Movies

42 Review

/ skoce / Leave a comment

42 feels like a movie that wants to be “important” but it can’t escape the trapping of a sports movie. That is not to say it is bad, 42 is a very good film, just that it lacks the impact of something like Lincoln. It deals with the same problem, with a hundred years worth of progress in between, but 42 tells its story through the lens of sport, a situation the most can comprehend but lends itself to a simple morality, a good v bad, us v them mentality.

Of course, maybe that simple morality works in this case, since there is no simpler issue than segregation. This is not an issue with two sides. Racism is bad. It was bad in 1860, it was bad in 1940, it is bad now. The prejudice of segregation was never anything but ugly. Sometimes though, everybody needs a reminder of where we’ve come from, and this is America’s history.

42 tells the story of Jackie Robinson, specifically his first year in the Major Leagues as the league’s first African American player. At times, it feels truncated to the point of being a highlight reel, but largely it is easy to follow the arc of his, and his team’s season. What the movie really comes down to is its performances. Chadwick Boseman shows us a Jackie Robinson that is a great man with just enough justifiable anger and a tight hold on his temper. Whether it is an accurate portrayal or not, his performance is strong. Jackie is easy to root for. In what seems like the first time in forever, Harrison Ford actually acts. He steps somewhat out of his irascible old bastard persona to play Branch Rickey. He is authoritative and demanding, dictating to his teams that they will have a black player. He couches his religious zeal to do the right thing behind a façade of greed, claiming that he wants a black player to sell tickets to black people, when really he thinks ending segregation is just the right thing to do.

Outside the two stars, the rest of the acting is likewise good. That helps it get through some rough transitions in the script. 42 is s good movie, significantly more weighty than the usual popcorn affair. However, it is not quite on the level it aspires to be.

GI Joe Retaliation is More Awesome than Could Reasonably Have Been Expected

/ skoce / 1 Comment

gi-joe-retaliation-poster-snake-eyes-403x600

By any reasonable measure, GI Joe Retaliation is a bad movie. Plot inconsistencies abound, characters (I use the term loosely) change accents and motivations from scene to scene and the dialogue ranges from inane to idiotic. Despite, or even due to its stupidity, GI Joe 2 is a supremely entertaining movie. It is carried by coherent, entertaining action scenes and the sheer idiotic audacity of its plot.

Picking up exactly one thread from the previous movie, GI Joe 2 starts with Zartan impersonating the President. Despite posing as the President from precisely the same time as they were captured, he doesn’t know where Cobra Commander and Destro are being held. After torturing the President to get this information, he then frames the Joes for trying to steal a nuclear warhead, and uses his new strike team “Cobra” to take them out. No one finds anything strange about this. SO to be clear, this movie starts with Cobra in the White House and then it gets worse for the Joes. Pretty soon, there are only a handful of Joes still active. Those few must work from the shadows to stop the fiendish Cobra plot that is somehow worse than actually taking control of the USA. Somehow, the plot they’ve crafted uses “Cobra takes over US” as a step one and ramps up from there.

The clear highlight of the film is the ninja battle that takes place at a temple jutting from the side of a mountain. The scene is about 10 minutes long, contains no dialogue and features increasingly awesome rappelling ninja fights that culminates with Snake Eyes outrunning an avalanche. It starts with the requisite Snake Eyes and Storm Shadow fight, with Snake’s goal being to capture, not kill his opponent. Once he is captured, the goal becomes to escape the mountainside temple, against a force of dozens of anonymous red ninjas. It is exquisite.

The performances are all over the place, with Ray Park’s pantomime as Snake Eyes, Dwayne Johnson’s steady earnestness, Firefly seemingly unsure of his accent from line to line let alone scene to scene, and Bruce Willis owing postage for a performance as mailed in as his is.

GI Joe Retaliation is perfect in its stupidity. The inarguable fact that it is dumb quickly ceases to be a flaw and becomes instead a challenge. Each act of stupidity must be trumped by an even more idiotic act. And somehow they managed to keep upping the ante. The absurdity continues to rise until it hits critical mass near the end. Honestly, I loved every second of it.

