I tried to like this one, I really did. I've mostly enjoyed the marvel movies up til now. My favorite was Iron Man, but Thor was pretty good, too. I had high hopes going in. Reviews were good, it looked cool from the trailers. The first hour or so of the movie wasn't bad. It's your typical "superhero origin" story that we've seen countless times already-but they did it in a fresh way. They made it look like a military propaganda film from the 40s. What could go wrong?
The answer is the second half. The film fell apart for me here. It took major leaps forward with the character that it didn't earn. I almost suspect that chunks of the script were cut so it wouldn't seem slow, and that's probably where everything was explained. Little things, like who characters were, what their abilities were, why they were doing what they're doing. You know, things a film is supposed to tell you, even if they do it subtly.
I admit, I don't know much about this comic book. I think people who are familiar with Cap and his exploits will get more out of this film than I did, but for the most part, I spent the last hour of this movie saying "What?" to myself, over and over. It's really astounding. In all fairness, I didn't know much about Thor either before seeing that, but I never felt confused during that flick. A lot of the problems with the second half for me were because of the villain, Red Skull. They barely explained why he looked the way he did. He was given almost no motivation for being the villain. It's lazy writing at its worst. Also, I felt that the film looked too clean for a WW2 movie. The effects in the second half all looked fake (I will praise the movie for the first half, they did a great job of making Chris Evans look like a scrawny 12 year old). Overall, I felt like nothing was at stake, and I think that's the movie's greatest flaw. It made me not care. As a lead in to The Avengers next year, that's a dangerous place to put a fan who has seen six Avenger prequel films already (counting the originals, reboots, and sequels).
I've heard people complain that these movies are two hour teasers for The Avengers, but I haven't felt that until now. Because there was a teaser for The Avengers after the credits. A shaky, 30 second, cut-so-fast-you-think-you're-having-a-seizure kind of trailer. But I think Iron Man was in it. I could write pages upon pages about the "stupid logic" this movie operates on, but I'll just say it didn't work for me. This film has me worried whether or not The Avengers will be worth it, but I'm in too deep to not see it. Hopefully, Captain America is just an unfortunate bump in the road. Don't take my word for it. Lots of people seemed to like it, so, maybe you will. And hey, more power to you if you do. I just couldn't get on the train.
Monday, July 25, 2011
Monday, July 18, 2011
Favorite Breaking Bad moments
In honor of the season 4 premiere, which was shockingly awesome, I thought I'd list my favorite moments from this show. There have been a ton of shocking things that happened, and they keep finding ways to do it. So, caution- spoilers ahead. Also, these aren't in order.
1. Jesse destroys a corpse in his bathtub with acid
Walt gave Jesse very specific instructions for this task. He had to get a certain kind of plastic tub for this. Jesse isn't that bright and ignored the part about the tub, thinking his bathtub would be stronger than plastic. As a result, we all got a horrific lesson in science that episode. The lesson- always listen to Walt!
2. Walt blows up Tucco's office with a piece of meth
Walt confronts gangster Tucco in this episode, who had just beaten Jesse to a pulp. He attempts to sell him some meth, but as an insurance policy, throws in some explosives for good measure. As Walt says to Tucco- "It's just a little tweak of the chemistry". Boom!
3. Tio's Bell
In one of the best episodes of the show, Walt and Jesse are held at gunpoint by crazy Tucco. Tucco has his Tio watch them. Tio appears to be unresponsive, due to being in a wheelchair. That doesn't stop him from overhearing Walt and Jesse plan to murder Tucco and escape. He tries to warn Tucco with his bell. Ding! Who would've thought a bell could be that suspensul?
4. Hank's shoot out with the cousins
Walt's brother in law Hank, who works for the DEA, becomes the targets of international assassins who were after Walt. Someone alerts him to their attack exactly one minute before it happens. The result is one of the most suspenseful shoot outs ever. Black Death, indeed.
5. Walt kills some dealers
At the end of season 3, Jesse figures out who exactly killed his dealer Combo in season 2. It's two rival dealers who happen to work for their new boss, Gus. Jesse decides to get revenge anyway, knowing there's a good chance he won't survive. Walt shows up at the last minute and murders them both. He crosses a line he hadn't before and there's no going back for him now. It's truly a shocker.
1. Jesse destroys a corpse in his bathtub with acid
Walt gave Jesse very specific instructions for this task. He had to get a certain kind of plastic tub for this. Jesse isn't that bright and ignored the part about the tub, thinking his bathtub would be stronger than plastic. As a result, we all got a horrific lesson in science that episode. The lesson- always listen to Walt!
