Page-To-Film: Rashomon.

I know I just did DVDs Or Death!, but since it was relatively short, I figured I could hand out something of substance, as well. Not to mention the slightly ironic timing due to the movie coming out on DVD this week...

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So yesterday, I finally got around to seeing my first Akira Kurosawa film, but not before reading the two short stories it’s based on. I read both stories, “Rashomon” and “In a [Bamboo] Grove” (depending on the translation) in roughly 30 minutes before moving on to the film. I must say that this is one of the closest adaptations to a work of literature (or works, in this case) that I’ve ever seen.

Kurosawa’s Rashomon takes elements from both stories: The location, descriptions, and tonal tidbits from “Rashomon,” and the plot and characters from “In a Grove.” There are only two major differences in the movie: First, the fourth ‘narrative/flashback’ in the movie was added (most likely to add more time to the film), and the baby in the Rashomon at the end was also added, but it was moreso taking the place of an old woman that the Servant finds in the short story of “Rashomon.” Otherwise, everything was almost word-for-word, dialogue and descriptions taken nearly verbatim from the text (even from “Rashomon,” although the plot and characters are from “In a Grove”). The only thing they cut from “In a Grove,” as far as I’m aware, is the woman’s mother’s testimony, which wasn’t really necessary to begin with.

To start with the acting, the only thing I didn’t care for was the immensely over-acting of the actor who played the criminal, Tajomaru. The excessive bouncing and hysterical laughing was even more outlandish than The Monkey King from The Forbidden Kingdom. And the woman who played the wife was good, but her crying quickly got on my nerves (not the fact that she was crying, but the sound of it). But besides the incredible amount of over-the-top laughter and crying, the acting was excellent, even from the previously mentioned characters (when they weren’t doing those things). I just felt that the character of Tajomaru, when reading the story, was more reserved and frightening in a quiet kind of way. The movie version was the exact opposite. I also liked how Kurosawa turned two of the smallest roles in “In a Grove,” the Wood Cutter and the Priest, and made them into central characters. And Kurosawa even went into more detail on who actually took the knife from the chest of the man, which the short story didn’t.

Visually speaking, the movie had some wonderful camera work and shots. I watched an introduction to the movie by Robert Altman, who noted that Kurosawa was the first person to ever point a camera directly at the sun, which I found fascinating. The mood set by the rain was also brilliantly done (even though the rain was taken from the “Rashomon” story).

But one of my favorite moments, both visually and acted, was the Medium channeling the spirit of the man. For an old black and white movie, that scene really creeped me out. It was just so well done with the wind blowing her outfit all around with her hair and covering her face, and the look on the face of the old woman… it was just really unsettling. Not to mention the man’s echoing voice on top of that coming from her mouth. It creeped me out more than The Exorcist ever did (which wasn’t much).

The thing that sets the story and movie off from others that pull this multiple-perspective narrative is that all the movies to come after it tell the exact same story as truth from multiple perspectives. This one, on the other hand, tells the same story in multiple perspectives, but treats them as lies. So by the end of the movie, instead of having something revealed to you, you’re left to think about which one was actually the true occurrence (or as Robert Altman put it, all of them and none of them were true). It’s a story to think about, where not all of the answers are just given up to you. And with a layer underneath that, you have the social commentary of the lies and lives of men and what is needed to be done to survive (this part of the story mostly taken from the “Rashomon” short story).

So while some of the acting could have seemed over-the-top at times, even though it’s most likely a cultural thing, it’s really overshadowed by the basic concept and theme of the film. And on top of that, it really was, as I said, one of the best page-to-film adaptations I’ve ever seen. Now I need to check out Seven Samurai…

Royale With Cheese

WANTED.

Wanted? Wow. Wesley (James McAvoy) is a nobody who works in a cubicle and whose girlfriend is cheating on him with his best friend. His life basically sucks, and nothing special is coming out of it. Then, one day, Fox (Angelina Jolie) shows up and tells him that his father was a great assassin and has recently been killed by a man named Cross (Thomas Kretchmann). So Fox takes him to The Fraternity, a sect of awesome assassins led by Sloan (Morgan Freeman). There, Wesley must train to become a great assassin like his father in order to get revenge and kill Cross.

Let’s start off with the obvious: the action. The action was amazing, and it wasn’t all special effects and Matrix-like stunts. Some of it was just pure fist brawling. The blood was high and splattery, and the other action was intense. My adrenaline level almost never went down. And the big shootout climax reminded me a lot of the climax in Equilibrium in which Christian Bale makes his way through the government building in order to get to his final opponent. It was just plain awesome and fun. And some of the movie’s action was even so hard-hitting that it was cringe-worthy (most of those were in the training scenes/montage).

But one aspect in going into this movie I wasn’t expecting was the humor. This movie was really funny, specifically the voice-over narration from McAvoy. He pulled off the character very well. Whereas The Matrix’s Neo went from plausible badass to absolute badass, Wesley went from complete loser (and in no way badass) to absolute badass, which is a much cooler kind of transition (it isn’t that sort of She’s All That makeover in which the dorky girl is still very hot anyway). As a kind of side note, I thought a few times during this movie how McAvoy could make a really good Spider-Man/Peter Parker. But anyway...

Angelina Jolie was smokin hot in this movie. And the other visual stimuli were great, as well. The special effects were top notch, and while bullet time is no new thing anymore, it was used creatively and well for the moments it was there. The cinematography otherwise was also done nicely, making it appeasing to the eye and rather unique.

If there was anything of note that I thought could have been better, it would be reasonings behind transitional moments of character. For instance, Wesley is totally against The Fraternity, and after noticing a bump in his bank account, he suddenly gets a boost in self-confidence and decides to join in (though I loved the office scene that shows his new-found self-confidence. The end part with the… well… ‘Keyboard moment’… got applause in my audience). And then the next time he gets another boost of confidence just seemed a bit off to me. It just felt like there could have been more to some of those types of scenes. In other words, Wesley’s character development was slightly shaky a few times near the beginning. But I quickly just shrugged it off.

Otherwise, I’m not sure what else to say about the movie. It was super fun action, really funny, great to look at (in more ways than one), and although the ending was predictable (down to the final moments), it was still done rather well. I’d definitely see it again.

A Keanu 'Whoa'

(P.S. Somewhat ironic rating, huh? Oh, and hooray! For the first time, my P.E.S.T. ratings have both been spot-on).

WALL*E.

