Men In Black 3 (2012)

Back in 1997, I was at the movies a lot. And while there were a fair share of awesome movies released that year, there was just as much garbage piled in the corner under a blanket in the hopes that nobody would notice it, but the fetid odor of death and decay was far too powerful and overwhelming to forget or ignore. One remembers fondly movies such as "Air Force One," "Liar Liar," the only good "Austin Powers" movies, "The Devil's Advocate" and "The Fifth Element" as among some of the best movies of 1997. But there is no forgetting or forgiving that 1997 also gave us "Speed 2: Cruise Control," "Volcano," "Dante's Peak," "Spawn," "Anaconda," "Tomorrow Never Dies" and "Alien: Resurrection."

Then of course, there's that other film that we do not speak of. That little chunk of pure, unadulterated molten evil that must have been chipped from the slimy, scaly hide of Cthulhu himself: "Batman & Robin." Yeah, that was 1997 too.

Someone needs to suffer for this...

And I went to the movies to see that piece of crap. After all, how could my 15 year old self have known what kind of horrors awaited him? I was an innocent child undeserving of such torture. Looking back, I should have called Child Protective Services on Joel Schumacher.

There was something special that happened during the screening of that film, however. About an hour into the film, I think right when Poison Ivy met Mr. Freeze for the first time, the film broke. You know when you see that effect replicated and it looks like the screen is melting? Yeah, that's totally what happened. And I have never been more relieved. Those technical issues possibly saved my life, because I was seriously contemplating eating my own tongue until the film mercifully put itself out of our misery. And as a bonus, the manager came into the theater to apologize, thank us for choosing wherever it was that we were, and gave us a free pass for another film.

Anyways, the point I'm trying to make is that "Batman & Robin" sucked so hard that it destroyed the film stock it was printed on, which allowed me to see the first "Men In Black" for free.

It was a good trade.

"Men In Black" was one of those special "out of nowhere" movies that was pretty impossible not to love. Nobody really saw this thing coming, and it's difficult to compare it to anything that came before. I think the closest thing to compare it to is "Ghostbusters," but even as funny as it was, "Ghostbusters" never approached the zaniness that "Men In Black" did. It's almost to the point where "Men In Black" is difficult to categorize. Is it a comedy or an action flick? Few films can walk the line between the two the way that "Men In Black" did.

Now, the sequel, "Men In Black II" is pretty widely regarded as a massive disappointment. I can't really comment on that because I honestly have little to no memory of it. All I remember is Patrick Warburton was in the beginning, K comes out of retirement, Linda Fiorentino is suspiciously absent, and the really cheesy line "You're not sad because it rains, baby. It rains because you're sad." That's really all I remember.

Now we come to "Men In Black III," and I have to say that while I was very excited to see it, I was not really sure of what to expect. The general impression that I got from the trailers was that A) Josh Brolin does a SCARY good Tommy Lee Jones impression, B) It's good to see Will Smith being funny again, and C) This could either be really, really good or stupendously bad. But the affection I have for the first movie raised my hopes to the point that I was anticipating something at the very least fairly decent.

I love having my expectations exceeded. "Men In Black III" was awesome.

You know, not many people can pull this look off...

It's difficult to explain exactly why this movie works, but what it really boils down to in the end is entertainment. It's just a lot of fun. It's not too overly silly, it's not too overly serious, it has dramatic moments while maintaining a light tone, and it's a great example of how to make a movie that's fun. So often a movie will fail when trying to find a balance between drama and comedy, and go too far one way, or they equate humor with being stupid, prime examples of both can be found in the "Transformers" franchise.

The characters in "Men In Black" are not stupid. They're not clowns doing pratfalls or annoying jackasses. You actually like these characters, which is something that is shockingly sparse in a lot of comedies. I mean, put Will Smith's Agent J against Shia LaBeouf in "Transformers." You can not tell me that Shia even approaches the same hemisphere in terms of likability. True, some of that may be because Will Smith actually possess talent, but looking at it from a character perspective, who would you rather follow through a series of films?

::Insert "South Park" joke here::

I don't mean to rip on "Transformers" (Ok, that's a lie. I tear apart that piece of trash at every opportunity) but I simply use it as an example of why a movie can work based on characters alone. "Men In Black III" could stand on the likability of the characters, even if it didn't have a fun, exciting story to go along with it.

I mentioned missing funny Will Smith earlier, and I was very entertained by his return to the "not serious." I think we forget sometimes how incredibly funny this guy can be to watch, and I soaked up this performance he gave like a sponge. He is so damn funny without really trying that hard, which is a big difference between him and some other comedians. With Will Ferrell, you can tell he's trying. Seth Rogan is trying and failing hard. Vince Vaughn is trying OH SO HARD but he's still just that jackass next door who won't shut the hell up.

Will Smith is so smooth that the comedy almost seems like an accident. I think that's what they call "naturalistic" in the biz.

"Ya'll are laughing. Did I say something funny? I'm like this all the time, see, so I can't really even tell anymore."

The story was the big thing that I was a little iffy on. Whenever "time travel" is brought up in a plot synopses I get a little worried, and understandably so. I mean, for every "Back To The Future" or "Star Trek: First Contact" there's a "Time Cop" and "Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home." I know, I know, "The Voyage Home" is considered one of the good Trek movies, but I could never get behind William Shatner breaking into Sea World.

The time travel aspect in "Men In Black III" is handled more in the tradition of "Back To The Future" than it is "The Terminator," although there are elements of both "styles" of time travel - those being of the thought that the future is either changeable or a self-fulfilling prophecy, depending on the movie. J certainly can and does change events in the past, however, on some occasions it drifts towards the "you've done this because you did it already" head-splitting conundrums of time travel more in keeping with a rigid timeline. But these are fairly rare, and it generally stays more lenient with rules.

From an acting standpoint, Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones are effectively the same characters they were before, and the actors grasp of the characters has not diminished in quality. The biggest difference is that Tommy Lee Jones' Agent K is given a bit more depth, so to speak. That's difficult to quantify, however, given the fact that his personality is still an impenetrable shell. What was interesting though was to see what Josh Brolin did with Agent K.

