Monthly Archives: May 2012

Battleship

Posted on by seeeveryfilm

Starring: Taylor Kitsch, Liam Neeson, Brooklyn Decker, Rihanna

Written by: Eric Hoeber, Jon Hoeber

Directed by: Peter Berg

It’s not as bad as Transformers so…um…it’ll always have that I guess.

The comparison between the two is inevitable as Battleship is another movie produced by HASBRO in an attempt to create the same kind of money making machine they have with their Bay-directed Transformers series.  And even though it’s directed by Peter Berg and not Michael “born without a soul and okay with it” Bay, the feel of Battleship is virtually identical. The special effects, the sweeping slow mo shots, the cast (lots of veteran actors and up and comers with a peppering of indie staples to add flavour), it all feels like it’s straight out of the old Dark of the Moon playbook.

This quasi-sequel feel is compounded even more by the film’s premise. You see the movie is based on the classic boardgame of the same name. However, that game was about two armies of equal standing fighting each other blindly.  This is a movie about alien robots invading earth (OK, aliens who control robots invading earth, happy?). The fact that HASBRO decided to make another film based on a completely different property from Transformers but then chose to alter said property so that it resembled Transformers as much as humanly possible shows that they have a disturbing lack of confidence in their non “Killer Robot” based material. Is this going to be a trend in their future adaptations?  Would they add Killer Robots to a My little Pony movie? To a Jem and the Holograms  movie? Will the upcoming film based on the boardgame Ouija be about contacting the spirit of overly complicated CG killing machines?

So yeah, I was pretty skeptical going in. However even with all that baggage I found myself mildly impressed by the film’s opening scenes. I was even smiling a little as the movie put all the elements in place for its inevitable “Navy vs Aliens” showdown promised in all of the promotional material. Yes, it feels very much like a Transformers movie but, perhaps due to the hand of Peter Berg, it actually works. The unfunny comedy scenes are kind of funny, the hard luck loser hero (played by Canuck Taylor Kitsch) is surprisingly likeable, the hot chicks (Decker and Rihanna who makes an impressive debut) are genuinely interesting. I was floored. This feeling of surprise continued for me as the film flash-forwarded five years later, where our now less-of-a-loser hero has joined the Navy and is taking part in a massive international Naval War Games. I was hopeful. Despite all my reservations I was really liking these characters and I was pleased that it felt like a real story and not just a series of obligatory establishment scenes. Unlike a lot of special effects driven blockbusters it actually felt like there was a reason to watch even before the aliens arrived.

But then, unfortunately, the Aliens did arrive. And while humanity may have survived the attack, the screenplay didn’t.

It’s a common dilemma among Alien invasion movies. How do you have humans win in a battle of Humans vs. Aliens when the Aliens, having traveled across the Galaxy, are obviously vastly superior to us technology wise. Different Alien invasion films have handled it different ways but most seem to go with a variation of the War of the Worlds technique where it’s some sort of glitch in the Alien’s intelligence/biology that causes their downfall. In War it was the flu, in Signs it was an allergy to H2O, in Independance Day it was a computer virus (seriously?) it’s all varients on the same thing, the only way to beat an Alien is if the Alien doesn’t plan ahead. It’s annoying but I don’t see a way around it. We want to watch Alien invasion movies and we want humans to win. That means we have to suspend disbelief some.    

But there’s suspension of disbelief and there’s are you fucking kidding me? and, unfortunately, as soon as the Aliens in Battleship land they hit AYFKM territory before the water’s even settled. The invaders can travel at light speed but their weaponry is laughable. There’s not a laser among them. Instead their weapons of choice are a series of complicated looking but easily spotted (and slow) explosives. Their radar doesn’t work on Navy ships. Their high tech battle suits don’t seem much stronger than your average bouncer and they’re trouble-spotting technology has a glitch in it which makes it impossible to spot trouble.

