Batman Begins

High expectations can be your worst enemy. I'm sure they were a big part of why I disliked Batman Begins. But personally, I'd place the Lion's share of the blame on hack extraordinaire David Goyer- and the studio mindset that put him in the scriptwriter's chair. Batman Begins tells the story of how, well, Batman begins.

 Traumatized by the violent murder of his parents, multimillionaire Bruce Wayne travels the world incognito on a quest to understand crime in order to stop it. In an unspecified asian country, he meets and bonds with a mysterious stranger who inducts him into a brotherhood of ninjas (...). Bruce returns home to Gotham City after betraying the order, and uses his training and resources to fight crime in an armoured costume. Cheap psychology and philosophy are at the order of the day, but it works somehow, thanks to excellent performances by Christian Bale, Liam Neeson and especially Michael Caine.

 The cinematography is quite beautiful; I don't think Gotham has ever been so well realised (while Tim Burton's was aesthetically better, this one looks real). The soundtrack is excellent as well, and the action is decent. Even the script holds up pretty well, at first; for every dodgy spot, there is a cool one to be found- the movie generates enough goodwill to overlook the hackwork.

 That is, until it caves in under its own weight. With all its nods towards a more mature, gritty approach (ninjas notwithstanding), the ridiculous scope and suspiciously tidy resolutions become too much to ignore at a certain point. The worst revelation, and emblematic of the problems plaguing the movie, is that the main bad guy is also responsible for the death of Bruce Wayne's parents. And that's not just stupid, it's cheap.

 Think about it. Batman Begins is a movie that begged for a low key, more naturalistic take; for a while, it delivers, but the last half hour is just too much to take. I really wanted to like this movie. I still do, in a fashion. It could have been a great movie, but settles with being a solid action/adventure flick. Fuck you, David Shithead Goyer.

Touching the Void

In 1985, after successfully reaching the peak of peruvian mountain Siula Grande through a previously unused route (this, apparently, is a Big Deal for mountain climbers), one of the pair of climbers suffers an accident and breaks his leg. His partner is forced to cut him loose and leave him for dead, but he miraculously survives and reaches home camp after a grueling trek.
Touching the Void chronicles the ordeal through extensive interviews with all three protagonists, breathtaking location shots, and (shudder), reenactment. The story itself is amazing, the kind of crap that would get booed out of the screen as completely bollocks- except for the fact that it really happened. Joe Simpson and Simon Yates are pleasant and candid, making for some very engaging narrative, and director Kevin MacDonald does a great job of asking difficult questions and bringing the different elements in the movie to life. The scene where Simon is forced to cut the rope tethering his partner has more pathos than a hundred summer blockbusters, and Joe's description of his leg injury is far more painful than any graphic maiming.
Even the recreation, normally the weakest link in this kind of production, is strong, underlining the narration and faithfully conveying the beauty and danger of the mountain. It stumbles later on, particularly when trying to capture the maddening final leg of Joe's journey, but it mostly does right by the material.

In the end, everything is secondary to the story. Even without suspense, the movie manages to trap you completely. And while I would normally be cheering for the mountain, two things align myself with the two human protagonists. One is that they seem to be decent folk, not just Xtreme idiots. The other thing- at one point, when faced with the absolute certainty of death, Joe decides that that he is not going to pray, and discovers that he really does not believe in god. You just have to respect that.

Sin city

What can you say about a movie where someone rips out another man's balls with his own hands? Fucking awesome, that’s what you say. The eunuch's head is then pounded into jelly... oh, bliss.

Stylish, exciting and relentlessly violent, Sin City follows three vaguely interlocking stories set in the same city. A cop battles a serial rapist/killer (and the web of corruption that protects him), a thug goes on a bloody rampage to resolve the murder of a whore, and an assassin gets involved in a war between a confederation of bitches and the forces of pimpdom. The movie oozes blood and testosterone, and proudly exists in a realm completely separate from reality.
The aesthetic is that of classic 40s noir movies, but modern sport cars race the streets. The men are heroic, doomed forces of nature, and women are firmly in the background as plot devices. A brawler can hit someone and send him flying ten meters, and wire-fu is relegated to a despicable assassin. A shot to the head is only an inconvenience, and someone can jump down three stories to skip the stairs- because, you know, he's so fucking macho, that his three-feet diameter titanium balls will break the fall (and possibly the pavement).

