Mostly Christopher Nolan gets pub for being the man behind Batman Begins and The Dark Knight, but with the popularity of Inception people, are starting to get a handle on the dark twisty directing style that is really his bread and butter. Also, seeing as I am actually unsure yet as to whether I will pay to go see Inception, I decided to temper that by retro reviewing this one.
Memento was not the first movie he directed, but it is the movie that really put him on the map and was his first movie to actually have a cast and a budget. (even though it was a small one) He made some smart casting decisions by casting the always great Guy Pierce as Lenny and surrounding him with a cast of solid supportive character actors. Oddly, he snagged two of the cast from the previous years Sci/Fi smash the Matrix. Carrie-Ann Moss and Joe Pantoliano both had major roles in that movie, and are the two major supporting actors in Memento. They both give excellent performances. Also, you can see a cameo by Jorja Fox in this film as Lenny's wife when she is shown in the flashback scenes. She is more commonly recognized in her role on CSI as Sara Sidle. The acting will not be a disappointment in this film which is important since this is primarily a character and dialogue driven film. Guy Pierce particularly sells this film with his continually ability to make the fact his characters memories keep disappearing believable. The acting however, is not what makes this movie distinctive as a Christopher Nolan vehicle.
What Christopher Nolan loves to do, and does well, is winding a plot that makes it difficult to separate the reality from the fiction. He is striving for more than just a simple plot hook with a twist at the end. He is trying to craft a movie that makes the audience completely engage with the characters, yet been completely in the dark about what is real and what isn't. A Nolan film is unmistakeable in its artistic value. Its dark gritty, and his style is very distinct. Its hard to describe but you know it when you see it and by all accounts Inception might be his opus when it comes to this style and reality bending. But this all started with Memento, which deals with something nearly as fragmentary and illusory as dreams, memory. If you are a lover of the movie Inception, then you owe it to yourself to watch the movie that started Nolan on this path, and if you have seen it then you should go re-watch it, Memento is truly a great movie.
Wednesday, July 28, 2010
Sunday, July 18, 2010
The Sorcerers Apprentice 5/10
Oh Nick Cage you take some of the weirdest roles. This movie is actually pretty well acted, with pretty good casting. The special effects are passable, and the only reason this movie is rated higher is because the script and story are very humdrum. Nothing all that exciting or special, but at least its not poorly written. Honestly, I actually rather enjoyed this movie and the key thing that this one has going for it is that its completely family friendly and sometimes I just enjoy seeing a movie that doesn't suck that is loaded with violence and swearing (not that i don't love movies with violence and swearing, but every now and then you wan't something different) and frankly every now and then you just want to watch some fluff where you know everything will work out all right in the end, and all the protagonists will get the girl and all the villains will get plasma bolts to the face. There isn't really much to say about this movie, it just is what it is. Somewhat bland, fairly well acted, family friendly, and decent. Given that there really aren't that many quality movies out right now I have no problems recommending this one, it just isn't going to be winning any awards and its not something that you will watch more than once. I know this is a pretty short review, but there isn't much to say about this movie really. Oh, yea, I really like Alfred Molina, so maybe that made me just a hair biased.
Predators 6.5/10
I will admit that I am not a fan of the original Predator that came out in the eighties. In fact its one of the few iconic eighties movies that I don't like, as those films are some of my absolute favorites. I don't know why, but it just didn't speak to me. The sequel equally didn't do it for me, and the Alien vs. Predator franchise just seemed completely hokey to me, although I did watch them. This movie though, I enjoyed, and it bucked the trend of reboots of old franchises being absolutely terrible.
This movie is essentially a survival horror movie. People that know this genre understand what to expect, and it really doesn't deviate from that very much. This movie does very well in casting its rag tag group of survivals, which is integral to any survival horror film. Of course this characters are just archetypes with no real depth, but hey, this is Predators not Citizen Kane. Walton Goggins (best known for the shield, and for you real nerds Major League: Back to the Minors) was excellent and hilarious as a crazy death row murderer. Topher Grace was also really good, and I generally hate him. Laurence Fishburne was also good in a bit of a cameo role, and any movie with Danny Trejo generally gets two thumbs up from me. Oddly, the only thing that I mildly disproved of was Adrien Brody, and he is probably the best actor of the bunch. Its not that he was bad in the film, but lets be honest, its just hard to buy Brody as a toughened amoral professional mercenary, he is just hard to buy as a bad ass.
Overall, this movie isn't deep. There isn't any setup, just boom, people together, on a planet, dealing with it. They devise they are on an alien planet being hunter ridiculously fast, and cope with it way better than they should, lets be honest, most people would go catatonic at that point, but who cares. Just show me the funky alien killing machines, and thats what they did. Like I said folks, there is nothing new here, no revolutionary plot twists, just pretty well done survival horror. If you enjoy this sort of thing you will not be disappointed, if you are looking for movie of the year potential then you will be. I would recommend seeing it if you are a remotely a fan of the franchise.
This movie is essentially a survival horror movie. People that know this genre understand what to expect, and it really doesn't deviate from that very much. This movie does very well in casting its rag tag group of survivals, which is integral to any survival horror film. Of course this characters are just archetypes with no real depth, but hey, this is Predators not Citizen Kane. Walton Goggins (best known for the shield, and for you real nerds Major League: Back to the Minors) was excellent and hilarious as a crazy death row murderer. Topher Grace was also really good, and I generally hate him. Laurence Fishburne was also good in a bit of a cameo role, and any movie with Danny Trejo generally gets two thumbs up from me. Oddly, the only thing that I mildly disproved of was Adrien Brody, and he is probably the best actor of the bunch. Its not that he was bad in the film, but lets be honest, its just hard to buy Brody as a toughened amoral professional mercenary, he is just hard to buy as a bad ass.
