Star Trek Retrospective: Episode 54 Bread and Circuses
This was a favorite of mine as a kid. I studied a lot of Greek and Roman mythology back then (long story) and the idea of a planet where Rome never fell struck me as super cool. I particularily liked the Roman soldiers in ancient armor with submachineguns.
All that being said this episode was pretty dumb. The idea of planets developing exactly parallel histories or societies as Earth but with some slight difference had already been ground into the dust in The Omega Glory, Patterns of Force, and a Piece of the Action. If you add in all the time travel episodes, Miri, and the Squire of Gothos you would think that Star Trek faced some kind of budget issue and were writing stories that would allow them to use props, costumes, and sets that were lying around the studio grounds.
I think it also telling that all the “alternative Earth” episodes were all close together. I would bet they did A Piece of the Action and figured out this was a cool and easy way to crank out a few episodes. All kind of ridiculous (even if the universe is infinite and all possible worlds exist in it the odds of finding a parallel world even in our own galaxy are astronomically high), but not as ridiculous as finding out that every alien planet in the universe speaks American accented English.
This was the only one I can think of that had a real religious message and if you are not Christian you might have an issue with it. I love the fact that Spock thinks that “sun worshipers” are kind of silly but once Uhura explains that they are not worshiping the sun but rather the Son of God he thinks it makes logical sense. I kind of doubt a race dedicated to logic in all things would give any more credence to one religious belief over another, but whatever. I think that basing a whole “plot twist” on the similarity between two English words on a planet that has no business even speaking English is bass ackwards. Also, for the record the Roman Empire did not fall because of Christianity. It fell for a number of reasons, not the least of which include lead in the water supply and Germanic barbarians.
Still, a fun episode as long as you don’t look too carefully at Kirk taking advantage Drusilla, his one night sex slave. This whole episode was pretty much based on human trafficking, but given the fact that Kirk has the charisma to hook up with any female vertebrates (and most invertebrates, if they are clean) in his eyesight this is just being lazy (and creepy).
Dave
P.S. I just noticed that the image I pulled from the site lists this episode as number 43, which again was it’s production number but not its release number. That’s twice. I’m going to have to have a few words with my Star Trek t shirt people.
Non-Stop Review
That is, a review of the movie Non-Stop, not a chance for me to run at the mouth for hours on end. I did that for Star Trek Into Darkness.
I have to be careful with Liam Neeson. His bad movies are like wearing sand paper underwear, constantly chaffing and reminding me of the pain of Taken 2, Battleship, and the Phantom Menace. But then I see something like this or the Grey and am reminded that he is actually a dammed good actor. Would that his script discrimination matched his acting ability.
Yes, I enjoyed it. Exciting, intense, and with only a few easily ignored plot holes. A few days ago when talking about seeing this film I disparaged director Jaume Collet-Serra a little for not having done anything worth mentioning but I have to say the man has talent. This film is tight. Great buildup of tension, great connection to the main character, and a very exciting denouement with a couple of nice plot twists with no excess. I would now give any film he did serious consideration.
Of course like the worlds greatest seismologist I can find fault with anything (haw! Earthquake humor) and this film does not escape my scrutiny unscathed. In general it is quite well done and a great template for a good action/drama. Relative to most of the movies I have seen since the beginning of the year it was a nice break from the sewage grind.
Reviews where I like the film tend to be short and kind of boring so I will get this one over with so you can read about my opinion on Star Trek. The film starts off with Bill Marks (Liam Neeson-Wrath of the Titans, the Lego Movie, the Nut Job) drinking in his car prior to going through security at an airport. He has a minor run in with a preppy dude named Zack (Nate Parker-Red Tails, The Great Debaters, Arbitrage) on the line only to find himself seated next to the guy.
Jen Summers (Julianne Moore-Carrie, Crazy Stupid Love, the Big Lebowski) needs a window seat and so Zack trades with her. The plane takes off. It turns out that Bill is an air marshal and he starts getting a series of strange texts, telling him that a person on the plane will die every 20 minutes unless $150 million is transferred to an account.
At that point it’s a massive whodunit. Bill looks like he is being framed for the whole gig. He has is suspicions and conducts a fairly brutal investigation. The as this film is all about surprises and I think it worth seeing I am not going to go into the story too deep. A spoiler here would really be unfair.
The stars:
Honestly very exciting, something of a rarity these days. Two stars. Liam Neeson plays a bitter burnout better than anyone else and this movie is the perfect vehicle to showcase his talent. One star. The rest of the cast delivered an admirable performance. One black hole. The plot twists were coherent and not just dredged up from bilges of the writers ass. You know. Twists that make sense, not just twists for twisty sake. One star. Pacing and tension development were actually quite masterful. No excess baggage (haw!). One black hole. In general a fun, exciting movie. Two stars. Total: eight stars.
The black holes:
While none of them were gaping there were a few black holes, mostly around the complexity of the bad guys plan and the fact that no one in TSA would look suspiciously at someone trying to get a parachute through security. One black hole. That’s pretty much it. One black hole total.
So seven stars, and one of the shortest reviews I have done in a long time. Sorry but movies that I like without being about something I really care about tend to be brief. I will take a moment to endorse the music making software package project by a friend of mine and ask that you check out her Kickstarter video. If you are into electronic music seriously consider donating a few bucks. I don’t ask for a lot of these (aside from checking out my nerd t-shirt site, of course) so at least give it some thought. Thanks, and thanks for reading. Like this on FB on the link above and follow me on Twitter if you think these reviews are decent (@Nerdkungfu). Comments on this film or my review can be left here and off topic questions or suggestions can be emailed to [email protected]. I saw Stalingrad last night and will review it next. Talk to you soon. Have a great night.
Dave
Endless Love Review
I hate myself for not hating this movie more.