And you know what? All of this doesn't break the suspension of disbelief. In boldly going forward with an almost surrealistic visual design, it not only manages to lovingly recreate the source material (in the best translation of comic aesthetics to the screen you are likely to see short of full-out animation), but also makes all the weirdness easier to accept. In throwing away all restrictions, the directors are free to pursue the essence of pulp/noir, and get damn near to it. It's such a pure representation of the genre, that it looks completely new... and that is something worth celebrating in itself.

Just about the only criticism that can I can make on this movie is that after Merv's story is done, anything else can only go downhill- but that's more praise than criticism. From the very beginning, the dry, slghtly ridiculous noir-y voiceover hits the perfect note. Minutes later, you see Bruce Willis 'drive' a car: his hands move the steering wheel whithout any correlation to the superimposed road receding in the background. Right about then, five minutes into the movie, you know you're in for a treat.
And Rodriguez, Miller and Co. never disappoint.

The Punisher

 Note from future me: Holy shit, I was exceptionally homophobic for this one... sorry about that.
 I was on the verge of deleting it, because, well, no excuses, it's pretty dire, and not just in the basic humanity side of things - it really is a terrible write-up - but I'm leaving this one up because I do think I was right in that this is movie is extremely homoerotic, and in a weird way; it's not as if all the camp is a theme or anything, unless it's commenting on action movies... which might well be, but the movie didn't seem remotely smart enough to do. Maybe I'd need to watch it again, but... nah.

Undercover cop makes one last bust, retires, and goes to enjoy life with his family. Bad, unconvincing bad guys kill his family and him. Or not? Cop survives due to the mysterious powers of plot convenience. He then goes on to get revenge. While this setup would prepare you for an extremely bad movie (and it is), you hardly would expect much in the way of homosexual content... (or maybe you would, it is called The Punisher after all). Oh, but there is. This movie is gayer than Top Gun... hell, it's gayer than Hot throbbing Sailor Bumfucks XVII Let's get the least important stuff out of the way. It sucks as an action movie. It's poorly choreographed, has no imagination at all, and there is no pathos because the characters are all poorly thought out cartoons. In fact it bears honorable mention because it's Bad Enough to Be Good; I have already commented on just how rare these are, and the Punisher would be noteworthy only for that distinction. There's a scene with a close up of the main character's face, while flashbacks play as fade ins. There are reaction shots to supporting... well, actors, making faces that in a fair world would count as major criminal offenses. There is the ultimate mark of a hack action movie: the training sequence. Clumsy exposition and idiotically quirky characters. This one covers all the bases, and has absolutely no talent to back it up. So what about the gay part? what indeed. Here's a short list of highlights: * There is a (lame) explanation for this next sequence, but frankly, it stinks, and this movie doesn't deserve a break. So: at one point The Punisher 'tortures' a man by removing his shirt, tying him up, hanging him upside down... and rubbing a popsicle on his back. I wish I was making this shit up. The sequence ends whith the popsicle shoved in the guy's mouth. I hope you swallow. * A guy enters the dive where The Punisher is having breakfast. This guy looks seriously gay- painted fingernails, and making faces at our manly hero- everything short of blowing kisses. So, he opens his guitar case... and pulls out... a guitar. And Serenades him. All the while, they cast longing, smoldering gazes at each other. Sizzling, baby! Oh, and his name is Harry Heck. Pffft. * A girl touches our hero, and he flinches away. We're talking a seriously hot girl here. Later, she all but offers a blowjob. His response? "I'm not what you're looking for". Ostensibly, a heterosexual man. * Another hired killer looks like a reject from the Village people. He wears a tight striped shirt, and is strongly reminiscent of either a sailor or a circus strongman. Name: the Russian. The fight is long and arduous; I'm not normally one to say that fight scenes are stand ins for sex scenes, but this one would be a good case for that point of view. * What would Charles Bronson do if you offed his family? he'd kill you, your family, and your dog, painfully. And then he'd invent time travel to kill you all over again. What does The Punisher do? he comes up with a ludicrously convoluted, implausible plan to get his nemesis to kill his wife and his best friend, just so he can dramatically uncover his manipulations just before the final kill. Hell hath no fury like a Gorgeous Dreamboat Queen scorned. * Talking about killing the bad guy- they embrace, and he stabs him repeatedly... the camera emphasizes the powerful thrusts, and Travolta says over and over in a breathy (and whiny, but that's his normal tone) voice "you're killing me". His tone lies somewhere between pain and ecstasy. All this peppered with loving shots of well chiseled abs and sweaty male torsos, and none-too-subtle innuendo. I am serious here, this movie is Gay Paradise. And I'm also serious when I say I enjoyed every minute of it. This is pure, unadulterated, grade A shit here, and it had me laughing almost non-stop. Unintentional comedy indeed.

