Kick Ass 2 - What just happened?

[WARNING: SPOILERS!]

There were a lot of exciting movies that came out this summer and Kick Ass 2 was something I was uber excited about. Kick Ass has to be one of my all time favorite comic book movies due to the concept of a real life vigilante is fun to think about. As Kick Ass 1 was about Dave and his transformation story, Kick Ass 2 really felt more like Mindy's story with a Dave sideplot.

When I first saw it come out, it had a rating of 66%. This ended up plummeting to 23% within a few days as reviews came out bashing the movie. Even though this was not the best sequel [sequels are always a hit and miss], it still had some good moments. But you do have to sit through a lot of the bad pockets that make you want to tear your hair out.

Kick Ass had a lot of smoothing over to do. I really felt the Mindy high school girl acceptance side plot was a total distraction. Mindy [or Hit Girl] is some one I just don't see following anyone blindly to fit in. This is a girl that has murdered people on her own and home schooled on the side. So lets just toss her into society without any transition whatsoever. Great idea, pops!

I'm surprised her new father had no practical sense on how to transition her knowing her history. I doubt she had friends growing up...or social skills in general besides making smart ass remarks. And to force her to make friends...with the popular girls? WTF was he thinking?

Also WTF was this sexual awakening bull shit? You don't watch a N'Sync wannabe video and all of a sudden go boy crazy! What the crappity crap is that about? You could not think of a better intro into the high school boys thing? And what is up with these girls and that nasty talk behind closed doors? Its just down right creepy. Do girls talk like that in high school now? I never talked like that in high school.

Everything the writers did to the epically cool Mindy was instantly trashed, watered down and distanced from the Hit Girl persona. I super disliked the softer side of Mindy because her main character was to be a crime fighting cold-hearted bitch with a snarky attitude. I loved that about her in the first movie and just like her, it felt like the whole second movie had an identity crisis of what kind of message it wanted to get across.

Now lets go back to Dave...who is also trying to figure out how he fits back into society after some how miraculously getting away with being Kick Ass and killing a bunch of people, surviving torture, and watching a man immolate in front of his very eyes. Why is this boy not whimpering in his bed in the fetal position? And where was his girlfriend in this film?

She just shows up to dump him over a vague misunderstanding. That seemed like a way too convenient lead way into him banging Night Bitch every Justice Forever Pow Wow. Which was holistically pointless as they never stay together any way, leaving room open for a possible Dave and Mindy romance [which is a huge no no in my book...they are pretty far apart in age in the comics].

And WTF is up with Chris D'Amico? He just goes bat shit crazy in this movie. Kills his mom with no consequences and dons her dom gear so he can go murder it up. Then when his uncle shows him real evil, he gets EVILER. Right back at ya uncle! I can do worse and not some how land in prison! Man...Chris steps out one time with that costume and the cops would be man handling him all the way to jail. Especially New York cops....they don't get paid to take your shit. That's for sure. I'm really surprised his gang of ultimate killers did not just threaten him to give them all of his money and then beat him to death and take over. Apparently the Russian chick was paid 5O million by Chris to look like a real life street fighter character and don a cleverly racist name. Wow. In Mother Russia, America pays you!

So what about the other characters? In general a great mixture. Jim Carrey rocks it as Col Stars and Stripes. Turk from Scrubs plays a happy go lucky Dr. Gravity, a vigilante that wasn't even a doctor. lol. The playful mixture of the Justice Forever team seemed to be well-helmed by the Col which is a born again Christian that has a penchant for kindly reminding the members not to take the Lord's name in vain.

Even John Leguizamo, who plays Javier, Chris's body guard, had a decent cameo. Although he
was considerably unrealistic watching the little shit go crazy on the world.

So what bothered me about this film? It was serious when it should have been funny and funny when it should have been serious. There were some REALLY odd moments that should have not been made for laughter. Like the potential rape scene. Poor taste on their part. And the blatant disregard for all the killing they did and the implications of that. Dave's father gets murdered and some how they have time for a funeral that was also cop guarded [how did Dave afford the funeral again?]. If I were Dave's friend...I would have bailed as soon as I saw those cell phone pictures. Who wants to be a part of that? That's real life big boy stuff. Screw that. They were just supposed to be saving lives in cool costumes. Not watch people they love get killed.

I do realize this movie is naturally over the top and that is what I loved about the first movie itself. I think Kick Ass 2 definitely went far over the top of ridiculousness that it was difficult to shut my brain off completely. Did I totally hate it? No. There were some funny moments and I thoroughly enjoy every time Mindy beat some ass or got her revenge. That's the way it should be for me. But I think it was lacking polish, tempo and common sense. It basically ruined the best character of all, Hit Girl and that to me is unforgivable.

RATING: 7/1O

This is what I want to do to the people that ruined Hit Girl....

Why I think "The Secret Life of Walter Mitty" will be My Movie of the Year

Watch this and tell me you don't think this will be a good movie. Seriously.

