2 In 1: The Wizard Rockumentary and The Nightmare Before Christmas.

Both reviews this time are movies that deal, in some form or fashion, with music. The first is a documentary about a specific type of music that’s been exploding into popularity around the world, while the second is a musical that’s been pretty popular for years now (and I’m assuming pretty much everybody has seen it by now, so there are some pretty obvious spoilers). So let’s get to it.

The Wizard Rockumentary.

The Wizard Rockumentary is a documentary about the rise and evolution, popularity, and overall purpose of Wizard Rock (AKA Wrock) through the course of seven years. For those that don’t know, Wizard Rock is when a band or soloist—whether good or bad, it doesn’t matter—writes and performs songs about the Harry Potter books. The documentary details a huge, uncountable amount of Wrock bands, but keeps its focus on (or at least keeps coming back to most often) a specific four: The Switchblade Kittens, who were an actual mainstream band that evolved into a Wrock band and actually created the first Wrock song; Harry and the Potters, who were the first actual (and most popular/famous) Wrock band; Draco and the Malfoys, whose music is like the antithesis of Harry and the Potters (obviously); and The Remus Lupins, which is just one guy, but does very well.

As I said, the purpose of the film is to detail the rise and evolution, popularity, and purpose of Wrock. It begins back in 2000 and spans from then up to 2007 when the final Harry Potter book is released. What the movie does well is in telling the purpose of having a Wrock band, which isn’t to make money (and if you do, it pretty much goes to charity) or to be the best band in the world, but to make songs about books, to get other people to read books and make songs about them, and to just have fun while you’re doing it. It’s all about the fun, and you really see how much fun these people are having while doing this. And there’s a huge range of ages in this—which is another point, as it doesn’t matter what age you are, you can Wrock—from 7 up to even the 40s (maybe 50s). And there’s a whole bunch of different styles of music, too. There’s the more feel-good music of Harry and the Potters, the downright nasty (though hilarious) lyrics of Draco and the Malfoys, the more adult-themed music of The Whomping Willows… it just goes on and on, and some of them are really good and very funny. And most of them are typically through the perspective of the band name (for instance, Harry and the Potters write songs through Harry’s perspective, The Hermione Crookshanks Experience goes through Hermione’s perspective, The Whomping Willows through the tree’s perspective, etc.). Any way you look at it, it’s awesome.

The only downfall of the film, really, was the band of the two kids (the one being 7… the other having to be around 4 or so). Calling themselves The Hungarian Horntails, these two boys dubbed their music Dragon Rock and was mostly a bunch of screaming instead of actual music or lyrics. And their purpose contradicts that of actual Wizard Rock, as they clearly state they’re doing this to become famous and make money (I know they’re just little kids, but still). And I know the purpose of putting them in the documentary was to show that even little kids can Wrock, but it just felt a bit out of place. Though there are a few good lines given by Harry and the Potters about them, which almost made up for their inclusion, so that did make it a bit better.

Otherwise, the movie was done well. It’s interesting how most documentaries will follow one specific person (or a select group) or company or event and detail it/them, sometimes even giving the documentary a conflict or story arch (such as with The King of Kong). However, this film doesn’t do that. Instead of documenting something physically specific, it’s documenting an idea, a theme, and that almost makes the film a bit more powerful in doing so. It shows that these people aren’t a bunch of crazy, no-life losers, but normal people just like everybody else who just want to read books, make music, and have a blast—it doesn’t matter if you’re the best singer or the best musician. And to me, that says quite a bit. So I recommend the film to those of you who are either Harry Potter fans or music fans, or even those of you who could be interested in either (like King of Kong did with video games, I don’t necessarily think you need to be a big fan of Harry Potter to understand what this film is saying/doing). Unfortunately, though, it can’t be found in stores; instead, it can be found at www.wizardrockumentary.com. And one last thing… I totally love the tagline of the film—“A Movie About Rocking and Rowling.” I just thought that was totally clever. So yeah… Read. Rock. Love. Peace out!

A Keanu 'Whoa'

The Nightmare Before Christmas.

