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Review: The Rock as a Hard Place
It seems oxymoronic to bother with plot lines in a movie like this. The Rock plays an Akkadian assassin named Mathayus who takes 20 blood rubies to go kill the sorceress (Kelly Hu) who advises the barbarian warlord Memnon (Steven Brand) on battle strategy and is thus revered by his vicious marauding armies. Boy, is this Memnon a mean leader. He butchers women and kids, destroys civilizations and plays headgames with his sorceress. Digital effects have conjured up many strands of marauding armies, but all of them look the same, like ants in battle-armor racing across a barren plain with angry clouds swirling overhead.
It's hard to imagine any human, even the Rock, taking the drubbing he takes in this movie. The Duke was a wuss in comparison. He's buried in sandstorms, tossed off of parapets, run over by wagons,and stabbed, sliced, shot (by arrows) and gored countless times. On top of all that, he has to watch helplessly while Memnon butchers his brother. The Sorceress, on the other hand, turns out to be a babe who strolls around in thongs, does kung fu, and relates instantly to the Rock's sophisticated style of combat and international diplomacy. The Sorceress makes it clear that she loses her powers if she ever has sex. You'll never guess what happens.
The hip-hop background in a movie allegedly set in ancient Babylon is pretty neat. And in one of the oddest roles of his or any actor's career, Michael Clarke Duncan (The Green Mile) plays another lummox, the Nubian King/Warrior Balthazar. He's almost as big as Rock, and the early confrontation between the two conjures up those great dinosaur battles in Jurassic Park. This role gives Clarke, who is way too good an actor for this, the chance to wear dreads and spout all sorts of racial jokes at the Rock, whose face seems locked either amusement or anger throughout the entire 88 minute movie.
The digital effects are cheesy, almost throwaways, and the film's makers have no illusions about the Rock's acting skills, so he starts fighting almost from the opening shot and keeps on fighting to the end. I have to say I had fun watching this silliness. It's such an American fusion of different cultural styles, and it's so undemanding a movie, that you leave the theater smiling and relaxed. And the kids who thronged the theater where I saw it loved it, whooping and laughing throughout. The humorless censors loose in the land don't need to worry about the sensitivities of the American adolescent. They can take a movie like this, and see just how silly and cartoonish it is.
Isn't John Katz participating in the Totally Failed Slashdot Blackout (TFSB)?
ok then your [sic] infringing on my copyright! Could you as [sic] me next time before STEALING my comments for your own?
When is that new indiana jones movie comming out anyway?
Reading this review makes me think of "If you don't want to see it you don't have to go" - then I realised that applied to a Jon Katz review too!
Video Game cheats, hints a
Here, I'll fix it from my post down.
Whoever stated that signature sizes should be limited to one hundred and twenty characters can just go ahead and kiss my
The Rock plays an Acadian assassin
Correct me if I'm wrong but Acadian would be like french-canadians in the maritimes, right? Unless the Rock does dress up like Anne of Green Gables and shouts "mange de la merde" as insults, this is not the same ethnic background as the Rock's character. So is the a typical JonKatz f*ckup, or is there some other race with the same name? Some background info on them would be nice too...
Was he expecting a well-written script, historically accurate, with dull brainteasers that would appeal to some british aristocrate?
I had fun watching the movie. It was a good ass-kicker. Light plot, lots of nice action. However, the director was under influence of G. Lucas, because Jar Jar Binks has made his other appearance in the movie, this time played by a stupid human.
Meanwhile, Jon Katz can't seem to figure out how to close an tag... making his summary, and all of Slashdot, even more skewed than normal!
Umm, could someone please close the italics tag on the front page, it's messing up the rest of the posts...
Recognising the profound economic strife among the peasantry of today, we can no longer restrict ourselves to just dividing the peasants into several strata according to the property they possess. Such a division would suffice if the diversity mentioned above amounted to mere quantitative differences. But that is not so. If, in the case of one section of the peasants, the aim of agriculture is commercial profit and the result is a large cash income, whereas in the case of another, agriculture cannot cover even the family's essential needs; if the top peasant groups base their improved farming on the ruin of the bottom groups; if the prosperous peasantry employ hired labour on a considerable scale, while the poor are compelled to resort to the sale of their labour-power -- these are undoubtedly qualitative differences, and our task must now be to classify the peasantry according to differences in the character of the farming itself (meaning by character of farming peculiarities not of a technical but of an economic order).
