A good Actor can't fix this movie - a Mechanic Review

Have you ever walked into a movie 99 percent blind? Literally the only things I knew about this movie were that Jason Statham was in it and that I’d heard zero reviews or comments about it. And that it was an action movie. Having that information I had an interesting experience.
The Mechanic is your standard Jason Statham movie. He’s a hitman and he has a job he doesn’t want to do. Then some boohoo’s and then he picks up a teen sidekick played to perfection by Ben Foster. Now for the spoilers.
Yes Spoilers.
Turn back now.
Too Late.
So the first act consists of Jason killing a dude, meeting up with his friend who is one of the partners in a company that sends out hitmen. This friend is played by Donald Sutherland. Or as I call him Exposition Man. Because he really serves no purpose other than exposition and isn’t interesting until he’s dead.
Yeah he dies. See you know how I mentioned he was a partner in this operation? Well the other guy shows Statham some info that says he’s a traitor (News flash, he was lying) so Statham makes it look like a normal mugging. Now this set up scene is one of the two best moments in the whole movie.
Now Statham is all sad because he killed his friend. So he goes and visits his hooker friend and his alcoholic boat friend. They are Zero consequence. But then he goes to the cemetery and finds Donald’s son, played by Ben Foster. Ben is awesome as he often is, and plays this almost an asshat guy who is looking for revenge. So he goes out and tries to kill some carjackers(thinking his dad was murdered by carjackers) and Statham stops him and then quickly ends up taking him on as an apprentice hitman. It is at this point that Statham becomes completely unimportant and every character arc and development is put on Ben’s character. They do a couple jobs and eventually because of some Deus Ex Machina intervention from the writer, the plot moves to taking out the guy that betrayed Statham. As they get most of the way through the steps to find the guy, Ben discovers that his mentor killed his father. And so he starts plotting. He doesn’t take immediate vengeance. He builds it up. He plans. And in the meantime we as an audience get some delightfully delectable moments where Statham and Ben have awkward conversations. Leading up to some very heavy handed dialogue followed by what seems like a great scene at the time. We see Ben pump gas onto the car and into it, walk away and then fire a gun at the gas can. It is an explosion. Wheeeeeee. And it looks like Statham died. And had it ended there and this had all been about handing the torch off this would have been a GREAT film. But the good guy, aka the lead, had to win so we find out from security footage Statham rolled out of the car, and that he left some explosives on a car and actually blows Ben up thus negating any possible good moments. The real sad part about all of this is this could have been a really good drama had they put a capable actor who has some kind of depth of emotions in the part of Statham. It isn’t a perfect fix, but a different actor in that part would have solved some problems. The rest are just the clichés that bog down most action movies. This is the kind of movie where it throws around cool ideas but never fully executes them. Now when it comes to action, it is on par with say The Expendables and Machete. But the best parts, the soul has been frankensteined back into a shell that probably didn’t need it. I wish I could take this plot and build a good drama out of it. And I bet I could too. Oh and the title really doesn’t mean a lot. It’s a term mentioned once or twice as another name for a hitman but really feels forced like they needed to justify the title to a movie going audience who is deaf, dumb and blind. Unless you are Ben Foster the acting is mediocre at best. The directing is okay, but there are a few times, especially early, where the director isn’t clear with the editing to give us a sense of what is going on. And also it looks bad. Like the picture itself looks Last Airbender with 3D glasses bad. I don’t recommend watching this film, you know, ever. But if you have to, it does work as a pop corn flick and will get you through the hour and a half run time perfectly sound.
All in all, I think foreknowledge only really affects your expectations and not the film going experience as a whole. All in all, this film wasn’t bad, it just wasn’t good either. Grade is a C.

Coming Soon: The Weekly Release

Hey folks, I'm going to start doing a little write up on what I bought in a given week, at what price(or the price I am allowed to reveal), and my thoughts if it is something I haven't discussed.
This week I bought Buried and Bioshock for the PS3.
This Upcoming week I am buying Red and How to Train Your Dragon.


