Screen Rant » 2 star movies

New Moon Review

Vic Holtreman — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 02:30:45 +0000

Short version: Like Twilight, New Moon is strictly for fans of the book – for the rest of us, it’s actually worse than the first film.

Screen Rant reviews The Twilight Saga: New Moon

Well, maybe the third time will be the charm.

In an earlier article we speculated whether New Moon might turn out to be a good movie not just for fans but for general audiences (maybe even guys!). With the replacement of Twilight director Catherine Hardwicke with Chris Weitz on New Moon, many people were hoping for a more exciting film this time around. Unfortunately, if anything what we’ve gotten is a film that is even slower than the first one.

As New Moon opens things seem to have fallen into as close to normalcy as they can get in Forks, where Bella (Kristen Stewart) and Edward Cullen (Robert Pattinson) are a couple, even though Bella’s circle of friends still finds him and his family creepy. Bella hasn’t seen Jacob (Taylor Lautner) in quite a while and is shocked to see how he’s beefed up when he turns up. There’s a rivalry between Edward and Jacob, but nothing compared to what it will be by the end of the movie.

Bella still (idiotically) wants to be “turned” – be bitten so she can become a vampire and live forever with Edward at the physical age of 18. Edward refuses because obviously he’s smarter than she is – he’s 109 years old and with that apparently has come some wisdom. They actually joke about the fact that an 18 year old girl is dating a 109 year old guy – while it may seem silly, it’s actually true and quite creepy. You’d think he’d be (as a 109 year old) more interested in hooking up with a woman in her 30s, who’s actually experienced more of life and matured.

Edward tells Bella that the Cullens are leaving, ostensibly to protect their identities, but in reality he believes that as long as he’s around her he puts her in danger. Before he leaves he tells her not to do anything reckless – and the only reason to say something as non-sequiter as that is to set up what comes up later in the movie. Saying she doesn’t take it well would be an understatement. Bella is depressed and morose, doing nothing but sitting in her bedroom moping for months.

Eventually she pretends to snap out of it, just to make her dad happy, and while out with a friend discovers that if she contemplates doing something dangerous, risky (or hey, reckless!), Edward appears to her to tell her not to do it. So she becomes a bit of an adrenaline junkie, looking for dangerous things to do just so Edward will appear to her to tell her NOT to do it. This is a major point in the film, and frankly the more I thought about it, the more it seemed pretty stupid. First, let’s just reverse what I said earlier about Edward being wise – appearing to her ONLY when she’s about to do something risky, with the fact she misses him so much, guarantees she will engage in that behavior. Second, isn’t Bella the only person who he’s not able to “read?” He can’t read her thoughts, can’t tell what she’s planning on doing, etc? Then how the HECK does he appear to her when she’s about to do something stupid? Of course if he’s not appearing to her and she’s imagining it, then she’s having pretty vivid hallucinations and has even bigger problems than we thought.

Meanwhile back on the (Indian) ranch, there are a bunch of guys who hang together and seem to worship the gang leader. This particular fellow seems to be waiting for Jacob to join them even though Jake isn’t interested. Of course there’s a reason they’re called the “Wolf Pack” and soon enough Jacob will be joining them (once he joins them, he spends the rest of the film shirtless just like them). He comforts Bella, who takes advantage of their friendship because it’s obvious he has serious feelings for her, and she allows things to progress as far as closeness and some physical affection, but keeps him at arm’s length. Eventually he, too tells her he can’t be friends with her any more and Bella is now 0 for 2 on people who said they’d never leave her – and do.

Click to continue reading our New Moon review.

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2012 Review

Vic Holtreman — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 06:53:07 +0000

Short Version: If you’re looking for some wicked-cool visuals and destruction on a scale that even Emmerich has never put on screen before, then 2012 is for you. Plot and character development? Move along, nothing to see here.

Screen Rant reviews 2012

That picture right there? That’s why you go see 2012. Heck, lately that’s why you go see any Roland Emmerich film – destruction on a massive scale. The man has taken what Irwin Allen used to do and multiplied it by 100.

2012 actually starts in 2009 – well first it starts out in space, showing us a few different shots of our solar system and the planets lining up all in a row, with the sun at the end of that line. When we get to good old Earth, we’re in India where geologist Adrian Helmsley (Chiwetel Ejiofor, the assassin from Serenity) is meeting a fellow scientist at the Institute of Astrophysics. They go 11,000 feet down into a copper mine where it seems they figure they may as well do some scientific research as long as they’re down there.

Anyway, they have tracked a series of the biggest solar flares in history taking place over the last week, and it seems that they’re putting out some different type of neutrino that instead of just passing through the earth is interacting with the core, causing it to heat up to temperatures far exceeding normal. At this point I’m thinking “OK, OK, that’s not bad, I can buy that.”

Helmsley travels to Washington D.C. where he convinces high ranking Washington muckity-muck Carl Anheuser (a very rotund Oliver Platt) the importance of what he’s found. We jump forward to 2010 where the president (Danny Glover – seriously) is addressing European heads of state about the impending end of the world. Another jump to 2011 where it becomes apparant that some sort of stealth operations are taking place to insure the safety of works of art, wealthy and powerful people and presumably other odds and ends.

In the meantime we meet Jackson Curtis (John Cusack), a divorced dad and not very successful author who drives a limo for a living. While his young daughter still has eyes only for daddy, his slightly older son is a much bigger fan of mom’s live-in boyfriend (kids live with mom and her boyfriend – nice move, mom). Taking the kids camping to Yellowstone, he runs into a cordoned off military area where significant changes are happening geologically. It’s here we meet Woody Harrelson as a quasi-nutjob/free-spirit who seems to know what’s going on and fills Jackson in, including the plans for the world’s elite to escape the destruction in spaceships. Of course Cusack doesn’t believe him and heads on his merry way.

It doesn’t take long however for a series of increasingly strong and frequent earthquakes (along with some other things) to convince Jackson that the crazy guy isn’t crazy after all, and he grabs the ex-wife, kids and new boyfriend just in the nick of time in the scene we’ve all watched in trailers and TV commercials.

From here on, all hell breaks out everywhere, and watching it all happen is the whole reason for going to see this movie.

Jackson is determined to save his family, and his journey to find one of these “arks” grows more implausible with every passing scene. Thankfully director Emmerich spreads the destruction out throughout the entire film – so if you’re concerned that you’ll have already seen the best stuff in the trailer, fear not… that was just a taste. I found it interesting that they showed a number of landmarks being destroyed including the Vatican and the famous statue of Christ on a Brazil mountaintop – but although they showed the Kabaa in one scene he did not portray its destruction. I’ve heard that he didn’t show it destroyed due to fear of retribution.

Anyway, the destruction throughout the film was quite well done – I especially liked the scene at Yellowstone… VERY impressive. And of course the expanded version of the destruction of California was well done (and strangely satisfying… I kid, I kid). The arks were quite cool as well, although the MacGuffin that caused the “suspense” at the end was quite ridiculous.

There’s a a fair amount of ridiculousness in 2012, but really, what does one expect going into a film like this? In the end I enjoyed the visual effects and Chiwetel Ejiofor, who I think has a real screen presence about him. Woody Harrelson? Brief appearance but memorable. John Cusack seemed to me like a fish out of water here – like he just really didn’t belong. Thandie Newton was little more than eye candy (although she was supposed to be more). Oh, and Danny Glover as the President of the United States? LOL funny – I think the poor guy left any acting ability he may have had down in Venezuela.

Towards the end of the film it really fell apart as Emmerich tried to inject some emotion into the film. A big contributing factor was the cheesy music in the emotional scene – the whole thing felt like it was out of a made for TV movie. It might have actually worked better had he not tried to “make” us FEEL the emotion via the cliche’d music and maybe trusted the actors to make it happen. If only he could figure out a way to make a film that didn’t require actual people (you know, other than the ones who need to die for the destruction to mean something).

So if you’re looking for much in the way of plot or character development, move along, nothing to see here. But if you’re looking for some wicked-cool visuals and destruction on a scale that even Emmerich has never put on screen before, then 2012 may be the movie for you.

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The Box Review

Vic Holtreman — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 21:51:48 +0000

Short Version: Do yourself a favor and find the original 30 minute Twilight Zone episode of The Box and watch that instead.

Screen Rant reviews The Box

Well this is going to be a short review because I don’t want to spend any more time on this movie than I have to. The Box is based on Button, Button – a very short story written by Richard Matheson that was used for an old episode of the classic TV series The Twilight Zone. It was written and directed by Richard Kelly, the man behind the cult classic Donnie Darko and the poorly received Southland Tales.

BTW, personally I think it’s obvious, but this review does tell you whether or not they push the button.

The film takes place in 1976, around the time we started sending probes to Mars. This is the (very thin) reason the film takes place back then – it could have easily taken place today, but then the pacing of the film might not have made as much sense (I’ll get to that later). Cameron Diaz and James Marsden star as a mid-30s couple living in Virginia. He works at Nasa as an optical engineer but has aspirations to be a space shuttle astronaut, she works as a teacher at a private school at which their son attends. They’re living paycheck to paycheck and money is tight (and despite seeming to be a bright guy, mid-30s Marsden is driving a Corvette despite their financial status).

They receive a package wrapped in plain brown paper early one morning: A black box with a glass dome covering a red button. Very simple, but well-crafted. It is locked, and later that day the mysterious Arlington Steward (the ever sophisticated Frank Langella) arrives with a key to the box, a briefcase with one million dollars and half his face CGI’d away and scarred in a terrible burn injury. He makes the offer: Press the button and somewhere, someone you do not know will die, but you will then receive one million dollars tax free.

Decisions, decisions.

Well a couple of things have coincidentally (or, not so much) just happened to cause the financial noose to tighten a bit more, making the deal tempting them (to the wife in particular). They vacillate between calling the police (telling anyone and the deal will be off), just returning the box, and assuming that even if the guy IS crazy, maybe they can get the money. After all, the person killed “might be some murderer on death row.”

