Predators

Awesome!  There could not have been a better sequel to 1987's original with Ah Node.  1990's goofer with Danny Glover is like a step child in the series as are the AVP 2004 and 2007 offerings. 

The knarliest of their tribes (e.g. a Yakuza hitman, a Mexican drug cartel's executioner, a soldier of fortune, etc.) have been selected, kidnapped from earth and tossed onto a planet which turns out to be a game preserve for the Predators to visit, bag their limit, and then fly home.  Adrien Brody, Alice Braga ("I am Legend," "Repo Men"), and Laurence Fishburne lead the cast with some other notables and it is good.  This turned out to be a 2  niter for me!!!

The acting is good, the cinematography, well, the lighting could have been better, and directing are fine as well.  The script is good as the twists in it are pretty cool to think about.  For instance, the creepy con who turns out to be okay, the doctor who turns out...well, watch the film.  One bizarre thing was it seemed like Fishburne and Brody were required to smoke a pack of cigarettes before each line.

Cop Out

Everything was a "Cop Out."  I think I made it 15 minutes into this.  At the point at which Tracy Morgan's character "Paul Hodges" remains in a lame cell phone costume from a blown surveillance operation that, in the movie's time, happened 2-3 hours earlier...no, I could not take it anymore.  This additional extreme reach for laughs that weren't there was enough.  I packed this thing up and tossed it back in the red envelope and sent it home.  It was like the movie came into my house, peed on the carpet and I had to get rid of it.

I can't remember seeing Tracy Morgan in anything else and this movie will make me wary of seeing anything in the future that he might be in.  Bruce Willis, c'mon!  No bummer on the acting by you, but man, this was like a car with the steering locked to the right an no matter how hard your acting talents tried to straighten it, the car went over the cliff.  Kevin Smith, please, "Clerks, Chasing Amy," and a few others rocked, the writing and all of it, but what happened?  Okay, you did not write it, but man, you should have stepped in.

Perhaps the worst is that my wife has been holding onto "Sex and the City II" for over a month now and has still not watched it so I can return it.  With only 2 choices of the 3, I am now high and dry as I wait for the replacement for the movie I returned the day before I started watching "Cop Out."  Even in this position of being movieless, I will not watch "Sex and the City," because I must be the only heterosexual guy in the US who never came across women like Samantha and don't need to be reminded of it, and "Cop Out" was just too lame to continue.  The best thing is that by not staying up later to watch it, I actually got a decent night's sleep last night.

Pirate Radio

Uhhh, man, it was just on the cusp of being turned back into the red envelope prematurely.  This movie took me about 4 nights to finish and I finished it just to be able to write up the piece I am now dancing my fingers on the keyboard to complete.  Oridinarliy a 115 minute (average movie length) movie can be done in 2-3 nights.  In fact, using the nights to finish may be the easiest gauge.  This was a 4 night movie.  During the day, I was not really sure where I was in this film and was not really looking too forward to re-engaging and finishing it. 

What kept it going was the acting: good, very good!  Philip Seymour Hoffman is great in anything he does.  I remember first seeing him in "Scent of a Woman" and in his supporting role, he did really well, so it is cool that his talent has been rewarded day in and out and he never disappoints.  I am also totally envious of the role he had in 'Before the Devil Knows You're Dead," and admire his doing his own stunts across from Marisa Tomei-more power to you bro, if there is a sequel, let me be your stunt double!!!  Kenneth Branagh also lends some awesome acting chops.  Bill Nighy, who plays Quentin (the big cheese on the Pirate Radio ship) is good too.  He always seems to land the roles as the "proper, honorable rule abiding" patriarch who is always leader of the crowd that is on the wrong side of the law: this movie and "Underworld."  Funny stuff was that I kept swearing to myself that Nick Frost (Dr. Dave) was really John Favreau with makeup and an accent...I was wrong.  Lastly, is Rhys Ifans who plays Gavin; seriously, this dude is a British Tom Petty.

