Ghost Rider Spirit of Vengence Review
The Drone Ranger rides again.
This movie was actually slightly improved over the last one, but honestly it is on the level of being held under water for 10 minutes instead of 20. At the end of the day you have still drowned in a lake of plot holes, bad acting, and eardrum damaging dialog, which is unfortunate as Ghost Rider is one of my favorite comic book characters and I feel he is really cool with an interesting story. (Ghost Rider image courtesy of the Marvel Comic T Shirts)
Before getting into the meat of this flick I thought it worth looking into the two directors, Brian Taylor and Mark Neveldine, and seeing if they had produced anything worth anything. The answer is more or less a resounding no. They are attached at the hip and have almost exactly the same film credits: Crank, Crank II, Gamer, and Jonah Hex are considered their premier releases. The funny thing is other than that they seem to have only technical credits. Brian Taylor in particular is mostly listed as a camera man on a bunch of documentaries. I am all for giving up and coming directors a chance, but given that this film had a $75 million dollar budget this sounds like the equivalent of getting the guy who mops up the operating room floor to perform a heart transplant. If this is how Hyde Park feels they need to flush their money give me 1/3rd the budget and I can probably make something at least as good.
It is rarely a good sign when a movie starts in the first two minutes with a gaping plot hole, and at first I was surprised at something so dumb so early in. However, within 40 minutes I realized the entire script was composed almost entirely of plot holes, like Swiss cheese without the flavor. The plot holes kept growing and spawning new plot holes like a fast acting virus, and by the end of the movie my brain had been so inundated by them that I stopped noticing them as they flew past the screen (actually, in a strange way kind of a brilliant movie making strategy. If your writers are too dumb (Scott M. Gimple-El Tigre: the Adventures of Manny Riviera (??? A cartoon I guess), Filmore!, Pepper Ann. That’s three “major” credits since 1997 and Seth Hoffman-Prison Break, Prison Break the Final Break, House M.D.) to avoid gaping craters in the script just add more until they all kind of blur together. I just don’t credit the directors with making an active decision to pursue the plan. Looks like a happy coincidence).
If I had the energy to keep score I think the one thing this movie would have had to compete with the massive number of plot holes would be the also massive number of completely worthless and non contributing scenes. They seem to fall into the two categories of either showing how cool Nicholas Cage is on a motorcycle or burning up the remaining special effects budget with extra CGI.
And of course the final nail in the proverbial coffin would have to be the monotone drone of Nicholas Cage (Con Air, Face Off, Season of the Witch, Drive Angry). Most of this movie he does in his trademark deadpan robot like (for lack of a better term) acting. To be fair, there are a couple scenes where he does seem to emote a little, but they both seem like he is doing them under protest and they were both CGI enhanced. I think I figured out why his last few roles have been so bad in comparison to earlier movies like Raising Arizona and Kiss of Death: he can only really act when he doesn’t play tough good guys. When he is a hardened lone wolf hero something twitches in his brain and he thinks the way to manifest the character is to pretend he is a corpse. Honestly, Chuckie emotes better.
I will say the camera work was impressive, but by that I mean it was impressive for a skateboard video. In fact, the whole film felt like an action sports video with big action explosions interspersed with a montage of guys drinking beer and yelling at each other. There were a couple really cool camera shots, but not enough to make things up for all the jumbled low camera YouTube worthy filming. Some of the action was also pretty cool, but when it is established in the first action scene that the Ghost Rider is more or less impervious to any kind of attack or weapon it exhausts all the excitement in the scene like a Roofie colonic. At that point it really doesn’t matter how many hundreds of armed mercenaries you send at him. The audience knows all the bullets, grenades, and bunker buster rockets are going to pass right through him with all the impact of a wet fart.
The story, from what I could discern by looking past all the obscuring plot holes, is once more Johnny Blaze (now apparently not stopped by daylight) cursed with being Ghost Rider. The Devil (Ciaran Hinds-the Road to Perdition, Munich, There Will Be Blood, The Debt) has had a kid (Fergus Riordan-I Want to be a Soldier, Fragile) and wants him to take over the family business or something. Instead of simply using his powers to, you know, just take him away he hires a crew of mercenaries who attack a monastery and start the long, long chase after the boy. An alcoholic priest named Moreau (Idris Elba-you might remember him as Hiemdall from Thor. Also the Losers, the Office) shows up to rescue the child but his mother Nadya (Vilante Placido-the American, Moana, Sleepless) manages to escape with her son. Turns out she used to date the head of the mercenaries. Moreau finds Johhny Blaze and convinces him if he helps the kid then the curse of Ghost Rider can be lifted (speaking of plot holes, being Ghost Rider is the curse and power the devil gave Blaze. How is it he can then operate to stop the devil?). Thus the chase that dominated the remainder of the movie trundles its way through the next two hours. The mercenary gets transformed by the Devil in Blackout, a pretty cool villain from the comic. Flaming skeleton hijinks ensues. Lots of stuff gets blown up, along with lots of guys.
The stars. Comic book movie that managed to stay closer to the actual story than the last crappy Ghost Rider movie. One star. A couple action sequences and a couple of camera shots were impressive. One star. The transformation sequences were seriously goofy, but once he transformed the CGI for Ghost Rider was pretty cool. One star. Ghost Rider had chains this time, not a shotgun. One star. Total: four stars.
