Final Destination 3 (2006) - Winstead bores in Wong's dumb turkey

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Something goes haywire on a rollercoaster full of young people on this excitement-building poster for James Wong's Final Destination 3

A deadly rollercoaster accident is presaged by our protagonist, who gets off the ride in the last moment along with a group of morons, as the accident actually takes place, whereupon the saved individuals begin dying one by one ...

Final Destination 3 is written by Glen Morgan (Willard (2003)) and co-writer/co-producer/director James Wong (The One (2001)), who also directed the franchise's first film, Final Destination (2000)).
Boring Mary Elizabeth Winstead (Sky High (2005)) is our lead, and she plays across from Ryan Merriman (In the Rough (2017, TV-series)), who plays a boring guy, and the rest of the cast is rounded out by college-aged twits, one stupider than the next.
The opening disaster is a lot of fun and handsomely staged, but apart from that the film, including its elaborately staged death scenes, is pretty lame. Nothing from the previous two films is reinvented, and nothing is added to the established rule book of Final Destination either.
Final Destination 3 is a really poor one, SPOILER and it has an enormous train-centered finale, which seems like it is simply added to boost the running time.

Related posts:

2006 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED II]

Final Destination franchise: Final Destination 2 (2003) - Ellis's sequel is a ridiculous but impressive and entertaining array of wicked mayhem
Final Destination (2000) - Wong's entertaining death chiller kicks off a lucrative fatalistic teen franchise (also directed by James Wong)

Watch a clip from the film here

Cost: 25 mil. $
Box office: 117.7 mil. $
= Big hit (returned 4.70 times its cost)
[Final Destination 3 premiered 9 February (Thailand) and runs 93 minutes. Shooting took place in Vancouver, British Columbia from March - June 2005 with reshoots in November 2005. The film opened #2, behind fellow new release Pink Panther, to a 19.1 mil. $ first weekend in North America, where it spent one more week in the top 5 (#5) and grossed 54 mil. $ (45.9 % of the total gross). The 2nd and 3rd biggest markets were the UK with 15.8 mil. $ (13.4 %) and Germany with 4.9 mil. $ (4.2 %). Roger Ebert gave the film a 2/4 star review, translating to a notch higher than this one. Wong returned with Dragonball: Evolution (2009). Winstead returned in Bobby (2006). The franchise continued with The Final Destination (2009). Final Destination 3 is rotten at 43 % with a 5/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

What do you think of Final Destination 3?

Scott Pilgrim vs. the World (2010) - Wright's comic book nonsense is a terrible and costly studio misstep

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+ 2nd Worst Movie of the Year

 

Michael Cera appears on this poster for Edgar Wright's Scott Pilgrim vs. the World to be a rock guitar-loving kid (in a mysterious movie that promises 'epicness')

 

Scott is a lazy teenager who is dating another lazy teenager, but to win her over, he must beat her seven evil exes.

 

Scott Pilgrim vs. the World is an adaptation of Bryan Lee O'Malley's (Lost at Sea (2003)) first five (2004-09) Scott Pilgrim comic books, which very quickly grows very tiring. It appears to have been created for the more irksome segment of emo youths as a busy, speed-talking explosion of colors, graphics and chop-chop editing, which is all over the place and nowhere at all at the same time. The film is not fundamentally about anything and what's worse, it isn't exciting, romantic or funny.

Michael Cera (Juno (2007)) has lots of fight scenes (...!), but most of all I felt like punching him in the throat during Scott Pilgrim. Quite a few talented actors have been attracted to the film's nonsense material, (probably by handsome studio paychecks and co-writer-director Edgar Wright's (Shaun of the dead (2004)) previous films.

Wright co-wrote the script with Michael Bacall (21 Jump Street (2012)). From watching Scott Pilgrim, you'd think the two must be as immature as their awful teen-pandering turkey.

Piece of advice: The outtakes on the DVD last less than 10 minutes and are a lot more fun than the film itself.