But the best, for me,  is their force field technology. You see, they create a massive force field in order to protect themselves while they try to call home for reinforcements, but when they put the field up they actually trap themselves in the same domed area as the Navy. So…they never though of adjusting the size of the force field when those plucky humans start fighting back? Or, say, bringing the field down on the middle part of a Navy destroyer and cutting the sucker in half? I don’t mean to be a back seat invader but since your war-based race has no advanced weaponry maybe you should consider some more proactive battle tactics. Here’s a thought, how about moving to a less soldier populated part of the ocean?

As the IQ of the movie’s villains drops, so does that of everyone else in the film until the whole thing goes from being a lot better than Transformers to just being moderately better than Transformers. And trust me, a moderate step up from Transformers ain’t much to brag about. I can’t say that it’s a horrible film and I’m even a little sorry that it’s bombing so badly when it’s HASBRO predecessors have done so incredibly well, but at the end of the day there’s only so much you can do with a broken model and this films insistence on following that model eventually leads to its downfall, despite the fact that it’s more successful with it than others have been.

Okay, that should do it for now. Join me in a few days for a round up which will include Chernobyl Diaries, Marley, The Dictator and the next big summer movie Snow White and the Huntsman. 

Cheers.

Sef. 

Ten new reviews

Posted on by seeeveryfilm

Okay, a lot to catch up on (as usual) so I’m jumping right in. Starting with…

Dark Shadows

The story of a Vampire imprisoned for over a century, only to wake up in the seventies, Dark Shadows is based on the cult soap opera of the same name and it fully embraces the soap opera structure by loading up on sub plots without spending too much time on one main plot. But the thing is, this isn’t a soap opera, it’s a movie. And eight sub plots with barely a thru line don’t serve a two-hour film well, especially when all the plots have disappointing conclusions. It’s like having to watch the lame ass last episode of Battlestar Galactica without getting any of the awesome episodes that preceded it. Add to that a lot of flat humour and some surprisingly uninspired performances (not just Depp, pretty much everyone is phoning this sucker in) and all you’ve got left is an occasionally pretty but mostly convoluted mess that’s only advantage is that it’s forgettable.

Damsels in Distress

Okay, so if you have to make a movie with no plot, this is how you do it.

Whit Stilman is a hell of a good story-teller. He’s so good that he can basically just set up a premise and let his characters bounce around in it free of the shackles of clear objectives. I’m not complaining as Stilman makes such interesting and intellectually engaging people that I’m just fine bouncing around with them. In Damsel’s in Distress  the premise centres on a predominantly female college and a group of girls who work the suicide prevention centre. They are adamant in their goals, which include gaining the upper hand in dating rituals, creating dance crazes, and pretending to be from London.

There’s really no pressure with this one. It’s just cool to watch. True, the ending pushes the boundaries of random conclusions to the limit but thanks to some of the most clever dialogue exchanges of the year I can let a little thing like a complete lack of resolution slide.

The Raven

From the director of V for Vendetta comes a murder mystery that pits the grandfather of horror, Edgar Allan Poe, against a real life murderer who is re-enacting the grizzly attacks from Poe’s own stories. It’s an intriguing idea, but the concept runs out of gas pretty early and ultimately just amounts to a filmmaker bragging about the fact that they’ve read more Poe than you have. Also, much as I’m a fan of digital effects, watching someone get chopped in half only to have lots of digital blood shoot out of them as their digital body parts fall onto the digital ground is just distracting, and is especially out-of-place in a movie set in the 1840′s.

The Lady

The true story of an accidental activist, Michelle Yeoh plays Aung Sun Suu Kyi, the daughter of the man who almost led Burma into independence, only to find himself on the receiving end of an assassin’s bullet. This film tells the amazing tale of Kyi’s return to Burma and eventual rise to become the defacto leader of the people’s resistance against a military dictatorship that still exists their to this day. This movie is very important. It’s also very boring. I know that sounds heartless of me but a movie of this magnitude should be so compelling that the audience becomes incapable of looking away. This one just felt like a big budget Wikipedia article.

