MacGruber - **1/2
MacGruber is the latest in a long line of movies based upon sketches and skits from Saturday Night Live. In fact, we've had so many of these that it's unavoidable to compare them to those that came before. And as we all know, the majority of them have been crap. So that when I say that MacGruber is light on humour, but give it two and a half stars, you'll know that my expectations were low to begin with.
MacGruber stars Will Forte as the eponymous hero based from a series of 30-second Saturday Night Live sketches. Based on the name and the clothing, almost anyone can infer that it's a MacGyver parody. Well, it is and it isn't. The character is based on MacGyver--MacGruber also refuses to carry guns, and instead improvises sometimes really ridiculous items, but for a completely different reason--but the story is far from it.
MacGruber begins with the hijacking of a Russian nuclear missile, by the "untouchable" Dieter Von Cunth (Val Kilmer); the name, thankfully, is played straight. To stop Cunth, MacGruber--just "MacGruber"--is taken out of retirement from a monastery, and given the details. MacGruber rallies the best of the best (played by about six professional wrestlers), but MacGruber's ineptitude forces him to instead go with Lt. Piper (Ryan Philippe), who MacGruber instantly dislikes. Why? Who cares? It's funny. Eventually, Piper proves himself a valuable ally, especially when helping MacGruber convince their third teammate, Vicki St. Elmo (Kristen Wiig), to join.
Now, I should point out that a lot of humour comes from MacGruber's ineptitude, and if you've seen the skits, you'd know that. Still, MacGruber does have skills, despite the fact that things never go the best route; they just happen to work out.
MacGruber is a fun little movie, and the actors certainly give it their 110%, but the movie is certainly light on laughs. Considering it's a comedy, that's pretty scathing indeed. Still, it was fun, no joke really bombed for me, and it's entertaining as long as you assume it's a ridiculous movie with the occasional laugh. I credit first-time feature director Jorma Taccone who, along with fellow Lonely Islanders Akiva Schaffer and Andy Samberg are responsible for most of Saturday Night Live's current Digital Shorts, which are arguably the most consistent segments on the show. These guys are pretty funny, and did a wonderful little movie a few years back called Hot Rod.
But how does MacGruber stack up against other SNL movies? Reasonably well. The movie certainly isn't boring, and it's not brain-dead. It's not close to the league of Wayne's World and its sequel, but it's a far cry from the recent tripe like The Ladies Man or A Night at the Roxbury (which I will admit is a guilty pleasure of mine sometimes), let alone It's Pat! Fans of the MacGruber skits may very well enjoy this movie, but anyone expecting a lot of frequent laughs may be disappointed.
Still, it may be worth it just to see Val Kilmer act evil and taunt MacGruber.
May 27, 2010
May 15, 2010
The Ghost Writer - Review
The Ghost Writer - ****
Roman Polanski's The Ghost Writer pulls you into the story in much the same way that a Scientologist pulls you in by promising a "free personality test," but in a good way. I find the trailers for it are a double-edged sword: on the one hand, they tell you about the movie. On the other hand, they tell you it's a thriller. The problem with this is that the thriller part creeps up on you. Just as you get used to the characters and the setting, events start creeping in. In fact, me telling you that sort of ruins it. Then again, people get interested in the word "thriller." What to do, what to do.
The movie stars Ewan McGregor as a writer who's been hired by a publishing company in New York to ghost write the autobiography of former British prime minister Adam Lang (Pierce Brosnan), a politician so obviously modelled after former PM Tony Blair that I'm surprised no jokes about George W. Bush were made. The writer is asked to take the job with a strict deadline of one month, but he's not starting from scratch. He's taking over for the original ghost writer who had already finished a manuscript. What happened to the original writer? He died while shadowing Lang in his Martha's Vineyard escape. Suicide or accidental drowning due to drinking, they say. He meets Lang's wife, Ruth (Olivia Williams) and Lang's assistant/secretary (I was never sure which), Amelia (Kim Cattrall), while they help him get accustomed (in different ways) to Lang and his new surroundings.
I've told you the set-up, but I'm afraid that if I go any deeper than that, I'll raise your expectations. Not in terms of quality, but in terms of plot details. It's best if you just let yourself be absorbed by the story.
