Warrior Movie Review
Shoot at the walls of heartache Bang! Bang!
Sorry, couldn’t resist that one. It was either that or “Warriors! Come out and playyyay.” Anyway, last night’s date ended early, which may or may not bode ill, although given my current track record is not a promising sign, and I stopped off at Jack London Square to watch this movie. I had seen trailers and it looked like a bad Rocky remake, only with MMA. I have not been a huge MMA fan to date. I mean sure, like any primitive testosterone enhanced American male I enjoy watching guys beat the hell out of each other, but I don’t actively follow it. I would rather watch that than boxing, but that’s pretty much the extent of it. (Drago image courtesy of the movie t-shirt category, and is kind of appropriate given this movie features a scary Russian fighter too).
So I went into this film not expecting much. I mean, Nick Nolte is an actor I enjoy, but the other guys looked kind of dopey and the title alone was enough to give me the bad review writing itch. But then, as the movie progressed and led to the climax, I experienced one of the rarest things an embittered, soulless movie critic such as myself can: excitement.
Yes, this movie was exciting. I got totally drawn in to the characters. I found myself rooting for both of the main protagonists, wondering how each was going to beat their next, progressively nastier opponent, and even the sub plot dealing with Nick Nolte’s character trying to reconcile his relationship with is two estranged sons had me in neck deep. I followed the training sequences avidly (this isn’t a stretch for me. Any martial arts movie should have training sequences) and even bought the wife and stupid high school kids as really decent supporting characters.
I don’t know why we are having so many good movies coming out in late August/early September. Traditionally this is the doldrums of movie making.
Anyway, the story. Muscle bound Tom Hardy (actually really good film biography here. I was surprised. Inception, Layer Cake (great film), Rocknrolla) as Tommy Conlon shows up on his father’s (Nick Nolte) door after being gone for 15 years or so. He left with his mother, who died penniless, and now blames his father for her death. The father, Paddy, trained Tom and his brother Brendon in wrestling. They have some awkward, mumbling conversation and Tommy bails out. Meanwhile, his estranged brother Brendon (Joel Edgerton – less impressive biography here. You might remember him as young Uncle Owen from Star Wars Episode II and III. Other than than kind of junk) is a high school physics teacher in danger of losing his house to the bank after financing heart surgery for his daughter. He is making money fighting at local strip bars and gets suspended for it. They both hear about the biggest MMA fight in the world with a $5MM prize and decide to train for it (turns out Tommy is committed to helping out the family of his friend killed while they both served in Iraq in the Marines). Tommy trains with Paddy and Brendon with an old friend Frank (Frank Grillo – Guiding Light, Minority Report, Edge of Darkness). Brendon is dealing with his hot wife ((Jennifer Morrison – House M.D., Star Trek 2009, Mr. and Mrs. Smith) who doesn’t want him to fight, as he got hurt doing it before.
Anyway, there is a big montage of training that works really well. The sub plots weave kind of seamlessly into the story without getting in the way or being annoyingly distracting. Both guys are fighting for a noble cause, and you end up not sure who you want to see win. I found myself rooting for both. The story is a little on the predicable side, but the action and characters are exciting enough to keep your mind off that.
The stars. Really, really exciting (most exciting for since Unstoppable). Two stars. Even though all the guys spoke like they had a mouthful of marbles, they still (or because of) managed to deliver very real characters whom I firmly believed. Well done IMO. One star. Good supporting characters. One star. Good sub plots. One star. Nick Nolte. One star. I know this probably has a lot to do with my own history, but the whole father/son reconciliation thing really spoke to me. One star. The fight sequences toward the end were very well shot and drew the audience in. You really felt the hits. One star. The ending really worked, and didn’t at all try to get sappy. One star. Overall the story never bugged me too much, and made sense. One star. Total: ten stars.
The black holes. I find it hard to believe that all it takes for two completely unknown fighters to get entered into the worlds largest MMA fight is a couple of phone calls. One black hole. The writer and director blatantly strived to manipulate my emotions (and for the most part succeeded). I know that is their job, but sometimes I find myself annoyed by such heavy handed approaches. One black hole. You know, I’m wracking my brain and can’t really come up with anything else (and even that last one was a stretch). Pacing was good. Dialog was good. Film work adequate. Two black holes total.
So a grand total of eight stars and my hearty recommendation that you go see it in the theater. The fight scenes really have a great impact on the larger screen. You could wait, but I don’t think it would be as good on a TV.
I think that’s it for new movies until next weekend, although I supposed I have to see Bucky Larson at some point. I am dreading that film like a root canal. Next weekend we have some cool stuff coming out like Drive, Straw Dogs, and I Don’t Know How She Does It (what I don’t know is if Sarah Jessica Parker will still look hot at 46 and playing a working mother, but we’ll see). Follow me on Twitter @NerdKungFu. Thanks for reading this! Talk to you soon.
Dave
Movie Reveiw: Saving Private Perez
Before I get into this weekend’s movie releases, let me just say I will not be doing a review for Shark Night 3D. Sharks freak me the hell out (almost as bad as mimes) and I can’t imagine a more horrible death (unless it’s being trapped inside an invisible box by a bunch of mimes and asphyxiating. Jaws image courtesy of the movie t-shirt category). Seriously I would rather go feet first into a tree shredder. Actually, that would be kind of cool, if only because at my funeral people would be like “How did Dave die?” and my friends would have to try to maintain a straight face while saying “He fell into a tree shredder.” The point is I don’t want to end up food for something bigger than a worm.
Actually, I have always been a big fan of spontaneous human combustion.
So the first movie I saw this weekend was Saving Private Perez. I was kind of excited when I saw the trailers. It looked like my kind of movie, and for the most part it was. What I didn’t like was the fact that the nearest place it played was 17 miles away. How are independent or foreign films supposed to get a fair test if they only show up in a few theaters? Lord knows we need as much screen space possible for the latest Spy Kids movie.
Anyway, this movie was pretty much what I hoped it would be: Black Hawk Down meets Machete and El Mariachi. Definitely grindhouse in flavor, with a little bit of Cheech and Chong thrown in. Miguel Rodarte plays Julian Perez, Mexican crime lord. He gets guilted by his dying mother to find his brother, Juan, who has been captured by Iraqis during Desert Storm II. He assembles a team of crack Mexican mercenaries who waver back and forth from being stone cold gunmen and comic relief clowns. Even the reported psychopath Pumita (Rodrigo Oviedo), the most competent of the gunmen, seems to have a lot of humor written into the role. I’m not sure if I liked that part or not. Through a series of dumb luck and money expenditures they all end up in Iraq and are following any lead they can find. The run into the US Army a few times, who are portrayed as both bloodthirsty and kind of incompetent. Not the fairest assessment of our boys in my opinion, but I tried to remember that most of the rest of the world might not see them in the same light we do. They kind of bumble around for a while. Stuff blows up. A tank shows up.
The stars. Generally fun and interesting. One star. Kind of a cool message running through the movie about the importance of family that I appreciated. One star. Grindhouse-ie. One star. I reasonably clear and concise story. One star. Good dialog, and they didn’t rob the dialog of it’s emotional impact by dubbing it into English. One star. The characters were each distinct and separate, and were even each given a minor back story. One star. As far as I could tell from only speaking English, the acting was good. One star. Good camera work and editing for a independent film. One star. Overall a good movie experience. One star. Total: ten stars.