Summer Movies of 2013

/ skoce / Leave a comment

So last week I saw GI Joe Retaliation (relatively gushing review forthcoming) and tomorrow I plan to go see 42 and weekly trips to the cinema means that the summer movie season is upon us. The “summer” movie season lasting, of course, from the middle of spring until well into fall. So it is time for me to troll through IMDB.com’s list of upcoming movies to see what movies look to be worth watching in the coming months, as well as some that look really bad. I will likely only see a fraction of those I list as interesting, due to constraints of time and money and living in the ass end of nowhere with only a tiny movie theater in reasonable driving distance. So what looks good to me? How about:

April

Oblivion: I don’t know much about it, but I generally like Tom Cruise and look at Morgan Freeman’s glasses in the previews. This one is not high on my priority list of movies to see, but it does look at least interesting.

Pain and Gain: My love for Mark Wahlberg and especially The Rock is only weighed down by how terrible every Michael Bay movie is. Since this doesn’t look to be an effects heavy turd like the Transformers movies it might be watchable. It is just hard for me to ignore so many actors I like in the same movie. I mean, they’ve got Tony Shalhoub.

May

Iron Man 3: I am a little less in love with Iron Man than everyone else seems to be, but the first two were both good and if the sequel ups the crazy, which it looks to do, this should be supremely entertaining. Robert Downey Jr is pretty much perfect as Stark, so it should be worth it just for him alone.

The Great Gatsby: Gatsby is one of the greatest American novels and Leo Dicaprio is always worth watching. Still, this looks gaudy in an awful sort of way. Even if it isn’t good, I am sure it will be interesting.

Star Trek: Into Darkness: I am not the biggest Trek fan, though I did like Next Generation as a kid and enjoyed the first of the reboot Trek. Abrams is usually good (Super 8 is one of my favorite movies) and I see no reason to not be excited for this.

Fast & Furious 6: I was sold by the trailer than ran in front of GI Joe. This movie looks stupid crazy. There is no way it can be actually good, but it will surely be awesome, which is really the point of this sort of thing. Count me a probably in. Plus, I love The Rock.

The Hangover Part III: No. Just no.

June

After Earth: On one hand, Will Smith. On the other M Night Shyamalan. Somebody else needs to see this first, and then tell me if it is any good.

Much Ado About Nothing: Shakespeare by way of Joss Whedon. This I have to see. Much Ado is one of the few of the Bards comedies that I haven’t read, so I might try to get on that before I see this version

Man of Steel: I love Superman. He is one of my favorite characters in fiction. Still, this movie alternates from looking great to scaring the crap out of me. I’ll be there opening day, and if it is as go as it should be maybe a time or two more.

Monsters University: Pixar. I’m there. Also, a sequel to one of my favorite Pixar movies, so I’m double there.

World War Z: Other people seem excited by this, I am no more that slightly intrigued. I like Pitt, but zombies don’t do anything for me. Hopefully this isn’t popular enough that I have to actually make a point to avoid it, like the Walking Dead.

White House Down: Roland Emmerich is a slightly more watchable Bay, and his movies tend to be the dumbest. Still, sometimes the dumbest is what a summer afternoon calls for, so let’s put this one at the bottom of the list of my interest.

Byzantium: This sounds interesting. Likely not playing near me, but interesting nonetheless.

July

The Lone Ranger: What the hell? I’ll admit to being a big fan of the first Pirates movie, then liking them significantly less with each installment. This looks dumb and borderline offensive. Still, sometimes train wrecks are entertaining.

Pacific Rim: Now we’re back on track. Idris Elba, giant robots and giant aliens. I hope to be amazed.

Grown Ups 2: Grown Ups was one of the least bad Sandler movies in the last decade, but it was hardly calling for a sequel. Even with the dearth of comedies I’m seeing, the odds of me seeing this are slim to none. While I loved Billy Madison and Happy Gilmore as a kid, I think I’ve outgrown Sandler.

Red 2: One can only hope the once dependable Bruce Willis actually bothered to show up for this, after his worthless appearance in GI Joe Retaliation. Still, the first Red was highly enjoyable.

The Wolverine: Hugh Jackman will kill all of the ninjas. I hope this is as good as a solo Wolverine movie should be, but I am wary. Still, I have always enjoyed Jackman as the character even when the movie itself isn’t any good.

