Cyborg

While I'm in this phase of watching all the classic action movie stars (although what the hell ever happened to my Jackie Chan movie marathon? that lasted 2 movies! anyway..) it just made sense to start visiting the works of Jean Claude Van-Damme (who will be referred to as simply JC from now on). JC is an actor I am not familiar with at all. I have seen and enjoyed Sudden Death and Hard Target and that's really it. I'm not sure why I chose this one to start with, but Cyborg is not a great way to begin my journey into the world of JC.

Apparently the director originally wanted this movie to have no dialogue whatsoever but was not allowed to do so. You can actually kind of tell that was the plan because even now, nobody really talks in this thing. There are long stretches of silence. Granted some of the performances would have been better if the actors just weren't allowed to talk, it doesn't make for that exciting of an action movie.

One thing I found interesting about this movie is how much time JC spends either running away from people or getting the shit kicked out of him. Sure he has a few fights here and there where to gets to kick an ass or two. However much of his time is spent losing fights or avoiding them altogether. It didn't really make the movie any better, but it was something different. It's even a little strange that JC would choose this movie as one of his first starring vehicles (if not his actual first, not quite sure about that) when it doesn't do a terrific job of showcasing his abilities.

The whole movie is just very...whatever. I won't lie I actually ended up fast-forwarding through huge chunks of it because I really just didn't give a shit about anything that was happening. Blah.

4/10

Kill Switch

Another recent entry in the Steven Seagal DTV catalogue. Not sure why I chose to go with this next, especially after hearing it was considered one of the worst from the era. The plot sounded like something different for Seagal, since he was hunting serial killers in this one, so I decided to give it a shot. In the end, it turned out to be strangely entertaining, but not always because it was a quality movie.

The first issue that has to be addressed is of course Seagal himself. I will give him credit because he apparently wrote this screenplay and the script manages to tell a generic, but competent story. Many of Seagal's recent movies just don't make any sense so it's nice to see one that is pretty simple and straight forward. 

So although he managed to pull together a decent enough script, he just can't do the same with his performance. For some baffling reason he attempts this sort of souther accent the whole time and no surprise, he can't pull it off. He uses a lot of terms such "lahd have mercy" and it's laughable. The whole tone of the movie is so dark and gritty that Seagal's cartoonish performance sticks out like a sore thumb. However it does end up being one of the most enjoyable parts of the entire movie.

On the opposite end of the spectrum, the editing in this movie is beyond fucking annoying. I have no idea how anyone thought this was a good route to go with the editing for this thing. It's so quick and fucking stupid. You can never tell what is going on in the fights, or often during scenes where people are just standing around and talking. The movie also has this strange tendency to keep showing shit three times. Sometimes it's something maybe sort of cool like a man being thrown out of a window. But then there are other times where it's something pointless like Seagal looking to the left. Has his career really hit such a rock bottom level that we should be fucking impressed that he moved his head to one direction? So impressed we had to see it multiple times even?

The fights in this movie are a mess, and not just because of the fast-paced, terrible editing either. There aren't that many fights and the ones we do get, last for fucking ever. The final fight is just 7 minutes of Seagal slamming this guy around and kicking the shit out of him. Also by Seagal, I mean a stunt double who really looks nothing like him, a fact the movie barely even tries to hide. I don't think Seagal gets hit even once, but then that's another problem I have with many of his movies...he never gets hurt.

Despite all of the above problems, there is something about this movie that makes it strangely watchable. It's certainly not the bland story or the god awful editing. A lot of is Seagal's bizarre performance, but I don't know. I was never bored and the inept nature of the movie did hold my interest, as did the fucking random ending.

5.5/10

Audition

I had known about this movie for quite some time. It's reputation is pretty legendary in the world of cinema. All I ever heard about was how fucked up the last 15 minutes were. Even going into the movie knowing that, and knowing a good chuck of what happens during those 15 minutes, it certainly doesn't make it any easier to sit through.

The entire movie is basically lead-up to that final act. If you had no idea what this movie was about you would swear that it was some sort of romantic comedy. It isn't until maybe 45 minutes in that the movie immediately switches gears and you let you know that shit ain't right. How do they let you know? A girl staring at a phone for hours on end, waiting for a phone call, and then a sack on the floor behind her all of a sudden comes to life and flies across the room. A pretty jarring moment for a movie that has been tame up until that point.