...into a room. there is a 50% chance there will be hot naked women there. there is a 50% chance it will be filled with armed guards, whose asses he will kick, and THEN the hot naked wome will come in. what a great movie!
rupees?
I thought it was rubies.
20 rupees is kind of cheap
And if you screwed up your formatting, well, you should have hit Preview...
Unfortunely the reviewer has very low standards on movies and must be easily amused by drivel. It had very few good moments, but nothing that would make me buy the DVD or watch it again. It was better then I expected, but not much.
This movie was SO lame that I had to fight not fall a sleep. It shows that hollywood should be burned to the ground and salted to prevent them from making more movies. I use to be a monthly movie goer, but if I get to the movies in a six month period is now rare. Spiderman and Lord of the Rings are about the best possible movies I see in the near future....
I am sick of remakes and reusing much cooler scenes from other movies in an attempt to make a new movie better. They need to break the standard Script mold and allow original ideas to try, since I am getting very sick of them.
Actually, Wrestlemania is about the good guys (the faces) beating the bad guys (the heels). After Wrestlemania, the new year of wrestling begins, and new feuds take over.
This year, the two top matches were The Rock vs. Hulk Hogan in a battle of legends! And, for the Unified World Title, Chris Jericho vs. Triple H. It was an amazing show!
Which is either an inhabitant of ancient Greece or a big yellow blob that shouts "Woka woka woka" as he eats floating food dots and power pills.
....did Slashdot become a movie review site? For bad movies? Why do I have to suffer through seeing a crappy movie review at the top of the list when I check out slashdot on Sunday morning.
Why does this guy have free reign to publish whatever he wishes on this site? Does he own half of it or something? This spoiled my day.
and it was pretty bad. i almost agree totally with katz. except that it was 20 rubies, not rupies. i think.
anyway, it's obivious that they kept the rock's lines down to 6 words or less for a reason. he's not the best actor in the world.
the thing that bothered me the most is that it was nothing like the story that was portrayed in the mummy returns. the rock, instead of almost dying in the desert and being saved by anubis, was shot with a poisoned arrow and almost died from that. the sorceress saved him. also, there wasn't an army of the undead anywhere to be seen.
that's enough spoilers i guess, but be warned... if you go see this, don't expect anything like the story you heard in the mummy returns.
On top of all that, he has to watch helplessly while Memnon butchers his brother. :(
For the first time, there's no spoilers warning, so it's like "phew....nothing but Jon Katz hot air to laugh at derisively", but then he goes and drops soemthing like this
>I> ???
...and they tell us to do a preview?? ;)
So... you're saying you didn't like it?
Mr. Katz, did you forget to close your tag?
I don't exactly like reading Slashdot on a slanted point-of-view.
So... someone actually reads what Katz writes?
Is where the two guys in a swordfight break each others blades. Considering that were dealing with nearly stone age level technology, how did the chip the stones to look just like steel?
All Troll + "offtopic" mods are meta moderated as "Unfair", because you abused the system.
Are you criticizing the most electrifying man in sports entertainment? Know your role, jabroni :)
Wow. None of the Sept. 11 and Globalism even though the movie is about a foreign country and deals with war of sorts. That's an incredible behaviour change caused by the incessant slashdot readers jeering JonKatz's every word posted.
Or maybe it's the antithesis of every idea JonKatz has been blabbering about. So, he's taking an easy way out by just calling it light movie by totally ignoring any of the contradictions it could cause to JonKatz's long developing theories.
First of all, it's about the small guy fighting a big relentless giant and it's bottom line is that all of magic and wizardy couldn't beat good ol' idea of good ideas (as opposed to evil ones) like freedom (and it's associated death). If I'm note careful, I might be implying something really bad.
The humorless censors loose in the land don't need to worry about the sensitivities of the American adolescent. They can take a movie like this, and see just how silly and cartoonish it is.
Which is why the RIAA gave it a rating of PG-13.
If it hadn't been "silly and cartoonish", the violence would have landed it an R.
I don't know how this thesis (first line of my quote) comes up as the penultimate sentence of Katz's incoherent ramblings, or how his closing sentence relates to it, but I for one think that troll should stop flaming Katz. If they can read they can see just how immature and unprofessional the "writer" Katz really is. Enjoy the ride.
