OK.
First on the list:
1.)
The Losers It was fun! The first movie of the summer for me and I had been tormented by Barrow trailers weeks in advance. I hoped I would get back to the lower 48 in time to see it. I just barely made it. I had to cross not one, but two state lines to find a theater still playing it. I had read some of the comic before and was really expecting the movie to be a little darker, but it was a blast!
The group dynamic they have is fun. You see the first part of it with their card game in the beginning and it just builds from there. It works so well that even when there is a betrayal, you can see why. The traitor didn’t just turn bad on them. It isn’t a surprise really, even though you also understand why the others didn’t see it coming.
I really liked that the super-cool, special forces soldier/spy stuff was super-cool (hum the A-team theme here) and as cool as it was, it still had the potential to go very, very badly. The infiltration plot into the security building was awesome and hilarious. I also liked the pinto scene. The action scenes were very cool, the dialogue was all funny, and I ended up liking almost all the characters. Except for one.
The only thing I didn’t like was the villain. Jason Patrick was good when he was bad, but sometimes he was just stupid. Like mocking the Indian guy’s accent. And the death of poor Umbrella-wench? What was that? Just a little reminder that this is the bad guy we’re dealing with now? We figured that out when he ordered the bomb strike on a villa full of kids, thanks.
Other than that, I had a great time. Meanwhile, I burst into a grin every time I hear “Don’t Stop Believin’” now.
P.S.
2.)
How to Train Your DragonWe missed it in 3D, but I went to see this with Mom because my nieces were so into it. They were three and they knew every dragon by name and what its strengths and weaknesses were. They also knew all the Viking kids. Clearly, we were missing out on something.
It was really cute. The story didn’t have many surprises in it, (outsider uses traits that got him shunned to win the respect of those who shunned him) but I loved all the flight scenes. I can imagine how awesome they would be if they had been in 3D. It was exhilarating just to watch.
I thought that the night fury design was great. For the offspring of lightning and death itself, Toothless was pretty cute. And he looked like he could be a real animal. His anatomy all worked. The other dragon designs weren’t as compelling and looked more silly, which I guess is why Toothless was the main character. All his mannerisms were great, too. He did cat-like things, horsey things, and doggy things and in the back of my (supposedly) adult mind there was one thought: I want one.
I thought Stoick’s rejection of his son was a little over the top. They made such a point of showing how hard both father and son were working to reach each other without the other even realizing it and even had what I thought was a great little scene showing that Stoick was kind of clumsy when he wasn’t pounding dragon skulls to mush and maybe he had been accident-prone as a kid too. And then, he just throws all the effort away like all there is left to do is crush his own child, only to do a full 180 as soon as the wind changes. Sheesh.
And it may be grim of me, but I kinda liked the fact that Hiccup didn’t come out unscathed at the final battle. People in the theater gasped when they saw what had happened to him and I might have been one of them, but it made him all the more heroic for having been hurt that badly. Besides, a Viking needs a few scars and missing limbs to bring in the ladies, right? As much as I love a happy ending, I can’t help but appreciate that sometimes you gotta pay for em.
Again, the flight scenes alone are worth watching it for.
3.)
Robin HoodI hadn’t planned on seeing this one, but it was family event and an opportunity to try out the new wedges in a mostly-sitting environment.
I’ve seen lots of versions of Robin Hood and for the most part I like them all. It’s a great story, an iconic character, a legend etc. This version had something new though. It killed off the happy ending in the first 20 minutes. King Richard, the only foolproof way to get rid of Prince John, dies in battle. Robin, Little John, Will Scarlett, and the gang have to get home from France without him. And when they get there, Prince John is being canonly obnoxious and canoodling with the niece of his country’s worst enemy, to the chagrin of his papery queen mother.
There was way more politics in this one, war with France, which isn’t mentioned too often in the other versions, some of the class issues, some of the religious issues, and a whole lot of special effects to show how nasty a medieval arrow wound could be. I liked the Queen’s intrigue with her unwanted daughter-in-law and the hoops Marian had to go through to keep her land after her husband’s death. Both of them were women who knew exactly what they were going to have to do to salvage the mess their men had left them in. Also, the phrase ‘yeoman bowman’ entertains me.
There were a few strange things, like the feral children in masks who raided the farms until the French attacked and then they’re all helpful. The repressed memory plot point could’ve been handled differently, I think. I had trouble buying that your average yeoman bowman (hee!) would have blocked out all memories of his revolutionary father and his motto of choice that later ends up engraved on the hilt of a sword of a dying knight whose identity he ‘borrows’ to get back to England and then meets the dead knight’s blind father who just happens to have known his father and offers to tell him about it if he sticks around to be his daughter-in-law’s husband so the sheriff can’t take their land from them. Oh, and the daughter-in-law happens to be Cate Blanchett.
Max von Sydow is awesome in it. He plays the blind father-in-law and packs it full of personality for a role that’s mostly exposition. And Cate Blanchett always comes through. Her chemistry with Crowe was better than expected and he pulled off the gruff good guy thing without any of the Gladiator over the top-ness. I usually like my ‘humans should be free!’ speeches in Robin Hood movies to come from Morgan Freeman, but this one was all right, too.
