Fantasy

Sucker Punch

/ / Movie Reviews
  • Title: Sucker Punch
  • IMDB: link

sucker-punch-posterWell, the dragon was kinda cool. You know you’re watching a Zack Snyder film when twenty minutes in you realize you’d rather be watching a Brett Ratner flick.

There were a myriad of ideas bouncing around my head as the credits began to roll and I tried to wrap my brain around what the hell I just watched, let alone what it was supposed to mean. Coming out of Sucker Punch I felt I was the one who had taken the hit – right in the crotch.

Sucker Punch has been Snyder’s pet project since 2007 and it’s a pretty strong idictment against directors having total control of a film. It might have been insufferable, but at least Peter Jackson’s multi-million dollar masturbatory fantasy had a giant ape who was fun to watch.

Sucker Punch gives us scantily clad young actresses espousing ridiculous dialogue while playing out an even more ridiculous plot. It’s impossible to take a film like this seriously, and, for some unknown reason, that’s exactly what Snyder wants us to do.

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Gulliver’s Travels

/ / Movie Reviews
  • Title: Gulliver’s Travels
  • IMDB: link

A BIG DISAPPOINTMENT

I’m not sure, but I’m willing to bet the central idea for putting Jack Black in a remake of Gulliver’s Travels was for the express purpose of having him fight a giant robot in the town square as the miniature masses looked on. As ideas go, this one is less than inspired (but, then again, so is the rest of this hapless film).

How you take the talents of Jack Black, Jason Segel, Emily Blunt, Amanda Peet, and Billy Connolly and create something as thoroughly inane and painfully unfunny as Gulliver’s Travels is a mystery. This might be the dumbest movie I saw this year.

Black stars as slacker mailroom worker Lemuel Gulliver. To impress news editor Darcy Silverman (Peet), for whom he’s had a secret crush for years, Gulliver plagiarizes various travel articles earning him a spot to write for the paper. (I can’t imagine how such a well designed plan might blow up in his face.) His first assignment takes him to the Bermuda Triangle. (Cue ominous music.) After sailing into a storm Gulliver finds himself in the land of Lilliput, a kingdom filled with people less than 6-inches tall.

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Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1

/ / Movie Reviews
  • Title: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part I
  • IMDB: link

There is a point not too far into Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1 where Ron Weasley (Rupert Grint) informs Harry Potter (Daniel Radcliffe) that everything going on, the sacrifices being made, the world falling into darkness, isn’t only about him. This is a sentiment backed-up by the rest of the film. Harry might still be the most important character, but he’s certainly not the only character.

There are several telling differences here. The first scene in the film doesn’t involve Harry at all, but Hermoine (Emma Watson) and the difficult choice she makes with respect to her “Muggle” parents (Ian Kelly, Michelle Fairley). If this dramatic opening isn’t enough to clue you in we’re in for a far darker Harry Potter then scene directly following will leave you no doubt.

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How to Train Your Dragon

/ / Movie Reviews
  • Title: How to Train Your Dragon
  • IMDb: link

Aside from the fact that How to Train Your Dragon includes Vikings and dragons it’s very similar to many teenage comedies Hollywood has put out over the years. Hiccup (Jay Baruchel) is your typical Ugly Duckling character. Although the term “nerd” is never uttered it’s fair to say if the Vikings had a word for Hiccup this would be the modern translation. On the Viking island of Berk the clumsy Hiccup is as far from the Viking ideal as one could get, and a constant irritation to his father (Gerard Butler).

Much like nerds of our era, Hiccup struggles with his ineptitude. He thinks too much, makes crazy inventions, and is the butt of jokes by not only the gang his own age but everyone in the village. And, of course, our hero has a crush on a girl (America Ferrera) who’s everything he’s not: athletic, self-assured, and a true warrior. Though he might not be a typical Viking, Hiccup does want to take part in his peoples’ most important mission – fighting dragons. After trapping a dragon with one of his many inventions Hiccup is unable to kill the wounded creature and instead decides to try and help the creature fly once more.

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Discover for yourself Where the Wild Things Are

/ / Movie Reviews
  • Title: Where the Wild Things Are
  • IMDB: link

where-the-wild-things-are-posterThere will no doubt be critics and film professors who dismiss Where the Wild Things Are for it’s lack of story and structure. There will also be those who find immediate emotional attachment to this primal story of a child struggling with a world he can’t control.

Although I do have some qualms about the film mainly dealing with its length (and I thought it could use a bit more polish plot-wise), and didn’t have the emotional attachment to the story I expected, I will freely admit the film is worth a long look.

Aside from the bookends of his normal life, the entire movie takes place in a world Max (Max Records) discovers while trying to escape problems at home he can neither deal with nor articulate. In running away Max discovers a refuge on island of monsters (voiced by James Gandolfini, Paul Dano, Catherine O’Hara, Forest Whitaker, Chris Cooper, and Lauren Ambrose).

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