feardrinker's Profile at Metacritic

Average User Score: 7.8

User Score 5

This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. As has been said my many already, Fassbender and McAvoy are very good as the young Magneto and Prof. X. The others are decent to poor. The choice of mutants to include is curious; it seems like we could have done better than the pole dancer who spits acid and the kid who screams as he flies. Also, one kid (perhaps the most powerful of the bunch) has to do a hula-hoop motion to use his powers. Beast was a good inclusion, on the other hand. *** Ultimately this film feels very familiar, too familiar for me. In fact they lifted so many existing chunks from previous films (Bacon's character feels like a two-dimensional Magneto with no history and no motivation) I was disappointed. If the series is to retain my attention the filmmakers are going to have to explore themes that we haven't already seen in the previous installments. *** It says a lot that the audience's reaction (at the theatre I was at) was strongest for Jackman's cameo. Wolverine remains the most compelling character the series has to offer, and yet his story has already been told (regrettably by a hack director) in Origins: Wolverine. Where does the franchise go from here? My guess is further downhill. This is not a bad action/comic book movie; it is middle of the road or better and will appeal to a broad audience. However it not great. Those of us desiring the best X Men film experience are still left with re-watching the first and second installments.… Expand

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The Fighter

Average User Score: 8.2

User Score 10

Oscar-bait gets a near perfect score from critics and cretins alike. Who would have thought! Oh, the tears in my eyes. The performances, the script...magnifique!… Expand

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The Last Exorcism

Average User Score: 5.2

User Score 6

A character-driven thriller that will bore anybody who enjoys the current generation of slasher movies. Yes, if you can't wait for the next installment of Saw/Hostel/Rob Zombie's Whatever, you will probably dislike this movie intensely. If you're considering renting this once it comes out on video, you've been warned. Having said that, I enjoyed this movie right up until the end. Without including any spoilers, I'll just say it is dissappointing and feels like a concession to someone with control over distribution. The acting is good all-around, and this backwoods family consists of a very frightening possessed girl, creepy older brother, and simple-minded and very religious/superstitious father. Once the characters are established and plot set in motion, you can sit back and enjoy the wierdness as things unfold. I may not have liked the ending, but at least the filmmakers had me curious enough to sit through to the end.… Expand

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The Fourth Kind

Average User Score: 5.8

User Score 5

The movie is an oddball mixture of genuine scares and inept filmmaking. At points the movie is embarrassingly goofy, but for a few moments there my hair was definitely standing on end. The best bits, I think, are the scenes were the doctor interviews her patients (via hypnosis) and draws out all the things they had tried to forget. Very convincing performances by the actors portraying the patients, for the most part. Jovovich is a competent actress but miscast here, given her spandex-zombie-asskicking background.… Expand

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Inception

Average User Score: 8.4

User Score 4

A great cast, intersting concept, with high production values, but utlimately a very average action movie. I agree with JamesD that the film was "curiously impersonal and mechanical." Cut out roughly 45 minutes of Philosophy 201 level exposition and what you have is people shooting and punching each other. A film this hyped demands comment on the director: I thought Dark Knight was very good, but mostly because of Ledger's performance. Take that away, and Dark Knight is rather average fair with Bale doing a lot of growling and gloating. In Inception there is no remarkable performance; Leonardo emotes but we are given no reason to care.… Expand

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Paranormal Activity

Average User Score: 5.5

User Score 10

Certainly a polarizing movie, as other posters have noted. For those with vivid imaginations, this movie is a rare treat; what is left unshown is what scares you. I give this movie a 9 because it is the first movie to actually scare me in some time. True, the bickering yuppie couple cn be annoying at times, but the tension that is carefully built throughout the movie more than makes up for this. Also, to those who didn't like the ending (I'm one of them): I have read that the ending was a concession to producers or distributers. The director intended something else.… Expand

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Piranha 3-D

Average User Score: 5.6

User Score 3

This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. This is not a horror film, it is exploitation. Although I'm a fan of 70's and 80's exploitation films, I didn't much care for this one. The various characters are either obnoxious or cardboard placeholders (or both), to begin with, and I could hardly wait for the killing to start. The teen angst/romance subplot was rote and meaningless. Part of what makes the old exploitation movies likeable is a low-budget, unpolished but earnest charm that is missing in this one. And fully the first half of the movie is a plotless "MTV Spring Break" dance party. The many, many ways in which people are mutilated in this movie are reminiscent of the still-young torture porn genre more than horror (or black comedy, which some people will insist this movie is). The gratuitous nudity would be funny (and perhaps even titillating) if it were brief and frequent; instead we get long, lingering shots that cause the sort of audience embarrassment that Showgirls once did. These long, lingering shots also refute the argument that the movie is somehow a feminist statement against pornography; this is pornography, if soft core. It really comes down to this: if you think that watching a topless woman's legless torso being dragged up from the lake while you are invited to ogle the corpse's sizable breasts is good entertainment, you'll probably like this movie. Yes, I know some of you will.… Expand

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feardrinker's Profile at Metacritic