Pain & Gain (2013)

So Michael Bay made a movie for $26 million, huh? That is brilliant. Absolute genius, and it needs to happen more often to more directors. Give James Cameron all his usual equipment, the best stuntmen Hollywood can find and Arnold Schwarzenegger on the condition that he can't use CGI at any point. Give him a year time limit, too, since he won't have to wait for the stuntmen to catch up with his vision. Give Spielberg 100 grand, an RV, Tom Hanks and an HD camera and send him on his way. Let's see what he does. Make Uwe Boll film a movie on a cell phone. Hell, it'd probably be a step up from his usual stuff.

It's no secret that I'm not a Michael Bay fan. I guess when I was a kid I was, but that's only because Bay's target audience is the lowest common denominator and stupid children. I think that even at that time I knew what I was watching wasn't very good, but man, when you're 15 years old "Armageddon" just speaks to you. I saw that mess in theaters twice, son. That blew my young mind. And of course "The Rock," which is arguably Bay's best film (although the only reason it's good is the cast) was a monument to my adolescence. Then he did "Transformers" and all affection for Bay was lost on me, with little chance of ever returning.

I think this was the moment when my childhood officially died.

I won't say that "Pain & Gain" has brought me back into the Michael Bay fold, so to speak, but you know something? This is good. This is a really, really, really good movie. And it's not only a testament to the actors involved, almost all of whom give award-worthy performances, not only a testament to the writers, Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely, for making a true, horrible story about true, horrible people actually hilarious, but it's also a testament to Michael Bay himself, because with "Pain & Gain" he has outed himself as a very good director when he wants to be. And yes, it pains me to say it, but it's true.

"Pain & Gain" is the "so insane it can only be true" story about a trio of lunkheaded body builders who wanted more out of life. After all, they deserve to live the American Dream. So they kidnapped a rich guy and stole all his stuff. This all led to some torture and cold-blooded murder, and saw two of them ending up on death row. They actually got away with it for a while, but that's mostly because the story was so bonkers that the Miami police didn't buy a word of it. Or they were incompetent. But it was probably a little bit of both.

Danny Lugo (Mark Wahlberg) is the ring leader of the group. He's unsatisfied with his job working as a trainer at a gym when, after attending a motivation seminar by a guy named Johnny Wu (Ken Jeong), he decides he's going to be a "doer" and not a "don'ter." That's when he develops his scheme to kidnap one of his clients, a rich guy named Victor Kershaw (Tony Shalhoub), and take all his stuff. He enlists the help of his friends Adrian (Anthony Mackie) and Paul (Dwayne Johnson), and after a few bungled attempts they nab Victor and hide him in a sex-toy factory for a month before they finally end up with all his money, after which they try to kill him. Of course, since they're idiots they can't even get that right, so Victor is left alive and seething for vengeance.

Even with $26 million, Bay still gets the "Walk away from an explosion all cool" moment.

His only problem is that the police don't believe him for various reasons and, despite dubious circumstances, all the paperwork he was forced to sign while imprisoned which handed his possessions over to Danny is technically legit. Victor hires a private investigator, Ed DuBois (Ed Harris) to get to the bottom of everything, who is the guy who eventually catches up to Danny and the others. Of course Ed is helped by the fact that Danny and the others are, once again, really stupid.

The cast is across the board fantastic. It's takes a lot of talent to make characters this unlikeable be this entertaining, and in some bizarre ways the portrayal makes them almost lovable. Naturally these are terrible people, but you can't help but love Mark Wahlberg and his bright-eyed sincerity. Almost every word out of his mouth is either a terrible idea or something dumb enough to split the Earth in half, but he says it with such innocence and such gravity that you believe that to his 'roided up core he believes every syllable of it.

Even as he's being led away to prison, he's telling the person who caught him that he should work on his quads. I love this guy.

