3 Days to Kill Review
3 days? How about 113 minutes that felt like 3 days?
Image courtesy of the 3 Days to Kill Official Site
I am experiencing a weird phenomenon with writer/director Luc Besson. Up until a few years ago I would have told you I am a Luc Besson fan. The Fifth Element, Taken, and the Professional used to rank up in my favorite films.
Unfortunately as each of his more recent projects comes out my love and respect for him drops by another considerable margin. It started with Columbiana and kept going with Taken 2 and the Family. My best friend still holds that any director only has three good movies in him or her and should bow out after the third and I can’t disagree with him.
The weird part is the disappointment and bitterness I feel towards his new movies is bleeding backwards and staining my enjoyment of the few movies I like. I don’t think I can watch the Professional now and not see how ridiculous Gary Oldman is, or how dumb Leon’s war cry in the apartment sounds. A cop wipes out an entire family and there are no repercussions? How about the fact that Liam Neeson took the Intensometer so far into the red that it has come around like a watch second hand in Taken?
Of course I could never watch the Fifth Element without laughing at it’s campyness, but now that I see what his typical movie is like I strongly suspect that the camp elements of that film were the result of incompetent direction rather than intentional fun. Now the laughter is laced with tears.
I guess it’s fair to say Luc Besson’s talent and career are in the final stages of a death spiral and when you hit rock bottom it is inevitable that you meet up with the dregs of Hollywood, specifically my old favorite punching bag McG. This is the perfect storm of bad movie teamups; a once talented writer and director who seems to be suffering from some form of talent dementia and a man who is to Hollywood what mercury is to tuna fish.
The mystery of McG is one that defies description. All of his movies have sucked, and for the most part what he does best is mediocre television. I watched Chuck for a while before getting painfully bored (really I only watched it to see Jayne in a suit) and Supernatural, which got a lot better after McG left. I refuse to watch the O.C. (I grew up in Orange County. No one down there calls it the O.C. and as far as trite pretentious bull goes I don’t have to watch a show about it. I lived it). Yet in spite of this, his refusal to use vowels, and his massive ego (the letters McG showed up on the opening credits about 14 times. “McG studios and McG presents a McG production” etc.) studios keep handing him budgets. It’s almost as if there is an unspoken agreement to produce a certain number of craptastic movies in order to make the good ones look better and McG is their go to guy (actually now that I think about all the crime-against-cinema movies that issue forth from Hollywood like pus from an infected wound that is not the dumbest theory I have ever come up with).
Personally I developed a real hatred of McG when he ruined Terminator but his “movie” This Means War didn’t help. Good Terminator image courtesy of the movie tshirt category.
At the top of the laundry list of failures this movie contains is the fact that McG can’t seem to maintain a tone (something I also noticed in Luc Besson’s The Family, so maybe it’s not all McG). It is equal parts action spy movie, erotic femme fatale, teenage girl angst, and cheesy family love story. I’m not saying that all films have to maintain a tone but shifts in tone need to be for a purpose, NOT the random changing of channels by a remote control in the hands of an epileptic having the mother of all fits. At any given moments you could be watching Kevin Costner shoot any number of guys, torture somebody, hang out in a strip club with his CIA director/latex bondage queen, have a tender moment with his estranged wife, or get into an argument with his teenage daughter and the shifts come with the randomness of Bingo balls. Doing a successful shift in tone requires directing, a commodity in short supply in this film.
The other thing about this film really being four separate films is that each of the sub films sucks horribly too. The spy/action part of the film seems to boil down to “shoot everyone and/or torture everyone”. The femme fatale is so laughably out of place and cartoonish she is like a kids pencil drawing of a penis hung on the wall next to the Mona Lisa in the Louvre. The teenage girl’s angst is so hamhanded and trite it wouldn’t survive as an after school special, and the family drama so bizarre and fake you have to wonder if Luc and McG actually grew up in a family or were created in some lab somewhere and raised by feeder tubes. Each part of this film is worthy of a separate blistering review but really I only have so much time.
One more thing before I get into the story. Something I have noticed that seems to be a common thread for all Luc Besson and MgG joints is they both seem to believe that the CIA is some kind of God like creation that can kill anyone they like and reign havoc across the world with impunity. While this may or may not be true the problem is when you show them going into mass shootings in other countries such as France (well known for letting American spy organizations do whatever the hell they want) and don’t show any kind of repercussions the reality of the film starts to fragment. Showing even the slightest bit of an attempt at spin control when an entire floor of a crowded hotel gets blown to bits would keep a film such as this (already on it’s last threads realistically) from looking like I wrote it back in Jr. High for a Top Secret campaign (there’s a test of your geek-fu).
I better get on with it. The film starts with Agent Vivi DeLay (Amber Heard-Zombieland, Drive Angry, Pineapple Express) of the CIA in very conservative business suit (my mentioning of this will become relevant shortly) being briefed about her next target. She is supposed to kill a bad guy named “the Wolf”. He apparently makes it his business to sell radioactive material to terrorists for dirty bombs (My eyes rolled at that one. What’s the matter Luc? Was that really the most evil thing you could think of? How about in your next film you make it about a guy who kidnapps children and grinds them up into hamburger meat?). He is supposed to be selling a bomb through his lieutenant “the Albino” (the code names are so dopey I’m going to keep on putting them in quotes to drive home the ironic point). Somehow they know where the buy is going to happen, what is being sold, when, and for how much but have no idea what “the Wolf” looks like.
She travels to the hotel where CIA Agent Ethan Renner (Kevin Costner-Waterworld, Dances with Wolves, Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit) is there to kill guys for her or something. He needs to call his daughter for her birthday and is sick. “The Albino” recognizes one of the other CIA women and the whole deal goes kablooy. Ethan manages to shoot “the Albino” in the leg while pursuing him but passes out from his sickness, letting “the Albino” get away. He wakes in a hospital bed and is told he has cancer and only a few months to live.
He quits the CIA and heads back to Paris where his wife and daughter live. He finds a family of racist stereotypes squatting in his apartment and after establishing himself as the Alpha male (with the help of his gun) opts to let them live there for a while (oh, yeah. At parts the film shifts over into the Haitian Brady Bunch. Hilarious). He goes to see his ex wife Christine (Connie Nielsen-One Hour Photo, Gladiator, The Devil’s Advocate). He tells her he is dying but doesn’t want to tell his daughter because…honestly I have no idea and I don’t think McG did either. Maybe they think a sudden death is better for a teenage kid to absorb.
Anyway he picks up his daughter Zoey (Hailee Steinfeld-True Grit, Enders Game, She’s a Fox) at school. She hasn’t seen Ethan in like 10 years or something (or maybe he had visited. The nature of Ethan and Zoeys relationship was ill defined at best. Keeping the audience informed of relevant character details is apparently not in McG’s job description) and is understandably pissed off at him. She has grown up into an extra from Mean Girls and all around annoyance.
At that point Vivi resurfaces looking like she just got off her night job as a dominatrix (the change up was really off putting. I spent the first 10 minutes not really sure if it was the girl from the beginning of the film) and wants Ethan to help her. She believes that Ethan saw “the Wolf” at the bomb buy and wants him to help her kill him (I guess the CIA doesn’t bother to hire sketch artists or uses mug shots). She offers him an experimental drug that will magically cure his cancer but also makes him hallucinate and pass out whenever his heart rate increases. Good thing he never does anything like get into a gun fight or have to chase bad guys through most of Paris.
