Balls of Fury
August 30, 2007 | Leave a Comment
Balls of Fury faithfully follows the famous 80-20 rule. In this Hollywood usage, you put forth about 20% of the effort required for a kick-ass movie and you can get something passable. At first look, a movie with a quality rating of 80% might seem pretty good…but remember what 80% was in high school? In my day it was a C+. And a C+ movie equates to only 3 stars no matter how you want to cut it.
On the plus side, there are several laugh-out-loud moments in the movie and you gotta thank a gifted writing team for those. Unfortunately, the laughs are not frequent enough. And, to make matters worse, director Ben Garant decided to make that most common mistake of trying to make the movie MORE than a pure comedy. You’ll find several awkwardly placed (and badly choreographed) action scenes as well as painfully laughable attempts at drama in between the laughs.
As to the performances, Walken’s is the most telling. Pretty much everyone that walks in front of the camera is sleepwalking through their roles with Walken being the worst of the bunch. The only characters with any real life to them are Fogler’s and Lopez’s…and even they seem kind of disinterested in whats going on from time to time. Walken, however, is just simply wooden in his role.
The plot is about as simple as they come and the predictabilty of it would be rather humorous if it weren’t so depressing to have to sit through. Sure, there’re a few rib busters in the movie, but no where near enough for me to recommend this as anything other than a rental.
Popularity: 20% [?]
TMNT
August 27, 2007 | Leave a Comment
Leonardo leads,
Donatello does machines,
Raphael is cool but crude,
Michelangelo is a party dude.
The above is a pretty good guideline for distinguishing Renaissance painters, but of course, it’s actually the lyrics to the old Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles animated cartoon theme.
Long ago, a friend of mine loaned me her collection of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle comic books by Mirage Comics in the mid-to-late 1980s. The originals were pretty violent and bloody, not for kids.
Later, it spawned the animated series (1987), three theatrical live-action movies, and a short-lived live-action series (1997), filmed in Vancouver by the same people who made the Power Rangers (oddly enough, my friend who loaned me the comics worked on that TV series; she was a costume designer and ended up having to fix a lot of shells).
And now we have the new CGI theatrical movie, TMNT.
This is all computer-generated. It looks like Japanese computer-Anime, though the work was done in Hong Kong. It’s done pretty well; New York City has a dark atmosphere like Gotham City in this.
There are recognizable voices in it: Mako (Conan’s wizard, Remo Williams’ trainer) as Splinter (in his last role before his death), Sarah Michelle Gellar is April. Kevin Smith, Laurence Fishburne, and Patrick Stewart all make appearances.
The movie is rated PG, so it’s got a little more of an edge than the previous TV and movie incarnations. It’s a little more like the original comic books.
There’s some funny bits; Master Splinter is an ardent fan of GILMORE GIRLS.
April is a hot Anime-style babe in tight clothing.
The plot, if it matters, involves some ancient living statues banding together with the evil The Foot clan, to try to bring 13 mystical monsters together which will open up a portal to another dimension, dooming the Earth. Something like that.
I started wondering why the Ninja Turtles wear masks; are there enough teenage mutant non-ninja turtles around that they hope to keep their identities secret? But of course, I realized that the different color masks are what allows us to tell them apart.
I would caution that this isn’t for all ages; if your kid is below age 10 or so you might want to reconsider, because this is a fairly violent movie. Of course, if your kid is already ordering HOSTEL and SAW III from Netflix, ignore this advice.
If you’re a fan of any of the previous incarnations of the turtles, you’ll probably enjoy this.
If those were too much kid stuff for you, you may still like this, because it’s a bit edgier.
Popularity: 20% [?]
War
August 26, 2007 | Leave a Comment
War makes for the interesting pairing of Jason Statham and Jet Li. Statham has had some of the most unique fight sequences of the last few years in movies like The Transporter. And Jet Li is probably the most reoognizable pure martial arts star working with Jackie Chan doing mostly comedy and guys like Jean-Claude Van Damme and Steven Seagal fading into oblivion rapidly. So how does this combination work out?
Well, the movie puts them on opposite sides. Jet Li plays a highly skilled and mysterious assassin named Rogue who works for the Japanese yakuza. Statham is an FBI agent, named Crawford, in San Francisco specializing in Asian organized crime operations in the area. So what do you do in these type of movies to really make these guys arch enemies? You have Rogue kill Crawford’s partner of course!
The movie has all of the ingredients. There’s any type of action you want scattered through out including gun fights, sword play and of course some martial arts. We also get a couple of good chase sequences in San Francisco, though we would’ve loved to see a modern chase down one of the hill sides with a lot of hang time. They merely teased us with that part. However, they didn’t tease us with nudity. You wont see much of Devon Aoki, but there are classic scenes featuring a yakuza entertainment establishment that turned our yellow fever into yellow plague.
