'Kick-Ass' Review

Kick-Ass is probably one of the most interesting movies I’ve seen in quite some time. It isn’t really a drama, it isn’t really a comedy, it isn’t really all action, it’s just kind of there. But not in the bad way like a closed McDonalds, but rather it actually blends all of those genres into something much grander.

Kick-Ass is the story of Dave, a gawky teenager who sucks at talking to girls and has two friends who are just as socially inept. One day, Dave decides to become a superhero. No reason. Just for the fuck of it, basically. He doesn’t have superpowers and his costume is a flamboyant wetsuit and Ugz. Like any perfectly sane teenager, he names his superhero Kick-Ass, and despite the fact that he clearly gets his ass handed to him on several occasions, he still finds a way to get famous, prompting two real-ish superheroes, a father-daughter pair, to court him. He then continues to fuck everything up, blah blah blah drama.

You see, Kick-Ass isn’t your average superhero movie, at least at the start. It’s a very real look at a kid who decides, just for the fuck of it, to become a superhero. It explores the consequences of such exploits in the most brutal, gut-wrenching ways possible.

First thing’s first: ­Kick-Ass is rated R for a reason. There’s blood. Lots of it. Some of it hilarious. A scene where a mafia squealer is put into a giant microwave (I’m not kidding) makes the whole film look like something out of the mind of Quentin Tarantino. It’s darker than the cute and colorful posters make it seem, and most of the humor is cruel (but still pretty damned funny).

Aaron Johnson plays Kick-Ass, the title character. He has glasses, a jew-fro, and jerks off multiple times a day (seriously). Nicholas Cage plays Big Daddy and is surprisingly adept at his role, remaining likeable all while shooting his daughter in the chest (seriously). Hitgirl, played by Chloe Something, is one of the movie’s more interesting characters, and also seems to be the most brutal, going around and chopping off drug dealers’ legs (seriously). And finally, we have Red Mist, who’s played by Mclovin (seriously.) And no, I will not refer to Mclovin as Christopher Mintz-Passe because that would be like referring to Spongebob Squarepants as Tom Kenny. He’s Mclovin, dammit! And he always will be.

As the story progresses, things become much more complex as the lines between heroes and villains are blurred even more so than they were in other “gritty” superhero movies. Every character in the film is innately likable, even the ones we know are douchebags, which actually creates this very satisfying emotional connection to them. The consequences of Kick-Ass’s actions are far reaching, and the film, though on the surface but a gory slasher, actually provides a very intelligently written social commentary on friendship, relationships, and the social order all while never taking itself too seriously, resulting in moments where I actually laughed. I never laugh in movies. Checkmate, Kick-Ass.

I do have a few complaints, however.

First of all, the movie sort of spits in the face of its own “anyone can be a superhero message.” Consider this: Mclovin is only a “superhero” (there are quotes for a reason but I don’t want to spoil anything for those who haven’t seen it) because his father, who’s also the film’s main villain, gives him a few hundred grand to buy a costume, website, and tricked out Mustang (I still think Mustangs are girls cars, though). Hitgirl and Big Daddy are superheroes because of their seemingly unlimited access to bazookas and machine guns. And finally, Kick-Ass is only a superhero because he got fucked up in a parking lot and had metal plates installed in his bones, making him impervious to most pain.

What the fuck? I thought the message of the movie was “Anyone Can Be a Hero” not “Anyone Can Be a Hero as Long as They’re Rich, Have Access to Unlimited Heavy Weaponry, or Have Bones Made of Fucking Titanium.” Thanks, a lot Kick-Ass. There I was ready to don a cape and mask and go around fighting crime in Radford but then you go and laugh in my face and tell me I can’t. Looks like the closest thing I’ll ever come to being a hero is providing the last ten bucks for a fresh keg at a party. Oh well…

I’m also a little pissed off that the title character is actually the least-interesting character in the movie, yet we’re stuck with him for pretty much 80% of it. He’s boring, nerdy, with no family problems and his only redeeming quality is that he pretends to be gay to pick up girls (I wish I could pull it off, but I’m just so damned hetero). I don’t want to watch someone just like me for two hours, that’s boring, I can watch myself at home. It’s like watching a (hetero) porno that focuses more on the guys than the girls. I have a penis, I can look at it anytime I want. That’s not why I’m watching the damn thing! That’s what Kick-Ass does. It has five primary characters, including Mark Strong, who plays a fantastic villain in the form of Frank Domico and the father of Red Mist, yet the movie sticks us with the least-interesting one for two hours.

Mclovin is actually the most complex character in the whole thing. Even now, I’m still not quite sure what side he’s on (it’s actually been bothering me). His motives are originally evil, as he’s planning to lure Kick-Ass in so his father can execute him, but then a friendship blossoms, a friendship he’s obviously been craving, but then there’s betrayal, but then there’s just who-the-fuck-knows. He may be good, he may be evil, he may just be trying to impress his dad, who obviously loves his son (the chemistry between Mark Strong and Mclovin is great; they really do feel like a true father-son dynamic). I can’t even imagine what’s going through Red Mist’s mind, and the result is one of the most authentic characters ever in a superhero movie and it’s disappointing that he isn’t more fleshed out.

I cannot believe I’m saying this, but Kick-Ass is probably the most emotionally resonant superhero movie of all time. I mean that. More emotional that even the immortal The Dark Knight. The characterization is great, the action scenes are bloody and fun, and the story is satisfying to the very end. Go see it. Now.

Also, Hitgirl, call me in about six years, sweetpea.

'Clash of the Titans' Review

Ah, Clash of the Titans. The movie we’ve all been waiting for since the previews started dominating commercials during The Office. A remake of a movie that sucked 30 years ago must be good, right? And better yet, it’s directed by Louis Leterrier, a director known for raping The Incredible Hulk and starring Sam Worthington who had a hand in destroying the Terminator franchise. It can’t miss!

Clash of the Titans starts with horribly-rendered CGI coffin rising from the sea and being pulled up by a fisherman, Roland Tembo (The Lost World: Jurassic Park was on TV the other night, you have to be a nerd to understand the reference). Roland opens the coffin to find a dead girl and a baby, whom he raises as his own and then meets a horrible death about 25 years later (which is about 5 seconds in movie time), prompting the baby, Jake Sully, to go out and take revenge on the gods for killing his family. Then we meet the gods, who are composed of Ralph Fiennes, Liam Neeson, and some other random people who don’t matter. It turns out that gods are whiny, attention-loving bitches and have decided that the best way to get people to like them again is to kill them in the most horrible way possible. I believe there are people like this on Criminal Minds.

So Jake Sully elects to join a band of macho warriors lead by La Chiffre from Casino Royale and are too lazy to work out (they wear body armor in the shape of abs...that's cheating) to kill the Kraken, who’s played by the Cloverfield monster. See, the Cloverfield monster, back before his days ravaging New York and killing 20-somethings, was a pet of the gods who went around fucking up cities whenever the gods felt like they weren’t getting enough attention.

Apparently.

This is a review and I don’t really like to go into details about the plot so I’ll simply sum up the movie in one sentence: Clash of the Titans is a fucking mess.

You know that 10-page paper you decide to write the night before its due and bang it out in 20 minutes after a brief Google run? That’s Clash of the Titans. It’s a messy jumble of random scenes stitched sloppily together into a premise that feels about as logical as one of those creepy anime movies. There’s a random semi-hot girl who follows Jake Sully around for no fucking reason other than to tell the audience the back story that Louis Leterrier is too lazy to actually show us. There’s about as much action as we saw in the 2-minute preview. The actors are practically reading their lines off of cue cards. And to top everything off, I’ve seen better special effects in those cheap movies on the Sci-Fi channel.

By about halfway through the film, right about the time that Jake Sully cuts his way out of a giant scorpion’s stomach, you start to realize that the movie’s slowly beginning to dissolve into a vat of stupidity. I can always think to myself, “Okay, it’s going to get better. As soon as the monsters show up, it’ll get better.” Well guess what: it doesn’t. For a movie that promotes itself with giant monsters battling gods it sure as hell doesn’t show us much of it. You know that shot in the preview where the Kraken opens its mouth and roars for two seconds? Well that’s about as much of him as we get to see before it’s gone. Seriously.

