Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull
May 26, 2008 | 1 Comment
It’s been nineteen years since we saw Indiana Jones ride off into the sunset in INDIANA JONES AND THE LAST CRUSADE. As he says in RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK, “It’s not the age, honey, it’s the mileage.”
Now it’s 1957, the Nazis are 12 years defeated, and Indy has become a bit of a relic himself. He spent World War II in the OSS (Perhaps one day we’ll see these adventures told in comic books). Now, America is in the grip of (as it turns out, entirely justified) Cold War paranoia.
Dr. Jones finds himself in the clutches of a Soviet Nogoodnik, Irina Spalko played by Cate Blanchett. She wants him to help them recover an Important Artifact from a U.S. military base in New Mexico. He has a sidekick, Mac (Ray Winstone, BEOWULF), whom he’s had many previous adventures with, we’ve just never seen any of them before now.
Then it’s off to New Jersey where his college campus has become dangerous to him.
And then, with a new sidekick, Mutt (Shia LeBeouf, as a 1950s greaser), it’s off to South America for a search for another artifact, with the Soviets in hot pursuit.
People are going to debate endlessly on the Internet whether this is as good as the movies of the original trilogy. Well, it’s not. But it’s still a fun ride, and a nice encore. There’s a lot of nice touches, references to now deceased characters from previous movies (Indy’s father, and Marcus Brody), mention of an adventure that Indy had as a teenager with Pancho Villa (as shown in the TV series THE YOUNG INDIANA JONES CHRONICLES).
I could nitpick a lot of little things that don’t quite work, but Spielberg and Harrison Ford generate a lot of good will in this; they’re enthused about bringing Indy back one more time and it shows.
There’s still great action sequences, but this is an older, wiser Indy who’s discovering that there are things more important than tomb raiding.
Popularity: 34% [?]
Speed Racer
May 12, 2008 | Leave a Comment
Speed Racer is based upon the animated series of the same name from the late 1960’s. The TV version was the English adaptation of the Japanese anime series Mach GoGoGo, and one of the early successes of anime in the U.S. From the time we hard it was going to be translated to live action on the big screen, we’ve been saying it’ll either be ground breaking or it was going to suck on the level of something like Howard the Duck.
The movie version is your typical first film when porting something to the big screen in that it shows us everyone’s origin and introduces the characters. In this regard it is pretty faithful to the toon version. The Racer family is, as you might guess, all about racing. Pops Racer is the dad and he builds the cars. Speed is the young driver with loads of talent, but not a lot of experience. And he’s always chasing the ghost of his brother Rex Racer who died in a race. Unknown to Speed, Rex is not dead and now races as RacerX to right race fixers who were trying to kill him. Trixie is Speed’s hot girlfriend who spots from a helicopter. Sparky is his pal and chief mechanic. And mom, well, mom makes cookies for everyone and little brother Spridle and their pet monkey Chim Chim eat all of them.
Cheesy enough for you? This was good stuff when we were little kids in the 70’s watching the re-runs. Buy why? Well, I forgot to mention one character, the Mach 5. Every child of the 70’s has sketched the Mach 5 in his notebook while bored in class and gone “vroom vroom”. The Mach 5 is Speed’s car, but it’s not just any car. Sure it’s fast, but it also has devices underneath that can spring it into the air for cool jumps and even backflips and sideflips over other cars. It has blades that can come out and cut thru a forest so you can just keep racing if you hit the woods. Ice? No problem, push of button gives the tires spikes. Flats? Another button rolls out a spare on the rim instantly. It’s bulletproof, can drive underwater and much more. But this is also a bit of a challenge for making a live action version.
Enter the Wachowski Brothers. The same guys who brought us The Matrix have attempted to create the anime world of Speed, the Mach 5 and friends in live action. As you’ve no doubt seen in the trailers, this thing is almost pure CGI. The car is running on courses that most wouldn’t attempt even in a video game, and it looks good. The Mach 5 does it’s thing nicely, and for us at least it didn’t take too much to adjust to seeing characters in a 60’s technocolor CGI based world.
Ok, so how did we like it? I dont know if the most people are ready for this mix of live actors and this kind of overload of CGI or animation. Most films that have tried anything similar int he past have failed miserably, The Flintstones come to mind. That’s not the problem for us at least. The problem is the appeal of the show was all about the car. And there were long periods of time where the car wasn’t on screen including one run that had to be 50 minutes plus from end of first race to start of the next while they built the characters. During our screening I heard at least 3 adults doze off, and I very nearly nodded myself. It was dreadfully slow. We’re giving it 2 stars. Load up on coffee and try it on DVD if you dare.
Popularity: 32% [?]
Iron Man
May 1, 2008 | Leave a Comment
Iron Man is a movie that follows the transition of billionaire playboy Tony Stark (Downy Jr), to the righteous hand of God, in the form of a flying suit of armor that kicks ass. Now I realize that me dumbing down the overall plot of the movie may seem like sort of a cop out, but come on you’ve seen the trailers, you know what it is. If you are not a fan of the comic, or you’ve just never read one, the movie will flesh out all that you need to know in pretty short order.
The movie blasts off with Tony riding along with some of our brave men and ‘women’ throughout the mountains of Afghanistan, where he plans to dazzle the brass with his newest weapon of mass devastation, the Jericho… Break the walls Down! This thing is a sight to behold, lord help anyone if we already have it, but it would look damned cool on CNN. For those of you not aware of Tony’s comic adventures, he is a bona-fide war mongering, womanizing, alcoholic that loves to make money, and in the first 10 minutes you get to see just how cool it is to be him. Just think of Batman but less broody. 
Anywhoo, back to the plot… Tony is in this Hum-vee, cruising along shooting the sheeot, when suddenly it gets attacked by insurgents, and all hell breaks loose around him. Tony is the only survivor of the assault, and just as he thinks he’s safe, out of no where a brand spanky new ‘Stark Industries’ anti personnel device lands right next to him. The bomb blows up and when he regains consciousness, he finds that he’s attached to a car battery, and he’s being held captive by some very nasty cave dwellers, that want him to save them with a Jericho of their own. Tony has plans of his own and instead of building the Jericho, he builds the coolest suit or armor ever, and begins his journey to redemption.
The story is good and the acting is not too shabby either. Robert Downey Jr IS Iron Man/Tony Stark and that’s the main reason the movie works so well. I have a friend that claims other than Batman Begins, this is hte best comic book movie he’s ever seen. To clarify that statement I’ll just say this, Tony Stark/Iron Man is the star, not Robert Downey Jr. Supporting cast members Gwyneth Paltrow, Terrence Howard, and Jeff Bridges all turn in really good performances.
In closing, Iron Man follows a pretty steady formula from start to finish but if you’ve seen another comic book movie in the past, you’ll know what I’m talking about. WARNING GEEK MOMENT AHEAD – If Iron Man is your favorite Marvel character then the absence of a ‘true’ Mandarin might be a big disappointment but the subtlety of inclduing his 10 rings in the story was nice touch to build on for the sequel.
If fast paced action with very little build up is the corner stone of your viewing pleasure, Iron Man will not be for you. But, if solid story telling, character development, plot devices and a great pay off are more your style, you’ll love it. OR, you’ve been dying to see this movie for 2 years, then you’re definitely Golden!
Popularity: 34% [?]
 |
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Gun Play
Blood & Gore Car Chases T&A Chuckles |
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
 |
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
