Review of Avatar

When Jake Sully’s (Sam Worthington) twin brother is killed in a mugging, he is recruited to travel to the planet Pandora. There he join RPA’s scientific team and will use a genetically engineered hybrid ‘avatar’, which resembles the native inhabitants, known as the Na’vi by humanity. The rapacious corporation has a massive mining operation on Pandora, extracting unobtainium, which is key to an energy and economic crisis on Earth. The corporation's scientific team is trying to win the ‘hearts and minds’ of the natives, while at the same time employing heavily armed troops to protect themselves from both the natives and the violent wildlife on the planet.

While on his first mission outside the mine, Sully is separated from the rest of his team and forced to spend the night in the harsh jungle. While fighting off a pack of vicious predators, he is rescued from the wildlife by Neytiri, a Na’vi hunter. She is convinced to bring him back to her clan’s home, the Home Tree. There, he is given a chance to join the tribe if he can complete the same rituals as other warriors. As soon as Sully informs his superior, the ultra gung-ho Colonel Quaritch (Stephen Lang) of this event, they expect him to spy on the Omaticaya clan’s home, as it sits on the biggest deposit of unobtanium in the area.

Neytiri takes Sully under her wing and begins to show him their way of life. At first, he is both skeptical and reluctant, but over time, both Neytiri and the simple pleasures of the Na’vi way of life lead Sully to question his mission. The question soon becomes, to whom does Sully owe his allegiance?

Avatar has been compared to other films like Pocahontas and Dances with Wolves. For sure, the metaphor of ecological collapse and industrialism run amok is heavily presented in this film, with references like ‘Earth is a dying planet’ and ‘where the humans come from, there is nothing green’, and so on. Certainly, the RPA corporation shows that it is much like some greedy corporations today, in that profits are more important than the indigenous people or their rights. Even hiring heavily armed (and loosely regulated) mercenaries to protect their mining investment is simply considered good corporate policy. And of course the Na’vi are nothing more than thinly disguised Native Americans who believe in a Gaia-like deity and worship every living thing on the planet.

This is film that took Cameron 15 years to make, and his Herculean effort shows in almost every minute the film runs. The special effects are spectacular, and they will influence films in much the same way that Star Wars and Terminator 2 both revolutionized special effects. It might also have the effect of putting some high priced actors and actresses out of work, because with special effects like this, the actors and actresses become secondary in many ways.

Despite some minor flaws, this is the movie of the year in my book, even better than Star Trek and that film was truly amazing. Just make sure to see it in Imax or 3D to really enjoy the incredible special effects.

10 out of 10

Law-Abiding Citizen Review

Clyde Shelton (Gerard Butler) is a family man. One day, he opens his front door and is assaulted by a pair of home invaders. As he watches, one of them murders his family while the other steals his valuables. After they are caught, the murderer form the pair promises to testify against the other and in so doing, gets a lighter sentence. Clyde is dismayed by the nonchalance of the Assistant DA Nick Rice (Jamie Foxx), who tells him that a deal has been made to get some justice, rather than none. Clyde decides to take matters into his own hands and finds a way to kill both home invaders.

Over the years there have been plenty of revenge movies, like Charles Bronson in Death Wish and Uma Thurman in Kill Bill. This film is a little different from either of those movies with one exception. The key difference is that after both criminals have been killed, the vigilante starts killing members of the justice system, and so doing, loses some of the sympathy the audience had for him from the beginning.

Both Butler and Foxx put in good performances, but the script is relatively transparent and it’s easy to see who’s next on the vigilante’s hit list.

6 out of 10

http://www.lawabidingcitizenfilm.com/

Couple's Retreat review

Jason (Jason Bateman) and Cynthia (Kristin Bell) hit a rough patch in their marriage and plan a trip to a tropical island getaway to rekindle their marriage. There, they can jetski, sunbathe, and get counselling on their marriage from professionals. The catch is it’s far too expensive for their budget. However, if they can convince two other couples (Dave & Ronnie [Vince Vaughn and Malin Akerman] & Shane & Trudy [Faizon Love and Kali Hawk] )to join them in a package deal, it is.

After some humourous efforts to convince them, the band of six decides to go. Off they jet to a tropical paradise, only to find that counseling begins at 6am!

