Skyfall Review
Something is falling.
I saw this movie last night and can see why everyone is gushing all over it like it is the Earthly manifestation of the Flying Spaghetti Monster. It is a good film, but all day something about it has not been sitting well with me. It has all the elements of a great Bond film: a really good Bond actor (Daniel Craig, the best since Connery IMO), an excellent director (Sam Mendes-American Beauty, the Road to Perdition (a very underrated movie)), some hot chicks, a budget big enough to create anything the director really wanted, and Judy Dench. All the pieces were there to make for a great movie, but something about it bugged me like a high pitched tone in the background that you don’t really notice but will drive you nuts and then, once you do notice it, you can’t here anything else.
There are some obvious things for me to bitch about. The story is at the same time extremely simple yet labyrinthine. It frog jumps from plot point to plot point in random directions and every time they need something to propel the story along it just manifests itself out of the ether. I guess it fair to lay a lot of that on the writers (Neal Pervis and Robert Wade) neither of whom have written a Shawshank Redemption. They were both in on Casino Royale, which is to their credit, but they also did Quantum of Solace and were involved in the abysmal Johnny English Reborn, so I guess the need to get paid supersedes the need to create amazing. However, I have seen many movies with weak stories and I can say my current disquiet is not really from that.
I suppose another obvious thing is the fact that it goes a big 143 minutes yet seemed like 400. The action scenes are great, but in between them there are a lot of very slow expository scenes and long shots of car bumpers. Cloud Atlas went 172 minutes yet honestly this one seemed significantly longer. This issue I can lay at the feet of the editor and director, but I have seen badly paced movies that don’t bug me like this one did.
No, what I finally realized was bugging me was the fact that this movie isn’t really about James Bond. James Bond is a smooth, sophisticated, sexy, well dressed guy we could all aspire to be. His life is awesome and I could only dream of living it. The Bond in this movie is conflicted, alcoholic, unshaven, in terrible physical shape, and dressed like he shops at the Walmart outlet store. His love interests are limited at best and he spends more time playing out his Oedipal issues with Judi Dench than chasing tail. His character would actually be really cool if he were doing a Die Hard movie or anything starring Jason Stratham, but calling him James Bond is like calling the whino the local mall got to play Santa Claus Saint Nick. 
The problem bugging me is the same problem I had with the whole Star Wars prequel: Lucas took one of the coolest, most bad ass character in the history of film (Darth Vader) and remade him as a whiny little bitch with daddy issues who you know deserves to get his lunch money taken every day at school (Who’s Your Daddy image courtesy of the Star Wars T Shirt category). This isn’t the James Bond I was looking for.
Actually, now that I think about it this is exactly the same issue I had with the last Batman movie. Bruce Wayne is not supposed to start the movie off as some kind of invalid. It bugged me then, and I guess it is bugging me now.
I know. My issues. I will give massive props to this movie for calling out a lot of classic James Bond moments, including the original car with the machine guns. Very cool. The action was generally good, especially the opening chase sequence. Honestly, I’m not here to dump on this film, and realistically it is the best of the Daniel Craig Bonds thus far. I just have some problems with the character.
It starts off with James Bond (Daniel Craig-the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, Layer Cake, Casino Royale) chasing a guy with a MacGuffin (in this case a hard drive with a list of every secret agent in the world or something. Why does it always have to be the biggest thing ever every time? How about one where it is the secret ingredient in Coke?) in Turkey and assisted by a very hot girl (Naomie Harris-28 Days Later, Pirates of the Caribbean Dead Man’s Chest). He fights the guy on top of a train and his assistant accidentally shoots him in the chest. He falls hundreds of feet into a river and down a waterfall. Then, with no word of how he survived and hid away from the greatest secret agency in the universe looking for him (remember that mention of plot stuff just being ignored? Turkey is not uncivilized. If some local fisherman pulled a guy out of a river with two bullet wounds in him they would call an ambulance, not nurse him back to health in secret) and spends his time drinking on a beach. Meanwhile, M (Judi Dench-J. Edgar, Casino Royale, the Best Exotic Marigold Hotel) is being called to the carpet over losing the list of all the secret agents in the world. She has her office blown up and it looks like there is someone with something personal against her.
