Various Thoughts

This felt like a rehash of every Terminator that came before. From reading the wiki, it seems this was a deliberate choice to pay homage to the originals… which makes no sense. If you take over a franchise, the goal should be to do something new with it, not re-tread the exact same ground that’s already been covered four times (if you count the TV series).

Sadly, the essentially nonexistent storyline isn’t even the film’s main problem. The main problem seems to be Bale; he sucks as John Connor, particularly after Nick Stahl’s performance in Rise of the Machines. Worthington is pretty good though and almost saves the movie… almost. His character arc isn’t without its flaws however, and the ending is fairly terrible and arbitrary; “Why yes, lets kill off the best character we have in this movie for no good reason to make absolutely certain we’ll never see him again if there’s a continuation. Sounds like a plan.“. It seems to have been done solely for ‘emotional impact’, which is a joke because the movie is mindless action up until that point.

The Terminator series has always copied itself to one degree or another, but they had always managed to do it in an entertaining manner ’til now.

These are just some thoughts on a few movies I saw some time ago that were posted elsewhere. Re-posting here for consolidation purposes.

Star Trek: Very good. Very, very, good. Abrams injected quite a bit of Star Wars into what was once hopelessly cheesy. It starts in the desert (Iowa), hits the tundra midway (some ice planet), and ends with an over-sized ship getting destroyed in a flashy manner. It’s like the first three SW movies’ settings condensed into one. There was not a single slow or seemingly meaningless scene in the movie, and the pace moved along quite nicely. The only part of it that I didn’t like was the joyride scene at the beginning… it just screamed ‘staged’. It should be mentioned though that the plotline is pretty damn thin in the logic department. Why would Nero sit in the middle of nowhere for 25 years after finding out he’d arrived in the past, when he could have gone right to the Romulan homeworld and warned them?

The Da Vinci Code: Hmm… The Da Vinci Code is highly questionable. It’s very wordy, and not in a good way; a significant amount of the dialog sounds scripted (which it is of course, but it shouldn’t sound it) and stilted. The plotline itself is somewhat weak as well. Putting all that aside, the main theme of the movie could easily be called into question. The longer something is covered up, the harder it is to reveal it. That’s multiplied exponentially in situations where the cover-up is related to widely held beliefs or ideals. So all that secrecy put into hiding the Grail is basically wasted since, if it were revealed, the chances of enough people believing it long enough to prove its authenticity would be astronomically small. Even if you somehow managed to get the blood-testing done, how exactly would you prevent the masses from claiming that the testers or results were erroneous? I mean, people actually believe that Intelligent Design should be taught in schools. So really… all that secrecy and effort is a giant waste.

X-Men Origins: Wolverine: I’d say it’s roughly on par with Blade: Trinity. That is to say… it’s pretty bad. Now if, as in Trinity, Reynolds had been in the entire movie, things may have been different. But he isn’t, and so they aren’t. The wirework was retardedly obvious and not realistic in the slightest. Particularly Sabtertooth’s whole ‘bounding’ thing. I had no issues with the actors, though I had severe issues with the obviously staged fight scenes and large tracks of nothing important happening.

Dragonball Evolution:

Let the Right One In is a Swedish vampire movie. I’ve heard nothing but good things about it so far, so I decided to finally take a look.

It tells the story of a young boy named Oskar that gets bullied at school and has a criminology hobby (he collects newspaper stories about murders) who meets a vampire who moves into the apartment next door to him. The vampire (Eli) appears to be a young girl and moved in along with an older man (Hakan) who is there to help her with both her sunlight and dietary problems. However, he’s not very good at the latter. The first time he goes out to find a victim, he not only acts extraordinarily suspiciously, but forgets to take the blood with him when he flees the murder scene after being discovered by some random dog walkers. Seeing that he’s apparently useless in this regard, Eli starts going out and hunting herself… leaving Hakan to hide the body afterward. Parallel to this, Eli and Oskar start up a friendship borne of loneliness. When Hakan fails spectacularly the next time he tries to get blood, ends up captured by the police, and Eli is forced to kill him before they can figure out who he is; that relationship deepens a bit more. The movie ends with them both leaving town after she violently murders the kids that were bulling him, him having become the new Hakan.

