Bruno (Spoilers!!)

In 2006, a movie (Borat) came out that was so funny, and wrought with brilliant social commentary (like Frat boys are misogynistic!!! Who knew??) that instead of waiting 20, 15 or even 10 years, people decided to remake it only 3 years later. Wait, it isn't a remake? Okay, well three years later we get a sequel! Wait, it isn't a sequel either? Hmmm. Okay so 3 years later we a totally new and original work that looks, sounds and feels exactly like Borat but with totally different people. Oh wait, I mean the exact same people, just a different character. If I was to write a tagline for Bruno I would make it be "Just like Borat, but with more dildos."

Bruno(Sacha Baron Cohen)is the host of an Austrian fashion show until a stunt goes horribly wrong and so he has decided to go to Hollywood to become a celebrity. He tries acting(The most obviously set up stunt, where there is no punch line), he tries to host a television show(I believe the punch line here is on us for even watching), tries to make a sex tape (With Ron Paul, no less), then wants to start a charity(Getting peace between warring nations,The single funniest bit in the movie), and adopts a little African baby (like Angelina and Madonna). Eventually he realizes he has to be straight (like Tom Cruise and Kevin Spacey, a nice dig), so he enlists some Christians to make him straight. To be straight he goes hunting, attempts karate, tries to join The National Guard and goes to a swingers party. None of it seems to make him famous, so we cut to 8 months later where Bruno has turned himself into a very straight acting host of a VERY hetero fight night, until something goes horribly wrong, the footage ends up all over the world and Bruno becomes uber famous and gets to record a charity song with some pretty famous faces.

The highest order of praise I can give to Bruno is that it is funnier than Borat. Of course, I have attended funerals funnier than Borat. The real question becomes what is real and what is staged? If things are staged, then the joke is on the audience and that doesn't seem like the point. Sacha apologists and studio people always talk about the social commentary. Sacha is creating an overly gay character to point out the homosexuality in the world, and by world he means THE BIBLE BELT! Oh shocking, people in the south are homophobic, but is it really only homophobia? In the scene where Bruno goes hunting and camping, he shows up at one of the guy's tent at 3:30 in the morning, naked. Now, the guy reacts with some harsh words, but if I took a guy out camping I did not know and he was at my tent at 3:30 in the morning naked, I might not react so nicely, either. It isn't funny and I think the guy realized he was about to be the butt of a joke and did not like that. Would you? Ron Paul thought he was being interviewed for something real and ends up alone in a room with a guy essentially trying to trick him into sex and Paul reacts by calling Bruno "queer" and "crazy." Is "queer" a slur? I do not see how it can be because television shows use it in their title. Did Paul mean it as a slur? Possibly, but one cannot know and if some guy you didn't know all of a sudden stripped down instead of interviewing you, you might scream some things out and leave the situation.

I do not see any social commentary in scenes featuring Bruno and his boyfriend running things in each other's asses. I also do not think it is funny. I do not see the social commentary of Bruno touching guys having sex and showing the guys getting a bit uncomfortable with it. Do the guys react in homophobic ways, maybe, but not really. These people belong to a club of like minded people and they have just been, umm penetrated(for lack of a better word) by some guy who is obviously coming on to the naked guys. The slurs are out of hand, yes, and maybe Cohen is trying to capture that, but it isn't funny, nor is it terribly interesting. In the final scene, there is rampant disgusting homophobia, but is there any single person surprised that a bunch of drunk rednecks expecting to watching two guys beat the shit out of each other are homophobic? If you are, I would venture that you are an absolute idiot, the kind of idiot who could easily be duped by Sacha Baron Cohen's immature, unfunny, slightly offensive antics.

Bruno operates in a world where gay sex is always weird, where gay sex is represented by shoving remote controls, gerbils and champagne bottles in asses. By showing gay sex as only that, does Sacha do any good? Is he really pointing out any injustices, or is he helping to feed said injustices? By playing an overly effeminate homosexual who dresses in very disgustingly package enhancing costumes, can he do any good? When he visits the minister who wants to help him become straight, nothing funny really happens. Watch Religulous and see Bill Maher do the same thing, but much much funnier.

By feeling offended by aspects of this movie, am I part of the problem? Are only homophobes offended by it? Do I not have a funny bone if I do not think it is funny to watch a guy unload a fire extinguisher in another man's ass? If so, I am okay with that. I actually think comedy should be funny to be considered comedy. I do not have a Pavlovian response to penises and things being shoved into asses. I do not laugh just because I see those things. I am not saying that if you do, there is something wrong with you. if you find this movie to be funny, fine, that is fine. I laughed when the parents were willing to have their toddlers do anything to get a modeling job. I laughed when Bruno sang a song to warring countries and I smiled when Sting, Elton John, Bono, Slash, Snoop Dogg and Chris Martin showed up. But do not try and convince me there is some deeper cause going on here. Sacha Baron Cohen is not helping any cause, or righting any injustices. He is not helping a gay cause by showing himself chained to another man, engaged in some ridiculous sex act. If you want to laugh fine, cool even, but do not convince yourself there is a deeper thing going on here and stay out of my face with that social commentary bullshit.

Sacha Baron Cohen is a very talented man. I give him props for being so dedicated to his craft and not breaking character no matter what happens. I imagine he has been beaten, arrested, roughed up and called many many names and he always stays with the game plan. I respect the man for that, but I will be glad when I can go back to not paying attention to him. I do not need obnoxious characters to tell me homophobia exists in the deep south, or anywhere for that matter. If he really wanted to challenge the beliefs of people, he should show up as the most straight looking, straight acting guy ever and then start making out with a guy. That would, at the very least, be interesting. He should really make people question who is gay and who is not by not being stereotypically homosexual. I am not sure I would really care any more that way, but at least it would not be such an easy joke.

Final Grade: D-


P.S. Do not tell me to lighten up because it is just a movie. I am well aware it is just a movie, but people want to treat it as some social experiment and that is where my problem is.

Year One

I feel like maybe it is wrong for me to review a movie that I did not stay through until the end, but I am going to do it anyway.

Billed as the first road trip movie, Jack Black and Michael Cera star as two cavemen idiots who are banished from their tribe. Well, Black is banished and Cera goes with him because his hut burned down. Black was banished for eating from the forbidden tree of knowledge. After he eats it, he believes himself to be smart and he sets out to disprove all the theories of his tribe. Leaving their tribe sends them in some sort of time warp where Biblical characters interact with these cavemen and it is possible there are Roman soldiers involved. During the travels they witness Cain killing Abel, stop Abraham from sacrificing Issac and run into their old tribe members who have been sold into slavery and taken to Sodom. Black and Cera go into Sodom to try and free the two women of their tribe that they love.

It is at this point that I left. I left for a few reasons. First off, the movie is incredibly awful. Secondly, I was starting to get texts that Michael Jackson was dead. Third, the movie was incredibly awful. For starters, it is a comedy without a single laugh in the first 50 minutes. Then, you have scenes that appear to end mid scene like the editor fell asleep and the editing process just kept going and when he woke up, he just told everyone it was finished. There is a scene where Michael Cera gets a snake wrapped around his body and then in mid scene, it just cuts to the next scene without any explanation as to what happened.

I love Michael Cera but this was not a good look for him. His line delivery only works if he has funny things to say, but there is not a single moment of laughter to be had within the entirety of this movie. If you think this movie is funny, I would seriously doubt your intelligence as a human being. That is how bad it is!

The worst part of all of this is that I will forever remember this movie because it is where I was when Michael Jackson died. One of my favorite musicians was dying and I was watching this piece of crap wishing I were dead. It is unfortunate that this movie will be etched into my memory for as long as I have memory because of the monumental thing that happened during it. Screw you Harold Ramis, Jack Black, Michael Cera and the two writers who will now set their sights on ruining Ghostbusters.

Saw V (Major spoilers!)

Since watching this movie on Thursday night, I have been trying to figure out how to best review it. My initial thought was to say that I was only going to write the good things about the movie and then just have a blank review. I also considered doing my usual review, but this movie isn't worth it. So instead I am going to talk about the tag line and the ending.

The tag line for this installment of the most popular torture porn series was "you won't believe how it ends." In the third Saw movie, Jigsaw died, but he had someone carry on his legacy. What follows is a list of things that would have shocked me:


Jigsaw was not really dead.
The good guys win and the Saw franchise ends
The guy we thought was the good guy is actually bad.
Saw V ends in a musical number featuring Zac Efron.
Batman saves the day.
An ending with no death or gore.


Here is the one thing that would not shock me in the Saw franchise: The good guy is killed and the bad guy gets away.

