Zombie Column: Riddick

There are many, many people who are probably making the Riddick-ulous pun right now, so I won't be joining them (just standing beside them and pointing it out a lot). Unless, of course, I wasn't referring to the adjective, but instead the spell from Harry Potter, able to turn a bad movie into a good one. Sadly, my magic is just not that strong, and Riddick remained as it was.

We saw the movie up at CrossIron, although not in the fancy 3D UltraAVX theatre. Riddick wasn't in 3D, so I guess they didn't want to waste the extra money they could charge on it, or something. Still, good theatre. Previews for the week were Oldboy, Runner Runner, and 47 Ronin (which had a surprisingly long trailer). I could go for Oldboy (even though I know all the spoilers for the movie it remade) and 47 Ronin, because who doesn't like Keanu Reeves or Japanese martial arts movies with supernatural actions scenes?

Riddick opens with the titular character abandoned on some desert world (a little more varied than Tatooine, but not much. More like Geonosis, actually). There, he battles the elements and the predatory native creatures, all of whom seem to want to kill him. And that's all he does for about the first third of the movie. It's boring. Wow, is it ever boring. There's a brief flashback to the Necromongers, and then it's back to camping on death world. Whoo.

After that, he goes exploring onto the slightly nicer part of the world. It's more of a tundra than a desert. He comes across a Merc station (put there by who knows to house and re-supply any mercenaries that need it). Then he sees a rainstorm and decides that enough's enough, time to get off this rock. The only problem is that the only way off involves being captured by bounty hunters, so Riddick calls them over from whatever planet they were on.

Two bounty hunter crews arrive, and there's a lot of setting up, and patrolling, and Riddick gaining intelligence by staying far away and staring at them. Then there's some offscreen killing, and some really lame action and then the movie ends.

So, this movie is terrible. The first part is slow, and the second part is slow, and the third part is slow and lame. I can understand now why it took so much trouble to produce (Evan was telling me Vin Diesel had to mortgage his house to get the necessary funds). I mean, who would have looked at this script and said "Yeah, I want to make this. It stars an action hero with cool powers in an action hero franchise, only this time, he doesn’t do any action!"?

Is there anything redeeming about this movie? Well, after this, they won't be able to make any more. I'm not sure if that's a good thing or a bad thing, since I liked Chronicles of Riddick (I'm the only one). So the chance for another one of those is gone. But if they wanted to make more movies like this one, then it's a good thing they won't be able to.

Other than that, there are one or two chuckles to be had. Also, for fans of Battlestar Galactica, Katee Sackhoff is in it, and it's always nice when TV actors get roles in movies. I mean, she's in a completely unnecessary topless scene, so maybe it's not so good either. The movie had already earned it's R-rating with topless scenes in the flashbacks, we don't need famous actors doing them just for funsies.

All in all, I'm ranking this as a Free on TV movie. Not the absolute worst we've seen (Hi, Last Airbender), but probably ranking somewhere between Wrath of the Titans and Faster.

The World's End

It's the end of the world! Or at least, The World's End. Which is the movie we saw on Sunday night before Labor Day. Evan's back in town for the week, so we put the word out and saw the movie with Jeff, Steve, and Norm.

Preview were for Don Jon, Machete Kills, Last Vegas (The Hangover with old people) and The Family, which was probably pitched as a comedy sequel to Goodfellas. The latter two have Robert De Niro, and Evan is in on both. If I want to see old people, I'd rather see Schwarzenegger and Stallone in Escape Plan, but I suppose I could be talked into The Family.

Anyway, The World's End is the capper to the Cornetto Trilogy, whose previous entrants were Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz. All of them star Simon Pegg and Nick Frost, are directed by Edgar Wright, and are written by Pegg and Wright. All of them are also spoofs of genres. Shaun of the Dead spoofed zombies (and Romance!), Hot Fuzz spoofed action movies, and now The World's End spoofs Invasion of the Body Snatcher type movies.

It opens with a flashback to 1990, when a group of five kids graduated from school and got hammered, because that's what one does when one celebrates. The tried the in/famous Golden Mile, the feat of having a pint at each of the twelve local pubs. Now, British beer is kinda strong (or so I heard) and twelve pints is not an insignificant amount. Combine that with whatever available substances there are to smoke (illegal or not), and you've got the makings of a terrible hangover. Two friends had to drop out early, and the rest made it nine deep before winding up on a hillside watching the sunrise over their vomit stained shoes. Whee.

Flashforward to the present time, and we get the leader of the pack, Gary King, telling this to a support group of some kind. It might be AA, it might be a rehab centre, it might be some other kind of therapy. One of the other guests asks if he regrets not making it to all twelve. A plan is hatched.

Meanwhile, the rest of the friends are decently successful. They're all in jobs that require suits and ties, and they're all visited by King to make the trip home to undertake the Golden Mile again. A lot of cajoling later, they all agree. I doubt they actually want to go, but they seem like the type of people who are too polite to say no to an old friend, even if he's still acting like a teenager 20 years later.

So they all meet up at the train station and are picked up by King, who takes them on a road trip home in the same car they used to party in 20 years ago (nicknamed "The Beast", although I'm pretty sure guys don't name their cars). They check into a hotel and begin their quest, and things start to get weird. And progressively worse.

There are many times during the night when it would behoove them to turn tail and run back to London, but King won't let them. He's bound, bent, and determined to finish the Golden Mile. Come Hell or High Water. Mostly Hell.

Towards the end of the movie, we find out why in a surprisingly emotional scene. I shouldn't be surprised by now. Wright and Pegg always manage to slot in these one or two genuine moments into their comedies. In Shaun of the dead, it was the titular character refusing to shoot his friend, even after he had been turned. In Hot Fuzz, there was Angel desperately calling for Danny after the police station exploded, or when Angel is convinced Danny's a bad guy. These sudden heartfelt moments in the midst of comedy. I like them. Not long enough to drag the movie down, but it helps us get to know the characters and makes us like them more.

It's easy to like the four other characters, but King starts the movie off like a jerk, and doesn't really get better until near the end. But it's explained, and we actually like him at the end. Not like, say, A Good Day to Die Hard, where John McClane starts the movie off like a jackass and by the end, is still just a jackass. That's not explained, and really annoying, considering how much we liked him in the previous movies.

So this movie does a better job of character development. You know what else it does a good job of? Well, the comedy's there, but you should know that by now. But they did a really good job on the action. I was pleasantly surprised by how much action there was in this movie, and how good it was. I mean, there wasn't enough to fill an action movie, but it was definitely enough to bill it as an action-comedy, like The Other Guys. Great stuff.

The music wasn't really anything I notice. So pass on that. The ending went in a completely different direction than any of us were expecting. The last scene made sense, but none of us really like it. And finally, Rosamund Pike was in it, which is always a bonus. So it gets the Theatre Rating from me.

Massive Mindless Movie Mega Marathon

With some careful planning and luck with scheduling, I set off for the movie theatre on Saturday at about a quarter after 11 in the morning with two bottles of Boost (My eating habits are ... peculiar). $65, 13 hours, and one headache later, I returned home, having completed the rarely seen quintuple-header. I managed to pack in The Lone Ranger, R.I.P.D., Red 2, Pacific Rim, and This is the End. I thought I would share some quick thoughts on each of them, if I can separate them all out from the jumble of memories they seem to have conglomerated into.