The movie sets up events in such careful, detailed points that you delve deeper and deeper into this world. Polanski, with help from the book's novelist Robert Harris, has skill in his ability to edge you into the hot water like making a hard-boiled egg by starting in cold water ("hard-boiled," get it?). It's a well-made story, and I barely noticed that he uses the traditional Raymond Chandler-esque (his name is almost mandatory when talking about stories like these) devices like introducing characters one by one throughout the story, as well as following the protagonist and witnessing only things he sees. Then again, you can't not do that when you're presenting a mystery (or mysteries? oooh) to both a protagonist and the audience at the same time.
If you didn't get my "hard-boiled" joke by now, then you probably don't know who Raymond Chandler was, either.
Roman Polanski's The Ghost Writer pulls you into the story in much the same way that a Scientologist pulls you in by promising a "free personality test," but in a good way. I find the trailers for it are a double-edged sword: on the one hand, they tell you about the movie. On the other hand, they tell you it's a thriller. The problem with this is that the thriller part creeps up on you. Just as you get used to the characters and the setting, events start creeping in. In fact, me telling you that sort of ruins it. Then again, people get interested in the word "thriller." What to do, what to do.
The movie stars Ewan McGregor as a writer who's been hired by a publishing company in New York to ghost write the autobiography of former British prime minister Adam Lang (Pierce Brosnan), a politician so obviously modelled after former PM Tony Blair that I'm surprised no jokes about George W. Bush were made. The writer is asked to take the job with a strict deadline of one month, but he's not starting from scratch. He's taking over for the original ghost writer who had already finished a manuscript. What happened to the original writer? He died while shadowing Lang in his Martha's Vineyard escape. Suicide or accidental drowning due to drinking, they say. He meets Lang's wife, Ruth (Olivia Williams) and Lang's assistant/secretary (I was never sure which), Amelia (Kim Cattrall), while they help him get accustomed (in different ways) to Lang and his new surroundings.
I've told you the set-up, but I'm afraid that if I go any deeper than that, I'll raise your expectations. Not in terms of quality, but in terms of plot details. It's best if you just let yourself be absorbed by the story.
The movie sets up events in such careful, detailed points that you delve deeper and deeper into this world. Polanski, with help from the book's novelist Robert Harris, has skill in his ability to edge you into the hot water like making a hard-boiled egg by starting in cold water ("hard-boiled," get it?). It's a well-made story, and I barely noticed that he uses the traditional Raymond Chandler-esque (his name is almost mandatory when talking about stories like these) devices like introducing characters one by one throughout the story, as well as following the protagonist and witnessing only things he sees. Then again, you can't not do that when you're presenting a mystery (or mysteries? oooh) to both a protagonist and the audience at the same time.
If you didn't get my "hard-boiled" joke by now, then you probably don't know who Raymond Chandler was, either.
May 12, 2010
Iron Man 2 - Review
Iron Man 2 - ***
Y'know, I'm really starting to sense a pattern with Marvel superhero movies. I wouldn't go so far as to call it a formula, but hear me out. Most, if not all, of these current superhero movies are usually following into the pattern of a trilogy; that's fine enough. I mean, most of our fiction (not just film) follows a traditional three-act structure for the simple reason that it's recognizable and it works with the human psyche: a beginning, middle and end. The first movie establishes the hero and their powers, problems and world. Of course, since we all need to start somewhere. The bad guy in the first movie is someone the hero has known for almost their whole lives: with Spider-Man, it was Norman Osborn; with the X-Men, it was Magneto and the later-named Brotherhood of Mutants; and with Iron Man, it was Obadiah Stane. In the sequel it's someone who pops up out of nowhere... you can see the rest from here.
But I'll bet you're saying, "Ok, so what about Iron Man 2?" I'm getting to that.
