Displaying Category: Rating_3

I think everyone felt the idea of basing a series of movies on a theme park ride was a really bad idea. Yet the Pirates of the Caribbean movies turned out pretty good. Then, forgetting that, we all thought basing a series of movies on a short clip from a largely in-cohesive dialog-free musical movie was a bad idea... Well, here's The Sorcerer's Apprentice to prove us wrong again.

To put The Sorcerer's Apprentice into context, I would say it's similar to something like Harry Potter in that you've got a dorky nerd-child who is introduced to a world he can barely understand and is, coincidentally, the savior of the world. We're introduced to magic and get some explanation on how it works and the basic "rules" of magic. This is something I really appreciated. Compared to the very limited and almost non-existent explanations we get from the HP movies, we at least get a workable framework in The Sorcerer's Apprentice that I am reasonably comfortable with. There's some solid humor in the movie and a few somewhat touching scenes.

If I had to complain about anything it's that there was clearly a lot of contributing content cut from the final film. In fact, there are at least two scenes in the trailers that don't appear in the final cut. I understand the final cut is, I think, 1 hour and 51 minutes, so I can see they probably had a lot more content that was dropped to keep the movie under two hours. That's okay, but I feel like there may have been some useful scenes left out. For example, one of the scenes you see in the trailer involves Dave blowing up a baseball in lecture he's teaching. Some of the machinery you see in that scene (that is not in the final cut) is used in the climactic final battle... but in the final cut, we don't see that equipment before the final battle. It only made sense seeing the trailer again after having seen the movie. So, it's kind of a shame that we lost some potentially good scenes to the cutting room floor... Or not. I guess we won't know till the DVD release.

In the end, I really enjoyed the movie and look forward to the sequels.

3/5

So let's see, a science fiction movie that includes such things as: heavily armed soldiers, laser cannons, stealth aliens, giant dog things covered in spikes, and no Arnold. Alright, I'm in. Basic premise, all sorts of people are kidnapped and dropped (literally) on to some alien planet that's basically a huge game preserve, and then they get hunted by the predators. It's simple and it works. All in all, I would say it's better than the original Predator because it feels a little more sophisticated and it's not really trying for anything quite as complex as the original.

3/5

I have two minor issues with this movie. First, I didn't buy Tom Cruise as a secret agent. He didn't seem serious enough, which worked given this was a comedy, but it also got in the way of believability. Second, I can't stand Cameron Diaz. Her face weirds me out, so it's difficult for me to look at her. Those two minor issues aside, this movie was very entertaining and lots of fun to watch. It's basically an adult action/comedy thing, and it works. It's funny, it's suspenseful, it's exciting. It just works. So, I'd recommend seeing it if you're looking for something fun, but it is not a must-see.

3/5

George Romero is back with I believe his sixth zombie film. This movie takes place roughly just after (within weeks) the events portrayed in Diary of the Dead. I guess that would mean approximately two months after the dead started walking. Some things that immediately caught me off-guard, the world is not an apocalyptic wasteland. There's still electricity and Internet and in general, most of the world seems to be carrying on. On the other hand, there are no other cars on the road.

The basic plot involves two warring families on a small isolated island off the coast of Delaware. One family believes the dead should stay dead and works to put them all down, while the other family believes the living and the dead should coexist happily. Mix in with this four AWOL soldiers and some teenager they picked up, looking for a safe haven in the storm of chaos(?) and things accelerate quickly toward confrontation. There's also $1 million and no real way to spend it. What is this movie really about? How many ways can you kill a zombie.

Now of course, I don't really expect much from a zombie movie, so I can't say I was exceptionally disappointed, but a sort of gallery of zombie killin' methods wasn't where I expected this to go. Well, okay, maybe I did, but I didn't want it to go there. There was some silliness and some bad lines and the acting was a little over-the-top at times. Then there were all the WTF moments where something happened that just seemed completely out of place with the context. I turned to my friends gesticulating "Why is this even in the movie?!" I guess there were things that seemed like fun, but had no substantive value to the movie. Or, maybe they just needed to fill time? I don't know.

