Everything I needed to know in life I learned by watching red shirts die.
So I spent all last week at the Star Trek Convention in Las Vegas and can highly recommend it as an experience. It was totally fun and cool with a lot of extremely nice fans and amazing costumes. While there I saw several variations on the t-shirt “Everything I Know in Life I Learned from Star Trek.” For the most part they are filled with noble thoughts like “Non Interference is the Prime Directive” and “Seek Out New Life and New Civilizations.” I appreciate the nobility of these sentiments and wish I could have picked them up as a child.
However, the issue here is that these concepts are really more the lessons my parents and teachers really would have hoped I could have learned from the show. They are the the 70’s equivalent of wishing your child would play peacefully with his or her stuffed animals and not use them as a club to bludgeon the child next to them with. This is not how we learn lessons, unfortunately. Not the lessons that are ingrained into our psyche. Those lessons are always learned from pain and stupidity, either experienced or observed.
What do I mean by that? The lessons most strongly remembered are the ones where you feel the need to put your hand in a fire and learn the hard way that that is a stupid thing. If a child has a natural inclination to lick power outlets and does so, assuming he survives that is a lesson he or she will never, ever forget (as an aside, I do recommend parents all baby proof their houses. If you have a more Darwinian approach to parenting (like my own parents did) I’m sure your surviving children will reach adulthood with some important life lessons imparted upon them).
Thus we come to Star Trek. Most of the episodes might have had an esoteric lesson on non interference and peaceful contact with aliens, but they were all pretty hard for me to grasp at age 7. What was easy for me to understand was the 1-6 horrible Red Shirt deaths in each episode (Ensign Riley image courtesy of the Television T Shirt category). What, then, are the hard core lessons ingrained into my very fiber from this show? Here are a few:
1. There is no kill setting strong enough for my phaser.
2. If you are ever told to guard a corridor/door/cell/alien/robot by yourself or with just another hapless minion immediately request backup. Never do anything by yourself.
3. While on guard duty of any kind keep your back against a wall and your eyes on the creature/doorway you are supposed to be guarding.
4. It is never too early on an away mission to “accidentally” sprain your ankle and be ordered to report to sick bay.
5. If you spot something unusual duck behind cover BEFORE yelling out your report (or using your communicator).
6. Never volunteer for anything.
7. Any normal seeming job given to you by your superiors while they stand around watching should be approached with extreme caution.
8. Any creature that can be completely and accurately described with a noun followed by the word “monster” should be considered extremely dangerous (lava monster, tar monster, sucker monster, etc.). Remember lesson number 1.
9. If an alien seems surprisingly confident when faced with your phaser, force field, or otherwise seemingly superior advantage take a few steps backward.
10. In a group never be the first or last man to do anything.
11. If an alien tells you to stand in a certain place a moderate distance from the rest of the group consider just punching him.
12. Try to never leave the ship.
13. If given orders that almost certainly lead to your horrible death remember that mutiny and fragging are always options. I think you will find the captain goes down to a phaser blast a lot faster than a blood sucking gas cloud.
14. If you get back from an away mission and you even have the sniffles immediately see a doctor.
15. If any of your friends are ever possessed by evil murdering aliens it might be necessary to beam them out into open space.
16. It might be worthwhile to keep a backup phaser in your boot.
17. If an alien looks like it can kill you, assume it not only can but seriously wants to. Remember lesson number 1.
18. If you are ever being chased by giant alien creatures remember you don’t really have to outrun them. Just the slowest other red shirt.
19. If you are ever ordered to collect some kind of sample remember that modest scientific advancement is not really worth your life. Find a nice rock wall to lean against and “lose” your collection equipment at the first opportunity.
20. If any creatures, human or otherwise, are acting strange, speaking slowly, and not really answering any of your questions do not let them come within reach of you. Also remember lesson 1.
I think you will find that these lessons, in addition to being more deeply ingrained than the noble ones espoused by the more enlightened Star Trek fans, will also have many more useful short and long term applications in your day to day life. I’m not saying to give up on the high value ones from the intellectual part of the show. Just that these may be much more useful on a personal basis.
Thanks for reading. Follow me on Twiiter @Nerdkungfu. If you have comments or questions on this piece post them here. Off topic questions or suggestions for other articles can be emailed to [email protected]. I’ll watch something tonight and review it tomorrow morning. Talk to you soon.
Dave
The Bourne Legacy Review
By “Legacy” I guess they mean cow milking cash grab.
Sorry it’s been a while since I saw something or wrote a review, but I was in Las Vegas most of the last few days at the amazing Star Trek convention. I had a blast, met some great people, sold a ton of shirts, and was soundly rejected by three women (although to be fair I’m not sure if I was really asking one of them out). 
I also discovered that girls wearing a Starfleet uniform from either TOS or TNG are a real turn on for me. I don’t know if I really want to dig deep in that dark hole in my psyche, but if any ladies are looking to catch my eye there’s the way to do it (Uniform shirt courtesy of the Star Trek T Shirt category).
I made it back in one piece and am now able to indulge in another of my passions: excreting the bitter bile of my soul all over mediocre or lousy movies.
Not that the Bourne Legacy was necessarily bad or even mediocre. I will put it at slightly above mediocre. Like a C+. However, it has latched onto the Bourne teat and suckled that cow down to skin and bones. I kept count and either heard or saw the name Bourne no less than 15 times during the course of the movie. In 135 minutes that’s once every 9 minutes. I guess they felt a cold terror at the thought that the audience wasn’t remembering where this film came from often enough. Speaking of 135 minutes, I was feeling the weight of them by the end of the movie. A lot of scenes seemed to drag on for ever. It would have been nice if they had invested in an ending rather than have the whole movie kind of drift off into space with more or less nothing accomplished other than the finding of a magic MacGuffin.
Bottom line on this film is that it is a decent if fragmented action spy movie. However, it is not of the same caliber as the first three Bourne films. The story is comprised of about 15 spy sub plots and more or less exists as a framework to hang extended action scenes on. I can honestly say this film completely lacks an Act III. There is the intro, a huge development scene, and then all of a sudden it ends with almost nothing resolved beyond the intermediate issues arising from the development. Also, if it has been a while since you saw any of the first three be prepared to get pretty much totally confused as to what the hell is going on. This movie runs in parallel with the other films and if you don’t know what those films were about you will be like Hansel and Gretel without bread crumbs. Furthermore, while it has been a while since I saw those it seems they have taken the whole Treadstone program in a new and stupider direction by making the Treadstone spies the result of some kind of science fiction super drug program rather than just training and psychological conditioning. Again, while I think this would have made for a decent stand alone movie it really didn’t feel like a Bourne movie.
