Tag: Gerard Butler

Miraculously, Chasing Mavericks is not a story about John McCain and his quest for presidential glory. Nor is this about an unbranded calf (definition on google). Apparently it is a local Californian term for a mythical giant wave that actually occurs somewhere near Santa Cruz!

Ah yes, the legend of the big wave. Only the coolest of surfers could be cool enough to surf them.

As awesome as Butler? We will see. You might be able to surf on his hair.

The story of Jay Moriarity (Jonny Weston) is one based around the ocean. He had it tough growing up. His dad left him when they were young, his mother (Elisabeth Shue) is bad with money and cannot hold down a job. But hey, as long as he has his surfboard, he is a happy man.

He was actually saved as a kid after falling in the waves, by one of his neighbors, Frosty Hesson (Gerard Butler). A successful handy man with a wife (Abigail Spencer) and kids, he told her he would give up surfing the big waves, but still does it anyways. Not like lying has ever gotten anyone in trouble.

Ever since that day, Jay has been fascinated with the waves. But one day he finds the secret cove where Mavericks form, hidden away and yet being surfed on by his beighbor! The biggest waves he has ever seen and some nice pointy rocks. Well he says he wants to surf on them, and eventually convinces Frosty to train him. He agrees to train his mental, physical, spiritual, and emotional sides in order to conquer these beasts. At the same time he is attempting to woo his favorite girl (Leven Rambin) by being a great friend. Hah.

This also takes place during the 1990s El Nino, fucking everything up, meaning it is making crazier, bigger waves. So big, the secret area is no longer that secretive and a lot of people (amateurs) show up to conquer the mavericks, creating a huge potential for death.

I am now going to call tidal waves “huge potentials for death” from now on.

If you didn’t know, Jay Moriarity is an actual person, and this is his biographical movie. So if you click that wiki link, there will be some spoilers. Basically, he is considered a soul surfer, someone who surfs for the love of it only and is not to be confused with the other recent biographical surfing movie, Soul Surfer. He was made famous thanks to a photographer capturing his picture at the top of a Maverick crest.

But enough history, the movie itself? Typical feel good sports training film. You know how it will end, he will surf the wave. If you know the actual person, you will be aware of other events that happen in the film too. The only other feature this movie might have for entertainment purposes would be cool surfing scenes. I would describe them as “okay.”

For some reason, Chasing Mavericks has an incredibly slow feeling. It begins with a quote that doesn’t make too much sense, and ends with a scene that feels forced and awkward. There might be some inspirational moments in here that speak to certain people, but all in all, the fact that this was a real kid isn’t even that impressive. I’d say it offers not much in the film world, and it makes me wonder if there are any good surfing movies out there.

The Ugly Truth About Cats and [Slum]Dog Million Dollar Baby Geniuses.

Sorry, I just meant to write the review title, but it just kept flowing.

What do those movies even have in common? Practically nothing. What a nonsensical intro!

Oh! Like how every RomCom is nonsensical in that these attractive women apparently have such crazy personalities or demands that they can’t find “love” and their life is so hard. Yes! Nailed it!

Katherine Heigl plays that woman! She is consumed by her career, helping run a New program. So much work. Also, holy shit, is she in anything that is not a RomCom?

Well late one night she accidentally finds herself watching a show on a lesser network called The Ugly Truth. This is where Gerard Butler tells people why their idea of love and relationships are wrong, about how simple guys are, and whatever. Even takes in calls, and will argue with them. Heigl thinks he is wrong. So she hates him. Oh surprise, their news isn’t doing so hot so the head guy hires him to do a small segment every week. Well shit.

And he is popular and he helps the show. Thankfully the man of her dreams (Eric Winter) also moves in next door to her, and he is a doctor. But how will she get him to notice her? Oh of course, Butler will coach her through it. Blah blah, turns out he isn’t the one for her, and Butler is! Happily ever after!

They almost made a hockey reference in this scene!

So yeah, another obvious RomCom, another obvious plot. So really the only thing that can save this movie is how funny it is. Thankfully they made Gerard Butler’s “honest” character hilarious, and he will provide a bunch of blunt laughter. If you are a fan of When Harry Met Sally-esque dinner scenes, there is also a pretty big moment on that scale.

At the end of the day, this movie doesn’t add much to the R Rated RomComs. It has some laughs, but other movies definitely do it better still.

Gamer reminds me of Surrogates, in that both featured a way to control another “person” in a different environment. In Surrogates, everyone had one, and they weren’t real people. In Gamer, they can control actual human beings! Why? For games of course.

Which is what I imagine Sims 4 will be like.

But seriously. Michael C. Hall plays some rich genius, who used nanotechnology to replicate cells inside of a human brain, meaning that they can work like normal, but robot like! And with it, he developed a technology so these people can be controlled. Slavery? Probably. His first game, Society, pretty much was the sims, but where people used their characters to injure themselves on purpose, do nasty things, or run around naked. Because what else would you do? Then he made the game Slayers, featuring death row inmates! A real shooting game, that everyone volunteers for, because if you survive 30 rounds you can go home free. Woo!