Okay, so the acting, cinematography, and directing are good, but the plot and all that it is and over glamourification and demonization pretty much leave me thinking I finished too many Long Island Ice Teas the night before:  they were okay in the tasty sense, I felt no real pain, but when I woke the next day, I felt like cold poop.

Date Night

Carell and Fey Rock!  Where you are in life really impacts what you get out of a film or can relate to in a film.  Of course, there are films like "Saving Private Ryan" which I can't relate to on a personal level, but I did get a hell of a lot out of.  I am married and have 2 boys and wow, I was like, yeah, I have been there.  For me, the best part of the film was the scene in which Fey and Carell are in Wahlberg's (pseudo stolen) Audi (and what the hell is with Audi and the product placement: "Iron Man," this movie, "I, Robot," and knocking BMW out of "The Transporter" series?) and Fey's and Carell's characters come clean about what they have become but what they were and are is still in them.

The movie was good with the action but really good due to the leads: a not extraordinary couple who seek to recapture a bit of what they were and seek to at least put a crack in what they have become by "living on the edge" a bit.  Only problem is that the "living on the edge" tip toe they pull ends up pushing them way over the edge.  Lastly, after all is said and done, they return home to their lives and realize that they aren't missing anything and that what they have is far better than what the "exciting people" have....except for Wahlberg's character.

Cinematography was fine, directing was good, and the acting, well, a few schlurb shots once in awhile, but not enough to make you want to bail on a scene.  The writing was great.   If you are married, thinking of it, have kids, etc...SEE THIS.  If you aren't married, don't have kids, and are above 21, see this and see the your future...ha ha ha ha ha haaaaaaaaaaaa!

Brooklyn's Finest

Hey, do ya feel happy?!  Do ya feel so happy that you think you don't deserve it?!  If you do, WATCH THIS!  This film will pull you down to Earth so fast and so hard that you'll auger in all the way to the other side.  Dang!  This was just depressing and a bit annoying too.  I was annoyed (as I am totally sick, tired, and bored) with films that portray cops as low life losers who are even worse than the pieces of crap that they are on the streets to arrest.  What the heck? 

Okay, I came from the age of TV when show like "Police Story" and "Adam 12" were out and about and cops were good.  Of course you had films like "Serpico," "The Seven-Ups," and "The French Connection" where Gene Hackman's character Popeye walks the line and steps over it, but man, enough of this demonization of the police...Puh Leeeeezzzz. 

Richard Gere, Wesley Snipes, Don Cheadle, and Ethan Hawke are great and play their roles really, really, well and it is a shame.  Their skills and the jobs they did were so good that they were able to take a film that was depressing to begin with practically drive me to suicide.  On other notes, the script, directing, and cinematography were superb as well, but no, this is a really well done film that is just a severe downer.  I would pass on it.

The Expendables

Not sure why the title...I mean it lead me to believe that they were going to be a bunch of folks employed/owned by the government who no-one really gave a rip about.  No, these dudes are the ex (whatever the knarliest bad ass division in the armed services might be) military who are now mercenaries.  In this latest dealio, they are hired by Bruce Willis's character who is (though never confirmed) CIA.  Oooooh!  I love that hook.  The CIA, NSA, FBI, SOB's are always doing soemthing nefarious and it is the mindless mercenaries who have a come to Jesus moment and thus morally transcend the government that hired them.  Whatever, if you have an issue with the plot, it is your fault for expecting one and watching this movie.  If ever there is a decent provocative plot in a movie like this, it would be about as common as winning the lottery and NOT having to pay taxes....so don't expect one!!

The movie was a great ride!  Tons of action, explosions, fighting and just about every single action actor you could imagine; c'mon, Schwarzenegger, Stallone, Li, Lundgren, Statham, etc.  A pairing that worked really well in 1984's "The Pope of Greenwich Village" was Mickey Rourke and Eric Roberts and they too are in this, but the paths of their characters never meet...shame, they were great in that film.

