Review: ‘X-Men: Days of Future Past’

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First off, if you are not into the X-Men series of movies or characters, then there is no reason for you to see this movie. Move along now. Go on off to whatever you DO like, whether they be boy wizards or hobbits or men of the Bat or Super persuasions or Meryl Streep movies or vampires or whatever. Because we are now seven movies into this film series (or what is now known as a franchise, you know, like McDonalds and Taco Bells), and “X-Men: Days of Future Past” is thoroughly a movie FOR the fans of the series, for the people that are interested in the furthering adventures of Professor X, Magneto, Wolverine and all of their mutant buddies. And most of those fans should be very happy with what they have been given.

For the uninitiated (for we ARE initiated), the X-Men comic book series (and subsequent movies, television shows, video games, etc.) has long been an allegory for the Fear of The Other, as many of their story lines revolve around the humans’ mistrust of the mutants, and the mutants having to live in hiding, or else having to decide whether to fight back or to show that they can be peaceful and co-habit the world with humans, and you can easily replace the word mutant with black or female or gay or Jewish or any other group of people who have felt the sting of prejudice and persecution in this world, all because of The Fear, and boom you have the crux of the X-Men series and what makes it special among all the other comic book related bloat and bluster.Continue Reading …

Review: ‘Godzilla’

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After a worldwide decade-long hiatus, the most bad ass 60-year old on the planet has reemerged to assert his dominance as the King of All Monsters, here to wipe out bad memories of horrible 1990’s CG-lizards, Matthew Broderick, and decades of men in cheap rubber suits stumbling through cities made of cardboard. Building on the terror of the 1954 original, “Godzilla” is a movie devoid of camp and silliness, an A-movie treatment to a B-movie concept, and it all works great.

The movie starts with a fun opening credit sequence showing old-timey footage from the 1950’s of some A-bomb tests that were actually attempts to kill Godzilla back in the day. And after this sequence, we don’t see Godzilla again until about halfway through the movie, as we get a nice, slow build to the reveal of the giant monster in his full glory. But don’t worry, that doesn’t mean nothing happens for the first half of the movie; on the contrary, we get to see the awe-inspiring and fear-inducing destruction caused by a pair of giant monsters that the military dubs “MUTOs” (standing for Massive Unknown Terrestrial Organism), and this is pretty smart by the the filmmakers, because instead of just breaking out some old monsters, they came up with their own designs for new ones, and found a way to have their characters come up with a name for these monsters that simultaneously sounds like a name of a monster from the old Toho movies but also sounds like a very plausible acronym that could actually be used by the military in a situation like this.Continue Reading …

Review: ‘The Amazing Spider-Man 2’

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It is ridiculous that it has taken so long for me to put together this write up for “The Amazing Spider-Man 2,” but the truth is that my feelings for this film are a little more complicated than they should be. We’re talking about a movie about a man with spider-like super powers fighting crime in New York City while wearing spandex, after all. Why should this be difficult? It’s a pass-fail kind of thing, is it not? Was I not entertained? Isn’t that enough?

And for some good chunks of time, “The Amazing Spider-Man 2” is indeed quite entertaining, with the occasional action scenes that actually reach the heights of thrilling. Throw in the mix some solid acting from likable, reliable actors, as well as some downright gorgeous cinematography and a handful of most excellent compositions (obviously going for the “still panel or comic book cover come to life” look and just NAILING it) and you have the ingredients for what should be a good, nay, GREAT movie. And yet, despite all these things, there is something off about this movie, some things were done in a way that just robs it of emotional weight, and without that, we end up with something great looking, yes, but also a little rotten on the inside. Like a supermodel.

(I apologize to any supermodels reading this [who am I kidding, what fucking supermodel is trolling the interwebs for reviews of Spider-Man movies?)Continue Reading …

Review: ‘The Raid 2’

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“The Raid 2” is a brutal movie. Masquerading as an action film, it is actually a mob infiltration drama mixed with a horror movie, in which the horror comes from the fact that an intense fight scene can break out at any moment, during which our monster hero proceeds to cut, rip, break, brutalize and dismember his opponents in increasingly honorific ways, blood splattering everywhere. You will know him by his trail of dead. And he’s pretty much the only good cop in all of Indonesia.Continue Reading …

Review: ‘Captain America: The Winter Soldier’

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Here is a big budget Marvel movie. Summer must be in the air. At least when it comes to the summer movie season, which has been getting started earlier and earlier each year. And with “Captain America: The Winter Soldier” coming out the first weekend of April, it may be hard to call this a summer movie, but it is pretty much spring training for the big boys, helping to get those butter machines warmed up, and to get those jaded, minimum wage earning teenagers in shape.