Often the movies will be a mix of new releases and older releases on sale.
Games will almost always be ps3 and will likely be older.
Graphic Novels will be from who knows where, but since I buy them off ebay it'll likely be a comment on the quality of the book. Also 99 times out of a hundred it'll be Hardcover.

Alright, I'll have reviews up at the end of the week for stuff and this week, baring weather and work, I have at least two different films I'm reviewing.

What genre is this movie? That's the real dilemma - a review of The Dilemma

Every so often I, on a whim, pay to see a movie I have never seen nor heard anything positive nor negative about. In fact, these excursions are often on the kind of projects that I have heard no buzz about. Occasionally I discover true gem's using this process. Occasionally I see crap like Awake, and spend the next twelve months warning people off the movie. Well congratulations, this isn't a warn people off it movie. But it wasn't a memorable film either. You see, I saw this movie some eight or nine days ago. And I had all intentions to write a review of the movie. But I forgot the movie existed. Hell I forgot I even saw it. That's not a good sign. But I do remember walking out of the theater thinking if the film had made a decision it would have been stronger. Instead the film was half comedy, half drama. And the drama elements were all better than the comedy elements. in fact the film told me flat out that Kevin James is an actor who flat out needs more work as a dramatic actor. He steals this show, almost as much as Chantum Tanning(name correction later). Chantum does a fantastic job playing an asshole. And as the opposite end of the spectrum you have Kevin James who knocks it out of the park as a best friend. And here's the thing about this movie, it is one hundred perfect feels real. These aren't caricatures, these are people. They have reasons and dreams and logic and it is really fantastic the way it works out. I would love to look at the script because the four leads(Winona, Jennifer, Kevin, and Vince) really feel like a tightknit group of friends and so when someone feels betrayed you really see it and really see the pain these people go through. There is also some really dark issues at work here, some underplayed, some overplayed. But Ron Howard works his directing magic and pulls out something that wants to be so much more. For every element that works, there are three to four things that feel, not nessisarily wrong but, almost off. There are elements that feel under utilized or like they went in the wrong direction. And again,this movie makes you feel like Kevin James isn't used to the best of his abilities. Now on Vince Vaughn, he is very Vince here. But he is the least Vince he's been in a movie since Jurassic Park:The Lost World. And it's one of those things where he and Kevin both fall under the Joss Whedon law of Comedy. "If you can do comedy, usually you can do the other thing". or as Smallville put it "German Philosophy is easy, Comedy is hard." This is a movie that isn't bad, but it isn't great. It is just shy of recomended. Finally Queen Latifa will scare the pants off you with talk about her "Lady Wood." It's creepy.

So should you avoid this movie? No. Should you hunt it down? Not really. Is it worth a rental? Certainly. Some people will love this movie, but like me, most will forget the movie ever existed. So I give it a C.

Don't be fooled by the trailer, the film is awesome - a review of Fighter

In every way the trailer doesn't depict this film well enough. This is a film that will defy your expectations with something a little more grounded than most boxing movies. Now of course this film is based on a little history, but unlike a few other based on history films, this one doesn't force you into needing to believe the unbelievable. This is a film that doesn't pull punches. This is the kind of movie you walk out of knowing that you just watched something special. I know I did. This is a movie about two men, brothers from a very large family. One Brother, Christian Bale, thinks he's on his comeback tour. Mark Wahlberg is just trying to do what he does. And this movie is about these two characters journeys. One spiraling out of control until his life explodes, the other on the rise to something greater. Our three leads, Mark, Christian, and Amy Adams, do wonderful jobs and they really show you things you don't see out of them, with a more sexual and adult Amy Adams than is typical typecast for her. The writing and the directing are both spot on. Where this movie really shines though is that its story doesn't ever shy away from the hard truthes. This is a movie about Drug addiction and about being torn between love and family and in many ways it deals with them in a very real manner. You can relate to the need to be honest and relate to the hard choices that you have to make in the name of family.
This movie is an A. This is an absolutely solid film and in every way deserving of your time.

