300: Rise of an Empire Review
Slow Motion a go-go!
Have you ever gone to a truly epic party on a Friday night? One that you could consider one of the best of your life? An amazing house, great music, lots of cool people, hot chicks, and all the greatest food, booze, and drugs you could ever want? The kind of party where you have nothing but fun and excitement with no real repercussions or consequences? You know, the kind of party where the next day I say to myself “Wow, I almost got laid last night!” (wait is this keyboard on? Dammit! Image courtesy of the Funny T Shirt category BTW).
Anyway, ever go to that amazing party and the next morning while basking in the afterglow (or puking up your hangover) you get a call from That Guy? You know who That Guy is. The guy who also had a blast and is 100% convinced that he can make lightning strike twice by throwing the exact same party the very next night, little realizing that most of the people who made it fun either are recovering or recognize him as That Guy and opt to stay in or do something else super fun and cool that I am not invited to. Also his house sucks, the only music he plays is his weird Spotify mix or his neighbor’s kid’s band, the booze is all the cheapest swill available, the drugs either scary or non-existent, and the only food he has is stale chips, cold pizza, and frozen cheese-and-broccoli Hot Pockets with no microwave. Sure, a few of the same people showed up and you can talk about the amazing party you went to last night but really you just stand around looking at each other and wishing you could go back in time 24 hours.
That’s pretty much what 300: Rise of an Empire is. The next day after party no one really wanted. It sort of has a similar greasy feel to it but beyond the fact that it’s bare chested Greeks swinging swords at Persians it is not the same amazing scene and you spend most of the movie wishing you were watching the original. I originally thought that this was another Zack Snyder event but once I ground my way through it to the extremely predictable ending I looked it up and realized Zack only has a writing credit. No, directing credit goes to some dude named Noam Murro, who has done 0.00 action movies and mostly did a couple of HBO movies (one of which was a documentary) and a Dennis Quaid film called Smart People, which netted less than $10 mil.
I know I rail against this every time I see a crap movie with a huge budget but see if you can follow the logic for me. You are a senior executive at Warner Bros. You green light a film and give it a $100,000,000 budget. You are looking for a director. You look at a list of people and think “You know who would be perfect for directing this $100,000,000 film production? Some guy who no one has ever heard of, has never done an action or adventure film, and who’s total box office receipts to date are about 1/10th of the money we are about to hand him. How perfect is that?” Seriously, this is the kind of stuff that keeps me up at night. Is there anyone out there who works in the movie industry who can shed some light on this for me? I will respect your anonymity but I really don’t think I can take Hollywood seriously if I don’t understand what combination of drugs and stupidity leads to these decisions.
Not to say that Warner is going to lose their investment. Thanks to the brain damaged decision making process that you, the American movie going audience, engages in it is proven that any sequel will automatically rake in 60% of the take of the original regardless of the merit of the film. 300 brought in $70 million its opening weekend. This turd is on track to earn $40 million, which is 57.1% of the original. Do any of you ever feel guilty for catering to a stereotype? On a completely unrelated note I cannot wait for the new Captain America sequel. It is going to be epic.
Before seeing this film last night I was talking about it with a couple friends who are active Frank Miller readers and they told me that his later work has been getting more and more misogynistic. After seeing this I can totally believe that as every woman in this film is either a murderous, evil sociopathic bitch or a rape victim. That says a lot about how Frank Miller and Noam Murro feel about women. There is a death scene where a very blunt and phallic sword is thrust through a woman in a blatant call back to a previous brutal sex scene. I find this attitude towards women ironic since the only redeeming feature of this film was apparent woman Eva Green. She stole every scene and was awesome. She also gave us a truly amazing nude scene and is the new love of my life (sexist I may or may not be, but definitely not misogynist. I love women).
This is a film that ironically suffers under the weight of it’s predecessor. 300 was such a huge success and pretty much established what a Greek or Roman film is supposed to look like that now every film has sweaty, bloody bare chested men hacking at each other in slow motion. This is the third film I have seen this year that could be considered “influenced” by 300 (fourth if you count Son of God) and honestly I am getting really tired of it. This film latches onto its predecessor like a tapeworm and spends most of the film sucking nutrients from 300’s small intestine. The call backs to the good film came with the rapidity and subtlety of a mini gun fired into a six foot block of soft cheese. Some directors might take pride in creating his own film and treat the call backs as the crutches they are but such distinctions are a waste of time for this team.
I’m also going to take issue with the title of this film and what exactly it is supposed to be. The film starts out 10 years before 300 and seems to imply we are going to see a film about the rise of the Persian empire but then it skips forward to the exact time of the Battle of Thermopylae. As far as I can tell the empire exists. Is this a prequel or what? A sidequel? I can tell you there was no sign of any empire rising in this film, so you can understand my simple minded confusion as to the words “rise”, “of”, “an”, and “empire” used in this title.
Also remember how 300 was about 300 Spartan warriors holding off the Persian army in a choke point? Well, now it’s about how Xerxes is the creation of some magic or god crap. Remember how the Battle of Thermopylae occurred in 480 BC? Well now we have prehistoric sea monsters because…well you know. Sharks are boring.
Anyway, one more thing and then I will get into the film. Let’s talk about filming and editing techniques. 300 more or less pushed the whole fast/slow motion action technique. It was used well and really enhanced the film. Well, this movie took that technique and has stretched it out to include literally every scene that does not actually involved people speaking. I’m not kidding when I say every freaking scene that does not have dialog is done in slow motion. Guy walking down a corridor? Slow motion. An exciting scene of oars hitting the water (done over and over again)? Slow motion. Ships crashing into each other? Slow motion. This film went a fairly measly 102 minutes but if you ran the whole film at real speed I doubt it would have been even an hour.
Oh, yeah. If you see this film I hope your favorite colors are grey, grey blue, and grey green because you are going to see a lot of it. The entire film felt like I was watching it from the other side of a fish tank in desperate need of cleaning. Even the blood looked grey. It honestly would have been less monochrome had they shot it in black and white. At least then our imagination might have filled in some color and we could have believed it was done for artistic rather than incompetent reasons.
I guess we can get into the story. The story starts off with the old king of Persia Darius (Igor Naor-Munich, Rendition, Green Zone) at the Battle of Marathon getting his ass handed to him by the Greeks. Thermistokles (Sullivan Stapleton-Strike Back, Gangster Squad, Animal Kingdom) is the Greek general and he picks up a bow and slow motion shoots Darius in the chest right in front of his loving son Xerxes (Rodrigo Santoro-I Love You Phillip Morris, Rio, The Last Stand). Xerxes is heartbroken and once Darius finally shuffles off this mortal coil bitch admiral Atemisia (Eva Green-Casino Royale, Dark Shadows, Perfect Sense, my future wedding (hopefully)) convinces him that in order to challenge the Greeks he must become a god. He wanders the desert and takes a bath in magic fire water, emerging as the Bedazzled bald dude we know from the other film.
Skip forward 10 years and now it is up to the Athenians to beat his navy at sea while the Spartans hold him off via land. The Athenians are outnumbered like 50 ships to one but put their ships in a big circle like covered wagons and use that to defeat the first wave. Atemisia chucks her first general overboard and lets the next guy step forward and fail. At that point she goes on a diatribe lamenting the fact that she doesn’t have a man strong enough for her. She invites Themistokle to her ship for a parlay and they lay some pipe. He then rejects her offer to be her second in command and heads back to his navy. The next day blood is spilled, ships get rammed (more massively Freudian imagery BTW. The director of this film has phallus’s on his mind I think), and the “surprise” ending that they had been setting up since the end of the introduction surfaces. I won’t spoil it for you but if you can predict that a skunk is going to stink you will know how this film will end.