I saw it this weekend and I have to admit I was pleasantly surprised. It wasn’t anything groundbreaking, but it was funny and had some great characters in it. The funniest scenes are from the supporting cast and not Vince Vaughn. Favreau and Bell are excellent as the high school sweethearts who can no longer stand each other, while Vaughn’s son (Colin Biaocchi) steals scenes with his pottie training.

The women in the movie don’t have much do to other than look good in bikinis, and they all pull that off easily. Probably the biggest problem is that the film was originally intended to be an R-rated film, but was changed to a PG-13 flick, which left a lot of potential laughs on the cutting room floor. My guess is the unrated DVD will be even better than the movie.

Review of Surrogates

In a future not that far from our own, a crippled scientist named Canter (played by James Cromwell) invents a robotic technology (Surrogates) allowing people to use robots to interact with the world. Intended to liberate those with handicaps, they are quickly adopted by the vast majority of the population to allow themselves to engage in all sorts of risky behaviour that they wouldn’t do with their normal bodies. For example, the military uses them to fight wars bloodlessly, civilians use them to skydive and so on. By upgrading their surrogates, they can become younger, prettier, sexier, and stronger than average human beings. Very quickly, people begin to use them all the time in the day-to-day life and many never even leave their homes, preferring to interact with the world entirely through their surrogates.

Bruce Willis stars as FBI detective Greer, who is called in to investigate what appears to be the first homicide of a Surrogate user. Radha Mitchell stars as his partner, Peters, and together they search for clues as to how it was possible to deactivate a Surrogate and kill the user at the same time, overriding all of its fail-safes. During their investigation they discover a massive conspiracy to alter the world.

The strength of the film comes from its technology and theme. Given that many people already understand that people act differently over the Internet, the question is posed, would they do so if they could choose a robotic avatar to explore the world in? Would people become addicted to the use of their avatars, much in the same way people are addicted to WoW or Twitter or even just email? It is these exactly types of questions that this films makes viewers ask and then turn around and look at our current high-tech culture and technology usage. Even if the film were terrible, you would have to give it credit for this and this alone.

Fortunately, the film is quite watchable and entertaining. Bruce Willis does a good job in this cop role (not that surprising really). His role is fascinating, because when we first see him, he uses a surrogate and can do amazing things, jumping incredibly high, surviving a helicopter crash, getting shot, you name it. But after his surrogate is destroyed by anti-technology Luddites (and the FBI refuses to replace it), we see his fear, shock and dismay at interacting in a world dominated by surrogates. Ving Rhames stars as the Prophet, leader of the those Luddites, which have carved out ‘Dread’ territories across the US where surrogates are not allowed.

The rest of the cast is fine, but in my mind, Rosamund Pike (Maggie – Greer’s wife) had by far the most interesting role. Throughout the film, Greer and Maggie have serious conflict, as he wants her to unplug and she flat out refuses, preferring life with her avatar.

There are some minor plot holes, like how does anyone control two surrogates at once and so on, but all in all, they don’t really detract from the story, which is sci-fi after all. The biggest thing is that Surrogates was marketed as an action flick, while it is really more of a sci-fi thriller. There are action scenes, but in general there are not that many and most of them aren’t especially memorable. Still, despite those minor flaws, the film was highly entertaining and examined society in a way that not many sci-fi films ever do. If you enjoyed District 9, my hunch is you’ll enjoy this one too.

7 out of 10

http://chooseyoursurrogate.com/

Welcome aboard!

I've been writing movie reviews for years now, and posting them on another website. Today I decided I would start my own blog here and see where it takes me.

In the past, I only wrote reviews for movies to which I had seen the premiere. That was because I worked for a movie theatre company up here in the Great White North and got to see a couple each month, courtesy of the major movie studios here in Canada (thanks!). These days, I no longer work in the industry, but I still love movies and enjoy writing, so here I am.

Now that I'm not in the industry any longer, I will review any movies I see, no matter when I see them, whether its on DVD or a month after it has opened in theatres. However, if a studio exec stumbles across this blog and decides they want some free word of mouth advertising, contact me here and I'll be more than glad to watch more free movies (nudge nudge, wink, wink).

I've started off with a review of Zombieland, which I saw last week (great film BTW). I'll add more movies as I see them, as well as add previous reviews I've written in the past.

Hope to see you around again soon.

Enjoy!

Zombieland Review

Someone in America made the fatal mistake of eating a bad hamburger, which was infected with Mad Cow. Instead of slowly killing them as usually is the case, the virus mutated, and caused massive brain swelling in its victim in a matter of hours, which in turn created a homicidal maniac with a hunger for human flesh. Thus began the zombie apocalypse in Zombieland.

