"Men in Black 3" PG 13
Men in Black was loosely based on as comic book in the late 1980s. The original hip space men movie, 1997, and the abysmal post 9/11 sequel, 2002, didn't really warrant a third run, but with a quirky script borrowing from many time travel films, and a quirky bad boy villain, the third is at times funny. Wil Smith returns as J and James Brolin plays young K, and Tommy Lee Jones plays old K. So what happens is a space biker with one arm from an alien race buts out of lunar super jail (which shouldn't exist anyway) bent on revenge, and his evil plot is to erase K who put him in jail in the 1960s and erected a shield which prevented his species from invading Earth. When the biker alien succeeds, J must go back into time to stop him, but Back to the Future, Time Tunnel, and Time After Time like complications ensue. Interplay between J and K, and younger K make up for a lot of the strange dialog, and it is easier to follow than part 2. The story doesn't seem to have a reason to exist other than to make more money, and Smith is getting a little too old for the action parts.Jones has been too old for action movies since 1997 so it's okay.
Review by Adam Browne
Sunday, May 27, 2012
Friday, May 18, 2012
Review: "The Dictator" is insane fun riff on politics via screwball leader
"The Dictator" R
Sacha Barcon Cohen and Anna Farris and a cast of other actors and improv people, and some who weren't meant to be, appear in this fish out of water raunchy comedy. Cohen plays a Borat like character, only more like Ghadaffi than Hitler, and a bit like Akdaminijad, if he was funny, but he isn't. Cohen's Aladdeen is the leader of a fake country sandwiched between Egypt and Ethiopia where he rules as the leader, with ridiculously overgrown beard and a guard of hot chicks with guns, several concubines, and lots of weapons and oil. When he is accosted in New York, and shaved, he is forced to blend in with the natives until he can get to the UN meeting, where a double of him threatens to destroy his regime by introducing democracy. Although not as subversive as Bruno and not as surprising as Borat (as they could no longer convince people he wasn't Cohen), it is a clever ruse, and a mean spirited parody of everything from the Iraq conflict to Iran's weapons ambitions, to BP causing an oil spill, to middle east oppression, to even, gasp, 9/11. The torture parody is hilarious and the various little gags about balls, poop and playing keep away with a dead man's head, are original and quite shockingly funny. Farris appears to be a spoof of the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo crossed with Yentle. Ha. If you're going to be offended by ethnic stereotyping jokes, don't see it. Actually they make fun of the Bush administration too. So it's okay. Nobody gets left out.
Review by Adam Browne
Sacha Barcon Cohen and Anna Farris and a cast of other actors and improv people, and some who weren't meant to be, appear in this fish out of water raunchy comedy. Cohen plays a Borat like character, only more like Ghadaffi than Hitler, and a bit like Akdaminijad, if he was funny, but he isn't. Cohen's Aladdeen is the leader of a fake country sandwiched between Egypt and Ethiopia where he rules as the leader, with ridiculously overgrown beard and a guard of hot chicks with guns, several concubines, and lots of weapons and oil. When he is accosted in New York, and shaved, he is forced to blend in with the natives until he can get to the UN meeting, where a double of him threatens to destroy his regime by introducing democracy. Although not as subversive as Bruno and not as surprising as Borat (as they could no longer convince people he wasn't Cohen), it is a clever ruse, and a mean spirited parody of everything from the Iraq conflict to Iran's weapons ambitions, to BP causing an oil spill, to middle east oppression, to even, gasp, 9/11. The torture parody is hilarious and the various little gags about balls, poop and playing keep away with a dead man's head, are original and quite shockingly funny. Farris appears to be a spoof of the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo crossed with Yentle. Ha. If you're going to be offended by ethnic stereotyping jokes, don't see it. Actually they make fun of the Bush administration too. So it's okay. Nobody gets left out.