The 16th century had Shakespeare as their form of entertainment and we, sadly have WWF and the Rock here in the 21st. About the only incentive I have for seeing SK is Kelly Hu... Mmmmmm... Kelly... But it'll be a slighty frosty day in hell before I acually pay to see it.
You need a FREE iPod Nano
I like it, in a silly sort of way. Except for the part where the guy dipped his swords in the fire and they burned for about ten minutes. Since when are swords flammable? That was so stupid it literally almost ruined the end of the movie for me.
I was also disappointed that no one got hit over the head with a folded steel chair at any point in the movie.
But other than that, it was ok. :)
My Webcomic: Asylum on 5th Street
yeah, he IS a cheap bastard!
Just jokking Jon
Don't forget to close your tags correctly, or at least preview your stuff. If you do we'll send you more than 20 rupees.
Me
Either Katz is starting to use the royal we by the end of that sentence or he spelled "me" in a funny way. ;-)
Actually, it was "20 blood rubies" NOT rupies.
;)
I saw this yesterday, The Rock kicks serious villain butt, he gets the girl, there's an occasionally amusing sidekick. End of plot. But hey, it's a diversion, it's not a movie classic.
What do you expect, Vince McMahon was the executive producer
Paper swords are quite flammable... and not very strong. I don't recommend using them for killing, as paper cutting someone to death can take a long time.
This movie is a spin-off of The (Brendan Frasier) Mummy movies, which were an astounding bit of escapism, broken plot lines, unreality, fantasy, and general making-stuff-up-as-you-go-along-ishness... and Rocky was in the Returns movie anyway. I don't recall either of those movies trying too hard to be classics of American cinema. So what's the problem with this one being more of the same?
-----
Aww, FCSK!
Come to the University of Mars! Classes starting soon!
If the Rock can survive tyrants, thieves, traitors,
in Hollywood, the WWF or the movie
______________________________________________
sigamajig...
Only reason Vinnie Mac was the EP was to get The Rock credited as The Rock. No Vinnie Mac, and it's Dwayne Johnson as The Scorpion King. Pretty much the only thing Vinnie does is hype the movie with the WWF Media Machine, then sit back and smile real big.
Your friend, JonKuntz
Arnold Schwarzenegger must be rolling in his grave.
I agree with the earlier post that JK is not contributing anything relevant to this little piece of culture.
Is the man so devoid of any meaningful representation of excellence that he wastes the readership of the slashdot audience on perpetuating more hollywood myths for no other reason than what seems to be his love to see his own name in print?! Dont we get enough of that propaganda from all the movie industry itself ?
I dont give two shits about his opinion of some some pulp movie that anyone with half a brain can sum up by looking at fsck'n poster.
If John has some insights into something relevant to this website and general readership then im interested in hearing it, but these movie "reviews" he has been churning out have about as much to do with slashdot as the sweat from my nuts quite frankly (which is not much).
q
from the april 20th edition of larry king live
notice the subtlety at which larry navigates through the trying events of our time.
Larry - Do you consider yourself an actor or a wrestler?
Rock - Uh. Well, i act and i wrestle, so i guess i'd be both.
Larry - Nice, nice. Were you sad when Owen Hart passed away?
Rock - Uh. Well, yes i was.
Larry - Nice, nice. Now tell me about 9-11.
Rock - Uh. Well, it was really terrible.
Larry - Yes. That it was. [pause] The movie is the Scorpio King by universal. The man, Dwayne Johnson. We'll be back in a moment.
This proves Larry King is still in posession of journalisms' most inappropriate (and strangly unconfortable) seugeways.
The rest of the hour long interview has a slightly confused Rock answering (well, i might add) a string of strange, offtopic questions about race, wrestling, Republicanism and Arnold Schwarzenegger fired off by the perpetually half-asleep larry king.
Classic.
The cnn review is here.
Indeed.
The sad truth is, in the imposter derby, The Rock is a better at pretending to be an actor than Jon Katz is at pretending to be a writer...
Lawrence Person (lawrencepersonh@gmailh.com (remove all "h"s to mail)
http://www.lawrenceperson.com/
jon, i can't help but notice that you don't have many friends here. i would like to be your friend. e-mail me and we can talk about having some sleep-overs and we can go bowling and stuff.
i can't wait to hear from you!
greg clarke
sig - .
make way for this piece of drivel? Hang on while I delete Slashdot from my bookmarks...there... that's better!