The only person who threatens to steal Wahlberg's thunder is Dwayne Johnson. Now, everyone else was great. They were fantastic. But just in case anyone out there was not yet aware that Dwayne Johnson was a shockingly talented actor, here you go. At first he's the innocent, even dumber, born again Christian simpleton of the group, but as the movie goes on and he indulges in the decadent lifestyle he finds himself immersed in, the drugs and money and pressure and guilt start making him crack. And it doesn't take too long before he's doing more really stupid things, which cause the spiral to go down even further. Meanwhile you can see the cold panic that is setting in right under the surface of his tough guy exterior, but you get the feeling he's too stupid to understand any of it. It really is a stunning performance.

The cameraman attempted the world's most epic high five with Dwayne Johnson. These are his last recorded moments.

One thing that has always remained constant with Bay is his style. As much as I despise the vast majority of his films it can't be denied that he's got a visual thumbprint that is impossible to miss. You know from the first few frames of the film whether or not it's a Michael Bay film. And "Pain & Gain" is no different. The shaky cam, the frankly pointless bits of slow motion, the nearly fluorescent color scheme, lots of lens flares, and the upward angle low-shots and dutch angels that have come to be his trademark are all here. It looks just like "Transformers" but without robots and Shia LaBeouf's stupid face.

And while visually it does border on obnoxious, had this been a first time director I wouldn't have minded. I would have just thought it was a guy with a strong and unique visual calling card, like David Fincher or Stephen Spielberg. I think I only find it obnoxious because it reminds me of other films I despise, which is distracting. I'm sitting there laughing my fool head off at Wahlberg, but in the back of my mind I'm dreading that any moment Skids and Mudflap will show up with fried chicken, watermelon and Kool-Aide.

That brings me to my biggest complaint about "Pain & Gain" - some of the humor. This is not only a Michael Bay movie in visual style, but also on occasion crap that's not really funny. This is a tableau of all the usual testosterone infused sexism, homophobia, bigotry and misogyny present in all his works, only it's cranked up to such levels that it makes me think that it's potentially satirical. I can't really tell. If that's the case it puts a whole new light on his other works, but suggesting that perhaps his brain-dead brand of machismo is a kind of parody is probably giving him too much credit.

That's his chainsawin' shower cap.

There's no way that it's a coincidence that so much of this film is hysterical, while also containing gags that are note-for-note the kind of sophomoric idiocy that we've seen time and time again with his films. The writers are talented, after all they are the duo that wrote "Captain America" and both "Thor" films. I find it hard to believe that they would have a fat man blasting poo all over a hospital bathroom after getting an enema, a priest coming on to Dwayne Johnson, Rob Corddry thinking that Walhberg telling him to "star 69" a guy means having sex with him, or a little person showing up to threaten Wahlberg and Johnson with a bat just because, well, little people are apparently hilarious. That crap is classic Michael Bay, and we've seen it time and time before with him.

I think it's those moments of non sequitur shenanigans that have nothing to do with anything that were put in there by Bay himself. They had to be. The rest of "Pain & Gain" is clearly parody. It's a bit mean spirited and by extension stupid because the characters are stupid, but one thing it isn't is nonsensical. Those random episodes of idiocy that reek of Michael Bay are too dumb to be satire. He's just getting in the way of the talented writers. It'd be like if Seth MacFarlane had been on the writing staff of "Blazing Saddles." All of a sudden Gene Wilder and Cleavon Little would step into a recreation of the music video for Toto's "Africa," because that makes sense, and we're all supposed to laugh because "the 80's."

But just as soon as that crap is over we usually cut to something awesome like Dwayne Johnson grilling human hands, so it all kind of evens out.
 

Even with those things in there, the rest of "Pain & Gain" is honestly kind of brilliant. And I think I've figured out why I liked these characters so much and had such a good time when in another Michael Bay movie I would have hated it. The reason is because unlike Shia LaBeouf or the rest of the cast in the "Transformers" series, we are never meant to like Wahlberg and Johnson. They are terrible people, but "Pain & Gain" doesn't insult us by trying to make us root for them. We don't necessarily want bad things to happen to them because they're so entertaining in their awfulness, but if they were to get caught we'd probably say "Well, they had it coming, the idiots." The horrible things they do are easier to laugh at when we're not expected to be on their side like they're the good guys.
 
