Fun with Dick & Jane Review

The premise of the movie is pretty basic, a white collar worker (Carrey) in a high tech company, Globodyne, is promoted and, when the company implodes ala Enron, he loses his life bit by bit, from his expensive car to his manicured lawn to his furniture.

He spends months looking for work and finally gets an interview after having given up on finding anything. It turns out to be one of the funniest scenes in the whole movie. After that disappointment, he lowers his standards and goes off to work for a Walmart/Costco type company and is promptly fired. A stint as a migrant labourer follows and so on. After a while, he comes up with the idea to knock off a convenience store to make his mortgage payment. Eventually he finds his ex-boss (Alec Baldwin) and tries to swindle him out of his ill-gotten riches while he was Globodyne’s CEO.

Jim Carrey does as good a job as possible with the rather weak script. Tea Leoni doesn’t add much to the movie, although she does show she can do physical comedy (though not as well as the master, Carrey). Many of the funny scenes were in the trailer for the movie, so it is a little disappointing that there isn’t more humour in the movie.

This was, all in all, not a bad film, just not up to what is to be expected of Carrey. If you’re looking for a laugh, I’d recommend waiting until it goes to the cheap theatres or comes out on DVD.

5 out of 10

Memoirs of a Geisha Review

After being sold into slavery by her parents as a child, Sayuri (Ziyi Zhang) is resigned to a life of hardship and abuse in Kyoto. Raised amongst geishas, including the bitter Hatsumomo (Gong Li), Sayuri dreams of their educated and venerated lifestyle. When an unexpected benefactor (Michelle Yeoh) comes looking for Sayuri, the frightened girl begins her arduous training to become a geisha. Eventually, Sayuri rises to power, commanding the attention of every man she meets, and enraging Hatsumomo further. Nevertheless, all the adoration in the land can't help satisfy Sayuri's love for the one person, the Chairman (Ken Watanabe), who was kind to her while she was a frightened little girl.

Based on the best-selling book, Memoirs of a Geisha is also director Rob Marshall's long awaited follow-up to Chicago. It might sound absurd, but Marshall is an appropriate choice for "Geisha," as the story centers on the theatricality of these women, and how they hide their emotions in the pursuit of performance. Meticulously produced and detailed, Geisha is a feast for the eyes, but cold to the touch. In the end, Geisha is more of a soap opera than a real movie, with each character scheming and plotting against others, trying to inflict pain and/or sorrow on each other.

7 out of 10

King Kong Review

I just saw the advanced screening of King Kong last night in Edmonton. I thought that the movie was good overall, but there are some things that could've been better.

First off, the movie is too long, and Kong doesn't show up for almost 45 minutes. Don't eat a big dinner before you head out or you'll fall asleep like my friend did. The action scenes are frenetic and also vertigo-inducing, due to Jackson's love of slo-mos and odd camera angles. The special effects range from jaw-dropping to campy cheese from a 50s B-movie. Kong looks awesome, as do the rest of the creatures on Skull Island, but some scenes of the crew running or paddling/sailing are very lame (whether this was intentional or not I'm not sure). 1930s New York also looks fantastic.

Jack Black proves once again he is one of Hollywood's worst actors. Fortunately, Naomi Watts and Adrian Brody have some chemistry and do a good job. Kyle Chandler provides some excellent comic relief as the stereotypical spoiled, pretty boy Hollywood actor. One thing that adds to the campiness of the movie is the dozens of lines lifted right out of the 1933 version. Personally, when some of these lines were spoken, I started chuckling, thinking of the Simpson's spoof -- King Homer.

The best part of the movie is when Kong is in New York. His rampage and subsequent climbing of the Chrysler Building were excellent. By the end of the movie, you are actually cheering for Kong to knock down all the biplanes that are harassing him.

My guess is that this movie will make a lot of money (if you enjoyed LOTR, you'll probably enjoy this one too), but I'd still recommend waiting a while to see this one. Either way, you will either love it or hate it.

6 out of 10

Jarhead Review

From the director of American Beauty, Jarhead is a fascinating look at Desert Shield/Storm and the experiences a group of Marines during this seminal event. I’ll start by saying if you are looking for a body count, see something else. This is a gripping story about Anthony Swofford and his time in the Marines, focusing on the Gulf War of 1990-91, based on his best selling novel.

It is intense, dark, humourous, sarcastic and does its level best to be apolitical. Some characters are all for kicking Saddam’s ass, while others question the reason for the war in the first place.

The movie itself is very similar to Full Metal Jacket, with the first half of the movie taking place in boot camp and at Camp Pendleton. Then the Marines are deployed and it focuses on the troops handling the interminable boredom of the desert and Marine Corp life.

The big surprise is that for a war movie, there is very little war, and the story focuses more on the characters and how they handle a variety of extremely stressful situations. While Jamie Foxx does a great job in this film, I think it will be Gyllenhaal’s breakthrough performance. This is a must-see film and an instant classic.

8 out of 10

Review of Weatherman

Dave Spritz (Nicolas Cage) is a television weatherman in Chicago, who is succeeding in his professional life, but failing miserably in his personal life. He and his wife are separated, his children have a variety of problems and his Pulitzer-winning father (Michael Caine) seems to disapprove of everything David does.

