Tag Archives: ET

Mac and Me Review

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It’s time Boys! Mac and Me is one of those films that you can’t help but hear of at some point in your life. It’s essentially E.T. but the knock off so it has slightly less personality. Yet….it makes for a better film. How can that be? Well, the characters are actually better. The plot is more intense and you will enjoy the McDonald scenes. The movie may not take itself very seriously but at the same time you can certainly see the heart within it.

The movie starts with a few aliens trying to survive on a planet in space. Unfortunately there aren’t too many resources at their disposal so things are not going too well for them. Fortunately the U.S. sent a probe to space and the aliens get sucked inside. This leads to what is probably the most intense scene in the entire film. The army gets ready to confront these aliens, but unfortunately they were not prepared for this level of power. The whole scene is pretty crazy since you’d expect the government to be prepared for this.

Then there is also the fact that the alien designs are completely terrible. Their heads are always shaking as the characters struggle to move forward. The whole time you’ll feel like averting your eyes and yet you can’t because you don’t want to miss out on what is happening. Well, the grown up aliens escape while one gets into the car where the main characters are at. This leads to a lot of hi jinx where the alien messes up everyone’s lives and steals the main character’s coke. Nobody believes the lead so it looks like he’ll have to force the alien out into the open. Can he do that while also stopping the government from butting in though?

From start to finish you’ll need to suspend a lot of disbelief for this movie though. After all, the government even tries to get the aliens to become citizens. Really? That doesn’t seem all that likely to me, but I suppose as long as they don’t hurt anyone nobody will care. The problem is that the aliens can’t even talk or read so it’s hard to make them citizens because they won’t know how to do the right thing. Do they even have a moral compass? I have my doubts.

Eric is the main character here and he can be a little annoying. The kid does a terrible job of trying to prove that the Macs exist and ends up nearly drowning because he approached a hill too fast. You gotta be careful when you live in danger world. His big brother isn’t any better as we get a fairly cringy romance with his character. Then you’ve got the Mom who takes a little too long to believe the main characters and tends to panic a lot. Wait…did I say that these characters are better than the ones from E.T.? Clearly those guys must not have been particularly good right?

The McDonalds party scene is surprisingly good though. You wouldn’t expect much from this kind of scene but it actually had quite a lot of hype and shows why celebrating at McDonalds will always be cool. What beats getting your favorite burger and having a dance competition at the same place? I’ll tell you what does…nothing! Of course Mac didn’t do very good there since dancing in front of the government is always going to end up finishing their search. Even the worst agent would be able to suspect that something was up by this point.

Now the government may not look great at times here like when they took their guns out so quickly, but you also have to concede that Mac and the gang didn’t handle the situation well either. They keep on walking without a care in the world as they disrupt society. The aliens appear to barely have any form of intelligence, but even so you would expect them to adapt to Earth a little better than they had. Is it really so hard to integrate into society? Making the aliens a little more likable would have really gone a long way.

The pacing is pretty decent for this movie. It doesn’t feel particularly long and the plot is usually moving so you never feel stagnant. Some scenes can be a bit hard to believe though like when the cops blow up a Wal-Mart type store to stop the aliens and everyone survives somehow. The main character almost died, but there were no casualties. I think the special effects guy was a little too zealous in his job at that point though as an explosion of that size would have absolutely wiped everything out. You simply can’t survive from such an attack.

Overall, I can’t say that Mac and Me will go down as an all time great, but it wasn’t half bad. At the very least the film tried to have some heart. I think with less kids as main characters it could have really ended up being quite good. Unfortunately kids just can’t hold their own films and this movie just serves to reinforce that. It’s not that the kids are terrible or anything, but they simply aren’t very interesting and tend to be slow on the uptake. I want a main character who is always ready for a fight and who doesn’t back down. A character like that will cause any movie to go to the next level. If you haven’t seen this film yet then I would recommend checking it out. It’s fairly decent, on the other hand it wouldn’t be hard for you to simply find a better sci-fi film to check out instead. Also alien designs don’t get worse than Mac.

Overall 5/10

Sense and Sensibility Review

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It’s time for a romance drama. As you may have expected, this was a fairly terrible movie. It tries very hard to be the next Cinderella, but somewhere along the road it lost sight of what was happening and devolved into a train wreck much like the Street Fighter V release. If only this film could have been as emotional as ET!

