Review: HAYWIRE

There isn’t much to Soderbergh’s newest film. The plot for the most part is nonsense; like many action films, Haywire simply uses any excuse to weave chase scene after chase scene together. In fact, Haywire isn’t really any different than a movie like, let’s say, The Transporter, except that the action is choreographed to look plausible, and that like every other Soderbergh film, it features a parade of cameos that includes every Hollywood name worth mentioning: Michael Fassbender, Michael Douglas, Ewan McGreggor, Gary Oldman, etc. Yet, despite their presence Gina Carano, a relatively unknown actress, remains the most interesting part of the film; and it is not thanks to her acting prowess. 

Review: SHERLOCK HOLMES: GAME OF SHADOWS

           The first installment of these Victorian-super-secret-agent Sherlock Holmes re-imaging had a plot impossible to understand. This second installment fixes that problem by having a plot you don’t really need to understand; there is a clear villain whom Sherlock needs to confront. Everything else is frivolous set dressing, and action sequences done in slow motion. It is fun, but it isn’t the inquisitive thriller you would expect from a movie based of the adventures of an inquisitive detective. Like its predecessor this is simply a modern action movie, not very different from Mission Impossible Ghost Protocol, done in costume; in MI: 4 we saw Tom Cruise dangling off the Burj Khalifa, the tallest building today; in Holmes 2 we get to see Robert Downey Jr, dangling off a train over what is an impossibly tall bridge.

Source Code Trailer

Well. I think this looks pretty cool.

Review: SEASON OF THE WITCH

There is something about Nicholas Cage that keeps me going to see his movies regardless of how bad they are. This one was particularly bad; generally it wouldn’t be a problem in a Nick Cage movie but somehow not even his absurd levels of comic intensity could save this train wreck. I blame the scrip and the execution but surprisingly not the acting. When Nick Cage is bad he can be bad enough to make it good; here his performance is good enough that it looks serious.  Not a good sign when you expecting a great bad movie.

 

And You Thought Michael Bay Was Over The Top?

This is why I love Bollywood. They have even less restraints than Michael Bay when it comes to ridiculous action and so much more creativity too!

If you enjoyed this I suggest you check out the Dhoom saga as well.










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Review: MAX PAYNE

Allow me to get this out of the way: if you have not played any of the Max Payne video games you can't appreciate this movie or get into it.

That being said, if you have played the games you will find this movie amazing.

Keeping this in mind, it is irrelevant to explain the premise of the film - either you have played the games and should know the story, in which case you should see it as soon as you can. Or you haven't played the games, don't already know the story and the meaning, and should not see the movie.

What Max Payne achieves as a movie is what all video game inspired films should strive for. The game(s) are a legend amongst the gamer community for their groundbreaking storyline, character depth and style. The first game was a representation of how an awesome video game could have an amazing story behind it as well, and the movie has done the same.

This movie was perfect in its adaption of Max to the big screen, from Mark Wahlberg's mantastic portrayal of Max himself to the aesthetically perfect environment around him. Yes, there are little things that were staples of the games that were missing from the film (such as painkillers, aww) but they were things that would have made the movie un-movie like. Similarly, director John Moore (Flight of the Phoenix, Behind Enemy Lines) did a magnificent job of taking the "gameplay" so to speak, out of the action without ruining the action itself. What follows are some beautiful gunfights staged within scenary that is almost directly out of the game. The result will have fans in the audience shivering uncontrollably and urgently button mashing a game controller that isn't there. One scene in particular, when Max enters the Rag-Na-Rock club for the first time and moves down the hallway shotgun raised, made the hair on the back of my neck stand on end.

Now the film itself was beautiful. The art direction of this movie had my inner cinematographer nearly soiling himself. Issues that the audience will find will almost certainly center around performances by the actors. For one thing, Mila Kunis's character of Mona was completely lacking in substance. Of course, the film makers obviously chose not to develop Mona or make her very important except as a guntoting, female badass. As soon as that became apparent I stopped paying any attention to her, which is what Moore must have been going for because it was remarkably easy. Beau Bridges as BB was terrible. I firmly believe that had this role been filled by a more talented and engaged actor most fan members in the audience would have a very difficult time finding anything else wrong with this movie.
(on a side note, Ludacris was surprisingly good as Lt. Bravura - much better than his other rapper-turned-actor contemporaries)

I personally felt that the script was well written, with some fantastic lines that are dropped every once in a while. The biggest issue I had here was the almost complete lack of humor and rarely seen over-the-top action dialogue that made scenes from the games so engaging. But again, I think that if BB had been a more exciting character and was focused on more than Lupino was, these lackages would have been a minor annoyance.

