Short Review: It’s as bombastic as it is ill conceived, which is fancy way of saying its loud and stupid.



John Cusack is in his forties and is still playing half-man schlubs who can’t manage relationships. His character Jackson Curtis is broken down, broken-hearted and just plain broke. His ex-wife Kate (Amanda Peet) has left him. His kids loathe his mere presence. In a way, this film is like seeing Better Off Dead as done by Michael Bay.

This is a horrendous film.

Awful.

Lousy.

Thankfully it is also a bloated disaster movie so it doesn’t really matter. All the film has to do is flash lights to distract from its limping plot in order to be successful. The only reason to see this film is to watch the end of the world in glorious high definition. Writer/Director Roland Emmerich (Independence Day, Godzilla, 10,000 B.C.) promises to deliver the apocalypse with as few words as possible. He delivers on his promise.

What I found amazing is that Emmerich still bothers trying to shoehorn relationship issues into the end of days. At one point Jackson and Kate have a quiet moment together. She complains that Jackson spent too much time working and not enough time with his family. They literally just watched billions of people perish, the totality of human civilization has been destroyed and she is still nagging at the poor sap. I guess we can see why things didn't work out them.

The problem with trying to pull off character development in a film like this is that once you show the USS John F. Kennedy on a tsunami wave crashing into the White House and killing the President, it's a little much to ask us to care about the gripes from John Cusack’s ex-wife.

If you are only interested in seeing crashing buildings, ridiculous plot contrivances and perilous escapes, this will be a good pick. If you have the tendency to pause while watching movies and consider how reality actually works, you will probably still enjoy it because it’s dang funny from that angle.

I laughed constantly through the film. Here is a moment which sums up the film for me. Jackson is driving a limo through Los Angeles as the city is literally falling to pieces. A building crashes down in front of him. He jumps the limo into the side of the falling building, drives the car across a floor, speeding through a business office, crashes out of a window and manages to land safely on the highway on the other side. If you can handle that level of dumb, knock yourself out.


Worldview: I was struck by Emmerich's treatment of faith. Every once in a while someone would casually mention that “its time to start praying”. Other than these passing nods to the notion that some people may or may not possibly consider asking for mercy from something that maybe perhaps might be something kinda like a God or something or who knows what, there is a remarkable absence of any real faith. The President begins to quote scripture at one point, but he is cut off before he finishes. The world is ending, billions are dying, and the only references to Jesus Christ are when characters are cursing.

Emmerich is very deliberate in his presentation of religion in this film, particularly when it comes to the destruction of iconic places. Emmerich is given credit for popularizing the destruction of landmarks in action/disaster movies. The White House being blown up in Independence Day started the trend. Destroying the White House, Washington Monument, and other landmarks serves to pervert the “Death of God Image" I’ve discussed before.

In this film, Emmerich takes the Death of God Image and runs with it. He not only shows the Christ the Redeemer Statue in Brazil crumbling, but he stops the movie cold to spend time at the Vatican. Thousands of Catholics are crowded outside of Saint Peter’s Cathedral as the Pope looks down on them from the balcony. Inside, a collection of cardinals huddle in a circle praying. As the room begins to shake they look upward to see the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel (apparently its been moved). The ceiling cracks and splits, severing the famous fingers of God and Adam. Suddenly, the Saint Peter’s Basilica plops over on its side and rolls over all of the collected Catholics killing the faithful like a big rolling pin made out of cosmic irony.

Beyond the obvious “imagine if they did this to any other group” argument, I need to point out that Emmerich goes out of his way to avoid showing large groups of people in this film. All of L.A. is destroyed but we only witness a few dozen actual deaths. The crowds that are killed on screen are shown from vast distances or are represented by focusing tightly on the fearful face of a known character.

The deaths at the Vatican are the only crowd shown killed in a specific, almost devious way. This is not by accident. Emmerich himself admits that the destruction of religious locations is intentional – in particular his choice in showing Christians getting it.


