2 Razors

Drive Angry

/ / Home Video
  • Title: Drive Angry
  • IMDB: link

drive-angry-blu-ray

The biggest problem with this grindhouse/70’s style car flick from Todd Farmer and Patrick Lussier is the almost complete lack of fun. A little humor, maybe a couple of sly winks at the camera, would have helped a story hellbent (so to speak) on trying to be gritty.

Nicolas Cage stars as an escaped soul from Hell who has returned to Earth to kill the leader of a Satanic cult (Billy Burke) who murdered his daughter and plans to sacrifice his granddaughter to bring about Hell on Earth. He’s assisted by a spunky waitress (Amber Heard, the only one here who seems to be enjoying herself) and hunted by an Accountant (William Fichtner) enlisted to return him to Hell.

Here’s what I knew going into Drive Angry: Nicolas Cage is occasionally wildly entertaining when choosing crazy projects like this one, and Amber Heard is really hot.

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No Strings Attached

/ / Home Video
  • Title: No Strings Attached
  • IMDB: link

no-strings-attached-blu-rayThe subject of friends with benefits usually makes for lackluster Hollywood scripts. No Strings Attached is no exception. Natalie Portman and Ashton Kutcher star as acquaintances who meet occasionally over the years and eventually get together in as sex friends who “use each other for sex at all hours of the day and night.” The story obviously wants us to root for these two wacky kids to get together in a real relationship, but gives us no real reason to do so.

There are also subplots about his career as a hopeful writer in show business and his father (Kevin Kline) dating his former girlfriend (Ophelia Lovibond), but neither of these amount to much. And, in true Apatowian homage (nicer than saying rip-off), we also get several scenes with and his friends (Jake M. Johnson, Ludacris) and and her friends (Greta Gerwig, Mindy Kaling) discussing relationships, sex, and menstruation with slightly inappropriate (but only occasionally funny) ways.

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Brightest Day #24

/ / Comics

brightest-day-24-coverDC Comics year-long maxi-series follow-up to Blackest Night has been a trainwreck, and that’s putting it nicely. After 24 grueling issues Brightest Day has finally, and thankfully, come to an end. What was the point with bringing characters back from the dead, killing some of them off again, and generally writing bewildering stories about the restoration of the White Lantern that never went anywhere? Swamp Thing.

That’s right, the entire point of the series, it seems, was to return Alec Holland to life and then merge him back into the Green to create a new Swamp Thing. Here’s my question: Did we really need 24 issues of over-complicated nonsense to accomplish this? No, not really.

Those who kept reading this one every couple of weeks have stronger constitutions than I do. However you feel about it, Swamp Thing is back and it seems like the beginning of reincorporating Vertigo properties back into DC proper has officially begun, especially considering the tease of a certain Hellblazer we’re given as well.

[DC, $4.99]

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Deadpool Family

/ / Comics

deadpool-family-coverIt only took me a couple pages of this one-shot to remember why I stopped reading Deadpool Corps. Sometimes stories featuring these characters can be fun, but sometimes they can be excruciating to read.

The issue is broken into four separate stories surrounding various Corps members. Kidpool attempts to join in on robot fun with the other kids (mildly entertaining), Lady Deapool and Zombie Deadpool go to counseling (I wanted to stab out my eyes), and Deadpool himself is presented in a serious cheap Frank Miller style noir that has far less gravity than it should given the choice of main character and the rest of the antics on display here (all around bad idea).

Although the Kidpool one is passable (barely), the only one of the four stories that I can actually say I enjoyed was the insanity of Dogpool going against Sunny the Sentry Dog, written by James Asmus. Yeah, that was fun. The rest I could give or take (or line a birdcage with). Hit-and-Miss.

[Marvel, $3.99]

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Hop

/ / Movie Reviews
  • Title: Hop
  • IMDB: link

hop-posterThe opening sequence of Hop is not only entertaining but a visual feast that conjures images of Gene Wilder and Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory. Sadly, the effort and care that went into crafting this sequence is absent from almost every other frame of the film.

Our story centers around two selfish and somewhat unlikeable characters. The first is E.B. (voiced by Russell Brand) who leaves Easter Island days before he’s scheduled to take on the responsibilities as the new Easter Bunny. E.B. would rather play the drums than be burdened by the duty being asked of him by his father (Hugh Laurie), the current Easter Bunny.

James Marsden stars as our second lead, the lazy and unfocused Fred O’Hare (O’Hare, get it? *sigh*) still looking for that “dare to be great opportunity.” His parents (Gary Cole, Elizabeth Perkins) would just like for him to find a “get a job and move out of the house opportunity.”

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