Lucy

broderic on August 6, 2014

Lucy started off as a revenge flick, then ended up being 2001. Wha, what?!

Scarlett Johanson plays Lucy, an American ex-pat in Asia, who gets caught up in a drug trafficking scheme. The drug in question if taken in a large enough dose makes you use 100% of your brain. And when you use 100% of your brain you can manipulate matter! Wha, what!!

I really wanted a revenge flick. I wanted to see Scarlett Johanson to kick drug kingpin ass. But she was done far too early. Then we started exploring what the heck.

Scarlett Johanson was Data from TNG.

3 of 5 stars.

Hercules

broderic on August 3, 2014

Hercules has the Rock in full on scene chewing mode. It also has the rest of the cast including Ian McCane, John Hurt, and Rufus Sewell digging in and chewing it up just as the Rock has. If you need to see a B movie this summer, you can’t do wrong with Hercules.

This film tries to dispel the Hercules myth. Son of Zeus? Doer of the 12 trials? Lover? Warrior? Indian chief!

According to the movie, Hercules is a band of ne’er-do-wells who survived all the trials and tribulations to make the myth of Hercules. Of course, the actual Hercules leads this band which includes a ‘leaf’ smoking soothsayer, an Amazon, a Celtic berserker, and Rufus Sewell who you will wait for the third act turncoat. The Amazon made the movie for me. She had a striking resemblance to Nicole Kidman. I kept wishing it was Nicole Kidman, because the movie would’ve been awesome if it was. But it wasn’t, and yet I kept seeing Nicole Kidman kicking ass.

So we find out the myth is bigger than the man, but the man is as much a hero because he acts like one. Cool. Watching the movie helped out a boring week on bug watching for work.

3 of 5 stars.

Sex Tape

broderic on August 3, 2014

My eyes! My eyes! I wish I never saw Sex Tape. It’s not worth a trip to the movie theatre to see let alone a trip to the Red Box at Royal Farms. Skip it and leave it to die a lonely death in the cloud.

2 of 5 stars.

Snowpiercer

broderic on July 18, 2014

Snowpiercer currently has a 95% fresh rating at Rotten Tomatoes. Reading through the capsule reviews most all of them really like the movie. I must be in the minority 5% because I did not like the movie one bit.

Snowpiercer is science fiction movie about a future Earth covered in snow and cold with the remnants of human civilization living on a train that constantly circles the world. If it stops, humans will go extinct. Passengers on that train are either the haves, the upper 1% who inhabit the front of the train with sushi, clubs, and books, or they are the have-nots the sorry passengers at the back. They yearn for the type of stuff that the haves have. Into this world is Chris Evens who wants to go from the back of the train to the front. He leads a revolution.

With that set up, Snowpiercer would lead you to believe that the film will be an allegory. Except, it wasn’t. Yes, there was the battle between the haves and the have-nots. But there was also the musical number in the middle. And then Bong Joon Ho’s favorite, the key master and his daughter. They came from another movie. The allegory was lost. The movie had many different tones to it. How can you really make it an allegory when it was all over the map?

I think that Sucker Punch had a better train fight. This is the second Bong Joon Ho film that I didn’t like as much as others had. The first film? The Host. I didn’t like that one as much. This film makes me feel like I did during The Dark Knight — I think I’m missing something.

2 of 5 stars.

How to Train Your Dragon 2

broderic on July 9, 2014

How to Train Your Dragon 2 gets the thankless task of being the last film to open before the big juggernaut of Michael Bay’s Transforming dinobots or as I like to call it: The End of Days! Dragon doesn’t have the same action cache as a Michael Bay film, but it is a part of a better, coherent franchise.

Dragon 2 begins a few years after the first one ended. Dragons are the norm in Hiccup’s town; they are embraced, loved, and cared for. The town spends their time doing dragon races. Hiccup spends it exploring the world for more dragons. He’s grown up and may be ready for being the leader of his town. His dad thinks so. He doesn’t.

While exploring Hiccup eventually finds his mom. She’s a recluse living in a dragon world communing with dragons. She’s a natural dragon rider who believes her son has inherited her skills. Hiccup has but is not in a league like her mom. Hiccup has inherited his mother’s dragon nurturing skill. He’s nothing like his dad. But the movie will show that he will be his father’s son.

The mother could’ve been a more interesting character. She’s strong willed and talented. She knows dragons showing Hiccup a thing or two about the Night Fury he rides. Yet, as the movie progresses she becomes boring. She doesn’t get to use her dragon prowess to defeat the big bad. She disappears from the plot in the tail end of the movie. She could’ve been used better.

The animation looked phenomenal. The famous DP, Roger Deakins, is a consultant, and the camera work is absolutely amazing. It’ll wow you with its depth of field, shading, and lighting.

Finally, as with Godzilla, this film had kaiju. It’s a big kaiju lovefest.

3 of 5 stars.

Edge of Tomorrow

broderic on June 29, 2014

If you like to see Tom Cruise die horrible deaths over and over again, then Edge of Tomorrow is right up your alley. The movie is best thought of as the bastard son of Groundhog’s Day and The Battle of LA with Tom Cruise forever running into horrible deaths.