When asked about destroying Christ the Redeemer Emmerich explains,

Cautions: There's death and destruction. There's some foul language and a few instances of people taking Christ's name in vain. Beyond these infractions, there's not too much that is worth being cautioned over (regarding the content).



Once you see the film read what follows:

Two items:

Congratulations! The good news: you’ve been cast in a huge Hollywood blockbuster. The bad news: Your character arc is that you learn to stop peeing the bed at night.

So, the world’s elite are given the chance to buy a seat on the arks. In the end the world leaders come together to allow some stranded folk into their ships. This is used to show how we maintain our humanity. Yeah, about that, the stranded people are also rich elites who also bought their way onto the arks. So, other than some Chinese slaves, the survivors of humanity are all billionaires. Each have drained their resources from the rest of the world so they could comfortably survive the hell on Earth they left for everyone else. The worst of humanity gets to live. Nice message.


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Labels: Amanda Peet, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Danny Glover, disaster movie, film, John Cusack, McMovie, movie review, Oliver Platt, Roland Emmerich, Thandie Newton, Woody Harrelson

Short Review: It’s as bombastic as it is ill conceived, which is fancy way of saying its loud and stupid.



John Cusack is in his forties and is still playing half-man schlubs who can’t manage relationships. His character Jackson Curtis is broken down, broken-hearted and just plain broke. His ex-wife Kate (Amanda Peet) has left him. His kids loathe his mere presence. In a way, this film is like seeing Better Off Dead as done by Michael Bay.

This is a horrendous film.

Awful.

Lousy.

Thankfully it is also a bloated disaster movie so it doesn’t really matter. All the film has to do is flash lights to distract from its limping plot in order to be successful. The only reason to see this film is to watch the end of the world in glorious high definition. Writer/Director Roland Emmerich (Independence Day, Godzilla, 10,000 B.C.) promises to deliver the apocalypse with as few words as possible. He delivers on his promise.

What I found amazing is that Emmerich still bothers trying to shoehorn relationship issues into the end of days. At one point Jackson and Kate have a quiet moment together. She complains that Jackson spent too much time working and not enough time with his family. They literally just watched billions of people perish, the totality of human civilization has been destroyed and she is still nagging at the poor sap. I guess we can see why things didn't work out them.

The problem with trying to pull off character development in a film like this is that once you show the USS John F. Kennedy on a tsunami wave crashing into the White House and killing the President, it's a little much to ask us to care about the gripes from John Cusack’s ex-wife.

If you are only interested in seeing crashing buildings, ridiculous plot contrivances and perilous escapes, this will be a good pick. If you have the tendency to pause while watching movies and consider how reality actually works, you will probably still enjoy it because it’s dang funny from that angle.

I laughed constantly through the film. Here is a moment which sums up the film for me. Jackson is driving a limo through Los Angeles as the city is literally falling to pieces. A building crashes down in front of him. He jumps the limo into the side of the falling building, drives the car across a floor, speeding through a business office, crashes out of a window and manages to land safely on the highway on the other side. If you can handle that level of dumb, knock yourself out.


Worldview: I was struck by Emmerich's treatment of faith. Every once in a while someone would casually mention that “its time to start praying”. Other than these passing nods to the notion that some people may or may not possibly consider asking for mercy from something that maybe perhaps might be something kinda like a God or something or who knows what, there is a remarkable absence of any real faith. The President begins to quote scripture at one point, but he is cut off before he finishes. The world is ending, billions are dying, and the only references to Jesus Christ are when characters are cursing.

Emmerich is very deliberate in his presentation of religion in this film, particularly when it comes to the destruction of iconic places. Emmerich is given credit for popularizing the destruction of landmarks in action/disaster movies. The White House being blown up in Independence Day started the trend. Destroying the White House, Washington Monument, and other landmarks serves to pervert the “Death of God Image" I’ve discussed before.