Bond travels back to England and in spite of being recently shot and on an alcoholic binge is approved for duty by M, who seems to want to see him killed or something. I want to go on a little tangent here, and since this is my blog I will give myself permission to do so. About this time he digs out fragments of the bullet in his chest with a pocket knife and has them analyzed. They turn out to be made out of depleted uranium and since there are only three guys in the world who use them (how exactly does MI6 know that?) that leads him to the guy they are looking for. Here’s the deal on this ball of stupidity. DU rounds are generally made in 30mm or larger, mainly because they are used for anti tank rounds. There is no advantaged to using them in a hand gun, unless you want the gun you wear under your arm next to your heart and lungs to be radioactive. Oh, yeah. They are radioactive, which means that if James Bond has had them in his chest for three months I hope he has made peace with God because there isn’t a lot to be done for radiation poisoning. Also, if you were a bad guy and had enough depleted uranium to make a bunch of bullets you could become insanely rich selling the material to terrorists to make a dirty bomb. Sorry, but I expect smarter from a Bond film.
Anyway, James is on the case and travels the world. Eventually he comes face to face with the bad guy and, in another move that actually gets my approval and appreciation, it is a Bond villain cut from the same cloth as Goldfinger and Oddjob (well, cut from the scraps of cloth left over from the great villains and then stitched together with dental floss, but still). I don’t want to get too much into him or the rest of the story as there are some spoilers I could be dropping and won’t be responsible for that. I will say he pulls the old classic by not shooting Bond first chance he gets. Awesome. Bond beats up guys, shoots guys, blows up guys, and has bitchy, passive aggressive arguments with M.
The stars. Daniel Craig has definitely inhabited the role of Bond, and has made it his own. He is a very good actor, and it shows here. Two stars. The rest of the cast pulls out some great acting, especially the new villain and Judi Dench. Two stars. A lot of the action was really good and believable. One star. Naomi Harris is very easy on the eyes, as is the other girl. One star. Bond film. One star. The classic Bond car. One star. Generally entertaining. One star. Total: eleven stars.
The black holes. The reinventing of James Bond into John McClane. One black hole. The massive skips in plots in order to make the writers jobs easier (Hey, coming up with connection plot points is hard!). One black hole. Pacing alternated from fast and exciting to excruciating and dull (I literally had to struggle to stay awake at one point, and I stayed alert through the entirety of Cold Light of Day). One black hole. The whole depleted uranium thing, and a few other plot holes. One black hole. The new Q should have a flashing sign over his head that says “I’m a hipster duechebag inserted into this film in order to appeal to moronic young adults.” One black hole. The only character who really qualifies as a Bond girl is M. One black hole. Total: six black holes.
A grand total of five stars. Worth seeing in my opinion, but don’t go expecting to see the Bond you have always know. If you were to treat this as a stand alone spy movie I think you would get a lot out of it. Nothing on the screen screams for huge, so if you were so inclined I don’t think you would miss anything by seeing it on NetFlix. Date movie? Sort of. Nothing here to really turn an average woman on except for Daniel Craig, and odds are you are going to suffer badly in comparison. There is better out there for you (Wreck It Ralph). Bathroom break? Any scene were James is not actively shooting or chasing anyone will do just fine. The scene where M is being lambasted by Ministers stands out in particular, but it is kind of short.
Thanks for reading. Follow me on Twitter @Nerdkungfu for valuable insights into my personality (or just notifications every time I write a review). Feel free to post any comments on this movie or my review here. Off topic questions or suggestions email to [email protected]. There’s a bunch of movies I have let slide by I might go see like Flight or Silent Hill. Of course, Breaking Dawn is coming out on the 16th and you know I am rigid in eager anticipation for that one. No way will that drain my desire to keep on living.
Dave
Won’t Back Down Review
Ever see a cartoon that looks and acts like a real movie? Now you can see a real movie that looks and acts like a cartoon!