August

300: Rise of an Empire: Does anything more need to be said about 300? It was kind of the complete story right there. Maybe this will be as visually interesting as the first movie, but I doubt it will be as good.

2Guns: Mark Wahlberg and Denzel Washington star in what sounds like a by the numbers crime thriller. Still, with those two as leads it should be entertaining.

Elysium: This looks like the year for Sci-fi movies, and this one looks very interesting.

Planes: Good God, why?

Kick Ass 2: The first person to try to tell how great this movie is will likely get popped in the jaw. Fuck you and everyone who likes this shit.

The World’s End: I am going to go out on a very sturdy limb here and say that this will be the best movie of the year. Because Shaun of the Dead almost tricked me into not hating zombies and Hot Fuzz is one of my five favorite movies. Pegg and Frost were entertaining without Wright in Paul and Wright directed the terrific Scott Pilgrim. I am almost giddy with excitement over this one.

That is what looks good or interesting to me on IMDBs coming soon page. Did I miss anything? Please, if there are any movies worth seeing that I left out leave me a comment. I always hate when I watch something on Netflix and wonder how I missed it in theaters. I think I’ve got just about everything worth paying attention to this summer, but I might have overlooked something due to lack of immediately recognizable names. Please, though, don’t try to sell me any horror movies. I have no interest in them.

The Hobbit Review

/ skoce / 1 Comment

I’m about a month late, but I did see the Hobbit at a midnight release. Then I saw it two more times that week. I like the Hobbit. A lot. It is basically everything I want to see in an adventure movie. Director Peter Jackson did change some things to bring it more in line with his Lord of the Rings movies, but they stayed true to the heart of the book and deftly portrayed all the memorable characters and scenes from the first half of the book. The Hobbit surpasses even its predecessors in transporting viewers to another world.

One part where the movie definitely shines is in the acting. The returning players: Christopher Lee, Hugo Weaving, Cate Blanchett and especially Ian McKellan, all do a great job of stepping back into their roles. For the most part they aren’t given a lot to do, Gandalf excepted of course, but they effectively tie the movie to the LotR movies. Which makes the opening scene with young Frodo and old Bilbo almost completely useless. That is the biggest flaw in an already slightly too long movie, an unnecessary ten minute scene at the start. All things considered, that is a pretty slight flaw. Another actor that shines is Martin Freeman as Bilbo Baggins. He has the perfect mix of bemused facial expressions and nervous jumpiness. But underneath his unassuming exterior he shows the adaptable quick thinking that proves his worth to the rest of the group. The dwarves that make up that group kind of blend together, which is exactly how it is in the book. They all play their roles well, as ill-defined as most of them are.

The biggest change to the narrative is the addition of Azog, the white orc to play the villain for this first third of the trilogy. Once the decision was made to split the movie, it would have become obvious that the first part was short a villain. By making the orc a greater presence, it makes for a stronger film than the episodic book would have. One thing kept perfectly was the near incompetence of most of those dwarves. In the book they ran from one capture to another and they do the same here. Sure, Thorin, Kili, Fili and Dwalin are made more competent warriors, but most of the fights amount to a mad scramble for survival. Plus, they kept the songs this time.

The early parts are great but the movie really shines in the final act. From the point the dwarves are captured by the goblins the movie is nearly perfect. The Goblin King is grotesque and hilarious, and the fight to escape is a roller coaster of amazing set pieces. While on their own they are powerless, with Gandalf to lead the way they manage their escape. Then there is Bilbo, lost in the caverns. His riddle game with Gollum is one of the best scenes in a movie this year. Though he became something of a joke in LotR, Gollum is terrifying here. He seems just a step away from killing Bilbo at any time. His funny conversations with himself have a more sinister edge here. It is riveting.

The Hobbit is not a perfect adaptation, nor is it a perfect movie but it is nearly as good example of both as can be found. The movie manages keep most of the majesty of the Lord of the Rings with keeping the Hobbit’s more jocular tone. There are some flaws in this delicate balance, with bloodless scenes of goblin and troll fighting weighed against some unnecessary beheadings. Still, the Hobbit is definitely a must see movie and I eagerly await the next one.

Go See Lincoln!