The black holes. The whole comedy thing while people are shooting at you. One black hole. Somehow the team managed to kick the crap out of Iraq without killing a bunch of people. One black hole. The action got kind of dopey at some points, especially towards the end. One black hole. The inaccurate portrayal of the US servicemen as kind of incompetent, not to mention trigger happy. Sorry, but I know how well trained those guys are, and if you have an entire squad and a .50 cal shooting at you from 30 yards away, you’re dead. You aren’t going to get away without a scratch. One black hole. As much as I appreciate the dialog being in Spanish the whole time to maintain the emotional integrity of the film, subtitles in fast moving action films makes my eyes really jumpy. One black hole. Total: five black holes.
So a total of five stars. Not bad at all, and if you like foreign, independent, or just fun films worth seeing. The action is pretty good, and I can’t help but feel if you were trying to watch that and read the subtitles on a small TV you might miss some cool stuff, so try to see it in a theater.
Next up I think will be the Debt, Warrior, and maybe Apollo 18, although I suspect I have seen something like it before, perhaps called Apollo 13. This looks like more of a conspiracy nut film and might possibly involve aliens, so maybe I will like it. Follow me on Twiiter @Nerdkungfu. Big Warhammer weekend (two different tournaments; I am in hog heaven) plus a BBQ on Monday, so I don’t know if I will get everything caught up right away. Cya l8r.
Movie Review: One Day
24 hours of pain.
Gah this movie was a painful experience. It felt less like watching a movie and more like sitting on an airplane next to a creepy, smelly homeless man while a little kid spends the whole flight kicking the back of your seat. (Airplane image courtesy of the movie t shirt category) I can’t say it didn’t elicit emotions from me, but those emotions were frustration, annoyance, massive depression, and anger.
I suppose I could look at this as a sign of my new found dedication to my movie reviewing past time. I could have not seen something. I could have seen Point Blank, a French action movie that looked kind of interesting. Why this flick? Well, in part because my bad reviews tend to be funnier and more entertaining. The main reason, however, was that the other night I had a blow struck to my confidence and needed to prove to myself that I could accurately assess whether a movie sucks from the trailer. You see I went into Our Idiot Brother expecting it to blow and it was actually kind of fun. So I went to this dog and was gratified (on some levels) to discover that my trailer based assessment was dead on the money.
Speaking of money, to greater enhance my sense of violation I paid full price for this dog. In most cases if I am going to pay someone to punch me in the stomach I’ll at least haggle a bit.
The movie (SPOILER ALERT-I don’t expect anyone with any kind of taste to see this dog, so I am going to totally spoil the crap out of it. If you read the book no problem, but if you are a glutton for punishment and want to see it skip to the last paragraph). It’s called One Day because it takes place on July 15th on each year from 1988 to 2011. While I appreciate an alternative to traditional story telling, trust me when I say this tends to really screw the story up. This movie was based on a well received book, and I can see how this format would work with each day being a different chapter, but as a movie it is painfully disjarring. The biggest issue for me was the fact that one of the years you would see a happy, fun time by both characters and the next you would be subject to some horribly depressing crap that would make you want to throw yourself down the theater stairs. Anne Hathaway stars as Emma, a British girl (with an accent that seems to waver in and out like a fast moving tide) and Jim Sturgess plays Dexter, a rich British ne’er do well. They meet upon graduation in 1988 and almost but not quite sleep together. Emma is the nerdy but cute girl and Dexter is the hot young stud (of England). Anyway, they enter into a 20 year contest to prove which of them is the most annoying human being on the planet. Dexter becomes a successful TV personality and a jerk with a drug and alcohol problem while Emma wastes her life serving tables in a Mexican food Chucky Cheeses. Then Dexter’s life tanks while Emma becomes a successful writer of some kind. During all this time they are frustrating each other (and the audience) by almost but never sleeping together, often in cruel ways. You end up hating Dexter for being a sleazy layabout and hating Emma for being a mousy, low confidence nobody. Finally they both grow up and and get married. At that moment I started to get some satisfaction from the film, as they both were treating each other decently and it looked like a good romance and fulfilling relationship was developing. At that exact moment (BIG SPOILER ALTER RIGHT HERE–>) Emma gets hit by a truck and killed. No joke. She was also by that point the loser in the most hated human on the planet contest and was the character I liked the best, so after an hour and a half of failing to get me to connect with the characters the movie finally did so, only to kill her off. I was seriously depressed, and not in the good “have a chick cry and feel better about yourself” way but more in the “go home and cut your arm up with an Xacto knife” way. By the way, the truck accident was shockingly graphic. Like Meet Joe Black graphic.
Then, as if life wasn’t sucking enough already, the movie had to go on for another 20 pointless, painful, awkward minutes while Dexter came to grips with crap. The movie flashes back to the day in 1988 when they first met and I suppose was intended to be heartwarming, but knowing her eventual fate made watching them as a young couple even more painful. It ended with Dexter and his daughter (from a different marriage) more or less talking about Emma and enjoying a tender moment, but at that point I was torn between wanting to kill myself or the projectionist.
I woke up this morning still pissed off and depressed from this movie, by the way. I really just want to end this review now and skip the whole stars/black holes thing, but I feel I have an obligation to carry it through.
The stars. I really am crazy for Anne Hathaway, and her with her nerdy glasses really did something for me. One star. Acting was decent all around. One star. Shot in England, so the scenery was pretty. One star. Watching Dexter’s TV career tank was oddly amusing. One star. Total: four stars.
The black holes. Depressing. Two black holes. Frustrating. One black hole. Infuriating. One black hole. Killing my favorite character. One black hole. The whole sudden shift of tone from day to day thing. One black hole. Forcing us to watch 90 minutes of foreplay with no consummation. One black hole. Anne Hathaway’s accent kept shifting gears. One black hole (sorry Anne. I still love you). The film blatently manipulated my emotions. One black hole. Dragging the film out for another 20 minutes after it more or less died. One black hole. There was not a single truly satisfying moment in the entire movie. One black hole. One more black hole for making me want to punch holes in my wall this morning. Total: twelve black holes.
So a total of eight black hole. Look, I’m not saying all movies have to end happy and upbeat. I actually like a dark twist. I just don’t want to be sold on the idea of a love story only to have it turn into Sophies Choice. Just look at the poster for it on IMDB. It shows young Dexter and Emma romantically kissing in a passionate embrace. There is nothing that says by the end of the movie you will be looking for a bridge to jump off of.
I don’t know. Maybe this thing hit home a little hard because I am single and bitter about it. If I had had someone’s hand to hold while watching it I might have been better able to deal with what was going on. Odds are this movie would have made me cherish a girlfriend a lot more. Hell, I might have even been secure enough to cry a little and feel better afterwards (don’t bet on it. I’m all man, baby). As it is, I am really wishing I had gone to see the new Spy Kids movie instead.
Anyway, after this bitchy, depressing blog it would not surprise me if you never came back here again, but if you did be sure to subscribe to the RSS feed and follow me on Twitter @Nerdkungfu. Also, if you are a single woman 27-38 who even slightly resembles Anne Hathaway let’s just say this movie has made me particularly receptive for the next week or so, so drop me a Tweet. Thanks. Everyone have a great day.