Overall, this movie isn't deep. There isn't any setup, just boom, people together, on a planet, dealing with it. They devise they are on an alien planet being hunter ridiculously fast, and cope with it way better than they should, lets be honest, most people would go catatonic at that point, but who cares. Just show me the funky alien killing machines, and thats what they did. Like I said folks, there is nothing new here, no revolutionary plot twists, just pretty well done survival horror. If you enjoy this sort of thing you will not be disappointed, if you are looking for movie of the year potential then you will be. I would recommend seeing it if you are a remotely a fan of the franchise.
The Last Airbender 0/10 Worst Movie of the Year.
I have never, ever, received so little for the price of a movie ticket than I did with this movie. This is, probably the worst movie I have ever seen in a mainstream release. It has replaced Eragon as the worst movie with a budget I have witnessed and has created absolutely new lows in movie making. I don't know if ever I have left a movie theatre with absolutely nothing good to say about a movie. The only thing I can say is that I laughed a lot. At the terrible dialogue.
Firstly, the special effects were terribad. The opening scenes in the snow were laughable and you could actually pick out the halos around the characters where they were either put on a screen of imposed over CGI. That beautiful trailer we all saw that had all the ships and the kid in the tower in an epic war scene, totally not in the movie, and in fact nothing anything near that good or cool is in the movie. Truly hack work. This movie is so melodramatic that from hence forth all melodramas shall be known as airbenders, but that’s the least of this movies worries really. I don't really prescribe to all the hubbub about them not casting enough Asians. This is a made up world, and if they wanted to cast some white folk, and some Indo/Pak kids that’s fine with me. This movie had people of all flavors and there were plenty of Asians cast. However, they should have casted some kids in the lead roles that had at least a smidgen of acting talent. Sadly the worst of the worst were two of the characters that received a lot of air time. Noah Ringer, who plays Aang, the Last Airbender was terrible, even when held to standards for his age. This was his first gig, and frankly, I am wondering if he dad knew the casting director or something, because he should still be an unknown. He wasn't the worst though, Jackson Rathbone takes that honor. He plays Sokka a non-elemental bending semi-warrior who serves no real purpose to the plot but to say stupid things and deliver lines with all the emotion of a robot. Of course this is probably how they taught him to do things on the Twilight set.
Perhaps, though, these guys could have done something if they were giving anything, and I mean ANYTHING to work with. This is the worst script I have ever had the misfortune to stumble across. The lines are absolutely laughable. This literally makes Twilight look like an Oscar winner. Its generally a pretty good sign of poor script writing when actors that are generally average to good in quality are as equally terrible as the untested young talent. Dev Patel, who has talent, place a flat, completely non-dynamic character. Cliff Curtis, Shaun Taub, Aasif Mandvi are all at least adequate, but all come up short here. The other problem is this movie lacks any sort of resolution whatsoever. It was clearly made to be in a series of movies, but it makes it shamefully obvious that its part of a series. Unlike most other series, which has a full arc in each film this one just sort of ends like the first night of a three night mini-series on NBC. What makes it worse is that since its so terrible and is getting such terrible reviews there won't be anymore movies. Given the way this one ends THERE IS NO REASON TO WATCH IT. Its seriously like watching half of a movie and then stopping right before a lot of stuff happens, and never going back to it. Tell you what, I will sum it up for you:
There are a bunch of 14 year olds standing around, giving bad lines with even worse delivery, they do monumentally stupid acts for no particularly reason while one or more of them watch and say with little emotion "no don't you dare do that exact act in which you are going to do." Then they do that act and something else happens, then they get on a terrible CGI'd luck dragon clone and go somewhere else where they do some sort of combat that looks like it should be part of stomp. Then he doesn't something with water and the movie blacks out. The fire lord says something to his daughter blah blah blah, then you get ready for the real parts of the movie to start, oh but then it ends. Generally I believe that quality and enjoyability are not mutually exclusive, but there is a point in which a movie is just so bad that there really just can't be an reason to enjoy it. This movie is one of those. I just can't see how anyone can honestly say they enjoyed this movie. And from the rotten tomatoes reviews it doesn't really look like anyone has.
Firstly, the special effects were terribad. The opening scenes in the snow were laughable and you could actually pick out the halos around the characters where they were either put on a screen of imposed over CGI. That beautiful trailer we all saw that had all the ships and the kid in the tower in an epic war scene, totally not in the movie, and in fact nothing anything near that good or cool is in the movie. Truly hack work. This movie is so melodramatic that from hence forth all melodramas shall be known as airbenders, but that’s the least of this movies worries really. I don't really prescribe to all the hubbub about them not casting enough Asians. This is a made up world, and if they wanted to cast some white folk, and some Indo/Pak kids that’s fine with me. This movie had people of all flavors and there were plenty of Asians cast. However, they should have casted some kids in the lead roles that had at least a smidgen of acting talent. Sadly the worst of the worst were two of the characters that received a lot of air time. Noah Ringer, who plays Aang, the Last Airbender was terrible, even when held to standards for his age. This was his first gig, and frankly, I am wondering if he dad knew the casting director or something, because he should still be an unknown. He wasn't the worst though, Jackson Rathbone takes that honor. He plays Sokka a non-elemental bending semi-warrior who serves no real purpose to the plot but to say stupid things and deliver lines with all the emotion of a robot. Of course this is probably how they taught him to do things on the Twilight set.
