Killing Them Softly Review
Boring me majorly.
This is a film I saw a week ago but have not had the time to write up. Saying the Holidays are busy for me is like saying Red Tails is a bad movie. The actual words fail to encompass exactly how busy I am (or how bad Red Tails was). Sufficed to say things have been nuts but now I should have time to get caught up on reviews.
I am a Brad Pitt fan, and have been ever since I saw Fight Club mainly because there was nothing else on that day and walked out of the theater with the thundering realization that I had just accidentally seen my all time favorite film (I Beat Tyler Durden courtesy of the Movie T Shirt category). Inglorious Basterds was amazing, and I even got to like Meet Joe Black, although not for the story. In spite of the fact that Brad was originally sold to us as a pretty boy I have gotten to like him, and will take a serious look at any movie he opts to do.
All that being said, while he did an admirable job with the mediocre part he was handed there was nothing he could do to save this film from being a total snooze-fest. Watching this film is like staring out the window in detention in school where even the actions of two pigeons on a ledge seem fascinating because you are so painfully bored. It runs 97 minutes but felt like 197.
Like most mediocre to bad films the real sin the director committed was a failure to commit strongly enough in any single direction. At the same time this film tries to be an action film, character study, and drama while completely lacking in action, character development, or drama. Something like 75 of the 97 minutes is of two men sitting in a parked car talking about what they should do and why (different cars and different men, but almost the same scene every time). The main thing this repetitive shooting does is highlight how rote and mundane a lot of the camera work is. There is only so much shot-counter shot you can do in a film until it starts to feel like the editor is running off a metronome.
The other thing this film really lacks is a point. The whole thing seemed pitched as a character realization, either for the Brad Pitt character or the other main guy (Scoot McNairy-Argo, Monster, In Search of a Midnight Kiss). However, at the end nothing is realized and everyone is either worse off or exactly the same. There is some kind of sub plot involving James Gandolfini (the Sophranos, the Last Castle, In the Loop (<–great movie, BTW)) and his alcohol problem that just vanishing into the mist like a badly created sub plot. There might be some kind of important message about how fragile the organized crime illegal gambling economy is and how all it takes is one idiot to ruin it, but I failed to see the importance of that.
The story. Frankie (Scoot McNairy) and Russell (Ben Mendelsohn-Killer Elite, the Dark Knight Rises, Tresspass) are small time criminals and drug addicts who get hired (after the longest interview process in employment history) by a small kingpin (Vincent Curatola-the Sophranos, Monk, the Good Wife) to rob a local illegal poker game run by Markie Trattman (Ray Liotta-Goodfellas, Hannibal, Smoking Aces). (By the way, the casting director really phoned it in on this one. He or she was told this was a mafia film and called the first five guys cast typed into it (I guess Joe Pesci had other things to do)). Robbing a mafia game normally would get them all killed badly, but since Trattman was known for robbing his own game they all figured he would get the blame for it.
They rob the game, and that is pretty much the last interesting thing that happens in the entire film. The rest of it is Jackie (Brad Pitt), the mafia enforcer, being called in to find the guys and kill them. This might sounds good, but most of his search seems to involve sitting around talking about what it’s like to be a hit man or something. He hires his old frind Mickey (Gandolfini) to kill the guy who cooked the deal up but Mickey is more interested in drinking, hiring hookers, and bellyaching about his life to anyone in proximity. For some reason we are given extensive lectures on the economics of organized crime and criminal committee decision making, kind of in the same way that a lump of grass takes an extensive tour of a cows massive digestive system. There are a number of action-ish scenes that in a normal film would have been pretty cool but in this one it has all the excitement of a corpse twitching after death. I am going to use the old “I don’t want to drop any spoilers” excuse to end this story description, but the truth is just recalling it is triggering my narcolepsy.
The stars. Brad Pitt was decent even given the garbage role he was handed. One star. While the film was painfully boring the director made the merciful and wise decision to make it relatively short. One star. I don’t know where Mickey is finding his hookers, but the one that is shown is heartbreakingly hot (no nudity, however). One star (I’m kind of reaching here). Three stars total.
Boring. Boring boring boring boring boring boring dull. Two black holes. The ending felt worthless and rushed, like they suddenly all realized how dull the movie was and just wanted to end it so they could move on with their lives. One black hole. Not a single sympathetic character in the bunch, and no real protagonist. Even the main guy sucks for being so stupid. You kind of end up hating them all equally. One black hole. Mundane camera work and pulseless action. One black hole. A movie with all the pretension of having a point without actually having a point. One black hole. This is one of the very rare occasions that I can say I walked out of the theater with the definitive feeling that I had wasted my time and money. One black hole. Total: six black holes.
A total of three black holes. Worth seeing at all? Meh. If your choices are watching this or watching two pigeons on a ledge outside your window than sure. Not worth time in the theater in my opinion. See it at home. Date movie? Probably not. You will burn all your credit choosing a dude movie and then look lame when she passes out from boredom. Bathroom break? Pretty much anywhere. If you want to pick a specific scene I’d say the one where Russell and Frankie are smoking crack together. Even more nothing happens, and the only relevant plot point is restated by Brad Pitt five minutes later.
Thanks for reading, and sorry I had to start off with something dull like this. Some interesting stuff coming out this week. I will try to see something good soon. Follow me on Twitter @Nerdkungfu. If you have comments on this film or my review feel free to post them here. If you have any off topic questions or suggestions feel free to email me at [email protected]. Talk to you soon.
Dave
How does Superman cut his hair?
Yes, I’m back and should have time once more to write all the wonderful reviews and theories that you, my beloved readers, have come to expect and adore. In fact I have one on deck that I am writing in a bit. However, yesterday I drove home from LA which is six hours of nothing but time to think. Sometimes I come up with something brilliant and other times I come up with questions like this one.
Think about it. Superman is effectively indestructible. Wouldn’t his hair destroy any scissors you tried to use it on? My best friend told me he was a comic once where Superman reflected his heat vision off a mirror to cut it. This is all well and good, but the thing is mirrors reflect lasers, not heat vision. He doesn’t have laser eyes. All that would happen is the mirror would just get super hot.
Let’s say that this were even true. First of all have you ever tried to cut your own hair in a mirror? I sometimes trim my eyebrows and let me tell you I am in severe danger of giving myself an accidental lobotomy every time. What happens if a fly buzzes by real fast and for just a second you track it with your eyes while styling your hair. Isn’t Superman in serious danger of giving himself an unintentional no-hawk?
For that matter, no one ever notices that Supermans hair length is the exact same as Clark Kent, and they get their hair cut at exactly the same time? How dumb is Lois Lane? If male pattern baldness runs in the -el family keeping his secret identity intact may prove problematic.
Sorry, I know. Completely irrelevant tangent. This is what keeps me up at night and awake on late night Christmas drives. Superman logo courtesy of the Superman T Shirt category. I will be working on a film review shortly. Talk to you soon.