The story. I don’t want to get too deep into it as it will be hard to do without spoilers. Jason Bourne is wreaking havoc across the world. Back at CIA headquarters (or something like CIA) they are all trying to cover their asses by burying the Treadstone program, which involves pretty much killing all the agents and scientists involved. Aaron Cross (Jeremy Renner-the Hurt Locker, The Avengers, Mission Impossible Ghost Protocol) survives his attempted killing, as does scientist Dr. Marta Shearing (Rachel Weisz-the Mummy, the Fountain, Constantine). Aaron is hooked on some enhancing drugs and has to get more so he tracks down Marta. At that point they do the whole “man on the run” spy thing while looking for the thing that will keep Aaron from degenerating. Spy hijinks ensues. The US Intelligence community is painted to look like the most amoral bastards since Hitler. A villain is pullout out of the ether (Louis Ozawa Changchien-Predators, Fair Game, Robot Stories). The Wayback Machine is set for 2006 as parkour rears it’s head once more. The movie comes to an abrupt ending like a car running out of gas.
The stars. I really liked the character of Aaron Cross. Had the movie just been about him I would have like it a lot better. One star. The action was good and fun. One star. The story had a nice complexity and actually required you to pay attention. One star. I always like to see Ed Norton in any film. One star. In fact the entire cast was good and delivered generally good performances. Rachel Weisz was especially good. Two stars. Overall a fun movie. One star. Total: seven stars.
The black holes. The movie ran long, and some of the scenes were repetitive and seemed to go on forever. Pacing should have been tightened a lot. One black hole. The constant reminder of Jason Bourne really bugged after a while, and the movie felt anchored down by the need to keep on reminding you of where it came from. One black hole. The story lacked cohesion and most of the characters didn’t really have a motivation I wanted to buy. One black hole. The ending sucked eggs. One black hole. Total: four black holes.
A grand total of three stars. Not bad, but not great. Worth seeing, but do yourself a favor and watch the first three beforehand. Nothing in this film really requires a large screen so feel free to NetFlix it. Date movie? Nothing about this film will entice your date to take off her clothes, so not really. On the other hand I don’t think it will hurt your chances. Bathroom break? There’s a scene after Aaron first rescues Marta where they are driving in the car that is totally miss worthy. Either that or the big airport/flight scene. Literally nothing interesting happens and it drags on like you are on the 10 hour flight.
Thanks for reading. Now that all the big shows I am doing are done I am going to see more movies and try to write more often. Follow me on Twitter @NerdKungFu. If you have comments on this movie or review feel free to post them here. If you have off topic questions or suggestions feel free to email me at [email protected]. Talk to you soon.
Dave
A question from Star Trek TOS Episode 7 Mudd’s Women
This sort of post is more Jason’s thing, but in the last week or so I have been watching the old TOS episodes (getting ready for the big Star Trek convention next week) and a question occurred to me while watching Mudd’s Women.
So Harry Mudd has a drug that makes ugly women incredibly hot (and he claims makes men look amazing too) and his secret plan is to find ugly women and sell them off to rich dilithium crystal miners (not his original plan, but that’s the gist of it). The question is this: why is his secret plan to become the universe’s richest drug smuggler? The drug alone is probably worth more than a planet would cost. This is like spending you life forging perfect counterfeit plates and then selling off the metal shavings you have from the plates.
I guess this is why Harcourt Fenton Mudd is still small time, even when we get to him in I, Mudd. He just seems so savvy and immoral that it is odd that something like this would not occur to him.
I don’t have any Mudd t shirts, but I have this cool Balok image from the Star Trek T Shirt category. Any true fan will know why it’s appropriate for any discussion of a TOS episode (although technically not from season 1).
Dave
Total Recall Review
Kind of worth recalling.
Total Recall does something I haven’t really seen a remake do yet: in spite of being pretty much the same story as the Schwarzenegger 1990 film (with some fairly big differences that don’t really have any bearing on the story), with a lot of the scenes shot almost identical in form and structure, and with exactly the same betrayals and major plot points, it manages to deliver an entirely different feeling and yet still enjoyable film experience.
It all boils down to style. Arnold is the king of camp, over the top action (just look at his clips from from the upcoming Expendables 2) and left an indelible comic mark all over the film. The writers of the original Total Recall seemed to have understood this and wrote to his strengths. The remake lacks all that campy humor (and while there is humor to be had here it is almost all exclusively call backs to the 1990 film) but makes up for more action and to be honest a more compelling and believable protagonist. What does that mean in terms of your viewing pleasure? If you want camp go rewatch 1990. If you are happy with a decent action film (albeit a little shallow) than you will enjoy this film.
Of course, like most movies that come out these days this film is rife with problems, and being a bitter soul I will enjoy listing them in detail. For one thing the director (Len Wiseman-the entire Underworld series) must have been blackmailed by the art director and CGI company because every shot is packed full of everything possible in a futuristic movie to the point of absolute distraction. It’s like if Godzilla ate an entire flea market and then vomited it all over the sets from Bladerunner. There is so many people, dystopic futuristic slums, and gigantic moving Hellraiser puzzle boxes that I often found myself trying to discern the character or action point I was supposed to be paying attention to. This problem was aggravated by the directors obvious love of thin, waifish brunette females (just like in another series he has done) as the evil bitch and helpful sidekick looked like sisters and were nigh impossible to tell apart, especially when they were wearing almost the same outfits. A red scarf or green t-shirt might have gone a long way.
I can also say that while was impressed by Colin Farrell (Phone Booth, Alexander, the New World) as Douglas Quaid/Houser, I felt most of the supporting characters were a little tepid and two dimensional. I don’t think this was a reflection on the acting so much as mediocre writing. Even the great Bryan Cranston (Drive, Breaking Bad, Red Tails) as President Cohaagan was cartoonishly over the top. He would have fit right in with the Arnold version, but felt disjointed and out of place here.
Finally, this film still suffers from the same issues that plagued the 1990 version in that the whole movie is based around an evil plot so complex and prone to miserable failure that it makes calculating the square root of -1 and the last digit of pi look simply by comparison. What if one of the 14,000,000 guys trying to kill the main guy accidentally succeeded? Was the final goal such a huge priority for the organization that they risked the life and sanity of the greatest operatives of all time, not to mention dedicating what must have been thousands of man hours to accomplish it? Plus a bunch of security guys who got scragged. Aren’t there like 83 less dangerous, complicated, or expensive ways to accomplish the goal? While the camp humor element behind the 1990 version masked this issue nicely, this movies secret desire to take itself seriously makes these questions much more prevalent and distracting. (Get Real image courtesy of the Funny T Shirt category)
The story. This is another film where I can say rent the original and you more or less know it. There are a few spoilers coming when I talk about the story differences so SPOILER ALERT. Substitute the chemically desolate surface of the Australia for Mars. Great Britain is now Earth, and instead of a rocket to Mars there is now a super subway called The Fall that goes through the center of the Earth (I’m not going to black hole them for this, but the science behind this is pretty stupid. The core of the Earth is estimated to be 9,800 degrees Fahrenheit, and that plus the pressure would crush any attempt to do what they did here. Unless they have some kind of force field (and there was no other evidence of force fields anywhere else in the film) I sincerely doubt they would have any material on the planet that would survive this. On the other hand, if they did have some kind of force field they would have had pretty much unlimited power in the form of geothermal energy). Great Britain is the elite of modern society, and the unwashed masses all live in Australia. Other than that the movie pretty much plays out exactly the same. Douglas Quaid is a lowly factory worker who goes to Rekall and has a false memory of being a spy implanted. The process awakens his real memory of being a spy. His life is a huge fabrication, his wife spends most of the movie trying to kill him, and they even repeat the scene where his former best friend tries to convince him that the whole thing is just a figment of his fractured mind.