Don’t get me wrong. I did hate this film. It is everything that is wrong in Hollywood today; a cliched, hackneyed low budget remake of an even crappier movie designed to just suck up enough cash from lonely romantic losers, foreign dopes, and hapless film critics who don’t warrant free movie tickets to cover its production costs plus coffee money (Budget: $20,000,000. Gross sales to date: $20,460,285. Mission accomplished I’d say). There is every reason for me to push it out of the car at 80mph onto an embankment that is currently covered with cactus.
And for most of the first half I was revving my engine and disabling my passenger seat belt latch in anticipation of doing exactly that. The characters were so bizarre they might have been written by aliens from another dimension who had only learned about humans by reading the online journals of teenage girls. The story was cheesier than a mozzarella asteroid big enough to destroy the planet (blue collar guy falls in love with upper class girl only to have trouble with her snooty father? Come on.). They had mid 20 year olds playing high school students. This film was another one filmed on the surface of the universe of HG Wells The Time Machine with only beautiful Eloi actors (obviously the Morlocks were all off camera collecting garbage, living in sewers, and writing movie reviews. As an aside to the producers of this film one or two actors with more “challenging” looks will actually make your good looking actors look better). A fairy tale romance that even a fairy tale wouldn’t touch. All that plus a title that even now has the Diana Ross/Lionel Richie song playing in my head over and over again like the elevator music for my descent into Hell.
Yet as the movie progressed I noticed something weird. I found myself rooting for the couple and hoping they ended up together. Normally when confronted with such cheesy romance I am hoping most of the main characters die in a fire, but there was something going on here. Maybe the two characters had actual chemistry. Maybe the dad was such a dick that I wanted to see him get his comeuppance. Maybe I saw this movie a week after the worst holiday of the year, Valentine’s Day, and the weight of my own aching loneliness was weighing heavier on my soul. Regardless of the reason as the film progressed to its painfully predictable ending instead of wanting to murder the projectionist I felt an odd sense of satisfaction.
That sense of satisfaction aside the movie is absolute sh%t. It starts off with pretty boy David Elliot (Alex Pettyfer-I am Number Four,Beastly, Magic Mike) and sidekick Mace (Dayo Okeniya-the Hunger Games, Runner Runner, The Spectacular Now) graduating high school along with the supposed love of David’s life Jade Butterfield (Gabriella Wilde-Carrie, The Three Musketeers, St Trinian’s 2: The Legend of Fritton’s Gold). In spite of being the most gorgeous girl in a school of gorgeous girls Jade is weirdly unpopular and never talks to anyone. She is still morning the death of her older brother or something but this part of the movie seemed really fake. No one is that good looking and not popular.
Anyway, somehow Jade is so unpopular that no one signs her yearbook. Later she and her father Hugh (Bruce Greenwood-I Robot, Star Trek into Darkness, Deja Vu), mother Anna (Joely Richardson-the Patriot, the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, Event Horizon (for the record I think Event Horizon is one of the scariest films I have ever seen)), and brother Kieth (Rhys Wakefield-the Purge, Sanctum, the Black Balloon) arrive at their snooty country club where David and Mace work as valets. A guy is a total jerk so David and Mace steal the car and bring Jade along.
Jade is having a party to celebrate graduating and is surprised when the most unpopular girl in the school has no one show up. David shows up and sabotages his ex girlfriends party so hundreds of kids show up at Jade’s (nothing like a high school party run by and officiated by the uptight father). They end up in the closet and Hugh catches them.
At that point the two are super in love based on the fact that…I don’t know. They are both good looking I guess? Maybe it’s this mysterious thing known as chemistry but I can tell you I took two years of high school and three years of college chemistry (long story) and still don’t know what that is about. Anyway, Hugh wants to throw David out on his ass but David proclaims his honorable intentions.
If any of this seems remotely familiar feel free to skip ahead a few paragraphs. Jade and David embark on a whirlwind romance while Hugh hawks from the side. Jade gives up a great internship to stay around during the summer. Hugh drags her and the rest of the family to their palatial lake house and David shows up and stays as well. Hugh demonstrates his amazing and trust worthy parenting skills by having David investigated by the local police and discovers that David has had some trouble in the past (aren’t juvenile records sealed when you turn 18? Oh well). Mace gets David and the whole crew into trouble and David sacrifices himself to keep Jade out of trouble. Hugh rewards him by getting David to punch him out and gets a restraining order on him by pulling a favor from his good buddy the rich judge (isn’t justice in America awesome?).
Look, I’m getting really bored of this recap. Sorry. David and Jade break up and she goes off to collage. They both are miserable and eventually find a way to get back together after Jades house burns down. The end.
The stars.
Sigh. I guess Jade and all the other girls were super hot, as long as PG-13 action turns you on. One star. Umm. I guess just that weird satisfied feeling I felt at the end. One star. Total: two stars.
The black holes.
If you have even the slightest allergy to cheese or dairy products this film will put you in your grave. One black hole. Adults playing teenagers and acting like high school was remotely cool. One black hole. The characters were all a little surreal in their motivation. One black hole. 
Every bit of conflict could have been resolved with about 10 minutes of discussion between Jade and David, or just by getting rid of high school buddy Mace (Wingman image courtesy of the cheap t shirt category). One black hole. The whole super hot/anti social nerdy girl thing felt incredibly lame and fake. One black hole. Hugh’s character was so laughably overprotective as daddy that you couldn’t possibly take him seriously. One black hole. The pacing was drag-tastic. One black hole. Very, very predicable. If you have ever read any teen romance novel you knew exactly where this was going from the first scene. One black hole. In general a waste of 104 minutes. One black hole. Total: nine black holes.
A grand total of seven black holes. Pretty poor, and honestly if I were right in the head it would have gotten a lot more black holes. In spite of everything I did feel something other than boredom from this film. Should you see it? If it’s on Netflix and you are at home on your couch with your girlfriend and/or a bong full of medicinal marijuana sure. Don’t waste your time and money in the theater. Date movie? Duh. Bathroom break? No scene stands out as being worthy of holding your bladder for so feel free to bail out at any time.