The final verdict stands: I really enjoyed this movie. I appreciated its ability to stay true to the material without making a stupid, gunfight polluted debauchery of a movie and I absolutely loved the way it was shot. Again, I don't think that anyone who hasn't played the games can appreciate this movie. If you fall into that category, spend your money seeing Sex Drive or save it for Quantum of Solace. If you played the games, see this movie for no reason other than it captures the most important parts of the games you so dearly love without being stupid.

Review: EAGLE EYE

I loved this movie the way I loved National Treasure. If you can get past the fact that every event is so totally unbelievable, so totally unrealistic, and so totally outrageous, it is nothing but a thrill ride sparkled with some big laughs, and some really good acting. To me, it is acceptable to make a movie that is ridiculous, if the performances and effects make it truly worthwhile - which they do.

Review: TRAITOR

Eh.

There's some spoilers here. Not major ones. You'll deal.

If this movie is about breaking down racial barriers, and presenting the idea that not all Muslims are terrorists, it pretty much fails. If anything, I feel like I am likely to start racially profiling more after seeing this movie.

Don Cheadle pays Samir Horn, a man born in Sudan, and trained in the United States as a Special Op. He has an American accent.

Also, is Muslim.

He spends his life as a terrorist helper, making bombs, delivering bombs, and overseeing flashy Islamic terrorist attacks. Right away, we get a sort of sympathetic feel from him, and it makes you wonder why our protagonist is a terrorist.

After escaping from a prison in Yemen, he decides to help his newfound friend Omar (Saïd Taghmaoui) in a complicated, but professional nation-wide terrorist attack. We spend half the movie watching him help Omar to recruit young kids from around the world to help in this impending attack. We get to see the terrorist point of view - Americans have spilled innocent Muslim blood for centuries, and now it is time to take back their honor. Attack and kill as many Americans as possible.

I couldn't help but feel uncomfortable for most of this movie. Really? Our protagonist is a terrorist? Just a guy who follows Allah and helps to kill Americans. For an American, it is odd to watch.

And all the while we have Detective Roy Clayton (Guy Pearce) on the case, looking to stop Samir. Pearce is a personal favorite actor of mine, and I naturally thought he did a great job. His accent was spot on.

So here's the problem: we have no antagonist. The film sets it up so that we want to hate Clayton. But how can we really? He's an FBI agent, a good one, a guy that wants to stop innocent people from dying. Sure, his assistant Archer (Neal McDonough) is a douche, but that is not enough for us to label Clayton as the bad guy.

Then I began to think it must be Samir that is the "bad guy". After all, he is setting off bombs and killing people all around the world.

And then he became the good guy! That's right, we find out about half way through that he is not in fact working for the terrorists, but he is in on something secret with FBI agent Carter (Jeff Daniels). Samir Horn is a not a traitor of the US, but a traitor towards the terrorists.

So now we have Clayton hunting an innocent guy, and he has no idea.

This movie takes you through too many loops. You have no one to hate, and no one to root for. You never find out Samir's plan until the end, so you feel like you are just waiting on something to go off, kind of like a bomb.

It seems like they wanted to make a "Bourne" style movie, but about terrorists. The movie is shot like it, Samir fights like it, and the music is a straight up knock-off.

It has decent action and decent performances, but it leaves you with nothing. You don't have to see it. If you want to, rent it. Don't waste your ten bucks.

Review: TRANSSIBERIAN

Transsiberian is about trains. There are lots of trains in this movie. About 70% of the movie takes place on trains. The characters are like trains. The entire structure is a train - a movie on a long, twisting, turning track, where you feel like you are just along for the journey, and you are not exactly sure of your destination, and not exactly sure if you are heading towards a big wreck.

This is just one of the hundreds of feelings you get during Brad Anderson's indie film, Transsiberian.

PINEAPPLE EXPRESS NOW IN THEATERS

THIS REVIEW IS A RE-POST. IT WAS ORIGINALLY POSTED IN THE MAY SECTION OF THIS BLOG.

Lets get to it. Pineapple Express. The most highly anticipated film of the summer for people who like Judd Apatow, Weed, Seth Rogen, Actions, and Comedy. Trust me, Pineapple Express fulfills all those desires. Reuniting for the first time since the short lived television series "Freaks and Geeks" (1999), Seth Rogen and James Franco pair up for the first time on the big screen, and Franco reminds the world that he can be funny as hell if people let him be.

