Tag: Action

I don’t remember /why/ I know about Tai Chi Zero, but damn was I interested. It said steampunk and martial arts! Why not! Seems cool! I like some of those things.

Especially since currently, martial art movies seem to have left realism behind to focus on better things. More exciting things. Like unrealism. Yes. The best type of fights are unreal, we all know that. I assume that every fight type has already happened, so we have to start bending physics to make it interesting again.

This has nothing to do with this movie.

But I am glad that it features Thwaps!

So this takes place sometime in the past in China, like normal. Our main character is a freak. Really. That is his nickname The Freak (Yuan Xiaochao). That is because when he was born he had a tiny mini-horn on his head. He grew up wanting to learn how to fight, but no one took him seriously. That is until he beat up a bunch of kids his age after they hit him in his horn. Once he gets hit in the horn, he goes all demonic on people, gaining skill and destroying everyone.

Well, long story short, his town gets destroyed when he is older and his former master tells him to go learn the Chen Kung Fu, in a town on a mountain outside of civilization. But when he finally gets there, no one will teach him because he is an outsider! Some old laborer (Tony Leung Ka Fai) tries to help him learn it anyway, through repitition. Yay fake Kung Fu Styles!

But the plot comes when a former townsfolk guy Fang Zi Jing (Eddie Peng) has returned from college! He wants to bring the railroad to their town and increase profits. The town doesn’t like electricity, they shun him, he gets mad, and vows vengeance. We also have Mandy Lieu as his white-ish girlfriend, and Angelababy as the future love interest of the Freak, who knows the Kung Fu Style!

But first, he has to fight this little girl. True story.

That is about it plot wise! This stranger might be able to help save their town from the evil western capitalist machine ways! So the story might be super anti-America without explicitly saying it, but I am still fine with it as long as the fights are cool.

And they are cool! But they are also amusing. Easiest way to describe amusing fight to me is a Jackie Chan fight, but they take amusing fight in a new way. Through specia effects! Like some video game shit. Stage 1, Stage 2 stuff. It helps invigorate the experience!. Tons of tiny additional features to add that add to the fights, and well, they are hard to explain, and I find it funny.

What I found annoying? He went Freak mode in the first scene in the movie, before the plot, and never did the rest of the movie. Huh. Why? This might be a planned trilogy, because it doesn’t end with the plot resolved, and the sequel, Tai Chi Hero, comes out to America in June. Also, I should note, that this movie is far from steampunk in any way or form. Even stranger, this movie has Tai Chi in the title, but of course, he has to go learn Kung Fu. Who am I to question that shit. Maybe they are all the same?

3 out of 4.

The sheer existence of Iron Man 3 puts us in a difficult situation. For super hero trilogies, we often see the first film have high reviews, the second film overlap the first, and the third one disappoint. However, in this case, Iron Man 2 was clearly the inferior film to Iron Man!

Basically, I don’t know what to expect. I know I always try to keep the source material out of my reviews, but with superhero movies it is much harder, because I tend to be familiar with the comics. I am overly pumped that we are getting The Mandarin as the enemy, his own personal Dr. Doom. Marvel was afraid to add him earlier, because he is a magic guy, and they have tried to keep their movies (pre-Avengers) separate thematically. That is why Iron Man always had to face tech based threats, the Hulk faced other genetically altered villains, etc. Well, I for one and ready for the theme shift!

This is a completely new way to interpret “I want to be in you”. Iron Man 3 takes place after The Avengers (you saw that film right? And the first two Iron Man movies? They would help). There is no giant threat to Earth currently, so its mightiest heroes are back working by themselves, personally dealing with those events. Well, Tony (Robert Downey Jr.) almost died in another dimension, so he is freaking out emotionally. He is having problems sleeping, so he fills his nights building more and more iron suits; always improving, always testing new theories.

This has put quite a toll on his loved ones, including his girlfriend Pepper Potts (Gwyneth Paltrow), friend James Rhodes (Don Cheadle), and even body guard (Jon Favreau).

Not to mention the FUCKING MANDARIN (Ben Kingsley) is out and about, terrorizing America. There are bombings and threatening videos over television networks! Egads!

But what does The Mandarin have to do with the AIM corporation, led by a now charismatic Aldrich Killian (Guy Pearce), with ‘botanist’ Maya Hensen (Rebecca Hall), and his super weird body guard (James Badge Dale). Regenerating plant tissue sounds cool, but not something I’d invest in.

