LKMYNTS... Bang Bang, You're Dead.

For this Little Known Movies You Need To See, I'll be discussing Bang Bang, You're Dead. I’ve been waiting for the right moment to discuss this movie, and I think the moment has come. This movie is, by far, one of the most important pieces of film ever made. And I don’t mean that it’s just an excellent movie, but this movie is truly important. As a future high school teacher, I plan on showing this movie to every student I possibly can (and anybody who sees this movie would tell you likewise). Now that I’ve built it up, I can go on to the actual movie.

Bang Bang, You’re Dead tells us the story of Trevor (Ben Foster, in what is by far his best performance), who was a good, normal student until he began being bullied by other students. He then became worse and worse until he finally snapped and threatened to blow up the football team. The bomb was non-functional (there was no explosive), but was otherwise perfectly made. He was suspended from school. The school put in place a Zero Tolerance policy, along with an expensive metal detector, and then let Trevor come back the next year (though with heavy surveillance, frisking, and anger management sessions). He also decides to use a video camera to film his everyday life at both home and school and record his own thoughts. Meanwhile, the drama teacher, Mr. Duncan (Tom Cavanaugh), prints out a play called Bang Bang, You’re Dead (which, by the way, is a real play), which is about a school shooting, and proceeds to cast Trevor as the lead role of the shooter. This causes a lot of controversy, but Mr. Duncan refuses to stop production.

There are a lot of other subplots, such as a love interest/friendship and hanging out with these loners who call themselves ‘Trogs’ (they’re basically the epitome of what you’d actually expect school shooters to be like). But everything is woven together in the overall plot of Trevor’s journey of being understood.

There are two scenes that always stick out the most to me, which are also two scenes that made me cry. One is a scene when the police take one of his videos that he shot and plays it in front of parents/faculty/police/etc. Just seeing everything through Trevor’s eyes and how everything is working against him, and against other people, as well… just seeing what would drive a person to do something so drastic… it’s heart-wrenching. And the saddest part is that it is all completely true. The other scene is the movie’s ending, which I won’t spoil.

(Randomly: I actually put/edited together a few clips from the movie (mostly using bits from the video diary scene) to use for a presentation on Zero Tolerance. The clip was only about 5 minutes long, but by the time it was over, I had the entire class, including the teacher, in tears).

This is a powerfully written and powerfully filmed movie that, unfortunately, almost nobody has ever even heard of. And it’s also very hard to find, because production of the DVD was stopped a few years back, so you can really only find it on places like Amazon (that’s where I got mine). I can’t recommend this movie to enough people, really. I can’t even rate this movie, because I would give it a score higher than I have. That’s how great/important this movie is.

UNTRACEABLE.

Before seeing this movie, I read a good way to describe it… and after seeing it, it still holds true: This movie is basically like mixing Saw with CSI. Jennifer Marsh (Diane Lane) and Griffin Dowd (Colin Hanks) work for the FBI’s cyber crime division. One day Marsh gets a tip for a website called killwithme.com. All that’s there is a live stream of a kitten trapped in a glue-trap for rats. Soon after the kitten dies and the website gains a bit of notoriety, the cat is replaced with a man who is hooked up with this blood thinner stuff, basically turning him into a super-hemophiliac. The catch is that the more people who visit the site, the more of that blood thinner goes into his body. But when the guy dies and is replaced by another, they realize that this killer is just going to keep going, and the site is going to get more visits, and people are going to die faster and faster.

I was actually pleasantly surprised with this movie, though I’m not sure if that’s because I went in with low expectations. Usually movies like this lately haven’t been too excellent, and they’re made even worse by a cheesy and predictable twist ending. As I’ve mentioned before, twists can either make or break a movie, and most of the time they break it. And I’ll be honest: I thought I had the movie figured out from the trailer alone, because every thriller these days has a twist ending. Except this one. Yes, I admit that I was wrong in this case. This movie did not have some wacky, predictable twist ending. You actually start seeing the killer’s face about halfway into the movie. But that didn’t make the movie bad, oh no. It was almost a bit refreshing.

And the movie was pretty suspenseful, too. It wasn’t the most edge-of-your-seat thriller ever, and it starts off a bit slow, but it does keep your attention. There is some gore, and the movie is actually pretty hardcore in some instances. The ways people died did remind me somewhat of how they might in a Saw movie; they are inventive and brutal. Also, like Saw, their deaths don’t come directly from the bad guy himself. Though, unlike Saw movies (except Saw 3), there’s no way for them to get out of their situation alive without outside help.

Another Saw parallel could be the social commentary, and the fact that the ‘killer’ does have a message and reasoning for doing what he does. The movie really showcases how American society (and it makes sure to point out to you that it is purely American society) is drawn to violence and the ‘car wreck scenario’ (you see it’s horrible, but can’t help but watch), as well as how people will do anything for a bit of fame and fortune. It’s pretty in-your-face, especially when they show the comments being posted on the website from the people watching.

The characters were good, although I only felt attached to Marsh and Griffin, and you do care if they die or not. The acting was pretty average, of course. It’s just a common thriller, so we aren’t expecting Oscar-worthy performances. But they kept you in the movie and nothing really detracted.

I suppose the only real downer was that, although it lacked the twist ending, it basically followed the detective thriller formula… you know such-and-such and this-and-that are going to happen sometime in the movie, and they do. And there were way too many Chekhov’s Gun’s that pointed to things that would happen later. But I still liked the ending, as it re-enforced the social commentary one last time. It’s a nice little thriller, and it’s slightly better than average. I give it A Keanu ‘Whoa’.

CLOVERFIELD.

Cloverfield… It’s Godzilla meets Lonelygirl15… or The Blair Witch Project… whichever you prefer. The difference is that it is infinitely better than all of those.

Cloverfield is about this dude, Rob, who gets this Vice President job position in Japan, so his friends and his brother, Jason, throw him this going away party. Jason is supposed to film everybody in the party and have them say their goodbyes and congrats and such to the camera (like at a wedding), but passes it off to Rob’s best friend, Hud. Well, Rob and Beth, his long-time friend, hooked up about a month prior but he never followed up due to his leaving, which causes a bunch of drama. On top of that, a giant monster decides now would be a good time to attack New York and destroy everything. Damn monster! So anyway, a small group of the party-goers run around while Hud films everything (“I think people should know how it all went down”).

