The Game Plan was watchable*. I wouldn't recommend going and renting it, but if your friend rents it and puts it on there are worse things to see. For the first half I was ready to hate it; it didn't take itself seriously enough even to work as a comedy, since it's a comedy about real people and not Leslie Nielsen ridiculousness. By the end, though, it settled down and was okay.
Jumper was neither better nor worse than I expected. I can officially say that Hayden Christensen can't act. The writing and directing are so bad in the Star Wars prequel that I refuse to judge anyone's acting based on those movies; but this second witness confirms it. It doesn't matter, though, because it's a fun premise, and has just enough story to keep you watching. Samuel L. Jackson makes a great villain (in contrast to the cardboard cutout of Jackson Lucas used in Star Wars), even if the motivation for the villain organization and the accompanying plot twists were given only the slightest bit of thought.
By far the best thing about this movie, and what makes it worth recommending, is the fighting. Jumper has incredible fight scenes as the characters teleport from the top of the pyramids to the bottom of the ocean to the Colloseum, etc. Many directors could learn lessons from the special effects, and how they were kept very simple and were not distracting but rather helped tell the story. The most annoying thing was the narration. Very few movies work with narration (Fight Club is the best by far), yet so many try and it's just distracting. The protagonist introduces himself at the beginning, then as the action unfolds the writers forgot about the narration until the very end. Whatever, this one's worth watching once.
Edward Scissorhands. We had very high hopes for this one, since we both consider ourselves Tim Burton fans, and Johnny Depp is brilliant no matter what he does (Willy Wonka was just a horrible idea executed flawlessly by Mr. Depp; not his fault). Unfortunately, I'm beginning to think I'm mostly just a Nightmare Before Christmas fan. The Corpse Bride was good, but forgettable; Willy Wonka sucked big time, Big Fish was boring, Mars Attacks! and Pee-Wee were just fun and I haven't seen Sleepy Hollow (I want to, though) and I won't see Planet of the Apes. And the new Batman movies are better than the old ones. I do very much like Beetlejuice and Sweeney Todd, though.
Aside from Depp being absolutely perfect at playing Edward Scissorhands, the movie was twice as long as it should be. The first half had some very funny moments, but the story itself didn't move at all. Once things started going badly, though, I really got into it, and it became a very good movie for about twenty minutes. Johnny Depp was especially scary in the final showdown. Scissorhands, though, had the same problem as Jumper with the narration. This movie didn't need narration, and it was distracting! Again, it appears only at the beginning and end, and did nothing at all for the story. Even worse, in this case, it is a major flashback as the main girl (who gets almost no character development whatsoever) recalls her childhood and encounter with Scissorhands. This alone wouldn't make it worse, except that they have the young actress (who happens to be Winona Ryder) play herself as an old woman, and she doesn't pull it off at all. There's nothing wrong with casting an actual old woman for the part, and we wouldn't have had to suffer through young Winona's wussy old woman voice.
More things that bothered me were the "why does it snow" plot device, which was just tacky, and the fact that throughout the movie, even when things are going well, no one helps Edward! They watch him fumble with his scissor hands when there are many things they could do to make things easier for him, such as fit his scissors with a fork attachment or something. This treatment had to be deliberate on the part of Burton, but I don't understand why. The other thing was the flashbacks to Edward's childhood(?) with the mad scientist. Yes, Vincent Price is cool and Burton is a big fan, but these were done badly (not Price's fault, or Depp's). The machines were kind of cool-looking, but why did they make sugar cookies? And what was with Price picking up the heart-shaped cookie and thinking about giving Edward a heart when they make it clear that the final touch was to give him hands? I don't get it. However, I do recommend watching this movie at least once, for the excellent performances and the well-done second half, and the music. The music alone is enough. I'd say this is my second-favorite Danny Elfman soundtrack after The Nightmare Before Christmas. It's good stuff. Watch it, then watch Beetlejuice, then watch Sweeney Todd; and this Christmas, you know which one to watch. Kate and I watch Nightmare every Christmas as sort of an anti-It's-A-Wonderful-Life-slash-Miracle-on-Thirty-Whatever-Street Christmas tradition.
Driving Lessons is a 2006 movie starring Rupert Grint and Julie Walters, who you might recognize as Ron and Mollie Weasley from Harry Potter. Kate and I accidentally stumbled on this one at Hollywood Video, and rented it out of morbid curiosity. I wish I had the DVD in hand, the synopsis on the back was hilarious. Basically it's a coming-of-age story about a boy in an oppressive over-zealous Christian home who gets a job taking care of an old retired actress. She abducts him to go on a camping trip, and manipulates him into doing whatever she wants. Along the way he is introduced to underage driving, underage drinking, and underage sex, and it's all hilarious.
We had literally no expectations of this movie, but it's been a long time since we've laughed so hard. We kept going back and forth between "what in Hell are we watching?" and "this is the best movie ever!" and by the end decided that we must own this DVD. It's also funny to watch Ron and Mollie (not really, of course) recite drunken poetry and swear. There were also great shots of English and Scottish countryside and a variety of cool accents. The music was great, too; Rebekah, you might be interested since Sufjan Stevens and similar music is featured throughout. This was a very good movie. I highly recommend it.
Rupert Grint and Julie Walters sharing a drink.
Get Smart was a lot of fun. The irony here is that I am a fan of Steve Carell (despite Dan in Real Life) and Kate can't stand him, while Kate likes Anne Hathaway and I think she's funny-looking and not a terribly good actress. They worked well for this film, though, and of course The Rock is always good. This movie was good even though all the major plot twists could be seen a mile away. The trick was that the audience is made to care about the characters (I was, at least). Steve Carell is so good at pulling off sincerity that when bad things happen to Maxwell Smart you can't help but feel bad for him, and when he pulls off something cool it's satisfying. For that matter, that's what makes The Office work, too; even when Michael Scott is his most insensitive Carell plays the part so sincerely that it works. Except when he tried to trade away Phyllis' homemade Christmas gift, I wanted to drive straight to Scranton and punch him in the face when I watched that episode.
Anyway, the plot is predictable, but it's okay. The characters, jokes and action were good enough that it never occurred to me to try to guess what the plot twists would be. It's in boring movies that I spend my time predicting what's going to happen next, and this movie was not boring. The spy gadgets are completely ridiculous (and there's not really any such thing as a briefcase nuke), but that's half the fun. At first I thought it was funny that they have Soviets be the bad guys, but with Russia invading Georgia maybe they're not so far off after all. And have I ever mentioned how much I love spy music? This movie had a very fun classic spy soundtrack. I can't get enough James Bond music, and the soundtrack to The Incredibles is awesome and I must buy it sometime, and they really had some fun with the music for Get Smart. I definitely recommend this one.
As a side note, Universal recently bought an option to make movies based on The Wheel of Time. Since that is such a long, complex series, it will be interesting to see how they handle it. I don't know who will write it and who will direct it (if they've even discussed it yet), but I'd love to see Alfonso Cuaron or Peter Jackson do it. Not likely, though. As long as it's not Lucas or Spielburg or (shudder) Chris Columbus.
Bad news: Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince has been postponed to July 2009. Stupid writer's strike!
*I've had a lot of footnotes lately, and figured this post wouldn't be complete without one.
No comments:
Post a Comment