Lance Maior (1968)

Synopsis: Mário is a young law student who works at a bank. He starts a relationship with a humble yet attractive shopgirl. He then starts a concomitant relationship with a rich girl.

Appraisal: Urban drama whose grim candor in character depiction and economic narrative style make for an interesting portrait of how the Brazilian upper and lower middle classes of the late sixties behaved and interacted. Although it abides by a realistic worldview, it has a certain theatricality to its dialogue and mise-en-scene that betrays some roughness in the overall execution; in spite of that, it is a worthy film, probably one of its director's better ones.

Rating: 57

Blindfold (1965)

Synopsis: A pychotherapist is requested by a government agent to treat a physicist who suffered a nervous breakdown and is being sought by a gang who wants to trade him to a foreign country. The therapist is to be taken to a secret location where the scientist is being held captive by the government agent.

Appraisal: This is an attempt at mixing light comedy and espionage thriller. The violence is toned down, and the romance angle is explored. The plot has some clever turns, but is basically naive and not very exciting.

Rating: 41

Jaws: The Revenge (1987)

Synopsis: A shark chases the family of the man who killed his -- father? friend? whatever... Meanwhile, in the human family, the mother is romanced by a small-plane pilot, and her son does research on marine zoology.

Appraisal: Lame plot and lame effects, and yet the film is not unwatchable, on a scene-by-scene basis.

Rating: 31

Colour Me Kubrick (2005)

Synopsis: A con man impersonates a famous filmmaker in order to get free food and (especially) drinks.

Appraisal: Entertaining story based on real events. It's mostly a one-man-show of its star, who gives a delightful performance. The story itself is well narrated and, as I said, entertaining, even though it consists of fairly predictable variations of a single situation.

Rating: 54

Crusoe (1989)

Synopsis: A slave trader is shipwrecked and cast away in an uninhabited island. Loosely based on Daniel Defoe's novel (1st ed. 1719).

Appraisal: Not very exciting or original, yet watchable.

Rating: 51

Paradise Now (2005)

Synopsis: Two Palestinian friends are summoned by a clandestine group of anti-Israel action to be suicide bombers.

Appraisal (SPOILERS): I would gladly file this film under "mediocre yet with a hot and little explored theme" but unfortunately its incoherences make even this description a bit generous. There are major plot points which are questionable at best: (1) why didn't Said join his friends after the failed attack? (2) why did the two men concomitantly change their respective opinions and dispositions about the attack? I know that many interpretations have probably been issued about those questions, but, although I haven't read any, I don't think any of them would make this script sufficiently convincing let alone engaging for me.

Rating: 35

Napoleon Dynamite (2004)

Synopsis: Napoleon is a teenage boy with limited social skills who lives with his grandmother and his older brother who spends his days chatting on the Internet. He befriends a Mexican-American kid who decides to run for Class President.

Appraisal: Again, not much to say (I am glad I am not a professional critic, or I'd be in serious trouble) about this except that I found it mostly funny and intelligent, and well acted and well directed. However, something happens with these comedies of late - and maybe this is just me being jaded and impossible to please but anyway - that they seem to wear out at their second half, run out of tricks or something. This one went well almost all the way through, though, and the fact that I began watching it very tired and finished watching it without a trace of sleepiness speaks for itself.

Rating: 66

The Hills Have Eyes (2006)

Synopsis: A family on a vacation trip through the desert is trapped and chased by a gang of deformed demented murderers.

Appraisal: Remake of the 1977 film. I didn't like the first one much, and this one is perhaps even less good. I can't find anything intelligent to say about it. With a bag of popcorn, it goes down easier.

Rating: 39

Peau d'âne (1970)

English title: Donkey Skin.

Synopsis (SPOILERS): A widower king wants to wed with his own daughter. She stalls him with complex demandings and eventually flees donning a donkey skin, which she keeps on at all times (why?). She employs herself as a maid at a witch's house.

Appraisal: Musical version of a lesser known fable by Perrault, first published in 1696 and probably based on earlier oral tradition. While in Cinderella there was a glass slipper, here there is a ring. In both, the heroine is a lowly servant who eventually marries the prince. Here, however, she has noble blood. I guess the film should please girls under 16.

Rating: 40

Chaplin (1992)

Synopsis: Charles Chaplin was an English vaudeville actor who emigrated to the United States in 1914 and made a career in film. The FBI persecuted him and eventually expelled him from the country.