Perhaps, though, these guys could have done something if they were giving anything, and I mean ANYTHING to work with. This is the worst script I have ever had the misfortune to stumble across. The lines are absolutely laughable. This literally makes Twilight look like an Oscar winner. Its generally a pretty good sign of poor script writing when actors that are generally average to good in quality are as equally terrible as the untested young talent. Dev Patel, who has talent, place a flat, completely non-dynamic character. Cliff Curtis, Shaun Taub, Aasif Mandvi are all at least adequate, but all come up short here. The other problem is this movie lacks any sort of resolution whatsoever. It was clearly made to be in a series of movies, but it makes it shamefully obvious that its part of a series. Unlike most other series, which has a full arc in each film this one just sort of ends like the first night of a three night mini-series on NBC. What makes it worse is that since its so terrible and is getting such terrible reviews there won't be anymore movies. Given the way this one ends THERE IS NO REASON TO WATCH IT. Its seriously like watching half of a movie and then stopping right before a lot of stuff happens, and never going back to it. Tell you what, I will sum it up for you:
There are a bunch of 14 year olds standing around, giving bad lines with even worse delivery, they do monumentally stupid acts for no particularly reason while one or more of them watch and say with little emotion "no don't you dare do that exact act in which you are going to do." Then they do that act and something else happens, then they get on a terrible CGI'd luck dragon clone and go somewhere else where they do some sort of combat that looks like it should be part of stomp. Then he doesn't something with water and the movie blacks out. The fire lord says something to his daughter blah blah blah, then you get ready for the real parts of the movie to start, oh but then it ends. Generally I believe that quality and enjoyability are not mutually exclusive, but there is a point in which a movie is just so bad that there really just can't be an reason to enjoy it. This movie is one of those. I just can't see how anyone can honestly say they enjoyed this movie. And from the rotten tomatoes reviews it doesn't really look like anyone has.
The A-Team 7.5/10
There are various ways in which to judge a movie. Sometimes you don't judge purely on the quality of the product. The A-Team is ridiculous. The plot doesn't always make sense, there is very little logic, the action is huge and over the top, the characters are caricatures, but, it works. Why does it work? Why do components that generally make a bad movie result in an entertaining movie here? Well, its because it captures and epitomizes the spirit of the TV series perfectly. Sure, they could have made a gritty, dark, artistic movie, and it probably would have been high quality, but, that wouldn't have fit very well, the characters would have been off and it would have born no resemblance to the action series that so many people love. And, its darn funny as well. The characters are very well done, with the only stretch being Rampage Jackson, and his performance wasn't to terrible for a guy that’s really just not an actor. Bradley Cooper was excellent as Faceman but Sharlto Copley truly stole the show with his characterization of Murdock. He is not exactly a household name but he played Wikus in District 9 and he is very, very good. Very surprising given his inexperience. He is a guy to watch for in the future. Jessica Biel doesn't really add anything, but she is hot, and this type of movie does require at least one really hot girl to be in it. Its not going to win an Oscar or anything, but if you liked the television show you will love this movie, and if you are not a fan of the television show you can do a lot worse than watching this flick.
The Loser 6.5/10
So what is the difference between a summer pop corn flick that is enjoyable and one that makes you want to shoot the screen with a .50 caliber sniper rifle? Generally with me its how serious the movie takes itself. This is, of course, mostly due to who is directing. Some directors think they are creating a dramatic masterpiece no matter how crappy the premise and load it with dramatic chipmunk type shots and overly dramatic lines filled with gravitas like they are all being uttered by David Caruso in his most serious of moments. The converse is movies like The Losers. This movie is fun, and it knows what it is. A movie filled with over the top characters that quip one liners and blow crap up. Its fun, its quick, its mindless. Its not the best movie in the world, but its summer popcorn entertainment and its worth seeing. There are no Oscar winners in this movie, but the acting is good enough considering all they have to do is shoot stuff and do their best Spider-man one-liner impression. And Zoe Saldana, man, she is smoking. You know a girl is attractive when she still manages to look hot as a CGI alien, so of course she is good looking in this film. This movie is sure a heck of a lot better than any Miley Cyrus/Nick Sparks compilation.
Robin Hood 7.5/10
So I really liked this movie. I am not sure why its not doing so well with the critics. Some of the reviews say that it isn't an original take on the Robin Hood legend (notice the proper use of the word legend rather than myth) but I question what they really mean by that. I am not sure what they were expecting, it not something that can have a numerous about of different takes. But I digress. To put it in today's comic book nomenclature perhaps this movie should be entitled Robin Hood: Origins. This is not a retelling of the events of Robin Hood and his merry men stealing from the rich to give to the poor, this is the story of the events and circumstances that put him there. This movie does have an excellent cast and they do a good job in this film. Russell Crowe and Cate Blanchett are really good, and in all truth the movie would actually be better with more scenes of them interacting. The movie has freaking MAX VON SYDOW in it, how can you go wrong with that? Mark Addy is good, and frankly I have always wanted to see him play the role of Friar Tuck, although I certainly do wish that the movie had more of him. Denis Menochest made me smile in a small role, mainly because he was so good in Inglourious Basterds. And Mark Strong is his typical villain (go go Sinestro, is he even capable of playing a good guy?) William Hurt and Kevin Durand also do well in supporting roles as William Marshall and Little John (his line, "What are you getting at? I am proportional" which of course makes me wonder where an uneducated 12 century thug knows the word proportional)The action scenes are good, although not great, and the final battle really seems to be set up to look like a bit of a Normandy re-creation. I will admit that I am a Robin Hood fanboy, I have been since I saw the old Disney Robin Hood cartoon, and this movie is good enough to have kept me entertained and enjoy the retelling of one of my favorite legends.
Clash of the Titans 5.5/10
Clash of the Titans Movie Review 5.5/10!
