Zeus himself would be rolling in his monotheistic-crafted grave at this clumsily polished Hollywood remake fronted by the blockbuster-killing Sam Worthington who recently contributed to ruining Avatar. He plays almost the same roll: a quiet-spoken, over-privaledged, uncharismatic “hero”. This time he is the bastard son of Zeus and wields it like the self-consious nuevo-rich annoyance. I don’t completely blame the actor himself, but rather the powers that choose to wield his abilities in this fashion and the fact that he is now a Schrödinger’s cat for action-packed [soulless] blockbusters. Unlikeable, unbelievable, shallow and block-headed. It is a real shame as the supporting cast were really good with the exception of Zeus and the rest of the Gods looking a bit like characters from the dated Mortal Kombat movie.

“Zeus” is immediately apparent as miscast, he just looks wrong. Coupled with the stupid blooming, ill-fitted costumes makes the gods very un-godly.

This movie comes complete with lines of script to crush any nuance or hint of subtext. Surely if people don’t know what putting coins on a dead person’s closed eyes means, they can appreciate it as a ritual without having the point driven home by an obtuse line of dialogue.

Lacking in brutality and very weak in treatment of its subject matter, your enjoyment comes down to the props. The Kraken is as awesome as you hoped but the scene doesn’t last long, nor does the Kraken do much besides taking a very long time to stand up. I am unsure about the d’jins; the desert scorpian-riders seem to belong to a different mythos.

If anyone compares this movie to the line of epic quasi-historic movies like Last of the Mohicans, Braveheart, Gladiator and Troy, dismiss it as marketecture, this movie is not in the same league nor possesses the same depth or emotional content.

Lameboat

The Wolfman is a movie that did a lot of things right but was an overall disappointment for my movie-going experience. The sets were gorgeous and  with Anthony Hopkins starring, how could at least some of it not rise to greatness? And indeed some of it did; Mr. Hopkins certainly aided to this even though I felt his performance to be a bit luke warm in places. What pushed this movie’s rising head back down in the B-grade stye was the creature design of the werewolf and the title of the movie. In the words of Dylan Moran they are both “so fabulously f*&king stupid”. They reek of ’80s B-grade horror which is a shame as genres movies like this really need to contribute modern reworkings of the clichés to fly.

The editing of the film was effective at producing the occasional jump and help build the power and prowess behind the beasts. Some of the pacing felt a bit out and the first quarter of the movie didn’t really involve me enough with the characters to care what was happening. When Lawrence Talbot (Benicio Del Toro) goes back to the asylum I felt that there was more opportunity for emotive content and character expansion. Still this section had a great scene towards its end which had me up and cheering for more blood.

Awesome!

Lame!

The concept of vampire apocalypse is not very widespread (yet), though I still have to read the original I Am Legend novel. True Blood was the first time I encountered the idea of vampires out in the open and I really enjoyed that premise. So to follow it up with “everyone is a vampire” in Daybreakers had me waiting for its release, and then annoyed that its original release date got pushed back (at least as far as I could gather).

! SPOILERS FOLLOW !

It occurred to me during the movie that the idea of what it was to be human and our condition was not explored as much as it could be. For instance the rebirth idea, through a certain burst of sunlight, along with the human blood being a food that sustains a vampire in a “humane” state have such potential for deep reflection and comment on the human condition. Especially with the conflict within the main vampire,Edward Dalton (Ethan Hawke), as he grapples with his role as head haematologist at the vampire blood farm, big, oligarchy, company fronted by Charles Bromley (Sam Neill). I did enjoy the final twist implied, of a reinfection of the vampires back to human through tainted blood. The division of condition/’humanity’ of the nourished vampires versus the starved sub-siders also seemed ill-explored. But one has to remember that the budget was only 21 million and the opposite to these disappointments would be to actively make everything explicit. At least it was not preachy or in one’s face about anything.

All-in-all I agree with the following quote:

In speaking with fellow Screen Rant scribe Ross Miller about the film, we both came to the conclusion that Daybreakers didn’t do enough to live up to its ambitious premise. Despite a few humorous lines, the movie took itself way too seriously to be enjoyed as either a dark satire of corporate greed or a campy splatterfest. Conversely, the characters weren’t developed well enough and the plot was too predictable to work as a moody sci-fi/action/horror thriller. In essence, the movie was a run-of-the-mill piece of genre fare, albeit one with a remarkably original idea.