I’ll stop it there, because any more would spoil it. There is a plot (or mission, really), and it isn’t just them running around freaking out. The characters are fully developed and you really care for each one of them (though some more than others). You don’t want anything to happen to them. It’s not like other horror movies where the movie focuses on the gimmick instead of the characters. No, this is a monster movie where the characters are the forefront and the monster is just kinda there messing everything else up. And yes, you do get to see the monster from numerous angles and quite a few times, though you get some really nice close-ups near the end.

As for the characters, Rob is obviously meant to be the main character or whatnot… but I think that title should go to Hud. You only see him maybe like… 5 times the entire movie, as he’s behind the camera the whole time, but you always know he’s there and he has great personality. The whole movie is literally in his hands. And I don’t know about anybody else, but even though you barely even see the guy, he was the character I became most attached to.

But what’s a monster movie without suspense or action? This movie has both, and loads of it. This movie is so incredibly suspenseful and engaging that after the monster attack began (it takes about 20 minutes or so, as the beginning is all character development), I never even looked at my watch once. One of my favorite scenes probably would have to be the subway tunnel scene.

And the monster itself? Well, it looks awesome, to put it simply. It’s creepy and random looking. And the CGI in this movie couldn’t be better. The monster and its little mini-creature things are very realistic (I’m sure the shadows help, too). And some of the sets and stuff looked awesome, too, like the leaning building they have to cross into.

I just really don’t want to stop talking about this movie. I think it’s easily one of the best of 2008 thus far (granted, it’s only January, but still. It will probably stay on the list for a long time). The only downside might be that there’s no real closure. You really aren’t sure what happens to those left or anything. But part of me wants to say that that almost makes it even more intriguing.

Cloverfield gets a Royale with Cheese.

(P.S. I kinda feel bad for the director, because J.J. Abrams is getting all the credit, and almost nobody has mentioned the poor director).

THE BUCKET LIST.

So my sister took me to go see The Bucket List with her. This will probably be a fairly short review. The premise of the movie is that these two guys, Edward (Jack Nicholson) and Carter (Morgan Freeman) are dying of cancer and get stuck in a hospital room together. Edward owns the hospital and, therefore, has lots of money. When both men hear they have a year at most to live, they start to give up. But then Edward hears of this ‘Bucket List’ (things to do before you ‘kick the bucket’) thing from Carter and decides to do it. So they write down a bunch of stuff to do and go do it, even against Carter’s wife’s feelings.

Overall, the movie was entertaining. It had some pretty funny scenes, and some of the scenes seemed forced. I didn’t really care for Jack Nicholson’s performance in the movie (except maybe near the end). I wanted to feel sorry for the character, but I just couldn’t. On the other hand, I loved Morgan Freeman in this, though I love him in just about anything he does. But I must say that Sean Hayes (Jack from Will & Grace) stole every scene he was in, which was a lot of them.

I can’t really say much else about this movie. It was really funny, it was endearing, and I learned a lot of useless trivia (I’m all for that stuff) from Freeman’s character. I think I’d give this one A Keanu ‘Whoa’.

(P.S. I was also surprised to find out (because I didn’t know beforehand) that this was a Rob Reiner (The Princess Bride, Misery, A Few Good Men, This is Spinal Tap) film. Huh.)

EL ORFANATO/THE ORPHANAGE.

1) It’s in Spanish.
2) It’s short-listed for an Oscar (Best Foreign Film).

Therefore: How the hell did it find its way to my town, much less opening weekend?

El Orfanato, better known as The Orphanage, is a Spanish psychological thriller. The previews make it out to be a horror movie, but it’s not gory (there’s a little blood, but not much), and the whole thing plays more as a thriller/mystery than a horror movie. There are scares, and they are pretty scary, but I don’t think they’re enough to classify it as horror. So anyway, I went to the first showing possible, afraid my theater might change their mind and ship it away again.

The Orphanage is about a woman, Laura, who was raised in an orphanage as a child and decides to move back there with her family to start the place back up again. But her son, Simón, who is also adopted and is HIV positive, makes a few new invisible friends, and soon after a strange social worker shows up to inquire about him, Simón goes missing. Laura starts to experience odd occurances and begins to wonder if the old orphanage is haunted and if the ghosts took her son away.

The movie really plays well going back and forth, making you wonder if there’s something supernatural going on, or if somebody has simply kidnapped her son and is messing with her. There are no cheesy special effects (I actually don’t think there were any special effects), and the movie was still able to be suspenseful and creepy/scary.

The acting, especially by the woman who plays Laura, is excellent. I can see why this movie was given an Oscar-nom. And by the time it’s over, you aren’t asking questions about potential plot holes or anything that didn’t make sense. Everything is explained perfectly, and I left perfectly satisfied. Well, except that there was a baby (complete with like… a freakin crib) in the theater; there were a lot of quiet moments in the movie, and the movie playing in the screen next to this one was insanely loud; and I guess my theater really isn’t used to foreign films, because for the first 5-10 minutes (until somebody told the staff), the projection was too low, so the subtitles were cut in half (luckily I can read words by only seeing the top half of letters).

All in all, it wasn’t as beautiful as Pan’s Labyrinth (though it’s only presented by Guillermo del Toro, not actually made by him… kinda like what Quentin Tarantino likes to do, except this movie was actually good unlike most that Tarantino likes to present *cough*Hostel*cough*), but it was beautiful in its own right. It was a completely different kind of movie. I give it a Royale with Cheese.

(P.S. I really think American directors need to go to foreign countries before making horror/thriller-type movies. These people know what they’re doing. 28 Days Later (Danny Boyle – British… it’s foreign to the US!), 28 Weeks Later (Juan Carlos Fresnadillo – Spanish), Saw (James Wan & Leigh Whannell – Australian), Cube (Vincenzo Natali – French Canadian), and not to mention countless Asian Horror films).

Disappointing Endings... Sunshine.

WARNING: SPOILERS (Obviously).

