Men in Black 3

HER VERDICT: "Good. Not great. But good."
        In this third installment of the highly successful movie franchise, Smith's Agent J travels back in time to save Agent K. Wackiness insues.
        There's not a whole lot to say about Men in Black 3. If you liked the first two installments, you'll probably like this one. It follows the same vein and gives you more of what you liked in the first. Although, as I write this, I realize that this movie was slightly more grounded than the others. You see only in the background things that were highlighted in the previous films: celebrity aliens, the worm guys and Frank the pug to name a few. This film had more heart than the others and was a bit less campy. But only a bit. Will Smith was still Will Smith- funny and sarcastic. Tommy Lee Jones was still grumpy and surly. Josh Brolin does a very cool Tommy Lee Jones imitation. And Emma Thompson is brilliant and radiant. (You may have to take this last one with a grain of salt because 1) I ADORE Emma Thompson and just about everything she does I find ABSOLUTELY AMAZING, and 2) I'm an anglophile so I'm already pre-disposed to love her simply because she's British.)
        There's a nice twist to this film that you don't see coming, but seems to fit and bring everything full circle. When you've got a couple of hours to kill, go ahead and check it out.You won't regret it.

HIS VERDICT: "Definitely worth watching."
        Men in Black 3 was just that- Men in Black 3. I didn't expect it to be the best movie I'd ever seen, but with the returning cast I felt it wouldn't be terrible. It turned out to be a good movie, exciting and funny, with heart. I enjoyed it and had a good time watching it. It had everything you would expect from a MIB movie: strange-looking aliens, famous people revealed as aliens, space guns and a really weird bad guy.
        Josh Brolin's performance surprised me by being pretty phenomenal. He seemed not only to mimic Tommy Lee Jones' mannerisms but his personality as well. He became the character as Tommy Lee Jones has established him. It felt like I was watching a younger Tommy Lee Jones. Will Smith's performace was very good as well. But this wasn't new. It's been that way for the other two films, too. Smith and Jones seemed to fall right back into these characters and not miss a beat.
        At their heart the MIB's have been buddy cop movies, and with those the status quo hardly ever changes. It is the relationship between the cops that evolves. This film has more evolution than the other two combined. Agent J finds out much more about K in this movie, as does the audience. And in the end we see their relationship in a whole new light. The movie ends  and leaves an opening for more to come but also enough closure that it's okay if it just ends there. If this is the last film, I'll gladly wait for the three movie box set.

BATTLESHIP

HER VERDICT: "Even more atrocious than I thought it would be."

         This movie was absolutely one of the very worst I've seen in a long time. It simultaneously sucked, blew and bit.