In this film, Emmerich takes the Death of God Image and runs with it. He not only shows the Christ the Redeemer Statue in Brazil crumbling, but he stops the movie cold to spend time at the Vatican. Thousands of Catholics are crowded outside of Saint Peter’s Cathedral as the Pope looks down on them from the balcony. Inside, a collection of cardinals huddle in a circle praying. As the room begins to shake they look upward to see the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel (apparently its been moved). The ceiling cracks and splits, severing the famous fingers of God and Adam. Suddenly, the Saint Peter’s Basilica plops over on its side and rolls over all of the collected Catholics killing the faithful like a big rolling pin made out of cosmic irony.

Beyond the obvious “imagine if they did this to any other group” argument, I need to point out that Emmerich goes out of his way to avoid showing large groups of people in this film. All of L.A. is destroyed but we only witness a few dozen actual deaths. The crowds that are killed on screen are shown from vast distances or are represented by focusing tightly on the fearful face of a known character.

The deaths at the Vatican are the only crowd shown killed in a specific, almost devious way. This is not by accident. Emmerich himself admits that the destruction of religious locations is intentional – in particular his choice in showing Christians getting it.


When asked about destroying Christ the Redeemer Emmerich explains,

Cautions: There's death and destruction. There's some foul language and a few instances of people taking Christ's name in vain. Beyond these infractions, there's not too much that is worth being cautioned over (regarding the content).




Once you see the film read what follows:

Two items:

Congratulations! The Good News: you’ve been cast in a huge Hollywood blockbuster. The Bad News: Your character arc is that you learn to stop peeing the bed at night.

So, the world’s elite are given the chance to buy a seat on the arks. In the end the world leaders come together to allow some stranded folk into their ships. This is used to show how we maintain our humanity. Yeah, about that, the stranded people are also rich elites who also bought their way onto the arks. So, other than some Chinese slaves, the survivors of humanity are all billionaires who drained their resources from the rest of the world so they could comfortably survive the hell on Earth they left for everyone else. The worst of humanity gets to live. Nice message.

Labels: Amanda Peet, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Danny Glover, disaster movie, film, John Cusack, McMovie, movie review, Oliver Platt, Roland Emmerich, Thandie Newton, Woody Harrelson

Do you really want to spend the end of the world hanging around John Cusack?




Screenwriters: Roland Emmerich (Godzilla) and Harold Kloser (10,000 B.C.)
Director: Roland Emmerich (Independence Day)
Actors: John Cusack (Better Off Dead), Thandie Newton (Rocknrolla), Woody Harrelson (No Country for Old Men), Amanda Peet (The Whole Nine Yards), Chiwetel Ejiofor (Redbelt), Oliver Platt (Casanova), Danny Glover (Lethal Weapon) and Morgan Lily (Henry Poole is Here)

Labels: Amanda Peet, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Danny Glover, film, John Cusack, movie trailer, Roland Emmerich, Thandie Newton, Woody Harrelson

This is the cinematic equivalent to eating left overs of left overs.

Instead of South Africans, Riggs (Mel Gibson) and Murtaugh (Danny Glover) battle Chinese Triads. Other than fighting Jet Li, the partners whine about getting old...well, actually Murtaugh always complained about being old but in this outing Riggs joins him. Chris Rock is thrown in as a over pronunciating soon to be son-in-law to Murtaugh and Riggs shack up girl Lorna (Rene Russo) is knocked up. That's about it. A bunch of characters who have been kept on life support being shoved into convienent plot twists. You get the feeling like you've watched a movie without really watching one.


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Labels: cops, Danny Glover, film, Mel Gibson, movie review, Shane Black

It's all of the stupid from the first two Lethal Weapon movies without any of the fun. The poster for the film pretty much says it all. It's a Hollywood-kinda-dumb, directed from the balance sheet, McMovie. Riggs and Murtaugh are back and this time there's a cop girlfriend accessory!

Violent and appealing to the lowest common denominator, this is utter pap and not worth the bother.


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Labels: cops, Danny Glover, film, Mel Gibson, movie review, Shane Black

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Labels: cops, Danny Glover, film, Mel Gibson, movie review, Shane Black

Screenwriting legend Shane Black's first big gig. This fat, stupid movie about self-destructive white cop Martin Riggs (Mel Gibson) and his beleaguered black partner Roger Murtaugh (Danny Glover) is a vacuous, ridiculous waste of time - but still a fun way to waste it.

