Tag: Action

The Dark Knight Rises has the pleasure and curse of being one of the top three anticipated movies of the year (along with The Avengers and The Hobbit).

As it is a straight up sequel, not a collaboration of movies like the Avengers, it almost has more pressure because it will be compared success and fail to The Dark Knight from 2008. Which you’ve seen right? And of course Batman Begins? If you haven’t then you are silly for wanting to see this movie or read this review. Watch the first two movies first, it matters.

What in the what, hey, you there. Stop that! You don’t belong in that safe.

Don’t worry, I wont spoil much. But here, let me set the scene.

The movie takes place eight years after The Dark Knight. Harvey Dent is celebrated as a hero, and Batman (Christian Bale) has taken the fall for his Two-Face badness. So at this point crime is way down. No masked vigilantes, no super humans running amuck. Commissioner Gordon (Gary Oldman) is being a commisioner, and thinking about letting the world really know.

Bruce Wayne is now a shut in, hurt leg, and doesn’t go out much, despite Alfred’s (Michael Caine) best attempts. Wayne Enterprises, still run by Lucious Fox (Morgan Freeman) isn’t poor, but isn’t making really any money anymore. Mostly sucks for all the orphanages and stuff that worked on his funding. A lot of money was tied into a sustainable energy project, brought on by an environmentalist Miranda Tate (Marion Cotillard).

But when a pseudo masked strong man, Bane (Tom Hardy) takes up residence in Gotham city, err, well why is he there? And why the heck is some chick (Anne Hathaway) stealing his jewels when he wants to just be a shut in? And what is with that shifty eyed cop, John Blake (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) with his notions of justice?

Bitches ain’t nothin’ but hoes and tricks.

Ughhh, I wish I was reviewing this in 2014 so I can say all the spoilers. Because yes, 2 years is enough time to allow it.

Performance wise, I loved both Catwoman and Bane. Anne Hathaway personally never disappoints me, and I think she won a lot of naysayers over. Bane was so diabolically creepy to me. Strong, and smart, the best of both worlds, he dismantled all of Gotham and his voice and eyes were just so full of emotion to me. I almost found myself on his side, due to his weird form of Charisma.

Also, fucking Michael Caine. Every time he spoke, you listened. Powerful performance from him.

I think the story still may have been a bit too long. I think early on a few scenes dragged on a bit too long, but I understand the necessity of it all.

I’ve heard people note that there isn’t enough “Batman” in the batman movie. Instead, it felt like a lot more Gotham centric movie, and I loved the attention that went to all the different players. Maybe a bit too much time for Joseph Gordon-Levitt, but hey.

I think I need to say powerful again, because there are a lot of powerful moments. I almost teared up twice, and actually did once again. I like that the expected ending wasn’t what actually occurred. Unfortunately, my comic based activities and hearing rumors gave me a specific mind set going into the film. I kept forcing plot points to go to my mindset instead of how they were presented, and fuck me, I was right.

From Fear, to Chaos, to Pain, I think the trilogy as a whole will be celebrated for its “Realism” in terms of a comic book movie, and great attention to detail, along with the social implications of it all. Whether or not this is what the people who grew up during the late 70s felt when Star Wars was being released, I don’t know, but it probably will be one of the closest relatable feelings I have to something like that.

John Carter has been hit hard, right in the rear end, with piss poor advertising and some early reviews.

An expensive Disney movie, should have had a lot going for it, but nope. Nothing. Personally I have heard of John Carter before, vaguely, I knew it was sci-fi books from the yesteryears. But when I first saw a trailer for it, I only could think of how bad it looked. My first thought was that “What? They made a movie using all the left over prop parts from Prince of Persia. Who cares.”

Way too similar, the main peoples outfits, and both in deserts. Yeah, whatever. Some aliens too, cool.

Turns out Disney for whatever reason didn’t try too hard to market it, or get the facts right with their own movie. So they deserve it I guess. Next thing you know is Pixar will just assume everyone will go their movies if they make them (and they will).

“So you…don’t have access to the sands of time?” John Carter stammered, glancing towards his script.

