Turbo Review

                               

            When I watched Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter I thought to myself “There’s no way a movie premise could possibly get more ridiculous than this.”  Of course just a year later DreamWorks was there to prove me wrong with Turbo.  However, for a set-up as absurd as a snail racing in the Indy 500, they play it surprisingly straight and while it wasn’t as bad as I was expecting they didn’t really do anything to make it memorable either. 

            The story centers around a garden snail named Theo (Ryan Reynolds) or as he prefers to be called “Turbo.”  He constantly dreams of being a world famous race-car driver which (naturally) causes him to be the subject of ridicule among his co-workers and embarrassment to his straight-laced brother Chet (Paul Giamatti).  Then one night Turbo gets himself sucked into a drag racer where his DNA bonds with the car’s nitrous oxide which gives him super speed and several features of a car (headlights, radio, alarm, etc.).  Shortly afterwards, he and Chet are captured by Tito (Michael Pena), who runs a struggling taco truck with his brother Angelo (Luis Guzman).  Tito starts by entering Turbo in snail races and predictably Turbo blows the other snails out of the water.  So of course the next logical step is to enter Turbo in the Indy 500 (sure why not?).         

            The animation is pretty good most of the time but for a film with a plot as unique as Turbo, it’s surprisingly lacking in imagination and originality.  Almost everything that happens in this movie has been done before and much better.  Just off the top of my head I can see them borrowing from Cars, Ratatouille, Spider-Man and even Talladega Nights.  I might’ve enjoyed this more if the writers took more chances to make something inventive.  Unfortunately, Turbo takes zero risks and as a result every scene feels clichéd and predictable.  For example, when it’s inevitably pointed out that snails don’t compete in the Indy 500, Tito uses the old plot device that there’s nothing in the rule book that says a snail can’t race (a statement so ridiculous I don’t even know where to start) or as I like to call it the Air Bud Defense.  There’s also the arrogant champion racer who seems to exist because DreamWorks felt an obligation to include a villain. 

            There’s nothing that’s particularly horrible about Turbo but everything about it is just so bland that I felt absolutely nothing for it.  I didn’t feel love, hate or anger or really any other emotion besides indifference.  Adults probably won’t get anything out of this but it’s a good way to keep your kids busy for an hour and a half.   

Grade: C+ 

Despicable Me 2 Review

                                    

            In the first Despicable Me the minions were mostly background characters that provided the occasional comic relief.  This time around in Despicable Me 2 the minions are pretty much front and center while the plot happens around them.  Admittedly, it’s difficult to fault the producers for this decision when the minions are easily the best and most marketable part of the movie.  The problem is that it occasionally feels like they’re just killing time until the Minions spinoff movie next year.  

            As the sequel begins Gru (Steve Carell) has more or less settled happily into his new role as a father and after his moon stealing episode seems to have retired from his work as a super-villain completely.  He is then recruited by the Anti-Villain League (who for some reason were nowhere to be found in the first movie) to find out who stole a powerful potion that turns living organisms into giant, furry, purple abominations.  Gru reluctantly agrees and goes undercover at the local shopping mall with AVL agent and obligatory love-interest Lucy (Kristen Wiig).  Gru quickly begins to suspect the culprit to be Mexican restaurant owner Eduardo Perez (Benjamin Bratt) whom he believes to bear a striking resemblance to the supposedly deceased super-villain “El Macho.”   His suspicions aren’t helped when Eduardo’s son Antonio (Moises Aries) begins to take an interest to his oldest daughter Margo (Miranda Cosgrove).  Meanwhile the minions are being quietly kidnapped as part of the mysterious villain’s plot.   

As anybody that saw the first film might’ve expected the minions are absolutely hilarious.  They’re as incoherent as ever but just like the last movie they’re cute, charming and make for great slapstick comedy.  For me the comedy highlights are two of the minions accidently parasailing from a moving car and singing their own renditions of “Y.M.C.A.” and “I Swear” in their trademark gibberish.  Their antics don’t necessarily advance the plot, but all of their individual scenes are so funny that for the most part it never really bothered me that much.      

The problem with the minions greatly increased screen time is that it takes away from the character development of pretty much everybody else.  Gru spends most of what little change he is given acting as a comic foil for the romance between Margo and Antonio and then eventually trying to woo Lucy.  Halfway through it dawned on me that Gru has basically been reduced to being a sitcom dad.  The youngest daughter Agnes’ only motivation in the entire film is that she wants a mother.  She doesn’t seem to be particularly concerned with what kind of mother as long as she gets one, to the point that the second she meets Lucy she wastes absolutely no time in trying to encourage her to get together with Gru.  Of course that’s more than I could say for the growth of middle child Edith (I had to look her name up on Wikipedia) and Gru’s assistant Dr. Nefario who both look to have almost disappeared from the plot altogether.  What’s really confusing about the broader focus on the minions is that they’ve already got their own movie coming out next year which makes me question why they couldn’t simply wait until that movie to make them the protagonists.  

