Category: Announcement

And so it came to pass, three babies are left on the doorstep of an orphanage, though there’s something just a little odd about them.  The babies grow up to be young men with one of them having the opportunity to leave the other two by being adopted.  But this young man just can’t leave his friends behind and chooses to stay with them.  The three grow older and never leave the orphanage instead they stay behind and act as handymen.  But one day, they find that the orphanage is in financial trouble and ow the three leave their home behind, with the hopeful attempt to raise enough money to save their home… and of course have some eye-poking fun along the way.

That’s the basic story behind The Three Stooges the latest film from Peter and Bobby Farrelly and really this is just a hell of a lot of fun.  I’m a huge fan of the classic Three Stooges shorts and to this day, they still manage to get me to laugh in that sort of big, belly laugh way.  The Farrellys are obviously big fans as well and their little re-invention for a modern audience also manages to be quite the love letter to some classic comedy as well.

The Three Stooges is broken down into three separately chaptered stories all with the same running through-line.  It is one big story, but each individual chapter pays some great homage to classic Stooges situations of the past and I just did not want to see this end.  Now, I understand that some might take offense that this movie was even made, but really, the Farrelly’s hearts are definitely in the right place and they manage to not only pay homage, but re-invent while mixing the Stooges with their own brand of humor.

The best part of the film is the casting of Moe, Larry and Curly.  Chris Diamantopoulos plays Moe, Sean Hayes plays Larry and Will Sasso plays Curly and these guys are just brilliant.  Diamantopoulos has Moe’s look down to a “T.”  Sean Hayes is the only other person who I’ve ever heard pull off a successful impersonation of Larry Fine (the other is the great voice artist, actor and comedian Billy West).  Will Sasso is Curly Howard re-born.  The impersonations are absolutely spot-on, but even better is the timing and chemistry that all three have.  They absolutely excel at the gags, but the Farrellys also manage to bring a little heart to their film, and all three deliver the goods there as well.

There’s solid support for the boys from a great supporting cast including Jane Lynch, Jennifer Hudson, Sofia Vergara, Craig Bierko, Stephen Collins and the great Larry David.  I really have to give high marks to both Sofia Vergara and Larry David amongst the supporting cast.  Vergara plays Lydia, one of the villains of the movie.  She’s of course, drop-dead gorgeous, but also very much willing to put herself in a couple of pretty ridiculous situations and be a good sport about it.  Larry David plays Sister Mary-Mengele, one of the nuns at the orphanage and of course the one that the boys cause the most trouble for.  David’s lapping this whole thing up and you can just tell he’s having the time of his life playing the foil.  Also amongst the supporting cast, you’ll find the entire cast of Jersey Shore who I have to give props to for being good sports for the fun that gets made of them here.  As a downside to that, their appearance will no doubt date the film in later years, but for now, they certainly help generate some laughs.

I absolutely loved The Three Stooges and that’s for me pretty high praise considering I’m not really a fan of most comedies made today.  This one obviously spoke to my own affection for the classic trio, but the Farrellys manage to inject some of their own humor as well and the mix is absolutely hilarious.  I saw this with two other friends and honestly, we were laughing all the way through the film.  I honestly don’t know how this will play with those that aren’t familiar with the Stooges, but if you are a Stooges fan, I hope at least you’ll give this a chance.  Personally, I’d love to see the Farrellys, Diamantopoulos, Hayes and Sasso re-team and do this again.  The Three Stooges is fantastic, slapstick fun from start to finish.

It’s the latter part of the 21st century and a former CIA operative named Snow is under investigation for a potential conspiracy against the United States government.  Things are looking pretty bad for Snow and he’s been told that he’ll be doing time on board MS One.  MS One is a prison that orbits the Earth and all of it’s prisoners are held in stasis to do their time.

Simultaneously, Emilie Warnock, the daughter of the U.S. President, is taking a little trip to MS One to investigate rumors of experiments involving the prisoners there.  As she’s interviewing one prisoner, a particularly bad piece of work named Hydell, things go awry.  Hydell manages to get a hold of a gun and quickly the tables turn to the point where the prisoners are all freed from their stasis chambers.

Back on Earth, it’s reasoned that the best person to go in and save Emilie is Snow and now he’s making preparations to go aboard MS One.

That’s the premise to Lockout the latest movie from producer Luc Besson’s production company, Europa, and it started as an idea from Besson.  For those that don’t know, as a director, Besson has directed films like La Femme Nikita, The Fifth Element and The Professional. As a producer, Besson’s been behind films like Taken, From Paris With Love and The Transporter series.  Lockout is directed by James Mather and Stephen St. Leger and they also co-wrote the screenplay with Besson.

By it’s trailer, Lockout looks like it should be some pretty good mindless fun.  Well, really it’s just slightly above average as far as an action film goes, though there are a few saving graces.

Strongest of these saving graces is Guy Pearce who plays the part of Snow. Now Pearce has bulked himself up a bit and certainly looks the badass part.  What he does well though is that he doesn’t take the whole thing that seriously and it’s reflected in the character’s wisecracking dialogue.  He’s fun to watch whenever he’s on-screen, but it’s not for great action bits.  The other saving grace to the film is some pretty rich production design.  This has a terrific look to it and the visual effects are all pretty nicely done.