Oh, wait he does. In spite of the fact that he has a medical condition that makes him painfully unqualified to do “wet work” she has him agree to kill “the Wolf”, “the Albino”, and ten other random jackoffs. At that point the shifting of tones goes from every few minutes to putting all the raw footage into a blender and hitting puree. Zoey really starts to cramp his style. Every time he is about to kill some hapless bodyguard or attach jumper cables to the nipples of a car rental service owner who respects his clients privacy she calls him with her “hilarious” pop music ringtone. Meanwhile he keeps on loosing his ability to remain conscious every time bullets start flying.
That’s the movie in a nutshell. I hated this film so I am going to drop a ton of spoilers but in case you really think you are going to be surprised SPOILER ALERT. He catches up to “the Albino” and “the Wolf” just in time to pass out but instead of just killing him like anyone who had ever seen any James Bond film ever would “the Albino” puts him in a position where Ethan can easily reverse things and kill him. It turns out “the Wolf” is friends and business associates with the parents of Zoey’s boyfriend so the final gun fight can occur at a party where his family is around. Christine gets pissed off at Ethan for working for the CIA when he said he quit. Oh, yeah. The drug cures his cancer in like a week (what was it, like super chemotherapy? Also why did they transport it in a leather pen case? Not exactly hygienic).
The stars.
Meh. I still like Kevin Costner, although he sort of phoned this one in. One star. Some of the gun fights were pretty good, although if you have seen the Professional you have already seen them. One star. Is that it? I guess so. Two stars.
The black holes.
One for each of the crappy movies that were sewn together into this Frankestein. Four black holes. No tone, and tonal shifts that played out like having sex with a hot girl while her ex boyfriend holds the control to your shock collar. One black hole. A bonus hole for having a professional spy think the way to keep a low profile would be to dress like one of the The Merovingian’s henchmen from the Matrix Revolutions. One black hole. The only character that seemed remotely real was Ethan, and his realism made all the rest of them that much more laughable surreal. One black hole. Poor editing and pacing. One black hole. Another movie where the title has little to nothing to do with the actual film. There was no clock or pressing time requirement in the story. It is obvious they came up with it post production when the studio shot down the more functional title “McG Pleasures Himself all over the Audience” (I assume). One black hole. Overall an attempt at glitz and glam over substance that managed to fail to glitz or glam the audience. A general failure. Two black holes. Total: eleven black holes.
So nine black holes. Pretty lame IMO. Should you see it? Probably not, unless you really, really, really want to be brainlessly entertained and your only other option is staring at a wall. With the right mix of drugs and/or alcohol you might be able to enjoy it. Probably drunk off your ass is the best way to see it. Nothing screams big screen to watch in the comfort of your single wide with a box of your finest wine. Date movie? Naw. There is nothing here to encourage a girl to take off her clothes. Bathroom break? There is a bonding scene towards the last half wherein Ethan teaches Zoey how to ride a bike (at age 16) that drags on for like 100 years (or so it seamed). Who says McG can’t do family drama?
Thanks for reading. I saw Pompeii last night and will write it up tomorrow. Follow me on Twitter @Nerdkungfu. Feel free to leave comments here on this film or my review and off topic questions, suggestions, or fan mail (I almost managed to type that last one without bursting out laughing) can be sent to [email protected]. Have a great night and I will talk to you soon.
Dave
Star Trek Retrospective: Episode 58 the Paradise Syndrome
Another one that made my list of worst TOS episodes. This episode garnered a lot of criticism for racism and I can’t say I disagree. It drank the Native American stereotype punch and then regurgitated it all over the screen. Kirk as the white male is in all ways smart and capable while the Native Americans are dopey savages. If I were Native American and saw the people and custumes in this one I think I would punch the first guy I saw wearing Spock ears on general principal.
Ironically this was exactly the opposite of what Gene was trying to do. I think they just didn’t look at this one carefully enough. By the way right now I’m looking at a photo of Kirk about to kiss Miramanee while wearing a costume reject from a Native American casino and I can honestly say he has never looked cheesier. That is saying a ton. I am a massive Kirk fan of course but I am not blind to his limitations and some of his episodes are harder to be a fan of than others.
Also, what the hell is the deal with Miramanee dying of internal injuries with McCoy standing there? Unless your internal injury happens to be the complete removal of your heart and lungs there is tons of stuff any decent modern doctor could try. Was he too busy to help the primitive savage? Next time why don’t they just beam down a bunch of plague blankets and be done with it?
Of course, I’m pretty sure McCoy has said “He’s dead, Jim” about 50 more times than he’s said “He’s made a full recovery, Jim.” When you really think about it how good was Dr. McCoy really? Seems like his only real skill is determining if someone is dying or already dead. (McCoy image courtesy of the Star Trek T-Shirt category).
Dave
Winter’s Tale Review
Just sit right back and you’ll hear a tale, a tale of a crappy script.
In case you aren’t the type to be endlessly fascinated by the weirdos and degenerates that inhabit the internet there is a sub culture known as Bronies. These are grown men who are avid fans of My Little Pony. You know, the cartoon designed for little girls ages 2 to 11. Some of them are just guys who for some whatever developmental failure still enjoy the cartoon (or so they claim) but a large percentage of them are known as Cloppers and are the reason Rule 34 was created: If it exists there IS porn for it. Yes, they pleasure themselves to My Little Pony porn.
(Incidentally my knowledge of this sub culture comes from the Howard Stern Show. If you ever want to feel your skin crawl try to listen to the interviews with these guys. Now let me get back to Googling metal bikini Leia pictures).
Anyway, the point is Winter’s Tale has a similar feel to the Bronies. It is a story written for pre-teen girls that for some inexplicable reason they opted to make into a grown up movie. It’s like a little girl dressing up in her mothers clothes without the cuteness. I’ve heard the book by Mark Helprin is pretty much a fairy tale and why they opted to shoot in on film instead of making it into a cartoon is beyond me.
It’s probably the height of churlishness to bitch about deus ex machina in a movie that is supposed to be about miracles but the point is deus ex machine is dead boring. Drama is the result of seeing protagonists that we have connected to triumph against the odds through might, cunning, and strength of will. Seeing the protagonist and his supporting character escape from the top of a skyscraper by climbing onto a flying horse pretty much says that this film is on auto pilot and is going to roll into Grand Central Boring Happy Ending Station without any input from any of the people on the screen or any interest from the audience.
The good news is any debate as to which of Russell Crowe’s movies are his worst can now be put to rest. The bar has been set and unless he opts to play Babs Johnson in a scene-for-scene remake of Pink Flamingos it can’t go any lower. The same cannot be said of Colin Farrell, unfortunately. I feel bad as I actually like him. I think he is appealing and talented, but the man cannot catch a box office break. He needs to hire whoever reads George Clooneys scripts for him. All his recent films have tanked. Dead Man Down, Seven Psychopaths, Total Recall, and Fright Night. Ironically I found something to like in each of those films, which is why I feel a slight pang of guilt (very slight) for dumping on this one.
In addition to being pretty much a film for little girls who believe in fairies this film is a confusing mess. So the basic premise is that each human has exactly one miracle to perform in their life and can only do it for one person. Each person who performs their miracle goes to Heaven and becomes a star or something. Russell Crowe plays a demon who’s job is to prevent miracles from happening. His plan to prevent Colin Farrell’s miracle is to…kill him? 
