Genres

Visitors Review

Jito463 2013-04-22 10:35:01

Predictable plot, predictable liberal bias

I bought this in the hopes that it would be a decent game-to-movieconversion. Although, in this case, it appears to have been based onthe original book, which I did not realize existed at the time. Ibought it cheap, because I doubted it would be. And I was right.Of course, the "good" president is a Democrat, who is "bringing thetroops home". FYI, the Commander-In-Chief is not in charge of keepingthe troops safe, (s)he is in charge of leading the troops. We all wantthe troops to be safe, but their job is not a safe one. The CIC isthere to command them, not coddle them.Predictable.They had to mention Haditha, and dishonorably discharged Marines (whobecame bad guys). Never mind the fact that every Marine from Hadithawas cleared of all wrongdoing.Predictable.The really evil bad guy is none other than the "Republican"presidential candidate. Gee, I never saw that one coming.Predictable.The good guy magically disarms a nuclear bomb that's seconds away fromblowing up (and they don't even show how he did it).Predictable (and lazy script writing, to boot).In short, I wasted $10 on this drivel, it wasn't even worth half that.I'm just glad I didn't spend the extra $5 on the Blu-Ray version.

neil-916 2013-04-21 18:07:11

A complete waste of any bodily function used to watch it

Lack of a decent script, a good director or any sign of acting abilitywas bound to affect this "TV" movie converted from a well-known game. Iwas wanting to punch the screen and myself for even bothering to watchthrough to the the final credits but alas, I'm on of those sad peoplewho just wants to see what happens even if the story I'm watching iscomplete tosh. Don't get me wrong, Val Kilmer and Steven Dorff have both played somepretty good characters in other films but in XIII it seems the directorhad decided to go for an amateur dramatics feel rather than making mefeel like what was playing out was anywhere close to "real life".Special awards for wooden acting also go to Lucinda Davies and that guythat played the goggle-eyed doctor bloke who was trying to find out thetruth behind it all (see, it was so bad I forgot his name AND thecharacter he played!!).The only good thing about the film was the girl in the internet shop.Nice. *cough*For anyone interested in seeing this: have a go but be warned you mayfeel the need to launch your TV out of the window or inflict some kindof self-harm

2013-04-16 00:04:31

Bourne Series (JFK mix)

This is a limited review.It's a TV mini series (as what I believed), being a Canadian production. The plot was what my title suggested. In terms of actions, there were decent dosages. As what other reviewers said, if you like the Bourne series, you will like this show. As for suspense, the show's predictability was there. There may be 1 or 2 minor unknowns scenes, as the viewers were led to uncover the plots and identities of the "anarchy team".As it's a non-American production, I like to add the film tried to show via its characters, different types/classes of patriots. There were the genuine patriots, who valued the choice made by the people and would bite a bullet to defend the system. There were the mis-guided lofty patriots who thought that their high ideals and approaches were the best solutions for the people. As such these ideals should be imposed or "forced-sold" to the people if need be. Moving on to the real world, we have to add the lip-serving patriots. Those self-serving chickenhawks who waved the flag, compromised the nation's interest while advancing their personal ones. This is the moral/ethics dimension that the film tried to draw the audience to, while its remained a fairly predictable show.I give a 3 stars. If you choose to watch it to pass a lazy weekend afternoon, you will not regret watching it. It has all the decent actions of a movie, though it was to be screened as a TV miniseries. POST REVIEW AFTER-THOUGHTSI did not get to read the book that the show was based upon. However, based on what was seen on the show, I felt that 2 events in the past 50 years heavily influence its flavor. Interested parties of this show should watch the following reference, if they have not done so:JFK - Director's Cut (Two-Disc Special Edition)Loose Change Final Cut

2013-04-15 02:07:26

Great movie!!!

