Category Archives: movies

X-Men: First Class Review

Posted on by

I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t dreading this film. Ever since news of it first broke, it seemed 20th Century Fox just didn’t really put the proper effort into planning this. Depending on who in the production you talk to, First Class is either a prequel or a reboot. No one seems to really know. And there are logistical problems in both.

A reboot would be fine—but if you’re going to do a reboot, why not use the five of the original X-Men instead of only one? And if it’s a prequel, then why set it in the 60s, which sets up logical inconsistencies with the existing films? Why not just set it ten years or so before the events of X-Men, with Cyclops, Jean, Storm and Beast as the original team (which is what we’re led to believe was the first class in the original three films).

I’ll get to  more logical inconsistencies later. Suffice it to say, this review will be laden with spoilers! DO NOT READ ANY FURTHER IF YOU DO NOT WANT CRUCIAL PLOT DETAILS REVEALED!

As you’re no doubt aware, X-Men: First Class takes place against the backdrop of the Cuban Missile Crisis. Charles Xavier (James McAvoy) is in Cambridge, using his telepathic powers to guess what drink hot girls want and then hits on them by talking about how their hair color or eye color is an incredible mutation. This is much to the chagrin of his childhood friend, Raven (Jennifer Lawrence), a shapeshifter who he introduces as his sister but who clearly is interested in Charles as something more. Charles, however, has a problem with the fact that Raven’s true form consists of blue skin, bright red hair, yellow eyes and some scaly formations over her naughty bits.

So right off the bat, we’ve got a Charles Xavier who acts like a shallow frat boy. Way to go, Fox.

In another part of Europe, Erik Lehnsherr (Michael Fassbender) is tracking down Nazi war criminals. The primary man on his hit list is Klaus Schmidt, the man who killed his mother and told Erik he was part of a new master race because of his powers of magnetism.

Schmidt however, has a new name these days—Sebastian Shaw (Kevin Bacon). He and his Hellfire Club, which consists of Emma Frost (January Jones), Azazel (Jason Flemyng) and Riptide (Alex Gonzalez) are manipulating the United States and the Soviet Union into inching closer towards all-out nuclear war. The reason behind this is as retarded as can be imagined—Shaw believes nuclear winter will wipe out humanity but will leave mutants in tact. Apparently, now being a mutant means you’re completely immune to a nuclear explosion.

I won’t even get into how this plot is completely contrary to the motivations of the comic version of Shaw, who is simply a power-hungry opportunist. Nor will I get into the bizarre way that they adapted Shaw’s powers into absorbing all kinds of energy and redirecting it as well. It’ll just make me mad. All X-Men fans really need to know about this Shaw is that he’s some sort of bizarre amalgamation of Apocalypse and Bishop.

CIA agent Moira MacTaggert (Rose Byrne, and don’t ask me how Moira went from being a Scottish geneticist to an American secret agent) stumbles upon this plot and witnesses the Hellfire Club’s powers in action. She finds Charles Xavier in record time (recently graduated, he’s apparently already an expert in his field as just a few minutes earlier, he was still working on his thesis) and after reading her mind, Xavier finds out he and Raven aren’t the only mutants out there. Through Moira, they meet the Man in Black (Oliver Platt). It sounds like he should be mysterious, but he’s not. He’s just never given a name. Why couldn’t they have just called him Fred Duncan (maybe only hardcore X-Men fans will recognize that name), since that’s basically who he’s playing?

During an attack on Shaw, Xavier meets Erik and the two join forces. From there, we see them recruit several young mutants to their cause—Alex Summers/Havok (Lucas Till), Hank McCoy/Beast (Nicholas Hoult), Sean Cassidy/Banshee (Caleb Landry Jones), Armando Munoz/Darwin (Edi Gathegi), and Angel Salvadore (Zoe Kravitz).

From there, the film is pretty by the numbers. You have an attack where Darwin is killed off for no reason (just had to kill the token black guy, didn’t you?) and Angel switches sides. Now operating independently, Xavier and Erik train the young mutants in the use of their powers in preparation for the final battle with the Hellfire Club against the backdrop of the Cuban Missile Crisis.

