The Call Review

The Call is one of those movies that I heard such mixed things about that I felt like I had to see it so I could at least weigh in and see just how good (or bad) it was. I never intended to see the movie, I thought it looked pretty mediocre and not worth my time...but it couldn't be worse than some of the shit I watched this year...right?

The Call follows the story of Jordan (Halle Berry), a 911 operator, and how her life changes when she takes a call from a teenage girl (Abigail Breslin) who has been abducted. While this doesn't sound like a very exhilarating story, I think this film benefited from some good direction, and solid performances from Berry and Breslin.

The writing in this film was pretty mediocre. I wouldn't call it bad, because it strung together a pretty good story, but with some fairly bland dialogue. I guess what I'm trying to say is that the story was entertaining, but what people were saying seemed fairly to very irrelevant. At some points, I though that Breslin's character was attempting to turn her mouth into a dog whistle. Not only was it irritating, but it was also nauseating. But, hey...it wasn't that bad.

The direction in this film was, surprisingly, above par. I thought that the director did a great job of building tension with cramped shots, and used odd angles and interesting framing to increase the tension throughout the film. It was no surprise that this was the same man that directed the phenomenal The Machinist.

While this was, by no stretch of the imagination, and Oscar winning performance for Berry, I was really impressed with what she did with the role. Her character isn't inherently likeable for the first...let's say 40% of the film, but towards the end I actually found myself rooting for her and wanting her to find the kidnapper. Berry is an amazingly capable actress, and she really showed it in this movie.

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While I wouldn't say you should rush out and see this film immediately, I would say it's worth it if you want something to watch on a Saturday night and it's available on RedBox. The story is thrilling, thanks to some excellent direction, and the acting will keep you enticed until the very end.

Writing: 5/10

Directing: 7/10

Acting: 7/10

Pacing: 6.5/10

Rewatchability: 5/10

Score: 6.1/10

Oblivion Review

I'm a little embarrassed to admit that I was kind of excited for Oblivion. I thought it looked like an interesting and original sci-fi film. The trailers looked reminiscent of some great Philip K Dick stories, so yea...I got my hopes up. I wasn't expecting anything phenomenal, but was expecting a pretty decent, well scripted sci-fi film...sadly that's not what I got. 

Oblivion is literally a mashup of a couple of recent (and original!) sci-fi films. It draws greatly from Moon (one of my favorite sci-fi films of all time, let alone the last decade) and Daybreakers (which was a great twist on the vampire genre, especially in the wake of the awfulness that is Twilight.) It you can imagine what those two movies would look like mashed up...you might see a, conceivably, good film. Sadly, this film takes two great storylines, but fills it in with absolutely crap. 

The biggest problem with this film is definitely the writing. Whoever wrote this didn't have a single original idea in their head. They pieced together a couple of great sci-fi plots, but couldn't connect them well enough with their own originality that it all fell flat. And the dialogue was absolutely abysmal. Everytime a character spoke, I wanted to vomit a little bit. Now, when I say the movie wasn't "original enough," I imagine a lot of you are going to complain about how most movies nowadays aren't original, as they are remakes or adaptations. But this is a whole different story. This is a movie that claims to be original, but just regurgitates other movie plots...and poorly at that. I wasn't even a tiny bit surprised when I found out the writer also directed the horrendous Tron: Legacy. 

Other than the script, the rest of the movie was fairly mediocre. The acting was nothing special, but not awful at all. I was really disappointed with how little they used the best actors in the film, those being Nikolaj Coster-Waldau (aka Jaime Lannister) and Melissa Leo. It focused far too much on the less talented people (sorry Tom Cruise fans, but he's been going downhill for a while now.) I also wouldn't have minded a little more Morgan Freeman, even if I did find his character's dialogue to be the worst...but that's might just be because I have a man crush on his voice.

The direction for movie wasn't very good. This movie had a lot of opportunities to wow us with some stunning shots of a war torn Earth, but it didn't capitalize at all. Instead, it just threw a ton of obviously CGI'd landscapes at us and expected us to find it amazing. I really think that if this movie had included some large set pieces, or maybe even used some biggatures, it could have had some impressive shots, and really impressed a lot of people. Instead, we get the guy who did Tron: Legacy, who just loves CGI, apparently. He went crazy with this movie, and it was really disappointing.  

