Tag: Reese Witherspoon

Hey remember Sing? Yeah? But why do you remember Sing?

I remember Sing being an incredibly average film. The trailers definitely implied a lot more songs might be featured in it, but most of them were just used in a montage audition scene. It was a mediocre film mostly because it had a very basic plot, and pretty standard tropes when it came to the plots of the individual main characters. The lead character wasn’t someone I looked at and cheered for. They let the mouse, despite being a dick all film, have a happy ending without making amends, which is shocking for a kids movie. And then you know, it ended.

It definitely didn’t feel like the type of thing that would get a sequel. But with Illumination Entertainment, anything they make that can be franchised and soaked for money with a lowest common denominator of jokes, they will do it, I suppose.

So hey, let’s see what nonsensical reason they come up for a sequel for Sing 2.

That button isn’t ominous enough. Needs to do something like open a trap door, or hit a bigger gong.

What’s going on with the animals, after they put on a fun little singing show for their friends and family? Well, they are still working together to put on original shows. They made a version of Alice in Wonderland, but you know, with other pop songs being song for it. They constantly sell out their show, which is impressive in their regular sized community, but alas, they want more.

Buster Moon (Matthew McConaughey) invited a talent scout to see the performance, but she leaves halfway through because it is not right for her employer, Mr. Crystal (Bobby Cannavale). He has a big hotel and theater in a Las Vegas like city, and he needs a new stage show. The scout didn’t think their show was good enough to even bring for an audition. Rough.

But Buster convinces his crew to head to the auditions anyways. And they will lie their way to the audition, and lie their way to a show start, by making promises he can’t guarantee, about a show that isn’t written. Good times. Follow your dreams haphazardly. Promise that you will get a big star, Clay Calloway (Bono) despite him being a recluse for 15 years.

Starring the returning voices of Reese Witherspoon, Scarlett Johansson, Taron Egerton, Tori Kelly, Nick Kroll, Garth Jennings, Jennifer Saunders, and Nick Offerman. And now we get voices of new characters voiced by Adam Buxton, Eric Andre, Halsey, Letitia Wright, Pharrell Williams, Chelsea Peretti, Julia Davis, and Peter Serafinowicz.

Word a Lion eat a porcupine? Probably.

In all honesty, I went in expecting to hate Sing 2. Let’s be clear. It really doesn’t make sense to exist. The idea behind this is that now that the con-artist found some actual talent through the rubble that is his town, he wants to make them a bigger famous act, basically singing cover songs, to works as entertainers? Ehhh.

I find it hard to find the lead character charming at all. He is a guy who just constantly lies because he feels he deserves greatness? He lies about things that might not be even conceivable, like the prize money in the first film. Things worked out for him, and that is great, but ehh. Not my kind of message for kids.

A lot of the side plots are pretty trash. The plot of our Gorilla not dancing well, and needing to dance well for his scene? Whatever. It was very much not in character for the choreographer to do what he did during their final show, and that ruined that potentially cool scene for me. The Elephants plot was also extremely basic, about not knowing how to fall in love. The plot of the musical they put on was shit, because none of the planets had any actual storyline for their musical.

The heart of the film comes from the Calloway character, a famous older star, who lost his wife, and gave up his career, to live alone with his deep lion thoughts. Bringing him into their fold took them time, and his moment on the stage was a bit charged up in emotions. I did cry during it. Those bastards. And despite the terrible way for the plot to unfold, from its beginning lies, to its terrible subplots, it was a fun show they put on for the experience. It was a bad musical, but a fun show.

One final note. What is going on with the songs here? Like, as far as I can tell, all of these people are aware they are singing cover songs of someone else? There is more evidence of that given that when they sang a U2 song, they talked about it belonging to Clay, of course voiced by Bono. And in Sing, it is not like all those townsfolk just had songs they made up on the fly ready to go. So they are all covers and exist. Why the hell is everyone so bananas over people singing cover songs? Why did Ash have any level of a successful rock career just singing cover songs? This is very unrealistic. There is going to be a Sing 3 probably, because hey, money. And people like cover songs in cartoon movies. But trying to figure out why people go bananas for them in front of them is bizarre.

2 out of 4.

A Wrinkle In Time is a very famous Science Fiction book, written in the 1960’s. It was a historic achievement when it comes to the genre, because it was written by a woman, and it was even about a girl.

