First of all, I have an issue with the title of this flick being called “Part II”.  When you say something is Part II that implies that Part I was not complete, and that you had some kind of plan for a continuation of the story.  Godfather Part II, for example.  I think the story of the Hangover was pretty well encapsulated and completely told.  There were no loose wires or unresolved issues at the end, like Darth Vader not being killed at the end of Episode IV and the whole Empire still in full power.  There was nothing, in fact, that even suggested a second part was needed or even desired (except for the whole “Doug married a Las Vegas hooker thing, but in spite of being the only thing that seemed to lead to another film the writers of P2 managed to dispense that whole issues with one line of expository dialog).

(Baby Carlos image courtesy of the nerd t-shirts)

This does not mean that the Hangover was not worthy of a sequel, nor that it would not be funny.  Just that calling it Part II is a level of hubris that goes beyond the pale.  I happen to know the story behind the creation of P1, and there was never a plan for this thing to do more than slink off to the DvD graveyard.  The wild success of the movie out of nowhere is part of the mystical story of the film beyond the film.  Also, there is no way calling this  movie the Hangover Part II in any way enhances the film watching experience, unless having me be annoyed while standing in line at the box office is a part the movie magic.

Anyway, I got done with the convention I did yesterday and treated myself to a full price movie ticket.  So, after being annoyed at the film name and scoring my usual Junior Mints, I creeped out some guy by sitting in the empty seat right next to him and watched the film.

I am going to be tossing out some spoilers here in a few lines and will, out of basic human decency, warn you beforehand.  However, I can say without reservation that if you have seen the Hangover P1 then you have seen the Hangover P2.  It is the bastard love child of the Hangover mated with the Hangover, and like most cases of direct inbreeding, has come out with something that looks remarkably similar but is in many ways defective.  Is it funny?  Yes.  Will you laugh?  Yes.  Will you want to spend the money to see it a second time?  No.  Just not that good.  The overall feeling is that the writers mostly phoned it in.  Maybe they were under some kind of unrealistic deadline (“We need to start making money on this NOW NOW NOW!”) and figured the best way to get it done was to just rework the old script with a couple new characters and an Asian supporting cast.

Before I get into the story I would like to reiterate what I just said in the last paragraph: it is EXACTLY THE SAME MOVIE.  The individual jokes and scenes are (modestly) different and funny, but the story is the same, only grittier and set in Thailand.  Here is where I toss is my SPOILER ALERT, but honestly, nothing to worry about.  Does any of this sound familiar?  The movie starts with the Phil (Bradley Cooper) calling in to tell a friend of the bride that the crew f***ed up.  Then the flashback begins.  Stu is getting married to a super, duper hot Thai girl in Thailand.  Her father hates him in the most stereotypical “I hate white boys” way humanly possible.  They have a little party on the beach and one of the Wolfpack who shall go nameless but whose name rhymes with Talan accidentally drugs the whole crew while attempting to do something more benign.  They wake up in a seedy Bangkok hotel room missing the 16 year old brother of the bride, who is a Stanford premed.  They find, instead of a baby and a tiger, a monkey (ok, I guess the writers made some changes), and, for no reason whatsoever except to crowbar him back into the film, Mr. Chow from the first movie.  Stu, rather than missing a tooth, has a Mike Tyson style tattoo on his face.  The crew is then required to run around the city recreating the night before wherein the following stuff that is not exactly like the first movie happens (spoilers incoming in force.  Do not keep reading if you plan to see this movie and want to be “surprised”):

Stu finds out he had sex with a tranny hooker (which is not the same as marrying a hooker).  The crew kidnapped a Bhuddist monk under a vow of silence and get beat up by another monk when they try to return him (which is not the same a stealing a tiger from Mike Tyson and getting punched in the face for it).  Stu got a face tattoo (which is not the same as removing a tooth).  The monkey is made by Alan to look like he is giving oral to a fake penis on the monk on a bus (which is not the same as making it look like the baby is masturbating at a breakfast table).  They meet up with an Arabic tranny club owner who points them on their way (which is not the same as meeting the Israeli wedding chapel owner in Vegas).  They meet a guy who claims to have kidnapped the kid they are looking for and will not give him back unless they get an account code from Mr. Chow but then later turns out he doesn’t have the kid at all (which is totally different from Mr. Chow claiming to have kidnapped Doug and will not give him back unless they give him his money back only to find out that Chow had the wrong Doug).  In the end, they find the kid trapped in an elevator 30 feet from the room they woke up in, which is completely, 100% different from finding Doug on the roof of the hotel they were in at the beginning of the movie.

Anyway, other stuff happens.  Bangkok hijinks ensue.  Most of the stuff was funny when taken in part but kind of lame when placed into the context of the whole film.  Overall the film had a much darker quality that really bled off a lot of the humor.  Alan’s motivation to drug people was actively malicious rather than an good hearted attempt to let everyone have a good time.  Having a fully grown adult male go missing in a relatively safe city like Las Vegas and the only real concern was getting him back in time for the wedding is good, lighthearted fare whereas having a 16 year old boy go missing in a city known for it’s danger like Bangkok seemed to be a much less funny motivation, especially when everyone they talked to about the missing kid seemed to feel like it was pretty good odds he was dead or living as a male drug whore already.  The phrase “Bangkok has him” kept coming up.  In one movie you were worried about a guy missing his wedding.  In this one you were worried about a kid being dead in a ditch.  Just not that funny.

Honestly, that really brings me to my ultimate problem with this movie, and that is the lack of consequences for any of the actions.  In the first movie the crew stole a police car and ended up getting used as tazer practice.  They stole money from Mr. Chow and got the Mercedes wrecked for it.  Stu married a hooker and, for good or ill, ended his current long term relationship.  Actions had consequences, and that is what made it real and funny for me.   In this movie some of the most horrific, life changing mistakes a person can make occurred with no real consequence and even less concern by the characters involved.  A man has unprotected anal sex with a Thai transvestite hooker?  No danger or concern for an STD there.  A 16 year old kid who wants to be a surgeon and is a concert cellist loses a finger?  Nothing to worry about after the initial shock, and even the kid doesn’t seem to care.  Lose a finger and spend 24 hours trapped in an elevator in a Bangkok slum, a city know for it’s hygienic standards?  No danger of gangrene at all.  Your bride finds out that you once married a Las Vegas hooker and had sex with a tranny hooker when you show up for your wedding with a face tattoo?  No reason to call off or postpone that wedding, or even demand an explanation.  Have a human corpse to deal with?  Stuff it in the nearest ice machine and get on with your day.  Wash your brand new face tattoo with brown Bangkok tap water and later have pig blood sprayed all over it?  No danger of infection there.  Kidnap a monk?  Run a speed boat up a beach and over a stone barricade into a wedding party?  Steal from Russian drug dealers?  Incite a riot?  Throw a Molotov cocktail and burn a police car?  Be involved with an international criminal when he is getting arrested by Interpol?  All boyish pranks that in no way should get you killed or arrested.