Warriors of the Rainbow 

Another period piece (a theme this week) about the Tawainese fight for independence against the Japanese, this one’s essentially just a two and a half hour fight sequence interrupted occasionally by overly melodramatic patriotism. It’s not the most subtle of films and there’s a few “tragic” scenes that inspire more laughter than tears (at least from me) but god damned if there isn’t some cool hand to hand combat going down here. Maybe I’m too easy, but I can forgive a lot of flaws if a movie has a significant amount of Asians jumping around and kicking each other whilst dodging explosions.

Citizen Gangster

This Canadian made period piece (yup, that’s four in a row) tells the true story of Eddie Boyd, famed Post WWII bank robber and all around character. It has a lot of cool elements in it, as well as some excellent performances, but unfortunately it becomes a victim of it’s own low key style. The director made the choice to play everything very bleak and very close to the chest. Scenes start half way through the action, people tend to talk very quietly, or not at all, and smiles are rare. I’m not against this noirish tone in principle but it goes on for so long that I started to lose interest. It was a fascinating story and I’m glad they took a risk with the narrative but, unfortunately,  they just couldn’t pull it off.

The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, What to expect when you’re expecting, The five-year engagement. 

Okay, what do a film about a bunch of retired english people moving to India, a film about a varied group of women all expecting children, and a film about a couple that gets engaged, only to find their wedding constantly put off for various reasons, have in common?

Two things. One, they are all full of talented artists, and two, they’re all so predictable it made me want to drown myself in a pool of my own urine.

I’m sorry but I’m just sick of it. I’m sick of seeing a movie and knowing everything that’s going to happen within the first three seconds. I’ve seen the inspirational English “bunch of common people forced to do something outlandish” movie (Calander Girls, Full Monty) , the large ensemble cast comedy with multiple storylines centering around one event (Love Actually, Valentine’s Day, New Years Day) and the romantic comedy where two people in love get forced out of love, only to find that they were meant for each other all along (Friends with Benefits, No Strings, What’s my number? and those were all just last year). I’ve seen them done  and I’ve seen them re done and I’ve been forced to bare witness as all the possible life within these once fertile premises has been drained out.  The scenes are so stock and the plot points are so ingrained that they don’t feel like movies, they feel like easy to put together furniture sets. These films weren’t written, they were assembled with an allen key.

Look, I understand the importance of structure. A film without a structure is an insult to an audience.  I’m not even against formula movies if they have fun with it. But these three films only seem to use the formula because they felt they had no choice, and it’s that lack of enthusiasm that makes these stories fell like a long walk to nowhere. But the worst part is that there’s a lot of talented people at work here. Marigold was directed by John Madden, who gave us the delightful Shakespeare in Love. Engagement was written by Jason Segal and produced by Judd Apatow, two of the artists responsible for the resurgence of the R rated comedy, and Expecting is wall to wall cool people (Chris Rock, Anna Kendrick, and Elizabeth Banks to name a few). These are talanted people and all of them should have taken one look at the script and known that they were above this.

Headhunters

Okay, this is what I’m fucking talking about!

Structured, but not formulaic, a protagonist that is sympathetic but not stock, a plot that lays out a possible outcome but never feels predictable. It’s just…god damn I love it when shit works this well!

Headhunters is a Norwegian thriller about a full-time executive/part-time art thief who finds himself in over his head after a robbery gone wrong results in him fleeing from a former military assassin.  The term “escalating tension” was invented to describe what our anti hero goes through as his journey takes him from sipping champagne at the finest parties in all of Europe to hiding in a pile of human feces in order to avoid a rabid pit bull. And it all makes sense. I mean, yuk, but still it makes sense!