Does "Pain & Gain" make me a Michael Bay fan? Hell no. Are you high? I still think his movies are generally borderline hate-crimes against anyone with a brain-stem. But let it not be said that I'm not merciful, because I always give credit where credit is due. This is a good movie. And Michael Bay directed. True, it might be good in spite of him, but it's still good. Now if he can just get away from CGI robots and do more stuff like this, maybe I won't consider scheduling eye removal surgery whenever another one of his films comes out.

Check out the trailer for "Pain & Gain." It's a pretty good representation of what the movie is like. (Red band trailer so NSFW)

THE BOTTOM LINE - "Pain & Gain" is a bit niche based on how utterly sleazy and mean spirited it is, but if you're someone who can appreciate some dark humor than this film is an absolute blast. I'm not completely sure, but this may be my favorite Michael Bay movie. Even if you hate him as a director, I'm seriously recommending this one. Crom help me, this might make my Top 10 of 2013. Trust me, I'm as surprised as you.

Gangster Squad (2013)

I've never been a huge mark for gangster movies. Their plots tend to be a bit overly complicated for me, what with the phone book of names they require us to know, almost all of them ending in "o" or "ni," and the connections between all of them, which when charted out with lines connecting all the dots resembles something akin to a Spirograph drawing. Oddly I find the same stuff in "Lord of The Rings" easy to follow. For some reason I know that it's Gimli, son of Gloin, son of Groin, descendant of Durin, but for some reason I could not tell you why Tony Soprano wants "Big Pussy" Bonpensiero dead. I have no explanation for this.

Movies like "LA Confidential" and "The Departed" just made my head hurt trying to keep up with the plot, to the point I couldn't enjoy them. I guess I'm just a simple man when it comes to gangster movies. Stuff like "Dick Tracy" or "Scarface." Cops are good, gangsters are bad. They shoot at each other. There you go. I'm all for shades of grey and crooked cops and men on the inside and informants and whatnot, but not at the expense of knowing what's going on. I even found "The Godfather" to be slightly frustrating, as good as it was. But that's just me. I don't like olives in my martinis, and I don't like convolution in my mobster plots.

But it seems an accepted fact now that gangster movies need that ridiculous web of connections and plots within plots within schemes within rats in order to even get made. It's just something those movies are supposed to have, but I've always found that to really be annoying because when it's all said and done, the only thing we want is to see the big shoot out at the end, because that's how they all always end. That is the part everyone is there to see in the first place. To have the road to that shoot out be so twisting and turning and doubling back on itself seems pointless, plodding and bordering on pretentious.

*sigh* It's just not exciting unless I've seen 3 hours of impossible-to-follow lead-in...

"Gangster Squad" doesn't have any of that. It was fast paced with a clear and easily digestible plot, and I found it to be something of a breath of fresh air. It was streamlined to the point where there wasn't anything left of the usual annoyances I have with the genre. What's left my not be anything that someone coming into it expecting a film like "LA Confidential" would want, but that's not to say it's bad. In fact, as "dumbed down" as that person may see "Gangster Squad," I greatly preferred it to something more "cerebral," and the reason for that is because it's free of that previously mentioned pretension.

I suppose it's for that same reason that "Gangster Squad" has been thrown under the bus in terms of critical reaction. Not that any of that really matters in the long run, but the 33% that Rotten Tomatoes has this film at is nowhere near the rating it deserves. I guess it's quite telling how deeply those elements of obfuscation have been engrained into the mob movie when a fun, well acted, action packed entry is shunned simply because it lacked those elements. It's a shame.

Listen up, you critics who gave this movie crap for not being "LA Confidential." It's not "LA Confidential." They never meant it to be. Accept this and move on. Stop crying into your notepad filled to the brim with scribbles bemoaning how this movie DARED to be a fun time, stick the pencil in your eye and leave the rest of us who got the point of this movie in peace. Just go pleasure yourself over "Road to Perdition" again or something.

What? Walking away from an explosion? Zero stars.

"Gangster Squad" plays out like a slightly more serious remake of "The Untouchables." Calling it "more serious" may be something of a misnomer, since there is certainly a good amount of humor to be found within, but anyone who saw "The Untouchables" remembers how comic-booky it got. "Gangster Squad" has a similar premise, what with a seasoned cop forming an elite team to take down a powerful mob boss, but this time it's in LA instead of Chicago. And we have better actors than Kevin Costner.