All I expected were explosions, cool action scenes, retribution, etc.  I got it all, and becuase I did not expect an amazing plot or script, well, I was not let down.  Stallone directed this so it was good.  After all the action stuff he has been in, well who better than John Woo to direct?  Stallone's experience in this genre and knowledge of what does and does not work worked!  The only bummer I would call on is that in the last major fight scene where Stallone is able to break away from being strangled and all, the lighthing was not adequate, so I felt a bit deprived of some of the punches, knife throws and all because I could not really see them.  Not a family film at all, but fun for the dudes to watch!

The Last Airbender

Okay, kids movie for sure as it stars kids...for the most part and then sprinkled with adults who are all M. Night Shyamalan's brothers, uncles, etc.  Because it is mostly kids, you can't expect a ton out of the acting but the effects rock!  Just out of curiousity, why is that European kids always seem to be better actors than US kids?  Whatever and no worry.  Okay, so the dealio is that there are 4 elements and there are benders.  Benders are folks who can manipulate an element into shapes and potentially weapons.  So, a fire bender can, as long as the source is nearby, take fire, make it into a ball, missile or whatever and either light his hash pipe or toss it at you and cook you.  Hopefully, if after lighting a hash pipe, he is a happy stoner and not a mean one. 

The 4 elements have logically divided the world into 4 nations.  3 of them, water, air, and earth are cool with each other, but heavens no, not with the fire people.  Those hot headed bastards and just that, hot headed bastards and (I smell Satan somewhere) they want to just cruise around and dominate everyone.  Now, the Last Airbender (and some monk type kid named Aang played by Noah Ringer who would be a dead Ringer if he had been offed in the movie) has the ability to manipulate all 4 elements.  He is the only person who can do this and therefore the last hope of the 3 mellow elemental people to keep harmony in the world.  The only issue is that like any young kid, he played hooky to go smoke cigarettes or something instead of training and fully mastering the art of "bending" all four elements.  Long story short, he masters the stuff just in time to put off a massive onslaught by the fire folks.

M. Night Shyamalan has not really put something out that has been quite a amazing as the "6th Sense."  All good though, as much crap as folks have given him about this film, the directing wasn't that bad.  The cinematography was great.  I totally dug that and the effects.  I already commented on the acting so no more on that.  The script, well, the best script in the world spoken by frogs would blow, so because the vessels through which the words flowed was not the most polished, well, I didn't really notice the script adding or detracting.  The movie could have been done in Swahili and I still would have been able to follow it.  Slumdog Milly O Naire (just how the Indian Regis Philbin pronounced it) lead Dev Patel was in this which is cool.  He did a good job in that and, actually, was (if you consider him a kid) a pretty good actor here.

See this with your kids and make sure you don't do it in theaters unless it is still in them and a matinee.  Not bad, not bad.

Mother

Wow,

If you are feeling too good about your life and need to bring in some downer stuff, here you go.  The acting, filming, and story are good and this Korean film has subtitles which are good to keep some of the language out of the ears of the wee ones...unless they can read.  A single mother has raised her mentally challenged son by herself.  The son is now in his late 20's and stands accused of murder and is in jail for that crime.  Mother discovers things that end up getting him freed but should he have been?

The movie could move a bit faster and if anything, it will make you really happy you live in the US and not in this town.

Dead Man's Shoes

Great import from the UK!  A soldier's mentally-challenged younger brother is roughed up and abused by their hometown's gang of drug dealers while the soldier is away serving his country.  Upon finding out about the abuse, the soldier returns home and seeks knarly retribution on the hooligans one at a time: mentally and then physically.  There is a good balance in the carnage as the film carries the violent revenge up to a point and right as it could get gross, the film leaves it to your imagination to complete the scene.  Nice.