A movie in which Tim Burton gets all the credit, but he didn’t even direct! Still good, though. Jack Skellington (Chris Sarandon/Danny Elfman) is the Pumpkin King, the scariest in all of Halloween Town. But he’s getting tired of the same old thing and wants to experience something new for a change. So he winds up stumbling upon Christmas Town and becomes enthralled by everything in it and decides to bring back the spirit of Christmas to Halloween Town, and even getting a few henchmen to kidnap Santa Claus (Edward Ivory) so that Jack can take over. But things don’t go exactly right, and the henchmen go behind Jack’s back to the evil Oogie Boogie (Ken Page) so that he can take over instead. Meanwhile, shy and restless Sally (Catherine O’Hara) is doing everything she can to become free and get closer to Jack.

I don’t have too terribly much to say about the film, so I’ll split it into two bits: the positive and the negative.

The positive: The animation/claymation style of the movie is done very nicely, and there are some really beautiful shots, even, all throughout the film. I really loved anything where the moon is in the background, or anytime the film played with shadows (such as with Oogie Boogie in the first half of the film). The music is very good and catchy, and I really like pretty much every song in the film.

The negative: It seems as if there’s just something missing, like the movie needs to be a bit longer. Everything just moves so quickly. And besides Jack and Sally, every character is pretty flat and one-dimensional. Oogie Boogie isn’t really mentioned as a character until about halfway through the film (though you see hints of him at the beginning), and you see him toward the end, though the final confrontation isn’t really built up, and then when it happens, it goes by in about a minute and then it’s all over. So not only is the villain barely set up (to the point where you don’t really dislike him because he’s there so little), but he’s overtaken very quickly and easily, making for a rather boring and tense-less climax. It’s fun to look at, but there was no thrill. There’s also a bit toward the end that makes a connection that’s like “wait, what?” Jack is questioning Sally as to why she tried to help him (the most famous and likable person in Halloween Town), and he stops and is like “Wait, I didn’t realize you loved me!” Because obviously, trying to help out a friend means they’re in love with you… I mean, she was, but that’s beside the point.

But besides that, the movie was fun. As I said, the music and visuals were good, and the movie is an all-around good time. I’m a big fan of musicals, and I think this is a pretty good one for all intents and purposes. I just think it could have been a bit longer to help with the character development.

A Keanu 'Whoa'

BABYLON A.D.

This is probably just going to be a relatively short review. In a futuristic time, mercenary/smuggler Toorop (Vin Diesel) is an American living in a war-torn, violent, uber-ghetto Russia. He's suddenly hired to smuggle a mysterious Russian girl, Aurora (Melanie Thierry), and her guardian, Sister Rebeka (Michelle Yeoh), to America within 6 days. Along the way, a lot of stuff happens with people trying to stop them or with just trying to get across the border safely.

To start off with the good, the visuals, both special effects and cinematography, were amazing. The grittiness of Russia; the vastness of the Bering Straight; the overly-commercialized New York; the brilliant special effects—everything just worked together nicely to pull off one really good looking film.

However, one negative aspect to the visual style was the fight scenes, though only those wherein there was physical fist-fighting. It was slightly annoying in that it would constantly cut out just before the moment of impact to where you would never actually see the hit. And with both Vin Diesel and Michelle Yeoh fighting, that's pretty lame. The other action-type sequences, however, were done very nicely.

Another negative issue, and this won't really come as a shock to most, was the acting. I mean, the acting was pretty bad. And I don't just mean from Vin, but from pretty much every actor/actress in the film. And part of that might have had to do with some of the dialogue they were given, but some of it was just... eh.

The story, on the other hand, was good. The movie started off a bit slow. It doesn't really start to pick up until after the first 30 or so minutes. But after then, it gets pretty good. The movie almost comes off as more of a mystery with action than an action movie with mystery. The whole movie is about figuring out what the heck is actually going on with this girl he's transporting (even though the trailer pretty much spoils it if you pay attention closely enough). But you don't really find out until the end. And speaking of the ending, this is where the movie starts to get a bit shaky. It's interesting, but it all starts to go in an awkward direction and gets a bit choppy. And then the very end (the final scene)... I'm not sure what it was about it, but it just really bugged me. I couldn't put my finger on it in the theater, and I still can't now, but I just knew that the quick final scene was, frankly, silly and poorly done.