So from that point on the movie does a very good job at creating a sense of dread, or at least it would if I didn't know where everything was leading. I won't lie, knowing the ending of this movie really takes away a lot from it. Clearly you are supposed to have no idea where things are going and the movie does do a good job of throwing you off course. I just wish I could have experienced it the way it was meant to be.

The movie is very slow in the beginning, which of course was intentional. It's very dialogue heavy and purposely slow-paced. I did get bored. Even parts of the second half were quite dull, but I understand the point of making everything boring before really flying off and going bat shit crazy.

The last 15 minutes is just as fucked up as you may have heard. It's still not the worst thing I have seen in a movie. Hell it's not even the worst thing I have seen in a movie I've watched this year. But it's pretty bad and I can see why a lot of people were revolted by it. 

I just really wish I didn't know the ending of this movie because that would have made the experience so much more visceral and effective. As is, it was a well-made movie that does a great job building suspense and then shifting gears in the final act. Just go in with as little knowledge of the movie as humanly possible.

7/10

Stone Cold

I can't say I'm very familiar with the works of former NFL player Brian Bosworth. I know he drove drunk not too long ago, but then what actor hasn't now? Therefore it seemed about time to go take a look at his first attempt to conquer the world of action movies. 

It's a strange phenomenon when Hollywood tries to make a movie star out of some random athlete. They tried it with Dennis Rodman, Howie Long, of course Bosworth who we're here to talk about. Now the trend seems to be trying to make action stars out of WWE wrestlers, which has met with at least decent success in my book. I didn't mind The Condemned and The Marine was strangely awesome. 

Now like I said I really don't know a whole lot about Bosworth, but after my first look at him in this movie, I immediately judge everyone who helped make him popular. Sure it was the early nineties and this sort of thing was maybe more acceptable but my god! Bosworth's entrance into this movie is one of the most unintentional funny moments I've had in a movie in quite some time. He has this bizarre mullet thing going where all the makings of the mullet are there, but then the sides are shaved and....you know you pretty much just have to see it. 

Actually the opening scene is full of unintentional comedy. The whole scene takes place in a grocery store that's being robbed. One of the first things the robbers do (well one of them at least) is shoot the shit out of a shelf of Ritz Crackers. It doesn't even look like it's for the sake of mindless mayhem either. To me it looks like the robber turns towards those Ritz and intentionally destroys them. He doesn't even destroy any other food. I can't even think of one logical reason some robber would hate Ritz Crackers enough to destroy a whole shelf of them. Ritz are fucking delicious. Ever put cheese on them? God damn! There might be some sort of bizarre under current of Ritz prejudice, but the movie sadly doesn't deal with that.

Well that's certainly the most I've ever written about crackers in a movie so let's move on. It's not hard to see why Bosworth never really caught on as an action star. He's pretty bland overall. He handles the action ok, and granted the role doesn't call for a whole lot in terms of acting, but he's just not an engaging presence. The supporting cast does better with a few actual recognizable faces.

The movie is your standard plot about a cop going undercover in a biker gang and it hits all the story threads you're probably expecting. It actually is a little dull overall. There are some fun cheesy moments scattered here and there, but it's not a very good movie, even on that so bad it's good level. The last 10 or 15 minutes is pretty damn good though, and almost worth sitting through the rest of the movie for. It's a huge shootout/bike chase in a court house and it's pretty damn entertaining.

The first 5 minutes and the last 15 sort of make this movie worth watching. The whole middle though, not so much.

5.5/10

Out For A Kill

It's about time I started getting around to the Seagal movies. This is an odd one to start out with though. It's one of the DTV ones, and not even one of the more recent ones. Just a completely random one. I think this movie is from that period where Seagal was releasing 4 or 5 movies each year. It was fun because I was working at a video store at the time and we seemed to get a new Seagal movie every few weeks. There were the rare movies that almost nobody on the staff watched.

This wasn't my first venture into the world of Seagal DTV movies, but I don't remember much about the other ones. This one isn't exactly the terrible mess I was expecting, but it's certainly not a very good movie. I think the title is probably the best part. It makes the murders sound very casual.

What's interesting about this movie, as well as all of the ones Seagal does these days, is how little Seagal really does these days. Usually a stunt double does all of the fighting, and sometimes Seagal's voice is even completely dubbed over. So I guess they're just hiring him for the name now? Granted I guess he has a hand in a lot of the stories but still. 