Boa Vs Python

It's almost enough for me to believe that there is a god, after all. Not just one, but three little gems discovered this last few weeks.

This is the first one. A movie so incredibly crappy it is supremely enjoyable, and awe inspiring in its sheer lack of talent. The kind of bad movie that's unintentionally hilarious ALL the time... except, of course, when it's trying to be funny.
How can I possibly begin to sum it up? It's a complete, unmitigated disaster. Bad in absolutely every conceivable way (ther redhaired girl is pretty hot, though). The faces these 'actors' make at the camera alone would be enough to sink it, but add to that crappy CGI work, a willingness to plumb cliches even Michael Bay would consider lame, and some of the most head-slappingly stupid scenes in recent memory... shit in such a concentrated form, it has turned into a diamond. It's so bad it's transcendent. For at least ten years, all the bad movies have been offensively mediocre, extremely bad in such a way that no entertainment could be derived from them at all.
Watching this movie has made my week. B-movies can overcome monetary limitations and be good, as movies like Tremors or Dog Soldiers amply demonstrate. They can even be better than full budget studio movies; the first fight scene in Dog Soldiers, for example, is about as exciting and cool as anything Hollywood puts out these days. Boa Vs Python takes the opposite path: it elevates unwitting cheesiness to an art form, and ends up just as entertaining. The pleasure you take in it has traces of morbidity (holy shit, it can't be this bad), power trip (yes, there are people way more stupid than you out there), and unbelieving shock (holy shit, it really is this bad)
You've got to watch this. Period.

Random bullshit...

I recently got some feedback! A friend recommended the site to an acquaintance of his, who had this to say of me after reading my review of Butterfly effect:
"He may know a lot about movies, but he doesn't know anything about life"
Brilliant. OK, its a lot funnier in spanish, but I still want that engraved in my tombstone. Dude, even if your taste in movies is shit, you got me in a nutshell. Except for my knowing a lot about movies, you're thinking of the guys below.

And I found this site: www.ruthlessreviews.com
I actually knew of them a while back (their hilarious top ten death metal picture list found their way to my mailbox somehow), but another friend recently recommended their movie reviews section after reading my School of Rock review. It's the only negative review of that piece of crap I've seen online (besides mine, but that's more of a rant than a review), and it kicks ass. The rest of their site kicks ass. Be sure to check out their guide to '80s action... Priceless.

Star Wars Episode 3 Revenge of the Sith

Episode I was an irredeemable disaster. Episode II was rarely above mediocre, a mess of a movie only memorable for the first scene, the final battle sequence, and some of the worst acting since The Blair Witch Project 2.
So, what to make of Revenge of the Sith? It's far better than the other two installments, but that's not high praise- it barely qualifies as praise at all.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. The movie mostly follows the adventures of the Jedi Anakin Skywalker and Obi Wan Kenobi as they work against the enemies of the republic, and chronicles Anakin's (pitifully short) fall into the Dark side and transformation into Darth Vader. The whole action-adventure side of things is handled rather well, all things considered: clumsy at times, and show-offy, but fun nonetheless. As for the rest...
The acting. Oh my god, the acting!. You know how some directors elicit better performances out of their actors? Well, Lucas is just the opposite*. I assume he's so pissed off he can't replace them with CGI, that he's settled for burning down their careers- there is no other way to excuse some of the shitty dialog he wrote for them.
Plot has never been a strong point in the prequels. This time it fares slightly better, but still falls apart at the slightest examination. I've already mentioned the dialogue, but the characters themselves are underwritten and poorly developed, making it all but impossible to care for them. The comic relief is hardly comic, and ill-conceived oddball touches abound (check out Obi Wan's lizard ride, or the ridiculous wheezing bio-droid) That said, there are some good bits, which I'll get to later.
The special effects are where the movie really shines. Although I still think many of the scenes lack solidity, they are all pretty impressive. Some nerd toiled for weeks on end for that bit of debris to fly out of that explosion and smack that other ship; never mind that a better director would have left it on the background- Lucas focuses on and follows it to show you just how much attention he pays to detail! Plus, it looks pretty damn good.

OK. So, given everything I've mentioned, it'd be a pretty safe bet to say I didn't like it, right? Well, not really. I did enjoy it even if I think it's not particularly good. There are two main things that elevate this above its own mediocrity: a social conscience and, more importantly, violence.