I wasn’t sure which movie to see the other night. I was torn between this one and the House at the End of the Street. They both looked annoying, but since I have been watching S2 of the Walking Dead lately I figured I had had my fill of horror this week. Also HATES looks chock full of exactly the lamo teenage cutesy kids that make me wish for the annihilation of the human race. When I realized my dream girl Maggie Gyllenhaal was in this one I figured “How painful could this be?”
The answer, unfortunately, was pretty painful. I will be the first to admit that I am not the target demographic most chick flicks strive to attract, being the most macho man you will ever meet who loves Cyndi Lauper music and plays with toy soldiers. However, the last two years of movie reviews has expanded my appreciation of movies outside of my normal genres and I like to think that while I might not enjoy a movie type in particular in general I am capable of recognizing quality work when I see it and in my opinion, I did not just see it.
The movie runs a massive 121 minutes and believe me, you will feel every one of them. The pacing drags on like trying to push your car to the gas station and accidentally left your parking brake on. The “drama” is so tertiary and uninspired that you might forget to keep breathing. The story attempts to show character development, but the main issue with that is the main character Jamie Fitzpatrick (Maggie) is so cartoonish and over the top that she literally eclipses every other character on the screen with her. It’s like trying to create a beautiful Lite-Brite flower but the light in the center has been replaced by a 400 watt flood. The only character who is even remotely interesting is Nona (Violet Davis), the teacher, but she is only able to shine in scenes where Jamie is absent.
This is not a criticism on Maggie Gyllenhaal, whom I consider a talented actor, but rather on writer/director Daniel Barnz (the Cutting Room, Beastly, Phoebe in Wonderland) for his creation of a working class super woman who crushes every obstacle in front of her with the relentless wheel of her steamroller personality. Her ability to beat down every problem in her path gets ridiculous and manages to more or less drain the drama from the entirety of the film.
The rest of the characters (with the exception of Violet Davis) are two dimensional cartoon characters as well, but none so much as the villain. Barnz wanted to create a movie about improving grade schools in America, so who does he tap for the villain? A selfish and uncaring school board? A corrupt city government? Local gangs and drug dealers making the school a living hell? No. How about…the teachers union??? Really? He makes the bad guys literally the teachers and the head of the union a selfish egomaniac who is only in it for those big teacher bucks. 
That is like creating a Death Star and crewing it with Care Bears (instead of having it be defeated by them. Empire logo from the Star Wars T Shirt collection). The only way he could have made the main bad guy more pointlessly evil is if they had raided his house and found he had been fertilizing his garden with dead babies. It seems pretty obvious that Barnz has some kind of axe to grind with organized labor.
The story. Jamie Fitzpatrick (Maggie Gyllenhaal-Stranger than Fiction, Donnie Darko, the Dark Knight) is a working class single mom who dresses like a stripper does during the day and works two jobs to support her child Malia (Emily Alyn Lind-Enter the Void, the Secret Life of Bees, J Edgar), who goes to THE WORST SCHOOL IN THE HISTORY OF EDUCATION! I’m not kidding about this. It’s almost like Barnz wanted to drive some anti-teacher union message home and took every example of horrible education ever and rolled it into one school. Also, Malia’s specific teacher Deborah (Nancy Bach-Dogma, Black Dahlia, the Bread, My Sweet) is painted as another stupidly evil and exploitative character for no reason. Basically Darth Vader to the union leaders Grand Moff Tarkin. Anyway, Jamie wants Malia to actually learn to read and tries assorted things to get her into another school or another class but is shut down by the most exciting movie antagonist possible, bureaucracy.
Meanwhile teacher Nona Alberts (Viola Davis-the Help, Disturbia, Solaris) is trying to find inspiration and help her own challenged son Cody (Dante Brown-America, Prodigy Bully, I Heart Shakey) with school. Jamie finds out about an obscure law allowing parents and teachers to take over a school if they think it is failing and doesn’t let the fact that it has never ever worked before sway her. She and Nona go through a long (long, long) process of collecting signatures and recruiting teachers. Meanwhile, the big, bad teachers union shows up in the person of sympathetic front woman Evelyn Riske (Holly Hunter-the Incredibles, the Piano, Oh, Brother, Where Art Thou. Am I the only one who finds her accent and slight lisp really sexy?) and Satan level evil union head Arthur Gould (Ned Eisenberg-Limitless, Last Man Standing, Million Dollar Baby). They do what they can to stop the pair from helping the school with a clear objective of destroying kids lives (Gould even says something to the effect of “When kids start paying union dues I’ll start to care about them”. Duh).
