DarthWeaselMovieReviews

Movie Review: UnKnown

2011-02-17T18:27:00.001-08:00

Recently I was offered a free ticket to a pre-screening of Unknown (2011). being a known movie buff to the point it is almost degenerate, I snapped at the opportunity.

I like Liam Neeson. Despite some horrific choices like Clash of the Titans (2010), he more regularly turns in fun, entertaining stuff like the ridiculous A-Team (2010), Taken (2008), and so forth.

So I was excited to see this one. He proved capable of an action role in Taken so at least had some credibility.

The movie starts a bit slowly with the arrival in Berlin of Dr. Martin Harris (Liam Neeson) and his wife Elizabeth Harris (January Jones). They get separated at the hotel when he realizes his briefcase is still in the taxi.

He hails another taxi to retrieve the briefcase, gets into an accident that creates gaps in his memory, and then the movie really begins.

When he remembers he is supposed to be at a conference and shows up, he encounters various problems. Having lost his wallet in the accident and having his passport in the lost briefcase, he cannot prove who he is.

The situation is exacerbated when his wife turns out to be married to someone else and both of them claim to have no idea who he is. A professor at the conference who invited him has never met him in person.

He begins to doubt who he is until, during an MRI, someone attempts to assassinate him.

The mystery of who he is and why his wife claims not to know him gets deeper as assassins begin seeking to kill him. Who is Martin Harris and why does nobody know who he is?

The movie moves along at a stiff pace, revealing bits and pieces and keeping you intrigued right up until the end. All the clues to the mystery are there if you know what to look for, though of course the real motives of a few key players are only revealed in hindsight.

There are a couple turns that you may or may not see coming, but it is a great ride getting there.

Along the way there are some fun performances, including the delightful Herr Ernst Jürgen (Bruno Ganz).

There is a major quibble with this movie, however. Director Jaume Collet-Serra fell prey to the idea that the best way to present action scenes is numerous tight cuts that make it impossible to tell what is happening.

You can tell someone hit someone, but not who did the hitting and who the grunting in pain. Cars appear from nowhere, there is no point of reference in chase scenes, and thus the action in an action movie is replaced by blank stares at other patrons and wondering who is winning the fight and how.

This is a trend that needs to stop. A chase scene where you cannot tell if the pursuer is 2" or 2 miles behind is a horrible scene. Stop it. Just...stop.

That aside, it is an enjoyable journey getting to the pleasing finale. This movie probably would be good to re-watch once knowing the ending to see all the little hints, but would probably lose its charm after that as the very things that make it entertaining would then be gone.

The slow reveal of why people do not know Smith is the story and very enjoyable at that.

Modern Themes: The Redemptive narrative in the 21st Millennium

2010-11-15T20:06:00.000-08:00

From time to time, movie critics will look back at certain movie genres and extrapolate great movements in the volksgeist of the time demonstrated by that particular genre.

One example would be how the science fiction B movies of the 1950s and 1960s have sometimes been viewed as parables for fears of Nuclear War and/or "the other".

It is in this tradition that I would look at a recent trend to be found in movies as disparate as Inception (2010) and Despicable Me (2010).

First we should preface this with a certain belief that has overtaken much of modern society. The United States has engaged in a series of behaviors that many people oft referred to as "left-leaning" believe to range from immoral to illegal.

These things range from the rejection of populist causes such as the Kyoto Accords to the invasions and/or continued occupation of Afghanistan and Iraq.

The U.S. is oft viewed in this light as somewhat of a rogue nation, a modern Rome throwing its weight around and forcing other nations to accept wrongs forced upon them because they do not have the might to resist.

As the last surviving "super power" and sometimes considered imperialist nation, the United States then must assume the role of villain and, as they are a super power, they must therefore be super villains.

Yet juxtaposed with this must be the vestiges of national pride and patriotism, they almost ingrained belief that "we", the citizens of the United States, are still somehow better than the mysterious "they"...those people not of the United States.

That includes the movers and shakers in Hollywood who are oft believed to be extremely far left-leaning.

Thus we have the recipe for their political views to inform the subtext of many movies.

At times it is overt, explicit, and preachy. One example would be the environmental aspect of Wall-E (2008), a movie so explicit about the damage people are inflicting on the environment it actually experienced a minor backlash. At times the message replaced the story.

Another less obnoxious example would be the more recent Avatar (2009) where the sought-after pointless rock is actually named "Unobtainium" and the references to Native American beliefs regarding the sanctity and mystical God-like powers and knowledge of the earth are the entire underpinning of the movie.

Other times, that message is more subtle. In Ice Age 2: The Meltdown (2006) the results of environmental devastation are shown without allusion to how they came to be...until the Noah's Ark reference. The message that environmental disaster is looming is there, though not nearly as explicit.

Many people do not see or notice these themes, and I would expressly state this; there is absolutely nothing wrong with that. Movies, to get their message across, must first entertain. If the experience is not enjoyable, the message will not get passed.

But that does not invalidate the indisputable fact that while much of the audience neither looks for nor notices the message, the filmmakers themselves are very much trying to impart their message throughout their work.

Which brings us to the central point of this piece. There is a theme that is becoming more and more prevalent in movies today which attempts to resolve the inherent tension between believing in your own superiority while behaving as a super villain.

Let's start with an explicit example. In Despicable Me Gru (Steve Carrell) is not simply a super villain, he is the greatest super villain in the world. He takes great pride in his dastardly deeds and is unrepentant about it.

Compare that with the view of the United States as rogue nation. The invasion of Iraq is believed by some to have been an illegal act perpetrated through a web of deception, forgery, and other acts that reek of almost cartoonish super-villainy.

The invasion was very public, done with tremendous fanfare and pride in the accomplishments, an attitude that lingers on through expressions of approval recently released in the press in regard to the interrogation methods which are widely believed to also be illegal...the acts of a villainous nation proud of its villainy.

Gru finds, however, that when he attempts to further his nefarious plot through adopting three girls, his evil suddenly loses its point. Instead, he seeks to protect and defend the girls, even at risk of his life.

In the end, the super villain finds redemption and rejoins society as a bit of a hero, completely redeemed by noble self-sacrifice and by taking on the role of parent and protector.

Compare that to the platform that brought President Barack Obama whose campaign slogans included "Change We Can Believe In".

Indeed, that was the belief of many who voted for him, that he would withdraw US forces from the Middle East, enforce the cessation of Guantanamo Bay type prisons and interrogation techniques, bring the US fully in line with the provisions of the Kyoto Accords and so forth.

He would move the US from super powered villainous nation to heroic fount of purity and justice. In short, he would be a return to the uniquely American narrative of "Truth, Justice, and the American Way". the United States would exemplify the crystal pure motives of the Lone Ranger and once more be a beacon of greatness, a verifiable super hero of how the world should be.

Just as Gru found redemption, so would the United States. Or vice versa.

Of course, the narrative of villain finding redemption is hardly new. In Aladdin (1992), Aladdin (Scott Weinger) is a "street rat:, a thief who survives through theft. It is notable in two things, however; first, unlike more recent villains such as Gru, Megamind of Megamind, and other examples we will look at, he was forced into his villainous ways by circumstances, not choice.

Gru is proudly, stridently villainous, as is Megamind, who even has as his best friend the aptly named Minion (David Cross).

The common thread to both movies is they are villains who end up reformed and set about to make restitution for their formerly nefarious ways, giving up the ways of villainy.

Nor is the theme found only in "children's fare" such as these two animated features.

Let us briefly look at Inception (2010). Dom Cobb (Leonardo DiCapricio) is a thief, and proud to be one. It is his expertise in illegal intrusion, theft of corporate secrets, and potential to do even more that brings the job to him that will ultimately be the focus of the movie.

Yet as we go deeper into his dream world, we learn he has committed a crime so heinous it cost him that he loved most and may yet cost him his very sanity. In the end he finds his redemption, once again through self-sacrifice, a sacrifice so enduring it turns someone who violates every sense of rightness or decency, who crosses every social boundary, into a sympathetic character.

If Cobb's invasion of other people's minds, that most sacred place that designates what separates one person from another, is not heinous enough, he also corrupts the formerly innocent Ariadne (Ellen Page), lies to people who trust him, withholds key information, and risks all their lives unnecessarily.

Yet by the end of the movie, this super villain is redeemed.

The thing that separates Cobb, Megamind, and Gru from redeemed super villains like Spiderman 2 (2004)'s Doctor Octopus (Alfred Molina), who finds redemption in death, is they are the centerpiece of the movie.

Each movie is about their journey from super villain to super hero. The same could particularly be said for the first Shrek (2001) with a slight but noticeable difference. Shrek (Mike Myers) is again proud of his villainous ways. Yet by the end, the redemptive love for Fiona (Cameron Diaz) makes him heroic, albeit with an edge and the twist that she turns to the APPEARANCE of villainy in being an Ogre.

Certainly Shrek fits other narratives, most obviously that of "the others" being acceptable despite their differences, but the thread of villain finding redemption he did not even know he sought is nevertheless there and, in fact, finds itself expressed in Shrek Forever After (2010).

The reason Shrek is willing to sign the deal with Rumplestiltskin (Walt Dohrn) is because he wants to his days of "being an Ogre", of proudly, loudly and often engaging in anti-social, villainous behavior and, in fact, we are treated to several scenes of him doing just that.

The tension between his past as a super villain and present as super hero even works its way into the movie in the "Do the roar" scene where he strives to keep his villainous side in check and, when it finally evidences itself, is rewarded with treatment as a hero.

These are noticeable and important changes. The traditional story arc has had the HERO find unsought for redemption. Take for example The Searchers (1956) where the iconic Western hero Ethan Edwards (John Wayne) does not seem to need redemption, yet by the end of the movie both his need for and redemption have been evidenced.

Edwards is everything a hero should be. He is strong, more capable than the average man, with knowledge of how to get things done. Yet his blinding hatred for "the other" leads him into wasting his life in a long, fruitless chase to rescue someone who neither wants nor needs rescuing and, along the way, costs him years of his life, family, and friends.

When he ultimately finds redemption, the cost has been high but the narrative is complete. The hero inadvertently became a villain and returned to his heroic ways only when redemption was accomplished.

So why the switch in narrative? More and more often we have movies where traditional heroes are eschewed in favor of stories of those who traditionally have been the villains but now are the hero of the story?

The examples are numerous and wide ranging. The Harry Potter franchise often blurs the line, making you wonder if characters such as Severus Snape (Alan Rickman) are good or evil...and, in fact, he sometimes hops back and forth across that line.

In the Twilight tales, much as in the Underworld series, we have traditional baddies in the form of Vampires and Werewolves taking the roles of heroes. Igor (2008) is an assistant trying to move up to head evil, only to turn into a hero.

Which brings us back to that same question; why the switch in narrative?

For many people, the years of the George W. Bush administrations were years in which the United States took on the role of super villain. We became the evil empire, the locus of all evil in the modern world.

Yet that is not who we wish to be. It does not fit the American myth, the narrative of being the fount of justice and righteousness in the world today. We need to believe that we can come back from the precipice, that we can move from nation of super villainy to nation of super hero.

But part of that process is believing it is possible So long as the Berlin Wall existed, it was not possible to view even a diminished, borderline impotent, obviously rotted and decayed Soviet Union as anything other than THE villain in the world. Only when the story of that symbol of evil being destroyed was accomplished could we view them as potential friends and cautious allies.

Thus a narrative needs to be created that it is possible for super villains to find redemption, face no repercussions for past actions (let us not forget Megamind avoids his last 88 life sentences once he becomes the protector of Metro City), and become the leaders in the world today.

It can be argued that certain elements responsible for bringing Hollywood entertainment to the screen see a need to create that narrative so the United States can take that same journey. The means to that is seen as being the election of Obama and the actions anticipated to come from that.

Thus the time is here to call for the changes that are desired. Much as the Gangster movies of the 1930s were sometimes seen as a call for social change, just as the screwball comedies of the same and succeeding time period were a challenge to wealth differentiations and elitism, the modern super villain as hero narrative is presenting a hope for where our country can go.

Great social movements, for good or ill, oft are predated by pop culture. It might be Upton Sinclair's The Jungle or the calls for prison reform of Dickens and Dostoevsky, or something else, but there are always references.

In past centuries print was the primary means of communicating calls for change. In the modern era there are other avenues. Protest songs were a hallmark of the 1960s. Movies engaging in social critiques have been a major mover almost since the first reel was rolled.

It remains to be seen how this one plays out, but the theme of the villain finding redemption and becoming a hero will be with us for the foreseeable future.

Other movies to take into account (and I stress this is a brief, very incomplete list) where the villain is a centerpiece to the movie and is a hero by the end of the movie or series;
Pirates of the Caribbean, Jack Sparrow
X-Men Origins: Wolverine, Wolverine
Area 51
Iron Man, Tony Stark
Jonah Hex
Ninja Assassin
Fast and the Furious
Hitman
Wanted
Jumper
Push
the Bourne franchise

Movie Review: Megamind

2010-11-14T21:45:00.000-08:00

It is not a big secret that I am a fan of both animated movies and super hero movies. Combine them, a la The Incredibles (2004) and I am up for it.

Also not a secret is my tendency to root for the likable villain...and key in on the likable. Syndrome (Jason Lee) in The Incredibles, absolutely. Mr Freeze (Arnold Schwarzenegger) in Batman and Robin (1997)...not so much.

Of course, with the advent of the Shrek franchise, the "twist" of starring the villain has really taken off with mixed results. The first, second and fourth Shreks were pretty good...Shrek the Third closely resembles its name if you simply drop the "h" sound from the title.

Happily N'evr After (2007) was so abominably bad I should ban it ever being mentioned on this website again on pain of being forced to watch it three weeks straight.

Of more recent vintage, Despicable Me (2010) was very good.

But with that background, I anxiously awaited the release of Megamind wherein Megamind (Will Ferrell) tires of his villainous battles with the heroic Superman clone Metro Man (Brad Pitt) and tries to become a hero.

Brief outline; Megamind and Metro Man have battled so often their battles have become predictable cliches, the outcome known to both of them.

When Megamind inadvertently discovers Metro man's secret weakness and defeats him, he is able to run amok in the city with the help of his faithful Minion (David Cross) and his Brainbots.

Success is not all it is cracked up to be, however, so he sets out to create a new enemy to face. But the new enemy foils his plans by turning into a villain. Can Megamind mend his ways, defeat the new villain, and get the girl?

So synopsis out of the way, lets get to the good and bad of this movie.

First, the good. There are some great moments of humor, the action is entertaining, the dialogue pretty good too. They take some well-aimed potshots at trite, predictable Super hero conventions but do it in such a light-hearted, entertaining manner that it does not feel pretentious.

They also take a tired old story line, punch it up and let you enjoy the tale of redemption embarked on by the titular hero of the piece.

Now the bad. There is not much. I was entertained from beginning to end. The extended flashback felt like it fit, as each piece fell into place it made sense, and the resolution was creative, entertaining and satisfying. So the bad part would be...I wish this was out on DVD now so I could watch it again.

If you enjoy light-hearted animated romps with a delightful sense of humor, go see this movie.

Movie Review: Jonah Hex

2010-06-18T22:39:00.000-07:00

I have been preparing to hate this movie for a long time. See, while it was in development, they reputedly completely dumped the "real" Jonah Hex in favor of a story involving voodoo, zombies, and mass quantities of supernatural oddity.

Let me back up.

Sometime in the early 80's, I was at a friends' house and saw this magnificent cover.

He was done reading it so he gave it to me and I about wore that thing out with numerous re-readings of it.

Here was a magnificent anti-hero. To this day I can quote the tag line, He Was a Hero to Some, a Villain to Others, and Wherever He Rode People Spoke His Name in Whispers. He Had No Friends, This Jonah Hex, But He Did Have Two Companions: One Was Death itself...the Other, The Acrid Smell of Gunsmoke...

As an avowed Western and comedy lover, here was the guy I loved to read about. Fast with his gun and his mouth, he toured the West shooting up mass quantities of people (467 by the count of this Hex-a-holic...and if you have read many of his comics, that seems low for 101 issues..."ONLY" 4.67 kills for hex per issue? Seems low...)

And while he was racking up the body count, he was keeping a running commentary in his head replete with wise-cracks, one liners, and testosterone dismissals of the most trying circumstances. I had read other comics before...but this was the first one I truly loved.

I scrimped, saved, collected bottles and cans to purchase the next issue. When he was thrown into the future for the ill-starred Hex series, I was devastated....until it proved to be actually pretty entertaining, though having just a short run (18 issues) before being canceled.

Later, I went on a buying spree and purchased about 70% of the entire run of Jonah Hex. He became an old friend, and one I very much wanted to see brought to the big screen...just not in some ridiculous zombie-battle.*

So when the trailers showed him "resurrecting" a bad guy, blowing out "spirit smoke" from his mouth and them referring repeatedly to his supernatural powers, yet also demonstrating the penchant for violent gun-based retribution and snarky one-liners, I was in a quandary.

Do I go see a movie bound to disappoint me and thus encourage crap....or do I pass up on seeing some version, any version, of one of my all-time favorite fictional characters on the big screen?

I had a free movie ticket and a desire to avoid traffic, so...off to the theatre I went.

The movie starts in classic fashion...Jonah Hex (Josh Brolin) dragging multiple bodies behind his horse, on his way to collect a reward. He is a fine bounty hunter.

Soon the situation degenerates into another shoot out, this one a bit more atypical of the classic Hex comic but that is forgivable...it is a forgivable nod to the brainless summer blockbuster action-blow-em-up adventure genre.

It also showed somewhat of the different direction director Jimmy Hayward was going to take it. Hex does some pointless, over-the-top destruction that even for the calloused Hex is exceptionally violent.

There are two reviews of this movie. First, the lover of classic Hex.

I am burned that they took Quentin Turnbull (John Malkovich) from the debonair, refined, politician behind the scenes mysterious enemy and moved him clearly into the cheesy villain with decent plans but too ready to do his own dirty work and thus be eliminated reminiscent of the Joker (Heath Ledger) in the Dark Knight movie.

Gone were the deep, rich characterizations that would take dozens of issues to bring to fruition...no enemy who spanned every issue from Weird Western Tales #22 and he was still a major force when the aforementioned issue 77.

Also gone were Jonah's troubled childhood with an alcoholic father and prostitute mother, his adoption in and expulsion from the Apache tribe...and how he got his star.

Still there were his ability to out shoot, out think, out-skulk, and out-track anybody while popping off sarcastic and witty one-liners.

Added were a malicious streak...such as his gunning down of a guy for asking how he got his scar and his blowing up of the town where he had already killed 8/10ths of the population.

Also added were his supernatural powers and apparent inability to be killed by gunfire.

There were also some nice nods to classic Hex stories...like the callback to the half-wolf Iron Jaws that was with Hex for a few issues, Turnbull carrying an eagle-top cane, the appearance of an Indian Wife recalling White Fawn, and even the pit-fighting.

It made for a Hex that was interesting and intriguing but just barely lacking.

Now for the movie review from the guy who wanted to see Hex on the big screen and was willing to compromise.

This is not a movie for those who want hole-less plots, who want to think, or who want reality.

But if you are willing to suspend your disbelief and watch an adrenaline fueled duel of wills between the bad guy (Jonah Hex) and the worse guy (Turnbull) duke it out, you have come to the right place.

Burke (Michael Fassbender) is an outstanding villain. He is fearless, intelligent, and a worthy foe for Hex.

Lilah Tallulah Black (Megan Fox) is exactly the type of girl that a man like Hex would be expected to associate with.

And the story proceeds along at a good clip with some metaphysical meanderings taking place along the way. It is a good, entertaining, quick-moving yarn that sticks to what it is good at....high-octane action interspersed with build-ups to the next high-octane set piece with occasional pseudo-dramatic moments...will Turnbull and his men blow up Washington? Or will Hex stop them in time?

In the end, it is a basic revenge for revenge tale that is pretty entertaining along the way.

Hayward shows a good eye for the camera, with some nice framing and interesting point of view shots. He can also show the panorama when necessary.

Other than Malkovich, the acting is pretty solid. You are seldom pulled out of the movie and reminded these are not real people, they are actors playing created people.

Unfortunately, this is not true with Malkovich. He tries to be smooth but comes off cheesy and over acting. He is like a serious version of Jim Carrey...and that is not meant to be a compliment.

Brolin, on the other hand, brings a nice presence to the Hex role and there are some great supporting actors such as Will Arnett in a serious roll as Lieutenant Grass and Tom Wopat as Slocum.

Ultimately, I enjoyed myself enough that a movie I was prepared to hate I walked away from having had a good time.

* It is only fair to note that under the Vertigo banner, Hex DID in fact engage in stories of this nature. And, in this writer's humble yet accurate opinion...they sucked so bad I have not read his new series, either.

The Weasel is (strongly) satisfied.

Movie Review: Shrek Forever After

2010-05-23T21:36:00.000-07:00

Four movies. Ten Years. A zillion laughs. A sea change.

All these phrases and more fit the Shrek franchise.

When Shrek opened in 2001, it was noted for the way it "stood traditional fairy tales on their head". It capitalized on elements of anti-establishment emotions and made a hero of the classical villain-figure.

In 2004 with Shrek II they expanded the characters and broadened the story lines.

The laughs in both were plenteous and the references to well-known tales and cliches easy, natural, and awesome. And the "filler", Shrek the Halls (2007) was classic.

Later, it turned out 2007 was a dark year. In Shrek the Third...or as I prefer to refer to it, Shrek the turd, they forgot what made the first two movies great.

They tried so hard to push a particular concept that they forgot a key part of the formula that worked so well in parts one in two...namely, that the jokes come as part of the story, not at the expense of the story.

Pushing jokes, "non-traditional" ideas and so forth led to it more closely resembling epic fail icon Happily N'Ever After (2006) than the first two members of the Shrek franchise. It was unfunny, unentertaining, and borderline unwatchable.

That was unfortunate, because it showed promise. It just never delivered...and the failure was so epic that the entire Arthurian legend portion of the add-ons was completely eliminated from what is supposed to be the closing number, Shrek Forever After.

The story is nothing super exciting or original...but that is not necessarily a complaint. There are only so many times you can "turn cliches on their head" before there are no cliches left to turn.

At its roots, the movie can be summed up in either of two ways; 1) Shrek (Mike Meyers) experiences a mid-life crisis and must learn how lucky he is or 2) "I did not know what I had until it was gone" as Shrek intones late in the movie.

The story revolves around a deal Shrek makes with the delightful Rumplestiltskin (Walt Dohrn) who, along with his goose, are exactly the type of villain the first two Shreks had...you liked the villain nearly as much as Shrek. He was funny, entertaining, and a fitting counter-point.

There are many jokes, some nice one-liners, great animation, and a light but fun story. The "Do the roar" kid is outstanding.

They also do a nice job of drawing the story to a close. Shrek is no longer the feared, dangerous ogre....he has settled into life with wife, children, and friends...and he is happy about that. They conclude with a montage of some great moments for the series.

I have read several critics just blasting this flick for not being as fresh, original, or layered as the first one.

Maybe. But it is still very entertaining. We had a full theatre of people laughing from beginning to end and walked away satisfied. The bad taste from the third effort is gone and we can put it to bed with fond memories of this one.

Was it the best of the four? No...probably third best, but in a series like this...that is still pretty good.

And I saw it in just 2-d...really, it did not strike me as anything worth the extra premium for 3-d tickets. The animation looked spectacular, the jokes were every bit as funny, and this is a title that will end up on my shelf when it is released.

The Weasel is Full

Movie Review: Robin Hood

2010-05-21T21:50:00.000-07:00

This is a hard review for me because there is simply no way I can be fair to the movie.

Much like my review of GI Joe was skewed by the ridiculous accelerator suits and my anticipation for the forthcoming Jonah Hex is shattered by the fundamental shift in his story, the things I heard about Robin Hood proved false.

When the movie was first green-lighted, the rumor was the "twist" to the story was that Robin Hood was also the Sheriff of Nottingham. That would be a fun take on it and center on the best part of the story...Robin and his Merry Men hanging out in the forest, doing good deeds.

What we got was nothing like that. It started on the return from the Crusades, had just a couple of the classic Robin Hood tales, and had the feel more of a "tent pole origin story" than a self-contained movie.

Not that it was devoid of its charms...Ridley Scott has an excellent eye for the camera, he pulled excellent performances from a strong cast of supporting actors, and had a richly developed, nuanced world.

This version owed more to the gritty, violent Kevin Costner Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves version than to the light-hearted Robin Hood cartoon Disney put out, though there were elements of humor to it.

Ultimately, though, I think the movie failed on its own merits.

Instead of a bow-slinging Robin Hood (Russell Crowe) we get one who is more courtier than rough-hewn peasant, who wields a sword more than a bow and, in the climatic sea-battle, wields a battle hammer? What in the world?

This movie simply had too many gaping holes in it;
- why would the wild orphans steal SEED?
- why would they then decide to rescue the towns-folk and join Marian (Cate Blanchett) in battle?
- why would Robin abandon the bows (and how did he do it so quickly) and the sword for that ugly battle-hammer?

I should clarify; I did enjoy the movie. It had several likable characters, an interesting enough plot, was well-paced and had some depth to it.

It simply was not what was expected, and that harmed my personal enjoyment of it. It also felt like an incomplete story.

It is probably worth seeing at a second run theatre or on a Netflix release, but not worth full price admission.

Movie Review:John 3:33

2010-05-19T07:51:00.000-07:00

John 3:33 is a low-budget, local production written and directed by Tim Burr with producing help from Tyler Travis. Since it starred a former teammate of mine, I went to see it.

The Story
John (Phil Stoddard), Jonathan (Phil Stoddard) and John (Phil Stoddard) are three potential life-routes taken that all encounter a terrorist attack in Willamina, OR in different ways.

John, guided/prodded/harassed by a mysterious stranger...maybe an angel, maybe a demon, maybe both or neither, looks at various incidents that may or may not have happened, what they reveal about him, and whether they reflect fate or his own choices.

The story is often confusing with incomplete, incoherent segments with little or no relation to other scenes. This, per Burr's admission, is partly by design. The resolution is left to the viewer's discretion, a tactic often used by movies that intent to be proclaimed "smart". Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't.

This story has potential, but also some rough edges and ultimately has too many threads which go nowhere. The journey is more important than a clear narrative. If you are willing to accept the vignette-unrelated methodology, it will work far better.

