X-MEN: FIRST CLASS (2011) (a review)

X-MEN FIRST CLASS (2011) (a review)

This is the reboot of the X-Men franchise after two successful X-Men films by Bryan Singer, a less successful movie by Brett Ratner, and a semi-successful Wolverine movie. It features a young group of X-Men and an all new cast, but with cameos by the original Wolverine and Mystique. It stars James McAvoy, Michael Fastbender, January Jones, Kevin Bacon, Jennifer Lawrence and a bunch of others. Directed by Matthew Vaughn (who was going to direct X3 but left the project).

The story: A young Erik Lensherr (who will become Magneto) sees his mother is killed in a concentration camp as the camp leader, Sebastian Shaw tries to get him to exhibit his powers. Meanwhile, a young Charles Xavier and a young girl he takes in named Raven (later to become Mystique) are studying mutations. Xavier is brought into a government project about mutants and Erik comes to join him as they gather a team of mutants. Shaw is trying to escalate the tension between USA and USSR to invoke a new world war from which mutants will rise as the dominant species. Xavier and Erik and their young mutants go to stop them and prevent the war, even as humanity is turning on mutants and even as Xavier and Erik begin to turn on each other.

Was it good?

Kind of? I mean, in some ways it was campy fun, it some ways it was pretty cool, and in some ways it felt pretty dumb. The problem these origin stories have is that we know how they will all end up, so unless you have something really cool in there a lot of it feel kind of hokey -- like when Xavier gets shot and then can't feel his legs. It's a tough line to walk -- part of the fun is seeing how people get to where we know they will be, but since we already know it the twists and turns can feel like obligation than storytelling.

I also didn't really understand the whole evil mutant plot. I mean, a nuclear war? How is that good for mutants? A world without tv and pro sports -- that's what they want? None of it really made sense to me.

There was a lot of good stuff. One nice things about the X-Men movies is that it makes it easy to talk about being an outsider and wanting acceptance and what that means. It makes them instantly work on levels that many, many action/blockbuster type movie don't. Here, it was a lot of stuff we have already heard before, some of which worked and some didn't. The problem is that the movie just didn't feel well constructed around it's theme. And for a movie that was supposed to launch a new franchise it was weird that they essentially solved all the "how they got there" questions in the first movie.

Still, there was a lot to enjoy. It isn't the best X-Men movie, but it's worth a watch.

*** RECOMMEND ***

IRON INVADER (aka SPACE TRANSFORMERS) (a review)

IRON INVADER (aka SPACE TRANSFORMERS) (2011) (a review)

This is basically low budget rip-off of Transformers. Giant mechanical monster...people running around...B-actors...bad script with lame dialog... I'll give the movie one thing -- it makes you appreciate Michael Bay, that's for sure!

The story: a metorite crashes with a bacteria that animates a metal statue and raves the iron in human blood. This guy who is deep in debt while he fixes up an inn and his brother and the girl he loved as a teen and the shariff and some other people try to figure out how to stop it.

Was it good?

No. It wasn't the worst movie ever, but it's such a lame Transformers-lite that it's hard to enjoy any of it. The characters a lame -- you have two brothers fixing up an inn and deep in debt...which has nothing to do with anything. Then you have the guy in love with the girl who comes back into town after getting a divorce and their story which is boring with so much bad dialog that it is more painful for the audience than it is for the woman's daughter who has to listen to the two of them. Now of course no one is renting the movie for that, but it takes up a good chunk of the film (probably because filming people is a lot cheaper than the special effects to animate the iron golumn) and it's all basically worthless. Might as well just fast forward through all of it.

The one thing they add that is unique is that the space-iron-thng kills by infecting people's blood, except I'm not sure how that makes sense. It seems to want iron and is attracted to the iron in people's blood, but it doesn't eat the iron or use it...it just goes after the people and then infects them and they die.

Huh?

Anyway, ignoring that there are some decent shots of the iron golumn, but the action-y scenes just don't have anything special about them -- no sense of humor, no real tension -- and because none of the character clicked at all.

There are two basic ways to construct screenplays (and by no means do all movies have to conform to this, but it's what most will do). Either (A) you have a character whose inner goal is parallel to his outer goal (such as in DIE HARD where McClane wants to save his marriage, but then he has to save his wife from the terrorists) or they are in opposition to each other (as in MINORITY REPORT where the main guy wants the future cops program to work, but then he is accused of a crime and now he will have to prove it doesn't work to prove his innocence). This movie doesn't have anything like that. No real goals, no real character work...just random people with a lame and very forced love story.

They would have been better off cutting all of it and just filling in that time with something cool. Like jokes that didn't make it into the Hangover.

Still...for younger kids on a Saturday afternoon the movie is probably fine. It'll be slow, but harmless and they might like the iron golumn aspect. For adults it doesn't nearly have any of the spark or creativity it takes to make a low budget rip-off really work. (A sense of humor would have especially been a good idea.)