Not many books in the genre, especially at that time, catered to women at any level. It would take decades for them to get any sort of real success in that area.

Now, so many decades later, it is being haled as a film celebrating those beginnings by trying to do the same thing for the genre. Avu DuVernay, famed director of Selma (who many feel should have been nominated for Best Director for that film) and 13th, is getting her hands on a big budget fantasy/sci-fi romp. And she is going to make sure it has people in it that will speak to people of all ages, of all colors and creeds. She is getting diversity across all the levels, and it is honestly a great move on her part.

No matter how good or bad the film is, the movie is an experiment gone right when it comes to casting. She wants to make sure girls out there have more diverse people to look up to, because everyone has the right to see themselves in the media they consume.

And look! A character for those gingers out there as well.

Meg (Storm Reid) was a happy go lucky girl, good at math and science, lover of life. Her dad (Chris Pine) worked for Nasa and mother (Gugu Mbatha-Raw) also was a scientist. They were smart, and happy, and about to adopt another child, Charles Wallace (Deric McCabe). Things were great.

And then her dad disappeared, without a trace. The parents had pretty strong scientific opinions on space travel and time travel, but most people did not take them seriously. Either way, with her dad gone, Meg has gone on hating her life, becoming a shell of her former self.

But things are about to change. Life is about to get a bit weirder, thanks to her younger brother. He is very trusting and wise beyond his years. And he starts to introduce Meg to the “Misses”, including Mrs. Whatsit (Reese Witherspoon), Mrs. Who (Mindy Kaling) and Mrs. Which (Oprah Winfrey). They are denizens of the universe, much like Meg, but more in tune with its frequencies and have heard a cry of help from her father.

So these ladies are going to take Meg, Charles Wallace, and Calvin (Levi Miller), a nice friend of Meg, on a journey across space and time, to see just where her father went.

Also starring Zach Galifianakis, Michael Peña, André Holland, Rowan Blanchard, and the voice of David Oyelowo.

Ah, here he was, the last place I would expect. A very orange room. Yuck!

A Wrinkle In Time is supposed to be a fantastic book, part of a pretty good series, and tells a story across space and time. And based on who I have talked to, that is believable. This movie is unfortunately not the book.

This movie is surprisingly under two hours, but it has a lot of hardcore concepts it wants to talk about and use in the movie. Instead of explaining them in a nice wrapped box, the movie just runs with these ideas, you either understand or you don’t, and blasts off into its plot. It is so fast and high energy early on that it is hard to keep up and understand where it is going.

The only part of the film that takes its time is the ending, which is a bad move for a few reasons. At this point, a regular member of the audience who didn’t read the book is so lost and confused that having a more explained ending won’t fix that. A lot of people watching will have already lost interest, and then get annoyed when the pace finally slows the fuck down.

We have some scary stuff by the end too. Stuff that should have large impacts on the audience based on who is involved and how drastic the changes feel. But without the proper build up, it feels very wasted.

At the end of the movie, I cried. There are still emotional points. I get the final purpose of the film, what it says about growing up and the pains associated with it. But I felt like I was just along for a ride that didn’t care if I needed to stop to pee or eat along the way.

There are so many concepts that you are just forced to accept. Hell, we have a character who is brought along they say for diplomacy reasons, and then fail to include any sort of diplomacy scene. A Wrinkle In Time is probably a good film if you include what was cut out in the editing room. But this is the type of movie that might only be understood if you have read the material before hand, which is unacceptable, especially with a budget and scope of this size.

It is a shame, because this film won’t do great, and the execs might blame it on diversity reasons, instead of the more obvious confusing as heck plot lines. It is still a very pretty movie, with some fun characters. I am just left struggling to really explain what the heck I watched.

1 out of 4.

Sing is the last animated film I need to review that is a major US release!

I will be honest that I wasn’t really looking forward to Sing at all. It is the fourth anthropomorphic animals major release this YEAR (After Kung Fu Panda 3, Zootopia, and The Angry Birds Movie), in a year where we also had regular talking animal movies as well (Finding Dory, Storks, Ice Age: Collision Course, Norm of the North, The Secret Life of Pets). Fuck.

