Oblivion

Oblivion is not by any means a bad movie. It's got a great tone, great imagery, and a pretty darn solid performance from Mr. Cruise. It was very strongly directed, with some pretty amazing cinematography and some great sci-fi ideas.

But, with that solid performance from Mr. Cruise comes a pretty depressing performance from his co lead Andrea Risborough. And with the great imagery comes imagery that doesn't really make sense. And with strong direction, comes a sadly predictable story.

The story follows Tom Cruise as the last person on Earth with only one other woman, as they protect giant machines sucking up ocean water to generate power for a colony on Titan...? Wait, what? Erm...okay guess we'll go with it. For some reason there are no people on Earth anymore because the moon was destroyed...and caused tidal fluctuations and earthquakes and...yet somehow we won the war...? I wanna see THAT part of the story.

Yeah, well from the first trailer where it reveals Tom Cruise demanding the true identity of his partner, Morgan Freeman revealing that theres more than he knows, yada yada yada you see where this is all going. And sadly, as you see where it's all going, you also see the twists and all of it's flaws pretty obviously reveal themselves. It doesn't work. And that's sad. The effort put into the movie is truly there, but so much of it leaves you asking questions that, when answered, either really don't make any sense or just leave you in a big letdown wondering how you even got there.

Moreso, it borrows a lot. Obvious allusions to The Matrix, to almost every alien movie made, there's too many to count. It's great to borrow ideas, even steal ideas from sources you admire. But this was getting to be a little heavy, and I didn't like it.

Still, the atmosphere and Cruise did manage to save this one from being a total mess. And the imagery and scope of this enormous and unfamiliar version of Earth are fascinating. It's worth checking out, but maybe wait to grab this one on netflix.

Score: 2/5

Evil Dead

Evil Dead is campy, silly, horror fun. That's what made it great. And I guess the best way to say it is that this movie tries genuinely hard to be that way as well, with plenty of campy comments from our demon girl and plenty of silly horror. But I think the movie misunderstood itself - tongue in cheek self aware humor doesn't work in such a dark holding of itself. The first film took place in the context of a spring break at a cabin in the woods, and yes, Cabin in the Woods taking place in the same context also works incredibly well. But this movie fails by first opening up with an intervention. That doesn't really work in my mind - why have such a tongue in cheek story tragically tear away the hope of a healing drug addict?

From this point on, the characters of course find the book of incantations and spells and a demon takes over our drug addicted girl. At this point, the movie descends into the much wanted campiness. But it's not THAT campy. It's still trying too hard to be scary, I feel. And that's what was brilliant about the previous Evil Dead - it didn't need to try to scare you, or to make you laugh. I'm sure while the production team was sitting around they saw this as their greatest fear and obstacle, but at the end of the day, it ended up kindof getting in the way from too much effort.

I guess this all sums up to be a movie that works, but not as well as you really want it to. It's got its scary moments and twists, but doesn't manage to make me jump, scream, or laugh. Gross out scenes grossed me out fine, but in the back of my mind I was always wondering whether I was supposed to be grossed out or laughing. It doesn't share the fluidity of the tone of the first. Oh well. It's a fun escape.

Score: 2/5

The Place Beyond the Pines

Men, we can give up. No woman will ever love us again. I saw Ryan Gosling sleeveless and giggling while feeding an infant ice cream. We've lost. Give up.

Okay, but seriously, this movie is messed up. But it's nothing short of mesmerizing. People seemed to have a problem with it's story telling - how it's three separate stories told from beginning to end, transferring to new characters as they're introduced. But I loved it. It made a movie where characters pasts were known by us, but not to them. Which in some places made me want to scream the truth to the screen, and other times made me want the talking character to shut up before they said too much.

I guess we can start with Ryan Gosling, who sadly for us men, is gorgeous and talented. We lose, guys, because he's mesmerizing. What's amazing about him, though, is that he always maintains that sexy Ryan Gosling women rip their pants off for, but still manages to be broken. I've never seen Gosling lower than in this movie, and I feel so strongly for him. I look at him and instead of seeing a man cast for his looks who happens to be talented, I see a broken man at the end of his rope who happens to be very physically attractive, but too far gone to be able to use it. It was heart wrenching to watch his character spiral out of control, as you desperately want him to succeed.

Bradley Cooper comes into the film a bit later, and dear god can this man act. Again, pretty and talented, although I only just became a fan after Silver Linings, before never really being impressed by him. Here, he plays a morally confused cop, one who must debate between doing the morally right thing or potential protection of himself and his family. It's the first time the obvious choice is debatable that I've seen in a while, at least in a film like this. And it worked. I struggled with what I'd tell him to do as well. And his struggle was obvious.

