The Five-Year Engagement (2012)
VERDICT:
8/10 Save the Dates
So this Stoller/Segel arrangement seems to be working out just fine.
The Five-Year Engagement is about a happy American guy who pops the question to his happy British girlfriend. She says “Jolly good,” he says “Right on,” and just like that, they start planning their wedding. At first, things are looking good. He’s gearing up to be the head chef of a swank new restaurant in Cali, she’s applying to grad schools nearby, love is in the air. But then she doesn’t get in to any of those conveniently-located West Coast schools, instead gets into the University of Michigan for a two-year program, and like the good fiancee he is, her beau gives up his culinary dreams to follow her up North. So they postpone the wedding and try to make things work as their careers butt heads, as their grandparents keep dying, and as everyone else starts getting hitched before them.
Man, nothing about that poster or that title made me want to see this movie. Never really cared for anything Emily Blunt’s ever done, certainly don’t care for that boring-ass couch pose they’ve got going on, and as great as Bridesmaids was, did anyone actually see it for the producers? Aside from still barely understanding what a producer even does outside of hemorrhage Benjamins, that seems like a stretch as far as plugs go. That’s like going to see Battleship because it’s “From Hasbro, the company that brought you Transformers.” Anyway, not a good start, but it’s not my fault they didn’t just slap Nicholas Stoller’s name up there in the first place.
See, when Nicholas Stoller and Jason Segel get together, wonderful things happen. The Muppets, Forgetting Sarah Marshall, Get Him to the Greek (no Segel, but that’s okay), and now this. In light of these home runs, I think we can chalk up Gulliver’s Travels as a mulligan. But as much as I can roll my eyes at the marketing wizards who promoted this thing, it was actually kinda nice being surprised by Stoller’s and Segel’s involvement. If anything, being out of the loop did a bang-up job of lowering my expectations, and there’s really nothing like walking into a movie you aren’t crazy to see, only to find yourself laughing harder and smiling wider as your mental Verdict keeps rising. Let’s just say that this one reached the big 8 pretty fast.
The laughs are rampant regardless of gender and the cast is awesome from front to back, but what really clicked with me was the story. I just got married four months ago, and now I’ll be moving to Vermont for two years because my wife just got accepted to a grad school program that she worked her ass off to get into. The parallel isn’t identical since I’m not leaving a dream job and am actually pretty stoked to be heading North, but it’s damn close. As a result, I was on the level with Tom and Violet, to a bizarrely relatable degree really. It was like I was Tom, my wife was Violet, and the stuff they were going through was the stuff we were right in the thick of. Unless I just need to do my homework, it ain’t often that I get so empathetic towards romcom couples, and that went a long way. Sure, the story’s predictable to a degree given the title and the way these movies always end up, but it does have its fair share of unforeseen plot and character developments that kept things far more interesting than I had expected.
Although if there’s one similarity between this and Bridesmaids, it’s that one of the better date movies I’ve seen in recent memory. If there are two similarities between this and Bridesmaids, it’s a funny female lead. Outside of John Krazinski, I don’t think there are a whole lot of people could have vouched for Emily Blunt’s comedic chops up until now. Such is life when you’re stuck playing British royals every year. But despite the uphill battle of having little to no comedic experience on her resume and acting alongside an entire cast of individuals who have all proven themselves worthy on the very successful and very funny network TV shows that they all currently star in, she rises to the occasion ends up being one of the funniest of the bunch. It’s just fantastic to see her loosen up and come across so natural as Victoria. It suits her perfectly, she’s got great comedic timing to boot, and it’s clearly evident that she’s enjoying herself as much as we’re enjoying her. Going off of the Emily Blunt we all knew and weren’t quite sure about, this is a freakin’ sea change of a transformation that’s better late than never and a delight to take in.
And Jason Segel’s great as Tom. Thought I was getting a bit Segel’d-out since How I Met Your Mother got syndicated, but really, what’s not to like about Jason Segel? Outrageously likeable as always, he has a really genuine chemistry with Blunt, and he’s funny as hell. Yup, the same old Jason Segel, and that’s just fine by me.