Now, far be it from me to say that this movie is in the same league as Fahrenheit 9/11 or Citizen Bob Roberts. But coming from a man that has his head so far up his own ass that he can bite his uvula, the parallels he draws in his movie to the current political situation are pretty momentous. And I can't believe that the same man who wrote love scenes that would get laughed off a cheap soap opera set wrote the line (and I'm paraphrasing here, my memory sucks): "so this is how democracy ends- with applause"
In another big departure from the other, kiddy-friendlier prequels, this movie is violent. Very much so. While not a drop of blood is spilled, we get hacked limbs, summary executions, a children massacre (!!!), and it is clearly conveyed that all of this violence not only looks cool, but it *hurts*. It made me feel warm and fuzzy all over. Parents all over the world will be psychically scarred, and their children will love it; Hallelujah! Too bad they didn't show the kids, sorry, younglings (...) getting slaughtered.
The last big fight also merits mention. In it Obi Wan exhibits real pathos (in perhaps the only honest-looking emotional display in the whole prequel trilogy), and Anakin... well, I enjoyed that last bits of that scene thoroughly, you'll understand why when you see it. A great detail- their almost identical fighting styles (master and apprentice, after all). Great stuff.

So in the end, I'd say this movie ranks somewhere between OK and good. It entertains, and it might even give someone food for thought. But most importantly, and I thought I'd never say this, is that it qualifies as art- as in the difference between something made to please or meet expectations, and something made because you feel you have something to say. It's not good art, but it takes risks, and that's something I respect.


*: consider Lucas as the Anti-Herzog, and Christensen the anti-kinski: a hack director and a bad actor that constantly elicit new lows from each other...

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

A friend let me know, just before I went into the theater, that this was a tough movie to enjoy. Man, do I agree with him.
Now, don't take that the wrong way. The movie is good - far better than I had any right to expect. Funny, intelligent, well acted and weird as hell. So, how can it be hard to enjoy?
Well... simply put, familiarity with the source material. Douglas Adams is all about setting up extended jokes where all the fun is in the punchline. If you know all the punchlines, you're left with the extended set-up. It does spoil things quite a bit.

There are also some adaptation problems to be found. Artifacts from the movie's accidented journey from the page to the screen are everywhere; from a particularly glaring (but necessary) exposition scene on one of the major characters early in the movie, to plot holes and story threads that are lost in the shuffle (a conspiracy is never resolved, or even gone into... and the main story never quite makes sense). Strangely enough, these are really minor points. In a movie that features a infinite improbability drive which converts the characters into talking sofas or animated knitwork dolls, a cohesive story is not a priority.

And a great adaptation it is. It captures perfectly the haphazard structure of the books, complete with asides and digressions. The Guide entries bear a disturbing similarity to corporate infomercials, complete with hilarious flash-like animations (the babel fish entry is sublime) The actors are uniformly excellent; a bit jarring at first, but they quickly grow on you (a statement which describes the movie quite well, in fact). My main fears after learning that Buena Vista was behind the movie were fortunately unfounded. While kid-friendly, it's definitely not a kiddie flick; the action was not transposed to the US, nor did they hire only photogenic actors. And the movie sports a distinct personality: unlike the first two Harry Potter movies, where you could actually feel a faceless committee erasing any trace of personality the filmmaker might have tried to leave in his work (nevermind that the filmmaker in question, Chris Columbus, is a talentless hack), you can actually tell that someone put a lot of himself into the movie. That these things count as major triumphs speaks volumes of the sad state of Hollywood fare.

Anyhow, I was thoroughly impressed, even if I did not laugh as much as I would have had I not read the books, watched the miniseries, and played the text adventures... I think Douglas Adams would be proud.

Dog Soldiers

A group of soldiers doing some wargame practices in the scottish wilderness run into honest-to-god-fucking werewolves. Wacky hijinks ensue, much blood is splattered, and few, if any, survive. Huzzah!
Oh, and it's fucking grand.

The british prove once again that they excel at scaring your pants off while making you piss them laughing. Well, maybe not scaring, I can't really comment on that end (the only movie that really scared me was The Changeling), but it is suitably gruesome and wrings maximum menace from its extremely tight budget...
Yes, this is a B-movie. But until the rubber suits come out, it's hard to tell. The actors don't stand out, but do a nice job overall, the script is quite good, and the action is convincing. Even the werewolves are good, once you get past how obviously fake they are; the movie wisely uses them sparingly untill the last half hour or so, when the action ratches up enough that you just don't care.
And while this movie is not quite as funny as Shawn of the Dead (which Dog Soldiers predates), it's damn funny. A particular sequence with a dog, some misplaced intestines, and a shower of vomit had me almost crying with laughter. Such laugh-out-loud moments are far between, but they're much more frequent than in straight-genre comedies these days (check my review of School of Rock, for example).

