Category: 1-1.5/10
The Spirit (2008)
White blood is not cool! Give me red!
Denny Colt (Gabriel Macht) was a murdered cop who is mysteriously reborn as the masked crime fighter called the Spirit. The Spirit roams throughout the streets of what he calls, “his city”, loves it’s women, and fights crime whenever it rears it’s ugly head. The only problem is that his arch-enemy, Octopus (Samuel L. Jackson), is a bit more than he can handle and as his past continues to come right back at him, he finds it harder and harder to get past what might just be his final battle. Everybody else, except for him, hope it truly is.
In a time before Dan the Man was the esteemed critic he is today, he was just a young lad going to the movies, seeing what he could find, and making up his mind on what he thought. That’s right, it was all in my head before I ever started typing down crazy crap! But during that time, the Christmas season of 2008 was where I single-handedly, self-financed AMC for the sole reason that I was there almost every other day. This was the days before I was able to get into screenings so in ways, I had to pay and in other ways, I just snuck in. I was a bad, bad cat, but not as bad of a cat as I thought I was until I saw this movie. Then, maybe I thought it would just be best to live off of Netflix for awhile.
Even after the 4 or 5 years since I’ve seen this; little of this movie has changed. I still remembering it sucking, even until this day, except now I have a clearer-view on what does and what doesn’t work in a movie. Especially shitty ones like these, where almost nothing works. Sounds harsh, but it’s the truth. The only positive-element of this movie that was worth watching and waiting around for this second-go around was Gabriel Macht as the Spirit and the cat that followed him around.
So obviously Gabriel Macht…
Macht has never been the type of actor to really knock it out of the park in a role, mostly because he’s never really gotten the spotlight. He’s usually been known as “that guy” in big-budgeted, shit-boxes like Bad Company, Whiteout, Because I Said So, and many, many more that I’m almost too ashamed to admit that I’ve seen him in, let alone actually viewed (the shit I do as a critic). So, this is why his performance as the Spirit is actually pretty good because he gets a chance to take over the film, do his thing, show some wit, have his charm, and be done with it. Is the guy anywhere near spectacular? Hell to the no! But in a movie like this, you need something that keeps you going, and he was exactly that for me in this movie. No wonder why the guy hasn’t really been given center field ever since this, but it’s a damn shame because the guy handled the pressure well. It’s everybody else who screwed him over.
No matter what crap he shows up in, Samuel L. Jackson is always the best part of it all. He’s always loud, crazy, yelling, and finding ways to have fun, even if he is the only one but even his performance here as the Octopus felt like he was parodying himself in a Funny or Die video. Not only is the Octopus a shitty villain to begin with, but this guy is literally all-over-the-place in terms of if he’s trying to be goofy, scary, intimidating, or even worth the fight at all. One second, he’s beating the crap out of the Spirit with a toilet, then the next second, he’s dressed-up as a Nazi talking about lord only knows what. It’s strange to see Jackson in such a role like this and have it not work, considering that he is usually the most entertaining aspect of any movie. ANY MOVIE.
But enough of the man meat, what about the ladies?!? Well, they are probably even worse and that’s not a rift against of their acting-abilities at all, it’s just the hands that they were dealt. Eva Mendes plays the Spirit’s old-squeeze who shows up looking all hot, sexy, and bad-ass, and does nothing with it at all. I mean, she shows her back-side once but if that’s all you got going for you in a role, then you’ve got major problemos. Scarlett Johansson seems like she should have been having the time of her life as the Octopus’ side-kick, Silken Floss, and she might have very well been, but we would have never known since she dead-pans to the point of near-boredom. And I’m talking on her part, not mine, even though, once again, she could have easily been having a ball with this role. Then, sadly, there’s Sarah Paulson as the Spirit’s current gal-pal, Ellen Dolan, the nurse with a heart of gold and the leniency of a nun, and does nothing at all with this character. Sad to say, too, because I love this girl in almost all she pops up in.
The reason why I’m paying so much attention to the cast, right off the bat, is because the main problem with this movie lies solely with them. Not their performances (even if they do suck), it’s more that the script has nothing go for it. It’s not fun, it’s not entertaining, and terribly disjointed. I never knew if whether or not this movie was trying to be funny, tongue-in-cheek, or just a serious, superhero movie with action. Very, small amounts of action. I never knew what the hell Frank Miller was trying to do and from the looks of it: neither did he.
Nawh I ain’t saying she a gold digger…but she sort of is.
Is it purrty as hell? Damn straight, but it only goes so far as to seem like a distraction to people who care about more meaningful things like plot, character-development, and action. None of that is here and even when it attempts at tackling anything like that; Miller and Co. miss terribly. It was a boring as hell experience that I remember so fondly for boring me to near-tears when I saw it all those years ago as a young guy, and still sucks all of these years later. Whether or not this review will make you want to see it yourself and take out of it what you can, is totally up to you, yourself, and you (I know: close, but no cigar). However, if I am going to advise anything: stay away from this movie. If one of your hardcore, nerdy friends say it was rad, kick them in the ass, slap them ion the face, or do something that has them wake up, smell the roses, and realize that their asses are wrong. DEAD WRONG!!!
Consensus: The Spirit is one of those movies that seems like on-paper, it would have been bucket-loads of fun, but is nowhere near that with a dry-personality, performances from a talented cast that seems as if they are lost in the whirlwind of a storm of confusion, and nothing really fun, exciting, or remotely interesting to stick around for. Just see it for the kitty and let that’d be it.
1 / 10 = Crapola!!
Pictured: the editing room.
For Colored Girls (2010)
Never thought I’d say this, but I needed Madea.
Being a woman can be hard, but being an African American woman living in New York City, can be even worse. We get a glimpse at nine different stories as we see them through the eyes of women who need love, feel love, feel pain, need pain, and just want to be accepted in a world that’s tearing them down. If you’re a member of the KKK, you may not want to see this, because it’s all black, ALL THE TIME, with little to no white in sight. But then again, you’d expect that coming from Tyler Perry.
No matter how much you may hate his Madea movies, or the fact that he hasn’t contributed any type of positive aspect to the world we live in, you still have to give Tyler Perry credit for keeping the black spirit alive and well, especially in today’s day and age where it almost seems like it can be made a mockery of sometimes. That’s why it seemed like a very, very ambitious step for Perry to take, and go on about adapting the 1975 play that apparently ever black women, man, or child lauded, even till this day. Ambitious is exactly what it was for Mr. Perry, and it was the ambition, the skill, or anything else for that matter, that he could handle. That’s right, folks. This here is a train wreck.
I’ve never seen the original-play, but I can already tell that it was made for the stage, and meant to stay there as well. Whatever the hell that Perry added to the mix of this movie, does not work a single bit and comes off like the guy’s trying too hard to get his point across, without surprising us or even being subtle about it. Literally, characters will be talking about their problems, and then start breaking-out into long, 5 minute metaphorical speeches about how they can’t handle being a woman, and letting the men take them down. Maybe for people that actually go through these types of problems on a day-to-day basis can relate and in a way, can have this material touch them, but even for a person like that, I don’t think this is going to work since it all seems so unbelievable.
She can see the light, and it signifies a better movie.
The dialogue can be okay at times, especially when they are discussing real-life problems that all women go through everyday, not just black women, but it doesn’t get any deeper than that. It all plays out as if it was a daytime soap opera that you caught your mom or your secretly gay brother watching, and what’s even worse about that is that Perry never seems to get the hint to tone things down a notch. Nope, instead, he continues to have everybody scream, holler, yell, piss, moan, and practically beat the shit out of one another, only to show that they are angry as hell, and ain’t gonna take it anymore. Once again, maybe to some this may work and really connect with them, but I highly doubt it since Perry seems way out-of-his-league here, and that’s really saying a lot.
If anything, I have to give kudos to Perry for at least trying and being able to show us the side of black women that most of us need to see, but it actually begins to feel like the type of movie that I talked about earlier, in the way that it almost does more harm than good for the people it’s supposed to reach out towards. For instance, almost every women in this movie has a yelling scene where they can’t control their emotions, and just feel the need to let loose on one another for whatever reason they may have. That’s fine and all, but EVERYBODY at least has one or two of those scenes, and it doesn’t depict them as real-life people, it depicts them as a bunch of annoying women you can’t stand to be around, let alone be married to.
I can’t lie though, some sad shit actually does happen to most of these ladies, and I can’t say that I don’t blame them for being the least bit upset about what happens, but it gets to a point of where it’s almost as contrived as the dawnest day, where everything bad, happens for a reason. There’s always a problem with one of these women, and they always, no matter what, seem to bring it out on the others around them. Yeah, some of them are dealt a bad card and have people that treat them like crap, but the fact that they can never seem to hold their emotions and just love the one’s they’re with, doesn’t humanize them in the least bit, it just makes them seem shallow. You don’t really care for much of these women, although you do share their sympathies because like you, they are human, they have feelings, and they do have problems. However, they are problems that don’t feel genuine and coming from Tyler Perry: that’s saying a fuck load.
The only area this film comes even close to succeeding in are the performances, but once again: that’s not saying much. The problem with most of these performances, is that some are actually VERY GOOD, whereas others, are just TERRIBLY BAD. One of the performances from the first-category that I thought was worth mentioning was Janet Jackson as the upper-class wife, who owns and runs a fashion magazine, but also has problems running and owning her hubby who’s up to no good (as usual). Jackson has never really struck me as the type of gal that can act, but she does very, very well here showing us that she can be a total bitch, but also allow us to sympathize with her as well. It’s not easy, but by the end, you definitely feel like you got the full round-about of who this character is, and what she stands for in life. Other’s that do knock-out jobs with their roles are Loretta Devine as a woman who can’t seem to get control of her already-married boy-toy; Michael Ealy who does over-do it sometimes, but still keeps it grounded in-reality as one of the hubby’s that’s a bit out of control (sarcasm intended for the term “a bit”); and Phylicia Rashad as Gilda, the wise, black women who knows it all, and always love to tell others about everything she knows, even if they don’t want to hear it.
“AWWWWW HELL NO, BEEEITCH!! YO ASS AIN’T OUT-ACTING ME!!!”
Then, we get to the second category, and that’s when things really start to run off the trail. One of the worst performances in this movie, and one that I’ve seen in awhile, is Whoopi Goldberg as the religious mother of two girls, that seems to love her religion and everything she stands for, but is wacko beyond belief. Goldberg is an Oscar winner, but none of that ever shows in this movie, because she is absolutely, freakin’ crazy, and not in the good way either. She’s always screaming about Jesus, the righteous way of living, and how to see the Lord through your eyes, but is always going about it by yelling at people, and sometimes hitting them. It would have been fine if she at least toned it down a bit, but Goldberg goes full wack-job on us and it’s as hilarious to watch, as it is compelling. After all of these years of sitting her boothang on that couch from the View, I think Whoopi got a bit rusty. And if that’s the case, then just stay the hell away from movies.