Trailers were often repeated. I saw ones for The Wolverine, Kick Ass 2, and Thor: The Dark World multiple times, and remember at least one showing of Insidious: Chapter 2 and Saving Mr. Banks (I think that's the title. It's the story of how Walt Disney got the rights to Mary Poppins).

The Lone Ranger

The movie opens with a slightly different Jerry Bruckheimer title screen. Usually it zooms along a highway until the lightning hits the tree; this time it zooms along railroad tracks. Then it actually starts with a fair in San Francisco, which uses an Old West exhibit as a framing device for the story. It's also one of the reasons the movie takes two and a half hours. Framing devices add time, okay guys?

Anyway, Dan Reid (Armie Hammer) starts off the movie as an idealistic prosecutor, believing in Due Process of Law, and not believing in guns. By the end of the movie, he doesn't believe in Due Process of Law, and does believe in guns. Because this is America, Dammit, and guns can solve what the law can't! Or something like that. As an aside, four of the five movies I went to depicted violence as solving the main problem. Mind you, it could be that four of the five movies I went to were action movies, and action movies generally contain violence. Otherwise they'd just be labelled dramas, or romantic comedies, or real life (ugh, who wants that?)

In this version, Tonto is played by Johnny Depp, who tries to bring some of the off-kilterness of Jack Sparrow to the role, but also tries to treat Native Americans with respect. It doesn't really work that well, but the action and humour are enough to keep the movie going.

And the music too. The climax takes place aboard trains (duh) with Hans Zimmer writing a score based off the Lone Ranger theme (and as I have been informed by the internet, also the William Tell Overture. I thought that was something else), then spiraling off in all directions before coming back, then going off again. It's a tremendous sequence with tremendous music. Almost worth the price of admission (particularly a matinee admission), but not quite. Still the rest of the movie has just enough to be a theatre movie by my odd and increasingly pointless ratings system. Also, I like Armie Hammer. And his hat.

R.I.P.D.

If you've read anything about this movie, you've probably heard that it's terrible. And I can certainly see where that's coming from. I didn't think so, but then, I have a hard time thinking any movie is terrible (The Last Airbender and Star Wars: The Clone Wars aside).

It starts off with a ridiculously hot French woman making out with Ryan Reynolds (because that is that natural order of things, and you do not mess with the natural order of things). Soon, he's called onto a drug bust, where a shootout results in his death. Whoops. He wanders outside while everything is frozen, and then is sucked up into the sky. He's pulled into small office, where he's pretty much coerced into joining the R.I.P.D., whose job it is to make sure the dead don't go on living on Earth covertly (as they are wont to do).

Things take a turn for the worse when a plot to bring back all the dead people is revealed. Also, Reynolds' ex gets pulled into it, because love crosses over life boundaries and such. Now you're getting the picture of why so many people call it terrible. Plus, Jeff Bridges isn't great. I know he can do whatever he feels like post-Dude, but his shtick wears a bit thin here. Still, there are some good laughs, and some good action. Not quite enough to make it a theatre movie, but solidly in the Blu-Ray books.

RED 2

Oh look, it's Mary-Louise Parker again! She was in R.I.P.D. as well. This time she’s the love interest to an old guy ... wait, that was in R.I.P.D. as well (she and Jeff Bridges’ character used to have a thing, but he's a bit of an asshat, so it didn't go well). Anyway, in this installment of Red, Frank and his team are targets because of an operation from the 80's and ... wait, that was the same as the original Red as well. Man, things tend to repeat, don't they? Anyway, this version of Red sidegrades from Morgan Freeman to Anthony Hopkins (I respect Sir Anthony Hopkins a lot, but Freeman, played God and Visa).

So Frank and his team go on the lam, globetrotting around most of Europe this time while government agents from various countries try to kill them. Don't worry though. Frank is played by Bruce Willis, and it's commonly known that he can only die by nuclear explosion while in space (cool fact: Die Hard was a documentary). And John Malkovich plays a lovably paranoid lunatic, so he's pretty much safe (he'll be able to see everything cover). Neil McDonough takes over from Karl Urban as the government agent sent to track down the Frankettes, except this time he lacks the morals that Urban's agent had. So we get to see him kill a lot of government people. The American government: Adept at killing other members of the American Government!

Anyhow, we follow various shenanigans and plot twists, and get introduced to Catherine Zeta-Jones and her bangs. She's supposedly Frank's Kryptonite, which causes the romantic friction that is contractually obligated to happen in sequels to movies with love stories. Still it's quite funny (see: Malkovich, John) and the action is pretty good. It's always nice to see Helen Mirren holding massive weaponry, but I don't think it's enough to push it into theatre territory. I might need a second opinion, but I'm deeming it a Blu-Ray movie for now.

Pacific Rim

Giant Robots. Fighting. Giant Monsters. Aw. Yeah!

So this movie was about giant robots fighting giant monsters. There are more things I could say, like there's a love story that's implied, but never stated (we get a headbutt of love, but that's it). Or why they don't use bunker busters on the monsters (bunker busters are bombs meant to penetrate several yards of dirt before exploding, hopefully in the underground bunker of your enemy, and not in some civilian populated area that could cause massive collateral damage). Instead they designed giant robots to fight them, because apparently our governments are run by 13-year old boys. Not that I'm complaining. That's several orders of magnitude more mature than I would be if I ever found myself running a country ("five-day weekends! And free beer!").

But I will state the music is tremendous. Listen to that and tell me you wouldn't want to strap on 250-foot armor and go beat down giant aliens. It's by Ramin Djawadi, and if you don't recognize the name, don't worry - I didn't either. Then I looked at his wikipedia page and found out he also did the equally fantastic music for Person of Interest. Suffice it to say, I will be checking out more of his music.

Definitely a theatre movie. It does a great job of making everything seem huge, and putting us in the middle of the fights, staring up at these titanic creations and mutations duking it out in different locales, including the Technicolor battlefield that is Hong Kong at night. It. Was. Awesome!

This is the End

Appropriately titled for the last movie I saw in theatres that Saturday, it's the story of how celebrities deal with bad stuff. How do they deal with it? Not well. Not well at all. Mind you, since they tend to deal with good news by doing cocaine, it's not a stretch to imagine how poorly they'd do in the apocalypse (since there's a rapidly depleting supply of drugs). To be honest, that's actually not how all the celebrities dealt with the crises in the movie. Most of them died violently. The rest freaked out.

Anyway, while this movie is about dealing with incredibly bad times, it's also about friendship, and probably a little about the truth of being a celebrity (selling out, moving on from friends and making new ones), and strangely enough, it's actually about sacrifice. Who knew? There's also an incredibly large number of dirty jokes, filthy language, and disturbing spiritual imagery. So be warned before you go see it. I'm not sure how many people I know who would actually want to go see it, but I’m aware of enough of pop culture that I wanted to see most of it spoofed. And I did. And then the second half of the movie started. Not quite as funny as the first half, but with an actual, good (if misunderstood) message. So there's that. All in all, I think it's a Blu-Ray movie, but that might just be because that's when the headache started.

Oh, and Happy Birthday, Mom!

Zombie Column: Man of Steel

Evan was in town this past weekend, and due to extenuating circumstances (like, our city got nice and flooded), we were able to take in a movie after church. We decided on Man of Steel (over This is the End and World War Z) and dragged Amy along with us, because of course we did.

