21 & Over Review
About as bad as you can imagine x2.
When I reviewed Project X I talked about how much I hated high school and how movies about high school kids having fun and getting laid sends me into a murderous frenzy (actually this is a recurring theme for me so unless you are doing something along the lines of Donnie Darko or Heathers you can expect me to excrete all over your high school comedy). However my natural resentment does not really extend into college as I managed to enjoy myself through most of it. Sure, I still wasn’t getting laid but at least I had friends and wasn’t inclined to kill either myself or everyone else on alternating days. 
Thus the opportunity for me to enjoy college comedy movies is wide open. (Animal House image courtesy of the Funny T Shirt category)
Unfortunately 21 & Over took that potential good will and projectile vomited all over it. It’s a high school comedy without the issue of how to get more booze. If you took the DNA of the Hangover, Superbad, and Revenge of the Nerds IV: Nerds in Love (the really bad one), mixed it all up in a dirty ashtray and the injected into a pregnant banana slug the offspring might look vaguely like this film.
At this point I usually find something to say like “The movie could have been decent if they had just…”. I could probably find something like that, but honestly I just don’t care enough. I think the worst part about this film is the complete lack of impression it will make on your brain. If you have ever turned 21 or seen someone turn 21 then you have seen every funny moment in this film, and the rest of the “plot” is only so much paper towel used to clean up the mess. It really is unremarkable in almost ever regard.
I want to take a second to grind a personal axe with regards to this movie. It is rated R for language and nudity. Films that go R for just violence and gore are a waste of potential. If you are going to get the R rating throw in some hot girls. It will often distract the portion of the audience that likes girls from the horrible plot or whatever other miserable failure your film is maneuvering around. This film did that to an extent. However, for every two seconds of naked, shaky camera boob we saw (and I’m not kidding when I say the longest shot was like two seconds) they would gift us with at least five minutes of naked man ass (or dong). I’m reasonable sure that even girls who are into guys don’t want to see that much manflesh, and as a straight guy I can tell you it makes my eyes very sad.
Anyway, the story. Loser drop out party boy Miller (Miles Teller-Project X, Footloose, Rabbit Hole) and preppy future finance guy Casey (Skylar Austin-Wreck It Ralph, Pitch Perfect, Hamlet 2. By the way, who names their son Skylar?) come to town to celebrate the 21st birthday of high school friend Jeff Chang (Justin Chon-Twilight (all three)). They show up only to discover he has an interview with a medical school the next morning and his draconian father (Francois Chau-Rescue Dawn, Beverly Hills Ninja, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: the Secret of the Ooze) is there to make sure he doesn’t screw up (and to provide the only remotely interesting character in the film).
In spite of what is going on Jeff agrees to go out. At that point it is basically a non-flashback Hangover. He gets drunk off his ass. Casey meets a hot girl (Sarah Wright-the House Bunny, Made of Honor, All You’ve Got) who “forgets” to tell him about her boyfriend until after he is totally into her (speaking as a guy who has set foot in that pile of dog waste on pretty much a weekly basis can you women out there just assume if a guy is talking to you there is a reasonable chance he likes you and you should find a casual way of mentioning your significant other in the first two minutes? Otherwise just save him a lot of time and start the conversation off by kicking him in the nuts. I think most of us would prefer that). Eventually they figure out that then need to get Jeff home before his life is ruined but can’t remember where he lives. They do everything possible to find his home while dragging his passed out ass all over town. They have multiple run ins with the girls angry boyfriend, get branded by a sorority (out of basic human decency I’m not going to go into the events that led up to that moment. Sufficed to say I think I would prefer a fortnight at a forced labor camp to seeing anything that stupid again), discover Jeff’s “dark” secret (it is implied that he is suicidal and possible homicidal, but in the end they figure out that he just likes to party too much. F+ on the plot twist), and engage in enough drinking to kill everyone in the theater from alcohol poisoning.
In the end Jeff finally mans up and bitches out his father, has his penis stretched (again, human decency), and Casey gets the girl. Sorry if I spoiled the movie for you but if you go to see this thing after this review you are a glutton for punishment and probably get some kick out of having someone ruin stuff for you. You would have to be in a vegetative state to not have seen the ending coming from miles away anyway.
The stars. Some nude breasts. One star. In spite of how horrible this film is, there were some points where I laughed. I think it’s just some situations are funny no matter how bad the context. Seeing a drunk guy bazooka barf all over a crowd while riding a mechanical bull is as funny here as it would be in Citizen Kane. One star. Total: two stars.
The black holes. The film treats the story like a half dead abused mule dragging the plot from drunken set piece to drunken set piece. By the end of the film they whipped it to death. One black hole. Derivative of every drunk movie and most of your home videos. One black hole. Way, way, way too much naked man ass. Two black holes. Some of the plot devices were incredibly lame. One black hole. Somehow Miller and Casey managed to do a months worth of drinking and drinking games in like two hours. One black hole. The running gag about the girls boyfriend wasn’t funny the first time, and then they beat it into the ground a couple dozen more times. One black hole. The ending was painfully trite and stupid. One black hole. Overall a big waste of my time. Two black holes. Total: ten black holes.
A grand total of eight black holes. I think the producers of this movie hoped that the drinking theme would drag out the party animals and alcoholics, but I don’t think there is enough booze on the planet to make this movie fun. Given that there is so much good film out there right now give it a pass. Date movie? If you and your date are looking for a quiet, empty place to make out or possible have sex this one will do. I don’t think you will be sharing the theater with many people. Bathroom break? Anywhere you like, and by that I mean feel free to whiz all over the projector. You will be doing American culture a service.
Thanks for reading. I feel cleansed now. Follow me on Twitter @Nerdkungfu. If you have comments on this film or my review feel free to post them at the bottom. If you have off topic questions or comments you can email me at [email protected]. Talk to you soon.
Dave
Jack the Giant Slayer Review
Fee Fi Fo Fum. I saw a movie and it was kind of dumb.
I suspect I have some kind of brain disorder that once in a while causes my higher brain functions to temporarily shut down, allowing my stem to make decisions and value judgements (either that or I am just flat out stupid and all of you have been just too kind to tell me. If so, thank you). You see, when I saw the trailer for Jack the Giant Slayer I actually made the mistake of being excited and thinking the possibility of it not sucking could exist.
However, it has been proven that pessimists live longer than optimists and if so the pessimism I have learned doing these reviews will allow me to live to 500. I have a secret desire to see old fairy tales retold and re-imagined as something cool and have experienced the same bitter disappointment when given other Grimm re-do’s like Mirror Mirror or Snow White and the Huntsmen: instead of coming up with some cool twist on the old story they take the story and beat it into a mediocre, mundane shape that is pretty and relatively palatable for the unwashed masses but will never qualify as quality entertainment.