Others in the cast aren’t as bad as Whoopi, but they aren’t good either. Thandie Newton comes into a close-second by almost out-acting Whoopie, and the funny thing is that Newton is playing Whoopi’s daughter, that always has a man in her bed, and can never be real with anybody. Newton is usually a solid actress in whatever shit-pile she is in, but here, she over-does it, almost to the point of where she seems like a caricature of that ghetto, slut-gal that most women frown-upon. In fact, this is probably the only character that never learns a single thing throughout the whole damn movie, and instead, just seems like she’s going to continue to whore-around, fuck whoever she wants to fuck, and maybe, just maybe, end up with a little person in the pit of her stomach, along with a beautiful-case of AIDS. Also, shame on this movie for giving a talented and beautiful actress like Kerry Washington, nothing else to do but piss and moan about how she can’t have a baby. Seriously, just go to the freakin’ orphanage, pick up a Indonesian baby, and put a smile on. Brangelina did it, and look at them.
Consensus: Tyler Perry deserves a small-amount of kudos for trying to really break out of his shell, and go for the gut when it came to adapting a classic-play like For Colored Girls, but deserves no credit for the job that he actually pulled-off. It’s laughable, stupid, shallow, does nothing for the group of people it’s speaking for, and even worse, makes you feel like all of these talented-actresses that took this material, were a little too busy to take any roles in Precious, so instead, decided to go with a shit-ass script and movie like this. Shame on all of you, especially you, Mr. Perry.
1.5 / 10 = Crapola!!
“Come on girls, we gotta stick together and hope our careers don’t all end at the same time.”
Safe Haven (2013)
Seriously, somebody send the zombie apocalypse to Nicholas Sparks house.
Julianne Hough stars as a reclusive young woman who arrives in a small North Carolina community. She has a secret kept inside of her but soon, she gains the courage to start a relationship with Alex (Josh Duhamel), a widowed store owner with two young children. However, that secret of her’s comes back to cause some real, real trouble. Oh dear, I just hope they end-up together at the end! I sincerely do!
Typically, in a normal-year where everything goes smoothly (except for 2012 when we all died, right?) we usually get the privilege of taking whatever loved-one’s we have with us at the time out to either a dinner, a movie, or a combination of the both. And then, for the lucky ones especially, you go home, and you get it on with that loved-one, all to the sweet and glorious tune of Marvin Gaye. Oh, by the way, this the special day we all call “Valentine’s Day” and like this (*cough* Hallmark *cough*) holiday that only comes once a year, we also get treated to a new Nicholas Sparks adaptation that just makes the girls swoon, the men dream of what could possibly happen when they go home tonight, and the critics just want to pluck their eye-balls out with forks. Oh, what a special day for all of us indeed.
When you see a movie like this, you know what you have to be getting yourself into. A bunch of romantic fantasies posing as characters, somehow meet, fall in-love, but find the hard consequences that usually come-along with finding that special someone in your life. That’s pretty much the same-shit here, except this time, Nicholas Sparks is really stepping out of his comfort-zone. Do you know why? Because now, instead of having a sappy romance blossom, there’s actually a mystery behind one of these characters and the suspense just gets to you as you have no clue what’s going to happen next. Are they going to fall in love? Will that one person get caught? Are they going to survive? Does anybody have a life-threatening disease? Fuck, does anybody care?!?!?
Put a shirt on, Josh! Don’t you have some chick named Fergie to go back to?
I get that this movie is calling-out my name and begging me to come and see it because let’s be honest: I’m 19-years-old, I’m a dude, I’m single (ladies?), I’m a movie-critic, and I hate sap. So, basically, this movie is not meant for me. However, for the crowd that it is for, I know are going to eat this shit up because it has everything they might possibly want with material like this, except even more than they can chew. Does that make it any good? Hell no! But that’s just me talking. The crowd that will probably venture-out to see it and the boyfriends that get forced by their lady-friends, will enjoy it and have no problems. But I’m not them, and that’s where this movie lost me.
Every time I see these types of movies, I always try to go into them with a bit of skepticism, but I also try to expect just a bit more and hope that it could quite possibly be the sleeper I’ve been looking for all of my life. About 20-minutes in, I knew that this movie was not one of those sleepers I have been waiting for, but at least it’s pretty. Even though director Lasse Hallstrom really seems to be on auto-pilot here and not doing anything to improve this story in the least-bit, at least he still shows that he has a flair for beautiful-scenery that fades-in the background nicely with all of the crap going on with the script and acting. Yeah, it’s a pretty gorgeous-looking movie, but you can only stare at the background so much. Eventually you got to pay attention to the story and see what the filmmaker has to offer to ya, and that’s the real pain this movie inflicts on you.
Almost anything and everything you expect to happen in one of these movies: happens. But what makes this movie worse than all of the others, is that it tries so hard to be suspenseful and tense with it’s cop-mystery subplot, but just ends up being terribly over-the-top, and outrageous. I’m glad that Sparks at least tried his darn-near hardest to give me something more to chew-on than just watching a bunch of a really good-looking people fall-in love and play with my hand-cream, but this is terrible. It’s so stupid and unintentionally hilarious, that even the people I was with started laughing at. And they were all 18/19-year-old girls, aka, the demographic for this shit. Something tells me this movie won’t be able to slide-by like all of the other failures to cinema in the past have, but I haven’t even touched base just yet. Oh no, no, no. It gets worse, my friends and family.
The movie tries so damn hard to have us tense, to have on-the-edge-of-our-seat, and to have us so surprised by what we are about to see, that it doesn’t have just one plot-twist by the end, but two. Even though I’m tempted to, I have morals and I won’t spoil the twists for you people out-there who are just quivering with excitement for thing, but let me just tell you that the first one is absurd and could almost be taken as a joke. Then again, that twist doesn’t mean jack-shit compared to the second, and final twist that this flick decides to long-dart at us with full-force. Seriously, I want to give it all away and just save you from the pain and agony of seeing this shit, but it’s bad. It’s so stupid, so insane, and so nonsensical, that I left the theater with a huge smile on my face, yucking all-over-the-place. Hey, the whole movie may have been shit, but at least I left with a wider-smile than half of the other people I saw this with. So, in the end, I guess I do win, after all.
Tip over! TIP OVER!
Aw, who the hell am I kidding! I fucking lost, and so did Julianne Hough and Josh Duhamel! I have to be honest, Hough was okay as this runaway gal that tries to find herself and find love in a new, but small town. The reason being: she’s pretty, has charm, and looks sexy as hell when she’s in her bikini. For the dudes, it’s a treat on the eyes, but then there’s Josh Duhamel to ruin everything with his non-stop, shirtless body that makes it’s own appearance about every 5-minutes. I’ve never been a fan of Duhamel, as I’ve always felt like he was just trying too hard to be cool, funny, or the guy every dude wants to be, but he just isn’t. Instead, he’s sort of a d-bag that knows he’s hot shit, and more like the type of guy you let sit at the bar, try to hit on bitties, all in hopes to get lucky by the end of the night. The difference between Duhamel and the imaginary-dude I’m talking about, is that Duhamel probably gets the bitties, whereas that dude is just left at the end of the bar, at the end of the night, and staggers home drunk and all alone. And no, I’m not talking about myself. I get all the ladies I want. So fuck you, Josh Duhamel!
Consensus: For the audience that Safe Haven has in mind, this will probably be the next best masterpiece since the days of Hanks-and-Ryan. However, if you aren’t that audience and actually want a meaty-story that you believe in and are entertained by, then just stay home, watch the Notebook, and dream of one day being the man that Ryan Gosling is and always will be. That, or just jerk-off. The choice is up to you.
1 / 10 = Crapola!!
Hmm, where I have seen this before….? Hint: scroll up
Movie 43 (2013)
Not all celebrities are prudes. Only the ones with Oscars are.
The central story is about how a deranged writer (Dennis Quaid) forces a studio executive (Greg Kinnear) to make his movie. But before any moves actually take place on it, we get to see what the actual-product is as the writer reads it out to us and the executive. Basically, it’s just one dude’s shitty idea, all for us to see and cringe at. Yay!
Sketch-comedies never seem to work, that is, unless you just so happen to be drunk, horny, wild, and ready for a good-time. However, I don’t think it will matter if you’re any of those things: you may never, ever enjoy this movie. Okay, maybe if you’re 12-years-old, and love to hear the word “balls” in almost every sentence then yes, you might just have a freakin’ ball with this thing. But if you are above that age-limit in anyway, shape, or form, this is going to be one cringe-inducing trip for you. Whether you like it or not. I’m going to guess your most likely to side with the latter.
Any movie can tell a ball, poop, or fart joke like it’s nobody’s business, but it’s all how you do it and literally; this film just cannot do it in the right way where you laugh, chuckle, or even get that they just made the joke. Almost every single skit in this movie has at least one use of the word “ball” or “shit” and it gets annoying, probably around the time the first skit kicks-in and you realize that you’re going to be tormented to the core of your stomach, with non-stop raunch jokes that do nothing. Apparently, everybody who ever worked on this movie, all thought that the idea of somebody having a certain bodily-fluid sprayed all-over-their-face was downright, hilarious and it’s a huge-shocker that it never dawned on any of these people that maybe, just maybe, the type of material that they are working with, just isn’t funny enough to suit a 6-to-7-minute sketch, let alone a whole movie full of ‘em.
“Today’s lesson is, “How to NOT choose shitty movies like this”.
And also, the idea of having a movie so chock-full of sketches where big-named stars just demean themselves to the lowest, common denominator, almost seems so old-school, it’s not even worth it paying the money to go out and seeing. I mean, you can probably go onto Funny or Die, College Humor, Cracked, or even YouTube for that matter, find big-celebrities, doing some crazy shite for laughs, and actually having there be; ACTUAL LAUGHS. Here, in this movie where it’s just one, long presentation of a bunch, you get probably one-or-two laughs and that is literally all because the jokes that they use in the film that are actually funny, were already used 100-times before in all of the trailers/commercials we have either seen or heard, 100 times before. Going out to see this movie is already a crime, but actually going out to pay for it, is like a freakin’ cardinal sin. Especially when you know that more-quality humor is laying right there for you, at your fingertips.
Even if the delivery is god-awful, at least some of the placement is okay. For instance, some skits actually seem to have some promise like the one where Robin (Justin Long) actually stands up for himself and gets involved with a Superhero speed-dating event, where other, actual superheroes show-up to mingle and hopefully, get laid. This idea seems like it’s planned to be a butt-load of fun, especially if that idea came from Joss Whedon, but sadly, it comes from the makers of this shit-pile and before you could say the word, “kryptonite”, the sketch has already lost itself in saying the word “bush” or “shit”, one way too many times. I mean, when you got Wonder Woman and Batman talking to each other about how they fucked and it never amounted to anything but Batman running-away and never calling again, you would expect non-stop hilarity, right? But nope, instead it’s all about having Robin still be played-out as the softer, gayer-one of the two and if you didn’t think that joke was over-played by now, trust me, just wait for the rest of the movie.
