Harry Potter and The Half Blood Prince Review

Ahh the dog days of summer.. when its 90 degrees outside and regularly updating your blog just isn’t on the to-do list. I hope nobody holds it against me. I did however have a chance to see the sixth Harry Potter film this past weekend. It’s predictably doing well at the box office and Potter fans have something to feed their appetite until next year.

We start things off with a much darker tone in this film. London is under attack and the Death Eaters are going wild. The “muggles” or non-magic practicing humans are being openly terrorized and theres a pretty cool sequence where a bridge is destroyed. The Potter series gets progressively darker in tone in the books, and it’s great to see that the movies are headed in the same direction. It was interesting to note that the theater I saw the movie in was predominantly filled with adults and only a handful of small children. It show’s how relatable the franchise is to the everyday moviegoer, something it’s rival Twilight doesn’t seem to have going for it.

The cast is all back together, Potter (Daniel Radcliffe), Hermione (Emma Watson), and Ron Weasley (Rupert Grint) are all preparing to head back to Hogwarts and there is a sense of fear of going back as nobody knows when Voldemort will strike. There’s a pretty riveting scene in the beginning with Harry and Professor Dumbledore exploring a ransacked house. There’s also some great comedy between the three main characters and their classmates. This film does a great job of balancing dark tone and subject matter with comedy and lighthearted fun.

Bruno Review

Sacha Baron Cohen is back with another character from his HBO series “Da Ali G Show.” This time its the flamboyantly gay Austrian fashion expert, Bruno. I will start off by saying that this movie is not as good as Borat. There are plenty of slow parts and some boring backstory involved and the film overall doesn’t seem to have the same touch that Borat had.

In fact, it seems like too many of the gag’s are staged and that the media explosion over Cohen a couple years ago didn’t work to his favor as everyone seems to be in on the joke this time around. Bruno is unceremoniously yanked off his Austrian fashion show Fenkyziet after crashing the runway at a fashion show. He is quick to recover from this setback as he decides to do the next best thing, go to LA and become a celebrity. Bruno arrives out west looking to get into acting. After a failed audition and disasterous role in the show Law and Order, we learn that Bruno’s acting aspirations may be a bit of a stretch.

Cohen is great at having us believe in this character and you almost forget that this same person played Borat a couple years ago. There are some genuinely funny moments as Bruno’s interview with Paula Abdul, the focus group session for a show he tries to pitch to CBS, and an awkward party with a swinger’s group. Please be warned that this is in no way a family movie or meant for people who may offend easily. There’s plenty of male nudity and graphic language and images. I would not recommend this film for anyone who thought Borat was gross as this film goes above and beyond anything you could see there.

Public Enemies Review

Public Enemies on paper had all of the makings to be an instant classic. Johnny Depp, Christian Bale, Michael Mann, and an epic gangster story set in the depression era. What more do you need to make cinematic gold? Well apparently, a lot more. As Public Enemies was slow, tedious, and at times downright boring. It’s one of the first film’s I’ve seen in a long time that I actually regret going to the theater for it and wouldn’t mind having my time back.

Now I must preface my review by saying that this film is not a total stinker. There is some decent action scenes and you do end up caring about the characters. But theres just far too many misses to make up for the hits. Depp plays John Dillinger, a smooth talking and charming bank robber in the 1930’s. One of the first of his kind and a man who made the entire U.S. police system rethink its methods. Dillinger has a cast of cohorts straight out of a Dick Tracy comic. There’s Baby Face Nelson and Pretty Boy Floyd, as well as a bevy of buxom beauties and the brutal force of a tommy gun. This is American mobster’s at their best, unfortunately the plot isn’t strong enough to give credence to this glamorized genre.

We start off with a cool jail bust and bank robbery, but then theres about 45 minutes of talk that kills any remaining buzz you might have. The girl in this film Billie Joe is sexy but probably not enough to make Dillinger stop in his tracks. The ensuing love story is monotonous, cliche, and just plain bland. These care free lovers are off galvanizing in the night with their stolen riches, while Detective Melvin Purvis (Christian Bale) seems to always be one step behind.