Thanks for reading. When I look at my movie options this weekend I say “Oh, God” literally (haw!) but think I will see the new Liam Neeson film tonight. What’s that you say? It was directed by a foreign guy who has done absolutely nothing I’ve ever heard of before? Well sign me up! Follow me on Twitter @Nerdkungfu to keep up on all my posts, and if you liked this review be sure to like us on Facebook. If you have a comment on this film or my review feel free to leave it here, and off topic questions and comments can be sent to [email protected]. Talk to you soon.
Dave
P.S. Out of morbid curiosity I just looked up the writer/director of this film Shana Feste on IMDB. She has done nothing really of note (aside from a movie called The Greatest. I find that really funny. She literally made The Greatest Movie) but I just realized she is super hot. Shana, if you would like to discuss in detail my issues with this dross I will let you buy me dinner. Be aware that as a rule I generally don’t kiss on a first date unless you are remotely willing.
Star Trek Retrospective: Episode 56 Spock’s Brain
In all things there is a low point. The bottom level, the dregs, the rock bottom, the nadir, the Phantom Menace. Being alive is about making relative value judgements and as soon as you start doing that there always ends up a low man on the totem pole. For Star Trek that low point will always be Spock’s Brain.
Where to start? The bad direction, the misogamy, the slavery, the line “Brain and brain, what is brain?”. Ironic that this would be the first episode of the dreaded third season. Talk about setting a tone. The great Leonard Nimoy put it best “Frankly during the entire shooting of that episode, I was embarrassed.” We fans are embarrassed with you.
The image of McCoy getting his brain reprogrammed comes from our Star Trek t-shirt category BTW.
The weird thing is as a kid I thought it was pretty cool. I mean, I was smart enough to recognize “Balance of Terror” and “City on the Edge of Forever” as the zenith of sci fi entertainment, but being a preteen watching this in the mid ’70s it didn’t seem so off. The idea that women were beautiful dummies who stole from men and controlled them with pain seemed a reasonable premise to me (thanks for that, Dad, and I guess I just had a major revelation as to the difficulties I face in my current dating life). If nothing else I like to think that my changed attitude towards this episode is a microcosm of my own evolution into the open minded, balanced supporter of feminism and equality you see before you.
I’ll have to remember that line when I’m telling my future (and very hypothetical) girlfriend to run out the kitchen and make me a sandwich. Of course when speaking of future and hypothetical girlfriends the terms “cyborg”, “virtual”, “android”, and “elfin” tend to creep into my thought process. God I’m a nerd.
Anyway, bad episode but the good news is I am now done with season 3 and can move on to the much better season 2. What was the last episode from season 2 for me to cast my fond memories over? Assignment Earth??? Why God why???
Dave
Pompeii Review
In a bizarre twist of fate I didn’t hate it.
Images courtesy of the Pompeii Official Site
Years ago I read a sci fi novel that had a lot of commentary about modern American society. I really can’t remember the name or author but one of the things he talked about was different kinds of porn. I don’t just mean jerk off material but like someone who enjoyed looking at pictures of food would be looking at food porn, or cars auto porn. I don’t really remember if he was trying to say something about how we fixate on things or if he was just trying to change the meaning of the term porn, but one of the categories one of his characters was into was disaster porn.
That’s pretty much what Pompeii is. Disaster porn. If watching cities get buried under flying balls of liquid magma and flooded by tidal waves flips your switch then you have found your next favorite film. I’m not even saying that’s a bad thing. I’ve looked at way too much regular porn in my life to comment on someone enjoying visuals of something that gets them off (unless you enjoyed 2012, in which case you are a total freak). I’m just saying that this movie will please any disasterphile out there.
I myself am not adverse to watching Godzilla wreak havoc through Tokyo. This film is pretty much Sparticus and 300 meets Deep Impact so it makes sense that I would find it fun. In truth I am trying to figure out why I expected it to suck so much more than it did. Maybe I am still feeling the residual pain of the Legend of Hercules and any film involving bare chested guys with swords is going to have to overcome that hurdle. Perhaps I was expecting another 2012 or Armageddon. I don’t know. I entered the theater expecting to put another notch on my bedpost of movie hate.
I suppose one reason I expected suckitude is the fact that it was directed by Paul Anderson, who kind of specializes in disaster movies if you know what I mean. Anyone else remember Death Race or the Three Musketeers? I do, in the same way that an alien abduction victim remembers the sound of the anal probulator powering up. However the thing I always forget is that as bad as his movies can be they are usually in some dumb way fun to watch. Sure the Resident Evil films are to entertainment what cock fighting is to animal kindness but you can’t help but be entertained by watching a hot chick in a skin tight leather outfit leap, flip, stab, shoot, kick, and punch her way through hundreds of zombies.
I have to admit I was pleased by how they treated the story the way a girl should treat her skirt: long enough to cover the subject but short enough to keep in interesting (my 60 year old female 10th grade English teacher gave me that line. There are some days when I really miss the 80’s). Paul Anderson must have taken a film class or something as there was nothing ridiculous about the action, there was no sign of technology that should not exist (16th century monofiliment line, etc), and the story served as a very adequate platform upon which to serve up exploding volcanoes and gladiator fight scenes (“Do you like gladiator movies?” What movie is that from gentle reader?). It is actually quite different from almost all of his other movies and since it is one of his best I think Mr. Anderson might take a lesson home from that.
All that is not to say that it is a brilliant film worthy of your adulation and fandom. It’s no Usual Suspects. It’s no 300. It’s no Watchman. It’s not great or even especially good. It’s just that it sucks a lot less than most films these days and that puts it on the Worthy to Watch pedestal.
By the way, this film was PG-13 and the stench of that hung about in the theater like I was watching the movie with the 50 finalists of the World Championship Bean Eating Contest, but for some reason it didn’t grind on me that much. I guess there is a way to do PG-13 that doesn’t feel like your mom just used too much baby powder on your diaper.