Iron Man 2 follows the tradition of what I've mentioned before with giving Iron Man/Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) an enemy distantly-related to him: that's Ivan Vanko (Mickey Rourke). Vanko is the son of a former Russian partner of Tony's father (John Slattery, present in old films suspiciously similar to Walt Disney. Or is that just me?) who passed his vast engineering knowledge to his son and makes him swear revenge on the Stark name and empire. He fashions a chest piece similar to Iron Man's that allows him to hold two powerful electrical whips in each hand (and how he controls them, I will never know). He encounters Stark in a Formula One racing strip where Stark is racing one of his own racers. Why? Because he's dying. The arc reactor -- the one that's keeping him alive, though you'd think that the shrapnel near his heart would've stopped by now -- is killing him: palladium poisoning. So he's taking a bit more of a reckless streak, including giving a very public verbal middle finger to a senator that wants to capture the Iron Man technology for the United States "and her interests." And it's in this meeting that we're introduced to a less-than-impressive Justin Hammer (Sam Rockwell), one of Stark's biggest competitors, whose products aren't exactly up to Stark Industries' standards. Which is why he strikes up a partnership with Vanko, after his stunt on Iron Man.
I know there's a lot to take in. In fact, there's a few more subplots. This sequel is certainly not light on plot. In fact, I'd say it's more well-paced than the first Iron Man. But what is missing is any semblance of characterization. In the first Iron Man, we got a sense of what kind of man Tony Stark was, including the long and painful change from being the arrogant-yet-brilliant billionaire playboy arms dealer to world-on-his-shoulders Iron Man. But now there are so many plot strands that the relationships and character progressions are side-lined in favour of plot and action sequences.
Don't get me wrong, the action scenes are top-notch, especially when there's a mix of CG and live action and miniatures, and things like that. And it was fun to see them. Especially a drunk Iron Man (that's not a metaphor for "Tony Stark is Iron Man" in much the same way that "Bruce Wayne is Batman"). And it is really obvious that they are setting up a larger Marvel universe world in film (especially with continuous mentions of S.H.I.E.L.D., the Avengers, and an expanded role for Samuel L. Jackson's Nick Fury). But I can't help but think that the palladium poisoning from Stark's chest reactor is a metaphor for the story at large.
Y'know, I'm really starting to sense a pattern with Marvel superhero movies. I wouldn't go so far as to call it a formula, but hear me out. Most, if not all, of these current superhero movies are usually following into the pattern of a trilogy; that's fine enough. I mean, most of our fiction (not just film) follows a traditional three-act structure for the simple reason that it's recognizable and it works with the human psyche: a beginning, middle and end. The first movie establishes the hero and their powers, problems and world. Of course, since we all need to start somewhere. The bad guy in the first movie is someone the hero has known for almost their whole lives: with Spider-Man, it was Norman Osborn; with the X-Men, it was Magneto and the later-named Brotherhood of Mutants; and with Iron Man, it was Obadiah Stane. In the sequel it's someone who pops up out of nowhere... you can see the rest from here.
But I'll bet you're saying, "Ok, so what about Iron Man 2?" I'm getting to that.
Iron Man 2 follows the tradition of what I've mentioned before with giving Iron Man/Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) an enemy distantly-related to him: that's Ivan Vanko (Mickey Rourke). Vanko is the son of a former Russian partner of Tony's father (John Slattery, present in old films suspiciously similar to Walt Disney. Or is that just me?) who passed his vast engineering knowledge to his son and makes him swear revenge on the Stark name and empire. He fashions a chest piece similar to Iron Man's that allows him to hold two powerful electrical whips in each hand (and how he controls them, I will never know). He encounters Stark in a Formula One racing strip where Stark is racing one of his own racers. Why? Because he's dying. The arc reactor -- the one that's keeping him alive, though you'd think that the shrapnel near his heart would've stopped by now -- is killing him: palladium poisoning. So he's taking a bit more of a reckless streak, including giving a very public verbal middle finger to a senator that wants to capture the Iron Man technology for the United States "and her interests." And it's in this meeting that we're introduced to a less-than-impressive Justin Hammer (Sam Rockwell), one of Stark's biggest competitors, whose products aren't exactly up to Stark Industries' standards. Which is why he strikes up a partnership with Vanko, after his stunt on Iron Man.