(Spoilers May Occur, but not Major ones)
The film starts off in a World War II era where a unit of the military is deciding if Marijuana should be legal or not, and after an interview with Private Miller (Bill Hader) it is decided that the drug will be permanently illegal. Flash forward to the future, where Dale Denton (Seth Rogen) a process server with an 18 year old high school girlfriend (Amber Heard) drives over to his drug dealers house to get a new batch of weed. The drug dealer is none other than Saul Silver (James Franco), who sells Dale some rare weed, Pineapple Express, because he desperately wants to be friends with him. The weed is so rare in fact that Saul is the only one who has it.

Long story short, Dale witnesses a murder, drops his joint on the scene, and since the weed is so rare, the biggest drug dealer around (Gary Cole) sends his two hit-men (Craig Robinson & Peter Lewis) after him, believing he is working with the other drug lords known simply as 'The Asians.'

Hilarity and non-stop action ensues.

(Spoilers End Here)

The film is successful in every aspect it sets out on, though the relationship between (Gary Cole) and crooked cop (Rosie Perez) is very weak and remains questionable and undeveloped. Seth Rogen plays the same character as always, a delightful stoner, who pulls through in the end, but is is fun as ever to watch him and his improvisational talents. James Franco delivers an excellent performance, full of comedy and wit, and you feel each emotion he throws at you. Of the two leads, Saul Silver is the easiest to identify with.

Danny McBride, new Apatow regular since Drillbit Taylor, plays Red, another drug dealer, who is very much like Fogell from Superbad. He steals the show every scene he is in, but the character has way to much spirit for the way he is treated. However, this always creates a laugh, because he reminds me of the role of Mustafa from Austin Powers (The role that started Will Ferrell's career), in that whatever happens to him he is always alright.

Its nice to see Craig Robinson in a larger role than he has on NBC's "The Office" and that he had in "Knocked Up." The role he creates is hilarious and it can be seen that he created much more for his character than was written in the script.

Essentially this is the exact same script as 2007's "Superbad," also written by Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg, but if you replace the alcohol with weed, Cops for Drug Lords, then you have the same movie down to the last shot in the action. But Pineapple Express has more layers of jokes, which will probably lead to a more re-watch-able DVD.

Joe Lo Truglio (The Creepy Guy at the Party in Superbad) has a delightful cameo as Angie's Teacher in the high school, while Ken Jeong (The Gynecologist in Knocked Up) plays the head assassin for the Asians, which was another nice surprise.

The budget is the highest of Apatow's, probably even higher than "Walk Hard" , and it shows. Each action scene gets better and builds on the last, and when it comes to directorial style, no one makes this film better than David Gordon Green, with very creative cuts and edits, often showing two scenes on screen at the same time.

Lets Talk About Motion Capture

Lets talk about motion capture animation for a minute. I remember beating 'Legend of Zelda: The Ocarina of Time" and seeing credits for the motion capture team. I was amazed that people could capture motion and translate it digitally, and now as video game and film technology progresses, it is amazing to see all the things that can be done with motion capture animation.

Animation has always been a form of motion capture. Great animators from all over the world, Including Walt Disney Studios, hire actors and performers to come preform many actions live in a studio, so they can 'capture' the motion with their eyes and translate it to hand-drawn animation correctly. Many animated movies, especially those from Don Bluth studio, rotoscope which is a form of Motion Capture, where an action is filmed, and literally traced over with a pencil to become the finished animation. Rotoscoping is often frowned upon in most creative circles, because it is seen that the artist is not good enough to do the animation him/herself. PIXARr uses no motion capture (as told humorously in the end credits of Ratatouille)




Rotoscoping turned 3d is called motion capture. It is taking the action that is recorded and using it to become your final project. Using light reflections and an infrared camera, actors movements are recorded and translated into animation. Robert Zemekis is a large supporter of this, creating such fully mo-cap movies such as "Polar Express" and "Beowulf". Often time, people ask why the movies were not made with real actors in live action, but Mo-cap offers things that are impossible in real life, such as sweeping cameras and closeups in fights, and magical characters, such as Gollum (Andy Serkis) in Lord of the Rings, and Grawp in Harry Potter 5.



What are your opinions on Motion Capture? I think that in live action films it is amazing for effects and makes stunts safer for everyone, but stunt people are against it saying that they are being put out of jobs. What are your opinions? More on this to follow.

