Escape to the Movies: Centurion

[GuerrillaClock]

Well of course we're going to bring up Expendables again, since that's exactly what Bob did for over half his review, and still failed to give any reasons as to why it was bad, instead choosing to tell us to see other films instead. Again. As many have said, the problem wasn't that you bashed Expendables, it was that your 'review' was nothing of the sort, and it didn't give any kind of argument as to why the film sucked. Instead, you chose to cry over Scott Pilgrim doing badly at the box office (which saddens me too, might I add) and personally insult everyone who went to see it. If you're going to dish out personal insults, you can't cry in your next review about how much criticism you got in return.

As for this review, it was alright (at least, the Centurion bit was, I suppose), but it still has the whole Expendables farce hanging over it that leaves a bad taste in the mouth. Hopefully next week there'll be no mention of it and things can get back to normal.

 

[SamElliot'sMustache]

There's actually not that much of a difference. I pointed out much, much earlier that film critics do this all the time. Don't believe me? Go on Rotten Tomatoes, and look up any random movie, and you will find at least a dozen or so reviews, all from professional newspapers or magazines, that make far more harsh comments about not only films and filmmakers they don't like, but also the very people who go to watch these movies. Hell, Roger Ebert, A.O. Scott, and Armond White (especially Armond White) have made long and storied careers out of spewing far more vitriolic rhetoric than what Bob has used in his Expendables review, and they all have far more clout than he does. The reason for this is because criticism, unlike journalism, deals entirely in the subjective, and even with editors moderating comments, you're going to get lots of mud-slinging and incendiary jabs at the 'common folk' who flock to brain-dead films and ignore whatever film they happen to love at the moment (it's very rare, like in the case of Ebert's digs at gamers, and most of White's rants lately, for people to get up in arms about them, since most of the time no one cares).

Okay, let's step back a minute, and see if this makes sense. You can read Roger Ebert's review of The Doom Generation [http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/19951110/REVIEWS/511100301/1023] or Caligula [http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/19800922/REVIEWS/9220301/1023], go ahead, I'll wait...


Okay, now, watch Bob's review of The Expendables. Now, what specifically was bad about The Expendables? What did it do well? See, what Bob does is spend five minutes and 13 seconds throwing a tantrum. You learn nothing about the film except who's in it, and that it pissed Bob off. But, what we don't have is a "why". There's no explanation to what is actually wrong with the film, except that it beat out Scott Pilgrim at the box office. Now, let's look at Roger Ebert's Bill Roeper's review of The Expendables.[footnote]Ebert didn't do this one, so I picked off the reviewer from the Chicago Sun Times who did.[/footnote]

What you may notice is that with The Expendables review from the Chicago Sun Times is, there's a bit about the plot, a bit about why it should have worked, why it didn't. There's a slight tone of disappointment in the reviewer, so yeah, you're right, he's human, but it's not an outright failure of an attempt at a review. Seriously, read it. [http://www.suntimes.com/news/roeper/2592500,expendables-movie-roeper-081210.article]

Now, look at Bob's review. What's wrong with the film? According to Bob "the worst kind of people like it". What does that even mean? Fuck if I know, because Bob's not saying. This isn't a review. Its a man in his mid-twenties throwing a tantrum. That's not "being human" that's just fuckin' sad. Oh, right, and there isn't enough blood in it, because blood makes a movie better. Right, now, you read the Caligula review a minute ago, right? Right.

See, there's a reason I picked that one in particular. Because Roger Ebert does spend the first two paragraphs talking about his own nausea and disgust at the film. And then he does something else, he analyzes the film. You remember that? We've seen it from Bob before, just not recently. If anything, his Caligula review is pretty close to what Bob's review of The Expendables could have been like, if he actually behaved in a professional manor. Do you see and understand the distinction?

Like I said, he's not doing anything that is outside the bounds of any other form of film criticism, professional or otherwise, though I'm going to go out and agree that the quality of his reviews is on the decline.

I'd argue the entire site is in something of a slide. (Hell, maybe it's me, but even Yahtzee sounds tired to me these days.) Bob's gotten complacent, and just isn't trying to do professional writing anymore, he's degenerated to shit he'd write on his blog. His movie list looked like a collection of films he liked rather than any kind of cohesive list, and now, two weeks in a row, we have him devoting huge chunks of his reviews to inciting flame wars. That's not journalism, that's just tacky. Before that we've had reviews that boiled down to him masturbating over an actress. Anyway.