I had been waiting to see this movie for a long time. 28 Days Later… is one of my favorite horror movies, and I just kept hearing more and more about this film. It didn’t come to theater here, so I had to wait for the DVD, which came out yesterday. I knew about the supposedly awful last part of the movie, and I even readied myself for it. I was prepped and had my expectations set pretty low for the very end. And I was still disappointed.

Sunshine is about a group of astronauts and scientists who go to reignite the sun with a huge bomb after the previous attempt failed and the ship went missing. On their way, they find the previous ship and decide to go off-course in order to see what happened and to get their bomb so they would have two, in case they screwed up the first time. Bad things ensue.

Visually, this movie was beyond amazing. All of the effects were mesmerizing and top notch. The sun itself was spectacular. The acting was done very well, and overall… it was just a great piece of work. The first hour and 15-20 minutes was a great film. And then the last 20 minutes came.

…What the hell happened? Like 28 Days Later…, the third act of this movie takes a completely different route than you had been expecting. But unlike Days, it really doesn’t work here. Suddenly it goes from an awesome sci-fi movie to a less violent (but less stupid) Jason X. I have no idea what the hell is going on anymore. Suddenly the camera is too shaky to see what’s going on at all, there’s almost no explanation as to what happened, and an extra crispy man that would make a sadistic Colonel Sanders proud starts wreaking havoc on the ship. To me, it felt like The Descent all over again (I swear, I’m the only horror fan on Earth that didn’t like that movie. The first half was great and suspenseful… and then the little blind Gollums show up and it gets crappy).

But then Capa (Cillian Murphy) detaches the bomb, starts banging his head against the ground, and then leaps through space to grab onto it as it launches at the sun. I have no idea why he’s doing this, and then it looks like he’s dead. But oh no, the next thing we know, he’s inside the thing and walking around, and has to fix something or other for the bomb to explode (What, I don’t think we’re ever told).

The last minute of the movie ('8 minutes later') is a good, but it was way too late by that point. The 20 minutes prior to it was just… words cannot describe. If they were adamant to go this route, it would have been better had they just had one of their own crew (the little Asian dude, maybe) get all mental and go crazy like any other paranoia/claustrophobic movie (like Cube). I don’t even really know how to score this movie. The majority would get a great score and the ending would get an awful score, and if I average it together, it would be just that… average. But I don’t think that’s fair to the bulk of the film. So I’ll just leave it open.

(P.S. Was it just me, or did Chris Evans look better/cooler with the long hair and beard?)

UPDATE: I've updated my opinion on this now. The updated opinion can be found here.

Short Review: Hard Candy.

Premise: 14-year-old girl chats with 32-year-old man and meets him in real life. One of them is a predator. It's the girl.

Starring: Ellen Page, Patrick Wilson, Sandra Oh.

My reaction: Uh... Wow...

(Poster: Awesome).

My rating: Royale with Cheese.

JUNO.

What can I say about Juno that hasn’t already been said? It just came to my town, so I’m a bit late on seeing it… so let’s just start at the beginning. Juno is basically like if Knocked Up and Napoleon Dynamite had a love child (no pun intended)—there was even a dude in this one scene that looked and acted like Napoleon Dynamite. So the movie… A quirky girl (Ellen Page) gets pregnant after having boredom sex with her good friend Paulie (Michael Cera). She ends up deciding to go through with the pregnancy, but is going to give it up for adoption instead of keeping it. In making this decision, she and her father (JK Simmons) go and meet the adopting parents (Jason Bateman and Jennifer Garner), whom Juno really likes. Life ensues.

First I have to say that Juno was a really funny movie. It had me laughing quite a bit, and I wasn’t exactly expecting that. After the first 15 or 20 minutes, the quirky wordage dies down a bit, making the dialogue a bit easier to follow, but it’s still there (and you get used to it pretty quickly). So yeah, funniness… even the dramatic scenes were funny (most of them, anyway).

The acting was top notch. Ellen Page and Michael Cera were fun to watch on screen, especially Michael Cera. JK Simmons—I love the man in Spider-Man, and I love the man in this. He plays the dad role nicely. Jason Bateman gave me the creeps, but it turns out he was supposed to, so yay for that! The real props have to be given to Jennifer Garner, though. She had a very tender role and acted it beautifully.

I have to say, though, the music felt like a character of the movie, too. I loved the music in this movie, and it drew me in every time a song was played. It just fit so well with the overall quirky (I’m overusing this word) feel of the movie.

And don’t let my overuse of the Q-word affect you. Like Knocked Up, this movie had some pretty dramatic scenes in it, as well. Most of them are toward the end of the movie, though. Anyway, I really didn’t feel anything wrong with the movie. It was fun and endearing.

Juno gets a Royale with Cheese… much like her telephone.

(P.S. The next movie I plan on seeing and discussing is Hard Candy, also starring Ellen Page. It sounds wicked).

NATIONAL TREASURE: BOOK OF SECRETS.

So I just saw National Treasure: City of Gol….erm… I mean Chamber of…. I mean BOOK of Secrets (and I know Fletch has just been DYING to see this movie…).

First off, let me just say that the movie was actually pretty entertaining. It had a lot of crazy antics and historical alterations that made it enjoyable. And it was rather funny, most of the credit there going to the character of Riley (Justin Bartha). The basic plot is as follows: Some completely random dude (Ed Harris) shows up and gives some random (possibly fake/possibly real) evidence that Ben Gates’ (Nicolas Cage) great great grandfather was involved in the conspiracy to kill President Lincoln. Gates sets off to prove him wrong by finding this long lost uber-treasure (The City of Gold), which was what his great great grandfather was really involved with. And along the way he gets help from his parents (Jon Voight and Helen Mirren)… and the head of the FBI (Harvey Keitel). If you couldn’t tell, this movie has quite a few big names hangin from it.

While the movie was ‘shut-off-your-brain’ entertainment—and while simultaneously teaching you historical facts that may or may not (more likely) be actually accurate—there were a few things that bugged me. The biggest thing was the ending. I won’t spoil it, but there are just a couple things that happened at the end that irked me. One was a completely over-done cliché involving Ed Harris’ character that just didn’t seem to fit right (or make much sense). The second was that it left you totally hanging with one aspect of the story. It builds up this one thing and then gives you nothing. I realize they’re probably setting it up for a third movie, but it just seems to me that even if they do make a third movie (and they probably will), they wouldn’t use that bit of hanging story for the whole movie.

