The 10 Best and 5 Worst Mel Gibson Movies
Yes, nothing new in movies this week that really intrigues me, so I thought I would work on something else. Mel Gibson has taken a lot of abuse lately, and some might even call it justified, what with his drunk driving, spousal abuse, and racist rants. I can honestly say I would think very hard about spending money to see one of his movies currently. However, I have enjoyed many of his films in the past, and when I was doing my 5 Worst Kurt Russell film list I came across one that Mel was in as well. You’ll see it in a bit.
So these are, in my opinion, his best and worst of what he has done and I have seen. As always, feel free to disagree or point out things I might have missed, but I feel pretty good about this list. Best first.
10. Ransom-Mel owns an airline and his son is kidnapped. I remember liking the way Mel’s character handled this situation, by taking the ransom money and turning it into a bounty on the heads of the kidnappers. Not really exceptional, but worth watching.
9. We Were Soldiers-the story of the first major battle of the Vietnam war. Mel plays Lt. Col. Hal Moore, commander of the newly created Air Cav of the US Army. This movie was cool in that it showed the battle from both the American side and the Vietnamese side. The action was pretty brutal, so don’t get to attached to any of the supporting characters, if you know what I mean. Sam Elliot as Sgt. Maj. Basil Plumley was really cool too. However, the battle scenes kept cutting back to the wives of the soldiers having to deliver the death notices to the other wives in a manner that was jarring like editing scenes cut from Scarface into the Sound of Music. Also, don’t death notifications take more than 30 seconds for the war department to process? Still, good movie.
8. Hamlet-I’m not a big Shakespeare fan, to be honest. Maybe it’s because I have a hard time staying awake during plays, which is ironic as I have no problem staying awake during the most boring of films. However, I found this rendition with Mel playing Hamlet to be really engaging.
7. Conspiracy Theory-ever want to see Mel play a paranoid schizophrenic? Now you can. Actually, I love this movie because the writers obviously knew my cousin Matt and based the story around him. Whenever I have to answer the question “Any history of insanity in your family?” I have to mentally rewrite my family history. (Paranoia shirt image courtesy of the Funny T Shirt category)
6. Payback–I love noir and dark stories, and trust me, this one is dark. Mel plays a criminal who is betrayed by his former partners and spends the rest of the movie trying to get his $70,000 like an even more psychotic version of the paperboy from Better Off Dead. Gruesome and dark, this is one of those movies you enjoy in spite of the fact that you have very little sympathy for any of the characters.
5. Mad Max-some of the lists I have seen have this one at the top, and I will say it has a really cool ending, but as much as I enjoyed it, there were others I enjoyed more. I think I found the motivation a little too simplistic. Also, as a fan of Max the idea of him with a happy family even at the beginning of the movie seems wrong. There should be no happiness in Max’s life. He should always be a shell shocked waste case, like he was in the next two.
4. Braveheart-painted blue ass a go go. What a great film. Mel plays William Wallace, Scottish patriot and all around bad ass. Great battle scenes, good humor, and an evisceration scene that had me loosing my popcorn, if you know what I mean.
3. Lethal Weapon-remember a few lines ago when I said Max should always be a shell shocked waste case? This is because this is the roll Mel plays best. Here he is Martin Riggs, burned out Vietnam vet with a death wish. That “nothing to lose” aspect of his personality makes him truly kick some ass. The last few minutes of the movie, where he decided there was stuff in life worth living for, felt really out of character and kind of continued in the next three sequels. Great movie, nonetheless.
2. Gallipoli-ever have the feeling that your life is just too good and happy and you want to bring it down a few dozen notches? Then this is the movie for you. One of his earliest roles, he plays an ANZAC soldier in the assault on Gallipoli during WWI. However, as depressing as it is, the movie is great and you will enjoy it. Just make sure you have your anti-depressants handy for the last 10 minutes of the film. Also, by the end of the movie you will hate the British officer class.
1. The Road Warrior-not only my favorite Mel Gibson films, but one of my top 10 of all time. Who doesn’t love a apocalyptic wasteland with Mohawk biker gangs running around doing horrible things to all the remaining good people? Actually, while this movie is in all ways cool, it is the driving sequences that make it happen. Check out my blog post about the best movie chases scenes of all time for more details on that. This is the movie that made me fall in love with double barreled sawed off shotguns (very illegal, btw). If I ever get enough money to buy a muscle car, it will be the MFP Interceptor from this movie (for the record, it’s a 1973 Ford Falcon XB Coupe, a car only available in Australia. It had a Concorde front end. The supercharger poking out of the hood was for looks only). Ironically, the filmmakers sold the Interceptor for scrap, but fortunately it was saved by a fan of the movie.
So there it is. However, as Winter follows Fall, as good opposes evil, and as yin matches yang we have to have the bad films to go with the good. Here you go.
5. Bird on a Wire-I remember walking out of this film wondering what the hell just happened. This was three years after Lethal Weapon and I was hoping to see Martin Riggs kicking ass. Instead I saw Mel Gibson with a bad 80’s Flock of Seagulls haircut and a goofy smile on his face. I put the blame for the silliness of this movie on Goldie Hawn, who I find really hard to take seriously in any serious film.
4. Signs-I know. Alien invasion movie. I should love it. But the big M. Knight Shyamalan twist (SPOILER ALERT) is the aliens are poisoned by water! Yes, let’s invade a planet that is 70% covered with a toxic substance and fight the natives who are 90% made of said toxic substance. It’s hard to take seriously an enemy I can literally kill with spitballs. This is like the US invading Iraq, except instead of sand the country is made of radioactive waste. Also, this is another movie where you get to spend 100 minutes praying for something to happen.
3. Tequila Sunrise-hey, what’s bad for Kurt Russell is bad for Mel Gibson. Check out my Kurt Russell post for more details on this convoluted dog.
2. What Women Want-jeez, talk about pandering. This so called “movie” is just painful on multiple levels, at least from a male perspective, and honestly if I were a woman I think I would be really offended by the simplistic treatment of stereotypical women. Also, it should be pretty clear from the phone conversation tape his ex girlfriend made that Mel Gibson really DOESN’T know what women want.
1. The Patriot-oi, what a piece of crap this was. OK, I know I’m a nut about historical accuracy in movies, but this one didn’t even try. Instead, we got a super USA propaganda piece that managed to completely skirt around the issues of slaves and the fact that the Continental Army managed to win not a single battle during the course of the Revolutionary War. We got our asses kicked from one end of the country to the other, and only won because the British decided the war was costing too much money. Hey, a win’s a win, but still. This film is painfully one dimensional and ultimately kind of stupid.
