Quick Thoughts - Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows (2011)

11/26/13: The follow-up to Guy Ritchie's asinine Sherlock Holmes is pretty much more of the same, albeit slightly less boring (I nodded off a few times in the theater while watching that one). But that could just be chalked up to an even more convoluted plot that takes more attention to follow. If that sounds like praise, let me clarify that "requiring more attention" doesn't equal the adjective "interesting". While I didn't doze at all, I did glaze over a few times during Ritchie's over-the-top action sequences and lame fist fight scenes in which Holmes analyzes each move of the fight while Ritchie shows us each thought in slow motion, right before showing us the exact same thing at normal speed, (which annoyed me immeasurably in both films), and so I missed what were probably key clues and twists... Oh well, so are the hazards of watching things like this. Still, not altogether intolerable. **

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 - **

Deathly Hallows Part 2 feels incomplete. Maybe that's because it is only half of a movie, with no discernible structure, no beginning, middle, and end, which means that it feels every bit like half of a movie. If you're like me and you haven't read the books, and were too bored by Deathly Hallows Part 1 to revisit it to refresh your memory on what is going on, being thrust into the middle of a five hour film is disorienting, especially when the characters start throwing around magic terms and looking for horcruxes National Treasure style. For once I was actually hoping for at least one shamelessly expository line, like, "Four down, three to go, Harry," just so I could know many more infiltration scenes followed by an obligatory CGI action spectacle with a dragon or fire monster were left.

The Potter films have always had flaws, but until these last two they've always been too much fun to get hung up on minor details. Deathly Hallows Part 2 almost seems designed to call its flaws to your attention, with its mess of pure action, numerous monumental plot twists, revelations of characters' true allegiances and motivations, and the piss-poor invention of a certain character's back story, not to mention the most out-of-place utterance of the word "bitch" since Juggernaut declared who he was in X-Men: The Last Stand, which unfortunately comes less than ten minutes after a speech from Dumbledore on the power of words... I cringed so hard I almost fell out of my seat.

Worst of all, the magic is gone in Deathly Hallows. It's missing the pleasure of discovering and rediscovering this world and its strange characters. Also lacking is the sense of danger that I came to enjoy in the last few installments, even though Harry and friends are constantly in harm's way. Revealing that Lord Voldemort, the source of that danger, grows weaker every time Harry destroys a horcrux doesn't help, especially considering the entire first half of the film has Harry destroying horcuxes, yielding shots of Voldemort in agony, scurrying off in retreat.

This is also the first film in the series in which we see and hear nothing of the real world, the non-wizard world... Curious, considering the events in this one more than any other make me wonder about the impact they would have on the real world. It made me ask myself what the significance of this whole war is at all. What is at stake here if Voldemort and the bad guys win? They never really say what they'll do. Is it just that he wants to kill a character I've grown to enjoy?

It's not all bad, though. There are some nice moments, and some great performances, Ralph Fiennes especially. And though it's a mess dramatically, most of the action is pretty well staged, though sometimes a bunch of kids zapping each other with wands does look a little silly. And the effects are great for the most part, if I ignore the aforementioned fire monster chase, which resembles that awful waterskiing sequence from Die Another Day. Still, I think the biggest compliment I have for it is that I didn't hate it, but maybe that's because I was trying so hard to love it.

Transformers: Dark of the Moon - **1/2

Transformers: Dark of the Moon is an intelligent, well-crafted action/drama that serves as a biting commentary on today's socio-economic landscape. The battle between the Autobots and the Decepticons has over the course of three films evolved into a layered metaphorical critique on current Unite-- Okay, no it hasn't, nor is there any biting social commentary, but we knew that going in, right?

The Transformers series is about one thing, and that's spectacle. Dark of the Moon has great effects and well-staged, if not almost exhausting, action sequences and, yes, the female love interest is most definitely introduced by a close-up of her ass... The spectacle is there. And what's better is director Michael Bay and his writers seem to have learned from the second film that the robots are not interesting as characters, which yields far less scenes of the robot teams just hanging out on world monuments talking strategy. Oh, and no racist robots this time, either.

So what else occupies its bloated 150 minute run time? A great opening sequence that was sort of ruined by being the film's teaser trailer, nine minutes of over-the-top comedic gold from Ken Jeong that is better than anything and everything in The Hangover 2, and John Turturro delivering some of the weirdest lines in recent memory ("Megatron! Let's tango!").

Is it perfect? No. Is it kind of hollow and empty inside? Sure. Could they have shaved 40 minutes off of the run time? Yup. Will you probably forget most of it twelve minutes after leaving the theater? Absolutely, but while you're watching it, it's honestly a pretty good time.

Green Lantern - Zero Stars

Zero. Zero chemistry between leads; zero action; zero fun; zero humor; zero excitement; zero plot; zero cool; zero subtlety; zero intelligence; zero logic; zero narrative coherence; zero talent displayed; zero passable effects; zero effect on the audience who possess zero interest in the characters, zero interest in absorbing any of the crummy images put up on the screen, zero interest in fighting the urge to allow sleep to overcome them, zero interest in paying attention to some truly shit dialogue, unnecessary flashbacks, uneven and confusing introductions/uses of powers, ugly green imaginary weapons, unimpressive set pieces, lousy set/costume design, a villain that is more scary in the unintentional sense of more closely resembling the set of dreadlocks found on the head of some jackass wearing a tie-died shirt and trying to sell me on the benefits of organic toilet paper when I was in college than an evil, menacing entity bent on world-- no, UNIVERSE domination in a movie that looks less like it's based on a popular comic book series than on a line of generic action figures from the dollar store. Zero heart; zero grace; zero subtlety; zero wit; zero ambition; zero effort... Zero stars. And most importantly, zero desire for the surely shit sequel that was shamelessly teased during the end credits.