Alison Brie also has her moments as Violet’s sister, but she, along with everyone else for that matter, more or less gets overshadowed by Chris Pratt as Tom’s best friend. Dude is operating on another level of funny, but that’s not exactly news, at least for me it’s not. I don’t care if you’ve seen it already, go watch Parks and Rec. It’s one of the funniest shows I’ve ever seen, and for a cast that’s without equal, I think it says a lot that Pratt is a personal favorite. So to all the Andy Dwyer fans out there, can I get an “Amen?”
Oh, and bonus points for the crap ton of choice cameos and bit roles that turn up.
I’m usually not one to shoot down the opinions of others when it comes to movies (everything else though, I will shoot you the hell down!), but I’m pretty dumbfounded by all the ho-hum reactions this movie’s been getting. Granted, had certain aspects of Tom and Violet’s relationship not come across as a mirror image of what’s going on in my own relationship, I probably wouldn’t be as enthusiastic had I been, say, single and playing Diablo III in my mother’s basement (not that there’s anything wrong with that, ’cause I’ve totally been there). But from where I was sitting, I had a grand old time with The Five-Year Engagement, and so did the wife. What can I say, good date movies are hard to find, so when a great one comes along, I gotta call ‘em like I see ‘em.
Was damn certain she was gonna owe me one for this. And that, dear readers, is why the missus wears the pants…
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Kill List (2012)
VERDICT:
7/10 Pyramid Schemes
If David Lynch made The Usual Suspects…
Kill List is about a British army vet who tries playing the family man to his wife and kid, yet struggles to support them financially. Before long, the bills are piling up and he and his wife are at each other’s throats – largely due in part to his shit temper. So when one of his old army buddies offers him a quick, lucrative “job,” he reticently accepts and gets to doing what he does best. But as they make their way from one hit to the next, things start getting weird. Really weird. Eventually they realize that no amount of money’s worth whatever it is they’re involved in, but since their employers won’t have it, they continue forward to wherever it is they’re being led.
I don’t know why it’s taken me so long to write about this movie, ’cause it’s been a good three or four months since I actually sat down and watched it. I blame video games: the reason I’ve always procrastinated at anything in life. Anyhow, letting your memories simmer for an entire season usually isn’t the best approach when trying to recall anything ever, but this one’s an exception. Even if I didn’t have an idiot-savant memory bank for movies, even if I forgot how to eat without drooling, Kill List would be vivid.
For starters, it’s a tough movie to define. It’s not a hitman story, it’s not a horror thriller, and it’s not a broken family drama; it’s something very much in between. Hopefully that wasn’t a surprise I just ruined, but even without the heads up, it doesn’t take the keenest of eyes to see that something funky’s going on beneath the surface. Why is that chick carving a bootleg Deathly Hallows symbol on the back of that mirror? Why did that dude smile before getting a bullet to the brain? Was that a blood pact? Pretty sure that was a blood pact. Do people actually do business like that? No, witches do business like that. Great. This isn’t gonna turn out well.
Questions like these are rampant in Kill List, and the answers are rarely found. It’s a movie where things just happen, bizarre things void of explanation or justification, and it’s actually because of that approach that it all works as well as it does. It’s kind of like Lost in a sense. A lot of people who hated Lost are the ones still wondering why there wasn’t a scientific explanation for the Smoke Monster. A lot of the people who adored Lost are the ones who learned to stop questioning and love the ride. Being a proud member of the latter fraternity, I couldn’t help but dig it.
But that’s not to say that Kill List is for everyone. It’s not all that scary in the crap-your-pants sense of the word, and there’s not much in the way of action or thrills either. More than anything, this one’s about the mood.
Some horror movies fail because they create a mystery and come up with a bullshit explanation to support it (lookin’ at you, The Happening), or they just have a good idea and don’t know where to go with it. What writer/director Ben Wheatley does is take a strong, genre-bending premise, then makes it better by keeping the audience on the same need-to-know basis as his characters, all of whom know dick. This may very well frustrate those looking a more “traditional” horror movie, but the best thing you can ever do when making a horror movie is to show and tell as little as humanly possible. It’s just rare and refreshing to find a movie that wants people to wonder “What the fuck is going on?” and keeps it that way ’til the end. It’s all about the mood, and the mood is freakin’ chilling.