Movie Review: Don’t be Afraid of the Dark
Kind of a surprising week. I thought I was going to love Colombiana and was really disappointed. I kind of thought this was going to be yet another dumb ass horror movie and loved it.
Don’t be Afraid of the Dark is, in my less than humble opinion, the best horror movie this year. It is super creepy, the terror builds up over time, and you honestly care about the characters and are worried about what is going to happen to them. Best of all, it does not at all rely on slasher gore or body count. There is actually very little death, and yet somehow it comes across as more horrible than some maniac running across town with a chainsaw.
This actually got me thinking quite a bit about horror and why movies like this work so well when every teenage slasher film leaves me bored (Texas Chainsaw Massacre image courtesy of the horror movie t shirt category). Some good examples of movies low body count thinking horror would be the Shining and the Ring. I think it is several levels. First of all, when we are introduced to 10 different teenyboppers who are all destined to die on the edge of a machete we can never really develop any kind of connection with them. The movie starts off with us knowing that most of them are going to die in ridiculous ways and the only thing we do is try to figure out which of them is going to survive (typically the hottish, nerd girl. See, ladies? There are serious advantages to being a girl nerd. Join us on the nerd side). In a movie where we are only given a couple of characters and have to interact with them throughout the film, especially when one of them is an innocent and troubled child or equally sympathetic character, we the audience really start to care and worry about them. I was on the edge of my seat hoping the little girl in this film made it out OK.
The other thing that makes films like this work my personal theory of concept horror verses hind brain horror. A maniac running around killing people with a glove full of knives is more of a hind brain, adrenalin rush film that is designed to trigger your fight-or-flight response. The problem is you get desensitized to it pretty quick. The spiky adrenalin rush you feel from Freddy’s first kill fades to almost boredom by the tenth, and then if you see the next sequel in turn (or even another slasher film) you are more or less over the whole idea and at that point you are more into seeing what kind of creative ways the director can come up with for the next kill. In most cases it devolves into almost comedy. In a concept horror film, the director lets your own imagination terrify you. We are always better at scaring ourselves when given the chance. As a child I was absolutely convinced there was a crocodile living on the floor of my room at night and he would bite off any part of my body I dared stick beyond the edge of my bed (my parents had him relocated to a zoo as my eleventh birthday present. Thanks, mom and dad). That is real horror. In films like this the story presents you with a creepy situation and then lets your imagination run with it. What are those monsters? What do they really want? What are they going to do with that girl? Your brain keeps feeding you worse and worse scenarios.
Not that this movie doesn’t have it’s problems. For one thing, the main bulk of the story we have all seen before. A lonely and troubled child in a huge, creepy mansion is beset by supernatural terrors while her parents remain blithely and almost willfully ignorant. Another thing is the creatures, who start off terrifying and mysterious, get more and more exposed as the film progresses and take on a comedic aspect. Fortunately by that time your connection with the young girl and the two adults is strong enough to carry through. Not even sure they could have avoided that, as they had to show them sometime. Finally, while I was extremely sympathetic and liked the little girl a lot, she was dumber than a sack of hammers. Maybe I’m fooling myself, but I can’t think there was ever an age where I was dumb enough to stick my head into a dark culvert in a super creepy basement just because some evil sounding voice told me to. Of course my childhood is no barometer for average children’s behavior, but still.
Anyway, the move. A very young Sally (played brilliantly by Bailee Madison. Where do these great child actors keep coming from? I predict impressive things from this young lady coming up) is being sent off by her more or less negligent party mother to live with her father Alex (Guy Pearce, the Hurt Locker, L.A. Confidential, Momento) and his girlfriend Kim (played by Scientology weirdo Katie Holmes. You know, I always thought she would have a more impressive film biography, but except for Batman Begins and Dawsons Creek she has been in nothing but crap. Oh, wait. Thank you for Smoking was pretty good too) in their super creepy fixer-upper mansion. Sorry, but if some real estate agent shows you a house and the front door is carved to look like a giant Japanese Manga squid monster attacking, punch him in the face and then try to run him over in your car as you leave. This place made the House on Haunting Hill look like Peewee’s Playhouse (also kind of creepy, but for other reasons). Anyway, Alex is some kind of architect who is down on his luck and has invested every dime in restoring this old house in an attempt to get it on the cover of Architectural Digest. We are never told why his career tanked or how this magazine cover will save it and, to be honest, it kind of bugged me. Kim is his interior decorator/live in girlfriend who is trying to form an attachment with Sally, who really wants nothing to do with it. Meanwhile, you hear creepy voices and see the green glowing eyes of dozens of rat sized creatures in a metal grate in the even creepier basement. They convince Sally to open the grate. They are afraid of bright light, so we are treated to all kinds of cool lighting for effect shots. They want to kidnap and probably kill Sally. The entire rest of the film is them stalking Sally while her dad and Kim believe she is having some kind of mental breakdown. Honestly, there isn’t much more I want to tell you about the story, as it would be quite the spoiler and I think you should all see this.
The stars. Super, duper, awesomely terrifying and creepy. Three stars. Amazing camera and lighting effects. Two stars. Bailee Madison was freaking awesome. Two stars. The creatures, once you saw them, were really cool and creepy with good CGI. One star. A horror movie that relies on story and great camera work rather than body count to make the horror happen. One star. The set was really well done also. One star. Guy Pearce and Katie Holmes were both pretty good. One star. A rated R movie that didn’t need gore and/or nudity (although I was hopeful). One star. Great ending with a cool twist. One star. Two more stars for a great movie experience. Total: fifteen stars.
The black holes. Sally’s bad decision making process kind of bummed me out. One black hole. The fact that we never find out why Alex is in such desperate straits with regards to his career when it is such a critical plot point that they remain in Creepy Mansion was annoying. One black hole. We also never find out what was up with party mom, which was also a key plot point. One black hole. Alex’s inability to listen to the serious needs of his child (even if she were imagining the creatures and they weren’t really alive, this is some serious crap any responsible parent would have to at least pay attention to her) really made me lose most of my sympathy for him. One black hole. There was a definite moment where any rational person would have bugged the hell out and set fire to the place as they left, but they didn’t. One black hole. Too much exposure to the creatures made them lose a lot of their menace towards the end. One black hole. Total: six black hole.
In the irksome category I will say this film is extremely derivative of a bunch of other films, particularly the Shining. This doesn’t get a black hole because it is an extremely good derivative and, honestly, there are so many movies out these days that it is nigh impossible to come out with something that doesn’t smack of something else.
A grand total of nine stars, a great score and at least 4-5 higher than I would have thought it would get when I was waiting on line to get my popcorn. I highly recommend you all see it if you are looking for a thrill. This, by the way, is a great date film in that it is not a slasher, has a very sympathetic little girl, and if your date isn’t clutching your arm and/or climbing into your lap by the end of it I would check her afterward to make sure her robot batteries are fully charged.
By the way, follow me on Twitter @NerdKungFu. Fun!
Movie Review: Fright Night 3D
More funny than frightening, but on some levels enjoyable nonetheless.
