09 July 2009

Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen

Spanks - 3

Director - Michael Bay

Writer - Ehren Kruger, Roberto Orci & Alex Kurtzman

Starring - Shia LaBeouf, Megan Fox, Josh Duhamel, Tyrese Gibson, John Turturro, Peter Cullen & Hugo Weaving

Release Date - 24 June 09

MPAA Rating - PG-13

Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen is your typical Michael Bay film. Little plot, crappy dialog, lots of explosions, and special effects. The film continues 2 years after the first film with the Autobots working with an international team of soldiers tracking down and capturing Decepticons. Also, Sam Witwicky is about to enter college and begin a normal college life, but that doesn't happen and Sam is pushed back into the Autobots/Decepticons War. Megatron wants information from Sam's brain that can save the Decepticons and win the war for them.

The film was entertaining, but a little long. They could have made it tighter, especially the third act. The desert battle looked great visually, but the action was very repetitive. Parts were set in the Philadelphia area, and it is always cool to see places you know in a film, even if the geography of it all is all wrong.

The special effects companies did an amazing job making giant robots look real and believable as if they belong as a part of the world and not cartoony and fake. My only problem was that they edited the movie quickly and the camera is always moving so you can't get a very good look at all their details like you could in the first installment. The sound design was also great, making robots sound alien.

The movie doesn't change my mind about Shia LaBeouf. He still is an annoying actor and I wish he would stop being cast. John Turturro is the comic relief of the film as he was in the first, and has the best character in the movie. Megan Fox is still hot, and they should just keep her and get rid of Shia.

Transformers is a good movie to see in the theater, even with the silly plot and bad acting. It just wont have the same feel to it at home, giant robots will just seem small on a television. Don't expect anything great, just lots of chases, fights, fire, load noises, and things blowing up. The special effects and sound design are the main reasons you would want to see it.

18 June 2009

Land of the Lost

Spanks - 1

Director - Brad Silberling

Writer - Chris Henchy & Dennis McNicholas

Starring - Will Ferrell, Anna Friel, Danny McBride & Jorma Taccone

Release Date - 5 June 09

MPAA Rating - PG - 13

Land of the Lost is an absolutely terrible film. The story stinks, the dialog sucks, it isn't funny, and the sets look like they were taken from the original show. The only thing that made me laugh was the terrible writing. And I don't think that is what the writers were going for. At one part during the climax of the film Holly was talking to a Tyrannosaurs Rex about what just happened and it was supposed to be serious moment, but instead it was so bad it was the funniest part of the movie.

The film didn't know what it wanted to be. It was rated PG-13 mostly for a few little things in the dialog, but other than that it was a family film. They should have chosen one direction, either a "Step Brothers" like direction like Will Ferrell is good at or that of "Journey to the Center of the Earth" to attract the family.

The film's main antagonist is the Tyrannosaurs Rex that Holly names Grumpy. He has a vendetta against Marshall (Will Ferrell) because he said he had a small brain the size of a walnut. Grumpy than follows Marshall, Holly, and Will's as they search for the lost tachyon amplifier. The Sleestaks, who I researched to be the most famous of the creatures, were reduced to slaves of Enik and could have made for a much better group of bad guys.

I have never watched the original show from the 70's or the 90's remake, but I would recommend that if your in need of Land of the Lost fix, just watch them.

15 June 2009

Drag Me to Hell

Spanks - 5

Director - Sam Raimi

Writer - Sam Raimi & Ivan Raimi

Starring - Alison Lohman, Justin Long, Lorna Raver & Dileep Rao

Release Date - 29 May 09

MPAA Rating - PG-13

Drag Me to Hell is the best new horror movie in years! It isn't a remake of an old horror flick or foreign film like they all are now. It isn't a silly slasher film were everyone gets senselessly killed in outrageous ways. It is just old fashion horror.

The film follows an ambitious loan officer (Christine Brown) looking to get a raise to assistant manager who gets cursed by an old gypsy woman because she wouldn't give her an extension on her mortgage. She is cursed by the Lamia and has three days to break the curse or it will take her soul to hell.

Drag Me the Hell finally has Sam Raimi going back to the lower budget horror movies that made him famous. Hopefully after Spiderman 4 & 5 he makes another one. It has its predictable moments, but I was on the edge of my seat the whole film waiting for Christine's fate. It uses a lot of cool shooting styles Raimi used in the Evil Dead trilogy and subsequent films.

If you want something different to go see, Drag Me to Hell is that movie. The ending was awesome, and made the movie even better.

09 June 2009

The Hangover

Spanks - 3

Director - Todd Phillips

Writer - Jon Lucas & Scott Moore

Starring - Bradley Cooper, Ed Helms, Zach Galifianakis, Justin Bartha, Heather Graham & Ken Jeong

Release Date - 5 June 09

MPAA Rating - R

The Hangover was way funnier than I thought it would be from the trailer. It is about three friends and the brides' brother who go to Las Vegas for a bachelor party. When they wake up the next morning the groom is missing, there is a tiger in the bathroom, the room is trashed, a baby is found in the closet,and nobody remembers what happened the previous night. They have 12 hours to find the groom and get him home for the wedding.