The movie begins with….NOT JOHN CARTER (Taylor Kitsch). Instead he is dead. Sad times. He has left his rich later 1800s fortune to a nephew or something of his, Edgar (Daryl Sabara). He is told he only has access to his personal diary. In it he says all of his past stories he told him were true! But here is a re-telling of how it began…

Long ago, after the Civil war in the area not yet known as Arizona, Carter was just trying to get by, looking for gold. Well the local US army there wants to enlist him to help fight the Apache (Since he was a kick ass soldier/leader in the Civil War). John doesn’t want too, much to the general’s (Bryan Cranston) demands. He tries to escape multiple times, eventually does, and when they run into the Apache, he successfully escapes both groups into a cave. Some weird shit happens, and he is transported far and away to a different desert.

WHERE HE CAN FLY. Not really, but jump super awesomely far. Hells yeah. But then some aliens run into him. Behemoth ten foot tall monsters, with four arms. They are confused by him, but eventually capture him (not kill) to bring back to their base. The head mean guy Tal Hajus (Thomas Haden Church) wants to kill him so badly, but the king, Tars Tarkas (Willem Dafoe) says no. Fuck that. Train that dude. He can jump like crazy.

Also there is other shit going on, between some kingdom called Helium and Zodanga. Helium is the good guys, war, the princess of Helium (Lynn Collins) has to marry someone in Zodanga, or else. She said nope. War stuff. Escapes, John saves her. Big war. Bald dude magic guy (Mark Strong) from Zodanga wants to fuck all the shit up.

Eventually a journey starts up to end the war, between the nations and the big alien things. With a dog like creature too. And the daughter of the alien king (Samantha Morton). Shit, details aren’t necessary. But a lot fighting ends up happening, some personal shit with John Carter’s nuclear family, and some other shenanigans (like you know, going back to Earth, obviously).

“Oh fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck!” John Carter sighed, quite nonchalantly.

Holy shit, this movie was more than about a guy on Mars, fucking up some shit. There was some stuff about post civil war Arizona! Some history! Yeah!

I loved the beginning of the movie a lot. From his bumbling in Az, to his bumbling on Mars and having no idea what is going on. I’d say about halfway, I did lose a bit of the drive. I think the war between nations, and an alien nation could have been simplified a bit. Instead of just throwing out a bunch of people with weird names at me. I bet, I bet reading the book would have made it all simpler, which is not a good thing for a movie.

But in terms of action/adventure entertainment? I was definitely entertained. Well done. Unfortunately this monetary flop means not only probably no more John Carter movies, but that Disney will in general stay away from Mars forever.

I have definitely owned The Condemned for over two years, and still never sat down to watch it. I blame the side of the case. It’s shiny shiny silver makes it blend in.

The world loves violence. Always has, always will. Gladiatorial games, to Hunger based games. And that is why with The Condemned we have a future/modern version of that.

I don’t even know how I could resist for so long, with that amazing plot line and winning personality actors?

OH FUCK. ALSO THERE ARE GUNS! AHH!

Breckel (Robert Mammone) is a man with a plan. To get SuperBowl levels of viewers, on an internet show. And to do it, he is going to take ten criminals around the world, put them on the island, and whoever survives gets their freedom and some cash. Broadcast it on the internet, get tons of revenue, be awesome for life. Anything goes on the Island, live killing, and rape. But to make sure they stay in line (and make it fairer?) they all have C4 explosive devices taped to their ankles. Cords can be removed, and they blow up in 10s, or 30 hours if more than one person is left.

Well shit. Unfortunately for Conrad (Steve Austin) he isn’t actually a bad guy, and was captured by enemy forces for the last year. Doesn’t help that the biggest threat McStarley (Vinnie Jones) teamed up with another person (Masa Yamaguchi) to get themselves to the final three.

Conrad just wants to make it off the island alive (and maybe get the police involved), so that is his biggest goal. But I mean, if he kills people, they are bad anyways so it should be fine. Also if the people working on the island start to hate the idea, like Breckel’s girlfriend (Tory Mussett) then it might be a bit easier.

This is one of those great pause moments.

This movie is definitely not Gamer or Arena, movies with similar ideas (and oh boy the ratings). The former has a bigger sci-fi undertone, while the latter goes intense gritty battles that freak me out.

This one is a much lamer Hollywood version of both of those. Plot, not even important really. Just gotta know that the 10 people are all “bad people” and have to kill each other, or else they all die, and only one can survive. Unfortunately, it didn’t feel too interesting. And it is a topic I have seen many times before. Acting is whatever, plot is whatever, and action isn’t the best.