While I wasn't blown away by Josh Brolin's Sgt. O'Mara, the main character, I suppose he did a passable job of squinting and looking like a jaw had grown to gigantic proportions and sprouted legs. I'm not going to complain about his performance. He did what he was supposed to do. He was a hard-ass cop who didn't play by the rules, but damn it, he got the job done! I'm surprised they didn't give him a .44 magnum.

His jawline is actually a detective. It hides its badge under O'Mara's tongue.

I found Ryan Gosling to be more entertaining to watch, even though I'm still not 100% on board with him as an actor. We'll call it 70%. He has been climbing the ladder, but he still reminds me way too much of Casey Affleck, who's rocking a 25%. At least Gosling has the ability to not mumble. He's the reluctant member of the eponymous squad who's also playing the most dangerous game out of anyone, as he's having an affair with Grace (Emma Stone), who just happens to be the "companion" of the villain, Mickey Cohen.

Speaking of him, if there was one reason to see this film, it's Sean Penn as Mickey Cohen. He's another actor I'm usually not overly fond of, but I've got to say this was a really fun performance that he gave. If you were to channel De Niro's Al Capone and Pacino's "Big Boy" Caprice, you'd be in the right ballpark in terms of how fun he is to watch. Because he's a former boxing champion, Cohen is a bit more intimidating on a physical level than most mob boss villains are, and it's rather tense seeing him bare-knuckle throw down with Josh Brolin at the end, because there's a really strong possibility that Brolin is going to get his ass handled to him in a fancy cocktail glass.

I'd like to see Gandolfini do this...

In addition to Sean Penn, two other reasons to see "Gangster Squad" are immediately brought to mind. The first is Robert Patrick as a six-shooter toting cowboy cop who seems like he wandered onto the set from another movie being filmed across the street, but they liked him so much they just rolled with it. He may be out of place, but he's still a badass and possesses the best facial hair of the film. It's glorious. Plus it's Robert Patrick. And that's awesome.

The other reason was Emma Stone. Well, Emma Stone and her legs. There are certain things that I just can't lie about. One of those things is the fact that when it comes to particular people, I am a disgusting pig. I can't lie. So here it is: Emma Stone seems to be on a mission to be the most offensively attractive person I've ever seen in my life, particularly when she's sporting the red hair. And that seductive, Becall-esque, cigarette soaked voice of hers that sounds straight out of a movie from the 40's...good lord. I have a list of body parts I would be willing to saw off myself (or anyone else for that matter) with an allen wrench if it meant that I could merely be in her presence. I don't care how creepy that sounds, I stand by it.

She's also a really good actress. There is that, too.

Seriously, that's not fair, Emma. You're killing me by being so gorgeous.

With all that said, the cast really can't do too much if the rest of what's going on around them isn't entertaining as well, but "Gangster Squad" manages to be exciting throughout, with a good amount of action beats to keep the tempo brisk and engaging, and enough surprisingly brutal violence to satiate the bloodlust of anyone watching for the carnage. And for the kind of movie this is, which is a big budget B-movie harkening back to something that Lee Marvin would be in, that doesn't seem out of place at all.

And what do you know? It's also pretty funny. Some might not like that. Of course when you have lines like "You know the drill, boys" before a guy gets killed via a drill to the face, followed by brains splattering on the wall, followed by Josh Brolin throwing hamburger meat on a grill, it should be obvious what kind of movie this is. And expectations should be adjusted properly. I'm just glad I had fun at a mobster movie for a change.

THE BOTTOM LINE - "Gangster Squad" was a lot of fun. It's exciting, it's well acted, the action is brutal, and it doesn't take itself very seriously, which adds to the humor and overall enjoyment. This is not a movie made by a people desperately trying to get an Oscar like most modern gangster films. This is a movie that remembers that those movies used to be a really fun time. Which "Gangster Squad" was. Check it out.

Man On A Ledge (2012)

It must be hard to be Sam Worthington. He's at the mercy of an insane person.

