I'm At My Most Movie-watchinest Ever

[nekouken]

In the last couple months, I've seen the following in the theatre:

Monsters Vs. Aliens: Like Kung Fu Panda before it, MvA demonstrates that Dreamworks animation has come into its own. I remember their earlier works having little to no appeal for me; Antz came out during their "let's steal ideas from other studios then rush them to release so it

Comments

[qa]

Monsters vs Aliens was cute and funny.

What did you think of Bones in the Star Trek movie? He seemed to be the one who was most like the original character to me.

I hated the fact that the trailer for Terminator: Salvation revealed so many secrets. I wish they'd quit doing that.

[nekouken]

Oh, he was great. My observation at the time was that he's not as firmly established an actor as DeForest Kelley was back in the '60s, and as such couldn't be as unattractive as he was; he had to be "Hollywood ugly" or better. He grabbed the character and ran with it, though. I felt that way about most of the cast, though -- Uhura probably had the biggest challenge, finding a layer or two of extra depth beneath Nichelle Nichols' performance (not Nichols' fault, of course; she was a black woman on television in the '60s. Making her be intelligent, interesting and outstanding in her field would have been too much for the audiences to take).

[cblaze]

I'm not sure - I really liked Terminator - but reading all these negative reviews - I wonder if Ebert and others had a newsletter out there telling them that the movie should have very specific things and if it doesn't it should be trashed. I will agree that the trailers ruined what could've been an awesome reveal!

I didn't see MvA - I'll probably wait until DVD the marketing was too much for me - I need it to die down some.

[nekouken]

I'd have been just as happy watching MvA at home, so I concur with your feeling. Like KFP before it, it was incessantly hyped, but the quality of the product isn't adequately reflected in the merchandising (sadly, there was no Monsters vs. Aliens: The Flamethrower). Hollow as the secondary cast is, the movie's got a good center -- not as good as KFP, which invested much more into its ancillary cast, but still good.

Ebert's not technically wrong about anything he says about Terminator. My point is more that he's blind to its merits because he holds every film he sees up to the same standard, rather than the standards set by the film's influences and genre. The "XXX MOVIE" spoofs tend to fail because they're not funny as comedies go, not because they're not as good as Lawrence of Arabia, and I don't think he gets that

[cblaze]

I'm glad as someone who's seen the film - that you agree I'm headed in the right direction on MvA.

Yes, I agree with you about Ebert's views. I guess I'm just confused with how the film is what it's advertised to be. It's pulled off compentently and without anything that you'd slap your forehead about - that is unless you're looking for something to hate about it and as I read reviews - it seems like people are nitpicking an action film about robots who take over the world. Yes, there's certain silliness involved in the whole concept - why people can't deal - I don't know.

As far as the trailer goes - yeah I see your point and the viewer could put it together - but they still had a reveal in the movie. The first half of the movie was to answer who - and the second half was to answer why. So, with one question answered already by the trailer... I don't know.