The stars. If you take this film as a stand alone film and don’t get wrapped up in comparing it to the original it’s actually pretty fun. Two stars. I liked Colin Farrell as Douglas Quaid. One star. I always like Bill Nighy (Harry Potter and the Deadly Hollows Pt 1, The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, Hot Fuzz) and Bryan Cranston is fun to watch even when I find his character kind of dumb. One star. The two females (Kate Beckensale-Underworld, Contraband, the Aviator and Jessica Biel-the Texas Chainsaw Massacre, 7th Heaven, the Illusionist) were in a serious contest to see which was easier on the eyes (Jessica Biel won in my opinion, but it was a close thing). Lots of inside call backs to the original Total Recall, including an extremely brief but highly appreciated appearance of the three breasted whore. One star. I happen to like dystopic future visions. It much more looks like what I think we will be living in. One star. The battle droids, while obviously shoved into the film in order to maintain the PG13 rating, were all pretty cool. One star. Pacing was actually really good and tight. One star. Total: nine stars.
The black holes. The jumbled up nature of the scenes and the similarity of some of the characters made a lot of the action actually hard to follow. A lot of the camera work looked like it was done just to be impressive without actually having a specific point it was trying to deliver. One black hole. This film labored under the curse of PG13 in a big way. Robots were all horrible dismembered while humans had the gentle grace to die bloodlessly from bullet impacts the left no passage. One black hole. While Douglas Quaid was pretty cool, a lot of the other characters were little more than talking plot devices. One black hole. The complexity of the evil plot was the one part that did not survive the transition from 1990 to 2012. One black hole. One of the coolest things about the 1990 film is they really left the question of the actual reality up in the air, and while they tried to do that here in the beginning there was a scene that kind of hurt that idea a lot. One black hole. Total: five black holes.
A grand total of four stars. Not bad, and to be honest much more than I expected from a classic movie remake. If you are a fan of sci fi action I can definitely recommend this one for you, and the screen is so jumbled up I think you need a large screen just to sort out what is going on. It looks like they did not bother with 3D, which I think was the right move. Just too much going on for you to track. Date movie? Probably not. Very geeky, very guy movie with the added problem of showing her a story where the entire romance is a false construct based on massive lies. Not exactly the thing to put her in an amorous mood. Bathroom break? I am having a hard time with this. The pacing of this film kind of makes it hard to identify a less worthwhile portion. There is some filler from the first act but you shouldn’t need the bathroom there. I guess if you have seen the 1990 version you could skip the scene where the protagonists best friend tries to convince him the whole thing is a mental fabrication. It plays out pretty much exactly like it did with Arnold.
Thanks for reading. I apologize for not seeing Step Up Revolution on Tuesday and writing a really bitter review for it, but I just couldn’t motivate myself to get out of the house for that. I will try to see it or something else this weekend. I have the big Star Trek show coming up next week and am kind of scrambling to get that done, but once that is complete I will focus on more movie reviews. Follow me on Twitter @Nerdkungfu. If you have a comment on this movie or review feel free to leave it here. If you have an off topic question or suggestion feel free to email me at [email protected]. Talk to you soon.
Dave
The 15 Best Star Trek TOS Villains
Se we are about a week away from heading off to the amazing Star Trek Convention in Las Vegas and I literally couldn’t be more excited. I have been watching old episodes on NetFlix and more than a few times have caught myself humming the fight theme song (if you don’t know what that is odds are you really shouldn’t even be reading this blog).
To say I have Star Trek on the mind lately is a bit of an understatement and last night while watching the Galileo Seven it struck me how many super cool villains and aliens they managed to create without the benefit of CGI or even a real budget. I did some research but found that every list out there for Star Trek villains is cluttered up with all the TNG and DS9 villains, which in my opinion is kind of prosaic. Saying that Q is super cool or the Borg is an evil race is like saying ice cream tastes good or chewing on broken glass is a bad idea. Also, it seems like every list can’t seem to get away from the idea that the villains from Nemesis or First Contact were something more the cliche filler. Therefore I have taken it upon myself to compose a list of the greatest villains from the the Original Series.
Actually, this isn’t so much a stretch. If you take into account the fact that the writers were coming up with these guys without the benefit of 50 years of science fiction to fall back on these aliens (plus a few humans) are amazingly cool. I also give them credit for writing a depth that, in spite of more movie resources, seems to be missing from a lot of modern Trek villains. All the images, by the way, are from the Star Trek T Shirt category.
15. Mugatu, from A Private Little War. A space yeti with a unicorn horn, spikes growing out of it’s spine, and poisonous fangs? The only way this guy could be any cooler is if he could play the banjo and his farts cured cancer. He’s only at number 15 because in the episode he really had a minor role, but OMG awesome.
14. Evil Kirk, from the Enemy Within. I know I listed this episodes as one of my worst for TOS and I stand by that belief. However, even I have to admit crazed, super sweaty cheesy lighting Kirk was pretty damned cool.
13. The Vians, from the Empath. I know these are pretty much the same guys from the Cage and the Menagerie, but here instead of creating fantasy worlds to get Captain Pike to mate with a super hot girl they are using torture and death to get a girl to pretty much kill herself. If you really think aliens are above cruelty and vivisection you need to go watch Fire in the Sky.
12. The Earps, from Spectre of the Gun. Plus Doc Holiday. These guys really had the whole menacing “impending doom” down to a science. I have a few humans on this list, although technically since these guys were projections of the Melkotians they really were aliens.
11. The Buffalo, from the Man Trap. I can honestly say as a kid this was the grossest thing I had ever seen to date (I have since seen things that would probably cause all your internal organs to explode, but will save that for another post). Also, the suckers on the fingers were an extremely nice touch.
10. Evil Spock, from Mirror Mirror. What in the universe could possible be cooler than Spock? How about an evil Spock, with no moral hesitation to kill people? Plus I think the beard was a really good look for Nimoy.
9. Charlie Evans, from Charlie X. This poor kid. All messed up with super powers. I just watched this episode the other night and his fate always makes me sad.
8. The Cheronians, from Let That Be Your Last Battlefield. Say what you want about Star Trek, but subtlety is not one of it’s defining characteristics. When Gene Roddenberry has a point he wants made he tends to do it with a sledgehammer. However, as a parallel for human racism these two were pretty much on the mark.
7. Anton Karidian/Kodos the Executioner, from the Conscience of the King. Maybe it’s because he was playing a Shakespearean actor and I always find those guys impressive, but this guy really gripped me. Human, I know and therefore boring, but still very cool in my book. Of course it could be said that the real villain was his daughter.
6. The Horta, from the Devil in the Dark. I can honestly say this was the one episode that scared the living crap out of me at age seven. The Horta was so freaking terrifying I had a hard time watching it. Of course, looking back on it as an adult I can see it looks like a reject from H.R. Puffinstuff, but I will say this is a perfect example of the show getting as much as possible out of no budget. This episode actually showed what could be accomplished with excellent use of lighting.