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This movie suffers from poor writing, it's really that simple. The acting was nothing special, and the direction was pretty bad, but the bland, unoriginal script stood out as the biggest failure for this film. I think a better life decision would be to sit down and watch Moon and Daybreakers back to back instead of wasting two hours on this film.

Writing: 3/10

Directing: 3/10

Acting: 5/10

Pacing: 5/10

Rewatchability: 3/10

Score: 3.8/10

Welcome to the Punch Review

I have a weird fascination with James McAvoy. Call me crazy, but that guy is a pretty great actor. Just like any sane human being, every time I see him, I instantly start screaming "OH MY GOD, IT'S MR. TUMNUS!!" But seriously, this guy is a phenomenal actor, and I will watch anything he is in...and yes, that includes Gnomeo & Juliet.

Welcome to the Punch is your typical "cop out for revenge" plotline, so there isn't much here that makes you go "wow, I need to see that." It really is quite generic in it's story, which makes it hard to really recommend. The story revolves around Max (McAvoy), a cop who is obsessed with catching a notorious villain, Jacob Sternwood (Mark Strong). Sounds pretty familiar right? You even get those corny pieces of dialogue like "YOU'RE TOO CLOSE TO THIS CASE!" etc. But, surprisingly, that doesn't make the movie bad, just...less good.

The story for this movie may have been generic, but for some reason it didn't feel like I was being shown something for the billionth time. I found the characters to be pretty well written, and character motivation to be pretty interesting. I was really a fan of the script up until the very convoluted ending. I feel like the ending tried to be much more than it should have been, and really failed. Other than that, the writing was pretty decent. Nothing special,  but not bad in any sense of the word.

The acting was what really held this movie together. When you have two great actors like McAvoy and Strong leading the film, it almost demands that the supporting actors bump up their performance. I thought that everyone did a very good job, which kept the movie interesting instead of bland, as I assumed it was going to be.

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While Welcome to the Punch might not be a great movie, it is definitely entertaining and worth seeing at least once. I wouldn't rush out to see it, but it would be worth picking up on RedBox, or seeing when it (inevitably) winds up on Netflix. Just watch it and fawn over the amazing-ness that is Mr. Tumnus...I mean...McAvoy.

Writing: 5/10

Directing: 5/10

Acting: 7/10

Pacing: 5/10

Rewatchability: 6/10

Score: 5.6/10

G.I. Joe: Retaliation Review

Let me get this out right now: I was super excited when I heard they were making a GI Joe movie back in 2009. I went out and saw a midnight showing of it...and was severely disappointed. After that, I had no faith that this franchise could be anything more than a bunch of campy dialogue and shitty non-plot related action sequences. I was partially wrong...but mostly right.

Apparently, someone realized that everything about G.I. Joe: Rise of Cobra was horrendous and decided that none of it should be in this movie. That was probably the best decision ever. Yes, Channing Tatum carries over for about 15 minutes, but that doesn't count, and they kept the one thing that really made the original bearable: the ninjas. So, I basically am calling this a reboot. It is very loosely tied to the first film, but it is so independent that if you only saw this one, you wouldn't be asking what you missed. You just wouldn't hate yourself for having seen the worse film.

I think the biggest saving grace of this film was Dwayne Johnson. The Rock was the perfect guy for this role. He pretty much played himself, a super badass, who was trying to save the name of his group (the GI Joes.) The dialogue is as corny as you would expect, but somehow when it's coming out of his mouth, you just find it oddly fantastic. Without him, this 'reboot' wouldn't have been as successful.

While the dialogue wasn't fantastic, I found that the general plot of the film was pretty solid. As someone who used to watch the GI Joe cartoon when I was younger, I thought it really felt like a typical GI Joe plotline. And, even if that plotline feels campy in terms of normal action films, it works as a GI Joe action film. The writers really knew their genre and what kind of whacky stuff they could get away with. I applaud them for toeing the line so perfectly.