The black holes. Multiple gaping plot holes each big enough to park a small fleet of Winnebagos in. Three black holes. Deadpan, deadish acting from Nicholas Cage and pretty much everyone else. Two black holes. Pacing was really off. It jumped right into action with no transition and then made us sit through long sequences of nothing to get to the next one. One black hole. Multiple scenes that added nothing to the film and really should have been carted off with the rest of the deadwood. One black hole. Did I mention that the directors felt the best way to highlight Nicholas Cage’s acting ability would be to have him also deliver some really dopey monologs (you know, the lazy directors way of avoiding figuring out how to explain things to the audience) accompanied by some cartoons that looked like they had been created by some high school kid using MS Paint? One black hole. The entire movie was supposed to be set in Eastern Europe but everything looked and sounded suspiciously like West Texas. One star. Dialog from Hell (haw!). One black hole. Making me pay $11 for a action video I should have been able to see for free on YouTube (glad I didn’t spring for 3D). One black hole. Overall kind of a waste of time. One black hole. Total: twelve black holes.
A grand total of eight black holes. It’s been a while since I really blasted a movie like this. Honestly, the feeling I got from this movie is the two directors really couldn’t care less about Ghost Rider and just used this as a vehicle to make an action video they should have done for about $1,000. Worth seeing at all? Maybe if you are a huge GR fan and/or are easily amused by explosions and moving skeletons. If you are that type of person you had best see it on a big screen. If not, just NetFlix it in two months and have a shot of Jamison every time you spot a plot hole. Within 20 minutes you will be wasted enough to not even care about them and should be able to enjoy the film.
Thanks for reading. Lost of movies to see this weekend, but I will be spending a lot of time at a gaming convention playing Warhammer. Wish me luck. If I do well in the tournament and get a chance I will try to see This Means War and The Secret Life of Arietty. If I do poorly I will punish myself by seeing Mysterious Island. Follow me on Twitter @NerdKungFu. If you don’t like tweeting and or making comments here feel free to email me with questions or suggestions [email protected]. Talk to you soon.
Dave
Marvel sometimes sucks.
So I read something disturbing today. The comic book character Ghost Rider, shown here from the Marvel Comic T Shirts, was created by an artist named Gary Friedrich. When the lame Ghost Rider movie came out he tried to sue, claiming that while he did not have the rights to the Ghost Rider comic book he should have the rights to the movie. He lost, which is what happens when you go against a major corporation in this country.
However, I just found out that he has been supporting himself in retirement by going to comic book conventions and signing autographs as the creator of Ghost Rider, just like any number of other artist do. The thing is, Marvel has sued him for the right to claim he created anything, and want him to pay them the $17,000 he has made over the last couple years. The thing is, they are not denying that he created GR. They just don’t want him telling anyone that he did.
The other part that sucks about this is Marvel is worth billions and probably spends more than $17 grand a day in executive toilet paper. All that and they still want to take money away from a 68 year old retiree? Really? Personally I see this as a sign of the negative influence Disney has had on them. “When you dance with the devil the devil doesn’t change. The devil changes you.” That quote was from 8MM, by the way.
Bottom line, Marvel is showing themselves to be pretty heartless here. I would say don’t go see the new Ghost Rider movie. The first one sucked anyway, and it still stars Nicholas Cage, who for some reason can’t seem to play any role well lately.
Jason.
The Avengers Trailer is looking pretty damned cool.
Already I can tell you all must think I am the guy who craps on everything, and for the most part you would probably be right. However, I have to say the trailer I saw this morning for the Avengers is looking pretty amazing. I will leave the whole reviewing business to Dave, but I have a good feeling about this movie. I am pretty sure it is going to rule.
The only weird thing is, as you can see from this image of the classic Avengers from the Marvel Comic T Shirts, the Hulk was never really featured much, and in fact I think he left the Avengers after the first few issues. The whole question of how to actually control him or write in a reason for him to just happen to be pissed off at whoever the Avengers were fighting I think seemed a little awkward. In the trailer I just saw Tony Stark seems pretty confident about the teams ability to keep the Hulk under control, but personally I think that sounds a little optimistic. Part of the thing that made the Hulk so cool was the fact that he could fly off the handle at any given moment.
Other than that, I think this movie is looking pretty amazing, and will probably at least go with Dave on opening night to watch it. I just don’t want to listen to him bitching about pacing and other dumb movie stuff.
Jason
Contraband Movie Review
I really can’t decide what kind of movie this is or if it was actually good or bad.
I’m going to coin a new descriptive phrase and expect every other review who uses it to send me a $.25 royalty: script confusion. This describes a movie that can’t decide what kind of movie it wants to be when it grows up. This film was torn between a crime drama and an action movie. The crime drama felt awkward and haphazard, especially when it is established 10 minutes in that the main protagonist is reputably the greatest smuggler who ever lived. Throughout the crime aspects of the movie the story seems to indicate that secretly it wants to be an action film but, like a transgendered man taking her first steps in high heels, when we actually get to the action scenes they feel awkward, comedic, and tacked on.
That’s not to say this movie is bad. I found that it’s many shortcomings were often times balanced out by it’s more virtuous aspects. The comical gunfight and getaway is balanced out by some very clever smuggling tricks. The over the top main bad guy is balanced out by the very entertaining ship captain. The continuous sequence of narrow escapes is balanced out by a decent plot twist that comes about fairly organically. In fact, the whole movie seems so perfectly balanced that I can’t help but think this was intentional on the part of the director, Baltasar Kormákur. I have in the last year become a big fan of Scandinavian film makers (check out my review of Trollhunter), and while is filmography lacks a lot of main stream releases (Jar City, A Little Trip to Heavan, the Sea) it looks like he might be worth keeping an eye on.
