But The Mechanik is really good! Trust me, I'm one of those demanding fans who don't worship everything just because it has Dolph's name on it.
Ultimate Dolph
The Message Board
THE MECHANIK / THE RUSSIAN SPECIALIST (Dolph Lundgren, 2005)
Moderator: Moderators
by Mosquito on 23 Mar 2006, 23:00
bomaz, don't listen to them. I've watched the movie about a week ago and it is really good! The best Dolph film of the last few years! Much better than The Defender, IMHO. And about 30.000 times better than that dreadful Last Warrior. And I didn't even have the guts to watch Detention yet. I bought the DVD last year but after all the bad reviews I just didn't want to watch it yet...
But The Mechanik is really good! Trust me, I'm one of those demanding fans who don't worship everything just because it has Dolph's name on it.
But The Mechanik is really good! Trust me, I'm one of those demanding fans who don't worship everything just because it has Dolph's name on it.
-
Mosquito - Site Admin
- Posts: 2163
- Joined: 08 Nov 2003, 18:23
by Jox on 23 Mar 2006, 23:14
Bien sur c'est une mauvaise critique, les critiques francais n'ont jamais su reconnaitre en Dolph un Schwarzenegger intelligent. "L'Homme de Guerre" qui recu de tres bonne critiques, est l'exception a la regle ...et "Johnny Mnemonic" dans une certaine mesure, la ou meme les (nombreux) detracteurs du film ont vante les merites de Dolph comme donnant la meilleure prestation du film et de sa carriere... De plus, j'ajouterais que DVDrama, malgre le rapport amical que j'entretiens avec eux (je connais le redacteur en chef), donnent l'impression de ne rien comprendre au cinema et redigent leurs critiques et articles dans le sens de ce qui est generalement considere comme "cool"...
-
Jox - Site Admin
- Posts: 23619
- Joined: 08 Nov 2003, 23:03
by Tom on 24 Mar 2006, 12:53
Even the best films get some bad reviews. Just rmember that the vast majority are positive including some of Dolph's best marks. He got 3.5/5 in several reviews. Most critics would not like to give a Dolph film 4 stars or above because it could look bad on your CV doing so, so I believe those critics were probably itching to give it a 4. Anyhow Dolph films pretty much never get more than 3/5. The Mechanik did. I'm delighted.
The Imdb rating is his highest, but due to ballot stuffing it's lower than it should be. The film has too many ten ratings. I would suggest if anyone ids yet to rate it to give the film between 7-9 out of ten and that should see the rating start to go upwards.
Below is a little splurge I wrote on the Van Damme forum about the wieghted average system for those who don;t know. I had to warn the VD fans as they were planning to give Second In Command loads of ten votes, which actually would have mate the vote go dwon.
DON'T GIVE ALL HIS RATINGS 10!!!
I warn you the Imdb system doesn't run on average ratings, it has a weighted average, meaning it takes into consideration the amount of votes for each number. As such if a movie has a disproportionately large number of tens then the score will adjust for that negatively and the rating will go down. The less the amount of votes the more IMDB will adjust. When you go to vote you'll have the weighted average and you'll also see a mean score, which is the actual mathermatical average. Also mediun which is the middle number if all the numbers where lined up.
As an example Wake Of Death has mathematical average of 6.4/10, but deeming that 21 percent of people gave the film 10 out of 10, they took this is ballot stuffing. As such the IMDB score, is a weighted average of 5.4, that's a whole mark lost becasue of ballot stuffing. The weighted average thing is mostly applied to the highest numbers and lowest. Generally DTV films are mostly affected because they have high prooprotaions of 10's from fans ballot stuffing, and scores of 1 from action haters or rival fans who try and bring down a score, what they don;t relaise is that stuffing loads of 10's will not make the score go up. Similarly Dolph's Mechanik has been cut down from 6.8/10, to 5.7, the Defender also. I am also signficantly responsible for a bad rating for Hidden Agenda by Dolph. Before I got the system I stuffed the ballot on that film and the rating is right down to 4.3 instead of the mathematical average of 5.9.
What I suggest to all you people on this board is to rate his films from 7-9, cause generally those numbers aren't ignored.
Also if you want to improve his WOD rating, you should all give the film a 9 vote because the numbers are as follows.