Dave
The Hobbit Review
Ever feel like there is just not enough padding and filler in your life? Looks like Peter Jackson heard you!
This is another review I had to take a full day to think about before writing up. I saw it at midnight on Thursday/Friday night with a bunch of other fanboys (some of whom clapped at the end of it. Can someone please explain this phenomenon to me? You clap to show an appreciation to the performers or presenters of something. Do these idiots really think the producers of the movie are in the theater with us, or perhaps the ushers fill out reports to the studios as to how loud the clapping really was? If not than this is clearly an pretentious attempt to show the world exactly what kind of a douchy fanboy you really are).
By the way, if you are reading this review and have never read the Hobbit I don’t know what the heck you are doing here, but I am going to be pretty generous with the spoilers in a minute so be warned. I am assuming you all know the story at least half as well as I do.
I generally consider it a warning sign when a movie’s actors and producers really overmarket the film prior to release, and it looks like once again I am right. The week leading up to this release you couldn’t flip a channel without seeing one of them on some interview or talk show.
I’ve decided I need to look at this from three different perspectives; fan of the movie series, fan of the novels, and non fan who stumbled into the theater with no previous LOTR experience. Honestly, while this movie is very pretty it kind of lags from all three perspectives.
As a fan of the movies it really isn’t much when compared to any of the three LOTR films. The story is bloated and convoluted while at the same time feeling truncated, the characters grossly underdeveloped (especially when compared to the Fellowship characters), and the movie attempts to maintain the very serious tone of the three main movies while at the same time add in a ton of Three Stooges-esque slaptstick comedy. The forcing of every LOTR character and reference into this film is done with all the subtlety of using a croquet mallet to insert a catheter. They crammed in Frodo at the beginning as part of the prologue and I guess I was OK with that. It didn’t strike me as too glaring out of place and maybe there actually are Elijah Wood fans out there (and if you do exist please stay away from me and my family). When I saw Elrond I thought “Sure, he was in the Hobbit. Looks like a good move”. Then when the shoved in Lady Galadriel I thought “OK, I suppose if they are going to have one of the main Elves why not have the other one? Odds are they brought her in to add a little femininity to what is otherwise a massive sausage-fest”. But then they force fed us Saruman FOR NO REASON WHATSOEVER and discuss the danger of Sauron (who got no reference in the book whatsoever) while discussing a Morgol-blade they captured from the Witch-King of Angmar (no joke. I wish I was joking) and at that point I decided I and the rest of the audience was being pandered to. I just wish I knew what brand of baby powder Peter Jackson was using when he changed all our diapers for us.
While we are on the subject of pandering and treating the audience like we are all brain injury victims, I also want to rail on the presentation of Saruman in this film. I guess they decided we are all to stupid to understand the corruptive nature of time and evil and so presented Saruman as evil and despicable as possible. It’s like watching Chancellor Palpatine in Revenge of the Sith act exactly like a Sith Lord and wondering just how stupid every other character (who are all actively looking for a Sith Lord) in the film really is. If Elrond, Galadriel, and Gandalf (collectively acknowledged as the wisest beings in Middle Earth) couldn’t figure out that he warranted watching by is behavior at the meeting they all deserve to be crushed by Mordor for being moronic.
The last area where this movie lags behind the other three is in characters. In the LOTR series each of the Fellowship and supporting characters is a cool individual with a distinct personality that resonates well with the others. Aragorn, Gandalf, Legoalas, Gimli, and each of the hobbits is distinctive and intriging. Even Boromir was really cool, and supporting characters like Faramir added a ton to the story. In this movie the cast consists of Gandalf, Biblo, a fatter Aragorn (Thorin Oakenshield, if you want specifics), the dwarf with the white beard, the fat dwarf, and the other 10 dwarves who devolve into a faceless mass rapidly. Half of them look like they were rejected by the casting director of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs for being too goofy and cartoony, and the other half look like humans. The cool thing about Gimli is he looked every inch a dwarf. In this film the dwarves look like a healthy mix of SAG extras and homeless people picked up off Hollywood Blvd. There is nothing about character here at all for any of them. Even Thorin is a 2 dimensional photocopy of Aragorn, and when you see them as a group they look exactly like a group of full sized humans.
As a fan of the book I am slightly more pleased, but only slightly. They attempted to keep the more fanciful tone for parts, and in general kept to the story. However, they surgically grafted on a ton of parts from the Silmarillion and another ton of parts they flat out made up and closed all the sutures with a mix of used dental floss and old yo-yo strings. Remember how in the book the dwarfs were more or less wandering through Middle Earth and dealing with whatever random trolls, goblins, and giant spiders they happened across (kind of like a driving trip across West Texas)? The book is a single adventure. If it were an RPG game it would be termed a “dungeon crawl”. Travel to the Lonely Mountain, steal as much gold as you can carry, and ride off into the sunset to spend it all on good wine and bad women. There are no portents of the ultimate doom of Middle Earth. Not so here, however. I guess the film producers decided our soft brains would never accept a motivation for our main characters as simple and morally grey as just getting rich. Instead we are fed a massive undercurrent of conspiracies, evil powers manipulating things from afar, and portents of incoming doom that is totally at odds with the lighthearted nature of the book. As I have said many times before, it’s OK for a movie to not rest on the ultimate fate of the world.
Where the movie suffers the most, however, is from the perspective of a guy off the street who is not really a massive fan of anything and only wants to see decent film. For this hapless individual the movie is a huge, slogging, incoherent mess. The pacing movies like a giant amoeba crawling across the ground, getting around objects with occasional bursts of speed as it squeezes though a narrow passage but in general progressing with turtle-esque velocity. There are a ton of irrelevant scenes to pad out the script run time, including a massive block dedicated to the completely annoying Radagast the Brown as he spends 10 agonizing minutes (from the audience perspective) nursing a sick hedgehog back to life (God I wish I was joking). There are flashbacks within flashbacks (the only one which would have been really cool was the attack of Smaug. Would have been cool had they actually shown Smaug. It was pretty much just stuff burning and glimpses of giant clawed feet and wings. Thanks for wasting my time on something that was covered in the book by three lines of expository dialog). Also, if there is one thing that sucked about the books that they managed to avoid in LOTR trilogy it was the insuferable singing. I defy you to find any reader of the books who has read even most of the lines of those songs. As soon as you see the indented italic passages that is any sane readers cue to skip to the next real paragraph. In the main movies they touched on it only briefly, with elves singing in the background. Here it is the perfect excuse to kill another five minutes of screen time and some audience brain cells.