            Despicable Me 2 for better or worse feels mostly like a rehash of the original.  The audience wanted to see more of the minions and Despicable Me 2 delivers.  While it’s hard to get angry at the producers for giving the audience what they wanted it also makes it a little difficult for me to truly take it seriously as a film.  They obviously went to great lengths to increase the minion’s appeal but I just wish they had put same effort towards everybody else. 

Grade: B-

Top 5 Movies I Can't Wait To See- Fall 2013

    1.      12 Years a Slave

       

          Release Date- October 18^th  

       

          Starring- Chiwetel Ejiofer, Michael Fassbender, Benedict Cumberbatch, Paul Dano

       

          What It’s About- Based on the autobiography of the same name, 12 Years a Slave tells the story of               Solomon Northup, a free and educated black man who in 1841 is kidnapped and sold into slavery.                 What follows is twelve years of working on Louisiana plantations before he is finally found by his wife in         1853.    

      

          Why I Want To See It- While the plot is certainly an interesting enough reason to watch it, the main               attraction for me is Ejiofer and Fassbender.  They are both truly wonderful, underrated actors and I am           looking forward to seeing them in a film where they can get some long overdue recognition. 

  

    2.      Dallas Buyers Club

          

          Release Date- November 1^st

          Starring- Matthew McConaughey, Jared Leto, Jennifer Garner

          What It’s About- Dallas electrician Ron Woodroof, is diagnosed with HIV in 1986 and given 30 days to       live.  When his FDA approved medication proves to be useless he decides to smuggle some more                 effective but also illegal drugs in from Mexico.  Eventually other HIV/AIDS patients start to seek him out         for the medications and with some help from his doctor and a transvestite named Rayon: Woodroof               starts the Dallas Buyers Club, a service that provides its paying members with alternative drugs.

          Why I Want To See It- McConaughey has surprised me the last couple of years by actually doing some         good movies and more amazingly giving some good performances.  In Dallas Buyers Club however, he         seems to be taking it to another level even going so far as to lose almost 40 pounds for the role.  I never         thought I would say this a few years ago but I can’t wait for McConaughey’s next movie.

    3.      Thor: The Dark World

          

          Release Date- November 8^th

          

          Starring- Chris Hemsworth, Natalie Portman, Tom Hiddleston, Christopher Eccleston, Anthony Hopkins

          What It’s About- Thor has returned to Asgard and now faces a mysterious enemy known as the Dark           Elves who are older than the universe itself.  They are so powerful that Thor must forge a shaky alliance         with the treacherous Loki if he hopes to stop them and keep the world from plunging into eternal                     darkness.

          Why I Want To See It- I think that after Iron Man 3, Marvel proved they can still make good movies             after The Avengers and I believe Thor: The Dark World will be just as good.  Also, with Doctor Who         playing a comic book villain, how could I possibly resist?

    4.      The Wolf of Wall Street

          Release Date- November 15^th

          Starring- Leonardo Dicaprio, Jonah Hill, Matthew McConaughey, Kyle Chandler, Jean Dujardin

          What It’s About- The Wolf of Wall Street tells the story and eventual downfall of wealthy New York           stockbroker Jordan Belfort. 

          Why I Want To See It- For me it’s mostly because of Martin Scorsese.  He’s one of my favorite                   directors and I’m really excited to see how his follow-up to Hugo turns out.  Also, from I saw from the           trailer it looks to be similar to Goodfellas but with stockbrokers instead of gangsters.   

   

    5.      The Hunger Games: Catching Fire

          Release Date- November 22^nd

          Starring-Jennifer Lawrence, Josh Hutcherson, Liam Hemsworth, Woody Harrelson, Phillip Seymour               Hoffman

   

          What It’s About- After the events of The Hunger Games, Katniss and Peeta’s victory begins to spark a       rebellion within the other districts.  In an effort to squash the rebellion, the Capitol forces previous winners       from the Hunger Games to compete against each other again, including Katniss and Peeta. 

          Why I Want To See It- While I admit that I didn’t enjoydnt I admit that i  reading Catching Fire quite as much as I did the     first book I still found it to be pretty good.  Also, some of the actors that have been added to The Hunger     Games: Catching Fire cast has me cautiously optimistic that this sequel might actually improve on the           original.  

