"The Wolverine" PG 13
Seventy some years ago, Logan the Wolverine saved a Japanese army man during the bombing of Nagasaki. Seven decades later, on his dying wish, the man calls for Logan to return to Japan and repay his life debt. Troubled by nightmares about Jean Gray's ghost, and a wisecrascking Japanese guardian, Logan meets up with the man, who allegedly dies and entrusts him with guarding his daughter, and the possible secret of mortality. Logan is called a ronan or samurai without hout a master. Viper, another mutant, has apparently used her own powers to surpress Logan's popwers, so he is on the run through Japan from one amazing action set to another, including a bullet train fight, a Crouching Tiger nod in a palace house, outdoor street battles, and the final fight with the Silver Samurai. It is right out of the 1990s comic adaption. They also do some clever retcon to fix some of the damage from X Men 3, and X Men Origins by pretending some events may have not happened. Like if Jean is a ghost or something, maybe she isn't really dead, and there are other mutants around, so they couldn't have done away with all of them. This is just as well. And stay for the end credits sequence. It is crazy. It also helped that in the theater were several hyperactive teenagers giggling at every other scene. Well maybe that wasn't a help so much. Hugh Jackman though looks much older than when he started 13 years ago. They didn't de-age him. Ha.
Review by Adam Browne
Friday, July 26, 2013
Reiew: "Monsters University" is cash grab prequel fuzed with Animal House and others
"Monsters University" G
Mike and Silly are freshman in college in the bizarre prequel to the original hit, Monsters Inc. Why? Cash grab perhaps? Currently there is a cartoon called Monster High, perhaps one of their inspirations, and a remake of Animal House is undoubtedly around the corner, so why not make a college based Monster story? Sure. That will not sound like Ahh Real Monsters even more. The Ahh monsters were in high school, right? Ah yeah. Yikes. Is it because the 8 year olds that watched the first one are now in college and will feel nostalgic 12 years later? Unlike Toy Story 3, which actually made sense, this doesn't. They couldn't do a sequel so they go back in time and show how Mike and Sully met. The problem is, nobody cares. Really. This is information that's just not important. It brought up more questions than answers. It included weird prat and frat sight gags that were lost on anyone that might be under 12. At one point they joke about how frats tend to haze each other. Yeah, little kids know all about that. Exactly who is the target audience? They might not even know. This shoud have gone direct to video. I'd prefer to rewatch Monsters Inc instead, which was not great but better than this. The best part is in the end credits with the snail late for class.Furthermore, Animal House is a better movie than this, and not for kids.
Review by Adam Browne
Mike and Silly are freshman in college in the bizarre prequel to the original hit, Monsters Inc. Why? Cash grab perhaps? Currently there is a cartoon called Monster High, perhaps one of their inspirations, and a remake of Animal House is undoubtedly around the corner, so why not make a college based Monster story? Sure. That will not sound like Ahh Real Monsters even more. The Ahh monsters were in high school, right? Ah yeah. Yikes. Is it because the 8 year olds that watched the first one are now in college and will feel nostalgic 12 years later? Unlike Toy Story 3, which actually made sense, this doesn't. They couldn't do a sequel so they go back in time and show how Mike and Sully met. The problem is, nobody cares. Really. This is information that's just not important. It brought up more questions than answers. It included weird prat and frat sight gags that were lost on anyone that might be under 12. At one point they joke about how frats tend to haze each other. Yeah, little kids know all about that. Exactly who is the target audience? They might not even know. This shoud have gone direct to video. I'd prefer to rewatch Monsters Inc instead, which was not great but better than this. The best part is in the end credits with the snail late for class.Furthermore, Animal House is a better movie than this, and not for kids.
Review by Adam Browne
Review: "Monsters Inc." is similar to Nick toon as monster workers and ends well
"Monsters Inc." G
Prior to 2001, a Nickelodeon cartoon named Ahh Real Monsters featured a band of misfit monsters living in the real world, including floating eyeballs, creaky frog things, snakes, chameleons and annoying snake things. The cartoon was bizarre. It seemed like then Pixar lifted the idea for their version, Monster's Inc., a digital animated version set in a monster's factory, where Mike and Sully are workers who keep the doors closed while the screams of humans are used for power. It is a different concept, but goofy monsters with weird coloring is very similar. The Nick toon went away. The Monster's Inc. became a franchise. The original Monster Inc. premise is that a little girl greeps into the monster world and is not scared of Mike and Sully, changing that world forever. But that frog lady was right out of the other show. Deny it all you will. And the eyeball. The show was cute. The movie was cute.