Finally, there's the under appreciated Dane DeHaan, who I'm totally being serious, was the reason I wanted to see this movie. I already love Gosling and Cooper, but DeHaan is a brilliant up and coming actor. I can't wait to see where his career brings him, because he's absolutely going to win an Oscar before his time is gone. Here he plays a lonely high school kid trying to find out who his father was and what became of him, and why his family refuses to talk about it. The brilliant part is, we know. And it's heart wrenching to watch him unravel the truth about himself.

This is a brilliant film, with additional great performances from Eva Mendes and Ray Liotta. If this happens to be playing in your area, absolutely make it a priority to watch it.

Score: 5/5

The Host

I hate Twilight. What a shock. I only saw the first one and was so frustrated by the obvious distaste, the shameless catering to young girls who desperately wanted a boyfriend, and the horrific undertones of abusive relationships being the most romantic. I didn't want anything to do with it. I refused to watch any other Twilight movie. I remember an ex girlfriend of mine telling me it was okay if I didn't go to the midnight showing of one of the sequels as long as I didn't go to see it on Tuesday. As if that was a problem, I had no intention of watching another one ever. When trailers for The Host started playing, I was even more frustrated. Now we're ruining the alien invasion genre with a blatant rip off of Invasion of the Body Snatchers, in 3D? My friends told me it was so bad it's good. I definitely have a weakness for those.

But this wasn't so bad it's good. The fact that this was Roger Ebert's final review before he passed away is nothing short of disturbing. The fact remains that this is an unbelievably barrel-scraping mess of a movie, that ruined the image of an incredibly talented actress in my mind. Thankfully this movie absolutely tanked compared to expected gross at the box office, so hopefully no one will notice.

First of all, why are these aliens called "souls". Do they even know what a soul is? Second, how and why do they speak english to each other? Is that really expected considering their origin? Third of all, why is it that these aliens invading is necessarily a bad thing?! From what they said, they're here to fix our planet from the damage we did to it. That sounds like a WONDERFUL idea. Take over my body, be done with it, and lets get to work, almighty souls!

There is no way internal monologue can work the way it does in this. I would have rather all internal dialogue be dropped, and the only dialogue we hear is from this Wanderer soul thing inside our main characters body talk to itself. That would have been far more interesting than the garbage I got with her talking to herself.

Where is drama in this story? It should be obnoxiously obvious. But I simply don't see any reason to care about this little nobody girl on the run and her crush who now doesn't love her because of the demon soul inside of her. Moreso, alien's have taken over the world. Why on EARTH (pun intended) do I care about this stupid girl's failing romance with her creepy boyfriend who kisses her because she's a human. Literally, that's why they kiss. I'm not joking. He says "you're a human" and shoves his tongue in her mouth. I'm gonna try that next time I'm at a bar. I'm comin for ya, future wife.

I can go on and on all day about this god awful movie. But this is already getting long. So here's the deal - people are gonna tell you it's funny. If it is, they saw it in the perfect context with the right group of people. I saw it with two of my buddies knowing full well what we were getting into. It's not funny. It's just insufferable.

Score - 0.5/5

The Croods

Anyone who reads my reviews knows there are three big things that keep me from liking a movie - 1) Talking down to an audience, 2) Humor resulting in discomfort, and 3) Ridiculous character traits that make no sense. This movie doesn't only have all three, it seems to glorify in its use of all three.

First of all, the story - this family of cave men (and women), lead by a horribly performed Nicholas Cage (but then again who expected anything, really) are living in a cave due to their fear of the outside. But these aren't cavemen. These are the ancestors to the Incredibles. They run super fast, they're obnoxiously strong, they can outrun and defeat predators much more dangerous than themselves. So, really...Why are they terrified? I just watched one of them race 50 miles an hour to steal an egg from a nest. And they succeeded.

Second of all, the talking down to the audience - WHAT THE HECK are these animals?!?! Seriously, there's a pair of mice connected at the tail. There's a green saber tooth leaf lion thing. There are animals that clearly NEVER EXISTED. Kid's aren't stupid. They know that these animals don't exist. And because of that, why is there even a sloth?! An actual animal running around this world of ridiculously dumb looking ones? Why?! Also, kids aren't stupid. They've heard that new things aren't necessarily dangerous, that meeting new people is part of growing up, that just because it's different doesn't mean it's scary...So PLEASE don't put in lines like "I'm never trying anything new or different!" in the middle of the script. It's not clever, it's not funny, and it's not helping the moral at all.