Ah, he is so fucking chill. Taking over the world, fucking up the Iron Men. You know. It is hard to write this review. It really is. I have conflicting ideas with how I felt about the movie. I realize that twists and turns are expected in a movie, and that saying there is a twist is a spoiler on its own, but I have to talk about the big one in vague terms.

It is shocking. It is unexpected. It is completely out of left field.

And I don’t know why it is in the movie.On one side, it pisses off fans of the comics, and on the other side, it won’t have a lasting effect on those who aren’t comic fans. There really is only two categories, and it seems weird to alienate the fans without having anything to gain. From the movie point of view, it is kind of awesome. It just shits pretty heavily on the source material.

I think the one real complaint I have with the movie is the director seems to really hate Iron Man. The armor breaks a lot, almost constantly, leaving us with a Tony Stark movie more so than Iron Man. So much for the “invincible” title that is generally associated with his name. It is almost sad how little time he is spent in the suit kicking bad guy butt.  Yet somehow, it is still action packed and crazy. There is plot reasons why the suits may have been weak, but I am not sure if I buy them.

The ending itself is also a bit unexpected. Many questions will arise from it and the future of the franchise. After The Avengers 2, Iron Man might not get a fourth film, and instead become part of other characters movies. Pepper Potts also ends up in a strange place at the end of the film, which should be fully explored later, but I fear it wont.

But you know? Despite all of that, I really think I loved the movie. It was funny, the action was great, and it was entertaining as fuck. Sure, there are some plot hols, but you will survive. It is clear, however, that Disney had extended their reach deep into the film. They introduced a kid character and his role definitely overstays its welcome. Go away kid.

I think Tony agrees with me there.

3 out of 4.

I am not going to harp about how Michael Bay is the worst guy since whatever. Yes, he did the Transformer movies, and fucking Pearl Harbor, and he is about to kill the Ninja Turtles, but he has some decent stuff. Like. Independence Day. I love Independence Day!

I am just saying, there is no reason for me to assume Pain & Gain will be bad. The trailer just makes it look…weird. And apparently a true story. Okay, yeah. Sure.

So far, Michael Bay is clearly experimenting with different light refraction techniques. He is growing!

1995. Miami, Florida. Danny Lugo (Mark Wahlberg) is the current main manager at Sun Gym, after serving a short sentence in prison for fraud. He promised his boss (Rob Corddry) that he would triple the membership and get the gym back on the map, and boy did he ever. Through some questionable means, but who cares when you got dat income.

He is great friends with Adrian Doorbal (Anthony Mackie), another former criminal and bodybuilder. But they are both poor and tired of it. Tired of a bunch of assholes, like Victor Kershaw (Tony Shalhoub) who are self made rich men, and think everyone else is a piece of shit. After all, Danny is a doer, not a donter (lessons he learned from Johnny Wu (Ken Jeong)).

Doers do, and so Danny had the simple plan. Kidnap Victor, torture him until he signs away everything and ruins his life completely, then kill him and live the life of luxury. Just need a third man. Like Paul Doyle (Dwayne Johnson). Paul just got out of prison, was a cokehead from NYC, but found Jesus and wants to turn his life around…but he also needs cash.

Simple plan, nothing can go wrong if they have enough can do attitude, muscles/fitness, and positive thinking! Yeahhh… Ed Harris plays a private investigator, and Bar Paly a stripper turned confidant.

Step 1: Identify self to kidnappers. Step 2: ???? Step 3: Profit

Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck. It is not cursing if you take 10 seconds to say it.

Hot damn, this film was awesome. And amazing! And abstract. Abstract? Yes. Totally. I wasn’t just looking for more A words.

Seriously, this film was definitely something special. Who thought Bay had it in him? I was laughing and cringing, often in secession. There is just so much ENERGY in this movie, I’d find it impossible to lost focus at all.

Dwayne Fucking Johnson, I don’t even know you anymore. He acted the fuck out of this film, and was 100% the best part. Not saying Mark Wahlberg wasn’t amazing (because fuck, he was!), he just had to compete with The Rock! The two of them were out of their minds the entire time filming this, and made their characters their bitches. That is the only way to describe it. Literally. No one else has tried. If they did, they used those words.

