Just a few seconds late.

I went into this movie with a lot of hope, not only because it has been a while since we had a good original sci fi movie but also because the premise sounded a lot like a novel I read years ago.  I can’t for the life of me recall the name or author, and I noticed the credits did not reverence any books, so I guess either the writer/director Andrew Niccol (the Truman Show, Gattica, Lord of War, the Terminal) read the book and forgot to mention it to anyone or this is another example of convergent evolution.

So I had high hopes, which I have discovered in the movie reviewing business is always a mistake.  You see, if you expect the movie to be crap and it’s good, you are pleasantly surprised.  If you expect it to be crap and it’s crap, at least you get to walk around with a sense of smug satisfaction that makes your friends want to punch you in the face when you keep saying “I told you so”.  If you expect a movie to be good and it’s good than all is well.  However, if you expect a movie to be good and it’s garbage than you walk away feeling like you just accidentally kicked your puppy and he won’t play with you anymore.

In Time wasn’t horrible.  It wasn’t even bad, per se.  I found elements of it very entertaining, and the concept kind of fascinating.  The problem is he story got so bogged down in the whole time manipulation mechanic that you lose track of the overriding story.  Also, it is apparent that Mr. Niccol, in spite of most likely being fabulously wealthy himself, has an axe to grind with the current state of economic disparity in our society and really wanted to shove a message down our throats.  I am undecided if I agree or disagree with that message, but it seems he could have picked a better delivery vehicle.  Finally, while I understand the need to suspend disbelief in a science fiction movie for things like arm clocks that count down the seconds of your life, this movie really pushed suspension in order to facilitate the Bonnie and Clyde Robin Hood story, which kind of bugs.  More on that later.

The story.  Justin Timberlake (I’d love to give the movie a black hole for him, as his fabulously successful and overly handsome career annoys the hell out of me, but I can’t deny that he is a talented actor and I usually enjoy him in anything he does.  Damn my honesty) plays Will Salas, a lower class ghetto living worker bee who is struggling to survive, literally.  In this society of the future you stop aging at 25, but at that point your arm clock starts with exactly one year to live.  You have to work to earn more time, which is payed out in minutes and hours.  He typically has less than a day on his clock, and he has to work every day to keep it from running out.  He saves the life of a rich guy, who has come to the slums in order to die as he feels humans should not live forever.  The guy gives Will over a century, which makes him a wealthy man.  Ironically his mother dies seconds before he can give her more time.  He moves up time zones to the rich area, where he gets into a poker game with another rich guy (Vincent Kartheiser – Mad Men, Alaska, Angel, Alpha Dog.  What’s with him and movies that start with A?), the evil rich industrialist responsible for maintaining the economic time flow and indirectly the death of thousands of lower class people.  He also meets the guy’s mother-in-law, wife, and daughter, who all look the same age.  He has a connection with the daughter, Sylvie Weis (Amanda Seyfried – Jennifer’s Body, Red Riding Hood, Mean Girls) and encourages her to take a risk, something the rich in this world never do.  At that point the police, called Time Keepers, catch up to him, thinking he stole the money.  They are headed up by Johnny Depp-wannabe Cillian Murphy (Scarecrow from the Dark Knight, Batman Begins, Inception.  Batman image courtesy of the Batman T shirts category), who is actually pretty cool.  They take all his time, but he escapes and kidnaps Sylvia.  At this point the movie turns into a huge Bonnie and Clyde film, with the two of them being chased by the cops and a bunch of gang members called Minute Men who steal time from people.  She eventually joins him willingly and they go on a Robin Hood like crime spree, stealing from the rich and giving to the poor.  Sci fi-ish crime drama ensues.  There are a couple of good scenes (the final confrontation between Will and the Minute Men in particular).

The problem this movie suffers under is you get so bogged down in the intricacies of time transference that it distracts you from the story.  The first time Will’s clock ran down to a few seconds was exciting,  The fifth time not so much.  While the premise is clever, and everyone spends all day looking at the clock on their arm, in the end you get tired of them constantly transferring it back and forth.  Also, the social interaction of this kind of boggles my mind.  It’s like this.  At one point Sylvia says to Will “I know where we can get all the time we want”.  Does she have some kind of clever insider scam based on years of living with her father, who owns most of the banks in the time zone?  No.  Her plan is to drive a truck through the wall of a time lender and steal thousands of years at gunpoint.  If it’s that easy, why doesn’t everyone do it?  I mean, if you have an hour left on your clock and you are going to die anyway, why not go on a crime spree?  Heck, if I were a less moral person I might just pick up a brick and hit the next 10 people I came across on the head and steal their time.  There are a couple of scenes where they show people just keeled over dead.  Seems awfully passive of them.  There’s another scene where the Minute Men line up a bunch of people and start to “clean their clocks”.  Sure, they have guns, but there are only four of them and they had like 20 people lined up.  If I was about to die in a few seconds anyway I think I would risk a bullet.  For that matter, how is it the people with just a year on their clock ever agreed to this?  Or haven’t risen up and wrecked the upper crust?  I think the director was so bent on showing the evil of economic disparity that he missed some pretty obvious human nature questions.

The stars.  Interesting premise.  One star.  Good acting all around.  One star.  Dialog was reasonably well written (more on that later).  One star.  The overriding message, while extremely didactic, was well delivered.  One star.  The love interest and pretty much every other woman in this film was easy on the eyes.  One star.  They did something really, really cool with the cars.  Instead of designing brand new cars that look like sex toys with wheels (cough cough Demolition Man cough cough) they took cool classic American cars, buffed a few edges, and gave them electric sounding motors.  Some of them had fins.  It was like being in the world of Fallout without the nuclear war.  One star.  They also didn’t push the science fiction technology so far as to be annoying.  No ray guns, no androids.  It felt like a slightly different world maybe ten years in the future.  One star.  The struggle for the working man to keep his clock ticking was well portrayed.  One star.  Generally fun movie.  One star.  Total: nine stars.

The black holes.  Way too much time spent (haw!) on time transference.  One black hole.  The whole “why would you passively watch your clock run down instead of going nuts” question.  One black hole.  I know the point is that everyone in the world stops aging at 25, but do they all have to be incredibly hot as well as young?  The entire movie felt like I was trapped in an Abercrombie and Fitch.  One black hole.  With a couple of exceptions, the action was pretty blasé.  One black hole.  No effort was really made to distinguish between the language and dialect of the lower and upper class people.  One black hole.  The crime spree Will and Sylvia went on got ludicrous in their success rate.  Sure, suspension of disbelief and all that, but I have a hard time with the idea that the cops of the time based economy are significantly less competent than cops of today.  Is it reasonable to assume that two wanted criminals can walk into a bank with no plan and just a couple guns and then get away without any chance of being caught?  Seems some effort could have been made to show these people as having an edge lacking in the average criminal.  One black hole.  While entertaining, the entire movie felt a little soulless, it was rated PG-13 when it really should have been R, and the message and story continually got in each others way.  One black hole.  Total: seven black holes.

A grand total of two stars.  Not bad, and if you don’t mind some of the more esoteric black holes I gave it you can enjoy it.  There really isn’t much in the camera work to demand a big screen, so feel free to see it on video.  Not a good date film either, as the romance is grossly underdeveloped (I almost gave another black hole for that) and the economic machinations can actually get kind of boring.

Thanks for reading.  I think I am going to try to see either Anonymous or the Rum Diary later today.  I can’t decide which one I am more apathetic about.  I don’t really care about a fictionalized story of Shakespeare, and Hunter S Thompson is a guy who wrote for a magazine I never read.  Maybe I’ll see Puss n’ Boots, if my brain can handle it.  Follow me on Twitter @NerdKungFu.  Talk to you soon.

