This summer, the critical consensus seemed to be that the blockbuster season would be kicked off by Van Helsing and I set a goal to see and review as many movies as I could before Labor Day, four months later. Eventually I saw 14 movies (add two more for second viewings of Shrek 2 and Spider-Man 2) and spent somewhere north of $130 for ticket prices alone. When September 6th finally arrived, I was close to burning out and I couldn’t generate the interest level necessary to make it to the last few movies that I probably would have enjoyed. I’m thinking of Open Water, Hero, and Garden State, among others.

No matter. Taking a short break has rejuvenated my interest and I’m now looking forward to other movies like The Forgotten, The Incredibles, Shaun of the Dead, The Motorcycle Diaries, Shark Tale, The Life Aquatic, and maybe even some guilty pleasures like National Treasure, Team America: World Police, and Blade: Trinity.

While writing short movie reviews never really felt like work, they did always have the annoying habit of tumbling around in my mind after the movie was over. I felt like I had a responsibility, to myself if no one else, to write down my thoughts and post them online. I’m not saying that I won’t do that again in the future, but I think I might enjoy going back to irresponsible movie watching for awhile.

That being said, I just watched Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow a couple nights ago and thought I’d at least mention a couple things about it before packing up my movie critic bag.

Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow was an interesting movie… from a technological standpoint. And by that, I don’t mean that the killer robots and submersible WWII airplanes were what made it interesting. Rather, SCatWoT (is that a great abbreviation, or what?) is the first movie to have been filmed entirely in front of blue screens. Every location was created with computers and matted in after the actors had already delivered their lines in what was, I suspect, a very blue room.

The director went for a decidedly noir-ish look to the “film” and everything had an ethereal, sepia tone look to it. Perhaps that glow around each character was to mask some particularly bad edges, I don’t know. I didn’t like it, but then… I’ve never gone in for film noir, anyway.

To make matters worse, I didn’t bite on the story, either. Comparisons to Raiders of the Lost Ark are inevitable, I suppose, but none of the characters in Sky Captain had any real depth. At times I felt like I was watching the sequel to some other movie. The characters were presented as if we should already know who they were, and there was no stage of the movie devoted to character development. Similarly, within maybe 5 minutes of the movie beginning, we were hurled headlong into a strange world with no background. There were familiar things — New York City and the Hindenburg docking with the Empire State Building – but we were only left to assume that it was some sort of Post World War I, comic bookish, alternate reality. I had no troubles picking up on the homage to the sci-fi movies of the 50s, I just got hung up on “Why?”

Despite not caring much about the world they had crafted, I have to admit that I was curious where they were going with the movie. I found myself quite bored with the paper-thin characters, but I must admit that I wanted to know what they were chasing. When the movie finally delivered, I must admit that the anagnorisis surprised me. I won’t spoil it for you, but there’s a neat little sci-fi idea buried beneath the script of SCatWoT. Too bad it wasn’t executed as well as it could have been.

The final line of the movie almost saved everything, though. It was telegraphed like the worst (i.e., best!) of shaggy dog jokes, but it still made me laugh out loud.

Well, heck. Let’s stick to the format for one last review:

Trivial Thought: I caught a couple tip-o’-the-hats to George Lucas and to The Iron Giant. Makes me wonder what else I missed…
What did I find worthwhile about the movie? The proof-of-conceptness of it. It sure kept me guessing what was “real” and what wasn’t.
Would I recommend the movie? Depends. If you like deconstructing special effects, then yes.
Will I buy it on DVD? You know what? I just might. I’d love to see the behind-the-scenes of how they made this movie (and if I’d liked it more, I’d probably be scouring the Internet for that information right now).

And for the sake of closure, here’s my definitive list of the summer movies I saw – in the order of which I’d most like to see again. Looking over them with my stellar 20/20 hindsight, I’m not convinced I wouldn’t rearrange things a little bit, but it’s close enough for government work. (Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow, opening after Labor Day, was not included.)

Overall Summer Movie Ranking
Spider-man 2
Shrek 2
Collateral
The Village
I, Robot
The Bourne Supremacy
The Day After Tomorrow
The Terminal
The Chronicles of Riddick
Troy
Fahrenheit 9/11
Van Helsing
Aliens vs. Predator
The Stepford Wives

No related posts.

© Arlo for A Midgett Blog, 2004. | Permalink | No comment |

Now, I really liked the first teaser for the movie. It let you know that Jamie Foxx plays a cab driver, that Tom Cruise is a hitman that’s going to kidnap him, and that it’s all going to take place over one night in Los Angeles. It was tantalizing – just enough to get me interested in that “what would you do in this situation” kind of way. The Hollywood Marketing Spoiler Goons must not have been pleased, though, because they issued another trailer that gave more than enough of the ending away. You know what? I was hooked before I knew that the cab driver would fight back, thankyouverymuch. In fact, the second trailer almost made me skip the movie.

I waited until the last night it was in town and then still almost didn’t go. I mentioned to my wife that I was considering going and she responded with, “Oh, that movie. I want to see it!” If she hadn’t, I probably wouldn’t be writing this review.

Collateral has a slow-burn fuse. I couldn’t help comparing it to the last movie I’d seen, The Bourne Supremacy. The directing and editing in The Bourne Supremacy was all over the place – fast cuts, quick movements, and high action. If that movie picked up its editing philosophy from MTV, Collateral went for VH1.