However, the thing that surprised the hell out of me was the fact that the CGI and special effects appear to have taken a serious downgrade since the last movie. I know this magical 48 frame deal that Peter Jackson is so bent out of shape about is somehow supposed to enhance the visuals, but in fact the movie looks a lot worse. The monsters all look more cartoonish (especially the trolls and the eagles), the lighting effects are from hell (take a close look at the candles when you see them), and the battle scenes play out like a really good video game. If I could go back in time I might tell Mr. Jackson that maybe a huge epic film like this is not the time to experiment with new film techniques. I know all this is supposed to be for 3D but I am not a 3D fan and a couple years from now when I am looking at this film on my non-3D TV it will suffer for it.
I’m not going to waste a lot of time on the story. You all should know it. Bilbo gets shanghaied by Gandalf and the dwarves to steal back gold from Smaug in the lonely mountain. They all get captured by trolls who are tricked into turning into stone. They have a run in with Radagast (?) who tells them about an evil necromancer (??) who is resurrecting the the dead, including the Witch-king of Angmar (???). They are being chased by Thorins old orc enemy Azog the Defiler (???? For the record, according to Tolkien Azog was slain by Dain at the Battle of Azanulbizar years before this story took place, and it was his son Bolg who fought at the Battle of the Five Armies. This was changed to give us a tangible enemy to focus our soft brains on I guess). They get captured by the Goblin King in the Misty Mountains and Bilbo finds the Ring. They all escape and fly off on giant eagles. The movie ends (at pretty much the ending of chapter 7 from the book. Pad much?).
The stars. The riddle scene between Bilbo and Gollum was really, really well done. Two stars. The acting was exceptional from the characters that had any kind of development. One star. Andy Serkis was brilliant again (if you don’t know who Andy Serkis is, shame on you). One star. For all my issues, it’s still a Tolkien movie. One star. The only CGI that didn’t make me want to fix the film with a set of crayons was the Goblin King (either that or we meet him so far into the movie that by then my eyes had gotten used to it). One star. Two of my favorite character will always be Gandalf and Gollum, and both were used to great effect here. Two stars. I know I am being kind because I am a fanboy, but I will have to give two more stars for it being generally entertaining as long as you can stay awake. Total: nine stars.
The black holes (each one of these feels like a kidney stone made of burning coal, BTW). Padded. Pad pad pad pad pad pad pad. One black hole. For all the padding, the story felt really shortened and underdeveloped. One black hole. No real character development or interaction to speak of. One black hole. Twisting the story in order to give it a bigger meaning and darker overtone (completely unnecessary). One black hole. Lack of a real tone. Trying to combine slapstick with LOTR seriousness. One black hole. The fact that the dwarves never looked like dwarves, even when surrounded by elves. One black hole. Shoving in Azog for no reason. One black hole. In a lesser movie I would give a separate black hole for forcing in each of Galadriel, Saruman, Sauron, Frodo, and the Witch-King in order to forcibly remind us where this movie comes from, but here I will just do one. One black hole. The movie more or less ended at what felt like halfway through Act 2. One black hole. Special effects and CGI that weirdly reminded me of the Never Ending Story (1984). One black hole. You feel every one of the 169 minutes, with lots of worthless boring scenes that afford you the time to reflect on how lame all of this is compared to the LOTR. One black hole. Total: eleven black holes.
If you had told me two years ago that when I reviewed the Hobbit I would end up giving it a total of two black holes I would have laughed in your face. I’m baffled as to how much they could have missed the mark given the source material. 
I am going to do a separate blog on this, but the parallels between this series and Star Wars is pretty astounding (Old Republic logo courtesy of the Star Wars T shirt category). A talented director (or his supporting staff) creates an epic three part series that draws in millions of fans from accross the globe and then, given an unlimited budget opts to make a prequel series that spends more time highlighting the advancements in technology than story and is rife with either flat (Anakin) or annoying (Radagast=Jar Jar IMO) characters, all of which more or less ruins the franchise. Should you see it? Absolutely. It is a Tolkien movie and definitely is a must see for any nerd. That really isn’t the question. The question is will you want to see it a second time. I saw each of the LOTR movies at least twice in the theater (the Two Towers is saw three times I think) both in regular and IMAX, bought the movies when they came out in DVD, and the bought them all again when the super deluxe extended versions came out. I feel no need to see this one again. In fact, on some levels I am kind of dreading the next two movies now. It’s kind of like taking a college class on a subject you are REALLY interested in but the professor is the most boring teacher in the history of education and has a giant, gross mole on his face that you can’t help but stare at.
Date movie? Yes if she is a fan, hell no if not. She will fall asleep, I promise you. Bathroom break? Your don’t want to miss the riddle scene. Pretty much anywhere in the first 45 minutes (this slow movie takes it’s time ramping up to a snails pace) works. There are a couple camping scenes in the last half, and the scene where the dwarves are walking out of Rivendale (cough cough) could be missed.
Thanks for reading, and my apologies for harshing your buzz if you were looking forward to this. This honestly has been the most painful review to write I have done to date. I really wanted to like this film, but Peter Jackson appears to have been drinking from the same Kool Aid that George Lucas quaffs, and I’m not here to lie to you. Post your comments on this film or my review here (please, if you can convince me I am wrong and this film is actually more than the messy afterbirth of the LOTR I will thank you). Follow me on Twitter @Nerdkungfu, and if you have off topic suggestion or questions feel free to email me at [email protected]. Talk to you soon.
Dave
Playing for Keeps Review
Odds are you can take it or leave it.
It has been my unfortunate realization as I do these reviews that while there is a definite spectrum of movie quality from so brilliant it might burn out your retinas (Argo) to so dumb it’s like stepping in a bear trap while a troupe of clowns beats you with rubber hoses (Resident Evil), but the sad fact is that spectrum follows a bell curve and the vast majority of films lands right on the hump of mediocrity. It just makes doing reviews something of a grind, since the incredibly brilliant and amazingly stupid movies are always the most fun to write up.
Playing for Keeps not only is in the mediocre zone, but it hits the mean exactly and pretty much is the exact average. The weird thing is I don’t know if it should be on the curve. If it weren’t for some PG-13 language and relatively big Hollywood hitters (Jessica Biel, Dennis Quaid, Uma Thurman) I would have said this was a made for TV movie. The sets are tertiary at best (a house, a soccer field, , a park, a restaurant, and another house to be exact), the camera work and editing competent in that workaday manner that plagues most TV, and the story as blandly predictable and heart-lukewarmingly sort of gratifying as anything you would see on Lifetime.
I did manage to find some entertainment by mentally playing with the perspective. You see, all stories are relative and depend on who you are hearing it from. About 1/3 of the way into this film not only had I figured out exactly how it was going to end but pretty much every scene that was going to have to happen, so I mentally shifted the story about a retired, out of work professional soccer player coming to Virginia to reconnect with his son and romantically swoop his ex wife off her feet before her marriage to another man to the story of a washed out, deadbeat absentee father coming to town to break up the marriage of his ex wife and a decent guy in order to drag her and her son into the same dysfunctional maelstrom that ruined the family the last time around while banging every soccer mom in the state. I predict this is exactly the story the jilted ex fiance will be telling everyone and to be honest he wouldn’t necessarily be incorrect.
