A bunch of tribesmen who speak in really short serious sentences (akin to Lothar of the Hill People) track down a bunch of pre-Muslim Muslims who stole some of their friends and a very special girl with blue eyes. Their journey leads them to befriend many noble humorously dressed African tribesmen and they and digital Mamoths, Sabertooths and Ostritches overthrow the evil pre-Egyptian Egyptian emperor and free all the slaves. Yay. This is a movie for everyone. So it sucks. It takes it self very seriously but is totally and completely ridiculous. At about the 45minute mark my brain completely shut down and I was actually able to enjoy the rest of the movie, so I recommend lowering you mental activity to basic brain stem function before starting the film and you'll have a great time.
Gripes: Bad CGI. Stilted terrible expository dialogue about lots of plot lines and ideas about long lost fathers, ancient tribes, old mothers, spirtis, and all of them go absolutely nowhere. PG rating takes all credibility away (that blue eyed girl would have been raped ten times before she even made it a mile) Terrible CGI. Racism? Maybe that's too harsh, how about extreme stereo types.
What worked: Any time the movie forgot that it had to be a big summer block buster with CGI and lots of plot and just settled into telling the story of a bunch of guys going to save a bunch of other guys I could actually pay attention and get interested.
Worse than Dungeons and Dragons?: No. But at the start I thought it might be close however it never reached the heights of pure outrage and hatred that DD did.
Mediocrity Scale: Pretty Mediocre
Food: Cream Soda Crush which was just syrupy and sweet. We also ate Crispers Ranch flavour, and Sour Cream and Onion flavor. If I had to break down the experience of eating them to its most basic I would have to say thin cardboard strips coated with salt. We did not finish either pack. Normally we fight to the end to finish whatever we have.
Sunday, August 10, 2008
Tuesday, August 5, 2008
The Bank Job
Jason Statham is awesome. One of my favorite action film actors working today.
The Bank job is the story of a group of small time crooks who, under the pretense of being presented with a score too big and easy to pass up, are actually being manipulated to steal the contents of a security deposit box containing some X-Rated photographs of a royal personnage.
There is a subplot involving the UK version of Malcolm X who supposedly is using the photos to blackmail the british government in such a way that the powers that be feel that hiring some crooks to steal the photos is a better plan than to send in some secret agents to do the job.
But like any good Hitchockian thriller, the whys and wherefores are less important than the journey and the predicament our hero finds himself in.
The movie which takes place in the '70s feels quite a bit like a Guy Ritchie movie, or a low-rent version of Ocean's 11 (the remake (which is fabulous), not the original (which sucks)). The actors all acquit themselves well and the script keeps the action moving along with the requisite suspense and "will they get caught" moments.
Of course like any movie we sit down to watch together, The Bank Job is not without it's share of problems, most notably a few slow periods where the film drags a bit between the good parts. Overall I don't have a lot to complain about, but I'm happy I didn't pay full movie theatre fare.
Pain Score: 3 out of 10.
The Bank job is the story of a group of small time crooks who, under the pretense of being presented with a score too big and easy to pass up, are actually being manipulated to steal the contents of a security deposit box containing some X-Rated photographs of a royal personnage.
There is a subplot involving the UK version of Malcolm X who supposedly is using the photos to blackmail the british government in such a way that the powers that be feel that hiring some crooks to steal the photos is a better plan than to send in some secret agents to do the job.
But like any good Hitchockian thriller, the whys and wherefores are less important than the journey and the predicament our hero finds himself in.
The movie which takes place in the '70s feels quite a bit like a Guy Ritchie movie, or a low-rent version of Ocean's 11 (the remake (which is fabulous), not the original (which sucks)). The actors all acquit themselves well and the script keeps the action moving along with the requisite suspense and "will they get caught" moments.
Of course like any movie we sit down to watch together, The Bank Job is not without it's share of problems, most notably a few slow periods where the film drags a bit between the good parts. Overall I don't have a lot to complain about, but I'm happy I didn't pay full movie theatre fare.
Pain Score: 3 out of 10.
Redacted
Once again I am behind in my review posting, so please forgive me if my memory of the movie is cloudy.
Over the last couple of months I've slowly been making my way through the "Iraq war" movie glut of last year having seen In The Valley of Elah, The Kingdom, Lions for Lambs and now finally Redacted.