Appraisal: After Saint Gandhi, meet Saint Chaplin. "I am not a communist. I am a humanist", our hero declares to a (fictitious) friend in his old age days in Switzerland. Hell no, the guy was just a movie maker with no intellectual aspirations; well, his films were about humans, not cats or dogs (well, there were some dogs too), so perhaps he was a humanist in that sense, but saying more than that is just reverential image-making. Anyway, this is the general tone of the movie. It has good production values, and good acting, and does inform us, at a superficial level, of Chaplin's life. But no, it is not a good movie; and it gets duller and duller as it advances towards Chaplin's old age. Note: the copy I saw lacked the scene containing the following exchange: "-You know what? I've alway had that gift. After a man makes love to me, he just goes wild from happiness. -I am happy. -Then I don't want to be around when you're sad."

Rating: 44

Algie, the Miner (1912)

Synopsis: An effeminate man is refused as his beloved's husband, unless he proves himself a man by traveling West, claiming a mine he owns, and returning with some rocks.

Appraisal: Enjoyable early short (10 minutes) comedy, with some funny moments, enhanced by the main actor's performance.

The Cat in the Hat (2003)

Synopsis: A woman is assigned by her boss to host a company party at her house, and her kids, instigated by a mischievous giant cat, trash the place before that event. Will they be able to undo the wrecking in time?

Appraisal: Imaginative and pretty funny on occasion, with a relentless pace, a stunning visual design, and good performances by the whole cast. Although certainly not a masterpiece - the material just doesn't lend itself to great things - and uneven on the verbal jokes department, this is a generally enjoyable film which I do not regret having seen.

Rating: 62

Pretty Persuasion (2005)

Synopsis: Three high school girls accuse their teacher of sexual harassment.

Appraisal: Unfunny satire of American schools, homes and TV, with a primitive notion of humor and an inane plot which seems to be an attempt to summarize all high school comedies ever made while futilely going for an "edge" - a concept equally valued (and understood in the same terms) by the film's writer and by the main character herself - by inserting every supposedly controversial topic at hand.

Rating: 15

Kicking & Screaming (2005)

Synopsis: A guy who has a problematic relationship with his father due to the latter's competitive attitude decides to coach a soccer team of inept children, amongst whom is his own son. His father is coaching the rival team.

Appraisal: Rustic humor, in a film which borrows several plot elements from The Bad News Bears (1976).

Rating: 31

The Painted Veil (2006)

Synopsis: An English bacteriologist lives in Shanghai with his wife, who starts an affair with the English consul. The husband finds out and (after a few events which I will not describe here) they move to a remote region in China, where he will be in charge of putting an end to a cholera epidemic.

Appraisal: I am acquainted with the works of Somerset Maugham mostly through film adaptations. I usually like him, but, based on this film alone, I suppose his 1925 novel on which it is based is probably one of the less exciting stories coming from his pen. It is rather antiquated, even by Maugham's standards, and I can't explain its being remade into a film unless the average viewer's mind is actually also a little antiquated by my standards. Any modern woman will probably scoff at the situation faced by the film's heroine. Anyway, it is quite competently (albeit also conventionally) done, and is not a bad way of spending two hours.

Rating: 57

Marie Antoinette (2006)

Synopsis: An Austrian girl is sent to France to marry the French prince.

Appraisal: Quite poor of ideas, looking like a music video much of the time; the kind of material affluence evoked by the modern songs is a fruit of modern democratic capitalism, not of absolute monarchy, which makes their use here quite misguided. In its own limited way, the film manages to convey some of the complex feelings a young woman goes through while trying to adapt to a foreign milieu.

Rating: 48

Munich (2005)

Synopsis: Members of a Palestinian organization kill the Israeli athletes in Munich during the 1972 Olympics. The Israeli government assemble a team of assassins with the mission of tracking the killers down and killing them.

Appraisal: Not very exciting as an action movie; as a psychological and political drama, it rarely departs from commonplace qualms of conscience and similarly tired stuff. I was amazed at what a retarded bunch this is: the bomb maker is a complete amateur; the other guy falls into the "honey trap" even after he has been explicitly warned about it; their source is absolutely unreliable (by the way, why were they lodged in the same house with Palestinians? was it a trap set up by Louis? to what purpose?). The astoundingly pointless and senseless sequence near the end, wherein our hero has sex with his wife while he imagines the athletes' murder, has a secured place among cinema's very worst.