It seems to be that lately we have been inundated with a rash of movies that are perfectly content with being decent, but not great. Particularly this year I was left the movie theatre feeling that I was entertained, but that what I saw was just missing something. Maybe movie makers don't really want to take chances anymore, and they like to retread the same old formulas out there because they are safe. They would rather a movie be safely average and make money than take chances on greatness and have a bomb. I don't know that I really fault them for this logic. Great movies don't always equal more money, or even any money at all. Greatness in film is often not appreciated by the masses and the benign blockbuster film with good advertising generally is. In fact a couple of movie insiders from the Scene Unseen Movie review podcast often have said that the key to making money with a movie actually has nothing to do with its quality, only the quality of its advertising. This movie has that sort of thing going for it to a certain degree. They advertised the fooey out of this thing. Lots of epic shots of monsters and of Liam Neeson saying "Release the Kraken." This movie was going to make a decent amount of bank just because of the advertising campaign, and recoup a lot of its making costs. Once again I can't really fault the movie companies for this, it does make them money. However, I really don't like it when the advertising is the best part of the film, and when the trailers give a false impression as to the plot of the movie. (in this film its who the primary antagonist is) On the whole I didn't leave the theatre feeling that I hadn't enjoyed my time, I found the film enjoyable enough, and I didn't feel like it was wasted. Its not a bad movie and I wouldn't tell people that they shouldn't see it if they like this type of film. But it was a decidedly average film, not great and the question I keep asking myself is with this wealth of source material how can you not make a great film? I mean seriously this is a remake of an already pretty darn good film, so they can only go up from there right? This film does a few things right. The period people (although no more accurate than any other movie) felt right. I bought into the fact that these were an ancient people. The costumes looked really good, with the exception of Zeus' light can't quite focus on you armor, which just looked silly and cheesy. Sam Worthington, although not exceptional, gave a far better turn than he did in Avatar, and his performance was solid. Ralph Fiennes was as freaky and scary as he always is in these roles, and frankly I think the movie could have benefitted from more of his. Liam Neeson was fine, but he wasn't really given all that much to do. Zeus was actually far less epic and frequent in the film that the trailers would have you believe. Once again, not Neeson's fault, and he wasn't bad, aside from his terrible armor, he just wasn't given much to do. The movie did a few things badly that really detracted from the film. Firstly, I immediately got popped out with believability with Sam Worthington in this role. I know he was a demi-God, and physically stronger and all of that, but young Perseus has a conversation with his adopted father when he was, at the oldest ten. Then it pops up 12 years later, and it shows Worthington. I leaned over to my friend that was watching the movie with me and said "Huh, 22 years old and he already has crows feet." He responded, "hard life man." Its just really hard to buy him as a 20 year old kid. Even a 20 year old demi-god kid. My question is, why pop up the 12 years later subtext at all? It had no bearing to the plot, its not like it wasn't obvious this was sometime in the future, why do it? All it did was make people go huh, that 20 year old looks 35. But that’s just a personal peeve of mine, and I am sure that wouldn't annoy most people. Other than that this movie had real problems in production, not so much in the acting and story. It looked like the shot the film with actually 8mm retro color film. Sometimes that’s not a bad look, but in this film it kind of made things look washed out, with a lack of vibrancy. Everything kind of looked gray scale and it was not pleasing at all. The monsters looked a little to cartoony for the gravity of the situation, and for you old school gamers the Kraken totally looked like one of the Weapon's bosses from Final Fantasy 7, or even Bahamut from Advent Children. If you haven't seen the original go and see that one instead of this one, it’s a better movie, but this one is still entertaining enough despite its flaws, so if this type of movie interests you, then by all means go out and see it. If you love the original, you will probably be disappointed, but if not, you will just have a couple hours of mindless action entertainment.
It seems to be that lately we have been inundated with a rash of movies that are perfectly content with being decent, but not great. Particularly this year I was left the movie theatre feeling that I was entertained, but that what I saw was just missing something. Maybe movie makers don't really want to take chances anymore, and they like to retread the same old formulas out there because they are safe. They would rather a movie be safely average and make money than take chances on greatness and have a bomb. I don't know that I really fault them for this logic. Great movies don't always equal more money, or even any money at all. Greatness in film is often not appreciated by the masses and the benign blockbuster film with good advertising generally is. In fact a couple of movie insiders from the Scene Unseen Movie review podcast often have said that the key to making money with a movie actually has nothing to do with its quality, only the quality of its advertising. This movie has that sort of thing going for it to a certain degree. They advertised the fooey out of this thing. Lots of epic shots of monsters and of Liam Neeson saying "Release the Kraken." This movie was going to make a decent amount of bank just because of the advertising campaign, and recoup a lot of its making costs. Once again I can't really fault the movie companies for this, it does make them money. However, I really don't like it when the advertising is the best part of the film, and when the trailers give a false impression as to the plot of the movie. (in this film its who the primary antagonist is) On the whole I didn't leave the theatre feeling that I hadn't enjoyed my time, I found the film enjoyable enough, and I didn't feel like it was wasted. Its not a bad movie and I wouldn't tell people that they shouldn't see it if they like this type of film. But it was a decidedly average film, not great and the question I keep asking myself is with this wealth of source material how can you not make a great film? I mean seriously this is a remake of an already pretty darn good film, so they can only go up from there right? This film does a few things right. The period people (although no more accurate than any other movie) felt right. I bought into the fact that these were an ancient people. The costumes looked really good, with the exception of Zeus' light can't quite focus on you armor, which just looked silly and cheesy. Sam Worthington, although not exceptional, gave a far better turn than he did in Avatar, and his performance was solid. Ralph Fiennes was as freaky and scary as he always is in these roles, and frankly I think the movie could have benefitted from more of his. Liam Neeson was fine, but he wasn't really given all that much to do. Zeus was actually far less epic and frequent in the film that the trailers would have you believe. Once again, not Neeson's fault, and he wasn't bad, aside from his terrible armor, he just wasn't given much to do. The movie did a few things badly that really detracted from the film. Firstly, I immediately got popped out with believability with Sam Worthington in this role. I know he was a demi-God, and physically stronger and all of that, but young Perseus has a conversation with his adopted father when he was, at the oldest ten. Then it pops up 12 years later, and it shows Worthington. I leaned over to my friend that was watching the movie with me and said "Huh, 22 years old and he already has crows feet." He responded, "hard life man." Its just really hard to buy him as a 20 year old kid. Even a 20 year old demi-god kid. My question is, why pop up the 12 years later subtext at all? It had no bearing to the plot, its not like it wasn't obvious this was sometime in the future, why do it? All it did was make people go huh, that 20 year old looks 35. But that’s just a personal peeve of mine, and I am sure that wouldn't annoy most people. Other than that this movie had real problems in production, not so much in the acting and story. It looked like the shot the film with actually 8mm retro color film. Sometimes that’s not a bad look, but in this film it kind of made things look washed out, with a lack of vibrancy. Everything kind of looked gray scale and it was not pleasing at all. The monsters looked a little to cartoony for the gravity of the situation, and for you old school gamers the Kraken totally looked like one of the Weapon's bosses from Final Fantasy 7, or even Bahamut from Advent Children. If you haven't seen the original go and see that one instead of this one, it’s a better movie, but this one is still entertaining enough despite its flaws, so if this type of movie interests you, then by all means go out and see it. If you love the original, you will probably be disappointed, but if not, you will just have a couple hours of mindless action entertainment.