This point was even more driven home with this dross. I should have known when I saw that they cast pretty-boy-of-the-week Nicholas Hoult (Warm Bodies, About a Boy, X-Men First Class) as the lead. Sure, I liked him in Warm Bodies but he was playing a zombie in that one. Hell, I could play a zombie. No, in this one he is pretty clearly here to suck cash out of the pockets of teenage and pre-teen girls. However, the trailer showed huge epic battles with giants wreaking havoc on humans. 
Remember in the prolog of the Fellowship of the Ring when Suaron himself comes out to curb stomp the measly humans and elves. How cool was it when he would send a dozen guys flying with one swing of his mace? That’s what I wanted. The giants come down and start a brutal war and that is what pretty much was sold to us in the trailers.
Nope. Instead we get the usual dross taken from the Big Book of Boring Disney Movie Cliche’s. Any of this sound familiar? Princess wants to run around and know the people. Her dad is going to marry her off to some creepy old guy who also has a plan to conquer the kingdom (given that he was going to be the king anyway can someone tell me why he needed to recruit giants to do it? That was one of the giant plot holes (haw!)) and is more or less evil for evil’s sake. Jack is a lowly peasant who gets magic beans, has a ridiculous series of narrow escapes, rescues the princess, finds the magic MacGuffin that auto-defeats the giants, saves the kingdom, and gets the girl (sorry I should have given a spoiler alert there but if you walked into this film and couldn’t figure out within the first 20 minutes how it was going to end please go stick your head in a wasps nest).
The story. Really, I just gave it to you. Jack (Nicholas Hoult) is some kind of pretty moron who lives with his uncle. The uncle sends him to sell the farm horse and cart (wasn’t it a cow in the story? There is the creative re-imagining I have been begging for. Thanks guys) in order to pay for something. He gets sucked into a puppet show where a he tries to defend a pretty girl from some local color. She turns out to be the Princess (Eleanor Tomlinson-the Illusionist, Angus, Thongs, and Perfect Snogging, Alice in Wonderland). Meanwhile the cart he left outside unattended gets stolen but the thieves left the horse (can someone else explain this to me? An expert ring of cart thieves takes the time to unhitch the cart and drag it by hand through the muddy streets (or perhaps hitch it to another horse) but leave the obviously valuable horse in exactly the same position? Wouldn’t it be about 489 times easier to just lead the horse off and sell the horse as well (if nothing else Ikea would buy it for their meatballs apparently)?). Meanwhile a monk (Simon Lowe-NFA, Nowhere Boy, Large) steals some magic beans from the evil adviser to the king. The adviser (Stanley Tucci-the Devil Wears Prada, the Terminal, the Hunger Games) is engaged to the princess in spite of a massive age difference. His secret plan is to use the beans to climb up to the giant kingdom and use the a magic crown that commands giants to do what he wants.
You know, some story recaps feel more like work than others, and this is one. I’m going into super speed mode. The monk trades Jack the beans for his horse to get away. The uncle gets pissed off. The princess ends up at Jacks place during the rain and one of the beans grows up and takes her with it. The king (Ian McShane-Deadwood, Deathrace, Snow White and the Huntsman) sends his best man Elmont (Ewan McGregor-Episodes I-III, Train Spotting, Big Fish), the adviser, the comic relief, Jack, and a big team of redshirts to find her. Things go bad. The giants go berserk but are confounded by a drawbridge. Jack finds the crown and the giants go home. The worst epilog in movie history surfaces. The end.
The stars. If you hadn’t been hoping to see battle royale and are OK with trite teenie bopper stories it’s not bad. One star. The CGI giants were pretty cool. One star. There were some humorous moments early on (if you liked Your Highness you might enjoy it). One star. What action there was present was OK. One star. Total: four stars.
The black holes. Plot holes that were not only huge, but stupid as well. One black hole. The whole move felt like the executive producer was an eight year old girl. One black hole. Overselling the movie and then making it a trite story. One black hole. If cliche’s were stone blocks I think they made the movie castle out of them. One black hole. The kings costume (and later the princesses) were so stupid looking (sorry, but there is no one in the history of warfare who ever, ever thought armor made of gold was a good idea) that they more or less ruined all the work done by all the decent costuming in the rest of the film. One black hole. I guess the producers were so impressed by the stupid non-existant super weapons of the Three Musketeers and Hansel & Gretel that they decided what the film lacked was a fully automatic machine-ballista. One black hole. The action struggled under the PG-13 blanket like a nerd being given a swirlie. One black hole. The human villain couldn’t have appeared more purposelessly evil if he had renamed himself Vlad the Impaler. One black hole. Total: Eight black holes.
So four black holes. Not great, but not brain damagingly bad. Like most of these fairy tale adaptations it sits on the ghetto side of the Mediocre Valley. Worth seeing? Sure if you are looking for something to do and the local fairgrounds is out of deep fried twinkies. If you are going to see it try to see it on the big screen. The giants will look kind of lame on a little one. Date movie? Maybe, if the girl you are seeing has a thing for princesses and unicorns. Otherwise don’t insult her intelligence. Bathroom break? You don’t want to miss the last 30 minutes when the giants open up their can of whoop ass (I’m not saying it’s great. Just that if you sat through the first 84 minutes you might as well see the best part). I’d say the scene right after the first beanstalk falls and the princess is reunited with the king. Not a lot happening there.
Thanks for reading. I also saw 21 and Over this weekend, so my excrement cup runneth over. I’ll write that one up tomorrow. Follow me on Twitter @Nerdkungfu. If you have comments on this review or the movie itself feel free to post them below. Off topic questions and suggestions can be sent to [email protected]. Talk to you soon.
Dave
Oscar Recap 2013
Odds are I should have done this a few days ago but things are busy. Also odds are I should have actually watched the awards, but I figured out a couple years ago I could either watch 3-4 hours of bad production, lame jokes, and stars butt kissing each other and acting all out of breath or I could just spend five minutes reading off a list. So here I am with comments on each winner (all based on the ones I actually saw, of course).
Best Picture–Argo. I’m feeling pretty smug and self satisfied about this as Argo was my pick for best picture of last year. I saw most of the nominees for a change and will admit they were all admirable movies (except maybe Les Miserables. My opinion on that one has kind of soured in the months since reviewing it. I suspect if I were to sit through it a second time it would be pretty agonizing) but Argo was my choice. Well done.
Best Actor–Daniel Day Lewis for Lincoln. Again no real argument. I was really impressed by him. I was a little surprised that Hugh Jackman got a nomination for Les Mis. Not that he did a bad job or is not a really good actor, but can you really be said to be acting when you spend 90% of your screen time singing? (Lincoln image courtesy of the Funny T Shirt category)
Best Actress-Jeniffer Lawrence for Silver Linings Playbook. Unfortunately this is one of the films that slipped my net. My cousin saw it and enjoyed it a lot. She wrote the review. I will have to see it. I think Jeniffer is a really talented actor and am glad she got it.
