Yes, they’ve made 4 of them now, and chances are you’ve probably already decided if you want to go see it or not. WE all like these movies in some shape or form. We all have our favorites and have our reasons for liking them. Personally, my favorite is the second one, because I liked the complex villain and I felt it had all the best action, not to mention the best Captain Jack Sparrow moments. However, with popularity this big, it means there’s only one thing for me to really do in this review, tell you whether it’s good or not. The answer to that is a little complicated though.
At a glance “On Stranger Tides” seems like it should be a pretty solid flick. It’s got Johnny Depp and Geoffrey Rush back as Jack and Barbossa, Keira Knightly and Orlando Bloom aren’t in it, Jack has a love interest in the form of Penelope Cruz, and it has more mythical sea creatures, mermaids this time around. That’s all well and good, but this movie suffers the same thing most movies that make it this far in sequels tend to suffer from, predictability. Come on, you all know it, there have been three of these movies and they all basically had the same plot: Go here, action scene, find magical MacGuffin, action scene, go there, fight the bad guy (BIG ACTION SCENE!), dénouement where Johnny Depp does something funny or crazy. There you go.
The big prize this time is the fountain of youth, the villain dug up from pirate lore this time is Blackbeard played by the crazy good Ian McShane, and the quest is to collect four items (MacGuffins) to make the fountain actually work. Barbossa is in hot pursuit of Blackbeard who has Jack for a guide, and some how the Spanish are involved but the movie seems to keep forgetting they’re part of it, and then it suddenly remembers and finds a way to crowbar them back in. I’d even go so far as to suggest that the Spanish are only in this movie because of Ponce De Leone having gone to find the fountain in real life.
I digress, the plot isn’t really what the pirate movies have been about anyway, it’s the characters mixed with vaguely pirate folk lore sounding things that have kept it going. Yes, Captain Jack is still very funny, and yes Barbossa is still really cool as a grey area kind of guy, and Blackbeard steals the whole show by being self knowingly evil. That being said the movie does have a couple characters that are pretty interesting in theory, but end up basically getting pushed aside. Cruz’s Angelica is one such instance, being both a former lover of Jack’s and Blackbeard’s daughter is interesting, but they never really do much with it until the end. And then there is the priest character that, for some reason isn’t just killed by Blackbeard, despite refusing to kill anything and constantly talking about how the pirates are evil and that they can still be saved in God’s eyes if they just repent. He is pretty much completely useless and only exists to craft a stupid, not to mention COMPLETELY USELESS, romance plot with him and a mermaid.
On top of this, the action scenes that are supposed to keep most people interested are all boring. There aren’t nearly as many as in the second, third, or even the first one, and the ones we get really aren’t that good. Director Rob Marshall is most famous for directing “Chicago”, and lesser know for movies like “Memoirs of a Geisha” and “Nine” (NOT the animated movie about the living sock puppets.), and his lack of action experience really shows in these scenes. Most of them are either dull or anticlimactic, and when that’s not the case they’re just rehashing things from the previous movies. But what actually angers me most thinking back, is that the movie has NO ship battles. No broad sides of cannon fire, no ship tactics that turn the tide of battle, no man the guns, nothing. That was always what I liked about these movies! Sword fights? I can see that anywhere. Crazy stunts? That’s why God gave us Jackie Chan movies. But this movie just doesn’t do it. Hell, even in the last movie, which most people acknowledge wasn’t all that good, had several of those and it made the movie actually feel like a pirate movie. This just feels more like a bad Indiana Jones knock off than a pirate movie. In fact, most everything from the original movies is gone, most notably the Black Pearl. They could have called it anything and it would have made just as much sense.
When all is said and done, I really didn’t care for this movie. That said, if all you want from the movie is to have Jack Sparrow have more screen time than he has in the other movies, or you really just want to see all of the “Pirates” movies in theaters, then you probably won’t be disappointed. I however, was thoroughly disappointed by this movie, it was dull, long and I really just wanted it to end. It didn’t win any points with me other than having Jack in it, something we know they wouldn’t be stupid enough not to do anyway. I’d say skip it.