The characters and their names do not really matter in this film so let’s get right to the plot. There are these two sisters and their mother who used to have a fairly nice life. One day, their benefactor died and his full inheritance went to someone who was unrelated to them. The dying man told this guy to make sure that the ladies were well provided for, but his wife quickly convinced him to renege on his word. The guy agreed since deep down he does love money and the girls were quickly thrown into a life of hardship and passive aggressive dealings. If they had been tough enough to actually stand up for themselves in this civilized time, then maybe things could have been a little different.

Either way, this was the only part of the film where you could feel bad for the main heroines. It’s a plot that I never like to see, but at least the plight was very real. It’s sad to go from owning your own house to essentially being the maidservants there. The film lost me when the heroines left to live with a nice old couple though. Suddenly, their situation wasn’t half bad and the place was actually pleasant. They no longer needed to worry about their situation financially and the upbeat atmosphere of the mansion would do wonders for the cast…or would it? Unfortunately, not everyone is very grateful.

The heroines act as if the old couple are a nuisance (Aside from the youngest sister) and they apparently prefer the quietness of being servants than the loud rumblings of the current dinner situation. That’s where I lost my sympathy, how could they ever miss the old days when the situation is so good over here. Sure, the old couple gossips a lot and they’re always talking, but it certainly beats the alternatives. The problem is that the main characters are not likable. None of the characters are really likable although the old couple would be the best characters by default I suppose. It’s still not saying a whole lot.

This whole film revolves around the question, “Do you care if you’re simply the rebound guy?” None of the characters do and they’re personally satisfied with it, but would you be? Just think about it for a moment, the person that you like has repeatedly turned you down and been very rude to you your whole life since you’re just an annoyance to the person. An obstacle that should be gone. One day, the friend’s love interest reveals that he’s just been using her for the thrills and runs off so she says that she’ll go with you now. The main guy in the film basically says “Great, I’ll grab my stuff!” as they’re married the very next day. (Something like that) It felt rather odd, but also sad because it’s actually realistic.

People are so easy nowadays that they’re desperate for love. This scenario is actually not all that uncommon and just makes the characters look even worse. Essentially, the same thing happens with another pair, only they broke up like 3 times first and again, the girl was the second choice. The guy had made a promise to someone else that he would marry her about a decade earlier so when he remembered the promise, it was game over for the main character. The lady called it off though so the guy quickly went back to the main charcater, but he had already dumped her twice and ignored her several times at a party, pretending not to know her. He even sent her a letter saying that he had never loved her. Erm….is this what true romance is?

One of the characters admitted that classics like Romeo and Juliet had “pathetic endings” which I did have to agree with. I don’t use such strong words, but you have to admit that those romances are rather terrible and know nothing about true love. If you have fallen in love at first sight, then you know that it is fake love. The problem is that most people will never realize this so we’ll get films like this one.

No worries guys, this film’s still not getting a 0 or anything like that. I’m not even giving it a 1 since it’s not horrendous. It’s terrible and boring, but doesn’t cross the line into Sucker Punch territory. My main complaint with the film aside from the characters is the fact that it is very boring. The film drags on and on and the plot doesn’t make a lot of sense. As I explained, the characters should have been happy with the old couple, but for the sake of drama, they quickly revolted. That’s not cool. The romance was handled very poorly as well, but you probably saw that coming didn’t you? I have been bashing it for quite a few paragraphs at this point….

Who knows, maybe zombies would have spiced things up a bit. I can definitely say that the MVPs of this film were definitely the dogs that had been running around the place. They were neat and it makes me wish that they could have been around a little more to mock the main characters and their unwise choices. I also have to say that tripping in a grassy plain is quite lazy and does make it seem as if you’re a very weak character. We wouldn’t want people to get the right impression now would we?

Overall, This is a very boring film and one that you should not bother to watch. It doesn’t help that this is set in the olden times where everything looked dreary and dull. How I miss my modernized glass buildings and video games at every twist and turn. There’s no real language, which is one of the good things about having an old film, but with a large array of terrible characters at every turn, it doesn’t make a whole lot of difference. If you want to watch an emotional movie, check out Peanuts instead. At least that one has Snoopy and it’s said that he can hold an entire film all on his own. Now that’s what I call talent!

Overall 2/10