Best Supporting Actor-Christoph Waltz for Django Unchained. I thought he was awesome in this, although I also really like Tommy Lee Jones in Lincoln.
Best Supporting Actress-Anne Hathaway for Les Miserables. Not sure about this one. She was only in about 1/3rd of the movie (yes I’m still bitter about that. I really wanted to see her throughout the film. I like her a lot) and again, if you spend all your time singing are you really acting? However, none of the other nominees really jump out at me so I don’t know.
Best Animated Feature Film-Brave. Ugh. Here is one where I really disagree. Wreck It Ralph was far superior in almost every regard except for maybe the art. It had a much better story, was funnier, and actually had a character arc and cool underlying message about accepting and loving who you are while not ascribing to labels. Brave was just another Disney pretty princess fairy tale about some little girl choosing her own husband (someone pack up this movie and set the Wayback machine for 1952 quick!). Trite in almost all regards whereas Wreck It Ralph worked incredibly well on multiple levels.
Best Cinimatography-the Life of Pi. Totally agree. This film was beautiful.
Costume Design-Anna Karenina. Didn’t see it. Not going to see it. Yes, I suck as a reviewer.
Best Directing-the Life of Pi. I am going to agree here as well. The director managed to take the smallest set in the universe and turn it into a complete world, as well as pace the film wonderfully.
Documentary and Documentary Short-I don’t watch documentaries for the most part, unless it’s about Star Trek fans or Warhammer. Sorry but I didn’t get into this to learn stuff.
Film Editing-Argo. I’m actually torn between this and the Life of Pi. Both films were brilliantly edited but the Life of Pi managed to take what could easily have been the most boring stretch of film in cinima history and keep me engaged. Argo kept me engaged as well but was working with easier to use footage. I think if I were in the Academy I would have voted for the Life of Pi.
Foreign Film–Being a typical poorly educated cultural tunnel vision American I didn’t see a lot of foreign film last year. During my movie selection process it usually goes like this: “Hmm. There’s a Bollywood film that is getting good reviews. Odds are it will be fun to watch a make for a good review. What’s this? Kevin James plays a 43 year old MMA guy in Here Comes the Boom!? Score!” and that’s it for my attempt at cultural self improvement for the month.
Makeup and Hairstyling-Les Miserables. I’ll give them that. They successfully transformed Anne Hathaway from my 100% dream woman into my 99.3% dream woman.
Musical Score-the Life of Pi. Music is something I really only notice in a film when it is bugging me (cough cough Rock of Ages cough cough). Otherwise it is literally background noise.
Music Best Original Song-Skyfall from Skyfall. Again, not something that registers well for me.
Production Design-Lincoln. I’d give it to them.
I’m going to skip a bunch of the technical awards I don’t have a real opinion on.
Writing Adapted Screenplay-Argo. No Argo-ment here.
Writing Original Story-Django Unchained. I’m glad Tarantino got something out of this. He does deserve way more credit than Hollywood gives him. 100 years ago Django will be far more remembered than Argo I suspect.
That’s pretty much it. I think it funny that the writing awards are listed last when if I were in charge they would be first. I think writing the the 800 pound monkey on the back of most of Hollywood right now. Oh, well. Thanks for reading. I’ll try to write up my review for Jack the Giant Slayer later on today. Follow me on Twitter @Nerdkungfu. If you have comments on my remarks or the awards feel free to post them here. Off topic questions or suggestions can be emailed to [email protected]. By the way one of my readers asked me to add a link to his Kickstart campaign to get a pretty cool Street Fighter/Sesame Street mashup poster printed. I think it’s pretty kick ass. If you want to support him check out his campaign here. Talk to you soon.
Dave
Death Wish remake in the works
So I am taking a look at upcoming new movies and I see a whole slew of remakes rolling towards me like flaming barrels in a Donkey Kong game. I will probably talk about what is wrong with doing each in turn but today I wanted to do a quick blurb about the plans to remake Death Wish (by the way, I couldn’t find a good Charles Bronson image but did find this Charles Sheen one from the movie t-shirt category. It’s about the same, right?).
On the one hand it is being directed by the guy who did The Grey, a movie I enjoyed a great deal. From that point of view we should be good. The issue we are going to have is the original movie was so defined by Charles Bronson and his characterization that any rendition will look like a cheap Hollywood money grab and attempt to capitalize on better, more imaginative movies from back in the day (Heaven knows there is no way that could be the producers actual intention).
When a character is so defined by the actor playing it (Rambo, John McClane, Marty McFly, Captain Kirk, etc.) any reproduction, no matter well produced or made, will always seem a pale imitation. Also, a big part of this movie was about the old getting back at the young. Big social commentary, and if there is one thing Hollywood tries to avoid it’s social controversy (and general creativity). I predict this film will land dead center of mediocre (somewhere between 2 black holes and 2 stars on my scale).
Dave
A Good Day to Die Hard Review
Dead on arrival.
I think I have reached the evolutionary point in my movie reviewing career (yes I am starting to call it a career. Suck it if you can’t let me enjoy a little fantasy) where I will no longer allow myself to excuse a crap movie just because I am a fan of the star of the film. I am a Bruce Willis fan. Pulp Fiction, the Sixth Sense, the Fifth Element (what’s with him and number movies?), and the original Die Hard are among my favorite films and to date have carried enough credibility to forgive the occasional Hudson Hawk or Cop Out. Recent movies such as Moonrise Kingdom, Surrogates, and Looper continue to show his acting ability and general movie appeal.
However, as I watch more and more movies I have come to realize that each film is in and of itself a discrete particle that needs to be examined in isolation like lab rats to determine which one had the negative reaction to the massive overdose of hemorrhoid cream and which is just part of the control group. Taken as such A Good Day to Die Hard is the most disease ridden lab animal in the cruelest testing facility in history.
To beat another analogy into this review if a movie franchise could be likened to an aircraft either soaring sedately through the stratosphere or crashing and burning horrible than the maneuver that the Die Hard franchise has been executing for the last four films would best be called a death spiral. Each film in turn gets bigger, more elaborate, and stupider with more explosions and ridiculous plots. The first film was arguably one of the top ten best action films of all time with Bruce Willis playing John McClane, an ordinary cop fighting against a villain bent on robbing millions of dollars and destroying a building in LA. Die Hard 2: Die Harder decided the only way to make a better movie would be to have a bigger set and more evil plot so McClane is in a giant airport trying to stop some mercenaries from releasing a Latin American dictator. In Die Hard With a Vengeance the villain opts to blow up parts of New York as part of some kind of nefarious plot to destroy the US economy (hey, I earn money in the US! I should care about that!). Then, like a drug addict needing more and more smack we are given Live Free or Die Hard and the ultimate evil plot: some kind of computer virus that will disrupt all power, traffic, computers, and possibly even your own home computer (OMG save us!)