So how does Saw end? Sadly, it does not end with a musical number featuring Zac Efron, no it ends with the good guy dying and the bad guy getting away with it. Not only that, but the other good guys think our good guy was the bad guy, so the bad guy gets away even more. What kind of nonsense is that? Look, I get that anyone willingly paying money to watch these garbage "films" probably gets what they deserve but seriously, is there a way to sue the makers for false advertisement?

Final Grade: F (of course)

Mirrors

Before I begin I must admit that I left this movie nearly half way through, so it may be wrong for me to write an actual review of it. I have seen worse movies, yes, but with this being awful and the circumstances involved in me watching it, it was too much and I had to walk out.

In case you did not know you were watching a movie called Mirrors, the movie goes out of its way to remind you. The opening credits all have mirror images; there are tons of ominous looking shots of full standing mirrors and the word "mirror" is used in pretty much every single line of dialog spoken through the first 45 minutes of this suck fest. Keifer Sutherland even has a classic bad horror movie line "Mirrors...they are everywhere." BRILLIANT!! I left before the plot took hold, but allow me to take a stab at it. Keifer Sutherland is a cop who killed someone and has been drinking ever since. He takes a job as a night watchman in an abandoned store. The store burned down years ago and they have no desire to fix it, yet they have to keep homeless people out. When he goes into the store, the mirrors act weird. My guess there is a spirit in the mirrors that want out. Keifer goes searching for the reasons for the crazy mirrors, he finds it, fixes it but most likely pays for it with his life, or maybe he just gets trapped behind the mirrors for eternity. If you saw this movie, please tell me how I did.

Very rarely do scary movies have legitimate scares anymore. See, there are legitimate scares and fake out scares. Most movies only have fake out scares now. "What is a fake out scare?" you ask. That is easy. Anytime the movie gets super quiet only to suddenly make a loud sound. That is not a real scare. Yes, it makes you jump, but not because the movie is scary, but because sudden loudness from total silence makes people jump. That is nonsense. This movie features nothing but fake out scares, my favorite being a bird flapping its wings that are some how so loud they sound like a gun shot. It must have been some sort of super bird! The movie is gruesome for the sake of being gruesome, which I am sure is fine with gore hounds, but it is kind of relentless on its attack on good taste. The acting is horrid all the way around, but Paula Patton wins the award for most god awful acting. I am not sure if humans wrote the script or if they just let some computer do it for them using the keyword "mirrors" but it is so unbelievably bad, Porn scripts look good by comparison.

These movies have an audience and there was a time when I was maybe in that audience, but at this point in my life, I have better things I could be doing at 1am. Oh and since the spirits trapped in the mirrors can get you from any reflective surface, like water, this movie is erroneously called Mirrors, but I guess it is catchier than Reflective surfaces.

Final Grade: F

The Love Guru

Mike Myers has not been seen on screen since the Cat in the Hat debacle. In his time away he has been searching for inner peace and created a character. He wrote a movie featuring that character and this summer that movie got released. Audiences everywhere wished it hadn't.

The Guru Pitka (Myers) is the second best self-help guru but thinks if he can get on Oprah he will be first. Jessica Alba is inexplicably the owner of a hockey team who needs his help. The team's Tiger Woods character has started to suck because his wife has shacked up with the goalie of the other team. It is believed she did so because the goalie has a penis the size of an elephant trunk. The Guru sets off to help the black athlete conquer his fears of the giant white penis. Of course, none of that matters. What matters is the string of poop, urine, fart, booger and penis jokes that come at you for 90 minutes. Apparently Mike Myers spent his time off turning into a 6 year old child with bad taste. I don't know how old I was when farting and nose picking stopped being funny, but I am pretty sure it was before I was nearly 40. Never mind that I am not 40.

The Love Guru is so unbearably unfunny that it makes you question everything you ever thought you knew in life. You start to wonder if Mike Myers was ever really funny. It makes you think maybe Wayne's world is terrible. It is not possible for the person behind Wayne's World to also be this perpetrator of crimes against funny. I refuse to believe it. My hope is that Mike Myers has been abducted and the alien that now uses his body is only 5 years old. If that were the case it would maybe be acceptable for a movie to feature a scene where elephants have sex while Myers is riding on the back of the male elephant. Mike Myers has committed one of the worst crimes I have ever seen on film. I left the theater in a daze. It ruined my week and made me physically ill. At one point, I thought all of the joy I had ever felt in life was going to be sucked out. The Love Guru wants to rob us of joy and it wants to demolish our sense of humor and drown it in urine, because apparently soaking things in urine is funny to Myers.

You are categorically wrong if you believe the Love Guru is funny. If you even try to defend it I will know you are not human, but a clone from the Mike Myers factory from the depths of Hell. Justin Timberlake singing Celine Dion should not be the funniest thing in your movie. Cameo after Cameo The Love Guru gets worse. Jessica Simpson, Val Kilmer, Marikta Harkshay, Kanye West and oh yes, Mike Myers cameoing as himself cannot rescue this dreck from drowning in its own feces.

Jessica Alba, who is no actress, cannot be faulted for this one because all her character does is laugh at the Guru, but the forced laughter is not her fault; no one can be expected to actually laugh here. In one scene, the Myers character is ordering something to eat and it is a pair of nuts inside a doughy wrapping (like testicles) and then those balls are smashed repeatedly before being placed under a pickle (Yes that is supposedly a joke). Well as I watched the nuts being smashed I could not help but wonder if having my own testicles smashed would be as painful as ever having to watch The Love Guru ever again. My guess is that having my testicles smashed would feel like a walk in the park compared to watching it again.

In case I have not been straight forward enough for you: The only movie I hate more than this is Pirates 2-3. This is the second worst movie I have ever seen in my life. Only this movie could make Steven Colbert unfunny.

Final Grade: FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF

The Happening (Spoilers!)

M. Night Shyamalan is one incredibly polarizing figure in the world of movies. He burst onto the scene and has been making enemies ever since. It is nearly impossible for a director who hits a home run his first time out to ever recapture that (Yes, I know The Sixth Sense was not technically his first movie). What he created with that ghost tale was mesmerizing. The big reveal at the end was shocking, but not from out of nowhere if you go back and watch it. It is obvious it did not come from left field. I am going to now compare N. Night to Quinten Tarantino, but let me finish before you call me crazy. Both of these men hit a home run in their first movie. They both followed it up with very good second films and both had underrated third movies. Then they both went very very wrong. The Village and Lady in the Water gave M. Nigh two strikes; Kill Bill and Kill Bill part 2 gave Tarantino two strikes. When I see a director's career in a steady decline, I give them three strikes in a row. Once they get three in a row, I am done. Tarantino revived himself big time in my eyes with Death Proof and this was M. Night's shot.

Two Women are sitting on a park bench reading. One woman turns to the other and says she cannot remember where she was in the book. The two women laugh about it, but seconds later, there are screams in the distance; people start walking backwards and that same woman says again that she cannot remember where she was. She takes something out of her hair and punctures her neck with it, bleeding out. People throw themselves off of the roofs of buildings and a cop shoots himself, then others do the same with his gun. Cut to a science classroom in Philadelphia. Elliot Moore (Marky Mark) is curious as to why bees are disappearing but his class seems not to care at all. Moore is called out of his class and the teachers are all told "There is an event happening." Elliot gets his wife, Alma (Zooey "I have the bluest eyes, ever" Deschanal) his best friend, Julian (John Leguizamo) and Julian's daughter, Jess (Ashlyn Sanchez) and they all get on a train. On the train they see news footage claiming a terrorist attack is happening in the North East; the train stops because they have lost contact. There they see footage of a guy in a lion's den in a zoo goading the lions to tear him to shreds. Julian has to go to Princeton to find his wife. Jess is left with Elliot and Alma. They meet a crazy couple who will give them a ride. The crazy man has a half cocked theory that the plants are the cause. Plants have been known to create toxins to kill enemies. More people kill themselves; people are killed by others; paranoia captures everyone. What is the cause? We never actually know nor do we ever really care.

There is a saying that goes "Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me; fool me three times and I hope you die." M. Night Shymalan has struck out in a big way. The Happening is so preposterous, so stupid and so unintentionally funny, I thought I was back watching Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End. The Tone is incredibly wonky as it switches from hokey, to funny, to B-movie, to deadly serious and sometimes within the same scene. M. Night is totally unsure of what kind of movie he is making. Don't let the commercials fool you about this being M. Night's "First R rating" that does not make this a better movie. Inf act, this hinders him because when he actually shows what happens he always fails. Think about it, Signs was a very good, creepy movie until he actually showed the aliens. He works better in shadows, in hinting at things. The only hing hinted at here is a good movie. I think this could have been done well. There are flashes that reminded me why I like M. Night in the first place. I like the silence of the movie and the gorgeously haunting score, but it needed a better movie because there is nothing gorgeous or haunting here.

