6-16-2010
If you have a problem, if no one else can help, read this review.
As you may have noticed, I completely skipped Killers a week ago, and by the weak box office showing, so did everyone else. This past weekend I had two choices, The A-Team and The Karate Kid; a remake of a classic '80's TV show and a remake of an 80's classic film. Hmm, decisions, decisions. I went with The A-Team, it looked like more fun.
And it was.
The A-Team returns the same characters as the television show with Liam Neeson as Hannibal Smith, Bradley Cooper as Templeton "Faceman" Peck, Quinton Jackson as B.A. Baracus and Sharlto Copley as "Howling Mad" Murdock. Joining them were Jessica Biel as Captain Charisa Sosa and Patrick Wilson as CIA Agent Lynch. Gerald McRaney has a cameo as Hannibal's friend, General Morrison, and Brian Bloom plays renegade military contractor Pike.
The film opened in Mexico where we were introduced to the team, of which Hannibal and Faceman were the only members. Quickly added were B.A. Baracus and Murdock, pressed into service by Hannibal. The film then skips ahead to the team in the last days of Iraq, where they hear from CIA Agent Lynch about one final mission to recover stolen printing plates that could be used to mint un-backed US currency. With General Morrison's permission, and against Captain Sosa's orders, the team takes on the mission.
The team pulls off an incredible heist on a convoy but when they return to base they find themselves double crossed by Pike and his Black Forrest contractors. General Morrison is killed and the plates are gone, leaving the team looking guilty of running a rogue black op. Court-martialed and dishonorably discharged, the team finds themselves in prison at various locations both in the US and Germany. But as Hannibal says, "give me a minute, I'm good. Give my team an hour, we're unbeatable."
After six months in prison, Hannibal is definitely unbeatable. When Lynch shows up looking for help recovering the still-missing printing plates, Hannibal puts into motion an escape plan he was probably working on before the final fall of his trial's gavel. Once he reassembles the team, they chase down the plates in Germany before returning to the US to finally put an end to all those involved in the heist and double-crossing them in Iraq.
With any good plot, you sometimes don't know who the good guys are and in The A-Team you're left wondering at times just whose side Lynch is on, is Sosa helping the team or the DOD, who are the mysterious buyers of the plates and what role does Pike play.
If you've ever seen the television show of the same name, you know that much of the action sequences were outrageous and just barely believable. That same approach was taken by director Joe Carnahan, who also co-wrote with Brian Bloom and Skip Woods (Swordfish, Hitman and X-Men Origins: Wolverine). From the opening Mexico escape sequence to the Iraq heist and flying tank getaway, the action was fun and fast. While the tank landing was kind of over the top, the most blatant "because we could" scene is the blowing up of a cargo ship at the end...that one I think went too far.
All of the actors played their characters with just the right amount of comedy and seriousness. Neeson had a twinkle in his eye and Cooper looked like he was really enjoying himself. Quinton "Rampage" Jackson was acting in his first true co-starring role and did an excellent job as B.A. Baracus, a role made famous by another huge personality, Mr. T. Sharlto Copley, from last year's excellent District 9, was brilliant as Howling Mad Murdock, playing the crazy pilot to the hilt when needed, but with sincere clarity when called for. I can't wait to see what he does next.
Patrick Wilson played quite a different role from his Watchmen turn as Dan Dreiberg. In that film he played a hesitant, shy, awkward and reluctant hero who needed the Nite Owl costume to man up. Lynch, on the other hand, is a cocksure, arrogant CIA Agent out to recover both his reputation and the printing plates. Jessica Biel is hot. Okay, so she did a nice job as Sosa, chasing the team and the plates while trying not to fall for Faceman's charming smile. And actually, I think maybe Bradley Cooper looked hotter in this film than Biel did. Heh. Brian Bloom's turn as Pike was also done nicely. I never have figured out why he's not a huge star, but Pike was a fun villain for the Team to chase down, whether it was rappelling down a building or nuking that cargo ship I mentioned.
The plot wasn't deep, but it had enough depth to be fun an interesting. All of the actors did an excellent job with their characters and while we learned the most about the Team, each character had an arc of their own. The action was fun with that cargo ship scene being the one that went a little too far. The F/X of the film were well done, the film had great production values. Unfortunately, the film didn't burn up the box office this weekend but I hope that it has some traction over the next couple of weeks because I would definitely like to see a sequel to the film. The A-Team is a very fun and entertaining summer film, something to go and enjoy without thinking too hard about it. It's easy for me to give this a solid four wheels of cheddar out of five.