Basically everything is about talking animals this year. Moana and Kubo and the Two Strings aren’t fully about that, and that might be why they are my favorite two of the year. The only really big animated films I can think of are Trolls (talking magic things) and Sausage Party (talking food). 2016 wasn’t the most creative film year, and it is sort of a huge let down for animated films.

Oh but wait! This isn’t a talking animal movie! This is a singing animal movie. With a lot of popular songs being sung by animals, reminding me of recent very bad animated jukebox musicals. Please be better to me 2017.

The face you make when your realize Cars 3 is coming out in 2017.

Buster Moon (Matthew McConaughey) is a koala bear who fell in love with the theater as a kid. With the help of his father, he earned enough money to buy the theater and produce shows for hundreds more to fall in love with! But now, years later, he is far in the red, unable to pay his crew, or the bills, or his loans. He is friends with Eddie (John C. Reilly), a lamb son of a rich family, but even they won’t bail him out now.

But he has an idea! Singing competitions are all the rage, so he wants to host a local one, only featuring regular people that they all know and want to show off their talents. He will give the winner a $1,000 prize and hopefully get enough money to get back in the black. But his assistant (Garth Jennings) accidentally puts a $100,000 prize, putting the whole town into a frenzy and driving up expectations through the roof.

And our contestants are of course all over the map. There is Rosita (Reese Witherspoon), a stay at home pig mom of 25 kids with a husband who is overworked. Johnny (Taron Egerton), a gorilla from a crime family who doesn’t really want to steal. Meena (Tori Kelly), a young elephant who has extreme stage fright. Mike (Seth MacFarlane), a old timey street musician mouse who just wants money and fame. Ash (Scarlett Johansson) and Lance (Beck Bennett), a hedgehog teenage rock duo, but Lance doesn’t want to share the singing spotlight. And of course Gunter (Nick Kroll), a German pig who has no fears when it comes to his body.

Who will win? Who will get screwed over? Who will die?!

Also featuring the voices of Nick Offerman, Peter Serafinowicz, and Rhea Perlman.

Pigs are people too, and are tired of being dance shamed.

Sing is the type of film that will give you exactly what you expect. Animals, being human like, and singing pop songs. And if that is all you need to go on to enjoy a film, then you will be in for a treat. If you want something with a bit of more substance to its plot, you will be saddened and only a little bit toe-tappy.

The lessons of the film tell us to follow our dreams, no matter how many bills you wrack up, loved ones you hurt, and lives you ruin. It will all hopefully work out in the end.

McConaughey’s character seems to be a sort of more family friendly and desperate version of his character in Magic Mike. MacFarlane plays a rat who is so annoying right off the bat that I have no remorse for his character at any point in the movie. On top of that, they never resolve that characters plot line at the end. I assumed it would be an after credits scene but we were left with nothing.

Johansson as a hedgehog, Witherspoon as a pig, and Egerton as a gorilla all worked (but it took me awhile to accept the last one, because the gorilla look and clothing just felt off). I was most surprised by Egerton’s singing voice, but it isn’t the first time he impressed me this year.

Music wise, it didn’t seem to click or work until the end. And it damn well better by that point, when they put on their show and resolve all of their issues through the power of singing in public. Everyone feels like a winner. At the same time, I wonder what the entire purpose of the film was. A small story, no real steaks or issues to worry about, Sing becomes an easy movie to make on account of how easy it can merchandise.

A few of the trailers really gave away most of the bigger moments. I am most annoyed by the teaser trailer though, that decided to showcase a ton of different animals singing different songs. That is basically directly out of the film, with little editing and no more substance. We only get to see a lot of diversity for a little amount of time. And the worst part about that scene, the try outs, is they didn’t even try to make it seem realistic by having different people sing the songs. Instead it was jut playing the actual songs over their quick and quirky cast. What a let down.

If you give me an animal singing song, I want a unique voice singing that song, damn it. If I wanted to actually hear the song, I could always just use the internet myself. No amount of scantly dressed rabbit will make up for it.

2 out of 4.

I feel like I am constantly fighting a losing battle. Right now I only go to one pre-screening a week (two if a special occasion) and rarely see new things in theaters, unless I have a super strong desire. It seems like when given a choice every week, I will end up picking the serious drama or action movie, skipping the comedy. I have actually skipped a lot of comedies. They just don’t have the same strong pull from them to see them on the big screen. They are things that I can easily wait for a DVD release to rent at home and watch alone with ice cream.