Honestly, I can’t remember what most of the trailers were. Pacific Rim, maybe? White House Down was the first, and Evan called that as we entered the theatre, so bonus points for him. I think I got the others, though, so I’m not entirely sure who wins that round.

Anyway, the movie opens with a mother giving birth, while Russell Crowe helps. I’m not entirely sure he should be around any births, since he might snap and start hurling phones at various medical personnel, but maybe that’s why he’s assisted entirely by robots here. After that, the movie shifts into a fairly long action scene. General Zod (Michael Shannon) leads an insurrection right before Krypton blows up while Jor-El (Crowe) sends his son to Earth. This is totally how every movie should start. Way over the top action scenes with a ton of explosions to get us invested in it.

Then the movie slows down a lot, but by that time we’re already hooked. It spends about an hour letting us get to know Clark Kent (Henry Cavill, whom we recognize from Immortals, but that’s about it. He’s my kind of guy, though – he almost missed the call from Zack Snyder because he was busy playing World of Warcraft) while he gets to know himself.

Eventually the action starts back up, again in tremendous manner. Say what you want about Snyder, but he can sure do special effects. They’re almost Bay-ish in their size, intensity, and frequency. I didn’t really have any quibbles about the action, just a question. If two invincible beings face off, can one defeat the other by punching? Has punching ever been the answer to invincibility? Has punching ever been the solution outside of movies, TV, and boxing? Not that that’s a small sample, mind you. Right now I’m going through Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and there’s an awful lot of punching of immortal beings. Some kicking too, just to mix things up.

Well, tangent over. One thing I really liked about this movie is the number of people I recognized. You’ll probably know Amy Adams as Lois Lane, and Kevin Costner as Pa Kent, and possibly Diane Lane as Ma Kent. And Morpheus – sorry, Laurence Fishbourne (but really, will he be known as anyone else?) – as Perry White. There’s also Richard Schiff (Toby from The West Wing) as a military scientist, and Michael Kelly (Mark Snow from Person of Interest) as a reporter from the Daily Planet. I mean, his character in the credits is Steve Lombard, but he’s pretty much the guy at the Daily Planet who’s not Morpheus. Oh yeah, Christopher Meloni’s in it too (from one of the Law & Order spin-offs. Also, the really ugly guy from Harold and Kumar go to White Castle).

There are some jokes in here, but not a lot. The music is suitably heroic, but not quite to my tastes. I would have put slightly different chord progression in there, but Hans Zimmer is beyond reproach at this point, so you may as well pick up the soundtrack if you like his other stuff. I’ll stick with Audiomachine.

That’s pretty much my only quibble. The movie is fantastic from beginning to end. Not even the douchebag who answered his phone (twice!) could spoil it. Definitely a theatre movie for me.

Eyes on Spies

So, I’ve got spies on the mind. Firstly, it’s because I just got through Covert Affairs. It’s about a newbie CIA officer played by Piper Perabo. I got into it mainly because I was charmed by her guest starring on Go On (a tragically cancelled sitcom) and because it’s on USA, and I’ll watch just about anything from them (seriously. Covert Affairs is the 5^th show from them I watch regularly. It’s a good thing it’s cable, because trying to keep up with 24 episodes for all those shows would take up waaaaay too much of my time).

Secondly, it’s because Burn Notice (another USA show) is back on the air. Burn Notice is about an ex-spy, and takes great pleasure in pointing out how spies actually do things, as opposed to how they’re portrayed to do things in movies (Covert Affairs tends to go the movie way, not the realistic way).

Thirdly, it’s because I finally caught up with the Edward Snowden story this morning. Or at least, what I think is the Edward Snowden story. From what I can tell, Snowden used to work at the CIA and then leaked information to some newspapers last week that the CIA has been monitoring the internet and cell phone calls. Now he’s in Hong Kong.

Firstly, about the phone call monitoring – HOW IS THIS NEWS?!? I mean, not to go all conspiracy theorist on you, but the NSA has been doing this for years. They monitor calls, and certain key words trigger closer scrutiny. Any useful information would be shared with the FBI (for domestic matters) and the CIA (for international matters), and if they’re feeling really nice, they might even share it with other countries (for a quid pro quo, of course, because that’s how the intelligence community works).

About Snowden himself? Guy’s a douche. He promised not to reveal secrets, and then he did. He gave his word and then broke it. I don’t mind that he had a moral dilemma about it. That’s fine. That’s what your conscience is for. But you can’t share information you got there. That’s against the law, and depending on the nature of the information revealed, possibly treason.

On the other hand, I have no problem with the newspapers printing what he told them. They got the information fair and square, and broke no laws getting it. They’re not beholden to the government, so there’s nothing preventing them from revealing any secrets at all. It’s kind of their job.

Now, Snowden is in Hong Kong. After his identity was revealed (he actually outed himself), he checked out of his hotel, not to be seen since. He told the newspapers he was leaking information because he was worried about the rights of American citizens. Then he WENT TO CHINA, a land renowned for the rights of their citizens (“On this day in Tiananmen Square, nothing happened”) and their unwavering devotion to justice and law (*cough* copyrights *cough*). And of course, they would have absolutely no interest in the American Intelligence community. None at all.

If you’ll allow me one more bit of tin-foil-hatness, Snowden is either being made very rich, or very hurt.

Zombie Column: After Earth

What's this? A zombie column three weeks in a row? Am I getting back into movies? (no). Have I lost my mind? (yes). What's going on? What's going on is this is a coincidence. I got a sudden invitation to StarTrek a few weeks ago, which was awesome (about 87% as awesome as FF6). Last week as Fast and Furious 6, which we'd planned on seeing for quite a while. Then this past week my brother's family was in town for some regional church stuff, so my brothers and I took the chance to go to see a movie together. It's probably the first time all three of us have gone to see a movie in years. ThePhantom Menace may have been that movie. Ian and I share similar tastes in movies, but Duncan actually has movie-going standards (one of his favourites is 12 Angry Men), so it's not often that I can go to a movie with him and have us both enjoy the experience.

Anyway, we went to see After Earth. The big question Ian and I had going into it was if the power of Awesome (Will Smith) could overcome the power of Suck (the director was M. Night. Shyamalan). We tied the trailer game (Duncan sat out, because he pays attention to more important things than pop-culture. He's like, responsible and all). I got Thor, Ian got Percy Jackson, I got White House Down (I'm all in on that), and Ian got Grown-ups 2 about half a second before me. We laughed at the trailer, but Duncan astutely said "And now you've seen all the jokes in the movie."

After Earth opens with narration by Jaden Smith, telling the history of Earth. We left it, seeking a less polluted/warring planet, and landed somewhere else. Aliens came to kick us out by bio-engineering hunters that smelled the pheromones we exuded when we're afraid. A small cadre of warriors learned not to fear, and they fought back. The rest of us tried not to giggle at what a preposterous development that is.

I mean, come on. An alien race that can bio-engineer animals can't tailor a virus to kill us all? They smell our fear, but not our sweat or other excretions? Why can't they bio-engineer eyes (alright, eyes are hard). Ears, maybe? This just seems dumb. Also, why are aliens always so technologically limited? If they developed only 1% faster than us, they'd already be 140 million years more advanced than us (with a 14 billion year old universe). 5 million years ago, we barely had anything that remotely resembled a human. 200 years ago, we barely had electricity. In 140 million years, we could be pure energy. And yes, pop culture insists on aliens that can be fought with our weapons, that are within at most a few thousand years of us technologically. It's fairly limiting. And stupid.

