Ocean’s Thirteen

*** - This third and final installment in the Ocean’s series of elaborate crime caper films makes an unwelcome return to the shallow glitz of Las Vegas after a refreshing excursion in Europe in the previous film. While it is probably a better film that the prior movie, I just really dislike Las Vegas and all of its glam and showy superficiality and hedonism. This time around one of the gang members is double-crossed in a hotel/casino deal by Al Pacino and winds up having a heart attack as a result, which inspires the rest of the boys to strike back with an exceedingly complex and hard to follow scheme in which they will avenge their fallen comrade. Giant drills are purchased, people are bribed, hotel rooms are booby trapped, disguises are worn, earthquakes are simulated and everything works out in the end as Pacino is ruined. Part of why I can’t really get too into these movies is that I get the feeling that the viewer is supposed to empathize with Clooney and crew, but they are actually some pretty despicable criminals in reality. I find it difficult to connect with people who are amoral thieves. One minor thing I couldn’t quite grasp is why this movie was called “Ocean’s Thirteen”. I don’t get it. There are actually fewer participants in the heist (I counted ten) than in the two earlier movies. I understand that they need to make it seem like the series is progressing, but then one could wonder what happened to Ocean’s One through Ten.

Ocean’s Twelve

*** - This sequel to 2001’s “Ocean’s Eleven” has the same quality filmmaking and acting attributes as the first film, but lacks a certain focus and is probably a notch below it in terms of overall entertainment value. It’s been three years since the Vegas heist that the first film centered on, and the titular crew all have gone their separate ways. However, Andy Garcia (the victim of the crime from “Ocean’s Eleven”) has managed to track them all down and has given them two weeks to return the $160 million they stole from him plus interest. This results in an Amsterdam reunion of the gang in which they are hired out for a new heist. And this is where the movie started to lose me. This heist would gain them only $2.5 million of the $97 million they need to collect, and they only had like 10 days left at that point, so why bother? Anyway, that heist (which fails, by the way) leads to another in Paris (which I think I may have dozed off during) and then a meeting with Vincent Cassel who plays some sort of rival super thief. They all end up in Rome in an attempt to steal a Faberge egg, and Julia Roberts and Bruce Willis get involved and there’s lots of running around and talking fast and whatnot. It still has its entertaining moments, but I had trouble understanding the motivations of the characters for doing what they did, and didn’t fully follow why they went where they went. I’ve seen worse, though, and the score was pretty catchy.

Ocean’s Eleven

***1/2 – This 2001 remake of a classic 60s heist film wasn’t one I was really looking all that forward to seeing due to its Rat Pack pedigree and the advertisements that originally came out for it that made it seem way too wacky and zany. Luckily, the wackiness turned out to be something that was not prominent and although it has origins in the 60s, it had a surprisingly modern feel to it. One of the best aspects of this movie is the way that it completely eschews set-up and back story by leaping into the actual planning and execution of the heist within about 2 minutes of the opening credits. I find the tendency for movies of many genres to waste up to and including an hour or more of screen time with meandering tales of character backgrounds and motivations before getting into the meat of the film to be a rather unpleasant trend, so the fact that this movie completely skips all that is a definite plus. That’s not to say it was all good. Most of the acting was excellent, especially Pitt, Clooney, the two arguing Mormons (Casey Affleck and Scott Caan) and Carl Reiner, but I felt both Don Cheadle and Julia Roberts were subpar and miscast, especially Cheadle who couldn’t really pull off a British accent. With all the great black British actors out there, why cast an American in that role? I guess that’s a minor quibble for an otherwise enjoyable film.