I don’t want it to be said that this film is completely bad. It is far superior to X-Men Origins: Wolverine (and Hugh Jackman makes a cameo in this film which is honestly the greatest part of the movie). I’d say it’s about on par with X-Men: The Last Stand. The direction in First Class is far superior, but the story in The Last Stand is, I’m actually ashamed to admit, better. Mainly because of how completely retarded Shaw’s master plan really is.

Michael Fassbender steals the show as Magneto. He’s got the character down and he’s got the same kind of gravitas that Ian McKellen had. The beginning of the film, when he’s Mr. Nazi Hunter, is awesome. I now want to see Vaughn direct a Cold War Bond film starring Fassbender in the title role. I wouldn’t be surprised if they were both doing this as an audition tape for how they could tackle Bond.

The same can’t really said of McAvoy, who just comes off as a pretentious ass. Hoult gives a decent performance, but completely lacks Beast’s trademark wit and humor. Again, this is a far cry from Kelsey Grammar’s portrayal, who was managed to get across both dry wit and intelligence. In comparison, Hoult is just playing a stereotypical shy geek. Kravitz is gorgeous to look at but has little else going on. Lawrence’s Mystique spends half the movie whining and the other half chasing after almost every guy on the team. Jones and Till have a few good moments as Banshee and Havok and they do serviceable jobs in their roles. But they ultimately have nothing to work with.

Of all the First Class, Darwin is probably the most interesting, and unfortunately, his only purpose is to serve as the sacrificial lamb.

As far as the Hellfire Club goes, I just can’t buy Kevin Bacon as Sebastian Shaw. He doesn’t have the right presence for a character like that and when he’s wearing that helmet like he does through half the movie, he just looks ridiculous. Don’t get me wrong, I think Bacon’s a great actor. But he’s not a right fit for any version of Shaw, let alone one this badly written.

January Jones…oh god, she’s terrible. Easily the worst performance of the film. Her only role is to look good in lingerie (which she does). Great body but what a bad actress. Her diamond form also looks really bad, almost two-dimensional. And as for Flemyng and Gonzalez, they really serve no purpose in this film other than for action scenes.

And the costumes. While fanboys were bitching about the X-Men wearing black leather in the original movies, I was in favor of it. I agreed that putting the X-Men in blue and yellow costumes may look cool in the comics (and even that is somewhat up for debate), but it doesn’t work on film. And First Class proved I was right. The costumes looked garish and absolutely terrible. If they had to go with something that resembled the original costumes, they should have used a pale yellow and black instead of blue. But as it stands, they just look ridiculous. Especially in bright sunlight.

There was also some really wasted potential in the setting. The original point of putting this film in the 60s was supposedly because of the similarities to the Civil Rights Movement. Yet the only real element of the 60s is the Cold War (and Xavier’s forced utterings of the word “groovy,” which just made me cringe).

Again, there are good elements—Vaughn definitely knows what he’s doing behind the camera and there are some decent to outright great performances. But the story is just ridiculous. And it’s obvious Fox didn’t pay much attention to what they’ve done before with these films.

Look, I’m not a continuity nut. It doesn’t bother me that film adaptations of comic books aren’t 100% accurate. I know they’re not and I know they can’t be. And to anyone who points to situations like Sin City, self-contained graphic novels are nowhere near the same as a comic series which has been running monthly for decades, has numerous spin-offs, and has heavy ties to a shared universe that you can’t touch on because of different studios holding different rights. It can’t be accurate, changes have to be made.

But when you start violating the internal continuity and logistics of the film universe you’ve set up, that shows you really just don’t give a shit. And that’s what pisses me off. Even in badly-done movies like Fantastic Four or Ghost Rider, I still got the sense that the filmmakers cared about what they were doing, they just couldn’t do it well. Here, what’s so irritating is that these filmmakers are capable of doing it well, yet they just don’t seem to care.

Here are some examples of the inconsistencies in the X-Men movieverse that First Class causes:

-In X-Men and X2, it’s made very clear that Xavier and Magneto built Cerebro together. In First Class, Beast has Cerebro already built before he even meets Xavier and Magneto.