RepoMen 3/10
I am tired of going to see movies that have a good idea behind them but have lousy script writing and direction that forces them to crash and burn in a miserable experience. This movie has the potential to be excellent. In fact some of the elements are very good indeed. Liev Schreiber was really fantastically smarmy and slimy in his bottom line make the money role as Frank. However, he really is the highlight of the movie. *Spoiler* Normally I attempt to do reviews of movies without giving any spoilers, but with this one I am not going to do that. There were a couple of things with this movie that just completely ruined it. I hate movies like this, movies that try to suck you in, make you involved in the plot and then bam, some ridiculous twist that invalidates everything you have watched. Like, for example, the movie Identity where you discover the entire movie took place amongst the multiple personalities in a killers head, or like Stutter Island, another movie that has this type of result. I think its cheap. I think it’s a cliché, cheap, non-thinking way of turning a plot twist, and utterly useless to telling a good story or delivering a quality movie. In this particular movie this twist happens when Jude Laws character gets smacked in the head with a large hook. In the movie he wakes up later, goes on to invade the Union and escapes with both the girl and his best friend to the beach, where he writes a best selling book. But the twist so to speak was he never woke up from getting hit in the head with that hook, Jake just had a neural net installed on him so that his coma would be a happy one. This was poorly done, first of all, because it should be fairly obvious. Fake heart or no, Jude Law's character is just human, and no human could survive the amount of force. As soon as it happened I literally said out loud in the theatre "no one wakes up from that." And point of fact, he didn't. Terrible movie making there. After this point it turns into your standard kill everyone to infiltrate the blah, blah, blah, and it culminates in a terribly melodramatic scene in which they scan each others internal organs sans pain killers to get them erased from the system. It was a disgusting and ridiculous scene that was supposed to show how far true unfettered love would go, but in reality, they were trying to give a slap in the face to the people who believe this type of unfettered, unending love is possible. More like a punch into the face of the people who find this appealing. Why? Because even in the convention of the movie this type of love was in fact, not possible. This only existed in a very badly damaged brain. So, so sad that the second half of the movie destroyed what could have possibly been a very decent flick.
Greenzone 3/10
I really wanted to like this movie, I am a big fan of the Bourne Series of films so I thought that a new film with Paul Greengrass and Matt Damon would likely be very enjoyable. I was wrong, everything about this film is generic and bland. It wasn't that it was a terribly made film, it wasn't. What it was, though, was terribly boring. Rarely can I remember ever being completely bored in a movie theatre. Well, I was during this film. The story is interesting, as it attempts to explain the scenario for why there were no WMD's found in Iraq. But it is poorly done in its execution. In Greengrass style the camera is hand held and shaky. But it doesn't seem to work as well as it does in the Bourne series, it plays more like motion sickness than realism in this film. The characters themselves are bland and vanilla. I never really related to Damon's character because he just didn't really seem believable, he just seemed like a stock character from a generic war movie. The supporting cast should have been great, but they really didn't have much to work with so they were really a non-entity in this movie. All in all, I felt like it was the first time this year I felt like I had truly wasted my time at the theatre.
Edge of Darkness 5/10
Mel Gibson graces us with his presence once again on the silver screen. What's it been, like ten years? Of course he has directed and been in the news, but this is his first screen appearance in quite some time. This is pretty vintage Mel Gibson. A role that he can play well falling out of bed after a hard night of drink at a Bar Mitzvah. It is his bread a butter, a revenge flick. A wise man once told me that almost all movies can be broke down into only three categories: Love stories, coming of age stories, and revenge stories. This man is for the most part right, and as far as crazy ass revenge goes, Mel Gibson has cried over more lost children and dead lovers than most Hollywood stars. He does what he always does in this movie. If you like him in that roll then you will like this movie, if you don't and that annoys you then this movie isn't for you. The story is interesting, although none of the characters are really fleshed out and it feels like you only get snapshots of each one. The story feels like there should be a lot there, and there is a reason for that. This was a six part BBC miniseries that was compressed into one not very long movie. So you get a skeleton outline of a story that was supposed to be much more complex and interesting, and instead is only mildly intriguing. Its a decent movie, worth passing a couple of hours with if you have nothing better to do, but I would recommend that you wait for netflix and watch it on a night when your snowed in.
Book Of Eli 5.5/10
This movie was kind of a disappointment. I thought that having Gary Oldman and Denzel Washington opposite each other in a pseudo-biblical post-apocalyptic battle field would be highly entertaining. I was disappointed. It was somewhat entertaining, but it was nearly as good as I thought that it would be. The movie is your standard post-apocalyptic nightmare. Basically a Mad Max/Postman/The Road standard fair kind of stuff with a bit of Fahrenheit 451 thrown in. Of course nothing is ever really explained as to what happened in the world to make it this way except for some vague allusions to things that happened like "a whole was ripped in the sky" and "after the big flash." I guess, that's ok as it wasn't all that important to the plot, but still that sort of sets the tone for this movie as it seems to have lots of things that just are with no explanation for what the heck is going on. This movie was bad, and would have received rating probably of 6.5 or 7 except for a couple of things. There is a big twist of sorts and the end and to be honest it was bad for the movie as it really just didn't make that much sense. My issue with can't really be discussed without giving out a ton of spoilers which I prefer not to do, and the ending just left me with to many unanswered questions and to much Why the hell did this happen this way to get more than a slightly above average rating. As is kind of a theme it seems with the movies I have watched this year this movie had a lot of potential but underachieves and fails to reach that potential.
