Official Movie Review Thread

[Siege]

The Incredible Hulk was, quite contrary to my expectations, an enjoyable movie. Ed Norton and Liv Tyler seem to have quite a bit of chemistry going (and Liv Tyler is always nice to look at), the action delivers, a lot of the technology being thrown about seems fittingly retro, and Tim Roth once more proves he is more than adept at playing a Crazy Motherfucker. Oh yeah, and General Ross is a total raging asshole.

Also, this movie is a total boonfest of people who are - like me - suckers for easter eggs. From the name Reinstein on the deep-frozen cannister of Super-Soldier Serum, to the brief mention of Nick Fury and Stark Industries in the intro, to the SHIELD database, to the Stark Industries rocket launcher in the back of the Hummvee, to the appearance of Tony-Motherfucking-Stark himself at the end (and was that supposed to be Amadeus Cho in the computer lab?)

By now I'm actually mildly curious about the Captain America movie, despite Captain America being - in my modest opinion - easily the least interesting character of the Avengers. Seriously, look at his costume and tell me that's not totally silly. And that's even ignoring his jingoistic background which utterly fails to appeal to me personally. But nonetheless, considering Marvel's recent track record I'm interested to see what they'll do with Mr. Rogers.

So anyway, Hulk was an okay movie, and the fights were pretty damned good as well - especially since Hulk no longer shrugs off small arms like rain; he seems genuinely stung by 'em, which is good, because looking at a character that's totally invulnerable (like the '03 incarnation) just removes all dramatic tension. And when Hulk and Abomination duke it out in the city, what results is, like Mobius said, probably the best boss-fight this summer.

[Peregrin]

By now I'm actually mildly curious about the Captain America movie, despite Captain America being - in my modest opinion - easily the least interesting character of the Avengers. Seriously, look at his costume and tell me that's not totally silly. And that's even ignoring his jingoistic background which utterly fails to appeal to me personally. But nonetheless, considering Marvel's recent track record I'm interested to see what they'll do with Mr. Rogers.

Going by Matthew Fox' performance as Racer-X, he'd probably make a good CapAm.

[Invictus]

I just finished Batman: Gotham Knight a.k.a. the Batanimatrix, where Japanese animation studios 4øC, Production I.G. and Madhouse make a series of six interconnected shorts, voiced by what I guess is the Batman TAS cast. There was actually more of a plot than I expected there to be; which is a pleasant surprise considering I expected it to do little beyond look pretty. I wouldn't call the animation top-notch and it lacks the pure gosh-wow factor, but the Japanese directors stuck well to the noir stylings. The six shorts are as follows:

Have I A Story to Tell You: A gang of hip urban youths share their stories of seeing the Batman, Rashomon-style. Of course, this lets the short show ludicrous stuff like the Bat-Shadow, the Bat-Man-Bat and the Bat-Terminator. It's also the most plot-free of the six stories, and not everyone will be able to stand Studio 4øC's idiosyncratic art style.

Crossfire: Police detectives get shot at and Batman comes to the rescue. Fairly run of the mill Production I.G. with a weak plot and some pretty cool moments. Features Bat-Sephiroth.

Field Test: Batman tests out a bullet-deflecting electromagnetic forcefield. Bruce Wayne looks strangely bishonen here, but the story and dialogue is well-written and character design issues go away once Bruce puts on the bat-suit. Lucius Fox makes a fairly extended appearance.

In Darkness Dwells: Scarecrow, Killer Croc and roller-coaster sewer chases. This Madhouse short is has the most and best action in it, complete with ridiculously thick shading and many moments of Bat-badassery. The atmosphere of this one is perfect, even if the pretense of plot is rather thin.

Working Through Pain: Studio 4øC again, but this time the art direction is wonderful. It actually talks about Bruce Wayne's flashbacks to when he was learning kung-fu around the world, with a nice psychological depth and some spine-tingling symbolic moments. Bruce Wayne looks much better in this one and gets to kick a lot of ass too. Also, Alfred appears and gets to be British.

Deadshot: Ah, Deadshot. Snipes people on moving trains. Pins bees to deckchairs with tiny cocktail swords. Of course, this still makes him only about half as badass as Batman, who deflects rifle bullets by punching them. They did save the best for last. Bruce Wayne has an enormous chin in this one, and Jim Gordon looks almost like Light's dad. Alfred continues to be very British.

Overall, it's highly worth checking out.

[Shroom Man 777]

I'll buy that for a dollar (literally ).