That’s it. Post here if you think I am an idiot for any of these (or any other thing, for that matter). Thanks for reading. I would go see a cheap movie and review it tonight, but there is nothing out I haven’t seen except for Happy Feet 2, and I really can’t force myself to watch dancing penguins (this is why I didn’t see Mr. Popper’s Penguins). Also, I didn’t see the first one and feel I might miss some of the nuance of the sequel for the lack of it (ha ha haha ha). I’ve got an idea for tomorrow but if I don’t get it together will just do the Star Trek thing. Thanks for reading. Follow me on Twitter @NerdKungFu. Talk to you soon.
Dave
Ever wonder about the Goonies?
I am kind of slammed this week and don’t have time to work on the new Star Trek post, but over the weekend was working on inventory and came across this movie t shirt and it got me thinking about the Goonies again. I saw it for like the 10th time a few months ago, and every time I see it or something like this shirt there is a question that constantly bugs me.
Here it is. One Eyed Willie, the pirate captain who’s treasure the kids are going after, looked to have been one of the most successful pirates of all time based on the massive pile if “rich stuff” he had on his ship. If so, why would he not go off and actually spend some of the money on rum and wenches? Why, instead, did he spend the last 30 years of his life or so building death traps to keep inquisitive kids from getting to his massive pile of gold? And then, in the all time greatest move dedicated to proving a worthless point, he uses his own corpse to build his final self destruct trap? I mean, really. Does he not have any life besides building death traps? And with all that money, couldn’t he have bought material for traps more elaborate than rocks, vines, and sticks? How about some iron hinges?
It actually gets you thinking about buried pirate treasure in general. Why would a pirate with a huge chest of gold bury it and then leave it where any random idiot could potentially stumble upon. How about taking some of that treasure, using it to buy an island, build a castle on it, and buy the most impenetrable safe the 18th century can produce? Hire a bunch of scurvy sea dogs and turn them into land dogs to watch your treasure.
Actually, that kind of makes me think about Scrooge McDuck. He has a massive money bin where he rolls around in his dough instead of spending it on things he might enjoy in life. For that matter, how does a huge pile of cash in a vault actually keep him rich? Has he never heard of a bank? Some of them actually pay you money for keeping your money in them. It’s called interest. For that matter, you could potentially invest your money and make even more money, although these days a big pile of cash in a vault doesn’t sound like the dumbest plan ever. That reminds me of a Richie Rich comic I read where the family had a problem of too much cash and not enough room to store it all. Even as a kid of appropriate age for Richie Rich I understood the concept of banks. Just kind of annoying, really.
Back to the Goonies. Remeber at the end of the movie when One Eyed Willies ship sailed off uncrewed into the sunset, leaving the kids with some gems they lifted? No one in that shanty town owned a power boat? If reports got out of a boat floating in the ocean loaded with “rich stuff” there would be about 100,000 guys in rowboats looking for the damned thing.
Sorry for the weird tangential rant, but these are the kinds of questions that keep me up at night. I really gotta run. Post here if you have any answers to these questions, and follow me on Twitter @NerdKungFu. Movie stuff next time, I promise. Talk to you soon
Dave
I am Singh Movie Review
Like this movie, I am at a loss when trying to come up with a clever point.
So this weekend has been one of the worst for new movies. I guess all the studios simultaneously decided this was the weekend to not really bother. Honestly, a mistake in my opinion. None of the recent movies have what I perceive as real theater staying power, and a good release this weekend would have probably dominated. I suppose Breaking Dawn might still be pulling in idiots, but that’s about it.
So, when the mainstream field is left fallow, that is my opportunity to visit my old friend, foreign and independent films. Honestly, I like a lot of the more “indy” films, but you are really rolling the dice, especially when presented with any Bollywood films. They rarely just produce a moderately good entertaining film. Either you get something brilliant, or you get a script generated by the “million monkeys on a million typewriters” school of story telling.
However, the last Bollywood film I saw was Robot, so I figured “How bad could I am Singh really be?
Unfortunately, about 20 minutes into the film I was praying for an attack by a giant snake made up of hundreds of identical robots. This movie presents me with a conundrum, however. On the one hand, it’s like the writers hacked into my brain, downloaded my personal list of boneheaded movie moves that really bug the hell out of me, and used that as the script. Bad voice over monologues that don’t contribute, 4th wall breaking monologues that also don’t explain things, beating an already beaten dead horse into the ground, trying to make me feel guilty for stuff I had nothing to do with and directly oppose, wooden acting from the English speaking actors, stereotypes ground so far into the earth that they resurfaced just outside Beijing, really bad grammar in the foreign language to English subtitles, really bad grammar in the English to English subtitles (yes, they did that), casting that blatantly points out the director’s obvious fetish for a particular type of woman (basically, blondes who look like Sharon Stone. There were seven different white women I counted who looked so much alike I wasn’t sure if they weren’t all played by the same woman with different hair, including two lawyers, a doctor, a stripper, and a cop), choreographed song and dance numbers with surreal lyrics dutifully subtitled, pointless flash-somethings (I can’t call them flash backs or flash forwards. More like a flash sideways, to people and events that had nothing to do with the story), a courtroom drama that seems to indicate that the writers have no idea how American courts work (or, for that matter, have ever seen another courtroom drama on TV or movies), sluggish story with long, fairly pointless speeches that rhymed remarkable with “tating the sobvious”, forcing me to watch the Twin Towers fall down again, using 9-11 to sell a story, and casting British actors who can’t really bury their accents deep enough to play Americans. On the other hand, when I could put all that behind me and treat this movie as an insight into Indian and Sikh culture, as well as a look at how India might perceive America, it actually got kind of interesting. It’s like a big cake made out of mixed bark and soap chips covered with a delicious frosting.
Anyway, the movie. I think I can sum it up by saying “Don’t discriminated against all Muslims and Sikhs because they wear turbans like the terrorists responsible for 9-11”. The story starts off with an guy living a pretty cushy life in India when he is woken up by a call from his mother telling him his brother is dead and his father is in the hospital. He flies to LA and discovers they have all been the victims of a brutal hate crime by Neo Nazis so cartoonish and over the top I thought they might be CGI generated. He embarks on a quest to find his brother’s killer and also locate his other brother, who is missing. He runs into immediate, pointless resistance from the Pasadena police force in the form of another cartoonish racist cop and finds that his brother was arrested, suspected of killing his brother in spite of witnesses to the contrary. He runs into some of his bother’s friends, who tell him about a rash of hate crimes perpetrated against anyone Muslim or wearing a turban.
I’m going to do an aside here and talk a little about the months immediately following 9-11. There were a number of hate crimes perpetrated, but in all cases that I know of the local police and FBI were relatively quick to investigate and intervene. Maybe it’s because I live in California and never really saw anything grievous here, but since this story is set in California I think it OK to have an issue with this. In no cases do I know of the local police aiding and abetting the criminals.