But, that's not what people are raging about in this thread. They're under the impression that Bob has personally insult them, because for once they're in that massive blob that is the mainstream moviegoing public going to see a shit film.

Here's actually a funny thing. Not a dig at you per-say, but you may want to stop and think about this for a minute.
snip
So, I asked you to stop for a minute and think. Are you expressing your own opinion here, or are you simply expressing Bob's?

If The Expendables had failed at the box office, and we were just left with him saying it was awful, virtually nobody would be as up in arms about it as they are now.

As a general disclamer, I haven't actually watched The Expendables or Scott Pilgrim or even Piranhas 3d. And I really don't give a shit how well they do anywhere, really. The films are made, they'll be on DVD in six months when I've got time to kill, and that'll be the extent of it.

And he's before taken shots at movies he thought were shit (and the people who see them) but still did well, but usually they fell into what the people on this site would have found acceptable to hate (i.e. Transformers, Blind Side, etc.), so not only did they not care, but they actively encouraged it.

Yeah, generally speaking going off on the people who watch them is an asinine move on Bob's part. It's kinda relevant to his argument about the Michael Bey Transformers films, but, beyond that? So what? People have never been particularly good at filtering out the good films. The ur-example is Blade Runner which completely died in the box office. So what? That doesn't mean you can't find it on DVD today, in a remastered edition from three years ago, with new edits and loads of special features. Throwing a fit over who does and doesn't watch films is, in general, completely puerile, especially when it comes to who those individuals are.

So, yes, it is hypocrical to fly into angry rants about it now.

I can't speak for everyone here. Personally I was more disgusted by his review of Salt, and as someone who has actually had to write movie reviews, what Bob's doing here is insulting to me, not because he is insulting me personally but because this is such an abomination of a review, it's insulting to the entire profession, especially given he gets paid for this. So, yeah, I'm not flying into an angry rant because he labeled me a "douchebag jock" which as a label fits me about as well as, oh, say, "lesbian queen of the desert". I'm irked because I haven't gotten a review, for three weeks now. Because as a professional, I'm offended that any editor would look at this tripe and sign off on it, and as a writer because when he's receiving actual genuine constructive feedback he'd rather childishly stick his fingers in his ears and call people names.

EDIT: Yay! Typo patrol :|

Again, I agree about the quality of his reviews being on the decline, but citing two reviews doesn't negate my point that film critics, as a whole, tend to lob (far worse) insults at films and the people who watch them. Not every critic every time, but there's always some critics that do this (think Musical Chairs: Flaming Edition). Even the most straight-up professional critic will do this often, usually set off by a movie of a genre they personally dislike (case in point: any of A.O. Scott's superhero film reviews, with their muddied non-logic and snide side remarks). And what I saw last week, and what I'm seeing this week, is largely (largely, mind you) people getting mad at him for doing what critics tend to do. Which brings me to this comment:

I'm not flying into an angry rant because he labeled me a "douchebag jock"...

I never said you specifically were. I'm referring generally to the posts on this thread, and I actually applaud you for having legitimate gripes against Bob's style (I posted my own gripes about his Salt review when that came out. Good lord, two minutes talking about how hot Angelina Jolie is?), but the general trend on here is that people are getting all in a twist, and taking a general stab at mainstream audiences way too personally (and that they would cheer, and add more bile themselves, if they weren't in that group). And yes, this is my opinion , since I don't think Bob has expressed this thought at all, ever. Thanks for asking, and forcing me to have to answer with a variant of that most stupid of phrases: "In my opinion."

All that being said, I wish more of the Escapists offered up the kind of meta-criticism you showed. What's going on at the moment (again, generally) isn't going to make Bob have some epiphany and start improving his craftsmanship, it's just going to make him still think "Well, I was right. These people are a bunch of douchebag jocks! I think next week, I'll Photoshop a picture of Stallone having sex with Schwarzeneger," or some other bullshit. There might have been a lot of constructive criticism in last week's thread, but it got lost in wave upon wave of flamewar nonsense (I stopped reading the comments on that review fairly early on, since at that point I had seen the same comment repeated something like twenty times, and had better things to do). If the scales were tipped more in the favor of Bob's desperately needed intervention, then I wouldn't have even posted my initial comment.