I never saw the original, and normally would have tried to watch it before hand. However, after my marathon Harry Potter thing I think I have done enough pre-movie watching for one month. I will have to just judge this movie on it’s own merits. My best friend Dave says the original was great. Actually he says it was Big Trouble in Little China great, which is saying a lot in my book. I guess I will have to see it soon. (Pork Chop Express image courtesy of the movie t shirt category)
So Fright Night. I enjoyed it in a campy way. I am always appreciative of vampire movies where the vampires are not somehow good and/or sparkle in daylight. In this movie vampires do what vampires are supposed to do in daylight: burst into flame and die quickly. Not great, however, and if you really think about it you can be pretty bothered by a lot of the film. I strongly suspect that once I see the original one I will come to realize that this flick is one of those horrid too slick CGI remakes that are so prevalent right now.
So, the movie. Charlie (Anton Yelchin, from the new Star Trek and the God-awful Terminator: Salvation) is a high school kid who has recently made the nigh impossible (at least in my experience) transition from uber nerd (apparently he had attended a Farscape convention. I have done the same, and see no problem with that) to cool kid, and apparently one of the perks of rejecting who you really are on the inside is a super hot girlfriend. His ex best friend Ed (Chirstopher Mintz-Plasse from Kick Ass and Superbad) is feeling hurt about being dropped like a bad habit and is threatening to reveal some of the cooler (IMO) moments of Charlie’s youth. He needs Charlie’s help proving that the new neighbor, Jerry, is actually a vampire.
Of course, Jerry actually is a vampire, and whole families are going missing. Ed gets turned when Charlie leaves him hanging. Some humorous moments occur as Jerry (Colin Farrell, who wavers for me between kind of cool and really annoying. In this one he was the former) is super creepy and threatening. Vampire hunting hijinks ensue. The action gets very Buffy the Vampire Slayer-esque, which makes sense as the writer Marti Noxon actually wrote a bunch of Buffy episodes. If you have seen even one show then you have more or less seen all the action and story resolution in this film.
By the way, I looked up Marti Noxon in IMDB and was surprised to find out first of all she is a woman, and second of all pretty hot for an older woman. I have to say I am intrigued by her writing style and assumed intellect. I’ll add her to the list of women I will never get to meet.
Anyway, stuff blows up. We get a couple of appearances by the stupidest cops in the history of law enforcement. David Tennant from Dr. Who shows up as a local “expert” on vampire hunting. Vampires die. Humans die. A happy ending gets pulled out of nowhere.
The stars. Kind of funny. One star. The characters and their dialog was probably the best part of the film. Two stars. Decent CGI. One star. Some really hot women (although no gratuitous nudity, which I was pretty offended at. If you are going to get an R rating anyway can you at least throw your horny guy audience a bone here?) One star. None of the characters acted in what I thought was a stupid, typical horror movie manner. One star. No sparkle or “good” vampires. One star. Total: seven stars.
And the black holes. There was nothing thrilling or frightening during the entirety of this film. It does not deserved to be called a horror movies. One black hole. For a movie that seems to want to reside in the “funny horror” neighborhood of horror films, it really wasn’t all that funny. A few chuckle-worthy moments, but that’s pretty much it. One black hole. The 3D did nothing, and the blood and gore was minimal and obviously fake. One black hole. They fell back on the whole Buffy-style “no-one-in-town-ever-notices-the-fact-that-kids-and-entire-families-are-going-missing” thing that was my biggest beef with Buffy (sorry, but if several dozen teenage kids went missing in a town the size of Sunnydale there would be about 1,000 FBI agents parked there). One black hole. The cops were dumber than a sack of hammers and failed to talk to the woman in a domestic disturbance call, look into three separate hit and run incidents, or even look into an obvious case of arson (sorry, digging up a gas pipe and setting fire to it is pretty much going to raise a couple of eyebrows when the fire department comes around). They are seriously written to be non-entities for the duration of the film. One black hole. In the movie the main vampire is said to want to turn all his victims and pretty much needs to feed every night. A little basic math would mean that if he turns one person each night and then they each turn one person by the end of a full month the entire population of North America would be vampire. Petty I know, but really two lines of expository dialogue would have cleared this up. One black hole. The ending might have been good for an episode of Buffy, but reeked of POOYA syndrome (Pulled Out Of Your Ass) for a movie. One black hole. Total: seven black holes.
So a final score of zero stars. Not really good, and honestly I can’t recommend you spend your hard earned dollars seeing it in a theater. Also, I very strongly suspect that if I had seen the original Fright Night I would end up giving it another 4-6 black holes. Just look at the review I did for Conan. This could be a good brainless NetFlix night. Not bad, just not that good.
I’m at a trade show for the next two days (viva Las Vegas!) so my next post won’t be until Tuesday night maybe (probably Wednesday). Have a good start of the week.
Movie review: Conan the Barbarian in 3D
Another great classic is reanimated only to be burned by the local villagers (I mean scriptwriters).
You know, being what is generally considered highly intelligent and perceptive is both a blessing and a curse. Sure, it helps me notice things like smoke coming from under the hood of my car and make the intelligent connection that maybe I should stop before it blows up, but sometimes I know ahead of time when things are going to be horrible, and Conan the Barbarian is the perfect example of that. When I first saw the trailer I had that slow sinking sensation you get from stuff like swimming in the ocean and seeing a fin angling for you. It could be a dolphin, but odds are you are about to lose some significant anatomy.
This movie is also great example of being careful what you wish for. A couple months ago I was bitching about the fact that I couldn’t find a bad movie worthy of my sarcasm, and low and behold, here one is! Unfortunately it is a remake of one of my all time favorites, so I feel like I am desecrating a corpse.
How did I know this was going to blow? Well, first of all, some movies just really don’t need to be remade. Conan the Barbarian circa 1982 was cinematographic awesomeness that holds up even to this day. Arnold at his best, great action, a compelling story of love and revenge, and a guy who turns into a giant snake. What more could you ask for? So they show the trailer for this new turd and immediately I know it is going to suck, just in comparison to what was previously known. But was it going to suck as a stand alone film? In other words, if Conan had not been made in 1982, how likely was this to suck by itself? For insight on that question I turned to friend of all movie reviewers IMDB. My fears were allayed when I found out they had hired a bunch of people no one had ever heard of: sub par remake director Marcus Nispel (the Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2003, Friday the 13th 2009, the Very Best of Cher the Video Hits Collection 2004 (WTF???)); writer Thomas Dean Donnelly (Dylan Dog, Dead of (the) Night 2010, which I reviewed and it sucked, A Sound of Thunder 2005 (bad film adaptation of the Butterfly Effect), Sahara 2005, Thoughtcrimes 2003); his writing partner Joshua Oppenheimer, who has all the same credits and may just have been responsible on some level for the creation of the atomic bomb, and a couple other losers including Sean Hood, who wrote for the Crow Wicked Prayers 2005. With a pedigreed lineup like that there is no way this movie could really suck, right?
It’s not so much as I am disappointed in these less than talented individuals (I mean, look at their track record. You can’t expect much) as I am bitter at Hollywood for taking another cherished childhood memory and whoring it out for a few quick bucks. Does a decent directory and a couple of good writers really cost so much that you feel you have to inflict visual pollution on the screens of America? Hell, go to any film school, find 100 seniors, and tell them all to write a Conan script. Make it a contest and one of them will come up with something that reads better than this Miles O’Keefe worthy opus.