Anyways, every time I think I am about to catch up on the last few comedies, a few more come out. I skip those in theaters and this endless cycle continues as always.

Hot Pursuit is not the end of my journey. Since then this summer, there are at least two other major comedies that came out that I am waiting to be released. Oh well, I will sally forth and hopefully giggle a bit.

A movie with two female leads and they aren’t shoving sexuality in my face? I’m not mad, just surprised really!

Rose Cooper (Reese Witherspoon) is the kind of person everyone will collectively hate. She is focused on only one thing, her career, and it enters all aspects of her life. You see, her dad used to be a cop and was the best on the force. So she grew up with just him and went on a lot of ride alongs. She learned the lingo, learned everything, she just didn’t learn how to be social. Now she is an adult and in the evidence room because she is apparently also slightly retarded despite the fact that she should be a super cop.

But now she has a field mission! Her and a US Marshall (Richard T. Jones) have to head down to South Texas to pick up two people for the witness protection program. Felipe (Vincent Laresca) and Daniella Riva (Sofia Vergara) are going to witness against the cartel leader Vincente Cortez (Joaquin Cosio)! Scary! It is very time sensative, they need to be at the courthouse the next day to testify. If they go too early, they might get hitmen after them or something! Cooper gets to go, because if there is a female witness, there needs to be a female officer. Oh well, she will take anything.

Of course, after they show up, some armed intruders break in and kill Felipe and the Marshall, leaving Cooper all alone with Daniella. She can’t trust anyone, because who knows who is on Cortez’s payroll. So she has to figure out how to get her to the trial on her own, in one piece, with multiple sides now coming against us. Basically, a great first real field assignment.

Also featuring a bunch more dudes, including: Matthew Del Negro, Michael Mosley, Robert Kazinsky, Jim Gaffigan, John Carroll Lynch, Michael Ray Escamilla, and Benny Nieves.

Oh good. Slightly better outfits for the pervs out there.

To continue with the trend I mentioned earlier, unsurprisingly, Hot Pursuit was not that funny. Honestly. One actually great scene, which is the main reason the review gets a 1. It involved cocaine and characters on said drug. Fantastic. Comedy gold. Everything else was just a slow, dull bore.

There were plot twists! They weren’t good. There were jokes in English and Spanish! They weren’t good. Witherspoon’s character was so uptight, by the book, and yet dumb! That wasn’t funny. Vergara kept trying to run away! Wasn’t funny. Maybe a scene where they badly try to act like lesbians to get out of a jam? Nope, still not funny.

Sorry for spoiling most of the movie.

But damn. If I had to give the movie any credit, Witherspoon was definitely acting like a different person. She had a strange accent and everything.

Hot Pursuit is a hot mess from start to finish and is not worthy of anyone’s time or attention.

1 out of 4.

I was excited to watch Inherent Vice, because the internet told me to be excited about Inherent Vice. It was some sleek 1970s-esque drama/mystery, complete with Private Eye and missing people. It had a sexy poster and a lot of famous people in it.

I honestly didn’t see too much advertising outside of the internet, but it was also by a well respected director. Paul Thomas Anderson has made quite a few good films, all of them well acted, very well loved.

So despite it taking me, I dunno, two or so months after it first started coming out to theaters, I have finally gotten around to seeing it!

And then, uh, I saw it and left quite disappointed.

I am probably just a prude like this lady here.

Here is what I pieced together.

Larry “Doc” Sportello (Joaquin Phoenix) is a private investigator, a man with sideburns, and someone who loves women, drugs, and other hippie behavior. His ex lady Shasta Fay Hepworth (Katherine Waterston) is now sleeping with a real estate mogul Michael Z. Wolfmann (Eric Roberts). His wife doesn’t like the affair and might be planning something drastic.

Also, unrelated, Tariq Khalil (Michael Kenneth Williams) wants Doc to find his friend, a member of an Aryan gang. The man who also is a bodyguard of Mr. Wolfmann. Oh man. The plot thickens.

Either way, these two inquiries lead Doc on a strange and drug fueled path, featuring death, framing, cunnilingus, sex, more drugs, and more drugs again. Also featuring Hong Chau, Owen Wilson, Reese Witherspoon, Martin Short, Josh Brolin, Maya Rudolph and Benicio Del Toro.