The list goes on and on.  The problem is after about the third or fourth one you get disconnected from the potential seriousness of the situations and, ironically, that makes them less funny.  It’s like if the big battle between the criminals and police during the robbery in the movie Heat had been done with Nerf guns.  You just wouldn’t care, and honestly after a while I found myself not really caring either.

This is on it’s way to being my longest review ever.  I had better get into the stars and black holes.  First the stars.  The movie was indeed funny, in parts.  One star.  The monkey is also funny.  One star.  The chemistry between the main characters is still, in spite of the less than inspired writing, excellent.  Three stars.  Some of the Thai scenery was beautiful and well shot.  One star.  The bride (Jamie Chung) was so hot it made my head hurt.  One star.  Mr. Chow (Ken Jeong) was back and, in spite of being forced into the movie, was really entertaining.  One star.  Paul Giamatti managed to show up as a secondary character.  One star.  Dialog was decent.  One star.  Total: ten stars.

Now the black holes.  I should give one for every scene lifted directly from the first movie, but I will restrain myself.  Three black holes.  Alan was kind of a dick instead of the relatively happy innocent he was in the first movie.  One black hole.  He has some awkward scenes at the wedding party that I just wanted to end.  One black hole.  The whole “action without consequences” thing I bitched about earlier.  Three black holes.  Rampant xenophobia.  One black hole.  Rampant homophobia.  One black hole.  Every Thai person needed to propel the story along spoke nearly perfect English, including one of the Buddhist monks and the tranny prostitute.  One black hole.  The future father-in-law was as stereotypical as possible.  One black hole.  The bride and her relationship with Stu was painfully one dimensional (“We love each other because we’re in love.”).  One black hole.  If you are going to do a film in Thailand is it absolutely necessary to make a significant part of it about transsexuals?  One black hole for grabbing the low hanging fruit.  My one positive thought throughout the movie was “At least they didn’t figure out a way to get Mike Tyson into this” until the end when they figured out a way to get Mike Tyson into the film in a scene that will have you holding your breath in an attempt to pass out rather than have to watch any more of him.  One black hole.  Multiple penises shown on screen in an obvious attempt to stay in the rated R zone.  One black hole.  Total: 17 black holes.

Yes, a total of 7 black holes.  Of course, in spite of me panning it along with the vast majority of critics out there it was still a massively grossing movie.  Some days I just hate people.  If you loved the first one see this one, but try to wipe the first from your memory.  If you for some reason never saw P1 then you might actually really enjoy P2, but honestly without the character perspective given to us by P1 you might miss the charm of Alan and the others.  There is nothing in the filming here that requires a large screen, so feel free to watch it at home.  Decently entertaining, but two years from now you will not be quoting it or holding it up as one of your all time favorite comedies like you would the Hangover.

Yes, I saw this the other night.  To be honest, I was going to skip it.  It really looked like a chick flick, which for the most part it was.  However, just like with Your Highness, I heard very positive things about the film on the Howard Stern show, and I have to say I respect Howard’s opinion on most things.  If you think he is nothing by crude, insensitive humor than it’s obvious you have never actually listened to his show.  You really should give it a chance.

Anyway, the fact is I quite enjoyed Bridesmaids.  It was really funny, well written, and accessible to Y chromosomes, although it was definitely chock-full-o-estrogen.  It is the bastard love child of Thelma and Louise and the Hangover.  I laughed my ass off continuously.  It has it’s issues, like most movies do, but was overall very entertaining.  (Baby Carlos image courtesy of the movie t shirts category)

Anyway, the movie.  Kristin Wiig (from Paul) plays an out of luck loser and failed bakery owner who’s best friend gets engaged to some guy with a lot of money.  She is drafted to be the main of honor and coordinate the bridesmaids, who don’t even know her.  Meanwhile, Helen, one of the other bridesmaids, is a rich, perfect seeming bitch who wants to supplant her position as best friend and maid of honor.  I don’t want to get too much into the story, but lest just say Wiig leads the bridal party from one disaster to another, most of which are her of own making.  The rest of the bridesmaids appear to be as pathological as she is, in a mostly one dimensional stereotypical way.  Meanwhile, her Porche driving booty call is a total a-hole (no surprise there).  She meets a nice guy in the form of an Irish cop (Chris O’Dowd, from the IT Crowd, a nerd favorite) who she manages to wreck too.  Wedding hijinks ensue.  Wedding events get ruined, usually for crude humor reasons.  There were a lot of laughs, although I feel like I missed a bunch of female specific humor.  I know there were a few scenes that had me cringing while a lot of the women around me were laughing hysterically.  Overall, however, a positive experience.

The stars.  Kristin Wiig is great, both at an actor and comedian.  She does great physical humor, and as the writer she really knew what situations would work really well for her acting style.  Two stars.  The movie was literally packed with laughs.  You couldn’t go a full minute without laughing at something.  Three stars.  Melissa McCarthy was really funny as the unexpected supporting character.  One star.  Overall well written, although we can get into some of the writing issues later.  Two stars.  The evil Helen, played by Rose Byne, is super hot if you like tall, thin, waifish, elfin like women (which I do).  One star.  With the exception of Melissa McCarthy, the rest of the bridesmaids are pretty easy on the eyes (actually, in a surreal twist, all the bridesmaids except for McCarthy are more attractive than the bride (played by Maya Rudolph).  She was hot, but the rest were hotter).  One star.  Wiigs super creepy British roommates were really funny and added a nice little subplot, although they were a little on the too surreal side for the tone of the movie.  One star.  Wiigs mother, the non-alcoholic alcoholic, was a good addition and help to add quite a bit to Wiigs character development.  One star.  It’s really nice to see a movie filled with actual talented comedians and people who have done stuff other than be pretty faces on a screen.  One star.  At the end of the movie you feel good.  One star.  Total: fourteen stars.

Now the black holes.  The story arc (see how much like a grown up reviewer I have become?  One day I hope to use the phrase “chewing the scenery”) seems a little flat.  There is an obvious attempt to show some character development for Wiig, but it doesn’t really read so much like a journey as a series of discrete vignettes that happen to have the same characters in it (a little like a show that will go nameless but rhymes with Latter Day Fight Dive).  One black hole.  I am not really a fan of scatological humor, of which this film seems to make a lot of.  One black hole.  With the exception of McCarthy, almost all the supporting characters seemed really one dimensional and stereotypical.  There was the a-hole boyfriend, the horny frustrated housewife, the naive recently married girl, the evil upper crust socialite, and the nice guy Prince Charming.  It seemed like there was the possibility for some great secondary character development that never surfaced.  Two black holes.  The editing need to be more aggressive, I thought.  There were a couple scenes that seemed to drag on forever (the airplane scene, for example) that could have been cut in half and still been as funny, if not funnier.  One black hole.  The story overall didn’t really have distinct acts.  Instead it wandered from funny situation to funny situation National Lampoon’s Vacation style and then, all of a sudden, we’re at the finale, which was a little underwhelming.  I know they got that from the Hangover, but honestly the events in that movie were better connected and made more sense.  One black hole.  While I found the movie overall really funny, the lack of a good male comedy character (ironically Chris O’Dowd was the straight man) left me, as a man (last time a checked), feeling a little alienated and disconnected.  One black hole.  Total: seven black holes.