Honestly, that’s the story. The rest is a long, drawn out grind towards the inevitable and heartwarming ending. Minor obstacles are overcome, but they are more speed bumps than barricades. The final dramatic scene is the school room board meeting where the vote is split straight down straight white people verses alternative lifestyle and minority people. Then, with the magic of a jump cut scene, the school is miraculously transformed into the greatest educational institution since the founding of Harvard (it’s amazing what you can accomplish with some editing software).
The stars. I fell in love with Maggie Gyllenhaal when she did Stranger that Fiction (if you happen to read this, Maggie, I would risk extreme injury for the chance to have dinner with you), and she remains as hot and cool as ever (if disappointingly clothed). One star. I thought both she and Viola Davis did a good job with the mediocre roles they were handed, and the Nona Albert sub plot was as close as I came to being interested in this film. One star. I also thought both Emily Alyn Lind and Dante Brown did a great job as kid actors. One star. Total: three stars.
The black hole. Paced like standing on line at the DMV in Hell. Two black holes. Ultimately boring, with nothing really to sink my teeth into story wise. One black hole. Over the top, cartoonish characters with little to no depth. One black hole. Demonizing an organization that really doesn’t deserve it, and staffing it with Satan’s minions. One black hole. Painfully predicable in every regard. One black hole. Stupidly manipulative on almost every level. One black hole. Using a film to foster a political agenda. One black hole. Total: eight black holes.
A grand total of five black holes. Not really worth seeing in a theater IMO. I’m not saying you will wish for a clean death. It’s not THAT bad. It’s just that this is the film equivalent of eating 0% unflavored yogurt. No flavor, no texture, and while it may help sustain you ultimately you are spooning spoiled milk into your mouth (guess what’s on my menu for lunch today? I hate dieting). You might actually enjoy it, if you think that the teachers unions are directly responsible for the downfall of the American education system or enjoy the idea of wading through a massive bureaucracy to accomplish a nebulous goal. Date movie? Probably not, unless your date is hyper active and you have tried everything short of rufies to calm her down. Bathroom break? This film is so bland and uneventful I can’t for the life of me remember a specific point that seems more worthless than the rest of the film. Feel free to cut out any time. It’s a long movie, so odds are you will have to.
Thanks for reading, and sorry for such a tepid review. They can’t all be winners, and blase movies inspire blase reviews. There’s a lot of new stuff out right now, but none of it really excites me. I’ll go see something soon. I suspended my watching of all the TOS episodes so I can finally see S2 of the Walking Dead on NetFlix. Awesome. I am working on a new Star Trek post soon that should be fun however. Follow me on Twitter @Nerdkungfu. Post any comments on this review or movie here, and if you have off topic suggestions or questions feel free to email me at [email protected]. Talk to you soon.
Dave
A follow up annoying question from Star Wars
This is kind of an addendum to the question that came up yesterday about the fact that hiding a kid from his father while giving him the very distinctive last name of Skywalker is kind of dumb. I was thinking about it last night and came up with another related question.
As everyone knows Luke grew up with his Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru. In Episode 2 they are introduced as the step son and girlfriend of the Virgin Mary Skywalker. However, they did not have the last name of Skywalker. If they were going to adopt Luke why would the not just give him whatever their last name was? Couldn’t they have dropped the whole aunt and uncle thing and just claimed he was their son? It might have saved them a lot of trouble in the form of a screaming, burning skeleton death. Leia’s adopted parents did so, so you can’t say there was some kind of galactic cultural imperative to keep all last names in order.
Also, ever wonder how most blaster wounds just burn a circle in a guys chest but somehow Owen and Beru were incinerated? Were the Stormtroopers carrying flamethrowers?
