This movie really annoyed me. I think part of my feelings are from the knowledge that Disney is trying so hard to duplicate their Pirates of the Carribean success. They could have made a nice Lone Ranger movie. Instead they had to make it a $250 million blockbuster tentpole movie. It's overblown with special effects and the running time is a ridiculous 2 1/2 hours.
One problem is Johnny Depp as Tonto. For one thing, his schtick is wearing thin. I didn't enjoy much of what he was trying to do. Another problem is he's a bigger star than Armie Hammer. So instead of the movie being about the Lone Ranger with Tonto as his sidekick, it's as much Tonto's movie as the Lone Ranger's. That doesn't really work.
There is a completely unnecessary framing device to this movie. The movie starts in the 1930s with a kid running into an elderly Tonto at some kind of wild west exhibit. Tonto tells the kid the story of the Lone Ranger, so the entire movie is basically a flashback.
The tone is all over the place. It jumps between serious action and danger, then it becomes a goofy comedy, then it's a cartoon, and all over again. It doesn't work when one minute we're seeing the aftermath of the genocide of an entire indian tribe, and the next minute a horse is standing in a tree wearing a cowboy hat. That's just too much.
I don't think the Lone Ranger and Tonto had much chemistry together. I just didn't really care about the characters, and I was bored for most of the movie. The only enjoyable part was the climax involving the characters fighting on top of 2 trains. There was some really fun stuff in this sequence, but it didn't make up for the 2 hours that preceeded it. Oh, and Helena Bonham Carter adds nothing to this movie. She shows up for a couple scenes looking like she just stepped out of a Tim Burton movie. Her scenes could easily have been cut without affecting the movie at all.
Thursday, July 11, 2013
The Heat - 3 1/2 stars
You may be thinking from the trailers that this is basically Miss Congeniality 3. You would be mistaken.
Sandra Bullock is an FBI agent, and her character did remind me of her Miss Congeniality character. In this movie, she goes to Boston to track a drug smuggler. She is partnered up with a local cop played by Melissa McCarthy. Neither one wants to work with the other, and they start out on the worst possible foot.
This movie is funny. McCarthy has been funny before, but this is Bridesmaids-level funny. In fact, I think she is even funnier here. She is tough as nails, hates everyone, and I need to see this movie again so I can write down some of her best insults. The things that come out of her mouth have to be heard to be believed.
This movie reminded me a little of the Lethal Weapon movies. One reason those movies worked so well was the chemistry between Mel Gibson and Danny Glover. Bullock and McCarthy have that chemistry. They make a great team, and I would love to see a sequel. This is almost as consistently funny as This Is the End.
Sandra Bullock is an FBI agent, and her character did remind me of her Miss Congeniality character. In this movie, she goes to Boston to track a drug smuggler. She is partnered up with a local cop played by Melissa McCarthy. Neither one wants to work with the other, and they start out on the worst possible foot.
This movie is funny. McCarthy has been funny before, but this is Bridesmaids-level funny. In fact, I think she is even funnier here. She is tough as nails, hates everyone, and I need to see this movie again so I can write down some of her best insults. The things that come out of her mouth have to be heard to be believed.
This movie reminded me a little of the Lethal Weapon movies. One reason those movies worked so well was the chemistry between Mel Gibson and Danny Glover. Bullock and McCarthy have that chemistry. They make a great team, and I would love to see a sequel. This is almost as consistently funny as This Is the End.
White House Down - 3 stars
It's funny that this is the second "Die Hard in the White House" movie we have had this year. The first was Olympus Has Fallen a few months ago. That movie was better, but this one is still pretty fun.
Channing Tatum is really good in the John McClain role. He has some good one liners, and he is just a good screen presence. Jamie Foxx on the other hand, I don't know. He does a good job, but I just have a hard time buying him as the president. He needed to be at least 10 years older, in my opinion.
As usual in movies like this, the characters make horrible decisions. The bad guys aren't as threatening as they should be - for example, they threaten to kill hostages if the army moves in. Then the army moves in, and they don't kill any hostages, or even threaten to. They just start fighting the army. There are secret tunnels that the Secret Service knows about. They never think about sneaking a special forces team into the White House to help.