Frankly, maybe it’s just me (and I really hope it’s NOT), but the movie lost me here. If someone showed up at your door and made this offer, with the guarantee that SOMEONE WOULD DIE if you pushed the button, would you? I sure as hell wouldn’t, even for a million dollars.

The husband does decide to open the box, not knowing what to find, but it’s just empty – not even a transmitter to notify anyone if the button had been pushed. Still, he is leery. In the end, the wife pushes the button, Steward arrives with the money, and assures them that the box will be given to someone they do not know.

Didn’t see THAT one coming.

Of course writer/director Richard Kelly realizes this, and in order to keep the movie *cough* interesting *cough* puts in a ton of oddities that could’ve drawn you in with the mystery, but instead just get annoying as they continue to pile on top of each other. In the end what made for a great, short morality tale is made so convoluted by trying to stretch it out into a two hour movie and give explanation to the hows and the whys that you’ll be dying to be done with the movie and get out of the theater.

I found it interesting that it was set in the 70s because the pacing of the film reminded me of movies from that time period. Looking back, a lot of the movies made then seem agonizingly slow in moving the story along, and that’s the case here. In the last 30 minutes or so it feels so completely disjointed, jumping helter-skelter from scene to scene that you’ll wonder what the editor and director were thinking.

I’ll give it two stars for concept and Frank Langella, but that’s being generous – I wouldn’t even call this a rental.

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Astro Boy Review

Vic Holtreman — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 05:03:00 +0000

Short Version: While the animation is excellent, Astro Boy is too intense for younger kids, too corny for teens and annoyingly political overall.

Screen Rant reviews Astro Boy

I went into Astro Boy with high hopes and nostalgia. I’m actually old enough to remember watching the original cartoon back when I was a kid, and being a sci-fi kind of geek even as a wee child, remember enjoying the futuristic show about a robot boy who could fly and had all kinds of cool weapons. Trailers and clips looked good so although I expected a kids’ film, I was looking forward to this and brought along my 13 year old daughter and a friend of hers.

All three of us were of the same opinion: It was a waste of an hour and a half.

There will be some spoilers in this review, but as it’s a movie aimed at kids, and I’m writing this review for parents, I hope you won’t mind.

I swung 180 degrees in my opinion between the time the opening credits began and ended – at first the animation and dramatic music drew me in right off the bat and it looked like we might be in for something good. But then I started seeing the names of the voice actors… one well-known name after another, after another. Kristen Bell, Nicolas Cage, Samuel L. Jackson, Charlize Theron, Donald Sutherland, Nathan Lane, and more. Do I have anything against any of these actors? Not at all. So what was the problem?

More often than not when there is an animated film with a star-studded cast it’s a very good indication that you’re in for a very mediocre movie.

Don’t ask me WHY this so – it just is (in my experience).

As Astro Boy begins we are treated to a quick animated sequence showing how humanity has ruined the planet and we cut to what could be a TV commercial for moving to Metro City – a city literally in the clouds, where everyone is happy and robots do all the work people don’t want to do (including, interestingly enough “Nanny-bots”). They indicate that all is not rosy because while they float above the earth they just dump their trash and old robots over the edge to tumble down to terra firma. Oh, and people actually live on the ground, scrabbling amongst what looks like a vast garbage dump/junkyard.

The man who made this life of leisure possible via his robotic inventions is Dr. Tenma (Nicolas Cage), the father of Toby, a boy of about 13(?) who seems to be on his way to being as brilliant as his father. It seems that a meteorite fell to Earth and had at its core an energy source that could help restore the planet to its once pristine state – problem is that to do that it had to be split into “good” energy and “bad.” Bill Nigh plays a scientist who of course wants to use the good blue energy to bring about, well, good. But President Stone (Donald Sutherland) wants the red energy put to use to create a super-weapon robot that he can use to go to war with the surface dwellers.

In a demonstration of the robot (where things go horribly awry) Toby is killed by the evil robot. Heck of a way to start a movie aimed at kids… Anyway, Tenma is stricken with grief, takes a strand of hair from Toby and uses its DNA and the blue energy to create Astro Boy in an effort to still have his son. While Astro Boy is 90% Toby, he is different enough that Tenma shuns him. Astro Boy ends up on the surface, and is befriended by the children living there, overseen by the apparently benign robot fanatic scientist “Ham Egg” (Nathan Lane).

Eventually Astro Boy makes it back up to Metro City to battle with a giant version of a red-energy-powered robot/President Stone and saves the day.

The 1980s version of Astro Boy

For younger kids (I’d say maybe 6-7 and under) the final battle is pretty intense as the giant robot tries its best to kill Astro Boy (and seemingly succeeds). Also the death scene early on is a bit much – pretty hard core for a PG movie in my opinion. Throughout the film there were (to me) many annoying references to “starting a war in order to get re-elected” and an idiotic quote by the President: “Look at history, negative energy always wins.” Really? Last time I checked the Nazis lost World War II. But the topper for me was a stage set up for the President to speak at a political rally with a banner behind the podium that stated “Now is not the time for change.”

Seriously? In a kids’ film? I remember when movies for kids handed out moral messages, not political ones.

I did enjoy the animation in Astro Boy quite a bit, but then like I said, I’m a fan of the original character and he was portrayed well and voiced just fine by Freddie Highmore plus I’m just a fan of CGI animated films in general. There were also three goofy supporting characters that were quite funny, but I think my daughter’s friend summed it up best: The best thing about the end of the movie is that it meant it was over.

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Surrogates Review

Vic Holtreman — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 00:37:26 +0000

Short Version: While not as smart as it could be, Surrogates is thought provoking and mildly entertaining.

Screen Rant reviews Surrogates

Bruce Willis’ latest (semi-)action movie is Surrogates, a thought provoking look at the idea of taking our virtual/avatar online selves to a whole other level. In the film, it has been 14 years since Lionel Canter (James Cromwell) developed the first generation of a technology that allowed robots to be controlled completely via thought. We are briefly shown the stages of the development and integration of the technology over ensuing years, leading to present day (some time in the near future in the film).

The “Surrogate” (or “Surrey”) technology became so advanced and its use so widespread that eventually almost everyone now has their own personal robotic duplicate. What’s the point, you ask? Well these duplicates (which of course are idealized versions of the real person, or perhaps a completely different “fantasy” personage) go out into the world and interact with other people via their surrogates. In the film, due to 98% of the worlds population using surrogates, crime has plummeted and people are able to lead more supposedly satisfying lives – able to engage in all sorts of dangerous and risky behavior with no fear of getting hurt.

Bruce Willis plays Tom Greer, an FBI agent brought in to investigate the destruction of two surrogates. With the ultra-low crime rate this is an unusual event – moreso due to the effects of the destruction: Burnt out “eyes” on the units. Things get more complicated when it’s discovered that the human operators of these surrogates died from as a result of the “death” of their robots. This is a very big deal as one of the main selling points of the robots is the fact that there is no chance of injury whatsoever to the operator.

The main plot of the film is Greer attempting to find out who is behind the weapon because it could bring mass chaos to a world that has become completely dependent on the technology.

Greer is married but has suffered a great loss not long ago – the result of this is that his wife Maggie (Rosamund Pike) will not leave her room, but will only eveer be “seen” in the guise of her perfect, surrogate self. Greer is weary of living life virtually, hooked up to the equipment in his room and never leaving his home. That is how everyone lives now – interacting with each other only via their perfect-looking surrogates, while in reality sequestering themselves alone at home.

There are groups of people in every major city living in self-restricted compounds called human reservations. They think that this “virtual life” via surrogates is an abomination and want humanity to return living as we were intended. These people are led by a “messiah” called The Prophet – played by Ving Rhames, who is not who he appears to be.

The movie is based on a comic book miniseries written by Robert Venditti which I haven’t read – so how faithful it is to the source material overall, I don’t know (other than the ending deviates from the comic in a typical movie “happy ending” sort of way). It’s an intriguing concept – extrapolating from people’s growing dependence today on sites like Facebook and Twitter as well as virtual communities where you only exist to others via your online avatar (I read recently that now every one out of five minutes online are spend on social networking sites).

Unfortunately it’s very difficult to connect with the film in any way since most of the time the characters on screen are the CGI-enhanced, overly perfect surrogate versions of the actors. I did like the slightly artificial look and sheen of the surrogates, but the flip side is that as these characters they were stiff and could not emote very well. As a counterpoint to this uber-perfection it seemed like the film over compensated in the “real person” department, making the people in the film (too not put too fine a point on it) really ugly. Then again I suppose if you never had any reason to EVER leave your home, you wouldn’t worry so much about such niceties as shaving, showering every day, putting on makeup if you’re a woman, etc.

So in the end, it was an interesting concept but the execution left me a bit cold – while it could have been a film that sticks with you for a while, instead it was kind of forgettable. I’d say it’s worth a rental when it comes out on DVD.

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Gamer Review

Paul Young — Sun, 06 Sep 2009 15:51:05 +0000

Short Version: Never quite reaching the “Good” mark and hovering just below “OK,” Gamer opens the 2009 Fall movie season with plenty of shooting, death, blood and confusion.

Screen Rant’s Paul Young reviews Gamer

I’ve written this review for Gamer three times now and with each iteration I just can’t seem to find that slightly mocking tone I like to use so much – not to mention each one has been over 2000 words long and there is no way this movie deserves that much effort. But I thought, “Am I’m trying too hard to be a ‘professional’ movie critic? No one really listens to them very much; people would rather listen to what their friends think of the movie. I wonder if we have any more Twinkies and Cheez-Wiz?” I’m just telling you what I thought; I never said I would edit those thoughts.