 

Related posts:

 

2010 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED III] 

2010 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED II]

2010 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED I]

Watch a trailer for the film here

Cost: Around 60 mil. $ (down from 85-90 mil. $ through Canadian tax rebates)

Box office: 47.6 mil. $

= Huge flop

[Scott Pilgrim vs. the World premiered July 27 (Fantasia Festival) and runs 112 minutes. Filming took place in Toronto, Ontario, Canada from March - August 2009, reportedly the biggest film identifiably set in Toronto to date. The film opened #5 to a 10.6 mil. $ first weekend in North America, behind The Expendables, Eat Pray Love, The Other Guys and Inception, dropping to #10 in its second week and grossing 31.5 mil. $ (66.2 % of the total gross). The 2nd and 3rd biggest markets were the UK with 8.4 mil. $ (17.6 %) and Australia with 2.8 mil. $ (5.9 %). Strangely for a film that is a US/UK/Canadian/Japanese co-production, the film has no Japanese gross listed on Box Office Mojo. The film made in excess of 27.3 mil. $ on DVDs and Blu-rays in North America, which, if taken into account, changes the film's status to big flop only. Although the film was lambasted by several critics, Scott Pilgrim vs. the World is certified fresh at 81 % with a 7.5 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

What do you think of Scott Pilgrim vs. the World?

The Thing/The Thing Awakens/The Thing: The Beginning (2011) - Career-ending, flawed monster horror prequel

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1 Time Film Excess Nominee:

Best Digital Effects (lost to Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol)

One icy poster for Matthijs van Heijningen Jr.'s The Thing

QUICK REVIEW:

In this Thing prequel, we are to learn about the time prior to the events in John Carpenter's masterpiece The Thing (1982), that is, the catastrophe in the Norwegian company in the Antarctic, who were the first to meet the thing! There's of course a storm, and the paranoia is revisited, (this time only with teeth examinations instead of blood samples.) Most of it is seen through the eyes of the only woman up there, an uninspired and forgettable Mary Elizabeth Winstead (Kill the Messenger (2014)), who takes command over the Norwegians.

Among the Norwegians, even great Danish actor Ulrich Thomsen (Banshee (2013-16)), who varies between speaking Danish and Norwegian (...) bores. The characters are vaguely sketched and uninteresting; the suspense curve is unsophisticated and the update as a whole is unoriginal. Script by Eric Heisserer (Final Destination 5 (2011)).
Furthermore, Michel Abramowicz' (Taken (2008)) cinematography shakes in otherwise dead still dialogs, - very annoyingly.
But in the film's second half, The Thing experience brightens up some due to inventive CGI and one genuine shock. Of course a major part of what makes the '82 film so thrilling is its incredible practical effects, which this new film doesn't even try to achieve, and there's no doubt that the new Thing doesn't gain anything from simply overtaking its title from its much superior predecessor.
It is directed by Dutch filmmaker Matthijs van Heijningen Jr. (Zien (2004), video).

Related post:

2011 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED III] 

Watch the red band trailer for the film here

Cost: 38 mil. $
Box office: 27.4 mil. $
= Huge flop
[The Thing was something of a disaster commercially; opening #3 in North America to 8.4 mil. $, it fell our of the top 10 in its second week, grossed 16.9 mil. $ (62 % of the total gross) and was even less successful abroad. The film, which was lambasted by many, effectively ended Heijningen's career: He hasn't made anything film-related at all since.]

What do you think of The Thing?

A Good Day to Die Hard (2013) - Willis' action-franchise dies an ugly death

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+ Worst Poster of the Year + Stupidest Movie of the Year

Die-hard cop John McClane from New York partners up with the son he (suddenly) has, in Moscow, where uranium and nuclear warheads are falling into the wrong hands.