The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest

**** - This gratifying conclusion to the Millennium Trilogy of Swedish films based on the novels of the late Stieg Larsson may very well be the best of the series. Unlike most conspiracy thrillers in which there is a mystery unraveled over the span of the film or series, this movie (and its two predecessors) have no real mystery at all. All the facts are presented early on – so the viewer is well aware of who is good and who is bad - so the real joy in watching the films lie in seeing the characters put together a case to prove beyond a doubt what was really happening in the face of stiff opposition from the government and other authorities. Pretty much everything works in this movie from the acting and directing to the photography and score. My only real objection to the film is the fact that I have no real sympathy for the main protagonist – a heavily mentally, physically and sexually abused girl who reacts by donning silly-looking cyberpunk accoutrements and wearing weird makeup and a whole bunch of pins in her face. She seems like the kind of person who tries way too hard to be ‘different’ just because she thinks it makes her cool. That is a very off-putting trait. I guess I’ll give her a pass, though, since she has been so brutally traumatized. Anyway, the movie was pretty good.

The Longest Yard

** - I haven’t seen the 1974 Burt Reynolds vehicle that this 2005 film is a remake of, so I can’t compare the two in any way in this review. What I can and will do is point out that this version has an unfortunately large number of professional wrestlers, former pro football players, and rappers in its cast. Beyond that fact – which certainly shows clearly a lack of acting strength and nuance – what was really annoying about this movie was its reliance on borderline offensive racial clichés for humor. I won’t deny that I enjoy a decent racist joke now and then, but I tend like them to be a bit more subtle and less frequently employed than they are in this movie, especially in this day and age in which just about every stereotyped racial group imaginable has had at least a half dozen movies devoted specifically to it. There are a few chuckles thrown in here and there, even some by star Adam Sandler who – as anyone who has read any of my other reviews for his movies will know – I generally despise. The plot revolves around an ex-star football player who winds up in jail and is given the rather odd task of putting together a prison football team to take on a team made up of guards (which already existed for some reason) in a game that didn’t appear to have any particular consequence. Dump plot + dumb jokes = dumb movie.

Flightplan

**1/2 – Jodie Foster plays a delusional and heavily medicated aircraft engineer who –after the murder/suicide of the her husband and daughter - has a breakdown while on a large luxury plane flight and attempts to hijack it in order to ransom a bit of cash. At least, that’s what the real bad guys want the authorities to think in this 2005 action thriller. The acting is solid, the film looks pretty good and it is fairly entertaining, but two things kind of bothered me. The first is that the whole plot about a pair of criminals killing an aircraft engineer’s husband, making sure she has mental problems afterward, seeing to it that she is heavily medicated, arranging for her to fly on a particular plane at a particular time with her daughter, and building and setting up all manner of odd little devices throughout said plane seems like an awfully elaborate and time consuming way to earn a few bucks. I mean, with that sort of planning ability and expertise, the guy could surely find a job where he makes decent money. Why go through all that effort? The second thing that bothered me was the enormous, spacious luxury plane that was featured in the movie. It was gigantic and had all sorts of amenities that even some really good hotel rooms don’t have, while at the same time not having all that many passengers. I can’t see how it could possibly be cost effective enough to warrant any but the occasional novelty flight. Other than those problems, I guess the movie was alright.

Life as We Know It

* - There’s no experience quite like being stuck in a coach class seat on a cramped 10-hour flight while choking down a barley edible meal and being forced to watch a horrifyingly bad chick flick. It is how I imagine one of the lower levels of hell in Dante’s “Inferno” might be translated into a modern setting. That is kind of what happened on my lengthy flight to Chile, and the one ray of hope that I had going in (the possibility of seeing a good movie that I hadn’t seen before) was dashed just a few short minutes after I refused the sad excuse for a meal that my homosexual Jamaican male flight attendant tried to pawn off on me when 2010’s “Life as We Know It” was fired up on the tiny airplane TV screens. This predictable and contrived movie was chock full of ‘relationship humor’ - which is about as low as humor gets in my opinion – and all the stabs at comedy were dismally unoriginal and shallow. It followed the formula of so many that came before it in that it presented an ideal romantic situation, subverted it through some sort of tragedy and then tried to extract a manufactured happy ending by flinging together two people who the viewer is supposed to assume will despise each other for eternity by using a third party as a bonding tool. The movie stars the lovely (yet mostly clothed, unfortunately) Katherine Heigl and some well-chiseled dullard who had no particular chemistry and were so self-absorbed that they made me want to eat the meal that I declined just so I could puke it up afterward out of spite.