Just. Aggh! The true story itself is a fascinating one, which is also not as funny as the movie took it out to be. Check it out here, but be warned it is a long read (so…its like reading the book version?). I am not saying the movie made light of the events in the film, because very serious shit went down and they talked about a lot of it. Just still had a more comedic tone overall, while also splashing your face off with shock juice.

4 out of 4.

Not going to lie. I was not at all interested in seeing Oblivion this week. Unfortunately I have taken to following other reviewers, although I hate knowing what other people think of a movie before I see it. But they all hated it. I disliked the preview. Everything looked pretty darn obvious to me from them. I also disliked just how many previews I had to see of it, without ever changing. I also disliked that the main characters name was Jack, but I will get into that later. But finally the title. When I first heard about it, I assumed it was some movie about the video game. Nope. Future and aliens.

That’s a lot of bad things to go against movie. You unfortunately have a biased, uphill battle to climb!

Thankfully they put quite a bit of money into the graphics department. Oooh, my eyes are happy.

It is about 60 years in the future. An alien race called scavengers came down and fucked up all of our shit. Turns out humans are stubborn and won’t just let our stuff get messed up, even if they took out our moon (causing earthquakes and tidal waves), so we nuked the fuck out of them. Hooray! We won! Small packs of scavengers roam the landscape, but they totally lost overall. Too bad the Earth is basically a barren wasteland at this point. Areas of high radiation, lot of dead. So the humans evacuated, and GTFO first to a big space station in the sky, then on ships en route to Titan, a moon of Saturn.

Only two people are left on the world, Jack (Tom Cruise) and Victoria (Andrea Riseborough). Jack is a tech guy, repairing drones that cover their perimeter and protect them from scavengers. Once the plants suck up the last of the sea water (which can be used for energy later?), they can return to the space station, and head off to Titan in two weeks! Woo!

Too bad those fucking scavengers keep messing up their shit and make their last two weeks hell. Not to mention an old space ship crash lands on Earth, with the drones attacking the human survivors, including a woman (Olga Kurylenko) who has been haunting his dreams! What in the hell is going on!?

Also featuring Morgan Freeman and Nikolaj Coster-Waldau as mysterious humans, and Melissa Leo as their space communications rep.

The internet is making wild claims that Morgan is barely in this movie, only 15 minutes max. Psha, I clocked him in at about 19.

Well, fuck me. I found Oblivion entertaining.

Yep, despite the negativity and the huge climb, I walked out happy, nay, excited. I had to quickly talk about it with others who saw it, about the ending, the twists and turns.

You see, it is pretty dang obvious from the trailer that certain things will happen. They are obvious twists in the movie that won’t come to be a surprise at all. That is what I thought the film would give me, and I was ready to be bored. But you know what Oblivion did? Sure, it might have had those “twists”. But the twists came in unexpected ways and then layered on more turns that I was not expecting after that.

Too many twists can ruin a movie, because then you just get tired of it all, and refuse to pay attention until the end. Like Trespass. The barren Earth they created is also hauntingly gorgeous, just like the CGI as well. I generally don’t like Tom Cruise as much when he is in his serious action roles, like this, but I didn’t mind this one.

The acting was okay, the plot overall could have been better, and I might have disliked the last scene in the end, but overall, pretty interesting.

If I actually went in with an open mind, it might have been a 2, but this is what exceeding expectations does to ratings!

3 out of 4.

Strange. For whatever reason, 750 is a sexier number than 700. Huh. Number talk?

Damn straight. This is my 750th Review! In less than two years as well. 750 means another Milestone Review! I could have waited a week and a half and let another Stephanie Meyer movie take the claim, but I am tired of it, and really, I couldn’t think of that many The Host Jokes. So instead, I went for something that is one of the most hated movies in the last few years, by one of the more hated directors in the last decade.

Oh yes. The Last Airbender by M. Night Shyamalan. The good news is that I have never seen Avatar: The Last Airbender cartoon, so I have nothing to compare it to. That means I can actually judge this movie on its own merits, and not have any previous misconceptions about how it will be! Hooray, honesty.

Here is what I know before watching (outside of the hatred from fans). I knew the children of M. Night loved the show, so he wanted to make this movie for them. He wanted to make a trilogy to tell the entire series, and he, again, was doing this for his kids. Shit, that should be reason enough to not fuck it up, right?