Michael Mann doesn’t fear leaving an actor on the screen for awhile – not even Jamie Foxx who, before this, I wouldn’t even want in a film. But everyone in the movie, Tom Cruise, Jamie Foxx, Javier Bardeem, and Mark Ruffalo especially, all portray unique, believable personalities. It’s a pleasure to see them carry their characters through the movie and Mann allows them to do it patiently.

That doesn’t mean there isn’t a big payoff at the end – there is – just that the movie builds to it slowly. The first act is delightfully leisurely, the second builds the tension, and when you finally get to the third, the movie has picked up enough steam to get you on the edge of your seat. It’s a great way to make a movie that’s been sorely missed (by me, at least.) Take a movie like Spiderman, for instance. As a viewer, you’re constantly batted back and forth between character development and action scenes. It’s almost as if the writer was unsure if they could maintain your interest without resorting to the easy out: “We’re losing ‘em with all this sappy romance stuff – better throw in another Doc Ock fight!” It must take a very confident writer and director to allow a movie to build on its own. Hell, confidence is probably only part of the story. The director would have to have a proven box office record to afford the luxury of being able to ignore the big studios’ interference.

Whatever the reason, Collateral is a movie that surprised me – not in its content so much, I guess, but in its great acting and careful pacing.

Trivial Thought: Los Angeles is a huge city, Cruise’s character even says so in the beginning, so why are there so many improbable coincidences in this movie?
What did I find worthwhile about the movie? The acting surprised me the most. And, of course, the pacing. Didn’t I just say that?
Would I recommend the movie? Yes!
Will I buy it on DVD? No, not much to be gained by multiple viewings.

Overall Summer Movie Ranking
Spider-man 2
Shrek 2
Collateral
The Village
I, Robot
The Bourne Supremacy
The Day After Tomorrow
The Terminal
The Chronicles of Riddick
Troy
Fahrenheit 9/11
Van Helsing
Aliens vs. Predator
The Stepford Wives

No related posts.

© Arlo for A Midgett Blog, 2004. | Permalink | No comment |

I enjoyed The Bourne Supremacy when I finally got to see it, although I didn’t like it as much as its prequel. The Bourne Supremacy picks up with the “Happily Ever After” from the first movie and within the first 15 minutes manages to destroy just about everything the first movie stood for. Jason Bourne acts alone in the second movie and because of that we lose the interactions that gave us insight into what made his amnesiac assassin character seem so human.

One things both movies did remarkable well (and perhaps this comes from the Ludlam books, I don’t know) was realistically portray how people and agencies act and react when they don’t have all the information. I don’t think either movie was trying to make a political point, but it’s hard not to draw comparisons to current events.

The Bourne Supremacy was definitely faster paced that The Bourne Identity and I suspect that has a whole lot more to do with the directors than with the stories. The Bourne Supremacy was cut like a music video, sometimes to the point of distraction – a friend and I agree that the final car chase was filmed so tight and was edited with so many rapid cuts that you just couldn’t see what was going on. The one-on-one fight scenes were the same way – I felt far more tension in the first movie’s if only because I could see everything that was happening.

The Bourne Supremacy also had one other aspect that lowered it below the level of The Bourne Identity: Two endings. Well, okay, not really. But there was a distinct feeling of closure when Jason Bourne wrapped things up with the American government and then they had to ramp the movie back up for a half hour or so to get some resolution on the Russian side of things. I can’t help but think that they could have tied the endings together better.

Trivial Thought: Didn’t The Matrix teach us that lengthy camera shots in an action movie are a good thing?
What did I find worthwhile about the movie? Some of the characters. Matt Damon did well enough, as did Brian Cox. I’m starting to like that Lord of the Rings guy that was in Riddick, too (and Oksana said he did a very good job with his Russian lines!) I wish that Julia Styles was used more in both movies – I’m not a big fan or anything, but the trailers made it seem like she had a bigger part.
Would I recommend the movie? Yes.
Will I buy it on DVD? No, probably not. The movie was good and all, but I can’t see watching it over and over.

Overall Summer Movie Ranking
Spider-man 2
Shrek 2
The Village
I, Robot
The Bourne Supremacy
The Day After Tomorrow
The Terminal
The Chronicles of Riddick
Troy
Fahrenheit 9/11
Van Helsing
Aliens vs. Predator
The Stepford Wives

No related posts.

© Arlo for A Midgett Blog, 2004. | Permalink | No comment |

There’s a clip up on Apple’s trailer site that shows part of a featurette (no doubt destined to be included on the DVD) on the making of the Aliens vs. Predator film. In it, one of the SFX guys tells us that the director of AVP wanted to extend the Predator’s wrist blades “…so now they shoot out about four times as long as we’ve ever seen them before.”

Yeah, and Joel Schumacher thought it would be a great idea to add Bat-nipples.

The idea that everything must be changed for it to be cooler is what ruined AVP. It also ruined not just a Batman movie, but a whole franchise. Look, if you’re building a sequel, you’re probably doing that because there’s an established fan base. And the fans are there solely because the first movie was a success! Why on Earth would you want to deviate so far from the path of success?

