Tag: review

I came to the “Alien” franchise somewhat late.  It was certainly popular when I was in my pre-teen years, and other kids I knew had seen them, but I don’t think I even saw the first movie until college.  I certainly remember the toy blitz when they released “Alien 3,” thinking they were pretty cool, though in retrospect, “Alien 3” was likely the worst movie in the franchise.  Fox even tried rebooting the series, to some degree, by mixing the Alien and Predator franchises together, something that began as a comic and eventually turned into a few not-so-good movies.

Thus, I think it’s safe to say that the best movies in the franchise are 1979’s “Alien,” directed by Ridley Scott, and 1986’s “Aliens,” directed by James Cameron.  It could be argued that the reason these two movies worked so well is that they’re very different takes on the same idea: a far-future where humans in dirty old space ships come across an alien species with human and insect qualities that wants to kill them…and that, for the most part, androids aren’t to be trusted.  Scott portrayed a single alien on a ship inhabited by various folks, including one young Sigourney Weaver, but set it up in the same vein as a “slasher” movie.  “Alien” was more of a horror movie.  “Aliens,” on the other hand, under the direction of Cameron, saw Weaver and a group of future marines do battle with a whole group of aliens in a human colony.  “Aliens” was more of an action movie.

Which brings us to “Prometheus,” a film connected to the “Alien” franchise, but very, very distinct.  Ridley Scott hasn’t directed a science fiction movie since “Blade Runner” in 1982, so everyone was intrigued to see what he would do with 30 years worth of new tools.  He didn’t disappoint.  The tech portrayed, from the virtual displays to the ship, to the alien creatures, etc. all seem to fit seamlessly into the environment.  We saw it in IMAX 3D and, while the effects were very apparent, they were very complimentary to the overall experience, rather than distracting.  You can tell Scott utilized these new tools to great effect.

The story, however, is kinda confusing.  To be honest, I don’t know what to make of it.  There’s something to be said for leaving a movie with additional questions (something the writers have said were purposeful, in the event they’d get a sequel), but some of the plot holes are so large, it seems like there isn’t much of a way to dig out of them.

As I said earlier, “Prometheus” is very different from the “Alien” franchise.  It takes place in the same universe, involves some of the same players (namely the Weyland Corporation), and generally feels like they’re related.  At the same time, though, “Prometheus” is more concerned with an existential search for our creator, the alien species (referred to as “The Engineers”) that seeded Earth with DNA that would eventually evolve into modern humans (and don’t get me started on the scientific missteps this brings up…).  “Prometheus” takes a look at that search, the powers that seek to control that knowledge, and our overall sense of humanity – arguably, things the “Alien” franchise hasn’t done before.

Generally speaking, I liked it.  I don’t think it’s absolutely necessary to see it in 3D, but if you want to, you won’t be disappointed.  There are definite, and obvious, callbacks to the “Alien” franchise, so fans of the series should be pleased.  It is definitely more along the horror line of things, rather than action, so be sure you can handle a few cringe-worthy scenes.

But that plot.  I just don’t know what to make of it.  I think I want a sequel, just so I can see where they’re going with it.  Then again, maybe I don’t want a sequel, so these questions are left up in the air for fans to ponder for another 30 years.

Let’s be honest: Was there really a chance this movie wouldn’t be good?  When it was written and directed by Joss Whedon and contained just about every star imaginable from recent Marvel-based movies?  When it’s rocking 93% on Rotten Tomatoes?  When it made $1 billion in the span of less than 2 weeks?

Yeah.  It was good.  And it’s not very surprising.

There are a variety of reasons why the movie is very, very strong, from the quality of writing, to the effects, to the “star power,” to the “let’s throw money at it and surely something awesome will come out” mentality to its production.  However, I’ll focus on two things in particular.