It contrasts with a movie like Crash where seemingly unrelated vignettes ultimately prove to be intimately interwoven and you will see a clear difference between a movie with potential for a memorable experience and a movie that is an ambitious, worthy attempt...but still an early, inexperienced attempt at a feature movie.

He tried to put in some nice touches, like the reoccurring dog appearances...but they were unmotivated and therefore did nothing to add to the story. Had the dog had some purpose for being in random locations, they would have been great.

He had several ideas like this which came close but juuuuuuuuuuuuusssssttt missed.

The Cinematography
One problem with filming a low-budget movie is the lack of budget for certain things. This feature looked like what it was; a low-budget labor of love.

I would guess it was shot single-camera. He did a nice job of de-emphasizing some of the weaknesses...he chose to go low-light as a mood-enhancer, for example, shooting almost universally in dark locations.

He also spent a lot of time with close-ups of faces, actions...even the tearing of a receipt got a double-dose of the close-up treatment.

At times this worked rather well, other times it was somewhat distracting.

Conclusion
This is not standard Hollywood fare. It is an off-beat, somewhat unconventional flick designed not to tell a story but to raise questions in the viewer and stimulate them to thinking about their own life.

If you like slick special effects, pretty cinematography, and a clear story this movie is not for you.

Conversely, if you like unusual, off-center, "personal films", this should be right up your alley.

It will never be confused with great cinema, but there is a place for material like this.

The Weasel is Satisfied

Movie Review:Iron-Man 2

2010-05-12T08:08:00.000-07:00

Comic books went through a massive change from their inception. Much early fare was basic escapist entertainment with outlandish story lines, fantastical feats of derring-do, and campy stories that delivered a high fun factor.

As the mood of the nation changed, so did the super hero comic. By the late 80s or early 90s it seemed many titles focused more on the personal, typically angst-driven problems of the titular hero with the action scenes providing the next beat in that story, almost secondary to the main point of the book.

In that period, when they were trying to be taken as a serious medium, they delved deeply into a variety of social issues and causes. For some, this was a wonderful thing. For others, they started to miss the fun factor that made the medium special.

That is not a criticism that can be leveled at Iron Man 2. The fun factor is high, the action sequences numerous and spectacular, the violence at near spaghetti western levels, and the scenery...just gorgeous.

Director Jon Favreau has a great eye for spectacular, eye-pleasing moments that border on the iconic, a sly sense of humor, and a talent for bringing out the best in his well-populated star list. Perhaps the moment that best displays this is the Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) in the donut.
From a story standpoint, Iron Man is excellent. The basic storyline is nothing spectacular, nor are any of the sub-plots taken individually...but when melded together they provide a very nice texture to frame an overall effect that has re-watchability.

Additionally, they show a knowledge of and respect for the fans of the comic book. This is shown by little things such as Stark using the phrase "war machine" in regards to the suit Rhoades (Don Cheadle) is wearing that had a brief run as its own comic titled War Machine. It was a very nice touch.

It is one reason the movie works on many levels. The non-comic fan gets a big, bold action-adventure. The comic fan gets to see little bits and pieces of the Marvel Universe on the big screen with homages to the "canon".

From a cinematography standpoint, I think most viewers can find many things to enjoy. The scenery...whether nature or the inhabitants...is often spectacular and easy on the eyes. (When Stark says of Natalie Rushman (Scarlett Johannsen), "I want one", many viewers probably already had that thought when they saw the Ironettes).

If you go into this expecting Schindler's List you will deservedly be disappointed. But if you go in expecting one-liners, double-entendres, over-the top action, gorgeous visuals, and a lot of fun you will love it.

Of course, being me, I have to find SOMETHING I did not love about this movie; how, exactly, did the rather light-weighing Pepper Potts (Gwyneth Paltrow) manage to haul around a suitcase containing a full Iron Man suit? How did Justin Hammer (Sam Rockwell) make and retain all his money if nothing he makes works?

Those, of course, are things that are irrelevant. Just roll with them.

On the other end of the spectrum are two nice surprises for fans of the Marvel Universe...one being the sighting of Captain America's shield and the other...well, stay through the end of the credits. Nice teaser to be found there.

If you like fun movies with beautiful people and high-octane action, great special effects and fun...this movie is a must-see.

The Weasel is full.

Movie Review: Date Night

2010-04-15T08:48:00.000-07:00

I should admit up front that I A) am not a Tina Fay fan, finding her at best modestly funny and at worst downright unfunny and B) I can take or leave Steve Carrel. Loved him in Get Smart but in the Office, too much of the humor is "uncomfortable humor" where you are supposed to laugh at him while liking him.

It is to his credit that he pulls it off.

With that pairing, I was quite ambivalent about seeing it...until my wife saw it and loved it. So with her recommendation in mind, off I went.

First, the movie review itself;

So long as you are capable of suspending your disbelief, this is a marvelous, entertaining movie. Yes, the plot and situations are ridiculous, bizarre, and unbelievable...but when you lose yourself in the movie, they make sense and provide the perfect vehicle for the stars.

Steve and Tina play understated, fun roles that become not just believable, but empathetic.

There are some laughs along the way, a couple minor plot twists that add just that little extra bit to the story and in the end a very satisfying conclusion. If you like "serviceable comedies" this one is a home run.

Where Date Night really shines, however, is its take on the modern marriage.

With both spouses often working outside the home, there is often a lack of energy for interacting with one another. Furthermore, there can easily develop a complacency, an assumption that all is well with the status quo.

The problems faced by the Fosters that come to light as they rampage across the city causing rampant property destruction, engaging in breaking and entering, theft, and entrapment, and consider whether their marriage has grown stale or not are things that many couples may find familiar.

Are they "boring" because their nights have a regular routine? has their marriage "lost the spark" because they no longer "get it on" with the regularity of rabbits or porn stars? Are they just going through the motions?

Or are those signs that they are working together in so much harmony that they are working for their common good?

A telling moment comes when it comes to light that Phil (Carrell) had actually read the entire, horrendous book referenced throughout the movie. He had not done so out of a sense of duty or obligation, but did so because, as he says to Claire (Fay), "It was important to you."

He did not resent reading books he lacked interest in but rather enjoyed it because it mattered to his wife. He did not ignore her interests but exerted some effort into learning what they were, expended energy into seeing to it that she was able to engage in them and enjoy them.

It was actually the picture of a truly wonderful marriage. They are comfortable with one another, they care about one another, and they are willing to work to make the life of their partner better even at the expense of sacrificing some of their own desires.

Theirs is the type of marriage oft-mocked in today's society. Aside from the duel career versus "making dinner in heels and pearls", it was almost a 50s stereotypical marriage...except real.

The type of marriage that many millions of happy couples have.

Sure, we and/or our mate may not be the most handsome, fittest, richest, or smartest person...but to our mate we are.

And when Phil tells Claire, "I would do it all again." referring to the marriage, it is a beautiful moment.

Yes, it is a reaffirming of "traditional" marriage. But I am one of those people who appreciates that.

I have my Claire. I hope I am her Phil. And even if we never steal a reservation and spend the next few hours destroying a town, running for our lives, dressing as strippers and having robot sex, I will still love her with every fiber of my being. I may never walk 20 miles into the desert to menstruate...but in the feelings expressed, I identify with Phil and Claire. (And yes, that is an inside reference, sensible only to those who see the movie. So go see it.)

Movie Review:How to Train Your Dragon

2010-03-31T07:43:00.001-07:00

Hiccup (Jay Baruchel) is a young Viking who missed all the Viking traits...he is slight of built, slender, wiry, weak, and creative.

His father, Stoick (Gerard Butler) is quite disappointed in him since he is not a "real Viking". Hiccup, in the course of trying to prove he is a Viking, brings down a dragon with one of his inventions.

The story then follows his developing friendship with Toothless the dragon as they figure out the "hereditary enmity" between dragons and Vikings is actually an acquired taste. The story follows a predictable arc ending in reconciliation and new friendship.

That is no indictment of the movie, however. The joy in this movie is broad and rich.

It comes from the beautiful animation, the heartwarming story, and the entertaining story.

Sometimes those of us who have seen a vast number of movies and/or read a wide range of literature tend to get a bit jaded. Sure, the story arc here is familiar, many of the jokes have been seen before...but that has more to do with the number of flicks I have seen than the quality of this movie.

The story is good...that is why it has been done before. The fun comes in the slight tweaks, the cool animation, and the way Toothless will remind you of the coolest dog you ever had.

I loved this movie and walked away smiling. Love the animation, the story, the jokes. It will be coming to my house in DVD form.

Movie Review: Alice in Wonderland

2010-03-08T21:56:00.000-08:00

Tim Burton made his name as a director for having a skewed, warped vision of the world that came through in offbeat, off-kilter, and edgy movies. The movie viewer who anticipates standard colors, appearances and fare in a Burton flick will inevitably be sadly disappointed.

The Alice in Wonderland world then seems like a natural for him. If he can turn Willie Wonka from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory into a freak show that makes the creepy version played by Gene Wilder seem downright normal…which he did…then the possibilities for the Mad Hatter, Cheshire Cat, Queen of Hearts, and so forth are many indeed.

That makes the bland, uninspired, dare I say outright boring Alice in Wonderland all the more surprising. There is no sense of fun in the drab Mad Hatter played by Johnny Depp, the Knave (Crispin Glover) is…boring, Alice (Mia Wasikowska) is boring, the Queen of Hearts (Helena Bonham Carter) is…boring, the story....is boring, the cinematography...well, you guess what I think it is.

Burton did not expend much energy on this flick. From the formulaic, stereotypical “villains who are not real villains, just clueless, self-absorbed people” trying to convince Alice to marry the simpering, image-conscious Lord Charles Kingsley (Martin Csokas) in the opening scene to the final “sailing off into the sunset” moment, the movie just plods along going nowhere.

There are moments of fun. Tweedledee and Tweedledum (Matt Lucas) are mildly amusing and the movie would be better with more of them and less of everyone else. The rocking horse bugs, for example, are at least easy to look at. But they disappear and with them the imagination you usually find in a Burton movie. There is little or no originality in the remainder of the movie.

There are a few curious yet unbelievably major plot holes…such as how the Cheshire Cat (Stephen Fry) can assume the appearance and form of the Mad Hatter, or why the deposed White Queen (Anne Hathaway) has a nicer castle than the Red Queen.

But the supporting characters feel…boring, incomplete…there are no memorable secondary characters. This is a surprisingly uninspired, unoriginal, insipid bit of movie drivel not worthy of the talents of Burton, Depp, or anyone else involved in the project.

I never expect much from a Burton movie and so often receive a pleasant surprise as his dark, twisted take on the world turns certain things on their head and makes them entertaining. Not this time.

If you have a free movie rental via Netflix, save it for something better than this stinker.

Movie Review: Edge of Darkness

2010-02-10T22:50:00.000-08:00

For a while it looked like Mel Gibson had killed his movie career. Between movies found insensitive by some groups (really? Passion of the Christ? People feel they, as a modern group, are being called to account for a 2000 year old event because somebody made a movie based on the best documented source available? Perhaps some Persians should have been up in arms over 300 then...), drunk driving, and all around oddness. He kind of was becoming the Dennis Rodman of cinema.

Mix in the train wreck Apocalypto and you have a guy nobody really wants to see or hear from. This is not the same guy who made Lethal Weapon, Braveheart, The Patriot or even Paycheck.

Somewhere along the line he lost his cachet, and being somewhat up in years, his days as an action star seem somewhat behind him, yet an action-thriller was the entire marketing of Edge of Darkness.

It is unfortunate that the previews spoil one of the best "twists" in this fairly by-the-numbers action adventure yarn. There are a couple other minor surprises, but it mostly follows the film-by-numbers to the letter.

Not that it is a knock on it...Darkness is a rollicking good time with plenty of violence, intriguing characters, a mystery that, even if you figure it out the first time the villain and/or anti-heroes come on screen, is still fun to watch get where it is going.

When Emma Craven (Bojana Novakocik) is shot down in front of Detective Thomas Craven (Mel Gibson), it sets him on an investigation that will lead to the halls of Congress, the headquarters of major corporations, and points in between.

Along the way he has some fascinating interplay with Jedburgh (Ray Winstone), the mysterious enforcer-for-hire who takes an interest in preventing Craven from ever discovering the truth.

As the body count rises, it seems everyone who could help Craven turns up dead, yet he relentlessly draws closer and closer to finding out the truth of who was responsible for the death of his daughter. Can he find the answer before he is killed himself?

The answer is mildly surprising, but the trip is what is really entertaining.

If you like action-adventure movies, this is an excellent diversion for a few hours. Winstone is perfection in his role and is perhaps the most well-developed character along the way. If you are surprised that Senator Jim Pine is represented as a Republican you have no concept of the American political scene. If the bad guys being who they are surprises you...well, again, wake up and smell the smoke stacks, my friends.

In the end, it is an entertaining 1:48 and worth seeing on a matinee...or at least on Netflix.

Movie Review: Ninja Assassin

2009-12-01T12:59:00.000-08:00

Please, do not misunderstand what I am about to say and think this movie was bloody. After all, this movie has a healthy dose of Ben Miles, whom you might remember from his role as Patrick in the British sitcom Coupling.

I mean, sure, the opening scene where Raizo (Rain) wipes out a gang for no apparent reason is pretty bloody, with severed arms, legs, heads, trunks, and just general spurts of blood fill the screen.

And then there is the bloody training scene.

And the random fight with the other ninja in the laundromat...that has lots of blood.

And the bloody eating scene.

And the other bloody training scene.

Oh, yeah, and then the scene where he is trying to sleep has the bloody feet.

And then there is that one training scene that is pretty bloody.

And of course his first assassination...that one is extremely bloody.

Oh, I almost forgot the other training scene...I guess it was pretty bloody too, now that I think about it.

And the scene where Raizo turns on his master...it is pretty bloody.

And the scene where he is in prison....that is blood-drenched as well.

Oh, and the final battle has more than its share of blood...

On the bright side, you are unlikely to get too lost in the uncomplicated plot. Raizo was going to be the perfect Ninja until Kiriko (Anna Sawai, Kylie Goldstein) shows him he has a heart. When she is killed by the clan, he decides to wreak vengeance on them.

Now that we have the plot out of the way, it is one fight scene after another.

Unfortunately, they went so heavily on the "Ninjas fight in shadows" theme that is becomes a series of flickering movements in the shadows followed by fountains of blood. At times you are not extremely sure if they really needed actors for this movie.

By the time it is over, you figure you have seen your share of blood for the decade, but still are unfulfilled if you thirst for a good fighting movie.

So-so story, few good lines of sight in combat scenes, and a pedestrian ending leave this one for the Netflix pile.

Movie Review:Law Abiding Citizen

2009-10-28T14:43:00.000-07:00

Okay, let's get the plot out of the way early. Clyde Shelton (Gerard Butler) and his family are victims of a random crime that turns horrific when Clarence Darby (Christian Stolte) turns to rape and murder.

At the trial, conviction rate fanatic Nick Rice (Jamie Foxx) makes a plea bargain with Darby over the objections of Shelton that puts Darby back on the street quickly while his less guilty accomplice Rupert Ames (Josh Stewart) gets the death penalty.

10 years later, instead of being executed painlessly, Ames has a violent, painful death which, even though he was being executed, makes it murder.

The trail leads to Darby who turns up dead. In a detective role, Assistant DA Rice tracks it back to Shelton who more or less admits to it, and later admits it with great pride.

Bodies start piling up with Shelton in prison as he tries to make his point that the system is broken. Ultimately the question becomes whether Rice can figure out how to stop him before Shelton kills everyone involved in the trial that set free Darby while killing Ames.

This movie is first and foremost a message movie. It is an indictment of a legal system that is more interested in conviction rates than in true justice. Plea deals, phrases such as "It's not what you know, it is what you can prove", the bail system and much more are the agit-prop targets of the film-makers.

However, to get their message across, they needed a platform, and that platform became a drama/action hybrid with some strange directions.

At first you feel sympathy for Shelton. Here is an involved father and dedicated family man who had his family ripped away in a senseless, brutal crime.

Yet as the movie progresses and his murderous rampage goes ever wider...taking in judges, office assistants, defense attorneys, and basically everyone EXCEPT the guy who made the deal, your sympathy starts to fade and instead he seems more like a guy who has lost his mind.

Nor is Rice an overly sympathetic character.

And the conclusion, while what it must be, is disappointing...simply because they went with what "must be" instead of finding a creative, satisfying conclusion that did not undermine the points they were trying to make throughout the whole movie.

The movie was mildly entertaining but nothing anybody should rush out to see which is disappointing because it has a phenomenal cast, the directing was nicely paced and set a good atmosphere, and they avoided the gore while still portraying the brutality that started the whole thing. Ultimately, it was just a weak script and that it was entertaining is a testament to the skills of Foxx, Butler, and director F. Gary Gray.

Wait for Netflix.

Movie Review:Surrogates

2009-09-26T01:33:00.000-07:00

Lately there has been a plethora of movies dealing with ethical issues raised by what many anticipate will be the next generation of Sims-style games.

Sometimes, such as in I, Robot (2004) those concerns revolve around the rights "created life-forms" have. More recently, Gamer seemed from the trailers to revolve around the legitimacy of getting people from death row killed in pursuit of a game, though that is pure conjecture...friends warned me it had so many pornographic overtones they walked out and I took their advice and elected not to see it.

Be that as it may, Surrogates takes the concept to another level.

In this world, virtually every person stays at home, wirelessly controlling surrogate androids that go forth and take part in the world. This will free them from the dangers of disease, accidents, and even warfare as shown in one interesting scene where a soldier who has his surrogate "killed" simply receives another unit from a replacement supply along with a stern warning to be careful, because "these things aren't free".

Certainly, there are advantages to living real life entirely by remote control. You can choose how you look, don't have to suffer unpleasant side effects of deviant behavior...after all, if you murder a surrogate, it is just property damage, not actually taking a life...and so forth.

But there are consequences as well. Director Jonathan Mostow certainly allows plenty of time and returns repeatedly to scenes showing the emotional disconnect that comes from having no actual personal contact or interaction...a charge frequently leveled against serious players of Sims or Massively Multi-player Online games such as World of Warcraft and Everquest.

The movie starts with an episodic look at how Surrogates went from conception to something employed by the vast majority of people, though some people rebel at the concept and form Surrogate-free zones.

Soon it jumps into a look at a young man who goes to a club instead of an opera...only to be killed by real human Miles Strickland (Jack Noseworthy).

Greer (Bruce Willis) and his partner Peters (Radha Mitchell) must solve the murder which leads to a tangled web of deception as they discover someone has invented a weapon which makes it possible to kill the user by killing the surrogate.

More and more powerful forces try to keep Greer from accomplishing his mission until at the end he is faced with a choice; save the surrogates and allow dis-figured and disabled people to live "normal" lives or allow their destruction to force people to act on their own.

The movie is pretty entertaining, has a couple nice action set-pieces and may surprise you at a turn or two...though the clues are there to let you know what is coming.

It is pretty weird seeing the Surrogate version of Willis with the goofy hair and no wrinkles..in fact, at some point the distinct lack of wrinkles on the surrogates almost becomes a character itself.

Is the immersion in virtual and alternate reality worlds a negative thing? How far is too far? These are questions the movie will raise and have no doubt; the writers and director have an answer.

Movie Review:9

2009-09-19T17:24:00.000-07:00

If someone told you they wanted you to see a movie with cool animation, some nice special effects, tremendous voice over talent, and an idiotic story, would you go see it?

9 (2009) follows 9 (Elijah Wood) from his "creation" through his coming to life through his first adventure. Let me sum up the plot:

From a plot sense, 9 is brought to life to bring to life The Monster which he keeps the other animated burlap bags from destroying because if they destroy it then the burlap bags the Monster has eaten will not be able to be brought back, so instead he uses a device to destroy the machine which then frees the burlap bags...to fly away and be gone forever.

Huh?

Don't destroy it so you can destroy it...

This plot had no point.

Okay, if you want a stretch a point, since each numbered burlap bag represented "some part of the human soul" I suppose you could argue Shane Acker (story) and Pamela Pettler (screenplay) are making some morality tale about which elements of the human soul they find worthwhile while simultaneously complaining about advancing technology...highly ironic since the movie is a technological masterpiece...but that is pushing it.

It also misses a key point; to push a morality tale, you have to intrigue the audience enough to care. When you make a vaguely entertaining movie that has a contradictory plot and a lousy denouement, you end up with 9:an unsatisfying, disappointing cinematic effort.

Stay away from this one.

Movie Review: G.I.Joe:The The Rise of Cobra

2009-08-08T22:42:00.000-07:00

For whatever reason, movies that spark the nostalgia of childhood always strike my fancy and rank high on my list of movies I am excited to see. Certainly the third installment in the Ice Age franchise was greatly anticipated, and Transformers: The Revenge of the Fallen ranked as must-see cinema for me.

The only reason GI Joe did not rank that was was because this franchise went off the rails in the previews. Whereas the comics I recall and the cartoon when I was able to watch it were more or less set in a "real physics" universe, albeit with A-Team like sparsity of casualties despite constant warfare and gunfire.

Yet in the pre-view they have the absolutely idiotic "Delta 6 Accelerator Suits" which allow them to dodge missiles. Whatever. It was at that moment this tent-pole wannabe franchise went off the rails for me.

I had very conflicted feelings about seeing it. I was going to hate the straying from the "feel" of the GI JOE lore but it did look like a pretty good action flick. Still, it is GI JOE and has a huge brand-name cast so off I went. I was totally prepared to hate this movie.

The flick starts bizarrely in 1641 Medieval France where James McCullen (David Murray) has been arrested by the French for selling weapons to their enemies. Thus the McCullen clan habit of arms dealing and selling weapons to both sides was established.

Click to modern day where General Hawk (Dennis Quaid) is watching a modern day McCullen (Christopher Eccleston) tell NATO of the nanomite warheads he has developed for no apparent reason.

This is one of the myriad of non-sensical plot holes you must ignore if you are to enjoy this movie. Why, exactly, the "peace-keeping" mission of NATO suddenly has them independently paying for Doomsday weapons is never addressed in any way, shape or form. Moving on, nothing to see here but the ripped, torn, bleeding carcass of a gazelle that wandered into a lion pride.

The task of transporting these warheads from Kurgystan or some such random country (see above plot hole comment; why a Scotsmen working for NATO has his lab there is...well...best not to think about it. You won't like the answer anyway.) is assigned to Duke (Channing Tatum) , Ripcord (Marlon Wayans) and their team of anonymous casualties.

Enter the forces of the Baroness (Sienna Miller) and Storm Shadow (Byung-Hun Lee) who try to seize the briefcase, only to be foiled by Scarlett (Rachel Nichols), Heavy Duty (Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje), Snake Eyes (Ray Park) and some other Joe I cannot remember.

Yes, the characters are introduced so fast and in such large bunches that they are hard to remember...but I am okay with that as at least they were true to that part of the Joe lore. As well as all of them having nick-names, though why Duke is Duke and Ripcord Ripcord prior to becoming Joes is another intriguing mystery best left unexplored.

From there the story takes off. The scenes of exposition are few and far between and widely spaced between some rather intense set-piece action scenes, long chases, huge explosions, and the requisite and awesome Snake Eyes versus Storm Shadow one on one combats which should satisfy any fan of sword play...unless, of course, the viewer has seen the movies from which their fight scenes seem to be almost directly ported over.

It is an open question whether the heavy references in this movie to other movies are "tributes", "homages" or "plagiarism". For your intellectual integrity, do not compare the missile dodging scene to any other recent high profile movies based on toy franchises that had a massive city battle which saw missiles fired at two figures in full chase mode who then contort wildly to avoid them...

There were so many references to many famous movies. In fact, they cribbed so heavily from Black Hawk Down that instead of simply re-shooting scenes down to the same camera angles...they simply took footage from it as you see in the final credits.

In case it is not obvious, even after seeing it I am highly conflicted about this movie.

As a GI JOE movie, it blew great hairy chunks of monkey under arm pit sweat. The unworldly physics of the Accelerator suits, the stupidity of the nanomites and various "pistol that blows up a city block...no wait, it sniper-level hits just the intended target...no wait, it blows up 2 widely dispersed enemies and the entire wall behind them" weapons, the death of a major, major part of the JOE lore...these are major strikes against it.

Not to mention they use the tag line "GI JOE:A Real American Hero" even though it is deliberately an international task force based in Egypt. Oh, and the American President has a very thick, obvious, and not American accent.

At the same time, as an action movie this may have been even more adrenaline-pumped and action packed than Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen or even Live Free or Die Hard. The action scenes are long, packed, photographed well with very little of the annoying bouncing that has been all the rage lately. These are action scenes that are filmed so well you can actually, you know....see what is happening. That is outstanding.

But on the negative side are the repeat jokes and the bad acting. Example A: When Cobra attacks in the desert, the camels sense the under-the-surface invasion and react to it. When the Joes attack the Cobra base, the Polar Bear senses the under-the-surface invasion and reacts to it. Tit-for-tat, take that.

And the acting...oh, what happened? Way back when the abominable Punisher:Warzone was out, I complained about the cheesy, cartoon-like acting of Dominic West in the role of primary villain and how it really detracted from what was very nearly a really good Punisher movie.

Enter The Doctor (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) who apparently disagrees with me. His walk, his gestures, his vocal inflections...until I looked up the credits I actually thought it was Dominic West. His cartoonish acting was extremely distracting. In his "homage" costume to Star Wars and Hellboy he decided to reference one of the more disappointing Comic Genre movies in recent memory? Why was this allowed?

Marlon Wayans is also pretty uneven, going from playing it straight and in the feel of most of the cast to getting in touch with his prat-fall Three Stooges homage side.

The change of heart Scarlett has is not sold particularly well either, but that is part of having perhaps too many sub-plots.

Ironically, I prefer my movies, even popcorn-fests such as this one, to have a variety of story-lines...provided the director takes the time to develop them and they make sense.

In this case, Director Stephen Sommers was so busy over-using the tired and true (not a typo) flashback device so often used to cover weak story-telling to actually develop current stories.

So in the end we have a real mish-mash. It is a great action flick with a couple real poor performances, interesting but not fascinating story, a nice twist that you may or may not see coming, and a curious (probable) death to a well-loved character and other abuses of the franchise that simultaneously manages to be great and horrific at the same time.