I give Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides
1 magical MacGuffin out of 5
Friday, May 27, 2011
Saturday, May 21, 2011
Thor
Anyone that hasn’t already figured it out, Marvel Studios has been making a big push getting all the big Marvel comic book heroes into movie franchises; however in what is a huge first in the film industry, these movies like their comic book counter parts are part of a shared universe, the point of which is to make one big set up for the team up movie “The Avengers”. This has been going on since “Iron Man” and “The Incredible Hulk” with each movie having more and more hints or reveals to keep fans of the comics drooling over the inevitable conclusion in a way that would put Pavlov’s dogs to shame.
“Thor”, the latest in this series, serves as both an origin story for the titular character, works on adding more to the universe as a whole and sets up even more buzz for the avengers. The premise is pretty simple, Norse mythology is actually real and the god of thunder, Thor, disobeys his father Odin by breaking a truce with a race of beings known as the frost giants. This results in Thor being stripped of his power and banished to Earth to learn humility before he will be allowed to return. All the while S.H.E.I.L.D., the homeland security agency in these movies, is investigating his sudden appearance and have possession of Mjolnir, Thor’s hammer and source of his power.
Whenever people ask me what I like in a good summer blockbuster movie, I have always been able to point at things like “Iron Man” or “Hellboy 2” because they are solidly constructed movies, with cool action set pieces, interesting characters and the sense that it has a good, if not completely original or deep story. “Thor” is one of those kinds of movies. It has a great central character in the form of a living god, who gets to fight giant ice men and metal suits of death with a giant hammer that he uses to fly and do all sorts of other awesome things with.
But unlike many movies of this ilk, a lot of focus is put on characters in “Thor” and it shows in the performances, all the actors really giving their all even to small comic relief parts like Kat Dennings as the sarcastic intern Dacy. Chris Hemsworth deserves particular praise for his portrayal as Thor, being great at conveying his massive arrogance in the film’s beginning and also being very good at showing his growth by film’s end in a way that is both believable and endearing. Anthony Hopkins steals the screen every time he appears as Odin, and Idris Alba who’s casting as Heimdall stirred up some controversy, is mesmerizing as the guardian of the gates to Asgard. Natalie Portman is nicely worked in as Thor’s love interest and Tom Hiddleston equips himself with just the right amount of slime and brooding to play god of mischief Loki.
That said, the movie’s pretty reliant on its visual style and there are two MVP’s to praise in the department are clearly production designer Bo Welch, who makes Asgard look both real and other worldly at the same time, and of course the film’s director Kenneth Branagh. It was a bit of a surprise to hear that Branagh, who is most known for his work adapting Shakespeare plays to the big screen, was directing a comic book movie. However, it becomes readily apparent that Branagh was the perfect choice for THIS comic book movie because the themes, characters and ideas are all larger than life and it’s clear that he can happily find himself at home working with the material, for which he clearly has great admiration, or at least respect. He handles the action scenes greatly, making big sweeping shots and giving them a visual pop that really enhances the visual effects, giving much more urgency and weight to them than most movies of this ilk have been able to pull off in a long time.
That said, “Thor” is not without its flaws. A lot of the time the movie feels like it wants to be much more about Thor, but that it has to keep working in the ties to the Avengers movie, including a cameo from Jeremy Renner, who is clearly fellow Avenger Hawkeye. It was nice, but in the context of the scene that he’s in, it’s pretty pointless. But at this point I’m just nit picking.
To sum up, “Thor” is great fun and a great time at the movies. It has fun characters cool action set pieces and a story that you actually want to see through to the end. If you haven’t seen it already do yourself the favor and see this in theaters, it really is one of those you can’t really get the same experience with a rental.