        You, of course, remember the classic Hasbro game, Battleship? Little grey boats, little cylindrical pegs, the war cry of "You sank my battleship!" Never the first choice (or second or third choice, for that matter) in gameplay even in the days before video games. So Hollywood, in all its INFINITE WISDOM decided to turn one of the most boring board games ever into an action-packed mess and sell tickets. Well done.
        We meet Alex, who is played by the same guy who was the title character in John Carter (which you also didn't see). Alex is in his twenties, aimless according to his brother, Stone, and stupid enough to break into a convenience store for a late night burrito to impress a girl. He gets arrested, gets the girl and gets forced into the U.S. Navy by big brother. Stone is played by one of the guys from HBO's True Blood. I don't know who his character is or whether it's a vampire, werewold, fairie or woodland nymph. I just know he's on the show. In this movie, however, he's an upstanding Naval officer and source of some small guidance to screwup baby brother, Alex.
        Jump ahead. Everyone's on boats. The details of why and how are so boring I can't even make myself summerize them in print. The boats are on the water. Stuff from space crashes into the water. And the movie completely stops making sense from this point until the credits roll. Lots of things happen, but none of it is particularly logical, interesting, plausible or clever. There are alien battleships, alien stormtroopers, a force field bubble, a legless army vet on a mountain hike and oh so many more completely ridiculous things that I really wish I'd gone my whole life without seeing or knowing about. So let's move on to the acting.
        I find it difficult to put into words just how horrible the acting in this film was. But I must press on and force my mind to relive the horror of the actors' perfomances in this film. I do this in order to help you understand just how abhorrent these performances were.
        Alex was played by Taylor Kitsch. His performance was stunted, like he wasn't sure what he was doing. It was like watching cardboard trying to evoke emotion.
       Alexander Skarsgard was apparently directed to play the character of Stone completely literally. He followed this direction well.
       Rhianna was there. To answer your first question, "I don't know why." To answer your second question, "No, she can't act." And not only could she not act, but she couldn't even be understood most of the time. She mumbled her way through the movie as the only female sailor in the film and refused to have a single ounce of feminitity. According to this movie, the only women who grow up to join the Navy are mannish tomboys. As a woman who tried to join the Navy myself, I gotta say it ticked me off a bit. But I'm over it. The whole movie was awful, so why not throw in some appalling stereotyping?
       Jesse Plemons, whose face you've seen but name you don't know, was comic relief. This means he acted as ridiculous as possible instead of the way you'd want a soldier/sailor of the United States military to act in a crisis. However, that was the character's role and the actor, while not inspired, didn't do a completely horrible job. It was by no means great. But it wasn't totally crap-tastic, either.
       Liam Neeson was also in this movie. Again I say, "I don't know why." I imagine they paid him lots and lots of money and told him all he'd have to do is stand very still and look incredibly stoic and bark a few words at a piece of cardboard (Kitsch). He did his job. He got paid. Well done, Liam. Now off you go to Taken 2.
       I'm not even going to talk about the army vet with titanium legs because it's pretty clear he's not an actor.
       That's it. Battleship was terrible. Don't sit through it... Ever. If you do, you can't say you haven't been warned.

 

 

HIS VERDICT: "I went to the bathroom."

         Please understand. When I go to the movies, I don’t go to the restroom. I hold it because I’m always afraid that if I go relieve myself, I’ll come back and someone will say, “You just missed the best part of the movie.” So I always hold it. Even If I have the Super Bladder Buster, I hold it. No matter what, I hold it until the movie is over. 

        I’m never willing to miss a joke, an explosion, a witty quip, something funny or awesome to go to the bathroom. During this movie, I went. I’m certain while I was gone I missed plenty of jokes, explosions and quips. But I just didn’t give a damn. I don’t believe there could be anything that happened in those minutes that would make this movie passable. Not unless Batman and Mr. T showed up out of nowhere and simultaneously punched an alien in the face. Then Batman looked at Mr. T and said, “I pity that fool!” And even that level of awesomeness would only have served to upgrade this movie to simply “bad” instead of the horrible murder of money, time, talent, film, and craft service that it is currently.

        The lead character in this movie is Alex Hopper, a supposedly intelligent slacker with no direction. I hated him, his clichéd long hair and his girl chasing attitude from the very beginning. I might have been able to let it pass if he hadn’t smashed through the roof of a convenience store to get a girl a chicken burrito. Even though he caused thousands in property damage and lost merchandise, the audience is supposed to forgive him when leaves a couple of bucks for the burrito on the counter. When the cops finally arrived, I was hoping they would beat him.

       Seriously, there are so many WTF moments in this movie I think a list of some of the worst will be the best and simplest way to talk about the film.