The stars:
I’m just going to say it; Eva Green saved this film from being a complete and utter disaster of Baby Geniuses caliber, and I’m not just talking about her topless scene. Every scene with her in it was fun to watch, which had the negative side benefit of making all the rest of the scenes that much harder to witness. However this section is about things the movie did right, and what they did right was cast Eva Green and give her a lot of screen time. Two stars. Eva Green’s topless scene (hey that rhymes!). One star. A lot of the action was pretty good if you are not already stuffed to the gills with Zack Snyder slow motion sword fighting. One star. I guess it was kind of fun to see some of the 300 characters, just like seeing a few of the people from the party the night before can be fun. One star. In spite of everything else it was based on actual events and kind of got most of it right. The Athenians did fight a navel battle while the Spartans were getting massacred. One star. Total: six stars.
The black holes:
The story and characters made very little attempt to engage the audience, at least as well as 300 did. One black hole. Except for Eva Green there was not a single character I cared lived or died. Thermistokles was either another bare chested Greek or annoying me with another “inspirational” speech. One black hole. The speechifying to really old really fast. One black hole. If you have a fear of losing your color vision this is not the film for you. Monochrome hell. One black hole. The misogamy has to be pretty blatant for me to notice and I was seeing it all over the place. Also enough with the phallic imagery Mr. Murro. We get it. Mommy and daddy didn’t love you enough. One black hole. This film was shot almost entirely in slow motion, a trend I find ugly as in most films I find myself wishing for a fast forward button. One black hole. The addition of magic and dinosaurs did nothing for this film. One thing I liked about the 300 was the fact that it could have been how events played out. If I want magic I’ll go back and watch the LOTRs. One black hole. This film couldn’t have stuffed in another call back or reference to 300 without bursting at the seams. One black hole. Also the whole father/son thing was a complete rip off of the first movie and 100% worthless. One black hole. Can someone please tell me what empire is supposed to be rising in this film? The Persian empire pretty much stayed established the whole time. One black hole. The addition of the “we fight for freedom and democracy” that the Athenians kept banging on about felt really out of place and annoying. How about you fight because the Persians want to conquer you? Seems like motivation enough. One black hole. You don’t have to be Nostradamus to see how this film is going to end. Maybe it’s just me but predictable=boring. One black hole. Total: twelve black holes.
So six black holes total. Was it really that bad? Meh, probably not although I held myself back on the black holes. For example I didn’t ding them for completely worthless 3D. If you can’t get enough of slow motion swordplay and shades of grey is a turn on you will enjoy it. Most of my bile comes from the fact that this film is an insult rather than a tribute to the first amazing film. Date movie? Only if misogamy and rape turn her on. This film was made for dudes. Bathroom break? That’s easy. Any time you see Themistokles on the shore inspiring his men or making plans is the prefect place to bug out for a bit. Don’t miss the scene where he visits Artemisia on her ship or you will have missed most of the reason to see this flick.
Thanks for reading. Long one today but the films where I feel personally insulted tend to be the extended reviews. Join the tens of Twitter people who follow me @Nerdkungfu. Comments on this film or my review are welcomed and can be posted below. Off topic questions or suggestions can be sent to [email protected]. I’ll see Peabody some time this weekend and write it up, and am thinking about going over the Golden Raspberry results too. That should be fun. Have a great weekend.
Dave
Winter’s Tale Review
Just sit right back and you’ll hear a tale, a tale of a crappy script.
In case you aren’t the type to be endlessly fascinated by the weirdos and degenerates that inhabit the internet there is a sub culture known as Bronies. These are grown men who are avid fans of My Little Pony. You know, the cartoon designed for little girls ages 2 to 11. Some of them are just guys who for some whatever developmental failure still enjoy the cartoon (or so they claim) but a large percentage of them are known as Cloppers and are the reason Rule 34 was created: If it exists there IS porn for it. Yes, they pleasure themselves to My Little Pony porn.
(Incidentally my knowledge of this sub culture comes from the Howard Stern Show. If you ever want to feel your skin crawl try to listen to the interviews with these guys. Now let me get back to Googling metal bikini Leia pictures).
Anyway, the point is Winter’s Tale has a similar feel to the Bronies. It is a story written for pre-teen girls that for some inexplicable reason they opted to make into a grown up movie. It’s like a little girl dressing up in her mothers clothes without the cuteness. I’ve heard the book by Mark Helprin is pretty much a fairy tale and why they opted to shoot in on film instead of making it into a cartoon is beyond me.
It’s probably the height of churlishness to bitch about deus ex machina in a movie that is supposed to be about miracles but the point is deus ex machine is dead boring. Drama is the result of seeing protagonists that we have connected to triumph against the odds through might, cunning, and strength of will. Seeing the protagonist and his supporting character escape from the top of a skyscraper by climbing onto a flying horse pretty much says that this film is on auto pilot and is going to roll into Grand Central Boring Happy Ending Station without any input from any of the people on the screen or any interest from the audience.
The good news is any debate as to which of Russell Crowe’s movies are his worst can now be put to rest. The bar has been set and unless he opts to play Babs Johnson in a scene-for-scene remake of Pink Flamingos it can’t go any lower. The same cannot be said of Colin Farrell, unfortunately. I feel bad as I actually like him. I think he is appealing and talented, but the man cannot catch a box office break. He needs to hire whoever reads George Clooneys scripts for him. All his recent films have tanked. Dead Man Down, Seven Psychopaths, Total Recall, and Fright Night. Ironically I found something to like in each of those films, which is why I feel a slight pang of guilt (very slight) for dumping on this one.
In addition to being pretty much a film for little girls who believe in fairies this film is a confusing mess. So the basic premise is that each human has exactly one miracle to perform in their life and can only do it for one person. Each person who performs their miracle goes to Heaven and becomes a star or something. Russell Crowe plays a demon who’s job is to prevent miracles from happening. His plan to prevent Colin Farrell’s miracle is to…kill him? 
I thought minions of the devil were supposed to use corruption and temptation to damn people. If all you need to do is feed a guy bullets why not go on a murderous rampage and kill everyone who has not yet performed their miracle? Go to a church and finish off hundreds of miracles every Sunday. The whole thing might have made more sense if the demon characters had been sending prostitutes and drugs his way. (image courtesy of the Funny T Shirt category)
For that matter the whole good/bad thing is suspiciously vague. Colin plays a thief who spends a lot of the movie stealing from people. Last time I checked that was considered a bad thing but somehow he is in this state of indeterminate grace. He is being aided by an angel (or something. Not as clear as it was for the demons) in the form of a white horse that can fly. At one point Colin is being confronted by about 20 of Russell’s minions and the horse flies down and…murders them all? Not exactly divine behavior (Haw! If you got that joke you are cool). I mean, sure they might be bad men but I thought the whole idea behind Christianity was the chance at redemption, something very difficult to accomplish from the bottom of a frozen lake. Again, a little explanation of what the hell the angels and demons could do and what their agenda was would have gone a long way.
And then there’s the whole deus ex machina issue, of which that last scene is a prime example. Colin’s character more or less bumbles around and whenever the plot calls for him to do something and/or he is in a dangerous situation God miracles his ass up there (thank you Gunnery Sergeant Hartman). You can get away with that once in a film. Maybe twice. Miracles should not be the plot points that connect each and every scene together.
So the film starts off with the parents of Peter Lake sticking him as a baby in a toy boat off the coast of New York (I guess it was sea worthy? I have build a few model ships and they are rarely ballasted enough to hold a baby) in order to get him to America after they were rejected for being unhealthy. Somehow they knew the boat wouldn’t capsize or he wouldn’t die of exposure before someone found him. Skip forward and adult Peter Lake (Colin Ferrall-Phone Booth, In Bruges, Total Recall) is on the run from a gang of thugs lead by Pearly Soames (Russell Crowe-Gladiator, A Beautiful Mind, L.A. Confidential). Peter kills a couple thugs (more evidence of his good soul) but gets trapped. Pearly wants to torture him to death for some reason but a horse magically appears that jumps over a massive fence and Peter escapes.