My face when I found out the side burns had their own place in the credits.

I think the main point of Inherent Vice is to tell a decade appropriate story with a decade appropriate amount of drugs and hazy memory. The story feels disjointed because of how messed up the characters actually are. I’d say it is like an unreliable narrator, but I am not even sure who the narrator was, just a woman.

And I hated it. I don’t care how accurate the experience is, it just makes me feel uncomfortable. Which again, is probably the point. But these are feelings I don’t want to feel, the feelings of confusion.

The set is fine. The acting is fine. The music is good. But the story I found impossible to get into. For the most part it just felt like two characters talking to each other and uhh then the next scene. I like dramas, I like talking, I just could do absolutely nothing with this one.

1 out of 4.

Besides wanting to watch every movie ever, I have other goals too. Like you know, movies nominated for Oscars. Wild wasn’t given best picture nominations, but it did get honors for Best Actress and Supporting Actress! Yay, woman power!

The reason it took me so long to see it is because the pre-screening was during my honeymoon. Not much you can do about that!

I had to hit this one in theaters before it left though, before we get an even bigger onslaught of shitty January movies.

“I’m not sure which way to go, but let’s just pick the left path?”

This movie is set back in the mid 1990’s, which really just means that there are no real cell phones. A true story based on a book by the person who did the events, so we know we probably can’t trust it. It is about Cheryl Strayed (Reese Witherspoon), who wants to hike the Pacific Crest Trail, or the PCT as the locals call it. If we call it the PCT too, they will know we are cool and in.

I don’t know a lot about West Coast things, but the trail itself is over 2,500 mi long and mountainous. But Cheryl wants to hike it and hike it all. ALONE. As a woman! Bananas!

Why? Well, she needs to clear her mind and she thinks this is the best way to do it. She has had some shit happen in her life, and the whole point of this movie is to find out what!

I can say her ex husband is played by Thomas Sadoski, which gives some hints, and Laura Dern as her mother.

“No, in retrospect, I think the right is the best path.”

This movie could almost be classified as a thriller! That is a joke obviously, but there were some scary and intense moments along her height. Not wild boars, or bears, or poisonous flowers, but people. People are the scariest of entity, and again, I felt scared when she felt scared due to her being a woman alone. Now, I am not saying I completely understand the very real fear people can have about getting raped or taking advantage of, I just thought they did a good job of showcasing that fear.

And now I feel uncomfortable.

Reese did pretty good in this movie. Way better than her role in The Good Lie. Glad to see her in the spotlight again because I honestly couldn’t remember the last movie I saw her in before those last two. Lara Dern did a pretty good job too, and her role is definitely the definition of a supporting actress. I just don’t think it was one too special by the end of the day.

A decent movie telling an okay story. Well acted and it keeps it interesting through its flash backs. I definitely was surprised by a few things.

3 out of 4.

If you are like me, after hearing about this movie you might be confused. This seems to be a movie that is based on true events, an inspirational and hope filled tale about people going through extraordinary circumstances. And then later, coming to the land of opportunity to live great lives, but then meeting more bad circumstances, and by golly, overcoming them as well.

So why in the fuck is this called The Good Lie? The trailers don’t really do a good job of explaining any of that title. They just show us a lot of Reese Witherspoon interacting with Africans, making it seem like it is mostly just a tale about other cultures coming to America and having a zany time.

But this movie is about The Lost Boys of Sudan. That is serious shit.

What is this movie about?

Well, I think it is a joke. The trailer is a lie. The makers think it is a good lie, but I beg to differ.

Oh wait. Maybe it is about religion?

Let’s get things right first. This movie is not about Ms Witherspoon. It is about the shit going down in Sudan.

Sudan had its civil war. Many villages were destroyed, families killed and people driven from their home. Kids and others walked all the way to the border and then to Kenya, with death everywhere all around. In Kenya, they would be able to find Refugee camps, where they found shelter, food, and a place to exist, however meager it can be. And hey, the refugees would be eventually found homes elsewhere.

Like America! And after 13 years of living in Kenya, Mamere (Arnold Oceng), Jeremiah (Ger Duany), Paul (Emmanuel Jal) and Abital (Kuoth Wiel) are going to Kansas City, America!