Legion 4/10
From the previews I really didn't think this movie was going to be that good, but since I have a mancrush on Paul Bettany I knew I was going to go see it as soon as I saw the first trailer. Essentially this is a Zombie apocalypse movie but instead of some virus the zombies are created by Angel possession. Yea, I know, sounds silly, it was pretty silly when I was watching it. Listening to an audience can sometimes give you a clue as to the quality of a movie. If the entire audience is laughing at inappropriate times then its probably a good example of a poorly written script. I don't expect my action movies to have Oscar quality scripts, but I do expect them to no be so painfully bad as to make the audience laugh when it should be feeling something else. There isn't really that much action in the movie, and the dialogue scenes between the characters are painfully cheesy and forced. The one bright spot of the film is how they implemented the angel wings into the big fight scene. Basically the bottom line on this film is that it had an interesting idea but do to poor, poor pacing, cheesy melodramatic over acting, and a script that lacked the proper cohesion to tell the story kept it from actualizing any of he potential that was there. If your going to the theatre and you have to choose between this movie and Book of Eli, see Book of Eli, its better, although only marginally. It somehow manages to take itself far less seriously, which is saying something considering how seriously Book of Eli took itself.
Avatar 6/10
Ok, first of all I would like to say that the special effects in this film are in fact fantastic. At times its hard to tell where real actors end and CGI begins. However, that doesn't hold a lot of water with me. James Cameron is the Yankee's of film making. If you throw enough money at something then eventually you will get what you want in the end. Sure, the special effects were fantastic, but pretty much anybody could have thrown that much money at enough design studios and accomplished the very same thing. This is the kind of special effects you get when you throw three times the average blockbuster at a movie. If you spent 300 million freaking Gremlins it would be the most realistic CGI ever, its just the nature of the beast. The point I am trying to make is that you can't throw a lot of shiny glitz my way and expect me to go ga ga over it. I will enjoy it perhaps, but in no shape or form do special effects make a movie good. There are terrible movies with GREAT special effects, and there are great movies with terrible special effects. So kudos for the design studio, but the quality of the effects does not terribly alter the way I rate a movie much either up or down, it does some of course, but it is not going to change a 5 into an 8 or vice-versa. The idea, which gets so much credit for being original, is absolutely not. This Avatar concept is old, well used, and not original. In fact most of the stuff in the film isn't all the original. That's not a bad thing, there aren't a whole lot of original stuff out there, I am just saying that Cameron gets no originality points with this film, the Avatar idea, things named Pandora, and especially, most especially the aboriginal people are not new thoughts. ( "I see you" Mudpeople from Sword of Truth anyone?) This movie is essentially been made already. This movie is essentially "Dance with Wolves" on a distant moon. Ok, its exactly "Dances with Wolves" on a distant moon. Personally, I am not much of a fan of James Cameron, I don't care much for his brute force style of films, and his dialogue is sketchy at best. He has come up with some memorable lines, but on the whole his writing is not terribly consistent. Which is proven by this film. There are some GREAT moments. Very visceral, very intense. But there are some slow, slow parts. Its almost as if you could break this into two movies, one of which is great and one of which is pretty bad. The real problem with it seems to lie more with whats on the cutting room floor. This movie is edited terribly with what seems to be a large chunk of pertinent story line that didn't make it into the film. I could very well see a 4 hour directors cut coming out in a year or so, and I could also very well see me changing my opinion on this film and liking it very, very much. As it is, in its current cut there were to many times during the film where I was asking myself, "why in the world is this happening." Not because I didn't understand the plot, its pretty simple, but because things kind of happened with very little explanation, however, they had the feel that it was originally set up to explains these situations in a lot of detail. I can only infer in the originally story that there was some sort of prophecy involved that was explained on the story board but only briefly alluded to in the final cut. Even with all of my misgivings about the film though, I still enjoyed it. I thought it was an entertaining movie with incredibly visceral battle scenes that affected me more than I have been emotionally affected by a battle scene in a very long time. But my no stretch of the imagination is this the best movie of all time as some are proclaiming, or even the best movie of the year. Its a spectacle, its something you should see, IN THEATER. Don't wait for DVD even on BLU-RAY this will be lacking. In fact, I doubt I will ever watch this movie again because I think it will just lose so much on the small screen. Oh, and Sam Worthington, whom I thought was the one redeeming feature of Terminator Salvation, disappointed me at times in this film. Some of the better lines of the film come out sort of garbled by him, as if he has a big jawbreaker in is mouth. Don't know why that happened, but I didn't like it. FINAL WORD: See this movie, See this in theater, see it in 3D IMAX if you can, its worth the higher priced ticket. Its emotional, visceral, and enjoyable, but its not that revolutionary.
The Men Who Stare At Goats 5/10
Alrighty, this is one of the stranger movies I have seen lately. The closest I can categorize this movie is as a dark comedy, but its really not quite dark or cynical enough to really be called "dark." Its sort of a tweener movie, its not light enough to be a regular comedy, but its not quite dark enough to be a cynical dark comedy. In a movie like this, the thing that makes it is quality dialogue and well written characters. Not just the main characters, but all of the little bit parts as well. This is something that a director like Quinten Tarantino excels at. Grant Heslov and Peter Straughan not so much. The movie started promising, with a nice Ewan McGregor voice over, and the meeting with the first "psychic" he encounters, a man named Gus Lacy. It was quirky, entertaining, and set the pace for what I thought would be a very good movie. But it sort of went downhill from there. What it seems to be is a group of good actors given a very mediocre scripts with characters that they had very little that they could do with. They seem to be mailing it in. Kevin Spacey is just particularly wasted. There is nothing about his character that uses his talents, or requires him to be playing it. I could have played that character just as effectively. Its not really Spacey's fault I don't think, he just wasn't given anything to work with. George Clooney's character was also a null, it could have been played much more over the top. Jeff Bridges is entertaining but he is really just channeling the "dude" into a similar role, definitely nothing that we haven't seen before. Another odd thing about this movie is that it was a completley male cast except for a line or two by MgGregor's ex-wife in the movie. This isn't a good or bad thing, I just thought it was interesting. I did find Clooney calling McGregor a Jedi, but that was funny for the wrong reason I think. All in all I was very disappointed with this movie, I am glad I only paid 5 bucks to see it. Its not the worst movie in the world, if you were looking for a Friday night movie to rent then it would possibly be a decent choose, but don't waste a movie ticket on it.
