A Nerdy Awesome Guy Reviews...

Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters

Thu, 06 Jun 2013 17:31:00 -0500

Joao and Maria…now there are some name changes I can get behind…

The Basic Plot:

Hansel and Gretel murder witches (as if that wasn’t perfectly clear).

The Break Down:

We kick off this stroll down revisionist memory lane with an alarmingly quick cover of the story everyone knows (minus the breadcrumbs…and plus some mystery). The titular duo finds a house made of candy and then they murder the homeowner (because they’re precocious scamps).

Jump forward several years, and the brother and sister have grown into attractive thirty-year-olds who specialize in hunting and killing witches for money (…I did the same thing to pay for college…it’s a surprisingly easy business to get into…also incredibly illegal, so, don’t tell anyone). They arrive at a town where children are being kidnapped left and right and begin to do what they do best (…well…kinda)

That covers the first ten-ish minutes of the movie. For the next fifty minutes (step your Extended Cut game up), the duo kill one witch (…well…maybe…), the town gets blown up, a troll crushes a bunch of rapist’s heads (…and it’s as awesome as it sounds) and the mystery alluded to in the opening is fully revealed (and isn’t important at all). Then, the last thirty minutes are mostly witch murder. (So, hooray for that).

Yeah. The film’s opening is pretty terrible. It’s fast and choppy and makes killing witches (and picking locks with nails) seem incredibly easy. The entire sequence felt like it was barely two minutes long, making me think that the director didn’t like how it turned out and wanted to get through it as fast as possible. Regardless of being poorly executed, it does an okay enough job of setting the ridiculous tone that the film carries throughout. It just doesn’t do a good job of getting the audience excited for what’s to come.

After an alright title sequence, we meet the adult characters and the supporting cast. Since the movie is an ode to B-movie silliness, one should expect the performances (from a cast made of three “sort of A-list-ers” and dozens of unknowns) to be B-movie silly in quality. Meaning kinda bad, but a goofy, entertaining bad. That line of thinking would make sense (…but It’d be wrong).

Jeremy Renner (Hansel) is doing his best bro-tastic douche impression, which doesn’t quite mesh with his usually charismatic demeanor, making his performance feel awkward (and kinda bitter). He isn’t giving enough effort to make the character seem like anything other than a dick-head who wants to bang drunk chicks (but then he gets really shy around a naked girl later in the movie…he’s pretty inconsistent). Also, he has diabetes, which is pretty poorly shoehorned into the movie (and also really fucking stupid).

Gemma Arterton (not Hansel) isn’t even giving a shit. She delivers her lines like an unhappy cheerleader girl who got stuck in a theater class. There is little more than disinterest in her dialogue for most of the film. A big part of her character seems to be the fact that she has tits (which is awesome).

Then we meet the film’s villain, Famke Janssen (who has literally gone on record to say that she took the role strictly for the money). She is (surprisingly) really entertaining as the heavy and is clearly having a lot of fun with the role. She kills it and is a big part of elevating the movie above being awful.

Also, Peter Stormare is there. He’s his usual “so bad he’s good” self, which is fine. Literally no one else in the movie matters (they might not even have names. I’m not sure).

The film’s middle portion (the fifty minutes of exposition and plot advancement) is it’s weak section (which sounds pretty bad but is also fairly accurate). Basically, whenever there isn’t action, the movie is pretty lackluster. Since both main actors seem to be trying hard to not try very hard, the dialogue comes across as pretty diluted. A lot of the dialogue is tongue-in-cheek cheesy, but it just doesn’t really work and constantly drifts into the realm of feeling super phoned in. It just doesn’t seem like Renner and Arterton are having fun. A handful of scenes feel more like script read-throughs than legitimate takes. Clearly, the audience isn’t supposed to take things seriously, but everything is played just a little too seriously to just be considered completely outright silly (…it never goes full B-Movie).

Making matters worse is the fact that the story offers nothing special (aside from being about witches, I guess). I’m not saying the story needed to be anything more than it is, and, honestly, it is trying to be way better than you would expect it to be, but the plot lingers in the middle of everything. It’s never completely over-the-top, B-movie ridiculous, but it isn’t making any attempts to go anywhere we haven’t been before either. I think that moving in one direction or the other would’ve helped immensely. Basically, for a large portion of the movie, when people aren’t being graphically dismembered or shot in the face, the movie is merely serviceable and makes little effort in being anything else.

The big strength here is that the movie features action sequences that are way better than they have any right to be (also, there are a lot of them). Seriously, the action sequences are really good. These bits are filmed well (with editing that, while choppy at points, is never absolute shit), they’re over-the-top bloody and choreographed with some real creativity. Most of these moments have an Evil Dead 2 style of campy fun, making them genuinely entertaining to watch (as long as you like silly, campy shit…which you should). The only problem with them is that once they end, we go back to mediocre-ville.

The other positive working for the middle of the film is its violence. As with the action in the film, the gore is fun, over-the-top and frequent. I can’t help but get a warm, fuzzy feeling (among other…feelings) when I watch a giant troll fist smash someone’s head into a bloody mist (…step your “don’t judge people” game up). The violence is rarely serious, making it fun to watch and never disturbing. Writer-Director Tommy Wirkola (the mind behind the cult hit Dead Snow) has a real eye for quality violence. He keeps things fresh and fun and implements gore in ways audiences haven’t seen a million times before.

Now, once the story reaches its climax (everyone’s a witch! …seriously), something weird happens: the movie actually gets really good. The last thirty minutes, which features not one, but two climactic showdowns, are downright awesome. Everything suddenly clicks and works incredibly well. There are dozens of unique looking witches ready to get murdered. Renner’s snarky douche becomes more of a funny, 80’s style badass than jaded high-school athlete. Arterton’s bored delivery gets some life injected into it. The violence and action are in full effect, offering some of the film’s best bits. Even the cheesy dialogue becomes actually funny. The fact that the finale works so well actually takes the overall experience down a bit for me, because when you see how good the movie is when everything works, it just accentuates how the film’s first seventy minutes could’ve turned out.

Last point. For a movie with Witch Hunters in the title, there is not a lot of witch hunting going on. Seriously. There are like one and a half witch hunts, and they aren’t great by any stretch of the imagination.

Actual last point: the make up effects are really good.

Overall, the movie is okay, if not slightly edged over to the “kinda, eh, sorta, eh, pretty good” side of things. When the action and violence are front and center, the movie offers fun, exciting popcorn entertainment. When fist fights and blood splatter aren’t happening, the movie becomes little more than background noise that plays while you cue up pornography on your computer.

And that’s really it. This isn’t exactly a “love it or hate it” kind of movie, it’s more of a “love it or hate it or think it’s merely okay” kind of movie. I say that because there isn’t much to love or hate. I mean, if you hate witch murder, you’re probably a witch (in which case you aren’t real). If you love semi-adequate performances from Hawkeye and Strawberry Fields, you’re probably a stalker (or just a regular person, I suppose). There just isn’t a lot more than that going on here.

Like I said, the action and violence are both great, and the film’s finale is excellent, but everything that isn’t those things just hovers around in awkward mediocrity, basically staring you in the face and saying “you’ll either love me or hate me…because I’m kinda goofy sometimes but not at other times. Haha!” The good parts clearly don’t outweigh the bad ones, but there are enough good bits that you won’t kill yourself during the boring sections. It all adds up to meaning that the movie, as a whole, sits right at the top of the bell curve (…but I’m giving it an extra 1/2* for the troll’s head crushing bit…don’t judge me!).

The Rating:

*** out of *****

Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters is an unashamedly silly, B-movie romp that ultimately suffers by playing it too safe and by not having enough B-movie-type elements.

The film opens with a fast-paced, weak rendition of the original fairy tale and continues in that fashion until the movie’s first action sequence. The actors don’t seem to be enjoying themselves and their performances, with the exception of the film’s villain, Famke Janssen, come across as wooden and awkward. In fact, very little effort seems to have been spent on anything other than the action sequences and the on-screen violence.

And those two aspects are the film’s saving graces. Fights and chases play out with gory, campy fun. They are shot, edited and choreographed well, making these moments the only times where the film’s silly nature really works. The highlight of the movie is its finale, which is where all the phoned-in, awkward energy suddenly vanishes and everything begins to click. The end sequence delivers on the film’s promises of over-the-top fun, graphic violence and actually funny comedy, but it almost feels like too little, too late.

The film’s reason for existence is pure popcorn fun, and while it accomplishes that goal with its outrageous action and gratuitous violence, almost every other aspect, from the plot to the dialogue to the characters themselves, feels forced and drags the film down, making for an inconsistent experience that ends up being as fun and it is tedious.

Star Trek Into Darkness

Wed, 22 May 2013 15:00:00 -0500

Welcome to the new Star Trek franchise, where each movie’s subtitle is picked out of a hat…

The Basic Plot:

When a dangerous terrorist declares war on Star Fleet, it’s up to the crew of the Enterprise to hunt him down and bring him to justice.

The Break Down:

The movie kicks off with a Raiders of the Lost Ark-esque opening sequence. Kirk and Bones (Chris Pine and Karl Urban, respectively) run away from spear throwing, albino, alien natives and then Spock (Zachary Quinto) freezes the inside of an erupting volcano with an ice bomb (it’s as ridiculous as it sounds).

While showing their super advanced spaceship to the primitive locals (which may or may not be a reference-ish…thing to scientology), we meet the rest of the diverse crew (the ones that matter anyway): the Asian pilot, Sulu (John Cho), the Scottish mechanic Scotty (Simon Pegg), the Russian (probably) Chekov (Anton Yelchin) and the girl, Uhura (Zoe Saldana). Aside from Scotty, Kirk and Spock, none of the other characters are terribly important here.

In London, John Harrison (Benedict Cumberbatch…who’s name is as fun to say as it is annoying to type) convinces Mickey from Doctor Who (step your whovian game up) to blow up a building. He complies and there is mystery abound.

Kirk and crew head back to Earth for some plot advancement. Because of the ice bomb volcano adventure, Kirk is demoted from Captain to whatever is just above being a regular person and Spock is reassigned to a different ship (and no one else involved in the incident suffers any repercussions at all…because why spend any time developing stories around characters that don’t matter?)

(Roughly) Ten seconds later, Kirk is reinstated as the second in command of the Enterprise (because who gives a shit about anything that just happened?). Due to the terrorist actions of Sherlock, an emergency meeting of all Federation higher ups (minus Tyler Perry…step your continuity game up) is held in a special, not-safe-at-all room. Harrison attacks the meeting, killing most of the attendees. Kirk foils the plan before everyone is dead and then Cumberbatch teleports across the galaxy to the Klingon home world (if you don’t know what a Klingon is…it really isn’t that important at this point in time).

Kirk pleads with a Federation big wig (the always awesome Peter Weller) to let him and his crew track down the bad guy and murder him (because revenge is best served in an emotional huff). Robocop agrees and gives the Enterprise seventy-two special torpedoes so that can blow up Harrison from far away without being detected (because there isn’t a plausible situation where seventy-two of something isn’t obviously better than just one of those things…unless those things are gross, like herpes sores…or little kids).

Our United Nations-esque crew travels to the Klingon home world, where they engage in a spaceship chase and a poorly fought ground battle before capturing the bad guy (he surrenders himself, because otherwise he would’ve murdered the crew members very easily…and you can’t murder the film’s main character, right?). With Harrison safely on board the Enterprise, dark secrets begin to unfold as our heroes slowly unravel the truth.

Okay, so, let’s start with all the bad things going on here, because there are plenty of them.

After roughly thirty minutes, a new character is introduced to the Enterprise crew. It’s a girl named Carol (Alice Eve, best known for She’s Out of my League…I mean, there are way worse movies to have at the top of your resume, I guess) and she is terrible. Just a completely awful character who solely exists for a two second shot of her in her underwear (also, she was a character in the original television series who got cut before the show got popular). It’s as if J.J. Abrams doesn’t know that several incarnations of Star Trek themed pornography are readily available, not to mention just pictures of women in their skivvies. Also, this new character has a British accent, regardless of Peter Weller being her dad (hint: he isn’t British…also spoilers abound from here on out).

The big beef here is that the writing here offers more than a couple snags for me, and that’s without even diving into the 9/11/Post 9/11 imagery/metaphoric bullshit.

Firstly, the writers have done something here that really annoys me, and that is constricting themselves and then explain the constrictions with throwaway lines.

Example. In the opening sequence, the crew can’t simply teleport Spock out of the volcano (because of magnets or wizards or something). If you remember the first film, the characters can basically teleport from one place to any other place that exists (…because of time travel paradoxes). They eventually do rescue Spock via teleporter, but only because they moved the ship a little bit.

Fifteen minutes later, the villain teleports from Earth to a very distant planet. He didn’t get the memo about not doing that, I suppose.

Theeen, Scotty mentions, in one line of dialogue, how the Federation “confiscated his teleportation formula.” While I will say that poorly explaining something is better than just never addressing it, the whole thing is incredibly stupid. I mean, it’s a formula. In Scotty’s head. And they even call Old Spock later in the flick to ask him a question. They could just ask for the formula again. It’s really annoying how hard the writers are trying to set up drama and sub-plots

Speaking of throwaway lines, this movie might have the best one ever. Close to the film’s finale, Spock reveals that Harrison’s grand plan is to be a Nazi. It’s one line, and it’s never referenced again and it’s just silly.

And speaking of the villain’s plot being poorly explained, early on we find out that inside each one of the special torpedoes (mentioned earlier) is a person. Why did Harrison put these people in the tubes?

I don’t have a snarky quip here, I genuinely want to know why the fuck someone would put their seventy-two closest pals into rockets, give those rockets to a guy they hate and then attack that guy as if he doesn’t have your buddies hidden away somewhere. It isn’t so much confusing as it is incredibly stupid…and again, more or less just a way for the writers to include one barely tense scene halfway through and poorly develop sub-plots.

The characters seem to be developing backwards here, because we are covering the same ground we did with the last movie. Kirk is a hot head. Spock doesn’t want feelings. Uhura is a girl. Chekov can’t say the letter V. We’ve been here. We’ve done this. There is nothing new offered, making the characters all feel shallow. I mean, Kirk tells Spock that they’re friends, but their relationship would suggest otherwise, because they’re both kind of assholes to each other.

And because the characters are underdeveloped, the emotional moments are numbed a lot.There is a moment between Spock and Uhura, where Spock references his planet bowing up in the last movie, and that scene is good, but it’s also bad, because it winds up being more emotionally effecting than the film’s climax.

Oh, God, the climax. I’m not gonna go into it too much, but it comes off a bit silly, especially if you’ve ever seen Star Trek II (the first one). We’re dealing with a Snow White and the Huntsman level of creative licensing (because the changes are all lame). The emotional payoff here assumes that you are completely invested in these characters, which, unless you have some psychotic attachment disorder, you likely won’t be. The relationships between the cast of the original Star Trek developed over years, this crew has existed together for all of two hours (in real people time).

Let me think, what else is wrong with the movie. Ummm. There are two “redshirt” references, like, within two minutes of each other, so that was kinda lame. Not that they used the cheeky reference, but because they did it twice within two minutes.

Also, the action is pretty incoherent. Rapid fire editing and sticking as close to PG-13 levels of violence as possible means that you won’t being seeing anything too cool happen, especially during sequences involving people fighting each other. The space fights are a little better, but if you’ve seen one Star Trek space battle, you’ve literally seen them all.

Even a big set piece at the end feels very truncated and tame. Cumberbatch crashes a ship into Earth, but aside from causing a tidal wave, nothing too notable comes out of the sequence (which, I know, sounds super jaded). For a movie that seems to be attempting to preach on how terrorism affects people, we don’t linger on any violence. The ship crashes, breaks a few things and then Harrison jumps off.

Which brings me to my next point. The 9/11 and post-9/11 and terrorism angles the movie is showing off are done poorly. Basically, the movie is showing how violence begets violence and terrorism can turn heroes into villains if they aren’t strong enough to retain their morals. The plot works like this: John Harrison is a terrorist, so he’s the bad guy…then we find out that Peter Weller is the “real” bad guy because he was using terrorism to feed his own crooked ideals…but Harrison is still a bad guy, because of the whole Nazi thing.

Kirk struggles with his need for vengeance for all of six seconds and winds up being a classic American hero regardless of pretty much being worthless for most of the middle of the film. There isn’t a lesson here, just some obvious similarities with events from the last several years in US history. It’s just pointless and really takes away from the already thin story at hand.

Also, Harrison is Khan. It’s dumb.

So, what’s good about the movie?

For starters, it looks phenomenal. Visually, the movie is almost flawless. Make-up effects are wonderful, but are outdone by the incredibly high quality of the special effects. Shit editing aside, the movie earns a lot of praise simply for looking so great.

Zachary Quinto is great as Spock. Ironically, he’s the emotional center of this crew. His moments, both comedically and emotionally, are the film’s best.

The rest of the cast is good, but they don’t get many chances to do anything. Scotty’s role has been expanded but is mostly just comedic relief, Bones does little more than fuck around with a dead tribble (step your Star Trek alien knowledge game up), Uhura is just angry at her boyfriend, Sulu and Chekov don’t do much, and the new girl is horrible.

Chris Pine’s Kirk is the exact same as last time. I won’t say that Pine is a bad actor (partially because he hasn’t really had the opportunity to fail at an honestly challenging role), but clearly he is prettier than he is talented. He does a fine job, but when you just have to copy something you did four years ago, the bar isn’t set too high.

Cumberbatch kills it as HarriKahn. While not a spectacular villain character, he plays a great “bad guy” and shows an impressive range. The only problem is that his arc feels short, unimportant and wraps up too easily. There isn’t anything truly special about the character. The biggest problem with the character is that his story has been done before (literally).

Overall, the movie is very strange. Not actually strange, but strange in the sense that, regardless of all the glaring problems lurking around, and regardless of the multitude of shortcomings, it’s still an entertaining ride. It’s also strange because it’s a movie that I walked away from feeling fine about, but over the course of writing this, my opinion has fallen, because the flick isn’t standing up to basic thought. I never had a bad time while watching, but I did feel the need to have several mini-conversations throughout with the person who went with me (it was a girl…noice).

Star Trek will always bring a nice, nostalgic feeling out of me, and while the film doesn’t get a pass simply on charm alone, the fact that I enjoy the universe does help a lot.

So, really, the whole thing is disappointing and winds up being mediocre at best. It’s good…for what it is, which is a mish-mash of rehashed old stuff with some real world themes shitily tacked on. Abrams had four years to develop this and all he did was take an old villain and a cliché, straight-forward plot and fit the characters in. It isn’t as if the film attempted something ambitious and failed, it’s the complete opposite. There is zero ambition at work here, which is almost more disappointing than anything else.

It’s visually striking, has an almost-great villain and offers several action bits, but the final product just isn’t up to snuff. I think this film would’ve served much better as the third or fourth film in the series. Because, I mean, when you cure death (by horrifying radiation poisoning) in the second movie, where can you honestly go after that? You actually have to kill someone the next time out…I just hope it’s the blonde girl…

The Rating:

**1/2 out of *****

J. J. Abrams’ return effort to the rebooted Star Trek franchise, while entertaining through its run-time, offers too few positives, too many negatives and fails to live up to its predecessor, let alone more basic expectations.

The film starts off well enough, with a fun intro and a dark introduction for the villain, but things quickly fall from there. The film never completely derails, but when it isn’t simply business-as-usual, it’s a bumpy ride due to some weak writing and a real lack of originality.

The writers do a poor job of explaining several important plot points, leading to some real frustration with how things play out in certain scenes. To make matters worse, the story is straight-forward, obviously telegraphed and recycles most of it’s material, some from previous films in the franchise and some from unrelated films, meaning that nothing in the plot honestly engages as it unfolds. At best, the story is merely serviceable.

Helping keep things engaging are the film’s visuals, which are great. Practical effects and computer generated ones both look phenomenal, helping to give the universe a little life. This means that while the characters and story might disappoint, there is still something to hold your attention.

It is entertaining while it lasts, but the film ends up being a lack-luster entrant in the long running sci-fi series that plays it far too safe, offering little more than a disappointing, and at times silly, conglomeration of rehashed plots and middling action all dressed up with fancy visuals.

Iron Man 3

Mon, 13 May 2013 08:42:00 -0500

Do you think Iron Man makes eye contact during sex? Those soulless eyes…

The Basic Plot:

A terrorist known as The Mandarin unfolds a fiendish plot to kill the President, part of which involves eliminating Iron Man. Can Tony Stark gather himself from the brink of destruction and defeat his most dangerous adversary yet?

The Break Down:

We open with a flashback where Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) is hanging out with Rebecca Hall (her character’s name isn’t important). He then gets unprofessionally accosted by Guy Pierce (doing his best impression of almost any character from Revenge of the Nerds). Stark is his usual douche-y self and manages to sever all ties with both characters in a matter of minutes (because casual sex and being an asshole to a brilliant scientist couldn’t possibly come back to haunt you, right? Keep in mind that both characters are brilliant scientists…)

Fast forward to the present (six months post-Avengers) where Stark finds himself in a bit of a depressed funk. He now lives with his girlfriend, Pepper Potts (Gwyneth Paltrow) but they don’t interact much. He doesn’t sleep for days on end and spends almost all of his time building different models of his Iron Man armor (which, I guess, is better than masturbating and playing XBOX all day).

While Stark’s sad demeanor (with a pinch of PTSD thrown in for good measure…because murdering countless alien invaders is more emotionally stressful than killing ~~real people~~ terrorists for two movies) is set up, we are treated so several vignettes from The Mandarin (Sir Ben Kingsley), a calm, dangerous terrorist. He blows places up and directs his threats toward the POTUS (…not Barack Obama…although that would’ve been a pretty ballin’ cameo).

Things really kick off when Stark delivers a threat to The Mandarin by way of every news syndicate on the planet (because everyday that doesn’t involve super heroes is a slow news day in the world of Marvel). Mr. Kingsly retaliates by destroying Tony’s home with missiles (….which really is the best way to deal with bullies). After flying thousands of miles away in a damaged armor, Stark befriends a kid scientist, kills a lot of people and must use every skill in his arsenal to confront the sinister villain.

So, first thing first. Jon Favreau, the writer/director of the first two films, stepped away from those duties here and passed them on to Shane Black (who wrote a little movie you might’ve heard of…The Monster Squad……also Lethal Weapon…and he previously worked with Downey on the wonderful Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang). I’m a big fan of Mr. Black’s body of work and was “super excited” to hear about his involvement here (…although I was kind of hoping that the movie was just going to be a shot-by-shot remake of Lethal Weapon but with the main characters in Iron Man suits). Everything from the dialogue, to the story material to the film’s setting (Christmas) are all marks of Shane Black’s fingerprints.

One of the big things I really enjoyed here was how the character of Tony Stark had evolved from the first two films. While Iron Man was the character centered origin of Tony Stark’s alter ego, Iron Man 2 was more fluff than anything else. Don’t get it twisted, I really liked that movie (but apparently it gets a lot of hate) but it did little to expand on the character. Stark gets some depth here and while it isn’t some huge new facet to his character, his anxiety helps to keep him, at least slightly, grounded, making him seem more like a real person and less like a comic book character.

