Star Trek

Star Trek is a movie that I had lofty expectations for but did not believe that it would reach that high a level.  Well after the disappointment that was Wolverine, getting this nice gift of a spotless summer movie reinvigorates my expectations for the rest of the summer.  Who knew it was possible to make a Star Trek movie that instead of feeling like another episode actually worked as a blockbuster.

There is a whole lot to praise about Star Trek.  All of the boxes on your summer checklist, casting, story, action, etc. can be marked.  Instead of casting lookalikes in the roles made famous 40 years ago, people were brought in would could give their own spin on these characters.  Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto, and Karl Urban were standouts as Kirk, Spock, and Bones but it was the rest of the crew that surprised me.  Going into Star Trek I was looking forward to Simon Pegg as Scotty the most.  Sadly he got the least amount of screen-time but he took advantage of every second.  Hopefully that will be rectified in the inevitable sequel.  The most amusing part of the casting was that the 2 characters who were a the bottom of the pecking order in the original series, Uhura and Chekov, were given stronger arcs then anything that appeared in the earlier movies.  All of Anton Yelchin’s scenes were great but that could just be the beauty of the thick Russian accent.  And Zoe Saldana was all over the place sometimes with minimal clothing.  I still haven’t even got to Eric Bana, Bruce Greenwood, Ben Cross, and obviously Leonard Nimoy so needlessly to say I liked this cast.

The story required absolutely zero prior knowledge while still getting all the high points of the characters right.  It somehow was able to feel like Star Trek while feeling nothing like Star Trek at the same time.  This feeling may have been completely based on the use of a Beastie Boys song …  an awesome use of a Beastie Boys song.  All of the action felt a million times better than anything done in the previous 10 films.  My favorite plot point was the slick way that they undercut any complaining about the reinvention.  It’s all about alternate realities washing away any complaints.  Abrams even threw in some Alias Rambaldi nonsense with the big red ball.   There is just too much stuff and not enough room.

This is exactly what I'm looking for when the weather turns warm.  I was hoping for something good when JJ Abrams was attached to Star Trek, but this topped even my highest expectations.  Hooray for a new summer franchise that I can look forward to every couple of years.

9 out of 10

Next Day Air

Wow, Next Day Air was that next level of crap.  I was hoping it would just be a dumb comedy but instead it was classified as a comedy only because it needed to be filed away under some genre name.  The amount of times I laughed could be counted on one hand and the rest of the running time was just gangster movie clichés that the writers saw in other better movies.

Seeing the names Mos Def, Donald Faison, and Wood Harris gave me hope that there would be something salvageable in this useless film, but that definitely was not the case.  The blatant false advertising of Mos Def as a significant part of Next Day Air offended me the most.  He had less than 10 minutes of screen time all of which were shown in the trailers.  I don’t care if a movie is bad but lying to me about Mos Def is just criminal.  Faison literally smoked weed for the entirety of his performance.  It was the dictionary definition of a one-note joke.  And, well, as for Wood Harris, he will always and forever be Avon Barksdale.  This would not happen to Avon.  The whole movie is a sham.

Outside of those disappointments, the nonstop best of gangster movie reenactments grew tiresome within five minutes of the title sequence.  Every serious conversation felt like it was paraphrased from previous movies.  This was somehow made even worse by the voiceover during the climatic showdown that was so out of place it was jarring.  I refuse to learn any lessons from movies as bad as this.

So, Next Day Air was a mistake.  Bad comedies are just painful to sit through.  There is no action to distract you or acting to impress you, it just flat joke after flat joke.  Hopefully this is the low point of the summer.

4 out of 10   

X-Men Origins: Wolverine

The biggest mistake I will make during this review is watching the vastly superior X2 while I am writing it.  Then again if I wait long enough FX will be showing the abysmal The Last Stand so maybe then I will look more fondly at X-Men Origins: Wolverine.  Sadly, the biggest sin of Wolverine was that it didn’t offend me enough to write an angry review.  It was middling in every way.