~ Rob Frappier

There’s something about videogame movies.  They never turn out too good.  In my opinion, there are two major reasons for this.

Hollywood doesn’t trust the original story.  This seems strange to me, as the good games all have good stories, which the fans love.  The movie-making industry however seems to think that they know better than the fans.

The director and others involved in the production both a) have never played the game(s) before adaptation, and b) work towards their own “vision” of the game, which never seems to be what the fans want.  Please also refer to Point 1.

I have yet to see a ‘good’ videogame movie, and frankly I am beginning to think that the task of adaptation cannot be successful. It seems as though Hollywood just wants to bank on the good name of the game, and assume that the end product will rake in the green.  What ends up on screen is usually something that only incorporates part of the game – usually a few characters, and few locations, and maybe one or two of key plot points.  That’s about the it.

My question would be – why not just make a whole new movie?  Why drag our classic characters through the mud in some misshapen hunk of a story, that doesn’t give them the opportunity to present themselves as they were in the game (e.g., unstoppable badasses)?  What’s the point of having Max Payne in a movie, if the movie doesn’t represent Max Payne as he was, and doing what he did in the game?

I felt something similar with the X-Files movie.  In that flick, it could have been anyone chasing down the bad guys.  It didn’t have to be Mulder and Scully.  Hollywood just thought they’d like to bump out something else and bank on the big X to deliver for them.  I guess they earned some money for themselves, and that’s the important thing…

Max Payne

Onto the movie.  First off, I should let you all in on a secret.  I have never played either of the two Max Payne games.  This gives me a unique perspective on the movie – I can judge it as a movie, without whining too much about what could or should have been (because I loved the game so much).

Second off, I know Mark Wahlberg can act.  He can even act in action movies – e.g., the exceptionally good “The Big Hit.”  It’s unfortunate to see that this movie doesn’t really allow Mark to do much acting.  It’s even more unfortunately to see that this movie doesn’t allow Mark to do much of anything.  There’s one word for this.  Boring.

The movie starts out slowly.  Fair enough.  The movie keeps moving along slowly, weaving in some promise of some interesting supernatural elements.  Fair enough.  The movie keeps moving along slowly… I could keep going (along slowly) but I won’t.  You get the idea.

To be honest, I think the most interesting part of the movie was seeing Mila Kunis as a badass Russian mob-missie*.  I will never watch “That ‘70s Show” the same way again.  From now on, I will always see her as Mona Sax, with an MP5 slung over her shoulder, and a bunch of 7-foot henchies at her back.  However, Mona’s got even less to do in this movie than does Max.  Just when you think she’s about to break through and get more involved in the story, she doesn’t, which is a shame, because she’s almost believable in the role.

There’s a lot of eye contact between Max and Mona if you look for it, and I think a lot of the time, I think they both might have one thing on their minds.  And one thing only.  “What the f*** are we doing here?”

Just out of curiosity, I also checked the good ol’ Wikipedia to find out what differences there were from the game in this movie.  I expected to find that a lot of liberties had been taken with the story, and I was right.  Perhaps the most noteworthy of these, nowhere could I find any mention of harpies being in the game.  The fact that they called what are obviously harpies “valkyries” in the movie also didn’t rub me up too good.  I know my Greek mythology, and those things are harpies my friends.  Valkyries are (from memory) horse-riding shield-maidens from Sweden, and by all accounts they look pretty decent.  Naming issues aside, I can’t work out why the hell these things were in the movie, or why people had their visions of them.  It was very shoehorned, and from what I can tell, it came out of the screenwriter’s own mind, and not from the game.  Oh well.

There’s a few other questions I’d like some answers too.  I’d like to know what happened to the black guy who was transferred to the Cold Case section at the movie’s opening, and got the spiel about Max.  What the hell was the point of this guy?  Not to mention the bloke actually giving him the spiel.  They just disappear into the exposition wilderness.  I’d also like to know how many cops worked homicide at the 55^th precinct.  See how many cops you can count in this one room as Max strolls past them to his ex-partner’s office.  Lastly, a dude who’s been called “invincible” earlier in the movie goes down to one tiny handgun slug.  O-K.

But by far, the most glaring problem with this movie is the lack of action.  Max Payne is a pretty violent number – guns blazing all the time, against a s***-load of bad dudes.  Apart from the office shootout (halfway through the movie) there appeared to be a distinct lack of shooters.  Max’s shotgun skills are certainly impressive, but he’s finished all too quickly.  Not to mention the climax on the helipad.  This scene should be in Websters dictionary as the frickin’ definition of anti-climax.