*** AVOID ***

CEDAR RAPIDS (2011) (a review)

CEDAR RAPIDS (2011) (a review)

An indy, quirky comedy starring Ed Helms (The Office, the Hangover 1 & 2), John C Reilly (Cyrus, Step Brothers, Walk Hard: the Dewey Cox Story), Anne Heche and Sigourney Weaver.

The story: an idealist insurance salesman (Helms) is sent to an insurance conference when the other lead salesman dies in an auto-erotic asphyxiation accident. He is told he must win the prestigious "Two Diamond" award. However, his idealism will be challenged by the other agents partying ways, various woman, and ultimately the corruption of the award and his business itself.

Was it good?

No. It has the problem that a lot of these little quicky indy films have -- they are so target specific often that if you aren't in just the sweet spot for who the target audience is then it will fall completely flat. And I am not in the target audience for this film. I just didn't care about any of it. I just didn't care about any of it. I didn't think it was funny. And while I like Helms at times, here it felt like he was doing the same awkward guy schtick I've seen in the past, but more awkward and it just wasn't working.

I don't want to make it sound like it was the actors fault -- the script just didn't push Helms in any interesting directions. For instance, John C Reilly plays a kind of party animal, but I thought the movie would have been much more interesting if Reilly had been the guy who was really going after the award and Helms was the party animal. That at least would have switched things up and been a little more fun.

I simply didn't care about the award, I didn't see why it mattered so much (although we find out by the end), and I didn't get the big idealism about insurance, which is what the main character's focus is. Maybe it's because I'm from Florida where insurers drop people's home policies because of the threat of hurricanes, or because I know something about health insurance, but that kind of naivite and idealism just rang false. And without buying into that, the movie just isn't going to work.

And for me the comedy bits just didn't connect. I didn't laugh. A lot of it seemed predictable and never really hit any interesting parts.

I like the actors in the movie, and I think they did a good job portraying their characters, and there wasn't anything specific about the directing. It all came down to the script for me, which I just didn't connect to at all.

*** AVOID ***

UNKNOWN (2011) (a review)

UNKNOWN (2011) (a review)

This is the action/thriller starring Liam Neeson he made as a follow-up to his hit film TAKEN. Also stars Diane Kruger and January Jones.

The story: Dr Martin Harris arrives in Germany for a conference. He leaves his briefcase at the airport and has to go back for it, but his car gets into an accident and he goes into a coma for four days. When he awakens and tries to find his wife, she denies knowing him and is with another man who claims that HE is Dr Martin Harris. Now he has to unravel the mystery to get his life back even as mysterious men begin to follow him.

Was it good?

It was okay. Not bad, but completely forgettable. The movie is light a brainless version of THE NET (with Sandra Bullock) or FLIGHT PLAN (with Jodie Foster). Both of those movies packed a much stronger punch because they really hammered where it hurts -- the feeling of losing something precious to you. In THE NET it was her life and her identity. She was someone who did everything on computer/over the internet and so had very few physical contacts with people and then suddenly she is on the outside of her own life. In FLIGHT PLAN it was a woman who had lost her husband and now was missing her daughter and no one believes her. This movie hits some of the same chords, but they never seem to resonate as hard. When his wife says she doesn't recognize him, they shuttle him off and the two are seperated quickly. There just wasn't much emotion there.

The other problem the movie has is the antagonist. In NET and FLIGHT PLAN, the antagonists seemed much more active, much more aggressive. In THE NET, they steal her identity to make her come to them after she received a disk, so we know what they are after at least. In FLIGHT PLAN, they try very hard to convince her she is crazy, but then use her daughter as bait because they need something from her. In UNKNOWN, they don't need him and they don't want him. Even when they are coming after him it feels more like an after thought. So while there is some tension, it just isn't that strong because their pursuit of him seems more like an after thought instead of him being an important part of their plan.

Still, it has a lot of fun stuff. It's great seeing Neeson in stuff like this (which I liked a lot more than AFTERLIFE or CHLOE). So if you are up for brain dead actiony fun, this is okay (but forgetable).

*** RENTAL ***

HANNA (2011) (a review)

HANNA (2011) (a review)

Hey, look, it's a teen girl assassin movie! Maybe I'm just sensitive about the subject because I have an idea for one that I haven't gotten a chance to write yet, but with Hanna and Hit-Girl from the movie KICK ASS it seems to be the current trend. Directed by acclaimed director Joe Wright (Pride and Prejudice, Atonement) with a script that landed on the Black List (a list of the best unproduced screenplays in America) not once but twice! Also stars Eric Bana and Cate Blanchet.

The story: Hanna is a teen girl who has been raised in complete isolation by her father who trains her to be a perfect fighter. However, she becomes bored of the isolation and wants to leave. To do that however will set the CIA operative who killed her mother and wants Hanna on her trail. Hanna does it anyway which sets a cat-and-mouse game to the powerful conclusion.

Was it good?

Kind of. I mean, it wasn't horrible and it had a lot of fun in it, but like with KICK ASS, it's one of those movies that you can't think about because none of it makes sense. At all. Really...at all.