Josh Brolin, as I mentioned before, does a fantastic Tommy Lee Jones impression, catching his voice, nuances and mannerisms to the point where it's almost creepy. But this is a younger version of K, and while you can see the man he will become, he's not quite there yet. And if anything, this is a more open and reasonably accessible version of K, although that isn't saying much at all since K still answers most questions in under 5 words and small talk is an utterly foreign concept worthy only of a stern, almost irritated look. But he's not as cold as the older K is, and the reason for that is a driving force of the movie.

The entire climax of the movie has to do with the question that Agent J asks the older K several times - "What happened to make you like this, man?"

This brings us to the ending. The ending of "Men In Black III" caught me completely off guard. Not going into spoilers here, but suffice to say that there is a twist at the end of this movie that was really unexpected. It was cool, shocking, and offers a whole new way to look at the entire series up to this point.

And I still don't know if I like it or not.

When we find out what actually happened to K, while it does shed new light on character motivations and personalities, I'm not sure if it works when viewed with the other two films. Granted, I haven't seen the other two films in a very long time, but looking back, I'm not sure how well the twist ties in with everything. In fact, I would not be surprised to find more than a few occasions where it would make no sense whatsoever, especially in the first film.

Also, it seems to me that while the event that happens to K would indeed be a life changing event, I'm not really buying it as the reason he becomes very cold and prickly. If anything, I would think that it would make him more gentle, all things considered. But that's just me.

And if there were one other thing I would have changed, I would have liked to know a little bit more about the bad guy, Boris The Animal since he's basically just an anonymous killer alien and nothing much more than that. Especially since he's played by Germaine Clement! Now, he's basically unrecognizable under the costume, but still, that's pretty cool. Makes me wonder if he has any hip-hop alter-egos. Maybe Girapffe.

"You're the most beautiful alien (in the room)"

Oh, and also...don't give Will Arnett just 30 seconds of screen time. That's not cool.

THE BOTTOM LINE - "Men In Black III" is a great big ball of fun. While it may not be as good as the first, it is miles ahead of the second. Filled with great performances and a lot of laugh out loud moments. If only all summer blockbusters could be this entertaining. Highly Recommended.

Chernobyl Diaries (2012)

Why is that every time I see one good genre film, the next one of them I see is crap? I don't suppose it's too big of a surprise with "Chernobyl Diaries," but just once I would like to get some kind of streak going. It's a tough gig being a movie buff sometimes.

Based on the trailer for "Chernobyl Diaries" I had the feeling that this would not be very good, not only because this kind of movie has been done to death, but also because I just could not get my head around visiting Chernobyl. I mean, that seems like a really REALLY bad idea, even if there weren't mutants or zombies or monsters or cannibals or science experiments or whatever the hell they were supposed to be.

And, unsurprisingly, since I am unfortunately cursed with good insight, I was correct. It wasn't very good. However, two things I did find surprising. The first was that the characters did not die in the order I expected them to, and the second was that it doesn't start bad. It just starts halfway interesting and coasts downhill from there until the end credits come to smack you in the face as you're gnashing your teeth to powder at the absurdly bad ending.

This "starting halfway interesting" thing came from the one thing the movie did reasonably well, which was the buildup of tension. The buildup to actually getting to the city is handled pretty well, with very little in the way of music, and enough vague foreshadowing to hint at the danger ahead. It isn't a terrible way to begin a horror film, and works pretty effectively. That is, up to a certain point. 

The problem is that this slow burn technique takes what seems like the first 45 minutes of the movie. This slow beginning can work on occasion, but "Chernobyl Diaries" takes about 20 minutes too long to get ball rolling. It crosses a line between ominous and boring.

There comes a point in the film, I think probably about the sixth time they go into a creepy abandoned building which looks exactly the same as every other building we've seen, the movie hits a critical mass when you just have to say "Just get to the monsters, already. We know they're there." This is because walking around the abandoned city, while admittedly creepy, wears out its welcome pretty quickly. It gets boring, and had they either given us something besides empty streets or gotten to the monster quicker, it may have worked a bit better.

But any accumulated tension starts drifting away gradually as the group continues going on a half-assed tour of Chernobyl as led by The Heavy from Team Fortress 2. What it all boils down to is little more than -

"Here. Dis buildingk iz obandoned. Is wery zscary, no?"


"Oh man, that's messed up, dude."


"Look. Here iz anooder buildingk. Iz alzo obandoned. Wery zscary, alzo."


"This is SO creepy."

"Shouldn't we be concerned about all the radiation?"


"Radiation iz no problems. Iz good for you. You listen to Sergei."

This goes on for like 35 minutes.

 "Later I get you all cheap prostitute, eh? Iz best in all Chernobyl. You trust Sergei."

It's like, "I know what you THINK you're doing, movie...but you're giving yourself far too much credit. You're not that scary."

Once things actually start happening, the movie starts on an upswing, but it doesn't last too long. A rather well done scene that involves the group trapped in the van while feral dogs are attacking is pretty well handled, especially since the camera never leaves the vehicle and the whole thing is done in one shot. However, right after that "Chernobyl Diaries" circles the drain slowly as it becomes every single movie like this you've ever seen.

One could almost sing along to the cliches as they go by, one after another. One of the guys is hurt. They can't leave him, but they can't carry him, so they go off on their own to get help. It doesn't work out, and they come back. People start getting picked off one by one. Every time another person disappears, everyone else runs after them to try and find them, further lowering their chances. The group heads deeper and deeper into the lair of the monsters until there's only one person left. Finally there is the obligatory crappy uber-bleak "twist" ending with Marylin Manson being cranked over the credits.

That'll be $10.00.

It's not that it's especially poorly done, but I for one just can't find the rationalization for making a movie like this. It's just so stock. Who would write this? I want to know at what point the writer said to themselves, "You know, this premise has been done roughly 17,739 times before, and none of them have ever been particular good, but I think there's something special about THIS one."

I also find it hard to sympathize with characters who are stupid. Riddle me this, everybody: What do you do when someone with a broken leg needs to be transported?