Final verdict

Bland all around, but check it out if you want to see what Mila Kunis would be like if she was in the mob.

* Patent pending on the term: “badass Russian mob-missie”

When a movie opens with a bedtime story about how someone can challenge the ruler of the Empire for control of the Golden Army, you know exactly how that movie is going to end.

When a movie opens with a bedtime story that is eerily similar to that told at the beginning of the Lord of the Rings Trilogy, involving an army-controlling crown separated into three pieces and passed off onto the different races, you know that the director of the movie is off to make the “Hobbit” pretty damn soon.

When a movie review opens with this kind of stuff, you wonder how bad I hated it. The surprise would be that I actually quite liked it. But we’ll get to that…

First things first. Hellboy is not human. He’s a monster from Hell. This may be a point of contention, and maybe I’m not open-minded enough… but it really, really hurts the title character that he’s not human. He’s already behind the eight-ball because of it.

Despite the fact that Hellboy is cool, gruff, and beastly, it is hard to understand where he’s coming from in this movie. There just seems to be nothing in this movie that provides any reasons why Hellboy does the things that he does. I don’t know why he walks from Point A to Point B on the screen, or why Liz is angry with him early on during the movie, or why Liz says that he’s the best man she’s ever known, because the story does not deliver.

Both Hellboy and Hellboy 2 go to great lengths to humanise the title character. But where Hellboy shows the vulnerable side of the title character (wanting to be outside, pining for the girl, getting jealous of Myers), Hellboy 2 falls way short. Maybe Del Toro felt that he’d already been there and done that in the first movie. I’m sorry, but he screwed up royal here.

What makes things worse, is that Hellboy has no motivation in this movie. He’s got nothing to do. We don’t know what’s making him tick. He’s just there, on a mission, reacting to his girl and the rest of his comrades in arms. This is bad writing, and is no fault of Ron Perlman, who is sickeningly good as Hellboy. His antics own this movie. He plays the part extremely well, even considering the abject directionlessness he’s been saddled with.

The biggest problem with this movie is the odd way that the movie chooses to present its characters to the audience. The characters seem only to demonstrate specific aspects of their personality when the situation (or the script) dictates that they must do so. To take an example, we have Hellboy watching himself on the news, looking beyond pleased with himself that he’s now known to the outside world. This is all well and good, but it occurs in a vacuum. There had been very little allusion earlier in the film that Hellboy wanted to be known to the outside world. Furthermore Liz mentions that she doesn’t like people staring at her because it makes her feel like a freak. Again, this occurs in a vacuum. The list goes on.

I think this all boils down to a lack of vision for what this movie was about. Another movie about Hellboy is not a vision. It’s a money-making venture. Where is the overarching theme that drives the characters onwards? This fires plot, and makes situations believable. There are two perfectly good concepts in the above paragraph that were wasted. The movie could have been based around either, but instead it was based on nothing, and the characters struggled for it, with no opportunity for growth as events unfolded.

Because of this lack of theme, we’re also stuck with boring peripheral characters. We’re stuck with a very 2D Prince Nuada as the main villain. He fights cool, but he’s got all his holier than thou bull-s*** working against him. He’s very uninteresting. Even poorer is his sister, Princess Nuara, who is unlike any other movie character I’ve seen in a long time. This chick is all plot device. There is literally nothing she does in the movie that does not first and foremost, advance the plot, or act as a convenient plot device. Watch her and see if you don’t believe me. Especially take note of this where Abe Sapien is in the room.

So, I said something earlier about actually quite liking this movie…

The special effects in this movie are freaking good. This is the Pan’s Labyrinth guy here people, so expect some good visual stuff, and lots of characters without eyes, for some strange reason. The Tooth Fairies, the Plant Monster / Elemental, and the Golden Army are just a few of the really good set pieces in here.

I think Hellboy fits Del Toro’s style very well, and he really tries to inject some fun into the creepy Pan’s motif. It works well. It’s got a lot of the charm of the Buffy The Vampire Slayer TV series. Hellboy’s wit, and the way he goes about things are very enjoyable to watch. This worked well in Hellboy, and remains steady in the sequel. Johann Krauss was also a superb addition, adding to the oddball humour of the movie. In fact, the relationship between Johann and Hellboy is a highlight, mostly because some thought was put into how each character could grow in response to one another. If only this had been done between some of the other characters…

Both Hellboy and Liz Sherman pack a punch in this movie, when they are allowed to do so by the script. It’s hard to describe, but even though no growth or motivation was written into the script for their characters, they do display the vulnerabilities of everyday people. They are both dealing with all sorts of world-ending supernatural stuff, but Hellboy is drinking his woes away, and Liz is freaking out human-style about getting knocked up. Both Ron Perlman and Selma Blair are very good in their roles, mostly in the ways that they stick it to us that underneath it all, they are still human. There’s certainly limited opportunity for them to show this, but it’s there when they get the chance.