[Peregrin]

This Gotham Knight thing looks interesting, I always like this sort of anthology flick where different filmmakers are behind each vignette. (see also Heavy Metal)

[Dakarne]

I'll say two things about Wanted.

Fucking. Awesome.

For a more detailed review, we're talking gun fights, car chases, bending bullets around corners... as well as a bit of a cleverly constructed plot thrown in (which is mostly secondary considering how this film is that awesome that it doesn't actually need one) and a voice over narrative which is extremely hilarious.

[Shroom Man 777]

HULK SMAAASSSHH!!!!

[Shroom Man 777]

BOND! IT'S NOT OVER YET!

[Peregrin]

BOND! IT'S NOT OVER YET!

It looks very similar in tone to the Bourne movies, esp. the third one. But without the shaky cam.

[Czernobog]

HULK SMASH!!!!!!!!!

[NoXion]

I saw Shrooms last night. Let's just say I was distinctly underwhelmed. Not only did the characters not really behave like people on shrooms, but the film also missed the opportunity to present taking magic mushrooms as the assault on the senses that it is and was rife with horror movie cliches and unoriginal plot points.

Bah.

[Invictus]

300 may have a sequel:

Variety says that Legendary Pictures has confirmed last week's reports that it is developing a 300 follow-up for Warner Bros. that Frank Miller is writing and Zack Snyder is intended to direct.

Miller is writing the graphic novel the project will be based upon, although at this point it's not clear whether it will be a prequel or spin-off.

Snyder won't officially commit until after he sees Miller's take, but he's definitely interested, says the trade.

Legendary, which also co-financed and produced Snyder's Watchmen for Warners, considers the project a major priority.

"The vision of Frank Miller's universe that Zack Snyder brought to the screen in '300' is unlike anything ever seen before," said Legendary's Thomas Tull. "We want to be certain that the story originates with Frank and be as compelling as the first."

Wuh.

[Artemis]

I didn't know you could make up a sequel to a historical adaptation.

[Siege]

301: Rome Attacks!

[Malchus]

I didn't know you could make up a sequel to a historical adaptation.

To be fair, 300 was a very, very loose adaptation of already mythed-up Greek history.

[Shroom Man 777]

SPECKTACKLES!

[Shroom Man 777]

John Hancock is an asshole

Overall, very good superhero movie - and Will Smith proves how awesome he is, in playing dramatic human characters.

No Aw Hell Noes. This shit was real!

[Peregrin]

Yesterday at the Roskilde Festival I saw a movie called Kill Buljo. It's a no-budget Norwegian slapstick parody of Kill Bill (with most of the characters' genders reversed so that the main character's now played by a dude who looks like a skinnier version of Daniel Plainview from There Will Be Blood) that's much shorter, and... well, I must say it's not as great as it sounds on paper but it's got some pretty good laughs mostly from how bizarre it is and how it tries to recreate Kill Bill's setpieces on an almost nonexistent budget in some Norwegian trailer park. I think I might not have gotten all of the jokes since the humour is extremely, well, Norwegian. Oh, and in addition to Kill Bill it also spoofs a couple other movies such as Deliverance, The Shining and Star Wars.

Hancock I'm probably gonna watch next week, it's gotten some REALLY mixed reviews and I'm still trying to avoid spoilers for it. Speaking of superheroes I've also read some advance reviews of The Dark Knight which looks to be perhaps the best superhero movie ever. (Batman Begins I liked but thought had a couple of big problems)

[Heretic]

Independence Day. Cannot say more.

*Punch alien*

Welcome to Earth! (Will Turner)

Hey boys, I'mmm Bacckkkk!!! (crazy dad/fighter. Forgot his name)


Peace! (Will Turner while launching nuclear missile at commie alien)

Mang. The part when David Levinson and Captain Steven Hiller started smoking Havanas in front of a smoking ship almost made me gay. Such manliness.

[Shroom Man 777]

[Mobius 1]

Back from Hancock a half hour ago and Wall-E eight days ago, I can safely say I enjoyed both fully. Wall-E, I had no intention of seeing at all, but Pixar, after the blech-fests of Cars and Ratatou-whatever, pulled a winner out here. And Hancock, I have to agree with Ford. It's a superhero, character given story without a big cataclysmic battle. And I can safely say I had a hell of a time. It's a fun thing to see a superhero treated somewhat-seriously (Something Ironmang got at with him demolishing teh terrorists).

Call me an asshole one more time.