Another thing that bugged me, and this is just a nit-picky thing, was the title of the movie (if you couldn’t guess from the opening sentence). The Book of Secrets is only about 20 minutes worth of the overall movie (and the movie is over 2 hours long). The main story deals in finding this treasure, and the Book is just one of the pieces of the puzzle in finding it. It would be like calling the first movie “Benjamin Franklin’s Spectacles.” And then the city is just more like a really big chamber with a few really big golden arches (without the hamburgers) and staircases.

Oh, and one last thing that bugged me… my favorite line from the movie trailer was cut out from the movie (the one that has Riley talking about death and despair). I was so disappointed that it wasn’t in there.

But again, it was a fun movie; I laughed, I enjoyed, I was entertained, and that’s what movies are for. I know it might not sound like I enjoyed it from this overly negative review, but I did, I promise. In fact, I’m even going to give it a Keanu ‘Whoa’.

P.S. (I almost forgot!)... how come all of the bad guys were bald, or at least balding so much they were almost completely bald? Seriously, it was like a huge clue. If a character was bald or mostly bald, they had a connection and/or were a bad guy. There wasn't a single bald(or mostly bald) good guy that I can recall.

ALIENS VS. PREDATOR: REQUIEM.

The movie wasn’t good. The movie wasn’t God-awful. It was ‘huh…k.’ The basic premise is as follows: Picking up where the last one left off, an Alien born from a Predator (henceforth known as a Predalien) wreaks havoc on the escape ship and makes it crash-land in Colorado. They send out a signal, and a lone Predator, apparently the ‘clean-up guy’, comes to take care of business. The Predalien then wreaks more havoc on the small town by killing and mouth-raping the locals while the lone Predator hunts it and the other Aliens… killing any humans that get in its way.

That’s about the only story, really. There really isn’t any character development, and there’s a decent-sized cast (including a returning army woman and her family, a pizza boy, his ex-con brother, his hot blonde crush (and her jerk of an ex-boyfriend), and the town Sheriff). There are a lot of other characters shown, but the annoying thing is… is that they’re killed off within 5 minutes of being introduced (at the longest). You don’t really care when they die. And a lot of people die. It’s like ‘hey, a new chara…oh, he’s dead. Oh, somebody else! She seems… err… dead.’

There is gore half the time, and half the time they cut away. Why? I dunno. I do admit that some of the stuff was pretty hardcore. And kids, babies, and pregnant women do bite the dust in this movie, so the filmmakers had a few guts to go against typical Hollywood in that fashion.

There could have been more fighting, too. Most of the movie is the Predalien killing people (which you only see happen half the time). There’s some cool fighting toward the end, and the Predator vs. Predalien fight was pretty cool (even if the camera was moving too much for you to tell which was which).

Throughout the movie, you’ll see the lone Predator walking around silently, hunting them… shooting at them… and continually missing them. Surely they had a better ‘clean-up guy’ in the Predator world. I mean, he was good, but it seemed like almost any Predator with all the gadgets he had could have done the job. So why send JUST him?

And like many horror movies, there are other logic flaws, such as ‘Why are they searching for a back door and/or window to escape when an unlocked front door is about twenty feet away with no obstacles in their way?’

Overall, though, it was brainless, Sci-Fi/Horror entertainment, and it did manage to at least entertain. I didn’t understand the ending (and was mostly like ‘what the…?’) until I came online to read up on it. It should make more sense to those of you who are hardcore fans of the Alien series, as it ties into that.

I give it a Stop Saying Okay! Okay.

Little Known Movies You Need To See... Angel-A.

For this Little Known Movies You Need to See, I’m going to talk about a movie that’s so little known, it almost bypassed me. Over the years, I’ve become wary of buying movies I either haven’t seen or haven’t heard a whole lot about. So when I stumbled upon Angel-A, I wasn’t sure whether or not to get it. I had read a little bit about it online ages ago and had forgotten about it until I saw it in the store. On one hand, it’s completely in French and it’s in black and white. But on the other hand, the most compelling selling point to me for this movie is that it was written and directed by Luc Besson, who was writer/director of one of my all-time favorite movies, Léon (He’s also done movies such as The Fifth Element and La Femme Nikita). So I bought it.

And my God (no pun intended), I’m glad I did. This movie is beautiful, in more than one way. It has a beautiful story. It has beautiful imagery/shots. It’s just a great, beautiful movie. The basic premise would be like if you mixed the more dramatic parts of Léon with It’s a Wonderful Life. And at points, I mean that literally. For instance, the dialogue of “‘stop saying okay!’ ‘okay.’” is used in this movie, just as it was used in Léon. That made me laugh. As for It’s a Wonderful Life, well… the story is about a no-good scam artist (and by that I mean he sucks at it), André, who is really down on his luck and owes a lot of money to a lot of people. He tries to kill himself by jumping off a bridge, but a mysterious woman (with incredibly long legs) shows up and jumps first, prompting André to save her life. She introduces herself as Angela (which is French for both Angel and the name Angela) and promises him that she’ll help him with all his problems in return for saving her life. And then she slowly starts to reveal just what her true nature is.

The story is one of discovering and accepting and loving who you truly are inside. It’s not easy to put into one genre, either. It’s a fine mix of drama, comedy, romance, and supernatural. Without giving too much more away about the plot, let’s just say that this movie should have caught more attention from the Catholic League than The Golden Compass did.

The visuals are also beautiful, as mentioned before. The movie was shot in Paris, so you get to see a lot of its beautiful scenery (and in black and white, to boot). There are some great cinematic choices, too, such as Angela standing on the other side of the angel statue, so it looks like they’re one and the same. There really isn’t much to complain about with this movie. It even went by very quickly because I was so involved in it.

I give it a Royale with Cheese.

Little Known Movies You Need To See… The Cube Series.