To me, to make this right, it has to be a lot harsher and violent. They are pretty much only doing fist fights, with some explosions, until the makers cheat some guns (not weapons, just guns) in and people die quicker. Also, I’d say either make it that all the people have personalities and stories, so you have some emotional investment in every battle (and not just assume the winner will be the person higher on the cast order, which is what happens generally) or have it super personal on just one guy.

Just have it on him the whole time, while he is trying to find and kill the others, without knowing what everyone else was doing. How cool would that be? We wouldn’t see ten fights, because realistically other people would kill off others off screen, but it would add the intensity. Sure we still know who wins, but man, we can at least share his (what should exist) fear.

Dubbed “one of the first great movies of 2012” by one of my friends, it took me quite awhile to watch The Grey. Not even sure why. I generally like Liam Neeson. Everyone loves Taken. I hated Unknown. I feel like I’d never give a movie of his a 2 out of 4, always in the extremes. Extremes are scary.

They are like a box of chocolates, and what not.

This journey aged him. Or that is just snow.

John Ottway (Liam Neeson) is a hunter, working for an oil drilling team. His job is to kill the wolves who get near the team. He is pretty good at it, kickass gun and all that. Well after they leave in the plane, their job done, fucking snow storm happens and they crash into the ground. Yep, that sucks. Lot of people die from the initial crash, leaving about 7-8 guys still alive and wondering what to do.

Initially the plan is to stay with the plane crash, the most likely place to be found for a rescue. But with all the bodies around, the wolves are attracted to the area, and they are way too out in the open to defend themselves properly (From the elements / wolves) and have no food source. So Ottway suggests they go to the woods, where they can better defend, prepare weapons and begin to look for civilization. One asshole doesn’t like the thought of Ottway as leader, Diaz (Frank Grillo) but they all reluctantly decide to do it, and bring the wallets of the dead with them.

The rest of the survivors, Dermot Mulroney, Dallas Roberts, Nonso Anozie, and Joe Anderson, also attempt to survive the elements, from sudden blizzards, jumping large heights, and just general wolf pack attacks testing their survival.

But when they are tested at every moment for survival, the true question is if anyone can make it out alive from the wilderness.

Sometimes you gotta tape broken bottles to your fist and just go to town.

Hey look a polarizing movie! Hooray!

Generally, most people like 98% of the movie. But hate the last scene. I can see why. Spoilers? It is one of those sudden go to black scenes. Just ends the movie, potentially before all the plot is “finished”. So if you hate those, then definitely stay away.

They did have a scene after the credits to help answer it, but still leaves it up for some interpretation. But still, the bleakness remains.

What we have in this movie is a group of men, all with flaws and bad back stories, yet all become potentially likable, even dick characters, as they bond together to fight for survival. Which is all this movie is about, by the way. People just trying to survive. Maybe they all do! But you know people are going to die. Could have easily went a more horror route with the wolves, but kept it to drama/action, making it more enjoyable for me.

Still some fear though. Those wolves be scary, yo.

I had to watch this movie. I just did. Punisher: War Zone is the only movie since 1995 to be based off of a Marvel character that I haven’t seen yet.

I really didn’t know much about this movie. I just knew that they changed the main actor from the last Punisher movie, which I actually liked on its own. That and no one gave a damn about this sequel. Oh well, just have to see what happens.

For science!

Hey look, he killed some people.

No more back story for The Punisher (Ray Stevenson), we all know his deal. His assistant is Microchip (Wayne Knight) and good at tech shit.

He takes out a bunch of mob people, but some escape! A detective, Martin Soap (Dash Mihok) lets him know where, a recycling plant! Shit happens, people die, and Billy (Dominic West) falls into a glass bottle shredder thing to presumable die. Well he doesn’t. His face gets fucked up, lots of stitches. Makes it look like a puzzle piece, so that means he is now Jigsaw and a villain.

During this stuff, the Punisher ends up killing an undercover agent, not that he knew there was one there or anything. Makes the cops pissed off at him, and the guys former partner Paul (Colin Salmon) is set to bring the Punisher in. Also, Jigsaw frees his brother, Loony Bin Jim (Doug Hutchinson), a deranged cannibal, to help stop the Punisher.

Punisher is upset, killing an innocent man of course. So he tries to make it up with the guys now widowed wife (Julie Benz) and daughter, and wants to retire. But cant, because Jigsaw will just mess with the family until he does something about it.

Then some revenge happens, terrorism, difficult choices, etc. And that is about it.