Dave

Comedy through repetition.

This movie was something of a landmark for me, in that this is the first movie I have seen in years (and most definitely since I started doing these reviews) wherein I can pinpoint the exact moment it officially started to suck.  Most movies either start off sucking, like walking into a boring political theory lecture where the professor insist on calling everyone Mr. or Ms. So and So, or they start off looking like something almost decent but the suckage steadily builds pressure like an impending bowel movement at a giant swap meet where the only toilets are Porto-Potties that haven’t seen a cleaning hose in many a moon.  You keep trying to deny the need to express the suckage, but eventually you have to bite the bullet and admit that what you have been watching for the last 45 minutes has been total garbage.

No, this movie picked an exact moment to shift from stupid/funny to just plain old stupid.  In case you were wondering, it’s when Johnny English is flying a helicopter to get a dying man to a hospital and decides the best way is to follow the road.  At a height of two feet.  Until then it was definitely dumb, but dumb in a funny way.  After that the funny was smothered by the pillow of stupidity.

That’s kind of a lot of analogies for two paragraphs, but it has been that kind of day.  Anyway, Johnny English Reborn.  Yes, it is a sequel and no, I did not see the first one.  Does that make me unqualified to review the sequel?  Probably.  However, unless the first one was the Citizen Kane of physical comedies, I am pretty sure I got the gist of what this character is about.  He’s a cocktail made with equal parts James Bond, Jacues Cousteau, and Austin Powers filtered through a dog hair colander and left underground for a few months to ferment into comedy kim chee.  Did I miss anything?  I don’t think so.

Anyway, between the last movie and this one Johnny English (Rowan Atkinson – Mr. Bean, Mr. Bean’s Holiday, Johnny English, the Lion King) was disgraced in Mozambique for letting the new president get assassinated.  He has spent the last five years living with Tibetan monks learning how to get kicked in the balls.  For no reason whatsoever a former CIA operative has some kind of top secret information and says he will only give it to Johnny, in spite of the fact that they both act like they never met each other.  Johnny gets pulled back into MI7 (which is now partnered up with Toshiba, a running gag that probably looked a lot funnier on paper) by a long lost dream woman of mine, Gillian Anderson (Scully was in many ways the perfect woman.  Hot, super smart, red headed, carried a gun, and used handcuffs.  What more could a guy ask for?).  He is partnered up with Tucker, a young agent (Daniel Kaluuya.  His filmography feels a bit on the sparse side), who goes with them to meet the CIA guy.  A Chinese sexagenarian hit/cleaning woman (Pik Sen Lim, and the only character who I consistently liked) with a killer vacuum kills his contact, but Johnny learns of a secret team of assassins called Vortex, who are out to kill the Chinese Prime Minister.  Johnny gets one of the three key parts absolutely needed for Vortex to accomplish their goal but loses it in a bumbling scene that would embarrass Cousteau.

Anyway, he gets in trouble.  More assassins are uncovered.  He goes through a really long and drawn out chase scene in a powered wheelchair through London.  A super hot blond falls in love with him for no apparent reason.  Some not really funny running gags get beaten into the ground until you literally want to gag.  More Austinteaubondian hijinks ensue. The plot twists feel more like gentle bends on a freeway, and are in almost all circumstances facilitated by the general stupidity of not just English but the entire cast.

The stars.  There were some funny moments, especially some of the physical comedy.  That is one thing Rowan Atkinson can really do.  One star.  Gillian Anderson.  One star.  The Chinese cleaning woman/assassin was funny.  One star.  Total: three stars.

The black holes.  The biggest problem is the movie couldn’t decide if it was a comedy action spy movie or an action spy movie with comedy elements.  The story and plot were too serious to be a good vehicle for slapstick, and the slapstick was too over the top to allow you to take the story seriously.  One black hole.  Rated PG, not even PG13.  At this point I don’t think PG13 has ever hurt a movies’ gross.  Put a curse word in there somewhere.  One star.  Beating multiple dead horses.  One black hole.  Not even an attempt to make the movie remotely smart or clever.  I expect more from movies that feature British accents.  One black hole.  All the characters were hand picked from the shelves of Stereotypes-R-Us.  One black hole.  At the end of this comedy, I just didn’t find it very funny.  One black hole.  Total: six black holes.

A grand total of three black holes.  Look, it’s pretty obvious what happened here.  The first Johnny English bombed horribly here in the US, but did phenomenally well overseas.  Rowen Atkinsons physical comedy translates well, and we see a lot of it here, including a one-hand-against-the-other fight scene lifted almost frame for frame from the Evil Dead 2 (Ash image courtesy of the horror movie t shirts).  I don’t think the producers of this film expect to have lightning strike so much as they are going to milk the international cow.  This sort of thing makes money, I guess.  It just seems that if you are going to go to the effort of making a film that you plan to release in the US anyway, why not put some effort into it and make it work here too?

I’d say don’t see this film until it shows up on NetFlix streaming, and at that point smoke a lot of pot while watching it.  It won’t hurt your brain.  If you have kids the PG rating makes it very appropriate, and it is funny enough and entertaining enough to keep mom and dad from clawing out their eyes while watching.  Otherwise let’s just throw it on the pile.

Thanks for reading.  Follow me on Twitter @NerdKungFu.  I have no idea what’s coming up this weekend.  I think I will do another Star Trek retrospective tomorrow.  Talk to you soon.
Dave

I was supposed to see something tonight, but everything seemed to suck and I wasn’t in the mood.  Instead I am going to publish something I have been working on, my list of the best and worst Kurt Russell movies.

I got this idea while working on my the Thing review, and have been thinking about it.  Kurt Russell has had quite the film career, and seems to waver between loser and super tough action guy.  Personally I’m drawn to the action guy, but they are all good (or bad).  Here we go with the best:

10.  Stargate-not many people besides me remember that Kurt Russell was the original Col. Jack O’Niel.  While this movie was kind of crap, it earns it’s slot on my list (albeit at the bottom) for spawning one of the greatest sci fi TV shows ever.

9.  Dark Blue-Kurt plays a sort of corrupt but really dedicated cop who pushes things a little too far but then starts to question himself.  I liked this one as it was a real arc for Kurt’s character, and did not have a pat happy ending.  Also, Ving Rhames always makes me happy when I see him in a movie, and honestly he is a guy who has worked hard to not get typecast.

8. Escape from LA-OK, yes this was just a remake of Escape from NY, but any movie featuring a one eyed Snake Plisskin gets props in my book.  Also, I was living in LA when this came out, and it was fun to see the parts of town I was hanging out in as a post-apocalyptic wasteland.  This movie, as cheesy as it was, it did feature one of the best gun fights of all time, which ended with Snake uttering the word “Draw”.

7.  Backdraft-odds are this movie should be ranked higher, as it was really well done and I like firefighters.  Just not enough sci fi for me.  However, in addition to being a great story, the pyro special effects were amazing, back in the day of no CGI.  Ron Howard is an amazing director.

6.  Soldier-I love this movie.  I own it on DVD and watch it about once a year.  I can’t even tell you why.  It’s kind of dopey and super camp.  I think I just like the idea of super soldiers trained from birth.  Also, for a guy who is supposed to show no emotion Kurt manages to give you some pretty cool feelings from his performance.

5.  Grindhouse-Death Proof-yes, while there are any number of issues you can have with Grindhouse, everyone will admit the best part (or least bad part) is Kurt Russell as Stuntman Mike.  I guess he just inhabits that role very well.

4.  Tombstone-Another Kurt Russell I am good to watch about once a year.  While it is weird to see Kurt, who normally plays an outlaw, play lawman Wyatt Earp,  he really plays the part well.  Of course, it was Val Kilmer as Doc Holiday who made the movie pop.  The strange thing is I don’t think I ever really considered him as a serious actor until that role.  Plus, this movie gets the award for the best Kurt Russell mustache of all time.