"Chernobyl Diaries" understands that when someone has a broken leg, it's physically impossible for them to be moved. After all, the only way someone can move from one location to the other is to walk under their own power. And despite the fact that there are 5 other people there and a veritable gold mine of scrap materials around, making something to help transport the injured person is simply not a viable option.

And of course, us in the real world would say "MAKE A F@#KING STRETCHER YOU ASS CLOWNS!!!!!!!

Pictured above - That awkward moment when you realize you're all stupid.

Before wrapping up with this forgettable piece of trash, there is one moment from "Chernobyl Diaries" that I will actually remember more than 2 days from now, but not for good reasons. The reason I will remember this is because it's one of the dumbest things I've ever seen in a horror movie. So much so that it was hysterical.

Allow me to set the scene for you: It's the dead of night. The last 4 survivors are running for their lives through the ruins of a long deserted city. Killer mutants are chasing them, picking them off one by one, taking them back to their lair and eating them. They stop beside a staircase leading down below the streets to catch their breath. Over gasps and panting, there are various things being said like "Did you see that?!" and "I think we lost them."

Suddenly, one of the characters gasps "What's THAT?!" as the camera WHIPS around to show, standing about 30 feet in front of them...

A little girl is standing perfectly still with her back turned to them. Not. Moving. A muscle.

The characters mumble "Oh my god..." and "It's a girl" and "Are you ok?" and start walking towards her...very...very...VERY slowly. At no point does she move. As they approach her, the character who was dumb enough to sit right at the mouth of the scary staircase gets picked off, although the others run after her in an attempt to save her, which only gets them more boned. Oh, and the little girl? DISAPPEARS. Never seen again.

Are you serious with this crap? Are we really doing this? THIS?! Is this stupid movie ripping off a haunted house cliche with the little girl standing rock still for no other reason that it's supposedly scary? Why? What sense does that make? The town isn't haunted, it's infested with killer mutants.

Where did the little girl come from? Is she a mutant? They didn't seem that intelligent to do anything other than run screaming towards its food and try to eat it. Why would one of them just stand there with her back turned? That makes no sense. And if it was a mutant, why was it wearing a dress? The other mutants were naked. Why was its hair reasonably well done? Do the mutants use combs in the ruins of Chernobyl?

And even if it was a mutant, that doesn't seem like a very effective hunting strategy. Although it was hysterical to me imagining how that plan must have gone down.

"Ok! Ok, Charlie! I've got this great idea, man! It's going to be awesome!"
"Alright Frank, what have you got?"
"So me and Ronnie are going to hide in that staircase, right? We'll wait for those tourists to run by us, and we'll hope that they'll stop there to catch their breath."
"Wait, you HOPE they will?"
"Well, we just have to be optimistic. Otherwise this whole thing is kind of screwed."
"Seems flimsy, but go on."
"Well, while me and Ronnie are hiding, Ronnie's gonna dress his little girl up in a dress we found in one of those apartments a while back."
"But Frank, we don't wear clothes. I'm not even sure my deformed body could fit in normal clothes anymore."
"Charlie, just shut up, you killjoy! What Susie's gonna do is just STAND THERE. With her back turned!"
"Why?"
"To totally freak them out, dude!"
"Frank, we've eaten 3 of their friends at this point. I don't think Susie just standing there is going to up any stakes as far as "freaking them out" goes."
"But Charlie, that's the beauty of it! When she's standing there, we'll grab another one of them! Hopefully they'll be near the stairs, otherwise they might see us coming and the whole thing will be ruined. It's all about the shock."
"Frank, if you want to shock them, why don't we all just pour out of the stairway at once and kill them. Come on dude, I'm getting hungry."
"Charlie...you're no fun, you know that? You have NO flair for drama."

THE BOTTOM LINE - "Chernobyl Diaries" is a slightly below average example of the horror genre, with some elements of the found footage genre thrown in for seasoning. Its biggest problem is that fact that we've seen this a thousand times before, and it does nothing new whatsoever except stick mutants somewhere we haven't seen mutants yet. Not worth watching unless you've never seen a movie like this in your life. Then don't watch it because there are better examples out there. Skip it.

Chronicle (2012)

I love being surprised by movies. I had not heard fantastic things about "Chronicle." I believe the term "teenage wangst" was used more than once when I overheard discussion about it. And if there's one thing I hate, it's wangst. For those of you unfamiliar with the term, allow me to clarify.

Wangst - n - a portmanteau of "whiny" and "angst." Symptoms include complaining constantly about maintaining your 4.0 GPA, your hot girlfriend not leaving you alone, and how nobody "understands you" despite having a large group of friends. Often seen among popular, good looking rich kids in film and television.

This...this crap needs to stop. If there's one thing I can't stand it's this. And it wouldn't be so bad if real life was anything like it. I mean, I was a kid. I went to high school. I don't remember anything that exciting or epic. In fact it pretty much sucked, along with college. Where were my $500,000 house parties and friends with convertibles and really tough decisions to make about which of the 10,000 super-model ladies attending the school I wanted to take to the most important event of your life, THE PROM?

Hah! Trick question! It's always the nerdy one who cleans up real nice who you go with!

 Seriously, Daphine would have just played with your heart and stomped on it...

Getting back to "Chronicle," while it does possess a handful of those issues (mostly the INSANELY elaborate and expensive house party WTF), the amount of wangst is kept at a moderately acceptable level. Not only that, but by about halfway through the film, for the most part the film has deserted it completely in favor of a riveting and engaging film that I was, admittedly, enthralled by.

The first half of the film consists of mostly high school douchbagery, sure enough, with characters talking in that very obnoxious way that screenwriters think that young people talk. Once the 3 leads get their powers, it becomes even more irritating because it basically turns into "Jackass" with super powers as the main characters, Andrew, Matt and Steve go around and basically terrorize Seattle with their new found telekinesis. And at first I was really get annoyed with the movie, although I did acknowledge that if a bunch of high school kids got super powers, this is probably exactly what they would be doing.