At least in Out For A Kill he does seem to be using his own voice. He even does a good chunk of his own fighting. There are a couple of shots where it's a very obvious stuntman, but usually you can tell it's Seagal, so kudos there I guess. It's kind of strange that a movie gets extra points for its action star actually appearing in it and doing his own talking, but Seagal calls for special circumstances.

There is some action here, and for a DTV movie some of it is pretty good. Of course when judging a DTV movie, you have to cut it some slack. There's a few good fights here and there, especially in the second half. However the overall movie is pretty dull. Seagal does indeed step out for a few kills, but a lot of the movie is just him out for a conversation. Plus it goes without saying the acting isn't terrific, but again, it's ok.

There are of course the moments of unintentional humour you'll find in most of the later Seagal pictures. Often times a stunt is put in slow motion that in no way deserves it. Things like jumping. Apparently they were so fucking amped about jumping that we just had to see it again. There's also a funny moment where Seagal's character is in jail and his cellmate starts to tell him the story about how he got there, only for the movie to cut him off mid-sentence and move on to something else. Plus just the idea of Seagal playing a Harvard (or maybe it was Yale...something prestigious anyway) professor is funny by itself.

Out For A Kill is actually a better movie than I ever could have expected. That being said it's still not very good. Mediocre story, mediocre acting and a lot of slow patches lead to this one being slightly above watchable.

5.5/10

Crank: High Voltage

The first movie I saw when I moved to go to college (for the second time) was Crank. Therefore it was all too fitting that as soon as I finished my last of my final year, I headed straight over to the theatre to watch the sequel. I have to believe that the guys who make these movies actually planned that. It was such a fitting and awesome bookend to school.

I loved the first movie and was pretty damn excited for this one. I fully embraced the stupid premise, which many people don't seem capable of doing. Even the movie itself acknowledges how stupid it is, so you can't fault them too much. But of course Crank High Voltage is not the movie you go and see for deep plot and characters, you go to see it in order to watch 80 minutes of really fucked up stuff. This one delivers that in spades.

I've mentioned before (maybe not in this blog actually, definitely in the old one) that I will watch just about everything Jason Statham does. The man is infinitely watchable and can kick an ass like nobody's business. The problem is that most of the movies he's in are not that good. He usually ends up being the best part because he always seems to put in the effort, even when the movie may not really deserve it. He fully fucking commits to Crank 2. He has to do some ridiculous shit in this movie but he really throws himself into it and it adds so much to the movie. He really does become a live action cartoon.

My reviews really seem to have a formula going now. Plot-main actor-supporting cast-movie as a whole-wrap-up. Oh well it works. The supporting cast is good here. Amy Smart seems to get more to do here and same with Statham, really gives her all in the role and even gets to beat the shit out of Corey Haim, which is pretty great. The villains are pretty underdeveloped but meh. You pretty much just want to see Statham kill them so I can let that slide. 

The most fun though is all of the cameos that show up in this movie. None of them are huge stars, but more recognizable faces. The trailers have sadly given away a lot of them but there are still some fun ones in there that I'm not going to spoil here.

Crank High Voltage really embraces the whole idea that these are just a live action video game. The score often sounds like something you might hear in an old 8-bit video game. There is even a sequence where Statham keeps killing people and upgrading his weapon. Each time he gets a new one it plays a little bit of triumphant game music. Later when he loses a crucial item it makes a sound similar to when Pac-Man dies. It's goofy, but fun.

That pretty much describes the whole movie. It does take things about 10 steps further than the first movie. You really never know just what the hell is going to come next. There is one part I thought was a little stupid, and this is also the point where a couple of people walked out. For the most part though I had a lot of fucking fun with this movie. It's random, fun, and really never does let up. The term "non-stop action" is thrown around a fucking lot but in this case it's very, very true. 

Same with Observe & Report, I can really see how this movie would divide people. Anyone who liked the first SHOULD like this one. Anyone who didn't, or has no clue what Crank is, stay far the fuck away.

8.5/10

Observe & Report

Fuckin' Paul Blart Mall Cop. First it's trailer and stupid title show up and insult me with their mediocrity. Then the movie as a whole offends me with it's overall lack of effort. Then it has to go and make 150 million dollars, maybe even more by this point. Now it's pretty much tainted the release of Observe & Report. Every single review usually starts off with "Oh goody another mall cop movie." The one thing that I take comfort in is knowing there must have been so many people who took their kids and family to see this, thinking it was another nice mall cop movie. Then the actual movie must have just destroyed their faces when they watched it. Though even that pleasant thought is tainted by the knowledge that those same families then yelled at the theatre employees for it, instead of taking some fucking responsibility for being so stupid.