Dillinger is caught, escapes, caught again, escapes again in a never ending merry go round of blood and bullets. It isn’t til the film’s third act that we finally see some sort of true climax with a pretty intense shoot out at a winter home in the woods. If only Michael Mann had the foresight to build up to this in a better way and close the film on a high note. Rather than to attach about another 30 minutes of pointless babble. In one of the film’s more eery scenes, Dillinger breaks into the police HQ of the task force assigned to bring him down. He even asks the detectives who are surrounded by wanted posters of him for the score to the ballgame, none of them noticing the criminal they seek stands right there before them.

Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen Review

The sequel to 2007’s Transformers has been hailed as the summer movie event of the year. After drawing an impressive $201 million this past weekend it came very close to beating The Dark Knight’s record for all time biggest 5 day opening. It’s safe to say that regardless of what my review will contain, Transformers 2 is a box office smash. After watching this film, it is quite clear that Michael Bay and company have not lost a step and that every Transformers fan to step in to the theater for this one will be more than pleased by what they see.

The critics have not been kind to this film, but I think that they really missed the point of what Transformers is all about. From the beginning to the end, this film brings an unapologetic sense of violence, action, sex, and an expansive story that spans from 17,000 BC to now. No expense is spared in the making of this film and the plot is larger than life. But for a summer blockbuster would you really have it any other way?

The film picks up 2 years after the first. We find out that the Autobots are working with the Government to track down any remaining Decepticons. Optimus Prime has become a central figure for the government and the military seems to be taking a liking to the alien lifeforms. We also find out that Sam Witwicky (Shia LeBouff) is headed off to college which will put a rift in his relationship with Mikaela (Megan Fox) who is staying in town to help out at her Dad’s auto shop.

Megan Fox is stunning from her first appearance in the film and her fan’s will not be disappointed as their is ample cleavage and slow motion running. Sam heads off to school with his comedically stereotypical parents in tow. His dorm roommate is a hacker named Leo (Ramon Rodriguez) who is the film’s easy to hate sidekick. We are also introduced to Alice (Isabel Lucas) a girl who immediately takes a liking to Sam even though he is taken, and turns out to be more than we thought she is.

The Hangover Review

The Hangover is the first great comedy of 2009, it only took us 6 months to get there. While the premise is quite simple and the characters are at times stereotypical, its the on-screen chemistry and mystery of the events that transpired the night before, that keeps the viewer thoroughly engaged. The audience is learning right alongside the characters about what happened and trying to figure out where their friend Doug (Justin Bartha) might be. It’s quite an interactive experience that leaves you guessing what can possibly happen next, while having you rolling in laughter at the same time.

The main chunk of this film is told through the three friends Stu (Ed Helms), Phil (Bradley Cooper), and Alan (Zach Galifianakis) who wake up with an incredible hangover and no recollection of the previous nights bachelor party. They quickly discover their friend Doug is missing who is supposed to get married in just 24 hours. The laughs are pretty much constant throughout this film. We see the boys get ready to go to vegas, bits of the road trip there, and the events leading up to their first alcoholic shot of the night. After that it’s the next morning, so we never actually get to see what transpired during the party, just bits and pieces of it as it unfolds throughout the film.

There are so many great bits with a tiger, nudity, stun guns, and yes even Mike Tyson. Heather Graham has a role as well, playing a stripper that one of the guy’s ends up marrying in their drunken haze. This film really puts the saying of “what happens in vegas, stays in vegas” to use, as they all have significant others back home who they must make sure don’t find out about the wild shenanigans. Ed Helm’s character really steals some great scenes in this film as he is in a power struggle with his wife who wants him to grow up and mature out of childish partying with the boys. Bradley Cooper’s portrayal of Phil almost seems like Cooper is just playing himself. He’s cool, confident, and the defacto leader of the group.

“Fanboys” Review

The movie Fanboys has almost become a highly anticipated internet legend. Originally slated to come out in theaters in 2007, the film was pushed back time after time for reshoots and finally hit a small indepedent theater release in February 2009. On May 19, the 10 year anniversary of The Phantom Menace, Fanboys finally arrived on DVD and don’t let the short theater run fool you, this film is everything you hoped it to be.