Something else Black has done here is inject a big dose of quality action into the franchise. The action from the first two films was solid, but it always felt on the short side, especially the climactic showdowns. What Black has done here is give each action sequence its own story line (which will likely sound stupid to the average movie goer but is something that action movies these days are sorely missing). Since the sequences are all fairly lengthy, they are able to develop as they go, featuring clear beginnings, middles and ends, making for several memorable moments within each action sequence itself. That sort of quality isn’t easily found in today’s film world.

Going hand in hand with the excellent action direction are the special effects. If you stay through the film’s credits (which you should do all the time anyway!), you will notice that the special effects team is roughly eight million times bigger than the film’s cast (might be a slight exaggeration there, but I feel like my math is pretty spot on). The effects here can only be described as phenomenal. Not only are they the best seen in any Marvel movie to-date, but some of the best you’ll find in movies to-date. Everything looks realistic and it all does a fantastic job of grabbing the eye. Things do get a little too bogged down during the big finale, making it more-or-less impossible to enjoy the subtle differences in the dozens of Iron Man suits, but that is a small qualm at best (I mean, if you’ve seen one Iron Man suit, you’ve pretty much seen them all…although one of them does look like it has dildos for hands…).

The entire cast here does a great job. Nothing quite ground shaking from anyone in particular, but Kingsley and Pierce are the two stand outs as both men kill it here. You have two highly acclaimed actors who really sank their teeth into some fun bad guy turns. Marvel movies don’t always treat their villains great (more on that in a bit), but they lock down some serious talent to take on these larger than life characters. Downey and Paltrow are both really good and have managed to keep their characters interesting to watch after three (and a half?) movies (plus they have some great chemistry). Rebecca Hall ended up feeling a bit wasted in her role, as she didn’t really do much that wasn’t complicated, science-y bullshit that all took place behind the scenes (but she did get the best one-liner of the flick). The quality of performances you’ve come to expect from Marvel films is firmly intact and staying at a very high level.

Okay, let’s get a little spoiler-y. The big gripe here is about the treatment of the film’s villain, The Mandarin. The movie’s third act kicks off with a little bait-and-switch. Things aren’t at all quite how they seem, and that has angered a lot of people. I won’t say that I wasn’t disappointed with the reveal (not to mention that it was incredibly underwhelming and a little too cartoon-ish for its own good), but I wasn’t outraged when it happened (my Marvel boner was solid the whole time…I probably should’ve picked a different word to use there). Bottom line, did they misuse The Mandarin? Yeah, they did. For sure. Will anyone who isn’t a die-hard fan of the comics care? Uh…probably not. I mean, let’s keep it a hundred, the villains from the first two films weren’t that well used either.

And, while we’re on the subject, let’s not pretend like villains in these movies aren’t constantly getting shit on. Dr. Doom, Whiplash, literally every bad guy in X-Men 3, Venom, Emma Frost, The Lizard, literally every character in Wolverine: Origins and several other bad guys throughout Marvel’s box office run have all been, at least, a bit on the disappointing side. Now, let’s not pretend like DC’s handling of Scarecrow, Bane (both of ‘em…basically every bad guy from almost every Batman movie ever now that I think about it) weren’t underwhelming, Nuclear Man, the cloud monster from Green Lantern or everything about Jonah Hex (did you see that movie? Jesus…) weren’t worse than any shitty villain treatment on Marvel’s part. Basically, what I’m saying is that, yeah, The Mandarin got thrown under the bus (like, hard), but, it could’ve been a lot worse. At least he wasn’t a cloud monster (coughGalactuscough)…and his terrorist plot wasn’t completely fucking stupid (coughBanecough).

So, just know that if you were really stoked to see The Mandarin in his full-on, techno-ring glory, you will walk away very angry.

The last thing I wanna note is that I loved how the movie really embraced the comic-book source material .There is some really weird shit going on here, and it’s all awesome. Writers and directors can add as much “realism” and “darkness” as they want to the next generation of super hero flicks, but it’s really great to see how some filmmakers haven’t forgotten the over-the-top origins. This is a super-hero story, based on a comic book, filled with (basically magical) super villains, and the overall package is better for accepting the more ridiculous aspects and incorporating them in a simple-but-exciting way.

Overall, Iron Man 3 is fantastic. The cast is on their A-game, the special effects and action sequences will blow you away and the comic-book nature of the source material really comes out here in incredibly entertaining fashion. Watching some guy that used to be on 24 melt stuff and then get laser blasted is just awesome. I don’t know how anyone could hate on that.

The only gripes are minimal. There is a somewhat suspect sub-plot involving a child inventor teaming up with Downey, but these bits move quickly and don’t linger too long. And, yes, the advertised villain is less than what was advertised. These two things do drag the experience down slightly, but not much in my eyes (1. Because, being a 90’s kid, if a movie doesn’t have some savvy tween teach the film’s protagonist a stupid lesson or help him in some way, the film is incomplete…and 2. I’ve never been a big Iron Man fan as far as the comics go, and I’ve never encountered The Mandarin in my many years of reading Marvel comics, so, I really didn’t care about the mistreatment as much as I cared about just how silly the reveal turned out to be).

Black, Downey, Kingsley and the rest of the cast and crew all did a great job of making a film that delivers on all accounts. It’s fun, action-packed, just serious enough and features a near-perfect balance of one-liners, fire-breath and laser murder, what else could you ask for (…and don’t say a good villain, because, well, you won’t get one)?

The Rating:

****1/2 out of *****

The third film in Marvel’s flagship franchise and the first in the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s Phase 2, aptly avoids the Hollywood threequel curse and scores big with constant entertainment, eye-grabbing visuals, a lot of charm and a little bit of heart.

Shane Black took over behind the camera for this installment and his unique style really helps to infuse some new life into the series. His classic one-liners litter the script and a good dose of seriousness adds a new layer to Tony Stark. Black shows that Marvel’s habit of picking unlikely people to helm their big-budget films is continuing to pay off.

The action on display here is some of the best yet in a Marvel movie. The sequences unfold before the audience with phenomenal special effects. Each one is unique to the others within the film and every sequence is lengthy, offering several moments you will want to see over and over again.

The biggest problem with the movie is its villain. Ben Kingsly gives a great performance as The Mandarin, but a twist late in the movie takes the character in a direction that will not only infuriate long-time Iron Man fans, but will turn off general movie fans by how silly the whole situation is handled. This turn doesn’t ruin the film, partly because it’s an old trick and partly because a second tier villain is waiting to move to the forefront, but it does take the overall experience down a peg.

The film features top-notch performances, incredible action and it does a wonderful job of taking the character of Tony Stark in an interesting direction. Its misuse of a popular villain is disappointing, but only the more hardcore fans of the character will hold a grudge. The film holds a solid set of emotions at its core, genuinely excites with it cleverly thought out, high-quality action sequences, is constantly entertaining from beginning to end and proves that, sometimes, the third film in a trilogy just happens to be the best one.

Evil Dead

Tue, 16 Apr 2013 18:32:00 -0500

Whoever came up with the poster’s tagline clearly never saw Domino…

The Basic Plot:

When a young woman struggling with substance addiction decides to quit cold turkey, four of her friends take her to a remote cabin for the weekend, but things go from bad to worse when the group unleashes a demonic evil upon themselves. Remake of the 1981 film The Evil Dead.

The Break Down:

We, as movie-goers, live in a time where no film is off limits when it comes to a little modern day re-hashing. This is especially true for the horror genre. What used to be nothing more than the yearly release of a shitty, loosely strung together sequel (Jason Takes Manhattan…Leprechaun In Da Hood…Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The New Generation…Wes Craven’s New Nightmare…Transformers: Dark of the Moon) has, more recently, shifted into full-blown, wide-spread remaking and rebooting (not even heavily lauded classics such as Prom Night or The House On Sorority Row have gone unmolested).

For the last several years (between six and ten to be more precise), Hollywood has been moving down the ladder of once popular horror franchises and squirting out updated versions faster than you can forget the first one even happened, like a Catholic family that refuses to use birth control (such as a diaphragm…which is a girl condom…which is basically a plastic sock that you shove u…you know what? No one uses those things…) and just keeps popping out kids one after the other (…if the kids were all horribly disfigured serial killers).

So, it was just a matter of time before Hollywood got its well-manicured, hooker blood stained hands on the grandfather of the “cabin in the woods” sub-genre (and one-third of one of my favorite movie series of all time) The Evil Dead.

This update to the cult classic starts off with a frightened young woman running through a forest (…real original). She is quickly apprehended by a pair of mountain folk (…surprisingly, without pig squealing noises). She is taken to an underground location, tied to a post and confronted by several more mountain people (who, like actual hillbillies, speak some weird, undecipherable language) and her father. Once it’s clear that the young woman is a deadite (step your Evil Dead vernacular game up), she gets murdered by her pops (…it’s like my mom always told me, “I brought you in to this world, I can take you out of it, too!” She usually only said it when she was drunk though…probably shouldn’t read too much into that…).

We jump to the present, where a young man, David (the relatively unknown Shiloh Fernandez) and his girlfriend, Natalie (the less known Elizabeth Blackmore) pull up to an eerie cabin and meet their friends Eric (the less, less known Lou Taylor Pucci) and Olivia (the “arguably famous due to her extensive body of work, but still unknown” Jessica Lucas). We are graced with some important exposition that reveals that the group is getting together to aid David’s sister, Mia (Jane Levy, the star of the sit-com Suburgatory, a show I’ve never seen), as she prepares to use the weekend to kick her hard drug addiction, cold-turkey style.

While investigating the cabin’s basement, the group finds a book wrapped in barbed wire (just like every book I own…because reading is the devil’s activity). Because a little curiosity never led to anyone being demonically possessed, Eric opens the book and reads a few words out loud. The incantation unleashes an evil spirit that takes over Mia and instantly cures her drug addiction!

Wait. That’s wrong….murder? Yeah. It’s murder. Definitely murder. Brutal, gory, (wonderful) murder.

So, yeah, this one was a long time coming. Rumors of The Evil Dead being remade have been swirling around for a hot minute now (Sad Fact: Ashton Kutcher was attached to star at one point). What makes this take on the original different from any one of the multitude of other awful horror remakes floating around is the fact that the people most closely involved with the original (Writer/Director Sam Raimi, Leading Man Bruce Campbell and Producer Robert Tapert) have all taken on producing roles here, helping to handpick a new writer/director and a fresh, new cast.

Now, while having those three individuals on board helped ease the idea of the remake into the minds of long-time fans, it’s the twisted vision of writer/director Fede Alvarez that really makes the film worthwhile.

When thinking of ways to describe the movie to friends of mine who were unsure about seeing the movie, “really well done” was a phrase I felt fit perfectly (…most of the other adjectives all had something to do with bodily fluids, jack-off motions…and how I wished I had worn sweatpants to the theater…because jeans are so constricting…it’s a boner joke).

As you watch the horrific events unfold, it’s clear that Alvarez has a knack for the visual; everything from door opening to limb severing has an eye-catching look to it. He has even taken elements from Raimi’s direction style (things that made the original trilogy’s visuals unique) and melds them into the film.

Which brings me to my next point: the movie feels cohesive with the original film. What I mean is that the story here isn’t a blatant copy from the ‘81 movie, but it isn’t exactly breaking a lot of new ground, either. This film, to me, felt like a similar story taking place in a shared universe rather than a brand new take on something that completely neglects its predecessor. It’s just different enough to make the new elements engaging, but similar enough to call back a certain nostalgic feeling (…you can be nostalgic for dismemberment sequences…shut up! Don’t judge me!)

Now, (before getting to all the jack-off motions and bodily fluids I mentioned earlier…please don’t take that out of context) the movie has one “flaw” that should be addressed, and that’s the characters. None of them are particularly memorable, unique or strong. Literally, I had no idea what their names were until I looked them up and wrote the synopsis six paragraphs back. This fact doesn’t detract from the experience much (and it isn’t like anyone from the original film was particularly standout-ish), but everyone in the movie is more or less just a blood sack walking around waiting to be (gloriously) opened up.

The one big detail that has been added to the character’s scenario is Mia’s drug addiction. This is something that added a good dose of reality to the film. This small addition means that the movie avoids the old horror movie cliché of “What was that noise? Let’s check it out!” Instead of the group laughing in the face of certain death like most twenty-somethings in their position, the situation actually makes sense to unfold the way it does. Mia’s radical behavior isn’t unlike someone going through withdrawal, giving the group a reason to stick it out and not leave immediately. It’s a simple plot device and it’s used well here.

Aside from the characters not being special (which I didn’t particularity mind at all, given the context of the film) I had only one actual beef with the movie: That isn’t how nail guns work! If you have even the slightest working knowledge of craftsman tools, that should make perfect sense to you.

Now, there is one huge reason why I really loved this movie: practical (motherfucking) effects. The landscape of film today is covered with CGI, to the point of irritation for me. I can remember a time when puppets and claymation monsters where the top-of-the-line special effects (which makes me feel old). Computer generated effects are great, but after a while you become numb to them (just like everything in real life!). Being the jaded, judgmental bastard that I am, it takes some insane virtual effects to really impress me, but I am almost always impressed with, and excited to see, practical effects.

The fact that the majority of the effects are “real” makes the entire experience way more enjoyable. It does away with the facade of digital effects, making the events on screen seem more visceral, more…lifelike. The effects call back to time when film-makers had to really approach their creative vision from different angles because they couldn’t simply have somebody sit in front of a computer and make a tennis ball look like a massive, fire-breathing devil monster. What really impresses here though is that Alvarez actually finds new and creative ways to implement the practical effects (…creative in this context meaning that he thought up some really fucked up ways to spook people). There are things in the movie that you’ve never seen before (unless you’re a deranged murderer), making the blood spray and limb severing that much more engaging.

The second thing that really drew me in (and this is some super nerdy, cinephile type shit) was the quality of the photographs used in the film (…I told you).

Have you ever seen a movie where old people look at pictures of when they were young, but since the movie stars didn’t actually hang out as young adults, they have to fake them? Or a movie featuring a longing gaze at an old photo? Probably following a scene where the star just got into a big fight with his/her best friend/sister/brother/companion and they chose to abandon their zany mission where they were reconnecting/getting to know each other/falling in love, but the picture will remind the star that they love the other person. Maybe it’s a picture that was ripped in half and both parties are looking at them (were talking classic, cliché, second-to-third act transitions here).

Now, have you noticed how most of the pictures used in these situations are shitty looking? As if they hired some rando who was going page-by-page through “Photoshop for Dummies” and had just learned to cut and paste people’s heads from one picture on to another. Its shit like that, poorly rendered details, that ruins movie scenes for me. The thing is, the photos here aren’t even that important. They could’ve easily thrown something together half-cocked and gotten away with it. But they didn’t. You’ll know what I’m talking about when you see it. “Old” photographs of the film’s stars together are incredibly well done and that genuinely impressed me here (and I just spent way too much time explaining a tiny detail that I liked…so moving on…).

I can only describe the film’s gore with two words: fucking awesome. There is a big mix to take in. Some bits are brutal to watch (but never quite cross over into torture porn territory) while other bits are over the top (to an almost Japanese level of ridiculous). The film was originally given an NC-17 rating, but after some last minute trimming, it received an R rating, basically making it the movie with the highest level of on-screen violence in an R-rated film to date, which is pretty impressive. The violence here isn’t for the squeamish (even a weathered gore-hound like myself felt the need to turn away a few times, only for split-second, and make a manly ,grunt-ish noise).

The movie isn’t really “scary.” There aren’t many suspenseful moments, where everything is quiet and you’re wondering what’s gonna come next. The film exists more to “shock” I think. Which is very important to note. Someone looking for a more “moody/atmospheric” horror film might walk away a little disappointed. As a “shock” flick, it works incredibly well, though. Each flourish of violence ups the ante of what came before it, meaning that there is rarely a dull moment (especially when a chainsaw, or, really, any type of cutting utensil, is in play).

Overall, this update to the cult classic is one of the rare horror remakes that hits all the right notes. It’s familiar enough to feel cohesive with the world Raimi created back in the 80’s, but new enough that it never feels like a derivative rip-off

The characters here don’t offer anything new to the genre and none of them will leave a lasting impression, but the actors all do good jobs with what their given. Emotions and fears and interactions and decisions all feel (mostly) realistic, meaning that as things unfold, the characters will engage as much as they need to.

What takes the film to the next level is Director Fede Alvarez. His attention to the tiny details will brighten the day of bitter movie fans and gruesomely creative eye for violence is sure to haunt the dreams of children for years to come. Odds are that you might never look at an electric knife, or French kissing, the same way again. The violence here ranges from realistic and brutal to outrageously over-the-top. Needless to say, nothing contained in the movie is for the weak stomached (or girls…well, lame girls).

With visual appeal to spare, blood flowing by the goddamn gallon and characters that are just good enough to not merit long-winded ranting, this modern day take on the cult classic is excellent. In fact, it’s so good, you just might cut your hand off in a fit of joyous excitement (…I’m not endorsing inflicting bodily harm upon yourself…but it’s like my dear old mom used to say, “I fucking dare you.”)

The Rating:

***** out of *****

Taking on the daunting task of updating a film like The Evil Dead seemed like a fool’s errand for a very long time. With some of the most die-hard fans to ever love the horror genre, writer/director Fede Alvarez had to deliver a near-perfect final product in order to win over the series’ fans while also bringing new ones on board. With a fresh cast and an old cabin, Alvarez actually manages to find that near-perfect balance.

The story here is similar to the original, but just different enough to keep things interesting. These few tweaks to the plot make the film feel more like a new story in the same setting rather than a full blown remake. Alvarez incorporates some of Raimi’s signature camera work to give the film a similar style to the original, also making it feel very cohesive. There is also great attention to detail; miniscule references to the original film can be found throughout and some of the film’s smallest elements have a great quality to them, giving the world a very realistic feeling.

The big draw here is the sheer level of violence captured on film. As the five protagonists quickly fall victim to the demonic power, each blood soaked sequence ups the stakes of the previous one, meaning that things only get bolder and more gruesome as the story moves along. Alvarez has combined fantastic looking practical effects with some of the most creative and disturbing violence ever put on film, meaning that nearly every moment offers something to be shocked by.

The final product contains shocking visuals, excellent attention to detail, a pinch of black humor and enough violence to test the mettle of the most hardened gore-hounds, making it an extremely fun trip back to the cabin and one worthy of its name.

A Good Day To Die Hard

Wed, 06 Mar 2013 17:34:00 -0600

It’s a good day for whoever thought up such a shitty tag line to to die hard.

The Basic Plot:

Ridiculous scenario veteran John McClane finds himself caught up in some dangerous dealings with Russian bad guys and his estranged son. Fifth film in the Die Hard franchise.

The Break Down:

I was actually planning on elaborating on the film’s plot, but it’s just easier to explain it like this:

Bruce Willis and his son murder a lot of Russian people…and it isn’t as awesome as it sounds.

Yeah. Since there isn’t a whole lot to look at as far as this movie goes, you can expect me to pad out this review with a lengthy section of me word masturbating the Die Hard franchise (…also, word masturbating is totally a thing).

Let’s start by covering the story up to this point (step your Die Hard game up):

Die Hard is one of the best movies ever made (Fact). It reinvented the action genre and established the “everyman” hero as a popular action cinema character for years to come. Also, it was based on a book that I never read (kind of important to note). With the exception of a few sequences, the whole film stays fairly grounded in reality (also somewhat important to note). Most importantly, it’s awesome (…and it was nominated for four Oscars……..for technical awards, but still. four Oscar noms! How much better does it make the movie now that you know you can talk about it in terms like “How have you not seen the four-time Academy Award nominated film, Die Hard?” Answer: slightly better).

Die Hard 2: Die Harder (…which is the best title any movie has ever had) was originally conceived as a sequel to Commando, the popular (and unashamedly awful) Arnold Schwarzenegger movie. Basically, some asshole thought it’d be brilliant to blatantly steal the plot from Die Hard and plug Arnie into it. That plan failed and it was decided to just plug Bruce Willis back into the plot from Die Hard (…but they’d be clever about it and just continually reference how the movie is basically the exact same premise as the first movie). This film is much less grounded in reality and features a lot of ridiculousness…but it’s still awesome (…mostly).

Die Hard With a Vengeance was never supposed to be a Die Hard film. It was to be a standalone movie that capitalized on the popular film trick of pairing a white person with a black person (…because only wacky shenanigans can come from a pairing like that, right?). Basically, some asshole blatantly stole the formula from Lethal Weapon and then some other asshole thought it’d be brilliant to steal the stolen idea and plug Bruce Willis into it (…confusing, I know). Someone came in and tweaked the characters around to make connections to the first film (…which worked surprisingly well). While more grounded than the second film, this entrant in the series features a bevy of ridiculous moments (also, it’s awesome)

Live Free or Die Hard was the first film in the series to be made just for the hell of making a “Die Hard” movie. Without someone else’s idea to blatantly steal, the filmmakers needed to come up with a completely unique premise this time around. They decided that’d it’d be clever to (since this movie takes place over ten years after the third installment) have the plot revolve around a digital terrorist (because if nineties movies taught us anything, it’s that if you press the buttons on a computer keyboard fast enough, you can hack into anything) having his plans foiled because Bruce Willis is so old school (…and the formula works surprisingly well). The entire thing is over-the-top ridiculous and it’s all…(you guessed it)…awesome.

The Die Hard franchise is the best action series of all time (Fact #2). From reinventing a genre, to showing the world that Bruce Willis is “the man,” to having Justin Long be in a movie that doesn’t suck (Drag Me To Hell aside…because that movie was ballin’ out of control). The craziest part is that half of the films weren’t meant to be part of the series.

One of the big reasons why I love these movies so much is that they feel cohesive. The first four films felt like a natural progression (well…except Die Hard 2) Each entry managed to expand in size and shift in plot (well…except Die Hard 2) and still maintain the wonderful charm and excellent action that made the first film such a hit. The most important thing to note is the one constant throughout the series: Bruce Willis as John McClane. He’s basically an average Joe, a wisecracking cop who constantly finds himself in zany situations and steps up to the challenge (..because murdering nameless henchmen is the best way to sustain an erection…trust me).

Okay…this brings us to A Good Day to Die Hard(erererer).

The first thing that stands out about the movie is that the writing is terrible (stretch those R’s out for a hot minute). The plot is somewhat interesting (Bruce’s son…Russia… explosions), but it only takes about ten minutes before things spiral into absolute ridiculousness, way more than usual when it comes to Die Hard movies (well…except Die Hard 2). The fourth movie had several fun bits where Bruce was confused by today’s technology, but this installment doesn’t even bother to play with its “stranger in a strange land” premise, which is disappointing since I imagine there are a lot of hijinks that could’ve gone on (because of the language barrier and bat-shit insane Russian customs). The script offers very little in terms of characters but much less so in terms of storytelling.

My biggest beef with the shitty writing is that the writer here has transformed John McClane from an everyman hero into an unbeatable 80’s-style action star who jumps at the opportunity to involve himself in outlandish car chases and shootouts (for no reason) and comes away basically unscathed, which really just shits on the general idea behind Die Hard.