2. Walt blows up Tucco's office with a piece of meth
Walt confronts gangster Tucco in this episode, who had just beaten Jesse to a pulp. He attempts to sell him some meth, but as an insurance policy, throws in some explosives for good measure. As Walt says to Tucco- "It's just a little tweak of the chemistry". Boom!
3. Tio's Bell
In one of the best episodes of the show, Walt and Jesse are held at gunpoint by crazy Tucco. Tucco has his Tio watch them. Tio appears to be unresponsive, due to being in a wheelchair. That doesn't stop him from overhearing Walt and Jesse plan to murder Tucco and escape. He tries to warn Tucco with his bell. Ding! Who would've thought a bell could be that suspensul?
4. Hank's shoot out with the cousins
Walt's brother in law Hank, who works for the DEA, becomes the targets of international assassins who were after Walt. Someone alerts him to their attack exactly one minute before it happens. The result is one of the most suspenseful shoot outs ever. Black Death, indeed.
5. Walt kills some dealers
At the end of season 3, Jesse figures out who exactly killed his dealer Combo in season 2. It's two rival dealers who happen to work for their new boss, Gus. Jesse decides to get revenge anyway, knowing there's a good chance he won't survive. Walt shows up at the last minute and murders them both. He crosses a line he hadn't before and there's no going back for him now. It's truly a shocker.
Sunday, July 3, 2011
Transfomers 3
I should start this by saying that I enjoyed the first Transformers, but I thought the second was a mess. It's even harder to sit through on a second viewing. So I came to Transformers 3 with my guard up, but cautiously optimistic that it might not suck. And it wasn't all bad. The action scenes were fun for the most part. The 3D looked awesome. It was up to Avatar standards. Seriously folks, if you're going to do 3D, shoot it in 3D. That post conversion stuff looks like crap. If I can say something good about Michael Bay it's that he knows visuals. Film making is a visual art, so he's got part of it down. And there were actually wide shots in this movie- sometimes I could totally tell what was going on. Does this mean Mr. Bay maturing as a director?
This movie is not great. While half of film making is visuals, the other half is story telling. That's something Bay doesn't seem to give a fuck about. My biggest complaint of this movie is that it is around 2 and a half hours. If you're going to keep me in a theater that long, you better have a story to back it up. And Bay doesn't. There are many story lines that are introduced but go nowhere. The pacing is choppy. In the end, it doesn't really matter- we're here to see giant robots beat the shit out of each other. But that's kind of the point. If that's why we're here, why do we need an hour on seeing Sam trying to find a job? We know he's going to end up right in the middle of the robot fight anyway. Get on with it! I could have probably cut this movie down by a half hour and not lost anything. Another minor detail that bothered me is that this time, the robots bled when hit. What? ROBOTS DON'T BLEED!! I mean come on. Also, I'm pretty sure I heard Shockwave referred to as Soundwave by someone. You'll remember that Soundwave was in the last one and died. I sure hope someone got fired for that blunder. *braces for wedgie* That may go to the fact that most of the transformers look similar, and it's hard to tell them apart. This movie has its fun spots, but its bogged down by long sections of pointlessness that don't amount to anything. At best, it's a fun escapist action movie. At worst, it's a 2 and a half hour poorly written toy commercial. I'm stuck somewhere in the middle.
Grade: 3 out of 5 stars
This movie is not great. While half of film making is visuals, the other half is story telling. That's something Bay doesn't seem to give a fuck about. My biggest complaint of this movie is that it is around 2 and a half hours. If you're going to keep me in a theater that long, you better have a story to back it up. And Bay doesn't. There are many story lines that are introduced but go nowhere. The pacing is choppy. In the end, it doesn't really matter- we're here to see giant robots beat the shit out of each other. But that's kind of the point. If that's why we're here, why do we need an hour on seeing Sam trying to find a job? We know he's going to end up right in the middle of the robot fight anyway. Get on with it! I could have probably cut this movie down by a half hour and not lost anything. Another minor detail that bothered me is that this time, the robots bled when hit. What? ROBOTS DON'T BLEED!! I mean come on. Also, I'm pretty sure I heard Shockwave referred to as Soundwave by someone. You'll remember that Soundwave was in the last one and died. I sure hope someone got fired for that blunder. *braces for wedgie* That may go to the fact that most of the transformers look similar, and it's hard to tell them apart. This movie has its fun spots, but its bogged down by long sections of pointlessness that don't amount to anything. At best, it's a fun escapist action movie. At worst, it's a 2 and a half hour poorly written toy commercial. I'm stuck somewhere in the middle.
Grade: 3 out of 5 stars
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