Vampires in this movie are more or less traditional; sunlight immolates them, they need to drink blood to survive, their bite turns others into vampires, they have enhanced strength, cats hate them, and they can’t enter a home unless invited (though Eli can force her way in, suffering large bodily harm in the process).

The only real problems I had with the movie were Hakan’s blatant incompetence and the strange choice to use overhead stadium lighting for the scene where he’s killing the first victim. Overhead lighting… in the middle of a forest… total bullshit. That destroyed any sense of immersion there possibly could have been. Besides those two improbable things, the movie wasn’t bad at all.

First off, let me say that I never read the graphic novel that the movie was based on. With that out of the way:

It wasn’t bad… sort of like a slower-paced Sin City. I do think the centerpiece sex-scene could’ve been a bit less pornographic, but other than that there weren’t any particularly awkward moments or unnecessary shots. At first I had thought it could do without the sex-scene completely, but then after thinking it over a bit I decided that particular scene is what truly ties Lory, John, and the Comedian together and to the overall plot. It solidifies the movie’s theme in a sense.

The general feel of the movie was like reading a comic, as most of the scenes were shot to resemble storyboard panels. I liked the effect but can understand why some people would take issue with it. It could certainly be seen as an unnecessary limitation, but I view it as being akin to Kill Bill‘s stylized fight-scenes. Just a design choice that should not really be given too much attention while watching. Speaking of graphic novels; it should probably be noted that the movie is very graphic. Hyper-realistic violence, several sex scenes, and an attempted rape scene. I’ve seen quite a few negative reviews that listed the sex and violence as the be-all-end-all reason why the reviewer didn’t like the movie and was deriding it. I have to wonder what the fuck these people were thinking when they went to see it… I mean, I thought that everyone involved with the movie and all the various pre-release material on it made it abundantly clear that this was not going to be a movie for the entire family. Hell, that was basically its entire selling point.

The movie starts off with the death of the Comedian, a retired vigilante quite similar to the Punisher (and no, I don’t really care which character came first), at the hands of a masked intruder. This is the first of three moderately long action sequences. After he falls to his death, there’s a good thirty-minutes of introductory dialog to introduce the various protagonists and get the plotline started as Rorschach (a vigilante in a moving inkblot mask who is part Dick Tracy, part Punisher, and part Batman) investigates the Comedian’s murder and tries to uncover who’s behind it while warning the other members of the former Watchmen group; Silk Specter (Laurie, sort of Wonder Woman without a whip or any powers), Nite Owl (Dan, a geekier and less-intense Batman), Dr. Manhattan (John, basically a cross between Superman and God), and Ozymandias (Adrian, the world’s smartest man). While Rorschach’s investigating, Laurie starts spending time with Dan because John is losing touch with humanity and Adrian and John are busying themselves with creating a new infinite energy source based on John’s powers. After some time and numerous flashbacks, an attempt is made on Adrian’s life (which fails) and Rorschach gets set-up and thrown in prison. This is when the second main action sequence takes place; Dan and Laurie get back into the superhero business and decide to break Rorschach out of prison since he was obviously set-up by whoever killed the Comedian. While they’re doing that, John has left Earth to brood about his disconnect with humanity over on Mars. He returns momentarily, just as the others get back from the prison, to pick up Laurie so that she can try to convince him to care about what happens to Earth again (since a nuclear war is about to break out between America and Russia). During that discussion, Rorschach and Dan continue their investigation into the identity of the murderer and find exactly what they’re looking for after snooping around Adrian’s computer files. They rush off to try and prevent a disaster that may be worse than nuclear war only to find themselves extremely over-matched in the movie’s third main action sequence. Then John and Laurie return from Mars just in time to witness the results of Adrian’s master plan. The movie ends on a plateau. There isn’t really any true resolution, which I suppose fits well with its theme.