One of the big selling points here is that we’re supposed to get some quality father-son dynamics. The problem with that aspect is that it is so poorly handled that taking any of it seriously is borderline impossible. It just boils down to a lot of half-hearted chats (during the most inconvenient moments) about Bruce being a shitty dad. Over the course of the film, we learn nothing new about John McClane nor do we learn anything about his son (except that he works for the CIA…or some other government agency).

On top of the fact that the writing is suicidally bad, no one here (save for, like, two of the bad guys) is really trying (like, at all) to be actors. Bruce phones it in (and he doesn’t look nearly as spry as he did in the 2007 sequel) and franchise newcomer Jai Courtney (who you probably won’t recognize from his brief stint on the god awful Spartacus show) fails to bring a unique personality to the genre (let alone the film itself…and he’s pretty bad at delivering most of his lines…but he rocks a solid American accent, so props to him there).

It’s up to the film’s action sequences to bring life to the movie. While it would be basically impossible for them to save the film as a whole, they do help it along by all being fairly solid. The bad news is that there are only four of them (one of which lasts all of twelve seconds). The movie’s first bit, a car chase filled with insane stunts, is its best sequence. I don’t like car chases. “Here’s a car, it’s going fast.” “Here’s another car! It’s also going fast” Watching two cars speed down a highway isn’t exciting. Crashing and flipping and destroying shit around the cars is pretty exciting, though. So, while this first action sequence doesn’t even attempt to buddy up with logic, it’s pretty fun to watch.

After that, the sequences remain entertaining and all of them feature at least one pretty unique set piece, but they’re just shootouts (how jaded did that sound?). What really keeps things interesting is some great stunt work and surprisingly good cinematography. The action, while not always “special,” looks phenomenal, which does helps keep these sequences (at least visually) engaging.

To me, the movie felt really edited. It’s really short and things don’t really flow well or makes sense or feel natural in any way. For everything it had to live up to, this ninety minute mess can’t be the intended final product, can it? (…and “no” is the right answer, it seems). I got some inside information (*cough*googlesearch*cough*) that a “Director’s Cut” is planned and it will be “substantially longer.” I guess there’s always hope that (like with the fourth film) an extended cut will fix everything that was “wrong” with the movie (…but, in the case of the fourth movie, that was literally just adding the parts where the characters say “fuck,” so it goes without saying that this movie has quite a lot more damage control to do).

So, how does the fifth installment stack up against the other films in the Die Hard franchise? The answer is…pretty poorly. This movie really lacks everything that made Die Hard movies feel unique. While each film in the series has grown in scale, they all managed to maintain a high level of charm and quality, but this movie feels like a big step backwards for the franchise. It feels very contained and in a bad way. The sets and locations all feel similar, it never takes the characters much time to get anywhere, their conversations all sound the same and it felt like there were only four actors in the entire movie. When dealing with a series like this one, a few small screw ups in a sequel can mean life or death for fans, and to say that this installment only has a few small screw ups would be like saying Lindsey Lohan has only made a few bad life choices.

Overall, the movie is a dud. At only ninety minutes, the film feels very rushed. There are only four action sequences and those moments offer some great fun but everything between them is so forced, so poorly written and acted out, so below par that you can probably completely tune them out and come away without losing anything. There just simply isn’t a lot to the movie. It’s bare bones filmmaking where the only slivers of creativity show through in the action bits.

Did I enjoy the movie? Yeah (…mostly). After accepting that it was going to be a god-awful “Die Hard” movie, I enjoyed the flick for what it was, which is a big dumb action movie that got really bad once characters started talking. And that’s really the best way to go into seeing this movie, knowing that it isn’t a “Die Hard” movie so much as a cheap Russian knock-off of the Die Hard franchise. The film’s only saving graces are its action sequences (and it’s laughably bad dialogue/jokes/actor’s delivery of bad dialogue/jokes if you’re into some “so bad it’s almost good” kind of shit). Does this film tarnish the reputation of the franchise? Hell no! Because who gives a shit if the fifth movie in a series that wasn’t supposed to even have a second movie isn’t that great (…no one who matters, that’s who)? If anything, this movie simply boosts the quality of Die Hard 2 (which, if you’ve been paying attention, was, up until this point, the resident “bad” Die Hard).

The Rating:

** out of *****

After 2007’s Live Free or Die Hard gave some new life to the storied franchise, a fifth venture into the world of John McClane was obvious. With a whole new team taking over, the results are mixed at best and downright awful at worst.

The biggest problem plaguing the film is that the script used is terrible. It offers an interesting premise but it totally squanders anything that could’ve been a positive. Instead of playing around with the new setting or having fun with obvious cultural differences, the plot makes a mad dash toward clichéd mediocrity and steadily moves downward from there. On top of lackluster storytelling, the dialogue is incredibly poor. This, mixing with a lot of phoned in performances, makes for some awkwardly bad delivery of the recycled, boring material.

The film attempts to make up for these shortcomings with its action sequences. There are only four of them, and at least half fall into the category of “cliché shootout,” but the sequences are consistently visually pleasing. These moments do offer a lot of fun with some spectacular stunts and a few unique set pieces, but they can do little to help the film as a whole.

The movie feels incredibly light. It’s really short and offers very little in terms of true engagement, even during the high points of the film’s action. There isn’t anything to enjoy within the storytelling, the villains are all fairly one-note and the film’s main draw, Bruce Willis reprising his role as the always charming John McClane, has lost nearly every aspect that made him such a wonderful character over the last twenty-seven years. The movie is poorly written, poorly directed and offers a few action sequences as it’s only redeeming features. It can be enjoyable as a loud, fast-paced, “big, dumb action movie,” but at no point does it even come close to earning the “Die Hard” moniker.

Dredd

Sat, 23 Feb 2013 03:58:00 -0600

Because seventeen years is more than enough time to forget about the Stallone version, right?

The Basic Plot:

Set in a dystopian future, two law enforcement agents find themselves trapped in a giant apartment complex run by a violent drug queenpin. Based on the comic book character published by 2000 AD.

The Break Down:

The movie begins with a voiceover about how something called “nuclear war” has destroyed most of the world (or maybe just most of the United States…it isn’t very clear on the finer details). Because no one likes living in an irradiated wasteland, a large portion of the Eastern states has been mashed together to form a massive city, cleverly named Mega City (…which is better than calling it “Big Town,” I guess).

Because everyone in the future is a terrible human being, the usual process of law enforcement has been thrown out the window. A reasonable police force has been replaced by (nonsensical) Judges (say it as if you’re Batman…Judges). These men and women serve as officer, detective, judge, jury and executioner (because, at the end of the day, convenience wins out over proper judicial proceedings), giving them the power to sentence (i.e. violently murder) criminals on the spot. The best of these Judges is man named Dredd (…you know he’s the best because his voice is so deep…and because he’s the main character…but mostly its the voice thing).

So, the first ten minutes of the movie are pretty unspectacular. The visuals aren’t really striking, the setting and introductory voice-over are both pretty cliché and there’s a really bland chase sequence. Then, just when it seems like we’re gonna be treated to a generic shootout/stand-off, Dredd shoots a flare into a guy’s mouth (…yeah, you read that right).

Once the setting and main character have been established, the story kicks in. Dredd meets a rookie Judge (played by the relatively unknown Olivia Thirlby) who just so happens to be a mutant (…on the inside) and has the ability to read minds. She is teamed up with Dredd because she is up for Judge evaluation (…or…Judgment, if you will).

Because we have to take the ridiculousness of this whole thing up a notch, the villain, MaMa (played by Lena Headley, the actress who plays the third worst character on Game of Thrones) is introduced. She’s a disfigured drug baron(ess) who isn’t threatening in any way, shape or form (…except that she’s fucking insane). To prove just how much of an evil mastermind she is, she orders three men (who…bothered her or something) to be skinned and then thrown off the top floor of a Mega-Block (…which is basically an apartment building, only…mega sized).

Dredd and his (not as cool as Jean Grey) trainee stumble into MaMa’s territory (where exposition and back-story happens) and then Dredd, in super slow motion, shoots several nameless characters in their faces (which is pretty cool).

The duo capture one of MaMa’s lieutenants and, in order to stop them from taking him to be interrogated, she locks down the entire Mega-Block (…step your knock-off LEGO game up). Dredd and his mind-reading pal(ess) must fight for their very survival as everyone inside the building is out to kill them.

Now, before we dive into this one, I want to make something very clear: I’ve never read a Judge Dredd comic. There isn’t a real reason for this; it just hasn’t ever been a book I’ve looked into, or one that I particularly felt the need to track down. I’m not hating on a thirty-six-year-old comic franchise, I’m simply saying that (because my Judge Dredd game isn’t adequately stepped up) I didn’t furiously pleasure myself because Karl Urban never took his helmet off. I think that not being a fan , or really interested in, the character had a lot to do with my level of enjoyment here.

So, yeah, first thing’s first. If the premise here sounds familiar, it’s because it is incredibly familiar. Have you ever heard the saying, “everything that is old is new again?” It’s a phrase that rings true in the world of Hollywood. It seems to me that, after twenty-five years of plugging the formula from Die Hard into different locations (such as boats, trains, subway trains, airports and planes), filmmakers have decided to just return to the skyscraper setting because they have officially run out of isolated places to stick a police officer. (Also, The Raid, an Indonesian film directed by a Welsh guy, shares the exact same premise, down to several small details).

(To continue down this thought path) There are only three things really that make this movie not an official remake of Die Hard. Here they are, in order of importance:

1. Super slow motion

2. Mutant powered sidekick

3. Bruce Willis isn’t in it

Honestly, though, a recycled plot is forgivable. If someone wants to plug a beloved comic book character into the plot from one of the best movies ever made, go for it. I mean, clearly the character of Judge Dredd offers more than enough opportunities to make the two films feel very different (…to be clear…that was me hating on a thirty-six-year-old comic franchise…with sarcasm).

Karl Urban does a great job at portraying Dredd (from what I understand, he kinda nails it), but that doesn’t mean that the character is great. Dredd is as one-note as they come, and, while this isn’t necessarily a bad thing, anyone who isn’t already a fan of the character might not find a lot to like about him. I’m sure he has a lot of great qualities, but here he’s little more than every eighties action hero.

He’s kinda like Batman, only less interesting. He’s kinda like a robot, only with slightly better comedic timing. He’s a face-value character. He is how he is because that’s how he is. His biggest motivation in the film seems to be “I need to find out what the inside of that particular henchman’s head looks like.” I don’t doubt that there are a multitude of reasons to love the character, but in this movie, he just isn’t very “captivating.” Watching him murder people is fun, but when he isn’t murdering, he’s just kind of there, hanging out, not being Sly Stallone (which is a good thing)

The rest of the cast does an alright job. Nothing special. It’s all fine for what the movie is.

Which (in no logical way) transitions into my next point: the film’s biggest positive is its action, but there’s a catch. The catch is that these bits are a real mixed bag. Half of them are good and half of them are bad. The “good” ones look really awesome; slow motion kicks in and then bullets rip through people’s faces (I mean, who doesn’t love that?). The catch is that these bits last all of twelve seconds. The “bad” sequences are just bland, short and fail to be really exciting. Even when MaMa hires a few crooked Judges to come in and take out Dredd, it’s a really underwhelming, short-lived sequence of events.There are only so many ways Dredd can shoot people (…few of which involve aiming properly).

Like, that’s literally it. There isn’t a lot to work with here. The villain isn’t great and doesn’t get much screen time. The action is okay, but all too short. The story is recycled and the writing is serviceable. It isn’t bad that the film is so light on everything (the pace really flies by), that’s just how it is.

Overall, the movie isn’t terrible but isn’t spectacular either. When everything from the plot to the characters is this bare-bones, execution is everything. While the film might hit many of the right notes in pleasing fans of the source material, it just doesn’t really offer much that’s worthwhile to non-fans. It hits all the right beats of a genre movie, but it does so in such a familiar way that it isn’t ever interesting. The one thing setting the movie apart from dozens of other films is its central character, and he alone can’t carry the film into territory where it honestly engages you.

Watching this movie was a really weird experience for me. It has so many things that I like: sci-fi background, graphic violence, Karl Urban, the plot from Die Hard, mega…things. But, for one reason or another, nothing ever clicked with me. I liked the face shooting bits and there are a handful of funny one-liners throughout, and the villain’s death is pretty great (if not simply one more thing that was stolen directly from Die Hard), but at no point did anything honestly grab me and make me want to keep watching. It’s a film that, as far as I can tell, was tailored to the character’s existing fan base. Is that bad? Absolutely not. But that just means that a non-fan won’t get much out of the experience, which is exactly what happened with me. I didn’t care about the main character, and everything was more bland than fresh, making my viewing experience mediocre.

And, that’s what the flick is. It’s a middle of the road sci-fi action romp that features a popular character. For every interesting, cool aspect, there is a completely mediocre, somewhat boring one. Now, let’s keep it real, the movie was never meant to bring out emotions or spark deep discussions; it isn’t that kind of thing. It was meant to entertain, though, and, aside from a few bits here and there, it just doesn’t really do that. The movie just sort of…exists. It isn’t necessarily bad, but it definitely isn’t good. There are some flashy bits that’ll catch your eye, but there is also a lot of muddling around not doing anything. It just isn’t special at all. (It’s bad analogy time!) Bottom line: This is a handjob of a movie. It’s familiar, not honestly engaging, probably longer than it needs to be, painful and boring at times, enjoyable at others, and ultimately forgettable (…unless your already a real big fan of handjobs).

The Rating:

** out of *****

After seventeen years, Hollywood has decided to make another attempt at a big screen adaptation of the Judge Dredd comic book franchise, and, while this film couldn’t be more different from the ‘95 version, the end result is surprisingly similar. With a recycled plot as this film’s backbone, it’s up to the titular character and the almost constant flood of action sequences to make the film feel like something special, but neither does much to really help things along.

Karl Urban plays the main character close to the source material, but the character is such a one-note throwback, that he’s difficult to appreciate if you aren’t already familiar with him. The script and direction are both as bare-bones as it can get, so there isn’t much to engage you on that level.

The movie heavily relies on its action sequences to carry the film. Some of these have an excellent look to them, effectively combining super slow motion with graphic violence in a visceral, satisfying show. These moments are the film’s best, but they are all short lived. The bigger problem is that every action sequence that doesn’t utilize the slow motion is simply bland and uncreative.

The movie is a brisk, violent trip into the world of Judge Dredd and it never tries to be anything more than that. Fans of the source material will really love this true-to-form incarnation, but people unfamiliar with the comic likely won’t. It isn’t a bad film, but it boils down to being little more than a few nice action sequences surrounded by forgettable filler.

Django Unchained

Tue, 12 Feb 2013 13:30:00 -0600

You know you’ve made it when you don’t even have to put your film’s title on the promotional material…

The Basic Plot:

A bounty hunting former slave sets out on a mission to rescue his wife from a plantation owner.

The Break Down:

“Nerdy Awesome Guy, what’s a spaghetti western?”

That was a very good question, dear reader. I’m glad you asked.

A spaghetti western is a (semi-racist) term used to describe Italian films, popular in the 60’s, that portrayed the American West.

This particular film is an homage to that very sub-genre and it blatantly steals its title from one of the most popular of all spaghetti westerns, Django (…the stories share no common elements…except that lots of people get murdered in both…which I’ll just chalk up to pure coincidence).

This movie starts off with Christoph Waltz shooting a horse in the face (which turns out to be a roundabout way of freeing Jamie Foxx from slavery). It’s an opening that not only surprises (because who saw that coming?) but also does a great job of giving the audience the perfect idea of what to expect from the next two hours (which is lots of talking and gratuitous, cartoonish-ly over-the-top violence).

Waltz plays a bounty hunter who has freed Foxx in order to track down a trio of murderous brothers who used to work on a plantation where Foxx was formerly enslaved. After a quick crash course on how bounty hunting works, the duo set out on their mission to murder (white) people for money. The mismatched pair travel to a plantation owned by Don Johnson (who should really take on more character-y bit parts in movies), kill the three brothers and have a run-in with a KKK-esque posse (in what is arguably the film’s best sequence).

(Since it only took forty minutes to wrap up the plot about the three brothers) Foxx extends the run-time by explaining how he has a German-speaking wife who he intends to track down and rescue so they can both be free and live happily ever after. Waltz, moved by Foxx’s story, agrees to help him rescue his wife from Leonardo DiCaprio, a wealthy plantation owner with a fondness for poor dental health and “mandingo fighting” (which is when two large black men fight to the death…and may or may not be a real thing).

I’m a big Western fan and I firmly believe that spaghetti westerns are some the best entrants in the genre, so I expected big things here. From behind the page and the camera, QT has taken elements of the best old school Italian westerns (from character traits to camera movements) and melded them with modern day American filmmaking, crafting a final product that is accessible by today’s audiences, but also shows off why these kinds of movies were so popular back in the day.

One of the film’s best assets is that the entire cast gives great performances. Waltz is a typical Tarantino character, meaning that he’s a slick talker with an odd code of ethics. He’s a quirky dude and Waltz fits into the role well. Foxx does fine, but he arguably gives the “worst” performance out of the cast. Don’t get it twisted, it isn’t bad by any means, but he doesn’t offer anything too special. Everyone is throwing a big hoopla over DiCaprio, and he does do a fantastic job but I’m going on record and saying that Sam Jackson gives the best performance here. Both guys do a great bit of character work and offer good range and some real subtlety, but Jackson takes it to a new level of sleaze with his role.

Since we’re dealing with Tarantino here, it’s important to understand that he made the movie he envisioned and didn’t give a shit about doing anything else but that (it’s kind of his thing). This has meant a lot of different things over the years, but with this film, the “writer-director/pet project” stuff boils down to meaning that Tarantino basically made two movies and then mashed them together.

The first fifty minutes (or so) of the movie are awesome. The film’s first half is fast paced, simple, gory and often hilarious. This can be considered the “traditional spaghetti western” half of the movie. Aside from a few dialogue heavy sequences this half is almost all action, making it a lot of fun to watch but emotionally rewarding at several points as well. It’s just a fantastically entertaining time.

The middle portion of the movie is where Tarantino really takes over with his usual style. We get sequence after sequence of back-and-forth dialogue and heavy handed speeches with very little action in between. These scenes don’t drag too much but are clearly longer than they have to be, which is exactly what QT likes. Like I said before, what helps keeps these bits from being boring are the great performances from Foxx, DiCaprio, Waltz and Jackson. If you know what to expect from Tarantino, and really enjoy his style, then this portion of the film will really entertain you. If you don’t like the talk-y bits of movies, you’ll be pulling out your hair before you reach the ninety minute mark.

The film’s climax melds the action heavy first section with the drawn out dialogue-y moments of the middle. After a tense showdown (and a long winded speech by DiCaprio), we get treated to an climactic shootout (…set to a 2Pac song…because why the hell not?) that ends in very dramatic fashion. It’s a fast-paced, violent sequence that is sure to get you excited as it unfolds (…and it would’ve been an excellent place to end the movie…read that last bit as if you’re Eyeore).

Theeeen, we get an extra thirty minutes of pure bullshit. The audience is teased with a torture scene that doesn’t happen (which might disappoint any fans of horrific genital manipulation out there) and then we get to watch Foxx outsmart of trio of poorly accented idiots (that includes Tarantino himself). Our hero then kills a bunch of people (in way less exciting fashion than he did earlier) and finally rescues his wife (…and then does some fucking horse ballet…seriously).

This wrap up (or denouement, if you want to sound fancy and proper…step your theatrical French term game up), and everything about it, seems to be trying real hard to ruin the movie experience. Tarantino loves to remind the audience that they’re watching a movie, and having these overly ridiculous extra bits does exactly that (…which isn’t really a positive). I’m down for a few unnecessary sequences, but there needs to be something special about them. Aside from calling back to a prop used in one scene (and including a large scale explosion) there isn’t anything truly worthwhile or substantial in the last thirty minutes of the movie.

(To continue to beat a dead horse) I mean, watching Foxx violently murder two dozen nameless extras does continue to offer a slight bit of fun, but nothing here comes close to improving on (let alone coming close to simply matching) anything that came before it. It’s just more of the same, only at a slightly lower level of quality. It’s painfully clear that Tarantino wanted these scenes in there simply because he thought them up when he wrote the damn thing and not because they make the film stronger. It just caps off what was two-thirds of a great movie with superfluous (somewhat annoying) bullshit.

That’s my big beef here. I really enjoyed the movie until the end sequences. The first act is awesome (especially if you love seeing white people explode into bloody mist) and the second act showcased some great writing and acting. The end just left a bad taste in my mouth and it really drug down the overall film for me by ending on a weak note.

Now, the ending isn’t the only problem lurking around, but, thankfully, there aren’t many other negatives here.

Something I wasn’t a big fan of is the fact that Foxx is considered a “natural.” This means that as soon as a gun touches his hand, he’s an expert at using it. As soon as a new skill is shown to him, he has mastered it (…except for dressing himself). As soon as he needs to have superb thespian chops, he shows ‘em off. He’s awesome at everything simply because.

Now, many Western heroes are pretty fantastic at everything (from quick-yet-accurate murder to being a gruff-but-sensitive lover), but older movies often account for this by giving the hero no background whatsoever (Hell, most of them barely have names). With this movie, the rub lies in the fact that it isn’t as if Foxx is just another mysterious gun-slinger with no past and a code of justice, he actually has a backstory. As a former slave, it’s more than likely that he never held a gun before, let alone convincingly pretended to be a person he isn’t. Foxx had the reading level of seven-year-old early on in the film, and, while I’m very aware that a low reading level doesn’t (always) equate with one’s expertise at handling firearms, it’s just a little too silly that, over the course of three-to-four months, that same guy goes from beaten down slave to being incredible at everything (…even fucking horse ballet!).

Something that is way less forgivable than having a poorly developed hero is the fact that the plan that Waltz and Foxx come up with in order to rescue Foxx’s wife (which, remember, is the entire basis for two-thirds of the goddamn movie) is completely fucking ridiculous. Like, it makes no goddamn sense whatsoever. They plot to get close to DiCaprio’s character by posing as men who want to buy a “mandingo fighter,” only to then also offer to buy Foxx’s wife, somehow tricking DiCaprio by not paying him but ending up with a bill of sale for the woman. It’s just really convoluted and unnecessary. I mean, how many slave women in the South would you guess spoke German? None, probably. Waltz could’ve understandably offered to buy her on that bit of trivia alone.

Oh, wait, that’s exactly what they do! But they only do that after the whole “mandingo fighter” bits are established, meaning that they’ve put themselves in a position to get royally fucked if things go sideways (which is highly likely) when they didn’t have to at all. When dealing with a strong writer like Tarantino, it was extra obvious that something so blatantly silly was so pivotal to the plot. As far as I can tell, the entire “plan” exists solely to work the mandingo fighting sub-plot into the movie.