I was curious to know why Redacted lives on the "Restricted" shelf of the local video store, beside the soft core porn films and was disappointed that the rating was earned for a particularly gruesome rape sequence rather than for violent or profane content. But I'm getting ahead of myself. The movie, which stars no one, is directed by Brian DePalma and pretends to be assembled from video footage collected by several groups - an army grunt, a french news channel, and some security video footage.
If this sounds a lot like the recently reviewed here Vantage Point, it's because it is, though this time we are at least spared having to see the same sequence over and over again.
The story revolves around a group of army grunts whose tour has just been extended as they deal with the high stress environment of operating an army checkpoint. Looking to burn off some steam after an incident involving the shooting of a pregnant woman during a "routine" checkpoint stop, a couple of the boys decide to go and have some "fun" - raping a young Iraqi woman and killing her family while two of their comrades look on in horror - unable to do anything to stop them.
Unfortunately the movie is far more interested in scoring points against war in general and the "war on terror" in particular to delve into the true motivations and emotions of the characters involved. The villains are cookie-cutter and the speech given by the "hero" who presented evidence against his former friends at the end of the movie is forced and contrived.
Pain scale: 6 out of 10.
Over the last couple of months I've slowly been making my way through the "Iraq war" movie glut of last year having seen In The Valley of Elah, The Kingdom, Lions for Lambs and now finally Redacted.
I was curious to know why Redacted lives on the "Restricted" shelf of the local video store, beside the soft core porn films and was disappointed that the rating was earned for a particularly gruesome rape sequence rather than for violent or profane content. But I'm getting ahead of myself. The movie, which stars no one, is directed by Brian DePalma and pretends to be assembled from video footage collected by several groups - an army grunt, a french news channel, and some security video footage.
If this sounds a lot like the recently reviewed here Vantage Point, it's because it is, though this time we are at least spared having to see the same sequence over and over again.
The story revolves around a group of army grunts whose tour has just been extended as they deal with the high stress environment of operating an army checkpoint. Looking to burn off some steam after an incident involving the shooting of a pregnant woman during a "routine" checkpoint stop, a couple of the boys decide to go and have some "fun" - raping a young Iraqi woman and killing her family while two of their comrades look on in horror - unable to do anything to stop them.
Unfortunately the movie is far more interested in scoring points against war in general and the "war on terror" in particular to delve into the true motivations and emotions of the characters involved. The villains are cookie-cutter and the speech given by the "hero" who presented evidence against his former friends at the end of the movie is forced and contrived.
Pain scale: 6 out of 10.
Thursday, July 10, 2008
Pointless
Raph insisted on seeing the Dennis Quaid/Forrest Whittaker epic Vantage Point this time out and I have to admit that I was somewhat curious. Was this going to be a movie that would rise above it's gimic (viewing the same story from the "vantage point" of several different characters (get it?)) or was the gimic all the movie had going for it?
The answer was clear within the first five minutes. Vantage Point is a thriller decidely lacking in thrills. Instead of using the fact that the audience knows what is going to happen (from both the trailer of the film and the opening sequence) to build suspense, the filmmakers thought it would be more interesting to use each character's vantage point to hammer us over the head with the details any reasonable person would have noticed previously.
The conceit completely falls apart in the last third or so of the movie when the film begins cutting between multiple vantage points to tell the meat of the story. The climax, which brings everyone together was laughably implausible, like an M. Night Shyamalan movie without a twist ending.
Pain score: 6 out of 10.
We had "cheese" to eat, but we made the mistake of buying Roasted Red Pepper and Lime flavored tortilla chips which were awful. We had Ice Blue Kool-Aid instead of our usual carbonated beverage selection which was a refreshing change and surprisingly delicious. It was surprised that it wasn't sweeter tasting than it was given the cup of sugar required to make it.
The answer was clear within the first five minutes. Vantage Point is a thriller decidely lacking in thrills. Instead of using the fact that the audience knows what is going to happen (from both the trailer of the film and the opening sequence) to build suspense, the filmmakers thought it would be more interesting to use each character's vantage point to hammer us over the head with the details any reasonable person would have noticed previously.
The conceit completely falls apart in the last third or so of the movie when the film begins cutting between multiple vantage points to tell the meat of the story. The climax, which brings everyone together was laughably implausible, like an M. Night Shyamalan movie without a twist ending.