AVP, from top to bottom, is filled with so many changes to the Aliens and Predator canon, that it completely distracted me from the story. For instance, I found myself thinking:

Weyland Robotics was founded way back in 2004?
Aliens gestate in the human body within minutes instead of hours?
Aliens grow to full size in barely more time than that?
Aliens no longer use stealth to their advantage?
Predators no longer use stealth, either? Why do they bother cloaking?
Predators can see INTO things with their visors?

Those points distracted me because I’ve seen all the movies upon which this one was built. If only that was it… There was far more to contribute to the ruining of my evening: The back-story was laughably chronologically inaccurate, the Predators were completely without individual personality, practically all of the humans were throwaway characters, lines were recycled for the sake of recycling them, and I’ll bet, if pressed, I could come up with fully a dozen plot holes you could fly a spaceship through.

I mean, hell, even the special effect technology was misused! Computer graphics have definitely come far enough to fully animate the Aliens, but I have to admit that I liked them better in Aliens (circa 1986!) Especially the Queen – in Aliens, with her ponderous movements, she lurches about almost as though she sacrificed the mobility inherent in her race to gain the ability to breed. In AVP she’s charges around like a T-Rex.

Everything is given too little time in this movie. The humans characters are not developed nearly enough. The stages of the Aliens are glossed over. The Predators barely interact with anything at all. Even the history is glossed over quickly… it’s like the director tries to keep things moving so fast just so you won’t have a chance to second guess anything.

Well, guess what, Mr. Anderson, it wasn’t fast enough. This movie sucks.

Trivial Thought: Why can’t Hollywood adapt an Aliens story from Dark Horse Comics? They wrote a far better Aliens vs. Predator and Aliens 3.
What did I find worthwhile about the movie? Not a whole lot, really. I guess the computer-generated Aliens (excepting the Queen) looked pretty good.
Would I recommend the movie? No.

Will I buy it on DVD? No. (Well, maybe if it came in a boxed set… that was being sold on eBay… for less than 20 bucks.)

Overall Summer Movie Ranking
Spider-man 2
Shrek 2
The Village
I, Robot
The Day After Tomorrow
The Terminal
The Chronicles of Riddick
Troy
Fahrenheit 9/11
Van Helsing
Aliens vs. Predator
The Stepford Wives

No related posts.

© Arlo for A Midgett Blog, 2004. | Permalink | No comment |

Overall, I enjoyed his new movie, The Village. That’s impressive, considering that the surprise – there’s always a “surprise” in a Shyamalan movie – was inadvertently spoiled for me by my barely-literate Russian niece. She saw it on opening night and despite my body language communication to the contrary (I covered my ears and said “nyahnyahnyah!”) she still let slip three words. Three. Words. If you don’t think that’s enough to spoil a movie’s crucial plot twist, just think back to the Sixth Sense. How easy would it be to give that whole movie away?

Anyway, as I was saying. Good movie, despite what I consider to be some weaknesses in the script. M. Night Shyamalan is a great writer/director and he deserves every penny he makes off these movies, but I’ve noticed a disturbing trend. I think of it as a lack of faith in the audience. Whenever he divulges the big revelation, he almost always uses flashbacks, voiceovers, or some other crutch to guide the audience to their conclusion. Personally, I’d like to be given a little more credit than that; it’s only a two-hour movie, after all. My short term memory can take it, trust me.

In The Village, I thought there were some problems with the story telling that could have been worked out. For instance, there’s a short section of the movie where sequences are told out of chronological order. It was obvious that he chose to do it that way so that certain… things… would be hidden until he chose to reveal them at a suitably shocking point, but to me that indicates a weakness in the script. I believe that, try as he might, he just couldn’t manipulate the events of the story to uncover themselves chronologically without sacrificing the dramatic tension. I’m not saying I could do any better, but I still think it’s a weakness.

Bah! Without citing specific examples, it’s too hard to explain exactly what I mean. Tell you what: Go out and watch the movie and we’ll discuss it later. I can’t say any more without giving away the plot points whose names we do not speak.

Trivial Thought: While I thought the movie was good, I’m surprised that it wasn’t “FATASTINOMICAL!!1″ like the Sixth Sense, Unbreakable, and Signs. Oh, well. I guess that if M. Night Shyamalan can hold out for four movies before his sophomore slump, he can still be my hero.
What did I find worthwhile about the movie? The background story. It was obviously well thought-out. Also, the acting was top notch all around.
Would I recommend the movie? Yes.
Will I buy it on DVD? Yes.

Overall Summer Movie Ranking
Spider-man 2
Shrek 2
The Village
I, Robot
The Day After Tomorrow
The Terminal
The Chronicles of Riddick
Troy
Fahrenheit 9/11
Van Helsing
The Stepford Wives

No related posts.

© Arlo for A Midgett Blog, 2004. | Permalink | No comment |

It’s not that I don’t believe in this little democracy experiment that we call America – in fact, I trust it so completely that I’ve never seen the need to vote. I’m fully confident that, collectively, the voting population of our country has my best interest at heart. I’ve always told myself that I would register to vote if and when something important enough comes up on the ballot, but the truth of the matter is that I have yet to see any significant change to my lifestyle based on who’s holding office.