3.  The Thing-weird shapechanging alien escapes the dreaded Norwegians and tears ass through an American antarctic research base.  Kurt plays a helicopter pilot with the unlikely name of R.J. MacReady and kicks ass.  I will take a serious look at any John Carpenter movie, and this one is a great example of why.  Also, I love the creepy, ambiguous ending.

2.  Escape from NY-the movie that introduced us to Snake Plisskin and the mission to rescue the President from the slums of Manhattan.  Snake is such a good character and such an all around bad ass that you can’t help but love this movie.  Also, it inspired a pizza place in San Francisco called Escape from New York Pizza, which does a decent NY style pizza.  If you find yourself on Haight stop by and get a slice.  If nothing else, the attitude of the kids behind the counter is hilarious.

1.  Big Trouble in Little China-sigh.  Words cannot accurately describe how much and in what ways I love this film.  Action with an awesome sense of humor, this is another phenomenal John Carpenter movie.  Kurt plays Jack Burton, an over the top truck driver who gets embroiled in a supernatural war between Chinese spiritual factions in Little China of San Francisco.  Not only does he manage to pull the witty everyman off to a t, but he does it without resorting to being some kind of super powered action guy.  Mostly he gets lucky, and is hilarious while doing it.  If you haven’t seen it jump on board the cool boat with your Captain Dave.  (Pork Chop Express image courtesy of the movie t shirt category).  I would also like to add that this movie has some of my all time favorite quotes.  Here are a few that stick with me in particular:

Jack Burton: “That is not water.”

Egg Shen: “It’s black blood of the earth.”

Jack: “Do you mean oil?”

Egg: “I mean black blood of the earth.”

Another one.

Lo Pan: “Shut up, Mr. Burton!  You were not brought upon this earth to get it!”

Of course, the funny thing about the career of Kurt Russell is he seems destined to do some god awful movies too.  You can’t even say there is a progression, as in he did crappy movies when he was just starting out but now does only great ones.  Six months after doing something awesome he comes out with a movie that makes you wish humans had never developed the sense of sight.  Here, in my opinion, are the five worst movies he has ever done.

5.  Posiedon- as a general rule I would say never get involved with anyone named Wolfgang, as in Wolfgang Peterson, the director of this 2006 bomb.  For some reason they always sound creepy.  It got a well deserved Golden Raspberry for Worst Remake.  At the time it had really great CGI, and made a good amount of money, so I guess it’s not fair to call it a bomb.  Culturally awful, however.  Bad Titanic.

4.  Tequila Sunrise-If you like complicated, labyrinthine plots that leave you wondering what the hell is going on, than maybe this isn’t the 4th worst film Kurt has done.  On the other hand, if you like your stories to make some semblance of sense, than you should be with me on this.  I think the best way to describe this plot is to take a love triangle and add about 14 more sides.  Don’t try to follow the plot too closely or you will strain your brain.

3.  Captain Ron-to give Kurt his due, I place more blame for the suckage of this family comedy in the lap of Martin Short.  Of course, I have never found him charming or funny.  Remember that anti-drunk driving commercial from the 70′s that was a kid playing with a toy car and the catch phrase was “a car is not a toy”?  That’s how I see this movie.  Kurt plays a great comedic action hero, but really should stay away from the actual comedies.  It’s rare that you watch a movie and spend most of it hoping the boat sinks and all the characters die, but that is pretty much what I was hoping for.

2.  3000 Miles to Graceland-this movie, in addition to truly sucking, was a bitter disappointment for me.  I am an Elvis fan, and when I heard it was about Elvis impersonators robbing a casino I thought it would be great.  It also featured Courtney Cox, whom I have always had the hots for.  However, the screenplay, acting, dialog, and action all really sucked.  The movie really started to Hoover when 2/3rds of the way to freedom Ice T shows up as another action character for some of the dumbest sequences in cinema history.  What he is doing in a movie about Elvis impersonators I don’t know, but he was so out of place what little credibility the movie still had at that point fell apart like a sand castle in front of a tsunami.  I would also like to point out that this movie was one of the extremely rare times I got sick of violence.  To say I have a high tolerance for violence in film or video games is a bit of an understatement, but this movie managed to fill my tank and spill all over the ground.  I don’t know if it was the continuous violence that did it, or just the ridiculous nature of the violence, but after watching it I wanted to go home and watch Smurfs or something.

1.  Tango and Cash-ironically, I had blocked this movie from my memory and it wasn’t even on my list when I started composing it, but while checking Kurt’s filmography came across it and the awfulness rushed back into my frontal cortex like a repressed memory of childhood molestation.  Sly Stallone and Kurt play cops Tango and Cash, who are trying to nail crime lord Jack Palance in a terribly convoluted plot that looked, acted, and smelled like a garden maze made of excrement.  The final action sequence with the off road vehicles didn’t so much as require me to suspend my disbelief as murder it and dump it in a quarry.  There was also a really dumb prison break sequence, which is ironic given that the movie Sylvester had done before this one was Lock Up, a halfway decent prison break movie.  It also featured Kurt Russell in drag in a scene that will make you want to drink a Drano martini.  During the course of the film Kurt and Sylvester seemed to have entered a contest to see who could chew the most scenery, and by the end of the film the audience lost.

That’s my list.  Thanks for reading, and be sure to follow me on Twitter @NerdKungFu.  I think I am going to see the new Johnny English film later tonight, which I expect to kind of suck.  Should be fun to review.  Anyway, talk to you later.

Dave

A really, really, really dumb movie that for some unfathomable reason has some entertaining moments.

If the year of movies in America were like driving across the USA, than October would be crossing West Texas.  1000 miles of pretty much nothing, with a ton of little one horse towns filled with bored locals.  If we were to push this analogy further, then the Three Musketeers would be the town of Pecos, TX.  A mid sized community (pop 9501) that is probably a nice place to live but dead, dead boring.

Not to say that the Three Musketeers is is boring.  It was directed by Paul Anderson, the director of the Resident Evil series, and like those movies he managed to insert some entertaining, over the top action scenes.  However, where those types of scenes mesh well in the fantasy world of zombies and Mila Jovovich, in a movie without any kind of super science or super natural antagonist it starts to look really silly.  He manages to inject Mila Jovovich (his wife) as well, where she pretty much plays Alice in a corset.  (Zombie target image courtesy of the zombie movie t shirts)

He seems to have “borrowed” from a lot of movies, actually.  Besides Alice, he must have kidnapped the action choreographer from Pirates of the Carribean, as well as the steam punk super technology that we still can’t do today from Wild, Wild West (remember the giant steam punk spider?  If something failed miserably in a past crappy movie, obviously the answer is to keep pushing into the face of the audience until they learn to accept it).  He also seems to have felt there weren’t enough tributes to Raiders of the Lost Ark and Mission Impossible in the world, as both of those moves make an appearance here like an unsavory object of indeterminate nature floating on the surface of a scummy pond.

The thing that surprised me was how close to the original story by Alexandre Dumas (who, in a move that kind of infuriates me for reasons I can’t quite pin down, gets third billing in the credits).  It was pretty much the true story.  However, once that story as the skeleton they decided to flesh it out with as much stupidity as humanly possible.  It’s like using the body of an Olympic athlete as the basis for your Frankenstein monster, but then using the corpses of 50 dead, decayed clowns for the rest of him.  Then you cover the whole thing with shrink-wrapped stupidity.