Movie for his kids. Has a kid in the movie. Works for me so far. Let me know more, M. Night!

Alright, complaint number one from the fanboys. White people. Apparently in the cartoon, everyone is some form of Asian, and that is that. Well, that makes sense from an anime thing. Personally, when I see anime, I see most people as White-ish, and I don’t think they care about it in Japan. BUT NO. THIS CARTOON AS ASIANS. THERE NEEDS TO BE ASIANS IN THIS MOVIE. OR ELSE IT IS BAD. Here is a picture showcasing its anger.

Hmm, I don’t get it.

Alright, so this is people overreacting about nothing. In fact, they are saying that M. Night Shyamalan, an asian man himself, is racist, for making certain lead roles white instead of Asian. In case you don’t understand that, I will state it in a different way. Groups of people are saying that certain roles can only be payed by people of Asian decent. If they are not Asian actors, they will hate and potentially boycott the movie.

Now which sounds more racist? Exactly. Fucking hypocrites.

“Get to the fucking review already, or else I am out of here!” – Loyal reader.

Alright, in this world, lets call it Asia, there are people called Benders. Wait wait wait. First there are four elements, like a traditionally old lame game or show. Of course they are Earth, Wind, Water, and Fire. Water is the bitch element, since there is no Heart. Benders are people who can control these elements and do fun magic like shit with them. They can create said element, but they can control it if its nearby. That makes Earth and Wind the shit in my book, theres always that stuff a round.

Then there is the mother fucking Avatar! He (or she?) can control all four elements, not just one. HE’S A MOTHERFUCKIN’ BADASS. He can do it all, hell yeah!

Too bad that asshole went and died or something, and now the Fire Nation ( a large group of fire benders) took over and went all asshat on everyone.

That’s right. We’re talking about you, you asshat!

Well, turns out the Avatar doesn’t die, he gets reborn. So there was a search to find the next kid who could Avatar it up. They have to be an air bender, I think, or something, and well, that is bad. So they killed all the air benders.

All of them. Except one.

And holy fuck I just got the title.

This is my mind now!

Either way, Katara (Nicola Peltz) and Sokka (Jackson Rathbone) are wandering around their Eskimo village, just hanging out. Katara is all water bending, Sokka all, I dunno, regular fighting? Well, they find a boy in a bubble. Kind of fucked up. Also this weird flying thing.

I don’t even know what the fuck this is.

Kid in a bubble, kind of weird. But hey, his name is Aang (Noah Ringer) and I am still not sure how to pronounce it. But hey, they are his responsibility. He wants to get back to some temple, and they just assume he be trippin. But then he is able to control wind. That is rare as fuck! OH MAN, DID HE ALSO CONTROL WATER? MAYBE? Not sure.

Oh hey. Fire nation attacks and totally steals him away. That sucks. Some Prince Zuko (Dev Patel) tests him and finds out he is the Avatar. Great! They’ve been looking for him, probably to kill him. So he escapes. Sad times.

He finds that flying beast and his two white friends, and runs away as fast as he can! Then he is in some Earth Bending place. They are all oppressed, not living up to their rock nature. He leads a revolt, and everyone loves him. Yay! But it turns out he is still a kid and not fully trained. Like. At all. He knows air stuff, and that is it. Water is the next to learn, he was just never taught before being frozen in ice. Whoops!

That’s right, this bitch can do something the Avatar cannot! Owned.

So they set off on a journey to some special water temple, so he can learn how to control water like a pimp. You see, it isn’t just a mind over matter thing. They have to dance around with their arms and legs, in a … dance like thing to control it in certain way. Kind of like elemental martial arts, because that’s how fights work in anime. But along the way, he leads a lot more revolts and everyone loves him. Everyone, but the fire temple guys.

They are so mad (and also realize whats happening) that they are going to meet him at the water place. Meet him with a HUGE FUCKING ARMY.

Okay, here is like 10 people. But the ships have more!

Big war happens! Some Princess Yue (Seychelle Gabriel) chick has awesome blue eyes and some sort of special power. The heads of the fire nation are super super mad. We’re talking Commander Zhao (Aasif Mandvi) and Fire Lord Ozai (Cliff Curtis) mad. Do you know how mad that is? Because I don’t. Fire Lord sounds petty dang serious though.

