Good and scary, but I think a couple great opportunities were missed.

Before I get into this film, let me say that if you saw Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark you can probably drive right past this one.  It’s extremely similar in that it’s about supernatural creatures wanting to take away little girls and do something horrible to them.  And like Don’t Be Afraid I liked this film and was really engaged, but once again feel the need to beat my fists against the Hollywood wall of unoriginality.  However, I do appreciate this story in that it helps illustrate a point I made in my list of the worst Star Trek episodes of all time: while talking about And the Children Shall Lead I said any time a group of children survive in a situation where all the adults died and you are at a loss to explain how, maybe you should keep an eye on them just in case they were aided by an evil supernatural force (or are just evil themselves).

By the way, can someone tell me when Jessica Chastain became the Hollywood “it” girl?  She is in freaking everything.  On the one hand I am glad for her, as I think she is a talented actor and very easy on the eyes.  I especially liked her in Lawless (topless) and Zero Dark Thirty (just darned cool).  However, I still harbor some ill will towards her for her part in creating psuedo-artsy crime-against-entertainment film Tree of Life.  Some mistakes you pay for forever.

Like I said when I reviewed Don’t Be Afraid of the two types or horror films (terrifying, psychological or supernatural stories verses slasher) I prefer the movies that don’t rely on body count to impress the audience.  When 10-15 college students end up on the wrong side of a chainsaw you just never have a chance to connect with any of them.  Even the protagonist gets lost in the shuffle.  When a story is wrapped around a couple of characters who have an ongoing series of bad things happen you truly identify with them and feel a true empathy.  You care and hope all goes well for them.  It just makes a horror movie more engaging and less comedic.

This film definitely fits into the good camp and I absolutely connected with the main characters.  Overall I enjoyed it.  Why, then, do I think there was something that could have been done better here?  SPOILER ALERT-skip ahead a few paragraphs if you want to see this film and will lose something by having me run my mouth.  You see, Mama is the ghost of a crazy woman who adopts the two girls after their father kills his wife and attempts to kill the girls.  We are more or less shown her and what she is in the first five minutes.  Later the psychologist thinks that Mama is a manifestation of the older girl’s psyche she has developed a motherly alter ego.  What would have been really cool, IMO, is if instead of showing us Mama right away they had played this as a psychological drama where bad things keep happening and everyone keeps blaming the girls until the ghost manifests itself in all her horrible glory.  It’s OK to at least try to surprise the audience.  This film carries itself on the horror aspect but could have been a great story as well (kind of like the Shining).  As it was there weren’t a lot of surprises in this movie.

I had some fun with this movie by mentally playing with the perspective a bit.  Like I did when I saw Playing for Keep once I had used my big brain to figure out pretty much how the story was going to end (by about the first 45 minutes) I decided to pretend that instead of seeing a story about the vicious ghost of a crazy woman who murdered her own baby while killing herself and wanting to keep these two girls in seclusion while killing anyone who got between them I was seeing the story of a friendly ghost (Casper image courtesy of the Comic Book T-Shirt category) who tragically lost both her life and the life of her child while trying to escape from a mental institution who rescues two little girls from the murderous rampage of their mental father (who had just earlier killed his estranged wife) and wanted to protect them from their marginally employed uncle (brother of the father.  He obviously wanted to inject them into the same dysfunctional family upbringing that created his brother), his punk rock musician girlfriend who had no interest in being a mother and was ill prepared to do anything motherly, and the self serving psychologist who wanted to treat them as a lab experiment for a book he was writing.  It’s honestly the truth, depending on which side of the room you are sitting on.

Anyway, the story.  Dad goes nuts and kills his ex wife and some other people at work.  He takes his super cute girls on a drive into the woods.  He finds an abandoned cabin where he plans to murder/suicide the whole lot.  Instead he is stopped by Mama.  Skip ahead five years and two white trash woodsman his brother Lucas (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau-Nightwatch, Blackhawk Down, Headhunters.  Note-in an apparent attempt to keep the cast budget down he also plays his twin brother) hired managed to find the cabin where the girls now live literally like animals.  Mama doesn’t seem to stop them from taking the girls to a hospital, where they come into the care of Dr. Dreyfuss (Daniel Kash-Aliens, the Tuxede, Lucky Number Seven), a psychologist.  Lucas wants to adopt them with his girlfriend Annabel (Jessica Chastain, looking really hot as a short haired tattooed brunette) in spite of the fact that his former sister-in-law (Jane Moffat-the Recruit, Driven, Moon Point) wants them and actually has a job and a house.  Dreyfuss recommends them with the understanding that they stay in the area so he can continue to observe.