And that's the thing that scares me... Will kids be reading WWF as part of their history lessons in 2153? Say it ain't so.... "And today we will be studying the 'Smackdown period', 1995-2004" Uhhggg...
You need a FREE iPod Nano
WWF is hella lame.
The Rock is hella lame.
This review is hella lame.
The Scorpian King is hella lame.
But at least its not "Men with Brooms".
perl -e 'print $i=pack(c5, (41*2), sqrt(7056), (unpack(c,H)-2), oct(115), 10)'
That i will not try to discourage. And you shouldnt either. PLease.
"They evidently got the metal swords from the same place that Kelly Hu got her gold-scaled bra and underpants."
All Troll + "offtopic" mods are meta moderated as "Unfair", because you abused the system.
http://slashdot.org/search.pl?query=drubbing+&op=s tories
ok then your [sic] infringing on my copyright! Could you as [sic] me next time before STEALING my comments for your own?
Think of it as the United Nations:
Kelly Hu as cute girl with the gift of prophesy (chinese/hawaiian/english ancestry)
Taiko drummers (japan)
sword training with shinai (japan)
Indian elephant (India and southeast asia)
Monocled Cobra (India)
Cutting hands off of thieves (Moslem countries of middle east)
Bamboo laminate crossbows (Hmong people of cambodia/vietnam)
"Weapons should be hardy rather than decorative" - Miyamoto Musashi
I think that goes for OS's too
No script. Not plot. All special effects, violence, sleeze, sex, swearing and more violence. Why?
Because the above are like drugs, which viewers need in ever higher quantities to get a high from. Besides, Americans aren't a cultured people who care about storylines anyway.
The "rupees" he gets in the movie are red ones, which are worth 20 apiece IIRC. so really he got 400 rupees...
or 20 rubies.
If you can't see the value in jet powered ants you should turn in your nerd card. - Dunbal (464142)
Jon - US, There's no US. You mean people like you!
For anyone dinked enough to pay to see this (no, I haven't, but the ads make me hit the ESC button
on the remote) I have a selection of chemical alternatives that are less expensive, more fun and probably less damaging to the brain.
For those wanting to simulate the experience of
this film I offer a little number called "RageOn"
(a tasty little microbrewed blend of LSD and Dextroamphetamine) the kit also contains a ball peen hammer and instructions. Take the capsule, stand in front of your bathroom mirror and trash yourself on the skull and upper body...it's incredible!
Live Life! Don't be Passive!
e-mail: rushthroughlife@olfactoryhallucination.net
cell: 1-555-1212-BOOM
We deliver nationwide
Satisfied Customers include(d) Hunter Thompson,
Jim Morrison, Darryl Strawbery, Tupac and others.
Littlalex
CAC
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Serving the Community for 35 years
Akkadian, not Acadian
Rubies (red gems), not rupees (currency in India)
Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.
Well, there is always The First Church of the Easily Amused, another one of those internet religions with a virtual membership. (with many dead links)
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
I haven't seen this movie, but I've seen trailers. The trailers I have seen did not have a single legible word except for the voice overs; the "This season, prepare for a ride..." crap.
Going by the trailers, I expect of this movie the exact same thing that Katz describes in his review.
If there is a single person who sees a trailer for this, and goes to see it thinking it will be anything but a stupid & shallow movie, I would be very suprised.
I don't know why this one is even worthy of a review, the trailers make it bleeding obvious what it will be about. So my only question to Katz would be, what were you expecting?!?
The Sorceress, on the other hand, turns out to be a babe who strolls around in thongs, does kung fu, and relates instantly to the Rock's sophisticated style of combat and international diplomacy. The Sorceress makes it clear that she loses her powers if she ever has sex.
Let's me guess... she has oral sex with the Rock and stains her blue thongs, which is the smoking gun the Authorities of Magic need to bring her up on charges of improper conduct, for which the penalty is the immediate impeachment of her magical powers. But in an emergency highly publicized session before the Gods and Goddesses of Magic, makes an impassioned plea based on questiong what the definition of "is" is, and manages to get off the hook when it is determined that nobody in fact gives a damn what a Sorceress does in her private life, thus letting her have sex AND keep her powers.
Am I close?
"If you need escapist entertainment from your hyper teched-up lives", go fishing or something. I'm not sure how going to see a crappy quick-cuts effects-laden crude-jokes movie is an escape from a "hyper teched-up" life.
