Movie Review – Scott Pilgrim vs. the World

Plot: Scott Pilgrim (Michael Cera) is a young musician living in Toronto who falls in love with the spunky Ramona Flowers (Mary Elizabeth Winstead).  In order to date her though, he must defeat her seven exes in this fantasy/comedy that is built like a video game and based on the comic book.

Scott Pilgrim vs. the World has no rules.  It can do whatever it pleases.  If the movie felt like giving us a giant frog that attacks bridges then everyone would say how clever and innovative it was.  They don’t care about an explanation.  Well I do.  This is a frustrating film.  Now I didn’t hate it, but I certainly didn’t like it all that much.  I think there are elements here that could work.  The problem though is that the movie is cluttered with quick cuts, annoying sight gags and pop culture references that come out of nowhere.  There is a good story going on, but everything is so damn distracting that I just stopped caring thirty minutes in.

Let me get the really annoying stuff out of the way first.  The absolute worst part about this movie are the quick cuts.  What do I mean by this?  The movie goes to seven locations in the span of three seconds.  It was infuriating.  We are in a record store.  Then suddenly Scott Pilgrim moves his arm and we are at a party.  The he moves his head to the side and we are back in his apartment.  The director (Edgar Wright) thinks he is being really clever and slick, but it’s just distracting and annoying.  I couldn’t absorb any information because of this crap.  I really hate when directors do this.  It’s gimmicky garbage that a lot of people just eat up.  I can’t stand it.  Just let a damn scene play out.

The sub-plots were also distracting.  The main story going on is actually really funny.  This soft spoken/smart alec guy has to fight these deranged exes in order to keep dating this girl.  And all the exes he has to fight were really amusing.  I wish the story just focused on that.  But instead there is this sub-plot with Scott’s current girlfriend (Ellen Wong) who constantly stalks him.  Whenever the movie starts to get interesting, she has to show up and ruin everything.  Or another plot is Scott’s band trying to win this contest that I really didn’t care for.  The ads were selling me on Scott confronting these eccentric exes, but the movie is constantly throwing you back and forth between all this other crap.

What saves the movie is the acting.  Let me be the first to tell you, I am not a Michael Cera fan.  He’s a one trick pony and we all know it.  He was at least tolerable in this film.  Anna Kendrick as Scott’s sister was really funny, and I enjoyed Alison Pill as Kim who plays this really deadpanned friend/ex of Scott who is also the drummer in their band.

The man who steals the show is Kieran Culkin, Scott’s roommate, Wallace Wells.  First of all, great name.  But secondly, this guy was hysterical.  Every time he spoke I cracked up.  Even his facial expressions had me in stitches.  This guy literally saves the movie.  I want to see Kieran Culkin in more films.  He can deliver.

Unfortunately, I couldn’t appreciate the acting as much as I wanted to.  It goes back to the central problem of the film; it’s cluttered with too much crap.  Edgar Wright feels the need to put something gimmicky and “clever” in every shot.  Whether it’s the phone ringing and you get the word “ring” in bubble letters that float out of the phone, or it’s some random animation clip that comes out of nowhere, it just all distracts from what’s going in the story.  There is so much of it that you just become numb.  So when the last big action scene the movie has been building up to arrives, I just didn’t care anymore because I was filled up with so much bull crap flying at the screen.

I think Scott Pilgrim has some solid entertainment value.  Like I said, I laughed at some of the performances, and the exes he fights were funny.  But watching this really makes me appreciate something like Inception so much more.  That’s a movie that’s so well structured and boggled down with so many rules, it’s heart pounding to experience the characters having to fight through those rules.  Here, everyone can just do whatever the hell they want.  Where’s the tension?  They can get 1-ups, have magical powers and fight with animated swords for the hell of it.  If Edgar Wright wanted to keep this a video game world, then okay.  But it switches from video game to sitcom to animation, and eventually I just lost all sense of what the hell I was looking at.

Rating: 5 out of 10 (Passable Entertainment) 

Top 25 All Time Villains

Whether it’s a movie, TV show, video game, or whatever, people seem to be more fascinated by villains and bad guys rather than the heroes.  What makes a good villain is hard to say.  For me personally, I like all kinds of villains.  I like the ones that have the grandest of aspirations such as world domination.  The crazy villains are always fun too.  And sometimes I just like the comedic villains.

Well I’d like to offer my personal favorite top 25 villains.  And I’m not messing around here.  My bad guys come from all mediums in entertainment including movies, TV, comics, books, video games, or whatever tickles my fancy.  Be prepared, because I may spoil whatever series these guys are involved in.  Also, there is a lot of Batman on here…deal with it.

25) Dark Helmet (Spaceballs)

-The feared Commander of Spaceball 1.  Maybe his decisions were a little off at times, like going to ludicrous speed and not wearing a seat-belt.  And he has a propensity to play with dolls.  But trust me: you don’t want to be on this guy’s bad side.  If anyone screwed up, Helmet would take his Schwartz ring and…you don’t want to know.  He was also a skilled fighter despite getting the downside of the Schwartz.

24) Punch-Out’s Mike Tyson (Punch-Out!)

-Nearly impossible to beat, Tyson drove video gamers mad.  The first 90 seconds of the Tyson fight is dodging punches.  One hit and you’re down.  That’s just not fair.

23) Judge Doom (Who Framed Roger Rabbit)

-A man consumed with hatred for toons, but who would have guessed he’s a toon himself!  Who drew this mad man?  What really makes him villainous is that he actually created a liquid that destroys his own kind – “the dip.”  Not only that, he’s willing to wipe out his own people in order to build a highway.  Now that’s a villain.