I thought minions of the devil were supposed to use corruption and temptation to damn people. If all you need to do is feed a guy bullets why not go on a murderous rampage and kill everyone who has not yet performed their miracle? Go to a church and finish off hundreds of miracles every Sunday. The whole thing might have made more sense if the demon characters had been sending prostitutes and drugs his way. (image courtesy of the Funny T Shirt category)
For that matter the whole good/bad thing is suspiciously vague. Colin plays a thief who spends a lot of the movie stealing from people. Last time I checked that was considered a bad thing but somehow he is in this state of indeterminate grace. He is being aided by an angel (or something. Not as clear as it was for the demons) in the form of a white horse that can fly. At one point Colin is being confronted by about 20 of Russell’s minions and the horse flies down and…murders them all? Not exactly divine behavior (Haw! If you got that joke you are cool). I mean, sure they might be bad men but I thought the whole idea behind Christianity was the chance at redemption, something very difficult to accomplish from the bottom of a frozen lake. Again, a little explanation of what the hell the angels and demons could do and what their agenda was would have gone a long way.
And then there’s the whole deus ex machina issue, of which that last scene is a prime example. Colin’s character more or less bumbles around and whenever the plot calls for him to do something and/or he is in a dangerous situation God miracles his ass up there (thank you Gunnery Sergeant Hartman). You can get away with that once in a film. Maybe twice. Miracles should not be the plot points that connect each and every scene together.
So the film starts off with the parents of Peter Lake sticking him as a baby in a toy boat off the coast of New York (I guess it was sea worthy? I have build a few model ships and they are rarely ballasted enough to hold a baby) in order to get him to America after they were rejected for being unhealthy. Somehow they knew the boat wouldn’t capsize or he wouldn’t die of exposure before someone found him. Skip forward and adult Peter Lake (Colin Ferrall-Phone Booth, In Bruges, Total Recall) is on the run from a gang of thugs lead by Pearly Soames (Russell Crowe-Gladiator, A Beautiful Mind, L.A. Confidential). Peter kills a couple thugs (more evidence of his good soul) but gets trapped. Pearly wants to torture him to death for some reason but a horse magically appears that jumps over a massive fence and Peter escapes.
Later Peter spends the night like all good Christians do; robbing houses for loot. He breaks into a house and meets Beverly Penn (Jessica Brown Findlay-Downton Abbey, Black Mirror, Albatross) in it alone. She is dying of consumption and needs to stay cold or her fever will kill her. They spend a few minutes together and fall in love. He bugs out but is obsessed with her and heads back to her house on the horse, only to find Pearly about to kill her (Pearly had some kind of vision and drew her in the blood of some poor kid he just murdered. If that kid had not yet done his miracle wouldn’t that put Pearly in the black regardless of the whole Peter question?). Peter rescues her and escapes on Miracle Horse, who grows wings in order to fly down a huge cliff.
Pearly needs permission from Lucifer (no joke. It takes real balls to have the Prince of Darkness as a named, speaking character in your movie. Oh, yeah. Will Smith-I am Legend, Men In Black, After Earth) in order to cross the river. Lucifer denies him permission, determining that Pearly is too close to the issue. Peter and Beverly arrive at her family estate where Peter is welcomed by her father Isaac (William Hurt-Dark City, Into the Wild, A History of Violence) after a fairly perfunctory “What are your intentions” conversation. They continue to fall in love.
Pearly hires an angel to kill Beverly (huh?), assuming that Peters miracle was to save her life. Peter and Beverly go dancing and the angel poisons her. That night the two hook up and then she dies. Skip forward about 100 years and Peter is still alive with no memory until he meets Virginia (Jennifer Connelly-Blood Diamond, A Beautiful Mind, Requiem for a Dream) and her daughter Abby (Ripley Sobo-just some TV work). Abby is dying of cancer but Virginia feels the need to probe Peters mysterious past.
The story chugs along from there. Pearly is still around and still wants Peter. The super horse is still around and rescues all of them. Guys get killed, things twist (sort of), and yet more miracles happen.
The stars.
I have to say my favorite part was Will Smith as Lucifer. In each scene with him in it the movie ceased to be a confused miracle love story written for grade school children and turned into a hilarious laugh out loud comedy. I think of all the actors in this film he best smelled what the director was brewing and took it with the appropriate seriousness. One star. Visually decent. Some good camera work IMO. One star. I don’t know if I really need to crush this film but I am having a hard time coming up with anything else. Two stars total.
The black holes.
A fairy tale for adults that failed to entertain. One black hole. The whole question of what everyone’s agenda, powers, and deal was. One black hole. I don’t know if Russell Crowe was secretly laughing at the director or his dentures were slipping but his accent was ridiculous. One black hole. The whole Beverly dying part made the first 2/3rds of the movie a bummer for no reason. One black hole. Deus ex machina as a substitute for actual writing. Two black holes. This film had a serious agenda and that agenda was to make you feel uplifted by the most obvious means possible. They even had dead Beverly do a voice over at the end in case you were asleep through most of the film and missed the point (not an unreasonable assumption). One black hole. 118 minutes that felt like 118,000,000. Pacing from hell. I was just begging for something to actually happen. One black hole. If movies having a point is something you enjoy prepare to be disappointed. One black hole. Total: nine stars.
A grand total of seven black holes. Pretty bad. I honestly think they could have done something better with this. I often wonder if as the production of a crappy movie progresses if there is a sudden moment of clarity for the actors when they realize they are pushing out a turd or if they have to wait for the premier. Worth seeing at all? Maybe. Like I said Will Smith was funny and after After Earth that man owes me some entertainment. I think I would consider taking my mom to see this one. Otherwise no, not at all. Date movie? Maybe. Depends on the girl. If she is really dumb or likes to smoke pot and/or drop acid before a film she might enjoy it a lot (also if she is any of the above find out if she has a sister and send her my way. I think I am done with smart, responsible chicks). Otherwise meh. Bathroom break? Honestly all the scenes without Will Smith are equally worthless. Even if you miss an important connecting scene you can just assume some miracle saved them again and move on with your life.
Thanks for reading. I have seen 3 Days to Kill and will bury that one tomorrow morning (suck it, McG). I think I’ll go see something tonight as well and try to crank out two tomorrow. Follow me on Twitter @NerdKungFu and email your off topic questions or suggestions to [email protected]. Post any comments on this film or my review here. Talk to you soon. Have a great weekend.
Dave
Star Trek Retrospective: Episode 59 And the Children Shall Lead
There are a few episodes that really just bug the hell out of me. This is one of them. First off as was later proven by The Next Generation and Wesley Crusher kids have no part in Star Trek. I think one of the reasons I liked Voyager and DS9 is they really kept kids to a minimum. Anyone younger than Charlie X should be verboten.
It’s not that I hate kids, mind you. I just think there is something really off about kids in a sci fi world. Sci fi is a chance to escape from reality and kids are by their very nature a harsh bite of reality. Also they tend to suck as actors, which in this series is saying a lot. If you doubt what I’m saying about kids in sci fi why don’t you go back and rewatch the Phantom Menace and ask yourself if young Anakin Skywalker was anything other than a 20 ton anchor in that movie.