(This perspective game, by the way, is what lets me sometimes watch the Return of the Jedi and see it as the downfall of a dedicated public servant (who’s last act in the prequel was the kindly rescue of a horrifically burned and dismembered young man left to die a horrible death by a monk from a creepy order that believes all forms of emotion are bad and set him up in a very complicated and probably expensive exoskeleton/life support suit to keep him alive for decades) who has created a system of law and order wherein most citizens live safe, comfortable lives at the hands of a bunch of disgruntled hippies, malcontents, and walking teddy bears, and the corruption of Darth Vader by the light side of the force. It all depends on which side of the room the camera is on. Empire logo courtesy of the Star Wars tshirt category)
Anyway, the story. George (Gerard Butler-300, How to Train Your Dragon, RocknRolla) is an ex-professional soccer player who has pretty much ruined his former marriage in some ill defined way. He has moved to Virginia to reconnect with his son Lewis (Noah Lomax-Safe Haven, Mad Love, the Walking Dead (awesome!)) and his ex wife Stacie (Jessica Biel-Total Recall, Hitchcock, New Years Eve) who is engaged to be married with her fiance (whom she has been dating for over three years while George was absent) Matt (James Tubber-Mr. Poppers Penguins, Girl Fight, Revenge). His son is on a soccer team that sucks and George opts to start coaching it. There is a really stunted Bad News Bears sub plot that actually had potential but went nowhere. George meets Carl (Dennis Quaid-What to Expect When You’re Expecting, G.I. Joe The Rise of Cobra, Footloose), a psychotic control freak. George also meets a bevy of the most ridiculously hot soccer moms in the history of football and proceeds to bang most of them. I don’t know why I have been wasting my time with trying to build a business and be a decent human being when all I needed to do was develop a Scottish accent and coach a 3rd grade soccer team to hook up with hot women. Why does it seem like most of the advice I have gotten in life has been lies?
Honestly, do I really need to go any further into this story? If you have half a brain you know exactly how it will go. George reconnects with his son and develops his relationship with him. Stacie discovers her feelings for George remain. Poor Matt learns an important lesson on what it means to be both a man-friend and a eunuch. George is faced with a huge life changing decision between his career and his family. The end.
The stars. If it’s remotely possible I care less about soccer than I do about baseball, but like baseball movies I kind of like soccer movies. I guess it’s just sports movies that work for me. One star. For all the bland tripe they were fed as a script all the actors did as good a job as was possible. One star. All the women were incredibly easy on the eyes in all circumstances. I’m moving to Virginia I guess. One star. The story was blandly pleasant, like being out of coffee on a cold day and just drinking hot water. If this had been a made for TV movie it would have been perfect in the feel good category. One star. Total: four stars.
The black holes. This film couldn’t have been more predictably if instead of previews before the film they had just showed us the entire film. One black hole. This film had almost nothing in the way of emotional ups or downs, and not much of an arc to be honest. You kind of dive into the story with nothing to set it up and then motor through it in second gear. One black hole. Bland as the blandiest white paint upon a smooth wall of epic blandness. One black hole. A big part of the story seems to be that there are fabulous jobs available in the world of soccer sports casting (Americans don’t generally care about soccer). One black hole. The whole “George is a washed out bum here to ruin a good family” fantasy plot I had playing in my head is not that far from the actual story, and kind of drains a lot of the sympathy you have for him as a character. One black hole. Total: five black holes.
I’m going to use my old “irksome but not black hole worthy” category to take a moment to talk about facial hair. There must be a new clause in movie contracts (probably called the Stratham clause for obvious reasons) that certain male actors insist on that requires that they maintain the same rugged level of scruffy facial hair for the entirety of the film. Gerald Butler is exactly the same level of unshaven throughout the movie. Now, for all you female and pre-adolecent readers out there let me disabuse the illusion that this is even remotely possible. Butlers facial hair looked about a week past a shave. Here’s the thing: in the course of what looked like several weeks if not months of movie times he would have either at some point had to have shaved or let it all grow in to a full on Wookie beard. There is no way to maintain the exact same level of unshaven for months without extremely careful grooming. Sorry but these things annoy me.
Anyway, a grand total of one black hole. Like most mediocre movies there is nothing here to drag you into the theater but once inside there is nothing pushing you out. Should you see it? I’ve said “meh” before and I’ll say it again right now. If you are desperate for something to keep your brain cells alive this will do it, but if you are looking to get them actually firing it won’t. Date movie? Absolutely. If you are dating a woman who is extremely mainstream and you aren’t sure how she will react to something with a pulse this could be the perfect movie. Bathroom break? Once again a movie that you can pretty much relieve yourself anywhere and not miss anything, mainly because odds are you have already played out the entire movie in your head. I’d say the scene where George goes to the arcade and plays air hockey against Stacie and Lewis is particularly miss-able.
Thanks for reading. Still super slammed at work but I will try to see something else soon. I also have an idea for a couple of funny blog rants that I might crank out. Follow me on Twiiter @Nerdkungfu. If you have any comments on this movie or my review feel free to post them here. If you have questions or suggestions on other topics feel free to email me at [email protected]. Talk to you soon.
Dave
The Life of Pi Review
I actually saw this movie last week but have just now (Saturday night at 6:44pm, if any of you want a little insight into what my social life is like) found the time to write it up. To be honest, I have been less than motivated to write this one. Not because it was bad. Quite the contrary. When I see a bad movie I am way more motivated to write it up, like a tiger spotting a gazelle walking with a limp. Nothing but fresh meat. Plus the act of tearing a bad movie several new orifices has a wonderful purging effect, leaving me fresh as a daisy for the next film (sort of. I still have the taste of Jack and Jill in my mouth and that was over a year ago. There isn’t enough ginger in the world to clear your palette from really, really bad sushi).
No, the reason I have been less that motivated to write up this film is it actually was really good and I enjoyed it a lot, but it didn’t tickle my nerd nerve. How many ways can you find to say how beautiful an exquisite painting of a flower is? Sure, you could stand there for hours admiring it but in the end it is a picture of a flower. If I had enjoyed a science fiction or comic book movie I would have had it half written by the time I got home. This is a beautiful movie about a tiger on a lifeboat. Honestly, there isn’t much more I can say besides you should all go see it.
Sigh. I guess I don’t get paid for 250 word reviews (who is paying me for these again? Oh, yeah. No one). Before I go any deeper into it I must say no, I did not read the book. That seems to be the question everyone I tell I saw this flick is programmed to ask. Does that diminish my enjoyment of the film? Maybe. I won’t know until I read it. I have heard from people who have both read the book and watched the movie that the movie is less gory yet manages to retain the main message and a lot of the feel. I will say that it is very apparent that this film was based on a book, if only because this level of sophistication and creative fancifulness has long been missing from the hacks who currently write in Hollywood.