I likely won’t ever see it again or buy the DVD, just like I only watched the aforementioned Sin City once, but I don’t consider the time spent watching it wasted.

District 13 is an interesting movie. It opens with a man named K2 hunting down someone (Leïto) who’s stolen a large amount of heroin from his boss (Taha). The thugs reach Leïto just as he’s finishing up destroying what he stole, and he’s forced to escape using some impressive acrobatic maneuvers. This method of movement is known as parkour, and it apparently works extremely well as a vehicle for ciematic chase-scenes. Since direct confrontation didn’t work very well, K2 decides to try forcing Leïto to come to him by taking his sister (Lola) hostage. This plan backfires rather spectacularly as Leïto reachs Taha and takes him hostage in retaliation just as K2 arrives to deliver Lola. Leïto and Lola then procede to make a miraculous getaway while dragging Taha along behind them. For some unknown reason they take him to the remains of the police force… who promptly lock Leïto up, release Taha, and allow him to take Lola.

Time then skips ahead six months to when some undercover cop named Damien is in the process of busting an illegal gambling ring. Damien is seemingly the French version of Jackie Chan. After the rediculously over the top fight scene concludes, Damien is given his next assignment; to prevent a nuclear device stolen by Taha from exploding. He’s also told to take none other than Leïto, who’s been in prison these last six months, as a guide to help find and disarm the bomb. Rather than just ask Leïto though, Damien and his boss come up with some convoluted plan to make it look as though he’s a prisoner as well and wants to track down Taha for personal reasons. Leïto doesn’t fall for his act and ditches him the first chance he gets.

Damien is not so easily lost however, and he manages to quickly track Leïto down. After a heated discussion, they form a truce and set about the task of getting into Taha’s compound. This proves to be rather simple, as Leïto just calls him up and tells him that him and a cop want to see him about disarming the bomb. Taha likes to plays games though and has decided to sell the bomb before it explodes. This ends up backfiring on him when the government uses the bank account number he gave them to somehow empty all of his bank accounts. A large group of his thugs happen to be in the room when he finds this out, and they quickly turn on him. That scene is followed by another parkour-filled escape scene as Taha’s thugs try to catch Leïto and Damien. I have no clue why they decide to continue chasing them even after Taha is dead. They manage to get to the bomb and Damien calls in to get the code, a code which Leïto recognizes as being extremely suspitious when combined with all the other strange behavior the government was exhibiting.

Damien refuses to believe that the government would kill 2 million people simply to solve the ‘social problem’ of District 13 and trys to enter the code anyway. Leïto is forced to stop him and they engange in a brutal UFC-like fight. Damien is prevented from entering the full code in time thanks to Lola’s last-minute interferance, and a whole bunch of nothing happens when the timer runs out… thus proving Leïto’s assumption correct. Damien, understandably, ends up in a serious state of shock when faced with the truth of what he almost ended up doing. Shock turns to anger soon enough though, and he and Leïto take the bomb back to the main government building and force them into confessing what they planned to do with it. They tape this confession, and proceed to release it over the airwaves. Causing, I assume (as the after-effects aren’t shown), a public outcry of some sort which leads to an actual change of some type.

Not bad at all, for an action movie.

• Q: Is this movie any good?
• A: It depends.

Ledger is fantastic as the Joker, Bale is great as Bruce Wayne, and Aaron Eckhart fits Two-face. But the other characters… well… they’re kind-of painful to watch. Any scene that focuses mainly on either Rachel (Maggy Gyllenhaal), Batman, or Commissioner Gordon (Gary Oldman) tends to be an awkward mess. Thankfully, most of the movie focuses on the Joker and Two-Face… and is more good than bad as a result.

Bale works well as Bruce Wayne, but as Batman he has some issues. That voice mainly. I suppose it’s supposed to sound intimidating or something, but it just comes across as raspy and old-manish. The batsuit doesn’t do him any favors either, as it looks downright cartoony next to the grittiness of Two-Face or the Joker’s appearance. Oldman’s issues stem mainly from his incredibly artificial looking appearance. I mean, Two-Face looks more life-like than he does. As for Gyllenhaal; I’ve seen her touted as an ‘upgrade’ from Katie Holmes… but I just don’t see it. She seems far too chipmunkish for the part to me.