The Millennium Falcon shot I got from yet another of Dave’s Star Wars t shirts.
Jason
Snow White and the Huntsman Review
Not bad if you can swallow a few plot holes.
I saw this right before leaving for Italy and I hope you can forgive me if I have taken my seeing and enjoying this fabulous country more seriously than sharing my opinion of the film. On the one hand I feel guilty about letting this (and a bunch of other movies like Prometheus and Rock of Ages) sit on the shelf. On the other hand really I feel no guilt whatsoever. This is the first real vacation I have had in years.
Anyway, I enjoyed the movie quite a bit. It does have it’s issues, each hanging over the script like a veritable Sword of Damocles except instead of swords each thread suspends a medium sized bag of dog poo. If you stand in one place too long eventually you will be struck by one.
However, if you can keep moving along with the pace of the movie you can avoid most of the poo and just have to deal with the lingering stench. This film is definitely several steps above the other, more schizophrenic Snow White remake Mirror Mirror. At least it tried to maintain a consistent tone. The acting ran from mediocre to very good, and the story didn’t land too far into lala land (it did, however, take a nice trip through the Valley of Plot Holes).
I’ll get into some of the more egregious plot holes when I do the black holes, but there is one that annoyed me throughout the movie. The Evil Queen Revenna (Charlize Theron-Hancock, Young Adult, the Italian Job) has a spell that helps her stay young and hot as long as she is the fairest in the land. The magic mirror tells her Snow White (Kristin Stewert-Twilight, Twilight, and more Twilight) is destined to out do her in the looks department. Unless as part of the aging process Kristin Stewart was destined to get a full body, face, and personality transplant there is no way she could ever be more fair than Charlize Theron. Charlize is a super hot woman who breathes sensuality into her role with every breath while Kristin Stewart is basically a Real Doll that can move.
Anyway, the story. Honestly, just reread my Mirror Mirror review and you more or less have it, only with the King actually dead. In another impact crater sized plot hole the widowed king meets Revenna after rescuing her from a fake army, they get married 24 hours later, and he dies of natural causes (being stabbed in the chest repeatedly is a natural way to die, right?) in bed with her that night. Somehow no one but some duke we never really get to meet calls shenanigans on this and the kingdom is placed under a terrible curse.
Fast forward 10 years. The magic mirror tells the queen she needs to eat the heart of Snow White in order to remain young forever. She has been keeping Snow White locked in a tower all this time (where somehow she is in awesome shape, can fight with a blade, and is a great swimmer. The tower must also be home to a 24 Hour Fitness) but instead of simply walking up there and gutting her she sends her idiot brother to fetch her. Snow White managed to escape through a sewer and runs into the Black Forest.
At this point the queen does not send in her entire army but rather recruits a local huntsman (Chris Helmsworth-the Avengers, Thor, the Cabin in the Woods) who is the only human to enter the forest and survive or something. He obviously doesn’t want to do it but is coerced by being told Revenna can resurrect his dead wife (zombie wife!). They enter the forest, find Snow White, he has the painfully obvious change of heart, and the rest of the movie is a quest to kill the queen.
The stars. I thought Charlize Theron was excellent. As I said in my review of Young Adult the one role she excels at is the cold, heartless bitch and honestly it rings a lot more true here. One star. While derivative the story was engaging and interesting. Nice twist on a lot of the old story. One star. Excellent visuals and CGI. Everything works well visually. On star. Charlize Theron is always easy on the eyes. One star. I thought Chris Helmsworth did an admirable job with what he was given, and seems to be the only character to actually describe a full arc. One star. Pacing and direction were good. One star. The fight with the troll was excellent. One star. I thought the Seven Dwarfs were pretty cool, although none of them were allowed to develop. One star. Overall very entertaining. Two stars. Total: ten stars.
The black holes. While none of the plot holes were truly gargantuan, they were numerous. Two black holes. I can tell you from personal experience the last thing you want to assault a castle wall with is heavy cavalry. Just dumb. One black hole. The idea that Kristin Stewart is supposed to be fairer than Charlize Theron is laughable, and in this movie her performance was wooden and formulaic. One black hole. 