First, Joss Whedon had his work cut out for him because much of the “origin story” was already told in other movies, including Iron Man, Thor, Captain America and The Incredible Hulk.  Almost every character that showed up in this movie was already introduced in a previous one, which allowed Whedon the freedom to spend his 2.5 hrs of screen time on the story at hand: not the description of each character and why we should care.  I’ve talked with a few people that have seen the movie and now want to go back and see the “origin stories” of the characters they missed.  It didn’t detract from their enjoyment of this movie, but it certainly inspired them to seek out additional material to help enhance the experience of this film.

Second, while I expected the dialog to be witty and amusing, I didn’t expect genuine laugh-out-loud moments.  By no means is The Avengers a “comedy,” though it has its share of hilarious parts that don’t feel forced in the least.  The theater cracked up on multiple occasions, typically centering on the Hulk, who ends up stealing the show during the latter 30 min of the movie.  So even if you aren’t necessarily a “comic book movie” fan, I think you’ll appreciate the humor that comes of it.

Aside from these things, generally speaking, the movie is so well-paced that you forget how long you’ve been sitting in the seat.  Each character is introduced so as to “ease you” in, rather than having the entire team show up together, leading to a longer slog through the film (Fantastic Four comes to mind). Heck, you don’t even see the Hulk until relatively late in the movie!  But when you do, you’re ready for it.  I guess I’m saying that no one over-stays their welcome and the characters all fit together in a very cohesive manner, which is very difficult to do when you’re dealing with a movie consisting of 8+ main characters.  It’s obviously an ensemble cast.

I also paid the exorbitant fee required of seeing it in IMAX 3D.  Let’s just say that this was another case where the money was worth it.  The 3D wasn’t over-done and, overall, enhanced the viewing experience without too much “look at me, I’m in 3D!!” shenanigans.  I’ll be satisfied with my Bluray release in a few months (when I definitely buy it…), but I’m glad my first exposure to the movie was in IMAX 3D.

To summarize, it’s a spectacular movie.  In some ways, it’s a good thing that most of these characters have their own franchises, so we’ll have a few years of their own sequels before we get the inevitable “Avengers 2.”

The Mission: Impossible series isn’t really one of my favorites, to be honest, and I’m not really sure why.  They’ve always had pretty great directors, a star-studded cast (and Tom Cruise…), and usually feature great effects and acting.  There’s just something about it that doesn’t hold up compared with the Bourne series, let alone Bond.  I actually enjoyed Mission: Impossible III quite a bit, and even reviewed it (back when I didn’t write nearly as much…oh, to be him again…).  The third installment was directed by J.J. Abrams, and his production company was still involved on the fourth and most recent one, which I think serves the movie well.  This time out, however, it’s directed by Brad Bird.

What else has he directed?

Four movies.  The other three, besides this one, are Ratatouille, The Iron Giant and The Incredibles.

Seriously.

So, for a director’s first time out with live-action, he did an unbelievable job.  What Bird brought to this film, above all else, was a sense of fun.  I can safely say I haven’t had this much fun at a movie in quite a long time.  It was paced well, it was witty and genuinely funny at parts, the action consisted of some ridiculous set-pieces spread across Eastern Europe, India and Dubai, and the actors were at their best.

The story itself was somewhat simple, having the IMF framed by a villain set on remaking the world after nuclear war.  He steals a set of Russian nuclear launch codes, in hopes of getting the world’s countries to annihilate each other, leaving the Earth “wiped clean” so that humanity can re-build.  Thus, due to the framing, “Ghost Protocol” is enacted where the IMF is “disavowed,” leaving them to their own devices apart from the support of the United States government.

The team this time out consists of Jeremy Renner, Simon Pegg, Paula Patton, and their leader, Tom Cruise (the only one that’s made it through all four outings now).  Renner and Pegg serve their purposes well, with Renner as something of a “straight man” and Pegg as the comedic odd-ball.  I’d never seen Patton before, but she performed admirably.  Cruise, of course, is Cruise.  He’s always done well in this role, though the last two outings of the franchise, you can see an “aging” in the character, where Ethan Hunt is gradually more experienced, more grounded, and less “action star”-y (like he was in Mission: Impossible 2…then again, that was a John Woo film…).