The story is pretty basic and my blogs have been pretty long lately so I’ll speed through it. Roman Senator Corvus (Kiefer Sutherland-Dark City, 24, L.A. Confidential) with his lieutenant Bellator (Currie Graham-Stargate the Ark of Truth, Hitchcock, Assault on Precinct 13) are tearing ass through a Celtic tribe and Corvus orders them all killed. 
Young Milo manages to hide and escape only to be captured and sold into slavery. 15 years later Milo (Kit Harrington-Silent Hill: Revelation 3d, Game of Thrones, Greenland Time) is an accomplished gladiator who regularly beats multiple opponents (Gladiator helmet image courtesy of the Movie T Shirt category). He is sent to Pompeii join their games.
On the way a coach carrying the beautiful Cassia (Emily Browning-Sucker Punch, Ghost Ship, the Host) runs into a pot hole and one of the horses is injured. Milo helps the horse feel better before putting it down and he and Cassia fall in love at first sight. She gets back to Pompeii and is reunited with her father Severus (Jared Harris-Natural Born Killers, Sherlock Holmes A Game of Shadows, Lincoln) and mother Aurelia (Carrie-Anne Moss-The Matrix, Disturbia, Momento). Also along with her is my future wife Ariadne (Jessica Lucas-That Awkward Moment, Evil Dead, Cloverfield). She really didn’t do much in this film but I want to mention her because once we are married I plan to live off her acting jobs and therefore need to promote her at all times. Seriously, even with half her face cut off in Evil Dead I would marry her. Her beauty is almost enough for me to forgive her for being in That Awkward Moment (almost).
Anyway, Milo gets thrown into the pits and meets reigning champ Atticus (Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje-The Bourne Identiy, G.I. Joe the Rise of Cobra, the Mummy Returns). Atticus needs only win one more fight and gain his freedom. Meanwhile Severus is cooking up some deal to rebuild Pompeii and his number one investor turns out to be Corvus. Corvus met Cassia in Rome and is using his business deals to blackmail her into marrying him.
Honestly there’s not much more than that. Cassia loves Milo. Corvus arranges for Milo to get killed in the arena but Milo survives. The volcano blows up and at that point it’s a documentary on how many ways there are to die in a natural disaster, plus a chariot race. The end.
The stars.
The simple plot really worked for this premise. One star. I was afraid the lead up to the volcano was going to drag but there was enough gladiator action to keep things interesting. Actually pacing was dead on point. One star. I honestly don’t know how good an actor Kit is, but he can pull off surly loner and that is pretty much what this role needed. Everyone else nailed it, and of course I am a huge Kiefer Sutherland fan. One star. The visuals were pretty stunning. Even before the volcano blew up they were great, and once it went off Ponpeii was transformed into the 87th level of Hell (reserved for people who insist on using the word “hella”). Excellent CGI and actual effects. One star. The action was at the same time believable and exciting. One star. Every scene with Jessica Lucas on the screen was like mana from Heaven. God she is gorgeous. One star. Paul Anderson took couple serious risks with his plot that diverged from the standard Hollywood fare. I don’t know how that will be received at the box office and will not spoil them but I appreciate the artistic integrity. One star. Total: seven stars.
The black holes.
This film could be said to borrow heavily from a bunch of other films but the term you really want to use is “rip off”. Very derivative. One black hole. PG-13. A little gore and/or nudity would have greatly enhanced the experience. One black hole. Total: two black holes.
So five stars. Not bad. For me that is at the low end of good. I would call this film very entertaining. Worth seeing? Given the dearth of quality in the first part of this year I would say absolutely, assuming you have already seen the Lego Movie (Lego Pompeii? The whole world might explode from too much awesomeness). This is one of those very rare occasions where I will say that 3D might enhance your viewing experience. Big screen the crap out of it. Date movie? Sure. There is enough of a love story to keep her into it and while there are tons of half naked guys running around most of them look like hamburger so you should do OK in the comparison department. Bathroom break? From the moment the final gladiator battle starts until the end of the film there isn’t a scene that doesn’t warrant your attention. There are a few minutes between when Bellator orders the Arena master to make sure Milo dies and that fight that could be missed, but honestly either hurry or hold it in. The whole film is only 98 minutes.
Thanks for reading. I am going to see something so horrible tonight that I don’t even want to type the name as it already is giving me a headache (not to mention causing the worst song of 1981 to play continuously in my head. I’m sure you can figure out which movie I’m planning to see). Look for that review tomorrow. Follow me on Twitter if you want to keep up on my reviews and my ongoing Star Trek discussion. Post comments here if you saw this movie and either agree or disagree with me. Off topic questions or suggestions can be emailed to [email protected] (<–Jessica Lucas I hope you are still reading this). Thanks again and have a great night.
Dave
Star Trek Restrospective: Episode 57 the Enterprise Incident
I talked a lot about this episode when it made number 4 on my list of the 10 worst and then later went on to write an entire blog post as to why I thought it was so dumb. All those reasons still stand. I’ve noticed that most of the really bad episodes from season 3 all seem to involve making Kirk out to be even more awesome than previously portrayed. If I were a betting man I would bet that in S3 Shatner had gained a lot of power editorially and more or less forced them to write him this way. Either that or they made the determination that it was easier to cater to his ego than argue with him.
That is not to say there isn’t some amusement to be had from this episode, and I’m not just talking about Kirks Romulan makeup. At the start of season 3 NBC dramatically cut the budget and the producers had to scramble to make their props. When looking at the Romulan cloaking device a particularly observant Star Trek fan might notice that it seems a little familiar; specifically it is the top half of Nomad from the Changeling glued to one of the glowing soul globes from Return to Tomorrow (Sargon, I think). It is these keen insights that make my blog so worth reading.