Pain score: 6 out of 10.
We had "cheese" to eat, but we made the mistake of buying Roasted Red Pepper and Lime flavored tortilla chips which were awful. We had Ice Blue Kool-Aid instead of our usual carbonated beverage selection which was a refreshing change and surprisingly delicious. It was surprised that it wasn't sweeter tasting than it was given the cup of sugar required to make it.
Vantage Point
J has already said pretty much what there is to say. This movie is a stinker. Still, here's my 2 cents.
Dennis Quaid, Sigourney Weaver, Forrest Whitaker, and a bunch of terrorist looking actors come to cash their checks. This movie is really bad and has so many things wrong with it it's hard to figure out where to begin. Let's do a quick recap; The US president (Jimmie's borther from History of Violence but giving a much more boring and sedate performance) is in Spain to give a speech, a terrorist threat is intercepted, so instead of the real president giving the speech it's his double. Guarding the double is Dennis Quaid, an experienced secret service agent who last year got shot protecting the pres but is now back on the job and is understandably nervous. The double gets shot, the real pres gets kidnapped and the whole thing is foiled by an annoying little girl that likes to play in traffic. Now the kicker is we get to see these events unfold from seven different points of view, seven 'vantage points' if you will. We see it from the POV of the terrorists, innocent bystander I look like I'm going to cry all the time Forrest Whitaker, Dennis Quaid, the president guy, Sigourney Weaver in a Television control room, some random Spanish cop, and so on. Which kind of sounds cool, but it's not cool, not cool at all, it's just lame. To begin with if you remove the different points of view concept and just lay out the plot of the thing it's totally ridiculous and unbeleviable. Double agents, super duper prescient terrorists, super duper secret ops trained terrorists, Dennis Quaid is always at the exact right place at the right time, it's dumb and cliche at every turn. But it gets worse, you have to watch the dumb cliches over and over. Each point of view reveals a bit more of the story but after it's played out the movie rewinds and you have to sit through stuff you already saw again. Because Dennis Quaid is the focus (star? is Dennis Quaid a star?) of the film each 'vantage point' has to feature him, so unfortunately we get to see him make the same phone call more than once. Why? That's boring. Stupidly he's one of the first vantage points presented, so we basically know the whole story from the central characters POV right from the beginning. I could care less what the periphery characters saw, just get on with it. It's like watching Star Wars up to the moment in the cantina scene where pig face gets his arm chopped off, then the movie rewinds and we watch pigfaced man's day until he gets to the cantina and we watch him again interact with the leads and gets his arm chopped off again. Who cares; get on with Star Wars.
What Worked:
There's people getting shot and explosions and that's always neat. There's a car chase and cars get smashed up pretty good.
Gipes :
This thing is such a fiasco it's hard to list them all. The boring sequence right from the top in the televesion control room (one of the 'vantage points') which features a tired and confused Sigourney Weaver.
How about the fact that there's a huge bomb explosion in a public place but no one seems to really get hurt. It's so sanitary it's offensive to every person that has lost a limb or had their face blown off by a bomb.
Forest Whittaker, all of Forest Whittaker, every single frame of Forest Whittaker.
Was it better than Dungeons and Dragons?
Yes. There is no part in DD worth watching, in this at least the car chase scene is something and I must admit I wanted to see how the thing was going to end and play out (I was sorely disappointed with how it did mind you) I couldn't care less how DD was going to end.
Mediocroty Scale:
A less than mediocre effort all around
Food.
We had some kind of blue Kool-Aid and thankfully it didn't kill us and tasted great and refreshing. Some kind of lime tortilla chips; look that lime powder shit doesn't belong on anything so stop putting it on stuff it makes it taste gross. And of course melted Nacho Cheese is an old favorite and it was good minus the lime flavour.