If you insist on your "GI Joe" lore matching the canon, save the 40 bucks a night at the movies will cost you. If you love action movies, go see it today. If you are indifferent...well, you might get distracted.

Movie Review:Ice Age, Dawn of the Dinosaurs

2009-07-16T02:24:00.000-07:00

The Ice Age franchise is now in its 3rd installment and, as with most franchises, there have been certain changes. Remember in the first Ice Age how Diego (Denis Leary) was a fierce, dangerous foe for Manny (Ray Romano)?

Remember how Manny himself was a capable fighter when the need arose?

Remember how Sid (John Leguizmo) was really annoying yet somehow endearing?

Remember in the second one how fun the Possum twins were?

Meet the new Ice Age where Manny and Diego are cowards, Sid has lost his annoying ways and is now lacking that sweetness edge, and the new "cool factor" is supplied by Buck (Simon Pegg), the death-defying super-hero/klutz who battles Rudy the Dinosaur...a character so fierce that Manny and Diego have gone from characters who did what was necessary to fear-driven, unfunny guys.

Fortunately, there is still a lot of humor in this new edition. While not quite as original or fun as the first two, it is still a fast-paced, warm-hearted romp through the world of pre-history.

The jokes are, if not as plentiful as in the first two, still funny and the characters still have that little something that makes you want to see how their story turns out. The story arc is entertaining and the resolution everything you are looking for.

I was slightly disappointed with this movie because I loved the first two so much and that indicated to me that this was a franchise dedicated to putting out quality stories instead of trading on franchise recognizability.

I think part of it might be because they have added too much. In the first movie, there were really only three characters they followed; Manny, Sid and Diego. It was their story.

In the second movie, they added Ellie (Queen Latifah), Crash (Seann William Scott) and Eddie (Josh Peck).

There was still time to explore their characters and relationships, each character was central for a while.

Now, they added Buck, the Dinosaur babies, and left out a lot of the stuff we wanted to see. No Crash and Eddie antics, no Diego-as-force-of-nature, Manny mostly as a bumbling, fearful father, no Ellie as a possum type humor...

Yet it was still fun and entertaining. The Scrat (Chris Wedge) and Scratte (Karen Disher) storyline was a bigger part of the movie and had its own arc which was very, very well done. Buck picked up a lot of the Crash/Eddie type moments. They cribbed a bit from Shrek with the Sid/dinosaur mom story, but that was okay.

Overall, if you like cartoons and good stories, you cannot go wrong going to see Ice Age. Despite the shortcomings mentioned above, it was worth the trip.

Movie Review: Transformers, Revenge of the Fallen

2009-07-08T14:33:00.000-07:00

Many people hate the directing of Michael Bay. He uses a lot of explosions, high-energy set-pieces, sensuous camera angles, and so forth to cover for some shaky scripts. He has developed a style that falls enough into the realm of the auteur that he is even being mocked for it on You-tube.

On the other hand, with Bay you know what you are going to get and he seldom fails to deliver. In Transformers:Revenge of the Fallen he has the source material that fits his style. The original cartoon was never overly long on story line and plot but made up for it with a lot of high-octane action. Enter Michael Bay.

Revenge of the Fallen is everything you would expect. Action-packed, full of one-liners, full of plot holes and thoroughly enjoyable. It starts slowly, but once it gets going it doesn't slow down.

The plot is simple; Ancient Decepticon "The Fallen" wants to return to power. To do that, the last Optimus must be slain. Once that happens, he will be freed to go to earth, find a machine that will kill the sun, and get that power for himself. Meanwhile, the knowledge of The Cube has been internalized by Sam Witwicky (Shia LaBeouf).

So the Decepticons are chasing Sam who is being protected by Bumblebee and accompanied by Mikaela Banes (Megan Fox). Along the way, the specialized military task force has several battles with the Decepticons and the epic conclusion is a long-running battle that delivers everything you would expect from a Michael Bay flick: hot women, big guns, rapid cuts, numerous explosions, and a happy conclusion.

Along the way we encounter a lot of new Transformers that call back the glory days of the cartoon. We see Constructobots, Dinobots, and several others including a wise-cracking duo that get the best lines in the movie.

If you are looking for an intellectual, thought-provoking movie with something to say about today's society, skip this movie. But if you want an action-packed, fun filled action-adventure with a lot of combat, laughs, and fun, go see it. Twice.

Movie Review: The Proposal

2009-06-13T22:04:00.000-07:00

We got there early for the sneak peak at the insistence of the Goose. The theatre was filling fast and I said in mild surprise, "I am surprised this many people want to see this train wreck."

"Train wreck? What do you mean? It looks good!"

I smiled. "Well, yeah, it is a rom-com, but it breaks too many rules. Ryan Reynolds and Sandra Bullock don't get to play their normal characters, it is the girl who gets rid of the guy only to realize he was what she wanted....it is a tough sell."

Time to eat my words.

Andrew Paxton (Ryan Reynolds) is the same character Reynolds pretty much always plays. He is the suave, sophisticated, egotistical jackass who has just enough charm to get the girls to swoon.

Margaret Tate (Sandra Bullock), on the other hand, is a different character for recent vintage Sandra Bullock. Gone is the clumsy, sweet, slightly overwhelmed charm girl and in its place is the Ice Princess, a callback to Meryl Streep's wench in The Devil Wears Prada.

The story line is one you have seen before a bunch of times; dominating personality and talented but soul-crushed partner are forced into close proximity, think they hate each other, end up falling in love and getting married.

The contrived plot is unfortunate, because there are several elements in the background that, if explored more deeply, would add depth and texture to what ultimately becomes a mildly touching romp through the normal points a rom-com genre movie should hit.

I would love to see more time spent on the tension between Andrew and his dad Joe, ably played by Joe T. Nelson. They have great chemistry and you definitely believe there is a story and history there. Sometimes those "we have history" scenes are brutal and transparent and can ruin what might otherwise be a watchable movie (for example, the "fireman prank" and "stories of past events together" scenes in the execrable Ladder 49 combined with the horrific acting of Joaquin Phoenix combined to make it a movie that hopefully you don't recognize). In this case, the scenes felt very real and drew you in.

The movie is very well placed, has several hysterically awesome scenes that had people laughing loud enough that you could not catch all the dialogue. That is an excellent sign.

It also shows that Anne Fletcher is an excellent director. She is obviously well versed in the uses of the Kuleshov effect, and her excellent reaction shots bring the movie from predictable and serviceable to extremely enjoyable and worth seeing again should opportunity arise.

Overall, this movie delivered with gorgeous scenery, plentiful laughs, a fun story, and a satisfying conclusion. If you enjoy romantic comedies, go see it.

Movie Review:Up

2009-06-01T09:25:00.000-07:00

Up has been heavily marketed for quite some time. The early pictures of a house flying on balloons coupled with more recent commercials showing some funny moments from the movie made it quite clear what this was; a light-hearted, fun, funny movie mostly targeted at the younger demographic.

And so it starts out to be. The sequences of young Carl Fredricksen (Jeremy Leary) worshipping his adventuresome idol Charles Muntz (Christopher Plummer) and meeting the equally star-struck and hysterical Ellie (Elie Docter) are everything you were expecting.

You are quickly drawn into the story. The plot is fast-moving, the jokes plentiful, and the classic Disney heart/charm fully in place.

Spoiler Alert

Then, something funny happens. There is a sequence that is quite heart-breaking. With schmaltzy music, they do a montage of Carl and Ellie growing up, getting married, getting ready to have a baby...and then the baby dying, probably a miscarriage. Then Ellie dies.

What? Seriously? It is not that death has not entered feel-good animation before...in Finding Nemo the mother fish and all but one egg are killed. But that was off-screen and by implication.

Okay, so technically it is off-screen and by implication here, too, but it is much more heavy-handed and with tremendous impact. Not a few snuffles were heard in the theatre, and rightfully so.

On the one hand, that is a very good thing. It means you care about the lead characters. On the other hand...it just did not feel right for a movie targeted at the younger set.

End of Spoiler

Now in his retirement years, Carl (Edward Asner) is ready to move on. He decides to complete his childhood promise to Ellie to go to Paradise Falls where Muntz disappeared. This is where the famous house on balloons scenes come in.

Along with young do-gooder Russell (Jordan Nagai) who stows away unintentionally, he flies to South America. The rest of the movie is primarily his struggle to get the house to the dream location.

Problems crop up when a mysterious bird and several dogs get involved, leading Carl to get involved in the fight to protect the bird, Kevin, from a mysterious pack of dogs with collars that allow them to talk.

Eventually he meets the villain, changes his mind, helps Russell and Kevin battle the villains and brings it all home to a satisfying conclusion.

This movie works on many levels. It has a solid message about realizing that the dream you thought you had may not be the one you get, but that does not mean you should be disappointed. It also carried a nice message about not being so caught up in your own wants that you forget to care for and help others.

It also provided plenty of humor and had a nice story line that was quite entertaining while also being full of heart. The animation was well done, the characters fun and engaging and, most importantly, likable.

If you like good animation and/or soft comedy, this movie is an excellent choice and I highly recommend it.

Movie Review:Night at the Museum:Battle of the Smithsonian

2009-05-30T13:55:00.000-07:00

This movie was marketed as a comedy. That was the highlight of all the trailers, with things like the critique of Darth Vader (...simplify. You have too much going on. Your evil, your asthmatic, your a robot. And what's with the cape. Are we going to the opera? I don't think so..") and The Thinker being a self-absorbed body builder.

Unfortunately, if you have seen the trailer you have seen all the funny parts. You have seen all the screen time Vader gets. You have seen the Custer/Pocahontas scene. The laughs are over.

Left behind are 105 torturous minutes of call-backs to the original that add nothing to the story and are not funny...they seem to be there simply because a call-back is a means to an end in and of itself..., action sequences that end up being silly, and waiting for the villains to do something vaguely villainous.

For example, the villains pursuing the heroes have spears, lances, tommy guns, and other weapons yet continually allow themselves to get into hissy-fit pushing and shoving fights. What? That makes no sense at all!

Instead they repeatedly capture Larry Daley (Ben Stiller) and then let him wander off whenever he chooses. He and Amelia Earhart (Amy Adams) tour the Smithsonian trying to find the code to the tablet.

If you like seeing famous bits of art interact with people you might enjoy this movie. If you like laughs, good action scenes, intelligent dialogue, a plot that makes sense, or good movies then you probably won't.

Movie Review:Terminator Salvation

2009-05-28T13:41:00.000-07:00

If you like sharp, well crafted dialogue with thoughtful, well developed plots, internal consistency, and movies with something deep and meaningful to say about the human condition....this movie may not be the right choice for you.

On the other hand, if you like action-packed flicks with a surface-deep story and a lot of fun, punch your ticket it is time to go for a ride.

Terminator:Salvation is more about Marcus Wright (Sam Worthington) than it is John Connor (Christian Bale) even if the screen time slants slightly towards Bale.

The movie is set in 2018. In keeping with the dark nature we have seen of the future in the other Terminator movies, it is a bleak world indeed. Standing buildings are a thing of the past, technology other than war machines has seriously regressed, and the humans are at war with the machines.

Somewhere in the ocean the leadership of the human resistance is on a submarine planning a technological attack on Skynet while John Connor is among the ground forces. Up pops Wright, a man who has no knowledge of Judgment Day or what happened to L.A., yet this causes no questions for people such as, "Where were you for the past 18 year?"

This highlights the intrinsic stupidity of the movie. That is a pretty basic question, yet it gets blown off. Another fine example of the lack of attention to detail would be the sequence where Wright hot-wires a car, Kyle Reese (Anton Yelchin) says he doesn't know how to drive...then manages to steer the vehicle off-road down a ravine, through a complicated set-piece chase scene and ends with a perfect Rockford Files e-brake slide. Not bad for someone who "doesn't know how to drive".

Once you get past the internal logic holes, however, this movie is a lot of fun. It has the elements that made the first couple movies so enjoyable; out-gunned humans being chased by implacable, nigh-indestructible machines and having to find ways to stay alive long enough to figure out how to destroy the machine.

Along the way Wright has to figure out if he is human or machine. This journey is marked by key moments differentiating how other people perceive him.

The movie has some fantastic call-backs to some of the most memorable moments in the first couple movies and some nice cameos that should bring a smile to the face of anyone who likes the franchise.

Overall, it is an action-packed, enjoyable flick that moves the franchise forward and is worth the price of admission for those who are fans of the series. Oh, and if you liked Bale in the Batman series, check out his return to that voice during his "don't bomb Skynet" communique. That laugh alone is worth the price of admission.

Movie Review: X-Men Origins:Wolverine

2009-05-11T11:29:00.000-07:00

To say I was not a fan of the X-Men movies is to make a major understatement. I essentially class them in the same way I class the 2003 abomination The Hulk by Ang Lee or The Fantastic Four:Rise of the Silver Surfer or Superman Returns.

All of these may very well be good movies but it is hard to say; they are horrible SUPER-HERO movies. There is a time and place for cerebral movies and they can be very good. But when you ignore what a franchise is about, you kind of shoot yourself in the foot. Or higher.

To be sure the X-men franchise has much to say about discrimination, tolerance, and so forth. The problem is, they forgot to appeal to much of their fan-base. A Super-Hero movie requires super action.

For example, The Dark Knight had a lot to say about what happens when good people do nothing, about testing boundaries, and about the value of reality versus perception. However, it did what a movie should do; it first entertained in ways that appealed to its fan base, then allowed the message to develop naturally out of that instead of the message coming first and entertainment being left behind.

As a result, I had very low expectations for X-Men Origins:Wolverine. There were certain signs the movie might not disappoint. Throughout the franchise he was consistently the most entertaining character and his popularity among comic book fanboys cannot be overstated. Therefore, there was at least a passing chance the movie might be more super-hero oriented and less cerebral.

The movie starts in the 1800s with the event where Logan (Hugh Jackman) first reveals his powers and learns his friend Victor (Liev Schreiber) is actually his brother.

We then run through a montage of the brothers fighting in war after war until they are made part of a secret organization doing undercover work. Certain incidents finally cause Logan to have enough and he breaks away from the group after they commit an act reminiscent of My Lai, though this one is in Africa.

We then see Logan living a happy life with Kayla Silverfox (Lynn Collins). This life is soon shattered when one of the former group shows up killing former members of the team and team lead William Stryker (Danny Huston) comes looking for Logan to help.

When he proves incapable of defeating the menace he undergoes the surgery that replaces his bone claws with adamantium, making him all but invincible. However, he then has to face Weapon XI, a mutant with all the abilities of every mutant the villain has been able to get his hands on.

I tried not to reveal too much of the twists, though to be fair I saw every one of them coming. My movie-going partners did not see one of the twists, and you might not either but you very well may.

Wolverine has everything you look for in a super-hero genre flick. There is plenty of action, a good story that moves along at a good clip, a solid resolution and it makes sense within its own universe.

For those familiar with either the X-Men comic books or even the recent movies, there are plenty of Easter Eggs to find much like the fabled Captain America references in Iron Man. The movie has a wry sense of humor and a good sense of how to appeal to action fans without dumbing down the story past the level of cave-man intelligence.

For action fans, comic book fans, and super hero fans, this movie is a must-see.

Movie Review:Fast and Furious

2009-04-07T21:42:00.000-07:00

Every so often a franchise goes off the rails. It happened to Batman when Batman Returns, Batman Forever, and Batman and Robin combined to drive hammer blow after hammer blow into the once-entertaining franchise as all the good elements were removed in favor of horrific, cartoonish plots, pathetic villains, and who can forget the infamous nippled Batsuit? Fortunately, it was reinvigorated with Batman Begins and we all know how the sequel to that one went.

It happened to Superman in Superman III and, unfortunately, went much further into the depths of forgettableness with that awful reset Superman Returns.

Well, somewhere along the line, Fast and Furious lost its cachet. When The Fast and the Furious (itself a remake, by the way...) first hit in 2001, it was very exciting. Featured star Paul Walker was upstaged by newcomer Vin Diesel, the cars were stars, the story entertaining, and the entire package worked really well.

In 2 Fast 2 Furious it started going off the rails. They tried to replicate the brooding good guy/bad guy coolness of Dom (Vin Diesel) in the first movie with Roman Pearce (Tyrese Gibson). Unfortunately, the situation was a bit too contrived. Instead of the gritty underground street racing crowd with a working camaraderie that was believable, it went with the glitz of Miami and focusing the camera on Eva Mendes not to further the story but just because she looks good. Which, of course, she does...but it was gratuitous instead of for a point.

By Tokyo Drift the franchise had lost both primary stars, all the secondary stars, and the "feel" that made the first one so fun and such a pleasant surprise.

In Fast and Furious (2009) the franchise returns to its roots. Once again Dom is the brooding leader of a law-breaking band of pseudo-Robin Hoods.

There are nice subtle touches such as the Iguana belonging to the truck driver they rob. There is precision driving, a car-load of hot cars, hot driving, fun chases, just enough story to tie it all together, and loads of action.

If there is a quibble with this movie it is that much of the action is filmed in what has been all the rage lately...replacing genuine action scenes, particularly car chases, with hyper-active cuts of such rapidity that you can not always tell who is doing what to whom. That is unfortunate, because what you could see of the car chases, particularly the two that went through the tunnels, was spectacular.

This is a fun movie that somehow, despite the overtly maudlin nature of Dom's motivation, skirts the edge of getting too brooding and corny to deliver an entertaining hour and forty minutes that is well worth seeing if you enjoyed any of the other movies in the franchise.

In bringing back Walker and Diesel they brought back the heart of the franchise and it worked.

Movie Review:The Spirit

2008-12-29T21:31:00.000-08:00

Frank Miller is infatuated with color schemes of black and white with splashes of red. In The Spirit he uses these to great effect. As a director he has a great eye for stunning visuals and iconic moments. As a writer he has a wry, twisted sense of humor that translates well to the stylized movies he likes to put out.

The Spirit (Gabriel Macht) is a super-hero whose primary super-power is his ability to repeatedly come back from death. He acts as a sort of detective/spy for the police force while battling his arch-nemesis the Octopus (Samuel L. Jackson), a villain who has the same ability and a wicked sense of humor.

For example, the Octopus has a bizarre preoccupation with eggs. He also has a never-ending series of cloned minions (Louis Lombardi) that die with regularity only to come back with new names ending in -os; Pathos, ethos, Adios (the last one we see) and, after one long monologue about not getting egg on his face, he names his next minion Huevos...Spanish for egg.

The Octopus is trying to attain the blood of Heracles to make himself immortal. Silken Floss (Scarlett Johannsen) is is assistant trying to pay her way through college. Sand Saref (Eva Mendes) is tyring to attain Jason's Golden Fleece because it is shiny. The Spirit is trying to end crime in his city.

That is about it as far as story, which is fine. This is a pretty action-filled romp with occasional spots of humor and some outstanding visuals. If you like those sorts of movies, you will love The Spirit.

Movie Review: The Tale of Despereaux

2008-12-28T21:21:00.000-08:00

If you saw the trailers for The Tale of Despereaux (2008) you probably thought it was a cutesy movie about a mouse, Despereaux (Matthew Broderick) who doesn't realize he should be afraid and how he overcomes the teaching. It was expected there would be several scenes of him in class learning mousely things and a few events around Mouse-town interspersed with occasional interactions with Princess Pea (Emma Watson).

Imagine our surprise when about ten minutes into the flick we still had seen hide nor hair of Despereaux. We had spent the time with Roscuro (Dustin Hoffman), a sailor rat, who was responsible for getting soup and rats banished from the island.

The school scenes I expected so much from were disappointing...there could not have been more than a minute or so of them I had not already seen in the trailer.

Essentially, everything concerning Despereaux was shown in the trailers and the majority of screen time was characters who never showed up in the trailers. This was unfortunate because it painted a very skewed view of what the movie would be like.

You went in expecting Shrek and got The Secret of Nimh.

This is not to say it is not a good film...it is hard to tell because it takes some time to readjust expectations and figure out the movie is not about what you thought it was.

Short form of the story; Roscuro wants some soup, startles the Queen who then dies, causing the king to banish soup and rats, then sit around playing his lute all the time. Roscuro banished to rat kingdom where he doesn't fit in. Despereaux doesn't fit in and is banished to rat kingdom. Farm Girl becomes Princess handmaid, wants to be princess, captures Princess, Roscuro and Despereaux rescue her, King sees error of ways, everyone is happy again.

Okay story, terrible comedy with very few laughs. Animation was decent at best. Nothign special here, this one is no better than a rental.

Movie Review:Australia

2008-12-24T09:42:00.000-08:00

Australia (2008) is the story of a young aboriginal boy Nullah (Brandon Walters) who does the voice over...wait a second, no, it is the story of Lady Sarah Ashley (Nicole Kidman) battling to save her farm from King Carney (Bryan Brown)...no, wait a second, it is her trying to save the farm from Neil Fletcher (David Wenham)...no, wait a second, he just lost all to the Japanese and no longer troubles her, it is a love story between Ashley and Drover (Hugh Jackman)...no, wait a second, it is the story of Ashley learning she cannot control everyone and everything around her...no, wait a second, it is the story of Drover standing up for equality...no, wait a second, it is the story of King George (David Gulpilil) passing on the old ways to Nullah...oh, never mind.

Nobody really knows what this movie is about because it changes themes, goals, and rules repeatedly. Of course, by the end, nobody cares, either, they just want to escape the teatre. It also ends, then goes on for another two hours. If you thought the ending of The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003) was long and overwrought, particularly the extended edition, then you definitely do not want to see Australia because it takes even longer to end.

Nor is it worth waiting for the end. The pointless sacrifice on the island adds nothing to Drover's character, the resolution of the tension between Drover wanting to be free and Ashley wanting him to not leave Far Away Downs makes no sense...

ah, lets face it; the film is a bit of overwrought crap that nobody in their right mind should see.

Movie Review:Seven Pounds

2008-12-24T09:29:00.000-08:00

Will Smith is probably among the most bankable stars in Hollywood right now. He can do action, comedy, or drama. In am Legend (2007) he was more or less alone onscreen for the vast majority of the movie...and carried it off. Clearly, he is more than just another pretty face.

In Seven Pounds (2008), widely considered his attempt for an Oscar, he plays Ben Thomas, a man haunted by some tragedy in his past.

Throughout the movie he tries to help seven random strangers. The most important is Emily Posa (Rosario Dawson), a woman dying due to heart problems. Thomas is also dying of a heart ailment...but his is mental rather than physical.

Seven Pounds then refers to the weight of a human heart...seven pounds on average. It also refers to the theme of the story. Emily becomes the healing needed by Ben as she becomes his friend and shows him recovery from past tragedy is possible.

Unfortunately, the script is extremely weak and the story rather shallow. As a result, director Gabriele Muccino is forced to rely on flashbacks, playing with time, and essentially hiding the story to stretch it out to feature film length. the story might be worthy of feature length, but as written it would have done better as a 30 minute after school special or Hallmark Holiday movie.

There are some nice moments in the movie, but for the most part it really drags and also manages to irritate. The flashbacks and playing with time are more of a story than anything else and somehow manage to take what could be an excellent story and turn it into drek.

The movie is slightly redeemed by the two twists at the end, though all the clues to the result are there. I caught them, my wife caught one of them. The end was depressing, maudlin, and disappointing. This movie could have been great. It wasn't. It wasn't even good. Blech.

Movie Review:Punisher Warzone

2008-12-14T21:06:00.000-08:00

If you ever watch the old 1980s television series the A-team and thought, "Wow, they made a mistake. Take the number of shots fired in the series and instead shoot them in each episode and you would have something," then Punisher:Warzone is for you.

If you ever thought, "The only thing that interferes with a great action movie is an involved plot, then this movie is for you.

If you ever thought, "I really need to see the inside of more heads, preferably extremely bloody" then this movie is right up your alley.

If you ever thought, "Action movies are far and away best when everyone plays their role seriously and to the hilt except the villains who need to be extremely cartoonish...adopting bizarre, exaggerated walks, maniacal cackles, and weird speaking styles" then this movie is definitely one you need to see.

Rumors abounded as to why director Lexi Alexander had all her blogs about the process taken down and that she had been removed from the project. If the antics of Jigsaw (Dominic West) and Loony Bin Jim (Doug Hutchinson) had anything to do with her point of view...she did very well because they detracted from what otherwise would have been a great take on the Punisher.

Fans of the comic know what I am talking about. The Punisher, aka Frank Castle (Ray Stevenson) was a brutal vigilante who was notable for his high body counts, creative uses of a variety of weapons, high body counts, the number of shots he fired in each issue, and his high body counts.

On the third try, they finally got the Punisher right. His costume is outstanding, with the ghostly skull on his Kevlar making a real impact statement unlike the cheesy T-shirt from the 2004 Thomas Jane bomb The Punisher.

Unlike the brooding, moody Jane, Stevenson's Punisher indeed seems driven by vengeance but aware of what he is doing. He has developed a network of helpers who identify when, where, and how many mobsters will be gathered. He then shows up to dispense his brand of justice...a high-octane bout of gunfire, physical decimation, and killing.

The movie is a really solid action movie.

Unfortunately, Dominic West looks like he thinks he is playing a cartoon character. His walk, his facial expressions, vocal inflections, and interactions with Doug Hutchinson move them from "believable, intense villains" status straight to "How in the world did you get (mis)cast for this part?

Still, there is plenty of solid acting, a decent plot, and lots of action that should make non-fanboy status Punisher fans go home happy. Definitely an enjoyable effort despite the ridiculous twosome.

Naturally, there are a few loose ends...like, what happens to the Russians in the climactic hotel shoot-out? We can assume...but it is certainly not clear.

On the bright side, the movie is enjoyable, action packed, avoids becoming maudlin, and has a nice conclusion. If you like good shoot-out movies with a healthy dose of hand-to-hand combat, go see Punisher Warzone. Just ignore the Jigsaw and his gang.

Movie Review:The Transporter 3

2008-12-04T22:07:00.000-08:00

Jason Statham is quietly building a very respectable action star resume. A lot of that comes from the Transporter series.

They all have similarities. Statham plays Frank Martin, a former military special forces guy who works as a transporter. He gets details from people regarding weights, package sizes, and price. He shows up, picks up the package, and delivers it. No questions, no modifications to the deal, no problems.