Later Peter spends the night like all good Christians do; robbing houses for loot. He breaks into a house and meets Beverly Penn (Jessica Brown Findlay-Downton Abbey, Black Mirror, Albatross) in it alone. She is dying of consumption and needs to stay cold or her fever will kill her. They spend a few minutes together and fall in love. He bugs out but is obsessed with her and heads back to her house on the horse, only to find Pearly about to kill her (Pearly had some kind of vision and drew her in the blood of some poor kid he just murdered. If that kid had not yet done his miracle wouldn’t that put Pearly in the black regardless of the whole Peter question?). Peter rescues her and escapes on Miracle Horse, who grows wings in order to fly down a huge cliff.
Pearly needs permission from Lucifer (no joke. It takes real balls to have the Prince of Darkness as a named, speaking character in your movie. Oh, yeah. Will Smith-I am Legend, Men In Black, After Earth) in order to cross the river. Lucifer denies him permission, determining that Pearly is too close to the issue. Peter and Beverly arrive at her family estate where Peter is welcomed by her father Isaac (William Hurt-Dark City, Into the Wild, A History of Violence) after a fairly perfunctory “What are your intentions” conversation. They continue to fall in love.
Pearly hires an angel to kill Beverly (huh?), assuming that Peters miracle was to save her life. Peter and Beverly go dancing and the angel poisons her. That night the two hook up and then she dies. Skip forward about 100 years and Peter is still alive with no memory until he meets Virginia (Jennifer Connelly-Blood Diamond, A Beautiful Mind, Requiem for a Dream) and her daughter Abby (Ripley Sobo-just some TV work). Abby is dying of cancer but Virginia feels the need to probe Peters mysterious past.
The story chugs along from there. Pearly is still around and still wants Peter. The super horse is still around and rescues all of them. Guys get killed, things twist (sort of), and yet more miracles happen.
The stars.
I have to say my favorite part was Will Smith as Lucifer. In each scene with him in it the movie ceased to be a confused miracle love story written for grade school children and turned into a hilarious laugh out loud comedy. I think of all the actors in this film he best smelled what the director was brewing and took it with the appropriate seriousness. One star. Visually decent. Some good camera work IMO. One star. I don’t know if I really need to crush this film but I am having a hard time coming up with anything else. Two stars total.
The black holes.
A fairy tale for adults that failed to entertain. One black hole. The whole question of what everyone’s agenda, powers, and deal was. One black hole. I don’t know if Russell Crowe was secretly laughing at the director or his dentures were slipping but his accent was ridiculous. One black hole. The whole Beverly dying part made the first 2/3rds of the movie a bummer for no reason. One black hole. Deus ex machina as a substitute for actual writing. Two black holes. This film had a serious agenda and that agenda was to make you feel uplifted by the most obvious means possible. They even had dead Beverly do a voice over at the end in case you were asleep through most of the film and missed the point (not an unreasonable assumption). One black hole. 118 minutes that felt like 118,000,000. Pacing from hell. I was just begging for something to actually happen. One black hole. If movies having a point is something you enjoy prepare to be disappointed. One black hole. Total: nine stars.
A grand total of seven black holes. Pretty bad. I honestly think they could have done something better with this. I often wonder if as the production of a crappy movie progresses if there is a sudden moment of clarity for the actors when they realize they are pushing out a turd or if they have to wait for the premier. Worth seeing at all? Maybe. Like I said Will Smith was funny and after After Earth that man owes me some entertainment. I think I would consider taking my mom to see this one. Otherwise no, not at all. Date movie? Maybe. Depends on the girl. If she is really dumb or likes to smoke pot and/or drop acid before a film she might enjoy it a lot (also if she is any of the above find out if she has a sister and send her my way. I think I am done with smart, responsible chicks). Otherwise meh. Bathroom break? Honestly all the scenes without Will Smith are equally worthless. Even if you miss an important connecting scene you can just assume some miracle saved them again and move on with your life.
Thanks for reading. I have seen 3 Days to Kill and will bury that one tomorrow morning (suck it, McG). I think I’ll go see something tonight as well and try to crank out two tomorrow. Follow me on Twitter @NerdKungFu and email your off topic questions or suggestions to [email protected]. Post any comments on this film or my review here. Talk to you soon. Have a great weekend.
Dave
Star Trek Retrospective: Episode 59 And the Children Shall Lead
There are a few episodes that really just bug the hell out of me. This is one of them. First off as was later proven by The Next Generation and Wesley Crusher kids have no part in Star Trek. I think one of the reasons I liked Voyager and DS9 is they really kept kids to a minimum. Anyone younger than Charlie X should be verboten.
It’s not that I hate kids, mind you. I just think there is something really off about kids in a sci fi world. Sci fi is a chance to escape from reality and kids are by their very nature a harsh bite of reality. Also they tend to suck as actors, which in this series is saying a lot. If you doubt what I’m saying about kids in sci fi why don’t you go back and rewatch the Phantom Menace and ask yourself if young Anakin Skywalker was anything other than a 20 ton anchor in that movie.
Also whenever I see kids on TV or movie in my mind I always see some creepy Hollywood parent pushing him or her along and making the directors life hell.
The next issue with this episode is I really don’t like it when the crew of the Enterprise looses about half their brain cells. I see in the Enterprise the smartest, most capable humans (and half Vulcans) the Federation can muster, and when they see a red flag and blatantly ignore it I want to punch my screen. Kids singing and playing around the rotting corpses of their parents? You don’t think they might warrant a little supervision just on the off chance that they are being influenced by some alien creature and had something to do with the murders, do you? Maybe Kirk and McCoy were a little blind due to their humanity but I would imagine Spock might raise an eyebrow. It’s not like humans being controlled by aliens or aliens imitating humans wasn’t the plot of 20% of the previous Star Trek adventures.
And finally there is the fact that the Gorgon is a FREAKING CLOWN! Someone might wonder where my intense dislike and fear of clowns came from and you might have an answer right here. DIE CLOWN DIE!
Evil clown (kind of redundant putting those two words together IMO) image courtesy of the Funny T Shirt category.
Dave
Star Trek Retrospective: Episode 60 Is There in Truth No Beauty?
This is another episode that I found kind of confusing as a kid. I guess I didn’t really get Marvick’s motivation to kill the Medusan ambassador or his obsession with Miranda. I mean, she was super hot of course (Diana Charlton Muldaur) but I was so buried under hot Star Trek women that she seemed kind of run of the mill at the time. I think the episode is pretty amazing now, but I always have a hard time enjoying episodes wherein they make Spock act like a happy, emotional human. It feels like a caricature to me and I can’t deal. Do not denigrate the patron saint of the Church of Spock.
I will say that Diana Muldaur is singular in that she played two different characters on Star Trek TOS and another one on TNG. All her characters were doctors of one type or another. As far as I know the only other actor to pull that off was Mark Lenard, who played Sarek Spock’s father in Journey to Babel and the Romulan commander in Balance of Terror. He later resurfaced again as Sarek in TNG, the Search for Spock, the Voyage Home and Star Trek: The Motion Picture as the Klingon Captain (you really have to have your Trek chops to catch that one. Damn I’m Star Trek sexy! Trexy?).
Anyway, the one thing that was funny to me was the idea of someone so ugly it would drive you insane. What if you were really, really, really drunk? Imagine waking up the next morning and finding that in bed with you asking where you keep your coffee. Although to be fair for the first time you would have a legitimate excuse to ask her to put a bag over her head (image courtesy of the funny t shirt category).