Anyway, misinterpreted American culture hijinks ensues. The racists surface occasionally only to prove how cowardly they are. We get subjected to the same speech over and over again. The Sikhs and Muslims remain true to the non violent tenants of their beliefs. A number of sub plots that are really all just rehashing of the main plot surface. A few cool messages about he importance of friendship and family, justice, and racial and religious tolerance are forced down our throats, pumped out, and the forced down again ad nauseum.
The stars. I’ll usually give a star for a foreign or independent film, so one star. Those good messages I talked about, while rubbed into our faces for a monstrous 150 minutes, were actually delivered. One star. A somewhat good insight into Indian and Sikh culture. One star. An idea of how India and perhaps some of the rest of the world perceives America was handed out. One star. I kind of liked the Sikh cop character, even if he was as over the top as the rest of them. One star. I always enjoy seeing white people portrayed as the bad guy. One star. Total: six stars.
The black holes. I am going to try to be kind in these, as I understand a lot of them could be the result of different cultural perspectives, but I have to be honest. Driving a painfully obvious point home, parking it’s car, and making it dinner. One black hole. American stereotypes so painfully obvious it literally hurt my brain. One black hole. The directors obvious blonde fetish. One black hole. The opening and closing monologues made me wish someone would fly a plane into the theater I was in. One black hole. Long, boring, repetitive speeches that just kept on repeating the main theme. One black hole. The film maker failed to hire a single native English speaker to view the movie once to make sure the sub titles weren’t developmentally disadvantaged. One black hole. The American acting and dialog looked and felt like they were also speaking a foreign language (the fact that they subtitled the English into poorer grammar English contributed to this). One black hole. All the weird flash somethings. I’m sure they would be far more significant and less black hole worthy if I were actually Indian, but I spent most of them asking “What the f…?”. One black hole. Three different song and dance numbers. One black hole. Use of odd camera angles that at first looked kind of brilliant but by the end of the film made my eyes cross. One black hole. A complete lack of research into how the American criminal justice system works. One black hole. Using 9-11 to sell the story and forcing me to watch the towers collapse again (I watched it live on the news, and really try not to think about it. That day still haunts me). One black hole. Overall lacking more than the most obvious point. One black hole. Total: thirteen black holes.
So a total of seven black holes. Slumdog Millionaire it is not. I don’t really see a reason to watch this in a theater. Honestly, I don’t really see a reason to see it at home, unless you are really into Bollywood and Indian culture. This could be something to throw on the TV while folding your laundry or whatever. Unfortunately the subtitles require you to stay focused on the screen. I don’t really have a read how this would work as a date film. Might be OK if your date is more hippy 
dippy and appreciates your cultural open mindedness, but if not she could be really bored with it and by extension you. Take her to see Hugo IMO (Hugo Automaton image courtesy of the Movie T Shirt category).
That’s it for now. Not sure what I will do next. I should probably finish up my Star Trek Retrospective. I was thinking about it and am going to probably skip Insurrection, mainly because the entire movie plays like a an extended episode of TNG and, to be honest, I really can’t remember much about it one way or another. I will instead dive into Nemesis, a film I have some definite opinions on, and will finally finish up with the 2009 Star Trek and explain why anyone who likes that movie the best out of all the Star Trek franchise is either not a true fan or is a true idiot, or both.
Thanks for reading. Follow me on Twitter @NerdKungFu. Talk to you soon.
Dave
Arthur Christmas in 3D Movie Review
Better than the trailer makes it out to be.
I’ll admit, I enjoy cartoons and will see a movie that catches my eye, even if it’s made for kids. I do feel kind of creepy being in a theater with a bunch of children and bored parents, but this was nothing like the last Winnie the Pooh experience. As a rule, when I go to a kids film I sit by myself and don’t talk to or look at anyone in hopes no one notices me.
Actually, now that I think about it, that is my policy for pretty much all the movies I see. My life sucks.
Anyway, I was not really gung ho to see this movie, mainly because the trailers managed to unsell it for me. Another example of failure in marketing. The trailers really made it looks at the same time both sappy sweet and over the top silly. In truth it was neither of those. It was fun, clever, entertaining, and above all well executed. As a rule I suspend my usual star/black hole rating system for kids movies, as dropping black holes on a film designed to entertain seven year olds is a move that would give the Grinch pause. That being said, I honestly wouldn’t have found a lot of black holes to give it. Maybe it’s just a little too polished. Other than that it’s pretty good. It’s no Kiss Saves Christmas, but still fun to watch.
It started off on a bad note, however, by subjecting me and the soft brained impressionable youth of America to a “music” video by girly man/boy Justin Bieber singing a “rock” version of some Christmas carol. Is there anything remotely masculine about that guy? I know he’s like 17 or something but by the time was that age I had been in fights with more guys than I had friends, played football, wrestled, set fire to a shockingly large amount of private property, spent seven months in a Bolivian prison, and had facial hair. The ironic part is he is adored by girls his age while I was the dating equivalent of athletes foot. The other part that drove me nuts was during the video, when they were not performing their “dance” routine, they were treating us to clips from the MOVIE WE WERE ABOUT TO WATCH! Really? Is a blank screen and a cone of silence that much to ask for? Seriously, whoever was in charge of marketing for this film should be taken behind the woodshed and shot.
Anyway, once I got over the suck part and into the movie proper, it warmed up nicely. It is Christmas Eve and Santa is making his run around the world, delivering presents with the help of about 1,000,000,000 elves and a high tech super sleigh that looks like an Apple store threw up all over it. We are treated to high tech Mission Impossible cut scenes as the elves zip line down from the S1 and B&E their way through the world, delivering gifts to good children. Santa is really more of a figurehead, as the entire high tech operation is being run by his oldest son, Steve, a macho guy who runs things with military efficiency and all the warmth and holiday spirit of a roadkill. Meanwhile, his younger brother Arthur, a bumbling klutz, stumbles around messing things up while trying to read all the childrens letters and relate the relevant contents to Santa and Steve.
Steve dreams of being the next Santa (apparently, rather than being an immortal “jolly old elf” Santa is an inherited position, passed from father to son. Incidentally, the current Santas real name is Malcolm. Meanwhile, during a particularly intricate operation, a gift for a young girl named Gwen gets lost. No one realizes that until after everything is shut down. At that point both Santa and Steve kind of blow it off and it’s up to Arthur to deliver the gift. He recruits his grandfather, a former Santa and curmudgeonly old bastard, to help him. They find the old sleigh and reindeer, and head off. They are joined by Bryony, an elf who specializes in gift wrapping. She is actually my favorite character.