It's a great movie full of action and suspense... and is nice to find a movie with action that is not full of cursing and sex... if you like the bourne movies you'll like this...

gert-beckers 2013-04-10 22:26:36

Jason Bourne

Excellent series indeed! The story seems to be very close to theoriginal graphic novel, except for the first part. They head to changethe opening sequence in the comic, or the way XIII (Jason, or ishe?)lost his memory. The writer of the comic novel (Jean Van Hamme -Belgian)admitted that he stole this scene from the book (written byLudlum)that was the original story line for the Jason Bourne-trilogy.In pre-Obama times, the producers dared in their future to have a nonCaucasian male for a president. Good on them!Must see for all graphic novel lovers! This one will put Belgiangraphic novels on the international map again. Tintin with an attitude!

imizrahi2002 2013-04-10 13:44:08

the irony...

just finished watching this... it didn't take long before i realized,'oh...'24' clone....dorf playing the sutherland role... i'd like to usethe pun that the reason it's called '13' is because it's about half asgood, but that wouldn't be true...it's almost as good or better thansome of '24'. but, still, a clone...lots of what you'll see here,you've seen before... but it's not bad for television... the irony ispeak of in the heading is that when i came here, to IMDb, to comment,the first recommendation from 'the database' towards the bottom of thetitle page of 13 is, of course, '24'... parts of it wereridiculous...people don't have conversations in a life or death hand tohand combat situation...they just try to survive...there were othermoments i found ridiculous to the point of comically amusing... but notenough for me not to recommend this if you don't mind what i've alreadystated... it seems to be a cut above 'regular TV fare'. as is '24'..just don't expect anything new here...

2013-04-04 05:36:31

Not Bad

I don't know what movie the previous reviewer watched, but it didn't seem like the one I just watched. I thought it was pretty good. Evidently is was a TV mini series in 2008. Don't know how I missed it back when. I would have prefered it wasn't a made for TV flick cause then it would not have to have went through the censors. The language could have been more lively if you know what I mean, a little less TVish.

2013-04-03 18:34:57

Pass it by

I made it about 20 or 30 minutes before hitting 'eject'.Could've been OK but It was taking too long to get where it's going.As others have stated, this is a story that's been done better before.Skip it.

2013-03-26 00:52:52

XIii

This review is from: XIII: The Conspiracy (DVD) This movie was better than I expected. Stephen Dorff (even with a bad hair cut) never disappoints. Val Kilmer was good too. Good twist

rstone-27 2013-03-25 11:22:54

Action Packed and Continuous

I love the show 24. This is close but not a duplicate -- I love the movies of Bourne Identity, again close but no cigar.This is an original story line depicted in the make-up of a verytalented director and writer. If you want action, adventure, excitement, intrigue then this is themovie for you. I don't understand all of the negative feed back on thismovie. I really enjoyed it. Its a lot better than most of the so called action adventure movies outso far.Thumbs up -- 8/10

thicheval 2013-03-22 14:13:18

kind of the worst adaptation possible

I rode the comic book when it has been edited (more than 15 years ago)and I remember it was a great book with a great story. I was expectinga good movie when I started watching XIII, and I have to say it hasbeen technically well made.But the writer belongs to the worst category according to me, the onewho does movies without understanding life, without knowing what he'sspeaking about, and what he's living in. I'd like to draw up all themany inconsistent details but it would just be a loss of time. It isclear that the writer nor the director doesn't know anything aboutfirearms or the way a professional group fight, especially against oneisolated man.Also it was so ridiculous to watch the woman who has to set up the bombgoing for a walk or work as a security guard she's supposed to be, andcome back 2 times to finish setting up the bomb! Any intelligent beingwould set it up in one time before hiding it. Also she brought anuclear bomb, but no firearm to protect it, and no soldier to helpher...The characters are also inconsistent in many ways they act.It makes me sick when I think about the money we all give to Hollywoodstudios just to waste it this way (and there are plenty productions farworse than this one), and after that they complain about piracy???There can be some bad movies (we all do mistakes) or some that will notbe appreciated by everyone, but Hollywood does something like one goodmovie for a hundred who only deserves to go directly to trash (and noDVD in the interim). This make me say most movie studios are the firstpirates, hijacking people's money :SJean Van Hamme and William Vance did a great work with their comicbooks who deserved a great Hollywood production, but here just expectsomething you will laugh about with your friends when you're bored.

