Mr. Brooks

I was disappointed to learn that this movie did not continue the adventures of Brooks from the Shawshank Redemption, in prequel fashion. I wanted to experience him seeing that car once, when he was a kid.

But I digress.

Mr. Brooks is a successful business man - he makes boxes. And he's a schizophrenic sociopath too. So there's that. But he's trying to do the right thing Ringo, despite the constant whining from his hallucinary friend who is constantly goading him to treat himself to another murder - he's been such a good boy after all.

Why are serial killers in movies always either successful business men or shady drifters? I want to see a middle manager snap and go and a killing spree. That would be a great movie.

Eventually Mr. Brooks' imaginary friend gets the upper hand and they're at it again, killing a couple who like having sex in front of a wide open window. We're treated to an extended sequence showing how careful Mr. Brooks is to make sure he doesn't get caught. Everything is all planned out so that no one will be the wiser. Except for the window thing. How did he overlook that?

You can probably guess what happens next. Despite Mr. Brooks' special care he is photographed by Dane Cook who proceeds to blackmail him. The "twist" is that Dane Cook isn't after money, he wants Mr. Brooks to mentor him in the art of murder. Where do they come up with these original ideas?

Meanwhile the cops are on the case, looking for clues into this new murder by the serial killer who hasn't struck in two years. The main cop is played by Demi Moore who doesn't bring much to the part. Worse, it appears that in order to land such a major star, the studio had to agree to add a lot more "story" for her character to make her part bigger.

Suddenly the movie changes course and we have to sit through learning about Demi's backstory (she's being divorced by her boy-toy ex. who wants a piece of her huge fortune). The new movie within a movie drags on long enough that for you to lose interest in the Mr. Brooks storyline before finally getting back to business.

Except now the story has changed again and Mr. Brooks is dealing with his daughter who shows up home from college, saying she has dropped out. To make matters worse the cops show up shortly after asking questions about the murder of her boyfriend.

This just isn't Mr. Brooks' week. Nor mine. I've got a sociopath, a rich cop and the story of a young woman trying to follow in her father's footsteps with limited success. Too bad I don't have a tight plot, suspense or action. And three endings. Why not four? I'm holding out for the scooby-doo ending.

Pain scale score: 4 out of 10

Snack time was Raph's choice and he picked chicken pot pies which were pretty standard as such things go. The Fanta Grape was surprisingly tasty, considering our recent experience with the abysmal Red Tangerine flavor. After such an ordinary snack outing we'll have to be sure to find something truly disturbing for next time.

Mr. Brooks

Okay, let me try to get all this straight: There's Mr. Brooks (Dances with Wolves guy), who kills people because he's addicted and is also a successful business man with a wife and family and is trying to quit, there's his imaginary friend (William Hurt?) who goads him into killing people and acts like a guardian angel of sorts for serial killers, there's Dane Cook, the guy that catches Mr. Brooks killing a couple that likes to dance and screw with the blinds open, and blackmails Mr. Brooks with photos of him killing set couple into teaching him how to be a serial killer, there's Demi Moore playing the hard nosed tough woman cop who's going through a tough divorce and is a millionaire because she inherited a lot of money from her dad who wanted a boy so to prove to him she's good enough she works as a cop even though she doesn't have to and is trying to solve Mr. Brooks' murders, there's her partner (token black guy), there's Mr. Brook's daughter (some young starlet) who's back from college because she killed somebody with a hatchet and is preggos, there's Mr. Brooks' wife (the old former stripper lady in CSI Las Vegas) who doesn't know anything, and there's Demi Moore's ex-husband and his lawyer lady who have a sexy affair.

Whew. That's a lot of characters and a lot of plot. Mr. Brooks' feels bookish and I bet if I looked it up I would find that it was based on a novel. You have to pay attention to Mr. Brooks because it jams in a lot in it's fairly lengthy running time and that is a problem because it's kind of slow. However I enjoyed it. The writing is good, Dances With Wolves guy is understated as always but compelling, William Hurt is fun, and even Dane Cook doesn't annoy too much, plus *SPOILER* he gets killed in a neat gory fashion. What I liked most is it's an unusual serial killer movie; a killer who wants to quit has all these problems getting out and the problems pile on and he has to get out of it in a creative serial killer fashion, it's kind of fun and it's kind of smart too. You also see a lot of the twists coming but it's handled well and you don't really know. Plus that's part of the fun.