This next bit isn’t really a negative, but I didn’t think that DiCaprio was a great villain. What I mean by that is that he isn’t particularly evil. Keeping in mind the film’s setting, he’s really just a product of his environment. More often than not, he actually seems like a pretty fair, legit guy. Is he a seedy douche? Yeah. Were most rich plantation owners seedy douches back then? Yeah…well…probably (I should really step my U.S. History game up at some point). I mean, Don Johnson’s character (a seedy, douche-y plantation owner) is equally awful as far as being a person goes. Don’t get me wrong, DiCaprio does do some horrible things, but he only acts when provoked (…keeping in mind the setting and the fact that “morals” came long after “Southern Hospitality”). Hell, Foxx is partly to blame for, arguably, the worst thing Leo does (which involves dogs and eating and a person). DiCaprio is clearly the film’s “antagonist,” but I just didn’t think he was a true “bad guy.”

Overall, this is a great movie that simply has a handful of weak aspects. Because it’s a pet project, Quentin Tarantino has stuffed a lot into the package here, and not all of it gels together. The entire cast works incredibly well amongst each other, each member giving a great performance, the standouts being the vile duo of DiCaprio and Jackson. The film’s action is fast and bloody, giving each shootout an exciting, gushing payoff. The writing here is some of Tarantino’s strongest when it comes to dialogue, but weakest when it comes to plotting. The long winded speeches and quick back-and-forth style that Tarantino is known for is here in full swing and proves to be entertaining and effective thoughout, but when you break down the film’s plot (more importantly, how the characters affect the plot), things fall apart quickly and don’t make much sense, showing that Tarantino was more concerned with tying the various sequences together and less with crafting a full-bodied story.

The film’s biggest set-back is that it’s just too damn long. The final thirty minutes take what made the preceding two hours great and then waters down those aspects (and stops being serious) for no reason other than to include scene after scene that Tarantino couldn’t give up having in the movie. There is two-thirds of not only a great homage to a wonderful genre here, but of an excellent movie. It’s just that…that one-third…is…well…really lame.

The Rating:

**** out of *****

Quentin Tarantino’s latest feature length effort is an homage to the spaghetti western genre and offers up a truly mixed bag. The way the film fits together makes it feel as if the production is actually two movies made into one three hour epic. The first half of the film details the story of a freed slave-turned-bounty hunter helping his quirky mentor find and kill three very bad men. The second half of the film shows the duo on a quest to reunite our protagonist with his wife. The film does work as a whole, but the first half is over quickly and ends up being little more than a low-stakes set-up for what’s to come. It’s as if the film maker wanted to give the audience a fun, violent romp before making something more in his traditional style. The action sequences here are fast and bloody. The film’s violence is gratuitous, but it’s also very over-the-top, almost to a cartoonish degree. So, while these sequences are graphic, they are difficult to take completely serious.

When the movie slows down in order to play up Tarantino’s well-known dialogue and develop the characters, the story elements begin to fall apart but the film remains entertaining. The performance from the entire cast are excellent, which goes a long way in helping the ridiculous, slightly convoluted plot move along smoothly. While Leonardo DiCaprio fully commits to his vile plantation owner character, Sam Jackson shines as DiCaprio’s old toadie in one of his best roles in the last several years. The biggest strike against the movie is that it’s simply too long. The film’s final act does a poor job of retaining any of the violent fun from the first act or the sharp-witted writing from the second, meaning that the final thirty minutes are the film’s worst moments. This finale doesn’t ruin the movie, but it spoils the overall experience and feels very forced, making it more irritating than entertaining.

While the film has more than a few strikes against it being undeniably great, it is still a highly enjoyable, exciting time while it lasts, offering bloody shootouts, smart dialogue and excellent performances.

Wreck-It Ralph

Thu, 07 Feb 2013 04:37:57 -0600

I’m pretty confident the purple rhino wasn’t even in the movie…or even a video game for that matter…

The Basic Plot:

When an arcade game’s villain decides that he’s tired of being the bad guy, he leaves his game in search of something that will prove that he can be a true hero.

The Break Down:

The movie begins by covering the history of its main character: Wreck-It Ralph (voiced by the talented John C. Reily) is a large-fisted baddie in a Donkey Kong-esque arcade game. His job within the game is to use his mutant-like hands to wreck an apartment building that is inhabited by eight diminutive people (who all look like Duplo characters). As he’s busy wrecking, his rival, Fix-It Felix Jr. (voiced by the often irritating Jack McBrayer), does exactly what his name implies (……..fixes! c’mon!).

After three decades of using his giant meat-hooks to crush the same building over and over again, our villain has become dissatisfied with his bad guy lifestyle (…also, he sleeps on a large pile of bricks…just like me). Ralph hates to be hated, but can’t do anything to change his situation because that’s simply the way things are programmed to be (…I’d like to know who the hell is programming all these characters to have feelings…and free will…but maybe that’s just me). The issue comes to a head when Ralph isn’t invited to a thirtieth anniversary party that his game’s characters throw for their twerpy-but-lovable hero. Ralph vows to find a medal (something that Felix wins every time the game is beaten) that will prove him to be a real hero and not just the bad guy meant for demolition.

Ralph leaves his game and ventures to Hero’s Duty, a hi-def, first-person shooter where Jane Lynch yells a lot and shoots giant (sort of mechanical) bug monsters. (By not following the game’s rules) Ralph collects a medal but (because he’s more-or-less just a bumbling, smash-y idiot) is sent rocketing out of the game in an escape pod.

The ship crash lands in a cutesy cart racing game called Sugar Rush. It is here that Ralph meets Vanellope (voiced by the often-not-very-funny Sarah Silverman), a little girl who has been shunned by her game’s cast of characters for being glitchy. (Since the movie needs to be longer than thirty minutes) Ralph loses his medal in a silly mix-up and, after several big misunderstandings (and lies), he joins forces with Vanellope in hopes of helping her win a race and retrieving his (stolen) hero medal (…while also shaking off stigmas and labels in the process…or something like that…whatever).

As someone who would much prefer to sit around and play video games rather than interact with people (…or, God forbid, spend time…outside…just imagine a horrible vomiting noise inserted after that), I had some high hopes for this movie. Between an interesting (although admittedly familiar *cough*Hercules*cough*) storyline, state-of-the-art animation and the fact that Disney somehow got the okay to use video game licenses from several different companies (and generations), this seemed like a guaranteed hit.

The film’s biggest strength is easily its voice cast. They all do a wonderful job of bringing their characters to life. Even though I’m not a big fan of Lynch, McBrayer and Silverman, I did enjoy their performances. The character’s personalities play well off each other and the actors all share a great chemistry. The supporting actors also do an excellent job of populating the rest of the film’s colorful cast of characters.

The movie looks great. Plain and simple. It’s easy to see that a lot of effort went in the looks of the different characters. While everyone does share the same basic cartoon-ish look, there are clear differences in the characters from each of the different games. This means that, visually speaking, everything feels cohesive while still showing off the small details of the various characters.

A small beef (which is insignificant as far as legit criticism goes) I have with the movie is that it never takes full advantage of one of its biggest assets: existing video game characters. Some of the biggest buzz around the movie was how it featured characters like Sonic (a speedy, blue hedgehog), Zangief (a racist caricature from Street Fighter) and Clyde (he’s orange…step your Pac-Man game up), but, save for a handful of scenes in the first act, these “cameos” are sparse. The film hints at this massive, connected world of various video games but only really utilizes three games within that world (all of which are made up). I understand that the movie wants to carve out its own place without using existing materials as a crutch, but most of the film’s best bits revolve around these little pop-ins (and I really, really liked those parts!). This doesn’t really affect the quality of the movie in any way, it’s simply a personal feeling (…mostly so I could squeeze in the Pac-Man reference)

(Sort of in line with those thoughts) The more I think about it, the more I feel like the movie missed a lot of opportunities to capitalize on its special setting. This is the world of video games, but once the main section of story kicks in, it just feels like any other colorful cartoon world (if you replace talking/intelligent animals with pieces of candy). The glimpses of the expanded world that we get in the first act are way more interesting than spending fifty minutes in candy land (…not that Candy Land).

My biggest beef here is that the movie is really Disney-ed up (…like, hard). The setting is unique, but the story being told doesn’t offer anything the world of film hasn’t already seen (especially in other Disney movies). The plot hits every beat you’ve come to expect from an animated Disney production: a fun, whimsical opening, a main conflict that could’ve been easily avoided, an enjoyable-yet-routine second act, a forced secondary conflict that could’ve been more easily avoided that the first one, a quick change in the protagonist’s attitude, an even faster resolution to the secondary conflict and an elaborate ending that leaves everybody happy (except the villain…because they always horrifically die).

Using a recycled plot isn’t anything new to the world of cinema, and it doesn’t disqualify the film from being a good one, but everything here is too tame to really be anything special. The writing is fine for what the movie has to accomplish, but doesn’t offer anything that will really appeal to anyone except children. The themes might resonate with younger viewers, but they’re too easily fixed to leave a lasting impression. Basically, the whole production is little more than a movie for kids that will offer a hint of nostalgia for anyone who actually remembers when arcades were places you could play video games (…and not just rooms in the back of sex shops where sad people can masturbate).

Overall, the movie is good but it doesn’t attempt to do anything other than meet your most basic expectations. The voice actors do great jobs across the board, especially Reily and Silverman, which does go a long way in keeping things entertaining. The visuals are outstanding and there is rarely a moment where something on screen won’t catch your eye. Where the film falters is in its story-telling and execution. There isn’t anything “wrong” with either aspect, but they don’t strive to be anything new, challenging or engaging. The themes have been tackled before (and better) and offer little lasting power. I watched the whole movie completely aware that I was in a theater and watching a children’s movie (…which is less creepy than it sounds). An opportunity was missed to use a wonderful setting as the stage (…video game pun) for an emotionally effective story. The film is filled with great characters, a fantastic setting and serviceable…everything else. It isn’t a bad movie, and the majority of it is fun to watch, but its all just a little too light to be anything other than a passable kids flick.

The Rating:

*** out of *****

Disney’s newest animated film offers some solid, clean fun but ultimately squanders its original premise. The world of video games has had a checkered past when it comes to cinematic adaptations, but this film found a way to tap into the nostalgic value of video games while avoiding butchering any source material. The first act of the film features several cameos from popular arcade game characters but the story presented has nothing to do with any existing brands. The second act leads the audience into familiar territory and fails to ever capitalize on the uniqueness of its premise and setting. Everything you expect from a Disney production is here, the good and the bad. The film’s themes are clear and simple and its conflicts are easily fixed by the big finale. The great voice cast helps the film climb to a rung above mediocrity, but they cannot save the entire production. While it’s dressed up with a colorful setting populated with cute characters, the heart of the film fails to be anything other than typical. In a time when animated features are becoming more mature every year, the filmmakers here decided to stick to material that doesn’t take any chances. The film features excellent voice work, fantastic visuals and several very fun moments, but, as a whole, it ends up being little more than routine children’s entertainment wrapped in a thin bit of nostalgia.

Life of Pi

Wed, 30 Jan 2013 12:58:30 -0600

The people behind this poster don’t seem to put much stock in that fact that actual people are in the movie…

The Basic Plot:

The unbelievable story of a how a teenager survived being lost at sea with a Bengal tiger as his only companion. Based on the novel I’ve never read by Yann Martel.

The Break Down:

Have you ever seen Forest Gump? How about Big Fish? Because this movie is exactly like those…except worse.

Rafe Spall is a British actor with a familiar face (you might recognize him from his bit parts in Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz and Prometheus). He plays a Canadian writer who is in search of some inspiration for his next book (…but the part could’ve, very literally, gone to anyone with a North American accent, so why they specifically picked a random British actor is a bit perplexing to me). His search leads him to a man named Pi (it’s a nickname…and he’s played by Bollywood gem, Irfran Kahn), an Indian professor living in Canada.

(Like with both of the movies I mentioned above) This movie is a story within a story that begins with Pi’s life as a child. We see the little guy go through a handful of silly misadventures and we learn exactly how he got his nickname (…it’s because he can accurately calculate the number pi to, like, a million decimal places…because that’s not ridiculously lame, right?). Pi grows up learning about and following several different religions (which is a really odd thing for an eight year old to do) and gets into trouble with his father, who manages a zoo (because holding raw meat in front of a tiger will often lead to you not having hands).

Pi’s father makes the decision to move his zoo from India to Canada via a large ocean freighter. The story really takes off when the freighter mysteriously sinks during a storm. Though unable to save his family, Pi finds himself alive and on a raft, but he isn’t without some company. Along for the ride is a zebra, an orangutan, a hyena and the Bengal tiger you’ve seen all over the film’s promotional material (…also, the tiger’s name is Richard Parker…step your obscure literary character reference game up…or don’t, it doesn’t really matter and it’s fairly complicated).

So, (because animals are awful) they eat each other until only the murderous feline is left alive (…my money was on the Zebra). Pi and the tiger poorly coexist for several months as they do nothing but drift. They eventually become friends…well, you know, as much a man and an emotionless killing machine can actually be considered friends. When all seems lost, the duo finds an island inhabited by meerkats (…also, the island is made up of carnivorous plant life…because everyone loves what might be a thinly veiled metaphor, right?). Eventually, Pi and Richard Parker reach Mexico (a place that actually exists), where the tiger runs off into the jungle and Pi is rescued.

Okay. In the literary world, there is a device known as the “unreliable narrator.” It is exactly what it sounds like. It is also the basis for a story like this one. Do you (and can you) trust the main character who is telling the story? The circumstances described may be incredible, but are they true? More importantly, do you care if it’s true or not? Those are the big questions that this movie wants you to be asking once the credits start rolling. For me, the only question I asked myself when the movie was over was “why did this have to be so boring?”

I was actually kind of enjoying the quirky adventures of the prepubescent Pi. The idea of an innocent kid adopting several different religions was interesting (if not a bit of lackadaisical parenting). Throw in the eventual soul crushing reality of life’s big discoveries (…like how tigers lack the ability to love), and the story was setting up to be somewhat engaging if not more than a bit typical. The first act has a few cute moments, but it fails to offer anything truly substantial.

Then, the only thing that the trailers and promo material hyped actually happens. So, yeah, the middle of the film (save for a few unnecessary narrative interruptions) is dominated with scene after scene of a teenager adrift at sea in a lifeboat with a tiger. Just…thinking about stuff.

For this being the biggest focus of the film, not a lot happens for most of this period. I can only see a young Indian man be scared of a tiger and flop into the ocean so many times before I stop caring completely. The situation never feels very desperate and our main character handles everything with relative ease (seriously, he has an easier time surviving alone at sea than he did with juggling the requirements of several different religions). The raft is stocked with food, water and a highly detailed survival guide (…that not only explains how to train wild animals and build rafts but also how to maintain your sanity while lost at sea). At no point was I ever worried about how Pi was gonna get himself out of his sticky situation (…and not simply because he obviously survives), which made the whole thing feel like it wasn’t really worthwhile.

Now, there are some very nice visual elements, but, again, I can only see the sky reflected in water so many times before the charm fades away. Fish fly through the air in a nice sequence and there is a bit featuring a whale jumping out of the ocean that is a big “oof” moment, but other than those bits (and an obligatory hallucination sequence…which, honestly, wasn’t that great) there aren’t many sequences that really grab and hold you. Hell, there aren’t even too many “unbelievable” moments during this portion of the movie.

This makes Pi’s trip to the man-eating, meerkat infested island feel really out of place. The story, up to that point, was incredible (for sho), but not necessarily “unbelievable.” Once we get to a moment that actually is unbelievable, you’ll start to wonder “so, is the whole story bullshit, or just this part?” It’s a short lived sequence that just felt too weird, too out of place and too forced. Is the whole thing a metaphor for something else? Yes…well, probably. The film is incredibly vague about any hidden meanings (other than the “you’ll die if you stay here metaphor”) that may or may not exist, so it just ended up taking me completely out of the experience.

One of the little beefs I had with the movie was the heavy use of computer generated animals (which might explain the lack of animal shit on the tiny lifeboat…step your continuity game up). Now, I get it. Tigers are dangerous and living ones can’t be used all the time (because they like eating throats). I also understand that the setting of “a small boat on the open ocean” isn’t the easiest location to have an actual tiger roaming about. I see those obstacles and I understand why the filmmakers chose to go with computer generated animals for a majority of the shots, but I’m just saying that, if the film’s most important prop (and second-to-third most important character) can’t really exist for eighty percent of the movie, maybe you just shouldn’t make the movie. This is going to sound backhanded and nit-picky (because it is both of those things): the computer generated animals look really good…for being animated. The bottom line is that they are blatantly obvious and the transitions from real animal to digital version do a solid job of taking you out of the movie.

Now, there is a (for lack of a better term) “trick” used at the end of the movie and, I’ll admit, it’s a pretty great one. (Spoilers abound) The last ten minutes of the movie feature the entire “lost at sea” story being retold, but this time, the four animals on the boat are replaced with people. This means that the whole story might simply be an allegory (step your literary device game up) that our main character made up in order to emotionally and mentally deal with the extreme scenario he was in. I thought this was an excellent ending, but I felt like it was soiled a bit because a second “twist” comes into play when Pi poses a question to us, “which story do you like better?” It’s a completely personal feeling (and keep in mind that I love a good literary curve-ball), but I could’ve really done without the whole “pick the story you like better” ending. Of course the one with the tiger and the whale and the magical meerkat island is gonna be better (…because it’s slightly less depressing…and involves a kitty cat)

Overall, the movie offers a handful of memorable moments and not much else. The movie starts out as a typical “unbelievable life story” story and then proceeds to limp around from one sequence to the next. The first act does an alright job of involving the audience and making them care about the story’s main character, but it isn’t great, which makes the rest of the film a bit of a wash if you aren’t totally hooked on the character after twenty minutes. The bulk of the film features the main character lost at sea with a computer animated tiger, and this section features more boring moments than engaging ones. While the story is incredible, it never feels very desperate for our protagonist.

Now, I didn’t see the movie in 3D (because 3D is bullshit) so that might be why the visuals didn’t really hit with me the way they have with so many other people, but I can’t imagine it would help much.

I won’t say this is a bad movie, but it definitely isn’t a great one. It’s…okay at best. The story, as it unfolds, is fairly boring and repetitive. There are the big visual moments that may impress for the few seconds they exist, but there aren’t many visual elements that are consistently eye-grabbing. The final twenty-to-thirty minutes of the film replaces the grand visuals with nothing but softly delivered dialogue about metaphors, life and beliefs. To top the experience off, this ending will either make you believe that there is true magic in the power of storytelling or make you wish that the movie ended with a big fight between Pi and his tiger friend.

The Rating:

** out of *****

Ang Lee’s adaptation of an “unfilmable” novel proves the point that some material simply shouldn’t be given the big screen treatment. The main character’s story starts out as a quirky tale about growing up and, aside from being a bit formulaic, it’s effective enough. The bulk the film takes place at sea, where the main character is stranded on a lifeboat with a Bengal tiger as his only companion. This section of the film drags along and offers several stretches of time that feel very repetitive. Breaking up these stretches are big visual moments. These sequences are impressive, but they ultimately do little to spice up the tale. Because the situation never feels very desperate for our main character, this middle segment offers little in the terms of emotionally sucking you in, meaning that, aside from the four or five big visual instances, there is a solid hour of drag during the film’s most important setting. The end of the film changes pace and focuses on a discussion between two characters that revolves around life, religion and allegories. This ending hits the audience with a wonderful story-telling element that is sure to spark conversation, but it can’t fully make up for what was lacking earlier. At its core, the story in Life of Pi is an exercise in story telling techniques disguised as a big, visually interesting adventure. The problem with this adaptation is that it misses the mark when it comes to putting forth engaging emotions that work in tandem with the over-the-top visuals and successfully tie everything together in the end, meaning that the film has it’s moments and ends on a strong note, but ultimately doesn’t quite work as a whole.

Silver Linings Playbook

Mon, 07 Jan 2013 13:05:00 -0600

You know you have a shitty title when French people replace it with something simple and generic…

The Basic Plot:

Two people suffering from mental issues begin a friendship as they navigate the complexities of their illnesses and life itself. Based on a book I’ve never read by Matthew Quick.

The Break Down:

The film opens with Bradley Cooper (…who, as far as acting goes, seems to be just as average as possible) in a mental hospital. Like any loony bin cool guy worth his salt (step your idiom game up), Bradley refuses to actually take his medication and has a multicultural friend (Chris Tucker…who apparently isn’t dead). His mom (Jacki Weaver…who I didn’t know was an actress until now) suddenly shows up and takes him home, much to the surprise of his father (Robert De Niro…a relative unknown actor).

Bradley’s return home brings a lot of information to the surface. We find out that before his eight month stint in the institution, his wife was cheating on him. After a violent encounter with her side piece, which is the specific reason for his time away, she filed a restraining order against her hubby. Also, the school Brad worked for wants nothing do him with him (even though they still employ the man who ruined his marriage), leaving him without a job and nothing to do but read books, go jogging and act like an asshole to his parents (whom he lives with).

While having dinner with his best friend, B-Rad meets Jennifer Lawrence (…who, aside from having hips that could carry Andre The Giant’s children, seems to have more buzz than chops if you ask me), a girl who is as mentally unhealthy as he is. The duo interacts through a series of increasingly inappropriate situations and become (sort of) pals.

When J-Law offers to help Bradley communicate with his wife, he jumps at the opportunity (…because he’s mentally unstable…and a bit on the delusional side). The twist is that Jennifer will only help Brad (blatantly violate the law) if he helps her out in turn…by entering a couples dance contest with her (…seriously). They bond, drama stirs and the pair of crazies dance their hearts out in the film’s emotional finale.

So, if someone told me, like, literally ten seconds before walking into the theater, that I would actually enjoy this movie, I would’ve punched them in the gut (…metaphorically, of course, because I’m an adult). I’ve never been much for Bradley Cooper, Jennifer Lawrence or quirky romantic-comedy(-ish) things, so this one seemed like a lost cause from the start. I went and saw it (for free) only because I was expecting it to be bad, and if it was really bad, I could get some pleasure out of the situation by ripping it to pieces (with my words) for the enjoyment of my dear readers (…but mostly, I saw it because it was free…still love y’all, though).

What I enjoyed most about the movie (aside from the fact that its simply a well made picture) is that it’s hilarious. Like, legitimately laugh out loud funny. Most of the humor is incredibly dry and a lot of it gets fairly dark, but, being someone who loves jokes that are both dark and dry, almost every joke and comedic moment hit with me. There were times were I was the only person in the theater that was laughing, so, whether or not all of the humor was intentional is up for debate (also, I’m kind of a terrible person and I greatly enjoy the misfortunes of others…regardless of whether or not they’re real or in a movie, so that might’ve had something to do with it).

Doing a lot to help the material stay funny rather than fall into the category of “cripplingly depressing” are the performances from the entire cast. I think “sharp” is the best way to describe the performances here. Everyone is really solid and clearly put a great deal of effort into their roles. About a third of the movie centers around basic rom-com happenings, though. This means that there isn’t anything too special going on for roughly half the flick. I didn’t think that there was a really “amazing” performance from anyone, but there isn’t a weak spot in sight. I will say that Cooper and Lawrence both impressed me and they do have a fantastic chemistry together on screen. In fact, the entire cast has a great chemistry amongst themselves, something that really helps carry the experience and makes every scene feel very realistic.