Otherwise, the movie was entertaining. The acting, ending, and fight scenes bring it down a bit, but the (at the very least) intriguing story and amazing visuals shoot it up a bit, as well. And I enjoyed the bit of social commentary that flowed throughout the film, whether directly or subtly. And that's really all about I have to say on it.

I Am McLovin!

(P.S. For clarification, this movie is by no means a great piece of film... I just enjoyed it in the guilty pleasure kind of way (and, again, because I really did love the visuals)).

MIRRORS.

So, I wasn’t originally thinking about seeing this in theater, but I was bored and wanted to see something that could be fun, thrilling, brainless, and entertaining (and I missed the closest showing for Death Race). So I decided… what the heck. Might as well, right? Plus, the majority of the reviews I had read were unbalanced (usually things like how the first part was better than the second part, or that the movie was awesome, or that the movie just plain sucked). Not to mention that, at this point, it has a 6.3 on imdb, is directed by the pretty talented Alexandre Aja, and has brief Amy Smart nudity. In short, I went.

The movie is about down-and-out Jack Bau… erm… Ben Carson (Keifer Sutherland), who was forced to resign from his detective duties after he accidentally killed another cop. His marriage with his supernaturally hot wife, Amy (Paula Patton), is also failing, though he’ll do anything to be with his two kids. So he’s living with his sister, Angela (Amy Smart), and trying to get his life back in order by getting addicted to pills that help get over alcoholism and getting a job as a security officer to help get over killing a cop. So what is he security for? Well… something that really doesn’t need guarding. It’s a big Mayflower store that got burned down, so he has to guard all the crap inside that wasn’t destroyed by smoke or fire (at least I think so… if it was really explained at all, I missed it), including some really big mirrors. But then it turns out that something is inside the mirrors and is both haunting and attacking him and his loved ones. So Ben is forced to figure out what the mirrors want and act all detective-like in order to save his family.

You can tell that the plot and everything about it is based on a foreign movie, because it’s similar to pretty much every other Hollywood remake of Asian horror. The only difference between this movie and movies like The Ring or The Grudge? This one actually has tense or scary moments. The others are usually pretty pathetic. I didn’t think that the second half of the movie was worse than the first half, as a lot of other people seemed to think. I thought the whole mystery thing was interesting. And while the result wasn’t your typical child-accidentally-died or child-brutally-murdered case, it was still very much an interesting, albeit a bizarre concept (and quite Asian). In fact, the whole climax reminded me of something from a survival horror video game, such as Resident Evil or Silent Hill. When it started, I was like “Boss battle! Go, Jack Bauer, Go!”

The music was good, though I think the movie relied too heavily on it. It was almost overpowering in its use. And I know the director has the ability to be creepy or scary without the intense music. Nevertheless, it was still a pretty decent soundtrack.

And speaking of the director, if there’s one thing that Alexandre Aja knows how to do, it’s setting the atmosphere. When I saw the remake of The Hills Have Eyes, I could almost feel the heat of the desert along with the characters, and I could feel their isolation and terror. Similarly, the way this movie was shot, I could feel the paranoia and tension brought on by any reflective surface. And mirrors have always been a scare-tactic in horror movies, but to widen the range to any reflective surface and have any of these reflective surfaces be the cause of death increases the tension of almost every minute of the movie, because you’re always waiting for that next scare, not knowing if it’ll come or not.