I was surprised at how funny the movie was. I was expecting the only funny part to be the scene with Mike Tyson singing Phil Collins. Even when friends told me it was good, I still had my doubts. It is the funniest movie I have seen since Role Models.

Zach Galifianakis who plays the weird brother of the bride steals the movie. Everything he says doesn't make any sense but it is hysterical. Ken Jeong, who has had supporting roles in many comedies over the past year is great and I wouldn't be surprised if we saw him in some starring roles in the near future.

The Hangover is the movie to see if you want to just laugh and have some brainless fun.

02 June 2009

Up

Spanks - 5

Director - Pete Docter

Writer - Bob Peterson

Voices - Edward Asner, Christopher Plummer, Jordan Nagai, Bob Peterson, Delroy Lindo & John Ratzenberger

Release Date - 29 May 09

MPAA Rating - PG

You would never think a movie about a crabby old man would be good or that you would care for this man, but Pixar's Up did it. Pixar once again creates an animated movie that is different and original. Up is about Carl Fredricksen's adventure he never got around to doing when he was younger. With urbanization closing in around him and his house and to avoid the Old People's Home, he ties thousands of helium balloons to his house to fly away to Paradise Falls in South America.

The animation of the film is nothing revolutionary. It is the story that makes the movie great. It doesn't follow the norm of animated family films where everything in the world ends in happiness and fantasy. The movie, yet far fetched with the flying house, is very real in the way it deals with life, humanity and relationships.

The film is very funny too. Dug the Dog has the funniest lines in the movie. The interaction between Carl and Russell is perfect for how an old man would talk to an annoying little boy. I laughed from start to end.


28 May 2009

Terminator Salvation

Spanks - 3

Director - MCG

Writers - John D. Brancato & Michael Ferris

Starring - Christian Bale, Sam Worthington, Moon Bloodgood, Anton Yelchin & Bryce Dallas Howard

Release Date - 21 May 09

MPAA Rating - PG-13

As a post apocalyptic machines take over the world and kill most of humanity movie, Terminator Salvation is a good movie. As a Terminator movie it is not. The film doesn't feel like the last three. It just used the characters that James Cameron created over 20 years ago and forgets everything and they just do whatever they want with them. The story doesn't fit the time line already created. It has no suspense. The story isn't original. All it is is special effects and explosions, which are great, but you need the story to make it good.

The one thing the filmmakers did right was to use "real" terminators and not CGI ones. The large machines were CGI, which I expected from the beginning, but not the small ones. The CGI ones looked great, but the one that captured and held the humans looked just like a Transformer. The visuals of the film were the best part of it, but what has Stan Winston done that hasn't been amazing.

The film is about Marcus Wright, a man who wakes up not knowing were he is or what happened to the world. He runs into a young Kyle Reese who is looking for John Connor to join the resistance. The two become buddies and look for Connor together. Along the way Kyle gets captured by the machines which leads Marcus on a journey to save him. He meets Connor who is not yet the leader of the resistance and clash with each other about how to go about reaching both of their goals.

Since seeing the future in the earlier Terminator movies I wanted to see a movie set in this time. I wanted this film to be great, but I was disappointed because so much could have been done and the filmmakers did so little. At this point they should have left T:2 to be the end of the story. With two equals planned, I am scared at what they could do next to ruin the Terminator franchise. The only hope is hire new people to write and direct.

12 May 2009

Star Trek

Spanks - 5

Director - J.J. Abrams

Writers - Roberto Orci & Alex Kurtzman

Starring - Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto, Leonard Nimoy, Eric Bana, Bruce Greenwood, Karl Urban, Zoe Saldana, Simon Pegg, John Cho & Anton Yelchin

Release Date - 8 May 09

MPAA Rating - PG-13

Star Trek is a reboot of the Paramount franchise created over 40 years ago by Gene Roddenberry. It takes place before the events in the original series and tells the story of how James Tiberius Kirk became the captain of the USS Enterprise and found the crew that followed his leadership up until Star Trek The Undiscovered Country. It is a story that was never told.

The cool thing about this reboot is that it does not forget everything that has come before like they normally do. With the "simple" use of time travel and the theory of multiple dimensions (Spock explains it) the film exist in both universes. Leonard Nimoy is what bridges them both together.

I can understand why the big fans are upset with the film because of some of the things they did to their precious canon. I don't see why because there hasn't been a really great Trek film sinceFirst Contact. I think Paramount made a good decision for once with putting some fresh faces in charge of Star Trek, and I have nothing against Rick Berman and his people. Would you have rather they started from scratch?

The movie has a perfect pace to it, I wasn't bored with any scene, and it was just the perfect length. The sets were awesome. The way they did the space battle scenes were different than any other Trek film so far. It was funny. The one thing that I could have seen cut was the giant predators on the one planet. Star Trek is definitely a movie to see in the theater and it could be hard for other films to beat this summer.



