Bollcrap? #1: Sanctimony (2000)

Uwe Boll is notorious for being a terrible film director, who according to many, has made a few of the worst films ever made. Now I myself have never properly watched any of his films, but have always kind of been intrigued to, so I've decided to finally delve into as much of his filmography as possible and see what I think of his work.
So first up we have Sanctimony which was Boll's first English language feature. Its a very generic and straight forward crime thriller that kind of bland with not much going for it. It features a typical hard nosed detective who drives a Volkswagen Beetle and is tried to catch the culprit in a string of homicides. The film however lacks any mystery or intrigue and stuff just kind of happens in a rather bland way.
The acting is also not good and full of awkward deliveries which is mainly down to the bad dialogue which is sometimes quite laughable with everyone spouting awkward one liners and using cuss words in a forced un-natural way, this also this awkward rough/rapey sex scene which apparently got cut by the BBFC for the UK release for 'sexual violence' though I struggle to think many could take it seriously.
I will say however the visual side isn't bad, the cinematography is pretty decent overall and Boll does his best John Woo impression in the climax with lots of slow mo gun shooting which is one of the best scenes in the film. Overall this a rather flat thriller that's a little fun and laughable in places, but that's about it. **

Real Fiction (2000)

This is quite an interesting film, more of an experiment than anything else, as this was shot in real time in 4 hours using multiple camera setups that mixed both digital video and film. It has a very simple revenge type story with quite an interesting main character and overall it's pretty decent.
***

X-men (2000)

The movie that helped spawn the reemergence of superhero movies and a very solid one at that. Everything is handled really well and the film flies by quickly due to its 90 minute run time (excluding credits) which very rare run time for a superhero film.There's a nice mix of drama, humour and action and overall it's a very solid film.
***1/2

Gohatto (2000)

Samurai drama from Nagisa Oshima that is really good. It deals with homosexuality of Samurai and has a very interesting and engaging story. I did find some of the narration and on screen text exposition a little odd but it kind of worked. Also the film has a great cast of actors including Takeshi Kitano, Ryuhei Matsuda and Tadanobu Asano and is really well shot. Overall, I really liked this film.
****

Chaos (2000)

Hideo Nakata presents an average thriller filled with small twists and turns, that's quite interesting for the first hour or so but then begins to lose steam, so that by the end I wasn't all that bothered with it.
It does star the lovely Miki Nakatani who's as a good as always and the story's not too bad,
but the whole thing just didn't excite that much.
***

Titan A.E (2000)

This was a film I really liked as kid and it's still real good. Just a very solid sc-fi animaed film.
It's very imaginative and though some of the CG elements look a little dated, it's still animated pretty well. There's also a few quite dark moments here and there, including a character dreaming of getting killed and an Alien getting his neck snapped. It seemed like it wanted to be more like an edgier Japanese anime that was popular at the time, which is cool by me. My main gripe would be the awful alt rock songs that are interspersed here and there, other than that, it's a lot of fun.
***1/2

City Of Lost Souls (2000)

I've always found this to be one of Miike's weaker films, though my appreciation for it has grown since last viewing. It has many intriguing moments dispersed throughout that help give it a certain uniqueness and charm which provides a fun watch. Not Miike's best but not bad either.
***