Also whenever I see kids on TV or movie in my mind I always see some creepy Hollywood parent pushing him or her along and making the directors life hell.
The next issue with this episode is I really don’t like it when the crew of the Enterprise looses about half their brain cells. I see in the Enterprise the smartest, most capable humans (and half Vulcans) the Federation can muster, and when they see a red flag and blatantly ignore it I want to punch my screen. Kids singing and playing around the rotting corpses of their parents? You don’t think they might warrant a little supervision just on the off chance that they are being influenced by some alien creature and had something to do with the murders, do you? Maybe Kirk and McCoy were a little blind due to their humanity but I would imagine Spock might raise an eyebrow. It’s not like humans being controlled by aliens or aliens imitating humans wasn’t the plot of 20% of the previous Star Trek adventures.
And finally there is the fact that the Gorgon is a FREAKING CLOWN! Someone might wonder where my intense dislike and fear of clowns came from and you might have an answer right here. DIE CLOWN DIE!
Evil clown (kind of redundant putting those two words together IMO) image courtesy of the Funny T Shirt category.
Dave
Robocop Review
It might be “a” Robocop movie but it’s not “my” Robocop movie.
Robocop Image courtesy of the Robocop Official Site.
OK, this film wasn’t the Hoovermatic suckfest I expected it to be. It was well executed, had a story, the action was fun and exciting, and you managed to sort of care about the main character. These are good things. The problem is twofold; first off, it really isn’t any better than the first Robocop and in many ways was just not as good and secondly the political message was forced down our throat with all the subtlety of an appendectomy performed with a Sawsall.
The original Robocop was kind of brilliant for 1987. It had wit, sarcasm, and poked fun at almost all of American culture in a way that made us laugh. Robocop moved and acted as we would expect an all steel man to move; slow and clunky but with the inevitable force of a molasses tsunami. He was nigh indestructible (as long as no one thought of the brilliant plan I like to call “Shoot him in the mouth”), had a very cool gun that was holstered in his thigh, and was effectively a machine that we got to know as a person, not the other way around. He also had some brilliant super polite dialog as he was kicking ass. My favorite Robocop line will always be “Come quietly or there will be…trouble.” Little things like when telling Dick Jones what crime he is being arrested for the penal code appears on Robocop’s monitor. For the level of special effects they had (i.e. no CGI) the movie was amazing.
Much less so here. Instead of being an unlucky cop transferred into the worst precinct in Detroit and getting killed due to lack of police resources he is now a veteran detective who gets blown up by a bad guy in a dopey conspiracy. Instead of being a corpse shanghaied into OCP’s clutches he wakes up as Robocop after his wife signed him over and he has full access to his life before. Much of Robocops trials in regaining his humanity are lost here. Now he moves and jumps like Spider Man because…well why would we want to watch a movie about a walking tank when we can show the world how talented our CGI department is?
Even the environment is lessened. In the first film it seems like OCP is a massive consumer conglomerate running most of America. There are hilarious commercials for bizarre products, the implication that they effectively run the military, and the grim idea that all of American morals and culture have fallen to the wayside (“I’d buy that for a dollar!”).
Now it’s just another company (called OmniCorp. The name change really puzzles me. Were they actively trying to be less cool that the first movie? They referenced Omni Consumer Products at the end of the film but too little too late IMO) trying to sell products. There is some bizarre conspiracy involving changing the perception of Americans with regards to the use of drones, and nothing says excitement like a movie about a marketing campaign. There was none of the cool flair behind the evil powers pulling the strings.
Then there’s the blatant political agenda. It’s clear that when the studio opted to remake Robocop they spared no expense and hired the best guy for the job: some dude no one ever heard of. Jose Padilha is a Brazilian director known for such classics as Elite Squad and Elite Squad: the Enemy Within so it’s obvious why Sony fought so hard to bring him into the project. What they didn’t know was that Jose seems to have an engorged erection about one thing and that’s the evils of drones. He couldn’t have forced his message onto the audience harder if he had burned the words “Drones Suck” into our retinas with lasers and then spent the entire movie poking us all in the side and saying things like “Do you see what I mean about drones? Do you get the message? What do you think about drones? Let’s watch ten minutes of my movie with my laser message superimposed over every scene and then you can tell me what you think about drones again. Have you ever thought about what would happen if a drone accidentally killed you or some children? Did I mention that drones are bad?”
Image courtesy of the Robocop Official Site.
The sad part is honestly I don’t think anyone in America gives a crap about drones. Sure, it’s being debated but no one really thinks the military is going to stop using them. No one has yet suggested that we replace cops with robots even if that were possible. It’s like if I wanted to argue with you about the evils of humans marrying dolphins. Sure, I suppose it’s possible and definitely wrong, but is it really worth hinging your whole movie on? Furthermore, fans of Robocop tend to be fans of Science Fiction and honestly I believe most of us think anything remotely robotic is pretty cool.
As an aside they also hired two writers who have written absolutely nothing of note, unless Starship Troopers and every dumb Robocop made-for-TV project ever count (I actually think Starship Troopers was a crap movie. Where the hell were the power suits?). $120 million budget and one of the writers has this movie listed as his only credit. Sigh.
Finally there is the gigantic elephant in the room: PG-13. I felt my first real qualm about this film when I was watching a trailer and they said in a loud, imposing voice like a missive from God “50,000 volt stun gun!”. Was that supposed to be a selling point for this film? The first film was a masterpiece of making future Detroit into the dystopia all of America knows it is headed to: drugs, guns, shooting people, hookers, blowing people up, more guns, more drugs, more shooting people, and a guy being dissolved alive in a giant vat of toxic waste. The final fight scene where Clarance is beating Robocop to death with a steel bar after shooting his female cop partner in the chest is everything this movie is supposed to be about. I will give the director credit in that he fought hard for an R rating but the studio forced the PG-13 after he went grossly over budget. I will say it was as close to an R rating as I have seen a PG-13 film go, but after a while the cleanliness of every scene and the safe, non-threatening way everything dies really sucks the fun out of the action.
The story. In spite of massive support from the O’Reilly show (I’m sorry, Novak Report) starring Pat Novak (Samuel L Jackson-Pulp Fiction, the Incredibles, Django Unchained) OmniCorp (just typing that bugs me) can’t seem to find the support to put drone cops on the street in USA. CEO Raymond Kellers (Michael Keaton-Batman, Speechless, Multiplicity) needs find a way to sway popular opinion in his direction and comes up with the idea of half robot, half cop. Meanwhile Detective Alex Murphy (Joel Kinnaman-the Killing, Safe House, Easy Money) is on the trail of gun runner Anton Vallon (Patrick Garrow-Childstar, 16 Blocks, Blindness). He and his partner Jack Lewis (Michael K. Williams-the Road, Snitch, Gone Baby Gone) fail to make the bust and suspect Anton has police help. Anton opts to kill Alex and blows him up in front of his wife and kid (Abbie Cornish-Sucker Punch, Limitless, Bright Star and John Paul Ruttan-This Means War, the Two Mr. Kissels, Defendor (<–awesome movie BTW)).