Dennis Quaid, Sigourney Weaver, Forrest Whitaker, and a bunch of terrorist looking actors come to cash their checks. This movie is really bad and has so many things wrong with it it's hard to figure out where to begin. Let's do a quick recap; The US president (Jimmie's borther from History of Violence but giving a much more boring and sedate performance) is in Spain to give a speech, a terrorist threat is intercepted, so instead of the real president giving the speech it's his double. Guarding the double is Dennis Quaid, an experienced secret service agent who last year got shot protecting the pres but is now back on the job and is understandably nervous. The double gets shot, the real pres gets kidnapped and the whole thing is foiled by an annoying little girl that likes to play in traffic. Now the kicker is we get to see these events unfold from seven different points of view, seven 'vantage points' if you will. We see it from the POV of the terrorists, innocent bystander I look like I'm going to cry all the time Forrest Whitaker, Dennis Quaid, the president guy, Sigourney Weaver in a Television control room, some random Spanish cop, and so on. Which kind of sounds cool, but it's not cool, not cool at all, it's just lame. To begin with if you remove the different points of view concept and just lay out the plot of the thing it's totally ridiculous and unbeleviable. Double agents, super duper prescient terrorists, super duper secret ops trained terrorists, Dennis Quaid is always at the exact right place at the right time, it's dumb and cliche at every turn. But it gets worse, you have to watch the dumb cliches over and over. Each point of view reveals a bit more of the story but after it's played out the movie rewinds and you have to sit through stuff you already saw again. Because Dennis Quaid is the focus (star? is Dennis Quaid a star?) of the film each 'vantage point' has to feature him, so unfortunately we get to see him make the same phone call more than once. Why? That's boring. Stupidly he's one of the first vantage points presented, so we basically know the whole story from the central characters POV right from the beginning. I could care less what the periphery characters saw, just get on with it. It's like watching Star Wars up to the moment in the cantina scene where pig face gets his arm chopped off, then the movie rewinds and we watch pigfaced man's day until he gets to the cantina and we watch him again interact with the leads and gets his arm chopped off again. Who cares; get on with Star Wars.
What Worked:
There's people getting shot and explosions and that's always neat. There's a car chase and cars get smashed up pretty good.
Gipes :
This thing is such a fiasco it's hard to list them all. The boring sequence right from the top in the televesion control room (one of the 'vantage points') which features a tired and confused Sigourney Weaver.
How about the fact that there's a huge bomb explosion in a public place but no one seems to really get hurt. It's so sanitary it's offensive to every person that has lost a limb or had their face blown off by a bomb.
Forest Whittaker, all of Forest Whittaker, every single frame of Forest Whittaker.
Was it better than Dungeons and Dragons?
Yes. There is no part in DD worth watching, in this at least the car chase scene is something and I must admit I wanted to see how the thing was going to end and play out (I was sorely disappointed with how it did mind you) I couldn't care less how DD was going to end.
Mediocroty Scale:
A less than mediocre effort all around
Food.
We had some kind of blue Kool-Aid and thankfully it didn't kill us and tasted great and refreshing. Some kind of lime tortilla chips; look that lime powder shit doesn't belong on anything so stop putting it on stuff it makes it taste gross. And of course melted Nacho Cheese is an old favorite and it was good minus the lime flavour.
Tuesday, July 8, 2008
Resident Evil: Extinction
As we started watching the latest entry in the Resident Evil franchise, I realized that despite having seen the previous films, I had virtually no memory of them.
It is appropriate then, that a little over a week after watching, I have little memory of the latest entry. Milla Jovovich is once again pitted against the remnants of the evil corporation that genetically engineered her (or did they only clone her?) and in the process she runs into the kids from Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome, who, now grown up are travelling across America in a convoy, searching out gas and food from each broken town.
In the meantime there are a few battles with zombie crows and zombie humans, and Ashanti dies (the film isn't all bad) until the final confrontation with the corporations lead scientist who decides to try his latest experiment out on himself, turning himself into a super zombie.
Neither Milla nor we the audience ever make it to Tomorrow-morrow land, but things are set up nicely for another sequel that I'm sure I'll see but not remember.
Overall pain score: 5 out of 10.
It is appropriate then, that a little over a week after watching, I have little memory of the latest entry. Milla Jovovich is once again pitted against the remnants of the evil corporation that genetically engineered her (or did they only clone her?) and in the process she runs into the kids from Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome, who, now grown up are travelling across America in a convoy, searching out gas and food from each broken town.
In the meantime there are a few battles with zombie crows and zombie humans, and Ashanti dies (the film isn't all bad) until the final confrontation with the corporations lead scientist who decides to try his latest experiment out on himself, turning himself into a super zombie.