Box Office Winners and Losers Summer 2013

***WARNING-NONE OF WHAT I SAY IN THIS ARTICLE IS A COMMENT ON THE QUALITY OF THE MOVIES.  IN FACT, I HAVE YET TO SEE MOST OF THESE SO I’M CURRENTLY NOT IN A POSITION TO OFFER MY OPINIONS ON THEM ANYWAY.  ALSO, ANY BOX NUMBERS I USE ARE EFFECTIVE AS OF AUGUST 23, 2013.  THANK YOU AND ENJOY THE ARTICLE. ***

Winners

Iron Man 3- Iron Man 3 didn’t match up to the figures of last year’s Marvel’s The Avengers; the numbers however, are still nothing to scoff at.  Iron Man 3 still managed to make $408 million domestically and over $1.2 billion worldwide which are figures that no other movie has been able to touch this year.     

Despicable Me 2- I have to admit that I underestimated Despicable Me 2.  I had it pegged to do just well enough to validate another sequel but they proved me wrong in a pretty big way.  With a worldwide gross of over $800 million it managed to out-earn all of their competition with the exception of Iron Man 3 (see above).  

Horror movies- So far it looks like a good year for horror movies (at least financially) and the summer was no exception.  The Purge ($84 million worldwide/$3 million budget) and The Conjuring ($220 million worldwide/$20 million budget) not only made back their budgets many times over, but managed to put some of their bigger budgeted counterparts to shame in the process (see Losers).    

Fast and Furious 6- Two years ago Fast Five surprisingly proved to be a massive hit, and from a box-office standpoint Fast and Furious 6 actually managed to top its predecessor.  Finishing at about $786 million worldwide it’s safe to say that we’ll be seeing more of these movies for better or worse. 

World War Z- Admittedly I’m probably being a little generous with this one.  While a worldwide gross of $526 million isn’t overly impressive for a summer blockbuster, the fact that World War Z managed to avoid a Lone Ranger level disaster was a pretty major victory for the film. 

Losers

The Internship- Vince Vaughn hasn’t had a hit movie in almost four years and The Internship did absolutely nothing to change that.  The Internship did so badly on opening weekend they made only half as much as their far smaller budgeted competition The Purge.  In retrospect, Vaughn and Owen Wilson’s follow-up to The Wedding Crashers was probably about a few years too late to leave any impact.   

Ryan Reynolds- Poor Ryan Reynolds just can’t seem to catch a break.  He went 0 for 2 in the summer of 2011 with Green Lantern and The Change-Up.  Two years later things might have actually gotten worse for him.  After headlining the “disappointing” Turbo ($142 million worldwide /$135 million budget) and the just plain embarrassing R.I.P.D. ($59 million worldwide/$130 million budget), I don’t think movie producers will be in any hurry to make him the lead in their next summer blockbuster.    

After Earth- Not even the star power of Will Smith could save After Earth from the stigma of being an M. Night Shyamalan movie.  While the studio might’ve made their money back overseas, After Earth only made a paltry $61 million domestically which looks to be lowest for a Will Smith movie since Ali back in 2001. 

White House Down- A movie directed by Roland Emmerich (Independence Day, 2012) and starring Channing Tatum should’ve been a no-brainer.  So what went wrong?  The popular theories are bad scheduling, unenthusiastic reviews, and that the audience basically seeing the same movie three months before with Olympus Has Fallen.  Whatever the reason, it appears to be highly unlikely that White House Down will make back its production budget ($150 million budget/ $134 million gross worldwide) before the DVD release. 

The Lone Ranger- There are so many reasons this movie shouldn’t have been made I don’t even know where to start.  Television show adaptations rarely translate into box office gold much less TV shows that are over fifty years old.  Also, westerns are typically modest hits at best so making one with a price tag of $215 million (not including several years of pre-production and expensive marketing) is not only ill-advised but just plain stupid.  Here I thought Disney had learned their lesson after the similarly disastrous John Carter.  Just in case you’re curious, the worldwide gross is around $230 million.    

Pacific Rim Review

                         

            I’ve often heard some movies be described as “so awesome your head might explode.”  I never really understood what they were talking about until I went to the theater to see Pacific Rim.  Like so many summer movies before it, Pacific Rim uses style over substance, but unlike many summer movies from before it has style in spades.  It would be easy for people to write this off as another Transformers rip-off (I’m talking to you Battleship) but Michael Bay will never make anything close to this.  Guillermo Del Toro has had a lengthy absence from the directors’ chair (his last movie was Hellboy II) but the wait was well worth it. 