Anyway, in an effort to get to know his son, Will Smith takes him intergalactically camping, only their ship malfunctions and they crash land on Earth. "Everything has evolved to kill us" he says, which I think is wrong. Firstly, not everything on Earth evolved to kill humans. Secondly, it's only been a few thousand years - how much could a species evolve in that time? Thirdly, humans have been gone for most of that time - how could animals evolve to kill missing prey?

Still, it's a survival story, and Jaden Smith does a good job of portraying waaaayyy in over his head. Will has a broken leg, so he's stuck in one place. Jaden has to trek to a broken part of their ship to retrieve and set off an intergalactic flare. Also, they brought along one of those animals that smells fear (it was supposed to be a military exercise), but it escaped in the crash, so they'll have to deal with that at some point.

That's pretty much the movie. It's not a great movie, but it's the not the pile of crap I expected. Ian thought the power of awesome outweighed the power of suck. Duncan thought the opposite. I thought it was a wash. The music was decent, there were a few jokes, but there wasn't a whole lot of action, there were scenes in there whose only purpose was to be called back to near the end of the movie, and the actors couldn't stick to their accent. I think it was supposed to be southern, but they kept on forgetting - "Oh yeah, my character has an accent" and so some scenes had it, and some didn't. Still, very good special effects (say what you want, but Shyamalan can do effects) and quite good scenery. But it's not enough to redeem this movie. Worth a look at some point, but it's only DVD quality at most. Probably free-on-TV, according to my rating system.

Zombie Column: Fast and Furious 6

We’ve planned to go to see this movie ever since Steve got overly excited upon seeing the trailer. Now, I hate to throw Steve under the bus, but he was as giddy as a schoolboy on a snow day (and not any other analogy, understand?). Rich couldn’t make it because he ran a marathon that started at 7 the next day and needed sleep, so we took Clement with us.

Trailers for the week were The Lone Ranger, which is growing on me. Even if they put all the action bits in the trailer, it would be impossible not to have impressive set pieces all around those bits of action. People are thinking it will bomb (and it might) but I’m betting I’ll enjoy it. Mind you, I also enjoy plenty of crap movies, so it might be best for the rest of you to reserve judgement. Other trailers were for White House Down (I’m all in on this), R.I.P.D. (Jeff Bridges has waaaay too much fun, and that might hurt it a bit), and Rush (a character piece masquerading as a racing/action flick).

As for the movie itself … it’s all kinds of ridiculous, and everyone one of those kinds is AWESOME! This movie has all the awesome. All. Of. It. From now on, every movie described as awesome will be compared to this movie. “It was a good movie. 86% as awesome as Fast and Furious 6.” Or “That was great! 105% as awesome as Fast and Furious 6” (although don’t believe for a minute there is anything more awesome than FF6).

Particularly the last 10 seconds. Right at the end of the movie, there’s a warning that all the stunts were done by trained drivers, and please don’t recreate them at home (not that that’ll stop people from doing it for Youtube purposes, but at least they can’t sue the Fast and Furious franchise for their own stupidity), and then there’s a scene that sets up the villain for the next movie. And frankly, I have not been this excited about any movie related business in about … well, in about three months, actually, since that was when they announced J.J. Abrams would be doing the next Star Wars. Do you know how lucky we are as movie fans? Tremendously lucky. Also, awesome.

Now, I could talk about how the past movie and this one were about reuniting everyone who had been in a FF movie and introducing new ones (Hi, The Rock), but to do that, they need to kill off some characters or they’ll have too many to focus on. Nominally, the movies are about Dom (Vin Deisel) and Brian (Paul Walker), with the others around them. Actually, I should have said the movies are about cars, because they totally are. Then they are about Dom and Brian, and then about the banter between the minor characters (let it be noted that Tyrese Gibson is willing to have shots taken at him in the dialogue. He’s a stand up guy) while Dom and Brian talk about meaningful stuff. Then it’s back to cars. But mostly, this movie is about the awesome. It’s an awesome theatre movie.

Xbox One

I wanted to jot down a couple quick thoughts about the Xbox One reveal and press conference today, because apparently that’s what this blog has descended into. Ha, just kidding. I’ll be melting my brain with Fast & Furious 6 this weekend, unless something unexpected happens.

First, I think I know why it’s called the Xbox One, even though it’s the third generation of Microsoft’s gaming system. It’s not called the Durango (isn’t that an SUV?), the Infinity (that would've been cool) or the 720 (I know that it’s 360 x 2, but that’s just two circles. Wheee). I think it’s called the One because it’s a homonym with Won. “You buying a Playstation or an Xbox?” “Well, the Xbox won, so an Xbox one.”

Now, let’s get into the specs, and find out why I probably won’t buy one (hint: it rhymes with “Shmomputer.”) It has an eight-core CPU (twice as much as my computer), 8 gigs of RAM (as much as my computer, but I have 4 slots with 4 gigs of RAM sticks each. I don’t know why it only registers as 8 gigs. Any technowizards out there that can help? Also, that doesn’t count the 2 gigs of DDR5 I have for my graphics card), and a 500 gB harddrive (waaaay less than my computer). Finally, it’ll have a blu-ray drive. How much did that stick in their craw to have to license Sony technology? Oh yeah, and my computer has one too.

Of course, what Microsoft is trying to do is turn the Xbox into a multimedia machine. Which my computer can do as well. They’ve touted the ability to get TV, which anyone can get on their computer for a $100 video capture card. Hell, I bought an external doohickey that plugs into my USB port (USB 3, just like the Xbox One) and has a cable connection on the other side. It cost $60, and now I get TV. With some software, anyone can have DVR capabilities (I have Windows Media Centre from a previous computer). Also, they bragged about instantly switching between TV, game, and the internet. We’ve had that on computers ever since ALT+TAB came about. Seriously, anyone that’s had a boss is intimately familiar with that.

Mind you, they’re big on voice and action commands too, which is something my computer cannot do (yet). It’s why I have a mouse, which is much more accurate than most gestures. The voice thing is cool though.

While games played less of an emphasis in the announcement, they did state they had 15 games coming within a year, eight of them being original franchises. Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you Steam. Cheap games, good games, almost any games you want. World of Warcraft? Not on steam, but downloadable. Blizzard has an online store. Gamefly for more games. GOG for old games. Origin for EA games, because they saw Steam and said “We can do that worse.”

So yeah, anything you can do, my computer can do better. Well, I guess they do have Halo going for them.

Zombie Column: Star Trek: Into Darkness

It seems my movie-going habits have changed from well-scheduled summer months to sudden invites an hour ahead of time. Not that I mind, because a sudden invite to see Star Trek: Into Darkness is just the thing to perk my week up. It’s like a sudden invite out to a great restaurant when you were just planning on microwaving something at home. And the cook at that great restaurant was J.J. Abrams. Who in this analogy is a fantastic cook (okay, maybe my analogies need a little work).

