Wanderlust Movie Reviews
Two good comedies rolled into one decent one.
As I evolve as a critic and learn more and more about the film industry I discover things I never really realized as a simple movie goer. One is that any recent movie featuring Ron Perlman, in spite of his appeal as an actor, is likely to suck. Another is that post Holiday movie releases are the runts of the Hollywood litter. This is where films that movie makers are not really 100% sure are going to hit are relegated, each trying to be the big fish in a very small and murky pond. Never was that more apparent to me than last week when I had to sit through This Means War, Journey 2: Mysterious Island, and Ghost Rider Spirit of Vengeance.
However, that is not to say you can’t find decent films. They do appear. Unfortunately finding them is akin to having to go through your bowel movements to locate the gold tooth you accidentally swallowed. The film I did yesterday, Act of Valor, was decent as an action film (at least for those of us not interested in the tertiary aspects of films, such as story or acting), and, to my surprise, Wanderlust had me laughing quite a bit.
Let me say a few words about the main star of this film, Jennifer Aniston. I am a fan of hers, and not just because she has a face that breaks my heart and a body most 20 year olds would kill for. I saw her years ago in The Good Girl and realized she actually is fully capable as an actress. She is, in fact, talented in my opinion. I keep expecting her to make something worthy of an Oscar sometime soon. Unfortunately she doesn’t seem to be capable of finding the right script, as her participation in the horrible film Horrible Bosses shows. While I would term her performance in that role exactly what it called for, it was not a good vehicle for demonstrating your acting ability.
This film is better. There will be no Oscar buzz surrounding it, but at least I found it entertaining. She manages to demonstrate a nice range of acting ability while delivering comedy in a believable and realistic manner (much like a certain TV show about a close group of companions she used to be a cast member for). However, I will take issue with the fact that she filmed a topless scene that at the last minute she had them take out. The parts that are shown are pixelated, and that is a tragedy on the order of washing your new car only to discover what you thought was soap is actually paint remover.
Speaking of nudity, there was a lot of it in this film. Unfortunately the vast majority of it involved swinging man dong. What little else there was seemed to be all older women. This movie definitely earned it’s R rating, but not from nudity. Next time cast a hot girl willing to take her top off IMO.
OK, enough of my crude machismo. Let’s get into the movie. George (Paul Rudd-Parks and Rec, Dinner for Schmucks, Our Idiot Brother) is a corporate drone slaving away in NYC. His wife Linda (Jennifer Aniston-Friends, Office Space, the Iron Giant) is a woman who has yet to find her calling in life and has a laundry list of careers. Her most recent project was to make a documentary about penguins with testicular cancer, which she describes as “Happy Feet meets An Uncomfortable Truth” in a scene with some HBO executives that I found cuttingly hilarious. Her film gets rejected by HBO and George gets fired shortly after buying a tiny studio apartment. They lose the home and have to drive to Georgia to live with George’s crude, abusive older brother (Ken Marino-Gattica, Role Models, the Ten. He also has a writing credit on this film) and his alcoholic desperate housewife Marissa (Worst Enemy, the Back Up Plan, Parenthood). The drive itself is a kind of brilliant road trip/married couple montage that I felt was really well done. Along the way they try to stop at the Elesium Bed and Breakfast. While driving in they run into nudist Wayne (Joe Lo Truglio-Childrens Hospital, Role Models, Gullivers Travels. By the way, expect to see a lot of this guy in the movie, if you know what I mean) and wreck their car trying to get away from him. They end up at the B&B only do discover it is some kind of hippy commune (sorry-intentional community). They spend a magical night of happiness and free spirit (and pot). The next day they end up at the brothers house, where after a memorable day of abuse opt to go back and join the hippies.
At that point they kind diverge down separate spiritual pathways. The local hippy guru Seth (Justin Theroux-his IMDB page is broken. Justin, you might want to look into that. I do know he was in Zoolander) has the hots for Linda and works to seperate the two in a very passive aggressive manner. 
The founder of the community is none other than the great Alan Alda (Mash, Tower Heist. Mash image courtesy of the TV Show T Shirt category) who is a bit eclectic but very entertaining. There is some drama about the community losing it’s land so a developer can build a casino on it, but that is really secondary to the main story. Eventually George and Linda’s disparate interest create strife in their marriage. Hippy commune hijinks ensues. A lot more male genitalia than I generally like to see on a Saturday night is shown.
So what is my issue with this movie? Why am I not blaring it’s praises from the mountaintop? Well, mainly because there seem to have been two different comedy writers working in separate rooms on this film. The first thinks that insightful, sardonic wit and social commentary are the way to rock. The second is from the Change Up school of comedy writing and thinks the key to big laughs is excrement jokes and graphic birthing scenes. The two writing style kept shifting back and forth without warning. It was like watching TV with your significant other who seems enthralled by two different shows and changes channels back and forth constantly. The problem is both writers are right. During the fart and sex humor half the audience was laughing uproariously while the other half was cringing, and during the sophisticated humor the other half was chuckling appreciatively while the first half was scratching their heads in confusion and turning to groom the fleas out of their neighbors fur.
Anyway, the stars. Extremely talented cast all around who worked well together. Two stars. Decent story, if somewhat ripped off from a bunch of other “let’s join the hippies” movies. At least I didn’t feel it offending my intelligence. One star. A rated R comedy that didn’t just throw in a bunch of rated R junk to be like The Hangover. One star. Jennifer Aniston is super hot, as was another girl in this film (Malin Akerman-the Watchmen, the Heartbreak Kid, the Proposal). One star. Alan Alda. One star. There were a few scenes in particular, such as the driving montage and the HBO presentation, that I thought could be described as brilliant. One star. Overall surprisingly entertaining. Two stars. Total: nine stars.
The black holes. The whole “two writers” issue I bitched about earlier. One black hole. The writer who kept on sticking in the excrement humor really should have been fired. The film did not really need a lot of that sort of thing and honestly it detracted from the overall film. One black hole. The entirety of the drama for the main and secondary story goes more or less unresolved until the final ending montage, when conclusions are pulled from deep inside the writers ass. One black hole. Way too much male nudity. One black hole. Jennifer Aniston pulling her topless scene out at the last minute. Doesn’t she realize I have been waiting 15 years to see that? One black hole. Total: five black holes.
A grand total of four stars. Not bad for a rom com in my opinion, and since a lot of my black holes are related to either too much or not enough nudity if you have a different perspective on those issues you would probably rate this a little higher. Definitely worth your time, at least for this time of the year. Really good date movie as well, as the romance aspects actually seems to work well (I assume. I went solo as per usual). Nothing in the filming really seems to require a big screen, so feel free to wait for NetFlix if you are so inclined.
Thanks for reading. I am going to try to see Gone later tonight. Something in the trailers for that one have made me think it is going to suck, but I will try to enter into it free of preconceived notions. Follow me on Twitter @Nerdkungfu. Feel free to tweet me there or send an email to [email protected]. You can also post comments here and if you don’t cuss and have a relevant point I will most likely approve it. Thanks again. Talk to you soon.
Dave
Act of Valor Movie Review
Kind of lame, but at the same time kind of awesome.
I have been looking forward to this film, mainly due to the trailers being really kick ass. They made it look like the kind of realistic action we never get to see in movies these days where the standard formula is one guy capable of taking on and killing wave after wave of evil henchmen, beating them all the death with the spine of the first no’er-do-well to cross his path. In this movie the good guys, while highly trained and extremely professional, are not bullet proof and are fully capable of being killed, which in a great way makes the action really, really good. The action scenes are shot and edited in a way that really puts you in the scene, and you feel honest to goodness excitement as each mission progresses.