What can I say about WALL*E? Well, let’s start with the plot. 700 years after humans left Earth, one lone robot, WALL*E, is still active and roaming around with his cockroach buddy, making giant cities out of garbage and watching old musicals, hoping for a significant other of his own. But then, one day, a ship shows up and drops off Eve, a scout robot that is there to do a routine check for life of any kind. WALL*E immediately falls in love and spends the rest of the movie trying to hold Eve’s hand, even after following her back into space and to the space colony of the last humans, who have become beyond fat and lazy.

Pixar took a lot of risks with this movie, for numerous reasons:

1) There’s very little dialogue.

2) There’s mixing of computer animation and live action.

3) It’s relatively (and unexpectedly) dark with a high level of social commentary.

4) The story is primarily a love drama with some physical comedy thrown in.

And I have to say, they pulled each and every one of them off with flying colors. The small amount of talking works very well, and you get used to it immediately. It apparently did it well enough that it didn’t even bore the smaller children that were in my theater, because I never heard a peep from any of them. The mixing of animation and live action, though it’s not extensive, worked well. The last time I saw this was with Happy Feet, and it felt incredibly out of place. Here, it works very well and is almost seamless. The social commentary is very in-your-face, but I love movies with social commentary, so it was just another layer of awesome for me. Finally, the movie had the perfect amount of physical comedy to fit the tone of the movie. It wasn’t overdone at all. And the romance built up gradually, as the relatively uncaring Eve slowly begins to care for WALL*E. It was cute, funny, and warming.

The animation of the movie is amazing. It was simply stunning, really (well, the humans were average, but everything else was stunning). From the moment the movie opens up on the city made of compact garbage, placed against a desert landscape, I knew I was in for a visual treat. And simultaneously, as the view is on this, the music playing over it is so haunting. The soundtrack to the movie was almost as brilliant as the animation. It could go from haunting to whimsical to musical-soundtrack and back again, and it was just wonderful.

I cared for all the characters, including the more secondary ones like the cockroach and M-O. I also loved how, from the moment WALL*E gets onto the AXIOM space colony, every accidental thing he does ends up having some kind of huge impact. If the movie could have done anything better, I think it could have played up that aspect a bit more.

But otherwise, I think this movie is almost perfect. I tried to think, on my 20 minute drive home from the movie theater, of something negative to say about this movie… and I honestly could not. I think this movie will deserve the Oscar it will inevitably win.

Royale With Cheese

Short Review: The Big Lebowski.

Even though I’ve seen this movie a few times now, I’m still having trouble giving it a full-out review. So here goes with a short one…

Warning: The following review has been rated R by the MPAA… or something.

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Premise: The Dude gets mistaken for a rich guy that has the same name, gets his rug peed on, goes to get a new one from the rich guy, and gets caught up in a kidnapping scandal… all right before the big bowling championships.

Starring: Jeff Bridges, John Goodman, Steve Buscemi, Julianne Moore, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Tara Reid, John Turturro.

My Reaction: They peed on his fucking rug. ‘Shut the fuck up, Donnie.’ Fuck it dude, let’s go bowling. You don’t fuck with the Jesus. Fucking hilarious. Fucking weird dreams. Vagina.

Royale With Cheese

And to be more along the lines of this review:

And because this is hilarious (and I know it's longer than 5 seconds, but it's still funny):

GET SMART.

The movie is based on an old TV show of the same name, and I refuse to pun the name in this review (such as ‘Get Smart and Go See This!’) or whatever. So I’ll just get into i… wait, did I just pun the name in my explanation not to pun it? DAMNIT! Anyway… Maxwell Smart (Steve Carell) is an incredibly smart desk-bound agent for CONTROL, head up by the Chief (Alan Arkin). After all the agents are compromised in names and looks, including Agent 23 (Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson), CONTROL is forced to make Max into a full-time field agent, Agent 86. Now in his dream job, Max teams up with Agent 99 (Anne Hathaway), who is able to work the job because she had recently gotten facial reconstruction, and goes to Russia to find out what the evil KAOS group is doing with some nuclear materials and stop them.

I have to say, this movie was pretty funny. The first half, though, tended to be either hit or miss. What I mean by that is, some of the jokes were set up to be great and then they ‘missed it by that much.’ They were still funny, but not as funny as they really could have been. However, as the movie goes on, it gets better/funnier. And while the majority of the jokes are predictable (because you know what to expect from a slapstick comedy), they’re still effective and funny. And I loved the entire bit with the plane bathroom and the parachute stuff soon after.

The acting was done pretty well, even by Miss Hathaway. And I must say, she’s a great deal of eye candy in this movie. Though The Rock’s character was a bit underused in the middle (I don’t care if he’s trying to be more serious by going by his real name… he’ll always be The Rock to me). Oh, and there’s a great small/secondary role by Heroes’ Masi Oka that’s really fun.

I actually don’t have much more to say about it. I thought the movie was really funny, and Anne Hathaway was really nice to look at. There are some cool action stunts toward the end, too. Overall, a really good movie. It’s pretty much what I expected it to be (a fun, goofy, slapstick comedy). Oh, and look for a brief cameo appearance by Bill Murray, too. It’s pretty funny.

I Am McLovin!

Short Review: Hellboy.

I saw this when it was in theater, and I think at least once sometime after that, but I saw it again tonight and wondered and wondered how to review it. So I realized a Short Review might do it best. And hey, it’s a short review that’s actually short.

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Premise: Nazis and Rasputin open a gateway to Hell and accidentally release a demon boy (thus named Hellboy). Sixty years later, Hellboy, along with the other paranormal bureau agents of the government, face off against a reborn Rasputin who is attempting to accomplish what he failed to do years before.

Starring: Ron Pearlman, Selma Blair, John Hurt, Rupert Evans, Jeffrey Tambor, and Doug Jones.

My reaction: Sometimes good/most-times mediocre acting (the best from Ron Pearlman). Great effects for mostly people in suits. Great CGI effects, as well (especially the long-horned Hellboy with the crown of fire). Ron Pearlman was a great casting choice, and he was hilarious in the role (‘oh crap’). Cool premise. With the exception of the Sammael fights, the bad guy fights/deaths were too short for the build up, leaving an almost anti-climactic feel to them. Overall it was fun and had a lot of potential, but it could have been done a bit better (maybe if it was longer). Still good, though.

I Am McLovin!

THE INCREDIBLE HULK.