This is the story of Pi, a young Indian who gets trapped on a lifeboat with a tiger (tiger image from the Hangover courtesy of the Movie T Shirt catagory). The story is told as a flashback (suspiciously similar to Titanic, but I’ll let it slide) by adult Pi (Irrfan Khan-Slumdog Millionaire, the Amazing Spider Man, the Darjeeling Limited). It starts out with young Pi (Gautam Belur-first movie credit) growing up in a zoo and learning about how tigers are not friendly. There is a cute vignette about how he got his name. Then he is teenage Pi (Suraj Sharma-also first movie credit). His family is going to sell the zoo animals overseas and immigrate to Canada. While traveling with the animals the boat sinks (by the way, if you have any fears of being on a boat that is sinking this movie will do nothing to help you with that. I do and it creeped me the hell out). Pi ends up on a life raft with a zebra with a broken leg, a baboon, a jackel, and a tiger. In short order the ride is reduced to Pi and the tiger.
At that point it is just the story of Pi struggling to survive both the elements and the fact that there is a tiger in the boat with him. There are some really great moments as he figures out ways of keeping the tiger fed without being eaten himself, and clever ways he keeps himself from going stir crazy. There are some fanciful parts as well, such as star visions and a strange island. I’m not going to get too far into it as there are some cool twists and undercurrents and any spoilers would be a real disservice to a great film.
The stars. For a movie set on a life raft this film had depth that is missing from the vast majority of other films. Somehow the scope of the set managed to seem bigger than it really was, and the interaction between the tiger and Pi much more engaging than most films with two or more human actors. Two stars. A complex story masquerading as simple that managed to draw you in and still surprise you. One star. The film manages to connect you to the protagonist amazingly well. You are really rooting for him and hoping he survives. One star. You also get to like the tiger a great deal. One star. Overall a very high quality cinema experience. Three stars. Total: eight stars.
The black holes. Not a lot, really. It drags a little towards the middle, and you definitely know you have been in a 127 minute movie. I guess that’s about it. One black hole total.
A grand total of seven stars. Yet another great film that had me entranced without a single gun fight or explosion. I must be finally maturing. Should you see it? Yes. Yes you should. Even if this is not your style you will not at all regret the time. Date movie? An emphatic yes. If you take your girl to see this and Wreck it Ralph and she doesn’t sleep with you lose the number because it isn’t going to happen. Bathroom break? Unfortunately all the best chances to use the rest room are in the first 30 minutes or so. I’d say use the bathroom when the family first starts out on the boat and then hold it for the rest of the movie.
Thanks for reading. I don’t know if I have time to see something tomorrow but if I don’t I’ll try to go out on Monday. My life seems to get busier each month. At some point it will either slow down again or I will hit critical mass. Follow me on Twitter @Nerdkungfu. If you have a comment on this movie or my review post it here please. Any off topic question or suggestions can be emailed to [email protected]. Thanks again and have a great day.
Dave
Rise of the Guardians review
Fun but kind of soulless.
Yes, I’m back on the reviews and will try to keep up on them. Things on the commercial site are busier than ever and I’m kind of going nuts on it, but I think I finally have things back under control. By the way, if you didn’t read my last post about my friend burning his ass with a hot pocket I highly recommend it. I’m still laughing.
So, Rise of the Guardians. Honestly I think this movie is just a little too polished and perfect. 
It’s like if Data from the Next Generation were to write a kids movie script (Data image courtesy of the Star Trek T Shirt category). He would reference every known source for kids movies, examine every film and treatise available, and ultimate come out with a script that had all the right elements and was technically perfect but ultimately lacking in heart and soul.
This movie was technically perfect. Classic kids references, some humor, and plenty of bright images to entertain the wee tots. However, while I sat in the theater doing my usual “creepy single guy at a childrens film” thing I noticed that a lot of the kids were not really laughing or enthralled in the film. A good kids film should entertain children while having enough adult jokes and references to keep the parents from falling asleep. Wreck it Ralph is a perfect example of this. Honestly I think this one landed too heavily on the adult side of things. The characters and plots were too complex, and the villain was honestly scary. I think the producers wanted to do something more like Coraline but managed to miss the adult wonder of it. This film felt more like it was written for teenagers than kids or adults, except I really doubt teenagers would go see it.
I really went to see this film because it has grossly underperformed in the box office for what a holiday kids film is supposed to do this time of the year and I wanted to see if it was a train wreck. I really think the failure to lock onto the real demographic for kids is the big problem. I also see this as an study of hubris. Calling any film “the Rise of” basically says “We the studio are going to spontaneously create a franchise and you mouth breathing unwashed masses will attach yourself to it because we say you will.” The title says the producers were so confident of this films success that they have already written the next four sequels, and I honestly believe that the one thing that unites the unwashed masses is a resistance to being told what to like. It’s subtle, but I think when at the box office most of the people on line do not want to get sucked into a franchise they know nothing about. Title failure IMO.
On the other hand, this film is one of the more visually stunning films I have seen. I liked that aspect because it really shows what good, well applied CGI is capable of. The images and art direction is great. I will also give massive props for the very creative re imagining of Santa Claus, the Tooth Fairy, the Sand Man, and the Easter Bunny. If this isn’t what the real classic character are like in a perfect world they would be. Santa is a brusk, Russian, sword wielding Czar, the Tooth Fairy a hyper type A fairy assisted by thousands of tiny mini fairies, the Sand Man a whimsical silent fat kind soul, and the Easter Bunny (my personal favorite) a 6’5″ Aussie jackrabbit with boomerangs. Jack Frost (the protagonist) is a white haired hipster prankster with the power of winter.
Of course, all great comic-like movies rest on the strength of the villain, and in this case they pulled it off with Pitch Black, the Boogieman. I say pulled it off because while he was perfectly executed he was entirely formulaic in his style, plan, and personality. This is really where the soullessness comes in. He is like the perfect villain grown in a medical lab, with just the right element of sinister yet weirdly appealing and human. I can’t put my finger on what it is about this film that seems too polished, but I think a lot of it resides in Pitch.
The story. Jack Frost is an independent sprite who wanders around causing kids to have fun in winter. He was created by the Man in the Moon, some kind of ill defined god or king. Jack gets drafted into the Guardians, a team of mythical fairy tale creatures who’s vague job is to protect the children of the world. Their relative strength resides in how many children believe in them (anyone ever read Hogfather by Terry Pratchet? If so this story will seem suspiciously familiar) and since no one really believes in Jack Frost he is the one with the least solidity. Pitch Black is bitter because no one believes in the Boogieman any more and so sets on a course of taking over the Sand Mans dreams to instil nightmares into the children while at the same time convincing the kids that the others don’t exist, thus draining their power (this was a little vague, by the way. At the beginning of the film no one believed in Jack Frost yet he had all kinds of winter related super power, but as the others lost believers they all were drained or diminished. Also the loss of belief happened with all the gradual pacing of flipping off a light switch).