Jigsaw. Not to be confused with the villain in the Saw movies.

I have to admit, my expectations for the movie weren’t the highest going in to it, but the movie didn’t do much at all to try and convince me other wise. The plot was weak, and I didn’t care for any of the acting. Any of it!

And this is Ray Stevenson! Kicked all sorts of ass in Kill The Irishman. Did nothing for me at all.

It felt like the movie took me 2.5 hours to watch (and is around 100 minutes only) in terms of holding my interest. Just a film that only had violence and that is all. Is that all there is to the Punisher? I hope not.

In case you didn’t know, there has been lots of Snow White things going on. First one released, Once Upon A Time, a tv show with a fairy tale modern village, with a main character being Snow White. Then Mirror, Mirror (review coming soon!) a more comedic approach. Then finally Snow White and The Huntsman. A more serious or dark version of the Snow White fairy tale.

Allegedly.

All I’m trying to say is fuck the show and movie producers. No one wants this.

So what do we got here? We got a kingdom, with a great king and queen, and they have a daughter. They are kind of white supremacist, so they name her Snow White (Kristen Stewart). Well, queen dies, king is all sad. King defeats a mysterious phantom armor and finds a woman captured by them (Charlize Theron). King is immediately smitten, marries her the next day, and on their wedding night, she kills him and her army invades the castle. Shit goes crazy, Snow White is captured and put into a tower, while the Duke (Vincent Regan) and his son William (Sam Claflin) escape.

Man years later, castle and kingdom turned to shit. Queen Ravenna’s power is getting weaker. It might be based on whether or not she is the “fairest of them all”. Kind of messy with the details there. Her brother Finn (Sam Spruell) is her servant, and when he accidentally allows Snow White to escape she is furious. Apparently if she took Snow White’s heart, she would keep her power forever and no longer have to suck the souls out of beautiful women. Score!

But yeah, she escapes, into the scary forest too, so they hire a Hunstman (Chris Hemsworth) to fetch her in return for the resurrection of his dead wife. Realizes the lies, helps her escape, and agrees to get her to the Duke’s castle to lead a revolt. Also, stuff like Dwarves (including Nick Frost, Toby Jones, Bob Hoskins, Eddie Marsan, etc), fairies, stags, villages, weird shit. And you know, poisonous apples, true loves kiss, and a revolt.

I don’t even know what is going on here.

The film was inspired by Snow White tale, and then went all sorts of places. I am not mad that it is nothing like Snow White, I am more mad that the designers of the film thought making it a different Snow White was a good thing. Especially with all the Snow White shit. I think this film would have been a lot better if it just tried to make its own fantasy story instead of the kinda Snow White stuff we got.

I read that a sequel is planned. The fuck? Now they will go even further from any source material, making it even worse that the series is a “Snow White” thing.

But that is a minor complaint. The film is also too long, drags, and is kind of lame. They got what feels like the worst person ever to be the Queen’s brother, from everything to acting and costume design. We got vague journeys and scenes, that just seem like Lord of the Rings stuff. Fight plans that don’t make sense, Queen spells and power levels that do not make sense, and a prophecy based on Innocence of a heart, when everything about Kristen Stewart’s character should destroy any “innocence” by the end. Also ends kind of lamely.

Seriously though, the ambush scene involving the fairies and the giant Stag? That scene pissed me off so badly because of how unlikely any of it would have happened. Worst attempt to catch a person ever. For fucking sakes it was stupid.

I think Charlize Theron did decent for what she was given, and Chris Hemsworth as well. But that would be all. I am not a Kristen Stewart hater, but she added roughly nothing to the movie (and it is amazing that she had such nice teeth after being in a tower for 8-10 years! Minor annoyance, since other characters had bad teeth).

Hooray! Review 500!

FIVE HUNDRED. That is actually significant. Kind of like the first review, or 100th. 500 is such a nice number, so I have to do my most speicalist review ever. I have to review the movie, that is a remake, of my websites name sake.

Clash Of The Titans came out in 2010, and was supposed to be a big event, after all, the original Clash of the Titans was still talked about at that point, and was a big event back then.

But even back then, everyone knew the original movie was kind of shitty. Bad special effects, plot, was just super silly. So of course the best idea ever would be to remake it with the SAME plot, but instead of bad special effects, we will very expensive bad CGI effects. WHAT A GREAT IDEA! Honestly, I thought the effects in the movie were so bad, I couldn’t tell the pictures between the two movies apart, so I might end up using some of the old one “accidentally”.