Despite having had a politically-motivated girlfriend years ago, I still managed to shy away from political discussions (much to her exasperation!) In retrospect, that was probably due more to my lack of information than anything else – in college I didn’t read the newspaper, listen to the radio, or even watch much TV (except for, of course, Star Trek, The Simpsons, and the X-Files!) Ignorance is bliss.

A few years ago, I realized how horrible our music stations are in Juneau and I began tuning my car radio to our local AM talk station, instead. My commute time is roughly 3 minutes, though, so this new window to the world of current events was relatively small. Each day I learned a little bit more about politics from the likes of Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, Michael Regan, and Laura Ingram on longer drives to the store or on my lunch break. Eventually I discovered that talk radio is very heavily conservatively biased. I’m almost ashamed to say how long it took me to realize that – having had no political background to speak of, I wouldn’t have been able to tell you Conservative:Republican :: Liberal:Democrat. All I knew was that I didn’t often agree with the sentiments I heard on the AM band. (Yes, I’m aware of NPR. But both sources are strongly biased and I believe that an open mind can and will see through both sides. In that sense, I guess it doesn’t matter who you listen to.)

Crap. This was supposed to a short movie review for Fahrenheit 9/11.

Anyway, I don’t have anything to pronounce about Michael Moore’s heavily-biased-against-George-Bush film that hasn’t already been said better elsewhere (by both sides). Suffice it to say that, after all the hype, I didn’t find anything in it that was all that surprising.

Call me a cynic, but I’ve always had the viewpoint that every American president has controversy surrounding them. Sure, some will go down in history as better than others, but the nature of politics encourages all sorts of double-dealings, secrets, backroom deals, and, most certainly, money. Pointing these things out about George W. Bush only left me thinking, “Yeah. So? Dig deep enough and I’m sure you can find the same things out about any president.”

Unfortunately for the Democrats who would love to see Bush ousted in November, I think that Michael Moore did his campaign a bit of a disservice by creating a movie so blatantly opposed to Bush’s administration. I believe his “documentary” would have had far more weight if it was presented simply (and artfully) as fact – as opposed to being framed as an attack. Too often, the unending assault on Bush’s character made me question what was being selectively left out.

While I felt mostly put on guard by Fahrenheit 9/11’s “preaching to the choir,” I did find myself reacting to a few select scenes. Notably, the president’s hesitation in the classroom after hearing about the second attack on the World Trade Center was a strong demonstration of Michael Moore’s argument that, without his aides telling him what to do, Bush is not a decisive president. Granted, there was a heavy amount of spin in that scene, but I found it hard to get over the fact that he sat there for seven full minutes after hearing the news.

Also, the focus on the war against Iraq got to me. While I wasn’t bothered much by the callousness of the soldiers (Again; call me a cynic, but I strongly believe that when put into a detestable situation, people do detestable things), the footage of the dead and dying was painful to witness. Worse than that, though, was the footage of the mothers, on both sides, who struggled with the news of their sons’ and relatives’ death.

There is tragedy in any war – Fahrenheit 9/11 even shows us how it can change the hearts of our own soldiers in the battlefield. As much as I want to believe that all 6 billion of us could get along without blowing the shit out of each other, intellectually I remind myself that there is a legitimate time and place for war.

If Michael Moore convinced me of one thing with his inflammatory movie, it’s that this particular war with Iraq is unwarranted.

Trivial Thought: It’s wonderful that we live in a country where a movie like this can be shown, but with so many wackos out there, I’m surprised that there hasn’t been an assassination attempt on either Bush or Moore by now.
What did I find worthwhile about the movie? The well-stated argument that it’s our lowest-income bracket that enlists to defend our country’s freedoms.
Would I recommend the movie? Yes, to anyone politically minded – Democrat or Republican. I can understand the desire not to support Michael Moore financially, but he’s given free reign to download it on the Internet. Republicans: Your arguments against the movie will carry more weight if you actually watch it first.
Will I buy it on DVD? No. Not my bag. But I suppose the extras and commentary might well be worth a look-see.

Overall Summer Movie Ranking
Spider-man 2
Shrek 2
I, Robot
The Day After Tomorrow
The Terminal
The Chronicles of Riddick
Troy
Fahrenheit 9/11
Van Helsing
The Stepford Wives

No related posts.

© Arlo for A Midgett Blog, 2004. | Permalink | No comment |

I’m talking, of course, about the world of I, Robot. Judging from the movie, Chicago will be a very different place just 31 years from now.

I went in to I, Robot expecting to hate it. I’ve got nothing against Will Smith (except, perhaps, Wild Wild West), but I rarely trust Hollywood to handle a science fiction book adaptation well. Either because I had such low expectations, or perhaps because I’ve never read the Asimov robot books, I found myself thoroughly this movie! (Not reading Asimov’s works ahead of time might be the only way to enjoy it – it was listed in the credits only as “Suggested by an Isaac Asimov book!”)

It took me awhile to warm up to it, though. At first I couldn’t get over Will Smith’s hat. Throughout the first third of the movie, he insisted on wearing a tight leather toque, pulled down to the eyebrows, consistently covering only one of his two ears. That sort of thing drives me nuts. Would you do that with a baseball cap? A 10-gallon hat? I don’t care how cool you think it makes you look, we’re symmetrical for Pete’s sake – Wearing your hat over only one ear is like getting an extended foot massage on only one of your feet; it’s bound to mess up your balance somehow!