So I’ll tell you the same thing I told my buddy after watching Gamer, “It’s completely worth the $5 matinee price I paid to watch it.” There is no way I’d paid full admission to watch this movie because, frankly, it just isn’t worth $9 – $12 of my hard earned money. If you don’t catch it this weekend for the matinee price, no worries, just grab it during the week or wait until next weekend and turn it into a double feature by watching 9 afterwards. Trust me, you are not going to miss anything special by waiting a few days.

Now, I don’t want to ruin the movie for you (the directors do a good enough job of that already) but I will give you a synopsis…

Gamer is set “years from this very moment” where advertising is allowed on everything, including the Great Pyramids. Egomaniacal software magnate Ken Castle (Michael C. Hall) has invented a brain controlling product called Nanex that allows the mental control people by other people. He uses prison convicts to play out bloody battles called “sessions” in his game “Slayers,” that he then charges the entire world to watch via pay-per-view.

Enter convict Kable Tillsman (Gerard Butler) who has survived 27 sessions in the brutal game of life or death – three more sessions and he is a free man. But Kable holds a secret that Castle can’t afford to have get out, so he introduces convict Hackman (played by a very large Terry Crews) to the game – but here’s the rub: Unlike Kable, Hackman isn’t being controlled by a player and holds a major advantage.

There is also a group of rebels (for lack of a better word), called Humanz led by Ludacris, who aren’t hip to Castle’s mind control jive, and feel Kable is the key to bringing him down; but instead of protesting, they hang out in an abandoned basement, playing air hockey and old Atari console games, and hacking Castle’s signal causing him much grief, while trying to break Kable out of the game.

Why wear a jacket when you're not wearing pants?

Once out, Kable seeks vengeance on Castle for framing him for murder, turning his wife (Amber Valletta) into a whore in his other game “Society” – think The Sims with real people – and taking away his daughter. Why did Castle do all this? Your guess is as good as mine. After you watch the film and figure it out please let me know because as far as I can tell, it was never explained. So basically, at the end of the day, Gamer is nothing more than a weakly told story of one geek’s ill-conceived attempt at world conquest (YAWN).

Let me quickly list the good parts of Gamer: Gerard Butler’s acting.

Now the list of the bad parts of Gamer: Everything else, including Gerard Butler’s character.

Confused? So was I. Honestly, I like Gerard Butler in just about everything he does, Nim’s Island, 300 and even the romantic (un)comedy The Ugly Truth, but he is at his best when playing the action hero. He has the chiseled look for it, the acting chops to pull it off and he has a good chance of replacing one of the great 80’s action heroes; but here, Butler can’t do much with the script or direction from Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor.

Gamer is filled with so much violence, shooting, blood, explosions, flying body parts, exposed breasts, lesbians, and perversion that one would think it was written by two frat boys on a binger. Wait, Neveldine and Taylor also wrote both Crank films so I guess I’m not too far the mark there. I enjoyed both Crank films, so I was really looking forward to watching Gamer, but this attempt seemed more focused on inserting as many cameos for TV actors than any sort of plausible story.

Seriously look at this list of cameos:

John Leguizamo, Zoe Bell, James Roday and Maggie Lawson (both from Pysch), John de Lancie (Q from Star Trek: The Next Generation), Milo Ventimiglia (Heroes) who has the best cameo in the movie.

Amber Valetta and Milo "Rick Rape" Ventimiglia

Only people missing were Brendan Fraser and Carmen Electra, although it wouldn’t surprise me if they were in there somewhere. Everyone’s cameos feel forced and really serve no purpose in the film other than to just have them in there.

In fact, now that I look at the actors and actress involved, it looks like the directors/writers were trying to put as many TV actors into this movie as possible. Michael C. Hall (Dexter) and Kyra Sedgwick (The Closer) are seriously miscast here and Sedgwick could have been removed from the movie entirely without the story suffering one bit. The only purpose she serves in the movie is to show how a 49 year old woman looks in face glitter.

I was really looking forward to seeing how Hall would shake the Dexter mold and break out on his own but apparently all anyone could think of to make him different was a bad southern accent and a lollipop. I hope he gets better roles in the future because he didn’t need to be in this film. I have to mention the “dance and fight” scene near the end. I literally looked at the screen and mouthed “W…T…F” when it happened. What’s funnier, someone in the theater actually said the words to my acronym.

So what actually works? The action at the beginning of Gamer is pretty intense, although the shaky camera work will hurt your head if you’re sitting too close, and is quite visceral in most places. But just like a video game, it soon becomes repetitive and boring. Everything else: story, acting, pacing, plausibility, just falls flat.

The writers have filled Gamer with every possible misconceived notion of the video gamer sub-culture that they knew. I still can’t tell if they were poking fun at the culture, trying to explain it to the uneducated masses or heck, maybe they think gamers are really like this because the story as a whole just flops around like fish on the dock, gasping and waiting for someone to put it out of its misery.

Gerard Butler and a very scary sneer

And for a movie called Gamer, it really doesn’t dig into the “gaming” side of the story very much. If audiences were to believe what they are watching, then the only people playing online video games are young teenage losers, fat invalid perverts and old Asian people. That is seriously the only people they show playing either of the two games “Society” and “Slayer”.

There are literally dozens of men with guns shooting each other during each “session” but we only ever get to see one kid, Simon (Logan Lerman), controlling his icon, Kable. Maybe a better title would have been “Controlled,” since that was the main focus of the movie.

Addressing the gamer stereotype: Simon is a 17 year kid that sits in a special room with holographic images around him, upgrading his icon, downloading porn and video chatting with girls who are willing to pay him or strip just to spend time with his icon. He even gets a couple of 17 year old twins willing to flash the headlights and spend $50 million Euros for the opportunity. OK, so slacker, loser, horn ball teen that does nothing but play online games all day – Check!

And in the game “Society”, were there are thousands of people playing the game, we are only shown 3 – an old Asian woman, an old Asian man and a big, fat, nasty, man living by himself. Unlike the people in “Slayer,” people in “Society” get paid to become icons for others giving over their bodies to be played by other people. It would have been an interesting concept if done properly, but the writers choose, instead, to show the perverted and twisted side of human nature.

Zoe Bell looking hideous in corn rows.

In fact, the whole concept of Gamer was poorly handled and when it’s all said and done, Gamer is a mostly forgettable installment in the “downfall of society” genre and shows just how low Hollywood thinks we will eventually stoop for entertainment. Like I mentioned before, unless you get discount passes or the early bird special, skip Gamer and cross your fingers that 9 will start the fall season out right.

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Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen Review

Vic Holtreman — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 19:50:42 +0000

Short version: Just like super-sizing a McDonalds meal doesn’t make it taste any better, neither does giving us more of what was in the first film improve Transformers 2.

Screen Rant reviews Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen

Regular readers here at Screen Rant are familiar with my disdain for the first Tranformers movie. While many agree with me and others disagree vehemently – both sides have been expecting me to skewer Michael Bay’s Tranformers 2. I didn’t go in expecting much, and that may have actually caused me to not judge it quite as harshly as a lot of other reviewers are doing.

The (very thin) story here is that of Sam (Shia Lebouf) heading off to college, trying to go back to a semblance of a normal life – where you don’t have giant, talking robots that turn into cool cars. He’ll be leaving behind tough biker chick Michaela (Megan Fox) but they’ll continue a long distance relationship through the wonders of the internet.

Before Sam leaves, he discovers a shard of the “All Spark” is still in his possession – when he touches it, it has some sort of effect on him and is shown to still have the power to animate mechanical objects. Thinking he has it safely secured, Sam heads off to college where he meets his roommate Leo (Ramon Rodriguez), a guy who runs a website dedicated to robot sightings which is not nearly as popular as he imagines it to be.

It turns out the Autobots have been working with the government trying to track down the vestiges of the Decepticon robots that are still on Earth. It looks like the Decepticons have been searching for something, but no one (not even the Autobots) know what that might be.

Of course the last thing that will happen to Sam is a “normal” college experience, and he is soon drawn back into the world of the Transformers. He’s joined by his reluctant roommate Leo and of course soon enough by Michaela and the buffoonish (now ex) government agent from the first film, Simmons (John Turturro).

From here the whole point is to stop the Decepticons (led by the ancient robot called “The Fallen”) from getting their claws on a device that is of course a danger to all of humanity.

And it takes a really, really long time.

In Revenge of the Fallen there’s more of everything that was in the first film: More robots, more explosions, more soldiers, more battle scenes, more juvenile (and inappropriate for kids) humor and more foul language.

In the end it doesn’t make this film any better than the first one – it just makes it feel longer. I was surprised to learn that this film is only 6 minutes longer than the first one… it feels a LOT longer than that. Thirty to forty minutes could have been cut pretty easily – it’s a movie about giant robot battles, does it NEED to be two hours and twenty minutes long? Even the scenes most people go to see, the battle scenes, drag on far too long.

So what was good? I liked the scenes involving the military, great stuff. I liked that Bay pulled back the cameras on the robot battles so you can actually tell what’s happening (although the shots were too tight once again at the end of the film) – and about the best robot fight took place in the forest. Not “awesome” but probably the best thing in the film.

On the bright side, I actually liked Kevin Dunn as Sam’s dad in this one, although the mom annoyed the heck out of me again. Aside from the “humor” I’ll describe below, I thought some of it was actually OK – even Turturro wasn’t quite as annoying. The CGI was excellent, although at this point for a film like this that should be a given.

What wasn’t so good? Well, beyond “everything else,” a big pet peeve of mine about the first film was the juvenile humor that I didn’t think fit with the action. In the sequel, most of the “humor” happens during the first third of the film and thankfully it’s not as prevalent later on (although it still pops up from time to time). In this film, instead of masturbation jokes, robots “peeing” fluid on people and acting like teenage girls hiding in a back yard, we have dog humping (twice), a robot humping Megan Fox’s leg, gigantic robot testicles, farting robots and a college professor who’s introductory lecture is limited exclusively to veiled sexual references.

