Star Trek (2009)

Star Trek (2009)

Let me start out this review by saying truthfully that I have been an unrepentant Star Trek fan since 1986. I watched the original series in syndication as I entered my teens. I really enjoyed ‘Wrath of Khan’ and ‘Voyage Home’, but I really can’t say I was anything more than a casual fan. Then, the new series “Star Trek: The Next Generation” was announced in 1986, the first commercial aired with (then) cutting-edge computer graphics borrowed from Star Trek movies, notably II and IV, and I was hooked. I always made time to watch ‘Next Generation’, then ‘DS9’ (as we true fans call it) to a slightly lesser extent. Then ‘Voyager’ came out and I was disappointed.

Four semi-successful series’ and six movies which ride the spectrum from ‘quite good’, to ‘meh’ later, it was largely believed that Star Trek was dead, or at least relegated to novels and other non-canon related materials, which for the most part I couldn’t be bothered with. After 28 seasons of entertaining television and ten movies perhaps there are no more quality stories to tell.

But, as of this date I’m proud and a little annoyed to report that it’s suddenly popular to be a Star Trek fan. The new movie did exactly what it promised. It re-booted and revived the Star Trek franchise.

This movie did for me what Watchmen failed to provide: an emotional connection to the characters. I grew up watching Kirk, Spock, and (and the sometimes overlooked) McCoy. Yes, I was quite high on Watchmen, but then it is the most celebrated graphic novel of all time, but this is Star Trek.

This movie is awesome. It has equal doses of action, humor, nostalgia, and a clear amount of love for the product. This movie came out of a conversation when J.J. Abrams was asked how he would bring Star Trek back by Paramount, he brought in Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman who have a strong working relationship with Abrams and are both self-professed Trekkies. After seeing how the script was working out, Abrams felt he had to direct this piece, after having seen the movie I can understand why.

Everyone here brought their A game. Chris Pine shows us a young and cocky Kirk whos disarms us along with apparently most of the ladies with his charm. Zachary Quinto shows us an emotionally torn Spock that was only hinted at in the original series. Karl Urban brings us a McCoy who is a little less cantankerous, but maybe a little more argumentative, yet likable. Zoe Saldana shows us an Uhura who not only earns her way onto the Bridge of the Enterprise possibly moreso than anyone else, and is able to reach the depths of the Vulcan soul. John Cho shows us finally what a bad-ass Sulu is with a sword. Simon Pegg gives us a large dose of the comedy with his Scotty and reminded me why he was personally my favorite character for years. Anton Yelchin reminds us how young Chekov really was and how bad the accent still is.

The original series had a habit of showing us bad Starfleet Captains in order to show how awesome Captain Kirk was, that’s gone. Captain Robau (played by Faran Tahir) of the USS Kelvin is almost Picard-like.  George Kirk (Chris Hemsworth) manages to save the crew of the Kelvin despite the odds being firmly against him and evokes Captain Kirk while doing it. Captain Christopher Pike (Bruce Greenwood) is a firm role-model for Kirk in the place of his father.

Star Trek has everything. Anyone who doesn’t like it or still swears that Star Wars is better is going to miss everything awesome and die alone in a ditch covered in petrol on fire.

See it!

May 14, 2009
Categories: Uncategorized . . Author: filmsatyr . Comments: Leave a Comment

Watchmen (2009)

 

“Who watches the Watchmen?”

When news leaked that Rorschach appeared (for one single frame) in the trailer for ‘300’ I was giddy with anticipation. That was back in 2006. I went out (like most other comic book fanboys) and found a copy of the graphic novel so I could re-familiarize myself with the story and characters, and no review of the movie Watchmen would be complete without first talking about the novel so…

I was first struck by the fact that the story itself has held up after twenty years. Sure, it’s clearly an alternate earth story, with Nixon’s third term, and winning the war in Vietnam because of a giant walking, near-naked, blue nuclear arsenal. But at its core the story of Watchmen was created by Alan Moore to showcase the strengths of comics versus other mediums, while at the same time asking the question: What would real people be like if they decided to become ‘Superheroes.’ Most people who ask themselves what they would do with Superman’s powers never really consider what the consequences for their actions would be. Here, we see what some of the repercussions might be.