-In X-Men, Xavier says Scott, Jean and Storm were his first students. They’re not present in First Class.

-In The Last Stand and Wolverine, we see Xavier in the past, played by Patrick Stewart, walking. In First Class, he becomes crippled when he’s much younger.

-In The Last Stand, Xavier and Magneto are seen, played again by Stewart and McKellen, recruiting a young Jean Grey. In First Class, they part ways when they’re much younger.

-In The Last Stand, Moira is portrayed as a Scottish geneticist. In First Class, she’s portrayed as an American secret agent whose memories of the X-Men are wiped clean.

-According to First Class, in the 1960s, Emma Frost is a member of the Hellfire Club. But according to Wolverine, in the 1970s, she’s younger and the sister of Silver Fox.

-In X-Men, Xavier is surprised when Magneto has a helmet that can block his telepathy. Yet in First Class, Xavier clearly knows Magneto stole the helmet from Shaw.

Of course, that’s all assuming this is a prequel, which is what Singer has said. Now if you take this film as a reboot, as other people involved have said, these aren’t problems. But then you have the question of if you’re going to make this a reboot, why are you using obscure characters like Angel Salvadore and Darwin to round out the X-Men instead of using classic characters like Cyclops and Jean?

Again, there are good elements here and it’s not really a bad film. But it just doesn’t work for me. Too many inconsistencies with the established film continuity and a ridiculous story just pulled me right out of it.

Exciting News!

Posted on by

This has been in the works for a few months, but I haven’t been permitted to talk about it. Until now, that is. Here’s the full press release:

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

WEINSTEIN TAKES AIM WITH LOVE & BULLETS
Weinstein Company To Produce Big-Screen Adaptation of Indie Action Novel

A global network of assassins led by a charismatic and shadowy figurehead. An intelligence agency struggling to take them down. A woman driven by vengeance and caught between both organizations. And a man who must choose between his job and the woman he loves. Toss in a lot of high-octane action, and there’s little more that needs to be said about The Weinstein Company’s latest adaptation, Love & Bullets. Produced by Quentin Tarantino (Inglourious Basterds), the film is tentatively scheduled for a Christmas 2012 release.

Based on the novel of the same name, Love & Bullets centers on Angela Lockhart. A former government agent, Lockhart defects after the death of her husband so she can find his killer. She ends up working for the enemy, a fraternal order of assassins called Infernum, led by the mysterious power broker named Dante and his sultry second-in-command, Tauna. Christian Pierce is tasked by the Agency to bring Lockhart back into the fold, but in going undercover to bring her in, discovers himself falling in love.

According to author, Percival Constantine, Love & Bullets is just the first book in the Infernum series from Pulpwork Press. Constantine has already finished the second novel, Outlaw Blues, scheduled for a 2012 release. Tarantino first became aware of the story when Constantine sent him a copy of the book. It was Tarantino who brought it to the attention of The Weinstein Company.

Percival Constantine has written three novels to date. His first two, Fallen and Chasing The Dragon, were self-published whereas Love & Bullets was published through Pulpwork Press. Constantine’s fourth novel, The Myth Hunter, is due for release in May 2011, although it is unrelated to the Infernum series. No director has yet been attached to the project, but a shortlist is already in place.

# # #

There you have it! You can read the press release at The Weinstein Company’s official website!

The Green Hornet (2011)

Posted on by

THE GREEN HORNET (2011)

Directed by Michel Gondry
Written by Seth Green and Evan Goldberg
Starring Seth Rogen, Jay Chou, Christoph Waltz and Cameron Diaz

Every so often, there comes a movie that raises the bar. That manages to do something really special and is able to speak to people in a very personal way.

This is not one of those movies.

The film can best be summed up in Seth Rogen’s line to Cameron Diaz at the end, “we don’t know what we’re doing.” Yes Seth, we can see that. We don’t even have to do much thinking to come to that realization. It’s painfully obvious from the first frame of this absolute trainwreck of a movie.

For those who aren’t in the know, the Green Hornet is a pulp hero dating back to the 1930s. Originally created for radio, the Hornet has appeared in comics, film serials, prose and television. The television series from the 60s starring Van Williams is probably the most famous rendition of the character and is particularly notable for introducing the west to martial arts superstar Bruce Lee (who co-starred as Kato).