A dumb fatalistic sub plot lifted directly from Star Wars (and not good Star Wars. I’m talking Episode 2. Republic image courtesy of the Star Wars T-Shirt category). One black hole. As cool as Queen Revenna was, her dopey brother was dumb and annoying. He was like having Shemp from the Three Stooges shoved into the Godfather. He did nothing but screw up. One black hole. Total: six black holes.
A grand total of four stars. Not bad. Well worth seeing, and some of the visuals do cry out for a large screen. However, I think if you have a decently sized TV you could probably survive with NetFlix. Date movie? Meh. Sort of. It wouldn’t be a mistake, but it also wouldn’t be my first choice. Bathroom break? I’d say the scene in town introducing the Huntsman as a drunken brawling loser. Not a lot added to his character there, especially since he more or less doesn’t get wasted enough to impact the movie again. If that is too soon in the movie I’d say any of the scenes involving the duke and his son. Felt very much like filler.
Thanks for reading. I get back from Italy tomorrow about 4pm and may well celebrate by seeing a movie. However, I have some horrible films to see. Rock of Ages and That’s my Boy look to be excruciating. However, as astute and regular readers I’m sure you have figured out the bad ones make for the funniest reviews. I am looking forward to seeing Prometheus, and next weekend promises to be very cool movie wise.
Follow me on Twitter @Nerdkungfu. If you have comments about this review feel free to post them here. If you have questions or suggestions that are off topic you can always email me at [email protected]. Talk to you soon.
Dave
Dumb movie question from the Phantom Menace
I know the terms “dumb question” and “Phantom Menace” go together too easily and I am just picking low hanging fruit here, but this is another question that has bugged me for a while. Remember when the Trade Federation guys wanted to kill Qui Gon Gin and Obi Wan on board their floating space donut and gassed them for like 10 seconds? Why didn’t they let the gas sit in there for like three days? Or use a gas that didn’t look like smoke and have a distinctive odor? How about a nerve agent that is absorbed through the skin? Or just vent the room out into space? Hell, just reduce the O2 content of the room slowly and let them pass out. Did Lucas really feel the need to use a white easily identified gas out of a hissing vent in order to make his scene happen?
For that matter, what is wrong with just using a bomb? If I were trying to kill a Jedi I wouldn’t us an easily deflected blaster. I would use a 12 gauge shotgun, or the blaster equivalent. Sure, he might be able to deflect 50% of the shells, but that still leaves a lot of lead in the air. This is pretty much why modern military doesn’t use swords any more.
The Empire logo I found in Dave’s Star Wars T Shirts. One of the coolest logos ever IMO.
Jason
No mercy for Anakin Skywalker
So I was thinking about Star Wars Revenge of the Sith. It was probably the best of the three recent ones, although that doesn’t really say much. However, something about the ending has always bugged me.
Here’s the thing. Anakin Skywalker gets horrible burned and dismembered by Obi Wan, the man who raised and trained him from age eight. Now either Obi Wan was feeling bad about the ending to which Anakin had found and was taken by emotions for the young man he raised from a child, or he felt that Anakin had been to far corrupted by the Dark Side and was beyond redemption. If the former then he probably would have sought medical help for young Anakin in hopes of saving his life. If the latter he probably would have given Anakin the coup de grace in order to end his suffering.
What I sincerely doubt he would have done was leave Anakin to twitch off an die a horrible, agonizing death. Sure, he got picked up by the Emperor but Obi Wan had no way of knowing that was going to happen. If I ever lose three limbs and suffer burns over 90% of my remaining body for God’s sake put a bullet in me. I guess Lucas has never heard of a mercy kill.
Of course the Who’s Your Daddy picture comes from Dave’s Star Wars t shirt collection. Hilarious.