Obviously he runs into enough problems to have made 3 movies. They are not intended to be realistic. However, if you like high-octane adventure stories with a lot of car chases (and in this case bike chases), improbable stunts that are eye-catching and pleasing, basic plots that give you a clear-cut bad guy and plenty of fun, then these movies should work very well for you.

Frank, as usual, relies on Inspector Tarconi (Francois Berleand) to do the technical work and be his ace in the hole as he works to deliver the package. In a surprise to nobody in the audience, the package turns out to be the girl Valentina (Natalya Rudakova).

Frank drives maniacally to elude everyone chasing him, puts on a couple very entertaining martial arts shows, demonstrates the agility of his car, and saves the day.

The one quibble would be the mystery of the appearing window. Sure, the movie is not meant to be realistic. Nevertheless, there was still the glaring continuity error of the window Frank kicks out reappearing and disappearing during the gas station stop, only to reappear for good.

*Sigh*.

When that is the biggest quibble...it was an entertaining flick. If you like action or car chases or bike chases, this movie will entertain you.

Movie Review:Four Christmases

2008-12-02T22:00:00.002-08:00

Holiday movies. They are omnipresent it seems. Some are good, others are not... they are smarmy and predictable. Smarmy and predictable can work. Shrek the Halls is enjoyable if not necessarily the "instant classic" it has been anointed. Then again...How the Grinch Stole Christmas is brutal but well loved for some reason that eludes me.

What differentiates Shrek the Halls from smarm that is take it or leave it fare is they remembered to put in some humor. That is a formula for entertaining Christmas fare.

Four Christmases (2008) manages to be smarmy, predictable, and still fun. Brad (Vince Vaughn) and Kate (Reese Witherspoon) get off some pretty good one liners, there are laughs to be had with family interactions, pee on a stick in a mouth, and so forth.

At the same time, there is some heart in the flick. It is bizarre, smarmy heart that leaves you wondering if you really just saw that...but it is heart.

So we have a holiday movie with a few laughs. If you expect anything else, you will be disappointed. If you are looking for brilliant, incisive dialogue or if you are looking for an intricate, intelligent plot then you will be sadly disappointed.

But if you want feel-good holiday fare with a few laughs, you should see this movie.

Movie Review:Bolt

2008-11-24T13:23:00.000-08:00

From the first trailers I have looked forward to seeing Bolt (2008), a non-Pixar Disney animated feature. The wait was worth it.

Bolt (John Travolta) is a puppy rescued from a shelter by Penny (Miley Cyrus). 5 years later, he is the star of a television show aptly titled Bolt. Bolt and Penny, in an aggressive knock-off of Inspector Gadget Meets Lassie, engage in adventures to find Dr. Calico (Malcolm McDowell) who kidnapped Penny's father and sends endless hordes of helicopters, motorcycles, and henchman to capture Penny.

Each carefully scripted episode is done to keep Bolt from realizing he is acting. As a result, he thinks the adventures are real and he has superpowers; he can leap incredible distances, melt things with his heat vision, and has a super-bark.

One day the network demands a change in format so the next episode ends in a cliff-hanger that leaves Penny captured. Bolt, desperate to rescue her, escapes. Through an entertaining series of events, he is air-mailed from Hollywood to New York.

There, he captures the cat Mittens (Susie Essman) and together they begin making their way back to Hollywood. Along the way they pick up Rhino (Mark Walton), a Hamster who loves the show Bolt and believes Bolt has super powers.

Numerous jokes ensue as the trio makes their way across country. Along the way Mittens stops being a captive and starts being a friend, Bolt figures out he is not really super-powered and starts being a "real dog" and the jokes fly fast and furious. Ultimately he rescues Penny, Mittens and Rhino find a home, and everyone is happy.

This movie works on many levels. It is cute for the kids, funny for the adults, and has a nice, if predictable, story. The pigeons will remind many of the Animaniacs and certainly add to the story. The surface message about cats and dogs getting along (different breeds, different people) is nice and heart-warming.

The underlying message is better, though. Enough already of 2 things; 1) thinking the audience has to have totally committed actors, the price is too high, and 2) let kids have real childhoods. Stop pushing them so hard.

Overall, a very good experience. Go see it or I will send Rhino to snap your neck.

Movie Review:RocknRolla

2008-11-21T16:13:00.000-08:00

As a general rule, I am not a director-driven movie watcher. I seldom find that enjoying one of a director's works automatically means I will enjoy other works he puts out. A fine example would be Peter Jackson. I loved the Lord of the Rings franchise but would rank King Kong among the worst efforts I have seen in recent years.

Conversely, disliking one movie they helm may dissuade me from seeing others if it is their first work I have seen. I was not overly enamored of Snatch (2000) and as a result did not see some of his other efforts. Guy Ritchie has developed a reputation as not the most accessible of directors and as someone who is an acquired taste.

That kept me away from RocknRolla (2008) until almost too late, the last day it was in local theatres when my desire for Kettle Corn overcame my desire not to see another stink bomb akin to We Own the Night.

Pity. Rock is a smart, funny flick with some very sharp acting. Oh, sure, some of it is pick and punch stock characters...the silent, yet capable muscle behind THE MAN, the self-important gangster boss, the foreign interloper outsmarting the local guy...but the roles were played so well I really did not care.

Rock is several stories that intertwine because they involve the same characters. Mini subplots are woven in such a way they all make sense either individually or as part of the larger tapestry of the overall movie.

One Two (Gerard Butler), Mumbles (Idris Elba) and Handsome Bob (Tom Hardy) are a small time crew who sometimes work for gangster Lenny Cole (Tom Wilkinson). Lenny engages in real estate scams. When he prevents One Two and Mumbles from garnering planning for a deal they are putting together, he puts them in a financial hole.

They climb out of it using information given them by Stella (Thandie Newton), the accountant for the Russian mobster also involved with Lenny. Using her tip, they steal a payment intended for Lenny which puts the permits on hold, the Russian in a hole, and Lenny unable to come through. Meanwhile, Lenny's estranged, strung-out step-son Johnny Quid (Toby Kebbell) steals the Russian's "lucky painting" from Lenny.

Lenny sets his strong-man Archie (Mark Strong) on a search for the painting.

In the end, everyone is looking for someone...the Wild Bunch is looking for the informer putting them in prison, the Russian is looking for the traitor in his organization, Archie is looking for the Wild Bunch, his former managers are looking for Johnny Quid, Johnny is looking for...something...and some mob strong-arm guys are looking for the guys who boosted the money they were couriering.

The resolution is satisfying, makes sense, and leaves it wide open for a sequel.

This is a tightly-scripted movie with some particularly strong performances, especially Toby Kebbell. The framing is well done, the cinematography alternately beautiful at times and dark and gritty at others. You have to think a little to follow the story and parse out the meanings of all the interactions, but in the end it is very worthwhile and highly entertaining. This movie should have had a better reaction from the movie-going public.

Movie Review: Role Models

2008-11-18T21:47:00.000-08:00

Seann William Scott is often entertaining, though he is prone to the occasional Evolution (2001) or Dude, Where's My Car? (2000). Still, even in those train wrecks he was entertaining, they just had horrendous scripts.

In Role Models Scott plays Wheeler, the costume wearing representative for Minotaur energy drinks. His partner Danny Donahue (Paul Rudd) is a guy with a gorgeous girlfriend Beth (Elizabeth Banks), a job as spokesman for Minotaur, and a hatred for everyone and everything in life.

In his best scene in the movie, he says what we are all thinking about the names for the drink sizes at certain nameless coffee shops. Enough of the Venti nonsense. Really.

Unfortunately, he does so in rather annoying ways. As likable as Wheeler is, Donahue is exactly that annoying. The only mystery about Beth breaking up with him is not why she did not do it sooner...it is why she ever got together with him in the first place.

So when Donahue throws a fit on-stage and follows it up by driving the Minotaur truck onto a school statue, he and Wheeler are sentenced to community service. Inexplicably, 2 guys who committed their crimes in and around a school are allowed to perform their community service around children.

Wheeler is matched up with foul-mouthed Ronnie Shields (Bobb'e J. Thompson) while Donahue is matched up with fantasy geek Augie Farks (Christopher Mintz-Plasse).

Numerous jokes follow, but unfortunate numbers of them come back to 2 things; 1) Ronnie saying inappropriate things which apparently are funnier coming from the mouth of a 10 year old, and 2) Augie plays live action medieval war games.

The funniest role belongs to ex-(?) cocaine addict Gayle Sweeney (Jane Lynch), the founder and directer of the organization Sturdy Wings that puts the criminals and the kids together. She gets off some very funny lines and pornographic bits involving wrapped hot dogs.

At some point Wheeler and Donahue make the predictable switch from "just doing time to stay out of jail" to actually caring about the kids.

Over-all, if you think profanity from little kids is a joke in and of itself, think 30-somethings being jerks is funny, and like lots of drug use jokes, this movie will hit your funny bone hard. If not, maybe wait for the next effort.

Movie Review: Quantum of Solace

2008-11-14T21:25:00.000-08:00

The latest release in the James Bond franchise is a first; the first sequel in the entire run. It is a sequel to Casino Royale (2006). One thing about sequels...if you are going to do one, either use the same director or else use another director who has the same vision as you do.

Martin Campbell was a quite serviceable director. His action sequences were crisp and allowed you to have a sense of what was going on and why. Marc Forster clearly did not go to the same editing school.

Quantum of Solace starts out brilliantly. The opening sequence is innovative and fun, a definite visual treat for fans of special effects. The opening action sequence, however, was what really set the tone.

In a high-octane car chase you are simply thrown into, Bond makes his harrowing way across a mountain into a town, wiping out numerous opponents on the way. Of course, you mostly have to realize it is his enemies who die in the various crashes because A) Bond ain't gonna die and B) you later see him walking around.

The editing is atrocious. Remember the classic tracking shot in On the Waterfront that really set the standard for maintaining continuity in a shot, eclipsed only by Hitchcock's rope? This movie is the antithesis. Director Forster seems to think good action storytelling means hyper-active jump cuts, a pulsing, overriding sound track, and more rapid, jarring cuts.

At no point in this or, to be honest, any action scene do we really get an opportunity to sit back and enjoy what we are seeing. Again and again random arms are extended with guns, knives, or fists, bodies fall, and another 6 cuts are thrown across the screen.

Combine the rapid cutting with a bizarre, meandering story that is neither very complex nor easy to follow. Broken down, it goes something like this:

Camille (Olga Kurylenko) wants revenge on Bolivian dictator to be General Medrano (Joaquin Cosio) for raping her sister and mother and killing them along with her father. She intends to get to him through Quantum member Dominic Greene (Mathieu Amalric).

Greene is putting Medrano in power in order to make money selling water rights. He is keeping the CIA away by promising them the oil they think he has found.

Bond (Danile Craig) is using Greene to get to Vesper Lynd's (Eva Green) boyfriend. His name? I am not sure. I mean, he has less than 2 minutes of screen time at the end of the film, that come seemingly out of nowhere, one can only assume the information given to Bond by Greene? That is my best guess.

M (Judi Dench) is trying to figure out whether Quantum exists and if so who they are and whether she can trust Bond.

Enter explosions, car chases, foot chases, gunfire, a boat chase, more gunfire, more foot chases, death via oil (!), and approximately 12 billion cuts lasting 2 seconds or less to make you think you saw something.

Open memo to directors: shaky camera work, rapid cuts, and showing small snippets of action does not good storytelling make. In fact, it can take otherwise acceptable storytelling and turn it into a train wreck.

This movie had the potential to be really good. Instead, it turned into a barely comprehensible story full of meaningless deaths, pointless action, and little entertainment. Boo hiss, even with the abominable Moonraker as part of the conversation, this one is a serious contender for worst entry in the Bond franchise. Very disappointing.

I know I keep coming back to it, but I cannot say it strongly enough; directors, if you are going to lure us in with promise of an action movie...let us SEE THE ACTION!

Movie Review: Madagascar:Escape to Africa

2008-11-09T16:48:00.000-08:00

Every so often there is a movie preview that has you laughing, has you thinking, "This is going to be a great movie that I will love!" Then the movie comes along, you watch it, and head home for a long bath as you try to clean off the stench of the disappointment. Meet Madagascar (2005), a movie that had tremendous vocal talent, a good premise, great trailers, and a horrible script. It was lacking laughs and, while on a later viewing may not cause me to want to gouge out my eyeballs for merely having seen it, was at first blush a huge, Shrek the Third-like disappointment, though it did precede the latter title which shall not be named again here.

The previews for Madagascar:Escape to Africa (2008) were merely okay. Maybe my standards of expectations were lowered by having seen the first train wreck, but be that as it may, this was a movie I wanted to see.

The best elements from the first movie were not only retained, they were turned into the focal point. We got to see much more of the Penguin commando team, the debonair-yet-repulsive monkeys, Melman's (David Schwimmer) compulsiveness, the interplay between Marty (Chris Rock) and Alex (Ben Stiller) with the fun-loving nature of Marty in full effect full effect full effect full effect...see the movie, that joke actually makes sense.

Even Julien (Sacha Baron Cohen) gets an expanded role, and it is much funnier than his first, though I do not know there is another "I like to Move it move it" song in this one to catch people's attention.

This movie has some killer visuals, with great animation, tight dialogue, a good story that will keep you interested and entertained. There are some great cameos from the first movie you might not expect and ultimately the simple yet heart-warming story comes to a nice conclusion. This is definitely a sequel that blows away the original from an entertainment standpoint.

Movie Review:Zack and Miri Make a Porno

2008-11-09T16:33:00.000-08:00

For some inexplicable reason, the marketing campaign for Zack and Miri Make a Porno (2008) has had a hitch in its giddy-up. Apparently someone, somewhere thinks "porno" is a dirty word that cannot be said on television. I am guessing they missed the Season 11 Simpsons episode with the following exchange:

Homer: "So what are you working on?"

College Nerd: "A device that lets you surf for porn a million times faster."

Marge: "Why would anyone need that much porn?"

Homer (drooling):"Mmmmm....million times faster."

Furthermore, if porn/porno is not able to be said on "free" television, they apparently missed the entire run of Friends in which, if it did not show up in EVERY episode, one suspects the word did not miss that frequency by much, thank you Joey.

Anyhow, if you don't know what to expect from a movie made by Kevin Smith, perhaps knowing Seth Rogen of the Judd Apatow movie factory is involved. Anytime Rogen or any of the Apatow crew is involved, here is a handy checklist of things you can expect to see/hear/experience:

- gratuitous nudity, both male and female

- celebration of same

- a wide vocabulary used to refer to genitalia, sex acts, sex desires, sex, sex thoughts, sex positions, sex....well, I think you get the point.

- a boat load of profanity

- crudity

- more gratuitous nudity

- celebration of drug or alcohol use, or both

Anyone who has not figured that out yet has not been paying attention. Of course, one other thing they do is make stuff people like to laugh at. That is their specialty.

So with that in mind, we get Zack and Miri. It is the story of two room mates who have been friends for decades, but just platonic friends. They both work minimum wage dead-end jobs, just killing time. But they are getting deeper and deeper in debt.

They are in such dire straits that their water and electricity gets turned off.

After a disastrous trip to a High School reunion they return home and decide to make a porn movie as a way to make some easy money. First, they talk about how having sex with each other will be "just business".

The heart of the comedic portion of the movie has to do with finding a location, camera, and actors, making a script, and shooting the movie. Along the way a variety of problems crop up. Among the problems is a growing jealousy as Zack and Miri each separately realize they don't want the other to have "random, meaningless sex" with someone other than them.

You have seen this movie before. You have heard most, if not all, of these jokes before, although perhaps not in this order. Ultimately, there are a decent number of laughs, though not as big as you might expect, and a predictable love-story ending which is not necessarily a bad thing. The Break-up ending was not predictable...and not very good, either. It actually kind of killed the movie. So yeah, sometimes predictable is good.

Overall, this movie had a lot of promise and it is possible big Kevin Smith or Seth Rogen fans will love it. As a casual observer of their stuff, I think I was actually disappointed.

Movie Review:Eagle Eye

2008-10-31T14:54:00.000-07:00

If there is anything we have learned from movies like Terminator, I Robot, and so forth, it is that computers designed to make people happy will ultimately turn on the people and attempt to conquer/kill/make slaves of them.

If there is anything we have learned from movies such as Enemy of the State, The Handmaids' Tale, or 1984 it is that governments with access to surveillance technology will mis-use and abuse those powers.

If there is anything we have learned from a century of Hollywood it is that the industry is derivative.

Hence we have Eagle Eye (2008), the convergence of Terminator, I Robot, Enemy of the State, and 1984.

The movie starts by following Jerry Damon Shaw (Shia LaBeouf), a shiftless slacker who scams his co-workers out of small stakes at poker, hasn't seen his brother in a couple years, and refuses to accept money from his apparently well-off family even though he is behind on rent and overdrawn at the bank.

We also meet Rachel Holloman (Michelle Monaghan), a struggling single mother sending off her son Sam (Cameron Boyce) to Washington DC on a band tour.

Together the two of them are manipulated into a series of set-piece action bits that are highly entertaining. At one point, in a field in the middle of nowhere, falling electrical powerlines create the danger in a scene eerily reminiscent of the famous crop-duster scene in North by Northwest. Oddly, one thing never resolved is how a computer could force those power lines to snap and fall...but if you are going to investigate plot holes, this movie is the wrong one for you.

Instead, it is a glitzy, fast-paced, adrenaline packed thrill fest with a mild shock as to who the villain is and why Jerry and Damon are the victims.

Meanwhile, they are being chased by Agent Thomas Morgan (Billy Bob Thornton), a sharp minded yet ineffectual pursuer who is always one step behind. In the big finale he provides the opportunity and motivation for Jerry to make the last-second save to keep the entire command structure of the U.S. from being killed using a rather clever bomb designed to combine Sam's trombone with a diamond necklace worn by Rachel.

The movie is entertaining and will leave you smiling. Sure, it takes the bounds of reality and believability and stretches them like Homer Simpson's all-you-can-eat pants...but that is beside the point. It is designed to critique the Patriot Act and over the top government surveillance while providing an entertaining action flick. It delivers on that premise in spades.

The acting is very well done, particularly by Billy Bob Thornton. He tends to take some quirky roles in off-beat movies...Bad Santa, Sling Blade, Bandits...and yet he can deliver in a serious role such as this one. LaBeouf is generally entertaining if somewhat one-note in his delivery and Monaghan, despite some cheesy lines, delivered on what she had to work with.

With the exception of the first chase scene the photography was excellent. In fact, my biggest quibble with the movie was the use of many jump cuts to create tension rather than showing what was going on. I thought that section was very poorly edited. They made up for it later with some spectacular shots so all is forgiven.

If you are a fan of the Action genre, take a look, you will like this movie.

Movie Review:Max Payne

2008-10-21T17:25:00.000-07:00

Time and time again people think bringing video games to the big screen. Typically they try to emulate part of what made a video game famous. Sometimes this works well, though still not getting past the level of forgettable...say, Doom. Other times it makes you want to gouge out your eyes with an ice pick in a vain attempt to rid yourself of the heinousness of what you subjected yourself to; Super Mario Brothers comes to mind. Most fall somewhere in between.

Max Payne (2008) makes Super Mario Brothers look like great cinema. From the horrific acting to the bizarre, meandering, non-sensical storyline (or lack thereof) to the predictable climax, this movie is a mess.

Shot in dark tones, it strives for the film noir feel. It wants to be gritty, dirty and violent. It comes out dreary, depressing and full of head cheese.

Payne follows the story of Detective Max Payne (Mark Wahlberg), stuck in the Cold Case division of homicide 3 years after the murder of his wife and baby. He lost everything, including his will to live and his partner.

Events lead him to discover clues to the case, though each clue is accompanied by the death of someone he was in contact with, thus making him appear guilty of murdering his former partner, a random girl he meets at a party, a guy from the company his wife worked at, and retroactively, his wife.

In some weak, derivative action sequences he gets the file with the info, goes to where a drug gone awry is manufactured, kills lots of people, then kills the "surprise" villain.

The action sequence in the club is the best part of the movie. It is also a fine opportunity to refill your popcorn tub and soda...because it is not very good.

The best part is a slow-motion sequence (possibly lifted direct from the game) in which Payne does a back flip to shoot a guy in the head with his shotgun. Meanwhile, his assailant...a highly trained soldier wielding a fully automatic machine gun...misses him by a good 10'. Whatever.

In short, if you are a fan of badly acted, poorly shot movies with weak scripts and bad action sequences, this movie is for you. Conversely, if movies with tacked-on Norse mythology, shaky motives, boring action sequences, and counter-intuitive actions by vital characters are not your thing, just see Hitman...not a great video game movie, but exponentially better than this steaming pile of monkey droppings.

Movie Review:Appaloosa

2008-10-20T13:21:00.000-07:00

A good Western can be a tough sell. Then again, a good Western can be tough to make. But Ed Harris took a stab at it, directing himself as Marshall Virgil Cole who, along with his partner Hitch (Viggo Mortenson) tours the country taking on peace-keeping jobs for hire.

Cole has his own set of rules which are of questionable legality but unquestioned effectiveness. When Marshall Joe Bell (Robert Jauregi) is murdered by Randall Bragg (Jeremy Irons), he brings those rules and Hitch to the town of Appaloosa to bring peace to the town.

In Appaloosa he becomes enamored of widowed, loose-moraled Allison French (Renee Zellwegger). She threatens to drive a wedge between Cole and Hitch, though this is resolved when they chase Bragg after he escapes. There is a shoot-out, they recapture Bragg and things seem set aright.

However, Bragg manages to gain a pardon through political connections. In order to save Cole's job, Hitch kills Bragg and rides off into the sunset.

The plot, such as it is, is rather simple; can a woman come between 2 friends with different reasons for being lawmen? But the path to get there is entertaining. The slow pace of the movie gives you time to enjoy the interplay between Cole and Hitch, between Cole and French, and between Bragg and Cole. There are several fun lines and it avoids stereotypical Western climaxes: the shootouts exist but are not central to the plot nor particularly memorable.

Instead this is a buddy picture masquerading as a Western. If you like Westerns you will like Appaloosa.

Movie Review:Body of Lies

2008-10-12T16:48:00.000-07:00

The previews for Body of Lies (2008) seemed to be built around the conceit that either Roger Ferris (Leonardo DeCaprio) or Ed Hoffman (Russell Crowe) was a mole in the CIA who was actually working for the terrorists. This assumption of course could not be made by anyone who has read the book it is based on, but that is beside the point.

While action packed, Body takes a while to hit its stride. Ferris is a knowledgeable Middle East operative who works under Hoffman. Hoffman tends to keep his field operatives in the dark and run multiple operations simultaneously, some of which interfere with each other.

When Ferris tries to bring in an informant, Hoffman refuses. The informant is caught so Ferris kills him so he cannot reveal who Ferris is. Against Hoffman's orders, he and his partner go to raid a safe house. The partner ends up getting killed and Ferris badly hurt. When he recovers he heads to Jordan where he falls for an Iranian nurse named Aisha (Golshifteh Farahani). Meanwhile, the head of Jordanian security named Hani (Mark Strong) and Ferris try to work together. Repeated interference by Hoffman causes them massive problems. It comes to a head when Hani will not turn over control of his informant inside the terrorist cell to Hoffman. First, however, Hani and Ferris work together on a safe house project.

Together they try to track users of an Al Quaeda splinter group safe house in an attempt to find mastermind terrorist Al-Saleem (Alon Abutbul). When the safe house is burned down they lose their lead. Convinced Ferris knew about the operation Hoffman had ordered that caused the disaster, Hani throws Ferris out of Jordan.

Ferris concocts a plan to make an innocent architect named Omar Sadiki (Ali Suliman) look like a terrorist mastermind in an attempt to make Al-Saleem reveal himself out of jealousy. The plan works to an extent but Al-Saleem kills Sadiki when he realizes Sadiki was a pawn.

Sickened by the mounting losses, Ferris is on the edge of quitting when Aisha is captured. He tried to exchange himself for her. As Saleem and his men prepare to torture Ferris to death, Hani makes the last second rescue.

Sickened by the continued disposal of innocent people by Hoffman's methods, Ferris quits to stay in Jordan with (presumably) Aisha.

The action in this movie is excellent, the web of deceit often hard to untangle (I deliberately left out a couple of twists that may or may not surprise you) and the various considerations of each character make enough sense to keep you intrigued with the movie beginning to end. If you like action movies, this is a good choice. If you like thrillers, it is a good choice. If you just like good stories with a bit more complexity than the average cinematic fare, this is the right choice. Overall, a very entertaining flick.

Movie Review: Beverly Hills Chihuahua

2008-10-11T16:31:00.001-07:00

The previews for Beverly Hills Chihuahua (2008) were built around a rapping dog and a dance number on a pyramid. If that dance number is not on the special features I will be shocked and disappointed because it is hysterical and amusing. A lot of the commercials also revolved around Papi (George Lopez), the heroic Chihuahua who is in love with Chloe (Drew Barrymore).

Chloe is the point of life for Aunt Viv (Jamie Lee Curtis). When Viv goes to Italy for a couple weeks and cannot take Chloe, she leaves Chloe with Rachel (Piper Perabo). Piper is a shiftless, irresponsible girl, presumably late teens or early 20s who seems to do nothing but talk to her friends and party.

The relationship between the 3 is all that is right and all that is wrong about pet ownership. Viv clearly cares for Chloe...it could be argued too much. She spends thousands of dollars on pet care, changes Chloe's clothes several times a day, and so forth. She is way over the top with it and Chloe is a spoiled, miserable mutt as well. At the same time, Rachel is careless about caring for the actual needs of the dog, too lost in her own world to care about the life, animal though it is, that is in her care.

Well, Rachel's friends decide to go to Mexico on an overnight party trip. Rachel leaves Chloe in the room, Chloe sneaks out, gets dog-napped by a ring of dog-fighters, and the chase is on.

Chloe escapes with the help of Delgado (Andy Garcia). Chased by Diablo (Edward James Olmos), they make their way across Mexico. Meanwhile, helped by landscaper Sam Cortez (Manolo Cardona) and Papi, Rachel tries to trace Chloe.

Along the way they run into a pack rat/iguana team of thieves who provide some nice humor, Chloe and Delgado run into a coyote named...wait for it...Coyote...and eventually there is a conclusion where Chloe is rescued, Rachel and Sam fall in love, and if any of that shocks you then you are pretty obtuse.