Anyway, Xmas chaos ensues. The world is convinced that aliens are invading. Certain characters are reminded of the true meaning of Christmas. You end up feeling good at the end.
Like I said, I won’t do the whole stars and black holes for a kid movie. I will say that 3D, while normally horrible for the average film, works really well for CGI cartoons. The best way to judge a kids movie, IMO, is by how the kids in the theater are reacting to it and in this case they were laughing their asses off. Great movie for kids. It’s clever enough to keep the parents engaged, although I don’t think it has enough meat on it to be worth seeing without kids (unless you plan to review it).
Thanks for reading. I’m off to watch the Last Starfighter at Bad Movie Night. Follow me on Twitter @NerdKungFu.
By the way, I’m hearing some seriously scary things out of the new Batman movie. As much as I am attracted to Anne Hathaway (and really, I am) I have said from the start I don’t think she could ever pull off Catwoman. Word is she is kind of butchering it, and wears a utility belt with an iPhone carrier. Also, Christopher Nolan is apparently channeling the spirit of Joel Schumacher from Batman and Robin by taking the highly intelligent South American super villain Bane and turning him into a muscle bound thug. Really, if you want a thug just do Killer Croc. It’s not rocket science. My best friend keeps telling me to keep the faith in that Christopher Nolan has yet to fail us, but this whole deal is really starting to smell of suck. Maybe he wants to ruin the Batman franchise for the next director, like Sam Raime did with Spiderman 3. I swear if Bruce Wayne goes emo and does a moody swing dance number while Catwoman sings I will beat the first person to tell me they liked the movie to a pulp.
I’m kidding about that, of course. I am a pretty non violent guy. Besides, why take my anger out on some hapless moron when I can use this blog to burn the director to my hearts content. I don’t know. It could be good. I’m just worried. I’ll try to keep up to date on what is going on, and talk about what I hear on future posts. Also, if the movie does both suck and blow, you can count on me to explain why and how in excruciating detail right here. Thanks again. Talk to you soon. Catwoman image, by the way, courtesy of the Batman T Shirt category.
Dave
What is the deal with the Umbrella Corporation?
So I haven’t seen anything new recently and am really too busy to compose one of my lists (as hard as it may be for you to believe, I actually do some research on my stuff), but last night while working on an inventory I came across this Resident Evil t shirt for the Umbrella Corporation and it reminded me of a question that has plagued me ever since I finished RE2: what exactly is the business plan and profit model for the Umbrella Corp?
Think about it for a minute. Umbrella is a huge biotech firm. That means they have investors and a board of directors, as well as auditors and so on. Basically, people who make sure the company makes a profit. However, there doesn’t seem to be any kind of plan to make any kind of money here. As far as I can see, here is Umbrella’s plan:
Step 1: Create super virus that will kill most of the population of the planet and turn them into zombies.
Step 2: Kill all your own employees (this might actually be a cost savings maneuver, as you would save a fortune in unemployment and retirement payments. Still, seems a little extreme)
Step 3: Release T Virus into the world and kill most of the population. Then turn them into zombies so they can eat the survivors.
Step 4: (secret)
Step 5: Profit.
So, I run my own company and while I am kind of a small amateur I have learned one very important lesson: zombies rarely buy things and give you money for your goods. In fact, zombies are probably the worst customer demographic available. They don’t have jobs and their only disposable income is whatever change is rattling around in the pockets of the rags they are wearing. On the other hand, they have other use for money so theoretically could spend 100% of it on t shirts, but really even newborn babies are better customers as their parents will spend money on food and so on. So how does killing off most of the planet turn into money? What is the mysterious step 4?
So at some point there has to be a stockholder meeting or something. Do the directors actually report what’s going on? “We managed to turn 87% of the human population into zombies, so profits for this quarter are trending down. However, our uncontrollable super soldier program is progressing nicely so if we can find a country with enough survivors to form an army we should see a nice profit from that.”
On the same note, what is up with creating super soldiers with the intellect and attitude of a raging bull on meth? Is there some kind of plan to train Nemesis to not go berserk and kill everything in sight first time he is released, or is this some other aspect of the mysterious “death and destruction make profit” program? Maybe some kind of apocalyptic death cult is paying them to destroy the world. But then, even if they are paying you a ton of money, where are you going to go to spend it? Do you really want to spend a week on vacation at Zombie Disney World? Going to buy a palatial estate surrounded by the undead?
Anyway, these are the questions that keep me up at night. By the way, I would like to mention that I started off playing RE2 first and was kind of freaked out by it. Then I went back and played RE1. In spite of worse graphics that game scared the bejesus out of me. Story or sound effects, I guess. Ever notice that modern games, in spite of more amazing graphics and details, then to be just plain shorter in content? You could spend a week wandering around Raccoon City in RE2, but these days you only get a few hours at best. I guess all those incredibly detailed graphics take up a lot of memory. Either that or video game companies are trending towards the lazy.
By the way, those of you who are purist and want to yell at me for talking about a video game when for the last few months I have been purely on movies, let me remind you that Resident Evil is also a series of movies staring Milla Jovovich. Also, while I personally focused on movies and love them, this blog started off with nerd dating advice and is really about whatever catches my nerd interest. One of these days I am going to start a detailed discussion of army building and table tactics for Warhammer Fantasy Battle (something I know a lot about). No way will that cost me readers.
Anyway, thanks for reading. If you have any insight as to what Umbrella does for money be sure to post a comment here. Follow and message me on Twitter @NerdKungFu. Thanks again. I should see something tonight and write up a good review tomorrow. Talk to you soon.
Dave
The Descendants Movie Review
I will say to start that this movie title is causing my brain some confusion, as in my mind the Descendants will always be a punk rock band I still listen to a lot. Some of their songs include My Dad Sucks, Weinerschnitzel, Suburban Home, Kabuki Girl, and I Don’t Want to Grow Up. It’s hard to place them in what kind of punk rock they are exactly. Sort of if the Vandals and the Dead Milkmen married and had a baby that actually sang punk rock songs instead of songs about being punk rock. Hard core with a sense of gallows humor, I guess.
Anyway, the Descendants the movie. This is the latest George Clooney film. I am sort of a fan of George Clooney, mainly for Oh, Brother, Where Art Thou?, but honestly he will have to do about 10 more films of that quality to ever make up for 
starring in Batman and Robin (Batman and Robin image courtesy of the Batman T Shirt category). Yes, the Batnipple Batman. Looking over his filmography he seems to have no barometer for what a good script is. For every Oh, Brother or Confessions of a Dangerous Mind he has he seems to have a Spy Kids or Ocean’s Eleven (Twelve, Thirteen…). It’s like he has someone rank scripts by quality and then picks them with a metronome.
