie! "That was exciting and tomorrow we go to the zoo." But wait, Renny is mounting a comeback by killing off Brian Cox! Where else will this awesomeness come from Samuel L. Jackson? But Renny lays him out too! He's probably dead and all we left is Geena Davis. Then she loses her amnesia! Once that amnesia lifts halfway through, Renny dominates the rest of the movie. Even Samuel L. Jackson coming back from the dead for no apparent reason cannot help Shane Black now. The winner...Renny Harlin....boooo-hiisssss. The losers....the fans and anybody who wanted some Geena Davis nudity....so close.

Deep Blue Sea - There's sharks, Samuel L. Jackson, LL Cool J, Thomas Jane and a really hot British chick, what could possibly go wrong? By now I should not only know what can possibly go wrong I should also stop asking what can possibly go wrong. First off, we all know what happens to Samuel L. Jackson and that is kinda cool so we can't depend on Jackson for this. LL is pretty much annoying black guy who should be killed cause he's so annoying but he lives so there's goes LL making this movie awesome. Jane is the average pretty-boy hero...this is before he became awesome so there goes him. That hot British chick? Yeah, she was the reason I watched it 'til the end cause I knew she was going to strip down for some reason...and she did to her bra and panties to insulate her from electricity to kill a shark I think. So yeah, really disappointing shark movie.

Driven - It's a movie for NASCAR fans....and do I feel bad for them. Stallone has come back to Renny to make NASCAR Rocky but he was confused on who the Rocky was: himself or Kip Pardue so we don't know who we're supposed to care about making us care for no one. Then the kicker is that Kip Pardue broke his leg and Burt Reynolds, yes that Burt Reynolds, makes him jump on his broken 10 times so Kip can prove to Reynolds that he can drive a car cause that's how you know for some reason. At least the crashes were cool.

The Covenant - It's Beverly Hills 90210 with witchcraft! And I should know better than this but what can possibly go wrong? A lot...in ways I never thought possible or I would if I ever liked Beverly Hills 90210 in the first place...or witchcraft for that matter. But nothing could ever prepare me for such a borefest that's filled with man-ass. MAN-ASS! Lots of it! And all men get is a Lara Ramseys' naked back...good thing she delivered in The Ruins.

And that is why Renny Harlin should be shot.

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