I give “Thor”
4 Magic Hammers out of 5
“Thor”, the latest in this series, serves as both an origin story for the titular character, works on adding more to the universe as a whole and sets up even more buzz for the avengers. The premise is pretty simple, Norse mythology is actually real and the god of thunder, Thor, disobeys his father Odin by breaking a truce with a race of beings known as the frost giants. This results in Thor being stripped of his power and banished to Earth to learn humility before he will be allowed to return. All the while S.H.E.I.L.D., the homeland security agency in these movies, is investigating his sudden appearance and have possession of Mjolnir, Thor’s hammer and source of his power.
Whenever people ask me what I like in a good summer blockbuster movie, I have always been able to point at things like “Iron Man” or “Hellboy 2” because they are solidly constructed movies, with cool action set pieces, interesting characters and the sense that it has a good, if not completely original or deep story. “Thor” is one of those kinds of movies. It has a great central character in the form of a living god, who gets to fight giant ice men and metal suits of death with a giant hammer that he uses to fly and do all sorts of other awesome things with.
But unlike many movies of this ilk, a lot of focus is put on characters in “Thor” and it shows in the performances, all the actors really giving their all even to small comic relief parts like Kat Dennings as the sarcastic intern Dacy. Chris Hemsworth deserves particular praise for his portrayal as Thor, being great at conveying his massive arrogance in the film’s beginning and also being very good at showing his growth by film’s end in a way that is both believable and endearing. Anthony Hopkins steals the screen every time he appears as Odin, and Idris Alba who’s casting as Heimdall stirred up some controversy, is mesmerizing as the guardian of the gates to Asgard. Natalie Portman is nicely worked in as Thor’s love interest and Tom Hiddleston equips himself with just the right amount of slime and brooding to play god of mischief Loki.
That said, the movie’s pretty reliant on its visual style and there are two MVP’s to praise in the department are clearly production designer Bo Welch, who makes Asgard look both real and other worldly at the same time, and of course the film’s director Kenneth Branagh. It was a bit of a surprise to hear that Branagh, who is most known for his work adapting Shakespeare plays to the big screen, was directing a comic book movie. However, it becomes readily apparent that Branagh was the perfect choice for THIS comic book movie because the themes, characters and ideas are all larger than life and it’s clear that he can happily find himself at home working with the material, for which he clearly has great admiration, or at least respect. He handles the action scenes greatly, making big sweeping shots and giving them a visual pop that really enhances the visual effects, giving much more urgency and weight to them than most movies of this ilk have been able to pull off in a long time.
That said, “Thor” is not without its flaws. A lot of the time the movie feels like it wants to be much more about Thor, but that it has to keep working in the ties to the Avengers movie, including a cameo from Jeremy Renner, who is clearly fellow Avenger Hawkeye. It was nice, but in the context of the scene that he’s in, it’s pretty pointless. But at this point I’m just nit picking.
To sum up, “Thor” is great fun and a great time at the movies. It has fun characters cool action set pieces and a story that you actually want to see through to the end. If you haven’t seen it already do yourself the favor and see this in theaters, it really is one of those you can’t really get the same experience with a rental.
I give “Thor”
4 Magic Hammers out of 5
Friday, May 13, 2011
The Green Hornet
If Hollywood is in love with anything more than remakes right now, it’s superheroes. Over the last few years, there has always been at least one movie about superheroes coming out every year. As a result of this we’re starting to see more of the obscure characters of the medium getting films of their own, and to put it bluntly, The Green Hornet is about as obscure as you can get. Created as a spiritual successor to cowboy hero The Lone Ranger, The Green Hornet is about Britt Reed, a news paper mogul that fights crime in a mask with his butt kicking sidekick Kato and their advanced super car that would make James Bond blush. The hornet originally appeared as a radio show, then in pulp magazines and comics, but most notably as a cheesy TV show in the vain of the live action “Batman” series that was on at the same time. It only lasted one season, but was of note for being the vehicle which introduced the epicly awesome Bruce Lee to American audiences. The production of this film has been in and out of development since the release and massive success of films like “Spider Man” and “Batman Begins”. At one point it seemed about to be done under the helming of indie icon Kevin Smith, but that didn’t work out and instead was picked up by Columbia pictures with Seth Rogen starring as well as co-writing the screenplay, which was finally made and released.
