Pros: Once again Nicolas Cage is very convincing in this intelligent and tough lead role as Benjamin Gates (very similar to his role of Stanley Goodspeed in The Rock). For generations Ben’s family has been searching for an ancient treasure that is supposed to be “too great for any one man to own.”

I really enjoyed the history and riddles that was mixed throughout this movie. It kept my mind active trying to stay one step ahead of Ben as he interpreted the clues. I failed miserably.

Ian Howe (Sean Bean) both looks and acts like a wealthy cut-throat should. Dr. Abigail Chase (Diane Kruger) kept me wondering throughout the movie just exactly which side she might be on, or even if she might be on her own side.

One scene near the end of the movie made my stomach tumble just as it did when I first saw the opening to Cliffnanger years ago.

Cons: The movie begins with a stereotypical Disney encounter between a grandfather and his grandson. I was thinking to myself, “Goodness! I hope the entire movie isn’t this campy.” The background presented in this scene was integral to the movie, but I didn’t care for the way this scene was shot.

The trailer made this movie seem like it might have more action than it really did. Some fight scenes would have helped; chase isn’t what I call action.

On my patented 1 to 10 scale, I give it a 6.

Pros: Creasy (Denzel Washington) is the stereotypical tough guy with deep seated emotional problems. Early on the movie he has a vague conversation with his friend Rayburn (Christopher Walken) where he asks, “Do you think God will forgive us for what we’ve done?” “No,” Rayburn replies. It isn’t until much later that we learn that that Creasy has been working as a mercenary since he finished his military career.

How can he torture the bad guys to get information from them before he kills them? Let me count the ways! Creasy is certainly creative in his methods of both torture and death. Once we got to this point the movie finally got interesting.

Cons: The movie gets off to a really slow start. Creasy’s way children reminds of my own. When the girl he is hired to guard tries to get him to open up about his past, he tells young Pita (Dakota FAnning), “I was hired to protect you, not to be your friend.” This doesn’t make her mother, Lisa (Radha Mitchell), very happy. “You don’t have kids,” she asks him at one point. I expected him to reply as I usually do when I’m asked this question, “Don’t have any, don’t want any, and I sure don’t want to baby-sit somebody else’s!” Then again, I guess he esentially took a baby-sitting job, didn’t he?

I guess that watching Creasy develop his relationship with Pita is an essential part of the movie but I quite bored during this part. Once he started going after her kidnappers, things picked up quite well however.

The director also seems to like a lot of artsy-fartsy camera work that I just found confusing an distracting. I would have given the movie an extra point or two if they had just left this junk out.

On my patented 1 to 10 scale, I give it an 8.

Pros: Vin Diesel does a convincing job as Riddick – a strong willed, cool, calculating individual that will fight to the end. Then again, this is the role that he always plays. Thandie Newton as Dame Vaako is quite convincing as the plotting, coniving, controlling wife of Vaako (Karl Urban). She wants him to take over the throne from Lord Marshall (Colm Feore) and Vaako whimpers to her every command. Vaako is so whipped that if he gets the title of Lord Marshall, Dame Vaako will still be the one calling the shots and she know this. The movie had great sets, special effects, and a good amount of action.

Cons: There is one scene where we see a close up of Kyra’s face and as she turns her head we can clearly see her pierced ear with no ear ring. I found this distracting. They spent a ton of money on the sets and special effects, it seems like they could have put a little makeup in that hole. Other than the trailer I don’t remember hearing about this movie from anywhere. After spending so much money on the movie itself, they probably should have spent some money on advertising. If they had, it probably would have done well. This is now it’s second week and it’s already out of the top 5. Hey, I did my part to keep it up there.

On my patented 1 to 10 scale, I give it a 6.

Pros: Tom Hanks as Professor Dorr. Although was very much a stereotypical character (as were all the characters in this movie) I just loved this character’s dialogue. I ocassionally enjoying reading eighteenth century prose just because the writers always seemed to come up with the right word for everything. Their speech had a certain meter to it as well that we seem to have entirely lost in this day and age. What a shame. Tom Hanks cleverly depicted this meter and accent perfectly.

Cons: Where do I begin? Oh, I’ve already begun by talking about the stereotypical characters. I don’t remember a single time that Professor Dorr or Mrs. Munson cussed but the rest of the characters more than made up for the lack of foul language. While I prefer not to hear such words, I don’t mind it too much when it is used properly to enhance a scene. In the LadyKillers it just seemed way too gratuitous. I didn’t like the ending very well either. I won’t spoil it for anyone, but if you want to know what I would have done differently, email me.

On my patented 1 to 10 scale, I give it a 2.