This is one of those movies where you can't think too much about the dumb decisions everyone is making. If the movie was less entertaining, I would be just picking it apart. But it was fun, the characters were interesting, and I was never bored. So I was more forgiving of the dumb parts and I enjoyed it.
Channing Tatum is really good in the John McClain role. He has some good one liners, and he is just a good screen presence. Jamie Foxx on the other hand, I don't know. He does a good job, but I just have a hard time buying him as the president. He needed to be at least 10 years older, in my opinion.
As usual in movies like this, the characters make horrible decisions. The bad guys aren't as threatening as they should be - for example, they threaten to kill hostages if the army moves in. Then the army moves in, and they don't kill any hostages, or even threaten to. They just start fighting the army. There are secret tunnels that the Secret Service knows about. They never think about sneaking a special forces team into the White House to help.
This is one of those movies where you can't think too much about the dumb decisions everyone is making. If the movie was less entertaining, I would be just picking it apart. But it was fun, the characters were interesting, and I was never bored. So I was more forgiving of the dumb parts and I enjoyed it.
World War Z - 3 1/2 stars
This was a lot of fun. I'm not crazy about how fast the zombies are, or the way they can leap from building to building. But I liked the scale of the movie. We start in Philadelphia with the zombie epidemic just beginning. Brad Pitt plays a former UN officer of some kind. The military comes and rescues him and his family because he is the best person to go searching for the source of the zombies. With every plague, there is a patient zero, and they think the same is true this time.
The action moves from an aircraft carrier to South Korea, then to Jerusalem, and finally to Europe. There is a lot of coincidence in this movie. Jerusalem is walled off from the zombies, and the people are living in relative comfort. But Brad Pitt just happens to be there when something happens which causes the zombies to climb the walls and invade. They climb the walls like ants, by climbing on top of each other. It's pretty incredible and frightening.
There is also a plane crash sequence, and somehow Brad Pitt and his traveling companion are the only ones who survive. They end up at a medical research facility and this sets up the finale of the movie. I won't spoil what happens, but it was really intense.
This isn't my favorite zombie movie. That's probably Shaun of the Dead, followed by 28 Days Later. But World War Z was very enjoyable.
The action moves from an aircraft carrier to South Korea, then to Jerusalem, and finally to Europe. There is a lot of coincidence in this movie. Jerusalem is walled off from the zombies, and the people are living in relative comfort. But Brad Pitt just happens to be there when something happens which causes the zombies to climb the walls and invade. They climb the walls like ants, by climbing on top of each other. It's pretty incredible and frightening.
There is also a plane crash sequence, and somehow Brad Pitt and his traveling companion are the only ones who survive. They end up at a medical research facility and this sets up the finale of the movie. I won't spoil what happens, but it was really intense.
This isn't my favorite zombie movie. That's probably Shaun of the Dead, followed by 28 Days Later. But World War Z was very enjoyable.
Man of Steel - 2 1/2 stars
It's hard for me to be objective about this movie. Richard Donner's 1978 Superman is one of my favorite movies of all time. I saw it when I was around 5 years old, and Christopher Reeve has always been Superman to me.
This movie takes the Superman story and tries to place it in a realistic world, the same way Christopher Nolan's Batman movies did. They tried to make it less comic book-ish and more realistic. I have no problem with that. But this just doesn't feel like a Superman movie to me.
When Superman Returns came out in 2006, I was excited. It seemed like they were being so faithful to the Donner / Reeve Superman, even going so far as to use the John Williams theme music and footage of Marlon Brando as Jor-El. Superman Returns was a pseudo-sequel to Superman I and II, and that ended up being one of that movie's problems. It reminded me too much of the original and better Superman movies. The movie had other problems, like Clark Kent / Superman's lack of dialogue, or Brandon Routh's lack of chemistry with Kate Bosworth, or the casting of Kate Bosworth in general ...
So I was glad that this movie wasn't trying to be a sequel to those other movies. Krypton is unlike any Krypton we have seen before. Instead of a crystal planet that doesn't look habitable at all, we get an actual alien world with creatures and ships. Russell Crowe is a very good choice for Jor-El. I really enjoyed the setup of this movie.