But then, something unexpected and wonderful happened: consequences. Andrew and the others screw up. A lot. And, although they do get off clean because nobody can prove anything, bad things happen as a result of them screwing around, and they realize that they should be more careful with their new found powers.

This effectively put an abrupt halt to the douchbagery from before, which was a relief, but it also begins the character development of the second half of the film, where Andrew and the others begin having very different ideas about what their powers mean, and how they should be used. Matt and Steve, who have always been popular, are of the opinion that their powers should be used for good. Andrew, on the other hand, who has always been an outcast and has had a much more difficult time than the others, feels that these powers make him better than human. Looking at nature, he decides he is an "apex predator," and should rightfully crush anyone who causes him trouble, which would be most everybody. Dane DeHaan, who plays Andrew, does a great job portraying a character who you both sympathize with, and despise by the end.

 "A lion does not feel guilty when it kills a gazelle."

And that's what a good superhero story needs: a good villain. And oftentimes the most interesting villains are ones that, had things happened a bit differently, could have been allies with the heroes. True evil, although it has its place in fiction, is kind of boring because it really never started anywhere. It just IS. But Andrew is not "evil," although he's doing bad things. From what you see of his life beforehand, his progression from Matt and Steve's friend to nemesis feels totally natural, and had things gone down in a different fashion than they did, I think "Chronicle" could have made a very good origin story for a new, unique series with an interesting and tragic superhero/supervillain dynamic.

From a technical standpoint, there were a few annoyances, particularly having to do with the camera. While the movie is not shot entirely in a documentary style, there are significant sections of the movie that are. A good portion are from Andrew's camera that he got to document his life, and that he carries around everywhere. It's a tad more believable than other movies like "Quarantine" or "Cloverfield" in that there are fewer instances where any sane person would have dropped the camera ages ago, but those moments still happen occasionally.

The way they get around that is that they inter-cut the handheld footage with other things like security cameras, but there is also a good amount of traditional style footage as well. This is reserved for the moments when it would either be impossible to catch all of the scene with one non-omniscient camera, or those moments when there are no cameras around.

In fact, some of the most impressive moments of the film come from those moments of security camera footage, because depending on the camera, there is (fittingly) no sound. There are a couple moments, particularly one in a hospital room, when the mute video works almost like a "reverse stinger," meaning those really loud orchestra hits that play in horror movies when something scary happens. Yeah, those annoying things. Only in this movie, it's silence instead of a loud bang. It's fascinating to me the greater impact that silence can have over that when something big happens. It lends a gravity and almost dignity to the moment that shrieking violins can't match.

So overall I was not bothered at all by the changes in perspective. Some may find that irritating that it switches, but consider the alternative where the entire climax of the scene would have been a big, scrambled mess. And that would have been a shame, because the climax of "Chronicle" is fantastic. It plays out much like a video game not unlike "inFamous" or perhaps a good "Matrix" sequel. I'm not joking when I say that I was wide-eyed and slack jawed for the entire ending fight.

If there was one thing that bugged me from a technical standpoint far more than the camera did, it would have to be the flying scenes. The rig that they had for making the actors float worked well when they were moving and flipping around and whatnot, but whenever they had to just kind of float there, it looked terrible. The actor's center of gravity seemed to be located somewhere around the back of their necks with how slouched over they looked while just "standing" there.

Looking like a cat picked up by the scruff of your neck diminishes the majesty of flight.

Lastly, the issue of "where did their powers come from?" may be really off-putting to some. To sum it up briefly, you don't know. That's about it. They find the source of the power, and when they go to see it again, it has been buried again, beyond their reach. There are no answers given to us beyond "it was this that did it to them." And of course, you never even know what "it" is.

Did this bother me? Meh. Not really. I took it as something that was mysterious, and that's all you needed to know. "Chronicle" stayed consistent enough with the powers the characters had so as not to raise any significant questions about "why this and not that," so I really didn't need to know. I think being given an answer would have raised far more questions than answers in this case, anyways.

THE BOTTOM LINE - "Chronicle" surprised me with how much I enjoyed it, particularly since I had heard fairly negative things about it. While I can't call it a superhero movie, it fits nicely in that genre. One is reminded of "Unbreakable," and it seems to me that "Chronicle" is a much more entertaining and fulfilling version of not necessarily that story, but of the notion of "realistic superhero." Recommended.

Battleship (2012)

What is it about the early 90's lately? It must be all us old farts who grew up during that time making movies about what they remember as kids. You've got your "Transformers" movies, "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles" is getting an extraterrestrial facelift (Michael Bay, please just stop doing things), the second "GI Joe" movie is coming out this summer, there are rumors of third installments for both "Ghostbusters" and "Bill & Ted." There was even the thinly veiled "Rock 'em Sock 'em Robots" movie "Real Steel." I'm waiting for them to try and make Slap Bracelets and Super Soakers into a film. But my big question is: As long we're making movies out of boardgames now, why hasn't there been a "Hungry Hungry Hippos" movie?

I mean, I can see it happening. Make it one of those killer crocodile flicks like "Rogue" or "Primevil" or maybe even "The Ghost & The Darkness." Hell, you could probably get Val Kilmer to headline it. He isn't doing anything. I don't recall ever seeing a killer hippo horror movie. They can make "Night of The Lepus" but they can't make a hippo a killer? Hippos are scary man. I read a story about how one accidentally ate a circus midget one time. The rest of the movie kind of writes itself after that.

So "Battleship." It is slightly difficult to know where to begin with this one, because on one hand, there is plenty...PLENTY that I could complain about. It would not be hard. Let's get one thing out of the way here, this is not Akira Kurasawa caliber film making. But on the other hand, I ask you, what should one reasonably expect to see when going to see a movie based on the board game "Battleship?"

D'oh! Okay, bad example.

The answer is, based on the trailers, a ridiculous amount of action with some high levels of cheese and possible camp. And you know what? That's exactly what I got. Although I could tear this movie apart bit by bit and stone by stone until all that is left is a hole in the ground, I really can't say that I feel that "Battleship" deserves it. There's just not enough terrible in the movie to make me mad enough to do it.