            In the near future, coastal cities come under attack by giant alien monsters called Kaijus, who appear out of an inter-dimensional portal in the Pacific Ocean.  To fight the Kaiju, the humans build massive robots called Jaegers, which are each controlled by two pilots since the mental load quickly proves too much for anybody to control the Jaegers alone.  While the Jaegers appear to be winning at first, Kaiju attacks become more frequent and dangerous.  Eventually, the Jaegers are being destroyed faster than they can be built and the government decides to disband the project in a few months in favor of building gigantic walls along the coasts (which goes about as well as you might expect).  The leader of the Jaeger program Stacker Pentecost (Idris Elba) decides to use the four remaining Jaegers to make a last stand against the Kaijus.  To help with his plans, he recruits former Jaeger pilot Raleigh Beckett (Charlie Hunnam), who is still recovering emotionally after the loss of his brother/co-pilot in combat.  He is partnered with rookie pilot Mako Mori (Rinko Kikuchi) who also happens to be Pentecost’s adopted daughter with her own traumatizing history with the Kaiju.  Meanwhile, research scientist Dr. Newton Gieszler (Charlie Day) is studying the Kaiju brain in the hopes of finding a way to establish a mental link with them with the reluctant help of Dr. Hermann Gottlieb (Burn Gorman).

           But enough with the plot, let’s talk about the action.  The fight scenes between the Jaegers and the Kaiju are nothing short of spectacular.  They gave me an at-the-edge-of-my-seat feeling they I don’t think I’ve had in years.  Every time I watched a fight I was in a state of what I can now only describe as incredulous glee.  The visual effects are also unbelievable and just like with last year’s Life of Pi, if this movie doesn’t walk away with a Best Visual Effects Oscar for their efforts I will lose my faith in the Academy.

           The only real problem with Pacific Rim is that the human characters aren’t very interesting.  Their development mostly ranges from mediocre to clichéd.  One person in particular who stuck out like a sore thumb was Ron Perlman.  Here he plays a black market trafficker of Kaiju parts named Hannibal Chau (I dare you not to laugh at that name).  His sole purpose in this is to provide useless exposition and apparently be a glorified cameo for Del Toro (kind of like how Bruce Campbell always gets shoehorned into Sam Raimi’s movies).     

           While Pacific Rim has some problems with the script but I loved the special effects and fight scenes so much that I was more than willing to let that go.  As a matter of fact Pacific Rim is probably been my favorite movie so far this year (though I expect that will change soon enough with award season kicking in soon).  I’ve got my fingers crossed for a sequel.  

Grade: A-

Next Review: Turbo  

The Incredible Burt Wonderstone Review

                             

                              

            The Incredible Burt Wonderstone is painfully unfunny and completely wastes a talented cast.  There are occasional moments that reminded me why I thought magic was cool as a kid.  It also reminds me why I stopped thinking magic was cool in the first place.

            

            The “story” begins with young Albert celebrating his birthday and for a present his mother gets him the magic kit of renowned magician Rance Holloway (Alan Arkin).  Magic quickly becomes an obsession for him and he makes fast friends with classmate and fellow magic enthusiast Anthony.  They eventually grow up to become Burt Wonderstone (Steve Carell) and Anton Marvelton (Steve Buscemi) with a headlining act at the Bally’s Hotel in Las Vegas.  After working together for ten years however, they’ve both gotten sick of each other mostly due to Burt’s arrogance.  If that wasn’t bad enough their act is being upstaged by local (and quite possibly psychotic) street magician Steve Gray (Jim Carrey).  In an effort to regain their audience, Burt and Anton attempt a stunt similar to Gray’s but because of Burt’s laziness things go horribly wrong almost instantly and Anton is hospitalized.  Anton furiously severs ties with Burt, who gets fired by the hotel soon afterward.  Broke and out of work, Burt is quickly reduced to working as an in-house entertainer at a home for retired Vegas performers.  There he meets his boyhood idol Holloway who of course inspires him to resurrect his love for magic.  

            There are some potentially promising scenes (that mostly fall flat) but for the most part the script for The Incredible Burt Wonderstone is completely unbearable.  Most of the jokes are unfunny and very noticeably outdated.  I’m pretty sure this is one of those scripts that gathered dust on a shelf for several years since most of the subjects they’re lampooning haven’t been relevant for some time now.  Jim Carrey’s character is an obvious satire on street performers like David Blaine and Criss Angel.  This could’ve been funny back in 2007 when people actually gave a crap about those guys but instead comes off like a badly written Robot Chicken sketch.  Burt and Anton are also a less than subtle parody of the magic duo Siegfried and Roy who are even more dated than Carrey’s character since neither Siegfried or Roy has performed onstage since their infamous tiger attack almost a decade ago.   

Even worse the movie finds it necessary to shoehorn a love interest for Burt in the form of his attractive but bland assistant Jane (Olivia Wilde).  Even if I were willing to overlook the fact that Wilde is almost literally half Carell’s age, they have no chemistry whatsoever making the romance feel even more forced than it was already.  It also doesn’t help that Burt spends most of the movie acting like a sexist douchebag (for most of the movie he deliberately calls her Nicole) making her falling for him all the more implausible.