But have you ever had someone who is a really good cook give you a recipe for one of your favorite dishes and then tried to cook it yourself only to find it’s a little bland or just doesn’t quite meet expectations? Well, that’s what happens with this movie. All the pieces are there. We want to like it. But at the end of the movie, I’m certainly not thinking I want to see it again, and I doubt I’ll even buy the DVD. It somehow just doesn’t click.
We give War 3 stars. It’s not that it’s a bad movie, it just didn’t quite meet the expectations we had for a Jet Li and Jason Statham showdown. What should’ve been an instant contender for slobber knocker of the year with lots of creative choreography was just an ok fight. Not bad, but not really memorable or special in anyway. If you’re a fan of Statham, Li or both, this is worth a DVD rental at least, but we’re going to stop well short of calling it a must-see otherwise.
Popularity: 24% [?]
The Invasion
August 18, 2007 | Leave a Comment
The Invasion is the latest big screen version of the classic Jack Finney science fiction novel “The Body Snatchers”. Most of us probably know it better as a remake of “Invasion of the Body Snatchers”.
What you have in this version is something that is a lot like a zombie movie except without all of the things that make a zombie movie fun to watch. They actually aren’t zombies, they are bodies that have been genetically reprogrammed, and now inhabited by, aliens. They get into your bloodstream and then reprogram your DNA during REM sleep. The whole “dont sleep!” thing happening on the screen is more likely there to plant a subliminal message to keep the audience awake.
The aliens don’t eat brains or anything cool like that. Instead they have desires to create this Hillary Clinton-esque world where individualism is totally dead. This means no war, no fights, no anything. In short, it sounds boring.
Nicole Kidman stars in a perfect role for her as she often gets to play an emotional character who cant show emotions. Daniel Craig is also in the movie. I would like to get my rope with the big knot in it to talk to him about better script selection.
This movie was shot in 2006 and in 2007 prior to release, the distribtor brought in the Wachowski Brothers from The Matrix to write some additional scenes and pnch the story up a little. Either they ruined or they couldn’t save it, take your choice. This puppy is 2 stars, skip it unless your other choice is an F-Troop marathon. No, I take that back….watch F-Troop, we love Larry Storch.
Popularity: 21% [?]
Aqua Teen Hunger Force Colon Movie Film for Theaters
August 16, 2007 | Leave a Comment
I’ve been a fan of the Aqua Teen Hunger Force series for a long time and so I really wanted to like this one. I mean, how could the minds that came up with Dusty Gozongas go wrong with a movie version of their show? They had sense enough to get Bruce Campbell for a cameo voice appearance so it must be awesome, right? Well, no, not so much.
Matt Maiellaro and Dave Willis, the brains behind ATHF as well as some of the voices, did a rather good job of extending a 10-12 minute TV show into a (barely) full length feature. It definitely is the ATHF that we’ve all come to know and love (with the addition of the ‘F’ word and other kinds of profanity), but I think that’s actually the core of the problem. That’s what it is but that’s *all* that it is.
Let’s take a moment to look at other TV series which made (or tried to make) the jump to the big screen. Star Trek is a great example. Were the Trek movies just 2 hour versions of their TV episodes? No way! The action, the suspense, the special effects were ALL jacked way up…and they were awesome! Well, we’ll forget about #5 for the sake of this argument. ATHF:MFFT did not ratchet things up.
Apples and oranges, you say? Ok, let’s look at comedy vs. comedy: The Brady Bunch Movie. “Ah-ha!” you might say, “The Brady Bunch characters were all just like they were on TV!” Well, yes, Timmy, they were. But they were picked up right out of the ’70s and plopped right down into the middle of the ’90s and were quickly shown as the naive, out of touch goody-two-shoes people they were. This was definitely NOT your Brady Bunch TV episode.
With countless examples of both failures and successes regarding TV franchises that attempted the jump to the big screen, Matt and Dave should have taken some notes.
There is a plot…but just barely. It involves the trio of Frylock, Master Shake and Meatwad venturing out to discover their origins. Sort of. It’s quite complicated to explain but it’s too boring to be worth the attempt so I’ll leave it at that. Hardcore ATHF fans will likely enjoy the movie but I suspect that even they, too, will be left with a feeling that an opportunity was missed.
All this negativity aside, there were some genuinely funny moments in the movie (just as there are in the TV episodes). Things get started off with a bang with Matt and Dave’s take on the whole dancing candy and popcorn characters singing to you about getting food from the lobby. I really wish theaters would play this bit at the beginning of all their movies!
Longtime fans will also be happy to know that all the old favorite characters make appearances including Carl, Ignignokt, Err, Emory, Oglethorpe, Cybernetic Ghost, Satan, Dr. Weird & Steve, and even MC Pee Pants. Plus there’s a cameo from another favorite Cartoon Network personality, Space Ghost!