Which leads us to the latest installment where the bad guys plan to do…something? Honestly I’m not really clear on what the ultimate plan really was. There was something about killing the rival of some Russian political guy, and later on it turned out to be something about weapons grade uranium but I’m not sure what the deal was. I guess it was implied that they planned to build WMD’s but it’s not really clear (perhaps they left the nuke option out there in case they need an even bigger threat for Die Hard 6. This does not bode well for Die Hard 7. Once they have done nukes what is left? Destruction of the entire world? Perhaps by killing all the whales (which of you got that reference?)).
The vagueness of the dastardly plan is not what is bugging me about this film. In fact, I kind of liked it if only because it felt a little ramped back from the lameness in three of the four previous plots. No, what bugged me was the fact that the director really didn’t want to make a John McClane movie. You see, one of the greatest things about McClane is the fact that he is an ordinary guy prevailing in the face of horrific odds. In the first film every fight is a struggle and he has to use every resource he can to save his wife and her coworkers. He turns his feet into hamburger by running barefoot through broken glass, gets shot, beat up, blown up, and falls off the building. He starts off with his service gun and just improving his armament is a struggle. However as the series progresses he looks less like the lovable punching bag we saw in the first one and more like a T-800, except that even the Terminator could get crushed in a hydraulic press and John McClane is pretty much immune to everything including what should be radioactive water (at least he doesn’t have to worry about hair loss).
This trend is taken to the next level in A Good Day by making John McClane (and his son. More on that later) so indestructible that the combined military forces of the planet couldn’t take him out. This is why Superman sucks and Batman rules. There is no real struggle or bravery for a guy who is pretty much immune to everything on this planet except Krytonite (check out my article on how stupid the idea of Kryptonite on Earth really is) so we can’t care about his fight against 99.99999% of the villains out there. 
Meanwhile, Batman (comic book Batman, not movie Batman. Batman image courtesy of the Batman T Shirt category) is in constant danger from even the lowliest criminal. All it takes is for one punk to get lucky with a gun and it is all over. Thus is Batman the far superior hero (for other reasons too, but I don’t want to go too far off topic). So when you make it pretty apparent that John McClane (and his son) are never going to really have anything bad happen to them you drain away all the tension in the film and the biggest helicopter explosions, car wrecks, and flying stunts in the universe will not motivate the audience to really give a damn. Guns literally fall out of every cabinet and trunk they open, bad guys apparently trained at the Helen Keller School of Marksmenship and are all equipped with powerful bullet magnets, and injuries heal with nigh miraculous speed.
Sigh. 980 words in and I haven’t even started the story recap. I’m going to be pretty generous with the spoilers in a minute but honestly if you are going to this film to be astounded by the story why don’t you just slam you head in your refrigerator door for 98 minutes? (Incidentally, this film had a $92,000,000 budget and hired the guy who wrote the Wolverine movie. Are a million monkey banging on a million typewriters really that hard to find?) John McClane (Bruce Willis but if you didn’t know that what cave have you been living in?) has a grown son and daughter. Like most families the son (Jai Courtney-Jack Reacher, Sparticus: War of the Damned, Boys Grammer) is a huge disappointment and has been arrested in Russia for something(?). John flies to Russia to do something (really, what has that about? Is John McClane some kind of expert on Russian law? Was he going to go in guns blazing and bust his son out of the gulag? Hypnotize the judge with the spot of light reflected off his head? What?). Meanwhile Russian billionaire Komorov (Sebastion Koch I think. I might have these two guys reversed. If you see the movie you see why-Unknown, the Lives of Others, Suspension of Disbelief (ironic)) is in the same prison waiting for trial for something (?). He is the main rival of bigwig Anton (Roman Luknar-the Garden, Panelak, Lidice) who wants him killed because he has some file that will destroy him (again, very vague deals. Everyone kept banging on about this file and then later it meant nothing).
Here come the spoilers. I hope this doesn’t drain your excitement to the point you fall into a narcoleptic coma. Anton sends a hit team to kill Komorov in the middle of the courtroom where he and Jack McClane are sitting in glass boxes. Turns out Jack works for the CIA and is there to rescue Komorov. They escape in a truck and nearly run down John, who was on his way to the courthouse. Then we get the stupidest chase scene ever (I’m not kidding. It made the escape scene from 2012 look like Bullitt.) with McClane literally driving over other cars. They escape from the main henchman (Radivoje Bukvic-Taken, Three Worlds, Armed Hands). Kamorov has to pick up his daughter and the file before leaving the country.
You know, twists in a movie plot are like nuclear power; they can be used for both good and evil. In some films they greatly enhance the story and keep you really engaged, but in this one it seemed like they were throwing twists in whenever the writer got bored, which was like every 10 minutes. The daughter betrays the father and gets him captured. She then betrays the main evil dude and was secretly in league with her father all along, who instead of trying to atone for his sins and bring a bad man to justice had some secret plot to do something(?) with weapons grade uranium. The story thread ends up looking like the biggest string of Xmas lights all piled up in a big incoherent mess.
So stuff gets blown up. John and Jack kill about a million guys with each spray of their guns. The end.
The stars. I will give one for Bruce Willis doing his thing, but honestly since that is what I expected it’s like awarding a gold star to the best oxygen processor in 2nd grade. One star nevertheless. There was some attempt at character development between John and his son Jack, so I will award a star in the A for Effort category. One star. If you like guns, explosions, and pointless plot twists than you have found your Nirvana. One star. Total: three stars.
The black holes. The plot could be considered a Crime Against Fiction. Two black holes. I think I have found a way to accurately describe the action in this film and that is it looked like Bruce and his buddy were playing a video game. Even they looked bored and nothing seemed a challenge (easy mode video game). Two black holes. The story was needlessly labyrinthine and hard to follow. If they had given me a reason to care I might not have resented the work it took to keep track of but they didn’t. One black hole. At no point did this film give me a real reason to give care other than it’s John McClane and my nostalgia should carry me through. One black hole. A chase scene that literally hurt my brain. One black hole. I’d say the explosions in this film rate 8/10 Micheal Beys. One black hole. I am going to hit them for drinking the “We must make things bigger in each film or else!” punch. One black hole. Crowbarring in a son and then have John show all the paternal instinct of Cronus (there’s a test of your education). Is there any father in the world who is OK with sending his son into a fight against trained mercenaries and his plan literally is to go in guns blazing? One black hole. Finally one more for being so wrapped up in the name Die Hard that they created one of the stupidest movie titles ever. One black hole. Total: eleven black holes.