So what what the hell are you waiting for? it's bloody, it's funny, it's got freaking werewolves in it. The action's great and the characters are well rounded and likeable enough. Just watch it, ok? and then watch Shawn of the Dead.

Scary Movie my fookin arse. This movie may have the only funny matrix reference ever.

The Terminal

I really would like to review the movie. Really. But after watching the first ten minutes, well, Everquest 2 seemed so much more interesting...
So I mostly absorbed it by osmosis. The premise has a lot of potential; unfortunately, Mr. Spielberg got to direct it, in his full populist mode- the same one mode that fucked up the otherwise excellent AI (think the last 10 minutes). What could have been Kafka-esque, or at least surrealist comedy, becomes an extremely predictable, uninteresting mess of half baked contrivances and scenes genetically engineered to warm the hearts of the lowest common denominator.
Let me illustrate. As I said, I pretty much tuned out pretty close to the beginning. This scene was the culprit: In what has to be one of the clumsiest exposition setpieces in recent memory, the bad guy callously eats his lunch while delivering terrible news, while our foreigner hero misunderstands comically and good-naturedly, and the news themselves are broken down so that anyone who might be able to enjoy this movie understands them... as they say around here, Bollocks! This scene alone is incitation enough to drive a nine iron straight into Spielbergs balls. Insulting, smug and unnecessary. And what the hell did women do to him? His denunciation of them all as backstabbing bitches is not a first in his work, but is disturbingly psychotic in a movie that is all rounded edges and tidy resolutions.
Anyhow, this movie doesn't deserve even these few words. It's a mercenary piece of shit with no redeeming qualities and no value whatsoever. Fuck you, Spielberg. Blow shit up good, or stay the hell away from me.

The Machinist

It begins promisingly enough- the movie hits its stride immediately, mixing just the right amount of mystery with a black sense of humor… The bad news is, that’s the best it’s going to get (at least till the very end). Christian Bale plays the titular Machinist, a skeleton of a man who hasn't been able to sleep for a year. He's always been a good actor, but his thespian skills take a back seat here to his morbidly fascinating physical transformation into a stick drawing of a man- he looks in turns pathetic, craven, sympathetic, and just plain fucking scary. Anyhow, strange, increasingly unnatural things start happening to him, until he comes to realize that - gasp! - something is seriously fucked up with his existence.
Nothing new here. While the action is engaging, it's quite clear that there isn't a whole lot of sense to what's going on. The symbolisms are a bit obvious, and at points it just seems the director is taking elements from movies of this type and trying them out together without any thematic thread to keep it together. He keeps his tongue firmly in cheek throughout, however, and to be fair doesn't try to hide that something strange is going on in the background the way a lesser movie would.
On a higher note, watching Bale is riveting, and living proof that reality can still top CGI. And the ending is brilliant as well, even if it feels a bit of a cop out. It doesn't justify or make all the meandering that's been going on before it any more forgivable, but it's still satisfying and intelligent. While that’s not enough to recommend this over Fight Club, 6th sense, Jacob’s ladder or even Identity, it’s still a welcome diversion. And miles above crap like Rear Window.

The Missing

The premise is as simple as can be- a mother bands up with her estranged father (who's gone indian decades ago) to rescue her daughter from a band of evil indians who are rounding up women to sell to the mexicans. That's not a bad thing; in fact, in a western, it's an asset.
So by now I'm sure you're thinking how I'm going to comment on the racist depiction of indians and mexicans in the movie... and you'd have a point (the indians turn out to be US army deserters, which I'm sure is established to salvage the image of the natives- the mexicans get no such nicety). But here we run into one of the most heartwarming and loveable (and unexpected) traits of this movie- a mile-wide sadistic streak. There are a lot of assholes in the movie, and even the heroes are not as heroic as they'd be in a lesser film.