Along the way they get off some vague morality tales about the errors inherent in anthropomorphizing Chihuahuas, responsibility, rescuing animals instead of getting purebreds, and finding good homes for stray animals.

This movie was really good when Papi was on screen and really horrendous when Viv was there. It was highly entertaining when the pack rat and Iguana were on screen as well. More of them, less of Viv, and this movie would have been even better. As it was, it was a fun, light-hearted romp that will be well loved by its target audience of prepubescent kids.

Movie review:Tropic Thunder

2008-09-27T10:08:00.000-07:00

Parodies run the gamut. They can be anything from something where they actually develop a story and let the jokes flow out of that, but work in a lot of belly laugh jokes...say, the Airplane or The Naked Gun franchises, to something where simply referencing another movie is thought of as the joke. Somewhere in between are movies that are so full of inside jokes that they end up being at best marginally funny and at worst painful experiences that bring regret to all whom see them. Where does Tropic Thunder fall within this pantheon? It is hard to tell.

It partially depends on how knowledgeable the viewer is about "Hollywood insider" type stuff and how humorous he finds parody. Tropic is full of parody. It starts with some trailers that parody everything from sequels of sequels of sequels that carry on because the former one was successful rather than because it had a story to tell, to movies that are supposed to be funny because one guy plays multiple parts and farts a lot to movies that use heavy-handed emotion to fool people into thinking a story is actually good.

Then it parodies the over anxiousness of special effects coordinators, the 'star behavior" that is often credited for ruining movies, the overpowered producers, the callousness of Hollywood, the way fictional books are presented as truth and true books are fictionalized, the attempts of actors to win Oscars by playing disabled people, and more.

At some point you realize the actors are playing to the camera as much as they are to the Tropic Thunder camera. It is a movie within a movie within a movie. They have statements to make about how Hollywood takes itself way too seriously...but they do it by taking themselves too seriously sometimes. Which is odd, because virtually everyone in it parodies himself and is having fun with it.

There are a few laughs in the movie but they are mostly the type where you mainly smile inwardly and move on.

This movie could have been great and no doubt many people will think it is but if you don't like to look beyond the service this is not the movie for you.

Movie Review:My Best Friend's Girl

2008-09-25T08:38:00.000-07:00

Dane Cook is a polarizing figure for comedy fans. Some love him, think he is hilarious, and will see anything he is in. Others regard him as an unfunny jokeless "comedian". I fall somewhere in the middle. I think he could be funny and does a good job of acting...he just has made poor script choices in his movie roles. And yes, I realize the movie roles are different than the critiques of his stand-up.

In My Best Friend's Girl (2008) we meet Tank (Dane Cook), a guy who embodies every stereotype of the arrogant male...interested only in sex, doesn't care about the girl, has no comprehension of how to treat her nice. Theoretically it is a role for Tank. It is his job. He gets paid by dumped boyfriends to show their girlfriends how good they had actually had it with their ex-boyfriend, and then of course the girls would run back to their spurned boyfriend and end up marrying them.

Unfortunately, his over the top crudity does not come across as Jackass funny...it just comes across as jackassery. It is not funny. It still manages to be repulsive.

His roommate is Dustin (Jason Biggs). In theory, Dustin is the prototypical "nice guy". When he is given the "let's just be friends" spiel by Alexis (Kate Hudson) he turns to Tank to do his magic. Naturally, Tank and Alexis fall for each other and hilarity ensues. At least, that is how they drew it up. They just forgot to include the hilarity. Or to make Dustin sympathetic.

Actually, he comes across as pathetic. Cloying. Obnoxious. Irritating. Unworthy even of Alexis who is none to desirable herself as portrayed in this film. You kind of get the feeling Tank and Alexis deserve each other. And that Dustin deserved nobody.

So as the story goes along Tank and Alexis are mutual booty calls who somehow fall in love, Dustin and Tank fight over it, then get back together as friends and the movie (thankfully) ends.

Probably the most interesting thing about the movie was watching the people change into each other.

At the beginning of the movie, Dustin wants a relationship, not sex. He chases Alexis at every opportunity for this very purpose. Yet at the end of the movie he could not care less about building relationships, being a nice guy, or anything like that, he has become Tank in that he is pretty much a random philanderer.

At the beginning of the movie Tank is quite the philanderer who has a rule; none of the skanks he brings home for sex can stay over;they have to leave after the sex. He says horrible things to the girls he wants to sleep with. And it somehow works for him. Alexis is very sweet, prim, and proper.

Yet by middle of the flick it is Alexis who, after sex, tells Tank to leave because tomorrow is a work day, using almost the same words he used to kick out girls. Tank has become both the girls he used and also Dustin, the sad, pathetic, guy who wants a relationship, not just sex.

Alexis starts out wanting a sweet relationship, just not with Dustin...and ends up becoming a Tank clone in many ways.

What was the movie trying to say with the inversion of roles? Frankly, the movie was so boring it never really mattered. It was unfunny, uninteresting, and I would have felt ripped off if I had seen it via a free Red Box rental. Spare your eyes from this travesty.

Movie Review:Igor

2008-09-24T08:41:00.000-07:00

Picking up on the idea proposed by the Shrek franchise and its more forgettable cousin Happily N'Ever After (2006), Igor (2008) takes the view of the classic villain, in this case the assistant to the evil mad scientist, and makes that movie.

Shrek (Mike Myers) is the best villain-as-hero of all time, but even he falls victim to the same trap Igor (John Cusack) falls into; he is not really a villain, he is just misunderstood. Igor has a heart of gold under his surface desire to be an evil scientist.

Stuck serving under defective mad scientist Dr. Glickenstein (John Cleese), Igor secretly works to invent evil inventions. Sadly, he is best at creating misshapen life; Brain (Sean Hayes) and Scamper (Steve Buscemi). Brain is so dumb he spells his name "Brian" and Scamper was unfortunately made immortal...but wants to die so he keeps committing suicide, only to reanimate moments later.

One of the best jokes in the entire movie is the tire tracks running across Scamper's belly. But there are a lot of other good jokes and several laughs. There is also some tremendous voice and comedic talent. Sadly, a lot of it is wasted; Eddie Izzard as Dr. Shadenfreuede has a horrific role as a stereotypical villain...yes, in a movie where a villain is the hero there is a villain...and another one...and another one.

Anyhow, Igor rolls out, overcomes obstacles, makes his evil invention. So far, so good. The normal roles are inverted. Unfortunately, his evil invention proves to be good. Fortunately, it turns out Igor is not evil at heart...he just wants to invent, so he turns the kingdom back from evil and ends up happy with his good invention.

The best jokes come from the inverted paradigm where evil is preferred and it just depends on what level of evil you are successful at to be successful in the kingdom. The worst jokes and least entertainment come from trying to insert a classic villain into this setting. He just doesn't work.

And saddest of all, the turning of Igor to classic "good guy" weakens the result. This movie verged on greatness and ended up just being another forgettable entry into the field of animation.

Movie Review:Bangkok Dangerous

2008-09-14T20:54:00.000-07:00

What is it about arguably great actors...or at the very least, highly entertaining actors...where they feel compelled to show up in hairstyles so bad they make Telly Savalas look fashionable? Tom Hanks infliced us with the pseudo-mullet in The DaVinci Code (2006) and now, proving he learned nothing from the follicly challenged Con Air (1997), Nicholas Cage is back to show that bad hair can't ruin a good movie or save a bad one.

I suspect nobody had their viewing pleasure of either Davinci or Con by the mistakes in the head department. Both were eminently enjoyable for their target audiences. Conversely, the hair can't save Bangkok Dangerous (2008).

Joe (Nicholas Cage) is the unbelievably dumb assassin who rolls into Hong Kong for a few jobs for his new Thai clients. Joe has rules such as don't ask questions. Unfortunately, he only occasionally plans out his assassinations and accepts jobs for whenever or wherever the clients suggest. This, of course, means he would be very easy to set up should his clients so choose since they would know when and where the hit is being performed.

For example, when he is told to whack a gangster at the Sheraton while making it look like an accident he is forced to drown the guy more or less in plain view of everyone, though oddly his deed goes unnoticed.

When another hit goes bad on the waterways, he does not call it off but instead engages in a high-profile, high-speed chase through the waterways and ends by pulling the trigger in plain sight, then having a lengthy pose so anyone who might desire can photograph it.

Along the way, Joe breaks his own rules and takes on Kong (Shahkrit Yamnarm) as his student. Since he normally kills his errand boys, this is a step up morally speaking. Yes, teaching someone how to commit murder is a positive step...that tells you something about the theme of this movie.

But along the way, Joe falls for a local pharmacist, Fon (Charlie Yeung). She is mute so their communication is non-verbal which, in conjunction with the constant questions of Kong, reawaken his conscience.

This moves him into a new world. Ultimately, however, the final job of his career, the one that will make him rich, turns out to be a job he will not do. Fearful of betrayal, the gangsters kidnap Kong and Aom (Panward Hemmanee), the dancer/liaison who has started dating Kong.

Joe goes to rescue them which leads to the third action packed set piece and an ending that has him contemplating suicide. To understand his choice it is vital to understand the symbols of the movie.

Early on, Kong points out that an elephant trunk pointing down is emblematic of bad luck. As his relationships with Fon and King develop, Joe moves into a new world. In the world of the assassin he is emotionless, has no relationships, and is always prepared to move to the next job.

Now, however, he has a pseudo-friendship with Kong, he has a budding relationship with Fon, and he is starting to become part of the Thai culture. Emblematic of this, he makes a connection with a live elephant and then turns the elephant picture upside down...which turns its trunk right side up.

Later, Fon's deafness proves a problem as when 2 random guys try to mug Joe, he kills them both. Fon has her back turned and hears nothing, simply turns when blood splatters her and turns to see 2 dead men and Joe with a gun in her hand. She then rejects him.

Unfortunately, now Joe is part of a world that, through Fon, has rejected him but is no longer part of the world of killers. This is pointed out through the use of mirrors. Early on, he shows Kong that mirrors are all around them. Yet when he stops by the house of Fon on the way to rescue Kong, he fails to use the obvious mirror on his car and thus does not see she has repented of her acceptance of him.

Believing the Thai world and the world of happiness with Fon can never be, no longer an assassin, he rescues Kong whom he sees as a younger version of himself.

Of course, if Kong retakes the path Joe took, he can never continue the relationship with Aom. Thus ultimately Joe must die in order for Kong to have a new path that does not end up in the world of the assassin.

Too bad the movie never really sets up that way.

A dark, gloomy movie, it does have 3 action-packed, gunfire filled set-pieces, but they are pretty plain, by the numbers pieces that don't deliver on the promise. We have seen better boat/motorcycle chases in the James Bond, Italian Job, Bad Boys, and other franchises. We have seen better gunfights thousands of times. There is nothing really original or even exciting. The camera work is okay but too often replaces great shots with rapid cuts to convey movement and excitement.

This movie bombed at the box office and deserved to do so. If you like dark action, go see The Dark Knight again. If you life fun action, go see Iron Man. If you want a good "assassin who wants to retire after one last job that goes wrong" then check out Assassins (1995). Just don't bother with Bangkok unless you have a free Red Box rental for some reason.

Movie Review:Longshots

2008-09-14T20:20:00.000-07:00

The movie poster and trailers for The Longshots (2008) were nothing if not misleading. They portray happy, smiling people taking part in yet another "inspiring sports story of a misfit, fish out of water non-athlete who becomes a star. You expect a certain amount of sappiness, a whole lot of feel-good cheer, and just generally a feel-good story.

Instead, it starts out dreary and gets much, much worse before getting better...sort of.

Curtis Plummer (Ice Cube) is a guy who has pretty much lost everything. Once a star football player, he blew out his knee and got a job in a factory. When the factory closed, he basically gave up on life. He spends his time with homeless guys hanging around the local trashed out football field with other homeless guys. His daily routine includes taking money out of his "Get out of Minden" fund to buy another beer.

Meanwhile, his niece Jasmine Plummer (Keke Palmer) is a loner/loser who does little except pine for her father Roy (Malcolm Goodwin) who ran off several years prior. She is picked on by the other kids, loses herself in her books, and is basically crawling through life.

When Claire Plummer (Tasha Smith) has to take extra hours as a waitress to make ends meet, she turns to Curtis to watch Jasmine. Curtis is so far beyond being a decent guy that he holds out until Claire offers him 5 bucks an hour to watch his niece.

It does not go well as Jasmine and Curtis not only do not hit it off, he shows a mastery of the ability to say the wrong thing at the wrong time, sending her ever further into a dark spiral.

Finally he gives up on trying and takes her to the park. In one of those movie cliches, she picks up an errant football and proves to have a natural talent for throwing.
So Curtis starts teaching her how to quarterback. How to grip the ball. How to cock. How to throw. Naturally she is great.

After a brief time where the coach will not replace his inept quarterback, Jasmine gets her shot. The Minden Browns start winning.The spectator totals explode. Well, they at least go from a half dozen people to maybe 20....
As word spreads of Jasmine's exploits, the media starts paying attention. Using the idea the media needs to see more of Minden than run-down streets, Reverend Pratt (Garrett Morris) convinces people to get together and clean up the town.

As the Minden Browns make their improbable run to the Pop Warner Super Bowl, Roy makes an untimely reappearance, Curtis replaces the ill coach, and everyone has something to solve.

For Curtis, he needs to fulfill the statement he made to Jasmine: "When you find something you are good at, you have to pursue it and don't let nothing stop you."

Jasmine has to realize that Roy is worthless and she needs to move on with her life.

Minden needs to regain their town pride since the factory is not coming back.

Coach Fisher (Matt Craven) needs to let his son know that he is proud of him.

What, did that just seem thrown in? Well...lots of things were just "thrown in" in this movie. Like the iconic moment when the Browns are celebrating their unity and the camera holds on a black hand and a white hand clasped together in unity. Now, nothing wrong with that...except that theme was nowhere else in the movie and when you see it, there is no question a statement being made. Great statement...completely out of the blue and random. Jasmine's hand being there would have meant more. And easily recognizable via her Dad's watch which she never takes off.

Or the crowd assembling when the Browns return from the Super Bowl. Or out of nowhere Coach telling his boy how proud he is of him and how proud he is.

Ironically, Curtis is the only one who does not achieve his goal. He proves to be a GREAT coach. Yet when he is offered a presumably decent paying job in his dream town of Miami, he turns it down to return to Minden and no future. While his reasoning of being there for Jasmine is honorable, it is a contradiction of the movies themes of people needing to get to better places.

Ultimately, the outright misery and depression of the first hour and change of this movie is just too much to overcome and what could have been a nice, enjoyable niche film is just too dreary.

A lot of that needs to be laid at the feet of first-time director Fred Durst, better known as the lead singer for Limp Bizkit. The filming is inconsistent, at times having the clear, smooth feel of being shot on digital video and other times looking as if it were shot on extremely grainy film. Themes are introduced and then ignored. Resolutions occur to questions that aren't asked.

And the advertising was highly misleading.

This might be worth a Netflix, but there is no need to see this in the theatre.

Movie Review:Death Race

2008-08-26T18:42:00.000-07:00

Roger Corman was famous for making inexpensive movies of questionable quality that made money because of their appealing factors...scantily clad women, extreme violence, and other segments of exploitation. One of his cult favorites was Death Race 2000 (1975), an extremely violent depiction of a race where pedestrians are worth points and a driver's odds of surviving are not good. Someone decided this was such a good idea it needed an update so they cribbed the "plot" of The Condemned (2008) and mixed it with Death Race 2000 to give us Death Race.

In 2012 the economy is shot, the prisons are overcrowded, fires burn randomly in major cities, and thje only colors in existence seem to be dark blue, grey, and black. Death Race has all of the visual markers of classic dystopian fare with the grim color schemes, constantly overcast skies, and settings in scenes of urban decay. However, unlike most classic dystopian films such as Brazil, Metropolis, The Handmaid's Tale, The Condemned, The Omega Man, Wall-E, 1984, and so forth, Death Race apparently has nothing to say about society. It is definitely a child of Corman in that the appeal of this movie lies in the violence, the cars, and the babe.

Death Race is the story of Jensen Ames (Jason Statham), an ex-NASCAR racer who lost his license do to some shady dealings. He has a country music type day...the plant where he works shuts down, he gets home to find his wife murdered and himself framed for it. Sentenced to prison for life he is sent to Terminal Island, home of the Death Race.

There he is under the direction of Warden Hennessy (Joan Allen), the by-the-numbers corporate villain who is willing to kill prisoners for good television ratings to make money for her corporation. I suppose that could be the message of the movie if not for the fact the entire line-up of prisoners involved in the Death Races seem to indeed be exactly what you would expect in a maximum security prison for the violent criminal. They are unabashed and unashamed psychopathic killers who race because they like killing people. They do not feel taken advantage of but actually enjoy what they do.

Ames is expected to take the place of secretly deceased masked racer Frankenstein. If he wins the next race Frankenstein will be a 5 time winner and therefore entitled to freedom. However, it is quickly obvious that Hennessy has no intention of allowing her highest ratings earner, Frankenstein, to win a race.

She has even gone so far as to co-opt Frankenstein's navigator Case (Natalie Martinez). Case is a fine example of the exploitation nature. There is no real reason within the Death Race world to have a female navigator brought in. However, in the film-going world, Natalie Martinez is really easy on the eyes in her tight jeans, mid-riff baring and bust enhancing t-shirt so she comes along for the ride.

Ames is driving the real star of Death Race, the fast-back armored Mustang.

As the race goes along, he and rival Machine Gun Joe (Tyrese Gibson) kill most of the competitors who are there for cannon fodder with the notable exception of the prisoner who actually killed Jensen's wife who of course must be killed by Ames. The other drivers knock off a couple of each other, and the bizarre addition of the monstrous Guard-driven semi accounts for a couple more. This forces Machine Gun Joe and Ames to team up to eliminate it.

In the end Machine Gun Joe, Case and Ames team up to escape the prison, kill Hennessy and escape to a good life in Mexico.

There are no themes of redemption, though there certainly are themes of vengeance. The movie is not complicated and makes no bones about what it is; a big engine, big gun ride full of big guns, death and destruction with a feel-good ending. If you like that, you should really like Death Race. It doesn't do very much but it is very good at what it does.

Movie Review: The House Bunny

2008-08-26T12:50:00.000-07:00

Sometimes you see a movie review and think, "Wow, here is a train wreck I don't want to get within a mile of" but circumstances beyond your control combine to lure you in anyway. As a thirty-something married male I think it is safe to say I am not the target audience for The House Bunny (2008). Nevertheless, off I went to see it.

The opening scenes had a few laughs but were mostly just setting up the character of Shelly (Anna Faris) whose talents lie more in having a hot body, beautiful face, and skills at being sensual than they do in the areas of having a functioning brain.

When the machinations of another Playboy Bunny lead to Shelly thinking she has been kicked out of the house she finds herself homeless and directionless. She lands at a sorority house full of over the top "individualists".

She then shows them how to be more attractive to boys...primarily by wearing fewer clothes, more make-up, and gyrating their hips and breasts while demonstrating less intelligence. Meanwhile, her own attempts to romance Oliver (Colin Hanks) fall flat as she goofs up again and again. At one point after the transformation of the girls is complete there is a "coming out"scene where they show off their new sexy looks.

Ultimately the situation at the Playboy Mansion is straightened out, she is allowed to move back but instead elects to stay at the Sorority House where everyone has learned they don't need to dress provocatively...they just need to be themselves. And yes, it works for Shelly and Oliver as well...

This is not a particularly deep movie but it is a very entertaining one. Shelly has line after line that are hilarious and quotable. In the end, it is just good fun with a surprisingly large number of laughs and a nice feel-good conclusion.

I think you will see from the pictures pretty much the main theme of the movie visually. They try to attach a weak, "Oh, just be yourself" moral at the tail end but it is at best tacked on. Nobody returns to their anti-social modes of dress or over the top nerdiness, but rather retains some of the more typical modes of dress and less negative attitudes in order to remain close enough to mainline society to be likable. This is definitely not a socially conscious movie but it is an entertaining one.

Movie Review:You Don't Mess With the Zohan

2008-08-26T12:04:00.000-07:00

Adam Sandler is not known for doing particularly serious work. In fact, the more serious he tries to be, the more critics seem to lam bast him. Nevertheless, he has found his niche. He typically plays immature, directionless losers with good hearts that some event stimulate to change their life for the better. They are generally a bit...well...stupid, but fun nevertheless. They typically provide a decent number of laughs even when you see the jokes coming.

From time to time he steps out a bit and tries something new. I now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry (2007) made a more or less serious statement about how gay marriage is perceived and how gays are treated in firefighting. Click (2006) dealt with life, death, and dealing with your spouse. Spanglish (2004) was far and away his most serious, well-rounded role. Gone were the over the top zaniness, the clueless, hapless loser, and in their place were a serious attempt to look at a marriage in trouble and a cultural divide between immigrants. These roles have been atypical.

In You Don't Mess With the Zohan (2008) he returns to the Waterboy (1998)/Anger Management (2003) /Wedding Singer (1998) type of zaniness. As Zohan Dvir (Adam Sandler) he is an Israeli counter-terrorist. He is very good at whatever he does....including catching stuff in his butt-crack and flipping it wherever he wants it to go.

His primary enemy is the Phantom (John Turturro), a Palestinian bombing expert. When the Phantom is traded in a prisoner exchange, Zohan tires of it. He decides the never-ending war is pointless and wants to cut hair instead. So when he is sent after Phantom once more he fakes his death and moves to New York.

There he befriends Oori (Ido Mosseri), a Jewish electronic salesman. I point out he is Jewish because the movie pointedly does, and that points to one of the themes of this movie. There is a very prominent theme to the movie; the ongoing war between the Palestinians and Jews in Israel and Palestine should be resolved and ended in peace. Unfortunately it never makes any attempt to explain how this can be accomplished or any real-world solutions.

Eventually Oori helps Zohan get a job in a Palestinian hair salon working for Dalia (Emmanuelle Chriqui). Slowly he works his way up from floor-cleaner to hair cutter. One of the running jokes has to do with his enormous ah, talent with the ladies. After he cuts each elderly woman's hair he takes them in the back room and nails them. Finally, this brings him to the attention of erstwhile cab-driver Salim (Rob Schneider). Meanwhile, Dalia rejects him because he is Israeli and she is Palestinian even though she has previously stated she likes New York because it doesn't matter if they are Palestinian or Israeli, they are just trying to pay the rent.

This introduces another subplot. Walbridge (Michael Buffer) wants to tear down the "community" of shops and build a mall. To accomplish this he has been raising the rent on the shops to ridiculous levels. Dalia is able to keep paying the rent because of Zohan's success which is threatened by his discovery.

Salim notifies Phantom that Zohan was not dead but was posing as a hair cutter. In the climactic battle it is revealed Phantom is Dalia's brother, Phantom and Zohan put aside their differences to battle the rednecks Walbridge sent to firebomb the shops. Peace is achieved between the Palestinians and Israelites, Zohan and the Phantom...and Salim....all become friends and Dalia and Zohan hook up.

There are a lot of laughs in the movie. The action sequences are deliberately over the top and ridiculous but they are not the point of the movie. It is not meant to be a brilliant movie, just a bunch of fun with some vague sense of social awareness and it delivers on that promise.

Hamlet 2

2008-08-21T20:59:00.000-07:00

There is a moment in Hamlet 2 (2008) in which Brie Marschz (Catherine Keener) says to her husband Dana Marschz (Steve Coogan) something along the lines of, "Every so often there is an idea that is so bad it almost becomes good again." If it was not a self-referential line it certainly should have been.

Hamlet 2 follows the story of Dana, a failed actor turned failed drama teacher as his life undergoes a profound change. Driven by an adversarial relationship with his father which seemingly predestined him to failure, he tries to recapture his fleeting glory from life in commercials by producing plays that are copies of popular movies. To show the depths to which he has descended they show a few minutes of his adapted play Erin Brockovich in which his 2 (two) high school drama students try to convincingly play people old enough for her to have multiple marriages and kids. The visual is so ludicrous it threatens to leave the audience in stitches. Fortunately, the deliberately cheesy and horrific acting kept us in our seats. Meanwhile, the tiny audience gives only light applause.

Here they review the caustic review of their play.

Nor is Dana's home life any better. He makes no real money and Brie doesn't either since she stopped dealing drugs. As a result, they have taken in a border named Greg (David Arquette) who is the only one with a paying job or car. Dana roller-skates to class.

Due to budget cuts, the new school year brings a surprise. Instead of merely 2 students, now Dana faces 28, most of them Latino, none of them interested in drama. Soon Dana is told that drama is being cut effective at the end of the semester. Desperate to cling to some vestige of being in show business, he decides to write a play to raise sufficient funds to keep the department alive. He settles on a sequel to Hamlet. Sort of...

The students slowly come together, the project takes on a life of its own, and soon becomes larger than life and incredibly, over the top profane. Rand Posin (Skyler Astin), his long-time stalwart student becomes disgruntled as his role is shrunk and Octavio (Joseph Julian Soria) becomes the unquestioned star. He turns the script in to the principal. Meanwhile, Dana's life is falling apart as his wife leaves him for Greg, he is tossed out of school, and protests threaten to completely shut down production.

In the climax the play is put on in an abandoned warehouse over the protests of the school, other portions of the community, and even the parents of some of the actors. It's controversial nature causes it to become a hit and he ends up with the girl he wants, Elisabeth Shue (Elisabeth Shue...her role is one of the in-jokes in the movie), and a triumphant cast.

This movie is marketed as a comedy and on that score it does deliver. There are plenty of laughs...but some of them are perhaps laughs of embarrassment at the over the top crudity, profanity, and so forth. A pretty good example would be the song, "Rape my Face" which is performed primarily by (supposedly) high school students and discussing rape quite extensively with classy lyrics such as "To talk about rape is never nice, don't use it on a date to break the ice" or something similar. I don't recall the lyrics exactly but the meaning was clear.

And in what is destined to be the most talked about, most controversial section they do the song Sexy Jesus in which they do everything Jesus Christ Superstar was afraid to do one suspects. By the way...seldom have I seen anyone better channel Weird Al Yankovic as Coogan does when playing "sexy Jesus". I did quite a few double-takes, thinking I had seen this before in Weird Al's It's All About the Pentiums video.