The writing and the story here offered a bit of a mixed bag for me (a bit confusing after the last two paragraphs, I know, but stick with me). Yes, there are hilarious moments aplenty, but a lot of the first forty-five minutes or so feels very recycled. Specifically, what I getting at is the fact that the first three or four times Cooper and Lawrence interact, it’s basically the same scene over and over, right down to several similarities within the dialogue. Don’t get me wrong, these scenes are entertaining, but it never felt like things were going anywhere, which made it way more confusing when the plot actually started to move along.

So, roughly halfway through, the whole concept of this dance contest comes into play. Now, I love a good freestyle open as much as the next guy, but this thing came way the hell out of left field (I was legitimately baffled when it became clear that this was going to be central to the plot). At this point, the movie became much less about two characters with mental issues and much more about characters operating under the rules of a basic romantic comedy. It’s around here that I realized that the movie really isn’t anything more than a romantic comedy with some mental illness drama dressing it up a bit (but, I’m surprisingly okay with that). The main characters don’t gel at first, then they bond (montage’s abound), and then something silly gets the way of everything they’ve worked for (…it’s a football game…and racism, kinda) and then, all the problems are easily solved (as if they weren’t even problems in the first place…also, it’s all really ridiculous and gets pretty sappy and cliché by the end).

And that brings me to my big beef. The movie brings up a lot of heavy moments and then just sort of brushes them off to the side. This means that some important moments feel very forced.

One moment in particular that stood out to me was during a tailgating sequence at an Eagles game (step your NFL game up). In order to stir up some drama, Cooper and Co get into a scuffle with some douche-nozzles (it’s an industry term). Why does the fight start? Because Cooper and his pals are hanging out with Indian people (…and the most unprofessional therapist ever) when a random dude decides to insult the Indian people because they’re not from where he’s from (…where I’m from, you’re just happy to find other people supporting the city’s football team). Because the conflict is forced and unnatural, it makes this serious moment feel less than serious because it started in such a ridiculous manner.

Now, sometimes drunk white guys get racist, so, while I wasn’t happy about how the big stadium scene played out, I guess I can’t deduct too many points. What really took things down a notch is what happens next. Following the fight mentioned above, there is a very emotional back-and-forth between Cooper and De Niro. A moment that could’ve been a big developmental point for our main character on an effective, emotional level. The problem is that the moment is quickly cut off at the knees by a lengthy humorous bit and then just forgotten (as if it didn’t just happen moments ago). This was a moment that really grabbed me because what was happening between De Niro and Cooper was really engaging. It hooked it and made me legitimately concerned for what was going to happen next. Then suddenly, all of that legitimate tension is swept away and never made reference to again.

The film is guilty of doing this on several occasions, each one a bit more ridiculous than the last. Minutes before the couple’s big dance at the end of the film, Jennifer decides to get all mopey and downs two glasses of vodka. Bradley finds her, says eight words and then it’s as if that moment never happened. This bit shows a serious lapse in Lawrence’s character’s development, but no weight is given to it. It simply exists to try and stir up four minutes of drama in the last ten minutes of the movie. If the movie itself won’t put any real emphasis on the heavier notes, what benefit does anyone have with honestly getting involved?

Overall, this is a sharp, entertaining and well made movie that just isn’t sure how to handle itself all the time. The performances from the cast are all great and Cooper and Lawrence really shine in the lead roles. The movie is genuinely hilarious throughout (possibly unintentionally hilarious depending on how you take everything in), and nearly every single joke will hit with anyone who enjoys dry, dark humor. While a long first act will try to convince you otherwise, the plot here offers little more than what you’d expect from a by-the-numbers romantic comedy (…but it is both way more serious and way more ridiculous than your average Katherine Heigl movie). Instead of diving a little deeper into the character’s situations and illnesses, the film opts to use these more serious aspects as a sort of spring board into the more romantic bits of the story rather than as a legitimate plot point. In fact, by the third act, anything that might be a dramatic moment for the protagonists is usually passed by as if it were nothing. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing since the film keeps a surprisingly light tone throughout, but it is disappointing for anyone expecting a little more emotional heft. Even if you aren’t a fan of romantic comedies (because they’re for girls), you should find something to really enjoy with this one.

I’d like to close by saying that the dance sequence (you know, the whole thing that the film winds up hinging on) is actually pretty tits (…seriously).

The Rating:

**** out of *****

When a film tackles sensitive subject matter, such as mental and emotional illnesses, it has choices on how to play out, usually either as a serious drama or a semi-serious comedy. This film opts for the latter category and, while it deals with characters suffering from serious afflictions, these issues aren’t the true focus of the film. The center of this movie is a love story that plays out in the same way as most romantic comedies. By balancing serious and humorous moments, the film finds a nice groove for itself, keeping a tone that feels light but doesn’t alienate the more serious aspects as they arise. The only problem with this style of film making is that the more dramatic moments usually get interrupted with comedic ones, making some of the film’s serious scenes feel a bit glossed over and less important that they might otherwise be. The performances from the entire cast are wonderful; there is a real chemistry between everyone, especially the leads. The script is lean, sharp and makes great use of dialogue. While the film is highly entertaining and very likely to elicit more than one emotional response from different viewers, the repeated act of brushing passed the heavier, more serious moments means that we wind up with a final product that ultimately feels a bit shallow, simple and too easily solved. As a whole, the film ends up being little more than a romantic comedy dressed up with some more-serious-than-average thematic material, but it is consistently entertaining and filled with fantastic performances, making it a great experience a lot of people will really enjoy.

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey

Mon, 07 Jan 2013 13:05:00 -0600

I like how the poster features zero hobbits….

The Basic Plot:

A young hobbit joins a group of dwarves on a journey to reclaim their home that was stolen from them by a dragon. Prequel to The Lord of the Rings film trilogy and based on a book that I’ve actually read by J.R.R. Tolkien.

The Break Down:

I really liked the LOTR series of movies. Was I obsessed with them? No (…maybe with Viggo Mortensen a little bit…but he was rugged and badass, so shut up!). As someone who was a big fan of Peter Jackson before those movies, I was more impressed with the fact that he made three movies that weren’t campy gore-fests (step your pre-fame director knowledge game up). It’s fair to assume that I had a solid tingle of excitement for the big-screen treatment of the prequel to those films. In fact, I was so excited for this movie that I made the ultimate sacrifice and saw it in 3D (because the High Frame Rate version was only available in 3D…step your “seeing movies the way they’re intended to be seen” game up).

Like the first film of the preceding trilogy (in terms of theatrical release, not in terms of the movie world’s timeline), this one begins with a flashback sequence that covers the important bits of the story so far. We learn that a ton of dwarves lived inside a mountain, that they mined gold all day, were greedy and then got chased out of their underground home by a dragon (…turns out that dragons are total assholes).

That brings us to the story’s present setting where we re-visit our hairy footed hobbit friends. “Old Bilbo” (played by Ian Holm) decides to write down the tale of his one great adventure for his young nephew Frodo (Elijah Wood).

The story within the story begins with Gandalf the wizard (or, as he’s known in some circles, Magneto) making the decision that “young Bilbo” (Martin Freeman) has to go on a dangerous mission with a group of over-eating, manner-less dwarves (…also, turns out that wizards and dwarves are both kinda assholes). After relatively little convincing, Bilbo joins the company as a burglar (because he’s small?).

(Let’s just gloss over things in the interest of time) The group encounters a trio of hungry trolls (…all of whom speak with thick cockney accents…because there’s supposed to be some sort of sub-text about all British people being troll monsters? Yeah, probably not), they bump into a goofy (and pointless) wizard (played by a former Doctor Who star), get chased by angry orcs riding on the backs of large wolves (…the wolves are also angry), hang out with some elves (but, literally, only one of them is important…and even then, not really that important), get stuck under some rock giants (…which are way more awesome than the ones from The Never-Ending Story), and then rampage through an underground cave city inhabited by goblins (…also, trolls, orcs and goblins are all different things…because they’re different sizes?).

Bilbo plays games with everyone’s favorite emaciated loner, Gollum (played by Andy Serkis), finds the magical ring that is the basis for the LOTR series and the film ends with the group feeling positive about the rest of their journey (…also, eagles are there).

Now, anyone that knew anything about all the hubbub revolving around this movie series knew that it was probably gonna have some really lame bits. Bear with me as I go on a bit of rant here:

The Lord of the Rings is a three book series (each one running between four-hundred-ish and six-hundred-ish pages). The entire film trilogy, if we look at the super extend-o versions packed with everything that Peter Jackson wanted to include in them, is only slightly over twelve hours long.

The Hobbit is a three hundred page children’s book that is going to wind up with only slightly less screen time than the original film trilogy. There is something terribly wrong with that equation.

To anyone incapable of reading nerdy technical movie things on the internet, here’s some news: Peter Jackson made the decision to stretch out the story of The Hobbit in order to include other aspects from Tolkien’s writings. I’m not gonna read any of those stories any time soon, so, under normal circumstances, I’d see this as a positive. The problem comes with the fact that all of these additional bits are either pointless or just irritating set up.

For example, the group of orcs chasing the pack of dwarves (and the one hobbit and the one wizard) are led by a large albino orc. This particular fella has a vendetta against the leader of the dwarf company. This was never in the book (and it might not have been in anything else, I don’t know) and I can only assume that the character was added to give a more traditional story arc to the main dwarf. This doesn’t detract from the story (in fact it adds a pretty awesome fight scene) but it is ultimately a pointless addition that is simply there to squeeze some extra drama (and roughly ten minutes) into the run-time.

We also see the addition of the brown wizard Radagast. Not only is he way more pointless than the scary white orc, but his portion of the story serves no immediate purpose except to poorly set up something that’s going to come later (and maybe not even at all). It’d be one thing if this guy was, in any way, cool to watch, but he isn’t. I wasn’t ever really annoyed by the character, but more so by the fact that he was added simply to pad out the movies (and to show how, sometimes, even the world’s best costume designers have really stupid ideas…you’ll know it when you see it).

I wouldn’t bitch about the padding so much if it didn’t legitimately detract from the film. To keep things clear, it isn’t as if something bad and extraneous was added every ten minutes for no reason. The big problem is that the supplemental bits are stretched out and (despite not actually taking up too much of the film’s run-time) seem longer than the movie’s really good parts. There were several instances where I was painfully aware that I was sitting in a theater and my legs desperately needed a good stretch and I just wanted to see the dwarves murder some little monster things. Now, let’s not get it twisted, the good parts greatly outweigh the bad ones (by a large margin) but the bad parts are just so blatant, so clearly inferior to the rest of the movie that they take the whole experience down a notch.

I was more upset about the aspects that didn’t get puffed up. I would’ve been totally behind the flick if we got some extra background on the company of dwarves. We get background for the group’s leader and no one else. Hell, only half of them seemed to have speaking parts (and only half of them have important things to say). Instead of giving us reason to care about the guys we’ll be hanging out with for seven more hours of our lives over the next two years, we get nothing. I couldn’t even tell you what their names are, let alone an interesting fact about each one. I can tell you that there is a leader (who looks nothing like a dwarf), a burly, badass looking one, a ridiculously fat one, two pretty ones (who also don’t look dwarf-ish at all), one with an Irish accent, one who’s only weapon is a sling-shot (which was really lame) and…um…six other ones. I don’t care if Tolkien actually wrote about these guys; just make some shit up about ‘em. I couldn’t care less about the creepy wood wizard and his rabbit posse, but I know more about him than I do about the majority of the central characters.

To touch on more of the story itself, everything from the book is in here (well, roughly the first hundred or so pages of the book). The first group meeting, the trolls, the angry wolves and their smaller troll riders and the fun-filled romp through the caves filled with tiny trolls. We get the fantastic riddle sequence between Bilbo and Gollum. We even get a badass rock giant scene (…what might just be my favorite moment from the whole thing). All the moments that you actually remember happening (becasue you probably read the book when you were in seventh grade…and I just made myself feel old) are here and they are, hands down, the best parts of the movie.

I think it’s important to note that the film does a good job setting us up for the sequel, but too often that’s just what this feels like: simply a set up for the next one. Don’t get me wrong, I like that everything is going to link up and develop over time (but I gotta wait a goddamn year for that to happen, which means I gotta buy and watch this one on the super ultra-deluxe Blu-ray next Christmas so I’m not confused when I finally get around to seeing the next one), but I didn’t like how the movie felt like the first part of something bigger. Since the story was going to be broken up anyway, it was unavoidable, I guess, and the ending is a solid wrap up/jump off point, but not having the self containment of it’s own story makes the first installment feel a little unimportant.

All of those points, the good and the bad, are my big beef here. It comes down to the fact that, as a whole, this movie feels a bit disjointed and uneven. There are a lot of great moments (some seem a bit rushed and others don’t) and a few not-so-great moments (which all seem to linger way longer than they need to) and then a few moments that just sort of exist in between those. I see what Peter Jackson wanted to do and I totally support it, but it seems like he went about it in a backwards way. Yes, he added more to the movie, but we seem to be getting less out of the experience (at least, out of this first experience).

(Let’s move on) The special effects in this movie are insane. I don’t know if had to do with the high frame rate (more on that in a bit), but it was incredibly difficult to tell that the computer generated creatures (aside from some tiny woodland critters) weren’t really there (…which makes my irrational fear of fat, floppy necked goblin creatures so much worse). The quality of these effects is so high that these fantasy monsters look as real as the actual actors. The only times when the special effects were blatantly sub-par was during wide shots that features the group running in the background (imagine the screen in Pac-Man where you’re getting chased by the ghosts and that’s kinda what those few moments looked like). Bottom line is that the movie features what are possibly the best special effects to date in a film. It’s just really impressive stuff.

I’d like to touch on the high frame rate for a hot minute. I liked it, but I can see why others wouldn’t and I honestly can’t really see it catching on. I completely understand why cinematographers want to film this way, because the resolution and the clarity are simply unmatched. Visually, the movie is almost flawless (really, the damn thing is gorgeous).

The only negatives I found with the format were that it takes a few minutes to get used to (not really a big deal) and (because the human eye can only work so quickly) fast moving action gets pretty difficult to decipher (which was a pretty big deal for me…but I can’t be totally sure if that was completely due to the high frame rate or if it might’ve been exacerbated by the 3D…which isn’t immersive and the glasses are annoying and they make everything darker and the entire technology is stupid and it should just die! I don’t know if you could sort through my subtlety just now, but I really hate 3D).

In this format, the movie seemed to go through several different visual layers. Sometimes, the movie looked comparable to a high definition recording of a stage play, and other times, it simply looked like a regular movie with really great detail (sort of like a how a Blu-ray looks up close, but gigantic). The format never made me feel as if I was “there” (which was the ultimate goal here) and the 3D (although a bit smoother than usual) really detracted from my overall enjoyment. The technology is undeniably cool and I’m interested to see where it goes next, but I can’t say that it really added anything substantial to the viewing (at least until I see the “regular” version of the movie).

The acting is just what you expect from this series. Everyone does a really good job, the stand outs being Martin Freeman, Ian McKellen and Andy Serkis (who is in the film for ten minutes but steals the whole show). Freeman shows that he deserves leading man status with a great range and I’m excited to see how he develops over the next two films. The actors playing the dwarves all did fine, but their screen time feels terribly brief because we learn nothing about them. The ones that get to speak do a great job of feeling unique, but none of them offer anything that isn’t expected.

The tone, since the source material is from a children’s book, is quite a bit lighter than the LOTR films. There are a few very intense sequences but nothing on par with the original trilogy, so people expecting something more serious might be a bit disappointed. Jackson clearly tried to bring the source material to a more mature level, but there was only so much he could do without really getting away from what The Hobbit is about.

Overall, the movie is very good and (if nothing else) functions as a wonderful trip back to the fantastic realm of Middle-Earth. The performances are solid, highlighted by an excellent set of leads. One of the biggest highlights here are the phenomenal special effects. The quality of the computer generated creatures is so high that they appear as real as their living counterparts. Visually, the entire production is amazing. Sets and costumes feel real and the landscapes are rich with detail. This is a genuine treat for the eyes and completely deserving of the term “magical.”

While it does feature some intense, violent action, the tone is a fairly light one. Some of the action is difficult to process as it happens quickly, but most of it is crisp and exciting. The high frame rate format adds a level of visual clarity that is unmatched but ultimately fails to make the experience feel more immersive. The story has been padded out with extra bits that do little except extend the run time slightly or set up things to come in the next installment. These sections prove to be the film’s low points, and do detract from the enjoyment, but they don’t outright ruin the experience. What they end up doing is interrupting the movie’s flow, giving the film an uneven, sometimes disjointed feeling. There is a fantastic adaptation in here, but (like a fat guy grooming his junk) you have to work around a few irritating humps to find it.

The Rating:

**** out of *****

After years of positive and negative buzz, movie going audiences finally get to return to the fantasy world of Middle-Earth. While it features many more positive than negative aspects, the return isn’t as triumphant as hoped. This film is filled with solid performances and jaw-dropping special effects, but where it suffers is in the storytelling. The main plot here isn’t lengthy or complicated, but several additions have made it both. A handful of sub-plots have been added, but the film only features the beginnings of these, adding a fair chunk to the run-time but not adding anything too substantial to the story thus far. The tone is kept fairly light, but there are a handful of intense action sequences that might prove to be too much for younger viewers. These moments don’t rival the most intense ones from the previous trilogy, but they do clash with the lighter tone on occasion.

The final product is an enjoyable, entertaining and visually impressive film that is ultimately flawed because of a lack of focus. The elements that revolve around the main story are wonderful and the technical aspects are executed flawlessly; the world of Middle-Earth is as enchanting as it was when we left it nine years ago. While the addition of unnecessary padding mars the overall experience, there is a fantastic, entertaining adventure here that does a solid job of drawing us back into the magical world of J.R.R. Tolkien.

Skyfall

Sun, 16 Dec 2012 18:29:00 -0600

Only two of these characters are important…let the guessing game begin!

The Basic Plot:

After a near death experience, 007 goes after his most dangerous foe yet, a tech-savvy former agent who has a vendetta against Bond’s boss.

The Break Down:

Before we get into the gritty details here, I’d like to cover a bit of ground and share some thoughts about the Bond franchise in general.

To begin, there is a certain formula for making a James Bond film and it (more or less) goes like this:

1. Opening action sequence, often on the ridiculous side, has nothing to do with the rest of the movie.

2. Psychedelic title sequence that alludes to certain aspect within the movie, usually features a song by a popular recording artist.

3. Bond flirts with a secretary, M gives him a mission.

4. Bond gets outrageous gadgets, travels to exotic locations, meets villainous mastermind, and rails a girl he just met.

5. Girl dies, Bond doesn’t really care.

6. Action sequence, several nameless henchmen die.

7. Mission gets complicated, villain knows who Bond is.

8. Action sequence involving a car and/or gadgets, several nameless henchmen die, one-liner.

9. Bond bones another girl.

10. Over-the-top action sequence, dozens of nameless henchmen die, at least three things blow up, at least two one-liners.

11. Villain dies in a ridiculous manner; Bond bangs a girl in an outrageous setting.

12. Everything is fine.

Now, that formula worked for the better part of forty years (or twenty movies), but when the last few films during Pierce Brosnan’s tenure kept getting progressively worse (I’m looking at you Halle Berry…and everyone involved in Die Another Day) and overly ridiculous (and didn’t even include moon bases and laser guns), a new direction was obviously needed if the franchise was going to keep its head above water.

After the train wreck that was Die Another Day (can you tell that I really don’t like that movie?), Bond was to be recast and the series was to go through a “reboot.” Four years later, the dreamy Daniel Craig was cast as the lead and a new era of action ideals were available to throw at the character (mostly just parkour…also, step your crazy, alternative French sport-ish things game up).

Casino Royale hit theaters and blew away everyone’s expectations (it was also pretty solid…aside from the fact that, literally, the entire plot hinged on a goddamn card game…something that will never, ever, be exciting or fun to watch). It’s important to note that, instead of working as a standalone entrant in the long running series, the film ended by setting up the story arc for the next film, a first for the franchise.

Then the ill named Quantum of Solace came out…and it was awful. By being boring, overly angst-y and lacking anything resembling a respectable villain, it was a big step in the wrong direction for the franchise (a franchise that, only eight years earlier, had been known for taking lots of big steps in wrong directions).

Here’s the thing, while the people behind Casino Royale might’ve had the best intentions with laying the groundwork for future films, or even simply the next film, the quality standard that they set was only good if the series continued at that level (which it clearly didn’t). This means that, as good as Casino Royale was, it was an incomplete story and one that is actually marred by a poor next installment.

(Then MGM went bankrupt for a hot minute…but we don’t talk about that much) So, that brings us to 2012, and the return of Bond to the silver screen. And, I must say, what a triumphant return it is.

The movie begins with an action sequence that involves Craig and fellow agent Naomie Harris (some of you might know from her god-awful performance in Ninja Assassin) chasing a bad guy through Turkey. Ms. Harris accidentally shoots Bond, sending him sailing off of a speeding train and into a river, allowing the bland baddie to escape.

Then we listen to a song by Adelle (that dame can sing!) and watch a bunch of trippy shit.

A few months pass and some evil, faceless entity has discovered the identities of every undercover MI6 operative (step your international secret service game up). In order to show that he isn’t playing around, the unknown villainous mastermind blows up MI6 headquarters after sending a direct threat to the organization’s leader (played by Judi Dench).

During this time, Craig has been alive and enjoying life by the beach. He bangs a girl (who’s only lines in the film are passionate moans), plays outrageous drinking games (involving live scorpions) and does nothing fulfilling with his time. Once he sees a newscast of the bombing (which is a pretty lame plot device), he decides that it’s time to return home and get back to murdering nameless henchmen.

The middle of the film involves Lord Asrial going through some tests, traveling to exotic locations and banging two chicks (one of whom dies). In a fairly easy manner, he tracks down Silva, the movie’s villainous mastermind (played by Javier Bardem…who just absolutely kills it!). (Long story short) Bond captures the bad guy, who then escapes from custody and attempts to kill Judi Dench but fails.

Craig and Dench travel to Scotland and hide out in Bond’s parent’s abandoned estate. With the help of the groundskeeper (the severely underused and often underrated Albert Finney) they set up various traps for the villain and his dozen or so henchmen.

A lot of people die and then everything is fine.

Now, what I really enjoyed about this movie (both as an entrant in the James Bond franchise and simply as a movie) was that it focused on the execution and didn’t really worry about anything else. The film plays fast and loose with the “Bond Movie Outline” mentioned above, but it hits the right marks when it needs to.

The scope of the film isn’t huge (no one wants to rob Fort Knox…or fund international terrorism…or take over the world from a moon base), and, instead of throwing over-the-top moments at the audience, the film opts for a much more intimate series of events. Everything feels very contained here, which gives a nice sense of weight to the film because the characters are forced to have actual human-ish motivations. Bond isn’t fighting for the safety of the world, he’s literally protecting a woman who is kind of a twat to him all the time (but who he loves…maybe).

