The Boxtrolls

So I saw The Boxtrolls and I thought it was an OK kids movie, but it was missing something for me. I really liked the boxtrolls themselves, and enjoyed the look we got into their world but the rest of the movie left me kind of cold.

I was really thrown off by the design of most of the adult characters in the movie. I mean it's clearly a conscious decision on the filmmakers' part but the adults were all unrelentingly ugly and off-putting to me, to the point that it was just really distracting.

On the upside the dialog is generally pretty funny. There's a running gag where Richard Ayoade and Nick Frost as two of the villain's evil henchmen have a series of existential conversations about whether they actually are evil henchmen or not, like an extended version of the Mitchell and Webb "Are we the baddies?" sketch. Also Ben Kingsley is pretty good voicing the main villain, though I found his character hard to look at.

With a mix of low humor and your standard "don't judge misfits and outsiders just because they're different" storyline this seems like it'd be a great movie for kids, but I don't know if there's enough there for grownups. At least there wasn't for this one.

The Equalizer

So I saw The Equalizer and it was a lot of fun! The director, Antoine Fuqua is very skilled at creating violent action movies with enough characterization to keep you interested during the slow bits, and this is no different. Here’s the deal: In the first fight of the movie Denzel Washington stabs a dude to death with a corkscrew, and if that sounds awesome to you then you’ll probably enjoy this movie. If it sounds unnecessarily gory then you should probably see something else.

Personally, I’m a big fan of corkscrew murder. One of my favorite kind of action movie characters is the guy who enters a situation without any guns or anything of their and instead fights with weapons and random objects that they acquire during the fight. This movie is all about that kind of crazy environmental based fighting, especially the final battle, which takes place in a giant Home Depot-type hardware store.

One thing I thought was interesting about this movie is that it has kind of an episodic structure. Sort of like what I assume the TV show the movie is based on,  Denzel Washington’s character is confronted by a number of situation that require his abilities to be solved, and are sort of disconnected from the main plot of the movie. I could see how some could see this as making the movie disjointed, but it worked really well for me.

Some of the supporting players in the movie do really good jobs, especially Marton Csokas as the bad guy, a psychopathic Russian mob enforcer.  Chlöe Grace Moretz is a decent ingénue, though I was surprised by how little she’s in it given her prominent spot in the trailer and other advertising. But really this movie is 100% about Denzel Washington doing his dangerous calm persona, which I always find to be very entertaining. In all this is an extremely entertaining movie with great action and suspense. Definitely worth your time.

A Walk Among The Tombstones

So I saw A Walk Among the Tombstones and it was OK but didn't blow me away. It's one of these "dark, gritty" thrillers where the good guys aren't that good and the bad guys are really really bad. Sort of like The Drop, the filmmakers do a good job of establishing a bleak rainy New York City at the end of 1999. Why they did that specific era is sort of lost on me, all we really get out of it is some random Y2K references and a semi-plausible explanation for why Liam Neeson can't use the internet, which leads him to befriend his punk kid sidekick.

Brian Bradely (or is it just "Astro"? KIDS THESE DAYS) is interesting as the sidekick just because unlike most movie he's way more belligerent than he is cute or funny. Meanwhile, Liam Neeson doesn't go full Taken in this movie, but he does do a bit of the menacing phone conversations that we've come to expect.

In general the movie relies way too much on "mysterious figures appearing behind you" type scares and implications of greater violence. There are parts of the movie that are clearly attempts to make a point or be artistic, but for me really falls flat. There's an extended section around the big finale that involve action occurring while the 12 steps from Alcoholics Anonymous are read, but only one or two of the steps seem to actually match up with the action on the screen, so it just seems random. Worth a look if you're in desperate need of a cops and robbers movie, or are a fan of late period Liam Neeson, otherwise pass.

The Maze Runner

So I saw The Maze Runner and it was just a wasted opportunity. I haven’t read the books or anything, but from the commercials I had seen for this movie I was really hoping for a Lord of the Flies + Cube, with a little bit of Bourne Identity fun with amnesia mixed in. Instead it’s just another “here’s a weird situation, but it all changes when the special kid who changes everything shows up” YA Lit movie. It seems like the movie I wanted to see happened before this one even started, with a bunch of boys creating a society and mapping a giant labyrinth, learning the rules of their world and establishing order. That seems more interesting to me than the story of how that’s all broken because this one kid shows up.