I was hoping that those of us not participating in this stupid /. boycott would be treated to some quality, very discussion-worthy articles and the boycotting fools would miss out on the party (though I've seen a few posts TODAY by dickmonkeys who have "Support the blackout" in their sigs).
/. improving during the blackout, to reward those who aren't boycotting and spite those who are.
And now I see this article, about a dumb shit movie, starring a big dumb shit and made to appeal to other dumb shits who think WWF assholes deserve celebrity status. This is NOT 'news for nerds,' this is news for the hundreds of millions of morons in this country who think wrestling and NASCAR are entertainment and that Windows is kewl because it lets them play their mindless shoot-em-up games.
And that shattering sound you hear is my hopes hitting the rocks-- hopes of
And there still is broadway and plays in NYC today which are better than the WWF.
But its costly and there is little space for everyone to see a live performance.
Flaunt it baby, flaunt it!
Veramocor
It seems oxymoronic to bother writing a review for a movie like this. I mean, come on "Jon Katz writes a movie review of Scorpion King" I don't have to read the review and I know exactly what you are going ot say. Why not review a real movie with some literary content like "Panic Room" or "Attack of the Clones" or even "Blade II"
..oh wait, never mind
Jesse Wolfe Sr. Manager Systems Integration
Hee hee heee, sosrry, I couldn't help myself! I've never flamed jonkatz before but I took one look at the headline and thought "he reviewed that wrestler flick with the flaming swords? god damn!" I hope at least someone enjoys this before it plummets to -1 land
Not to be too pikcy, but what does this mean? Can she felate The Rock and still keep her powers?
Does Katz read his reviews with comments off? After a while I would quit posting to slashdot and just stick to YIL (Yahoo Internet Life!).
You should give him credit, because from what I seen he isn't really geek like. If he was his review would of been:
Hack, Slash & Shoot
<Think>I think I should log on to slashdot and mess up some html tags</Think>
Hack, Slash & Shoot
<Think>Is Bill Gates the director, cause this movie is crap</Think>
Hack, Slash & Shoot
<Think>Should of stayed home and installed windows me... GASP </Think>
......................
Well, that would of been my review....
Gee you think I wouldn't notice if he had spelt it properly the first time?
He changed the spelling in the article after I posted it in order to make me look like the fool! That JonKatz fella sure is smarter than the average
it is that I look forward to every Jon Katz article just to watch the (much more entertaining) Katz-bashing posts? :)
Let the feeding frenzy begin!
Mode (3) smart-aleck mode. Press * to return to main menu.
i went and saw it thinking it would be fun and interesting, instead it was just a pile of bad acting, and even worse fight scenes, and I thought I could never put a movie into that order. Usually fight scenes are well done, while acting is forgotten, on the Scorpian King they actually went all out and made the entire thing bad. I am a big fan of sword fighting movies, Red Sonja, Conan, unfortunately if you thought the acting was bad in those, you have to see the scorpian king, simply so you will have a new appreciation of just how bad acting can truly be.
If you don't vote, you don't matter, so don't waste your time telling me your opinion
Please. It is just a movie. I will reapeat it for those of you who are a little slow. It... is... just... a... movie. It does not have anything to do with America, nor does it have anything to do with other countries hating us. Katz is the biggest moron on earth, closely followed by 90% of the Slashdot readership.
Katz, the world doesn't hate the United States. You confuse all the rhetoric and jokes and irritation that the world has with the United States for hatred.
The truth of the matter is no matter what others say about the "ugly American" stereotype, it is just a stereotype. Even in the most unfriendly parts of the world, say North Korea, or Iraq, most of the people there would not lift a finger to hurt an American. They would be friendly, eager to talk, probably even give you part of their dinner. That is not hatred!
But that attitude extends not only towards individual Americans, but also towards the entire country. The United States is not unversally viewed as a bully or belligerent country. The US is seen more often than not as the only party that can intervene in regional conflicts without taking sides. The US is seen as a country that loves freedom, and has a lot of opportunity for poor people to improve themselves. The US is seen as a country that is very rich, but also very generous with that wealth if another country needs it because of natural disaster. The US is respected for strength, but not feared. For a good example of how power CAN be feared, take a look at the Israelis and the Palistinians who mutually fear each other.
