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The Skinny: Two men take a family captive in their cabin.

The Good: Well, I watched this movie last night and have a hard time saying what’s “good” about it without sounding like I recommend the movie (I don’t). But there are certain aspects of the film that are really sticking with me, even today, and to me that’s a sign of a “good” movie.

Without spoiling anything, I think I can say that the way the “capture” of the family takes place is interesting. The two villains come to the family peacefully and politely, and gradually turn things into a hostile situation. And the way the villains deal with the family is unconventional, as their motives are unclear.

I also enjoyed the music – or lack thereof. Typically in thriller movies, the soundtrack kicks in to say, “Hey audience, I bet you didn’t recognize that this hide-and-seek scene is meant to be tense, so we’re gonna screech some violins to drive home that point!” But if I’m not mistaken, Funny Games only has some music at the beginning and end, and that’s it. I can’t think of any film in recent memory that does that and still has some decent scares.

Finally, the pacing/timing of many of the scenes, combined with the way those scenes were shot, were very effective too. Again, going back to typical thrillers, they often use loud music, jerky camera movements and predictable scares to evoke emotion. In Funny Games, there are many scenes where the camera is focused in one place for several minutes at a time while a character tries to figure something out or escape. So the constant feeling of “Oh my gosh, are the bad guys gonna walk in on this?” was pretty strong.

The Bad: It seems clear early on in the film that the filmmakers are scolding the audience for watching the family’s unfortunate situation, as one of the villains breaks “the fourth wall” and reprimands the audience a few times. That’s an interesting approach to take, however, the idea is never really followed up on or integrated into the film in an effective way, so it just seems more of a distraction/annoyance than anything else.

On that note, the film reminded me of the Saw series in that the villains offered the family to participate in “games” for their survival. And although I found myself caring quite a bit about the family’s well-being, the games were poorly executed and, like breaking the fourth wall, never became an integral part of the story.

The Ugly: There is a moment in which time is reversed and a scene is played over again, and though elaborating would ruin a key point in the story, I felt totally cheated afterward, and was tempted to just walk away.

The Bottom Line: Though the film seems to want to send a message to the audience about being ashamed for watching other people endure pain, the message wasn’t consistent, which resulted in an unbalanced final project. I think if they took the preachy stuff out and reworked some of the scenes (and ending!) a little, this would have been a really great unconventional thriller!

Score:

Technorati tags: Funny Games, movie reviews

The Skinny: Secret Agent Maxwell Smart (Steve Carell) joins forces with Agent 99 (Anne Hathaway) to battle a crime organization known as KAOS.

The Good: I’m a huge Steve Carell fan, and I think he was the perfect fit for this role. His deadpan dialog delivery and excellent comedic timing do a lot to keep this movie alive. Hathaway makes a pretty good sidekick for him too, and together they have decent chemistry and some laughable moments.

I also really enjoyed all the “that guy” characters that fill out the rest of the cast. There’s “that guy” from Heroes (I only watched a bit of the first season, but he’s the guy who finds a comic book written about himself I think?), there’s “that guy” from The Office who I think is named/nicknamed Todd Packer, and there’s also “that guy” from the David Spade Capital One commercials. All these guys had some funny moments, and I kept hoping they would get more screen time than they actually ended up with.

The Bad: With some great talent and plenty of comic potential, it was hard not to go into this movie without almost pre-laughing at everything. Know what I mean? It’s like I was so convinced this was a formula was gold that I was already smiling in anticipation of the experience.

Unfortunately, the movie was a bit of a let down. And I think the best way to explain my disappointment is to say that the comedy felt a bit outdated and lazy. A lot of the jokes felt ripped off from other movies, and worst of all you can see the punchlines coming a mile away, which was pretty boring.

For instance, there’s a scene where Steve has a blowdart gun, but his character is notoriously clumsy…oh geez, I wonder what’s going to happen? In another scene, Anne and Steve have to navigate very carefully through some lasers that can cut through anything. Anne makes it through no problem…I wonder what will happen when Steve goes through?!

Aside from using a ton of recycled jokes, the movie also goes for a lot of “easy” humor for laughs. Specifically, there’s a scene where Steve kisses The Rock. I think the shock of guys kissing guys for comedic value in movies has worn off a long time ago for me. The only time I remember being mildly uncomfortable with that sort of thing was when the South Park guys smooched in Baseketball. But that was 10 years ago!

The Ugly: Bill Murray shows up and is totally wasted as a guy hiding in a tree. Not kidding.

The Bottom Line: Let me avoid any “smart” puns here and just say the movie is packed with a lot of talent, but the stale comedy and flimsy story drags the whole thing down.

