movie reviews
Terminator: Salvation
AKA the movie where I officially stop giving a shit about Christian Bale. Alas, I have discovered that for the past several years, I have wanted to like Christian Bale more than I actually liked him. I thought he was really amazing in American Psycho, I enjoyed him in Equilibrium, but right around Batman Begins, I began to doubt. While I'm no big fan of Liam Neeson, it's still Liam fucking Neeson, plus Bruce was being emo and stuff, so I guess I can understand a certain petulance and lame in Bale's performance. Then The Prestige rolled around, and Hugh Jackson blew me away. Bale was just... kinda there. The kicker came with The Dark Knight. Pretty much EVERYONE outclassed Bale in that movie, from Ledger to Eckhart to Oldman.
But finally, Terminator: Salvation. And I pretty much have to face the fact that I want to like Bale, but wow, no, dude really isn't that great of an actor. He falls flat for me 95% of the time. Whatever emotions he attempts to portray, I am unconvinced.
At no point am I convinced that Bale is John Connor. Here's the thing about Future!Connor for me: you never see him. That John Connor of the future resistance is a mystery. I LOVED TSCC for wrapping the man in mystery, as he should be, right from the very first movie. T:S is where you finally meet the man, and dear god, Bale falls so short of the mark that it's painful. He supposedly has the heart of the resistance. I saw no proof of this beyond being told that he does. His speechifying? Was speechifying. I was not motivated by his words nor was I convinced of his charisma. You can get away with "Connor is DA BEST" when you're playing with the conceit of the invisible leader, but when you actually show the guy, the guy better BE the shit, which Bale most certainly was not. He does, however, look very very good with a gun.
Marcus is the clear hero of the story. Connor should not have as big a role as he should've. And what pains me, and why I'm even more turned off by Bale, is the story that Bale demanded a rewrite to expand his role. I have no proof of this, obviously. It's just a story, unsubstantiated. But the movie I saw back this claim up, because so many scenes with Connor felt shoehorned in. An actor should serve the story, not the other way around. So if it's really true? Yeah, apathy for Bale verging on active dislike.
Oh, the moment when Connor saw Kyle Reese for the first time? I should've been blown away. Thomas Dekker did this moment 9000 times better. Come the fuck on, Bale.
My Bale-dislike aside, I liked everything else about the movie, ie: Sam Worthington. He made the film worthwhile, pardon the pun. :D
Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen
I wasn't even going to see this movie, but circumstances made it happen, and oh my god, it's about six hours too long. I can't believe the same people who wrote Star Trek wrote this piece of crap. There was an exposition scene that was about 15 minutes long, I swear, 15 minutes straight of boring exposition that felt about 2 hours long. Actually, no, I take it back. I know EXACTLY how the people who wrote Trek wrote Transformers 2. I love the reboot, obviously. I love it to mad death. But it's honestly not very strong on the plot front. The "this is AU" discussion was a giant piece of exposition. The Nero plot has more holes than swiss cheese. Star Trek worked by sheer force of charisma and awesome pacing. Transformers 2 had neither and suffered from Michael Bay, who is a stupid director and doesn't know how to cover up weaknesses and play up the strengths.
With that said, uh. Um. Coff. >___> @___@
I may perhaps have found Shia the Beef semi-decent in this movie. URGH I KNOW WTF. I hate him SO MUCH. I don't understand why people are creaming their panties over him when I find him neither hot nor talented. But...
I like Sam, the character. He was kinda steadily endearing himself to me through the course of the movie, but he really won me over when he risked his life to save Optimus Prime. Like, I'm really really easy when you hit on my narrative kinks, and I love the story of ordinary guys finding extraordinary courage in extreme circumstances. And goddammit, Shia did a really job with it. I've always felt like he's an actor whose material completely overshadows him. In this one, I felt like he stepped up, just like Sam stepped up. Granted, it's big dumb noisy action movie with lots of explosions, but it's like he actually contributed something to the movie this time instead of just letting everything else do the heavy-lifting.