I also wanted to see this as I, like most Americans these days, have a ton of respect for the military men and women of our country in general and of the SEALs in particular and hoped this movie would show their bravery and dedication, which for the most part it did. This film played out like a Navy recruitment film, and like Top Gun did back in 1986 and they should see a nice surge of recruits over the next few months. Since this film was innitiated not in Hollywood but by the Pentagon PR office, I guess this all makes sense. So in part I was very happy and satisfied with the film.
That being said, the first mission the SEAL team should have gone on was to take out script writer Kurt Johnson (300, the Last Photograph, True Vengence, although this film is his only story writing credit, and probably his last) as the script and story was some of the most half assed, hackneyed, cliche garbage I have ever seen. Honestly, the Pentagon should have farmed this idea out to an established studio as the amateurish stench wafts from the screen like they store dead fish behind it. 
The cartoonish main villain (Jason Cottle-Wag the Dog, the Wedding Singer, Cthulu (Miskatonic U image courtesy of the Funny T Shirt category)) seems to be evil just for the sake of being evil, starting the movie off with a horrific act of terrorism (by the way, this movie earns its R rating the hard way) but without a shred of explanation as to why except for the fact that he is pissed about something. It is implied that he is against America for occupying Islamic countries, but since he is Chechnyan I had a hard time seeing the connection. I’m sure the motivation makes total sense to guys in the Pentagon privy to inside information about possible terrorist connections, but honestly I think the average American needs to see a motivation slightly more complex than “I want to blow stuff up because I am angry and have a scar on face”. Also, if you are like me be be sure to play the “Guess who’s going to die on the last mission” game. You won’t find it terribly challenging.
The entire story reads less like a movie and a lot more like the plot a first person shooter video game such as Call of Duty: Modern Warfare, with each hot action sequence being connected by only the most tenuous and and roundabout connections. Again, I am sure if I were more familiar with top secret Intelligence community tactics and deductive reasoning I might have been better able to understand how they moved from some third world village (still not sure what country that one was) to assaulting a multi million dollar yacht. The plot was pretty much obligatory and included apparently under protest only to connect the assorted action scenes showing the SEAL team in action. Also, while I don’t want to be the one to call out the rampant xenophobia in this plot, it seemed like we were attacking pretty much every Third World country EXCEPT Arab countries. Somehow the scriptwriters, in an attempt to not alienate the countries known for actively supporting terrorism, managed to find excuses for the SEALs to fight against people in the Philippines, Mexico, West Africa, Russia, Chechnya, and some other ill defined country. The underlying message of the film seems to be “If you aren’t American you suck” and that message is delivered with bullets.
As for the real life active duty SEAL team members staring in this film, let me say that while I have never ending admiration for their bravery, dedication, and skill they were not recruited by the Navy for their acting ability. Every scene that did not involved them shooting someone or sitting in a briefing room going over a mission to shoot someone felt like everyone was acting while covered in (and had their mouths full of) slowly hardening Elmer’s Glue. I actually hold both them and the director blameless for this, as they all had to work with what they were given. The problem arises when the non-SEAL team characters show up and interact with them. They were all played by professional actors and the disparity in delivery made it seem like I was watching Citizen Cain spliced together with Plan 9 From Outer Space. The acting from the professional actors was what I would have called fairly mediocre in another film, but by comparison it seemed Oscar worthy.
Anyway, the story. Again, if you have ever played a modern FPS video game you have seen it. I don’t even feel the need to get into the details. SEAL Team 7 bounces from country to country rescuing kidnapped CIA agents, trying to capture known terrorist, and stopping terrorists from blowing up Las Vegas. The main terrorist is the Chechnyan turned Muslim Muhammad Abu Shabal (Jason Cottle). He is supported by his childhood friend, Russian gangster and blatantly stereotyped (as the avaricious Jew) Christo and a gang of Philippino suicide bombers (???). Their hobbies include blowing up schoolchildren and torturing women, so obviously the writers felt OK with topsoil level character depth. There is a subplot about one of the SEAL team’s wife about to have a baby, and some social interactive social scenes between the SEALs that will make you wish you actually were playing a video game. The entirely of the plot really only serves to move us from (really freaking good) action scene to action scene.
The stars. The action was unbelievably good and brought a level of excitement entirely missing form most mainstream movies. Three stars. It was interesting as hell to see how the SEALs operate, and since this movie was made by the military and stared real SEALs I can only assume it was 100% accurate. Two stars. I like a movie that doesn’t hesitate to show good guys eating bullets too. All the best heroes are mortal. One star. They didn’t dumb things down for the audience and over explain things. They kept the military jargon and operational tactics real and didn’t bother to explain what was going on the lame civilians such as I, which actually made the movie more interesting and made me pay more attention (what the hell is a QRF? Some kind of vehicle designation?). One star. Overall a lot of fun to watch. Two stars. Total: nine stars.
The black holes. Acting so wooden it might have been delivered by Disney Animatronics. One black hole. A story plot that looked like it had been ripped off from any number of other weak plots and then dashed down on a roll of toilet paper in a mens room while the writer was dealing with an extended bout of diarrhea. Two black holes. Very weak character motivation and depth. One black hole. Xenophobia that was kind of embarrassing. One black hole. Total: five black holes.
A total of four stars. Not bad, really. This movie sells itself on the action and so, if you are an action person, or like realistic movies about elite soldiers, or are just into the military, then by all means see this film on the biggest screen you can find. If you aren’t into those things then odds are you will be OK waiting for NetFlix. Definitely not a good date movie, as there is not a lot of meat here for the average woman and some of the scenes that earned the R rating will really put her off her feed, if you know what I mean.
Thanks for reading. I have a tournament coming up next weekend and have hit that horrible point where I suddenly realize I need to get four more figures painted, so that will be most of my weekend. I will try to see Wanderlust tonight and review it tomorrow morning, although already I am bitter about that film as I heard Jennifer Aniston shot a nude scene and at the last minute made them take it out. Boo, I say. If I have time tomorrow I will see Gone, but for some reason my early warning suck radar is blaring at me on that one. Follow me on Twitter @NerdKungFu. I don’t post a lot, so you know each one is a gem. Feel free to post a comment here or send me an email at [email protected] if you have specific suggestion or questions. Have a great day. Talk to you soon.
Dave
The 10 Scariest Clowns of All Time
So last week Jason was giving me crap for being scared of clowns when he was talking about the new Twisted Metal movie. Personally I don’t really see this as a weird phobia or mental condition at all. For any rational, thinking person clowns are freaking evil! Although not as evil as their horrible cousins, mimes, they cause mayhem and despair wherever their tiny little cars and giant shoes go (by the way, if you happen to agree with me join the I Hate Clowns movement).
Fear of clowns is scientifically called coulrophobia, but I call it having a brain and survival instinct. I thought I would try to prove my point to Jason and all the other people who think I am weird for this and list my 10 Scariest Clowns of All Time.
10. Ronald McDonald-I think the first time I realized how evil clowns were was when I was a kid and visited a McDonald’s. Out front they had a park bench with a statue of Ronald with his arm out so you could sit down and take a picture like a moron or something. My friend sat there and all of a sudden I got the creepiest feeling ever. In looking back as an adult I realized that the pose and look was straight up child molester. However, if you want to count the evilness of clowns based on how much damage and despair they have brought upon the world, from a dietary point of view Ronald McDonald is the Hitler of clowns. How much garbage has he helped shovel into the waiting maws of future obese diabetics?
9. Violator from Spawn. The fat clown that turns into a horrid demon was bad enough in the movie, but trust me when I say he was way worse in the comic book.