Anyway, the movie itself. The first trailers were ok, but it was word of mouth that really got me interested in this movie. I just kept hearing about how dark and fucked up it was and how all these studios didn't want to release the movie because of its ending. All of this really got me excited to watch it. I think all of that hype was a bit much though. The movie is definitely a dark comedy and it will certainly have a lot of people divided. However it's not nearly the fucked up movie I was expecting. 

It is cool to see Seth Rogen doing something different. There are moments when he falls into the usual mannerisms and dialogue, but this character is a pretty different beast than we're used to seeing with Rogen. He actually gets to cry and emote in a couple scenes and he does a damn good job. I was impressed. The man may be ready for some more dramatic roles, although I'm guessing the upcoming Funny People will expand on that a little more.

The supporting cast does great as well. Anna Faris is still sort of playing the bimbo role she usually does, only here that bimbo is a terrible fucking person. Usually she is stupid but likable, but here she is just a manipulative bitch. She does well too, so hopefully this means that she will be branching out as well. However we already knew she was good at different roles thanks to May and Lost in Translation, she just seems to have gotten away from that.

Ray Liotta, well it's just nice to see him in a movie again. It's great to hear that creepy laugh of his. Even when he laughs like this when he's playing a good guy you just can't help but think that he's seconds away from eating a small child or a puppy. 

People who watch this expecting a typical hilarious comedy are going to be surprised and angry. It's definitely funny, but not the usual humour I'm sure Rogen fans (and mall cop movie fans, which is a subgenre of fans that I never thought would exist, and I'm not that happy that they do) are used to. A lot of it is character based, a lot of it is awkward, and a lot of it is really fucking dark. For the most part though it works, although there are a few patches that are pretty laugh-free.

I enjoyed this movie more than I thought I would. A lot of it comes down to the cast, but the humour works and I got oddly wrapped up in the story. You don't normally associate comedies with having a plot where you really have no clue what's going to happen or where it's going. This one really has that though. It's certainly not for everyone and I would be very hesitant about who I would recommend it to, but if you're looking for something different then I would give this one a shot.

7.5/10

Splinter

I think by this point I, and most other horror fans as well, have accepted that there really isn't any horror movie premises that haven't been done already. Just about all of them are familiar by this point, at least in some way. Now what's really important is to take that premise and do it well. Most fail at this, which is why it's so great when you find a movie that completely surprises you. Splinter is that movie. 

It's essentially a creature movie, with a hint of some zombie stuff going on too. The whole plot and setup is instantly familiar, but it's in the execution where this movie really shines. It takes a familiar concept, puts a couple of unique spins on it and then just delivers it in a way that's smart and entertaining.

First off, they wrote characters who are actually rounded and developed, at least when compared to most other movies of this type. Usually you are just watching a bunch of assholes who you can't wait to see killed. Here you actually root for them and genuinely want them to survive. I almost forgot what that's like. The performances help too, as they are definitely a few notches above average. For the most part they even manage to avoid making stupid decisions, another rarity for this kind of movie.

I won't lie I love a horror movie with some good gore and this one certainly doesn't skimp in that department. Lots of good/gross stuff here. However the suspense works well too. There aren't a whole lot of cheap scares in this one, although I do remember a couple of them. A lot of the movie is based around the suspense and waiting for something to happen and they do a good job. They make great use of the gas station location where almost the entire movie takes place.

I love when a horror movie I've never heard of ends up surprising me because it doesn't seem to happen that often. I think the score for this one may be a little higher purely because I wasn't expecting anything from it and was really blown away by how good it ended up being. Horror fans need to check this one out. It's familiar, but really well done.

8/10 

Eye See You

This is around the time we started to have problems with our online rental service. You see the thing is, this was around our 58th choice on our list. I don't even remember putting this movie on there. Nonetheless it arrived in the mail so I figured I would give it a watch.

This movie came out pretty much at the lowest point in Stallone's career. In fact I think this may have been his first DTV movie. This was what kicked off what many thought to be the end of his career, until he pulled out all his old characters and started releasing kick ass movies again. 

Eye See You isn't that bad, but it's pretty generic and bland. It does give Stallone something different in that this isn't an action movie, but is actually closer to being a horror movie. I guess I would call it a thriller. Well really I would call familiar. It's a bunch of people trapped in one location (by yes, a snowstorm) and someone is killing them off one by one. We've seen it before, but as tired as the formula is, it can still be done well.