/ skoce / 1 Comment

Steven Spielberg’s Lincoln is a powerful movie. It is a riveting account of the final months of his life, of one of our greatest President’s struggles with Civil War, family tragedy and permanently ending the evil of slavery in America. While the dialogue is sometimes stilted, though I understand much of the dialogue to be taken from what we know was actually said, the emotion and import is real and vastly entertaining.

The greatest triumph of the movie is without doubt Daniel Day Lewis’ portrayal of Lincoln. Though I am far from an expert, it is one of the most amazing performances I’ve ever seen. If I didn’t already know who was playing him I do not think I could have guessed it. His Lincoln is as interesting a person as he is a historical figure. He is funny and irreverent, though weighed down by hard choices and numerous tragedies. You can almost see his shoulder’s sag under the great burdens he bears. But though there are no easy choices, you see the strength and care with which Lincoln makes them. It is truly an amazing performance.

The rest of the cast is also good. Tommy Lee Jones actually makes you forget he is Tommy Lee Jones playing an abolitionist congressman. Sally Field is great as Mrs. Lincoln, a woman at the end of her rope and who we know is soon to face another great tragedy. There are many more familiar, talented faces, like Joseph-Gordon Levitt as Robert Lincoln and James Spader as a vote buyer. Like all movies attempt to do, Lincoln really takes the viewer there and that is largely on the shoulders of the great cast.

The focus of the movie is on Lincoln’s attempts to get the 13th Amendment passed in the House of Representatives before the Civil War ends and the return of the Southern states make it impossible. Lincoln must weigh some less than upstanding methods needed to secure the two thirds majority needed with his desire to officially end the evil of slavery as well as attempts to broker a peace with the South. Should he meet with Southern leaders to end the war and stop the loss of life, or let is wind to its inevitable end while he eliminates the central cause of that war. There are no perfect options. It is both entertaining and illuminating.

Spielberg has brought countless classics to the big screen. (Countless = 10) Lincoln definitely belongs among his best. It is on the same level as Schindler’s List and Saving Private Ryan. I expected to like Lincoln, but it might be the best movie I’ve seen this year. The word that constantly comes to mind is powerful. Do not miss it.

The Sky is not falling

/ skoce / Leave a comment

Daniel Craig’s turn as James Bond has been widely praised, even though reactions to Quantum of Solace as a movie have been mixed. I had no opinion, because despite me being a Bond fan, until a couple of days ago I had not seen any of the recent Bond movies. There are several reasons why. The first is that the Brosnan era ended on the sourest of notes. I loved Brosnan as Bond. Sure Goldeneye was the only true classic in his run, though I will defend The World is Not Enough, but Brosnan was the best Bond since Connery; less jokey than Moore but not humorless like Dalton. Die Another Day was such a turd that it kind of killed my interest in the series. Then there was the long wait between movies, which kind of let me forget that I once liked this series. Most damning, though, was my perception of Casino Royale as a gritty reboot. I reject utterly the idea that realism is inherently better than the fantastic. Casino Royale seemed to be being sold on the fact that it was better because it was more realistic than previous Bonds. That rankled me. After watching it recently, I saw that Casino Royale was better because it was better written, acted and just flat better made than most Bond movies. After seeing Casino Royale, I felt that I needed to see Skyfall.

Casino Royale excised the detritus that had built up over 40 years of Bond. Elements that were there because they had always been there, things like Q and Moneypenny and gadgets, were gone. All that was left was Bond himself. Now that who Bond is has been reestablished, Skyfall starts to add that stuff back in ways that fit with the new tone. As a result, Skyfall feels more like a Bond movie, but it is still exceptionally made. Familiar elements return because there is now a place for them, a reason for them to exist.

Skyfall starts with a rousing action scene, with a motorcycle chase and a fight on top of a train. It is well shot and everything one could want in an opener. While it does set up the rest of the move the end though, goes for a shock that really isn’t followed up on. That is the one problem with Skyfall. There are a lot of great looking scenes and a plot that is simple enough, but the various acts don’t really flow together that well. It just short of jumps to the spot it wants to be at, and the logic getting there is sometimes spurious. Still, that doesn’t greatly harm the experience.