A final total of eight black holes. It has been a while since I rained unholy hell on a film like this, but I feel justified doing it here. Die Hard was a masterpiece that should have been left to enjoy it’s success in the sun with a pina colada and a big umbrella. Instead they keep trotting it out of retirement to help move the furniture around and then then everyone acts surprised when it defecates on the carpet and dies. Who is to blame for this trend of exhuming corpses and using their bodies in puppet shows you ask? I am going to blame you, the audience. If you would only stop seeing this garbage then Hollywood would have no choice but to actually make something original and creative. Each Die Hard movie has made more money than the previous one, so why should Hollywood stop? Ugh. Should you see it? If you are a fan of John McClane or just want to kill 98 minutes than sure. If you are easily distracted by explosions and bright objects you will not feel any remorse. Date movie? Hell no. This film is an anti-date movie. Bathroom break? Since this film really only serves at an action delivery system (like the worlds stupidest t-shirt gun) then any of the non action scenes could be missed with ease. You might even enjoy the film more if you made up your own plot to connect the action sequences. If I had to be specific I’d say the scene where John starts off whining about how the whole opperation is blown before they head off to Chernobyl.
Thanks for reading. More to see soon. Follow me on Twitter @NerdKungFu. Feel free to post comments on this film or my review here. Off topic questions or suggestions can be emailed to [email protected]. Thanks and I will talk to you soon.
Dave
Snitch Review
Surprisingly good.
I can honestly say I have not to date really been a Dwayne Johnson fan. Not that I dislike him by any means. In action movies he has always delivered a solid action perfomance. It’s just that in my mind he never stood out. Until now I guess I thought of him as the carbon dioxide of action films; necessary on some level I’m sure (photosynthesis) but not nearly as interesting or fun as some of the other gases (oxygen or helium, for example).
The other thing about Dwayne Johnson is when you see him in a film you can pretty much put the movie into one of two categories: either an over the top action flick that stresses explosions over story or a dopey kids movie where he flies around on a giant bee or something. I honestly expected to see the first type when I rolled into the theater to see Snitch.
I now have to revise my opinion of Mr. Johnson. This film exceeds his normal boundaries in all ways by being well written, interesting, and founded on telling a story not showing car chases. I must applaud Dwayne for choosing it, and then proceeding to deliver a very credible performance. I was engaged with his character more than any other role I have seen him in and enjoyed his story very much. There were little character things I really liked, like his character staying at the warehouse to replace a shot out signal light on his brand new big rig.
That’s not to say the movie was flawless. There were a few issues, and you could occasionally see him revert to his super tough action guy persona. However, like a butterfly emerging timidly from it’s chrysalis and needed to flap it’s wings in order to dry and strengthen them I am going to say this film is the start of a more serious acting career and am very interested in seeing what he does next.
The other thing I enjoyed about this film is they managed to keep the action exciting and yet very believable. There were no monstrous explosions or gun fights where the good guy is effectively immune to bullets. What action there was seemed very realistic and there was a very believable Road Warrior-esque truck chase scene at the end that I really enjoyed. The truth is I’m getting sick of bigger explosions and car wrecks (just wait for my review of the new Die Hard film). Given that it has been established that the CGI and special effects technology is going to be amazing for any big budget film these days going bigger and more “exciting” just makes a film look more childish. This might be a positive symptom of a movie coming from a real life story (I remember thinking the same things about real life based movie Unstoppable) or it just might be a very smart and savvy decision made by the director to not gimmick his film up.
The story. John Mathews (Dwayne Johnson-Fast Five, Race to Witch Mountain, Journey 2: the Mysterious Island) owns a successful construction business in Missouri. His dopey 18 year old son (Rafi Gavron-the Cold Light of Day, Breaking and Entering, Mine Games) gets busted for receiving drugs in a way that has him being mostly innocent and due to draconian mandatory Federal sentencing laws gets 10 years. John begs the DA (Susan Sarandon-the Rocky Horror Picture Show, Thelma and Louise, Dead Man Walking) to help but she says she won’t do anything unless the kid helps her bust other drug dealers. 
John instead offers to help her himself and contacts a ex con working for him (Jon Bernthal-the Walking Dead, the Ghost Writer, Rampart. Walking Dead image courtesy of the Zombie T Shirt category) to introduce him to a local drug dealer (Michael Kenneth Williams-the Road, Gone Baby Gone, Brooklyn’s Finest). With the help of another DEA agent (Barry Pepper-Saving Private Ryan, True Grit, the Green Mile) they set up an operation where John uses one of his trucks to transport drugs.
The deal is soured when a rival drug cartel attacks them and John impresses the head guy with his coolness under fire. At the drop off bust rather than get the local guy the DEA agent opts to go up the chain to the bigger fish. John takes some convincing but in the end decides to help them out with a few twists of his own.
The stars. Good story. While it sounds like another drug action movie there were a lot of things going on, like a strong social commentary regarding the mandatory drug laws and the struggle of an ex con trying to get his life in order. Lots of plates spinning that made the story really engaging. Two stars. Good acting from pretty much everyone, especially Jon Bernthal IMO. One star. The limited action felt realistic and also felt like a necessary part of the story. In other words, the action facilitated the plot instead of the plot being a rickety rack to hang the action on. There were no tacked on scenes that made the film seem stupider. Two stars. Overall an impressive and enjoyable film. Two stars. Total: seven stars.
The black holes. While I understand the director was trying to say something about the unfairness of mandatory drug laws after a while I got a little tired of him beating it into our heads with the subtlety of a baseball bat with nails driven through it. One black hole. Once in a while you could see the old Dwayne Johnson acting style bleed through, setting him at odds with his characters main tone. One black hole. Total: two black holes.
Five stars total. A decent film worth watching. Date movie? Maybe. It’s not too action so she might get into the story but no real romance besides the fact that the two main dudes are married with kids and love their families. While nothing in this film will offend or turn her off, there is nothing here to really aid in your campaign to get her clothes off. Bathroom break? That’s easy. Any of the scenes where John goes to visit his son in prison. There is a plot point established there but it is running over three scenes so you could easily miss one and lose nothing.
Thanks for reading. Kind of a short review but honestly the ones I like end up getting the kid treatment. I did see the new Die Hard yesterday as well and just might have a few more words to share on that train wreck later on. Look for that review later today or tomorrow. Follow me on Twitter @NerdKungFu. Feel free to post comments on this film or my review at the bottom of this article. Off topic questions or comments can be emailed to [email protected]. Talk to you soon.
Dave
Side Effects Review
One side effect was me being surprised how good it was.