            The only thing that makes this tolerable is Alan Arkin who sadly isn’t in the movie much.  Thankfully, however his presence in here provides a short-term relief from the rest of the film.  He actually manages to make a couple of scenes with Carell slightly funny (which with this script is like squeezing blood from a stone) and pulls off his own amazing magic trick by being the only cast member in this train wreck to not completely embarrass himself.  

            Almost every frame of The Incredible Burt Wonderstone is a gigantic waste of time and an even bigger waste of potential.  They take a great cast and do absolutely nothing with them.  Even worse, the script uses jokes so old they make those lazy spoof movies look innovative by comparison.

Grade: D

Next Review: Pacific Rim 

Evil Dead Review

                               

            When Cabin in the Woods was released I had hoped that it would challenge movie producers to make better horror movies or to at least improve on the cabin-in-the -woods horror genre.  If the remake of Evil Dead is any indication of what’s to come then clearly those hopes were misplaced.  The poster has the balls to boast that this film is “The most terrifying film you will ever experience.”  To that I will simply retort to the producers “Don’t go writing checks your clichéd movie can’t cash.” 

            A group of friends, Mia (Jane Levy), her estranged brother David (Shiloh Fernandez), and three other characters, whose names aren’t worth remembering, decide to make a trip to a cabin in the woods in an effort to get a drug-addicted Mia to quit her dependence cold turkey.  Eventually they notice a foul smell coming from the cabin’s cellar which turns out to be full of animal carcasses and an ominous looking book covered in barbed wire.  Despite the book quite literally warning them not to read it, one of the idiots presses on anyway which of course summons a demon and all hell breaks loose (figuratively and literally).  Mia is the only one in the group with the common sense to be frightened but the others simply chalk it up to symptoms of withdrawal and ignore her.  They don’t really begin to notice that something is amiss with Mia until a dog turns up dead and then begins to burn her face off in the scalding hot shower.   

            What follows is a level of gore and violence I haven’t seen since the Saw series (and that’s not a compliment).  Like many movies before it Evil Dead appears to not understand that there can be a fine line between scary and needlessly gruesome.  The whole thing starts out rather promising but quickly devolves into the same junk that Cabin in the Woods made fun of last year.  I might’ve forgiven this if the remake had brought anything new to the table but instead it makes so many references to the original that the entire picture was a constant reminder that there was a much better version of this I could’ve been watching instead.  What is perhaps the most confusing thing about this movie is that Sam Raimi approved of it so much that he became one of the film’s producers.  I’m not really sure what he thought was so special about it since it’s mostly just a carbon copy of his work except with a bigger budget, almost nonexistent creativity and this time Bruce Campbell is nowhere to be found.    

            I will admit though that there is one thing Evil Dead has going for it, and that’s the ending.  I was legitimately surprised by it which is not usually something I can usually say about a horror movie.  It’s the only real significant change director/co-screenwriter Fede Alverez made to the original and it almost manages to save this movie.  It kind of makes me wonder just how much better this could’ve been if it been approached with a shred of originality.  Even with the new ending, however, we still wind up in the same place as the original. 

            I don’t usually find myself clamoring to see any horror movie and especially not remakes.  However, since Raimi appeared to believe in it so much, I was willing to give this one the benefit of the doubt and chose to believe that it would make something interesting.  Instead all I got was more of the same, along with bitter disappointment to add insult to injury. 

Grade: C

Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters Review

                                

I have just found my early frontrunner for next year’s Razzies.  This script is riddled with clichés, moronic dialogue, one-dimensional characters and a predictable (not to mention boring) plot.  Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters has opted to go with style over substance.  That might’ve been forgivable except it’s not very good at style either.  The leads Renner and Arterton do okay with what their given but that’s not saying much.  One thing they did do right was that they were kind enough to make it only 88 minutes.  I still think it might have been about 30 minutes too long.

            As you might expect Hansel and Gretel opens with our title characters being abandoned by their father in the middle of the forest.  Soon afterward, they go inside a nearby gingerbread house owned by an old witch who of course likes to eat children.  After forcing Hansel to constantly eat candy in an effort to fatten him up before eating him, the siblings are eventually able to overcome the witch and shove her into her own oven.  Afterwards, they both decide to become bounty hunters that specialize in killing witches.  Eventually Hansel (Jeremy Renner) and Gretel (Gemma Arterton) are hired by the mayor of a town called Augsburg to rescue some local children that have been abducted by a group of witches led by the powerful grand witch Muriel (Famke Janssen).  The local sheriff (Peter Stormare) however, is less than thrilled with their presence in his town and thinks the job should be left to law enforcement (even though he clearly doesn’t have the slightest clue what he’s doing).  During their investigation, Hansel and Gretel discover the children are being used as part of some extremely contrived plot by the witches to basically take over the world (naturally).  Along the way they also find out the truth about what happened to their parents.