So yes, I went to see Star Trek: Into Darkness last night, and it was awesome. In fact, it was so awesome I can’t even remember the trailers beforehand, because they were all overshadowed by the awesomeness thereafter. I can remember World War Z, which has great trailer music that I can’t seem to find anywhere. I think I recognize one part of it by Audiomachine, but I could be wrong, and then they use other songs that are just as awesome and just as unknown. Also, I pay way too much attention to music in trailers. Besides that, they showed the scene where people fly out of a hole in a plane. PLANE HOLES DO NOT WORK THAT WAY. Especially at that altitude. This is one thing that movies consistently get wrong. Give plane makers a little credit here, people. Anyway, I suppose I should actually get started before I get completely sidetracked.

The movie itself opens (after some title screens) with Kirk and McCoy running through that red forest that you’ve seen in the trailer. And yes, it’s just as funny as the trailers, so that’s good. What’s not good is why Kirk’s doing that in the first place (SIDETRACK ALERT). Why would the captain of a ship go on an away mission? I know that it’s a time-honoured Star Trek tradition, but my gosh – it makes no sense. You don’t risk the most important people on trivial matters. In fact, you do your best not to risk them at all. Not that that’s a bad idea. Can you imagine how few wars there would be if heads of state had to go to the front lines every time they declared war? They’d learn how to settle things over a beer and a game of Mortal Kombat.

In Star Wars (and just for the record, I’m not a fan of comparing Trek and Wars), you don’t see General Dodonna up there piloting an X-wing against the Death Star – he lets the pilots do that. Not that it would have mattered. The Death Star was seconds away from obliterating the whole planet anyway. Later, they let a general lead a mission, but it was Han Solo, and I’m guessing it was a placating gesture before he went and killed himself on a suicide mission to take down the Death Star II’s shields from the forest moon of Endor. Lando was given a general-ship, but I think that was based on piloting merit, or the need to have him be the one to give orders to the rest of the star fighters. The one in actual command was Admiral Ackbar, sitting safely in the Home One (flagship of that particular alliance fleet), only the fully operational Death Star laser forced him to engage the enemy directly. So yeah, Star Wars does this better.

So … back to the movie. Kirk gets in trouble, because he’s Kirk. Before he can really be punished at all (because again, he’s Kirk), Benedict Cumberbatch shows up to be evil. Has there ever been a more perfectly British name than Benedict Cumberbatch? Quick, someone give him a title so he can be Lord Benedict Cumberbatch. He needs to name his kid Thornwood just to keep the theme going. Anyway, he shows up to be evil, and then the movie adds some twists, with callbacks to previous movies and TV shows, only with a little twist. Like having a different character in the callback. In the new version, Spock and Uhura are dating, but it was Kirk and Uhura in the original who kissed (TANGENT ALERT!). In fact, theirs was the first interracial kiss aired on TV. They did one take where the kiss was spectacular, but the producers were nervous about showing it, so they asked for more takes. William Shatner kept intentionally messing up so they’d have to use the good take, because William Shatner is cool that way, and totally aware that hotness knows no racial boundaries. Now it’s just taken for granted that someone as smokin’ as Zoe Saldana can get whoever she wants, be it white, black, purple, green, or alien.

So … back to the movie … again. It was awesome (as if you couldn’t have gotten that from the first paragraph, or the trailer, or the fact that it’s Star Trek and directed by J. J. Abrams), so it’s definitely a theatre movie. Good action, good lines, good comedy, good acting, good music. And to think, this is the guy who only likes Star Trek. Imagine what he’ll do with Star Wars.

Zombie Column: Olympus has Fallen

This past Saturday, I got a sudden invite to see Olympus has Fallen, and I'm not one to turn that kind of thing down. Not when such a cinematic masterpiece is being offered (alright, enough sarcasm). I went with some of the same people as last week (GI Joe), and it had enough of the same audience that I thought we were going to get the same trailers. Nope. I can't really remember which ones they are, except that The Internship was one of them, and that they were pretty much all movies that I would pass on.

In case you didn't know, Olympus Has Fallen is one of two movies released this spring in which the White House is taken over. The second one is called White House Down (so Olympus definitely won the battle of the names) and comes out in June. That one was Channing Tatum and Jamie Foxx, while this one has Aaron Eckhart and Gerard Butler. I'm not quite sure who I'd give the casting nod to, but I'm going with Olympus, since even thought Channing is red hot right now, Olympus has Morgan Freeman and can afford to have Ashley Judd cameo after her TV version of Taken set in the Amazon didn't pan out.

Anyway, this movie opens sometime right before Christmas (possibly Eve) up at Camp David, as the first family is getting ready to go to a fundraiser or event of some sort. It's quite snowy outside, and the motorcade spins out on a bridge (because of course it does). Mike Banning (Butler, and let me say what a great action name Mike Banning is. I'm pretty sure it's the best hero name ever. I mean, we're all attached to John McClane, but that might just be because Die Hard was so good it coloured our perceptions. If Die Hard had had a detective Banning, Hans Gruber would've given up on the spot. There's just no fighting a guy like that) pulls the president to safety just as the limo plunges into the icy waters below, carrying the First Lady with it (good-bye, Ashley Judd. Thanks for coming out. Now you have more time to cheer on Kentucky. Or Kansas. Or whichever College Basketball team you're wildly overrated to cheer for).

18 months later, Banning has been reassigned to the treasury building (fun fact: The Secret Service is under control of the treasury. I don't know why, that's just the way it is. That means that threats to the president get even more jurisdictional, since you now have the treasury involved, the justice department involved, Homeland security, possibly the military, and whoever the CIA and NSA answer to. The state department, maybe? I don't actually know that one) where the desk job is slowly driving him insane. Let me tell you, Banning, I have a desk job and it's actually pretty awesome. But I'm not used to throwing my body in front of bullets, so I gather that cubicles might be kind of boring for you.

There's a South Korean delegation that's meeting with the president to discuss the rising threat of North Korea (wow, the standard of movie villains has really fallen off. First we had Nazis, who were legitimately terrifying, since they were winning World War Two and one point. They gave way to the Russians, who were smart and resourceful, not to mention big, but had also had a lot of shoddy business practices. And they gave way to North Korea, whose people are starving and only credible threat is a nuclear weapon or two. We could glass the entire country several times over. You know, if we didn't care about the civilian population or anything. So that's why we don't do that. Anyway, if NK isn't the main enemy, it's terrorists, who can be counted on to strike anywhere, but can't really maintain a sizeable standing army).

During the meeting a plane enters the no-fly zone around the white house and shoots down the jets sent to intercept it. Then it starts randomly shooting people on the ground before it's shot down as well. The president and the SK delegation have been hustled to the Presidential Security Bunker, where it turns out the SK delegation was made up mostly of terrorists, who kill everyone they want to and take the president and some high-ranking cabinet members hostage, thus forcing the military to back off instead of retaking the White House, which has been taken over by those same terrorists posing as tourists with a rather cool strategy, actually. Mind you, there's a lot you can accomplish when all your followers are ready to die. The secret service puts up a valiant fight, but they get overwhelmed (fun fact: the Secret Service employs less than 1000 people, most of whom are deployed elsewhere, or at home in their off time. It's not like you can have all your employees working around the clock, every day). Banning hears the devastation from the plane and then sees the invasion going down. He fights through it from the rear, eventually making it into the White House, where he runs and guns with the terrorists for the rest of the movie.