E3 Expo
This week the E3 Expo is jumping off in Los Angeles and the videos coming out are insane. One of the coolest we've seen, a trailer for the upcoming MMORG Star Wars: The Old Republic. Check it out.
6-1-2010
Silver Screen
Last year I thought that May was a huge month, what with Wolverine, Star Trek and Terminator all lined up, but June of 2010 is actually much more loaded. I've got five films up top that I'd like to see in theaters this month and I even left out Toy Story 3 and Get Him to the Greek. Realistically, Killers and Knight and Day do not fall into the must-see-in-theater category but I'm going to list them with the thought that I may skip them. We'll see.
I do have two films listed that I didn't think I'd be excited for when I first heard about them; The A-Team and The Karate Kid. Anyone that's ever read any of my reviews or rants knows full well that I despise reboots and re-makes, and I'm not always a huge fan of the old television shows that get the big screen treatment either. However, after seeing the trailers for both of these films, I feel that they deserve a shot.
The A-Team assembled an interesting cast with Liam Neeson anchoring, Bradley Cooper trying out an action gig, Rampage Jackson getting his first acting role and Sharlto Copley getting his second role after my 2009 favorite, District 9. Plus the trailers that I've seen look totally kick-ass. I'm now really looking forward to it.
The Karate Kid won me over, again with the trailer, by looking like a new take on the classic film rather than simply re-making it. There are some nods to the Ralph Macchio vehicle from 1984, but it looks to have its own heart and, for that, I'll give it a shot.
5-29-2010
Like sands through the hourglass, so are the days of our lives
Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time stars Jake Gyllenhaal as Prince Dastan, Gemma Arterton as Tamina, Ben Kingsley as Uncle Nizam and Richard Coyle and Toby Kebbell as Dastan's brothers, Tus and Garsiv.
Prince of Persia, as you may know, is based on the series of video games of the same name, beginning with "Prince of Persia" which was released in 1989. The modern releases of the game include huge 3D worlds and the main character, the Prince, has some cool, parkour inspired moves. Sands of Time the movie is loosely based on "The Sands of Time" video game from 2003.
The film opens with a young Dastan, an orphan living on the streets, standing up for another kid who is being beaten by King Sharaman's (Ronald Pickup) soldiers. Dastan gives the soldiers a chase through the streets and over the rooftops before ending up in front of the king. Impressed by his courage, the King adopts Dastan and raises him as his own.
Cutting to the present, Dastan and his brothers are on the move with their army, expanding the Persian kingdom, when they come across the fabled city of Alamut. Their father had warned them not to invade the city but a spy brings illegal weapons to the attention of Nizam, who insists that Alamut must be stopped from providing them to enemies of the King.
With his encouragement, and against Dastan's misgivings, Tus decides to invade the city. Dastan leads his men in opening an undefended gate to the city which allows it to be overthrown. During his attack, Dastan fights with a city guard and comes across an ornate dagger that the soldier was attempting to remove from the city. Dastan holds onto it as a trophy and then joins in the celebration of the victory. Soon, the King arrives to celebrate and Dastan presents a robe to his father. But the robe is poisoned and the King dies. Blamed for the killing, Dastan flees the city, pursued by the King's army and Tamina, Alamut's princess and the protector of the dagger Dastan now has in his possession.
Up to this point the story was pretty straight forward, action-packed and gorgeous to look at. We were given some basic character development and I started to get excited about the film. Unfortunately, when Dastan and Tamina run from the city, everything goes sideways.
Not just for Dastan, now hunted by the King's army and with a bounty on his head, but the entire fucking movie. Suddenly the solid, coherent story we were following became disjointed. Some of the characters seem to change motivations and the romance you knew would develop between Dastan and Tamina just was, without really building or being earned.
Throw in blatant references to futile searches for weapons (of mass destruction), a government and tax-hating ostrich race organizer (Alfred Molina's Sheik Amar) with a knife-throwing African bodyguard (Steve Toussaint's Seso) and you have a perfect shit-storm of suck. And I haven't even gotten to the ridiculous gang of Hassansin henchmen led by Gisli Orn Garoarsson who is only credited as the Hassansin Leader on IMDB.
The entire middle hour of the film is a slog through bad dialog, odd scenes of exposition that have nothing to do with the main plot, and other filler that seems to serve no purpose but to connect the action sequences which, I must admit, were well done for the most part.