I know there's a lot to take in. In fact, there's a few more subplots. This sequel is certainly not light on plot. In fact, I'd say it's more well-paced than the first Iron Man. But what is missing is any semblance of characterization. In the first Iron Man, we got a sense of what kind of man Tony Stark was, including the long and painful change from being the arrogant-yet-brilliant billionaire playboy arms dealer to world-on-his-shoulders Iron Man. But now there are so many plot strands that the relationships and character progressions are side-lined in favour of plot and action sequences.
Don't get me wrong, the action scenes are top-notch, especially when there's a mix of CG and live action and miniatures, and things like that. And it was fun to see them. Especially a drunk Iron Man (that's not a metaphor for "Tony Stark is Iron Man" in much the same way that "Bruce Wayne is Batman"). And it is really obvious that they are setting up a larger Marvel universe world in film (especially with continuous mentions of S.H.I.E.L.D., the Avengers, and an expanded role for Samuel L. Jackson's Nick Fury). But I can't help but think that the palladium poisoning from Stark's chest reactor is a metaphor for the story at large.
May 7, 2010
How to Train Your Dragon - Review
How to Train Your Dragon - ***
It's always been fun to imagine -- especially as a kid -- that you can live on a remote island in a nature-like (yet suspiciously clean without any dirt whatsoever) village where you can have the chance for adventure. Well, that's what How to Train Your Dragon gives us. The story is about that exact kind of village inhabited by vikings whose sole purpose seems to be to grow up and become big and strong just so they can kill a dragon whenever gangs -- ok, packs -- of dragons show up to pilfer livestock and destroy livelihoods.
The hero is a Hiccup (voiced by Jay Baruchel), a young man who would be otherwise considered a boy if not for his dweeby-yet-decidedly older voice. Hiccup (the name is honestly played straight) is a blacksmith's apprentice (Craig Ferguson) who dreams of being taken on the journey to destroy the dragons' nest, only to be shunned by the entire village for being too scrawny, which is made even worse when his father (Gerard Butler) says there's something wrong with "this," referring to all of Hiccup in a single gesture.
But Hiccup has an obvious-to-the-audience advantage: his brains. During a fateful (really, when are they not fateful?) dragon attack, he demonstrates an invention of his that hits a dragon from far away, but instead becomes a pariah when his demonstration, unfortunately seen by no one, damages the town way more than usual. Still, his father believes that dragon training may straighten him out, so he gets his chance. Unfortunately for Hiccup, he finds the injured dragon, and notices something in the dragon. I'd call it humanity, but dragons aren't human. Nevertheless, Hiccup spares the injured dragon's life, and endeavours to understand more about the dragon, since all of the dragons in the dragon textbook (yes, the training involves a conveniently-placed textbook) have little more than "kill on sight." The dragon that Hiccup injured, however, is one whose entry states repeatedly "unknown," and "run away from immediately." Eventually, Hiccup discovers that the dragon now suffers from a permanent disfigurement, and after a long time of shadowing the dragon, he discovers how to help the dragon, and learns that the dragons are more than just instinctive murderers.
The story isn't a unique one, but it did offer quite a few original turns to the setting, including a secret regarding the dragons' nest that I dare not reveal. The movie was fun, and I suspect that kids will enjoy this one. I certainly did, anyway. The characters were nothing special, including the usual run of father-and-son cliches, as well as the gaggle of Hiccup's fellow obnoxiously-ambitious trainees (including former Superbad friends Jonah Hill and Christopher Mintz-Plasse). There was one in particular that stood out to me: Astrid (voice by America Ferrera). Not surprising, considering she is the object of Hiccup's eye. Astrid is one of the most obnoxious young girls I've seen. I get that Hiccup keeps screwing up in the beginning (duh), but her personality does a one-eighty no less than two times, and it's rather jarring to see her go from super-annoyed to super-jealous to... well, you know.