Hopefully by now you realized that my logo of “Watching shitty movies so you don’t have to” and relating it to Gorgons, is that if you watch bad movies, you might turn to stone. And I am saying Clash of the Titans is a bad movie.

Just ask Liam Neeson as Zeus. That is him right?

Blah blah blah, Hades (Ralph Fiennes) is a bad guy in this movie, because for some reason the ruler of the Underworld means bad person. Of course he was also “tricked” into ruling the Underworld by Zeus and Poseidon, so really any anger he has in those context seems justified.

Either he accepted the Underworld and is a decent god like the rest, or he was tricked in to there by his dick brothers, and thus wants to fuck things up from time to time. I don’t see how either makes him a bad dude. But hey, maybe there is a secret reason he is pissed off.

“Jizz! Jizz everywhere! Ahhh!!!”

Anyways, Baby Perseus (Sam Worthington) is found floating in a river, very Moses-esque, and raised by a different family. Eventually said family village gets fucked up, thanks to people not believing in the gods. Hmm, also Moses-esque. So everyone dies besides him, and he goes to another kingdom. They hate the gods there and are like, whatever. Even saying their daughter Andromeda (Alexa Davalos) is the hottest bitch in town.

More god interruptions, and apparently the Kraken will be summoned if Andromeda isn’t sacrificed by the next solar eclipse.

Also Perseus is the son of Zeus.

I’m sure he was stoked to hear the news.

So of course he gets imprisoned, where he meets Io (Gemma Arterton) who is immortal after not sexing up Poseidon (what?) and is forced to watch over his life and protect him. Sweet deal. She tells him his mom was a Queen who died, after she was impregnanted by Zeus. The King Acrisius (Jason Flemyng) tried to war against the gods, and that is how they punished him, so he sent them to see. Also he turned into a legit monster.

“What a monstrosity! Why won’t he shave!?”

Eventually he is freed to go find a way to stop a Kraken with a small army. While Hades makes Calibos (that monster “dad”) stronger, to kill Perseus. But first he must face other trials! Apollo (Luke Evans) tries to give Perseus a cool sword and Pegasus to help fight, but he refuses. Then Calibos comes and fucks some shit up, so they run, and of course they run straight into a giant scorpion.

I mean, of course.

Some Djinn save them, and cure their poison. They also let them know the only way to stop the Kraken is with Medusa’s head, a Gorgon. Bitch turns anything of flesh into stone if they look at her. Including the Kraken! So they decide to go to the Underworld, because where the hell else would she be? Zeus tries to stop them and make Perseus a god, thinking he wont want to kill them all if he has the power too. He refuses. Of course.

At least he gets a coin as a consolation prize!

So they go to the Underworld! Find the lair! Io can’t go in because she is a woman! (What?). Most of the crew dies, but thankfully Perseus survives and cuts off her head in a very unapologetic fashion. Kind of rude if you ask me. Could have just asked her to help stop the Kraken.

This looks strangely familiar.

But after that, the monster dude comes back! He totally kills Io. Fuck. But he is able to slay him, with the help of that sword, and turn him back to his normal human form. Still dies though. Perseus realizes his fate and that he needs to stop being so selfish, accept help, and fuck shit up. So he hops on Perseus (who was also just hanging around) and heads to save the day! If only someone had told him he’d need these things earlier.

“Fuck you Perseus! Who turns down a gift?”

So Kraken is about to be summoned, and the gods are weaker because people still aren’t respectin’ them. BUT WAIT. Turns out Hades also gets stronger from fear, and the Kraken is a scary ass beast. Guess who is the strongest god now? Hades can totally take over Mt. Olympus. Way to fuck up Zeus. What do you have to say for yourself?

“Oh my bad. I’m actually trying to audition for Twilight. Got distracted.”

So he rushes to the Kraken, who is taking out everything, and trying to eat Andromeda. After all, the sacrifice still needs to happen, for some reason. Getting the head to Kraken proves to be difficult. I also assume his hunger is pretty insatiable, given his large mouth, and large dorment period.

Bitches love Krakens.

But yes. Perseus eventually shows the Kraken his head. Stone. Saved the day. Somehow everything is back to normal. Perseus still says no to godhood, and no to king hood (Turning down Andromeda). He instead gets Io revived, and wants to just run away and do whatever he wants.

