I watch movies every week and then write down my thoughts. Read my previous reviews!
My rating is simple, Watch It, It Depends, Skip it.
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| Superman Returns - Sequel, remake, or Christopher Reeve tribute? |
Buy Superman Returns
Written by: Michael Dougherty & Dan Harris (screenplay), Bryan Singer & Michael Dougherty & Dan Harris (story), Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster (characters)
Directed by: Bryan Singer
Starring: Brandon Routh, Kevin Spacey, Kate Bosworth, Kevin Spacey, James Marsden, Parker Posey, Frank Langella
Rated: PG-13
Plot:
Superman returns to Earth after a five year absence.
Verdict:
Kah-el is Superman and Clark Kent. Early on the movie explores that nuance, but that falls away once we get into the villain's machinations. Lex Luthor has very little depth, robbing Superman of a worthy enemy.
This is a tribute to the Superman franchise, but the story could have been so much better. Luthor lacks credibility, and thus his plan just seems silly.
It depends.
Review:
I unwittingly watched this on the tenth year anniversary of the release. Numerous directors have been attached to many proposed sequels. Tim Burton and Nicolas Cage started on a sequel. J.J. Abrams wrote a script with a Krypton civil war spilling over to Earth. Bryan Singer skipped out on X-Men 3 to direct this.
This movie is very much a continuation of the Christopher Reeve/Richard Donner Superman movies from 1978 and 1980. It even uses the same title sequence and John Williams music, though it does ignore Superman III and IV.
It's part remake and part sequel. Superman has been gone for five years, but is now back. Clark Kent is still infatuated with Lois Lane who barely knows he exists. Lois is still smitten with Superman. It's an intriguing dynamic to see someone so powerful, yet so vulnerable. Kal-el is both of these men, but has to keep them separate. His struggle is what makes the character so intriguing.
Lois resents him for leaving. She is engaged and has a young son, even winning a Pulitzer for her article "Why the World Doesn't Need Superman." It's a little hokey to shoehorn in an award, not to mention the anachronism of a bustling newspaper. This movie doesn't pick a clear time period. It seems to be set in present day, but the newspaper business seems to be at a peak. Ma Kent is still driving a pickup truck from the 1930's and the farm is unchanged. At first it seemed we were getting a flashback of Superman landing on Earth as a child, but it's only his return. The movie wants to recreate or pay homage to moments from the original, which it does. Brandon Routh feels like he's putting on a Christopher Reeve tribute, but he never makes the role his own.
While Superman was handled well, Lex Luthor is too cartoonish. Kevin Spacey was a great choice, but Lex just wants to extort the world by creating a new continent. The logic and his intentions are lacking. He's on the verge of cackling maniacally in every scene. He's after world domination, but humanizing him as a foil to Superman could have had so much more impact. He's a self proclaimed genius that seems anything but, followed around by a bunch of bumbling thugs that are more lap dogs than criminals.
Lois interviews Lex, while bringing her son along, seemingly just to setup a damsel in distress trope
Superman must save Lois, but Lex Luthor is using Kryptonite to his advantage. The weakened Superman is punched and kicked before Luthor stabs him with a Kryptonite shard. This was a really good scene. The direction in this movie is great. It's a depiction of classic movie Superman, by a crew that really loves the franchise. Many scenes look absolutely great. The last third also hints that Lois's son might not be from her fiancee.
Of course Superman triumphs, but the Kryptonite wound puts him in a coma. It's only when Lois whispers a secret in his ear that he awakes. We don't hear what she says, but it's easy to deduce the subject, especially with Superman's next monologue. This secret raises a whole slew of unanswered questions, and it's unnecessary. This movies is two and a half hours long, and that's too long. it easily could have been trimmed down by removing a few side characters.
