Cyber256702000

This film is a fictional account of the murder of Elizabeth Short in 1947. Two detectives are drawn into the gritty murder of Elizabeth Short an aspiring actress and party girl who is found slaughtered and cut in half in L.A. While one cop wants to drop the case, his partner starts a downward spiral into obsession with finding the murderer.

What could have been a gritty film noir quickly becomes a dull mess. This film has less to do with the Black Dahlia murder and more to do with the two detectives and their own sub-plots. Throughout the movie I kept wondering when they were going to get to the point instead of dwelling on unnecessary sub-plots and when the film finally raps up I found the film completely unsatisfying.

Unfortunately, the acting was a mixed bag. Aaron Eckhart and Mia Kirshner were both fine in their roles, but Josh Hartnett was such a dull and robotic lead. Scarlett Johansson was also fairly dull and Fiona Shaw was a joke.

The directing was also a bit of a mixed bag. There are some scenes that were very well shot, but other scenes, like a dinner scene between Josh Hartnett and Hilary Swank's family are so clumsy and goofy that you can't understand why it wasn't re-shot.

I wanted to like this, I think Brian De Palma does have talent, but ultimately, this was not a good movie. To much meandering with boring sub-plots instead of actually dealing with the Black Dahlia murder case will have most people snoozing before the end credits roll.

* out of ****

Jesse and his girlfriend move into an old mansion that his parent died in 25 years ago. He starts to learn about his past through old books in the basement and learns of his great grandfather who was an adventure and found a crystal skull. Jesse decides that he is going to find the crystal skull with the help of his friend Charles, but he soon finds more than he bargained for.

House was a quirky horror comedy in the vain of Evil Dead, House 2 drops all the horror and bumps up the comedy and becomes more of a goofy kids movie in the vain of The Goonies. The monsters in this one are for the most part non-threatening cute puppets and such and the comedy is mostly bizarre (why does Charles have an uzi?, Why is the electrician an adventurer?) Nothing really makes sense, but the random nature makes it funny.

This film is also more of an adventure film in which the house opens up portals into other time periods which gives the film an overall episodic feel and keeps things a bit fresh and interesting.

The acting isn't very good, but in a film like this it doesn't need to be. The special effects are fairly good and I loved the cute monster puppets and stop motion effects.

House 2 is a stupid movie, I can't see fans of the first movie liking the second one to well. It has almost nothing in common with the first one, there are no returning characters and even the house is different. But I still kind of liked it, maybe even better than the first. This one is more for kids than adults, but if you like bizarre random humor, you might get a kick out of this.

** out of ****