Where this fails though is in part of it’s casting and just the fact that with one exception, there really isn’t any great memorable action scenes.  Now of course, I’m a bit spoiled as I’ve just seen The Raid: Redemption the night before and that was just loaded with terrific and highly memorable action scenes, so much so that it makes Lockout look pedestrian in comparison.  Now I don’t expect every action film to go to the same lengths as The Raid: Redemption did, but I’d like to hope for at least a couple of really great set pieces in most action movies.  To my count, Lockout has only one that’s really inventive and that’s a motorcycle chase near the start of the film, with it’s only problem being that it’s over too fast.  After that, there’s really nothing to speak of.

As far as it’s casting goes, Pearce is the best thing about the movie going in.  Maggie Grace plays Emilie Warnock and she looks terrific, but she doesn’t really bring much else to the table.  Oh the script tries to get some adversarial banter going between her and Snow, but their chemistry just seemed a little too forced for me.  Vincent Regan and Jospeh Gilgun play are main villains aboard MS One.  Gilgun plays the abovementioned Hydell, and Regan plays his brother, Alex.  Neither are particularly effective in their parts and Gilgun is just hard to understand most of the time.  Lennie James and Peter Stormare play Shaw and Langral respectively and both are handling the investigation of Snow.  They’re both solid but man, I’d almost wish they’d been cast as the main bad guys aboard MS One instead as I think both could’ve brought a little more threat to the parts.

Lockout isn’t an offensively bad film, it’s just not that memorable.  It does run at a pretty quick pace (weighing in at 95 minutes) and it doesn’t take itself that seriously thanks mainly to a fun performance from Guy Pearce.  But really, this could’ve used a lot more in the action department and would’ve been helped significantly with better casting in the parts of the President’s daughter and the main villains.  As it is, it’s not a bad diversion, but one that you could probably wait to see when it’s no longer in theatres.

It’s been over 10 years since Perseus defeated the Kraken. Perseus was asked by his father Zeus to join him in Olympus, but declined to live his life out as a normal man.  He married Io and now has a son named Helius.  Io has since passed on and Perseus does his best to keep his son away from the life that he, Perseus, once led.  But Zeus has kept a watchful eye on his son and now the time has come where Zeus must call upon Perseus for his aid.  The ruler of the underworld, Hades, and the god of war, Ares, have joined forces to release the Titan, Kronos from his imprisonment in Tartarus and rule over the world of man.  At first, Perseus declines wanting nothing more than to spend his days with his son.  Soon though, events transpire that forces Perseus to join the battle and live up to the responsibility that’s part and parcel to his heritage.

That’s the premise to Wrath of the Titans the sequel to 2010’s Clash of the Titans and it’s also the latest film from director Jonathan Liebesman who directed last year’s Battle Los Angeles.  2010’s Clash of the Titans (a re-make of the 1981 Ray Harryhausen film) is not exactly well liked by most out there; I’m OK with it my own self- it’s not the greatest movie ever made, but it’s far from being the piece of trash that most make it out to be.  The thing that I don’t really forgive about it though is that it was the first major release post-Avatar to jump on the 3D bandwagon with a rushed 3D conversion, and at least in my estimation, was the starting point for the anti-3D feelings that you see from a lot of filmgoers today.  With that sort of pedigree (keeping in mind that Battle Los Angeles isn’t exactly well-liked either- though I enjoyed it a great deal), Wrath of the Titans has a couple of potential strikes against it before it’s even out of the gate.

Fortunately, Liebesman and crew took a good look at what was wrong with Clash and have gone to some considerable lengths to make it’s sequel a lot more fun.  And it is that, quite a bit of fun, but still with a few faults.

Liebesman shot Battle Los Angeles with an effective hand-held style that was great for putting you right in the middle of the action and he does the same thing here.  Now that style isn’t totally prevalent in this movie, and there’s plenty of instances where Liebesman will pull back his camera and give you a much clearer vantage point for all of the action.  While I prefer the hyper-stylized look of a similar movie like Immortals, this is  still a pretty darn good-looking film with some well-choreographed action, a few very cool set pieces and some terrific visual effects (very impressed by their rendition of Kronos which totally looks like it could’ve been a creation by the late, great Jack Kirby).

Now they do play a little fast and loose with the basic mythology and the characters are somewhat simplistic, but the ride is fast-paced and the 3D is absolutely fantastic.  That is the real improvement over Clash.  Clash’s 3D was an afterthought, Wrath’s 3D is well executed especially during the action sequences.

Sam Worthington, Liam Neeson, Ralph Fiennes and Danny Huston reprise their roles of Perseus, Zeus, Hades and Poseidon respectively.  Worthington really looks more the part now with his hair grown out.  He’s terrific in the action scenes and while he won’t win any dramatic awards for this, I thought the final scene in the film between Perseus and his son, Helius (john Bell) was actually pretty cool.  Neeson and Fiennes certainly both add gravity to this, and look like their having their own fun with it as well (especially Neeson).  New to this production are Rosamund Pike, Edgar Ramirez, Toby Kebbell and Bill Nighy.  Kudos to both Kebbell and Nighy for bringing a good sense of humor to the film.  Kebbell plays Agenor, the son of Poseidon and Nighy plays Hephaestus, the god who served as the blacksmith to the gods.  Nighy in particular looks like he’s having a ball with the part.