I had a good time.

What I found fascinating about "Battleship" was that it was basically what would happen if Michael Bay had the slightest shred of talent. Make no mistake, this could easily have been a Michael Bay movie. Hell, it practically screams it. The alien ships even kind of look like something the Transformers would ride around in. But it is free from all of the things that make Michael Bay movies so unbearably wretched. Here's a short list:

1) The comedy is kept separate from the action.
2) You can see what's going on with the action.
3) There are no brutally offensive and racist stereotypes.
4) None of the characters are annoying, shrieking jackasses.
5) It was 2 hours long (as opposed to 2 hours 45 minutes)
6) It doesn't contain over an hour of padding (see #5)
7) The camera doesn't do that annoying, dizzying "spinning around the characters thing" every 2 minutes.
8) No helicopters in slow-motion at sunrise.

*THAWUP THAWUP THAWUP THAWUP THAWUP*

I swear, if the people who made "Battleship" had made "Transformers," we might have gotten a trilogy of half-way decent films instead of the 8+ hours of putrid festering septic discharge that we received. Basically what I'm saying is that "Battleship," while silly and easily comparable to movies like "Transformers," conducts itself with far more dignity than the Michael Bay abominations.

But how did they turn a board game into a movie? Well, by alien invasion, of course. In this time of "Transformers" movies, I guess it's not enough to have big ships blasting each other to pieces with giants guns anymore. We've got to have ships that also fly and shoot stuff that isn't realistic weaponry. And I suppose since "GI Joe" and "The Avengers" already did a lot of that stuff, the makers of "Battleship" felt they should just do the alien invasion plot. You know, since that's original and whatnot.

The aliens came because we made the stupid mistake of trying to communicate with them with huge radar dishes. Naturally, they get the message and promptly say "Nice. Let's invade." So the aliens come ready to blow everything up, but for some bizarre reason, they only send a few ships. This isn't a full-out "Independence Day" level invasion here, this is more like a scouting party. After their communication ship gets destroyed during the landing, the aliens set course for the only other place on the planet they can call home: the dishes that sent the signal. And those happen to be in Hawaii. And fortunately for us, that's also where the navy is.

 Don't MAKE Rihanna act more like Michelle Rodriguez at you...

 At this point you'd think that the navy would start kicking some butt, however this is where the film takes a slightly annoying turn. The aliens throw up a defensive shield that walls them off from anything getting through it, and the navy happens to be on the other side of it. So Taylor Kitsch and Rihanna are our last hope, as the only ships inside the barrier are 3 destroyers.

What sucks about that is that while it does harken back to the game, with a small fleet and limited room, Liam Neeson is on the other side! That means that he is given essentially nothing to do for the entire film except scowl at the thought of Taylor Kitsch banging his daughter. That's a shame to waste such a great actor like that. Although truthfully I was expecting him to die in the first wave of attacks like 20 minutes into the film, so I guess it's nice that he lived.

And while I would hate to see him get blown up, I was imagining in my head Liam standing on the deck of his aircraft carrier...looking out at a the mushrooming explosion of one of his ships going up, binoculars slowly being lowered from his face as he sets his chiseled jaw, clenches his teeth a bit, and growls in his always-kind-of-there Irish accent, "You alien bastards. You sank my battleship."

That would have seriously made "Battleship" the best movie of the year. Automatically.

After the shields go up, from that point on it's really all about the action. Every once in a while it cuts back to the slightly annoying subplot of Taylor Kitsch's girlfriend, played by the not very charismatic Brooklyn Decker and an amputee solider working to stop the aliens on the mainland. It's not that it isn't good, it's just that it's predictable and honestly pretty boring after we just saw a destroyer LITERALLY get cut in half. Driving a Jeep into a power station can't really compete with that.

And in the end, like I said earlier, "Battleship" does its action very well and keeps every encounter with the aliens rather fresh and exciting. No fight is exactly like another. Probably the most different (and memorable) scene is the one we were all secretly hoping they would manage to fit in: the scene were they fire at coordinates. Oh yeah. They go there.

This is also the scene were the actor who steals the movie, Japanese legend Tadanobu Asano, really steps up to show that he is by far the most useful and interesting character in the film. Seriously. This guy blows everyone else on his side of the barrier away. He also has the funniest line in the film.

So do I wish there were more ships involved in "Battleship?" Yes. Do I wish they had used Liam more? Of course. Did the alien invasion make much sense? No. Was that fact offset by the fact one of them got shot in the face with a cannon? Oh hell yeah. So am I disappointed? Nope.

Although I always knew the aliens were keeping them hidden in the "J"s...

THE BOTTOM LINE - "Battleship" is a pretty fun time. Yeah it's loud and dumb and stupid and silly and all kinds of ridiculous and the plot makes little sense and everything else, but it's worth it to see how big, dumb and silly can be handled WELL, because I think we've forgotten what that's like. Recommended.

The Darkest Hour (2011)

Sometimes there is so much stupid packed into a movie that it's difficult to pinpoint exactly what happened to make it so bad. In much the same way that a construction worker stares thoughtfully at the collapsed building in front of him, one tries to spot mistakes and missteps along the way. Where did it all take a turn for the worst? Was it the plans? Was it the site? Was is the laborers? Was it the fact that he chose to make the support beams out of expired Kit Kat bars? Where did it all go wrong?

Such is the case with "The Darkest Hour." This film is one of those rare ones when it is difficult to comprehend how the thing even got a green light to begin with. It's just such an amazing mess that it is difficult to know where to start, but in the interest of keeping this brief, because believe me, I could rant about this for a long time, I shall simply state that there are few things worse than a bad movie being bad mostly because it has no original ideas or elements whatsoever.

It's so derivative of other films that it really has no identity of its own. The Aliens are invisible (not at all like "Predator"). They are invading because they want our resources (not at all like "Cowboys and Aliens"). Not only that, but we ourselves become resources (not at all like "War of The Worlds"). They also see us because our body signatures, which can be masked by ordinary means (not at all like "Tremors 2" or again, "Predator").