Think about it. His career has to wait for James Cameron, that anal-retentive, off-his-rocker-crazy perfectionist who takes 20 years between each movie in order for technology to catch up with his fever dream visions of making stuff that isn't real look still-not-real-but-boy-is-it-pretty-and-shiny. And Sam ain't doing jack in the meantime. The only time anyone cared about Sam Worthington was when he was in "Avatar," and it would appear that the only time anyone will care about him again is whenever Cameron makes the sequel. That's rough.

That may be a bit harsh, but come on. The biggest thing the dude's done in the 4 years since "Avatar" are the "Clash of The Titans" reboots. That is not exactly prestigious. And now we have "Man On A Ledge," which doesn't thrill and entertain so much as confirm my suspicion that Sam Worthington is trying guilt-trip James Cameron into making "Avatar 2" faster so that he can have a career.

 "Do it, Cameron! Do it or I'll jump! I swear I'll jump!"

Whatever. "Avatar 2" is still probably going to be crap, just like the first one was. Maybe this time it'll be a 4 hour long rip-off of "The Postman." Which would actually make that movie shorter, come to think of it.

I'm going to tell you straight out, for "Man On A Ledge," I'm going to spoil the crap out of this movie. I'm doing it because I don't care, and honestly, neither do you. You just don't know it yet. It's a dumb film that is under the impression that it's clever. Even with Ed Harris as the villain, which under any other circumstance would be awesome, it manages to also be boring. And the reason it's boring is because, going back to the first point, it's dumb. Although there might be something to be said about the entertainment factor of watching a train wreck.

The only way for me to try and make sense of any of this mess is to break it down into steps.

1) Businessman (Ed Harris) loses a lot of money during the economic collapse.
2) He sells his gigantic diamond to make some money to survive.
3) In an effort not to be humiliated, he frames a seemingly random cop (Sam Worthington) and says that he stole the diamond, cut it up into many pieces, and sold them.
4) Cop is convicted of this and goes to jail.
5) Cop and his brother set up this elaborate heist to break the cop out of jail and steal the diamond from the businessman, in order to prove that he didn't steal it the first time. Among other things, this plan involves the cop creating a huge distraction by standing on a ledge, and their father faking his own death and becoming a bellhop at the hotel across the street from the businessman's building. (Oddly enough, the father bit makes more sense since the only reason the ledge thing is necessary was to make a crowd cheer in order to make enough noise to cover up an explosion. If that's your plan, try harder.)
6) Absurdly, the plan actually works, up to the point where the brother and his girlfriend (two people who are not career criminals yet are pulling of "Ocean's 11" style heist-aerobics) find out that the diamond is not in the safe they thought it was in. At this point their plan is officially tits-up. Everything past this point couldn't have been planned by them.
7) The businessman, seeing that his security measures performed admirably and exactly as intended despite being penetrated, decides to take the diamond out of his super high tech safe that the thieves couldn't possibly break into and instead puts it in his pocket because...um...because...well...he's dumb.
8) The brother and his girlfriend break into the businessman's office and wait for him, since there is apparently no security leading to his office (what?), and steal the diamond off of him. Keep in mind, they did not know that he a) had another safe or b) had the diamond on him. And even if they did know that (which they couldn't) their entire plan hinges on him removing the diamond from the safe after the break-in. Which, even as flimsy plans go, is a stretch and relies on the businessman being galactically stupid.
9) In a beautify orchestrated series of hand-offs and tag team switcharoos involving their dad undercover as a bellhop, the brother manages to get the diamond into the hands of the cop.
10) Using crooked cops and a gun, the businessman gets the diamond back, making the whole switcharoo stuff pointless.
11) Using dumb luck and convenience, the cop manages to punch the businessman in the face and shows the diamond to everyone in a big crowd including the media, which apparently clears him from wrongdoing, exonerates him, and makes him a free man. They all have a drink.

And if there was any kind of sense or logic in this movie, step 12 would be that he goes to jail for stealing the diamond. Because here's the special thing about that little plan. Yes, it's true that it may clear you from that first charge when you hadn't done it. That's true. But there's still that second charge. You know, that time when you actually did do it? Yeah, you're going to jail for that. You are so sued. That would be some kind of record, wouldn't it? Going to jail for doing a crime you did to prove you hadn't done the exact same crime before?