But the funny moments, such as they are, and the character lineup cannot compensate for the rest of this ho-hum fare. The bottom line is that ATHF:MFFT doesn’t go above or beyond its TV show origins…and that makes for a less than thrilling movie experience.
Popularity: 22% [?]
Stardust
August 10, 2007 | Leave a Comment
STARDUST is based on the graphic novel by comic-book and fantasy writer Neil Gaiman (THE SANDMAN).
In the 1850s, the remote English town of Wall (So named because there’s a wall around it) has a secret. On the far side of the wall is a magical land where it’s All Rennaissance Festival, All The Time.
Tristan, a villager in Wall, is a shopboy in love with Victoria, who loves another. When they see a shooting star, she tells him that if he brings her that star, she’ll marry him.
He ventures beyond the wall into the magical land, and has a series of adventures. He soon learns that the fallen star has assumed human form, in the comely shape of Yvaine (Claire Danes). So, to fulfill his promise, he has to tow her back to Victoria.
Along the way, they encounter various setbacks. Including a murderous king’s murderous heirs, an evil witch (Michelle Pfieffer) who wants the star’s power for herself, and a group of sky-pirates led by a Pirate King, of sorts (Robert De Niro).
This is a fun movie that plays out like a less farcical, more magical PRINCESS BRIDE LITE. At first, it’s slathering on the magical whimsy pretty thickly (it’s like being a captive audience at an entire season of Cirque du Soleil). But it gets better as it goes along.
I had read the novel this is based on years back. It was a decent read but not particularly memorable; I’d largely forgotten what it was about by the time I saw this, and purposely didn’t refresh my memory, to see how it viewed without comparing it to the book.
This is a lot more accessible than Gaiman’s last movie, MIRRORMASK. That one, though interesting, perhaps was best recommended if you were a fan of Neil Gaiman. This will hopefully find a wider audience.
Popularity: 20% [?]
Blue Planet
August 8, 2007 | 3 Comments
One of the interesting side effects of High Definition televisions is that people will watch pretty much anything as long as it’s pretty enough. How else can you explain the success of Sunrise Earth on DiscoveryHD? This has limits though when you can make a direct comparison between two shows as you’re gonna pick the one that’s prettier. Unfortunately for Blue Planet it’s gonna get compared to Planet Earth, and it falls way short. It really isn’t fair at all since Blue Planet is just a converted IMAX movie while Planet Earth was shot in HD using modern technology. But, it is what it is.
Blue Planet doesn’t have much of a story, but it does show Astronauts training for a shuttle mission where they’ll be repairing a satellite. We also get to see the first space walk by an American woman, and the use of an jetpack in space. Now if it just had lasers.. and if they just went more than 1/2 mph. The narrator has views on global warming that sound more like they came from Al Gore than from science in 1990, and apparently in the last 17 years we should have killed off the rain forest, melted the ice caps and driven to extinction everything but our housepets. Or maybe I’m just being too critical.
Look at it this way. Planet Earth is a huge boxed set that will set you back lots of cash. If you just want to have something on hand that will show off that shiny new plasma TV then Blue Planet might be just the ticket. It is pretty, it did have some interesting information, and if you don’t mind the global warming stuff it was entertaining. Plus, there’s a bonus movie from 1985 that lets you see some groovy haircuts in HD!
Popularity: 20% [?]
Babylon 5 – The Lost Tales
August 7, 2007 | Leave a Comment
Back in the day when Babylon 5 first hit the airwaves, I immediately became hooked on the show. It broke so much new ground in science fiction that it *had* to be watched. B5 single-handedly managed to force the monolithic Star Trek franchise Deep Space Nine to change and adopt a more serialized story with an evolving arc that left characters changed and, perhaps, even dead.
“So what!” you say? This was *HUGE*! Practically every episode of Star Trek prior to B5 ended with the “Big Red Reset Button” that made everything go back to the way it was at the beginning of the episode. And B5 came along and changed the ENTIRE game! It was the first…and practically every sci-fi series since then that is worth watching has emulated that format.
But the original is and always will be the best. I know I’m far from alone in that opinion…and perhaps it’s people like me that are responsible for the existence of things like Babylon 5: The Lost Tales, a truly hollow echo of the Babylon 5 that used to be. Like old boxing champs that can’t seem to ever leave the ring and continue to fight until they can barely make it out of the first round, we collectively pine away for the Glory Days….and B5 creator J. Michael “Don” Kingzynski is more than happy to put a li’l “sumpin sumpin” together for us.