There’s also TONS of inappropriate language for the under-10 crowd that is sure to show up for this movie – including but not limited to a**hole, pu**y, ball sack, b*itch and sh*t. And of course in addition to the lingering shots of Megan Fox, there are suggestive scenes with actress Isabel Lucas, including an obviously carefully crafted “peek” shot of her rear/crotch.

I only mention all this because over and over and over again I’ve heard in defense of the first film: “It’s a kids movie!!”

Right.

And despite all the action I found myself kind of bored… I actually almost nodded off at one point. Again: TOO LONG.

Oh, and yes, there are a couple of robots in the film (the “Twins”) that talk and look like something out of an old minstrel show – that was pretty hard to fathom. I could possibly see if they acted like rappers (due to absorbing what they’ve seen on MTV or something), but ignorant, Southern, gold-toothed robots who can’t read? It was reminiscent of the two black crows from Disney’s Dumbo (which was made back in 1941). Of course one of the actors providing the voices is black, so I’d be curious to hear his take on all this.

So, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen is more of the same. If you thought the first one “rocked” you’ll probably think the same of this one; if you thought the first one was terrible, you’ll probably think this one is even worse. Me, I had such low expectations going in and already knew what to expect based on the first film. I didn’t have such a violent reaction to it – although I certainly don’t intend to ever watch it again.

If you plan on bringing kids, I would highly recommend you check this out yourself before bringing them.

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Night at the Museum 2 Review

Vic Holtreman — Tue, 26 May 2009 01:54:50 +0000

Short version: Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian is a mildly funny and harmless family film about on par with the first movie.

Screen Rant reviews Night at the Museum 2

What’s there to say about the the sequel to the first Night at the Museum? It’s a bit of fluff, something to take the kids to where you might be mildly entertained without having to worry about anything offensive where your kids are involved.

The story picks up a few years after the first film, with Larry Daley (Ben Stiller) now a successful businessman. He has a knack for infomercial-type inventions and is doing very well – financially anyway. He still visits the museum from time to time to visit with his night-animated buddies, but not as often as he used to. It turns out that most of the museum pieces are being replaced by newfangled holographic projection versions, with the current ones being shipped off to storage at the Smithsonian, to be crated forever.

He attempts to intervene but it’s a case of too little, too late – but of course the day is not lost. One thing leads to another and Egyptian prince Kahmunrah (Hank Azaria) is awakened with thoughts of world domination on his mind. In the process we once again meet Robin Williams as Teddy Roosevelt, Owen Wilson as Jebediah Smith the pint sized cowboy, along with new characters General Custer (played well by Bill Hader) and Amelia Earhart (played by the forever cute and perky Amy Adams).

This film seemed to be more about the performances than the actual story, and there was an interesting conglomeration of characters here. The oddest of the bunch had to be Hank Azaria as the Egyptian prince… he was quite the odd combination here – being just a bit older than him and with the fact he’s always been known as a comedic character actor, I was struck by how he buffed out for the role. What made it weirder was the fact that for some reason the voice they chose for his character was a bad Boris Karloff impersonation with a lisp thrown in for good measure.

Funny? Maybe. Weird? Most definitely.

Beyond that Amy Adams was perky to the point of annoyance (for me, anyway) but the old style skin-tight pants she wore kind of made up for that (what can I say?). I enjoyed Bill Hader’s performance as Custer and brief cameos by Ricky Gervais and Jonah Hill were both quite funny. However as usual (for me) Ben Stiller just seemed… odd. He has a flavor of humor that while I don’t hate it, I just don’t get it and it doesn’t work for me.

Thankfully it’s a fairly short film, clocking in well under two hours. It’s not awful, but nowhere near great – kind of take it or leave it film. But if you’re a parent with some little ones and you’re hungry for movies to take the family to without worrying about anything offensive, it’s a good one to go see. For anyone else, you’ll need to be a Ben Stiller fan – otherwise it’s a definite rental.

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Push Review

Vic Holtreman — Fri, 06 Feb 2009 05:00:58 +0000

Short version: Push has an interesting premise, but it just doesn’t manage to translate it into a great movie.

Screen Rant reviews Push

I really thought I was going to enjoy Push more than I did. But much like the God-awful Jumper, Push has an interesting premise that it just can’t translate into a great movie.

Just like Jumper, Push has an extensive backstory… While the former film established it via an in-depth document sent out to movie sites cataloging the history of the good guys and the bad guys, this film did it with a comic book mini-series. Having read four of the issues (which I found pretty intriguing) I had hoped that I would find the film more meaningful through understanding the deep background of “Division.”

Sadly, that didn’t turn out to be the case.

In the opening credits Dakota Fanning (who plays Cassie Holmes) gives exposition via a voiceover to bring the audience up to speed. “Division” is an extension of a program created by the Nazis – an attempt to create a super-powered army. They employ people with a variety of powers, each group with a cute name. We have “movers” who can move objects telekinetically, “sniffers” who can trace the history of an object and where it’s been (more on that later), and “bleeders” who can scream at a frequency that causes destruction and internal injuries.

Push opens 10 years ago with a 12 year old boy being rushed down a hall by his father – it seems they are being chased and dad gives his son a cryptic message that he must remember no matter what. It’s a prediction far in the future, and young Nick (Colin Ford) must promise to help the girl who gives him a flower some time in the future – no matter what.

A number of men who look like SWAT team members show up soon thereafter and after the father makes sure Nick gets away, he is killed. Nick gets a glimpse of Henry Carver (Djimon Hounsou) and will of course never forget his face.

Cut to today, and Nick (now played by Chris Evans) is living in Hong Kong, trying to stay below the radar. Because of this he hasn’t practiced using his powers he’s not very good at it and doesn’t have much control. He’s in debt to gamblers and even trying to use his powers he isn’t able to “fix” gambling games well enough to make himself win.

In a perplexing plot point, it seems that people who possess all these amazing abilities (including a number of which I haven’t mentioned) aren’t formidable enough as is, and Division has been trying to develop a drug for decades that will enhance a person’s natural meta-abilities. Problem is every attempt at a formula has been fatal. Ah, but that is until the beginning of the film where they inject Kira Hudson (Camilla Belle) with the latest version. She dies momentarily but then comes back stronger than ever and manages to escape the facility.

Cassie is a “watcher,” someone with the ability to see the future, and she finds Nick and tells him they have to find a mysterious case that Division is looking for in order to save her mother. He is hesitant at first, but that goes away when yes, she gives him a flower.

The problem is not only does Division want the contents of this case, but so does a Hong Kong gang which has its own watcher plus a couple of bleeders. We meet a variety of characters as Nick and Cassie meet up with Kira, who has had her memory “wiped” so that watchers won’t be able to figure out what she’s doing. Considering the whole “low profile” thing I found it funny how many others with abilities that Nick knew and went to for help.

Now this may all sound pretty cool but the film felt like it went on forever… It felt far longer than its 111 running time and most of the time I just felt indifferent about it. Besides that there’s a lot wrong with this movie – big plot holes, an incredibly convoluted and utterly ridiculous way to get around being tracked by the watchers and execute the “big plan” at the end and a pretty big dangling plot issue that was never resolved.

Part of getting around being tracked by opposing watchers was for Nick to come up with this big elaborate plan where he assigned different people different tasks and sealed those in envelopes so they wouldn’t know what they were supposed to do until just before they had to do it. Looking back from the end of the film, it was ridiculous how he was able to plan this out, even with Cassie’s help – and it took him two hours to get to the mind-wipe guy. It was demonstrated earlier that the Hong Kong watcher could “see” what you were doing/planning instantaneously, so it made no sense that despite his precautions his plans couldn’t be discerned.

And then my favorite dumb thing in the movie was the “sniffers.” It was hysterical watching one guy sniff around Nick’s apartment like a dog, looking for something that would clue him into where Nick had been. And then to make it worse, it seems that if a sniffer takes say, your toothbrush – he’ll not only be able to figure out where you’ve been but also where you’re going to be in the future!

Now I can buy into the whole getting the history of an object schtick (even though sniffing it seems really silly), but once you remove that object from the person it belongs to, how the heck is it supposed to tell you where the person is going AFTER you take it away from them?

Another thing that bothered me throughout the movie is that frankly, they made Dakota Fanning look like a pre-teen hooker in this film. Yes, I expected her to look raggedy since she seems to live on the streets, but that uber short skirt/shorts she wore and a couple of scenes that really seemed salacious from the camera angle left me squirming in my seat a bit from feeling uncomfortable. There is also the formulaic “two s-bombs and one f-bomb” that you can get away with in a PG-13 movie.

Overall I’ll say that I would recommend you pick up the first season of Heroes on DVD and sit through that rather than spending the time or money to go watch Push. Save this one for a rental.

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Marley and Me Review

Vic Holtreman — Wed, 24 Dec 2008 22:16:49 +0000

Short version: If your idea of a PG family movie includes sexual references, an annoying dog and bad language, by all means go see Marley & Me.

Screen Rant reviews Marley & Me

Let’s just get right to it, shall we? I don’t know… maybe I’m getting grumpy in my old age, but I just didn’t see the appeal of Marley & Me. I went into the theater wanting to like this movie, I really did. While I’m a huge sci-fi and superhero movie fan, I’m always happy to see a movie out there that parents can bring their kids to – so it bugs me when I can’t give that sort of film an endorsement.

Let me say that while I realize this film is based on a book, I know nothing about the source material other than it’s an autobiographical book by John Grogan about a dog he really owned.

Marley & Me stars Owen Wilson and Jennifer Aniston as young married couple John and Jennifer Grogan. She has her entire life planned out, complete with a checklist of things to accomplish… BIG things, like “get married,” “buy a house,” etc. You get the picture.

John is happy to abide by her wishes since from his point of view he “married up,” snagging a babe way beyond who he thought he’d end up with – until he starts thinking about the next checklist item: children. His single-for-life best friend Sebastian (Eric Dane) tells John he needs to give Jennifer a dog. It will feed her maternal instincts for a while and delay her feeling the need for a child.

