Welcome

Welcome to my ever-evolving blog. It started out as a blog on Beachbody workouts and products, mainly when I was a Beachbody coach. I no longer coach, not because I don't believe in Beachbody's programs (I subscribe to Beachbody on Demand and use their workouts every day), I am just not a salesperson and hated that aspect of it. I am more than willing to answer questions about my experiences with their products and the various workouts, and I feel freer to do so without the appearance of giving a biased review of something.

I have also started adding reviews for various things I have purchased like movies, books, CDs, and other products. This was brought about by a fight with Amazon in which all of my reviews were removed over a completely bullshit allegation that I posted a review that violated their terms of service. After going back and forth with the morons in the community-reviews department (even after they admitted that my posts did not violate their guidelines) they restored my account (which took them six months to do), but I have been posting my reviews on my blog to have them preserved in case something like that happens again. And here, I will post uncensored reviews so I will swear from time to time and post reviews that may be longer than Amazon's character limit. Everything I post here on any topic or product is my personal opinion, and I take no compensation for any product reviews I post. I am a member of Amazon's vine program and because I get those products for free, I keep those reviews on Amazon only, but everything I have purchased with my own money, whether from Amazon or some other store/website/outlet, I will post here.  

I also plan to do some longer blog posts on various topics, such as how to learn physics, how to get through calculus, and longer reviews of workout programs as I do them. Basically, whatever strikes me as interesting at the time.  As you can see if you navigate around the blog, I had many years in between postings. During that time I was going back to school to get an engineering degree, and learning material that I avoided my first time through college was a different experience and one that gave me a lot of insight into how to do well in those classes, which I will try to impart here for those who are looking to get a science or engineering degree. 

Wednesday, April 17, 2024

Blu-Ray/Movie Review: Lara Croft: Tomb Raider

 

Lara Croft: Tomb Raider is a 2001 movie based on the widely popular video game series. It stars Angelina Jolie, Daniel Craig, Chris Barrie, Iain Glen, and Noah Taylor and was directed by Simon West. Jolie stars as Lara Croft, a British archeologist who gets caught up in a search for an artifact sought by members of The Illuminati. 

If you try to take this movie too seriously, you will probably walk away hating it. If you take it for what it is, an action movie with a little bit of drama and humor sprinkled in, then you can enjoy it. It is definitely not the traditional summer blockbuster with an explosion every two seconds. While there is a lot of action, there is a plot that the action does slow down for. It is not what I would call an overly deep or complicated plot. It is a pretty basic bad guys want to rule the world story, but there are aspects to it that involve more than just fighting or shooting. I think the pace of the movie was just right. Clocking in at basically a little over an hour and a half, it did not try to do too much, and was able to keep the action going, tell the story that they were trying to tell, then got out before dragging on. 

The movie's A/V quality is great. It looks and sounds great in the HD format. There are a lot of special effects, but those do not really detract from the movie at all (unlike, say, Lucas' special effects-laden movies). They used enough sets and location shots that the effects really did enhance things. For those who get the discs and like bonus material, there is a lot here. There are a bunch of behind the scenes features ranging from 5 min to 25 min. Some are general "making of" features, others focus on the special effects, and other show the training regimen Angelina Jolie went through to become the character. The fact that she did many of her own stunts in the movie was impressive given what they had her doing.

Ultimately, if you don't like action movies and/or Jolie, you probably will not like this movie. I have not really played any of the games, so I am not sure how faithful to the character as she is portrayed in the video games the filmmakers stayed, but it does seem like they were trying to. While it is not the best movie ever, on the whole, I think it is worth the time to watch if you are looking for an action movie.


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