That middle section did include one revelation that should have been a surprise to the audience, who really killed the King, but it fell flat because anyone that has seen the trailers for the film knows who did it without spending $11.
There are moments of redemption in the final third of the film but they are too few and far between. While the final outcome of the story wasn't something I saw coming before the film started, at some point during one of the nearly endless pieces of exposition, this time by Tamina, it hit me that they were going to pull something shady and use the time travel ability of the dagger to piss me off. And they did. Somewhat.
I'll give the film its due; the movie looks gorgeous from the jump, with excellent settings, sweeping vistas and ancient desert cities that just look beautiful. The action, including both the battles and chases, are mostly well done. The costuming department really got into it and created an excellent look for all the major players. The visual effects were very well done in the film, I don't recall looking at anything and feeling it looked really fake or obviously fudged. I couldn't even tell where there may have been wire work vs CGI characters...in other words, if I can't tell you how they did something, it really worked perfectly.
The actors also all did an excellent job with what they had to work with. Gyllenhaal pulled off a credible accent for Dastan that was just enough British and something else to fit in with the rest of the cast, many (most?) of whom were Brits.
Mike Newell, the director, was at home with a big budget, large cast and epic story having previously directed Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire and several episodes of the "Young Indiana Jones Chronicles."
Unfortunately, in the end, I was disappointed. The film started out so well but changed extremely fast into something else, something less than it should have been. I found myself looking at my watch to see how much longer I would have to sit in the theater with this film, and that's never good. The action was fine but the story didn't seem to hold it all together and the blatant search for "weapons of mass destruction" and anti-government, anti-tax messages sprinkled throughout were annoying and pissed me off.
Word is that this could be set up as the first part of a franchise but honestly, what would they do next? If this film hadn't dropped the ball I'd have been happy to sit through all the sequels Disney wanted to pop out. Now I wish I had a dagger that would let me rewind, get my money back and forget that I ever wasted two hours with this film. Two wheels of moldy cheddar out of five for The Sands of Time...mostly because Gemma Arterton looks fantastic in this film.
5-17-2010
MyTube
Today is the first official day of upfronts, when networks announce their Fall TV schedules and also tells you which of your favorite shows probably aren't coming back.
Some of you may have already been seeing early announcements from the networks, and the news has been a mixed bag. Some of the big shows coming to an end after this season include "24," and "Lost," with "Lost" being a planned finale. "24," on the other hand, got the ax a few weeks ago.
One of the biggest surprises is the loss of the original "Law & Order" which will finish this, its 20th season, and then be done. But fear not, there is a new spinoff coming this Fall, "Law & Order: LA." I shit you not. "Heroes" will also not be back next year, but at this point I don't really care. The Peacock network did pick up pretty much everything else important to me with "The Office," "Friday Night Lights," and, most importantly, "Chuck!"
ABC is the network I watch the least but they did cancel what I believe to be one of this season's best new shows, "FlashForward." I guess ABC didn't feel that it was worth backing this slow burning, high concept show. They are backing "V" which will return for season two and we'll see a third season for "Castle," another of my personal favorites.
I'm probably the most surprised with FOX this year. In an uncharacteristic move for the network I despise the most, they picked up "Human Target" for a second run. While "24" is going away, the rest of the network remains pretty steady with new seasons of "House," "Bones," and "Fringe" along with their new favorite pet, "Glee."
CBS has been a powerhouse the last few years so it's not really a stretch to believe that all the favorites will be back, including all three "CSI" shows, both "NCIS" hours ("Los Angeles" has already been picked up), "The Mentalist" and most of their Monday night comedy block. "Two and a Half Men" has already been picked up but with Charlie Sheen's future uncertain, that could change. Most of the CBS schedule has not been officially announced yet, but with the exception of "Numb3rs," which pretty much had it's series finale, and "Cold Case," there shouldn't be too many surprises.
The CW, probably the network most loyal to its shows, will look almost identical next year with early pickups of "Smallville," "Supernatural," "The Vampire Diaries," "Gossip Girl," and "90210." They did cut "Melrose Place" and have yet to announce one way or the other about "One Tree Hill." Still, if I were working for that network I'd be pretty happy.
There aren't really any huge announcements left unless someone at CBS suddenly has a stroke and fires everyone. So, unless that did happen, the next step will be learning more about the new shows that the networks are adding for the upcoming season. I'll be back with more info on that as it's announced.