Some might hate us enough to fly planes into our buildings, but probably 250,000,000 times as many would never do something like that. Now, we can't sit on our asses and say "the world loves us" because if we do that then they will REALLY start to not like us. But we must realize that the world does NOT hate us, and we must not use that as an excuse to either withdraw from the world and all the good we could do in it, or to develop some sort of national neurosis about the rest of the world.
If tits were wings it'd be flying around.
The storylines are so similar im surprised Marvel hasn't flat out sued them for making this movie. The only problem is, this movie SUCKS. It's bubblegum fantasy. It's like watching a 2 hour "Hercules" episode but with one of the guys from the TV show RENEGADE to not only make it worse, but to absolutely crush all hopes of being sucked in. I was laughing my ass off how terrible this flick was.
Am I the only one who finds it incredibly hilarious that a WWF "wrestler" fits perfectly into the role of "professional actor"?
;)
Right, those fights aren't staged, really
-raph
I don't know about you, but the impression I got from reading the article was that Katz thought it wa total fluff crap and was fine with it. Not every movie needs to be good and I get the sense that Katz grasped this.
Why must we give Katz flak for every single article. Save the flak for the ones that actually deserve (not that there is a shortage).
...who thinks The Rock looks like Rob Schneider (of SNL fame, as well as Judge Dredd) on steroids?
Especially with the raised-eyebrow face?
I can just picture him saying something like, "Of course I can defeat you, Mr. 'Ah em de Law!'" to Stallone's Judge Dredd.
Specialization is for insects. - R.A.H.
You, sir, are a pompous ass. Personally, I cannot stand to even see your name anywhere. Has there been one movie that you actually liked? You sputter and spew garbage from that fatuous mind of yours. It seems to me that anything "fun", like the Scorpion King, is stupid. Perhaps you forget sometimes, in your uptight little world, that not every movie is intended to strike profound significance in the general population. To put it mildly, you HATE EVERYTHING! You need to sit back and watch an Arnold flick and realize that it's obviously not the plot that makes it fun to watch, but rather a conglomerate of mindless violence, special effects, and poor acting.
Get a life.
It seems oxymoronic...
I understand what you mean, but oxymoron is a noun. It cannot be transmuted into an adjective or adverb.
Everything is mainstream now.
"The technology unravels almost as quickly as the plot. There are some good things about this movie, but the plot will drive nitpicking techheads and nerds nuts with its implausibility. "
The same thing could have probably been said about The Scorpion King.
Whereas
"If you need escapist entertainment from your hyper teched-up lives, this is the movie for you. If the Rock can survive tyrants, thieves, traitors, arrows, impalement, knives, spears, swords, sandstorms, fire, poison, snakes and killer ants, you can get through a boring day at work. "
Could have basically been said with a few different nouns about Panic Room.
If you're going to view movies as escapes from reality- view them that way. If you're going to view them all as true to life extravaganzas, then you've got the wrong idea.
I saw the movie. I enjoyed it. One observation: if The Rock's motto is "live free, die well" why does he become a king at the end of the movie? Why doesn't he just yell to his people "you are free now, no kings anymore"? I understand that they have to set this movie up so that he is the evil king of the next movie...but given his motto, he should try to free these poor people from absolute monarchy if he believes in freedom...or maybe only freedom for guys with huge muscles. (Excluding most /.ers I suppose).
Also, why is everyone bashing Katz on this thread? I suspect if the Taco misspells Akkadian the posts to correct it would be very different.
a war on terrorism? How can we end a war on a method?
why do we have to subscribe, paying this fool jonkatz money? I think that if I were to subscribe, I'd first get rid of homo, fishtaco, and gaykatz. Just my .02
... cmdrtaco...
Any media that displays Kelly Hu cannot, by definition, be 'lame' in any sense of the word (hella or otherwise)
/. boycott to bring this to your attention. Btw, the boycott is on, so you shouldn't even be posting!
I feel stronly enough to break the
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
... the world hates us for our success
Or does The Rock's head look exactly like one of those clay reconstructions they make from the skulls of murder victims or ancient mummies?
it's clear from the corrections pointed out in the earlier posts that katz has actually updated/changed his review without any sort of notification. i believe the slashdot community deserves to see all versions of the review, and updates should be tacked on to the end, as they are traditionally, not covered over discretely. it's too sneaky and dishonest. especially since the timestamp doesn't update!