For the record the title comes from a poem called Jordan by George Herbert.
Dave
The Nut Job Review
Sometimes you feel like a nut, but after this movie you won’t.
It’s a weird phenomenon that occurs for me whenever I go to see a kids film I know ahead of time is supposed to suck. I walk in with my talons out and my canines sharpened in anticipation of mauling the latest crime against developing children’s brains but then as the other kiddie movie trailers start rolling by I feel myself ease up on it. “It’s a kids movie for Christs sake” I can hear myself think. “It has cartoons and celebrity voices. How bad could it possibly be?”
Image courtesy of the Nut Job Official web site.
Well, two hours pass and by the end of it I usually have my answer. In most cases it’s the writing and super pandering nature but oddly enough in this film it’s the characters. You see, most movies (grown up films included) have what is commonly known as a protagonist. This mythological creature is generally made to be somehow likeable and sympathetic. The goal is to have the audience identify and connect with this individual in an attempt to make us care about what happens to him or her and thus enjoy the movie.
Such doddering outdated movie concepts are too old school for director Peter Lepeniotis, the David Lynch of children movies. Instead of creating a character we can all like he seems to be set on creating the most unlikable cartoon character since Scrappy Doo. Surly Squirrel has a reprehensible selfish personality, speaks the dialog of a sociopathic mafia hit man, has the voice characterization of a sexual predator (sorry Will Arnett. I actually am a fan of yours but you play creepy jerks the best and thanks to this film I now know it’s mostly your voice), and looks literally like a diseased rodent. There is nothing to like about him and you spend most of the film hoping he gets run over. For that matter why name him Surly unless you wanted us to hate him?
This failure in the art and casting department carries over to the rest of the cast as well. Surly’s best friend Buddy (oh, I see what they did there) is a mute rat who looks like the cartoon equivalent of a meth addict. The girl (not really love interest. No such thing as romance here) squirrel is a shrill version of Surly with a conscious, the bad guy oozes evil on the screen with every syllable, most of the rest of the crew are attempting to see who remembers the Three Stooges, and the human villains are ridiculous caricatures. The only character even remotely likeable was the dog Precious.
Which brings us to another point: the dialog. One of the reasons Precious was likeable was because she was the only animal in this movie about cute animals that was remotely cute and said animal-like things such as “I’m going to lick your face”. The rest of them spoke like cast members of the Sophranos. This disparity between visual and audio I found really confusing and it hurt my brain. If you are going to do cute go with cute dialog and voice characterizations. Don’t discuss your food inventory level like the a scene out of Boiler Room. Are they smart as humans or just dopey animals? The needle kept flipping back and forth, usually just in time to provide a key point to advance the script.
Ironically the script wasn’t unredeemable. If they had stayed away from making this a character study of the character equivalent of a blood fluke and focused on a cool “Animals do a daring burglary and steal a ton of nuts” story it would have been a lot better. However the director has only both written and directed two films; this one and a short called Surly Squirrel. It appears this character is his baby and no one puts baby in a corner. Not on his watch.
Sigh. The story. Surly Squirrel (Will Arnett-Arrested Development, Despicable Me, Hot Rod (as proof of my fandom I did not even have to look at his filmography to pull those three great items)) and his side-rat Buddy live in a park. The park is effectively some kind of socialist food collective (almost a farm for animals of some kind) wherein everyone pools all the food they collect during the summer and rations it out during the winter. This is all done at the behest of Racoon (Liam Neeson-the Grey, Taken, Schindler’s List), who apparently doesn’t rate his own name. Surly and Buddy refuse to participate, taking an every-rodent-for-themselves approach. The rest of the park is dangerously low on food (Missing nuts image courtesy of the Funny T Shirt category)
They spot a nut cart on the sidewalk. Andy (Katherine Heigl-A Big Wedding, New Years Eve, One for the Money. Wow. A trifecta of crappy movies. Why can’t you find something worthy of your talent Katherine? Although based on the rumors I hear regarding your interaction with other movie professionals I could probably hazard a guess) is the local smart squirrel and is sent out with macho yet dumb squirrel Grayson (In case you are having trouble telling all the squirrels apart Grayson is the gray one. Oh wait, I see what they did there. Brandon Fraser-Escape from Planet Earth, Bedazzled, Breakout) to loot the cart but Surly and Buddy beat them to it.
They get into a tiff and manage to ignite the propane tank of the cart, sending it careening into the tree where the park collective has stored all the food. The winter supply is completely destroyed. Surly gets blamed and is banished from the park into the city.
Meanwhile it turns out the guy pushing the nut cart was part of a gang casing a bank for a robbery. They have taken over a nut shop and are using it as cover. Surly spots the nut shop and sees it as his opportunity to eat himself into coma. At the same time Grayson and Andy are sent out in the city in a desperate attempt to find more food. They run into Surly and opt to go in on the robbery together.
At that point the story kind of teeters off. They make multiple attempts (this is where the Three Stooges get channeled in) and make friends with a cute pug named Precious (Maya Rudolph-Turbo, Idiocracy, Bridesmaids) after torturing her with a dog whistle. Turns out one of their park friends is actually evil (Racoon, OK. It was Racoon. Sorry for the spoiler but if you didn’t see that coming you must still be putting your hand in the campfire just to make sure it still burns) and has a bizarre convoluted plan for no apparent reason. There is an epic two level chase scene and a happy ending pulled out of the far reaches of the writers colon.
I don’t do stars and black holes for kids movies. It seems petty and pointless. I would normally judge a kids film by how much the kids in the audience seemed to be reacting but the theater was mostly empty (read into that what you will). I suppose if I were five years old I would enjoy about 15 minutes of it on the nursery television before going off to hit my little sister on the head. Any older than that and I think I would probably be pretty bored. That boredom will increase exponentially as you get older so if mom and dad have to sit through this I hope you brought your beer helmet full of Steel Reserve.
Well, that’s it I guess. This film exceeded the industries very modest expectations so I guess we can look forward to seeing Nut Job 2: Bigger and Nuttier soon. Odds are the industry failed to factor in how desperate parents are for entertainment for their hyper overexposed rugrats. Either that or the sexual double entendre in the title was badly misinterpreted by assorted deviants and the opening weekend was filled with guys in raincoats who left halfway through the movie but were too embarrassed to demand their money back. Should you see it? Meh. This film was basically designed to be bought as a DvD and thrown on the “My God find something to keep that brat distracted for an hour” shelf. As an adult fan of well done kids movies absolutely not. Date movie? No. If she is a kid at heart (or you are in that grace period before they find the right photo of you to put up on the Megan’s Law website) see the Lego Movie (writing that review next). Bathroom break? Any time you see Surly Squirrel about to deliver a monolog about how he is a lone squirrel or something is a great time to boogie. The only scenes really worth watching all have Precious in them.
Thanks for reading. Like I said I just saw the Lego Movie and am eager to write it up but had this thing 2/3rds done and wanted to get it out. Follow me on Twitter @Nerdkungfu and post any comments you might have on my review or this film right here. Off topic questions or suggestions can be sent to [email protected]. Talk to you soon.
Dave
Star Trek Retrospective: Episode 67 the Empath
This is another episode that was banned by the BBC for sadistic elements and I don’t necessarily disagree with them. It seems an alien race capable of transportation technology would be capable of creating some kind of VR or cloning creatures for their torture tests. How about using some of the other millions of inhabitants of the Gem’s world rather than shanghai some hapless scientists and our favorite command crew? Sounds way more fair. Also Gem’s planet is one of several inhabited worlds in the system but no one seems to be shedding any tears about the other planets. Where they all inhabited by flatulence monsters?
All that being said I do like this episode a lot if only because it shows the incredible loyalty that Kirk, Spock, and McCoy had for each other. Like I said in a very personal Star Trek post earlier most everything I learned as a kid about honor and loyalty I got from TOS and this episode taught me a lot about how to be a friend.