Wrath of the Titans won’t change anyone’s world, but it is a helluva lot of fun and a significantly better movie than it’s predecessor.  The look of the film is terrific, the action scenes and visual effects are exciting to watch, and the 3D is spectacular.  I had a great time with Wrath of the Titans and certainly recommend it.

In retrospect, I probably shouldn’t have gone to see this movie.  I really had no familiarity with the source material at all other than knowing the basic premise, which seemed to me to borrow liberally from a great Japanese movie (and book and manga) called Battle Royale.  Honestly, that was all that I knew about this other than the fact that it was big with a younger audience… that should’ve also been a tip off.

It’s a non-distinct time in the future.  A dystopian society has surfaced after an apparent uprising between the Haves and the Have-Nots (obviously written during the Bush administration, heaven forbid this could’ve ever been written during the Obama administration) across 12 different districts.  Now the Haves keep the Have-Nots at bay with their force of peacekeepers, but they also give them a little bit of hope in the form of entertainment known as The Hunger Games.  In The Hunger Games, a boy and a girl from each district (aged between 12 and 18) is chosen to engage in mortal combat against the other districts.  24 combatants enter the 2-week long game, but only one will survive, but to that one, fame and riches.

We’re now in District 12 and introduced to the sisters Katniss and Primrose Everdeen.  Primrose is set to be entered into the Hunger Games drawing for the very first time, and of course, her name is drawn to represent District 12.  Katniss, doesn’t stand for it at all, and says she’ll be the first actual volunteer for the games if they’ll let Primrose go free.  And of course, that’s what happens.  On the boy’s side, a young man named Peeta, who has an attraction to Katniss (much to the chagrin of another young man named Gale) is chosen and the two embark on the journey to participate in the Hunger Games.  Happy Hunger Games everybody!

I think the biggest problem that I have with The Hunger Games is just that it’s way too long, boring and just takes itself way too seriously.  Director Gary Ross has previously made films like Seabiscuit and Pleasantville (I actually enjoy Seabiscuit a great deal).  They’re directed in a somewhat safe style and it looks to me like he’s trying to be a bit “edgy” here by using lots of hand-held camera work and quick cuts, with the occasional break to let you bask in the production design.  This needed a real visual punch that, in my opinion, Ross doesn’t have (as much crap as he gets, a Paul W.S. Anderson could’ve really directed the hell out of this).

From what I understand, this is a very faithful adaptation of Suzanne Collins’ original book, and for fans of that, they’ll probably be in total heaven with this (and if our audience was any indication, it was just me and the friends I saw this with that had problems with this, but then we’re all white males near 50 or in our 50s as well).  The film’s vision of the future just doesn’t make a lot of sense to me.  It’s societal breakdown is told in just the simplest of strokes and it’s technology aspects and rules of the game are amorphous, with changes being made simply to advance it’s plot more than anything else.  For example, the games themselves take place in an ill-defined “arena” which is all controlled from a central source that can literally create life when it needs to (talking about the terrible CGI “dogs” seen at the very end).  The rules of the game are abruptly changed twice just to advance the “relationship” between Peeta and Katniss (these names are just soooo precious).  With the second climactic change of the rules, I just literally laughed out loud when it happened… it was just so safe.

I mentioned Battle Royale above and one of the great things that has going for it is it’s variety of characters that aren’t at all what they might appear on their surface.  Now sure, in the end, they might still be considered two-dimensional but that’s still one dimension more than most of the characters of The Hunger Games have.  Katniss Everdeen is the idealized nurturing female protagonist with no real faults at all and no real depth.  She’s told from the start the she has to win The Hunger Games and of course she does, but does it in such a way in which there’s no real blood on her hands.  The only real change for her is in the relationship that develops with Peeta, that just sort of comes to us as a matter of plot convenience.  I mean heaven forbid that she should remember that Peeta at the start of the games hooked up with a bunch of rivals in order to take Katniss specifically down.  Now to be fair, if you see a Die Hard movie with Bruce Willis, you’re sure to see Willis’ John McClane triumph in the end, that will happen, but at least the ride is fun and interesting with lots of great action and some snappy dialogue and one-liners that make it even more entertaining.  That type of movie still manages to build some suspense and there’s really no suspense at all in The Hunger Games.

The production design is… interesting.  It’s sort of like taking the great Ken Adam (who designed so many Bond films) and had him working with Lady GaGa and the Bravo Network at the same time.  There’s aspects to it that I think are quite cool (the control room for instance) and others that’s just perplexing.  I mean really, conservative “Haves” who will dress up in sparkly colors and have the hair colored blue and all bunned up in the future?  Yeah, I sorta find that one hard to buy.

And then there’s it’s whole social commentary, which is simplistic as is it’s cultural commentary.  I’ve read that this is supposed to be a big statement against reality TV shows and it just plays likes it’s written by a writer that just resents the concept of these shows more than one who’s done some actual digging into them.  Reality TV competitions are here to stay just as much as Young Adult genre fiction who’s fans thinks it’s far superior to anything else that’s ever been written before.