The acting was a bit mediocre, but it only bothered me a couple of times. Seriously, by the time the end of the movie starts to kick into gear and Paula Patton is soaking wet in a white tank-top, I couldn’t care less about acting. I mean, some of it was good, but most of it… not so much. And I couldn’t tell if it was because of the actors or because of the script they were given, as some of the characters came off wrong. There was one scene that really bugged me, toward the beginning (and I think this was more of a writing issue). But Keifer and Paula are arguing, Paula having started it, and out of nowhere Paula yells at him. She just goes off. And then Keifer tries to keep it cool, but eventually yells back. And then, I kid you not, Paula’s character is like (and I’m paraphrasing here) “See? That’s what I mean. I never know how you’re going to act,” or, in other words, “why the hell are you yelling at me? It’s not like I just bit your head off first and then acted all innocent and hypocritical in the situation. Oh whatever, let’s make out.” And then they proceed to forget everything and do so. Oh, and one last thing about the writing that bugged me. How coincidental can you get when everything you need to solve the case is right at your fingertips? For instance, Ben was a former detective, so he had a couple connections in getting old hospital files and such. Or how his wife was a mortician, and he needed to urgently see a corpse that had recently been added to the morgue, so she was able to get him in. Just stuff like that was too cliché and too simplistic.

Overall, the movie wasn’t as bad as I thought it was going to be. The CGI was a bit too fake at times, and the plot turned pretty sketchy every now and then. But there was a good balance between tension and gore. The visual style, I think, was the best part about the movie, with constant showings of reflections in different objects. The very end of the movie didn’t make much sense, though. I mean, I understand what happened, but I just don’t know how it happened. Though I did have to smirk at a comment somebody made as I was leaving the theater, which really fit in with how Hollywood is going these days. “So I guess there’s gonna be a sequel. What’re they gonna call it? Reflections?”

Indeed, movie-goer. Indeed.

Stop Saying Okay! Okay.

2 In 1: Miss Potter and Finding Neverland.

This 2 In 1 focuses on movies based on two famous children’s authors with even more famous works of literature. Both movies also tend to have a bit of magical realism played into it, for better or worse.

Miss Potter.

This film is based on Beatrix Potter, famous for writing and illustrating the children’s story The Tale of Peter Rabbit. But the movie, really, isn’t about that. However, it’s hard to pinpoint what the movie is about. It really isn’t a story about her rise from nothing to fame, because she starts off rich and gets published in the first scene of the movie and then begins to gain fame within the first 30 minutes. It’s more of a love story between Beatrix (Renee Zellweger) and her publisher, Norman (Ewan McGregor), as well as her friendship with Norman’s sister, Millie (Emily Watson)… as well as her relationships with her parents. So if I were to be asked what this movie is about, I’d answer ‘the many relationships of Beatrix Potter.’

Obviously one of the major faults of the movie, to me, is that it has no clear purpose. The movie moves as an almost breakneck speed, leaving no room for plot, character development, or chemistry. It moves from scene to scene adding more tidbits on the life of Beatrix Potter without really extending on any given moment besides its importance on the surface level. There was no real chemistry between Zellweger and McGregor. There was only a marginal bit of chemistry between Zellweger and Watson. But none of the characters really grew. They all stayed exactly the same, including Beatrix. Sure, she moves on with life and eventually stands up for herself… but she did that numerous times in other different ways as shown in the movie. There needed to be a lot more to the movie, especially on the character of William Heelis, who has all of 4 or 5 scenes in the entire movie, but turns out to be highly important in Beatrix’s life. His complete lack of screen time gives the audience no ability to attach to him or actually care about what the heck happens (much like with any character in the movie). And then within the last 15-20 minutes of the movie, it continues to go in a completely unimportant direction before abruptly ending. There’s no real conflict or climax to the movie. It’s just like “moments in the life of Beatrix Potter.”

As for acting, I felt Ewan McGregor and Emily Watson did the best job. Renee Zellweger, though I’m not sure why, got on my nerves. Something about the way she acted the part was just irritating. Not to mention she came off as clinically insane for most of the movie. It was interesting, at the least, how her pictures kept coming to life via her imagination, but they really didn’t make too much use of the idea (except in one scene to show a mental breakdown, though, as I said, she was arguably already mentally unstable anyway).