Honestly, at that point the story progresses in a very predicable manner.  Mama shows up and over time the entire cast becomes aware of her.  Dreyfuss has his own agenda with the girls.  There is a lot of history on the ghost pulled up.  Lucas ends up in the hospital, leaving the girls with Annabel for a while.  The ending wasn’t quite what I expected (kudos to the writers) but also wasn’t mindblowingly amazing.

The stars.  Very creepy and atmospheric.  Two stars.  All the characters were engaging, and the actors did a good job overall.  One star.  The two little girl actors (Isabelle Nelisse and Megan Charpentier) were shockingly good, not to mention cute as a button.  One star.  The lighting, camera, and CGI (Mama was super creepy) all worked well to put you in the film and scare the heck out of you.  One star.  Overall very entertaining.  One star.  A non-typical ending.  One star.  Total: seven stars.

The black holes.  Derivative, and once you got past the creepy jump out at you stuff not really surprising.  One black hole.  My sympathy and connection with Annabel (really the main character, as Lucas spent a lot of time in the hospital) dropped significantly every time she did something I thought was stupid (i.e. just not bug the hell out once it became painfully obvious something was really wrong).  I don’t connect well with characters I think of as dumb.  One black hole.  The motivation for Lucas and Annabel to make any of the life choices they did in this film were considerably less than clear.  One black hole.  The punk rocker sub plot added nothing and was actually kind of distracting.  One black hole.  Total: four black holes.

A grand total of three stars.  Good movie IMO.  It’s not a slasher or Saw clone.  It won’t rock your preconceptions of what cinema is all about, but it will kill a couple hours.  Worth seeing in a theater, as the oppressive lighting might lose a lot on a TV.  On the other hand, watching a film about a ghost doing horrible things in a nice modern home might hit you a little harder if you happen to actually be in a nice modern home.  Depends on what you are looking for, I guess.  Date movie?  Yes.  Scary enough to have her in your lap but not slasher or horrible enough to make her not want to touch another human being for a couple weeks.  Bathroom break?  I didn’t black hole the movie for this but it does drag a little.  There’s a long scene where Annabel is reading the notes of Dr. Dreyfuss and watching hypnotic interviews he conducted with the girls that doesn’t add anything at all.  Most of what is revealed you should have figured out already.

Thanks for reading.  More coming out this weekend, so hopefully I will find the time.  Follow me on Twitter @Nerdkungfu.  Comments about this movie or my review can be made down at the bottom of this article (if you don’t see the comment section click here).  Off topic questions or suggestions can be emailed to me at david@nerdkungfu.com.  Talk to you soon.

Dave

So here is a question I always had from watching the Watchmen.  If you read the comic you know that Ozymandias summoned a giant dead Cthulu-esque monster to take the blame for the destruction of New York City.  However, I guess in the interest of making things easier for all the dumb consumers out there in the movie the made it so a bomb went off with Ozymandias simulating Dr. Manhattan’s power in each of the capital cities, causing Russia and America to band together against him.

The question I have is Dr. Manhattan has been working for America for decades and actually used his power to wreck the North Vietnamese.  How is it the Russians didn’t even question the whole deal, or ask for some kind of accountability regarding Manhattan?  Sorry, but from an actual nation building point of view dead alien Cthulu makes a lot more sense.

Still a great movie.  This Dr. Manhattan image I found in Dave’s comic book movie collection.  He only has a few from the Watchmen.

Jason

I say go for it.  Like Dave said in his blistering review, Ryan Reynolds was the weakest part of the entire film.  He just doesn’t come across as anything other than a sleazy good looking guy who’s only interest really is in hooking up with every chick on the planet.  Honestly, that doesn’t really say Hal Jordan.