He should write a book called "If I Stole The Diamond."

I mean, look at all the things he could be arrested for, which he absolutely 100% did do. There's escaping from jail, assaulting two police officers, creating a public disturbance, being an accessory to a robbery, assaulting a SWAT team member, assaulting the businessman, and destruction of public and private property which would probably factor in the hundreds of thousands of dollars of damage, if not millions of dollars. And let's not forget that he and his brother made, planted and detonated explosives on the roof of a building in New York City, which I'm sure would get him prosecuted under some kind of anti-terrorism act. This dude is going up the creek for sure.

But no, it's a movie, so proving that you were the victim once automatically clears you from any wrong-doing you do later. I like to call that the "Lisbeth Salander Defense." And it bugs the crap out of me every time it happens. Even when it's emotionally moving and what we'd probably like to see happen, like in "A Time To Kill."

But that just doesn't fly with me. As strong and sexy of a defense as Matty McC can give, Samuel L. Jackson totally shot Keifer Sutherland to hell, Noomi Rapace gladly tried to kill her father with an axe, and Sam Worthington did enough here to put him away for a few decades. Or at least as long as they put away weed dealers. Which is about the same, since justice is awesome like that.

"Come on, honey. Let's commit some crimes to prove our innocence."

But more to the point, there's some other utterly perplexing stuff going on here. Go back and look at #2. The businessman sold the diamond. That's how he got the money to keep him afloat during hard times. I don't think I'm misremembering anything with that, because they even say during one of the conspiratorial exposition scenes something like "Out of nowhere he gets $40 million. He's back on top." So that would imply that he sold it. Besides, if he didn't, why would he hide it? And what was the $40 million from if not the diamond? So that brings up a very important question that I don't remember the movie ever answering: How does he have the diamond in his safe if he sold it?

Perhaps he bought it back from whoever he sold it to, but I can't recall that ever being mentioned. And yes, it's true that I was kind of bored by "Man On A Ledge," but I wasn't bored to the point of missing out on a plot point like that. My lone vodka and tonic isn't going to make me miss it. I just think they either didn't think it was important enough to mention, or they just plain screwed up. I'll let you speculate, but you can go ahead and guess which scenario I find more likely.

"I have money. Don't ask questions."

There are two ways to go about looking at a movie like "Man On A Ledge." The first way of looking at it, and I think this is the manner in which both the filmmakers want you to watch it and the way the average movie goer actually does watch it, is that it's just a movie and we should all just let it roll over us and not worry about silly things like plot and making sense and all those trivial things that I get called pretentious for pointing out.

The second way to look at a movie is that yes, it does matter if a movie makes sense in its own universe. I'm not saying that every movie needs to have both feet firmly planted on the ground. I loved "Machete" for crap's sake, and that movie had its feet so far off the ground it could be hired to do repairs on low-orbiting satellites. I'm not saying a movie can't be fun or ridiculous or not worry about trivial stuff in the plot.

But a movie like "Man On A Ledge," which is obviously proud of its caper and working really hard to make a lot of pieces fit together throughout several *GOTCHA* moments can't really excuse itself by throwing its chips in with the outlandish absurdity of movies that were never meant to be taken seriously in the first place. I really believe "Man On A Ledge" wants to be totally serious.

Alright then, "Man On A Ledge." You want to be taken seriously? Then get ready to be looked at as such. You're proud of your caper? Fine. Explain to me how in the hell these seemingly average people with no mentioned training besides "breaking into nice houses back in high school" are able to pull of these heists like Ethan Freaking Hunt in "Mission: Impossible." Where did they get the gadgets? How did they get the intel on Ed Harris' high-tech vault? How are they able to even remotely pull off this insane job when Genesis Rodriguez's character, in fact all of them, are too stupid to have the foresight to realize that when you have a red-tinted flashlight, everything you're looking at is going to be tinted red, including wires you have to cut? Why did she apparently not even study the wiring diagram to know exactly which wire to cut? Instead she has to rely on Sam Worthington to coach her through it via radio, but she just ends up having to guess in the end anyway? Are you for real? Seriously, her jackass boyfriend just advices her to "Cut the reddest looking one." What a pro. Glad you planned that out. Why does the heat sensor in the vault room not pick them up when they've entered despite having taken no measures to counter it? Why does the floor sensor not set off the alarm since they're just walking around casually? Why is there a conveniently located human-sized ventilation shaft located on the ceiling precisely above the safe, leading to an easily accessible opening in the room next to it which is located ON THE GROUND?