Cube

Alright, time for a new article theme. These will focus on those little known movies that you really need to see (obviously). These movies are those that are really great (in one way or more), but aren’t huge or mainstream, or don’t even have an incredibly major cult following (as like, for instance, the Evil Dead series does). I have a whole slew of movies I can talk about, some better than others, and no, I’m not going to start off with the best of the best. Instead, I’m going to start off with a little known trilogy of movies called Cube. The second two aren’t nearly as great as the first, but as there are three, I figure I might as well let you know how those are just in case you’re curious.

The first movie, Cube, was made back in 1997 by a French-Canadian writer/director Vincenzo Natali (his most recent film is being a part of Paris, je t’aime). It stars a grand total of seven people. The basic premise is that a bunch of random people wake up in strange cube-shaped rooms with no recollection of how they got there or why they are there in the first place. Each room they travel to is a different color. Oh yeah, some are safe and some are trapped.

I must say, this is how a thriller is done. While the traps and such are there for people who like gore, it’s the focus on each characters’ mentality and dip into paranoia and overall loopy-ness that makes the movie great. It’s more of a character study than anything. And it’s cool that each character was named after a prison, and each character has a characteristic or trait that matches the types of people that usually go to the prison they’re named after.

There are a couple twists, and one really sad (and ambiguous) ending… I mean, this was the first movie I had ever really screamed at my TV because of something that happens (not how the movie ends, but something that happens right before it). Still, this movie pulls no punches. If it wasn’t for the crazy CGI of the traps and stuff, this could probably even be turned into a stage play.

The first cube gets a Royale with Cheese from me.

Cube 2: Hypercube

The second in the series is the worst, in my opinion (although it does have the coolest poster). I actually hated it the first time I saw it. However, after a few more viewings of it, it grew on me and I like it a lot more than I did initially. This one, or the next one, are not written or directed by Vincenzo Natali, either. Cube 2 basically reverses the initial point of the first movie. While the first movie had a small cast and the traps were more of just something to add to the situation at hand, this movie has an enormous cast and the traps are a lot more prominent.

Here, the characters, again, have no idea how they got where they are… well, for the most part. There are a few extra layers to this one, such as a few characters coming into the cube of their own free will. Oh, and the cube is different this time, too. It’s completely white in every room, and it’s a hypercube. A hypercube is like… this 4^th dimensional time/space thing. All you really need to know is that it deals with rifts in time and space. This really leads for some really cool special effects. But, again, like I said, any and all character development (and there really is none within this movie) is thrown to the wayside for the special effects and such. However, the movie does give a few more details about who could be behind the cube than the first movie did, and you actually see the outside this time (though it would be different from the first one anyway, as it was all… 4^th dimensional this time).

I give this sequel a Stop Saying Okay! Okay.

Cube Zero

Cube Zero goes back to its roots… sort of… and in more ways than one. Cube Zero is a prequel to the first movie. The odd thing is, though, you can’t watch this one before you see Cube, or else the ending of this one will make absolutely no sense to you. Well, it will, but not NEARLY on the same level as it would if you have already seen the first.

Anyway, Cube Zero also returns to its roots by having a relatively smaller cast again. But it does something different than the other two. This time, it focuses on the guys behind the scenes. It still shows stuff within the cube, but that’s almost an afterthought in comparison to what takes place in the watchers’ room. The basic plot is that this super-genius, Eric Wynn, and his partner, Dodd, just have to sit and watch the monitors of people in the cube and document what happens. The people in this cube are told to be criminals and such, having signed a waver to do this cube thing instead of a prison sentence and/or death row. But Eric starts feeling for one of the people within the cube, which makes him discover that not only is she not a criminal (she’s a political), but she didn’t sign the waver. He starts to question the legitimacy, or correctness, of what they’re doing.

It’s hard not to give anything away, because there are numerous twists and turns in the movie (hell, I had to give one of them just to tell you the basic plot). But this movie is the most underrated of the three, I think. If you look at the imdb score, it’s relatively lower than the first movie (though it is, at this point, barely higher than the second).

But you don’t care about imdb scoring, as that’s why you’ve come for my opinion. And in my opinion, this movie is not nearly as good as the first, but it’s a lot better than the second. It gets a Keanu ‘Whoa’ from me.

Harry Potter: The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly.

Well, let’s just come out and say it: I am an avid Harry Potter fan. I love the books. I love the movies (for the most part). I love anything and everything to do with the series. However, the first five movies are already out on DVD, and the sixth isn’t slated for theatrical release until the end of next year. But I don’t care to wait that long to do an HP review, so here’s a nice (long) article that details my feelings for the five movies that are currently out. Because this is an article and not a flat-out review, I’ll do this in a different kind of method (also to save a bit of room, since I will be reviewing 5 different movies). I’ll mix my thoughts together on how I feel about the movies as both a movie and an adaptation, but I’ll separate my thoughts into three categories: The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly. So here goes (Minor spoilers if you haven’t seen/read them yet)...

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone

The Good: It introduced us to the movie-world of Harry Potter. It gave us a great cast: Alan Rickman is the best Snape imaginable; Emma Watson did a wondrous job in this movie as Hermione; Harry looked like Harry, Hagrid like Hagrid, and Richard Harris’ Dumbledore was awesome. There was an underlying power without forcing it. He was both wise and humorous at times. Overall, the movie was very faithful to the book. It didn’t really stray much at all. Even the Dursley’s were portrayed wickedly awesomely. As an adaptation, it worked.

The Bad: Some of the acting, specifically from Harry (Daniel Radcliffe) and Ron (Rupert Grint), was cringe-worthy at times. The special effects, while they might have been great for their time, just look cheesy now (like the Troll… or CG Harry on the Troll or playing Quidditch). Also, the visuals (not the special effects… just normal visuals) were way too bland. The grass was flat and bright green and boring. Their clothes were either school dress robes or itchy sweaters and khaki pants, which looked like it might as well have been school uniform, because nobody really noticed they ever wore muggle clothes until movie 3.

The Ugly: It turned WAY too cheesy at points. For instance, when Harry caught Neville’s Remembrall and came back down on his broom, the whole crowd of first years comes up cheering like he just saved the world.

Overall, Sorcerer’s Stone gets a Keanu ‘Whoa’.