4.)
The A-TeamBum-baba-BA!
I was pretty neutral about seeing this at first. Then I saw the trailer with the new B.A. humming the old TV theme song while on stake out and I knew I was gonna have to see this, if only for old times sake. I used to watch the show every week. I might have been seven. I think Murdock was my favorite. I digress.
This movie. Was FUN. Ridiculous fun. “They’re not trying to shoot down the other drone, they’re trying to fly that tank!” fun. I wore a stupid grin for most of it. It was a lot like The Losers, same general idea and same sense of humor. These were characters from my childhood, though, so there was more for them to work with.
I loved the van crashing through the wall in the middle of a 3D movie. I liked that they explained WHY B.A. was afraid of flying. I liked that Jessica Biel’s character was competent and pretty, that she wasn’t chasing them around all lovestruck. She never caught them and she did return to Face’s arms, but she wasn’t all moopy or totally hardassed about it. She was the girl without being The Girl, if that makes any sense at all.
I haven’t seen Patrick Wilson since Watchmen, and I kept trying to remember if Lynch was a bad guy from the original show or just one of the many characters trying to catch the team. I still don’t remember TV Lynch, but the movie one was definitely a bad guy, even when he was pretending he wasn’t. He did have an annoying ‘talk-you-to-death-instead-of-just-efficiently-shooting-you’ scene, but it was fun to see him stress out when his plan came apart.
Anyway, it was pretty much a movie version of the show. I read a few reviews that really had nothing good to say about the movie, but I figure those are from people who didn’ t like the show either. And I liked the new actors. Neeson was leadery. Cooper was ladiesmanny. Jackson was badassy. Copley was crazy-y. It was fun! And I heard there were cameos of the original TV cast, but I didn’t see them until the end. And then I squealed. I am a fangirl. I do wish Mr. T had cameo-ed with them, even if it was just a flashback of this B.A.’s tough guy hero or something. Then, it would’ve been perfect.
Aw.
5.)
Nightmare on Elm StreetI watched this movie with Karon and we made like guinea pigs all through it (flinch, flail, squeak!). I liked it. The original NoES was the first movie that ever really scared me that wasn’t Jaws. For the first time, the middle of the bed wasn’t safe! And when the girl gets dragged up the wall?? Gah! But it scared me so bad I didn’t watch it again for years, so I was able to work up the nerve to see the remake.
There was already clamor from the original NoES fans, but I watched Renegade for Jackie Earle Haley without bleeding eyeballs, so I figured I could watch this, even if it was terrible. And I don’t think it was, even if I don’t remember the original well enough to compare it too.
I liked the opening sequence with all the blocks spelling out ‘bad’ and ‘scared’ and stuff while ominous drawings went on in the background. I wish they had left off the obvious font credits and let the creepy child stuff do it. I liked that all the kids, now teenagers, all had something wrong with them. One had anger issues, one was on medication, one was the repressed angsty artist, and one had the most robotic relationship with her mother I’ve ever seen. Even if they didn’t remember, they were already messed up somehow.
I liked the sense of menace from the new Freddy. It was as if he was going to kill them and he was going to enjoy it, but it wasn’t just for fun. There was some revenge going on first. Much more sinister. There’s a line in there where one of the kids asks what he wants from them, and instead of something pervy or gross, Freddy asks something about changing the past and bringing back the dead. And there’s anger there, that would come from anybody chased down and burned alive, guilty or innocent. I liked the creepy claw-caress over Nancy’s hand. And when he mocks the one kid for screaming before he’s even hurt. I think it’s the same kid he tells about brain activity going on longer than the body’s alive so even death isn’t an escape.
“Gah!” I said.
“That ain’t right,” Karon said. The guy behind us laughed. At us, not the movie.
I also liked the sharpening, scissory thing he did with the blades. Yeek. I liked the whole lynch mob scene. I didn’t recognize Clancy Brown until I heard the voice. Kurgan vs. Krueger? Hm. The nightmare-library story time scene spooked me and I liked the Pied Piper comparison. That fairy tale always struck me as creepier than its delivery.
I read a review that complained that there was no suspense and that the burn make-up was revealed in the first kill and so on, but I kinda figured the beauty of a remake is that we already know the story and the character, so why bother hiding everything until the end? And it’s not like we were sitting around waiting for something to happen. The kills started hard and fast, and something creepy was lurking around most of the corners in this movie.
I was kinda hoping that the movie would be more surreal and swirling with nightmare imagery. Less like the original and more like The Cell, maybe. Much like the Pied Piper story, the idea of the original NoES movies was so much creepier than the some of the delivery, and I wanted to see that kicked up a few notches. So here’s hoping the dreams will get more dreamy and the nightmares more brain-bending in the sequels. Which I will see. If my fellow guinea pig will go, too.
TO BE CONTINUED....