The biggest failure in this waste of time (and believe me there are many) is the script.  The writers try to put in a few twist and turns but they’re all so predictable that I was mostly able to figure it out about 45 minutes in.  It also doesn’t help that every single character is a cardboard cutout.  Muriel and the sheriff are over the top, Hansel has the personality of a dishcloth and while at first they go out of their way to show how tough Gretel is by the end of it she’s become the poster child for Dumbass in Distress Disorder.  As for everyone else they are completely devoid of personality or character development and therefore expendable.  Oh yeah, and now because of all the candy the first witch forced Hansel to eat, he’s now diabetic (what the hell?!).    

            As I said before, I would’ve been willing to overlook the bad script if the action was decent but sadly they don’t seem to be very good at that either.  The action sequences are dull and badly choreographed, the visual effects are mediocre at best and the editing is all over the place.  If I wanted to watch garbage like this, I could just watch an original movie on SyFy.  They do manage to succeed in being incredibly (and some might say unnecessarily) gory but again there are plenty of other suitable (not to mention much better) movies to fit that bill.  The only thing really keeping me from giving this movie an F is that it manages to be mildly entertaining because it’s so bad it’s unintentionally hilarious.    

            If you’re looking for a bad movie to make of fun of with your friends you might find this enjoyable, otherwise I suggest you just skip it. 

Grade: D+

Warm Bodies Review

                            
                             

            Warm Bodies tries to do something that I feel pretty safe in saying has never been done in a movie before.  They take the usual run of the mill zombie movie and basically turn it into a romantic comedy.  This is a concept that really shouldn’t work but against all odds it does thanks to a witty script, likeable lead characters and a talented comedic director in Jonathan Levine (50/50). 

            In the aftermath of a zombie apocalypse, a zombie simply named R (Nicholas Hoult) spends the majority of his days walking around an abandoned airport and sometimes hanging out with his best friend M (Rob Corddry).  One day R, M, and several other zombies decide to take a trip into the nearby city in search of some new victims to eat.  Eventually, they find a group of humans led by Perry (Dave Franco) and his girlfriend Julie (Teresa Palmer) who are out searching for medical supplies.  R quickly kills Perry and starts eating his brains which gives R all of Perry’s thoughts and memories.  Eating Perry’s brains also causes R to instantly fall in love with Julie and decides to rescue her from the wrath of the other zombies instead of killing her.  In an effort to spend more time with Julie, R convinces her to hide out in the abandoned airplane he lives in.  As the two grow closer, R slowly becomes more and more human which also begins to rub off on his fellow zombies including M and it isn’t long before Julie begins falling for R as well. 

            While R and Julie have some nice chemistry as the two star crossed lovers, I still thought their romance moved unrealistically fast.  Julie reacts to Perry’s death not so much with sadness but with a rather disturbing indifference.  Whenever anybody tries to console her over the death of her long term boyfriend she mostly shrugs it off with the same amount of emotion as someone who forgot to pay their water bill.  Once he’s dead she moves on from it quicker than a trophy wife in one of those Lifetime movies.  Afterward she seems to warm up to the idea of getting into a relationship with a dead guy alarmingly fast, not even really caring that much when R eventually admits that he was the one who killed Perry.  I have to admit though that despite my gripes over the speed of which their relationship progresses Hoult and Palmer both work off each other well enough that I was willing to overlook it for the most part.    

            I have to admit that even though I’m not really a fan of Rob Corddry, his role as the zombie M is easily the best part of the movie.  Besides getting the best one-liners, even as a zombie he proves to be the best actor here (Hoult acts a little too human to be a truly believable zombie and John Malkovich goes into default mode by chewing the scenery).  When he’s a zombie I find him believable as a zombie and when he begins to turn back into a human I find him believable as a human.       

            The idea alone of Warm Bodies borders on completely ridiculous but Levine more than manages to pull it off.  He has proven before with 50/50 that he knows how to balance comedy and drama and here he offers more of the same.  He makes R sympathetic without making him pitiful and he makes Julie vulnerable without making her helpless.  Most of all he seems to acknowledge that their romance is weird but he somehow keeps it from being creepy.

            Despite the odd premise, clever writing and excellent directing elevates Warm Bodies into a surprisingly entertaining and funny film. 

