War, Inc.

War, Inc.

Rated R

Running time: 1 hr 47 mins

Cast:

John Cusask
Hilary Duff
Marisa Tomei
Joan Cusask
Ben Kingsley

Critical Consensus:

** out of *****
(30% Fresh Rating!)

Mikey @ The Movies Official Rating:

** out of *****

The Premise:

John Cusack heads the cast as professional ice man Brand Hauser, who's paid by a private corporation's brass to take out the competition -- a Middle East oil minister -- while masquerading as a trade-show director. But not all goes according to plan when fetching field reporter Natalie Hegalhuzen (Marisa Tomei) sidetracks the young assassin. Hilary Duff, Ben Kingsley and Joan Cusack also star in this outrageous satire.

MY REVIEW

I'm going to keep this one short. There really is nothing all that special about War, Inc. This movie is just full of forgettable moments. I honestly forgot the first half of the way while watching the second half. I don't even know if I can clearly tell you what I thought this movie was about. To me it just seemed like there was a LOT going on, and it was moving a little to fast for me to comprehend. I understand that it's a political satire, and honestly I didn't get half of the fun. I did laugh a few times, it had some humorous moments.

I was a bit disturbed by Hilary Duff's (TV's Lizzie McGuire, A Cinderella Story) performance and character. I mean she is a beloved Disney Channel star even to this day, and in this movie she portrays a vulgar russian slut. Sorry for the harsh words, but that's what she is here. And I think that really made me uncomfortable. I guess any performer can leave their comfort zone and go to the extremes huh? I just hope her young fans don't catch this movie, because it can severely tarnish her image. I liked John Cusask (Identity, High Fidelity) here but he did get a little carried away with the performance at times. I think the only performance I truly loved was that of Oscar nominee Joan Cusask (In & Out, Working Girl) who has now appeared in 10 movies with brother John. She was her usual self here, which is usually something crazy and different. She made me laugh almost every time she was on screen!

I don't know, I just can't say I "liked" this movie. I really didn't hate it by any means, theres just nothing about that stands out. Nothing that I can say "wow, that was brilliant!" too. War, Inc. is just another film cycling through the world that probably a lot of people won't see. It certainly isn't a movie I think many will remember if they do see it.

To view this film's theatrical trailer, click this link: War, Inc.

*This is the 141st new film I've seen and reviewed this year.

*This film is now on DVD.

Deception

Deception

Rated R

Running Time: 1 hr 47 mins

Cast:

Ewan McGregor

Hugh Jackman

Michelle Williams

Critical Consensus:

** out of *****
(12% Fresh Rating!)

Mikey @ The Movies Official Rating:

* out of *****

The Premise:

An accountant is introduced to a mysterious sex club known as The List by his lawyer friend. But in this new world, he soon becomes the prime suspect in a woman's disappearance and a multi-million dollar heist.

MY REVIEW

Yikes, I didn't know I'd be watching some weird soft core porn when I rented this movie. I think half of this movie was just about Ewan McGregor's (Moulin Rouge, Trainspotting) shy, shut off character having sexual intercourse with numerous mysterious women in fancy hotels. Young AND old. Which is why I found most of this movie to just be dirty and gross.

The movie had a really stupid storyline outside of what I just mentioned. While McGregor falls in love with one of these mysterious ladies of the night played by Oscar nominee Michelle Williams (Brokeback Mountain), Hugh Jackman's (The Prestige, X-Men trilogy) character is busy plotting some sinister scheme to use McGregor to transfer millions of dollars from one bank to another. Oh, so diabolical! Please like we haven't seen that before. Now you know I don't mind when movies share similarities, I even think it's silly at this point to compare movies. But this idea has been done so much better is all I'm trying to say. This was just a really, REALLY weak version of the particular story. I mean even go as far to say that Deception is one of the very worst movies of 2008. It won't make my final cut I'm sure, but you get the point.

The film is just to concerened with looking to flashy and sleek and has no focus on it's story. Like I said, a good portion of this movie is a character meeting extravagent ladies for sex in hotels. In reality, this part of the movie has almost nothing to do with the movie's main story. So therefore it's tasteless and just plain old crude. The more that I think about it and write this review, the more I realize how much I genuinely hated this movie. It was bland, it was stupid, it was dirty, it spent way to much time on a storyline that wasn't needed. Blah!