I liked this movie. Not as much as I could have, maybe, but enough. It's not a great movie by any means, nor a fantastic example of what a mindless movie can be (last week's was much better). But it's competent, and has a lot of action, and even some humor. Yes, there's a scene specifically inserted so that Banning can be proven right and a four star general proven wrong (because nothing makes a hero as heroic as having the opportunity to say "I told you so", especially when people's lives are on the line). So, some problems, including a baffling nuclear decision that I want to rant about, but realize that this post is long enough as it is, without getting into the nuclear nonsense of the past two weeks.

Maybe that'll come next week. All in all, I think it's a blu-Ray movie. Almost a theatre quality movie, but I think they just left something on the table, even if I can't point my finger at it. Too many unfired Chekhov's guns, maybe. Still, good movie. Now, let's see about that one in June.

Zombie Column: GI Joe: Retaliation

I saw GI Joe: Retaliation this Good Friday, because nothing says Solemn Religious Occasion like an action-fest. I went with a group of friends, so it was me, Steve, Rich, Jay and Brian. We went to the best theatre in town (probably). It's a little more expensive, but it huge, and loud, and you can reserve seats ahead of time, and we got in for free because I have a SCENE card and it's awesome.

Anyway, previews were for The Fast and the Furious 6 (Aww Yeah!), Star Trek: Into Darkness (Aww Yeah!), Iron Man 3 (which Steve and I tied on, and also Aww Yeah!) and World War Z, which I lost to some guy in the row behind me and a few seats over. Well played, sir. Well played.

The movie had four company screens, but the last one was for Hasbro, which I'm sure brought a lot of smiles to faces in the theatres. They can go on making movies, as far as I'm concerned, and I will happily pay money for whatever blockbusters they put out.

The movie opens in the North Korean DMZ, with our heroes starting a mission to retrieve a prisoner. So they cut the chain link fence, create a diversion and extract the prisoner, who's conveniently jailed a mere 20 meters from the border. I don't think North Korea is inept enough to put anything in the DMZ except for watch towers, let alone prison cells within spitting distance of South Korea, but whatever. Anyway, one of the Joes goes a little independent and raises the Joe flag on the NK flag pole, but no harm came from it, and it was all in good fun and no one got hurt.

Next, we get to see Duke (Channing Tatum) and Roadblock (Dwayne "the Rock" Johnson) bonding, and it's hilarious. I know 21 Jump Street proved Tatum had comedic chops, but it's always nice when he adds in a little extra humour.

From there, the Joes get sent to Pakistan to secure some nuclear weapons, and the plot kicks off. I won't spoil it for you, even though it barely matters, because GI JOE! Whoo! Explosions! Guns! Martial Arts! Fights while rappelling down the side of a mountain! That sequence was actually fairly lengthly, and also awesome. More movies need to do that. Sword fighting while running along the sides of cliffs? Yes please!

Besides that, the rest of the action scenes were pretty good as well. I didn't mind the short cuts and chaotic action as much as I usually do. Maybe I'm willing to cut GI Joe a bit more slack, or maybe I'm just getting used to it, but they were all awesome. Ridiculous, but awesome.

My only quibbles with this movie are small. There are accusations that the movie was delayed so that more Channing Tatum could be written in. Turns out, those accusations are unfounded, so the only reason to delay it for 9 months was to put in the 3D. And while most of the 3D was good, there were some curious camera placements choices. We had an over the shoulder shot of one guy speaking, except the blurry shoulder was still in the shot. Normally this isn't a problem, except it was in 3D, so the blurry shoulder jumped out at us. That's just poor cinematography, and I know my cinematography, having studied it not at all.

Also, the music was merely alright. Some of it was pretty good, and some of it wasn't. All in all, it balanced out to okay, but I want more than okay in my bombastic soundtracks. I want epic themes of heroism and saving the world from global catastrophe.

But those niggling problems aside, this movie is fantastic. Don't get me wrong, you'll need to turn your brain off before you get inside. But once you do, prepare for the awesome! It's a theatre movie for me, and probably the best movie I've seen this year (not that that helps much).

Zombie Column: Movie-pocalypse

IM IN YOUR CITEE, WATCHIN UR MOVYS

Or at least, I was last weekend, when I went to visit Evan and Mel in their new home. I was lucky to get very nice weather for the weekend. In fact, we got to spend the morning on Saturday walking their dog Mikah on the beach. Fun times.

I got in on Thursday evening and left on Sunday at noon. Over the course of Friday and Saturday, we went to see six (!) movies, alternating between theatres and Video on Demand (VOD). They were, in order of when we saw them:

1) Jack the Giant Slayer (In theatres)

2) Wreck-it Ralph (on VOD)

3) Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters (In theatres)

4) Red Dawn (on VOD)

5) A Good Day to Die Hard (in theatres)

6) Taken 2 (on VOD)

All those in the course of about 2 pm on Friday afternoon to maybe 10 pm on Saturday. Six movies in 30 hours. We haven't had that density of movies since we did the Harry Potter marathon way back in the fall of 2011.

I took the preview game, both individually and aggregately. For Jack, I got GI Joe (even calling it as the first preview as we walked into the theatre), Evan got Ironman 3, and I finished up with the next three (I think they were Burt Wonderstone, Oblivion, and Man of Steel, but I can’t really remember). Hansel and Gretel was shown at a cheap theatre, so I got the preview game with Jack the Giant Slayer after we tied on Oz the Great andPowerful. Finally, Evan took the preview game for A Good Day to Die Hard with Olympushas Fallen (we both whiffed on The Heat and After Earth). All told, I got two games out of three, with the aggregate score of five to three, with one tie.

Two surprising things about spending that much time in theatres. One, apparently Chevrolet has paid a ton of money to Cineplex, and now they're allowed to show ads during the previews. What? After the first preview, there's a Chevrolet ad, and then more previews (yes, this is even after the cinematic introducing the previews). I am not a fan, but can't quite summon the level of outrage I think I should have for this kind of blatant commercialism. Secondly, in some BC and Ontario theatres, there's an onscreen game called Timeplay. You download a mobile phone app and answer questions, competing against the other players in the theatre. After three quick questions, it's over, and there's a reminder to turn off your phone. Both Jack and Die Hard played in those theatres, and Evan beat me in those both times, although we were the top two in both theatres. We won token prizes (free drink with popcorn purchase), and now I'd kinda like it if Alberta theatres had that.

Anyway, on with the show. Because six movies in two days tends to mash the experiences together, I'll try and jot down some quick thoughts about each. And if giants somehow wind up in Die Hard, please excuse me while I rearrange my memories.

Jack the Giant Slayer

Another in the line of gritty-fied fairy tales, this one taking Jack and the Beanstalk and making it PG-13. It opens with the standard Fee Fi Fo Fumm (technically, they're the names of Giant Generals) rhyme, which is the start of a story being told to Jack by his father, as well as the Princess Isabelle by her mother. One thing I like about this movie was how the managed to intertwine what was happening to Jack and Isabelle when they were in two different places. I guess they were meant to end up together, because everyone else already had a sidekick. Seriously. The evil human villain had a sidekick. The King (Isabelle's father) had a sidekick. Ewan McGregor (Isabelle's bodyguard) had a sidekick, and no, it wasn't his awesomely-flouffed hair. It's like they had a surplus of characters who tended to agree with the most powerful person around them, so they had to parcel them out to all the important people. Only Jack and Isabelle didn't get one because they needed to be together.