10- 279 votes
9- 72 botes
8-143
7-162
6-153
Now the amount of votes for 9's are very low, meaning the IMDB calculator believes that those 10's msut be from immense ballot stuffing from VD fans. The theory is that if the film was worthy of so many 10's the next highest voted number should natrually be 9, then 8 and so on. As best as poosible for a high score you want a chian like that. Essentially the 10 votes have ruined that films rating.
So once again don't always rush to the 10's. My advice is to look at what numbers between 7-9 on his films need bulking up and vote for that number. The weighted scores should go up. At the moment SIC has 16 votes which means that there aren;t really enough votes for the weighting system to kick in, but by about 50 votes it will do. Out of 16 votes 14 are 10's meaning that effectively the films rating could be cut by around a whole mark by the time the films released and has over 500 votes. The IMDB system is strange but if you want the proper average rating on his films remember to check the mean rating. VD would actually have several movies over 6.
From Imdb
From IMDB:
Weighted Average Ratings
IMDb publishes weighted vote averages rather than raw data averages. Various filters are applied to the raw data in order to eliminate and reduce attempts at 'vote stuffing' by individuals more interested in changing the current rating of a movie than giving their true opinion of it.
The exact methods we use will not be disclosed. This should ensure that the policy remains effective. The result is a more accurate vote average.
The Imdb rating is his highest, but due to ballot stuffing it's lower than it should be. The film has too many ten ratings. I would suggest if anyone ids yet to rate it to give the film between 7-9 out of ten and that should see the rating start to go upwards.
Below is a little splurge I wrote on the Van Damme forum about the wieghted average system for those who don;t know. I had to warn the VD fans as they were planning to give Second In Command loads of ten votes, which actually would have mate the vote go dwon.
DON'T GIVE ALL HIS RATINGS 10!!!
I warn you the Imdb system doesn't run on average ratings, it has a weighted average, meaning it takes into consideration the amount of votes for each number. As such if a movie has a disproportionately large number of tens then the score will adjust for that negatively and the rating will go down. The less the amount of votes the more IMDB will adjust. When you go to vote you'll have the weighted average and you'll also see a mean score, which is the actual mathermatical average. Also mediun which is the middle number if all the numbers where lined up.
As an example Wake Of Death has mathematical average of 6.4/10, but deeming that 21 percent of people gave the film 10 out of 10, they took this is ballot stuffing. As such the IMDB score, is a weighted average of 5.4, that's a whole mark lost becasue of ballot stuffing. The weighted average thing is mostly applied to the highest numbers and lowest. Generally DTV films are mostly affected because they have high prooprotaions of 10's from fans ballot stuffing, and scores of 1 from action haters or rival fans who try and bring down a score, what they don;t relaise is that stuffing loads of 10's will not make the score go up. Similarly Dolph's Mechanik has been cut down from 6.8/10, to 5.7, the Defender also. I am also signficantly responsible for a bad rating for Hidden Agenda by Dolph. Before I got the system I stuffed the ballot on that film and the rating is right down to 4.3 instead of the mathematical average of 5.9.
What I suggest to all you people on this board is to rate his films from 7-9, cause generally those numbers aren't ignored.
Also if you want to improve his WOD rating, you should all give the film a 9 vote because the numbers are as follows.
10- 279 votes
9- 72 botes
8-143
7-162
6-153
Now the amount of votes for 9's are very low, meaning the IMDB calculator believes that those 10's msut be from immense ballot stuffing from VD fans. The theory is that if the film was worthy of so many 10's the next highest voted number should natrually be 9, then 8 and so on. As best as poosible for a high score you want a chian like that. Essentially the 10 votes have ruined that films rating.
So once again don't always rush to the 10's. My advice is to look at what numbers between 7-9 on his films need bulking up and vote for that number. The weighted scores should go up. At the moment SIC has 16 votes which means that there aren;t really enough votes for the weighting system to kick in, but by about 50 votes it will do. Out of 16 votes 14 are 10's meaning that effectively the films rating could be cut by around a whole mark by the time the films released and has over 500 votes. The IMDB system is strange but if you want the proper average rating on his films remember to check the mean rating. VD would actually have several movies over 6.
From Imdb
From IMDB:
Weighted Average Ratings
IMDb publishes weighted vote averages rather than raw data averages. Various filters are applied to the raw data in order to eliminate and reduce attempts at 'vote stuffing' by individuals more interested in changing the current rating of a movie than giving their true opinion of it.
The exact methods we use will not be disclosed. This should ensure that the policy remains effective. The result is a more accurate vote average.