Gerald Butler plays Kable and he has already survived 27 games! Can he make the final 3? Well, thankfully his controller, Logan Lerman, is a pretty damn good gamer. But what’s that? There is also a “Terrorist group” calling themselves Humanz, lead by Ludacris, who think Hall is just going to eventually make it so everyone can be controlled by him. Oh, and also Amber Valletta plays Butler’s wife, but she is stuck in Society too.

Shits crazy, yo.

So, this will be remembered as that shitty film with Gerard Butler in it, probably. Well, shitty action movie at least. Don’t want to get in the way of his rom-coms. But you know what this movie does randomly have? A song and dance scene with Michael C. Hall, and a fight! I even found it on youtube, but can’t embed it, but you will do yourself a favor to watch at least the first half of this clip.

Bet you didn’t know that Dexter like’d to boogie.

So, even if that was the only enjoyable thing, that’d bump this movie up to a one automatically. Sure there is some other interesting stuff. But not much. A lot of the “gaming” action too seemed especially boring, which was weird. But eh, can only do much with FPSs, I guess.

Hurray, deciding to rent movies that I have heard zero about. They are the best. Don’t you hate hearing others opinions about movies when all you want to do is watch it yourself? (My bad, by the way, posting all my movie opinions).

Gerard Butler gets to play an intelligent and super pissed off mad man killer, which he rarely gets to do. Normally he is just some bad ass guy, but usually good. The last time he got to play a psychotic and smart killer was Phantom of the Opera, but he also sang a bunch then. He also does that role OH SO WELL.

“Ohh, I wish I was an Oscar Meyer Weinerrrr”

Normally just the muscle, I found it incredibly believable his character could do everything he does in the movie. Sure, even a super smart person would have a hard time completing everything in the film but I guess its tiny possibility makes it interesting to watch. He has 10 years to plan it all, so the resources are there I guess.

Oh yeah, should probably note that at the beginning of the movie his wife is raped, and killed, and his child killed as well, right in front of him. He identifies the perpetrators and they are caught, but thanks to the justice system, one gets out way early. Gerard does not approve! His lawyer, Jamie Foxx, can’t help him either. So he, a normally Law Abiding Citizen, takes it into his own hands to punish both the wrong doers, and everyone in the justice system that screwed him over.

“Are you still using Flynn from Tangled after you mention rape scenes?” Yes. Yes I am.

The ending though, the ending was not what I was expecting (in the bad way). Overall I think the way they made it end left it kind of…eh. Like it was all pointless. Fuck it, this movie you can cheer on the bad guy and you only feel bad morally for a little bit.

How To Train Your Dragon? Dumb title. Just saying. Let’s have some creativity dreamworks. Good luck making an evil baby dragon look cute also.

Oh shit.

Awww, look at that cute evil glare.

In this story we have Viking like people! Hooray! They are at war with the dragons because…uhh they are dragons and dragons are evil. Our main character (Jay Baruchel) sucks at fighting, and would rather just learn. He ends up hitting the dangerous Nightwing dragon DOWN FROM THE SKY! But no one sees him do it, and it is at night, and for whatever reason no one will go into the woods with him to get it later. Their loss. Cute dragon he finds, and he can’t kill him. But aww, its wing is broken.

Eventually he gains the dragon trust, all in secret of course. Adults don’t believe kids. While he is training with his dragon, he is also getting trained how to fight and kill dragons with the other kids. Through his dragon, he learns little secrets to subdue them without weapons, that no one else knew about. Shit, dude is a genius! He thinks that there is nothing evil about the dragons, and maybe something else is evil forcing the dragons to be “bad”. Just saying, of course. He even makes a book eventually. About how to train a dragon. Oh okay. got it now.

Lot of voice actors in this one, including Gerard Butler, Craig Ferguson, Kristen Wiig, Jonah Hill, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, America Ferrera, and T.J. Miller.

Your heroes, ladies and gentlemen.

And here is what pissed me off. Family movies (or movies for kids) love to do this shit. Make adults unable to change and accept the word of a child. All the time, and use it as a main plot point. It is stupid, and bullshit, and makes me so mad.

Once they find out about his trained dragon, guess what? Everyone flips their shit. They stop from killing him because, well, if they let him go, he can lead them to the lair and kill them all. Obviously that is the best advice! Because this kid, who has surprised everyone for months over his tactics that he learned from a dragon, on how to subdue them, on how they are not bad, and on the fact that a dragon listens to him? That is all hogwash. The fact that any of them would constantly interrupt him and ignore him is the bullshittiest bullshit at that point.

Even if they were at war their whole life, their first reaction would be more confusion and panic and a willingness to listen. That on it owned ruined this from a great film to an okay one for me..

Of course everything changes by the end and people accept the dragons. Thanks to the kid character, they can all now learn how to train a dragon. The sequel being called HTTYD2 doesn’t make sense though. Oh well. I liked this more than Toy Story 3 (the movie it lost to for awards) though overall, is because unlike TS3, it shows that people can change, even if it takes some unreasonable amount of time. Guess what my biggest complaint of TS3 is? Hah.