So a total of seven stars, which seriously is about six more than I would have thought it would get when I saw the trailer (in actuality it would have gotten none, as my first thought when I saw the trailer was “pass”).  The fact that it could rack up 14 stars says a lot, and if you aren’t of a mind to pick apart the script like I am you will probably enjoy the hell out of it.  There is nothing here that really needs to be seen on a big screen, so it could easily wait for NetFlix or whatever.  However, this is a great date movie, as you will not be bored while your date enjoys all the estrogen flowing off the screen and appreciating your open mindedness, so if you are a gentleman dating a lady (or, for that matter, a lesbian dating a lady or even a gay man etc) buy your tickets now.  You should be able to milk the credit you get from watching this with her into seeing the new X-men with a minimum of argument.

That’s it.  Big show coming up this weekend so I don’t know if I will be able to blog again before Sunday.  Come check us out at KublaCon if you are in the Bay Area and want to play some games.  I have an idea for a movie related blog I want to do about some favorite movies of mine, so I will let that idea brew in my brainstem.

Also, before I go this guy I know is working on an animation show and I thought I would toss him a nod.  His cartoon is called Feckly, and he has been working on it a lot.  This one cartoon is his proof of concept, which is why it seems a little dense.  I think once they actually start working on the real cartoon the writing will smooth out and not have everything packed into two minutes.  I think he’s got a good concept and wish him well on it.  That’s it for now.

Before I get into my review I would like to say a few words about the tragic death of Randy “Macho Man” Savage.  I have never been a huge pro wresting fan in spite of wrestling myself in high school.  However, I became a fan of Macho Man when he played Bonesaw McGraw in the first Spiderman movie.  I also enjoyed him immensely when he played Rasslor in Dial M for Monkey from Dexter’s Laboratory, one of the best episodes they did.  It’s obvious he had a great sense of humor, and I will miss hearing his signature “Oh, yeah!”

Anyway, Pirates of the Caribbean.  This has always been my favorite ride at Disneyland, although as a kid I (according to my mother) called it Pirates of the Can-o-beans.  I also have to admit in spite of my natural inclination to despise anything with the Disney stamp on it, kind of enjoyed the first two films.  I missed the third one, something I think might have damaged my enjoyment of this one somewhat.  I should also like to warn you that I am a huge fan of the great book On Stranger Tides by Tim Powers, and author who either produces some of the greatest fiction on the planet or complete boring garbage.  He writes like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Boring.

So On Stranger Tides is one of his best (second only to Last Call, in my opinion).  However, when I heard this I have to admit that the bar was raised considerably for me, which is always a mistake.  This film didn’t suck any more or for any other reasons that the other ones did (although they managed to avoid the stupid three barreled gatling gun cannon that Davy Jones had in the second film), but when it committed all the usual annoyances it wasn’t so much that they tripped on the bar as clotheslined themselves with it.

As an aside, I was really expecting them to keep some of the great story elements from the book, but except for the facts that the story involved pirates looking for the Fountain of Youth and using zombie crewmen, they more or less ignored the book entirely.  It’s like the writers chewed up and swallowed the book and, twelve hours later, excreted a steaming On Stranger Tides flavored pile of script.  It’s unfortunate, as the book is really good and would have made an amazing movie, but now that Disney has marked that territory it will never happen.  (Zombie image courtesy of the video game t shirts category)

Those two paragraphs are a little unfair.  Pirates offers up an entertaining two and a half hours in the standard Disney formula.  The only real problem is if you have seen any of the first three movies you have pretty much seen this one.  I challenge anyone who is not a screaming Johnny Depp fan to sit through a Pirates marathon.  You’ll be keel hauling yourself by the end.

Anyway, the movie.  I really don’t want to throw in any spoilers, but there are a couple points I need to make that might do it a little.  I’ll put in spoiler alert when I do, but really if you hate spoilers you might want to skip the next couple paragraphs.  So, Captain Jack Sparrow is without a ship or crew and needing to recruit them all.  Some dumb filler crap happens in London and he ends up shanghaied into the crew of Blackbeard, who for some reason has super hot Penelope Cruz as a first mate is is somehow his daughter and one of Jack Sparrows ex love interests.  Blackbeard has been prophesied to die at the hand of a one legged man.  By coincidence Capt. Babarossa has resurfaced missing a leg and having complete hatred of Blackbeard.  Anyway, Blackbeard wants to find the Fountain of Youth in order to cheat the prophesy.  Babarossa has been sent by some foppish English lord to find the Fountain of Youth and, as a floating deus ex machina, the Spanish have sent three ships to find it too.  At that point the movie basically becomes Scooby Doo meets the Amazing Race as the three groups progress towards the fountain.

Pirate hijinks ensue (literally.  The action was pretty goofy.  Disney is to action scenes what Twinkes are to dieting).  Mermaids attack.  Zombies are promoted to middle management.  Johnny Depp is charmingly self centered and irreverent.  Barbossa and Sparrow get involved in the stupidest teeter totter ever.  The physics of sailing vessels is more or less disregarded entirely.

First the stars.  The story is linear and entertaining.  One star.  Johnny Depp is extremely engaging as an actor.  Two stars.  Pretty much all the rest of the acting was well done, especially Blackbeard (Ian McShane, from Deadwood).  Two stars.  Penelope Cruz is hot.  One star.  Casting was great.  One star.  Filming and editing were really good.  One star.  They restricted the comedy relief to Jack Sparrow.  One star.  Overall, the story was more like Curse of the Black Pearl and less like the lame second film.  One star.  Dialog was clever and funny.  One star.  Total: eleven stars.

Now the black holes.  The “action” started off lame and got worse as the movie progressed.  I’m sorry, but two guys carrying a plank are going to notice a fully grown man jumping on the plank, not keep carrying him perfectly level through the crowd.  I know these movies are supposed to be dopey on the action, but this stuff felt like a toothache that got worse as the movie progressed.  One black hole.  Claiming to be inspired by a great book but then ignoring it completely.  One black hole.  Mermaids were kind of dumb.  One black hole.  SPOILER ALERTS!  They had a really interesting plot conundrum in having to transport a mermaid over dry land in a big aquarium but as soon as it became inconvenient she magically grew legs.  One black hole.  The Spanish had a secret goal they could have accomplished about 45 minutes into the film by destroying some artifacts but didn’t.  One black hole.  So much deus ex machina that God must have been working as a Production Assistant on the set.  One black hole.  A shockingly anticlimactic ending.  One black hole.  They crowbarred in a really dumb romance that made almost no sense.  One black hole.  Total: nine black holes.

So a net total of two stars.  Not bad, and if you can stomach dumb Disney action entertaining.  If you can approach it with the right attitude (cough cough stoned cough cough) it will actually be a lot of fun, and for the most part good for kids too (I had another crying baby in the theater, BTW.  What is up with you parents???).  Worth seeing in a theater, in my opinion.

Not sure what I have on deck for tomorrow.  I have a lot I am doing this week and am getting ready for a big gaming convention this weekend.  If any of you are going to Kublacon stop by and say hi.  Talk to you soon.

