DEAD SILENCE [2007]

From Leigh Whannell & James Wan (the guys who made Saw & Insidious) comes this "creepy" homicidal wooden puppet shitfest, Dead Silence.  

I know these guys don't make particularly great films but I was expecting a bit more than this boring, cliched sad excuse for a horror film.  What's nice to know is Whannell & Wan speak poorly of this film too and apologized for what it was.  A studio imagined cash cow that didn't deliver.  

½ Pinocchio is scarier than this out of 5

SAW IV [2007]

I was ready to call it quits with the idea of torturing myself with a marathon of this stupid franchise. Then this film came along as a mediocre pleasant surprise.
It dug a little deeper into Jigsaw's past and gave his character more of a purpose and dimension. It took it's death traps a little more seriously, remained undpredictable from start to finish and suceeded in putting me at the edge of my seat a few times. There was some wonderful lighting and camera work here that the last 2 films were severly lacking. It wasn't as good as the first one but was a couple light years better than the last two efforts.

2 ½ ice blocks out of 5

SAW III [2006]

What a colossal waste of time.

So-so ending. The rest is juvenille, shallow and lacking any sort of substance. For a film that uses death scenes as it's only selling point it fails completely. One death scene was a might bit interesting and the rest were boring and uninspired. It's like some kid came up with them on an internet forum...and upon investigation, that's exactly what the writers did. They used fanboy's fanfic ideas. Wow. Just wow. Fuck this shit.

1 ___ out of 5

SAW II [2005]

The sequel to the torture porn franchise, SAW, ends with another impressive "didn't see that coming" ending.
Unfortunately that's about it.
The rest of the film seems like it was bullshit piled on top of this golden ending. Almost as if the writers came up with this brilliant finale and just needed something to fill up the space.
The acting is a little better this time around but the script and the direction is so horribly juvenile and unevenly paced. The first film had a twist-filled plot driving the story, while this one just had ridiculously forced violence you and your friends could come up shit-shooting on a forum in one night. :p
2 down, 5 to go. Fuck.

1 ½ New Kids On The Block out of 5

Zookeeper (2011)

Dr. Dolittle meets Night at the Museum. Not exactly a happy marriage. Kevin James does his manic energy routine as the zookeeper trying to win back his ex, as the zoo animals attempt to show him their ways of getting a mate. This involves a scene taking a gorilla to TGI Friday's. It sounds stupid, but I actually laughed out loud more than I expected I would. Still more enjoyable than Mr. Popper's Penguins.

(Sidenote: Makes me wonder if kids will start jumping into bear and lion exhibits, thinking the animals will talk to them and be friendly.)

2.5 "fat man fall down, ha ha" shtick moments out of 5