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets

The Good: Again, like the first, it was a great adaptation. New additions to the cast, specifically Christian Coulson (Tom Riddle); Kenneth Branagh (Gilderoy Lockhart); Jason Isaacs (Lucius Malfoy); and Mark Williams (Arthur Weasley), were wonderfully cast and did an excellent job. This movie even has one of my favorite lines from the movies that makes me laugh every time (“Celebrity is as Celebrity does. Remember that.”). Also, the special effects were better than the first movie. The Basilisk was much cooler looking than the Troll. Also, any visual effect that can make a 40 year old woman look 14 or so is amazing (Moaning Myrtle).

The Bad: Again, like the first (as it has the same director), the visuals were boring. Also, Emma Watson’s acting as Hermione starts to deteriorate, though not too bad. Unfortunately, we start to see a lot of Ron’s lines and such coming from Hermione a lot more, and Ron is really turned into a slapstick comedic sidekick. Ron’s supposed to be a brave, loyal friend.

The Ugly: Yet again, way too cheesy at times. For instance, the ‘There isn’t a Hogwarts without you, Hagrid… Cue entire school cheering even though almost nobody actually likes, or really knows, Hagrid.’ And that’s the END of the movie? Come on, seriously?

I give this one a Keanu ‘Whoa’, as well.

Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban

The Good: Um… it was pretty? Oh, and Sirius Black is played by Gary Oldman. That dude is awesome. And Hermione punches Malfoy.

The Bad: While some stuff was pretty, it was also pretty pointless. For instance, the giant clocks to symbolize the ‘time’ theme. The Whomping Willow time-sequences. The theme of this book was not TIME. That only played a SMALL part toward the end of the movie. And that brings us to the end. At the end of the book, there is a super-long Shrieking Shack sequence where everything is explained, then followed by a brief time-traveling sequence. So what does the movie do? It flips those around. It focuses everything on the time-traveling and shrinks the Shack scene to maybe 5 minutes or so. And then, after the Shack scene, when they actually do the time-traveling, it’s like ‘okay, let’s just reshow the ENTIRE last 45 minutes of the movie, but from a different perspective’… and that’s exactly what it does. And after the first time you see it, it’s incredibly boring.

Another bad thing would be un-Hermione-ing Emma Watson. She went from bookworm, bushy-haired ‘insufferable know-it-all’ to… for lack of a better word… hot. And that’s it. She lost everything that made her Hermione. They straightened her hair, put some glossy makeup on her, and shoved her in a pink hoodie… then took away all her books. While talking about looks, this movie also made Tom the Barman a hunchback. It also introduced the HP world to Michael Gambon. I can never forgive Cuaron for that. I can say he was actually ‘okay’ in this one… but my God, that’s about it. Finally, there was some bad acting from the likes of Emma Watson and Daniel “He Was Their Friend” Radcliffe.

The Ugly: Everything else. Okay, okay, I’ll give more details. Yes, Cuaron made a visually stunning movie. Besides that, he ruined it. The book was about ONE thing… it had ONE purpose plot wise. That one purpose was the following: Give the backstory of Sirius Black, Peter Pettigrew, Remus Lupin, and James Potter as best friends, mischief makers (and nuisance to Snape), being known as the Mauraders (also known as Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot, and Prongs), and what occurred between them. What of that did the movie do with this incredibly important part of the book (you know, its purpose?)… it CUT IT OUT. Well, not completely. It IS revealed that Pettigrew backstabbed Harry’s parents and framed Sirius… but it doesn’t reveal HOW. It doesn’t get into the Fidelius Charm or the Secret Keepers or exactly HOW Sirius was framed. It doesn’t tell about how James saved Snape’s life, which is one of the major reasons Snape hated James and therefore hates Harry. It doesn’t even tell us that Sirius, Peter, Lupin, and James were the Marauders, and Harry is lugging around the freakin map the ENTIRE MOVIE… it just never reveals who they are. And Lupin has the PRIME opportunity to do so at the end of the movie when he’s giving the map back to Harry. So what do we have in the end? A pretty/pretty pointless movie. And it has a freeze-frame ending.

This superficial movie gets The Zed Word from me.

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire

The Good: It was a cool cinematic movie. It was the first of the bunch to really have a cinematic feel to it. It wasn’t super pretty like the previous… it just had a cool feeling. For the new actors, Miranda Richardson as Rita Skeeter was dead on. Brendan Gleeson as Mad-Eye Moody was just about perfect (I didn’t like that eye-strap at first, but I got used to it). The movie was also quite action-packed. Ron also, finally, has a bigger role. He gets to be all upset at Harry for a good chunk of the movie, and Rupert Grint does a great job with it. Neville also gets a boost into the picture, and Matt Lewis does a great job with him.

The Bad: No Dursley’s. It’s not the end of the world, really. Their part in this book wasn’t super important, but it would have been cool for them to be in the movie. They also cut down on the champions a lot. There were about two lines from Krum in the entire movie, a couple screams from Fleur, and a few decent scenes with Cedric, but they had to set him up for obvious reasons. Oh, and this movie also introduced us to Nigel. I have no idea who Nigel is, because he’s not from the books, and they apparently can’t use a canon-character for his part, but there he is. Finally, Emma Watson’s acting sinks into a bottomless pit by this point… too many excessive heavings of air between every word.

The Ugly: Michael Gambon. He’s number one on this list. My God, can you get any LESS like Dumbledore? Throwing Harry into stuff, yelling all the time, being so angry. It was horrible. Gambon only got decent during the ‘eulogy’ and the final speech with Harry in the dorms, but it was already way too late for that. And he didn’t explain Priori Incantatem to Harry! That wasn’t Michael Gambon’s fault, but that annoyed me about as much as not explaining the Marauders in the previous movie.

