Team America: World Police: In a word, funny. If you like watching marionettes get blown up, mauled, shot, and torn apart, this is the film for you. The political humor was also amusing as hell, and was much less partisan than I’d been expecting. In fact, there was a refreshing absence of Kerry and Bush. Its main point was that actors are no more relevant in the political scene than any of us unfamous schmoes, and there’s no reason to value their opinions more than anybody else. The parts that I found funniest, however, poked fun at action movies as a whole. The dialogue was fittingly silly and delivered with standard melodrama. The music really capped the whole experience, from the montage song (played over a montage) to the generic sappy patriotic country song reminding us that “freedom costs a buck-o-five.” If you are overly fond of Michael Moore, Alec Baldwin, or any of the politically mouthy Hollywood set, you might be offended by this movie. But come on: they’re puppets! Being blown up! That’s cinematic quality right there.
Category Archives: movie reviews
Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow
Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow: We’ll start with my complaints. First off, the film, though fantasy, was set in 1939. Two historical inaccuracies jumped out at me: a reference to World War I (it would have been called The Great War at that point), and a knowledge of the dangers of radiation (if that was known, why were we testing atom bombs on our own soil for years hence?). Second, the homages to other films (James Bond, Laputa, and Star Wars, to name a few) were frequent and a little distracting. Third, there were huge plot holes (though I’ve been assured that that’s just part of the old school adventure genre), plus further evidence that replacing Jude Law with Ewan McGregor would be a vast improvement to any film. That said, there was much I liked about this movie as well. The visual effects were stunning, the action was exciting, and the humor was charming. The characters, though flat (also part of the genre), were entertaining and pretty (despite a flagrant underuse of Angelina Jolie). All in all, I felt like I was watching something on Turner Classic Movies: engaging and nostalgic, but still just a movie.
American Psycho
American Psycho (unrated version): This movie was described to me as a film that you laugh at, then feel bad for laughing. The story is carried entirely by Christian Bale, a 1980s executive with homicidal tendencies. His over-the-top pretension and metrosexuality are funny, as are his absurdly detailed lectures about popular music, which are only spouted just before he brutally murders someone.
Did I laugh? In parts, though not as much as my fellow audience members. Bale pulled off the psycho yuppie role well. Unfortunately, every one else in the cast was pretty uninteresting, just so much scenery. Which may have been how it was meant, but I still felt a nagging disappointment in the underuse of people like Willem Dafoe as the detective. To top it all off, the ending leaves you with a “what in God’s name just happened here?” feeling, which I personally find unsatisfying. I don’t mind being confused throughout the story, but if things don’t get tied up at the end I leave with a lingering doubt, wondering if I just wasted two hours of my life.
Equilibrium
Equilibrium: With the huge success of The Matrix, it is not surprising that this film did not do well commercially. It contains some similar elements, including widespread mind control (though in this film it is acknowledged and voluntary), really awesome fighting (though with camera tricks and choreography instead of cop-out CG), and lots of black clothing. Critics also weren’t too fond of it. The entire idea of the film was a bit much: because emotions cause war and suffering and hate, let’s do away with them using a drug called Prozium. Okay, that’s fine, but the fact that they had a government-run group of uber-fighters to destroy paintings and pets and music and anything else that might cause feelings threatened my suspension of disbelief a bit. If they’re taking a drug to prevent emotions, why get rid of all the colorful stuff? People won’t care either way.
But if you can swallow that, you’ll enjoy this film. The dialogue can be melodramatic at times but attains its goal of multiple memorable lines and exchanges. Though it’s incredibly violent (with a body count of 236, more people die in this film than any other non-War movie to date), the fighting is flat out awesome. The soundtrack is excellent. And while many critics accused it of making grandiose, hackneyed Orwellian warnings about too much government control, I saw it from a different angle. The name of the drug, Prozium, was a clever blend of Prozac and Valium, both popular medicines for reducing negative emotions. We forget that it is human nature to be unhappy from time to time. Society expects us to be constantly happy and confident but that’s just not how we’re built. Emotions are part of what separate us from animals. Without emotion we have no drive to better ourselves. The society in Equilibrium had reached exactly that; it had become a collection of stagnant, circular lives that exist only to eat, breed, and die. Nothing changing, nothing tipping the balance either way. Perfect equilibrium.
Buried Secret of M. Night Shyamalan
So it turns out that The Buried Secret of M. Night Shyamalan, an “unauthorized documentary” about the director’s life on the Sci Fi channel, was a complete fraud. There is no buried secret, there was no drowned child in Night’s past, and his movies are not in any way autobiographical except that they take place in his hometown of Philadelphia. I saw this last night. It was awful. Its attempts at appearing factual made Michael Moore look like National Geographic. Why would you film a conversation with your boss about the documentary you’re making? Why would a house that’s been more or less empty for the last 20 years still have a rather large amount of belongings in it, including things like paper towels which would have been chewed up by bugs and rodents by now? How could an 11-year-old child handle a camera during the 1970s (a time before camcorders), and why would his mother be wearing suspiciously modern clothing? The ending was even worse: the filmmakers wandered around on the street and asked random strangers whether they believed in the supernatural. I wanted to stab forks in my eyes.