I usually talk about a movie more than this, but I honestly don’t know what else to say about it. The movie was at least somewhat entertaining for the most part, though it had a lot of flaws to me, and the last 20 minutes or so was pointless and needed a lot more meat to it. The best visual is toward the beginning when the young Beatrix is picturing her parents getting into a pumpkin-carriage being led by giant rabbits (and driven by a mouse, if I remember correctly). I really didn’t care for Renee’s acting in the part, and the movie could have just used more of a plot in general. That’s about all I can say on that.

Feed Me, Seymour!

Finding Neverland.

How is it that this movie only won a single Oscar again (and only for Original Score, at that)? J.M. Barrie (Johnny Depp) is a failing playwright, much to the chagrin of his producer (Dustin Hoffman), with a failing marriage with his wife, Mary (Radha Mitchell). But when he happens across a family headed by widow Sylvia Davies (Kate Winslet), with four boys including the much-troubled Peter (Freddie Highmore), both his life and his imagination find a sudden spark. Even against the wishes of Sylvia’s strict mother (Julie Christie), and through all the slanderous rumors against Barrie’s true purposes with the family, the friendships strive on as Mr. Barrie creates his masterpiece, Peter Pan.

There’s so many wonderful things about this movie. The acting is magnificent, from Johnny Depp all the way down to Freddie Highmore (I would argue that this and August Rush are his two best films). Johnny Depp is great and diverse as usual, as well. The only slight buggy bit was when he kind of dropped the accent to do a pirate accent at one point, which made it more reminiscent of Captain Jack than of a proper Scotsman. The actress that catches my attention the most, though, is Radha Mitchell, who really seems to be one heck of a diverse actress. I mean, she’s played a troubled, badass ship pilot in the Sci-Fi/Horror flick Pitch Black, she’s played the worried mother in the Horror film Silent Hill, and now here she is playing the snotty English woman. It’s just fun to see the range she can take and still do well in (we all know Johnny Depp is pretty much the same, but I’m talking in the terms of actresses here. There aren’t many actresses out there who can do these vastly different roles and pull them all off well).

The sense of imagination/magical realism in the film is handled very nicely, as well. It isn’t played up like J.M. Barrie is insane or whatnot, but simply opening his imagination and inviting everybody else to join him in doing so. My favorite bit, which really shows the contrast between characters, is when Barrie and his wife are going to bed in their separate rooms. Mary opens her door, which is just to a dark bedroom, while J.M. opens his door to a bright, flowery meadow. There’s quite a bit of symbolism between reality and the imagination imagery, which is handled nicely (especially toward the end when Kate Winslet ‘Finds Neverland’, so to speak).

The music was beautiful, obviously, since it won an Oscar for it. This is really a short review, as well, because there’s not much more to talk about. The movie was handled very well on all fronts, and it’s a shame that it was relatively ignored. It’s just a beautiful film overall.

Royale With Cheese

Short Review: Diary of the Dead.

I'm a huge zombie fan (and therefore huge Romero fan). I heard a lot of bad things about this movie. Didn't expect this.

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Premise: A bunch of film students that are filming a horror movie get caught up in the beginning of the zombie apocalypse and decide to film all that they can.

Starring: Nobody known.

My Reaction: The acting was horrible. The writing and dialogue was horrible. The narration was horrible. The characters were horrible (and no Texan from San Antonio speaks like that). The use of first-person camera and everything about it was horrible. Practically everything in the movie was horrible, if you haven't gathered that yet. And Romero was trying way too hard on adding a relevant social commentary to it. Way too obvious and in-your-face (to the point of annoying). There were one or two cool, though brief, shots in the entire movie, such as a bunch of zombies in a swimming pool. Otherwise, the movie was awful, and it really isn't worth seeing even for those one or two good shots, as they're only one or two seconds long at most. Shame on you, Romero. Shame.


She's Gone From Suck to Blow!

TROPIC THUNDER.