The script is good, the directing is good, and the acting is really good.  The mentally-challenged brother is acted out really well: pretty much on the same level as Leonardo Dicaprio's role in "What's Eating Gilbert Grape" or "What is Gilbert Grape's Mother Eating Now?"  There is a killer twist that is revealed in the end that is extremely close to "The Sixth Sense." 

Awesome points are:

• While defending the rights and freedoms for losers to ruin their own lives, the soldier erradicates the druggies when they step over the line and ruin an innocent's life
• The hero stops just short of total revenge because going all the way would put the outcome of a few children's lives in jeopardy: I like movies that don't harm kids just to capitalize on the easy emotional rush doing so can elicit from the audience-Kudos to that!
• Retribution is swift and righteous and free from Miranda Rights and due process

Tae Guk Gi: The Brotherhood of War‏

Awesome!  This is one of the best films that I have seen in years!!  The writing is way good and dynamic, the acting is great and the directing is incredible as is the cinematography.  There is gore in a few places, but it is not gratuitous.  Instead, it is brutal, raw, and realistic: much of what you would expect to encounter if you were in actual combat.

In short, two brothers in South Korea are conscripted into the South Korean Army right as the Communist North invades.  There are two story lines to follow so this film has appeal on several levels.  On the drama side, you have the older brother who sacrifices all and does what he can to keep the fatherless family together and pay for his younger brother to go to college, get an education, and make something of himself.  When the younger brother gets forced into the army, the older on joins to protect him.  In the process, the older one becomes a hero who switches sides when the insanity, unfairness, etc. of the war pushes him over the edge.  Amazing.  On an historical side, this film gave me the best education of what the beginning of the war was like and why things are the way they are. 

On its own, the film is really worth watching; however, based on the ever increasing tensions going on in Korea today, it is a must see!!

Gamer

Eh?  Pretty much a recycled plot of prisoners being offerred the chance of freedom only if they offer themselves up as pawns in a game with really slim odds of survival: Logan's Run, Death Race, The Running Man, etc.  The same story cable runs Gamer but with a different twist in that a somewhere out there, regular civilians are able to control real people (the prisoners) in guerilla warfare scenarios.  So, the hero is controlled by a 15 year old kid who doesn't see anything more than a game and the lives of the prisoners as nothig more than a lost game token. On the other hand, the prisoner has a family: a daughter he is trying to get to and a wife who is a "bot" in another game that involves sex and all.

Directing is fine as it isn't so bad that it makes the film totally unpalatable.  The cinematography is fine and loaded with bits of gore.  The script...I didn't really notice one?  The only thing missing from this prisoner/game type of movie that you had in the others listed is that about 10 minutes showing how the hero was imporperly imprisoned are missing.  Not missing are the gratuitous boob shots to make sure you watch till the end.

Ludacris, Kyra Sedgewick of tv's "The Closer" and Michael Hall of ShoTime's "Dexter" are here and are possibly using this as a vehicle to get to (or back to) the big screen.  For Gerard Butler, well, he does his deal but I am seeing something similar to his being a UK import like Jason Statham and trying to bust in to the big screen with the action genre.

The Runaways

Okay, I admit that I requested it and that watched it and there you have it, but c'mon, Joan Jett and Lita Ford, heck yeah!  Rock on Joan Jett!  Lita Ford gets a knarly portrayal here as a serious bitch but understandable as she totally goes off on (Dakota Fanning's portrayal of) Cherie Currie the lead singer of the band who is shown to be the chief bringer of doom to the band's future.  The cinematography and directing are fine as they weren't so good as to notice but more importantly, there weren't so bad to notice either.  The acting, well, Kristen Stewart (Donny Darko and most notably the Twilight stuff) seems cool but Dakota Fanning doesn't seem to sure of the role and a bit stilted.  The actress who protrayed Dakota's sister in the movie needs a lesson or two.  Who was really something was Michael Shannon who portrayed the band's manager.  Wow, what a sick dude and, well, sometimes over the top.