Win a Date with Tad Hamilton!
Win a Date with Tad Hamilton!: Had I not been a captive audience on a transcontinental flight I would have never seen this film. It was pretty generic as romantic comedies go, with Rosalie bearing even more resemblence to a supermodel than most extraordinary-things-happening-to-ordinary-women stories. It took away from what scant realism there was, and I felt like I was watching a Marysue (which, in the fanfic world, is when the author writes a poorly-disguised version of herself into the story, usually as a way of writing out a personal fantasy). Maybe I’ve just been travelling in the wrong social circles, but I’ve never met any men who acted even remotely like the romantic, emotional, and persistent Pete. Which is interesting, considering he was probably one of the more believable and likeable characters, mostly because he bore such a strong resemblence to Topher Grace’s character on That 70s Show. And speaking of him, what kind of a name is Topher anyway? It’s stupid…and even stupider if it’s supposed to be short for Christopher. Topher is the kind of name I’d give my dog. Funny actor, though.
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban: From the first moments I could sense the new director. The whole look and feel was completely different from the first two films, at times bearing a strong resemblance to the work of Tim Burton. I liked it, over all – it’s been so many years since I read the book that I had no quibbles with any deviations from the text save Hermione’s marked lack of exhaustion (which, if you’ve read the book, you’ll probably notice as well). Otherwise, I thought it was fantastic. The computer graphics were remarkable. I found the fake people in the Quidditch match of the first film so obvious as to be distracting, but the Whomping Willow and hippogriff here were so well-integrated and gorgeously rendered I almost forgot they weren’t really there. I approve of the new director, though he says he has no intention of tackling the fourth film. The old Hogwarts felt more like a fantastic themepark exhibit, somewhere I’d love to visit but could never imagine as real. The Hogwarts of this film, however, had a more organic feel and its rich and sometimes dark history was much more evident, without losing the same magical air of the first two films. There is no question that this film was darker, but so was the book – the series has been growing increasingly more complex and angstful as it goes on. The characters are growing up and feeling the complicated and sometimes overwhelming emotions of being teenagers. Harry’s story does not shy away from this reality. Perhaps in the end that is what makes it so enjoyable: we empathize with Harry and cheer him on, despite his occasional irrationality. Even in his magical world, he’s still just like us at heart.
Shrek 2
Shrek 2: I don’t usually give enough thought to coming attractions to actually look forward to the release of a new movie, but I’d been waiting for this one for months. I was not disappointed. While perhaps not as good as the first one (which was a triumph to the point of making the overuse of that word truly shameful), it had more than its fair share of laughs. The original cast returned with some new additions and, gorgeous CG animation aside, this movie would not have made it without them.
In this film, the newlyweds Shrek and Fiona visit Fiona’s (human) parents in the Kingdom of Far Far Away, who are unaware of Fiona’s transformation into an ogre. They are, needless to say, a tad disappointed. Enter the scheming Fairy Godmother (brilliantly voiced by Jennifer Saunders of Ab Fab fame) who wants Fiona to marry her Abercrombie-model-esque son, Prince Charming. Throw in a couple of magic potions and Puss in Boots, the assassin with the heart of gold (Antonio Banderas, who is surprisingly funny), and you’ve got mass hysteria…and hilarity. My favorite part: Puss’s cute kitty stare. I still smile just thinking about it.
Van Helsing
Van Helsing is a very silly movie. The basic premise: Gabriel van Helsing is a centuries-old demon fighter who works for an underground order of religious folk dedicated to the fight against evil. He had his memories erased for some reason they never explained. At the beginning of the movie he battles Mr. Hyde (of Jekyll & Hyde fame) before being sent on to Romania to battle Dracula. The famous Count is holed up in Frankenstein’s castle, trying to use the technology that created Frankenstein’s monster to animate his children (who are born dead and bear a remarkable resemblance to gargoyles). Oh yeah, and he keeps werewolves as attack dogs. I felt like I was watching an elaborate piece of fanfiction.
The acting was ridiculously melodramatic and probably intentionally so, but the tongue-in-cheek factor was too low otherwise, making the overacting appear as if it was meant to be taken seriously. To its credit, the score was incredible (to the point that I’m thinking of buying the soundtrack, which is something I almost never do), and the CG was smoothly integrated (noticeable but not obnoxiously so). But please oh please, will somebody teach those actors how to affect a convincing Romanian accent? They sounded like James Bond extras.
Mean Girls
I never thought Tina Fey was very amusing on SNL, but her film Mean Girls (admittedly an adaptation of Rosalind Wiseman’s book rather than an original composition) is unexpectedly funny. There was little to no sexual or bathroom humor, which was a really nice change from your average high school comedy. Lindsay Lohan is a breath of fresh air from the oppressive sea of identical teen actresses out there today – this film shows that she’s pulling away from the Hillary Duffs and Mandy Moores of the world and starting to stand on her own two feet as a maturing actress. The story itself was fairly standard – new student has troubles interacting with her new classmates – but well done and full of laughs. Here’s hoping this is the start of a new trend.