Movie Reviews @ The Temple

Okay, I’m way behind again, let’s power through:

Sucker Punch – This movie is ultimately a failure, but I see what he was going for. It’s basically about some girls in an asylum who escape into a fantasy land that some how impacts their attempt to escape the asylum. As such, the movie comes into 2 distinct sections. The fantasy sections are essentially the baddest ass video game cut scenes you’ve ever damn seen. It is so much exactly what you would make if you made your ideal cut scenes, it’s almost insulting. I mean, they cover steam punk, they cover WW II, they cover dragons, they cover orcs, knights, robots, samurai, guns, planes, swords, fucking everything. It’s borderline manipulative to cram basically every single nerd trope (sans ninjas and pirates) into a single hour and a half. But, like it or not, it’s pretty awesomely filmed (slash digitally generated) action. The other half of the movie is very uncomfortable. I don’t feel that Zach Snyder has the cred to pull off a movie about abused women. Especially when their empowerment comes from wearing as little as humanly possibly whilst beating the shit out of undead soldiers. It just comes off bad. Besides the fact that the asylum world is kind of boring and nonsensical. There is a moderate twist at the end that doesn’t land very heavily, and the moral is… ambiguous. On the flip side, I was busy trying to buy a god damn touchpad for $100 (WHICH DISAPPEARED FROM MY CART HALFWAY THROUGH CHECKOUT!), so I accidentally let the movie start again. And the opening slow-motion-to-music scene that originally felt in media res and fell kind of flat, was actually very effective. I have a worry that the movie needs a second watching that I’ll never give it. But I’m probably wrong.

Red – What the hell? Why was this so good? This was supposed to be bad! Like, really bad. But it was actually really good. Like, 4 stars on netflix good. It’s not a super original story, an old retired killer has to strap his gun back on and do a job or save his own life or whatever. But the movie is aware of that, kind of has fun with it, has this wacky team of retired spies that’s just silly enough to take the edge off of the potential “same old”ness, but not so silly that it becomes pointless. Really, honestly, shocked at how much I liked this.

The American – zzzzz. Huh? What? Oh, I’m sorry. I was just watching the american, and I fell asleep. CUZ IT’S BORING. I’m sure this movie thinks it is the slow burn of spy movies that builds and builds to awesomeness. But it’s not. It’s 1/4 of a spy movie spread over 2 hours with nothing to fill the gaps except george clooney staring intently at a girl, a guy, or into the distance. Which is sad, because I used to be able to say I’ve never disliked a clooney movie. But this one sucked.

Cop Out – Well, funnier than I thought it would be. I hate tracy morgan. And yes I hated him before the gay kid “contraversy”, he’s not funny, he just acts crazy, and people THINK that means funny, but it actually is just stupid. Anyway, the movie is better than you would think. Not really that good or anything, but not so bad.

Fast and Furious – Um, so, all the people from the old movies get together, drive cars fast, shoot guns (maybe? I can’t remember?). It’s cool stuff, I guess, but who cares? No one.

Death Race 2 – Less driving, lots more violence. A twist (?) to make this prequel connected to the last movie that doesn’t make sense. Kind of fun mindless violence, that’s all.

Jonah Hex – Also better than I thought it would be, I had heard such bad things. It’s not all that exciting, megan fox can be eliminated from the world and that would be good. Josh Brolin does an ok job I guess? I don’t know, I watched it 2 months ago, I really don’t remember.

Night at the Museum 2 – I think this was kind of fun. Kind of like the first one, maybe a little less interesting because the idea wasn’t novel and they had to up the “action” to make the sequel bigger. So kind of lamer in that respect. Amy Adams’ Amelia Earhardt was more annoying than she was inspiring as a strong woman. But still, kind of fun.

The Wolfman – This is the longest back in the list of things I forgot to write about. I’m pretty sure I thought it was horrible. I did bother to give it 2 stars, so I guess it’s not like, C-movie trash, but it’s still pretty bad. Boring for non-action, action isn’t interesting, story isn’t interesting, just not very good.