The film is an amoral carnival ride of stupid. Not a second of the film makes sense, its completely out of the realm of the possible and ultimately we're all along to have our brains tickled for ninety minutes. Black manages to manipulate all matter of elements into his film to elicit visceral responses. The film opens with a sexy whore dying, Riggs makes light of suicide, plenty of references to Vietnam, there's a silly bit about Riggs being an expert sniper (if he's a sniper then why isn't he on S.W.A.T.?) and carefully crafted scenes with Murtaugh's Cosby-lite family. All of this mashed together with a intruding saxophone soundtrack that may as well been loud fart noises. It's all so obtuse and it's all so dumb.

Gibson was a known actor prior to his turn as Riggs, having found success in the Mad Max films. It was his energetic performance launched him to wider fame. Gibson's wild-eye Riggs makes psychotic suicidal tenancies approachable and funny and gave him a place to showcase his natural humor and charm. Gibson turned a buddy film into a star vehicle.

This is a fun movie, there is no taking that away. It is also an utter waste of time and a obscenely moronic. Shane Black is a great screenwriter. He can take something idiotic and revel in the depths of its stupidity and pull out something that makes you not care that you're being presented vapid. This is not a small feat. Black makes crap, but it is impressive crap.


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Labels: cops, Danny Glover, film, Mel Gibson, movie review, Shane Black

Fernando Meirelles directed a great film, Cidade de Deus "City of God". It is a moving, sometimes shocking exploration into environment and character. It is a reminder of the power of cinema and is one of the best movies I've ever seen.

This ain't City of God.

The first act of this film about a plague that blinds its victims is wonderfully constructed and executed. Merielles' stark visuals and thoughtful scenes develop the paranoia, isolation and fear that comes with of the uncontrollable threat of disease. A virus blinds its victims and one by one people are left stumbling around town, crashing their cars and getting lost in their own homes. Before too long the government steps in an quarantines the victims in an abandoned mental hospital. One of the victims "Doctor" (Mark Ruffalo) is an optomistrist who loses his sight early on. His wife, aptly named "Doctor's Wife" is immune to the disease. She can see. She pretends to be blind so she can keep tabs on and help her love. Its at this point things hit a big, unmovable wall.

While instituationalized, it becomes clear that the outside world is falling apart, but things aren't much better inside. The blind prisoners wander the halls naked, filth and execement smudge the floors and trash lines the rooms. Their life in squalor and fear gets worse when the food shipments stop coming. A group of thugs, who live on the first floor of the building, take over the food supply and demand payment for it from the other residnets. They back up their demand with a gun and the fact that one of their members has been blind his whole life. Unlike everyone else, he is used to being blind uses his experience to control others.




The story descends into a confusing, unpleansant mess at this point because once the thugs take all of the trinkets and property from the rest of the asylum they then demand the women. The women in the asylum submit so people can eat. What follows is a disturbing rape sequence where the women are brutally victimized, one even dies. Meirelles doesn't descend to showing much but the audio and shadows of women being raped isn't something most people want to sit through. The point is made without forcing the audience to experience it. What is so frustrating about the whole situation is that the lead, Doctor's Wife (Julianne Moore) IS NOT BLIND. In the kingdom of the blind the one-eyed man is king. In this case she's queen. She has the ability to put an end to the conflict at any time. She can see and the thugs can't. She allows herself and others to be raped. She allows for people to live in squalor. We're not given solid reasons for her choices, other than it all goes to feed the film's overall symbolism. The problem is that symbolism doesn't outmatch logic. Her failure to act makes her, the heroine, as evil as the villains.

Eventually, Doctor's Wife does confront the thugs, after the thugs have visited every possible evil on the rest of the people in the asylum. She burns the place down and leads the residents out on the streets. There things are better but they're left to scavange along with everyone else. After a while, and some minor conflicts, everyone regains their sight. End of story.

