Category: review

I was a pretty big fan of 2008’s “Iron Man,” thinking that director Jon Favreau did an excellent job casting Robert Downey, Jr. to play the embattled, and frequently intoxicated, Tony Stark (and, thusly, Iron Man himself). Any good super-hero movie is only as good as the leading actor, and Downey was practically born to play this role.

This movie picks up almost immediately after the previous one, with Tony Stark trying to maintain control over his creation (the Iron Man suit) as the U.S. government seeks to take it and use it with their own soldiers. At the same time, Tony’s being attacked (literally and figuratively) with the movie’s main baddie, Whiplash (played by Mickey Rourke), and chief industrial competitor, Justin Hammer (played by Sam Rockwell). While the variety of “enemies” that Iron Man is fighting could get confusing, as it has in some previous movies (read: “Spider-Man 3“), the writing navigates the complications with relative ease, crafting a half-way decent story that doesn’t just keep hitting you with the same ol’ problems.

The acting is pretty good, overall, although Scarlett Johansson seemed to “phone it in” to some extent. I know she’s not exactly a brilliant actress, but she’s done better in other movies than she does in this one. Sam Rockwell plays his role nearly as well as Robert Downy, Jr. does his, and Gwyneth Paltrow gets a bit more screen time this time around. Don Cheadle replaces Terrence Howard, and honestly, I thought he did a better job. Howard is a bit more convincing as an Air Force colonel, but I think Cheadle is a better actor. Whatev.

In the end, the movie was still great, but I don’t think it was as good as the first one. I tend to compare super hero sequels to “Spider-Man” and “Spider-Man 2,” where the former introduced the hero and the situation, and in the sequel, the hero comes to terms with their new existence and all the complications that go with it. “Iron Man 2” does this, however it seems to happen with heavy focus on Tony Stark, moreso than Iron Man. When I go see these movies, I want a pretty decent amount of screen time with the hero the movie’s named after, rather than the alter ego. Don’t get me wrong, the “secret identity” is a very important piece, but if I paid to see a movie about Bruce Wayne, I’d expect it to be titled “Bruce Wayne” and not “The Dark Knight.” Essentially, while the action was good and the effects were good, I wanted more sequences with Iron Man as, really, there was only the climactic ending where we saw Stark in his suit for more than 3 minutes. He appears as Iron Man a few other times, but not to a great extent.

Overall, I’m glad I saw it and I enjoyed it greatly, and I’ll probably pick up the DVD when it comes out. However, in the annals of super hero sequels, I think “X-Men 2,” “Spider-Man 2” and “The Dark Knight” were better follow-ups.

This time of year, there usually isn’t much coming out in theaters, but Denzel Washington‘s new movie, “The Book of Eli,” looked interesting.

The movie centers around a “wanderer,” of sorts, crossing the U.S. by foot ~30 years after a nuclear holocaust. He’s a survivor, doing what he must to get his book across the country for initially unknown reasons. The world is a wasteland, with people fighting over things that we take for granted now (alcohol wipes, shampoo, water, etc.). The film makers also do a good job of making the color palate somewhat “bland,” where parts of the movie seem almost “black and white,” even though it’s in color. The muted colors really give it that “western movie” feel, with the lone fighter crossing the frontier, reluctantly helping those that need it.

The story itself is rather interesting, and while it seems to move slowly at parts, it’s still an fascinating and “different” concept for a film. As you may guess, the book that Washington is carrying across the country is the Bible, presumably the last one in existence as all of them were destroyed following the nuclear holocaust (which, we find out, was at least partially caused by the religious differences between cultures on Earth). The primary bad guy, played by Gary Oldman, wants to get a copy of the Bible so he can use it’s “power” in order to coax people into following him, in the process explaining that the same thing had been done many time before (i.e. bad people doing things “in the name of God,” and those people convincing others that they hold “The Truth” of existence). Washington’s character, Eli, was told in a vision to take the book west, where it would be safe, and on this trail, it certainly appears that he is protected from On High, especially against Oldman’s forces. The movie basically centers around this conflict, although the mythology they lay out helps to “fill in the gaps” of the reasons for the nuclear war, and what has transpired in its aftermath.

Usually, I try not to explain such details of a movie like this, but it was very unexpected and I think it really heightened my enjoyment of the film. It is one of those rare cases where the movie I expect to be completely sci-fi oriented was actually not very “sci-fi” at all, but instead somewhat thought-provoking in the ideas it’s putting forth. It provides an interesting take on some of the forces at work today, when there are those out there that use the Bible and its teachings for their own ends.

(as a brief aside, Mila Kunis‘ character asks Eli what he has gotten out of reading the Bible every day, and he responds: “Do unto others as you would have done unto you.” If I were asked the same question, I’d have the same answer. Many would say “the point” is more along the lines of John 3:16, but I’d go with the Golden Rule, personally.)