The writing is pretty much middle of the good/bad road as well.  What was a bit off to me was the periodic lesbian overtones and contact between Fanning and Stewart.  I was like, "Hmm, that is something and what was the point of that?  Was it to keep us glued to the screen and watching when the directors felt that we might consider bailing?"  It seemed a bit uncalled for and and I was surprised to see at the end of the film that Joan Jett was an executive prodcuer.  Huh, perhaps truth can be stranger than fiction.

Endgame

William Hurt is good as usual.  It is strange that he is in some seriously obscure films for the last film I remember him is that was pretty mainstream was Broadcast News n 1987.  I hope it is his choice as he is a good actor though his Afrikaner accent is, well, it is about as good as my Irish/Scottish accent when I am sober.  Good acting all the way around including Jonny Lee Miller (Hackers and Trainspotting) who brings to light a man none of us might never have known about: Michael Young.  The story is based on fact and (like Brotherhood of War) is a good film to see just to be sure you are historically well rounded as it covers the beginning of the end of Apartheid in South Africa.

William Hurt plays Willie Esterhuyse (William Hurt) and Chiwetel Ejiofor plays African National Congress President Thabo Mbeki.  It is Jonny Lee Miller's character who brings the men togehter in a mansion in England where they are free from what they are surrounded by in their homeland to focus on what has to be done.  The acting is really good, the scirpt is great, and the directing and cinematography are good in an interesting way as we move between a full on steady camera and the occasional video type shot you see when watching an episode of COPS. 

A word of warning, the movie can be slow, so this is not really a movie to watch when you need simple eye candy and are not really interested in being mentally engaged, but after watching it, you do come away a lot smarter and aware.  If you want to continue along this line, you can watch Invictus right after.  It is historically the next step, you get more entertainment as the rugby will provide more action, and Matt Damon's Afrikaner will make William Hurt's sound more natural.

Unthinkable

When I watch a selected Netflix offering, it takes me 2-3 nights to watch the thing as I have about 30-60 minutes per night depending on how quickly I can take care of the evening's daddy chores of getting the kids cleaned and shined and put to bed.  Because of watching movies in sessions, I passively came into my own quick system of evaluating movies that are subjected to this schedule.  Based on that system, I can roughly gauge how good a movie is by asking myself if I remember what movie I am in the middle of before I begin "watching session" 2 and above.  So for instance, if (in the middle of the day) I can remember the current evenings' fare, it is okay or at least engaging.  If I can't remember what I am watching until I press play and am reminded by that movie, it is ineffective.

Unthinkable was ineffective.  I could not remember what movie I was watching until I got about 15 seconds into it and only then was I able to recall the previous events.  A big thing that the movie did to turn me off was use the threat of killing/torturing kids to shock me into paying attention and emotionally twist me: that is cheap.  Another thing, based on the very real threat we face of a terrorist attack on our own soil, I also felt that this movie was hastily put together to capitalize on that fear and was rushed to box offices (or red envelopes) too quickly: it therefore sacrificed quality.

A terrorist has planted 3 (?) nuclear bombs somewhere in the US.  He sets up his capture and here comes the moral dilemma: with 3 bombs about to go off anywhere in the US, how do authorities get the locations: torture or interrogation?  Carrie-Ann Moss (Matrix stuff) going with the interrogation only mode pitted against Samuel L. Jackson (Pulp Fiction and voice of Frozone in The Incredibles) as torturaire extraordinaire.  Moss keeps a good handle on her character but Jackson goes overboard on his.  That was about the only 'off thing' to write about the acting.  Cinematography is cool as was the directing.  The script was fine as well but I would not give this too high a marking as there were too many cheap emotional tugs to pull me in and I got tired of having my intelligence insulted.