John has just been hired at a Florida newspaper as a fledgling reporter, wanting to work his way up and Jennifer also has a job as a journalist. He wants to make his mark and is not eager to start a family at this point.

So John surprises Jennifer by taking her to a dog breeder and they end up picking the runt of the litter. Jennifer is a writer and is on assignment while John picks up the adorable little fella. It turns out that the little guy is extremely insecure when left alone and he ends up destroying the contents of the garage.

This is just the beginning – the dog (named after Bob Marley) is incorrigible, and his owners are not up to the job of disciplining him. Eventually Jennifer gets pregnant, and next thing you know she and John are parents of more than one child. Their relationship starts to strain and the dog is not helping by constantly destroying things in the house and barking, keeping the baby from sleeping.

Eventually John is corralled into becoming a columnist for the newspaper where he works (he wants to be an investigative reporter) and he ends up writing quite a bit about his misadventures with Marley. John and Jennifer come to an understanding eventually and life changes for them in a good way.

This all sounds just peachy-keen, so what’s my problem with the film? Beyond the cute little face when it was a puppy, I never liked the stupid dog.

Now I’m a dog person – I love dogs. I have a dog. But shouldn’t a dog that’s the star of a movie have SOME redeeming qualities that make you care about it or want to take its side? I’ve read elsewhere that if you own a dog you’ll appreciate this movie. Yeah, right. There’s a scene where they try to take the dog to a trainer and it’s so out of control (and they, so inept) that the trainer (Kathleen Turner) throws them out of class. They think the whole thing is funny.

I’m watching this film thinking they need to call that guy “The Dog Whisperer” to teach them how to control the darned dog. If I had an infant in the house and the dog was such a pain in the butt that the baby couldn’t sleep, I’m sorry but it would be gone.

I mean during the entire movie I’ll bet if you combined all the time that the dog was actually shown to be doing something that endeared it to the audience, it would total MAYBE two minutes. I kept waiting for something to happen that would make me care about the dog – hell, I thought maybe it would get shot by a burglar, having alerted and saved the family. But no – nothing like that. It’s just an incorrigible dog owned by a couple too weak or lazy to discipline it. Heck, they painted such a bad picture of Marley at one point I was in fear that it was going to hurt one of the babies in the film.

Beyond that, sexual references to the dog “losing its balls,” the beginnings of a sex scene (sure, they’re fully clothed, but my daughter next to me was visibly uncomfortable), an obvious skinny dipping scene (again nothing shown, sorry guys, but a couple skinny dipping in a PG movie?) and a number of “B-level” curse words don’t exactly add up to a movie I’d recommend to my friends with children.

For me the best thing in the movie was Alan Arkin – the man is hysterical and I only wish he had more screen time. Really, this felt like a Lifetime Channel TV movie… some day I’d love to see Jennifer Aniston in something really GOOD.

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Punisher: War Zone Review

Vic Holtreman — Fri, 05 Dec 2008 21:58:37 +0000

Short version: Whether you enjoy Punisher: War Zone or not will depend completely on what you’re looking to get out of it.

Screen Rant reviews Punisher: War Zone

So… there are two approaches I take to reviewing movies here at Screen Rant. Sometimes I review movies from a more “overall” perspective – generally speaking, and compared to most other movies out there, is it a good movie or a bad one overall?

Then I have what I call a “context review.” This is where I decide whether to basically adjust the bell curve and review a movie from more of a niche perspective. In other words, does it accomplish what it sets out to do within the context of its genre?

Examples of this would be movies I’ve given 4+ star reviews to like The Signal and Shoot ‘em Up, and even movies I’ve given 5 out of 5 stars to like Kung Fu Hustle.

Were these movies perfect? Oscar-worthy? Of course not. Did they deliver what they promised within their respective genres? Absolutely.

So the question is: On which side of the fence does Punisher: War Zone fall? Based on what I’d heard prior to seeing the film I would have to say I’d have to review it in the latter category. But even using that criteria, some films fail miserably.

This film has suffered through probably the MOST controversy throughout its production of any movie we’ve covered here at Screen Rant – yet I kept an open mind going in.

Enough of that, right? What’s the verdict?

Punisher: War Zone was fun.

At least as much fun as an R-rated, bloody, violent as hell movie about a vigilante can be.

This version of the Punisher is a clean-slate restart of the movie version of the character – it assumes there has never been a Punisher movie prior to this one. During the opening credits (which were really cool, btw) we learn that a mob boss who was on trial has been set free due to a mistrial – the judge presiding over the case was murdered. Cut to a fancy mansion with cars arriving where we meet Billy Russoti (soon to become Jigsaw) and from the first moment we see him his brutal personality is made clear. As it turns out he’s an extremely vain SOB, making his soon to be fate that much more meaningful.

It doesn’t take long for the first action scene to arrive, and it’s a doozy. The violence and gore in this first scene, while not played for laughs, is so over the top that I found myself laughing out loud – in a good way. Who knew that watching a bunch of bad guys getting shot, stabbed, skewered and beaten could be so much fun?

We also see that the NYPD is on Frank Castle’s (the Punisher’s real name) side. They go through the motions of having a “task force” (of one apparently inept guy) trying to hunt him down – but really they’re glad to have his help.

While trying to track down and go after Billy, Castle accidently kills an undercover FBI agent and he takes it extremely hard. BTW, this is where Russoti turns into Jigsaw and all I can say about how it happens is, DAMN…

Having lost his own wife and two children in violence, attending the funeral of the agent and seeing the surviving wife and young daughter causes Castle to decide to hang it up. The fellow who supplies him with weapons convinces him that Jigsaw will be going after the wife and daughter, so Castle says fine, but this will be his last job.

In the meantime Jigsaw breaks his apparently insane, homicidal maniac brother James out of a mental institution in order to help exact revenge and kill the Punisher. This guy was played by Doug Hutchison and I thought his performance was one of the worst things about the movie. It was pretty cheesy and goofy in my opinion. I actually liked Dominic West as Jigsaw (moreso when he still had his own face). He played the character as “hard core” New Yorker – I half expected him to throw in a “mook” or “palooka” at some point, but it worked for me.

And Ray Stevenson as Frank Castle? I thought he nailed it. No disrespect to Thomas Jane, but I never bought him as the Punisher. Stevenson on the other hand – never doubted him as the character for a second.

As to the violence in the film – holy cow. Earlier rumors of a possible PG-13 for this? Give me a break. Doubts about Lexi Alexander doing justice to the kill scenes because she’s a woman? Leave those at the door. Punisher: War Zone is at its best when it’s delivering its particular brand of over the top, 1980s movie style violence. This is gun action/violence as it should be: bloody and gory as hell.

So why all the bad reviews? I think people are judging this from an “overall” point of view instead of a “niche” view. You see this isn’t Iron Man or The Dark Knight… this is (as Massawyrm at AICN pointed out) a comic book movie that knows it’s a comic book movie. It’s not shooting for a serious, real-world take as much as other movies are in the current superhero movie trend. The action is over the top – sometimes to the point that it makes you laugh, but in that put-a-grin-on-your-face “that was AWESOME!” kind of way.

It’s no cinematic tour de force – no Oscars will be given here. Most of the acting is mediocre, some outright bad. There’s cheesy dialog and some silly characters (a free-running Rastafarian-looking black guy with a Brit/Irish accent for one), but when Frank Castle is doing what he does best, you’ll forget all that and revel in the awesomeness of seeing scores of bad guys get what’s coming in a ton of creative ways. Oh, and the beat-down the two main baddies get at the end are among the most satisfying “bad guy finally gets what’s coming to him” scenes I’ve seen in a film in recent memory.

So, if you go into this looking for a good time I think you’ll come out pretty satisfied. Go into this expecting a “good” movie and you’ll end up laughing at it, not with it.

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Max Payne Review

Vic Holtreman — Fri, 17 Oct 2008 04:00:49 +0000

Short version: Max Payne starts out promising but eventually begins to unravel, only to end in an awful mess.

Screen Rant reviews Max Payne

Mark Wahlberg plays Max Payne, a cop who’s wife and child were murdered and who subsequently becomes an obsessed outcast in the police department. Eventually he teams up with Mona Sax (played by Mila Kunis) in a quest to track down the killer.

Caveat: I know nothing about the video game. Not only have I never played it, I’ve never seen so much as a screen grab from it. So, I can’t speak to the authenticity of the movie in regards to the character and/or plot line of the game.

The movie opens with what we’ve seen in the trailer: Max floating underwater, apparently unconscious. We are then kicked back to “One Week Earlier,” indicated in the current fad of making on-screen text look like it’s part of the actual scene. We soon meet Max, a somber and unsociable guy who has been downgraded to the Cold Case department at the local police precinct.

His wife and child were murdered three years ago and he’s been on an off-duty quest to find one of the killers. Soon we get a taste of his search as he gives three drug addicts in the subway an invitation to mug him, and in a pretty damned cool scene he puts them down very easily.

Soon thereafter at a party thrown by one of Payne’s snitches he meets Natasha, a super-sexy hottie played by Olga Kurylenko. I’ll give you one guess as to her nationality based on that tricky name. Her sister Mona appears at the party and there is some conflict between them that is not clear.

In the meantime there is an addictive drug that is taken orally which seems will be a focal point of the movie. At first it is quite confusing why anyone would even take this drug because it causes terrifying hallucinations in the form of winged creatures.

One thing leads to another and Max ends up teaming up with Mona and the trail leads them to a mysterious bald, shirtless guy who carries a VERY big knife and knows how to use it (much to the chagrin of his victims).

One of the only people on Max’s side is B.B. Hensley (played by Beau Bridges), an ex-cop now head of security at the same pharmaceutical company that Max’s wife worked for.