Okay, admittedly that was a minor quibble. Trying to look past the protagonist’s hat, I began to evaluate the character himself. Police officer, hates robots, of course. I suppose that later, when the shit hits the fan and the robots start going crazy, no one’s going to believe him because of his well-known, bigoted viewpoint. How lame. I can’t imagine that the characters in the book were this shal… hey now, waitaminute. Could I be wrong?

That’s the thing that got me in I, Robot. The writer and/or director did a great job of leading me down the wrong path. At times (and certainly by the look of the previews), I believed that I was in for an action flick, but I was pleasantly surprised to discover a decent suspense movie instead. Once the story got rolling, I had a hard time guessing what kink would pop up next. I was surprised to learn the robots’ motivations, and I misjudged who the main antagonist was at several turns. Those are good things, by the way. Hollywood can be so formulaic sometimes that I enjoy the occasional, unexpected twist.

Besides the story unfolding to my enjoyment, I also loved watching the special effects. Alan Tudyk, who I knew from Firefly, was fun to watch as the robot, Sonny. In fact, all the robots in this particular movie looked pretty darn good. Although obviously CGI, they seemed very there. They were animated to walk very much like humans with realistic weight and balance, but when it was time to get their groove on, they took advantage of their superior speed and power to pump out superhuman jam. Well, all except for the older robot models. They plodded along jerkily, but that was also pretty cool in its contrast.

I’ll bet one of my favorite effects in the movie, though, was one that probably escaped most people’s attention. There’s a scene where Will Smith is trying to get out of a house being demolished by a huge robot. The hallway’s crumbling under his feet, walls and ceiling are being absolutely pulverized as he’s sprinting for the door. In the middle of all this mayhem, the camera view switches to his pumping feet as he reaches down to scoop up the housecat racing along beside him.

Can you imaging how difficult it must have been to get that shot?

Trivial Thought: Poor cat. Left to die in a car trunk. (UPDATE: I have been informed that Grandma got the cat. Hmm. Guess I missed that.)
What did I find worthwhile about the movie? Surprisingly, er, surprising plotline. Plus, with the exception of the very last pull-away, I thought that the SFX were quite good (if a little too high octane for the script.)
Would I recommend the movie? Yes, except maybe if you’re a big Asimov fan. I don’t know for sure, but I suspect that you’ll be disappointed.
Will I buy it on DVD? Tough one, but there’s a good chance, yeah. Especially if it comes with some good extras.

Overall Summer Movie Ranking
Spider-man 2
Shrek 2
I, Robot
The Day After Tomorrow
The Terminal
The Chronicles of Riddick
Troy
Van Helsing
The Stepford Wives

No related posts.

© Arlo for A Midgett Blog, 2004. | Permalink | No comment |

My biggest hope for the second movie was for them to make the effects more believable. I’d heard somewhere that Raimi liked the original’s “comic bookish” quality of effects, but that just doesn’t hold water with me. If you’re going to make a live-action movie out of a comic book character, do what you can to make it look realistic – if you want it to look like a cartoon, animate it. Sounds to me like they just ran out of money/time/talent.

I went into Spider-Man 2 having already heard some critical praise which bordered on hype. Normally, that’s a bad sign – when my expectations are high, movies have an annoying tendency of falling short of the mark. And it didn’t help any that I read my fair share of Spider-man comic books back in high school… If anything, they just made me harder to please.

Even so, I didn’t come away from the theater disappointed! In fact, I’ll say that Spider-man 2 is the best movie I’ve seen this year. Without giving away any spoilers (not already seen in the trailer), here’s why:

• The fight scenes were absolutely amazing. Frenetic, fluid, and very believable (as much as a radioactive-spider-infected man fighting a neuro-interfaced-man-robot-thing can be believable, anyway.) The visual effects were much improved.
• Tobey Maguire is Peter Parker. Even behind the mask, his voice comes across as that of a nerdy college kid (contrast this with the way actors typically voice Bruce Wayne differently than his alter ego, Batman.)
• Alfred Molina was perfectly cast as Doc Ock (awesome villain!), J.K. Simmons completely nails the role of J. Jonah Jamison, and James Franco is quite believable in his intentions as Harry Osborn.
• Aunt May being on Spider-man’s side was a nice twist on the comic book’s portrayal of her character. Peter Parker had enough to worry about in this movie without her unintentional guilt trip added in.
• Now that Sam Raimi has an honest-to-God blockbuster under his belt, it’s nice to see the big studios’ rein on him loosen up a bit. Witness the Evil Dead homage in the operating room!
• Raimi fans (like me) also have fun looking for cameos in his films. It was great to see Bruce Campbell, Ted Raimi, and even his… car in Spider-man 2 (not to mention Stan Lee!)

Despite all the good stuff, there were a few things that bothered me:

• I don’t know how the comic book versions went down, but Doc Ock’s and the Green Goblins’ origin stories were far too similar. Someone should really crack down on Oscorp.
• Kristen Dunst didn’t sell me on the Mary Jane character. She didn’t do a bad job, but she definitely wasn’t as perfectly matched to the roll as Tobey Maguire was to Peter Parker.
• Is it just me, or is Spider-man much more resilient in this movie? The subway scene in particular portrayed his human body as practically indestructible. Judging from my experience, spiders are not especially invulnerable – where did he gain those powers?
• Must every villain in the Spider-man movie franchise communicate their motivations through insane ramblings with themselves? I think it’s time we had a villain that’s not certifiably crazy, just, you know, motivated by evil!
• J. Jonah Jamison’s son was completely unnecessary. Boooooring.

