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Snake Eyes

Snake Eyes

List Price: $14.99
Your Price: $13.49
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Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Bad Eyes
Review: No suspense or thrill about this movie whatsoever.Very poor movie that I strongly suggest avoiding(not even worth 1 star).

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: PPV Phantom Punch
Review: Ricky Santoro is at the biggest fight of the year and he's having a blast with his old friend. The Secretary of Defense is also at the fight and something happens to him. Right before his death, the heavyweight champion of the world fell without getting hit. A woman in white disappears into the hotel and casino after she talked with the Secretary. What's happening? Well, it's up to Nicolas Cage to solve this mystery and he questions everybody from camera technicians to the boxer and unfortunately, his friend. If you haven't seen any previews for the movie, you will like it. The commercials blew everything. I hate that! As the conspiracy unfolds, the woman in white was trying to inform the Secretary of some vital information. Shhh! I can't tell you, it's confidential! This whole problem involves his friend and he can't believe it. Gary Sinise is in this movie and he's good. Carla Gugino is the woman in white and the film was directed by Brian DePalma. Sleek and smooth.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Where thrillers are spillers.
Review: Obviously an endangered plot convicted and deceived by a fabulous director such as Brian De Palma (Mission: Impossible, Carrie), an experimentally creative and enjoyable writer like David Koepp (Jurassic Park), and two superior actors that could easily make the top "20" best actors of the 20th Century List (Nicolas Cage, Gary Sinise), would be quite a pull-off for Hollywood these days. This film takes a slick beginning featuring Cage in some of the longest film shots ever created (thankfully De Palma's work). Cage is there the whole time, taking his collective and explotive character to a snoopy and dog driven edge which will raise a thought- "Is he a pain in the neck that won't go away?, or, Is he just a very easily-ammused, outgoing being who's climax and philosophies of life revolve around the world's attentivness towards him?" However, the traditional bad boy cop character starts kicking in when he starts flerting with a white-blonded female who happens to sit right next to him (taking his best friend's seat). And may I add that his flertation begins right after finishing a conversation with his wife, whom he is apparently "happily" married to. His excuse is that he cannot seem to bare sleeping with the same woman for twenty years. Does it sound happy to you?

Then, following is a serious assassination involving the killing of the Secretary of Defense at this Boxing Match in which there are numerous suspects and possibilites. De Palma sets it up so strategically and annoyingly blaze, that the audience can't seem to follow. There are many stories through the several different characters Cage interacts with to get his investigative story. However, a few of the stories don't seem to cope with reality. Cage pieces it together in a way we don't seem to understand, which makes us wonder if he really solved anything at all, or is just leaving us to believe that somehow the film has such a confusing conclusion to the madness, that an everyday audience wouldn't be able to understand easily. Then, maybe we're just supposed to accept that theory and pretend that this movie is very intelligent, with a mind-bending craft even Einstein couldn't comprehend in two-hundred years. The film is such a disastrous jigsaw puzzle that seems to lead us in a direction where we can finally say "OK, I get it now", but then it totally dismantles it all, creating more lies and scandals for us to realize, until we are sucked into the ruthless truth of who is really truthful and an ally to Cage, and who is not. Seriously, Cage's character seems more of a villain as well. One scene following the assassination pits him (AS A COP) telling his best friend (Sinise), who is the Secretary of Defense's bodyguard to lie to the other agents and officers to prevent his deserved imprisonment. We think we understand that Sinise's hormones detured him from being at his post with the Secretary of Defense by scoping out a red headed beauty queen, and then we are lured into the backdoors of plot working in which we might as well give up and surrender to its actual stupidity. It completely sets a point to make the audience disturbed with its constant character and story manipulations. By the time we are introduced to the actual "real" bad guy scenario, we don't even care. So many people could actually guess who the villain(s) turned out to be. The ending is more of a relief than an actual ending. So many good performances, so many interesting techniques, but so little excitment and creativity, and no sense of reality. Snake Eyes is more of a blood bath mystery with no desire to entertain, but to rather convince its audience that it is more mature than any other plausible film to date. Don't be shocked when you realize that the film ends after 100 minutes, and you realize that if there weren't so many scandelous scenes and obscure plot tugs that rip you in the wrong direction the whole way through, the film could've ended with a beginning that delivers, and a simple ending in which we could easily understand.

QUOTE: "Snake Eyes is a maze of annoyance, and simply that. It tries to be smarter than the audience, with emphasis on TRIES. The manuevers it plays with don't entertain, but simply create more plot problems than thought possible. This film is like a "snake", slithering in so many directions that we can't keep up with its abnormality and constant shifts of the underminded. Maybe that was the original visualization from De Palma's mind, but doesn't it seem he might have explored the imagination a little bit much? My point is- if this would've been De Palma's last film, would he have been proud of it, or ashamed? I think the answer is obvious."

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Daves Eyes
Review: If anyone is a fan of Nicholas Cage then I highly Recommend this movie. It is an intense, intelligent film which also stars the very watchable Gary Sinise. Need I say more?

