I made the title a little more exciting.

There really shouldn't have to be a spoiler warning attached, except that the reviewer, trying not to spoil, states that a certain detail "ruins a surprise in the movie," and thereby ruins (one of) the surprise(s) in the movie. Oh well. He liked it. And he liked Slither. On the other hand, he seemed to like the Underworld sequel too, which rather discounts everything else he says, for me at least. But some nice reporting from the Kevin Smith and Ghost Rider panels that I hadn't seen before.

SoddingNancyTribe | August 12, 02:54 CET

I enjoyed that! I loved the way Kevin Smith handled that fan...altho, I kinda felt sorry for the guy too.

nixygirl | August 12, 03:07 CET

I dunno SNT, sounded like he just liked Kate Beckinsale in black leather and the movie not as much. I was not overly impressed by his non-spoiler spoiler but there was some pretty darn good praise from a non-fan and I expect much similar praise over the next few months from more non-fans.

WhoIsOmega? | August 12, 03:12 CET

And that's bad how?

zz9 | August 12, 03:15 CET

You're right, April. Although he uses the word "fun" about the movie. You'd have to pay me to sit through the first Underworld movie again, so fun isn't quite the word I'd employ.

And nixygirl, I felt sorry for the fan too - although I don't have as high an opinion of Kevin Smith as many here do.

SoddingNancyTribe | August 12, 03:26 CET

Why did he say Alan Tudyk wasn't on the panel because of the flu? I thought he wasn't there because he was busy being on Broadway? Odd.

I thought Slither just looked gross, personally. It's fun to see other people's impressions of the panels though, even when I really disagree with them.

evilhandissues | August 12, 03:49 CET

ETA: zz9, "And that's bad how?'

I didn't imply that was a bad thing! :)

[ edited by April on 2005-08-12 01:50 ]

WhoIsOmega? | August 12, 03:49 CET

SNT - I am forced at least once every three months to sit thru Underworld! (Damn teens!)
I am not a huge KS fan, altho I really enjoyed his commentary on Donnie Darko, and he did a great pre release 10 page discussion on SW: Revenge of the Sith with Simon Pegg and Edger Wright that had me in stitches!

nixygirl | August 12, 04:02 CET

Underworld isn't "bad". It just would have been far better if it had a better script. But Kate Beckinsale in that leather/lycra/rubber outfit... Mmmm.......

zz9 | August 12, 04:26 CET

*sigh* ...Underworld. What could have been...

I agree with zz9, yet I also think that parts of it WERE extremely bad. Kate Beckinsale did look extremely hot in that kickin' outfit.

The editing was atrocious, to the point where the simple plot actually became difficult to follow at times ("Wait-who? And that guy - what?). And the actor who played the greedy/bad vampire (forget his name) had to spit out a mouthful of scenery every time he delivered a line.

I thought Speedman did a pretty respectable job. And visually, the movie rocked, so it wasn't completely irredeemable.

You want total stinko? Rent Van Helsing.

Willowy | August 12, 04:49 CET

Well, Underworld was better than Van Helsing. I wanted to blow something up after walking out of Van Helsing, Underworld just left me annoyed.
Van Helsing was really sad. I had mainly two problems with Underworld.
1. the script: they had great ideas, but all the pacing and how the story was told it was very choppy.
2. darkness. Don't mind the all leathery look of the movie, it's still sort of cool even after all the Matrxi frenzi. But did the movie need to be this dark. I think even the few daylight scenes, were dark. That annoyed me a lot, halfway thorugh the movie, my eyes were already tired with all the dark scenes.

Kate was pretty hot in both of them though.

Numfar PTB | August 12, 05:33 CET

I thought Underworld was just. plumb. bad. Bad to the point of embarrassing. Bad to the point of me questioning my sanity. I didn't see any great ideas that weren't second- or third- or fourth-hand ideas from other places. And it took itself seriously. Which is why I'd prefer to watch Showgirls, which celebrates its badness. Even la Beckinsale's hotness couldn't redeem it in my eyes. Van Helsing I am choosing to ignore, given people's feelings about it v. the other one. We'll all just agree to violently disagree on this one. :)

SoddingNancyTribe | August 12, 07:19 CET

Van Helsing. Willowy's got that one nailed. Just horrid. Horrible. And I say that, being a fan of Underworld. Dracula was, well, they castrated him! I felt the need for a cleansing shower after that utter crap.

Angela | August 12, 07:31 CET

My thoughts on "Underworld" parallel SNT's - the show is bad, takes itself too seriously, it's seriously boring and come on, why bother paying to watch an entire movie just for an attractive lead (and IMHO, she's not that much of a looker)? Just steal a skin mag off the top rack at the convenience store if that's the only draw!

As for "Van Helsing", I haven't seen it but I asked my cousin recently what was so bad about it; he said: "His big secret is he's a werewolf. Not cool like 'Monster Squad' either."
My reply: "That's...incredibly lame."

gorramit | August 12, 09:59 CET