So what’s good… I’d say in the first third of the movie, everything was pretty good. Wahlberg, while not great, certainly redeems himself from his performance in The Happening. Then again, how hard can it be to play somber and morose. Beau Bridges – just love the guy no matter what he does. He just has a great way about him that’s a pleasure to watch. Olga Kurylenko, well… let’s just say she’s really easy on the eyes.

The story and action are pretty solid at the start of the film as well.

So what’s not so good… well, as the film moves on it gets pretty ridiculous, and for some reason even the action scenes suffer. Director John Moore makes use of slow motion in a couple of scenes, and in one particular scene it’s not just slo-mo – it’s super-excruciatingly-painful slo-mo. I mean seriously, I might have had time to take a bathroom break and still return in time to see the scene (which in real-time would have taken two seconds) end.

The film gets more bizarre as it goes on (which for all I know is how the game progresses) and gets harder to believe. By the end with visions of fiery skies, circling winged-demons and lame dialog (among other things), I was ready to get the heck out of the theater.

I gave it 2 1/2 stars only because of the early part of the movie, and that overall it does look cool – but that doesn’t make up for the rest.

Keep in mind that Max Payne is barely PG-13, with sexual imagery and tons of pretty nasty violence missing only the blood which would have made it R.

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Hounddog Review

Vic Holtreman — Sat, 20 Sep 2008 15:38:47 +0000

Short version: Were it not for the Dakota Fanning rape scene controversy, no one would be talking about this boring film.

So you’ve heard all the talk, accusations and screaming about the film Hounddog (or as many spelling-impaired people are writing it: Houndog) screening at the 2007 Sundance Film Festival starring Dakota Fanning but haven’t seen the film. The big question on people’s mind is “Just how outrageous or explicit was that rape scene?”

So you can gauge my answer, keep in mind that although this is a movie & TV website, for the most part I’ve come at stories from the point of view of a parent when it’s appropriate. I do not want every movie release to be Rated G, but on the other hand it drives me insane when bloodless yet intense violence or overt sexuality is aimed at kids.

The scene in question did in fact make me queasy and was sickening, but that was due more to the event than to anything on screen that could be considered even remotely explicit in regards to what was shown of 12 year old Dakota on the screen. If memory serves it looked like it may have been shot in a way where the actor portraying the rapist may never even have been on top of her. I could be mistaken on that point, but that was my impression. There were shots of her feet, hands and of course her face, and the scene was very brief.

Later on I’ll get to what bothered me about the film that I haven’t heard people talking about much. On to the movie…

Hounddog takes place some time in the late 50’s or early 60’s in the rural south. Dakota Fanning plays Lewellen, a very precocious 12 year old. It seems that right from the start the goal of the film is to make viewers uncomfortable as it opens with a scene between her and a boy that looks a bit younger that is her best friend. They’re in the woods and she wants him to drop his pants and underwear for a peek in exchange for a kiss. She talks about wanting to kill her father, which led me to believe that there may have been some sexual abuse going on, but it’s never alluded to again.

When she gets back home to the run-down shack where she and her father live, he is hanging all over Robin Wright Penn (whose character name I don’t recall) and is apparently a new girlfriend. Lewellan is a huge Elvis fan and she loves to sing his hit song “Hounddog” in particular. What is unsettling about that is that when she sings and really gets into the song she tries to gyrate like Elvis in a very provacative manner, sometimes moving like a dancer from a strip club. Seeing an undeveloped 12 year old moving like that is just plain creepy.

The film kind of rambles along and we meet Lewellan’s grandmother (played by Piper Laurie), and some of the black folks in town including Charles, a (too?) wise old soul and fan of snakes, which he uses to create medicine. The very bad guy in the movie is a new milkman in his early 20’s, who comes by Lewellan’s house one day and happens to see her singing a bit of her favorite song with her trademark moves, except this time while lying on her bed. He is the one who eventually rapes Lewellan.

Hounddog suffers from something I’ve noticed in some other indie films: It’s boring and it’s too long. Although it’s filled with gorgeous scenery, the film just seems to go on and on and on. This was yet another hour and a half long movie that felt twice as long. The best thing about the film is Dakota Fanning’s performance. She really is amazing at the range and subtlety of emotion she can convey at such a young age. I only hope that she is one of the very few child actors who survives the transition to adulthood unscathed.

The other thing that bothered me that I alluded to above was that I’ve never seen a 12 year old wearing just underwear in a movie in so many scenes. There were also instances of her lifting her dress to carry fruit or to pull something she’d been carrying out of her underwear. I can only assume the point of that was to show that she was very un-self-conscious about her body, but this doesn’t jive with her constantly wanting to kiss her best friend. That indicates to me that she is starting to enter puberty which I would think comes with an increased sense of privacy.

Is the director saying Lewellan was inadvertantly asking for it through her behavior? I doubt that. Is she saying Lewellen should be allowed to act seductively without fear of being attacked? I don’t know. My answer is obviously that there can be no justification for taking advantage of a child, but that she should be told that certain ways of acting are inappropriate and there are people out there who will respond to that behavior without giving thought to what is right and what is wrong.

I really believe that director Deborah Kampmeier was earnestly trying to bring attention to the subject of sexual abuse of children, but I don’t think showing a 12 year old girl acting seductively and peppering the film with scenes of her in her underwear was the way to go about it.

Those creepy guys who ogle kids underwear ads in the JC Penny catalog will no doubt enjoy this film, everyone else… not so much.

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Bangkok Dangerous Review

Vic Holtreman — Mon, 08 Sep 2008 03:37:23 +0000

Short version: Bangkok Dangerous, isn’t.

Screen Rant reviews Bangkok Dangerous

If Nicolas Cage doesn’t get a hit movie soon, he’s going to be doomed to doing only National Treasure sequels for the rest of his life. I knew I was in trouble when the showing I attended (11AM on a Saturday) consisted of me, and two other guys who walked in right before the movie started.

That’s it – 3 people.

In Bangkok Dangerous, Nicolas Cage plays an assassin who is the poster boy for the word “loner.” He travels the world and does his job with painstaking precision, but he’s just about had enough and is ready to do one last job and quit.

How do we know this?

Via one of the most dreaded movie gimmicks: The Voiceover.

The movie opened up and immediately went into a Cage-voiced narration. I bristled at this immediately as I am NOT a fan of this style of exposition. Usually I find it to be a “cheat” – a lazy way to bring us up to speed or tell us about a character instead of just showing us.

In any case, I figured “OK, fine, so they’re setting the movie up,” so I let it go. The movie went on for a couple of minutes and then: more narration. I actually wrote in my notes “Oh man, the voiceover is continuing.” But if that were my only problem with the movie, it wouldn’t have been THAT bad.

The main issue I had with Bangkok Dangerous is that it was overly dramatic – melodramatic to be precise. It felt like the director was trying too hard, similar to an old Saturday Night Live skit where there are a couple of actors in a scene shouting “Acting!” “Very good!” “Thank You!” It was almost written like one of those old poorly written detective novels from the 1940s: “It was a dark a steamy night, the fog rolled in like a hooker schmoozing a ‘John’ on a neon-drenched street corner.”

It’s a shame, because there were things I liked about the film – Nicolas Cage’s highly detailed and methodical planning and execution (no pun) of his assassinations, the performance of the young Thai woman (Panward Hemmanee) who captured his heart, even that of Shahkrit Yamnarm, who plays at first the delivery boy and then the apprentice.

But much of the film was pretentious, ridiculous and predictable. There is one scene where Cage assassinates someone by drowning them in a pool in their fortified home complete with guards standing around the pool area. How does he do this? He lays in wait underwater, drags the guy under, holds him under long enough for the guy to drown and then swims away underwater to avoid detection.

So my question is: Is he an assassin or freaking Aquaman? How did he manage to hold his breath long enough to accomplish all this and outlast the other guy by far?

There was also a scene where the deaf girl performs on stage as a dancer in a musical number. I’m sorry, but to do that shouldn’t you actually be able to hear the music?

The movie almost started to get decent towards the end, but then they had to blow that as well with a ridiculous scene with Cage and a bad guy shooting at each other through a bunch of water jugs from about 10 feet away. Frankly I found that scene to be just plain stupid.

The interesting thing is that the movie was an American remake of a Thai film and it was written and directed by the same guys who did the original. Maybe the original just wasn’t that great either…

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Star Wars: The Clone Wars Review

Vic Holtreman — Fri, 15 Aug 2008 05:41:43 +0000

Short version: The Clone Wars is visually interesting, but in the end pointless – and worse: annoying.

Screen Rant reviews The Clone Wars

Holy cow there’s a lot of… angst? anger? annoyance? surrounding the latest addition to the Star Wars saga: The Clone Wars. Me, I’m indifferent. I’m not a huge Star Wars fan (although I was when the first three movies were released for the first time) and I think that George Lucas has run the franchise into the ground and it’s all about:

1. Visual Effects

2. Merchandising

3. Money (see #2)

The Clone Wars takes place between Star Wars episodes 2 & 3, covering the most intense part of the fabled “Clone Wars” first mentioned by Obi-Wan Kenobi way back in 1977 in the original Star Wars film. Therefore we have Anakin Skywalker (destined to become Darth Vader) still playing the hero and a young Obi-Wan Kenobi no longer teaching Anakin but fighting side by side with him.

I really won’t get into the story too much. It basically consists of a whole lot of battle sequences, one after the other – all very loud and very “busy” as far as what’s going on. The main plot involves Anakin having to rescue the infant son of Jabba the Hut. Yes, you heard right. Jabba the Hut is a loving daddy.

Go figure.

Of course we have Count Dooku in the mix, playing one side against the other and misleading Jabba the Hut into thinking that the Jedi have kidnapped his son when in fact he is the one behind it.

Let’s just cut to the chase, shall we?

What’s good:

The animation, once you get used to the style of the characters, is excellent. There is nothing 2D about this, with sequences filmed in a very cinematic manner in regards to camera angles and movement. Hayden Christensen did NOT return to supply the voice of Anakin, and that my friends, is a blessing. Samuel L. Jackson and Christopher Lee returned to supply the voices of their characters, and having Lee voice Dooku is a good thing.