The cool thing about saying something like that is, unlike most declarative statements in the nerd world, there are very few who can argue against you and those who do usually end up sounding like complete morons.  Say something like “Kirk was the better captain” or “George Lucas is a sellout whore” and, in a group of three nerds, at least one will take issue with your statement.  However, I have yet to have a true comic fan argue vehemently that Batman is not the greatest (or at least the one of the greatest) superheroes of all time (and if I did, honestly I think all I would hear is clicks and whistles).

So what is it that makes him so cool?  Is it the costume?  Yes.  Is it the car?  Yes.  Is it the fact that he goes toe to toe with thugs who could kill him at any minute without the use of esoteric outer space minerals (cough cough Kryptonite cough cough)?  Yes.  All these and may other reasons make up that tapestry of coolness that is the Dark Knight.  However, there is one reason that stands out in my mind more than others and that is because Bruce Wayne’s life absolutely sucks so much.

“Wait a minute!” I can here your feeble, movie fan based brain saying.  “Bruce Wayne is a billionaire.  He has houses, boats, cars, and is head of a major corporation.  He dates super models and, when not wearing the cowl, is the life of the party.” This may appear to be true, but something you can only get if you read the comics (or perhaps watch some of the cartoons, such as Mask of the Phantasm) is that it is all a sham.  Sure, it is part of his facade in the movies as well but when you watch them Christian Bale can’t seem to transmit the idea that secretly Bruce Wayne hates the fake lifestyle and considers it a massive waste of time. In the movie it seems like he is partying it up and in his free time is fighting crime (kind of like the Green Hornet).

Bruce Wayne has a miserable life.  He is constantly tortured by the death of his parents.  He also blames himself whenever one of his rogues gallery kills someone before he could capture him, especially the Joker (Joker image courtesy of the Batman t shirt category).  Bruce sleeps like two hour a night and goes out night after night, in spite of the many injuries he suffers on a regular basis.  He has no chance of any kind of real personal relationship with a woman, and never gets a break or a chance to rest.

Why does that qualify him a cool?  Humans love tragedy.  All the best stories involve tragic protagonists (Darth Vader from the original Star Wars trilogy, Sam Lowry from Brazil, Peter Parker from Spiderman, Mad Max, Dr. Morbius from Forbidden Planet, Harvey Dent (Two Face), Edward Norton’s nameless character in Fight Club, Testsuo Shima from Akira, the list goes on).  Sure, a decent story could be told about a happy character, but those stories, while entertaining, are quickly forgotten.  The stories that stick with you for years after you have seen them involve pain and suffering, not upbeat characters and happy endings.

By the way, anyone who tries to tell me that Superman started in tragedy because his planet blew up before he developed the mental capacity to remember it should go back to reading Richie Rich cartoons.  The man grew up in Norman Rockwell picture perfect small town America with the Kents.  Give me a break.  Also, anyone who tries to cite Anakin Skywalker as a tragic character can go into the laundry room and drink whatever liquids may be located in the cabinets there.

I think that’s why the Joel Schumacher (burn in hell, jackass) Batman movies felt like such a betrayal of the franchise to me.  It wasn’t just the Batnipples, the painfully crowbaring of so many villains into one film, the 46 continuity and editing mistakes in Batman and Robin, the bad writhing, the bad acting, the “diamond powered” freeze suit, or the obvious ploy to make a two hour long toy commercial.  It was the fact that they portrayed a Bruce Wayne that was kind of light hearted and enjoyed his work as Batman.  There is no part of his life that he enjoys.  The only scene that had even a trace of tragedy was when Mr. Freeze was locked up and carved an ice statue of his frozen wife to keep him company.  That was the most tragic scene in either of the movies and, consequently, it is the one that stick out in my mind the most (the entire rest of both films blurs together like a sewage smoothie in a blender).  No wonder it is considered the worst blockbuster of all time.

Anyway, that’s pretty much it for my love of tragic characters and the bromance I feel with Bruce Wayne.  If you disagree feel free to respond and I will happily ridicule your shortcomings physical, mental, and emotional.

I am going to see Pirates of the Caribbean at 4:20pm today (bong time, for you stoners out there) and write a review for it tomorrow.  I expect it to be a product of the fail school of filmmaking, so I should be able to write some funny stuff.  They based the story on one of my all time favorite books, On Stranger Tides by Tim Powers, so unless it is truly brilliant I will probably come to the blogging process full of betrayed bile.  Talk to you soon.

So I had planned to see this opening night and pretend I was a real movie critic by coming out with a review close to the opening weekend, but it turned out my girlfriend really wanted to see it and made me wait until last night.  She is really into vampires, which is something of a mixed blessing as it sometimes lets me see great films and sometimes has me watching pretty boy vampires sparkle in the daylight while I look for a spoon to gouge my eyes out.  (Twilight sucks.  Sparkle vampire image courtesy of the novelty t shirt category).

So, Priest, in 3D (not really by choice, but it was my only option).  This is not one of the great vampire movies, but it is also not eye-gougingly bad either.  It sits, like 99.9999% of the movies I have reviewed since Paul, right on average.  It’s like all of Hollywood has hitched up to the mediocrity train and is steaming towards Bland Junction.

The Priest story comes to us from a Korean graphic novel by Hyung Min-woo.  It’s good to know their geek culture encompasses something besides Starcraft.  The movie Priest, however, comes to us from the Road Warrior, Blade Runner, Dark City, Blade II, and a Fist Full of Dollars with a sprinkling of Star Wars for flavor.  It borrows unabashedly from these and about 1,000 other movies and forces them into a arguably decent rehash, or perhaps new to younger kids.

Speaking of younger kids, let me tangent off a bit here and bitch about the fact that the family in front on us had a little boy with them who was somewhere between 2 and 3 years old.  The movie was rated PG-13 for a good reason and at times drifted close to R in terms of gore and violence.  The vampires would have given me nightmares at 12, to say nothing of 2.  My dad took us all to see Orca the Killer Whale at the drive in when I was 8 and that pretty much ruined the ocean for me for the next five years.  Seems like most parents I wouldn’t trust with a pet rock, much less a child.

OK, off my parenting soap box and onto my movie reviewing soap box.  Priest is set in an alternative world (every other reviewer or whatever likes to say post-Apocalyptic, but the opening credits clearly showed both Medieval and WWI humans fighting vampire armies, so I refuse to imagine this is set in our world.  Also, our world has some terrain) that is apparently flat and featureless as a billiard ball wherein humans and vampires have fought for thousands of years and more or less destroyed the planet, except for a Blade Runner-esque steam punk city where everyone dresses like an escapee from the Great Hot Topic Massacre.  The city has for some reason purposely blocked out the sunlight, which is established as the humans only real defense against vampires (???).  Paul Bettany plays a Priest, a Catholic Church super ninja who had his Ash Wednesday cross tattooed onto his face.  His brother, who appears to be living on a farm that literally produces dust, is mortally wounded by a vampire attack and his niece is kidnapped.  Priest needs to go back out into the wilds to rescue her and kill the vampires, but the head of the church, who I will refer to as Monseigneur Stupid, decides that, in spite of the fact that vampires were not killed off completely but reside peacefully on reservations (sucking on rat blood, I guess) and he loses absolutely nothing by letting Priest go off and get himself killed, there is no way the attack could have been vampires and forbids Priest to go.  He goes anyway on his super ninja electric/solar motorcycle that can exceed 200mph on dirt and hooks up with the local sheriff who told him about the vamp attack.