The hero of the story, Columbus (Jesse Eisenberg), is a nerdy college kid trying to make his way home to Columbus from Austin Texas. In a series of voiceovers, he quickly introduces the audience to his rules of survival, like rule #1, Cardio. If you can’t run, you can’t get away from the zombies, which is hilariously illustrated by a zombie chasing a fat guy across a field. Rule #2 is Double Tap or don’t be cheap on bullets. Use a second one to make sure the zombie stays down. And so on. Each is followed by a hilarious example of what might happen if you don't follow the rules.

He quickly meets Tallahassee (Woody Harrelson), a wise-cracking, zombie-killing machine who is on a mission to find a Twinkie. After meeting Wichita (Emma Stone) and Little Rock (Abigail Breslin), they are tricked into surrendering their weapons and vehicle. A chase ensues and again they are tricked, losing their weapons and vehicle. This time though, Columbus convinces them to all work together in their goal to get to Pacific Playland, an amusement park outside Los Angeles. There, they discover all sorts of odd things.

Zombieland is more comedy than horror (zomedy?), so for those of you who are looking for gore and gruesomeness, you’ll have to get your fix elsewhere. There are scenes of zombies munching on hapless people, but the gore is minimal and secondary to the film. The zombies in the movie are also of the fast variety, so purists may not enjoy it as much as the typical Romero versions. And finally, because the zombies were created by mad cow, a brain shot is not necessary to kill them.

However, despite these ‘flaws’, the movie is highly entertaining. It is fast paced, action packed and laced with tons of dark comedy. I would guess that there is more humour than there are zombies and mayhem, but the movie still works and works well I might add. Woody Harrelson puts in a performance that more than atones for stinkers like Money Train. Jesse Eisenberg plays the computer nerd perfectly and Emma Stone, well, she’s hotter than a Mexican’s lunch as an old Hollywood director used to say. As someone in the audience said at the screening, “This is how all zombie movies should be.”

9 out of 10

http://www.zombieland.com/

Star Trek

The movie starts with the birth of Starfleet’s most infamous captain, James Tiberius Kirk (Chris Pine) and follows his beginnings in Starfleet. Along for the ride are Capt Pike (Bruce Greenwood), Spock (Zachary Quinto of Heroes), Doctor Leonard 'Bones' McCoy (Karl Urban); linguist Uhura (Zoe Saldana), Helmsman Sulu (John Cho) and a 17-year-old Russian navigator named Pavel Chekov (Anton Yelchin). Halfway through the movie, Scotty (Simon Pegg of Shaun of the Dead) drops in too.

Although Uhura, McCoy and Kirk are still cadets at the academy, they are ordered into space to help man the few ships Starfleet has in Earth orbit to respond to a distress call from the planet Vulcan. When they arrive, they discover it is a trap and all but the Enterprise are destroyed. Pike, Kirk and Sulu launch an attack to save Vulcan and deal with the marauding Romulan Nero (Eric Bana).

Star Trek starts off with a bang and races along right to the end of the movie, without any noticeable lulls. The acting is great, especially Quinto as a young Spock, fighting to suppress his emotions. He loves, fights and rages, all the while trying his utmost to suppress them. Instead of the always logical and almost mechanical Mr. Spock played by Nimoy from the TV series and films, we are greeted with a Spock who must constantly battle his human emotions. It was an incredibly refreshing take on the character. Pine is in fine form as Kirk, the irrepressible and reckless rule breaker. His constant willingness to fight the unwinnable fight is right on par with the original Kirk. The scene when he takes the Kobayashi Maru test is particularly enjoyable. The film has tons of homages to Star Trek lore, with explanations why McCoy is called Bones, rationale why he doesn’t like Spock, Kirk’s willingness to sleep with hot green aliens, and so on. There are tons of great one-liners and jokes as the cadets learn their jobs.

I can definitely see some Star Trek faithful upset at the liberties J.J. Abrams has taken with the franchise. It strays far from the accepted timeline of the Star Trek universe, the Enterprise is a far more powerful ship, armed with weapons unseen before, and the events of the movie leave the Star Trek universe far different than the one most of us grew up watching. Despite all of this, the movie keeps most of the canon intact.