The story was at the time probably too cerebral for the average comic reader, but it awakened other writers and editors to really up their game and it has since become the most celebrated (and imitated) graphic novel of all time…

Another reviewer said that most hardcore comic fans will find a moment in any comic-film adaptation where you get a ‘giddy feeling in the pit of their stomach manifesting as a scene they had been visualizing for years is played out on the screen, larger than life that literally makes the eyes water.’ I have to agree and for in Watchmen it was the moment that Rorschach opened Edward Blake’s wardrobe to find the secret stash of his costume, weapons, and memorabilia; discovering that Blake was the Comedian. Seeing the costume and weapons on display just as they were in the comic panel just as I imagined it would be. The scene was done slightly different in the comic vs. the movie, but the payoff is still the same. And that obvious love of the original work by the director shows in scene after scene. Shot for shot, panel to panel, the movie is clearly a shrine to Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons’ work.

Zack Snyder attempted what Alan Moore said was impossible and passed with flying colors. He directed the soon-to-be blockbuster that Moore himself declared was unmakable and that many more declared would be unwatchable.

Dave Gibbons often gets forgotten in all this, but he brought those characters to life at least as much as Moore did on the page, and without his help, the movie might not have been as true to the original work.

Patrick Wilson and Jackie Earl Haley were perfect casting choices for Dan Dreiberg (Nite Owl II) and Walter Kovachs (Rorschach) respectively. Wilson was Dan as far as I was concerned, his voice, his inflections… pretty much exactly as I heard him as I read the comic. Haley even moreso.

Billy Crudup is the voice of Jon Osterman (Dr. Manhattan), don’t get me wrong. His calm almost too quiet voice was the perfect contrast to this being of pure power that stood before all the others. My only complant was the nudity (say it with me: Big Blue Penis). I found it distracting from the scenes and the dialogue. Although the scene in which he demonstrates his power by exploding a tank and then crushing it is one of those moments in the film for me. And then theres the line: “I never said, “The superman exists, and he’s American.” What I said was,”God exists, and he’s American.”  Yes, the concept scares me.

Malin Ackerman is one of the few rough parts, her acting is nothing special, though I imagine performance was more physically demanding than say Crudup’s. She physically looks enough like Laurie Juspeczyk (Silk Spectre II) and sounds basically like how I heard her in the comic, but her wooden acting severely detracts from her performance.

Matthew Goode is roughly in the same boat as Malin Ackerman for me. He looked the part but in his attempt to play the role, he just seemed to go through the motions and phone it in. I never found him particularlly believable.

The movie benefitted by having a large amount of heretofore unknowns in the acting world. The biggest name on the marquee was Billy Crudup, and the only reason I knew his name was “Princess Mononoke”, after that it was Matt Frewer and I hadn’t really heard his name since he was “Max Headroom” and shilling for Coca-Cola.

All in all, it was good. I have no regrets about going to the midnight showing and then again the following Saturday. But, I think perhaps the ending was a little too foreshadowed. I give Watchmen 4 stars out of 5.

 

March 9, 2009
Categories: Action/Adventure, Drama, In Theaters, Science Fiction . . Author: filmsatyr . Comments: Leave a Comment

Hulk vs (2009)

hulk

 

Hulk smash!

 

I just finished watching what has to be the greatest Hulk double feature ever, “Hulk vs. Thor” and “Hulk vs. Wolverine” on the Marvel DVD Hulk vs. I’ve been waiting for this DVD for some time. I just happened on it while walking the new releases. I got it and ran home to watch it right away.

 

See, I really like the Hulk. The Hulk is the greatest antagonist in the Marvel Universe. There are other great antagonists, a lot of others, but there is only one that you can honestly feel bad for. The Hulk is Bruce Banner’s unleashed and rampaging alter ego. Banner doesn’t want to hurt anyone and for the most part neither does the Hulk. The Hulk just wants to be left alone. The Hulk is like a rattlesnake. If you leave it alone, you’re fine. However, if you poke it, you will likely be bitten.