5. Harcourt Fenton Mudd, from Mudd’s Women and I, Mudd. I actually got into a debate with a guy on this character. I will admit he is a cheesy as it gets, but there is something in his rapscallion, amoral approach to life that really appeals to me. I wish I had his panache and savvy. I also think the crews treatment and interaction with him, especially Kirk, was really entertaining and well done. Also, he was the first man I ever saw wearing an earring.
4. The Romulan Commander, from Balance of Terror. I listed this as my all time favorite episode in my list of best TOS shows, but honestly while the Romulan commander was amazingly cool I don’t think he was the best villain. However, he definitely was one of the best and was probably the villain I most connected with.
3. Ruk, from What are Little Girls Made Of? It’s freaking Lurch in space! Lurch who is both willing and capable of killing guys! How can this be anything less than awesome??? Also, I was 6’4″ as a Freshman in high school and have always had a bad habit of looming over people. One of my nicknames back then was Lurch, so when I saw him on Star Trek I was extremely happy.
2. The Gorn Captain, from Arena. I’m actually kind of disappointed in myself for my choice for numbers 2 and 1 as they are so obvious. I hate being obvious. However, the Gorn captain is so cool he makes my bones ache. Big, bad, and tough as hell. He kicked seven kinds of hell out of Kirk every time they encountered each other, only to fall to Kirks underhanded and scheming trap using black powder weapons. “Guns don’t kill aliens. Starship captains armed with spikes do”.
1. Khan Noonien Singh, from Space Seed. And the next most obvious choice. I know. Boring boring boring. However, Khan was truly an amazing villain. It just goes to show what happens when you combine a great, well written character with an amazing character actor like Ricardo Gonzalo Pedro Montalbán y Merino. What a great villain.
Well, that’s my list. Feel free to comment here if you feel I missed a good one, or if you think I might have given too much credence to one (I expect to hear about Harry Mudd shortly). I sincerely hope you enjoyed reading this. I had a lot of fun writing it. Follow me on Twitter @Nerdkungfu, and be sure to read any of my other Star Trek, movie review, or dating advice posts here. If you have an off topic question or suggestion feel free to email me at [email protected]. I might see a movie tonight (cheap night at the theater down the street) so look for a review tomorrow. Talk to you soon.
Dave
The Watch review
Worth watching IMO.
I know I’m definitely going against most of the other reviewers out there and my own general inclination by saying I kind of liked this film. It had it’s issues for sure, and if I were less favorably inclined towards the cast might have taken a more severe approach to the review, but in general I found it fun and entertaining.
I have seen a number of other reviews liken it to a sci fi Tower Heist and I think that is where the line gets drawn. If you enjoyed Tower Heist the odds are you’ll enjoy this film. If you did not enjoy Tower Heist then no amount of humor will make this film watchable for you.
That’s not to say some of the gripes I’m reading are not legitimate, because they are. This film is infested with plot holes, extremely low brow humor, and story points delivered in bulk from Cliche’s ‘R Us. To say this movie is derivative of other films is like saying a footprint is derivative of a shoe. If you are looking for new ideas, great script, compelling story, or great special effects keep on walking. However, if you like rated R humor that does not rely on excrement jokes and enjoy Ben Stiller than by all means stop by and sit a spell (101 minutes, to be exact).
This film is the quintessential (a less upbeat reviewer might say regurgitated) alien invasion film (Mars Attacks image courtesy of the Movie T Shirt category). Evan (Ben Stiller-Tower Heist, Tropic Thunder, Zoolander) is the manager of the local Costco and loves the podunk town he lives in. The night security guard is horrifically murdered and he takes it on himself to form a neighborhood watch. He is joined by a few flowers of the cliche character garden: Bob (Vince Vaughn-Wedding Crasher, Dodgeball, Mr. and Mrs. Smith), a suburbanite dad with a high school mentality and a 16 year old daughter with whom he fights all the time; Franklin (Jonah Hill-21 Jump Street, Superbad, Moneyball), a sociopathic gun nut who dreams of being a cop; and Jamarcus (Richard Ayoade-mainly the I.T. Crowd and if you haven’t watched it yet go ahead and stop calling yourself a nerd) a recent transplant from the UK who wants to be more involved in the community.
The boys start patrolling and trouble arises between Evan, who wants to find the murderer, and Bob who wants to just treat it like boys night out. A series of oddball incidents lead them to the inevitable conclusion that they are being invaded by aliens and that some of them walk among them in human form.
Honestly, that’s pretty much it. The rest of the film is more or less comedic filler. They find an alien device that is pretty cool. Stuff gets blown up, cliche’s get ground like cayenne pepper, and the low brow humor takes a side trip down Stupid Lane in the last 10 minutes. The end.
The stars. I was honestly laughing, and so was most of the audience. Two stars. I am a fan of pretty much every main character actor in here, especially Richard Avoade. I thought they all delivered a decent performance. One star. A couple of the recurring gags were worth the effort. One star. Overall a fun time watching. Two stars. Total: seven stars.
The black holes. Either the writers have collectively never seen an alien invasion film and really thought they were coming up with something new and cool, or they just didn’t really give a damn. One black hole. Some oddball plot holes and continuity issues, as well as the inevitable alien issue of the aliens being unkillable death warriors at the beginning and then falling over to a Super Soaker at the end. One black hole. Cliche-a-rama, and I’m not just talking about alien invasion cliche’s. One black hole. When the alien weakness is revealed it is so painfully obvious that Seth Rogan and the rest of the writers were stoned when they thought of it I could smell the pot smoke. One black hole for literally dropping face first into the gutter. The special effects seemed to waver back and fourth between decent CGI and rubber suit a go go. One black hole. Total: five black holes.
So a final total of two stars. Not the best movie I’ve seen, but at least I didn’t want to drown myself afterward. In fact the last couple months have not been too bad for films. Most of the are at least mediocre. Should you see it? Sure, if you liked Tower Heist and Attack the Block, which is what this movie is the illegitimate offspring of. However, this movie gains nothing for being in a big theater so consider Netflix (in fact, I can pretty much guarantee this film’s viewing success if you have the forethought to arrange for alcohol and/or wacky tobaccy before watching it). Date movie? Meh. Not a lot really going on to get her excited, if you know what I mean. Too nerdy and goofy by half. Bathroom break? Nothing in this film really requires viewing to maintain the story continuity, but if I were to pick a moment I’d say the time Evan’s wife tries to seduce him with candles and a teddy. Not a lot of story happening there.
Thanks for reading, and I apologize for not getting more reviews out there. I have been super busy with Comic Con and now I have to get ready for the huge Star Trek convention I am attending in Las Vegas. On a side note, if you happen to live in Vegas and are or know a cute nerd girl who wants to earn some money working at my booth August 8th-12th (2012) feel free to email me at [email protected] (you can also email me with movie questions or suggestions). If you have comments about this review or movie feel free to post them here, and be sure to follow me on Twitter @NerdKungFu. Talk to you soon.
Dave
The Dark Knight Rises Review
A film of many surprises.
This film did indeed surprise me in many ways, both positive and negative. There were aspects I expected to suck that exceeded all my expectations. Then there were aspects I thought were going to rule that ended up sucking. There were also stealth surprises, in that aspects of the movie I had no opinion of one way or another jumped up and bit me on the ass.