After a surprisingly great credit theme, in the past I really haven’t enjoyed them, Skyfall moves to Bond hunting down the person who stole the information on undercover agents while M deals with governmental questioning the usefulness of her organization in wake of losing said information. Bond goes to Shanghai for a some very entertaining spying and we meet our villain Silva, played by Javier Bardem. Silva is the best Bond villain since Sean Bean played Trevelyan in Goldeneye. Like that villain, Silva is a dark reflection of Bond, a cautionary tale of what happens when a spy goes bad. After Silva interacts with M and Bond, we get to the last part of the film. The third act, instead of more espionage, it is just a complex home invasion and shootout. It works, but it feels somewhat out of place for the climax of a Bond movie.

Skyfall is a really good action movie. It has its flaws, but they are far outnumbered by its strengths. The biggest of which is the acting. I still like Brosnan more than Craig, but Craig is a more thoughtful Bond. Judi Dench is still great as M and Javier Bardem makes Silva simultaneously pathetic and scary. Plus, there are some really great action scenes here. Skyfall is a lot of fun, like a Bond movie should be, but without losing the seriousness that has been there recently. Basically, it is all fans could ask for in a Bond movie.

Wreck is Ralph is Excellent

/ skoce / Leave a comment

Going in to Wreck it Ralph, I was expecting it to be nothing but Toy Story, but with video games. I would have been perfectly satisfied with that; Toy Story is great and even a crude facsimile would likely be worth watching. For the first fifteen or so minutes, my supposition seemed like it was correct. On top of a healthy dose of video game allusions, it set up a world for arcade games that was not unlike Toy Story’s world of for toys. After that, though, Wreck it Ralph surprised me by being its own thing and by being pretty darn excellent to boot.

First, the loads of video game references made it easy for this movie to endear itself to me. I love video games, especially old video games. By filling it with imagery from those games it drew me in. The Donkey Kong like Fix it Felix Jr looks like a really fun arcade game. The jerky, simple animation of the characters from that game was really neat. I just loved the setting of the film. However, had they been just empty video game references, I would probably not have enjoyed it as much. Fortunately, the references serve the story instead of the story serving as a vehicle for the references. That is why most of them went away after the first few minutes. The movie needed to set up the world in the arcade, and the best way to do that was with recognizable characters. It is a short hand to help viewers identify with Ralph and Felix. Ralph is like Bowser, Zangief and the Ghosts in that he is a villain, but that is the role he plays, not who he is. After we have been eased into the world of Wreck it Ralph, the familiar characters are no longer needed, so they go away. They are used just enough to make old arcade lovers happy and to set up the story, but then disappear instead of overstaying their welcome.

While the story of Wreck it Ralph is a pretty standard hero’s journey, the characters are great. Ralph and Felix are a great Mario Donkey Kong stand in pair, with believable lives and problems. Calhoun’s overwrought similes are a riot, and she is suitably out of place in all the places that aren’t her game. King Candy is (spoilers) one of the best Disney villains in a long time, both hilarious and menacing. And Vanellope is perfectly grating. She is annoying, but just the amount she is supposed to be. She annoys Ralph, and the audience so they can feel Ralph’s annoyance, but usually characters like that go overboard into unlikable little goblins. Vanellope, though, is sympathetic even before the bullying scene. The movie really soars on how strong a character Ralph is. His goal is simple but nearly universal, especially with youngsters. He wants to belong. He wants to be invited to the party, to be recognized for his talents. He isn’t really a gentle giant, because he is prone to outbursts of anger and Hulk-like smashing, but he tries to be better. Unfortunately, he is Wreck it Ralph, he wrecks things.

Wreck it Ralph is one of the best animated movies I’ve seen in years. Easily the best one since Toy Story 3. I didn’t even go into how great the candy jokes from Sugar Rush were. This movie hits like the great Pixar movies, in that it is fun for both kids and adults. It doesn’t talk down to kids or over their heads, but it still retains plenty for older viewers to enjoy. I hoped it would be good, but I didn’t really expect it to be great. Wreck it Ralph was great.