The sparse story is rounded out nicely by the beautiful cinematography and by a propensity for taking oddball detours that make the movie feel much more than the sum of its parts. And, oh, the sadism... I lost count of the times I thought to myself- Fuck! Ron Howard directed this? Girls get beaten mercilessly, bystanders are killed without second thought, and well, let's just say there's a scene so gloriously ruthless, it left me smiling for the rest of the film. I'll leave you to guess which.
The performances are fine across the board. Kate Blanchett is a joy to watch, as always, and Tommy Lee Jones does justice to his flawed (and sadly underwritten) character. One thing I didn't mention before- Kate Blanchett's youngest daughter (10 -ish years old) tags along for the ride, and is present during the whole mission. Not once after the first ten seconds did I find this implausible, and not once did I wish her a messy, painful death. Which is a testament to both her acting and to the scriptwriter's prowess.
All in all, an enjoyable movie.

Capturing the Friedmans

It's impressive how many times Andrew Jarecki's documentary manages to change completely in the course of less than two hours.
It starts out as a rote expose of the rotten reality beneath the placid veneer of upper-class suburban life: a postal worker detects paedophilic materials being trafficked by Arnold Friedman, esteemed citizen and father of three. After making the bust and raiding the house, evidence is discovered that the case may be much more far reaching than it seemed. Soon, however, the accusations become more and more ludicrous, and the movie starts veering towards 'Paradise lost I & II' territory; And then things start getting more complex.
The pacing is near perfect, and the structure of the movie manages to hold back revelations in such a way that when dispersed, they shock and add depth to the whole without coming off as cheap. One of the most impressive things in the movie, though, is how effectively it captures what was going on. You see, running in the family there was a Blair Witch Project-like filming fetishism, and much of their footage is liberally (and expertly) used to give insights into the situation. Best of all, Jarecki wisely stays away from the proceedings and lets the facts and the interviews speak for themselves; his bias may or may not be betrayed by some of the editing, but his work remains gloriously ambiguous- a rare treat these days.
The end result is in turns touching, sickening, infuriating and confusing, but always fascinating and, above all, thought provoking. Excellent, excellent stuff.


As an aside, I got a blue screen when finishing this review for the first time, and lost it. Guess I'm not supposed to write good reviews in here...

The School of Rock

Why?

Why the fuck?

I find Jack Black funny. Very much so. I absolutely fucking loved Before the Sunset, and pretty much liked everything I've seen from director Richard Linklatter. I could write a love poem to the soundtrack.

So how could they have made such a piece of unwatchable trash? And how the hell did they hoodwink everyone, including several movie reviewers I normally agree with, into liking this disastrous underdogs-beat-all-odds rotten piece of excrement?

Well, I'll just assume you've already watched it and save myself the pain of recounting it. If you must have a synopsis, dreg up the cheapest, basest, most shopworn clichés and Hollywood formulae, and stitch them together. And add a fucking bucketload of (talented) obnoxious brats.
And it's fucking WRONG. This is the kind of movie that hedges its bets by making the main character be always right (not because he's, you know, right, but because the script bends backwards to prove him right), and the 'evil' characters are either bad! bad! bad! or such a fucking caricature that it's not even funny.

Let me illustrate. The always-great Joan Cusak plays the school principal. Not a bad guy per se, just an obstacle. So they make her nice enough, but comically uptight. By the way, she's the sole likeable character in the movie. Soooo...
At one point, it becomes clear that Jack Black must seduce her. He takes advantage of her in the most cynical of ways (not physically, because, she's old! and square!). He uses her, and throws her away just like that. I really expected something to come out of it, coming from the director that made the one romantic movie I wholeheartedly embrace. But no, we can assume she is out of a job and alone by the end of the movie.

I could so easily write out the outline of an 'anti-school of rock', leaving most of the plot intact, but showing Jack Black's actions under a different light, and I guarantee you most of the audience would be out to lynch him by the end. But thanks to a fascistically manipulative assfucker of a script, people embrace him... because he's following his dreams!
I hope said people's daughters have a professor like him, and end up as drugged out groupies at age 15 for a bad hair metal band (is there another kind?)

God, I feel soiled. It's been a week since I subscribed to Lovefilm, and I've already felt the need to kickstart my blog again. Shit.

Constantine

Note from future me: Well, I was kind of a dipshit twenty years ago. TLDR is I kind of liked the imagery but I hated the movie, which makes sense since this blog back then was all about tearing into movies I hated (often exaggerating the bile for comic effect, which...hasn't aged yet!). Except when I really liked them, I guess. All of these old reviews make me cringe when I look at them, but this one went a bit over the line.

 I intend to revisit this one soon-ish, which is why I got curious to see what I'd said about it. Hooboy. 