The big positive surprise was Anne Hathaway as Catwoman. I have said several times that I didn’t think she could really play either the Cat or Selina Kyle. I didn’t think she had the role in her. I could not have been more wrong. She inhabits the role like she plans to raise six generations of Hathaways there and more or less dominates every scene she is in. Her portrayal is superlative and I honestly will have a hard time seeing anyone else in the role. Also, I have always had a thing for her (even when she was doing garbage like One Day I found her a real turn on) and no matter what she is doing in this movie she is dead sexy.
The big negative surprise was Bane. I really expected to like him as a villain but honestly found him to be really kind of boring. He suffers in comparison to the Joker in the Dark Knight of course, but even without that bar to hold up I would have found him boring and two dimensional. His plan seems vague and a little pointless, and he just doesn’t have the dialog and compelling nature of even Two Face or Scarecrow from the other movies. He more or less translates as slightly better than a muscle bound thug. (Bane image courtesy of the Batman T Shirts)
One of the surprises that really caught me off guard was Bane’s voice in the movie. Somehow they made him sound suspiciously like Alfred Pennyworth with a mouth full of loose gravel and spoken through 100 yards of steel pipe. It was really, really disconcerting. Honestly the whole time I felt like his voice had been dubbed over, really robbing his dialog of any import or strength. Plus I spent about half the time trying to understand what the hell he had just said. I’d like to not say “I’m not saying the voice doesn’t work but…” but honestly, that’s exactly what I am saying (without the but).
I have seen other critics call the story and plot ludicrous and to be fair to them, it pretty much is. The story borrows but from but does not really tell the stories from Knightfall, Breaking the Bat, No Man’s Land, and a half dozen other Batman comic story lines and as a result fails to tell one complete story. It definitely feel fragmented, convoluted, and lacking in continuity. Months of movie time are covered in the space of a few minutes and very little motivation is given for any of the supporting characters to do pretty much anything. Excellent supporting characters such as Catwoman or Alfred disappear for huge swaths of time only to reappear when the plot needs them. However, I saw the Batman Marathon at the local Regal and saw this movie after watching Batman Begins and the Dark Knight and I can say that while TDK is a brilliant story with amazing character interaction Batman Begins is ludicrous with a capital L. Ra’s al Ghul’s plan, if you recall, was to spend months injecting a fear causing hallucinogenic into the water supply and then microwave it into steam to cause the city to self destruct and teach the world a lesson or something. It doesn’t get much hokier than that.
That being said, the story does seem to lack focus and drifts from story to story, even reprising Ra’s al Ghul in order to give Bane something to do. This is a mistake in my opinion. Bane was always much cooler and more interesting in the comics when he just had a personal axe to grind with Batman. If you read my (brilliant, IMO) post on why The Wrath of Khan is the best of the Star Trek movies you might see what I mean. When the bad guy’s plan is to blow up a city (or the world) Hollywood seems to think we are going to somehow be personally connected to the story and feel some kind of kinship for all the people threatened. Nothing could be further from the truth. The fact is we connect with a specific character in the movie and feel more involved when there is some kind of personal vendetta going on. This is one of the many reasons the Dark Knight was so cool. Joker wanted nothing more than to screw with Batman. The threats to the city were incidental. When I watch a movie I want to feel like I’m Batman fighting to save my life, not one of the squirming millions of unwashed masses he is trying to protect.
All that being said, this movie is definitely worth watching. It drags at places, and you will feel every one of the self indulgent 164 minutes (mostly in your numb butt and full bladder), but visually stunning and the action is pretty damned good.
I’m not going to get into the story too deep as I expect pretty much everyone reading this to watch it and don’t want to hand out any spoilers. Sufficed to say Batman has been in hiding for eight years since taking the blame for the death of Harvey Dent. Bruce Wayne has been a recluse until Catwoman pulls him back to reality by robbing his safe. There is a lot of complicated, convoluted non-action in the first 45 minutes until Bane finally takes over the city No Man’s Land style. All hell breaks loose, and Batman is more or less broken. Stuff blows up. There is a massive riot. More stuff blows up. The end.
The stars. Batman movie. Two stars. Comic book movie. One star. Catwoman was pretty damned impressive, not to mention uber hot. One star. Almost all the supporting characters delivered at least a good performance, if not great. One star. Visually stunning. Expect to see some technical Oscars for this one. Two stars. While the pretty much used canon as a doormat, they tried to keep all the characters except Bane true to themselves. One star. I thought Joseph Gordon-Levitt was a really good choice to introduce as a new character, and his role added a lot to the story. One star. The action was pretty impressive all around (not to mention brutal), especially any fight between Bane and Batman. One star. Overall entertaining as hell. Two stars. Total: twelve stars.
The black holes. Long, long movie with non-action portions that seemed to really mire the plot down. Pacing could have been tightened up a lot. One black hole. The main villain was pretty damned boring, which I am going to ascribe to breaking too far away from canon. One black hole. Bane’s voice. One black hole. The story was very much overly convoluted, with myriad sub plots that seemed to go no where. Too much source material in my opinion. One black hole. Some off putting continuity issues, and characters that disappeared for a while. One black hole. Total: five black holes.
A grand total of seven stars. Decently good, and well worth watching. I will put this one on par with Batman Returns but well below The Dark Knight. It is a good ending to the trilogy, but I honestly did not walk away with the sense of satisfaction I had hoped to have. Should you see it? Absolutely. Spend a few extra bucks on IMAX. This is a must see for any Batman fan and a should see for everyone else. Just don’t expect to be riveted to the seat by a Heath Ledger like performance. Date movie? Only in the sense that even women should see this film. There is nothing going on here that will encourage her to take off her clothes with you, and having you geek out next to her might actually hurt your chances. See it with your friends IMO. I think you will enjoy it more. Bathroom break? Pretty much anywhere in the first 45 minutes would be fine, but if you are looking for a time later in the film I would say any of the the first two climbing out of the pit attempts. You will know what I mean. Not only is Nolan joining the “excitement through repetition” crowd but that whole sub plot adds absolutely nothing to the story except for more continuity issues.
Thanks for reading, and sorry I couldn’t gush more about this film. It was good but not gush-worthy. Worth seeing for sure, but honestly I don’t think I am motivated to see in in a theater a second time. I’d actually rather go see the Avengers again. Follow me on Twitter @NerdKungFu. Feel free to post comments about this movie or review here. Any off topic comments or suggestions can go to [email protected]. Talk to you soon.
Dave
Savages Movie Review
Scarface meets Fast Times at Ridgemont High.
I am torn on this movie. I am an Oliver Stone fan (for the most part. We don’t need to talk about Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps or U-Turn) and can see some high quality elements in this film that could be interpreted as highly competent movie making. However, this film is a study in contrast in that for every element that seems good there is an equal and opposite element that has to suck. 
It’s like Stone is the engineer on a ship in Star Trek and has to keep the matter and anti matter engines in perfect balance (Scotty image courtesy of the Star Trek T Shirts category).