I’m not kidding about the stupid, by the way.  The movie dipped deep into the suck zone in the opening scene.  A guard walks to the edge of a Venice canal and is shot from underwater by some kind of crossbow.  I might have believed a trained soldier being capable of using a straw or tube of some kind to swim up stealthily and might have had a crossbow that was build to fire underwater, but that is not what happened.  No, what we have here is a leather SCUBA suit (no joke) and some kind of multiple mechanical dart thrower.  The problem is the movie really didn’t need all the really dumb advanced primitive technology.  Everything in it could have been accomplished better without giving your prop guy a dream assignment.  Examples of this advanced steam punk technology includes but is not limited to a flying dirigible with no sign of motive power other than a few sails that is capable of maneuvering through the air at will like the Enterprise, monofiliment wire capable of cutting a silk ribbon to shreds from it’s own weight (you really feel the Resident Evil in that scene), some kind of rotating machine gun cannon (it’s almost like the designer of the sky ship knew ahead of time that at some point it would have to fight a battle with only four crewmen), centuries old booby traps that still manage to shoot hundreds of spiked balls, some kind of wood that can bounce cannon balls, and an advanced zip line.

It really aggravates after about the fifth time you see something this dumb, and does absolutely nothing to advance the story.  I see this as Paul Anderson and the prop designers having a big circle jerk.  I think it telling that, in all the previews I have seen for this movie, never once do we see a hand cranked flamethrower or flying ship, in spite of the fact that they all seem to be pretty prevalent in the movies.  Somewhere along the line I suspect a marketing guy was given the assignment to sell the movie to the public, took a look at the available footage, and said “No way can we use this crap to do more than alienated the audience.”  Maybe that guy should have been shown the script sooner.

The story.  If you have read the book, you know the story.  D’Artagnan arrives in Paris to become a Musketeer and ends up challenging each of the three, who are all disgraced for failing in the Venice SCUBA mission (they were betrayed by Milady, Mila Jovovich) to a duel.  He also gets into it with Rochefort, the captain of the bad guy’s guard.  They attack the four of them together and they bond as they cut through the enemy swordsmen like a chainsaw through butter.  Turn out the bad guy, Cardinal Richelieu (played by the great Christopher Watlz, although for this movie he just seemed to be replaying Colonel Landa), wants to wrest control of France from the young king and his queen.  He frames the Queen in an affair with the Duke of Buckingham (played by Orlando Bloom with the worst hair cut ever.  Think a brunette Flock of Seagulls) and has Mila plant a diamond necklace on the Duke.  The Three Musketeers (plus D’Artagnan) must recover the necklace or the queen will be executed and war with England will ensue.  They steal the duke’s flying airship to do so.  Stuff blows up.  Sword fights ensue.  A dumb romantic sub plot with one of the worst actresses I’ve seen in a long time (Gabrielle Wilde, who has no other movie credits although she did have a part in Dr. Who) pains my eyes.

The stars.  They stayed close to the original story.  One star.  Christopher Waltz.  One star.  They didn’t resort to that one second quick cut fight sequence I hate so much, which means they hired a fight choreographer.  One star.  I can’t say any of the acting was particularly good, but I will say pretty much all the actors seemed to have realized what kind of tripe they were producing and played it very tongue in cheek.  Not enough to reduce the pain of the movie, but it did soften it a bit.  One star.  For reasons I hate to admit some of the scenes were indeed entertaining.  One star.  Total: five stars.

The black holes.  Stupid Wild Wild West-esque steam punk technology that did nothing for the movie.  Two black holes.  Every single character with the partial exception of Richelieu was painfully one dimensional.  One black hole.  No attempt whatsoever to make the language sound anything like something from 400 years ago.  Hackneyed, campy dialog.  Sorry, 17th century people do not use the phrase “state of the art.”  One black hole.  For that matter, about 1/3rd of the characters had English accents, the rest all had American, and not a single person in this movie about France had a French accent.  I wouldn’t mind French accents, British accents, or American accents but pick one and stick with it.  One black hole.  At no point did any of the bad guys seem to realize that, instead of sending wave after wave of swordsmen to kill the four guys who just cut the last six waves to pieces, they could just sit back and shoot them.  One black hole.  This movie squatted squarely over their PG-13 rating and never moved an inch or pushed the envelope at all, to the detriment of most of the action.  One black hole.  Mila Jovovich has the assignment of stealthily sneaking into the queens chambers to plant evidence and steal a necklace as part of a nefarious plot, and decides the best way to lend credence to the plan is to slaughter a dozen guards, which no one remarks upon or seems to notice.  One black hole.  One extra black hole for the leather SCUBA suit, which particularly offended me.  Orlando Bloom’s haircut.  One black hole.  An ending so filled with plot holes you could have used it to strain your pasta.  One black holes.  Worthless, worthless, worthless 3D effects.  I want my extra $3 back.  One black hole.  The Three Musketeers mission was to prevent a war with England, yet during the course of executing it managed to start a war with England.  One black hole.  Total: thirteen black holes.

So a total of eight black holes, a crappy score for a crappy movie.  However, if you are a fan of movies like Pirates of the Carribean, can suspend your disbelief so high it needs an oxygen supply, suffered recent severe brain damage, or plan to get really drunk and/or stoned before seeing this, then I think you could enjoy it.  It does have some entertainment value, in the same way picking your scabs is weirdly entertaining.  I didn’t feel as ripped off as I usually do after an eight black hole movie.  If you do fall into one of those categories than by all means see it in a theater, as the action I think would suffer on a smaller screen.

You know, something else about this movie occurred to me while I was talking to a friend of mine about going to see it, and that is in my recollection I cannot remember any Three Musketeers being remotely good.  I have thought about it for a while, and I think I have an answer.  It all has to do with the pants.  The clothing from pre French Revolution France is so ridiculous looking that you cannot take anyone in it at all seriously.  I think most writers realize that.  Unfortunately that kind of corrals them into making a silly, campy, dumb movie.  I read the Three Musketeers as a kid and thought it was pretty cool.  However, the one thing I did not picture while reading it was men wearing frilly pantaloons and high heeled shoes.  Once I saw the clothing these guys had to wear back than it more or less tainted the reading experience for me.  I can’t take a character wearing a paisley top hat as a serious action character.

Anyway, thanks again for reading.  We had some kind of technical problem this weekend, but I think the site is back up and running (either that or I just totally wasted 90 minutes of my life, in addition to the 110 minutes I wasted watching this thing).  Follow me on Twitter @NerdKungFu.  More crap out this weekend.  I don’t think I can see Paranormal Activity 3 and review it fairly as I have not seen the first two, but I will try to see Johnny English soon.  Looks horrible.  Talk to you later.

Dave

All the elements of a great movie except a plot.

This is a good movie in many regards.  Acting was great from everyone, dialog was quick, clever, and well delivered, and the pacing appropriate for a movie based on a relatively sluggish subject, election primaries.  However, the plot, which started off relatively strong, gets mired in betrayal, twists that seem more like shock paddles for a cardiac victim than legitimate story moving points, and a mounting sense that in spite of good, popular actors and well developed characters you are going to end the movie liking none of them.  The movie ends with the feeling that, in spite of a bunch of stuff being resolved, nothing is resolved.  The overall movie felt like I was trying to catch bubbles.

The story.  Ryan Gosling (Drive, Lars and the Real Girl, Half-Nelson) plays Stephen Meyers, a campaign manager for the front runner in the Democratic primary, Gov. Mike Morris (George Clooney, Oh Brother, Where Art Thou, Oceon’s Eleven, Up in the Air, the Peacemaker), a charismatic, passionate liberal like most Democrats wish Obama could be.  His boss is Paul Zara (Philip Seymour Hoffman, the Big Lebowski (image courtesy of the Big Lebowski t shirts), Before the Devil Knows Your Dead, Moneyball), veteran campaigner who knows all the ins and outs of Washington.  Morris’s rival is Pullman, whom we never really see.  Who we do interact with is Pullman’s campaign manager Tom Duffy (Played by the great Paul Giamatti, whom I have heard several times interviewed on the Howard Stern Show.  Good interview IMO.  Saving Private Ryan, Sideways, Cinderella Man), another ruthless campaign manager.  They are aided by hot young intern Mollie (Evan Rachel Wood, the Wrestler, True Blood, and a bunch of small stuff) who shows up on screen with a huge blinking neon sign saying “Trouble” as far as I was concerned.