I’ll be the first to admit I’m not the biggest Trek fan. I watched the TV series, and enjoyed a lot of it, with the exception of Voyager, but when it came to the feature films, I only thought three were especially good; The Wrath of Khan, The Voyage Home, and First Contact. IMHO, this film blows them all away. This is one of the best movies of the year and should do huge business and totally revitalize Star Trek, which has been a dormant franchise since Nemesis and Enterprise.

10/10



[youtube] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lmJO3ppLBsk [/youtube]

http://www.startrekmovie.com/

X-Men Origins: Wolverine

Hugh Jackman stars as James (AKA Wolverine), while Live Schreiber takes over the role of Sabretooth, his brother. Both are endowed with superpowers from a young age, and were born more than a century ago in Canada! After accidentally killing a man, the brothers flee their home and family. They wind up fighting in both World Wars and Vietnam, where Sabretooth goes berserk and kills his CO. They are both tried for murder, but the firing squad is incapable of doing the job, due to their quick healing ability. A general, Victor Creed, offers them a job in an elite special ops unit, tackling the dirty jobs regular troops simply can’t. After James tires of the death and killing, he leaves the unit and becomes a lumberjack in the Canadian North. However, his past comes back to haunt him and soon he is on a mission of revenge.

Despite all the negativity about the film online, I thought it was pretty entertaining. It was well-paced, enjoyable to watch and a good all-round movie. As I didn’t know any of Wolverine’s back story to begin with, I wasn’t disappointed as others here were when they watched the bootleg.

While it wasn’t as good as the early X-Men movies, it was a fun popcorn movie. And the best line in the movie?

Creed: “Your country needs you.”

Wolverine: “I’m Canadian.”

That says it all. Canada truly kicks ass!

[youtube] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LPmbGzQaOCs [/youtube]

http://www.x-menorigins.com/

7 out of 10

The Soloist

Warning – Spoilers ahead.

Robert Downey Jr plays Steve Lopez, a LA Times reporter who’s always on the lookout for an interesting new story. He writes about his injury and treatment after a bicycle accident, life in the bad part of town etc. When he stumbles across Nathaniel (Jamie Foxx) playing flawless Beethoven on a violin with only two strings, he is intrigued. He follows up and discovers that he had gone to Julliard for musical training but dropped out due to his diagnosis of schizophrenia. He begins writing about him and quickly befriends the strange character.

Both Robert Downey Jr and Jamie Foxx play their characters to near perfection and the film takes its time in developing the relationship between the two. They put in powerful performances and this film will be an Oscar contender next year. The best thing about the film is that there is no sugarcoating or quick fix. Lopez and Ayer’s relationship goes through its ups and downs and by the end of the film, Ayers is doing better, but hasn’t suddenly conquered his schizophrenia to rejoin society and begin writing screenplays.

[youtube] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vrrLJT4YS9I [/youtube]

http://www.soloistmovie.com/

9 out of 10

Monsters Vs. Aliens

On the surface, Monsters vs. Aliens seems like a very solid movie idea. Take some 50s B-movie monster rejects and pit them against an equal 50s era b-movie alien leader bent on world conquest.

The plot is pretty basic, Susan Murphy is waiting at a church to get married when she is hit by an asteroid, transforming her into a 50 foot tall woman with super strength. She is promptly captured by the US government in a ‘Gulliver’s Travels’ way and wakes up in a secret base filled with other monsters the government deems unworthy of open society. There they are kept until an alien overlord decides to invade Earth. Then they are unleashed to fight his huge robot scout.

The movie is a lot of fun, with references to Dr. Strangelove, 50s sci-fi movies and other pop culture. The best lines come courtesy of BOB (Seth Rogen) and the President (Stephen Colbert). All in all, the movie was entertaining, but it wasn’t anywhere near other animated classics, like Shrek.


[youtube] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7SfqWGmRffM[/youtube]


http://www.monstersvsaliens.com/

8 out of 10

I Love You, Man

For a movie originally titled, ‘Bromance’, this movie is pretty good. Paul Rudd plays Peter Klaven, a real estate agent living in LA. After he proposes to his girlfriend Zooey, (Rashida Jones), he comes to the realization that he doesn’t have any close male friends who could be his groomsmen, nevermind a best man. With the help of his brother (Andy Samberg), he sets off to meet a best friend.