Salt

Angelina Jolie rocks as usual.  It is so refreshing that someone with her looks is a good actress as well, and in each movie I have seen her, she plays a different and believable character.  For instance, Steven Segal is always the same low key bad ass no matter what the role or what the location.  The movie is action packed to the point of absurd, but if it weren't absurd with all of these improbabilities and the impossible constantly happening, well, there wouldn't be a movie now would there?  Jolie has great support from her costars Liev Schreiber (The Sum of All Fears and Defiance) and Chiwetel Ejiofor (wow, just realized he was in Endgame which I reviewed a week ago)  

Jolie is CIA and while at work, an old Russian (ex KGB of course) dude cruises in with prognostications of future doom for the US and the World!!!!!  Oh my Godddd!!!  Okay, old plot start and all of that, but still, it is all good and there are enough twists to keep you into it and there is a good balance between plot and just action.  All action is just like all frosting and no cake.  Granted, I could eat frosting all day and say to heck with the cake, but the cake like a movie plot keeps people employed (bakers/writers) and you have to have a good foundation (plot/cake) on which to pile the frosting/action; otherwise, you eventually get sick.  Jolie pushes the limits on how bad she can be and how far she can go to convince you that she is actually evil, but that is not her style in any of the characters she chooses to play: she will most often play the misunderstood super good chick...never evil.  So with that in the back of your mind, you begin looking for the turning point or key that will suddenly change the light that is shining on all of her bad stuff and suddenly illuminate it to be good and just.  It happens.

Writing and directing are good and the cinematography is good as well.  With all the jumping, running, rolling, shooting, and all, I didn't get sick because the camera was always steady and level.  Liev is a rocker.  The dude has had a ton of support roles but never any leads.  Don't know if that is his style or what, but I tell you, as soon as you start thinking about it, well, he may always be the Salieri to someone else's Mozart.  If it pays and you are good at it, why not.  Good film!

Five Minutes of Heaven

This is another historical deal that takes headlines we may have read and adds a personal dimension to them.  In short, Liam Neeson's character Alistair is shown in his youth and working to earn his stripes as a young IRA member during the mid '70's.  At the request of IRA superiors, he goes and kills a man loyal to the British.  At the time, the man he kills is seen as nothing more than a soldier like he is: not a being who has family and who loves and is loved.  The movie fast forwards to the present where Alistair is to meet Joe (played by James Nesbitt) the brother of the man he killed back then for an on film interview.  Since the murder, Alistair has prospered and has become a succesful businessman.  On the other had, Joe who (in essence) was also killed that night, has never recovered and has lived a life never quite reaching the expectations he or others have had for him.

The film is filled with themes, situations, etc. that draw you in and keep you thinking about it even after you have finished watching it: kind of like IKEA meatballs which you can still taste the day after you ate them.   This is not a happy movie and there is no revenge to be had at all or happy ending to be experienced.  However, it is really well done, worthwhile, and shows that talent in acting, directing, writing, and cinematography can often out perform other movies with million dollar budgets.

Flame and Citron

Wow, I thought more about this movie after watching it than I did while watching it; not that there is anything wrong with that.  This is another "based on real events" film that takes place during Germany's occupation of Denmark in World War II.  It is not an action thriller but a drama that uses the lead characters' assassinations of Nazis and Nazi sympathizers as a backdrop for this character study.  Flame (Thure Lindhardt) is the younger of the two partners and is wide eyed and determined, but undermined overall by his youth and lack of life experience; what takes him out is following his heart and not his mind and how he eventually checks out follows what you would expect from his character.  The real character to watch is Mads Mikkelsen's character Citron.  He is a failure as a hustband, father, and provider for his family and has finally found something he is good at (for the most part) and something that can restore his honor and give him the sense that he is a man.  How he handles the sudden possibility that the orders he is following are coming from less than honorable men is painful to watch.  It is painful in a sympathetic way, not in a "God, is this movie ever going to end?" kind of way.  The wrestling match between denial and possible truth are something.