Now bare in mind, you will need a strong stomach to make it through this one, and not just because of the whole submerged in shit deal, there’s also a lot of blood and at least one scene where guy actually gets his face caved in. And, on the nit picky side, the protagonist does have to make a couple really stupid decisions in order to get the plot rolling (after the he describes in great detail how quickly he must work to execute a perfect robbery, he then pauses in the middle of stealing a near priceless painting to call his wife’s cell phone for no real reason) but these elements are quickly forgiven as the audience is wrapped up in the chaos of this brutal but thrilling tale of the dangers of wanting more than you’ve got. This is not one of the best movies of the year but it’s definitely one of the coolest and it’s one of those films that gives me faith that I can make it through to December.

 

That should catch me up for now, join me soon for a look at Battleship, The Dictator and Marley. 

Cheers.

Sef. 

The Avengers

Posted on by seeeveryfilm

Starring: Robert Downie Jr, Chris Evans, Mark Ruffalo, Chris Hemsworth, Scarlett Johansson, Jeremy Renner, Tom Hiddleston, Samuel L. Jackson 

Written by: Joss Whedon, Zak Penn

Directed by: Joss Whedon

comic book fans have experienced a great deal of film related pain over the past few decades.

It doesn’t take an intricate knowledge of comic book/cinema history to know why. Comic lovers are a built in audience and, as such, are easily taken advantage of. This is usually the point where I’d criticize fanboy/girls for being so eager to line up for inevitable disappointment but, as a member of the demographic myself, I’m not really qualified to criticize.

And I, and many of my involuntarily celibate brethren, have lined up and have been disappointed more times than most of us can count. Tim Burton’s Batman made us long for something with more passion for the subject matter. Joel Schumacher’s Batman made us long for Tim Burton’s Batman. The Catwoman movie made us long for a cleansing rain that might wash away humanity, or failing that just wash away the Catwoman movie. It’s been a tough ride.

But this is not to say that there haven’t been more than a few gems. Even a couple that have elevated the subject matter in ways we never thought possible (you know which one I mean. It rhymes with “Christopher Nolen is better than crack”). But the thing is we, the comic reading masses, aren’t demanding every super hero movie be a game changer. We’re just hoping for a film that will engage the characters in the way that is in keeping with our fondest memories.  A film that remembers that comics are two things; fun and smarter than people think.

The point of all this is that The Avengers is motherfuckin’ awesome.

As other critics have rightly pointed out, this film uses it’s predecessors to its advantage in the best ways possible.  Joss Whedon’s epic take on Marvel’s most important hero grouping might has well have begun five minutes after the ending of, well, any one of the last four marvel movies.  We know the heroes, we know the villain, we know the conflict, and it takes all of five minutes to get the ball rolling with the Norse trickster god Loki aligning himself with some sort of Alien baddies to steal a source of unlimited power. His goal is world domination (natch) and  the only thing standing in his way is earth’s mightiest heroes, all of whom we’ve had the pleasure to meet over the past few years.

But while the development of the characters in the previous films is what made it possible for this movie to hit the ground running, it’s the filmmaker’s obvious love of the subject matter that makes it all work on the screen. It’s really tough to put your finger on the specifics of it but it’s like this movie is totally aware of just how much excitement the fans are going to be feeling as the opening credits start rolling and it finds a way to keep that level of excitement up no matter what’s going on. You have to credit the hand of Whedon for a lot of this as it’s his amazing ability to balance action, humour, and character development that makes even the most mundane conversation seem just as important as a massive air battle between a floating air craft carrier and an army of brainwashed assassins.

But possibly even more impressive than the balance of tone within the film is the balance of characters.  There had been some debate over who the hero of this movie would be but, as we all know now, this film doesn’t have a hero, it has heroes. Every Avenger has shining moments and has their own demons to wrestle with, yet none of their sub plots take away from the main story or the storylines of their co stars. Think about it for a second; pulling that kind of shit off is INSANE and this film manages it without breaking a sweat. True, Iron Man gets a slightly stronger presence than others but considering his box office track record you’d be hard pressed to say he hasn’t earned a little more screen time. The only hero that I felt got sold just a little bit short was Thor. I suspect that, because the main villain was also his main bad guy, the writers felt it might be over kill to give too much weight to his personal story. I’m being ultra nit picky pointing this out but…um…I’m a blogger. It’s kind of what I do.