Sounds bad. BUT THIS IS A FUCKING TRILOGY. A rated PG trilogy, but still, there is supposed to be two more of these! So of course Avatar guy figures out water powers during the attack, is amazing as fuck at them, and rapes everyone in the face. With water.

It is a serious description for a serious scene.

Then you know, it ends the main bad guy defeated, and some chick ready to take his place.

You thought I’d show the chick? To bad.

Conclusion:

Hey, this story is pretty neat!

Not necessarily the movie execution. That was bad. I was fine with the pretty colors early on, but that faltered eventually. Honestly, everyone looked ridiculous in these fight scenes, doing random martial arts at each other, but not really fighting because its all elemental base. I mean, it could be cool, but it wasn’t that cool in the movie.

I understood that it was going to be a trilogy, but (and listen to me closely EVERYTHING), trilogies can be made of movies that still tell a complete story and don’t just punch you in the nuts. This complete story was what, dude learning about water and defeating one guy? No, the overarching goal is still there and I am disappointed. I want more. I feel like it’s not complete. Fuck. No one complains about Star Wars A New Hope because it is a story of a guy trying to be a Jedi, not like, save everything. He saves some things, but he completes his goal and we get a full fucking movie. This just leaves you like a fish out of water. Flopping around, waiting to die.

Again, the story sounds great. If anything, watching this movie is going to make me watch the cartoon (which should be one of the main two goals of fans of the cartoon from this movie to achieve. The other being a decent story I guess) and then I can comment on how much the movie got wrong from his source. But I am used to that. Just like movies from books, movies from cartoons will be different.

And they better be! I don’t want rehashing damn it. Tell me new stories.

But really, this movie isn’t as bad as the hype. It’s people being mad at the director for other things he has done, mad that it doesn’t 100% match the source, and arguing about the least important thing in acting (theater and move), the race of the person playing a role. Come on, this is the 21st century. We have a black president! That shouldn’t matter. When I saw The Lion King broadway, the kid Simba was black, but when he turned adult Simba, he was white. Was it hilarious? Yes. But it was also completely acceptable.

Still though. It could have been better.

1 out of 4.

As you all know, I am a patriotic American, so if there is a movie out there that will increase my patriotism, by golly, I will see it!

Not that I needed any more convincing to see Olympus Has Fallen. I love a lot of the actors in this movie, even though certain male leads may be pushing out a lot of crap in a row. But hey, this looks like Die Hard meets the White House! That is especially good news given out A Good Day To Die Hard turned out.

Arguably, both this and Die Hard 5 are going to be political. Probably. Mike Banning (Gerard Butler) used to be the best secret service agent there was, working for President Benjamin Asher (Aaron Eckhart). Unfortunately, after leaving Camp David on a snowy night, his limo hits a bridge and they are only able to save the President, not his wife. Mike didn’t do anything wrong, but the President just doesn’t want to be reminded of his dead wife every time he sees him.

Few years later, he now is stuck with some desk job. Can’t shoot anyone in the office (legally), damn it! He still relives that night, and his long term lady friend (Radha Mitchell) can’t seem to help him.

But unfortunately today is a day where everything will hit the fan. A fighter plane is able to make it into the DC airspace, and begins to open fire on the white house while the President has the South Korean Prime Minister under his care. But in the panic room, it turns out not everything is as expected. Surprise, North Korea is behind all of this! Not only have they locked the President and Vice President in the panic room, but they have taken over the building as well, and have pretty egregious demands for the country that they are holding hostage. Clearly only one man is good enough to save the day here.

Featuring Rick Yune as the bad guy, Morgan Freeman as the Speaker of the House and now acting president, Melissa Leo and Angela Bassett as government women, and Dylan McDermott as an also former secret service agent.

 

Honestly, to me this looks like they are just dancing. Sometimes you can get an idea that is so crazy, so wild, that it works on some grandiose scale, and I believe that is what is happening with Olympus Has Fallen. It is action packed (after the icy intro and set up) and entertaining. Sure, you can probably figure out how everything is going to end before its through, but that doesn’t even matter in this movie.

That’s right, no real big surprise twists! I think if the entire point of a movie is a twist at the end, it really loses its potential to watch it again for fun (unless you are watching with new people). That means Olympus Has Fallen is rewatchable!

