Predators

**1/2 – My dad thinks that 1987’s “Predator” is the best movie of all time. While my praise for it doesn’t reach quite that level, I do find it to be a highly enjoyable film to watch. It is the quintessential guy movie featuring big guns, big explosions, big muscles and lots of swearing, macho one-liners and off-color jokes. It’s like a cocktail of adrenaline and testosterone injected directly into the heart sack. The 1990 follow-up – “Predator 2” - starring Danny Glover and featuring the reprehensible Morton Downey Jr. is probably one of the worst movies of all time. After a lame two movie tangent into the world of “Aliens”, Robert Rodriguez brings the Predator series back towards decentness with this 2010 effort directed by Nimrod Antal (if that is his real name). The characters didn’t have the same interesting intangible qualities that the original had, and I’m not sure if that is because of the characters themselves, the actors or portraying them, the script, or a combination of all those things. It had plenty of explosions and gunplay - and even featured a rather unlikely sword fight – but it couldn’t quite capture the magic of the first movie. I think part of the reason is that in the end the final body count is 6 dead humans and 4 dead predators. That sort of death ratio removes some of the mystique of what used to be a nearly unstoppable alien killing machine.

Endgame

*** - Starring the black guy with the upper class English accent that played that bad-ass bad guy in “Serenity”, this 2009 film set in mid-80s South Africa is kind of neat despite the fact that it is extraordinarily slow moving and has no real action or tension of any kind. It is kind of like an extended version of one of the dramatizations from “Unsolved Mysteries” minus the ghosts, UFOs and/or murder. What makes this political drama neat is that everything about it seems to indicate that it was purposefully made to feel like it was filmed contemporaneously. The film stock was a little grainy, the camera was kind of shaky (but more in a sloppy 80s TV show kind of way than in a purposeful edgy steady-cam kind of way) and the score was full of the meaty synth lines and ambient electronic noodling that was so prominent in the early to mid 80s. I can’t say for certain that this was a result that was intended by the filmmakers, or if it – being a relatively low budget made for British TV movie – is just all they had to work with. Because it starred two of my favorite actors (the afore-mentioned black guy and the always outstanding Mark Strong) I choose to believe that it was a choice of the filmmakers. That alone makes it worth a few stars.

The Girl Who Played With Fire

***1/2 – This second film in the Swedish-made adaptations of Stieg Larsson’s ‘Millennium Trilogy’ of books isn’t as entertaining as the first (“The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo”) but is pretty good and well worth watching. With a bit of a buzz surrounding these films due at least in part to their imminent American remakes, I think it’s going to be interesting to have seen the Swedish versions first, if for no other reason than having the ability to compare. The first film had a very fresh feel to it, and although it had some slow spots, the engaging mystery plot easily made up for the lulls. In this sequel the dull spots seem to be a bit more prominent since the plot isn’t quite as interesting and borders a bit on being hackneyed, as it deals with the somewhat media-saturated sexual slavery market. I can’t deny the quality acting that this film contains, although the actors (or perhaps more accurately, the characters that the actors play) aren’t particularly appealing, especially the faux-cyberpunk lead actress (Noomi Rapace) and the rather lumpy and pock-marked male lead (Michael Nyqvist). I don’t consider myself a superficial person, but seeing people that are a bit easier on the eyes in the lead roles probably wouldn’t be unwelcome.

Antichrist

* - German weirdo Lars Von Trier takes a clumsy stab at ‘high art’ with this revolting and barely watchable 2009 train wreck. While there does indeed seem to be some sort of plot at the beginning – a man (Willem Dafoe) and his wife (French singer Charlotte Gainsbourg) grieving over the loss of their toddler son, who threw himself out of a window after seeing his parents fornicating (probably not a bad choice in the long run) – it is soon dropped and replaced with a series of images and scenes that are probably meant to be shocking and eminently artistic. Sadly, these scenes – which include the wife masturbating the unconscious husband until he squirts blood and then hacking off his member, her snipping off of her own clitoris with a pair of scissors, and her poking a hole in her husband’s lower leg with a hand drill – are less shocking and artistic then they are gross and completely unexplained. The movie is about an hour and fifty minutes long, but I couldn’t sit through any more than an hour and a half. This is the first time since I’ve been reviewing movies that I have been unable to finish a film. That’s how bad this movie is.

