Posted under beratings, movies

It stars an unlikely actor as “The Joker” who’s accidental death came just before filming was to wrap up. It’s a 2.5+ hour comic book movie spawned from the same franchise that contains filth like Batman & Robin. It had to compete with such summer action blockbusters as Wanted, Hellboy II, and Hancock.

It shattered 5 box office records, including highest-grossing opening weekend evAr.

It also received an astounding 94% on the Tomatometer. But are these reviewers just caught up in the current of such a huge film? Are they succumbing to the hype? Are they giving it good reviews just to honor the late Heath Ledger?

No. It was that good.

The Good

I want to see it again. That’s a good thing because it means the movie was full of so much plot that it was hard to take it all in the first time. In that respect, it was sort of like a Scorsese flick. I was so interested in all the characters that I forgot The Reason I was seeing it: Heath Ledger portraying The Joker. Michael Caine, Morgan Freeman, and Gary Oldman are very good actors. Christian Bale is fitting as Bruce Wayne. Newcomers Aaron Eckhart and Maggie Gyllenhaal just build up the list of amazing actors. And for a second there I almost forgot that I had not seen the main star of the film yet.

Then he came on screen. Everyone in the audience got chills. People audibly reacted to his first scene. It’s the first time I’ve ever witnessed such a thing, and I found myself reacting the same way. It was impossible not to. It is some of the best acting that’s ever been done.

Every little detail of the Joker was interesting. The way he talked, his mannerisms, his walk, his facial expressions - sheer joys to behold. I’ll be honest, the rest of the movie could have been terrible and I still would have liked it. It could have been the plot of Indiana Jones 4, Angelina Jolie as the entire cast, the soundtrack of A Knight’s Tale, and directed by the guy who directed Serving Sarah, and as long as it had Heath Ledger as The Joker I would love it.

Hell, it could have been a made-for-TV autobiography of Angelina Jolie starring Angelina Jolie, directed by Angelina Jolie, produced by a homeless kid, with a soundtrack composed entirely of Angelina Jolie belching the theme song to Friends, in Arabic with Chinese subtitles, with every scene containing either A) Angelina Jolie talking about how rich and beautiful she is or B) Angelina Jolie just staring into the camera with that “I’ve got one eyebrow raised and a smug grin on my face signifying that I can totally kick anyone’s ass (except not in real life because I only weigh 80 pounds)” look in her eyes, and as long as that movie contained one sentence spoken by Heath Ledger as The Joker I would give it a 10 out of 10.

I hate Angelina Jolie.

The great thing about The Dark Knight is that even if you were to remove Heath Ledger as The Joker it would still be a great movie. Since this review is being written so close to opening weekend, I’ll try not to give any spoilers here. Basically, we are immersed in the mob scene of Chicago - I mean Gotham City - throughout most of the movie. There are multiple villains, which is an element that I always look for in a well-made “good vs. evil” type film, and some of them develop right before our eyes.

The “City vs. Hero” aspect, where the once grateful population is quick to turn on its masked savior, is also present, as it is in most other comic book movies, but it is done to a greater depth in The Dark Knight. There is also an unpredictable love triangle involving Bruce Wayne - at least I was thrown off by its outcome.

There is a lot of good to say here. You’ve probably read most of it in the myriad of other reviews out there, so I’ll spare you the trouble.

The Bad

It is a very good movie, but it is not a perfect movie. The Dark Knight is an awesome movie. Wall-E is a perfect movie. There are three main reasons The Dark Knight couldn’t make the leap to perfect.

1) Pace. The film seemed to move around erratically. I like the fact that you never know when it’s going to end and it keeps you guessing as to whether or not there is still another predicament around the corner or it’s truly about to end. But I don’t like how some scenes were just thrown in there. There was a scene where cops are standing on the roof by the bat signal waiting for Batman, which was confusing to me. It was almost like we were seeing a scene in a montage outside of the montage it belongs in. Some of the other scenes just ended too quickly and I found myself trying to figure out if an hour or a month had gone by since the last scene. Especially during the part of the movie when Harvey Dent makes his transformation.