Do I even need to bring up the question as to why she needs a flashlight when it's clearly lit in there?

This could actually be a pretty good parody of a heist movie if it weren't taking itself so seriously.

THE BOTTOM LINE - "Man On A Ledge," while not necessarily the worst made or produced film I've seen this year, is probably one of the more irritating in terms of how much more credit it gives itself than what it actually deserves. This is a dumb, dumb movie that makes no logical sense in even the simplest terms, and for a heist movie, which as a genre is one that depends on rigorous attention to detail in order to properly work, that's a big problem.

Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter (2012)

You know, I'm tired of this. I really am.

I'm so sick and tired of watching all these mediocre, unmemorable movies that are so insanely hard to talk about. Why are they hard to talk about? Well, what are you supposed to say about something that is completely and unashamedly bland? Well, besides the fact that it is completely and unashamedly bland, I mean.

The "Mona Lisa" I could talk about. "Guernica" I could talk about. Even Andy Warhol's freaking soup can could warrant discussion. What the hell am I supposed to say about a 2x4 someone dunked in beige paint? That's not even artsy in the most snooty, elitist fashion, although get enough moscato in a Fine Arts major and I'm sure they'll do their damnedest to try.

But that's what "Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter" is. It's a 2x4 dunked in beige paint. There wasn't even a brush involved to import some form of base artistry. There was only dunking. In and out, let dry, print a couple thousand copies, send to the theaters, next on the list.

"Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter" is for me, a perfect example of a movie with no soul. There is no passion behind any of it. It's just an overly flashy checklist of action movie beats which plays out more like watching a collection of videogame cutscenes. Cutscenes with really bad CGI. The kind of cutscenes you would skip upon playing the game a second time. And the worst thing about it is that even though it goes down the list of action movie beats like clockwork, at the same time it's absurdly boring.

THRILL AS HE TWIRLS HIS AXE!!! (Seriously, thrill at it. "Axe-twirling" makes up 58% of this film.)

I think the reason it's boring is because it never gets beyond the gimmick of "Wouldn't it be silly to see Abraham Lincoln fighting the undead?" I can appreciate the concept to a point, I suppose. It's taking something that normally isn't badass and making it badass because something that isn't badass becoming badass equals a form of "awesome," as decreed by Teh Intarnets. And while there may be something to that, it's really not enough to fuel an entire movie. At least if it's actually suicidal enough to take itself seriously, which this film unfortunately does.

This movie actually takes itself WAY too seriously, in fact. As opposed to embracing the ridiculous nature, which might have made it interesting or even amusing, "Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter" is about as somber and brow-furled as "300" or "Priest," two movies of similar tone and style, which fully believe that what they're talking about is no laughing matter - even though all of them are stupid. At least "300" had the decency to be filled with so much blood and gore it would take quantum mathematics to calculate. "Priest" was PG-13 and "Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter" has vampires with black blood.

Make sure that blood is sufficiently not-scary! We can't have red blood in our R. RATED. MOVIE.

What is the point of "Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter?" It attempts to weave Lincoln's life around the idea that he was actually a stalker of the undead, hunting for vengeance after his mother was killed by a vampire when he was a child. After meeting a vampire hunter, played by Dominic Cooper, he becomes a skilled and inexplicably super-powered warrior thanks to the power of the training montage.