The story. A loser kid Andy (Caleb Landry Jones-X-Men First Class, No Country for Old Men, the Last Exorcist) dumps a cargo of drugs overboard a freighter when it gets boarded by customs agents and now owes a ton of dough to the local campy bad guy Tim Briggs (Giovanni Ribisi-Avatar (the corporate guy), Saving Private Ryan, Gone in 60 Seconds), who is going to kill him in horrible ways if he doesn’t get his money. Andy is the brother of Kate (Kate Beckensale-Underworld, the Aviator, Pearl Harbor) who is married to the most famous smuggler that ever lived, Chris Farraday (Marky Mark Wahlberg-Boogie Nights, the Fighter, the Other Guys). Now it is up to Chris to find the money to pay off Briggs, and given that he has retired from smuggling in order to be a blue collar business owner, his only option is to go back into smuggling. He is aided by long time friend Sebastian (Ben Foster-the Mechanic, the Messenger, 3:10 to Yuma), who has also gone legit with a construction business. They plan to smuggle in a huge stack of counterfeit money (yay for supporting the American economy!) on another freighter.
Somehow he and Andy get hired onto another freighter headed to Panama and meet up with a number of supporting characters plucked fresh from the the ground of the stereotype farm. Once on board Chris catches the eye of the ship captain (the great J.K. Simmons-J. Jonah Jamison from the Spiderman franchise, Juno, the Closer. Spiderman image courtesy of the Marvel T Shirt category), who was easily my favorite character and knows of Chris’s history and is instantly suspicious. They get to Panama in about 45 minutes where Chris gets involved in some kind of local gang lord crime spree. At that point the movie shifts gears into 
what I like to call the Scooby Doo chase sequence, where the story and characters progress only by the most ridiculous sequence of perfect timing and coincidence, like when the bad guy in the rubber costume is chasing Scooby and Shaggy through the corridor with the six doors (you know what I’m talking about). This part feels more that a little hackneyed, which surprised me as most of the rest of the movie seemed pretty well put together. Either Baltasar (what a cool name. I want to name my hypothetical son Baltasar) was trying to convey something I am too dense to pick up on, or he caved in to outside pressure from the studio to make the movie somehow more exciting by hoisting the audiences disbelief a little higher up.
Anyway, smuggling hijinks ensues. A lot of time is spent looking into shipping containers. Some kind of interesting plot twists reveal themselves.
The stars. Decent story. One star. Direction was pretty good. One star. In spite of the whole Scooby Doo portion, overall the pacing was right on target. There was no time that I felt bored or that things were dragging or progressing too fast. One star. Mark Wahlberg delivered a credible performance, in spite of the occasional campy dialog. One star. Decent plot twists, although a perceptive person might have seen them coming ahead of time. One star. Captain Camp was great. One star. In total a decent film that was enjoyable in a kind of bland way, like chewing on gum that has already lost it’s flavor. One star. Total: seven stars.
The black holes. A movie that is rated R for language is a huge waste of potential. It’s like going to jail for stealing socks. If you are going to eat the R rating anyway you might as well throw in more horrific violence, blood, and some nudity. One black hole. Some of the characters, Briggs in particular, seem really over the top. One black hole. Some ocean container sized plot holes. One black hole. Almost all the characters worked on having some kind of New Orleans accent except for Wahlberg, who in spite of the fact that his character supposedly grew up on the Big Easy sounded like he just got off the plane from Beantown. One black hole. While it seemed like a decent movie, I walked out feeling no real connection to the story or any of it’s characters, and honestly struggled this morning to remember the plot and my feelings for it. Definitely a forgettable film. One black hole. Total: five black holes.
A grand total of two stars. Meh. You won’t feel like you wasted your time or money seeing this, but a week afterward it won’t really stick with you. If you can see it cheap cool. If you wait until DVD you won’t really lose anything. There aren’t any cinemagraphics that requires a big screen. Date movie? Sure. Exciting and interesting enough to keep her into it while being bland enough to not offend or overstimulate her. Marky Mark keeps his shirt on for pretty much the whole film so you don’t have to worry about the comparison factor too much. However, this movie is kind of neutral in that it will neither help or hurt you in your campaign to seduce her, so if you haven’t closed the deal yet try to find something more enticing (or better yet, do something more fun and exciting than a movie).
Thanks for reading. I will eventually get the rest of my best of 2011 stuff done, but there are a bunch of new movies I want to see. My best friend tells me he wants my review on Joyful Noise. I will see it, but I suspect he is just screwing with me because he knows this film will drive me nuts. Also I am working on another huge project for work, so I might not get a lot done in the next week or so. Follow me on Twitter @NerdKungFu. Thanks for reading. Talk to you soon.
Dave
Movie Review: The Guard
So the date I had Thursday was one of the best I’ve ever had. I had some comments on what I think is going on, but just decided I don’t want to shoot from the hip and screw things up until I have a better grip on what the deal is. She is a great girl, and I hope once she gets over her ex she figures out that I am a great guy.
Anyway, the movie we saw was The Guard, is an Irish film that was ridiculously funny and charming. In fact, it was probably the best date movie we could have picked out. I laughed my ass off, and we had a lot to talk about afterward. I do recommend it highly.