The film is of course a brutal and violent drug drama, with lots of blood and torture. However, the contrast to that is that the drug in question is marijuana. I’m sure there are some bad M-F-ers in the pot dealership world, but when I think of pot growers and dealers all I can see is a bunch of guys sitting on a couch sucking on their bong, eating pizza, and playing Xbox (which is literally how I have found every pot dealer on the planet), especially given the fact that it is more or less legal here in California. I’m sorry but I just cannot take the pot trade seriously enough to think of it as worthy of multiple decapitations. In my mind it’s like if you did a high powered finance drama centered around competing rings of lemonade stands. Even the drug use seems tame. The main characters are sparking up every ten minutes but seem coherent and prone to violence as ever. You just can’t compare that to Scarface sticking his head in a mountain of coke and then saying “Say hello to my little friend”.
The characters are all cartoonish exaggerations of every character you have ever seen in every movie ever. This actually works extremely well in the form of a few of the supporting characters (Benicio del Toro and John Travolta in particular) but makes all the main characters all seem flat and uninteresting. Blake Lively is the flattest of the two dimensional plot devices, pretty much playing the super hot stoner chick every high school pot dealer one day dreams of meeting. She acts stoned and happy when times are good and stoned and uphappy when things are bad. That’s pretty much it. Of the two male leads Taylor Kitsch is the next least interesting. His character is a burned out homicidal war vet who learns nothing, develops nothing, and does nothing besides shoot, stab, or blow up things.
Of the three Aaron Johnson’s character is both the most believable and most interesting character. He is the brains and pretty much plays the intellectual pot head to a T. However, as the story progresses he is called upon to do more and more horrible things to people that he would never do given an choice and thus actually develops as a character (albeit in a pretty negative direction).
Anyway, the three way romance that is supposed to be the driving motivation behind their actions felt like I was watching a documentary on the mating habits of a creature from another planet who’s entire chemistry is based on chlorine. The supporting characters (mostly villains) were all in their own way brilliant yet at the same time laughably comical. I can honestly say all the best scenes were ones that did not have the main characters in them. The pacing alternated between light speed and trying to push your out-of-gas 1979 Ford Thunderbird when you have forgotten to take the parking brake off. ***SPOILER ALERT*** The story itself was both wonderfully and overly complicated (at one point John Travolta asks Benicio del Toro “Do you understand?” in reference to some new plot twist and I found myself honestly answering “No, not really”) yet after delivering what seemed like a really cool and convoluted ending pulled a completely different and infinity stupider ending out of the dankest regions of the writers ass.
By the way, the movie is based on a 2010 novel by Dan Winslow. I mention that only because 85% of the plot is delivered to us by Blake Lively in a dead to the world monotone monolog that sounds suspiciously like listening to books on tape. I have always found a monolog painfully intrusive (which is why the final cut for Blade Runner will always be the best version) and this one not only breaks the fourth wall but then backs up and defiles its corpse. It seemed every time I started to get into what was going on plot-wise there is Blake again (whom we had just seen on screen crying for pot) to jerk us out of the story. Sorry Oliver, but a running monolog is a lazy movie makers tool in my opinion.
Another review where I go 800 words without actually talking about the story. Ben (Aaron Johnson-Kick Ass, the Illusionist, Nowhere Boy) is a botanist and Chon (Taylor Kitsch-Battleship, John Carter, X-Men Origins) is his high school friend turned ex military sociopath. Apparently they grow the worlds greatest pot (33% THC? Is that even possible? I would think that any plant, even pot, would have to have stuff like chloroform). They share a sexual relationship with their personal narrator O (ever watch the Story of O? 70’s porn at its best. Anyway, Blake Lively-Gossip Girl, Green Lantern, the Town) that puts the fun into dysfunctional. They are approached by a Mexican drug cartel led by Elena (Salma Hayek-Frida, Desperado, Once Upon a Time in Mexico) who want to partner up. When they plan to abandon everything they have spent years building the cartel sends bad ass hit man Lado (Benicio del Toro-Snatch, Traffic, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, the Usual Suspects) to kidnap O.
At that point the boys agree to the cartel’s demands but secretly start to screw with Elena by hitting her operations. They are sort of assisted by corrupt DEA agent Dennis (John Travolta-Pulp Fiction, Face Off, Greece) who has his own agenda. Fairly predictable betrayals and plot twists surface like stunned fish after dropping a stick of dynamite into the water. Stuff gets blown up, guys get killed (often in horrific ways) and a really dumb ending forms out of the dregs of the script.
The stars. The story was pretty good until the last ten minutes. One star. Benicio Del Toro was pretty awesome. One star. So was John Travolta as the weasel DEA agent. One star. The violence and action was embedded deep in the R rating zone and benefited from it. (By the way, I’m not going to black hole them for this as there are plenty of other things to hit them with, but if you are going for rated R throw in more than the most minimal nudity. If you are going to this hoping to see Blake Lively nude prepare for bitter disappointment) One star. The character development evinced by Ben was relatively interesting and added a something to the story. One star. In spite of the laughable nature of the pot trade (sorry, but all I can see is Cheech and Chong tooling around in a truck made of pot) and the comical nature of some of the characters the story itself made a lot of sense and was compelling (again, up until the end). One star. Overall reasonably good. One star. Total: seven stars.
The black holes. It is true that I groan a lot when I am seeing movies, but when the stupid part of the movie ending surfaced literally the entire audience groaned with me. One black hole. The main characters were flat and for the most part kind of uninteresting. One black hole. The continuous monolog alternated between driving me nuts and putting me to sleep. One black hole. Speaking of sleeping, parts of the movie could give Ambien real competition. One black hole. I found many parts of this film really hard to identify with (three way romance, for one) and also can’t figure out which character I was supposed to identify with. By the end I actually had more sympathy for Salma Hayek’s character. One black hole. Total: five black holes.
A grand total of two stars. Pretty mediocre for an Oliver Stone film. I suppose this should be taken with a grain of salt if only because the entire film was based on the cultural toxic waste dump of my childhood: Southern California beach towns. These communities support culture only in the way a Petri dish does and in my opinion give every country that hates America a legitimate reason to do so. However, while that might have colored my perceptions somewhat I really tried to view the movie on it’s own merits and for the most part stand by my review. Worth seeing? Sure. The supporting characters alone make this movie watchable. Benicio Del Toro and John Travolta steal any scene they are in and make for a decent viewing experience. None of the camera work demands a large screen so feel free to NetFlix it. Date movie? Nope. Super violent, with some horrific scenes that had me cringing in my seat. Plus no real romance to latch on to and the female protagonist had all the plot bearing of a World of Warcraft quest item. Bathroom break? Pretty much any scene involving the main characters where they weren’t blowing stuff up. If I had to choose I would go for the second scene with the finance guy, where they are trying to interpret all the data Dennis gave them. Not a lot going on there.
Thanks for reading. I am home form Comic Con and am back into full on movie mode. I have tickets for the midnight showing of the new Dark Knight tomorrow night and am really excited. When I find the time I will write about my Comic Con experiences, although I didn’t see a lot that wasn’t right outside of my booth. Follow me on Twitter @Nerdkungfu. If you have a comment on this movie or my review feel free to post it here. If you have an off topic question or suggestion feel free to email me at [email protected]. Talk to you soon.