Neither Milla nor we the audience ever make it to Tomorrow-morrow land, but things are set up nicely for another sequel that I'm sure I'll see but not remember.
Overall pain score: 5 out of 10.
Wednesday, July 2, 2008
Resident Evil: Extinction
It's Mila Jojovich and a bunch of pretty kids running around the desert fighting zombies. Thankfully a lot of the pretty kids get eaten by the zombies.
After some virus has turned most of the population of the world into mindless zombies bent on killing people and turned the earth into a barren wasteland a few pockets of humanity survive. One of these pockets is a convoy of people that drive around in big SUV's (H2's no less) collecting gas and survivors. The poeple are mostly made up of young Lindsay Lohan wanna be girls. Actually seeing them driving around in an H2 is quite appropriate since it's probably what they do on a daily basis in their regular lives, but they simply were not an ounce beleivable as rough and tough survivors of an apokalypse. I think Alyiah was one of them but what do I know. Anyway they hook up with Mila and kick zombie ass, except that a lot of those starlets get eaten on the way. Which is fun. Actually having these girls in the film made Mila Jojovich seem that much more credible. She had a real sense of having done it all before sadness about her I really liked.
There was lots of convoluded plot about super domesticated zombies, Mila having special powers, unafected areas in Canada, on and on as is usually the case in these video game movies. Since I haven't played the game and didn't care I didn't really pay attention to the plot. I just sat back and enjoyed Mila killing zombies with knives and machetes, zombies getting machine gunned, and young startlets getting eaten.
What worked:
It's rated R and the violence was there. I like zombies that eat people so that was fun. The action set pieces were on the low budget side, but this is a low budget zombie thing so.
Gripes:
The acting was really bad. I could see the acting coaches lurking in the shadows. These kids just don't have talent and shouldn't act. The killer birds sequence was stupid too but it did thankfully kill Alyiah.
Was it Better than Dungeons and Dragons:
Oh yeah. R rating alone makes it better, throw in zombies and some bloody kills and you're in a different league from D&D.
Mediocrity Scale:
Pretty Mediocre.
Food:
I think we had albino Oreo Cakesters. They're discounted at the supermarket and rightfully so. It's kind of like a twinky burger type thing. I could feel the sugar grains in the filling; not high quality stuff. We also had another flavour of Fanta, I think it was grape, I just remember it was gross.
After some virus has turned most of the population of the world into mindless zombies bent on killing people and turned the earth into a barren wasteland a few pockets of humanity survive. One of these pockets is a convoy of people that drive around in big SUV's (H2's no less) collecting gas and survivors. The poeple are mostly made up of young Lindsay Lohan wanna be girls. Actually seeing them driving around in an H2 is quite appropriate since it's probably what they do on a daily basis in their regular lives, but they simply were not an ounce beleivable as rough and tough survivors of an apokalypse. I think Alyiah was one of them but what do I know. Anyway they hook up with Mila and kick zombie ass, except that a lot of those starlets get eaten on the way. Which is fun. Actually having these girls in the film made Mila Jojovich seem that much more credible. She had a real sense of having done it all before sadness about her I really liked.
There was lots of convoluded plot about super domesticated zombies, Mila having special powers, unafected areas in Canada, on and on as is usually the case in these video game movies. Since I haven't played the game and didn't care I didn't really pay attention to the plot. I just sat back and enjoyed Mila killing zombies with knives and machetes, zombies getting machine gunned, and young startlets getting eaten.
What worked:
It's rated R and the violence was there. I like zombies that eat people so that was fun. The action set pieces were on the low budget side, but this is a low budget zombie thing so.
Gripes:
The acting was really bad. I could see the acting coaches lurking in the shadows. These kids just don't have talent and shouldn't act. The killer birds sequence was stupid too but it did thankfully kill Alyiah.
Was it Better than Dungeons and Dragons:
Oh yeah. R rating alone makes it better, throw in zombies and some bloody kills and you're in a different league from D&D.
Mediocrity Scale:
Pretty Mediocre.
Food:
I think we had albino Oreo Cakesters. They're discounted at the supermarket and rightfully so. It's kind of like a twinky burger type thing. I could feel the sugar grains in the filling; not high quality stuff. We also had another flavour of Fanta, I think it was grape, I just remember it was gross.
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