Score:

Technorati tags: Get Smart, movie reviews

The Skinny: From IMDB:

The story of a bride-to-be trying to find her real father told using hit songs by the popular ’70s group ABBA.

The Good: Gosh, as much as I was not overly thrilled to see this movie, it had the Hairspray effect on me: I could NOT help but have a big dumb smile on my face while tapping my toes and slapping my knees through most of the musical/dance numbers. Although I think my enjoyment would’ve been heightened a bit if I was more familiar with Abba’s music, especially since the film shows all the lyrics at the bottom of the screen and encourages audiences to sing along.

The acting/musical talent of the cast is excellent (with one glaring exception mentioned below). The most noteworthy (that was punny!) performance is Meryl Streep. Good heavens, is there anything she can’t do? From being a super-witch in The Devil Wears Prada and Rendition, to a zillion of her dramatic roles, to more quirky parts like Aunt Josephine in A Series of Unfortunate Events, I think I’d officially watch her do just about anything. And she’s backed by Amanda Seyfried (who plays her daughter), and two other female leads (playing her friends) who are musically solid too.

The Bad: There are three words, and three words only that come to mind when criticizing this film: Pierce Brosnan’s singing. For the love of Abba, I don’t know what the filmmakers were thinking by casting him in this film. I mean, there had to be some sort of audition process, right? They had to have at least heard him hum a tune, whistle or at least talk real slow to get a feel for his singing voice, right?

The first time he sang in the movie, I turned around and gave the projectionist an evil eye. I figured he’d replaced the audio track with the sound of a boar being placed in a deep fryer. But after a few seconds I realized that that was indeed Pierce singing, and I watched my Mamma Mia enthusiasm momentarily crash and burn. Fortunately, Meryl picked it up for me again, but it went up in flames again each and every time Pierce opened his mouth.

The Ugly: Did I mention Pierce Brosnan sings in this movie?

The Bottom Line: I hope the director releases a “Pierceless Cut” of the film in which all of Pierce’s singing is removed or replaced by vocals from Michael Crawford.

Score:

Technorati tags: Mamma Mia, movie reviews

The Skinny: A team of astronauts are sent to re-ignite the sun.

The Good: This movie was made by Danny Boyle, whose past work (such as 28 Days Later and 28 Weeks Later) I loved, so I was excited to see this film. The first act of the film was really enjoyable because it does a good job of setting up the fact that these astronauts are in for a bumpy ride. And it’s unclear whether the crew’s difficulties will include natural disasters, conflicts among themselves, or perhaps some sort of alien villains.

The Bad: Without ruining any surprises, I can say that the crew’s difficulties are the focus of the film, but unfortunately the handling of those difficulties is really poor. There are several scenes where potentially interesting conflicts were setup, but then those conflicts were either not followed up on, or completed in a way that lacked any real tension or drama. This is made worse from the fact that the actors are more or less just character placeholders. They aren’t developed or given any back story, so it’s really hard to give a rip about them. Cillian Murphy was the only face I recognized, and though I still don’t know how I feel about his acting, his scratchy hushed-tone voiceovers made me want to get hearing aids.

The Ugly: The final “challenge” for the crew was pretty far out of left field. I started laughing and half-expected to hear “Jason-Jason-Jason-Jason-kill-kill-kill-kill!”

The Bottom Line: This movie made me thankful for the sun, as well as the stop button on my DVD player.

Score:

Technorati tags: Sunshine, movie reviews

The Skinny: Hayden Christensen plays a young man who can “jump” to any place in the world just by thinking really hard about it. Yep, that’s the whole story folks!

The Good: The film’s premise is definitely one of those “Oh man, I wish I could do that!” kind of things I thought about as a kid, and it is mildly amusing to watch Hayden zip around the world, and explore the freedom of his new powers. I can’t think of many more positive things to say except that Rachel Bilson, playing Hayden’s girlfriend, does exactly what is asked of her character (pout a lot).

The Bad: While Jumper’s concept has potential, it clearly wasn’t thought out very well, because there is no further definition of Hayden’s character or powers to make him a well-balanced hero. For example, Superman can always take the “easy way” out and fly away from danger, but not if the bad guy has Kryptonite! In this case, Hayden doesn’t really have a Kryptonite. The bad guys just need to be fast enough to catch him like a rat. So it’s hard to feel nervous for Hayden in tense situations when he can be half away across the world in a blink of an eye. On a nerdy side note, I’d think eventually the bad guys pursuing him would give up after a few of his “jumps,” given how expensive plane tickets are, and how tight airport security is getting .

The Ugly: Samuel L. Jackson sports blond hair, perhaps to try and somehow differentiate this character from the 24,391 other bad/angry guys he’s played.