The film’s plot is pretty basic fair, Britt Reed is a notable party hound living off his wealthy news paper tycoon father’s allowances before being thrown into the real world when his father dies and he inherits the news paper. After meeting Kato, who reveals that his father was feeling paranoid in his final days casting a haze of suspicion over his death, they decide to go fight crime, creating Reed’s identity as the Green Hornet. No really, that’s how it goes down, they both get drunk and during a drunken escapade they stop a mugging and decide that they must fight crime because it feels right. I actually really like this idea, it’s not as deeply explored as say “Kick-Ass” but honestly it was nice to see a hero that rose from something other than an utter tragedy that defined their rise to becoming a crime fighter.
Though, it must be said that this movie works better if you view it as more of a buddy cop comedy than a super hero action movie. Rogen’s Britt Reed is goofball and funny in that way most of the parts he’s played have always been. Added to that he plays well off Jay Chou’s Kato, whose fights in the movie are some of the biggest attractions, as well as the films villain played by one of my new favorites, Chirstophe Waltz of “Inglorious Basterds”. It has some nice character bit parts by Eward James Olmos as Reed's chief editor and a rather fun cameo from James Franco in the film’s first scenes.
Speaking of Chou’s fights, the movie has some really nice action scenes with exciting car chases and is shot very nicely. This both does and doesn’t surprise me as the movie is helmed by Michel Gondry, an indie favorite notable for the likes of “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind” and “Be Kind Rewind”. It was odd to hear that he was chosen for this kind of movie, but it looks like he was up for a challenge, and I feel he did very well. The camera work is nicely done, not needing to be filmed by someone that’s been hit a caffeine over dose, and since you get to see everything it’s fun to watch and really exciting. As well as having a very stylized take on how Kato fights though at times it feels like it was created primarily to pander to the 3D conversion, but I still thinks makes for an interesting idea and adds to his character. Not to mention the movie’s final chase is just awesome wrapped in bacon being both exciting and silly in a way that made me recall some of my favorite scenes from the Roger Moore era Bond movies.
Unfortunately, it feels as if the movie’s troubled back stage life spilled into the finished product. At times you can feel that the movie may have been a bit of a rushed production,mostly in the second act, which drags almost to the point of ruining the delightfully silly and interesting first act and is saved only by the rousingly bombastic third. It’s that typical part where the two buddies get into a fight over something and it starts to drive a wedge between them, in this case it’s love interest Cameron Diaz. Her character isn’t bad, but feels kind of crowbarred in, basically existing to be a plot mover and causing her to feel rather less important than she’s supposed to be. Actually, that can be said about a lot of the movie, it seems like Columbia is hoping to make a franchise out of the hornet and leaves enough interesting things unanswered that I felt more and more this was really just the first part and only existed to set up the pieces so that they could have more fun with them in the sequel, kind of like "Iron Man" and to a certain extent "Batman Begins".
Don't read too much into that, those are both far better movies. But that being said, I did still enjoy "The Green Hornet". It was a silly, fun action comedy with nice action scenes, funny jokes and car that fires missiles. It can drag a little but the slog is worth it for those last 20 or so minutes at the end.
3 super cars out of 5
The film’s plot is pretty basic fair, Britt Reed is a notable party hound living off his wealthy news paper tycoon father’s allowances before being thrown into the real world when his father dies and he inherits the news paper. After meeting Kato, who reveals that his father was feeling paranoid in his final days casting a haze of suspicion over his death, they decide to go fight crime, creating Reed’s identity as the Green Hornet. No really, that’s how it goes down, they both get drunk and during a drunken escapade they stop a mugging and decide that they must fight crime because it feels right. I actually really like this idea, it’s not as deeply explored as say “Kick-Ass” but honestly it was nice to see a hero that rose from something other than an utter tragedy that defined their rise to becoming a crime fighter.
