Chloe Moretz as Hit Girl in Kick Ass
Iron Man 2 (C-)
I keep searching for a good movie, But I always come out of the theatre empty handed and disappointed. Iron Man 2 continues that spell with an overstuffed script and not enough action scenes to sustain our interest. Is it worth shelling out 12 hard earned dollars to watch a movie that basically has no idea or direction in its path? Of course not. Director Jon Favreau brought a solid mix of action and humor to the 2008 original that we -as an audience- had the right to expect something special again. Here's another sequel that fails miserably @ that.
Mickey Rourke -cue the comeback- & Robert Downey Jr do their darnest to save a movie that has the dullness of watching paint dry. They deserved better than this and so did the audience which -save for some major eye candy courtesy of Scarlett Johannsen- has not much to cheer about as the credits start rolling.
Date Night (C)
I think Steve Carell is absolutely hilarious but his latest with Tina Fey is far from it. They play a boring married couple that have their lives -and love life- re-energized when they are mistaken for another couple and get chased by two mobster thugs. Ah yes, originality and Hollywood @ its best. If only I was serious. Cliche after cliche gets hammered down to the audience as Carell and Fey get chased around central Park & a strip club among many other spots.
It does help that Fey and Carell are both amusing figures to watch -especially when on Television in 30 Rock & The Office respectively- but this film has none of the chemistry or satirical comedy those shows achieve on the idiot box. I did however dig a brain dead/ shirtless Mark Whalberg in a cameo that is the highlight of an otherwise dull and repetitive film. Oh Hollywood what have you become?
The Secret In Their Eyes (C+)
Argentinian director Juan Jose Campanella is a seasoned veteran of Television's Law & Order. For the first 90 minutes of this compatibly made detective thriller you don't see an inch of televised bullshit, it's only as the movie goes along in its overlong running time that melodrama sets in and an expected, preposterous finale settles in as a mean to shock its audience.
The film tells the story of a detective obsessed with an unsolved case since the 70s. Now retired, he decides to write a novel about his experiences & -of course- has a love story as a subplot. That love story is a real drag and stops the movie short of greatness ditto the finale. The Secret In Their Eyes won this year's Best Foreign movie Oscar & -considering everything I just said- you can tell it isn't deserving.
From Paris With Love (C+)
Although competently made and entertaining in some parts this new movie by Pierre Morel is not half as good as last year's other Morel B-movie Taken. John Travolta plays a violently mobile government operator that thrives on being gory just for the sake of it. John Rhys Myers is his saner, violent free assistant that wants nothing more than to get home and be with the girlfriend to propose to her. Sounds hokey? it sure is and gets even more when these polar opposites are assigned to catch a terrorist plot aimed for Paris. Ooh La La.
This would all have been very entertaining if I actually cared for these characters and their actions/motivations. I clearly didn't. Travolta is the only spark of the movie- which is influenced by the french action thriller (Taxi/District 13) a very popular genre in France. Check your brain out at the door with this one and get ready for some major nonsense ala Taken but sans the excitement that same Liam Neeson vehicle had & with far less coherence.
Kick Ass (B+)
Kick Ass is everything I wanted Iron Man 2 to be- Vulgar, repulsive, graphic, smart, funny & -above all else- vibrantly alive. Its story of Dave Lizewski, a teenager that decides to be a -failed- superhero, is a realistic depiction of what would happen if your neighbour decided to try out a spidey suit. Dave is a teenager that jacks off daily and drools over the school hottie on a daily basis. His alter ego Kick Ass becomes an overnight internet sensation & is helped along the way by Big Daddy (Nicolas Cage) & his daughter Hit Girl (Chloe Moretz) who want revenge on a mob boss for the untimely death of Daddy's wife.
I didn't expect much going into Kick Ass but what I got was an ultra violent fanboy fantasy into a -realistically made- superhero world. What more do you want? Well how about a great Nic Cage performance as a father training his daughter to fight evil in a world full of it. Want more? Chloe Moretz -the film's highlight- as a machine killing 12 year old with a fetish for curse words and blood. Director Matthew Vaughn stuffs so much into his superhero movie that it feels too much @ times but what he lacks in timing & structure he compensates in style and graphic imagery.
Lost Series Finale/ "The End" (B+)
Who'd a thunk it. The best movie out there right now actually aired on TV. I'm not big fan of Lost but that didn't stop me from watching the 2 1/2 hour Series Finale on Sunday night. Twist after twist ensued under a plot that had me on the edge for the duration of its running time. No matter what people thought of the finale -titled The End- it had something that most movies these days lack in their unawareness to what a public really wants- ambition this episode was jam packed with it.