I wasn’t sure what to expect going into this, but I came out with a smile on my face and a good time behind me. Tropic Thunder is about a blundering war film based on a ‘true-story’ book called Tropic Thunder written by Four Leaf Tayback (Nick Nolte). But everything is screwed up: the explosives guy Cody (Danny McBride) is overly obsessed with his profession; the actors—action guy with failing career, Tugg Speedman (Ben Stiller); extreme method actor, Kirk Lazarus (Robert Downey Jr.); failing comedian, Jeff Portney (Jack Black); rapper, Alpa Chino (Brandon T. Jackson); and the rookie, Kevin Sandusky (Jay Baruchel)—are all screw-ups and completely messing up the film. So the director, Damien Cockburn (Steve Coogan), gets advice from Four Leaf to film the movie guerrilla-style by dumping the actors in the middle of the jungle away from all of their modern-day vices and such. But when one bad thing after another occurs, the crew finds themselves in the middle of an Asian drug encampment, and they’re all very much real and serious.

The beginning was a little slow, though there were quite a few laughs. The big thing with this movie is the high number of cameo appearances, including the much-talked-about Tom Cruise. Sometimes they’re more than small appearances, sometimes they’re only brief. But all of them are funny.

The acting in the movie was done really well, I thought, all around. Ben Stiller and Robert Downey Jr., though, were the obvious leads of the film. The majority of the movie concentrated on those two actors’ characters. Jack Black’s character isn’t really the typical Jack Black, in my opinion (musically obsessed, hardcore spaz). But then again, Black wasn’t at the forefront of the movie, either. Brandon Jackson is pretty much like you’d figure him to be from the movie trailer. But the surprise of the group was Jay Baruchel, who really held his own against these other guys. You’d probably only recognize the guy from Knocked Up (the scrawny friend with the bad haircut). But his character here, though he’s not one of the top billings, played a bigger role than arguably even Jack Black’s. And his character was much better, too. Of course the stand-out was Robert Downey Jr. Anytime he was off-screen, I waited for it to go back to him (even though you could barely ever tell it was him). Oh, and Tom Cruise’s character is hilarious. He was very good, too. As for Nick Nolte? Well, he was Nick Nolte (intense and kinda creepy).

The cinematography was another thing done quite well. There were a lot of great scenery shots, as well as fun action shots. And on the subject of action, there was a lot, and it was all excellent. The only bad visual I really noticed in the whole movie was toward the end, when there’s this kid stabbing one of the characters… and the whole sequence with the kid (from the stabbing to what happened right after) looked really fake. Otherwise, it was great.

So we have the action down; what about the comedy? For an action-comedy, it’s half the equation. And it really worked. I was laughing, my theater was laughing, and it was hilarious in its absurdity. And the humor ranged all around the board: from just verbal humor, situational humor, gross-out humor, action-related humor… well, the movie was just really funny. I can’t say much more than that.

And I really don’t think I can say much more than that. The acting was done well. The visuals (in both cinematography and action) were done great. The humor was great. The cameos were great. All around, the movie was highly entertaining (except for a few slow spots toward the beginning), and I left the theater smiling. What more can you ask than that?

A Keanu 'Whoa'

PINEAPPLE EXPRESS.

I wanted to like this movie a lot… and I did… mostly. Dale Denton (Seth Rogen) is a pot-head with a girlfriend still in high school and a job that makes everybody hate him (handing out subpoenas). But after he gets a little high off a new, rare brand of weed, Pineapple Express, with his drug dealer Saul (James Franco), he goes to serve Ted Jones (Gary Cole). But when he gets there, he witnesses Ted and a female cop murder somebody. Dale gets rid of his doobie and gets the heck out of there, but all is already lost. Ted is the ultimate supplier of Pineapple Express, and had only given it out to one man, Red (Danny McBride), who gave it to Saul. So now Ted is forced to send out a couple hitmen (Kevin Corrigan and Craig Robinson) to finish them off, thinking Dale was hired to kill him by the same men who had sent the man Ted killed in front of him. Make sense? Good.