8. the Joker-I am of course a Batman fan and the Joker is my second favorite villain (Two Face is my first). However, part of the reason he is such a good villain is he is horrible! I don’t care which one; Jack Nicholson, the cartoon, the comic, Heath Ledger, even Cesar Romero from the TV show. They are all scary as hell. (Joker image courtesy of the Batman T-Shirt category)
7. the clown doll from Poltergeist-ugh. Thank god I never saw this movie as a kid. I never would have slept again. This clown was scary as hell, kept showing up in unexpected places, and never spoke. Plus, it was a clown.
6. Sergio from the Last Circus-I don’t think any of you saw this Spanish film, but if you do and don’t suffer from coulrophobia, you will. In my mind clowns are scary sociopaths anyway, and to see one that actually is a sociopath is god awful.
5. the zombie clown from Zombieland-this is a nice convergence for my best friend and I. You see, I fear clowns and he fears zombies. Works out nicely. I think part of the reason I loved this movie is the main character shows the rational sense to have a healthy fear of the “c” word.
4. Captain Spaulding from the Devil’s Rejects and House of 1,000 Corpses-Rob Zombie learned early on how well clowns work in horror films with Halloween and put that experience to good use when he created this character. Talk about messed up.
3. the clowns from Killer Klowns from Outer Space-not only are they clowns, but they are from outer space, have huge freaking clown heads, and are here to capture humans in order to encase them in cotton candy and drink their fluids with a crazy straw! I saw this movie at a friends house and I think my hand print is still impressed on the armrest of his couch.
2. Sweet Tooth from Twisted Metal-yes, Jason used to make me play this game and always force me to watch the intro showing how Sweet Tooth came to be. Can you imagine anything scarier than a clown with glowing red eyes and flames for hair driving an ice cream truck armed with enough guns to sink a battleship? Well, actually I can since Sweet Tooth is only number 2 on my list.
1. Pennywise from Stephen King’s It-no, not the band. Only the scariest clown in the history of the universe, who spends his times killing children and not with laughter. Seeing this guy on screen might have been what pushed me over the top from being kind of creeped out by clowns to full blown terror.
Sorry, but Patch Adams didn’t quite make the list, although it was close. That’s pretty much it. I think I am going to see an indy film tonight, so look for a good review tomorrow. I need to go have a couple drinks and punch Jason in the head for making me relive all this. Post comments here or follow me on Twitter @NerdKungFu. You can also email me at [email protected]. Thanks for reading. Talk to you soon.
Dave
Journey 2: The Mysterious Island in 3D Review
The human race is collectively stupider for each child that watches this film.
I am in all ways a man of my word. I didn’t do as well as I had hoped at the Warhammer tournament and as I promised in punishment went last night and saw the Mysterious Island. This movie is actually one of the hardest for me to review, as from a cinema point of view it is the movie equivalent of blunt trauma to the head: painful and potentially brain damaging. However, as I scan a few other reviewers I respect the phrase “good for what it is” keeps cropping up like a returning herpes sore and I have to admit, taken in the context of “moronic entertainment for kids with a story that won’t have parents wanting to kill themselves” it definitely qualifies.
I did not see the first one but honestly, I don’t think I missed much. I have read a lot of Jules Verne and watched a lot of Scooby Doo, which seems to be the basis for this movie. The problem is of course how to review it? If I treat it like a kids movie I won’t have a lot to say. If I treat it like an adult movie (and based on how much the camera lingers over Venessa Hudgens (Sucker Punch, High School Musical) very skimpy outfit outfit an argument could be made that it is an adult film) I will be dumping all over it but be revealing to the world what a bitter and horrible soul I am at heart.
I think the answer is, like most bad comprises, to jump both ways. I will review it like a childs film but raise a lot of the points I would have raised if it were an adult film, thus creating more work for me but in truth probably writing something a little more entertaining. I will try to keep my complaints about the really, really, horrifically bad science to a minimum. 
Sufficed to say science and technology will have been set back 10 years when the generation of kids watching this film grows up to become scientists and have the items in this film rolling around in their subconscious (anyone else remember Idiocracy? Brawndo shirt image courtesy of the Movie T Shirt category).
So the story. Sean (Josh Hutcherson-American Splendor, the Kids are All Right, Journey to the Center of the Earth) hates his stepfather Hank (Dwayne Johnson (NOT the Rock)-Fast Five, the Rundown, the Scorpion King) and wants to decode a secret message in Jules Verne code from his missing grandfather Alexander (Micheal Caine-Batman Begins, the Dark Knight, The Prestige, Children of Men). Turns out Hank is a construction worker who also is an expert code breaker and he and Sean solve the complex code in about 14 seconds. It is a map and coordinates of a mysterious island of some kind out in the Pacific near the island of Palau, a small country who’s official language is happily English. In an attempt to bond with his stepson Hank agrees to take Sean out there to find this island. Once they land they find that the only person crazy enough to take them to “the most dangerous part of the oceon” is the incredibly goofy Gabato (Luis Guzman-Boogie Nights, Anger Management, Carlito’s Way) and his incredibly hot daughter Kailani (Vanessa Hudgens). They board the most decrepit helicopter in the history of aviation and in the 7th worst decision in the history of the world (after the decision to air the Star Trek episode Spock’s Brain but before M&M’s decision to not let their candy be featured in E.T., passing it over to Reeces Peices) opt to fly into the mother of all storms.
They crash, of course, and wash up on the beach of some mysterious seeming island completely uninjured. At that point the adventure begins and they travel the island, coming across many wonderfully stupid and impossible creatures (I know I said I would avoid bitching too much about the scientific impossibilities of the things in this film, but there is a phenomenon known as scaling and strength of materials that tells us why giant ants and tiny elephants couldn’t exist. For the most part they wouldn’t be able to breath). They find Alexander in about 2 minutes and it turns out they are all experts of one type or another in tectonic plate activity, biology, archeology, and jungle survival. They find out the island is sinking (and does so ever 140 years. Sorry to be a pill but do they really think an entire complex ecosystem can develop that quickly?) and have to get out. The only way to leave is to find the hidden Nautiless, the submarine from 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea left hidden on the island 140 years ago (again, sorry about this, but the fact is my dad once left a car on a driveway for two years and when he wanted to move it had to replace the battery, tires, and about half the hoses. I don’t think a 140 year old abandoned sub would really be seaworthy).
Anyway, from a child’s point of view this movie is fun, with cool giant creatures running around on and some funny, dopey dialog. Visually impressive, and will probably make a ton of money both here and overseas. I think what I object to in this and a lot of other children’s movies is the missed opportunity to enhance rather than degrade a young persons education. Would it have been so hard to write in a few actual scientific facts that were based on reality, thus making this film slightly more less worthless than the giant sodas sold at the concession stands? I understand that Jules Verne took a liberal hand when it came to science, but still. A movie for children should, in my opinion, have something other than empty calories. That being said the kids in the audience seemed to be loving it, and I can’t argue with that.
However, if I were to treat this as an adult film I would give the film the following stars and black holes:
Stars: Vanessa Hudgens is super hot, and the movie apparently had a limited wardrobe budget when it came time to buy her shorts as there wasn’t a lot of material in them. One star. Some entertaining moments between the characters, especially the dislike and needling that Hank and Alexander had at first for each other. One star. I am a big fan of Michael Caine. One star. The CGI and camera work, while not really state of the art, worked well together and delivered some pretty impressive images. Also this is one of the few movies I have seen wherein the 3D actually enhanced the film and didn’t just leave me with a headache (actually I was headache free from this. Weird). One star. Total: four stars.