Though, it must be said that this movie works better if you view it as more of a buddy cop comedy than a super hero action movie. Rogen’s Britt Reed is goofball and funny in that way most of the parts he’s played have always been. Added to that he plays well off Jay Chou’s Kato, whose fights in the movie are some of the biggest attractions, as well as the films villain played by one of my new favorites, Chirstophe Waltz of “Inglorious Basterds”. It has some nice character bit parts by Eward James Olmos as Reed's chief editor and a rather fun cameo from James Franco in the film’s first scenes.
Speaking of Chou’s fights, the movie has some really nice action scenes with exciting car chases and is shot very nicely. This both does and doesn’t surprise me as the movie is helmed by Michel Gondry, an indie favorite notable for the likes of “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind” and “Be Kind Rewind”. It was odd to hear that he was chosen for this kind of movie, but it looks like he was up for a challenge, and I feel he did very well. The camera work is nicely done, not needing to be filmed by someone that’s been hit a caffeine over dose, and since you get to see everything it’s fun to watch and really exciting. As well as having a very stylized take on how Kato fights though at times it feels like it was created primarily to pander to the 3D conversion, but I still thinks makes for an interesting idea and adds to his character. Not to mention the movie’s final chase is just awesome wrapped in bacon being both exciting and silly in a way that made me recall some of my favorite scenes from the Roger Moore era Bond movies.
Unfortunately, it feels as if the movie’s troubled back stage life spilled into the finished product. At times you can feel that the movie may have been a bit of a rushed production,mostly in the second act, which drags almost to the point of ruining the delightfully silly and interesting first act and is saved only by the rousingly bombastic third. It’s that typical part where the two buddies get into a fight over something and it starts to drive a wedge between them, in this case it’s love interest Cameron Diaz. Her character isn’t bad, but feels kind of crowbarred in, basically existing to be a plot mover and causing her to feel rather less important than she’s supposed to be. Actually, that can be said about a lot of the movie, it seems like Columbia is hoping to make a franchise out of the hornet and leaves enough interesting things unanswered that I felt more and more this was really just the first part and only existed to set up the pieces so that they could have more fun with them in the sequel, kind of like "Iron Man" and to a certain extent "Batman Begins".
Don't read too much into that, those are both far better movies. But that being said, I did still enjoy "The Green Hornet". It was a silly, fun action comedy with nice action scenes, funny jokes and car that fires missiles. It can drag a little but the slog is worth it for those last 20 or so minutes at the end.
3 super cars out of 5
Wednesday, May 4, 2011
Skyline
You know, since I started writing these review people have said a lot of things about me. I’m too critical (that’s my favorite), That I can’t simply enjoy something (…Battlefield Earth or Commando anyone?), That I just like to make fun of and hate on stuff (… your point?), most interestingly of all, I’m a masochist. That last one is mostly in response to the fact that I actually watch a lot of the movie that I really don’t have an interest in, and the fact that I called that attempted excursion into chick flicks masochism month didn’t help. Here’s the thing, if I just posted reviews for things that I watched and really really liked, it’d be 2 things 1: boring and one note. And 2: Self indulgent. Now, this already kind of is self indulgent being a blog of my opinion, but if I just review “Scott Pilgrim” every time, I’d not have any credibility if I have any already. The thing is, while I’m not paid to do this I do like to treat it like another job, and so it just feels more professional to actually do something insane like say pay money to go see “Nightmare on Elm Street” (2010). All that said, yeah, sometimes I actually do go see things specifically to marvel at incompetent filmmaking or make fun of something. Thus we come to “Skyline”, yet another movie to add to the very long history of alien invasion movies.
Those that don’t follow film criticism all that much, “Skyline” has been almost universally bashed on by pretty much everyone. It’s been called total shit, the worst movie ever, and so on. So I rented it, with a coupon, for free, because I really wanted to rip into something truly terrible after the snooze fest that was “Scream 4”. The result? I don’t understand, why is this supposed to be so terrible? I mean, don’t read too much into that, this is by no means good, but why is it supposed to be so terrible?