Yayyy.

So what is the problem with the movie besides its horrible special effects, its lame butchering of Greek Mythology, and its poor acting?

Which version of the Kraken is from the 80s? I have no fucking idea.

It is also super BORING. Gah. I hate boring movies. Well it depends. A drama that can be considered boring or slow usually has at least an emotional connection if you stick with it, or some character development. But Action movies that are boring? That pisses me off to no end. That is a special effects driven movie, and literally no effort seems to be put into any other aspect of it. It looks like an entire green screen explosion.

This movie makes the color green even look bad.

I have no idea what else to say, but thanks for reading the first 500, and here is to another 500!

Generally, most people will tell you they were disappointed with the original Ghost Rider movie. Ghost Rider himself is a cool concept, and a bad ass character, but for people to go home feeling bored? That isn’t good at all.

With most of the Marvel movie characters that they no longer own, such as Spider-Man, Fantastic Four, X-Men, and Ghost Rider, there are contract stipulations that state they must use their movie rights or else they will go back to Marvel. From the looks at it, it looked like there wouldn’t be another Ghost Rider movie, and Marvel would actually get a character back! Hooray, even if its one they can’t use that much.

Then there was news that they wanted to do another movie anyways, regardless of how bad the first one was. A RUSHED movie. Well, no way Nick Cage could be involved. Wait what? Nick Cage signed on too?

That is pretty much the only constant between Ghost Rider and Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance, so the outcome should be different, right?

These eyes. Cry out every night. For you.

This film takes place in Romania, and yo\u do not need to see the first one to see the second. Every character is different, even kind of changed how he turned into Ghost Rider. Instead of Mephistopheles, it is Roarke (Ciarán Hinds), but still a generic Satan/Devil, just played by a different guy.

Moreau (Idris Elba), a drunken French priest is seen trying to warn a clergy that the Devil has sent men to capture a woman and a boy they are hiding, but they don’t believe him. And then they get fucked up, but thankfully the woman (Violante Placido) and the boy Danny (Fergus Riordan) get to escape, with Moreau’s help, but he loses them. So he finds out Johnny Blaze and asks for his help. He doesn’t want to, he just wants to be left alone. After all, he only hurts people anyways. But if he helps him, he is promised that they can undo his fiery curse. Sounds good.

So he catches up, right before the mercenaries lead by Ray (Johnny Whitworth) are capturing them. After killing a few he gets distracted, and wants to kill the kid sensing a great evil, but it is knocked unconscious and stopped. After escaping a hospital, he finds the woman and Moreau again, and they device a plan to find the kid and get him back. Eventually the find out the kid is actually the son of the devil, and Roarke is hoping on unlocking his full power (and those deep dark eyes!). Moreau wants to take him back to his church, lead by Methodius (Christopher Lambert) and freeing Blaze of his Rider curse.

But when everything inevitably goes wrong, can Johnny Blaze free the kid from his fate, after he has freed himself from his curse? Also, angels and spirits of justice?

Don’t even ask me about this moment.

Blahhh. Honestly, the plot doesn’t sound that bad on paper. Especially if I fully explain more of the curse, as it is figured out in the story. I am even fine with where the film ends. It just would be a much better ending for the first film, and not the second film.

He turns into Ghost Rider three times in the movie, and none of them really seem that important. The fact that in his first encounter he gets knocked out from a blast just seems silly, after what we see of him in the first encounter and first movie. The second fight is way too long, and the character does many pointless things when his goal should be to kill them all as quickly as possible. The third fight is more of the same, but with a powerful enemy to fight, who actually turns out to not be that special.

When you have a character who really can’t be stopped / killed, there is no fear for survival or suspense. Just kind of lame. Action was boring. Plot was confusing in that it made it seem like the first film never happened, despite maintaining the same main actor for the character. That is some shit. I hate ret-cons. Also lots of unexplained plot directions. Give it a pass, but the third film might be better.

Wooo, action movies.

With a fantastic title like Safe House, how could it be bad?

This is a cheap trick. Dude wasn’t even the bad part of the movie.

Even though I watched this film a few hours ago, I feel like I forgot a lot of the plot. Whoops.