Anyway, at that point it is the classic struggle of good verses evil. We get to see some great visuals (I especially liked the Easter Bunny’s kingdom) and Pitch does what villains usually do. I don’t want to give away any spoilers, but really there is nothing in here that would really surprise you.
With kids movies I don’t do the stars/black holes. I usually judge them by how well the kids in the audience seemed to be responding. By that basis I think I’m going to have to deem this film not so great. Kids were not laughing or going nuts. There were long stretches of dialog and expository flashbacks that I think a kid would find downright boring. Pitch Black was honestly scary (the film got a well deserved PG rating) and there was even one death (sort of) scene. I honestly think this film tried way to hard to appeal to everyone and ultimately didn’t really appeal to anyone. Jack Frost was in there to appeal to the teenage girls (geez, they even got Chris Pine to do the voice), there were cute walking Easter Eggs for the little kids, and a fairly complex story involving torturing kids in their dreams for the adults. Trying too hard IMO.
Worth seeing? If you like animated movies then sure. The visuals alone make it worth the time. However, if you are only going to see one animated film this season I think Wreck It Ralph is way better. Take your kids to see it? Sure, if you are desperate, but I think Ralph again is better. Date movie? Yes. Not as good as Ralph, but good nonetheless. Bathroom break? Weirdly enough this is one film where I think the action scenes are the more disposable. The best visuals and character development are in the non action films, and when the fighting starts it tends to get kind of muddied up.
Thanks for reading, and look for my Life of Pi review tomorrow. Follow me on Twitter @Nerdkungfu. If you have comments on this film or my review of it feel free to post them here. If you have off topic questions or suggestions email them to [email protected]. Talk to you soon.
Dave
A funny story and warning about Hot Pockets
Yes, I know. I’m supposed to be writing movie reviews, and have a couple lined up to do. However, while it might seem to you gentle readers that I write most of these by rolling my face back and forth over the keyboard while high on horse tranquilizers, the fact is they each take a couple hours to write and this time of the year I don’t have ten minutes to burn. I’ll try to get one done later today but am super slammed right now.
As a quick alternative, I think it fair to say that to a man and woman I have the most amazing friends on the planet. They are smart, interesting, and above all funny. Case in point; I woke up this morning to a series of texts that had me laughing hysterically for about half an hour straight. I’m lucky to have survived the drive to work. For your edification here is the text series:
6:49 am my friend: “I accidentally sat on a hot pocket last night. It went off like a plasma grenade. Hurt for hours.”
7:35 am me: “Wow. Sorry but I just laughed my ass off. Sympathy for your pain. Plus the tragic loss of your hot pocket.”
My friend: “It hurt like hell. The cheese blew all over my legs and burned like napalm.”
“Right through my jean shorts too. Not to mention I was forced to eat my remaining pack of ramen so I’m f***ed for the zombie apocalypse.” (zombie apocalypse image courtesy of the Cheap T Shirt category)
Me: “Sorry but nothing you are saying is slowing me down on the laughing.”
Friend: “There’s a hot pocket with your name out there somewhere and you won’t be laughing when you’re having to explain the permanent bald spots on your legs from the burns.”
“I look like a disabled oil rig worker.”
Me: “Now there’s a sobering thought.”
Friend: “Someone get a cap on that second hot pocket or it’ll go up too!”
Me: “You should sue hot pockets. If nothing else the headlines would be awesome.”
So in addition to illustrating what kind of insensitive jerk I really am, I think this story can serve as a warning for the real danger of Hot Pocket sitting related accidents, or HPSRA. Spread the word!
Dave
Red Dawn Review
Red Dumb.
I can’t say this film wasn’t competently made. If it were an original film I would probably have a lot of positive things to say about it. It is exciting and chock full of hot young kids. I could definitely find some black holes in it, but as a stand alone film it was kind of fun.
The problem I am having is it is a poor remake of a movie that wasn’t that great to begin with. The original Red Dawn was at best jingoistic masturbation material for uber patriotic gun nuts. Back in the glory days of 1984 Russian invasion was a legitimate concern and most of America was ready to prove their loyalty by watching this film. This new incarnation is pretty much exactly the same, but the fear of invasion by North Korea (Population 24,589,122. California alone has 37,691,912 and supposedly the Koreans take over the entire West Coast) is laughable. Sure, they wrote in some uber weapon but given there are 9 guns in the US for every 10 citizens that means California alone has 30 armed citizens for every one of North Korea’s 1,106,000 soldiers. This is the same problem faced by writers of Superman stories; he is so powerful that no villains ever measure up.
What’s funny is the original story was supposed to be China invading, which is something I would more readily believe. However, given that a massive amount of movie revenue comes from China and there is no way the censor there would approve a film showing Chinese soldiers being gunned down by the Acne Brigade, they made the financially sound yet intellectually stupid decision to go with the Koreans (with some help from the Russians).
No, it’s not the rediculousness of the invading country that has me bothered in this remake. It’s the fact that they softened the hell out of this film in the ongoing campaign to cat-ify (feel free to substitute any synonym for “cat” that you think might work in that last sentence) our population. As I walked out of the theater I thought back to the 1984 film and realized the one thing they did brilliantly was show the degeneration of typical American kids into savage, brutal freedom fighters. In that movie they count coup, execute prisoners, and in time become almost animals in their thirst for Russian blood. There is a particularly brutal scene where one of their own team is forced to swallow a tracking device and the local psychopath executes him without a moments hesitation. In the end they are more or less slaughtered to the last man while letting a couple escape.
Nope. None of that here. There are a few red shirts who die, but for the most part with a little really dumb training sequences these kids are ready to not only beat the hell out of more than their weight in professional soldiers but do it while holding the moral high ground. SPOILER ALERT: the transponder being swallowed is replaced by one implanted via a knife or something and once they figure it out the guy they implanted it into is just left behind to make his last stand. There is no brutal scene with any kind of moral grey zone, and at the end of the movie instead of showing the harsh last stand of the guerrilla fighters the Wolverines turn into some kind of super force equipped with Mad Max style cars that attack the North Koreans at will and destroy all in their path. There was one scene where one of the fighters had his own collaborator father in his sites which could have been brilliant, but instead they do nothing.
