Blockbuster Review

Overall Rating: 9.3

Director: Michael Bay

Release Date: June 24, 2009

Cast: Shia LaBeouf, Megan Fox, John Turturro

David’s Rating

See what happens when you give Michael Bay a whole lot of money… then let him make a sequel with even more!  In case your confused, he will blow up anything that is around, including his actors. 9.3

Review

Boom.  Boom.  Boom.  Welcome to Michael Bay’s wet dream.  Robots destroying shit, people dying, emotions flying, more explosions than a lesser man knows what to do with.  A level of vision that is staggering to make a shot work when 50-90% of it is going to be added later in the form of a giant freakin robots talking.  Gavin Hood needs to attend a seminar by this man, and then make Wolverine all over again…cause it won’t hurt so much to watch.  If anything he’ll learn how to blow stuff up in a way that doesn’t make you cry.  Crying during an explosion is never good….afterwards is ok in particular scenarios, never during.  Shia LaBeouf won’t make it through Transformers 3.  Michael Bay will kill him.  I have no doubt. (more…)

Been on a bit of a hiatus as of late.  Partly due to the fact that I have so far been disappointed by all the movies I’ve seen and couldn’t bother to review them. Especially when I had lost interest in the films before the credits had even rolled.  I’ve decided on a solution.  Quick destructive reviews of the first five movies I have watched so far this summer.  No.  That is in response to your question, is this year measuring up to last year.

Included in this little collage of reviews is:

“Angels and Demons” –6.0
“Terminator Salvation” –7.5
“Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian” –5.8
“Up” –7.2
“The Hangover” –7.9

Angels and Demons

Well this sucked.  Nope, haven’t read the book.  Can’t now, this movie ruined it, cause I’m assuming the ending is similar anyway.  Hard to spend hours reading a book you know the conclusion too… especially when its this disappointing.  They removed any and all character progression, explained very little, and the whole premise was boring as shit.  Someone placed an anti-matter bomb somewhere in Vatican City, after the Pope has ‘mysteriously’ died suddenly.  Let the chase to the epic ending when someone gets to save the world begin….like every other action movie where the bad guy fails.  Ron Howard obviously doesn’t understand what the thriller category has to entail to be….well fucking thrilling!  Tom Hanks phone this one in.  Which isn’t bad considering he’s so talented, him phoning it in makes it acceptable, but you can’t save a ship from sinking when it was made at the bottom of the ocean.  People where inexplicably mean or nice to Dr. Langdon…depending on the time of day apparently.  I just sat back watched the film flicker in front of me, got up, and went home listening to my friend who was utterly shocked they removed all the mystery and intrigue from a book apparently shrouded in it.  Did you know Ewan McGregor was in this?  I didn’t…apparently he’s an important character as well!  Final note, Stellan Skarsgard has been quoted bitching about the quality of the book…
Who knows what he read when he signed up for this movie.
Director: Ron Howard
Release Date: May 15, 2009
Cast: Tom Hanks, Ewan McGregor, Stellan Skarsgard (more…)

Overall Rating: 8.9

Director: J.J. Abrams

Release Date: May 8, 2009

Cast: Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto, Eric Bana

David’s Rating

This movie pushed me to bring back a word I hadn’t used in a while… Epicocity.  Abrams has really brought the blockbuster reboot summer movie genre to its knees. 8.9

Review

You want a good description of this movie?  I’ll go with it brought a “Speed Racer” level of intense sweating during the screening.  Or it starts out extremely epic, music, action, sacrifice…could it keep this up?  Screw that, how about lets just surpass that and the most recent awesome scene in epicocity.  I’ve claimed the coinage of that word mine.  I mean wow.  FORGET “Wolverine” this movie is the true summer opener.  You give someone like J.J. Abrams the same amount of money as “Wolverine” and he’ll blow your mind out of your nose.  Constrain him to pre-made characters and he’ll just impress you to no ends.  Never…NEVER has the literary device of time travel been used so effectively, unintrusively, and acceptably in film.

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Overall Rating: 6.3

Director: Gavin Hood

Release Date: May 1, 2009

Cast: Hugh Jackman, Liev Schreiber, Ryan Renolds

David’s Rating

Discombobulated story line, no character development, and the origins of Wolverine occur during the opening credits. 6.3

Review

Michael Bay should have directed this movie.

I’m going to break down this movie with all its issues from start to finish.  Focusing on the major issues, and a few of the smaller ones that made the pain last longer.  There will be a few spoilers, even though its tough to spoil a story that doesn’t really do much.  Turn away now if you liked this movie, want to like this movie, or simply don’t have the stomach to read my convincing statements for why Fox should have donated this $150+ million to stem cell research and to pay Warner Bros. back for the money Fox stole before “Watchmen” came out.

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Overall Rating: 6.8

Director: Matthiew Klinck

Release Date: September 26, 2008

Cast: Thomas Michael, Paolo Mancini, Chris Klein

David’s Rating

A very pessimistic look at the life of an unhappy holiday servant.  The Easter Bunny.  Take that Santa Claus. 6.8

Review

There have been countless movies about Santa Claus and his elves.  By far the most famous of the holiday characters, and the most marketable.  Have you seen a world in which the Easter Bunny is not only real, but is an under paid, over stressed, under appreciated corporate pawn?  I didn’t think so.  Matthiew Klinck provides you with a look into what a real life bunny would have to live with day to day between Easter and on the egg hunting holiday.  Strap on your big boy pants and a dark sense of humor and lets check it out!

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Overall Rating: 8.7

Director: Joe Wright

Release Date: April 24, 2009

Cast: Jamie Foxx, Robert Downey Jr.

David’s Rating

Very poignant telling of a man, his gifts, and his demons. 8.7

Review

The true story of a man driven to the streets by his mind and the inability to control it.  Jamie Foxx takes on yet another great talent who is tortured and ruined by his demons, this one by the name of Nathaniel Ayers.  Sufficiently less famous than his previous character.  A man you may know by the name of Ray Charles.  Robert Downey Jr. plays real life reporter, Steve Lopez, who happened upon Nathaniel one day in a park in Los Angeles.  Mr. Lopez makes his living writing for the LA Times with a great focus on characters living in that city.  Shining a light on some of the unique and interesting people who wonder the streets and populate the city.  Mr. Lopez proceeds to write a number of articles about Mr. Ayers gaining them both more and more popularity.  This becomes a major challenge to a man with an undiagnosed mental illness, but is assumed to be schizophrenia.

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By now everyone knows that this movie made a shit load of profit.  For you who love numbers, they put in about 40 million.  They took out of the US alone 190 million.  That is a stupid amount of money for a company the size of Summit Entertainment.  Which I have oddly being seeing on tons of movies.  Anyway, my point today, or question rather is what do they think they are doing with this franchise?  I’m a fan of Catherine Hardwicke’s previous movie, “Lords of Dogtown,” and shamefully I admit that I liked Twilight.  No matter how much I wanted to go in hating it.  No matter how much I wanted to hit most of the girls I was sitting around, hot or not.   So I am forced to wonder why Summit finds it necessary to change directors on all of these movies.  From what I’ve noticed, studios prefer to keep the same director if a movie is highly successful for obvious reason.  Not only did they toss Hardwicke to the side for someone slightly more famous in Chris Weitz…yes, the guy who gave us the “Golden Compass” and all its glory…but they are switching to a third director for the third movie.  Before the second one is even done filming.

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