First Impressions: "A Thousand Words" + "The Raid" (2012)

   Time for this week's pair of rentals. :)

   First, A Thousand Words, the new comedy with Eddie Murphy. It boasts a 0% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, so I had to check it out! I was thinking, "It can't be that bad, right?" But indeed it was! Oh, God do I hate this movie! This is right up there with This Means War as one of the worst movies of the year so far!
   I didn't mind the first half-hour too much, but I certainly wasn't laughing at it. But once Eddie Murphy's character is forced to stop talking, everything goes downhill fast! Every scene that follows, where they constantly hammer that joke into the ground, is just excruciating to watch.
   In fact, there's a scene just before the hour mark where, if I'd had any other mentality, that would have been the last straw: I seriously would have stopped the movie right there!
   It's a movie that annoys the shit out of me, and I hate it all the more for trying to be emotional.
   My rating: 15%.

   And second, The Raid (AKA The Raid: Redemption). Now you're talking! In an age overflowing with brainless CG-fests, it's so refreshing to see an old-school martial arts action flick on the market.
   Sometimes, just seeing men pitting their strength, speed and wits against each other is so much more exciting than an exaggerated "epic" spectacle. And it's most certainly done right here! I can't even watch this movie without uttering some kind of verbal reaction to each blow like, "Ooh!" "Aw-haww!"
   The premise is a SWAT team infiltrating a mob boss's apartment complex, fighting for their lives when their target tells all the tenants to attack them. It's a fantastic setup, and it makes sense that the action is almost nonstop: these guys just can't catch a break!
   In conclusion, if you're an action fan, then you can't skip this one! It's high-octane violence at its best.
   My rating: 85%.