Zombieland 8/10
When I think about Zombie movies there are two things that generally come to mind first. George Romero and Shaun of the Dead. They are pretty much the pinnacle of zombie greatness. Romero has pretty much mastered the zombie genre, and Shaun of the Dead sort of spun it on its head. Zombieland doesn't really resemble either of these. Zombieland is a good movie, good but not great. It is not a scary movie at all, as its pretty much a straight comedy. I mean its not scary at all, its a coming of age story that just sort of happens to have zombies in the background. The laughs are good, but not great, and the story is cute. I think I laughed out loud twice at the most. That doesn't mean it wasn't funny, and admittedly, and I don't laugh that much during movies, but still it was not a super crazy laugh your ass off type movie. The cast is good, Woody Harrelson is great in this movie, and Emma Stone is hot, and has the most freaky big eyes I have ever seen. I think she must be an anime character. Jessie Eisenberg really doesn't do it that much for me though, he basically does a Michael Cera impression, but he just isn't quite as good at it than the original. There are two things though that sold the movie for me though, one was a suddenly touching at sad moment with Woody's character about 3/4 of the way through involving a duct tape wallet, and a particularly awesome cameo by a very cool guy. All in all I recommend seeing this movie, its no Shaun of the Dead as its laught just aren't anywhere near its caliber, but its cute, funny, and worth seeing.
Retro Movie Review: Big Trouble In Little China 9/10
There are a lot of movies from the 80's that have made cult status, and Kurt Russell happens to star in my two favorites, which also both happen to be John Carpenter flicks. The first one of course is "Escape from New York" with Kurt Russell playing the trench coat wearing Snake Pliskin. My favorite however, is the classic "Big Trouble in Little China." This movie is to this day one of my all time favorite movies, and I routinely put it into my top fives. This great thing about this movie is John Carpenter knew what he was doing. Unlike a lot of other campy cheesy horror/action movies from the 80's this ones camp and cheese is by design rather than by accident. Its funny cheesy moments are still funny, the corny one liners still hold up. Sure the special effects are bad, but you know what, its a testament to a great movie when its still entertaining even if they have terrible special effects. How can you go wrong with a movie that has a villain that is 1 part 1000 year old decrepit old man and 1 part 8 foot tall Chinese sorcerer? Who knew green eyes were so important? I do know one thing though, its all in the reflexes.
Retro Movie Review Dead Alive 5.5/10
Ok, many of you know me and know that I have healthy interest in the horror movie genre. This is one of those films that I have been wanting to watch for a few years, but just never got around to watching. Now I know why. Its actually known as the bloodiest movie of all time by volume. This movie was so over the top gore fest that even I, the horror movie veteran, had trouble stomaching it. Before we get to those gory details though let me give you a bit of background information about this little movie.
This is an independent film made in New Zealand and released in 1993. It is directed by none other than Peter Jackson, yes the Lord of the Rings Peter Jackson. Turns out before he was doing wizards and hobbits he was actually quite the king of splatterhouse. This movie is pretty simple. Boy meets girl, boy has issues with his mother, boy's mother gets bitten by a Sumatran rat monkey, turns into a zombie, boy has bigger issues with his mother. That pretty much sums of the plot. Along the way there are some veiled attempts at this foreign concept called acting, but really such inconsequential notions aren't needed in this flick.
This movie is over the top gory, and is thin on anything other than the gore. I mean seriously there are parts where it looks like they just turned on a bunch of bloody sprinklers, soaked the set in blood and then were like "Damn, we need a lot more blood." The special effects are terrible, and I guess blessedly, the blood doesn't even really look like blood at all. Its kind of an orangey watered down ketchup really. I am trying to think of something positive things to right, or even things to actually give a critique about, but it just isn't there. This movie is gross, gory, bloody, disgusting, and absolutely a must watch if your a horror junky. I really think this movie was just a gimic to try and see if they could make the bloodiest low budget movie ever. Its a tough match between this one and "Zombie Strippers."
This is an independent film made in New Zealand and released in 1993. It is directed by none other than Peter Jackson, yes the Lord of the Rings Peter Jackson. Turns out before he was doing wizards and hobbits he was actually quite the king of splatterhouse. This movie is pretty simple. Boy meets girl, boy has issues with his mother, boy's mother gets bitten by a Sumatran rat monkey, turns into a zombie, boy has bigger issues with his mother. That pretty much sums of the plot. Along the way there are some veiled attempts at this foreign concept called acting, but really such inconsequential notions aren't needed in this flick.
This movie is over the top gory, and is thin on anything other than the gore. I mean seriously there are parts where it looks like they just turned on a bunch of bloody sprinklers, soaked the set in blood and then were like "Damn, we need a lot more blood." The special effects are terrible, and I guess blessedly, the blood doesn't even really look like blood at all. Its kind of an orangey watered down ketchup really. I am trying to think of something positive things to right, or even things to actually give a critique about, but it just isn't there. This movie is gross, gory, bloody, disgusting, and absolutely a must watch if your a horror junky. I really think this movie was just a gimic to try and see if they could make the bloodiest low budget movie ever. Its a tough match between this one and "Zombie Strippers."
