I spent a large amount of time at the local cinema this weekend watching some current releases and catching up on a couple older titles. All this while enjoying too much Popcorn and Coke Zero. Nothing I saw had a lot of people in it, so I think the Batman Effect is still working. By that I mean people must be seeing The Dark Knight Rises 'cause they ain't seein' what I saw. In the usual way, I over analyzed the movies and came up with the following thoughts and there might be Spoilers:
The Bourne Legacy
Jeremy Renner, playing Aaron Cross (aka Kenneth Kitsom, aka Outcome #5, aka James Monroe), is about the only real reason to see this movie. If you liked him in Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol and/or The Avengers then you know why he's fun to watch. This isn't to say the other actors aren't good, they just don't have anything to do. I like all the actors present (Ed Norton, Stacy Keech, Donna Murphy to name a few) but they're on-screen time is spent ordering people to catch Aaron Cross. The director (also the writer) does a good job using music and camera edits to make these sections seem more important than they really are. Rachel Weisz, as Dr. Shearing, fares a little better, but she ends up with the damsel-in-distress role. At least she actually meets Aaron Cross, with most of her time spent dodging bullets.
Clocking in at 2 hours 15 minutes this is about 45 minutes too long. All the action scenes involve Aaron Cross running from his handlers trying to "burn" him, but there aren't enough of them. Part of the problem is time needs to be spent explaining how The Bourne Trilogy sets current events in motion, leading to the killing off all Outcome agents. The plot itself is the most basic secret agent story: a top-level spy organization decides to disavow/kill all its best operative(s) and the agent in question goes on the run/fights back. I've seen this in The Bourne Identity. I've seen this in most of the Mission Impossible movies. This is the first episode of Burn Notice and part of the idea behind Nikita. I'm pretty sure there's a 007 movie with this premise. Maybe I'm missing the point but I think it's lazy writing. In all of this complaining the movie is very watchable, but when you start boiling everything down to its essence, it's a simple story. I bet if we had a third Charlie's Angels movie it would have had the same plot, too.
There is one idea I do like: the agency gives its Outcome operatives two different pills to enhance physical and mental acuity. But they have to take them at regular intervals or regress rapidly to a sub-human level; somewhat of a cross between Jurassic Park's Lysine contingency and Limitless' NZT-48 drug. By the end of the movie we learn a retro-virus was given to the agents that permanently alters them at the chromosomal level, but left the drug as a control device. Aaron Cross is only partially altered so he needs to get Dr. Shearing to help him fully convert his body, and thus shake any connection he needs to have with the agency.
The Campaign
A movie that is only funny with more people around. On your own you'll need some beer. The plot on the surface is about two ridiculous people going for a congressional seat in North Carolina. Its pretty painful to watch the back-and-forth antics between "the hero" Marty Huggins and "the bad guy" Cam Brady. In the background of this election feud are the Motch brothers, super-rich industrialists who are conniving with Chinese interests to bring Chinese child labor to North Carolina. They back whichever of the two main characters is ahead in the polls, lampooning current political entities that are being bought by businesses.
Unfortunately this is a sad comedy. It's not funny, and over-done at times. There is a message in the movie about the manipulation of our political figures by people with money (and connecting it to the larger issue of American labor going to China). The humor is often off-putting to the point no one is going to get the message. The only joke I really appreciated had to do with Marty's father, Raymond. He works with the Motch brothers, has a bunch of money and a large mansion. In the mansion is a house maid, Mrs. Yao, another Chinese connection. The joke here is Raymond prefers Mrs. Yao to act like a 19th century African-American maid, in what I'm guessing is an attempt to compare current American industrial connections to China with the American slave labor era of the 1800s. If this wasn't intended, then I'm giving the movie way too much credit. Whatever was intended by the joke, it will likely be lost in the idiocy of the rest of the script.
Ice Age: Continental Drift
An ordinary non-Pixar CG movie for kids. I really enjoy the first two movies, but I found the third one to have "jumped the shark" as it were (even with Simon Pegg). The animation keeps getting better with every release. Since it takes them at least three years to make a movie, you can see how much better computer graphic power is getting. Fur is amazing. The voice work is still good, but I really liked Ray Romano and Wanda Sykes. The issues in the movie aren't as strong as the first two movies, but better than Dawn of the Dinosaurs. Sid even pokes fun at it when mentioning he doesn't understand underground dinosaurs. Overall Ice Age 4 is a run-of-the-mill CG movie.
I do want to complain about a couple things. The first will be Scrat; the Looney-Tunes-esque punching bag for the writers. His story isn't bad, but for some reason it was decided to show parts of it in theaters (and iTunes) as a lead-up to release day. I thought it was a prologue, setting up a plot point, but it is reshown scene-for-scene in the movie. This accounts for 90% of his scenes. Scrat's subplots throughout always halt the narrative, and since you've likely seen them already, it becomes a speed bump to the pacing. Bad call.