-
Tom - Regular
- Posts: 1384
- Joined: 03 Jan 2004, 13:59
- Location: Marlow, England
by Jox on 24 Mar 2006, 21:52
interesting to see that, according to the DVDexclusive.com charts, "The Mechanik" only made 800,000$ on US rentals, from Feb. 14th to March 5th (2 years ago "Detention" made about as much in one week)... Two major things to take into account though: the rental market has significantly dropped in the recent years due to online rental venues such as Netflicks and the increase of DVD sales, which leads to my second point, that is that Dolph movies problably make much more money on sales. I'm sure most people here bought "The Mechanik" before they even saw it...
-
Jox - Site Admin
- Posts: 23619
- Joined: 08 Nov 2003, 23:03
by Tom on 24 Mar 2006, 21:59
Dolph films tend to also make more money in Europe too. I;d imagine that the Mechanik will regain about half it's budget from the US alone with in a year. Dolph films probably make about 15 million WW in rentals in first year. Still the Mechanik seems to have had more of an impact than Defender and Direct Action in rentals.
-
Tom - Regular
- Posts: 1384
- Joined: 03 Jan 2004, 13:59
- Location: Marlow, England
by Jox on 24 Mar 2006, 22:11
Unfortunately the other thing is, Dolph movies are and always have been, very badly distributed and even "The Mechanik", here in the US, you have to search and fight to find it in a video store or retailer, when a Steven Seagal will be everywhere on front shelves...
-
Jox - Site Admin
- Posts: 23619
- Joined: 08 Nov 2003, 23:03
by Mosquito on 25 Mar 2006, 00:59
Tom, thanks for your interesting explanation of the imdb voting system! I had noticed a long time before that they have the weighted average but never figured out how it works. I thought that maybe they just ignore 1 and 10 votings but that would be too easy of course. It seems that their weighted average is always lower than the mean average. Or have you ever seen the other case, Tom? Would be interesting to know.
On the other hand I would never rate a Dolph movie 10. I'm a true and long time fan but I give ratings according to what I really think about a movie. 10 for his movies would be condemned as untrustworthy by readers and it doesn't improve his reputation. I have rated his movies between 3 (The Last Warrior) and 8 (Universal Soldier). Out of 607 movies I've only voted 10 for 18 of those because 10 is only, and ONLY reserved for very rare and excellent movies (like my favourite The Blade Runner or gems like Delicatessen).
Jox, I agree that most people buy Dolph's DVDs before they have seen the movies. For me there are very simple reasons:
1. If there's a new Dolph movie I'll buy the DVD no matter what.
2. I want the original version but on the German market, B-movies often have only the German audio track because the distributer wanted to save the money for the English license.
3. I want the uncut version but in Germany action movies are often cut because the fear for "18 years and older"-ratings or even a ban.
So often the German rental DVDs are of no interest for me plus I don't want to wait until they hit the German market.
On the other hand I would never rate a Dolph movie 10. I'm a true and long time fan but I give ratings according to what I really think about a movie. 10 for his movies would be condemned as untrustworthy by readers and it doesn't improve his reputation. I have rated his movies between 3 (The Last Warrior) and 8 (Universal Soldier). Out of 607 movies I've only voted 10 for 18 of those because 10 is only, and ONLY reserved for very rare and excellent movies (like my favourite The Blade Runner or gems like Delicatessen).
Jox, I agree that most people buy Dolph's DVDs before they have seen the movies. For me there are very simple reasons:
1. If there's a new Dolph movie I'll buy the DVD no matter what.
2. I want the original version but on the German market, B-movies often have only the German audio track because the distributer wanted to save the money for the English license.
3. I want the uncut version but in Germany action movies are often cut because the fear for "18 years and older"-ratings or even a ban.
So often the German rental DVDs are of no interest for me plus I don't want to wait until they hit the German market.
-
Mosquito - Site Admin
- Posts: 2163
- Joined: 08 Nov 2003, 18:23
by Jox on 29 Mar 2006, 22:41
Here's an interesting review, the critic apparently got to talk to the special effects supervisor as well as Dolph himself about the numerous fade to black that annoyed a lot of people except me...
http://www.filmsinreview.com/At%20Home/russian.html
http://www.filmsinreview.com/At%20Home/russian.html
-
Jox - Site Admin
- Posts: 23619
- Joined: 08 Nov 2003, 23:03
by Tom on 29 Mar 2006, 23:29
Another fairly positve one, and we must also remember here that DTV rarely get good reviews so Dolph has done immensely well with Defender and Mechanik in getting predominently good reviews. Also good to hear Dolph acknowledging a slip in quality over the last 5 years in that article and the recent interview Jox posted up. Well spotted again Jox, those are a couple of excellent articles added.