Also Gem (the lovely Kathryn Hays) was drop dead gorgeous and couldn’t speak at all. The perfect woman, right? And I wonder why I have trouble in my dating life. (problem solved image courtesy of the Funny T Shirt category) She was a regular on As the World Turns and Guiding Light, but honestly my mom only watched Days of Our Lives so I never got to see her perform. Since she didn’t speak in this episode for all I know she had a high helium squeaky dolphin voice. That might have been a little weird.
Dave
Star Trek Retrospective: Episode 73 the Lights of Zetar
This was one of the episodes that literally freaked me out at age six. When they get on board Memory Alpha and that crewman has the weird face and is speaking like she is gargling gravel I was truly frightened. This one and Devil in the Dark did a number on me.
In reflecting on this episode it suddenly occurred to me that Scotty is literally the kiss of death for women in this series. He is the only red shirt to consistently survive yet every time he gets close to a girl something horrible happens to her. In this case Mira managed to survive but still it was pretty awful. When you think about it he was acquitted of murdering all those women in Wolf in the Fold but maybe he just found a dopey alien patsy to dump his crimes off on. Sure the alien more or less confessed but perhaps it was Scotty who had the ability to compel aliens to do his bidding and secretly he really is a serial killer (Loved and Lost image from the funny t shirt category).
That’s one episode that was never really addressed in any Star Trek; humans being the uber powerful aliens on a planet with some evil power that terrifies the locals. What if human halitosis caused alien flesh to dissolve, or dead skin cells flaked off implanted in alien soil speed grew up into super soldiers ready to do whatever random red shirts bidding. Sure, the idea of technology and social progress changing primitive societies was explored in A Piece of the Action, A Private Little War, Bread and Circuses, and Patterns of Force, but what if humans just had some intrinsic power that would be terrifying to behold? Considerable argument could be made that Kirk exuded some pheromone that makes alien women take their clothes off.
Anyway, this episode was weird but not really of massive social or personal impact (aside from giving me a lifelong distrust of disco lighting). It was the originator of Memory Alpha, the top Star Trek Wiki and one that I personally refer to often. Of course, given our current social situation when we do a giant star base for all knowledge it will probably be called Google Alpha.
Dave
The Hunger Games: Catching Fire Review
Game winning.
There’s a special feeling you get when you see a franchise movie with a dedicated fan base on opening night. If any of you saw any of the Star Wars or Harry Potter movies this way you know what I mean. As bad as some of them may be you cannot help but get caught up in the excitement and passion that the fans exude from every pore and orifice. People show up in costume, show creepy fan tattoos, and will happily band together and beat the ass of any with the temerity to doubt the world wide worth of their favorite book-turned-movie character. These things add a flavor and energy to the film that otherwise might go unnoticed. Also if you fail to appear to enjoy the film there’s always that band together thing to worry about.
Well, except for Twilight, of course. There isn’t enough fan loyalty and good will in the universe to make that franchise watchable. We’re talking a general feeling of warmth here, not the almighty power of God. The best way to find one of those sparkly vampire movies enjoyable is on some serious drugs in a completely different room from the one the film is playing in, preferable in a different house in a different city or even on a completely different plane of existence where life is based on silicon rather than carbon and communication is through low level coded emissions of radiation. Speaking of God and different planes of existence the Charlie Sheen winning image I got from the funny t shirt category. It was the only winning image I could think of.
So the fan base at the late night screening last night added to my enjoyment of this film. I saw three girls dressed as Katniss (one with a fake bow and quiver of arrows, although for some inexplicable reason she had her pretend arrows coming out of the quiver point first). All of them were young and cute, which are two words that could describe a really large percentage of the audience. I felt like an even creepier old man than I do when I see kids movies. At least at kids movies some people might think I’m developmentally challenged. I really need to get a girlfriend who loves movies so I look like less of a loser. Lacking that I adopted my usual creepy solo loner at an inappropriate movie mien by scowling continuously while reading my own blog (let it not be said that I am not a fan of my own work, or that my ego needs inflating) on my phone, thus guaranteeing a bubble of at least two seats in all directions so I could watch the movie in relative peace.
I saw the first Hunger Games and was honestly shocked at how much I enjoyed it. I was expecting it to be another sparkly vampire fiasco and walked in with my bile cannon locked and loaded, but I am man enough to admit when my ill informed preconceived notions are incorrect. I went and read the book afterward and enjoyed it as well. Suzanne Collins is a talented writer and cut from a much different cloth than certain writers of other novel series designed to suck disposable income and brain cells from the purses and brain pans of teenage girls. Katniss had actual depth, was not caught in a pointless love triangle with sizzle chested man/boys, and had actual drama going on in her life not the problem of deciding which idyllic life to choose. She showed courage and strength of character when she volunteered as tribute in the place of her sister, and since I was invested in her character I honestly cared about what befell her.
This film continued that tradition. I opted to not read the second book until I had seen it and in retrospect I am glad I did. You see, in the moments prior to Katniss being raised up to the arena floor in this film I had a feeling so alien I had a hard time classifying it. I was leaning forward in my seat, my pulse was elevated, and I could feel adrenaline rushing through my body. Was I having a heart attack? Brain aneurism? About to Sublime to an energy based level of causality? No, this was honest to God excitement, the rarest and most valuable of emotions for a movie reviewer (or just movie attendee).
The fact is by not knowing what happened in the book and by being invested in both Katniss and Peeta (most of the rest of the cast too) I was honestly concerned for their safety. This is a harder thing to pull off than you might think, and when you see 150+ movies per year (and then write rambling reviews of them) it is even harder. Since I knew there was a third movie I could reasonably deduce that Katniss was probably going to survive, but what about Peeta? Or Haymitch? What was going to happen to Cinna or that sizzle chested man/boy Gale that Katniss was mooning over (God dammit!)? Any one of them could have ended up on the wrong end of a machete and that would have been both amazing and a bum out. Even the new tributes had me engaged (especially Johanna).
On the other hand, if I were to offer one major criticism to this movie (and you know I have to) it’s that this is another book-to-film adaptation that assumes we all worship at the Hunger Games alter and read from the holy books every night before going to bed. Sorry but I didn’t write my thesis on Catching Fire (it was actually on the diminishing appearance of masculine art in a marginalization environment, if you have to know) and there were any number of moments where I was going “Huh?” while the rest of the audience was laughing or nodding sagely. I feel dirty for saying this given how much I have bitched about the multiple movie approach to other books (cough cough the Hobbit cough cough) but I think this story was dense enough and rich enough to warrant a part I and II. There was lots of stuff only touched on that I think I would have enjoyed seeing explored.
The film starts off with Katniss Everdeen (Jennifer Lawrence-Silver Lining’s Playbook, Winters Bone, X-Men First Class) having PTSD flashbacks while hunting with her sort of boyfriend Gale (Liam Hemsworth-the Expendables 2, Paranoia, the Hunger Games). She has to leave on a victory tour of the 12 Districts with Peeta (Josh Hutcherson-the Kids are All Right, American Splendor, Epic). Before leaving she is confronted by President Snow (Donald Sutherland-Mash, the Eye of the Needle, Ordinary People) who tells her that her poison stunt is being seen as an act of defiance and the only way she is going to not have her family killed is if she sells her fake romance with Peeta to the hilt.
(Quick aside-while it is absolutely true that the subtle nuances of the human mating rituals are entirely lost upon me (along with most of the not-so-subtle ones, and for that matter a lot of the painfully obvious ones) but given what he does for her it is apparent that Katniss absolutely does not deserve a guy as good as Peeta. Haymitch says exactly that, but as a man who works to be a good guy and help his friends (female and male) I was feeling a lot of Peeta’s pain. If any of you women wonder why you never date nice guys let me say on behalf of all the nice guys you have probably rejected in your life go to hell (no the irony is not lost).)