The acting is great, the direction is great, the cinematography is great as well.  The script was in Danish and subtitled but easy to follow.  This is not a kid movie but possibly a "you and the significant other movie" that will probably quell any post movie conversation you might have had.  If you do watch with kids, there is one nik-nik scene that is not crazy graphic, but if you have to explain it to a  wee one, just say that the lady is helping him roll a baguette and now she is toasting it for him.

Youth in Revolt

I am old.  I am too old to really appreciate this I guess; but if this is the case, why did I appreciate "Super Bad" which also starred Michael Cera?  "Super Bad" had a great script, good acting, and was just off the wall funny to me.  Here though, the script got a bit old and though I did not see "Juno" which also starred Michael Cera, from what I heard of "Juno" (and why I did not see it) is what killed this film for me: the script was too far above the age of the characters, too quirky and whatever else to be believable.  It got old quickly.   Another reason I liked "Super Bad" was due to Cera's character.  I liked that underdog, intelligent, and observing character who provided poignant social commentary.  As much as I liked that character, I didn't need to see it again in this movie.  Cera's character is like the same side dish that is just added to a different main course "plot" meat.  The meat may change, but "oh look, here comes that same side again."

In a nutshell, here is the plot: Single A Geeky dude wants to have sex with Triple A girl.  The whole movie is full of his "getting close only to get farther away" scenarios.  Using an old standard in this type of film is the ubiquitous, "everyone around him who is just as geeky or even more geeky is getting lucky."  Yawn.

The directing and cinematography are fine.  The acting is pulled off very well by Cera and Portia Doubleday (Sheeni) but the writing is too way out there for what you would expect from 16-17 year olds.  A few cameo's are spread in by Ray Liotta, Steve Buscemi, and Justin Long (I am a Mac) who plays Sheeni's druggie brother.   It was 90 minutes that left me neither improved or worse off, but it is 90 minutes I will never get back.

Serenity

I am not sick and do have a life other than watching movies.  It takes me about 3 days to finish a film, but Serenity was one I could not stop.  Get it and watch it.  It is a newer version of Star Wars with better effects (due to today's better technology), better dialogue and it also has a bit of Aliens mixed in for fun and carnage.  In a nutshell, a group of smugglers with a knarly little space ship take a brother and sister combo on board.  The only issue is that the sister is one wild freak of a girl who is wanted and wanted desperately by the Alliance- aka Empire.  She has some crazy powers and though she serves as a magnet for all the terrible crap that happens to the ship and everyone they work with, it is her crazy powers that eventually save the day.

Okay, on the surface, great, another shoot 'em up, outer space movie adventure, but no!  The actors, the acting, and the dialogue were great.  It was funny and serious at the same time.  Walking vessels of testosterone in the form of the captain and his first officer are played really well by Nathan Fillion (who I can't recall seeing in anything) and Adam Baldwin.  Their exchanges and quips are great.  I was stoked to see Adam Baldwin in this film do really well.  In 1979, Baldwin was in a film called My Bodygaurd (which happened to be one of Matt Dillon's first films) and he was great; good character protrayal.  However, in anything after that, eg. Independence Day, he had bit parts and was not really convincing as anything.  Here, though, he did well.  Another really cool character was Chiwetel Ejiofor (Endgame, Salt, etc.).  This guy is beginning to rack up some serious roles and he does them well as the kind of dude who could keep a straight face, quote Shakespeare, and look you in the eye as he calmly drives a Samurai sword into your chest: awesome evil dude.  The women in the film were great.  I am so sick of girls in films who (have a gun within arm's reach but) sit there and scream, cry, and remain immobile as their heroes get their butts kicked by the bad guys who are no more than 10 feet away.  Not here, these women are still women but they get down to business without over MANing their roles.  Awesome.  The film's plot is a bit vague but the script, cinematography, and directing make up for it.  The acting is awesome.  The only drawback would be the sound.  On some occasions, the dialogue was a bit tough to hear.