Here it's not really done that well. It's never that suspenseful and tends to drag at times. A movie like this should have you constantly guessing who the killer is or who will be the next to go. For this one I didn't even really care enough to get that invested, although I did guess the killer right actually. There's the usual scenes where everyone accuses each other of being the killer and so on and so on. Nothing new here.

I was surprised by the cast however. There are a lot of recognizable actors in this thing. Aside from Stallone, you got Jeffrey Wright, Tom Berenger, Robert Patrick, Kris Kristofferson, Dina Meyer, etc. It's actually pretty impressive. It's odd they all agreed to do this movie though since none of their characters really gets to shine. I did like Patrick's badass character who turns into a whimpering mess when the killer catches up to him. That was pretty cool and actually gave his character sort of some depth. Other than that though nobody really gets a whole lot to do, although they are all good with what little they have.

Eye See You is ok, but it's not hard to see why it didn't get a theatrical release. It's pretty generic, although it's kind of cool to see Stallone in this kind of movie. Plus the idea that the killer murders his victims by drilling out their eye when they look through a peephole is certainly pretty fucked up. Overall though, meh.

5/10

Live Free or Die Hard

Once again another movie from the summer of 2007. One night a couple of weeks ago I just had this ridiculously intense urge to watch this movie. I mean who am I to fight that so I immediately popped in the DVD.

I remember the months and years leading up to the release of this movie had some very unpleasant moments. First off the reveal of the title. I would say most people were unhappy with it. Even to this day I'm not completely used to it. Then again I'm sure Die Harder and Die Hard With A Vengeance all sounded pretty fucking stupid at the time. So maybe this title is like a fine wine and will get better with age.

Another shocking revelation along the release path, and the one many people still hold against this movie, is the rating. PG thirfuckingteen. Nobody could believe that. How could a Die Hard movie not have an R rating? Hell the franchise's catchphrase has motherfucker in it! How would that ever work?! Well kudos to them because they pulled it off and made that shit work.

This is a damn good movie. I saw it for the first time right after Transformers and felt it was far superior. Those robots have nothing on John McClane. They can keep their confusing fights and Even Stevens guy and lame humour. I'll take this one any day.

Same as with Harrison Ford and the new Indiana Jones (except this one is a good movie) it's just great to see Bruce Willis back in his most famous role. Not only that, it's like he hasn't missed a beat. He falls immediately back into the role and you know right away you're watching that character. Age be damned he still looks good kicking ass and still has the perfect delivery of all those lines.

Even Justin Long does well in the role of the funny sidekick. This could have been a fucking disaster but he makes the character pretty likable and not that whiny. His sarcasm also finds that perfect balance between actually funny and "holy shit Bruce eat that kid!" 

Tim Oliphant as the villain is ok, but the weakest in the Die Hard series. I do like his overall plan and he has a few awesome moments ("come on, say something funny") but he feels a little underdeveloped and at times, generic.

The action, while certainly far-fetched, is top-notch. My two favourite sequences would have to be the tunnel and the elevator, but it's all good. Yes the stuff with the fighter jet is pretty god damn ridiculous, but it's also pretty god damn entertaining so it's all ok.

As for the rating, well it's a very hard PG-13 so that helps. No blood or swearing, but still plenty of violence. Plus if you get the unrated DVD it puts all of the language right back in there. It's pretty stupid at times because you can tell they just looped the word "fuck" over some of the scenes. Most of the time Bruce's mouth doesn't even match what he is saying, and sometimes it clearly isn't moving at all. It does put the iconic line back in though, which adds like 6 points right there.

This movie had so many things that could have made it terrible. The rating, the sidekick, but it all works out and they went against the odds and made a damn good movie. It's not better than the first Die Hard, not even close, but I would rank it above the second and it would be pretty damn close with the third.

8.5/10

Eden Lake

Another movie under the Dimension Extreme label. As everyone knows, you have to take that title with a grain of salt. At least I think you do, no real clue what that expression means. Many of the movies have simply been lame and tepid, nowhere near extreme. Thankfully Eden Lake qualifies as one of the better releases so far and although I would never describe a movie as "extreme", this one is closer to that than many of the other ones.