Hoodwinked
I bet you thought I'd go see Robin Hood this weekend and review it, what with the movie poster at the top of the page and all. Well, you'd be mistaken. When it came down to it, I couldn't bear the thought of spending over two hours with Russell Crowe.
I think I'll save my cash till the 28th and go see Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time instead.
5-7-2010
Shellhead
I think it would be safe to say Iron Man 2 is one of the most anticipated sequels we've had in a while. After the success of 2008's Iron Man and the announcement by Marvel that they were going to bring all the heroes together to form the Avengers, Marvel, comic and geek fans everywhere have been on the edge of their seats in anticipation.
I caught the midnight showing of IM2 last night, the local theater had two sold out screens so by that measure, the film is already a success. But it just gets better from there.
Back is Robert Downey Jr. as Tony Stark, Gwyneth Paltrow reprises Pepper Potts and Clark Gregg takes another turn as the buttoned-down S.H.I.E.L.D. agent Coulson. Samuel L. Jackson has more than a cameo as Nick Fury this time around and, I'm still not sure why, but Don Cheadle joins the cast (replacing Terence Howard) as James Rhodes. New this time around is Scarlett Johansson as Natalie Rushman, Mickey Rourke shows up as the villain Ivan Vanko and Sam Rockwell plays Stark's business competition, Justin Hammer.
While some people have mentioned that this film has more than one villain, something that hasn't always worked out well, I can tell you that it's fine in this film.
Here there be spoilers
IM2 picks up about a year after the first film where Tony Stark told the world that he was Iron Man. He's since been able to help establish peace around the world, much to the chagrin of the US government. Stark is not under the control of the military but the government wants him to be. That leads to Congressional hearings and Tony's declaration that the Iron Man technology is not something that is available to anyone but him.
Ivan Vanko, the son of Howard Stark's former partner, begs to differ. A Russian ex-con and genius scientist in his own right, Vanko sees the fame that Stark has obtained using technology that his father helped Tony's farther develop, and he wants some revenge. He creates similar technology to Tony's and uses it to attack him during a race in Monaco. Once the government and Hammer see the tech in use, they want to have it. That sets the stage for the showdown with Iron Man at the end of the film.
Along the way we also learn that the tech keeping Tony alive is also killing him and he's determined to live his remaining time to its fullest. The only down part of the film, for me, is the faltering hero middle part of the film. Spider-Man did it, Superman has done it in the past...it's an easy trap to fall into. Luckily the writing for this film pulls it through with humor and it's not long before Tony is back on the right track.
Hammer, using Vanko's technology, builds a robot army to replace Iron Man while Rhodes takes an older IM suit and upgrades it into what we recognize as War Machine. Unfortunately, Vanko has his own plans for Tony Stark and he double crosses Hammer, taking control of the drones and War Machine in an attempt to kill Stark. The showdown has a lot of aerial acrobatics and a shit ton of expended ordinance culminating in a final confrontation between Stark, Rhodes and Vanko.
There is some down time in the middle of the film as we see Stark battling with decisions about his future, but it doesn't drag down the film, I think it's handled well. Credit to the writers and Jon Favreau who returns as director. Favreau also does double-duty as Happy Hogan in an expanded role over the first film.
The special effects are excellent as you would expect out of ILM. Some of the action sequences towards the end do suffer from the now seemingly standard shaky camera, too close, cut too quickly style that so many movies include. Still, it is a rewarding ending so I won't dock too many points for it.
As I mentioned earlier, the film retains the funny banter that Stark has with his friends, and more often, his enemies. IM2 also does a nice job of continuing where the first film left off showing that Marvel really has committed to creating a cohesive universe for their superheroes. I'll also include here that you need to stay through the credits because there is another bonus scene, much like Iron Man, where it sets up the future.
Other than the quick cuts during the end battle sequences, the cinematography for Iron Man 2 is well done. There are some large crowd scenes which are handled well and the race in Monaco looks excellent.
I don't think that Iron Man 2 missed a step taking up where the first film left off. Not only am I looking forward to the Avengers film, I really hope to see a third Iron Man film somewhere down the line. Iron Man 2 brings plenty of action, funny one-liners, a sexy Scarlett Johansson, Mickey Rourke looking bad-ass and Sam Rockwell almost outdoing Downey with his hilarious and self-absorbed monologues. I should deduct a full half wheel of cheddar for some of the editing in the final battle scenes, but if that's now the standard, and I gave Kick-Ass a full ride, I can't really do it...and I'm over it before even finishing this article by handing Iron Man 2 five wheels of cheddar out of five.