            Grade: B+

World War Z Review

                          

            For about a year now I have been expecting World War Z to get released only to fall flat on its face.  It had all the makings of a box-office bomb.  The troubles with its production have been well documented (and not to mention mocked) after going through multiple rewrites, budget overages, and several weeks of reshoots leading to their already large production budget to almost double by the time it was over.  I had been preparing myself for a stinker of Waterworld proportions.  The whole time I was following this I couldn’t help but feel sorry for Brad Pitt (who over the years has proven to be a surprisingly good actor) and Max Brooks the author of the book World War Z (which I find to be an excellent read for any zombie lover).  In short, I was pretty much expecting this to suck.  Then I actually took the time to watch it.  While it’s not a masterpiece, World War Z proves to be a surprisingly solid movie. 

            I’m going to start by being blunt to the fans of the Max Brooks novel.  If you’re looking for a faithful adaption of the book, you will be greatly disappointed.  While the movie does indeed center around a zombie apocalypse the similarities more or less end there.  You might be asking yourselves “Well why did they even bother buying the movie rights if they were just going to make it into something completely different and unrecognizable anyway?”  Well, sadly I can’t help you there.  Instead, I urge you to let it go and simply enjoy the book for what it is (an excellent and unique piece of literature) and enjoy the movie for what it is (a good zombie/action movie).  While I admit I probably would’ve preferred they stay true to what Brooks had written, the movie shocked me by being a perfectly good story in its own right.

            When a mysterious zombie outbreak quickly overruns his hometown of Philadelphia, former U.N. investigator Gerry Lane (Brad Pitt) is recruited to investigate the cause of the outbreak which has already begun infecting people worldwide.  Gerry reluctantly agrees for the sake of his wife (Mireille Enos) and kids.  From there, his investigation takes him to a military base in South Korea, a quarantined Jerusalem, and a medical research facility in Wales. 

            Naturally in between all of the inevitable exposition there are the inevitable zombie attacks.  Some of the CGI zombies in the bigger scenes leave a bit to be desired but for the most part the action sequences are well executed.  Where World War Z really shines though is with the climax.  I won’t tell you what happens so that you have a chance to see for it for yourself.  I will say however, that I found it to be genuinely creepy and suspenseful.  As I was watching I got the feeling they trying to recreate the tone of The Walking Dead and mostly succeeded.   

While the epidemic does appear to have been spread worldwide, most of (if not all) the focus is centered on Gerry and his family and with that comes a double edged sword so to speak.  None of them are particularly interesting people which is only made worse by the fact that their character development is probably the weakest thing about the movie.  Luckily, however Pitt brought his A-game for this picture and has more than enough talent and charisma to make up for the script’s shortcomings. 

            While fans of the book may be dissatisfied by what’s on the screen, the movie has plenty to offer as well.

Grade: B

Man of Steel Review

                                   

I’m not going to lie; I’ve been a fan Superman all of my life.  To me, he will always be the gold standard of what every superhero should be.  What has made him such a great character over the years really has little to do with the number of superpowers he has (though admittedly it doesn’t hurt) but his unwavering moral compass and his strong sense of right and wrong.  Do to my said love of Superman, I probably ended up hyping myself for Man of Steel more than I have for any movie with the exception of the Harry Potter series.  However, despite my incredibly high expectations, for the most part Man of Steel did not disappoint. 

As anybody familiar with Superman’s (Henry Cavill) origin story might expect, the film opens on his home planet of Krypton which is on the brink of destruction.  Superman’s father Jor-El (Russell Crowe), resigned to his planet’s fate saves his infant son Kal-El by putting him in a rocket headed for Earth and infusing him with the planet’s codex in an effort to preserve their race.  Meanwhile, General Zod (Michael Shannon) in what he feels to be a last ditch effort to save what’s left of their planet attempts a coup and apprehend the codex that Jor-El had just taken.  His plan however, ultimately fails and shortly before the planet’s ultimate destruction, he and his co-conspirators are sentenced to the Kryptonian jail the Phantom Zone.  Young Kal-El eventually makes it to Earth where he is raised by his adoptive parents Jonathan (Kevin Costner) and Martha Kent (Diane Lane) in Smallville, Kansas and named Clark.  On a side note I have to say that in this version Jor-El is a total badass. 

The best thing about Man of Steel is also the movie’s kryptonite so to speak and that is the way the supporting characters are written.  Man of Steel shows not only how Clark is affected with trying to cope with his powers but possibly more importantly how it affects the lives of the people around him.  Perhaps the most obvious example of this is Clark’s adoptive father Jonathan Kent who in a major departure from most of his comic book portrayals (or any other medium for that matter) strongly discourages Clark from using his powers in public out of an understandable fear that the world will reject him.  By his own admission he is making things up as he goes along which is also understandable since both he and Clark are in rather uncharted territory.  