Performances… well I really can’t fault Jennifer Lawrence for what she does as Katniss.  She’s doing everything that’s asked of her, I just don’t think it’s asking much. The same can be said with the rest of the young cast as well.  The bright spot for me is in the character of Haymitch played by Woody Harrelson, a former winner of the Hunger Games, and Cinna played by Lenny Kravitz, the stylist for Katniss.  Both of these guys at least give the impression of more depth and have a bit more “lived in” quality to what they do.  I also have to give a little call out to Wes Bentley as Seneca, who I guess is the “producer” of the games.  Not so much for his performance, but more for being willing to let the filmmakers mold him into the cartoon character villain (and appearance wise, really all he needs are real horns coming out of his forehead).  That actually takes some stones to give yourself over to that, so good for Wes.

So in the end, well, The Hunger Games just wasn’t for me.  I’m clearly not it’s intended audience though I was most certainly willing to give it a chance.  It’s intended audience will no doubt absolutely love this to death and if this weekend’s box office is any indication, I think it’s a safe bet that you’ll all get your sequels in the future.  I believe I will pass on those and if I want to see something that uses this similar premise again, I’ll just satisfy myself by picking up the just-released DVD or Blu-Ray of the far superior Battle Royale or else watch something like The Running Man again (which at least knows how to not take itself so damn seriously).  Happy Hunger Games everybody!

A young woman named Sarah is working on an old summer house with her father and uncle with the purpose of selling the house.  As things progress, Sarah finds herself trapped in the house under unknown circumstances and now must survive the nightmare that she’s about to endure.

That’s the cryptic premise to Silent House the new horror film (actually more psychological thriller) from director’s Chris Kentis and Laura Lau who previously directed the thriller Open Water.  It’s an adaptation of a Uruguay film called La Casa Muda that I haven’t seen.  Like Open Water, Silent House uses a gimmick to tell it’s story.  The gimmick here is telling the entire series of events with the illusion of one seamless 80+ minute take.  It’s certainly an ambitious move, though it also gets in the way of making this truly effective.

Now, the reason for that, at least from my point of view, comes from the twist revealed at the end of why all of this is happening to Sarah.  This twist doesn’t come out of the blue and there are certainly clues leading up to it, but I think you almost need more time with Sarah to become truly invested in her experience by it’s end.  With that said, I do think that this could be a more fulfilling film on a second viewing considering that you’d now know to look for certain things, but I don’t know if it would make it any more effective.

I’m trying not to spoil anything about this movie, but it’s somewhat hard to do so and still go on about my criticism about it.  While this isn’t a direct spoiler, I’m going to make a comparison here that could certainly act as one, so you’ve been warned and you might want to avoid the rest of this paragraph. If there’s any movie that Silent House resembles most to me, it’s Alexandre Aja’s movie from 2003, High Tension.  If you’ve seen High Tension, then you’re already familiar with it’s twist and the twist there isn’t that far off from the same twist in Silent House.  The threat of this film is from Sarah’s own internalized past history.  The difference though is that High Tension takes a little more time to get you invested in it’s main character and thus makes it extremely effective when the twist is revealed.  Because of the nature of this film (being presented as one long take), you just don’t have the same opportunity to do the same with Sarah.  I give Kentis and Lau a lot of credit though, they try to do what they can within their box, so to speak, but it’s not quite enough.  I’d almost rather that they’d made this more of an external tangible threat and did away with the psychological elements entirely, but doing so would’ve changed this film entirely and would’ve made this a much different piece.

Now with that said, I do think they pull off their illusion pretty effectively even though there are certainly moments that can be picked out where there would be breaks in the filming.  The film’s sound design is extremely well done and for a film like this, it should be.  Elizabeth Olsen (the younger sister of Mary Kate and Ashley) plays Sarah and she’s terrific considering what she has to work with, but what she has to work with is more of a character sketch more than anything else.

I don’t think Silent House is a horrible movie by any means, but it’s just not as effective and horrifying as it could be and most of that is due to the nature of it’s gimmick.  I love a good gimmick movie, but this movie’s gimmick stands in the way of really getting behind it’s main character considering where they take their main character.  There’s certainly stuff here to chew on that I think would certainly be worth a second viewing down the road, but until I do that myself, I can’t say for a certainty that it would make it any more effective.

Edgar Rice Burroughs’ most famous creation is undoubtedly the lord of the jungle, Tarzan.  Mr. Burroughs has also taken us to lands where dinosaurs still run free, the Earth’s core and to planets near to us, both Venus and Mars.  Burroughs’ trips to Mars were always my very favorite, and his heroic creation, John Carter, was, to me anyway, one of the greatest creations in literature.  I grew up reading first the comic book adventures of John Carter in the pages of DC Comics’ Weird Worlds where writer Marv Wolfman and artists Murphy Anderson and later Sal Amendola chronicled the adventures of the good captain, loosely based around Burroughs’ A Princess of Mars.  Of course the actual book came next and I was in love with the character and the fantastic world of Barsoom (that’s what the Mars inhabitants call their world) all over again.

So yeah, I guess you can say I’m a big fan and so I was very much looking forward to it when Disney announced a big-budget live-action film version which was going to be more spearheaded by some of the Pixar kids more than on the Disney side.  Pixar’s own Andrew Stanton is the director of John Carter making his live action directorial debut after directing such films as Wall•E and Finding Nemo and he’s obviously a big fan as well, he definitely gets it and has made a film that I thought was quite an enjoyable experience.  Sometimes you wonder though if Disney marketing would’ve let him take it as far he did.

