Categories
Movie Review

Movie Review: Casino Royale

Rating:  A-

Quick summary:  “Quite Fun”

I’m a Bond fan.  Grew up reading all the books and watching the movies with Dad.  Always looked forward to the films… and then came the crap years with Timothy Dalton and the over-the-top plots and villains.  That’s really when the Bond movies stopped being fun. 

Sure, we’d still go to see them — and Pierce Brosnan was great after he finally got the role, but that really didn’t fix the primary problem of the films being utterly boring and predictable.

Categories
Movie Review

Movie Review: Happy Feet

“Happy Feet” refers to the relief people feel while they shuffle out of this inexplicable mess of a film.

Rating:   C

The movie can’t decide what it wants to be:  one comedic song-lyric heavy showstopping number after another (which, for the most part, works);  a coming-out-of-the-closet story;  or an overbearing political environmentalist message that takes up WAY too much of the movie.

Are there laughs?  Sure.  Most of them will go over kids’ heads — and the adults won’t necessarily be laughing *with* the movie, but at it.  Which is never a good sign.

Categories
Movie Review

Movie Review: Tenacious D in The Pick of Destiny

Rating:  C

It plays like an extended episode of Mr. Show.  What starts out as an inspired parody of Tommy (or other kick-ass rock opera) sputters out into cliche’ after rock cliche’ that we’ve already seen The D do on screen or in videos.

Was it fun if you were not a D fan?  Probably not. 

Is it required viewing for All Who Want To Rock with the Greatest Band In The World?  Definitely. 

But only as a rental.

Categories
Movie Review

Movie Review: Borat

Rating:  A-

Rated R for pretty much everything you can think of.

Hands down, The Most Offensive film I have ever seen.  And funny as shit.  

And no, I won’t tell you anything else.  Go see it.

Categories
Movie Review

Movie Review: Over the Hedge

Rating: a solid B

The good thing is that it’s not necessary to know the characters from the comic strip ahead of time.  I’ve tried reading the comic in the past – I don’t find it overly funny.   Maybe I’ll try reading it again based on the movie to see if my opinion of the paper version has changed.

Animation?  Not as good as Pixar’s work

Laugh-level?  I laughed more during ICE AGE 2.  It’s still amusing, but not bust-a-gut-funny-ha-ha.

Categories
Movie Review

Movie Review: Freddie vs Jason

Rating: 1 out of 5
Rated: R for boobs and comical graphic violence.

Where to begin?   Nothing scary about it at all, considering the Jason and Freddy histories.  More of a comedy like the SCARY MOVIES series has become.  Really, a parody of itself.  And at a bit over 90 minutes, about 20 minutes too long.

But it had boobs and a small handful of mildly amusing lines, so it’s not all that bad.  If the audience you’re with yells back as the screen, then you may have a good time watching this dreck.

Categories
Disney Movie Review

Movie Review: Pirates of the Caribbean

Rating:  see below for explanation
Rated:  PG-13 for action movie violence, really creepy evil undead skeletons/zombies, a whole lot of drinking, some blood, and a wee bit of pirate sexual innuendo.  Basically, all the stuff that pirates do best.

This Jerry Bruckheimer film is based on the beloved Disney ride of the same name.  It happens to be the last ride that Walt worked on before he died, and is considered by many to be the best ride at the Disney parks.  Would Walt be happy with this film?  I’d say…. yes.  There are enough homages to the ride that fit in context with the film without being cheesy, and yet the film stands alone.  Will it make the ride a bit more… interesting?  understandable?  Perhaps… and therein lies the fun. 

Categories
Movie Review

Movie Review: Rollerball

Rating:  2 out of 5
Rated:  PG-13 for action-movie violence, occasional bad language, and Rebecca Stamos naked in silhouette.

Got to watch this one at a morning screening.  I’m glad I didn’t waste an afternoon or evening watching this dreck.

A disclaimer:  The James Caan edition of Rollerball is one of my favorite movies.  Nice homage:  in the new one, they keep the classic “Jon-a-than!  Jon-a-than!” chant that makes the Caan version awesome.

It’s sort of like the Planet of the Apes remake:  it’s not awful, and it’s intended to stand on its own.  But the originals in both cases were so much more inspired.

The first one:  The game was easy to follow and understand.  Skaters go around the rink, pick up the ball, and slam it into the scoring pod.  Can be shown with one camera.

The new one:  The game is on a figure-8 track (left over from RollerGames?  Where’s the alligator pit?) with a bunch of hampster habittrails and ramps and stuff.  You never get a good sense of how the game is played or who any of the team players are (or which team they’re on).

The plotlines are similar:  the game is run by The Corporation and Jonathan tries to figure out his role in the game.  Not a bad updating of the plot; the execution should have been done MUCH better.

There are a ton of bad directing choices in the film, but a lot of action scenes were cut; expect to see them uncut on the DVD.