Wolverine and Star Trek

The past month or so has brought an onslaught of epic movies to our local theatres. Some rose above. Some fell into the nothingness that is IMDB. I’ll start with Wolverine.

Ok. I’ll be honest. I’m not a total huge complete all-out Wolverine fan. I’ve never read the comics. But I know his basic story line. So don’t be expecting any, “Well, the thing that I hated was that they edited the story!” comments from me. I don’t know the story at all. And I have to admit, the X-men movies were awesome in not revealing everything at once. They were smart enough to not show all their cards at the same time. Kudos to prior planning. Anyways, good action movie. Excellent effects, except where Wolverine’s claws were concerned. I saw them moving around on his hands during one scene. I’m pretty sure it wasn’t intentional either. But besides his claws, a well crafted movie. Great acting! I was really surprised by the number of A (and some B) list actors in this movie. I was expecting a bunch of no-namers. If you haven’t seen the cast list, you’ll probably be pleasantly surprised. Overall, an excellent movie. 10 props (out of 12)

Now, on to Star Trek. I had absolutely no expectations (good or bad) for this movie. I’d never seen the TV show or anything, so essentially all I knew was that Shatner was in it. And that the Vulcans did that “Live long and Prosper” ordeal. But, I was in for an excellent movie. Good acting, all around. I was disappointed by a three year time cut in the middle of the movie, but those things happen. Great action movie. Don’t go see this for anything besides action. That’s essentially all it is. It was lacking a bit on the emotion side, but honestly, it was a good movie anyways. 10 props.

Phantom of the Opera and Bolt

Just to mess with people that are obsessed with parallelism, I’m going to talk first about Bolt. I had very, very low expectations going into this movie. I mean, really. Miley Cyrus? The couldn’t get a better actress? Now that I’ve watched the movie, I have different questions. John Travolta? Did we need him? No. Did he add anything to the movie? No. Miley Cyrus’ voice added a warm, southern feeling to the character of Penny. (If they could’ve gotten someone better is merely speculation.) The character of Bolt could’ve been played by anyone. ANYONE. Honestly, Seth Green might’ve even done better than Travolta did. But I digress. Plot line: TV Star dog Bolt gets accidentally shipped to New York. He journeys back to California with the help of Mittens the Cat and Rhino the Hamster. If you are younger than 12, you will think Rhino is the funniest part. If you are older than 12, you will think Rhino is the funniest part. It’s true. This movie would’ve been a nice little “Homeward Bound”-esque movie without him. But Rhino did for Bolt what Michael J. Fox did for Homeward Bound. He made the movie. End of story. 9 1/2 props to Bolt. And kudos to John Lasseter.

Phantom of the Opera. All I can say is wow. I’m sure you can figure out the plot line, so I’ll just tell you what I thing. LOVED it. One of the best movies I’ve seen in a long time. Excellent cast (though Michael Crawford as the Phantom would’ve been better), excellent camera, amazing songs and score. Overall, this movie is already a classic. 10 1/2 props to Phantom of the Opera.

Hitch and Dr. Strangelove.

Hitch. Great movie. Of course. This is a Will Smith movie. A Will Smith movie, you say? What about Eva Mendes? What about Kevin James? I think those questions answer themselves. It’s a Will Smith movie. If you absolutely hate Will, avoid this one. If you just kinda don’t like him, I’d suggest watching this one. Might change your mind. Plot line: Will Smith plays The Date Doctor. He sets up losers with the women of their dreams. Until he falls for a woman who wants nothing more than to put “The Date Doctor” out of business. Of course, since this is a movie, Eva Mendes couldn’t realize that the man of her dreams was her enemy. Anyways, it all ends up with drama and yelling. Good stuff. Actually, Hitch was one of the best Rom-Coms I’ve seen in a while. That genre is dying. It’s quite refreshing to see a decent romantic comedy that’s not filled with B-List actors. Kudos to everyone involved on this movie. And, as to not fall into “Ye Typical Movie Reviewer” I’ve decided to create a rating system based on “props” instead of stars, on a basis of one to twelve. 10 props to Hitch.

Dr. Strangelove. Plotline: General who has gone absolutely nuts decides to launch a nuclear war against the “Russkies.” Drama ensues. Peter Sellers makes up about 3/4 of the main cast of this movie. Not much else to really say about it. It was funny, but not the best movie ever. It had its moments. 8 props to Dr. Strangelove.