The story is of an Irish policeman (apparently called Guards over there, or Garda) named Gerry Boyle (Brendan Gleeson – Gangs of New York, Troy, Mad-Eye Moody from Harry Potter) who is grizzled and unorthodox. He apparently does drugs a lot, regularly hires hookers, and has ties to the IRA. Somehow he still retains a core of integrity with regards to his job. He gets paired up with uptight FBI agent Wendell Everett (Don Cheadle – Iron Man 2, a bunch of other crap including Hotel for Dogs. Iron Man image courtesy of the Marvel comic t shirt category) who is on the trail of international drug smugglers who are looking to land their product on the Irish coast. Boyle comes across as a racist, ignorant Irishman but as the movie progresses you realize it is a front to hide his sharp mind.
Pretty much every character is hilarious, and they all play together well. Most of the rest of the Garda is somehow corrupt and is bribed to look the other way. Boyle runs through the movie like a wrecking ball with a devil may care attitude that I appreciated. Everett has all kinds of problems with him but in the end appreciates what he is. Drug bust hijinks ensues. Some guys get shot (not as many in most American cop films). You spend about 1/3rd of the movie trying to figure out what the last guy said in his Irish brogue.
The stars. Brendan Gleeson was awesome and funny. Two stars. All the rest of the characters were pretty cool, including the American and the drug smugglers. One star. Good story and dialog. Two stars. Set in Ireland. One star. They kept the gun play to a minimum. One star. All the humor was really tongue in cheek and required you to pay attention. One star. Two really hot Irish prostitutes made a gratuitous but appreciated appearance, and there was a wife who was super hot too. One star. Overall a good movie. One star. Total: ten stars.
The black holes. There were points where the Irish accented English could have used a subtitle, causing me to think I missed a lot. One black hole. The last ten minutes devolved into a typical gun action cop movie. One black hole. While it may or may not be true, the movie did not paint Irish cops in a very positive light. One black hole. Total: three black holes.
So a total of seven stars, a great score. I really enjoyed this film and think I will try to see it again some time to try to pick up on the stuff I might have missed. I might suggest it to my friends for movie night as well. The shooting wasn’t exceptional IMO, so in spite of having the chance to film amazing gorgeous Irish countryside the film tends to focus on the characters and be a little on the bland side. Not enough to warrant a black hole, but enough to say it would be OK to watch on your screen at home. NetFlix it.
The 10 Worst Comic Book Movies
I was at movie night with my friends tonight (the movie was Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Undead, truly awful but in a funny way) and the topic of comic book movies came up during the pizza break. I gave it some thought on the way home and decided to compose a list of the really bad ones. I am going to stick to the main stream stuff, since if I start adding secondary characters like the Spirit, TMNT, and Barbed Wire this list could get to be 100 strong. This is all in my opinion, so feel free to disagree and argue all you want.
10. Fantastic Four-sorry, Jessica Alba is not the Invisible Woman. Mistreated in all ways, starting with making Ben Grim look like they a wax figurine they left in the sun too long. This movie basically tore into the great legacy of the first family of Marvel and excreted a steaming pile of cellulite pretending to be a coherent film.
9. Judge Dredd-I think this story is another one that suffers more from bad casting than from bad writing and direction (although it had those too). Sylvester Stallone has a hard time pulling any role other than Rambo or Rocky (although I thought he was great in Copland) and he really couldn’t pull off Dredd. More importantly, in my mind, is the fact that Judge Dredd the comic is a grim and humorless look at the dark and bleak future. Why, then, did the producers feel the need to forcefully inject a comic relief character (Rob Schneider) as the bumbling criminal sidekick who hides in a robot and is pulled out covered in spaghetti? Did the writers actually read any of the Judge Dredd comics?
8. Daredevil-another terrible casting job, but this one was overshadowed by the incompetent writing and direction. Ben Afleck sucked in here, but he was also given a crap script to work with. I harbor a special hatred for this movie as it infected us with horrible sequel Electra. This movie would have made this list, but I wanted to stay away from secondary characters. Jennifer Garner is pretty hot, but a quick look at her film biography makes it look like she is trying to wallpaper the Great Wall of China with pages from bad movie scripts.
7. The Punisher-this one hits me square in the heart, as the Punisher was always one of my favorite comics. However, being a fan boy only heightened my sense of outrage when I saw how they butchered the Frank Castle story. Also, if you want to go back even further in the history of bad movie casting, the original movie starred none other than Dolph Lundgren. I was a fan of his from Universal Soldier, and felt he really made the movie happen in the Expendables, but in this movie he only took a sinking ship and filled the hold with lead bars.
6. X-Men Origins: Woverine-I had a mental debate over which was the worst; this one or X-Men Last Stand. Based on the fact that Last Stand at least made a token effort to stay true to the original story (by like 5% more. I know it still butchered it) I had to go with Origins. Weapon X was a great mini series (although there is some serious debate as to a lack of origin for Wolverine was actually part of his charm) that got chopped into fertilizer and spread on a field of crapcorn. However, as mad as I was at the treatment of Logan in this bomb, it was nothing compared to the way Deadpool was molested. Talk about unfair treatment. There is another character whom I felt got worse treatment (we’ll talk about him when I get to his worst movie) but this one almost took the cake. Also, could they have miscast Gambit more? The only way they could have done worse is if they had cast him with a one legged Asian woman. Again, read the damned comic once or twice. (Deadpool image courtesy of the Marvel Comic t shirt category)
5. Ghost Rider-so Nicholas Cage is supposed to be a massive Ghost Rider fan, right? To the point that has a Ghost Rider tattoo. As a fan, wouldn’t you think he would at some point look at the script and say something like “Hey, you guys are kind of taking a great comic book character and making him into total crap”? I know I would. The story sucked, the back story sucked, and the fact that they couldn’t decide if they were doing Golden Age Ghost Rider, 90’s Ghost Rider, or Spirits of Vengeance sucked. Also, what the hell was the deal of him only being able to manifest at night? Where did that come from? Sounds like a convenient plot device designed to add drama and tension in place of an actually good script. Also, Johnny Blaze was blond.