After it was all done I don't really think there was much to be gained from this movie except, perhaps, all those zombie-killing methods. Which is sad, but probably enough to satisfy the zombie aficionados in the crowd.

3/5

Here's how I see Shrek: a movie for adults with a story simple enough that kids can follow along. Many of the jokes are funny, but also predictable. In a way, my favorite part of these movies is picking out all the anachronisms and other things from modern life that don't fit into the world of Ever After. I didn't like the music, but not because it was bad, just because I didn't like any of it. The animation and especially the body language and expressive faces were absolutely top-notch. The 3D effects were also quite satisfying and they didn't try distracting you with it more than two or three times. In the end, I think it hit its mark for being exactly what you'd expect it to be, though I feel I have to knock it down a peg for also focusing on a story only adults can relate to, while also making that story so simplistic that it's tough to really care.

3/5

I will say right up front that my feelings regarding this movie are torn. While it is an undeniably entertaining movie filled with the sorts of medieval (PG-13) fighting and general uncleanliness you have come to expect from period films of this sort, it's also supposed to be about this Robin Hood fellow that we've seen time and again in other films and on television and so on. We know Robin Hood. We are comfortable with Robin Hood. This movie is about the Robin Hood we don't know. How he became an outlaw and what he is truly fighting for. We get a good look at his strength of character in order to give us an idea of how he'll act in future situations. We see what he's fought for and lost. What we don't see in this film is the man we've all grown to know and like (or dislike) as Robin Hood. This is an origin story and not the common story we've grown comfortable with.

This is both good and bad, I think. Obviously if we all know the story of Robin Hood and it's good and solid, there's really no point in telling that story all over again. If you're going to tell the story again, at least bring something new and fresh to the game. I can respect that. At the same time, though, I found myself sort of clawing at the characters and happenings wishing for my fingernails to find purchase on any familiar bits I could find. Other than character names, I was pretty much unsuccessful. The backstories for the characters are all different from what I know. The personalities portrayed are generally different. Well okay, basically Robin Hood is different from what I know. While traditionally, Robin is charismatic and charming, Russell Crowe's Robin is soft-spoken (except when giving speeches) and understated. That's not bad, it's just not familiar. In fact, Robin of Loxley isn't even of Loxley, he's Robin Longstride who takes on the name Loxley as a favor... blah blah blah plot points... it's just odd to me. And after all this effort to be different from the traditional stories of Robin we all know and love, the next movie is going to be forced to tread that well worn earth by virtue of where it falls in the storyline.

Finally, I found there to be a serious technical fault to the film, that the vocal track was mixed far too low to be heard over all the background noise. The spoken dialog seemed very muddy to me. Perhaps just my bad hearing, the friend I saw it with had no trouble understanding it, so perhaps it's just me, but I feel it cut into my ability to enjoy the film fully.

So did I enjoy the movie overall? Yes. Did it feel unnecessarily different from what I am familiar with and possibly contrived in parts to make it different? Yes. Did I have trouble understanding half of what was said? Yes.

3/5

Because this is a movie that I really felt I should see with friends and since my friends prefer to avoid opening weekend on the big movies, I figured I'd be seeing Iron Man 2 in the coming weeks. My plan today was to see The Losers, which clearly did not go according to plan. The theater manager explained that The Losers has been doing so badly that they decided not to run it today and instead were running Iron Man 2 on that screen. Then they told me they'd be opening The Losers up for screening again later tonight around 8:00 PM. Unfortunately, I had already bought a ticket to The Losers, but I definitely didn't want to be around that long. So, I instead went and saw Iron Man 2. Therefore, no ticketstub for Iron Man 2. And now for the review part...