But once they get off the plane, they realize a mix up. Abital cannot go with them, because for whatever reason, these fully adult individuals cannot all just go have an apartment and get a job right away and start their education. No. Women must have a host family. So why can her three brothers live in an apartment alone and her not with them? Because it would be “improper”.

So. They get sent to Kansas City. She gets sent to Boston. Program is super suspended and backed up after 9/11, so friends and others they know get stuck in Kenya. And they can’t get their sister. Argh! Boo! Hiss.

Some other people in this film include Reese Witherspoon, who works for an agency to find people jobs, and Corey Stoll as her boss. Also Sarah Baker and Femi Oguns.

This is the only picture I could find that didn’t entire focus on Witherspoon or them as kid.

The Good Lie ends up being one of those movies that doesn’t actually know what story it wants to focus on. I broke it up into three parts: The boys escaping Sudan, the boys in America adapting + wanting to get their sister back, and the third mysterious part that in no way is talked about in the trailer and is where the title comes from.

The three men playing the refugees were excellent in this movie and the reason I give it such high remarks. The few Americans feel pretty pointless, personally. I like that the actors are all also actually from Sudan, some of them former refugees, some child soldiers.That adds some credit to their roles and their characters experience in America, as they probably already went through that. The little boys who play them as kids also did a fine job.

I guess you could say I am mostly upset about the advertising for this film. It rubs Reese in our face and she has a pretty small role. I am also upset about how predictable the entire film is. You can figure out what will happen after any moment of drama and it goes an incredibly safe route.

An okay movie that doesn’t go the full lengths to tell a great story.

2 out of 4.

I didn’t think I would be able to see Mud until it was released on Blu-Ray later in the year. After all, Iowa isn’t necessarily the epicenter of the film community, so even a bigger “Indie” release like Mud would probably never get to our small town lifestyle. But here I stand corrected and I only had to wait three weeks after its release!

Hopefully this is a nice change for the indie/arts movies in the area. I’d rather get them 3 weeks late than never at all! Even though the Mud Trailer only seems about small town living and befriending a criminal on the run, it still looks awesome.

My current guess for crime is pedophilia. Arkansas is generally a quiet state that you never see in the news about…well, anything at all. Ellis (Tye Sheridan) is a 14 year old boy who lives a relatively normal life on the Mississippi River. His family lives in a house boat, he gets an allowance from his dad for helping deliver fish to neighbors, he goes to school, but mostly he just likes to adventure and play outside. With the help of his friend Neckbone (Jacob Lofland, first film/TV role ever), they find the strangest thing: a boat stuck in a tree on a small island.

Finders keepers, so they are happy to have a new boat/tree house. But then they find out they were not the first ones there. They find a stranger with crosses in his shoes, a gun, and a request. Help bring him food and eventually restore the boat, he will give them his gun. He is there waiting for a girl, Juniper (Reese Witherspoon), and cannot leave to find her because he is wanted by the law for a mistake.

He also wants to go by the name Mud (Matthew McConaughey). Strange name, kind of dirty, but who am I to judge?

Mud will have to rely on two kids going through their own personal problems to help him escape down the Mississippi, hopefully with the love of his life. Also staring Sam Shepard as a mysterious neighbor on the river.

I can’t tell if they are worried, scared, or bored. I will continue to assume pedo. McConaughey, McConaughey, McConaughey. Holy crap, McConaughey. Maybe it is just his voice, which gives him an unfair advantage, but I am in awe of his performance. He outshines any other role he has been in (yes, this includes Magic Mike), but he also does it with such ease, it appears that talent just oozes out of his body.

Mud itself is a pretty slow moving film, which fits perfectly given its setting. It uses scenic swamp imagery to really drive its ideas home, and helps us realize that no one, especially our heroes, are perfect. I classify this film as a Drama Romance, but it wouldn’t be like any Romance film you have seen before. The ending is unpredictable, the characters and finale are realistic.

Although I liked where all the characters ended up and how their plot lines finished, I didn’t like the entire ending. The ending included a shootout, which was a stark change of pace from the rest of the film. It seemed like a few minute where realism flew out of the window, with results that are really out of place.

