Star Trek (2009)

Absolutely awesome.

Great story, awesome action, sweet "new" franchise.

Transformers

A memory from my childhood that was not ruined.

Transformers is possibly one the best known of the 80s cartoons. It was a huge success then and made for the greatest toys ever. Still, it had deep lore and some intriguing history to it for a kids' show. There were later installments of the show, too, often not adding anything and usually playing into the recent kids trends. For example, one of the more recent incarnations was Transformers: Armada. In that series the two factions fought over "Mini-cons" that would give power ups to the major transformers. It was very much Pokemon - collect and trade power ups. But the show was miserable and did nothing.

However, this movie takes us all the way back to the 80s and does so quite well. It was fast paced, high tech and fantastic. Not a whole lot of story to the movie but likely a major introduction to attempt a series of movies.

The CGI robots were amazing. I loved that they worked some of the original sounds into the transformations. The movie had no qualms about going back and forth between vehicle and biped constantly. And it was flawless. Nothing was overboard. Even the explosions were tame.

Acting? Good enough. No complaints from me. They had the original Optimus Prime voice, how could I complain?

A couple little complaints. Optimus is this ultimate wise leader. But he was a bit dumb in the movie early on. The humor of the movie seemed to work well throughout the movie but use the other characters. Optimus should not be that dumb.

More decipticons! Not nearly enough of them in the movie.

Slight cheese factor near the end slightly out of place with the pace that was going in the climactic fight scene. I don't mind the little bit of story going on there but it was out of place.

4.25 of 5. Pure fun. Total action flick. Very, very enjoyable.

Rentals

Hannibal Rising - 1.5 of 5. Started off pretty strong as it seemed like it would be suspenseful and creepy. Died right out after that. Nothing mysterious about it. Mediocre acting. A very formulaic movie to boot.

American Dreamz - 2.75 of 5. Slightly amusing but far too obvious mockery/parody of Idol, the President and the "war" - went way over the top. Needed a bit more subtlety, or just a bit of cleverness. The characters were kind of fun. I appreciate Mandy Moore. Is Hugh Grant losing his accent?

Se7en - 4.25 of 5. Very suspenseful and intriguing. I love mysteries like this. I wish they went a little more into the details of the murders.

Casino Royale - 4 of 5. Saw this in theaters over the summer and it's a great movie. It's far less over the top gadgety gizmos that Bond was turning into in the last installments. There was much more story to this and Daniel Craig is awesome.

Netflix vs. Blockbuster

I've recently dropped Netflix in favor of Blockbuster: Total Access.

Thus far, Blockbuster is a bit slower in sending movies and the whole "turn into the store and it's entered immediately" thing is a bit of a lie. It still takes them a day or two to acknowledge they've reentered it into the system. I do like the trade in policy - I get twice as many movies for the same price as Netflix.

So far I've watched:

28 Days Later: 3 of 5 A British "zombie" movie similar to Dawn of the Dead. A bit slower and kind of a repeat of that movie. Nice little twist thrown in. Still suspenseful and creepy. But not all that scary.

Amadeus: 4 of 5 - Had never seen this classic before. I really enjoyed it. Probably would have had a greater appreciation had I had any knowledge of classical music. Fun, entertaining and a very good plot with interesting characters.

TMNT

Only went to this for the nostalgia factor. Average enough for that. Really a kid's movie. Had they wanted a pg-13, I think it could have been a much better movie.

Not a whole lot to tell. It's a Turtle's movie but completely CGI rather than the costumed guys of long ago. Some story of an ancient general attaining immortality but at a price - his "family" of generals are frozen in stone. The event that allowed him to become immortal occurs every several thousand years. Present day, several thousand years later, Leo has run off and the Turtles are in a bit of disarray. Oh noes! The plot is predictable; from this summary you should be able to guess the rest of the story.

The movie's themes are simplistic because it is a kid's movie. Nothing to complain about.

2.5 of 5. The CGI is clean. The voice-acting fair enough. Just a 25 year old going to a kid's movie.

Hot Fuzz

Hilarious! I love these guys.

From the makers of Shaun of the Dead comes Hot Fuzz. A police comedy. Big city cop, obsessed with his job gets sent to Po-dunk, England. Hijinks ensue. The filmmakers profit.

The movie opens well. The main character does a bit of narration about his career and training. He then has a funny meeting with some of the higher-ups. He then heads off to Nowheresville. And the movie dies.

The first half of the movie, cutting out the very first 5-10 minutes, is rather boring. It drags, isn't very funny but it's setting the scene. The plot is being established and some chracters fleshed out.

