Halloween Horror Marathon '13
Submitted for your approval...one Monterey Jack. Film fan. Movie score collector. And -- once per year -- indulges in his passion for movies that go bump in the night throughout the month of October. Usually this entails viewings of old favorites in the comfort of his living room, supplemented with the occasional trip to the multiplex to sample the latest in shock cinema. But Mr. Jack's usual routine is not going to go according to plan this year. Instead of the usual safe frights he views through the television monitor or the silver screen, this year his annual horror movie marathon will chart a course that will take him through the darkest regions of...the Twilight Zone.
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), but Sommers hasn't made a watchable movie since his 1994 version of The Jungle Book...probably because CGI wasn't advanced enough at that point for him to choke EVERY FRAME of his movies with it. 
Seriously, he's like the Michael Bay version of Steven Spielberg...all jittery and Ritalin-deprived and with an awful, AWFUL sense of humor. The first Mummy was dumb, but sort of harmless (and Jerry's music smoothed over the rough spots), but the sequel was HIDEOUS, and he somehow managed to make an even worse film with Van Helsing, which made me question if he had EVER seen a classic Universal monster movie in his life. I also despised his G.I. Joe. He's a lousy filmmaker.
It's not like the classic Godzilla pics of the past didn't have their share of dry "talking head" scenes with gobbledeygook-spewing scientists and grim-faced military men, but those movies rarely broke the 90-minute mark, whereas this goes on and on for a full two hours of tepid stock character drama (with a shamefully squandered cast of talented actors). Had the narrative been tightened up and director Gareth Edwards not cut away from the action every time it really started to get going, the film would have been truly satisfying. As it is, like too many movies these days, it's a feature-length advertisement for the "real" movie to follow. I still enjoyed the film, but give us some more action next time, and don't shoot all of it in the dark and rain.
I can understand wanting to slowly build the tension or whatever, but we paid to see MONSTERS FIGHTING, dammit. The first time Edwards cuts away from the action (in Hawaii, cutting to Kick-Ass's kid watching the fight on the news), it was an intentional joke, and sort of funny, but he just keeps doing it until the movie is practically over, and it got old REALLY fast. 