I'm also pretty sure they're ripping off "Ghostbusters," too. Those jerks.

The cast of characters is also so stock that it borders on offensive. Of course, this is on top of Emile Hirsch and the rest of them being annoying and obnoxious. And I hate to say they were all bad, because Olivia Thirlby is actually a decent actress, but she's just wasted talent here. It's sad to see her forced to do this crap. However, you can play a pretty fun drinking game with the characters. Every time a character does EXACTLY what they are supposed to do based on their cliched character idiom, take a shot. Example:

This guy.

From the moment he is introduced, we see that he is a douche (and his name is Skylar. Ugh). He is a rich dude who screws over the main characters in the beginning of the film. Let's hit play and do "THE DARKEST HOUR DRINKING GAME!" Just go ahead and call out the most cliched ways for this character to act, and when you're right, drink!

"When stuff goes down he's going to end up being a total coward."

15 minutes later - TAKE A SHOT.

"That cowardice is going to cause someone to die."

30 seconds later - TAKE A SHOT.

"Well, now they're going to end up being stuck with him."

5 minutes later - TAKE A SHOT.

"He going to complain and talk about how they're all going to die at every possible opportunity, isn't he?"

Every 2 minutes and/or every time he says "DON'T YOU GET IT?!" - TAKE A SHOT.

"He's going to find a gun at some point and do something really stupid."

TAKE A SHOT.

"Against all odds and reason, the main characters are going to try and save his dumb ass."

TAKE A SHOT.

"And as a direct consequence of his stupidity, one of the more useful characters is going to die, right?"

Oh? No shot? Ok. I was getting a little sick anyways, I'm glad there's at least one stupid cliche they didn't -

AW CRAP. They transferred that cliche over to the only character more useless than him! TAKE A SHOT.

I don't feel so good...

So yeah, "The Darkest Hour" is one big walking cliche. That's about the only significant thing about it. And while being derivative doesn't automatically make a movie bad, it needs to doing something worthwhile with it. But it's not just that the film is unoriginal, it's that it is so uninterested in doing anything that's NOT cliched that it comes off as excruciatingly boring.

And there is one last really big problem with "The Darkest Hour" that observant viewers of the trailer might have been able to spot fairly quickly: The aliens are invisible.

Well ok, that isn't entirely accurate. The have a cloaking device or some stupid thing going on. Also adding to their arsenal is their vision. I mentioned before that the film steals from both "Predator" and "Tremors 2," and it's not too far off. The aliens can see what I guess is supposed to be the electrical impulses firing through your body. However, like the movies they steal from, there is a catch. And in this movie the catch is that they can't see through glass. And yes, it plays out just as stupid as it sounds. And no, the characters never really do anything with that knowledge. And yes, the movie does forget its own rules with that ALL THE TIME.

I suppose that the whole point of making the bad guys invisible was to make it scary, because you never knew where they were (even though you kind of did). But there were too many instances when the menace of the bad guys was pretty well and truly diminished. For instance, I'm pretty sure they can't hear. Like at all. They have to be stone deaf. Either that, or they are incredibly stupid and not worthy of our fear.

One scene, in particular, fully encapsulated how dumb this movie was for me. The particular scene I am referencing has to do with two of the main characters trapped behind a car while one of the aliens comes over to check them out. Emile Hirsch, making no effort to keep his location a secret, starts screaming to the others to run. I'm thinking to myself "Good job, Chuckles, now there's no possible way they won't find and kill your annoying ass."

Nope. It moves towards them menacingly, true enough, but they slide underneath the car as it goes over the roof. And for some reason this shields them from the aliens sight...even though there is no glass covering them. Keep in mind, we are given absolutely zero other materials which are proven to block their sight. It just changes sometimes. So, despite seeing Emile Hirsch just seconds prior, the alien has a convenient flare-up of Alzheimers and just keeps on trucking, even though Emile was just yelling his head off on top of everything else. And it didn't even go after the other characters that were in plain sight beforehand.

So that leaves us with two possibilities: either the aliens are titanically stupid and not worth getting scared over, or they are deaf on top of being randomly blind.

I'm starting to think The Goonies could handle this situation, guys.

But really? Invisible bad guys? We're actually going there? How cheap are these people who made this thing? Is this "The Happening" all of a sudden? Actually, come to think of it, I WISH I was watching "The Happening" right now. That movie is a comedic masterpiece right up there with "The Room" and "Mega Shark vs. Giant Octopus." Any one of those movies has more going for it than "The Darkest Hour."


I mean, in "The Happening" we get to see the classic scene where Mark Wahlberg tries negotiating with a plastic plant. "Mega Shark vs. Giant Octopus" has a shark eating a 747. And "The Room" needs no explaining. It's "The Room." It's quite possibly the most awesomely bad movie ever made. How can anyone forget football in tuxedos or the riveting saga of the Chris-R/Denny drug scandal or whatever that thing living in Lisa's neck was? Those scenes stick with you, man. "The Darkest Hour" has nothing in it that you will remember 2 days after seeing it. And I would watch epically bad over bland and forgettable ANY DAY.

This man is more entertaining than you are, Emile Hirsch.

THE BOTTOM LINE - Terrible and derivative to the point of being insulting. Not even "so bad it's entertaining." It's just teen wanna-be thriller schlock. Skip it.

Haywire (2012)

Whenever you look at the poster of a movie and see something to the effect of "Starring Professional Athlete _____," it is seldom reason to have high expectations. A person crossing over from sports to acting is a risky venture that at best can seem gimmicky, and at worst can wind up being painful to watch. It's just hard to get excited about an athlete being in a movie.

Now, to be fair, this doesn't always end poorly. Vinnie Jones played European football. Schwarzenegger was a bodybuilder. UFC fighter "Rampage" Jackson made an awesome Mr. T. You've also got professional wrestlers like The Rock, Steve Austin and even Jessie Ventura who went on to be pretty decent actors. Plus, who could forget Andre The Giant in "The Princess Bride?" And of course there's NFL great Jim Brown of "The Dirty Dozen" fame. This isn't always a guaranteed tragedy...