Anyway, the movie. How does it suck? Oh, let me count the ways. The thing is, with the original Conan (yes I am going to be making a lot of comparisons. With a film like that you can’t not. Deal with it), the writers kind of knew the level of acting they were dealing with (i.e. not a lot) and wrote the character and dialog to best suite Arnold’s acting strengths and weaknesses. There was minimal conversation and they made up for it with great direction and visuals, coming out with something brilliant. I cite the opening sequence as an example. Conan’s village is attacked by raiders under a double snake emblem. Everyone is killed, and Conan gets chained to the Wheel of Pain for fifteen years before being trained as a arena slave in gladiatorial games. That is pretty much it, but with almost no dialog whatsoever you are told everything about Conan you could possibly need. Where he is from, what motivates him, how he became so skilled in battle, etc. In this dog, I knew it was going to hell when Morgan Freeman (I think. Sure sounds like him, but I couldn’t find a credit) starts the film with a narration about what is motivating the bad guys (some kind of evil mask). Hey, morons. This is a film from primitive times. We don’t need a really complicated motivation for the bad guys to be bad. Simple rape and pillage should be sufficient.
Anyway, in the new film Conan is ripped from his mothers womb in battle by his father (Ron Perlman, why can’t you pick out a decent script?). There was a chance for a nice training montage that I, as a fan of Kung Fu movies, would have appreciated it, but they cut it down to show us how Conan was a brutal killer even before being trained. Good genes, I guess. Also I guess they paid for a blacksmith set so they had to show a sword being forged. His village gets overrun by the bad guy (Stephan Lang, and the only performance that didn’t totally suck) who is looking for the last piece of the magical mask that we were just told by Morgan Freeman that was broken up and scattered among the barbarians. Apparently he wants to use the mask to have his daughter resurrect his dead sorceress wife with the blood of a purebred (not sure what kind of purebred. Dalmatian, maybe?) so she can help him conquer the world. See what I mean about overly complicated.
Anyway, Ron Perlman takes a molten steel shower and Conan escapes (what the hell? No Wheel of Pain? Lame.). Morgan cuts in with another expository monologue to avoid all that pesky story development and tells us that Conan is now a great warrior and thief. Conan is somehow the most civilized barbarian in the history of the world (you know, just not wearing a shirt so you can expose your overdeveloped pectorals does not make you a barbarian) and spends his time freeing slaves and whatnot (remember when Conan was just motivated for loot, and only discovered the bad guys when he broke into their tower to steel anything not nailed down?), with the help of some blatantly rubber boulders a la Star Trek TOS. I’m not kidding about the civilized barbarian, by the way, his speech and actions are about as far removed from actual barbarians as this movie is from talented writers.
So we find out the bad guy and his daughter (played horribly by Rose McGowen. Sorry Rose, I think you are hot, but if you are going to play a primitive evil sorceress can you please try to pretend you aren’t a SoCal bimbo?) have the mask, but instead of using the last 20 years to more or less conquer the world they have been looking for their purebred (English Bulldog?). By coincidence it is a hot young girl (ever notice the chosen one is never a fat male bookkeeper?) who lives in a monastery. Some brain deadening action occurs. The monastery has bad stuff happen to it. Conan rescues the purebred (Beagle?) but then sort of captures her to be used as bait for the bad guy. More bad action occurs. Magical hijinks ensues, including the only fight scene that didn’t make me want to pass out when Rose summons some Sandman-esque demons who are actually pretty cool. Unlimited henchmen, bad and good, are killed by the truckload. We grind our way to the pretty dumb ending that I and I think no one else in the audience cared about.
The stars. Sand demons. One star. Ron Perlman. One star. Jason Momoa, whom I like from Stargate Atlantis. One star. Some completely and utterly unnecessary but highly appreciated gratuitous nudity. One star. Giant octopus fight. One star. I’ll give props for costuming. One star. Most of the villains looked pretty cool and had some nice variety. One star. Total: seven stars.
Now the black holes. Honestly, I found it really kind of boring. I was in serious danger of dozing off, and not just in the acting scenes. The action was so repetitive and predictable, and I had no connection with Conan whatsoever, not to mention that he doesn’t even get slightly hurt so there was never any tension. One black hole. A pale imitation of a great film. One black hole. No Wheel of Pain. One black hole. No “What is best in life?” One black hole (What is Best in Life image courtesy of the movie t shirt category). No Riddle of Steel (they had some dumb Mystery of Steel, but it was lame). One black hole. Dialog so bad that Robert DiNiro couldn’t deliver it well (“I live. I love. I slay, and I am content.”-Conan). Two black holes. Wooden, mediocre acting almost all around. Two black holes. Remember how Conan’s love interest was an accomplished warrior herself? Not here. One black hole. Conan’s thief sidekick falls into the annoying comic relief category (in the original he was pretty cool). One black hole. Annoying monologs in place of decent direction and story telling. One black hole. Location subtitles for places that don’t really exist. Are we supposed to know or care? This isn’t a James Bond film. One black hole. Conan the Civilized Barbarian. One black hole. The main bad guy had a really stupid double bladed sword. One black hole. Is it unreasonable to assume four trained warriors can capture a woman with no weapons training whatsoever without her sticking a knife in the unguarded heart of one of them? Where does that need to have the girl strike back at least once per fight come from? I’ve seen it in other films and it always strikes me as pandering. One black hole. General bad direction. One black hole. Generally bad writing. One black hole. Total: eighteen black holes.
Wow. Eleven black holes. A film finally got a worse score than Green Lantern from me. A lot of that is because I am a Conan fan (Conan O’Brien too, for that matter) and see this as some of the most odious crud possible being shoved down our throats in the pursuit of a quick buck, but I have to go with what I know. And honestly, if you are going to remake a movie or attempt to restart a franchise that give me the absolute right to make all the comparisons I like. If you didn’t want to be compared to the original you should have called this something like A Barbarian Kills Some Guys. I would have probably seen that and not really bitched so much.
Anyway, big weekend for movies. I plan to see Fright Night, and Attack the Block. If I can stomach it I might force myself to see Spy Kids: All the Time in the World 3D, but that looks pretty painful. There’s something out called One Day that looks wholesomely romantic, so I might see that later in the week.
Speaking of 3D, I want to call shenanigans on the whole 3D thing. It did nothing for this movie, to the point that at one time I took my glasses off and honestly didn’t see a lot of problems for like five minutes. I think the day will come when they sell us on 3D glasses only to show us a 2D film and laugh all the way to the bank.
By the way, my friend Joshua over at theStream.tv just posted a video with Jeff Lewis (Vork, from the Guild) for a game show they do called Stream, Lose, or Draw that is pretty funny. I am a huge Vork fan, if only bacause I knew about eight guys like him back when I played WOW.
The end of the Harry Potter Marathon is in sight: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part I
Yes, I’ve seen all that can be seen via DvD and am now poised to see the very last one in a theater tomorrow night. I say poised but in truth I am excited. In spite of my original belief that Harry Potter was a kiddish version of the Lord of the Rings it has really engaged me and held my attention. I honestly think having watched them all back to back like this I might have even gotten more out of them than most people did, and I am ready to see the final one tomorrow. That will be a full on review, with the whole stars and black holes thing, but this one will be the usual abbreviated version with annoying questions.