1. An older brother makes his 26-year-old, grown-ass-man younger brother join the Navy.
2. Instead of asking the father of his girlfriend for her hand in marriage, Alex fights with another man in the bathroom.
3. The aliens, whose technology is far superior to ours, have missiles that look like giant wine bottles- and are just as aerodynamic.
4. The ship’s crew- comprised of trained military personnel- captures an alien. Instead of strapping it down, they just stand around it without any weapons or precautions. Then they’re surprised when it jumps up and kills at least four of them.
5. Due to rescue efforts when one of the Navy vessels is destroyed, there are at least two crews worth of personnel on the ship. However, when the alien is loose and running around, you only see 8 people. Only 3 of those have weapons, and I don’t think any are security personnel.
6. At some point in the film, people utter the lines, “Mahalo, motherf,” “Boom mother,” and “something-else motherf.” No one ever says the whole word.
7. A handicapped man and a young lady are climbing a mountain. The police encounter them and instruct the couple that they can’t be there and must leave at once. The police then promptly station one of their vehicles to block the road so other vehicles can’t follow and proceed to drive off. They do NOT offer the hikers a ride.
8. Rhianna was there… for some reason.
9. The aliens would not kill some people. No reason was given as to why. But they did destroy an air force base that did not even know they were there.
10. As a ship sank two characters climbed up all the way "up" to the very back of the boat- Titanic style- towards the spinning rotors to jump off in between them. Why not jump off the side of the boat away from the rotors like everyone else did (because that’s what makes sense)?

        I can’t sum up this movie with at simple see it or don’t. I can only refer to the debate moderator from ‘Billy Madison.” Adapt it to this movie yourselves because I’ve spent too much time on this already.

“What you've just said is one of the most insanely idiotic things I have ever heard. At no point in your rambling, incoherent response were you even close to anything that could be considered a rational thought. Everyone in this room is now dumber for having listened to it. I award you no points, and may God have mercy on your soul.”

THE DARK KNIGHT RISES

HER VERDICT: "As awesome as I thought it would be!"

        First, let me say a great, big, wet THANK YOU to Christopher Nolan for bringing Batman back from Bat-suit nipples, neon and blacklights, Schwarzenegger's Mr. Freeze and ridiculous caricatures of Two-Face and Riddler. Also Alicia Silverstone.
        With that out of the way, I can tell you that The Dark Knight Rises met and exceeded my expectations beautifully. I expected a great movie. I got one. I expected returning characters with new depths and facets. I got them. I expected new characters who would exceed my expectations. I got those, too. And they all came wrapped in a package that was surprisingly soft-spoken, emotional and grounded.
        That, of course, isn't to say that there wasn't screaming and explosions and car chases and all kinds of other action-packed adventure. But even with all that, the movie began and ended gently, quietly, almost emotionally with a suspensefulness that held me from the first frame until after the credits rolled.
        In the beginning of the movie, eight years have passed since The Dark Knight fell from grace to keep Harvey Dent's memory pristine and glowing for the citizens of Gotham. Bruce Wayne has disappeared from society and organized crime in Gotham is all but a memory.
        Enter Selina Kyle (Anne Hathaway)- a beautiful thief with a penchant for pearls who crosses paths with Bruce Wayne while stealing from his safe, Bane (Tom Hardy)- a psychotic, but seemingly brilliant, mercenary bent on destroying Gothan City, Blake (Joseph Gordon-Levitt *YAY!!*)- an idealic and clever young beat cop who believes that what Gotham needs most is Batman's return and Miranda Tate (Marion Cotillar)- Bruce Wayne's would-be new ladyfriend, maybe. Mix them together with Christian Bale's Bruce Wayne, Morgan Freeman's Fox, Michael Cane's Alfred and Gary Oldman's Commissioner Gordon and you have a recipe for EXCELLLENCE!
        The actors- all of them- were great. I especially loved JGL's performance, but then I always do. That guy never fails to find the heart of his characters and plays them from that place with a depth and realness that not all actors can achieve. I very much enjoy watching his work and this was no exception. Anne Hathaway exceeded my expectations wonderfully. I didn't really see much in the trailers of what in my mind is the Catwoman character (for the record, what's in my mind does NOT include Halle Berry's sorry and ridiculous version of her). But Anne definitely did this character justice, making her sharp, quick, witty and cunning, a cat that plays just a little with her food before devouring it. She was also able to effectively portray the thing that makes Catwoman such a wonderful and complex character to me. She is conflicted, neither a hero nor a strict villain. The character walks the top of the fence between the two and only lands on one side or the other when it works for her purpose. But she is not a bad person. And she has some inner turmoil over the choices she makes. I was glad to see all of that show up in this movie.
        This film's story is also quite wonderful. With much of it pulled directly from what's considered to be some of the best of the source material (source material = the comics, not the earlier movies or tv shows), the story comes full circle on itself to complete what was started in Batman Begins. The conclusion is simple and elegant, unexpected (sort of) and gratifying. It opens doors for the imagination but closes the door securely on this brand. All in all, an incredible film and a magnificent end to a phenomenal franchise.
        Go see it if you haven't already. Pay more than a dollar!