King Arthur

What can you say about a film that's supposed to be based on the 'real' man behind the King Arthur legend, but does not make the least effort to portray the medieval mindset?
I can buy it if it's a fantasy flick, but in films like this one or Braveheart, it fucking revolts me. The film borrows authority from a beginning quote that vaguely states that according to 'archeological evidence', the man named Arthur probably did exist. Then it introduces at least two characters that look like they stepped right out of a coiffeur. Turns out that the realism claims are, oh surprise, a gimmick, and that the film is yet another cynic attempt to cash in on the success of the Lord of the Rings franchise (joining the ranks of Timeline and Troy). Worse yet- The one motherfucker I would like to see eaten alive by baby rats, Mr Brucken-Shiteater-heimer, is lining his pockets with this crap.
In any case, the movie is about the titular Arthur, Official representative for the American Way of Life in the dark ages, and how he is forced by the snotty and colonialist legions of Rome into one last mission deep into the wilds beyond Hadrian's wall. Historic inaccuracies aside (I would normally ignore them, but hey- the movie started it by claiming to be validated by archeologists), the movie is a mess of uninspired performances, cliches, and just bad scripting.
It looks beautiful, though, and not just because of Keira Knightley; but that's something that's been bugging me since watching Hero and the Last Samurai. Namely, that cinematographic beauty (as in aesthetics, color schemes, etc) has come to be relied on as much as other bad movies rely on CGI; Hero in particular, wants to make you believe that the silly, stupid soap opera crap that passes for a plot is art because, well, it sure is pretty crap. So no, I'm not falling for it anymore, this movie takes itself far too seriously for individual scenes to make me ignore the essential crappiness at its core.
And what the hell is up with Clive Owen? forget that none of the cast can summon up one dreg of charisma, that asshole is all but channeling Nicholas Cage! It's a bit disturbing.

Just about the only thing in this movie worth the celluloid, except for some bloody scenes, is Stellan Skarsgard as the terrifically sociopathic Saxon leader. I was actually hoping for a standard hollywood tragic ending just to see him hacking that fucking zero-charisma Arthur into little pieces; that would have meant that I would have had to watch the other underdeveloped cypher, lancelot kill him in turn, but at least he had a two-dimensional character.

Finally, I'd like to say that this rant was fueled by the director's cut edition. Not that the original cut could conceivably be even halfway decent.
Oh, and please, someone please kill that fucker of a producer before I'm suckered into watching another one of his fucking excrements. And Antoine Fucqua: Training Day was overrated as hell.

Troy (Movie review)

Not worth reviewing, really... generic action sequences, horrible characterizations and some of the most goddamn awful postmodern philosophizing ever added to an epic movie do this one in. Not to mention the pervading sense that it's all just a huge, wet, enthusiastic blowjob to Brad Pitt's ego.
Only a movie stealing scene by Peter O'Toole comes close to what this movie should offer. As for the rest... some good acting wasted on forgetable dialogs, some expensive-looking (but seldom impressive) scenes, and a samey sludge of a movie that somehow avoids any sort of, well, epic-ness. Avoid!

I, Robot (Movie review)

In the future... there will be... product placements.
No, seriously. The movie almost begins with a Converse ad so blatant it's funnier than the 'sell-out' segment in Wayne's World (or, come to think of it, Return of the Killer Tomatoes).
So, what else is new in one hundred years? not much; the future looks a lot like the present, but with clunky CGI effects overimposed on it, and robots doing most menial tasks. Not a lot of thought went into it, and it shows in a certain unevenness between the tech levels. Borrowing a lot more from Spielberg's Minority Report (especially in the visual department) than from Asimov's book series, the script follows the misadventures of a police detective who just doesn't trust robots as he tries to unravel the murder of an underdeveloped father figure, who also happened to be the lead researcher for the robot manufacturing company. This gradually reveals a conspiracy that could endanger the whole world, as foreshadowed by the ads for the deployment of millions of a new model of robots.
It's predictable, but not quite as dire as it sounds, and it even includes a few rather neat details. But don't worry, they manage to bring it down. The main character is an asshole, and what's worse, an asshole that the script treats as a hero... which makes it all the more grating. Will Smith, in full MiB mode, can't do anything to save the character.
In the end, I, Robot both suffers and benefits from being an action movie. Suffers, because the script ridiculously boils down the plot to a series of action setpieces, and makes character interactions a series of poses and one-liners. And it benefits, because when the action kicks in... let me put it this way- director Alex Proyas left behind the trademark aestethics of The Crow and Dark City for a standard sci-fi one, but he dedicated all his attention to getting the action sequences exactly right. The level of detail and, much more rare, inspiration they achieve are astounding; I really wouldn't hesitate much before saying they're the best action sequences I've seen since the original Matrix. They don't quite make up for the tripe and the commercials forced down our throats along the way, but damn, they come pretty close.
And that's saying something.

