David McK (3425 KP) rated Shanghai Noon (2000) in Movies
Jul 23, 2023
As a Jackie Chan film, you pretty much know what to expect: lots of martial arts slapstick in his own inimitable style (and pidgin English, which is still a lot better than my non-existent Chinese!) and a few 'that's a terrible name for a cowboy' puns along the way!
Darren (1599 KP) rated The Lone Ranger (2013) in Movies
Jul 25, 2019
The journey takes the two men across the wild west to expose the truth behind everything that has been going on between the outlaws and the native Americans.
Thoughts on The Lone Ranger
Characters – John Reid is a district attorney in Texas, living in the shadow of his brother, but this time he gets to go on an adventure with his brother only to be murdered and bought back to life by Tonto. He must work with Tonto to get the people behind his brother’s death. Tonto is the native American that shows John the way as his own past makes him the colourful character that does things in his own direction. Butch Cavendish is the villainous outlaw not afraid to kill anyone who gets in the way of what he desires.
Performances – Armie Hammer in this leading role is good through the film, he must play the straight-laced character and pulls this off. Johnny Depp is going on one of his stranger character missions again here and at times is fine, but at others gets annoying. William Fichtner as a villain is something we always want to see.
Story – The story follows the origin of The Lone Ranger and Tonto as they faced their first enemy together in the wild west. The story plays out nicely just how you would imagine any Disney related material to, as an unlikely hero is born, even if it does follow elements of the Pirates beginning. This does have an adventure across the west feel which is nice to see and the twists and turns do seem to be easy to see unfolding, with a villain that knows the danger the two heroes pose to him.
Action/Adventure/Western – The action sequences do come off feeling like the highlight of the movie, with an amazing opening train sequence. The adventure side of the film is written all over the idea of going across the wild west to stop the villainous characters. The western feel comes through strong too, while not the most serious we do see both sides of the law.
Settings – The settings take us all over the wild west fitting into nearly ever typical location we know about.
Special Effects – The effects are good too in the film while only being used to cover up certain moments of the film.
Scene of the Movie – Ladder trick.
That Moment That Annoyed Me – It is too long.
Final Thoughts – This is a lot of fun even if it is too long in places, the cast do a good job and this one will be a film that you can switch off and enjoy.
Overall: Enjoyable action adventure.
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Stoneysilence (30 KP) rated Bill O'Reilly's Legends and Lies: The Real West in Books
Sep 7, 2017
So in essence what I had hoped would have been a well done more in depth detail of these famous people turned out to be college level essays on each one. It’s well written, there is no doubt about that. It’s just something I would expect from a Freshman college level course or a High School Senior. Maybe that is because this books is targeted at a very casual audience. In fact if I was a teacher in HS or MS I probably would assign this as reading.
But if you know much at all about the wild west or where hoping for a more in depth book, then look elsewhere and get this for you kid or grand kid instead.
Normally I would have rated it 4/5 but it has DRM so it gets a 3/5 instead, especially at the outrageous price it is selling for.
