Snake Eyes
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Movie Reviews of Snake Eyes
Movie Review: It was good... very good.
Summary: 4 Stars
It was good... very goodMovie Review: Moderately good De Palma movie
Summary: 3 Stars
Brian De Palma is one of our most visual directors. In fact, he's obsessed by vision. He believes that the truth of what we see is always a combination of several people's observations. One individual either doesn't see all of an event, or his mind plays tricks on him. He showed this to us in a taunt thriller called Blow Out in the 1980s. In Snake Eyes he returns to the subject.Nicholas Cage plays Detective Ricky Santoro, a likable but corrupt Atlantic City cop. He appears to think that being on the take is just part of the job. Otherwise, he is a pretty decent guy. He has his loyalties and his limits.
Most of the movie takes place inside a large old arena on the Boardwalk during a hurricane. A major boxing match is taking place, the last event before the arena is torn down. Ricky is there at the invitation of his old friend Kevin [Gary Sinise], a Naval officer there to protect one of the patrons, the Secretary of Defense.
The fight begins. Various characters appear, while others disappear for a while. Then shots ring out. The Secretary is shot, and a mysterious woman talking to him is wounded. She gets out of the auditorium during the ensuing melee, but the exits are sealed before she can escape.
This attempted assassination takes place very quickly, and now Ricky must try to piece together the event through various eyewitnesses. Who was where and when? Who is telling the truth? This takes up much of the movie, and when the truth comes out, it turns into a suspenseful cat and mouse game. The result is a fairly good movie.
De Palma uses many of his trademark shots, which involve complex camera moves. The best is one which begins in a hotel hallway, then moves up and travels over several of the hotel's rooms, as we look down into them, like flying peeping toms.
There is a lot of talent here. Nicholas Cage won an Oscar for Best Actor in 1996, and has parlayed that into four hit movies in three years. Gary Sinise is not only an Oscar winner, but also received an Emmy for his portrayal of Harry S. Truman. In Snake Eyes they give fine performances, but the material is a piece of cake for them.
...While certainly an entertaining effort, Snake Eyes suggests that currently the director excels in projects which he did not conceive. ...
Movie Review: Sex, sleaze and violence-all done with style.
Summary: 3 Stars
Brian Depalma takes us on another journey that includes wig covered blondes, plenty of cleavage and an anti-hero hero. Hyper over-acting Nicolas Cage (no Oscar nomination here) stars as the cop on-the-take in sleazetown itself, Atlantic City. The decrepit gambling pit is hosting a major boxing event and "our hero" has arrived to enjoy the sites and meet up with old buddy Gary Sinese. Gary's character works for the military and is on detail protecting the secretary of defense, a fight fan. What happens next is straight from the Depalma text book. A shot is fired, the secretary is hit and the mystery unravels revealing a busty wigged red-head and busty wigged blond. A conspiracy? A terrorist attack? Cop-on-the-take Cage sniffs a big opportunity and is on the trail. After all, he wants to be mayor of the town and sees this as his platform. Cage is nicely balanced by the ever even keeled Sinese and the two work well together. The babes in the flick walk straight from the pages of playboy and register high on the wood scale but little else. (Could a woman as homely as Mr. Cage ever get cast in a Deplama flick? I doubt it, or for that matter she wouldn't be working in the business at all.) With split screen effects (Carrie), wig covered chicks (Dressed to Kill, Body Double), slow-mo sequences (Blow Out), Mr. Depalma doesn't break any new ground here. We have a 90 minute tightly woven bucket of popcorn. If that's what you are looking for, you won't be disappointed.Movie Review: Entertaining, But Unoriginal
Summary: 3 Stars
This movie was so pointless and ordinary that I finished watching it just fifteen minutes ago, and I've already begun to forget its plot. Frankly, I was expecting much more from this movie. I figured that when you have a great director, an Academy Award winner, and an Academy Award nominee working together on a movie, it might be worth watching. For this particular movie, I was wrong.This movie takes place in Atlantic City, where there is a big boxing match at which the Secretary of Defense of the United States is in attendance. He's assassinated as the match commences, and at first this murder seems like a textbook case of a political fanatic who kills a politician in order to raise awareness about his cause, but soon the plot thickens. Nicholas Cage plays the detective in charge of uncovering this plot, and Gary Sinise is his friend and fellow law enforcement official who is really the brains behind the assassination. The rest of the movie involves some hackneyed cat and mouse scenes, but nothing incredibly memorable.
There are two very talented actors in this movie, and they weren't able to display their talents here. This type of movie is really too simplistic for actors of this caliber. The truth is that you'll be entertained for the duration of the movie, but if you're looking for something that's Oscar worthy, this isn't it.
Movie Review: Had So Much Potential And In The End It All Gets Ruined
Summary: 3 Stars
Brian De Palma has always been one of my favorite directors; he has an extraordinary way to bring his ideas to screen. Like his other films he brings in the awesome camera angles that are of course his trademark. But here the angles seem useless, they are well brought out and at times a bit overused but definitely pointless.
The film story which is a bit far-fetched commences with a police detective attending a championship boxing match (played by Nicolas Cage). In the match we witness from many deferent angles an assassination during the match. The question now lies as to who is responsible for the assassination and why. Little by little we are revealed what happened and how it happened from many points of view. Now even though the angles and different views are quite enticing and boggles the mind a bit it all seems pointless. Why should you confuse the audience over and over again when we know in the first 15 minutes who is responsible for the assassination. And not to mention the ending which is so dumb and it cheats its way out. It feels like the writers had a great idea for a movie but just didn't know how to develop it or end it. The movie is entertaining and it's okay just don't expect a huge twist or surprise in the end because all you're goanna get is disappointment.
MY PERSONAL RATING: 3 OUT OF 5