Secretariat

*** – “Secretariat” was the first and best of a large number of movies (including several I have already seen, such as “Man on Fire”, “Mystic River”, “Next” and inexplicably “Captain Ron”) that I watched on various plane and bus rides during my ten day journey to, in and back from Chile - a land of extraordinary beauty which I recommend everyone visit if they have the opportunity, by the way. I don’t give a shit one way or the other about horse racing and pay no attention to who wins what or the back stories therein, so I have no ground on which to stand in saying that this movie, while being pretty entertaining to watch and portraying 1973 very authentically, feels heavily fabricated. There are just too many characters that fall into movie character molds, from the woman who inherits a failing horse racing operation and against all odds turns things around, to the down-on-his-luck trainer who is hired by the woman and makes a winner out of the horse that nobody wanted but ends up a champion. That’s way too many storybook fairy tale endings for one film. Whether or not all those things are true or not, they just don’t feel true. That doesn’t make it a bad movie, just really hard to believe. It probably deserves higher than the rating I gave, but I really don’t like horses, and I think horse racing is one of the dumbest sports around (along with NASCAR and frolf). Plus, that Diane Lane just rubs me the wrong way for some reason.

Resident Evil: Afterlife

**1/2 – I’ve never really been all that enamored with the survival/horror genre of video games. I think I played the first “Resident Evil” game when it came out on the original Playstation, but I don’t recall ever having a go with any of the numerous follow-up games that have been released with some frequency since then. I tend to find the genre as a whole to be a bit dull and lacking in any sort of progression that might keep it entertaining. This 2010 film is the third in the series based on the characters and plots of the inexplicably popular video game series. I have seen the first two, and although I remember very little about them, I seem to recall them being at least fairly enjoyable and pretty action-packed. This one is no different. The first and last acts of the movie are full to the brim with gun fights, swordplay, screaming zombies and mutants, airplane crashes, explosions, and slow motion effects that one assumes are meant to balance the fast-paced action. However, there is a considerable lull in the middle where the focus is on the story; and not remembering much about the previous films – and knowing next to nothing about the plots of the games – probably hurt me a bit in understanding what the heck was happening in this section. In any event, it’s not a bad way to kill an hour and half, but one certainly should not expect to be challenged or mentally engaged in any way.

The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian

**1/2 – While only one year in England has passed since the four Pevensey children saved the land of Narnia with the help of a weird god-like lion savior in the first film in this series, when they are called back to the fantastical realm for 2008’s sequel “Prince Caspian” it is apparently several hundred years later there. Narnia has been overrun by savage humans and the last of the mystical creatures that dwelled there have been driven off into hiding, while the heir to the human throne – the titular Prince Caspian – has been booted out by his evil throne-usurping uncle (who is clearly evil because he has a beard and a vaguely Arabic accent and skin tone). It is now up to the argumentative kids and the whiny prince to try to find the missing heroic lion Aslan and save the Narnians from extinction with the help of minotaurs, sword-wielding mice, talking tigers, centaurs, and a constantly bickering gay dwarf couple. I read all these books back when I was a kid, and I certainly don’t remember all the action being in them that the film versions have infused. However, since the books are dull, melodramatic and preachy the heavy action orientation is probably a marked improvement over what could have been. I can’t say this is a particularly good film, seeing as it has some pretty poor acting and goes overboard with the ‘aw shucks’ wholesome light humor, but it looks kind of nice and is pretty entertaining despite its considerable length. And don’t’ worry, everything works out in the end. Aslan turns a river into Jesus who then smites the evil non-believers. Huh?