You see, though it might be marketed as a comedy and played for laughs, this movie is very much a message film...as he says about his play, it is agit-prop. And it is definitely meant to be.

They go out of their way to offend as many people as possible and they do it deliberately, almost breaking the fourth wall to make sure you understand that offensiveness is the point. Clueless, aggressive ACLU lawyer Cricket Feldstein (Amy Poehler) makes this clear with line after line that is something like, "I married a Jew. That explains the last name.", "Go ahead, hit me, I married a Jew, I have nothing to lose" and so forth.

It is a commentary on lack of funding for the arts...and on how whether the arts are any good is irrelevant. When apparently 10 year old theatre critic Noah Sapperstein (Shea Pepe) is approached for ideas to save the drama program he laments the impending death of theatre and then adds, "But you didn't make anything worth saving." Later, Cricket is walking to her car after telling Dana she will defend his play on free speech grounds. He says, "I think the play might be pretty good." to which she replies, "irrelevant."

I interpreted it as a critique of certain elements of the art world...painting, theatre, movies, music...which produce absolute swill and when people object claim, "We are making art". Just because something is profane or is not understandable does not mean it is good.

Of course, the movie also touched on funding crises which threaten programs such as band, theatre, etc. while leaving athletics untouched. And on pay for teachers. And on race matters. And religious objections to blasphemy. And on...well, there were so many things that even some I meant to remember slipped through the cracks of memory.

Examples of how things were approached are not hard to find. When Dana says his Dad won't let him be in the play, Dana insists on "going to the hood" to tell his Dad what it is. So he charges in only to find Octavio is not a gang-banging violent hoodlum trying to stay in school...he is a 3.9 student already accepted at brown who lives in the rich part of town with his highly successful parents.

In the end, this movie tries to do too much and where they have something to say but don't always know how to say it they rely on driving the "everyone has problems with their Dad" theme through the ground and then centering on time-traveling Jesus as a modern celebrity.

There are moments of brilliance and moments of triteness. You are pretty likely to come away with strong feelings for or against this film when you are done. And probably a lot of quotes.

On audience sophistication

2008-08-18T14:06:00.000-07:00

In light of the recent spate of Super Hero movies I have seen numerous Internet conversations which go something like this:

Joe: "Iron Man had a huge plot hole. Why would Stark have the day's paper even though he had not been to the office in a month or so."

Schmoe:"You are watching a movie where a guy uses jerry-rigged parts to keep his heart going that provides more power than an airplane engine, he flies in iron, crashes from a thousand feet in the air without damaged, and you are worried about plot holes?"

The point is pretty clear. As viewers we pick and choose which plot holes matter and which ones don't. In any superhero movie we suspend large chunks of understanding of physics, just as in any Bruce Willis flick we suspend our comprehension of how the world works. But we expect that. We expect Bruce to be able to withstand super-human amounts of punishment and make the world work in unbelievable ways to accomplish his goals.

After the Die Hard series his fans came to expect that so he continued the super-human roles in flicks as diverse as The Last Boy Scout, Sin City and Unbreakable. As a viewer, you intuitively know that Bruce Willis is able to do things "normal" people can't. However, even Willis is able to sometimes break the mold as he did in the Look Who is Talking franchise and even to a large extent in The Whole Nine Yards and its less successful sequel whose name shall not sully this current editorial, Bandits, and so forth.

In other words, the movie audience is willing to wait and see which Willis they are going to see: the one who shrugs off bullets, shoots down helicopters with cabs and outruns collapsing bridges or the one who is always wise-cracking yet ultimately "one of us", a person bound by the laws of nature. He can play both and we will arrive at the theatre in droves to see him in either role.

Yet there are some in Hollywood who apparently believe fans cannot distinguish these types of things. Characters are typecast, put in boxes, and even their real-life personas are expected to conform. There are several examples, but just 2 will exemplify the point perfectly.

Earlier this year there was a huge uproar because Miley Cyrus posed in photos that some found offensive. Maybe they were, maybe they weren't...but the effect they had on her career has been fascinating. See, the problem was not that she posed for them. The problem was someone, somewhere, thought audiences could not distinguish the actions of Miley Cyrus the person from those of Hannah Montana, a fictional character she portrays.

Really? Someone is that naive? This is not the 1960s anymore. Unlike the peccadilloes surrounding George Reeves, people these days certainly have access to plenteous quantities of information about the personal lives of these people. And yes, that applies even to the kids. It is not unusual to see 5 year olds building up Webkins empires, for example. Within a couple of years they certainly are able to, and do, frequent sites that discuss the private lives of super stars and are often contributors to forums.They know the premise of the Hannah Montana show. Yet they are somehow supposed to not be able to differentiate the actions of Miley in her personal life from Miley in her acting life? Is that not the very conceit of the show?

In the same vein, we have the rather shocking rumor that perhaps the reason the next Harry Potter movie has been moved back may have less to do with holes in the schedule from the recent writer's strike and more to do with his role on Broadway where he performs naked?

We as an audience are assumed to be able to comprehend match cuts, dissolves, picture in picture, the meaning of entering a scene via complex dolly pans as opposed to more conventional long shot-medium shot-medium close up-close up sequences, but cannot distinguish the theoretical innocence of Harry Potter, a magic wielding teen, and the rather obvious sexual awareness of Daniel Radcliffe of the real world? Really?

We can easily comprehend complex technical vocabulary that relates states of power or vulnerability by low-angle or high angle shots, we can derive key information regarding character based on amount of focus in a shot, we can subconsciously pick up subtle themes based on how a character's entrances are framed or subtle shadings of color and the soundtrack behind them yet we cannot distinguish an actor's personal life from the characters they portray on the scene?

Isn't that the very point of acting? To make us believe that a rotund midget is extremely dangerous in one role and a lovable uncle type in another such as Danny DeVito has done, Joe Pesci has done, and so forth? In fact, this playing against type has been an art form and career rejuvenating genre at times for guys like Jack Nicholson and Robert DeNiro.

Being stereotyped into just one type of role is a terrifying thing for most actors. How much worse would it be to be removed from some of those roles because of other roles they had performed or even for things in their personal life?

But back to the point. To be sure I skew slightly older than the primary audience for Harry Potter but that does not alter the fact that even the target audience is old enough and smart enough to easily distinguish the naivete of Harry Potter from the worldliness of Daniel Radcliffe just as easily as they are able to figure out that meeting Daniel Craig on the street does not mean they have met an MI6 agent who is licensed to kill.

I am arguing the movie-going audience is smarter than the studios give us credit for. We can distinguish between the character being played on screen and the person playing that character. We have advanced in sophistication past the point where Roy Rogers had to be Roy Rogers off screen as well as on, where George Reeeves WAS Superman.

I would even argue that we are sophisticated enough to accept someone else as Joker despite the way Heath Ledger owned the role. We have accepted different Batmans, Rachel Dawes, and so forth...we will accept anyone WHO ENTERTAINS US and will reject anyone who fails to do so for whatever reason.

In short, the audience is quite sophisticated enough to watch Harry Potter without prejudice because Daniel Radcliffe did an edgy Broadway show whether the movie is released this Thanksgiving or nexy July. Thanks for nothing, those who made the decision.

(Please note: Regardless of when it is released, I will not be seeing the movie)

What Happened to Jet Li? The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor

2008-08-06T21:15:00.000-07:00

Sometimes you have a choice in life. You can go to the dentist to have every tooth drilled through the root into your skull without benefit of anaesthesia or you can go to a Brendan Fraser movie. I sincerely hope you are wiser than I and choose the former. That was not always true. I mean, sure, he has been in Encino Man (1992), Son in Law (1993), Airheads (1994), George of the Jungle (1997), Blast from the Past (1999), Dudley Do-Right (1999), Bedazzled (2000), Monkeybone (2001), and Looney Tunes: Back in Action (2003), but doesn't that mean he is due? And to be fair, he also was in The Mummy (1999), Crash (2004), and somehow weaseled his way into the reputed train wreck of G.I. Joe:Rise of Cobra (2009) but for the most part he has been in train wreck after train wreck after train wreck.

Now, I in no way blame him. If I could be hired for movies and those were the only roles I could get I freely admit I would take them too. And someone keeps hiring him so he must be doing something right.

Now he stars in the 4th entry in The Mummy franchise, The Mummy:Tomb of the Dragon Emperor (2008) alongside a pretty promising cast including Jet Li and Michelle Yeoh (probably most famous for Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000), ). That perhaps begs the question, whatever happened to Jet Li?

Once he made quality flicks and still pops off with the occasional gem such as the overlooked War (2007). Unfortunately, he more than counterbalances that in this effort.

The Mummy gets lost in too many asides and 4th wall jokes about the events of the first 3 movies. It tries for the same sense of fun that placed them atop the constellation of Fraser movies but misses badly. The performances are wooden, forced, and inadvertently cheesy. There is a good cheese and a bad one. A bad cheese takes you out of the world the movie tries to build and makes you regret the coin you spent to enter the theatre.

Actually, it started out okay. The opening scenes of how the Emperor became a Mummy were pretty well done and entertaining. Until, that is, he turned into a Chocolate Fountain and so did his army. Seriously, it looked like liquid chocolate. And that is being charitable.

Shortly thereafter I knew I had made a mistake walking in on this. The derivative scenes that steal from...not reference, not "homage" but steal from Indiana Jones and so forth. You will see nothing original...but you will see inferior nonsense. The way Alex (Luke Ford) and Professor Wilson (David Calder) disregard the numerous deaths of their trap-fodder henchman and NEVER TAKE PRECAUTIONS pretty much set up how it was going to go.

This movie was so painful to watch I nearly walked out. The story was weak, the dialogue forced, the special effects, with a couple of notable exceptions, simply sub-par, and ultimately this movie disappointed on every level. I really struggled to come up with at least one good thing to say about it, to spotlight a good performance or a nice line, to talk about the cinematography or special effects in a vain attempt to redeem this movie. Ultimately I could not because it lacked the 2 things that would have made this movie bearable; an awl to pierce my eardrums so I couldn't hear it and an ice pick to take care of my eyes so I did not see it.

Stay away from this poison. Please. See The Dark Knight (2008) again. See Step Brothers (2008). Smurf, see Mamma Mia (2008) or Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2 (2008). Just don't make the mistake of seeing this horrific effort.

Step Brothers: Can Ferrell and Reilly recreate their magic?

2008-08-05T20:43:00.000-07:00

Will Ferrell inspires about as much passion regarding his status as almost anyone else in movies. Is he a one-note talent-less hack who has one joke or is he a talented comedian who keeps people laughing? If you watch for long you will hear passionate arguments both ways.

John C. Reilly is a guy on the rise. In Talladega Nights: The Legend of Ricky Bobby (2006) he played the dumb as a post sidekick to Ferrell's title role and he was hilarious. Their "Shake...and bake" celebration has become legendary as has the "That...just...happened" line. He followed that up with a star turn in the underrated but hilarious Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story (2007). In Walk Hard he was indeed hilarious, though the jokes were cruder. Matter of fact, Will Ferrell has been getting cruder as well, possibly in response to the success of Judd Apatow movies recently. It seems to be a trend as evidenced by the joke of Zohan Dvir (Adam Sandler) "pleasuring" his elderly customers in You Don't Mess With the Zohan (2008) which is apparently even more explicit than his breast fondling of Jessica Biel in I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry (2007). Apatow has ramped up the obscenity level and long-established comedians are trying to keep up. Oh, by the way...one possible reason for the ramped up nastiness? This is produced by the Apatow Company...just sayin'.

You figure that out early in Step Brothers (2008) when the primary joke is established. That would be the joke of dropping the F-bomb. Pretty much everybody does it. It is funny to drop the F-bomb because it is done by loser stay at home 40 year old Brennan Huff (Will Ferrell). It is funny to drop the F-bomb because it is done by loser stay at home 40 year old Dale Doback (John C. Reilly). It is funny to drop the F-bomb because it is done by Brennan's younger, highly successful brother TJ Huff (Jason Davis). It is funny to drop the F-bomb because it is done by "classy" Dr. Doback (Richard Jenkins)...by "classy" mother Nancy Huff (Mary Steenburgen), by everyone referring to the "F-in California Wine Mixer" over and over and over and over by everyone even remotely connected in even the loosest way with the plot. Yeah, that is pretty much the main joke. It is certainly the most-repeated joke...just check out the movie quotes...which is saying something because this movie does nothing if not repeating a joke.

Most of the jokes have to do with 39 or 40 year old men who act like immature, spoiled 12 year old jerks.

And frankly, they are often hilarious. The insult battles have some classic lines. When he tells him he is going to "fall off your dinosaur" in one age-related joke it is quite hysterical. And their music video, "Boats and Hos" should not be missed.

On the other hand, their sleep-walking is, even by Ferrell and Apatow standards, almost unbelievably juvenile, unfunny, and hard to watch.

I know this review is all over the place...but so was the movie. It ranges from hilarious to mildly amusing to mildly stupid to abominably bad.

Will Ferrell (and John C. Reilly fans, for that matter) will find this more of the same and love it. Ferrell haters will think it abysmal and those who can take him or leave him will probably be right there with me...I wish I had waited and rented it. I would have liked it more because I could have written down the classic quotes which were plentiful and should be used, and could have ignored the rest. Well, not all of it...the drum tea-bag scene, the Boats & Hos video, the come-ons by Tj's Wife (Laimarie Serrano) and so forth were pretty hilarious as well. Enjoy.

Part 6: Pulling it all together

2008-08-04T07:00:00.000-07:00

Clearly, there are a great number of factors to consider when putting together a Super Hero movie. The end result can range from fantastic on down to horrible. Obviously, the intent is always to provide the audience with the best experience possible but still, for almost every Spiderman we get a Daredevil and for every Batman Begins we get a Batman Forever. What separates the best from the worst?

The Hero Saves the Day or Movies you Should not miss.

There are some movies which escape the genre of Super Hero movies. They can and should be enjoyed even by people who perhaps are not so much fans of comic books yet still love good action movies or just plain entertaining features.

Any discussion of the greatest Super Hero movies of all time has to include The Dark Knight (2008). It contains every element needed to appeal to both the core audience for action movies and to the more casual fan. The storyline is complex, the characterizations layered, and the themes that run through the movie are easily accessible.

Interestingly, one of the most important lines any Super Hero movie must consider is life and death. Will people face real death or will they simply be put in peril yet ultimately escape. The Dark Knight turns the question into a primary theme. The Joker (Heath Ledger) is an indiscriminate killer who uses a variety of methods to dispose of enemies, police, and innocent bystanders. On the other side of the divide is Batman (Christian Bale) who refuses to take a life.

Questions of morals and corruptibility run throughout the movie. Yet it is not so lost in following these questions that it forgets to fulfill expectations for dynamic action. Though the primary villain, the Joker, has weaker motivations than you will typically find for villains on this list, the visuals, story, and action combine to fill over 2-1/2 hours with entertainment.

Close behind is an animated feature, The Incredibles (2004). Easy to dismiss because it is an animated feature, The Incredibles is a surprisingly well put together feature. The cast of heroes from Mr. Incredible (Craig T. Nelson) to Elastigirl (Holly Hunter) to Frozone (Samuel L. Jackson) is one that is instantly recognizable as belonging to the Golden Age of heroes. The villain Syndrome (Jason Lee) has classic motivations, a cool look, and provides a distinct threat to the heroes that is believable and fun to watch as they overcome it. The action sequences are mind-blowing and highly entertaining. To casually dismiss it because the Incredibles are not a DC Comics or Marvel Comics creation and because it is animated is to do yourself a huge disservice. The Incredibles bears up well to repeated viewings and should be high on the list for anyone who enjoys good Super Hero movies.

The Hero is On His Way or Movies Worth Seeing more than once.

There are several movies which are on the cusp of greatness. They are above average action movies with good characters and story lines yet are not quite on the same level as the very best of the genre.

Take a movie like The Fantastic Four (2005). It explores themes of how to deal with being different in a variety of ways, Dr. Doom (Julian McMahon) provides a great challenge for the heroes, the path to the final confrontation is entertaining with some nice turns along the way, and the final battle is epic. This is a movie which has a deserved fanbase but it is not quite on the same level as the top few movies.

In the same vein would be a movie like Iron Man (2008). Perfectly cast from Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) to eye-candy Pepper Potts (Gwyneth Paltrow) to fun villain Obadiah Stane (Jeff Bridges), it jumps right into the action and keeps the audience entertained from beginning to end. There is a nice dose of excellent action, strong supporting characters, and the theme of redemption for Stark is one that the audience can latch on to. Yet there is just...something, some undefinable something that marks it a step below the very best. Perhaps it is the less deep motivations of Stane or the surprisingly short final confrontation with the Iron Monger but something makes this movie one that, while entertaining, just is not on the same level as the very top tier.

There are a number of movies that fall into this vein. 2 of the 3 Spiderman movies fall into the realm of movies that are highly entertaining, have engaging action sequences, cool villains, and explore themes that most people should find interesting. In the first of the three, that theme has to do with how power is handled and in the second the themes are revenge and dealing with broken dreams. Where do they fall short while The Dark Knight and The Incredibles succeed? Perhaps the motivations are just a bit off or the resolutions just a bit hokey...sometimes it is hard to say why one movie works better than another movie, a theme we will explore more in the underrated section.

Some movies make it into the realm of eminently satisfying movies simply because one certain element stands out above the others. For example, The Incredible Hulk (2008) is a pretty average movie for most of the length. The opening is slow and somewhat maudlin. The action sequences seem to be battling the ghosts of The Hulk (2003) and, while good, are not great...until the finale where the Hulk (Edward Norton) battles the Abomination (Tim Roth). Here we see the true potential of Super Hero movies with a battle that is truly titanic. Two seemingly evenly matched super strength warriors battle each other across a city and their path of destruction is truly memorable. If not for this scene then it is possible that, incredibly, The Incredible Hulk would have followed The Hulk into the pits of disappointment. The motivations ring hollow, Norton is not particularly sympathetic as Bruce Banner, and the story tends to drag in places yet the movie is redeemed by the finale.

Down to Defeat: Whither the Hero? or movies gone wrong.

As fun as it might seem to watch Super Hero movies, sometimes the boat is missed and the results are disappointing. Perhaps the poster child for this is the aforementioned The Hulk. It spends so much time on metaphysical questions that it fails to deliver the story lines that are needed in a fantasy world such as one inhabited by Superheroes. It exhibits the same flaw that ultimately crippled Fantastic Four:Rise of the Silver Surfer (2007). A weak path to the movie, albeit with some very cool special effects, ultimately is not saved by the finale but instead turns the entire movie into a travesty, a weak echo of what was expected. Both finales involve not a fight of epic proportions and over the top action but instead a metaphysical, abstract mind-meld that leaves the audience disappointed. It is not necessarily that either effort was a bad movie or even that the endings were unsatisfying...if they were a different genre. But in a Super Hero movie you want action and both movies failed to deliver it for their denouement.

Another way to miss it is to miss the "feel" of the source material. It has been tried twice with the Punisher franchise. The first time, when Dolph Lundgren took on the role of Frank Castle in the 1989 version the movie was roundly panned, possibly because Dolph Lundgren has the screen presence of a leper and the grace of a 1-legged mule. He simply was not a sympathetic character and his acting removed the viewer from the world they were trying to immerse themselves in. When Thomas Jane took on the role in 2004 he suffered many of the same issues. His facial expressions vary so seldom that you assume he is attempting to recreate the legendary Kuleshov Effect. While the climax is indeed a bloodbath worthy of the comic book source material, the variety of guns he uses is remarkably small and not nearly as over the top as expected. We have seen larger arsenals of weaponry in a variety of flicks. As a result, The Punisher is just another gunfighting movie that does it more poorly than a lot of other gunfighting movies and does not have a storyline or characterizations to make up for it.

Superman Returns (2006) is another example of a movie that is a fine effort at movie making but a failure as an attempt at a Super Hero movie. The climax is reached without a real super hero type activity and as a result it is a rather depressing, maudlin, dark-hued effort that leaves people waiting to see Superman (Brandon Routh) unleash on them wondering what happened. If this movie were not Superman then perhaps the cheese-ball overacting of Kevin Spacey as Lex Luthor and his rather pedestrian motivations could have been overcome to give us an entertaining foray into the questions of relationships rekindled after an unexpected time apart. Perhaps not. But we will never know.

When Super Hero movies forget their core audience and either are not true to the source material or else fail to deliver action packed finales they almost always end in tremendous disappointment.

Who Was that Masked Man? or, Super Hero movies that have been underrated.

As Super Hero movies go, the box office numbers for Hellboy (2004) and Hellboy II:The Golden Army (2008) were not stellar. Yet both efforts star a wisecracking Super Hero (?) Hellboy (Ron Perlman) in the best tradition of the Gold Age of comics. He is an interesting character study of "genetics versus environment"and his desire to be "normal" provides an entertaining sub-plot. To be sure the motives of the villains are pretty stereotypical but the movies move along at a good pace, are entertaining to watch and should have been much better received.

Another fine example would be Daredevil (2003). The movie had interesting characters, an action packed plot, motivations that made sense, and while the battle with Kingpin (Michael Clarke Duncan) was disappointing, it did come after an epic battle between first Daredevil (Ben Affleck) and Elektra (Jennifer Garner), then Electra and Bullseye (Colin Farrell), and finally Daredevil and Bullseye that is not to be missed. Yet it has been roundly panned and dismissed as a weak effort. I suspect it has more to do with the timing of its release with Ben Affleck in a starring role than the quality of the movie itself.

This look at Super Hero movies obviously overlooks older, and sometimes great efforts such as Superman (1978) and is not meant to look at every movie ever made. But in looking at the list, one thing becomes clear. When people set out to make a Super Hero movie, they sometimes go half way or they forget their core audience. It is all too easy to dismiss those audience members as dorks or geeks and assume the same level of effort to produce great movies in other genres is not required for Super Hero flicks.

In truth, some of those audience members are among the most discerning members out there, capable of catching subtle nuances and themes that fly over the heads of many audience members. To create a great Super Hero movie, it is incumbent to treat the source material and audience members with respect, to give us a script that includes sensible motivations, 3-dimensional characters, explores issues people care about, and still delivers the action we crave to resolve those situations.

In real life it is not possible to resolve disagreements with girlfriends by defeating a Super Villain...but that is what we want in our movies. That is what we look for, it is what we want, and it is what we celebrate. Long live the Super Heroes.

How can the Climactic Fight alter your perception of a Super Hero Movie Part 4

2008-08-02T09:52:00.000-07:00

The most important part of any movie is the climax, that moment when all the threads of the story you have been following (theoretically) come together to give you some sort of resolution. In Super Hero movies that resolution is virtually always achieved through combat. A great climactic fight can save a bad movie and a horrible climax can ruin a good one. And sometimes it makes no difference...

While every genre has certain conventions which must be observed it is perhaps the Super Hero movie which is most reliant on a particular element. Romantic comedies must have a boy gets girl element, even if there are movies such as The Break-up (2006) which defy that convention and do not have a stereotypical happy ending. Westerns can have the hero die as John Wayne did in The Cowboys (1972) or even be set in places other than the west as the entire Star Wars franchise was. But a Super Hero movie without over the top action and fights? Uggh.

Test this theory out. Go watch the Hulk (2003), the vastly and rightfully maligned version. Watch it as a character study. It is actually an excellent movie. Clearly Bruce Banner (Eric Bana) has issues. He struggles with guilt. He struggles with identity. And most of all, he battles with who his Father (Nick Nolte) actually is. The movie is a very deep movie on some levels and takes a long, hard look at that. If it were marketed as Pan's Labyrinth (2006) was it would have been a niche film to be sure but very highly regarded in that niche. Unfortunately, it was marketed as a Super Hero movie.

As a result, the final, climactic battle...well, actually, the complete lack of one...destroyed the appeal of the movie. The battles with the Army along the way were not much better. People went to see a Hulk fight and got introspection and weirdness.

Contrast that with the epic battle between the Hulk (Edward Norton) and the Abomination (Tim Roth) at the conclusion of The Incredible Hulk (2008). Oh smurf yeah. Now we are talking. This fight was what Super Hero fans are looking for. It had huge amounts of fisticuffs. The moment when Hulk rips apart the police car and pounds the Abomination with it is awesome. The portion where the Abomination sends the Hulk careening through buildings is outstanding. And in a tremendous homage to the Hulk fanboys know and love, we even get a verbalized Hulk Smash. This fight is over the top, destructive, impressive, and satisfying.

An easy comparison would be the final battle between Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr.) and the Iron Monger (Obadiah Stane). It is surprisingly short. Of course, the action bringing us to this point was plenteous and entertaining but the climax seemed like it had just started when it ended and, significantly, ended not by the efforts of Iron Man but actually at the hand of Pepper Potts (Gwyneth Paltrow). Yet despite the length and somewhat unheroic denouement, the fight was a great conclusion to the movie that left the audience feeling satisfied. This helps demonstrate that the length of the climax does not necessarily make or break the meaning that fight imparts to the film.

Arguably, the climactic battle of Daredevil (2003) was between Daredevil and Bullseye, not the Kingpin (Michael Duncan Clarke). It went on for quite some time. Actually, the climactic battle was among the lengthiest in Super Hero film history, starting with combat between Daredevil and Elektra, moving on to take in Elektra against Bullseye,

and then moving on to a sprawling battle between Daredevil and Bullseye. That portion of the movie is quite lengthy and moves from rooftops to a cathedral including a tremendous set-piece on the organ. But even then it is not done as the barely able to walk Daredevil makes his way to the Kingpins office for the final confrontation.

For all its length and interesting situations, somehow the fight did not capture the attention of the audience and the movie failed. This indicates a great climax cannot save a movie. Of course, the almost complete lack of any combat can pretty much ruin one. Lets check out one of the best action pictures from Superman Returns (2006). It looked a lot like this:

Okay, so that is a visual joke. But not much of one. Having Lex Luthor (Kevin Spacey) serve as the primary villain pretty much doomed the final battle to lameness and as a result, the movie has not engendered a huge call for a sequel.

Clearly it is incumbent on a Super Hero movie to have some sort of super fight. It can be short or long as long as it is there. Movies like The Hulk and Superman Returns struggle to entertain their audience without them. Arguably, without the dog fight and the psychedelic mind-meld, had The Hulk had this

we might never have gotten The Incredible Hulk because we wouldn't have needed it to satisfy.