The Good Shepherd

***1/2 – My understanding is that this movie got some mixed reviews from critics due to its length, lack of action and somewhat slow pace. I can see the point of many of these critics who felt this way, but quite frankly, I found myself surprisingly entertained by this film. Matt Damon stars as a somewhat fictionalized version of one of the founders of the CIA while Robert DeNiro directs and also has a small role. The acting was all quite good, and the plot that heavily involves the Cold War, espionage, intelligence and counter-intelligence is interesting enough to keep my interest through it’s over two and a half hour length. And I think that is pretty high praise from a guy who gave Oscar Winner “There Will Be Blood” a **1/2 rating due to its length and boringness. “The Good Shepherd” is certainly not without its faults, though. The main issue I had with it was the lame Angelina Jolie subplot as the wife of Damon’s character. She had a relatively small role at the beginning, which I was fine with, but became far too prominent near the end and became nearly the dominant figure at the film’s conclusion. Part of that shift also moved the plot away from espionage and toward family drama, which annoyed me a bit. But overall, this was a pretty good movie.

Jonah Hex

** - Ahhhh… the hubris of the evil super villain. How often have we seen the arrogance and need to rub a hero’s nose in his anticipated defeat end up being the ultimate undoing of the seemingly victorious antagonist? I’d have to say that that type of occurrence is a staple of superhero media, very common in thrillers, and the final outcome of roughly 90% of all Bond films and books. Add 2010’s “Jonah Hex” to that list. Based on a DC Comics property, this movie features Josh Brolin as a disfigured Civil War veteran who seeks out revenge on a garishly evil John Malkovich and his Irish lackey (who inexplicably has a beard tattooed on his face) after they roast his family to death in their own wooden Unabomber-style shack. Meanwhile, some sort of clumsy romantic subplot is flailed at between Hex and the skanky broad from the “Transformers” movies to no particular resolution (other than her becoming the requisite damsel in distress in the film’s climax). There’s a fair amount of action and gun slinging and explosions, but none of it is either grandiose or original enough to be very memorable. I like action movies to be short, but if you subtract the ending credit sequence this movie clocks in at just over 70 minutes. It could probably have used a bit more meat in it in order to flesh out a decent plot.

Avalon

** - If one were to ask me which two countries I would find least likely to collaborate on a film project I might very well say Poland and Japan. As unlikely as that pairing is, 2001’s “Avalon” is one of what I think I can safely assume is a very small number of Japanese-Polish science fiction films. Written, directed and designed by Japanese folks and acted and produced by Polish people (and also a Polish-language film), this movie has a very odd feel to it. It is set in a kind of Matrix-esque near future where people spend inordinate amounts of time strapped to a gurney with odd metal contraptions attached to their faces while playing a video game called “Avalon”, which seems to be a fairly by-the-numbers quest-based 3rd person shooter. Various things in this movie confused me. One thing was whether the dank industrial landscape was supposed to portray a dystopian future, or if that is just how Poland actually looks. Also, a strange yellow/orange enhancement filter was used on the camera. Was that a stylistic choice or a clumsy attempt at foreshadowing the ending? Why was there an extended shot of a guy scarfing down some sort of weird Polish meat-based breakfast? What happened to the main character’s dog? Why was there a Polish guy named Murphy, a clearly Irish name? Anyway, I think you get the point. It was confusing and left many unanswered questions.