He quickly discovers how hard it is to meet a nice guy in LA. He winds up on a series of tragic ‘man-dates’ with gay men, senior citizens, and other horror stories. His apparent salvation comes when he holds an open house to sell Lou Ferigno’s Beverly Hills mansion. There he meets Sydney Fife (Jason Segel). They chat and poke fun at someone trying to decide whether the house is a good buy or not. Peter takes a chance and calls up Sydney and they quickly bond in Sydney’s ‘man cave’, a garage filled with TVs, guitars and all sorts of toys for boys. Soon, Peter is having too much fun with Sydney, opting to play Rush songs at Sydney’s instead of watching HBO with his fiancée, which causes conflict.

Paul Rudd and Jason Segel are bang-on in this film and take comedy to some serious new heights. Much of Rudd’s characters humour comes from his awkwardness and goofy speech, making up words like odd words in a lame attempt to fit in. The scenes where Peter tries to meet new guy friends are also really funny (with the poker game being probably the best), as is his epiphany that he lacks any guy friends. Given the content of the film, it’s surprising that Judd Apatow isn’t involved somewhere, as the comedy and humour are similar to Knocked Up / Superbad / etc.

Some of the best scenes in the movie are stolen by supporting actors, like Jon Favreau and Jamie Pressley, who are play one of the nastiest onscreen couples I’ve seen in a long time. One of Zooey’s comments describes them perfectly, “They argue and yell at each other all day long and then spend all night having angry make-up sex. It’s creepy, let’s go home.” Andy Samberg is pretty much left out of most of the film, which is one of the few drawbacks of the movie, as his gay personal trainer character has some funny moments.

Don’t let the 14A rating scare you away either, there is no nudity, but there are plenty of risqué conversations and over-the-top cursing to prevent this from being yet another PG-13 disaster. And unlike some comedies, even if you’ve watched every trailer available on the internet, there are still plenty of jokes and gags to enjoy. This is one of the funnier movies I’ve seen in a while and highly recommend it.

9 / 10

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mNElMm8otiM[/youtube]

http://www.iloveyouman.com/

Pink Panther 2

Steve Martin reprises his role of Inspector Clouseau from the 2006 movie, The Pink Panther. After the Shroud of Turin, the Magna Carta and Japanese royal family’s Imperial sword are stolen, an international ‘dream team’ is assembled to track down the culprit, a thief known as the Tornado. Clouseau is asked to join based on his success in protecting the Pink Panther diamond in the first movie. At first, the other inspectors’ respect Clouseau, but once his incompetence becomes known, he quickly becomes the subject of their scorn and derision, leading to them kicking him off the Dream Team.

Jean Reno is back in his role as Ponton, Clouseau’s partner and John Cleese takes over for Kevin Kline in the role of Inspector Dreyfuss, Clouseau’s boss. Alfred Molina, Yuki Matsuzaki, and Aishwarya Rai Bachchan round out the dream team, while Lily Tomlin shows up for some comic moments.

As a fan of the incredibly politically incorrect original series (but not having seen the first Steve Martin film), I was expecting a vastly different film. This movie wasn’t bad, and the kids in the audience seemed to enjoy it. Most of the gags are physical comedy ones, with Martin falling down, getting hit, etc. with a handful of snappy one liners tossed in for good measure. I would recommend this film as light-hearted family fun, but don’t be surprised if your children enjoy far more than you.


http://www.sonypictures.com/movies/thepinkpanther2/

5 out of 10 (and I’m being generous)

The Uninvited

Anna Rydell (Emily Browning) returns home to her sister Alex (Arielle Kebbel) after a stint in a mental hospital, because she witnessed the death of her mother in a horrific fire. Soon after her return, Anna gets a visit from the ghost of her mother telling her that Rachel, her father’s new girlfriend, has evil intentions. Together, she works with her sister Alex (Arielle Kebbel) to try and convince her father that something is amiss.

This thriller was far better than I expected. Originally I expected to be startled a few times and have a Grudge- type plot play out, but that was not to be. After watching the trailer, I thought it might be more like The Hand that Rocks the Cradle, but that wasn’t to be either. Just when you thought you have everything figured, The Uninvited pulls the rug out from under you.

Browning does very well as the girl thrust from the familiar to unfamiliar, and Banks proves she can play the villainess as well as a dumb blonde in an Apatow movie. The direction and plot are quite good, and the twist at the end fooled me, as I thought the movie was headed in a different direction entirely.


http://www.uninvitedmovie.com/

8 out of 10