Another thing was that they cut out too much. The movie was very choppy. It was like they went from big scene to big scene without much middle ground, and they extended what did not need to be extended (like the first task). Too much importance was also placed on the Yule Ball. The entire middle of the movie is dedicated to it. I think there’s maybe one chapter in the book. Rita Skeeter became nothing more than an annoying journalist, and her animagus subplot was cut, which affected what could be done in the next movie with her (she had to be cut out). Dobby was also cut from the movie, which basically messed up the rest of his stuff for the series (I feel bad for who gets stuck with movie 7). All of Dobby’s stuff was given to Neville. And although Neville had a bigger and more important role in this movie, the stuff about his parents was given a throw-away line that you can barely hear over the commotion of the court room… and the blame was placed on Crouch Jr. instead of Bellatrix (as she was cut from this movie, too). I could go on, but let’s just put it this way… the first 200 pages of the book was shortened to the first 15 minutes of the movie. The rest of the movie is like that, too.

But while they did zip and rush through it, they didn’t remove the point of the book, which was Lord Voldemort’s return. They kept important scenes, as well as fan favorites (Malfoy, the amazing bouncing ferret). So, to me, that makes it a slight improvement (slight) over Prisoner of Azkaban.

This one gets a Stop Saying Okay! Okay.

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

Before I get into it, I just want to say that I give Michael Goldenberg (the new screenwriter) and David Yates (the director) awesome props for what they did with this movie. Not a lot of people stop to think about what they had to work with, and a lot of the insane fanboys and girls get on my nerves reading some of the things they say about this movie. First of all, they could only work with what they had been given from previous movies, which wasn’t a whole lot. It would have been tough to include Dobby due to Goblet. It would have been confusing to do the Fidelius Charm on Grimmauld Place, as it was cut from Prisoner. There were numerous things that they couldn’t do because the previous movies screwed them over, which now takes me into the review.

The Good: This movie was amazing with its continuity. For once, it felt like it belonged to a series and was connected with the rest of the movies. Not only did Yates use clips from all of the previous movies, but he mentioned them as well in dialogue. It brought back the moving staircases from the early movies. It brought back the giant clock thing from Prisoner. It also brought back the door locks from Prisoner. There were just so many little things that makes you realize how much effort Yates put into making this movie. The movie was also very visually stunning, and it kept the point of the books.

The acting was phenomenal. Newcomer Evanna Lynch EMPITOMIZES Luna Lovegood, and Imelda Staunton as Umbridge was a perfect match, as well. Helena Bonham Carter was also my personal choice for Bellatrix, and she did it amazingly, too. The other characters were done well, too. Daniel Radcliffe and Rupert Grint were pushed to the limit, and Dan especially pulled it off. This was his best performance to date (that possession scene rocked). Emma Watson wasn’t annoying, either. Her hair was a bit bushier again, and her bookwormness was hinted at a bit. Hell, even Alfie Enoch (Dean Thomas), who is normally atrocious in his one or two lines, pulled off a great couple lines in this one. Finally, in the acting, Michael Gambon. For the most part, he was decent. His entrance at the trial was great, and just how I’d imagine it. Though, I do have a few things to say about him, but I’ll save those for later.

While the movie didn’t go in the order that the book did, everything important was still there (for the most part). Yates and Goldenberg were able to mix scenes in the book together to shorten time. Yates was able to relay important information through the newspaper montages without taking up too much time. Overall, he was able to take almost every single important thing from the book and put it into the movie without it feeling too choppy. The one thing that blows my mind is when all the crazy fanboys and girls utterly despise Yates for cutting out Quidditch. It was a HUGE part of the book, but it wasn’t an IMPORTANT part of the book. Cutting out Quidditch cut out at least 300 pages or so from the close-to-900-page book. There was nothing vital about Quidditch in the book that needed to be in the movie. In all honesty, this was a weighty book where almost nothing of vital importance happens.

The Bad: One scene with Dumbledore/Michael Gambon. Right after the Trelawney sacking scene, he yells at the kids “Don’t you have homework to be doing?” or something along those lines. Was that line SERIOUSLY needed? Come on. Another thing would be Mrs. Figg. She was a cute old lady, but that was NOT the Figg in the book. The Figg in the book was yelling all the time and going nuts.

The Ugly: Snape’s Worst Memory. This was a big letdown. They took one of the greatest parts of the book and brought a chainsaw to it. It was literally only about 30 seconds long. That’s gonna come back and bite the 7^th movie director in the butt. Also, leaving out the locket (and possibly Mundungus Fletcher) is going to bite the final director in the butt, too. The only other complaint I have is the final ‘Dumbledore’s Office’ scene. It was about 3 minutes long and didn’t explain everything it needed to explain. It didn’t explain much about the Prophecy. It didn’t include Neville’s link to it (which was upsetting, but understandable). And on that note, part of the prophecy was actually CUT OUT. It seriously can’t be THAT much of a pain to include an extra couple lines, can it? Anyway, the office scene could have been much longer and explained a lot more, like it was supposed to.

Overall, I felt that any real issue with the movie was Michael Goldenberg’s fault, not Yates (since Goldenberg wrote it. Yates just works with what was written). I thought Yates did an amazing job with what he was given, and I’m psyched about the next movie, which he’s tackling, too.

I give this one a Keanu ‘Whoa’.

So all in all, what would I consider my favorites of the series in order?

Order of the Phoenix
Chamber of Secrets
Sorcerer’s Stone
Goblet of Fire
Prisoner of Azkaban

I AM LEGEND.

First of all, this is NOT a remake of The Omega Man or The Last Man on Earth. This is an adaptation from the book I Am Legend, which both Omega and Last Man were based on, as well. There is a difference.

Anyway, this is not going to be a typical book-to-film adaptation review for one very important reason: I’ve never read the book, so I can’t judge. I only know a couple of things about the book: Robert Neville was a white guy and… well… the ending. The first thing was obviously changed.

Anyway, on to the review. From the opening of the movie with a great cameo appearance by Emma Thompson, the movie seems to be heading in a good direction. The abandoned and lonely city of New York looks amazing (and brings me back to the abandoned London of 28 Days Later…, which I believe was also a bit inspired by the book). The movie takes us back and forth between the loneliness and hardships of Robert Neville (Will Smith) and his dog, Sam, and flashbacks of the city’s, as well as his family’s, evacuation. They work together well to move the story along.

Though there really isn’t much of a plot. It’s more of a character study on the sanity of the apparent last man on Earth. You see breaks in his sanity here and there, which Smith portrays amazingly. The ‘Fred’ scene, and what follows it, is one of the most heart-wrenching scenes in the entire movie.