So Raymond convinces Clara to sign over Alex and with the help of Dr. Dennett Norton (Gary Oldman-the Fifth Element, the Professional, Lawless) plug Alex into Robocop. He freaks out upon waking (for whatever reason he hates the idea of being made super strong, fast, and nearly indestructible. No pleasing some people). He opts to play ball but goes through an extensive testing and evaluation period. The guy who programed the drones Rick Mattox (Jackie Earle Haley-Shutter Island, Watchmen, Lincoln) hates Robocop and wants him to fail. In order to get him to pass Norton reprograms Alex, effectively taking away his free will.
Alex goes back to Detroit and is reunited with his family. The next morning in order to have him not have his emotions cause the his computer malfunction (?) Nortan has to crank him into super computer guy. He goes out and starts arresting people. Eventually he is reminded of his humanity and opts to solve his own attempted murder. Naturally he is betrayed by OmniCorp and has to fight to save his life. Things get blown up, people get shot, and we are all reminded how evil drones are.
The stars.
The CGI was pretty cool actually. Lots of drones, lots of action. One star. 
Our old friend the ED-209 makes a welcome and extended appearance without being tweaked too much (ED-209 image courtesy of the Movie T Shirt category). They did lame it up a little by calling the humanoid robots ED-208, like OmniCorp designed a man shaped drone and then the very next robot in the series was a giant preying mantis looking thing but whatever. One star. I have to say I love the cast. I like Michael Keaton a lot and thought Joel Kinneman was pretty good. Samuel Jackson is a welcome sight in any movie where he does not play a Jedi. One star. Story wasn’t horrible. Not as cool as the first one but still decent. One star. While not as good, cool, or well written as the first one it was at least decent. I hesitate to call it a fitting tribute but at least it didn’t insult the original. One star. The fight scene at towards the end between Robocop and a bunch of ED-209s was particularly entertaining. One star. In general fun and entertaining in a bland, safe way. Two stars. Total: eight stars.
The black holes.
There are two gigantic flies in this otherwise blandly inoffensive soup and that is PG-13 rating and the “Drones is bad” political message. I can’t decide which one bugged me more (haw!). Two stars. Is it fair to compare this film to the original? Damn straight it is, and in comparison this film is not as fun, funny, interesting, or timeless by a long shot. One black hole. While the story didn’t suck if you really look into it there are a lot of weaknesses, like how does a corrupt cop think stealing guns from an evidence locker and selling them on the street is even remotely a good idea? How about you drop this PG-13 nonsense and go back to drugs, the real issue that makes sense to we the audience. One black hole. The having Alex start off human instead of being a bad ass robot really robbed his redemption of oomph. Instead of clawing back to being human he just sort of went into a walking coma for a while. One black hole. Total: six black holes.
A total of two stars. Meh. If there were no 1987 Robocop and this movie came out I would probably have enjoyed it more. It still was kind of bland. If for some idiotic reason you never saw the original odds are you suck but would probably enjoy this one quite well. For fans of the original I think you need to see it but just remember that it is not your Robocop. I’d say it’s worth watching. Date movie? Probably not. More of a dudes film. Bathroom break? Most of the meetings between Raymond and his marketing staff are pretty disposable. Honestly any scene that doesn’t have Robocop in it could be missed with impunity.
Thanks for reading. Looks like Hell Week is starting for me, as I have nothing but Winters Tale, Endless Love, and About Last Night to watch. Each of them looks like a different slice of the pain pie for a macho dude such as myself. I hope you readers are grateful for the sacrifices I make for you (especially any hot single female ones, if you know what I mean). I’m in Las Vegas at a trade show for a most of this week but will try to sneak away and catch a flick. I’ll see Winters Tale tonight. I hope it doesn’t cause my penis to fall off. Look for that review tomorrow. Follow me on Twitter @Nerdkungfu. Comments about this film and my review are welcome and can be left here. Off topic questions or suggestions can be emailed to [email protected]. Talk to you soon.
Dave
Star Trek Retrospective: Episode 60 Is There in Truth No Beauty?
This is another episode that I found kind of confusing as a kid. I guess I didn’t really get Marvick’s motivation to kill the Medusan ambassador or his obsession with Miranda. I mean, she was super hot of course (Diana Charlton Muldaur) but I was so buried under hot Star Trek women that she seemed kind of run of the mill at the time. I think the episode is pretty amazing now, but I always have a hard time enjoying episodes wherein they make Spock act like a happy, emotional human. It feels like a caricature to me and I can’t deal. Do not denigrate the patron saint of the Church of Spock.
I will say that Diana Muldaur is singular in that she played two different characters on Star Trek TOS and another one on TNG. All her characters were doctors of one type or another. As far as I know the only other actor to pull that off was Mark Lenard, who played Sarek Spock’s father in Journey to Babel and the Romulan commander in Balance of Terror. He later resurfaced again as Sarek in TNG, the Search for Spock, the Voyage Home and Star Trek: The Motion Picture as the Klingon Captain (you really have to have your Trek chops to catch that one. Damn I’m Star Trek sexy! Trexy?).
Anyway, the one thing that was funny to me was the idea of someone so ugly it would drive you insane. What if you were really, really, really drunk? Imagine waking up the next morning and finding that in bed with you asking where you keep your coffee. Although to be fair for the first time you would have a legitimate excuse to ask her to put a bag over her head (image courtesy of the funny t shirt category).
For the record the title comes from a poem called Jordan by George Herbert.
Dave
Vampire Academy
Enough with the ******* vampires!
I now look upon Hollywood’s desperation to launch anther teen franchise with the same contempt I reserve for losers who spend all their money on Lottery tickets. Sure, they have all failed miserably to produce results but THIS time it’s going to be a winner. Face it guys. Twilight and Harry Potter won the lottery. It’s a miracle lightning struck twice. You literally have a higher chance of being hit by a meteor, and a massively higher chance of sending all your money into a black hole never to see it again. The studios would be better served spending all their money on King Cobra and cigarillos.
(That reminds me. What is the Mega Jackpot up to? I better grab my tickets.)
That being said I think I can say the Vampire Academy is the best of the worst. Oh, it’s horrible in every way that you can imagine mixing the lamest elements of Twilight, Mean Girls, Buffy, and Bloodsport can be. The vampires still suck (haw!), the script should have spontaneously combusted out of shame (and possibly did), the “male” actors are mostly sizzle chested man/boys, and the girls all manage to make you hate them with the burning passion of 10,000 suns in spite of the fact that they are all drop dead gorgeous. You know, a typical Twilight movie or Tuesday at any white suburban high school (that’s sort of FTW in a weird way). However in the Valley of the Blind the slightly less migraine inducing teeny bopper launch movie is king. I’m saying in looking back at all the other “This film is the new Twilight ” movies that have come out in the last few years this one may just be the best. I resent the time and money spent watching it less than I did the Host, Mortal Instruments, Percy Jackson, I am Number Four, and Green Lantern (technically Green Lantern really wasn’t an attempt at grabbing teenagers (or anyone actually living on this planet). I just really resent it) so I guess that’s sort of a recommendation? Sort of in the same way I would recommend you jump into a pit full of scorpions and used syringes if your only other choice was a pit full of acid, burning napalm, and Andy Dick.
Wow this is weird. I just looked up the director of this canker and discovered he actually did direct Mean Girls. I guess he’s not going to travel much outside of his comfort zone. I’m going to put this movie not making me want to kill anyone (more than a typical day, I mean) on the fact that it was released by the Weinstein Company. I guess I respect them on some level. They do a lot of cool, smart, smaller movies and Harvey Weinstein knows how to make a film. The writer of this did Heathers, Demolition Man, and Batman Returns (Danny Divito Batman, NOT Batnipple Batman. That’s enemy of all things cool Joel Schumacher) so I guess he’s decent?
