Black Hawk Down meets Independence Day with a little bit of District 9 thrown in. That's exactly what it is. This film was incredibly derivative of those titles. BUT, thats not really such a bad thing. I liked all of these films, and I enjoyed this mashup of the three. Blackhawk Down is one of the few movies I have ever seen that really created a sense of tension in me. It makes me feel like my blood pressure is rising. It's a very tense film. Battle: Los Angeles establishes that same sort of tension in me. It is a very visceral movie, filmed almost exclusive with hand held cameras, and artificially produced news footage. Those of you that get motion sick should probably avoid it however. Because it appears to be almost entirely shot with hand cameras it very shakey, like Cloverfield, or Blair witch project. I myself got a little nauseous during it, just do to the way the camera shook. Thats not a criticism of the film, its just a style choice, just a warning to those that might have trouble with this type of film. I knew several people who had that issue with Cloverfield and Blair Witch, and this one is more action oriented, and more likely to cause a problem in that regard.
This movie doesn't really bring anything knew to the table, pretty standard military drama except for the aliens. It is fairly well acted, Aaron Eckhert is always someone I enjoy, and the rest of the cast was at least competent. The one person I don't understand is Michelle Rodriguez. She routinely gets cast in films, and I really don't think she brings anything to the table. The movies she are in are good sometimes despite her, not because of her. The movie does, however, introduce some interesting concepts about the aliens, but they are really only mentioned in passing. They really show the aliens as a faceless enemy. They are pretty scary though, mostly because their weapons are incendiary based rather than ballistic. It's pretty scary when all the injuries are burns, probably do to our inborn fear of fire as a people.
All in all, this film doesn't really bring anything original or new to the table. However, it was still pretty enjoyable, and if your in the mood for a gritty war movie with a science fiction twist I would say go see this. Just take your motion sickness medication.
Tuesday, March 29, 2011
Saturday, March 26, 2011
Paul Movie review 7.5/10!!
I am unashamedly a huge fan of Simon Pegg and Nick Frost. I even follow them on twitter, and actually read what they tweet even. Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz are two of my favorite films, and when you combine that with the fact they were playing a couple of nerds like me in Paul, I was seriously looking forward to this film. I was not disappointed. It's not as brilliant a film as the other aforementioned films, but it was funny, and I enjoyed the nerd moments quite heartily.
This movie is a bit different than their other fair because it is a little more offensive. This guys like satire and spoofing stereotypes and in this one they chose one to make fun off that hits a little to close to home for many people in the bible belt. They chose to poke fun at protestant religious zealotry. I am not convinced the film was completely anti-Christian as much as it was anti-extremist, but, I can see how the argument for either can be made. I think, that, how offended people get by the anti-Christian sentiment depends a little on what kind of Christians you know. The type of Christian made fun of is the Christian that uses by rout arguments to answer anything that doesn't fit into her schema as a perfect fit. To be critical and attack anything that isn't what she believes in, violently and ignorantly. But underneath it all, she is just a superficial hypocrite that desperately wants an excuse to do drugs, swear, and "fornicate" as she puts it. Many people will say that kind of person doesn't exist and they are just trying to label all Christians as this sort of person. Those people, of course, haven't spent much time in NorthEast Arkansas. Perhaps, because I despise seeing this kind of person myself, I took the approach that this film was more that extremes in anything were bad, and there were steps taken to show that a more moderate approach in all views is the better one. The problem is I don't think they made that nearly as clear as they could have. Regardless, I am pretty certain that there isn't much chance that this film is going to piss someone off.
That being said, I still thought the movie was funny, cute, and ended with a feel goody sort of feeling in which every character learned a little more about themselves in the end. The exposure to Seth Rogen was pretty limited, and he didn't have anything to do with the script, which was a good thing. I like him better when he sticks to acting and leaves the writing and directing to someone else. I would recommend this to most any of my nerd friends, but if you have thin skin this one probably isn't for you. It has a lot of aspects to it that would prevent anyone with a good solid background in nerdery from getting a lot of the jokes. It is a bit of a movie that was made for nerds by nerds with a bit of a feel good type story thrown in on top to hook the straights.