“The Book of Eli” probably won’t go down as one of 2010’s greatest movies, but I think it was a surprising gem that is well worth renting, if not checking out in theaters.

There is a concept in video games, robots, and digital media in general known as “the uncanny valley,” which states that as facsimiles of humans get closer to looking like actual humans, people revile them. When I think about movies like “The Polar Express,” where you know you’re looking at Tom Hanks, but his mouth isn’t moving quite right, or isn’t wincing just right, you can tell. You know that it’s him, but the mannerisms just don’t connect and it draws you away from the overall experience: you are fully aware that you are watching a digital film, and not reality.

Thus, “Avatar,” seeks to change all that, and in many, many ways, it succeeds.

The story centers around a dystopian future where the resources of Earth are dwindling and more are needed. The distant planet, Pandora, has a valuable mineral Earth needs, but of course, much of the planet must be strip-mined to get it, disrupting all the native life on the planet. The Na’vi, a peaceful race of blue humanoids are “in tune” with all of nature on the planet, so humans have tried to communicate and reason with them in order to move them to other locations in an effort to get the mineral. Of course, as humans tend to do, they get impatient and decide to go the “forced relocation” route, a la American Indians, amongst other populations throughout history. The “avatars” themselves are human/alien hybrids that look like the Na’vi, but can be controlled remotely by an interface that looks kinda like an MRI machine.

The plot is mostly predictable, as a small band of humans realize what they are doing on the planet is wrong and must be stopped, so they join forces with the Na’vi to fight back. The acting is pretty good, but nothing particularly Oscar-worthy.

As most people know, the real “star” here is the CGI, much of which had to be invented just to make this movie. I saw it in digital projection 3D, and while it was a few bucks more expensive, it was well worth the money and should be experienced. The 3D itself was more subtle than I expected, simply adding more depth to scenes and making a few things “pop” a bit more. It certainly wasn’t headache-inducing or anything, and really did help immerse you in the movie.

Back to the “uncanny valley,” though. This is the first movie I’ve seen where the CGI was so integrated into the environment, you could hardly tell it wasn’t being filmed with a camera on location down in the Amazon. James Cameron invented a motion capture camera that is worn on your head, tracking your mouth movements, the wrinkles of your nose, how your eyes move, etc. It then maps these movements onto a digitally-created humanoid and integrates the actor into the environment. Of course, more conventional methods are used for the human actors on green screens, but again, the majority of sequences with the Na’vi in the jungles are all digitally created, and you frequently forget that you are watching something made on a computer. It makes it look like Sigourney Weaver is acting with blue facepaint on, when she really isn’t. Her words are perfectly matched with the sound. Her facial expressions look like it’s really her.

So no, “Avatar” won’t be remembered for its compelling story or acting, but it will probably be remembered as the first movie to integrate CGI so seamlessly into a motion picture (with the help of some 3D “tricks”) that you forget what you’re really experiencing, and that technology is going nowhere but “up.” While it may seem a bit “over the top” to say, I fully believe “Avatar” is on-par with “The Jazz Singer” (the first “talkie”) or the introduction of color in movies.

This Christmas break, do yourself a favor: find this movie in 3D and drop the cash on it. You won’t be sorry. Unless you hate movies.

We hadn’t seen a movie in awhile and this one caught my eye a few weeks ago when I first saw the advertisements. It’s actually based on a book by Jon Ronson about how the U.S. military so wisely spent our tax dollars investigating “alternative methods” of fighting other nations, including mind control, trying to pass through walls, and making another living being’s heart stop by staring at them (e.g. a goat). Ronson was on The Daily Show awhile back talking about his 2004 book, so I’d already been exposed to this crazy idea: then they made it into a movie. Keep in mind that the movie is based on concepts from the book, so parts of the movie are factually-based, but then there are large parts that aren’t.

The Men Who Stare at Goats stars quite a few heavy hitters, including George Clooney, Ewan McGregor, Jeff Bridges and Kevin Spacey, so on paper, the movie is already off to a good start. It centers around a news reporter (McGregor) that is trying to “make it” in the business by going to Iraq during the most recent Iraq War. Part-way through his journey, he comes across Clooney’s character, Lyn Cassady, who promptly tells him of a secret government program beginning in Vietnam that tried to make super soldiers, not through any genetic engineering, but through trying to get them to learn mind control techniques, amongst other things. Obviously, McGregor finds this difficult to believe in the beginning, but as the 1.5 hour long movie progresses, he begins to question the reality he knows.