The Bottom Line: I hate to get caught up in a reality check again, but after you see the film, ask yourself this: wouldn’t this have all been over a lot sooner if Hayden just “jumped” Sam Jackson during their first encounter? Then again, if he did that, this movie never would have existed. And that would be fine with me.

Score:

Technorati tags: Jumper, movie reviews

The Skinny: After a particularly tough hit, two assassins cool off in the little town of Bruges.

The Good: Yeah, I know, it doesn’t sound like a very interesting movie based on my description – and that’s what I was thinking too. However, I was pleasantly surprised that this film had a good mix of action, drama and comedy – not a combo that gets successfully pulled off very often.

But the biggest surprise for me was Colin Farrell. I’ve never bought into his hype as an actor, and frankly, I haven’t enjoyed a single film of his – particularly his mumbling mulletaciousness in Miami Vice or the soul-numbing touching and twirling in The New World. But here, Colin shows some real energy, humor, and likability that plays great against his counterpart, Brendan Gleeson. Ralph Fiennes is also entertaining as their boss who has an affection for spouting profanities and losing his temper.

Along with the acting, I liked the story because it was not at all what I expected it to be. Now I know that we should say that about every movie, right? But too many times we watch movies and within about 15 minutes, we kind of know roughly what to expect. That’s not the case here. I won’t go into detail, but let me just say that I never expected to be so interested in events involving hitmen, midgets, movie sets and shoot-outs.

The Bad: Unfortunately, I think the movie really falls apart at the end. The big action scene that the film builds up to goes on for way too long, and turns into a Wile E. Coyote chase – except not as interesting. Then there is a moment where all credibility for the movie was flushed down the pooper for me: a character suffers an injury that would absolutely, positively, without a doubt have killed him. But the character lives long enough to raise his head, look around, and even talk. Now I know movies aren’t supposed to be real, but when the story has followed mostly “real world” rules for its whole run time and then pulls a move like this, I feel cheated.

The Ugly: The aforementioned fatal injury. That guy will certainly never dance again.

The Bottom Line: I really, really liked about 70% of the movie, but the taste of the crappy 30% is still in my mouth.

Score:

Technorati tags: In Bruges, movie reviews

The Skinny: After the United States suspects him of being a terrorist, Reece Witherspoon’s husband is held against his will – and without her knowledge – in a secret CIA detention center.

The Good: The way the US treats suspected terrorists is certainly a relevant topic, so the writers had a wide open window of opportunity to make a movie that is both politically controversial and emotionally stimulating at the same time.

The Bad: It doesn’t do either one of those things. And I’m really bummed about that, because I was looking forward to this movie quite a bit. I can’t say I was exactly bored, as the handling of the prisoner and the events surrounding his alleged capture are fairly interesting. But I think the core problem here is that the most interesting stuff was either left out or cut out of the film.

I can’t articulate this point without spoilers, but suffice to say there are some obstacles for Witherspoon’s husband towards the end of the film that seem to promise some heart-pounding excitement, a possible chase sequence, and all sorts of logistical problems for him to overcome. Instead, that sequence is just skipped, and the end result of his journey presented, leaving me with some major believability issues. As a result, I felt a bit cheated.

Also, a medical professional needs to check out Jake Gyllenhaal’s face. Either he has been paralyzed from the neck up, or he’s invented some sort of acting method that is supposed to make it look like Keanu Reeves has talent.

The Ugly: The movie pulls this shiesty time-twisting move where I literally had to press pause and go “What, did they just totally jack with the timeline for no reason? Or did I get sucked into a worm hole and we’re watching Vantage Point again?” The maneuver is really uncalled for and totally pulled Aim and I out of the experience.

The Bottom Line: One definition of rendition is:

An explanation of something that is not immediately obvious.

I’ll tell you what was not immediately obvious when I started this movie: that it was gonna stink.

Score:

Technorati tags: Rendition, movie reviews

The Skinny: Nicolas Cage (and his hair) embark on a journey to find a missing girl on a private island in the midst of a secret neo-pagan community.

The Good: As much as the acting and storyline was absolute garbage, I was at least 11% invested in it (I only need to be about 10% into a film to finish it all the way through), and was somewhat satisfied with the ending.

The Bad: Oh my gosh. Let me put it another way: what’s NOT bad? Well, to say the story is dumb and confusing is like saying the ocean is a bit damp. And this is one case where I don’t need (or want) to backup my gripes with specifics.

Because even if the story was semi-coherent, the acting is literally – and I’m pretty sure unintentionally – laughable. There’s one scene in particular where Nick arrives at the mysterious island, and three women try to warn him of problems/danger in a creepy way. But the dialogue is so awkward and bad that I swear the actresses must’ve had to do the scene a dozen times just to keep themselves from laughing. And Nick has a few funny lines of his own that he delivers with the seriousness of an angry bull, particularly when he draws his gun on a woman riding a bicycle and grunts out, “Step away from the bike!” Another great line is, “Owww! My leeeegggs!” which is somehow even more humorous because you don’t see what’s happening to him.

