Avatar 042210

A group of English settlers land in Virginia, some to make a new home, others to look for gold. The most adventurous of them, John Smith goes exploring one day and is captured by Indians. He’s sentenced to be killed for being a white demon. But just before the execution the princess asks that he be spared and made her servant because, she has a crush on him. She keeps him for a month before returning him to the settlement. That winter because so many spent all of their time searching for gold the settlement has no food and out of kindness, the natives bring them food.

That was the story of Pocahontas and to all of those that claim this is the same story I ask, “Which story did you learn?” The main reason is the obvious Indian parallel in this movie and people think “Indian love story... yeah Pocahontas.” The real similar story in this instance is Last Samurai, which you should see. Heck, Romeo and Juliet is way closer than Pocahontas.

Now that that’s off my chest, here’s Avatar’s plot. If you’ve seen Last Samurai, you can skip this part. A future earth company has set up a mining colony on a newly discovered planet, Pandora, searching for a mineral that’s very rare on earth but in abundance there. The biggest problem is that there’s a group of humanoids, the Na’Vi, living there. Not only that, but their village is sitting on the largest mineral deposit on the planet and they don’t want to leave. To this end the company has developed a method of growing avatars that resemble the natives, that they can control by mixing in human dna when constructing it. One of their avatar drivers dies in an accident and in an attempt to not waste the incredible amount of money spent on the avatar they hire his marine twin brother to take his place because they share the same dna. He’s sent on a diplomatic mission to gain the native’s trust and after getting to know them and their ways, begins to think he may be on the wrong side.

I was excited about this movie for three years. I love James Cameron. I’ve seen all but two of his movies, Titanic and Piranha 2. Titanic for a lame, personal reason and Piranha 2 because it’s considered one of the worst movies ever made. But he has a standard of excellence in all of his movies except Piranha 2 and it’s his first one in twelve years. One thing that’s fun about this movie is that it makes earthlings the invaders on an alien planet. We’re used to it being the other way around and I’m not saying it’s refreshing, it’s just worth noting. The plot is simple, the dialogue frequently uninteresting but the acting is up to the usual standard expected from a James Cameron movie. Now let’s get to the real reason that people are flocking to this movie: the visual effects are amazing. Absolutely amazing. Were it not for the fact that so much is outside the realm of physical possibility, you would not be able to tell what’s real and what isn’t. The visuals are absolutely breathtaking.

The negative. Apart from the amazing visuals this movie really has nothing strongly going for it. It’s a movie based solely on spectacle. It’s trying to make a statement that’s so blunt that you can feel it smacking you upside the head. The story is too well known. We’ve seen it a so many times and this brings nothing new other than large blue people.

This movie is a joy to watch and if you can find it in a dollar theater or something, go see it because it can only be truly appreciated on a large screen. I’m sure it’ll be fun on the smaller screen but not as much. If you get a new blu ray player and a huge TV and you want to test it, get this movie. B+ for quality but I don’t plan to buy it.

Sherlock Holmes 033010

Sherlock Holmes has had Lord Blackwood arrested following a cult ceremony and he is supplementally hung. A few days later, Blackwood rises from the grave starting a cat and mouse game between the two as Holmes tries to stop his plot to take over the British Empire. All this while dealing with the impending marriage of his good friend Watson and the arrival of the one who literally and figuratively got away.

When this movie was forthcoming, for those who regularly research movies, a big deal was made of this movie’s homoeroticism and how hints about the extremeness of Watson and Holmes relationship would be played out. The actors, Jude Law and Robert Downey Jr, even talked about these things quite frequently. This is mentioned in the positive paragraph because all of those claims are total bull. I was looking and couldn’t find anything. The only possible place where you could find this would be in Holmes attempts to talk Watson out of getting married but it’s really done out of fear of losing his only good friend. Now, onto other things. This is filmed like a detective show but with a Holmes twist. Like shows like Psych and Monk you are shown every clue and given every hint about every aspect of the mystery, but unlike those shows they aren’t pointed out to you. If you really pay attention, like Holmes, and if you know what everything is, like Holmes, you can in fact figure the whole thing out. I did not but it was still fun. Another thing that people were unsure about was the true notion that Holmes would be a more prolific fighter, and boy was he. However, this new touch to Holmes was done in a very Holmes way. I won’t spoil it but it’s awesome. The movie is superbly shot and actually feels like it could be in Victorian England. The dialogue is excellent, fast paced, and witty. I was looking forward to this movie from the time that it was announced because I love Guy Ritchie and this was old school Guy Ritchie. All the actors are excellent, I wasn’t sure how I felt about Jude Law but he won me over and who in this country doesn’t like Rachel McAdams?