I'm puzzled about the overwhelmingly negative, ad hominem, response to what I thought was a competent review. Admittedly, I never saw Bless the Child, but Chuck Russell's action movies are consistently over-the-top silliness. Everything in the movie is a cliche, but they're pushed a far too hard to be taken seriously. It's pure escapism, but in a self-satirizing manner reminiscent of such other directors as Douglas Sirk and Paul Verhoeven.
Chuck Russell was smart enough to know how to handle a personality like Dwayne Johnson. He may not have gotten many lines, but they didn't go through any effort to hide his terrible acting, nor do they try to make him look like a rugged barbarian (Mathayus probably has the closest shave and best grooming of any man alive for another two millennia). Instead, they glibly borrow from the WWF for the fighting choreography. At the end, he raises his eyebrow just enough to pay homage to his alter ego. He is purposefully using Brechtian alienation; distancing the viewer from the illusion of the film so that the viewer cannot even try to take the movie seriously. I know it worked because I was not the only one giggling in the theater. It's this utter lack of emotionalism that makes me like this movie better than most Hollywood action movies that try too hard, like Pearl Harbor and Armageddon. A lot of movies are silly, but not all of them know how silly they are. The irony allows for someone like me to enjoy what is otherwise a completely child-oriented spectacle. Russell suffers from some of the other mistakes of so many American directors: cutting too quickly and zooming too closely to make the fighting coherent. The fighting still turned out slightly better than I was expecting, but I thought the last fight was terrible. He also pushed the cliches of the precocious kid and the wimpy comic relief further than I can stomach. I don't expect everyone to enjoy a movie like this, but I find most Hollywood movies so awful right now that I'm much happier with something completely meaningless as long as it's fun. Of course, I like MST3K movies better in their original format.
Feel free to make fun of people like Katz for choosing to watch trashy movies, but I think The Scorpion King is an interesting film to think about. How do these crappy, emotionless movies reflect on US and it's fixation on meaningless entertainment, especially in a time like today? What do other countries think when we export these movies to them? All the posts seem to be a variation of, "It's Akkadian, you asshole," "It's rubies, fuckhead," "The rest of the world only thinks that people like you suck, not us," and "Fuck you." ???
before publishing it.
To edit after publishing it is called "revision". And an honest person will put in a "changelog" to indicate the changes.
Mode (3) smart-aleck mode. Press * to return to main menu.
Hi there. Today, I want to talk about a subject near and dear to all of our hearts.
WAFFLES.
There are many types of waffles. Some are belgian, some are fruity, some come from Waffle House and taste like baked shit. Some have sugar in them, but it's rumored that this is a European Communist Plot to make everybody fat. Some are "Eggos", which you are supposed to "Leggo". Some are cheap and generic, others cost upwards of a thousand dollars for a single helping. There are those you eat plain, and others go better with toppings, such as powdered sugar and Maple Syrup.
My favorite type of waffle is Belgian with fruit and stuff on top. Now that's a fucking good waffle. But there are other options... in fact, there's something for everyone!
Yes, waffles. A timeless American tradition.
WA-WA-WA-WAFFLES, EAT ONE TODAY!
This has been a presentation of the National Waffle Council.
for the use of italics and bold and italicized bold !
I can't say I've ever been extremely offended but now I can. John Wayne "the Duke" was TRUE American hero on and off the stage. Anyone who says differently is a socialist or a communist or too young. I'm sorry, the Rock doesn't even compare. I suppose your brain can handle only 4 letter words like "Duke" and "Rock" and as such you felt a need to equate the two. I can firmly believe you only have a single "Rock" in your brain in doing so.
Shakespeare wrote in Modern English. What you're commenting on is, in part, prose, and in part "slang" contemporary to Old Will's day.
Now travel back a bit further to Chaucer (another English author). Now THAT is Old English. And pretty much NOBODY nowadays can read the original text without lessons in how to actually read it. While it IS English, it's a form of it that is so different as to nearly comprise a completely separate language.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
Oh-Shit situations:
Acts of defiance in "Oh Shit" situation:
MUST I go on?
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
The hip-hop background in a movie allegedly set in ancient Babylon is pretty neat.
No, really, it's not. Combining genres is nifty when it's original. When it's adding hip-hop to YET ANOTHER MOVIE, it's cliché.