It’s very important to mention that the filmmakers behind this movie clearly stole a lot of ideas from other movies. Our hero goes through a development cycle in the first act that is eerily similar to Bruce Wayne in The Dark Knight Rises (meaning that he’s hurt and really shouldn’t return to doing what he wants to do, but does so anyway and really hasn’t lost a step even though he really should be a lot worse at the job). In the second act, the villain’s capture is handled a lot like Loki’s in The Avengers (meaning that he lets himself get captured, is kept in a glass structure, gives a big speech, and then easily escapes…because he planned it all out way ahead of time). The third act blatantly rips off the Home Alone series (meaning that Craig and Co fill a large house with traps meant to ward off the bad guys).

I can’t be too mad at the movie for jackin’ everyone’s style, because it uses these elements well (…okay, the Home Alone bit was a little out there…but at least it was entertaining). What I did enjoy was that between these borrowed elements, the movie hits the notes of a typical Bond film, making the entire production feel very familiar, which made it more accessible, which ultimately makes it more entertaining. Without a convoluted plot to trudge through, it makes it easier to focus on everything else the film offers.

“But what does the film offer?” I’m glad you asked. The film has two incredible strengths working for it. First, the movie looks fantastic. Cinematography this good doesn’t deserve to be in a Bond movie (step your backhanded compliment game up). From a visual standpoint, this sets the bar high for not only future Bond films, but for future action films as well. Everything, from how the action sequences were filmed, to how we view the character’s surroundings is done flawlessly. There is even a long shot or two, which always get me excited.

The second big strength is the action itself. While there is a pretty noticeable focus on set pieces involving trains (it’ll make sense when you see the movie), the action bits are some of the best of the year. When it comes to the grand, over-the-top action you expect from a Bond film, this puppy delivers. Motorcycles racing on rooftops? Check. Ripping a train open with construction equipment? Check. A train being thrown at a person? Check. Exploding mansion? Check. The action scenes are also fairly well balanced throughout. Each act has one big set piece and the second act features several hand-to-hand combat sections. There isn’t a lot of frantic, shitty editing, which means that you actually get to watch the fights unfold. The icing on the cake is the fight choreography is pretty solid. Nothing groundbreaking, but it’s realistic and complex enough to impress most any action aficionado.

I will say that the writing isn’t stellar. There are moments of greatness, but most of the time the script is serviceable enough to just not be noticeably awful. Bardem and Ben Whishaw (the series newest, and youngest, Q) get the best lines in the film. On a very similar note, the acting from the cast is solid, but Bardem steals every scene he’s in (like I said, he just kills it).

Overall, the movie is great. It has a lot of action, it’s serious when it needs to be and it feels familiar on several different levels. Shifting away from the overly angst-y Bond of the previous film was a good move. We still have a more emotional 007 than what the older films offered, but the emotions here are more subtle and often never too focused on. The movie looks fantastic, boasting impressive cinematography throughout. The fight choreography and action set pieces are also eye-catching, meaning that (visually, at least) there is rarely a low point.

In addition to having a plot that boils down to little more than Javier Bardem holding a grudge against Judi Dench, the film borrows several ideas from other movies, everything from visual aspects to important story elements, which means that this isn’t the most original film is the long running series. I would feel the need to say something like “the writers and director are talentless hacks who’s only hope of crafting a solid film was to steal from other movies,” but, in a time where Quentin Tarantino can shamelessly piece his movies together from foreign films (and wind up making pretty badass flicks), I’d rather say something like, “who gives a shit?”

This brings me back to my point about execution. Yes, it’s derivative. Yes, there are several really ridiculous moments (Yes, Javier Bardem actually does kill it). These negatives do weigh against the film, but because everything is executed with style and confidence, they aren’t that noticeable as negatives (at least not as noticeable as they certainly could be). There are a few hiccups along the way, but the bottom line here is that the positives greatly outweigh the negatives, and at times even completely overshadow them. The movie is simple to follow, beautiful to look at, features some of the best action that the Jame Bond series has ever seen and is sure to entertain from start to finish. It isn’t perfect, but, by mixing great action with many of the aspects that made the classic films so popular, this is a great return to form for everyone’s favorite super spy (and it almost makes you forget about how eye-gougingly terrible Quantum of Solblahblahblah was…and just how stupid that title was).

The Rating:

**** out of *****

The twenty-third entrant in the fifty year spanning series does a great job of treading some new ground while remaining familiar to both new and old fans alike. The film maintains the slick, modern-day action sequences featured in the two previous films during the current “rebooted era,” but partially returns to the classic formula that achieved so much success with the franchise’s earlier films. The movie does blatantly use several aspects from other films, which might leave a bad taste in the mouths of some moviegoers. Making up for the lack of a truly original story are the film’s exciting action sequences. Everything from chases to explosions to hand-to-hand brawls will keep your eyes glued to the screen. When things slow down, the wonderful cinematography shows off the world with artful expertise, making nearly every single visual truly eye-catching. The writing and acting, aside from a few stand out moments, isn’t anything special for the espionage action thriller genre, but it never really detracts from the film. While simple and derivative at times, this installment in the long running series offers a beautifully shot, highly entertaining experience that finally melds the franchise’s rebooted attitude with some of the classic aspects that garnered 007 so much popularity over the years.

The Woman In Black

Sun, 02 Dec 2012 16:04:00 -0600

I can only assume, because of the god awful quality of this poster, that the movie was a direct-to-video release in France. I mean, look at this thing. Just…Jesus…

The Basic Plot:

A young man must scour a dead woman’s estate for her will. The simple job grows increasingly difficult when supernatural occurrences begin happening, all centering around a woman dressed in black. Based on a book I’ve never read by Susan Hill.

The Break Down:

There are two kinds of horror movies: Good ones (a category which contains several sub-categories, such as “slasher,” “ghost,” “creature,” etc, etc) and shitty ones (which is more of an “across-the-board bad movie” kind of thing). It both pains me (because I had to sit through the damn thing) and brings me great joy (because now I’m going to make fun of it) to say that this particular entry into the horror genre clearly falls on the side of “shitty.”

Daniel Radcliffe plays a lawyer (…maybe?) who is given an assignment to travel from London to a small village and track down a woman’s last will and testament from her large, secluded estate. To give him some sort of drive to actually do his job, his boss tells him that this is his last chance to prove that he wants his to keep his job (this interaction leads me to believe that old D-Rad is a pretty shitty lawyer-ish person-thing and will now do whatever it takes to complete his job…even if it means dealing with, oh, I don’t know, ghosts, or something crazy like that).

Radcliffe leaves his young son in the care of a live-in nanny and (because this is a period piece) takes the train to the quaint little town (I forgot the name of the town, if it was ever said, so let’s just refer to the place as Hogwarts from now on). His first stop is at the Hogwarts Inn where his employer supposedly booked him a room for the week. The first sign that this town is terrible place to live is that the inn keeper (in a sort of frightened/douchebag-ish manner) tells our protagonist that there are no rooms available and that he has to leave immediately.

The scared/asshole behavior continues with literally every person in the town (I don’t know about you, but if each and every human being I encountered in a small town was just creepy and dick-ish to me, I’d ask a few questions about why…and then promptly poop in their drinking water…or something mean like that). After bribing a carriage driver to take him out to the dead woman’s estate, spooky (really stretch out those O’s) things start to happen.

As Harry Potter attempts to look through large stacks of papers, really strange noises continually echo throughout the house (at which point I would’ve said “fuck it, I’ll find a new job” and bounced). When he investigates, he finds doors that he can’t unlock and a crow that has nested inside a furnace (not an important piece of information). He also notices a woman in a black dress standing out on the property. When he leaves to check on her, a thick fog has settled over the area and he hears the sounds of screaming and a cart crashing (just one more reason to leave immediately).

Everyone’s favorite wizard returns to Hogwarts and is greeted with more odd behavior: a young girl (at least six or seven years old, mind you) shows up, vomits blood onto him and dies (because she drank a bunch of lye…which just goes to show you how smart the people of this village are). Naturally, the inhabitants blame Radcliffe for the girl’s death. It is later explained to Daniel that every time someone sees the woman in black, a child dies shortly after (a tidbit that I probably would’ve made known before things got out of hand).

Armed with this new information (which he thinks is total bullshit), Daniel decides to go back to the estate (because only small town idiots believe in ghosts, right?), and stay through the night on his mission to track down the one specific document (that probably doesn’t even exist) that he needs to keep his job. After roughly ten minutes of actual work, creepy (really stretch out those E’s) things begin to happen. A lot of eerie stuff goes down this time: everything from a rocking chair loudly rocking on its own to a room where several creepy wind-up toys go off at the same the time to an actual ghost face screaming inches away from Radcliffe’s mug.

Now, armed with the information that ghosts are in fact real (and also incredibly annoying) Daniel decides to do what he can to set the spirit at peace (so he can finally track down the woman’s will and keep his awesome job). With the help of Ciaran Hinds (who is utterly wasted in this movie), our self-appointed hero pulls the woman in black’s dead son out of an icky marsh, shows the disgusting corpse to the ghost and then buries the kid in the back yard.

Then we get a twist ending…which is basically that the ghost doesn’t give a shit. So, she kills Daniel (and his young son) even though he was really nice to her. Then we get a weird/sad/happy/really stupid ending.

There are a lot of reasons why this is a bad movie. Wooden performances abound, a severe lack of sustained tension, a lame spectre and, worst of all, we are actually supposed to take the entire thing seriously.

The first moment that I stopped caring about anything that was going on was the very second that Daniel Radcliffe was introduced as the protagonist. Now, I don’t have any beef with the guy, and I think he did a solid job as Harry Potter (a role he will never escape, no matter how many off-Broadway plays he shows his penis during), but no matter how much patchy, gross, pubic-ish 1800’s facial hair you glue on his face, he still looks like he’s fifteen (and maybe a girl). I just can’t take him seriously in a role where he isn’t playing a kid. To make matters worse, he gives a pretty terrible performance. Wooden? Yeah. Boring? For sure. Uncharismatic? Absolutely.

Now, I imagine that part of this can be attributed to the fact that the character is pretty damn lame in general. It also seems that the director had no idea how to do his job, because nearly all of the actors come off as wooden and bland. Radcliffe’s character is determined to keep his job, but he comes off almost stoic as he barely flinches (or makes any sort of reaction at all) at the very real ghost that is haunting the scary building he’s in (and murdering children). It’s a thinly written character at best, because at no point is there any reason for him to continue to take the risks he does. He doesn’t even go through a change, he just stays fairly mellow throughout the entire ordeal. It makes you wonder why Radcliffe picked this project as his first one “post-Potter,” because there are no benefits to having portrayed this particular character (or being in this movie for that matter).

The second biggest reason the movie sucks (on a much less personal note, but much more important one) is that the “horror” bits are nothing but bullshit jump scares. Anyone that calls themself a “horror buff” has to (and I mean has to) hate these kinds of movies. When someone makes a movie and relies on a constant supply of things (…things, mind you, that greatly very on actual scariness) jumping from off camera into someone’s face, it makes for a dragged-out, one-note experience. The writer and director, by using jump scares throughout this entire piece of shit, essentially are equating the scariness of a bird flapping around and surprising you to a “real-life” ghost screaming bloody murder inches away from your face (I don’t know about you, but if I had to pick one of those two things to be inherently scarier than the other, it’d be the ghost one…although seeing a single bird flounder on the ground is a close second).

It needs to be said that, around the halfway mark, the movie does develop some genuinely creepy atmosphere. What ruins this portion of the film is that, after the buildup, which includes a room filled with creepy wind-up toys and a surprisingly effective use of sound effects, we get right back to the goddamn jump scares! And then we quickly leave behind anything that might be considered “good” in exchange for a sequence where Harry Potter crawls eight feet into a “marsh” and instantly finds a dead kid.

Another big thing holding back the masterpiece that I just know is hiding somewhere in here (step your sarcasm game up), is that the “ghost story” portion of this ghost story isn’t…told. During Daniel’s several trips to the haunted estate, bits and pieces of why this ghost exists are revealed, but it’s all in pretty poor fashion. As best as I can figure out, some chick went crazy, so her kid was taken way. The kid then died because the cart he was riding in sank into a “marsh” that is approximately eight feet long and, like, six feet deep (and honestly, even if the kid managed to escape that “not quite as dangerous as its made out to be” predicament, I’m sure a lone, flailing bird would’ve scared him into falling out a window before too long). With a boring, poorly explained “story within the story,” we end up with just another reason to not care at all about anything going on here. Half the fun of a ghost story is finding out why the ghost is around in the first place.

Overall, this is a really bad movie. In a genre that is already over-saturated with bland, cliché bullshit, adding nothing new to the mix is a cardinal sin. I get it, Radcliffe is bankable with the kiddies (and the kiddies love nothing more than a shitty horror movie), but that shouldn’t be a good enough reason to put out crap like this. Sure, there’s about six minutes in the middle that make it seem like something good might blossom outta this turd of a movie, but does six minutes of well used sound effects justify the nearly twenty million dollar budget? With a final product that offers nothing but wooden performances and jump scares aplenty, I would’ve expected more for that price tag.

The worst part about this whole thing isn’t that the acting is bad or that there isn’t anything actually scary, it’s that the viewers are supposed to take this damn thing seriously. This movie is meant to be a legitimate horror flick (even though it barely qualifies as a movie in general). If the one thing that the film makers wanted to get across here is that “sometimes, ghost ladies are just angry forever,” then it shouldn’t have ever been made. Horror movies, real horror movies, should get a response from you, not just during the viewing, but after as well. While it might keep fourteen-year-old girls on the edge of their seats, watching Harry Potter quietly light candles for ten minutes and then not even get spooked when a ghost woman screams in his face doesn’t exactly get my blood pumping. I want my horror movies to make me hesitant to turn my light off at night, or to make me really question whether that dog across the street is actually a murderous alien or not, or make me think that a ghost woman is actually threatening to anyone other than the idiot kids of some asshole strangers (spoiler: she isn’t). I don’t want a horror movie to bore me to death, then tease with potential for six minutes, then make me hate myself for committing to sit through the damn thing. Aside from making me happy that I wasn’t born in the 1800’s, this movie offers nothing in the way of getting a reaction from me, making it completely worthless as a horror movie.

The Rating:

1/2 out of *****

Transferring terror from the page to the screen can be quite difficult, and this film is the perfect example of why. Between having next to nothing in terms of a substantial back story, a bland, uncharismatic lead character and only a few minutes of genuine tension stuck in the middle of the ninety minute run-time, this adaptation of the Susan Hill novel fails to offer anything remotely new to the world of horror. The performances are weak and wooden from the entire cast, wasting a solid amount of on-screen talent. For a movie that is supposed to be classified as “scary,” there is a severe lack of horror here. Aside from some short-lived, eerie atmosphere during the midpoint, the movie relies heavily on various things, from birds to ghosts, popping up on screen and forcing you jump. Once these moment pass, there isn’t any sense of lingering terror, making for an ineffective horror experience. To make matters worse, no solid attempts are made at drawing the audience into the ghost’s story being told within this ghost story, giving the villainous apparition little more than cliché anger as a driving force. The movie suffers greatly from several layers of poor story-telling, lackluster performances and a complete lack of anything remotely original, making it a run-of-the-mill, unnecessary film that does nothing but attempt to cash in on fans of the baby-faced lead who are ignorant to the fact that better horror movies are readily available.

Argo

Tue, 20 Nov 2012 01:10:23 -0600

I like how the only thing about the movie being conveyed through this poster is that Ben Affleck is in it…

The Basic Plot:

Set during the 1979 Iran hostage crisis, a CIA “exfiltration specialist” uses a fake Hollywood movie as a cover for rescuing six American citizens trapped in Tehran (which, we all know, is the capitol city of Iran). Based on a declassified true story.

The Break Down:

The film opens with a quick history lesson about the Shah of Iran (which is basically a fancy term for “king”). We learn about how the OG Shahs liked to murder people for no reason and their wives sometimes bathed in milk (which is more gross than anything). In more modern times, the U.S. and Britain joined forces and overthrew a particularly shitty Shah (because our countries like starting drama) and put a brand new one in his place. That guy (the one we hand-picked to not be a total shit head, mind you) turned out to be a total shit head and did his best to ruin the country…until the people of Iran decided to violently revolt (like whoa).

Now (1979), the Iranian people, who are very angry about the whole “coup de…Shah,” (Get it? The words rhyme!) are out for American blood and they go straight for the U.S. Embassy (which is, unsurprisingly, chalk full of Americans). Six workers escape out the back door (which, for some unknown reason, none of rioters thought was an important place to watch) and are taken it by the Canadian ambassador.

The CIA then decides that rescuing these six people is super important (because if found, they will be hung or beheaded or hung and then beheaded…the Iranian people know their wheelhouse when it comes to public displays of murder), so they bring in the best man for the job (who is, clearly, Ben Affleck). His plan is to build cover identities for the group so they can pose as Canadian film makers scouting locations for an epic sci-fi movie (which is just a blatant rip-off of Star Wars).

I’m a big fan of Affleck’s current run of directing efforts (Gone Baby Gone and The Town are both fantastic). Add a very interesting premise that might be considered stranger than fiction and I had some high expectations here. Now, while I will say that I think this is the weakest of Affleck’s directed films, it is still a very good movie. There is a lot to love here, and it has to be his most “technical” project yet, but there is really a big issue that hangs over the whole production: it never feels very…(picture elaborate hand gestures as I search for the best word to use)…important.

The initial riot sequence is spliced together with footage of the actual event and it shows just how much effort went into the details, because the images are staggeringly similar. Everything is very tense and realistic and does a great job of giving the scenario a good sense of gravity.

After the set up, we leave the six embassy workers alone for a majority of the second act and focus on Affleck’s side of things. While jetting around Hollywood getting all the particulars together for the cover story (which is way more complicated than it needs to be), the tone is light and funny. John Goodman and Alan Arkin are both solid in their supporting roles as a CIA agent-turned-makeup artist and a big wig movie producer (respectively). There are constant stabs at the Hollywood system (at least the one from the seventies), most of which are about as subtle as an ill-timed erection (while going commando in athletic shorts). With the entire act having a more comedic feel, you almost forget that there are six characters hiding for their lives. The goings-on are entertaining, but not there isn’t a lot of “heft” to watching Affleck and Co (sounds like a…car repair shop) buy film rights from the fat guy from Spin City (my reference game is still on point).

Affleck (who, by the way, is playing a Hispanic guy…which was weird…because he doesn’t try to be anything other than a white dude) finally makes his way into the belly of the beast and has a fairly easy time (over the course of, literally, a single day) getting through airports, meeting with Iranian government officials and receiving all the proper documents that you need in order to scout for filming locations (The Iranian people actually seem really nice and accommodating during this section of the movie…also, I guess telling people you’re from Canada instead of the US goes a long way in them not murdering you).

Our hero finally meets up with the six people he needs to rescue, gives them their cover identities and tells them that they have a day before they need to be immersed in their roles (something you think six frightened, middling government officials would have a harder time with). Even when the group is forced to venture into the city’s marketplace and get accosted by several angry citizens, when the danger of getting caught and beheaded (by hanging) is palpable, the situation never feels like it’s closing in around our protagonists (regardless of large crowds of people literally closing in around out protagonists).

Even the big finale isn’t as tense as it could or should be. We get this Mission: Impossible style break down the the airport’s security check-points (first, it’s bag check…then, a room filled with lasers…and just for clarification purposes, 1979 Iran probably didn’t actually have any laser filled rooms…step your sarcasm game up), but the group moves through each one with relative ease.

I attribute the lack of really gripping tension to the lack of fleshed out characters. While Affleck’s last two films were populated with complex characters and moral ambiguity, that isn’t the case here (also, it really shouldn’t be). Here, Affleck gets the most screen time, but we don’t learn much about his character (except that he’s never failed a mission and he has a clichéd level of responsibility when it comes to helping strangers). The six embassy workers get no development. Most of them are fine with the situation, one or two of them aren’t and that’s really all the conflict they offer. Now, don’t get it twisted, the acting from everyone is very good, and the physical likeness to their real life counterparts is frightening, we just never get into the characters.

Like I said before, this is probably Affleck’s most “technical” film and the excellent work behind the camera proves that he is quickly becoming one of the top directors working today. The editing and cinematography are both fantastic and the writing takes a real-world event and makes it easily accessible and understandable for the audience (I’m sure the actual situation wasn’t at all more complicated than how it’s portrayed here). The film was put together with care and precision, which really helps carry it along.

Overall, the movie is incredibly well made and consistently entertaining, but just not as engaging as it could’ve been. The two hour run time flies by, which is good and bad because while we don’t linger too long on any one sequence, we never get to stay around long enough to see tension build. The acting from the cast is solid, but Affleck’s character, a rather generic G-man with a code of honor, gets the most screen time, leaving little time for the rest of the cast (mostly the six people at the center of the story) to get developed at all. Even Affleck lacks a true development arc. This isn’t a “bad” thing, but it means that every single character is just to be taken at face value (“this one is scared” “this one isn’t” “this one doesn’t trust anybody” “this one is a girl” “this one is the attractive girl”). Because of these factors, nothing ever feels like it’s really “on the line.” There aren’t any moments where the tension feels very “real,” making the fact you’re watching a movie almost painfully clear. It’s well made, and it offers solid entertainment, but it just doesn’t ever get the blood pumping the way it should.

The Rating:

***1/2 out of *****

For his third venture as a director, Ben Affleck tackles the true story of the 1979 Iranian hostage crisis. This is easily Affleck’s most technically sound film; he uses editing, sound and cinematography to great effect. It is important to note that this is also his lightest effort as well. The movie doesn’t have the complex characters and moral tension of Affleck’s previous films. The acting is solid across the board and no one turns in a weak performance, but the characters don’t feel very developed. The biggest dark cloud looming over the production is that there isn’t much tension throughout and nothing ever really feels very important. The majority of the second act carries a light, humorous tone and, during the third act, the group makes their way through the Iranian streets and airports without much trouble. Affleck might’ve done his best to stay as true to reality as possible, but when the audience is lead to believe the situation is near-suicide, seeing each step of it completed with relative ease takes a lot of air out the film’s sails. Affleck has crafted a film that is well acted and entertaining, but it’s quick pace and lack of character development means that the final product fails to honestly grab and excite.

The Devil's Double

Tue, 20 Nov 2012 01:10:16 -0600

That’s exactly how The Tin Man from The Wizard of Oz died…true story

The Basic Plot:

The story of Uday Hussein, the psychotic, eldest son of Sadam Hussein, and his body double, Latif, who has been forced into the role against his will. Based on the book I’ve never read by Latif Yahia (yeah, the same guy the movie is about).

The Break Down:

This little adventure starts in the desert where a soldier, Latif (played by Dominic Cooper, who has had a ten year career but is still basically unknown), is being taken to meet Uday Hussein (…also played by Dominic Cooper).

Because the men look nearly identical, Uday asks Latif to be his full time body double (so no one knows who the real one is…until they murder them, I guess). Latif doesn’t want to (because turning down offers from wealthy psychopaths always leads to good things, right?), so Uday threatens to murder Latif’s family and he promptly changes his mind (like a pussy).