Rating: 36

Inside Man (2006)

Synopsis: The Manhattan Trust Bank is invaded by robbers; they take everyone in there hostage. Their modus operandi baffles the police. The contents of one safety deposit box holds a secret which, if revealed, will expose a very important person.

Appraisal (SPOILERS): Laborious plot; the writer tried to think of everything but apparently couldn't. I took the following text from the IMDb Message Board:

*start of quote*

Can someone reasonably explain this?

by dcobbimdb (Wed Jun 6 2007 18:23:03)
Ignore this User Report Abuse

There's a couple timing issues I have, and they may just be oversights that they figured the viewer wouldn't catch onto or maybe I'm 2 bottles short of a 6 pack, lets find out :) 1. The crime happened, Dalton was hiding for a week in that little room they built. So a week later Frazier goes to the bank to unlock that lock box. You would think that the bank owner Case within that time would have checked out the lock box himself to see if it was touched or whatnot. So that means that the ring stayed in that box for a week until Frazier went there with a court order to get it out??? Doesn't add up why Case wouldn't have gone through it prior... 2. Along the same lines, it shows at the very end of the movie that Frazier finally gets together with his girlfriend... So you mean to tell me that his girlfriend is just laying in bed for a week waiting for him to get done with and wrap up the case? That's at least how they portrayed it in my eyes. 3. Possibly an editing error. When they first storm the bank and throw out the smoke bombs, one of the robbers throws two smoke bombs. One hits the top step and goes backwards. The next scene it shows from his perspective where you see two smoke bombs roll out onto the floor. Don't get me wrong, I liked the movie and have seen it multiple times (mainly cause I wanted to figure out exactly who the bad guys were and watch there interactions earlier on in the movie when they blended in with the hosteges.

*end of quote*

I actually think that the whole plan is very flimsy and could fail by a number of reasons. Someone might have thought of checking for people inside after the evacuation, for one thing. Aren't there instruments (heat detectors, whatever) for finding people hiding in a place?
As for the whole Nazi connection, it is absurd to think that the guy would store incriminating evidence against him instead of destroying it. If he was stupid enough to do it, there are dozens who weren't, so what's the big deal? Anyway, these are weak spots of a movie which is otherwise watchable.

Rating: 43

Polissons et galipettes (2002)

English title: The Good Old Naughty Days.

Compilation of early pornography. The films which are shown - most of them, it seems, in their full length - are:

Coiffeuse, La (1905)
Devoirs de vacances (1920)
Mousquetaire au restaurant (1920)
Atelier faiminette, L' (1921)
Voyeuse, La (1924)
Abbé Bitt au couvent, L' (1925)
Agénor fait un levage (1925)
Fessée à l'école, La (1925)
Heure du thé, L' (1925)
Miss Butterfly (1925)
Eveready Harton in Buried Treasure (1929)
Massages (1930)

It goes without saying that all this is interesting, but the one thing that strikes modern viewers as especially remarkable is the depiction of male homosexuality, which is taboo in modern pornography, except of course in that kind which depicts only it. I have read some comments from amateurs and reviews from professionals, and they all seem to attribute this fact to a more liberal view of male homosexuality in those early times. I don't want to sound arrogant, but I tend to disagree with those comments, in the same way I disagree with the widespread notion that in ancient Greece homosexuality was considered normal. In my opinion, there was, at any period in history, a significant fraction of the population who disapproved of homosexuality. In the specific case of these movies, one has to bear in mind some important facts: they were not sold in stores, like the ones made today; they were shown in brothels only. This means that no great concern for the audience's preferences were necessary. While it must be true that among the makers of these films homosexuality was tolerated (and probably even enjoyed), this was probably less so among the viewers; and if it was enjoyed by some of them, remember that we are talking exclusively of people who went to brothels, some of them on a regular basis. The modern viewers of pornography are a much more varied population, impossible to define. Now, a word about female homosexuality. It is very common, both in old porn and in new. Why the difference? The answer is simple: female viewers are in a minority among viewers of pornography; what most heterosexual people don't want to see is their own gender's homosexuality.

L'enfant (2005)

English title: The Child.

Synopsis (SPOILER): A street thief whose girlfriend has just had his baby sells it without her consent.