Third of all - humor that makes me feel uncomfortable. Why is Nicholas Cage constantly looking forward to his mothers death. Is that supposed to be funny? Am I supposed to laugh? Because I'm not. I'm feeling kindof depressed at the idea of a man wishing death on his mother. Thanks for the scarring of kids who now potentially think of their mothers death as funny. Another point of discomfort - why am I looking up Eep's (the leading lady) skirt the whole time?! Seriously, she does so many backflips with her very exposed legs all the time. I don't want to see that. She's, what, 15? Jeez.

There's also a subcategory of reasons I hate a movie. The score. The awful, awful. AWFUL score in this movie.... It NEVER let up. It was constant bashing, banging, loud, and repetitive themes. Come on, Alan Silvestri, you've done WAY better than this.

So guess what. This breaks every rule I hate about bad movies. Especially animated movies. And considering last year was such a great year for them, I suggest you step up your game for Turbo, DreamWorks.

Score - 0.5/5

Olympus Has Fallen

Guns. Bombs. Blood. A bad-ass Gerard Butler. This is a guys movie, plain and simple. It's got a thin story, one that obviously has nukes somewhere in the mix. It's got big fires and special effects eye candy as far as the eye can see. Ladies, might as well skip this one. Unless you're an action girl. In which case, Hi, I'm Tom. How are you?

But more importantly, this film actually has a bit of appreciation that can go for it. First of all, it has one heck of a dynamite tone. It's pretty dark (tonally and physically), but it never actually hurts to watch or becomes preachy. It never manages to get to the point that it takes itself too seriously. Perhaps this is because of its lack of tongue-in-cheek action from the start. It's fun, but it's all placed pretty strongly in reality. It was nice to see a character who was shot once fall the ground, not riddled with bullets before damning the villains with his last breath before being shot in the head. If someone was shot, they went down. And that's always a relief to see considering the obnoxious trend of bullets doing nothing until the script says it's okay.

The story isn't exactly dynamite (who really expected it to be), but I have to admit I was pretty engrossed. I even felt suspense for a bit of it. Was he going to give up information they so desperately needed? Was acting-President Morgan Freeman making the right decisions? Would Melissa Leo ever stop overacting and stop the unintentional laughter from the audience? You'll just have to keep watching to see.

The action scenes in this is where the film really shined. It didn't take advantage of awful jump cuts or shaky cam to hide how poorly executed the action scenes were. Rather, the shots were nice and connected, and you could very plainly see how Butler managed to take down a bunch of bad guys quickly and effectively. Plus, there's the added bonus of me personally never seeing a movie with the White House being attacked in such a way. It worked, pretty darn well.

I guess the best way of summing this up is, White House Down (starring Channing Tatum), your mediocre film idea already has a decent amount to live up to. Good luck.

Score - 3/5

Admission

Paul Rudd is adorable. End of story. Tina Fey is super funny. Again, a second end to the story. Putting them together is an adorable idea. I mean, they're just such an ideal couple by my standards - they'd make me laugh, they'd make me love their relationship, and hopefully it wouldn't be ridiculous.

I guess I shouldn't get my hopes up.

Admission follows a Princeton Admissions officer contemplating her life while she scouts out a potential student who could also be her potential son. I guess it was an attempt to make the scouting process of this one awkward but likable boy a bit more believable, but it isn't. Moreso, the constant attempts of Rudd to help in the situation are less of endearing and more overbearing. It simply doesn't work, and it becomes something that I hate in movies - a forced male character who is pretty obviously a jerk out looking to get laid, instead of the obvious good guy he's supposed to be written as. It's uncomfortable, detestable, and poorly written.

On top of that is this obnoxious and constant forced reminder that this is an admissions officer. Why did it have to be an admissions officer in the first place? A woman finding her brilliant son is fine. But now we watch a woman in an admissions office at Princeton, of all places, is fighting for her son to get into the school? That's not endearing, that's not cute. That's wrong, in my eyes. And the only reason I see her strongly wanting to accept this kid into the school is solely because of her unhealthy closeness to the potential student. That's wrong. And I'm sure anyone who watched this movie who did want to go to Princeton, get ready to get pissed off by an obnoxious ending that leads to moral reprehensibility.

All in all, you desperately wish that this movie could be sweeter considering the cast. But a much simpler romance between the two would have been just as effective, if not more touching and funny. But where do jokes possibly come from in a story like this? They don't, except hope that Tina Fey as Tina Fey is enough to get a laugh. They tried, but they didn't succeed.

Score - 1.5/5