Obi-Wan and Anakin in The Clone Wars

This may sound odd, but with the direction that George Lucas has taken the series, it actually worked better as a 100% CGI animated film. As it was with Episodes I, II & II, they were 90% CGI anyway. The live actors actually looked out of place in those films. At least here everything “matches.”

Finally, it’s actually an improvement over the three prequel films.

(Continue reading The Clone Wars Review)

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Journey to the Center of the Earth 3D Review

Vic Holtreman — Sat, 12 Jul 2008 03:16:16 +0000

Short version: Journey to the Center of the Earth 3D is a great film to take the kids to, or if you’re a fan of 3D – otherwise don’t bother.

Screen Rant reviews Journey to the Center of the Earth 3D

I was trying to come up with a metaphor for Journey to the Center of the Earth 3D, and the perfect one came to mind:

Journey 3D is like vanilla pudding.

It was OK, not really awful or anything – but not something you would go out of your way to watch if there was something better available.

Really, I don’t think I need to go into the plot of this film too deeply – it’s a well known story and everyone should be familiar with either the Jules Verne novel or the 1959 version of the film starring James Mason and Pat Boone. Here we have Brendan Fraser (as Trevor Anderson) playing a professor of geology whose brother has vanished 10 years ago. Things aren’t going well for him, with a smarmy department head who is going to close down his lab, which is based on the work of Trevor’s brother.

Trevor gets home to discover that his widowed sister-in-law is dropping of her son Sean (Josh Hutcherson) for 10 days while sher prepares things for their move to Canada (don’t ask, there’s no explanation). Trevor has no idea how to communicate with a 13 year old boy and predictably things get off to a sour start.

Eventually they end up in Iceland at the door of Hannah (Anita Briem) who acts as their guide to the mouth of an inactive volcano. As you know they of course end up plummeting to the “center” of the Earth and I don’t think I’m spoiling anything by saying they survive.

The film is all about the journey, aptly enough, and the 3D visual effects. We’ve got a T-Rex, giant Venus Flytraps, glowing hummingbirds, giant sea serpents and huge flying piranhas. Oh, and the obligatory mine scene with a roller coaster-like railroad track on which the transport carts ride.

There are a few scenes where they utilize “in your face” 3D with things jumping out of the screen towards the audience, and from the sound of it folks watching the movie seemed to enjoy it. Again, I’ll say that my favorite thing about 3D in films is the depth of field it gives scenes that adds a subtle “you are there” feeling to the movie.

The best actor in the film was young Josh, with Anita coming in second. Brendan Fraser was, well, Brendan Fraser.

So as I said above: If you’ve got kids 10 and under or if you’re a fan of 3D movies, go check it out. Otherwise take away the gimmick and you’re basically left with a cheesy made for TV movie.

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Wanted Review

Vic Holtreman — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 03:00:45 +0000

Short version: Wanted tries oh so hard to be the next Matrix, but despite insane amounts of action, falls short.

Screen Rant’s Wanted review

No doubt I’ll be taking a lot of heat for this since it seems that across the board, Wanted reviews are glowing and effusive in praise. I’ve seen many comments to the effect of “it was trash, but I loved it anyway.” While I certainly wouldn’t call it trash, it also failed to win me over.

Now don’t get me wrong… Pardon the pun, but going in I really wanted to love this movie. I didn’t go in with any thoughts that it would be high art or deep drama – just a cool popcorn flick. But even in popcorn action movies I can only suspend my disbelief so much.

There are minor spoilers related to the very first scene in the film below.

The film opens with a very cool sequence, which had me quite excited to see the rest of the film – an assassin arrives at an office about 20 or so stories high, and commences to have a gunfight with some other guys on the rooftop of a building across the street. It’s a really cool scene which demonstrates the assassin’s proficiency as he starts taking them out one by one. Suddenly they get the upper hand and he heads back down the hall and launches himself forward apparently at superhuman speed. From there we go from cool to ridiculous.

This is the scene where he breaks through a plate glass window face-first as seen in the trailer, and this is where I started scratching my head – instead of falling, he continues to fly forward, apparently on momentum. Then while still moving forward with no drop in elevation, starts shooting at his enemies. Really, I thought this was going to be some sacrificial scene as he eventually starts to drop, especially from the reverse force of firing his guns… but no. He seems to drop and them magically appears on the rooftop behind the baddies.

This left me wondering: Am I watching a superhero movie or a movie about incredibly ninja-level skilled assassins? This was a question that was never fully answered, and the fact that Wanted takes place in the real word made much of what happens in the movie hard to swallow.

From there we meet anxiety-ridden, cubicle-dwelling Wesley Gibson (played by James McAvoy). His life is in a rut – he’s in a dead end job, broke, has a foul-mouthed, overweight harpy for a boss, and his best friend is having sex with his girlfriend. How such a loser managed to score such a good looking girlfriend is beyond me. Anyway he runs into “Fox” (Angelina Jolie) at a mini-mart, where she tells him his father just died and was a master assassin, right before saving his life from another assassin who seems to be out to get Wesley.

(continued…)

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Review: Street Kings

Brian Rentschler — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 07:17:00 +0000

By Brian Rentschler

Short version: This movie starts out with some potential, but by the end, it’s over-the-top yet mediocre at the same time. It has its good spots, but overall its flaws are too distracting and frustrating for it to be truly enjoyable.

Didn’t I already see this movie a few years ago, and wasn’t it called Training Day? That might be because this movie was directed by the guy who wrote Training Day, David Ayer. However, I feel quite confident in saying that, unlike Training Day, this movie isn’t in danger of winning any Oscars, at least for acting or directing. It’s not terrible, but it’s far from great.

As usual, Keanu Reeves substitutes with likability what he lacks in acting ability. Throughout the entire movie, the believability factor of Reeves playing a cop is about the same as when Kevin Costner played Robin Hood. Somehow, it doesn’t matter, though. Far more detrimental to the movie are plot holes and logic gaps in the story that could accommodate a big rig. With the exception of Hugh Laurie, who plays ~~Dr. House~~ Captain Biggs, nearly every actor in this movie hams it up, even the Oscar-winning Forest Whitaker. With a better script and better direction, this movie had the potential to be something more and have something poignant to say. As it exists now, if I were a cop, I would probably feel insulted by this movie.

Set in (where else?) Los Angeles, the story centers around the LAPD, in particular Detective Tom Ludlow (played by Keanu Reeves). For lack of a better term, Detective Ludlow doesn’t play by the rules. It’s not so much by choice, but rather because he works for Captain Jack Wander (played by Forest Whitaker), who directs his entire team to dispense his own unique brand of street justice. For example, to take down some drug dealers who have kidnapped two young girls, Captain Wander has Tom raid their hideout, killing everyone in sight and planting evidence to make it look like self-defense. No warrants, no lengthy trial process, just commendations all around for fine police work.

Sounds like a cushy deal for everybody, right? Captain Wander is working his way up through the ranks because of all the criminals his team is taking off the streets, and Tom is practically his right-hand man. “You’re the tip of the spear,” says Wander to Tom at one point. But there’s a complication. (Isn’t there always?) There is quite a bit of tension between Tom and his former partner, Detective Terrence Washington (played by Terry Crews). To make matters worse, there are rumors that Terrence has been talking to Captain Biggs (played by Hugh Laurie) in Internal Affairs in an effort to rat out Tom. Of course, Tom is very upset by these rumors, so he starts following Terrence around. Almost immediately, Terrence is shot to death in a convenience store robbery.

It doesn’t take Tom long to find out who shot Terrence, but he’s in for a shock. It seems like everyone is trying to bury the evidence they have against the shooters. At the same time, more rumors start to surface about Terrence, namely that he was a dirty cop on the take. For what seems like the first time, Tom starts to wonder if aligning himself with Wander is such a good idea. He also starts to wonder if the real story behind what happened to Terrence may be very different from what he has been hearing. Captain Biggs sees Tom as an opportunity to take down Captain Wander. Meanwhile, Captain Wander sees Tom a different way, and I’m sure you can guess how he reacts.

Will Tom be able to get justice for Terrence and his widow? Will he uncover the whole sordid truth about how far his boss and his team are willing to go to keep their operation going? Will Captain Biggs play a pivotal role in the story’s outcome, even though he only has a small role? If you don’t know the answers to those questions, you haven’t seen enough formulaic, mediocre cop movies.

It’s still not clear to me how the great novelist James Ellroy could have been involved in co-writing something so over-the-top and yet mediocre at the same time. Then again, he wrote the novel The Black Dahlia, whose movie adaptation I didn’t like very much. To be fair, Street Kings starts out with some potential — a cop whose team operates in the “gray area” of the law discovers the boundaries of that aforementioned “gray area” the hard way. It’s an interesting idea, and it certainly has some real-life precedent; Serpico (which is referenced during some dialog in this movie) is just one example. The problem is, rather than strive to be as powerful and emotional as Serpico, this movie goes for the entertainment factor instead. As it gets closer to the end, the amount of ridiculously over-the-top dialog and action keeps growing to the point where it becomes distracting and frustrating. The last part of the movie is so silly that I’m still wondering how I sat through the whole thing without my eyes glazing over and rolling back into my head.

So is this movie worth seeing? That depends on what you’re expecting. The good things about it include Keanu Reeves’ likable performance (I can’t believe I just wrote that), a few fairly tense shoot-em-up scenes, some witty dialog, and rap artist Common in a small but compelling role. The bad things are mainly plot points that are so unrealistic and silly that they distract the viewer and make it hard to become really immersed in the story. If you check your brain at the door and go for a couple of hours of mindless entertainment, you should be fine. However, I was expecting something more substantial. Street Kings is not terrible, by any means. It actually starts out with some potential, but it goes quickly downhill from there, and the end result is far less than what it could have been.