TERMINATOR: SALVATION

TERMINATOR SALVATION

Director McG as well as Moon Bloodgood, Sam Worthington, Bryce Dallas Howard, and Common took the stage to discuss "Terminator: Salvation", the next in the Terminator Franchise, starring Christian Bale as John Connor. It is interesting because this film is a reboot, a prequel, and a sequel. Set after Judgement Day, this film will show the world that the other three movies have only hinted at. Swarzenegger will not appear, since his model of the T-800 has not been built at this time, but McG hinted that when the time comes to show the T-800, the character will not be recast.

It is not clear if the film will have a new Terminator as the villain, or if the villain will be a human, but it was noted that this is the time of the crummy latex skin terminators, so we can expect a few of those, also many other machines that have been created to kill the humans before Skynet has fully established itself.

A three minute trailer was shown and it looks simply fantastic. Plenty of action, and a very good representation of the world that Terminators have expected to see. James Cameron was consulted along the whole process, and all the models were built by Stan Winston studios before Stan died, so it should be just what we are looking for.

Comic-Con 2008

I AM BACK FROM COMIC-CON. PREPARE TO BE INFORMED.

Get Smart

Also Coming in 2008 is a spinoff of the Get Smart film titled "Get Smarter: Get Bruce and Lloyd". Seems a little early to make a spinoff, does it not?



"The Office's" Brian Baumgartner and "The Nanny's" Wilder Shaw pose for a picture.

Review: PINEAPPLE EXPRESS

Lets get to it. Pineapple Express. The most highly anticipated film of the summer for people who like Judd Apatow, Weed, Seth Rogen, Actions, and Comedy. Trust me, Pineapple Express fulfills all those desires. Reuniting for the first time since the short lived television series "Freaks and Geeks" (1999), Seth Rogen and James Franco pair up for the first time on the big screen, and Franco reminds the world that he can be funny as hell if people let him be.

(Spoilers May Occur, but not Major ones)
The film starts off in a World War II era where a unit of the military is deciding if Marijuana should be legal or not, and after an interview with Private Miller (Bill Hader) it is decided that the drug will be permanently illegal. Flash forward to the future, where Dale Denton (Seth Rogen) a process server with an 18 year old high school girlfriend (Amber Heard) drives over to his drug dealers house to get a new batch of weed. The drug dealer is none other than Saul Silver (James Franco), who sells Dale some rare weed, Pineapple Express, because he desperately wants to be friends with him. The weed is so rare in fact that Saul is the only one who has it.

Long story short, Dale witnesses a murder, drops his joint on the scene, and since the weed is so rare, the biggest drug dealer around (Gary Cole) sends his two hit-men (Craig Robinson & Peter Lewis) after him, believing he is working with the other drug lords known simply as 'The Asians.'

Hilarity and non-stop action ensues.

(Spoilers End Here)

The film is successful in every aspect it sets out on, though the relationship between (Gary Cole) and crooked cop (Rosie Perez) is very weak and remains questionable and undeveloped. Seth Rogen plays the same character as always, a delightful stoner, who pulls through in the end, but is is fun as ever to watch him and his improvisational talents. James Franco delivers an excellent performance, full of comedy and wit, and you feel each emotion he throws at you. Of the two leads, Saul Silver is the easiest to identify with.

Danny McBride, new Apatow regular since Drillbit Taylor, plays Red, another drug dealer, who is very much like Fogell from Superbad. He steals the show every scene he is in, but the character has way to much spirit for the way he is treated. However, this always creates a laugh, because he reminds me of the role of Mustafa from Austin Powers (The role that started Will Ferrell's career), in that whatever happens to him he is always alright.
.

Its nice to see Craig Robinson in a larger role than he has on NBC's "The Office" and that he had in "Knocked Up." The role he creates is hilarious and it can be seen that he created much more for his character than was written in the script.

Essentially this is the exact same script as 2007's "Superbad," also written by Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg, but if you replace the alcohol with weed, Cops for Drug Lords, then you have the same movie down to the last shot in the action. But Pineapple Express has more layers of jokes, which will probably lead to a more re-watch-able DVD.

Joe Lo Truglio (The Creepy Guy at the Party in Superbad) has a delightful cameo as Angie's Teacher in the high school, while Ken Jeong (The Gynecologist in Knocked Up) plays the head assassin for the Asians, which was another nice surprise.

The budget is the highest of Apatow's, probably even higher than "Walk Hard" , and it shows. Each action scene gets better and builds on the last, and when it comes to directorial style, no one makes this film better than David Gordon Green.


Pineapple Express hits theaters this August.