22) Newman (Seinfeld)

-“I’ve looked into his eyes…he’s pure evil.”  That’s a quote from Jerry Seinfeld on his arch-nemesis Newman.  Not only was Newman a mail man who “controlled information,” he was a devious jackass who was more selfish than Jerry, George, Elaine and Kramer put together.  But he was always a thorn in Jerry’s side.  How about the time he ratted him out to his barber that he was getting haircuts from someone else.  Or how about when he told Jerry’s parents he and his girlfriend were making out during Schindler’s List.  Always be aware of Mr. Newman, especially when there are chunky wrappers around.

21) John Kreese (The Karate Kid)

-We all remember the line: “Sweep the leg.”  This man wanted nothing more than to ruin with the lives of Daniel LaRusso and Mr. Miyagi.  How can you not fear the man who’s leader of the Cobra Kai dojo?  Although he gets humiliated by Miyagi on several occasions, he always comes back for more.  “Cobra Kai…never die!”

20) Chong Li (Bloodsport)

-He’s notorious for killing an opponent in the previous Kumite.  He holds numerous Kumite records.  That is until Frank Dux comes to town.  But what really made him scary were his last two fights before going up against Dux in the finals.  He ripped off Ray Jackson’s Harley-Davidson head band and put him in the hospital.  And then in the semi-finals, he kills his opponent and shouts at Dux, “You are next” while the entire room is still observing a moment of silence for the guy he just killed.  Wow.  What a jackass.

19) Krang (Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles)

-The Ruler of Dimension X.  He’s literally the brains of the operation.  Yes, Krang is actually a brain.  Constantly surrounded by stupidity and always looking for an energy source to power his beloved Technodrome, Krang didn’t seem all that threatening.  But whenever he personally fought the turtles, he was pretty bad ass.  Whether it’s using his molecular enhancer chip to grow over 100 feet tall or morphing his hands into deadly weapons, Krang was one evil ruler you didn’t want to cross.

18) Sephiroth (Final Fantasy VII)

-He’s just your ordinary everyday villain who was created with alien cells.  But it’s not until the very last fight when you crap your pants and say “OMG.”  Let me sum up Sephiroth with this: He has an attack where he summons a Super Nova.

17) Scarecrow (Batman)

-The Master of Fear.  Probably one of the greatest weapons ever forged by a super villain: the fear gas.  One spray sends anyone into a hallucinogenic state where everything around you is your greatest nightmare.  Although, I guess if you punch him before he sprays you, you’re fine.

16) Biff Tannen (Back to the Future)

-What a “butt-head.”  In the first Back to the Future, he’s just kind of a jackass.  But in Part II, he’s the evil corporate ruler of a deranged alternate timeline.  This is all because Marty had to buy that stupid sports almanac.  In this alternate timeline, not only does Biff off Marty’s pop, but he marries his mother.  It doesn’t get more evil than that.

15) Bane (Batman: Knightfall)

-Known famous in the Knightfall comic storyline, he’s the man who broke the bat.  What other Batman villain can say, “I discovered Batman’s identity, broke into his Batcave, beat the crap out of him and then broke his back.”  Not much else to say.

14) Ra’s Al Ghul (Batman)

-Whether it’s the Batman Begins version where he wants to “tear Gotham apart with fear” or in the animated series in which he basically wants to erase the world and start again, Ra’s Al Ghul is one bad dude.  You also have to give props to the guy for living for hundreds of years via Lazarus Pit.

13) Lex Luthor (Superman)

-I love this character because he just hates his enemy (Superman) so damn much.  It’s “Mind over Matter” for Mr. Luthor.  He’s very similar to Ra’s Al Ghul in that he wants to destroy and re-make the world.  Gene Hackman played him to perfection in the first two Superman movies, but I have to say a close second is Michael Rosenbaum on Smallville.  I’m not kidding.

12) Two-Face (Batman)

-He decides his victim’s fates by the flip of the coin.  This is probably the first villain on the list who has a truly tragic story.  When I think of Two-Face, I usually think of the Two-Face from The Dark Knight.  Although he was overshadowed by the Joker in that film, make no mistake – he becomes pretty damn evil.

11) Voldemort (Harry Potter)

-He doesn’t even know what the word remorse means.  This guy is so evil that killing people is part of his plan to live forever.  But what it all boils down to is that he was so feared, wizards couldn’t even speak his name even after he “died.”  Now that’s respect.

10) Ivan Drago (Rocky IV)

-First of all, he kills Apollo Creed.  He’s definitely a bad buy who says more with this actions than with his words, but when he speaks, it’s terrifying.  He essentially has only four lines in Rocky IV, and this is what they are: “You will lose.”  “If he dies, he dies.”  “I must break you.”  And then he shouts towards the Russian politburo, “I win for me…FOR ME.”  Bad Ass.

9) Bowser (Mario Brothers)

-How many times has this guy survived?  He’s been dropped in a lava pit.  Then he falls off the ledge of his own castle in Mario 3.  His clown-chopper goes out of control at high altitude.  He’s been rammed into countless spiked bombs.  He just keeps coming back, no matter how many times Mario defeats him.  Although his minions are morons, he is not.  But I think his most devastating act was his most recent in Mario Galaxy when he attempted to create his own Galaxy that hovered directly over the Mushroom Kingdom. And make no mistake…he puts his enemy (Mario) through some pretty ridiculous puzzles and death traps.

8 – Big Boy Caprice (Dick Tracy)

-He may have been an eccentric crime lord, but he was a good one.  Not many crime lords can say they consolidated all their rivals and made himself boss with virtually no challengers.  He has a solid right hand man in Flattop and is very crafty in all his dealings.  With a love for walnuts and the ability to always pull out a great historical quote, it’s no wonder Dick Tracy was obsessed with bringing him down.

7) The Riddler (Batman)

-Willing to kill people just to fuel his obsession with puzzles and games.  He loved to play with Batman, claiming he was the only one worthy of his riddles.  Ultimately, he wanted all the knowledge in the world, and thrived on knowing answers to questions that no one else did.  Not many of Batman’s villains tortured him with words, but the Riddler did.