Now there are some pretty dumb characters. I think the President is a moron, but at least he is a bit hard assed. Part of the conflict involves getting three passwords from three individuals, through torture! The President has the last password, and orders the other two to give up their own because there is “no way” he would ever give his up. You know, to stop their torture. Gee, I guess he didn’t realize that they will probably just torture his friends to get the password out of him, since it basically worked two times in a row.

But this movie is about Gerard Butler kicking ass, and damn it, he does. Nice fights, guns, explosions, and a high body count. This movie was so great that I am no longer looking forward to White House Down. When there are two similar movies within a few months of each other, one of them will always outshine the other. I don’t think there has ever been a situation where both have been amazing, but at least the other one has Jaime Foxx playing the President.

3 out of 4.

G.I. Joe: Rise of the Cobra came out in 2009 and was a shit storm, just a big shit storm. I wasn’t reviewing movies four years ago, but if I was, I would have lampooned it so hard, in every orifice it had. It had some amusing parts, that red head was hot, but whatever. Not even Joseph Gordon-Levitt, right before his big claims to fame could save it.

So why did we get G.I. Joe: Retribution? Who knows. Can’t say it interested me at all to say it. What is with the cast overhaul? There is like, 2-3 characters the same in this movie. No Dennis Quaid, or Marlon Wayans, or Mr. Eko. All big parts of the first. I guess if you want to distance yourself from a bad movie, you should just replace basically everyone? I guess.

But no JGL to return as the Cobra Commander really irritates me. Hopefully they didn’t just try to fanservice this movie up with random shit.

NOW WITH EVEN MORE NINJAS! Fuck.

Hah, Duke (Channing Tatum) is still here! Now he leads his unit, along with his (clearly always been there) buddies of Roadblock (Dwayne Johnson), Lady Jane (Adrianne Palicki), and Flint (D.J. Cotrona).

Well, they decide to save the day again, but for some reason they get ambushed and most of their unit (a bunch of nameless people) die! What, how could this be!

Oh that rascally President (Jonathan Pryce) did it! But why would he? Must be some sort of nanobot doppelganger! How crappy.

Well, they are assumed dead now, and must go undercover, finding the original G.I. Joe (Bruce Willis) to help them. BUT LETS NOT FORGET ABOUT Snake Eyes (Ray Park). Ninjas are cool, and he is a Joe as well. But now he is with Jinx (Elodie Yung), the sister of Storm Shadow (Byung-hun Lee) (What, you thought he died in the first film? Pfft!). They have to bring Storm Shadow to justice, because the “Blind Master” (RZA. Yep) said so. Something about family honor.

But oh yeah, President is not really the President! The Cobra Commander must behind this. Hopefully he doesn’t threaten to destroy every major world power and successfully take out London. What? He takes out all of London? Holy shit! That should have huge repercussions that they will definitely deal with in the movie or the sequel. Ugh.

The Joes better figure out how to stop this, and get themselves back into good grace, before they make a trilogy and kill off the one or two links left to the first film! Also featuring Walton Goggins as a hilarious warden, and Ray Stevenson as a not so funny bad guy named Firefly.

Channing is just wondering why The Rock and Bruce Willis are in every dang action movie now (and how can he get that honor).

To answer that above question, the Rock is actually a decent actor. It is just getting overkill.

Woo! I found this movie at least entertaining. Strange huh? Some of the action scenes were fantastic, and nicely spread out enough to be enjoyable. There was a lot that I disliked of course. Only one main woman (not including the other ninja), and they had to use her looks I think three times to advance the plot. How convenient. Flint was a useless character, and Jane’s background was pointless. The Storm Shadow backstory didn’t make any dang sense when you look at how time works. Too many ninjas just might spoil the bunch. (In the film, they go to a ninja factory basically).

Not to mention no Joseph Gordon-Levitt! Boo!

Really, a problem I was confused with is that the movie felt like it went entirely too quick. One of those films that takes a long time to build up and climax, and once it gets great, it is solved quickly and over. I hate feeling unfulfilled, but it was already 110 minutes long. I think it could have added an additional half hour to it (if they changed the movie around for an extra assault) to really enhance it overall. But if they added more time, they might have added even more bad plotlines. That would be the real shame in the end.

Okay action movie, definitely better than the first. But still has a long way to go!