4. Spiderman 3-I can sum up this movie in three words: emo Peter Parker. However, we can also talk about how one of the most amazing origin/conflict stories of all time, Venom, was compressed and mutilated into a five minute line to introduce yet another villain into an already sub-moronic script. Sorry, but the real Venom story could be a four hour two part movie. They did it for Harry Potter and Kill Bill. Then they stuck Harry Osborne onto a flying snowboard with no Goblin mask. The only villain that didn’t make me hurl was Sandman. I thought he was kind of cool, and would have been great as the solo villain. Also, Sam Raimi, I will always love you for the Evil Dead I and II, but burn in hell for making me listen to Kirsten Dunst sing.
3. Green Lantern-if you want to get a more detailed description of my issues with this film, check out the review I did for it a couple months back. However, this is yet another example of death by bad casting. Ryan Reynolds should focus on playing sleazy low life losers and leave the super heroes to people for whom acting is more than smirking at the camera. Plus the story sucked, they more or less glossed over the whole training and Green Lantern Corps business, and the villain was about as threatening as a big rain cloud coming at you. Yes, I put this movie as stupider than Spiderman 3, if only because Spiderman had one villain who was semi cool.
2. Catwoman-did the creative control people at DC have some kind of brain aneurysm and forget that Catwoman was a secondary semi-villain and love interest to Batman, not a resurrected crime fighter? I know, I said no secondary characters, but this movie sucked so bad I can’t let it pass. Also, if any of the X-Men movies taught us anything, it’s that Hallie Barry is not suited to being a super-anything and should focus on movies where she can show her breasts, like Operation Swordfish and Monsters Ball. Also, I’d like to give this movie a lifetime achievement award for the worst fight choreography of all time. There is no way a girl who weighs about 102 pounds can run onto the prone body of a fully grown man and ride him like a surfboard across a floor no matter how waxy. The physics just don’t allow it.
1. Batman and Robin-ugh. This dog. OK, this is the movie that in my opinion most destroys a comic book character, and that character is Bane. In the comics he is a super smart criminal from South America who uses drugs to enhance his physical abilities as he fights. In the movie he is just a grunting thug henchmen for Poison Ivy. Sorry, but if you are going to have Bane a movie you can only do the Breaking the Bat story line. Also, this movie proves the fact that there is such a thing a villain over saturation in a film. The greatest thing about Batman is not so much Batman the crime fighter as it is the amazing Rogues Gallery he has to fight against. Bane, Poison Ivy, Mr. Freeze; any of these have fascinating stories that could be fleshed out into a great film alone. However, Hollywood whore Joel Schumacher was literally meeting with toy manufacturers during production to see how many different toys he could shove into this farce, so I guess the more villains the more action figures, right? It is a sad state of affairs when I have to say the villain I liked the best was Mr. Freeze, as Arnold did an absolutely horrid job of it but was slightly less intolerable than any of the others. Also, what the hell was the deal with him needing diamonds to fuel his suit? Possible the worst and most unnecessary plot device of all time. Diamonds are an inert material, and there isn’t any stretch of science or science fiction short of cold fusion that implies they could be used for power in any way. Furthermore, assuming such technology actually existed, you can buy industrial grade and artificial diamonds by the pound that are in all ways chemically identical to jewelers diamonds. What, because Mr. Freeze creates ice we had to have him motivated by something else clear? It is literally insulting. I could go on listing issues here (Bat-nipples, implied homoeroticism (not a problem, but this was never a thing in the comic), guys skating on ice but clearly on rollerblades, etc.), but will instead wrap up by saying this movie killed the Batman franchise for eight years and won 11 Razzie awards. Nice job, Joel.
I have what may or may not be considered a date tomorrow night, and the girl wants to see a movie, so with luck I will have something new to review soon. Without luck I will have to sit through One Day again and probably kill myself on the way home by sucking on my car tailpipe. More movies coming out this weekend, including Warrior, Contagion, and Bucky Larson, so I should have some good stuff coming up. By the way, if any of you have a clue how to get invited to see movies early as a reviewer post something here or send me a message @Nerdkungfu (you can follow me too if you like).
Some thoughts on origin movies.
So I did Captain America last week, and gave it a good review. I stand by that, as it was a decent movie with a good story. Generally enjoyable. However, I was talking to a friend of mine last night about it and he raised a couple points that got me thinking about the problems with origin movies in general.
Really, it all boils down to the fact that origin stories are really cool, but very few directors seem comfortable letting the origin run the entirety of the movie. In other words, about halfway through the movie they have introduced the superhero, told where he came from, explained his powers, and gotten his costume organized when suddenly the thought occurs to them “Oh, crap. What are we doing to do to fill the last half of the movie?”
This is not every movie. Thor more or less ignored the whole origin question entirely and just jumped into the action. X Men First Class let the origin story travel through the entirely of the film with great results. This was probably motivated by the fact that they had a dozen different characters to work with, but the net result was very pleasing. However, when I think back to Captain America I realize that the part of the film I really enjoyed was the first half. Once Steve Rogers got his team together and starting fighting as Captain America it kind of started to grind along.