Deception is just a terrible movie. The only reason I give it one measly star is because through all of it, it had some pretty decent performances and it did look cool for a while before the director spent way to much time on that aspect. Don't see it, that's just my advice.

**Voice your opinion at my new message board by clicking this link: Review Talk **

To view this film's theatrical trailer, click this link: Deception

*This is the 140th new film I've seen and reviewed this year.

*This film is now on DVD.

DOCUMENTARY FEATURE: Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed

Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed

Rated PG
Running time: 1 hr 30 mins

Mikey @ The Movies Official Rating:

***** out of *****

Subject Matter:

Hosted by Ben Stein, this controversial documentary examines how pro-intelligent design scholars and scientists are often chastised, fired or denied tenured positions by those who believe in Darwin's theory of evolution. Nathan Frankowski's film explores how scientists who believe in God are oppressed and how the acceptance of evolution may have played a role in the formation of organizations such as the Nazi regime and Planned Parenthood.

MY REVIEW

Expelled is personally one of my favorite documentary's that I have seen. It's almost harsh in it's storytelling. There were scientists featured in this film who called regligious people "idiots" and "ignorant" because religious people believe a higher power (God) created the Earth and all mankind in what is now known as creationism. These scientists write books about how "stupid" and "un-educated" it is to not believe in Darwinism or the Theory of Evolution. I love how it's called a "Theory" but according to these people it's the only thing we should accept.

Truth is, Ben Stein is right. This country claims to be about freedom, which means we have the right to free speech and especially free thinking. Just because the "theory" of evolution isn't something I completely, whole heartedly believe in, why do I have to force my opinions and beliefs on others? People should have freedom of religion, they should have the freedom to accept or believe in anything they want. On a grand scale, there is no wrong belief or theory. Since we all individually accept our beliefs as being right, how can their be a wrong one? I'm speaking on religious terms of course. If you believe that murder is right, then you may be crazy.

There is a few parts of the movie, where real life scientists actually state what they think pro intelligent design MAY be. There is a floating theory amongsts respected men and women of science that this race of man and all living organisms may have been created by an alien life. They think it's possibble alien life evolutionized first over thousands of years and then planted "seeds" on our planet they may have created the first living organism. These same people think having a faith in God and beliving He created us, are nut jobs. Well then I guess all of us are nut cases then huh?

Ben Stein does a brilliant job at capturing both sides to this story. It is incredibly powerful and gives us a wonderful and shocking insight into the minds of some really selfish thinking people. That's just my opinion of course. Stein was perfect in his grilling of some of the more stubborn scientists. Especially in the final scene between Stein and the most severe Darwinist ever. Stein does not hold back and was not afraid to subtly poke fun at a man who really was just making fun of himself. The movie really just makes you look at the world and see how far we have come from that tiny alien seed we started off as way back in the day....

If you see this movie on a shelf somewhere at a rental store or on Netflix, please rent it. This, I believe, is a must see documentary. Really well made movie!

** Voice your opinion at my new message board by clicking this link: Review Talk **

To view this film's extended trailer, click this link: Expelled

*This is the 139th new film I've seen and reviewed this year.

*This film is now on DVD.

Passengers

Passengers

Rated PG-13

Running time: 1 hr 34 mins

Cast:

Anne Hathaway

Patrick Wilson

Andre Braugher

David Morse

Critical Consensus:

N/A

Mikey @ The Movies Official Rating:

0 out of *****

The Premise:

A grief counselor working with a group of plane-crash survivors finds herself at the root of a mystery when her clients begin to disappear.

MY REVIEW

I'll give it this much, Passangers does not fall into the dissapointing catergory. Probably because I didn't see the preview or know much about the movie before I walked into the theater to see it. However, Passangers does in fact fall into the catergory of "some of the worst garbage or the year". Now that I've seen the trailer for the film (which you can watch below) I am slightly angry at the movie. The preview totally makes this movie out to be some intense thriller of some other wordly proportion. Really it isn't that.

The first fifteen minutes of the movie or so paints the picture for the story we think we are going to see. It starts off with the plane crashing, a few people survive and now they are being treated by a therapist played by Anne Hathaway (The Devil Wears Prada, Get Smart). All of them have different stories about what happened on the plane, and they all seem to be a bit mysterious themselves. Especially the one who doesn't want to be a part of the group sessions, a man played by Patrick Wilson (Hard Candy, The Alamo). He is the most mysterious of them all, he seems to know what Hathaways character is physically thinking. He knows things about her he should not know. So now we are led to believe he has gained some psychic powers. Mind you, this all happens in the first 15-20 minutes.