As for the subject of projection: yes, I did see it in 3D. I saw it in a half-empty cinema on a cheaper Tuesday night and paid almost the equivalent of a non-3D ticket on any other day. The 3D is not Avatar-good, but because this is a movie that was done three-dimensionally in the first place, it doesn't suffer from either strange things popping out at you (Avatar, in my opinion, had this problem with things like futuristic computer screens, etc.) or from being a live-action movie post-processed to be in 3D. But it does, like Avatar, use the 3D to bring more depth to the landscape, including a lot of flying scenes. There are a few scenes where yes, Hiccup does ride the eventually-named Toothless, and the glasses add a sense of awe among the landscape. I hope that 3D doesn't become a mainstay of cinema like this without vast improvements (I don't want to keep wearing those stupid glasses), including the darker picture, but once in a while, a well-made 3D movie that gives us an entire new world (or just new land) to gawk at would be a nice treat.
It's always been fun to imagine -- especially as a kid -- that you can live on a remote island in a nature-like (yet suspiciously clean without any dirt whatsoever) village where you can have the chance for adventure. Well, that's what How to Train Your Dragon gives us. The story is about that exact kind of village inhabited by vikings whose sole purpose seems to be to grow up and become big and strong just so they can kill a dragon whenever gangs -- ok, packs -- of dragons show up to pilfer livestock and destroy livelihoods.
The hero is a Hiccup (voiced by Jay Baruchel), a young man who would be otherwise considered a boy if not for his dweeby-yet-decidedly older voice. Hiccup (the name is honestly played straight) is a blacksmith's apprentice (Craig Ferguson) who dreams of being taken on the journey to destroy the dragons' nest, only to be shunned by the entire village for being too scrawny, which is made even worse when his father (Gerard Butler) says there's something wrong with "this," referring to all of Hiccup in a single gesture.
But Hiccup has an obvious-to-the-audience advantage: his brains. During a fateful (really, when are they not fateful?) dragon attack, he demonstrates an invention of his that hits a dragon from far away, but instead becomes a pariah when his demonstration, unfortunately seen by no one, damages the town way more than usual. Still, his father believes that dragon training may straighten him out, so he gets his chance. Unfortunately for Hiccup, he finds the injured dragon, and notices something in the dragon. I'd call it humanity, but dragons aren't human. Nevertheless, Hiccup spares the injured dragon's life, and endeavours to understand more about the dragon, since all of the dragons in the dragon textbook (yes, the training involves a conveniently-placed textbook) have little more than "kill on sight." The dragon that Hiccup injured, however, is one whose entry states repeatedly "unknown," and "run away from immediately." Eventually, Hiccup discovers that the dragon now suffers from a permanent disfigurement, and after a long time of shadowing the dragon, he discovers how to help the dragon, and learns that the dragons are more than just instinctive murderers.
The story isn't a unique one, but it did offer quite a few original turns to the setting, including a secret regarding the dragons' nest that I dare not reveal. The movie was fun, and I suspect that kids will enjoy this one. I certainly did, anyway. The characters were nothing special, including the usual run of father-and-son cliches, as well as the gaggle of Hiccup's fellow obnoxiously-ambitious trainees (including former Superbad friends Jonah Hill and Christopher Mintz-Plasse). There was one in particular that stood out to me: Astrid (voice by America Ferrera). Not surprising, considering she is the object of Hiccup's eye. Astrid is one of the most obnoxious young girls I've seen. I get that Hiccup keeps screwing up in the beginning (duh), but her personality does a one-eighty no less than two times, and it's rather jarring to see her go from super-annoyed to super-jealous to... well, you know.
As for the subject of projection: yes, I did see it in 3D. I saw it in a half-empty cinema on a cheaper Tuesday night and paid almost the equivalent of a non-3D ticket on any other day. The 3D is not Avatar-good, but because this is a movie that was done three-dimensionally in the first place, it doesn't suffer from either strange things popping out at you (Avatar, in my opinion, had this problem with things like futuristic computer screens, etc.) or from being a live-action movie post-processed to be in 3D. But it does, like Avatar, use the 3D to bring more depth to the landscape, including a lot of flying scenes. There are a few scenes where yes, Hiccup does ride the eventually-named Toothless, and the glasses add a sense of awe among the landscape. I hope that 3D doesn't become a mainstay of cinema like this without vast improvements (I don't want to keep wearing those stupid glasses), including the darker picture, but once in a while, a well-made 3D movie that gives us an entire new world (or just new land) to gawk at would be a nice treat.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)