P.S.: Since I'm just waking up right now, I kind of realized halfway through typing this that my repeated mentioning of film critics doing the same thing comes across like an implicit endorsement of this behavior. It's not. More of an acceptance that it's going to happen, and I hope Mr. Chipman gets it out of his system sooner rather than later.

 

[Meemaimoh]

God. More gratuitous boobs-make-man-happy neanderthalism. I would have hoped that you'd be listening, but it seems like you don't care about how much you come across as a disgusting creep. Way to alienate all your audience members - male and female - whose minds have managed to emerge from puberty.

I officially no longer care what you have to say about anything, Bob. I'm no longer on either your MovieBob feed here on the Escapist, or following GameOverThinker over at ScrewAttack.

 

[squid5580]

Man, I am so angry that Bob called me an idiot sheep last week for going to see Eat Pray Love! RAGE! Wait, what movie is everyone up in arms about, again?

The one question I have for everyone so butthurt over Bob ripping on 'them' (i.e., they happened to be part of the general population that went to see The Expendables for a change, so now it's personal) is this: how many times on this very site have you either started, or participated in a thread decrying some popular piece of entertainment you thought sucked, and how many times have you insulted whole groups of people who liked said piece? This includes phrases like "emo fags" or "screaming tween girls" (for Twilight). No one seems to have a problem with flinging out the insults to whole groups of people just because of what entertains them, but the minute it's dished back out, they start bawling like they were beaten up and had their lunch money stolen.

And even if you go "but Bob is a critic!", guess what? Critics do this all the time! Whether they're Roger Ebert, A.O. Scott, or Armond White, they'll hurl out insults to those they deem fit quite regularly (and while sometimes it crosses the line, I don't think anything Bob said was even close to that case). I happened to like Star Trek last year, yet didn't mind that he got all in a tizzy about it (mostly because I agreed that the script was aneurysm-inducingly stupid, and had to have the actors and director salvage it). And that was when there wasn't a movie that he was passionate about coming out the same week and getting overlooked.

Which reminds me: Damn it, I'm a huge Neill Marshall fan, but won't get to see Centurion because my town blows, and won't show anything in the theater unless it's had 800 million commercials!

P.S.: Bob, while the boob-mentioning for Piranha 3-D is a lot more appropriate this week, is it possible to give it a rest for awhile?

i think real reason ppl r pissed (well at least me when i first saw the expendables vid)is that as a critic BOB seemed the most "human" if im making any sense. as a critic he would praise originality and artistic vision, but wasn't afraid to show his "normal" side and say HEY ITS GOT TITS (for lack of a better term). case and point this review about priranas 3d thats pretty much what he said.

now with this in mind he is A LOT more relatable as a critic and therefore his opinions hold a little bit more with people watching his reviews. (at least to me) . so when he simply insults everyone who watched the movie it seems like a betrayal of sorts.

now this review ticked me off too, mainly because he said pirhanas 3d was "good" simply because it had gore and boobs, and really giving no other reason as to why its "better" than expendables.

now dont get me wrong i didnt like the expendables and i though scot pilgrim was WAY WAY better, but i think it was quite petty to insult everyone for seeing it.

No you don't get it. It isn't just about the tits that made Piranha good (for a B rated horror flick). I don't know when it happened but it isn't hard to guess why but these types of movies hitting the theatres have been watered down. They get slapped with a 14A rating and everything gets nerfed. To compensate they try to throw in a "good story" which ends up being just as terrible as any other of these types of movies. Piranha goes back to the roots. Forget things like story or character development. It is all about the gore and the boobs. Just like Friday the 13th (old ones) and a slew of movies like it back then. We want to see Jason sticking people with a sword. We don't want to know about how her father dressed up as Santa and died in the chimney cuz we don't care. Jason (or in this case the piranha) are the stars. And most movies of this genre forget that and focus on the heroes.

well bob seemd to berate expendables for simply being an action romp, isnt somewhat hipocritical to praise a movie that simply does the the same thing. i mean expendables had explosions and gun, while pirahanas had over the top gore (or so im told). they both simply put what everyone wanted to see a ramped it up to 11. i still didnt like expendables though

He didn't bash it just because it was an action flick. One of his biggest complaints was the lack of blood. That was after the insult though so I am not sure how many people got that far. Another was the cameos to make the trailers look good. Piranha did have over the top gore. That is what it needed to be a good movie.