 

I really dislike the Hulk as a main character. I find that he and Bruce Banner are uninteresting as a lead in a comic or a movie. The Hulk really comes into his own as the problem to be solved by other heroes and heroines. He is the unstoppable monster that brings out the best and the worst in others. The Hulk is infinitely interesting as the antagonist in a story. 

 

“Hulk vs. Wolverine”

 

hulk-wolverine

 

I don’t have much to say about “Hulk vs. Wolverine.” I really dislike the character of Wolverine for many of the same reasons that I dislike the Hulk as a lead character. Oh, and also, Wolverine is way over played like a bad pop song on a top 40 radio station – you love it the first 100 times, but then…

 

This feature felt like yet another excuse to play out the Wolverine Origin story. It features the Canadian government lab where Logan was turned into Weapon X. The lab has sent some thugs, the highlight being Deadpool, to fetch the Hulk so the Hulk can be turned into a weapon for the Canadian government.

 

The Hulk does his thing. Soon, Section H sends in Wolverine to clean up. There are some good moments of dialogue from Wolverine as he takes a beating.

 

What has me kind of surprised is that at one point the Hulk is down and suffering from Wolverine’s dance of a thousand swords. It looks as if Wolverine is going to win. Luckily, Deadpool uses tranquilizers on both the Hulk and Wolverine.

 

I’m going to end there. You are really going to want to see what happens next. However, this vs. is not as interesting “Hulk vs. Thor.” 

 

“Hulk vs. Thor”

 

hulk-thor

 

This is what I’m talking about: the Hulk in Asgard. How did he get there? Well, Loki is up to his tricks and is looking to kill his half-brother Thor. Loki has stolen Bruce Banner into Asgard.

 

Once a year, Odin must sleep. While Odin sleeps, Loki commands the evil and darkness to rise up to defeat Thor and his army However, nothing that Loki can summon stands a chance against the mighty Thor. Well, except the Hulk.

 

Loki has seen the Hulk and Thor do battle before and knows of the power trapped inside the Hulk by Banner. So, with a witch’s help, Loki separates the Hulk from Banner. Banner is now free of the Hulk and the Hulk is free of Banner.

 

The Hulk is now the perfect raging minion of Chaos and Loki points the Hulk in Thor’s direction. Nothing can stop the Hulk separated from Banner. The Hulk threatens the nine worlds of Asgard as he kills every thing in his path. The shining beacon of the sleeping Odin draws the Hulk like a moth to a flame. The Hulk must extinguish Odin’s light.

 

This is such an excellent feature that I might just need to own it. I loved watching the sanctimonious Thor pummeled and almost killed. Thor almost died.

 

You got to see it for yourself.  

March 7, 2009
Categories: Action/Adventure, On DVD, animation . Tags: , , . Author: The Soulless Machine . Comments: Leave a Comment

Confessions of a Shopaholic (2009)

confessions-of-a-shopaholic

 

I have a confession to make. I like to shop and I’m a man. I like to go to the Mall of America and walk up and down the each floor of the mall. Each window that I walk by has something new and shinny just for me, watches, ties, pants, coats, shirts, you name it; I want to buy it.

 

But I don’t. I can’t buy everything that catches my eye as I dance through Marshals, Old Navy, Nordstrom’s Rack, Lids, Fossil, F.Y.E, and Barns and Nobles. My compulsion to shop is strong. However, I have the strength to stop and think about each of these items and determine if I really need it, will it break the bank.

 

However, I have a weakness. I am obsessed with bags, man purses, if you will. I love Chrome, Timbuk2, Crumpler, Mountainsmith, PAC, and many more. I spend hours looking at ebags.com. Messenger Bags are my weakness.

 

Chrome just sent me an email this week alerting me to free shipping on anything over $50.00. So, I went and looked at their back door sale and saw that I could get 50% off a Backbone Camo/Black Stripe, combine that with the free shipping and I would save a bundle. However, I’m ill. Shopping for bags when I have a closet full of them is a sickness that I must over come. I have not bought anything. The free shipping ends Saturday at 4pm. I will think about this sale every waking moment until it is over.

 

I must be strong. I must not buy.

 

The movie Confessions of a Shopaholic is about this problem of mine. It stars the beautiful Isla Fisher as Rebecca Bloomwood, a woman who is addicted to shopping. Her addiction is stronger than mine, manikins talk to her, lure into the stores to partake in a Bacchian orgy of spending.

