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End of Days – Armageddon: The Day After 2012

/ / Movie Reviews
  • Title: 2012
  • IMDb: link

I didn’t expect much from director Roland Emmerich’s latest disaster flick other than a little dumb fun. 2012 couldn’t even deliver that.

What follows is a short, and hopefully concise, review for a long, and depressingly boring, film (158-minute running time) that is almost as much fun as spending three hours alone in a doctor’s waiting room.

Maybe it was asking too much of Emmerich to give us another big disaster flick (after all, it’s not like 10,000 B.C. did anyone any favors). The man who gave us Independence Day, The Day After Tomorrow, and that woeful Godzilla remake, it seems, has nothing new to share. Instead he brings back the same tired storylines, with new actors and larger special effects, in hopes that this alone will be enough to satisfy.

It’s not.

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Lucky Number “9”

/ / Movie Reviews
  • Title: 9
  • IMDb: link

9-posterAdapted by creator Shane Acker from the short film of the same name, and produced by Tim Burton (who knows a thing or too about creepy and unconventional animated films), comes 9.

CGI animation in the style of stop-motion, Acker’s film is a breath of fresh air in both style and story. If you enjoyed Coraline earlier this year then this one’s for you. Here’s a good story beautifully rendered and not afraid to inspire both fear and awe in younger viewers.

Rather than take time to explain the world and its rules (i.e. talk down to its audience), as would happen in well over 90% of animated films (and close to 100% of kid’s films), we’re thrown right into the middle of the action.

The story begins with birth into a world of death. This is a post-apocalyptic world populated only by small puppet figures and dangerous mechanical beasts. We discover the world through the eyes of the newly created 9 (Elijah Wood).

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Lucky Number “9” Read More »

G.I. JOE: Rise of CRAP

/ / Movie Reviews
  • Title: G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra
  • IMDb: link

gi-joe-rise-of-cobra-posterLet’s get this straight right from the get-go: I had no real expectations with this film except wanting to leave without getting too bored or having the film make my eyes bleed. One out of two isn’t bad. Even with the bar set so low G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra finds a way to slither underneath like champion limbo dancer Hermes Conrad.

Based on a toy line and 80’s television show Rise of Cobra plays like one long Michael Bay action reel (think The Rock, if it were directed by Zack Snyder). It’s got the brains of the old cartoon down cold (ridiculous premise, tons of vehicles and ammunition) but hardly any of its style.

It doesn’t help the Cobra never really exists in this film. Instead we’re given a well-funded unnamed group of terrorists. It is also problematic that the baddie chosen to put center stage isn’t Cobra Commander (almost completely absent from the film), or even the unmasked Destro (Christopher Ecclestion), but the Baroness (Sienna Miller, because I guess Kate Beckinsale was too expensive).

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The Transformers have Fallen and they can’t get up

/ / Movie Reviews
  • Title: Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen
  • IMDB: link

transformers-revenge-of-the-fallen-posterI hated Michael Bay’s first Transformers, and this second installment is more of the same only longer, louder, sleazier, and (if possible) dumber.

Part Deux is filled with lazy humor, cheap gags (such as multiple shots of humping dogs and robots), a confusing and ridiculous plot (which is so inane characters twice have to stop and explain it not only to us but each other), big, though not too impressive, special effects, and little else. It’s obvious that Bay and screenwriters Ehren Kruger, Roberto Orci, and Alex Kurtzman love robots (wait, it took three of you to write this movie?). What isn’t obvious is if they give two shits about Transformers, or their fans.

Once again we’re given a plot which has more to do with Sam (Shia LaBeouf) learning a life-lesson and Megan Fox looking hot than Autobots or Decepticons. In fact the Decepticons aren’t even the big baddie here, it’s the Fallen. What is the Fallen? Well, you see, he’s one of a race of seven Primes, ancient Transformer brothers… (the sound you just heard was me dying a little inside).

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The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3

/ / Movie Reviews
  • Title: The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3
  • IMDB: link

taking-of-pelham-123-posterAs a director Tony Scott is a bit hit (Domino, Spy Game) and miss (Deja Vu, Enemy of the State) for my tastes. His latest, The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3, is not the first movie to be adapted from the novel by Morton Freedgood, but does showcase Scott’s trademark style.

I had planned to sit down and watch the original before hitting the screening for the new remake, but couldn’t quite find the time. So I can’t tell you how the film measures up to 1974 film with Walter Matthau. What I can tell you is the film delivers your basic “Die Hard in a subway” scenario, with smart crooks, mostly dumb cops, and a twist or two as well.

Our protagonist this time isn’t a hero. He isn’t John McClane in the wrong place at the wrong time. Denzel Washington stars as Walter Garber, a lifer in the subway bureaucracy who has been demoted pending the outcome of an investigation into his ethics. That puts the unlucky Walter at the dispatch desk when the call comes in that terrorists have taken control of a subway car with 19 hostages and are demanding $10,000,000 which must be delivered in one hour.

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The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3 Read More »