2010 Review #23: Knight & Day

Knight & Day

Rated PG-13
1 hour 50 minutes

Storyline:
June Havens finds her everyday life tangled with that of a secret agent who has realized he isn't supposed to survive his latest mission. As their campaign to stay alive stretches across the globe, they soon learn that all they can count on is each other.

Cast:
Tom Cruise
Cameron Diaz

Critics Grade:
D
(It's pure formula, but thanks to its breezy pace and a pair of charming performances from Tom Cruise and Cameron Diaz, Knight and Day offers some agreeably middle-of-the-road summer action.)

My Grade:
C

So Oscar nominee Tom Cruise (Magnolia, Jerry Maguire) has reunited with Cameron Diaz (Vanilla Sky, There's Something About Mary) in this over the top, insane action comedy about God only knows what. I'm starting to do shorter reviews, so I'll start here. This movies storyline is somewhere out there...way over in left field (as the saying goes). The action is absolutely ridiculous. Other than Tom Cruise, the performances here border on lazy and pathetic. This should lead to a really stupid movie yeah? Well...not entirely. To be quite honest, I was thoroughly entertained by this film. Tom Cruise is back to his crazy ass self doing crazy ass stunts and just being damn weird...and man is he great at that! He may be a total nutcase outside of film, but he is perfectly cast in nearly every movie. He's just having fun here, and it show's well on screen. This is not a movie that is trying to win any Oscars. This is a movie that no one is supposed to take seriously and everyone involved in making this film clearly knew that. This is a crazy summer action movie, and that is all it is supposed to me...nothing more. That being said...this movie nearly works. It's high octane, insane, ridiculous fun where nothing in the movie that happens can POSSIBLY happen in real life...again...that's the point of these movies. The first two thirds at least. The last act tends to get a little slow and kind of boring, and so does Tom Cruises performance. But the first parts of the movie make up for it...overall this is a fun movie. It's not a good movie...it's just an entertaining one. It will put a smile on your face!

Movie Review Four-Fer! Karate Kid, Toy Story and more!

So once again I've seen a slew of movies and never had time and/or was just to lazy to do full reviews for them. So here I go again with the combo movie review blog! In the past week or so I've seen four more 2010 movies. Three of them in theaters and one was a straight to DVD/Independent movie: The Karate Kid, The A-Team, House of the Devil and Toy Story 3. So here we go!

#19: The Karate Kid. Starring Jaden Smith and Jackie Chan. Rated PG. 2 hours 2o minutes. The critics give this film a B-. I give this film an A-. I have to confess a deep dark sinister secret: I've never seen any of the original Karate Kid films. Yikes, I know...I'm just awful. But going into this movie I knew it was a remake and you know how I feel about remakes. It also starred Jackie Chan, who isn't exactly making "great" movies lately. I went into in expecting to not care for it to much. This is a 2 hour 20 minute long "kid" movie as well...so again I was not expecting greatness. I was SO pleasantly surprised by how solid of a movie this was though. Sure it runs a little to long but it never really feels to long (that's what she said). The screenwriter does a wonderful job bringing these characters to life. They take time to develop them and make sure we like these people...and we do...we really do. Jaden Smith is a freaking screen natural. His father is a great mentor. He really steals the show here. He's full of charisma and still has that "adorable" aspect to him. Jackie Chan...totally shocked with him. He isn't doing his normal shtick and comedy routine. He's serious here, and he's actually very good. A wonderful score. The cinematography was brilliant, the setting was absolutely gorgeous. The climatic final showdown was actually really tense and exciting. This movie was just all around really really well made. I don't know how it compares to the original...but I don't care. This movie on it's own is a fantastic summer surprise and I pretty much loved it!

#20. The A-Team. Starring Liam Neeson and Bradley Cooper. Rated PG-13. 1 hour 57 minutes. The critic's give this film an F. I give this film a C-. For $5.25 and a movie theater 2 seconds from my apartment...I figured, ah what the hell...I'll go see the A-Team. I was not expecting to love this movie...and I didn't. This movie was loud and ridiculous. For a summer movie you are not supposed to take seriously or think to much about...it does it's job. It has a shit ton of mindless action, a poorly written script and a plot that is completely predictable. This is what we should expect going into a movie like this...so how do you know if it's good or bad? Well this movie is both...at least it was for me. It was good in that it was just fun to watch, it kept me mildly entertained through and through. It was bad in that sometimes the action was to much, and to much in your face. There were some scenes of action that you couldn't even tell what was happening. It was all going so fast that it just was a giant ball of blur. So I don't know...sometimes the action was fun...sometimes it was nauseating. The acting was decent...mainly from Liam Neeson and Jason Patrick. I could NOT take Jessica Biel seriously as a tough government agent. She looked silly, and I don't think even knew how to hold a gun properly. This movie overall get's its job done. It will appeal to fans of summer action movies that don't seem many movies. To people like me who see a TON of movie...it was just OK. Not awful by any means, but there have been WAY better mindless action movies.