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: A Somewhat Underrated Movie
Review: I find that people don't really give Snake Eyes enough credit. There are claims that Cage's character can't really be related to. Well, how many movies can you find where you can actually relate to what the character is going through? I don't know about you, but I have a very hard time relating to Bruce Willis' part in "Die Hard" and I also have a tough time relating to Nicolas Cage's character in "Gone In 60 Seconds". Why? Because I've never been a One-man army against terrorists and I've never been a car thief. The point is, that you don't have to relate to the character to enjoy the movie.

I find this movie enjoyable because the camera work is superb, the plot keeps you interested, and Cage plays his role as a weak, corrupted cop very well. Cage's character really comes across as being a flashy sleezeball, and yet some people are attributing that to poor acting on his part. There is a fine line between bad acting and a bad character. Unfortunately, many people confuse the two.

Overall, if you're looking for an excellent mystery/suspense flick, put this on your lists of things to see.

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: Same old, same old
Review: Nicolas Cage is such a talented actor (Leaving Las Vegas being his best work to date), and he is totally underutilized in trite movies like this one. This was merely a class B film. There was nothing new about the plot: the conspiracy theory, the corrupt cop, the damsel in distress... Cage does a decent job, but the movie did not help him show his talents.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: DEPALMA SHOOTS AND SCORE
Review: Partially filmed in the MONTRÉAL forum, before it was closed down(the place where the famous hockey club had their glory days),SNAKE EYES is a typical product of this neurotic director who often let's his vision go on top to the displeasure of those who likes logic.Having said that,i have to say that i enjoyed this thriller a lot,even if you must go over the first half,and that's not easy.The film is build like a puzzle until you get to know the important facts about the murder that took place during the boxing fight.Some people might be turned off by this ,but be patient and you'll be rewarded.CAGE and SINISE have fun with their characters.

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: One of DePalma's worst
Review: I saw "Snake Eyes" in the theaters a few ago because I am somewhat of a fan of Brian DePalma. Unfortunately, this movie is one of DePalma's worst.

The United States Secretary of Defense is assassinated at a major boxing match and corrupt cop Nicholas Cage later uncovers the conspiracy.

"Snake Eyes" is one of DePalma's worst movies. The film has one of the worst time-credibility problems that I have ever seen in a movie. The viewer witnesses the opening of the film, the introduction of the major characters, the assassination sequence, and Cage's lone unraveling of the mystery. All of these events take place over a period of time less than twenty-four hours. I couldn't believe that all of these events could take place in such a short period of time and that one lone corrupt cop could uncover an intricate conspiracy so quickly. In "Blow Out," another Brian DePalma film which also focused on a political assassination, movie soundman John Travolta uncovers a similar conspiracy over several weeks(A much more credible period of time). The post-climax extension of the story involving Cage's law enforcement career seemed as if it were added on at the last minute and was completely unnecessary. The viewer doesn't develop any real concern for DePalma's characters in this movie. Cage's sudden transition from cop-on-the-take to do-gooder was also unconvincing.

Something happened to Brian DePalma after the 1970s. After his masterpiece "Dressed To Kill," DePalma has failed to make one genuinely good thriller. Only "Blow Out" and "The Untouchables" come close to his original work. Since "Dressed To Kill," DePalma has largely wandered through forgettable thrillers("Body Double," "Raising Cain"), plastic Hollywood blockbusters("Mission: Impossible"), and outright disasters("Bonfire of the Vanities"). Perhaps DePalma will make a comeback one day.

"Snake Eyes" is a disappointment.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Disappointed mostly
Review: I wanted to see this movie when it first came out, but decided against it. I finally saw it for the first time tonight, and was quite disappointed. Nicolas Cage is such a great actor, but he makes a fool out of himself in this film...he plays a weak character, and does the best he can at it, but it still falls way short of what we've seen. (Watch 'The Rock' or 'Con Air' for best acting by Cage.) Gary Sinise does a decent job, but I have never seen him make a role seem outstanding, so I didn't mind too much. The plot was weak--2 stars out of 5--the script was quite poor--1.5 stars out of 5--but Brian De Palma (Mission: Impossible) did a good job as usual. I love how the first fifteen minutes of the movie were filmed, and how an entire scene would be shot from start to finish without being cut. Overall, even a good director like De Palma couldn't save this film...neither could Cage. A poor script, weak plot and characters nobody could relate to--unless you're a married man with a son while cheating on your wife and taking bribes to support yourself--doomed this movie before it was ever filmed. Too bad...this really had something it could've worked off of, but even the ending seemed rushed...now that I think of it, this movie had no climax, but I'll give it 3 stars for Cage's attempt at making this work. Hope this helps.

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: What on God's Green Earth??
Review: This movie was enjoyable up until the very end. I won't tell you how is ends, but trust me, the chances of something like that happening is so miniscule, I don't think even modern science could calculate it!! What a terrible waste of a film which was good up until the last 15 minutes.


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