Especially when you consider the incredible stew that former Oakland Raiders can get going.

...but then you've also got Michael Jorden, Hulk Hogan, John Cena, Dennis Rodman and Shaq. I don't care how many awesome action stars the sports world produces, there is no forgetting or forgiving the double whammy of "Steel" and "Kazaam." Say what you will about the rest of the bad actors the sports world has produced, at least Rowdy Roddy Piper could deliver awesomely bad one-liners. But with Shaq, you've got a guy whose film career killed the comic book movie genre for a decade. That puts a damper on the whole shebang. It's like saying The Galactic Empire was pretty decent apart from that whole Alderaan thing.

And do we even need to bring up "Shaq-Fu?"

What was I talking about again? Oh yeah. "Haywire."

Gina Carano is the athlete throwing her hand in the acting ring in this endeavor. The MMA fighter had only been in one film before, the Michael Jai White feature "Blood and Bone," although she was in "Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3" (true story). So for "Haywire," her first headlining role, they did what was either a brilliant or very stupid thing and surrounded her with a cast of some of the most amazing actors around. This my friends...is ballsy.

Think about it. You've got an untested athlete as your main role. Do you really want to put them on the screen next to Ewan McGregor, Michael Fassbender, Michael Douglas, Bill Paxton and Antonio freaking Banderas? Good gravy. If anyone is going to make a newbie look bad, it's these guys. At this point why don't they just throw in Liam Neeson, Morgen Freeman and James Earl Jones to make the bar even higher? Even co-star Channing Tatum, like him or hate him (I think he's pretty decent, actually) has a higher pedigree than Gina Carano. This is a pretty risky venture.

Imagine my surprise, then, when Gina actually managed to step up to the plate and hold her own next to the big dogs. I'm not saying that she's on the same acting level as Michael Fassbender, because it's not even close (although few are on his level), but it amazed me that she was as convincing as she was. She must have been getting some really good advice from her veteran co-stars, because the last thing she came across as was novice. She was confident and had a strong screen presence, which meant that "Haywire" was free to be what I was hoping it would be: a lot of fun.

"Best. Death. Ever."

"Haywire" is a spy movie in the same way that the "Bourne" series is. It's played on a more realistic level, so there's no super-gadgets, and the plot is always, without fail going to involve the hero getting double-crossed by their superiors. It's just the rule. If James Bond were played more "realistically" then they would need a new M each time because Bond would always have to end up killing them at the end of every movie because M would always sell Bond out. Because that wouldn't get old fast. It's actually more shocking if the spy actually has colleges that don't try to kill them.

Spy movie gripes aside, I found "Haywire" to be a very well made and entertaining film. Like I implied earlier, the plot is nothing you haven't seen before, since spy movies have such a rigid formula to their "twists and turns" that they are always laughably predictable, but it handles the story very well. Of course, the big reason most people would want to see it is to see an MMA fighter beating the snot out of A-list Hollywood actors. And that's another thing "Haywire" manages to do quite well.

The action scenes are really quite shocking with how convincing they are. They aren't as brutal as the "Bourne" series, despite those films having a PG-13 and this one having an R rating, but the hits all have a great impact to them. Every punch to the face or foot to the kneecap feels like it hurts. It looks so legit that I found myself wondering more than once if Gina Carano, who obviously did her own stunts, wasn't actually getting punched in the face. It would make sense considering her background, but still. Dang, that looked real.

 

 Ow.

Adding to the realism of the fight scenes was the fact that there really wasn't much, if any music going on during them. Any time Gina was fighting hand to hand, the only soundtrack was the hits and crashes of the actors destroying whatever room they happened to be in at the time. At first it wasn't noticeable, but eventually you do notice its absence, kind of like a void just sitting in the room with you. It doesn't detract or distract in any way, but it does add a uniqueness to the fight scenes which help them stand out from the slew of other movies that are very similar to it.

If I was going to complain about anything it would be two things. The first is that I was never fully on board with the way the exposition was handled. Basically, the first two acts of the film are a flashback of the last few days that Gina is relating to a dude whom she basically just kidnapped, I guess for the purposes of "If I don't make it back you have to tell someone what happened." Every once in a while we cut back to them in the car as the dude asks her "So then what happened?" As a plot device it works okay, but I never really saw the point of the dude she kidnaps. The movie really could have just been told chronologically.

The second thing that bugged me: the deer. That's all I'll say, but trust me when I say that your reaction will be "Well, that was random."

This thing is about to screw with you. Seriously.

THE BOTTOM LINE - I actually really liked "Haywire." I was drawn in by the cast, which contains some of my favorite actors ever, but I was pleasantly surprised with how well it all came together, something more than I was expecting considering the fact that the headlining star is an MMA fighter new to acting. It's a lot of fun. Recommended for a good solid action flick.

Death and Cremation (2010)

Have you noticed a trend lately? Yeah, I've been on a bit of a horror film kick. Not the stabby-slashy-torture kind of horror movie, since that's not my particular bag. I generally prefer the kind of horror movie that's a bit more psychological than gratuitous. Generally. I am not above seeing the occasional victim popping like a overripe tomato in a can opener...just not all the time.

I saw "Death and Cremation" on the new release wall, and was ready to pass it by when I noticed that it starred Brad Dourif, and that is always enough to get me interested. Aside from being one of those guys who nobody else recognizes by name, which makes me feel superior whenever the person I'm talking to says "who?", Brad Dourif is an amazing actor whom I am always incredibly entertained by. And it's not like he hasn't been in big stuff. Dude was only the voice of Chucky in the "Child's Play" series, Doc Cochran in the acclaimed HBO series "Deadwood" and Grima Wormtongue in "Lord of The Rings," among other trite offerings. No big deal, right?

What I like about Brad is that he is without a doubt, among the creepiest, scariest, most intimidating actors I can think of. When I imagine a textbook "scary" character, it's generally one of three people: Christopher Walken, Ian McShane, or Brad Dourif. But Chris and Ian are more funny or badass, respectively. What's awesome about Brad is that he seems to do it without really even having to try. I mean, I'm sure the dude's a nice guy, but it's almost like they just found some crazy person on a street corner trying to eat a pigeon and stuck him in front of a camera. He's naturalistic as hell. And I can see him eating a pigeon.