Review by Adam Browne
Prior to 2001, a Nickelodeon cartoon named Ahh Real Monsters featured a band of misfit monsters living in the real world, including floating eyeballs, creaky frog things, snakes, chameleons and annoying snake things. The cartoon was bizarre. It seemed like then Pixar lifted the idea for their version, Monster's Inc., a digital animated version set in a monster's factory, where Mike and Sully are workers who keep the doors closed while the screams of humans are used for power. It is a different concept, but goofy monsters with weird coloring is very similar. The Nick toon went away. The Monster's Inc. became a franchise. The original Monster Inc. premise is that a little girl greeps into the monster world and is not scared of Mike and Sully, changing that world forever. But that frog lady was right out of the other show. Deny it all you will. And the eyeball. The show was cute. The movie was cute.
Review by Adam Browne
Friday, July 12, 2013
Review: "Pacific Rim" is action love letter to Gozilla and to giant robot fans and great fun
"Pacific Rim" PG 13
Guillermo del Toro, director of Pan's Labyrinth and Children of Men returns to science fiction fantasy with this strange nod to Godzilla and the Monsters, and Macross Super Dimension Fortress, (in the US called Robotech), and any number of other flicks of the genre.
The premise is not so much as Gun Jocks/Evangelon/Macross movie as it is a Godzilla homage, and then some, and not a rip off so much as a love letter to the fans, spattered in grease and slime, and gore, and stumped with giant robot feet! Ha.
The film takes place several years after an alien monster invasion through a wormhole deep down in the Pacific ocean. Apparently in the future the aliens have overcome the crushing pressures at seafloor depth, and are able to roll onto land, tearing apart cities and air forces, navies and armies. Called in to fight the various types of monsters, the Kaiju, are the Jeagers, giant hunter robots driven using two pilots joined by neural bridge.
The designs have some semblance to video games like Halo and Portal, and the characters do talk like they're in a video game, but it's more fun than Transformers 2007, and has much better dialog. They don't make one pee joke at all.
The story does have an excitable black male protagonist, Sttacker, who acts like a GI Joe, which is cool because there has to be one in these types of movies. This is so that he can lead the troops and kick some major butt, and make heroic speeches, and lead to gets and glory.
The hero though is a former jeager pilot, Becket, who had lost his brother years earlier in a battle, but is asked to come back and help out with the lasdt hope, the remaining robots and their scruffy pilots in a Hong Kong base. Along for the ride is a rookie female hero, Mako, who learns to bomd with the hero to help stop the invasion by the beasts.
Also there are two crazy scientists looking to brain link with some alien brains so they can learn what their secret us.
Guillermo del Toro, director of Pan's Labyrinth and Children of Men returns to science fiction fantasy with this strange nod to Godzilla and the Monsters, and Macross Super Dimension Fortress, (in the US called Robotech), and any number of other flicks of the genre.
The premise is not so much as Gun Jocks/Evangelon/Macross movie as it is a Godzilla homage, and then some, and not a rip off so much as a love letter to the fans, spattered in grease and slime, and gore, and stumped with giant robot feet! Ha.
The film takes place several years after an alien monster invasion through a wormhole deep down in the Pacific ocean. Apparently in the future the aliens have overcome the crushing pressures at seafloor depth, and are able to roll onto land, tearing apart cities and air forces, navies and armies. Called in to fight the various types of monsters, the Kaiju, are the Jeagers, giant hunter robots driven using two pilots joined by neural bridge.
The designs have some semblance to video games like Halo and Portal, and the characters do talk like they're in a video game, but it's more fun than Transformers 2007, and has much better dialog. They don't make one pee joke at all.
