G.I. Joe: Retaliation Review (Spoiler Alert)

Nobody has been in the gym for years yet the power works.  That pretty much sums up the inconsistencies and nagging little questions that this movie has.  If you can get past those, you may enjoy it.

Many people (especially purists) did not like the first G.I. Joe movie.  And I'm guessing that many will not like this one for the same reasons.  It strays a bit from the canon of the franchise.  But, look at it this way.  If you made a G.I. Joe movie that was true to the campy 80s toy/comic book/cartoon franchise, it would flop completely.  G.I. Joe always had technology and weapons that were just out of reach of the time it was made.  They've actually done a very good job of doing the same thing and bringing it into the 21st century.  They have updated the uniforms, technology, and weapons to fit with the not-too-distant future feel that the original franchise had.  Anyone who says they need to stick to the character-specific uniforms and physically impossible vehicles needs to accept that these are movies, not comic books, toys, or cartoons.  As kids, we were able to accept and even embrace every outrageous aspect of the fantasy military world Hasbro thrust upon us.  But now, we are grown up and part of the disposable income masses.  As grown ups, most of us have left our puritanism behind and demand some sense of believe-ability and realism while still being to accept that it is an unlikely fiction.  When you look at it in that light, the G.I. Joe movies are actually quality updates to the franchise.  They upgraded the technology but kept the over the top cheesiness and camp that made G.I. Joe so enthralling for us as kids.  They've also kept the Snake Eyes vs. Storm Shadow story which was a very compelling aspect of the comics.

This is first, and foremost, an action movie.  Writing, acting, continuity, and story is secondary.  In the action elements of effects, makeup, etc., Retaliation gets an A+.  All of the action sequences are top notch and edited perfectly.  It also turned out to be a good thing to delay it so they could add the 3D.  Not only does a lot of stuff fly around and make you move, it really gave the rest of the movie a depth that was well done.  Sadly, as for the rest of the technical aspects, this movie is actually quite poor.  The film is mainly buildup to the plot and very little actual plot happens.  With the exception of Dwayne Johnson, the acting is quite poor.  Johnson was a great choice for Roadblock.  But the rest of the cast goes from phoning it in to downright hard to watch (RZA - who should never be on screen again).  The overall story seems pretty weak but it is actually something Cobra would have tried so I could actually embrace it.

But, the action outweighs the crappy acting so I give it a see recommendation.  If you don't want spoilers, stop reading.  But now I will address their use of characters.

G.I. Joe is very character driven.  It's a unit made up of very specific and unique soldiers.  I was and am a huge fan of the franchise and, as a result, have my own favourites.  I am disappointed in how the movies have used them.  They have killed off some of the most important characters in the franchise.  Duke, Hawk, and Zartan (especially Zartan) are some vital characters and they have all been killed.  Duke and Hawk are the leaders.  Roadblock, while important, is not a Joe leader.  (But Johnson makes a better leading man than Channing Tatum so I see what they were doing.)  (I also lament that Firefly is gone but that's just because I liked him.  He's not overly important.)  But what is worse is that they declined to use the Baroness and Destro for Cobra and Scarlet for the Joes.  In the overall story of G.I. Joe, these are vital characters that need to be included.  Scarlet has a calming effect on Snake Eyes that Jinx just cannot fulfill.  Destro is Cobra Commander's Starscream in the fact that they have the same goals yet hate each other.  The Baroness is a fantastic right hand for Cobra and they killed off the Commander's other two (Firefly and Zartan) in this one.  If they go with the idiotic Mindbender in the next one I may write a nasty letter (an probably not send it).

So I had to take a step back and realize that this is a film franchise and not a comic book that can go on indefinitely.  As a film franchise, it has a life of one (maybe two) more installments.  Then it may get a reboot a la Spiderman where they can go in a different direction and resurrect all of these characters.  If they keep this franchise as a contained story like that, they have to do something with these characters like kill them off or write them out.  There's only so much screen time to go around and in a franchise where everyone is a compelling star character in his or her own right, some difficult choices have to be made.  It's not like we have one hero with multiple villains.  We have a group of heroes fighting one group of villains and an insatiable demand from the audience to see all of their favourite characters.  The biggest problem is that same audience will also demand some sort of resolution in the story and we can't just leave a character in the background and bring him back 10 issues later when the comic book story allows for it.  So, the characters' shelf life falls dramatically.  Once I saw it as a smaller, finite story and not a video version of the action figures that I could play with over and over with new plots, I was able to accept the death of Zartan (and Firefly).