The black holes. For the most part the characters were all pretty flat and two dimensional. One black hole. As a fan of science and technology I found concepts offered here to be really offensive, and hate to imagine teachers dealing with kids thinking that you can ride a giant bee in school for the next few weeks. Three black holes. I don’t know if I can call what I perceived as plot holes plot holes, as they all seemed to derive from the concept of “we are here to make really bad decisions” (for example: Alexander is trapped on the island and makes a radio out of coconuts or something. He can only transmit every two weeks and so when he has the chance he sends out his message in a code that only one human on the planet, assuming he is even listening, will understand. Why not just send out a regular SOS and get rescued? The castaways on Gilligan’s Island would have taken him out back and beaten him with a 2×4), but the plot holes were annoying the crap out of me. One black hole. For the most part the characters were all in a secret contest to see who could be the most annoying movie character of 2012 (Luis Guzman won IMO, although Dwayne Johnson was a close second). One black hole. At one point we are forced to listen to Dwayne Johnson sing while accompanied on a ukelele. One black hole. Total: seven black holes.
So a grand total of three black holes, which is shockingly less that I thought I would give walking into the movie, assuming I were treating it like an adult movie. Should you go see it? As an adult absolutely not. If you have kids they will probably enjoy the hell out of it, but understand that you are opening their brains to all kinds of oddball future theories, such as aliens, Bigfoot, the government orchestrated 9-11, flat tax is good for everyone, or creationism. Odds are pretty good you will want to own a copy as it will keep your rugrats out of your hair for 94 minutes.
Thanks for reading one of my most disjointed reviews. Not a lot of new stuff right now, but next weekend is looking really good. In particular I am looking forward to Acts of Valor and dreading Wanderlust. Follow me on Twitter @Nerdkungfu and feel free to post a comment here. If you don’t tweet and want to ask me something or make a suggestion privately email me [email protected] (email me in particular if you are in any way associated with an upcoming movie and want to invite me to an advanced screening in the Bay Area. I would like to get these out before they are released if possible. I promise I will buy popcorn and not text). Talk to you soon.
Dave
This Means War Movie Review
Ever wonder what it would be like if someone took two hours of Punked clips and wrote a script around them? Now you can find out.
Ah, McG. I knew one day you would resurface dead in my sights like the bloated corpse of a cow drowned in a stagnant pond. In case you are unaware of Mr. “I’m too cool to have a name”‘s qualifications as a terrible movie director check out the rant I want off on him in my description for this Terminator: Salvation t-shirt from the Sci Fi T Shirts. He mostly does mediocre television. In fact the only other movie credit I am finding is Charlies Angels Full Throttle, so you know he is qualified.
While watching this (for lack of a better word) movie there was a distinctly familiar greasy smell to it, like the odor lingering in the family bathroom 45 minutes after your grandfather used it, and as the credits rolled I realized it was the ridiculously improbable action and refusal to do the slightest bit of actual research that is McG‘s signature style. And with that I sharpened my claws and dove into my keyboard.
Fortunately McG has thrown me a lot of chum to chew on. I won’t say this movie is not entertaining. It definitely has some funny moments. However, the scripts looks and feels like it was written by a 12 year old who has seen a couple romantic movies but secretly thinks his English teacher is going to show up to school with the hots for him (or her). It is a true mash up of genres: a healthy mix of really bad action film with a really bad (and creepy) romantic comedy.
I think it safe to dismiss the action plot entirely, as in terms of doing anything for the script I think an organ grinders monkey armed with a minigun would have been about as believable and a hell of a lot cuter. 30 seconds research or a high school diploma would have told McG that the US Central Intelligence Agency has no jurisdiction inside the United States and furthermore does not have fabulous Los Angeles offices that look awfully like a multi million dollar Apple store. Another 10 seconds research (that is literally what it took me thanks to Google) would have told him that most CIA agents make between $30-60K a year and specifically do not live like rock star millionaires in LA (one guy had a swimming pool for a ceiling in his fabulous bachelor pad). I don’t know if any kind of research would have told him that the CIA does not look kindly on wasting massive amounts of taxpayer money stalking girlfriends, but an ounce of common sense would have.
What action there was was laughably ridiculous. Two guys apparently can take out any number of armed men in a crowded club with no collateral damage. There was some kind of bad guy (Til Schwiger-Inglorious Basturds, Rabbit Without Ears, Knockin’ on Heavens Door) who wants revenge for the death of his brother or something, but that whole story thread only appears periodically and reluctantly, like someone suddenly remembering to take the medicine they hate for a social disease they wish they could forget about. The story focuses on the romance between Reese Witherspoon (Legally Blonde, Walk the Line, Water for Elephants), a successful product testing executive (not sure what kind of executive job lets you play with a flamethrower, but sign me up) who in spite of being insanely hot is bitterly single. She runs into her ex with his new fiance and suddenly feels the need for romance. Meanwhile CIA operatives and best friends (and possibly related somehow. The story was vague) FDR (Chris Pine-Star Trek, Unstoppable, Just My Luck) and soon-to-be-Bane Tuck (Tom Hardy-Layer Cake, Inception, Warrior, RocknRolla) are both single. Tuck opts to check out online dating and sees a post Reese’s best friend posted for her. They meet up and really hit it off. Meanwhile, FDR is trolling local video stores to pick up bimbos (he’s supposed to be the sleazy ladies man). He meets up with Reese and attempts to pick her up. Somehow in spite of being single for years and so inept in the world of dating she goes to her married best friend for advice her character (Lauren, for the record) suddenly sees right through him and gives him a lecture on what a dirtbag he is.
At that point the movie takes a turn down Creepy Lane (and later merges onto the Creepy Onramp to travel down the Creepy Memorial Freeway) as both CIA operatives make massive illegal abuses of their powers to find out what she does. Tuck is the (slightly) more innocent one and is only kind of stalking her, while FDR is literally stalking her, going to her work to more or less browbeat her into dating him. The two guys find out about it and opt to compete for her affection without letting her know they know each other.
About that time the speed limit on the Creepy Memorial Freeway goes from 55 to 75. They both break into her home to find out more. Each of them assign other agents (who obviously have nothing better to do. Threats from foreign organizations is so overrated) to follow her and bug her apartment with both cameras and listening devices (what part of this really says romance?). They listen in on her talking to her best friend and from there construct complete lies in order to woo her. FDR, on hearing that she likes artist Gustav Klimt, takes her to a private showing where he has another expert whisper facts into his ear. Tuck learns she loves some kind of car (the type escapes me and I don’t care enough to look it up) and takes her driving in one. Upon learning she thinks he is shallow and self centered (a fairly accurate perception in my opinion) FDR pretends to volunteer at a animal shelter and adopts a dog, while Tuck, upon learning he is too safe and not dangerous enough, takes her to play paintball where he beats the hell out of a bunch of kids.
Bottom line, when at the end of the movie she does choose one of these guys the entire relationship will be built upon an entire foundation of lies. I know I’m not an expert on women, but is this the kind of romance story you all want to see?
Anyway, its at this point that the movie actually gets kind of funny, as Tuck and FDR totally try to screw each other up. I will admit to laughing several times and were I to take these episodes out of context (you know, kind of like an aforementioned TV show that rhymes with “dunked”) I probably would have enjoyed the hell out of it.
The stars. In spite of the horrible script and direction, the cast was actually really talented and did the best they could do. Unfortunately they were all trying to lace their shoes with wet spaghetti. One star. I honestly did laugh at some of the hijinks. One star. In spite of the blizzard of black holes I am about to inundate the film with, it was somewhat entertaining. Two stars. Four stars total.