Forgive me for stealing a joke from Family Guy, but I was under the impression the name of the film was Clash of the Titans not Random People We Don't Care About get Killed by Random Monsters we Don't Care About.

Louis Leterrier doesn’t seem to care about the movie and as a result neither do we. Jake Sully’s family’s literally on screen for about five minutes, with the mother and sister never uttering a single line, and we’re expected to actually give a shit when they die. There’s a princess who, if she’s sacrificed, will end the Kraken’s wrath. And for some reason, despite the fact that she has maybe two or three lines, we’re supposed to feel something for her. If I was one of those guys in the town about to get destroyed that bitch would be going down. Zeus is supposed to “love” humans, and the other gods remind us of it constantly, yet at the same time he has no trouble killing them with a smile on his face. What the fuck? Either you hate humans or you love them, you can’t just switch whenever it’s convenient for the script. The characters, for the most part, are disposable and the few that we do actually get to like are killed within seconds. There’s one part of the film where they invade Medusa’s lair and one of the movie's most likable characters is killed in the corner of the f*cking screen while the action’s focused on Jake Sully. Fuck you, Louis! You made me sit there for an hour and a half watching these characters and then you wipe them out without so much as a second thought.

The movie doesn’t have a single redeeming quality. The acting’s stiff, the script’s a mess and the visuals aren’t much better than those seen in Xbox games. Sam Worthington plays the exact same person he played in Avatar and Terminator Salvation and Louis Letterier’s direction is totally careless. There’s a scene where a bad guy’s hand is cut off and it's seen turning into a monster. I’m thinking, “Oh shit, that’ll totally turn into a huge monster and kick some CGI ass!” Nope. Doesn’t happen. It’s never mentioned again. It’s like Leterrier completely forgot about it because he was too busy figuring out how to make all of the actors’ skirts shorter.

Why is it that certain directors get to keep making multi-million dollar movies even when their movies suck? In professional sports, if a player has a bad game they either A) get benched or B) sign with the Raiders. Shouldn’t it be the same way in Hollywood? If Louis Leterrier obviously can’t direct a good movie to save his life then stop fucking paying him for it.

Clash of the Titans is lazily shot, horribly written, and sloppily directed. It isn’t worth the film it’s printed, let alone two hours of your life. Do yourself a favor and just rip up some man-cards and go see How to Train Your Dragon. Trust me, it’s far more badass.

How to Train Your Dragon

Well, this is embarrassing. I’ve pretty much spent my entire, brief review-writing career tearing apart movies that most people enjoy and bitching about every little contrivance, blowing it up far bigger than it needs to be in the sake of comedy. When I went to see How to Train Your Dragon last night in 3D, I wasn’t expecting any different. Like Wesley Snipes before he met Woody Harrelson in White Men Can’t Jump, I was ready to pounce on Dreamworks’ newest foray into animation, a studio that’s essentially still suckling the last drops of milk from the Shrek franchise, and write an entire article dismantling it like everything else that’s come my way.

Unfortunately for me, however, HTTYD is actually one of the bigger surprise movies I’ve seen this year that…gasp…doesn’t suck.

Well nuts to me. Thanks a lot HTTYD, now I have to write a whole article praising you instead of overanalyzing every little detail and dragging what’s probably a decent movie into an abyss of putridity. Prick.

HTTYD is the story of Hiccup, a skinny ginger wannabe Viking who’s about a tenth the size of everyone else in his Viking village and is voiced by the dork in She’s Out of My League. His father is voiced by Gerard Butler, an actor who needs to take a look in the mirror and realize he needs to skip out on the chick flicks and stick to things he’s good at (being a badass) and his classmates in dragon killing class are voiced by the fat kid from Superbad (Jonah Hill) and McLovin, also from Superbad. Craig Ferguson voices Gerard Butler’s assistant and apparently this is a huge deal according to the promos but I’ve never heard of Craig Ferguson so I don’t fucking care. Anyway, Hiccup as it turns out, is actually a hippy and can’t kill a dragon, which he befriends and names Toothless, despite the fact that it clearly has teeth. He could’ve named it Godzilla Junior or Raven or something badass, especially considering that it’s the most badass dragon in the world (despite the actual Godzilla-Dragon ripoff that appears at the film’s climax). Hiccup starts to figure out that dragons aren’t in fact evil, well at least not that evil, and are essentially just giant reptilian cats. Seriously. They like scratches behind the ears, fish, and catnip. Not joking.

Telling you any more of the plot would probably ruin what is, dare I say, a very enjoyable experience. The 3D is, and I say this with absolutely no bias in opposition of James “Douchebag” Cameron, better than Avatar. That’s right, James Cameron; you’re half-billion dollar epic science fiction fantasy that was meant to revolutionize cinema as we know it and bring you a boatload of Oscars was beat out at your own game by a tiny Dreamworks cartoon that had all the promotion of my facebook statuses (not a lot). The 3D in Avatar was often more distracting than entertaining and immersive and Cameron spent every moment he could slapping our faces with it, whether it was with those little jellyfish-seed things or bows and arrows flying towards the camera. It also only worked on three planes; there was a foreground, middle, and background. HTTYD, however, is better. The 3D isn’t distracting and feels far more natural than Avatar’s ever did. Yes, there are your occasional moments where it gets a little blurry but the depth is incredibly convincing, the flying sequences are far more engaging and, unlike in Avatar, don’t stay on screen so long that you get bored and start glancing at your watch and lovingly eyeing the “exit” signs.

Suck it, Cameron.

Unfortunately this is a critique, and though I can’t find anything glaringly wrong with the picture (it’s f*cking perfect), I feel obligated to complain about something in the name of entertainment. I guess if I had to dig deep, I’d bitch about the accents. Why do the kids have clearly American accents while all the adults are running around with deep Scottish accents? You develop accents based on your surroundings, I was raised by my grandparents who were both from New Zealand and as a result I have trouble pronouncing “er” suffixes without them sounding like “ah” (no, it doesn’t get me laid). Though I guess I can forgive the film’s inadequacy to provide the right accents considering it’s a movie about fucking dragons.

Fine, here it goes: How to Train Your Dragon is good. It’s well-written, the voice actors are perfectly cast, and the 3D is the best I’ve seen so far, even better than Douchebag’s (Cameron’s) “epic.” It really isn’t that funny but has a surprisingly high level of emotional depth that makes it so immersive that by the time it ends your actually disappointed that it’s over despite how badly you have to go to the bathroom after your $8 small soda. It’s probably the best film of the year, particularly out of animated films, thus far in 2010.

That is, of course, until Toy Story 3 comes out this summer to piss all over everyone else while laughing all the way to the bank.

Score: 9.5

The Wolfman

I promised myself after Joe Johnston single-handedly destroyed the Jurassic Park trilogy with the worst dinosaur movie ever made (Jurassic Park III), that I’d make one of my many goals in life never contribute to his box office gross ever again. Luckily, Jurassic Park III was so utterly bad and a slap in the face to anyone who ever enjoyed the trilogy that I didn’t think I’d ever have to worry about it again. Johnston had sucked all of the intelligence and philosophical debate out of the series previous installments, and replaced them with 82 minutes of random people running through the jungle, and a plot about as dense and emotionally resonant as an episode of Barney. So, I’ve rested easy the past decade or so, knowing that Joe Johnston would never rise again to pollute movie screens.

But then The Wolfman was announced, with Joe Johnston directing. All I’ve heard about since the first trailer is the grittiness, the depth of character that Benicio Del Toro and Anthony Hopkins will bring to the screen, and how this will not only be Johnston’s best movie (which really isn’t hard to do), but one of the best werewolf movies ever (which, also, isn’t hard to do). Well, the definition of insanity (according to Wikipedia) is repeating the same action while expecting a different outcome, so clearly whoever hired Johnston to recreate one of Universal’s most legendary monsters was, well, insane.

Why? Because it isn’t different. Sure, it’s not the kid-friendly, action-packed spectacle of stupidity that Jurassic Park III was. No, instead, it’s a non-kid friendly, boring spectacle of stupidity.