Because as we all know The Doom Generation and John Carpenter's Ghosts of Mars were the finest movies of our time, while Hellboy was without merit. Wait, what? Are you even thinking this through for yourself? Blood never makes a movie.

It's absence can undermine one, such as Die Hard 4, where the continual deterioration of the main character was a theme in the previous films. But in and of itself it does not make a film good, and rarely improves it.

Off hand The Fifth Element is an example of a film that uses blood carefully. You cannot simply improve a film with more blood. So, yeah, more gore >< better movie.

Oh don't get me wrong I am not saying that a movie needs buckets of blood to be good. A movie like Piranha does. It has nothing else to offer

 

[Delusibeta]

*golf clap*

Well done, this comments thread ensures that The Expendables will get mentioned for a third week in a row.

 

[Mikester1290]

In this thread: People continue their discussion of the expendables from last week because no one knows how to let anything go.

Ha, your definitely right on that one.

People continue their discussion of the poor review of the expendables from last week because THEYRE PISSED OFF. Actually.

 

[Aran]

The more you trashtalk The Expendables to more you come off as the sort of guy who wouldn't appreciate movies like Crank 1 and 2, and I'm not sure if I can take that sort of person seriously. I've liked most of your other reviews though so you're getting the benifit of the doubt.

Regardless, I'm going to quote my vulgar friend who announced the following to the entire room when the credits started rolling: "Did you see that gun!? The gun that shot rockets!? If you didn't get an erection watching that then you aren't a man!" To which we all found ourselves forced to state that we found it sexually arousing watching a gun blow up guard towers.

Edit: \/ \/ Okay, I'm reassured

 

[Asuka Soryu]

Ozzy: Boobs!
Sharon: Boobs, Ozzy?


How is Piranha 3D any good, because of boobs? If I wanted a horny teenage virgin's oppinion on how a movie's good if there's lesbian's and breasts, I'd be... hmm, when would I need that? I tend to avoid things that use sex to sale their product.


You've got two options
1: Grow up, and do an actual review
2: Keep this up, and lost any credibility you have.

 

[Squeaky]

why do people care if they get insulted on the internet ? Is your self asteam that low for fuck sake. Back on topic may have to check those 2 out.

 

[Squeaky]

What Bob actually said:
* Bought into the hype and paid for The Expendables as soon as it came out = sheep.
* Longing for action movies to undo over 20 years of improvements = probably the worst kind of person, and would probably like The Expendables.
* B-movie with tits and gore = good B-movie.
* Bad attempt at a B-movie with all-star cast, big bidget and no gore = bad plain movie.

What angry commenters heard:
* Liked The Expendables = sheep.
* Liked The Expendables = definitely the worst kind of person.
* Good movies = tits and gore.
* Bad movies = no tits or gore.

You know, people hear what they want to hear, and if the hat fits...

hopefully they get what Bob tryed to convay rather than throw a tantrum

 

[MovieBob]

The more you trashtalk The Expendables to more you come off as the sort of guy who wouldn't appreciate movies like Crank 1 and 2, and I'm not sure if I can take that sort of person seriously.

Crank 1&2 are AWESOME. Come to think of it, Jason Statham actually has a really good track record. Those are good, the the first two "Transporters" are good, Snatch is good, Bank Job was REALLY good, he was in "Collateral" for like 30 seconds and that was good, too... he's damn good, probably the best natural-born Western action hero of his generation.

Actually... the only times he's NOT been good are when he made movies with Jet Li - who ALSO rules, just not in The One, War or Expendables. Those two should stop being in the same movie, it never works out for them...

 

[gmaverick019_v1legacy]

So I watched that "Doomsday" movie that Bob recommended in this review. WOW THAT WAS TERRIBLE!

Doomsday is a seriously bad movie. It's just like they thought up as many B-movie cliches as possible and strung them together with the most thin plot possible. The plot was just a vehicle to move you from cliche to cliche.