6) Shredder (Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles)

-Whether you follow the cartoon series or live-action movie or whatever else, Shredder was always a bad man.  With an entire costume made up of spikes and needles, this ninja master caused so many problems for the ninja turtles.  Although he could ultimately never defeat his rival Yoshi/Splinter, he always destroyed the turtles, and even defeated them all at once.  But by far his scariest moment came in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2: The Secret of the Ooze when he drank an entire canister of ooze and became Super Shredder.  I was seven years old when I saw this, and I was scared out of my mind for the turtles.

5) Season 1 Sylar (Heroes)

-Yeah, yeah, I know everyone hates Heroes.  Fine.  Just forget the recent seasons where Sylar is trying to find himself and think back to Season one only.  This was a villain no one had ever seen before.  He opened people’s brains and took their special abilities.  His super power of “understanding how things worked” is to this day one of the most intriguing super human abilities ever introduced in any movie, TV or book.  Although later in the series he dealt with mommy and daddy issues, and is even good at times, there is no denying this guy’s evil nature in the first season.  His quest for power was fascinating to watch.

4) Magneto (X-Men)

-Some may even argue he’s not a true villain.  Well, he is.  But he’s the only villain I know who works with his enemies from time to time.  How can you not be interested in a villain who when his greatest enemy was killed, mourned him terribly.  More than any other villain on this list, you understand his anger and frustration at the world.  Although he is wrong for doing what he does and you want the X-Men to defeat him, you still sympathize with him to an extent.

3) Emperor Palpatine (Star Wars)

-Maybe the greatest master plan of all time.  This Sith Lord was an evil genius twenty years in the making.  He orchestrated the events of an entire galaxy for years.  And when you think back to the prequels, he didn’t just win…he won with authority.  The Jedi Council, supposedly this all knowing group of great warriors, were taken out in a matter of minutes because of his doing.  Yoda and Mace Windu were 100% clueless.  He makes the Galaxy his Empire.  He steals the Jedi’s “Chosen One” in Anakin Skywalker.  He ruled hundreds of star systems for decades.  Out of all the villains on the list, he was the most successful.

2) The Joker (Batman)

-We’ve all seen The Dark Knight.  We know the Joker is a very different kind of villain.  He doesn’t care about world domination.  He doesn’t want to just kill his enemy.  In fact, he thrives on keeping Batman alive so he can torture him for all eternity.  This is a villain who just wants the world to be as crazy as he is.  Not only is he a raving lunatic, but his fighting style is unpredictable.  Whether it’s an electric hand buzzer or knife in the shoe, Joker always has to battle with style.

Whether it’s Jack Nicholson, Heath Ledger, Mark Hamill in the animated series or simply just the comic books, Joker is always demented and driving everyone he meets to the brink of insanity.

1) Darth Vader (Star Wars)

-He slices his son’s arm off.   He destroys entire rooms with a single thought.  He force chokes people from miles away while talking to them on a television monitor.  And best of all…he’s voiced by James Earl Jones.  And it’s not just the voice that cements him as the greatest villain of all time.  He utilizes that voice with some bad ass lines.  Check these out:

“All too easy”

“Impressive.  Most Impressive”

“I find your lack of faith disturbing”

“Apology Accepted, Captain Needa”

“NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!”

I’m kidding about the last one, but regardless, when I think of villains, Darth Vader is the first one that comes to mind.  And even though he ultimately redeems himself at the end, this is one evil dude who destroys people with the greatest signature move of all time.  But the voice truly makes him not only the most memorable bad guy, but one of the most memorable characters in any medium period.  Even though you never see his face till the very end, you could always feel what his emotions were behind that mask because of that cool ass voice.  His breathing will be iconic till the end of time.  Darth Vader is the only choice for #1.  His mask is a symbol for evildoers everywhere.

So that’s my list.  How ironic that the list began with a parody of  my #1 villain.  As Neo would say, “Whoa.”

Movie Review – Inception

Plot: In a world where technology exists to enter people’s dreams, Cobb (Leonardo DiCaprio) has stolen ideas in people’s minds for years.  Saito (Ken Watanabe), a successful business tycoon, hires Cobb and his team for a very different kind of dream invasion known as Inception, where they will attempt to plant an idea into the head of Robert Fischer (Cillian Murphy), the owner of Saito’s rival company.

The best way to describe Inception is that it’s Ocean’s 11 on steroids.  This movie kicks ass.  There’s no other way to put it.  Spearheaded by the best actor working in entertainment today (Leonardo DiCaprio) and several other fantastic performances, this team of dream invaders takes us on a ride that can only be described as OMG.  This is a movie experience unlike anything ever tried before.  Inception is like a house of cards.  It’s so ambitious and daring that all signs point to the house crumbling by the end, but what makes it so damn good is that the nine story house of cards stays in tact once the end credits come on.  As great as the acting is, the man who deserves most of the credit is the best director working in film today – Christopher Nolan (The Dark Knight, Memento).

For a movie about mind invasion, I can only imagine what it would have been like to be inside Christopher Nolan’s head when he constructed this masterpiece.  And the organization is this movie’s greatest strength.  Everything is so complicated and mind bending, but if you are a good movie-goer and pay attention, you will find he doesn’t leave many holes.

What’s so fun about watching Inception play out is that the audience’s focus is rewarded as the movie goes on.  As Cobb and his team go deeper into the human mind, it gets crazier.  Watching the progression play out towards the climax is beautiful.  If you stick with it, you get more and more excited as the story plays out. There is nothing more I can say about Nolan.  This is a perfectly directed film.

What’s equal to the directing is the acting.  Leonardo DiCaprio is flawless as always.  My favorite scenes with him are just his facial expressions as he looks ravaged after doing this for so many years.  His face says it all.  He looks like he just sat through a movie that is fifty times more complicated than Inception.  My other favorite performance is Joseph Gordon-Levitt as Arthur, Cobb’s right hand man.  This guy truly elevated the character.  Arthur is written kind of weak, but Levitt’s performance really propels him as not only one of the more likable characters, but a bad ass one at that.  I found myself rooting for him the most.  I hope to see this guy in a lot more movies.