I have been thinking about how to avoid this problem. Wolverine Origins labored under this (and about 10 tons of other crap). Even Batman Begins kind of had this going on. Green Lantern ground it face first into the ground, with a massive villain pulled out of their ass with all the active malice of a natural disaster, like a tornado. Even Iron Man kind of lagged after the suit was built. Episodes I-III was nothing but a six hour origin story that only focused on Darth Vader.
So what is the solution? Upon reflection I realized that the movies that do the origin story well (Spiderman, X Men, Kick Ass, Unbreakable, Hellboy, etc) all have one thing in common: they didn’t make the origin of a single hero the only thrust of the story. In Spiderman, while we are watching Peter Parker figure out his new powers, we keep cutting back to Norman Osborne transforming into the Green Goblin. X Men First Class had a dozen different characters developing. Kick Ass was mostly about Kick Ass, but at the same time you see Hit Girl and Big Daddy doing their thing. Unbreakable was more about Samuel Jackson’s character than that Bruce Willis, and that made the double origin story really cool. In each case the really good origin movies presents the origin of their hero, but don’t make it the entirety of the script. In other words, when they reach that halfway point and the story is in danger of lagging they have other elements to fall back on.
(Xavier Institute image courtesy of the movie t shirt category)
I don’t know if anyone from the movie industry reads this. In fact, I doubt it sincerely. However, I think that if by some weird coincidence one of my three readers is somehow involved in film production, or perhaps one day will end up working in film, try to remember what I just said. I really think it’s worthwhile.
Movie Review: Capt. America: The First Avenger
OK, I admit that I have been really looking forward to this movie, and that’s usually a precursor for me being bitterly disappointed when the suck seeps in. However, Marvel managed to keep the suck at bay, and delivered a fun and entertaining origin movie (Capt America shield logo courtesy of the Marvel Comic t-shirt category).
That’s not to say that it doesn’t have its problems, which we will explore in excruciating detail shortly. It just overall makes for a good flick.
Why do I like Captain America? He was never one of the main hitters in the Marvel Pantheon (although I loved him in Marvel Zombies). Nevertheless, I felt a real sadness when he died at the end of Civil War (bite me, Tony Stark) and am always glad to see him in a comic. I think there are two main reasons. The first is he is only a marginally improved human. I love heroes who can be taken out by any lucky punk with a gun. It makes their bravery and dedication that much more impressive and worthy of my admiration. This is why Batman rules and Superman sucks. The second reason is he represents all that is good and noble in the excellent men and women who serve in the military to defend us. Sure, it’s easy to stand for truth, justice, and the American way when you are invulnerable to all but a very rare element (see my post on the Science and Stupidity of Kryptonite for more on this), but to stand firm against oppression and evil is a real task when all you have is a shield and a heavy punch (or, more accurately, some body armor and an M16).
Something else that really appealed to me about this movie is they set the whole thing in WWII and didn’t make the lame attempt to modernize it. There is something really satisfying about a clear cut villain who is known by all to be demonstrably evil like Nazis. Even in something like Tranformers it seemed that the Decepticons were not totally lacking in sympathy. Sure, they wanted to enslave the human race, but they wanted to do it in order to rebuild their home world. Who’s to day given the same choice we might not do the same (Avatar?). Anyway, I like Nazis as villains.
The story. I won’t go into too many details as I expect you all to see it. Steve Rogers (Chris Evans) is a skinny kid who keeps getting rejected by the US Army during WWII. He catches the eye of a government scientist (Stanley Tucci) who is impressed by his dedication and understanding of what it means to be bullied (cough cough topical reference cough cough). He recruits Steve into a top secret project that apparently starts off by putting guys through Basic Training. The Colonel in charge (Tommy Lee Jones, who did a great job) wants to boot him but the scientist is sold on him. They stick Steve into a giant martini mixer and inject him with super steroids or something. He comes out looking like Adonis and capable of kicking some serious ass.
Meanwhile, a Nazi officer (played brilliantly by the amazing Hugo Weaving, although what role has he not been brilliant in?) has found an ancient artifact (cough cough Indiana Jones cough cough) that he can use to power up all his super secret weapons with blue power (cough cough V cough cough. Ok I’ll stop) that makes them almost as good as a regular rifle, but have the benefit of making the bodies disappear completely as a blatant tool to get rid of any inconvenient rated R mangled corpses and screaming wounded Americans. His organization is called Hydra and he is indeed the infamous Red Skull (also looking very cool).
Anyway, there is some crap getting in the way of the actual story but eventually Capt. America and the Red Skull cross paths. WWII meets super science hijinks ensues. There’s a hot girl in there for no real reason (Hagley Atwell). There are some actually funny moments that are accomplished without an annoying comic relief character (suck it, Michael Bey). Once they get past all the war bonds selling stuff none of the story gets in the way of the story, if you know what I mean. Stuff blows up. Guys on both sides get killed. The director managed to steer clear of the obvious cheesy ending trap.
First, as always, the stars. Comic book movie. Two stars. Really decent story. Two stars. Hugo Weaving. One star. Tommy Lee Jones. One star. Not invulnerable hero. One star. Geeky kid turns into hero. One star. Nazis as enemies. One star. The Red Skull looks uber cool and uber creepy. One star. Good acting all around. One star. Hagley Atwell was driving me nuts all the way through the movie. One star. Non-cheesy ending. One star. Minor love interest managed to not derail or dominate the story. One star. All the supporting characters were cool and added to the story. One star. They kept more or less true to the story (remember Dum Dum Dugan?). One star. The final Capt. America costume was cool, especially the shield. One star. Total: 17 stars.