Appraisal: It is the second film I see by the Brothers, and I still can't understand what the fuss is all about. OK, they make films connected with reality, specifically Belgian reality. They are excellent directors of actors. Their stories are not hard to follow, and have their share of emotion. So far, so good. The camerawork in The Child is not as sickness-inducing as in The Son, which is another plus. So, it's about forgiveness. And it sheds some light at Belgium's social problems, which, for a Brazilian like me, seem rather minor. I don't know, it's just that I found it all so pedestrian. So, the protagonist made a big mistake. What is it supposed to tell us? That child trafficking is a social problem in Belgium? That there are lines to be drawn, even in a life of crimes? Or rather, that a life of crimes leads to the blurring of those lines? I just didn't find it all that interesting. One thing, though, did strike me as odd: it seems that in Belgium people prefer to chase thieves by themselves, and call the police only in extreme cases, or after the thief is caught.

Rating: 48

La boîte noire (2005)

English title: Black Box.

Synopsis: A man suffers a car accident and enters a coma, during which he mumbles incoherent stuff which may provide clues to some mysteries in his past.

Appraisal (SPOILERS): I watched it twice in order to sort out some obscure points, but some things remain obscure: (1) the phrase "Finoil buys the AC group" is discussed at some point and a company named Comeco is mentioned which apparently rings a bell in the protagonist's mind but, as far as I can remember, it is the only mention to it in the film; (2) do all those murders in the first "awakening" mean anything? (3) in the last scene, why do we see him back in the hospital bed? is it just a recollection or is the second awakening also false? was he in the hospital due to a car accident or was he murdered while investigating at the site of his brother's death? (it is never explained what he was doing in Cherbourg after all, and I am not even sure it is ever stated that Cherbourg is also where he spent his childhood). Anway, aren't people getting sick of watching variations of the same story over and over? Note: this film is loosely based on a novella by Tonino Benacquista; I have read the comic book adaptation by the author himself, and it is a very different, and much more coherent, story. (In fact, I don't know which came first, the novella or the comic book, and whether they are similarly plotted.)

Rating: 18

Brødre (2004)

English title: Brothers.

Synopsis: Two brothers, one a married man, quite responsible and respected, the other a misfit who just got out of prison where he did time for armed robbery. The former goes away to Afghanistan as a soldier...

Appraisal (SPOILERS): It stretches credibility too often, both in its characters' flat psychology, and in more down-to-earth details like the prisoner camp's clichéd (and as far as I know unsupported by factual evidence) savageries (the writer-director must have seen Bullet in the Head). The dramatic resolution of the proposed conflicts is not satisfying at all; younger brother simply vanishes without a trace and all is declared well. A dud.

Rating: 35

Match Point (2005)

Synopsis: In London, a tennis instructor starts to socialize with one of his rich pupils, and date his sister, and flirt with his fiancée.

Appraisal: It has a nicely flowing first hour (or a little more than that, I think), then gets a little repetitive, with Nola acting naggingly and naively beyond belief, and surreal, with Chris constantly talking on his cell phone without a reasonable explanation and no one suspecting anything. The story is clearly a variation on the widely known novel "An American Tragedy" by Theodore Dreiser, first published in 1925; it is also a reworking of the director's own "Crimes and Misdemeanors". The movie develops the theme of luck as related to an object in motion which must pass a given barrier; four physical instances are analyzed: a tennis ball must go beyond a net; a wedding ring must fly over the rail of a bridge; Chris's spermatozoid must reach Nola's egg; and Chris's spermatozoid must reach Chloe's egg. Some of these events are considered good luck, others bad. They are all metaphors for social ascension, in a way; also, for the director's career, from stand-up acts to gag-oriented comedy to philosophical melodrama as in here. Some say it was bad luck for us that he made it through; others, quite the opposite.

Rating: 60

Banco à Bangkok pour OSS 117 (1964)

English titles: Panic in Bangkok; Shadow of Evil.

Synopsis: The agent OSS 117 goes to Thailand to investigate a mysterious vaccine company which apparently caused a plague in India. He meets a mysterious doctor and his beautiful sister.

Appraisal: Bad espionage thriller, a very poor Bond imitation. The musical score is nice, though.

Rating: 17

The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada (2005)

Synopsis: In Texas, a Mexican immigrant is killed and his boss and best friend takes his body to bury it in Mexico. He takes the killer along.