As for the actual movie I saw, the actual kid actors do a decent job with what they’re given. I have a few problems with the writing and direction of the movie though. Everyone in this is so damn cryptic, no one will ever give a straight answer. Early in the movie it seems to me like it would have been easy to say “beyond the wall there’s a big maze, but it’s dangerous in there. The doors close at nightfall and no one has ever survived the night.” That’s two sentences, but it takes like fifteen minutes of screen time to relay this information through a bunch of “Don’t go in there” “Why not?” “Because.”

The problem with the direction is that several of the key action sequences happen in the middle of the night with almost no extra light to illuminate things. To me this made the action hard to follow, and made it hard to make out just what things looked like and how they worked. Why you’d want to make a movie based around special effects monsters and then take pains to not let us see the monsters all that much is beyond me.

Finally, I want to say that I really hate cliff hangers, especially in the first installments of movies. This movie ends with a ton of questions unanswered and reasoning unexplained, with only a “see the next movie as an answer, and that, like this movie overall, is lame.

P.S. Current YA Lit Movie Power Rankings:

1. Harry Potter

2. Hunger Games

3. TBD

4. TBD

5. Maze Runner

6. Divergent & The Giver (tie)

8. Twilight

No Good Deed

So I saw No Good Deed and it was OK I guess. Basically just a by-the-numbers don’t talk to strangers type thriller. One of Idris Elba’s strengths is his ability to shift from charming to menacing and back again, and Taraji P. Henson does a decent job as the scared lady who makes all the mistakes. While not a particularly bad movie, it doesn’t really innovate or do anything out of the ordinary. Even the famous twist at the end is more of a “huh, that’s interesting I guess” instead of a “wow!”

The best way to watch this movie is with a bunch of people who don’t mind being noisy making fun of all the terrible decisions Henson makes throughout the film. “No, don’t let him in the house!” “No! Don’t tell him your husband isn’t coming home tonight!” “NOOO! Don’t put down that heavy household object, keep hitting him with it!”

Nothing you haven’t seen before. Missable.

The Identical

So I saw The Identical, and while I am now less confused about what the movie is about, whoo boy it is not a good movie. You might not know this, but apparently Elvis Pressley had a twin brother that was stillborn, and it was a big deal for him throughout his life. The movie The Identical asks “what if that child had lived, been raised by an evangelical Christian pastor, and eventually became a famous Elvis impersonator?” But, it asks that question in such a way that it doesn’t have to pay any royalties or license any music from the Elvis estate, so instead imagine that in the mid-20th century there was ANOTHER pop star that looks and sounds a lot of like Elvis but is actually named Drexel Helmsley, and then imagine that in my second sentence up there, I said “Drexel” instead of “Elvis.” Confused? Don’t worry, because the point beyond all that is that the movie is pretty dang bad.

In my confusion over what was going on here, along with the presence of actual movie actors I’d heard of like Ray Liotta, Ashley Judd, and Seth Green, I completely missed that this was a super Christian movie.  Like all of the conversations in this movie that aren’t music biopic clichés (“You can’t quit on me, we’re gonna be rich!” “I’m not interested in money, I want to make music!”) are about god and heavenly callings and so forth. This is a movie that goes from the mid-1930s to the mid-1970s and the only current event that the movie talks about that’s not directly related to the main characters is the Six Days War, when Ray Liotta gives an impassioned speech about how we must all support Israel in its time of need.

Again, this movie is bad. The acting is either wooden or 1000% over the top, the music is ridiculous in ways that I can’t really describe. Still, it is the better of the two movies that star Ray Liotta that came out this summer (ULTIMATE BURN ON SIN CITY!!!).

Calvary

So I saw Calvary and it was a pretty interesting movie. It's sort of a cross between a Whodunit murder mystery (technically a "Who will do it" but whatever) and one of those slightly wacky "colorful characters in a small English village" movies like Waking Ned Devine or Calendar Girls, but instead it's in Ireland so while there are still lovely rolling misty green hills, everyone is really cynical and sarcastic.

That's sort of my problem with the movie honestly, to me it seems like everyone in the town decided to have a contest to see who could be the most cynical and world-weary, and everyone's interactions sort of sag underneath it. Probably the best example: Early in the film a character arrives to the town, both of her wrists are heavily bandaged. Every character who sees them says some variation of "Ah, you made the classic mistake, you cut down not across." After the third time it stops being gallows humor and it's just like "what's wrong with these people?"

If you can get past that though there are some very good performances here, Brendan Gleeson's Father James is very compelling as a conflicted, possibly doomed priest and Chris O'Dowd is slightly more serious than he usually is which is an interesting turn for him. All in all a serious, sad movie, but one that I thought was worth seeing.

Get on Up

So I saw Get on Up the other day and my feelings about it are complicated. Chadwick Boseman is great as James Brown, he does an awesome job becoming the iconic singer both in terms of voice and movement. He's really really fantastic in this. I just wish the movie around him was better. 