The black holes. A complete lack of research and fact checking from the writers or director. I understand the need to suspend disbelief in a movie, but would it have really been that hard or damaged the story in any way if they had substituted the letters “FBI” for “CIA”? Or made the field office slightly more functional and less amazing? One black hole. In spite of a talented cast of decent actors, all the main characters were pretty two dimensional. One black hole. There was literally more chemistry on screen between Chris Pine and Tom Hardy than there was at any time between Reese and either of the two guys. Honestly, the romance scenes looked like a little girl pressing the lips of her Ken and Barbie dolls together. One black hole. The whole illegal abuse of power and super stalking thing. Two black holes. The fact that the action plot literally went nowhere and added nothing. One black hole. The action scenes were so dumb and ridiculous that I wanted to start something with a stranger (or possibly the projectionist) on the way out just to be reminded of what an actual fight looks like. One black hole. In the end, Lauren chose the sleazier and faker of the two instead of doing what any rational woman should have done and booted them both out with a restraining order pinned to their shirts. One black hole. Overall a stupid and fake story that I found really annoying. One black hole. Total: nine black holes.
A total of five black holes. Suck it McG. I said you were an incompetent director when you screwed up Terminator: Salvation and I am happy to see that time has not improved your skills. Is this movie worth seeing on any level? Yeah, I guess so. It is funny at points. None of the camera work really needs a big screen so feel free to wait until you can see it at home. I can pretty much guarantee that if you get drunk and/or stoned before and during this movie you will laugh your ass off and probably think it’s great. If you see it sober you will probably feel like you just lost 98 minutes of your life and run home to write a bitter review for it. Date movie? Maybe. If your date is into a rom com built around the Three Stooges, can look past stalking that would terrify her in a drama, or just wants some brainless entertainment it might do. However, there is very little chance you look better than either Chris Pine or Tom Hardy so you will most likely lose a lot to the comparison factor.
Thanks for reading. If I get a chance I might still see Mysterious Island, but there is a pretty good chance that film might slip my net. This has been a weekend of mediocre movies. Warhammer tournament tomorrow. Follow me on Twitter @nerdkungfu or send comments or questions to [email protected]. Of course, feel free to post comment here. As long as you keep it clean I will most likely allow it and try to respond. Talk to you soon.
Dave
Ghost Rider Spirit of Vengence Review
The Drone Ranger rides again.
This movie was actually slightly improved over the last one, but honestly it is on the level of being held under water for 10 minutes instead of 20. At the end of the day you have still drowned in a lake of plot holes, bad acting, and eardrum damaging dialog, which is unfortunate as Ghost Rider is one of my favorite comic book characters and I feel he is really cool with an interesting story. (Ghost Rider image courtesy of the Marvel Comic T Shirts)
Before getting into the meat of this flick I thought it worth looking into the two directors, Brian Taylor and Mark Neveldine, and seeing if they had produced anything worth anything. The answer is more or less a resounding no. They are attached at the hip and have almost exactly the same film credits: Crank, Crank II, Gamer, and Jonah Hex are considered their premier releases. The funny thing is other than that they seem to have only technical credits. Brian Taylor in particular is mostly listed as a camera man on a bunch of documentaries. I am all for giving up and coming directors a chance, but given that this film had a $75 million dollar budget this sounds like the equivalent of getting the guy who mops up the operating room floor to perform a heart transplant. If this is how Hyde Park feels they need to flush their money give me 1/3rd the budget and I can probably make something at least as good.
It is rarely a good sign when a movie starts in the first two minutes with a gaping plot hole, and at first I was surprised at something so dumb so early in. However, within 40 minutes I realized the entire script was composed almost entirely of plot holes, like Swiss cheese without the flavor. The plot holes kept growing and spawning new plot holes like a fast acting virus, and by the end of the movie my brain had been so inundated by them that I stopped noticing them as they flew past the screen (actually, in a strange way kind of a brilliant movie making strategy. If your writers are too dumb (Scott M. Gimple-El Tigre: the Adventures of Manny Riviera (??? A cartoon I guess), Filmore!, Pepper Ann. That’s three “major” credits since 1997 and Seth Hoffman-Prison Break, Prison Break the Final Break, House M.D.) to avoid gaping craters in the script just add more until they all kind of blur together. I just don’t credit the directors with making an active decision to pursue the plan. Looks like a happy coincidence).
If I had the energy to keep score I think the one thing this movie would have had to compete with the massive number of plot holes would be the also massive number of completely worthless and non contributing scenes. They seem to fall into the two categories of either showing how cool Nicholas Cage is on a motorcycle or burning up the remaining special effects budget with extra CGI.
And of course the final nail in the proverbial coffin would have to be the monotone drone of Nicholas Cage (Con Air, Face Off, Season of the Witch, Drive Angry). Most of this movie he does in his trademark deadpan robot like (for lack of a better term) acting. To be fair, there are a couple scenes where he does seem to emote a little, but they both seem like he is doing them under protest and they were both CGI enhanced. I think I figured out why his last few roles have been so bad in comparison to earlier movies like Raising Arizona and Kiss of Death: he can only really act when he doesn’t play tough good guys. When he is a hardened lone wolf hero something twitches in his brain and he thinks the way to manifest the character is to pretend he is a corpse. Honestly, Chuckie emotes better.
I will say the camera work was impressive, but by that I mean it was impressive for a skateboard video. In fact, the whole film felt like an action sports video with big action explosions interspersed with a montage of guys drinking beer and yelling at each other. There were a couple really cool camera shots, but not enough to make things up for all the jumbled low camera YouTube worthy filming. Some of the action was also pretty cool, but when it is established in the first action scene that the Ghost Rider is more or less impervious to any kind of attack or weapon it exhausts all the excitement in the scene like a Roofie colonic. At that point it really doesn’t matter how many hundreds of armed mercenaries you send at him. The audience knows all the bullets, grenades, and bunker buster rockets are going to pass right through him with all the impact of a wet fart.
The story, from what I could discern by looking past all the obscuring plot holes, is once more Johnny Blaze (now apparently not stopped by daylight) cursed with being Ghost Rider. The Devil (Ciaran Hinds-the Road to Perdition, Munich, There Will Be Blood, The Debt) has had a kid (Fergus Riordan-I Want to be a Soldier, Fragile) and wants him to take over the family business or something. Instead of simply using his powers to, you know, just take him away he hires a crew of mercenaries who attack a monastery and start the long, long chase after the boy. An alcoholic priest named Moreau (Idris Elba-you might remember him as Hiemdall from Thor. Also the Losers, the Office) shows up to rescue the child but his mother Nadya (Vilante Placido-the American, Moana, Sleepless) manages to escape with her son. Turns out she used to date the head of the mercenaries. Moreau finds Johhny Blaze and convinces him if he helps the kid then the curse of Ghost Rider can be lifted (speaking of plot holes, being Ghost Rider is the curse and power the devil gave Blaze. How is it he can then operate to stop the devil?). Thus the chase that dominated the remainder of the movie trundles its way through the next two hours. The mercenary gets transformed by the Devil in Blackout, a pretty cool villain from the comic. Flaming skeleton hijinks ensues. Lots of stuff gets blown up, along with lots of guys.
The stars. Comic book movie that managed to stay closer to the actual story than the last crappy Ghost Rider movie. One star. A couple action sequences and a couple of camera shots were impressive. One star. The transformation sequences were seriously goofy, but once he transformed the CGI for Ghost Rider was pretty cool. One star. Ghost Rider had chains this time, not a shotgun. One star. Total: four stars.