Appraisal: Half-baked story of redemption. Its qualities lie more in the sense of humor contained in small details (a fat woman giving her dog a lush kiss, a cell phone call during a chase, and so on...) than in the big picture it draws, which is somewhat manicheistic and cliché-ridden. And about the ranger's wife, give me a break: she hasn't been in town long enough that her boredom has reached a point where she will jump - without a trace of reluctance or awkwardness - into a afternoon escapade with an illegal immigrant she has never met before.

Rating: 40

Delirious (1991)

Synopsis: A soap opera writer is in love with the star of his soap opera. He suffers an accident and wakes up as a character in it. The plot revolves around a formula which was concocted by a scientist, and the fierce competition to get it.

Appraisal (mild SPOILERS): Moderately entertaining exercise in metanarrative. It has some complicated concepts (the writer, as a character, may determine the course of events by writing them on his typewriter; as those events unfold, the letters erase themselves), and is not especially funny, but has some interesting moments.

Rating: 40

Les amants réguliers (2005)

English title: Regular Lovers.

Synopsis: François is a student in Paris in 1968. He takes part in the revolt of May. He is a poet, and he and his group of friends gravitate around Antoine, a rich friend who provides them drugs and lodging (and lounging too). François meets a beautiful aspiring sculptress and the two start a relationship.

Appraisal: Quite absorbing as a chronicle of a certain period; it is also a melancholically poetical love story. The black and white cinematography is stunning, and lends the film a compelling physicality. I don't know how true the film is to the real events, but, judging from it, May 1968 was a predominantly male event. Notice how, when these people get together, the guys are always having lively discussions about politics, while the girls sit passively, apart from the guys; when they talk, it is mostly about boyfriends and such. Shame about the subtitles, though: they are white and vanish on white scenes; I caught up with some of the missed dialogue after the film, by reading it on a subtitles file.

Rating: 67

Caché (2005)

English title: Hidden.

Synopsis: Someone is leaving VHS tapes at the Laurents' doorstep. And with them, ugly drawings of people bleeding and such. Who is torturing this happy family? Is it some crazed fan of M. Laurent, the host of a literary TV show? Or is it someone from his guilty past? (Don't worry, the film never shows who's done it.)

Appraisal: First, an advice for young filmmakers: if you must make a thriller, you must never (and I mean never!) solve it. Preferrably, make up a story which couldn't possibly be solved. Anyway, the important thing is, end it abruptly, leaving a feeling of emptiness in the audience. Otherwise you will never be taken seriously as an Artist (notice the capital letter). Caché might have had an epilogue in which it is revealed that the culprit is a deranged janitor, or a jealous co-worker of M. Laurent's, or Mme. Laurent's best friend Pierre, who lends her a shoulder when she is sad and, it would turn out, is secretly in love with her, having lost all vestige of sanity on account of it, or (why not) Pierrot's swimming instructor, and the list could go on. In that case, Caché would be positively identified as an American TV movie, the sorts of which, until a few years ago, were shown on a regular basis on Open TV on Saturday nights, after the soap opera in Brazil. But, if you don't want that to happen, and you want your film to be a French arthouse film instead, you don't have to change but two things: (1) as I said, cut the ending; yeah, simply throw it away, or rather, don't shoot it at all; (2) don't hire American TV second rate actors, but French first rate ones. Voilà, there's your Art film. Apparently most "refined" viewers never posed themselves a very simple question: how will a story that is blatantly implausible - which is obviously the reason it is left unsolved - cause any fear on the audience? We fear what can happen, not what cannot.

Rating: 25

Buck Privates (1941)

Synopsis: There isn't much of a plot, really. The film focuses on an army training station for peacetime soldiers, and its various inhabitants. One of them is a rich playboy who expects to be released thanks to his influential father's intervention, which never happens; Abbott and Costello inadvertently sign up, and provide comical sketches throughout the movie; said rich guy competes with another, more righteous, guy for the love of a beautiful hostess; the Andrews Sisters do several musical numbers.

Appraisal: Probably (though I haven't seen many of them) one of the weaker Abbott & Costello films. Anyway, I think it's hard not to enjoy it at least a tiny bit: the Andrews Sisters sing well, the songs are not so bad, the duo's sketches are uneven but good enough for a few laughs, there are even some combat drill scenes which seem pretty impressive.