I’d also like to comment on the acting in this film. It wasn’t great. It wasn’t even particularly good. However, it was functional and when it comes to films of this ilk that’s about as good as we can get. It’s obvious that the producers strapped Zoey Deutch into a chair with her eyeballs wired open Clockwork Orange style and forced her to watch every episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer ever (even Where the Wild Things Are). Like I have said before imitating something halfway decent can sometimes result in something tolerable. Most of the people in this movie were given a set of programming (or just arrived at the casting office with the program already running) for their characters and ran the length of the movie on it. Not awesome but not not seizure inducing.
I remember when I reviewed Mortal Instruments bitching about the fact that the film creators assumed we had all done a doctoral thesis on the rules and intricacies of demons and slayers. Without a reasonable understanding of why the characters do what they do and what the endgame for each move is it’s hard to stay in the theater. Well, looks like screenplay writer Daniel Waters is among the tens of regular readers I have as he hooked up the exposition fire hose and spent about 2/3rds of the movie shooting the audience in the face with it. By the end of the film you will understand every nuance and subtlety of being a vampire in the world created by Richelle Mead, knowledge that will be of great use when the studio opts to let this series die a meandering death and never make the sequel (opening weekend gross: $3.9 million. Give me a budget and I could get that much filming the homeless people rooting through my trashcans).
Also, if you didn’t think movies about teenage girls treating each other like something something stuck on the bottom of their shoe is a pleasurable experience prepare for a kidney stone passing experience. Take all things trite and trivial about being a high school girl and then ad some magic and modest amount of bloodsucking and you have this movie. For the record the vampires in this film are so laughable when compared to their source material you will never feel anything remotely resembling apprehension. Anyone else remember when vampires were something to be feared, not romanced and/or laughed at?
Do I really need to recap the story? Lissa Dragomir (Lucy Fry-no other film credits, and a slew of crappy TV ones. I don’t know if this film will be her springboard) is a good vampire (part of the orientation lectures tells you specific names for the different types of vampires and half vampires but I have already wasted enough brain cells on this film) who is good because she doesn’t kill when she feeds. Rose Hathaway (Zoey Deutch-Beuatiful Creatures, Ringer, Mayer Cupcake) is a half vampire or something and is Lissa’s best friend and bodyguard. Apparently if you are born half vampire you are automatically a slave or something to the full vampires and spend your life as a bodyguard for them, ready at any time to take a stake for them.
Oh, also if you kill while feeding you turn in to a bad vampire called a Strigoi (I only remember this because it is a term used in Warhammer). I found this really confusing to be honest. The drinking of blood from a person who is going to live is not inherently different from the drinking of blood from someone who is about to die. I supposed there is a morality issue that could be associated with damage to your soul but if so what happens if you are at a party (or blood orgy) and you drink from a human who, six vampires later, dies. Do all seven of you turn into Strigoi? What if you drain a human to the point of incapacitation and in his or her lightheadedness they fall off a cliff? If the death changes your soul wouldn’t that be the same as draining them dry? If a moral choice manages to make physiological changes in your body wouldn’t you turn Strigoi if you shot somebody? For that matter it is said that Strigoi are faster, stronger, and most importantly immortal while regular vamps just kind of shuffle off the mortal coil. Sure, they look ugly but why not enjoy your good looks while you are young and then once you start to get a little long in the fang (haw!) go full Strigoi and live forever? Someone look up the definition of “cursed” and email it to the author. In spite of the reams of data force fed to us I’m still confused.
Oh, yeah. Also apparently being fed upon by a good vampire has some kind of narcotic effect and they have humans volunteering all the time, spending a year in the “feeder program”. I don’t want to dump all over the author of this epic (although really, I do) but there is a reason humans can’t really donate more than about a pint of blood every two months. It seems like Lissa needs to feed every day and I’m willing to bet she takes more than a teaspoon full. Oh well. I’m sure no harm could come of giving teenagers misinformation regarding health and safety issues.
Anyway, Lissa and Rose are on the run from the Vampire Academy. Apparently (I’ve noticed the more times I feel compelled to use the word “apparently” in my story recap the weaker the script tends to be. I might be going for a record here) Lissa felt like her life was in danger from something (?) but it might have been stress from being bullied by other students. They get caught by Vampire Academy Secret Police (where the writer proves she has no idea how motorcycles work) and hauled back.
On the way home they get attacked by some Strigoi who want something (? I really don’t know. Maybe they felt a burning desire to keep this film from being godawfully boring) from them but are beaten back by Fabio looking love interest Dimitri (Danila Koszlovsky-My is budushchego, Dikhless, Garpastum (I swear I’m not making those up)), the head vampire slave. The two of them get hauled into the headmistress’s office and read the riot act. Turns out Lissa is the last survivor of the Dragonmir clan and eligible to inherit the throne or something (anyone want to take bets as to whether she get the throne or not? The good news it it looks like we won’t have to find out).
Anyway, at that point the story, which had been chugging along at a fast clip (relative to the land speed Galápagos tortoise) slows down like a car with three flat tires and a fourth tire that is actually a Hefty bag full of treakle and used chewing gum. The girls start going to classes. Lissa spend a lot of time in her magic class (cough cough Harry Potter cough cough) and Rose in her combat bodyguard class (cough cough umm…Buffy meets the 36th Chamber of Shao Lin? cough cough). Oh yeah they share some kind of mental bond where at random (very plot convenient) points Rose can see and feel everything Lissa can but not the other way around. Stuff starts to happen that may be a serious threat to Lissa’s life but may also just be crazy high school vampire hijinx. Lissa’s ex boyfriend (I couldn’t pick him out from the other man/boys if you held a gun to my head. Sorry guy) has a slutty new girlfriend who hates Lissa. Some dude who might have been somehow associated with the school (or may have been just some creepy old dude hanging out with hot high school girls) asks Rose and Lissa to hang out with his daughter Natalie (Sarah Hyland-Modern Family, As the World Turns, Geek Charming). Lissa meets some emo dude (Dominic Sherwood-Not Fade Away, the Cut, Sadie J) and sort of romances.
I don’t really want to get into this any further. Bitchy high school hijinx ensues. There may or may not have been some kind of plot going on. There is some other teacher who Rose knew who opted to go Strigoi and now wants revenge for something (?). The Queen shows up periodically to bitch out and embarrass Lissa. Lissa uses her magic to brainwash herself into popularity. Inappropriate romance blossoms between Rose and the Russian Fabio dude. A lot of film rolls by without anything really happening. The end.
The stars.
I know I said this is the best of the worst, but that is not really star worthy. I’m not in the habit of rewarding relative mediocrity. You can’t just hand out trophies to every kid who plays in Little League, can you? Well, most of the girls were amazingly attractive and if seeing hot high school girls in sexy ass Catholic school girl uniforms does it for you fuhgettaboutit. Of course this film suffers under the PG-13 rating like like a fragile oceanic eco system under a crude oil spill so don’t go waiting for anything higher than mid thigh. One star. In spite of the brain aneurism inducing script the acting, editing, and pacing were adequate. This puts this movie miles above such classics as the Host.. I guess I am in the habit of rewarding relative mediocrity. One star. There were a couple of laughable moments. Few and far between but I did catch myself laughing out loud (much to my embarrassment). One star. Total: three stars.