Superman’s perpetual love interest Lois Lane (Amy Adams) also goes through some significant changes in this version but in my opinion they are made for the better.  Most versions of Lois make the audience wonder if she will ever figure out Superman’s identity even though the only real effort he makes to disguise himself is by wearing a pair of glasses.  In this version, she thankfully proves to not be a complete idiot which is more than I can say for some of her other interpretations.  While on assignment in the Arctic for the Daily Planet she is rescued by Superman after being injured in a cave containing another Kryptonian spaceship.  She’s smart enough to realize that even though nobody may know exactly who he is, that this probably wasn’t the first time that he’s saved somebody using his powers.  She is able to quickly trace his origins back to his hometown of Smallville, and in the process Superman joins Batman and Green Lantern in the group of superheroes that are hilariously inept at keeping their identities secret.


As good as I find the development of Man of Steel’s secondary characters it leaves the picture with one significant drawback.  The problem with all of this is so much screen time is spent developing these characters that there’s not much room left to properly develop Superman himself.  The only aspect in which he is allowed to fully develop as a character is in his constant feelings of being isolated from the world.  Due to his alien heritage and Pa Kent’s constant warnings of how the world will react to him makes him question if he has any place in this world.  This effects Clark well into adulthood as he basically becomes a drifter and taking assorted odd jobs wherever he can get it but never really staying in one place for long.  While there isn’t anything wrong this, we never really see him overcome his insecurities enough to make a fully convincing transition into hero (at least not as good as the Christopher Reeve version).    

While not what I would classify as perfect, Man of Steel is a solid opener to a promising series which is good since I hear they’re already hard at work on a sequel.  

Grade: B+     

Oz the Great and Powerful Review

                                    

            The Wizard of Oz is the first movie I remember watching as a kid and since then I’ve watched it more times than I can count.  So naturally, when I heard Disney was coming out with Oz the Great and Powerful, it gave me some mixed feelings.  The Wizard of Oz has always been one of those movies that I thought should be left alone because there is no possible way that anything they put on the screen could possibly live up to what the original had to offer.  While Oz the Great and Powerful certainly has something to offer to the audience, it still does not hold a candle to The Wizard of Oz (though to be fair, very few movies are capable of that).

            In 1905 Kansas, Oscar “Oz” Diggs (James Franco) is a struggling magician with a small-time traveling circus.  As a dangerous storm heads toward the fair, Oscar is attacked by the circus strongman.  Oscar makes his escape in a hot-air balloon and, like Dorothy, gets swept away by a tornado into magical world of Oz.  Here Raimi pays one of many homages to the beloved classic by opening the picture in black-and-white and Academy-ratio before we are taken to the bright and colorful (and widescreen) land of Oz.  Once Oscar lands in Oz, he meets the young and naïve witch Theodora (Mila Kunis), who believes him to be the prophesized wizard (why does every single fantasy movie have to have some ridiculous prophecy?) that will overthrow the Wicked Witch, bring peace the land, and become the new king of Oz.  Enjoying the prospect of the riches and power that come with being the King of Oz, Oscar decides to play along and in the meantime strikes up a flirtation with the impressionable Theodora.  Before he can claim his throne however, he is informed by Theodora’s sister Evanora (Rachel Weisz) that he must first journey into a dark forest (another fantasy movie cliché) to kill the Wicked Witch.  During his journey he meets a talking flying monkey Finley (Zach Braff) who is mostly useless, a little girl made of china (Joey King) who is also useless, and Glinda the Good Witch (Michelle Williams) who despite having legitimate magic powers mostly relies on Oscar to do her dirty for her.     

            Naturally you might think it would be hard for Oscar to keep up this charade of being an all-powerful wizard without actually possessing any magical powers.  Luckily for him, however, most of the people of Oz appear to be complete nitwits.  Only about a handful of citizens ever question his so-called powers while the rest of the people become completely mesmerized by his great powers of access to basic technology.  Even the people that know he isn’t really a wizard don’t really seem to care enough to do anything about it.  I guess I shouldn’t be surprised though, since the people were also dumb enough to believe that Evanora was the good witch despite being so obviously evil that the only stereotype missing is a mustache for her to twirl.    

For some time now, I’ve found the quality of the special effects in Raimi’s movies to be rather inconsistent and sadly this one is no exception.  At certain points the CGI gets so bad, I actually found myself preferring the effects of the 1939 original.  Raimi has made some beautiful images but I didn’t always find them to be believable which is kind of disappointing given the over $200 million price tag it took to make this.     

It would be easy to write this off as just another cash grab made by a greedy movie studio but I don’t think that’s what happened here.  While it’s not a great movie there are some strokes of brilliance to be seen and I actually believe that some genuine effort was made for this to be a good film.  James Franco gives a great performance as the slick, silver tonged magician and Michelle Williams fills the role of Glinda perfectly.  It’s clear that director Sam Raimi has great respect for the source material but the end result still leaves a lot to be desired. 

            Grade: C+