The plot of the movie is actually pretty good in its own bizarre kind of way. The biggest problem with this action-comedy, though, was the comedy. The first 30 minutes or so was very slow and the jokes just didn’t seem to work for me. They were the same, old, boring stoner jokes that would probably only make pot-heads (or at least people who have been high before) laugh. I only laughed a couple times in this beginning portion of the movie. It wasn’t until the action finally kicked into gear that I really got into the movie. And it wasn’t just because it was action, but that in the action was the true comedy. It wasn’t over-the-top by any means (well, mostly), and it was both entertaining and funny in its presentation. But the attempted comedy that wasn’t involved in the action often failed for me (some hit, but it usually failed).

As for acting, Seth Rogen was Seth Rogen. The highlight of the movie, I think, was James Franco. His acting was done rather well, and his character was both funny and easy to feel for (just because he’s such a nice, laid-back guy). The hitmen were also unique, in a way. They weren’t Jules and Vincent, but they had their own quirks. The one character that was kind of off was Red. Though it wasn’t as much the character as it was his standing in the story. After all the stuff that happens to the guy, he shouldn’t have been up and walking as well as he was at the various parts of the movie. The other bit of the story that was kinda weird was the fact that Seth Rogen, who looks like he’s almost 40, is dating a high school girl that looks 16. Though I do admit that the scene where he goes to the high school toward the beginning of the movie was pretty funny (one of the funnier parts of the first 30 minutes).

Now, I’ve seen another movie that portrayed a collaboration between this same director and director of photography, George Washington, and I often felt the same about this as I did about that (though more positive about this one). Some of the camera work/visuals were really good. Other times… not so much. Sometimes occurances in the movie were great… sometimes they were just weird. The one thing I did get kinda tired of was the constant camera zoom-in on important objects (as if to tell the audience “Hey! I’m gonna be important in a couple seconds!”).

Overall, the action was good, and the comedy within the action was good. The other attempted comedy could have been better, in my opinion, but the latter half of the movie really kind of overshadows the former half. There were some too-ridiculous moments where some worked and some didn’t. So, yeah, that’s about it. It was really good, though it could have been a bit better. It was entertaining enough once the movie got going.

I Am McLovin!

LAMB MOTM: Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind.

So, this movie was chosen as the next LAMB Movie of the Month. But not only has it been picked there, but it has also appeared in a couple different other LAMB events, such as Sirens of the LAMBs and The LAMB Action Hero. So when this was chosen for the MOTM, as an anime fan, I had to check it out (as I hadn’t seen it, though had heard of it numerous times, even prior to LAMB events). I love Miyazaki’s films, and I think the man is one of the greatest in the field, but I have to say… this one wasn’t one of his best.

First, the story was jumbled and rather all over the place. It just felt as if it didn’t know what it wanted to be about. Did it want to be about finding a cure for the poisoned Earth? Did it want to be about two feuding nations? Did it want to be about stopping one of said nations from resurrecting one of the monsters that ruined the world a thousand years ago? Did it want to be about stopping the giant insects from destroying the valley and/or world? Did it want to be about finding the one prophesied hero who would save them all? Who knows? Apparently the movie didn’t.

For the animation, I’m taking into account that this was made back in 1984 (which is ironic, as it has some slight dystopian undertones). Some of the animation was pretty good, and some of it was only decent at best. There were some great, epic shots at times (usually in moments of action or ‘suspense’), but then there was some rugged, awkward animation. The best moments (of the whole movie), though, as I said, were the action scenes.

As for why I put ‘suspense’ like so, I am brought to one of my big issues of the movie: I didn’t care for any of the characters. Nausicaä was naïve and oftentimes annoying. All the other characters were just shown intermittently. None of them really had any kind of character growth. So when it came to the action sequences and such, while they were usually interesting (at the least) to look at, I never cared about the outcome, which just made the whole movie quite dull.

The dialogue was incredibly annoying, as well. It seemed like every character spoke in exposition (and/or their thoughts). Especially in the first 15 or so minutes of the movie, when Nausicaä continually talked to herself in an incredibly unnatural way, as if obviously explaining to the audience everything they needed to know. This kind of thing also happened quite a few times throughout the movie, as well. But it wasn’t just that about the dialogue, either. Just the dialogue in general was stiff and unnatural.