Ellen Page as Ariadne, the rookie in Cobb’s crew, was perfect casting.  Ariadne, like the audience, is learning about all this crazy crap for the first time.  We see a lot of the movie through her perspective, so it’s crucial this character be very likable.  It doesn’t get more likable than Ellen Page.  Rounding out the cast is Tom Hardy, Ken Watanabe and Cillian Murphy.  They are all excellent.  Unfortunately, Marion Cotillard as Cobb’s wife was a little disappointing.  She carries a lot of weight in the film, but aside from a couple solid scenes, her performance wasn’t very memorable compared to the others.

The storyline involving Cobb and his wife takes a little while to get into, but much like everything else in this film, it pays off big time.  One of the weaknesses of Inception though is that it does move a bit slow.  As tension filled and action packed as a lot of these scenes are, it does take a while for them to play out.  There is a long sequence in a snowy setting that drags on for a while, making it at times just another run of the mill action flick, which is inconsistent with the rest of the movie.

I didn’t mind this though because every setting and visual in this film is downright gorgeous to watch.  And what makes Inception so much better in the visual department as opposed to something like Avatar is they are constantly changing and doing different things with the effects and settings.  Inception has visuals that destroy those lame Navi’s that I wouldn’t dare give any of them away here.  One thing I will say is that I witnessed one of the greatest fight sequences in the history of movies.

All in all, Inception does things that movies rarely do.  It reaches for perfection with new ideas and great ambition and nearly achieves them where as so many films try and do something different and bold but fail horribly.  Christopher Nolan movies will now be similar to going to see a James Cameron movie in that they will be an event.  I can’t wait to see what other tricks this guy has up his sleeve.

Rating: 9 out of 10 (OMG)

Movie Review – The Last Airbender

Plot: The Four nations of Water, Earth, Fire and Air lived in peace for centuries, protected by the Avatar who has the power to control all four elements.  Young Aang (Noah Ringer) was the next Avatar in line until he disappeared, frozen in ice for a hundred years.  The Fire Nation has declared war and is close to controlling all the nations, but Aang is finally discovered by Katara (Nicola Peltz) and her brother Sokka (Jackson Rathbone) of the Water Tribe.  Aang is the last hope to bring peace to the four nations, but he must learn to master all the elements.

You would think a movie where people can bend and control elements would be pretty damn cool, but instead it’s boring and poorly directed by a man who is falling faster than Blockbuster Video: M. Night Shyamalan.  What happened to this guy?  His first two films (The Sixth Sense and Unbreakable) were downright spectacular, and then for some reason he lost the ability to direct a good movie.  I know some people really like Signs, but I hate it.  Regardless, The Last Airbender’s premise was a lay-up; A bunch of dudes who can fight using fire, water, the earth and air.  Come on!  You can’t make that cool?  But what’s worse than the directing is the terrible acting.

I feel bad calling out the acting because it’s almost all kids, but really, this is Jake Lloyd/The Phantom Menace level acting going on.  It’s a smorgasbord of overacting, awful delivery and laughable facial expressions.  Noah Ringer plays the hero, Aang, and man is he bad.  You know you are experiencing bad acting when it takes you out of the movie.  And that’s what Ringer does every time he speaks a line of dialogue.  There’s one scene where he’s rallying the troops in the Earth tribe.  I imagine this is what the speeches were like in the Detroit Lions locker room before every game in their 0-16 season.  It was that poorly delivered.

Jackson Rathbone is equally as bad as Sokka.  Nicola Peltz as Katara was passable, only because she is a very likable character.  But really, all these characters have no pulse.  They are all static and monotone with no personality.  The one character that seemed to be salvaged was Dev Patel as Prince Zuko of the Fire Nation.

Patel gave a strong performance, but he was also the only character that was well developed and had a sympathetic back story even though he’s a big villain here.  You really understand his drive to capture the Avatar Aang and why he is so vengeful.  Unfortunately, the same cannot be said about our protagonist.

Shyamalan does a horrific job of explaining to the audience why Aang is important.  Yeah, we get the idea he’s the only one capable of controlling the elements and bringing peace, but his true power is never explained.  We’ll have random scenes of him talking to spirits in really lame dream sequences.  How does this happen?  If this is the Avatar’s true gift, than how come he can commune with the spirits before he can even master controlling all the elements?  These scenes just happen with no explanation.

Now maybe the movie can be salvaged with some cool fighting sequences, right?  Nope.  They are actually filmed really poorly.  The worst part is that they are hokey when they should look awesome.  One scene in particular is when they are in the Earth nation and these warriors almost do a silly Lord of the Dance sequence when they should be tearing up the earth.  I’m supposed to take this seriously, but the fights are a joke.  The use of the elemental powers are weak as hell.  And when there isn’t fighting going on, the film has nothing to offer.  Nothing.  It is a black abyss of horrible acting and yawn inducing scenes.  The end battle is decent, which at least brings this film some solid entertainment value.

As bad as the acting is though, the man to blame here is M. Night Shyamalan.  I feel like he was asleep while making this movie.  There are important plot points that are not even shown that you feel like were accidentally left out, like you went to the bathroom for five minutes even though you didn’t.  Now that’s just lazy filmmaking.  This is really great source material but there is nothing about this worth recommending.  It’s a bad movie.  I would give this series another chance if they brought in another director, but seriously, M. Night, go away.

Rating: 4.5 out of 10

Movie Review – Toy Story 3

Plot: Andy (John Morris) is heading off to college and his long time toys are headed for Sunnyside Day-Care Center.  At first it’s a welcome and exciting change, but the toys are soon abused and misused by the toddlers.  Led by Woody (Tom Hanks), the toys attempt to break out of day-care and head back for Andy’s house.