But one problem is the entire movie feels like the origin story. I kept waiting for Clark Kent to change into Superman and save the day, along with some triumphant music. Superman may have saved the day here and here, but it was either as shirtless Clark with a beard, or as Superman with no triumphant music. At no point does he even have a secret identity.
After his father, Jonathan Kent (Kevin Costner) dies a really pointless death, Clark leaves home and becomes a vagabond. He's like David Banner in the Bill Bixby TV series, going from town to town and job to job. He saves people here and there using his powers, but he isn't Superman yet. Once he learns who he is and puts on the suit, General Zod arrives and the battles begin. He never assumes a secret identity.
The last 45 minutes or so are exhausting. It's one long battle between Superman and Zod. Unlike the battle in Superman II, this time when they hit each other, buildings collapse. There is so much destruction the death toll must be in the hundreds of thousands. And there is no mention of this. At no point does any character acknowledge how many people were killed in this tragedy. The point where Superman kills Zod is Zod is about to vaporize a family of 4. As much as I wanted Superman to save them, I couldn't help thinking about all the other families that were killed in the preceeding 30 minutes.
The destruction and the look of the film were just depressing. The movie was shot so dark, and during the battles I got numb to it. The Avengers did a great job of keeping the focus on the characters amidst all the destruction. But Man of Steel is like the Transformers movies. After 10 minutes of characters punching each other and throwing each other through buildings, it gets really boring.
I know I've spent all this time ripping on the movie, but there are things I liked about it. Amy Adams is a better Lois Lane than Kate Bosworth was. I liked the way Clark started to discover his powers as a kid, and how they frightened him. He had to learn to control his X-ray vision and his super hearing. And Kevin Costner was great as Jonathan Kent. I wish he had more screen time.
Overall, a disappointment but not a bad movie. Just not a good Superman movie. I really think I would have liked it better if it hadn't been a Superman movie, but just an original sci-fi movie. They leave it open for a sequel (of course), and they set up the next movie nicely. I'm curious to see if they can do a better job with the next movie.
This movie takes the Superman story and tries to place it in a realistic world, the same way Christopher Nolan's Batman movies did. They tried to make it less comic book-ish and more realistic. I have no problem with that. But this just doesn't feel like a Superman movie to me.
When Superman Returns came out in 2006, I was excited. It seemed like they were being so faithful to the Donner / Reeve Superman, even going so far as to use the John Williams theme music and footage of Marlon Brando as Jor-El. Superman Returns was a pseudo-sequel to Superman I and II, and that ended up being one of that movie's problems. It reminded me too much of the original and better Superman movies. The movie had other problems, like Clark Kent / Superman's lack of dialogue, or Brandon Routh's lack of chemistry with Kate Bosworth, or the casting of Kate Bosworth in general ...
So I was glad that this movie wasn't trying to be a sequel to those other movies. Krypton is unlike any Krypton we have seen before. Instead of a crystal planet that doesn't look habitable at all, we get an actual alien world with creatures and ships. Russell Crowe is a very good choice for Jor-El. I really enjoyed the setup of this movie.
But one problem is the entire movie feels like the origin story. I kept waiting for Clark Kent to change into Superman and save the day, along with some triumphant music. Superman may have saved the day here and here, but it was either as shirtless Clark with a beard, or as Superman with no triumphant music. At no point does he even have a secret identity.
After his father, Jonathan Kent (Kevin Costner) dies a really pointless death, Clark leaves home and becomes a vagabond. He's like David Banner in the Bill Bixby TV series, going from town to town and job to job. He saves people here and there using his powers, but he isn't Superman yet. Once he learns who he is and puts on the suit, General Zod arrives and the battles begin. He never assumes a secret identity.
The last 45 minutes or so are exhausting. It's one long battle between Superman and Zod. Unlike the battle in Superman II, this time when they hit each other, buildings collapse. There is so much destruction the death toll must be in the hundreds of thousands. And there is no mention of this. At no point does any character acknowledge how many people were killed in this tragedy. The point where Superman kills Zod is Zod is about to vaporize a family of 4. As much as I wanted Superman to save them, I couldn't help thinking about all the other families that were killed in the preceeding 30 minutes.