Yes I’m back from one of the busiest and tiring weeks of my life. I started off Wednesday of last week driving to Burbank for the Grand Slam Star Trek show (it was decent and I met a lot of really cool fans, but at the end of the show when I added up everything I just didn’t make a ton of money and it was a huge headache. I’m putting a big question mark on going back next year). I got back Monday morning and then flew out Tuesday for a trade show in Vegas where I looked at a bunch of new T-shirts and had to keep seeing one of the two men on my permanent hate lists (I tend to be very forgiving and it takes a lot to make my permanent list. There are only two; one guy who cheats regularly at Warhammer (DIAF jackass) and one who cheated me out of an astronomical sum of money. The money guy was the one I had to keep seeing).
By the way before people start telling me how much fun I should be having spending a couple days in Las Vegas let me tell you that I am not really a Vegas guy. I don’t drink, I am too smart to gamble (and since I don’t drink I don’t enjoy free drinks while losing money), and I am too moral (and cheap) to hire the services of sex professionals. With all those off the table ask yourself what else is there to do in Vegas? I live in the Bay Area so generally food is better (and less expensive. When did food in Vegas get to be super spendy?) at home, I find most live theater boring, and for the most part the people are either really fake or the absolute dregs of humanity injected into an environment that encourages low brow activity. 
I know, I am dead boring and most of you would know how to have a blast in Vegas (usually doing stuff that seem to end with things that rhyme with “comet” and “luke”. Explain the appeal of drinking yourself into a coma. Dog Beers image courtesy of the Cheap T Shirt category) but I spent most of my free time watching Seinfeld reruns and wishing the hotel would enter the 21st century and have WiFi for my iPad (Luxor, suck it up and get with the times you 4 sided die. The Motel 6 I stayed at in Kettleman City two weeks ago had WiFi).
So, bored as hell I opted to see a movie and wound up in Side Effects (in a really crap theater. Vegas seems to hate anything that isn’t gambling. This theater looked, smelt, and felt like they should be showing classic X rated films to a bunch of guys in raincoats). Having seen Contagion I expected it to be the same sensationalist dry pap that writer Scott Burns seems to enjoy but was really pleasantly surprised. Instead of a pseudo documentary about the evils of psychotropic drugs, their side effects, and the pharmaceutical industries secret plan to keep the population safely medicated it was something else entirely. This film has some awesome twists so I am not going to go too deep into the story but trust me when I say it’s not what it appears on the surface.
Incidentally I am going to give the Side Effects marketing team a D- for selling this film. The trailers made it look exactly like the Contagion-esque documentary I wanted to avoid and thus really disinclined me to seeing it. If it hadn’t been for the fact that I would have had to wait 40 more minutes to see the new Die Hard I never would have watched it. Fail deluxe.
Like I said I really don’t want to throw out any spoilers so I am going to give this story the most tertiary treatment possible. Emily Talor (Mara Rooney-the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, Social Network, Nightmare on Elm Street) plays the wife of insider trading prisoner Martin (Channing Tatum-21 Jump Street, the Vow, Magic Mike). He gets out of prison and finds his wife to be suffering from extreme depression. They go to a psychiatrist (Jude Law-Cold Mountain, Sherlock Holmes, Enemy at the Gates) who puts her on a series of psychotropic drugs.
Honestly I don’t want to get into it any more than that. The drugs have some unexpected side effects (oh, I see what they did there. Clever). Emily’s former psychiatrist (Catherine Zeta-Jones-Rock of Ages, Playing for Keeps, Entrapment. By the way, she was looking amazing in this film) surfaces to give some history. The plot goes in directions I didn’t expect in all the best ways.
The stars. Given the fact that most films seem to think audiences don’t want anything less predictable than riding on a merry-go-round for two hours I loved this film for the fact that the story honestly surprised me. Two stars. Excellent acting all around. Normally I have a jealousy driven hatred of Hollywood pretty boys like Channing Tatum (anyone know what kind of name Channing is? Is it possible his parents thought he would be some kind of amazing psychic medium but forgot an L on his birth certificate?) and Jude Law but in this film I thought they were both very appropriate and great. One star. Great dialog. One star. Mara Roomey and Catherine Zeta-Jones make up for some very pleasant scenes to look at. One star. At first the pacing felt slow but as the movie progressed I realized it was 100% correct for the story and by the end really appreciated it. One star. The story made sense and progressed in a logical, plot hole free manner. One star. Surprisingly fun and easy to enjoy. One star. Total: seven stars.
The black holes. Not much, really. Given the experience of watching Mara in the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo I was expecting a lot more nudity but there was actually very little. I don’t know why they bothered with an R rating. The movie felt like PG-13. One black hole for unrealized potential I guess.
A grand total of six stars and a recommendation that you see it if you enjoy movies that engage more of your brain than the stem. Worth your time. Nothing on here demands that you see it on a big screen so you could easily NetFlix it but if you want to encourage quality film making drop a few bucks and see it in the theater. Date movie? Sort of. Nothing here to really get her motor started but she should enjoy it a great deal. On the other hand Channing Tatum does take off his shirt and Jude Law spends the whole movie talking with his dumb sexy British accent so if you feel you might suffer badly in comparison try to find a Kevin James marathon somewhere. Bathroom break? I am going to recommend you hold it for this one. The story has a very cool construction feel to it and if you miss the wrong scene you could end up not getting everything. If you really have to go I’d say your best bet is any scene involving Jude’s step son.
Thanks for reading. I have a lot of catching up to do, and have an idea for something new coming up using my completely defunct art degree. Follow me on Twitter @Nerdkungfu for updates on new posts and other thoughts. If you have a comment on this review or the movie itself please feel free to post it at the bottom of this article (if you don’t see a comment section click here). Off topic questions or suggestions can be emailed to me [email protected]. Thanks again and have a great day.
Dave
Stand Up Guys Review
Sit down, guys.
There’s a weird ego driven trend in Hollywood action movies these days. The fact is for stars who have achieved a certain level of success and notoriety there seems to be a hesitancy to give them roles that don’t have them be awesome in some way in spite of the fact that they are well past their action hero prime. It would seem to me after a while when it is obvious you don’t have the ability to go toe to toe with younger guys anymore you take the Clint Eastwood approach of one last signature movie (Unforgiven) and hang up your guns in favor of roles that stress your moral and character superiority (Gran Torino) or just show yourself in less appealing roles that display your acting ability. That does seem to be the path taken by some actors (Bill Murray was great in Lost in Translation and as himself in Zombieland for example) but for other stars it seems they can’t let go of the old magic (cough cough Expendables 2 cough cough).