Despite how fantastic his acting was, I doubt McConaughey will receive a nod from the Oscars. Sure, it is only May and I haven’t seen any other big contenders this year yet, I just doubt that his character played a big enough role to be recognized as one of the absolute greats.

3 out of 4.

I’d like to think that they made This Means War after the successes of Knight and Day and Killers, the former that I love, the later that I don’t ever want to see. I mean, Spies and love seemed to have work. So why not actually make it spies competing for love?

It’s like lets take all the action from those movies, and turn it into zany hijinks to learn secrets about a woman and win her heart?

This is the kind of stuff that encourage people to stalk their loved ones.

Lauren (Reese Witherspoon) is just a girl, who does product testing for a living in a city where she is alone except for one of her good friends (Chelsea Handler). She has relationship problems, because she moved there to be with her ex, who ended up cheating on her. So she dumped him. But she is all alone now! And the ex is totally getting married to the woman who was the cheatee. Damn.

Tuck (Tom Hardy) and FDR (Chris Pine) are CIA operatives who are a bit too reckless, so they get grounded for a bit. Finding themselves with a lot of free time, they go back on the market. Tuck, while being British, also has a young son, and an ex wife (who didn’t like all of his travel as a “Travel Agent”), decides to join a dating website where he meets Lauren. FDR, a ladies man, ends up meeting Lauren at a movie rental place (those exist?) and she doesn’t like him at first, but has to go on a date with him just because he is persistent.

Little do they know they are now pursuing the same girl, so they lay some ground rules. No letting her know their real identities (a given), that they know each other, and definitely no sex, not until she has picked. But they also have to do some CIA things, like stop some Heinrich (Til Schweiger) guy that only kind of matters to the plot. Mostly at the end to fuck things up.

Speaking of fuck things up, Lauren ends up liking both guys, and vice versa, who saw that coming? Her friend encourages her to date both, but when she still can’t decide, the tiebreaker has to go down to the “Fuck test”. Ruh roh. Their job is effected, loss of friends, loss of trust, spy problems, etc. In other news, I wish this was a Warhammer game, because the title could have been more epic.

This. Means. WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGGHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!

That joke is for a very specific kind of nerd.

Here is where I say there was good and bad parts of the movie, overall just making it okay. I liked the plot actually, but thought it ended lame. I didn’t think there was much chemistry between either couple, although the guys felt like friends for most of the movie.

I didn’t like the force villain approach either. Makes since for them to have to do actually do a job eventually, but eh, if they were grounded, the whole movie could have just been them doing spy things to spy on the girl, and interfere with each others dates. Actual action every once in awhile just felt weird.

None of the performances are too great either. Just okay.

2 out of 4.

Water For Elephants is based off of a book of the same name. In fact, a year ago I almost read that book! But when I realized that the only people I knew who read it were women, I decided to investigate more. Last thing I wanted to do was read a romance novel, yeuch! But by doing research, I found out that a movie was happening, so like a real American, I decided to watch the movie instead of read the book.

I thought the movie would be two hours of this. A sequel to African Cats.

Instead, much to my delight, this movie stars an older and more rugged Robert Pattison (or Edward Cullen). Seriously, the look he has almost reminds me of how Leonardo DiCaprio looks now, post Titanic. Dude might be a star yet.

In the movie, Edward Cullen just wants to be a Vet. Almost graduated from Cornell, but left college once both of his parents died. No longer wealthy (turns out the dad was scammin’), he runs away, and gets picked up by a circus! Starting out as hard laborer, once they find out about his college schooling, he becomes a vet for the horses and elephant. He also falls in love with Reese Witherspoon, who is married to the head honcho, Christoph Waltz.

So. The whole movie deals with life as a Carnie in the early 1900s. You get to see animal abuse, shady tactics, and a lot of people getting beat up. An absurd amount almost. I think my favorite role was Waltz as the owner. Really good acting there. Cullen still was kind of just the pretty boy savior role. There was also a small role for Paul Schneider at the beginning and end of the movie. Who, if you watch Parks and Rec, know he is the coolest guy around.

Mark Brendanawicz! Well. Cool until season 3+. We don’t talk about that though.

Overall, the story was very simple and pretty guessable. Some good acting, but mostly just normal expected stuff. I am watching the credits now, they are doing a very classic take on it, weirding me out. It was kind of good, kind of alright.

2 out of 4.