All the bad things I listed above are just nit-picking. For what it’s worth, I only came up with most of them after the movie was over – they certainly didn’t detract from the film. Because I’ve already decided that I want to see it again (at $9 a pop!) Spider-man 2 is definitely going to the top of my list for summer movies.

Trivial Thought: One of the reasons I want to go back and see Spider-man 2 again was because I saw it the first time from the 3rd row. Maybe those special effects weren’t as good as I thought…
What did I find worthwhile about the movie? It’s another great sequel that continues the all-important character development right where it left off (see Shrek 2). We all know how easy it is for Hollywood to cash in and screw up movie franchises – fortunately, this movie is probably even better than the first one!
Would I recommend the movie? Even to people that have never owned over 4000 comic books!
Will I buy it on DVD? Yes, first day it’s out.

Overall Summer Movie Ranking
Spider-man 2
Shrek 2
The Day After Tomorrow
The Terminal
The Chronicles of Riddick
Troy
Van Helsing
The Stepford Wives

No related posts.

© Arlo for A Midgett Blog, 2004. | Permalink | No comment |

Calling The Terminal a throwaway story isn’t a bad review, it’s just my way of saying that the movie is simply about a bunch of stuff that happens. Apparently it’s loosely based on real life events just like Spielberg Throwaway Story: Catch Me If You Can. Tom Hanks, who was an FBI agent in the latter, now plays a very different character in Viktor Navorski, a citizen of the make-believe country of Krakozia. When his plane lands at JFK in New York, he discovers that his country has erupted in civil war, that the United States will not issue him a visa nor return him to his country, and that until his government is legitimately recognized, he will be unable to leave the “international transit lounge.”

It’s a testament to Steven Spielberg’s abilities as a director that he was able to perfectly pace a two-hour movie on such a thin premise. Although most of the group I saw the movie with complained about its length, I thought that he spent just enough time what he needed to: Viktor conquering the language barrier, Viktor figuring out the airport’s dynamics, Viktor meeting and making friends, falling in love, and finding a job.

For a Spielberg movie, though, I came away with a surprising number of nit-picks. I thought that the portrayal of Viktor’s comprehension level was a bit too high (admittedly, perhaps this bothers me only because I’ve taken the time to learn another language). Also, the head INS agent came across as a bit too harsh in his extreme dislike for Viktor, and yet he wouldn’t take advantage of certain opportunities to get rid of him.

On the plus side, I was pleasantly surprised to guess wrong on the reason for Viktor’s visit to the States and I commend Spielberg for shying away from a typical Hollywood ending with at least a couple of his relationships with his friends.

The Terminal is a nice, neat little movie. It’s funny in all the right places, makes you want to cry here and there, and even has a worthy villian to hate. Thankfully, it doesn’t make a Big Statement on life, culture, politics, or anything else, and I think its lack of a Message is what makes it charming. In the years to come, I’ll bet that The Terminal will be one of those movies that we’ll see over and over again on cable TV.

Trivial Thought: Has anyone else noticed Spielberg’s recent propensity for the extreme backlighting of characters? I wonder if it’s intentional. And that reminds me: What was up with that fountain?
What did I find worthwhile about the movie? It’s a study in cinematic pacing – not to mention set design and extras coordination on a massive scale!
Would I recommend the movie? Yes.
Will I buy it on DVD? Doubtful. It was a good movie, but probably won’t stand up to multiple viewings.

Overall Summer Movie Ranking
Shrek 2
The Day After Tomorrow
The Terminal
The Chronicles of Riddick
Troy
Van Helsing
The Stepford Wives

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I really like the new theater on the Outer Banks.
The movie was listed in the paper as a Sci-fi/Drama/Comedy.
Mathew Broderick is pretty cool and
Nicole Kidman is pretty hot.

Dang. It’s hard to write about this movie without spoiling anything. Let’s just say that the introduction to Nicole Kidman’s character was too lengthy, characters were completely dropped (the kids), the writers didn’t even make an effort to make the science believable, and the ending felt tacked on. I think I read somewhere that this was a remake of an older movie. Perhaps they were constrained by that.

The best I can say about The Stepford Wives is that it was a “cute” movie.

Trivial Thought: The twist at the end must have been an attempt to alleviate the predictablity of the movie.
What did I find worthwhile about the movie? Christopher Walken is always fun to watch and Mathew Broderick is still pretty cool.
Would I recommend the movie? No.
Will I buy it on DVD? No.

Overall Summer Movie Ranking
Shrek 2
The Day After Tomorrow
The Chronicles of Riddick
Troy
Van Helsing
The Stepford Wives *

(* Ranking these movies is harder than I thought! I’m going with a “What would I rather see again?” approach. For instance, I’d rather see Van Helsing again than The Stepford Wives, even though The Stepford Wives is a better movie. Same goes for The Chronicles of Riddick and Troy. Obviously this will be an extremely subjective ranking!)