I’m finding it literally impossible to even think about this film without some sort of happy endorphins hitting my pleasure centres. It just makes you want to climb to the tallest rooftop and shout “it worked!”. I want this continuing trend of filmmakers respecting comic books like they were F. Scott Fitzgerald to last forever. I want this film to get nominated for best picture. Christ, I want Avenger to be a verb which means that a movie studio got a comic book movie right (“Mark Webb’s Spider Man is good, but it doesn’t quite Avenger Peter Parker like the fans would have liked”). But above all else, there is one thing that I want with an intensity that increases exponentially as the minutes pass.

A sequel.

Are you all with me?

Yeah, that’s what I thought.

Okay, that’s in for now. I’ve got a series of round ups coming which I’m hoping should be posted before the next few summer tent poles hit the theatres. Join me soon for Dark Shadows, Headhunters, Damsels in Distress, The five Year Engagement, The best Exotic Marigold Hotel, and more.

Cheers.

Sef. 

The Avengers pre review.

Posted on by seeeveryfilm

Okay….

So it’s here. They did it. It happened. It’s in theatres right now. It’s been done.

Holy fuck.

For the record that holy fuck is not a “holy fuck this movie is good” holy fuck (I’ll be doing one of those in the next review). This is the “Holy fuck they pulled it off!” holy fuck. The idea that a comic book company could make the bold decision to form their own film studio and then collect their most important characters (or at least the ones that they still held the film rights too) and put them in a series of stand alone films, yet still have them all exist within the same cinematic reality so that their storylines could converge in one massive flagship film. The idea that this could actually be pulled off given all the variables in the film industry, well, it doesn’t quite seem real. This isn’t something that happens. This is something geeks talk about over the counters of comic shops or over late night coffee in one of the worlds many geek friendly eateries (“What if they made an Avengers movie, who should play Nick Fury? And don’t say Kurt Russell, it’s too obvious.” ).

But the thing is, it did happened. It’s in theatres right now and apparently quite a few people are going to see it. It’s got actors and scenes and everything and…Holy fuck! Like…Holy fuck!!!

So how is it?

Sadly, I’m not going to go into that right now. Rest assured I’m going to be doing a full review of this film sooner than later, I promise, but before I do that I kind of figured that a cinematic event this big has earned a little bit of  a warm up. A retrospective of sorts, celebrating what got us here, and just how smooth/bumpy the ride was.  Over the past four years there have been five Marvel produced super hero movies, all building to this one.  In celebration of  the opening of The Avengers here’s my ranking of the five with accompanying mini reviews.

From worst to best, they are…

5: Captain America: The first Avenger. The only Marvel movie I can say with no reservation that I didn’t like at all. I’m a little surprised at the amount of love this sucker gets. Reviewers in general were generous and many in the fanboy/fangirl world rank it among the best of the Marvel films. But, for me, this movie just felt like it had incredibly low stakes. Like it was waltzing through the plot points that a Captain America movie was supposed to waltz through without giving any of them much weight. Add to that some pretty blatant flaws in the narrative (Seriously Cap? You had to crash with the plane? You couldn’t…say…jump out!? You weren’t even injured you tool! Grab a parachute, you’ve got a date with a hottie english chick!) and you’ve got what is, in my opinion, the most forgettable film of the lot.

4: Thor. I recently rewatched this film on Netflix and, while I still like it, I find myself not liking it as much as when I first saw it. There’s a lot to enjoy, the relationship between Thor and Jane Foster (Natalie Portman) works well and the fish out of water story really helped to make Thor accessible as a character. But I found myself less impressed by Thor’s homeland of Aasgard on my second trip. It just seemed so insubstantial (okay, so you’re gods. But you also eat and have kids. And is everything in your realm made of gold? Are their homeless people in Aasgard? Are there Aasgardian dentists?) However, despite these reservations, there’s a lot of entertaining stuff here. And Tom Hiddleston (Loki) made a hell of a good villain.