I watch a lot of trailers and I am often excited by the potential of story. It is hard to really set up expectations and so far this year I have been quite bummed with the stream of movies I have seen so far that have not met them.

What I think makes this movie so different is we have know the track record of Ben Stiller. He is actually a good director. Tropic Thunder being one of his more popular examples as well as Zoolander. And I personally...loved the shit out of Tropic Thunder. We also need to consider the implications of such a message that is being conveyed through this trailer.

And that is...have you ever wanted to run away and be some one better? Have you ever wanted to just take off and go on an adventure and find your meaning and calling?

At least that is what I got out of it and its the basic slogan for every Improve Your Business/Life Pow Wow that ever existed.  The triumph of finding the strength within yourself and believing in you through the essence of dreaming is very powerful. I view this as a message that can be deeply touching and beautiful. I'm getting emotional just thinking about it. The scene where he is running past all the "Life" magazine covers is what really got me excited. I was rooting for Walter. RUN WALTER RUN! FLY HIGH! CATCH YOUR DREAMS!

Now the original story of The Secret Life of Walter Mitty is a short story crafted by James Thurber that was published in 1939 in The New Yorker. A movie version came out later in 1947 of the same name, however the story was drastically different and was not approved by Thurber himself.

After that a remake had spent much time in development hell with many actors passing in and out of the role. But I think they made a great choice with Stiller who's vision can really take this further. From the looks of it, this new movie is not going to be exactly representational of the original short either. I do hope it not only expands on Mitty's unfortunate day dreaming escapades, but also gives him more purpose and flare to what could potentially be a beautiful story of finding one's self through getting lost.

You can see it easily in the choice of style on how to dress Walt's character. Very reminiscent of a mild manner, plain man similar to Bryan Cranston's character in Breaking Bad. I noticed the colors are meant to be cold and almost black and white like his photographs he produces [in this film he is a mild-mannered photographic manager]. But the rest of the trailer uses brighter colors to signify a vibrancy of life. Even in all of this, there is a deep attention and colorization to his eyes and a gaze that believes in something greater than himself.

In the short story, Mitty had a wife that was quite controlling and seemingly worried about Walt's condition to day dream at all the wrong moments. Seeing that the movie has a love interest and a mother...I can only assume the mother will replace the role of the controlling wife. Leaving room open for him to develop a real connection with some one while discovering himself.

On top of this, "Dirty Paws" by Of Monsters and Men is the perfect pick for this trailer, giving a beautiful swathe of wonder and imagination that really embellishes the dreamy notes of this film. And unlike some trailer songs [I'm looking at you Sleigh Bells] the song is actually pretty damn enjoyable when you listen to it whole. It tends to hit a pretty emotional note for me being a person who is in transition to make my dreams a reality. Dirty Paws hits me very deep at the beauty of its simplicity and ability to take me away to another place.

If you are interested in reading the short story for The Secret Life of Walter Mitty...you can read it here: http://www.all-story.com/issues.cgi?action=show_story&story_id=100

So Ben...you have high expectations from me, my friend. While I think "The Butler" will be one of the few good movies I see this season, I'm counting on you to bring me to my emotional edge of deep and powerful story telling.

And for those of you who had no idea this movie existed I implore you to go see it this Christmas!

Pacific Rim: Killer Action, Nerdgasm Graphics, Lifeless Characters and Half-Ass Story

What can I say about this movie....

First off, the commercials were killer. I had to see this movie. It was like rock'em sock'em robots / Gundams vs Godzilla monsters / Too freaken cool not to.

Now, I wasn't expecting a huge amount of captivating story considering what the commercials presented, but that is OK. Because the one movie pet peeve I have is the commercials are misleading. As long as I get exactly what I expected, if not more, I'll accept that.

Premise:

The story is about a lost Gipsy Danger Jaeger Pilot, Raleigh Becket [Charlie Hunnam] that is still mourning the loss of his brother years ago to a kaiju battle. He is summoned to pilot again for a final mission to destroy the rift portal where the Kaiju come out of to end the war against the beasts. The year is 2O25, humanity's last hope rests in the dying Jaeger program. However he needs a second pilot to help run the revitalized Gipsy Danger Jaeger and not just anyone will do.

The Verdict?

Overall really freaken cool. I liked it. It has its issues, but the battle scenes more than make up for its short comings. And I'm really glad they spend most of the movie beating ass rather than try to bore us with their terrible story arc.

Acting: 4/1O

The acting is by far...lifeless and dull. I really didn't feel it from the actors. When the little crying Japanese girl and the two nerds make up the bulk of good acting....you got a problem. Most of the actors are fairly unknown to me, but I guess they have been in TV and various other films from what I understand. I just didn't care for their performance. It was kind of cheesy...which brings me to scripting.