Second; when do these movies take place? Since it's called Ice Age I feel confident it refers to the most recent Ice Age from 10,000+ years ago and not a random one in the past ten million years. I know this is a kids movie series, but maybe we can try to teach some accurate science while a Mastadon, a Sabertooth Tiger and a Giant Ground Sloth become BFF's. The present day continents have been the way they are for roughly the past two million years, but this movie seems to imply Scrat fell to the core of the Earth, spun it, and made plate tectonics happen. Once again, I know, it's a metaphor in a kids movie, but maybe some consistency? Which Ice Age is it? That's all I want to know. To re-enforce my original theory for a 10,000 B.C. date; The Meltdown has Sid joking with Manny about being extinct. Well, that, and the whole global warming vibe of the story.
Step Up Revolution
It almost goes without saying that this movie is terrible. You can tell from the previews. I also thought the same thing about Jack and Jill. The difference between the two is that Step Up Revolution is showing off the talent of dancers. Choreography is what's on display, the narrative only doing the minimum to connect the Flash Mob events. My only knowledge of this series is Step Up 3D, which had more of a style to it than I wanted to admit, but another dumb plot, more-or-less taken from many Kung-Fu movies. In fact, both these movies are written like a martial arts movie; but replace the word "martial" with "dance" and film something. I am going to give the creators some credit since they're taking two years between movies. Twilight and Saw movies are just drivel pumped-out every year. There's no way you can create a quality product in so little a time. They're just cashing in. I would prefer three years, but I can't have everything.
My only real issue in the movie is the dancing. The director, stunt people, dance choreographers and others are putting a lot of work into these routines. They look decent enough on screen, but the editing is an MTV video disaster. At least put the lens some distance from the action and let the dancers do more than one move before zooming in and cutting to another angle. It's not like the director's job is to hide the incompetence of the cast. The lead actress, Kathryn McCormick, was one of the top contenders on So You Think You Can Dance (much like tWitch), so I know she can handle it. There are better scenes of competitions on Youtube. That's what the director should be going for. It seems an odd nitpick, but lets compare this to a Jet Li movie. He has awesome hand-to-hand skills, but when he's put in a role where he's given a stuntman and has to use wire-work, it defeats the purpose of his natural talent. That's what I'm trying to see, talent. I'm jaded enough after 35 years of movie watching to know when someone is trying to trick me (looking at you Chronicle). Let the action breathe and it will succeed. Also, it's called Step Up, not Dubstep Up. Everything sounded like dubstep, except for Kathryn's solo stuff which I found boring.
My suggestion for a fifth movie: set it during a tournament. One day only. Like a cross between The Karate Kid and Dodgeball. Drop the romance angle. Let the tension be between the contestants. Use the actors from all four movies as a sense of continuity. Mix up the music styles. Blues Brothers had music from all over the genre letting the audience experience different types of Soul, R&B, Blues, etc. I'm sure there are ten forms of electronica, breakbeat, drum and bass, or techno. Feel free to take these suggestions, it would only make the franchise better.
The Bourne Legacy
Jeremy Renner, playing Aaron Cross (aka Kenneth Kitsom, aka Outcome #5, aka James Monroe), is about the only real reason to see this movie. If you liked him in Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol and/or The Avengers then you know why he's fun to watch. This isn't to say the other actors aren't good, they just don't have anything to do. I like all the actors present (Ed Norton, Stacy Keech, Donna Murphy to name a few) but they're on-screen time is spent ordering people to catch Aaron Cross. The director (also the writer) does a good job using music and camera edits to make these sections seem more important than they really are. Rachel Weisz, as Dr. Shearing, fares a little better, but she ends up with the damsel-in-distress role. At least she actually meets Aaron Cross, with most of her time spent dodging bullets.
Clocking in at 2 hours 15 minutes this is about 45 minutes too long. All the action scenes involve Aaron Cross running from his handlers trying to "burn" him, but there aren't enough of them. Part of the problem is time needs to be spent explaining how The Bourne Trilogy sets current events in motion, leading to the killing off all Outcome agents. The plot itself is the most basic secret agent story: a top-level spy organization decides to disavow/kill all its best operative(s) and the agent in question goes on the run/fights back. I've seen this in The Bourne Identity. I've seen this in most of the Mission Impossible movies. This is the first episode of Burn Notice and part of the idea behind Nikita. I'm pretty sure there's a 007 movie with this premise. Maybe I'm missing the point but I think it's lazy writing. In all of this complaining the movie is very watchable, but when you start boiling everything down to its essence, it's a simple story. I bet if we had a third Charlie's Angels movie it would have had the same plot, too.
There is one idea I do like: the agency gives its Outcome operatives two different pills to enhance physical and mental acuity. But they have to take them at regular intervals or regress rapidly to a sub-human level; somewhat of a cross between Jurassic Park's Lysine contingency and Limitless' NZT-48 drug. By the end of the movie we learn a retro-virus was given to the agents that permanently alters them at the chromosomal level, but left the drug as a control device. Aaron Cross is only partially altered so he needs to get Dr. Shearing to help him fully convert his body, and thus shake any connection he needs to have with the agency.