3: Iron Man 2. It didn’t raise the bar, but it was too much fun for me to care. Like half the free world I freaking love Robert Downie Jr. as Tony Stark and watching him take on both a seriously bad assed Mickey Rourke as Whiplash, as well as his own personal demons, felt like the stuff of top notch main stream graphic novels. I was a little disappointed that the sub plot about the sins of his father got glossed over so quickly near the end but over all this one is a total crowd pleaser full of intense action and interesting characters.

2: The Incredible Hulk. Okay, why the fuck don’t you like this movie???!!!!

In the interest of full disclosure I should say that The Hulk is my favourite super hero. You can take that to mean that I’m being too generous if you like but, really, it should mean that I’m overly critical. But, as I sat in the theatre watching my childhood hero brought to life and engaging in the kind of battles that were usually reserved for more easily defined super heroes, I just found myself smiling to much to care about the fact that Rick Jones wasn’t in it or that Edward Norton obviously wasn’t all that invested (he didn’t do promotion for the film for personal reasons. Those reason’s being he is personally an absolute dick). And the Hulk’s first fight scene in the soda factory still makes me drop my yogurt just thinking about it. This one is a true dream come true for me.  Even more so than The Avengers. 

And Number one is, obviously…

Iron Man. Much as the sentimentalist in me wanted to put The Incredible Hulk first I knew that this was the best. Not just because it’s a great movie, but because it made it all seem possible.

The idea of starting off with Iron Man seemed so odd when I first heard it. Sure, he’s an important character in the Marvel universe but he’s by no means number one or even in the top five in most people’s minds (or at least he wasn’t until 2008 when this movie came out).  But from the moment this film started I knew I was in good hands. Not just with the out of the park performance by Downie Jr. but because this film just about perfects the concept of the usually dreaded “origin story”. With Captain America the whole film felt like a countdown to a big fight scene. But with Iron Man, his characters roots are just as much a part of the conflict as any one on one battle he might have. You see, one thing Iron Man figured out nicely is that there is so much conflict in your usual super heroes origin that the villain, while important, is only a part of his or her problem. And as good as Jeff Bridges is as Iron Monger he’s more or less just one more crappy thing that is happening to Tony Stark. Tony’s biggest battle in the entire film, oddly enough, is his first big challenge when a roadside bomb turns him from a sociopathic businessman into a sympathetic do-gooder.

But like I said, it wasn’t just the film on its own that made it something special, it’s what it meant. You see Iron Man made a very clear statement; There’s more coming. It created a world in which these super heroes could live. Not quite real, but definitely not as fantastic as some super hero movies have been in the past.  It was, at that time, the closest any movie had come to making a world just like in mainstream comics, where human beings acted like human beings but were cool with a guy putting on a mechanical suit and flying around at Mach 4. It was a world that we as an audience could be comfortable with and a world we’d have no problem visiting, no matter which hero happened to inhabit it. And while not every film in the Marvel Cannon may have hit the mark as well as this one did, all of them felt like they were within this universe. Id say about ninety-nine percent of the credit for this feat belongs to the great team that put together this modern-day popcorn masterpiece.

Okay, enough preamble. Please join me in two or three days when I finally put up my big assed full on Avengers review.

Spoiler alert, I liked it.

Cheers.

Sef. 

Eleven new reviews

Posted on by seeeveryfilm

Okay, playing catch up something fierce here. Let’s get started.

Streetdance 2 3D

The sequel to last years Streetdance 3D. This one’s about a dance Crew that has to enter a competition in order to…um…win it. And if they don’t win it they’ll…just be really talented dancers who didn’t win a contest.