Review by Adam Browne
Sunday, May 13, 2012
Review: "Dark Shadows the Movie" works as Burton and Depp story but not so much as homage to beloved series
"Dark Shadows the Movie" PG 13
Fans of the quirky 70s ghoulish soap opera, Dark Shadows, may be disappointed that this movie plays it all for camp. Tim Burton and his cast, including Depp, Phiffer, Carter and composer Danny Elfman, and Moretz as a mawkish teenager, make for good casting, and potential of making it work. The oddness seems to lie in the evident pause that Burton thought he was making the Addams Family. Dark Shadows was not the Addams Family. What little of the series that was viewed seems to indicate it was something of a dark, surreal soap opera with very little jokes, nothing like the Munsters decades before, or the Addams Family. Burton kind of hacked it like he did Alice in Wonderland (but that was kind of liked too). So it's not a bad movie, it just really isn't Dark Shadows. Depp plays Barnabas, the patriarch of the Collins family. (Yes, Stephanie Meyers ripped off Dark Shadows using that 'Cullen' name, whereas Cullen is merely another spelling of Collins). Anyways, he is cursed to become a vampire and tossed into a casket and buried for 200 years, to awaken in 1972, where he discovers the surviving descendants of his family still living, but in dire need to funds. When he finds the family fortune he is able to revive the fishing cannery they owned, but Angelica, the witch, is trying to destroy him because she loves him. At times there is almost a tinge of it being like the show, but it really never goes there. The jokes are sometimes very funny with an audience, especially the DS fans, but they were a bit disappointed. The movie wasn't really all that bad, it just wasn't the show. Depp plays himself as a ghoulish vampire. Burton can do great movies. This is not one of them. It i merely entertaining. And I did get the references having much older siblings, and they were funny, but that is not really the direction they should have gone. Spooky movies with the ghoulish and sometimes manic direction by Burton is either a hit like in Beetlejuice or a miss like in Planet of the Apes the remake, or the Alice movie. (He only produced Nightmare Before Christmas and lad little to do with Coraline).
One off super blunder of note, a modern McDonald's sign is prominent before the store is being built near the grave and the sign reads '9 billion sold'. When the critic was working at a McDonald's a mere 22 years ago it was '1 billion sold' so that way back in 1972, it was about 500 million sold. It was a big deal in 1989-90 or so when they reached 1 billion sold. It did not happen before then. The critic was very young in that year but know a lot about it from family and from history. What the scenery looked like was California where you would see the fast cars, not a cool New England harbor town. It looked like the beach towns out west. That's wrong. also not all of the cars in the 1970s were either vans or muscle cars. The witch might have had one, but most likely the townspeople would have had regular sedans and wagons, especially in a fishing community in Boston. The muscle cars on the street were not commonly driven by everyone then. Regular folks had to carry passengers and backseat drivers around. Just some nitpicks.
Review by Adam Browne
Having not been a fan of the show could make it seem like this version didn't make much sense.
Fans of the quirky 70s ghoulish soap opera, Dark Shadows, may be disappointed that this movie plays it all for camp. Tim Burton and his cast, including Depp, Phiffer, Carter and composer Danny Elfman, and Moretz as a mawkish teenager, make for good casting, and potential of making it work. The oddness seems to lie in the evident pause that Burton thought he was making the Addams Family. Dark Shadows was not the Addams Family. What little of the series that was viewed seems to indicate it was something of a dark, surreal soap opera with very little jokes, nothing like the Munsters decades before, or the Addams Family. Burton kind of hacked it like he did Alice in Wonderland (but that was kind of liked too). So it's not a bad movie, it just really isn't Dark Shadows. Depp plays Barnabas, the patriarch of the Collins family. (Yes, Stephanie Meyers ripped off Dark Shadows using that 'Cullen' name, whereas Cullen is merely another spelling of Collins). Anyways, he is cursed to become a vampire and tossed into a casket and buried for 200 years, to awaken in 1972, where he discovers the surviving descendants of his family still living, but in dire need to funds. When he finds the family fortune he is able to revive the fishing cannery they owned, but Angelica, the witch, is trying to destroy him because she loves him. At times there is almost a tinge of it being like the show, but it really never goes there. The jokes are sometimes very funny with an audience, especially the DS fans, but they were a bit disappointed. The movie wasn't really all that bad, it just wasn't the show. Depp plays himself as a ghoulish vampire. Burton can do great movies. This is not one of them. It i merely entertaining. And I did get the references having much older siblings, and they were funny, but that is not really the direction they should have gone. Spooky movies with the ghoulish and sometimes manic direction by Burton is either a hit like in Beetlejuice or a miss like in Planet of the Apes the remake, or the Alice movie. (He only produced Nightmare Before Christmas and lad little to do with Coraline).
One off super blunder of note, a modern McDonald's sign is prominent before the store is being built near the grave and the sign reads '9 billion sold'. When the critic was working at a McDonald's a mere 22 years ago it was '1 billion sold' so that way back in 1972, it was about 500 million sold. It was a big deal in 1989-90 or so when they reached 1 billion sold. It did not happen before then. The critic was very young in that year but know a lot about it from family and from history. What the scenery looked like was California where you would see the fast cars, not a cool New England harbor town. It looked like the beach towns out west. That's wrong. also not all of the cars in the 1970s were either vans or muscle cars. The witch might have had one, but most likely the townspeople would have had regular sedans and wagons, especially in a fishing community in Boston. The muscle cars on the street were not commonly driven by everyone then. Regular folks had to carry passengers and backseat drivers around. Just some nitpicks.