It’s your basic alien invader movie. It does all the same things done in movies like “Independence Day”, “War of The Worlds”, “Earth vs. The Flying Saucers” you get the idea. It’s centered around a bunch of people in a high rise apartment, hence the title, trying to survive as aliens invade and start abducting people en masse.
The performances are kind of meh, they aren’t really awful, not really stand out. Most of the characters are one note clichés from the other movies I listed and yeah, they can get annoying, but honestly I have seen WAY worse in other movies. The problem is that you don’t really care what happens to them no matter what, and the fact the that movie doesn’t get this means that when we end up spending too much time on the human characters. In theory this is fine and see the above list again for examples where this works, but really, with characters that are stock like this, it’s just a tad on the boring side.
You might say that makes for a bad movie, a lot of the time when I really dislike a movie I tend to find it just uninteresting and that’s why. But, “Skyline” is a different kind of monster, it’s boring, but it’s punctuated with some pretty ok special effects and really it kept my interest because I wanted to see what thing they wanted to do next. The editing was always tight and the photography was passable. The directors on this flick were the Strause Brothers, better known for being the guys that made the 2nd “Alien VS Predator” movie, and honestly, that one sucked but the action was better and the story at least a million times more interesting than the first one (remember though, one million times zero is still not a good number). These guys may not be the best story tellers, or the best directors for anything really, but they know how to use effects and that’s probably from they’re background as effect technicians and supervisors.
Basically, “Skyline”, like “Scream 4” is just kind of there. It’s not really worth your time, but it’s not going to give you a head ache or anything. It’s a movie with a premise that’s been done much better elsewhere and doesn’t really add anything to a genre that’s already more bloated than Jabba the Hutt. It’s bland, plain and simple. Skip it.
1.5… Aliens, I guess… out of 5
Those that don’t follow film criticism all that much, “Skyline” has been almost universally bashed on by pretty much everyone. It’s been called total shit, the worst movie ever, and so on. So I rented it, with a coupon, for free, because I really wanted to rip into something truly terrible after the snooze fest that was “Scream 4”. The result? I don’t understand, why is this supposed to be so terrible? I mean, don’t read too much into that, this is by no means good, but why is it supposed to be so terrible?
It’s your basic alien invader movie. It does all the same things done in movies like “Independence Day”, “War of The Worlds”, “Earth vs. The Flying Saucers” you get the idea. It’s centered around a bunch of people in a high rise apartment, hence the title, trying to survive as aliens invade and start abducting people en masse.
The performances are kind of meh, they aren’t really awful, not really stand out. Most of the characters are one note clichés from the other movies I listed and yeah, they can get annoying, but honestly I have seen WAY worse in other movies. The problem is that you don’t really care what happens to them no matter what, and the fact the that movie doesn’t get this means that when we end up spending too much time on the human characters. In theory this is fine and see the above list again for examples where this works, but really, with characters that are stock like this, it’s just a tad on the boring side.
You might say that makes for a bad movie, a lot of the time when I really dislike a movie I tend to find it just uninteresting and that’s why. But, “Skyline” is a different kind of monster, it’s boring, but it’s punctuated with some pretty ok special effects and really it kept my interest because I wanted to see what thing they wanted to do next. The editing was always tight and the photography was passable. The directors on this flick were the Strause Brothers, better known for being the guys that made the 2nd “Alien VS Predator” movie, and honestly, that one sucked but the action was better and the story at least a million times more interesting than the first one (remember though, one million times zero is still not a good number). These guys may not be the best story tellers, or the best directors for anything really, but they know how to use effects and that’s probably from they’re background as effect technicians and supervisors.
Basically, “Skyline”, like “Scream 4” is just kind of there. It’s not really worth your time, but it’s not going to give you a head ache or anything. It’s a movie with a premise that’s been done much better elsewhere and doesn’t really add anything to a genre that’s already more bloated than Jabba the Hutt. It’s bland, plain and simple. Skip it.
1.5… Aliens, I guess… out of 5
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