By the way, if you yourself are a keen observer you might notice that this image from the Star Trek T Shirt collection lists this episode as 59, not 57. I believe this to be an error on the part of the guys who do my shirts. It was the 59th episode produced but in terms of intended and actual release order it was 57. I could already hear the trolls sharpening their keyboards on that one. You won’t catch me so easily.
Anyway, kind of a dopey episode. Read the link I put above if you want specifics. Of course in looking ahead my next two episodes are Spock’s Brain and Assignment: Earth so it will be a while before I get to something decent. Oh, well.
Dave
3 Days to Kill Review
3 days? How about 113 minutes that felt like 3 days?
Image courtesy of the 3 Days to Kill Official Site
I am experiencing a weird phenomenon with writer/director Luc Besson. Up until a few years ago I would have told you I am a Luc Besson fan. The Fifth Element, Taken, and the Professional used to rank up in my favorite films.
Unfortunately as each of his more recent projects comes out my love and respect for him drops by another considerable margin. It started with Columbiana and kept going with Taken 2 and the Family. My best friend still holds that any director only has three good movies in him or her and should bow out after the third and I can’t disagree with him.
The weird part is the disappointment and bitterness I feel towards his new movies is bleeding backwards and staining my enjoyment of the few movies I like. I don’t think I can watch the Professional now and not see how ridiculous Gary Oldman is, or how dumb Leon’s war cry in the apartment sounds. A cop wipes out an entire family and there are no repercussions? How about the fact that Liam Neeson took the Intensometer so far into the red that it has come around like a watch second hand in Taken?
Of course I could never watch the Fifth Element without laughing at it’s campyness, but now that I see what his typical movie is like I strongly suspect that the camp elements of that film were the result of incompetent direction rather than intentional fun. Now the laughter is laced with tears.
I guess it’s fair to say Luc Besson’s talent and career are in the final stages of a death spiral and when you hit rock bottom it is inevitable that you meet up with the dregs of Hollywood, specifically my old favorite punching bag McG. This is the perfect storm of bad movie teamups; a once talented writer and director who seems to be suffering from some form of talent dementia and a man who is to Hollywood what mercury is to tuna fish.
The mystery of McG is one that defies description. All of his movies have sucked, and for the most part what he does best is mediocre television. I watched Chuck for a while before getting painfully bored (really I only watched it to see Jayne in a suit) and Supernatural, which got a lot better after McG left. I refuse to watch the O.C. (I grew up in Orange County. No one down there calls it the O.C. and as far as trite pretentious bull goes I don’t have to watch a show about it. I lived it). Yet in spite of this, his refusal to use vowels, and his massive ego (the letters McG showed up on the opening credits about 14 times. “McG studios and McG presents a McG production” etc.) studios keep handing him budgets. It’s almost as if there is an unspoken agreement to produce a certain number of craptastic movies in order to make the good ones look better and McG is their go to guy (actually now that I think about all the crime-against-cinema movies that issue forth from Hollywood like pus from an infected wound that is not the dumbest theory I have ever come up with).
Personally I developed a real hatred of McG when he ruined Terminator but his “movie” This Means War didn’t help. Good Terminator image courtesy of the movie tshirt category.
At the top of the laundry list of failures this movie contains is the fact that McG can’t seem to maintain a tone (something I also noticed in Luc Besson’s The Family, so maybe it’s not all McG). It is equal parts action spy movie, erotic femme fatale, teenage girl angst, and cheesy family love story. I’m not saying that all films have to maintain a tone but shifts in tone need to be for a purpose, NOT the random changing of channels by a remote control in the hands of an epileptic having the mother of all fits. At any given moments you could be watching Kevin Costner shoot any number of guys, torture somebody, hang out in a strip club with his CIA director/latex bondage queen, have a tender moment with his estranged wife, or get into an argument with his teenage daughter and the shifts come with the randomness of Bingo balls. Doing a successful shift in tone requires directing, a commodity in short supply in this film.
The other thing about this film really being four separate films is that each of the sub films sucks horribly too. The spy/action part of the film seems to boil down to “shoot everyone and/or torture everyone”. The femme fatale is so laughably out of place and cartoonish she is like a kids pencil drawing of a penis hung on the wall next to the Mona Lisa in the Louvre. The teenage girl’s angst is so hamhanded and trite it wouldn’t survive as an after school special, and the family drama so bizarre and fake you have to wonder if Luc and McG actually grew up in a family or were created in some lab somewhere and raised by feeder tubes. Each part of this film is worthy of a separate blistering review but really I only have so much time.
One more thing before I get into the story. Something I have noticed that seems to be a common thread for all Luc Besson and MgG joints is they both seem to believe that the CIA is some kind of God like creation that can kill anyone they like and reign havoc across the world with impunity. While this may or may not be true the problem is when you show them going into mass shootings in other countries such as France (well known for letting American spy organizations do whatever the hell they want) and don’t show any kind of repercussions the reality of the film starts to fragment. Showing even the slightest bit of an attempt at spin control when an entire floor of a crowded hotel gets blown to bits would keep a film such as this (already on it’s last threads realistically) from looking like I wrote it back in Jr. High for a Top Secret campaign (there’s a test of your geek-fu).
I better get on with it. The film starts with Agent Vivi DeLay (Amber Heard-Zombieland, Drive Angry, Pineapple Express) of the CIA in very conservative business suit (my mentioning of this will become relevant shortly) being briefed about her next target. She is supposed to kill a bad guy named “the Wolf”. He apparently makes it his business to sell radioactive material to terrorists for dirty bombs (My eyes rolled at that one. What’s the matter Luc? Was that really the most evil thing you could think of? How about in your next film you make it about a guy who kidnapps children and grinds them up into hamburger meat?). He is supposed to be selling a bomb through his lieutenant “the Albino” (the code names are so dopey I’m going to keep on putting them in quotes to drive home the ironic point). Somehow they know where the buy is going to happen, what is being sold, when, and for how much but have no idea what “the Wolf” looks like.