Inglourious Basterds 10/10
Oh where to start, where to start? This movie, in this moviegoer’s humble opinion, is Quentin Tarantino’s masterpiece to date. I am sure many will argue and say that it is and will always remain Pulp Fiction, and there are even a few who claim that title for Reservoir Dogs. I will still contend that this movie bests all of those. This is what he wants to make, a spaghetti western. If you were to go back and watch, say, Fistful of dollars or the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly you will see the comparison, most noticeably in the slow pacing, cinematic framing, and the intense prominence of dramatic music in the score, which is fantastic. This movie would not be what it is without Tarantino’s use of music, particularly of note is his use of Fur Elise during the opening scene.
First of all this movie uses a little bit of misdirection in its marketing. Not in a bad way I would say, just in way to try and keep a little mystery about it. It is an ensemble cast movie, and even though Brad Pitt is featured heavily in the preview, the movie is not focused primarily on him. He is a major character in the movie, but he gets no more screen time than any of the several other major characters. Like Pulp Fiction, this movie has several different character driven plots going on at the same time. This movie is not an action movie, and the violence, although typically Tarantino intense and gory is not the focus of the movie and is actually pretty sparse. This movie is, first and foremost character and dialogue driven, and folks, it is brilliant. The opening scene sets the pace, with a drawn out suspenseful scene completely driven by character dialogue and pacing, before given into the action. This type of thing seldom affects me, but towards the end of the scene I was sitting towards the edge of my seat. It’s this way for the entirety of the film.
And speaking of the dialogue, this movie almost counts as a foreign language film. If you have issues with subtitles this will be a problem. I didn’t count, but, I would say there is more French and German used than English in this film. However, Tarantino made a very smart move. He cast all foreign language actors to speak the French and German language sections. So all of these scenes are accurate and the accents believable. Other than Pitt probably the most recognizable actor is Diane Kruger from National Treasure 1 and 2. Even she, although you wouldn’t know it from her acting, is a native German speaker and has citizenship in Germany. I am used to subtitles as I watch a lot of foreign language films, and by 20 minutes in I had forgotten the subs and was immersed in the wonderful acting by the French and German speakers. Tarantino also uses this convention where if the point of view character cannot speak the language then the subtitles are not given for what other people are saying. It’s a nice touch of realism.
Brad Pitt does play one of the main and most memorable character and he does a fine job. However, a foreign film veteran named Christoph Waltz really steals the show. His performance, which he gives in three languages, English, French, and German, is fan-freaking-tastic. He is an absolute scene stealer, and is riveting anytime he is on the screen. If he doesn’t at least receive a nomination for Best- Supporting actor it is an injustice. I will say though, this movie overall is very well acted, and he is just the best of what is actually an incredibly stellar cast.
I cannot recommend this movie highly enough. I am aware that its few extremely brutal scenes means that it will not appeal to everyone, but those that could stomach it should see this movie. I also recommend that it be seen in the theater. The cinematography is such that it really is best to appreciate it on the big screen.
First of all this movie uses a little bit of misdirection in its marketing. Not in a bad way I would say, just in way to try and keep a little mystery about it. It is an ensemble cast movie, and even though Brad Pitt is featured heavily in the preview, the movie is not focused primarily on him. He is a major character in the movie, but he gets no more screen time than any of the several other major characters. Like Pulp Fiction, this movie has several different character driven plots going on at the same time. This movie is not an action movie, and the violence, although typically Tarantino intense and gory is not the focus of the movie and is actually pretty sparse. This movie is, first and foremost character and dialogue driven, and folks, it is brilliant. The opening scene sets the pace, with a drawn out suspenseful scene completely driven by character dialogue and pacing, before given into the action. This type of thing seldom affects me, but towards the end of the scene I was sitting towards the edge of my seat. It’s this way for the entirety of the film.
And speaking of the dialogue, this movie almost counts as a foreign language film. If you have issues with subtitles this will be a problem. I didn’t count, but, I would say there is more French and German used than English in this film. However, Tarantino made a very smart move. He cast all foreign language actors to speak the French and German language sections. So all of these scenes are accurate and the accents believable. Other than Pitt probably the most recognizable actor is Diane Kruger from National Treasure 1 and 2. Even she, although you wouldn’t know it from her acting, is a native German speaker and has citizenship in Germany. I am used to subtitles as I watch a lot of foreign language films, and by 20 minutes in I had forgotten the subs and was immersed in the wonderful acting by the French and German speakers. Tarantino also uses this convention where if the point of view character cannot speak the language then the subtitles are not given for what other people are saying. It’s a nice touch of realism.
Brad Pitt does play one of the main and most memorable character and he does a fine job. However, a foreign film veteran named Christoph Waltz really steals the show. His performance, which he gives in three languages, English, French, and German, is fan-freaking-tastic. He is an absolute scene stealer, and is riveting anytime he is on the screen. If he doesn’t at least receive a nomination for Best- Supporting actor it is an injustice. I will say though, this movie overall is very well acted, and he is just the best of what is actually an incredibly stellar cast.
I cannot recommend this movie highly enough. I am aware that its few extremely brutal scenes means that it will not appeal to everyone, but those that could stomach it should see this movie. I also recommend that it be seen in the theater. The cinematography is such that it really is best to appreciate it on the big screen.
Retro Movie Review L.A. Confidential 9/10!
I get asked every now and then what my favorite movies are and for some reason even though its definitely one my five or six favorite movies, I always forget that this one exists. This is an absolutely fantastic movie folks, and if you haven't seen it you need to go add it to your Netflix queues right this minute. It has an absolutely fantastic cast, featuring Kevin Spacey, Guy Pierce, and an early career showing for Russell Crowe. They each play very different but equally conflicted police detectives on the 1950's L.A.P.D. Their boss is the always good James Cromwell, and the rest of the extended cast, although not so well known, turn in some very good performances. The plot is twisty, with a sort of noir flair storyline but not shot in the film style of film noir. There is really much to say about this film except GO SEE IT NOW!!
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