Actually, now that GL is out of the closet, that might make Reynolds an even worst cast, if that were possible.  I’m not saying you have to cast a gay actor, but Reynolds seems to have a certain straight typecast going on.

Something else mentioned in the article I read is about Warner wanting to work with creative talent that “gets” the character.  I couldn’t be more pleased to hear that.  I honestly think this movie really missed the mark, and based on how poorly it did worldwide I’m not the only one.  They need to stop hiring guys who know how to write movies for the general population and hire guys who know how to write comic book movies.

Anyway, I’m sure Ryan Reynolds will do fine in his next movie.  Maybe Van Wilder II, since that is pretty much the only movie he seems capable of doing.

This image comes from Dave’s comic book t-shirt collection.  For some reason he has like 1,000 GL shirts.

Jason

This is an interesting question.  On paper it looks like Ozymandias would wipe the floor with Batman.  Ozymandias is fast enough to catch a bullet, super strong, and hyper intelligent.  Not to mention he is ruthless on a level far beyond the pale.  Batman, while equipped with all sorts of cool devices and a never say die attitude, is still merely human.

However, the one factor you can never really account for is the fact that Batman has a resourcefulness that makes MacGuyver look like an amateur and a drive to save the lives of the innocent that gives him serious motivation.  Faced with Ozy’s plan to kill millions of people to make a political statement I believe Batman would find a way.

Unfortunately, without time to prepare and just based on what we know from the comics and movies, I would have to put this one firmly in Ozymandias’s favor.  Sorry Batman.

The Watchmen image I got from Dave’s Comic Book t shirt collection.  He only has a few from the Watchmen.  I really like the Dr. Manhattan one.

Jason

I honestly laughed out loud when I saw this.  I don’t mind women superheros, but if you look back on the history of female superhero movies you can see the fields is littered with horrible movies that are kind of career killers for the stars.  It’s like Scarlett is tired of being a successful actress and wants something to end her run.

If you look at girl superhero movies, the only two that are remotely canon and taken seriously are Catwoman and Electra.  In both cases the films failed miserably.  Catwoman was voted the 15th worst film in history, and Electra was about as unwatchable as a comic movie can get.  The thing that Scarlett Johansson should keep in mind however is the fact that since those films neither Halle Berry or Jeniffer Garner have had a good solo role and have kind of slunk off to do mediocre movies and support roles.

It makes me wonder if there is something about women comic hero movies that puts the audience off.  Most comic book fans are dudes, and a group more willing to look at hot women in tights you won’t find.  However, it might just be that since most comic book fans like to think of themselves as the hero in a film, you won’t pull them in to watch someone the cannot see themselves as like a hot girl.  Either that or Hollywood doesn’t know how to or care enough to write a decent script.

The Catwoman image I got from the comic book t shirts.  Nice shirt, but I don’t know about the color.

Jason

Dave’s not much into Superman but I am, and I have to say that I was really hoping for someone other than another old villain for the next movies.

Honestly, General Zod was never much of a villain in the comic, yet somehow he is the main bad guy in two different movies.  I guess this is more proof that Hollywood cannot come up with anything remotely new for anything.  It’s not like there aren’t other villains who can give Superman a run for his money.  Brainiac alone makes for a really good story because he is so smart, and if you just want life threatening mayhem go with Doomsday.  I just think General Zod was so well done in the other movie that there is no need to rehash his character again.

This cool Braniac picture comes from Dave’s DC comic t shirts.  I think I am going to have to get one for myself.

Of course, really when you think about it I don’t know if Lex Luthor was really treated fairly in Superman Returns.  Sure, he was pretty cool and I thought Kevin Spacey both did a great job and had the man parts to actually go bald unlike Gene Hackman, but Lex Luthor is supposed to have a ton of super science backing him up.  I want to see Lex in a super powered armor suit flying around blasting Superman with Krpytonite autocannon shells.  Also, what the hell was the deal with his secret plan?  He wanted to raise a new continent, killing half the world population, and then sell barren salt encrusted rock real estate to the half that didn’t drown?  I mean sure he might do some damage, but did he really think that no country in the world wouldn’t have an aircraft carrier survive the aftermath and wouldn’t air strike him to death?  Also, while appearing before the UN to claim the land he just created don’t you think someone might have asked him some tough questions about the billions of people he just killed in order to make it?  Just dumb, really.