Sound stupid?

It is.




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Labels: Alice Braga, Danny Glover, film, Julianne Moore, Mark Ruffalo, movie review

Short Review: What’s better than corporate suck-up millionaires making movies about the evils of corporate suck-up billionaires.


This film, based on Stephen Hunter’s book Point of Impact, tells the tale of Bob Lee Swagger, a disillusioned Marine sniper who is framed for the attempted assassination of the President of the United States. Swagger uncovers what amounts to a secret government that is running things behind the scenes. The cranky sniper then, of course, goes Rambo on everyone at one thousand paces.

This film is both tedious and inflammatory. Sound impossible to be both at the same time? All you need to do is take a poorly written script and litter it with the most ignorant and hysterical anti-neoconservative rants possible. This film is infused with an obscene amount of thoughtless leftist trash talk. The 9/11 commission is referred to as lies, it is clearly stated that our government knew about 9/11 beforehand, and Abu-Ghraib is cited as a part of an overall government conspiracy. Abu Ghraib is spoken of in this film like it was the Holocaust. Soldiers, contractors, missionaries and journalists are getting their throats slit by Islamo-fascists and these dimwits consider Abu Ghraib to be the great evil of our time? 9/11 conspiracy garbage is dragged out and treated like it is serious.

Attention leftist idiots, 9/11 wasn’t a government conspiracy. It didn’t happen in a vacuum. We have twenty years of Islamic terrorist attacks that preceded the event. If Bush Co. was behind 9/11 then they would have to be behind the dozens of attacks worldwide going back to the 1970’s.

Morons.

The insult to injury with this leftist crud is that it isn’t even clever leftist crud (see The Motorcycle Diaries for example for well done leftist crud). Get this; a rookie FBI guy investigates the attempted assassination. He leaves the FBI because they’re too burdensome. He then immediately begins sporting a Che Guevera t-shirt of all things – you know, like most young FBI agents would do. This guy is a FBI agent, not some undergrad chimp trying to piss off his parents. Speaking of corrupt Latin thugs, Danny Glover took a break from spooning with Venezuela dictator Hugo Chavez to make this little ditty. It’s nice that ol’ Danny can put off his love-in with Hugo long enough to make this anti-American heap.

The insult on top of the insult that is on top of the injury is how the film ends – and I’m going to give away the ending here - condoning the assassination of our leaders. Quite literally the film come out on the side of killing the corrupt instead of working through the channels of justice. Apparently, these folks are so powerful they cannot be brought down by normal means. Ask Clinton about that. I’m sure that if a sullied blue dress can almost wipe out a Democratic President anyone can be brought down to size. Needless to say, the main villain is yet another Dick Cheney clone (also see The Day After Tomorrow, American Dreamz, etc.) By extension, this film promotes assassinating the Vice President.

Nice.

Oh, the film itself? Like I said, it’s tedious. The piece is paint-by-numbers. There are no real surprises and the dialog is stale. There are some interesting technical points about being a sniper but these points can be culled from the Hunter’s book which is far superior.

Obviously my cold, politically conservative heart doesn’t recommend this film. Looking past my political interests, this is still a stock piece not worth the effort of renting. Any portion of the film that is valuable is overshadowed by the agenda that hangs over this piece. It’s too bad, Mark Wahlberg is effective as Swagger. A reasonably good performance gone to waste.


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Labels: Danny Glover, film, Mark Wahlberg, Michael Pena, movie review

Screenwriter: Don McKellar
Director: Fernando Meirelles (City of Men)
Actors: Julianne Moore (Children of Men), Mark Ruffalo (Zodiac), Alice Braga (I am Legend), Danny Glover (Lethal Weapon), Gael Garcia Bernal (The Motorcycle Diaries) and Sandra Oh (Sideways)

Labels: Alice Braga, Danny Glover, film, Gael Garcia Bernal, Julianne Moore, Mark Ruffalo, movie trailer, Sandra Oh