The only real hiccup with Kill List is our protagonist Jay, played by Neil Maskell. The great thing about Jay is that he’s a very troubled fellow with a whole bunch of inner demons in need of exorcising. Despite all his efforts to be a good husband to his wife and a good father to his son, he’s a soldier to the core, longing for battle. He’s messed up and he’s probably got good reason for being so damn volatile all the time. The unfortunate thing about Jay is that he’s often blinded by his fits of rage, blinded to the point where you wonder if anyone could actually be that angry. Given his circumstances and some of the shit he witnesses, it doesn’t really make sense for him to keep barreling down his path of destruction, if only for self-preservation’s sake. Maybe it’s just me, but if some guy started thanking me right as I was about to thump his skull in with a tack hammer, I’d cut my losses and leave town lickety-split.
As a result, there are times when Jay borders on being a horror cliche, the kind of character that you can’t help but scream at because of all the dumb shit he keeps doing. But what ultimately saves him from this fate is that brooding sense of the unknown, that even if he wanted to escape, his fate has already been written by a power that he, nor us, can truly comprehend. It’s hard to say much else because there’s only so much that’s revealed, but it’s eerie as all hell and makes for a handy little sidestep around one of horror’s biggest pitfalls.
The thick British accents can be a chore to decipher, and the ending’s also a bit much, but, lord, if Kill List isn’t one of the more unnerving movies I’ve seen in quite some time. Aside from having one of the most jaw-droppingly violent murder scenes ever put to celluloid, there’s a lot about this movie that stuck with me for longer than I thought it would. Solid cast, inspired premise, and a really fantastic execution makes Aiden a happy man. There’s a lot of purpose and intention in the way Wheatley put this together, and while I didn’t really know what to think by the end, something tells me that was the whole point.
Explanations, shmexplanations.
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Tim and Eric’s Billion Dollar Movie (2012)
VERDICT:
5/10 Shrim Cocktails
Fire up that crack pipe.
Tim and Eric’s Billion Dollar Movie is about two friends named Tim and Eric who are given a billion dollars to make a movie. Why? Who knows. But instead of delivering on their agreement, they end up making a three minute movie called Diamond Jim after spending the rest of their money on life gurus, diamond suits, new teeth – you name it. The producers of Diamond Jim are none too happy about this, so Tim and Eric decide to raise the money they blew by becoming the new owners of a decrepit mall. As they rebuild the mall through their new company Dobis (short for “Doing Business”), they find themselves fending off wolves, falling in love, and struggling to make that billion before their old producers find out where they ran off to.
You don’t need to know much about Tim and Eric to know that these two guys are…off. The trailer explains it all really. They specialize in a strange that only gets stranger, and only on Adult Swim, the birthplace of Aqua Teen Hunger Force, could they make a living and find a fanbase.
But since I am a twenty-something male nerd, it just so happens that I love Adult Swim, love Aqua Teen Hunger Force, and love Tim and Eric. The time I’ve wasted surfing through Tim and Eric clips on YouTube is nothing short of inordinate, but since I nearly choked on my tongue from laughing in the process, I’d say it was time well spent. It’s hard to sum up what it is about these guys that somehow landed them a movie deal, but they sure do have a different sense of humor.
For example, a brief list of Tim and Eric’s “signature” gags:
- Lots of squishing sound effects, regardless of relevance, always amplified to maximum. If it exists, it squishes.
- Casting actors – typically of the elderly/”something’s-not-right-with-that-person” sort – in recurring roles, despite complete lack of acting experience.
- Making weird faces, making them often.
- Intentionally mispronouncing/inventing words.
- Good ol’ diarrhea.
If this doesn’t sound like your kind of humor, then just trust me that it most definitely isn’t. Between Eric getting a Prince Albert and Tim rolling around in a G-string with a dildo on his forehead, things get pretty gross pretty fast and don’t cool down. Some people won’t get it, some people will, but even for Tim and Eric fans, it certainly tests the limits of decency. I mean, this is old hat for Tim and Eric. It’s not like they finally started whipping out the diarrhea jokes once their movie got green-lit. The only real difference now is that they get to curse and can do just about anything with all the dildos they want.