I don’t even know if this is a reflection of the actors themselves per se. Christopher Walken was willing to play a doddering ex bad ass in Seven Psychopaths and Al Pacino took a role as himself that made him look like the biggest jackass in cinema history in Jack and Jill (did he even read the script before agreeing to do it?). I think in most cases this issue stems from the writer and the director. It’s like telling a kid to build a simple house out of Legos and them giving him a monstrously huge Lego collection (in other words, the contents of my office closet) complete with Medieval, space, Star Wars, pirate, and Harry Potter pieces. Sure, he could create a really good house with that, but the temptation to use this sudden wealth of resources is overpowering and by the time he is done the house has turned into a massive futuristic city with flying cars, space ships, monsters, gladiatorial arenas, defense turrets, and a standing army for defense against the mail man (in other words, a typical Saturday afternoon at my place).
How does this complex analogy apply to Stand Up Guys? (Spoilers incoming, so skip to the end of you will be annoyed by that) Well, the movie started out as an aging buddy picture with a really dark twist. Granted it was slow but it looked like it could actually move you to an emotional response (still waiting to see what that is like myself). However, given Al Pacino and Christopher Walken the director and writer opted to turn the whole thing into a dumb action movie for no apparent reason. Two old gangsters dealing with their mortality and friendship suddenly turn into action heroes, effectively robbing the majority of the gravitas built up until then and take what looked like a real film about real guys and made it into something George Lucas would be proud of (if it weren’t for the lack of annoying racist cartoon characters).
If a movie could be compared to building a castle (sorry now I’ve got my Medieval Legos on my brain) than Stand Up Guys would be made mostly of sand, ground up tire bits, and wood shavings glued together with spit and corn starch. The castle would be a dilapidated mess, but the only thing holding it up would be the most amazing buttresses ever in the form of Al Pacino, Christopher Walken, and Alan Arkin (Walken image courtesy of the Movie t shirt category). They really hold it together with their amazing characters and acting. In fact their talent is so out of place in this dross that you really wonder what they are all doing there.
The story is of Val (Al Pacino-the Godfather, Scarface, Heat) getting out of prison after 28 years. He is picked up by his best friend Doc (Christopher Walken-the Deerhunter, Things to do in Denver when you’re Dead, Suicide Kings) who takes him to his crappy apartment. They are both old gangsters. It is revealed quickly that Doc has been ordered by a gangster kingpin (Mark Margolis-Black Swan, Pi, the Wrestler) to kill Val for the death of his son and has given until 10 the next morning to do it. Val and Doc go out on the town to live it up one last time.
The two guys visit a brothel (a joke that gets beaten into the ground for way too long) and do some crime stuff such as steal Viagra and a sports car. They rescue their old friend Hirsh (Alan Arkin-Little Miss Sunshine, Argo, Edward Scissorhands) from an old age home who is still the most amazing drive ever or something.
At that point the movie stops being Godfather II meets Grumpy Old Men and starts being About Schmidt meets the Fast and the Furious with a smattering of Above the Law. Hirsh outraces a bunch of cops. They find a naked girl tied up in the trunk of their stolen car and go after the guys who kidnapped and raped her. They go back to the brothel for the 3rd time that night. With each disjointed action scene the connection you felt to the characters drains away. The ending the movie had been building up to all the way through gets dropped at the last minute for what was behind curtain number 2 (a huge pile of ass).
The stars. One each for Al Pacino, Christopher Walken, and Alan Arkin. Three stars. The rest of the supporting actors were much better than this script deserved. One star. Total: four stars.
The black holes. Trying to make an action film out of a drama, and shifting the movie gears to an entirely different transmission in the last two minutes. One black hole. The running gag with the brothel scene took up about 1/3rd of the movie and really got old after a while. One black hole. The Madame of the brothel (Lucy Punch-Bad Teacher, Hot Fuzz, Dinner for Schmucks) is very easy on the eyes but she felt really miscast and consequently had the only part that felt fake to me (not really Lucy’s fault IMO). One black hole. The movie producers should go into time travel research because throughout the film they made each minute feel like three. One black hole. The ending of film managed to take an otherwise fairly tight script and riddle it with plot holes. One black hole. Total: five black holes.
A total of one black hole. Worth seeing? Sure, if you want to concentrate on the performances of the three actors and aren’t concerned with the tone or story. A lot of my issues can be pretty esoteric so most of my specific points might be missed by someone not looking for nits to pick. However, there were long swaths of film that I would have found truly boring were it not for the actors. Odds are the viewer who doesn’t see the subtleties will find those to be a grind. See it in the comfort of your own home. Nothing on the screen requires a theater. Date movie? Meh. Most women aren’t into these guys as dudes are, and that will only leave her bored. Bathroom break? Any of the scenes in the brothel could be missed with impunity. The best parts of this film is the acting chemistry between Walken and Pacino so try to see all of those.
Thanks for reading. I am getting ready for the Star Trek show in Burbank this weekend and don’t know if I will have time to do much for a few days. If you have comments on this film or my review please post them at the bottom of this article (if you don’t see a comment section click here). Follow me on Twitter @NerdKungFu or email me with off topic suggestions and questions at [email protected]. Talk to you soon.
Dave
Bullet to the Head Review
And one for Jenny and the wimp.
Bonus points for anyone who knows where I got this one (search frantically). Anyway, this is going to be a bad month for aging action stars as the films by Stallone, Schwarzenegger, and Pacino have all tanked horribly. As a fan of all three of these guys I am worried that Hollywood will pretty much pass on them in favor of younger, more androgynous action stars. While it is true that the old should make way for the new the problem is the new crop of action stars (with the possible exception of Jason Statham, but really he is in a weird category all by himself) are to a man so blasé and formulaic it’s like they are being cloned from the blandest handsome man ever and are truly forgettable.
I’m not kidding about this. When you are asked to name an action star the names that leap into mind are Stallone, Schwarzenegger, Eastwood, Willis, Cruise, and Gibson. 10 years from now are you really going to think of Gosling, Cooper, Worthington, or Lebeouf? There’s nothing distinctive about these guys (well, if being a whiny bitch is distinctive than Lebeouf has found his niche). This is actually the downside of actors trying to avoid getting typecast. If your talent is in action then it is OK to be an action star.
Anyway, Bullet to the Head. An enjoyable B movie. My issue is I really wanted it to be more. It is directed by Walter Hill who’s filmography reads like parts of my all time favorite movie list. 
Aliens, the Warriors, Deadwood (the HBO show. See it if you haven’t), Red Heat, Last Man Standing, and Demon Knight. Of course he also did Alien 3, Alien vrs. Predator, and Prometheus (many people love that movie but I have certain reservations. Caution Alien image courtesy of the Cheap T Shirt category), so he does not have the Midas touch. However, with all that film history I was hoping to see a true diamond in the rough. Some effort was made to create a Crescent City crime noir film (complete with private eye-style voice over monolog) but in the end the story is both extremely simple and lacking in a lot of motivation.