I didn’t go into this movie super psyched, as you might have seen in my P.E.S.T. posting. But I came out pumped and excited. I’m not sure which one I liked more, this or Iron Man. The Incredible Hulk is a reboot after the awful Ang Lee version in 2003. This one stars Edward Norton as Bruce Banner, on the run from the military after his accidental transformation in which he killed and/or hurt a lot of people, including love interest Betty Ross (Liv Tyler) and General Ross (William Hurt). Now the General is doing anything in his power to find this man, even if it means bringing in the best of the best, Emil Blonsky (Tim Roth), and turning him into some kind of super-human ‘Abomination’.

The acting in this movie was superb, for the most part. Edward Norton does it again and is a great choice for Dr. Banner. Tim Roth is as nasty and malicious as you’d want him to be, and William Hurt is amazingly dastardly and dislikable (in the good way) as General Ross. The only downside, much like in Iron Man, was the female lead. I think there could have been a better choice than Liv Tyler, though she does to the job decently enough. She’s just rather bland. And because of that, there wasn’t a whole lot of chemistry between her and Edward Norton. That’s really the biggest negative criticism I have for this movie.

The only other negative thing I could say would be that the movie is more action than drama, in that there was only a little character development and not much plot, but the movie was still damn fun, so I really didn’t care about that other stuff by the end. Though one thing I did like about the development of the characters was that they didn’t throw everything at you all at once. You don’t see The Hulk in full until at least 30+ minutes into the movie, as he’s always in the shadows or moving by too quickly, like something from Alien. And Tim Roth doesn’t just randomly become the villain straight-up and is therefore against the hero from that point on. His transformation into The Abomination takes over half the movie and is a nicely-paced process, which I really enjoyed.

And my biggest issue I thought I was gonna have was the CGI. Boy, was I wrong. The CGI was excellent, and it didn’t look over-the-top or fake whatsoever. It was amazing to look at, and even frightening at times (especially with The Abomination toward the end). The action was hard-hitting and awesome, as well. I loved the scene where The Hulk is fighting the still-human Tim Roth in the courtyard (or whatever that place was). But besides the CGI or the action, the movie looked great with normal visuals, as well (cinematography).

Some other random comments:

-The Stan Lee cameo was great, as usual. Though his role was more plot-oriented this time, which is cool.

-The music was amazing.

-The Robert Downey Jr./Tony Stark cameo was great, too, and I’m getting more and more excited for The Avengers.

-The climax was much more satisfying than the one in Iron Man.

There’s not much else to say about this one. I really recommend it.

HULK SMASH!

A Keanu 'Whoa'

THE HAPPENING.

I really have no idea what to say. I was hyped for this movie for the longest time, then I started reading horrible reviews about it… and now that I’ve seen it… I feel somewhere in the middle. The Happening is about this event that happens only in the north-eastern United States that causes people to become disoriented before killing themselves. Everybody thinks there’s been another terrorist attack of some kind, but then the likelihood of that slowly starts to dwindle away. So when science teacher Elliot (Mark Wahlberg) hears what’s going on, he, his math teacher friend Julian (John Leguizamo), Julian’s 8-year-old daughter Jess (Ashlyn Sanchez), and his wife Alma (Zooey Deschanel)—with whom he’s having troubles with relationship-wise—hop a train out to go out into the middle of nowhere where Julian’s mother lives. Unfortunately, the train stops in an even more middle-of-nowhere place because they lost contact with ‘everybody’. So now the gang has to try and find a way to get away from the north-east region of the US to where it’s safe.

So, yeah, not sure what to think about it. There were some tense moments, sure, and there was quite a bit of comedy (I think it was funnier than it was scary). In fact, if the movie hadn’t taken itself so seriously, it might have made a decent horror-comedy. The gore is there, yet it isn’t there. They typically cut away right before showing much of anything (though some stuff was showed). And some of it was more ridiculous than others (such as the lion cage one).

The actual cause, which is revealed pretty early on, is borderline cool and just plain silly. At first I thought it was a bit weird and absurd, but I eventually got used to it, and the movie did garner some good suspense. Either way you look at it, though, it’s rather unique and original. Did it work, though? Semi-sorta.

The movie’s biggest downfall isn’t really in the script or the directing, though (so it really isn’t M. Night’s fault). The biggest downfall is the acting. Mark Wahlberg can be a pretty good actor when he wants to be. I’m not sure he really wanted to be this time. And I usually love Zooey Deschanel (in a lot of ways), but even she was ‘blah’ in this movie. John Leguizamo wasn’t too terrible, though. And Jess, the daughter, was really good… though that’s probably because she has all of two lines or so in the entire movie. Even worse than the main actors was the supporting cast. They could be just downright awful. So really, I blame the acting more than anything in this movie, because acting can make a bad script good or a good script awful.

That’s about all I can say about it. The music was good, and the visual style is good, as it usually is with M. Night. There’s no water-love this time around, though, and don’t go in expecting a twist ending, because there isn’t one. But that’s not really a bad thing, especially considering that most people’s main dislikes for M. Night after The Sixth Sense was that he was too predictable. But whatever. The movie isn’t a masterpiece, but I personally don’t believe it’s as God-awful as everybody has been making it out to be. I think people are just out to hate on M. Night, really. It has its moments, but some of the moments can really be negated by the acting. In other words, it’s not a total failure, but it isn’t M. Night’s ticket back into good standing with Hollywood, either.

Stop Saying Okay! Okay.

2 In 1: Sweeney Todd and Little Shop of Horrors.

If you can’t figure out the theme for this 2 In 1 just from knowing something about either movie, it’s a theme of romance, dark comedy, singing, and murder. That’s right! The dark romantic musical comedies of death and murder! Or something like that. Anywho, as stated in the title, I finally got around to seeing Sweeney Todd, and I’m pairing it up with one of my favorite movies growing up, Little Shop of Horrors. So here we go!

Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street.

Sweeney Todd is a revenge story about unrequited love with almost every character in the movie (at least the love part). And it stars at least a good fourth of the cast of the Harry Potter movies (okay, so that’s an over-exaggeration… but seriously, you could probably combine this movie with Gosford Park, and you’d have practically every important adult role in Harry Potter). But anyway, to the film: Sweeney Todd (Johnny Depp), once Benjamin Barker, is a scorned barber whose wife and baby daughter were stolen away by an evil Judge (Alan Rickman) and his ambiguously gay sidekick (Timothy Spall). Over the years, he plots revenge before finally coming back to London to exact it. He meets Mrs. Lovett (Helena Bonham Carter), a meat-pie shop owner, and together they work together to help exact Mr. Todd’s revenge on those who have wronged him.