The minute the crazy guy starts talking about how the plants, grass and trees communicate with each other through wind, the entire audience was laughing. If M. Night wanted us to take it seriously, do not have the character with crazy eyes say that. DO not have the character who earlier said "Hot Dogs are underrated" tell us something that may be important. When Elliot realizes the man might be right, what happens? Yes, that is right, Marky Mark runs away from wind. Luckily the grass is so high we can see exactly where the wind is and just how fast it is blowing. Now, I am all for major movie stars running away from weather, hell Jake Gyllenhall runs away from cold like a freaking pro, but M. Night does not allow Marky Mark to win in this scene (don't worry it doesn't kill them because they are in a small group of people, therefore tricking the wind!) However, I refuse to believe wind is tougher to run away from than cold. Cold is all encompassing and wind needs speed to be fast. There is a lack of logic between The Happening and The Day after Tomorrow. These disaster directors need to get together on this! The green of the world is fighting back in a big way. Go green or end up turning a tractor on and laying under it as it tears you to pieces! I haven't even gotten to the crazy lady who lives alone in a house with nothing from the outside world. She invites the 3 travelers in, but smacks the little girl for trying to steal a cookie and accuses Marky Mark of trying to steal her creepy doll looking thing.

Movies do not get much worse than this. M. Night has created 3 god awful movies in a row and I wonder when the day comes where people argue over which one is worse. I still say The Village is worse mostly because I felt it telegraphed its twist; The Happening has no twist ending and no unexpected turn; it just continues to suck and suck and suck. There is one good scare and a few intentional laughs, like Marky Mark talking to a plant he realizes is plastic, but it does not redeem the sheer stupidity involved here.

Final Grade: F

Speed Racer

Nostalgia is very big in movies right now. Transformers started the trend and right now a G.I Joe movie is in production and Masters of the Universe is not far behind. Speed Racer did seem like an odd choice though. Basing a live action movie on a Japanese cartoon from the 60s/90s didn't seem like a sure thing. But, when the makers of The Matrix chose this as their follow up, there was excitement about it. The Wachowski Brothers have a knack for revolutionizing special effects and when I heard that the movie was going to be shot almost entirely in deep focus, I was more intrigued. The trailers were fun, but as the movie got closer, it started to look less and less like a sure thing.

Speed Racer(Emile Hirsch) only cares about one thing: racing. He is a race car driver and he lives to be on the track. His parents Mom and Pop Racer (Susan Sarandon and John Goodman) raised him in a racing environment and his older brother Rex(Scott Porter) taught everything he knew about racing. Speed is on the track when the movie opens and in a very long opening scene we get all of the exposition we could ever need. Rex died years ago in a bad race car accident, but before he died Rex' name had been totally desecrated. he was called a cheater and a low life. Speed is racing to forget all of that. With his little brother Spritle(Paulie Litt), girlfriend Trixie(Christina Ricci) and the rest of his family watching, Speed wins the race and catches the eye of Mr. Royalton. Royalton wants to make Speed a member of his big corporate racing team, but Speed is not sure he wants to do it. When Speed says no, Royalton goes into a crazy long and excruciatingly boring speech about what will happen to Speed now. He will lose the next race, not qualify for the championship and his name will be desecrated. After all of that comes true, Speed is forced to race outside of the track. He and a mysterious racer named Racer X(Matthew Fox) join forces with another racer to win this elaborate cross state race in hopes of getting the other racer to turn on Royalton. Plans fail, double crosses happen and Speed somehow finds himself in the Grand Prix race.

Will Speed win? What really happened to Rex? Just who is the mysterious Racer X? Oh gives a crap! By the time this movie gets to the damn final race about 2 hours of nonsense prior to it have obliterated any passing interest I once had. Visually Speed Racer plays like a live action cartoon without a sense of subtly, humor or good taste. Even the most fabulous Gay guy is going to wish it wasn't so colorful. This is an unbelievable pile of crap. The Wachowski's have bombed yet again and it appears maybe the first Matrix was merely a fluke in an otherwise awful career. The acting all around is just terrible, which is saying something because they are all talented people. There is way to much time spent with the annoying younger brother and his stupid monkey. This movie is obviously aimed at children, but it is too long and boring for them and while the colors are pretty for a while, at some point you just become immune to them and want a cohesive story. If I may use an analogy, Speed Racer is very much like a really pretty girl who is an idiot. For a while you don't even realize she is an idiot because of how pretty she is. Then when you realize it, you forgive her because she is so pretty, but at some point her stupidity overrides her hotness. Speed Racer starts as a gorgeous piece of moving art, but at some point the fact that it sucks overrides the moving artiness of the picture.

I don't want to be subtle in my review so how I can plainly put this? Here it is: I would rather be locked in a room with Will Ferrell while I am on a StairMaster listening to Garth Brooks and looking at naked pictures of Rosie O'Donnell than ever watch this movie again. How is that for hyperbole?!?! Speaking of hyperbole, Speed Racer uses the transitional aspect of the cartoon, but over uses so much, they start high lighting mundane activities and by using that transitional method they attempt to make them greater than they really are. Even the music in Speed sucks. Michael Giacchino usually creates brilliantly lavish scores of action adventure, heightening the sense of danger or mystery, but here he reuses the old Speed Racer theme song every 5 minutes to create the most obnoxious score I can ever remember hearing in a movie.

The one thing that could have saved this movie was the big final race. If it had been awesomely awesome, all else could have been forgiven. Yet, instead of ramping up the action for the big finale, the movie SLOWS DOWN!! During the race, the movie keeps cutting back to scenes from earlier so we can see what Racer is racing for. Inf act, if you just watched the 15 minutes of the movie you would get everything that happened and you would save yourself from the two hours prior! I cannot in good faith recommend this to anyone, not even my biggest enemy, if I had one. No one in the right minds should watch it and if you were to tell me you loved it I might have to question your sanity. I am not only dumber for watching this, I am angrier at kids, monkeys, The Wachowskis and racing. Speed Racer commits the worst sin in movies: It was supposed to be awesome and it sucked. There is nothing worse than thinking something will be awesome only to have it suck. This belongs in a group with Pirates 2 and Van Helsing.

Final Grade: F

Prom Night (Spoilers)

One of my resolutions for 2008 was that I was going to avoid bad looking pg-13 horror movies. I did pretty well for the few months of the year, but seeing as how my theater is playing this garbage and the entire staff decided to watch it, I felt like I needed to watch it as well. So, I still haven't paid to watch a bad pg-13 horror movie. I think that counts for something, right? Right?

A few years ago a teacher, Richard Fenten(Jonathon Schaech), became obsessed with a student, Donna Keppel(Brittany Snow), and he killed her family before he was arrested. A few years later Donna is still having nightmares about the night she watched her mom get stabbed to death. She is still in the same town (I know, DUMB AS HELL) but she is living with her aunt and Uncle and is a senior in high school about to go to prom. Detective Winn(Idris Elba) was the detective who worked the case and all of a sudden he receives a fax that Fenten broke out of the psych ward three days ago. Yes, it takes 3 days to get word to the one place Fenten is assuredly going to! Winn believes Fenten is heading to Donna enough to warn her aunt and uncle, but not enough pull Donna away from her Prom, does that make sense to you, me neither! Prom is not prom. Prom is a red carpet Hollywood Premiere event. Apparently no one even remotely close to average looking goes to the school. Fenten, of course, gets a suite at the Hotel where Prom is happening and he even gets it on the same floor as Donna. The killing begins; the screaming begins; the scares, well they never begin.

Prom Night may be the dumbest movie to ever be made. The characters make dumb decisions, the detective is the dumbest detective to ever have a badge and the screenplay is beyond dumb. After Donna is saved from Fenten at the prom they send her home! They don't send her to a hotel or the police station or some place where Fenten might not find her, noooo, they send her home with like 3 cops patrolling the area. So is it any surprise that Fenten shows up to kill her?? I mean how did these cops survive this long making decisions that will surely lead to more deaths. "Hmmm, a psycho killer is assuredly going after one person, we should just send her home with a tiny police escort. No big deal. I mean the guy did just BREAK OUT OF PRISON! He can't be that smart or dangerous, right?" Look, I understand applying logic to horror movies is an exercise in futility to begin with, but Prom Nightlooked at logic and kicked it in the nuts before shooting it in the back of the head. Watching from a distance at prom, Detective Winn loses track of Donna a dozen or so times which just gets laughable at many moments.