I highlight “1.5 hours long” because that was a pretty good length, and I’m glad it wasn’t any longer. By the time they hit the last 30 minutes of the movie, it was getting harder to follow, and just generally more convoluted. Actually, a good 20-30 minutes of the movie really dealt with how McGregor and Clooney get into Iraq in the first place, and while it does introduce McGregor’s character to the concepts of this shadowy military troop, it doesn’t really end up being that pertinent to the story. So yes, I think “convoluted” is a pretty good word to describe this movie.

The movie is pretty funny, for the most part, but really mostly in a “chuckle” sort of way, rather than a “laugh out loud” manner. I guess I would say it’s more “amusing” than “funny,” in all honesty, and I was hoping for the film to err more on the side of the latter. In either case, it was still pretty entertaining. Certainly, the acting was as good as you’d expect from these actors, but I would have liked to see more out of Kevin Spacey. He did well for what he was given, but paying a high-profile actor like him to play this relatively minor role (compared to the other three) may have been a touch excessive.

I will say, however, that the movie did score hella points with me by playing up the fact that the military, apparently, experimented with using the “I Love You, You Love Me” song from Barney & Friends as a torture device against terrorists. I’ve always said that’d be a good idea.

In short, I liked the movie and thought it was an entertaining and amusing way to spend an evening, but I could have waited to rent it. At the very least, it makes you wonder where your tax dollars are going…

First of all, $9.25 is far too much to charge for a matinee showing, regardless of “Digital Projection” or what have you.

Secondly, “Zombieland” is one of those movies that I probably would have paid little attention to normally, but it’s been awhile since I’ve seen one in theaters and Brooke was (surprisingly) willing to go along and see it (likely in return for Wild Cherry Pepsi and Sno-caps).

Anyway, “Zombieland” is about a group of strangers that meet up randomly whilst traveling across the southwestern United States after a zombie outbreak has brought civilization to a screeching halt.  Unlike your typical George A. Romero zombie movie, this one takes a more humorous look (a la “Shaun of the Dead“).  The movie is surprisingly funny, with plenty of creative ways to kill zombies throughout.  And the humor is genuinely funny, rarely forced – even Brooke was laughing throughout (though, admittedly, not as much as me).  You actually kinda care for the characters throughout, which is more than I can say for most other zombie movies.  This is probably the best movie Woody Harrelson has been in that I can remember, and certainly the most amusing.

I mean, the climactic end takes place in an amusement park.  Just think about all the fun you could have with zombies at the carnival.  🙂

There’s not much more to say about it, really, without giving away the more surprising bits of the film.  It’s not a movie that I plan on buying, but I’m quite glad I saw it.  It was a great way to spend a Sunday afternoon: a fun, and entertaining ride.

I went a little crazy at Family Video and rented quite a few movies…and went further crazy this Labor Day weekend and watched most of them with Brooke. I’m kinda surprised my eyes didn’t melt out…

1). Gran Torino – A recent movie from Clint Eastwood, this one centers on an old guy whose wife just died, and then seems to be losing the world around him as gangs move into his neighborhood. He slowly connects with his neighbors and begins to re-evaluate how he has spent his life and how he has treated the people around him. The acting aside from Eastwood is unimpressive, but the story was compelling. Honestly, we both thought the movie would focus on the gang stuff more than it did: it certainly played an important role in the movie, but the purpose of the movie was really Eastwood getting past his prejudices and making his neighborhood better a better place. Personally, I thought it was really good and well worth your time.

2). Tropic Thunder – Wow. This movie. I almost fell asleep. It was shockingly unfunny and I’m very glad I didn’t spend $8 to see it in theaters. To be fair, Robert Downey, Jr. was really, really good, and the sheer number of cameos was very impressive (watch for Tom Cruise…wow…). But other than that, it was amongst the least funny Ben Stiller movies I’ve seen, which is saying a lot, because Ben Stiller is generally unfunny except in Dodgeball and Heavy Weights.

3). Adventureland – Now, for some odd reason, this movie caught our eye when it came out awhile back, but we figured that waiting until DVD would probably be fine. It had quite a few people in it, but mostly B-level SNL people and some no-name folks. Anyway, the movie ended up being much more “coming of age drama” and less “comedy” than I expected for having Bill Hader, Kristen Wiig and Ryan Reynolds in it. I kinda think the movie had a few too many “threads” going on and really just made for a convoluted story, making it difficult to even tell you what it’s about, besides a bunch of folks working at an amusement part for “one crazy summer,” yadda, yadda, yadda. Regardless, it was an interesting movie, but not one I’ll ever need to see again.