I have to say that the first half of the movie almost lost me. The music wasn’t overtly catchy (with a couple exceptions), and it was just kind of bland (no help to Tim Burton’s drab coloring scheme). But then the second half of the movie picks up once Sweeney loses it completely and goes utterly insane. The song immediately after that part, the one about how to get rid of the bodies, has to be my favorite from the movie. It was darkly hilarious and reminded me of something Stephen Lynch would sing. So yeah, the second half was much better than the first half.

On the subject of the music, the songs were either hit or miss—hit being the previously mentioned song, miss being the one and only song (albeit a short one) Timothy Spall attempts toward the latter end of the movie (unless I forgot another, but I think that was it). Some were catchy, some were just plain good, and some were either too weird (like Sacha Baron Cohen’s song) or too boring. And as the movie is almost entirely nothing but singing, that means the movie is really either hit or miss at times.

I think acting-wise, everybody did a really good job, even Sacha Baron Cohen (after I got over the weirded-out phase). Depp is brilliant as always, and Carter and Rickman were equally as good. Timothy Spall bugged me the most, but I think that was just the character, not his acting. He was just… odd. But the kudos’ for this movie go to the young Ed Sanders who played orphan-boy Toby. He did really well, especially the emotions on his face at the end of the movie.

Of course I have to mention the visuals. I sustain my thoughts that I had prior to seeing the movie: what was bleak and gray was very bleak and gray; what was bright and colorful was very bright and colorful. There was no in-between, and the majority of the movie had grays and blacks (and the occasional white to show off the blood red).

I’m not sure what else to mention about it. I think those were really all my major thoughts. The movie was pretty good, but it could have been better. Though, also to help me boost the score up to the point I do is not only because there were parts able to keep me on my toes, but I was caught off guard at the end with a twist I wasn’t expecting. I love it when movies can do that. It always makes me appreciate the movie more. And I really do appreciate what this movie did, even if it was disturbing (though I might have enjoyed it more had I not watched it with my mother, who was complaining about the blood and such for the entire last half of the movie).

I Am McLovin!

Little Shop of Horrors.

Back in 1960, Roger Corman made a cult classic in two days using left-over sets and such from a previous movie he had finished early (with a cameo by a very young Jack Nicholson). Years later, it was turned into an off-Broadway musical, which would later be adapted by Frank Oz and Howard Ashman into the 1986 musical extravaganza! Seymour Krelborn (Rick Moranis) is a skid-row orphan working under Mr. Mushnik (Vincent Gardenia) at Mushnik’s floral shop. He’s desperately and longingly in love with co-worker Audrey (Ellen Greene), but she’s shacking up with abusive and sadistic dentist, Orin Scrivello, DDS (Steve Martin). But after a total eclipse of the sun, Seymour discovers a fly-trap-esque plant and takes it in. He names it the Audrey II, and it immediately brings instant success to the bankrupt shop. But then Seymour discovers a deadly secret: the plant can only survive by drinking blood. So he feeds it his own blood until it gets too big and starts talking (voiced by Levi Stubbs of The Four Tops), requesting that Seymour go out and kill people to feed him.

This movie was my favorite growing up (which explains quite a lot, really). I’ve watched it an uncountable amount of times, and I know the words and lyrics backward and forward. It’s dark, it’s funny, it’s romantic, and it’s scary. This movie still creeps me out at times, and I hate being around plants in the dark. The one specific scene that will never ever stop scaring the crap out of me is toward the end when Audrey II calls up Audrey (who lives right across the street) and sings to her. Audrey slowly turns to her window and sees this enormous plant staring and laughing at her from across the street. God, just thinking about that scene creeps me out.

The singing is done very well, and Rick Moranis really has some pipes in him. Great voice. Really, every song is a classic with me, even if they aren’t my favorite (such as the more romantic ‘somewhere that’s green’. However, after I heard about the original ending and the irony around that song and its original purpose, I came to appreciate it much more).

And speaking of the ending, this movie has one of the most famous stories in cinema. They shot the original ending, the one taken from the stage play, where everybody dies and the plants take over the world, but it did poorly with test audiences. So they spent millions of more dollars to film a happier ending just to please the audience. That’s Hollywood for you. But I’ve seen the original ending, as well, and it’s pretty creepy (though the last frame of the happy ending is creepy in itself, too).

And this movie is cameo-central. There’s Bill Murray as the pain-loving dentist's patient (originally played by Jack Nicholson in Roger Corman’s version), and he has, hands down, the funniest scene in the entire movie. And he and Steve Martin improv’d the entire scene. Hilarity. There’s also Christopher Guest, John Candy, and James Belushi (also, as I just realized, for another Harry Potter reference, Miriam Margolyes is also in the movie (she was Professor Sprout in the first two HP movies)).

I really don’t know what else to say about this movie. I love every inch of it. I really recommend it to people who like musicals, dark comedies, or just anything twisted in general. It’s great fun (for the whole family!).

Royale With Cheese

Thoughts On The 28 _____ Later Movies.

I thought I should do a thoughts on on two of my favorite horror movies: 28 Days Later… and 28 Weeks Later. Unlike the previous thoughts on segments, however, this one will be both a discussion and a set of reviews (including scores). So why not just do a 2 In 1 you ask? Because there’s more I want to talk about than just the acting or cinematography or whatnot. Plus, it’ll be easier to focus on both movies simultaneously.

So first and foremost, I need to bring up the most discussed topic on these two movies: What, exactly, are The Infected? Well, they’re not zombies. I repeat:

They are not zombies.

I love zombies. I’m a zombie fanatic. I’ve studied them left and right, from the voodoo variety to the heights of George Romero and the lows of Uwe Boll. So I can safely say that to be a zombie, you must have the following three primary characteristics:

1) You must be dead.

This is key to being a cinematic zombie. You have to be a reanimated corpse, whether slow or fast for whatever reason.

2) You must eat human flesh.

This is second most important, and most obvious, trait of being a zombie. Zombies eat people. That’s why they’re so fearsome. They don’t just go for brains (as the awful Return of the Living Dead movies portray), but any bodily flesh.

3) You can only be killed via brain damage (such as a gunshot) or decapitation.

Shoot them in the knees, they’ll get back up and continue stumbling for you. Cut them in half, they’ll pull themselves with their guts dragging behind them. Set them on fire, they’ll keep on after you (at least until the fire damages the brain). No matter what, the only things to keep a zombie down is damaging the brain or severing it from the spinal column.

So, taking all of these three key characteristics into mind, let us look at The Infected:

1) They are not dead. They’re living people (albeit very angry living people).

2) They do not eat human flesh. In fact, they don’t eat period (they end up starving to death by the end).

3) They can be killed just like any other human being can be killed (as portrayed quite a few times in both movies).