The Wolfman is about a guy who turns into a werewolf. There’s no need to explain anything more than that. If you don’t know the basic plot, then you’re blind and deaf, or you just awoke from a coma you’ve been in since birth. We follow Benicio Del Toro, who has been in hiding for the last decade, as he struggles through the everyday issues of dealing with an estranged father, boning his dead brother’s girlfriend and turning into a wolf Hulk-style, using CGI transformations that take up a good majority of the movie. Seriously, by the third or fourth time we get to watch him transform into a wolf we just don’t care anymore. I’ve been more entertained watching my Squirtle evolve into Blastoise. Yes, the first time around it’s pretty cool but we get the f*cking point, you don’t need to show us every single time.

The overlong transformations essentially epitomize everything wrong with The Wolfman: it’s dumb, and the special effects, which grow tedious after awhile, make futile attempts to cover it up like an idiot who uses big words he just looked up on Google. Johnston’s thought process, I suspect, involves covering the screen with so much spectacle that we forget that the writing sucks. “You’re a monster hunter, sometimes monsters hunt you.” Brilliant.

Overreliance on CGI has become somewhat of a pet peeve with me, and though it can sometimes look pretty cool, you can’t deny the fact that it always looks fake. Even the world’s (arguably) best CGI, “Avatar,” looks more like an Xbox game than a movie at times. We’ve kind of become bored with the whole thing; thanks to CGI, saying a movie has good special effects is like saying it was filmed with a camera. Good special effects are pretty much a given, so they can’t really be used to cover up flaws in storytelling (I’m looking at you, Michael Bay). Hell, even most of the Victorian city in The Wolfman is computer-generated and looks more like it belongs in World of Warcraft rather than a big-budget Hollywood movie. However, the main werewolf probably could've used the CGI treatment in more action scenes, considering the makeup effects make him look like an oversized Ewok.

As far as acting goes, nobody really goes over the top, but nobody really entertains, either. Del Toro has about as much personality as that girl passed out on the couch at a party, and it’s difficult to empathize with his situation, especially considering he’s trading sexy looks with his dead brother’s sister the whole movie. Honestly, I’d rather hang out with the wolf he turns into, at least he’s somewhat entertaining. Anthony Hopkins is supposed to be the voice of wisdom, the good guy, but it’s hard to see him as such since he built his film career on eating peoples’ brains. The only actor who really does a serviceable job is Megatron…err…I mean Hugo Weaving, who will hereafter be referred to as Agent Smith…I mean Megatron. Anyway, Megatron’s the primary antagonist, or I think Johnston intended him to be. Or, well, would be if the film’s actual protagonist wasn’t so damn unlikable.

The Wolfman as a whole, seems like a wasted opportunity. It makes a good trailer but so did Jurassic Park III. Megatron does the best he can as far as characters go; the only other actor who does a decent job is the CGI wolf. There’s some good makeup effects when the wolfman isn’t computer generated and they somehow made Megatron look like a 6-foot tall human, so that’s some top-notch work. Between the painfully long transformations, and the relatively entertaining murder sequences (that sounds slightly sociopathic out of context), it’s boring and just plain dumb, with dialogue that’s as painful to listen to as the jerks who play Call of Duty all night in the apartment below me with their bass turned all the way up (seriously, on the off-chance you guys learn to read one day and end up coming across this article, I want you to know that I hate you).

It seems that Johnston, in an effort to avoid the mistake he made in Jurassic Park III of not having any character development, created brand new mistakes in trying to have character development and failing miserably. All in all, The Wolfman is the product of Johnston trying too hard to not seem stupid. The movie isn’t bad, as this relatively negative review may suggest. It’s just there. It’s nothing. A flash in the pan that you’ll watch, then forget about it 10 minutes later.

But trust me, that’s probably for the best.

5 Movies Everyone Loves that Actually Kind of Suck

Teenagers can be stupid. But it’s not really their fault; they just like to be a part of the crowd. Actually, teenagers like to think they’re not a part of the crowd, which, quite ironically, makes them a part of the crowd since every teenager thinks that. Anyway, that’s off topic. If there’s one thing teenagers are most stupid about, it’s movies. All it takes is one person to declare how awesome a movie is and all the sudden everyone loves it, even if it doesn’t deserve it. And I think movie studios know this. So they keep producing movies they know will be stupid but teenagers will love them anyway. Because teenagers are where the money is. Anyway, here are some movies which everyone loves that I just don’t get. Box office results don’t lie. They’re not in any particular order, just because I don’t feel like it. Also, I know this is somewhat hypocritical because I'm barely not a teenager. But that's okay, because no one reads the introductions, anyway. I could reveal here that I'm actually a vigilante who goes around at night beating up bad guys, and you'd never know.

Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy

I remember when comedies didn’t rely on their audience to be high in order to enjoy them. You don’t see it much, anymore. I also remember when Will Ferrell was actually trying to be funny instead of playing the same person in every movie, graduating from the Adam Sandler Academy of How to Make Money Without Actually Being Talented. I also remember having to walk 15 miles, barefoot, in the snow to see movies. Imagine my disappointment when Anchorman, a movie everyone swore to me was kind of a big deal, was not a big deal. Is it funny? Sure, if you laugh at knock-knock jokes and have a Will Ferrell shrine in your closet.

The Notebook

This one probably shouldn’t be on here. Not because I think it doesn’t suck, but because criticizing The Notebook for girls is like criticizing Lord of the Rings for nerds or criticizing Vladimir Putin for Russian journalists. The movie’s an exercise in predictability and also explains what’s wrong with relationships, these days. Love triumphs overall! Yes! Oh, wait, except for that one guy (I don’t remember his name but he was played by James Marsden, or Cyclops in the X-Men movies) who Rachel McAdams ditches for the guy she fought with all the time. Even after he forgave her for cheating on him, she still left his ass for this guy whose only interest was yelling at her. You know what happened to that guy (I just Wikipedia-ed his name and found out it was Hammond). You know what happened to Hammond?

Heartbroken for being dumped despite being a good guy, Hammond, depressed and lonely, turned to alcohol, went crazy, and started wearing clown makeup to mask the scars on his face resulting from multiple suicide attempts. He then moved to a little place called Gotham City and lived happily ever after. All thanks to Rachel McAdams being an indecisive jerk.

300

This was difficult to put on the list (not really, I’m just kind of tired of typing) because of all the sucky movies on here, 300 is probably the least suckiest. But, with that said, it still hides behind a curtain of special effects and grunts and abdominal muscles that make me feel like a wad of pudding. 300 is like that guy girls meet at the party who has the body, flip-flops, cockiness, and charisma and convinces the girl that he’s pretty much her dream guy. For one night, anyway. That’s 300. It hides the fact that is has a weak storyline behind a fake sepia effect and less historical accuracy than fucking Transformers. When you take away the glitz and glam, you’re left with 2 hours of guys doing ballet with swords.

Also, why is it that Ephialtes, despite his honorable intentions, is casts from the group of Spartans? Hmm…let me think…does it have something to do with the fact that he doesn’t have a Michelangelo body? No! Couldn’t be! Hollywood doesn’t embrace hotness and reject averageness. Except for like that one time. And those 129,023,873,923,183,292 other times.

Slumdog Millionaire

It won the Academy Award for best picture, so I should’ve known it was going to suck. It meets all the criteria for winning the Oscar: It’s long, it’s boring, it tries to be emotional, you don’t give a shit about what’s going on, it’s independent, and it doesn’t have giant robots or dinosaurs in it.

Spider-Man 3

Spider-Man 3 is the Voldemort of Cinema. I don’t like talking about it. It makes me uncomfortable. So I won’t mention the horrible dialogue, Peter Parker snapping his fingers while dancing like John Travolta dressed as an emo kid, the love triangle that makes no sense, the “buddy scene” at the end, Venom not showing up until the movie’s pretty much over, the fake and clichéd emotion Raimi tries to induce from Marko having a sick daughter, the lazy writing, the corniness, the fact that Maryjane needs saving again (she’s like the Princess Peach of the movie world).