The black holes.
Story from Hell (possibly literally. If Satan were to take up scriptwriting this just might be the story he comes up with). One black hole. The director collected all of the vampire lore this movie ripped off or made up into a 50 gallon drum and then held the audiences head under it for about 55 minutes. One black hole. Speaking of ripping off, this film managed to “borrow” heavily from every vampire, high school, and teenage romance film, book, or play ever 
with the grievous and ironic exception of Bram Stoker’s Dracula (image courtesy of the Horror Movie T Shirt category). One black hole. The motorcycle stunt from the beginning of the film (if you see it you will both understand and agree with me). One black hole. The big bad guy doesn’t really get introduced until the last 20 minutes. Until then it’s just HS BS. One black hole. What’s the deal with the half vamps getting shanghaied into taking a stake for the good vampires? Isn’t there one of those kids who wants to be an artist, doctor, or pot head? One black hole. Can someone please tell me where the good vampires got the idea that going Strigoi was a bad idea? If your options are to go teetering off into senility and death or killing someone and becoming a red eyed immortal monster I think after 70+ years the decision process could be pretty quick. In fact, the one thing all the exposition did was convince me that I not only don’t give a crap about these vampires and their rules but don’t have any interest in learning it ever. It’s like reading an instruction manual on how to punch yourself in the testicles. One black hole. Hollywood really needs to let go of the two ideas that they can launch another franchise based on the “Bland teenage girl with two romances from guys who’s interest in women is difficult to establish” and that vampires are even remotely cool. Face it guys. All the freaks who love vampires probably killed themselves at the end of Twilight when they realized that in four very long movies absolutely nothing happened. One black hole. PG-13 sucks. One black hole. This movie is 104 minutes you won’t be getting back. Two black holes. Total: eleven black holes.
So a total of eight black holes. Still not worse than Hercules but in the ballpark. Worth seeing? If you are a huge fan of the books maybe, but other than that the only other reason I can think of for seeing this is if you died the night before in the theater and the ushers haven’t noticed yet. However, it is certainly better than all the rest of the failed franchise launches so if you want to see it for some kind of sociological research go for it. Date movie? Well, the male characters with the exception of the Russian guy have all the machismo of the Vagina Monologs so you should be able to look kind of manly in comparison, but odds are if you either suggest or agree to this film there is a part of her brain that will be thinking “WTF is up with this guy?”. Pass. Bathroom break? Oh, pretty much any time you see a scene with actors in it.
Thanks for reading. I really didn’t expect this one to ramble on this long but it’s 12:49am on Febuary 15th and I’m working on this instead of being out with a Valentine so I guess I’m trying to convince myself I have a life. Follow me on Twitter @Nerdkungfu. If you have a comment about this film I pity you but feel free to leave it here. Off topic questions or suggestions should be emailed to [email protected]. Talk to you soon.
Dave
Star Trek Retrospective: Episode 61 Spectre of the Gun
Now we are looking good. This episode is easily my favorite of Season 3 and made number 3 on my top 10 list. When I flash back to my childhood and the images that stick with me the shot of Kirk, Spock, McCoy, and Scotty at the OK Corral standing in front of the wood fence while Wyatt Earp and his gang shoot through them into the fence is near the top of the list.
I also think this is an episode which shows how well the Star Trek crew did their best with no budget. They basically borrowed a bunch of props from the western being filmed in the next studio and built their set with like $200 worth of 2x4s. By writing the unreal nature of the reality the crew was dealing with these budget limitations enhanced rather than detracted from image. The familiarity of the old West set combined with the unfinished buildings showing the orange alien sky was pretty awesome.
I also think that this episode had some of the best camera work of the series. Watch the scene leading up to the gunfight and you will see use of camera angle and perspective that is really impressive. Of course a lot of it is old hat now but this was 40 years ago. They really did some very cool things with the camera and limited special effects.
Finally, this is another Star Trek episode that predicted the future of human technology. Specifically they predicted the creation of virtual reality, or at least video game avatars. If only the show hadn’t been cancelled who knows where we would be technologically? Of course by the end of Season 3 we were seeing Abe Lincoln in space so odds are Seasons 4 and 5 would have had stories that make most Star Trek /slash porn seem reasonable.
Image courtesy of the Star Trek T Shirt category.
Dave
The Monuments Men Review
I’m at a loss as to whether I like it or not.
Image courtesy of the Monuments Men Official Web Site.
On paper it seems like I should love this film. It has some of my favorite actors in it. Clooney, Goodman, Murray, and Damon rock. Kate Blanchet is very easy on the eyes, even when playing a stuck up Parisian. I love World War II movies. I love movies from real stories. I studied art and in spite of many hours of painful Art History lessons I love art.
So why am I not gushing all over this film? This is one of those movies that is going to suffer the death of 1,000 cuts. There is no one thing that brings it down but rather a million little pinpricks that cause it to bleed all over the screen. It’s hard to nail down but there is just something off about it.
I suppose I should have had some warning when they started running trailers for this film almost a year ago. In the bizarre idiot savant genius that is only enjoyed by Hollywood studio marketing departments the ad people can sniff out a dud far in advance and start advertizing the crap out of it, hoping to pin the movie in the minds of the audience before actual word of mouth poisons it. Ever notice that the really great films hardly advertize at all? I know I am more sensitive to this as I see every movie out there and have watched the Monuments Men trailers about 800 times but I just don’t understand how it is the marketing people can feel a bad movie coming on like an impending bowel blockage but the directors, producers, and studio executives keep packing away the cheese and red meat.
Not to say that this film is bad. It’s just mediocre, and given the tools they had that makes it very disappointing. If you enter the Indy 500 in a ’79 Thunderbird no one is going to blame you for coming in dead last. However if you enter it in the latest hi tech Formula 1 car and spend the whole race doing donuts on the midway I think some of the failure blame may land fairly in your lap.
This film has the stench of a pet project on it, and since it was written by, directed by, and starred in by the same man I think we can guess who’s pet it is. The biggest identifiable problem is that he honestly tried to do too much in all ways. He has some of the best character actors in the business but didn’t have the time to actually let any of them develop a character, leaving them all bizarrely flat and one dimensional. He tried to add some away from home angst in a really out of place scene that added nothing (which was exacerbated by the fact that without any character development we didn’t care about Bill Murray’s character enough for it to have impact). The film was a “sort of” project. It was sort of a war movie, sort of a buddy movie, sort of a romantic drama, sort of a National Treasure-esque treasure hunt, sort of a Holocaust movie, sort of a celebration of the French resistance, sort of a historical drama, sort of a character study, and sort of an action drama. Unfortunately it did none of those particularly well.
Image courtesy of the Monuments Men Official Site
Also unfortunately it was sort of boring. Drama and dialog only work if there are characters for us to connect with, and with our focus split six different ways the drama had zero impact. The war action in this war movie was perfunctory at best. There were only two “battle” scenes, one of which ended comedically, and both of them were criminally short with no gravitas. The one death scene was the character we had the least connection to (and that is saying a lot). I honestly think that with a few tweaks this film could have gotten a PG rather than PG-13 rating to allow the next generation to get bored too.