The Infected follow none of the key traits of a zombie. Therefore, they’re not zombies. They’re highly enraged humans who have lost all other thoughts except for the primal urge to destroy. And that’s what they do. They use what they have (teeth, fingernails, etc.) to attack a person until they either die or become infected themselves.

So now that all of that is out of the way, we can get to my thoughts on the actual movies. I think both movies are extraordinary in what they do, and they both do different things. Days is the more philosophical one with strong characters and strong character growth. You really feel for the main group and their plight and journeys. And you feel awful when things happen to them. Weeks, on the other hand, focuses more on the heart-pounding, nonstop suspense and the family unit. But that’s not to say you don’t feel for the characters of the sequel. You do; just not in the same way. Days had a slow pacing with the suspense spread out, allowing you to really get some calm, character-knowing moments. Weeks, however, was almost non-stop action, so while you might have really liked a character and felt for them (such as Doyle), you really don’t get to feel you really know them, if that makes sense.

The next big thing to notice about each movie is the visual styles of each. Days has more of a grainy, hand-held, realistic approach, while Weeks is more mainstream high-def camera work. However, where Weeks loses in the grainy picture, it gains in the unique situations that the main characters get put into. When Andy gets stuck in the dark garage full of people, and they start becoming infected, you wonder how on earth he’s going to get out. Or when they go into the subway tunnels and it’s pitch black, so they have to rely on the night-scope and vocal orders to get through safely. Both movies have a unique style for what each does, and both work amazingly well. I would also like to take this moment to mention one of my favorite shots out of both movies, which just so happens to be in Days: When Jim first enters the church (and after passing the ‘the end is fucking nigh’ in blood on the wall), he looks down from the balcony to see a bunch of dead bodies sprawled out right underneath a painting/stained glass window of bodies sprawled out on the ground. It’s just beautiful imagery.

As for acting, Days is far superior. Cillian Murphy knocks it out of the park as Jim, and his character growth is astounding. He begins the movie as a nervous, naïve-to-the-situation, what-the-hell kinda guy. But by the end, he’s a badass, taking charge and wrecking havoc against the military guys. Naomie Harris as Selena probably has the biggest character change, though, going from heartless, tough-as-nails, take-no-shit, I’ll-kill-you-in-a-heartbeat kinda gal, to a caring, loving, compassionate individual (though still pretty tough). Brendan Gleeson as Frank the loving, though worried and protective father was great. You can’t help but feel for him and his dead-set mission on finding the military base so that his daughter can be in safe hands. If there were any downfalls in the acting, it would be Megan Burns as Hannah, Frank’s daughter, who talked really blandly half the time as if she were stoned (though, she is stoned for the entire climax, so that might be alright…).

The best performances for Weeks, on the other hand, were Robert Carlyle as Don (mostly because of his eyes and facial expressions)--at least early on in the movie, anyway--and, of course, Jeremy Renner as Doyle, who is the most likeable character in the movie. And I like him even more, as I saw in a behind-the-scenes that he shares the same opinion with me on the not-zombie issue. As for the kids… well, with real names like Imogen Poots and Mackintosh Muggleton, who needs anything more?

It really goes without saying that the winner on the suspense level is Weeks. I’ve said it before, but Weeks has one of the greatest and most suspenseful movie openings ever. And the openings for each movie really show the differences in the two movies. After the monkey sequence, Days has about 10-15 minutes of Jim walking around a beautifully desolate London all alone, slowly realizing that the entire city has seemingly evacuated completely. And then he reaches the church, has the run-in with the priest, and then is chased for about a minute or so before there’s a huge explosion, and that’s it.

Weeks, on the other hand, has a few first slow minutes before there’s a break for quick suspense, then another minute to catch our breath, and then about 5 minutes of non-stop, heart-pounding suspense. And not only that, but there’s so much emotion in that little time frame, especially with Don’s escape.

The two movies were compared in level of greatness with George Romero’s original films. Days was like Night of the Living Dead: classic and amazing. Weeks was like Dawn of the Dead: taking everything great in the first, and making it even better. I used to agree whole- heartedly with that statement, but I really think now that both movies really do two different things in amazing ways that it’s hard to say which is better than the other. The style of Days, uneasy and slow-moving, worked for the story it had to tell. But the style of Weeks, fast-paced and terror-filled, worked for its own story, as well. So in the end, they’re both great, and they’re both two of my favorite horror films. The third one better come soon. But for now, I have to give the two that are currently available both an equal score.

Royale With Cheese

(P.S. I totally forgot to mention this, but the main musical theme in both movies is one of my favorite horror movie themes ever. Purely amazing.)

YOU DON'T MESS WITH THE ZOHAN.

To come out and say it straight up… this movie was very hit-and-miss. Zohan (Adam Sandler) is an Israeli counter-terrorist and overall lady’s man. In fact, he’s the best there is. But Zohan dreams of a better life, away from all the violence, in America to be a hairdresser. So after faking his death in a battle against The Phantom (John Turturro), Zohan travels to America, shaves his beard, cuts his hair, and continually tries (and fails) to get a job. He ends up meeting Michael (Nick Swardson), a basic loser who lives at home with his mom, and gets a place to stay. He also eventually, and reluctantly, takes up a job at a Palestinian hair salon as a hair sweeper. But when his boss Dalia (Emmanuelle Chriqui) finally gives him a shot, the place becomes a regular hot spot. Unfortunately, a big business guy, Walbridge (Michael Buffer), is trying to buy out all the small Middle Eastern businesses in order to build a big mall in their place. And, also, cab driver and terrorist Salim (Rob Schneider) recognizes the Zohan immediately from the day the Zohan stole his goat. Craziness ensues.

As I said, the movie was hit-and-miss. It was the same jokes over and over and over again: penis, hummus, penis, hummus, penis, penis, hummus, penis, Mariah Carey, penis, penis, hummus, hackey sack, electronics store, penis, penis, hummus, hummus, penis, Mariah Carey, penis, and finally, spurting hummus out as a metaphor of an orgasmic penis… you get the point. It was typically the jokes in between all the repeated ones that were the funniest (probably because it was a break in the repetition). The over-the-top action wasn’t as bad or annoying as I thought it would be. It worked pretty well, though there were moments where it tried too hard (like the ping pong grenade toward the beginning).

Nick Swardson really had some of the funnier parts of the movie (pretty much like any movie he’s in… like Click or The Benchwarmers), and he was really underused in it. But there are some pretty good cameos in the movie, as well, though I won’t spoil who. Though some were better than others. And the parts that were funny were pretty funny; they were just kinda few and far between.