Choke

** - This 2008 film which claims to be a black comedy is based on a book by sensationalist hack author Chuck Palahniuk (also responsible for the reprehensible “Fight Club) and, quite frankly, it is not very funny and isn’t even all that black. Palahniuk has always struck me as one of those guys that puts on a macho show (like joining clubs where guys whale on each other) but tempers that by faking some sort of addiction to make himself seem vulnerable and therefore get laid as much as possible. Not the noblest of goals, in my opinion, and a very primitive, instinctual type of behavior. This movie showcases the second half of that equation, as Sam Rockwell plays a ‘sex addict’ (probably the fakest of all fake addictions that someone could pretend to have) who goes to meetings to help fight his problem, but always ends up bopping some slut in the bathroom instead. His senile mother (Angelica Huston) is in a senior care facility and makes all sort of bizarre claims about Rockwell being some sort of half clone of Jesus that was created using an ancient relic which turns out to have been Jesus’ foreskin. It’s all very weird, but simultaneously so laid back in pace and demeanor that all the attempts at comedy falls flat. Rockwell is good – as he always is – but even he can’t save this from getting a fairly low rating, due at least in part to my hatred of the author that wrote the book that this is based on.

The Other Guys

**** - Will Ferrell has had a really bad track record with comedy films. Yeah, he does a pretty funny George Bush impression, and he was occasionally funny in some Saturday Night Live skits when he was on that show, but film-wise he has had a long string of really bad, unfunny crap. The only movie that’s even watchable that stars him is “Anchorman” and luckily for 2010’s “The Other Guys” it involves the same writers and director as the only previous Ferrell-based movie that has been any good. Still, his presence doesn’t necessarily instill one with confidence. Another area of this film that is a little unnerving is that it also stars the highly overrated Marky Mark, who has only ever been good in “Boogie Nights”. Those two facts don’t bode well, but Ferrell is actually very funny in a sort of dry straight man role, and Wahlberg is less annoying than he usually is. It also has a lot of really funny lines spewed by lots of well played peripheral characters. The premise is that someone needs to take over for superstar cops Sam Jackson and The Rock - who cause much more damage than they stop - and a busted down cop who once accidentally shot Derek Jeter (Wahlberg) and a benign and cowardly forensic accountant (Ferrell) attempt to take over the mantle. So, it’s pretty much a buddy cop spoof, and it works surprisingly well with almost non-stop laughs.

Machete

**1/2 – I’m not fond of Texas. I’m not fond of Texans, either. It’s always very dry and hot there, and it seems like the kind of place where you always have to carry around a rag or towel or something with you to wipe off the sweat and grease and grime that builds up because of the hot, dry air and constant dust and oil field fumes. Maybe that’s an unfair assessment, but if it is, than the 2010 Robert Rodriguez film “Machete” plays right into it, because it portrays a southwestern Texas that is really hot and dry and everyone there is sweaty and covered in grime. This movie is a full-length version of one of the trailers that played before 2007’s “Grindhouse” and is very much in the style of the two main portions of that movie, with the 1970’s exploitation type of story, style and characters. Much like Texas and Texans, I am not particularly fond of that genre. It is often (almost always) very short on story, unrelentingly cruel and violent and chock full of some of the more offensive kinds of stereotypes around. For being of that ilk, though, “Machete” far exceeds any actual exploitation film that you are likely to ever see in production value and effects, which makes this actually watchable for the most part despite the cheese factor, unappealing characters and non-sensical story that quite often seems to jump all over the place without exposition.

Let Me In

*** - I am going to come right out of the box here and admit that the 2004 Swedish film “Let the Right One In” which this 2010 film is a remake of (technically not a remake, but both based on the same book) left very little impression on me. I think I gave it two stars and my biggest beefs were the extreme slowness and dreary quality that it had. In general, when an American group remakes a foreign film, they tend to ramp up the action and remove the subtle qualities that (sometimes) make a film work. This isn’t really the case here. From what I can remember of the 2004 original it seems like this version is very similar, with only minor plot alterations. It does up the pacing a little bit, which is something that was direly needed, but that is not why I am giving this a whole star higher in my rating. One thing I started to recall while which this version was how difficult a time I had fully following what was going on in “Let the Right One In”. What made me remember that was that I actually could follow the very coherent narrative that this version had, which is the main reason why I prefer this one. Maybe it has to do with a language barrier or maybe it is something else, but whatever the reason this was easier to follow than the first. Plus, the score is outstanding. Overall, this is a pretty decent film, but I still think trying to pass it off as a horror film is radical misrepresentation.