The rapport between the core group is also expertly established in this film. I especially like the moment where Abe tells Liz that she’s pregnant, and then shortly after, the pregnancy test scene where Abe puts his hand on the door and speaks to Liz on the other side. It’s only a few seconds each time, but it’s great stuff. These guys know each other inside out, and would have each other’s back forever. What’s more, you know it just from watching them. That’s good acting. It’s almost frustrating how good some of this stuff is, when you look at how badly Del Toro seemed to misfire on developing some motivation for his characters.

I can’t think of a better way to end this review than with the above. In the end it’s ultimately pointless to wonder what might have been, but with this one, I wonder harder than most. This movie could have been f***in’ A, but it wasn’t. Let’s hope Del Toro takes notes before getting started on Part 3.

P.S. Any movie that shows Selma Blair in her undies at least once can’t be all bad.

Putting the bias aside, the movie does have a formulaic and unsurprising plot but it ratifies it in such a way as it feels like an old-school action flick: make some popcorn and cheer the crunch of bones! Though I did roll my eyes at points where the usual baddies-at-point-blank-range-can’t-hit-squat-with-automatic-weapons schinanigans one finds rampant in these sorts of films. At least there weren’t too many of them; oh and pillows are armour plated now.

Now about my bias: I was satisfied quite quickly in the movie (after the obvious kidnapping) and the rampage basically continues non-stop from there. There are also some great I’ma-f*&k-you-up moments throughout the film and the grittiness and sets seemed believable. The downside is there are some retarded moments as well; the sort of retarded character-moments you find in action films when family interrelationships enter the script.

All-in-all it is very much like a movie-maker saw the same documentary as me and made a film to quench the burning desire for blood after it.

F*** yeah!

But X-Files 2 resembles the original X-Files that so many fell in love with only in lighter shades.  The blueprint is there for a great X-Files movie, but we aren’t getting all that we might’ve hoped for.

There are two main issues here, characterization and plot.

The movie starts off good, with character motivation alive and well.  Mulder is still searching for his sister.  Vintage.  Scully is still putting her faith in science.  Vintage.  One thing that I’ll say is that you can see how both Mulder and Scully (and particularly Scully) got to where they are now.  It seems such natural progression for both characters.  Unfortunately, where the vintage Mulder and Scully are visible, they are coloured only in lighter shades of themselves.  This is, in my opinion, somewhat forced by the romantic sub-plot.  What has always irked me is that Mulder and Scully lose a part of themselves and part of what makes them unique, in having a romantic relationship.  The believer-skeptic motif gets cast aside and they are just two people in love, going through romantic type problems.

This brings me to the plot.  There has been much said about the plot – to put it simply – it’s not very X-Filesy.  It starts to set itself up quite good, it’s got mysterious kidnappers, a pedophile priest who claims to be experiencing visions, and Mulder and Scully being called back, somewhat reluctantly, into action.  This is all good stuff, and in the X-Files, good stuff leads somewhere better.  Not here though.  After about the first 30-45 minutes, we have descended into standard serial killer fare.  There is always the hope that something more will pop out of it, but there’s only glimpses.  Leaving the movie, I just wonder where it *could* have gone.

To get back to my earlier point, the relationship between Mulder and Scully, whilst showing parts of what it once was, now seems tired.  Their difference of opinion appears to be more about them feeling too different to one another to be together anymore, and unfortunately, less about them holding onto a polar opposite POV about the phenomenon they are up against.  In fitting with the standard plotline we ended up getting, any FBI agents who fell in love a few years back would have sufficed for this movie.  There was no need for Mulder and Scully.  This just didn’t seem to be the story that *they* needed to be in.