Centurion

** - I am at a bit of a loss as to how to categorize this film exactly. I guess you could call it an action movie, or perhaps a historical drama. It might fall into the genre of war movies, although this doesn’t take place during an actual declared war per se. I think the best way to describe it would be to call it an adventure movie. It’s one of those films where guys are running around in the woods and mountains fighting people as they go with swords and daggers and axes as they are being chased by an evil band of savages. Kind of like the LOTR movies when Sam and Frodo are going to Mordor, but less gay. It takes place in Roman Britain during the 2nd century when the empire was at its zenith and the legions were fighting to maintain and/or expand their frontier into modern day Scotland. Specifically, the infamous 9th Legion is featured, and after they are shredded by the Picts, a small band of survivors have to fight their way back to a garrison in order to go home. It’s full of extremely gory violence, lots of running, some yelling and grunting, and all the other stuff one might expect from this type of flick. I didn’t find it particularly fun to watch, but it might be worth seeing if you like watching people get hacked to death with dull swords.

Splice

*1/2 – Vincenzo Natali, the Canadian writer/director of the excellent “Cube” and horrible “Cypher”, shows off his more perverted side in 2010’s “Splice” by prominently featuring bestiality, incest and rape all in one movie. Thankfully, none of said sexual deviances are shown too graphically, but it is all very clearly hinted at and/or displayed in some minor to moderate detail. In what I assume is the relative near future, Adrien Brody and the girl from “Go” who gets hit by a car in that one scene are some sort of bizarre creature makers who accidentally on purpose create an odd being by combining human DNA with a number of other animals, resulting in something that looks like a cross between a human female, a kangaroo rat, a scorpion and a bat. Unsurprisingly to everyone except the two mad scientists, the creature goes on an out of control murder/rape spree after it decides that it is sick of living in a big tank of water in a musty old barn (can’t really blame it, there). I guess the main message here is “don’t mess with nature.” I disagree with that. After all these years of floods, plagues, typhoons, earthquakes and poison monkeys, we can’t jab back a little bit? Screw that. I say go ahead and make all the weird, murderous creatures you want.

Castle: The Complete 2nd Season

****1/2 – Attempting to mix humor into a show in the mystery/thriller/procedural drama can be tricky business. One way to be sure that you are going to get it right is to hire the always hilarious Nathan Fillion as your lead actor. If you then surround him with a supporting cast that are almost equally as comically talented, and you have yourself a surefire winner. Having such a great cast of talented actors wins half the battle, but in order to be truly successful as a show, there still needs to be solid storylines and interesting mystery plots. “Castle” is about a mystery writer who follows detectives around the city on their investigations in order to do research for his upcoming books. The writers of the show are not only able to distill the basic plots of what could easily be an entire mystery novel into about 42 minutes, but they do it in a way that no other similarly themed show has done in the past. I can honestly say that the plots from this show’s episodes are as interesting and entertaining as any I have ever seen on a show like “Law & Order” or “CSI” or other like shows. Add in Fillion – and Stana Katic as his lovely (despite her series of bizarre ever-changing hairdos) and brilliant comic foil - to the rest of the cast of talented folks and you’d be hard-pressed to find a better show currently on TV

Toy Story 3

**** - As spectacular as the animators are over at Pixar - who have released an unending stream of popular and critically praised movies and shorts over the past 15 or so years – they just can’t seem to get the look of humans right. Toys, cars, bugs, fish, rats, monsters and just about everything else imaginable has made an appearance in a Pixar film, and they have all looked spectacular except for humans. The closest they got was with “The Incredibles” and frankly I found their over-stylized look to be pretty off-putting. I bring this up because their latest feature-length film portrays humans in the same creepy and unconvincing way that they were portrayed in the 1st film of the venerated series well over a decade ago. Some progress in that area would be nice. With that out of the way, the movie itself was very entertaining, as is usually the case with this studios’ work. The beginning was a bit dull, and the tail end was almost excruciatingly drawn out in an unsuccessful attempt to try to evoke some sort of emotional response through maudlin schlock, but the action plot of the midsection was probably the best of the three movies that have been made thus far. I wouldn’t mind a “Toy Story 4” being Pixar’s next film. Unfortunately, I have just learned that their next one is actually going to be “Cars 2.” What the hell are they thinking?