See, originally, this was announced under the title of John Carter of Mars and then it was simply titled John Carter as, from what I understand, a result of focus group testing in which a full 50% of the people tested said that they would not go to see the movie if the “of Mars” was in the title.  Oh yeah, there’s scantily clad people running around in battles with swords, there’s airships flying about, there’s a guy who can leap great distances, and let’s not forget the 10-foot tall four-armed green men and women as well… and the “of Mars” would keep them out of the theatres…. You hear about things like this and you sometimes just have to wonder why they even bother.

But no matter… as I said, I thought John Carter was a pretty enjoyable ride.  The basic premise is this: Carter, a former confederate cavalry captain is in America’s west after the end of the Civil War.  He’s about to be conscripted in with the United States cavalry (against his will) and goes on the run.  As he’s on the run, Carter goes into a mysterious cave which he soon finds to be a doorway to the planet Mars.  Once on Mars, or as their inhabitants call it Barsoom, Carter finds that his strength is much greater on the planet, he meets up with the race of 10-foot tall four-armed green people known as Tharks (their leader, Tars Tarkas takes great personal interest in Carter) and soon gets caught up in the struggle between warring City-States of Zodanga and Helium.  Helium’s princess, the ravishing Dejah Thoris, persuades Carter to help her in Helium’s battle with their enemy all the while a greater threat looms.

Now that’s the basic premise, though there’s much more to it than that, but generally speaking, this is extremely pulpy material and there’s nothing wrong with that at all.  During the credits, it will say “Based on ‘A Princess of Mars” where it should actually say “loosely”– again, nothing wrong with that as long as the basic spirit of the piece is preserved, but I just bring that up in case anyone decides that they want to read the book later- well, parts of it will be in the movie.  Fortunately, the spirit is well preserved here and there’s quite a bit that Stanton and company get dead solid perfect in this, but also a few stumbling blocks as well.

The biggest stumbling block is that I think they try to do too much in just this one film and overcomplicate things a bit.  I mentioned above about a greater threat looming- well that threat is certainly true to the books, but doesn’t come along until a little bit later in the series.  What they’ve done here is basically push this into being more of an epic than it has to be, whereas there’s enough basic material in A Princess of Mars to more than make for a good rousing adventure and have the chance to breath a bit when it needs to.

The other thing that bothers me a bit, though I don’t think this will really deter from anyone’s enjoyment of the film, is the relationship set-up between Dejah Thoris and John Carter.  It starts as adversarial when there’s really no need to do so.  Yes, they want to make Dejah Thoris more than just this object of desire, and that’s certainly fine, but I don’t necessarily think you have to go at it with both characters sorta sniping at each other from the start.  Don’t get me wrong, it’s not unbearable and it’s not all pervasive, it’s just a little different from what I’m used to seeing with these characters and thus I question whether it should even be in there.  It’s a moot observation.

When they get stuff right here though, they really get it right.  Carter’s first experiences on Mars, adjusting to the Martian gravity and then coming into contact with the Tharks was just so pleasing to see.  The entire art direction and design should please anyone who’s seen any other visual version of Carter and company in the past.  Carter’s epic battle with one of the White Apes of Mars, is genuinely thrilling and casting through the whole film is right on the money.

Taylor Kitsch plays John Carter and Lynn Collins plays Dejah Thoris.  Both have worked together before on the first Wolverine movie and their casting for this film was announced shortly after that movie came out.  Kitsch wouldn’t have been my first choice for this part (I would’ve cast Lost’s Josh Holloway as the good captain), as he seems a little too on the younger side, but once things get going, you can tell that Kitsch is having a ball with the whole thing.  He may not be my own personal first choice, but still he was a good choice to play the part.  Lynn Collins has moments where she’s just the purest of visions to what I expect Dejah Thoris to look like in live action  To me, that just might be the toughest thing about casting that part- getting an actress who has those looks, can pull off the regality and isn’t a big enough name where her name overshadows everything else, Collins does the job.

Nice support all around, Willem Dafoe is going through the whole motion capture route to play Tars Tarkas of the Tharks, and there are some great moments between him and Carter at various times through the movie. If you know the series, then you know that the relationship that happens between these two is right up there to something like Riggs and Murtaugh from the Lethal Weapon series.  There are glimpses of it here (and there could’ve been more had this stuck more to the source) and it’s always cool when it happens. Ciarán Hinds plays Tardos Mors, the leader of Helium, Dominic West plays the villainous Sab Than of Zodanga, and Mark Strong plays Matai Shang (part of the looming threat I allude to above).  Joining Dafoe in the motion capture end you’ve got Samantha Morton as Sola (Tars’ daughter), Thomas Haden Church as Tal Hajus, a challenger to Tarkas’ leadership and Polly Walker as Sarkoja, a female Thark who absolutely delights in ratting out Sola whenever she can.  And adding even further, you’ve got the great Bryan Cranston in at the start as Colonel Powell, the cavalryman who’s trying to get Carter to join with him.  It’s a terrific supporting cast and my one lone complaint is just not enough Tars Tarkas…

Did I have a good time John Carter? Hell, yes… Was it at the same level as some other big action films like a Mission: Impossible- Ghost Protocol? (and I only use that as an example because it’s another action film from a director who’s best known for his work in animation)  Not quite… I guess I might be a little too close to the source material, but still, I do think it’s very much worth seeing and they certainly do get a lot right here, it’s just that the mix may be a little too filled with some unnecessary (for now) stuff for an introductory movie.  It is a great time and it sure as hell beats the Asylum/SyFy Channel version that stars Antonio Sobato Jr. as John Carter and Traci Lords as Dejah Thoris (though that is good for a laugh, but still, it’s so low budget that they couldn’t afford the four extra feet in height and two additional arms for their Tharks).