Hugh Jackman has always been great in the role of Wolverine.  Nothing changes here other than he is built like a brick shithouse and has better facial hair than in past X-Men movies.  The biggest compliment I can give this edition is that the majority of casting was on the money.  Liev Schreiber may have been the highlight of film as a less growly and more talkative Sabretooth.  Plus his fingernails were my favorite special effect, which is not saying a lot since much of this movie came off cheap looking.  10 years later and you still can’t get the claws right?  Exchanging Brian Cox for the younger Danny Huston was a nice choice for William Stryker.  It was also sweet to see that after years and years of fan casting Ryan Reynolds was picked to be Deadpool.  My final applause goes to Kevin Durand as Blob, who the hell knew that he would come off that well on screen?  Praise does not extend to Will I Am because it is Will I Am and it was ridiculous.  Also Gambit was a bit of letdown but I don’t want to place all of that on Taylor Kitsch.  Outside of Wolverine, Sabretooth, and Stryler everyone else was just an extended cameo.  

Like I mentioned earlier nothing was offensively bad, this covers even the storyline.  This was Wolverine’s origin story and they kept it close enough to the comics that I can’t get worked up about any alterations.  Now the same can’t be said for some of the random ass characters that were thrown into the Weapon X plot.  Outside of Blob (which is not that bad since he is a villain) the original squad was fine but the Cyclops and Emma Frost inclusion was stupid.  There is so many many many better stories that can be told with The White Queen and what they chose to do was just irritating.  The choices made when it comes to Deadpool I’m still on the fence about.  Every dumbass change they made can be easily explained away if they give him his own sequel.  That doesn't mean I trust Fox to get it right the next time around.

I ended up writing more than I expected about X-Men Origins: Wolverine; I guess knowing the material like the back of my hand means lots of nitpicking.  Maybe the biggest issue of them all was that in a big dumb summer action flick, the action wasn't all that good.  If the fight scenes were awesome it may have covered the flaws but we weren't that lucky.  Disappointing all around.

6 out of 10      

Crank: High Voltage

What the bloody hell was that?  I am actually happy that I saw Crank: High Voltage because if someone attempted to explain it to me I would be offended that they would blatantly lie to my face like that.  This was a truly awful movie, so awful that I will remember it for some time to come.

Honestly, there were scenes in Crank High Voltage that when I attempt to write them out I no longer believe that they occurred.  When the first scene of the movie is Jason Statham surviving being thrown out of a helicopter then having open heart surgery with people knocking ashes into his chest and spitting on his internal organs, there wasn’t much lower for it to go.  Instead they just kept digging new holes to throw this movie down.  Shotgun shoved up a guys ass (check), stripper getting shot through her breast implants with leaking fluid (check), full on cinemax level sex scene with pixilation (check), guy knifing off his own nipples (check), weird puppet version of a fight scene (check), severed head being kept alive with max headroom voice (check), and Corey Haim (check).  I want to stop thinking about this movie now.

One of the days I will figure out how Jason Statham chooses his scripts.  Because there must be some calculus formula that will explain why someone would sign on to Crank: High Voltage.  But for now all I can say is screw this movie for causing me such mental anguish.

1 out of 10

State of Play

This seems a tad bit early in the year for a flick like State of Play.  Thankfully, this was right in my wheelhouse and delivered on every possible level.  You couldn’t ask for a tighter story with an overflowing amount of solid performances.  This right here is why I love going to the theater.

These types of political intrigue movies come out by the dozen every year, so you really have to excel in order to be noticed.  State of Play was plotted to the last second and just kept you involved with the mystery until the credits rolled.  It seems like once a month I’m reading or watching a story based on Private Military Contractors.  They are definitely the new hotness.  On top of that, we got The Wire part 2 with the death of the newspaper industry.  It was all wound together into a damn near perfect story.  Getting into any more details would blow the mystery.