Jason
The biggest question from the Phantom Menace
Dave wrote a long blog about the whole Star Wars versus Star Trek thing. Personally I think they both suck and for the most part always have, although if you put a gun to my head I guess I would have to vote Trek. However, while arguing with Dave about it I was reminded of the ultimate question from Phantom Menace. If your mind is ready to be blown apart here it is:
“Where the hell did eight year old Anakin Skywalker find a child sized helmet inside the cockpit of a Naboo fighter normally piloted by an adult???”
That’s pretty much it. I guess Lucas believes in child safety strongly enough to put the continuity of his film in serious jeopardy. The Who’s your Daddy image I found in Dave’s Star Wars t shirts. I find it funny, but also creepy when you see adult Padme connecting with eight year old Anakin.
Jason
Is a Star Wars TV show really the way to go?
Unlike Dave, who has very strong opinions on what he calls the “whoring out of Star Wars ” by Lucas, I am honestly wondering. On the one hand, it can definitely be said that Lucas has milked so much out of his one cow that he should have enough dairy products to feed the nation. Between the six movies, all the comics, books, and video games you would think that eventually he would get tired of beating the same dead horse.
On the other hand, when I think about this I can’t help but think back to another mediocre movie that later was turned into an amazing TV show: Stargate SG1. The movie was definitely weak, but the show was amazing. Even if you don’t like it you can’t argue with the success of a show that went ten full seasons. Given the possibilities I think this could actually go somewhere, especially since they have announced that the TV show is going to be focused on the criminal elements for the Star Wars universe. In my head I see Boardwalk Empire in space, with the Hutts being the criminal kingpins.
However, Lucas doesn’t have a particularly good track record when it comes to doing something good while exploiting the only two good movies he made, so the possibility of this to suck is pretty high. I will watch it, and odds are have to listen to Dave bitch about it week after week. We’ll see.
This Japanese Star Wars image I got from Dave’s Star Wars T Shirt collection. It seems extremely cool.
Jason
Think Like a Man Review
I honestly liked it, and for the life of me can’t figure out why.
This film was a huge surprise to me. According the the trailers (which I watched over and over again) it looked like every movie I should hate on every level: good looking late 20-somethings dating and screwing each other while living in the lap of luxury and enjoying the finer things in life while I struggle to buy something more than Top Ramen. It also had the appearance of following in the pattern set in Valentine’s Day and my fourth worst film of 2011, New Years Eve in that it is an assemblage cast with multiple interweaving multiple story lines crossing into each other. However, while New Years Eve enjoyed all the success of a barbed wire jock strap, somehow this movie does it right and manages to keep the audience engaged and into the story.
I think a big part of it is in this film the talented cast of actors all put their heart into the roles, ending up with a great and believable performance from all of them (with one exception, maybe). That, combined with excellent dialog and very strong chemistry, both romantic and platonic, made up for some of the weaknesses around the script.
I do have two major issues with this film and like most of my problems, they are personal. First of all seeing as I have been riding a dating rejection streak is approaching presidential term length (two term, that is) seeing all these hot young people date and for the most part succeed in finding love was like multiple daggers made of frozen nitrogen stuck into my chest. The fact that there wasn’t a woman in this film I couldn’t fall in love with was the twist on the handle.
The other issue was the portrayal of Los Angeles as the most romantic city in the world or something. I have tried dating in LA and from a romance perspective you will not find a more wretched wasteland of shallowness, ego, and self image destruction short of the fourth level of hell. If any of you readers are women living in LA I apologize if this offends you (I’m sure you are the exception to this generization) but the girls of Los Angeles are the most horrid humans to date in the known universe. 
I would literally rather kiss a wookie. (I’d Rather Kiss a Wookie image courtesy of the Star Wars T Shirts. Also, cute but hirsute women don’t be afraid to contact me).