Having said that, it’s not all doom and gloom.  Mulder’s trademark wit is still there (in flashes), and Scully gets to tell off Xzibit, telling him to grow some balls even!!  There’s a cool cameo towards the end, which X-Philes will probably be happy to see, even though it’s a bit of a shoehorn job.  The lesser players, Amanda Peet and Xzibit (as the new generation of FBI agents) perform adequately, and Billy Connolly once again proves that he can act okay.  There’s probably the most depth written into Connolly’s character, which is interesting to see, given the current social climate and the character he plays.

Hmm.  That’s about the it, I’m afraid.  When it’s all said and done, X-Files 2 is a pretty standard movie, with standard characterization and a standard plot.  It’s part X-Files, and part not, and in the same way, it’s part worth seeing, and part worth not.

First things first.  I have not written a film review since Phil and I were in Grade 11 English class, tasked with reviewing “The Negotiator”.  I got a decent mark on that one, so I feel at least somewhat justified in posting my opinions online.

Second, I felt The Dark Knight was a solid flick.

The Batman purists may not like specific things because they aren’t canon.  Not being a Batman reader, I wouldn’t know what they are, but I think Harvey Dent was scarred in a somewhat different way than what plays out in the film.  That’s probably the biggest one.  If you’re a purist, let me know anything else I’ve missed.

In addition, there’s going to be some blowback from those who practically had a wet dream whilst watching Batman Begins.  Phil makes the comment “In typical sequel fashion: it is less cool.”  In my opinion, it’s not so much that The Dark Knight is necessarily a less cool film (in my opinion, it’s better), but it suffers from being over-hyped, and must bear the weight of expectation.  People expected this movie to kick so much ass, and it was always going to be hard to live up to this standard.

My perception of Begins is simple.  Way too slow, but with lots of cool stuff sprinkled through.  Dark Knight benefits as did X-Men 2 – it got the back-story out of the way in the first movie, freeing it up for more action, which does not disappoint.  The truck flipping over special effect, and the assault on Dent’s armored transport spring to mind immediately.  I also got a kick out of Bale’s gravelly Batman voice, and Batman zooming around on the Batpod with his cape billowing out behind him.  Call me old-fashioned, but I love all that cornball / cartoony stuff.  After all, this is a movie based on a superhero comic, let’s not take ourselves too seriously.  And on that note, there’s also a bit of humour about this movie, which doesn’t go astray.

There’s been a bit of bashing of Bale in terms of his performance of Bruce Wayne / Batman, but to be honest I can’t get where they are coming from.  I think it could have something to do with the reviewers feeling the need to downplay Bale’s performance in order to talk up Ledger’s.  I’ll take a stand and say I thought Bale did a good job.

Eckhart as Harvey Dent was also cool.  I’d never really heard of him (Eckhart) before, but he did justice to the role.  I believed his descent into Two-Face, and for a character that I thought I’d be bored watching (due to the over-hype about the character, and the fact he was playing the part of romantic foil) I was pleasantly surprised.  Maggie Gyllenhaal was also a refreshing change from her rather wooden predecessor.  Plus, she’s cute to boot!

Ledger deserves his praise.  Whether it’ll be enough to win that posthumous Oscar, I don’t know, but history would not favour his chances.  How friggin’ cool would it be though to see an Oscar go to someone from an action movie though! To get back to the Joker though, he stole the show, and the audience really responded to him.  He was funny and scary, and you can almost tell he lived alone in a hotel room for a month perfecting the voice and mannerisms of the Clown Prince Of Crime.  So yeah, Heath did a good job.  The last thing I’ll say, the magic trick (with the pencil) was both cool and shocking.

Dark Knight is an awesome movie (up to three quarters of the way through), and I’d be saying that it’s damn near perfect up until that point.  The story was great, and drove itself along well, with some nice twists.  However, I have one major problem with this movie.  The final act.  I get annoyed with anti-climax, and that’s what I got out of Dark Knight.  The movie should have ended with the Joker, but instead we veer off to follow Harvey Two-Face in a tacked-on afterthought plot, which doesn’t fit well with the flow of the story.  They could’ve explored this plot in a whole other movie, and going into the movie, this was what I thought would be the case.  But this was not to be.

Also a bit anti-climactical was Batman’s final battle with Joker.  Seriously, it’s just a few punches long.  And with Two-Face, it doesn’t get any better.  As a superhero movie, it should’ve ended with at least one good fight.

So yeah, a near perfect movie with a petering-out ending.  However, I’ll be very much  looking forward to a three-quel.  I don’t like this idea of not using any other villains that’ve been in past Batman movies though.  I’d be itching to see what Nolan could do with Penguin, Catwoman, or Bane in a future instalment.