Trailer Trash - December 2010

This month there were a lot of really exciting trailers and I’ll kick things off with a sequel extravaganza.

Transformers: Dark of the Moon is the third instalment in the series and the trailer is very early so it doesn’t give much away. It shows the Apollo 11 mission discovering an alien Transformers ship with what looked like Wreck-Gar amongst the wreckage. Michael Bay is once again at the helm, and he certainly divides opinion with his body of work. While some see him as a no-brain, all action director who is all about the special effects and no substance, while others see him as an action movie genius. I personally wouldn’t say he’s bad, having enjoyed some of his films, but his involvement does not guarantee a good film. Megan Fox is a notable absentee from the cast, but the super hot British model Rosie Huntington-Whiteley is on board to up the hot factor.

Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides is the fourth film in the Pirates franchise, and it looks to me like this is even more of a shameless cash-in on a distinctly average Disney World attraction than the previous films. Johnny Depp is still in this, reprising the role of Jack Sparrow, along with Geoffrey Rush as Captain Barbossa. Penelope Cruz and Judi Dench also join the party, and while they will probably bring something interesting to the table, I doubt it will save this movie. The story follows Jack as he tries to find the Fountain of Life, while trying to resist some pretty hot looking mermaids. Overall it looks like more of the same, and as someone who barely enjoyed the first film, I’m not planning on parting with my hard earned cash to see this.

Real Steel is a movie that looks pretty promising based on the premise and the trailer. Have you been wondering what happened to Hugh Jackman since Wolverine? Well he’s been preparing to box against robots in the future, apparently. Based on the trailer, Hugh Jackman plays a dude who used to be a good boxer in his day, but now either trains robots (less likely) or controls robots while they fight it out in the boxing ring. This could either be widely entertaining, especially for a Sci Fi nerd like me, or incredibly lame. Oh and the Lost hottie Evangeline Lilly is playing the love interest, even though she gets a single frame in the trailer, but I’m hoping to see a bit more of her in the actual film.

So lots to look forward to in the new year, let’s hope we get some good movies this time!

The Expendables

When I first saw the mouth-wateringly good trailer for this movie, it brought back waves of nostalgia for a simpler time where action movies could have a very simple story, no fancy CG special effects and awful dialogue and still manage to capture the hearts and minds of movie goers worldwide. All the ingredients were there on paper – über cast of action stars, big explosions, a South American jungle and some druglords to fight. However to me it didn’t quite hit home as I expected.

I am a big fan of the golden age of action films, having grown up on movies such as Universal Soldier, Commando and Cobra. I can re-watch many of Van Damme and Swarznegger classics and have a very good time. However it seems to me that the many faults we were willing to let slide are all the more obvious in the current movie environment, where perhaps expectations are slightly higher for movies in general, and action flicks in particular.

Stallone is credited as a writer, director, producer and actor, and unless you’re amazingly talented this is rarely a good thing. It creates an environment where he is given free rein to do whatever he wants, and not many people could tell him that some (or in this case most) of his ideas suck. The story is very disjointed and laboured and it’s tough to see any real motivation for anything that is going on in the movie. Stallone is the head of a team of mercenaries called (you guessed it) “The Expendables” and they get given an assignment by Bruce Willis to infiltrate some jungle and take down a rogue CIA agent who’s taken over the drug trade somewhere in South America. After they go visit the island for a quick recon mission, they realise that the task is harder than it seems. I won’t give much more away, but the story is very basic and struggles to provide more than just the glue to hold the action sequences together.

 The acting is average, and only some of the actions scenes are worth watching. The film’s bright spots involve two awesome cameos by Bruce Willis and the Governator himself, but the scene lasts about 2 minutes and I would have liked more from these two. All the action actors involved are pretty old, and Stallone and Lundgren especially look like they would rather cozy up at home with a cup of tea then run around a jungle. At one point I was wondering if, when booking their flights for the recon mission, they would enquire about a senior citizen discount. The “love interest” in the movie looks young enough to be Stallone’s grand-daughter which makes it somewhat creepy.

I think overall it was a forgettable experience. I have recently fell out of love with the action film genre, partly due to movies like The Transporter, Ong Bak and From Paris With Love, which, to me, indicate that the genre has really gone down the toilet. If you enjoyed the aforementioned movies, perhaps you would like this one, however I would recommend that most stay well away and rent a classic 80’s action flick instead.

Scott Pilgrim Vs The World

I first learnt about this film due it Empire magazine’s extensive coverage of Scott Pilgrim in the months leading up to its release. On paper it looked like a dream combination of ingredients for someone like me. Edgar Wright is the genius director behind the comedic gems that are Hot Fuzz, Shaun of the Dead and TV’s Spaced. Michael Cera is legendary in most of his movies (even though he’s Canadian), and has been one of my favourite actors since TV’s Arrested Development. The film is based on Bryan Lee O'Malley low budget comic book series about a slacker Canadian musician. As far as I was concerned the makings of a movie that could creep into my all time top 20 were all there – and Scott Pilgrim delivered with a bang.

The visual style of the film is incredible. I have to give the makers of the movie a lot of credit, as the creativity and attention to detail is very impressive. It’s one of the most innovative ways to combine comic books, video games and movies in one package, and it looks like a fever dream of a man brought up on Atari video games and Japanese comics. This adds to the overall absurdity of the story and the characters, and creates a absolute visual treat.