Adventureland

**1/2 – Angst-ridden teenager (or, in this case, college-aged kid) melodrama has always been an annoyance of mine. The pomposity and self-centeredness of the characters in those types of movies is consistently staggering to me. People acting like their bad hair day or relationships are the most important things in the world. That’s the sort of crap that has been on the rise in this country, and I chalk it up to the fact that parents are beating the snot out of their kids less than they used to, and therefore instill them with no sense of discipline or humility. Or it could be the result of the tight pants and odd hairdos that are so popular with the kids these days. Anyways, this movie had a lot of that kind of rubbish in it, which would have certainly resulted in a lower rating had there not also been some genuinely funny parts in it. This film starred the guy who also starred in “Zombieland”, marking his second consecutive starring role in a movie called something-“land”. This is certainly the less entertaining of the pair, but it was kind of watchable if you can get around all the whinging and moping. The couple who owned the titular theme park was probably the highlight of the movie for me as they had most of the funny lines. The guy who went around punching people in the nuts was pretty funny, too.

Tell-Tale

*1/2 - Supposedly ‘inspired by’ the classic Edgar Allen Poe story “The Tell-Tale Heart”, the only connection that I can detect between 2008’s “Tell-Tale” and that famous literary work is that they both feature a heart rather prominently. Some guy who looks vaguely familiar stars as a heart transplant recipient who starts to act strangely - and then ramps it up a notch by going around killing people - after the heart he received begins taking over his body and tracking down those who caused its original host’s death. At least, I think that’s what happened. I’m not sure, though, as I started to lose it toward the end, after Brian Cox dressed up like a mobster gets stabbed in the neck and some guy in doctor scrubs shoves some other guy into an ice bath and injects him with something. The muddled and confusing plot seems less like the fantastic Poe work and much more akin to something that Karl Pilkington would come up with after seeing a headline that says “Series of Deaths Connected to Bad Heart”. Anyways, whether or not I fully grasped the lame plot is pretty immaterial, because all the other aspects of the film stunk, too. It also didn’t support closed captioning, which annoys me a bit since I always like to watch with subtitles.

Get Smart

**1/2 – Steve Carell takes an extremely bland stab at the classic role of Maxwell Smart – aka Agent 86 – in this modern rehash of the classic 60s spy spoof sitcom. Carell has some funny bits, but most of the biggest laughs come out of the callbacks to the catchphrases and situations that originated with the late Don Adams’ portrayal of the character in the original series. Co-star Anne Hathaway takes on the role of Agent 99 – Smart’s partner/love interest – and while she is an undeniable beauty, she is far from an effective comedienne, and her chemistry with Carell is lukewarm at even their best moments. I generally enjoy Alan Arkin (particularly as the foul-mouthed grandfather in ‘Little Miss Sunshine’), but as The Chief, he seems to struggle with too large of a role and doesn’t have the somewhat antagonistic quality toward Max that Edward Platt imbued the role with. Most of the comedy is pretty broad and silly, but for a comedic movie it seemed like there was an awful lot of emphasis on action. With this being a slapstick-y sort of comedy, having a nearly two hour run time is probably a bit overly ambitious. You have to keep these things around 90 minutes or so. Bill Murray has an ok cameo as a guy disguised as a tree, though.