But it’s not just a psychological drama. Oh no, there’s monsters and scares galore. The basic premise of the movie is that after finding a cure for cancer and using it on humans, the cure (a fixed-up strand of the Measles) mutates and turns everybody who isn’t immune into a mutant vampire creature. The tense scenes are truly tense. I admit that I did jump a couple of times, as well. You get attached to Robert and his dog and do care for what happens to them (it’s hard not to, since they’re the only two characters on screen for large portions of the movie).

The only downside to the movie is the special effects. Almost everything that wasn’t Robert and Sam were digital effects. All of the animals (deer, lions, rats, dogs, etc.) and all of the vampires weren’t real… and you could tell. Some of them were well done. The lions, for instance, and some of the deer looked really good. The vampires, however… could have used some work. They were kinda similar to the vamps in 30 Days of Night, except digital. There was one vamp that looks okay (I think they showed him the most, assuming it was the same one. I think it was)… but, yeah, overall the effects could have been a bit better… OR they could have just used real people in makeup (*gasp*).

But overall, it was a great character study, and Will Smith’s acting was amazing for the part. He really was able to pull off the psychological deterioration of being alone for three years. There were tense/scary parts that worked, especially for PG-13, there were funny parts, and there were sad parts. It was the special effects parts that could have been better.

I give I Am Legend a Keanu ‘Whoa’.

THE GOLDEN COMPASS.

As a fan of the book, I will do this review in the fashion I typically do my book-to-film reviews in. I will review it as both a film and an adaptation.

First I guess I should start with the obvious: the controversy. Again, as a fan of the book, I see little reason for controversy. In movie format, there shouldn’t be any whatsoever. There was no mention of ‘the church’ or even ‘original sin’ (and if you’ve read the books, you know how important that is). While on the subject, I have to say I’m quite impressed with the way they handled the religious stuff. They always talked around it, never quite saying it, but giving a good enough reason as to why things were the way they were. Anyway, on to the reviews.

As a movie, it worked pretty well. The second half of the movie was a bit fast-paced, and after the point in Trollesund when Iorek joins the team, it’s just bam, bam, bam with the story points without ever really getting into any character depth or growth. As for the actors, they really should be billing Dakota Blue Richards (Lyra) first instead of Nicole Kidman and Daniel Craig (who is barely in the movie). She really steals the show. If I were to pretend I didn’t know any better as to what happens in the story, I would say it ended pretty well with a cliffhanger ending, and I couldn’t wait to see the next.

However, I do know better, so here we go with the book-to-film review. If you’ve not read the book, the following are SPOILERS:

The first half of the movie is great. Right up until Iorek gets his armor back, I would have to say the movie had been a great adaptation. Nearly flawless, really. Then Iorek joins the team and the story moves on… out of order. In the book they head to Bolvangar and then to Svalbard. In the movie, they’re on their way to Svalbard first when Lyra sneaks off with Iorek to find this ‘ghost’ that her alethiometer (golden compass) is telling her about. If you’ve read the book, you should know what happens next… except for the fact that they replaced the original boy with Billy Costa instead. Now, I can understand this. They did it to shorten the character list (there were a ton of them already). But immediately after this scene, upon their return to camp, they’re attacked by the Samoyeds and Lyra is taken to Svalbard… yes, Svalbard, not Bolvangar, which doesn’t make much sense… especially since Svalbard was shown as an island earlier in the movie, and they get there by sled.

Well, once Lyra is at Svalbard, there is no prison sequence and no mention of Lord Asriel, but Lyra immediately makes her plan to trick the king (who is named Ragnar instead of Iofur, to avoid confusion with Iorek). This takes a couple minutes and everybody is ready for the big fight. The fight actually happens a lot like in the book, amazingly enough. The fight ends, Iorek becomes king… then immediately leaves to run Lyra to Bolvangar, where she crosses the ice bridge alone (it happens here instead of at the part where they head for Asriel). The Bolvangar sequence is a lot shorter, too. It’s basically meeting Roger, sneaking to an empty room, overhearing information, being caught, being put in the guillotine machine (which is pretty hardcore), being saved, learning about her parents, escaping, and setting the place on fire. After that is the big fight between the Witches, the Gyptians, and the Tartars (and Iorek). After all that good stuff is done, Lyra meets up with Lee Scoresbee again and sets off into the Northern Lights to find Lord Asriel in Lee’s airship with Roger, Iorek, and Serafina. The end.

No, I’m serious. That’s where the movie ends. The last three chapters are gone, like a lot of other early reviewers have mentioned. I felt cheated, almost. It felt like I just watched a nearly incomplete movie. As for other differences, Lord Asriel is kidnapped by the Tartars and sets up his own workplace under THEIR capture instead of at Svalbard. The Witches are merely a passing mention. Serafina is introduced out of nowhere. There is no Consul or finding of the branch. There’s really no mention of any other Witches or inner struggle between different Witch tribes. There’s also no mention of the ‘you can’t trick a bear unless they act human’ thing, which takes away a lot of the meaning behind Iorek’s win against the king. However, even with these changes, I can see reasoning behind it in the world of adaptation. I can see why they switched Bolvangar and Svalbard, even though you can tell they originally planned to do it in the correct order (Lyra even mentions what occurred at Bolvangar while in Svalbard, even though, in the movie, she hadn't been there yet... and some of the filming was messed up, like the sled trip to an island, or the ice bridge to Bolvangar). I can see why they did the intercission to Billy Costa instead. But that’s about it. They filmed over 200 million dollars worth, and they cut out one of the largest chunks of that change from the movie.

END SPOILERS.

So, as a movie, it was pretty good. As an adaptation, it started great, then kinda went downhill. The acting from Dakota Blue Richards and Nicole Kidman was great. They couldn’t have found a better Lyra. The visual effects were beyond stunning. The Armored Bears were amazing to watch. However, the last half was too speedy, and the ending left something more to be wanted. There could have been a bit more character development, and the movie could have been a tad longer to incorporate some of this stuff. So, my final ratings are as follows:

As a movie… A Keanu ‘Whoa’.
As an adaptation… Stop Saying Okay! Okay.