Saturday, January 26, 2013

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.

Thursday, January 3, 2013

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 111th 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).