Rating: 31

Volver (2006/I)

English title: To Return.

Synopsis: Several incidents - deaths, an apparition, etc. - affect a group of women - two sisters, the daughter of one of them, a friend, an old aunt - and the husband of one of them. Several events which took place long before begin to resurface and secrets are revealed.

Appraisal (mild SPOILERS): Weak - and long! - melodrama. Now, an odd flight of fancy of mine. When the film crew member asks Raimunda if she could serve meals to the crew, she agrees to it. I was sure that she was planning to chop up and cook the dead body and serve it to the film crew. An interesting detail: in Brazil, Raimunda is a popular denomination for a woman with big buttocks (it is a rhyme for 'bunda', which is the word for 'buttocks' in Brazilian Portuguese). It is reported that the leading actress wore artificial buttock enlargers for this movie so she would fit the typical shape of the women of La Mancha, where the film is set.

Rating: 25

Everything Put Together (2000)

Synopsis: A woman loses her baby to Sudden Infant Death Syndrome, and then starts a process of denial, during which all her friends avoid her.

Appraisal: Quite interesting exercise in naturalism (1st part) and in atmosphere (2nd part). Although it is not always completely successful, one can sense the director's talented hand throughout the film. The acting is good, especially the leading lady.

Rating: 59

Stealth (2005)

Synopsis: Three Navy aircraft pilots are assigned to a secret project involving counterterrorism, and are to be joined by a fourth pilot, who turns out to be non-existent, or rather, a computer: the fourth plane is devised to fly unmanned, totally controlled by an artificial intelligence program who can learn and evolve. Needless to say, it runs out of control and its programmer is summoned to fix it.

Appraisal: A weak script is a major problem with this film, which nevertheless has good action sequences - one of them actually great, the girl being ejected from her plane and freefalling under the shower of debris - and a marvellous female star.

Rating: 40

Houseboat (1958)

Synopsis: A man whose three estranged kids are suddenly left motherless decides to live with them. He hires a beautiful Italian woman to look after them.

Appraisal: Moderately fun for most of its duration, though it has some screenplay problems, of which the biggest one is possibly the fact that, by making Cinzia a rich woman, it renders all the "class discrimination" angle really stupid. Plus, the final section where the kids are suddenly against her is totally contrived and therefore annoying.

Rating: 46

Estamira (2004)

Brief description: This is a documentary on a woman who lives in a garbage dump. She has a very particular system of mystical beliefs, and a way of expressing them that is equally unique. She has a son and two daughters who try to support her, yet have a limited range of action, due to Estamira's individuality and independence, and to the clash of her beliefs with those of the others. Through Estamira's ravings, and the accounts of her family members, we hear of her tragic past of violence and abuse, and begin to understand how she came to be what she is now.

Appraisal: There is no denying this is a truly heart-breaking story, no matter what one thinks of the film as a finished product. And the film in itself is bound to divide opinions. I for one was a little bothered by the "freak show" quality that affects some parts of the film, although I think it has more than enough merits to make it worth viewing. This guy can film, this I know for sure. There is no amateurism here, the intelligence of the shots is evident, and he knows how to create a sense of surreal outlandishness out of this grim landscape.

Rating: 58

Monsieur Ibrahim et les fleurs du Coran (2003)

English title: Monsieur Ibrahim.

Synopsis: A Jewish boy living in Paris makes friends with a Muslim store-owner.

Appraisal: I have the feeling that tolerance for banality has become boundless in today's cinema. Otherwise there would be no explanation for this (and for many of the films released in the past 5 years which I have seen). Don't get me wrong, it is not an unbearable film; there is nothing offensive about it: it is warm-hearted, and even visually pleasing. Maybe this is all it takes to satisfy modern viewers?

Rating: 34

The Circle (2001/I)

Alternate title: Fraternity.

Synopsis: A secret society of college students steals the questions of an exam. A bright student who is not a society member knows the identity of the thieves, and is pressed into turning his colleagues in.

Appraisal: This is a frivolous yet watchable game of whodunit, displaying a succession of red herrings, and a few plot twists, all in a steady pace. It borrows some superficial elements from The Skulls (2000) but is otherwise a completely different film. I didn't see anything special about it and by tomorrow I will probably have forgotten its plot.

Rating: 37