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While this movie wasn't terrible, it wasn't that great. It had a lot of camp to it, but it fit with what it was. The dialogue was a bit dry, but the plot made up for that. Parts of the film felt disjointed (everything in Tokyo seemed/looked like a completely different film), but it really didn't matter. This is a slightly-higher-than mindless action film that would be a great movie to see with a group of friends.

Writing: 4/10

Directing: 4/10

Acting: 5/10

Pacing: 4/10

Rewatchability: 5/10

Score: 4.4/10

Evil Dead Review

Anyone who knows me knows that I love Sam Raimi's Evil Dead trilogy (with Evil Dead II being my absolute favorite.) So, you can imagine how I felt when I heard they were doing a remake (reboot?) of The Evil Dead. I was a little standoffish, but had hope that it would be faithful to the original, and keep it scary as all fuck. Thankfully, with the input of Bruce Campbell and Sam Raimi, Fede Alvarez came through.

Evil Dead is virtually the exact same plot as the original film, but with slightly more substance. The main characters this time around aren't going on a vacation, they are at this cabin for a reason. Our characters are there to help the lead, Mia (Jane Levy), to go cold turkey. They are all her oldest friends and want to keep her at the cabin until she is clean. Then hijinks ensue, as you can imagine.

The first twenty minutes of this film seem a little forced and contrived. It isn't the best dialogue in the world, and at times, it seems like the worst. But overall, it isn't bad. It tries to set up relationships and show us why we should care about certain characters, but it doesn't quite succeed. We don't really learn much about any characters besides some back story on Mia and her brother, so it really becomes hard to care about who lives and who dies. After the initial introductions and such, that's when the movie starts to get good, and I think it's because it doesn't rely so much on dialogue as it does on what you are seeing.

Going into this movie, I expected to see a crazy amount of gore, just like The Evil Dead had, back in 1981. I was not disappointed. Once the shit hit the fan, Alvarez knew exactly what to give the audience and how to do it. While there weren't a lot of jump scares in the film, there was a lot of "holy shit what is happening" scares. I don't want to give anything away, so I will just leave it at this: the amount of gore in this film puts the original The Evil Dead to shame. In the last half hour alone, they much have used several hundred gallons of blood. It was awesome.

I really enjoyed all of the homages to the original The Evil Dead that were thrown into this film, and didn't find any of them to be over doing it. Like, the fact that the car from the original was sitting in the yard all rusty and shitty was a really subtle (and awesome) reference. There are a lot of things like that scattered through this film that will make fans of the original just smile, while it won't effect the quality of the film for newcomers.

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This was a solid remake of an already great movie. I felt like it really differentiated itself from the original film enough to make it a quality film, but it didn't forget to give a few nods to the originators of the cult classic. I suggest this film to anyone who enjoys a good scare, and can handle an ungodly amount of gore.

Writing: 5/10

Directing: 7/10

Acting: 7/10

Pacing: 9/10

Rewatchability: 9/10

Score: 7.4/10

The Incredible Burt Wonderstone Review

I'm starting to think this whole writing reviews thing is getting bad for my health. I've already seen some horrendous movies this year solely for the purpose of writing reviews on them (see my review of Identity Thief and Broken City if you don't believe me.) I vaguely remember saying in my Identity Thief review that it was the worst movie of the year: sadly, I was horribly mistaken.

The Incredible Burt Wonderstone looked, on the surface, to be a mindless comedy that would have  one or two hilarious scenes, and then be shit otherwise. I could not have been more wrong. There wasn't a single part of this movie to enjoy. Just the concept on it's own seems like a terribly stupid idea, then you add on some terrible writing and atrocious acting, and you have the perfect storm of shit.

I really don't know where to start, so let me just say this: whoever wrote this movie needs to be put down. Seriously, there wasn't a single piece of dialogue in this film that even made me chuckle. It's really upsetting to me when people go from writing great, hilarious material (Horrible Bosses) then follow it up with completely unfunny drivel. This script isn't worthy of the actors that read it...but when you watch it, you might tend to think it's the other way around.