The black holes. Multiple gaping plot holes each big enough to park a small fleet of Winnebagos in. Three black holes. Deadpan, deadish acting from Nicholas Cage and pretty much everyone else. Two black holes. Pacing was really off. It jumped right into action with no transition and then made us sit through long sequences of nothing to get to the next one. One black hole. Multiple scenes that added nothing to the film and really should have been carted off with the rest of the deadwood. One black hole. Did I mention that the directors felt the best way to highlight Nicholas Cage’s acting ability would be to have him also deliver some really dopey monologs (you know, the lazy directors way of avoiding figuring out how to explain things to the audience) accompanied by some cartoons that looked like they had been created by some high school kid using MS Paint? One black hole. The entire movie was supposed to be set in Eastern Europe but everything looked and sounded suspiciously like West Texas. One star. Dialog from Hell (haw!). One black hole. Making me pay $11 for a action video I should have been able to see for free on YouTube (glad I didn’t spring for 3D). One black hole. Overall kind of a waste of time. One black hole. Total: twelve black holes.
A grand total of eight black holes. It’s been a while since I really blasted a movie like this. Honestly, the feeling I got from this movie is the two directors really couldn’t care less about Ghost Rider and just used this as a vehicle to make an action video they should have done for about $1,000. Worth seeing at all? Maybe if you are a huge GR fan and/or are easily amused by explosions and moving skeletons. If you are that type of person you had best see it on a big screen. If not, just NetFlix it in two months and have a shot of Jamison every time you spot a plot hole. Within 20 minutes you will be wasted enough to not even care about them and should be able to enjoy the film.
Thanks for reading. Lost of movies to see this weekend, but I will be spending a lot of time at a gaming convention playing Warhammer. Wish me luck. If I do well in the tournament and get a chance I will try to see This Means War and The Secret Life of Arietty. If I do poorly I will punish myself by seeing Mysterious Island. Follow me on Twitter @NerdKungFu. If you don’t like tweeting and or making comments here feel free to email me with questions or suggestions [email protected]. Talk to you soon.
Dave
The Vow Review
Not as painful as I thought it was going to be.
I have to be careful when I review movies that are patently chick flicks. If I were to watch a technical film on Linux coding for release engineering and then said I found the film boring and confusing I would be a complete moron. This is why I don’t use my stars/black hole rating system on most kids films. I have to take into account the intended audience, and in this case the audience is definitely women and possibly their happy or browbeaten male partners.
This movie was absolutely written with that audience in mind and makes no apologies for it. That being said, in spite of my Y chromosome I found myself pulled into the story to a degree I didn’t think would be likely based on the subject matter. This film definitely had it’s issues, which I will get into shortly, but I can’t say I left the theater feeling like I had wasted my time and money.
The story is of a young, artistic couple who are supposedly very much in love (to be honest, the romance from early in the film seemed a little forced) who get into a car accident (by the way, the accident is pretty graphic. If seeing someone catapulted through a windshield in slow motion bothers you maybe close your eyes for a minute when you see the snowplow coming). Leo (Channing Tatum-the Eagle, Haywire, Step Up, She’s the Man), the husband, recovers quickly but his wife Paige (Rachel McAdams-Wedding Crashers, Midnight in Paris, Mean Girls) has brain trauma and is put into a medically induced coma. She comes out of it but has forgotten the last five years of her life, including everything about her marriage, dropping out of law school to go to art school, or her estrangement with her parents. She goes from being a sophisticated, talented urban artist to a vapid suburban cheerleader (and ironically plays the role much more naturally and believably, which may or may not say a lot about Rachel McAdams. She is super hot in this, by the way). She thinks she is still headed to law school and engaged to her two dimensional ex fiance Jeremy (Scott Speedman-Underworld, Felicity, the Strangers). Her rich right wing parents (Sam Neill-the Hunt For Red October, Jurassic Park, the Piano and Jessica Lange-Rob Roy, Cape Fear, Tootsie) , whom she has not spoken to in years, surface and attempt to take control of her life. Her husband is a complete stranger and she no longer remember why she stopped talking to her parents, so she goes back to her superficial suburban life.
At this point the movie kind of fragments into four different stories (not surprising, since the credits list four different writers). There is her and Leo’s attempt to help her regain her memories. There is her controlling fathers attempt to regain control over her. There is her struggle to deal with the loss of five years of her life and the changes that have occurred, as well as deal with her ex fiance and all her old friends. And finally there is Leo’s attempt to get her to fall in love all over again while struggling to keep his recording studio open. I will say that the movie, which seemed kind of all over the place and disjointed for the first 2/3rds of the film, actually tightened up a lot and became more interesting in the last 40 minutes or so.
The stars. Interesting story concept, probably because it was inspired by true events. One star. Decent if somewhat uninspired acting from most of the cast. One star. The portions where Paige is struggling to reconcile her missing years with the life she thought she was leading were pretty interesting. One star. In spite of the obvious influence of multiple writers with differing ideas as to where the story should be going, the director managed to keep the story together with decent editing and pacing. One star. The supporting characters were the big positive surprise, developing into interesting and valuable plot devices towards the end of the film. One star. The ending, while pretty much what you would expect from a romance film, was both messier and more interesting than I would have expected. One star. Generally a movie I enjoyed that I expected to pan. One star. Total: seven stars.
The black holes. The fragmentary influence of multiple writers was pretty apparent. One black hole. 
The scenes involving Paige and Leo from prior to the accident seemed forced, with super sweet sugar coating used to hide a lack of chemistry. (Sugar Smacks image courtesy of the Vintage T Shirts) Honestly, Leo reminiscing wistfully about their romance seemed more real. One black hole. A pointless and annoying voice over by Channing Tatum was used to crowbar in a fairly prosaic message about moments of impact that attempted to give a deeper meaning but were fairly worthless. One black hole. Overall, while entertaining the emotional direction seemed really heavy handed, especially given the easy to manipulate subject material. One black hole. Total: four black holes.
So a total of three stars, a shockingly good score based on what I expected here. Should you see it? Probably not, if you are a guy and single (unless you are OK with looking like a creepy loner in the theater and/or planning to write a review about it). Date movie? Absolutely, 100% yes. This is one of those perfect date movies, where your date will eat up all the “love lasts eternal” messages while you will find the struggle to fix Paige’s brain interesting enough to keep you entertained. Just be sure to talk about how cool the love message is and not go into a lecture on assorted types of brain trauma.
Thanks again for reading. Not a lot left to see, which unfortunately means I might be stuck watching Mysterious Island 2 tonight. Ugh. I’m headed to Las Vegas for work (believe it or not, but I don’t make my money writing this blog) and won’t be back until late Tuesday, so I will probably write up something tonight and schedule it for tomorrow. Let Jason do some work over the next couple days. Follow me on Twitter @NerdKungFu. If you want to send something directly feel free to email me at [email protected].
Dave
Safe House Movie Review
Decent, in a standard way.
I am a Denzel Washington fan, and something I learned while watching his best (in my opinion) movie Training Day is he is way more entertaining as a bad guy than a good guy which is why Safe House works for me. However, I think one of the main reasons I like Denzel Washington is he actually has a really good eye for scripts and manages to stay away from obvious dogs. His discriminating tastes is the main reason I will see anything he opts to work on.
That being said, the script for Safe House is on the far end of the good script spectrum for Denzel, almost bordering on the mediocre. Honestly, if this movie hadn’t had Mr. Washington’s precise delivery and perfect acting ability the flaws in the script would have risen up like scum on the surface of a stagnant pond and filled the theater with the odor of decaying organic matter. The story latches onto every spy movie cliche like a remora eel and the events connecting the assorted action sequences are tenuous at best, with plot devices so far removed from what would actually make sense that it sometimes feels like you are watching them through a telescope in another solar system.