So I guess this could be considered one of his better films. It definitely features him coming to grips with stuff, and having emotions and all that. His acting is indeed excellent, as is the supporting cast. The dramatic scenes are gripping and real, yet there is a nice undertone of humor in the grief shown on screen.
It is the story of Mathew King, Hawaiian lawyer and head of a family trust that holds 25,000 of pristine Kauai real estate. His wife was just in a boating accident and lies in a coma in the hospital. He has to wrangle his two troubled daughters while dealing with her impending death (she has a living will) and the fact that she was cheating on him. Meanwhile, as the head of the trust he has to decide what to do with the huge property. He goes on a journey across the island letting relatives know what is going on while looking for answers as to who his wife was cheating with with his daughters (Shailene Woodley-the Secret Life of the American Teenager, An American Girl Adventure and Amara Miller-no other credits) and an annoying surfer kid named Sid (Nick Krause-How to Eat Fried Worms, Stoned Age) who tags along as the older girl’s friend (or boyfriend. Not really clear).
So there is a ton of good character development and fairly engrossing emotional scenes. Overall a decent film, but if I were to offer one major criticism (and, as any regular reader knows, I will) it’s that the film seems to lack focus. It is called the Descendants mainly because King and his fairly huge family are supposed to be direct descendants of King Kamehameha, and the main drama seems to want to revolve around the dispensation of the land the family holds, but that whole aspect of the film has to sit at the back of the bus. The obvious main focus is the coma and impending death of Kings wife and the mother of his daughters, but that seems to get shunted aside to make room for his quest to find her lover. Meanwhile, the subplot of dealing with the fact that his daughters are troubled and looking to end up arrested dries up and blows away. The search for her former lover drives the movie for a while, but then it turns out the lover is somehow involved into the whole giant real estate deal and we are back to the start of the film and the property deal. The whole plot feels kind of like what I would imagine life in Hawaii to be like: a day of wandering aimlessly around an extremely pleasant area while accomplishing not a whole lot. However, if we consider the plot as merely a vehicle for the emotional conveyance than I suppose it works.
The stars. Excellent acting all around, especially George Clooney. Furthermore, the writers worked the script to give him and his daughters more opportunity to display that acting. Two stars. The emotions really drew you in, and you progressed emotionally with the characters. Two stars. Hawaii was beautiful. One star. Instead of showing Hawaii as an amazing paradise for tourists, they showed it as a day to day working environment, with a Hawaiian twist that played well. One star. The humor that flavored the movie worked well. One star. There were a couple of really great scenes, like King running down the hill in his sandals and Sid getting punched out by the grandfather for being an ass. One star. None of the writing or screenplay was directed at the lowest level of American culture (i.e. no hot hula girls dancing or “getting lei’d” jokes). One star. Total: nine stars.
The black holes. The whole script lacking focus thing. One black hole. The movie didn’t so much as end as it ran out of steam and petered out. One black hole. While the acting was good and the emotions clearly delivered, none of the emotional scenes drew me in enough to really have a major impact. I was a little teary watching J Edgar and didn’t get hit once during this film. One black hole. Towards the end Clooney’s character takes a moral stand and makes a speech that seemed to have no foreshadowing whatsoever and more or less coalesced out of the ether. One black hole. This may be a personal issue, but given the current status of our economic and social times I find a film centered around a rich family figuring out the best dispensation of their hundreds of millions of dollars in property to be in really poor taste. One black hole. Total: five black holes.
So a total of four stars. Not bad, IMO, but not really worth rushing out to see. If you are a huge Clooney fan maybe, but otherwise just rent it. In spite of being filmed in one of the most beautiful places on Earth there is nothing on the screen that requires a huge theater. Decent for a date, I guess, as it has a lot of emotional stuff women respond to, but even at age 50 George Clooney will look about 100 times hotter than you ever will so you could potentially suffer in comparison. Especially since he is doing the hot single dad thing.
Thanks for reading. I might go see Arthur Christmas today, but have a lot going on right now. Things are ramping up at work so I might not have the time I did to do so many of these. If I don’t see it I will try to do a list I have been working on. Follow me on Twitter @NerdKungFu. Thanks again, and have a great day.
Dave
Hugo 3D Movie Review
Martin Scorsese throws a nod towards Steam Punk.
I find myself in a weird spot reviewing this movie. I mean, who am I to review the work of a true movie making genius like Martin Scorsese? He is responsible for so many of my favorite films, including Taxi Driver, Goodfellas, Shutter Island, and The Aviator. Of course, he has done a lot of stuff no one has ever heard of, including a ton of documentaries. However, for a movie amateur like myself to offer criticism feels like I am hanging around giving advice to a brain surgeon.
But then I remember that I have an obligation to deliver my unbiased and honest opinion to you, my beloved reader. Fortunately, Hugo is a decently fun movie, and even if I didn’t know Scorsese had directed it I would have enjoyed it. It was fun, well acted, extremely well directed, and overall a quality movie experience. Like pretty much 100% of the movies I nit pick apart it has a few items I can take issue with, but overall pretty cool. I think one of the things that really works for me on this film is it is so different from any of Martin Scorsese’s other films. It’s great to see a director head into something new.
It is the story of young Hugo (Asa Butterfield-the Boy in the Striped Pajamas, the Return of Nanny MacPhee), the son of a clockmaker who has been orphaned and now lives in a Paris train station, winding and maintaining the clocks. His only legacy of his father is a mysterious steam punk automaton that was rescued from a museum store room and is in need of repair (steam punk Sonic image courtesy of the Video Game T Shirts). He gets caught trying to steal parts from a grumpy toy shop owner named Papa George (the great Ben Kingsley-Sexy Beast, Ghandi, Shutter Island, Schindler’s List), who confiscates Hugo’s fathers notebook. He gets Hugo to work for him repairing windup toys to make up for the stolen goods. Meanwhile Hugo befriends George’s goddaughter Isabelle (played most excellently by Chloe Grace Moretz, the Hitgirl from Kick Ass. She was also the vampire from Let Me In. What a talented young actress. I am sure we will see some amazing things from her in the future), who is something of a bookworm and looking for adventure. She sees the potential with Hugo and together they work on the mystery of the mechanical man.
I don’t want to get too much into the story, as I don’t want to hand out any spoilers. Hugo is beset by the station inspector (Sasha Baron Cohen-Borat, Sweeney Todd, Bruno, Ali G) who adds an element of danger to the story. Papa George has a mysterious past that he wants to keep secret. Clocks get wound. Mysteries are solved.