However, without the promise of an interesting-idea, most skits just fall from grace, right from the very start. The skit where Johnny Knoxville and Seann William Scott both find and capture a leprechaun (played by Gerard Butler, in CGI-form), in hopes to get some gold, starts off pretty bad. Apparently the director, Brett Ratner (in case you haven’t been surprised yet), thought that the idea of having a leprechaun spew-out a bunch of dirty words was funny enough to last a whole sketch, especially one where it seemed like it’s main actors would actually sparkle in. Sadly, they just don’t do anything for the sketch, or the movie itself and the way it all ends is so dark and savage-like, that it really left me with a bad-taste in my mouth, which is very shocking since the rest of the film just couldn’t. I want to spoil the ending of that sketch for you so you understand what I’m blabbering all about, but sadly, I am a critic and I have morals, people. But still, don’t see this movie because I won’t spoil it for you.
“No, I’M in this movie?!?!”
The idea of having all of these different stars being packed into one movie where all they do is completely raunchy and dirty shit (sometimes literally), may make them seem cool and on-the-edge, but in reality: it’s just a poor-decision. I guess it’s really strange to see heavyweights like Kate Winslet and Hugh Jackman in a skit about a dude with balls on his neck, or a skit with Liev Schreiber and Naomi Watts playing parents of a home-schooled kid that give him the full, high-school experience with sex, drugs, abuse and all, but it’s even stranger to see peeps like them actually stoop themselves so low as to actually make this material work. I don’t know if they knew this right from the initial script-read, but this is terrible-material they are working with here so instead of giving it their all and actually going to town with whatever energy or sense of purpose they can muster-up to make this work, they seem almost as if they forcing it out, almost like a kidney stone (and yes, it is THAT painful to watch). Nobody here really out-shines the other and probably the only person that really made me laugh and surprised the hell out of me from this whole cast was Will Sasso, who shows-up, does his thing, reminds us that he is still alive, and actually made me laugh. I was terribly and utterly surprised, but he was the real spectacle to see for me. Everybody else can suck my nut because I hated this shit, and I hated watching them try to act in it!
Consensus: Do not, I repeat, DO NOT let the star-studded cast fool you, Movie 43 is one hell of a bombshell that begins on a lame-note and ends on an even-worse one that makes you feel like you’ve just been hit over-the-head with somebody’s foreign parts, and not in the fun, or pleasureful way, either. It’s the type of way that disturbs you and scars you for life. That is, until you see an equally as bad movie and that’s, going to be very hard to come by for some time I think.
1 / 10 = Crapola!!
Poor Gerard Butler. This is probably his worst movie to-date.
Playing for Keeps (2012)
All the single, hot-to-trot mothers can never keep those hormones in-tact whenever that Scottish accent comes through. Oh, roar!
A former professional soccer player (Gerard Butler) with a weak past tries to redeem himself by coaching his son’s soccer team, only to find himself unable to resist when in scoring position with his players’ restless and gorgeous moms.
Alright, before all of you get your torches and brooms and come right to my door-step and try to burn the witch that has apparently taken over my movie-viewing control, let me just tell you that the decision to not only watch, but review this movie, was all mine. Yes, nobody other me, myself, and I chose to watch and review Playing for Keeps and because of that, I have come to terms with myself and just realized one thing: I am a fucking idiot. Yes, I am a lot happier now that I’ve realized that about myself. Thanks Gerard Butler!
“Hahaha but seriously! How many how more of these lame-ass rom-coms do I have to do?”
I have no idea where to begin with this piece of shit other than to just focus on the director, Gabriele Muccino, and just what the hell was going-on throughout his mind during filming. This movie tries to be one-step above the rom-com genre by infusing the thrill and fun of the sport of soccer into it, but really, it’s just the same old shite we have all seen before. Dad tries to pick himself back-up from nothing, does a very good job at doing so for quite awhile, finds himself in a dilemma, finds himself back into nothing, and then, low and behold, he’s back on-top and everybody is happy, running around in fields of daisies and rainbows. Okay, maybe I just gave away the whole movie there and maybe, just maybe, that isn’t exactly what happens but seriously, if you get pissed about how the whole movie was just spoiled in one sentence and you had no idea what was going to happen, then you, my friend, should not even read my site anymore, let alone watch movies.
This movie, is as obvious, predictable, and conventional as they come, but it’s even worse because it’s so damn dull. There’s nothing new here, there’s nothing fun to really watch here, and worst of all, there’s just nothing to stick-around and watch. You watch these characters just do their thang, act like you’d expect them to, and to have absolutely no effect on you, your life, or your thoughts whatsoever. It’s almost like you’ve never seen this movie and coming from a guy who actually did waste his precious time and life seeing it: you’re probably better off that way. In case you couldn’t tell by now, this movie fucking blows and if you want to see more as to why that is, continue to read-on but if you get the point and want to just get on with your life, then leave this site and come back tomorrow when I have another review of another movie coming up. Trust me, I won’t be offended, I’ll actually commend you for doing-so.
Ever since the new millennium hit, they had absolutely nothing to clap about. So, why the hell are they?!?
The biggest question-mark going-on in my mind throughout this whole flick was: who’s wife did Gerard Butler fuck? Honestly, Butler must have done something terribly inhumane to some higher-up in Hollywood, because it seems like they just place him in these movies, regardless of what it is, tell him what to do, tell him to use no emotion whatsoever, and just act like you don’t really care if you’re there or not, just accept the check and be done with it. I don’t know if he cut a deal with somebody where he has to do shitty-movie-after-shitty-movie to lose the price on his head, but whatever it may be, the guy’s got it bad and what’s even worse, is that he does nothing to help this movie out in the least bit.
Butler is as dull and boring as they come and the whole time I wondered just what the hell made him so much more different from any other male-lead in these rom-coms that come-out once a week? Is it the facial hair? Is it the sexy build that has somehow decreased year-after-year since 300? Or simply, is it the Scottish accent that seems to get every gal’s panties to fly-off into the mist? I think it’s the latter and that’s a shame too, because after seeing a movie like Coriolanus and realizing that this guy kicks total ass when he gets the chance to do so, just makes this movie, his role, and his performance all the more terrible and disappointing to watch. Come on, Hollywood! Give Gerard Butler another chance! I’m sure the guy is sorry for whatever the hell he did.
What’s even worse about this flick is the rest of the impressive cast that this movie has going for it, and how equally dull they all are. Jessica Biel plays Butler’s ex gal-pal that he has a kiddie with and as hot and sexy as she is here, she is also nothing more than just a piece of cardboard here with some dialogue she has to spring-out of her. Biel, just give up on acting and do porn or something and make yourself useful. Make us all happier and stop trying to take your career seriously because honestly, nobody does. Not even, dare I say it, Justin does.
“Remember me! I was in the Descendants last year! Please hire me again!”
As by-the-numbers Biel is, it isn’t much of a surprise since the girl blows in just about everything but actresses like Catherine Zeta-Jones, Judy Greer, and Uma Thurman!!?!?!? Aww, hell no! In the past decade, these girls have all given some of their best performances in their whole-careers and it’s such a damn shame to see them do a pile of shite like this, try their hardest, but in the end, just come-off as a bunch of obvious, walking cliches of a bunch of women that couldn’t keep their clothes on whenever some sexy, built Scottish man came strolling through their neck of the woods. It makes me very, very sad to see them all do this type of crap and what’s even worse, is that Dennis Quaid is here as well, and I don’t think I need to say anything more about that. Okay, I’m going to go and cry now.
Consensus: Playing for Keeps may have one redeeming factor to it: it’s fun to watch and make fun of if you’re reviewer like yours truly. However, if you aren’t, then you’ll probably find yourself cringing, upset, pissed-off, confused, and just plain and simply, bored with everything that occurs on-screen and wonder just when exactly you can begin to move on with your life and act as if you have never, ever seen this piece of shit. I already have, and I’m about to finish my last sentence of this review, right….about…..now! Yes!
1/10=Crapola!!
In case you wanted to actually know, those are their REAL heads, attached to their REAL necks. Convinced yet?
House at the End of the Street (2012)
Haaahaaa! Katniss still lives with her mommy!
Jennifer Lawrence plays a young woman (Lawrence) who moves with her mother (Elizabeth Shue) to their dream house in a rural community only to discover that the house next door was the location of a grizzly murder years before. A daughter killed her parents in their beds, and disappeared – leaving only a brother, Ryan (Max Thieriot), as the sole survivor.
Why oh why did I see this freakin’ movie?!? Oh wait, I know why. I see it for all of you, and for all of you to know that yes, I still do watch current movies, as shitty as they may be. And I do mean that: AS SHITTY AS THEY MAY BE.
Right from the start of this flick, I knew it was going to be shit. For some odd reason, director Mark Tonderai felt the need to add a whole bunch of weird/colorful effects onto some of these scenes where he’s almost yelling at us; “Hey, this is the part where you’re suppose to feel scared!”. Problem is, we don’t feel scared and the frenetic movements just didn’t do a single lick for me and made it look like I was watching a music-video. Seriously, one of these scenes takes place at a party where kids are drinking and doing kiddish-like things (total debauchery), and it’s weird because the camera does these nifty, little tricks with itself where it slows-up, then rewinds, and continues to keep-on going. This probably makes absolutely no sense to the readers who didn’t see this (and I urge you not to), but in other words: it seems like it came straight from an American Pie-music video. Yeah, pretty lame.
Even though Tonderai tries, he still cannot seem to get at all past the terrible script that seems a bit confused on what it actually sets out to be. What I mean about that is that the film is advertised as one, creepy, horror movie where the creepy neighbor somehow finds his way of doing some weird shit, to this new, innocent girl. Obviously that’s all predictable stuff, which is exactly what this flick is, but it’s worse because the film really isn’t a horror movie at all. Instead of the first 4 minutes and last 20 minutes, everything else is dedicated to this fluffy love story of a blossoming relationship between said creepy neighbor and new, innocent girl. I’m not a horror-lover, but if I went out to see this flick and realized that this was the shit I was getting, I would be flippin’ furious to see that half of the movie is just showing these two ladies (mother and daughter), try to get jumped already, even if they haven’t been in the town for no longer than 2 weeks.
Then, when the actual horror stuff comes in, it’s nothing new, exciting, or original for that matter. Hell, that could be said for this whole film, in general. There is absolutely no surprises whatsoever that come out of this story and it even borrows from other movies. Think of the creepy kid as a young, blonder version of Norman Bates, and think of the cave that Wild Bill put his victims in and that’s pretty much the same type of villain you’re working with here. However, as bad-ass and crazy as the mixture of Norman Bates and Wild Bill may sound, it does not play-out like that one-bit and everything this kid goes through is exactly what you would expect from a cheap, horror thriller, without any horror, or any thrilling moments whatsoever. Heck, even those jump-scares felt cheap and they usually work on me no matter what the horror film may be.