The stakes have never been higher people!!!

I’m pretty forgiving of Dance Crew films, mostly because the physical talent of those involved is so awe-inspiring that I can look past the trite storylines and the dialogue that most actors wouldn’t recite on a drunken dare. But this one, god this one just isn’t even trying.

Yes, some of the dancing is cool. But after seeing four dance crew movies in the past two and a half years I can officially say that my expectations have been raised. I now need a plot that keeps my interest. Or, failing that, I need a plot. All this forgettable film has is a premise which is mentioned a few times in between dance numbers and eight hundred montages.

Chimpanzee

A fun little Disney documentary about a group of Chimpanzees living in the wild. It’s an educational, no pressure way to look at these beautiful relatives of ours. Little goofy, little light, but good enough to keep my attention for eighty minutes or so.

Also there’s a scene in it where the Chimpanzees hunt, kill, and then eat a Monkey. Seriously. I just wanted one of the Chimps to look up at another Chimp while they are eating the Monkey’s face and say something like “Dude, this is SO fucked up.”

Bully

Okay…

Emotion is a great starting point for a documentary. a documentary is not a straight news story put together on the pre tense of being unbiased.  It’s an editorial. It’s someone’s opinion.

But there needs be a sense of investigation. We need to learn things that we didn’t know. Some call these rare things FACTS. Those facts can support the filmmaker’s opinion and make us, the audience, see why she or he sees the subject in the way that they do.

Bully starts with emotion and it starts off strongly, showing us the stories of several children that have been bullied for various reasons, and how little help they are getting from their schools. The tales are gut wrenching, but they’re not particularly revealing. I know bullying is horrible. I know that a child taking their own life is a tragedy. but you’ve got ninety minutes. How about studying the root of the problem a bit? How about, instead of scene after scene of kids suffering we take some time to examine the subject from several angles.

Look, I’m not saying I wasn’t invested in these kid’s stories. I just felt like something was being held back from me. Bully successfully tells us what we already knew. That Bullying sucks. It’s complete lack of any information besides this made this much talked about documentary a surprise disappointment.

Hard Core Logo 2

Oh fuck off. Really????

Yeah, Bruce McDonald has made a sequel to Hard Core Logo. For the uninitiated. The original Logo, a faux documentary about a punk band of the same name, is a Canadian classic for several reasons. Chief among them being the fact that it’s damned near perfect. It’s also fully contained. Anyone that’s seen it knows that there is no where for the story to go once it’s done. It didn’t just have an ending, it had an ENDING.

And now they’ve made another one.

I went in skeptical, but still with low enough expectations that I might get something out of it. After all, they just made a sequel to another Canadian road movie classic Goin’ down the Road and it actually wasn’t all that bad, in a “gang’s all here, and they’re still pretty cool” kind of way. I figured if I looked at it as a reunion show then maybe I’d get at least something out of the evening.

Instead, I got a complete art wank that manages to stay far enough away from the original to seem pointless while referencing it enough to taint it forever. This movie is a complete waste of space, from its convoluted plot, to its overbearing narration (seriously, there is more narration in this film than in any film I’ve ever seen. At times it felt like watching an essay) to its horribly disastrous  conclusion. I seriously almost wondered if Bruce was doing it to us on purpose. Torturing us for asking him to make one of the most unnecessary sequels in history. Whatever his motivation was, the result is to tarnish the legacy not just of Hard Core Logo but of a once great director, and of his original trilogy or road movies (Roadkill, Highway 61 and, of course, Logo) which at the time were thought to be the first sign of a Canadian film industry ready to take on the world.

Those were the days, huh?

The Lucky One

This sucks too. Also Nicholas Sparks is the Devil’s less talented brother in law.

The Hunter

There is so much that works in this cerebral action film that I feel bad pointing out its flaws. But when it’s flaws centre around the last three to five scenes, it becomes a tough subject to avoid.