The acting in this movie was awful. I can't even begin to explain how bad it was. I don't know if the actors were just like "this script is awful, so I'll just phone it in and still make good money," or if the director was telling them to be overly campy or something, but it was ungodly. Steve Carell made me want to drill a hole in my skull. And let's just talk about all the wasted talent in this movie: Steve Buscemi, Olivia Wilde, Jim Carrey, James Gandolfini, ALAN FREAKING ARKIN! All they did was get a bunch of talented actors and have them play awful characters with poorly written dialogue, carrying out a half-assed story.

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Sometimes I tell people: "Wait until it's out on DVD" or maybe "Wait until it's on TV" but this movie is a serious "Don't waste your time." There wasn't a single redeeming quality about this movie; strike that, there wasn't even a single redeeming scene in this movie. This was one of the worst movies that I have actually sat through, and will never sit through again.

Writing: 0.5/10

Directing: 1/10

Acting: 0.5/10

Pacing: 1.5/10

Rewatchability: 0/10

Score: 0.7/10

The Croods Review

In one of my most recent rants I talked about the evolution of children's movies and how they aren't just for kid's anymore. If you didn't read that, well...fuck you, but keep reading this anyways. The Croods has been on my radar for a while, but was never a movie that I was really interested in. I thought it looked a little too much like a generic kid's movie to be really enjoyable. I was mostly right.

The Croods is really a movie for two people: kid's and parents. While some people may argue that I am still one of those (I can't say I disagree, but that's besides the point), I am not really in either of those demographics. The entirety of the film revolves around a family of cave...people(?) and the adventure they embark on when continental drift destroys their home (read: shithole cave.) They meet up with a evolved caveman (human, perhaps) who helps them hone their skills outside of the cave.

My biggest problem with this film was the script. It really felt like the script was pandering towards two people: a) kids and b) really stupid people. Those two groups around mutually exclusive, but you know that I mean. The script throws history out the door 90% of the time and just made me want to stab something. I understand it's a kid's movie, but what is the point of straight up making pointless changes like that? It's just plain stupid.

The acting was as good as you would expect from an animated film. You never get real stand out performances in a movie like this, and this movie was no exception. Nic Cage was pretty solid (which feels weird to say, because I usually find his voice to be nauseating.) Emma Stone was her usual quirky self, but nothing special. Ryan Reynolds was probably the strongest member of the cast, but not by much. Everyone was just...slightly above average.

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This movie is a really good family movie, but has nothing for anyone other than that. Pretty much anyone between the ages of 13 and 30 won't find this movie that entertaining, and older people will just enjoy it with their kids. It's definitely not DreamWorks' best work, but also not their worst (aka Bee Movie). This is pretty similar to their last film Rise of the Guardians, but a little more geared towards the younger audience. I'm hoping that they can rebound with Turbo later this year.

Writing: 4/10

Directing: 5/10

Acting: 5.5/10

Pacing: 6/10

Rewatchability: 5/10

Score: 5.1/10

Parker Review

 

I don't know what it is about Jason Statham that makes me want to see all of his movie. I mean, I know he's not a good actor (even in his better movies like Snatch), but I still love watching him kick a whole lot of ass. It's a guilty pleasure of mine, and I bet it's probably one of yours too. So, of course I was going to see his latest piece of garbage film, Parker. Oddly enough, it wasn't completely horrendous.

I can easily describe the plot of Parker in one sentence, that will not only very accurately describe the plot, but will also convey the message of just how generic the film is. Ready? Good. Parker is about a thief that is betrayed by his team, so he comes back to exact his revenge. Sound like any other film you've ever seen? Yea, this film is one big genre trope, but goddamnit if Jason Statham isn't great at kicking loads of ass.

I really can't talk at length about this film, because it really was quite generic. Generic bad guy (Michael Chiklis), generic female lead (Jennifer Lopez), and just (generically) awful dialogue. The only saving grace of this film was the fact that it had some beautifully choreographed fight/action sequences. This has always been a staple of Statham's films (see: Transporter 1-3, Crank, etc.) and he didn't fail to deliver this time around .

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If you are looking for a mindless action movie that almost tries to be more than it is, but doesn't quite, then see this movie. It's stupid, but makes up for it by giving some great action.

Writing: 3/10

Directing: 3/10

Acting: 3.5/10

Pacing: 4/10

Rewatchability: 5/10

Score: 3.7/10