2 out of 4.

If you had to say anything about Dead Man Down, you would say that it had guts. It came out the same weekend as Oz The Great and Powerful, meaning it must not actually care about the money. It must be an artsy film! Just watch the trailer, I actually want you to for once. Yeah, little bit artsy, doesn’t really give anything major away. I think the trailer is fantastic, beautiful music, and no annoying narrator.

But the last time I saw a kick ass, artsy, action movie trailer, Killing Them Softly happened.

Shit, Killing Them Softly had a car in it too. The similarities are endless! From the trailer you would hear a few lines about deception, the loss of a family, and a traitor. This film definitely involves some of these keywords, but I just don’t want to fully describe it. Really, I went in knowing nothing, and felt like I probably enjoyed it more for that reason.

But here is some character information to not leave you completely in the dark. Beatrice (Noomi Rapace) used to be a beautician, but got into a car accident that severely messed up her face. It hurts to smile now, and its hard to make others feel pretty at that point, so her life is basically over. It sounds superficial, but you will get it. The man who hit her drunk driving only got three weeks in jail. She now lives with her going deaf mother (Isabelle Huppert) and is pretty mad.

Across the street lives, Victor (Colin Farrell), a secretive man. Secretive men have secretive pasts. He works for a local gang leader, Alphonse (Terrence Howard), who has been receiving death threats for over three months, and pictures of himself with his eyes crossed out. Kind of creepy. Victor joined about six months before this started, along with a fellow new recruit, Darcy (Dominic Cooper).

That sounds like a fine enough plot description for me, at least.

Oh, and the rats. Don’t forget to add the rats!Holy character development, Batman!

Seriously, wow. It is almost like every character in the movie was treated like a real individual, and not a complete stereotype. Okay, sure, there were some stereotypical henchmen or bad guys, but even a few of them had their moments as well. Color me surprised.

Despite not being an action packed movie on its own, I would say it has enough to keep me interested. The acting for everyone involved was also great. Colin Farrell is getting a rep at being a box office bomb, but that’s just because Total Recall remake was bad, and for this movie, they went out against a juggernaut.

I fully recommend Dead Man Down, as I feel it is a complete movie experience. It is able to tell a realistic enough story, is not special effects driven, and has a great performance by everyone in the cast. There is a little bit of “supermanning” at the end of the film, but by then it is pretty worth it.

4 out of 4

Eurrrgh. It happened again! A trailer went way over its bounds and told far too much of a movie. Jack the Giant Slayer, the next fairytale gone epic in theaters today. The worst part of the trailer isn’t that it tells of a betrayal, or shows character deaths. No. It says this cringeworthy line.

“If you think you know the story.
You. Don’t. Know. Jack.”

Please shoot me. Really. The first half being just stupid in general, because we do know the story. Just not this other story. Movie’s don’t make a story version stop existing. Then the last part, which was seen coming a mile away, and…just man. Come on. Stop it guys.

Oh what’s that? Ewan McGregor? Fuck it, I am excited.

The movie begins, with a telling of the poem, of course! Jack (Nicholas Hoult) a wee lad hearing the story from his dad, and Princess Isabelle (Eleanor Tomlinson), an also wee lass hearing it from her mom. TEN YEARS LATER. BOTH ARE DEAD. The parents mentioned of course. Jack is a simple farm boy, who has to sell the family horse and cart. Isabelle is set to rule after her father (Ian McShane) kicks the bucket. But he wants to make sure she has someone to help her, so why not force her to marry the King’s Adviser, Roderick (Stanley Tucci)?

No, we will not let Aladdin steal all the plots.

Either way, Isabelle wants to prove that she can be a leader, to be one with the people, to do her own thing. Jack just kind of wants to stop being poor and lame and bored. Eventually, beans and a stalk! Oh no, the Princess gets trapped and taken up to the giant land above. I say that, because giants. The knights crew, Roderick, Roderick’s assistant (Ewen Bremner), Sir Elmont (McGregor) and another random dude Crawe (Eddie Marsan), along with Jack. Their goal, rescue the princess, and to not restart some ancient war that they will surely lose.

But you know, betrayal. Love. Surprisingly large amount of death. Bill Nighy voicing General Fallon, a two-headed giant. Unfortunately, the extra head has down syndrome or something.