On the visual side, this movie had quite a bit of male nudity (mostly Sandler’s backside, though I figure it was a stand-in). However, there was no female nudity. I take that back: there was female nudity, but not the kind the audience deserved. Though the actress who played Dalia really was rather hot.

The biggest problem with the movie was that it had way too much going on. There were too many plots. There was the hairdresser plot, the terrorist plot, the Phantom plot, the business-buy-out plot, etc. There was just too much going on and crammed into this movie, even if it was almost two hours long. And the climax of the movie was damn near anti-climactic and cop-out, while the ending of the actual movie nearly made me wonder why I had sat through the movie, as one of its biggest plots was rendered pointless (and almost hypocritical). And not to mention that about halfway into the movie, the hairdresser thing just kinda… goes away. You spend the first full half of the movie watching Zohan leave his old life, come to America, try to get a job, finally get a job, start to succeed at his job… and then it just stops. It’s exchanged for a romantic subplot with Dalia that comes out of nowhere.

All that aside, though, the movie did have some really funny moments. It wasn’t horrible by any means, but it wasn’t the best comedy I’ve ever seen, either. I’d say it was relatively average.

Stop Saying Okay! Okay.

Short Reviews: George Washington.

I’ve never watched a movie that was more self-contradictory than this. I can’t even give it a full review, so I was forced to do it this way. And no, it's not about the first President of the USA. (And I know my 'short reviews' are getting longer and longer... but whatever).

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Premise: A bunch of friends in a run-down, no-name town try to cover up a tragic accident. The movie shows how it affects them, most specifically a young boy named George with a rare handicap that gives him a soft skull so that any heavy hitting or large amounts of water can do a lot of brain damage.

Starring: Nobody famous.

My reaction: I was excited to see a movie with a primarily black cast that didn’t focus on the hardships of school or family (as a huge point, anyway), or about racism or any of that. Instead, everybody in the movie, black and white, got along fine and everybody lived in a gutter-town, so it all basically went unspoken. The first 5 minutes or so are amazing. I thought I was in for a real treat. The cinematography is amazing throughout the entire movie. Dirty and beautiful at the same time. The music is also good, yet haunting. The voice-over narration felt real and not forced or dry. But the dialogue would switch from something like beautiful slam poetry to cheesy or crap. The story went nowhere, yet things were always happening. The ‘tragic accident’ doesn’t happen until at least an hour into the movie, and George’s ‘hero’ persona goes absolutely nowhere, as well. The acting could go from amazing and natural, especially for child actors, to really, really bad. There were some shots that I had no idea why they were even included, as they added nothing whatsoever, interesting or pretty though some might be. It could have been something really special, and there were moments, I thought, that really shone through. But overall, everything fell through, and the movie just seemed to be full-of-itself artsy with no real purpose except to be full-of-itself artsy. I can’t even score this movie, because there were some really amazing things about it (the cinematography, the music, or some poetic dialogue), but for every good thing, there was an equally bad thing to negate it. Don’t you hate movies like that?

Side-Note: As I just looked them up, the director/writer and cinematographer both are going to be helming those same positions (except for the writer part) for the upcoming Apatow-produced Pineapple Express. This both excites me (as it will be visually stunning, hopefully) and worries me (for obvious reasons).

2 In 1 (Altered Opinions): Sunshine and Metropolis.

This 2 In 1 was originally going to be a separate review to introduce a new kind of article, but I found a second movie to help with a similar theme. The theme for this entry is altered opinions. What I mean by that is that my original opinion was either good or bad, and after rewatching the films, my opinion changed. In this case, for both movies, my original opinions were both negative and became more positive. The first review for this one is a short one, as I've already reviewed it once on the blog (Sunshine). The second review is of the Anime version of the movie Metropolis, made back in 2001. And as an afterthought, I just realized that both movies somehow have importance with the sun... So let's get to it.

Sunshine.

Previously, I reviewed this movie with a big rant about the awful ending.

Well, I finally got myself to give it another viewing. I have to say, it was much more enjoyable the second time. To take the focus off the ending for a moment, I must reiterate just how amazing the visual effects are. I even noticed things I missed the first time around and began to appreciate it even more on a visual level.

As for the ending, I guess because I knew what to expect and knew exactly what to look for, I understood everything a whole lot more. Everything I didn’t understand about the ending the first time through, I understood more this time. I appreciated the insanity of Captain Crispy, as I dubbed him, and the reason for why he was doing what he was doing. I still feel the movie could have gone a different route, but the route it did go is more appreciated by me now. I get it fully and even like it more.

However, I still don’t care for the super-speedy blurry cam every time Captain Crispy is in the vicinity. That was just as annoying the second time through as it was the first.

Overall, the first 2/3s are still far superior, but I enjoyed the third act quite a bit more this second time around. I’m still not going to rate the movie, though, because I don’t want the ending to bring down the score of the amazing majority.

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Metropolis.

When I first bought (impulsively) and watched Metropolis for the first time quite a few years ago, I remember disliking it quite a bit. All these years later, I finally decided to give it another shot. It’s based on a Manga that’s based on the original dystopian flick of the same name from the 1920s. It’s a futuristic tale where robots and humans live together, but not in harmony. The massive city of Metropolis has finally built their Ziggurat, a modern Tower of Babel. But there are many levels of the city: the surface level (the 'good part of town', so to speak), area 1 (basic working class and slums level), area 2 (factories), and area 3 (sewage). But now that this Ziggurat, which allows the user to distort sunspots on the surface of the sun to therefore cause radiation to cause all robots to malfunction, has been built, it needs somebody to constantly run it. Duke Red, head of a corrupt side of the government, has Dr. Loughton create the perfect robot (a human-looking android, basically) named Tima so that she can be said tool. Meanwhile, a Japanese detective and his nephew, Kenichi, come into town to arrest Dr. Loughton for illegal operations. But Duke Red’s apparently adopted son and right-hand assassin, Rock, strongly loathes robots and believes his ‘father’ should sit on the throne of the Ziggurat, so he attempts to destroy Tima. However, he fails, and Kenichi ends up travelling through the lower areas with Tima while trying to stay alive as Rock continually tries to kill them.

Now, while I still don’t think this movie is a masterpiece, I appreciated it a lot more than I remember doing the first time. The animation is done very well (though a bit too cartoonish, if that makes sense, with the overly large noses on some characters). Though the action of the movie looks great, especially with anything Rock does. The music, I thought, was very fitting. Most of it falls somewhere in the vicinity of the 1920-1950s, and at least half of it is jazzy. The song during the climax scene was done very well and works really nicely with all the destruction and such.