I’m having to reach for the negatives. Some of the dialogue is too fast and you feel you missed something and parts are too quiet. I caught a lot because I was expecting as such but my parents and brother did have a little trouble. Beyond that I really can’t think of a negative.

Don’t rent, buy this movie. It’s one of the best popcorn movies of 09 and you’ll want to watch it several times so you save money in the long run. Solid A.

Armored 031610

An armored truck company has just authorized its newest guard, and he’s having money issues. The other guards know this and use this as a selling point when they propose their scheme: steal their latest delivery and make it look like they were robbed. At first he refuses, but when he finds out he’s about to have his brother taken away by child services, he reconsiders on one condition: no one gets hurt. At first all looks good, until things start to go wrong, leading to violence. Now the new guy is locked in an armored car while the others try to get him out to kill him so he won’t rat on them.

This movie was a great idea for a thriller. It’s a very simple plot, money heist goes wrong, guy gets cold feet, others turn on him. You become invested in the lead to the point, that more than not dying, you don’t want him to abandon his principles.

This is the most annoying type of bad movie, the kind that could’ve been really good. It suffers from both a sub-par script and either bad directing or too much studio involvement. Not enough time is paid to the situation and the movie jumps to different plot points too swiftly for you to really grasp what’s going on and why. The conclusion felt forced, swift, and unsatisfying. While, yes, you are very attached to the lead role, he’s the only one remotely developed or consistent in his character. As for the poor script, most of the dialogue was completely unnatural. There was one conversation where one character says the other’s name in pretty much every sentence. No one talks like that. And something has to be said about the marketing team. Way too much was revealed in the trailers. One scene that probably would’ve been really tense was completely ruined by the fact that I knew how it ended already.

A great film that almost was. D+. Don’t bother watching it. Really not worth it.

Boondock Saints II: All Saints Day 030910

Ten years after the original Boondock Saints, the MacManus brothers are living in self inflicted exile in their ancestral home of Ireland. Back in Boston a priest is murdered and the culprit makes it look like the Saints are behind it. This is something up with which they will not put. The brothers return to Boston to wreak their vigilante justice on the man who dared besmirch their name.

This movie was pretty awesome. It had a lot of new action and jokes, as well as revisiting the old jokes in a non annoying way. It was a lot of fun and didn’t destroy the original. It’s sad that that’s what you wish for in the world of sequels but I’ll take it when it happens. It was about the characters and was made not to make money but to make the fans of the original happy.

The jokes were occasionally hokie and the new side kick was a little annoying and I found myself wishing he’d die. Plus as creepy as he was in the original the absence of Willem Defoe was a detraction.

I didn’t have much to say because I saw this awhile ago. It gets a B-. Not as good as the original but worth seeing. You do have to see the original first though. And if you haven’t... why?

2012 030210

India, 2009: a geologist visits his astrophysicist friend in India and is told something startling. The sun has started producing a normally harmless form of radiation in such a large quantity that the earth’s solid center core is now melting which will cause it to expand and swell against the crust. Government heads are informed and preparations are made. Fast forward three years. John Cusack is an out of work writer on a camping trip with his estranged children. He meets a strange hermit, Woody Harrelson, who starts rambling about his conspiracy theories involving the US government and the approaching apocalypse. Soon after, the world literally starts falling apart and John is fighting to keep his family alive through it all.

I went into this movie expecting to be positively biased. I love John Cusack. I love Roland Emmerich, the director. I’m also partial to disaster flicks and this was one heck of a disaster flick. It was easily twice as awesome a spectacle as Day After Tomorrow and had none of the politics. Beyond the spectacle, it once again exhibited Emmerich’s great gifting as a director. He’s very well aware that you can make an amazing visual spectacle but that’s not enough to keep people’s interest. What you need is the human dynamic and characters that you like and identify with. Emmerich is a master of the ensemble cast, and seems to effortlessly both keep up with and develop the incredibly large number of characters in all of his movies. This is no exception, with just about every death that you see affecting you emotionally without you feeling manipulated.