The stars. All around quality film. Direction, story, and overall experience excellent. Two stars. The acting was awesome, although how could you expect any less from Ben Kingsley? Chloe was decent too, although occasionally she and Asa seemed to have forced the scenes. Two stars. The camera work and visual were really, really good. Two stars. The story overall was very immersive. You really felt like you were in the Montparnasse train station in the 30’s. One star. Steam punk-ish. One star. Based in part on a true story. One star. Total: nine stars.
Now, though it galls me to do this, I have to award the black holes. The biggest one is going to have to be the fact that 3D sucks. It really did nothing to in any way enhance this film, and it is obvious Martin Scorsese, being new to the 3D art form, was looking for and writing in extra visuals to better display the 3D effects. Unfortunately this really did nothing but aggravate the next two black holes I am about to give. One black hole. The movie, perhaps due to the extra visuals, seemed to really drag at points. The fun of watching Hugo wind his was through the massive gears and cogs of all the clocks in the station kind of loses it’s magic when we have to watch it a second and third time. Plot progression seemed really slow. One black hole. The movie, supposedly for kids, runs a whopping 127 minutes. I saw more than one family have to leave early after the kids got bored of watching gears spin, and even I had to take a bathroom break about 3/4 of the way through (the ocean tanker sized Diet Coke did not help). One black hole. Finally, while Sasha Baron Cohen was probably the best actor in the film, his role as the menacing station inspector was significantly compromised by his comedic bearing and delivery. It literally felt like Hugo was being chased by Inspector Clouseau, and it is tough to feel concern for anyone in that situation. The rest of the movie is actually really poignant and serious with whimsical element, but every time Sasha got on screen the slapstick-o-meter dipped deeply into the red. One black hole. Total: four black holes.
So a grand total of five stars. Not bad, but not awesome. Hugo is a fun, quality movie. But it in no way compares to Shutter Island or Goodfellas. Worth seeing? Yes. Worth seeing in a theater? Yes. Worth seeing twice in a theater? Probably not, unless you are into the 3D art form or the movie history portrayed. Good date movie? Sure, as long as your date is a visual person. Not my first choice.
Thanks for reading, and don’t hate me for not gushing all over this film. I really am a Scorsese fan. Just not his best film. Perhaps he was so distracted by the details of 3D he couldn’t apply as much focus as usual on the other aspects of the film. Short review, but that’s what usually happens when I enjoy the film. I will write up the Descendants tomorrow, and hopefully see something else then for Monday. Maybe Arthur Christmas. Follow me on Twitter @NerdKungFu. Talk to you soon.
Dave
The Muppets Movie Review
For once, my sense of nostalgia managed to beat down my sense of cynicism.
Odds are I should have seen Hugo, as that would have helped maintain my nerd credibility, but the fact is I used to watch the Muppets as a kid and loved it. If there is a puppet character on the planet greater than Gonzo the Great then I will eat one my my t-shirts. I loved almost all of them. Dr. Bunsen Honeydew, Beeker, Scooter, the Swedish Chef, Animal, Link Hogthrob, Lew Zealand (and his boomerang fish), Sam the Eagle, Statler and Waldorf; just listing them here puts a smile on my face. Ironically it was the main characters who annoyed me. Miss Piggy drove me berzerk, Fozzie the Bear I wanted to stuff into a microwave, and even Kermit the Frog bugged me. I liked him, but he was such a wimp sometimes it drove me nuts. Also, the romance between a hideous hog in a blond wig and makeup and a bug eyed frog kind of made me cringe.
However, the secondary characters always carried me through, and before you really get into this review understand that I will be writing it while viewing through rose colored nostalgia glasses. To be honest, I laughed my ass off throughout the film. For those of you who are regular readers and see this as completely divergent from my normal style rest assured that the next horrible script that comes across the screen I will jump on twice as hard for all the good things I say about this one.
Anyway, this movie starts off badly, actually, with the introduction of a new Muppet character named Walter, who is growing up in Smalltown USA with the two script anchors, his brother Gary (Jason Segel – How I Met Your Mother, 
Forgetting Sarah Marshal, Despicable Me. How I Met Your Mother image courtesy of the TV Show T Shirt category) and Gary’s girlfriend Mary (Amy Adams- Enchanted, the Fighter, Catch Me if You Can). Walter is a super Muppet fan, while Gary is is big brother who keeps more or less neglecting his girlfriend in order to help take care of his brother. They are taking a bus trip to LA to visit Muppet studios. At this point my early warning suckage alarm was blaring in my ear. However, while on the tour of the abandoned, decrepit, crumbling Muppet Studio Walter sneaks into Kermit’s old office and overhears a meeting between the great duo of Statler and Waldorf, in the process of selling the studio off to Tex Richman (Chris Cooper-American Beauty, the Bourne Identity, the Patriot) who plans to demolish the place and drill for oil. After finally giving the plot a kick start Walter tracks down Kermit and convinces him to reunite the whole gang to do a telethon to save the studio. At that point we go into a series of funny “where are they now” scenes the eventually morphs into a montage. I don’t want to give a lot away, but the one that made me laugh the hardest was seeing Scooter working at Google. Hilarious.
They managed to convince a TV executive (Super hot Rashida Jones-Parks and Recreation, the Social Network, I Love You, Man. She was looking a lot better than she did as a lesbian in Our Idiot Brother) to give them two hours to run their show. Muppet hijinks ensue. Jack Black (School of Rock, Tropic Thunder) gets kidnapped to be the celebrity host and managed to not annoy me. A ton of celebrity cameos surface to operate the telethon phones. Zach Galifianakis plays a local homeless man (not much of an acting stretch, although I like him a lot). The cameo list is really impressive, and it’s not just a bunch of washed up losers. Really cool.
The story progresses. The show has some great Muppet skits. I laughed a lot. The characters frequently break the fourth walls in really clever and funny ways. I left the theater smiling.
The stars. The Muppets. Two stars. Story, characters, and dialog mostly true to the original show. Three stars. A PG film that felt appropriate at PG. One star. A couple of scenes in particular, especially the Gonzo the Great recruitment scene and the Scooter thing, had me really laughing. One star. A few of the skits for the final show were worthy of the original show, just done with higher production values. One star. The celebrity cameos actually added a lot rather than slowing things down. One star. All puppets. No attempt to render in CGI or make them cartoons, live action cartoons, or anything in between (that would have ruined this film on about 14 levels. Suck it, Alvin and the Chipmunks). One star. Overall, super fun. Two stars. Total: twelve stars.