Anyway, they get on the bullet train with Haymitch (Woody Harrelson-Zombieland, Now You See Me, No Country for Old Men) and Effy (Elizabeth Banks-Pitch Perfect, the 40 Year Old Virgin, What to Expect When You are Expecting) and travel to all the districts. They start to see signs of discontent in a lot of them, to the point that they managed to inspire riots and executions. They try their best but Snow is convinced that the two of them are a threat to his power and stability. At a decadent party Katniss meets Plutarch Heavensbee (WTF is up with the names in this film? It doesn’t look that far in the future. No one is named Bill? Plutarch is played by Philip Seymour Hoffman-Moneyball, Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead, the Big Lebowski), the new head of the Hunger Games. He says some ominous stuff.
Katniss and Peeta keep screwing up, so Plutarch and Snow decide to do away with them. The big 75th anniversary Hunger Games is coming up and the opt to pull in just previous winners from each of the districts. Haymitch is chosen but Peeta volunteers in his place. They go through the whole pre game rigamarole more or less same as last time; training, evaluation, interviews with creepy Caesar Flickerman (Stanley Tucci-the Terminal, The Devil Wears Prada, Captain America the First Avenger). This time the two of them work to build alliances with other tributes including wild girl Johanna (the strangely attractive Jena Malone-Sucker Punch, Contact, Into the Wild) and brainiac Beetee (Jeffrey Wright-Source Code, the Quantum of Solace, Casino Royale). All of the tributes are pretty pissed about getting dragged back into this fiasco and take every opportunity to turn the screws on President Snow.
They all get injected into the Games and Battle Royale mayhem ensues. This time there are no kids, but honestly it seemed even more cruel than last time. More effort is expended to survive the environment than each other. I don’t want to give away anything to anyone else who didn’t read the books, but there are twists and turns and the whole thing ends on a massive cliffhanger.
The stars:
Much better story that the subject matter deserves if you know what I mean. The real story took place outside of the Games, and greatly explored a lot of the politics. Two stars. I am a big fan of both Donald Sutherland and Woody Harrelson. One star. Jennifer Lawrence was looking even hotter here than in the last one, and Jena Malone was really turning me on. Of course it could be that I am drawn to psychopathic women armed with razor sharp battle axes, but I don’t want to follow that thought thread too closely. One star. The combined story and characters had me really giving a damn about what happened to all of them. I was really engaged. Two stars. I honestly liked the big twist, and it left me excited about the next film. One star. President Snow is a great villain. One star. Action was fun and exciting. One star. Pacing was great, and you hardly felt the 146 minutes. One star. An excellent use of my time. Two stars. Total: twelve stars.
The black holes:
I don’t want to dump on the acting, but it was really inconsistent. Sometimes great, sometimes robotic as hell (except for Woody. He was solid throughout). One black hole. There were any number of points that would have made a lot more sense had I read the book. I know I could have, but honestly a film should always stand on it’s own merits and not require pre-reading. One black hole. The whole story felt really rushed. I have the feeling the directors cut runs like 3-4 hours. I think they missed an opportunity by not breaking this one into two films, and now that I have said that I will have to go to my dark closet and flagellate myself for crimes against film. One black hole. The sadistic nature of the Hunger Games has not softened with a second movie and I still find it really hard to watch. It is even more apparent in this one. I really hope there is some kind of long due comeuppance being delivered in the last film for everyone involved. One black hole. Total: four black holes.
Eight stars total. A very solid and respectable score. If you saw the first one you should absolutely see this one. If you are curious try to see the first one then see this one. The camera work is not so epic that it requires a big screen, so feel free to see it at home. That being said a large screen or IMAX will not be wasted. Date movie? A film about a hot capable chick who kicks ass and has a believable tragic romance? How could this not be a great date movie? Bathroom break? Hmm. I supposed if you aren’t into the visual of it the chariot scene is pretty expendable once they climb aboard. It’s pretty much the same exact scene as the last film. The training sequences are pretty perfunctory as well. Katniss kicks ass with a bow, everyone else is good at something. Not exactly the most staggering of expositions.
Thanks for reading. I’ll try to see something else tomorrow or Sunday and write it up. Follow me on Twitter (or don’t as the vast majority of my readers seem inclined to) @Nerdkungfu. Comments about this review or movie can be left right here, and if you have an off topic comment or suggestion feel free to email me at [email protected]. If you happen to work for a studio and want to get me in to see advanced screenings I am most definitely down to hear from you. Also I am willing to work with other sites publishing my reviews, so if your reviewer just went back to rehab and you are looking for someone let me know. Talk to you all soon.
Dave
The Counselor Movie Review
WTF?
And I’m not talking about the last part of the week. There is an ugly trend in my movie going life in that directors that I used to love when I was just an avid casual movie viewer are losing their luster as I see every film and realize that even the greats are capable of producing crap. Robert Rodriguez, Luc Besson, and even to a lessor extent Martin Scorsese (he should have never gotten involved in the Family even as a producer) have fallen prey to my current film perspective. So far only Quentin Tarantino has proven immune to this (for obvious reasons).
My love of Ridley Scott took a hard punch to the nuts when I realized I didn’t like Prometheus. However, one bad film is not enough to turn me off on a director. Neither is two, but two in a row is a bad trend. This film is not No Country for Old Men. It is not even the Road. It is a prosaic collection of mind numbing dialog and impossible to follow plot twists within plot twists. I’ve seen unnecessarily convoluted before, but this makes those look like they were drawn on a wall with a laser level. I think a director should see some kind of warning sign when you are introducing characters with a back story and development in the last 15 minutes of the film.
Weirdly enough, in spite of the fact that the story was impossible to follow the actual events couldn’t have been more telegraphed if the audience had had Western Union deliver a script a week before viewing. One of the main-ish characters tells a the main dude that he is going to get into trouble being involved with the Mexican drug cartel and sure enough, bad things happen. He tells a story about a horrible execution device in foreshadowing as dark as a mime’s heart and sure enough, we get to see it happen. Predictable doesn’t begin to describe it.
Speaking of stories, if you like characters telling long, rambling tales and dispensing inane homey wisdom at the drop of a hat this is the movie for you. The only reason to like Michael Fassbinders character is he is the only one who is not constantly going off on weird ass irrelevant dialog tangents that do nothing for the story other than clog it down. I spent most of the film struggling to figure out what the hell was going on and having every character tell another creepy sex or dog story made it like trying to untangle a huge ball of yarn while wearing boxing gloves.
Sigh. Acting was pretty good, but that is probably the result of the individual actors talent. Ridley told Cameron Diaz to play a bitchy, sexy, double crossing sociopath and she was able to do it. Fassbinder was told to be a lame tool in over his head and like magic the character appeared. The massively talented cast helped make this film more bearable, but not more watchable.
This film felt like Ridley Scott had a secret, more coherent script in his head that only he could see or understand. That is the only explanation I can think of for the disjointed, incoherent plot. There are twists within twists, and for the life of me I still can’t figure out who the bad guys were supposed to be. Major characters are introduced willy nilly only to die off or vanish into the ether. If you are a fan of knowing what the hell is going on I’d say this is not the movie for you.
The story recap may be my biggest challenge since I started doing these reviews. I didn’t understand a lot of it, and there is a lot of detail to remember. If being confused annoys you skip ahead to the stars and black holes.