I mean, if I was Spider-Man, by the third time she needs saving I’d just be like “fuck it” and go find a new girlfriend. It’s not like it would be hard. I mean you’re fucking Spider-Man. You could walk into any party and pretty much have your pick of the litter (well, provided there are no writers or 1998 Honda Civic drivers or Brents at the party, or God help you a combination of all 3...).

Spider-Man 3 is epitomized in the end, when Sandman flies off into the sunset. Peter Parker forgives him for, you know, killing his uncle, countless innocent people, stealing tons of money, destroying property, maiming cops, etc. etc. It’s kind of like Sam Raimi himself (the director in case no one watches as many movies as me) is apologizing to us for raping our dreams that the third installment to the Spider-Man series might actually be pretty good. I, though, unlike Peter Parker, am not nearly as forgiving.

Brent Saltzman

DM Media 2009

6 Reasons I Just Can't Take 'Harry Potter' Seriously

So I finally got around to watching the 6th installment of the gripping Harry Potter franchise that actually isn’t all that gripping because everyone already knows exactly what happens, and it was hard for me not to notice how dark and gloomy it was. It was like some emo kids snuck onto the set and started passing around joints and turning up the Tool music. This is a glaring contrast to the first two movies, which blended darkness with this unique little charm that made them quite enjoyable. That’s tough for me to admit, especially considering I’d be more embarrassed if someone found a Harry Potter DVD in my closet than if someone found a big stack of fetish porn. But this new direction they’ve been taking since the third one just doesn’t strike a chord with me. It’s Harry-fucking-Potter. When it tries to be all dark and badass it just comes off like one of those kittens on youtube clawing at the screen and hissing (or Spider-Man 3, which in itself is a movie that should not be named…). It wants people to take it seriously, but you just can’t, and here are six of the (most obvious) reasons why.

#6---Quidditch

Quidditch is the Wizarding World’s answer to soccer, football, basketball, and absolute pointlessness all rolled into one. I understand that Wizards need sports too, but instead of something cool like sea parting or shooting things with wand lasers or something they instead ride around on broomsticks beating the hell out of each other for no reason, because whoever catches the little golden ball thingy wins. You know how kickers in football (the good kind), who only come to practice about 20 minutes and chill on the sideline while everyone else gets their asses beat in the game, are actually set up to win the game for the team? That’s how Quidditch is. It doesn’t matter how well your “beater” beats, as long as you don’t totally suck and go down by 160 points, and as long as that little wuss who hasn’t been involved in any of the action gets the golden thing, you win. Oh, and to reiterate, it’s on broomsticks. They could’ve badassed it up a little and let them ride around on dragons instead. But no. Broomsticks.

#5---The Names

So you’re the Dark Prince of Wizardry. You’re the world’s ultimate badass and no one will so much as utter your name without hyperventilating. The whole world is on edge just because of you. So, one day, you come home to your wife, battered and bruise, and the conversation goes a little like this:

Voldemort’s Wife: “Oh my, god! Honey, what happened?”

Voldemort: “I tried to commit mass genocide, enslave the rest of the human race, and take over humanity, both magical and not, with a shroud of everlasting darkness."

Voldemort’s Wife: “Well, how did it go?”

Voldemort: “I got my ass kicked by Dumbledore. Dumbledore.”

Having names like Slughorn, Dedalus Diggle, Luna Lovegood, those were all fine and dandy when the movies were still aimed at children and didn’t try to go all Dark Knight on us. But now, they just sound stupid. If my name was Professor Mad Eyed Moody, I wouldn’t expect anyone to seriously consider the outstanding academic potential of my class, either.

#4---Wands

I know that wands are part of the whole Wizarding mythos, but when your Wizards are going around making out and killing people, then maybe that’s your indication that you should tastefully update your methods. How about like a Wii-mote or something? You know that scene in every single action movie ever made where the bad guy has a gun pointed at the good guy, getting ready to kill him, but not before mocking him and telling him how he wins? Pretty badass, right? Now replace that with a fucking wooden stick and suddenly it doesn’t seem so threatening, I don’t care how good it is at streaming out laser shows. And when you give that “pointy-stick-hold-up” scene the atmosphere of a Saw movie, like the end of the Half-Blood Prince does, it makes it almost comical.

Personally, if I was at Hogwarts, I wouldn’t have anything to do with wands. Instead, I’d be walking around with one of those lightning guns from District 9 that paint walls with human viscera. Voldemort can point his little wooden stick at me as aggressively as he wants, because if I have that lightning gun, his ass is getting fucked up. I don’t care how many horcruxes he has.

#3---Snogging

I know it’s just British colloquialism, and that’s fine. But when we’re in the midst of an overlord attempting to annihilate every living soul on the planet and bring Hell upon the masses, the word “snogging,” which comes up about 19,209,190,239,023 times in the 6th installment, takes you completely out of it and reminds you that you’re watching something that was originally intended for 10-year-old outcasts. They could’ve used kissing, frenching, hell, even macking would’ve been okay. But they went with snogging, which honestly sounds more like something that happens at Smurf frat parties in those rooms with the hair tie over the knob.

#2---Deus Ex Machina

Firstly, Deus Ex Machina is not just a videogame, but in a literary sense is when a solution basically just comes out of nowhere with no foreshadowing to it. The most famous example is the end of War of the Worlds, where all the Martians die, their entire plan to take over the planet thwarted, all because they forgot to pack Purell.

There’s another term, though, for DXM that you may have a better understanding of: Cop out.Oh, no, Harry needs to breath underwater, what will he do?! Ah, a magical underwater breathing thing. Brilliant! Oh no, he needs to sneak around without being seen! Does he go all Sam Fisher on everyone? Nope, an invisibility cloak. You see what I’m getting at, here?

The problem with having magic as the primary plot device in a movie or book is that magic, well, can do anything. It’s kind of like that old saying, “Because God said so!” that no one uses, anymore. Whenever you have a problem, just make a potion or something for it. So why do they have any problems, whatsoever? Teenagers can make love potions but these genius professors can’t make a “Banish Voldemort/Kanye West” potion and solve all the world’s problems? It’s like that kid who just makes up the rules as he goes along to ensure he can win. That’s magic. But there’s an even more annoying element to the Harry Potter films and books which has perplexed me ever since its mysterious absence…

#1---That Fucking Time Machine

In the third book and movie, that nerdy girl who’s hot when her hair’s straight, Hermoine (if I spelled the name wrong I do not care), uses a time machine after our heroes pretty much fuck up and some Griffin-knock off's neck gets a date with an axe. So, what do they do? They pull off the most ridiculous example of Deus Ex Machina ever invented: A time machine. They go back in time a few hours, fix everything, and are good to go.

So, let me get this straight, there’s a dark Wizard trying to kill everyone, everybody’s pissed at each other, everyone’s made mistakes which have led up to this point, and you’ve had a fucking time machine? And you’re just now bothering to tell us?

Time machines are the ultimate cop out, but even more so, here, because they apparently use it to solve only one problem. As far as I’m concerned, if you have a time machine, you have no problems. Ever. Just go back and fix them. You have all the time in the world. You have a fucking time machine! Hell, why not go back 20 years and stop Voldemort while he’s still a little emo kid? No? Too easy? Fine.

And how come it hasn’t been in any of the following books? Hermoine, obviously, was cleaning out her desk over the summer, found the time machine and thought to herself, “Hmm, there’s no way I’ll ever possibly need this again!” before discarding it next to her stacks of Pokemon cards and a Dreamcast. You’re right, Hermoine, you’ll never be able to use it again. You know, except for like every fucking thing ever.

A Conversation Between Steven Speilberg and Michael Bay

By now, you’ve seen Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, and chances are, you have a lot of questions about just what the hell Michael Bay was thinking. So, after digging up some dirt, I have the answer to all your questions. In July, 2008, Michael Bay had a phone conversation with producer Steven Spielberg to discuss the script. Here lies some quotations of that conversation.

Steven: Okay script, Michael, but I have some questions.

Michael: AWESOME script, Steven. But go ahead...