The destruction and the look of the film were just depressing. The movie was shot so dark, and during the battles I got numb to it. The Avengers did a great job of keeping the focus on the characters amidst all the destruction. But Man of Steel is like the Transformers movies. After 10 minutes of characters punching each other and throwing each other through buildings, it gets really boring.
I know I've spent all this time ripping on the movie, but there are things I liked about it. Amy Adams is a better Lois Lane than Kate Bosworth was. I liked the way Clark started to discover his powers as a kid, and how they frightened him. He had to learn to control his X-ray vision and his super hearing. And Kevin Costner was great as Jonathan Kent. I wish he had more screen time.
Overall, a disappointment but not a bad movie. Just not a good Superman movie. I really think I would have liked it better if it hadn't been a Superman movie, but just an original sci-fi movie. They leave it open for a sequel (of course), and they set up the next movie nicely. I'm curious to see if they can do a better job with the next movie.
Thursday, June 13, 2013
This Is the End - 4 stars
I'll come right out and say it. This is the funniest movie I have seen in at least a year. This will definitely be on my top 10 list in December.
Jay Baruchel goes to LA to visit his friend Seth Rogan, who invites him to a party at James Franco's house. There are a lot of celebrities at the party, including Craig Robinson, Jonah Hill, Michael Cera, Rihanna, Mindy Kaling, Emma Watson ... the list goes on.
What's different about this movie is that everyone plays themselves. When Franco and Rogen are getting stoned, they start talking about ideas for Pineapple Express 2. The party is a lot of fun. Mindy Kaling wants to hook up with Michael Cera, who is a coked up womanizer. Craig Robinson sings a song called "Take Your Panties Off" with Rihanna joining in.
At some point, all hell breaks loose. Literally. The ground starts to shake and the earth opens up, with most of the partygoers falling to a fiery death. The survivors include Baruchel, Rogen, Robinson, Hill, Franco, and Danny McBride (who wasn't invited to the party in the first place). The rest of the movie consists of the 6 of them trying to survive in Franco's house. They have limited rations, and there are monsters of some kind roaming around outside.
The movie reminds me of Shaun of the Dead. It's a comedy, but it also takes the events of the apocalypse seriously. There is violence and death at times. It's actually pretty realistic about the way some people would probably behave in a situation like that.
It's a lot of fun seeing these actors making fun of each other. There are several references to the fact that Jonah Hill was nominated for an Oscar for Moneyball, and James Franco keeps props from the movies he is in. And it was fun seeing the three leads from Superbad standing around together.
The only complaints I had about the movie was it's a little too long. But the laughs kept on coming, and the ending is a lot of fun. It was really raunchy, but funny is funny. I loved this movie.
Jay Baruchel goes to LA to visit his friend Seth Rogan, who invites him to a party at James Franco's house. There are a lot of celebrities at the party, including Craig Robinson, Jonah Hill, Michael Cera, Rihanna, Mindy Kaling, Emma Watson ... the list goes on.
What's different about this movie is that everyone plays themselves. When Franco and Rogen are getting stoned, they start talking about ideas for Pineapple Express 2. The party is a lot of fun. Mindy Kaling wants to hook up with Michael Cera, who is a coked up womanizer. Craig Robinson sings a song called "Take Your Panties Off" with Rihanna joining in.
At some point, all hell breaks loose. Literally. The ground starts to shake and the earth opens up, with most of the partygoers falling to a fiery death. The survivors include Baruchel, Rogen, Robinson, Hill, Franco, and Danny McBride (who wasn't invited to the party in the first place). The rest of the movie consists of the 6 of them trying to survive in Franco's house. They have limited rations, and there are monsters of some kind roaming around outside.
The movie reminds me of Shaun of the Dead. It's a comedy, but it also takes the events of the apocalypse seriously. There is violence and death at times. It's actually pretty realistic about the way some people would probably behave in a situation like that.
It's a lot of fun seeing these actors making fun of each other. There are several references to the fact that Jonah Hill was nominated for an Oscar for Moneyball, and James Franco keeps props from the movies he is in. And it was fun seeing the three leads from Superbad standing around together.