When Fenten moves in to kill people, not only do they bust out the ridiculous shaky cam, he actually moves like the zombies from 28 days later. However, there are 2 silver lining moments to be had. First, Schaech is one creepy ass psychopath. Wow, he plays that well. Secondly, after he is killed, he doesn't rise to be killed a second time. Yes, the biggest praise I have is that the killer actually died the first time. I say it is a good thing because if he had come back the movie would have been longer by at least 5 seconds and at that point I might have been forced to kill myself to end the pain. Prom Night is the kind of movie you can't help but scream at because you want the characters to stop being so dumb until at some point you just stop caring and pray to God he kills them all. I am not the type of person to say that all remakes need to stop, and to be honest the original is not a very good movie either, but bad movies need to stop. I know this is going to make money because stupid people are drawn to stupid movies where characters end up alone and screaming as they bump into a lamp thinking it could be a killer, but that will not stop me from ridiculing those types of people. If you enjoy Prom Night because it is cheesy and you find enjoyment out of that fine, but if you enjoy Prom Night because you actually think it is a good movie, well, you are contributing to America being considered the dumbest country on the planet; Nay, dumbest country in the galaxy!

Final Grade:F

Southland Tales

Richard Kelly thinks highly of himself and of his movies. He fought the studio who wanted to release an edited version of Southland Tales and in the end they gave him the movie and let him do with it what he wanted. Kelly seems intent on creating movies that show how creative or clever he can be without a high regard for continuity or story telling. This movie was booed at film festivals, panned mercilessly by every critic, played in Sacramento for only one week and the Blockbuster employee tried to talk me out of renting it for about 15 minutes. Yet, I had a pull to watch it. I had just come off of Donnie Darko and was ready to be entertained if more than a little confused. Did I make the right decision?

In the near future Justin Timberlake will be stationed on a giant sniper rifle off the pacific ocean and he will be reading from Revelations (The Bible) as The Rock, writes a screen play about the end of the world while banging Sarah Michelle Gellar who will be a porn star, turned pop star, turned marketing whore. In the near future Sean William Scott will be a cop and his twin and Cheri Oteri and Amy Poeller will be liberal crazies trying to destroy the conservative government with Marxist ideology. In this future nothing at all will make sense. Jon Lovitz will appear for no reason at all and in the end, the end of the world may be set off by a guy and his future self finally meeting and touching. Sound like fun? Yeah not so much!

Even if this is a literal adaptation of Revelations (the theory that makes the most sense) Southland Tales may be the single worst movie I have ever seen. The acting is porn star bad, the script is self congratulatory without making any damn sense and even the visuals pale in comparison to Kelly's last movie. The story is so over the top it borderlines on stupid and while it may be trying to grasp at social commentary it all gets lost in the ridiculous stunt casting of former Saturday Night Live performers. However, all of that could be forgiven if I was entertained but on top of all the other faults, this movie is just BORING! I was checking my watch about 5 minutes in and continued to do it throughout this absolute atrocity of a film. It is a slap in the face to real guilty pleasures. If strip clubs are guilty pleasures and hookers just make you feel guilty, Southland Tales is the hooker who follows you home after getting paid and tells your wife about it. I am sure Richard Kelly had a grand master plan when he set out to make it and maybe there are people out there who appreciate this brand of disgusting movie, but I feel like not only was I raped over 2.5 hours of my life, I am dumber, slower, uglier, meaner and more uninteresting because of Southland Tales.

Final Grade: FF--

10,000 B.C. (spoilers)

I know that admitting what I am about to admit could essentially ruin any credibility I have as someone who reviews movies, but I dug The Day After Tomorrow. Roland Emmerich, the guy who directed 10,000 B.C. also directed The Day After Tomorrow as well as the awesome Independence Day, the terrible Godzilla and the alright The Patriot. He makes big spectacle pictures that are often high on fun but low on everything else. I readily admit that The Day After Tomorrow is not a good movie, but I enjoyed the hell out of it. A year after the epic 300 we get 10,000 B.C., the 2008 version of 300. What I mean by that is that we get a big budget movie in the middle of March feature something pre-historic almost. Yet, with Emmerich's spotty record would this turn out like Independence Day , Godzilla or somewhere in between?

I will now attempt to tell you the plot of this movie, but I have to be honest, I am not quite sure I ever really understood what was going on. Some of it was because of bad storytelling and some of it is because during the exposition voice over opening, there was a child crying in the theater. What I understood was this- a little girl with startling blue eyes, Evolet(Camilla Belle is found by this tribe of cavemen (when I say cavemen, don't think of cromagnen people, no these are gorgeous people who speak perfect English)and the spirit mother of the tribe believes this blue eyed girl is the key to survival for the tribe and the guy who gets her will lead the tribe. Our hero D'elh (held backwards because "held" is the German word for Hero, brilliant I know). He is a Mammoth hunter but his father deserted the tribe and he is kind of a weakling, at first. These creepy big guys come into the tribe destroy it and kidnap all the males and of course Evolet. D'elh was not amongst the captured and he sets off to find Evolet. Along the way he manages to meet a ton of tribes of people who all seem to speak different languages, but luckily one guy seems to know them all. These separate tribes of people all join forces to fight the big bad gods. The Gods are kidnapping people to turn them into slaves to build the pyramids, so maybe the Gods are supposed to be Egyptian? If that means they are near Egypt where did the tribe learn English? Who knows?!?!

10,000 B.C. is such a bad movie I very nearly walked out of it. "How could a movie that had access to Saber Tooth tigers be so awful?", you ask. Easy, the Saber Tooth tiger spends 3 minutes on screen and doesn't do anything bad-ass. In fact the Saber Tooth tiger is as harmless as an every day house cat in the movie. The only fierce creatures appear to be some sort of hybrid between a Raptor and a dodo bird. What the hell? The Mammoth's look gorgeous, the tiger looks gorgeous, but they are merely window dressing to try and disguise the fact that nothing in the movie makes sense. The one remaining God fears the one with the mark, which some what turns out to be Evolet, but she doesn't do the killing at all, so the whole mark nonsense turns out to be useless and just a way to add time to the movie. The story makes no sense and every time the movie switches back to the old mother woman I was just lost in the stupidity. The acting is god awful, but at least Evolet is gorgeous. The dialog is useless, as Emmerich seems only interested in creating a faux epic with wide circular motioned shots of sprawling snow capped mountains, but it all amounts to nothing.

This movie lacks the sheer audacity of The Day After Tomorrow, it even lacks the goofy stupidity of Godzilla and the over the top nonsense of The Patriot; in short, the movie has no fun with itself. Emmerich was really trying to make a big drama set in a pre-historic time period and it blew up in his face miserably. The battle sequences are dull, the chases lack a sense of urgency. I mentioned 300 earlier and I think some of the comparisons they are drawing are fair. Both are movies that take a liberal use of history to tell a crazy story, but 300 has fun while telling the story. 300 had amazing visuals, a fun story, incredible action sequences, and a strong presence in the lead actor to mask the awful dialog, whereas 10,000 B.C. doesn't have enough to make up for the obvious shortcomings. The worst thing a movie can be, in my opinion, is boring. Boring is the kiss of death for a movie and I was checking my watch about 30 minutes in because I kind of wanted it to just be over.

I left with an overwhelming sense of disappointment because I was pretty excited about this movie. Not because it is historically accurate or even because I thought it would be this amazing movie, but because deep down, I love to be entertained by over the top messes and this looked like it would at least be that. Instead it was just a mess. It was timid, small scale and I never felt the stakes were high enough for me to care about anything that was going on. I was not alone in my disappointment either. I heard the disgust in the voices of the other people leaving the theater.

Final Grade: F

In the Name of the King

I am going to forgo a real review of this movie because I believe it speaks only to certain people, but I have compiled a list of questions and if you answer yes to any of these questions, this movie is for you.

When you saw Lord of the Rings did you think "This is cool, but it would be so better with ninjas."

Have you always wanted to see a boomerang get its proper respect as a real battle weapon?

Have you ever wondered what a mountain range would look like if one mountain was raining, one was snow capped and the third was completely sunny?

Have you ever thought "Ray Liotta is cool but I bet as a levitating evil wizard he kicks so much ass."

Ever wondered what Burt Reynolds would look like as a king?

Have you ever pictured Matthew Lillard in a sword fight with an angry black guy?

Do you have an itching to see Jason Statham try and do anything other than be stoic?

Do you want to see a horse get an uppercut?

Do you need to watch Ray liotta make out with and stroke the leg of a girl half his age?

Have you ever wondered how in the world books could make good hand cuffs?

Have you wanted to see two magicians have a sword fight with 8 swords, none of which are being hand operated? Yes, an 8 levitating sword, sword fight!

Do you miss the way the puddy''s from Power Rangers moved?

