Sci-fi, 118 Minutes, 2012:
Whenever a new property based on Philip K Dick’s work comes along there’s a few minutes where I’m unabashedly hopeful that this time – just this once – maybe they’ll actually do the story in the book. I’m always disappointed on that score. Even when we end up with an excellent movie it’s always, essentially, an original story. This is always a bad thing – these movies still tend to be pretty good – but it’s still disappointing.
“Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter” on IMDB
Drama, 105 Minutes, 2011
First thing first: the premise of this movie is all kinds of bobble-headed-dumbassery. The specifics are that Abraham Lincoln’s mother was killed by a vampire as revenge for a slight by his father. When he grows up and seeks revenge he’s found and trained by a vampire hunter. Apparently vampires from Europe have set up shop in the South and are using the slave trade to build power and as cover for their feeding. He moves to Springfield where he hunts and discovers a talent for politics which he uses to put an end to slavery (and thus squash the vampire empire in America).
Action, 96 Minutes, 2012:
[Hurricane Sandy is currently causing all kinds of hell for all kinds of people. Here in Scranton, PA we’ve still got power and Internet (at least for now). We’re going to watch movies until either Sandy puts a stop to it or we can actually leave the house.]
“Starship Troopers: Invasion” on IMDB
Sci-fi, 90 Minutes, 2012
Hells yes, people! This is, finally, the sequel that the original “Starship Troopers” [IMDB] deserves. It’s an animated film – a beautiful, intricately-detailed computer animated film to be exact. (If you still need to be told that animated films aren’t just for kids then call over whoever let you on the Internet and tell them you aren’t ready for it.)
Action, 90 Minutes, 2012
I got this because Danny Trejo [IMDB] was on the cover, period. It wasn’t until about 20 minutes in that things started clicking that this was somehow, sorta-kinda based on the YouTube-famous AC Transit Bus Fight (also known as the “Epic Beard Man” fight). This is just… weird.
“The Raid: Redemption” on IMDB
Action, 101 Minutes, 2011
My daughter’s one-line review: “THAT WAS AWESOME!”
Who knew that Indonesians could make one of the absolute best action movies that I’ve ever seen? Hong Kong maybe. Japan, possibly. But Indonesia? Really? How in the hell did this happen?
Action, 98 Minutes, 2012
This is a pretty serviceable action flick. The hook is that a no-name banana republic is attempting to outsource its rebellion against a tyrant general by selling it as a real-life adventure for billionaires (get it? Soldiers of Fortune? Get it?!) To keep their spoiled bags of money safe in an active war zone they hire real-life disgraced commandos Christian Slater [IMDB] and Freddy Rodriguez [IMDB]. Of course things go well-and-truly pear-shaped almost immediately.
Action, 131 Minutes, 2012
It should be obvious that making a movie based on Hasbro’s “Battleship” should result in disaster. The game itself has no story or plot and the absolute simplest of mechanics. There’s also the rather important fact that it’s not really all that fun. Nobody was more surprised than me that the movie based on this silly little game was surprisingly good.
Action, 93 Minutes, 2011:
[Wife and kids are away on their last weekend jaunt before school starts so while I catch up on some mind-numbingly tedious work I’m distracting myself with bad movies. This is the second.]
“The Dark Knight Rises” on IMDB
Action, 164 Minutes, 2012
There are two ways (at least) to consider “The Dark Knight Rises”. The first (and correct) way is as the capstone to a self-contained “Batman” story that owes us nothing but a profound respect of the character we love. The second way, one that the angrier parts of the Internet seem to have latched onto, is as an entry into a larger, continuing “Batman” timeline. Considered as part of a larger whole, or worse, as a stepping stone to the rumored, much-anticipated “Justice League” movie, the film fails to properly stage the character. I would simply argue that there was no requirement to do this.