What makes this movie so interesting, to start at least, is that it takes on what could be a blockbuster plot (professional Hunter with undisclosed mysterious past must travel into Tasmania to hunt an animal believed to be extinct, ends up getting caught up in a web of intrigue) and manages to give it an independent movie’s sensibility. That’s not to say that it’s overly artsy so much as that it avoids blockbuster conventions. The love interest is never quite a love interest. The action is fairly low-key. And it’s starring Willem Defoe, who’s talented but not exactly a typical leading man.

Then, for the last fifteen minutes the film makes the unfortunate choice to go Hollywood.  The spoiler hater in me doesn’t want to give too much away but suffice it to say that some crappy CG and a totally unnecessary reunion moment tarnish this otherwise well executed thriller.

Think Like a Man

Not as crappy as you’d think. Really. I mean it’s not great but…you know. It’s got Kevin Hart and he’s cool. See it if you want. No pressure.

The Cabin in the Woods

And here we have another of my “most anticipated of the year” films and god dammit if it isn’t the best one yet. This is why I love anything Joss Whedon touches. I can’t think of a single filmmaker who can satirize what he loves while simultaneously showing you why it is he loves it so much, straddling that line between send up and serious without ever committing to one too much to be pinned down. But this film (thanks in no small part to his creative partner Drew Goddard who, it should be said, is the director) outdoes any satire in the Whedonverse with it’s mix of classic eighties horror movies like The Evil Dead and Friday the 13th that manages to incorporate Science Fiction, slapstick comedy, work place dynamics and corporate satire. This isn’t just a post modern wink wink horror film. It’s a truly beautiful cluster fuck that has to be seen to be appreciated.

There’s no way to discuss this films premise without spoiling the many surprises it has in store so let me just say that there is no doubt in my mind that this film is going to be on my top ten list for the year. If it’s not, then this year is going to kick even more ass than it already looks like it has the potential too.

Safe

I really want to like Jason Statham. He’s a good actor, a dominating physical presence, and he was cool in The Transporter and in The Expendables. But every non transportexpendables movie he’s made has just felt so uninspiring. Like they were shot with scripts that were one rewrite away from being good (or conversely, ten re writes past when they used to be good). Safe is no exception. It’s frame-work is interesting (former cop, near suicide, ends up saving a little girl who just happens to be a math wiz that has memorized a code wanted by every criminal in New York) but the execution is painful, on the nose, and so over the top it becomes embarrassingly bad. And unlike The Cabin in the Woods, its complete lack of knowledge of how over the top it is makes it impossible to even get a laugh out of the thing. There are some cool fight scenes but other than that this one’s just a whole lot o’ nothin.

And finally…

The Pirates: Band of Misfits 

I heart this movie!!

Aardman Animation, the artists behind Wallace and Grommit and Chicken Run are back with this light-hearted, clever, and damned funny claymation film that had more substance than the last five CG movies I’ve seen.

The premise is simple. it’s England, it’s the late nineteenth century, and the Monarch Queen Victoria really, really hates Pirates. It’s probably not the best time to hold a “best Pirate of the year” contest but that doesn’t stop The Pirate Captain (his actual name) from entering yet again. And his crew is as excited as ever, despite the fact that he’s lost over twenty years in a row.

I don’t think a single frame of this movie passes without some sort of reminder of the wit of the films creators, whether it be a one liner from the Captain or the helpless look in the face of an over dressed fish,  this sucker is just pure fun.

If there’s any fault in this film it’s that it doesn’t quite have the same emotional resonance as some of Aardman’s other work. But, given the massive smile it put on my face, I can let that pass. This one is a definite “fun for the whole family” film and if you’re looking to keep your wee ones in one place for an hour and a half, and have some fun yourself, this one is definitely for you.

Okay, that leaves me mostly caught up. Tune in in the next few days for reviews of The Five Year Engagement, Damsels in Distress, and The Raven.  

Cheers.

Sef.