If getting an A+ plot wasn’t enough, the entire cast decided to step up and not get outshined by the person standing next to them.  You will never go wrong with Russell Crowe as the name on the top of the poster.  This was one of his classic performances, 30 pounds overweight, ratty hair, and just a regular guy.  He has this innate ability to just disappear into each role.  I don’t really have the space to breakdown the performance of everyone else in the cast, so let’s make this quick.  This was a fantastic non-jokey Ben Affleck role, the always impressive Helen Mirren, the first memorable dramatic performance by Rachel McAdams, scene-stealing Jason Bateman, a new favorite in Harry Lennix, drop by for Jeff Daniels, and you know applause for just about anyone else who appeared in front of the camera and spoke a line.

I would have expected such a deep political drama to be released after Thanksgiving, so State of Play was a nice surprise for the month of April.  Plus, I now have my first top 10 flick for 2009 unless I am lucky enough to get 10 more movies better than this.

9 out of 10 

Observe and Report

Hmm, slightly disappointing.  Seth Rogen is and will always be funny when on camera but there just wasn’t a strong reason for this movie to exist.  Observe and Report was just an R rated movie that went out of its way to earn it.  I’m not even sure what the point was; I think something about Seth figuring out his place in this big bad world.

My guess would be that Rogen took on Observe and Report because he got to be just about the biggest asshole he could possibly portray in an hour and a half.  In the beginning it was funny but he just kept acting crazier and crazier.  It just became annoying by about the halfway point.  Everybody else in the flick were just playing over-the-top characters so once again it was amusing to hear Michael Pena talk the first time or watch Anna Faris pull into work at the beginning of the story, but it all became tiring.  Check that, Pena should speak like this in every movie he ever appears in.

Still, I laughed in consistent intervals and got cameos by Patton Oswalt and Aziz Ansari so lets call it a wash.  Observe and Report was a forgettable comedy that never really clicked.

5 out of 10

Adventureland

Adventureland was a truly odd movie.  On one hand it was Greg Mottola’s followup to Superbad and he was mining the same coming of age vein but he was going for deep and meaningful this time, which definitely lessened the funny.  It never reached the level of Superbad but Kristen Stewart made it worthwhile.

Whenever Kristen Stewart is given material to work with she impresses me; I have no idea if that means Twilight since I haven’t been blessed by its presence yet.  Soon soon.  She provided all the weight in Adventureland.  I hope as she ages she gets better and better roles.  After Stewart, all of my praise goes to the bit players, Ryan Reynolds, Kristen Wiig, and Bill Hader.  Reynolds was able to straddle the line between cool and douchebag just right.  While Wiig and Hader were the comedic backbone of the entire movie, there is a whole film that I would pay twice to see with those characters.

The problem with Adventureland was that it was boring.  At times it was funny and at times it was touching, but at the other times it was paint drying.  There was only so much the 1987 setting could carry.  Still, it had a strong batting average so it was worthwhile.

7 out of 10 

Fast & Furious

Ah Vin Diesel … it’s been awhile.  There was a time when you provided me endless amounts of amusement.  I would not go so far as to say I want to see more Vin Diesel films but I would not be opposed to a new Fast & Furious movie every 2 years.  Now for another backtrack, I am not praising Fast & Furious so please don’t get the wrong impression.  Still, there will always be 10 plus dollars waiting for them no matter how bad the movies become.  I’m a conundrum.

It’s a freaking Fast & Furious film!  You have to know what you are getting into before the theater goes dark.  And for the fourth time they delivered fancy cars and barely clothed females for close to 2 hours.  Was there supposed to more?  YES!  Where’s Tyrese?  Where’s Romey Rome?!?!  Sure getting the original gang back together was a nice hook but you could have thrown in at least a bone to the second flick.  They threw in Han from Tokyo Drift which was nice but no one from 2 Fast?  Come on give me something, Ludacris or Devon Aoki, just a quick cameo.  Bah.  There will always be more in the franchise so they can make it right down the road.