Just look at him. That's a pigeon eater, my friends.

"Death and Cremation" was not much of a slasher film, although it does center around a serial killer. And it also wasn't much of a "horror" movie in the terms that genre usually implies. By that I mean that there were no scares at all. And I'm not saying that there were no scares because they fell flat, I'm saying there really were no scares at all. You won't jump at anything in this movie, because there are literally no jumps. In that way, if you are going in expecting or hoping that it will trying to frighten you with loud bangs or have blood and guts by the truckload, you shall probably walk away from "Death and Cremation" thinking it was boring and maybe even pretentious at times.

What you need to do is go into it like you're watching a drama or something. "Death and Cremation" is a horror film the same way "Donnie Darko" is. It may have creepy imagery in it and a dark tone, but you would never call it scary. Or perhaps a better comparison would be "American Psycho," not in terms of plot or subject matter, but in terms of how it treats the "scary" stuff.

The thing about movies like "American Psycho" and "Death and Cremation" is that the deaths, while a huge part of the movie, really weren't the point of it. It was the lead in to the deaths. In horror movies like "Friday the 13th," the deaths were the only reason the movie was there. It existed to kill teenagers. The payoff was the gore, and the lead in was just to get you on edge for the gore. And you know what? "Friday the 13th" did that quite well, as one would expect from a movie that helped create an entire genre. That's how it rolls.

With "Death and Cremation," yeah, the murders are a huge factor, and the lead in is at the end to get you on edge for the gore, but since the film follows the murderers instead of the victims, we get a different perspective and flavor to the film. Since we are in their heads, the film becomes more of a question as to why they are doing the things they do instead of just waiting for them to do it again.

Since we are in their viewpoint, we start sympathizing with the killers instinctively. Someone who would normally be an antagonist is now a protagonist. Whether or not we are aware of it, looking at a villain from the viewpoint usually reserved for a more heroic figure can be quite unnerving. That's why I find horror movies like this and "American Psycho" to be more interesting to watch than straight up slasher flicks.

Am I making any sense whatsoever?

That being said, my thoughts on "Death and Cremation" were somewhat mixed. First, the things I liked about it. I thought Brad Dourif was as always amazing. He gives this performance that just screams that this character has about a thousand things that he wants to scream at the top of his lungs at any moment, but he keeps them locked up. The intensity boiling underneath him is almost agonizing to watch, because you have no idea what he wants to do or is capable of doing to someone at any given moment. He reminds me a bit of Jack Nicholson in "The Shining" in that regard. Talk about a string ready to snap any time. 

The other actors also do fine jobs, including Jeremy Sumpter of the "Friday Night Lights" series and the outstanding Bill Paxton feature "Frailty." Jeremy does a good job of playing a punk kid who is bullied one time too many, but it's pretty obvious he has some issues that needed working out beforehand. I'm not defending the kids who picked on him and beat the crap out of him constantly, but from Jeremy's performance, this kid was probably not too stable to begin with.

 Pro-tip: Don't beat up the kid who seems most likely to snap and cave your head in with a bowling ball.

The other big notable thing about "Death and Cremation"  was the one absolutely brutal scene when Brad kills one of his victims. There were two death scenes involving women that were very messed up, but one involving an alley just took the cake. Now, it's not that it's overly graphic, because it's not. In terms of gore, it's maybe a 4 out of 10. But in the way it's shot, the way it's executed, and the thought...the horrifying thought of what just happened to that girl's head and face...it's nauseating. It sickened me more than I think I've been affected by a movie in recent memory. The only other scenes in movies that I can remember disturbing me on such a base level was the "Lust" sin in "Se7en," the "Singin' In The Rain" bit from "A Clockwork Orange," and the scene were the shark eats Quint in "Jaws."


With scenes like that, I couldn't help continuing to think about them. And it was the thought that made it worse. I just sat back, hand to my mouth saying "Dude...dude, what the f-...oh man. That's messed up. Dude..." That's all I could bring myself to say. The other deaths were honestly pretty weak, especially compared to that. And trust me, you'll know it when you get there.

You may have read that and thought that is a reason you would never watch this film. I would actually say that scene is a point in its favor. That means the movie is doing its job.

This brings us to the problems with "Death and Cremation." Among the few gripes I had was the fact that honestly, you never really got to know Brad Dourif's character enough to get a handle on why he was doing what he was doing. Really, the only explanation given is that he had a messed up childhood and his dad beat him. I mean, that's all well and good, but is that really all you can give me for the reason that he goes out and kills anyone he deems a bully? Life tends to be more complicated than that. All we get is one little fragmented dream sequence flashback that lasts maybe 30 seconds, and that's the entire backstory for this character? Lame.

The second problem I had is that the scenes when the bullies are beating up Jeremy Sumpter range from effective to laughably staged. An extended one-take shot scene of Jeremy getting the snot kicked out of him in the bathroom is mostly made up of the bullies just faffing about and not really doing anything substantial or even very threatening to him (oh no! pouring beer on me!), yet he's squirming on the floor like they're spraying pepper spray up his nose. And then they give him a rather convincing looking punch in the face that I'm not even 100% sure wasn't real, and all I could think was "See? THAT looked good. What's up with the rest of this crap?"

And the ending? Well, that's kind of up in the air. I won't spoil it for you on the off chance you want to see it, but suffice to say it has its problems. Yet at the same time, it works when you think about it. It's not like murder is easy, you know.

 It most certainly is, my friend!

THE BOTTOM LINE - "Death and Cremation" is worth a look if you like Brad Dourif. Absolutely. If you don't know who that is, shame on you, but this could be a decent introduction. Definitely for a niche audience who like their horror a bit more on the thematic side rather than splatter-packed, but the later could enjoy it for a horror-tinged drama. And hey! It has a Baldwin in it! (It's the one who did a lot of drugs) Recommended.