It's aparently supposed to be a "self-aware homage". A post-modern movie that looks at itself.

But it's like a satire without the jokes. It's not funny, you don't laugh. And it's not interesting, there's nothing going on. Nothing new, nothing interesting, nothing exciting. It's like a bad Sci-Fi Channel movie that just admits it's a bad Sci-Fi Channel movie. That's all well and good, but at the end of the day it still sucks.

What a waste of 2 hours.

oh god i remember watching this..it started off semi decent, semi serious, i was slightly interested to see what happens...then the raider leaders girlfriend gets decapitated and it all goes way the fuck downhill from there in the most weirdest stupidest things i have ever seen in a movie...

im truly glad as hell i didn't pay money to see that when it came in theaters.

 

[Starke]

Again, I agree about the quality of his reviews being on the decline, but citing two reviews doesn't negate my point that film critics, as a whole, tend to lob (far worse) insults at films and the people who watch them. Not every critic every time, but there's always some critics that do this (think Musical Chairs: Flaming Edition).

Yeah, they do. But, and this is a big one, Bob isn't acting more "'human'", he's throwing a tantrum and being unprofessional. Remember, in theory, Bob isn't just a neck-beard in his mother's basement flipping out about how this movie pissed him off for it's lack of showing "the goods" before offing Megan Fox. He is, allegedly a professional film critic who is paid for his opinion. That's a huge difference.

Even the most straight-up professional critic will do this often, usually set off by a movie of a genre they personally dislike (case in point: any of A.O. Scott's superhero film reviews, with their muddied non-logic and snide side remarks).

If you'd have been kind enough to provide a link, I might have looked in on this case. But, I can assure you, among actual, legitimate critics, if they pulled this shit more than once they'd be out of a job (and most of them couldn't get away with it the first time. If you really want I'll see if I can go back and dig up my how to write a film review post.

Now, you can keep saying that Bob's doing reviews, just like I can say sticking your hand in a meat grinder's a good idea, but that doesn't make one idea more valid than the other, and objectively speaking, they're both about as accurate.

And what I saw last week, and what I'm seeing this week, is largely (largely, mind you) people getting mad at him for doing what critics tend to do.

On one hand, I'm genuinely saddened that you can't see or comprehend the difference between what Bob is doing and what constitutes a review. If you want to see an actual snarky review, go back and look at any of the Yahtzee reviews on this site, and then ask yourself this: "What is Yahtzee doing that Bob isn't?" (The exceptions being Console Wars (which is more of an editorial piece), Mailbag Showdown (which is a lampooning of/revenge upon the people who insisted he needed to review SSBB) and Duke Nukem' (because it doesn't exist.).

Which brings me to this comment:

I'm not flying into an angry rant because he labeled me a "douchebag jock"...

I never said you specifically were.

No, you didn't. Bob did.

I'm referring generally to the posts on this thread, and I actually applaud you for having legitimate gripes against Bob's style (I posted my own gripes about his Salt review when that came out. Good lord, two minutes talking about how hot Angelina Jolie is?), but the general trend on here is that people are getting all in a twist, and taking a general stab at mainstream audiences way too personally (and that they would cheer, and add more bile themselves, if they weren't in that group). And yes, this is my opinion , since I don't think Bob has expressed this thought at all, ever.

Yeah, it was there, buried in his centurion review in the first couple minutes, and I'm sorry, I'm literally unwilling to listen to Bob's shit again long enough to verify the quote.

Now, I've got a caveat that indicts him even if he didn't say it directly. He has repeatedly used that still of Ogre from Revenge of the Nerds and his surfer dude voice (that I think is supposed to be Keanu Reeves from Bill and Ted) set as "douche bag jocks" enough times that it becomes a shorthand. So, by use of his own short hand he identified the posters as "douchebag jocks" regardless of his language choices, while employing a straw man argument blaming the other side for using a straw man argument. The hypocrisy of that 5 seconds of video alone made me want to vomit when I watched it the first time.

Thanks for asking, and forcing me to have to answer with a variant of that most stupid of phrases: "In my opinion."

There's nothing wrong with an educated opinion. The only problem with that phrase is when idiots try to use "in my opinion" to claim a point of objective fact without providing evidence.