Do I really need to breakdown the performances of Vin Diesel, Paul Walker, Jordana Brewster, and Michelle Rodriguez?  Seriously?  My disdain for Mr. Diesel is known and there was absolutely nothing here to change that opinion.  That man has one gear and he is not changing for anybody.  There were a couple scenes where he literally kept the same exact look while the movie cut back to him multiple times.  Plus, it was supposed to be a heartfelt moment and I kept thinking that the editor slipped in a still photo over and over again.  Walker is Walker and he can continue his Keanu level career.  The Rodriguez thing pissed me off just because I am a big fan of hers.  I don’t remember a single thing about Brewster so at least she didn’t piss me off.

I can’t believe I am still writing about Fast & Furious!  This is my own fault.  I have already stated that I will pay for new flicks in the franchise no matter how poor of a product they deliver.  I cannot be trusted.

5 out of 10

Watchmen

The most celebrated graphic novel of all-time, is that true?  Was this officially measured or are we just assuming that if you were to rank the level of celebration Watchmen would be the victor?  I guess that is not important because it is just nice to have a film version of such a groundbreaking work. 

I avoided rereading Watchmen before the release of the film version because I had no desire to nitpick while sitting in the theater.  Zach Snyder has made visually stunning movies in his short career so I wanted to judge his work for what it is not for what I expected it to be.  Watchmen was a slick movie with a handful of memorable scenes.  Jackie Earle Haley was able to take one of the greatest comic book characters ever, Rorschach, and bring him completely to life.  He was responsible for so many great moments, “I’m not locked in here with you, you’re locked in here with me”, “give me back my face”, his final scene, it was just an unreal performance.  Jeffrey Dean Morgan and Patrick Wilson were also fantastic as The Comedian and Nite Owl respectively.  In fact I have nothing really negative to say about the rest of the cast, well, I would have preferred a more memorable Veidt but jeez the cast of characters were deep and you can’t expect a 100% success rate.

The main knocks I have about Watchmen were the labyrinth-like storyline and length.  Look, I read the book and still felt lost a couple of times nothing serious just motivations are never all that clear when it came to the “villains”.  As for the length, it wasn’t boring but anything pushing 3 hours feels like its been 3 hours.  Yet even at the super-sized length character arcs were just left on the editing room floor.  Nothing I just wrote about are killers, just blemishes preventing another The Dark Knight.

For something deemed unfilmable, Watchmen was indeed filmable.  In fact they filmed and released it to the masses.  It was a strong effort that just missed the mark.

8 our of 10

Taken

My main problem with Taken is that I have seen this same exact movie multiple times before.  But I can’t deny that it was fun to see Liam Neeson doing the standard heartless ass kicking.  Does it make up for the fact that I could call out the scenes before they happened?  Not really, but still Liam Neeson was torturing and murdering fools!

I am not going to look a gift horse in the mouth.  If you are offering me 2 hours of Liam Neeson running around France leaving bodies in his wake, there is no reason to turn that down.  Lots of Jack Bauer style beatings, threats, torture, and killings.  That’s always a good time.  The action wasn’t groundbreaking, but it was all well done.  Sadly, Neeson was the only likable character in the entire story.  I was actively rooting against everyone else.  I wanted his daughter to be kidnapped; I wanted his ex-wife to be put through that ordeal; I wanted her friend to be killed.  Everyone was stupid and got what’s coming to them.  Who the hell lets their 17 year-old daughter trail a band through Europe without adult supervision for a summer?  How is the father in the wrong for being completely against this reckless bullshit?  As for her friend, you get what’s coming to you if you are just giving out your personal information to random dudes in foreign countries.  Still it was fun to see Xander Berkeley pop up as rich step-dad.  I miss George Mason.

Taken was a solid 24-style action movie.  Will I remember it come December?  I doubt it.  For now I don’t have strong enough objections to be negative about it.  And really who doesn’t like Liam Neeson?

