Adventureland, Sports Movie Uncut & 2012
It's been one of those weekends, with nothing else to do. Can I go back to work now?
Sports movie wasn't really a great surprise. And not great. Think Scary Movie, except poorer quality. There were a couple of laughs in it, but entirely predictable and quite low brow. Maybe if I hadn't fallen asleep twice during it I might have something better to say ;)
2012 was a typical blockbuster - plenty of whizz-bang, and not much thought about what actually happens, The basic premise is fairly obvious - the world is going to end. They don't really spend a lot of time explaining it (the neutrinos are interacting in an unpredictable way with the earth's core - I got a serious Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles flashback from that). It takes nearly 45min for anything to actually happen, but when it does, it's all over too quickly.
While I prefer character stories, a movie like this really isn't one at all. There are some great CGI disaster sequences, but then they go back to the plodding characters as they try to get to safety. As usual, there are the self-sacraficial heroes (I'm sure nobody said they were suicidal), the people who'd do anything to save themselves, the people who'd do anything to save others, and so on.
What actually did surprise me was the fact that instead of building spaceships, they built arks. I kid you not. Like Noah. Obviously, they were state of the art, but arks nonetheless. And again, some cool CGI when they launched them. I'm assuming the southern continent got obliterated, good to know we don't rate a mention in the end of the world. Although I'm assuming everything really should've been, considering the ark crashed into Mt Everest.
But the biggest mistep of all in this movie was that only a few hundred thousand people got on these arks, yet the obliteration of the world's population didn't really get a mention (after it happened).
All in all, I enjoyed this movie, but mostly for the CGI, rather than the storyline.
On to Adventureland. This was a pleasant surprise. I was expecting this to be about on par with Sports Movie. It stars Jesse Eisenberg & Kristen Stewart (yes, from Twilight) and Ryan Reynolds (Van Wilder).
I was extremely surprised to learn that Kristen Stewart can actually act. I guess it goes to show that if you have crappy dialogue, nobody can deliver it well *cough*Teyla*cough*
The movie was not what I expected at all. It's essentially a love story, but without all that teen angst. They are all working at an amusement park in order to save money to go to college. James (Jesse) parents have hit hard times, so he has to work there to fund his dream of being a journalism student in new york. Needless to say there are many dramas along the way. It wasn't cliched like I expected, not every fit into their 'box' as is often the case.
So out of the three of them, Adventureland was the clear winner. It might've been 2010, but there were too many omissions. A pity, Adventureland would've cost a fraction of 2010 to produce.