Aeon Flux

I am definitely not the best person to review this film as I could not finish it.  Even with my wife taking up one of my 3 valuable spots in the DVD queue with her "Sex and the City" choice, I still couldn't bring myself to finish this film.  It was just too full of itself.  Too much style, too much coolness, etc.  I think I finally tossed in the towel when logic surrrendered (or had its butt kicked) to the need to be stylish: e.g.: "I am going to sneak into the super, secure, off limits place in the pitch black dead of night wearing A BRIGHT FREAKIN WHITE TIGHT ASS LEATHER OUTFIT!!!

Fargo lady Frances McDormand plays some high level terrorist person who stares down at Charlize Theron's Aeon character in an overly white temple thing with a shock of red hair.  Too much polish on not enough substance for me.  Ain't never gonna be enough polish to make a terd valuable.

Superbadazz

I was wrong, horribly wrong!  I thought that this was a sequel or something to Superbad!  I made it through 2 minutes before I had to just stick this thing back in the red envelope and send it back to the home it came from.  Hopefully they will take it back.  Chances are it will wind up in the Movie Pound looking for a home.  Unless you are related to anyone in the cast and/or film crew, you are under NO OBLIGATION to watch this thing.  The script was, well, the acting was so bad that I could not tell if the script was any good.  Directorally, well, possessing a camera isn't the only thing needed to be a director...just like biology isn't the only thing needed to be a parent.

Day Breakers

I hate to say it, but this was another attempt to cash in on the Vampire Craze stirred up by all the Twilight stuff.  Not only does this try to borrow from the hype of the Twilght stuff, its plot is a mix between 2 other films: "The Omega Man" (1971 with Charlton Heston-which was remade in 2007 with Will Smith's "I am Legend") and another Charlton Heston film in 1973 called "Soylent Green" as the food supply is running out.  Nutshell, vampires rule the world and farm humans for their blood.  Reminiscent of tapping maple trees in Maine for their sap to make maple syrup, Sam Neill (Jurassic Park) runs a plant that taps confined humans for their blood to feed the ever growing vampire population.  I snicker in that should the same people who rail against KFC for growing chickens that never touch the ground were around in this film, they would hopefully be doing the same for the humans whose feet never touch the ground either. 

The issue is that the blood supply is running out and Ethan Hawke (Gattaca, White Fang, Alive) has to develop an alternative food source to feed the masses.  He is against the hunting, confining, and harvesting of humans and when he runs across a band of humans, he seeks to protect them and in the process runs into Willem Dafoe (Spiderman, The Last Temptation of Christ, a few butt drippy mid-century British Romances) who has stumbled on a cure for vampirism and an ability to return from vampire to human.  The deal is, can Hawke and Dafoe get their cure to the vampires before all humans are killed off? Oh my!

As soon as the movie started, I was given a choice of version to watch at the movie's beginning: Human or Vampire and this clued me that major amounts of cheese were on their way for the rest of the film.  For all I know, this may have been some trackable test the CIA put in so I chose Human to stay above possible suspicion.  The overall plot is a familiar one in which the lone voice in wilderness is seen as a Benedict Arnold by his people/vampires.  Of course he is the sane one and he must battle impossible odds to lead the overwhelming majority to his way of thinking.  This plot line, as mentioned before, uses the vampire craze to get what it can in the way of an audience.  In essence, it is like the plasma compared to Twilight's real blood. 

Neill, Dafoe, and Hawke are great actors (though Dafoe does seem a bit over the top) and without them, lesser actors would have caused the movie's early return to the red envelope.  I wonder though, all of these actors were in awesome films a while back...what happened?  They are now in films that don't even seem to make to the big screen but that go straight to DVD.  Oh well.  Okay, so the acting is good by those 3 and a few others, the directing is good as well as it does not detract from the movie.  The script; nothing really noteworthy so it is fine.  On the cinematography, it was all okay too.

If you are at the end of movies you want to see and ready for just about anything until new releases hit the queue, this will do, but it is not a first string movie to see.