Anyway, Morris is in the lead but there are a number of issues that could derail his campaign.  Meyers makes the mistake of meeting with Duffy in a move that Paul will see as a betrayal.  Meanwhile, he hooks up with Mollie in what looks like the easiest seduction of all time (God it must be easy for guys who look like Ryan Gosling.  If you look like that I hope you get your face caught in a tree shredder at some point and get to see what life is like for the rest of us).  Anyway, that is kind of where the plot starts to fall apart.  I don’t want to give any spoilers, but some kind of obvious stuff goes on.  Turns out everyone betrays everyone and, while appearing to be moral good guys, are all kind of bastards.  Somehow the Republicans never surface in any significant way, making the overriding campaign feel as good as watching two brothers beat the hell out of each other.  The movie ends without ever really giving the audience something tangible to grab on to.

There are two other problems plaguing this film in my opinion.  One is that no one really cares about primaries, especially for fictional candidates that have no apparent commonality with any of the actual candidates.  The in fighting between men who theoretically should be allies is annoying and frustrating, and that’s in real life.  Had this movie actually been during the real election between the Republican and Democratic candidates than I think the audience might have cared more.  As it is the whole movie had the same impact I would have watching two candidates for Homecoming Queen back stab and connive against each other as they campaign.

The other problem compounds the first one and that is a lack of passion from any of the characters.  I thought Ryan Gosling was playing a deadpan robot in Drive as a plot device, but it turns out that all he is capable of delivering.  He doesn’t show any emotion in pretty much the entire movie, even when presented with situations wherein a normal person would (getting betrayed and fired, having someone close to you die, etc).  This deadpan delivery spreads out from him and infects pretty much every other actor in the film, except for the young intern Mollie.  Paul Giamotti is great when he is yelling and screaming at people, but never gets the chance.  Hoffman gives a long speech about loyalty and betrayal to Gosling before firing him and he could have been discussing which pet groomer he brings his dog to for all the emotion he had.  I actually lay this firmly at the feet of director George Clooney.  He gets his actors to sink their teeth into the dialog in a very real delivery, but then doesn’t let them show anything when spitting it back out.  Might be a reflection of his own acting style, which tends towards the dry.

Anyway, the stars.  Excellent casting and acting, except for the emotionless  stuff.  Two stars.  Great dialog.  One star.  I don’t know if the term to use is really character development, as there was less development and more just revealing previously hidden aspects of each characters personality, but a decent arc and character development.  One star.  Pacing and camera work were good.  One star.  Paul Giamotti.  One star.  George Clooney did manage to deliver a great performance as a presidential candidate.  One star.  Total: seven stars.

The black holes.  The plot got stuck in the mud halfway through the film and stayed there.  Two black holes.  Dry, emotionless acting from most everyone.  One black hole.  There was never a reason given for the audience to really care about anything that was going on.  One black hole.  By the end of the movie every character seemed like a different kind of bastard and I liked none of them.  One black hole.  Total: five black holes.

So a total of two stars, kind of a middle of the road score and about what I left the theater feeling.  If you like political drama, George Clooney, or Ryan Gosling go see it (although, as my friend who was with me was quick to point out, no bare chested Gosling scenes).  If you are looking for something exciting or well developed, give it a pass.  Not a great date film in my opinion, as it might end up seeming really dry.  There is absolutely nothing visually motivating you to see it on a big screen, so I think it totally doable on NetFlix.

That’s it for now.  New stuff coming out soon, but unfortunately (for me) it mostly looks like crap.  I’m working on a new list that I will put out tomorrow that I think is pretty funny.  Follow me on Twitter @NerdKungFu.  Talk to you soon.

Dave

OMG Awesome.

I was mistaken on this movie.  I thought it was a remake of the 1982 film that freaked me the hell out back in the day.  It is, in fact, a prequel to that great Kurt Russel movie (one of his best.  It is only superseded by Escape from New York and Big Trouble in Little China.  Pork Chop Express image from Big Trouble courtesy of the nerd t shirts).  Not only that, but it is one of the best prequel’s I have seen.  It is easily the best of the year, even better than X-Men First Class, and might be one of the best movies this year as well.

To say I was pleasantly surprised is a bit of an understatement.  The director, Norwegian Matthijs van Heijningen, has not a single film credit prior to this and is a complete unknown.  The main actress, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, has a somewhat limited filmography, although she did play the hot girlfriend in Scott Pilgrim verses the World (most of my friends loved that movie, but I had mixed feelings).  She was also in Live Free or Die Hard, Death Proof, and Final Destination 3.  Nothing to imply something great.  The main guy is a guy I have talked about a lot this year, Joel Edgerton.  He was in Warrior and played young Uncle Owen in the Star Wars prequels, but other than that kind of a limited history.  Overall nobody that makes you think you are about to see a great film.

For those of you unfortunate enough to have not seen the Thing 1982, it is basically the story of an American camp in Antarctica that comes across a dog being shot at by a Norwegian helicopter.  The dog turns out to be an alien polymorph who kills people and then imitates them.  It is as creepy and horrible as puppets in 1982 can be, and ends with a massive question mark in the air.  They investigate the Norwegian camp and discover it in complete ruins, with dead bodies and burned aliens all over the place.  There is an implied complete story here that we only get catch pieces of and have to fill in with our imagination.

This movie tells that story, and does it brilliantly.  The thing I love is that Matthijs, unlike other, more established but in many ways lamer directors (J.J. Abrams), did not feel the need to re-imagine the whole story to suit his own ego.  Instead, he makes things as close to the original as possible.  The Norwegian camp is exactly as it was in the original, and all the wreckage and things they found in the later film are present and explained (even the burned two headed alien corpse).

In addition to being true to the 1982 film, this movie is great as a stand alone film.  The story makes sense, the tension is built up over time, and there is a terrible sense of mystery and an inability to trust anyone.  The original story was based on a 1951 film, the Thing from Another World, which was in turn inspired by a novella by Who Goes There? by John W. Campell, Jr.  The underlying theme in the novella is massive paranoia (I have also read the novella) and both movies manage to carry that through.

The story.  Mary Elizabeth Winstead plays Kate Lloyd, a paleontology who is recruited by a Norwegian scientist to examine a mystery body they found encased in ice in Antarctica.  They find the corpse is that of an alien, as well as a massive alien space ship buried in the ice.  They pull the alien corpse up in a giant block of ice and bring it back to their base.  Naturally it escapes (remember the giant hollowed out block of ice from the first movie too?) and starts killing and/or taking over humans.  Flamethrower hijinks ensues.  Paranoia runs rampant, most of the camp gets burned, and the movie more or less ends with another big question mark and ends where the first one picked  up.

Honestly there isn’t a lot more than that in the story.  However, I am not trying to imply it is not a full and eventful.  It is super cool, especially the scenes where they are trying to figure out who the aliens are.  One of the Norweigans, Lars (Jorgen Langhelle) is really cool and you get to like him a lot.  He does not speak any English, but his tone and actions combined with subtitles really delivers a good performance.