This time we get two distinct, chronological stories…almost exactly as you might expect two sequential episodes from the original series to be. In the first, a worker on the station seemingly becomes possessed by a demon…and all hell breaks loose, so to speak. Well, ok, not really. What takes place then is actually a very well balanced theological discussion with lots of interesting points that get you into a groove. And then it just kind of ends when Lochley suddenly figures out the whole thing. Not an awful episode, but it’s woefully short of the great ones.
Next up was a story that was just ridiculously transparent…and it was quite stinky in all other areas, too. For both stories, it’s painfully obvious that there was little or no budget to work with. And to make matters worse, except for Lochley, Sheriden and Galen, none of the original characters were present. No Delenn, no Vir, no Londo, no….anybody! The production values were also pretty low, but thats more a funding problem rather than effort or talent.
All in all, it was a pretty poor showing. This one is for truly HARDCORE B5 fans ONLY!
Popularity: 21% [?]
Reno 911!: Miami
August 5, 2007 | Leave a Comment
Reno 911 in case you aren’t a fan, is a parody of sorts of the long running Fox hit ‘Cops’, on Comedy Central. The show features an eclectic group of officers from the Reno Sheriff’s department, as a camera crew follows them around monitoring the day to day happenings in the city of Reno. The show’s been on the air for about 4 years and like most things that show a little bit of promise in the valley of crap that is Hollyweird , it got pegged to go to the big screen. I was not a fan of this idea when I first heard about it because I just didn’t think the cast could work their magic trapped in the confines of a 90 minute movie. I was right… or I was not wrong, I guess would be the best way to put it. The cast play their characters to perfection, the usual mishaps the group faces are tweaked a notch or 2 higher but the reason the show works so well is because it’s basically just a Cops parody and I know you wouldn’t wanna see a Cops movie… would you? Too much of a good thing can hurt it and Reno 911! Miami fell in that trap.
The movie is all about the gang getting selected to go to Miami to be part of the national police officers convention. They ride down on a bus and when they get there their reservations are missing so they wind up sleeping in a dumpy hotel off the beach. This location spawns quite a few funny scenes and will forever remind you why it’s important to close your damned curtains… Eeewww! Anywhoo, Lt. Jim Dangle (Lennon) tries to keep the spirits up for the rest of his officers by getting them good and hammered. Of course they pass out, and when they finally wake up and arrive at the convention center the place is sealed off by the CDC and Homeland Security as a bio containment area. All of the cops in the entire city and region of Miami are trapped inside and there’s no one to look after the city. No one that is but the the men and women of Reno 911! It’s up to the Reno Sheriff’s department to save the day.
Thomas Lennon is the creative mind behind the show and the glue that holds the movie together but the lesser characters are as funny as the nekkid beach chicks are hot, and that means there are no weak gags in the whole movie/90 minute episode. Everything they try results in at least one solid belly laugh. There are a few notable cameo’s and the overall story although ridiculous, it’s a darned site funnier than Police Academy 5… not that that would be a stretch. To close this out I can say beyond a doubt that it was worth a rent, and you should add it to your Netflix queue. If you’re a huge fan of the show you should buy it, but one way or the other you need to give it a watchin’.
Popularity: 18% [?]
Hot Rod
August 4, 2007 | Leave a Comment
I like Andy Samberg, right now he’s the funniest guy on Saturday Night Live and his videos there have been great. Everything I enjoyed about Hot Rod was due to his performance, and I don’t hold him responsible for the rest. With that said, this movie is crap.
Rod Kimble (Andy) is a wannabe stuntman who apparently has never done a successful stunt in his life. He keeps trying though and his dimwitted “crew” is there to offer him encouragement. His one goal in life is to earn the respect of his stepdad Frank (Ian McShane), and the only way he can do that is by besting him in a fight. Unfortunately Frank has a heart condition and he’s gonna die because he can’t afford a heart transplant, depriving Rod his chance to earn his respect. Gee.. if there were only something Rod could do to earn that money…
Yeah, that’s a pretty darn flimsy plot. But hey, this is nothing more than a too-long SNL skit so it doesn’t need plot, only an excuse to go from gag to gag.
Are their funny parts? Of course! There are laugh out loud moments and many chuckles to be had during the film, but you’re gonna feel guilty for laughing at some of the groaners. The very end of the movie is quite satisfying in some primal way and the audience I was with actually clapped at the end. Clapped. Applauded. Hot Rod. Maybe it was better than I thought, but I doubt it.
If you’re a big Samberg fan go ahead and see this one. If you can get a group of friends together for dinner and drinks (lots of drinks) before showtime, then go see this movie. If you’re sober or alone, just wait for the DVD so that you can chuckle in the privacy of your home and not feel ashamed. I was planning on giving it 2 stars, but damn it all, I’m smiling as I recall some of the scenes. 3 stars, and don’t hold it against me.
Popularity: 21% [?]
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