4). Doubt – We watched this one last night, after wanting to catch it in theaters…it was one of those that came out at a time when we were pretty busy, so we never made it. In either case, I was quite pleased with it. It centers around a Catholic parish where a few nuns suspect the Priest of “associating inappropriately” with a boy at the school. The movie is based on a play by the same name, and you can see its stage roots by the structure of the story, and the characters (the play only has four characters, and this one only increased that number by a few, and only with very minor roles). Meryl Streep, Amy Adams, Phillip Seymor Hoffman and Viola Davis were brilliant and deserved the Oscar nominations they were rewarded with – it’s rare when all four primary characters are nominated, two for the same role. Anyway, we both liked it quite a bit – I’d definitely recommend it!

The first trailer I saw for “G.I. Joe: Rise of the Cobra” worried me greatly. In no way did it resemble the popular 80s cartoon of my childhood, and contained largely B-level actors and special effects.

For the most part, my initial assessment was correct.

The movie centers on the origins of the characters we know from the show, including Duke and Ripcord. At this point, Cobra, as an organization, doesn’t exist yet, but its leader(s) (specifically, Destro) are just getting started. A few old favorites, including General Hawk, Scarlett, and my personal favorite, Snake-Eyes, make their respective appearances early on, as you would generally expect: the Joes come in and save Duke and Rip Cord from the Baroness and Storm Shadow, then take them into their organization and train them to be the elite fighters they should be (wait…isn’t that how it happened in “X-Men?” …yup…)

The effects in the trailer looked terrible and, generally, they didn’t improve at all in the full feature film. There were definitely some cool sequences and transitions put in there, but a few extra effects dollars would have gone a long way to make it the spectacle it was trying to be. While they were at it, they should have tried actually spending some money on actors. Dennis Quaid (General Hawk) was barely a player (and wasn’t particularly good), and Christopher Eccleston (Destro) was wasted. Sienna Miller (The Baroness) did the best job of them all, in my opinion, but the guy they chose to play Duke was pretty horrible…and he’s the focus of the whole movie… Joseph Gordon-Levitt also makes an appearance, as well as Brendan Fraser…randomly…

There weren’t as many terrible one-liners in it as I would have expected, thankfully. There were actually a few funny moments, especially with the addition of Marlon Wayans (Ripcord) providing a little levity. Your trademarked “knowing is half the battle” was definitely in there as well, delivered by Dennis Quaid…and no, he wasn’t talking about staying off drugs… For the most part, however, the script and plot, as a whole, was derivative and cliche. Then again, it’s a movie based on a 1980s cartoon put out to sell toys…much like another franchise I know (that did it better).

That all said, it wasn’t as bad as it could be. Again, some of those action sequences were actually pretty sweet, but some extra money to make them truly top notch would have been welcome. While the acting was very, very bad overall, I didn’t really expect it to be good in the first place, so whatever…not a big loss…

Anyway, certainly not the best movie I’ve seen this summer, but I thought it would be a lot worse. I probably won’t be picking up the DVD, but I’m glad I saw it.

If I could describe the new movie, “Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen,” in one word, it would be: extraneous.

A sequel to 2007’s hit, “Transformers,” the sequel starts off two years later, now with the Autobots helping the U.S. military track down the remaining Decepticons. Over the course of the movie, we find out that the Transformers as a race are quite old and have visited Earth before. One guy, The Fallen, had tried to take over the planet, defying the other Transformers (essentially becoming the first Decepticon). He was exiled elsewhere…at least, until Megatron and his cronies decide to revive him in an effort to finish the job, and take down Optimus Prime and the Autobots once and for all.

Here’s my main problem with the movie: it was just too much. The flick was 150 minutes long. They could have cut 20-45 minutes out of it easily and still maintained the general story they were going for. Instead, there were plenty of extra scenes of Sam’s parents, or introduction of needless characters (specifically, Leo). The time taken to reintroduce all these old characters, let alone the new ones, could have been axed entirely without the overall story suffering (specifically, I would have tossed the entire “going off to college angle,” as it really didn’t do much. It could have been reworked to simplify the story). The actual plot involving The Fallen, the history of the Transformers, and the developing relationship between Sam and Mikaela would have been enough for the movie – all the extra fluff was pretty useless (read: extraneous).

And while the action scenes and special effects were still pretty badass, I must say that I was disappointed in that ending. I won’t go into further details, but I wanted more. The fight scenes in general were decent, but nothing on an epic scale like in the first movie. Also, all these close-up shots of the Transformers fighting each other make it really difficult to tell who is who…

So yeah, it was a fun movie that actually had some funny parts (but didn’t pull off all the jokes they tried…especially with “The Twins”…I hope bankruptcy keeps Chevy from releasing those ugly vehicles…), but it certainly wasn’t better than the first one, and kinda lost some of the magic that the first one did. I’ll still pick it up when it gets released, but the original remains the far better film.