Here are some funny videos joking about Star Trek and Trekkers from SNL featuring original Enterprise crew members.

2009-05-09


07 May 2009

X-Men Origins: Wolverine

Spanks - 3

Director - Gavin Hood

Writers - David Benioff & Skip Woods

Starring - Hugh Jackman, Liev Schreiber, Danny Huston, Taylor Kitsch & Ryan Reynolds

Release Date - 1 May 09

MPAA Rating - PG-13

X-Men Origins: Wolverine is the first spin off film from the X-Men Trilogy. The film starts when Logan is just a young boy and discovers his claws about 20 years before the events of the first X-Men film.

The film was a little disappointing to me. I was expecting more of Wolverine going berserk like he does in each of the X-Men films. There is only one short sequence of him in super crazy attack mode. The rest of them is him fighting only one other bad guy. I also thought the beginning was slow up until he gets his adamantium implants. The ending was for the most part predictable and unoriginal.

The one thing about the movie I really liked was how they related the story to the rest of the X-Men universe. From the trailer it seemed like they were just throwing characters in because people liked that character. The film did need more Deadpool/Wade Wilson and not just use him for a small part and to introduce him for his own film.

X-Men Origins: Wolverine could have been a better movie and some better fight scenes. To compare how good it is to the previous X-Men movies, it would be around the level of X-Men: The Last Stand.

08 April 2009

Alien Trespass

Spanks - 4

Director - R.W. Goodwin

Writers - James Swift & Steven P. Fisher

Starring - Eric McCormack, Jenni Baird, Robert Patrick, Jody Thompson & Dan Lauria

Release Date - 3 April 09 (limited release)

MPAA Rating - PG

Alien Trespass is a science fiction movie from 1957 that was never released by Goldstone International Pictures because of a contract dispute between the films star M. Eric McCormack and the head of the studio Louis Q. Goldstone. Weeks before its original release date Goldstone ordered all the prints to be destroyed. 50 years later at a construction site on the location of the Goldstone back lot buried deep underground was a metal box containing the trailer, promotional material, and the finished film in perfect condition.

In reality, the film was made last year. Its director R.W. Goodwin's hommage to the movies he loved as a kid. It was made to look like it was made back in the 1950's. It uses all the effects methods of the day, although modern CGI was used for the scenes where the flying saucer was flying. They also follow the Hays Code that Hollywood had to follow until 1968. The main instrument used, like in many old films, on the soundtrack is a theremin. The film does parody the genre, but not nearly to the degree as The Lost Skeleton of Cadavraa.

The film is well written and is funny. The crash site set is very cheesy looking, but that was the point. The dialog is full of 50's slang and it has the stereotypical greaser kid who is looking for trouble whose best friend is the goody two shoes. It has the B movie cliches like rubber monsters, screaming women, the cop who is days from retirement, and many many more, but it is all done very well.

Alien Trespass is takes place over two days in a small California mountain town. A flying saucer crashes and a Ghota escapes in the crash. The alien Urp borrows the human body of Ted Lewis to find and capture the Ghota before it destroys all life on Earth. To make it harder for Urp, the Ghota is capable of chromodynamic distortion (invisibility).

01 April 2009

Monsters vs. Aliens

Spanks - 4

Director - Rob Letterman & Conrad Vernon

Writers - Maya Forbes, Wallace Wolodarsky, Rob Letterman, Jonathan Aibel & Glenn Berger

Voices - Reese Witherspoon, Seth Rogen, Hugh Laurie, Will Arnett, Kiefer Sutherland, Rainn Wilson, Stephen Colbert & Paul Rudd

Release Date - 27 March 09

MPAA Rating - PG

Monsters Vs. Aliens is the first Dreamworks Animation Studios film to be produced for 3D. All future films will also be made this way as theaters with the digital projection systems are all over the place now and the number continues to grow. Up until this one they were produced in traditional 2D and digitally converted to 3D.

The film is a homage to the monster movies made in the early 1950's. The hero's are a 50 foot tall woman (Ginormica), a giant moth (Insectosaurus), a mad scientist that changed himself into a cockroach (Dr. Cockroach, Ph.D.), a brainless jello goo thing (B.O.B.), and an amphibian mutant (The Missing Link). They are sent to fight off the squidlike alien (Gallaxhar) who comes looking to find the quantonium that fell to Earth from a meteor and since he is here he decides to take over the world.

Monsters Vs. Aliens is funny, it has a few jokes thrown in for the adults like the presidents first contact attempt with the aliens. It is the most action packed animated film since Titan A.E and has the hottest cartoon character since Jessica Rabbit. It is a fast paced fun film for the whole family to have a night out together.

If you plan on seeing this in 3D, try and go to IMAX 3D because its less than a dollar more and the screen is way bigger and the sound system is far superior. It is well worth it.