Now the black holes. I will admit that there were issues with this film that I would have pushed a lesser film off a subway platform for, but my enjoyment of the movie has helped me do a mental wash over most of them. I will focus on the really glaring ones. The biggest flaw this movie suffers from is the same one that plagues all of the Transformers movies: too much of humans, not enough of Muppets (or, in the case of Transformers, robots). If you recall the show the humans were always at most ancillary characters who mostly there just to highlight how cool the Muppets were (IMO), and there was never more than one. Here, there are entire scenes and horrible song and dance numbers featuring only humans. Two black holes. Introducing a new Muppet as the protagonist who is really kind of bland and boring, with nothing notably about him at all. This is what happens when you don’t have Jim Henson involved. One black hole. That’s it. Three black holes.
So a grand total of nine black holes, and my hearty endorsement. Go see this film. Take your kids. They will love it. If you grew up in the 80’s this will rock for you, and the humor is sophisticated enough to keep an adult entertained. Good date movie? Absolutely. If your date isn’t laughing, feeling good, and having her inhibitions lowered by this film leave her at the theater as odds are she is really a serial killer looking to gut and make a new skin suit out of you as soon as you get alone.
Thanks for reading. I will probably see Hugo tonight at the Grand Lake Cinema and write it up tomorrow. I also saw the Descendants and have some funny thoughts about that film, but I there is so much good stuff out right now I think I will save it for Sunday. Follow me on Twitter @NerdKungFu. Thanks again. Talk to you all later.
Dave
Farewell, Anne McCaffrey
Anne McCaffrey holds a weird place in my heart. She was not my favorite, as I tend to go more of harder military sci fi and her stuff felt very soft, even feminine, to me. However, this is a result of her intention rather than any failing in her writing. I like to think that she saw the universe as a place where strife existed but peace and love could as well.
The reason she is special to me is that she was instrumental in my developing a love of science fiction through an act of kindness. As a kid we were very poor (food stamp poor) and the only books I could get were the $.10 paperbacks from the local thrift store. This unfortunately meant that reading a series was nigh impossible, as I would find the third and fifth in a series, but never the first and second and never in any kind of order. I had not read much science fiction when I had the fortune to come across a copy of the Dragonriders of Pern, first in the Dragonrider series. I read it and it was kind of mind blowing for my youthful brain. Telepathic dragons who get ridden by guys and fight space worms? The ability to bond with a friend for life who would love you unconditionally? All on an alien planet far from the PTSD inducing life that was my home and school world? Sign me up please!
The problem, as aforementioned, was that it would be many a moon before I saw another in the series. However, one of my mom’s friends was over visiting and notice me reading my copy for like the fifth time. She went home and a week later stopped by with the entire series to date, laid out in order. Seems she was a fan. It was wonderful. I consumed the entire series in about two weeks and proceeded re reread the series for most of the rest of the year. At that point I started saving up whatever money I could get (mostly from collecting aluminum cans like a homeless person, although this was before it became popular with the homeless. However, as a result I have experience as a dumpster diver) and buying sci fi novels instead of candy or junk. I always kept an eye out for McCaffrey novels. I read the Ship that Sang, an anthology Anne edited, and was introduced to several other authors. I read the Crystal Singer series and was introduced to the concept of of hot women in space singing for crystals (the cover art was pretty good on that one. Hey, it was the early ’80s).
By that time my love of reading and science fiction was firmly entrenched in my mind and continues to this day. Over time my taste shifted over towards more military stuff, as well as stories with more tragic characters or endings (ever read Iann Banks?). I remember in 6th grade we had an assignment to read 300 pages of a novel (our parents would sign off for each book we finished) in a single semester. I found that laughable and set a personal goal of 10,000 pages, which I achieved (and cemented my place as a loser nerd with my classmates. Maybe I should have set a goal of learning to throw a football). Reading has been my friend for my entire life and a big part of that I lay thankfully at the feet of Anne McCaffrey.
I was extremely saddened to learn of her death yesterday, and hope her legacy carries through and inspires other young people to love reading. I also hope that if they make a movie out of her books they follow the pattern set by the Lord of the Rings trilogy rather than Green Lantern pattern. There have been some very well done movies made from novels lately, and I hope the same movie makers are the ones to get a hold of the Dragonriders. Anne McCaffrey’s legacy deserves the best.
(Lord of the Fail image courtesy of the Funny T Shirt category)
Thanks for reading. I might go see a movie on Thanksgiving (cough cough no life cough cough), so I should have something to write about this weekend. Follow me on Twitter @NerdKungFu. Thanks again, and talk to you all later.
Dave
The Twilight Saga Breaking Dawn Part 1 Movie Review
Bare chestapalooza.
Yes, I saw it last night and yes, I felt my testosterone level drop as the title credits rolled across the screen. I was with a friend who loves Twilight (and who probably hates me now for the snide comments I was making throughout the film) and a bunch of other women and browbeaten boyfriends.
I am probably going to throw a few spoilers out here, so if you are for some freakish reason a fan who is going to see the film but haven’t read the books (illiterate, maybe? I can’t figure out any other reason. But then, what are you doing here?) maybe skip to the conclusion. Something I heard a couple years ago that is the author of the books, Stephanie Meyer, is an uber Mormon (magic underwear?) who not only hates the idea of premarital sex but sex in general. I know this sounds weird in a story that seems to capitalize on hot, young hairless guys who lack enough money to buy shirts, but when you think about it the main protagonist, Bella, remains a virgin until she gets married (at age 18) where on her wedding night has painful, bodily injuring sex exactly once and gets into the most horribly painful unwanted pregnancy since Eraserhead. Talk about punishment. When you think about it, seems like a certain morality agenda is being forced down the throats of young women worldwide, with some serious damage being done to women’s liberation along the way (Bella is, in almost all circumstances, the passive vessel for all of the what can laughingly be called masculinity on the screen).
Anyway, is the movie good or bad? Depends on your perspective. If you are a fan I’m sure you can enjoy it. If you are more like me and really only hold a passing interest in the cultural phenomenon generated by the series than it kind of seems sluggish and pointless, with a lot of really mediocre acting and dialog. I think the best way to describe this film is with the word “filled”, as in it is full of filler. You see, as far as I can tell the book Breaking Dawn was not really significantly longer than any of the others, yet somehow the studio has decided they need to make it into a four hour epic (Part 1 was 117 minutes). Every scene seems horribly stretched and elongated to no purpose, with a ton of flashbacks to scenes lifted from 15 minutes earlier. It’s like if you were making an energy bar and wanted to increase the size and weight by throwing in handfuls of sawdust into the mix. I spent the first 45 minutes praying for ANYTHING to happen (and by anything I mean I would have been happy if the Earth had fallen into the sun). Stretching a 2 hour movie into two parts is a way of doubling your revenue, but it really doesn’t add anything to the experience and, honestly, if it works here will set an ugly precedent for future sequels.