Now, some of the characters are a touch cliched. The good scientist, the bad selfish scientist, the humanitarian chick, the father, the kids who don’t like the father, the mother etc. We’ve seen all the characters before but I’m okay with that. Some of the dialogue was almost expectedly bad but I didn’t really care because I’m still recovering from GI Joe. Don’t watch that.

With spectacular special effects and engaging characters this movie is totally worth watching. A- because I gave Zombieland an A and it wasn’t quite that cool.

Law Abiding CItizen 021610

Clyde Shelton (Gerard Butler) is at home when two men bust into his home, immobilize him and murder his wife and daughter. Before the trial, prosecuting attorney Nick Rice (Jamie Foxx) makes a deal with the man who actually murdered them. He testifies against his partner in exchange for a lighter sentence. Clyde is devastated by this and is convinced the justice system isn’t just at all. Cut to ten years later. The convicted intruder is given his lethal injection but Clyde has switched one of the chemicals, which makes what is normally a painless death an excruciating one. On the same day, the more guilty accomplice is kidnapped, immobilized, and slowly cut into pieces by Clyde. He’s put in jail and manages to continue killing all involved in what happened.

The movie moves with a brisk pace, jumping right into the story: the first scene is Clyde’s family getting murdered. A fortunate directorial choice is to hint at the graphic violence rather than show it. Even crime scene photos are fortunately vague. This script was clearly written by someone with some kind of chip on their shoulder about the justice system. Rather than being about fat cats and mob bosses that seem to get away everything like so many of these movies are, it’s instead about some of the more ridiculous statutes that let people walk free. Rather than just saying the system is corrupt and expecting the audience to go along with it like most movies of this sort, it almost presents an essay about why they’re right. And it’s convincing. One weak point that you would assume this film would carry is that, given the plot, you’re rooting for the villain and don’t want him to be caught but the build-up of “justice” is finely handled. In the beginning, you’re totally on board with Clyde’s actions. They seem right, but as he moves further and further down the list of people he feels deserve to die, you sympathize less and less until you want him caught.

In case you couldn’t tell, I enjoyed this movie immensely and don’t have a whole lot of negative things to say. The main one is the ending. It felt the same as the ending to Huckleberry Finn, like the author just kind of decided to wrap it up. The big mystery through the movie is how Clyde is doing what he’s doing and the answer falls flat of what I felt was promised. I also didn’t like the method used to mark when Clyde has gone too far. It was necessary to the plot and I can’t argue with the fact that they did it. I just didn’t want them to do it.

Law Abiding Citizen is a finely acted, well written, and excellently paced throughout. You won’t watch it a lot but you’ll still want to own it because the urge to see will probably randomly strike you. B +.

XIII 020910

The first female president is assassinated and the country is thrown into a frenzy as agencies run ragged trying to find the assassin. Several weeks later, an elderly couple find an injured man attached to a parachute, hanging from a tree. He awakens in their house with no memory. To make this abysmal situation worse, people are trying to kill him and he’s caught up in a slew of political intrigue.

I was wary of this movie initially because straight to video thrillers are very rarely good and Val Kilmer has made a painful number of bombs in recent years but I was pleasantly surprised to find this story very engaging and watchable. The plot sucks you in and the characters are well played and likeable (the ones you’re supposed to anyway). It bares strong resemblance to the Bourne Identity, even stronger resemblance to the book, but it still doesn’t tell the same story so it works.

The bad. It’s a political thriller that seems to have been written by someone with no understanding of politics. The politicians spout right-wing rhetoric while enacting left-wing policies. This may’ve been intentional to keep from picking on a specific side but it makes it difficult to grasp. A lot of things are unclear throughout the entire story as well. We know that the bad guys want to make a certain person president but we don’t know why. Because of that, we only want him to not be president because that’s what the bad guys want. This puts us in the position of not wanting the villain’s terrorist plots to succeed simply because of the loss of life and not because of the grand picture. That’s not bad but it does keep the story from sucking you in. Another annoyance factor was the film’s constant and, in the beginning, distracting attempts to be cool. It puts in quick, random cuts, flashy exposure changes, color effects, etc. None of these do anything to enhance the movie viewing experience. They’re just thrown in there because everyone else is doing it. There’s also this wooshing sound that is used in every fight scene to try and make the heroes actions seem cooler than they actually are.

All in all, a good late-night, popcorn movie. You’ll have fun watching it but you won’t want to see it again. And be sure to turn your brain off for maximum enjoyment. C -.