Action

Captain America

/ / Movie Reviews
  • Title: Captain America
  • IMDB: link

“To the rest of the world he’s Codename: Captain America. He may not be Superman, but he’ll be a living symbol of what this country stands for.”

Captain America posterCaptain America: The First Avenger is set to hit theaters this Friday but it isn’t the first attempt by Marvel Comics to translate their iconic hero to the big screen. While DC was churning out Batman and Superman flicks at will in the 80’s and early 90’s, Marvel was lagging behind. For the Captain America’s 50th Anniversary Marvel Comics put together a feature film centered around the hero.

Financing issues (which the production ran into after it had moved overseas for shooting in Europe) and the addition of stunt sequences, further re-shoots, and editing bogged the film down. Captain America went unreleased for two years. Although it did see the inside of theaters internationally, in the country of his origin poor Captain America was limited to a unheralded straight-to-video release.

The film begins neither in America nor in Germany, but in Mussolini’s Italy. A young boy is brutally ripped from his family and taken to a secret government laboratory where a reluctant scientist, Dr. Vaselli (Carla Cassola), will attempt to create the world’s first Super Soldier.

…

Captain AmericaRead More »

Captain America Read More »

Transformers 3 brought to you by Michael Bay and Lenovo

/ / Movie Reviews
  • Title: Transformers: Dark of the Moon
  • IMDB: link

transformers-dark-of-the-moon-posterIt’s official, Michael Bay can now be legitimately named the serial rapist of my childhood. Three Transformers movies and the man still doesn’t know what the hell a robot is (let alone a Transformer). Short version: Despite showing a momentary early glimmer of promise of not totally sucking, the film wastes what little it had going for it by making a series of mistakes and beating you down with a level of stupidity it’s hard to believe was done on purpose. For the first, but certainly not the last, time in this review, let me just say: Fuck you Michael Bay.

What works? The special effects are well done. The 3D isn’t Avatar level but is still impressive. Everything else? Hold on to your seats boys and girls this is going to get messy. Spoilers be damned, I’ve got a hellova lot to talk about. You’ve been warned!

…

Transformers 3 brought to you by Michael Bay and LenovoRead More »

Transformers 3 brought to you by Michael Bay and Lenovo Read More »

Cars 2

/ / Movie Reviews
  • Title: Cars 2
  • IMDB: link

cars-2-posterLet me get this out of the way first, for those who might not know, I absolutely loved Cars. How much? Enough for the Pixar film to top my Best Movies of 2006 list. I know some who would argue that it the original Cars isn’t among Pixar’s best. They’re wrong. Very, very wrong.

Even though I adore the original, I had a fair amount of misgivings when I heard it was getting a sequel. Face it, the message of the first film was pretty well played out. Lightning McQueen (Owen Wilson) had made a few new friends and learned something about himself during his short stint in Radiator Springs.

Cars 2 is the biggest shift in story of any of the Pixar’s sequels. The simple story about a star finding peace in a small town is replaced with a level of action and adventure that even puts The Incredibles to shame.

Let’s start with the positives. The film looks great. The different locales (including London, Paris, and the Mediterranean) are expertly rendered. I especially loved how the cars glistened in the bright neon streets of Tokyo.

…

Cars 2Read More »

Cars 2 Read More »

X-Men: First Class

/ / Movie Reviews
  • Title: X-Men: First Class
  • IMDB: link

x-men-first-class-posterAfter jumping ship to make a largely forgettable remake of Richard Donner’s Superman, and leaving the franchise in the hands of Brett Ratner, Bryan Singer returns to the X-Men universe as a producer for a relaunch of the series (of sorts).

The newest film, which in some ways feels like a prequel and in others more of a half-hearted full-relaunch that lets part of the original film series stick around, is a period piece set duing the early 1960’s, specifically set around the events of the Cuban Missile Crisis.

After a short introduction of a handful of the characters as children (including an expanded version of the early footage of Magneto in a concentration camp we saw in X-Men), the film fast-forwards to 1962, where most of the story unfolds.

…

X-Men: First ClassRead More »

X-Men: First Class Read More »

Kung Fu Panda 2

/ / Movie Reviews
  • Title: Kung Fu Panda 2
  • IMDb: link

Three years ago DreamWorks Animation put out a little film called Kung Fu Panda about a Panda with a destiny to learn Kung Fu and save his village from a shadowy warrior. It turned out to be one of my favorite films of 2008. While it might not be as good as the original (a film which I love to no end), the sequel brings plenty of awesome back to the screen.

Kung Fu Panda 2 fills in Po’s (Jack Black) back story as an attack on his village will lead him on a quest to discover where he comes from. Also back for the sequel are Shifu (Dustin Hoffman) and the Furious Five: Tigress (Angelina Jolie), Mantis (Seth Rogen), Monkey (Jackie Chan), Crane (David Cross), and Viper (Lucy Liu).

The film also gives us a deadly new enemy in a deranged peacock (played with malevolent glee by Gary Oldman) who wants to rule all of China by the force of a new deadly weapon which could mean the end of Kung Fu. We also get a few new characters voiced by the likes of Jean-Claude Van Damme as a Kung Fu crocodile (admit it, that’s pretty awesome), and Michelle Yeoh as the Soothsayer who holds all the answers to both Po’s past and future.

…

Kung Fu Panda 2Read More »

Kung Fu Panda 2 Read More »