This may be the best Pixar movie I’ve ever seen.  The other two Toy Story films are very good movies, but this one transcends very good.  It is truly a great film, and so far the best of the year.  Where so many third films fail horribly, this one outdoes its predecessors.  Kids will enjoy this just fine, but Toy Story 3 is made for adults, and especially those just entering adulthood.

What separates this from the other two movies is that they were solely focused on one character.  The first Toy Story primarily revolved around Buzz Lightyear (Tim Allen) and his coming to terms with being nothing more than a toy.  The second film is about Woody and his desire to be special by being part of a collection to be gawked at in a museum.  Toy Story 3 is about these toys as a group.  We’ve always seen the camaraderie between the toys, but here it really hits home.

Andy, their owner, is leaving for college, and they don’t know what will happen to them.  But whatever decision is made, they vow to do it together.  The first act of this movie is very somber.  We all remember in the first film how there seemed to be hundreds and hundreds of toys.  When Toy Story 3 opens, it’s only a handful of toys left as they sit around in Andy’s dark and empty room as their last days loom.  This is some dark stuff for a kid’s movie.

The movie is also just as funny as the others though.  Unlike the Shrek films, the characters are still fresh.  The eleven year gap between films was good for this series.  Tom Hanks and Tim Allen are as great as ever as Woody and Buzz.  My favorite character was always Rex the dinosaur (Wallace Shawn), and I liked him just as much as I did before.  They introduce a fantastic villain and really develop him with a clever and sad back story.  Michael Keaton also voices Ken (of Ken and Barbie fame), which was pretty damn funny.  My only real complaint with the characters is what they do with Buzz in the middle of the film.  They have this long running joke with his voice getting switched, but it goes on too long.

Toy Story 3 uses a lot of the same tricks such as playing the environment against the toys’ size, which is always fascinating to watch.  As the movie is partially a prison break story, they really have a lot of fun with it.  Even if you’re not into the story, although I can’t imagine you wouldn’t be, you will be dazzled by the visuals, especially the first sequence of the film.

But the heart of the movie is in its last half hour.  I do not want to spoil anything, but the last action sequence was pretty emotional and heart pounding.  Although the end drags on a bit, I cannot think of a better way to end a trilogy.  It’s great for kids, but better for adults.  I’ve always enjoyed Pixar movies, but I think they finally made a masterpiece with this one.

Rating: 8.5 out of 10

Movie Review – The Karate Kid (2010)

Plot: A remake of the 1984 classic.  12 year-old Dre Parker (Jaden Smith) moves to China with his mother (Taraji P. Henson) and is instantly the target of Cheng (Zhenwei Wang), a bully who is also a top kung-fu student.  Mr. Han (Jackie Chan), a reclusive maintenance man in Dre’s apartment building, teaches him kung-fu and prepares Dre for an upcoming tournament in which Cheng will also partake in.

The 1984 Karate Kid is one of my favorite movies of all time, so it was really hard for me to get into this remake.  But I’ll come right out and say it; there is absolutely no reason for this movie to exist.  This is not just me being nostalgic.  If you want to see The Karate Kid, than go see the original.  This remake does absolutely nothing new.  It is scene for scene the original with different character names and a different setting.  I’m not just talking about similar scenes.  It’s every single detail.  This is the prime example of how to do remakes/reboots wrong.  Why did Batman Begins work?  It did something new with the character and franchise.  Why did Superman Returns fail?  It’s a worse rehash of the original.  We have the same thing here:  A pathetic retelling of a classic movie.

It’s not just the same exact scenes and conflicts that are copied.  Character reactions and dialogue are ripped right from the original, but they try and slightly tweak them to seem different.  Let me give you some examples.  In the original, when Daniel LaRusso (Ralph Macchio) first asks Mr. Miyagi (Pat Morita) to fix the kitchen faucet, he gets a little scared and closes the screen door.  Dre Parker does the exact same thing action for action in this scene.  Oh, but this time he’s asking Mr. Han to fix the shower head.  Oh, that is so different.  Wow.  How clever.  I’m glad they remade this.  I know it seems like that’s some random detail, but if you’ve seen the original Karate Kid, you’ll notice 800 of the same details happening.  The characters literally mimic everything the original actors did.

The dialogue is really what’s pathetic though and drove me nuts.  This is how much effort they put into this script.  In the original, Mr. Miyagi tells the bad guy karate master, John Kreese (Martin Kove), that it’s not fair for Daniel to face a 5 to 1 problem.  In this version, Mr. Han asks the bad kung-fu master it’s not fair for Dre to face a 6 to 1 problem.  You’ve got to be kidding me.  Now I know what you’re saying.  “Hey, I haven’t seen the original Karate Kid, so this was all new to me.”  But what you don’t realize is that the original is a superior film and I’m going to tell you why.

Like I said, this remake just spits out the same scenes from the original, but they are more drawn out and boring.  The director (Harald Zwart) tries to make it this big epic spectacle, but it’s completely uninteresting.  What made the original work was its subtlety.  Everything that happened was believable.  This is where this version truly fails.

One of my favorite parts about the original Karate Kid were the training scenes.  If you haven’t seen the original or this remake, I’m going to give away some spoilers in the next two paragraphs, so be warned.  Mr. Miyagi has Daniel basically do house chores like waxing cars, painting fences and so on.  Like Daniel, you get frustrated because you aren’t sure where it’s going.  But when you finally realize Mr. Miyagi is teaching him how to block, it really hits you hard.  The reveal of that scene was not over the top.  It was believable, which is why it was so amazing.

In this remake, they do this lame “Jacket on/jacket off” thing for about fifteen minutes.  And when the scene finally comes where Dre realizes he is learning kung-fu, it’s complete garbage.  He’s doing all kinds of advanced moves that had no correlation to the “jacket on/jacket off” motion.  It’s totally ridiculous.  The film wants you to buy this as believable like the original, but it fails horribly.  And the tournament at the end is worse.  Dre is doing moves that no human being could learn in the amount of time he had.  But in the original Karate Kid, the stuff Daniel learned was totally believable.