Have you been longing to see Jason Statham hold Burt Reynolds hand as Reynolds talks about seaweed before dying?

So, if you answered yes to any or all of those questions by all means see this movie. For me, it ranks up there as one of the worst movies I have ever seen. It is certainly a possibility for worst movie of 2008, already. Oh and I only watched it because I saw it for free at my theater.

Oh if you are going to watch it, please stay for the credits. The combination of what sounds like bad 80's ballads and bagpipes is not to be missed. Not to be missed at all!

Overall grade: FF

Death Sentence

Kevin Bacon was an American Icon before deciding a few years ago to give his image an overhaul. He weathered the storm of Hollow Man, but not content to leave well enough alone, he wanted to go back to that dark place. What better way to go back to being dark than to do a movie directed by the guy responsible for the first Saw. That probably should have been a big warning sign for me, but after trying to see it theater and failing because the projector broke, I had to see what happened after the first 5 minutes I saw in the theaters.

Nick Hume(Bacon) is a mild mannered man who works in risk Management and he has a perfectly lovely wife and two kids. They all seem very happy together and even spend birthdays together, without friends and the family documents every birthday on a video camera, even as the two young boys get into their teenage years. The oldest son is a hockey star and one night on the way home from a game, father and stop to get gas. Two old muscle cars appear, some wild and crazy gang members jump out and within minutes the son is killed. It turns out this was a gang initiation but it sends Hume over the edge. Soon he takes to vigilante justice by stabbing the kid who killed his son. The crazy gang (we know they are crazy because they all have shaved heads, leather jackets and are all tattooed up) won't let it go and soon the war is on. Yes a war between a gang of street kids and one man. Don't worry though, the street gang who has been shooting guns for years can't seem to hit anything and Hume, well he is an excellent shot, although we are fairly certain he has never shot a gun. He can blow off body parts with excellent precision all while being shot at by 3 or 4 bad guys!

Very little in this movie makes a lick of sense. How can Hume find the gang where ever they are but the cops, led by the god awful Aisha Tyler can never find them. How can Hume as one man continue to pick this gang of rough and tumble gang members? Why is there so much terrible music? Why does the director decide to use slow motion every time someone puts on a jacket? And why is that slow motion always unintentionally hilarious?! Oh and How did John Goodman end up this is movie playing a gun runner, a drug dealer maybe, oh and in a pointless out of nowhere twist, the father of the gang leader? No I could forgive some of those things if the movie was at least entertaining, but it really isn't. In a foot chase that lasts an ungodly 5 minutes, Bacon is shown leaping over a box; he doesn't just jump over it, the director makes a point of showing him leaping over it like it is a 4 foot high hurdle, for no reason! The usually solid Bacon is slumming it and not even looking like he is having any sort of fun whatsoever. I give the movie a point for 1 entirely unpredictable plot twist, but the audience doesn't really get to feel the effect of it. Just to show you how bad of a shot everyone in the gang is, at one point they shoot Bacon at point blank range and they didn't even kill him! Also, I am sure gangs still exist to this day, but there is something very 90s about the plot of this movie. It is based on a novel, but I can;t imagine the novel is much better because there are inherent problems in the story. Vigilante movies call be fun and intense (Falling Down) but this is neither. Lastly, it isn't even particularly bloody, undeserving of the "unrated" label on the DVD I watched today.

Final Grade: F

Sunshine (Major Spoilers)

I am one of the few major film lovers who maintains that director Danny Boyle is overrated. Frankly speaking, Shallow Grave is his only great movie. Trainspotting and 28 days later had some interesting visuals but neither were particularly entertaining movies and The Beach is a colossal disaster, especially for a filmmaker who is loved the way Boyle is. However, Sunshine looked like it could be a fun, odd little Science Fiction movie but I missed it when it was in theaters for a week (not a good sign), and now that it is on DVD, I got the chance to watch it.

50 years in the future, the sun is dying and a team of scientists and presumably astronauts are sent on a mission to reignite it by dropping a "payload" on it and birthing a new star in the dying star. The team is staying in a giant space craft that has enough food and oxygen to last the way the there and the way way. Everything is figured out perfectly, but we find out this is not the first mission to the sun, and that the first mission failed and no one knows what happened. They appear to be nearing the sun when they pick up a distress signal that appears to be from the first ship. Unsure of what happened to the ship and the people in it, the crew is split on whether or not to go to the ship. The decision ultimately lies with Robert Capa (Cillian Murphy) because he is in charge of the "payload." He is the only one who knows how it works and he will make the decision whether they might need the "payload" from the first ship, just in case. He makes the decision to go after the first ship and from here all hell breaks loose. The guy in charge of steering and what not forgets to change the direction of their shield and so the heat from the sun burns some holes in the ship and they lose most of their oxygen. He goes crazy and ends up drugged up to keep him from killing himself. When they finally get to the first ship, there is no one left and the ship is immobile, so it turned out to be for naught. And then, the movie takes a bizarre turn into some awful slasher flick.


I don't like to bring spoilers into my reviews but in order to express why I hated this movie so much, I felt it necessary here. Visually this movie ranges from strikingly gorgeous to painfully corny and everywhere in between. The acting is among some of the worst I have seen in years and Cillian Murphy's decision to whisper speak everything gets more annoying as the movie goes on. Maybe Jodie Foster was his acting coach. Chris Evans is his normal hot head acting self, but he doesn't really have much to do here and a lot of the people don't even seem like actors to me. It feels as if Boyle hired some random people walking down the street to read this garbage dialogue because Boyle believes anything can be good if it is shot correctly. Let me tell you, this is the opposite of good. Even the cool visual effects and interesting camera angles, while all excellent at times, cannot save this disastrous mess of a movie. It incorporates elements of the disaster flick genre- The plot is very much The Core. Murphy even describes the bomb as being the size of Manhattan Island, compared to the Asteroid in Armageddon being "The size of Texas."

However, this movie wanted to be more than a bad disaster flick because it also wanted to be a bad slasher flick. After the crew leaves the first ship, people start to die. The reason being, the captain from the first ship has some how managed to survive and he speaks to God and God says to let the Earth die. Naturally the God hearing captain must start killing everyone. Oh and this captain is crispy from the sun, yet, while the rest of his crew died from the sun, he survived. He is some weird super human, sun burnt, killing machine who is never shot with a steady camera presumably to make us more afraid of this seemingly impossible person. Logic be damned!! If it wasn't bad enough that this guy some how survived 7 years of being alone, burned to a crisp, he also some how makes it on the new ship without anyone knowing and without a space suit. Meaning, he had to deal with a temperature below freezing while burned to a crisp. It is possible he can fly as well. Who knows, anything is possible in the world of a lame ass Danny Boyle film!

Speaking of the space suits, they are certainly something to behold. They look like Elton John's fashion sense from the 80's made love to The Rocketeer, they had a baby and let Liberace raise it. Bright gold, with glitter flying off of them, the space suits don't seem to fit really, except to let Danny Boyle use some god awful slow motion shots of the glitter escaping the suits like they knew it was gaudy looking and wanted to go somewhere less flashy. Before the slasher aspect of the film, I was not entertained as much as kind of intrigued by a lot of the camera shots and special effects, but the goodwill of those burned up quickly. With bad writing, bad acting, a horrible third act and a plot fit for a disaster flick, all the good visuals could not save this from being a movie that could have easily been on the bottom 10 of 2007 list.


Final Grade: D+

Beowulf (spoilers if you have not read Beowulf)

Any English major worth his weight has read Beowulf. I am one such English major. I have read the epic poem no less than 3 times, not because of the language but because the story and themes of pride and greed are just as prominent today as they were when this poem was first created. It is funny that a poem featuring a lead character concerned with having his story told forever is still being taught, read and now viewed. At first I was excited at the prospect of a Beowulf movie. The battle of Grendal alone is worth watching in today's FX era. Then I heard it would be completely shot using that Motion Capture Sensor thing that video games made famous and Peter Jackson used flawlessly with Gollum and I was worried. Then I saw trailers and was totally turned off to the movie. The video game feel of the characters were not appealing, but the reviews were favorable. I didn't make it out to opening week and I still wanted to see it, but it became less of something I needed to do. Well I finally made it out and watched it.