The Green Hornet is Britt Reid, a newspaper publisher by day and combats crime as vigilante Green Hornet by night. He’s accompanied by his partner and chauffeur, Kato. Thought to be a criminal himself, the Hornet uses this to his advantage to worm his way into the underworld and destroy it from the inside.

This is a great premise for a superhero film and something modern generations haven’t really seen. But somewhere in the long period of this film’s development, someone said, “hey, you know how superhero films like The Dark Knight and Iron Man, which offer serious takes on the characters and show a great amount of respect for the source material, are making a lot of money? How about we do the exact opposite of that?”

In this rendition, Rogen plays Britt Reid, who’s a spoiled brat and a real dick. Presumably because his father, James (Tom Wilkinson) is also a massive dick. In fact, the film goes out of the way to show us how much of a dick James is — our first introduction to him is chastising Britt as a child for getting into a fight with some kids who were bullying a young girl. And then, he takes young Britt’s favorite toy, a superhero, and breaks the head off. That’ll teach the kid to stand up for a defenseless girl!

James dies unexpectedly from an allergic reaction to a bee sting leaving Britt in charge of his newspaper, the Daily Sentinel. Soon after, Britt meets Kato (Chou), James’ personal mechanic who would also invent things for him. And some of the things James made him invent make you wonder if James just wanted to see if Kato was dumb enough to do it. After a few beers, and talking about how much of a dick James Reid was, Britt and Kato decide to do something stupid. They go put on masks and cut off the head of a statue erected in James’ honor. During this, Britt witnesses a crime in progress and tries to stop it. He immediately gets his ass kicked when Kato comes out and with what’s apparently “KatoVision” is able to target the criminals’ weapons and disable them in a split-second. The way Gondry decides to film this, in a slow-motion scene with a zoom-in red outline effect on the weapons makes it look like Kato’s got some sort of targeting vision. In fact, for a second I thought it was the goggles he was wearing.

Because it was “so awesome,” Britt says him and Kato should fight crime every night but make the criminals think they’re the bad guys so they can get inside their operations. Britt instructs the Sentinel to put out stories about a new criminal called the Green Bee (and in a meeting embarrassing his new friend, Kato suggests the Green Hornet instead). With the help of his new secretary, Lenore Case (Diaz), who also just happens to have a degree in criminology, they trick her into telling them what they should do next by having her speculate on what the Hornet’s next move would be.

Kato proceeds to build the Black Beauty, a hi-tech arsenal on wheels while Britt tries on some costumes. On their first night out, and in a show of how little respect this movie has for the source material, Reid plays Gangsta’s Paradise by Coolio and he and Kato start grooving to the music and singing along. Then they stop when they realize they have no idea where to go. When they finally do figure out a destination, heading into the heart of South Central, they approach a Latin gang. Reid addresses one of them by saying, “Hola…I am the Green Hornet. I want to sit down with your boss.” This is followed by the banger putting his gun in the window and the Hornet screams like a little bitch until Kato steps into action.

And that’s basically par for the course. The Hornet cracks painfully unfunny jokes, showcases how completely inept he is, and Kato saves his ass every time. And that doesn’t stop Reid from being a complete and total dick to his supposed friend at every single turn. Just when you think Reid’s character is undergoing some kind of growth, he does something dickish for a cheap laugh (and the laugh never comes because the gag is always terrible). In fact, when Reid and Kato blow up at each other and Kato beats the shit out of Britt, you can’t help but cheer for Kato.

So far I haven’t even mentioned the villain yet, Chudnofsky (Waltz). It should be noted that this is the role Nicolas Cage turned down. That’s right — Nicolas Cage, who has never met a bad role he didn’t like, said “fuck no.” That should give you an inkling of how terrible this film is — Nic Cage turned it down. Chudnofsky is so concerned with appearances, constantly whining about how people aren’t as scared of him as they should be. Because of the Hornet, Chudnofsky decides to start calling himself Bludnofsky and even comes up with a speech to deliver right before he kills someone.