The only complaints I had about the movie was it's a little too long. But the laughs kept on coming, and the ending is a lot of fun. It was really raunchy, but funny is funny. I loved this movie.
The Internship - 2 stars
The Internship reunited Vince Vaughn and Owen Wilson 8 years after the hilarious Wedding Crashers. This time, they play out of work watch salesman. Since they have no skills, and apparently there are no more jobs for salesmen, their best plan is to try and become interns at Google.
This is a very predictable story that I've seen many times before. The characters are established as losers right away. Vaughn is being dumped by his girlfriend, and the only job Wilson can find is working for his sister's jerk of a boyfriend, played by Will Ferrell in his least funny cameo ever. They don't know computers and they don't fit in with the other interns. But if they want to succeed, they will have to overcome these obstacles. By the end of the movie, they and their team of interns will have become better people.
In order for the story to work, the characters have to be computer illiterate. But it's hard to believe than these guys are this dumb. They have their interview in a google hangout, and they act like they have never seen a webcam before. They think they have to shout into the mic to be heard. And why are they interviewing together anyway?
When all the intern are put into teams, they are teamed up with the misfits (who actually seem pretty smart, and would have no trouble finding a team in real life). Their first challenge is to find a bug in a program. Vaughn and Wilson have no idea what this means. Instead of shutting up and letting the computer experts try to figure it out, they won't shut up. They start brainstorming, coming up with complete nonsense. It's pretty annoying. And even though I wouldn't expect them to be familiar with X-Men comics, there have been several highly successful X-Men movies. The idea that neither of them would have any idea who Professor Charles Xavier is seems kind of far fetched.
Because this is that type of movie, once the team starts to work together, everything starts going their way. Even though these guys knew less about computers than my 80 year old grandmother, after one night of studying they can handle any type of tech support call. They become experts by osmosis, it seems.
I could overlook all these flaws of the movie if it were funnier. But this material just seems tired. Vaughn and Wilson don't have the creative energy they had in Wedding Crashers. Maybe a better director could have helped them improvise some better lines. They are playing the same characters they have played many times before. And from the moment Wilson meets the lady executive, you know exactly how that romance is going to play out.
I think I laughed maybe 5 times in the entire movie. The most creative part was the end credits, which must have been designed by Google.
This is a very predictable story that I've seen many times before. The characters are established as losers right away. Vaughn is being dumped by his girlfriend, and the only job Wilson can find is working for his sister's jerk of a boyfriend, played by Will Ferrell in his least funny cameo ever. They don't know computers and they don't fit in with the other interns. But if they want to succeed, they will have to overcome these obstacles. By the end of the movie, they and their team of interns will have become better people.
In order for the story to work, the characters have to be computer illiterate. But it's hard to believe than these guys are this dumb. They have their interview in a google hangout, and they act like they have never seen a webcam before. They think they have to shout into the mic to be heard. And why are they interviewing together anyway?
When all the intern are put into teams, they are teamed up with the misfits (who actually seem pretty smart, and would have no trouble finding a team in real life). Their first challenge is to find a bug in a program. Vaughn and Wilson have no idea what this means. Instead of shutting up and letting the computer experts try to figure it out, they won't shut up. They start brainstorming, coming up with complete nonsense. It's pretty annoying. And even though I wouldn't expect them to be familiar with X-Men comics, there have been several highly successful X-Men movies. The idea that neither of them would have any idea who Professor Charles Xavier is seems kind of far fetched.
Because this is that type of movie, once the team starts to work together, everything starts going their way. Even though these guys knew less about computers than my 80 year old grandmother, after one night of studying they can handle any type of tech support call. They become experts by osmosis, it seems.
I could overlook all these flaws of the movie if it were funnier. But this material just seems tired. Vaughn and Wilson don't have the creative energy they had in Wedding Crashers. Maybe a better director could have helped them improvise some better lines. They are playing the same characters they have played many times before. And from the moment Wilson meets the lady executive, you know exactly how that romance is going to play out.
I think I laughed maybe 5 times in the entire movie. The most creative part was the end credits, which must have been designed by Google.
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