The stars.  A prequel that didn’t destroy the original.  One star.  Excellent story.  One star.  Shape changing, horrific alien.  One star.  Great acting.  One star.  None of the characters did any of the typical horror movie stupidity stuff.  You don’t find yourself saying “Don’t go in there!” just before they go in there and get their face torn off.  One star.  The Norwegians did not hesitate to grab guns and get armed.  One star.  Good acting all around.  One star.  The story managed to tie in all the elements from the first movie and didn’t go off the rails more than a couple minor things.  One star.  CGI was decent, and managed to meld with the human actors really well.  One star.  The alien is horrible in all regards, and unlike other movies where you see too much of it and it loses it’s horror, this one gets more terrible as time goes on.  One star.  Great characters you find it easy to identify with.  One star.  Overall great movie experience.  One star.  Total: twelve big stars.

The black holes.  Pacing seemed rushed.  I strongly suspect a lot of good stuff ended up on the cutting room floor.  Feels like about 20-30 minutes might be missing (run time is only 103 minutes, so I am willing to bet this is true).  Hopefully the extended DVD will reinsert them.  One black hole.  Logically, if I were to discover an alien corpse and a massive alien space craft I think I would probably let the alien chill (haw!) while I looted the spacecraft like Viking.  One black hole.  If you had never seen the 1982 the Thing the ending might have left you a little flat.  One black hole.  Total: three black holes.

Grand total of nine stars.  If you are a fan of sci fi, horror, or paranoid whodunits see this film.  Try to see it in the theater is my recommendation.  Not a good date film, IMO.

Thanks for reading.  If I get a chance I will try to see Ides of March this week.  This upcoming weekend looks a little grim, with the Three Musketeers 3D and the Return of Johnny English topping the incoming suck-o-meter.  Oh, well.  I guess I have to pay the price of a great movie like the Thing at some point.  Follow me on Twitter @NerdKungFu.  Talk to you soon.

Dave

While personally painful for me, if you like paint-by-numbers remakes and think a teenagers right to dance is of critical importance, go for it.

Well, it’s time to declare 2011 the official Year of the Movie Remake.  Given that there are two this weekend alone, and any number so far this year, it really looks like Hollywood has thrown in the towel and is admitting they have run out of creative ideas for movies.

So, Footloose.  I have any number of issues with this movie, both this remake and the original.  As I have stated in other reviews (Bad Teacher, I think), high school plus dancing sets my mind into a mode I like to call “homicidal violent mayhem”.  However, that is my issue, and I will try to keep it separate from this review.  There are any number of other things to complain about, mostly having to do with the fact that the entire premise of this movie was stupid in 1984 and hasn’t gotten any smarter with age.

The weird thing is, I actually like the song Footloose.  At one point in my life I lived with the super hot niece of Kenny Loggins (no joke) and that was something we kind of bonded over.  Although truth be told, I think I’m All Right from Caddyshack is a better song.  (Bushwood Country Club image courtesy of the movie t shirt category).  I find his music weirdly infectious, which is kind of at odds with my normal preference for old school punk rock.  I’m sure this says something about me psychologically.

Anyway, Footloose.  I don’t want to get into the story too much because if you have seen the 1984 movie you have seen this one.  It is like they dusted off the old script and just reshot it.  I will do a quick symapsis.  Kids get killed while driving home drunk from a dance.  Rather than passing laws to help curtail underage drinking, drunk driving, or curfew violations the hick town decides to outlaw dancing.  Some guy (Kenny Wormald – You Got Served, Clerks II, Center Stage Turn it Up)  moves in with his uncle from Boston and instead of getting his ass kicked like any normal big town guy moving to a hayseed burg movie manages to make friends for life in like a week and his love of dancing compels him to fight the ban.  Meanwhile, the super white trash daughter (Julianne Hough, who has been in nothing previously.  I think she was on Dancing with the Stars and is dating Ryan Seacrest, which actually makes her a lot lamer in my book) of the preacher (Dennis Quaid – the Day After Tomorrow, Any Given Sunday, Vantage Point, which I liked) who pushed the ban falls in love with him.  He makes an impassioned speech to the city council.  People dance.  He gets into a fight with the local color, including the even white trashier ex boyfriend of the preachers daughter.  The movie ends with everyone dancing.

There are a few differences, but most of them were kind of stupid (and when I say kind of, I mean really).  The whole tractor chicken scene is now replaced by a bus racing demolition derby that was just plain dumb.  The ex BF challenges Rem to a bus death race wherein 4 buses get wrecked.  It is supposed to be for some upcoming event but there are all of ten people watching.  Even junk buses cost money.

The main issue I have with this entire movie (aside from the dancing, the fact that with only one exception the high school is filled with super models, and the complete remake thing) is the basic premise behind the film.  How does the city council think banning dancing is going to save lives?  Why do they care that much?  Does the local law dog have nothing better to do than enforce dancing ordinances?  How about curtailing the rampant meth problem plaguing the South?

By the way, this is my chance to prove to the world what an old man I am by laying down some insights to my teenage readers.  Ever wonder why no one ever works to curtail the laws specific to young people, like not drinking until you are 21, curfews, and so on?  It’s because that is something you really care about until the day you turn old enough to not care.  If on my 18th birthday they had passed a law requiring all underage teenagers to wear leather gimp masks during the day I wouldn’t have cared.  In fact, when someone turns 21 and can start drinking the first thing they think of is “I had to wait this long.  Why shouldn’t everyone else?”

This review seems to be kind of hard for me to keep on course.  Let’s get into the stars.

Well acted all around, even from Ryan Seacrests girlfriend.  One star.  I supposed a argument could be made that they kept it scene for scene in order to maintain the integrity of the original vision or something.  One star.  Both the girls were super hot, especially the supporting brunette IMO (Ziah Colon – Road Trip Beer Pong, Drop Dead Diva, Sparkles and Smiley Kill the Internet (???)).  One star.  Total: three stars.

The black holes.  Pretty much a photo copy of the original.  One black hole.  Stupid premise for a movies.  One black hole.  In spite of being a copy of the original, they somehow managed to lose a lot of the emotional impact the first one had.  One black hole.  High school dance movie.  One black hole.  Everyone in the movie was one of the super cool kids in high school I hated.  One black hole.  There was a sub plot about the dopey hick sidekick with the super hot girlfriend having to learn how to dance that dragged on and on to no benefit.  One black hole.  In spite of the fact that Kenny Wormald is an accomplished dancer they couldn’t get away from the one second cut editing technique that sucks so bad for fight scenes and even more for dancing.  One black hole.  They really milked every small town hick stereotype possible.  One black hole.  Total: eight black holes.

I have a couple irksome but not black hole worthy points as well.  While the music was pretty much true to the original score, it was definitely modernized and glitz’d up to its detriment.  Also, he was supposed to be from Boston, but I sometimes found Kenny Wormald’s accent a little grating.  Not really bad by itself, but in contrast with all the southern accents it really felt out of place.

So a total of five black holes.  I don’t know.  A lot of my black holes related to my own personal issues.  It wasn’t claw-your-own-eyes-out bad.  If I were less of a bitter soul I might have enjoyed parts of it.  If you liked Glee, high school romance doesn’t infuriate you, are easily entertained by brightly colored objects, or you just like dance you might enjoy it.  I will say this is an excellent date movie, as it has a lot of elements girls might like.  Actually I’ll give you a move to make with this.  Take a girl out to see this movie.  Assuming you don’t end up hooking up with her that night, tell her you enjoyed it but the original was much better.  That is an open invention to getting her to come over to your place to see the 1984 Footloose in your recently cleaned apartment.  You are welcome.

I would like to share one more observation about this movie that perplexes me.  In all the posters and images they show the logo for the movie as a cursive neon blue sign spelling Footloose.  However, one of the “o”s in loose is always unlit, making the sign spell Footlose.  Was that on purpose, as some kind of inside joke?  Or just some marketing director’s subconscious mind manifesting his or her real secret feelings for this movie?  That question is kind of bugging me.