7 our of 10

Push

Good lord, Dakota Fanning is a teenager and now I feel way too old.  Not only that but she was nearly single-handedly responsible for me enjoying Push.   The key word there was nearly because sadly Push was a barely a step above Jumper.  Drunk Fanning can only take you so far.

I already mentioned Jumper and the reason for that is Push is disturbingly similar to that embarrassment.  They both were dumped on the public in the dead period of Ferbruary, had stories based on people with super powers in the “real” world, gloriously ridiculous back stories, starred wooden young actors (Anakin Skywalker and The Human Torch), had Sam Jack and Djimon overacting to the limits of their ability, and were obviously created with a franchise in mind.  Don’t hold your breath on that last one.  Push gets my vote because of Dakota, better action sequences, and special effects.  I’m actually serious about praising Fanning; she had solid timing throughout the movie.  The powers, telekinesis, seeing the future, mind control, tracking, shadowing, material manipulation (or what is better known as shit you see in the X-Men) all looked good onscreen.  Except the screaming idiots, Banshee’s powers seem much cooler in a comic book.   Don't ask me to break down the story because I ain’t smart enough or I didn’t bring my bs to English translator.

I am mildly disappointed with Push.  Not that I was banking on it being my favorite film of 2009, but it looked like it had a solid upside.  But action movies are dumped in the first quarter of the year for a reason; the numbers don’t lie.

6 out of 10   

Underworld: Rise of the Lycans

It’s been 3 years, which makes it just about time for more vampires and werewolves (sorry lycans) fighting while speaking in British accents.  The only difference with Underworld: Rise of the Lycans is that Kate Beckinsale has been replaced with Rhona Mitra or to be more specific a less expensive Kate Beckinsale.  Besides that there is nothing new here.

For a substitute, Mitra does an admirable job.  With this and the equally ridiculous Doomsday from 2008, I hope she does become the next Lara Croft as has been rumored.  She is hot, has a knack for action, and speaks British; I believe those are all the requirements.  Michael Sheen and Bill Nighy collect a paycheck and overact to pass the time.  Still its fun to seem them reprise these roles even if the last thing I saw Sheen in was Frost/Nixon and now he is running around shirtless like Leonidas in 300.  It’s very confusing.  Oh yeah, if you were still losing sleep over why werewolves and lycans are warring in the Underworld universe well this does answer that crucial question.  You can now sleep easy. 

Underworld: Rise of the Lycans is just a copy of a copy.  That does mean if you enjoyed the original it’s a good chance you will enjoy a slightly lesser version of the same movie.  And really isn’t that what we are really looking for out a movies.

5 out of 10    

Notorious

So, raise your hand if you thought a biopic of Christopher Wallace would rise above straight to BET level?  Yeah that’s what I thought.  Who knew?  Is saying something is the greatest movie about hip hop damning it with faint praise?  Even if that is the case, Notorious was surprisingly good. 

Notorious never broke the mold of your basic bio flick but it was fun to see all the usual stuff but this time it was about a hip-hop artist.  Something inspires a kid, he struggles to find his voice, makes it, troubles, overcomes troubles, dies.  Biggie’s story is different only in that all of this took place in about a 3-year time frame.  Still I can’t complain when for nearly 2 hours I got to hear the Notorious B.I.G.’s greatest hits and a bunch of actors portraying Lil Kim, Lil Cease, Lil Puffy, and Lil Tupac.  The actor portraying Biggie, Jamal Woolard, did an admirable job.  I wouldn't call him a dead ringer, but he never made you laugh when he was spitting famous rhymes.  The more I think of about it, the more it becomes obvious that I was swayed by hearing some of my favorite tracks of all-time.  Still, nothing strongly negative comes to mind while writing this review.  Hopefully this leads to more copycat hip-hop biographies, like The Life and Times of The Lost Boys or Shook Ones: The Story of Mobb Deep.

For a boilerplate biography released in the wastelands of January, Notorious was shockingly solid.  There aren't many actors running around who can pass for Christopher Wallace but Woolard got the job done and the music did the rest.

7 out of 10