The story takes place back in 1998 when the world had yet to see any of the three new Star Wars films. The Phantom Menace is about a month away from release and a group of pals (Eric played by Sam Huntington, Hutch played by Dan Fogley, Linus played by Chris Marquette, and Windows played by Jay Baruchel) come up with a convaluted plan to trek cross country and steal the film from the Lucas Ranch for their viewing pleasure. These boys are uber Star War’s nerds who know every piece of trivia about the films and want to be the first ever to see the newest episode. As we all now know how The Phantom Menace turns out.. maybe they should have just waited for home video. It’s quite funny that the film does in fact allude to the film being disappointing and theres a pretty good Jar Jar Binks joke thrown in for good measure.

The star of this cast is Kristen Bell (Forgetting Sarah Marshall, Heroes) who plays Zoe, the typical guy’s girl that hangs out with the nerds, has beaten every game of Zelda, and brings the sarcasm to every situation. The movie is chock full of cameos. I was surprised to see Kevin Smith and Seth Rogen pop up. There’s also some great scenes with former Star Wars cast members as well, but I won’t ruin who they are. The best cameo is from a Star Trek star who you may know from some Priceline commercials.

Star Trek Review

The general consensus on JJ Abram’s Star Trek reboot is that this film will appeal to both new fans as well as die hard trekkies, while at the same time staying close to the source material. With rave reviews and comparison’s to last year’s powerhouses Iron Man and The Dark Knight, Star Trek has a lot of hype and goodwill going in its favor. Fortunately, it does not disappoint, the hype is certainly real with this one and Star Trek may very well be the film to beat for the summer blockbuster crown.

The film opens with some backstory on James T. Kirk’s (Chris Pine) father who is under attack from the Romulan’s and Commander Nero (Eric Bana). The film opens with a large battle scene and never loses steam throughout its running time. We see Kirk being born and escaping to safety while his father does not have the same outcome. There is also some backstory on Spock (Zachary Quinto) and his constant struggle of self identity. Being half Vulcan and half human, he never quite fits in with the others and doesn’t know which path to choose for his life. This is obviously a tried and true storytelling technique, but its something that is relatable and Zachary Quinto dominates the screen in every scene that he appears. Quinto is known mostly for his work on Heroes as bad guy Sylar, but he was almost born to play Spock.

Pine holds his own as Kirk, although there are times early in the film where you would think you are watching deleted scenes from a Fast and the Furious movie. Kirk is very much the prototypical alpha male, fast cars, breaking the law, bar fights, and women are all status quo. He of course rejects the initial offer of being invited to join the Starfleet Academy, but then immediately has a change of heart and grows to be a very successful protege in a short period of time. At Starfleet we are introduced to many of the beloved characters in the Star Trek universe. Uhura (played by the smoking hot Zoe Seldana), Scotty (Simon Pegg), McCoy (Karl Urban), Chekov, and Sulu (John Cho) are all part of the crew on the U.S.S. Enterprise.

X:Men Origins: Wolverine Review

When it was announced that Marvel would be coming out with “Origins” movies for some of the bigger X-men characters, I was quite skeptical but had hope that they could show some promise. Wolverine is first up with his own film which is rightfully so, as he is arguably the most popular X-Men character in the series and has the most commercial recognizability. Having a box office star like Hugh Jackman doesn’t hurt either.

Well this movie certainly starts off with the cinematic quality that we would come to expect from Marvel’s latest superhero flicks. But unfortunately this is no “Iron Man.” In fact, it really doesn’t come close. Right off the bat we learn that Sabretooth and Wolverine are brothers. Wolverine has fangs that retract from his hands, and Sabretooth has claws that deploy when he is angry. They both can heal themselves and apparently do not age. We get a great opening sequence of Sabretooth and Wolverine fighting side by side through major U.S. wars like the Civil War, Revolutionary War, WW2, and Vietnam. They are then approached by William Striker about joining a special unit.

This unit includes the likes of Deadpool (Ryan Reynolds), Bolt, and Agent Zero. After the group uses some questionable torture tactics, Logan decides to go on his own, becomes a lumberjack, and moves into a log cabin with his hot girlfriend. Roll credits the movie should end right there, right? Well not so much. Sabretooth apparently reemerges and wants retribution on Logan for leaving. This all leads to Logan going to Striker’s testing facility and being fitted with an adamantium exoskeleton making him virtually indestructible.