A deep-cover CIA operative has been working within the system of a Philippine drug ring run by a man known as Christo.  Christo is suspected of having deeper ties to organized terrorism, but so far is just suspected.  The operative has been discovered and now she’s being tortured to tell what she knows.  An elite Navy SEAL team, SEAL Team 7 under the command of Lieutenant Rorke and Chief Dave has been dispatched to rescue her and in the process uncover a plot of potential devastating terrorism that takes their team around the world in order to stop it.

That’s the premise to Act of Valor, a movie that I’ve been looking forward to ever since first seeing it’s trailer in the fall of 2011.  This movie has been promoted by the fact that the SEAL team is in fact being played by real-life active duty Navy SEALs. So right off the bat, in the eyes of some that could be a huge drawback simply because these guys aren’t professional actors.  Personally though, I thought it was a breath of fresh air.

Because they’re not professional actors, Act of Valor doesn’t feel the need to go into it’s characters in an overly complicated way.  Near the start of the film, before the SEALs are deployed, they’re enjoying time with their families all together on a beach.  As their party draws to a close, the SEALs come together with the leaders of the team right off the bat asking everyone if there’s any sort of personal or financial problems that any of them have.  They basically want to put those to rest right away so that everyone’s mind is purely on the mission at hand.  Doing this takes that whole little bit of overcomplicating the characters right out of the picture and instead concentrates on the action, the plot and the fact that these guys are the very best at what they do and as one should expect, upstanding people who you can count on.

What you get is an incredibly slick piece of entertainment that has total authenticity to it’s action.  The action set pieces are incredibly well made and you really do get an accurate idea of what it must be like to be right in the midst of the type of firefights that these guys have to endure.  From what I understand, this is the first feature film from directors Mike “Mouse” McCoy and Scott Waugh, though you’d never know.  The action scenes are extremely compelling and the whole thing is edited with a tight pace.

If I have any criticism at all about the movie, it’s in the fact that something that happens to one of the SEALs is telegraphed at the very beginning of the film and so when this event does happen, it doesn’t quite have the impact that it should.  You’re basically expecting this to happen at some point and while I get why it was done, I’d like to think that there should’ve been a way to get the same points across without telegraphing this action.  These guys aren’t professional actors, but at least in my case, I still tended to give a damn about them and felt just a little robbed at not getting the emotional impact from this bit of business that I should’ve gotten.  It’s not a dealbreaker by any means, and the end denouement supplies a pretty darn satisfying emotional resolution  to the life these men have chosen to lead.

Normally, I’d take a little time to specifically talk about the actors and their performances, but because these guys are active duty SEALs, their full names aren’t given in the end credits.  For not being professional actors, I think these guys do a pretty good job at getting you sucked into the action particularly Rorke and Dave and a character known as Senior who acts as an interrogator.  Their line delivery may not be as professional as it could be, but it’s more than made up for by their screen presence, authentic actions and facial expressions.

Act of Valor is  a very entertaining and unique film.  It’s distinctly made (at least to me) outside of the Hollywood system and yet it’s action can stand head and shoulder with films like Black Hawk Down or We Were Soldiers.  This is real stirring filmmaking and needless to say (though I’ll say it anyway), highly recommended.

Johnny Blaze is literally on the run from himself, or more precisely the demon inside him known as the Ghost Rider.  He’s found himself in seclusion in a non-descript area of Eastern Europe,  Simultaneously, a religious order is under attack by a group of men seeking to take a young boy from them who’s under their protection.  As the attack occurs, the boy, Danny, and his mother Nadya go on the run and manage to escape their pursuers.  Moreau, a member of the order, tries to find them but has little luck.  One thing that Moreau is aware of is the fact that the Rider is near by and he knows he could persuade Johnny Blaze to search for Danny and Nadya.

Moreau finds Blaze and explains why the boy is so valuable, and with the offer of being able to release Blaze from his curse, Johnny Blaze soon joins the pursuit.

Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance is the second film to use Marvel Comics’ superhero/supernatural character and all it has in common with the first movie is Nicolas Cage playing Blaze and the broadest of aspects of the character’s origin.  It’s both a sequel and a re-boot, which of course for most are already two strikes against it.  But under the able directorial team of Neveldine/Taylor (Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor who have previously made the Crank movies and more recently Gamer with Gerard Butler), there’s a lot of new life here, but it’s hard for me to say if it will be embraced. For myself though, I had a ball with this.