I have kind of pondered why I am not comfortable doing the whole review thing for these. It’s not like stars and black holes take any more effort to write up than coming up with these questions. It really comes down to a few things. First off, I don’t sit on my couch and watch DvDs with 100% of my attention. I am usually working on my new secret army (just got the second full rank of the first unit done. Very laborious), or folding my laundry, or whatever. Therefore I could be easily off on some of my assessments and impressions. Also, these movies are in the past and I want to treat them differently. I don’t think any of you gain anything by having me recount the story and then pick it apart in painful detail. Finally, I have noticed a trend where when I start doing black holes I can act like a broken fire hose, spraying black holes in quantity and volume that I originally didn’t intend. Often times this can really look like I hated the film, and the fact is I am quite enjoying these. Also, there are enough psychotic Harry Potter fans out there to actually make me concerned for my safety should I get too harsh on it.
However, that does not prevent me from coming up with more annoying questions. The good news is since the Deathly Hallows does not feature any Qudditch I have not come up with any sports related questions. However, my first questions directly related to Voldemort.
Here it is. Voldemort has created seven horcruxes in which he has hidden fragments of his soul. As long as even one of them is intact he essentially cannot be killed. Why, then, does he leave them lying around for anyone to come across? If I had seven horcruxes the first one I would embed in a six foot block of concrete and then drop into the Marianas Trench. The second I would stick inside the Japanese nuclear reactor that went bad. The third I would magically transport to the dark side of Pluto. Actually, since they can only be destroyed by very specific means I think I would send the fourth into the sun and the fifth into a black hole. The sixth I would embed in my body, probably where my appendix used to be. The seventh I would put in a relatively easy place to find, but surround it with as many deadly booby traps as possible. I’m not talking trap doors and rolling stone balls, either. Claymores. Nice way to thin out the Voldemort Killing Committee. The one thing I most definitely would not do is give one to a crusty lady with terrible fashion sense who has already been bested by my worst enemy once to wear around the Ministry for any fool to grab.
Speaking of the Hot Pink Nightmare, Dolores Umbridge, didn’t she get eaten by centaurs a couple movies back? How did she resurface?
I have a question about the Death Eater recruitment program, and it kind of ties in with a previous question I asked about the economy of the Harry Potter world. What, exactly, does Voldemort promise someone like Snape to join him? I can understand a crazy nutjob like Bellatrix Lestrange doing it just for the joy of causing mayhem, but Snape is a well thought out, cautious, learned man. What could possibly induce him to not only risk his life and career, but also to betray his friends and colleges, as well as make an death binding oath to protect what is effectively just another annoying Hogwarts student? All the power in the world? Sorry, that is reserved for Voldemort. Money? A hot car? A makeover reality TV show? Honestly, what is it? It doesn’t seem like anyone in this world is hurting for money and can conjure food at will, so what do you offer a man who has access to everything? I can understand once Voldemort more or less takes over everything being a Death Eater is the cool thing to do and all the wizards are gung ho to join, but Snape seems to have been involved for a long time. What was the first carrot Voldemort ever held out?
As an aside, I do have to give props to the directors for casting Helen Bonhome Carter as Lestrange. If you are ever casting a crazy bitch with possible occult powers you really can’t find anyone even slightly better. I loved her in Fight Club, but she seems to have been really stereotyped in the roles she is given (Paper Street Soap Co (from Fight Club) courtesy of the movie t shirt category).
I have a question regarding the title of this movie. When I first heard the Deathly Hallows I assumed the Deadly Hollows referred to a serious of inimical geographic locations. You know, like Sleepy Hollow, only deadlier. I find during the course of this movie that the Deadly Hollows actually refers to three items that are presumably horcruxes. I have taken the liberty of looking up both hollow and hollows in a couple different dictionaries and, while there are a number of definitions, none of them in any way relate to any kind of magic item or fetish. Is the J.K. Rowlings just screwing with the English language to make for a better sounding book? I admit Harry Potter and the Deadly Objects really doesn’t have the same oomph the hollows gives, but it just seems a little self serving.
Note-I just found out I am an idiot. The title is Deathly Hallows, not Deadly Hollows. Thanks to all my Harry Potter fan friends for not making me avoid that huge mistake. I haven’t been this embarrassed since an unfortunate incident in the first grade I don’t want to get into.
I am glad to see that no force on Earth or Heaven can prevent J.K. Rowlings from employing deus ex machina yet again. Does it not strike anyone on the planet that the fact that Luna Lovegood’s father just happens to be wearing a pendant that symbolizes the exact three things Harry has to find has to be the biggest coincidence of all time? Or even that Harry noticed it? Every character in this movie is wearing an occult symbol as a pendant. But seriously, Xenophilius Lovegood is such a fan of a children’s story that he wears a pendant from it? That is like me wearing a pendant symbolizing Goldilocks and the Three Bears.
By the way, did I miss something? How did Harry lose his tracking chip?
Finally, if both Harry and Hermione both know that the pendant horcrux is screwing with Ron’s attitude and perceptions, and both understand that within a few hours of taking it off he will be back to normal, why did they bug out and leave him with no means of finding them after he calmed down? My dad used to take us camping once in a while and was a total jerk. I would get pissed off and run off into the woods to throw rocks at stuff. This is like if he packed up the car and left me on my own hundreds of miles away, except for the fact that Ron actually likes Harry and Hermione. I’m glad to see that Ron and Hermione’s romance is still going, but at some point one of them has to say something. I am going to be really, really upset of one of them gets killed in the next movie and leaves the other one miserable.
That’s it for questions. I am going to see Part II tomorrow night, I think. I am going to take a moment to make myself feel better and make a few predictions, based on what I know of J.K. Rowlings writing style. Let’s see if I am half as smart as I like to think. These predictions are based on no prior knowledge whatsoever:
Harry Potter himself is the final horcrux. Severus Snape will sacrifice himself in the end to stop Voldemort. There will be no non-white characters in the film at all.
That’s it. I’ll let you know how it goes. Have a good one.
Movie Review: The Change Up
Baby Excrement Jokes-a-go-go
So I did watch this last night, and realized something important about seeing movies you really don’t want to see: you don’t really mind getting a crappy seat. I was right up front, and while that played out painfully at certain overly visual moments during the film, really didn’t care much. It wasn’t like I was seeing this for the visuals.
So this movie. Was it bad? Yes. Did it have good moments? Some. The problem was it really shifted back and forth without warning. It kind of felt like you were driving down the freeway when all of a sudden you accidentally shift your car into reverse, tearing out the transmission and more or less ruining the trip, except it was happening every ten minutes. You would actually be enjoying a funny scene and then, like wearing a dog shock collar controlled by an insane schizophrenic, you are suddenly subjected to an image or concept so jarring and and disconcerting that you feel like you were physically assaulted. The earliest and most jarring one was when daddy got woken up at 3am by his twin babies. You see the kids and they are cute, if noisy. You are kind of into the heartwarming daddy scene and then all of a sudden he takes off the diaper and you are looking at (no joke) excrement covered baby taint. I know there are some lowlife degenerate perverts for whom this is awesome (and honestly, they should set up a camera in each theater and just arrest anyone who doesn’t cringe), but for most humans this is god awful. Then, as if that weren’t enough of a punch in the balls, the other baby starts puckering his anus (again, I wish I were joking, but I’m not) and literally excretes into daddy’s face and mouth.
You know, I like to think I am kind of normal, but I really have a major problem with human excrement. I don’t want to see it, smell it, or in any way deal with it outside of the limits that I have to as a human being. However, if this passes for normal humor and is not disturbing to the majority of movie goers than I am some kind of super freak. I would be OK with that if this were the case.