 

The best part of this film has to be the contrast of high New York fashion to Graham Bloomwood (played by John Goodman) and Jane Bloomwood (played by Joan Cusack). Mr. Bloomwood, towards the end of the movie tells Rebecca that the only things that define him are those he loves. He is telling her that things, like messenger bags, can’t define a person.

 

So, why do I still search? Why do I want? How do I stop?

 

The movie is good. Go see it.    

February 27, 2009
Categories: Comedy, In Theaters, Romance . Tags: , , . Author: The Soulless Machine . Comments: Leave a Comment

The Gene Generation (2007)

gene-generation

 

I don’t think that The Gene Generation was ever in the theaters because if it was, I would most likely have made the mistake of seeing it on the big screen. Still, I found the movie entertaining enough to finish it while lesson planning.

 

The Gene Generation stars Ling Bai as Michelle, who is an assassin that is being paid to eliminate DNA Hackers. I thought that the movie might have more potential than just the hope of sex scene, but I was more wrong than I was right. There is a sex scene. The sex scene is unfortunately coupled with gang violence, the brutal berating of Michelle stupid brother.

 

The budget for this film is transparent. The visuals, computer simulated, of the city called Olympia is dark, wet, and as fully realized as any scene on Coruscant. As fun and gritty as the backdrop is, more time and attention to the scrip, dialogue, and plot, could have made this an exceptional film rather than simply a hot-chick with knives and guns.

 

Too much of the film is about Michelle’s little brother who can’t seem to stay out of trouble with the local tough guys. Michelle kills them all in the end, something that should have happened in the first fifteen minutes, which would have allowed the rest of the plot, the interesting plot progress. The movie was supposed to be about a device that allowed skilled DNA scientists to heal any wound and cure any illness trough genetic manipulation. Instead, we get Michelle’s brother getting in trouble, getting beat up, and finally dieing. The movie’s main plot ended up an after thought.

 

So why should any self-respecting person see this film. Well, you shouldn’t. However, if you are brave enough, see it for the special effects, Ling Bai, and the talented Robert David Hall who is better known as the Medical Examiner on CSI: Las Vegas.  

February 14, 2009
Categories: Action/Adventure, Horror, On DVD, Science Fiction, Thriller . Tags: , , , , . Author: The Soulless Machine . Comments: Leave a Comment

The Wrestler (2009)

So, I dragged the same person to this that I saw Twilight with since let’s be honest she owed me one. I sat through two hours of that narcissistic vampire wannabe high school bullshit, the least she can do is watch an Oscar nominated film with me.

Mickey Rourke was extremely believable. I actually forgot the actor playing the man in spandex losing a war of attrition against himself, and for those of you who read my review of Dark Knight know how important that is to me. Though I had trouble believing that a guy who’s gimmick was that he’s has some of the characteristics of a ram (fleece and all) and who’s finishing move is a diving headbutt (the same move that is widely regarded as the reason Chris Benoit had much of his brain damage). I guess I can kind of see it as one of the most popular wrestlers was known as the ‘The Texas Rattlesnake’ and another was the ‘The Brahma Bull’ Chris Benoit was known for many years as ‘The Rabid Wolverine’… so in retrospect his gimmick of ‘The Ram’ is a bit plausible, he was just missing a descriptor. (Randy “The Randy Ram” Robinson)?

Marisa Tomei was in the same league as Rourke, but she never ceased to be the actress I’ve had a crush on since Oscar and My Cousin Vinny, which has more to do with me than her acting ability. I did have an issue with her dialogue when she refers to 80’s bands such ‘Crue’ and ‘Def Lep’… its seemed a bit forced, mind you if I ever have to do a scene where I talked about how great Motley Crue and Def Leopard were… yeah, I’d probably walk off the set on principle.

Randy’s relationship with his daughter struck a chord with me as it reminded me of my relationship with my parents. It’s amazing how easily a mom and/or a dad can become a mother and/or a father through absentee parenting. I found Rachel Evan Wood’s performance quite identifiable as I’ve felt like I’ve been in her situation just not to the extreme shown in the film.