The plot is pretty simple, and pretty familiar. It's your typical story about a young couple being stalked by a killer/killers. However this movie does put one unique and disturbing twist on the whole thing...the killers here are a pack of young teenagers. For me that makes this thing a whole lot creepier and got me way more invested in everything that was happening.

The teenagers are actually depicted pretty realistically too. It would be so easy for this movie to make them over the top cartoony villains but they didn't. These fuckers are scary, but you believe they could exist. Hell I've ridden the bus with these pieces of shit. I wouldn't be at all surprised if I heard something like this happening in real life. In fact I've heard way worse. So I buy it man.

The movie moves along at a quick pace, which you always want with this type of movie. There is a little bit of time spent with the build-up, then once the shit hits the fan all bets are off and this time it's personal and other cliches. The rest of the movie is the chase and it can get pretty damn intense at times. There aren't a lot of those cheap fuckin' BLAH LOUD NOISE scares, which is excellent. The movie survives on suspense and tension, of which it has plenty.

I would check this one out. It's a huge surprise and a rare standout in the horror genre. Oh Dimension Extreme, you are just full of surprises aren't you?

7.5/10

Knocked Up

I'm not exactly sure what made me all of a sudden want to watch all of these movies from the summer of '07 but here we are. During my time at the theatre I must have seen this movie at least 18 times. Only two of those were viewings from start to finish, but during breaks we would watch it, or just spend part of our shift in there watching it, so if you add up all those little segments, I saw this movie many times.

Since buying the DVD I hadn't really revisited the movie but we wanted to watch something funny last week and this one seemed like the perfect choice. It's not really surprising but it still holds up. Parts aren't nearly as funny as maybe they once were, but there's no denying this is one of those comedies that can hold up to many repeat viewings.

It's a little strange to go back and see Seth Rogen back before he was a huge deal. Now he has like 5 or 6 movies a year but back then nobody really knew who the hell he was. And this was just two years ago too, not even. It's no surprise that this movie helped launch him because the man knows funny, what can I say. I'm also not sick of him yet either, which is pretty fantastic. He may want to slow his movie output a little but for now, I will watch pretty much anything the man does.

Katherine Heigl is good in the lead female role but it's been tainted by some of the comments she has made since the movie was released. She slammed the movie for being sexist, as well as other negative comments. For fucks sake Katherine Heigl. This movie helped bring you into the world of films, was universally loved and brought you to a whole new audience. Maybe..MAYBE..you should be thankful for that. Otherwise you would still be on Grey's pining over (and now apparently talking to? I stopped watching a long time ago) your dead boyfriend who I don't get why you're so upset over anyway? You knew him for like a week Katherine Heigl! And you talked to him at his bed a few times! That's not everlasting love! God damn you. 

The supporting cast is still the highlight. I'm sure this movie also really helped out Jason Segal who has made 2 hilarious movies since this one came out. Apparently Jay Baruchel is finally going to get his own movie too. Although what the hell happened to Jonah Hill? He had Superbad after this, then a small role here and there, and that's it. Weird. 

My biggest complaint about the movie is the length. It's simply too damn long. This is even more true now that the special edition DVD added like 20 minutes of footage to it. It never gets boring, but it does tend to drag and by the 2 hour mark, we were definitely ready for the movie to finally end.

Overall Knocked Up is still funny now and I'm sure will stilly be funny when I watch it again down the road. Comedies like that are getting rarer and rarer so we should be thankful whenever we're lucky enough to get one.

8/10

Spider-Man 3

Spider-man 3 will always hold a special place in my heart because my first night working at the movie theatre was the opening night for this movie. Of course this isn't the special place in your heart where you store away your pleasant memories. No this is the special place in your heart where you store away those memories that you would love nothing more than to just Eternal Sunshine right out of your head. The ones that haunt you and physically anger you whenever you remember them. For friends that was a terrible, terrible evening of incompetence and fear.

What didn't help matters was that I had already seen the movie earlier that day and was very let down by it. So the fact it was causing me this much stress, and was not that great a movie, well that made me fucking hate Spider-man 3. Now that it's almost two years later it felt like a good time to re-visit the movie. After spending all of this time knowing I was disappointed with it, along with most of the world, maybe a second viewing would help and I would be able to accept it as a better movie. No...no it's still not very good.

Coming right after the second movie, which I thought was fantastic, especially doesn't help this one. But there really is no denying that it's ridiculously flawed in many ways. It had potential to be a really good story and an amazing closure to the series (although now I guess we have at least two more on the way) but instead it just made things sort of fizzle out.