There were a couple puzzling things to me concerning the whole process of the training to become a vampire hunter. The first was that (spoiler alert) Dominic Cooper is actually a vampire. You see, in this movie, vampires literally are physically unable to kill another vampire. So Dominic Cooper trains Lincoln to do it for him. This is actually presented as a plot twist near the back half of the film, but it seems an odd oversight that Lincoln could train for evidently 10 years to spot and destroy vampires and never suspected one single time that his teacher was one of them. You know, since he's trained to detect them. Lincoln must suck at being a vampire hunter.

Like that one time Lincoln spotted a vampire due to them not showing up in a mirror, which should have also given Dominic Cooper away since he clearly could have been spotted in the mirror as well since he was standing right next to Lincoln, and shouldn't have made a reflection, but he either did, or Lincoln never noticed it or...yeah, oops.

"My god, he's bad at this. I've been dropping hints for a decade. Oh well. It's either him or Ulysses S. Grant, and that guy's a prick."

The second thing that puzzled me was the revelation that normal, everyday people are capable of acts of super human speed and strength, as long as they are sufficiently angry/enlightened. When first told to chop a tree in half with a single blow, Lincoln is understandably unable to. That is until Dominic Cooper drops some simple Dr. Phil psychoanalysis on him. Then Lincoln is officially a superhero. Seriously, he is. One tree. One swing. Just because Lincoln realized that his mother's murder made him upset. What a revelation.

You know, this kind of reminds me of another soul-reapingly stupid plot element involving normal, everyday people suddenly being able to do physically impossible things due to having some arbitrary mental block removed akin to asking them "Well, how do you know you can't do superhuman things if you've never tried?" What was it, again?

GAH! Damn it, that WAS you wasn't it, Timur?!

That's right. Director Timur Bekmambetov also did the insufferable "Wanted," another movie that insults us with sprinkling some magical mental pixie dust on the hero and saying that *boom* now they're a badass capable of things that are impossible. I nearly put a fist through my TV when I was subjected to the concept of "bullet curving," and it still makes me mad to this day just thinking about it. Some people rage over Ewoks. I have Morgan Freeman telling me that if no one had told me that bullets fly straight, I could curve them by stupidly flailing my arms like that robot from "Lost In Space."

It's just such a lazy way to make a hero awesome. It's boring. It's stupid. It's insulting. I don't like when a movie just says "Here, accept this" for no reason other than it "looks cool." At least give me a reason that is something better than "Consider the following: Do it."

I can't tell you how mad I was when "Mythbusters" wasted half an episode on "Bullet Curving."

By the way, that whole "not physically possible" thing isn't just relegated to chopping down trees with a single swing. There's also that whole thing with "collecting all the silver in Washington D.C., melting it all down, casting bayonets and cannonballs from it, transporting it all by foot 80 miles, and distribute it to an army of 90,000 men...all in around 12 hours" thing. That's fun.

I can't really think of much more to say about it than nitpicking the things that struck me as dumb or weird. Like I said earlier, it was so bland and standard vanilla that I can really just sum it up by saying that I'm guessing there will probably only be one or two scenes or moments from the movie that you remember. And it will probably involving running across horses.

LOADING VAMPIRE.ACTION.MOVE.374b.EXE...PLEASE WAIT...

I'm going to end this entry by saying what I figured I'd be saying before I even watched "Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter" - which is that I got far more enjoyment from "Abraham Lincoln vs. Zombies." I'm dead serious. The Asylum's mockbuster was a far more heartfelt, fun, and enjoyable movie than "Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter." By far.

It was funnier, it was honestly more clever with history despite being somehow more ridiculous, it was absurdly more grounded in reality, but at the same time didn't take itself seriously which paradoxically made it far more believable. And there is also the issue of actor Benjamin Walker not being able to hold a candle to Bill Oberst Jr. in terms of playing Abraham Lincoln.

Bill Oberst Jr. didn't need vaguely defined superpowers to rock hardcore.

I'm serious when I say this, guys. The Asylum one upped Hollywood on this one. Given the director involved, I can't say I'm surprised.

THE BOTTOM LINE - "Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter" is stupid. It's stupid because it's not trying. It has no soul, no purpose, and no sense of fun nor humor. Honestly, the best thing being said about it that I can possibly imagine is "It was what I was expecting." But that's the problem: It's exactly what you expected because it came from a cookie cutter.