Watching the film, I found myself emotionally invested in his life and sadly watched as he made one bad decision after another. And then as he has one last moment choose between life and glory he says something poignant to Tomei: 

“The only place I get hurt is out there. The world don’t give a shit about me.”

It really sent the whole movie home. Here was a man who spent the vast majority of his adult life wearing down his body night after night and the only thing he had when all was said and done was his dignity and the adulation of the crowd. His daughter never wanted to see him again, going into the ring this last time went against his doctor’s orders, and his stripper girlfriend is now nowhere to be seen. His heart straining, short on breath, but at least he can finish one last match on top.

I walked out of the theater wondering what became of him. (Spoilers here) The ending leaves you hanging. You don’t know if he actually turned around his life or not, or even if he’s still alive at the end. I walked out thinking… ‘Huh… that… was an ending’.

The message they send you home with is that: In the end Randy “The Ram” Robinson was only good at one thing and that was being a professional wrestler. One of the hardest jobs, anywhere.

February 11, 2009
Categories: Drama, In Theaters, Uncategorized . . Author: filmsatyr . Comments: Leave a Comment

Rambo (2008)

rambo

 

I’m a reluctant fan of the Rambo movies. I didn’t see Rambo in the theaters. I didn’t think that another was necessary. I didn’t like the follow ups to the original, First Blood (1982). First Blood had something to say, sad commentary on the state of veterans who return home damaged, shunned, and looking for acceptance in a world they don’t know any more.

 

However, when I rented Rambo this week, I found myself really liking it despite what the movie had to say about trained combat soldiers. The movie, at a very base level, was about a group of people, people of faith, that wanted to help the Burmese subsistence farmers who were being slaughtered for their land. These silly people went into Burma, with Rambo’s help, but against his recommendation, to give ad in a war zone. Of course, they are captured, giving Rambo his chance to rescue them.

 

The best scenes are when Rambo and a crew of mercenaries are aboard a boat on their way into Burma. They are hyped up and talkative, well, that is except for John Rambo, who stoically operates the rudder. The mercenaries shoot the shit and tell bravado stories of their escapades. They are all experts in their fields.  They are all killers. They enjoy talking the lives of their enemies. There is no place in normal the society for this crew.

 

Flash forward, Rambo swoops into save these mercenaries with his bow, taking out a group of, I think it was 8 Burmese soldiers. Rambo and the leader of the mercenaries get into a scuffle, and Rambo says, “[while aiming an arrow at Lewis' eye] Any of you boys want to shoot, now’s the time. There isn’t one of us that doesn’t want to be someplace else. But this is what we do, who we are. Live for nothing, or die for something. Your call.”

 

One more quote, the inner monologue that motivate Rambo to go with the mercenaries: “You know what you are. What you’re made of. War is in your blood. Don’t fight it. You didn’t kill for your country. You killed for yourself. God’s never gonna make that go away. When you’re pushed, killing’s as easy as breathing.” What this tells me is that some trained soldiers end up like Rambo, trained killers with a blood lust. Bit all, but there is not one example of soldier in this film that does not fit that scenario.

 

But it was a fun action film. If you get a chance, I’d say rent it.

 

The Soulless Machine

December 20, 2008
Categories: Action/Adventure, On DVD . Tags: , . Author: The Soulless Machine . Comments: Leave a Comment

Twilight – follow up

twilight

I went to see Twilight last night. I wanted to see what had motivated filmsatyr  to compose a treatise on the film. filmsatyr focused on the Twilight’s rendering of vampires and how vampires and other monsters have devolved into nothing more than angst ridden super-sexed objects of desire.

 

I fully agree with filmsatyr. I have nothing to add on the subject of vampires and monsters. However, I would like to add a little about relationships, teenagers, boys, girls, and humanities limitless narcissism.

 

I have to say that I enjoy myth making and remaking, so I was not as surprised to find a new breed of vampire, cold one, if you will. Personally, my favorite reinvention of vampires and werewolves is the Underworld franchise, speaking of which a new one is due out in January 2009, UNDERWORLD: RISE OF THE LYCANS. I’m excited!