Hooray?
The good thing is that I was prepared for this stuff, and, oddly enough, the shock factor ended up being more of a pro than a con. But for the uninitiated, it’ll be about as much fun as the Ludovico Technique. The truth of the matter is that some things are just better in 30-minute bursts than two-hour stretches. Since the whole damn movie is nonsense, it does lose its appeal after a while, and if you’re not on board from the get-go, there’s not much here that’ll make you want to stay. Unless you have a movie review blog, then you’ll have to stick it out.
Like I said, the humor here is beyond strange, and I am absolutely at a loss as to how Tim and Eric got so many noteworthy actors to join in on the “fun.” Will Ferrell, John C. Reilly, Will Forte, and Zach Galifianakis are T & E regulars, but I wish Robert Loggia and William Atherton had stayed under their rocks instead of resurfacing for this. It’s just…sad to watch these classic character actors submit themselves to such truly bizarre lengths. It’d be one thing if they got laughs for their efforts, but since that ain’t happening, you just feel bad for them. Poor, poor Robert Loggia and William Atherton. This is no way to make a comeback.
Ugh…
If you asked me a year ago, I’d say that Tim and Eric were the future of comedy. Now, I think they might have shot themselves in the feet.
All the same, I still think they’re hilarious and I laughed at their movie more than I would care to admit. The real problem is that I can think of maybe one or two people that I could actually recommend this to. Burnouts and drunkards are gonna eat this up faster than a Dorit0-shelled taco, but humanity in general won’t be anywhere near as receptive. Not that the quality of any movie should be grounded in how many people will like it, it just becomes an issue when you worry about suggesting it to people who would like it. I wish I had better news to report, but Tim and Eric’s Billion Dollar Movie is far too much of a good thing.
Doesn’t mean I’ll stop watching those YouTube clips though.
600th REVIEW, YO!
THE ROOF IS ON FIRE!
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And the best Alien movie is…
ALIEN!
They’ve been showing this on HBO like gangbusters lately, and let me tell ya’, folks, it is still friggin’ incredible. Been seriously amped for Prometheus as of late, so I figured I’d see where y’all stood on the matter.
And who am I kidding, Aliens is friggin’ incredible, too.
Game over, man. Game over.
RESULTS:
- Alien: 12 votes
- Aliens: 10 votes
- “AVP!!!”: 1 vote
- “AVP (LOL/JK)”: 1 vote (agreed)
- E.T.: 1 vote (taking some liberties with the poll there)
- “Does the spoof they do in Spaceballs count?”: 1 vote (why the hell not?)
Still haven’t seen the other two direct Alien sequels. Worth checking out, or shall I continue to live my life?
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The Divide (2012)
VERDICT:
0/10 Bottom Dwellers
One of the absolute worst movies I have ever seen.
The Divide is about a group of tenants who hole up in their building’s fallout shelter when a nuclear terrorist attack levels New York City. With nowhere to go until the radioactive dust settles, the rations start depleting and everyone’s true colors start to show. The longer they stay down there, the more unlikely it is that they’ll be rescued, so the survivors start to turn on one another as civility and humanity make way for desperation and madness.
Usually when I watch movies, I tend to kick myself for trying to multitask from the couch instead of giving them my full attention like a good movie blogger should. Multitasking leads to missing a movie’s plot points, a vague sense of investment in characters and story, and in serious cases, swelling of the kidneys and liver. I’m usually pretty good about it, but what can I say, one does not simply get off the internet. Although on this rare occasion, I don’t think I could have justified the two hours that I sacrificed on this travesty had I not had been using it as a distraction for the several hundred envelopes I had to seal.
Thank God for those envelopes, because if I had given The Divide 100% of my conscious mind, I truly wonder if I would have made it to the end. And thus having made it to the end, I now have the pleasure of telling you all what it feels like to take a bullet, a bullet that probably wasn’t heading your way anyhow. Oh happy day.