The Campaign
A movie that is only funny with more people around. On your own you'll need some beer. The plot on the surface is about two ridiculous people going for a congressional seat in North Carolina. Its pretty painful to watch the back-and-forth antics between "the hero" Marty Huggins and "the bad guy" Cam Brady. In the background of this election feud are the Motch brothers, super-rich industrialists who are conniving with Chinese interests to bring Chinese child labor to North Carolina. They back whichever of the two main characters is ahead in the polls, lampooning current political entities that are being bought by businesses.
Unfortunately this is a sad comedy. It's not funny, and over-done at times. There is a message in the movie about the manipulation of our political figures by people with money (and connecting it to the larger issue of American labor going to China). The humor is often off-putting to the point no one is going to get the message. The only joke I really appreciated had to do with Marty's father, Raymond. He works with the Motch brothers, has a bunch of money and a large mansion. In the mansion is a house maid, Mrs. Yao, another Chinese connection. The joke here is Raymond prefers Mrs. Yao to act like a 19th century African-American maid, in what I'm guessing is an attempt to compare current American industrial connections to China with the American slave labor era of the 1800s. If this wasn't intended, then I'm giving the movie way too much credit. Whatever was intended by the joke, it will likely be lost in the idiocy of the rest of the script.
Ice Age: Continental Drift
An ordinary non-Pixar CG movie for kids. I really enjoy the first two movies, but I found the third one to have "jumped the shark" as it were (even with Simon Pegg). The animation keeps getting better with every release. Since it takes them at least three years to make a movie, you can see how much better computer graphic power is getting. Fur is amazing. The voice work is still good, but I really liked Ray Romano and Wanda Sykes. The issues in the movie aren't as strong as the first two movies, but better than Dawn of the Dinosaurs. Sid even pokes fun at it when mentioning he doesn't understand underground dinosaurs. Overall Ice Age 4 is a run-of-the-mill CG movie.
I do want to complain about a couple things. The first will be Scrat; the Looney-Tunes-esque punching bag for the writers. His story isn't bad, but for some reason it was decided to show parts of it in theaters (and iTunes) as a lead-up to release day. I thought it was a prologue, setting up a plot point, but it is reshown scene-for-scene in the movie. This accounts for 90% of his scenes. Scrat's subplots throughout always halt the narrative, and since you've likely seen them already, it becomes a speed bump to the pacing. Bad call.
Second; when do these movies take place? Since it's called Ice Age I feel confident it refers to the most recent Ice Age from 10,000+ years ago and not a random one in the past ten million years. I know this is a kids movie series, but maybe we can try to teach some accurate science while a Mastadon, a Sabertooth Tiger and a Giant Ground Sloth become BFF's. The present day continents have been the way they are for roughly the past two million years, but this movie seems to imply Scrat fell to the core of the Earth, spun it, and made plate tectonics happen. Once again, I know, it's a metaphor in a kids movie, but maybe some consistency? Which Ice Age is it? That's all I want to know. To re-enforce my original theory for a 10,000 B.C. date; The Meltdown has Sid joking with Manny about being extinct. Well, that, and the whole global warming vibe of the story.
Step Up Revolution
It almost goes without saying that this movie is terrible. You can tell from the previews. I also thought the same thing about Jack and Jill. The difference between the two is that Step Up Revolution is showing off the talent of dancers. Choreography is what's on display, the narrative only doing the minimum to connect the Flash Mob events. My only knowledge of this series is Step Up 3D, which had more of a style to it than I wanted to admit, but another dumb plot, more-or-less taken from many Kung-Fu movies. In fact, both these movies are written like a martial arts movie; but replace the word "martial" with "dance" and film something. I am going to give the creators some credit since they're taking two years between movies. Twilight and Saw movies are just drivel pumped-out every year. There's no way you can create a quality product in so little a time. They're just cashing in. I would prefer three years, but I can't have everything.
My only real issue in the movie is the dancing. The director, stunt people, dance choreographers and others are putting a lot of work into these routines. They look decent enough on screen, but the editing is an MTV video disaster. At least put the lens some distance from the action and let the dancers do more than one move before zooming in and cutting to another angle. It's not like the director's job is to hide the incompetence of the cast. The lead actress, Kathryn McCormick, was one of the top contenders on So You Think You Can Dance (much like tWitch), so I know she can handle it. There are better scenes of competitions on Youtube. That's what the director should be going for. It seems an odd nitpick, but lets compare this to a Jet Li movie. He has awesome hand-to-hand skills, but when he's put in a role where he's given a stuntman and has to use wire-work, it defeats the purpose of his natural talent. That's what I'm trying to see, talent. I'm jaded enough after 35 years of movie watching to know when someone is trying to trick me (looking at you Chronicle). Let the action breathe and it will succeed. Also, it's called Step Up, not Dubstep Up. Everything sounded like dubstep, except for Kathryn's solo stuff which I found boring.
My suggestion for a fifth movie: set it during a tournament. One day only. Like a cross between The Karate Kid and Dodgeball. Drop the romance angle. Let the tension be between the contestants. Use the actors from all four movies as a sense of continuity. Mix up the music styles. Blues Brothers had music from all over the genre letting the audience experience different types of Soul, R&B, Blues, etc. I'm sure there are ten forms of electronica, breakbeat, drum and bass, or techno. Feel free to take these suggestions, it would only make the franchise better.
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