The next 45 mintues to an hour the film completely takes a different course. It turns into a sappy love story between the two main characters. The therapist struggles with falling for a patient, but she does so anyway. They have some lovely times together such as swimming in a freezing cold body of water, or having an intimate conversation on a rooftop. All of this is accompanied by a welcoming and charming musical score that just makes us all warm and happy inside. Occasionally the movie throws in some of the airplane mystery. A character from the airline company played by David Morse (Disturbia, 16 Blocks) pops up every once in a while in a sinister way telling Hathaway to back off. Then some thrilling music pops in to make us "tense" and then immediately back to the lovey dovey stuff.

This goes on for a while then the last 10 or 15 minutes the big twise comes into play. Honestly, you can see most of the twist coming from the first few minutes of the movie and just by looking at the freaking poster for the movie. The other part of the twist, the really big part I honestly did not see coming but at the same time I was not suprised. I was angry. There was no reason for us to ever even think this part of the twist would happen. I guess you can say, "Well Mike doesn't that make it a good, successful twist then?" The answer is no. In movies with twists, they drop subtle hints, and have backup for us to go "Ooooh Ok!" but this movie didn't. Here's my theory:

The filmakers forgot what the movie was about. They got so wrapped up in the silly love story they forgot they were making a mystery thriller about plane crash survivors. Once they realized how far off course they were, they had to film some fill in scenes to keep their original story in tact. Then they filmed this ending as a way of just lazily wrapping everything up. That's what the ending was: lazy. When in doubt...just end your movie this way.

Passangers is by far one of the worst film's of 2008 and should not be seen by anyone with a brain. This movie uses audiences. Uses them and abuses them. You probably haven't even heard of this movie. Critics sure haven't. Rotten Tomatoes has only 4 reviews posted as of today (10/27). When the critics haven't even seen it, and only 1 of the 4 liked it, you know you have a really bad movie. And that is what Passengers is: A really disgustingly awful motion picture.

Do NOT see Passengers. It wreaks of terribleness. If that's even a word.

To view this film's theatrical trailer, click this link: Passengers

*This is the 138th new film I've seen and reviewed this year.

Body of Lies

Body of Lies

Rated R

Running time: 2 hrs 8 mins

Cast:

Leonardo DiCaprio

Russell Crowe

Critical Consensus:

*** out of *****
(50% Fresh Rating!)

Mikey @ The Movies Official Rating:

** out of *****

The Premise:

Based on Washington Post columnist David Ignatius's 2007 novel about a CIA operative, Roger Ferris, who uncovers a lead on a major terrorist leader suspected to be operating out of Jordan.

MY REVIEW

I'm going to be completely honest here, I didn't really like this movie. Political thrillers aren't typically my thing, and that's essentially what this movie was. I'm sure I've said time and time again on this blog that I am so out of the loop when it comes to anything about politics, or wars, or who's fighting who, or who's the bad guy, or who is the even more bad guy...I just don't know. And that's pretty much how I felt about this movie.

This movie throws around a lot of jargon that just simply flied right over my head. I really don't think you could even explain it to me if you sat down and rattled off information for hours. Yes, I am admitting right now that I am fairly stupid when it comes to this particular subject. To me there was no part about the film I was firmly able to grasp onto and run with and say "I know what's going on now!" I don't know what character in the film was bad and what character was REALLY bad, I don't know if there was more than one terrorist cell involved in the story. I cannot explain this movie to anyone, is basically what I'm saying. I cannot honestly review this film on it's story. Well...I can by using the fact it wasn't dumbed down enough for me but that's greedy because not everyone is as dumb as me in terms of this subject.

I know it has really good performances though. Oscar nominee Leonardo DiCaprio (The Aviator, Blood Diamond) and Oscar winner Russell Crowe (A Beautiful Mind, Gladiator) had some truly stand out performances here. But that's to be expected, they have established themselves as brilliant performers.

Look, I can't say a ton about this movie and I apologize for that. So no, I didn't like the movie. I was not entertained. I was more confused than anything. But please don't take my word for it if you like these types of movies. I'm sure in that case you may like it. But if you are like me, if you know where I'm coming from, I wouldn't waste your money on the movie.

To view this film's theatrical trailer, click this link: Body of Lies

*This is the 137th new film I've seen and reviewed this year.