Speaking of the kid, poor Max Thieriot. I know that this kid doesn’t have the best track-record out there but at least he looks good, is versatile, and can make the best out of any shit that gets thrown at him. The problem is, this kid Ryan just seems like a total one-note weirdo that rubbed me the wrong way, the first time he showed his blue eyes on-screen. There’s a couple of neat-o twists with this character and how Thieriot plays him, but nothing too special to where you think, “Wowwwwww. That is something I have never seen done before, ever.” Didn’t think that once with this character, and come to think of it, didn’t think that once with this whole film.
The only reason why this film is getting a wide-release at all, and sadly, was numero uno at the box-office was all because of Jennifer Lawrence and the breakout star quality she has with her for now. Apparently, she did this film before Winter’s Bone and when that came out and garnered her an Oscar nomination, then of course they knew they had to try and get this film a release date, but then it got even better. X-Men: First Class and The Hunger Games both came out and catapulted her to total stardom and this is where the powers that be knew they had an opportunity on their hand, so why the eff not try and bring this out to the public, even if it does seem like straight-to-DVD shitola.
I can’t rag on Lawrence too much here since it’s obvious that this girl doesn’t want anything to do with this flick and knew she didn’t even want to when she was filming the film in general. She has the same emotion on her face the whole movie and when she starts to get scared and scream, it seems forced as if the director held out a twenty dollar bill and told her to scream. I don’t know what sick fuck would even think about that, let alone a movie director, but hey, she could have been desperate at that time and needed more added to her salary. Even poor (and possibly is since she’s doing this shit) Elisabeth Shue in this shit as her mommy, and makes me sad whenever I think about the fact that this woman has actually been nominated for an Oscar, and dammit, she should have won. It’s a sad, sad thought when you think about how her co-star in that movie, Nicolas Cage, is having a bigger and better career then she is.
Consensus: House at the End of the Street (aka, HATES, for all of your tweeters out there) is exactly what you would expect from a horror movie with a lame-ass title like this: no surprises, no scares, no fun, no nothing.
1.5/10=Crapola!!
The Apparition (2012)
If you think about it too much, you die anyway. So in reality, it doesn’t effin’ matter what you think about. The resolution is always the same.
This is the story of a couple (Ashley Greene and Sebastian Stan) who are haunted by a supernatural presence that is unleashed during a college experiment, and the fellow student (Tom Felton), who helps them out.
I know I didn’t want to see this movie (even though I did), but to be honest, it doesn’t seem like Warner Bros. wanted anyone to see, either. This has sat on the shelf for over two years, hasn’t had a single trailer or commercial ad that I have seen so far, and nobody has even asked me about it which is strange, since all of my lame-o friends seem to ask me what I think about a new horror movie coming out soon. What’s even weirder is that the film has been screened for only a couple of critics, for a screening that was to be held 4 hours before the film actually came-out. That really shocked me, except for when I actually saw the movie. Now all of the clues finally make sense. This movie, just plain and simply sucks.
This is the feature debut of writer/director Todd Lincoln and to be honest, I sort of feel bad for the dude. It seems like his vision has been tampered with so much because of this being in post-production for over 2 years and whatnot, but I can’t feel that bad since this movie is just god-awful. Honestly, if a horror film is not scary but at least has fun with itself, I’m fine with that, but when I get a horror film like this, that doesn’t even seem to try hard one bit in making us scared or to even have fun with itself, then I’m totally against it. The latter part is exactly what this film is and it doesn’t even seems like it tries at all. Nothing here scared, compelled, or even entertained me for it’s 77 minute time-limit. Instead, I just nodded off, thought about what I would do to save this movie and even went so far as to take out my phone and just text people, asking what they’re plans are for the night. I never do that when I’m in a movie theater, but seeing as this movie totally blew and I had only 2 other people in the lobby with me, I decided to go for it.
It’s sort of sad to see such a film like this not do anything with itself at all, because this film in particular, really seems like it gives up right from the start and just doesn’t even try to liven itself up with any cheap scares one bit. I hate jump-scares, but I don’t think there was one at all throughout this whole film and instead of that, we had slow-burning scenes where the camera would just linger up to the scene of scares, waiting for us to feel the effects of the tension. Problem was, there was absolutely no tension there whatsoever and it just made this flick a whole lot more boring. I think the most tense I was when watching this flick, was the previews that came before it and Taken 2 showed up. That trailer still gets me all of the time. Horror films, when they aren’t good, can be pretty boring, but never THIS boring. Seriously, I was just dozing off at points, whenever I wasn’t texting or day-dreaming and I don’t feel ashamed for it one bit.
Perhaps what makes this film even worse is that the cast does nothing else to keep us watching. Granted, they can’t really do anything with such a script like this unless it’s the likes of Meryl Streep or Marlon Brando acting in it, but they do nothing throughout this whole movie. Ashley Greene and Sebastian Stan play the dullest couple I have ever seen in a horror movie, let alone any movie, ever. They really do try but there is no chemistry between them, no sense made as to how the hell they barely talk about any of this bad stuff, and how they even make a living in this big house, when neither of them have heavy-paying jobs that they go to. What also surprised me was how Stan’s character in the beginning, is shown trying to conjurer up the dead, only to have his gal-pal at the time, mysteriously disappear and never to be heard from again, but once all of the freaky shit actually starts to happen, he’s the first to dismiss it as anything else. It’s almost as if the guy forgot he had a girlfriend that was taking by a ghost randomly. I mean plenty of my girlfriends in the past have gotten taken away from me due to ghosts, but I’ve never forgotten about it. Oh well, I guess they must have been going through a real rough patch at the time.
Then, there is Tom Felton who shows up for about 7 minutes throughout the whole movie and I actually wish, showed up more because he brings some excitement to a film that needed some for sure. Felton seems like a kid that can act, if he’s given the right script, but here, he’s given absolute dog shit but makes the best of it so I have to give him that credit. Sadly, he’s barely in the film which means it’s all up to Mr. Stan and Ms. Greene to hold out attention, and that is something they do not do a lick of.
Consensus: The Apparition was destined for disaster right from the start, and a disaster is what it is. With barely any scares, any excitement, any type of fun in this flick at all, we get what is essentially one of the most boring horror films out there, that seems like it should have never, ever been made, even if it was just for the dog days of August.
1/10=Crapola!!
The Babymakers (2012)
Men, save the juice for the women, stop beatin’ off. Problem solved.
Paul Schneider and Olivia Munn play a married couple hitting the three-year itch of whether or not to have children. The Mister is having some problems in the “lazy sperm” department, but thankfully he donated quite a bit of it years ago to help pay for the engagement ring. This means it’s only a matter of time until he goes after it, but the problem is, everything in this movie has to be stupid.
For all of you dudes out there who thought that Super Troopers and Beerfest was the end-all, be-all of comedy, then this one will be just the right token for you. And trust me, there are people out there who think so and will probably go miles and miles just to see this flick, which is a total shame because it’s probably one of the worst movies of the year and doesn’t deserved to be seen from a distance any longer than your bedroom, to your living room.
I do have to give credit to director Jay Chandrasekhar for at least trying to break-out of that Broken Lizard mold of movie-making and actually go for something different, but I can’t give too much since his effort seems terribly wasted on material that seemed like it had no life in the first place. The problem with this flick is pretty damn simple: it’s just not funny. Make no means about it, this film had me laugh once and that was at the most random part that I least expected it to get me at, but other than that, nothing else really worked. Now of course I could just end the review by saying that “this film was not funny” and be done with it all and never look back (trust me, my life wouldn’t change) but you good people out there are probably reading this, wondering just what is to be said about this highly-anticipated flick. Well, thanks for allowing me to go over the misery once again.
Lizard‘s type of humor is all about being dumb, embracing the idea of dumbness, and trying to make every situation, no matter how interesting or non-interesting it may be, dumb. That’s all there is to this flick, really. It’s just dumb for the sake of being dumb and there’s nothing else really going on here other than that and to top it all off, fart and sex jokes are also showing up as well. This film seems like it’s trying very hard to make me laugh but every single piece of comedy is totally predictable and even when it isn’t, it doesn’t matter because you could really care less about the comedy itself. It’s almost non-existent, really, and I couldn’t help but doze off a couple of well, say, 15 times. However, that wasn’t as bad compared to the other peeps I was at the screening with because believe it or not, somebody actually just walked out in the middle of it. Don’t know why I didn’t think of that when I was there. Oh wait, that’s right! I was freakin’ asleep because this movie bored me to utter death!
One of the most striking and unusual elements about this flick is how Paul Schneider actually left Parks and Recreation, to focus on his film-career instead, and by doing so, we get this piece of garbage. Great move, dude! Schneider has good comedic timing when he’s playing these restrained, awkward character types like he does everywhere he appears in but he seems to be really out of hi element here with the comedy he’s handed. He’s supposed to curse up a storm like a truck-driver, he’s supposed to do plenty of physical acts of comedy, and he’s supposed to be a likable guy that still wants to settle down with his wifey and have a couple of kiddies. Not for once did I believe this dude with anything that he does here in this film and it’s a little obvious that Schneider seems to be going for the Paul Rudd-type of a character, but fails in doing so. Schneider should just go back to Parks and if not, at least choose way better roles in way better films than this hunk of crap.
Even if I’m not quite yet sold on whatever it is everybody seems to have a problem with, Olivia Munn actually seems to really try her hardest with this material even though there isn’t much given to her in the first place, after all. Also, how many freakin’ times did this gal just have to smile in order for it to make it seem like she was one, big peach of a wife to have around!?! God, the things that annoy me! Since this is, essentially, a buddy movie, most of the film’s scenes are dedicated to Schneider’s interaction with dumb-asses, Jay Chandrasekhar and Kevin Heffernan. In past outings with these guys, I’ve actually came to find them very funny with their great sense of comedic-timing, always still in-play, but here, they’re just annoying and made me want to leave even more than I did in the first 15 minutes. Honestly, if this film made me want to do anything, anything at all, it was make me want to watch more Parks, Super Troopers, and actually check out more sexy-pics of Munn. Thankfully, I did all three right after this movie was over and if there is anything really positive about this movie at all, it’s just that.
Consensus: The Babymakers fails in almost every single which way imaginable: not funny as hard as it tries, features dumb characters that annoy every viewer, performances that don’t do much to elevate this already shit material, and a bunch of predictable pieces of comedy, that never worked, except for that one, rare moment. Goddamn!
1/10=Crapola With Sperm!!
Step Up Revolution (2012)
You know the world’s gone to shit when these movies are having their own Occupy Movement.