Now the black holes. I am going to have to give these guys a black hole for making what is essentially a two hour trailer for The Avengers. One black hole. The ever present Marvel spoiler, for which I had to sit through any number of credits (what exactly does a Best Boy do? Sounds like the son of Best Buy. Either that of some kind of sexual predator tag), was in fact an actual trailer for the Avengers. Thanks a lot, guys. One black hole. While Hugo Weaving was great as the Red Skull, he really played up every corny evil super genius cliche in the book. Execute henchmen who fail, faceless minions who look imposing as hell in their S&M helmets but can’t shoot straight, grandiose plan to conquer the planet by blowing stuff up (face it, Red Skull. In order to really conquer a territory you need boots on the ground, not some super weapon), capture the plucky hero but don’t just put a bullet in him so you can explain your whole diabolical plan, etc. Also, I think the movie would have benefited from more Red Skull screen time. One black hole. The whole villains-can-never-hit-a-hero-who-is-charging-directly-at-their-guns card got played so much I started to wonder if there were any other cards in the deck. One black hole. A lot of the action, especially towards the end, got kind of hokey. One black hole. There was a rescue mission early on that seemed to drag on for ever, as did the whole Capt. America as a vaudeville show to sell war bonds sequence. One black hole. A few story holes, including one big one towards the end. One black hole. As cool as the story was, pretty much all the characters seemed pretty two dimensional. I think the movie could have done with a hair more character development (125 minutes. They could have added 1o more without hurting the plot). One black hole. Total: eight black holes.
In the irksome-but-not-black-hole-worthy category, I have a couple. First of all, the Hydra salute was painfully stupid. I understand the need to have a distinct salute that is derived from but not quite the same as the Nazi salute, but come on. There is a reason most countries us a reasonably similar salute. Also, while I am a fan of and support every reasonable attempt to include racial diversity in a movie cast, the fact is there were no African Americans who had a combat role during WWII (ironic, really, as 160,000 of them fought for the North in the Civil War). I am just kind of a stickler for historical accuracy. Additionally, why would you put all your best new technology, your prisoner, and yourself in a room with huge glass windows that can be easily zip lined to (or, for that matter, just put a sniper bullet through?)? All the Nazis spoke perfect English, even the rank and file troops when they yelled “Hail Hydra”. And finally, while I appreciated the eye candy that Hayley Atwell brought to the screen, in pretty much every scene with her in it I found myself asking “What function does her character actually serve?” The romance was never developed enough to make it significant, and the purpose of most of the rest of her character kind of felt crow barred in.
However, a great film going experience all around. Go see it in a theater to get max benefit and to support the kinds of movies we nerds like. Not a real date flick, as I believe most girls will not really appreciate the comic book story and the female character is too underdeveloped to draw her in. See it with your nerd friends.
Movie Review: X-Men First Class
There are only two words that accurately describe this film: freaking awesome. It has been a long time since I felt the desire to see a film a second time in the theater, but this one definitely qualifies. (Xavier Institute image courtesy of the Marvel Comic t shirts)
I will admit I approached this flick with a certain amount or trepidation. I feel like I have been abused by the trend towards prequels over the last few years. I know they make good Hollywood sense (reboot the franchise, hire younger, cheaper actors, get all the fan boys back in the theater, etc.) but it seems like they are all an excuse for directors to give a big F-you to the fans while spraying their musk all over the francise like a dog marking it’s territory. It started with the whole Star Wars Episodes I-III and has declined from there. Most recently we have had the joy of the latest Star Trek (sorry, but if you loved that movie because of the acting, casting, and special effects than you are a class one idiot and not a true fan. The story was amateurish at best and aneurysm inducing at worst, ruining 40 years of true Star Trek history in the process. J.J. Abrams, bite me) and then with Wolverine: Origins, a movie whose script resembled (and probably started off as) used toilet paper.
But, like a battered housewife returning to her abusive, alcoholic husband, I come back to yet another prequel, hoping against hope that it won’t kick me in the balls for the temerity of wanting to like it, because really, I do want to like this film. Miracle of miracles, it is indeed likable.
I don’t want to get into the story in too much detail, as if you are reading this than you will most likely see it soon. It starts with a recreation of the heartbreaking opening scene of Erik Lehnsherr (Magneto) being separated from his parents at Auschwitz in the first movie. It follows his and Charles Xavier’s development as young adults in 1962. They crowbar in Mystique as Professor X’s adopted sister somehow. Anyway, Magneto is gung ho to kill the doctor who experimented on him in the concentration camp while Xavier is running around being a good guy. They team up and recruit a bunch of other mutants. Mutant hijinks ensue. There is a great training montage and generally cool stuff happens. Overall the story flows well, is exciting, and not written for the idiots who loved the last Star Trek movie.
As always stars first. Comic book movie. One star. Great story that didn’t completely destroy any of the known comic book “history”. Two stars. All the actors (and I mean every single one of them) was brilliantly cast and acted extremely well. They all stayed true to the character. Three stars. Decent CGI and special effects, but not forced in like certain moronic directors who’s names rhyme with mucus. One star. They had a brief cameo by Hugh Jackman as Logan but didn’t feel the need to force him or any of the more modern X-men into the story. One star. Kevin Bacon as the super villain. One star. Honest to god character development for Magneto, Mystique, and Professor X. Two stars. Moira McTaggart is in it and is played by the super hot Rose Byrne, whom I gave a nod to recently for her role as Helen in Bridesmaids. She looked hotter here. One star. Rose Byrne manages to find a legitimate excuse to run around in her underwear for ten minutes. One star. The plot had no holes that I could perceive, and none of the decisions or motivations aggravated or puzzled me. One star. With a few exceptions they didn’t try to modernize the story to make it more palatable for our soft American brains. One star. The subplot around Beast was really cool. One star. They didn’t shove a cheesy romance story down our throat in a pathetic attempt to make women like this movie more (there was a little undertone between Mystique and Magneto, but that was more foreshadowing of what was to come). One star. One more bonus star for general awesomeness. Total: a whopping 18 stars.