SS: Okay, first of all what’s the deal with the rapping robots? MB: They’re awesome, Steve. That’s their deal. SS: Aren’t they a little racist?

MB: Well I just said they were awesome.

SS: That scene where Mikala revives Sam from a coma with a kiss, I mean, that seems a little cliché. Wasn’t that scene in The Abyss, like verbatim?

MB: Fist of all, Steven, I don’t know what “cliché” and “verbatim” mean, but I’ll assume it just means “awesome,” which is what this scene is. Plus you get to see sideboob, which is also awesome.

SS: Why do feel the need to include gratuitous shots of Devestator’s scrotum?

MB: Well, for one thing, it’s awesome. Second of all, it’s supposed to be symbollogical to my own scrotum. Duh.

SS: There’s a frat party scene in here and that in itself is fine, but it seems like it has a budget a few million dollars higher than most of the frat parties I went to as a college kid. Maybe you should tone it down a bit for realism?

MB: It is realistic. Obviously your college wasn’t as awesome as mine.

SS: Okay, Michael. Robot leg humping? Doesn’t that spit in the face of biology?

MB: What do you mean? How else would robots make babies?

SS: I just have one more question. How come only a Prime can defeat the Fallen? He doesn’t seem very strong… MB: Want to know why, Steven? Fuck you. That’s why.

"District 9" Review

It´s usually pretty easy to decide whether you like a movie. If you come out of the theater feeling good, then you saw a good movie. If you come out of the theater feeling like you just wasted money you could´ve used to feed your family for a month at today´s ticket prices, then chances are the movie you saw sucked. District 9 is a different animal, and for the first time in, I guess ever, I have no idea what to think.

Twenty-something years ago, aliens basically crash landed (though not really, since their ship still hovers above Johannesburg), and in an attempt to "save" them we (as in humans) placed them in what is essentially a Hooverville-esque shantytown known as District 9, where crime among the aliens, which look like something out of Oddworld (for those nerdy enough to enjoy very obscure video games) has escalated to the point where decent, normal humans just can´t take it anymore. Now, laymen will read that (or see that in the movie) and think that´s dumb, when the reality is that, in the case of first contact, it really seems like a more authentic depiction as to what would probably happen after the whole "Oh look, we made first contact!" thing wore off and we´re faced with the realization that we have to feed and house those damn dirty Prawns.

And that´s really all I should tell you. District 9 is a movie that´s best entered blindly. So as far as story goes, the film´s message will really lose its effectiveness if you know what the hell´s going to happen. And what happens is, in a strange, sick way, incredible.

For the first hour or so of the movie everything is shot cinema verte, as seen in the numerous trailers popping up all over the planet, but not in the same vein as Cloverfield or the Blair Witch Project, which essentially used the handycam style (at least this is my theory) to hide their miniscule special effects budgets so they could show you only flashes of the film´s title characters and then call it art, and we fall for it. D9, on the other hand, is shot like a documentary, with the aliens in full view all the time, and I must say the effects work on such a tiny budget (for today´s standards) is absolutely breathtaking. Yes, the aliens are pretty much 99% CGI, but you can never really tell. They blend into their environment as seamlessly as Bumblebee and Optimus Prime blended into their´s.

Realistically, the first hour of the movie is sort of what D9 is all about. Cute, but way too obvious allegory to apartheid. But the style is simply amazing. You never feel like you´re watching actors. Our "hero," Wikis, well we really do feel for him. I´ve never seen a movie that´s felt so organic and lifelike in its delivery, enough to make you feel like there really could be a giant ship hovering over South Africa right now as you read this.

But then, unfortunately, it decides to turn itself into a violent 13-year-old boy with daddy issues. And I will tell you, when I say violent, I´m talking splatter film on steroids violent. As the story progresses into its last act, the documentary-style is essentially ditched in favor of more traditional shots and is turned into a big goopy mess that´s as predictable as it is disturbing. I´ll put it to you this way (SPOILER ALERT): people, human beings, die. Lots of them. And not only do they die, they die quick, bloody deaths. There´s one thing when a human is killed in a movie, it´s another when a human, in essentially the same boat as our title character, is shot with a lightning bolt that sprays his body all over the walls, or has his head blown off, or his arm ripped off then stepped on by a mechawarrior thingy. There´s nothing wrong with killing people (don´t take that out of context) in a movie about aliens, that´s sort of expected, but it´s the dehumanizing, insignificant and violent ways in which these people die that makes the film so disturbing that you can actually feel yourself become very uncomfortable in the seat. I´m a big, tough, manly man, and even I was squeamish. But not from the gore, but rather from the sheer inhumanness of the whole thing.

But you know what? That´s the point.

And you can say that the movie simply ran out of ideas and turned into a snuff film, but the reality is that uncomfortable feeling you get is exactly how D9 wants you to feel. It exposes the flaws in humanity, making us the bad guys for the film´s final leg, while at the same time providing us with a fairly entertaining, somewhat cerebral outing.

So, is District 9 good? I don´t know. Last night, I would´ve told you I didn´t like it, but it´s one of those movies that just seems better when you sit down and reflect upon it. It´s easily one of the most interesting, most unique, most violent movies I´ve ever seen, which in itself merits that everyone should see it. Whether or not you will enjoy it is a different story. But that´s okay, because to me, District 9 isn´t really meant to be enjoyed. It´s meant to be interesting. It´s meant to be thought-provoking. It´s meant to be remembered. And it´s one I definitely will for a long, long time.

Score: 8/10

"Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen" Review: Revenge of the Redundant

In 2007 middle Americans brandishing their hotdogs and gas guzzlers lined up in drones for a peek at Michael Bay’s giant robot orgy Transformers, making its wide release on none other than July 4th, only contributing to its symbolic representation of epitomized American cinema. The movie, based on Hasbro’s line of shape-shifting action figures popular when my dad was in high school, revolved around giant robots from a distant planet coming to Earth and blowing things up in pursuit of a cube that made them giant robots in the first place. A few hundred million dollars and legions of cocky teenagers declaring it as the “best movie ever made” later and it was a phenomenon whose financial success surely prompted it for a sequel to premier less than two years later at the whims of studio executives sipping on martinis with their pockets bursting at the seams with money while thanking God that average Americans are bloodthirsty enough to spend their own hard-earned cash to watch robots wale about for nearly 3 hours.

The first Transformers was decent fun if only because the special effects were so spectacular and seamless that it made you completely forget that the robots talked and had names like “Bumblebee” and “Ratchet” and tagged alongside a kid who would probably be delivering pizzas somewhere if it wasn’t for the Disney Channel. We’re pretty much at the point where effects really aren’t going to get any better and unlike the early and mid-90s movies really can’t get by via simply cramming their frames full of CGI explosions, so the only way for Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, or since I cannot stand subscript I’ll simply refer to as T2 (which the film may like because it makes it sound like a much better movie starring Ah-nold) had any chance to best its predecessor, which shouldn’t have been difficult given its mish-mash direction, was to make it less stupid. Sadly, it doesn’t, and dives into depths of absurdity thought reserved only for obscure comic books and Spider-Man 3. The original got a free pass for its laughable dialogue and horrible story because it balanced on the line between dumb fun and just plain dumb, while T2 loses its balance and falls off that little tightrope into literary oblivion.

Let’s begin. It’s been 2 years since the events of T1 and the Autobots, who can be distinguished from the Decepticons by their metrosexual paint jobs, aide the governments of the United States and England, the cool countries, in fighting Decepticons (Deception, get it?) hidden on Earth. It begins in Shanghai where we learn that a Fallen will rise or something like that and then turns to Sam Witwicky as he goes to college, feeds his mom pot brownies, and meets a girl who seems like she wants to butcher him into a million pieces and eat his entrails while drinking his blood. He finds a shard of the AllSpark, a mysterious object that turns ordinary appliances into killing machines that engraves a message in his brain that he starts transcribing and blah blah blah.