Hanna - ****

Hanna is the kind of movie that should be making one-hundred million dollars. It's original; it's intense; it has a great hero, fun villains, and some amazing action sequences staged in creative locations. It's gorgeously shot, and it also features a brilliant score by the Chemical Brothers, who use techno beats and lullabies that keep things fast-paced, even in the quieter moments. What more could you ask for?

Cedar Rapids - ***1/2

Nice guy leaves his cozy surroundings and gets sucked into a lifestyle of chaos and debauchery... It's a familiar comedy premise, and a tired one at that. Ed Helms plays our nice guy, Tim Lippe, a small town insurance agent chosen to go to an annual insurance convention, where the Twin Diamond Award is given to the representative who displays outstanding character and respect for God. What's amazing about Cedar Rapids is that it completely sidesteps all of the boring pratfalls that most films of this kind seem to indulge.

Limitless - **

And we have our first contender for Most Deceiving Title of the Year, Limitless disappoints with its utter lack of imagination and ambition. What would you do if a pill could make you smarter? Apparently pretty much the same thing you would do if you won the lottery. Bradley Cooper plays a struggling writer who gets addicted to a hard-to-come-by street drug that allows him to use one-hundred percent of his brain. He gives up writing to play the stock market, and deducing from the film's hypothesis, brain use only correlates to how much money you want to make, and how fast you drive your car.

Sucker Punch - 1/2*

There is a scene late in Sucker Punch in which a guy running a fancy whorehouse/dance studio/prison describes what it's like to save virgins for the "High Roller"..."It's like I'm in the corner of the sandbox watching everyone else play with my toys." Watching Sucker Punch, a live-action manga nightmare, one can't help but think of writer/director Zack Snyder seeing his actresses in much the same way, as dolls to accessorize and play dress-up with, outfitting them with crazy weapons, and contorting them into sexy poses. I wouldn't really have a problem with that if there were a payoff, but Snyder keeps all of the fun for himself while boring the rest of us with a poorly-conceived story of a fight for freedom inside of a girl's head... inside of a girl's head.

Paul - **1/2

Paul, both the character and the film itself, is kind of a one-trick pony. Paul is an alien who crash-lands on Earth in the 40s and escapes from the government in present day into the hands of two British nerds (Simon Pegg and Nick Frost), in from England for Comic-Con and a road trip to all of the extra-terrestrial-related sites in the American Southwest.

It's a pretty nice little movie until Pegg and Frost actually meet Paul, who essentially just acts contrary to most on-screen aliens have in the cinematic past, which would be refreshing if it didn't mean simply swearing, getting naked, and getting high. That still might sound satisfying enough, but it honestly just gets old really quickly. Aside from a few random inserted jokes, like a flashback to 1980 that has Paul giving Steven Spielberg some advice on what E.T. should be like, Paul doesn't really offer up much that is worth your while. And aside from a handful of top-notch Star Wars references, Pegg and Frost don't really do too much either. There are some great supporting performances from Jason Bateman, Joe Lo Truglio, and Bill Hader, as well as an amazing cameo by Jeffrey Tambor as an asshole of a sci-fi novelist doing a signing at Comic-Con... "Did you buy a book? Well, then get the fuck out of here."

Paul really isn't a bad movie; it's enjoyable enough, but it's just kind of bland. It's not that the jokes fail, so much as the jokes are not even there to begin with, and there isn't enough plot, character depth, or just general originality in the film for it to be lacking in humor.

Drive Angry - ***

Drive Angry is a quick redemption for Nicolas Cage from the more-horrible-than-you-can-imagine Season of the Witch, which was released about one month prior. It's all of the awful ridiculousness you hope for in a non-legitimately-great Cage film, all of the silly fun you used to get out of such an in-between Cage film, back before people associated him with pure shit, which really isn't fair, even after garbage like Bangkok Dangerous or The Wicker Man, back when his "in-betweeners" were more like National Treasure or The Rock. Pure, unabashed fun, with no point or reason for existing other than entertainment, Drive Angry has the goods.

Drive Angry is essentially what Grindhouse and Machete and anything like that released in the last few years was trying to be, except it succeeds. It features a lot of the same things as those films, hot girls, fast cars, crazy weapons and extreme violence, so why is it better? Because, unlike those films, it's not trying to be cute. It's completely sincere in its mayhem. There's no winking at the camera, the images weren't made to look grainy and scratched in post-production, and I actually get the sense that the filmmakers think what they are doing is legitimately cool, not just kitschy and ironic. It takes a particular combination of talent and lack-thereof to pull off this kind of film, and I'm sorry to say, but Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez are simply too talented to waste their time trying (though "too talented" doesn't account for Inglorious Basturds (or however the fuck it's not spelled)).

So what is Drive Angry? Well, Cage breaks out from Hell, steals the "God-killer" from Satan, which is a big gun that blasts any living thing, divine or not, into nothingness (but for reasons unknown only comes with three bullets), teams up with Amber Heard on a road-trip to track down the leader of a Satanic cult, who intends to sacrifice Cage's new-born granddaughter after raping and killing his daughter, all while being chased by the Devil's Accountant, played to brilliance by William Fichtner (watch for the greatest delivery of "Come here, fat fuck" you could ever hope to see). And it delivers on everything that description promises, which includes a fist-fight in the midst of a gunfight inside of an RV that is in the middle of a ten-minute-long car chase. Among other things. It'll certainly do until Cage's next Bad Lieutenant.