Back on Zod.  The question I always had at the end of the last one was shouldn’t Lois Lane have had super powers after the whole switcheroo machine went off?  For that matter, if the three of them could have killed Superman why did they take the chance on him pulling some kind of fast one?  I’d be like “Well, we could let him use his equipment in his Fortress of Solitude where ever single wall and piece of furniture looks alike, or we could just remove all his internal organs and launch the remains into the nearest black hole.”

Also, what is up with a human having sex with Superman?  I mean, aside from the fact that he would most likely tear her in half in the first two seconds, how is it he feels any sensation from her?  It would be like having sex with a woman made out of tissue paper.

Damn, I just wrote a Dave length post.  Don’t get used to it.  I did find this really funny blog cast of General Zod talking to his defense attorney before being sentenced to the phantom zone.  It’s really good.

Jason

Before I start, I need to say that Dave lectured me on the importance of expressing my opinion as my own rather than doing it for big groups, as I did when I wrote in my post about Green Lantern.  He’s not my dad, but technically he is my boss so I guess I have to listen to him.  It is my personal opinion that the first GL movie sucked, and if they keep all the same writers and actors the next one will pretty much do the same.

The image I got from Dave’s comic book t-shirts.  He sure has a lot of Green Lantern ones.

However, I just read that they are making a Tom Sawyer movie.  This seems cool, but then I read that the story will be of Tom and Huck as adults, and feature supernatural elements.  You know, one of the greatest and most racist stories of American literature done as a Scooby Doo cartoon.  How does this make sense?  Do the hacks in Hollywood really think they are better writers than Mark Twain, and therefore have license to write stories about his characters he never wanted to do?  Maybe the supernatural element is them trying to channel Mark Twain’s ghost and writing what he wanted to write but never got around to.

Actually, a really funny story would be about some idiotic writers trying to pervert a classic novel and the ghost of the writer coming back to kill them as they sleep, like Freddy Kruger.  In that case, however, I think I would go with Edger Allen Poe.

Jason

It is a sad fact that my life as an amateur movie reviewers is not all picnics in a field of daisies day after day.  I enjoy movies, and there are definitely times when I think I might have found my calling.  However, there are days when watching movies feels more like a job than you would imagine it would, and that job somehow involves getting repeatedly kicked in the groin.

Thus we come to the movies that made me wish I had opted to start a blog reviewing the many different manhole covers I encounter during my daily life.  These are the films that make you wonder if the production office is located under a spiders web of power lines and the producers all have a healthy paint chip salad for lunch while watching Keeping up with the Kardasians and throwing billiard balls at each others heads during commercial breaks.  The movies where the real question is if the writers, directors, and actors all started off brain dead or if their brains somehow died a slow, twitching death while writing, directing, or acting in these films.

I originally was going to only do the 10 worst, but as I filtered down my list, cutting out movies that almost made it but had some camp redeeming qualities like Drive Angry or Twilight ,I realized I had an obligation to warn you people what to avoid.  It’s like if I were moping up a floor I would be responsible to put up a wet floor sign, although in this case I was not at all responsible for any of this production.

15.  What’s Your Number?-Anna Faris tries to convince the world she is at the same time a sexual being and a prude, and more or less botches it.  This is one of those romance stories that makes you wonder if the writers have ever actually dated someone in their lives.

14.  Johnny English Reborn-Ever wonder what a hamburger would be like if you held the meat, bun, cheese, and all the condiments?  Basically leaving you with a wrapper?  That’s pretty much what Johnny English is.  A comedy movie, hold the comedy.

13.  The Three Musketeers-This movie accomplishes the remarkable in keeping as close to the original story as possible while diverging as far from the original story as humanly possible, all at the same time.  It’s like if you filmed an episode of Star Trek but made the bridge of the Enterprise look like an Apple Store (oh, wait, that was done.  Suck it J.J. Abrams).  Maybe it would be more like if you were to film Romeo and Juliet scene for scene with the correct language but put it on the set of Outland (geek cred for anyone who saw that in the theater).  Also, completely worthless 3D.