Review by Adam Browne
Having not been a fan of the show could make it seem like this version didn't make much sense.
Review: "Pirates Band of Misfits" is nautical nonsesnse but fun
"Pirates Band of Misfits" G
The guys behind Wallace and Grommet and Chicken Run return with a swashbuckling parody of pirate movies complete Monty Python like bearded captain named Pirate Captain, appropriately, with a dodo bird for a parrot, who longs to win the coveted Pirate of the Year prize. His rivals are more interesting them he, in clay form, but he thinks he will win if he goes off to London. On the way he meets Darwin and eventually angers Queen Victoria, and as any good pirate movie should have, there is a big battle at the end, but it is so bizarre and ridiculous it's like watching the old Flying Circus shorts from Monty. Interestingly enough though it's Hugh Grant as the Captain. At times the adult humor and the kid humor don't jell and it becomes convoluted, but it works. It might make a good rental.
Review by Adam Browne
The guys behind Wallace and Grommet and Chicken Run return with a swashbuckling parody of pirate movies complete Monty Python like bearded captain named Pirate Captain, appropriately, with a dodo bird for a parrot, who longs to win the coveted Pirate of the Year prize. His rivals are more interesting them he, in clay form, but he thinks he will win if he goes off to London. On the way he meets Darwin and eventually angers Queen Victoria, and as any good pirate movie should have, there is a big battle at the end, but it is so bizarre and ridiculous it's like watching the old Flying Circus shorts from Monty. Interestingly enough though it's Hugh Grant as the Captain. At times the adult humor and the kid humor don't jell and it becomes convoluted, but it works. It might make a good rental.
Review by Adam Browne
Review: "Marvel's The Avengers" is excellent result of movie tie ins
Review: "Marvel's The Avengers" PG 13
Marvel studios has been building up for this 2012 movie release for over three years, and it pays off with the Joss Whedon feature film, a ripping fantasy comic book action adventure featuring the heroes from the Iron Man, Hulk, Captain America and Thor franchises, together like a Marvel version of Justice League. When SHIELD is attacked and the magic cosmic cube is stolen, a demigod like alien called Loki threatens to destroy their organization from within, and convince an alien army to invade New York. The idea seems simple enough, and the orchestration is finely crafted, for a comic book movie. The characters, such as there was time, were fleshed out well enough so it wasn't just mindless action sequences. Each personality clashed with others, and the demigods had trouble playing nice mutant with the other mutants and heroes. It wasn't as long paced and winded as X Men from a decade and more ago, and it had more heart than the first Iron Man or the Nolan Batman movies. The Batman movies were great also, but at times there was something not right. This time the script, direction and story were nearly perfect. Right on up to the action packed last half hour, the story has incredible effects, what looks like stunt work but is probably CGI, and butt kicking vehicles also, like a literal flying fortress, a heli-carrier right out of a GI Joe comic book. Awesome. The only real oddity is that the Hawkeye character is really not necessary. And when the possessed scientists handled that uranium without protection it would have radiated them and the lab, but okay. Fine,. It's a movie.
Review by Adam Browne
Marvel studios has been building up for this 2012 movie release for over three years, and it pays off with the Joss Whedon feature film, a ripping fantasy comic book action adventure featuring the heroes from the Iron Man, Hulk, Captain America and Thor franchises, together like a Marvel version of Justice League. When SHIELD is attacked and the magic cosmic cube is stolen, a demigod like alien called Loki threatens to destroy their organization from within, and convince an alien army to invade New York. The idea seems simple enough, and the orchestration is finely crafted, for a comic book movie. The characters, such as there was time, were fleshed out well enough so it wasn't just mindless action sequences. Each personality clashed with others, and the demigods had trouble playing nice mutant with the other mutants and heroes. It wasn't as long paced and winded as X Men from a decade and more ago, and it had more heart than the first Iron Man or the Nolan Batman movies. The Batman movies were great also, but at times there was something not right. This time the script, direction and story were nearly perfect. Right on up to the action packed last half hour, the story has incredible effects, what looks like stunt work but is probably CGI, and butt kicking vehicles also, like a literal flying fortress, a heli-carrier right out of a GI Joe comic book. Awesome. The only real oddity is that the Hawkeye character is really not necessary. And when the possessed scientists handled that uranium without protection it would have radiated them and the lab, but okay. Fine,. It's a movie.
Review by Adam Browne
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