Neveldine/Taylor and Cage are basically embracing all of the “B” movie aspects of the Ghost Rider and just playing them to the hilt.  Just about every part of the film is over-the-top fun.  Neveldine/Taylor’s hyper-kinetic shooting style just fits this thing to a “T.” I’ve already read complaints of the style for this film from others as being too fast and shaky, and it is fast and shaky, but honestly I just didn’t have any trouble following the action in the slightest.  I think the choice of setting this in a non-descript area of Easter Europe was on point.  The locations are both bleak and beautiful and add a bit of surreality that for me harkens back to such horror movies as Wes Craven’s The Hills Have Eyes or Robert Fuest’s The Devil’s Rain.

The attention to detail is terrific and really on focus with the background settings and in the re-design of The Ghost Rider himself.  The new look of the Rider is evident in his skull visage and close-shots of the leathers he wears which are both charred and boiling due to the intense heat caused by the Rider.  Neveldine/Taylor are directors who were made for 3D and their use of the effect is extremely entertaining both for it’s immersion and it’s moments of being in-your-face.  One of the better uses of the technology is also one of the more quiet scenes in the film.  This scene is a split screen phone call that takes place between Roarke (the man in pursuit of Danny) and Carrigan (Roarke’s lead in the pursuit).  When the screen is split, it offers up to completely different planes of depth that’s just really fascinating to watch.

Nicolas Cage looks like he’s really having a ball with this one.  In the first movie, I thought his quirks worked a little against the story that was being told (though in general, I like the film), but here, Neveldine/Taylor really play that up to a point where it’s funny to watch, but still entirely suitable to the story.  When Cage is in action as the Ghost Rider, he adds some jerky movements to the character that can imply two things; either Blaze still trying to contain the character or the demon being uncomfortably confined to a human host- either way it works.  I tend to think Cage is at his best when he’s making “B” movie fare and I certainly enjoyed him in movies like Drive Angry and Season of the Witch.  He certainly plays with that here, but there’s also a little bit in common with his work with Werner Herzog in Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call-New Orleans as well.

Violante Placido and Fergus Riordan play Nadya and Danny, and they’re the most “normal” parts to the whole film (though Placido is over-the-top gorgeous in her part).  Johnny Whitworth plays Ray Carrigan, who later gets transformed his own self into what should be a worthy opponent to the Ghost Rider, and i general, he’s a fun character.  Idris Elba plays Moreau, and it’s a character that to me certainly has a lot more life to him than others that Elba has played.  Much like Cage, Elba looks like he’s having a ball making this film.

The biggest surprise to me in the cast though was Ciarán Hinds as Roarke.  Hinds has always been one of those guys who for me has always been a little on the stiff side in his parts (though don’t get me wrong, it’s worked for some of those parts as well).  Here, he’s positively animated in a way that could suggest that’s he’s some sort of strange mix of Moe Howard, Shemp Howard, Ernest Borgnine and the Devil Incarnate rolled into one.  Now I know that mentioning two of The Three Stooges here could sound detrimental and it’s not meant that way at all.  There’s something that’s just both fun and funny about Roarke and Hinds looks like he’s lapping it all up and just enjoying every single minute of it.

I suspect I’m going to be a minority on this one, but I just had a terrific time with Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance.  Neveldine/Taylor’s visual style is a perfect fit for the character and their use of 3D is both inventive and immersive.  The performances, in particular from Nicolas Cage and Ciarán Hinds are over-the-top and not meant to be taken seriously at all, and much like the visual style of the film, they fit.  All this really needed to further it’s embracing of “B-movie trash” (and I say that with great love for “B” movie trash) was adding some of the scratched and warped film effects that Robert Rodriguez used in his portion of Grindhouse, Planet Terror.  This was a lot of fun and I look forward to eventually seeing it again down the road.

Andrew Detmer is a very troubled young man.  His father, a former firefighter who’s lost his job due to injury, gets drunk and lashes out at him.  His mother is bed-ridden and dying a slow death.  Andrew is constantly being pushed around at school with his only real friend being his cousin, Matt Garetty.  Andrew has begun to keep a video chronicle of his life for unstated reasons, though one could assume it’s for a number of things, and begins to carry around a video camera constantly, which of course gets him pushed around even further.  Matt wants Andrew to come out of his shell and go to a party, though he tries to get Andrew to leave the camera home, but to no avail.  After a series of mishaps at the party, Andrew finds himself alone outside, when he’s approached by Steve Montgomery, a fellow classmate who’s running for class president.  Steve and Matt have found something very strange out in a back field and they want Andrew to come and film it.  What they discover is something mysterious in origin that gives the three superpowers.

That’s the premise to Chronicle a new movie from first time feature director Josh Trank and it’s written by Trank and Max Landis, who’s the son of director John Landis.  To be perfectly honest, I was only slightly interested in this by seeing it’s trailer.  It’s trailer presented itself as a “found footage” movie, but I didn’t find altogether that much to grab me by it other than that.  In addition, it seems like over the last couple of years, there’s been this trend to start the year off with some movies that tell stories about young people who have superpowers.  Movies like Jumper, Push and I Am Number Four have followed, and while I haven’t seen I Am Number Four I’ve seen the other two and didn’t much care for either of them.  So I was somewhat hesitant to see Chronicle.