The biggest things this movie has going for it is a good title and a genuinely intriguing premise. I’m all for movies where the apocalypse is involved, and a fallout shelter is an awesome setting for just about any story. For example, Sex and the City 2: would have been way better in a fallout shelter, infinitely better if the girls hadn’t made it inside. So going off the premise, there’s definitely some potential here, and that, dear readers, is the tale of how I got suckered.
Because, unfortunately, a good title and an intriguing premise are all this movie has going for it.
First, there’s the script by first-timers Karl Mueller and Eron Sheean, and I can’t help but wonder if they’ve ever heard people talk before. If I were a betting man, I’d bet it all on “NO.” Within the first five minutes of hearing their characters speak, I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that Mueller and Sheean are in fact deaf, mute shut-ins who learned sign language from The Jerky Boys. I really can’t think of another explanation for the what comes out of the mouths of these characters. They just don’t say things that human beings say, and not only do they swear for no reason, but they swear all the freakin’ time. It never works, it starts right away, and it only gets more abrasive with time.
Adding to the limited and entirely unbelievable vocabulary of these individuals, there’s also no rhyme or reason as to why they act the way they do. This could have been a great opportunity to create a character study of what desperate people do in the most desperate of circumstances. That’s what was so great about Contagion, the way covered all the bases and capitalized on the ways real people would react to a real-life catastrophe. Instead of doing that, The Divide devolves into nonsense for the sake of nonsense and stays the course right on through to the end.
The only thing human about these survivors is that they look the part. Other than that, they might as well be aliens wearing people suits. Like Vincent D’Onofrio in Men in Black, only worse.
From the minute you meet these folks, you’ll know how they’re storylines are gonna play out. Some of them stay good, some of them go bad, some try to stay out of it, some have ulterior motives. You know the drill. What is unexpected is when some of them turn into sex slaves, and others start shaving their bodies and dressing like Marilyn Manson roadies for reasons unknown. I’m sure there was a way to build up these characters so that these developments would make some kind of sense, but alas, that’s not how this plays out. Like I said, it is nonsense for the sake of nonsense and the only semblance of an explanation that we’re kind of given is that this is what people do when the world goes boom.
As a result of all that horse shit character development, there is no way to invest in these people, to make us care in the slightest about who lives or dies. Even the main character – if you could call her that – a shell of a girl who doesn’t do much but hang out like a mannequin for two hours. Call me crazy, but creating characters that the audience can root for/against seems like a pretty crucial step when you’re dealing with THE APOCALYPSE.
I’ve never been in a situation like this, but I’m pretty damn sure that this isn’t how it would go down. Not even New Yorkers would pull shit like this. Just an exercise in the bizarre trying to pawn itself off as realistic, despite bearing no resemblance to real human beings outside of the Jeffrey Dahmer crowd.
And then theres the acting, and the acting is just horrendous, primarily for all the reasons I’ve already named. A lot of these folks are no-namers who are far more forgettable than they are bad actors, but then there’s Michael Biehn, Rosanna Arquette, and Milo Ventimiglia. I could care less about Arquette and Ventimiglia, they’re both awful in this and that’s no skin off my back, but I like Michael Biehn. Granted, there’s only so much you can do when your director tells you to “act grumpy and constipated” all the time, so you gotta believe he was fighting a losing battle from the start. Still though, this just wasn’t his movie. This did not need to be added to his already obscure resume’. He was Kyle-effing-Reese for chrissakes. Biehn deserves better.
It’s been a long time since I’ve had to shit all over a movie like this, but it’s also been a long time since I’ve had to give out a null Verdict. If it’s any indication of what we’re dealing with here, the last movie that earned the big donut was Grown Ups. Serenity now.
If The Divide hadn’t taken itself so seriously or had tried to be something more than just apocalyptic torture porn, it would have at least nabbed a 1. But being that it fails so miserably at saying anything that could be considered meaningful or having a purpose for existing, there was only room to fail. Sometimes, if you’re lucky, you get movies that are so bad they’re good, but if you’re not, you get a movie like this. There is not a single redeeming quality about The Divide, and that is quite a feat in itself. But if you’ve ever wondered what The Lord of Flies would look like as a snuff film, well hey, this is your lucky day.