The absolute biggest problem with this movie is the humour. None of it works. Some of it is actually just painful. When Peter Parker goes dark/emo and just walks around pointing at women and dancing for 15 minutes, it's almost as though you are watching a completely different movie. I know Spider-man has always been one of the lighter comic book characters but come the fuck on! That dance he does in the nightclub?! That's one of the most painful things I have ever witnessed. This scene, as well as most attempts at being funny, simply don't work.

The other huge problem is how crammed this movie feels. They are simply trying to tell too much story here. I know Sam Raimi was almost forced to put Venom in there, and you can tell. Venom never feels like a natural part of the story. He's not even really a villain when he finally shows up, more of an obstacle. I would definitely consider myself a Venom fan and he really deserved his own movie to do him justice. 

Sandman is an awesome villain but I never realized just how little he has to do here. Throw in Harry as the new Green Goblin and it's just way too much. They should have just focused on one villain, maybe two. Everything feels rushed along. I don't even want to think about how the conflict between Harry and Peter is resolved. It is shockingly lazy. 

That being said, I still don't hate the movie. There are some effective sequences, the standout being Sandman's transformation. Really good stuff. Plus some of the action is well-done, in fact I would say most of it. Most of the cast is good, although I'm getting a little sick of Tobey at this point and Kirsten Dunst never quite felt appropriate in the role anyway.

Spider-man 3 was disappointing at first, and now it's simply a not very good movie. Too many characters, too much lame humour, too much emo pointing, and not enough....good. It's saved by some good action and some effective sequences scattered throughout.

6.5/10 

Marley & Me

God damn you Marley & Me. You broke my streak! I hadn't cried at a movie in so long and look what you did! LOOK WHAT YOU DID!!!! Even knowing how sad it was going to get didn't help matters any. So now it looks like the streak is over. Was it at least broken because of a quality movie? Well, I guess sort of.

Most of the appeal of Marley and Me really does come from Marley himself. Most people are interested in the movie because they have either read the book (which I have not) or have seen the dog commercial and gone "awwwwwwww". What's interesting though, is that the dog really isn't the focus here. It's the people. They made a cute dog movie...about people.

At least the story of the people is mostly interesting. We mostly just follow them through their lives as their change careers, get married, have kids, move, etc. It's mostly light-hearted stuff but it does occasionally venture into more dramatic territory. The shifts are never too jarring and work well enough. In fact I wish more of the story had been the dramatic segments because I was more engaged by them than I was any of the comedic stuff.

The comedy mostly plays it safe and sticks to the sitcom style of humour. You occasionally get a joke that is a little more on the risque side of things, but this is a family movie so they never go too far. As can be expected most of the humour comes from the antics of the dog. He eats things and destroys all kinds of shit, you know the routine. This actually leads into one of the larger problems I had with the movie.

I felt they should have spent more time with the dog in his lovable moments. So much of what he does is just destructive that we never get a chance to see exactly why the family loves him so much. I didn't hate the dog, absolutely not. But I think they should have shown some of the nicer moments they had with him. I've heard from people who have read the book that those moments are in there so why not include them? It's not as though you didn't have time, leading to my next complaint.

The movie is just too long. It's about 2 hours and when you really break down what happened during those 2 hours, it ain't a lot. I think they could have trimmed this thing down a little and made the movie better for it. I wouldn't really say it drags, but there is some unnecessary stuff in there for sure.

The actors all do fine. I'm not a fan of Jennifer Aniston but she does well here, even though I wanted to punch her character a couple of times. The same goes for Owen Wilson actually, who at least is a step forward from Drillbit Taylor. I actually thought the best character was Owen's boss, played by Alan Arkin. All of his scenes were stand-outs for sure.

I'm not going to talk too much about the ending but even those you aren't familiar with the book I'm sure know all about it by now. I still won't spoil it just in case but let's just say they don't let the audience off the hook easy with that shit. They go the route of cruel sadistic bastards who just want people to cry and be miserable. Manipulative, but powerful. 

Marley & Me is a decent watch and something good for the family. Just get ready to dehydrate yourself from sobbing like an infant.

7/10

It Came From Beneath The Sea

This is the final movie from the box set of Ray Harryhausen movies that I've been working my way through. This is one that I've actually been looking forward to watching because I had seen clips from it and I'm pretty much a sucker for any movie with a giant octopus destroying things. I don't think a good movie has been made about the subject yet, and sadly this one doesn't really change that. 