As for Ryan Reynolds and his performance, I am torn. On the one hand, in his last few efforts (Green Lantern in particular. Green Lantern shirt image courtesy of the Comic Book T-Shirt category) I have railed against him constantly playing Van Wilder over and over again; the sleezy pretty party boy who can’t help but smarm and sleep with anything remotely attractive in the movie and to be fair in this film he manages to avoid that role completely. He is a serious and career minded CIA operative with a girlfriend he loves deeply. On the other hand, he seems to alternate between looking completely helpless and being a young James Bond. I can’t even say this was the result of a decent character arc, with him being inexperienced at the beginning and developing into a hard case by the end. Instead the movie changes gears back and forth without warning, with his character either hiding in a dark corner (literally) or ruthlessly gunning down whatever gets in his way.
The story is of young Matt Weston (Ryan Reynolds-Green Lantern, the Change Up, Buried), a CIA operative who is basically a hotel keeper at a secret safe house in Cape Town. Tobin Frost (Denzel Washington-Training Day, Man on Fire, Inside Man) is a traitor and super spy who gets himself captured. He is placed in Matt’s safe house where a team of Aryan Army looking CIA guys are going to water board and torture him for whatever he was doing in Cape Town (selling some top secret information, but honestly the actual reasons for most of the movie seem pretty inconsequential). While they are in the process another team of guys attacks and kills pretty much everyone. Watson takes Tobin out at gunpoint and the long, long chase begins. He is being pursued by some bad guys while being ordered by his superiors to do different dumb stuff. Tobin is a master of human manipulation and works on getting into Matt’s head.
Honestly, I can’t get much more into the story without more or less giving it all away. Spy hijinks ensues. Stuff blows up. Guys get shot. There are about as many cliches as bullets fired, including the ending.
The stars. Denzel Washington. Two stars. Denzel Washington playing a villain rather than a hero. One star. The action was all pretty good and exciting, if a little repetitive. One star. The romance subplot, which normally would I find distracting and worthless, actually added a lot to the story. It gave Tobin a real tool to get into Matt’s head and screw with him, which added a lot to the story. One star. The interaction between Tobin and Matt was really well done, and pulled you into the story in many ways that the plot did not. Two stars. Generally entertaining. Two stars. Total: nine stars.
The black holes. Weak script. Two black holes. Inconsistent tone from Ryan Reynold’s character. One black hole. Spy story cliches we have all seen in about fifty movies, including the ending. One black hole. Some pretty gaping plot holes. One black hole. Total: five black holes.
A grand total of four stars. Not bad, but to be honest not what I expect from a movie Denzel Washington chooses to star in. Also, if anyone else had been cast in his role the movie probably would have swung into the black hole zone. Worth seeing? Sure, if you don’t want to follow the plot too closely. The action is the best part after Denzel’s performance, so it might be worth seeing on a big screen. Date movie? Meh. Maybe, if she is into this sort of thing, or Denzel Washington (or, for that matter, Ryan Reynolds). On the other hand odds are you will suffer in comparison to either of those two guys, so consider it carefully.
Thanks for reading. More movies coming out this weekend. I will probably see the Vow, about as chick flick as a movie can get. If I am feeling the need to expel mass quantities of bile I might see Mysterious Island 2 but I can already tell how that is going to suck. I am torn regarding seeing The Phantom Menace 3D. On the one hand I don’t want to give even a dime to support such mediocre movie making or George Lucas. On the other hand, since I did not have this blog going when I first saw it I might enjoy doing the review. I think what I might do is buy a ticket for a movie that I like (Chronicle, for example) and then just sneak in to the other theater. I have some 3D glasses lying around here somewhere. Follow me on Twitter @Nerdkungfu. I’ve noticed I don’t get a ton of comments for specific requests or blog ideas so if you would like to contact me without posting simply email me feel free to do so at [email protected]. Talk to you soon.
Dave
The Woman in Black Review
Scary Potter.
I actually saw this Saturday night and will say it was scary. However, it is of the jack-in-the-box kind of scary where something jumps out at you, causing a minor adrenaline spike and the occasional need to change your undergarments. It is not the kind of scary that builds up in the back of your mind like water balloon on a faucet that you forget is running. The terror builds steadily until it finally burst and gets all over everything. Instead it is Snakes on a Plane scary, where after the first 20 minutes, once you understand the nature of the villain, you begin to expect to see something horrible and predetermined scene locations and, for the most part, you are not disappointed. (Jack in the Box image courtesy of the Funny T-Shirts category).
The film also makes the cardinal mistake of establishing early on that the one character you are destined to connect with, Arthur Kipps (Daniel Radcliffe-Harry Potter and not a whole lot else) is actually in no real danger from the ghost, as she has a thing for children. Once you understood that tension in the scenes bleeds off like the aforementioned water balloon with fifty or so pin pricks in it. Still scary, but not in the same sense of danger you get from a movie like Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark, where you know the bad guys are actively looking to cause harm to the character you like the most. Instead the danger is focused on a bunch of kids, which is bad in a very general sense, but since none of the kids have more than a couple minutes of screen time pre death you never connect with any of them. Honestly, if some excuse had been found for a couple kids to hang out with Arthur so we could get to know them, then I might have cared when something horrible happened.
The other big mistake this movie makes is it fails to give us a real reason for Arthur to be doing anything besides running screaming into the night, along with any of the other characters. I’m sorry, but if I am by myself in a big, creepy mansion and there is a rocking chair moving by itself after a day of seeing a ton of other creepy stuff I would be out of there so fast your eyes would spin, and by the way I’d be setting fire to the place on my way out the door. The villagers are idiots too. It is established early on that the local innkeeper had lost a child to the woman in black. He then has another child that he keeps locked up for her own safety. Why the hell didn’t he move to another town, along with anyone else who had a child? Is parental instinct such a rarity these days? Sometimes I think so, but if you live in a town with a local supernatural killer of children you might want to consider a different school district.
Anyway, the story. Arthur Kipp is a widower with a young son (again, a great opportunity to connect with a potential victim squandered. We meet him briefly at the beginning and again at the end) who is in danger of losing his job as a solicitor. He has a job to go out into the countryside and sort out the final affairs and sell the old mansion of someone (??? To be honest I can’t tell you who died and left the house. It might have been the woman in black, but it seemed to be implied that she had been dead for decades. Also she didn’t appear to have ever lived there. It might have been her unseen sister, but the sisters grave looked about 100 years old too. The house itself looked as if no one had been there for a while as well. If someone knows who’s affairs were being taken care of please post a comment). His son he leaves with a shockingly hot nanny (Jessica Raine-Robin Hood, Call the Midwife, Elsewhere) but they plan to join him shortly in the creepiest village in English history (sorry to keep hitting you with these questions, but if Arthur was nigh bankrupt as is stated several times how can he afford a nanny and vacations and so on? That kid should have had “latch-key” written on his underwear band). He arrives in town to encounter the typical “we both have a deadly town secret and hate all outsiders” attitude from the local bumpkins. Everyone seems unusually protective of the kids, but nothing is ever explained.