In this 4th, and hopefully, final chapter of the Step Up series, childhood friends Sean (Ryan Guzman) and Eddy (Misha Gabriel) work as waiters at Miami Beach’s posh Dimont Hotel, owned by ruthless developer Bill Anderson (Peter Gallagher). But in their off‐duty hours, the duo leads a renegade crew known as “The Mob,” a group of cutting‐edge dancers that somehow find their ways of being tangle with Anderson’s daughter Emily (Kathryn McCormick), a very gifted dancer in her own right.
In all honesty, I don’t know if I was under the influence of some insane-o drugs, just got laid an hour beforehand, or AMC spiked my popcorn with some crazy butter, but I actually enjoyed the last Step Up flick, Step Up 3D. So I think that’s why I went into this flick with the same expectations I had with that one: some cool dancing, great use of 3D, and a terrible story. Problem is, except for the latter, this film didn’t have any of that.
Now, when you go into a film like this you can’t really expect there to be anything new or original that you haven’t seen before when it comes to it’s story, but you have to expect that when it comes to the one element that these movies are mostly known for: it’s dancing. The dancing, at times, can look pretty cool but the 3D is not used very well and even the dances themselves, just come off as totally random and annoying by how tight some of the dance moves these people perform look. Yeah, there’s some cool things to look at here and there, (a dance sequence in a National Arts Museum was a stand-out in my opinion), but nothing that got me going “oh shiiiiiit, look at that right there!!”. I said that plenty of times with the last film and found a lot of the dances to be just straight-up, dance-battles, but everything he was just stupid flash-mobs that I get bored of watching on YouTube after the first minute.
Director Scott Speer is making his feature-film debut after doing a whole bunch of music videos and I’m really starting to wonder what his favorite type of music even is. The reason I ask that is because all of the tracks here are that annoying and loud, dubstep shit that I know is so freakin’ popular amongst the young lings out there, but it just kept bothering me every time these characters dance to it. The music should have just been straight-up, classy hip-hop that would have everybody in the theater dancing but when you depend on tracks from the likes of Skrillex, Ricky Luna, and Nick Thayer to do so, you can’t really expect much of a movement from the crowd. Maybe if they were giving out free Ecstasy at my screening, then it would have been a different story but sadly, that wasn’t the case.
And of course, the real reason why this flick sucks so terribly bad, is mainly because of the shitty script. Yeah, the scripts for these types of movies aren’t really supposed to be any type of Oscar-winning material that has me re-thinking my life, days after I’ve seen it but the lines here are so terribly cheesy, that almost everybody in the theater (including myself) just scoffed at. There was this one line that was probably in the trailer but it went along the lines of “Enough with performance art, it’s time for protest art”. Haha yes, I am dead serious. That is actually one of the lines in this Step Up movie that just goes to show you that even these guys can make their own type of Occupy movement. Even if that Occupy movement is just all about them dancing around in colorful sequences.
The cast, as you would expect, don’t really do much either. Ryan Guzman seems like he has a likable charm to him somewhere underneath all of those sexy-ass dance moves, but we never find them at all here because he’s just a cardboard cut-out of what the director probably thought was the next Channing Tatum. Speaking of Tatum, he probably would have made this movie so much better just by him showing up and doing a little dance, but yes, even he is too good for this kind of material. Kathryn McCormick is very good-looking and also has some sexy dance moves as Emily, but she’s just as bland as her co-star, which makes them a pretty painful pair to watch. Peter Gallagher plays up the role of strangely corrupt daddy here very well, but seriously, why the hell did he ever choose this piece of garbage? Those eye-brows may be menacing, even still to this day, but he’s in the wrong film to utilize them to his advantage.
Consensus: Bland, corny, boring, and painful to watch at times, Step Up Revolution may be the worst of the Step Up series, which in it’s own right, really isn’t saying much but that doesn’t make it any better in it’s own right.
1.5/10=Crapola With A Beat!!
Piranha 3DD (2012)
Piranha’s just aren’t cool. Face it.
There’s something in the water again. And this time no one is safe from the flesh eating fish as they sink their razor sharp teeth into the visitors of the best summer attraction, The Big Wet Water Park.
Even though it has its haters, Piranha 3D was still a fun movie because it didn’t take itself too seriously, was gory as hell, and had a lot of unabashed fun to it that made it worth watching (especially if you’re buddies one night and looking for entertainment and you have no beer). However, they should have just left it that and stayed away from more Piranha’s cause honestly, who the hell cares?
This is the first flick to ever come out in theaters and Video-On-Demand at the same time, but if you want to save your money and not hate everything about yourself, just stay at home and not bother watching it. First of all, director John Gulager doesn’t do shit here with this promising premise, or anything else he has at his display either. The film looked as if it had no budget whatsoever, and half of the sets/effects are used from the first movie (pretty freakin’ obvious, too); all of the energy that the first one had, is lost in this sequel because it doesn’t even feel like these guys made this movie with the word “fun” in mind, they just tried to cash in on the “Piranha” name; and the scares just weren’t here at all. I know that these types of films aren’t really depending on being scary, but there wasn’t even a single “boo” moment to get me through here and there. Everything just sort of happened with no care whatsoever.
Also, the writing was just freakin’ terrible. The first flick had bits of humor here and there, but this film barely had any which really disappointed me because when you have a plot filled with piranha’s, water, boobs, and gore, you should be gettin’ a laugh-out-loud riot like the first. Instead, you just get some shit that tries hard as hell to be funny with it’s “look at me being quirky and weird” fashion, and ends up not even bringing a chuckle out of me once. Then again, humor is subjective so maybe you’ll find a lot more to laugh at than my sorry-ass did.
Anybody that’s going to see this film (or staying home to watch this, what I suggest more) knows that there’s going to be plenty of boobs and blood. Actually, that’s exactly what you get and I can say that the film does deliver on that promise but not with the same intensity as the first. The memorable sequence in the first one where all of the piranha’s come into invade the lake, killing and ripping to sheds, thousands and thousands of people was a freakin’ awesome scene and is sort of here too, but not with the same kinetic or creative energy as that one. It was just boring, with blood and gore that seemed too tame for a sequel like this, and the naked chicks weren’t even hot. They were just crass, and even though that’s not a bad thing for some people, for me, it just should have been placed better.
If there is anything that’s one bit of a redeeming quality for this flick, it’s David Hasselhoff playing the one character he plays to perfection: David Hasselhoff. Hasselhoff’s extended-cameo is actually pretty funny but definitely not used in the right way. It almost seemed like the film didn’t know what to do with him so they just stuck a bunch of Baywatch-like scenes in there and made it seem like they were doing something so funny and collective with him. It’s weird, he’s easily the best thing in this movie but he is also the most disappointing aspect of it as well. Don’t Hassle the Hoff, especially when you put him in a piece of shit like this.
As for the rest of the cast, they all try their hardest but nobody can really get past the paper-thin characters here. Katrina Bowden and Danielle Panabaker were nice ladies to look at, but ultimately, just seemed terribly bland; David Koechner usually can make me laugh in anything he does, but didn’t have me chuckle once at him; and Ving Rhames shows up to give this film a spark of energy and fun that it needed, but is also just another reminder as to how and why the first flick was so much better and so much fun in the first place. Also, be on the look-out for a Gary Busey cameo that sucks. Honestly, how the hell can you mess up a Gary Busey cameo!?!?
Consensus: Piranha 3DD tries it hardest to be like the first, but is unoriginal, unimaginative, has no sense of what’s funny or what humor is, features plenty of boobs and gore but not as much as it should, and is a sequel that doesn’t do anything other than try to cash-in on the “Piranha” name. Fuck this shit.
1/10=Total and Utter Crap!!!
The Lucky One (2012)
It’s a Nicholas Sparks adaptation. There’s nothing else that needs to be known.
The story centers on Sergeant Logan Thibault (Zac Efron), a US Marine who finds a photograph of an unknown woman Beth (Taylor Schilling) in Iraq and credits it for saving his life in combat. He vows to find her once he returns to America and eventually does nothing less than stalk her while taking a job at her family-run local kennel. Great way to get the babes.
Basically everybody knows what to expect here that can be seen in plenty of other Nicholas Spark’s adaptations that have come out in recent years such as ‘Message in a Bottle’, ‘The Notebook’, ‘Dear John’, ‘The Last Song’, and plenty others. All of those (with the exception of one, I’ll let you guess which one) are very bad and pretty much the same exact thing. This is another one that can be added to that stupid list that needs to go away and go now!
Women and young, teenage girls who have probably read this novel about 20 times will probably love this movie to death because that’s the audience it’s mainly for. However, I am not that audience and that was the biggest problem here. Every single character in a Sparks novel are about as one-dimensional as a piece of paper but are still treated like as if they can do no wrong, with barely any flaws whatsoever.
Logan starts off in the movie suffering from post-traumatic stress, but after the first 10 minutes, they act as if it was never there in the first place once he gets to the cozy countryside. Then when he actually gets to this countryside and has starts to woo over Beth, we see how he really is which is even worse. He’s humble, nice, strong, in touch with his emotional side, starts to tear up a bit when he’s playing piano as if it was his last time ever playing piano again, checks out classics like Moby Dick whenever he feels like it, and can play chess so well that he actually lets her young son win against him just to boost up his self-esteem. The film treats him as if he was the second coming of Christ that pretty much walks around with a halo around his head the whole time making everybody’s lives a whole lot better, which annoyed the hell out of me within the first 20 minutes because they just kept on constantly shoving it down our throats just how perfect and amazing this guy was. And to be honest, I didn’t care one bit. Oh yeah, need I forget to mention that this guy walks from Colorado all the way to North Carolina with his doggy. However I feel like if I got into that rant, we’d be here so much longer.
Aside from the characterization, this film is also laughably bad in many aspects where I don’t even think it intended to be. The melodrama gets kicked up to about 100 here and at times, almost feels like it’s making fun of itself but that’s the thing, it’s dead serious. There are so many corny scenes where these characters start to have realizations about one another and how beautiful that other person is and the sweeping score just comes in booming right in your ears and it just gets even worse as the film starts to dive deeper and deeper into this schmaltzy material.
This film also has one of the worst “sex” scenes I have seen in the longest time where Logan is blatantly shaking Beth’s left butt cheek and the film makes it seem like it’s some sort of cute showing of love and companionship but just came off as really lame and definitely a little too detailed for a PG-13 movie. I mean they show both of them moaning at one point and even though I’m no prude to this kind of stuff (hell, I saw ‘Shame’ for Christ’s sakes), I still don’t think that many parents will appreciate Ms. Schilling hitting a full-on orgasm with Mr. Efron.
Speaking of Mr. Zac Efron, I can’t really say anything bad about him here because he is obviously trying but he better be careful with the types of roles he’s getting. Yeah, ‘The Notebook’ put Ryan Gosling on the map but ever since then he has barely done anything close to that and even Channing Tatum is starting to find himself farther and farther away from this stuff with edgier flicks coming out in the upcoming future, but Efron is still building up his star and he better make sure that he doesn’t make any more shit films like this or else we may just get a ‘High School Musical 4′ just so he can get a quick paycheck. As for Taylor Schilling, her character is pretty paper-thin as well so she at least tries with what she’s given but the material really does end up bringing her down. Hopefully this movie gets her face out there and maybe we’ll see her in more upcoming flicks and check out what real talents she has as an actress other than showing how passionate getting boned by Zac Efron can be.