Henri Bronsgeest 2013-03-21 22:06:33

Why change the story

In trying to update the story from the great comic book series, theyruined the plot. XIII was and is a great comic book series. I justreread it again. But the TV series tried to make it into a differentstory, yet using the character names from the comic book and adding afew. The suspense is missing. The humor is missing. Jones's characteris diminished. In the comic book she also quite a fighter and loveinterest. The photo shop business was all added and not needed. XIIIfigures it out.It should have been a weekly series sticking to the original charactersand plot.

not_even_one 2013-03-18 14:17:23

Boring, predictable, full of clichés

If you're into action-thrillers that are full of all the clichés of thegenre, then this one is for you. Everything is in there...from the maincharacter delivering random justice in the street to him taking outpursuers with household items. The frame is...you guessed it, aconspiracy that goes high up in the government in order to take overthe world, of course. Couple that with mind-numbing dialog, once againfull of clichés, as well as characters full of clichés, and you haveXIII. The worse part is how seriously this thing takes itself. It'spresented as a serious and intelligent film, but falls really short ofit. The main problem really is the way the story is structured...therevelations seem random, incoherent and completely random. Not tomention the annoying and completely unnecessary shaky cam constantflashbacks that are abused throughout the whole movie. If you want tosee an action-thriller miniseries that lives up to the genre, watch theState Within instead.

2013-03-18 10:05:58

Dumbed Down Bourne

As others have mentioned the basic set-up here, a special ops dude shot during an assignment only to wake up with amnesia, is a Bourne series rip-off. That, in and of itself, does not bother me as long as they do something with it to make it special or better. No such luck here.Here's the scoop. A female U.S. President is assassinated. The assassin is found hanging from a parachute in a tree with a bullet hole in him. Who is he? What really happened? Why are these government folk out to kill him? He needs to get on the stick to figure all this out and it's a rough road.I need to say, up front, that I didn't even bother with the second chapter because it just wasn't worth my time. I liked the idea. I like Stephen Dorff. There weren't many of the other actors I recognized so I took them as they came and I just wasn't impressed. This was just a dime store version of the Bourne flicks. They were great movies and tremendously clever. They made serious amounts of cash at the box office so I have to assume the movie going public also applauded them for their cleverness. So why did the producers of "XIII" think they had to give people a grade school version? There were enough elements here to make a good story. Was the writing that bad and the producers just didn't catch it? Stephen Dorff has been in some good, high-level projects, so what made him sign on here? He's good, but the dialogue he had to work with didn't let him build a character. It's a shame when a secondary character, the photo shop owner, has more going for her than the main character. Nothing in the production worked to raise this above the level of a run of the mill made for TV movie.Unless you're really needy for something to watch, I'd give this a pass.

2013-03-01 22:27:15

easy watch

XIII the conspiracy is based on the comics by Jean Van Hamme (Belgium) who must have based his work on the 1980 novel 'The Bourne Identity' by Robert Ludlum as previously noted by another reviewer.Therefore the storyline is a bit steckchy and the scenes don't (at times) seems to flow from one to the next. also the budget is not comparable to a bourne movie so if you're looking for 120 mins of thrill, forget it.however I quite enjoyed it, the characters, plot etc are a bit cliche but just put you feet up, crack open a bottle of wine and just enjoy this movie for what it is: entertainment.XIV

dalascby 2013-03-01 11:00:09

More true to life than you may realize..

This plot is more true to life than you may know. At the end of parttwo there is mention of a "need for a crisis" to move the Americanpeople. Check out the documentary "Terrorstorm", it shows a similar document,written by Dick Cheney, calling for the need of "a Pearl Harbor typecrisis" to move the American people to get behind a war withIraq......this memo was written in "January" 2001! Makes you think huh?The Republican desire to restart war with Iraq was being planned longbefore 9/11, they just needed a way to sell it to the American people.Why do you think that despite all of the evidence that our governmentwas warned about 9/11, that no one lifted a finger to stop it?? Hmmmmmm.....