As for the movie itself, well, there’s really not all that much to say since the characters themselves generally seem to trump the plot. They did lay the groundwork for introducing Robin however, and there was a nice homage to the end of Batman toward the end, but Ledger’s performance is what really makes the movie tick.

A few days back, I wandered into the local Blockbuster on a time-wasting whim. After wandering around for a while, and noting the rather insane prices for Blu-Ray discs, I started searching through the Used 3/$20 rack.

I kind-of wanted to see if they had Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle, but I instead stumbled across Species: The Awakening. Having not known that there was a fourth movie in the series, I grabbed that as well as Species III and the special edition of Species. Sadly, there was no Species II there. Also hidden in the rack were two movies I had never heard of before; Shoot ‘Em Up and Skinwalkers. Since they looked mildly interesting, I grabbed them as well as Resident Evil: Extinction.

Out of the above, I had already seen (and liked) Species, Species III, and Extinction. I just got around to watching Shoot ‘Em Up now, and can safely say that it is both utter crap and a complete waste of $6.50. I’ve since heard some rather bad things about Skinwalkers, so I don’t have much hope of that being good, but hopefully Awakening will make the trip semi-worthwhile.

I first ‘heard’ of Cloverfield, like a great many people, during the movie previews preceding Transformers. There I was, suffering through shitty trailer after shitty trailer, when what might have been an Axe commercial turns into a rain of fire and brimstone (there was allegedly the Statue of Liberty’s head as well, but I don’t remember that part). It was so incredibly intriguing that I told myself I must learn more about it. Then I was bashed over the head by the worst script/dialog since Catwoman and forgot all about it.

Flash-forward to a few days ago, and what did I see in the new Entertainment Weekly? Why a feature article on Cloverfield, that very movie I was interested in so long ago. I just got around to seeing it recently.

As things start off, it becomes apparent that this isn’t your standard movie (as I already knew from that article in EW). It’s done in homevideo/amateur format. Thankfully, there’s a curious little message at the beginning that tips you off to the fact that something is going to go terribly wrong, since the opening 15-20 minutes or so is rather…boring and/or banal. I believe it was meant to be that way though, as a sort of parody/tribute to the YouTube generation.

Things pick up nicely once the rain of fire makes its appearance. I have to say, that the scene with everyone taking pictures of the head with their cellphones/blackberries/iphones is spot on…I mean wow, Abrams has got the actions of regular people spot-on. The actors do quite a good job of portraying average people as well. The bridge scene hammers home one of the reasons I don’t watch YouTube videos: jerky camera movements. I mean seriously, keep the damn camera facing one direction unless you absolutely have to move it, if you hear something, move your head first to see if there’s something interesting over there before moving the camera as well. You are not one with your camera.

The monster…what to say about the monster…well, I’ll not give much away and simply say that it looks both realistic and somewhat insectoid. The mini-monsters, surprisingly, also look realistic, and vaguely resemble the Nix Hounds from Morrowind. The plotline, on the other hand, doesn’t really deserve any type of specific mention, as it’s rather straight-forward and self-explanatory, but it does suit what Abrams was aiming for.

All in all I think that this was quite successful in creating an original epic-monster-movie. I think I’ll actually have to see it again, as despite the rampant YouTubeishness of it, I still found myself interested in how things would play out.

The opening sequence of this movie is touch odd, as it would appear that one of the Main Characters is a suicidal telepathic psychologist. Personally, I haven’t seen any movies that contain suicidal telepaths (let alone ones who are also psychiatrists), so I was intrigued right from the start. This scene also seems to be something of a homage to the Lethal Weapon series. The intro then goes on to introduce the other couple of characters, each of which seems to have a special mind-related power of some sort.