Anyway, some other Priests are sent after him for no real reason except for the insult the first Priest gave unto the Church, including the new love of my life, Maggie Q.  A bad guy in Western drag named Black Hat (possibly for some article of clothing he was wearing, but I can’t be sure) is involved.  Vampire hunter hijinks ensues.  Vampires and innocent humans get killed.  Stuff blows up.  Deep dark secrets are revealed.  The fuze is lit for a sequel.

Anyway, the stars.  The animated opening credits were really cool.  One star.  In spite of the limited material handed them by the dialogue, all the main characters delivered a pretty good performance.  Paul Bettany was especially good.  One star.  The steam punk city and Gothic costumes were pretty cool.  One star.  The action sequences were decent and made sense (obviously they hired a fight choreography).  One star.  Except for the attitude of Monseigneur Stupid, the story was reasonably linear and more or less didn’t strain my brain.  One star.  The CGI was well done but not over used.  One star.  Overall the visuals were good.  One star.  Total: Seven stars.

Now the black hole.  The dialogue was limited.  One black hole.  The whole movie was extremely derivative.  One black hole.  Some of the action sequences strained my suspension of disbelief enough to give it a hernia (sorry, but no one can survive jumping off a motorcycle at 200+mph).  One black hole.  After 10 minutes in a cool, semi modern dark Gothic city, they then spent the rest of the movie in a much cheaper to shoot open flat wasteland with NO TERRAIN FEATURES WHATSOEVER.  It was like they filmed most of the movie in a giant parking lot.  One black hole.  During the course of the movie they kept hinting at some kind of character development that never surfaced.  I can’t help but feel they could have added a lot to the film by exploring deeper the relationship between Priest and Black Hat, or even Priest and the female Priest.  One black hole.  Total: five black holes.

Also, like I did in my Fast Five review, I have a few things that bugged me but really aren’t worthy of a black hole.  First off, the movie was only 88 minutes.  I don’t feel like the pacing really suffered for being short, which is why this doesn’t get them a black hole,  but if I am going to pay $10 for a movie ticket I want to feel I am getting a decent value.  Remember all that missing character development I gave you a black hole for?  Maybe sticking a few minutes of that into this movie might have made my wallet feel better.  Also, I can honestly say I feel ripped off for paying an extra $4 for 3D.  The 3D did absolutely nothing to enhance the film and was hardly noticeable, at least until my usual 3D headache started to kick in.

So, a total of 2 stars.  Not bad, not great.  If you are a fan of Blade style action see it on a big screen.  Don’t waste your money on 3D.  I think overall it’s worth seeing in a theater, as a lot of the visuals and action may suffer on a smaller screen.

That’s it.  I have an idea for something funny for tomorrow so check back.  Have a great day.

So with May 21st creeping up on us and the supposed end of the world incoming, I plan to fill this week in between movie posts (Priest review tomorrow.  I had to wait to see it as my girlfriend wanted to see it and tonight is the only night we can do it) with a series of the world is coming to an end posts.  However, I have been meaning to talk about the real end of a world that at one point was as important to me as this one, the World of Warcraft.

I don’t want to sound like one of those “I started playing WOW back in vanilla when questing and raiding was hard” jackoffs, but really, I am one (Classically trained raider image courtesy of the WOW t shirts).  Back then you had to run on your mount (which you only got at level 40, not level 10.  Of course, I was so broke I had to wait until I was level 47), flight paths were few and far between, and the lack of ease of battleground meant you were getting ganked and camped about every ten minutes.  Five man raids were honestly hard and you wiped a lot, and when you wiped graveyards were miles away and you didn’t just fly back to your corpse.  Raids required you to find 39 competent players and were wipe fests too.  Just spending time in a raid dungeon did not mean you would eventually kill the boss.  Epics were rare, and just having on tier 2 piece meant a huge difference in your DPS and survivability.  I remember running into a AQ40 equipped hunter who kicked the crap out of me and two of my guildmates in spite of having decent T1 and T2 gear.

Then came Burning Crusade, which was a lot of fun.  Raids were still tough, Outland was fun, and for the first time we had flying mounts.  You had to be really good to see the death of the final boss in Black Temple (which I did, before they nerfed him).  Overall a good effort, but the first signs that WOW was beginning it’s death spiral showed up.  First of all, epic gear became much easier to get.  Instead of being happy with decent blue gear and a few epics, now everyone was epic’d out about three days after hitting 70.  Flying mounts, while cool, made stuff like farming minerals and herbs really easy.  They made battlegrounds easier to get into, and I saw the first decline of world PVP.

This was also when we first saw the preview of the complete nerfing of the game in the form of raid addons.  In vanilla addons were minimal, didn’t really work great, and were essentially complex macros that might or might not help, but even with them you still had to make sure you were on your game to stand in the right place, heal the right person, and hit you shot rotation correctly (I always played a hunter).  No real alarms or anything.  In BC we saw addons that pretty much made the game easier.  Recount, Grid, Gatherer, Deadly Boss Mods, and any number of class specific addons made raiding and playing much easier.  However, the game was complex enough to really need them.  Overall BC was a great addon.  Raiding and PVP was fun and challenging, and overall you still had to know what you were doing to play.

Then came the first mortal blow to the game, Wrath of the Lich King.  Northrend sucked and was painfully boring.  Battlegrounds got so easy to get into that no one did world PVP any more.  Flying mounts, which earlier cost 5K gold and were something of an achievement to get, became ubiquitous and made things even easier.  Most classes saw their game play simplified.  Towards the end of BC all the losers who couldn’t play well complained to the developers about how they never saw the inside of Black Temple and whined about not seeing all the content, so Blizzard nerfed raiding to the point that most dungeons are raids were more of a gear check than anything else.  They added hard mode for the really hard core raiders, but even so it was significantly easier than vanilla or BC.  However, the thing that really nerfed the game was the addons.  Blizz started incorporating popular addons into game play, but everyone with an ounce of programming skill were developing stuff to do everything by change your diaper for you.  The ones that really hurt the game IMO were all the quest finding addons, showing you exactly where all your quest items or goals are located.  At the time I thought they were cool, as they really saved time, but in retrospect I can see the end was near.

The one thing they did was added the achievements, which I jumped into with both feet.  I loved getting achievements.  I would play for hours trying to grind the most obscure stuff possible (if you know the game, you should either be really impressed or really sad for me in that I got the Insane in the Membrane achievement.  Yes, I had no life).  It was enough to keep me going.

Then came the final death rattle.  Cataclysm.  Instead of spending the time and money to develop a new zone (hey, writing new content is hard work) they just recycled a bunch of old code and let us fly around the old world, which they somehow made more boring.  Addons, including the questing addons, were completely incorporated into the stock UI of the game.  Most of the dungeons were simply a matter of time, not effort, and getting a dungeon group has become super easy, especially if you are a tank or healer.  As I approached 10,000 achievement points I came to realize how achievements were really a never ending quest and a massive time sink.  Every aspect of the game became easier and softer, catering to the casual gamer.