All that being said, I wish more of the Escapists offered up the kind of meta-criticism you showed. What's going on at the moment (again, generally) isn't going to make Bob have some epiphany and start improving his craftsmanship, it's just going to make him still think "Well, I was right. These people are a bunch of douchebag jocks! I think next week, I'll Photoshop a picture of Stallone having sex with Schwarzeneger," or some other bullshit.

While I didn't go so far as to pigeonhole a specific atrocity, I've been privately saying something similar for about 11 days now.

There might have been a lot of constructive criticism in last week's thread, but it got lost in wave upon wave of flamewar nonsense (I stopped reading the comments on that review fairly early on, since at that point I had seen the same comment repeated something like twenty times, and had better things to do). If the scales were tipped more in the favor of Bob's desperately needed intervention, then I wouldn't have even posted my initial comment.

To be fair, I didn't read the first 400-600 posts in the original thread. I was disgusted with the butchery of a review and walked away, and it wasn't until my girlfriend came back to me suggesting I look at a post that I got involved. So it's possible that the first 400 posts were just wining, but the ones I did read weren't, they weren't constructive either, as far as I can recall that (the constructive posts) didn't start kicking in until about Tuesday or so.

P.S.: Since I'm just waking up right now, I kind of realized halfway through typing this that my repeated mentioning of film critics doing the same thing comes across like an implicit endorsement of this behavior. It's not. More of an acceptance that it's going to happen, and I hope Mr. Chipman gets it out of his system sooner rather than later.

Again, there is a major difference between the tantrum's Bob's been throwing and even mock reviews. And you're right, ever reviewer will, from time to time, get their bile up. I can think of about three Roger Ebert reviews where he goes off the deep end, and I linked you to two of them yesterday. But what you get as a result will be vastly different.

Ebert and most serious reviewers would start off with a rant, this can last two or three paragraphs. Then (in the case of Caligula) he starts comparing it to pornography, and his feelings on the subject. Finally he talks about why the film was bad. And that is the bulk of his review. Not his gut reactions, which are still valuable, but his constructive analysis, because, in the end, that is what will decide if the film is worth watching or not.

Most reviewers like Yahtzee (and yes, I know he does games, not films), comedic ones, like a number of sites produce, won't end the rant. They play into it. But, again, there's analysis buried between the jokes (usually) which will tell you if the film is worth watching. They use the anger as a comedic springboard, and they'll often include a lot of oddball bits, you wouldn't see in a serious review. For example: I remember a review on SA (I think) that included the wonder phrase to explain the end of a Japanese horror film, "There is a certain kind of insanity that can only be produced by having your country nuked." After which the reviwer attempts (and fails) to explain exactly what the ending of the film is, along with the disclaimer that he's providing this so no one else has to go through what he did.

Then, there's shit you post on your blog (the second person here is not accusing you), this isn't reviews, this isn't journalism, it doesn't have to be. Now, it can be. It can be good constructive critisism, but it isn't. The review format doesn't apply here unless the blogger chooses to. More often than not, this does degenerate into incoherent manchildren throwing tantrums about how Michael Bey has turned their childhood into a goat in Glasgow, or how Megan Fox Elisha Cuthbert made them do unspeakable things to themselves in the theater (and, fuck, I don't know why her name keeps coming up to the surface of the cesspool when I'm writing and need a generic actress, I apologize for that). But, this isn't shit you want to read most of the time. It's someone writing a diary entry about an experience they had, and nailing it to a post board someplace best avoided in the untamed wilds of the internet.

For most of his tenure, Bob fell mostly in the first category with hints of the third. Lately, he's hauled his journalistic integrity out behind the woodshed.

I mean, I could go on, there's things you just don't do in a review, like mention unrelated films unless there's a specific reason (shared theme, shared actor, director or writer, ect.)

EDIT: Fucked up a quote tag.

 

[theApoc]

People didn't complain because you critisised the Expendables.

They complained because you insulted people whio went to see it.

You see the difference between those 2 things?

Nice to know Centurion is good though I'll have to pick up the DVD sometime.