The Counselor (no name in the credits, which I find annoying like The Voice or The Kid in Getaway. I am going to just call him Fassbinder, which ironically is more letters to type then Counselor but infinitely less on my jock. Oh, yeah. Michael Fassbinder-X-Men First Class, Prometheus, Inglorious Basterds) is in bed with his hot girlfriend Laura (Penélope Cruz-Pirates of the Caribbean On Stranger Tides, Blow, Vanilla Sky) having creepy sex (this pattern would continue for most of the time the two of them got together. Most of the scenes with the two of them sounded like a soft core phone sex operator). He needs a lot of money for some reason (?) and hooks up with old friend and sort of gangster Reiner (Javier Bardem-No Country for Old Men, Skyfall, the Sea Inside), who does something (??) for an unnamed Mexican Cartel. Reiner has a super hot and blatantly evil (I mean more evil than all women are intrinsically. Not that I’m bitter) girlfriend named Malkina (Cameron Diaz-There’s Something About Mary, Shrek, Gangs of New York) who by his own admission is super sexy, super smart, and super evil. She is doing something for Reiner with computer screens (???) and seems to know everything about his business. Fassbinder wants to get in on the drug trade and apparently can for a certain amount of money (?x4. How does this work? Don’t drug dealers get paid by the buyers, not douchy lawyers who don’t do anything but answer the phone?)
Anyway, all the drugs are loaded into a sewage truck and drive from Mexico (I guess) to Chicago (with Arizona plates. Who transports sewage thousands of miles?). They make a stop and remove some kind of critical driving component (?x5). Meanwhile Fassbinder meets with Ruth (Rosie Perez-White Men Can’t Jump, Pineapple Express, Won’t Back Down), some kind of local crime queenpin (?x6) who he is representing for some offense. She asks him to get her son out of jail for a speeding ticket at 206 MPH on a bike. He does and it turns out the son is a crime courier who gets the secret truck component and hides it in his helmet.
Fassbinder hooks up with Westray (Brad Pitt-Fight Club, World War Z, Inglorious Basterds), who does something (?x7) for the drug guys (or someone). Maybe money laundering. About 800 people tell Fassbinder he is in over his head and bad things are going happen eventually.
Some dude who works for someone (?x8) stretches a wire across the road and cuts off Ruth’s sons head to get the mystery truck component. He and another dude steal the truck. Fassbinder, Reiner, and Westray are now in trouble with the bad guys (who are who, exactly? We never see anyone other than the henchman). Things seem to fall apart fast. Some other dudes who work for what sounds like the original drug cartel (maybe. ?x9 I guess) steal the truck in a highway robbery. They repair the truck and send it to Chicago where it ends up where it was supposed to go in the first place I think.
Reiner gets killed in a botched kidnapping. Westray is seduced by a hot blond girl (maybe. The never showed any details) who steals the one password to all his money accounts and gives it to Malkina, who may or may not be behind this whole mess. He gets his head cut off while Fassbinder is trying to find a way to save a kidnapped Laura. Lots of loose ends are left flying while a few get resolved sort of. Honestly it’s all really confusing and would require a couple more viewings to really understand, something I am most definitely not willing to do.
The Stars:
Acting was good all around. Two stars. Camera work and editing about as flawless as one would expect from a truly amazing director. One star. Cameron Diaz looks super hot as a conniving evil bitch. Also she had a really sexy tattoo. One star. Total: four stars.
The black holes:
OMG confusing as hell. Who was stealing from whom? Where are the actual villains? What jobs do any of these guys do? How did any of the characters to any of the stuff they did? Why was in necessary to show Fassbinder flying to Amsterdam to buy the world’s sexiest diamond for his engagement ring to Laura? Three black holes. Boring as hell. IMDB should be ashamed to classify this as Crime/Drama/Thriller as the only thing thrilling in this thing was…actually nothing was thrilling in here. What very limited action there was was perfunctory at best. Lots of scenes of slow moving sewage trucks traveling along dirt roads. Two black holes. Listening to the dialog was like trying to set the world record for eating sawdust; boring, tasteless, and completely without nutritional value. I never want to hear anyone tell any kind of story ever again. Two black holes. In spite of running a grinding 117 minutes it felt like about 100 minutes of expository scenes landed on the cutting room floor. I guess explaining to the audience what the deal is runs second to listening to a wise man tell Fassbinder about a Mexican poet in a 10 minute conversation that can be summed up with the words “You’re screwed”. This film felt weirdly long and short at the same time. One black hole. Rated R and no real nudity. Throw me a frickin’ bone here, people. Give me something more than side boob please. One black hole. Characters popped up and disappeared like the world’s largest Wack-a-Mole. Was it really necessary to give them all a back story and character development? One black hole. What the hell was the deal with the truck component? It looked like you could fix that truck with some baling wire and chewing gum, and if the truck couldn’t drive without the mystery grommet why send it hundreds of miles away by Speedy Delivery Guy? Sorry but that point is really grinding my gears (haw!). Also if the bad guys knew where the truck was couldn’t they have just towed it, or transferred the drugs to another truck? Why no guards on your $20,000,000 worth of cocaine? One black hole. A bunch of other dumb plot holes that might not have seemed so huge had I a clue who was doing what and why. One black hole. Who the hell was Ruth? One black hole. Predicable as the tides. One black hole. The overall message (getting involved with a Mexican drug cartel is a bad idea) was about as obvious and impactful as saying giving yourself a Ghost Pepper Sauce enema is a bad idea. One black hole. Total: 15 black holes.
Wow. 11 total black holes. This might be my worst movie so far this year. It is definitely my most disappointing. Watching a massive collection of talent such as Ridley Scott, Cormac McCarthy, Michael Fassbinder, and Cameron Diaz get together and s&*% the bed is 100,000 times more disappointing than watching Adam Sandler create another comedy a-bomb. It’s like meeting the Tooth Fairy, Santa Claus, and the Easter Bunny in a dark alley and having them curb stomp you and steal your shoes. Worth seeing at all? If following a plot is a secondary goal (or you are some kind of super genius) I suppose. It is pretty and the acting is good. 
If you are going because you love Cormac McCarthy movies you should immediately seek psychological counseling (haw!) but honestly this film will only hurt your love of his work (image courtesy of the funny t-shirt category). I’m going to counsel you to stay away (haw again! I’m on a roll tonight). Date movie? Only if your date is super smart and likes to show you how much better she is at figuring out movie plots or super dumb and used to being confused at movies. If she is in the 85-130 IQ range no way. Bathroom break? This film is so confusing there is not a single scene that would further damage your comprehension by missing so go nuts. There is some resolution in the last 20 minutes so I’d say go in the first 97 minutes. Any time you see the sewage truck is a good time (and possible inspiration).
Thanks for reading. This is one where I hope I can help you not have a bad evening. Follow me on Twitter @Nerdkungfu. If you think I am an idiot or agree with my assessment feel free to comment here, and if you have an off topic suggestion, question, or death threat feel free to email me at [email protected]. Have a great night.
Dave
Pacific Rim 3D Movie Review
Giant robots and Godzilla movie rejects? Sign me up!
It is rare that a movie trailer gets me excited to see the actual movie. I see so many of them (and usually the same ones over and over again) that they tend to loose all impact. They usually to do one of two things for me: either they help me compose a mental shopping list of upcoming things to see or perform the same function as my doctor telling me in excruciating and graphic detail (with visual aids) exactly what to expect during my upcoming colonoscopy during a big anesthesia shortage. Basically a list of upcoming work and/or unbearable dread.
This film broke that mold in that every time I saw it I got more excited to see it. I mean, it’s a movie about giant monsters fighting giant robots! Based on that description alone I could be suffering from simultaneous projectile vomiting and explosive diarrhea and I would still enjoy it (I can’t really say how the other audience members would feel in those circumstances however). I mean, how badly can you screw up giant monsters and robots?