Summer Movie Review and Indiana Jones Marathon Thoughts

/ skoce / Leave a comment

While there are still some movies that I think qualify as summer movies coming in the following weeks, most notably Dredd, since I don’t really plan on going to see any of them, I decided to look over the movies I watched over the last few months. Plus, I am excited to relate my recent experience going to see the entire Indiana Jones series on IMAX yesterday. I made fewer trips to the theater this year than I did last year. There were slightly fewer films I wanted to see, but also I was just unable to see all that I wanted to. The big omissions for me were Moonrise Kingdom, which looked excellent, and the Bourne Legacy, which I thought looked interesting. So I am going to rank the movies I saw this year from worst to best.

9: Amazing Spider-Man: I really didn’t care for the new Spider-Man. It doesn’t really have anything over the previous one, and has to cart around a mediocre villain.

8: Prometheus: This film was undeniably a mess, but it was an entertaining mess. I would consider watching it again, but the only thing I would guess it has to reveal is more plot holes.

7: The Three Stooges: This was actually pretty damn entertaining. The reason it is so low on my list is that I had forgotten I had seen it until I was nearly done with this list. So it is apparently forgettable.

6: Men in Black 3: This was some light and fluffy fun. Just like the first in this series, and unlike the unwatchable mess of the second. Definitely worth seeing.

5: Expendables 2: This was a flawed movie, but it’s exuberant display of testosterone was hard to really dislike.

4: Brave: Brave is not one of Pixar’s best, but it is far from the worst. It probably falls somewhere near the middle. Still, middle of the road Pixar is still great.

3: Avengers: The Avengers was nearly the perfect culmination of the last five years or so of Marvel movies. It feels a little empty at times, but it is perfectly fun.

2: John Carter: While it may not have been a financial success, John Carter was the best science fiction movie I’ve seen in years. It gets a little muddled in the middle, but Mars felt real.

1: The Dark Knight Rises: a great conclusion to a great series of films. This movie is everything anyone could want in a superhero movie. It is really just the best.

Yeah, not only is Avengers below Batman, but it isn’t even second. It wasn’t perfect.

On to Indy. Seeing the series was a wonderful experience. I’ve of course seen the movies before, (see here1, here2, here3 and here4) but I couldn’t resist seeing them all, save Kingdom, on the big screen for the first time. An IMAX big screen. As good as the Indiana Jones movies are, they are better on the big screen. Raiders of the Lost Arc is basically the perfect adventure movie. The Last Crusade is more of a comedy, but it is just as good, and if the theater I was in is anything to go by more of a crowd pleaser. Temple of Doom is very uneven, with some genuinely great moments and as many unbearably moments of Willie Scott screaming. Kingdom of the Crystal Skull has some parts that are almost painful to watch (Tarzan) but for the most part is a solid entry in the series. At the cinema, everything seems bigger. The shadows in Raiders, the bridge in Temple, etc. Also, the bad special effects look even worse. Many think I am probably referring to Kingdom’s CGI, but that actually looks fine. Much better than nearly any effects shot in the previous three movies. I think the bad special effects are part of their charm, but the flaws that exists are even more apparent on a bigger screen. Raiders and Crusade are two of my all-time favorite movies, and I am glad I got to see them in a theater. The ticket cost 25 dollars, and it was probably the best 25 dollars I’ve ever spent.

The best movie going experience of the summer was the Indy marathon, but a wide margin. And the best new movie was The Dark Knight Rises, by an equally larger margin.

The Expendables 2

/ skoce / 1 Comment

The Expendables 2 is a dumb movie. It wears its stupidity like a badge (a badge covered in skulls and guns) as viewers take in a steady stream of one-liners and explosions. The recipe for this movie is simple, just a mix of action stars from yesterday and tomorrow combined with as many action movie clichés as possible and topped off with a healthy dose of self-awareness. The Expendables 2 is a ton of fun as long as you don’t make the mistake of taking it seriously.

The first Expendables was a marginally more serious affair, with the star cameos kept small and mostly focusing on Stallone and Statham. Even the rest of the Expendables crew only gets a couple of scenes to show off. Despite the greater number and size of the cameos in Expendables 2, there is actually more for the crew to do. For a movie as much about its star cameos as anything, Expendables 2 does a marvelous job of working them seamlessly into the film. Each of the star characters has a reason to be there and at least the ghost of reason to be so chummy with each other. The only thing is that the usual banter is replaced with joked about their old one-liners. By the time Schwarzenegger and Willis finally get in on the action it is so gleefully fun you don’t even care that they steal the scene from the real characters.