This actually brings me to my major issue with this film, and an ugly trend I am seeing in current movies. I know that, thanks to the Hangover, rated R romantic comedies are all the rage, but I am seeing more and more of what can only be described as trying too hard. It’s like in 5th grade when you finally get comfortably saying the F word, so you end up saying it as often as possible to prove to your friends how grown up you are. This movie does everything possible to stay R and more or less almost pushes the X border, honestly to it’s detriment. I am a fan of gratuitous nudity, but they explored every creepy possibility. The occasional F bomb can be used to enhance dialogue when it flows naturally, but when you try to jam it into every sentence like trying to fit eight people into a Prius. It just gets awkward and really stupid. Some prime examples of this over the top effort to stay R rated include but are not limited to: multiple excrement jokes, a soft core porn scene (literally) with an aged porn star with breasts so fake they might as well had Goodyear stamped on them, a naked pregnant women, and multiple discussions of topics best relegated to the dregs of the internet. Really, guys. Rated R is one thing, but completely classless is another. Crude humor in a sophisticated film loses impact and just turns into 11 year old kids saying the F word in the most awkward manner possible.
(Hangover Baby Carlos image courtesy of the funny t shirt category)
Also, this film lived up to my every expectation regarding Ryan Reynolds and his inability to play any character other than Van Wilder. If you have seen him in any other movie he has done in his career than you have more or less seen this film.
Sigh. The movie. Van Wilder and Super Dad are childhood friends. Van Wilder is a slacker actor who gets into soft core porn. Super Dad is a high paid lawyer with three kids and a pretty hot wife. They go out drinking and end up wishing for each others life while pissing into a magical fountain (God, this actually hurts to type). They switch bodies and have to spend the rest of the film not screwing up each others lives. The story grinds out in a horribly predicable manner: Van Wilder learns to be more responsible and not such a flake, and Super Dad learns to relax a little and not be such a workaholic. They both dance around doing stuff they normally couldn’t do but back off before doing anything that could be considered really life altering. The magic fountain was moved and they spent a lot of time looking for it, only to find out it was relocated into a busy mall, where they have to urinate in public (did I also mention that they both have to whip out their penises and urinate in front of a group of Girl Scouts? This movie is like a sexual predator training film).
The stars. Some fun moments here and there. One star. In a weird twist, I kind of got more into the sub plot of Super Dad trying to negotiate a major company merger than the actual main story. Maybe I was secretly hoping it would turn into Wall Street or some other film that didn’t involved scatological humor. One star. In another weird twist, I was far more engaged and interested in the two female supporting characters than the main guys. They seemed much more three dimensional and interesting. One star. That’s pretty much it. Three lousy stars.
Now the black holes. Where to begin? I could give one for every time the movie went from tolerable to claw-your-own-face-off bad, but that would add up to like 150. I will give it three, with one bonus black hole for the baby excrement scene. Four total. The movie pretty much undoes all the good work that Megan’s Law has done. Two black holes. One black hole for the fact that I spent most of the movie trying to figure out who was who between the two guys. You would think with only two characters switching it would be easy, but the two characters are so two dimensional that I honestly had to think about which of the two was saying what. One black hole. Literally none of the nude scenes were in any way appealing, and more or less made for some really painful to watch visuals. They not only made me ashamed to me a man, but ashamed to be human. Two black holes. Way, way, way too much foul language. One black hole. Yet more of the whole “negative behavior without any negative consequences” I have been railing against ever since my review of the Hangover Part 2. Baby licking an electrical outlet and sticking it’s hand in a moving blender? Saying things to a female coworker that should get you and your company sued? Exposing yourself in public in front of kids and befouling a public fountain, also frequented by kids? No way should any of these result in some kind of consequence to pay. One black hole. Van Wilder rides again. One black hole. Total: twelve black holes.
So a grand total of nine black holes, a truly terrible score. Not quite as bad as the other Ryan Reynolds film I have dumped on recently (Green Lantern, with 10 black holes), but really close. Please, please don’t see this movie. If it tanks maybe someone will get a clue and put some thought into the next rated R rom com instead of just vomiting all over a script. I suppose some argument could be made for the whole “bromance” aspect of this movie, but that is like saying that your chemotherapy is saving you a fortune in haircuts. Ironically, the R rating will really hurt this film at the box office, as the only people who should actually enjoy this film are too young to see it. Or maybe in a coma.
The Harry Potter Marathon continues: Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
So I managed to find the time to watch another one. Pretty much everyone I have talked to has said that this film is where the series starts to get really good, and I have to say thus far I agree. While the first two were enjoyable they seemed a little trite, but this one really started to feel like a progressive story.
I will say that I am starting to wonder if we are ever going to see the often mentioned (in spite of the prohibition against his name) Voldemort. For the biggest, baddest wizard in history he sure seems to spend a lot of time incorporeal, or as an animated memory, or just plain missing. It’s starting to feel a lot like Scooby Doo again, in that everyone spends all day talking about how bad ass the Phantom Astronaut is only to find out he’s a 70 year old abandoned amusement park caretaker in an old costume decorated with a glow in the dark Bedazzler kit.
As per usual, I will not burn up time recounting the story. I’m sure it is old hat for all of you. The movie was good, although as per usual plagued by the deus ex machina monkey on it’s back. In the sci fi world time travel as a plot device is the laziest tool in the writers tool shed and that carries through to fantasy as well, especially when the whole concept of any of the wizards being able to time travel was not even established until about the last 20 minutes of the movie. Also, where did the guy who was the rat come from? He just sort of appeared out of nowhere to take the blame for the death of Harry’s parents. I also have a few other specific questions that maybe someone who has read the books can help me with.
First of all, I once again have an issue with the headmaster of Hogwarts. If you bring in the Dementors (kind of a silly name, IMO. What exactly do they dement? I would have called them the Soul Drinkers. Much cooler name, and more accurately descriptive) to capture Sirius Black and guard your school, why would you keep them around after they have established an inclination towards harming the one student in the school everyone believes Sirius Black is out to kill? It’s like bringing in a pride of lions to protect a lone gazelle. No one noticed the fact that Harry nearly died from a massive fall after being assaulted by a Dementor? In general I would give Headmaster Dumbledore a D+ in the area of maintaining student health and safety, but in this case he is outright fail (Titanic epic fail image courtesy of the movie t shirt category). Also, are the Dementors even remotely competent as prison guards? They seem to move kind of slow, are easily fooled, can be pushed off by any competent wizard, and when they finally capture Sirius Black the load him into a prison cell that only has a single, easily blasted door that leads to the open sky. Good thing no one in the movie has the ability to blow stuff up or fly with magic.
Secondly, didn’t Harry assault Professor Snape? Isn’t that just cause for expulsion from the school? Snape wasn’t about to kill Sirius Black outright, so Harry would have had time to explain the situation. Snape may be a creepy weirdo, but he is reasonable and keen to the letter of the law, it seems.
Thirdly, it seems that everyone in the movie spends a lot of time huffing and puffing through monster infested woods. Wouldn’t things be a little faster and safer if they all had some kind of broom shaped flying device? Or are those only reserved for Quidditch?