I think it would be safe to say that the best performance out of this whole film, and probably the best thing about this flick really is Blythe Danner here as Nana. Danner is that wise, funny, and always witty old lady that has something to say and made me laugh just about every time. And with a film like this, you need any type of humor just get you through. It’s a small compliment but it’s a compliment to this film none the less and this film needs all of that it can get.
Consensus: The Lucky One is what you would expect from a Nicholas Sparks adaptation: corny, schmaltzy, full of one-dimensional characters, and writing that will make you laugh even though they may not be laughing with you.
1/10=Crap!!
Shocker, right?
Intruders (2012)
The boogeyman is too old school.
The film stars Clive Owen as a father trying to save his daughter from a specter-like figure that appears to be the product of her own imagination. There is also another story that is about this kid in Spain who is having the same problems, but nobody really cares.
The new trend in Hollywood lately seems to be that in order for horror films to stay cool and hip, they need to be old school. Sometimes this works like in ‘The House of the Devil’, and other times it fails miserably like with ‘Don’t be Afraid of the Dark’. So what better way to keep horror movies even more trendy by bringing in one of the oldest horror stories of them all: the monster in the closet.
Director Juan Carlos Fresnadillo definitely seemed like he owed somebody money here because he just does not deserve this. I don’t love this director either (I’ve only seen like one film from him), but for a guy that did the sequel to one of the greatest horror flicks of the past decade (’28 Weeks Later’) I have to say that he’s really falling off the map. Juan Carlos definitely does add a lot more to this flick than you would expect because his camera is used well to speed things up, like he did with ’28 Weeks Later’, and has some pretty cool imagery that is spooky but also very good to look at. He seems like he’s trying his hardest to bring some sort of atmosphere here to this flick but it’s all taken away by the script he was given.
This plot basically comes down to the children facing off against “Hollow Face” but neither side is worth cheering for. You never get any real sense that these kids are in danger because every time the boogeyman seems like he has finally succeeded in killing these little pieces of crap, they end up being safe after all and have only a scratch or two on them. Also, why the hell does this damn creature want a face so bad? To be accepted? To be loved? To keep this film going on longer and longer, until I practically fall asleep? I think yes for that last question.
The script also goes from bad to worse considering there is barely any horrific stuff happening here and after awhile, just gets boring. They even place an exorcism scene in the middle of the flick (cause what horror film doesn’t need an exorcism scene?) and it’s one of the most boring and unscary exorcism scenes I have seen in some time and mind you, I did see ‘The Devil Inside’ over two months ago. There was also no reason for this flick to even be two separate stories either considering they are so obviously focused more on the British family then anything else and could practically care less about the story in Spain. They both come together in a dumb way that is expected from these types of films, but it still ends on an awkward note that just feels so damn forced. Then again, so does everything else in this dumb film.
Oh, I almost forgot that there is probably one of the most unintentionally funny scenes here that I have seen in quite some time. First, Clive Owen’s daughter gets scared and says that she is having nightmares about this monster and can’t get to sleep. Thinking that he would be a good father, you expect him to just tell his daughter that all will be fine and dandy and she should just go back and dream a little dream of fairies, unicorns, rainbows, and all that good stuff. Instead, he makes a scarecrow monster, takes it outside to his backyard and lights the thing on fire hoping that it will cure her dread of the boogeyman. This scene was so stupid and dumb that I honestly thought that the film was just making a little light of this whole premise, but instead, they were totally serious and this was probably the high-light of the film, which isn’t really saying much good.
I don’t know what it is with Clive Owen, but the damn dude should be getting A-list roles that get him Oscars, Golden Globes, and all that other honorable shit but instead he’s been stuck doing dumb-ass flicks like ‘Killer Elite’ and this, which both take him further and further away from hitting total stardom. This guy is a good actor, and he at least tries his hardest with this role here but he needs to go back to the days of when he was scoring huge hits in-a-row with ‘Closer’, ‘Children of Men’, ‘Inside Man’, and even ‘Shoot ‘Em Up’. Dammit Clive! Just stop taking shitty movie roles and start making better ones before it’s way too late.
Consensus: Intruders is a horror flick that doesn’t do anything new or exciting with its premise, instead it is just boring, badly executed, and one of those horror flicks that you watch with a whole group of girls because they’ll get scared and hold onto you, but you never watch it again. Cause you never know if you want to remember the night with that chick anyway.
1/10=Crap!!!
A Thousand Words (2012)
Who’s brilliant idea was it to have a whole film where Eddie Murphy can’t talk?!?
When he learns that his karma will permit him to speak just a thousand more words before he dies, fast-talking agent Jack (Eddie Murphy) must make every syllable count to make peace with his wife, Caroline (Kerry Washington), and his celebrity author client, Dr. Sinja (Cliff Curtis). But can the man notorious for his idle flattery truly change his ways?
So after sitting on the shelf for over 4 years, I went into this flick expecting nothing but pure and utter crap. I mean with the director of such other Eddie classics like ‘Meet Dave’ and ‘Norbit’, how could one expect anything different?
The premise we have here is one of those high-concept premises where we see an ass of a dude, get flung into a situation that makes him re-think his life and do better for ones around him. That concept does not change here and everything is basically by-the-numbers, which wouldn’t have been so bad if everything weren’t so damn unfunny. I mean I had a chuckle or two but the rest of the film tries so hard to make constant jokes that either don’t hit the mark, or just come off as awkward. The jokes actually seem out-dated (even for a flick that was made in 2008) and sometimes it honestly just seems like the writers are recycling material from past comedies that are in the same air as this (‘Click’, ‘Bruce Almighty’). Basically, this film is not funny in the least bit and is what you would expect from an Eddie comedy of this nature.
Obviously this film goes into some pretty schmaltzy and sympathetic territory but it’s not what you would usually get with these types of comedies because even though all comedies seem to go in this direction and create some life lesson for their protagonist, this film really nails that in. By the last act, the score starts to swoon and there is just constant scene after constant scene where they practically show this guy breaking down and crying to everyone around him telling them how much he loves them and will do right. It’s downright cheesy and is a little too over-dramatic for a “comedy” flick like this, even by its own standards.
What was also pretty weird about this flick too is the audience that it doesn’t really seem to have an audience that it’s reaching out towards which makes a lot more sense for it to be delayed for so long. There’s barely any kiddie stuff in here whatsoever, they say the word “shit” about 20 times also not forgetting the one F-bomb I think heard as well, and on top of that, it’s rated PG-13. It’s definitely not the type of movies that are centered toward the family audience that Murphy has been aiming towards lately, but it’s also not nearly as edgy or dangerous as his older material neither. In a nutshell, this is just a weird film to market considering there is no audience for this flick and that probably makes it a good reason as to why it was number 6 at the box office for the weekend.
As for Eddie Murphy himself, his performance here as Jack is one of his usual hammy, by-the-numbers, and lazy performances that we didn’t think we were going to see much more of ever since ‘Tower Heist’, but sadly, it’s all back. I don’t know why the film decided to have him in a premise where he doesn’t get to talk and use that hilarious voice we all know and love him for, but it’s also no help that his shtick gets old real quick considering he isn’t very known for his physical stuff. It’s a shame because this guy really was one of those comedians that people were afraid of because of how dangerous he could be but now he just does family-oriented junk like this and really starts to lose cred from the very few fans that still think he’s funny. Yes, I am one of them so eff you guys.
As for everybody else, I have no idea why the hell they even decided to even be in this flick and I don’t think they do either when they think about it. Clark Duke is the only funny thing about this flick but also looks embarrassed to be apart of every scene here as Jack’s assistant/little white bitch; Kerry Washington is beautiful and elegant but is given nothing extraordinary here as Jack’s clueless wife and it’s a shame considering she is great actress and is definitely on the high rise; and Ruby Dee has probably one good moment as Jack’s mom, who is starting to lose her mind, and she’s good but is definitely wasted here and could have been used for a far better flick.
Consensus: A Thousand Words is not funny, predictable, and one of those shelved comedies that should have stayed right where it was and released as straight-to-dvd flick, rather than actually making people go out there and have to pay 10 bucks for it. However, that’s why I snuck in. Teehee
1/10=Crapola!!
This Means War (2012)
Maybe if these guys sang some Johnny Cash, they would have won her over easily.
The world’s deadliest CIA operatives (Tom Hardy and Chris Pine) are inseparable partners and best friends until they fall for the same woman (Reese Witherspoon). Having once helped bring down entire enemy nations, they are now employing their incomparable skills and an endless array of high-tech gadgetry against their greatest nemesis ever – each other.
From afar, this actually looks like a pretty fun flick with a clever premise, a ‘True Lies’ feel to it, and three reliable leading stars. However, it’s such a shame to see all of that go down the tubes when you have a crap director like McG. That’s right McG. The d-bag that single-handedly killed the ‘Terminator’ series.
The film begins with another shitty McG action sequence that is loud, stupid, unneeded, and cartoonish to the point of where I couldn’t believe anything going on and also to the point of where I couldn’t even tell either because McG felt the need to move the camera around constantly just to add more of a crazy feel to it. The action isn’t a constant in this flick but when it does happen, it looks poor. I know they spent a lot of moolah on this flick, but I have no idea as to why the hell they would considering none of it went to the budget.
To be honest, I think half of it went to the THREE writers they had for this flick and I’m definitely thinking that one of them still hasn’t graduated 5th grade yet. The film tries so hard to be funny within the first 15 minutes with all of the fart, sex, and dick jokes that never hit the mark at all. It also sucks because this film borrows from so many other flicks that after awhile it’s just too hard to imagine this flick as its own, original self, and more as a parody flick that takes all of these ideas from other movies and puts them into one for shits and gigs. The problem here is that they’re very serious.
The comedy was terrible here (except for one scene that has to do with paint-ball), which is a given, but it’s when the flick tried to be all serious and mushymushy is where it really made me ticked off. First off, doesn’t anybody think it’s a little weird that these dudes are basically sharing a girlfriend? These guys are best friends and decide to play a little game but I don’t know why anybody would ever want to get sloppy seconds, let alone, your own best friends’. I know that some people out there actually do put down bets on this sort of thing to see who can sleep with the chick first but they aren’t even doing that, they’re waiting to see who she loves first which is pretty cruel and sadistic. The sad part of this flick is that the film’s tone is really playful and acting like this whole thing is a fun time even though anybody who would want to try to bet who can get a girl to love them first, is pretty much a total dick-headed thing to do no matter who you are.
