Which by the way would be an amazing twist on both franchises, John McClaine sucked back into time fighting along side Captain Jack Sparrow against terrorist Pirates! Anyway…
Here is my reviews for Live Free or Die Hard and Pirates: At World’s End…better late then never:
And just for clarification:
Three Thumbs Up: So amazing I sprouted another hand!
Two Thumbs Up: Great!!!
Thumb Up: Good
Thumb in the middle: Ok
Thumb Down: Bad
Two Thumbs Down: Horrible
Three Thumbs Down: Clawing my eyes out would have been better and more enjoyable.
And lets not forget about these additional bad boys:
DVD Purchase Worthy=Even better!!!!
Rent or On Demand Worthy=Good but not that good
Wait till on cable=not worth the money
Just don’t waste your time=don’t even bother
I’m going to review a little and rant a little and then finally I’ll give it its rating, SPOILER ALERT! you’ve been warned! Let’s get this rolling!
Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End
First, Pirates, better known as Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End, came out back in May, MAY!, yeah, I’ve let this one sit for a while. I don’t think I’m going to take too long with these two reviews, but I must say that Pirates 3 (or just Pirates for the duration of this review) wasn’t as great as I would have hoped for it to have been. Back when I saw it I was really ready to give it a huge bashing but then I sat on it and thought about it–like I did for the second one. I must say that I think I need to see it again to give it a really good review, because for the most part movies like this were really meant for multiple viewings, someone from the production (either Director Gore Verbinski or one of the writers said it in the commentary of the second one) but as it stands right now, at this very moment, it wasn’t a bad movie. Far from it. But like Spiderman 3 before it, I felt that they wanted to give us too much and delivered very little. There is a lot of things that they didn’t need to do and that they should have done. For something that had a budget of THREE HUNDRED MILLION!!! they should have done much more. If it wasn’t going to be ready for this summer, they should have taken its time and gotten it primed and set for next summer.
SPOILER HERE: I thought the final battle at the end of the film, with a maelstrom (a giant whirlpool in the middle of the ocean) looked cool in the trailer, and it was a great visual, but I thought that they should have had all the other ships fighting also not just The Black Pearl fighting against The Flying Ducthman. It would have made the ending so much better. SPOILER ENDS
I didn’t like the ending so much, I thought there should have been a more definitive ending, even if they have (or had) intentions of making further Pirate movies. I did like what they were implying by the ending, I just wish it had more of an ending like the first film had, everyone happy and sailing into the sunset.
Do I hope that there is a forth Pirate film? Yes and no. Yes because I like where I think they are going and No because they’ll probably mess it all up.
I love all three of the Pirate films and when I say my favorite films are Pirates I like all three of them, I like the series. Like when I say Star Wars or Back to the Future, I don’t mean just one film I mean them all.
One thing that I have to say that comes to mind is that I wish there were more new things that added more interest to this movie, there were a lot of elements in this film that were added but ultimately led no where which made me shake my head. I enjoyed this film, because it gave us yet another look into the world of the Pirates of the Caribbean, but still, I wish that there was more too it than how it ended and how it played out.
And with that I’ll give you my rating:
Thumb Up: Good
But I do say this about it:
DVD Purchase Worthy
Live Free or Die Hard
As for Die Hard, after all those months of me complaining that I hated the titled to it, I found that, after I saw the movie, it just didn’t matter. This is one of those sequels, like Indy IV, that I was really worried about. But, after seeing it, I have to say that I think, so far this summer it is the best sequel I’ve seen!
As everyone knows who reads the blog, or if you’re just getting on for the first time, I’m a huge HUGE!! fan of the Pirate movies, even through their flaws, but I loved Live Free or Die Hard so much more than Pirates. It may not have been a traditional Die Hard (regular guy in one place fighting terrorists) but it was awesome. About twenty minutes into it I thought to myself “this can’t be the last one…please don’t let it be the last one”… And judging by the amount it cost to make (estimated 110 million) compared to some of the other films like Spidey and Pirates (both close to, about or over 300 million) this one is making its money back and will continue to make its money back. 20th Century Fox is said to be very happy with how its performing, how its been keeping up at the top five of the box office so far and it has been bringing in people, ( its currently aside from Knocked Up–which I haven’t seen–this is becoming the sleeper hit of the summer; I also think word of mouth is helping this one).
This is the first film in a long time that I am considering seeing for a second time and wouldn’t mind seeing it again if people would like to see it. I think that Bruce Willis brought back John McClaine in the biggest way. At first I was shitting on the PG-13 rating but after seeing the movie, they allowed so much into it that I didn’t even realize that it wasn’t an R rating. Lets just say that it is a very very HARD (as in Die Hard! I’m just kidding, that was cheesy) PG-13 film. I do hope that they put out an R rated DVD or an Unrated DVD with specials and things.
I thought that the bad guy was good, not as bad ass as Col. Stuart from Die Hard 2 (and if you’re paying attention, Die Hard 2’s subtitle was the very gay and very 80’s–even though it came out in 1990–Die Hard 2: Die Harder), Hans Grueber from the first one will always be my favorite, I always felt that Simon was a great bad guy, but he just wasn’t as present in the film as the other two guys. The bad guy in this one, Thomas Gabriel (played by: Timothy Olyphant, better known as Mickey from Scream 2) was good. He was very commanding and you felt the pressure of the film because of the situation with the terrorist taking over the computer systems of the USA. It was a completely different feeling this time around with terrorists seeing that we are in a post 9/11 world.
Mind you this is the first film since 9/11 that has terrorists in it (as far as I can remember), which is fine by me, I like the bad guys fighting the terrorist. I just wish that we had a real John McClaine running around screaming Yippee-Kay-Yay! everytime someone tried to blow something up.
Though many of the action scenes were very implossible, take a look at the track record of the Die Hard films, when people say “oh that is so fake” ask them, “have you seen the other films in this franchise?” Its like when people go to see a James Bond movie are they going there to be wowed by the opening credits, they are going to see the amazing action set pieces that are worth the price of admission; and if they don’t like it, there’s the damn door. Please let it hit you on the way out.
Die Hard was an amazingly funny action movie that was worth the twelve year wait. I hope that if they do decide to do another movie they don’t wait that long and do it fast!!!
I give Live Free or Die Hard this rating:
Three Thumbs Up: So amazing I sprouted another hand!
along with this bad boy:
DVD Purchase Worthy=Even better!!!!
Hope you enjoyed these reviews and that when we see new ones of these franchises that they are even better than these are.
–Socram AKA Cos
PS Next up! Transformers and Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix are up next!