She travels to the hotel where CIA Agent Ethan Renner (Kevin Costner-Waterworld, Dances with Wolves, Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit) is there to kill guys for her or something. He needs to call his daughter for her birthday and is sick. “The Albino” recognizes one of the other CIA women and the whole deal goes kablooy. Ethan manages to shoot “the Albino” in the leg while pursuing him but passes out from his sickness, letting “the Albino” get away. He wakes in a hospital bed and is told he has cancer and only a few months to live.
He quits the CIA and heads back to Paris where his wife and daughter live. He finds a family of racist stereotypes squatting in his apartment and after establishing himself as the Alpha male (with the help of his gun) opts to let them live there for a while (oh, yeah. At parts the film shifts over into the Haitian Brady Bunch. Hilarious). He goes to see his ex wife Christine (Connie Nielsen-One Hour Photo, Gladiator, The Devil’s Advocate). He tells her he is dying but doesn’t want to tell his daughter because…honestly I have no idea and I don’t think McG did either. Maybe they think a sudden death is better for a teenage kid to absorb.
Anyway he picks up his daughter Zoey (Hailee Steinfeld-True Grit, Enders Game, She’s a Fox) at school. She hasn’t seen Ethan in like 10 years or something (or maybe he had visited. The nature of Ethan and Zoeys relationship was ill defined at best. Keeping the audience informed of relevant character details is apparently not in McG’s job description) and is understandably pissed off at him. She has grown up into an extra from Mean Girls and all around annoyance.
At that point Vivi resurfaces looking like she just got off her night job as a dominatrix (the change up was really off putting. I spent the first 10 minutes not really sure if it was the girl from the beginning of the film) and wants Ethan to help her. She believes that Ethan saw “the Wolf” at the bomb buy and wants him to help her kill him (I guess the CIA doesn’t bother to hire sketch artists or uses mug shots). She offers him an experimental drug that will magically cure his cancer but also makes him hallucinate and pass out whenever his heart rate increases. Good thing he never does anything like get into a gun fight or have to chase bad guys through most of Paris.
Oh, wait he does. In spite of the fact that he has a medical condition that makes him painfully unqualified to do “wet work” she has him agree to kill “the Wolf”, “the Albino”, and ten other random jackoffs. At that point the shifting of tones goes from every few minutes to putting all the raw footage into a blender and hitting puree. Zoey really starts to cramp his style. Every time he is about to kill some hapless bodyguard or attach jumper cables to the nipples of a car rental service owner who respects his clients privacy she calls him with her “hilarious” pop music ringtone. Meanwhile he keeps on loosing his ability to remain conscious every time bullets start flying.
That’s the movie in a nutshell. I hated this film so I am going to drop a ton of spoilers but in case you really think you are going to be surprised SPOILER ALERT. He catches up to “the Albino” and “the Wolf” just in time to pass out but instead of just killing him like anyone who had ever seen any James Bond film ever would “the Albino” puts him in a position where Ethan can easily reverse things and kill him. It turns out “the Wolf” is friends and business associates with the parents of Zoey’s boyfriend so the final gun fight can occur at a party where his family is around. Christine gets pissed off at Ethan for working for the CIA when he said he quit. Oh, yeah. The drug cures his cancer in like a week (what was it, like super chemotherapy? Also why did they transport it in a leather pen case? Not exactly hygienic).
The stars.
Meh. I still like Kevin Costner, although he sort of phoned this one in. One star. Some of the gun fights were pretty good, although if you have seen the Professional you have already seen them. One star. Is that it? I guess so. Two stars.
The black holes.
One for each of the crappy movies that were sewn together into this Frankestein. Four black holes. No tone, and tonal shifts that played out like having sex with a hot girl while her ex boyfriend holds the control to your shock collar. One black hole. A bonus hole for having a professional spy think the way to keep a low profile would be to dress like one of the The Merovingian’s henchmen from the Matrix Revolutions. One black hole. The only character that seemed remotely real was Ethan, and his realism made all the rest of them that much more laughable surreal. One black hole. Poor editing and pacing. One black hole. Another movie where the title has little to nothing to do with the actual film. There was no clock or pressing time requirement in the story. It is obvious they came up with it post production when the studio shot down the more functional title “McG Pleasures Himself all over the Audience” (I assume). One black hole. Overall an attempt at glitz and glam over substance that managed to fail to glitz or glam the audience. A general failure. Two black holes. Total: eleven black holes.
So nine black holes. Pretty lame IMO. Should you see it? Probably not, unless you really, really, really want to be brainlessly entertained and your only other option is staring at a wall. With the right mix of drugs and/or alcohol you might be able to enjoy it. Probably drunk off your ass is the best way to see it. Nothing screams big screen to watch in the comfort of your single wide with a box of your finest wine. Date movie? Naw. There is nothing here to encourage a girl to take off her clothes. Bathroom break? There is a bonding scene towards the last half wherein Ethan teaches Zoey how to ride a bike (at age 16) that drags on for like 100 years (or so it seamed). Who says McG can’t do family drama?
Thanks for reading. I saw Pompeii last night and will write it up tomorrow. Follow me on Twitter @Nerdkungfu. Feel free to leave comments here on this film or my review and off topic questions, suggestions, or fan mail (I almost managed to type that last one without bursting out laughing) can be sent to [email protected]. Have a great night and I will talk to you soon.
Dave
Star Trek Retrospective: Episode 58 the Paradise Syndrome
Another one that made my list of worst TOS episodes. This episode garnered a lot of criticism for racism and I can’t say I disagree. It drank the Native American stereotype punch and then regurgitated it all over the screen. Kirk as the white male is in all ways smart and capable while the Native Americans are dopey savages. If I were Native American and saw the people and custumes in this one I think I would punch the first guy I saw wearing Spock ears on general principal.