Van Helsing (Movie Review)

Stephen Sommers has finally used up whatever goodwill he gained for himself with the original Mummy. Dumb, crass beyond belief and cheap (even when wearing it's multimillion budget on its sleeve), Van Helsing fails even on its own terms, lazily throwing money away hoping to wow viewers into forgetting just how lousy it is.
Jumping from misbegotten idea to trite cliché to misbegotten idea, the action follows famed monster hunter Van Helsing (employed by the church's equivalent of the men in black) as he fights most of the classic Universal Monsters and works against their nefarious conspiracy to bring back to life ringleader Dracula's dead children. It's a ridiculous, inane premise, unfortunately unenlivened by any shade of humor or wit; while tongue-in-cheek is hinted at as early as in the opening scene (at least it could explain some of the overacting and atrocious dialogues) the director apparently opted to cut time writing the script and use it adding in new CG effects, leaving the movie's less serious side relegated to one-liners and failed attempts.
Like the awful (but much better) the Mummy Returns, Sommers tackles this one with a 'more is better' approach, tossing quality control out the window. CG is overused all throughout, often making the proceeds look more like the world's most expensive puppet show than an action/adventure flick. Even the better effects and set pieces usually collapse under their own weight after a while... The whole movie feels as if you were looking over the shoulder of someone playing a Playstation 2 game. Which seems to be a depressingly common -not to mention commercially desirable- trait these days.
The acting ranges from mediocre to incredibly bad, but it's easy to fault the script and the director for it. Characterization? inexistent, except for the barest nods to Hollywood formula. The designs look expensive and unimaginative. The music fares a bit better, though nothing to write home about.
In the end, for all its desperate antics and breakneck pacing, this movie never quite fools you into enjoying it. For all its speed, it will never outrun the smell of stale crap. To watch how a good fantasy/action movie can be made with the same formula, go watch the Mummy on video, or wait for the inexplicably delayed Hellboy.

It does have some redeeming points, however: It lacks the pretentiousness of last year's League of the Extraordinary Gentlemen. Kate Beckinsdale's tight pants are in it (also appearing as one of the few redeeming points in last year's Underworld). Hugh Jackman, for the girls. And, of course, Richard Roxburgh's horrendous overacting as Dracula... it's not quite bad enough to be good, but getting there.

The Butterfly Effect (Review)

Pity poor pubescent Ashton. He has Issues; his father's a psychopath. His childhood sweetheart's father is a pedophile. His childhood sweetheart's brother is a murderous psychopath. His childhood buddy is borderline autistic. Thank god ol' Ashton is a regular Joe, huh? erh, did I mention he has regular blackouts?
Luckily for him, a move and several years later everything's changed for the better. Until events bring him back to those 'holes' in his memory. Soon enough, he discovers he can go back in time and alter the pivotal events he has psychically repressed. But, of course, those changes have unforeseen consequences when he returns to the present... And he's left stranded in a different now where things are somehow worse off. So, all that's left for him is to go back to a different black out and try and put things a-right. (Don't ask why it has to be a different blackout... the plot has more holes than this guy's memory)
In short, nothing you haven't seen before, borrowed liberally from any number of sources (from It's a Wonderful Life to Sliders, by way of countless sci-fi yarns). Instead of focusing on its science fiction premise, however, the flick laudably chooses to follow up on the more human side of those changes- their repercussion on each one of the main characters' lives. Two 'small' problems make caring about them impossible, however: A) the acting ranges from mediocre to truly terrible (and their lines don't help any) and B) The script is not nearly up to the task, catering to cliches, character caricatures and easy shocks, and just being generally lame.
There is a good movie somewhere in there, though, and it occasionally shines through. Musings on good and evil, and the folly of trying to change somebody's core personality permeate the movie and begin to engage interest - only to be buried at every turn by stupid plot twists and all the cartoony hairstyle-and-wardrobe variations.
The ending merits mention. Unoriginal, true, nor especially good, but it sports an emotional punch and a nod towards maturity that the rest of the flick sorely lacks. It at least puts the movie one step up from the likes of smug, post-modern crap like Final Destination... But, in a genre which so recently gave us Donnie Darko, it frankly doesn't stand a chance.