First off, it's not a good sign that despite having watched this movie only a couple of weeks ago I already don't remember a damn thing about it. I remember it's very slow in the beginning, and not all that interesting. It's mostly people on a submarine talking about things. 

We don't even get some giant octopus action until near the end of the movie, and by that point it really does feel like too little too late. A better title for the movie would maybe be "It Came From Beneath The Sea.....Eventually". The stop motion stuff with the octopus is, as expected, good stuff. As I said, there just isn't enough of it.

I'm normally pretty opposed to remakes, but I actually wouldn't mind it if somebody took a shot at remaking this movie with more action. However I also wouldn't want it to lose it's stop motion charm, so it would be a fine line to walk. I'm certainly not against movies that focus more on character and dialogue than on flashy effects and such, I was just never engaged by anything anyone was doing in this one. Worth it for the last 10 minutes, but maybe just fast forward straight to that.

5/10

The Spirit

After such a huge effort to catch up on this thing of course I had to fall way behind again. I have two weeks off coming up (just finished college, hoorah!) and plan on watching a lot of flicks so it's a good idea for me to get caught up on this thing now.

The Spirit proved to a frustrating entity when I was working at the movie theatre. We had a poster of it up in the main lobby and everyone who came in always saw it and commented "oh man Sin City 2". I never bother correcting them because really, this movie did look like Sin City 2. It was the guy who actually argued with me that there is no such book as "The Spirit" and that this was in fact, the sequel to Sin City. It was one of those arguments where nobody can win since he wasn't going to back down and neither was I. Theatre policies strictly forbid stabbing people in the neck, no matter how wrong about movies they may have been. My point is, this movie really does look like Frank Miller was trying to emulate the success he had with Sin City.

The problem is that while it does bear some resemblance to Sin City it looks, it doesn't even come close to touching it in terms of quality. I think they were trying to go for a live action cartoon with this one. People get hit over the head with toilet seats, the Spirit's pants fall down at one point, there are a bunch of "wacky" clones that get killed off throughout the movie, etc. The problem is, none of it really works. It tries so hard to be wacky but falls flat just about every time. I didn't see this movie in a theatre, but I can just about hear the awkward audience silences that would follow just about every joke.

I'm not opposed to the idea. It would be a good juxtaposition to the intense violence and grittiness of Sin City. It all falls apart in the execution. Unfortunately I can't say how accurate this one is compared to the comics, as I'm not at all familiar with them. A former co-worker of mine made it sound like they weren't similar at all. I assume Miller just thought "well people loved how Sin City looked, so we'll just do that shit again." Sadly at no point did somebody step forward and tell him no.

The cast is full of recognizable names, but all of them are quite bad. Sam Jackson is good as the villain, but he could play this role is his fucking sleep by this point. He was probably just on auto-pilot the entire time. He does dress up as a nazi at one point, which is something I don't think I've ever seen him do before. 

Eva Mendes is quite bad and her character just needs to be hit by bats. Either the baseball kind or the flying kind would be acceptable. Then again I've always sort of disliked Mendes ever since Hitch. That movie would have been so much better had it ended with her dying alone in her apartment while Will Smith finds happiness with someone else. I wonder if her characters are this terrible on the page or if it's just something she brings to the roles. Either way, fuck Eva Mendes.

However the worst of the bunch is Scarlett Johannson as Sam's henchwoman. She is absolutely terrible. Her first line of dialogue happens and it's awful but you assume it can only get better. It doesn't. Her performance is so bad that I actually went back over her previous work to see if she was ever a good actor. I know she's had some quality performances so I have to assume she just wasn't trying here. Or the dialogue was so awful that Audrey fucking Hepburn couldn't make it sound acceptable. I wouldn't be surprised by either situation.

The main guy as The Spirit does ok, but the problem is that the character says such stupid shit that it taints his performance. The opening monologue about the city just goes on and on until you honestly can't believe he's still yapping about it. Then they revisit that speech at the end of the movie. It was in all of the trailers so I'm sure you know. It's no less annoying in the actual movie than it was then. It's weird that the one guy I hadn't really heard of walks away from this movie the least damaged.

This movie tries to have a lot of odd quirky touches and an outlandish sense of humour, but it never really works. It's not quite the complete disaster I had read about it, but it's definitely a really bad movie. Hell Miller you helped write Robocop 2, step it up!!!!

4/10