The set-pieces in this film were phenomenal as well.  There’s been quite a bit of news on the Dubai scenes where Cruise is climbing on the outside of the tallest building in the world, the Burj Khalifa, and believe you me, those scenes were ridiculous.  Due to movie timing, we ended up seeing the movie in IMAX and that scene alone made the price of admission worth it.  There were other chase scenes, a desert sand storm, and your typical gadgetry that made for excellent special effects and a wonderful spectacle, but the scenes in Dubai were glorious.  There’s another scene toward the end of the movie where Tom Cruise and the villain, code-named “Cobalt,” are fighting in an Indian parking garage: one of those that is automated to elevate your car through the middle of a tall, concrete structure (kinda like one of these), and then drop it off for you.  The choreography to get each actor in the right place as the “arms” carrying cars were moved in and out was very impressive.

My one knock on the movie was with the villain, “Cobalt.”  It’s not that he was played poorly, or that the world-ending dilemma wasn’t dire enough.  I just didn’t feel connected to the villain to any great degree.  He was there, he was sinister…but I just didn’t care too much.  Maybe it’s because I know how these movies tend to be resolved.  I just wasn’t very engaged by him.  The sense of urgency was the threat of a nuclear launch: not the villain himself.  It’s something I can overlook, but more could have been done in that area.

In the end, it was pretty awesome.  I’m certainly interested to see what Brad Bird does next, as he brought all the fun from his cartoon work to a live action film.  It’s as if he said “what’s something we thought we could only do in a cartoon…’cause I want to do that with Tom Cruise.”

My history with the Muppets doesn’t really involve The Muppet Show, per se.  While it’s a show I’ve seen countless clips of over the years, it’s just nothing I’ve ever been a huge fan of.  My memories are of The Muppets Take Manhattan, Muppet Babies and A Muppet Family Christmas (which we had taped one year and watched religiously each holiday season).  So my interest in the new film, The Muppets, stemmed more from the way it was made rather than the subject matter itself.

Jason Segal (of “How I Met Your Mother” fame) stars in The Muppets, but he also co-wrote the screenplay.  He discussed it on NPR last week, which piqued Brooke’s interest and further solidified the fact that I/we needed to see the movie.  The article discussed a range of things, but the points that were of greatest interest to me personally was that they wanted to make the movie with as little CGI as possible, and they wanted to produce a comedy that relied on “old fashioned ideals,” rather than most of the other comedies out in theaters today (e.g. anything by Judd Apatow…not that it’s a bad thing, but it’s nice to see an intelligent “family comedy” from time to time).

The movie itself centers on Segal’s character (Gary) and his brother, Walter, who is a Muppet (Note: it is not explained how, exactly, this happened.  Brooke and I wonder whether Walter was adopted, or whether Gary was, as we never see the parents.  I’m hoping I never have to explain this kind of genetic splicing to Meg someday).  Walter goes with Gary and his girlfriend, Mary (Amy Adams), to Hollywood to see the old Muppet Theater, something that Walter had dreamed about since he was a child.  Once they get there, they find out that an evil businessman (Chris Cooper) wants to buy the theater and tear it down to drill for oil, leading Walter and the gang to round up the other Muppets to organize a telethon to raise the money to buy it back.

It was great seeing all the memorabilia around the theater, including old photos and clips from the old Muppet Show.  As I mentioned before, it’s not like I watched the original show all that much, but it was still neat seeing that history displayed with such reverence on the big screen again.  The movie seemed to be reaching back into television history to a time when a show like that could make it on television, where in today’s world, the only way you’ll see Kermit The Frog on prime time is if he’s on an island or is living in a house with strangers.  Many of the themes in the film could be considered “traditional,” but in this presentation, it seems more like “timeless” than anything.

The movie was also pretty funny.  Not really “laugh out loud” funny or anything, but definitely chuckle-worthy and amusing.  The self-referential humor was the most entertaining to me: stuff that may fly by a kid, but would still be funny to an adult.  Chris Cooper would say “maniacal laugh…maniacal laugh…” rather than actually laughing in that evil way, for example.  Or that they would “travel by map” to get from one location to another quickly in the story (like taking a car from the U.S. to Paris).