Speaking of Quidditch (yes, I’m back on that again) something that occurred to me after I wrote the last post but was reminded of when Harry got his new broom at the end of the film is, doesn’t the game have any kind of rules or guidelines regarding broom specifications? I mean, stock car racing is called stock car racing because all the cars have to conform, within certain perimeters, to certain stock car limits. Baseball bats have to be wooden with no kind of weight added to the core. Pretty much every sport on the planet has specific rules regarding the types of equipment used by players in an attempt to level the playing field. This makes the games one of skill and not one of who has the best piece of equipment. A Formula One car is much faster than a stock car, but if you entered the two into a race together it wouldn’t be a stock car race and Nascar would never sanction it. However, it seems like the richest players in Quidditch have a distinct lead as they can just go out and buy the newest, fastest broom. Slytherin did it last movie and now Harry has a significant advantage going into the next season.
Finally, from what I know about wolves in general and werewolves in particular (at least, from every fiction source or legend I have read) they have a very keen sense of smell, like a bloodhound. Why, then, would Harry and Hermione think they would be able to escape it by running 100 feet and hide behind a tree? This would have been a prime opportunity to use those flying brooms, but I guess they left them back home. Not much chance at all of being pursued by some horrible monster. It’s not like it ever happened to them before. Oh, wait. It’s happened to them in pretty much every movie. Also, it really isn’t much of a stretch to take a name like Lupin and consider the chance of that person being a werewolf. If I were a werewolf and wanted to hide that fact I just might consider changing my name to something a little less leading, like Smith, or Iwilleatyourface.
I have one more big Harry Potter question, but it is more general and not specific to any movie so I will save it for one that I don’t have a lot to write about. In spite of the questions that keep coming up in my head, I am enjoying these films quite a bit. I said early on that I was going to avoid any questions related to violations of the basic Laws of Thermodynamics, and I think I am going to have to extend that to questions related to time travel paradoxes.
So I am watching the Change Up tonight and dreading it with every fiber of my being. It looks horrible with a capital H. I can’t tell you how sick I am of Ryan Reynolds and the stupid Van Wilder character he seems incapable of not playing. Hey Ryan. Want to prove you can actually act or something? Why not take a roll that is even slightly different from your usual crap? Remember how Will Ferrell did that with Stranger than Fiction and came out with a brilliant movie? Maybe play someone not so sleazy and well put together. Anyway, expect me to review that pile of refuse tomorrow (who knows? Maybe it will surprise me. If it does, I’m stopping off on the way home and buying several hundred Lottery tickets).
Movie Review: The Smurfs in 3D
Yet another opportunity for me to feel extra creepy being the only lone adult male in a theater full of rug rats. If any studios want me to review their kids movies without forcing me to feel like I should be on some kind of list, start sending me copies. However, this theater was packed full so, while I was still creepy, at least there was a crowd to blend into.
So first of all I did this movie at the bequest of my best friend, Dave. He wanted my take on it. That being said, I probably would have seen it anyway so I can’t really complain to him too much. Secondly, I did used to watch the Smurfs on TV as a kid. I remember liking a few and hating most, and in part secretly rooting for Gargamel. He always struck me as a go forward, hard working kind of guy while most of the Smurfs seemed to laze about in a peacefully indolent lifestyle that only 
helped illustrate how much my life sucked at the time. However, I always liked Papa Smurf (replacement father figure, Dr. Freud?) and, since I would frequently build tiny villages with my Legos and then rampage through them like Godzilla tearing through Tokyo, I always like it when Gargamel would rip through Smurf Village (Godzilla image courtesy of the movie t shirt category).
Anyway, the movie was actually pretty Smurfy (and yes, I plan to beat that joke into the ground). It’s one of those rare kids films that actually has a level of entertainment for adults. Honestly, it was Gargamel who carried the film for me. The Smurfs did what Smurfs do; Smurfed together happily, sang that annoyingly Smurfy song, and ascribed stringently to the two dimensional stereotypical behavior denoted by their names. Brainy was the annoying know-it-all, Gutsy (a character they created for the film. I guess they didn’t want to use Hefty, although he surfaced later on. Maybe they were worried about being sued by Glad Bags) the thrill seeker, and Grouchy the group reality check (I mean downer). The only Smurfs that had anything resembling depth of character were Papa Smurf and Smurfette, if only because neither had their defining characteristics dictated by a name. Gargamel (the very talented Hank Azaria), however, was hilarious in every scene. He was vicious, crude, clever, witty, acerbic, cantankerous, and sarcastic at every turn, and they really put some effort into making his lines as funny as possible in hopes of keeping parents awake while they took their kids to see it. Even Azreal was great. I normally find animals given roles in films like humans lame (every talking dog and cat movie can officially bite me) but the way they did it added huge elements to the film.
The story is pretty basic, and reads like a two hour version of one of the cartoons. The film starts out like any number of the cartoons with Gargamel finding Smurf Village and unleashing unholy black robed hell on the little mushroom houses. At that point I suddenly realized the film could possibly not suck. The Smurfs flee, and Papa and a few others run into a cave where they get sucked into a magical vortex and are deposited in New York City. Gargamel pursues them (after tossing Azreal through first to make sure it’s safe) and the New York hijinks begin. The Smurfs befriend Patrick Winslow (played by one of my favorite actors, Neil Patrick Harris) and his pregnant wife Grace (Jayma Mays, whom I like a lot in spite of playing yet another ridiculous love interest for Kevin James in his mall cop movie). Meanwhile Gargamel is chasing them through the city. Apparently he wants to suck out the Smurf power essence, which seems different. If I recall correctly in the cartoons he started off wanting to eat them and then later found a recipe to turn them into gold.
Smurfy hijinks ensue. The Smurfs cause havoc in a toy store when every kid wants one. Papa Smurf has to figure out a way to Smurf the moon blue. Patrick works for a cosmetics firm run by a dragon lady and gets a Smurfy idea for an ad campaign from his little blue friends. Smurfette discovers there is more than one dress in the world. Azreal manages to get the last laugh, as he usually did in the cartoon.
First the stars. As much as I like to think of myself as a cold, soulless automaton I actually was pretty well overwhelmed by warm feelings of nostalgia as I watched this. One star. Neil Patrick Harris. One star. Decent story and dialogue. One star. Gargamel was Smurfing awesome in all regards. Two stars. With the exception of the blue power juice thing and a couple new characters added, the mostly kept to the original story (if only some comic book movie directors I could name could do that) including the origin story of Smurfette. One star. While the movie was sappy and sweet, at no point did I feel the director force feeding me honey to make it over the top sickening sweet pap. One star. The 3D didn’t give me a headache, and actually added a little to the experience. One star. All around a positive experience. One star. Total: nine stars.
Now the black holes. I knew this would happen going in, but I have to give the movie one for infecting my brain with that damned Smurf song. I woke up with it in my head. One black hole. The bitchy dragon lady running the cosmetics firm felt really fake and didn’t add anything to the movie. One black hole. Total: two black holes.
So a grand total of seven stars, and I feel really good about that. In the irksome category the only thing I have is not really the films fault, but the fact is the trailers for the other kids movies coming out soon made me weep for the youth of America. The new Spy Kids movie looks like it was designed to help kids stay back a year in school, and the rest of them blur in my mind of like a blender full of brain cell killing stupidity. As much as I think the Smurfs would be a good movie for kids, why does the rest of Hollywood treat children with the same respect you would give to the grout holding your bathroom tiles together? Is it really that hard to entertain kids without giving them crap?