Ironically this was exactly the opposite of what Gene was trying to do. I think they just didn’t look at this one carefully enough. By the way right now I’m looking at a photo of Kirk about to kiss Miramanee while wearing a costume reject from a Native American casino and I can honestly say he has never looked cheesier. That is saying a ton. I am a massive Kirk fan of course but I am not blind to his limitations and some of his episodes are harder to be a fan of than others.
Also, what the hell is the deal with Miramanee dying of internal injuries with McCoy standing there? Unless your internal injury happens to be the complete removal of your heart and lungs there is tons of stuff any decent modern doctor could try. Was he too busy to help the primitive savage? Next time why don’t they just beam down a bunch of plague blankets and be done with it?
Of course, I’m pretty sure McCoy has said “He’s dead, Jim” about 50 more times than he’s said “He’s made a full recovery, Jim.” When you really think about it how good was Dr. McCoy really? Seems like his only real skill is determining if someone is dying or already dead. (McCoy image courtesy of the Star Trek T-Shirt category).
Dave
Winter’s Tale Review
Just sit right back and you’ll hear a tale, a tale of a crappy script.
In case you aren’t the type to be endlessly fascinated by the weirdos and degenerates that inhabit the internet there is a sub culture known as Bronies. These are grown men who are avid fans of My Little Pony. You know, the cartoon designed for little girls ages 2 to 11. Some of them are just guys who for some whatever developmental failure still enjoy the cartoon (or so they claim) but a large percentage of them are known as Cloppers and are the reason Rule 34 was created: If it exists there IS porn for it. Yes, they pleasure themselves to My Little Pony porn.
(Incidentally my knowledge of this sub culture comes from the Howard Stern Show. If you ever want to feel your skin crawl try to listen to the interviews with these guys. Now let me get back to Googling metal bikini Leia pictures).
Anyway, the point is Winter’s Tale has a similar feel to the Bronies. It is a story written for pre-teen girls that for some inexplicable reason they opted to make into a grown up movie. It’s like a little girl dressing up in her mothers clothes without the cuteness. I’ve heard the book by Mark Helprin is pretty much a fairy tale and why they opted to shoot in on film instead of making it into a cartoon is beyond me.
It’s probably the height of churlishness to bitch about deus ex machina in a movie that is supposed to be about miracles but the point is deus ex machine is dead boring. Drama is the result of seeing protagonists that we have connected to triumph against the odds through might, cunning, and strength of will. Seeing the protagonist and his supporting character escape from the top of a skyscraper by climbing onto a flying horse pretty much says that this film is on auto pilot and is going to roll into Grand Central Boring Happy Ending Station without any input from any of the people on the screen or any interest from the audience.
The good news is any debate as to which of Russell Crowe’s movies are his worst can now be put to rest. The bar has been set and unless he opts to play Babs Johnson in a scene-for-scene remake of Pink Flamingos it can’t go any lower. The same cannot be said of Colin Farrell, unfortunately. I feel bad as I actually like him. I think he is appealing and talented, but the man cannot catch a box office break. He needs to hire whoever reads George Clooneys scripts for him. All his recent films have tanked. Dead Man Down, Seven Psychopaths, Total Recall, and Fright Night. Ironically I found something to like in each of those films, which is why I feel a slight pang of guilt (very slight) for dumping on this one.
In addition to being pretty much a film for little girls who believe in fairies this film is a confusing mess. So the basic premise is that each human has exactly one miracle to perform in their life and can only do it for one person. Each person who performs their miracle goes to Heaven and becomes a star or something. Russell Crowe plays a demon who’s job is to prevent miracles from happening. His plan to prevent Colin Farrell’s miracle is to…kill him? 
I thought minions of the devil were supposed to use corruption and temptation to damn people. If all you need to do is feed a guy bullets why not go on a murderous rampage and kill everyone who has not yet performed their miracle? Go to a church and finish off hundreds of miracles every Sunday. The whole thing might have made more sense if the demon characters had been sending prostitutes and drugs his way. (image courtesy of the Funny T Shirt category)
For that matter the whole good/bad thing is suspiciously vague. Colin plays a thief who spends a lot of the movie stealing from people. Last time I checked that was considered a bad thing but somehow he is in this state of indeterminate grace. He is being aided by an angel (or something. Not as clear as it was for the demons) in the form of a white horse that can fly. At one point Colin is being confronted by about 20 of Russell’s minions and the horse flies down and…murders them all? Not exactly divine behavior (Haw! If you got that joke you are cool). I mean, sure they might be bad men but I thought the whole idea behind Christianity was the chance at redemption, something very difficult to accomplish from the bottom of a frozen lake. Again, a little explanation of what the hell the angels and demons could do and what their agenda was would have gone a long way.
And then there’s the whole deus ex machina issue, of which that last scene is a prime example. Colin’s character more or less bumbles around and whenever the plot calls for him to do something and/or he is in a dangerous situation God miracles his ass up there (thank you Gunnery Sergeant Hartman). You can get away with that once in a film. Maybe twice. Miracles should not be the plot points that connect each and every scene together.
So the film starts off with the parents of Peter Lake sticking him as a baby in a toy boat off the coast of New York (I guess it was sea worthy? I have build a few model ships and they are rarely ballasted enough to hold a baby) in order to get him to America after they were rejected for being unhealthy. Somehow they knew the boat wouldn’t capsize or he wouldn’t die of exposure before someone found him. Skip forward and adult Peter Lake (Colin Ferrall-Phone Booth, In Bruges, Total Recall) is on the run from a gang of thugs lead by Pearly Soames (Russell Crowe-Gladiator, A Beautiful Mind, L.A. Confidential). Peter kills a couple thugs (more evidence of his good soul) but gets trapped. Pearly wants to torture him to death for some reason but a horse magically appears that jumps over a massive fence and Peter escapes.