I think that is what does it for me.  I don’t have the time or inclination to be a hard core raider anymore.  However, if I am going to play I don’t want to be one of these casual player jerks.  The problem is the game is either for super hard core raiders or freaking idiots who play a couple hours a week.  There is no middle ground.  The game has gotten so painfully easy to play it’s like reading one of those choose-your-own-adventure novels.  Unless you are raiding hard mode there is no challenge whatsoever.  I think this point was finally driven home for me one day when I was doing a quest that had me riding my mount underwater (remind me again why I spent all those hours fishing up the Turtle mount if any normal ground mount can swim underwater now).  I got done and climbed to the surface.  At that point I figured I was due for a long, grinding swim to shore to mount up on my flying mount.  However, I had a mount macro that would mount my flyer if possible and low-and-behold, I was flying!  How much easier can they make the game?

Anyway, WOW was fun while it was fun.  I don’t regret the time I spent playing it (although I refuse the type /played as I am afraid the answer would send me into a serious depression).  If you are a casual gamer who likes to log on for a couple hours on the weekend, or a hard core raider who puts in 30+ hours a week, than good on you.  I won’t deny that there are people out there for whom WOW still fulfills a need.  About three weeks before Wonder Con I stopped logging in as I was too busy, and haven’t logged on since.  I really don’t miss it, and find myself more excited about writing long, bitchy blogs like this one.  For me, the World of Warcraft is fail.

Sorry I haven’t been posting much lately, but this last weekend I was going to go to the SAWS Challenge Warhammer Tournament in Sacramento.  While not huge, it is big enough and been around long enough to be worthy of being called a Grand Tournament and therefore worth my full attention.  This meant I spent a big chunk of last week painting some new models and rank fillers.  I was up until 2am Thursday and barely made it.

The tournament was fun and frustrating in equal measures.  I won’t get into specific details in this as most of you readers probably wouldn’t understand the nuances of the game, or even care much for that matter.  I had a conflict with one of my opponents regarding his willful misinterpretations of the rules that cost me a lot in the course of the tournament.  Let’s just say I don’t want to play that guy ever again.  Otherwise it was a typical tournament; lots of really great opponents, some awesomely painted armies, and a lot drinking going on before, after, and during the event.  I place 8th overall in spite of getting screwed and had 4 great games and 1 horrible one.

Something that may interest my female readers is the girl to guy ratio stayed about the same as usual at 1 to 30.  If you are a girl that feels you need to have your ego stroked by having a large number of desperate guys paying a ton of attention to you I can’t recommend another type of event more.  Even comic book conventions seem to get a decent number of women, but gaming conventions and tournaments might as well be held in the men’s locker room for the number of women present.  Something to consider.

Other drunken gamer hijinks ensued.  One of my inebriated friends locked himself in the bathroom of our hotel, vomited into the toilet, and then passed out on the tile, blocking access to the bathroom and forcing another one of my wasted friends to wander outside in his boxer shorts to relieve himself behind a bush at 3am.  Another group of our friends had an “upper decker” rendered unto them, adding to the general hilarity of the weekend.  If you don’t know what an upper decker is you should count your lucky stars.  I won’t say if I know the guilty party was, but I can say odds are the victims will never find out.

Anyway, in spite of the 5’9″ fly in my soup I had a good time.  However, now that the event is behind me I have the time to work on things like this blog.  I am also going to get on with my elaborate t shirt descriptions.  If you haven’t seen them I think they are really good.  This 8 Bit Revolution shirt from the video game t shirt category is one of my personal favorites.  It kind of spans the scope of what I like to do in these.

Anyway, tomorrow I think I am going to do my final review for WOW Cataclysm, and on Wednesday probably a review of the movie Priest, which I have been looking forward to for a long time.  I only hope it comes out better than Dylan Dog.

So I am doing this review by request from my best friend Dave (yes, my best friend is ALSO named Dave.  He does exist, and just because none of my other friends have ever met him or can tell you what he looks like in no way implies that I made up an imaginary friend and gave him the same name in some kind of schizophrenic ego boost.  By the way, Dave is watching you right now and thinks that t-shirt you are wearing is pretty cool).  He has been reading the Dylan Dog comic for years and tells me it is both bloody and chock full of gratuitous nudity.  It is written Tiziano Sclavi in Italy.  He says it is great, and wanted to get my opinion of the film.

Actually, I can’t help but feel like the lab monkey on this one, or the kid the other kids get to eat something first.  However, I have been looking for a bad movie to review for a while and, to be honest, was usually the first one to try something as a kid, so I don’t mind.  In fact, if you have a movie you would like to see a review from feel free to post a response to any of my review or send me an email at david@nerdkungfu.com or send me a message on Twitter and I will see what I can do.

Also, I don’t know if this is at all significant, but in addition to Italy and USA Dylan Dog is published in Croatia, Serbia, Denmark, the Netherlands, Poland, Spain, and Turkey.  I’m kind of at a loss as to what kind of observation I can make based on that list, but somehow it seems more than a little weird.

Anyway, Dylan Dog the movie.  Honestly, I am a little repulsed by movies like this not because it’s particularly bad or good but because it is so bland.  I mean, it definitely sucks on many levels, but it doesn’t suck enough to make it really fun and interesting.  I think the best way to describe it is confused.  It can’t really decide what it is.  Is it a monster hunting Buffy the Vampire slayer flick or a true horror movie?  One minute you are seeing some really decent (given the budget they probably were working with) CGI werewolf transformation and in the next seeing a guy in a rubber suit that looks like it escaped from the set of Creature from the Black Lagoon.  Are vampires and werewolves faster and more powerful than mortals, or can an ordinary human kill mass numbers of them with impunity?  Are zombies creatures of horror, or are they cheesy comedy relief?  Are vampires sexy creatures of the night (Twilight sucks) or are they primitive, savage killers?  It is all so disjointed.  However, from what I have seen I can’t really blame the comic.  These issues I lay firmly at the feet of the director and producers.

(Lugio Fulci Zombie image courtesy of the horror movie t shirt category)

SPOILER ALERT!  I don’t really expect many of you to see this film, so I am going to let myself go nuts on the story details.  If you plan to see this film and feel that me telling you the ending might detract from the subtle nuances of the film maybe you should skip to the final two paragraphs of this review.  I don’t think I will be annoying many people.

Anyway, the story.  Honestly, if you have ever read any of the Dresden Files than you pretty much know the story already (Dylan even drives an old Volkswagon), although Dylan Dog preceded Jim Butchers novels by about 10 years, so I guess it’s possible Butcher borrowed from Dylan.  Dylan is a private investigator that used to specialize in the paranormal, although he claims to be retired and now does divorce investigations.  A hot chick with a really annoying Scandinavian accent hires him to investigate the death of her father, who was killed by a werewolf.  He refuses, but agrees after his best friend (who managed to deliver a homoerotic undercurrent with Dylan) is also killed (for no reason that makes sense to me) and comes back as a zombie.  Zombies in this movie are not mindless, soulless flesh eaters.  Instead they are relatively normal with their intellects intact, except for the fact that they keep rotting and have to eat worms, grubs, and hot dogs (actually that made me laugh).  They are also pretty much the comic relief of the film, with a market selling replacement body parts and so on.