Anyway, thanks again for reading.  I am sorry I haven’t done more recently, but things have gotten super busy.  I will see the Thing tomorrow to continue Remake-a-paloosa 2011, and maybe Ides of March early next week.  Follow me on Twitter @NerdKungFu.  Talk to you soon.

Dave

Sort of.  You see, when someone says top 10 nerd movies of all times, it always devolves directly into the Lord of the Rings, Batman Returns, and Empire Strikes Back.  However, those types of lists are so pedestrian and have been done to death.  Instead, I want to do the top 10 movies with nerds in them.  Specifically, nerds who act as I have known nerds in real life and who end up kicking ass.

The thing is I am going to try to avoid movies that paint nerds as charactertures of nerds.  When I first suggested this topic last night a friend of mine said “Oh, you mean like Revenge of the Nerds.“  No.  Movies like that (or Napoleon Dynamite) are designed to make fun of nerds and their nerdishness, while instilling a bit of feel good when the geeky underdog wins in the end over the moronic jocks.  I actually don’t like that, as all it really does is reinforce the negative stereotypes that I and my nerd friends have been laboring under for years.  Even movies that I really enjoy like Weird Science manage to paint nerds as total geeks who eventually get a lucky break.  I don’t want to add to the problem.

So what I am focused on are movies that feature nerds who are in no way apologetic or ashamed of being a nerd, and use their nerd skills to advance themselves and their agenda.  I like to see this as a little window into a perfect world where nerds rule everything and the jocks all dig ditches for a living.

10.  Shawn of the Dead.  Honestly, this one almost didn’t make my list, as an argument could be made that Shaun doesn’t really qualify as a nerd in the true sense of the word.  He has a cute girlfriend, doesn’t really work with computers or technology other than to sell it, and starts the movie without a clue how to fight zombies.  However, he is an avid video game player, and manages to survive a zombie apocalypse, so I think I will include it, albeit at the very bottom of my list.  Of course, Simon Pegg and Nick Frost are among the biggest nerds on the planet, so anything they do is worth consideration.  (image courtesy of the horror movie t shirts category)

9.  Office Space.  Revenge of the cubical gnomes.  Yes, the main characters in this film are nerds in every sense of the term, and while they fail miserably at least attempt to use some nerd skills to stick it to the man.  Also, did I ever mention I have had a huge crush on Jeniffer Aniston for years?

8.  Spiderman.  Yes, Peter Parker is a super nerd.  Geeky, glasses, into science.  What more could be asked for?  I almost stuck Superman in here as well, but realized that Clark Kent is actually Superman pretending to be a nerd to hide his identity, while Peter Parker is a nerd who gained super powers.

7.  Ghostbusters.  These guys are nerds, especially Egon Spengler, and don’t care who knows it.  Also, the amount of geek credibility this movie gets for not only casting the great Sigourney Weaver as the love interest but also showing us one of the best thigh shots in nerd movie history is astronomical.  By the way, if you ever are looking for a definition of nerdy/sexy, just take a look at Annie Potts as the receptionist in this film.

6.  Darkman.  Yes, there are those who say this movie sucks, but I beg to differ.  Liam Neeson as Peter Westlake is a total nerd.  Besides, which of us nerds has never dreamed of being a scientist and having a horrible accident give us both super powers and a thirst for revenge?  Hell, when I got my laser eye treatment I was praying for a freak accident that would give me the ability to shoot lasers OUT of my eyes.

5.  the Matrix.  Neo is a computer hacking nerd, in spite of looking like he works at Abercrombie and Fitch.  One of the issues I have with the second and third Matrix (among several dozen) is the fact that they kind of drop the idea of him as an obsessed computer nerd and just make him into a cheesy pretty boy action hero.

4.  the Incredibles.  Yes, my favorite Pixar movie (Steve Jobs, thank you).  You might think there is no nerd in this one, as Mr. and Mrs. Incrdible are pretty cool, at least at the start of the movie.  However, you are forgetting the biggest nerd out there, Syndrome (formally known as Buddy).  He is a complete and utter scientist nerd and could not care less if you thought so.  He gets rejected in a way all nerds my age remember having happen as a kid and uses his brain to get his revenge.  Awesome.

3.  Back to the Future.  Dr. Emmet Brown was a complete nerd who was willing to go toe to toe with terrorists in order to advance his science.  Also, Marty McFly was pretty geeky too.  Of course, a real geek would understand how the Butterfly Effect would make it almost impossible for Marty to mess around in the past and still exist.  Even a slight altering of his parents time line would most like cause one of the other several million sperm cells to fertilize his mom’s egg, giving him a completely different genetic structure.  But I digress.

2.  Real Genius.  Nerds doing what nerds do in the best way possible.  This movie rules, and if you haven’t seen it stream it tonight to increase your nerd credibility.  These guys had nothing to apologize for, and used their brains to totally screw with people.  The only issue I had was the idea of a super hot woman who’s only goal in life was to sleep with the 10 smartest men on the planet.  If women actually exist who are attracted to intellect rather than looks and/or money please point them in my direction.  I have yet to meet one.

1.  Wargames.  David Lightman is an early hacker computer nerd who totally screwed with the defense department and almost blew up the world.  What else can a true nerd dream of?  Except for the underwear in his room he made no apologies for his lifestyle and managed to outsmart any number of jockish military types.  This movie was the first one to really show what a true nerd is potentially capable of, and since I was starting high school that year I could have only wished that my so called peers might have picked up a warning from it.  Unfortunately, their limited intellect prevented them from understanding the dangers of messing with someone with a superior intellect.  Savor the irony with me for a moment.

Anyway, that’s my list.  I had a bunch that almost made it, but I feel good about this.  Feel free to disagree or point out any movies I might have missed by commenting here or via Twitter @NerdKungFu.  You can follow me too if you like.

I’m kind of dreading this weekend, as the first movie I will probably have to see will be Footloose and I’m viewing that with all the anticipation of a root canal.  No movies tomorrow as Thursday is my regular Warhammer night.  If you like my writing I have been doing more descriptions on the commercial site, so check out some of the ones on the home page.  Most of them are pretty funny, in my opinion.  Thanks for reading, and have a great night.

Dave

House of Confusion.

This movie was bitterly disappointing for me.  Not because I was expecting something great.  I went into it expecting it to suck.  It disappointed me because I could see elements of a great movie in here that failed to surface.  It’s like the ship the U.S.S. Bad Script sailed to within sight of the Port of Good Movie only to run aground on Fumble Reef. (Titanic image courtesy of the funny t shirts category)

The best way to describe this movie is confused, in that it shifts gears several times.  It started off as kind of a really interesting psycho drama, then alternates back and forth between a haunted house and whodunit with a miserably predictable ending.  It looked great as a psychodrama, decent as a ghost movie, and painfully stupid as a whodunit.  I can almost feel the inexorable hand of the studio pulling the puppet strings to cause the tonal shifts.

The other weird thing about this film was the two stars, Daniel Craig and Rachel Weisz, met and fell in love in real life while working on the movie yet the on screen chemistry seemed a little off.  I think the problem is they acted like a new couple, which in real life they were, but in the movie they had been married for at least seven years.

Anyway, the movie.  Daniel Craig quits his job as an editor in NYC to move to his new house in the burbs.  His hot wife Libby (Rachel Weisz – the Mummy, the Mummy Returns, the Constant Gardener, the Fountain) and two super cute daughters (Taylor Geare – the little girl from Inception and Clair Geare, the younger little girl from Inception) are glad he is going to stay home.  Things seem idyllic but there is some guy running around outside, and some teenagers holding Black Mass in the basement.  Turns out the family that lived there before were all killed by the father.