Anyway, the story is almost painfully linear. Naturally no one wants Arthur around and do whatever they can to make his life uncomfortable, except for the local rich guy (magistrate? Judge? It seems to be implied that he has some kind of local power but it is never explored. Played by Roger Allam-V for Vendetta, the Queen, Pirates of the Caribbean On Stranger Tides) and his insane wife (I can’t seem to find her credit. Weird) who’s son died under mysterious circumstances. He doesn’t believe in ghosts and puts up Arther, helping him along. Arthur decides the best way to go through a bunch of old paperwork is by sitting up all night by himself in the the creepiest mansion in the history of the world instead of in a nice office or hotel room. Naturally weird stuff starts happening, and kids in the village start dying. The locals opt to blame Arthur instead of burning the mansion to the ground and/or just moving the hell away. The backstory of the woman in black is spoon fed to us in the most painfully obvious manner; a monolog delivered in a woman’s voice as Arthur reads a bunch of old letters.
SPOILER ALERT: if you have a brain you might be able to infer some info about the ending from the next few lines, so maybe skip ahead a bit. While the action had a number of creepy surprises, the actual story was about as linear and predictable as long distance train track. Whatever tension the movie started with gets pretty much drained by the last 20 minutes. Arthur pulls some Scooby Doo shenanigans in order to appease the ghost and takes a swim in muck. Everyone in the movie make the dumbest choices possible (most of them being “Let’s hang out instead of making like a hockey player and getting the puck out of here”). The depressing and predictable ending that had been looming over the story like a suspicious lump in your testicle sack is made manifest.
The stars. Say what you will, the director (James Watkins-My Little Eye, The Descent Pt 2, Eden Lake) knows how to do creepy. Everything in this film looks like it was rejected by Hellraiser for being a little over the top. The problem is, of course, a lack of contrast actually makes the creepy stuff less creepy. However, if creep is what you like, this movie has it in spades. One star. Daniel Radcliffe managed to deliver a pretty good performance while completely divorcing himself from his Harry Potter legacy. Good script choice IMO. One star. The minimal special effects and camera work were really well done, helping to deliver on the tone the director was striving for. One star. There were some definite heart in your throat scary moments, so if you are looking for an adrenaline rush go for it. One star. Pacing and direction were pretty good. One star. Generally a fun movie to watch. Two stars. Total: seven stars.
The black holes. Predictable. One black hole. Once you realized the ghost wasn’t going to kill Arthur due to the fact that he wasn’t a child the was a serious lessening of tension. One black hole. This movie I think would have actually benefited greatly from a couple more characters. One black hole. Total: three black holes.
A grand total of four stars. This movie is actually better than that score indicates. I think it worth seeing. Definitely a good date movie, as your date should be gripping your arm nicely and not want to go back to her creepy, lonely apartment if you know what I mean. However, if watching guys in movies make bad life decisions infuriates you, maybe you should give it a pass.
That’s it for this weekend’s movies. I’ll try to get something watched this week, but have a couple other ideas to talk about soon. Follow me on Twitter @Nerdkungfu. Thanks for reading. Talk to you soon.
Dave
Big Miracle Movie Review
A whale of a tale.
Sorry, I couldn’t resist. I’ll flagellate myself later in punishment. This movie was something of a miracle, in that I actually enjoyed it in spite of every expectation that I was going to be bored to tears. I found it an intriguing story, with cool characters who develop, lovable sea mammals, and a good example of what teamwork can accomplish. Be warned, however. If you have ever failed to separate your recycling, stepped on a bug, or accidentally fired a harpoon gun into a migrating blue whale the guilt you feel by the end of this film will be overwhelming.
Of course, like anything I watch these days there were nits I could pick, and I will get into those shortly. Nothing deal breaking, however.
The story is, of course, the three grey whales who were trapped in the ice in the late 80’s. I vaguely remember this story (I was busy dropping out of college and finding the most miserable job in the history of employment at the time) and looked it up. The movie stuck fairly close to the original, with a few major changes. 
Basically it starts off with small market reporter Adam Carlson (John Krasinski-the Office, It’s Complicated, Away We Go. Dunder Mifflin image courtesy of the TV Show T Shirts) doing some human interest stories in Barrow, Alaska, the northernmost town in the US. He comes across three whales trapped in the ice and does a story on it. It gets picked up by the national news, which catches the world’s attention. Adams ex-girlfriend, Greenpeace leader, and major pain in the ass Rachel Kramer (Drew Barrymore-E.T. the Extraterrestrial, Fever Pitch, Donnie Darko) finds out and starts campaigning to save the whales. The local Inuit tribe wants to harvest them for meat, but head whaling captain Malik (John Pingayak-no other credits) decides with all the press around his tribe would be seen in a very negative light.
At that point the serious rescue efforts get going. Oil kingpin J.W. McGraw (Ted Danson, looking kind of sharp with white hair I must say-Cheers, Becker (a show that never got the credit it deserved. I thought it was great), Saving Private Ryan) volunteers his ice breaking hover barge as a publicity stunt but later seems to really care. Rachel extorts Alaskan Governor Haskell (Stephen Root-News Radio, No Country for Old Men, King of the Hill) into mobilizing the National guard and sending two big helicopters to pull the barge. Meanwhile the locals are keeping the ice hole open for the whale. As temperatures drop two of the Three Stooges show up from Minnesota complete with Fargo accents to deploy a device they invented to help keep ice holes clear (yes I am enjoying these jokes). A self described blond Barbi (Kristen Bell-When in Rome, Forgetting Sarah Marshal, Veronica Mars) shows up from LA to freeze her ass off and broadcast the news. The National Guard pilot, Col. Scott Boyer (Dermot Mulroney-About Schmidt, Zodiac, My Best Friends Wedding) deals with the difficulties of operating in the Alaskan weather while dealing with White House Press Secretary Kelly Meyers (Vinessa(?) Shaw-3:10 to Yuma, the Hills Have Eyes, Eyes Wide Shut).
Anyway, things go grim for a while as the whole town comes out to help cut hundreds of ice holes (haw!) to the open sea. The President is forced to ask the Russians to help with one if their ice breakers. Ice gets cut. Whales breach. You see a lot of snow and ice.
The stars. Interesting story, most likely due to the fact that it is based on a real one. Two stars. Decent acting all around. One star. Pacing, while definitely not as fast as one would expect from a more exciting film, was highly appropriate for the film. One star. The whales were pretty cool. One star. They managed to not turn the movie into a tribute to the decade I hate the most, the 80’s. One star. The director (Ken Kwapis-Licensed to Wed, He’s Just Not That Into You, the Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants) really managed to draw the audience in and give us reasons to care about both the whales and the human characters. Well done IMO. One star. Overall a fun movie. One star. Total: eight stars.
The black holes. I found Drew Barrymore’s character an annoying off the stereotype shelf hippy Greenpeace bitch, and she felt really fake and out of place in comparison to the rest of the cast. Odds are Drew didn’t eat anything at all during the course of this film production as she managed to fill up every day by chewing the scenery. One black hole. In the real story the Inuits made the decision to help the whales on their own, but in this movie they couldn’t do anything that positive until the white man, in the form of Adam Carlson, guided them into the correct moral choice. I would find that a little insulting if I were an Eskimo. One black hole. Total: two black holes.
A final total of six stars. Really decent movie. Perfect for your family (to be honest I’m not even sure how it got a PG rating). This might also be the perfect date movie. Interesting, with whales, romance, drama, and some sadness. If this doesn’t warm your dates heart maybe she needs someone to cut her an ice hole (ok, I’m done with that). On the other hand, very little of the camera work really needs to be seen on a big screen, so feel free see it on NetFlix.
I’m seeing the Woman in Black later tonight, so look for a review tomorrow. It looks as scary as hell, and I’m in a bad spot as I am seeing it with two girls and don’t want to end up shrieking or otherwise embarrassing myself. I’d like to maintain at least the illusion of machismo in my life. Anyway, thanks for reading. Follow me on Twitter @NerdKungFu. Talk to you all tomorrow.
Dave