This movie is a bit different than their other fair because it is a little more offensive. This guys like satire and spoofing stereotypes and in this one they chose one to make fun off that hits a little to close to home for many people in the bible belt. They chose to poke fun at protestant religious zealotry. I am not convinced the film was completely anti-Christian as much as it was anti-extremist, but, I can see how the argument for either can be made. I think, that, how offended people get by the anti-Christian sentiment depends a little on what kind of Christians you know. The type of Christian made fun of is the Christian that uses by rout arguments to answer anything that doesn't fit into her schema as a perfect fit. To be critical and attack anything that isn't what she believes in, violently and ignorantly. But underneath it all, she is just a superficial hypocrite that desperately wants an excuse to do drugs, swear, and "fornicate" as she puts it. Many people will say that kind of person doesn't exist and they are just trying to label all Christians as this sort of person. Those people, of course, haven't spent much time in NorthEast Arkansas. Perhaps, because I despise seeing this kind of person myself, I took the approach that this film was more that extremes in anything were bad, and there were steps taken to show that a more moderate approach in all views is the better one. The problem is I don't think they made that nearly as clear as they could have. Regardless, I am pretty certain that there isn't much chance that this film is going to piss someone off.
That being said, I still thought the movie was funny, cute, and ended with a feel goody sort of feeling in which every character learned a little more about themselves in the end. The exposure to Seth Rogen was pretty limited, and he didn't have anything to do with the script, which was a good thing. I like him better when he sticks to acting and leaves the writing and directing to someone else. I would recommend this to most any of my nerd friends, but if you have thin skin this one probably isn't for you. It has a lot of aspects to it that would prevent anyone with a good solid background in nerdery from getting a lot of the jokes. It is a bit of a movie that was made for nerds by nerds with a bit of a feel good type story thrown in on top to hook the straights.
Friday, March 25, 2011
Drive Angry Movie Review 4.5/10!
Generally, this is actually the exact type of movie that I like. It's supposed to be a retro style movie, in the vein of what Robert Rodriguez did with Machete. But it's not tongue in cheek cheesy enough to come across as an homage and its not really filmed in a gritty enough style to match the script. Problem number 1 with this film is that it has Nik Cage in it. I used to not be this way towards him, hell, I used to like him quite a bit, but frankly, he has been phoning it in for awhile. He is terrible in this film. He is getting dangerously close to Corey Feldman type laughability at this stage of his career. Seriously, he has ridden bad mullet hair and weird forced laughter for way to many miles.
There actually were a few things about this movie that liked. The Accountant character (apparently the guy who counts the souls in Hell) was actually really funny and well acted. The chase sequences were also really well done. (I guess with the title there has to be good car scenes) The action in general was pretty actually all pretty bad ass. The problem for me in this film basically breaks down like this. First, it was supposed to be a gritty seventies triple feature kind of movie, but their campy stuff fell flat, and it was filmed entirely to smooth for the suspension of disbelief required to not just shake your head in disbelief at the dialogue. Secondly, Cage just can't act any more. Either that or he just doesn't care anymore, one or the other. And in the end there is one other very large problem for me with this film. This doesn't happen very often, but on the whole this movie was just to vulgar for me. It didn't advance the plot, it wasn't funny, it wasn't part of some overall campy charm. It was just disgustingly vulgar. Even though, with all of the crap, I still kind of enjoyed seeing it, but due to that I could never recommend it to anyone, or watch it again.
There actually were a few things about this movie that liked. The Accountant character (apparently the guy who counts the souls in Hell) was actually really funny and well acted. The chase sequences were also really well done. (I guess with the title there has to be good car scenes) The action in general was pretty actually all pretty bad ass. The problem for me in this film basically breaks down like this. First, it was supposed to be a gritty seventies triple feature kind of movie, but their campy stuff fell flat, and it was filmed entirely to smooth for the suspension of disbelief required to not just shake your head in disbelief at the dialogue. Secondly, Cage just can't act any more. Either that or he just doesn't care anymore, one or the other. And in the end there is one other very large problem for me with this film. This doesn't happen very often, but on the whole this movie was just to vulgar for me. It didn't advance the plot, it wasn't funny, it wasn't part of some overall campy charm. It was just disgustingly vulgar. Even though, with all of the crap, I still kind of enjoyed seeing it, but due to that I could never recommend it to anyone, or watch it again.
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