And now I thank goodness that I did… Chronicle is just fantastic filmmaking, a real evolution of the “found footage” genre, and a story that absolutely gets everything right in it’s presentation of young people with superpowers.  One thing that I thought some of the above-mentioned efforts seriously lacked were appealing characters.  Based on the initial trailer for Chronicle, I thought it was going to do the same, but that’s not the case at all.  Right from the start, Trank and Landis get you invested in Andrew, and as the movie builds, I really found myself liking Andrew, Matt and Steve a great deal and really giving a damn about what happens to them next.

Though Chronicle can be described as a “found footage” movie, it really moves everything up another level.  Other films like this present themselves as a documentary, but this goes to a different place and once the trio get their powers, it adds in a new wrinkle that makes it’s presentation even more effective.  Things get even more interesting later in the film during it’s terrific final twenty minutes, when it then incorporates security camera footage and footage shot by another character, Casey- a video blogger who becomes Matt’s romantic interest.  This presentation is just fantastic and Trank really knows how to use it effectively.

Then there’s the actual use of the powers themselves… Compared to other films, Chronicle is certainly a lower-budgeted piece.  There’s something that seems a little more raw to the visual effects here, but combined with the way the film is shot, it’s really effective and absolutely feels real.  I don’t know for sure, but I’d certainly guess that both Trank and Landis have to be real fans of the genre and it feels like there’s tips of the hat to such pieces at Katsuhiro Otomo’s Akira and Alan Moore’s Miracleman comics, and for a comics fan like myself, it’s nice to see these nods.

I really have to give the three young actors who play our leads huge kudos.  Dane DeHaan plays Andrew, Alex Russell plays Matt and Michael B. Jordan plays Steve and all three have their individual characteristics and also have great chemistry together.  As I said above, you care about these guys, they are lived-in characters and compelling to follow.  I really have to single out Dane DeHaan amongst the three as the guy to watch.  He’s absolutely terrific here and has the same qualities of a young Leonardo DiCaprio.  This kid’s got a real future ahead of him.

Chronicle is just one terrific movie.  Though it has a short running time (under 90 minutes), it gets a lot in and every scene counts.  Josh Trank has a terrific understanding of the “found footage” genre and pushes it forward in some very interesting and appealing ways.  Trank and Landis have created three characters that you care about and want to follow and their use of their superpowers (especially in the film’s final twenty minutes) are just thrilling to watch.  This is terrific stuff and of course, highly, highly recommended. Don’t miss Chronicle.

John Ottway is a solitary man who’s dealing with huge depression since losing a woman who’s very important to him.  He’s run away from his undefined past to work security for at an oil-drilling site in Alaska.  His security work involves the hunting down and killing of dangerous man-eating wolves that are a constant threat to the workers.  His solitary existence leaves him with little compassion for the men he works with, but still he diligently does his job.  He’s up for some leave time and joins some fellow employees on a flight to Anchorage when something happens with the plane he’s on and it crashes,  Ottway and a handful of men survive the crash and now must fight for survival in the midst of the elements and the wolves.

The Grey is the latest movie from director Joe Carnahan and star Liam Neeson who last teamed together on the movie version of The A-Team. Prior to this, Carnahan also directed Smokin’ Aces and NARC. I had a decent time with both The A-Team and Smokin’ Aces though I wasn’t necessarily bowled over by either of them.  NARC on the other hand was a different story, it was an absolutely terrific film and I’ve been hoping for Carnahan to hit me the same way since.  The Grey certainly comes a lot closer though I do have a couple of issues with the movie.

Those issues involve the slow pacing of the film and little development for the film’s side characters.  I absolutely get why the film is slowly paced- this is pretty much a impossible situation to survive and so it’s inevitability would be natural to be drawn out, but here it’s just drawn out a little too long and it feels it.  Though Neeson’s Ottway is the character we’re essentially following in the film, we’re also given a handful of survivors that are slightly drawn with little to get behind.  One of these characters near the end of the film engages in some existentialism that just, at least to me, comes out of nowhere.  It seems forced and while I suppose it could be argued that this really could result out of this situation, it just doesn’t quite ring true and further drags the pace of the film.

To be fair though, Carnahan’s set pieces involving the wolves and the survival tactics are quite well done.  Liam Neeson is excellent in his part and certainly brings the needed intensity to the role.  I think it could’ve been improved with having a couple less side characters from the start who could’ve been a little more clearly defined as the film progresses.  With that definition, then some of the existential moments would’ve made more sense and would’ve been more poignant.  The Grey isn’t a bad film by any means, but it could’ve been tightened up a little more.  Tightening it up would’ve made it’s message about survival in an impossible situation a lot more pronounced.

If you’re wanting to see a movie like this that gets it’s points right on target, I’d suggest the thriller Frozen about three friends who get trapped aboard a ski lift and left to the elements to try to survive.  It’s an extremely tight film with three very well-drawn characters that truly do make you give a damn on whether they survive.  And as a final note, if you do choose to see The Grey, then you should stay through the end credits for one last little scene.  My friends and I could literally feel some dissatisfaction from the audience from the abruptness of the ending of the film and of course by the time the end credits rolled, they had all left the theatre.  This one little scene could’ve gone a long way to alleviating a little of that had they either stayed through it, or better… if Carnahan had placed it right after the main credits had rolled.