 

What I was surprised to see, but I guess I shouldn’t be, was story about a narcissistic teenaged girl. This girl, Bella, has been shuffled around between parents and is now living with her seemingly distant father. Bella, like all of us, I guess, is looking for someone to listen to her, focus their energy on her, only her, and all the time.

 

I guess this is no different from anyone else. I think that the cliché about getting a boy’s attention is to ask him questions about himself, to listen, to focus on what he has to say. Bella found someone who would rather listen than speak, and not only listen, but remember what she said and ask follow up questions.

 

Isn’t that what we all want. And this is part of why I think that the movie and the books, although I’ve never read them, are so successful. At a very base level, we need to tell our stories to someone who will really listen because we all are at our very core narcissists seeking a mirror.

 

Anyway, if you want a better, more in depth review see filmsatyr’s post: Twilight (2008).

The Soulless Machine

December 20, 2008
Categories: Drama, Horror, In Theaters, Romance . Tags: , , , . Author: The Soulless Machine . Comments: 3 Comments

Twilight (2008)

So, I went and saw it JUST so I could review and explain my opinion of this genre.

I did not, and have no plans to read the series of books partly because I am not a teenage girl, and these books were written with that target audience in mind. So, let’s begin with the movie itself. My friend and I walked into the theatre and as I bought my ticket for Twilight. The guy at the booth reminded me that Quantum of Solace was also playing there, so if I wanted to change my mind I still could… if perhaps there was still hope for me. I thanked him for his kind thoughts and attempt to save my soul… or at least my masculinity. (oh, wait.)

We got into the theatre about a half hour early since the mall was closing and sat through six slides of Hollywood trivia and quotes that replayed at least twenty times. Then I watched the trailers with the vain hope that they would show a trailer for an upcoming movie that I really wanted to see. Fifteen minutes later I was disappointed. No Watchmen. No Star Trek. In retrospect I’m not sure why I expected to see those trailers since I was in effect waiting to see a movie that was written for the same audience that made Titanic the highest grossing movie of all time for a while.

Twilight itself… judging it on its own merits as a stand along feature, it wasn’t a bad movie. I found the concept of “vegetarian vampires” (they only drank the blood of animals) to be a kinda contrived reason as to why this vampire was able to go to a high school in Forks, Washington along with the rest of his “family”. But like Louis from Interview with the Vampire, or Angel from Buffyverse and Constantine from Robin McKinley’s Sunshine fame before him, Edward (played by Robert Pattinson) seems to fall firmly into the strong, silent, brooding, pretentious, conflicted with his own humanity and completely self-involved vampire stereotype that has so many teenage girls (and those that are still stuck in that mentality) pining away for that strong, silent, brooding, pretentious, conflicted with his own humanity and completely self-involved vampire. I think modern fiction is now over-populated with these guys. Whatever happened to the proper vampire? Vlad Tepes, Count Orlock, or even Deacon Frost who put it so eloquently in the first Blade movie: “[Humans are] cattle; pieces of meat. What difference does it make how their world ends? Plague… war… famine. Morality doesn’t even enter into it. We’re just a function of natural selection, man. The new race.” See, it’s gotten to the point where the ‘nice vampires’ now out populate traditional vampires in fiction. And the Louis’, the Angels, the Constantines and the Edwards all fit neatly into a nice cookie-cutter mold. Twilight could just have easily been titled: “Angel: The High School Years” had it been written with Whedon’s particular gift for dialogue and then either Bella or Edward would likely die given Whedon’s writing style.

This brings me to an ongoing debate I’ve been having with the very friend I watched Twilight with. See, she’s of the opinion that vampires like Angel and Spike (not the actors who play them, mind you) are sooo pretty, to which my response is: ‘They’re vampires, as a rule they view humans as food.’ She then retorts with ‘Angel wouldn’t eat her’, to which my response is: Angelus would. Spike would. And Angel spent most of his unlife as Angelus. Spike spent most of his unlife as a sadistic bastard. And the debate continues with her pretty much saying she’d rather have cold-undead cock than the alternative and with me saying if you wind up dead or undead as a result of pursuing undead cock, don’t come crying to me.