A movie that didn't know what it had going for it - a review of the Social Network

I want to start by saying I didn't fall in love with this movie. It is well done, it is strong, it is filled to the brim with amazing performances and fantastic dialouge. However, it is also a little blind as to what the story is about and doesn't seem to know where to focus. This is a movie about the creators of Facebook.
But instead it focuses pretty specificly on Mark Zuckerberg. But for me the real star and the only really likable character with a good storyarc is his best friend Edwardo. And I understand that Aaron Soarkin was likely focusing on Mark either because he had to because that was the story that was licensed or because he was the character he could most relate to, however to much of the movie starts to fall apart in the last third for me to be able to champion the writing. But again, the dialogue is spot on.
The director, David Fincher, is of course a genius at what he does and other than a few exploitive shots his work was expertly crafted.
Okay, now that I've gotten my unremarkable critiques out of the way I want to talk about the part that I agree with everyone on. The acting is phenomenal. There are some incredibly well performed performances here and the film is fantastic for it. Andrew Garfield is subtle and loveable. Justin Timberlake is cruel and the man you love to hate. Jesse Eisenberg falls in the middle of the two types of characters and really feels a bit like Orson Welles at times. The supporting cast works well with what they are given but outside of those three, none of the actors are really given a chance to show something resembling good, emotional acting.
This movie for me is an A-. It really is a great film, but in a sea of great films for me to choose from, all boasting great acting, this movie didn't live up to the hype for me.

A parable about how to make a classic scifi film - A review of Tron:Legacy

If 2008 was the year of the comic movie, and 2009 was the year of the underdog, then 2010 was the year of the nostalgia. In every way Tron:Legacy is following the trend and trying to appeal to the original fans without pushing away the newcomers. The movie is fun and often very true to science fiction. And the whole thing screams eighties. But that's the point. Here we are, twenty five years later and it looks like that era but with better graphics. But it is such a love letter to Tron that it is hard to not look on in awe.

And the graphics are very pretty. Yeah it's superficial, but they are pretty in a lighting kind of way. Because of the very nature of the Tron universe, everything is all about light and shadow. And because it is about light and shadow the visuals reflect this. This is the kind of movie you watch in hi-def with the very best quality screen/projector possible. True Imax given the chance. It will own your very soul. But the movie does something else, it gives you something that is enjoyable to watch. It isn't Avatar where everything is so dull that the only thing you have to enjoy is the pretty, here the pretty is icing on the cake.

The story is a continuation of what came before. It in every way honors it but it in no way hides from it. We get a full view of this world and the movie works wonders because of it. It is not without flaws. There is some pretty heavy handed christian symbology and alegory that in the last half hour becomes nearly distracting. I don't want to say too much but I will say that it honors its predecesor and builds on it in a way that the star wars prequels and the Abrams Star Trek didn't.

The acting is good. Yes. no. Well. Kinda? Okay, some of the performances are a little hokey. But again, that's the point. Jeff bridges and his CGI body are pulling double duty again and it works great. The idea of deaging someone with graphics has finally reached the level of the technology we have. Olivia Wilde does a better job here than she does anywhere else in that she's playing a different character. For once she wasn't type cast and she actually gets some oppertunity to shine and show subtlty. The main actor does a capable job. He never overplays it, but he never underplays it either. He never defies expectations. He also reminds me considerably of Jensen Ackles every second he is on screen. Only I keep wishing he was Jensen Ackles.

I would be doing a disservice if I didn't recomend the soundtrack composed by Daft Punk. Everyone whose seen it knows what I'm talking about, it's sold out at Best Buy RIGHT NOW. Two weeks later. That's impressive. It is an amazing soundtrack whose full musical quallity is worth it's weight in gold and then some.

Overall I would say that this movie is an absolute A-. It's not perfect, it is actually a really enjoyable flick. Go check it out.

Tron
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