And part of the diff with Hanna is that it seems to want to be about something, this idea of kids having to grow up and enter the world, but that metaphore (which I like) just doesn't work in the movie. Part of this is the central problem with the script -- things in a small scale might make sense, but then they don't. For instance, the female agent that wants to kill/capture them. Um, why? I get that she might want to finish the job when she killed the mom, but there really isn't anything behind it. If Hanna's desire to go into the world is a metaphore for kids wanting to grow up, then she is a metaphore for people that want to kill them? Or stop them from growing up...except that doesn't seem to be what she wants because she never mentions anything. She doesn't seem to want a relationship with the child or anything, it's just kill her.

Also, for a girl that wants to leave the weird life of isolation, the only other people she stumbles on are the strange kind of hippy people that she befriends for a short time. Again, it's not like she gets a shot at normal. So is it just that she wants adventure? Because that isn't the feel and the fact that *** SPOILER *** her father dies *** ----------- doesn't really make it seem worth it. In the end, she might have her freedom (unless the agency sends someone else after her now that she has killed a dozen operatives), but she is lost in a world totally strange to her, with no family, no friends...how the hell is that a good thing? What has she really won?

It reminded me of the end of FROM DUSK TIL DAWN when Clooney leaves the girl stranded there by the bar and she just has nothing. Um...yay?

That said, there is a lot of fun stuff in the movie, and as a mindless action movie it does a good job. But this is a movie that screams that it wants to be something more, and the something more just doesn't work.

Still, there's enough good stuff that if you are in the mood with an action movie with a European sensibilty (i.e. slower pacing, weird characters, some plotless mood segments) then it's a good one to check out.

**** RENTAL ****

STAKE LAND (2011) (a review)

STAKE LAND (2011) (a review)

This movie might sound like a rip off of ZOMBIELAND, but that movie had humor. This is more like THE ROAD with vampires. Stars Conner Paolo (Gossip Girl), Danielle Harris, Kelly McGillis, Nick Damici and Michael Cerveris.

The story: America is over. A plague of vampirism has caused the collapse of the nation. Now a man who hunters vampires befriends an orphaned boy and teaches him to fend off the vampires. They meet various people -- some good, some bad -- while killing vamps and trying to find a plae they can live (Canada).

Was it good?

Kind of. There's some nice stuff in here and some good moments, but it is all so dreary and monotone. For minimalist stories like this to work they need to be full of theme. I mean absolutely dripping with it. LOST IN TRANSLATION is the best example of this -- a movie that just got into you how lost and lonely those two people were and how important that connection they made was. The book THE ROAD worked because it focused on that father/son relationship, which was in the movie, but the nuance didn't come through.

Here, I just didn't feel it. I honestly don't know what the theme is. Maybe it's about connection or hope or something, but I just didn't feel it. Eventually, even though there were a lot of good moments, the quiets and the monotones just grew tiresome.

I'm sure the movie will have fans -- and it does enough good things that I think it deserves to have fans -- but there weren't enough to make a fan out of me.

*** AVOID ***

KNOWING (a review)

KNOWING (2009) (a review)

An action sci-fi movie starring Nicholas Cage.

The story: Jonathan Koestler (Nick Cage) is a single father. When his son's school opens a time capsule, his son gets a piece of paper with weird numbers on it. His father realizes it is a code and that the numbers refer to disasters that happened AFTER the time capsule was buried. There are also three numbers unaccounted for -- three disasters yet to come. He tries to warn them, but only becomes a suspect himself. There are other strange people gathering children as well. And John needs to reconcile with his father. The disasters get worse as John realizes the final one will mean the end of the world...

Was it good?

Kind of. A lot of the movie worked. And I liked Nick Cage in this role. He makes a lot of bad films, but in the right role he can still be a superb actor. However, the movie does have the problems. First is that it's a downer. I mean, yeah, it's an end of the world movie but 2012 (for all it's hokum) at least got right that the movie should end with hope. This movie felt like a downer.

Also, the people kidnapping children and stuff...I mean it just felt so off. It was like a different movie entirely. This movie kept feeling like it was getting pulled in different directions -- it's about stopping the disasters, it's about his father (which was okay), then it's about this girl he meets, then it's about these kidnapping... It meant that what started out as a pretty cool first half just unraveled into a lot of unfocused hokum in the second half. My guess (and it's purely a guess) is that the writer didn't know what to do once he realized he had set out an end of the world scenario where it would be impossible to save people. Now what do you do? Well you intro new elements and try to throw in some weirdness. In all fairness, they did manage to avoid that "Hollywood" cliche ending, but unfortunately they didn't replace it with a better ending.

The funny thing is that it is all made up, so if you've come up with a scenario that is giving you problems...just change the scenario! It's fiction -- you can change whatever you want! If they had kept this movie on concept -- a message in a time capsule that fortells three disasters and a man's attempt to stop them -- it could have been pretty cool. Once they abandon that (basically once he realizes that it is impossible to do anything) is when most of the unraveling happens.

It's a shame because the first half I liked a lot. Enough to...

*** RECOMMEND FOR RENTAL ***