Speaking of women who have next to no concept of self-preservation, there’s the movie’s main character Isabella Swan (played by Kristen Stewart) wouldn’t even have survived day 2 at her new school as a minivan skids nearly into her and her pick-up and would have crushed her in between if not for the ‘valiant’ vampire, Edward. Later as she moves to confront him about what he is, she walks right passed him and into the nearby woods… alone, knowing he’d follow. As the movie progresses I don’t think she makes one single smart decisions even when Edward tries half-heartedly to scare her off. Ms. Stewart also only manages one note throughout the entire film, and it’s “Bella hearts Edward” so much so, she comes off as an idiot in every other aspect of her life. Her first day of school she makes a number of friends and they seem like genuinely good people, but Edward is rude to her in Biology class… guess what she’s fixated on and boderline in tears over when she calls her mom later on… you guessed it! The devsatingly pretty metrosexual guy in her bio class who was rude to her.

About half way through the movie it is explained that the reason why vampires stay out of direct sunlight only because it reflects upon their skin in such a way that it looks like diamonds, which obviously Bella finds to be beautiful. Course, the sunlight could have made him look completely corpsefied and Bella would only have been thinking “I can change him!”. Nevermind the whole sunlight reduces them to so much ash as it does traditionally. I think this only served to take away the stigma of being in love with a member of the undead while simultaneously removing one of their greatest weaknesses. The writer, Stephanie Meyer has apparently openly admitted not knowing a great deal about the vampire mythos and seemingly added and subtracted from the mythos as she felt would be convenient to make her story go where she needed it to. On a similar note, Edward is able to repeatedly resist his baser desire to eat Bella despite her being his ‘own personal heroine’… there comes a point where given the previous examples of Louis, Angel, Spike, or Constantine having the conflicted vampire character be capable of continually resisting their thirst (especially in Edward’s case) seriously cheapens the addiction to and requirement of blood to survive. Eventually, it’ll become such a non-issue that future writers may forget about the thirst completely.

So, all in all… Kristen Stewart was disappointing, but that have been the script she was given. Robert Pattinson is too wooden in a ‘I’m-so-pretty-it-hurts-to-move’ kinda way. I have to give this movie somewhere between a C- to a D+. It’s very much a young adults film, but I expected more out of a film that is getting the kind praise this one is.

December 8, 2008
Categories: Drama, In Theaters, Romance . . Author: filmsatyr . Comments: 3 Comments

Hancock (2008)

 

When Hancock came to theatres last July I was in no hurry to see it based on the reviews I’d seen and quite frankly the trailers I’d caught didn’t wow me. So, earlier this week, when my roommate wanted to rent some movies we were both fairly ambivalent about seeing Hancock, but neither of us had seen it… so we rented it with kinda a “meh” feeling. After making a point to watch the finer points of the new WWE’s Rock dvd I had to choose between Hancock and Wall-E, I had seen Wall-E already, so…

I was immedately stuck by the fact that this movie would be a lot better if it had been the movie that was promised in the trailers. I was left with the distinct impression that this movie was a sort of “What if Superman existed in the real world and was an asshole?” The story would write itself, have awesome visuals and be laden with comedy gold and might even have a message snuck in there for the kids. But no, we get is “What if a self-centered bum had superpowers?” a contrived concept of how all super-heroes were gods, angels, and heroes in the time of myth and were all immortal, but inexplicably they were ‘built in pairs’ (whatever that means) and then lose their powers if they hang out too long with their opposite… umm… what? And for some reason Hancock doesn’t learn all this until very late in the film from someone who should have said something like say… an hour and a half earlier because his life was at risk.

Let me get this straight. Somewhere in their biology is a gene that decides that they need something resembling normal lives which for some reason strips them of their invulnerability and makes them vulnerable to things like guns. So, when it comes down to it… Can you imagine if you had a genetic predisposition to becoming more vulnerable to harm? And they toss ina love interest for litterally NO REASON. I will say that this movie is based on fun moments the way most Leslie Nielsen films are based on running gags. And its a fun concept right up until they share what they feel super-heroes are.

So yeah, see it if someone else rents it and you’re really, really bored.

December 4, 2008
Categories: Action/Adventure, Comedy, On DVD, Romance . . Author: filmsatyr . Comments: Leave a Comment

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