Futurama: Volume V

*** - Oh, how the mighty have fallen. Maybe I’m exaggerating a bit. While I would rate this 5th volume (and, technically, 6th season overall if one includes the straight-to-DVD- films which later aired in 30 minute chunks on Comedy Central as season 5) as maybe a little bit better than the episodes that preceded it, it is a far cry from the glory days of this show that used to be able to make amazing intellectual jokes out of dry topics such as math and science. Now, however, it all too often relies on trashy jokes, titillation, attempts at pleasing internet nerds, and topical gags that are bound to wither and die in short order. That is not to say that there aren’t some bright spots. A few of the episodes in this season are genuinely clever and funny, often evoking the quality that was found back in the FOX years, but an equal number were not only groaningly unfunny, but also couldn’t seem to find any story direction. Granted, this is an animated comedy show, so story direction probably shouldn’t be a top priority, but when the first few seasons were able to have such a high-quality overarching theme, the lack of that now becomes very disorienting. I will admit that – especially on Blu-ray – this season looks spectacular. It is one of the first Blu-ray discs I’ve watched where the difference between it and DVD are very easy to see. That can’t entirely make up for its lack of humor, though.

Evilution

* - The exceedingly lame and clumsy wordplay in the title of this 2008 low budget sci-fi horror flick should have been an indicator that it was going to sting. And sting it did. While I can’t think of a single thing about this movie that deserves any praise whatsoever, the one area that stood out from the crowd to me as being so horrible it was almost beyond words was the acting. I think I kind of recognized a few faces (such as the guy who played the kid who took a shitload of ecstasy and almost died in “Go”), so I guess at least some of the cast has some experience, but the overall level of quality of the acting was so poor that it would make a first-time performer in a lead role of a high school production of “Romeo & Juliet” who didn’t bother to memorize his lines or rehearse at all and only got the part because his mother is the drama teacher at the school seem Oscar-worthy. But the embarrassing nature of this so-called film doesn’t end there. It tries to pass off a chunky girl of indeterminate ethnic origin as some sort of irresistible love goddess, features a trio of some of the most offensive Latino gangbanger stereotypes this side of the “Friday” movies, and has as one of the main antagonists a British-accented junkie who looks like a cross between Keith Richards and a strung-out punk-rocker circa 1979. I could go on and on with this movie’s problems, but I’ll keep it short and say that this is not worth bothering with except for a few moments of unintentional humor.

Quarantine

** - This 2008 American remake of the fairly decent 2005 Spanish-made horror/thriller “[REC]” pretty closely follows the basic plot of the original and has quite of bit of verbatim (translated, of course) dialogue but is unable to capture quite the same spooky vibe that its predecessor had. While it did alter the weird religious-themed ending of the first film to something a little more scientific and believable, I would have to say that most of the changes made did more harm than good. The most glaring of these changes was a seemingly near-universal boost to the lighting that detracted quite a bit from any potential shocks. Also, the beginning part of the movie - in which the premise was set up - was dragged out significantly longer than the ten or so minutes that the Spanish version took to get into the action, and was littered with dialogue that was rife with insulting sexual innuendo and cheap attempts at humor. Also, the lead part of the female television presenter (whom I did not recognize, but according to her bio is apparently a fairly major character on the acclaimed show “Dexter”) was much more obnoxious than the girl in the original, and I found it very difficult to have any sympathy for her at all, despite her very tight pants and revealing tank top. Certainly, this is a step downward from the original, but I guess I’ve seen worse.