Superman promises he's here to stay. He has a new responsibility after all, and Lois writes an article about why the world needs Superman. It's goofy as is the movie ultimately. Maybe there's no way to fix the fact that. Lex Luthor has to be murderous, otherwise there is no one to save. Superman only stops theft if someone is about to die. Then again, Lex Luthor should have been more reserved and dark instead of silly. He could have been bent on revenge, wanting to break Superman. Why couldn't he have assembled a crack shot team? I continually wondered why he brought the others along. His assistant serves absolutely no purpose other than to act ditzy and question him. She's convenient to the plot later, but still unnecessary. To make a good Superman you need a good villain. This is not a good villain.
The easy comparison is this and Man of Steel (2013). Both movies are flawed and lack good villains. I'd give Man of Steel the edge, just because I like the take on the character and it had a bit more action.
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| The Scorch Trials - Hiding how bad it is by adding way too many plot elements. |
Buy The Maze Runner: Scorch Trials
Written by: T.S. Nowlin (screenplay), James Dashner (novel)
Directed by: Wes Ball
Starring: Dylan O'Brien, Kaya Scodelario, Thomas Brodie-Sangster, Giancarlo Esposito, Barry Pepper, Aidan Gillen
Rated: PG-13
Plot:
They've escaped the maze and are now faced with a desolate landscape, dangerous people, and zombies.
Verdict:
The first movie had a great first half and a terrible second half. This sequel picks up at the terrible part and manages to be even worse. It picks the worst tropes and puts them into one scattered movie. The movie believes that if crams enough stuff into the plot, you won't notice how bad it is.
Skip it.
Review:
I liked the first movie. The Mazer Runner (2014) had a great opening, but it fell apart half way through (read my review).
I hoped The Scorch Trials could recapture some of that magic, but it doesn't. It seemes like it might be a retread of the first with a bigger maze. The introduction is all over the place. It's got kids, zombies, the military, sci-fi experiments, a mad scientist, a para-military group, and a post apocalypse desert. The entire setup is underwhelming and cliche. I guess the plan was to create one good movie and hope people would blindly watch the sequels. It worked! If I was a smarter person, I would have stopped watching this after thirty minutes.
This is atrocious. Issues include pacing, characters, and plot. My illusions of only being a bad remake were dashed when it went full zombie. What is this movie? Nowlin is the main writer for this, but it's apparent he wasn't the main writer for the first movie. That or he had little regard for this film. This movie also underscores how a script can make a director look good or bad.
The kids escape the maze and are saved but realize scientists are using them for scientific experiments to find a cure. Of course Thomas (Dylan O'Brien) must escape. He encounters a small camp with zombie guard dogs, a dilapidated city, and later a Barry Pepper led militia.
Is the book this bad? Per wikipedia, the book is quite a bit different with the potential to be better than this movie.
This movie combines the waning popularity of zombies and young adult books to horrible effect. Many scenes in this movie have been seen before and done better, like when Thomas's companion is standing on a window pane that is slowly cracking. There is also a hallucination sequence notable for how bad it is. This movie continually finds a way to lower the bar, actively giving you reasons to not like it.
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| Barbarella - Less a movie, more a Jane Fonda bizarro fashion demo tape. |
Watch Barbarella on Netflix
Buy Barbarella
Written by: Jean-Claude Forest (comic "Barbarella"), Claude Brulé (collaborating writer), Terry Southern and Roger Vadim (screenplay), Vittorio Bonicelli and Clement Biddle Wood and Brian Degas and Tudor Gates (writer)
Directed by: Roger Vadim
Starring: Jane Fonda, John Phillip Law, Anita Pallenberg
Rated: PG
Plot:
In the distant future, Barbarella must stop the evil Durand-Durand.
Verdict:
There is so little story to this you can't call it a movie. Jane Fonda prances around, changing costumes every few minutes and then the 'movie' ends. It's incredibly bad, but not in a so bad it's good sense. It's a marvel it was made. It's ridiculous on so many levels in a bad way. It's so far down the alphabet that calling it a B movie is generous.
Skip it.