During the course of all the remake reviews I have done I have come to the conclusion that there are two kinds. There is the reboot where they take the original idea, rewrite it with interesting new concepts, and in the end come out with something that actually enhances, adds to, or exceeds the original. Dredd is the best recent example of this rarity. The other type is where they take the original script, modernize it a little, soften things up to keep from bruising the delicate psyches and sensibilities of the fragile audience, cast whoever the latest teen heart throb is to play main character, and ultimate do nothing but waste a lot of time and oxygen. Footloose is the penultimate example of this dross, and Red Dawn is another.
The story. Sigh. Just go rent Red Dawn and watch it while completely encased in muslin and bubble wrap. It’s pretty much Red Dawn Lite. The kids are prettier, less of them die, and they don’t turn into psychopathic killers. The North Koreans don’t managed to ambush and slaughter them with Hind helicopters. Instead of a rescued American pilot to give them guidance they have a team of Marines sent in to make contact with them. Oh, that reminds me. Instead of having them portrayed as struggling to survive while hurting the enemy as much as possible let’s give them a MacGuffin that will save all of America once they capture it. I have railed against this before but I have to say again: sometimes it’s OK to have a story that doesn’t hinge on saving the entirety of the universe.
The stars. Overall fairly exciting and fun, if you don’t want to think about it too much. If you have never seen the original you might quite enjoy it. Two stars. Chris Helmsworth was pretty good. I think he is actually a decent actor. One star. Some of the action wasn’t over the top. One star. Total: four stars.
The black holes. Remaking a mediocre movie and taking out all the elements that actually made it intriguing. One black hole. These kids go from high school losers to the A Team in like two minutes of half assed training. One black hole. I am so sick of MacGuffin based movie plots. One black hole. 
I know this is totally petty, but with the exception of the Kalashnikovs carried by pretty much everyone all the weapons and vehicles were clearly American. At one point one of the guys asks to borrow one of the other guys SAW (as in M249 Squad Automatic Weapon, a support weapon used by the American army and Marine Corps. AK-47 image courtesy of the Funny T Shirt category). One black hole. In an effort to pay tribute to the Hollywood God of Stereotypes it is the black guy who has to sacrifice himself for the greater good of the team. One black hole. With the exception of Chris Helmsworth, his brother, and the black guy I swear I couldn’t tell any of the other characters apart. They were to a man and woman good looking young white people who looked and sounded exactly the same in spite of having some different back stories. Also, a good friend of mine from Washington was quick to point out that no one up there looks as good as those people did. It was like a big Ambercrombie and Fitch ad with guns. One black hole. Speaking of back stories, they inserted a few sub plots that really went no where, like the appearance of Russian Spetnatz and so on. One black hole. And finally, one more big black hole for basing a movie on a laughable premise and avoiding the only good premise in the pursuit of a buck. Total: eight black holes.
A total of four black holes. Meh. Worth seeing? I suppose if you don’t want to see anything of real value and are OK with remakes. The action is fun and if you are of a super patriotic bent you will probably need to change your pants after having all your violent pro-America fantasies shown on the screen. Honestly, you won’t feel like you wasted your time or money. You just won’t have gained much from it. Date movie? Hell no. Bathroom break? The whole training montage felt like a big fat waste of time, but that is pretty early in the film. Any of the non shooting scenes can be missed, but if I were to pick a scene I would go with the one where the three man American team is meeting with the Wolverines. I honestly think the last part of the movie would be better if you didn’t know what the magical device they are going for is.
Thanks for reading. Follow me on Twitter for the one Tweet a day I am averaging @NerdKungFu. If you have comments on this review or the movie please post them here, and if you have any off topic suggestions or questions feel free to email me at [email protected]. I just saw the Life of Pi and will review it tomorrow. As a preview, I have to say it is pretty amazing. Also, some good friends of mine (and die hard Star Trek fans BTW) are trying to get some money together for a sci fi film project. If you are feeling generous please visit their KickStart Campaign and do what you can. I promise that if they get the film done I will watch and review it for you. Thank you all for your support, and I hope you had a great Thanksgiving!
Dave
Head Nerd
Goodbye Larry Hagman
I was saddened to learn this morning about the passing of Larry Hagman, the man behind Dallas. I wasn’t much of a fan of the show, but my mother loved it and I suspect had a thing for JR Ewing. However, I was a big fan of I Dream of Jeannie (I have long had a secret desire to have a hot Genie in a bottle) and enjoyed him a lot there. His filmography is truly impressive. I also really liked him in Mother, Juggs, and Speed (If you ever think you really don’t know what the 70’s were about watch this movie), the Streets of San Francisco, and I really enjoyed him in Nip/Tuck.
For those of you who claim to be connoisseurs of bad movies, he also directed a film in 1972 called Beware! The Blog! This is a sequel the the Blog and looks horribly good if you know what I mean. I have already suggested it to the guy who does my groups bad movie night as a tribute to the passing of a great actor.
Anyway, I am very sorry to see him go. From what I have heard he had a pretty good sense of humor, and that is something I always enjoy in a celebrity. (the image I got from the TV show t shirt category, by the way. I think it apropos).
Dave
The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part II Review
Something broke in that theater. I think it was my brain.
Do you know why so many hapless red shirts died in the original Star Trek series (I swear I have a point and am not just finding excuses to talk about Star Trek in my Twilight review)? It’s because whenever a character, even a minor one, dies it indicates that the story and situation are extremely serious. It’s a way of drawing you into the story and actually caring about what happens. The old news phrase “If it bleeds, it leads” can be rewritten for fiction into “If no one dies, no one cares” (Dead Man Walking image courtesy of the Star Trek T Shirts).
The point is the entire Twilight series has been about as willing to let any character of any worth die as any hot girl is willing to go on a second date with me (by that I mean extremely unlikely, to any new readers out there). This seems to have been true in all the movies, but never so much as in this one. By the end of the movie I was expecting to see all the sets wrapped in bubble wrap and corner protectors like a house baby proofed by the most anal and overprotective parent in history. Stephanie Meyer seems to treat these characters like spawn of her own loins in every sense of the term.
I’m about to get extremely free with the spoilers, so if you are some kind of freak who plans on seeing this movie without having read the books for any purpose other than to write a bitter and acerbic review you should probably just skip to the end where I beg you to follow me on Twitter.
The part that really crushed me was towards the end. You see, the entire series has been building up towards a huge epic battle between the vampires, werewolves, and some other vampires called the Vulturi. After literally hours of teasing the crap out of it they finally throw down and I have to say it was pretty freaking cool. For the first time in the entire series I felt pulled in and actually excited. Vampires and werewolves were dying in big batches, including some of the main characters (which kind of made sense as this is the last episode). Super powerful vampires were being foiled by other vampires and vamps that had been more or less jerks for the entirety of the series were getting their long deserved comeuppance. For the first time ever I started to doubt my conviction that the Twilight series was the McRib of the film industry.