Gripes:

Too much Demi. Demi Moore is fine, she looks good (surgically), there's nothing wrong with her acting, but her character isn't a big enough player in the story to warrant so much development. The movie could have been a lot shorter if they chose to keep a lot of her background on the down low. It felt a bit like they put all that in because of who Demi Moore is and she probably demanded it.

False ending: The movie ends three times, the first twist is good, the second; not so much. It feels like a last minute addition and the Mr. Brooks character is totally inconsistent in the final ending with everything he'd done up until then. Probably some kind of studio bandoogle.

What Worked:

A lot like I said before. The writing is what really works for me here. There's a lot here and it didn't feel like I was being fed a lot of exposition which is always good. My feeling could be a matter of reference though as the movie I watched prior to this was the crap storm that is Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull: a study in poor exposition thick writing so maybe by comparison Mr. Brooks had less clunky exposition. I don't know. Don't see Indiana Jones is all I can say about that.

Is it better than Dungeons and Dragons:

Yes, a lot better. Real actors, no bad CGI, no Shakespeareans picking up pay cheque.

Mediocrity scale:

Above Mediocre

Food Review:

We had Meat Shoppe brand chicken pot pies. They tasted kind of good going down but later in the night I couldn't sleep because of stomach pains and nausea. Stay away. Oh and we had Purple Fanta; gross, tastes like some kind of mixture of medicine and cleaning chemicals.

The Golden Compass (Aborted Franchise)

A big problem with this movie is that for source material that clearly required a great deal of imagination to create, the movie makers were totally devoid of any. This is a movie by numbers. The casting is uninspired (Come on Gandalf? You couldn't find any other Shakespearean actor?) as is the whole movie. The worst culprit is the writing here; all exposition. As a result the lead girl isn't given much to do except to react to tons and tons of expository dialogue and green screen effects, so we end up not liking her. Smart creative writers are able to hide the exposition in action and story. Here they just say it. This is this and this is this and this is called this and this is the most magical important thing blah blah blah blah. They might as well have done the movie as a Power Point presentation, it would have been equally as enjoyable and I would have been involved about as much. It's like they were so worried about setting up the two sequels that they forgot to make an entertaining movie. Sucks to be them because this movie pretty much bombed so the sequels have been cancelled.

My other gripes:

I couldn't hear what Nicole Kidman was saying. She kept talking in this low scratchy voice that was hard to make out. It wasn't sexy at all. So did the James Bond girl whatever her name is. Is this some kind of new trend; Frog throat acting? It needs to end.

After LOTR and the movie about Spartans, your climactic epic battle between good and evil better be good. It wasn't here, move on.

What Worked:

There's one or two shots where the little girl meets the Polar Bear Gandalf where the digital effects looked really good and the Bear looked real. For the rest of the movie it didn't.

The guy from the Big Lebowski didn't look stupid for about a second.

Was it Better than Dungeons and Dragons:

Yes but it shares some commonalities; Weak lead, lame climactic battle, Shakespearean actor picking up paycheck.

Recommend:

I think kids might like it. Their own imaginations will fill in the voids left in this movie. But they'll probably be looking forward to sequels that will most likely never happen.

Mediocroty Scale:

Just Mediocre

The Golden Compass

It's hard to say what was worse about this movie, the very digital effects or the constant stream of expositional dialogue. I kept wondering as we watched whether the cityscapes and backgrounds were original or borrowed from the models of Naboo created for Star Wars Episode I.

Pain scale score: 4 out of 10

Thankfully the snacks were better than the film. In addition to the always delicious Salt and Pepper flavored Kettle Chips we also sampled the new (to me) flavor of Oreo cookies, Strawberry Milkshake. To my surprise and delight the cookies were actually pretty good - the strawberry flavor worked well with the chocolate cookie.