The New World

**1/2 – Frolicking around in the tidal marshes of Virginia at the dawn of the 17th century with a bunch of people who spend most of their time whooping and hollering and covering themselves in some sort of paint/mud/goo congealment is not my idea of the idyllic life. However, 2005’s epic “The New World” starring Colin Farrell is another in a long line of films that plays up the Native American lifestyle as far superior to that of Europeans. While you’ll get no argument from me regarding the pitfalls and numerous less-than-stellar aspects of 1600’s Europe, I am getting pretty annoyed at the continued portrayal of Native Americans and perfect beings ‘at one with nature’, and the eastern interlopers as raping and pillaging conquerors who are constantly infighting. The truth is that both lifestyles were hard and brutal and savage and sad in many ways. So where this retelling of the Pocahontas/John Smith story falls down is in its unfortunate one-sidedness. Also, it was very long and had very little dialogue other than Farrell’s occasional oddly flowery narration. The score was nicely done and the scenery was pretty spectacular but the story it’s based on is pretty stale, and the romantic aspects of this film were more heavily featured than I anticipated. It’s not a bad film, I guess, but it is a bit of a challenge to sit all the way through, especially with its extreme bias.

The Ghost Writer

*** - This was one of those movies which was nicely filmed, had a decent plot, added in a little mystery and intrigue, and featured fine acting from an excellent cast, but all that good stuff just didn’t add up to an entertaining film for some reason. I can’t quite put my finger on why it ending up being not as good as it should have been other than possibly its slow pace and extremely stuffy British feel. Ewan McGregor, Pierce Brosnan, Olivia Williams and Tom Wilkinson all do an outstanding job with their roles, and Kim Catrall – apparently taking a break from constantly talking about sex in that god awful, horrifyingly shallow, estrogen-spewing woman show she was on – was even halfway decent in her supporting role as Pierce Brosnan’s assistant, despite her phony sounding English accent. The plot meandered a little, and didn’t seem to really decide which way it was going until well over an hour into it, which probably didn’t help combat its inability to maintain my interest. In addition, the end didn’t have the impact that I think it was trying to have, while also not tying up the loose ends that opened up earlier in the film. I had a lot of ‘why’-based questions that went unanswered. I hate to be too hard on it, so I’ll give it three stars, even though that is probably extremely generous of me.

Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children

** - It’s a bad sign if one continually asks oneself things like “who is this guy?” and “what the hell is going on?” while watching a movie. This is something that I find to be a frequent occurrence when watching anything animated that originates in Japan, and “Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children” certainly fits that bill. The Final Fantasy franchise is apparently quite the phenomenon in its native Japan, spawning something like 20 video games, several animated series, action figure lines, apparel, and two super-advanced CG films based on the seventh video game installment, the movie reviewed here being the second of those. I saw the first one a while back, and was not overly impressed, and this follow-up is both more boring and more confusing. The only things about it that were more confusing than the plot were the fight scenes, which were exceedingly choppy and very hard to follow. The film seems to assume that the viewer knows who all the people who show up in it are, and doesn’t provide any explanation of who these characters are, what their motivations are, or why all the guys look super woman-y and have weird spiky haircuts and carry swords that are twice the length of their bodies. It might be worth a look for the animation - which is admittedly excellent - but the story makes no sense and if you are able to follow what the hell is going on you deserve some kind of award.

Gone Baby Gone

***1/2 – In some circles I am well known for my extraordinary memory. Over the last 5 years or so, I have managed to pretty much memorize every farm and farmer in Burlington, Camden and Ocean counties. Also, I can often recite quotes from movies and TV shows verbatim, with very little effort. However, Ben Affleck’s directorial debut film “Gone Baby Gone” has caused me to question my recall skills. All through watching it I had the nagging feeling that I have seen it before. Seeing as it was released in 2007, if I have seen it, it was some time in the last 3 years. So, I either (a) have seen it before and I am gradually losing my one skill of use, (b) have seen it before, but was hammered when I watched it, or (c) haven’t seen it, and it was just very predictable. I am going to assume it was option (b) because I don’t want the result to be option (a), and option (c) would cause me to lower my rating on what I thought was a pretty darn good film. It wasn’t perfect, seeing as it was peppered with phrases like “what about the child?” and “do it for the child” and “for the sake of the child” and all that child-centric crap which annoys me, but it had a good plot, was nicely filmed, and I have a soft spot for movies in which people speak with New England accents.