HIS VERDICT: "Better than I thought it would be."

        To be honest I was not excited to see this movie. Of course, when I first heard of the third Batman movie I was tremendously excited, which if you know me means I actually talked about it.  As months progressed, however, the things I saw online left me in a lackluster state of mind. Bane and Catwoman were shown and I was not impressed. I did not see enough of the comics represented in those characters. I decided to do a media blackout and not watch any trailers, interviews, picture releases or anything that had to do with The Dark Knight Rises. I decided to simply say “I Believe in Christopher Nolan.”
        Here’s why I believed in Christopher Nolan:  Batman Begins established this new Batman. When The Dark Knight came, it was time for him to begin the movie kicking ass, taking names, and putting them in the Bat-computer for another round of ass-kicking when they got out of jail. I was not ready for what happened. The movie started and I got kicked in the face. Full on Roadhouse’d, Karate Kid’d, Bruce Lee’d to the cranium, by Heath Ledger’s joker. I was not expecting him to be that awesome. That kick must have damaged some brain cells because I did not learn my lesson.
        This movie started and I wanted to kick my own ass within the first ten minutes. It came out of the gate strong, establishing the badassery of Bane and the problem he will give Batman. This was the Bane comic fans have been waiting for, smart, brutal, unforgiving.  His back-story respects the comics but adds a twist that gives the character more depth.
        I thought that Nolan should not have Catwoman in the film. She had been done twice before and the results were not fantastic. The last one was abysmal. But after seeing how Nolan incorporated her into his Bat-verse, told her story, and the role she played in Gotham City, I cannot see the film without her. Also, since this is the last of Nolan’s films, Selina had to be in it. She is after all one of the most widely known Batman villains, and it was time she was done right. Turns out Tom Hardy and Anne Hathaway were superb as Bane and Selina Kyle.
        I don’t think Christian Bale did anything particularly spectacular in this film. I feel he was very consistent in all three, which is fantastic because it is the story that Nolan tells that makes Bruce Wayne and Batman such amazing characters. The redemption that the character goes through in this film is remarkable. You truly see how he is not a hero of the body or mind but of spirit and determination. Understanding Batman in the comics the way I think I do, I could not see the ending to the film ever happening there, but in this movie the way Nolan set things up and laid things out made you love and accept it. For those who don’t or cant, think if it simply as a one-shot.
        From the beginning this film made a point to remind the audience the series is grounded in a bit more reality that we are used to in a superhero movie. Seeing Bruce Wayne limping around his mansion made me cringe. Batman doesn’t limp. But it did made me think, “You couldn’t do that for years without some permanent damage.”
        This film is the fitting end to Nolan’s trilogy. In the end this cinematic experience was one of immense joy and satisfaction.  I recommend everyone see this movie as many times as possible, as Hollywood only listens to money. Maybe we can influence more Batman-caliber superhero movies as opposed to Green Lantern. Now to wait for the Nolan Batman Trilogy Blu-ray box set with director’s cut, commentary, deleted scenes and never before seen footage.