-
Tom - Regular
- Posts: 1384
- Joined: 03 Jan 2004, 13:59
- Location: Marlow, England
by Warchild on 10 Apr 2006, 05:11
I bought this movie for 29.99 not because i heard it was a good movie, but because i liked the cover and i did not know what to expect from this movie because in the past some of Dolph Lundgren's movies haven't been great and some movies I have really liked so i took a chance and it was worth it. This movie was a really good movie with a great cast, good actors and well directed.
Well done Dolph Lundgren i hope u will make more great movies like The Russian Specialist.
Well done Dolph Lundgren i hope u will make more great movies like The Russian Specialist.
-
Warchild - Regular
- Posts: 404
- Joined: 10 Apr 2006, 04:55
- Location: Canada
The Mechanik Success.
by Tom on 24 Apr 2006, 16:43
Seems that as well as the reviews being the best for any Dolph film. It's also did well on rentals. According to DVD exclusive it opened better than Dolph's two Sid Furie, and The Defender (which didn't even chart in DVD excluisive rentals). For some reason DVDexclusive.com has scrapped it's DVD exclusive rentals chart. From what I remember though, Detention opened with 0.33million, Direct Action 0.11 and Mechanik, 0.36. Something like that. Detention actually managed to hit number 33 in the ot rentals chart (full proper chart against theatrical DVD's too) but that was on a slow week, cause Mechanik didn't make it in the top 50 full.
Also The Mechanik has received far more votes on IMDB than Dolph's other recent ones, sugesting it's been a film with more ofd an audience reaction, but also possibly that more people have watched it htan his others. It's has the most votes since Bridge Of Dragons which is of course 7 years old and has had seven years of voting from IMDB users.
Similarly Dolph has had so many interviews recently, more in the last 6 months than he perhaps had in the 10 years previously. I;m hoping that this means Dolph can get his interesting projects off the ground and that perhaps he may get to work with bigger budgets. I would say that in all regions that the Mechaniks been released the film has probably doubled its money by now, and it still has some major regions to go, like the UK.
Also. Does anyone know why the figures from DVDexclusive's rentals charts, from rentrak, always differ from those on IMDB's rental charts. I'm going on the rentrak figures, so I'm not sure which are accurate and what they include.
Also The Mechanik has received far more votes on IMDB than Dolph's other recent ones, sugesting it's been a film with more ofd an audience reaction, but also possibly that more people have watched it htan his others. It's has the most votes since Bridge Of Dragons which is of course 7 years old and has had seven years of voting from IMDB users.
Similarly Dolph has had so many interviews recently, more in the last 6 months than he perhaps had in the 10 years previously. I;m hoping that this means Dolph can get his interesting projects off the ground and that perhaps he may get to work with bigger budgets. I would say that in all regions that the Mechaniks been released the film has probably doubled its money by now, and it still has some major regions to go, like the UK.
Also. Does anyone know why the figures from DVDexclusive's rentals charts, from rentrak, always differ from those on IMDB's rental charts. I'm going on the rentrak figures, so I'm not sure which are accurate and what they include.
-
Tom - Regular
- Posts: 1384
- Joined: 03 Jan 2004, 13:59
- Location: Marlow, England
by Moltisanti on 25 Apr 2006, 04:06
I think the success in the states has a lot to do with Sony distributing the film. They have a firmer grasp on getting the product on the shelves than Bauer Martinez did with THE DEFENDER. Plus there has been much more press for THE RUSSIAN SPECIALIST than most of his other recent films such as the interviews you mentioned. Sony also put the trailer on other high profile DTV releases such as DIRTY which couldn't have hurt.
So while I'm still ticked off by Sony changing the film's name, they're definitely the leader when it comes to releasing DTV action films. Hopefully they'll be interested in releasing some of his upcoming projects.
So while I'm still ticked off by Sony changing the film's name, they're definitely the leader when it comes to releasing DTV action films. Hopefully they'll be interested in releasing some of his upcoming projects.
-
Moltisanti - Regular
- Posts: 630
- Joined: 02 Apr 2005, 11:23
Who is online
Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 16 guests