Latif goes through some simple surgeries in order to fully look like Uday and is introduced to the decadent lifestyle of the Hussein family. He’s generally a big sour puss about everything (because fancy cars, expensive suits, guns, women, booze and money can’t replace family…which I don’t believe at all). He constantly throws fits about his situation, but also shows that he can convincingly portray Uday (but he only does that to be bitchy).

Uday drags Latif around with him everywhere: to the club (where Uday tongue fucks the mouths of hookers…and trannys…seriously), for drives through the city (where Uday attempts to pick up young school girls to bone and murder…seriously), to his sweet mansion (where Uday has a pool…which is pretty nice, I guess), even to a random wedding (where Uday, somehow, gets the bride alone in a bedroom and then rapes her…seriously). The entire time they’re together, Latif disapproves (understandably so) and sometimes stops Uday from doing despicable things (but not as often as he should…because he’s a pussy).

Things get so bad that Latif escapes the country with one of Uday’s concubines (a term that, I think, people should start using more…because it sounds fancy and professional). The movie ends with Latif shooting Uday in the dick (…seriously).

This is a really odd movie. It has a good actor playing dual roles and a very interesting plot ripped from real life (well, as real as a random guy’s, probably exaggerated autobiography can get), but, man, it’s just not very good.

The biggest problem here is that there isn’t much of a story. An interesting concept (for sho), but not an actual story. The majority of the movie is spent just watching Uday doing horrible shit to people. His temper leads his to murder people, like in a laughably bad sequence involving a sword and a fat guy’s intestines…which looks like a bundle of rape tentacles (oh, don’t act like you don’t know what rape tentacles look like), his fucked up sense of how you should treat women leads him to rape several of them (regardless of having droves of women that will bone him on command) and his fucked up sense of entitlement leads him to treat the people around him, like his private concubine, his family and Latif, as if they are toys.

And, like, that’s it. While Uday is committing atrocities, Latif just pouts in the corner (some times literally). This dude is, supposedly, a soldier (a lieutenant, to be exact…and, while I have no idea where that rank places him in the army, that title sounds important), but he refuses to do anything regardless of being around his counterpart all day every day. I get that it’s based on a book, but, out of all the possibilities of how this film adaption could play out, the film makers chose “nothing happens for most of the time and then our main character gets shot in the dick.” Really? C’mon!

The problem here is that Latif is a boring pussy. He never does anything and when he finally decides to take action, it’s running away from his problems. Instead of focusing on Latif’s mental state and how he might’ve changed over the months (or years…or days, maybe…I have no idea how much time actually passes during the film) we focus on how messed up Uday is. Even his character is bullshit. He’s just crazy for the sake of being crazy. We aren’t given a reason. No one grows or changes over the course of the movie, which makes it impossible to actually care about what’s going on.

Overall, the movie isn’t really a movie. It’s ninety minutes of a repeated premise that never really goes anywhere and then ten minutes that culminate in a man being shot in the penis (which was probably made up…I mean, would you buy a book if you knew that it ended with Sadam Hussein’s kid getting shot in the junk? I wouldn’t, but I can see the appeal).

Cooper’s performances at the center of the film are solid (if not a bit one-note) and the first act of the film is actually engaging, but we then spend the majority of the film being shown how Uday is nothing but a heartless monster. It’s messed up because Uday is responsible for the film’s most “interesting” bits. It’s irritating after a while, because the film is devoid of complexity, something that it desperately calls for. (Rape and murder aside) When you have to choose between “caring” about an asshole-ish psychopath or an annoying pussy, at least the psycho might get a rise out of you. Dominic Cooper’s performances (his first and only starring role to date) notwithstanding, the story being told feels like it was made up by an eager child who doesn’t know anything about story structure: “We were in a desert…and the two of us looked the same…and I, um, I got lotsa nice clothes and stuff, but, but I didn’t want ‘em…oh, and then he cut a guy’s stomach open and ALL HIS GUTS FELL OUT! And, and then I didn’t like him very much so I ran away and then I shot him in the peepee” (If you didn’t read that in a child’s voice…you should’ve).

The Rating:

* out of *****

The premise here is an interesting one that has been pulled from someone’s real life experiences, but it just doesn’t translate well to film. Dominic Cooper shows his range and talent as he plays two very different characters, but the story being told here leaves much to be desired. The biggest problem hovering over the movie is that the premise never really goes anywhere. Sequence after sequence is dedicated to showing the audience just how terrible one character is, but it gets repetitive after a while. The movie never evolves into the complicated crime drama it promises to, which proves to be a big disappointment and a waste of two good performances from the film’s leading man.

Battleship

Wed, 31 Oct 2012 22:05:00 -0500

I like this poster because it could be promotional material for the movie or it could just be a weird Asian ad for, I dunno, yo-yos or gummy bears or something…

The Basic Plot:

Aliens + Navy + Terrible = This. “Based” on the Hasbro board game (a phrase which I, literally, cannot type without letting out a sad, audible sigh).

The Break Down:

This movie finally manages to answer the age-old question of, “Can you make a Transformers movie without the Transformers?” That answer is, of course, no, but I’ll be damned if they didn’t try their little hearts out to do just that. So, let’s cover what little “plot” there is here real quick.

We start this little adventure by being told that there are planets in the universe that are similar to Earth (which, we all know, is actually impossible). These planets are near a sun (but not so close or far away that everything dies) and could potentially support life. So, the people of Earth (actually more like just four dudes hanging out in a small room) decide to send out a message to these planets. Every. Single. Day (like a girlfriend starved for attention…also because they’re idiots).

Our main character is introduced (the living rock, Taylor Kitsch) and, no surprise, he’s worthless at being a person. He’s immediately smitten with a female stranger (who has entered a seedy pub by herself and ordered a burrito from the bar…because she’s a catch), so he makes the decision to break into and rob a convenience store in order to impress her (and I just wanna say that, if a random girl you’ve known for eight seconds immediately thinks you’re a drunken tool box but is then impressed by the fact that you broke into and stole a microwave burrito from a 7-11, she’s probably not a great person).

Kitsch’s brother (True Blood’s Alexander Skarsgard…also, True Blood is awful…) is a Naval Officer. Because Kitsch is terrible at existing (something that not even movie magic can hide), his brother makes him (makes him) join the Navy (I don’t know a lot about how exactly the military works, but I’m pretty sure you need to pass tests to join, one of which might be “did you break into and rob a convenience store last night?” or “Do you want to join the Navy?” or “Do you have more brain cells than fingers?”)

A few years pass (but I have no idea if it’s the present or the future or any sort of idea how much time has passed…whatever). During some super fun “naval war games,” aliens invade Earth and trap a few battleships in a force field (exactly why the aliens need a large dome shaped force field in the middle of the ocean is a question we never really get answered…so, again, whatever). Kitsch and his crew (which is made up of a few dozen people, all of whom should never work on a movie ever again…and pop sensation Rihanna…although she easily fits into that category of people) have to use all their “wits” and brawn to stop the evil invaders (and that’s it…also, they do that in relatively easy fashion…so, for the cheap seats, whatever).

Now, this is a bit hard to say, because (against all reason) I actually enjoyed the first thirty minutes of this movie. (Much like his brother-in-arms Channing Tatum) Taylor Kitsch is horrendous at acting like a person…except for when his character needs to be nothing but a complete imbecile who is really good at blowing things up (almost to an ironic degree). That’s right; Kitsch has a few genuinely funny moments early on. It seems that he’s just one of those guys that was born to play a moronic meat-head (and only a moronic meat-head…I can’t stress that enough).

Things quickly get terrible (and incredibly by-the-numbers) once the filmmakers attempt their best impression of making Transformers 4. After the aliens blow the absolute shit out of everyone who could actually act worth a damn, Kitsch, his idiotic crew and a stoic Japanese man (not as random a character as I make it seem), are the last line of defense between the pleasant Earth we enjoy (and harshly take for granted) every day, and a world where weird, gecko-ish humanoid creatures roam around and murder everyone who looks at them funny (again, not as random as I make it seem…although easily more random than the zany Japanese man).

Where things really (and I mean really) turn just god-awful is when the cast of the movie starts (and I’m being completely serious here) playing Battleship. That’s right, the impressive minds behind this marriage of moving pictures and indoor games made it a significant point to incorporate all of the important aspects of a board game, where one person guesses a number and a second person says a one syllable word, into their big budget blockbuster. The movie isn’t serious, I understand that. It’s big, loud, cheesy and dumb as hell, but that doesn’t mean it needs to a have laughably bad sequence like this one (complete with some goofy moron saying “hit” and “miss” after each shot).

Here’s the thing, watching things blow up will almost always be fun. A solid portion of the movie is simply things blowing up, which was a good call by the filmmakers. Everything that isn’t buildings or ships or alien crafts exploding into humongous fireballs is just difficult to sit through because it’s so awful. The writing is painful at times. Sure, it’s all pretty tame and “family friendly” (…explosions can be family friendly), but it doesn’t have to be this cheesy. The first act goofiness actually worked, because it was just Kitsch being nutty and not trying to be taken seriously. The moment the movie starts demanding that you stop watching lots of stuff blow up and care about what’s going on is the moment where everything goes to hell.

Now, if watching people act like they’re playing a fancy looking, less exciting game of Battleship wasn’t bad enough, the third act puts the nail in the coffin. What’s cheesier than references to an old board game? Actual old people! That’s right! The hyper-intelligent folks behind this monstrosity felt that putting actual naval vets in the picture would be just what it needed to really entertain.

The film’s big finale involves Kitsch and his crew (which consists of, literally, four other people) joining forces with (roughly) six old guys, and the power team operating an old battleship to take out the final alien ship. This is where the cheese factor is multiplied by a really high number (like a bazillion or something so high it has to be a made up number). I get it, Navy guys are tough and they have really good memories (and we’re taking every possible cue that we can from Transformers and its ball-gargling, masturbatory portrayal of the military as thankless heroes), but do I need the already overly ridiculous movie to be more ridiculous (and shittier)? (Just shout out the answer if you know it) No, no I don’t.

Overall, the movie is bad, but not as bad as it could’ve been. It starts off goofy, which works because it’s the only way that anyone can take Taylor Kitsch seriously and in the regard of getting some easy laughs, it works. When things start blowing up, it looks great, it sounds great and it’s genuinely fun to watch (with the whole family). When the explosions stop and the goofball antics of Kitsch morph into attempts at being taken seriously, things go from “bad-yet-fun-and-tolerable”, to “really bad.” Between the main aspects of Battleship (a game that small children can excel at) being used as a major segment and the use of real naval personnel (both old and young), the movie quickly drowns in its own over-the-top cheesiness. The sad part of all of this is that, for a shit movie based on a lame board game, this is probably the best feature “adaptation” that could’ve been conceived…which isn’t a compliment.

The Rating:

*1/2 out of *****

With the inspiration behind the film being a boring board game and several flashy man-versus-aliens themed films having been released over the last few years, the cast and crew behind this blockbuster had to execute everything flawlessly in order to come away with something that wasn’t bland and forgettable. Unfortunately for those involved here, that is exactly what they ended up with: a passable feature that contains a few exciting explosions, a solid laugh or two and nothing else of note aside from a few laughably bad sequences. Carrying the movie is Taylor Kitsch and, aside from some genuinely humorous moments very early on, he fails to bring any sort of charisma or believability to his role. The supporting cast, containing a few well-known actors as well as actual naval personnel, follows suit by phoning in wooden, sometimes hard to watch performances. The effects at play here are easily the film’s biggest strength. Explosions feel forceful, ships and buildings collapse and rip apart with style and it all looks spectacular. Even as a casual movie aiming to please the general public with loud explosions and cheesy moments, the film fails, because the overly cheesy moments and the general low quality of many of the film’s aspects greatly outweigh the positives that only come from the action sequences.

Looper

Thu, 18 Oct 2012 18:55:51 -0500

Emily Blunt plays the future version of Bruce Willis….it’s weird

The Basic Plot:

A young man works for the mafia by killing and disposing of bodies that are sent to him from the future. His life quickly unravels when he fails to kill his latest target: the future version of himself.

The Break Down:

The first thing that I thought was interesting here was that the movie is set in Kansas. Have you ever been to Kansas? It’s really, really (really) unspectacular. It’s flat, boring and…uh…well, it’s just flat and boring. Like, that’s it. Just, the whole state. So, I’m not surprised that in (potentially) the next thirty years it only gets shittier. The setting is a dystopian future where the cities are controlled by various mafias (who run everything with murder and corruption) and everyone who isn’t involved with these organizations has terrible, poverty-stricken lives (basically, nothing changes in the next thirty years…except we’ll get hover bikes, so, there’s that to look forward to).

Joseph Gordon-Levitt (who is just barely recognizable under his makeup) works for the mob as a hitman of sorts. Thirty years into the future (…of the future), the mob uses time travel to get rid of people they don’t want around anymore. They send them back (to the future) where they are killed and disposed of by men called “loopers” (because everyone loves a good metaphor).

Gordon-Levitt is living in style. He has a great apartment, nice clothes, a never ending supply of drugs, and all he does is eight minute of work once in a while (also, he’s paid in silver…metaphors abound!). The first act of the movie wraps up when our protagonist fails to kill the future version of himself (played by the lovable Bruce Willis). Bruce knocks out JGL with one punch (because he’s a pussy…granted nearly every person in existence seems like a big pussy when compared with Bruce…have I mentioned how much I like Bruce Willis?) and takes off, leaving his younger self with nothing but a note telling him to run far, far away.

The film’s second act slows everything down and takes the story in a completely different direction. After a second confrontation between the two stars, we find out that Bruce Willis is on a mission to kill a child who, in the future’s future, has total control of the mafias and is killing off all the loopers and their families. The big problem is that there are three possible children and Bruce has no idea which one is the particular little shit he’s after. After being beaten up a second time by his future incarnation, Gordon-Levitt camps out at a farm (run by the adorable Emily Blunt), while Bruce ventures into the city in search of his victims. The middle of the movie really focuses on JGL building a relationship with Blunt (and her son) and less on zany time travel conundrums.

The third act changes the flow of things up once again, this time focusing the audience’s attention on fast paced action. Bruce Willis gets a few minutes to do what he’s known for doing (…murdering lots of people with fancy guns) and the plot reaches an effective climax. The movie actually ends with a zany time travel conundrum, which will either blow your mind or leave you really pissed off (also, time travel doesn’t make any sense).

Okay. I’ve covered my feelings about Joseph Gordon-Levitt once or twice before (he’s good, but not as great as everyone thinks). I’ve also covered my feelings about Bruce Willis on more than one occasion (he’s “the bee’s knees,” as the kids like to say these days), so aside from my love for sci-fi shenanigans and time travel tomfoolery, I really just wanted to see Bruce Willis beat the hell out of Joseph Gordon-Levitt (and, more or less, I was fairly satisfied in that regard).

Now, here’s the thing (and it’s a big thing): this movie badly suffers from “The Professional Syndrome” (which I’ve covered once before with The Killer Elite). Basically, the ads and hype for the film lead most of the human race to believe that this was going to be some crazy, futuristic, time travel infused, action movie. The truth is…it isn’t that at all. This film is a character-driven drama cleverly disguised as a sci-fi action movie. Sure, the first act has a fair amount of gunshots and blood splatter, but there isn’t really a full-on action sequence until the third act rolls around (and even then, it’s a short lived one). Now, don’t get it twisted, this isn’t a “bad” thing, more of just a quirk that you should really be aware of when you sit down to take in this little adventure.

I cannot stress this next sentence enough. The first act of the movie is fucking phenomenal. Everything from the acting to the tone to the effects to the writing is all wonderful (I could, very literally, spend at least an hour just watching people pop up out of nowhere in a corn field only to be instantly murdered…those moments are just too cool). Gordon-Levitt’s voice-over sets the tone as a noir-ish story, and the things that follow reinforce that feeling to a certain extent. There is a fantastic sequence that involves one of the loopers, his future self and a lot of surgery that might just be the best sequence in the entire film. JGL does a solid job of portraying his character (he really nails Bruce’s mannerisms and facial expressions), even though the guy is fairly typical: a killer who is rethinking his life choices and wants something better for himself.

The first act wraps up with an aspect that is one of the driving forces at the center of the film: time travel doesn’t need to make sense. Basically, “time” isn’t linear, therefore, events happen even though they haven’t actually happened, but because they had to have already happened they technically have to happen (makes sense, right?).

The second act is where the “problems” come into play. Now, personally, I would’ve liked a little more time between one of the loopers (Paul Dano) failing to kill his future self and then the exact same thing happening to our main protagonist the next day (a little too “oh, my god! What a horrible situation! Oh, no! It’s happening to meeeeee!” for my taste).

I want to stress that the general slowness of the middle of the film isn’t something that should detract from the overall enjoyment of the movie. A slow building film can either be really rewarding or wholly disappointing. Now, I’ll admit, you should be in a certain mind-set in order to really appreciate a slow moving movie (or a slow moving portion of a movie), and that is why there are two kinds of slow movies: 1) The kind that keep you engaged and interested and 2)the kind where you think things like “man, my legs are cramping…and my back hurts…why do movie tickets cost so much…did I mix my whites with my colors last night…why won’t this erection go away?” (The second example is the bad kind of slow). The middle forty minutes (or so) of this movie walks a fine line between those, but they wind up leaning more toward the kind where you ask yourself lots of question.

The focus of this act is the relationship between our male and female leads. The interactions between Emily Blunt and JGL aren’t bad (they’re pretty solid, if not clearly on the “standard” side of things). The big issue with that whole plot line is that the moment Blunt’s kid shows up and acts incredibly creepy (like, the “you instantly want to kill the kid because he’s so creepy” kind of creepy), all the mystery is sucked from the story (doubly so because the whole “Bruce Willis wants to murder a kid” plot was a pretty big curve-ball to being with).

To be honest (and bias aside), everything that Willis does (like, from the moment he’s introduced) is far more entertaining, engaging and emotionally effective than what goes on between Gordon-Levitt and the other characters. The sad part is that the second act is really light on old Bruce (in fact, a lot of the movie is). He only pops up four or five times in the middle of the film and not for long periods of time.

Once the second act finishes, everything just kind of goes bat-shit insane for the last fifteen minutes and we wrap up with a somewhat cliché ending (that also doesn’t make any sense because time travel doesn’t make any sense). It isn’t a “bad” ending, but it isn’t very “special.”

Overall, the movie is really good, but after an impressive and highly entertaining first act, things quickly wander in to familiar territory (which is also slow and kinda boring). The movie really succeeds at grabbing attention and building a compelling narrative as it develops the setting and introduces the zany time-travel scenarios. I like that the movie took chances with its pace changing and “twists,” but the main conflict (and one of the big reasons for wanting to see the movie) doesn’t really exist. Gordon-Levitt and Willis share, maybe fifteen minutes of screen time. The movie isn’t really about JGL trying to kill his future self, that is (very literally) just a plot device that the filmmakers use to get JGL and Emily Blunt together, and, in that respect, the movie is a huge letdown.

Maybe it’s because I wanted to like the movie so much (I mean, Bruce Willis + Time Travel = Awesome, right?), but I left the theater disappointed. The film is incredibly well made (better than 99% of the shit that comes to theaters these days) and the performances are all great, but, aside from a sequence here and there, nothing is as good as the first act is. Part of it is the ending, part of it is the pacing, part of it is the sharp turns the plot took and part of it is the lack of a real conflict. The big thing to take away from this is that I will give props to the film makers all day, because at least they took some chances here with trying something different.

The Rating:

***1/2 out of *****

With an excellent cast and a unique premise, the film starts off magnificently. The introductory sequences, where we meet our main character and dive into some gruesome time travel craziness, are shot wonderfully, paced perfectly and do a fantastic job of building a believable setting. The film plays a trick on the audience with its second act, though, by changing the pace and plot line drastically from what was promised by the ads and trailers. This isn’t an inherently bad thing, mind you, but it ends up working against the film as a whole. After teasing the viewers with a great showdown between Bruce Willis and Joseph Gordon-Levitt, the two go separate paths and won’t meet again until the final five minutes of the film. The middle of the movie is a character centered drama, and one that suffers from being a bit too slow and simply just not being as compelling as what came before it. The third act is a high-speed mash-up of several shoot-em-up sequences, none of which bring out too much excitement and wind up being fairly tame. The movie is clever and well made, complete with very interesting cinematography, great performances from the entire cast and a few twists that you might not see coming. The film does an excellent job of drawing you in with the first act, but, it will slowly lose its grip as the plot and pace shift around, making for a movie that isn’t technically “bad” in any way, but will likely leave you slightly disappointed.

Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows

Thu, 20 Sep 2012 20:41:00 -0500

Clearly, the easiest way to illustrate that a character is the “world’s greatest detective” is to show him with a gun…

The Basic Plot:

Everyone’s favorite consulting detective and his trusty sidekick (along with a mousy gypsy woman) find themselves attempting to stop Professor James Moriarty, an evil mastermind, and Holmes’ arch-nemesis, who is trying to start a “World War.” The sequel to the 2009 film.

The Break Down:

The film’s opening sequence features Robert Downey Jr. dressing up like a Asian man (which is far less racist than it could’ve been), stealing a note from his on-again-off-again girlfriend, beating up four men at once and stopping a bomb from murdering a whole bunch of people…by throwing it in a priceless artifact from Egypt (not a single character makes a big deal about any of these things happening…but a whole lot of folks seemed to be really upset when I did all those things a few years back). Then, (in what is clearly a sign of failed contract negotiations…or an innocent scheduling conflict) the female lead from the previous film (the adorable Rachel McAdams) is killed (with poison…because that’s really the only “lady like” way to get murdered).

Jude Law shows up, ready for Downey to take him out for his bachelor party (step your “between movies continuity” game up). Turns out that the egomaniacal detective is a total asshole (who knew?) and he botches the whole party (because he wants to stop the bad guy…you know, typical asshole behavior). Our protagonist meets a gypsy (Noomi Rapace) and then fights a Russian man (which is way more racist than it could’ve been).

Jude Law gets married and the bad guy (Jared Harris…an actor no one has ever heard of) has felt the need to get them a wedding present: cold, violent, over-the-top murder (on a train!). Downey shows up (dressed as a woman…for no reason other than comic relief) just in time to thwart the murderous scheme. The duo decides to officially team up once again and they set off for Paris in hopes of spoiling the genius antagonist’s maniacal plot.

People get hurt, shit blows up, time slows down a lot (it seems like at least a third of the movie is spent in slow motion…for no real reason other than “it looks really cool”), very little deductive reasoning is used and the trio (don’t forget The “Original” Girl With The Dragon Tattoo) do their best to avoid a war that involves a lot of countries from around the globe (step your phrasing game up).

I want to start by saying that…well…Guy Richie has finally done it. He’s done to the character of Sherlock Holmes what Christopher Nolan did to the character of Batman (which is to completely remove all of his detective skills and put him in a handful of fancy looking action sequences).

Sherlock Holmes (the character) is a detective. It’s his job (his entire reason for existing, actually) to solve mysteries that no other human being on the planet (save the villain, I suppose) can begin to try and solve without their brain flooding with blood and them dying in horrific pain (…or they’ll just give up and, I don’t know, not care about it). So, it’s really disappointing that our main character does nearly all of his detective work before the movie starts. He explains how he deduced that Professor Moriarty is an evil mastermind, but we don’t get to see him figure that out (…plus everyone already knew he was the bad guy). Hell, Jude Law (a doctor) does more detective work than his partner throughout the film.