And while a little more talky than most movies of this ilk, make no mistake, “Captain America: The Winter Soldier” follows the superhero movie template, complete with gigantic CG action scene at the end and countless (and uncounted) bloodless deaths throughout. But still, there are a few things separating this movie from the rest, and maybe there is something after all with this film, something more than just selling me the next one.Continue Reading …

Review: ‘Sabotage’

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“Sabotage” is a particularly brutal and bleak movie from David Ayers, who is coming off his very well liked “End of Watch” and decided the best way to follow up that success would be with a morally murky, ultra violent tale of a questionable DEA agent and his run in with a Mexican DTO (drug trafficking organization, because apparently the DEA does not like the world cartel anymore). A fun action movie? Nope. A good time at the movies? Un-uh. Escapist entertainment? Only if you want to escape to a land of cruel murder and betrayal and moral ambiguity.

Arnold Schwarzenegger is Breacher, a DEA agent and leader of a small elite task force of the best undercover drug agents out there, and of course this a rogue group of agents, all of them just a little insane, partying hard in their off time, being total dicks to everyone, and just pretty much living the lifestyle they promote, that of the hard living, dangerous, over the top, gung ho alpha males (and single alpha female), and of course they blur the lines between the good guys and the bad guys, using their authority to do some questionable things, and even when they are taking out bad guys, it is in a brutal, hard way that is hard to look past.Continue Reading …

Review: ‘Noah’

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Darren Aronofsky’s “Noah” is here after a couple years of anticipation, and this is just about the weirdest, most off-kilter, non-mainstream mainstream movie to come out in theaters since “Watchmen” in 2009. I can only imagine what some people were thinking when less than ten minutes into this very short but well known biblical tale the idea of fallen, multi-limbed angels encased in rock gets introduced and then relied upon heavily throughout the film. Definitely don’t remember giant rock ex-angels in Sunday School. Yet here they are. Okay, let’s back up a bit.

So this Aronofsky fella, he makes a bunch of incredible low budget movies, one of em finally hits and makes some coin, and he finally finds himself able to get his apparent dream project off the ground, which is a big screen version of the Noah story, one that takes up very a couple of pages in the Bible, yet is pretty well known by everyone: God made the world and he made Man. Man got all corrupt and evil, so God was like “time to shake this etch-a-sketch” and he told Noah to make a boat, put two of each animal on it, and ride out the flood that will destroy everyone else. Which Noah did. And then his family somehow repopulated the Earth. Pretty straightforward, not really much there, so why are we even going here with this movie? Didn’t we already get “Evan Almighty?” Isn’t that enough?Continue Reading …

Review: ‘Need for Speed’

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For a movie titled “Need for Speed,” there is a distinct lack of urgency or vitality to the whole thing. There was plenty of speed, but was there much NEED for it? Eh, not really. Not in this movie anyway.

Which is unfortunate because “Need for Speed” has some things going for it on the outset that makes it a fun movie to root for to be good and do well. We got Aaron Paul, hot off the success of “Breaking Bad,” and he’s getting his first change to lead a big movie, and in the context of the film and what he has to do, he actually does quite a great job. As a matter of fact, with some more experience and years under his belt, Aaron Paul has a chance to be a strong, reliable movie leading man in the tradition of Humphrey Bogart, Dustin Hoffman and Tom Cruise (read: short), and even in a movie as lifeless as this one, we still see someone worth watching in this guy. Jesse Pinkman was not a fluke.Continue Reading …

Review: ‘Non-Stop’

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Here we go. Another Liam Neeson action movie. If anyone told me ten years ago that Liam Neeson would soon be one of the biggest and most bankable action stars of the 2000s and 2010s, I woulda told you…that would be an interesting possibility. Though not likely. Sure he was okay in Star Wars. But as a stand alone action star? Naaaaaah.Continue Reading …

Review: ‘3 Days to Kill’

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Oh boy. “3 Days to Kill.” Ugh. Let’s get this over with.

Kevin Costner plays Ethan, a dad estranged from his daughter and wife due to his commitment to work, and when he finds out he has three months to live thanks to some brain tumors that somehow spread to his lungs, he tries to reconnect with his family, who are currently living in Paris. His daughter (Hailee Steinfeld) calls him Ethan and prefers to hang out on her own, but of course slowly yet surely Ethan wins her over, despite also regularly screwing up by always being late. He’s gruff but means well and he promises his wife that he’s done with work and he just wants to be there for them and the whole movie is him trying to get to a point where his daughter will actually call him “dad.”

Oh by the way he’s a CIA field operative and a super deadly and effective hitman.Continue Reading …