Open memo to writers, directors, and producers of future Super Hero movies. Please, give us a satisfying combat to finish up your flick. Remember, whatever else you are trying to do, whatever questions you are trying to answer, remember your core audience; people who enjoy super fights. Remember, even a movie like The Dark Knight (2008) which is primarily about what it takes to corrupt good people, it still offered a fantastic and action packed finale to resolve the various story lines. I think I am on pretty safe ground in saying people enjoyed it more for that than they would have a group session in therapy.

Super Hero movies, whatever else they do, whatever other ground they cover, they still, in the end, are about action. And that, more than any other factor, makes or breaks the movie.

Is he good or evil? The 2 sides of questionable heroes, Part 4

2008-08-01T07:50:00.000-07:00

Every so often there comes along a moment so iconic it leaps of the movie screen and makes its way onto posters, shirts, and other paraphernalia. One such moment was when Spiderman saw his reflection as Venom. Besides being a stunning visual, it also is a stunning visual metaphor for one of the trickiest roles in Super Hero movies. That would be taking it from hero to villain or villain to hero.

Venom is one such example of course. When he performs a symbiotic relationship with Peter Parker (Tobey McGuire) he acts for good. Yet the entire time it is a struggle that leads Parker to moves that are out of character for him such as trying to kill Sandman (Thomas Haden Church) or his strut and humiliation of Mary Jane (Kirsten Dunst) in the restaurant. Yet ultimately Parker is able to overcome those effects. Venom, of course, is unquestionably, undeniably and irredeemably evil in the hands of Eddie Brock (Topher Grace).

This contrast with someone such as Harvey Dent (Aaron Eckhardt). He is pretty unquestioningly good at the beginning of The Dark Knight (2008). He is the White Knight to Batman's (Christian Bale) Dark Knight. Whereas Batman works with fear and terror, Dent is a symbol of hope. His courageous stand against the death threats of the gangsters and Joker (Heath Ledger) provides an example to the citizens of Gotham that there are good men among their leaders. His heroic move to take the fall for Batman when the town insists on his arrest spoke to his heroic intentions.

Yet even at the height of his heroism there were signs he had certain flaws in his character. His habit of deciding things seemingly by chance in flipping a coin showed one of those flaws. He was cheating the entire time. There was no chance whatsoever in those coin flips and that willingness or desire to take advantage in these situations showed that while he might be upright and courageous he also was willing to bend or break rules to get what he wanted.

Thus when he was physically scarred in the explosion minutes after losing Rachel Dawes (Maggie Gyllenhall) it was really just an external showing of an internal truth. His now-scarred coin became a true measure of chance. However, he was now willing to go places he was previously unwilling to go and perform actions he was previously unwilling to perform. His move from hero to villain was a long trip and certainly reversible. That is primarily true because he bought into it completely as both hero and villain. He was willing to risk his life to put the mobsters behind bars or to stand against the Joker. After the corruption, he was equally willing to give up everything to achieve his new aims.

This stands in sharp contrast to Elektra(Jennifer Garner).

She is the daughter of a gangster. Does she truly not know what he does for a living? That strains the bounds of credibility. She is in many ways the epitome of apathetic neutrality. She does not stand up against evil nor does she seek to perform good actions. She simply is. Yet it is not a lack of capability. Her fight with Matt Murdock (Ben Affleck) on the teeter-totters is not only entertaining, it demonstrates a high degree of capability.

Her move into the realm of super is unclear as to whether she is hero or villain. You would argue villain based on her opponent being Daredevil and also since she is seeking vengeance on the man she believes kills her father. Yet she quickly turns and fights Bullseye (Colin Farrall) when she learns the truth. Again she is neither hero nor villain but instead falls into the nebulous realm of major players who have questionable alignments.

On the third point of the triangle is the individual who moves from evil to good. The iconic example of this is unquestionably the Silver Surfer (Doug Jones and Laurence Fishburne(voice)).
At the beginning of the movie he is clearly evil as his role consists of finding and preparing planets for destruction, even if they are inhabited. The story arc has more to do with the attempts of the Fantastic Four to stop him and then, once they learn his true role as merely the herald for Galactus, to convince him to stop the destruction.

At the end of the movie he is unquestionably a hero as he conceivably commits suicide to stop Galactus. Of course, as anyone who knows the history of the Fantastic Four knows, he is probably not dead but the fact he was willing to sacrifice everything to save the planet, the true epitome of a hero. The sacrifice does not have to take place. There simply has to be a willingness to make the sacrifice and that he unquestionably is.

Clearly, the story arcs that take characters from good to bad or vice versa can provide great value to the goal of entertaining the audience in Super Hero movies. Keep an eye on these subplots in any given movie and it might enhance your enjoyment. Go back and watch the 3 Spiderman movies and concentrate solely on the character arc of Harry Osborne (James Franco) as he goes from neutral to bad to neutral to good. It is an oft overlooked sub-plot that helped turn that series into great entertainment.

Can Villains determine the entertainment value of a Super Hero Movie? part 3

2008-07-30T21:46:00.000-07:00

There is a moment in Iron Man (2008) where the villain of the piece, the Iron Monger aka Obadiah Stane (Jeff Bridges) picks up an SUV to hurl it at the worn down Iron Man aka Tony Stark (Morton Downey Jr.) where I went, "This is a very cool villain." Although the movie was not exceptionally action packed and the fight between Iron Man and the Iron Monger is not particularly long, nevertheless the Iron Monger was a flat out cool villain.

It was his coolness as a villain that turned the movie from another, "Oh, it was nice to see but...I don't know if I would see it again" type fare into, "When that comes out on video, we are buying that one!" because it is one that will stand up to repeated viewings. He is an interesting villain and a capable one. But the reason he is interesting is because they took the time to flesh him out.
On first viewing Obadiah Stane is a believable family friend. There is an obvious familiarity and camaraderie between Stane and Stark that is fun to watch and believable. His motivations make sense...he wants to preserve the business. He wants to maximize his own power and, as it turns out, is willing to harm those who get in his way such as Tony Stark. Their conflict thus flows naturally and is easy to believe.

That is the hallmark of a strong villain. They are not specifically seeking to test their wits against the hero. The conflict that arises between Super Hero and Super Villain arises organically as the respective parties pursue their own goals. A great example of this would be the villains who fought Spiderman.

It started with the first Green Goblin. He was not specifically seeking out Spiderman. He was simply angry at the failure of his schemes and, mentally unhinged, he lashed out. Spiderman sought him out and took the fight to him. This changed a bit when Harry Osborn sought revenge for his fathers' death but by then the paradigm of Spiderman versus the Green Goblin had been established and would itself have been believable motivation. By having the character arcs intersect seemingly by chance rather than just creating a villain who simply wanted to battle a hero we were presented, if not a 3 dimensional then at least a complex 2 dimensional character who seems to act in their own self-interest as opposed to some villains of movies past who seemed to exist solely to provide a foil for the hero and whose motivations were not particularly believable.Dr. Octopus is a further example of this. Far from just some cartoonish villain, when we first meet Dr. Otto Octavius (Alfred Molina) he is in fact a hero of sorts. It is only after his experiment goes awry that we see him become evil. But it is a tempered evil...he does not suddenly become a maniac or psychopath...he simply tries to set things aright and makes poor choices which lead to his turn to the path of crime which then is exacerbated by his interactions with Harry. Their interactions which fit very well with each character's personal motivations.

Thus Doc Ock is not just random villain X with no interests of his own. In truth he is someone we can care about, even if eventually that care is that he be defeated. Of course, in the flick he eventually redeems himself, a fact which for many fans of villains actually condemns him, but that is for another piece. Until then, Doc Ock follows the Spiderman villain pattern,

Contrast that with a villain such as Bullseye (Colin Farrell) from Daredevil (2003). He is a more stereotypical villain.His motivations? Money and hitting everything he shoots at. He has to hit the bulls eye with darts, paper clips, shuriken, and even pencils. On the bright side he is quite entertaining. His method of disposing of the old woman on the plane was quite amusing and his quip about the guard he killed with pencils memorable as well. And there is no denying he has a very cool look. Colin Farrell nailed this role.

On the downside he is pretty much a 1 dimensional character. He serves as nothing but a goon, a hired thug brought in specifically for a job. His one motivation is anger when Daredevil (Ben Affleck) makes him miss. That is a weak motivation indeed.

It is possible that weak villains such as Bullseye and the Kingpin (Michael Clarke Duncan) had a lot to do with the weak box office done by Daredevil. Their motivations were irrelevant to the movie and thus it lacked the depth that has set the good Super Hero movies apart. Or perhaps not. After all, a very popular arch-villain in a current movie has far more in common with Bullseye than with the better developed villains of Spiderman and Iron Man.

Is there any question the Joker (Heath Ledger) will go down in the annals of movie history as one of the greatest antagonists of all time? He mesmerized the audience while on the screen and haunted all the events occurring off it. He made The Dark Knight (2008) into must-see entertainment even for non-fans of comic books.In many ways, he was everything a good villain should be. He was dangerous, he was a threat to the existence of the hero, he caused the protagonist existential quandaries as well as physical opposition, and he performed actions that screamed "villain" in ways that are usually reserved for the most depraved individuals.

Yet if we take a step back we quickly realize he was actually a pretty one dimensional, almost cartoonish villain. His role has more in common with Bullseye than it does with even the Green Goblin.

He does not care about money. He does not care about power. He does not even particularly care about his own life. Check out the way he screams, "Hit me! Hit Me! HIT ME!!!!!!" As Batman roars towards him on the Batcycle. Or the way he aims a loaded gun in his mouth and puts it in the hands of Harvey "Two Face" Dent (Aaron Eckhardt). He is willing to die to corrupt people.

That is his entire motivation. To corrupt people. That is about as cartoonish as it gets yet he is still an undeniably entertaining villain, thus demonstrating you don't have to have a rounded villain if the movie is handled correctly.

The Hellboy franchise is one that seems to have gotten that often touchy line correct. Villains range from Karl Ruprecht Kroenen (Ladislav Beren) to Prince Nuada (Luke Goss) to Wink (Brian Steele). At one end you have Wink and Kroenen...
They are stereotypical goons. It is hard to say what their motivations, hopes, dreams or desires are because those are never mentioned. They are just muscle, just obstacles for the hero to overcome. At the other end of the spectrum is Prince Nuada. He is a complex villain. His desires make sense and might even find a few viewers who sympathise with him in the current social paradigms. He knows his choices will be unpopular yet he believes in them so strongly that he ends up killing his Father while professing love for him. He is strong, intelligent, and cares for his followers. His story is really what draws you in while the love story of Hellboy (Ron Perlman) and Liz Sherman (Selma Blair) is almost a sideline. A villain who is over half the story is complex indeed. And that adds a great deal of interest even to movies which are more interested in providing a fun experience for the viewer than a great or deep storyline.

And that brings us to the Abomination (Tim Roth).

Is he a good guy at the beginning of the movie? Or is he just a villain who does not yet realize it? The path he takes from super soldier to what you see pictured here is every bit as important to the story of The Incredible Hulk (2008) as even that of Bruce Banner (Edward Norton) himself.

The downward spiral as he tries to amplify his own power to compete with the Hulk seems to be part of what corrupts him. The process as his ego compels him to attempt things beyond his strength makes for an entertaining tale. And at the end his sheer strength leads to one of the most entertaining Super Hero battles to hit the big screen yet.

From Bullseye to Abomination, from the Joker to Wink, villains are a crucial part of the world of the Super Hero. Without a proper villain a Super Hero movie is pretty pointless. It behooves the prudent writer to put some thought into their villains.

Coming up next:assessing the tweeners...are they heroes or villains?

Assessing the Heroes Part 2

2008-07-30T21:43:00.000-07:00

The recent spate of Super Hero movies has been very entertaining for me. I am a closet Comic Book lover who prefers a bit of the 40s, 50s and 60s feel when they were more about entertainment and less about angst. About the time every new title that hit the market echoed the angst of the Fantastic Four my interest began to wane. I think the Darkhawk title was a pretty good example. It started out with a sense of fun and adventure...then made a left turn into every issue being so full of angst that it became an exercise in misery.

Of course, the poster child for angst came from Marvel comics with the Fantastic Four. Thus rose the challenge; how can you make a bunch of angst-ridden heroes into an entertaining movie? Well, for the male portion of your population, starting with Jessica Alba as Susan Storm is never a bad idea. There are not a huge number of straight males who don't find her smoking hot. I freely admit to not being one of those few.

At the same time, simply adding her to the line-up does not make a movie entertaining in and of itself. What do Awake (2007), The Eye (2007), The Love Guru (2008), and even Good Luck Chuck (2007) have in common? Jessica Alba was in the movie and it did not draw crowds. It isn't enough to have beautiful people such as Alba and Chris Evans (Johnny Storm) roaming around. The writers still must like us care about the characters they portray.

The difficulty of having his wife reject him and always appearing odd is something that had audiences empathizing with Ben "the Thing" Grimm (Michael Chiklis). The all brain, no comprehension of sexy woman hitting on you syndrome of Reed Richards (Ioan Gruffud) struck a chord with millions of geeks, nerds, and comic book aficionados. And so forth.

Further proof that being sexy does not an entertaining movie make comes in the form of versatile actress Jennifer Garner. In the middle of her run on Alias she made movies as varied as 13 Going on 30 (2004) and Daredevil (2003). How is it the first was considered a success and the second a failure?

Again, it has to do with whether the character was entertaining. Somehow Elektra (Jennifer Garner) came across as not butt-kicking but as a bit needy, whiny and weak. How that is possible when someone looks like she does in the above picture is hard to understand. It also illustrates the fine line between creating a character that works and one that doesn't.

That is the secret to making good lead characters. Give us a character we can like. After well-publicized life problems, why would fans flock to a Robert Downey Jr. movie? To be sure, there is plenty of attractive flesh in Iron Man (2008)...I think this picture gives you a feel for the tone.

But nobody in their right mind is going to shell out $30 bucks (assuming 2 tickets, some popcorn, soda, and maybe a candy of some sort) for a few glimpses of toned legs and skimpy outfits unless the story is entertaining. While very few of us will have a device of questionable scientific legitimacy keeping us alive, many of us might wish we could jet-set around Vegas and California with the beautiful people, drive fast cars, and have a cool, fun, high paying job. Being on the edge of losing that and seeing the need to make a difference as Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) did in Iron Man draws people in, entertains them, and sends them home happy. And it never hurts if the good guy looks cool and can blow stuff up using an outfit like this. If you want to purchase one just like it for me for Christmas I will happily forward my particulars to you. And for those who never read the Iron Man titles, here is a minor spoiler for you. When Rhodie (Terrence Howard) scoped out the silver suit in Stark's home and says, "Next time"...he gets to wear a suit like that under the name War Machine. If that character is part of the next Iron Man it will be a major geek-out moment.

Now, you might think from what I said above I think characters should have no angst or something along that line. Far from it. In Batman we have a character who, in the current incarnation, is so angst-ridden that he considers giving up the super hero game in The Dark Knight (2008). Yet the movie is hugely entertaining...including him. Bruce Wayne (Christian Bale) can do things very few if any of the viewers can. Yet his struggle to deal with tragic losses without becoming hateful and vengeful resonates with many people. His troubles are deep but not presented in a way that overwhelms you with dreariness. Contrast that with, for example, Superman (Brandon Roush) in Superman Returns (2006)In trying to restart the Superman franchise there were a lot of external factors. George Reeves and Christopher Reeves, 2 iconic Supermen both came to unfortunate and tragic ends. Christopher, in particular, was still so associated with the franchise that many questioned if reviving the franchise was even possible. With that in mind, Superman Returns was entirely too dreary. The choice to shoot everything in greyish, muted, dark tones, to score it with moody music and to couch the attempt to rekindle heat between Superman and Lois Lane (Kate Bosworth) in terms of her smoking habit tended to turn the movie too dreary and subsequently fan excitement for a sequel has been, to say the least, rather muted. Nor is Superman the only franchise to suffer this malady.

The Punisher franchise could offer an excellent counterpoint to most of the movies out today. Unlike Batman, The Fantastic Four, Spiderman, Superman, or even the X-men, the Punisher of the comics not only never had any compunction about killing people, his title was noted for exceedingly high body counts. Yet in the restart after the roundly panned Punisher (1989) in which Dolph Lundgren played a Frank Castle similar to the comic in that he used large numbers of huge weapons, the Punisher (2004) spends so long setting up the background that Frank Castle (Thomas Jane) never gets his guns off, so to speak and the cliactic battle is too little, too late for fans of the comic version and too brutal for those who went into the movie not knowing what to expect. That is part of why Punisher: War Zone (2008?) is having so many problems in production; the studio is rumored to be afraid to make a movie that will appease the hardcore Castle fans but still want to be hardcore.

Fortunately, we have an example of a hero who is willing to kill done right. For sheer fun, very little beats the wise-cracking, butt-kicking demon turned good guy, Hellboy.He has no compunction about killing. In fact, some of his best lines have to do with opponents he believes he has killed who refuse to stay dead. The killing is never matter of fact, random, or brutal. How do you politely say...it is in fact fun? Hellboy (Ron Pearlman) plays it just right to make it entertaining.

So when you look at what forms an entertaining protagonist there are clearly several factors that come in to play. Is the character entertaining? Do they avoid having so many problems that instead of having fun the viewer is dragged down into misery? Are their goals, dreams, and actions something people can relate to in some way, however tenuous that vicarious thread might be?

And to me it mostly comes back to fun.

Cinematic Superheroes; Rating the Greats, part 1

2008-07-28T15:26:00.000-07:00

The financial success of the Spiderman, Fantastic Four, Hellboy, X-Men and Batman franchises in recent years ensures us that the foreseeable future will be inundated with further entries into the Super Hero genre. Actually, calling it "Super Hero" might not be exactly correct as from time to time we veer more into "Comic Book Hero" realm, a subtle yet sometimes important distinction. The Comic Book hero would include source material such as the oft-maligned and underrated Judge Dredd (1995) and the rumored Jonah Hex movie. If they stay true to the source material I will be there opening day for that one. However...if they go the route the scripts have been rumored to go...not so much. If I wanted to watch X-Files material I would watch the X-Files.

And therein we have one of the issues surrounding Comic Books as source material. The audience becomes a moving target even within the "fanboy"/nerd/geek paradigm. On the one hand, you have people like me...I know the general outline of even 2nd tier Heroes such as Darkhawk, the Green Arrow, Elongated Man, etc. and have a pretty good sense of the Superman pantheon of enemies, for example. Yet I have nowhere near the level of interest of people who, for example, recognized the name on the test tube in The Incredible Hulk (2008) as belonging to the guy who injected the Super Soldier serum into Steve Rogers (Captain America). On the other end of the spectrum are people who needed me to identify Steve Rogers as being the alias for the iconic Super Hero, to whom names like Zsasz or the Mad Hatter are unlikely to bring to mind Batman villains.

That leaves open the question of whether or how much origin story to kick in when starting a new tent pole Hero. In Spiderman (2002) the answer was yes, we will give the relatively long form version. In Daredevil (2003) the combination of too much back story and Ben Affleck unfortunately sunk a potentially very entertaining franchise as fans turned away in droves from a movie that, in retrospect, was actually quite entertaining. In The Incredible Hulk (2008) they dispensed with the back story entirely and assumed the audience would quickly comprehend the potentially complex relationships between the 3 main characters.

There is, like so often in the movies, no "right" or "wrong" answer. The Fantastic Four (2005) was essentially nothing but origin...yet it was entertaining and paved the way for further movies. Iron Man (2008) was also quite heavy on the origin portion yet left fans clamoring for more. Why did these movies succeed while Daredevil, The Hulk, and, arguably, even The Punisher (2004) failed?

Over the next few days I will explore a variety of factors that help explain the success, failure, and entertainment value of various comic book and Super Hero movies. Along the way the factors that make these movies entertaining...or not...for many people who may not have ever encountered the material prior to seeing these movies.

The Dark Knight

2008-07-19T20:13:00.000-07:00

Warning: SPOILER ALERT
This review contains one or more images you should not see until you have seen The Dark Knight (2008).

Ever since Batman Begins (2005) there has been anticipation for the sequel. As word of the powerhouse performance of the late Heath Ledger as the Joker spread, that anticipation only increased. Now, at last, The Dark Knight (2008) is upon us. As you can see from the opening picture, the visuals are stunning. They are stunning throughout the movie and that is just the beginning.

Taking up shortly after the events of Batman Begins, Dark Knight finds a lot of Batman impersonators on the streets. They are almost as dangerous to themselves as they are to the Batman (Christian Bale) and even cause him some difficulties in the opening sequences as he deals with The Scarecrow (Cillian Murphy).

As an aside...it is kind of sad to see a potentially tough Batman villain such as the Scarecrow turned into a throw-away piece...he is dispatched as easily in this movie as any of the dozens or hundreds of thugs that Batman deals with. In Batman Begins he was, if not on the level of Villain, at least a strong Minion, well above the level of mere henchman or thug. He might even be considered a mere Hooligan in this movie and it will be hard for him to ever serve a role as viable threat to the Batman in the current franchise.

Be that as it may, we are also introduced to a true villain, the ultimate Batman arch-nemesis, the Joker. He is at his dastardly best in this one. His opening gambit to steal huge quantities of cash from the local mobsters includes having his gang members kill each other with him killing the final member. His trademark is inventive killings.

It is established early on that this is not the comedic Joker of the Batman television camp but owes a great deal to the psychopath Joker of Jack Nicholson in Batman (1989). And the Joker will prove to be a worthy opponent. He seems to always be not one but two steps ahead of the police, the mob, and even the Batman. He has a sick, sadistic sense of humor and causes lots of destruction. He dominates not just every scene he is in but also a lot of scenes he is not in.

All of which makes this even more amazing. The Dark Knight has nothing to do with the Joker. In case you missed that, let me repeat it. The Joker is irrelevant to this movie. He is the ultimate McGuffin.

The Dark Knight is about temptation, about endurance. Can the Batman be corrupted? Can Harvey Dent be a White Knight to Batman's Dark Knight and render him unnecessary? Those are the questions that intrigue director Christopher Nolan. Remember how in Batman Begins Batman won't kill Ra's Al Ghul (Ken Watanabe) or, more tellingly, Henri Ducard (Liam Neeson)...but he DOES choose not to save him? In The Dark Knight the question is will he kill the Joker to end the Joker's crime spree? As the Joker explicitly questions him, the Batman's entire story line is summed up in this one line; "And tonight, you are going to break your one rule."

Batman must choose whether to kill or allow killing to continue yet that has always been his one rule. He breaks laws at will. For example, he invades sovereign air space and kidnaps a foreign national in violation of dozens of laws. He beats the Joker to a pulp during an "interrogation". He removes evidence from a crime scene after 2 cops are shot. He drives an unlicensed, definitely not street legal Batmobile (and, later, Batbike)

But it is not just the Batman facing a moral dilemma. Harvey Dent (Aaron Eckhart) also faces a crisis. Seemingly incorruptible and fearless, he refuses to acquiesce to the Joker's demands and continues his job as District Attorney of putting mob members behind bars. Yet there are signs that he is perhaps a bit corruptible. He flips a 2-headed coin to determine choices "by chance". This reliance would become his trademark after one of the Joker's diabolical schemes resulted in a major change in Dent's life. In one moment his intended wife Rachel Dawes (Maggie Gyllenhal) is killed and he is turned into Two Face.

Two Face, of course, is a major Batman villain. Half good, half evil, he uses a coin to decide...the same 2-headed coin, only now one side is scarred in the same explosion.

So how is it that even though he dominates the screen and creates a major villain that the Joker doesn't matter? Just take a look at that picture. All the money the Joker stole is in that pile. So is all the moneybelonging to the mob. And the money was set on fire by the Joker. Money means nothing to him. Power means nothing to him. He explicitly tells both Dent and the Batman that his entire purpose is anarchy, to test them, to see if he can break them and create anarchy. He has no motivation of his own other than that of the writers and directors: to move the story along. Now, to be fair, he does this admirably. But he is completely a red herring. The movie is not about catching the Joker...it is about looking at the character of the Batman, Dent, and Dawes and seeing who will stay true to their character.

Fortunately, it is an entertaining journey. Filled with powerhouse performances, high-octane action, and thought provoking story lines for everyone from the major characters down to supporting characters like Lucious Fox (Morgan Freeman) and Alfred Pennyworth (Michael Caine). If you like Batman as a character, Super Hero movies, action movies, or just plain entertainment, you have to see this flick.

Hellboy II

2008-07-16T21:07:00.000-07:00

The first Hellboy (2004) was everything a Super Hero movie should be...it was fast-paced, had characters you liked and cared about, had great fight scenes and, above all, was fun. Hellboy II: The Golden Army (2008) is the sequel, highly anticipated by many of us but not on the same level as Iron Man or The Dark Knight. Nevertheless, since Ironman Al was in town we headed out for the flick. On arrival we got a horrifying scare as the line snaked out of the theatre, down the wall, and around the corner. Fortunately, it turned out to be for another movie...oddly, Mama Mia (2008), it must have been a sneak peak.

The Golden Army recreates the opening from the first movie to refresh our memory, then gives us a peak at Hellboy growing up under the tutelage of Professor Broom (John Hurt) as he gets a Christmas story about the Golden Army and how they turned the tide in the Elven/faery world in their war with the humans. Even at 14 years of age he loves guns...going to sleep with a toy pistol after the story. Fast forward a few decades and things are much the same as they were at the end of Hellboy. He is living with Liz Sherman (Selma Blair) in pseudo-happiness...they are not completely at peace with one another. Furthermore, he is at odds with section director Tom Manning (Jeffrey Tambor). To get him "under control" Manning brings in Johann Krauss (Seth McFarlane), pictured above left.
To create conflict we get the evil Elven son Prince Nuada (Luke Goss). Unsatisfied with the truce, he murders his father, tracks down his twin sister Princess Nuala (Anna Walton) and the pieces of the crown. When Hellboy gets in the way, Nuada threatens him with a tree elemental. To fight it Hellboy breaks out Big Baby, the gun pictured above. Oddly, he is he is hesitant to fire it off. Finally he does, blowing away the elemental but in the meanwhile the sub-theme of the movie is brought ever more clearly to light. Will mankind ever accept Hellboy or will he always be feared, despised and rejected by them?
Princess Nuala is caught up in the same struggle. She also provides Abe Saperstein (Doug Jones) with his first love interest as the 2 share a bond that will move the story along. Ultimately Nuala will have to choose between allowing her brother to gain control over the Golden Army and destroy mankind...or killing herself to stop him. Her relationship with Abe provides more tension over this internal conflict.
Ultimately the final battle takes place as Hellboy and Liz, Abe and Nuala all must come to peace with their decisions and the consequences those decisions will have.