Dylan also used to be the mortal intermediary between vampires and werewolves, which is how he got into this business.  He lost his job when he went nuts and killed a bunch of older vampires with wooden bullets (??  Honestly, wood does not sound like it makes the most accurate projectile, and the human heart is about the size of your fist.  If you have ever been to a gun range you know how hard it is to hit on a paper target that isn’t moving, but somehow Dylan manages to hit every vampire he shoots at in the movie in the heart with surgical precision).  After his friend gets killed he takes the case.  The movie kind of gets confusing at that point.  The dad at one point had a silver cross that could summon some big bad ass monster and everyone wants it.  The vampires seem to get the bad guys, but they tend to look a lot like the werewolves, and somehow they have a giant zombie working for them who also looks like a werewolf.  Undead action hijinx ensues (sort of).  Some civilians are killed, including two cops, but no one seems to care.  At the end the girl who hired Dylan turns out to be from a family of monster hunters and wants to summon the big monster herself.  The monster is summoned and then more or less stupidly kills himself (it was established multiple times that the only way to kill the big bad would be to kill the person who summoned him.  Why then would he take the girl who summoned him and toss her across the room, then leave to let the werewolves literally eat her).  Dylan really has nothing to do with the ending and could probably have stayed home and not gotten an ass beating.

First the stars.  Comic book movie.  One star.  Zombies.  One star.  Vampires that burst into flame in the sunlight, not sparkle (Twilight sucks).  One star.  Some episodes of decent CGI.  One star.  There is good chemistry between Dylan and his zombie sidekick that wanders aimlessly into the entertaining zone.  One star.  Total: five stars.

Now for the sweet, suc(k)culent black holes.  Throughout the movie Dylan Dog does a detective noir voice over monolog that made me want to run upstairs and murder the projectionist.  One black hole.  The acting from all characters except for the zombie comedy relief dismally sucked.  One black hole.  Dylan Dog, in spite of trying to appear a grizzled private dick, looked and sounded like the really annoying version of Superman (not a coincidence, as Brandon Routh played Superman in the last film).  One black hole.  The directer couldn’t find a tone for his movie (Horror?  Comedy?  Grindhouse?  Detective film?  Two part Buffy episode?).  Two black holes.  The film really bent time and space in order to maintain that PG-13 rating.  No real gore, and absolutely no nudity in spite of the source content.  I swear they might have gotten a PG rating if they tried.  The movie felt like the vampire version of the Goonies.  One black hole.  There was no appeal for the protagonist or his romantic interest.  The only character worth watching was the zombie sidekick.  One black hole.  The movie established early on that Dylan would suffer no consequences from the bad stuff by falling off a second floor and landing on a table only to jump up to fight, making the action painfully boring.  I found myself struggling to stay awake during some of the action sequences.  One black hole.  The boss monster, while kind of cool looking, was really dumb in letting his mortal connection die easy.  One black hole.  In spite of having the strength of 10 men and otherwise being superhuman, the vampires seem to die in droves at the hands of humans.  One black hole.  In spite of the clues spoon fed to us by the Dylan Dog monolog the story was pretty confusing.  One black hole.  The “hot girl” was not that hot, seemed to have issues showing anything more than a shoulder blade, and had an annoying accent.  One black hole.  The makeup for the werewolves is really amateurish.  I have seen better on YouTube videos.  One black hole.  Total: 13 black holes.

So a grand total of eight black holes, which is kind of worse than I thought it was going to end up with.  It seems to suffer from the director wanting to cram about five years worth of comics into one movie.  I don’t think it is in real danger of turning into a cult movie.  That being said, a decent evening could be had with beer and pizza watching it online.

It might be pretty obvious to most savvy readers, but I am kind of new to the whole internet promotion thing and social media.  I probably should have been putting this into my blogs months ago, but you can follow me on Twitter at @nerdkungfu.  My Facebook page is pretty pathetic, so I will forgo posting it here, but you can find me if you look hard enough.  I’m headed to a weekend Warhammer tournament and probably won’t post anything until Sunday night, but will be updating things on Twitter.  Thanks everyone for reading this and your support.

So last night I got a suggestion from a friend of mine for a movie that could potentially really suck, Dylan Dog, about a zombie private eye or something.  It was playing 20 miles away but during the drive my girlfriend (for lack of a better term) texted me saying she got free of work early and wanted to go see Thor.  Since the only reason I didn’t see it opening night was because she wanted to see it with me, I grabbed the chance like a life preserver and headed off.

The movie was, of course, great.  However, I think I fell victim of the trap of having everyone I know or read about gush about how awesome it was and really elevated my expectations.  Then, when I showed up with my bitter and cynical critical eye I see faults.  Nevertheless, great movie.

I’m not going to get into the story too much on this, as pretty much everyone who reads this most likely will see it or have already seen it.  Thor, the God of Thunder (or some kind of super advanced alien.  They seemed to imply both.  Thor image courtesy of the Marvel Comic t shirt category) gets into trouble with his dad and gets cast down to earth, where he gets to deal with being a mortal.  Absolutely no “stranger in a strange land” local color happens, much to my surprise.  I’m willing to bet a lot of it ended up on the cutting room floor.  Norse battle hijinx ensue.  Natalie Portman shows up as some kind of ill defined scientist (is she an astronomer, meteorologist, theoretical physicist, or astrophysicist?) as the love interest.  Things get blown up.  Guys get beat up.  Overall very cool and exciting.

By the way, I’d like to add that, in spite of his limited time on screen I thought the coolest character in the movie was Heimdall.  Fan boys looking for a great costume to make for Comic Con won’t go wrong here, especially if you are African American.

First the stars.  The movie was in general awesome.  Two stars.  Natalie Portman.  One star (two if she had done another thong shot like in Your Highness).  Anthony Hopkins.  One star.  The casting in was extremely good overall.  Both Loki and Thor were really done well.  One star.  The CGI and special effects were godlike in their greatness, and didn’t suffer from the obvious restrictions of being stuck in a small blue screen studio (suck it, George Lucas).  Two stars.  The acting was all great.  Two stars.  Comic book movie.  One star.  No annoying comic relief characters.  One star.  Thor, as the protagonist, actually shows some character development.  One star.  The destroyer was freaking awesome.  One star.  There was a moment that honestly got an emotional reaction out of my cold, dead heart (you’ll know it when you see the movie).  One star.  Spoiler at the end of the credits.  One star.  Total: fifteen stars.