However, it’s not only the guys that are playing this little game, she’s testing it out too and even though I am against that, I still couldn’t believe the fact that this flick tried to get us to feel something for her when everything is revealed to her. This is a chick that chose to two-time, get caught up in both of them, cheat on them both, and basically act like they’re the one, and we are supposed to feel something for this damn chick?!? I don’t care if you want to have fun going out with two guys at once, but don’t start crying about it when it comes right back to get you because that’s when you know that karma is a bitch and frankly, you deserve it.
As for this obviously talented cast, they are pretty much all wasted on a script that has no idea what they’re doing, other than trying way too hard. Tom Hardy is a very strange pick for a lead rom-com role as the sensitive but muscled, Tuck, and this guy tries his hardest, he really does, but I couldn’t help but think that this sort of role just doesn’t fit him at all. I just felt like Hardy was sleep-walking through this role and even though he still has that charm we all know and love him for, I couldn’t help but think that this sort of sweet and relaxed role, just isn’t the kind for the dude who walked around naked for about an hour-and-a-half, kicking the shit out of everybody in his way in ‘Bronson’. Chris Pine is here as FDR (whoever wrote this, definitely was in history class when they were writing this) and does what he always does which is be sly, cool, and sexy enough for all of the woman to want him. He doesn’t do anything different, but it’s not all that bad in the first place either.
Reese Witherspoon is once again playing that ditzy and super-cute blond chick role that she’s been doing in rom-com land for the past decade and she still is alright here as Lauren Scott. Even though this is nothing new for Witherspoon and her chemistry with both is OK (her and Pine is probably better), I still feel like she deserves a meaty enough role for her because she has shown in the past that when she gets those sort of roles, she can do a superb job, but she just hasn’t really had them for the longest time so I guess we’ll have to put up with more of these shitty rom-coms from now on. Probably the best part of this flick was Chelsea Handler as her best friend, and she made me laugh the most with all of her constant jokes and one-liners. I definitely think with a smart script Handler could get her own leading role, but then again, that seems very far-fetched.
Consensus: Even though the leads try their hardest, This Means War fails in almost everything such as a bad direction from a dude nobody likes as it is, a script that feels like it was written in some 12-year old’s journal, and a premise that may be all fun and games when it first starts, has a very dark and mean feel to it deep down inside. Then again though, maybe I’m just a weirdo.
1.5/10=SomeOleBullShitt!!
The Devil Inside (2012)
First film of the new year and it’s already earned itself a spot on one of the year end lists.
At once spooky and grisly, this film follows a woman’s quest to find the truth behind claims that her mother killed three people during an exorcism. The daughter’s journey takes her to Italy, where she becomes involved in other exorcisms.
With all of the “found-footage” flicks that I have been watching as of late, I always wonder if it really is a dead genre. Flicks like ‘The Last Exorcism’, ‘Quarantine’, and ‘Apollo 18′ all made it seem so and I can say that this one should definitely be added to that list.
Director William Brent Bell and co-writer Matthew Peterman don’t really bring much here to this tired genre other than just a bunch of back story that they try to use to cover up the fact that this is still a horror film with annoying jump-scares. The film’s story starts off by telling us about this girl named Isabella, who wants to know what happened to her mother but everything she wants to know is basically explained within the first 10 minutes. She’s a crazy beotch, that killed three people in her house during an exorcism on her, and she is now in the loony-bin. I could understand if this chick wanted to know the truth, but after awhile it seems like she’s trying to connect with her mother even though this chick is obviously possessed. We never ever really get lost in her character’s emotions because there seems to be no internal struggle for her in the first place and even when there does seem to be one, she just constantly whines and cries about it to the point of where I wanted the devil to be inside of her just to make her at least interesting in any way.
The only time the film actually seems like it’s going for something interesting with it’s characters and story, it totally gets rid of that whole idea. The two priests here actually seem like they had a lot more to offer this story than Isabella did and they provide a lot of smart commentary on how the Vatican’s questionable system but they over-due it way too much to the point of where it seems like this is some sort of sly commentary the film is trying to give us.
These guys also make it seem like they are professionals in every which way and have seen it all but even when the demons bring up their names, or say that they did something in the past, they shriek and act all confused about what the demon just said. I’m tired of this whole element in films that have demons in them because everybody knows that the Devil is just like God in the way that he is always there watching us no matter what sort of deeds we do. If a Devil says that they know I ordered a bunch of hookers and had a sex, drugs, and GTA party, then I won’t be like, “how diddd youuu knowww??!?!”, I’m just going to tell it to shut the hell up and continue on with my exorcism.
One of the dumbest things about this flick is that the only time I actually shook during this whole flick was when they used a dog as a scare device. You heard that right people. A dog pops out of nowhere and probably supplied the biggest scare for me in this whole flick, but I’m happy to say that at least it wasn’t a damn cat this time. As for all of the other scares in this flick, there’s no subtlety one bit and everything here that’s supposed to be scary and shocking is all something we have seen done time and time before. The whole bleeding from the vagina thing, the whole cursing thing, and everything else that comes with an exorcism film is used here but never freaks you out once considering it’s been used before except in a hand-held camera way. Oooooooooh spooooky.
The performances here are pretty shitty to considering that everybody seems to be characters in a film. It also seems like director wanted everybody here to ad-lib in order to get this real feel but instead it all feels very weak as if these people constantly couldn’t think of anything bright to come off the top of their heads so they just repeated the one thing that they said before. It’s pretty much really bad improv the whole way through especially when they start to act all scared. The only good performance I think in this whole film was Suzan Crowley, and it’s not even her performance as if it’s more just her crazy eyes that kind of freaked me out just looking at her.
Finally though, the one thing about this flick that has everybody talking is definitely the main reason why this film blows: it’s ending. The problem with the ending is that the film started to seem like it was going someplace where it’s never really been taken before but nothing ever happens and the film-makers just pull out the cord. The screen goes black and then there is this little pre-credits title that pops up telling us to go to this website for more information. WHY!?!?? We know that all of this shit is not real, so why in the hell would we want to do the work ourselves and go and look up something that isn’t real in the first place?!? The seemed like a real big slap-in-the-face to the audience and rather than just seeming ambiguous just for the sake of the idea of making this a series (which I hope to never see) it just seems flat-out lazy. However, I don’t give a shit if they never finish this story and the case never gets solved so don’t even bother giving me a web-site, cause I’m not going to check it out anyway. Besides it will probably be gone in about a month once they realize nobody is actually checking it out.
Consensus: The Devil Inside is just another lame, unscary, and totally unoriginal found-footage flick that is pretty terrible the whole way through until the end, and then it’s pretty obvious that it’s just shit.
1/10=SomeOleBullShitt!!
Bucky Larson: Born to Be a Star (2011)
Small weenies are so funny….
After discovering that his mild-mannered parents were huge porn stars in the 1970s, a young man (Nick Swardson) bids farewell to his small Iowa hometown and seeks his destiny in Los Angeles, where he aims to become the world’s most popular adult-film actor. The only problem is that he is not that well-equipped if you know what I mean.
Knowing that it scored a 0% on Rotten Tomatoes and was considered one of the biggest box-office flops of 2011, you are all probably wondering why I even wasted my time reviewing this. Well my friends, let’s just say I didn’t want to say that ‘Apollo 18′ was the worst flick of the year.
Directed by Tom Brady (no not that one, but it could have possibly been done by him) this is a flick that takes essentially a one-joke premise and stretches it out beyond belief, until there is absolutely nothing funny in it at all. The whole film is basically just about this dude Bucky Larson who has a small pee-pee and takes the porn industry by storm and gives hope to everyone all over the world. It’s a stupid idea in the first place but it just keeps on getting worse and worse until the point of where I had nothing to actually laugh at let alone even watch.
This is also all thanks to Adam Sandler, who actually co-wrote the script and since he has been doing a lot of PG/PG-13 comedies as of late, he’s finally allowed to once again branch out into R-rated territory, which makes this film even worse. The constant dick, sex, fart, boobs, vagina, and porn jokes just aren’t funny and instead of actually saying the word “dick”, they try all of these little cool slang words that I guess Sandler has been using for ages now but finally is able to let loose now that he isn’t catering to the whole family audience. Now of course I had about two chuckles that seemed completley forced but still chuckles none the less, but the whole formula of this fish-out-of-water comedy is just too lazy and the whole time this film just tries to resort to lame jokes that will only make you laugh if you’re the biggest perv in the world.
Now let me get to the real problem of this film and that is the title character himself, Bucky Larson played by Nick Swardson. I think that Swardson is a funny dude and I’m glad to see that he has finally gotten a chance to head-line a comedy for once but I just wish it was another flick and another character entirely since each quality is terribly annoying. Bucky is that kind-hearted, country bumpkin that was so sheltered from the outside world that he doesn’t know what to do around all of these naked chicks instead just automatically jizz everywhere that we usually get with these types of films, but it never works once here and I just wanted to punch Bucky in the face every time and knock those obviously fake buck-tooth out of his mouth. He’s annoying and he has this incredibly dumb Iowa accent where he over-exaggerates his r’s in everyday language. Poor Swardson, he deserves a lot better but the sad thing is that after being in a flick like this, it’s a little too hard to get anymore work that will even come close to having us forget about Bucky Larson.
Everybody in this film blows too, and are basically just a bunch of cartoon characters played by some familiar faces that we have seen every once and awhile. Christina Ricci is totally one-dimensional as Bucky’s lady-friend, Kathy McGee but she’s incredibly cute and hot so that was the one positive to her performance; Stephen Dorff plays the porn-industries own George Clooney as Dick Shadow, who looks like he came straight from an 80′s hair-metal music video and desperately wanted to go back after he realized what shit he just got put in; the incredibly washed-up Don Johnson doesn’t do anything here as the porno director, Miles Deep (Getttt ittt?!?!?!); and Kevin Nealon is probably the only one who had me chuckle and even that was a big-ass stretch considering this guy is so random and spends almost every single one of his scenes just screaming at the top of his lungs at something. You’ll of course see the usual Happy Madison crew pop-in every once and awhile but it’s a real shame that stars like Dorff and Ricci took shit like this considering they are very talented, and if this is the kind of material they’re going to be getting from now on then they should definitely fire whoever the hell is responsible for putting them in this crap.
Consensus: With a one-joke premise, unfunny jokes that seem to be raunchy just for the sake of being raunchy, and plenty of other annoying elements including the title character himself, Bucky Larson: Born to Be a Star does nothing new with this obviously tired formula and is definitely one of the worst films of 2011.
0.5/10=SomeOleBullShitt!!
Apollo 18 (2011)
In space, no one can hear you yawn.
Officially, Apollo 17, launched December 17th, 1972, was the last manned mission to the moon. But a year later, in December of 1973, two American astronauts were sent on a secret mission to the moon funded by the US Department of Defense. What you are about to see is the actual footage which the astronauts captured on that mission.