Although it sure made sealing envelopes feel like a 24-hour rave party.
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The Avengers (2012)
VERDICT:
9/10 Assemblies Required
After all that hype, it kinda had to be good.
The Avengers begins with that mega-jerk Loki dropping in on S.H.I.E.L.D.’s underground HQ, jacking the Cosmic Cube right out from under ‘em, and brainwashing a couple key players to do his bidding along the way. When it hits Nick Fury that Loki’s on a mission to open an inter-dimensional portal that’ll open the doors for an alien army to enslave mankind, he starts making some calls. Before he knows it, Tony Stark, Bruce Banner, Steve Rogers, Natalia Romanova, and freakin’ Thor himself are kickin’ it in a tricked-out aircraft carrier, settling their own differences while scheming up ways to stop that god of mischief before he takes them all down with the rest of us mortals.
Well talk about a long time coming. With the exception of X-Men: First Class, it’s been quite a while since I’ve seen a Marvel movie that wasn’t teasing the shit out of this thing like it was the second coming and we’d be crazy not to be there. But after the disappointments of Iron Man 2 and Thor (yes, I am still the only guy alive who didn’t like Thor), my excitement for The Avengers has waned pretty heavily over the years. Just too much focus on a movie that wouldn’t be out for years, not enough focus on making solid movies for the heroes involved, the movies I’ve been dropping dime on to see on opening night for how many Summers now. As a result, I learned from my mistakes, kept my expectations low, and kept my inner fanboy on his leash while everyone else was counting down the days.
But even now, as I look at that poster, think of how those two-and-a-half hours flew by, feel my grip loosen on that leash…
Damn.
As much as I’d like to say otherwise and save myself from sounding like a kid who just turned thirteen on May 4th, it is pretty effing awesome that this movie exists. It’s a nerd’s wet dream, it’s ambitious as sin, and for a long time, it seemed like nothing more than a wet dream. Thank God this superhero thing caught on like it did. Downplay it all you want, the appeal is there and the money don’t lie. But by the same token, I wouldn’t be saying any of this if The Avengers sucked, ’cause this movie really could have sucked.
I’m still convinced that the reason Spider-Man 3 didn’t work (aside from Peter Parker’s emo phase, of course) is that there were too many villains and just too many side-plots to do them all justice. Get rid of Sandman, have Thomas Haden Church play Venom instead of Topher Grace, I think Spider-Man 4 would be coming out this Summer instead. Same problem with Iron Man 2, only too many heroes. Not to say those were the only problems with those movies, but I think I’m on to something and it’s the same reason I’ve been so nervous about The Dark Knight Rises. Yet here we are with six A-list superheroes with the egos to match, one up-and-coming supervillain with a whole lot of backup, and Samuel L. Jackson shouting and shooting in an eyepatch and a trench coat.
Even without Sam Jackson and his outside voice, they were just asking for it with this one. This was tailor-made to crash and burn in that same ways these movies always crash and burn. But I guess that’s why they brought in Joss Whedon.
I’ll get to the cast in a minute, but the best/weirdest thing about this whole movie for me is how Whedon steals the show from all of ‘em. Most importantly is how well he balances out the screen-time amongst these characters to the point where all of them are constantly present and involved without overshadowing one another. I mean, on the one end are Black Widow and Hawkeye: two characters who I could have cared less about, seemed totally unnecessary from the outset, and whose powers are pretty damn lacking in comparison to the rest of the gang. And on the other end are Thor, Iron Man, Hulk, and Captain America: four guys who do not eff around, totally deserve their spots in the lineup, and could probably kill Black Widow and Hawkeye with the same effort it takes me to wiggle my ears.
But they all represent, they all kick an inordinate amount of ass, and they all have a slew of great scenes that make specific use their specific powers so that they feel truly integral to the story as a whole. Granted, some of the bad guys they face off against look like fish in a barrel at points, but that was a huge accomplishment. If you’ve ever seen Firefly or Serenity, you already know that Whedon can handle a big cast, and needless to say, he handles this one like a seasoned pro. These guys all have their own histories and hangups, they all have their own distinct personalities and values to bring to the table, and I love the way Whedon makes this movie canon by continually referencing their past cinematic adventures. They feel like humans (or gods) as much as they do superhumans, and that could have easily gotten lost in the epic circumstances surrounding them.