I will say that Stallone is still looking rock hard in this, as he did in Expendables 2. He’s definitely aged, but it has turned into that really cool “carved from a hunk of driftwood” Eastwood look that is even more bad ass. In the contest to see who’s aging best I think he’s got it over Arnold.
The story. Sylvester Stallone plays James Bonomo, hit man with a modest sense of honor (no women or kids. Why is it a lot of actors are willing to play the sociopath only to a certain level? More on that when I review Stand Up Guys). He and his partner (Jon Seda-12 Monkeys, Primal Fear, Bad Boys II) take out some guy. While waiting at a crowded bar to get paid mercenary Keegan (Jason Momoa-Stargate: Atlantis, Conan the Barbarian, Game of Thrones) kills his partner and tries to kill Bonomo. Afterwards he feels more or less indifferent about his ex partner but decides to avenge him because the guy never caused him any problem(?).
Before I go on I’d like to say that the low level of motivation is endemic to this movie. At no time are we given a reason why the head bad guy wants to kill Bonono rather than just pay him, what his reason is for hiring mercenaries and contract killers for some kind of real estate scheme when lawyers and lobbyist probably would have done it, why Keegan is even willing to work for him, or why the cop that teams up with Bonono even gives half a damn about the death of some known scumbag in a city 966 miles and several states away from his jurisdiction (this was the one point that really ground on me. Don’t the DC police have murders to deal with that they can actually prosecute? I doubt they have the budget to buy a cop a bus ticket to go to New Orleans). This lack of motivation really tends to disconnect the audience from the story.
Anyway, Washington DC cop Taylor Kwan (Sung Kang-Fast Five, Live Free or Die Hard, Ninja Assassin (never saw this movie, but for the record Sang is Korean not Japanese)) comes to New Orleans to investigate the first guy killed (there’s some back story about the guy being an ex WDCPD cop, but really there are a lot of ex cops out there). In the morgue he sees Bonono’s partner and uses his intuition to connect the two. He and Bonono meet up and after Bonono rescues him and has his hot tattoo artist daughter ((Sarah Shahi-Life (good show IMO), Old School, Fairly Legal) patch a bullet wound they team up to find the main guy .
At that point the story kind of just grinds itself out. They use a mix of cop techniques (i.e. calling the police department and having them track down guys) and criminal techniques (beating the hell out of guys for information) to track down the main bad guys. Kwan makes the decision that letting Stallone run around killing guys is an acceptable compromise in order to capturing this mysterious bigger bad guy neither of them have ever seen or heard of (another story disconnect for me. Don’t police swear some kind of oath to uphold the law and protect people, even criminals (and especially criminals tied to a chair?)). The crawl up the chain and get to the guy below the main guy Marcus Baptiste (Christain Slater. Good to see him working again. I’ve always like him. True Romance, 3000 Miles to Graceland, Pump Up the Volume) and through him get to the big bad guy Morel (Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje-G.I. Joe Rise of Cobra, Lost, the Bourne Identity).
Anyway, stuff blows up. The hot daughter is kidnapped. Keegan does a bunch of stuff that makes little to no sense. He and Bonono have an axe duel. The end.
The stars. Stallone movie. One star. While the acting wasn’t much to write home about, this role suited Stallone’s personal style extremely well. His character was pretty cool. One star. The action was fun even if it smacked of over the top at times. One star. Normally I would black hole a movie for having the main character do a voice over monolog, but in this one it kind of worked (especially if you think of it as a noir homage). One black hole. I actually liked Kang as a supporting star, and it’s refreshing to see more Asians get roles normally reserved for Caucasian or African Americans. One star. I fell in love with Sarah Shahi when I watched Life and she is even hotter in this one. One star. In spite of the story limitations and all the other issues associated with a B movie this one was fun to watch. One star. Total: seven stars.
The black holes. The lack of character motivation was a continuous annoyance. It was like having a five year old kid kicking the back of the seat the whole time. Even now I can’t figure out what the hell everyone was trying to do. One black hole. The lack of motivation contributed to the story being extremely simple and non-challenging. One black hole. The whole thing with a cop letting a murderer (who has committed murders right in front of the cop) run around to kill more people was also very distracting. One black hole. The R rating felt really unnecessary. There was nudity but it was almost all side boob, and the action wasn’t particularity bloody or even that violent. If it weren’t for a gross autopsy scene I’d say this film could have easily toned down the language and gotten a PG-13 rating, and rated R for language is like eating ice cubes when you are really hungry. One black hole. Total: three stars.
Not great, but not unworthy of being watched. I’d say entertaining but not a whole lot more. See it in a theater if you feel a hankering for popcorn or on NetFlix if you want to drink beer (this film will rock with a couple of beers in you). Date movie? Probably not. Definitely a guys film. Bathroom break? There is a scene towards the end where Kang uses the daughters computer to look at a flash drive. It’s already been established that the evidence on the flash drive will destroy Morel so it’s beating a dead horse, and since they end up doing nothing with it anyway it’s a worthless scene. Short scene so go quickly.
Thanks for reading. I will be reviewing Stand Up Guys later today or tomorrow morning and want to see Side Effects or Identity Thief so check back soon. I’m leaving Wednesday for the Grand Slam, a decent Star Trek show in Burbank. If you are going stop by and say hi. Just ask for Dave the t-shirt guy. If things are slow I will be very happy to discuss movies with you (plus the girl working my booth is drop dead gorgeous. No joke). Follow me on Twitter @Nerdkungfu. If you have comments on this movie or my review feel free to post them at the bottom of this post (or click here if you don’t see a comment section). Off topic questions or suggestions can be emailed to [email protected]. Talk to you soon.
Dave
Important Lessons Learned from Movies: Hudson Hawk
Last night at movie night (where we watched Johnny Dangerously, a movie that constantly hovered around good and funny but never went in like a very timid hummingbird with a flower phobia) the discussion turned to other bad/good movies from history. The subject of Hudson Hawk, Bruce Willis’s attempt to reinvent his Moonlighting character as the worlds greatest cat burglar came up. While this movie did indeed suck on many levels, on other levels it was hilarious. As I thought about it an important life lesson returned to my cerebral cortex.
The lesson is this: just because the plunger bomb gun plunger bomb stuck to you forehead turns out to be a dud does not mean the plunger bomb gun plunger bomb stuck to the wall behind you is (in case you missed it, the plunger bomb gun was my favorite part of the movie and I like saying plunger bomb gun). If you are faced with two forms of certain death it’s OK to run away from one of them in the hopes that the second one is less certain than it appears on paper. Sure, either one of them will probably kill you but if both of them are 99% than it’s better to have a 1% chance of survival than a 0.01% chance.
Bomb technician graphic courtesy of the Funny T Shirt category, by the way.
Dave