12.  Season of the Witch-I almost stuck Drive Angry  in here as well, but realized there were some parts of that movie that I found entertaining in an extremely Americana way, thus saving Nicholas Cage the ignominy of having two films in my Worst of 2011 list (that honor is about to be visited upon Ryan Reynolds).  Season of the Witch is that special kind of film that leaves you wondering if at any time during the production did the director, writer, producer, or studio executives actually sit down and watch the film?  Dopey, dumb movie but perfectly adequate for Nick Cage to display his Terminator-like acting style.

11.  The Hangover Part II-I will say this is one of the movies that really caught me by surprise last year, in that I was surprised they bothered to make it.  If there was ever a film that did not call out for a sequel it’s the Hangover.  When I say sequel, however, I am really saying clone, as this movie is pretty much scene for scene the same movie without the slightest effort at originality other than putting it in Thailand.  However, I think some grease was left in the cloning tube as this movie is not remotely funny like the original.  Take the Hangover and drain it of pretty much everything that made it fun and you will get this film.

10.  The Green Hornet-A super hero should never be the comedy relief.  That’s the sidekicks job.  Also, Seth Rogan should never star in a PG-13 movie that does not in some way involve him smoking pot.  It’s what he’s good at, and honestly it’s what he should stick to.

9. Abduction-We are now at the point where I want to make all these films number 1, and have to start rating them based on which movies made me want to murder the projectionist the least.  Abduction sucked on many levels, but if I try to remember that it was made for teeny bopper morons and can ignore the fact that it actually features no abduction whatsoever (or anything else that might be mistaken for a plot) then I suppose it goes to simply stomach turning.  If you like wolf boys abs this movie might do something for you.

8.  Green Lantern-If I were doing my list of top 10 most disappointing movies of 2011 this film would get numbers 1 through number 7, with Green Lantern at number 8, The Immortals at number 9, and Columbiana at number 10.  As I am doing just general badness this one gets number 8, but on a different day it could qualify for any of the top 10 slots.  Too much humans (especially Ryan Reynolds), not enough aliens.  Action that was criminally short and stupid.  Characters Mother Theresa would be OK seeing die.  CGI used to cover up massive holes in the plot and direction like a fresh coat of paint on a pickup truck dredged up from a lake after 10 years. Green Lantern image courtesy of the Comic Book T-Shirt category.

7.  The Zookeeper-There aren’t a lot of movies that make me want to slowly pick all the skin off my face, but this is one of them.  Dumb story, dumb dialog, dumb physical humor, dumb movie.  Plus it’s painfully predicable.

6.  One Day-If you feel like your life is OK but are somehow motivated to find the right excuse to kill yourself, this movie will push you over the edge.  Also, for the first 2/3rds of the movie you will hate every character in the film with the burning passion of 10,000 suns.  Feel free to laugh at Anne Hathaways on and off English accent, but that is about the only entertainment you are going to get.

5.  The Change Up-Ryan Reynolds rates special acknowledgement for piloting two films into my Top 10.  The only thing this film really has going for it is that it is rated R.  Otherwise it is neither funny or entertaining.  In fact, I think the desire to end up rated R is what caused this movie to suck so badly.  In my minds eye I see the director waking up late at night in a cold sweat with the burning question “What if it’s not raunchy enough for rated R yet?  What if we end up with PG-13??”.  He pulls out a pad of paper and writes down the next raunchiest thing he can think of, leading us to the inevitable conclusion: babies excreting into daddy’s mouth.

4.  New Years Eve-What’s worse than a movie based on a really dumb romantic concept?  How about a movie based on 20 different really dumb romantic concepts?  I guess I could say that New Years Eve is proof that lightning doesn’t strike twice.  This movie was like if you swallowed 20 different colors of paint one at a time and then vomited them all over a canvas to see what kind of picture you ended up with.  I often find myself wishing I were in a different theater (or unconscious) during the watching of some of these movies, but this time I found myself really praying that I had walked into the wrong movie and was watching an extended introduction for Cloverfield.