If you frequent my reviews you’ll notice my penchant for making fun of Michael Bay’s lack of ability to put together a coherent plot and I’m here to declare that I’m done with it. T2 has given me a new respect for Bay as a filmmaker in that instead of fixing the mistakes of his first film he’s simply glorified them in his second while practically waving his middle finger at the camera and giving a big “Screw you” to the critics who hammered T1 for blowing too many things up. See, a bad filmmaker, like Uwe Boll for example, is a filmmaker who makes mistakes by accident and can never quite seem to understand what he did wrong. Michael Bay, on the other hand, knows exactly what he’s doing and is going to keep on doing it because he knows that Americans eat it up like crazy. He doesn’t give a damn what serious critics want in their films and only cares about what will please the masses, which usually involves monuments being desecrated. You can argue that Bay can’t put a decent story together to save his life but you can’t argue that he doesn’t know exactly what he’s doing, which is blowing things up as much as possible with beautiful cinematography on an epic canvas.

From a story standpoint, like T1, T2 crawls along using it as a vehicle for action. In most (good) films, the action revolves around the story. In Bay’s Transformers universe, however, the story is simply filler for the action, a vehicle to get from giant robot fight A to giant robot fight B, culminating at an effects-filled climax at Giza. And you know what? This is fine.

Lost in the complaints about the plot and the dialogue is the fact that this is a movie based on freaking toys. Taking it seriously would be like expecting the philosophical complexity of Christopher Nolan in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles which just isn’t going to happen. You have to go into T2 remembering that you’re there to watch giant Rubik’s cubes beat the crap out of each other, not Shakespeare.

The problem, though, is that Bay has a tendency to overdo it. Yeah, your robots look cool, even though they really haven’t improved much graphically from the last one except that now they’re covered in a layer of dust, but even so the battles and fight scenes are stretched out so long that you stop giving a damn about who wins and just want someone to die so it moves the hell on. Somehow, Bay finds a way to make giant robots beating the snot out of each other boring.

And then there’s the humans. Why do we even have them? I never watched the original Transformers show that capitalized on the success of the toys but I’m still fairly certain there weren’t gawky teenagers running around like whiney little bitches (Shia Labouef). Oh, wait, that’s right, the only reason the movie exists is to make money so Bay decided to throw in a heartthrob who makes my girlfriend swoon whenever he comes on TV and a girl that draws most men’s blood from their brains down into their pants. I’ve never really bought into the whole Megan Fox phenomenon, but whatever. She recently complained about being compared to Angelina Jolie. Who the hell whines about that? If someone wanted to compare me to, say, Brad Pitt, the last thing I’d do is complain.

Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen is not a good movie. I can forgive poor storytelling in favor of awesome effects on occasion, but since this is the second film in what will probably be a gajillion the trick’s gone stale. What it is, though, is a decent movie. It’s honestly more of the same. If you’ve seen T1, then seeing T2 is a redundant experience. While it suffers from an intertwining plot that makes about as much sense as drunk mathematicians and contains more Transformers than anyone who’s ever been on a date can name it still manages to be fun to watch when it’s not being boring. It tries to get by using the same elements as the first: effects and cinematography, and it almost makes it. I can excuse length if the length has meaning, like King Kong or The Dark Knight, but I can’t excuse it when it’s simply the same freaking robots beating the crap out the same exact freaking robots. While this is fine and dandy for a few minutes, Bay doesn’t know when to stop and by the time the battle’s over, you’ve completely forgotten why they were fighting in the first place. The film is an exercise in showcasing the best effects ever known, besides maybe the aforementioned King Kong, but in an era where even student films are using CGI it just isn’t all that impressive anymore. It’ll make a ton of money and win over a lot of teenage and wife-beating fans, but the fact remains that T2 is just a shell, an expensive, shiny, hollow shell devoid of a heart or anything that makes any sense…or a good movie.

Also:
-Correct me if I’m wrong but I noticed that the Xbox360 Transformer from the first film wasn’t in this one…Red Ring of Death?
-When Peter Jackson finally comes to his senses and hires me to direct Halo, I’m hiring Michael Bay as my effects supervisor, but he will be banned from the writing room.
-Did the Queer Eye guys get a hold of the Autobots?

Score: 6.5/10

"Land of the Lost" Review: Like Matt Lauer, This Movie Can Suck It

First and foremost, I want to get something out of the way, just so you, the reader(s), can fully understand just how bad Brad Sildeberg’s, who made A Series of Unfortunate Events in 2004 (which I liked by the way) new take on a not-so-obscure kids’ fiction, aptly titled Land of the Lost is. Before even seeing it, many critics trashed the movie over the filmmakers’ decision to reimagine it as a comedy. “Why did they make it a comedy?” they cried. “It’s serious, they’re just going to make fun of it!” they bellowed. Well, get the fuck over it. It was a show about a man and his two kids who ran around evading retards dressed in lizard costumes and clay-mation dinosaurs with names like “Grumpy,” not to mention ape-men, crystals, your occasional random old crazy person and multi-dimensional vortexes that meant nothing to the 8-year-olds watching. The show is virtually a parody upon itself, like Scrubs or one of those interchangeable random generic ghost/cop shows on NBC every other freaking week. So yeah, I think it should be a comedy. And you know what? I think that most of the people who watched the thing back when it was on are probably in their 40s right now, so yeah, put Will Ferrell in it, who I personally think is a one-trick pony (which I’ll talk about later) but has a monetary track record on par with the Master Chief and God. So yes, to hammer it home, I think they made the right decision making Land of the Lost a comedy, so there, you know I’m not just going to jump on the bandwagon of every other movie critic in the world.

The problem, though, is that’s a fucking stupid comedy.

It’s one thing to have a stupid comedy when you have a simpler plot. Talladega Nights was a stupid comedy but people loved it because it was about a stupid guy with a stupid story about a stupid sport. But you throw in time vortexes and lost worlds and inter-dimensional crystal thingies and “tachyons” (which I originally thought were just made up to badly parody the word “tacky” but Microsoft Word isn’t correcting my spelling of it so maybe there’s more to it) and you have to, as a filmmaker, give it a little more depth, which Sildeberg simply doesn’t do. I know that when I’m watching a movie about lizard-men using crystals to open different dimensions, and with Will Ferrell in it, I shouldn’t be expecting the scientific depth of a Michael Crichton novel but come the fuck on! How the hell can someone who demonstrates himself to be a complete idiot throughout the movie create, in one night, a dimension-ripping device? How can a woman learn from a mysterious ape man from a land of the fucking Lost learn the ape language in about 5 seconds? How come the raptors, who make their obligatory dinosaur movie appearance, pass up the three protagonists to attack a goddamn ice cream truck? How can the Sleestaks possibly be a threat when they walk like constipated blind people trying to make their way to the mall bathroom after dropping their cane? And, finally, how the fuck can you be pooped out of a dinosaur, alive, about 30 seconds after being eaten?

Who wrote this thing? Oh, a writer for Saturday Night Live. That makes sense considering that, like the monuments scattered about the Dali-esque desert landscape, everything in the movie seems completely fucking random. There’s a scene where a dinosaur is blown to bits after swallowing a tank of liquid nitrogen followed shortly by Will Ferrell dancing across a lava pit singing show tunes and followed after that by a stoned Ferrell and McBride eating a giant cooked crab and sprinkling it with a totally random giant orange slice.

Knowing this you can start to get a sense for what kind of film Land of the Lost really is which is made even more evident by the sources behind its writing: a series of skits, hit and miss, jammed together into an incoherent mess of a movie. And when I say hit and miss, I mean more like barely scratch the surface and miss, because there really isn’t anything in the movie that “hits” in the traditional sense, there are just some scenes that are slightly more bearable than others. For example, there’s a scene in the desert where a T-Rex and an Allosaurus are chasing Will Ferrell around that’s actually somewhat enjoyable. And though you never get a sense that our heroes are in any danger, which is expected since the film dubs itself as a “comedy,” it still manages to be somewhat fun to watch. This, though, is complimented by a scene where Marshall, Will, and an ape-man named Chaka are whacked out on some primordial narcotic and contemplating kissing each other. The scene is basically a single continuous take that goes on for-fucking-ever! It’s arduous and painful to watch, just like most of the prolonged scenes throughout the movie’s running time. There are a ton of these, ranging from discussions over a miniature model to Ferrell sitting in an old car with his hands halfway down his pants. Seriously. It’s like that guy at the party telling the same fucking joke over and over again hoping that eventually someone will find it funny.