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey Review

I've often said that I want my nine hours of Lord of the Rings back.  So why would I watch a prequel to the franchise?  Especially when it is based on a book that I still lament being forced to read in high school?  Well, 9 hours on a plane from London to Calgary makes you do odd things.

One thing I do have to give Peter Jackson credit for is that he knows how to use landscapes to his advantage in a fantasy movie.  That is one of the things that the Hobbit excels in.  The sweeping visuals on the screen and settings are quite well done.  I did notice, however, that the effects tended to be inconsistent.  There were times when it all looked so real but then there were other times when the green screen effects were fairly obvious.  I also thought that the animatronics were also substandard for such a big budget epic fantasy (especially among the Orcs and their dogs).  None of the animals seemed lifelike at all.

That aside, I do have to admit that the story is actually quite entertaining.  I guess it's something I didn't appreciate in high school.  It moves quickly (except for the scene with Gollum) and that could be because it's a set up for another trilogy.  So this one is all build up and doesn't have that mid-movie lull that most stories have.  So I imagine the second one will be fairly boring much like The Two Towers was.  The acting was also very good but I would expect nothing less from Martin Freeman and Ian McKellan.

I'm a bit torn.  Some of the technical aspects were a let down.  But, coming out of it, I did feel that I had been entertained.  So I would say you should see it.

Jack Reacher Review

Well, where do I begin?  If this is what Lee Child novels are like, I'll stick to my Jack Higgins books.  I can't find any redeeming qualities for this film.  The closest I can get is that Tom Cruise didn't do a terrible job in delivering utterly horrible lines.  It's sad really because the story is actually pretty good with a lot of potential.  A sniper kills people in downtown Pittsburgh and the accused gets them to bring in a former military cop that has the tenacity of a pitbull.  It could have thriller written all over it.

But all of that potential is wasted through the use of very poor writing and extremely poor delivery of said writing.  It's almost as if every other line was written in a half-hearted attempt to be the next cool action movie catch phrase.  And the director then told all of the actors to channel their favourite 1940s-50s melodramatic actor before delivering it.  It was all over the top, wooden delivery that made it difficult to watch.  Add in the fact that it seems that Rosamund Pike was only there for the cleavage factor and it really is laughable.

For the most part, it seemed actually plausible for the situation to occur in real life.  But the hero is some unrealistic phantom super man and the villain was like some James Bond reject.  Given what Bond had for villains and sinister plots in the 80s, you know it's just that bad.

I didn't think Tom Cruise could make an action movie worse than Knight and Day but he did it.  I hope Oblivion is a step up.  Don't see it.

Lincoln Review

I can see why this film got Daniel Day Lewis the Best Actor Oscar.  Nobody knows for sure what Lincoln sounded like or how he carried himself.  There's no moving visual or recorded speech that we can refer to when making a movie like this.  But Lewis makes the viewer forget that he is an actor and completely convinces us that this is what Lincoln was.  I was looking for flaws and found none.  The performance is one of the most perfect ones I have ever seen.

As for the rest of the movie, it is very solid and deserved the attention it got.  It's 2.5 hours long and I was watching it in an uncomfortable airplane seat.  Yet, it flew by and never felt tedious.  It had an outcome that we all know and still managed to create tension and even uncertainty.  Steven Spielberg did a very good job of telling the story of Lincoln's triumphs and not dwelling on the tragic end and thus making him a martyr.  Instead, it focuses on his personal battles to do what he knows is right even if it jeopardizes the relationships with people he loves.

There was really only one aspect of this film that I thought could be left out.  That was the political agenda and thinly veiled attacks on America's slow civil rights progress and the Republican Party losing its way.  There are two spots in the movie where specific dialogue points to these two things and they felt really out of place.  There's no way the people saying them could make these predictions especially in the context they were said.  It was blatant partisan politicking and it really had no place in the film.

That being said, it is still a great movie.  See it.

Shaun of the Dead Review

I don't care for the horror genre and zombies are my least favourite sub-genre.  But you have to know one thing going in.  This is not a horror movie.  When you put Simon Pegg, Nick Frost, and Edgar Wright into a project together, you can only come out with fantastic comedy.  It just happens to be a comedic tribute to the zombie horror genre.  So while it has the subject matter that I don't care for, that is outshined greatly by the superior comedy throughout the movie.