Script/Story: 3/1O

The lines in this film...are dumb. The motivations often times are dumb. And I hate to say it...but they took the story one level deeper than they should have with the reasoning behind the monster attacks. They originally stated something along the lines that the monsters came out of no where and they were hunting. Something of that nature. They end up taking it one level further [I wont explain how] and gave an explanation that really made me think...NAAAAhhhhhh, that's stupid. What else do you got? Really? That's it? That's the reason you are going with? That was poorly thought out.

Every time these guys talk, they were corny as hell. They displayed very typical tough guy attitudes that was reminiscent of GI Joe. I cringed when they had a small moment to interact with each other. Which is why I was very glad they just gave up on developing the story and just kept throwing more action scenes in. This is one of the few times I was actually more excited to see things explode than witness real story evolve.

Action: 9/1O

The action was seriously the reason I went to watch this film. It was totally ****ing sick. I loved it. The only thing that frustrated me was how difficult it was to kill the Kaiju with the current Jaegers they had. It kind of got annoying after a while. They are stabbing the living shit out of these creatures and they aren't dead yet? I joust a rhinoceros with a ten foot sword and at least after 5 good stabs I'm pretty sure hes going to slow down at least a tad. That was the only thing that bugged me. I know they were high category monsters...but still. One of them at one point manages to magically grow wings...which really just baffled me. It was unexpected and not in a good way.


Some extra neat moments for me:

What I was happy most about in this movie is there was a bit more diversity than usual. Sure the main character is a white American male that is unpredictable and ****y [typical stereotype]. But I liked how the main female character is Japanese. Its rare to see a good Asian representation that isn't meant for comedy and isn't fondled as the helpless love interest. No, she kicks ass and takes names. I was pretty excited about that. And I was really excited how their "love interest" ended. It was just right and surprisingly pleasant. I was pretty satisfied how that went. What a great handshake they had. ha.


Conclusion: Not Guillermo Del Toro's best work. Pan's Labyrinth was WAAAAAAYYYY better. Characters were a bit cardboardish, story was half-ass thought out, but the action was really killer and fun to watch the robots spank giant monsters back to the hole they crawled out of. Plus the visual effects are like a nerdgasm on screen. I seriously was so excited all the way through.

P.S. There is something after the first set of credits...so don't leave so quickly.

6.5/1O

Double Downey Review: Kiss Kiss Bang Bang and Due Date

While I recover from my adventure out in the woods of Big Bear Mountain and man-eating bugs...I decided to write a classic double feature!

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Kiss Kiss Bang Bang is about a thief masquerading as an actor [Robert Downey Jr], a detective by the name of Gay Perry [Val Kilmer] and a struggling actress [Michelle Monaghan] mixed up in a middle of a murder mystery.

The movie is quite humorous in its jarring, convoluted story telling as Harry Lockhart [our thief and hero] tries to recall the story of his wild adventure in Hollywood. The best character in this film has got to be Gay Perry, a hard ass detective that has a penchant for insulting Harry at every turn. The dark humor between the actors seems to string you along like bread crumbs far into the woods of engrossing interest. And it only continues to get weirder and more twisted as you go farther down the road.

Random side note:

What blows me away the most is Val Kilmer...still acting. But he's far from his days of flying high in the F-18 taking out "Mig-28s":

Yes Val...we did. Where did that guy go? Tom Cruise hasn't aged a second in his life, so what is your excuse? At least you were pretty damn entertaining in this movie so I forgive you.

Its not a film to watch with the kids, but its still worth watching if you like off beat films. Beautifully done with quirky dialogue, dark humor, patched well with sex, murder, and unexpected turns. Enjoy!

9/1O

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Due Date - What an odd film. This one is about a high strung, father to be, named Peter Highman [Robert Downey Jr] who is forced to hitch a ride with a wanna-be-actor named Ethan Tremblay [Zach Galifianakis] after he gets kicked off of a plane to meet his pregnant wife for the birth of his child.

The movie has its moments, but I really feel like Zach has no other characters besides stupid, fat ones. I didn't like him that much in the Hangover and he isn't that much more likable in this movie either. However that is the roles he plays. The obnoxious, but strangely lovable psychopath.

The only thing that makes him worth keeping around is the fact that he is a great actor to bounce insults off of. And there are a lot of great moments where Peter [RDJ's character] loses his shit. Even at one point spitting on Ethan's little hog-snorting, masturbating french bull dog, sunny.

There are also a few scenes I found a bit out of place, even just plain useless to the storyline. This movie is about a road trip from hell with the most ignorant, happy-go-lucky nightmare of a man. Mixed with a man with rage issues and you got one heck of a story. At times, uncomfortable to watch even.

I wouldn't say this is film of the year, but the highlighted moments make it at least tolerable to watch. I wouldn't say it would be something I would watch again in full. Perhaps in select pieces.

5/1O

Bonus Film....Robert Downey Jr and Zach Galifianakis interview moments: