a few movie reviews

My Bloody Valentine 3-D - 1 1/2 stars

I like a good slasher movie, and this is not a good slasher movie. Its not terrible. Just very forgettable. There are some interesting scenes, such as the scene at the motel where one female victim is naked for about 5 minutes, and a midget is killed. The scene with the killer in the grocery store had potential, but it wasn't done very well.

The end reminded me of Scream. Remember when Sydney has the gun pointed at Randy and Stuart, both insisting that the other is the killer? Something very similar happens in this movie. The reveal of the killer is supposed to be a surprise, but I guessed who it was and what was going on 30 minutes into the movie.

I did like the 3-D effects. Most of the time, it wasn't about things flying at the audience. It just made the events on screen look more realistic. I'm really excited to see what James Cameron does with Avatar, which should come out at the end of this year.

Revolutionary Road - 3 stars

This is a hard movie to like. There is very little humor in it. Pretty much every character is depressed the entire movie. I am fine with a depressing movie and a depressing ending, but this was almost too much for me. This movie is reason number 1,937 why I will never get married and have kids.

The performances were all good, especially Michael Shannon as the mentally disturbed neighbor. His scenes are the most enjoyable in the movie.

The Wrestler - 3 stars

I've never been a huge Mickey Rourke fan, but now I am. This was an incredible performance. He plays Randy 'The Ram' Robinson. In the 80's he was one of the biggest wrestling stars in the world. Now, he is relegated to working in a grocery store and wrestling on the weekends in front of a hundred or so people in a school gym.

There is a lot of talk in the movie about how much better the 80's were. I agree with everything he says about that. Music in the 80's was great, and then grunge came along and killed hair metal. This topic is close to my heart considering I formed an 80's hair metal tribute band about 4 years ago (Sunset Strip). I think you could compare wrestling to those great hair bands. In the 80's, bands like Ratt, Warrant and Winger were playing to stadiums. Now, they tour and play in clubs. In the 80's, The Ram was wrestling in huge arenas. Now, his matches are small affairs.

My favorite scene has to be when he is walking from the back room of the grocery store to the deli counter. As he walks the hallways, we hear the sound of the crowd cheering, and he is imagining he is walking out to a big wrestling match. Then he walks thru the doorway and he is in a deli with customers waiting to be served. Breaks your heart.

He has two relationships in the movie. One is with a stripper played by Marisa Tomei, the other is with his daughter played by Evan Rachel Wood. The scenes with his daughter are also heart breaking. We know he was a bad father, but we don't know exactly what he did. We are torn between hating him for being a bad father, and wanting her to forgive him so he can have that relationship he wants so bad.

Taken - 3 stars

Taken is a rediculous movie but its a lot of fun. The trailer tells us everything we need to know about the setup: Liam Neeson is an ex-CIA, James Bond type of guy, his daughter is on vacation in Paris and is kidnapped, and he tells the kidnappers he is going to find them and kill them. The biggest question I had going in was how is he going to find them? Well, I can kind of buy some of it, but there are a lot of lucky coincidences that have to happen for him to find the bad guys.

First, we have the spotter. Now, when the girls arrive in Paris, a nice guy introduces himself and they share a cab ride from the airport. Now, anyone with half a brain knows that this is one of the kidnappers, or at least the guy who tells the kidnappers where to go. But the movie has to show us that he is a bad guy. After he drops the girls off, he gets on the phone to the bad guys to tell them about the two girls. Did we really need to see that? Was anyone in the audience surprised to find out he was a bad guy? Oh well.

When Liam Neeson arrives in Paris, the first thing he does is look for the spotter. He knows what he looks like because luckily his daughter got his silouette in a picture with her camera phone. He cases the airport near the same area where his daughter met him, and of course he is lucky enough to see the spotter trying to pick up another girl. Now, I can believe that. But it seems like there is a lot of curb area where the spotter could be working, and does he go there every day? At the same time of day? A little coincidental.

I especially enjoyed the scene where Neeson goes to an old friends' house for dinner, and what he does to get information out of the guy. I won't spoil it for you, but at the end of the scene he says "apologize to your wife for me."

There are many scenes where he takes out 10 - 20 bad guys single handedly. Sometimes they are shooting him with machine guns and they can't hit him. At one time, he is captured by the bad guys and they are going to kill him. The way he gets out is a big cheat. Luckily, the pipes are loose ...