Later Peter spends the night like all good Christians do; robbing houses for loot. He breaks into a house and meets Beverly Penn (Jessica Brown Findlay-Downton Abbey, Black Mirror, Albatross) in it alone. She is dying of consumption and needs to stay cold or her fever will kill her. They spend a few minutes together and fall in love. He bugs out but is obsessed with her and heads back to her house on the horse, only to find Pearly about to kill her (Pearly had some kind of vision and drew her in the blood of some poor kid he just murdered. If that kid had not yet done his miracle wouldn’t that put Pearly in the black regardless of the whole Peter question?). Peter rescues her and escapes on Miracle Horse, who grows wings in order to fly down a huge cliff.
Pearly needs permission from Lucifer (no joke. It takes real balls to have the Prince of Darkness as a named, speaking character in your movie. Oh, yeah. Will Smith-I am Legend, Men In Black, After Earth) in order to cross the river. Lucifer denies him permission, determining that Pearly is too close to the issue. Peter and Beverly arrive at her family estate where Peter is welcomed by her father Isaac (William Hurt-Dark City, Into the Wild, A History of Violence) after a fairly perfunctory “What are your intentions” conversation. They continue to fall in love.
Pearly hires an angel to kill Beverly (huh?), assuming that Peters miracle was to save her life. Peter and Beverly go dancing and the angel poisons her. That night the two hook up and then she dies. Skip forward about 100 years and Peter is still alive with no memory until he meets Virginia (Jennifer Connelly-Blood Diamond, A Beautiful Mind, Requiem for a Dream) and her daughter Abby (Ripley Sobo-just some TV work). Abby is dying of cancer but Virginia feels the need to probe Peters mysterious past.
The story chugs along from there. Pearly is still around and still wants Peter. The super horse is still around and rescues all of them. Guys get killed, things twist (sort of), and yet more miracles happen.
The stars.
I have to say my favorite part was Will Smith as Lucifer. In each scene with him in it the movie ceased to be a confused miracle love story written for grade school children and turned into a hilarious laugh out loud comedy. I think of all the actors in this film he best smelled what the director was brewing and took it with the appropriate seriousness. One star. Visually decent. Some good camera work IMO. One star. I don’t know if I really need to crush this film but I am having a hard time coming up with anything else. Two stars total.
The black holes.
A fairy tale for adults that failed to entertain. One black hole. The whole question of what everyone’s agenda, powers, and deal was. One black hole. I don’t know if Russell Crowe was secretly laughing at the director or his dentures were slipping but his accent was ridiculous. One black hole. The whole Beverly dying part made the first 2/3rds of the movie a bummer for no reason. One black hole. Deus ex machina as a substitute for actual writing. Two black holes. This film had a serious agenda and that agenda was to make you feel uplifted by the most obvious means possible. They even had dead Beverly do a voice over at the end in case you were asleep through most of the film and missed the point (not an unreasonable assumption). One black hole. 118 minutes that felt like 118,000,000. Pacing from hell. I was just begging for something to actually happen. One black hole. If movies having a point is something you enjoy prepare to be disappointed. One black hole. Total: nine stars.
A grand total of seven black holes. Pretty bad. I honestly think they could have done something better with this. I often wonder if as the production of a crappy movie progresses if there is a sudden moment of clarity for the actors when they realize they are pushing out a turd or if they have to wait for the premier. Worth seeing at all? Maybe. Like I said Will Smith was funny and after After Earth that man owes me some entertainment. I think I would consider taking my mom to see this one. Otherwise no, not at all. Date movie? Maybe. Depends on the girl. If she is really dumb or likes to smoke pot and/or drop acid before a film she might enjoy it a lot (also if she is any of the above find out if she has a sister and send her my way. I think I am done with smart, responsible chicks). Otherwise meh. Bathroom break? Honestly all the scenes without Will Smith are equally worthless. Even if you miss an important connecting scene you can just assume some miracle saved them again and move on with your life.
Thanks for reading. I have seen 3 Days to Kill and will bury that one tomorrow morning (suck it, McG). I think I’ll go see something tonight as well and try to crank out two tomorrow. Follow me on Twitter @NerdKungFu and email your off topic questions or suggestions to [email protected]. Post any comments on this film or my review here. Talk to you soon. Have a great weekend.
Dave
Star Trek Retrospective: Episode 59 And the Children Shall Lead
There are a few episodes that really just bug the hell out of me. This is one of them. First off as was later proven by The Next Generation and Wesley Crusher kids have no part in Star Trek. I think one of the reasons I liked Voyager and DS9 is they really kept kids to a minimum. Anyone younger than Charlie X should be verboten.
It’s not that I hate kids, mind you. I just think there is something really off about kids in a sci fi world. Sci fi is a chance to escape from reality and kids are by their very nature a harsh bite of reality. Also they tend to suck as actors, which in this series is saying a lot. If you doubt what I’m saying about kids in sci fi why don’t you go back and rewatch the Phantom Menace and ask yourself if young Anakin Skywalker was anything other than a 20 ton anchor in that movie.
Also whenever I see kids on TV or movie in my mind I always see some creepy Hollywood parent pushing him or her along and making the directors life hell.
The next issue with this episode is I really don’t like it when the crew of the Enterprise looses about half their brain cells. I see in the Enterprise the smartest, most capable humans (and half Vulcans) the Federation can muster, and when they see a red flag and blatantly ignore it I want to punch my screen. Kids singing and playing around the rotting corpses of their parents? You don’t think they might warrant a little supervision just on the off chance that they are being influenced by some alien creature and had something to do with the murders, do you? Maybe Kirk and McCoy were a little blind due to their humanity but I would imagine Spock might raise an eyebrow. It’s not like humans being controlled by aliens or aliens imitating humans wasn’t the plot of 20% of the previous Star Trek adventures.
And finally there is the fact that the Gorgon is a FREAKING CLOWN! Someone might wonder where my intense dislike and fear of clowns came from and you might have an answer right here. DIE CLOWN DIE!
Evil clown (kind of redundant putting those two words together IMO) image courtesy of the Funny T Shirt category.
Dave