I think it’s a pretty safe thing to say that the “found-footage” genre is starting to die and slow and very painful death. I love this type of genre no matter what really but it’s been so over-used lately and it almost seems like this is just a cheap attempt at a horror film for being a little bit scarier than the usual flicks we see. This is one of those films.
Right from the get-go, we are brought into a film that shows/tells us something but we don’t care at all because for about the first 30 minutes, I was bored out-of-my-mind. Nothing happens for the longest time and even when shit does start to hit the fan, we don’t care or don’t feel any type of suspense considering the whole time we were just watching a bunch of astronauts running around the Moon.
This film is such a bad “found-footage” flick that it can’t even stay within its own little boundaries. The shots and angles are entirely ridiculous to the point of where I felt like they did not have this type of equipment back in the day, let alone for people on a space-ship. The editing is also incredibly choppy where we never actually get a chance for the tension to just set in and instead the film just went from one camera to another, in order for it to feel like something was really going crazy with this film, when in reality it just didn’t matter one bit. Let’s also not forget that the film tries so hard to make this look like it was actual footage taken from 1972 with some terrible attempts at making the film seemed like it aged with scratches and little white-lines showing up. I felt like I was watching an MTV music video rather than an actual full-length flick.
What probably adds insult to injury with this film is that the ending is absolutely terrible and shows what this film was really trying hard to do and that is make us believe something that is totally and obviously not true by any stretch of the imagination. Just look at the plot and you can tell that there trying to pass this by as if this was a whole conspiracy theory from the past that we are just hearing about now, except it has a director, and not a very good one at that. If anybody watching this film believed a single-lick of what this film was trying to say then they definitely deserve to never ever watch movies again.
When it comes to the actual direction itself, I have to say that I thought it blew but the film still looked pretty. Director Gonzalo López-Gallego makes this film actually seem like it did take place on the moon with some really cool shots of what it would look like to be walking around its surface. However, when it comes to the best design of the moon, that award has to go to ‘Moon’, a film that was probably made for half of this one’s budget.
The actors in this film are fairly unknown but it still doesn’t matter because they all suck and acting and the characters they play are even worse too. We don’t really see them do much other than just get in their space-suits and walk around the earth, so when bad shit starts to happen to them real quick, I couldn’t care at all. It’s also hilarious when one of the guys get a little too crazy and then he just has this weird voice of his that he makes just so he can try and sound sinister, when in reality he just seems like he doesn’t know how to read his lines.
Consensus: Apollo 18 is boring beyond belief without any real thrills to hold you over, or any real sense of fun with this flick considering they try so hard to make it seem real, and in the end just seems like another cheap attempt on hitting big with the “found-footage” genre.
1/10=SomeOleBullShitt!!
Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen (2009)
I guess there is such a thing as too many robots.
The plot revolves around Sam Witwicky (Shia LaBeouf), the human caught in the war between two factions of alien robots, the Autobots and Decepticons. Sam is having visions of Cybertronian symbols, and being hunted by the Decepticons under the orders oJosf their long-trapped leader, The Fallen, who seeks to get revenge on Earth by finding and activating a machine that would provide the Decepticons with an energon source, destroying the Sun and all life on Earth in the process.
Now since the third one is coming out, I just wanted to brush up on the last two and as much fun as I had with the first one, it was all lost when I saw this heaping pile of shit.
First off, the plot doesn’t even matter. It’s just another excuse to get a lot of these robots fighting something that entertained me so much in the first, here, not so much. The special effects are good but other than that I had no real idea what the hell was going on and nor did I really care that much since this plot is stupid to begin with, and keeps on getting dumber and dumber as time goes on.
Director Michael Bay took all that money he got from the first film’s box-office and spent it all on crack, soda, and pills. That actually sounds like it would be awesome, but it’s just insane what he puts on screen here. The action was annoying because all these special effects are flying around the whole screen and the problem was I had no idea who was fighting who. I know Optimus Prime is red and blue, and Bumblebee is orange with a slight tint of yellow, but everybody else is just gray, so I really had no idea who was fighting. But once again, nor did I care.
But I almost forgot to get started on the script which is just dumb, stupid, and lame. I actually laughed a lot at the first one, but all the dialogue here just seems like a crappy punch-line for a joke that didn’t need to be there and wasn’t even funny in the first place. I think they wrote this script as the film went along and for almost two-and-a-half-hours, I just totally zoned out.
Just to prove to you how dumb this script really is with this one scene in this film where out of nowhere, they find a robot that can teleport from Egypt but for some odd reason, no other robot actually has that ability. Why? No reason. Just does I guess. Once again, I did not care, and after about the third scene of showing two dogs humping, somebody getting tasered, and annoying robot mythology, you’ll start to see what I mean.
Shia LaBeouf was actually really charming in the first one as well but he really doesn’t know what to do here and I don’t quite think that was his fault. All Shia does here really is flair his nostrils, run from things, and yell; “Optimusss!”. However, I think it would have been a better film with the title; “Transformers: Revenge of Megan Fox’s Ass“. I have no idea just what the hell she does here other than share this scared face she does the whole entire film but she’s still hot, so I can’t hold too much against her. The rest of the cast doesn’t matter because stars like Josh Duhamel, Tyrese Gibson, John Turturro, and Rainn Wilson just feel like extras here and are used for nothing else other than just little story distractions.
But the one thing about this film that really pissed me off was the completley stereotypically racist portrayal of the two “hip” bots, that were obviously black. These two robots are the most blatant forms of black-face that I have ever seen and there not even funny, if you find that stuff funny. I don’t know if Bay has talked to many black people even though he has because Tyrese Gibson was in this, but whatever black people he talks to must jive-talk the whole conversation. That’s all that these two do and once you see what I’m saying, you’ll just hate this film even more too.
Consensus: The special effects are at least done nice but other than that, this terrible sequel features no humor, a very hard and confusing plot to follow, characters and robots we didn’t care about, and the most random shit blowing up all-over-the-screen for two-and-a-half hours. Thanks Michael Bay! Asshole.
1.5/10=SomeOleBullShitt!!
Rush (1991)
Should have just watched Cops instead.
Jason Patric and Jennifer Jason Leigh star as undercover narcotics agents who become lovers when they partner up to infiltrate the Texas drug scene and bring down a suspected drug lord (Gregg Allman). But as their relationship intensifies and they become increasingly dependent on each other, they have difficulty resisting the temptations of the world they’re trying to subvert … and soon, their drug use becomes more than just a cover.
I wanted to like this, but the writer and director seem more intent on showing drug use and depicting the characters strung out in scene after scene than to tell the actual story: NARCs getting caught up in what they’re trying to stop. I don’t know what happened to me during this film but I just didn’t like it at all. This movie at times comes across as an outrageous PSA or an online criminal justice class with a bad teacher. I don’t know what happened to me during this film but I just didn’t like it at all. The main problem with this film is that nothing really happens here, other than a bunch of drug use and people crying over their addiction.
Very little of the film is focused on the actual investigation. They explain what might happen, then skip that scene entirely. The point that’s arrived at in the film is confused at best and stupid at its worst. All of the cops/investigators are weak and ineffectual, while the drug traffickers noble and wise, always one step ahead.
There was also no character development at all here and that’s why watching these characters do nothing but drugs and cry about it, started to really bother me. It’s over two hours so you would think that there would be some compelling material here to hold you over, but there’s not really. Just drugs, drugs, crying, and more drugs. Also, this was advertised as a crime action film, where there is only about 2 scenes of actual guns being fired.
The one thing about this film that made it suitable was the rockin’ soundtrack that featured many great classic rock artists. The score is done by Eric Clapton, and his slide “Texas” style guitar doesn’t fit well with this film and makes it seem more of a melodrama, but I have to say that a lot of the other songs here were awesome.
The performances from these two are good, but their both not really doing much here other than what I mentioned before: drugs and crying. Jason Patric is good as Jim Raynor although we never understand as to why he does all of this stuff that he does to himself. Jennifer Jason Leigh is also good as Kristen Cates and saves the film sometimes from when this film starts to wain on. Gregg Allman is here as the villain Will Gaines, and doesn’t really do much other than be some big hippy in a cool-looking suit. Pretty laughable if you ask me. Sam Elliot is always good and he is a saving grace here.
Consensus: Rush is not what it’s title says it is. It’s slow, boring, melodramatic, and features little or no character development for a story that is all about two characters practically crying and fighting over drugs.
1.5/10=SomeOleBullShitt!!
Something Borrowed (2011)
Are romantic comedies getting this bad?
When successful single lawyer Rachel (Ginnifer Goodwin) learns that her best friend, Darcy (Kate Hudson), is engaged to Dex (Colin Egglesfield) — the same guy she’s pined after for years — she’s determined to maintain her loyalty. But things don’t go quite as planned. Instead, she and Dex wind up in bed on the night of her 30th birthday party. Not surprisingly, the fallout from their romantic “slip” generates awkwardness for all concerned.
After viewing the romantic comedy masterpiece of 2011 that is No Strings Attached, I just couldn’t wait to see a film that had that running for its money. Thankfully, I didn’t pay to see either.
The one thing about this film is that it is so terribly written. First of all this is a melodrama that has some of the worst comedy, and even worse romance. The main reason why the comedy doesn’t work is because there’s not too much here and it just ends up being corny sex jokes, that never ever work.
But the real reason why the romance doesn’t work here is because these characters are so terribly unlikable. Throughout the whole film I kept wondering why anybody would want to be best friends let alone marry this skanky, sleazy, and ignorant chick named Darcy. She is so mean to everyone around her, and it’s pretty obvious that nobody wants to really be with her, other than for a one night stand, so why the hell has she attracted this guy Dex, and why is she best friends with this polar-opposite Rachel. The romance is also just full of terrible romantic cliches that always pop up in these types of films, and there is no new insight into relationships whatsoever in here. This plot just starts to unravel with nothing new, and nothing interesting to say.
The performances are bland as well even though I can tell everyone tries. Kate Hudson is terribly unlikable as Darcy, and she looks really tired in here, since she basically plays the same character in every romantic comedy that has been released in the past decade. The film also seems to think that we will find something entertaining about Darcy just because she is played by Kate Hudson, but that is just so wrong on so many levels. Ginnifer Goodwin is cute but very bland and her character isn’t that smart either since a lot of the situations the film gets put into are all because of her and her stupidity. So much for her being the next “it” girl. Colin Egglesfield aka Tom Cruise is also really lame here as the awesome named Dex, who has got no good qualities about him which is strange since these chicks are both in love with him. John Krasinski is maybe the only reason why I’m actually giving this a 1, because his constant sarcastic and boyish charm never ceases to work on me. Thank you John, you’re still the man even though you chose this shit.
Consensus: Basically in a nutshell: Something Borrowed is boring, unoriginal, cheesy, corny, filled with unlikable characters, and has nothing new to say or even do for that matter. Avoid at all costs, unless you really need a date movie.
1/10=SomeOleBullShitt!!!