Dave
The Amazing Spider-Man Review
Can someone please explain to me why this movie was made?
I’m not saying it was bad (I’m also not saying it was good. Like so many movies lately it qualifies as entertaining and not a whole lot more). I’m just saying that the best term to use in describing this movie is unnecessary. It doesn’t add anything to the Spider-Man story as told by Sam Raime 10 years ago. It is a reboot, but not truly a reimagining. It doesn’t come up with anything new or exciting. That acting is not any better. The special effects are superior (after 10 years I would be shocked if they weren’t improved) but the action scenes are significantly less exciting or well shot. Overall it’s just another Spider-Man movie that will fade into the mishmash of other mediocre comic book movies like an Alka Seltzer tablet dropped into a toilet bowl.
(Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man image courtesy of the Marvel Comic T Shirt category)
It’s really hard to do a review about a franchise reboot without comparing it to the first film and since today is the 4th of July and I have a BBQ to get to I’m not even going to try. Honestly, this film, while better technologically, is not as good as the first Tobey MacGuire film. Sorry fan boys. There it is.
There are a few other words that could be used to describe this movie. I suppose I have to give them competent. The movie is competently made in the same way you expect your dentist to fill your cavity competently. You would be shocked if he was incompetent and drilled the wrong tooth, or slipped and drilled a hole into your brain. However, would you want to go to a tattoo artist who was merely competent? Obviously competence would be a requirement for a good tattoo artist, but I would want someone both creative and artistic, with the ability to come up with something amazing that I had not thought of myself. For a hallowed franchise such as Spider-Man competence is not enough. There are no glaring plot holes, bad direction, or bad acting. Just nothing mind blowing.
Another term I would use to describe this story is glossed over. Every aspect of the Spider-Man story felt rushed and glossed over. The spider bite? Glossed over. Remember how in the first one Peter Parker spent a lot of time trying to even figure out how to use his powers? They sort of did that here but rushed through it and kind of, well, glossed it over. Ben Parkers death and the dramatic effect it had on Peter Parker? Glossed over and hardly mentioned. Development of a villain to fight? Glossed over. The action scene were brief, glossed over, and felt included out of a sense of obligation rather than a desire to make an action film (I liken it to my mom forcing me to bring my little sister along to everything as a kid). Even the romance between Peter Parker and Gwen Stacy, which seemed to dominate the screen time, felt stunted and malnourished. Critical aspects of it was seriously glossed over. I hate myself for saying this, but I found myself missing Kirstin Dunst as Mary Jane Parker. At least she and Tobey MacGuire had some on screen chemistry and the romance was allowed to develop organically. Here the romance is shoved on the screen and we are told they love each other but not offered any real evidence. The movie feels like they took every minor story from the Spider-Man canon and trimmed off all the corners in order to fit them all into a single 136 minute film. The funny thing is Sam Raime did the same thing and managed to come up with a great movie. Here it all just feels rushed and abbreviated.
Another term I could use here is enhanced, and I don’t mean it in a good way. The only time they really did anything different from the Sam Raime version is in making Peter Parker a super stud even before the spider bite. One of the greatest thing about Spider-Man is Peter Parker was pretty much a mundane “every man” before gaining his powers. In this film instead of being an awkward nerd about to graduate high school he is a good looking, skateboard riding, fashionable, scientific genius, contacts wearing hipster-esque dreamboat. There is none of the “Peter Parker coming of age” development that so aided the first couple movies (emo Peter Parker in the last one kind of derailed that aspect pretty badly).
A final word I will use to describe this movie is predictable. I don’t think I need to explain it any further.
Anyway, I could go on but won’t. Here is the story: Peter Parker gets bit by a genetically enhanced spider. Now go rent the 2002 Spider Man and you are good to go. Substitute Dr. Curtis Conner for Norman Osborne, the Lizard for the Green Goblin, Gwen Stacy for Mary Jane (blond for red head, basically), and Police Captain Stacy for J. Johah Jamison. Add in some odd ball continuity issues (how is it Peter Parker’s dad’s glasses are exactly Peters prescription?) and cut out a lot of the cooler story aspect in order to make more room for awkward chemistry-less romance. Get rid of the huge sweeping camera shots that made Spider Man swinging through NYC so cool and instead use the camera quick cut editing that has plagued movies for the last five years for everything that even smells like action. Throw in a grandiose evil villain plot that makes little sense and you are done.
By the way, a few weeks ago I posted a discussion as to why TWOK is the best of the Star Trek movies that I think applies to this movie in comparing it to the Sam Raimi one. If you recall, in the first movie the Green Goblin was more or less motivated to keep his company from being sold out from under him and then to either recruit Spider Man or destroy him. There was a personal and believable motivation that worked extremely well in conjunction with a well developed villain. In this movie Dr. Conners seems to have no real motivation for what his sceme is, and instead of having an axe to grind with Spider Man he has some dumb plan to save humanity by destroying it. The scope of the story actually hurts itself. Movies are always better when there is a personal reason for the antagonist to go after the protagonist. As soon as you expand his (or her) animosity to include the faceless unwashed masses of humanity you stop caring. As an audience we need to connect with a character and care about what happens to him or her. There isn’t enough caring to be had for the entire population of New York City.
Another issue I had was something Jason brought up a while ago about Spider Man running around without his mask on. In the comics he was religious about always wearing the mask. He never, ever ran around in the suit without it, to the point that even as a zombie he always wore the mask and talked about how it reminded him of his humanity. In this movie he couldn’t find enough excuses to take off the mask while wearing the suit. It’s like someone filled it with itching powder.
Finally, there were some real inconsistencies with regards to Spider Man’s powers. Did he have spidey sense or not? Sometimes it seemed like he did, like when he had to dodge bullets fired from three feet away. Other times he couldn’t sense a bus coming at him. Can he cling to buildings or not? He seems to do it all the time but then at the end needs someone to save him and haul his ass up the side of a building. When you see it you will understand.
Sigh. The stars. Comic book movie. Two stars. I am a Spider Man fan and will give it a bonus star for that. One star. No real glaring plot holes. One star. In spite of the difficulty in generating chemistry, I thought almost all of the acting was pretty well done. One star. I am a huge Emma Stone fan (Crazy, Stupid Love, Zombieland, the Help). I wasn’t really digging her as a blond but still. One star. CGI and special effects were nigh flawless. One star. Overall I was generally entertained and felt I got my money’s worth. Two stars. Total: nine stars.
The black holes. Somehow not quite getting the story right IMO. One black hole. Very limited action, and what action there was felt purposefully shortened and rushed through. One black hole. The whole “glossing over” of so much of the canon. One black hole. Peter Parker as the cool kid. One black hole. It feels weird calling a movie derivative when it pretty much clones the original. I guess I will have to say I am awarding a black hole for lack of imagination or vision. One black hole. Finally, one more for creating a totally unnecessary film. This is basically the appendix of movies. One black hole. Total: six black holes.