The first thing you and your friends’ll do when you walk out of the theater is start talking about who your favorite Avenger was, and thanks to that balance I’m talking about, you’ll all come up with someone different. A thing of beauty right there.
But aside from the nuances of Whedon’s script, I couldn’t believe how funny this movie was, nor was I expecting all the cheer-worthy moments either. The thing is, it’s still your archetypal hero story: Earth is in danger, heroes rise to the occasion, heroes falter, heroes get back up again, heroes save the day. Stay tuned next time, same Bat-time, same Bat-channel. You’ve heard it all before, it’s just the way it’s told that makes all the difference. It’s just a blast that keeps on getting better. It’s superhero story from a guy who loves superhero stories, and it doesn’t take much to see why he got the job.
Whedon, more than anyone else, is why this movie’s as fantastic as it is…but the cast ain’t too shabby either.
If there’s any one Avenger who does kinda steal the show, it’s Robert Downey, Jr. as Tony Stark. There is just so much to like about Downey and Stark in this movie that we’ve always liked about Downey as Stark. The endless supply of one-liners, the simple truth that Iron Man is only getting more badass with time, and the attitude to spare make it pretty clear why he’s in front on the poster. But like I said, it’s hard to steal the show when everyone else is stealing it too. Sam Jackson does a great Sam Jackson as Nick Fury; Mark Ruffalo is solid as Bruce Banner, even though The Hulk blows him out of the water; I liked Chris Hemsworth a whole lot more in this than I did in Thor; Tom Hiddleston was the best part of Thor and is still great here as Loki; Jeremy Renner is cool as Hawkeye; Scarlett Johansson is surprisingly awesome as Black Widow and does a bang-up job of making it known that she’s not just here for the eye candy; and Chris Evans is great as Cap, my only complaint being that they could have fleshed out his character more in terms of where he was at the end of his own movie, but hopefully they’re saving that for Captain America 2. Aside from The Hulk who just can’t catch a break with his franchise, Cap’s easily got the most interesting character arc of the bunch.
There are some things that need to be taken with a grain of salt, like how Bruce Banner magically gets in tune with his greener half and how Tony Stark defies the laws of gravity at a certain point, but if you get hung up on that nonsense, you’re missing all the fun. And let me tell ya’, there’s a lot of fun to be had. So many incredible scenes, total insanity what goes down here.
Yes, it’s a monster of a movie that’s got Hollywood written all over it, but if there’s one thing Joss Whedon has proven as a film maker this year, it’s his ability to exceed the hell out of expectations. I was tired of horror movies, and then along came The Cabin in the Woods, arguably the most significant horror movie of the past decade. I was tired of superhero movies, and then along comes The Avengers, arguably the best superhero movie since The Dark Knight. I, for one, definitely wasn’t expecting that, and I still can’t stop raving about this thing. So what if the formula’s old hat? For a genre that was starting to feel like an assembly line, this feels like a wake up call. It’s a reminder of why we love the formula to begin with and why we keep going to these movies year after year. For the first time in a while, I can’t wait to see a superhero movie, and until The Avengers 2 comes out, the competition’s got a new bar to reach for.
Like this:
Let the Bullets Fly (2012)
VERDICT:
5/10 Misfires
…or let them sit in the chamber. Whatever.
Set in 1920s China, Let the Bullets Fly is about an infamous bandit who hijacks a wealthy governor’s train, assumes the governor’s identity, and makes for a wealthy town that he plans on robbing. Once inside the town walls, he begins butting heads with a local kingpin who rules over the citizens with an iron fist. Though outwardly civil to one another, the two men start devising plots to take control away from the other and take the town for themselves in the process.