A Good Day to Die Hard, the 5th film in the Die Hard action movie series, is an awful film through and through. It makes Die Hard 2 (1990) - the series' low-point until now, - seem like a world class film. For a series of movies with as high a standard as the Die Hard movies; Die Hard (1988) is an action masterpiece, and both Die Hard: With a Vengeance (1995) and Die Hard 4.0 (2007) are excellent movies, - it is a little painful to see it all come to this:
Die Hard 5 has no good villain, (which is pivotal), and only one other name-actor besides Bruce Willis (Pulp Fiction (1994)) as McClane, and that is up-and-comer Jai Courtney (Jack Reacher (2012)), (not counting Mary Elizabeth Winstead (Death Proof (2007)), because she only reappears very shortly as McClane's daughter.) Courtney and Willis have absolutely no on-screen chemistry and seem in fact to loathe each other. Their scenes together are so bad.
The script is also bonkers; confident that it can do the impossible, when it wants the audience to follow McClane through idiotic, overly huge and stupid action scenes and then go straight into weirdly emotional bonding scenes between Willis and his gorilla-like son. It is also furnished with cliché upon cliché, and seemingly build on thin air - nothing! The responsible writer is Skip Woods (X-Men Origins: Wolverine (2009)).
A Good Day to Die Hard even has an extremely ugly CGI-finale. - Ugh!
Nevertheless, Willis wants to make a 6th Die Hard film before retiring the franchise, and a writer has been commissioned to write this under the dubious title Die Hardest. - After A Good Day to Die Hard, I am intensely skeptical.
It is directed by Irish action director John Moore (Behind Enemy Lines (2001)).

Related posts:

John Moore: 2013 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED VI]

2013 in films - according to Film Excess [UPDATED V]
2013 in films - according to Film Excess [UPDATED IV]
2013 in films - according to Film Excess [UPDATED III]
2013 in films - according to Film Excess [UPDATED II]  
2013 in films - according to Film Excess [UPDATED I]

Behind Enemy Lines (2001) - Solid action/war/suspense popcorn entertainer

Even the posters for John Moore's A Good Day to Die Hard are ugly and unoriginal, - especially this one, for which A Good Day to Die Hard wins the Worst Poster of the Year award from Film Excess - congratulations!

Watch the trailer here

Cost: 92 mil. $
Box office: 304.6 mil. $
= Box office success
[Distributor Fox did the smart thing of opening Die Hard 5 in Asia a week before the wide American release. There, mass audiences rarely object if a huge movie is terrible. Despite opening 1st in the US, the film's main arena was the rest of the world, where it made an impressive 237.3 mil. $ or 77 % of its total gross.]

What do you think of A Good Day to Die Hard?
Are you interested in another, perhaps last film in the series?

Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter (2012) - Middle-of-the-road ahistorical nonsense

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+ Stupidest Movie of the Year

A dark, blue-tinted poster for Timur Bekmambetov's Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter

Lincoln leaves in his wake a journal over his secret profession as a vampire hunter from young man and ahead, as the nation gets threatened by the vampires of the South.
Hunter is based on a so-called mashup novel with the same title by Seth Grahame-Smith, who also co-wrote the screenplay.
The story is historically insulting. - 'Barack Obama: Vampire Hunter' would obviously be wrong, so how can it be that national hero Lincoln is alright? (I guess time makes everything fair game to some.)
The basically (for me) unacceptable idea doesn't get any wings to fly with in the actual film; a mediocre cast, - highlights Mary Elizabeth Winstead (Die Hard 4.0 (2007)), Anthony Mackie (Pain & Gain (2013)) and Dominic Cooper (Fleming (2013), TV), - in a mediocre production. Nothing lights up Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter; there's no fun, no sense of any intelligence behind it. The only thing this action/horror/romance has going for it is its technically fair execution.
Director Timur Bekmambetov (Night Watch (2004)), a Kazakhstani action filmmaker, is now rumored to direct a remake of Ben-Hur (2016), which seems like an absolutely terrible idea.

Related posts:

2012 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED V]
2012 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED IV]
2012 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED III]
2012 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED II]

Watch the ludicrous movie's trailer here

Budget: 69 mil. $
Box office: 116.4 mil. $
= Unspectacular

What do you think of Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter?
And what do you think of letting its director tinker with Ben-Hur?