After the story opens, it skips forward ten years, where Jack's father and Isabelle's mother have died, and both of them are looking for adventure. I'm sure everyone would have been a lot safer if only people took Hobbits' advice and stayed away from adventures. Anyway, Jack and Isabelle have a brief encounter when Jack stands up for Isabelle's honour, and then she runs away from the castle to have an adventure, and be out and about (because the King, though nice, wants to keep her safe inside the castle with no going out). She ends up at Jack's house/hut just as the beanstalk grows up to the land of giants, and is thrust up there alone.

The king assembles a team to climb the beanstalk and go after her, and Jack volunteers because ... well, Adventure! And the plot demands it, I supposed.

Anyway, things go from there, and I won't spoil it. But I will relay Evan's review, which was that it was "Surprisingly not half bad." Now there's a poster blurb if I ever heard one. I enjoyed it. It wasn't a great movie, but I think it was good for what I needed it to be. Fun time, good action, funny, nice special effects. Although Jack seemed far too happy-go-lucky for the life threatening situations he was put through. How can you be smiling and joking and have all that witty banter when you're about to be eaten? Also, the last minute of the movie was the worst ending I have ever seen. Atrocious. Completely spoils the flavour of the movie. If you can leave those minor aspects aside, I think it's a solid Blu-Ray movie.

Wreck-it Ralph

Wreck-it Ralph is essentially a Pixar movie done by Disney. And that's not a bad thing, as Disney has a lot of good people working for them. They've essentially nailed the Pixar formula. Loveable characters, additions for the adults (usually it's humour aimed at them, in this case it's video game cameos), and even the part before the climax where the two main protagonists have a falling out and little kids get a hug from their moms.

The movie centres on Ralph, who's the bad guy in a video game called Fix-it Felix. No one likes Ralph because he's the bad guy, which could easily lead to Then Let Me Be Evil, even though he's clearly a Punch-Clock Villain (almost literally). Instead, he tries to prove he's not such a bad guy after all, which leads to all manner of hijinks but also introduces him to Vanellope, a glitch in the racing game near Fix-it Felix's arcade stand.

Because it hews so close to the Pixar formula, it also gets the Pixar quality. This is a good movie. Funny, sweet, hilariously detailed video game animations (the tenants in the building Ralph demolishes move like eight-bit characters, even outside the video game). Even though it was aimed at a much younger audience than me (well, maybe a slightly lesser maturity than me, but not by much), I still liked it a lot. Definitely a theatre movie.

Hansel and Gretel: Which Hunters

We had to drive for about 45 minutes to get to the only theatre that was still playing Hansel and Gretel. It was called Hollywood 3, and the preview for the latest movie was released that day. So yeah, cheap, slightly sketchy. Oh yeah, and late at night, because 9:45 pm is the only time it was showing, and really late for old farts like us.

The movie opens with two kids being led into the woods by their father, who leaves them there. He doesn't come back, so they search for him, eventually stumbling across a cabin made of candy. They shout for help, and the door opens ... by itself. Man, those safety lessons in school were a lot different back then. Anyway, they meet a really creepy witch, who chains Gretel and locks up Hansel, making him eat by threatening Gretel. She eventually picks the lock to her chains just as Hansel's about to be cooked, and the siblings knock the witch into the oven, roasting her alive. As Jeremy Renner's voiceover explains, it's a solid way of killing a witch.

Then the opening credits come, and then we get to a town that has a witch problem, who are also behind the kidnapping children problem. The Mayor hires Hansel and Gretel, now grown up and played by Renner and Gemma Arterton, to find the children and kill the witches. After that follows a ton of action, funny jokes, gory action, bloody jokes, the occasional f-bomb, and Gretel continually waking up in new locations after being knocked out (seriously, count the times she gets knocked out. It's a drinking game).

Did I love it? Of course I loved it! It's a whole lot of fun. Keep in mind that my taste in movies is terrible, but it's probably the best movie I saw last weekend. Action, comedy, plot-twists, action, comedy, Gemma Arterton. What's not to like? Theatre movie, and I can't believe it didn't do better.

By the way, Jeremy Renner is creeping up our Mindless Movie Power Rankings. He's been in this one, The Bourne Legacy, The Avengers, Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol, and cameo’d in Thor. Led two, starred in two more, appeared in a fifth? Coming up on Jason Statham territory (for the record, Statham has led three - Safe, Killer Elite, and The Mechanic - and starred in two more - The Expendables 1 and 2).

Red Dawn

This remake has been on the shelf for a while, possibly so the original Chinese antagonists could be turned into North Korean antagonists. Not realizing China could be a major market for movies? Pretty dumb. Mind you, dumb was kind of the modus operandi on this film, so it's perfect for us.

It opens with a football game in which an older brother watches a younger brother quarterback a football team to a loss. The younger brother proves he's not much of a team player by constantly running, which puts them just outside of field goal distance, so the kicker misses. Then the younger brother leaves with his girlfriend while the older brother sleeps on his father's couch, since he just showed up out of the blue while on leave from the marines. Got it?

The next morning, North Korea invades Spokane, Washington (where this movie is set) and the boys barely escape with some friends and the adults are pretty much all left behind. Older brother uses his marine skillz and size to take charge (seriously, he's got six inches on all the other actors) and teaches the others how to fight (it's time for a montage) and then they do operations in Occupied Spokane. I have no idea if there are actually sensitive military targets in Spokane, but we can pretend. I think the original was set in Denver, which actually has a nuclear something-or-other and NORAD, so there's that.

This movie is decent. Not great, but not bad. Enough stupid action to make me happy. A bit too much shaky-cam for my tastes. Even in quite moments, close-ups on faces would be done in shaky-cam. Usually that stuff's reserved for action scenes, but they went all Friday Night Lights on us (by the way, I might be the only guy who preferred Studio 60 over FNL, but I guess I preferred a soap opera masquerading as a TV show over a soap opera masquerading as football). Anyway, I think this is a blu-ray movie. All the characters were so generic that we kept on calling them by nicknames instead of their actual names (Big Bro, Little Bro, Girlfriend, Older Black Kid, Younger Black Kid, Latino Girl, Manly Kid). And if the characters are that generic, the movie's just not memorable enough to be a theatre movie.

A Good Day to Die Hard

This was pretty much the entire reason I visited. All the other movies were picked on the fly, but this movie we picked out in advance when we knew the dates of my visit. And I gotta say, I'm a little disappointed.

The movie opens with the assassination of someone by Jack McClain, who looks a bit like Sam Worthington. He gets arrested, and offers a plea deal. Meanwhile, his father (John McClain, pushing 60) finds out and flies over to Russia to deal with it. Once there, he's generally a stubborn pain in the ass until about haflway through the movie. Seriously. Which is very annoying, because I don't like stubborn pains in the asses (being one myself), and not liking John McClain is a very disorienting experience.

Anyway, there is a lot of explosions and action, and a plot twist (it turns out, the bad guy is just a thief, like every other bad guy in the Die Hard franchise, except for 2), and very cool shot at the end. That does not make up for the fact that I spent half the movie resenting John McClain for his mere presence. Idiot Ball, much? Blu-Ray movie, but I can't go higher, and that makes me sad.