It's very similar to Zombieland in that it has a few people just trying to get to a safe haven during a zombie infestation.  The thing is, Shaun did it first.  Both are great movies but I have to give the edge to Shaun for its originality and more clever writing.  The jokes and dialogue do a fantastic job of working with the visual and physical comedy.  Right from the start, you know that you need to pay attention or you might miss something great.  And, like a good Pixar movie, they layered it.  If you're like me, you like it simply for the great comedy and timing of Pegg and Frost.  If you are a fan of the zombie scene, you like it for the great makeup, thrilling tension, and tributes to other films.  If you like good film making, you appreciate the allegories and symbolism (especially the colour red).  And, if you just like Queen music (which only soulless people do not), you like watching the crew beating a zombie to the rhythm of "Don't Stop Me Now."

From start to finish, this film has a tight story, excellent timing, and great makeup and effects.  It also has some of the best on screen chemistry you will ever see from the best comedy pairing since Wayne and Schuster in Pegg and Frost.

Definitely see it.

Guns, Girls, and Gambling Review

It was an interesting idea.  Take the popularity of the hip and cool London underground movies and put it in the context of Indian casinos.  You have a mix of quirky characters played by recognizable and fairly decent actors.  (Yes, I just called Christian Slater decent.  Face it.  He has some talent.)  Then, you call it Guns, Girls and Gambling and you should have at least a passable movie.  So, what happened?

I know that you should not judge a book by its cover or a movie by its poster or name.  But a movie like this called Guns, Girls and Gambling should probably have more than one gambling scene.  It should also have more than one girl that is important to the plot.  The Girl Next Door really wasn't that important.  So, had they changed the name, would it have been a decent movie?  No.

The biggest problem is that the movie is a cavalcade of one trick ponies.  The blonde has one schtick:  reciting poetry in a horrible effort to be like Jules Winnfield in Pulp Fiction.  Even Samuel L Jackson delivered it a bit awkwardly.  To have a someone who I'm pretty sure none of us can remember the name of deliver the same style of lines is a recipe for disaster.  If that was it, I could have forgiven it.  But it's basically 90 minutes of everyone correcting everyone else for their political incorrectness and one or two other jokes that are beaten into the ground.

Sure, there's some cool movie violence and the overall story isn't horrible.  But after 90 minutes of basically the same thing, you just get bored.  Don't see it.  Opt for something by Guy Ritchie instead.

Ironclad Review

There's something about movies in a historical fashion that we all seem to find fascinating.  I think it's the romanticizing of a time where, in some ways life was simpler and in others it was much more complicated and difficult. I particularly like these movies when there is no focus on the fantasy or super natural.  Ironclad is based on the actual siege of Rochester in the 13th Century when King John was trying to reclaim his kingdom after signing the Magna Carta.  And while it has the basic story, it is very inaccurate in a lot of things that they really didn't need to change.  At this time, the Danes were not pagan.  Rochester was a significant city but they portray it as a remote outpost.  They even talk about its strategic importance.  If it was so important, it would have drawn a lot of people to it in search of a better life.  So to make it remote and small just contradicts what they were trying to do in the movie.  Altering a historical story for the big screen can be done well (see Gladiator for a good example).  But to sacrifice story integrity for dramatic effect is a bad mistake.

The battle scenes are realistic.  They are very bloody and graphic to the point of being a little too much.  But ever since Braveheart, the movie going masses have come to expect and demand such things in their war movies.  It's kind of sad because the films tend to rely on the gore rather than leave it to the imagination and interpretation of the audience.  I was surprised to see this in a British production because the British tend to downplay the sensational and let the audience think.  It's one reason why I tend to lean towards British cinema in the first place.

Some of the editing, cinematography, and basic story is a bit sloppy but overall, it's not too bad.  There is a tacked on love story brought in to try and appeal to human nature and it's done so quickly and half assed that it just wasn't necessary.  The writing is inconsistent with the time period though.  Many of Brian Cox's lines don't seem to fit with the rest of the cast but he does deliver them convincingly.  Paul Giamatti also does a good job portraying the sniveling little a-hole of a king.  Normally, a screaming tirade from such a character directed at his enemy comes off as cheesy and hard to watch.  But his hollering at Cox was done very convincingly.  It's not surprising because both of these men are very good actors.

If you like the medieval thing you may want to watch it.  The performances are decent.  And the sets, costumes, and fight choreography seem genuine.  If you are looking for a tight, historic movie with few holes, you may want to give it a pass.  My recommendation is to see it and judge for yourself because it isn't a total waste of time.