As it stands the movie seems really confused to me. It seems like the director couldn't figure out how he wanted to tell Brown's story, because pretty much every Biopic story-telling style is used in this movie. There's James Brown walking alone backstage before a big show late in his career, reflecting on his whole life. There's a press conference where the main characters answer questions cryptically and the full explanation is given via flashback. There are weird dreamy flash forwards and visions. There's even House of Cards style talking to the camera, and at least one extended fourth wall breaking explanation sequence. 

By not to committing to one (or maybe two) of these styles the movie is made weaker, not stronger. Plus it constantly jumps around the James Brown Chronology, sometimes mid-scene, make the action hard to follow. So in general, good performances (I also liked Nelsan Ellis as Bobby Byrd) that can become lost a mess of a movie.

The November Man

So I saw The November Man yesterday it was pretty good. So here's the deal with this movie, it doesn't really innovate or do anything really awesomely, but it is a very nice baseline car-chases-and-gunplay spy movie. It could have really gone to the next level if the young guy in the movie had had a little more heart or passion, instead of Pierce Brosnan just being charismatic as he insults and humiliates a brick wall. While I had a good time, it's not worth going to see if you haven't seen some of the other movies this summer, but if you like cat and mouse stories or you enjoyed Brosnan's run as Bond you could certainly do worse. Definitely look for it on Netflix or whatever.

Sin City: A Dame to Kill For

So I saw Sin City: A Dame to Kill For, and I thought it was incredibly disappointing. It's unfortunate because I loved the first one, but this movie fails to live up to its predecessor. I think I narrowed it down to one thing, too much color. The thing that made the first movie so visually arresting was the black and white with occasional flashes of red or yellow. In this one there's color all over seemingly a random, a character we only see once wears pink and takes off her wig to reveal red hair for no real reason. Eva Green randomly has a blue coat, and later has green eyes and red lips like it's Christmas or something. While it's not quite to The Spirit levels, in the end it's just over stylized just for style's sake. That sort of sums it up for me, too much style not enough substance. This one is missable.

Into the Storm

So I saw Into the Storm and I really liked it! It's basically a monster movie with tornadoes and unlike SOME monster movies this summer, it doesn't skimp on what we're there to see: wanton destruction. The visual effects and sound are really great, and just seeing the tornadoes form and destroy stuff is pretty dang exhilarating. Of course, in a 90 minute movie that focuses on effects the human drama has to suffer, but the movie uses its fairly stock archetypes (The nerd trapped with the girl! The young scientist trying to prove herself! The asshole who redeems himself!) effectively to give us some people to feel worried about when the goddamn fire tornado shows up, or the giant city sized tornado picks a dozen 18-wheelers and scatters them to the sky. Good effects, good sound, a fun movie worth seeing in the theater for the full experience!

Expendables 3

So I saw Expendables 3 yesterday and it was OK. The good thing about these movies is that you pretty much know what you're getting when you go to them, heavy on explosions and gunfire, light on emotions and making the main characters run a lot because these knees are what they used to be. For me the best part of this one was Antonio Banderas's character, who was really funny as an unemployed mercenary who just whats to kill people (It's all he's good at!). Mel Gibson was also a standout, playing essentially the gleefully evil death merchant character as in Machete Kills. The worst part was the young Expendables that they bring in during the movie. While I love a "getting the team together" montage as much as anything in movies, in the end I'm watching the Expendables to see these old guys doing action movie stuff, not young people with their drones and their dirt bikes and so on. Also, not nearly enough Dolph Lundgren or Terry Crews (Is there ever enough really? No.) While still a fine action movie, not as good as the previous Expendables movies, the current order of Expendables movies in order of quality is 2, 1, 3.

Also, my friend Chris makes a good point, in a movie where none of them die and they spend the third act rescuing half the team once they'be been captured, is anyone on this team ACTUALLY Expendable?

The Giver

So I saw The Giver and it was ok I guess. My initial formula (Plesantville + Hunger Games) was a little off, the formula for this movie is actually Plesantville + Divergent + (Those emotionally manipulative montages that news sites put out at the end of the year/2). I get the feeling that this will be the thinking person's "Teenagers fighting back against their utopian/dystopian society" movie. It didn't blow me away, but it wasn't really bad either. A hearty meh! Though I do enjoy when Jeff Bridges goes full Rooster Cogburn and talks like he has marbles in his mouth for no reason at all! Personally I'd suggest watching Guardians again.