Along the way there is plenty of action including a highly entertaining battle between Hellboy and Wink (Brian Steele). Perhaps the funniest moment in a movie full of 1-liners comes when Hellboy shows the tooth knocked out in their battle to Wink and says, "Happy?" to which Wink extends his extend-a-hand which has been smashed into itself and wordlessly whines back what is clearly interpreted as,"Hey, what about what you did to me?"

This movie has plenty of laughs, characters you care about, plenty of action and a lot of fun. It is not as funny as the first, the action is not quite as good...it is good but somehow, just barely, misses the mark and neither Al nor I could put our finger on why. If you liked the first one you will like this one, if not then save your dough.

There is one additional bit of curiosity here. That has to do with the marketing. It was heavily marketed as being by "the director of Pan's Labyrinth (2006). " Okay, fair enough. Except the audiences for those two movies...well, I would not expect a lot of overlap.

People going to see Pan are more likely to be the art-house crowd, the people who think "independent" and "foreign" are code-words for "great movie" and that "blockbuster" and "making money" and "tentpole picture" are code words for "horrible movie that should never have been made". I am one of the few, the far between, the people who might like both. But as a general rule, fans of Pan are more likely to want a sequel to The Piano (1993) than to see any Super Hero movie, particularly one like Hellboy II.

It would seem more likely he would be touted for Mimic (1993), Hellboy (2004), or even the forthcoming Dr. Strange (2010), Hobbit (2011, 2012) or something along that lines. Yes, Pan was more recent...but the numbers were not staggering and it is hardly a ringing endorsement. If you say it will echo "popular Superhero movies of the last decade" and reference the Spiderman or Batman franchises...that marketing would make sense. But as it was, that struck me every time I heard it as being odd. Just a thought.

Hancock

2008-07-14T21:36:00.000-07:00

Super Hero movies have become very popular with the wave of comic book adaptations that have made bank in recent years. Even with the occasional stinker thrown in the mix, the genre has shown a strong ability to pull in audiences. With that in mind someone decided to make a Super Hero movie that is not, to the best of my knowledge, an adaptation of a comic book but rather is its own creation. The result was Hancock (2008).

Hancock (Will Smith) is the hard-drinking guy who catches bad guys for no apparent reason. Along the way he goes out of his way to destroy things at every opportunity. He appears to be highly unmotivated yet obviously has a history of helping...or rather destroying in the course of "helping" people with big problems.

His habit of causing mass destruction in the course of his exploits has the public turned against him and full of hatred for him. This will begin to change when he encounters hapless Image Consultant Ray Embrey (Jason Bateman). After Hancock saves Ray from a train Ray begins working with him to reform his image, to become someone the masses love instead of hate.

Unfortunately, it turns out Hancock and Ray's wife Mary (Charlize Theron) have a history together which is obvious from the beginning. There is a tension there whether Hancock will break up the marriage of idealistic Ray and his "Angel". Ultimately all is resolved in a happy ending that shows a cleaned up, caring Hancock doing his part not only to save the world but to help Ray make the world a better place.

The movie was pretty surprising. Throughout his career Smith has always had that edge of innocence. From his light-hearted rapper days as the Fresh Prince through his sit-com the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air through his entire movie career he has made relatively family-friendly fare. Even in Enemy of the State (1998) where there was a scene in a lingerie shop it was fairly clean. Not so with Hancock. This is a profanity laced expedition into realms that Smith has seldom if ever explored as part of his public persona. It would be like Miley Cyrus posing half-naked or Miss America showing up more or less in the buff. It is an example of pure perceptions shattered.

With that said, it was a pretty funny movie that should keep you interested beginning to end if you like Super Hero movies and/or Will Smith. There are some solid comedic moments and some more intense scenes as well. Bateman, Theron and Smith work well together and this is worth seeing.

Wall-E

2008-07-03T21:15:00.000-07:00

Wall-E (2008) has a lot going for it. The critics love it, it is a Pixar picture...French for prohibitive Oscar favorite which, in animation, I actually occasionally pay attention to...and it follows in a long tradition of enjoyable Pixar movies.

The marketing was a bit strange...how do you get people to see a movie about a lone robot picking up garbage? But I heard good things about it from Ironman Al and after some idiot with a long history of criminal convictions robbed a bank, got chased by the police and closed about every freeway...well, a movie sounded pretty good.

It starts out pretty slowly. Wall-E (Ben Burtt) is a robot left behind on earth to clean up massive piles of garbage. His only companion is a cockroach...as in, the only thing to survive the destruction of earth will be a cockroach. This leads to a variety of cockroach survival jokes which are one of the highlights of the movie. The other centerpiece is his love of Hello Dolly (1969) and a dancing set-piece from that movie.

After we are introduced to the character of Wall-E a ship arrives. On the ship are explorer robots, or at least one, Eve (Elissa Knight). Eve will come to be the love of his life. He shows her his work and his collection of bits of American pop culture. In his search to please her he shows her something he discovered the prior day...a living plant. This proves to be what Eve is looking for and she instantly shuts down and sends out signals striving to bring back the mother ship.

Meanwhile, a sad and lonely Wall-E tries again and again to bring her back to life.

While she is immobile he takes her around the planet, protects her from the rain and even decorates her with Christmas lights. At this point it is obvious that, for the kids, the movie is about a love story between sentient robots and indeed their relationship drives the plot from point to point.

I would even argue there are some touching moments. The loneliness experienced in turn by Wall-E, the cockroach, and finally Eve are very well done and might tug at the heart strings a little bit. However, that story line is just a smoke screen for the real point of the movie. That point is at least 2-fold even aside from looks at loneliness and relationships.

Remember, each robot in this movie has a designated function. The names Wall-E and Eve mean Waste Allocation Load Lifter and Extraterrestrial Vegetation Evaluator. That Waste load lifting is not just his name, it is his job and very reason for existing.

That brings us to the point of this movie. It is a rather sharp critique of American culture and resources. As you can see there are immense piles of garbage. Look closely on the right at the pile of garbage. There are thousands, perhaps millions of those piles formed by the Wall-E units that have all broken down except our hero. There is even a ring of garbage several pieces thick surrounding the planet.

Everything is owned by Buy & Large, a conglomerate that apparently made its fortune by up sizing everything...larger drinks, larger fries, larger desserts, and so forth. The larger items make more garbage and make people larger. That leads to the second portion of the social commentary which has to do with human contact but we will come back to that after further looking at the anti-garbage stance.

The movie takes a rather hypocritical stand in asserting the earth is on the verge of extinction due to excessive production of products and garbage. Yet the flick itself has a huge quantity of merchandise. There is an obvious disconnect between the message of the movie and the goals of the people making money off the movie.

Now, doubtless there are some large quantities of garbage and we would do well to reduce those levels. With that said, it has become an issue more intent on making political gains than on a realistic appraisal of the situation. Time and again we see that nature overcomes what people throw at it despite the sky is falling prognostications of the "experts". Yet we are taught that people are evil and irreparably damaging the earth. I call shenanigans.

The second part of the more hidden message has to do with how increasing reliance on electronic aids is creating a disconnect where people more seldom interact with each other and are growing increasingly larger themselves. As if people won't get the joke that everyone is so fat they can't even walk anymore we get a pan showing how captains of the ship went from sleek and fit to the current captain, a guy so fat that getting out of his bed requires robot assistance. In case anyone is looking for clues that the movie means to show that oversize portions and more sedentary time is destructive to society, the ship is named Axiom. Think about that word for 30 seconds and the meaning becomes clear.

The best part of the movie is actually not in Wall-E...it is in Presto, the now traditional short in front of the movie in which a hungry rabbit causes a magician great problems which inadvertently turn it into the greatest performance of his life. The audience I was a part of laughed from beginning to end at the short. Overall a very entertaining evening.

Wanted

2008-07-01T19:48:00.000-07:00

Remember C3Po? The annoying, whining, simpering weasel that just made you want to throw something at the screen? You thought that was the most annoying hero character until the arrival of someone even more annoying...

Yeah, you knew who I meant. Jar Jar out-C3PO'd old goldenrod himself. On the bright side, he was not as whiny or simpering as the tin man but he was indeed annoying.

Fortunately for all movie lovers Jar Jar and C3PO essentially ended their run with the probable end of the Star Wars franchise. I mean, sure, The Clone Wars animated feature is slated to come out later this year but since Lucas is not directing it we should be safe from whiny, simpering primary characters. Meanwhile, let's go check out a movie slated to be a gunfire filled festival of fast cars, fast women, and fast shooting, Wanted (2008).

Meet the hero of Wanted (2008). Oh, not the gun wielding, maniacal driving cool headed Fox (Angelina Jolie). No, I am referring to the unbelievably whiny, simpering slug covering his head with his hands standing next to her. Wesley Gibson (James McAvoy) is the protagonist of the piece.

He is the food tube occupying a cubicle in a job that, in context of this movie, is pretty meaningless. When super assassin Cross (Thomas Kretsschmann) tries to kill Wesley he is protected and rescued by Fox.

Fox then brings him to the Fraternity, an ancient group of assassins who get their commands of whom to kill from binary code in the weaving. No word yet on how, exactly, people interpreted binary code in the middle ages...but then again, worrying about plot holes will destroy this movie. Otherwise, how can you explain people capable of firing through car windows, donut holes, cans of soda, turning 8 or 10 corners and hitting their target 2 miles away inside a building...yet need visibility to shoot at someone 10' away? Just ignore those things and go with the flow. We will all be much happier.

Back to the story; Fox, driving a Viper with her feet while sliding across the hood and shooting at Cross rescues Wesley. She takes him back to meet the Fraternity and begin his induction.

For those who love car chases this one alone is worth the price of admission. Ironman Al, I am looking in your direction. You will love this movie.

There are other car chases and a heavy dose of outstanding cars. It is a beautiful thing and very easy on the eyes.

Wesley proves to be a slow learner but slowly and surely he learns everything a guy needs to know to get ahead; how to take a punch, how to take a knife stabbing or slicing, how to curve a bullet and how to plan a hit.

He wants to hit Cross for killing his father but Sloan (Morgan Freeman) won't let him because he is not ready. So Cross comes looking for him.

Slowly Wesley learns the truth of how the Fraternity works and eventually (5 minutes in this will NOT be a surprise to you so hopefully I am not giving anything away here) he invades their facility in one of the best shootout scenes in recent memory...almost.

The action in the scene is brilliant...it is a well-choreographed set-piece full of blood and thunder with more rounds expended than in any 5 A-Team episodes ever filmed. There is a brilliant sequence of exchanges as he empties gun after gun and instead of reloading simply snaps up one falling from the hand of an enemy. I have but 2 quibbles and both speak to personal taste, not quality of film; 1) I would have loved it even more full speed as I am not a huge fan of slo-motion. 2) I am extremely sick of the jiggly, shaky camerawork. I can do that myself. Give me steady cameras. I want my movie to look slick. I want to know I am watching a slick, big budget Hollywood flick.

Be that as it may it leads to a well done ending where loyalties and mores are tested, the twists are more or less resolved, and the Fraternity is put to the test, as is Wesley.

As to the ending, and after you see the movie this will make a lot more sense, there is a huge difference between the characters played by Jolie and Freeman. It also speaks, in my opinion, to why Freeman is the better actor.

When he is asked to play the villain in a movie...he is a legit villain. There is no easy out such as I would argue Fox takes in this one...there is no question at the end that Fox is a "good guy" and Sloan is a bad guy. Is that simply script? Maybe. But I cannot call to mind a single movie where Jolie does not, at some point, prove to be a hero on some level.

By contrast, Freeman is not afraid to be the villain. In fact, we are almost coming to expect it to the point where we expect that twist. We may not know when it is coming or how but we know it is coming. And his commitment to villainy is enjoyable because he does it so well.

That is not to say he should only take the roles of villains. He is such a talented actor that the more Freeman we see the better off we are. He can play a variety of roles and commands the screen when he is on it.

By limiting herself to only heroic roles Jolie stifles her path. She is still a talented actress and lots of people enjoy, ah, feasting their eyes on her. Myself? I'll take Jessica Alba.

Hellboy

2008-06-29T21:29:00.000-07:00

When it comes to Super Hero movies I don't need much in the way of a plot. Throw in the barest thread to keep me interested...Lex Luthor trying to create new real estate, the Green Goblin seeking revenge, the Joker robbing a bank...let's face it, the storylines are pedestrian at best but we don't care because the action is HUGE and, more importantly...fun. It is a release from the every day.

When we talk about Hellboy (2004), those elements come into play. The basic plot is simple: Nazis trying to touch the occult summon a demon who is raised by the good guys and turns good himself. He fights various "things that go bump in the night" because he is equipped to handle them. Eventually, however, the people guiding the Nazis will return to bring forth the Apocalypse at which time Hellboy (Ron Perlman) will have to choose; is he a man or a demon?

Along the way we get some pretty cool fight scenes such as the slaying of 6 guards by Karl Ruprecht Kroenen (Ladislav Beren), some sort of undead surgically created/maintained creature with no verbal skills but lots of combat abilities. He has a bizarre fascination with long bladed knives. It would seem "Hitler's top assassin" would have more lethal weapons...but then again, that would not have been nearly as cool, would it?

But of course there is the subplot surrounding the relationship of Hellboy with Liz Sherman (Selma Blair). It is obvious the two of them
It is obvious the two of them share a past together. Her firestarting abilities would be troubling for most people but for Hellboy...well, a running gag is "fire doesn't hurt me!"

He has a mighty stone fist and a gun that has a seemingly endlessly array of bullets. He seems to enjoy combat and wants to do it alone. This leads to some highly entertaining scenes as he battles the resurrecting and replicating Sammael (Brian Steele) across 2 continents. And that is the most satisfying thing about the movie...the combat scenes are entertaining. They are not much more than mindless hack and slash...but in a Super Hero movie, mindless hack & slash can work very well.

He inquires of Abe Sapien (Doug Jones...who sounds a LOT like David Hyde Pierce whom you remember as Niles Crane on Frasier) on how to slay Sammael. Later Abe is injured and taken out of the equation...but I suspect he will have a larger role in the upcoming sequel.

The plot has a fairly standard ending but the journey to get there is just so much fun that you don't really care. It delivered what I, at least, want from a Super Hero movie; lots of fun, a lot of over the top combat and a satisfying conclusion.

The Bee Movie

2008-06-29T20:59:00.001-07:00

The Bee Movie (2007) was the "next big thing" for Jerry Seinfeld after his classic television series. As a result it is possible expectations were a bit unreasonable. When I first saw it I was not overly impressed. However, circumstances developed in such a way that I saw it again.

Barry B. Benson (Jerry Seinfeld) is a student come hippie bee who, in the middle of his strenuous 9 day school career, took a day off to walk around the hive and discover himself.

His best friend Adam Flayman (Matthew Broderick) is a more typical bee. He is excited about the possibility of spending his life working on the Krelman, a device in which he puts a large finger on his head to catch drips of honey before they fall to the ground and are wasted. He never really "gets' the "perverse" desire of Barry to see the outside world, to think about his choices in life, to talk to humans, to sue them for stealing the honey from the bees...he just wants to go to work every day and do the best job he can on the Krelman.

It does prove possible for Barry to get out of the hive. In what starts as a joke he is allowed to join the mighty "pollen jocks".
The pollen jocks are usually the only bees allowed outside the hive...and bees like Barry are a primary reason why.

Here he is flying with the pollen jocks...before he gets stuck to a tennis ball and launched into the atmosphere.

Separated from the other bees, he makes a bizarre cross city flight

It ends when he gets plastered on the windshield of a fast moving truck.

There he encounters Mooseblood (Chris Rock) in one of the all-time wastes of vocal talent. Chris Rock is a great voice talent and his voice is very recognizable.

This is about the only time we see him, though, other than a throw-away gag at the end about being a lawyer because "I was already a bloodsucker. All I needed was a briefcase."

The villain of the piece is Layton T. Montgomery, the lawyer for the honey corporations. He is a parody of people who believe humans are more important than animals and they do not have equality. One can only assume Seinfeld and his co-writers are major PETA sponsors for how they present Montgomery during the trial. It still strikes me as a cheap swipe at Williams Jenning Bryan, the (ironically) Democrat "home spun" Great Commoner who prosecuted the case against John Scopes at the famous "Monkey Trial" with the obvious difference that Bryan won the case in court but lost in the court of public opinion whereas Montgomery loses in court...and the result, much like the Monkey Trial, is a disaster.

The sub-story has to do with the pseudo-

The other storyline has to do with the pseudo-romance of Barry and Vanessa Bloome (Rene Zellwegger), a human who first talks to Barry, later helps him file the lawsuit, and eventually helps land the plane in the grand finale after they steal the last float just in time to re pollinate the flowers and save the world.

The movie is working on a variety of levels. It is making a social statement about the relative values of human and bee lives (though not other animals...when Vanessa kills a mosquito during Barry's dream they find it hilarious and a bear helping them win the case is nothing but a captive prop they critique for its habits), about people who use the resources available in the world and so forth. However, it ends up contradicting itself and as a result the message is pretty garbled.

Fortunately, along the way there are a lot of great jokes, both verbal and visual and the story resolves in the classic happy ending we all expect. And on further review...I liked it a lot better the second time. Worth seeing and, past the laughs...you might even start thinking about a few things.

Get Smart

2008-06-22T14:04:00.000-07:00

I loved the old '60s show Get Smart. It was funny without being pandering, had slapstick without being over the top stupid, had incompetence that was still somehow believable within the internal world...furthermore, according to Peter Wright, former assistant director of MI6, in his autobiography Spycatcher: The Autobiography of a Senior Intelligence Officer, 1987, it also gave MI6 ideas for some spy gadgets!

So when I heard the opening lines in the trailer, "Since time began there has been a struggle between Kaos and Control" I had plans to see the movie. As I saw more trailers I got less excited as it seemed to have gotten less and less of the series right. Still...it is Get Smart (2008) and missing it would be letting Kaos win. We can't have that.

The opening was classic in that the entrance followed the old series in form and feel. As Maxwell Smart (Steve Carrell) passed through
a series of modernized doors that closed in a variety of ways, he then approached a telephone booth to match the old entrance. As he entered, he passed a museum of Control items...all of which belonged to the Maxwell Smart played by Don Adams. This was a very nice touch and a nod to people who were seeing the movie because of Don Adams as opposed to some of the younger audience who might be drawn to the movie by Steve Carrell...or, truth be told, that certain percentage who might be drawn to the theatre not so much for nostalgia but rather to check out the new Agent 99, Anne Hathaway. As you can tell, she is not hard on the eyes...

"Agent 99" of course was one of the long-running jokes in the classic tv series as somehow, nobody ever realized someone who went by the name Agent 99 might be a spy.

As the movie develops it turns out the modern day Maxwell Smart is a frustrated field agent...despite having excellent field agent scores he is denied the promotion because he is such a good analyst. His competence in that field is all but irreplaceable. Meanwhile, rock star Agent 23 (Dwayne Johnson, the artist formerly known as 'the Rock') is out in the field kicking butt along with numerous other agents.

When virtually all Control agents are compromised Smart is finally promoted and given to Agent 99 as her partner, a move that frustrates her. The story moves along with Smart alternately committing incompetent bits of mayhem and brilliant bits of espionage. Along the way there are a hilarious dance off, numerous callbacks to the old show with lines like, "Missed it by....that much" and a great sequence where he tries to convince the Kaos agents they are surrounded by anything from an army regiment on down to his close-out line, "Would you believe Chuck Norris and a BB Gun?", an obvious reference to the ongoing cultural meme about Chuck Norris Facts.

Perhaps the best reference is his use of

the shoe phone. He had already done that earlier in the movie but after being arrested as a double agent, he made his escape. As part of his escape he stole the items from the Don Adams museum, including the old shoe phone. It was a very funny bit.

The story is surprisingly good. Though unquestionably it is primarily a Steve Carrell vehicle (a thankful choice after rumors that Jim Carrey had been tabbed back in '98...he would have wrecked it with horrific overacting and exaggerated facial expressions and vocal tics), it still brings us a nice story with a couple nice twists, though nothing too surprising, and there are numerous great jokes. The Kaos plot is bizarre and involved enough yet with silly enough elements to remind us of what made Get Smart great. The Cone of Silence makes and appearance, there are great action sequences, and at the end of the day we all walked out laughing and smiling.

I went in with low expectations and came out loving it. They nailed it.

The Chronicles of Narnia:Prince Caspian

2008-06-20T21:13:00.000-07:00

Growing up I absolutely loved the book The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. The sequels, however, never really appealed to me. I don't think I was ever even able to finish Prince Caspian...and I have read some real garbage. I fought my way through the entire The Circle of Light series under the faint hope it would, at some point, have a payoff. I was wrong, it sucked beginning to end.

Anyhow, when The Chronicles of Narnia:The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (2005) was released I was very excited. That excitement faded an hour into the movie as the realization crept over me; I HATED this movie. It lacked the charm and touch of the book.

As a result when Prince Caspian (2008) rolled into theatres...I didn't. I heard a lot of people who loved it and a few who hated it but it never captured my attention. Amazing what happens when you have a free movie ticket in your pocket that doesn't apply to new releases and have sat in traffic for an hour without accomplishing anything. So off to the Lloyd Cinema I went.

Unlike Lion, Caspian starts out pretty quickly with some action sequences. When a baby boy is born to Lord Protector Miraz (Sergio Castellitto), he orders Prince Caspian (Ben Barnes) executed. However, Doctor Cornelius (Vincent Grass) comes to the rescue. In the ensuing chase Caspian encounters Trumpkin (Peter Dinklage) and Trufflehunter the badger.

They save him from the pursuing minions though they argue about what to do; wants to kill Caspian but Trufflehunter wants to help him. Nikabrik (Warwick Davis), the soon to be fallen dwarf, wants to kill him but Trufflehunter wants to help him. Meanwhile, the stereotypical dour, cynical dwarf Trumpkin (Peter Dinklage)

is captured by Miraz's men. Using him as a tool, Miraz goes to start a war with Narnians to commit genocide on them and legitimize his own ascension to the throne. The Pevensie children rescue him and we start to get into the real meat of the movie. Each Pevensie child reveals character flaws.

For High King Peter the Magnificent (William Moseley)

the issue was his self-centeredness and unwillingness to listen to others. His headstrong ways will get numerous members of Narnia slain and lead to great strife between he and Prince Caspian until at last he learns others have valuable advice to administer.

For Susan (Anna Popplewell)

it is her sense of not belonging. She is never comfortable with having contact with other people and does not know what she wants. Her lesson is to gain self-confidence.

Edmund (Skandar Keynes)

is deemed to have learned his lessons in the first movie. Finally, it is left to young Lucy (Georgie Henley) to learn the lesson that if she believes, she must not let others stop her from "coming to Aslan".

Along the way they meet denizens of Narnia, some of whom are there to fill body count roles and some of whom need to learn their own lessons such as Reepicheep (Eddie Izzard)

Reepicheep needs to learn that he does not need to counteract his size with an outside sense of honor.

Unlike the Lion, the battle scenes in Caspian are quite impressive and enjoyable. The story is actually pretty solid with a few surprises. The primary problem it has is...well, frankly, the movie is derivative.

Example: In the climactic battle the river comes into play in a way that had me screaming Fellowship of the Rings: a giant figure forms in the foam of the river and wipes out the bad guys. Griffins carry heroes in ways that were a call back to Return of the King. There was more...but that gives you a rough idea.

There was also, in the interest of full disclosure, a very heavy dose of religious commentary for those alert to it. Peter has come to rely on himself instead of Aslan (a very clear Jesus character). Susan doesn't want to see him (Him?) because she was hesitant to come back to Narnia and does not want to give him credence. Lucy wants him to act as she wants instead of how he sees best and does not go to him because nobody else is going to him. Trumpkin does not believe in him so can not see him. To those not well versed in religious lore it quite possibly passed right over their heads...or perhaps not. I would be interested to hear thoughts on that.

Overall, it was well paced, had interesting and engaging story lines, was well-filmed with gorgeous scenery, and I am disappointed I waited so long to see it.

Hulk (2003)

2008-06-20T15:09:00.000-07:00

The first attempt at Hulk (2003) was anything but a smashing success. With the release of The Incredible Hulk (2008) it was playing on the Sci-Fi channel so I elected to watch it.

Roundly panned as too slow-paced, this movie was only improved by the frequent commercial interruptions. How anyone stomached sitting through this in the theatre is beyond me. Director Ang Lee is very technically proficient...and he got so lost in showing that fact the movie suffered for it.

Regular use is made of sophisticated editing techniques...picture within picture within picture within picture, for example. His framing is excellent, his use of pans and tilts unquestionably solid.

He also makes a point of using wipes and fades. His hand is felt in virtually every second of the film. In no instance was he willing to allow a good story to get in the way of his editing thrills. This distracts horribly from what would have been a pretty good story.

The Hulk himself is horribly CGId. It looks cheesy and like what it is...a highly technical bit of green screen action. He does not fit with the otherwise gorgeous visuals.

The story would actually be very solid and enjoyable if not for one humongous flaw. It is full of characters drawn into conflict with each other because they each have their own private motivations. Some of the conflicts are shallow, some run pretty deep.

However, this is a Superhero movie. When most people go to a big budget Super Hero movie they are expecting action...fights, violence, etc., not scene after scene after scene after scene of characters struggling with internal issues.

Hulk had the wrong characters to carry that story. There should have been more scenes of him pounding on the villain his dad David Banner (Nick Nolte) or fighting the Gamma Dogs...though that battle got old as there are only so many times the battle can be over only to have yet one more surprise attack...that was kind of lame.

The fight scenes other than the one with the Gamma Dogs were pretty disappointing as well. This was not the movie that should have been made. After waiting this long to see it, I can only say...I did not wait long enough.