A grand total of three stars, which in my mind is a terrible score for a comic book movie. The Avengers scored a total of nine stars, and in my opinion is pretty much exactly three times as good. I still want to see the Avengers a second time, and honestly would not see this one again. Should you see it once? Sure, why not? It’s not bad, and you will probably enjoy it. However, a year from now it will have faded into the background. Overall it seems made more for kids that adults, and the kids in the audience seemed to love it (especially the little rug rat next to me who spilled his drink all over the floor, ruining my popcorn and more or less screaming through the first 30 minutes of the film until his dad had to take him out. Kids are generally cool, but parents generally suck). See it on a big screen, and honestly this is one of the few movies I am going to recommend you see in 3D. Seems like most of the action was designed to go better in 3D. Date movie? I supposed. This is another one that will neither enhance nor inhibit your campaign to get her into bed with you. Bathroom break? Dead easy. The dinner scene with Peter, Gwen, and her family is 100% worthless filler. The first time you see Peter Parker tap on Gwen’s window feel free to cut out, use the restroom, check your email, make a couple phone calls, and chat with the theater manager for five minutes.
By the way, during the course of writing this review I found out an answer to my original question as to why they made this film. Turns out the Sony license for Spider Man requires them to produce a movie in a timely manner or else it reverts back to Marvel (Disney). They had to rush something out and opted to go with mediocre rather than good. Too bad.
Thanks for reading, and I’m truly sorry I couldn’t gush about this movie a little more. It’s not bad. It’s just not great. Follow me on Twitter @NerdKungFu.com. I don’t know if I am going to have time to see a lot of films this week as I am getting ready for Comic Con. If you have comments on this movie or my review feel free to post them here. If you have off topic questions or suggestions email me at [email protected]. Have a great 4th of July! Talk to you soon.
Dave
Ted Movie Review
Pretty damned funny.
As a fan of Family Guy and American Dad I have to say I was expecting to laugh at this movie and was not disappointed. Seth MacFarlane is a comedic genius. However, his genius is definitely more of the idiot savant variety in that he seems incapably of doing anything other than Family Guy and it’s clones, of which this movie is definitely one. While not as completely derivative as American Dad is (pretty much the same show with moderately different characters IMO) the humor in Ted is more or less lifted straight from the writers room for Family Guy.
What does this mean for this movie? Basically if you are a fan of Family Guy you will love this movie, and if you are not you might as well stay home and watch Law and Order reruns. Fortunately I and almost all my friends are fans so we enjoyed it.
There are a few problems I am having with the film however. The first is the same issue I have with any of the Transformers movie: too much humans, not enough robots (or in this case teddy bear). In this movie every scene with Ted in it was hilarious and engrossing, and every scene with just the humans boring and drag-tastic. I thought Mark Wahlberg and Mila Kunis did a fine job with the roles they were handed, but the comedic focus was so on Ted that in comparison a scene without him was like watching a 2nd grade play performed by the children of complete strangers. The story and dialog outside of Ted was tenuous and flaccid at best, and without his lines and actions pushing the plot there were parts where I was in serious danger of dozing off.
The other issue I had I blame on the marketing team behind this movie. All the best lines and jokes from the movie I had already heard about 20 times in assorted trailers and radio commercials. In fact, if you have seen more than a couple trailers odds are you know exactly the plot, characters, and best jokes.
All that being said, the movie is indeed super funny and entertaining. Mark Wahlberg managed to generate a stronger buddy chemistry with Ted than I have seen from a lot of movies featuring actual human actors. Mila Kunis is shockingly easy to look at and plays the offended girlfriend very well. There were a couple other characters who really only served to push the story along, but they were kind of funny too. The dialog (with Ted involved) is fast, clever, outrageous, offensive, and above all hilarious.
The story. As a boy John (Mark Wahlberg-Boogie Nights, Contraband, the Fighter) wished his teddy bear to life and it actually happened. Fast forward to adulthood and John now has a dead end loser job at a car rental place and Ted sits on his couch smoking pot, drinking alcohol, and regularly consorting with prostitutes. In spite of the fact that he is a class one stoner loser John has the hottest girlfriend in the history of the XX chromosome Lori (Mila Kunis-Black Swan, Friends with Benefits, the voice of Meg on Family Guy. P.S. Mila I love you). They all live together until Lori comes home to find her apartment overrun with prostitutes who have performed a number of unsavory acts on the premises. She drops the ultimatum hammer on John who caves (as any guy should when faced with Mila). They set up Ted with an apartment and a job, where he meets his new girlfriend. Meanwhile Ted is being stalked by a couple of creepy white trash fans (Giovanni Ribisi-Saving Private Ryan, Contraband, Avatar and Aedin Mincks-the Hangover Part II, Faster) who later actually give the plot some points to hang onto.
Honestly, the entire plot serves only as a platform upon which Ted can deliver his offensive, obscene, scatological, sacrilegious, and above all funny lines and actions. It moves along like the sober driver of a party bus while the frat boys in the back drink, fart, laugh, puke, and moon cars out the window.
The stars. Honestly very funny. I mean hurt-your-stomach-laughing funny. Two stars. The dialog and jokes were all extremely clever and well written. Two stars. Excellent dialog. One star. The CGI for Ted was pretty flawless. One star. I’m going to give Mark Wahlberg extra props for his ability to act without an actual character to interact with. The fight scene was particularly good (and funny). One star. 
If I had to spend the rest of my life locked in a chair with my eyes clamped open a Clockwork Orange style and had to look at one face forever, I would choose Mila Kunis. One star. (Alex image courtesy of the Movie T Shirts category) I will give acting props to both Mark and Mila for their interaction and dialog with Ted. Excellent chemistry, although their Ted-less scenes were less than riveting. One star. Somehow, in spite of the fact that all the jokes and humor came from the “rated R just to be rated R” school that I have railed against in movies like the Change Up, I found the humor to be really well done. I guess fart and excrement humor can be funny if it it done right. One star. Total: 10 stars.
The black holes. Scenes without Ted really kind of sucked. Like having to eat boiled spinach in between bites of delicious pasta. One black hole. Pacing was inconsistent. Sometimes the story dragged, other times it accelerated to warp speed. One black hole. The entirety of the plot was nothing more than a framework for Ted to deliver one liners. One black hole. Total: three black holes.
A grand total of seven stars, and my hearty endorsement of seeing this film. I think you will enjoy it a lot. It is nice to finally come across a movie I can say go see after the never ending deluge of mediocrity that has been the last few months of movies. Date movie? God no. Unless you are in a committed relationship and have already seen her naked on three or more different occasions this movie will c-block you like having her ex boyfriend turn out to be the waiter at dinner. See it with your drinking buddies. Bathroom break? That’s easy. There is a scene where John and Lori go to dinner and discuss their feelings and what to do about Ted that is 100% worthless. Nothing is revealed that will in any way contribute to your enjoyment of the movie.
Thanks for reading. This movie was fun. I’m seeing the Amazing Spider Man later today and will probably write it up tonight. I would have seen it this last weekend but was busy getting pissed off at a Warhammer tournament. Follow me on Twitter @NerdKungFu. If you have any comments on this film or review feel free to post them here. If you have any off topic questions or comments email me at [email protected]. Have a great day.
Dave