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Watching Riddick in the sequel, though, makes you wonder how Vin made it this far. When an action hero character starts spouting of witty one-liners, I begin to wonder who should be blamed. Was it the script? Does the actor’s ego play a part? Does the director or studio think that a movie won’t last in the public’s consciousness without a sound bite that can be repeated endlessly on a middle school playground? I don’t get it. Maybe the answer is in XXX – I missed that movie.

The Chronicles of Riddick borrows only a bit from the original Pitch Black. Three characters make a comeback and, I think, a certain prison that was mentioned in the first movie is now the setting for a full act in Riddick. The rest of the movie is an attempt to create a literal universe of setting with only a smattering of backstory dialog combined with a plethora of special effects. In my opinion, The Chronicles of Riddick could only have been a success if it had been broken up into more movies.

Whenever I see a mess like this, I inevitably think back (fondly) to The Fifth Element. The biggest accomplishment of that movie was its ability, it just over two hours, to create a robust universe that seemed fully fleshed out and internally consistent. I wish that Riddick had spent more time working on that and less time working on fight scenes. I didn’t care about the characters – I wanted to know what the hell the “Underverse” was all about! What were those cool panther beasts and how did Riddick get their eyes? How does black, smoky, heat ripples propel a ship and what were the motivations of the mutinous “Necromongers?”

I’m sorry. I really wanted to like The Chronicles of Riddick – I do so enjoy my sci-fi. But when the most interesting characters were either downplayed or killed off and so much of the crucial backstory was simply glossed over, there doesn’t leave a lot left to savor. I do hope for another movie in the series, if only to flesh out the universe more. The ending they wrote obviously had a sequel in mind, but unfortunately I can’t imagine that it’ll ever be made. Vin Diesel will probably ask for more money than his rapidly sinking career will command and unless The Chronicles of Riddick does much better at the box office than I think it will, it will have a hard time recovering the money spent on his salary and the (admittedly good) special effects.

You know what would be cool, though? Continuing the story with Return-of-the-King Guy and his power-hungry girlfriend.

Trivial Thought: I’m sorry, 700 degrees is just not that hot.
What did I find worthwhile about the movie? The special effects, again. (Must be summer.) I also liked what little of the backstory I could gleam. Seems like it could be pretty interesting.
Would I recommend the movie? Only if you’re a diehard science fiction fan.
Will I buy it on DVD? Tough one. If so, only because I already own Pitch Black.

Overall Summer Movie Ranking
Shrek 2
The Day After Tomorrow
The Chronicles of Riddick
Troy
Van Helsing

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© Arlo for A Midgett Blog, 2004. | Permalink | No comment |

Shrek came out around the same time as Pixar’s Monster’s Inc., and because they were both computer-generated movies, they invited the typical visual comparisons. Deciding which you like better isn’t easy. Take A Bug’s Life vs. Antz, for instance. You have to take into account that the two studios made stylistic decisions about their movies (i.e., Disney’s pastels vs. PDI’s realism.) Pixar is the easy choice, but I always thought that the original Shrek raised the bar not only in their environmental renderings, but also in character animation. Shrek could have had no plot at all and I would still have enjoyed watching the characters interact in their make-believe world.

Creating a sequel to a movie like that must be difficult. Because your target audience is already familiar with the world, you’re not much able to tamper with the look. Instead of wow’ing everyone with fabulous things they’ve never seen before, you’re instead forced to try to wow them with everything they’re already familiar with. In this Hollywood day and age, it’s almost too much to ask of studios to continue with traditional storytelling devices, like say, character development. But in Shrek 2, that’s not only what they did, but also what made the movie so great. Rare for a sequel, main characters in Shrek 2 undergo significant changes even while new characters are introduced.

Speaking of newly introduced characters, I was thoroughly expecting to hate Antonio Banderas’ Puss In Boots. Perhaps it was because the previews didn’t mesh very well with what I’d heard the critics saying about the character, I don’t know, but I found myself literally laughing myself to tears in the scene where he meets Shrek. In fact, one of the reasons I feel confident that everyone will like Shrek 2 is the way in which it made me laugh. No small feat, considering the mood I was in after putting my wife on a plane out of the country earlier that same day.

Shrek 2 is great, start to finish. I wonder if it’ll even be possible for another summer movie (Spiderman 2? The Village?) to beat it in my insignificant rankings. Oh, and before I forget, make sure you stay through the credits if you want to catch a tiny Donkey epilogue.

Trivial thought: Interesting how some of the best jokes were just background (Stonehenge? Justin? Starbucks? Hilarious!)
What did I find worthwhile about the movie? The animation, the environment, the new renderings. The climatic fight scene (reminded me fondly of the adrenalized escape from the dragon in the first Shrek!) And, of course, Puss In Boots was so cool that I want to create a fan site for him.
Would I recommend the movie? To strangers on the street!
Will I buy it on DVD? The day it comes out!

Overall Summer Movie Ranking
Shrek 2
The Day After Tomorrow
Troy
Van Helsing

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The premise of the Day After Tomorrow has to do with the effects of global warming. For the purposes of a two-hour movie time limit, the consequences of our collective industrial actions were unrealistically compressed into a handful of days, rather than decades. This is, of course, assuming that you accept the premise that polar ice melts will cause super-duper-storms in the first place.