The voice acting, on the other hand, wasn’t too bad. I watched the 2004 dubbing that included the talents of Edward James Olmos, Chris Sarandon, Patrick Stewart, Uma Thurman, and Shia LaBeouf. Mr. Olmos and Mr. Stewart were especially good. I could barely tell it was Uma Thurman doing the voice. Chris Sarandon seemed to be channeling Prince Humperdinck from The Princess Bride (and, oddly enough, looked like Christopher Guest’s Count Rugen of the same movie). The only voice that was distracting was Shia LaBeouf’s, mostly because he has such a distinct voice and has been in every other movie these days, so I would always picture him instead of the character. And I know anime rule #1 (as well as any foreign movie, really) is to never watch it dubbed… but I didn’t have much of a choice, here, in my viewing options.

But another thing that bugged me was the music, though not all of it. Some of the music was actually quite good. Other times it sounded as if it would belong in a Final Fantasy game (which is not bad… those games can have some great music). But oftentimes, it sounded as if it would better belong in some campy, old-school video game, and it was really distracting. The weird mix of orchestral music with weird techno-keyboard-type music was an odd choice, in my opinion.

Overall, even though I like anime (and Miyazaki), I couldn’t get into this one. And it wasn’t because of the environmental message either, which I really didn’t mind, except for the awful dialogue that it brought on (and the message was really in-your-face. Seriously, this movie would make anybody who hated the “green” message in WALL*E find it suddenly easily tolerable. I was also reminded of the recent The Happening with its trees of doom and such). Anyway, I don’t think I’ll be watching this one again… at least not anytime soon.

The Zed Word

THE MUMMY: TOMB OF THE DRAGON EMPEROR.

Warning: Minor spoilers.

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I’ll make this short. The movie is about Alex O’Connell (Luke Ford), son of Rick O’Connell (Brendan Fraser) and Evelyn (Maria Bello), who unearths the tomb of Emperor Han (Jet Li). The mummy comes to life and wrecks havoc whilst trying to become immortal and rule the world. He has superpowers and, later, can shape-shift. They also meet guardian Lin (Isabella Leong) and bring back Evelyn’s brother, Jonathan (John Hannah).

Good notes about the movie:

- Isabella Leong was hot.

- Brendan Fraser was his usual funny self (sort of).

- John Hannah’s character was entertaining as usual.

- The action was somewhat entertaining.

- Oh, and Isabella Leong was hot.

Bad notes about the movie:

- The CGI was terrible. Seriously, it was awful.

- Luke Ford can’t act.

- The relationship between Alex and Lin seemed forced.

- Maria Bello is no Rachel Weisz.

- Brendan Fraser and Maria Bello had no chemistry.

- The CGI really was terrible.

- The Yetis were just silly.

- Why did they absolutely need the O’Connell’s to be the ones to raise the mummy again?

- How come the Chinese army dude can’t read Chinese?

- Have I mentioned the terrible CGI?

- The martial arts was lame, brief, and underwhelming.

- Sorry to say, even Brendan Fraser’s witty charisma was lacking. He had his moments, but they weren’t as good as they should have been.

- It was too silly, in general. At least the first two Mummy movies (moreso the first) had a darkness or grittiness to them. This one was just childish and, again, silly.

- The last line (the written sentence on the screen) of the movie was almost intelligence-insulting. I’m pretty sure the audience could have gathered the joke without it… but maybe I’m just giving too much credit to the mass population.

- I’m not even going to bother bringing up the bad CGI again. Oh wait, I just did.

Let me put it this way… not to long ago, I was at the theater and there was a woman sitting in front of me with two kids and a cell phone. She drove me up the wall and ruined the experience. That SAME woman with the same two kids and stupid cell phone was there again, sitting, yet again, a bit in front of me… doing the same things as last time. But this time, I didn’t really care as much. It had some good moments, but the movie, as a whole, was just pretty bad. And to top it all off, my showing didn’t include the teaser trailer for Half-Blood Prince, which pissed me off. That was supposed to be my redeeming factor of seeing this movie… and it wasn’t even there! Gah. Well… at least Isabella Leong was hot.

The Zed Word