#21: The House of the Devil. Starring Jocelin Donahue. Rated R. 1 hour 35 minutes. The critics gave this film a B+. I give this film an A-. Not many people know about this movie, but I think more people should. Especially if you are a fan of slow building, tense horror movies. This is a throwback film to the 70's, early 80's. It even looks like it was made in the 70's...everything from the opening credits to the cinematography. I loved the vintage feel of the film, loved it. Brilliant film on a technical aspect. Storywise...it's extremely simple. College girl is "babysitting" (I won't say more than that) for a mysterious couple so she can make some quick money to pay for first rents month new house. The first act of the film is the set up. We meet the girl, her friend and the creepy mystery couple. The whole middle chunk of the film is where it is at it's finest. Just the girl in the house. Not much dialog, just her sitting around the house or doing some exploring. Strange things occur and she investigates and it's in those very slow moving scenes where the real creepiness comes into SOLID effect. This movie is extremely effecting in that regard. You have NO idea what is going on in this movie...but you know something is not right and you know it is leading up to something horrific. It's that kind of quiet, subtle horror movie that I truly love. Not these in your face, slasher movies or remakes. This movie has minimal violence, and minimal blood (well...sorta). It relies solely on the camera work and performance from the main character to carry this film. We have no clue what is going on until maybe the last 10 minutes. It's pretty horrific and it happens pretty suddenly and ends rather quickly. I just loved this movie. It was a perfect, classy horror film that every fan of the genre should see. But it IS fairly unsettling and creepy.

#22. Toy Story 3. Voices of Tim Allen and Tom Hanks. Rated G. 1 hour 43 minutes. The critics give this film an A+. I give this film an A+. I'm not going to go on and on about this movie, because I don't need to say much. Toy Story 3 is hands down the VERY best film of 2010 to date. This series has always been extremely lovable and here we have the same story going again. It's is very uncommon for a series to keep it's magic as successfully as this series has. Man this movie was great. It was funny, it was heartfelt, and it was a fitting conclusion to one of the greatest film trilogies ever. These characters are incredible and so fun to watch. The story was just as good as ever. The animation was even better than before. Pixar has yet to fail, and I don't think they ever can. They know EXACTLY how to make a good family film. They make movies that aren't "kid" movies...these are movies for everyone. Adults may like this movie even more than kids do! I even got a little choked up in the end. Great voice over work, great writing, great everything. THIS is the must see movie of the summer so far...this is the must see movie of the YEAR so far! This is can't miss movie!! LOVED IT!

Movie Review Three-Some!

OK so I don't have the time or patience right now to review these three movies separately. So I thought I would do a three some review of the three flicks I saw this past week. I saw "Get Him to the Greek", "Splice" and "Defendor". So without further ado...

#16: Get Him to the Greek. Starring Russel Brand and Jonah Hill. Rated R, 1 hour 49 minutes. The critics gave this film a B- grade. I give this film a A-. This is a spinoff film from 2008's Forgetting Sarah Marshall, where the Aldous Snow character gets a whole movie for himself. Jonah Hill was also in Marshall but as a different character. I was a big fan of Marshall, I enjoyed the story, the characters and it was damn funny! We have essentially the same crew here again so you should expect the same right? Well.......I think this film was a great follow up to the original film. I thought it had great writing, it was hilarious. The characters were just as good as the original film, and the two main stars worked so brilliantly together. They both have their own style of comedic delivery and they both succeeded at what they did. I kind of think that Aldous Snow worked a lot better as a supporting character in the other film, but he pretty much carries his own here this time. This movie wasn't cheesy, it actually has quite a cool story to tell. We've seem comedies like this before, but I think it did well at doing it's own thing. This is at times a raunchy comedy, and has a lot of drug humor so don't take the young ones. Overall...I loved this film, not as much as Forgetting Sarah Marshall...but it is still a very worthy counterpart.

#17: Splice. Starring Adrien Brody and Sarah Polley. Rated R. 1 hour 44 minutes. The critics gave this film a B-. I give this film a D+. So I can sort of see the appeal this film had to the eyes of the nations critics. This film does have a terrifyingly unique and twisted plot. It has many elements of originality. The film making is quite slick and stunning to watch at times. That being said this movie may have been a little TOO unique and twisted. It bordered on disgusting and demented. To some that may be what they want in a film like this...and to their defense...that is what you have to go into this movie expecting. It was my fault for going to see it, I'm not afraid to admit that. But this movie was just SO damn weird!! There was a sex scene in this film that went way beyond creepy and disturbing that the audience I was with...was laughing at it. I think they laughed from being uncomfortable...because that's what this movie was overall...severely uncomfortable to watch. The performances were OK but were never going to save this movie's execution...at least not for me. Again I applaud the risk, I applaud the directors sense of sleek style...but the outcome of the movie was absolutely bizarre and just way to weird for me to like.

#18: Defendor. Starring Woody Harrelson and Kat Dennings. Rated R. 1 hour 41 minutes. The critics gave this film a C- (limited amount of reviews). I give this film a B-. This is a film about a superhero who isn't actually a superhero. He is actually mentally unstable but believes he is doing good by protecting the city. There was a movie called "Special" that came out with Michael Rappaport. It has almost the same storyline as this film, but "Special" is more emotionally devastating of a story and was an excellent film. Defendor is almost a really good movie but it kind of falls flat in the emotional aspect. This is not really a comedy like the preview makes it out to be, it is actually kind of a dark film. Defendor is a mentally unstable person and you feel bad for this guy but you also really really like him. Woody Harrelson delivers another brilliant performance and he truly makes this film. It has a good story, just not overly strong. The outcome falls a bit flat as well. This movie looks great though. It has some good supporting performances. I don't know, I really did like this movie, I just did not LOVE this movie like I wanted to. It was carried by a brilliant performance from Harrelson but falls a little short in the story department. Otherwise I recommend this movie...it's on DVD now.