Review:
Based on the comic of the same name, Jane Fonda was directed by her husband, Roger Vadim. I can only assume he created this as an excuse to dress her up in skimpy costumes.
From the first scene, in which Jane Fonda undresses from a space suit in zero gravity, I'm wondering what is this thing? This is a B movie of epic proportions. I would not be surprised if some of these scenes were filmed in a basement. While Barbarella is tasked with tracking Durand Durand, her main role is to change costumes at every opportunity.
The plot is sparse, much like the clothing. The setting is either very warm or these characters hate clothes. This is a collection of scenes, that seems too earnest to be a joke but that's what this movie is. It has the worst production values I've seen, though it may not be the worst movie.
There is a scene were Barbarella receives an invisible key. The scene might as well have been filmed with random people off the street.
Barbarella gets attacked by dolls, children, and parakeets. At some point this movie ends, but did it ever really begin?
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| Three Days of the Condor - The precursor to the Bourne movies. |
Buy Three Days of the Condor
Written by: James Grady (novel), Lorenzo Semple and David Rayfiel (screenplay)
Directed by: Sydney Pollack
Starring: Robert Redford, Faye Dunaway, Cliff Robertson, Max von Sydow
Rated: R
Plot:
A researcher for the CIA returns from lunch to find his colleagues murdered and must outwit the assailants.
Verdict:
I'm sure this was a break through action movie when it premiered. Redford is a CIA agent on the run and fighting a corrupt official. With the advent of the Bourne series, The Bourne Identiy (2002) is the natural evolution and a better movie.
It depends.
Review:
The premise is great. Joe Turner (Robert Redford) is a CIA analyst that works out of a disguised library, reviewing documents for hidden code. He leaves to pick up lunch and everyone in the office is murdered. The movie wastes no time kicking off the action.
He can't trust anyone. Anybody on the street could potentially be an agent. He kidnaps a woman (Faye Dunaway) and steals her car to get out of town. Despite being kidnapped, she knows deep down he's a good guy and sleeps with him. This is easily the most ridiculous part of an otherwise entertaining thriller.
While many movies annoying backtrack, holding your hand to point out the plot reveal, this does it better than most. It shares many similarities with Bourne, adding a hint of James Bond. Unfortunately Bourne established a new baseline for hand to hand combat, and this movie's fight scene seems amateur in comparison.
Turner is spared when the officials that went rogue become a larger liability. It's all business. It was never that Turner was dangerous, he was just a threat.
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| Larua - A movie aged well. |
Watch Laura on Netflix
Buy Laura
Written by: Vera Caspary (novel), Jay Dratler and Samuel Hoffenstein and Elizabeth Reinhardt (screen play), Ring Lardner, Jr. (uncredited)
Directed by: Otto Preminger
Starring: Gene Tierney, Dana Andrews, Clifton Webb
Rated: --
Plot:
A police detective falls in love with the murdered woman he is investigating.
Verdict:
It's a tangled web of who may have murdered Laura and who loves her. It's amazing for it's time, but feels less fresh after seventy years. Despite the age, it's still enjoyable with great performances all around.
Watch it.
Review:
It's film noir with a detective investigating the murder of the charming Laura. Newspaper writer Waldo is smitten with her. While she uses him to further her advertising career, he takes her to dinner parties. He's friend zoned hard, and he gets jealous when Laura falls for her aunt's guy on the side.
The detective becomes to close to the case, but this aspect isn't fully explored. The cop has the power to mold the outcome of the investigation. This may be touched upon by his lack of procedure with the case, but in the 40's they may not have had standards. Either way he has a conflict of interests.
This may be the earliest case of a shotgun blast to the face making identification difficult. A Chekhov's gun trope aids the detective in determining the suspect. It's a great movie in the context of 1944. While it doesn't seem as innovative now, a solid cast, including Vincent Price before he was relegated to horror movie roles, makes this enjoyable regardless.
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