Evan “Almighty”

Wow. Ok. I have no intro to this movie. Plot line: God (Morgan Freeman) tells Evan Baxter (Steve Carrell) that he needs to build an ark. Everything in the end winds up ok. Basic plot. Now the title is the deceptive part. “Oh, it says, ‘Evan Almighty,’ thus it must be Evan’s turn to take the reigns of the earth!” This false logic is, of course, referencing “Bruce Almighty,” which introduced Morgan Freeman playing God, but was about a different set of circumstances. “Bruce” was a much better movie, personally. It had a more original idea. I could swear I’d seen a movie with an eerily similar plot to “Evan”, but can’t remember it for the life of me. Anyways, despite the title, Evan (a minor character in “Bruce”) does not receive full control of the earth. Instead, he grows a beard, and has to build a boat. Kind of a letdown, especially after the first movie. A few acting notes. Morgan Freeman saved Steve Carrell’s career here. Without him, this movie wouldn’t even be worth mentioning. Not that Carrell did a bad job, but the mediocre script didn’t give him a lot of room to have fun with his character. Oh, and John Goodman shouldn’t be playing bad guys. He’s too easy to like. Up there with Dick Van Dyke. Not evil guys. Bad call.

Aliens and Newsies

Well originally, this post was going to be “Witch Mountain and Newsies” However, after much consideration on the previews that I viewed at “Witch Mountain,” I decided to ramble for a bit on our current obsession with aliens. The previews I saw were “Monsters Vs. Aliens”, “Planet 51″ “Attack on Tera” (or something like that) and “Land of the Lost.” Now, except for Land of the Lost, these are all animated. And all of them are about futuristic lands or happenings. This brings up a good point: WHERE DID THE HARRY POTTER CRAZE GO? Sure, Twilight and Inkheart were of the fantasy genre, but still. Apparently, we’ve moved on. This saddens me very much. On the point, (if I ever had one) Race to Witch Mountain was decent. I’m not a big fan of The Rock, but Carla Gugino and AnnaSophia Robb don’t even have to think about acting. They’re old pros. Good graphics for the most part, but most of the funny parts were in the previews. Good movie for the younger audience.

Newsies. Wow. Ok, plotline: Based loosely on true happenings, the Newsies (newspaper delivery boys) are fed up with the prices that Pulitzer (Robert Duvall, don’t watch this movie to be dazzled by him. Not his best movie) is forcing. So Jack (Christian Bale, you can watch this movie just for him. Excellent job.) decides to strike. Drama and random singing and dancing ensues. Yes, it is a musical. But for those who aren’t big musical fans, don’t worry. You’ll still enjoy this movie. An excellent score, and excellent songs. Some of the dancing seemed to be stolen straight out of an N’Sync concert, but overall, it was really well made. If you possibly get a chance to see this movie, do so. I highly recommend it.

Flywheel

Since the Kendrick brothers hit it big in the movie business with “Facing the Giants,” people have been following their every move. However, looking back to their lesser known first movie, I found a real gem. Sure, the acting isn’t Hollywood perfect. But given the circumstances, this is a really good movie, with a great message about forgiveness and second chances. Personally, I think it’s better than “Facing the Giants” (that fact might have something to do with my irrational belief that all football movies are just not as good as “Remember the Titans”. No, I haven’t seen “Rudy”, yet, so don’t complain.) If you can get past the filmmaking quality, which is actually superb compared to what I had expected. Good movie. Find a copy.

The ‘burbs

Ok, I wasn’t expecting much from an late 80’s Tom Hanks comedy. Boy, was I wrong. The ‘burbs is one of the funniest movies I’ve seen in a while. It might be a guy thing, though. However, this movie isn’t stupid funny. It isn’t crude funny. It’s just ridiculous funny. I can’t even really say anything about it except watch it.

Twelve O’Clock High and Ever After.

An older movie, ‘49, Twelve O’Clock High stars Gregory Peck. He plays Savage, who has been put in charge of an Air Force crew that is distraught after the loss of it’s leader. Of course, it being an older movie, the footage was decent. It was realistic enough, but lacked an adventurous spirit. However, this didn’t hinder the movie. It was a true classic.

Ever After. Wow. Ok, Cinderella. Yeah. After watching the fifth incarnation of this story I’d seen, I began to question the judgement of Cinderella’s father. I mean, really. The man decides to remarry to a woman who hates his daughter. Brilliant. However, in this version, I believe it was open to call whether or not the step-mother killed him. Moot point. A well filmed movie, however, lacking in charm. A few attempts at humor worked wonderfully, but the movie was too similar to The Princess Bride to do it any credit. All movies of that genre have been ruined by The Princess Bride.

Inkheart

To start off this new blog, I’d like to ramble about Inkheart. Don’t let the Eragon looking preview of this movie fool you. It is a well crafted movie. True, some parts were geared toward the younger part of the audience (although when I viewed the movie, the entire audience was teen or older. However, I chalk that one up to the fact that it was a Tuesday night. Best time to go see movies.) Anyways, I thoroughly enjoyed watching this movie. I’d read the first two chapters of the book of the same title at least 50 times, in the back of another book. I could tell just from those two chapters that the movie only loosely followed the plot of the book.  I’m not sure how Cornelia Funke is feeling about this movie, but she should be proud of the effort. Great acting, mediocre camerawork, great costumes.