The training scenes in general are total crap.  They are way too long.  They are boring as hell, and there is nothing clever about them.  There is one scene in the movie where Dre and Mr. Han are climbing these long steps.  It lasted for eternity.

Is there anything I liked about this remake?  Jackie Chan held his own as Mr. Han.  This is certainly one of his better acting performances.  But his character actually leads me into something else I hated about the film.  When Mr. Han rescues Dre from the gang of kung-fu bullies, they have this six minute comedic fight.  What made Mr. Miyagi so bad ass in the original was that he defeated the bullies in about ten seconds.  Isn’t that more powerful than some lame drawn out comedic fight sequence?  I guess that’s just me.  Jaden Smith is okay, but he lacks a lot of charisma in the role.  At times, he’s just going through the motions.

So please, if you are going to take your kids to see The Karate Kid movie, don’t go to this one.  Just show them the original.   The only thing outdated about the original is the music.  All they did was take the original script and used a thesaurus to replace certain words in the dialogue.  This was an astonishingly bad remake.  Leaving out the comparisons to the original, it’s simply just a really boring movie.  The training scenes bored me to tears.

It’s a bad movie.  I have nothing else to say.

Rating: 4.0 out of 10 (Bad)

Movie Review – Kick-Ass

Plot:  Dave Lizewski (Aaron Johnson) is a nerd whose only real passion is comic books.  Wondering why no ordinary person has ever tried to become a super hero, Dave takes on the mantle of “Kick-Ass,” whose only power is taking a beating.  Despite getting his ass kicked, he gains a YouTube following, meets some real bad ass vigilantes and becomes the target of a mob kingpin.

Kick-Ass is really…no, I won’t use that joke.  But I will tell you that Kick-Ass is a damn good movie.  First and foremost, this is a comedy, but it has the right blend of super hero elements to make it a real compelling movie rather than just a simple parody.  It has a very interesting structure.  The first act is a comedy.  The second act is a mix between comedy/action.  And the last third is pure super hero action.

What makes Kick-Ass so interesting is that it begins as a run of the mill teenage comedy.  Dave is a geek who fantasizes romantically about his teacher and hangs out at comic book store with his two nerdy friends.  He endures the normal problems that only occur in high school.  The dialogue is snappy and funny, and the characters are likable.  The comic book elements come into play early, but they are all subtle knocks at the genre.  They work well together.

It’s not until Dave puts on the Kick-Ass garb where the movie starts to get real good.  Because they set it up as a typical high school movie where Dave is a typical high school kid, it makes you really fear for his life when he goes out to fight crime.  The second half really is a different film, which works for and against it.

Kick-Ass eventually moves towards a more traditional super hero tale.  The film loses its original focus and gets especially whacky and over the top towards the end.  They also gloss over some pretty serious moral dilemmas.  A lot of bad stuff happens as a result of this guy becoming Kick-Ass that they don’t dwell or explore it at all.  I understand the director (Matthew Vaughn) wanted to keep it lighthearted, and the stuff in here is just too damn good, so I have to let it slide.

The real heart of the movie though are the colorful characters.  The actors bring their A-game.  Nicolas Cage was my favorite part, playing Damon Macready, also known as the vigilante Big Daddy.  What the director brilliantly does is that you don’t see very much of Big Daddy fighting, but when you do, it’s a spectacle!  He really makes you salivate and want more.

I would also be remissed if I didn’t mention his daughter, Mindy Macready (alter-ego Hit Girl).  She is played brilliantly by Chloe Grace Moretz.  Not only does she take out a gazillion mob guys in the span of two seconds, but Moretz plays the character to perfection with a maturity level beyond her years.  She is probably the most fascinating character.

Speaking of mob guys, Mark Strong plays the main baddie, Frank D’Amico.  Now this easily could have been just another cliché and interchangeable mob boss, but it’s not.  There’s enough flavor and spunk to this guy that I actually got invested in his character.  He is very much written like a generic crime boss, but there is something about Strong’s performance that keeps him fresh.  To be able to play such a tired role and keep it interesting gives Strong an A+ acting job in my book.

If you like super heroes and comics, you will love this movie.  There is a lot of violence, but it’s not ridiculous with blood splashing all over the screen.  It’s a great dose of both bad ass and comedic action.  That’s the biggest strength of this film; it mixes genres successfully.  Along with a great score and a very memorable final line, Kick-Ass is really…you know.

Rating: 8 out of 10 (Great)

Movie Review – Hot Tub Time Machine

Plot: Three friends (and one nephew) try and re-capture their youth for the weekend by returning to a famed ski lodge in which they always had a memorable time.  But while getting drunk in the hot tub, alcohol short circuits the wiring sending them back to the 80’s.  Will they mess with the past or follow the space time continuum rules?

It’s been a long time since I’ve seen a movie this funny.  Sure, this past decade had some great comedies like The Royal Tenenbaums and Tropic Thunder, but I haven’t laughed this hard in a long time.  This is in the vain of comedies from yesteryear; Clever, but don’t take themselves too seriously and are consistently hilarious.  Comedies don’t have to shock you with gross out jokes.  They don’t have to have Will Ferrell dancing around like a buffoon.  They don’t have to have Vince Vaughn talking really fast.  They just need to be funny.  Hot Tub Time Machine is a simple story, but so uproarious.

What’s great about this film is that it doesn’t just say, “Hey, let’s make fun of the 80’s and ride that all the way to the bank.”  It’s about the characters, not the time period.  And the characters are all consistently funny.  I have to admit, I’ve never seen a John Cusack movie I liked.  I always thought of this guy as Mr. Mediocre.  His movies don’t suck, but they aren’t super memorable either.  And he’s always just kind of…there.  But in Hut Tub Time Machine, I finally saw the comedic talent.  Cusack plays Adam, the straight man of the group, and he plays it to perfection; so well in fact that I love when he strays from that persona, but he never goes overboard.  He’s extremely likable in this movie.