Well, yes. Gozilla 1999 and most of Transformers. I suppose it can be done. However, I have faith in Guillermo del Toro. This is the man who did Hellboy, Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark, Megamind, and Pan’s Labyrinth. Some of these movies might not have gotten critical acclaim, but they rank up there as personal favorites. My faith in him was justified in this movie.
I don’t want to say this film is the Citizen Kane of science fiction films. It was chock full of plot holes, scientific “facts” that would have my eighth grade science teacher beating his fists raw against the wall in frustration, and acting so robotic I was partially convinced the actors were miniature Jaegers with tiny humans inside controlling them. In a film that wasn’t about giant robots and monsters this would have been the equivalent of a cow walking up to me in a slaughterhouse and handing me a sledgehammer. However, if you are going to this film for the story, scientific content, or acting you must be the type to order a lobster at a restaurant and proceed to eat only the shell. I was also comforted by the fact that every time I thought to myself “Wow this acting is wooden” or “CO2 slows down acidic reactions???” in a few minutes I was going to see giant robots fighting giant monsters.
The good news is I don’t have to worry too much about spoilers as if you have seen the trailer and have an IQ in the mid-80s you should be able to discern the entirety of the plot as the opening monolog is rolling out. That being said SPOILER ALERT. I was pleased during this film as it game me a chance to practice my burgeoning powers of psychic precognition. As soon as I saw that the first Jaeger pilots were two brothers I said “One of these two guys is going to get killed and the new pilot the surviving brother has to team up with will be a hot chick” and by Nostradamus’s sack was it so! A while later when I realized the only black guy in the whole movie was a retired Jaeger pilot I said “Yep. That guy is going to have to come out of retirement at some point and will end up sacrificing himself for the greater good” and once again gave myself a gold star for pattern recognition.
Because I enjoyed this film a lot I am not going to harp on the bad science and plot holes, but I have a few questions that kept popping into my head. The main one was are the Jaegers piloted by neural interface or not? They spent a ton of time talking about it and how the two pilots “drift” into each others memories and minds in order to control the Jaeger (and how it is almost impossible and brain damaging to try to pilot one solo) yet they spend the entire time in the Jaegers strapped into full body analog controls. What’s the deal here? Also, if the aliens want to conquer the planet why do they keep sending the big monsters through one at a time? I’m no brilliant tactician but it seems the trick would be to save up like 20 of them and send them through at the same time.
How does the scientist guy keep a monster brain chunk alive in a tank for months and connect his brain to it and then 30 minutes later be presented with a very recently killed intact brain and tell everyone they have five minutes until the brain is too dead to connect to? For that matter why does he act like monster samples (for the record the monsters are called kaiju) are rarer than a piece of the true cross when each one weighs a couple thousand tons and they have killed dozens of them? They should be up to their giant robot asses in kaiju parts. Why would the military opt to abandon the Jaeger program just because they are losing a few? Why not build bigger and better Jaegers? Or for that matter more of them? Instead of sending one Jaeger out after one big kaiju why not send out like 10? And their plan is to defend the world with a giant wall? How does that kill kaiju’s? You see this is one of those situation where the great military/industrial complex would actually be to our benefit. Why do jet pilots feel the best way to kill a kaiju is to fly into tentacle range? How did the commander keep the Jaegers running after he got his funding cut? Those things do not look cheap to keep fueled.
For that matter how does a local crime lord have the resources to harvest a kaiju faster than the military, as well as more knowledge of kaiju’s than the world’s leading scientist? Also last time I look the Pacific Ocean was thousands of miles across, yet as soon as they detect a kaiju at the breach they have like five minutes before it gets to a big city. I understand that the cities on the Pacific Rim are the ones being attacked, but other than that the movie really had no reason to be called Pacific Rim. Also if kaiju only attack cities on the Pacific Rim why doesn’t everyone just leave? Personally I would be parked on the right side of the Rocky Mountains.
Ok, I feel better for getting that out. Let’s get into the movie, shall we?
The film starts off with a monolog explaining how giant monsters come through the breach on the floor of the Pacific and attacking cities. In order to beat them we had to make giant robots. Skip forward a few years and Jaeger pilots Raleigh (Charlie Hunnam-Sons of Anarchy, Cold Mountain, Deadfall) and Yancy Beckett (Diego Klattenhoff-After Earth, Unconditional, Falling Skies) go into battle against a biggun and more or less get their asses handed to them. Yancy dies. Skip forward five more years and Raleigh has quit the Jaeger program and now works on the big wall that is supposed to save us. He gets recruited back into the program by Marshal Stacker Pentecost (Idris Elba-RocknRolla, 28 Days Later, Pandora) and meets the only female in the film Mako Mori (Rinko Kikuchi-the Brothers Bloom, the Sky Crawlers, Norwegian Wood). He needs to be paired up with a partner and after a long and pretty unnecessary selection process (in spite of needing to fight together it all boils down to a fight against each other) ends up paired with Mako. Meanwhile dorky scientists Newt (Charlie Day-It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, Horrible Bosses, Monsters University) and Gottlieb (Burn Gorman-Layer Cake, Torchwood, the Dark Knight Rises) argue about which scientific approach to take. Gottlieb thinks the magical power of statistics will do something while Newt wants to hook his brain to one of the kaiju.
Mako bones up the first test run in the Jaeger and they get taken off duty. The plan is to sneak a nuke into the breach and blow it up from the other side. Two huge kaiju attack and kill two of the four remaining Jaegers and disable a third one. Mako and Raleigh jump in the last one and save the day. At that point Stacker climbs into his Jaeger for his meet with destiny and he and the other Jaeger grind the story to an ending so pat and happy it’s at Cheese Level Limburger.
The stars.
Duh. Giant robots fighting giant monsters. Three stars. The Jaegers were so freaking awesome the only way they could have been cooler would be if they each had giant breasts and created deep fried bacon wraps as a waste byproduct. 
(Bacon image courtesy of the funny t shirt category). I know what I’m building first after I conquer this pathetic planet. Two stars. The kaiju are also extremely cool. One star. The action was super good. If there is any move better than hitting a monster in the head with a cargo ship I don’t know what it is. Two stars. Pacing was generally good. One star. Film work and CGI were great. Two stars. The crime lord in charge of the black market kaiju parts was Ron M-F-ing Perlman. One star. Total: twelve stars.
The black holes.
This film suffered from the same issue that continues to plague the Transformers series and that is too much humans, not enough robots kicking ass. One black hole. That laundry list of questions I had a few paragraphs ago, plus another science fiction movie that treats science like fiction. Two black holes. The Jaegers generally emoted more than the humans. One black hole. The story was about as predictable as watching the floor lights light up sequentially on an elevator ride, and if it weren’t for the whole robots/monsters thing would have been painfully cliche. One black hole. Total: five black holes.
A total of seven stars. A decent score, but honestly it and my recommendation are completely irrelevant. If you think giant robots and monsters are cool you will go see this and love it. If you want character arcs, complex stories, and human actors you will not. Go with your instinct when you first saw the trailer. I will say this movie absolutely needs to be seen on the biggest screen you can find, so don’t wait for it to come out on DvD or NetFlix. Date movie? For the love of all that is holy no. If you don’t go see this with a bunch of your guy friends and then go home and play manly video games and drink beer afterward check under your pillow to see if the Testicle Fairy left you a pair of quarters. Bathroom break? Any of the scenes with just humans in it are fair game. I think the couple of scenes where Raleigh tries to convince Stacker that Mako is not incompetent are particularly good.
Thanks for reading. I won’t be doing much for the next couple weeks as I have a big Warhammer tournament this weekend, Comic Con next weekend (and the week leading up), and a business trip right after that. I will be posting notes and images from Comic Con on my Twitter account so follow me @Nerdkungfu. If you have comments on this film or my review feel free to post them here. Off topic questions or suggestions can be emailed to [email protected]. Talk to you soon.
Dave