The cameos are easy to implement because the plot is so basic. A supposedly easy mission goes badly and Stallone and crew seek revenge. That is pretty much it. It is simple, but it works, except for one thing. There is never any sense that the villains poser any threat to the heroes. As fun as Van Damme chewing scenery as Vilain is, he doesn’t seem to be that much of a threat to the team. The movie does such a good job of making the team seem like badasses that they completely overshadow the bad guys.

The Expendables 2 cold opening is some of the most perfect action violence that it is amazing the rest of the movie doesn’t feel like a letdown. If you are not enjoying the movie once the title rolls, you might as well leave. The Expendables 2 is about as far from art or thought as you get, but it is a blast. It is a greatest hits album of a movie, all your favorites but nothing new. If the movie took it seriously at all it would be hard to watch, but it is in on the joke as much as the audience. The Expendables 2 is a fun bit of filler.

The Dark Knight Rises Review

/ skoce / Leave a comment

I’ve now seen The Dark Knight Rises twice and taken some time to digest it. Though it is not without its flaws, I loved it. I enjoyed it more than its predecessor, though it is a small margin. Nolan’s trilogy of Batman movies is one of the few I can think of where the ending is just as good as the buildup. The Dark Knight Rises wears its themes on its sleeve and is more than willing to sacrifice realism for the sake of thematic appropriateness. The end result is a movie that strains credulity at times, but also a film on a grander scale than any in recent memory.

When I said TDKR sacrifices realism, I mean that it kills it execution style in the opening minutes and proceeds to do terrible things to its corpse for the rest of the film. The movie starts with a crazy midair hijacking and doesn’t let up, with amazing helicopters and the biggest supervillain I’ve ever seen on the screen. It is not, however, wholly inconsistent with the rest of the series. The Batplane is only marginally more outrageous than the Battank or the motorcycle. How exactly the Joker managed his villainous feats is somewhat less justified than Bane’s takeover of the city. The Dark Knight Rises is not a realistic movie in many ways, but it does still maintain a human realism. The characters are still very real, very relatable. Bruce is headed toward the only end a realistic Batman could ever come to, and the motivations of the various villains are all human. Whatever the movie lacks in plot realism, it makes up for in character realism, resulting in a film that is both outrageous and very human.

One place TDKR shines is in its uses of the Batman mythos. There are numerous references to seminal Batman stories evident throughout, most notably to Knightfall, the story of Bane defeating Batman, and The Dark Knight Returns, Frank Miller’s much loved story of Batman coming out of retirement, among many others. Bane himself is well presented on screen, rivaling Heath Ledgers outstanding take on the Joker. Unlike the atrocious Batman and Robin’s take on the character as a muscle bound thug, TDKR’s Bane is an intelligent, charismatic muscle bound thug. Yes he sounds like Darth Vader by way of Sean Connery, but it works beautifully. He is as terrifying as the Joker was, though in a very different way. The scene where he deals with sent chills down my spine. (Do you feel in charge?) Anne Hathaway’s Catwoman was basically a perfect take on the character, the ultimate femme fatale. The returning cast is as good as always.

It lacks some of the gravitas of The Dark Knight, but a more perfect telling of the hero’s journey you won’t find in a film. Batman is figuratively killed, literally cast down into the underworld and must pull himself back up. It perfectly ties the previous two movies together. Bane’s whole motivation is tied to the plot of the first movie, with a return of the League of Shadows. Again he must turn to the advice of his father, that we fall to get up again. But also the lie that Gordon and Batman built their peace on plays a large role. They are unable to keep hiding the Joker’s greatest triumph.

The Dark Knight Rises is pure fun. It is a movie where anything can happen, and the wilder it is the more likely it is to occur. But unlike the faceless alien invasion of The Avengers, The Dark Knight Rises conflicts all tie into a central theme. It may be faulted for beating viewers over the head with them, but at least it has themes, unlike most other superhero fare. I hope tentpole movie makers look at this film and it predecessor and learn the right lessons. Not that gritty and supposedly realistic is the way to go, but that theme and structure matter. But I’ve lived too long to believe that Hollywood will ever learn the right lessons.