Now the black holes. (Yes, even this gets a few. If I gave a movie all stars and no black holes that would diminish what little credibility I have, or something). They tweaked the Mystique story in order for her to have an emotional connection with Charles Xavier. One black hole. I’m sorry, but I don’t care how far advanced your personal technology might be to the rest of the world, no one in 1962 is making wheelchairs out of billet aluminum. One black hole. The managed to turn a bunch of slacker teenage mutants into the highly trained X-men in just a week of training (elapsed time). One black hole. If you are going to hide from an agency who already knows your name your ancestral estate doesn’t strike me as the best place to do it. One black hole. Total: 4 black holes.
14 stars! Truly amazing. Also, the four black holes I gave it were super duper nit picky, so feel free to disregard those and run with the original 18. Probably my favorite movie this year. If you don’t go see this you will miss out and a great experience. Biggest screen you can find.
By the way, it is of course several months in the future but I have decided towards the end of the year I will do my own personal Best Film or Worst Film of the year. Kind of like the Academy Awards, only without all the celebrities hanging out in my office (who want’s that?). I need to think of a name for my awards, like Nerdy’s or whatever. Also, amusing award titles are needed, like “Most IBS Inducing Fight Sequence”. All suggestions will be gratefully considered. Feel free to post a reply here or email me at [email protected]. Thanks
Movie review: Thor
So last night I got a suggestion from a friend of mine for a movie that could potentially really suck, Dylan Dog, about a zombie private eye or something. It was playing 20 miles away but during the drive my girlfriend (for lack of a better term) texted me saying she got free of work early and wanted to go see Thor. Since the only reason I didn’t see it opening night was because she wanted to see it with me, I grabbed the chance like a life preserver and headed off.
The movie was, of course, great. However, I think I fell victim of the trap of having everyone I know or read about gush about how awesome it was and really elevated my expectations. Then, when I showed up with my bitter and cynical critical eye I see faults. Nevertheless, great movie.
I’m not going to get into the story too much on this, as pretty much everyone who reads this most likely will see it or have already seen it. Thor, the God of Thunder (or some kind of super advanced alien. They seemed to imply both. Thor image courtesy of the Marvel Comic t shirt category) gets into trouble with his dad and gets cast down to earth, where he gets to deal with being a mortal. Absolutely no “stranger in a strange land” local color happens, much to my surprise. I’m willing to bet a lot of it ended up on the cutting room floor. Norse battle hijinx ensue. Natalie Portman shows up as some kind of ill defined scientist (is she an astronomer, meteorologist, theoretical physicist, or astrophysicist?) as the love interest. Things get blown up. Guys get beat up. Overall very cool and exciting.
By the way, I’d like to add that, in spite of his limited time on screen I thought the coolest character in the movie was Heimdall. Fan boys looking for a great costume to make for Comic Con won’t go wrong here, especially if you are African American.
First the stars. The movie was in general awesome. Two stars. Natalie Portman. One star (two if she had done another thong shot like in Your Highness). Anthony Hopkins. One star. The casting in was extremely good overall. Both Loki and Thor were really done well. One star. The CGI and special effects were godlike in their greatness, and didn’t suffer from the obvious restrictions of being stuck in a small blue screen studio (suck it, George Lucas). Two stars. The acting was all great. Two stars. Comic book movie. One star. No annoying comic relief characters. One star. Thor, as the protagonist, actually shows some character development. One star. The destroyer was freaking awesome. One star. There was a moment that honestly got an emotional reaction out of my cold, dead heart (you’ll know it when you see the movie). One star. Spoiler at the end of the credits. One star. Total: fifteen stars.
Now the black holes. I had a really hard time understanding Loki’s motivations. He seemed to drift from one thing to the next, and even at the end I was not sure what his ultimate goal really was. One black hole. Natalie Portman as the super hot scientist who can’t find a man really didn’t ring true. One black hole. Thor and Natalie seem to fall completely in love and are willing to dedicate eternity to each other after knowing each other for about 12 hours. One black hole. The pacing of the film seemed really rushed. They had everything happen in like one day when it seemed like it should have gone a couple months (and would have eliminated that whole super fast romance issue too). One black hole. The spoiler at the end of the film after the credits made no sense whatsoever, nor did it imply any other movies except perhaps Thor II. One black hole. They took a pretty liberal hand with modifying the Thor back story from the comic book, and tried to imply that all his godlike powers were the result of some kind of super science rather than actual divinity. One black hole. Total: six black holes.
Thus we come to a total of nine stars, an awesome score. I highly recommend you all see this, in IMAX if possible. This movie will work for comic book fans (assuming they don’t get all uptight about the back story) and laymen alike. Great visuals, great story, all around a fun time. The only thing I can say is, while I enjoyed the hell out of it, I am not really gung ho to see it a second time, which is what I would normally do for a movie of this ilk. I think I need to ponder my motivation for that.
I will try to see Dylan Dog this week with the question “How bad could it be” foremost in my mind. I think tomorrow I am going to talk about my new favorite movie reviewer (aside from me, of course). Check it out.