The man who steals the show though is Lou, played by Rob Corddry, the wild man of the group who is throwing out swears like peanuts at a baseball game.  You always have to have that guy in these types of movies.  Sometimes they are great, but sometimes they fail horribly.  What I love about this character is that he’s the money hungry pathetic jackass, but he realizes it.  Most of these types of characters in comedies are not aware of this, making them annoying and detestable.

There are some fantastic supporting roles here as well.  Crispin Glover of Back to the Future fame is hysterical, having one of the funniest long running jokes I’ve ever seen in a movie.  This joke is brought up constantly, but doesn’t get old.  Now that’s the sign of a great comedy.  I have to say though, one of the characters I was looking forward to the most was Chevy Chase as the mystical Hot Tub repairman.  It’s not that he was bad, but he never made me laugh.  I know Chase has hit the skids the last few years, but I know he’s also capable of more, and I feel he was underutilized.  He just kind of comes in, says a random line, and leaves.  Unfortunately, this was the worst part of the movie.

Now as I said before, the jokes rarely derive from the fact that these dudes are in the 80’s.  However, there are some very subtle and clever little 80’s throwbacks that you really have to pay attention for that are gut-wrenchingly funny.  There is one towards the end taking a shot at Karate Kid that is barely audible, but if you hear it and know Karate Kid, you will crack up.  I did.  And I love the clever throwbacks to other famous time travel movies like Back to the Future and Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure.  This is how you make fun of a time period.  It’s not shoving the clothes and hairstyles down your throat, but subtle hints.

And like I said, it doesn’t play off cheap gross out jokes.  Sure, there is some potty humor here, but it’s done in smart ways like There’s Something about Mary and not a bad Kevin Smith movie.

If you’re like me and haven’t laughed really hard at the movies in a long time, then go see this one.  This absolutely trumps recent comedic hits like The Hangover or Wedding Crashers.  It’s not that these movies are bad, it’s just that I don’t laugh a lot when I see them.  I get chuckles here and there, but Hot Tub Time Machine brings you genuine laughs.

Rating: 8 out of 10 (Great)

TV Show Brawl Series: Boy Meets World Vs The Wonder Years

Welcome once again to another TV Show Brawl Series.  Today we examine a Battle Royale of brotherly proportions.  That’s right – The Wonder Years and Boy Meets World.  Aside from Fred and Ben Savage starring in their respective shows, they have many similarities.  Both feature main characters who endure an on again/off again romantic interest through out the series.  Both face the trials and tribulations of high school and beyond, learning about life, love and how not to be an jackass.  But who would win in an all out war between these two shows?  Would it be Fred’s group from the late eighties/early nineties, but which took place in the sixties/seventies, or would it be Ben’s gang, who’s show was on the more lighthearted ABC TGIF line-up.

This will be a 5 game series folks!  Break out Kevin Arnold’s crappy car he bought for a dollar.  Grab Topanga’s promise ring Corey gave her for Christmas.  Let’s start the brawl!

Match-Up #1: Battle of the Savages

Corey Matthews vs Kevin Arnold

Although both characters appear to have similar personalities as teenage romantics, they are two very different people.  I actually don’t think it’s that close of a fight.  Kevin Arnold seems like a goody two shoe on the surface, but he does some pretty ballsy things.  He tells the school bully to basically go screw himself and gets his ass kicked for it.  He’s constantly bluffing in poker.  And on his first day of high school he goes out of his way to piss off the biggest disciplinarian in the school.  This is some gutsy stuff.

How about Corey Matthews?  He’s a weenie!  When he got his driver’s license, he drove like ten miles per hour on the high way and signaled people to go around him.  He’s always panicky and flailing his arms.  Corey never takes a risk and is in constant fear of change.  Kevin Arnold wins hands down.  This is ironic, because when Fred Savage made a guest appearance on Boy Meets World as a sleazy professor, Corey knocked him the hell out.

Winner: Kevin Arnold

Boy Meets World: 0   The Wonder Years: 1

Match-Up #2:  Battle of the Girlfriends

Topanga Lawrence Vs Winnie Cooper

This is a little closer.  Both are exceptionally bright. Topanga was valedictorian for the John Adams Class of 1998.  Winnie scored above 1500 on the SATs.   Both started out weird and kind of dorky.  But really, I have to give this one to Topanga for one simple reason: she forced Mr. Feeny to give her one more A on an assignment that was supposed to be un-graded.  I mean, really, Mr. Feeny backed down!

Winner: Topanga Lawrence

Boy Meets World: 1   The Wonder Years: 1

Match-Up #3: Battle of the Sidekicks

Shawn Hunter vs Paul Pheiffer

Now on the surface, I’m sure you all think it’s Shawn Hunter, hands down.  Not so fast.  First of all, Paul Pheiffer is a genius.  He ends up going to Harvard!  Yeah, the guy may have some allergy problems, but we’ll let it slide.  We really need to examine Shawn Hunter though.  True, he’s a slick ladies man who always seems to be in control, but I’m sorry…he loses this fight.  Why?  He’s going to be his own downfall.  This is not an emotionally stable human being.  Every season he seems to become an emotional mess.  He’s always freaking out and running away.  He also got taken in by a freaky cult.  No way he holds it together in a fight.  Pheiffer pulls off a huge upset here due to Hunter’s own implosion.