Beowulf (voiced by Ray Winstone) is a hero of the highest order. He is also prideful, horny and self important. Hrthogar(A creepy Anthony Hopkins animation) Is a king in need of a hero because a monster named Grendal(Crispin Glover) is terrorizing his kingdom- killing people, trashing his hall and turning fire blue (ooooh creepy, right? blue fire, wow!). Beowulf is up to the task of fighting the Monster Grendal. With the disposing of Grendal, Beowulf and the kingdom celebrate, but that night Grendal's mother takes out her revenge and murders some large number of people. Well now Beowulf must kill Grendal's mother. Sounds easy until he sees that Grendal's mother looks an awful lot like a naked Angelina Jolie (with heels as part of her feet, dope). Naked, glowing Jolie strokes Beowulf's sword until it melts into a silver semen looking substance while she entices Beowulf with promises of being a king and being known forever, if he will give her a child. Beowulf nails the sex organ-less naked computer version of Mrs. Pitt, but tells the kingdom he killed the bitch. Hrthogar admits Grendal was his kid and after promising the crown to Beowulf he kills himself. The story jumps pretty far into the future where Beowulf is king and demolishing all attackers. The golden cup comes back to him (he would be free from Grendal's mother as long as she possessed the cup) and Beowulf starts to freak out. A dragon is unleashed on the kingdom, Beowulf must face his pride, his greed and his sexual conquests and he must defeat the dragon.

To say this movie merely sucks is mocking things that merely suck. This movie is an embarrassment to things that suck- Jenna Jameson, Vacuums and Finding Nemo. This movie tries so hard to be epic, but it is at times so bad that I laughed out loud at what I was watching. Beowulf is naked as he fights Grendal, but in Austin Powers fashion, his computerized penis is blocked by other phallic looking things. The people do not move smoothly, but in stilted, disjointed movements like cinematic zombies move. The voice work of Ray Winstone is so over the top, I chuckled every time he shouted "I am Beowulf." Okay dude, we get it. You like your name. I know Beowulf is the kind of guy who shouts his own name during sex. There is an ample amount of violence, but the camera movements are trying too hard to be epic. Epics just are. They just exist as epic things. You cannot be epic by trying to be epic. It is equal to being awesome. You either are or you are not. if you are trying to be awesome, you just look like a moron trying to be awesome. This movie is a moron trying to be epic. Angelina Jolie's computerized face rips all expression from her face and reduces her to a naked SIM's looking character. Sure, even though she is glistening in gold she looks impressive naked, but when she speaks it juts doesn't look right.

This Motion Capture nonsense has got to stop in regards to human characters. If you have the people, just do it for real. Motion Capture is perfect for video games, but I don't want to watch a video game for 8 bucks. I want to be able to play a video game for a week for 8 bucks. Grendal looks pretty good, although he looked like a left over from a Troma film like Swamp Thing. The only thing that looked even remotely good in the movie was the Dragon. The Dragon with long fierce looking wings and extremely detailed skin is massive compared to everything else. He towers over all and the fire he spits from his mouth is bright, alive and the hues of orange and yellow almost pop off the screen, well almost. Granted I did not see this in the 3-D format, but after knowing that it would have cost me more money, I have to say I am glad I didn't. This will not go down as the worst movie I saw this year, thanks Pirates 3, but it will go down as a crash burn unparalleled to other sucky movies Robbie enjoys. Yeah, that's right, I mentioned you by name. When the movie finally ended (2 Hrs. for this shotty film!!) the guy behind me had it right: He let out a huge yawn and stormed out. I could not have said it or put it any better myself. The Epic Poem, written in an archaic language and being too long, was never ever this boring. Robert Zemeckis has officially lost his ability to create good movies. All of his past success has been overshadowed by a hallow, special effect heavy, borefest.

Saw IV

Now usually I review movies here, but I found this thing on-line that is a transcription of two of the writers and thought I would just copy and paste it here because it is an interesting read. I did take the names out to protect the innocent (er..Guilty)


Guy 1: Well we stupidly killed Jigsaw in the last movie. How the hell did we get money to make a fourth one of these things?
Guy 2: I don't know, to be honest, but how do we keep this thing going? I mean our killer is dead.
Guy 1: Well logic has never mattered much before, so we should not let a little thing like death stop us.
guy 2: Good point. Okay, well I feel like we have both grown as writers so I think we should focus more on plot in this movie and less on the whole torture and killing stuff.
Guy 1: I was thinking the same thing. Also, I think we should start the movie at the end and it should be with a really gross exploitative autopsy of Jigsaw
Guy 2: Well duh, I mean we have to get the tape out of his stomach. He did swallow it at the end of Saw III right?
Guy 1: Oh I have no idea, you think I pay attention to what we are writing? You think I am going to see this god awful nonsense we write?
Guy 2: Good point. OK so we have already completely ignored the first movie as we tell this story, so we should continue that theme. Rigg(Lyriq Bent) will be the main guy here. He should have to go through a bunch of crazy games that Jigsaw will have conveniently taped before his death.
Guy 1: hmmm OK I like it. I like it, but we need the F.B.I this time and since we both love Gilmore Girls we should try and get Luke from that show (Scott Patterson).
Guy 2: Alright, well we want Jigsaw to be felt sorry for even more this time out, so not only does he have cancer and survive a brutal car accident, how about we flashback to his pregnant wife losing the baby because of some junky.
Guy 1: Oh totally. That way people will understand that Jigsaw is not a bad guy. he is just like Superman or Batman, he is out for justice and keeping the peace.
Guy 2: You don't actually believe that do you?
Guy 1: God no, but our audience consists of stupid 13 yr olds and stoned 20 yr olds, so who cares?
Guy 2: Alright, so we have a very good foundation for our script now. Rigg will have to run through the entire city, very quickly mind you because he doesn't have a car and he will outrun the F.BI guy even though the F.B.I have cars.
Guy 1: Also, We should kidnap his wife, but never ever once allow her to be seen again. She should not have anything resolved, just in case they have us make a 5th, 6th and 7th movie. We need to not resolve anything, ever. We need to aim for as messy and awful as possible. The audience demands bullshit and we will feed to them generously!
Guy 2: Oh the New Kids On The Block guy wanted to come back as well.
Guy 1: Didn't we kill him in the opening of the last movie?
Guy 2: Well sure, but we could just shoot a flashback scene where we see he didn't die. Man I am so glad Lost made flashback storytelling popular. It really helps us write out of impossible scenarios!
Guy 1: Agreed 100%. Okay well maybe we can have the NKOTB guy hanging the whole movie and have him all gross looking for the entire movie. He shouldn't talk until there are only like 20 minutes left and then he should just shout "Who's coming through the door" over and over and over again.
Guy 2: Wait who is coming through the door!?
Guy 1: See it works! HA!
Guy 2: Oh you sneaky bastard!
Guy 1: Focus dude, we need to finish off this story, but have a ridiculous, out of nowhere, stupid, over-the-top plot twist for the next movie. I mean it should really feel like there was no way it could have actually happened!
Guy 2: Ok well the end of the movie needs to be at the beginning remember
Guy 1: But that isn't possible with what we wrote. The new accomplice can't be alone in a room with Jigsaw because, remember we had him shut the door on the F.B.I guy and in that enclosed room was Jigsaw's body. We don't have an out for the F.B.I agent! Shit, we need to re-think this.
Guy 2: No we don't. You think our audience is going to be clever enough to figure out we had a giant enormous stupid avoidable mistake at the end of the movie? Remember as long as we have some gross traps and we have 5 of them they will believe anything we show and tell them. That is why we keep getting money to write these shitty ass movies. The fans are just too stupid to figure out we are raping art!
Guy 1: Well you do make a few very good points. So I think we are done, right?
Guy 2: Yeah but we should get started on Saw V now so we won't be rushed and that way we will not make these kinds of mistakes again...Nah, just kidding!
Guy 1: Wait I just thought of something, what about the guy who was searching for his daughter in the third movie?
Guy 2: Oh crap you are right! Ummm Oh I know, in the final 10 minutes when everyone is running around the giant warehouse, we will just plug him in there. Then someone can kill him for no good reason whatsoever.
Guy 1: Man you are brilliant!

Resident Evil: Extinction (major spoilers)

I believe this movie concludes the year of the trilogy. I cannot remember a year that had this many third installments. Some were amazing (Spiderman 3 and Bourne) one was very good (Oceans 13) and a few were just awful (Rush Hour 3 and Pirates). I was basically a fan of the first two Resident Evil movies. I didn't love them but I liked them. They both suffered from terrible climaxes but I could forgive those because there was something about them that entertained me. I thought the trailer for the new one made it look fun, fast and entertaining and I get to see some movies for free, so what the hell right?