The movie then cuts to ’6 months later’, I assume to account for Jones’ recovery. I also assume that this is the ‘present’ time, as we get a flashback to the group’s childhood shortly after, which doesn’t really explain much. Back in the present, the plot-trigger stumbles in à la Cabin Fever, which just so happened to come out the same year (making this similarity quite strange). Shortly later we get something out of Wrong Turn (which also came out in 2003), as the two guys returning to the cabin get forced into making a…wrong turn. I’m idly curious how many other movies from 2003 will make an appearance in here.

After Henry and Pete foolishly approach the obstruction that caused the car accident, and then even more foolishly get to within an inch or so of said obstruction, we get more Cabin Fever-like performances. Meanwhile, a rather impressive animal migration is going on back at the cabin, sort of like the one in Bambi, only not animated. This is about the time that a Military chopper makes its appearance, which anyone sane should know is a Bad Sign™, and something you should not (under any circumstances) draw the attention of. Beaver, despite seemingly being a repository of film knowledge/trivia, hails the chopper anyway.

After being informed by the nice men in HAZMAT suits that the area is under quarantine, Beaver fires back with the oh-so-intelligent rejoinder; “What do you mean? We have a sick guy in here!”. Because, as everyone knows, quarantines only apply to the healthy…I seriously hope that this isn’t an accurate indicator of the dialog quality to come.

After the chopper goes off to do whatever it is that mysterious government choppers do, we get to see some prolapses. Fantastic. I really could’ve gone without seeing that, but I suppose it’s better then going for the easy Alien homage…maybe. Shockingly enough, in this scene anyway, the main characters actually act intelligently and don’t simply wait for their doom in a catatonic state.  When we get to see the monster in question, it’s actually rather well-done, and the fight scene is mildly interesting to watch. This may be the first time a normal person actually was depicted as being able to believably hold back an alien monstrosity for any amount of time. Interestingly enough, Jones getting hit by the car back in the beginning of the movie may have had it’s roots in the ending of this scene. The FX in this movie, by the way, are shockingly good. I was just wondering how in the world it got such an apparently large budget, looked up who the director was, and see that he was the writer for Raiders of the Lost Ark, Empire Strikes Back, and Return of the Jedi (though his directing credits aren’t as impressive). Wow. Anyhow, back to the movie.

Roughly halfway through the movie, we meet Morgan Freeman equipped with some incredibly fake looking bushy eyebrows. Also making it’s first appearance is the ‘official’ name of the baby aliens; shit weasels. Fitting. An explanation for the aliens and rash is given at around this point in time as well. I’m rather intrigued by the way this movie has morphed from Cabin Fever into Starship Troopers, similar to how the deer morphed into the plot-trigger back in the beginning. We then move on to a touching campfire scene that offers a couple of hints about that seemingly useless flashback to when the characters were kids. Following the fight, a whole bunch of interesting information is revealed about the aliens, many plot-points start to fit together quite nicely, and a bit of Being John Malkovich is added to it’s repertoire of homages. With this apparent hodge-podge of sources, you think the movie would be a jumbled mess, but it isn’t…which worries me a bit.

We now get another flashback to the past, showing how the main characters got their powers. We then switch back into Starship Trooper mode, which seems to have changed once again and now resembles Independence Day instead. I do have to wonder, while watching this scene, why someone who’s been fighting these things for 25 years would use such ineffective ammunition. Yeah, the missiles (Sidewinders? Hellfire?)  kill them, but the explosive radius is so small as to be nearly worthless. You’d think they’d use something with a wider-AoE, like Hydra Rockets for example. Things switch back into Starship Trooper mode and Henry’s power gets to shine for a bit, while Jones is busy tapping into his power back over in John Malkovich land.

The whole dog scene is quite upsetting. Quite upsetting. I do believe it was necessary from a plot standpoint though, plus, the ending was actually good. I’m amazed. Completely, 100%, amazed. Here is a movie I stumbled upon completely by accident (one of SA’s articles, don’t remember which one), and it turns out to be quite good. Typical.