There are “homages” to the original series sprinkled throughout the movie but they lack any subtly whatsoever. Take Star Trek, another adaptation this year, and you’ll find that it’s written in a way that pays great respect to its source material, enough for any layman watching it to figure the references out. They never overdo it, and put the various homages and throwbacks into the script naturally. Land of the Lost on the other hand feels the need to repeat its callbacks to the original series. There’s a scene at the beginning where Holly says they’re going on a “routine expedition,” Will Ferrell repeated it, then she did again, then practically looked at the screen with a wink, and repeated it yet again. Then later, when they encounter the T-Rex (who, incidentally, may be the most likeable character in the movie), Holly makes sure to say, “Boy, he’s grumpy.” They could’ve easily stuck with that line and everyone would’ve gotten the memo, but no, she had to add on to the pit of intolerable idiocy, “We should name him Grumpy.” These are not just writing problems, these are directing problems. If you see something that sucks, cut it out! Later on, Ferrell, in a pointless move, actually has the audacity to sing the Land of the Lost theme song. Hmm, that’s not an attempt to put in an obvious homage, is it? Retard.

If there is a bright spot, many thought it would be Ferrell, but the one (the only one) who shines is Danny McBride, who is by far the only (human) character who actually makes us laugh. He seems to be the only one who realizes the kind of movie Land of the Lost should be in that he balances the perfect amount of seriousness and comedy and outshines Ferrell in nearly every scene.

I can also compliment the visuals but saying a movie has good visuals these days is like saying cars have power windows and Miley Cyrus isn’t a virgin, it’s just something that should go with the territory. CGI has pretty much made it so every movie has good visuals, even the shitty ones, though I will say that the cartoony style of the dinosaurs compliments the wonky (aka retarded) style of the movie. The landscapes and backdrops are also quite impressive, even if the desert gets a little monotonous after awhile.

And on to Will Ferrell himself. Personally, I’ve always felt he was a one-trick pony (like I said before if you actually have the patience/balls to read the entire review) who’s made a career from that staple brand of “comedy” involving dim-witted middle aged men that has legions of fans lining up to bathe his scrotum in saliva. I’ve never cared for it, but I’ll give it the credit it deserves considering everything he makes brings in money like a hooker with 3 vaginas. In Land of the Lost, though, the dim-witted middle aged man he supposedly always plays is spliced with a brilliant scientist and it just doesn’t work. Either he’s a fucking moron or a genius, and when you try to make him both you just end up epitomizing everything wrong with the movie.

LOTL is a movie that can’t really decide what it is. It’s too stupid for adults yet to vulgar for children. We go from talking about power crystals in one scene to giant vibrators in another. It feels like a kids’ movie but there are too many piss and dick jokes to really merit anyone seeing it under the age of 15 (well, these days, 12). This contrasts sharply with Sildeberg’s earlier film A Series of Unfortunate Events which, while dark, always knew that it was a movie for kids and acted as such. Land of the Lost on the other hand can sometimes border on disturbing, with velociraptors ripping the limbs off an ice cream man. So, based upon this, I’ve come to the conclusion that Land of the Lost is not a movie for kids, nor a movie for adults, but a combination of the two; a movie for child-like adults. And not the kind who still love Star Trek (2nd reference) and talk about it on computer forums while living in their mom’s basement, but the wild abusive boyfriend kind, the kind who drinks more beer than water and still goes to frat parties a decade after graduating. That guy. That’s who Land of the Lost is for. For the rest of us normal people, it’s an exercise on how to take $100 million dollars and the childhood memories of middle-aged Americans and turn it into an hour and a half of Will Ferrell’s jack-off material.

Also:
-Catch my very subtle televangelist joke?
-I think it’s time to retire velociraptors. Once you find out they were just prehistoric turkeys, they kinda lose their pizzazz

Score: 2.5/10

Updates coming

Sorry for the lack of updates. The problem with being an "independent" critic is that I don't get paid, so if I want to review a movie, I have to work 3 hours at $7 per hour to go see it. Also, I'm planning on putting everything on a dedicated site (not a blogspot site) sometime in the future, hoping that may increase my chances of actually getting paid for this one day. Anyway, new trilogy chop shop coming next week and a Land of the Lost review later today.

"Up" Review: Brilliant

Warning: Up is a movie that is best gone into blindly, for any information on the intricacies on the plot can seriously hurt its emotional value and as such the film as whole. So if you haven't seen Up, yet, don't read this review. Go see it. Now.

Once in awhile, a film comes along that gets a free pass because, not only were there little expectations for it, but in Up's case practically no expectations. If you weren't a movie guru, you probably didn't even hear about Pixar's latest film until recently. It didn't have the marketing of Wall-E, who had a seat at the NBA finals in 2008. Hell, Finding Nemo has its own fucking ride at Disneyland. Up, on the other hand, approached subtley, not with a bang, and as a result, it's not destined to make nearly as much money as previous Pixar efforts, but that doesn't mean it isn't one of the elites. It is. In fact, it may just be the best film this studio has ever churned out. And considering the source: Toy Story, Finding Nemo, Wall-E, Monsters Inc, that is saying a whhhoooole damn lot.

Up is the story of Carl Fredericson, who, with his loving, outgoing wife, has lived a life of (apparent) missed dreams, as their lifelong dream of visiting Venezuela and having a house atop paradise falls is abruptly ended by tragedy. On the brink of losing his-their-house, he decides to finally set into action and take his precious Ellie to the land they both dreamt of, bringing along, inadvertently, a young wilderness explorer named Russel who essentially represents every under-loved child who isn't going around robbing convenience stores. The journey that follows isn't epic in scope. There are just a few characters, one big locale (that happens to be beautifully rendered), and no real one-liners, with the exception of one spouted by Dug, a dog with a collar that vocalizes his thoughts.

Wall-E, for all its wonders, was a film that basically got by through injecting its veins with concentrated cuteness, creating coos and awes that resonated with audiences everywhere. Not that Wall-E was bad, I just don't think it would've been as good if Wall-E wasn't so goddamn cute. Finding Nemo was incredible because of its animation, the underwater landscapes were breathtaking. And Toy Story, well, it was the first time anyone had ever seen anything like that before, so it has its obvious place atop the pantheon of CGI films.

Up, on the other hand, is anchored by its fabulous writing. It's an emotional, heart-wrenching, tear-jerking story that will, and not just because of innate sadness but its overwhelming sense of adventure and the joy you'll get from watching Frederison's house soar through the air near the film's climax. No, it doesn't have the cute robots, nor is it full of one-liners, and that's really more of a marketing problem than the film's. Note that this really isn't a kids' movie. While, obviously, it's a cartoon with talking dogs, the themes present throughout its runningtime are really more on par with adults.

Pixar's latest isn't Pixar's most extravagent. Kids will fidget. It won't make as much money. It doesn't have the cutsey characters. But it has the best story of all of them, and should be a serious consideration for Best Picture and not just Best Animated Film at 2010's Oscar ceremony. It'll keep you enthralled, make you care about the characters, and a final sequence involving a zoom-out of paradise falls will bring tears to even the biggest Pittbull-lovers eyes. Up isn't Pixar's biggest film, but it may just be its grandest.

Score: 10/10

"Terminator: Salvation" Review: My Name is John Connor, and I'm an Asshole

Terminator: Salvation is the "4th" film in the Terminator franchise that, believe it or not, began all the way back in 198-fucking-4. That's way before I was born. Like the humanoid machines featured in every movie, it seems to be a franchise that just won't fucking die, so as the years progress the studios will keep finding ways to suck its tits and in the interest of capital gain. In this film, because they really have nothing left to fall back on the from the "present day" Terminator movies, we get to see the legendary battle with Skynet as mentioned in all 3 previous films. John Connor is now in his 30s with a badass goatee and, strangley, feels the need to use the Bat-Rasp throughout the film's entirety.