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Review: 10,000 BC

Vic Holtreman — Sat, 08 Mar 2008 01:36:42 +0000

Short version: While there’s an attempt to make this a personal story, it’s really about what we thought it would be: Incredible vistas populated with a combination of ancient temples, pyramids, woolly mammoths and a cast of (CGI) thousands.

Two weeks ago I posted my thoughts about 10,000 B.C. based on what I’d seen so far and at the panel for the film at WonderCon, and one of the words that came to mind regarding what director Roland Emmerich had in mind for this film was “spectacle.”

Oh, and it tries oh so very hard to live up to that word.

The best I can say about 10,000 BC is that it wasn’t as bad as I was expecting it to be.

The film opens with our hero as a young boy in a village that depends upon the annual hunt for woolly mammoths for food. It seems that every year there are fewer and fewer and that the way of life of the small village is coming to an end. A young girl whose village was pillaged is brought to this one as the sole survivor. Her defining characteristic is that she has amazing blue eyes.

And old woman who functions as the shaman of these people predicts that their time of hunting mammoths is close to an end and the boy who ends up taking the girl as a mate when they’re older will be the catalyst for moving from one era to the next. For some reason, the boy’s father decides that he must head out and leave the village in order to insure its survival before the last mammoth is hunted. What he hopes to accomplish exactly, is not clear.

He leaves his comrade in hunting who seems to be the #2 head honcho in charge of the village and his son. The boy is teased by others who think that his father was a coward for leaving. After being alienated from the group, there is a brief bonding moment between him and the girl where he picks out what I assume to be the North Star and tells her just as that star never moves neither will he ever stop loving her (or something to that effect).

Cut to them at about 20 years old: She’s far and away the babe of the village, if not of the entire planet, and while he’s all buff and everything, he seems to be kind of a schmoe: A wanna-be big hunter, but not really up to par. Anyway, he gets credit for bringing down a big woolly mammoth and gets the big fancy white spear. He wasn’t quite honest about it and gives it back to his dad’s pal, although it was difficult for him because winning the spear meant he would also win the babe.

Shortly thereafter the predicted bad guys show up and kidnaps most of the town for whatever nefarious purposes, and they take her with them. The leader of these guys is quite taken by her (ok, her name is Evolet, played by Camilla Belle).

The young man (named D’Leh and played by Steven Strait) resolves to save her. So he, his father’s friend and another young guy left behind set out to track down the bad guys and rescue everyone.

Now, I’ve already said this wasn’t as bad as I thought, but on the other hand I really didn’t care much about even the two main characters. Emmerich didn’t do much of a job (although it was obvious he tried) to make us feel all that connected to these two and they felt kind of like a couple of animated mannequins to me. To give the movie due credit towards the end they did feel a bit more fleshed out but overall I was just kind of bored by the whole thing.

One thing I found kind of funny were a couple of very long shot sweeping, circling scenes of vistas that looked like they were taken directly from the Lord of the Rings movie making manual. Beyond that, the CGI mammoths looked ok, but that gigantic sabre-toothed tiger looked quite fake to me.

And yes, in one scene they were attacked by giant birds.

I’ve heard them referred to as “giant chickens” but to me they look more like giant ostriches. I really would have preferred some lizardy thing, but hey, that’s just me.

This small group ends up meeting with another and the word goes out that they’re going to war with the folks in the big pyramid city. In one scene that gave me a chuckle, this big fearsome warrior who leads the toughest gang of warriors in the area goes up to D’Leh and says to the translator:

“He looks young.”

To which D’Leh replies:

“I’m older than I look.”

So while the fierce warrior was mighty, he must also have been easily convinced since that was good enough for him.

When they finally get to the giant city, I was distracted by the fact that I knew I was watching one long shot after another of nothing but total CGI. It didn’t look awful, mind you, but I kind of checked out a bit during those scenes.

Another thing that stood out was that I don’t believe I’ve seen a movie with so much violence and mayhem including people thrown off buildings to drop 20 stories to their deaths, big mallets used as deadly weapons, knives, spears and other sharp pointy things as implements of death… all pretty much used without a drop of blood to be seen.

Ah, the joys of a PG-13 movie.

And while I won’t give away the ending, just as I was about to give 10,000 BC the slightest amount of respect due to the way the movie seemed to be ending, it vanished in a puff of smoke in such a manner as to make me laugh out loud in the theater.

Was it awful? No. Was it entertaining? Mildly. You may even like it, but I thought it was pretty weak.

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Review: Jumper

Vic Holtreman — Sat, 16 Feb 2008 03:45:28 +0000

By Vic Holtreman

Short version: How can such an interesting concept end up as such a boring movie? One reason: Hayden Christensen.

I must be feeling generous with this Jumper review – despite the fact I’m giving it only 2.5 stars, that’s a rave compared to other movie reviews of this film.

I had really hoped this would be one of those little movies that turned out to be great, especially since I knew it was from Doug Limon, the director of The Bourne Identity and Mr & Mrs Smith. Those two films would look great on any director’s resume.

And then we had the screenplay, written by Jim Uhls, who wrote the script for the amazing film Fight Club and David S. Goyer whose written great stuff like Batman Begins and Dark City.

You’d think that this movie couldn’t miss with all that talent behind the camera… but unfortunately you’d be wrong.

Jumper opens with Hayden Christensen doing a voiceover while we see his 15 year old self, David Rice (played by Max Thieriot). Now I don’t mind a little introductory voiceover if it’s done right and is brief, but here it kept going on and on. While we saw 15 year old David being a typical shy and unpopular teenager with a crush on Millie (AnnaSophia Robb and then Rachel Bilson), Hayden’s voice keeps interjecting itself, explaining what his younger self feels and is experiencing.

The narration went on so long that I feared it would be an ongoing thing throughout the entire movie. Oh, and note to future writers: You might consider not making the opening line of a movie:

I used to be a regular chump, just like you.

The young Rice discovers his powers in a rather cool scene, and due to the fact that his mother left when he was five years old and his father (Michael Rooker) is less than ideal, he takes off within hours of discovering his power to live on his own. Everyone thinks he’s dead because he fell through ice in a nearby river and never surfaced.

His second thought (after “hey, I can teleport”) is “hey, I can be the ultimate thief.” The rationalization (again voiced over by Christensen) is that he was only 15 and you’d do the same thing. I guess we would, considering the fact that we’re you know – chumps.

He “jumps” into a bank vault and steals hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash. We then cut to him eight years later, living in a classy apartment filled with obviously expensive stuff. We get to see him in his apartment, jumping even within the confines of his living space, and here’s where we get to one of the main problems with the film: David is an unappealing character.

He’s spoiled and lazy. Lazy to the point that he’s sitting on one end of his sofa, looks at the remote that is slightly beyond arm’s reach, gets an annoyed look on his face and jumps two feet to the right so he doesn’t have to stretch to get to it.

He also jumps about eight feet to get to his refrigerator from the living room, from upstairs to downstairs, etc. I was watching this thinking “how lazy can you possibly be?” And if he’s that averse to physical movement, how the hell does he stay in such great shape? I think it would have been more realistic if they had cast a fat, ugly guy in the role.

We see a typical day in the life of David: Jumping to Europe to pick up chicks in bars that will never be able to find him the next morning; having a snack atop the Great Sphinx in Egypt; surfing in some exotic location, etc. While it might be fun briefly, as an ongoing thing it would be a empty existence – much like the lives of many young Hollywood stars, now that I think about it.

Anyway, we eventually meet Samuel L. Jackson’s character, Roland, who is a “Paladin”: a hunter of “Jumpers.” Within the span of the film we’re not really 100% sure if the Paladin’s are fanatics and evil, or if they’re truly the guardians of humanity (although the film leans towards the fanatic angle).

Apparently Paladins have been hunting Jumpers since the Middle Ages, and ruthlessly. They can capture Jumpers by shocking them continuously with electricity, breaking their concentration, and also by anchoring them to a stationary object. In the first scene demonstrating this I almost laughed out loud: Jackson almost disembowels a Jumper in South America with a huge knife, and it’s shot in such a way that this gruesome murder shows not a single drop of blood being spilled.

David eventually goes back to Michigan to find Millie, they connect and he takes her to Rome by airplane, which must have been excrutiating for him. They frolic for a bit but of course it doesn’t last long before things go awry. This is where he meets Griffin (Jamie Bell), another Jumper who is more experienced and also aware of the war with the Paladins.

Millie is captured and David of course wants to rescue her, while Griffin considers her a casualty of war.

So, what’s good about the movie: The concept, a couple of too brief action sequences, and Jamie Bell as Griffin. I really wish he was the focus of the film as he was much more entertaining to watch onscreen. The best scenes in the film are any in which he appears.

Unfortunately, on the whole this movie was BORING. I’m sorry… I’m sure Hayden Christensen is a nice guy, but this movie cements the fact that it wasn’t George Lucas’ direction in the Star Wars prequels that made him seem wooden. The guy is just plain dull in this movie and he makes the whole thing a yawner.

Of course it’s not all his fault the movie is boring. When it’s slow, it’s really slow, and it’s also somewhat disjointed. It feels like you’re watching a first time driver trying to work a manual transmission with the movie lurching forward and then alternately abruptly slowing way down.

And then there were some things that I thought were just plain dumb. If you’re being hunted by experts at capturing someone with your power, how about just maybe considering carrying a gun? You can be captured by being shot/surrounded with electric wire? How about before you head out you put on some sort rubber bodysuit? Or carry a wire cutter? Oh, and I’m pretty sure that if you were trapped/wrapped up in an live electrical tower you’d be literally fried to a crisp.

I didn’t go lower with my rating because it wasn’t completely awful, it was just kind of uninteresting – and there was enough in it to push it to a 50/50 for me due to Griffin, the concept and a couple of the action scenes.

Actually, as I left the theater it occured to me that this would be a great premise for an ongoing hourly TV series, but with a different lead actor.

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