3.  Bucky Larson: Born to be a Star-There isn’t enough alcohol on the planet to make this movie anything other than cringe-worthy.  If you ever wanted to lose all desire to have sex with any human, man or woman, again in your life, then see this film.  As for the “humor” of this film I think I can sum it up nicely with the following statement: THE MOVIE IS CALLED BUCKY LARSON AND IT STARS A GUY WITH HUGE BUCK TEETH!

2.  Tree of Life-I know I am probably ruining what little credibility I have by calling this film the second worst movie made in 2011, but it is really a steaming pile of crap.  I know there are people who call this an amazing film, but I say they are all pretentious asses.  There is very little of artistic merit in this film, and what is left is some of the most boring cinema in the history of movies.  I think you could have the same impact on the audience with 1/3 of the work if you just had the projectionist pause the film every 10 seconds for 20 seconds.  The film watches like a child’s diorama made with a Little People play set and some plastic dinosaurs.

1.  Jack and Jill-When I look back on 2011, the movie I wish I could find a memory enema for the most has to be this failed Adam Sandler monstrosity.  Not even Al Pacino could save this film from contaminating the higher brain functions of the few of us unfortunate enough to watch it.  It’s like Adam Sandler is an evil scientist with a plan to conquer the world, and step one is to make the worst movie in cinema history.  I think the only way he could have made this movie experience worse is if he had hired thugs to wait outside the theater to beat up people as they left.  That’s kind of how it felt. However, I feel a certain amount of justice is served by the movie costing $79,000,000 to make and grossing $74,158,147 domestic (damn the foreign market for supporting bad film).

That’s it.  Thanks for reading.  Feel free to disagree with me via comments on here.  Follow me on Twitter @Nerdkungfu or email me with ideas, suggestions, or questions at david@nerdkungfu.com.  If I have the energy I might see a midnight showing of 21 Jump Street.  It looks kind of good.  Have a good day.  Talk to you soon.

Dave

So I read online this morning that Sony is talking about a Venom spinoff.  I am torn on this concept.  On the one hand I love Venom and think he is a great character.  On the other hand the last time he showed up in film he was about as bad as you could possibly make him.  Could they have missed the point of Venom more?  Maybe, if they made his costume pink or something.  If Sony is going to do this, for god’s sake go with Eddie Brock (not Mac Gargan) and make him a muscle bound guy, not some wimpy kid designed to appeal to teeny boppers who like weedy girly man vampires.

The good news is it looks like the guy who directed Chronicle, Josh Trank, is going to do this and he seems to get it.  I just wonder if Venom is going to be a villain or a hero, and if so who his enemy is going to be.  Part of the whole appeal for Venom is his and Eddies obsession and complete hatred of Spider Man.  At one point Brock and the symbiote came to be OK with Spider Man, but that was after years of wanting nothing but to squash him like a bug.  I don’t know if they can recreate that obsession and make it believable for anyone else.

This shirt I found in Dave’s comic book t-shirts, by the way.  Seems cool to me, especially if you are looking for a last minute costume.  Talk to you later.

Jason

So I heard a rumor today online that the villain they are considering for the next Iron Man movie is the Sub-Mariner.  I actually think this is a pretty cool idea.  The Sub-Mariner was always kind of a mysterious character who had his own agenda and complete contempt and disregard for surface dwellers.  He was like a cool Aquaman.  I also really like him because he looked a lot like a Vulcan, and I have always been a big Spock fan.

This will actually prove a nice challenge for Tony Stark.  Does his suit even work underwater?  I don’t expect it to rust or anything dumb like that, but is it truly water proof?  Do the repulsors work underwater?  How long of an air supply has he built into the suit?  In the first movie the thing flared out in the upper atmosphere, so maybe there is no air supply, just some kind of filter.  I am really curious.

Of course, the very first Iron Man as seen in this image I found in Dave’s comic book t shirts was really primitive, showing there is an evolution of the suit technology.  Maybe the movie will start off with the suit not really able to do anything under water and Tony having to modify it into an aqua suit.  That would be cool.

Of course, in my comic book recollection the Sub-Mariner was always more of a Fantastic Four villain, but maybe I missed a few issues.

Jason