Similar to the first movie, I feel like this second installment was all about setting up other movies. Clearly we're pointing to another Iron Man movie. There's an Avengers movie. There's the Thor movie. There may have been others that my superhero ignorance prevents me from seeing. Therefore, I feel there was a lot of time spent setting up for movies other than the one I was actually watching. Some might call that fan-service, I call it distracting. This also meant there were lots of different storylines, but none of them were ever really filled out. For whatever reason, I enjoyed the interaction between Pepper Pots and Tony Stark the most, but that never really developed into anything meaningful or satisfying and, once again, felt like it was being left for some future movie. There's stuff about Tony's father and his involvement with Vanko (the father of Ivan Vanko, aka, Whiplash) and the Avengers. And this stuff with the government wanting control of the Iron Man "weapon" and Stark's corporate nemesis, Justin Hammer (Captain Hammer? No.) played very well by Sam Rockwell. There's a lot going on and none of it was deep. Maybe it's great fun if you're a huuuuge fan of the comics, but for my money, that doesn't excuse an ADD plot. Finally, I am not saying I didn't enjoy it, I did find it entertaining, I'm just not sure it was a great movie. And don't let the $133 million opening weekend tell you otherwise...

3/5

What I got from this movie: girls are really mean to each other; guys are generally rational and see shades of gray in an "it's complicated" spectrum. Anything else you might want to know about this movie can be inferred from the source material, that of some Nicholas Sparks novel. Which is to say, there was nothing particularly outstanding about it and it was plainly predictable. That's not entirely bad, you go in with expectations and you come out with exactly what you were looking for. Therefore, I can't really recommend one way or the other, whether you see this is entirely based on what you are looking for in a movie.

3/5

Tim Burton does Alice in Wonderland. Great sets (mostly digital). Great costumes. Great music. What's missing? Oh yeah, the story! Actually, the story is fairly well proven, the problem is, I'm not real sure the message holds very well into adulthood. Not that the message isn't valuable, it's just that, by adulthood, I think we've all heard it enough to make the sound of it a bit tired by now. So you know, be your own person, have original thoughts, and smart confident women are hot Got it. Oh, I also did not see this movie in 3D. I was a lot more interested in having a nice clear picture of all the gorgeous settings, then the gimmicky use of 3D Burton employed in this film. At least based on what I heard from reviewers and friends. And all that said, I still got a little choked up as Alice strode into battle with the Jabbewocky.

3/5

One of the iconic monsters in movie history gets a fresh coat of paint so that it can look pretty much just like it did in the 1941 original. That is not to say the movie isn't visually impressive, the digital effects are generally convincing, my problems with the creature stem more from how not-horrifying the creature design actually is.

Speaking of horror, this movie basically subsists on consistently startling the viewer with tension-building music and camera angles designed to make you think something is right there, about to leap out. There's also a fair bit of gore in the form of beheadings and guts strewn about the earth, but most of this happens in dim light leaving much of it up to the viewer to imagine the full extent of the carnage. That said, I would still recommend parents respect the R rating and not take their children under 12 to this movie. Yes, we did see several younger children in the theater.

I did like Danny Elfman's score, it was suitably retro-horror sounding. The werewolf transformations were pretty cool, but still don't quite rival the spectacular displays of An American Werewolf in London, even considering those were practical effects and not CG. Speaking of which, I realized The Wolfman presents a scenario in which we basically have an American werewolf in London. Well, it made me snicker, anyway.

I had some issues with the pacing of the film. As I said before, this movie has an intense focus on startling the viewer, which means there are long sections where basically nothing at all happens in order to build tension. I felt these lulls dragged the movie down a little too much. There's also this problem about mid-way through the movie where there's a full moon for only one night. Oops. And it's not like this is a problem with editing, it's just how the story was written. We need the wolf here, we just don't want to deal with him for a full three days. There's also the primary message of the movie, this issue of fate. Do we have control of our destiny or is it all decided for us? Obviously well-traveled ground and there's nothing new here. I did get a distinct feeling of helplessness, though. Out of no where, a person could be cursed, whether it's being bitten by a supernatural werewolf creature, or having one's house destroyed by a tornado. These are powerful forces we can't control and we get this feeling that anything outside of our control is the raw power of fate at work in our lives. Do we accept it and let the beast free or do we fight fate and kill ourselves. I feel like there should be other options. It shouldn't be any surprise that in the end fate wins, but I'm not sure how I am supposed to feel about that.

Decent movie. Lots of scares. A message that makes you fear the futility of life. Decent effects. Somewhat poor pacing. Rawr.

3/5