The problem with the movie rests with the characters and the plot. I’ll start with the characters: For being around each other so much, they barely interact. And when they do, it’s usually Tima repeating ‘Kenichi’ over and over again. There’s no character development or connection. I really don’t feel anything for any of the characters. It’s just kind of like… they’re there.

As for the plot, it really feels like there was a lot missing. The movie could have been longer than it was, really (which might have helped with character development). For instance, Kenichi and Tima start off together in area 3 with this cleaning robot. The next thing we know, they’re leaving area 3, and they’ve nicknamed the robot ‘fifi’ for no apparent reason. And they get this big attachment to the robot, yet there wasn’t shown enough interaction for it to really show us. Similarly, a little bit later, Kenichi and Tima come across a group of resistance fighters. But we aren’t shown them actually meeting or introducing each other. There’s about two or three minutes talking about how they want to overthrow the government… and the next thing we know, we’re seeing a full-out coup d’etat. There were no forms of transitions anywhere in there. Nothing. It felt like there was 30 minutes of the movie just missing, like there should be a whole section of the movie with Tima and Kenichi hanging out and talking with the resistance guys. And there are other scenes and moments just like those throughout the movie.

Not to mention that the case the detective dude is trying to solve isn’t a mystery to the viewers, as we saw everything that happened. Detective mysteries are only effective if both the detective and the audience are equally in the dark and have to figure it out simultaneously. Otherwise, it’s boring and silly.

So really, if you’re a fan of anime or sci-fi (such as Blade Runner), watch this one, if anything, for the animation style, the atmosphere, and the music. The story itself isn’t too bad, but there’s a lot lacking. A bit more length could have helped this issue, as well as character development and such. The good and the bad really kind of cancel each other out, for the most part. And although I’d like to give it one notch higher, I’m afraid the whole movie just doesn’t cut it enough to grant it that score.

Stop Saying Okay! Okay.

THE STRANGERS.

I saw this movie last Friday, but I had to finish the blog-a-thon before I could post it. But here it is now. But before I get into the actual movie and review, I must set up my personal experience for you first, because I didn’t really see the movie. I haven’t had a movie-going experience this annoying in a long time… but here goes. So first of all, this is an R-Rated horror movie. LEAVE YOUR KIDS AT HOME, DAMNIT. As the trailers were going (including a very misplaced Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2 trailer), this young kid is already whimpering and damn near hyperventilating (from the scary trailers, not from seeing Alexis Bledel). As the opening credits start rolling, the two guys that are with this kid are jabbering away to each other, and if the kid says anything, they immediately shush him, but then keep talking themselves.

But finally, after about 10-15 minutes (not like I missed anything in that boring beginning anyway), they stop. Then, right before ‘the strangers’ show up, some toddler starts babbling incoherently somewhere in the back of the theater (I’m closer to the front). I mean, this kid is making noises I didn’t even know could be made. And then when the suspense starts, the kid starts crying. And all I hear is crying from the kid and ‘SHH’ from the mother. Finally, I hear a stage-whisper of “I’ll take him outside.” So they start descending the stairs as noisily and as slowly as humanly possible… only to stop at the entrance/exit ramp to watch the movie from there, instead. She never takes him outside. The kid is still crying. Let me repeat that:

Kid is crying.

Stops at bottom of stairs to watch movie.

Kid is still crying.

She’s still watching movie.

Kid is still crying.

SHE’S NOT TAKING HIM OUTSIDE.

And she never does. Eventually the kid reverts back to incoherent babbling, mixed with laughing shushes from the mother. And so the mother never takes the kid back to their seat, but decides to remain closer to me near the entrance/exit ramp. This continues for at least the first half of the movie before I finally realize the kid has stopped making noises completely.

So I’m finally trying to get into the movie… and remember those two guys and the other young kid from the beginning? Yeah, one of those guys’ cell phone goes off. He catches it pretty quickly, so I shrug it off. I try to get into the movie again. Then the kid with the guys starts talking again… and they shush him… so that the two guys can start talking again.

All of this finally dies down… until, you guessed it… the babbling/crying kid starts acting up again. It was like Circus Babies, trampezing back and forth. So anyway… that was this movie experience to let you know how this review was affected by that experience. Now to the actual review…

Imagine the potato sack boy from The Orphanage all grown up and having moved on from shoving and locking people in bathrooms to mentally torturing and killing. James (Scott Speedman) and Kristen (Liv Tyler) have just left a wedding reception where, apparently, James asked Kristen to marry him… and was denied. They groan about for 20 minutes or so before a girl shows up asking if some random person ('Tamara', I believe) is there. Not long after, three people in masks show up and start psychologically torturing the couple.

That’s about all there is to it. I didn’t really care about the characters at all, and I realized this toward the end when Scott Speedman goes missing from the movie for about 10-15 minutes or so, and I realized I wasn’t even worried about what the heck happened to him. The acting was about as bland as Liv Tyler’s voice. But the writing was the big issue of the movie, as already implied by the not caring for the characters bit. The whole first 15-20 minutes of the movie is all about how they’re drifting apart now that the proposal was denied and how they need time apart from each other and really don’t even want to speak to each other (which is odd to me in and of itself). And then, out of nowhere, they start making out and he starts to pull off her panties to have sex.

Funny side note… around this time, one of the guys with the kid behind me told the kid “close your eyes” when Scott Speedman started to pull off the panties. Might I just relay that you’re in a freaking R-RATED HORROR MOVIE? This isn’t Kung Fu Panda, sir. You shouldn’t be bringing that kid here to begin with. If you’re gonna show him torture and murder, he should be able to see something more endearing and natural like sex.

So anyway, there is actually a fair amount of suspense that did hold my attention some of the time. But the movie was really a one-trick pony: have the strangers show up randomly in the background, shift camera, look back, show them gone. Or… have a noise in the other room, show something that wasn’t there before. Rinse, repeat. It was the same tricks over and over again. And they were effective the first few times, but by the end of the movie, it’s really old. If the poster (which is a scene in the movie) isn't enough, here's some examples of how the movie basically works via picture form... through the majority of the film:

And no, much like the other pictures, she does not know she's being followed at this point in time. And no, they never learn to turn around, but always keep their eyes straight ahead.

Not to mention the end of the movie itself. There’s all that build-up for… that? That’s it? And you don’t even SHOW it? Not to mention the very last frame was beyond predictable.

So here are a few other random tidbits of likes/dislikes:

-I liked how, at least in the house, the only music was on the record player.