I am not going to rehash what has happened previously in the series, but Alice (The sexy Milla Jovovich) is still living in a world populated by the undead and she is still on the run from the Umbrella Corporation, the company that released the virus on the world. We also re-meet Carlos(Oded Fehr of the Mummy Returns) and L.J (comedian Mike Epps) as they survived the second movie and show up with a group of human survivors, led by Claire (Ali Larter, Heroes). Doctor crazy man Isaccs is working on a cure, or so we think. He is actually finding a way to make the zombies more aggressive because he needs super zombies to catch Alice. Alice has the possible cure in her blood because she has been infected with the virus but instead of it taking her over, it fused with her, or something. Oh and Alice has now received super powers, somehow and she has turned into Jean Grae. Alice and the rest of the gang meet up at some point and Alice thinks they should head out to Alaska because she found a random diary of a dead guy who claimed Alaska was free from zombies. On their trail they run into more zombies, crows who are all amped up on the flesh of the undead and of course, the super zombies. After most of the crew of humans die, Alice finds the head quarters of Dr. Crazy man and wants to end it once and for all. I guess I should mention that the umbrella corporation has been cloning Alice in hopes to find a cure and each one gets put through a test and when they fail and die, they toss them in a ditch. Alice finds the ditch, freaks out but keeps her cool. She runs into the child brain program, kind of like in the first one. She is told Dr. Crazy man has been bit by a zombie but shot himself up full of the anti-virus thingy and is now some kind of super human/zombie/octopus/unkillable nonsense thingy. They fight, the end, sort of.


I wish I could say this was a good movie, but it really is not, at all. Well that maybe a bit harsh because there are some fairly good moments, especially during the first 35 minutes or so. The first action sequence involving Milla and those pesky undead dogs is cool as she uses electrical cords as weapons and the scene with the killer crows works until Milla does her Jean Grae thing. It leads to a cool looking shot, although it was given away in the trailer. Also the big battle with all the amped up undead has some cool stunts and a lot of gunfire, which is usually pretty cool. As always, Milla Jovovich looks incredibly sexy holding two guns or two giant blades, so that does not disappoint either. However, the story makes no sense, as things like Alice's super powers basically go unexplained and everything unfolds in to predictable a fashion. Things like that don't matter when the movie is so much fun that you can forget logic, but this movie doesn't do enough to warrant putting logic aside. The non ending annoyed the crap out of me as it means that we will most likely have to have another one of these movies and I will watch it because I want to know if it will ever actually end. We never find out what happens to Ali Larter and the rest of the surviving humans. The effects of Dr. Isaacs do not look all that good and his tentacle things are laughable. There is a side plot involving the bigger Umbrella corporation and every time we see that it is funny because the lead guy is wearing sunglasses for no apparent reason. It is the little things like that that add up and make this movie, well suck.

Rush Hour 3 (spoilers, I guess)

In the third Scream movie, Jaime Kennedy gives the rules of being part of a trilogy and one of the rules is that this time around things are personal. Apparently that goes beyond just horror movies because if you look back you will find a few action movies that carry that same mantra and Rush Hour is no different. However, before you even get into that you have to ponder the question as to whether a third Rush Hour movie, especially 6 years after Rush Hour 2. Typically these buddy type movies run out of steam after one sequel and when they go longer (see Lethal Weapon)they end up diminishing how much you enjoyed the first one or even the first two. Of course, these are Rush Hour movies, so what is the big deal. I mean these movies have always known what they were and never tried to go above and beyond your escapism cinema. We knew Jackie Chan would bounce off walls and use couches to fight and we knew Chris Tucker would run his mouth and say something funny every little while and that the two guys would do a little dance.

The movie picks up 6 years after the last adventure we had with these guys. James Carter (Tucker) has been stripped of detective duty and is on the street controlling parking. He has his ipod on and is singing to prince while doing his usual Michael Jackson dance routine and not paying attention so cars start crashing into each other. Lee (Chan) is back on duty being the bodyguard for the Chinese ambassador and they are traveling to the "world Court" to introduce something that could change the world. Carter and Lee has not spoken in a few years because Carter accidentally shot Lee's girlfriend (she didn't die and they use it as a joke later). The ambassador is shot down by an assassin at the conference and when Carter hears about it he takes off for the court. Our first chase moment is Lee chasing down the would be assassin (The ambassador doesn't die)through a busy freeway in Los Angeles and in a moment that would make Jaime Kennedy happy, the assassin turns out to be... Lee's brother! Lee cannot bring himself to kill him and he escapes, but this puts Lee and Carter back together because Soo Yung (the kidnapped girl from the first movie) makes the two promise to find out who tried to kill her dad. They end up in Paris searching for the leader of the Triad and in Pairs their usual antics continue. The sing a little bit, fight some, and argue. Also a bald woman shows up to lend some really bad gay jokes to Carter.

The things that made the first two movies work were the chemistry between the two and also the action to joke ratio was pretty good. This movie is exactly the same as the first two, but it is no longer very interesting or funny. The action scene in the hospital hearkens to the first two, combining good gun action and jokes and the final showdown in the Eiffel Tower is a lot of fun, if incredibly unlikely, but other than that this movie falls incredibly flat. A lot of Asian jokes, a Brokeback joke and a white nun being "down" are what this pins its hope on and they all seem to fall flat. Chris Tucker, a man I have always found to be very funny, appears to have run out gas and jokes because most of the time he is just obnoxious here. He hasn't made a single movie since Rush Hour two and maybe he is not meant to be a movie star. Jackie Chan is getting old and has apparently run out of stunts because I am fairly certain if you watched Rush hour 2 and 3 back to back you would find a lot of similar stunts, especially ones involving a love seat. Of course there is someone in higher power who turns out to be bad and if you are paying any attention at all you will figure it out about 15 minutes in, but again that doesn't really matter to these movies.

If I were to find all the good stuff about this movie I would start with the 90 minute run time. This movie hits the ground running and doesn't stop for things like character development and story, who needs those things when you have Chris Tucker trying to fight a guy who stand about 8 feet tall!?! Also, the typical scene where Tucker and Chan have a fight and wander the streets alone while some very corny song plays, does not disappoint as Tucker ends up eating Asian food and Chan eats some fried chicken, yes fried chicken! Homophobia and racism be damned here. The director of this mess is Bret Ratner, the man charged with ruining X-men and in fact charged with ruining cinema itself with his bad movies. I have never had a problem with his movies. I mean I love the first two installments of this franchise but a third one just seems pointless.

with the exception of the classic trilogy- needing 3 movies to tell one single story-movie franchises that go further than 2 tend to have at least one of the movies be of a lesser quality than the other two. Sometimes the third one is created to make up for a bad second one- Ocean's and Indiana Jones- or they have a bad third leg- Ninja turtles and Back to the future and now Rush Hour. I know these movies are just supposed to help us make it through the end of summer blues as school creeps up, but is it too much to ask that the jokes be new or that the action look interesting? The movie underperformed this weekend compared to the last installment so hopefully we will be spared the Lethal Weapon curse of making a fourth one because I doubt I will need any more jokes from Chris Tucker about turning Asian people into California rolls.

Underdog

To be perfectly honest I never would have seen this movie if it was not at my theater because I would never pay to see something like this. The first time I saw the trailer I thought it could be kind of a cute movie but as the release date neared and more trailers and promos came out, I got less and less interested. But I watched it anyway so I guess I can review it.


Cartoons turning into live action movies aimed at kids are rarely any good and this is truly no exception. Underdog is a superhero dog who in the cartoon takes some sort of drug pill to get his super strength and in this movie some sort of experiment goes horribly wrong and he is endowed with Superman like powers. Also, he can talk. A retired cop runs him over, takes him home and the dog forms a bond with the son. The son is moody, emo and silent because his mom recently died but he and is father never discussed it. We do not ever find out how his mom died and the only reason it seems to exist to make the kid a lot more needy when it comes to bonding with our hero dog. Underdog falls in love with another dog and she thinks he is not underdog (more Superman stuff). The evil genius Dr. Barsinister (Peter Dinklage) is after Underdog because the dog is taking all of the glory he thinks he deserved for creating the potion that turned an ordinary dog into a pun rhyming crime fighter. His assistant, Cad (Patrick Warburton) follows his every footstep and in the end they end up as bunk mates in prison.


I know this movie is aimed at kids and that nothing I say really matters because I am not of that target age, but this movie is woefully bad. I counted myself chuckling 3 times and all 3 at Warburton doing his usual routine of dumb guy charm. Jason Lee as the voice of Underdog could have been a good choice but the dialogue is so awful it really doesn't matter who voiced him. The theme of the movie is that even the Underdog can win, but it isn't actually true because once the little dog is pumped up on steroids, he is no longer the Underdog. In fact, he cannot defeat the evil Barsinister until he gets his powers back, after he briefly loses them. So in reality, this movie is saying that if you need an extra boost, well that is ok! The CGIed dog is not all that impressive and the action isn't thrilling or funny. I guess I can see where kids would laugh at his trying to land after flying, but even that gets old after the second or third time.