Obviously, if you have even the slightest bit of affection for the Green Hornet, you can see how this is a complete insult to the character’s very long legacy. The only person who is even remotely trying to play this role straight is Chou and I feel really bad for him. Had he been cast in a serious take on the Hornet, he could have made a great Kato.

Do yourself a favor and stay away from this terrible excuse for a film. Instead, stay home and watch a marathon of the 60s TV series.

Let’s Talk Crow

Posted on by

Anyone who knows me very well will know that I have some very firmly-held beliefs. Among these beliefs is that The Crow starring Brandon Lee is one of the greatest films of all time. As a lonely young teenager, the story of Eric Draven made my life bearable.

Like many people, that first movie is what first introduced me to the world of The Crow and it led me to seek out the original graphic novel by James O’Barr. And when I read that, it blew me away just as much as the first time I watched the movie. I even enjoyed the much-maligned follow-up film, The Crow: City of Angels. And even though I despised the next two direct-to-video follow-ups, The Crow: Salvation and The Crow: Wicked Prayer, I still own them. I also have a bit of fondness for The Crow: Stairway to Heaven, a syndicated, low-budget television series that continued the story of Eric Draven, replacing the ideas of revenge with redemption. Sure, it had a lot of bad writing and bad acting, but there were some real gems in the series as well, including the performances of Mark Dacascos and Marc Gomes. And if you have a chance, you should definitely track down Image Comics’ ten-issue series by Jon J. Muth, which took a similar idea as Stairway to Heaven, except did it in a manner far more faithful to O’Barr’s original story. And I also own the student-made bootleg film, which was extremely faithful to the graphic novel.

I’m a firm believer that given the proper team who view the original story in high esteem, The Crow could easily fly again. So when I first heard of the Stephen Norrington-helmed remake, I didn’t take the route most fans did and instantly decry it as an insult to O’Barr and the memory of Lee. You see, Norrington didn’t want to simply remake the first film. He wanted to go back to the source material and view it from a grittier angle. And as much as I love the first film and as close as it was to the original in terms of tone, they also took quite a bit of liberties with it (those liberties worked to the benefit of the story, but I digress).

So having a new version of Eric’s story told in a manner more akin to the way O’Barr told it? That would have been very interesting to see.

Now, word has it that Norrington has left the project. Before Crow fans rejoice, I want them to look at the reasons why Norrington left. This is from CHUD:

Unfortunately, the reasons Norrington left were sound and good.  He left because the “big actor” interested in the playing the titular avian wanted the script rewritten.  Fair enough if this was Norrington’s script, but this was the script Cave had worked on.   Let me repeat that: They trashed Nick Cave’s script.   Says Norrington: “As I had gotten involved explicitly as a writer-director my exit was inevitable. I was bummed. I had developed a genuinely authentic take that respected the source material while moving beyond it, and Nick Cave came in and added more depth. I think the fans would have been pleasantly surprised.”

That doesn’t sound good to me. In fact, it sounds like Norrington and Cave were going to do the story justice, but now it’s going to be butchered by the studios and some unknown “big name actor” (Norrington wouldn’t name names, but he said it wasn’t rumored choice Mark Wahlberg, whom Norrington claims he had no idea was approached).

Going with a big-name actor who wants to change the script doesn’t sound good to me. The Crow doesn’t need a big-name actor. Lee, despite being the son of martial arts legend Bruce Lee, wasn’t exactly lighting the world on fire when he was cast. His previous credits included Rapid Fire and Showdown in Little Tokyo where he played second-fiddle to 80s B-movie action star Dolph Lundgren (sidenote: Lundgren actually holds a masters degree in chemical engineering, so don’t listen to anyone who tries to paint him as an idiot — he’s a bad actor, but at 52 years of age, he can kick your ass both in a fight and in a classroom). The Crow was supposed to be Lee’s ticket to stardom, and it was–but not for the reasons he hoped (Lee tragically died in an accident during filming).

So Crow fans, be careful what you wish for. Yes, Norrington is gone and you’re probably rejoicing. But the cost may be a reboot of The Crow that’s even worse than what you predicted. Of course, as there are many in the fan community who seem to thrive on complaining, they may have gotten just what they wanted.