-The cameraman had to have Parkinson’s disease, because that camera was unnecessarily bouncy, even in scenes that were supposed to be straight, calm shots.

-The movie, on the whole, was quite predictable.

-When Liv Tyler falls down and hurts her leg (horror movie cliché), she’s crawling around on the ground for the next 5 minutes or so like she could barely stand (as portrayed in the last picture). Then, not even 5 minutes after that, she’s walking around no problem. Seriously?

-The only reason this movie was rated R had to be because of more than one F-bomb… because there was relatively little blood, with two scene exceptions, and there was very little actual physical violence. Most of the horror came from psychological things being done, which is all fine and dandy. I'm no gore-hound (in that I need it to be scared). I actually prefer psychological horror.

The movie on a whole wasn’t God-awful, and it’d be okay to watch on Showtime or whatever when it comes on TV. But it really isn’t worth rushing out to the theater to see. The main characters (good and bad) could have been deeper, the story could have been tighter, and the movie could have used a lot fewer clichés. It was suspenseful, from the parts I could focus on, but that’s about it.

Stupid parents.

Feed Me, Seymour!

(P.S. The audience experience really didn't have an effect on my rating... I would have felt the same regardless. It was just an interesting story to add on to the review, really).

Bizarre Noir #7: Batman Begins.

Welcome to the seventh (and final) of seven posts that will review bizarre noir movies! I hope you enjoyed the series. For more information or previous entries, check the posts below this one.

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Batman Begins.

Year of Origin: 2005.

Director: Christopher Nolan.

Why it's bizarre: Superhero!

I’m sure you probably wouldn’t think of a Batman movie as noir, but it is. It has the majority of the common elements. Batman is a detective, for all intents and purposes. He always has a strong female counterpart. He has a troubled past, and he’s a troubled person. And there’s no darker or grittier of a setting than Gotham City. And it has never been grittier than in Batman Begins. Christopher Nolan’s revamp of the series takes us back to the very beginning on how and why Bruce Wayne (Christian Bale) first became Batman. After leaving to discover the dirtiness of the world, Bruce is found by Henri Ducard (Liam Neeson), a spokesperson for a group known as the League of Shadows, led by Ra’s Al Ghul (Ken Watanabe). But when Bruce finds out what they’re really about, he backs out and returns home to Gotham to butler Alfred (Michael Caine) and childhood sweetheart Rachel Dawes (Katie Holmes). But all is not well in Gotham. Crime is higher than ever with crime lord Carmine Falcone (Tom Wilkinson) and the mysterious workings of asylum owner Jonathan Crane (Cillian Murphy). So Bruce, with the help of Lucius Fox (Morgan Freeman), gets the cool gadgets to use as Batman, and then gets the help of policeman Jim Gordon (Gary Oldman) to help bring down the crime of the city.

Obviously, there’s a load of big names in this movie, so the acting is phenomenal. Christian Bale, to me, is the perfect Batman/Bruce Wayne. The only acting downfall was Katie Holmes, but even she wasn’t completely horrible.

There were quite a few things when I first heard about this movie that I thought were mistakes. For instance, the look of the batmobile. I thought it was ridiculous… until I saw it on film and realized it was awesome. Also, as much as I love Gary Oldman, he wasn’t exactly how I pictured Gordon, but he pulled it off, as well.

The cinematography is great, dark, and gritty, as it should be. Christopher Nolan has a great style that was really fitting for the world of Batman. And all the action is cool, especially the batmobile chase through the streets and rooftops. Batman is dark and mysterious, yanking people from the sky, hiding within the shadows, etc., which is exactly how he should be.

The only negative I can really give it is that, on subsequent viewings, I find it’s way too long. I always have trouble getting through the whole thing. There’s two interconnected stories in the movie, so I know a lot is important, but there just feels like some of it could have been trimmed a bit to make it slightly shorter. Other than that, the movie is great, and I can’t wait for The Dark Knight.

A Keanu 'Whoa'

Bizarre Noir #6: Fallen.

Welcome to the sixth of seven posts that will review bizarre noir movies! I hope you enjoy the series. For more information or previous entries, check the posts below this one.

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Fallen.

Year of Origin: 1998.

Director: Gregory Hoblit.

Why it's bizarre: It's a supernatural/horror/thriller.

There isn’t a whole lot to say about this one, though it’s a great one, nonetheless. Detective John Hobbes (Denzel Washington) has finally caught sadistic murderer, Edgar Reese (Elias Koteas). And it’s finally time for his death sentence. But during the whole death sentence thing, Mr. Reese speaks in funny languages and does some odd things. But Detective Hobbes simply shrugs it off. That is, until after Edgar is put to death, when people start being killed in the exact same way that Edgar Reese killed. At first, Hobbes and his partner, Detective Jonesy (John Goodman), think it’s a copycat killer. But after following some clues that lead to speaking with one Gretta Milano (Embeth Davidtz), Hobbes starts believing that it is, in fact, a demon named Azazel that can pass from person to person via touch. And now Azazel is seemingly framing up Hobbes as a murderous and crooked cop, much to the chagrin of police lieutenant Stanton (Donald Sutherland).

There’s a couple other good-name actors in the movie, such as James Gandolfini and Robert Joy, and the acting all around the board is really good. Elias Koteas does his role at the beginning subtly, yet maniacally. Denzel is good as always, and, hey, it’s John Goodman. And while James Gandolfini’s character is, for all intents and purposes, pointless, it’s still done pretty well. The only real shaky ground when it comes to acting is Hobbes’ nephew, Sam, but it’s a child actor, and they aren’t all Abigail Breslin's or Haley Joel Osment’s (whatever happened to him, anyway? He did some video game voice-overs…).

The story isn’t as sci-fi channel cheesy as it sounds. It’s done very well, and with a two hour time-frame, the movie is quite capable of pulling it off nicely. The scenes that involve chasing through large crowds with Azazel going from body to body are really cool. And the song (‘time is on my side’) that he sings and/or whistles throughout the movie is pretty creepy.

The cinematography is excellent, much like any good noir film. And speaking of noir things, there is voice-over narration by Denzel, done in a very Denzel kind of way. And along the same lines, there’s a nice twist ending that’s pretty awesome. Oh, and the music is classic cop/noir jazz saxophone, so it fits nicely with the rest of the feel of the film.

There’s not much else to say about this movie. If you like noir or movies that deal with the supernatural, you should definitely check this one out. It has a great cast and a really good story that culminates into a really good climax and awesome twist.

A Keanu 'Whoa'