Now the black holes.  I had a really hard time understanding Loki’s motivations.  He seemed to drift from one thing to the next, and even at the end I was not sure what his ultimate goal really was.  One black hole.  Natalie Portman as the super hot scientist who can’t find a man really didn’t ring true.  One black hole.  Thor and Natalie seem to fall completely in love and are willing to dedicate eternity to each other after knowing each other for about 12 hours.  One black hole.  The pacing of the film seemed really rushed.  They had everything happen in like one day when it seemed like it should have gone a couple months (and would have eliminated that whole super fast romance issue too).  One black hole.  The spoiler at the end of the film after the credits made no sense whatsoever, nor did it imply any other movies except perhaps Thor II.  One black hole.  They took a pretty liberal hand with modifying the Thor back story from the comic book, and tried to imply that all his godlike powers were the result of some kind of super science rather than actual divinity.  One black hole.  Total: six black holes.

Thus we come to a total of nine stars, an awesome score.  I highly recommend you all see this, in IMAX if possible.  This movie will work for comic book fans (assuming they don’t get all uptight about the back story) and laymen alike.  Great visuals, great story, all around a fun time.  The only thing I can say is, while I enjoyed the hell out of it, I am not really gung ho to see it a second time, which is what I would normally do for a movie of this ilk.  I think I need to ponder my motivation for that.

I will try to see Dylan Dog this week with the question “How bad could it be” foremost in my mind.  I think tomorrow I am going to talk about my new favorite movie reviewer (aside from me, of course).  Check it out.

Yes, I went to see this flick last night at the fabulous Grand Lake Theater in Oakland last night.  As an aside, when I say fabulous I mean that with all sincerity.  It was built in 1926 and still has all the amazing architecture, filigree, and cool things you don’t see any more like a huge theater hall that hasn’t been broken up into four smaller theaters to maximize profit.  The owners also championed the cause to end parking meters that ran until 8pm last year (Oakland parking is the devil) so I have to love them for that.

It seems my curse of never finding a movie crappy enough to really be worthy of my bagging skills continues.  Fast Five wasn’t bad.  It wasn’t necessarily good, mind you.  What it was was entertaining, like watching G.L.O.W. (Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling).  You will learn nothing, gain nothing, you life will not be in any way enhanced from watching it, and you will be kind of embarrassed if your friends catch you watching it, but fun to watch nevertheless.

Before we get into this I should mention that I have never seen any of the previous movies and car racing movies, unless the cars have machine guns on the front (Deathrace) are really not my thing.  Street racers are, in my opinion, kind of dumbass punks.  In my experience street racers are guys who buy a Honda Civic for about $10,000, spend three years and $15000 upgrading it, and then sell it for about $10,000.  There’s a garage I drive by at night sometimes that is closed all day long and opens about 7pm to stay open until about 3am working on these cars.  While I am fascinated by the concept of a GTA style all night upgrade garage the lifestyle doesn’t do much for me.

Anyway, the story.  Vin Diesel plays some kind of convicted street racing criminal who is more or less going up for life.  His sister and her boyfriend bust him out so he can go to Brazil and continue his life of crime.  He runs afoul of the local crime boss and decides to steal a huge amount of money from him.  Meanwhile, the Rock plays some kind of Federal Agent who, with a gang of disposable heros, are given the task of capturing Vin and his friends while more or less ignoring any concept of Brazilian jurisdiction or sovereignty.  Car driving hijinx ensue.  Cars and a big chunk of Rio get wrecked.

What surprised me was that, while the story was shockingly decent (if somewhat simplistic and linear), it really seemed unnecessary as a functional part of the movie.  The villain is grossly stereotypical (how many times can we see a crime lord kill a subordinate who has failed in our lifetime) but honestly, if he hadn’t been in the film I don’t think I would have enjoyed it less.  The subplot with Dwayne Johnson actually added to and enhanced the story rather than mired it down.  The driving was super cool, and believe it or not the acting as not really bad.  Better than Water for Elephants by a lot, although it might have just been really good casting.  Vin Diesel is at his best when he plays a roll that seems to match his perceived personality (Chronicles of Riddick, for example) but  even his humanizing scenes were not stomach turning.

Let’s let the stars and black holes speak for themselves.  The story was palatable, which is a lot more than I expected.  One star.  The driving was actually exciting and cool.  Two stars.  According to my research, none of it was CGI.  All stunt cars and really good editing.  One star.  They really didn’t break the physics engine too much (more on that later).  One star.  The acting was either decent or just really appropriate, also something I didn’t expect.  One star.  Really good camera work and editing.  One star.  They didn’t force me to watch it in 3D.  One star.  While my personal taste leans towards classic American muscle cars rather than super sports cars, the cars were really cool (and they did have a couple muscle cars).  Two stars.  The women, while all pretty hot, felt like they actually had legitimate roles and weren’t just crowbarred in for sex appeal.  One star.  In spite of the fact that I was seeing the fifth movie in the series and had never seen any of the others I did not feel like I was being left on the outside for not knowing all the inside crap from the other four.  One star.  Total: twelve stars.

Now the black holes.  While most of the driving did not break any laws of physics, the final chase scene with the two cars pulling a 10 ton safe seemed a little beyond what would be possible, assuming the bumpers didn’t just get torn off at some point.  I took physics in college and there is a concept out there known as coefficient of friction that the writers might have considered looking at.  I will say might have, as the entire chase with the safe was incredibly cool and exciting, and will hold them back to one black hole.  There were a couple scenes where bad guys seemed to spawn out of nowhere like a first person shooter and you were left unsure who was shooting at who.  One black hole.  The movie fell back on the whole story dodge of “bad guys who can’t shoot straight”.  I’m sorry, but three guys with assault rifles firing at a running target less than 30 yards ahead of them should fill them with enough bullets to equip an army platoon, or at least one.  One black hole.  The Rock, in spite of the fact that he and his squad are armed to the teeth, opts to duke it out with Vin Diesel in and extended, if exciting, fight scene.  One black hole.  US Agents in a foreign country generally don’t have the right to run around wrecking and shooting anything they see.  Generally they have to work with local law enforcement.  One black hole.  Total: five black holes.

Actually, I have a new thing for my reviewing process with this review, and that is things that are irksome but don’t really rate a black hole.  In this film I found it kind of annoying that a Brazilian crime lord would have a ocean container full of American money.  I looked up Brazilian money and it’s all like purple and blue, so you can’ even claim it looks like US dollars.  Also, while it is pretty much obligatory that if you are going to film anything in Rio you have to do a panning shot of the Christ the Redeemer statue on Corcovado Mountain, you don’t have to do another one every 10 minutes.  Seriously, once is enough.

So a grand total of 7 stars, a shockingly good score given what I was expecting to see.  If you like cars and driving then definitely see this on the biggest screen you can find.  I am pretty sure it will lose a lot of its luster on your TV so try to see in a theater.  This is definitely a guys night out movie, so if possible try to leave the girlfriend at home, unless she herself is really into cars and driving.

By the way, I didn’t think this was star worthy, but one thing I appreciate about this entire movie series is the fact that they give each film a related but distinctly different title, rather than simply adding another number to the end of the first title, like our upcoming Hangover 2 (Hangover image courtesy of the movie t shirt category).  For the record, while not exactly pinnacles of creative achievement, the film titles  in this series are The fast and the Furious (2001), 2 Fast 2 Furious (2003), the Fast and the Furious: Tokeyo Drift (2006),  Fast and Furious (2009), and Fast Five (2011).