Tag: movie review

The Dark Knight Rises Movie Review

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Grade C: I haven’t been a huge fan of Christopher Nolan’s Batman film series. I felt that Batman Begins (2005) took too long to get going and that if The Dark Knight (2008) were about 45 minutes shorter I’d have considered it a masterpiece. But those 45 minutes…

And while I didn’t enjoy the Nolan Batman films as much as I had some of the more recent Marvel superhero movies, or even Batman (1989), I did enjoy the two Nolan Batman films enough to see the latest The Dark Knight Rises opening night.

Unfortunately, I liked The Dark Knight Rises even less than the other two Nolan Batman outings.

It seems to me that a movie that advertises itself as featuring Batman would feature said character. And while Batman is certainly a presence at the end of the movie and in an amazing chase scene at the middle, the character feels mostly absent from The Dark Knight Rises. We instead get a haggard and beaten Howard Hughes-esque Bruce Wayne (Christian Bale) and Gotham cop trying to do good John Blake (Joseph Gorden-Levitt) in his place for much of the movie.

I think what gets me so much about not having Batman around is just how good the movie is when he’s in it; from the above mentioned chase scene, to Batman vs. Bane (twice!) or even the complicated relationship Batman has with Selena Kyle/Catwoman. When Batman is around The Dark Knight Rises is interesting and fun. When he’s not the movie is like a long drink of molasses.

Batman Begins – 2.5/4 Stars
The Dark Knight – 3/4 Stars

Disaster Du Jour #1: Earthquake (1974)

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When I think of a stereotypical disaster movie a few things pop to mind; a cast of once bright stars but who’s stardom is on the wane, a possible disaster that’s top of mind and a certain way of storytelling where strands of seemingly independent stories come together during the disaster.

One of the early disaster films that would make this type of storytelling “stereotypical” is the movie Earthquake (1974).

Click here to continue reading this first Disaster Du Jour column on the movie Earthquake.

 

John Carter Movie Review

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Grade C+: When I saw the first trailers for the John Carter movie I was a less than impressed. Something that I’d assumed would have the action of Indiana Jones and the visuals of Star Wars was instead being sold as an introspective journey to an alien world. Which was okay, I can dig it when a movie like John Carter plays with viewer expectations and instead delivers something different and unique than what has come before.

Unfortunately, though there are some bright moments in John Carter, for the most part there’s nothing different or unique in this movie than what’s come before.

In John Carter, the character of the same name (played by Taylor Kitsch) is magically whisked away to the planet Mars after he seeks shelter in a weird cave. On Mars, known as Barsoom by its inhabitants, John Carter meets the green, four armed Tharks, falls in love with princess Dejah Thoris (Lynn Collins)  and does battle with the evil Matai Shang (Mark Strong) and minions who somehow feed off of chaos and have driven the planet Mars to ruin. It’s up to Carter to stop Shang before he completely destroys Mars and moves onto the Earth.

The bright moments of John Carter are the visuals, Mars and the CGI Tharks are particularly wonderful, and other various special effects too. Since Mars has less gravity than the Earth makes John Carter much stronger than anything else on Mars and when we see Carter jump and fight it’s awesome. That being said, the overall story of the movie is the real weakness of the film. What works are the bits of the original A Princess of Mars story that makes it into the movie, what doesn’t is just about everything else.

John Carter is currently available on DVD, Blu-ray and digital download.

The Avengers Movie Review

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Grade A: The Avengers is the ultimate superhero team-up movie. This could almost be my whole review but since I like to keep my reviews at around 300 words and not nine I will write on…

Marvel Entertainment already has a great track record with their slate of comic book based  films. They already have hugely popular films like Captain American, Iron Man, Thor and (the less popular) The Incredible Hulk with side characters such as Black Widow, Hawkeye and Nick Fury who’ve also appeared in those movies who have a following in their own right. So, it was really a no-brainer on Marvel’s part to put all these characters together into one movie; The Avengers.

In The Avengers, Thor’s godly brother Loki threatens the Earth with domination after he steals the powerful and mystical “Cosmic Cube” that will allow an alien army a gateway to invade the planet and it’s up to The Avengers to stop him.

And really, for comic book geeks like me we don’t need anything more than “Hulk SMASH” and Cap kicking butt. However, The Avengers is more, it’s a movie for the geeks as well as the general public who probably doesn’t know their Cosmic Cubes from their Infinity Gauntlets. I think The Avengers can be a crossover hit like this because of writer/director Joss Whedon who’s not only a guy who can come up with one heck of a compelling story but can also breath life and humor into a movie full of characters. Which, looking at previous team movies like X-Men: The Last Stand and Fantastic Four is no easy task.

Haywire Movie Review

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Grade B: I didn’t go into the movie Haywire with a lot of expectations, how could I since the movie is essentially a 1980s action throwback flick about a female secret agent (Gina Carano) out for revenge when she’s betrayed after a mission goes wrong? But oddly enough, I didn’t just come out of Haywire not-hating the movie, I actually liked it.

In Haywire, Mallory Kane (Carano) is on the run after her boss Kenneth (Ewan McGregor) reports her missing and dangerous, deciding that she knows too much about the behind the scenes going on in his shadowy organization. Mallory treks across Europe, then the US in search of Kenneth while at the same time dodging other operatives out to eliminate her.

Which, admittedly, sounds like a weak movie at best. But under the skilled hand of director Steven Soderbergh (Contagion, Traffic) and writer Lem Dobbs (Dark City, The Limey) Haywire comes off as a non-linear, interesting film that’s broken up by some absolutely bone crunching fight scenes.

To be sure, Carano comes off a little stiff in the film. Which is understandable since Haywire is her first real role, she’s in almost every scene and has to carry practically the entire movie. However, while Carano does act a bit stiff, she really delivers when it comes to the fight scenes. Here, it’s really her and not some stunt double taking the punches, falling from rooftops and crashing through doors.

What I kept thinking during the movie was that while a traditional actress really can’t be trained to be as physical as Carano has trained herself to be as a real-life mixed-martial arts fighter, with a bit of training Carano could become a good actress. Surly I wasn’t the only person to see Carano’s obvious beauty mixed with her physicality as being the perfect traits for someone to one day play the character of Wonder Woman?

Haywire is currently available on Blu-ray, DVD and digital download.