Note: I'm told The Giver is a beloved work of YA fiction but it's after my time, I hadn't even really heard of it before I heard about the movie. For all I know seeing the parts of the book that you loved as a kid really adds to the movie's awesomeness, ymmv. Also, I thought Divergent was moderate at best, but at least they tried to explain why there were stormtroopers in a supposedly perfect peaceful society. They just kind of show up here :D

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

So on Saturday I saw Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and it wasn't completely awful! Best part: The Shredder has power armor that shoots out swords and then pulls them back using magnets! Oh, and at one point he fights Donatello one-on-one and he makes a bo staff out of swords, and it was pretty cool. In general the movie's relatively short length and willingness to actually have some action make it the better of the "movies based on toys I used to have" movies. But being better than Transformers is faint praise indeed!

Guardians of the Galaxy

So I saw Guardians of the Galaxy and holy crap, it was so awesome I loved it! Like I think a bunch of scientists got together to engineer my ultimate movie: great action and special effects, a lot of humor, and even some pretty good poignant emotional stuff. I spent most of the movie grinning and laughing, walking out of the theater I felt like a little kid! What are you waiting for, got see it!

Hercules

I saw Hercules yesterday and it was pretty good! While my dream of Hollywood just making a straight movie version of the classic myth remains unrealized, this outing was certainly acceptable. Unlike the other movies I've seen this week, it actually delivered on the promises of its trailer instead of doing some kind of crappy bait-and-switch. Plus Dwayne Johnson both wore the lion fur and fought with a club for most of the movie, and had far greater than normal human strength, and that's all I'm really looking for in a Hercules movie. 

Lucy

I saw Lucy, and it just seemed like a wasted opportunity. I just want some crazy high brain use percentage fights and car chases, and I don't think that's too much to ask! While there were flashes of that here and there, in the end it focused WAY to much on the fake science and philosophy of brain use. Like sure, I think we all like Morgan Freeman as a lecturer, but in the end I'm less interested in a Q&A session about made up science and way more interested in how that made up science allows people to be beat up in new and interesting ways.

The Drop

So I saw The Drop and it was really engrossing. It's a fairly slow-paced crime drama with lots of tension and a sort of overwhelming sense of melancholy. It's a weird movie to come out in the fall, because it's so heavily set in the dead of winter in Brooklyn (the time span is just after Christmas to the Super Bowl). As opposed to some crime movies, where thieves and gangsters are presented as glamorous and breaking the law is presented as a great equalizer that allows people on the bottom to get to the top, here being on the wrong side of the law seems just as desperate and seemingly hopeless as being on the right side. So instead of being a tough guy and turning into rich powerful Tony Soprano, in this movie James Gandolfini is just Cousin Marv, the guy who runs the local bar that's actually owned by the Russian mob.

The real standout to me was Tom Hardy, his character Bob was a very interesting cipher to me. Sort of a mix of a guy who just didn't want and trouble and a little bit of Lenny from Of Mice and Men, though as the movie goes on it's clear that Bob is actually has some hidden depths that he doesn't want to return to.  This combined to make there be a number of confrontations and conversations in the film that were incredibly tense and powerful, despite not much being said or happening.

In all I really enjoyed this movie.  If I had to name some negatives I'd say that I wish Noomi Rapace had had a little more to do, as she's just kind of "the girl in peril" here. Beyond that though, definitely worth your time!

A Most Wanted Man

I saw "A Most Wanted Man" yesterday, and while Phillip Seymour Hoffman does a fine job in his role, in the end the movie was too slow without high enough stakes or enough of a payoff for my taste. If felt more like the first episode of a dramatic TV show about spying, a Homeland or something, instead of a full movie. It held my interest and stuff, but it wasn't nearly as good as I hoped it would be, disappointing.

Transformers: Age of Extinction

Transformers thoughts:
1. There was a sword that turned into a gun.
2. If you aren't paying an employee, and they complain about it, is "At least you have a job" really a good comeback? 
3. One of the robots had a face that turned into a gun!
4. Another of the robots had these waist flap things that made it look like it was wearing a trench coat or something.
5. One of the bad guys in this movie was played by Titus Welliver, who to me looks just like local news anchor Ken Bastida, so I was like "why is this news dude being so evil?"
6. I really wish the dinobots were in this movie more, I love the goddamn dinobots.
7. John Goodman really carries the second half of this movie.
8. If you're a 20 year old dating a 17 year old, you might be shielded from age of consent laws by a "Romeo and Juliet" clause in state law, but carrying around a laminated card with the text of that law in your wallet is creepy.
9. Two hours 45 minutes is pretty long for a giant robot fighting movie, real talk.
10. There was a sword that turned into a gun.