Well Denzel Washington! He is a bad man! He used to work for the CIA, but awhile back became an international criminal instead. Apparently sold a lot of secrets too. After getting some secret files from an MI6 agent, Liam Cunningham, he gets attacked by a mercenary, Fares Fares (what!? I am doing that thing where I just note actor names, not character names. And this guys real name is ridiculous). Blah blah blah, he ends up getting to the American Consulate in South Africa, and taken into a Safe House!

Low level CIA agent Ryan Reynolds is in charge of the Safe House, and has heard many tales of Denzel. Other operatives come in, and end up torturing him. Which sucks. But not as much as when the mercenaries from earlier break in and start killing everybody! Ryan has to escape with Denzel, both trying to keep him a prisoner, while also protecting him from getting killed. He also has a girlfriend, Nora Arnezeder, who of course knows nothing about CIA stuff.

With the “help” of agents Brendan Gleeson and Vera Farmiga, Ryan has to go temporarily on the run, until appropriate back up can be dispatched to save them. But until then he has to try and hide, while keeping a prisoner trying to escape, and watching out for deadly mercenaries. Also, of course, not everyone on the CIA is on the up and up, so trust issues are apparent, and whether or not Denzel is even a bad guy.

And then they made shadow puppets?

Summing up my thoughts can be pretty weird. Mostly because I am sure you guys know how I feel about a movie based on how I describe the plot. Probably.

Well I didn’t like Safe House. As I said in Caption 1, it is not Ryan Reynolds’ fault! It isn’t a single person’s fault in the movie either. Just the entire thing bored me. I wouldn’t describe any acting as horrible, just, whatever.

Don’t even have much more to say about it. So uhh. Yeah!

Although Jarhead is just outside of my range of reviews, I wanted to review a war-like movie for Memorial’s Day, and it is not only decently new but also a few people I have talked to about it haven’t ever seen it.

And damn it, I got it on Blu-Ray pretty cheap last Black Friday, so I wanted to see it, damn it.

Taking a new spin on the giving nature of the Marines.

The film takes place a few decades ago, and the war components during Operation Desert Shield. But earlier we get to see Swofford (Jake Gyllenhaal). It’s okay, nothing great. Lot of yelling. Eventually he gets invited to try out for a Sniping unit for the Marines, where Sgt. Sykes (Jamie Foxx) is not only the trainer, but the leader in combat too.

Regardless, he makes it to the final cut of 8 people, and even gets to be a shooter. Because yeah, unluckily, 4 of the 8 just get to be spotters. Like his new partner, Troy (Peter Sarsgaard). Then eventually off to combat! Hooray!

Or not. They then get to live out in the desert. Bored. Very bored. Trying to become accustomed to the new environment, but also boredom. Due to alcohol and changing of the duties, a fire breaks out and Swofford is demoted all the way back down to Private. Where the boredom remains, but the daily jobs are worse. The only thing for them to do is masturbate, which they make that pretty clear. But hey, even more eventually, they get to go to combat! Or at least get to go through the desert and be mobile.

One of the members, Fowler (Evan Jones) seems to be increasingly losing his sanity, having a more and more extreme sense of humor. Everywhere they go seems to be in the path of destruction that the airforce has already cleared, tons of burned Iraqi vehicles and people. Once they reach the Oil fields, the oil spurting up from the ground literally rains down on them (and eventually, is a constant jet of fire going into the air).

But when they get into a territory with the enemy in sight, will the finally be able to pull the trigger and prove their worth to the Marines?

My normal suspense method leaves very little suspense.

I should note that that picture above scares the crap out of me. Oil raining from the sky, caking the desert, (where they are digging holes in order to sleep in) while also different spewing oil areas are on a constant state of fire. That shit was real, and lasted for up to 10 months in 1991 Kuwait. Holy shit. It’d be the closest thing to Hell on earth, and I never heard of it before this movie.

During the first half, there was a lot more comedy than I would have expected in a “modern” war movie, but people do comedic things when faced with isolation and boredom. There isn’t a lot of open firing in this movie against any ‘bad guys’. The real enemy in this situation is just keeping sane and keeping your friends sane. Which in itself seems crazy!

Although the soldiers did exhibit their own personality, I didn’t even see Jake Gyllenhaal as Jake Gyllenhaal for most of the movie, just saw him as a real soldier. True for all the actors, EVEN Jamie Foxx (somehow).

I thought the acting and plot was good, and it was definitely heart wrenching in all the right places. The scenery was probably spot on, and vivid enough to make the viewer get irritated by the conditions we’d endure if we were there.