McG, the director with the name of a rapper who really likes big macs, does a pretty good job with what he has to work with script-wise. From a narrative standpoint, T:S really doesn't do much, but I think that's the fault of the screenwriters. The story is there, somewhere, but it's not fleshed out whatsoever, and everything seems more like a vehicle for the explosively exhilarating action sequences. Those scenes are the meat and bones of T:S; McG handles these very well and every one (which take up about and hour and a half of the movie's two-hour running time) is well-constructed and keeps your eyes glued to the screen.

The story, the soul of any movie, is too cliched and riddled with contradictions and excess, unecessary sequences to really have any meaning. For example, in scene near the movie's beginning, Connor jumps into a helicopter to escape, only to have the helicopter lose control and twirl about for about 2 fucking minutes of your life before crashing right back down to the ground, in the same spot it took off from, thus negating any reason to have gotten in it in the first place. I can buy big, blood-thirsty robots in any movie, but for some reason I can't buy another sequence shortly after this one where Connor jumps into the ocean to enter the Resistance's HQ, and the next shot shows him soaking wet, glistening in a submarine. My BS-a-Meter went off so loud most people in the theater probably thought it was a cell-phone. All in all, T:S plays like a video game, with non-stop action that takes only brief pauses to progress the subpar story.

Christian Bale's John Connor sort of epitomizes T:S, whereas its head is so far up its ass with ego that you kind of want to see it die. Marcus Wright, the new character introduced in the film's opening, is a convicted murderer but he's still way cooler than John Connor, just because he's not a complete douche the whole movie. There's a "revelaton" about 2/3 of the way through the film about Marcus Wright, but considering the fact that they give it away in the damn trailer it carries no emotional gravity whatsoever. Also, Arnold's in it for a few seconds, and while neat, it really just hammers in the point that T:S is trying to so hard to be like its big brothers despite its conviction not to be that you realize halfway through it that your watching a (very expensive) fan film.

Terminator: Salvation uses its narrative as a crutch for action sequences, which, thankfully, it does quite well. McG can direct action, there's not doubt about it, it's just that the movie thinks it' soooo cool that it forgets to be cool. It runs for a clean 2 hours, but not a whole lot happens story-wise. Alas, it's fun; watching Marcus Wright, who seems like he gets more screentime than Connor despite Christian Bale's top billing, is a good character who the screenwriters really don't do justice with. There's a missed oppurtunity with him, to explore what makes people people and machines machines. But despite its predictability and hollow characterization, T:S succeeds at being that big summer action flick that we need this time of year.

Also:

-according to IMDB, this movie cost $200 million to make. Where?! Michael Bay's movie about big fucking robots cost $150 million and looks worlds better

-I feel like Gears of War was an influence, on, well, the whole movie

-I don't think Christian Bale actually ranted on the set, I think he was just rehearsing lines from the movie

Score: 7.5/10

"Star Trek" Review: This is what happens when nerds take steroids

So there's this thing I do whenever I want to see a movie but don't want to admit to anyone I want to see that particular movie: I take my younger siblings. See, as the oldest brother of a 10-year-old and a 7-year-old, I can basically always use the excuse, "They want to go see it, so I'm taking them." I used this most recently with Star TreK, J.J. Abrams' reboot of one of the most celebrated...and nerdiest...shows of all time. The series has become syonymous with geeks, 40-year-old virgins that live at home, guys with long beards and glasses who snort in laughter whenever someone refers to Captain Picard as Patrick Stewart and spend their days arguing over internet forums about which episode is the best and which alien is the hottest provided they have any interest in women.

J.J. Abrams, essentially, took all the geekiest elements of the Star Trek universe and injected them with Jason Giambi's special blend, because I'll tell you what, the most appropriate thing I could possibly say about this 2-hour thrill ride is this: it kicks Vulcan ass.

Star Trek is a movie that achieves a perfect balance between pleasing the old followers while updating it, bringing it into a more modern pethora of action film. See, as much as you watch it and see all the explosions, the effects, Eric Bana trying to act badass, you still are never lost from the feeling that this is Star Trek that you're watching. Abrams does a good job of never deveating so far from the source material that it becomes something else entirely (ala The Honeymooners) while at the same time bringing a fresh look.

I've never seen a single episode of Star Trek. Never. Not once. Maybe clips when I was a kid, but nothing I can actually remember. Yet, the miraculous thing, is that I recognize all the characters. It's so perfectly cast, so perfectly written, and so perfectly directed that even though the only familiarity with the original characters I have is what I know from pop culture references, I still know who everyone is. It never feels forced, though. Abrams doesn't point t the people and say, "Look! This is how he got started! See! I'm a genius!" Instead the characters and famous lines (set phasers to stun) just feel like part of the framework of the film and not needless, obvious homages.

If I do have a complaint, it's that much of the plot centers around time travel, and while I know that's a big part of the whole Trekkie thing, it gets really annoying at times, and (spoilers) feels more like an attempt to get Leonard Nimoy on screen rather than what the writers may have originally envisioned. Nonetheless, it's not enough to really scare you away from the expereince it has to offer from beginning to end.

Star Trek is a movie you need to chuck your ego aside for. You need to put away all your prejudices, especially you Star Wars fans, and go see it. It's got heart, it's got humor, it balances homages with originality, and there may never be a more perfectly casted remake, anywhere.

I know I usually try to be funny with my reviews, but it's hard to when a movie is so good. So I will say this, I went to a Saturday afternoon showing and there were at least 5 or 6 middle-aged guys in there by themselves, undoubtedly there so they can go home and argue about it with their friends online while sipping their mom's tea in her basement.

There you go. Now go see it. Because unlike all the Star Trek movies before it and all the nerdinss associated with it, Abrams version stands apart as something everyone can enjoy while never spitting in the faces of what came ahead of it. It boldly goes where no remake has gone before. (Except for maybe like, Batman Begins)

Score: 9/10

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Another Take:

By Scott

[Scott is a regular guest blogger on Geoff Klock's popular blog Remarkable (geoffklock.blogspot.com), and for the sake of comparison I've posted his review, which can also be found o Geoff's blog.]

Star Trek was everything that X-men Origins: Wolverine was not; more than that, it has everything that an ‘origin’ movie should have that XMO: Wolverine did not: fun, emotionally engaging, beautifully paced. The characters have depth and beloved icons are brought to life in a way that is both faithful to the original interpretations and entertaining for new viewers.

I’m not a huge Star Trek geek, but I’m just familiar enough with the mythology to get most of the references. That being said, you don’t HAVE to get the references to enjoy the movie; they are done in such a way that they are just seen as another part of the story. Case in point, the film depicts a famous instance from Star Trek mythos, Kirk beating the supposedly unbeatable Kobyashi Maru simulation at Starfleet Academy. Fans of the series will immediately recognize the scenario and will love getting to see it played out on the big screen but, for those who aren’t fans of the series, it is an entertaining scene that further establishes and develops the character of James T. Kirk (none of the ‘and that’s the origin of that’ feeling of Wolverine).

In another case of Wolverine versus Star Trek, let’s take a look at how the two movies brought a fan-favorite character, known for having a particular accent, to life. Wolverine has Gambit. The actor playing Gambit cannot do a Cajun accent but he still tries. Also, he can’t act and he’s just sort of there so you can go “Oh, look! Gambit!” Star Trek has Simon Pegg as Scotty… ‘nuff said. (The guy playing Dr. McCoy was also great for that matter).

Most importantly, the use of time travel in the film is not merely a device for Leonard Nimoy to make an appearance; it actually serves an important purpose, not just in terms of plot, but for reinvigorating the franchise as a whole. In addition to explaining any continuity gaffs for the hardcore Trek geeks, it also allows the franchise to be rebooted while still acknowledging the original all within the same film. A pretty daring feat if you ask me. Also, it allows us to have a ‘new’ James T. Kirk; one who is, essentially, the same character we know and love but, due to events depicted in the film, experiences a different formative history which allows him to be a little darker, a little edgier, a little more modern.

All this and Scotty even gets to have a cute little alien buddy!

You might have heard that it's 'this summers Iron Man'... it's not... it's better!