Edge of Darkness (Review)

What I knew going in:
Mel Gibson in a mystery thriller about the muder of his daughter.  In the same vein as recent flims:  Man on Fire, Death Sentence, and Taken.

Hype:
Meh.  Like I said, I've seen this movie like 4 times in the past couple of years.

Opening Thoughts:
Mel Gibson tries a Bostonian accent.  Its almost kinda passable.  Except for the fact I know he's an Aussie.  All the spoken dialogue in this film is so low its almost whispered.  Ouch.  Shotty to the chest.  Interesting how the entire midsection of her shirt gets ripped away but nothing is shown that would make the movie rated R. Oh wait.  It IS rated R. 

Bottom Line:
Not bad, not great.  This film lies somewhere in the land of meh.  The end was good but I saw it coming from a mile away.  This film doesn't have any surprises, plot twists, or major character development.  I expect more from a script that Gibson signs on for.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1226273/

Ninja Assassin (Review)

What I knew going in:
Nobody important stars in a Hollywood backed Chop-Saki Action Thriller about a rogue ninja being hunted down by his clan in the modern day.

Hype:
Meh+  The trailers showed some pretty epic action, and I thought if for no other reason this would be a fun watch.

Opening Thoughts:
Owie.  Pain.  Yuk.  Boring Plot mumbo jumbo.  I don't care that you have feelings.  I only care that you can KICK ASS!  Now go rip some people's limb's off!  GO GO GO!!!! oooohhh...  ahh......  eeeeekkk....  *cringe*  Now That's what I'm talking about!

Bottom Line:
It takes a while to get started after the opening, but you'll probably never see more Human Blood Pinata's, savage deaths, or machine gun speed shuriken in a single movie until we get Ninja Assassin 2.  There are very few films out there that can match this one's brutality and bloodthirst.  Plot?  WHO CARES.  Its a hong kong super kung-fu martial arts action flick, and its DAMN good.  The Special Effects are amazing, especially the chain whip sequences.  I haven't seen a martial arts flick this good since The Protector.  Absolutely in the top ten chop-saki flicks of all time.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1186367/

2009 Awards Ceremony (Part 1)

Queue crappy modern comedian, lame one-liners, and retarded music special guest star appearances!
Here's Tonight's Categories:
Worst Adaptation of a Book, Best Plot Twist, Worst Plot Twist, Best Heroic Death, Worst Heroic Death, and Villian that should have won the day but didn't!

Worst Adaptation of a Book:
The Nominees are:  The Road, Pirate Radio, Whiteout, Circque Du Freak:  The Vampire's Assistant.
The Q Goes to:  ALL OF THEM.  With a combined TOTAL US Domestic Box Office Gross of somewhere between a week's pay for a burger flipper and a tech support representative from Bangladesh, these four films may have disproved my thoery that Hollywood can't lose no matter what they do.  Clearly Hollywood CAN and DOES lose money making garbage.  With a combined total of 150 Million spent and 40 Million earned in Domestic ticket sales, the economy is hitting Hollywood in the shorthairs.

Best Plot Twist:
The Nominees are:  The Box for "This is a Sci-Fi Film?!", The Hangover for "Naked Asian Guy in a Trunk", Star Trek for "Complete Universe Change", and Zombieland for "Bill Murray survives the Zombiepocalypse".
The Q goes to:  THE HANGOVER.  Deep in my heart I wanted Star Trek to win, but lets face it, the first time you watch the asian beat the three hapless heroes of The Hangover with a tire iron, you are left with a broad cross between "should I laugh at this" and "WTF?!?!"  Out of left field with random genius, I can't wait for Hangover 2.

Worst Plot Twist:
The Nominees are:  Wolverine for "His Hottie Fiancee was really working for the bad guys", Knowing for "Psych! It's really Aliens!", Law Abiding Citizen for "Hidden Door behind the Prison Cell's Toity", and Crank: High Voltage for "He's Still ALIVE?!?!"
The Q goes to:  Law Abiding Citizen.  You know, I really wanted to like this movie, but the incredibly lame ending punctuated by possibly the worst plot twist in revenge movie history makes it clear that the people Hollywood has in their test groups don't know their asses from a hole in the ground.  Too bad everyone spent money watching it because it had Jamie Foxx and Gerard Butler.

Best Heroic Death:
The Nominees are:  Optimus Prime in Transformers 2, Wikus Van De Merwe in District 9, Rorsack in The Watchmen, and Chev Chelios for Crank 2.
The Q goes to:  Wikus Van De Merwe.  While Optimus's death was heart-wrenching, Wikus becomes more human with each passing hour in his descent into an alien body.  While not technically a death, it certainly qualifies in spirit as you actually feel for Wikus at the end of the film.  The transformation from Villian to Hero to Alien in District 9 is one I will be remembering for quite a while to come.