The second half is possibly the greatest movie I have ever seen. Pure genius. Pure hilarity. And non-stop fun. I have a slight qualm with the very ending. The movie could have wrapped up more smoothly without the last explosion. It just felt like they needed to throw in one last gag. They'd brought in this prop early on and needed to use it and this was the best they could come up with.

4 of 5 - Overall, go see it. Slow start but ever so funny in the second half.

Spiderman 3

Terrible. While Spiderman 1 and 2 were among the best superhero movies ever, this was terrible.

Let's start at the beginning. The movie shouldn't have. It was boring. A really dull fight scene. Then lots of "plot" that simply drags on forever. I was contemplating napping. Then there's a giant crane accident. Spiderman saves one person but completely ignores the crane. Way to go, tiger.

This movie was really 3 in one. You have a Sandman movie that just seems a bit thrown in there. A venom movie without barely any appearance by Venom and then a drama movie between Spidey and Mary Jane. The Goblin Jr. story isn't really big enough to deserve it's own. So there's way too much going on for one thing. No character development at all.

The black spider suit turns Peter emo and goth. He looks just like one of the South Park goth kids. The movie doesn't really develop that it makes him aggressive and angry much except in the only one good fight scene in the whole movie and that is the second one between Spidey and Harry. It shows what the suit is really doing to him. The jazz club scene was just dumb and pointless.

The final fight scene was terribly cheesy. Gag-o-rama for sure. And it was rudely interrupted by a bad joke with J. Jonah and was a way to get Sam Raimi's daughter into the film.

Topher Grace is a terrible Eddie Brock. I enjoy Topher but Eddie is supposed to be a guy who can bench 700 lbs no problem. That's what makes Venom so deadly is that Eddie is already a badass.

I can't say much about Thomas Haden Church as Sandman. The entire part was poorly done and written. It seemed like it was just slopped in there for no reason.

Kirsten Dunst was annoying. They should not have done a close up of her face when she was supposedly "singing." It made it even more unconvincing.

Tobey McGuire didn't seem like he cared about the part anymore.

Do not see this if you can help it.

1.5 of 5.

Netflix

I recently started in with the Netflix. I've watched a few things with it.

A brief summary.

Tron: a classic Brooklyn would not watch with me. Highly recommended - 4 of 5.

Rushmore: very creative, highly entertaining. Fun and smart. 3.75 of 5

Thank you for Smoking: also very smart, loved the acting and the way it was done. 4 of 5.

John Tucker Must Die: a good stupid movie. Hot chicks; silly, pointless plot. Good for a quick humor fix. 2.75 of 5

Fantastic Four: let's not go there. 1.5 of 5

Lucky Number Slevin: good, solid action movie. Loved that Hartnet guy. 3.5 of 5

March of the Penguins: I can't go here either. This movie makes me cry. Poor penguins. Cute babies! 3 of 5.

History of the World Part I: hilarious, genius. I love Mel Brooks. 4.5 of 5.

Blazing Saddles: not that good. Rather indifferent on the matter. 2.5 of 5.

Cars

Fairly cute movie, good amount of humor but nothing terribly original. As much as I hate NASCAR, I love Pixar.

The usual opening animated short was absolutely great. They should make a whole 2 hours movie of these shorts.

As to the movie for which I went to the theater: Lightning McQueen is the hotshot rookie sensation tied for the lead in the Piston. He's got skills but he's an arogant bitchhead. On his way to his last race he falls out of his Mack truck and gets lost in the middle of nowhere. He then gets in lots of trouble and has to fix things. Flah flah flah. He meets good people (read: cars). Yadda yadda yadda. Learns the lessons he needs to learn and off he goes to win with the support of his new friends.

So we all know the story is pretty predictable and formulaic. The animation is fantastic as usual. Lots of little jokes for kids and lots of little jokes for adults. Lots of little things to be watching for (like flies being VW bugs). One question: how do the cars reproduce? Since they have cars doing everything, do cars build other cars? Do the cars have sex? Being this is a kids movie, I'm betting the former so then who built the first car or who built the thing that allows for the construction of the first car? Flah flah flah.

It's an endearing, enjoyable movie. But it doesn't really jump out and isn't heartwarming like Nemo or Monster's Inc. Many of the side characters were more interesting than the main characters. Luigi (voiced by Monk) and Guido. Owen Wilson's Lightning wasn't all that appealing. The entire racing premise was just dull.

I also really enjoyed the ending sequence in the drive in theater watching "Toy Car Story" and "Monster Truck Inc." That was quality.

I need to stop going to any movie that could possibly be construed as a kids movie at any time kids may be in attendence.

3 of 5.