I often wonder why kids movies have to appeal to the lowest form of kid. Pixar movies are for kids and they are brilliant, but so often people think kids will only laugh at poop jokes and bad pratfalls. Until the day someone thinks to challenge a kid with a movie this is what we get and later this year we have an Alvin and the Chipmunks movie to look forward to! There is a way to make kids movies for everyone to enjoy, but this is certainly not it. It is not wonder that the writer went 5 years without getting a script made. Also, the son in this and his love interest look too far apart in age for me to believe it. He is about 16 or 17 and she is obviously 12 or 13 yrs old. It seems like such a little thing, but it really just led to me and my two co-workers to laugh AT it not WITH it. I an only hope this thing leaves quietly and quickly

I now Pronounce you Chuck and Larry

There was a time when I was among that large fraternity of Adam Sandler fans- Billy Madison, Happy Gilmore and the Wedding Singer- are all movies I still find to be hilarious and extremely quotable. However, over the last few years I have been distancing myself from him because, well, his movies have basically started sucking. I am, though, a fan of Kevin James and I thought the premise of this movie was interesting. Plus Jessica Biel is incredibly hot the trailers make the most of the fact, so I figured I would check it out. It couldn't be that bad, right? Right?


Larry Valentine(Kevin James) and Chuck Levine(Adam Sandler) are firefighters and best friends. Valentine is a widower/single parent and Levine is a disgusting womanizer, but they have a male bond that cannot be broken. After Larry saves Chuck's life in a fire, Chuck tells Larry that he will do anything Larry needs at anytime. Larry has been trying to get all of his benefits in his kid's names but do to a flawed system he isn't able to and the only way to do it is to get married or enter into a domestic partnership. He hatches the plan and eventually gets Chuck to sign on after promising no one will ever actually know. The government decides to check up on them to make sure it is all legit and madness ensues. They hire a lawyer, Alex McDonough (Jessica Biel), and quickly Chuck falls head over heels in love with her. Their lies start to spin out of control as they they become kind of poster boys for gay and Chuck starts to doubt keeping up the truth, but because of the love he has for Larry, he continues to do it anyway. They are ostracized by their fellow firefighters, friends and Larry is thrown off of scouting trips and little league. Oh and it is possible that Larry's son is gay (although only 11 years old).


This is supposed to be a comedy of the make-you-laugh-out-loud type, but I think I chuckled a total of 6 times and 4 of those happened at a running gag that for some reason I think is very funny. The gay jokes are old and stale (Boy George records,really?) and the stereotypes painfully unfunny, especially Ving Rhames showing up as a tough crazy big black guy, who is hiding his gayness until Chuck and Larry come out. Then, when Rhames comes out he turns out to be a total queen, with limp wrists, a lisp and singing "I'm every Woman" in the shower. Alex's brother is also gay and possibly every gay stereotype rolled into one person played by new Sandler regular Nick Swardson. If the movie is not offensive to gay people, it is offensive to the genre of comedy. We get the usual Sandler staples- Rob Schneider, David Spade and his other unfunny cronies- all stopping in for excruciatingly awful bits. Schneider as an offensive wannabe Asian and Spade as a gay guy who looks like a hot chick from behind. I cannot think of an original idea in this movie and even the very core of Sandler's character is hard to believe because we have to buy that every woman alive wants to sleep with him and that he is smooth enough to get twin sisters to make out, tongue and all.


That doesn't mean nothing in the movie works because there are some things that work. Steve Buscemi in his obligatory Sandler cameo shines as the government official trying to get to the bottom of the case (he has a fanny pack too!). Dan Ackroyd as the fire captain gave me the two chuckles not related to the running gag. But most of all Kevin James really shines as the heart of the movie. His portrayal of Larry is a touching and kind especially when remembering his deceased wife. The few serious moments int he movie work because of him and the end of the film works because you do believe he and Sandler as best friends. In an attempt to kind of apologize for every gay stereotype in this thing, it hits us very hard over the head about tolerance. And as a message film it almost works. If the rest of the movie hadn't been so damned fraught with bad gay jokes, the kind of over the top preachiness might have sounded a bit sincere. It is like anytime someone starts off a sentence with "No offense but", saying that doesn't not make up for whatever offensive thing you are about to say. I am not a hyper sensitive guy and I find stereotypes to be amusing in doses, but this movie just elevates it to a level that renders every single homophobic gay joke seriously unfunny. Chuck starts the movie as a guy who is not afraid to throw around the word faggot, but by the end he understands what it feels like to be a gay person and has seen the error of his former ways. Also, Jessica Biel is just as hot as advertised, even if most of her scenes are coated in a nice thin layer of misogyny.


I still believe the premise of this movie could lend itself to both a great comedy and a touching drama, but I think it needs to be tackled by people who actually care about the subject or at least by people who understand what is funny. I can't imagine Sandler's usual fans are going to fall in love with the movie because it does have a lot of gay in it, even if it is wrapped in a heavy coating of blatant homophobia, so this could be Sandler's first comedic mainstream dud, which would make me very happy! I hope Kevin James can find better material than this and that this bad movie will not be a deterrent for someone better tackling this subject because it is a hot button issue and could be turned into a great film.

Pirates of the Caribbean: At worlds end (spoilers)

This movie had one big positive going in: It could not possibly worse than the second one, right? Right? So freaking wrong! To be honest, it didn't start out so bad. In fact, the opening was cool (Well after the jokes between my father and I about how this was a musical). The first scene where we see our characters again was cool. Keira Knightley, in all her smoldering and snarling sexiness and Geoffrey Rush, back from the dead, lead the goofy band of too moronic to actually be good at pirating pirates, into some dark, steamy hole to meet up with Asian pirate, Chow Yun fat and the first band of Asian pirates in the movie. Don't worry later we get all kinds of stereotypical groups of pirates- more Asian pirates, a band of black pirates- you get the idea. This scene is strong because it is almost funny, has some cool fighting, a nice minor explosion and features soaking wet hotness, in the form of Orlando Bloom. Sadly, when this scene is over, the movie stumbles, wait no it just crash lands into the ground.


Jack Sparrow was swallowed by a giant vagina at the end of the last movie and now he is in Davey Jones' locker. This is where the movie hits bottom for the first time. Jack is all alone, but in his head he is leading the Black Pearl with a crew of Jack Sparrows. Yes, a whole bunch of obnoxious, stupid, bumbling and not-at-all funny Jack Sparrows are running around and one is clucking like a chicken and lays an egg. Why? Who knows, I guess to be funny, but sadly, no one was laughing. Then, Jack licks a rock, throws the rock and the rock turns into a crab. Then a whole bunch of rocks turn into a whole bunch of crabs and carry the ship to the water. I know, I know. What kind of drunken moron came up with this nonsense? Did the writers sit in a room, pass the weed and just write the first things that came to their minds? In case you want more, a running gag in the movie becomes Jack talking to other versions of himself. Yes, right on down to the mini Jack on each shoulder, telling him what he should do.


Everyone in this thing double crosses everyone else, but it is not nearly as confusing as people make it out to be. Perhaps though, I just stopped caring because this thing is just that bad. Orlando Bloom is trying to save his dad and whining about how Keira doesn't love him because Disney decided to try and force feed us a love triangle to appease those obnoxious IMDB fan girls who like to slam names together to create not-at-all cute nicknames like "willizabeth" or "Jackabeth." The day writers, directors and producers started looking towards web postings for plot lines, is the day the art died! Not even Geoffrey Rush manages to come out of this movie unscathed. His usual strong presence comes off way to far over the top to be interesting. Davey Jones love interest is revealed, but that entire plot line serves NO FUNCTION!! The goddess he loved creates the rainstorm the final battle takes place during, but like so much else in this movie, it is pointless.


There are also some coins that serve no purpose, unless they are specifically to set up the joke later in the movie about the junk pirates have and if that is the case, the joke needed to actually be funny, which it was not. And if you think I am just being harsh, 2 people in our theater actually laughed. The monkey and parrot are back and provide the only two very funny moments in this travesty of a film. Johnny Depp has lost an incredible amount of credibility with me and really has become Disney's bitch. There is nothing spectacular about this movie. The final battle feels rushed and lacks the wow that existed at the tail end of the second movie. Nothing in the movie makes sense and when it was over, I could not wait to get out of the theater. Yet, I was told to wait until after the credits for a scene, which I did. The scene is pointless. Shocking, I know! Why should the end have a point when the rest of the movie was void of having a point? Keira Knightley becomes the Pirate king and for a second I was actually hoping I had been brought back to Pioneer High's Pirates of Penzance, because at least that was funny. Keith Richards shows up in the most pointless cameo in the history of cameos as Jack's dad, but they exchange one sentence and his role could have been eliminated.