I don’t want to get too into the story, as this is a mystery and a spoiler would definitely detract from your enjoyment of it.  Mystery/ghost movie/psycho drama hijinks ensue in almost equal portions.  The story kind of plods along, and the whole mixing genres manages to take 90% of the horror out of the film, especially at the end.  There are a few startling moments, but nothing that really shocked anyone.

The stars.  Daniel Craig.  No one does intense like him.  One star.  Overall the acting from all parties was really solid.  One star.  Some decent camera work to reflect the shifts in tone needed for the psychodrama shifts.  One star.  Dialog was decent, and most of the relationships on screen seemed solid.  One star.  Total:  Four stars.

The black holes.  The movie couldn’t decide what kind of film it wanted to be when it grew up.  The genre shift was really annoying, especially at the end.  One black hole.  The police acted unlike any police I have ever seen or heard of.  One black hole.  The movie kind of trudged along.  Pacing was really slow.  One star.  The ending had a funny smell on it from being pulled out of the scriptwriters ass.  One black hole.  A suspense film with little to no suspense and a thriller with no thrills.  One black hole.  Total: five black holes.

So a total of one black hole.  Kind of a neutral score, which reflects how I felt coming out of the theater.  Not really dissatisfied, but not really satisfied.  Is it worth seeing?  Not at full price.  Is it worth $5 on a Sunday?  Sure, if there is nothing else playing.  Honestly, if you are looking for scary seen Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark.  More thrilling Real Steel. Better drama 50/50.  I think the biggest problem this movie faces is that there are a bunch of other, better movies out at the moment.

Thanks for reading.  Sorry about the short review but when a movie doesn’t really grab me or annoy me I find it hard to write about.  Follow me on Twitter @NerdKungFu.  I might do a list tomorrow, or another Star Trek retrospective.  I’m up to Insurrection, which means I am almost at the worst of the dross.  Oh, well.

Dave

Real Fun.

I have been saying for months, ever since I saw the trailer, that I really wanted to see this film.  My friends all, to a man or woman, laughed, saying it looked stupid and cheesy.  However, I would counter, it is about ROBOTS BEATING THE HELL OUT OF EACH OTHER!  How could that be any less than AWESOME?

Well, any number of ways.  Fortunately this movie managed to avoid most of those pitfalls and works its way into what was an all around decent and super fun movie.

In the extremely large lexicon of toys I wish I had had as a kid but my dad was either too cheap, poor, or drunk to buy Rock ‘Em Sock ‘Em Robots ranked pretty high.  Of course it is probably a good thing I didn’t get it, as it would have required me to have a friend to play it against.  Still, pretty cool, and as a consequence I am fascinated by the idea of robots fighting.  I used to watch Battle Bots, but after a while realized they were all the same robot designed to flip their opponents over, which honest got really boring after a while.  I have long dreamed of seeing robots actually fight, and this film delivers.  (Rock ‘Em Sock ‘Em image courtesy of the nerd t shirts category)

The first sign that this movie was not going to suck occurred 30 minutes before it started when my best friend texted me the very interesteing fact that it was based on a story by Richard Matherson called Steel.  He also wrote the great book I am Legend, which got made into movies two and a half times, the best being the Omega Man starring gun nut Charlton Heston (I am not going to talk about the horrible job they did with I am Legend, the Will Smith mutation).  This got me even more jazzed than before and was happy when the film did not dissappoint.

The story itself is nothing original.  Take any 80′s era underdog movie and substitute robots for humans and you pretty much have it.  The Karate Kid, the Bad News Bears, and Rocky all seem to surface here.  Rocky in particular they seem to borrow from heavily.  But just because the story is not original does not mean it isn’t good, and is supported by some awesome acting, dialog, direction, and above all, big robots.

Hugh Jackman plays Charlie Kenton, an ex boxer who now operates and promotes fighting robots.  His last robot gets wrecked by a bull (little weird there) and he is at rock bottom, owing a ton of money do different thugs and having no prospects.  His ex girlfriend dies, leaving the his sons guardianship, Max Kenton (Dakota Goyo, a really good kid actor who has been in Thor, Resurrecting the Champ, and a movie that looks interesting called Defendor.  Kind of a decent geek filmography for an 11 year old) in question.  The story is a little complicated, but he manages to get the kids rich uncle to agree to pay him a ton of money to give him custody but in return Charlie has to keep the kid for the summer so they can do their romantic vacation to Italy.  He uses the money to buy another robot, Noisy Boy, who gets his ass beat and killed in his first fight.

At that point things seem at an all time low, and Charlie and Max are left scavenging an old robot junk yard for parts to build a new bot.  Max finds and recovers Atom, and old sparring bot that they bring back to the training hall/garage.  He is a very old sparring robot but has a rare “shadow” function that allows him to mimic actions he sees humans do and integrate them into his fighting style.  Charlie trains him and the story moves on from there.  Robot battle hijinks ensues.  At that point they are pretty much making Robot Rocky, so I won’t bore you with the details.  Max and Charlie come to bond, the Atom surprises everyone, and you walk away feeling as good as you can about a robot film (which in my case is pretty damned good).

The stars.  Fighting robots.  Three stars.  Great acting all around.  Two stars.  All of the robots looked unbelievably cool and bad ass.  One star.  The CGI and special effects seemed flawless.  I really felt like there were 10 foot tall giants running around with the humans on the screen (I have more or less stopped giving stars for good special effects, as it is now kind of expected, but this was good enough for me to make an exception).  One star.  All the antagonists (Kevin Durand in particular) were pretty cool, and the whole subplot of Charlie owing him a ton of money added rather than detracted from the film.  One star.  The love interest (Evangeline Lilly-Lost, the Hurt Locker) was cute but not just a super hot eye candy bimbo that seems to litter the screen these days (cough cough Transformers cough cough), and can act.  One star.  The fight scenes were brutal and very cool, and due (I guess) to the fact that they were all CGI they didn’t have to do the lazy one second cut crap that bugs me in movie action so much these days.  Very well choreographed.  You can actually follow the action.  Two stars.  Did I already give stars for fighting robots?  How about two more stars for an all around awesome movie experience.  Total: thirteen stars.

The black holes.  The overall story, while good, was kind of dopey and overall extremely derivative (that’s my polite way of saying copied from) of a bunch of other movies, especially Rocky.  Not that it wasn’t a great movie experience, but still.  One black hole.  The scene where Max finds Atom was a level of suspension of disbelief that was completely out of tone for the entire rest of the movie.  Everything else seemed really realistic (as realistic as fighting robots can be) but that whole sequence was just kind of silly.  One black hole.  The opening fight scene between Charlie’s first robot, Ambush, and a rodeo bull was kind of dumb, unnecessary, unrealistic, and had elements of animal cruelty that were a little off putting.  One black hole.  Total: three black holes.

So a grand total of 10 stars, and my high recommendation that you go see it on the biggest screen you can find.  I am seriously considering seeing it again on iMax, and I never do that.  Very, very fun.  Don’t bother with a date on this one.  She won’t get it, and odds are will see you as lame for being into it.

Kind of a short review, so I am going to share an observation I had.  Before I started doing these reviews I would enjoy seeing trailers at the beginning of the films.  Gave me a chance to pick out the movies I thought I would enjoy seeing in the future.  However, now that I am pretty much seeing everything trailers are more like a cancer patient being given a schedule of his upcoming chemotherapy treatments.  Some I look forward too, but a lot of them look like upcoming pain.  On that note, if anyone has any idea how I can start to see movies prior to release please let me know.  Do I contact the studios, or what?  I’d like to have my reviews come out before their release, if possible.

Follow me or message me on Twitter @NerdKungFu.  Thanks for reading.  I’ll probably see the Ides of March tomorrow.  Talk to you soon.

Dave