The story itself is very simple and involves our protagonist Scott attempting to date a mysterious American delivery girl Ramona. The catch here is that in order to do this he needs to defeat her 7 evil exes, while avoiding his crazy Chinese ex-girlfriend Knives Chau and trying to win the Battle of the Bands with his band, Sex Bob-omb. Michael Cera does a great job channelling his usual nerdy, awkward character and it works really well here – I doubt anyone else could have made this part work as well. The supporting cast all deliver credible performances, with Kieran Culkin as Scott’s gay roommate and (academy award nominee) Anna Kendrick as Scott’s sister to name but a few. The exes are also great, even though their appearances are fairly brief in the movie. Jason Schwarzman, Chris Evans and Brandon Routh stand out as the more exciting cameos in the film.

This is a bit of a spoiler alert, but one thing did bug me about the story in this film. The character of Knives Chau gets shafted (metaphorically) pretty hard by Scott in this film, and I think she really gets the wrong end of the stick. Essentially Scott starts dating her, then double times on her with Ramona, doesn’t bother properly breaking up with her, and through all of this she goes to all his band’s shows and ends up fighting alongside Scott to defeat one of the evil exes. And what does she get in return? Nothing! I think her character should have either been more crazy and irrational, or not got the kind of treatment she received.

The bottom line is - If you like video games and/or comic books, and appreciate the works of Edgar Wright and Michael Cera, you should not miss this movie under any circumstances. However I can see someone not raised on videogames and lacking appreciation for slightly offbeat comedy not loving this as much as I did. For me, this was one of the best comedies of the year.

Rating 5/5

Resident Evil: Afterlife

Video games and movies have a very turbulent and not very successful history. It seems that crossovers either way don’t seem to work out. Most video games based on movies seem to be cash-in for the fan crowd without any real substance, and movies based on video games generally don’t deliver the goods either. There are a few slight deviations from this general rule, and you could place the Resident Evil movie in this category. The original game came out on the Playstation and was one of the scariest experiences of the time. The original movie captured this very well and set up an interesting universe for us to enjoy. Later instalments of the series failed to deliver the same positive results. This fourth instalment is the studio’s (hopefully) final attempt to cash in on the series.

Much like the recent Saw movie, some “smart” studio exec had a Eureka moment when he pitched the idea of Resident Evil embracing 3D technology. Now I admit that I actually enjoyed Avatar quite a bit, even though the story was a thinly veiled Titanic in space and I fully support 3D technology enhancing the movie experience. However I do have a problem when movies are made specifically to cash in on 3D, forgetting “minor” details like story or any credible acting in the process. 3D should not be a way to disguise a poorly made film, and sadly this is exactly what we get with Resident Evil.

The story follows on from the previous film, in which Alice (Milla Jovovich) sends her friends off on a chopper to find the supposed safe haven of Arcadia. I followed, with very lukewarm interest, the overall story of the series, and even I was somewhat confused by the premise. Is Alice a clone? Which Alice is real? Does she lose her powers? These are all questions that make following the story of this film very difficult. After the confusing intro, the movies turns into your standard “we are surrounded by zombies and need to get out somehow” scenario explored in great (and unnecessary) detail in the previous films. Without giving away the ending, it seems the makers of this film have left the door wide open for yet another shameless cash-in, but I am optimistic that this door will slam shut for good after this instalment.

Afterlife is directed by Paul W.S. Anderson, the gentleman responsible for the original movie in the series, as well as some credible action flicks in Mortal Kombat, Aliens Vs. Predator and Dead or Alive. Given his combined action and video game credentials you would expect him to do better. If you completely switch you brain off and just enjoy the handful of fairly well made action sequences you will at least get some enjoyment from this movie. Milla happens to be this lucky man’s wife, and the camera absolutely loves her. If you felt like you didn’t get enough of Milla running in slow motion in her previous movies, this will be heaven, as it seems the only way she knows how to run and shoot is in slow motion.

Overall though this doesn’t justify this movie’s existence and Afterlife should be avoided by anyone who is not brain-dead or is such a fan of the series that they simply cannot resist going back for more zombie frills.

Rating 0.5/5

Trailer Trash - 29 November 2010

I’ve decided to expand slightly in this blog and actually cover some news etc to supplement the reviews I’ve been churning out recently. This was motivated to a large degree by the fact that there are some awesome movies in the pipeline and I want to share this info with the world (a.k.a. my two followers). This is mostly based on trailers I’ve seen and some of the buzz around these movies on the net.

Green Lantern sounds like something your grandma has in her living room, but it is actually a comic book superhero movie, and it’s looking like it’s going to be totally badass. With action star Ryan Reynolds taking over the responsibility of wearing the alien ring that gives him super powers, it looks like it could be a fun summer action movie. Due to be released in June 2011 it stars Blake Lively (of Gossip Girl fame), Peter Sarsgaard and Mark Strong, with director Martin Campbell behind the camera. You may know him from movies such as Casino Royale and GoldenEye.

Source Code is a new flick with Jake Gyllenhaal and the story, from what I could tell, is based around a new technology that allows people to travel back in time and take control of another person for 8 minutes. The government is using this technology to transport one of their best agents aboard a train that is due to be blown up by terrorists. Our protagonist has 8 minutes to find the culprit and prevent future attacks, while trying to not fall for the cute girl on the train. Duncan Jones is a relative newcomer, but his previous film, Moon, with Sam Rockwell was very enjoyable and I’m curious to see how he handles action material. Anything involving trains, explosions and hot girls (Michelle Monaghan) or dudes depending on what floats your boat, should be fairly successful in the box office. Look out for this in April 2011.