The Ugly: The movie’s “big scene” features Nick in a bear costume, running around and yelling at people. If that doesn’t stear you clear of seeing The Wicker Man, I don’t know what will.

The Bottom Line: According to Wikipedia, a wicker man is a wicker effigy that is burned as a human sacrifice by the ancient Gauls. So if you really want to have a wicker man experience, I’ll come over to your house and set it on fire while you perish inside. I guarantee you that will be less painful than watching this film.

Score:

Technorati tags: The Wicker Man, movie reviews

The Skinny: An assassination attempt on the president is shown over and over again from the vantage point of about 1,249 people.

The Good: I love non-conventional storytelling, so I went into this movie expecting to have some fun while trying to figure out “whodunit.” And I’m a big fan of Dennis Quaid. On my list of favorite celebrities who look awesome when they’re scowling, I think Denny is in my top five. Other good actors are sprinkled throughout the film, such as Forest Whitaker as a slightly cooky videographer, and Sigourney Weaver (where’s she been hiding?) as a news producer. Her talent is pretty much wasted in the role, but it’s good to see her again. Siggy, if you’re reading this, I hope you plan on making Aliens 16 soon.

The Bad: Although I like the “keep showing the same story from different perspectives” thing, the fact of the matter is the story is just not very engaging or clever enough to justify retelling a zillion times. I mean, the first few times I was watching the screen like a hawk, searching for clues, thinking that the movie was a puzzle for the viewers to figure out. But after seeing the events for the fifth and sixth time, it becomes clear that there really is no wizard behind the curtain, nor will there be a “gotcha” moment where the movie’s writers show how much smarter they are than us. In fact, the poor writing comes to a huge, wet, sloppy finish at the ending. It’s like the writers just threw up their hands and said “Lets finish writing this stinker and go get a pizza.”

I also need to point out that Matthew Fox (that one guy from Lost) is really, really terrible. No offense, but it wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world if he got stuck on a desert island with an Acting for Dummies book for a few years.

The Ugly: At about the 17th time through the story, there is a twist so gosh-awfully unbelievable that Brinkley actually woke up from a deep sleep and threw up on the DVD cover in protest.

The Bottom Line: Read this review 20 or 30 times, and much like Vantage Point, you’ll find there are really no surprises to be found.

Score:

Technorati tags: Vantage Point, movie reviews

The Skinny: A mysterious mist surrounds a small town in Maine, trapping a group of people in a supermarket. And it probably goes without saying that anyone who goes outside into the mist is probably not coming back in one piece.

The Good: I was pleasantly surprised at how much I enjoyed this film. With a title like The Mist, I was expecting something really campy and corny. I mean, how scary can a mist be, really? If I wrote a movie called The Snow, would your heart start pounding?

While I was never really scared, and the special effects were a little on the low budget side, the movie did a nice job of keeping the threat of the mist very real, while at the same time exploring the dynamics of people who are trapped together in a small space.

Thomas Jane, who I still don’t know from anything except The Punisher, plays the average Joe hero type who tries to keep his son and the rest of the group calm while devising a plan to get home to his wife. His efforts are constantly jeopardized by Maria Gay Harden, playing a very effective fundamentalist Christian whose preachings and teachings threaten to throw the whole situation into anarchy.

I also really liked how the film handled the explanation of the mist. I think it nailed a believable balance of information to clue us in on what was happening without getting caught up in overexplaining things. Most sci-fi/horror films either give the audience too little information (so they feel slighted) or too much (so they sit there pondering plot problems).

The best thing of all is the ending! I’m a HUGE “endings guy,” and this one is great – it really goes for the cajones. I won’t say more – except that I’m pretty good at spotting most endings a mile away, but this one caught me off guard and was a pleasant surprise. Oh, and I just read that Frank Darabont was offered a crapton of money to change the ending to something a bit happier, and he didn’t. Way to go Frank – I don’t know you, but I consider you a good friend.

The Bad: I mentioned the hokey special effects before, but I’m not entirely sure this is a valid complaint, as their cheesiness may have been intentional. I’m trying to think if better CGI would’ve really made it a better film, and right now I don’t think so.

The Ugly: The creatures are pretty icky in general, but it was the acid-spewing spider thingies that really made me hope a mysterious mist doesn’t invade my neighborhood.

The Bottom Line: Almost more of a drama than a horror/sci-fi film, but a pretty darn good one.

Score:

Technorati tags: The Mist, movie reviews