Urgh. This pisses me off beyond all measure.
The Taking of Pelham 123
Going from lame director to competent director. I find that I really like Tony Scott's work even though he does Big Dumb Action Movies, too. But the key difference is that while Tony Scott feels kind of indulgent sometimes, he actually never goes overboard, not like Michael Bay does. His movies are always very well-paced. They may not be works of art, but they're Perfectly Acceptable, and sometimes that's all you want, a movie that engages you, entertains you, and leaves you satisfied at the end. It helps that Tony Scott keeps casting Denzel Washington, because Denzel is very very grounding.
I liked Pelham 123. Did it do anything groundbreaking? No. But it was solid and enjoyable. Even though the road has been tread before, I don't feel like the movie was paint by numbers, lines recited by rote. Nobody phoned it in.
With that said, I don't think it was anybody's best work in this particular genre. John Travolta isn't really ever gonna top what he did in Face/Off. For Denzel/Tony Scott team-up, my favorite is Man on Fire, followed by Deja Vu. It will be interesting to see what Unstoppable is gonna be like. A little strange to be doing another train movie after this one, but it supposedly will have Chris Pine in it, and I dearly would love to see Chris Pine in a Tony Scott movie.
The Hangover
Again, not a movie I watched by choice. I don't tend to watch comedies on the big screen. It's kind of not worth it. But my sister really wanted to see it, so we went. I liked it, surprisingly enough. Offensive as fuck though. But such is comedy. Was it the funniest thing ever? Not really, not in my opinion. I'm not fond of gross-out humor, I have a huge embarrassment squick, so I was skeezed out at a lot of places. But overall, I enjoyed it.
Uh. I have to say that Bradley Cooper is kind of ridiculously good-looking. This will come as a surprise to no one. I really need to stop liking generic pretty white boys with blue eyes. It's getting embarrassing. His character, however, is a giant douche, and I never do lose sight of that, so there's that at least. ;_;
AKA the movie where I officially stop giving a shit about Christian Bale. Alas, I have discovered that for the past several years, I have wanted to like Christian Bale more than I actually liked him. I thought he was really amazing in American Psycho, I enjoyed him in Equilibrium, but right around Batman Begins, I began to doubt. While I'm no big fan of Liam Neeson, it's still Liam fucking Neeson, plus Bruce was being emo and stuff, so I guess I can understand a certain petulance and lame in Bale's performance. Then The Prestige rolled around, and Hugh Jackson blew me away. Bale was just... kinda there. The kicker came with The Dark Knight. Pretty much EVERYONE outclassed Bale in that movie, from Ledger to Eckhart to Oldman.
But finally, Terminator: Salvation. And I pretty much have to face the fact that I want to like Bale, but wow, no, dude really isn't that great of an actor. He falls flat for me 95% of the time. Whatever emotions he attempts to portray, I am unconvinced.
At no point am I convinced that Bale is John Connor. Here's the thing about Future!Connor for me: you never see him. That John Connor of the future resistance is a mystery. I LOVED TSCC for wrapping the man in mystery, as he should be, right from the very first movie. T:S is where you finally meet the man, and dear god, Bale falls so short of the mark that it's painful. He supposedly has the heart of the resistance. I saw no proof of this beyond being told that he does. His speechifying? Was speechifying. I was not motivated by his words nor was I convinced of his charisma. You can get away with "Connor is DA BEST" when you're playing with the conceit of the invisible leader, but when you actually show the guy, the guy better BE the shit, which Bale most certainly was not. He does, however, look very very good with a gun.
Marcus is the clear hero of the story. Connor should not have as big a role as he should've. And what pains me, and why I'm even more turned off by Bale, is the story that Bale demanded a rewrite to expand his role. I have no proof of this, obviously. It's just a story, unsubstantiated. But the movie I saw back this claim up, because so many scenes with Connor felt shoehorned in. An actor should serve the story, not the other way around. So if it's really true? Yeah, apathy for Bale verging on active dislike.