Then, in the biggest blue ball inducing cop out in the history of movie making the entire bloody mayhem scene turns out to be some kind of induced vision brought on by the future seeing vampire (that was the big spoiler, by the way. Sorry if you didn’t take my advice a few lines ago and skip to the end). Absolutely nothing gets even remotely interesting, and they pull an ending so painfully happy and cheesy that it would embarrass an episode of My Little Pony (no, I am not a Brony). I didn’t think a writer had depths deep enough in his (or in this case her) ass to pull this ending out of. Nothing is resolved, nothing really changes, and everyone wanders off to a blissfully happy immortal life while all the interest and tension they managed to actually build drained out like a water balloon hit with a shotgun blast.
I am going to join all the other reviewers in a lemming-like chant of saying that this is the best of the series, but that is like having to swim in three different pools of raw sewage and Hep C before finally finding a pool only filled with pond scum, dead rats, and tuberculosis. It is the Revenge of the Sith of the Twilight series, but like that episode it is still part of that horrible family of films.
Before I get into the story, I want to rail a bit on a few things that really bugged me in this film. First of all, for a movie that had a $120,000,000 budget the CGI wolves still look like stickers taken from a nature book and stuck into a children’s coloring book. I thought we had progressed beyond bad CGI. However, as bad as the wolves looked the were like a nature documentary compared to the CGI baby Renesmee (still the stupidest name for a baby ever). It literally looked like a Cabbage Patch Kid.
As bad as the baby looked, it still was more human and lifelike than Animatronic robots they got to play the main characters. Kristin Stewert overwhelms every scene with a massive tsunami of mundanity and wooden facial expressions. I would have taken even stupider looking babies and wolves if they could have CGI’d some acting into her performance. Talk about overrated. Robert Pattinson was not much better, but he was better and therefore his bland performance was totally eclipsed by Kristin’s.
I suppose at some point I should get into what passes for a story here. It is actually the best part of the series and the most linear and non aggravating one to date (mainly because it skips on the whole Bella/Edward/Jacob bland love triangle and focuses on something even slightly interesting). The story picks up almost to the second where the last one ended. This is a good thing, as the first movie was nothing but padding to milk more money from brain damaged teenaged girls (and bitter movie reviewers). Bella is now a vamp, and has to learn to control her yearnings which she does with remarkable ease. She and Edward are supposedly deeply in love, although their sexual chemistry has all the passion of an amoeba reproducing through binary fission. Their child Renesmee (even typing it hurts my eyes. When I finally conquer the planet any of you who thought this is the perfect name for your child will be relocated to slave camps at the bottom of the ocean) is growing up at 7 times normal rate. Jacob has imprinted with her as an infant (nothing creepy to see here folks. Keep moving on) and acts as her protector, which is pretty good since Bella and Edward seem totally content to ignore her for the most part. She is growing up fast and in no time is the exact age of the child actress they hired to play her (Mackenzie Foy).
She is spotted by some other vampire everyone else seemed to recognize but I couldn’t pick out of a lineup to save my life (the film was kind of overrun with hot blond girl vampires). She runs to the Vulturi where it turns out one of the biggest laws they have for their culture of people who eat people is never turn a child into a vampire (if this is their biggest law why is it we never hear about it before now? I hate it when writers make stuff up to facilitate the story and then act like you are stupid for not knowing it all along). The head guy (looks like a younger, heavier Alice Cooper) has some trick where he attacks a vampire family, kills them all off but one, and then recruits that one into his secret vampire army (? Anyone else have an issue with the idea of recruiting someone by murdering all their friends and loved ones?). He wants Alice, the future seeing vampire. Edward and his brood run around trying to recruit vampires from across the world to act as witnesses and red shirts for the upcoming epic battle. Battle is joined, and then not as it all turns out to be one of Alice’s vision.
The stars. I want to give this one a star for an actual coherent story, but honestly it is only good in comparison to the other three. I guess I can afford to be generous due to the broken firehose of black holes I am about to spew all over it. One star. The fake action scene was actually really good up until the part where it was proven fake. One star. The annoying romance got way less annoying once Jacob stopped mooning (haw!) over Bella. One star. Total: three stars.
The black holes. Creating a really cool and bloody action scene with lots of great death scenes of characters who well deserve it only to make the whole thing into a fake. Two black holes. I’m not even exaggerating when I say I’ve seen the Muppets deliver better acting and more believable characters than Bella and Edward. At least their facial expressions change when they are supposed to be sad, scared, or happy. Two black holes. A million billion minor characters pulled out of no where that we are supposed to give a crap about (If she were fourteen I would swear that Stephanie Meyer is one of those RPG players who loves nothing more than rolling up hundreds of characters and then creating backstories for them). One black hole. If you haven’t seen the whole series you will be lost at sea without a paddle on this one. One black hole. CGI that is an insult to the industry. One black hole. I know I hit them with this every movie but it remains a thing: vampires who glow in daylight. One black hole. The vampires we are supposed to have sympathy for lose a lot when they are slaughtering people who are begging for their lives. One black hole. A big giant Amber Alert for the whole Jacob/Renesmee romance. One black hole. At no time in this movie (or the entire series, for that matter) does the movie subject matter at all have anything to do with twilight, dawn breaking, new moons, or eclipsing of any kind. One black hole. A happy ending that even the Disney writers would figure as too campy to be taken seriously. One black hole. Total: twelve black holes.
A grand total of nine black holes. Should you see it? If you are a mewling teenage girl who wants to see Taylor Lautner with his shirt off than sure, why not? Honestly, it boils down to fandom or not. If you have seen them all, read all the books, and have the entire Twilight cast tattooed on your back then by all means go for it. I’m sure you will enjoy it in the same way fans of Nascar enjoy watching cars go around and around a track. If you have not seen the whole series then believe me when I say this film will be a massive waste of time and money for you. Date movie? If your date is a huge fan you will score some good points by being willing to see it, but be warned as I would bet she will want to subject you to the entire series beforehand and that is a torture not to be borne. Also, there is a pretty good chance your date is an insane psychopath. Bathroom break? It’s one big 115 minute bathroom break as far as I’m concerned. However, if you want to find a scene that is more worthless than the rest of them (and that is a deep pit to be reaching into) I’d say any of the Bella/Edward “romance” scenes. It’s nothing you haven’t seen done as mediocrely in the other films and adds el zilcho to the story.
Thanks for reading. Looks like a painful week for your humble reviewer, as I have nothing to do for Thanksgiving except watch Red Dawn. I expect this movie to be the zenith of unnecessary, crappy remakes and could actually cause the long anticipated Movie Apocalypse. Please follow me on Twitter @Nerdkungfu. If you have any comments on this movie or my review feel free to post them here. Any off topic suggestions or questions can be emailed to me at [email protected]. Hate mail from fan boys (or girls) will be completely disregarded, so if you want to tell me what kind of idiot I am best to do it here. Happy Thanksgiving to everyone, and I will talk to you soon.
Dave