This movie evokes many other movies beyond Groundhog’s Day repeat until you get it right premise. There’s Aliens with the sergeant played by Bill Paxton leading the rag tag group of soldiers with a large ‘Tank’ type and a ‘Vazquez’ type as well. Then there’s Matrix with the Mimic enemy looking like the tentacle bots. For me, it reminded me of the Endless Eight debacle from season 2 of Haruhi.

Nice movie. Failing at the box office. You’ll catch this on HBO in December. It could be interesting. It could be non-boring. It’s a summer movie. At least it isn’t Transformers.

3 of 5 stars.

Chef

broderic on June 14, 2014

Chef is Jon Favreau returning to a smaller, intimate movie. It is the story of a highly celebrated chef caught in a bind serving a menu he doesn’t believe in because he’s trapped in a restaurant that is not his. Favreau plays the chef who has a meltdown, gets fired, and has to pick up his pieces thanks to his ex-wife. He finds the menu he finally believes in in Cuban sandwiches served from a food truck which he drives from Miami to LA. This drive redeems him as a person and a cook. It also redeems him with his son who accompanies him. They reconnect over cooking and the food.

This movie seems to be Favreau addressing his role as a filmmaker. He was a hotshot as a writer with Swingers then moved onto the big stage by directing Iron Man 1 and 2. Did that move cost him his auteur status? Did the knocks against Iron Man 2 make him freak out? Perhaps, but to address it Favreau returned to a smaller movie which he wrote and directed.

When I watched this movie, I had already had dinner. With scenes of cooking, it made me want to have another meal. Don’t watch this if you hadn’t eaten yet. Don’t watch it if you have. It’ll make you hungry.

3 of 5 stars.

X-Men: Days of Future Past

broderic on June 7, 2014

In the X-Men movie universe, they never had the Dark Phoenix Saga. Therefore without Jean Grey, there is no Rachel Summers. Without her and her telekinetic powers in the X-Men movie universe, the filmmakers of X-Men: Days of Future Past substitute Kitty Pryde as the mutant to send Wolverine back in time.

Right there is all that’s wrong with the X-Men movie universe. No Dark Phoenix, Wolverine as the main protagonist of Days of Future Past, Kitty Pryde having some kind of weird telekinetic power, Weapon X program in the 70s, Bolivar Trask as the mark, young Mystique. Just plenty of things that are not like the comic I know.

The only hope I had for the movie was seeing Jean Grey alive again. And Cyclops! But I was secretly hoping for Madelyne Pryor and sometime later — Inferno!

3 of 5 stars.

Godzilla

broderic on May 25, 2014

I was expecting the latest Godzilla to be a reboot of the original, Gojira. Instead I got a “Godzilla versus” film. This one is Godzilla versus MUTOs, Massive Unidentified Terrestrial Objects.

The movie starts in the Philippines where a mining operation finds a large skeleton of something, but they unleash two MUTOs into the world. The first one finds its way to a Japanese nuclear power plant with Brian Cranston and Juliette Binoche as scientists worried about the seismic activity heading their way. The second one is stored in the US. These are not Godzilla. He seems to hang out in some far off land waiting for MUTOs to show up. I can’t wait for the sequel to see “Monster Island,” because I want to reference that classic Simpsons line: it’s actually a peninsula.

The MUTOs destroy Japan then head to America destroying first Honolulu then San Francisco. Godzilla follows them in order to stop them. He’s Nature’s exterminator. He kicks ass and shoots radioactive breath. He stomps and stomps, and doesn’t care for humans.

Neither does the movie. Humans and actors didn’t matter. It was just about big kaiju. I wanted to see kaiju; I got kaiju once more. Except it wasn’t so awesome. The action was there, but kaiju versus kaiju isn’t as satisfying as kaiju versus giant robot.

The humans weren’t so memorable. I couldn’t care about them. And their issues: trying to get home, trying to justify their craziness, trying to reunite with loved ones. Eh. Just give me kaiju.

Godzilla is a summer movie. Will it be the biggest, baddest of them all? We’ll have to find out. Here comes summer.

3 of 5 stars.

Heaven Is For Real

broderic on May 25, 2014

Heaven Is For Real. For real? For real, real!

Some kid in the heartland of America saw it. It’s with angels and everyone you ever loved is there. It’s straight out of the Bible.

Amazingly, the kid’s father, a preacher, couldn’t fathom it. He didn’t want to believe his son. He thought he was crazy. He had to reach deep into his faith to finally accept it.

Heaven is for real. For real, real!

I’m not in the target audience of religious movies, so I found it fascinating that the preacher had a crisis of faith. He couldn’t believe something so unexplainable. He only accepted it eventually when he thought about it deeply. But did he really? He just concluded that he was going to believe what his son believes.

Science can explain somethings. It can’t explain everything. Yet.

Faith doesn’t explain anything. It just add hope to life. And sometimes that’s just enough to get by.

As I said, I’m not who this movie was for. It was for more religious people. They’ll find this a more satisfying movie.

3 of 5 stars.