Bruce Henrionnet 2013-01-30 17:35:49

a really good show

I saw the first part of 'XIII' this week on french TV, and I can't waitfor the second part to be broadcast. Of course some will think of JasonBourne, but the plot isn't the same and the original comic book wasreleased in 1984 ! there are some differences between the movie and thebook, but it is not easy to resume 19 books in a two-part movie.Without spoiling the story, I can say I didn't expect the end of thefirst part before seeing it. Stephen Dorff is good in the maincharacter, but it is more pleasant to watch Val Kilmer as the villainwho is, in my opinion, an excellent actor who's not enough seen intheaters.

Pingo-2 2013-01-30 14:01:39

The comic was good - the miniseries sloppy and boring.

I loved the comic. Really nicely done and interesting story where wefollowed XIII through the painstaking puzzling to understand what hewent through and who he was.Here we're presented with everything from the start, so the surpriseeffects are all gone. This of course makes the whole setup vanish, andsuddenly the miniseries is nothing more than just a Bourne-copy - andvery mediocre one too.The miniseries has sloppy editing, bad acting, a tremendously stupidand boring "conspiracy" and some really nutty 1980's styled scenes. Wehave a professional "agent" leaving a trail of bodies behind him foranyone to see. He calls up his enemies so they can know he's coming forthem. Basically, he's so stupid that we just stops to care.There are a few nice things in this series though. Stephen Dorph is onhis way to become a new Jason Statham. His stunts are good, and he'sdoing the best he can with the material he has.Best is however Greg Bryk as Amos - the only intelligent person in thewhole thing. I both like the actor AND the characters, which is sayinga lot when it comes to this mess.Overall, this is just something you'd see if you don't have anythingelse to watch. Otherwise, skip it. It's not worth the time investment.

thinker1691 2013-01-29 21:57:23

" If you don't care, the Government you have is the one you deserve "

Perhaps it's our inability to lay to rest the theories concerning ourcountry's Presidential assassinations. Perhaps it's our growingfascination with government plots, which explain why we have so manyconspiracies films. Whatever the reason, here is yet another moviewhich deals with the killing of the U.S. President. In this story whichapparently played on T.V. first, we are witness to the assignation of aU.S. president. Ross Tanner (Stephen Dorff) the alleged assassin,escapes, but is badly wounded in the process. Thereafter, he is pursuedby the F.B.I, secret service, military officials and nearly anyone whocan carry a gun. Unable to remember his identify, Ross stays one stepahead of everyone. In the meanwhile, the audience is subjected to a Catand Mouse game, but is not privy to know which cat or Mouse is hisfriend or foe. The entire film is one dark dangerous, action filledride with Tanner in the cross hairs all the time. A treat for moviefans as we discover that good guy Val Kilmer plays the heavy and is somenacing we believe the hero is over matched. With Stephen McHattie,Lucinda Davis, Jonathan Higgins and Jessalyn Gilsig, playing governmentofficials, it's mind-boggling trying to keep the two sides separated.As a result, this movie will provide audiences with enough excitement,action and black mystery, to rattle the brain. A good film which mayyet earn top honors as a terrific Conspiracy movie. ****

Mike Boyd 2013-01-29 10:45:28

Bourne + Shooter + Get a dialogue coach!!!

Definitely Jason Bourne + Shooter. Maybe they should've called it "TheBourne Conspiracy"? They even use the same music FFS! So apart from ripping off two excellent movies to make thishotch-potch, they didn't even get a decent dialogue coach. After 1 hour 15 minutes, Jessalyn Gilsig starts explaining exactlywhat's been happening, what happened to the guy and how he's got towhere he is, but she whispers it and mumbles it! Why don't director's get these useless actors/actresses to do the sceneagain so we can hear what the hell she is supposed to be saying?Overall, well worth watching, but it could've been so much better.