I can almost see the arguments wherein an executive producer is begging and cajoling Clooney to include one stinking battle scene and George is refusing to sully the vision of his opus. The entire last half of the movie seems to be gearing up towards a big confrontation with the closest thing to an antagonist, the Russian treasure hunter, but the exact moment when a veteran movie goer expects the scene instead we get a shot of the guys driving across the German countryside into Blue Ball City.
The story is of the Monuments Men, a group of soldiers tasked by President Roosevelt to save and recover great pieces of art stolen by the Germans. They are led by art professor Frank Stokes (George Clooney-Gravity, Oh Brother, Where Art Thou, Up in the Air) and artist James Granger (Matt Damon-Saving Private Ryan, Good Will Hunting, the Departed). The team is comprise of architect Richard Campbell (Bill Murray-Moonrise Kingdom, Groundhog Day, Lost in Translation), sculpture Walter Garfield (John Goodman-Monsters, Inc, Argo, the Big Lebowski), painter Preston Savitz (Bob Balaban-Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Moonrise Kingdom, Gosford Park), British guy Donald Jeffries (Hugh Bonneville-Downton Abbey, Tomorrow Never Dies, Notting Hill), and French guy Jean Claude Clermont (Jean Dujardin-the Artist, the Wolf of Wall Street, 99 francs).
They go out into the world and split up in order to have 14 more WWII subplots. None of the individual scenes really have much to do with the main story and could be taken as individual vignettes. James Granger heads into Paris (which may or may not have been occupied. Timing seemed really vague in this film) to meet up with an old art contemporary Claire Simone (Cate Blanchett-LOTR, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Blue Jasmine). She worked with the Nazi in charge of stealing all the art Viktor Stahl (Justus Von Dohnanyi-The World is Not Enough, Downfall, the Experiment) and has information that would really help the Monuments Men find the art (sort of. Honestly after about half the movie wooing the info out of here I thought it pretty worthless) but for some inexplicable reason would rather let Hitler burn it all or something. I guess to help create drama?
Anyway Jeffries wanders off to find a Michelangelo sculpture and gets shot (supposedly. From what I saw the sound of the Germans pistol might have given him a cardiac arrest. PG-13 and all that). Garfield and Clermont wander around the countryside and stumble upon some Germans who shoot the Frenchman (as an aside, if you weren’t American in this film your days were numbered). Savitz and Campbell stumble upon Stahl in what is easily the best scene in the film and arrest him. Stokes and crew start finding art hidden in salt mines and the like. Meanwhile an evil Russian team is also looking for art to steal. Both teams seem to be headed towards the same Bavarian castle and copper mine where the greatest art piece ever is stored and in a truly edge of the seat, leave finger prints imbedded in the armrest from gripping it so hard scene the Americans leave with all the art about ten minutes before the Russians arrive. The end.
The stars.
You cannot help but love the cast. Even in mediocre movies they shine like diamonds. I was especially glad to see Bill Murray again. Three stars. Based on a true story. One star. I like the idea that some art is worth risking your life to save. There was a noble overriding message I can’t help but appreciate. One star. WWII movies hearken me back to one of the few positive interactions I can recall with my father, who loved WWII. One star. If you go in looking for more history than drama and action you will enjoy it. One star. Total: seven stars.
The black holes.
The tonal shift really kept throwing me out of the theater. It was like watching the first ten minutes of seven different films over and over again. One black hole. The lack of any kind of real character development and the fact that they split all the character time between six or seven different characters meant I never connected with any of them. I felt more sadness seeing some great works of art burned then I did seeing the two dudes die. You can’t give me two minutes to form a bond with a character and then expect me to give a damn when he dies. 
I’ve had stronger connections with individual Stormtroopers (Trooper image courtesy of the Star Wars T Shirt category). One black hole. Pacing was awful. 118 minutes of Act II with no real conclusion, no continuity, and no connection to the rest of the war. You jumped from scene to scene with a little subtitle placard and were expected to buy into the fact that we didn’t need to see anything in between. The film doesn’t feel like it ended so much as they just ran out of film. One black hole. The Claire Simone segments were particularly worthless. She contributed next to nothing besides a pretty female face in a sea of dudes. What was her motivation? Did we need to learn about her brother? Was the data she gave them really of any value in the long run? Was she a love interest or not? One black hole. No action to speak of. They bought all the guns and uniforms. Didn’t they feel any interest in at least having one thing remotely exciting happen? One black hole. They ripped off about 80 other WWII and treasure hunt movies. You know that trope where a guy steps on a mine but it won’t go off until he takes his weight off of? The one in every bad war movie ever? Well apparently so does George Clooney. One black hole. Total: six black holes.
So a total of one star, which in my book is a very mediocre score. I don’t know. Maybe my mom will love it, but honestly I think Clooney needs to have a more concrete vision of what his next movie is supposed to be before starting it.. Having a movie about art suddenly shift into finding 50 gallon drums full of gold teeth collected from concentration camps speaks loudly of “Late Night Inspiration Disease” where the writer/director/star of this masterpiece spends the evening watching Schindler’s List and wakes up at 3am in a creative sweat and writes down the first thing that comes to mind on his bedside legal pad. Worth seeing? I will say it’s not worth not seeing. If there is nothing else on and you roll into the theater with your expectations set low enough you will probably enjoy it. Odds are the biggest problem facing my enjoyment of it was the 800 Monuments Men trailers I have watched over the last 14 months. Sometimes advertizing can have a negative effect. Date movie? Meh. I suppose. This is one of those perfect relationship date movies where you and your significant other will feel equally annoyed at the film for different reasons. A good compromise always leaves both parties vaguely dissatisfied. Bathroom break? There is a date scene with Claire towards the end that could be missed without much impact.
Thanks for reading. I’m still riding the high I felt from watching the Lego Movie, but have Vampire Academy on deck for tonight so by this time tomorrow should be back to my miserable self (unless Vampire Academy surprises me by being good and fun to watch, but that would be a moot point as by the time I got to writing the review all causality would have already imploded). Follow me on Twitter @Nerdkungfu. Comments on this film or my review are invited and can be left here. Off topic questions or suggestions can be emailed to [email protected]. Have a great night.
Dave
Star Trek Retrospective: Episode 62 Day of the Dove
This is one of my favorite episodes from season 3. As a kid I just liked all the violence. The Klingon commander was pretty awesome, and had one of my favorite quotes from all of Star Trek:
Kirk: Go to the devil!
Commander Kang: We have no devil, Kirk. But we understand the habits of yours. I shall torture you to death one by one until your noble captain cries enough. Who will be first?
Spoken with the perfect amount of menace. I also love any episode where Spock has to use logic and propose hypothesis. (I couldn’t find a good image of Kang in the Star Trek T-Shirts, but I did find Kor).
It’s also funny how your perceptions change over time. As a kid and young adult I never really had much of a problem with the interaction between Chekov and Mara, but now as an adult and much more open minded and sensitive individual (yes I am, dammit! Shut up!) I now realize it was pretty much the first part of a rape and find it seriously disturbing. Of course Chekov was under the influence of an alien creature, but still. Not something I’m happy to see one of my childhood heroes doing.
I’d also like it noted that even as a kid I noticed that the mysterious “Security Alert” button that Kirk touched on his communicator was in fact just him tapping the side of the device. I love Star Trek but am not blind to it’s stupidities.
Dave
