THE YEAR IN MOVIES: 2004

[Mortis]

He did alright in xXx and I liked that movie, as for Chronicles of Riddick....

I hope there are no more sequels, it was pretty horrible.

[Jester of Death]

I haven't seen one Vin Diesel movie I liked

This one isn't any different

Maybe a 3 or 4 out of 10

[ROC]

For some reason, one of my friends (who is quite respectable in terms of movies, though he has a bit of a bias towards Tim Burton) actually thinks Vin Diesel is a decent actor. I think that's only because of Pitch Black, which he wasn't too bad in. Pitch Black was pretty meh, though, and while I haven't seen Riddick (and judging only by the general opinion of it) I probably wouldn't like it.

[Troy Maskell]

I thought it was majorly crappy

2 from 10

Of course I HATED Pitch Black too so I may be biased

[Hellfire]

I liked Pitch Black but I never saw the Chronicles of Riddick. They just made it into a SUPER POWERED ACTION MOVIE WITH EXPLOSIONS~!!! Pitch Black wasn't like that, I mean there was fighting but what made the movie for me was the mood. You didn't know what was gonna happen really.

Anyways, the only movies that I liked from Vin Diesel have been Pitch Black and A Man Apart. XXX was alright, but there was nothing to seperate it from other movies with a secret agent or spies.

[Numbahs]

#72 - THE FORGOTTEN

RELEASE DATE: SEPTEMBER 24TH, 2004

What if you where a woman with the perfect life? Your husband was a doctor(or something) and you had a son together. One day your son dies in a plane crash, leaving you to grieve for him daily. Now, what if he started disappearing from pictures you have of him and people started saying that he never existed(including your husband)?

What would you do?

Would you go out and find an ex-NHL player and make him believe he had a daughter in the same circumstances by ripping off all of his wallpaper while he's asleep? That's Julianne Moore would do.

Well, that's the premise behind The Forgotten. The movie starts off very mellow and without tension and remains that way throughout it's whole runtime. It also leads you by the hand until they reveal that they had no clue what they were going for with the ending, back off of it, and then make everything back to normal. That is the movie in a nutshell. Not only is it not scary or moody, it just doesn't deliver. If this movie had a terrific ending, it probably would have been the next Sixth Sense(something that most people only remember for the ending). Instead, it doesn't.....and that's why I give it a 5/10 and am surprised I've ranked it #72 out of 143.

[Krazy_K]

I can't even name 142 that I've seen.

In my life.

[tristy]

I saw The Forgotten in Florida during my Fall break with my parents.

It was an okay movie, I guess. I probably enjoyed it more because these 13-14 year old girls were sitting next to me screaming for their lives whenever someone got sucked up in the air. It was hilarious.

[Guest Ringmaster]

When a movie has to have the antagonists explain the evil plan in detail to the audience, you just know it's a failed experiment. And the ending is kind of like the writer going "ok, I have no idea how to get us out of this, so I'll do token stuff", a la Vanilla Sky. That and Moore's character just irked me in the movie. I'd give it 3/10.

[thatshortguy]

When a movie has to have the antagonists explain the evil plan in detail to the audience, you just know it's a failed experiment.

←

Exactly correct, sir. This was one (of the MILLIONS) of things that annoyed me about "Godsend".

[ACCBiggz]

When a movie has to have the antagonists explain the evil plan in detail to the audience, you just know it's a failed experiment.

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Exactly correct, sir. This was one (of the MILLIONS) of things that annoyed me about "Godsend".

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[Ananas]

When a movie has to have the antagonists explain the evil plan in detail to the audience, you just know it's a failed experiment.

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Exactly correct, sir. This was one (of the MILLIONS) of things that annoyed me about "Godsend".

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[paidelr]

I think you just better post all 143 for us to see or you'll be here until 2008 trying to finish of the 2004 list.

[Numbahs]

Saw another movie, Riddick and Forgotton move down a spot.

#71 - SAW

RELEASE DATE: OCTOBER 29th, 2004

Saw is a very good concept.....executed in the worst possible way. Two men wake up in a room with a suicide victim laying between them. As they start brainstorming why they are there, they find a tape recorder on the body and tapes labeled for both of them. Here's the hook of the story. One man must kill the other(whom he's never met) to save his family.

How can this go wrong?

1. Bad, bad, bad acting. It pains me to say that Cary Elwes is really awful in the movie. But he doesn't hold a candle to Leigh Whannell, writer of the film, who inserted himself into the "other guy in the room" role. That wouldn't really be a major problem but.....

2. Crappy dialogue. He happens to give his character some of the worst dialogue in recent history. With a better actor, it might have been slightly covered up. With him is all done to the extreme and comes off extremely out out of place.

Example....

Elwes: Who are you?

Whannell: I'm fucking confused, that's who I am!

3. The movie doesn't focus on the central storyline of the men in the room. Instead we get subplots galore with Danny Glover as a crazy cop chasing the Jigsaw killer and one that makes the daughter and wife an actual set of characters in the story. No one cares. Honestly, who wants to see that?

4. And the final beef. I had to bring it up, although I don't really have a problem with it as much as some. The twist at the end. Nobody really likes it for one simple reason.....IN NO WAY, SHAPE, OR FORM IS IT POSSIBLE.

At least it was somewhat entertaining, which is why I gave it a 5/10. A good piece of cheese if you like that sort of thing.

[Numbahs]

#74 - WALKING TALL

RELEASE DATE: APRIL 2nd, 2004

Another 5/10 entry, although this time I'm gonna remain positive about it. This movie stars The Rock as a military man who comes back to his old hometown after service to find that it has completely changed for the worse. So he confronts the man behind it all, gets his chest completely ripped up, and decides to extract revenge by becoming the new sherrif in town(literally).

The Rock is the future of action movies, and this is the film that really cements the fact that the movie-going audience can get behind him and "root" for him in a movie. He has a charisma that(unlike Vin Diesel) has yet to turn off anyone that I've ever talked to about it. He can be funny, serious, and can do his own stunts. What more is there that is necessary?

Oh yeah, picking good roles. :pinch: (Yeah, I went there)

It's not really that this movie is bad, it's that you have literally seen this thing one hundred times before. You know how it ends before you even see it. You know it's going to have stock action sequences for no reason where bullets just seem to be unloaded and unloaded without anyone being hurt. You know it will have a "zany" sidekick that spouts one-liners.

(Although, let me say that this movie was, at least to me, surprisingly effective with it's humor. Johnny Knoxville was funny.....something totally unexpected.)

Anyway, for all the "been there done that" feelings this movie gives you, it's alright. Give it a shot, I'm sure people less critical than me love it.

[apsham]

I really, really enjoyed Walking Tall and it's great that you gave it some proper props. Knoxville and Rock were both excellent in my opinion.

[reyrey619]

tis a shame its taking long, as I really appreciate Numbahs' reviews. Oh well, its worth the wait IMO.

[Numbahs]

tis a shame its taking long,

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[Guest Ringmaster]

I thought Saw was okay, the acting wasn't great and the camera shaky though. And the concept wasn't that good in the end, I'd give it 5/10.

As for Walking Tall, it's a 5/10 from me, The Rock is great in the role, but it's very clichéd.

And leave poor Numbahs alone with your evil taunts, the man does have some sort of social life, ya know.

[Guest Bluesman]

Exactly correct, sir. This was one (of the MILLIONS) of things that annoyed me about "Godsend".