Winner: Paul Pheiffer

Boy Meets World: 1   The Wonder Years: 2

Match-Up #4: Battle of the Idiot Brothers

Eric Matthews vs Wayne Arnold

Both are morons.  These guys are just plain stupid.  Wayne Arnold is pretty pathetic.  What has the guy ever accomplished?  I can’t even remember a single episode that revolved around him.  All he does is chuckle along calling Kevin “Butt-Head.”  And it’s always the same insult.  “Butt-Head.”  Think of something new!  Eric Matthews is insane.  In the earlier seasons, he seemed fairly normal; just a lazy kid who tried one too many get rich quick schemes.  But in the later seasons, he’s nuts.  He hid in a glass food case to try and sneak attack people.  He created a twisted TV show, ala The Truman Show, using his roommates as pawns.  And he followed his brother on his honeymoon for absolutely no reason, hiding in the sand taking notes.

But Eric will win for one simple reason; he can withstand pain.  This guy has been electrocuted, fallen off school roofs, sat in a cooking pot in Hawaii and he was constantly hurting himself while studying for the SATs.  He’ll do something that hurts himself, but he can survive it, whereas Wayne would just sit there cackling “Butt-Head” to himself.

Winner: Eric Matthews

Boy Meets World: 2   The Wonder Years: 2

Match-Up #5: Battle of the Mentors

Mr. Feeny vs Jack Arnold

Well, it’s a tie match-up as we go to the final showdown.  This is a tight one.  I honestly don’t know where to go with this fight.  This is truly a Superman/Lex Luthor type of match-up.  Jack Arnold is a terrifying human being.  Whenever he grunted, I would have nightmares.  I’ll never forget the pilot episode when Kevin gets in trouble at school.  His mom and the principal talk for a couple minutes and all of a sudden after not saying anything the camera pans to Papa Arnold as he says, “I’d like to take him home now.”  He eyes bulged out like he was about to rip an entire city apart with his knuckles.  Holy crap.

But honestly, as scary as Jack Arnold was, I just don’t think Mr. Feeny would get fazed.  Mr. Feeny is like Danny Tanner, Wilson Wilson and Jason Seaver combined into one giant figure of wisdom and sage like advice.  Now there is no way Mr. Feeny can win a straight up slug fest with Jack.  So the real question is this – Can Feeny convince Jack to back down with mind games and fortune cookie advice, leaving him open for a Feeny finishing move?  The answer is….

 

 

 

Winner: Mr. Feeny

Feeny wins it.  It comes down to this: Feeny would be able to convince Jack Arnold not to be angry anymore.  This new persona would battle Jack’s old persona, creating an internal struggle.  How can Jack win if he doesn’t even know who he is.  Wow Feeny, wow.  Well done.

Boy Meets World: 3    The Wonder Years: 2

Well there you have it.  The Boy Meets World crew conquers the Wonder Years.  Until next time.

Movie Review – Shutter Island

Plot: Set in 1954.  When a prisoner escapes Shutter Island (a high security rehabilitation hospital for the criminally insane), Federal Marshal Teddy Daniels (Leonardo DiCaprio) leads the investigation.  Daniels discovers more is going on than a simple escape as he unravels potentially illegal and frightening practices by the Hospital’s Doctors while also trying to keep his own sanity.

Martin Scorsese and Leonardo DiCaprio, back together again; the Joe Montana and Jerry Rice of the movie scene if you will.  Certainly not their best effort, but a very strong film nonetheless.  When you go see Shutter Island though, make sure you pay attention.  Scorsese is arguably the greatest director of all time, but his one weakness is pushing scenes a little too long.  Has the guy ever done a movie under 150 minutes?  This is quite apparent in Shutter Island, but it’s not enough to derail this visually beautiful paranoia/insane romp through one of the freakiest hospitals/prisons I’ve ever seen on film.

Let’s talk about the visuals for a bit.  Wow.  This film looks gorgeous.  Many of the scenes in Shutter Island are hallucinations, and they look outstanding.  One in particular is when Teddy Daniels is surrounded by a building of fire, and I just couldn’t take my eyes off the screen.  Although these “dream sequences” go on way too long, it looks so good that I don’t even care.  Scorsese is very good at keeping you interested even when a scene drags on.

Leonardo DiCaprio.  What can I say?  He’s great as always, and probably my favorite actor out there today.  His performance is so perfected.  Every line he delivers, every facial tick is carefully calculated and played out.  Everyone shines in this movie.  Ben Kingsley.  Michelle Williams.  Emily Mortimer.  And two great cameos from Jackie Earle Haley and Elias Koteas.  Unfortunately, Mark Ruffalo as Daniel’s partner, Chuck Aule, is mediocre.  Not bad, but just looks JV compared to everyone else.  Sorry, Mark.  But other than that, if you love watching great performances, then a Scorsese movie is always a good bet.

As good as everyone is, DiCaprio really has to carry this.  He’s basically in every single scene.  This is a near two and a half hour movie, and it’s all about Leo.  That’s it.  Fortunately Leo is more than up to the task, although it might be too much screen time.  Give another character the chance to shine.  Even when he has a one-on-one moment with another character, the focus is solely on him.

I think there were also a couple scenes and sub-plots that didn’t add anything that they spend way too much time on.  The film refers back to Daniel’s war history several times.  While interesting and visually compelling, I don’t think this was all that important to the core of the film, and they spend a lot of time on it.  There is also a lengthy scene in which Daniels talks to the Warden (Ted Levine) that has some interesting dialogue, but it really doesn’t need to be there and goes on forever.  Maybe if I watch it again it will mean something.

In fact, this movie begs you to watch it twice.  They have such a good set-up that you want to rip right through to the end to see what the hell is going on.  This is both a strength and a weakness as you will miss crucial detail.

While the end is a pretty darn good pay-off, I will warn you it’s a tad ambiguous, which will understandably anger some people.  Normally this would anger me as well, but I think because it’s Scorsese, I let it slide.

Bottom-line: this is a film worth seeing.  I think it drags in a lot of areas and it’s excruciatingly repetitive, and even though there are great performances all around, DiCaprio’s Ted Daniels is the only real intriguing character.  I think there are plenty of interesting characters on this island, but they just weren’t explored enough.  Pay attention and be prepared to reflect and think afterwards.

Rating: 7.5 out 10.