Whatever. It was enough to set the stage for disastrous special effects and a father-son adversity/reunion story. “Disastrous” in the sense of the effects showing disasters, naturally. “Naturally” as in natural disasters. Heh.

That’s where the movie shines. Don’t get me wrong, some of the characters are okay. Some aren’t (for instance, I never felt anything for Little Leukemia Boy, and I wanted more closure on the scientists in Scotland). But make no mistake, the disasters are the draw in this movie and most of them are pretty good. If you’ve seen the previews, you already know about the geographically strange tornadoes, the big flood, and the super-cold temperatures. I did, going in, but for some reason I thought there would be more variety to the natural disasters. Engaging my powers of 20/20 hindsight, I don’t know why that is, though. It’s not like global warming is going to result in volcanic eruptions or big earthquakes.

The best thing I can say about The Day After Tomorrow is that I was able to suspend my disbelief and lose myself in the story. I truly wanted to know what would happen next and – unlike Troy, for instance – I was never thinking about when the movie was going to end. And that’s probably a good thing, considering the moral with which they beat you over the head just before the closing credits. Up until the last couple minutes, it was a diverting summer film… and then, WHAP-WHAP! Watch out all you Republicans – Roland Emmerich has a message. Sigh.

Trivial Thought: Did you notice that all the wolves were completely computer generated? Interesting, that.
What did I find worthwhile about the movie? The special effects, of course. That and poking holes in the movie’s “science.”
Would I recommend the movie? If you like disaster movies, yes. If you’re a Republican, no.
Will I buy it on DVD? Probably, although it may come down to the special features list.

Overall Summer Movie Ranking
The Day After Tomorrow
Troy
Van Helsing

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© Arlo for A Midgett Blog, 2004. | Permalink | No comment |

I’ve never read Homer’s Illiad, nor have I studied ancient Greek history enough to know the true story of Troy. Come to think of it, I’ve never even seen a movie about it, either. I guess everything I know about Helen, Troy, and the Trojan Horse, I’ve learned through pop cultural references. Add to that, now, Brad Pitt’s sculpted interpretation of Achilles, I suppose that I’m now as well-informed as 90% of America.

Troy wasn’t a bad movie – in fact, it was actually pretty good. I thought it odd to focus the story of the fall of a city on a single character’s vanity, but I suppose this story has already been told so many ways, the scriptwriter was probably just looking for a new angle. I can respect that, but if you’re going to focus a movie on a single character, I think there’s a strong argument to make the audience sympathetic to that personality. Brad Pitt got top billing, but it was Eric Bana and the others behind the Wall of Troy that I found myself rooting for.

The effects in Troy were impressive. Massive armies clashing, gruesome deathblows, sweeping camera angles of an imagined city… Unlike Van Helsing, I never caught myself thinking, “Oh, that looks SO fake!” But I heard from a friend that the city of Troy had a population of only 3000, the walls were only 6 feet high, and the war lasted ten years. I suppose that if you simply much have an army siege a castle, post Lord of the Rings, you damn well better have an epic amount of carnage. History be damned, Homeric movies sell tickets.

Trivial thought: Notice that there is only one female speaking role for the Greeks vs. countless supporting females for the Trojans – no wonder they don’t come off as sympathetic!
What did I find worthwhile about the movie? The (mostly concealed) special effects – the best SFX are the ones you didn’t realize were SFX! Most of the non-Greek characters. Plus the eventual sacking of Troy was surprisingly affecting.
Would I recommend the movie? Yeah, I ‘spose.
Will I buy it on DVD? No.

Overall Summer Movie Ranking
Troy
Van Helsing

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Maybe it was because I knew that it was written and directed by Steven Sommers. He was the guy responsible for The Mummy, the Mummy Returns, and The Scorpion King. I’ll admit that The Mummy was an okay movie… once I realized that it was going for camp, I actually started to enjoy it. I liked The Mummy Returns… not so much. Would you blame me if I told you that I skipped The Scorpion King altogether?

Van Helsing was destined to be the epitome of a special effects laden summer action movie. I went in with low expectations and it was only because of that that I wasn’t completely disgusted. The best thing I can say about the movie is that often the special effects were amazing (if not totally convincing). We’ve come a long way in the 25 years or so since Star Wars. I’m anxious to see where Hollywood will be 25 years from now!

The worse thing I can say about Van Helsing is… hold on. Let me think. There’s a lot to choose from. Okay, I guess it’s that the plot was obviously tacked on as an afterthought. I’ll grudgingly admit that there was a plot there – one that definitely wasn’t difficult to follow. It’s just that the characters were barely given enough time to say a few story-propelling lines before being hurled back into yet another fight with a computer-generated beastie. (For what it’s worth, I might have chosen another aspect of the film as being the worst part of Van Helsing, but for an interview I read with the writer/director. He was so proud of the story he had crafted, cunningly able to bring together three Hollywood monsters of yore! Let me tell you, Mr. Sommers desperately needs to learn the difference between “an idea” and “a story.”)

Trivial Thought: Werewolves are apparently unaffected by the laws of gravity.
What did I find worthwhile about the movie? The special effects. Plus Kate Beckinsale and the lead vampiress were very hot!
Would I recommend the movie? Probably not.
Will I buy it on DVD? No.

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© Arlo for A Midgett Blog, 2004. | Permalink | No comment |