Throughout the movie, Dave tries his best to impress his father, help out his children and reconcile with his wife, but things seem to keep going wrong no matter how hard he tries. The novel he writes is awful, he gets into a scuffle with his wife’s new boyfriend and his children do not really want his help.

This movie is character driven and Cage does very well in it. There is plenty of comedic moments in the movie, including the numerous times Dave is pelted with food items by passersby. There is also plenty of strong language too. Michael Caine is exceptional as Dave's father.

I went to see it and expected a lackluster comedy, but instead, received a well-thought out and delivered movie which was at moments strange, shrewd, comic, and rather moving, which was a pleasantl surprise.

8 out of 10

Four Brothers Review

The movie starts with a convenience store robbery in Detroit, which leads to the death of the clerk and an elderly lady who happened to be in the store buying milk at the time. This leads her four sons to return home to attend her funeral. All of her sons are adopted ne'er do wells who had had a life of crime and bad habits until they had been rehabilitated by her kind parenting. As they learn about their mom's death, they come to realize it was no accident that she died and set out to right a wrong, even if it means confronting the strongest criminal syndicate in town.

Some may disagree, I think this is the one of the best movies of the fall. I've seen all the big hits (several flops too) and this movie was by far the best of all of them.

It has an excellent cast. All four of the brothers play their parts perfectly, and Singleton directed a compelling character driven, well written story. Mark Wahlberg does well as the tough guy, Andre 3000 (of Outkast fame) does an excellent job as the only brother who made something of himself and Tyrese Gibson and Garrett Hedlund are great as the ex-Marine and failed rock star respectively.

There is lots of action, but not gratuitous let's blow stuff up for the sake of blowing stuff up. Each action scene drives the characters to discover something new in the murder of their mother. There is plenty of humour too, just like in any tight family, everyone has their foibles that are relentlessly dissected and hit upon. The singer, Jack, takes the brunt of the ribbing, but his brothers' love for him comes out in the huge hit 2/3 through the movie.

The characterization is powerful and one of the strongest scenes in the movie is when the four sit down to Thanksgiving dinner, without their mother, and she appears in flashbacks, gently chiding them and/or encouraging them. That, plus there are hockey scenes in the movie. And you can never go wrong with hockey... ;)

9 out of 10

Review of Serenity

Set in the universe of the TV show Firefly, Serenity follows the crew of the spaceship Serenity on a quest for knowledge. After having exhausted the resources of our own solar system, mankind has moved to another solar system and created the Alliance, which rules the 'Core' worlds, where most of humanity resides, and ignores the frontier planets, where pretty much anything goes. A young psychic, River (Summer Glau), challenges that authority after she is rescued from an Alliance facility by her brother (Sean Maher). They hire the Serenity to take them to the frontier to avoid the Alliance. The Alliance sends the Operative (Chiwetel Eljiofor) to track them down and return River to the research centre. The Serenity's captain, Malcolm "Mal" Reynolds refuses to let her be taken and does everything in his power to protect them both from the Operative.

The crew of Serenity, is a band of ne'er do wells, former rebels and criminals who cruise the fringes of explored space and find adventure. A quick voice over in the beginning gives the uninitiated the basics, so if you've never seen Firefly, you don't have to worry. This was a good movie that was really made only due to fans on the Net (and maybe DVD sales). Personally, it kinda reminds me of Star Trek, in that fans got producers to make a movie after the original TV series was cancelled, although it took far longer for Trekkies.

The movie has its moments and there is plenty of action and some funny one-liners, ala Indiana Jones, which helps when the movie's pace slows down for a while in the middle. All in all, it is a good, solid movie which probably won't do much business because no one seems to know about it. And that's really a shame...

8 out of 10

Review of Doom

Doom is one of the better action movies out this year. While I wouldn't categorize it as must-see, it was entertaining, both for the action and the humour laced throughout. It also promised gore and there is plenty of it.

The basic plot is the same as the FPS game of the same name. This time though, a team of Marines is sent to investigate why a research facilty has shut down and stopped communicating with the corporation that runs it. They are teleported to Mars and sent through an airlock with a mission to bring back the data and rescue any survivors, while eliminating any threats.

The movie starts out slow and really doesn't get going until about 30 minutes in. Slowly they unravel what happened, as one by one, the Marines are stalked and killed by whatever killed the scientists. Karl Urban does an admirable job of playing John Grimm and the Rock does very well as the nearly psychotic Sarge.

I went in with low expectations and was pleasantly surprised. Basically, if you are looking for a movie with action, gore and some humour, you'll like this movie, but if you are looking for an Oscar, go see North Country instead.

7 out of 10

Into the Blue Review

The movie is basically about a four people who find a crashed drug smuggling plane on the ocean floor while diving and then decide to recover it and sell the profits. This of course leads to problems when they try to inadvertently sell it back to its owner, who of course takes umbrage and threatens to kill them.

The first 2/3 of the movie is only six pack abs and good looking people in tiny bikinis, swimming underwater. Don't get me wrong, I appreciated Jessica Alba as much as anyone, but a good story and some adequate pacing would have been nice.

The story doesn't really pick up until after they recover some of the drugs, and by then, most viewers will be bored. The last third of the movie has the usual sharks, guns, and bad boys doing bad things. My advice is to wait until it's in second run or on DVD.

4 out of 10