I honestly doubt he does see the difference. I have definitely disagreed with Bob's assessment of movies in the past but at least he was able to make his points, valid or not, without insulting the audience. As with 99% of the movies that come out these days, The Expendables, Piranha 3D and pretty much everything else that came out this summer aren't going to be any better or worse on my giant LCD coming from Netflix than they would be in a theater.

 

[Gyrefalcon]

Point critically missed.


You're so certain that this movie sucks, but you have yet to tell us why besides "It's dumb" or "It's bad."

What happened?

First, thank you for the 9th legion trivia, Bob. I didn't realize a book series I enjoyed by Jim Butcher was probably directly based on that legend.

Snowfox: Yes the review was a bit more broad, but Movie Bob explained that "Expendables" was a tired retread of old material. If you have seen all the action films done by these actors in the past you have pretty much seen "Expendables". He isn't saying people are stupid for watching it as much as "we've seen it all before". The directors got a bunch of big names together and instead of making a script that REALLY showed off their talents and maybe even revitalized the action-film genre, they slacked off knowing "it would sell anyway".

Now he went on to illustrate that you can have a b-movie that excels like "Piranha 3-D". This movie isn't SUPPOSED to be good, it is a tongue-in-cheek nod to the bad b horror films of the past. The ones that (usually) were trying to be good but just were not. YET! If you add some of the right touches you can make what my friends and I call "a B+ movie". That is to say, a really good and fun to watch B-movie.

Now I grant you that Bob focused mostly on the elements that made the movie work for him and they would not be the same ones I would pick per se, but I love a good monster flick where tons of people get eaten. Give me a score card because I'm rooting for the monster! And where "Piranha" almost draws me in, "Expendables" doesn't. It didn't offer any of the things I wanted despite having actors that I'd like to see get more work. They just didn't try hard enough. (i.e. it's "Knight and Day" all over again, much as a good 70-80% of the stuff getting pumped out of Hollywood lately).

Movie Bob tried to show the difference between a good B-movie and a bad one as well as fit in a full movie review into a short space. So I will concede that more time dedicated to one thing or the other would probably been more helpful. But I still like his reviews even if my opinion does not always match his on the films in question.

 

[ckam]

If The Expendables had a monkey, then it should be renamed to Timesplitters.

 

[Mr. Doe]

So what moviebob is saying is that if the expendables poured blood all over lesbians having sex he would have loved it? way to go highly payed movie critic. Oh and thanks for drawing a paralel between my anscestors and a bunch of Islamic fundamentalists, definetly not pissing me off at all after calling me a terrible person for enjoying a movie you didnt particularly like. Also if there is any "mystery" as to what happened to the ninth legion its probably more along the lines of "What chieftan claimed their heads?" and less "Whatever happened to those guys?" and was it just me or did he not really get into any detail of Centurion? he didnt really say much other than "the british dude from Inglorious Basterds is leading some romans through early iron age Scotland, I disagree with U.S. foreing policy, and theres some moral ambiguity" I had known of the movie beforehand and Im probably gonna watch it just to see if it gets stuff right. Now onto the gloating portion! I was totally vindicated in saying that moviebob wanted a parody of what the expendables was (like Pirannah 3D affectionate though it may be) and not a genuine action movie. You see it all was based on how the expendables was like an 80's action movie unapologetically whereas Pirannah 3D is more of "We just got the rights to the old Pirannah serial...lets make a campy movie about it!" and if Stallone had said "Lets make a parody action movie!" He would have made a terrible, terrible movie without anyone but him where he kills people with bananas for and hour and a half or something and Im fairly certain that Moviebob would have choked on his own hate if that happened.

 

[Lucifron]

Durr. Nevermind...

 

[omegawyrm]

Hey, will everyone who's been complaining for the past 2 weeks about how stupid or immature Bob is for his last 2 videos stop threatening to leave and actually just leave? I'm tired of reading your whiny comments.

 

[Dorian Cornelius Jasper]

Hey, will everyone who's been complaining for the past 2 weeks about how stupid or immature Bob is for his last 2 videos stop threatening to leave and actually just leave? I'm tired of reading your whiny comments.

Double the consternation. I get the feeling his eternally indignant, yet not completely unjustified, hatedom makes up for over half his video views at this point.

And I think video views makes up the tally for popularity, which might well determine what Escapist features stay and which get cancelled.