Anyway, the movie starts off with Jacob (Taylor Lautner-all the Twilight films plus the horrible Abduction (check out the review I did for that dog)) ripping off his shirt (surprise, surprise. Yes, ladies, he has his shirt off within five seconds of the opening credits ending) and running off into the woods as a wolf, dropping his invitation to Bella and Edwards wedding (Kristin Stewart-wow. She’s got nothing really besides the Twilight series. I guess bland doesn’t translate well to films designed to appeal to groups besides teenage girls. Edward is of course Robert Pattinson, whom I blasted in my review for Water for Elephants. Looks like his new emotion chip failed again). A bunch of other people whom I am sure would be important to me had I seen more than one of the other Twilight films get invitations too. We get subjected to more of the same chemistry-less romance between Bella and Edward and Edward runs off to his bachelor party that we don’t get to see (what to vampire bachelors who don’t actually drink human blood do at a bachelor party? Sounds like a quiet evening at the library to me). The wedding scene seemed to go on for 83,000 years and was overall kind of awkward and painful. Then a flight to Brazil and a romantic beach bungalow (what do these vampires do for money, anyway? None of them seem to have a job, unless being overly good looking pays) where the two of them have sex exactly once and spend the rest of the honeymoon playing chess (no joke. I wish I was joking). Edward is afraid he will hurt Bella because he bruised her or something during that first night.
Bella gets painfully pregnant and starts showing within a couple weeks (isn’t part of being a vampire that your cells are effectively dead, or perhaps crystallized? How, then, can vampire sperm cells fertilize an ovum? And what aspect of that union means the fetus will develop in a month?). They fly back to their estate in Washington (home of Starbucks. I’m not saying that Starbucks is run by vampires, but the evidence is stacking up) where the other main vampire/robot Carlisle (Peter Facinelli, another guy who has nothing else going on, unless playing Zan from the Wonder Twins in a film short counts for something. Everything else is garbage) announces that the fetus, who for some reason has put a lead shield or something around the womb preventing xray or ultrasound (???) from showing it, will probably kill Bella. She refuses to have the child aborted and has to drink human blood, in spite of still being human. Meanwhile, the werewolves come to the conclusion that the baby will be a monster and threat to them for reasons they opted to not really share with the audience. Once again we are treated (subjected) to vampire on werewolf action where no one of any significance dies. Vampire havoc ensues. You are finally given some action, although it is short lived and ultimately kind of pointless.
Before I get into the stars and black holes, I have a few questions I want to ask of any Twilight fans out there. First of all, if you are a vampire and your plush vampire house is surrounded by werewolves who significantly outnumber you, wouldn’t you look for some kind of equalizer? And by that I mean guns. Is there some rule that vampires can’t use guns at all? They seem to have unlimited money. A couple of SPAS 12’s would have put a hurt on the wolves as they came bounding towards you. For that matter, if you have the resources just mount an M2 .50 cal on the roof and surround your house with Claymores. That would put paid to the wolves pretty quick, and it’s not like local law enforcement has any interest in what goes on in the woods.
The second question is when did the Twilight series turn into a Saga? Crowbarring that into the title really bugged me, like adding Part 2 to the Hangover. Saga is a Norse term for an epic tale. Sorry, but there is nothing epic about watching Bella and Edward having “romantic” scenes with all the natural chemistry of a sugar cube being dissolved in water while Jacob skulks around outside.
Thirdly, what ever happened to the vampires sparkling in daylight? This is actually a point that grinds me like nothing else about this series, but if you are going to make it a point of the film please try to maintain it. Don’t just drop it (Sparkly vampire image courtesy of the Horror Movie T Shirt category).
Fourth, what the hell was the deal with those creepy looking vamps and the hot girl during the credits? I know those guys are the bosses from Italy, but what exactly was up with the girl? She didn’t seem to do anything wrong. Also, one thing I kind of liked about Twilight (there are words that I thought I would never type) is they managed to stay away from the Emo vampires, and then at the end there they are. Is there a minimum Emo requirement for any vampire movie?
Fifth, they seem to make sure you see Jacob and the rest of the werewolves rip out of their clothes every time they transform in an attempt to help show how wild and savage they are, but where do they get clothes for their next human scene? The wolves surrounding the house clearly left their territory in wolf form, but when they need to talk all of a sudden it’s like they found a lost truck full of Abercrombie and Fitch merchandise. Do they have secret caches of clothing hidden all over the place? Does the magic that transforms them back to human give them clothes again? I could actually buy that, as it was a premise in a Harry Dresden novel, but why then show the clothes ripping off? Muscle shirts a go go. For that matter, what do the werewolves do for a living as well? Their wardrobe budget would bankrupt a small European country.
Anyway, I could go on, but better get to the stars. I don’t know if this is a accurate assessment, as my liking his acting is only in comparison to the sub mediocre acting from everyone else, but I kind of liked Taylor Lautner’s performance. At least he showed emotion once in a while. One star. The flash back to the 30’s when Edward was killing humans was kind of cool, I guess. One star. I can’t think of anything specific, but will award two stars for not sucking as bad as I thought it was going to suck. Total: four stars.
The black holes. The plot had more holes than a golf course. One black hole. Horrible, deadpan, emotionless, drab acting from almost everyone. One black hole. Long, boring scenes that accomplished nothing. One black hole. Stretching one two hour film into 2 two hour films in a blatant attempt to take advantage of your gullible fans. One black hole. Filler added by recycling scenes from earlier in the movie just to run out the clock. One black hole. A decided lack of motivation on the part of the werewolves. A little more thought and/or expository dialog would have been appreciated. One black hole. The writer seemed to pull the ending from so deep in her ass that she must have bumped her tonsils on the way out. One second you are gearing up for the final, epic battle where someone might have actually been in mortal danger, and the next everyone goes home and orders pizza. One black hole. Robert Pattinson’s eyebrows. One black hole (petty, I know. But still. They are almost hypnotic in how they draw your eyes). Deus Ex Machina set to full power. One black hole. Thinly disguised religious morality message. One black hole. Total: ten black holes.
So a grand total of six black holes. Honestly, before you hate spam me I could have been a lot harsher. On a bad day each of those questions I asked earlier would have been another black hole. And again, if you are a fan I am sure you will find the love for this film. Just do your suffering boyfriend a favor and go with your girlfriends. Date movie? Maybe. I think a lot of girls might look at you weird if you expressed an interest in seeing this. Not the most macho choice you could make.
Thanks for reading this particularly long review. Feel free to post comments here, and as long as you don’t cuss I will approve them and try to respond. Follow me on Twitter @NerdKungFu. More coming up soon. Cheap movie night so I should be able to see something. Talk to you soon.
Dave