Taken 2

This time around, there are no awesome speeches to put on the poster, but Liam Neeson still has the skills acquired over a very long career. These let him Liam Neeson his way across Istanbul with the help of his daughter (Kim), who initially has to break him out confinement. Then he gets around to the shooting and neck-punching that made up so much of the first Taken.

Kim is very brave to help out, but is also very scared. I like how she's pretty much what a normal person would be in an action movie - on the verge of panic the entire time. It's only her father's influence that gets her through.

It's a theatre movie for me. Quite a bit of action, not much humour, Liam Neeson laying the smack down. One thing that blew my mind while watching it is when Evan told me Neeson was probably working so much because his wife died. How did I not know that? It suddenly explained why he's popped up in so many of our movies - Taken 2, The Dark Knight Rises, Battleship, Wrathof the Titans, The A-Team, and Clash of the Titans. He's by no means led or starred in all of them (only three, by my count), but that's still a fairly impressive resume for less than three years.

And that about wraps it up for my trip out west. Great weather that I missed because we spent most of it indoors, frying our minds and popping out our eyeballs.

Zombie Column: The Last Stand

Last night, a few of us went to see The Last Stand. It’s Arnold Schwarzenegger’s new movie, so of course we saw it (or more accurately, of course I saw it). If we had been doing this during the 80’s, we would have seen all of his movies. ALL OF THEM.

Preview for the week where The Incredible Burt Wonderstone (a movie about magic. With special effects and camera tricks, is there actually a point to filming magic anymore? It’s not like any of us will believe what’s portrayed onscreen is actually what’s happening on screen), GI Joe: Retaliation (I’m all in on this. I've been all in on this since it was supposed to be released last June. In fact, I've been all in on this since it was announced. Because hey, GI Joe), a horror flick I didn't get the name of (and really don’t need to) and Snitch (the next attempt by Dwayne Johnson to get into actual acting roles, no matter how many times I tell him not to. “Don’t do it” I scream at the screen whenever he tries. “You’re so good when you don’t!”)

The movie opens with a lot of exposition, which is probably not a good choice. Exposition is boring, and probably violates the writing rule of “Show, don’t tell.” But so many directors find it easier to tell and not show, and so there’s less action, and that makes me sad. If you need a lot of exposition to set up the story, at least have a nice action prologue, like Skyfall or The Expendables 2. The Dark Knight Rises can have a slow opening (even though it doesn't), because, well, it has so many other things going for it (like good acting, and insane fanboys).

Anyway, a very dangerous drug lord escapes from custody in Las Vegas, and steals a very fast, powerful car to make a break for the Mexican border. I thought going to Canada would be shorter, but apparently my knowledge of American Geography is way off. The Americans have smartly built a moat around their country, so the dangerous drug lord hires a team of mercenaries to build a bridge over it before he gets there, so he can simply zip over it where no authorities are looking. Unfortunately for him, there’s a town nearby, sherrifed by Arnold (who’s named the incredibly un-Austrian Ray Owens). Arnold finds out about the bridge and all that when he and his deputies are involved in a shootout near it, and from then on, it’s about setting up to stop the dangerous drug lord and the mercenaries (Now on tour in the Midwest!)

Most of the movie takes place over the course of a few hours. About as long as it takes to speed from Las Vegas to the border at 150 mph. Maybe a few minutes more to stop for gas. Any roadblock are taken care of, but it’s this part of the movie that really fails to love up to its potential. There could be a huge Death Race thing going on, with all sorts of obstacles and death traps. Or a Fast and the Furious thing, with a lot of chases. Instead there’s two roadblocks, and lots of close-ups of the very fast, powerful car shifting. As Steve pointed out “You’re on a highway. Why are you shifting?”

Besides Arnold, you may recognize some of the actors. The guy who plays Jerry is used to being in small towns, since he also played Matt Saracen in the Friday Night Lights tv show. He was the backup (then starting) QB for the Dillon Panthers. Also, there’s Jamie Alexander, who’s used to being the only woman on an otherwise male team from her time on Thor (she played Sif, of Sif and the Warriors Three).

The music is decent. More strings than I expected. Not great, but decent. Not quite up to Audiomachine. With strings in this kind of flick, you might expect something by Jack Trammell, but it was a lot more orchestral.

Humour wasn't too sparse. Johnny Knoxville was a nut, but he’s always a little off, and it wasn't that funny to begin with. However, there’s a hilarious scene with a shotgun-toting grandmother that more than makes up for it.

All told, I think it’s a theatre movie. The action isn't quite there, but it’s made up for by other things, including a surprisingly emotion scene in the middle. Usually there isn't this sort of scene in this sort of film, but they put it in, and gosh darn if it didn't work. So that’s in there, and the music’s in there, and the humour’s in there, all for a good movie. Ridiculous, but good.

Zombie Column: The Hobbit

These past Holidays, I've managed to watch a number of movies that I had missed out on. Luckily, on the last day I had off, I squeezed in The Hobbit with my nephew. He'd already seen it, but we had made plans a while ago (which I had kept putting off, first because I was sick, then because I was busy). We finally managed it yesterday (Yes, today I was at work. It's no fun, but a paycheck beats no paycheck with a stick).

I was pleasantly surprised where the movie started. Not the previews (Man of Steel, Oz: the Great and Powerful, Jack the Giant Slayer), but the actual movie itself. It brought back Elijah Wood and Ian Holm to reprise Frodo and Bilbo Baggins, the day of Bilbo's 111^th birthday party. In fact, after a brief flashback to the dwarves losing their city, it takes us right up to when Frodo leaves to go read a book and meet Gandalf. It also reuses some terrific musical cues from the original film (Concerning Hobbits).

Anyway, then the movie goes back 60 years ago, to when Ian Holm looked like Martin Freeman, and had no adventures, which is just how normal Hobbits like it. Young Bilbo meets Gandalf (who still looks like Sir Ian McKellen), and then he meets a bunch of dwarves, and after a rather long introductory sequence, they go off on an adventure together, normal Hobbit behavior be damned. Bilbo is part Took after all, and Tooks are somewhat odd Hobbits who don't really conform to normal Hobbit-ish conventions. Good for them! Being shackled by society's conventions is no fun, no matter how fictional that society may be. Stand up for yourselves! Go on adventures! Be back home for supper! Oh, um, maybe that's not how adventures work in Middle Earth.

Adventures seems to be mostly the same, though, because I thought I saw this movie before, and it was called Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring. A group of people traipse around a place that looks an awful lot like New Zealand, and fight off increasingly ugly creatures. They even go underground, where they have to fight off and escape from a horde of enemies, including one giant one.

On the other hand, just because I've seen the movie before, doesn't mean it's not a good movie. And this movie is good. It might not be quite up to par with the other LOTR movies, but I think that's just because it took too long to get going. Mind you, Return of the King took about 20 minutes before any action happened. This one goes quite a bit longer with only a chaotic scene of Smaug the Dragon devastating a town before capturing all of the wealth in a nearby mountain as an action scene amidst a series of talky shots.

So, all in all, it's a theatre movie. Takes a while to get going, but good music, good action, awesome scenery, good humour. Takes me back to the days of the Original Trilogy. And definitely better than that other Prequel Trilogy (which if I had my way, would be permanently erased from both reality and memory. Forever).