Once I saw the title, once I saw the poster, visions of The Good, The Bad, The Weird began pouring right over me. For those who don’t know, that is a sensation without equal. The Good, The Bad, The Weird is one of the greatest action movies I’ve ever seen, might even be one of the best movies of the past decade for that matter. It’s insane, it’s hilarious, it’s epic, and there just ain’t a weak link in the chain. The thing is, someone involved with this movie obviously saw that movie because there’s quite a lot in common between the two. That’s alright, more film makers could learn a thing or two from that movie. But there is downside to modeling your movie after something so Earth-shatteringly awesome as The Good, The Bad, The Weird: there’s a good chance you’re setting yourself up for failure in the process.
Case in point: Let the Bullets Fly.
In its defense, what an awesome title. John Woo probably dropkicked his dog clear across the Atlantic for not thinking of it first. It’s a title that doesn’t leave much to the imagination, and that’s very much a selling point. Sometimes all you want in a movie is an excuse to veg out while people shoot things for two hours, and this one sounds like a doozie.
And that, dear readers, is why you don’t a judge book by its cover.
In reality, there’s only one real instance where the guns are blazing and the bodies are dropping – where this movie lives up to its name. It’s a good scene, it’s just not good enough to make up for the all other ones that don’t even come close to it. And while there isn’t a scene that goes by without a good old Mexican standoff, it’s usually just thrown in there for effect, like an unnecessary exclamation point, or someone typing in all caps. Most of those usually end in a ceasefire, too. Good times.
Folks, even without expectations, this is all very disappointing and makes for a terribly misleading title. It’d be one thing if its rehashed Robin Hood tale and lengthy scenes of dialogue made up for it, but I’m guessing you already know the answer to that one.
As far as the story goes, it’s a surprisingly tough one to follow, way tougher than it needed to be. Too much talking for the sake of talking, too much repetition from one plot point to the next, “too much” is actually a pretty common them here. Not an impossible story to keep up with, but not sure why it’s so compelled to overcomplicate a storyline that could have benefited from a good dose of simplicity. Although the real problem with this movie is its tone. It’s billed as an action comedy, and though it certainly tries to be just that, it rarely strikes a balance. It’s usually way too dark to be funny, it’s usually way too over-the-top to be funny, and the occasions that it does get some laughs, the moment is awfully fleeting. Dark can be funny, so can over-the-top, but some of the gags here on par with watching a whoopee cushion at a funeral or a Mr. Sparkle commercial out of context. As much as I can give it points for trying, none of it really gels and so much of the movie relies on it.
Not to mention that some of the scenes and plot developments are flat-out fuckin’ nonsense. For instance, a particular scene where one of the gangster’s henchmen accuses one of the bandit’s henchmen of eating an extra bowl of jelly without having paid for it. After a brief argument that escalates faster and higher than any jelly argument has ever reached, the bandit’s henchman decides there is only one way to clear his good name. Cue him pulling out his knife and performing seppuku on himself, then scooping out the contents of his stomach into a jelly bowl before dropping dead.
I don’t even know. I guess I was supposed to laugh or something.
Needless to say, the movie kinda lost me at that point and never quite recovered. Maybe I just don’t have the same sense of honor that these bandits take oh so seriously, but even just having read the description, that’s a pretty stupid scene, right? That was the best they could come up with to kill off a character without having him murdered?
Death by jelly. Classic China.
But hey, at least the cast is fine. Director/star Wen Jiang is easily the most watchable as infamous bandit Pocky Zhang; Chow Yun-Fat is a tad much as the town kingpin; and that’s about it for people you might know/people I’d care to mention. Yeah, that wasn’t much of an endorsement either. 5 is starting to sound like a pretty generous Verdict. Anyway…
Apparently this was a kimono-crapper of a hit in its homeland of China, so either I’m totally missing something or China’s got some low-ass expectations. There’s also a strong possibility that it just got lost in translation, and immediately comparing it to one of the best movies I’ve seen in years certainly didn’t help either. Still, I wouldn’t go so far as to call Let the Bullets Fly a bad movie, it’s just kinda there. It’s clear that some effort went into making this, and some things are actually kinda fun, but my fondest memory of Let the Bullets Fly was how uninterested I was in this long, boring movie.
Always a great feeling to walk away with.