We see some pretty heartwarming scenes of Logan getting used to his new powers at an elderly couple’s farm. Hugh Jackman is a great fit for this character. It’s almost hard to believe it’s the same guy who was prancing around on stage at the Oscar’s and I think Jackman has another good wolverine movie in him. The story of this film is really not that great even though it’s supposed to explain Wolverine’s history. It seems like the writers have taken a lot of creative liberties changing some things from what we originally had learned through the comics and cartoons. The writers tried to squeeze in some fan favorites like The Blob and Gambit, but neither was done quite well. The actor that plays Gambit (Taylor Kitsch) is virtually unlikable, not to mention he does not act or sound anything like Gambit should. Somehow Will.I.Am gets a role in the film which was pretty useless and just a cheap plug for a guy who has a new record coming out soon.

The Watchmen Review

Sorry about the lack of updates this week but I have been in the process of moving and the blog should now be bigger and better than ever heading into the next couple of weeks. Got some big features and ideas planned out that I think the loyal readers will enjoy.

I did however get a chance to finally catch “The Watchmen.” I had heard so many mixed reviews on this film from people walking out in the middle to loving it. Unfortunately, I must side with the former and say that The Watchmen is maybe one of the worst movies I’ve seen in the last year. I wanted to walk out pretty much 45 minutes in until the end and this review will be more of a slaying because quite frankly this flick was a major bomb. The box office take has been terrible due to bad word of mouth and its well deserved because Zack Snyder has assembled a jumbled up story line with characters you don’t care about and a long drawn out plot which leaves the viewer empty and indifferent.

The story is about a group of heroes who helped fight crime without actually having superpowers. This is a little strange to me as in the fight scenes all of the Watchmen had super human strength although we get no background on how they were trained or developed this. Much of the story is told through flashback devices which don’t work at all and have you scratching your head about what is going on. The modern day heroes live in an alternate 1985 from what we know. Richard Nixon was reelected for a third term and Vietnam was won by surrender to Dr. Manhattan (Billy Crudup), a giant blue super weapon by the government.

The story is mainly told by Rorschach (Jackie Earle Haley) a masked man who’s face is an everchanging inkblot and the only character in this trainwreck that has any type of interesting personality. He’s trying to figure out who is behind the death of The Comedian, one of his fellow Watchmen. Now the death of The Comedian might have been a bit more interesting had we known anything about him to make us care that he is now gone, but he is mainly portrayed as a scumbag throughout the movie making you wonder why any of the Watchmen would lose an ounce of sleep over his demise.

Malin Ackerman (Heartbreak Kid, Brothers Solomon) has a breakout role as the younger Silk Spectre. She is incredibly sexy and her sex scenes with Nite Owl and Dr. Manhattan might be worth the 10 bucks to see this. The action was pretty subpar and almost seemed like Zack Snyder ended any scene where things could have gotten really good a bit too soon. When Rorschach goes to jail there was the potential to do something the caliber of a modern day Matrix, instead the ball was dropped and one of the most brutal killings was done offscreen and left to the viewer’s imagination. If you’re going to follow up a movie like 300, it would help to have some intense action scenes to please your rabid fanbase. Having Silk Spectre and Nite Owl beat up some thugs in a back alley using action sequences that looked like outtakes from a Charlie’s Angels movie is probably not the way to go.

“The Reader” Review

Going into this film I really had no idea what to expect.  I haven’t read the book and haven’t heard much about the story, but since it was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Picture, I was able to get a screener and decided to give it a shot.  I am here to tell you that while I do think that Slumdog Millionaire will win the award, The Reader is definitely the best of the 5 film’s nominated.  Since I had no big expectations for this film, its safe to say I was completely blown away by the magnificent acting and the complex story.

The film jumps around a lot and revolves around Michael Berg (played by Ralph Fiennes and David Kross).  The adult Michael begins to reminsce about his life and we find out that when he was a teenager he was stricken by Scarlet Fever and had the help of a kind woman Hanna (Kate Winslet) who took care of him.  Hanna is 10-15 years or so his senior and they end up falling in love.  Hanna insists that Michael read to her everyday and they both bond over stories like The Odysseus and The Lady With The Dog.

As you can imagine all does not go well with this relationship, and after a decade or so apart, Michael finds her again under a very peculiar circumstance.  It’s hard to go too in depth about the plot as the real intrigue of this film is the unveiling of this complex and intricate story where you really don’t know where it is going until the end.