Fuck it, Ewan gets both pictures. You deserve it, bud. Because I can call Ewan bud now.

Gahhh. Gah.

Alright, this is another polarizing movie, that could have been epic, but fell short from its potential. Here are some positives. I actually found myself scared during a few parts. When the giants were on the ground, running through the forest, chasing them on horseback, I was terrified. Ewan McGregor had technically a small role, yet he made it his bitch, and gave that character so much personality. Hell, even the beginning plot wasn’t that bad.

But the movie floundered.

The epic fight ending ended up being nothing more than a glorified tug of war match. The story of the princess trying to prove she was an equal and could do things on her own ended up being a wash as well. She went from Damsel in Distress, to kind of helpful, to no, let Jack do the hard parts that she could have done just as easily. Seriously, the end of the movie pissed me off. They could have went the smart way, but chose the standard, this movie was made in the 1950s ending instead.

Visually, it is nice, 3D wasn’t that helpful. But man, the ending put a very bad taste in my mouth.

Oh well, watch the movie just to see a clinic on how to make a character your own. By Ewan McGregor, not Ewen Bremner.

2 out of 4.

Dwayne Johnson has a movie a month for the next few months. Seriously. Look it up. February, Snitch. March, GI Joe 2. April, Pain & Gain. May, Fast and the Furious 6.

Holy crap, that is a lot of rocks!

But what makes Snitch different? Well, in the ads for Snitch, I only saw that “Dwayne Johnson” was starring in it. That means it was not “Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson” like you see most of the time. Pretty crazy right? Has he finally made the switch (minus those other three movies?) Probably not. But I will respect that and not defile him with the nickname in this review.

Because The Rock would kick my ass if I defiled him.

John Matthews (Mr. Johnson) runs a construction company, built it himself, hells yeah. But he is divorced, because this is what drives plot. His ex Sylvie (Melina Kanakaredes) was able to keep the son Jason (Rafi Gavron) in the divorce, because John drove around a lot as a truck driver for his job. Damn, sucks. He has a new family though, a wife (Nadine Velazquez, solid solid upgrade) and a daughter there as well, but still wants to be in his sons life. He is about to go to college!

But his son does a dumb thing. He agrees to let his friend ship him a package of high quality drugs to his place, so he can pick it up later. Little did he know, that his friend got caught, and just snitched on Jason to reduce his own sentence. Jason didn’t want to help sell them, but agreed to help his friend, and now it looks like it was his idea! Sucks to suck. With federal minimum sentencing laws, he is looking up to 10 years in jail, despite the first time offense and no solid evidence. Unless he can snitch out someone else. The problem is, he doesn’t know any other drug dealers, and he is not willing to set up a friend.

Good morals, bad situation.

John wants to do anything to help his son. He is able to get the district attorney (or some equivalent title thing…Susan Sarandon) to reduce his son’s sentence if he helps set up an arrest himself. He just needs the help of one of his workers who used to be in on the drug game (Jon Bernthal) to get him started. Also featuring Barry Pepper as head of the local DEA thing and Michael Kenneth Williams as a big drug dealer guy.

By now you realize that if I see weird facial hair, I am going to post the weird facial hair.

First off, fuck this based on a true story nonsense. This time it is based on the fact that federal minimum sentencing is real, and it causes people to rat out other people maybe not actually involved. That is it. Go die, true story message. Die hard.

Snitch tries to go in two different directions, an action movie, and a drama where the father wants to do anything to help his son (like John Q, I guess. But more action). Part of the problem is that the action really isn’t there. The ads show lots of action, but that is mostly one and a half scenes of the movie, so I would definitely call action a stretch.

So that means we have a drama, folks.

A drama that isn’t that bad, but ehh, not to great either. Mr. Johnson actually great. Most of the supporting characters are so-so. The fact that this movie is just a strange way of saying that mandatory minimum sentences are bad, is kind of silly. They could have done it a lot better making it a more realistic picture, instead of the small action sideplot near the end.

Mr. Johnson did do great, as I said, but it would have been a better role for a frail guy. That is all. We are so ingrained in seeing Mr. Johnson as an action star, I can’t imagine him getting beaten up in this movie, or overcoming any difficulties by the end. Because he is Dwayne ‘The Friggan Dwayne Johnson’ Johnson.

2 out of 4.