Most of the fun of a detective story is that there is a chance that you (the reader/viewer) are given all the clues that the protagonist is, so, if you’re smart (or really clever or good at guessing) you might be able to figure out the mystery before it’s revealed. The “how” and “why” of this movie just boil down to “the bad guy has money and he wants more money.” There isn’t a mystery here, which isn’t a total deal-breaker, but it is a crippling disappointment (granted, I’m more of a “casual” Holmes fan) since the character and his abilities were almost completely wasted.

So, how are the action sequences? Well, they’re pretty damn spectacular. While I can hate on Guy Richie for days (actually, for a lot longer than that…did you see Revolver? Jesus…) for the fact that he sat in a room and voluntarily made the decision to (basically) remove a vital aspect from a beloved character, I can’t hate on him for coming up with some badass action set pieces. When it’s the film’s only real strength, the action bits had to be this good.

From a fist fight with multiple guys, to an exciting chase through a gambling hall to an explosive shootout on a speeding train, the sequences all do well to separate themselves from each other. Only a couple of the sequences mimic each other, and they are the hand-to-hand combat moments (which are all still cool). The train sequence was probably my favorite, but the slow-motion fever dream that is the protagonists fleeing for their lives through a forest as bullets and cannon balls zip passed their bodies and rip through trees is quite a sight to behold.

Now, a solid portion of the action boils down to “Holmes did something two minutes ago that will help the protagonists,” which isn’t a bad thing so much as it’s just a bit ridiculous at some points. All of Sherlock’s plans require someone to do something that Sherlock couldn’t have really known they were going to do, which adds an extra layer of ridiculousness to an already seriously ridiculous adventure. The action scenes in the first movie had a touch of zany to ‘em, but the ones here take it to another level, which isn’t bad, but don’t expect a lot of “reality” here.

I do want to call out the final action sequence, which is (and I’m completely serious here) a literal “battle of wits” between Holmes and his rival. The two men stare in each other’s eyes and a fight scene plays out. Now, the thing is that the fight is completely fabricated and only occurring in the minds of the two men (yeah…two dudes, same fight). Each man plans out their attack and then makes changes on the fly to make up for the fact that the other dude is also fighting (and by “fighting,” I mean thinking to himself). Keep in mind that this entire fight is happening as these men stare into each other’s eyes. It was the only moment of the movie that I thought was really lame.

The acting from everyone is fine for what the movie is. As Holmes, Downey often goes over-the-top. As Dr. Watson, Law plays it as straight as possible. Stephen Fry has a solid turn as Mycroft Holmes (step your game up if you don’t know who he is…either of them, I guess). Noomi Rapace is fine as the gypsy woman (who only exists so there would be a girl in the movie…which is kind of lame). The villain (Jared Harris…in case you already forgot his name) probably does the worst job here. This is the evil genius counterpart to Sherlock Holmes, and he’s boring as hell. It isn’t that he’s “bad” by any means but he’s simply unmemorable.

And that’s the worst thing about this movie. Aside from the action sequences, it’s pretty mediocre. There aren’t really “problems” as much as there are “wasted opportunities” (and they are abound…plentifully). The great thing about the first movie was that there was a mystery afoot (and it involved “magic”). It was fun to see crazy shit and then have it explained in a rational way (kinda like the point of a detective story!). While the first film did a wonderful job of balancing the mystery with some great action sequences, this entrant into the (at least a trilogy) series feels a lot shallower, a lot faster paced and a lot less worthwhile.

The story isn’t as important as it should be and it’s surprisingly recycled. “Bad guy wants to rule the world (kind of). Good guy has to stop him (because he feels obligated to).” The “plot” here plays out as nothing more than some muddling around between action-y bits. I do love a solid action movie, but this is Sherlock Holmes were talking about here. No one should be bored during a Sherlock Holmes movie as they wait for the next big action sequence.

Overall, the movie is fun but too often too disappointing. Now, don’t get it twisted. I enjoyed it for what it was, and visually, the movie has more than a few spectacular moments, but under the veil of “look how great this looks!” there is bland, routine experience here. I really enjoyed the first film, and thought that the visual style mixed surprisingly well with the story being told. With this installment, Richie and company had the chance to take that same great mixture and really do something extraordinary with it, but they instead chose to play it incredibly safe (which, I will argue, is the solitary difference between him and Christopher Nolan….step your call back game up). The villain is boring, there is no mystery whatsoever and the actors all do “okay” jobs with their characters. To have wasted this big an opportunity is worse than trying something grand and failing. At least an attempt to try something new with the character would’ve shown that the people involved here cared about something other than popping out a new movie every other Christmas.

The Rating:

**1/2 out of *****

This sequel to the popular 2009 film fails to capitalize on several big opportunities and wastes a good deal of talent in the process. While the first film took several liberties with the main character’s mythos, a mystery was at the center of that movie and the core of the character remained intact. The sad fact about this entrant into the series is that there isn’t much of a mystery for our protagonist to solve, which means there isn’t a whole lot of purpose for the great detective to exist. Guy Richie has replaced mystery with action, and, while those sequences are fantastic, it makes the entire production feel hollow, as if something vital is missing. Aside from these action scenes, which are easily the movie’s best moments, the film contains some solid comedic moments, but ultimately, the sections between the often large scale action sequences are merely passable. The sequel offers some nice escapist entertainment and contains more than a few exciting, eye-grabbing action scenes, but anyone other than a casual fan will be disappointed, either that the film wastes so many opportunities or that so many aspects of the source material have simply been left by the wayside.

John Carter

Fri, 07 Sep 2012 01:05:00 -0500

And I thought Disney got past their whole “it’s fine as long as the racism is subtle” phase…I think it’s pretty clear exactly who this is taking shots at….

The Basic Plot:

A civil war veteran from Virginia is (magically?) transported to Mars and gets caught up in a civil war ravaging between the few civilizations left on the planet. Based on a book with a different title I’ve never read by Edgar Rice Burrows

The Break Down:

For anyone who’s game isn’t quite on my level (thanks in part to the painstaking Wikipedia research I did for this particular entry), you should know that the books that inspired this rancid pile of cinematic bile have been quite the busy bees since 1917. It seems that the character John Carter (and the four books describing his inter-planetary feats) has had his fingers in a lot of pies (not a metaphor….well it is a metaphor, but not that kind of metaphor…I wouldn’t have to go off on these tangents if you would just keep your mind out of the gutter). His stories can be credited with inspiring Superman, certain themes within Star Wars and (in addition to a multitude of other things) James Cameron’s Avatar (sucking away the last bit of hope that anyone could have ever had that that movie contains a single original idea). So, if one story can inspire all of those things (that range from awesome and “original” to “borderline plagiaristic shit”), it’s gotta be good, right? Probably…but that doesn’t mean that the feature film adaptation is…

The movie kicks off on Mars, with an explanation of how it’s not actually called Mars and there are in fact people living on it (and fighting a “civil war,” whatever that is). Turns out that Martins look exactly like humans from Earth (and, disappointingly, they don’t even have three tits). One group likes red and the other likes blue and most of them are British.

We quickly find ourselves on Earth. Now, the genius way that the writers chose to set up this little tale was as a (poorly explained) story within a (poorly explained) story. John Carter (the character) is a distant relative (not in real life) of Edgar Rice Burrows (a character based on the real-life author of the John Carter stories…something that, I assume, a whole lot of people didn’t know…or cared about) and the movie (as it plays out) is really just the boy from Spy Kids reading a letter written by John Carter (the character…so, basically, they thought they’d be clever, but it’s just kinda stupid…mostly because, I assume, ninety percent of the people who will watch this movie have no idea who Edgar Rice Burrows is).

The letter in question tells the story of a scrappy Virginian named John Carter (played by, what I can only assume is a giant rock made up to look like a person, Taylor Kitsch). Since the writers are all clearly pros who deserve the big bucks, they decided to, literally, have one character list off all of Johnny Boy’s positive attributes (“he’s good at shooting, fighting and riding on horses!”) instead of just showing him doing cool stuff.

After a brief encounter with some Native Americans (step your “politically correct racial descriptors” game up), John finds himself in a cave that is filled with gold (not important). He is attacked by an alien from Mars (who looks like a regular dude) and is then transported to the red planet (through magic…or tiny robots…it’s weird).

Because he’s Southern (which means he’s friendly, right?), John quickly makes friends with some aliens (ten foot tall, four-armed, tusked, green creatures…two of which are Willem Defoe and Thomas Haden Church). He drinks some juice and can instantly communicate with the various Martian life forms (which is one of the few plot points I didn’t have any beef with). He also makes friends with a Martian “dog” (that looks like a giant, lazy caterpillar monster, but acts like a puppy and is also incredibly fast…he’s also the best part of the movie).

Kitsch meets a princess, goes on a “journey” and spends all of thirty-six hours on the planet before he ends the civil war, murders a lot of things and falls in love with said princess. Then we meet back up with (the character) Edgar Rice Burrows for a finale that sets up a sequel (because that’s a good idea).

To start, the special effects are really good (…most of the time).

Now, on to the bad parts!

To say the movie is uneven would be…well…correct. Now, when crafting a story, most people who have had some experience with writing like to use a three act story structure. Let me quickly cover this: The first act is the set up, it’s when you introduce the main character(s) and setting (a rock and Mars, respectfully), the second act is where the problem is introduced (civil war and a princess…and intergalactic displacement, I guess) and the third act would be where the problem is resolved (everyone dies…mostly). Now the second act is usually the trickiest to write, because a lot of explaining has to be done and things need to be adequately fleshed out. If the second act is a stinker, the third act will be less impact-ful because you won’t give a shit about anything.

The writers here felt the need to bog down the middle with cliché bullshit (which may or may not have been cliché when Burrows first wrote it…a century ago) and overly-complicated plot points. There are magical blue items that pop up a lot and it’s referenced that they’re tiny robots, but no one knows anything about them and deduced that fact from looking at them for two seconds (and their role in the movie is pretty pivotal). I’m all for ridiculous science fiction, but when it’s ridiculous and dumb, I gotta draw a line.

The action sequences range from “okay” to “really bad.” I was actually very surprised by the level of violence here. Apparently, all Martians have blue blood (so you can chop them into tiny pieces on screen and still get a PG-13 rating). The action is all very serious, but gets Disney-ed up constantly. So there are splashes of blue blood a lot of the time, giving some sequences a violent, visceral feel, but a lot of the time the editing makes most things incomprehensible and ruins most of these bits. When our hero faces off against the two monsters from the poster, the scene feels like something out of Looney Toons (because the big, scary gorillas fall down after being hit in the head with a rock…once…seriously). In short, the action could be worse, but it could’ve been a lot better.

Now, aside from all of the problems fighting for control of ruining this movie, the biggest problem of them all (and the one that actually makes the other problems a lot worse) is, undeniably, Taylor Kitsch (who, I assume, went to the Sam Worthington school of acting…meaning that he’s fucking awful). It’s as if the film makers thought “Hey, you’re as good at acting as Frankenstein’s monster is at fitting in with society, so, we absolutely need you to carry this super-expensive film (a final budget of $250 million) based on the beloved story written by Edgar Rice Burrows!”

The joke is that Kitsch is terrible (and no one in Hollywood seems to care)! It seems as though he has completely ignored the history of his character and decided just to wing it. When he talks, it sounds like he’s trying to do a shitty impression of Keanu Reeves doing a shitty impression of Clint Eastwood doing a shitty impression of Christian Bale doing a shitty impression of his (already shitty) Batman voice (so he sounds lost, angry and like he desperately needs to clear his throat…all with wooden, matter-of-fact, not-even-giving-a-shit delivery). I mean, his character is from Virginia but he fails to have even the slightest accent (or speak as if he’s from the 1800’s).

Bottom line, Kitsch is a horrible actor and, regardless of the several glaring problems working against the movie, he manages to consistently make things a lot worse than they could be. He’s the acting equivalent of a “dead fish” handshake (sure, he might “look” the part, but he’s awkward and terrible and makes you want to hit people in the back of the head with a baseball bat…maybe that’s just me, though).

Overall, the movie ends up being really bad, not “completely and utterly unwatchable” bad, but as close as you can get to that without actually having Sam Worthington in the cast. A great line-up of supporting actors are totally wasted, almost as wasted as the great special effects (because effects this good shouldn’t be in a movie this bad). The plot is convoluted and poorly explained, there are dozens of bland (and avoidable) clichés thrown at the viewers, the pacing and quality of action sequences are all over the place and the casting of Taylor Kitsch in the main role basically cut the legs out from under the movie before it even started filming.

The Rating:

* out of *****

Here is a movie that made a lot of big stumbles before it even got out of the gate. While the source material may be well known in certain circles, general audiences are most likely very unaware of the Burrows’ stories, making the character’s initial appeal very small. The actual story is cliché and presented in an overly complicated, incredibly uneven fashion, making some things annoyingly easy to understand and others unnecessarily difficult to follow. While the film is a Disney production, it earned a PG-13 rating. This means that the material within ranges from very child friendly to incredibly intense and potentially inappropriate for younger viewers. The biggest problem faced by the film is the casting of Taylor Kitsch in the lead role. As the titular hero, Kitsch is boring, unlikable and incredibly wooden. His delivery is poor and he fails to bring any kind of real emotional depth to the character. On the surface, the movie seems like a grand adventure, but when the creative decisions are this poor, the leading man is this bland, and everything is this uneven, the movie feels more like a two hour chore than a fun escape into the mind of one of science fiction’s most influential writers.

Real Steel

Mon, 20 Aug 2012 00:28:14 -0500

I have no idea what that says…but I assume Hugh Jackman is pretty popular wherever this poster is from…because the “Jackman’s face to robot boxing” ratio is pretty skewed…

The Basic Plot:

In the near future, robot boxing has replaced real boxing as a popular combat sport. Charlie, an ex-boxer, spends time with his estranged son while trying to get to the top of the robot boxing game (Probably based on a children’s game made by Mattel).

The Break Down:

To spice things up this review, you should (…and by “should,” I mean “need to”) take a drink (not a sip…a drink…maybe even a drank if you feel up to it) every time you read the following words throughout the review: rock, sock, pleasantly, any word that could be a reference to a father figure, cowboy, shenanigans, robot, boxing, boxer, any boxing metaphor and (just to make things really interesting) all profanity. So, are you ready for this one-two punch of a review? Fucking great!

The movie opens up with Hugh Jackman driving a large truck to a small fair. We quickly discover that his cargo is nothing less than a genuine boxing robot (read that like an old-time-y sports announcer). Turns out that the robot (and its status as a boxer) is as real as Hugh’s large amount of debt (which is quite real). In order to make some extra money, Wolverine has agreed to pit his big ass robot against a bull (like, a real one…with horns and shit…not a mechanical bull…because when you combine anything with a bull, hillbilly country folk go ape shit bananas for it).

Turns out that bull horns are stronger than robot parts (that are made of…steel?), because the beast winds up destroying the bot (take a half a drink for that one) after a bit of showboating (…by the robot…I mean, that’d just be outrageous if the bull was showboating…c’mon, it’s the future, not Looney Toons). With a fighter that is damaged beyond repair and now in even deeper debt (because Hugh is obviously a compulsive gambler and made a substantial bet with the cowboy running the fair about the outcome of the ludicrous match-up), Hugh really finds himself against the ropes.

In a twist, we find out that Mr. Jackman’s ex-girlfriend has died unexpectedly, but that his son is still alive and needs a guardian. Hugh (being, literally, the world’s worst father) decides to talk his ex-girlfriend’s sister’s rich husband into paying him into signing over his rights to his son (because, I guess no one really gives a shit about how the custody of children is handled in the future). With a trip to Italy already booked (and his vacation being more important that the safety of his eleven-year-old nephew) the husband agrees to pay Jackman if he takes care of the kid for the summer.

The scrappy youngster and his pops don’t get along at first (who saw that coming?), and tensions rise when Hugh loses big at an underground robot fight (which is like a professional robot boxing event, except that it’s held in a bar…or somewhere like that…I don’t know). The duo sets out to (illegally) search for replacement parts in a junk yard (because teaching your child how to not get caught stealing is a perfectly good idea after being an absentee dad for eleven years). While there, the boy stumbles upon an old model bot and spends the entire night (during a big rain storm, mind you) digging it out of the mud by himself while his dad just, oh, I don’t know, waits in the truck, not caring about all of the terrible things that could happen to his offspring.

As fate would have it, the robot is awesome (at being hit by other robots and not exploding…also, its name is Atom…for no real reason)! The father-son combo takes their boxer on a tour of various underground robot fighting rings and eventually makes their way to the big leagues of robot boxing (at which point the movie just blatantly steals seventy-five percent of its third act from Rocky). In a hilariously bad sequence, the kid snags a microphone out of the ring announcer’s hand and issues a challenge to the current robot boxing league champion, Zeus (who is apparently the best robot to ever rock and sock other robots…also, I can only describe his owner as “the Asian James Franco”).

The cowboy shows up again, emotions run high, there is a really out of place racist moment and a climactic rumble for the title ensues as Atom takes on Zeus in a David vs. Goliath matchup.

Now, I don’t know what’s worse, that the robots continually got personified with human traits (such as “having the will to continue” and “having your bell rung”) or that I found myself actually caring about what happened to a damn emotionless machine.

To my pleasant surprise, I actually really enjoyed this one. I expected the movie to be disgustingly awful (because it’s basically based off of a children’s game that got boring to play after ninety seconds), and, don’t get me wrong, several parts of the movie are disgustingly awful, but a fair portion of it is actually genuinely good.

The big thing that the movie did right was have Hugh Jackman in the lead (I mean, that man can do it all). He brought just enough chops to the role (which is a pretty generic one…ex-boxer who is a shitty person and worse father) to make me take him seriously. He did a really solid job of feeling like an actual person, which made the scenarios around him not feel so bat-shit insane (well…mostly) and gave the character some emotional range (if they had stuck someone like Sam “but, this is my American accent” Worthington in the role, the movie would’ve been far, far worse).

Jackman does such a great job here that he actually makes you care about what’s going on. You want him to get along with his kid and you want his robot to win the fight. He carried the film very well, playing it just straight enough to get a good response out of me, but not too serious as to feel out of place in the lunacy that is the world of robot boxing.

One of the big strikes against the movie is Jackman’s kid. While Hugh is a total jerkoff toward his child, the kid is a little shit head and there are several moments where you really want to strangle him (Note: A Nerdy Awesome Guy does not condone child strangulation…hit a pillow…or kill a drifter…but never strangle a child). It isn’t that the actor that was chosen is a bad one (because he does a somewhat decent job with what he’s given), but it’s just that the kid’s character is irritating a lot of the time. My big example is that the kid does a ridiculously stupid dance with his robot that just had me on the verge of tears every time he did it (and he does it several times) because I was laughing so hard at how just plain terrible it was. The kid shifts from “seems like a legit eleven-year-old” to “acts like a dickish teenager” throughout the movie, never giving the character the sense of balance that Jackman’s character had.

The movie does get some hardcore props for having surprisingly good boxing sequences, because the robot on robot, rock and sock action looks great. While it looks nothing like legitimate boxing, the sequences are fairly spectacular and do pack quite a punch. Some of it does border on the ridiculous (but, this is robot boxing we’re talking about here…so ridiculous is par for the course), but the majority of it is solid and realistic (in terms of giant robots punching each other). To make matters better, it’s very well filmed, (there isn’t a choppy, shitty edit in sight!).

This brings me to my next point: regardless of how silly the idea of robot boxing is (and will always be) the movie never felt like it was that out of place. Many of the interactions between the humans throughout the movie felt more forced than the robot aspect. Even from the intro, when the first giant robot boxer is introduced, it doesn’t feel outrageous or out of place. These things aren’t exactly the Megazord (step your “being a badass kid” game up if you didn’t get that reference…also, I hate you if you didn’t get it), so seeing them walking around and fighting felt somewhat natural, and they could’ve easily felt out of place for the entire movie.

The special effects team’s game is on point. The mechanical pugilists look fantastic. There was only one or two instances where they really seemed “fake.” The worst effect actually comes when there is a really noticeable shift from a very real bull to a very computer generated one.

Now, a ridiculous premise has never and will never keep me from seeing a movie. That should go for everyone. Why deprive yourself of a potentially entertaining, engaging experience (my alliteration game is on point) because the movie sounds stupid? You can’t expect to step your game up if you treat movies like a little kid (or myself) treats vegetables (…they’re just so…icky).

This movie has a ridiculous premise (for sho), but that doesn’t compare to how cheesy and cliché the damn thing is. If you’ve seen Rocky, you know how the movie is going to turn out (which, I guess, is kind of a spoiler). The movie is, literally, built on clichés and it doesn’t give a shit that you know it. The whole thing is just unflinching in how it presents its sillier aspects (like the fucking kid-robot dance). This is where the movie really loses points for me, because the film makers could’ve cut out the cheesy bullshit and made the movie much better for it. It’s obvious that they wanted to go for a more “family friendly” feel (I told you my alliteration game is on point), but the goofy, cliché moments are the biggest faults here, meaning that while the writer and director might score well with eight-year-olds, it’s sure to earn several strikes from real people. At times, it felt like the movie used its goofy premise as an excuse to continually throw the stupider moments at the audience.

Overall, the movie is surprisingly good, regardless of the more outrageous shenanigans. Everything is worn on the movie’s sleeve, the good and the bad, and part of me wants to give the movie props for that and part of me wants to punch the director in the face (it’s one of those movies). The acting is solid, especially from Jackman, and the movie contains several effective moments, but because the movie actually starts to work after a while, it makes the more outrageous, cliché and cheesy moments stick out like an erection on a crowded bus (…while wearing sweat pants). If the damn thing had actually stuck to its guns (that could be a boxing metaphor) and cut out the cheese-tastic, cliché crap (step your alliteration game up), it could’ve been a really fantastic movie, but instead we get two-thirds of a really good movie with one-third of a pretty lame movie. Despite the annoying bullshit, I really enjoyed the film. It kept my attention and actually got me involved for several stretches, but I just can’t get passed that fucking kid dancing with the robot.

The Rating:

***1/2 out of *****

With an outrageous premise that sounds like it was ripped from a children’s game, the movie needed to pull off a lot of quality decisions in order to not completely flop, and, surprisingly, it succeeds more often than it fails. Jackman turns in a solid performance and carries the film through several good and bad moments. The fights are very well made, using excellent special effects and quality editing to create action that is exciting, eye-grabbing and, at times, emotionally engaging. The biggest problem the film has is that it too often plays up cheesy and cliché moments. These bits interrupt the flow of the film and tend to take the viewer out of the experience. Despite these moments, the movie creates a world where robot boxing doesn’t seem so strange and does a solid job at getting the audience involved with the characters and the story. It isn’t the smartest film, and sometimes feels like it uses that fact as an excuse to get away with the sillier, cheesier aspects, but regardless of all the cliché material packed into the two hour run time, it is a very well made film that offers fun, excitement and some good old fashioned escapist cinema.