I was a little disappointed that they didn’t give the actors more to do, however.  Amy Adams was in it from the beginning, but didn’t really do much until the last half of the movie.  During the telethon, there were almost countless cameo appearances, but while you saw folks like Judd Hirsch and Neil Patrick Harris answering the phones, they didn’t have any actual lines of dialog (while others like Zach Galifianakis and Jim Parsons were a bit more prominent).  It was obvious that the writers brought people in from multiple generations, so there would be cameos from people practically anyone would recognize (who the heck is Selena Gomez, anyway?).

But, this was a movie about the Muppets: not about the humans.  And in the end, you’re left with a “feel good,” entertaining movie that brings a lot of familiar faces back together, and together for the first time.  They did a great job with this movie, and they did it without 3D and with barely any CGI, proving that you can still tell a great story and make a great movie for kids and adults that only involves puppets and a few supporting people.

In today’s world (and if the previews before the movie are any indication, where almost all the previews were for upcoming CGI or 3D movies…) that’s certainly an accomplishment.

First of all, I haven’t seen a movie in theaters since May, which is crazy considering how many I’ve seen in past years.  Amazing what having a baby and moving does to your movie schedule.  Secondly, Meg was staying with her grandparents this weekend, giving us extra time to go see something.  There aren’t many movies out this time of year that interest both Brooke and I, but thankfully, “True Grit” was one such movie.

The Coen Brothers have made quite a few movies over the years, and in general, I don’t tend to like them.  “Fargo” and “Burn After Reading” are, perhaps, the only two of theirs that I’ve seen that I enjoyed (“O Brother Where Are Thou” was alright too, I guess).  In general, I think their movies involve useless, unfunny dialog and their plots don’t involve much of an ending or resolution.  With that all in mind, I tell you that “True Grit” was a truly excellent movie, with a great script, great acting, and a wonderful story.  It’s amazing that the Coen Brothers could pull something like this off, but it’s probably only because they stayed close to the source material and didn’t have to do much writing of their own.

“True Grit,” starring Jeff Bridges, Matt Damon, and Hailee Steinfeld, centers upon Steinfeld’s character, Mattie, whose father was murdered by Tom Chaney (Josh Brolin).  She seeks revenge, and contracts with Reuben “Rooster” Cogburn (Bridges), a U.S. Marshall that drinks too much and is known for killing criminals in self-defense (i.e. he chases after them, catches them, and they don’t ever end up in front of a judge).  Matt Damon plays LaBoeuf, a Texas Ranger that is also chasing after Chaney for killing a Senator.  The movie deals with these three interacting out on the open range of Arkansas, frequently causing strains between each individual.

The story is very much a western, involving many of the typical trappings including a hanging, duels, chasing the enemy into “Indian country,” and so on.  The imagery of the American West is breathtaking, and makes me want to go backpacking as soon as I can.  Brooke took a class in college titled “The Western Film,” so she watched quite a few classic westerns and she thought this iteration of “True Grit” held true to the ideals put forward in previous movies. “True Grit” will probably go down as one of the best westerns of the early-21st century (which isn’t saying much, ’cause there aren’t that many being made, which is a shame).

It should also be said that Hailee Steinfeld was unbelievable in this movie.  She’s a 14-year-old, playing a 14-year-old, and she’s a better actress than most people two or three times her age.  A truly remarkable performance from a girl whose career is surely only taking off.  Don’t get me wrong, Matt Damon was barely recognizable with his facial hair and George W. Bush-style accent (and that’s a good thing…he really stepped outside his typical roles with this one), and Jeff Bridges was speaking with a drunken slur such that I believed this is how he talks in real life.  But Steinfeld stole the show from both these old-timers.

I have never seen the original “True Grit,” starring John Wayne.  It is my understanding that this current iteration is a more accurate representation of the novel, but we’ll see what the differences are when it comes through Netflix…eventually…  Regardless, this is an excellent movie and I highly recommend it.  By far the best thing the Coen Brothers have ever done.

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…