Oh, the moment when Connor saw Kyle Reese for the first time? I should've been blown away. Thomas Dekker did this moment 9000 times better. Come the fuck on, Bale.
My Bale-dislike aside, I liked everything else about the movie, ie: Sam Worthington. He made the film worthwhile, pardon the pun. :D
Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen
I wasn't even going to see this movie, but circumstances made it happen, and oh my god, it's about six hours too long. I can't believe the same people who wrote Star Trek wrote this piece of crap. There was an exposition scene that was about 15 minutes long, I swear, 15 minutes straight of boring exposition that felt about 2 hours long. Actually, no, I take it back. I know EXACTLY how the people who wrote Trek wrote Transformers 2. I love the reboot, obviously. I love it to mad death. But it's honestly not very strong on the plot front. The "this is AU" discussion was a giant piece of exposition. The Nero plot has more holes than swiss cheese. Star Trek worked by sheer force of charisma and awesome pacing. Transformers 2 had neither and suffered from Michael Bay, who is a stupid director and doesn't know how to cover up weaknesses and play up the strengths.
With that said, uh. Um. Coff. >___> @___@
I may perhaps have found Shia the Beef semi-decent in this movie. URGH I KNOW WTF. I hate him SO MUCH. I don't understand why people are creaming their panties over him when I find him neither hot nor talented. But...
I like Sam, the character. He was kinda steadily endearing himself to me through the course of the movie, but he really won me over when he risked his life to save Optimus Prime. Like, I'm really really easy when you hit on my narrative kinks, and I love the story of ordinary guys finding extraordinary courage in extreme circumstances. And goddammit, Shia did a really job with it. I've always felt like he's an actor whose material completely overshadows him. In this one, I felt like he stepped up, just like Sam stepped up. Granted, it's big dumb noisy action movie with lots of explosions, but it's like he actually contributed something to the movie this time instead of just letting everything else do the heavy-lifting.
Urgh. This pisses me off beyond all measure.
The Taking of Pelham 123
Going from lame director to competent director. I find that I really like Tony Scott's work even though he does Big Dumb Action Movies, too. But the key difference is that while Tony Scott feels kind of indulgent sometimes, he actually never goes overboard, not like Michael Bay does. His movies are always very well-paced. They may not be works of art, but they're Perfectly Acceptable, and sometimes that's all you want, a movie that engages you, entertains you, and leaves you satisfied at the end. It helps that Tony Scott keeps casting Denzel Washington, because Denzel is very very grounding.
I liked Pelham 123. Did it do anything groundbreaking? No. But it was solid and enjoyable. Even though the road has been tread before, I don't feel like the movie was paint by numbers, lines recited by rote. Nobody phoned it in.
With that said, I don't think it was anybody's best work in this particular genre. John Travolta isn't really ever gonna top what he did in Face/Off. For Denzel/Tony Scott team-up, my favorite is Man on Fire, followed by Deja Vu. It will be interesting to see what Unstoppable is gonna be like. A little strange to be doing another train movie after this one, but it supposedly will have Chris Pine in it, and I dearly would love to see Chris Pine in a Tony Scott movie.
The Hangover
Again, not a movie I watched by choice. I don't tend to watch comedies on the big screen. It's kind of not worth it. But my sister really wanted to see it, so we went. I liked it, surprisingly enough. Offensive as fuck though. But such is comedy. Was it the funniest thing ever? Not really, not in my opinion. I'm not fond of gross-out humor, I have a huge embarrassment squick, so I was skeezed out at a lot of places. But overall, I enjoyed it.
Uh. I have to say that Bradley Cooper is kind of ridiculously good-looking. This will come as a surprise to no one. I really need to stop liking generic pretty white boys with blue eyes. It's getting embarrassing. His character, however, is a giant douche, and I never do lose sight of that, so there's that at least. ;_;