Anyway, the movie. It is the story of 4 men and the women who have to date them. They are all friends and all take on aspects of the worst stereotypes of bad male partners: the non-committer, the player, the mammas boy, and the unemployed loser. For the record they are played by Michael Ealy (Seven Pounds, Underworld Awakenings), Jerry Ferrara (Entourage, Brooklyn Rules) Terrence Jenkins (Burlesque), and Romany Malco (Weeds, the 40 Year Old Virgin, Blades of Glory). They are joined by comic relief and recently divorced Kevin Hart (Soul Plane, Fool’s Gold, Along Came Polly). They are either involved with or meet and start dating four women who are each respectively sick of these types of guys. They are Meagan Good (Brick, Stomp the Yard, Eve’s Bayoo), Regina Hall (Scary Movie 4, Scary Movie, Law Abiding Citizen), Taraji P. Henson (the Curious Case of Benjamin Button, the Karate Kid, Date Night), and Gabrielle Union (Bad Boys II, 10 Things I Hate About You. Bring it On) and are to a woman very easy on the eyes.
The four women seem destined to keep on moving in the same direction they always have in their relationships until they come across a date advice book by Steve Harvey. I don’t know what he did to become a dating expert but since I first started this blog by giving out dating advice who am I to judge? (if you want to laugh here is the link to Part 1 of 19 posts on Online Dating I did. Kind of bitter, but some of the funniest stuff I have written IMHO) The four women buy his book and learn how to deal with men. Steve’s advice seems to be summed up as “lower your standards and then browbeat the hell out of your man until he morphs into something you can stomach”. I’m not saying I disagree with him.
Of course, the men find out about the book and start using the info back at the women. Things go to hell all around. Plans go astray. Dating chaos ensues.
The stars. I was really impressed by the cast and their performances for the most part. Two stars. Great dialog. One star. The characters all had really good, solid chemistry that worked. One star. All the women were pretty. One star. The multiple story lines not only managed to avoid tripping each other up, but actually enhanced each other. One star. I enjoyed it a lot more than I expected to. One star. Total: seven stars.
The black holes. The Kevin Hart character, while useful as a comic relief, was the one character that felt fake. I don’t think this is on Kevin so much as it is on the writer. One black hole. Sappy, predictable endings. One black hole. I don’t know if was my own feelings about dating, Los Angeles, or what but something about the film kind of infuriated me. Also we ended up looking at a lot of bare man chest. One black hole. Total: three black holes.
Four stars total, a great score for a romance film. Should you see it? Not really if you are a single man. Date movie? Hell yes. Interesting enough to keep you engaged while fulfilling every dream your date has ever had. However, I think this will work even better on a TV in front of a couch in a couple months, if you know what I mean.
I’ve kind of hit a streak of either decent or good movies. While that is a plus for me personally I know that this translates into kind of boring reviews. I can only hope something coming out soon sucks the proverbial teat, but honestly it looks like a good lineup. The best two cantidated for suckage are probably the Five-Year Engagement and Safe, but we’ll see. This weekend I should see both of those as well as Pirates and the Raven. Busy weekend. Follow me on Twitter @Nerdkungfu or email me with questions or suggestions to [email protected]. Feel free to post any comments on this movie here. Thanks for reading. Have a good weekend.
Dave
More on the Han Shot First debate.
So a couple days ago George Lucas did an interview with SlashFilm in which he stated that it was always been his intention to show Greedo shooting first and missing badly from a distance of two feet in an effort to paint Han Solo as something other than the criminal drug smuggler he was. Oh, sorry I meant to say spice smuggler. Anyway, he lays the blame firmly on the poor editing techniques they had back in the 70’s. This Star Wars logo is from the Star Wars T Shirts, by the way.
The thing is he never had any of the same issues in any of the other scenes involving blaster battles or complicated angles, and that shot didn’t look all that difficult to shoot. The real thing, however, is that as a kid I was really into Star Wars and would buy anything I could afford with the Star Wars logo on it. In one case I bought the book adaptation from the movie and in the book Han shot first without Greedo even pulling the trigger. This book was licensed and approved by George as well. Is he going to tell us that due to the 1970’s book writing techniques he couldn’t accurately show that Greedo shot first?
The very fact that he expects us to by this line of crap is conclusive proof that he actually has no respect for the fans of Star Wars at all. It would have been a lot more acceptable if he had just said something like “Look, I wanted to clean up Han Solo’s image a little when I had the chance.” Instead he is going to lie to us and expect us to buy his bull. For shame, Lucas.
Jason