[Vagrant Orpheus]

I finally got around to watching Jumper today, and it wasn't half bad. It was entertaining, and that's the most important thing to me, but the fact is, to me it felt like the ending was very weird. It felt like it was only halfway through the film when it did finish, to me at least. I was fully expecting Griffin to kill Roland at a later point, and the fact that Hayden's mother is a Paladin wasn't used well at all. It's just a surprise end that's totally unnecessary, and it implies that Hayden's mother is an uber-religious nutso. She implies that she'll kill him if she ever does catch him, what with offering a head start, which I find weird. As it is, she should have chosen to simply ignore him and keep going after other Jumpers, or else abandon Paladin-ship entirely, in my mind.

However, the fight scenes were pretty cool, and the Jumping concept was well used, and I'm sure some of it will eventually find its way into Worldhopper's character and talents.

[Shroom Man 777]

I have watched Batman GOTHAM KNIGHT - by purchasing a DVD and supporting the capitalistic enterprises of street vendors who look like so:



Thus Cutler Beckett and SiegeTank may not approve.

(Still, SiegeTank spites me by making my Wii unable to play videogames of dubious origins - so it is a fair trade)

HOWEVER, I found the DVD itself to be in good quality and I enjoyed the show. GOTHAM KNIGHT is like the Animatrix for the coming Batman Begins sequel, THE DARK KNIGHT. An anthology of loosely-connected animated Batman shorts, all done by different directors.

It's great to see Kevin Conroy as Batman, and it's cool that they were chosen to do the tie-in to THE DARK KNIGHT - and that no one bothered with those dickfags who made The Batman cartoon. Fuck them. Heth Ledger doesn't terrorize Gotham as Joker without shoes, you whores.

Overall it is a mixed bag of nuts. The first story is a classical retelling of that Batman: The Animated Series classic where a bunch of kids (this time skater kids) tell stories of their encounters with the Bat. Mang, these kids see things so weirdly that the whole resolution - with them meeting the Bat up close and personal, was cool.

Anyway, there's a whole bunch of them and I think my personal favorites where the ones dealing with Scarecrow - who is now a cult leader - and the one with flashbacks to Bruce Wayne's training with some Indian woman in pain management.

Then the totally awesome one was where Deadshot acts totally cool and Reckonery - until Batman totally ruins his shit.

It's totally cool.

[Siege]

Old Boy is a brilliant movie. Totally fucked up, bizarre and very Japanese, but brilliant. Not just the story and the cinematography, but the main actor is really awesome and there's several scenes in there that are, dare I say it, kickin' rad. The whoop-a-hallway-of-gangsters-with-a-clawhammer scene comes to mind.

"So now the question is, does fifteen year of imaginary practice pay off? [...] Apparently it does."

A brief mention not of movies but of TV, hot damn if the presenter of the Discovery show Future Weapons isn't the epitome of wanker. I mean, you're making a show about high-tech weaponry, right? This is a pretty damned awesome subject, right? So, seriously, how do they manage to fuck it up so much? You're literally out there filming grenade machine guns, Apache Longbows, Spooky gunships and other weaponry blow shit up. Just capturing it on film should guarantee awesome. But it doesn't, because of the presenter, who can't stop reminding us that he was a Green Beret (or something) and who fawns over each weapon he talks about with phrases like "these guys got exactly what they deserved". I mean fuck, dude. I don't have much sympathy for the bastards of this world either, but that doesn't mean you have to fap to their being torn apart with a .50cal...

Such a pity. I can only dream about a series of Future Weapons presented by Mike Rowe of Dirty Jobs fame. Now that would have been fun to watch.

[Peregrin]

Old Boy is a brilliant movie. Totally fucked up, bizarre and very Japanese, but brilliant.

Very Japanese? It's actually South Korean...

I know this might seem nitpicky, but the TV news the protagonist watches in the cell that's used to show the passage of time deal mostly with events in Korea so that should be very obvious. Unless you mean that in style it reminds you of Japanese movies, of course.

The whoop-a-hallway-of-gangsters-with-a-clawhammer scene comes to mind.

I agree. The director wanted it to look like the cinematic equivalent of one of those Ancient Greek paintings (on frescoes, pottery and so on) of battling heroes. In general, that whole movie feels like a Greek tragedy updated to a surreal East Asian neo-noir.

BTW, (highlight for spoilers) is it just me or does the epilogue imply that things might have happened quite the same way as we initially believe? If Oh Dae-Su really is an unreliable narrator, then that would certainly explain some of the weirder parts of the plot.