Worst Heroic Death:
The Nominees are:  Everyone who didn't survive Terminator: Salvation, especially Michael Ironside, The Basterds of Inglorious Basterds, The Human Race in Knowing, and Clyde Shelton in Law Abiding Citizen.
The Q goes to:  Clyde Shelton.  The death of the protaganist in Law Abiding Citizen is so incredibly lame, that you wonder long after the movie is over how someone who is known for being able to script events and master planning didn't see that one coming.  The real truth here is that there is a real wasted opportunity for character development in Foxx, should the script have him realize that, as was stated earlier in the film, "The only way to stop Clyde is to shoot him in the face."  The moral choice of when does our Justice system fail to the point where it is morally acceptable and justifiable to kill another is where this movie should have taken us but didn't.

Villian that should have won the day but Didn't:
The Nominees are:  Clyde Shelton for Law Abiding Citizen, Ozymandius for The Watchmen, The World in 2012, and Skynet in Terminator: Salvation.
The Q goes to:  The World in 2012.  Never before have I wanted to human race to fail and just plain die out.  With pathetic storytelling and cookie cutter characters that were cloned from Independance Day, Someone should just tell Roland Emmerich that he's just joined the Geroge Lucas club for director's who have completely lost their marbles/lightsabers/specialeffects.  Other members include Kurt "How can your second directorial effort have gone so wrong" Wimmer, and Stephen "I like Shia LeBouf a little too much" Spielberg. 

Who knows, I may even get to a Part 2 of the Awards Ceremony this year!  --Q

The Running Man (Classic Review)

What I knew going in:
Arnold "I am ridiculously buff still" Schwartzenegger and Richard Dawson of Family Fued star in a Richard Bachman penned tale of a dystopian future where violence meets game shows.  Richard Bachman was a Nom de Plume for Stephen King. 

How many times have I watched it before:
About a dozen.  It is a classic of Sci-Fi that highlights how 80s the 80s really were, bad special effects, superb physical stunts, and HORRIGROANING one-liners that will make you laugh with their absurdity.

How much fun it was to watch it again:
It was a blast to watch it again while I was doing some other work.  To this day the cheese factor lines still hold up and make you laugh, while the action has gotten pretty outdated with modern action flims like Die Hard 4 and um.... uh.... what else was action but not sci-fi or comic book lately....?

Does the franschise deserve a reboot?
Absolutely.  Generation Xers grew up on films like this and they would flock to the theaters to see a quality remake.  Give it the big budget treatment, and you could easily have the same crowd that is watching Michael Bay bring Transformers into the 21st century.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0093894/

The Fourth Kind (Review)

What I knew going in:
Milla "I like to get naked in every film I'm in" Jovovich of such classics as 5th Element and Resident Evil stars as a Psychiatrist whose husband has been murdered.  She attempts to follow the trail he left, which clearly points to him investigating the phenomena of UFO Alien Abduction.

Hype:
Meh+  This looked creepy enough, and after having watched some recently similar fun scare flicks such as Quarantine and Paranormal Activity I was ready for another terroride.

Opening Thoughts:
Its already off to a kind of bizzare start because it mixes actual footage from an interview with reinactment of the key scenes of the tale as a Hollywood Film.  This gives it an extremely surreal quality that doesn't allow the viewer to get into a confortable or familiar place.  That alone makes it noteworthy.

Bottom Line:
Despite what some other critics say, if you are willing to BE scared, this film should scare you.  I am sure that lots of people have gone out and countered the statistics and numbers, but the point here is that anyone who is at all open to the idea of Alien Abduction will be terrified by the story.  Its a fun and disturbing romp through the unknown.  The last time I enjoyed this kind of movie I watched the seriously underrated "The Forgotten" with Julianne Moore.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1220198/

January in the land of SUCK

There is a popular phrase amongst movie-goers everywhere....
"January is where movies go to DIE."
Yeah.  Let's take a look at these early 2010 Gems/Germs:

Book of Eli - I don't pay $10 to get preached to by the Churchollywood.  The action is decent, but the message made me want to practice the Joker's recent magic trick on myself...
Daybreakers - More meh than a barrel of mehnkeys.  Some brilliance, some agony of defeat.  Take the good with the bad and hope for better with the next one from this director.
Legion - Angels + End of the World = WORST ZOMBIEPOCALYPSE MOVIE EVER.
The Road - "ZZZZZZZZ" raves the New York Times.  "Boring.  Period." crows the Washington Herald.  "OMG if I was a truck driver I'd wake up with a tree in my eye... cept... I'd never wake... wait a sec that makes no sense at all" says Newsweek.
Year One - OK this was LAST June, but I watched it in January - know what?  Still sucks.  Yeah.  8 months later you can still smell the suck.
The Tooth Fairy - Are you F*ING KIDDING ME?!  The Rock has gone SOFT.  In a not ok sexual way.  Makes me uncomfortable just thinking about it.

Do yourself a favor and just go see Avatar again.
Noteworthy from January however:  The Red Band Trailer for MacGruber, Watching the Tron: Legacy trailer for the 100th time, Playing Mass Effect 2.