I used to enjoy JonKatz writings...but now anything by him really strikes me as eternally sophomoric. It's like I went back to high school and got all popular kids' opinions on a movie.
± 29 dB
That was the funniest damn thing I've read in weeks. And to think Jon Katz provoked it, what an irony...
For your listening pleasure, I recommend the inimitable Phil Ochs' "We are the Cops of the World"
And when we've butchered your sons, boys
When we've butchered your sons
Have a stick of our gum, boys
Have a stick of our bubble-gum
We own half the world, oh say can you see
The name for our profit is democracy
So, like it or not, you will have to be free
'Cause we're the Cops of the World, boys
We're the Cops of the World
Buwahahahahaha they don't really hate us buwhahahahah cause we're really nice BUWHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
You scab bastard!
:(
:P
Fuck, thats two already
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
With a special shout out to Comic Book Guy and all my homies down in cell block D.
Scorpion King Wows Moviegoers, Closeted Homosexuals
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If you ever thought pro-wrestling was a bit too macho not to be gay, read this article:
http://www.ridiculopathy.com/news_detai
an older one on the same subject:
http://www.ridiculopathy.com/news_detai
Katz bashes all over "Final Fantasy" and then recommends this piece of garbage? Man...
psmylie's dictionary: Godzillion (noun) Any number large enough to destroy Tokyo
This could be the makings of a new superstar.
Remeber, Arnold Schwarzenegger was just a body builder before Conan .
Check out Arnold's first acting credit if you dare!
Those who can, do. Those who can't, simulate.
How come whenever there is a story on here, there is *ALWAYS* a post mentioning "9/11".
not EVERY movie, book, television show, website etc. is some warped message about September 11th.
And the people going on about how America (we) are seen as a "Evil Superpower", what the hell gives you that impression? stop being so self-indulgant and paranoid thinking that the US are always the good guys and every other country are evil and out to get them - you're really not that important.
P.S. - The Scorpion King sucked - if the Rock hadn't been hit over the head with an aluminium trash container he might be able to construct a whole sentence and thereby make for a better film.
SMELLLLLLLLLLLL what the rock, is COOKINGGGGG!?!?!??!?!
If a penguin dies in the woods, and nobody is around to hear it, what sound does it make?
Now, yes, this is stupid. It's something I suddenly thought about, and can see Vince McMahon contending.
The Legend of The Scorpion King was just that: A legend. The real story involves the sorceress saving him, using her powers from Annubis (or whatever god gives her strength) to save him. Annubis watches through the eye of the sorceress, using her as the focal point to control his world, unbeknownst to The Rock (Scorpion King). He asked in the end of this movie "How she knew there was going to be a long period of peace?" Annubis will allow this. BUT, Annubis, when the time is necessary, will call on him through her, him owing a debt to the god that saved him and allowed him to avenge his brother. Understanding, and being noble and true to word, he follows that call.
Hence, like all good Vince McMahon pyramid schemes, we have: (drum roll please)
The Scorpion King II : Curse of Annubis, or something silly like that. We ultimately get to see The Rock changed into The Scorpion King we think of in The Mummy Returns, and they get to continue a franchise for a little ways. =P
I'm most likely wrong, but why not?
~Grio~
Grio's Digital World
http://grio.net
Can you ping me now? Gooood! | Manhappenin.Net - Things to do
http://www.cnn.com/2002/SHOWBIZ/Movies/04/21/boxof fice.top10.ap/index.html
$36.2 million in it's opening weekend... beat out the Matrix for a movie opening in April.
Come to the University of Mars! Classes starting soon!
Sorry, no, that is Middle English. Old English is even worse.
Lessons, or just a bit of practice. If you read it aloud it actually doesn't sound all that bad. It also helps to have a line-by-line translation to refer to for awhile until you get the hang of the common transformations.
"How can you claim that you are anti-crack, while still writing a window manager?" — Metacity README
amen sir. This is just like when we 'accidentally' bombed the chinese embassy in Kosovo, or when we 'tragically' blew up some of the afghan elders last december or when we 'mistakenly' hit the French embassy in Libya. To paraphrase Sam Kinnison's advice to the frogs on that last one - "maybe our aim would have been better if our pilots didn't have to spend 20 extra hours flying the long way! now go build yourselves a new house!"
I am looking forward to the day we do a live fire missle defense test over europe, and opps, we just accidentally made more french fries than mcdonalds.