The story does have an excitable black male protagonist, Sttacker, who acts like a GI Joe, which is cool because there has to be one in these types of movies. This is so that he can lead the troops and kick some major butt, and make heroic speeches, and lead to gets and glory.
The hero though is a former jeager pilot, Becket, who had lost his brother years earlier in a battle, but is asked to come back and help out with the lasdt hope, the remaining robots and their scruffy pilots in a Hong Kong base. Along for the ride is a rookie female hero, Mako, who learns to bomd with the hero to help stop the invasion by the beasts.
Also there are two crazy scientists looking to brain link with some alien brains so they can learn what their secret us.
Review: "World War Z" takes on zombie novel and seems familiar
"World War Z" R
Marc Forster, director of Finding Neverland, does a movie adaptation of the cult zombie novel, War War Z, by Max Brooks with Brad Pitt in the lead, running from zombies wearing surfer hair and a five o'clock shadow beard.
Gerry, Pitt's character, is a United Nations special operations guy who now has a family and is set upon one morning by zombies while trying to get through Philadelphia. Eventually he and his family get to an apartment in New Jersey where the next day they are taken to a ship out at sea by helicopter.
One on the Navy ship, Gerry's old boss wants him to go on a mission to Korea with a scientist to help find a cure, but when he reluctantly goes, the plan goes wrong and the scientist is killed in a zombie attack.
Gerry manages to get to Jerusalem, which has been walled in like a fortress, and he meets a leader there with more of as stubbly beard, who thought it was a good idea to erect a wall before it all even started. The problem is the zombies are clever enough to scale walls, and soon invade the city. Then Gerry must escape by jet plane to Ireland where there is a world health organization base.
In tow with him is a survivor who had to have her hand cut off because a zombie bit her, but she doesn't turn. She can handle a gun.
They crash the plane and end up at the building, where they hope to discover a cure using other pathogens to mask their scent, or something.
The flick borrows liberally from Romero and Rodriquez, and from the creators of the Bourne trilogy. For an action film it has plenty of running and jumping, fighting and loud things blowing apart. In terms of gore, not so much, considering it's a war. The slick special effect are kinetic and the pacing never gets dull. The issue might be with purists of the book, which the critic did not read, and might object to it being just a big action flick. Some surprises happen but most scares are textbook, loud and obvious, so it's not scary. It's a good rental in the future. Don't bother with the 3D version as this moves around so much it would be painful in 3D.
Review by Adam Browne
Marc Forster, director of Finding Neverland, does a movie adaptation of the cult zombie novel, War War Z, by Max Brooks with Brad Pitt in the lead, running from zombies wearing surfer hair and a five o'clock shadow beard.
Gerry, Pitt's character, is a United Nations special operations guy who now has a family and is set upon one morning by zombies while trying to get through Philadelphia. Eventually he and his family get to an apartment in New Jersey where the next day they are taken to a ship out at sea by helicopter.
One on the Navy ship, Gerry's old boss wants him to go on a mission to Korea with a scientist to help find a cure, but when he reluctantly goes, the plan goes wrong and the scientist is killed in a zombie attack.
Gerry manages to get to Jerusalem, which has been walled in like a fortress, and he meets a leader there with more of as stubbly beard, who thought it was a good idea to erect a wall before it all even started. The problem is the zombies are clever enough to scale walls, and soon invade the city. Then Gerry must escape by jet plane to Ireland where there is a world health organization base.
In tow with him is a survivor who had to have her hand cut off because a zombie bit her, but she doesn't turn. She can handle a gun.
They crash the plane and end up at the building, where they hope to discover a cure using other pathogens to mask their scent, or something.
The flick borrows liberally from Romero and Rodriquez, and from the creators of the Bourne trilogy. For an action film it has plenty of running and jumping, fighting and loud things blowing apart. In terms of gore, not so much, considering it's a war. The slick special effect are kinetic and the pacing never gets dull. The issue might be with purists of the book, which the critic did not read, and might object to it being just a big action flick. Some surprises happen but most scares are textbook, loud and obvious, so it's not scary. It's a good rental in the future. Don't bother with the 3D version as this moves around so much it would be painful in 3D.
Review by Adam Browne
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