2) Unbelief. While The Dark Knight is much more believable than say, Spider Man, it still couldn’t quite get away from the outlandishness that just gets under my skin in these types of movies. For instance, it isn’t even close to possible for anyone to pull off the giant wall-o’-sonar-cell-phones that gets relayed to the eyes in Batman’s suit and lets him see anything anywhere. He could even see into rooms where there were definitely no cell phones. How was this possible?

Falling 100 stories onto a car with a half-broken hang glider (bat wing) while holding someone in your arms would instantly kill both of you. There’s no question about it.

You can’t reassemble a fingerprint by replicating the ballistics that were used on the crime scene, analyzing how the bullet would’ve shattered, and then reverse-engineering the outcome. You just can’t.

Harvey Dent’s burnt face was cool looking but ludicrous. First of all, why didn’t his eye get the slightest bit burned along with every single fiber of his skin? Second of all, where is the infection? The bleeding? The skin trying to regrow? I’m not a doctor, but I know this was just a silly excuse to go crazy with some slick CGI. And don’t tell me “it was cauterized”. There were freaking chasms in the guy’s face. Cauterization doesn’t result in that. Why would he refuse pain killers and skin grafts? How could anyone stand this type of pain? How could anyone even function at all? This was totally ridiculous and I just couldn’t look past it.

3) Not enough Batman. Isn’t this a Batman series? Why was 90% of the movie devoid of Bruce Wayne and/or Batman? Don’t get me wrong - I loved the content - I’m just pointing out that it veered a bit from what it was supposed to be. I needed to see more about the guy that the series is supposed to be centered around. The movie would’ve been better titled “Chicago a.k.a. Gotham City And It’s Inhabitants And Comings And Goings And Whatnot”.

The Beratings

Acting - No beratings. Some of the best I’ve seen in a long time.

Plot - No beratings. It was so interesting I need to see it again just to catch it all.

Inconsistencies - 1 berating.
We have this character, Harvey Dent, who is a do-good DA who fights for Gotham, stands up for what he believes, and sacrifices himself to take the fall as Batman. Then he sustains an injury, loses the girl he loves (through no fault of the authorities I might add), and somehow becomes a villainous, murdering, super pain-tolerating evil man overnight. They never explained this one to me.

Unbelievable Events - 1 berating.
Not as bad as Spider Man, but still unbelievable enough at times to be distracting. If I get distracted, I start berating - it doesn’t matter the category or the movie.

Schematics - No beratings.

2/10 Beratings = See it at full price

0/10 Stand in line for the very first showing
1/10 See it the first weekend
>> 2/10 See it at full price
3/10 See it at the Five-Buck-Club
4/10 See it at the dollar-fifty
5/10 See it OnDemand
6/10 Rent it from Blockbuster
7/10 Watch it on TV
8/10 Watch it purely for spousal points
9/10 Never watch it
10/10 Buy it and publicly destroy it

Posted under beratings, blogging, gaming, gimcrackery, intarwebs, music, rofl, sports, video

Well, I was gonna post about how 99% of cops are complete idiots, but that is going to be a more involved post that I don’t feel like doing right now. In the meantime I stumbled upon a little gem on Digg today. So, here’s a little more light-hearted fun for you:

Step 1: Read this article and watch all the videos (the first two South Park videos are not required).

Step 2: Watch the new Pork and Beans video by Weezer.

They wouldn’t let me embed the video, so you have to go over to YouTube to see it.

I can’t believe some of these people came out of the woodwork, including Chocolate Rain Guy and Leave Britney Alone Girl. Do you think they got paid? If so, how much?

I bet these numbskulls did it for free.

Posted under beratings, movies

I don’t know what it is with George Lucas and terrible rehashes of once-untarnished film sagas. Everything he touches nowadays turns to dust. If you choose to see a Lucas film, you have chosen poorly. Maybe my brother put it best when he told me “I knew George Lucas had changed forever when he modified the Greedo/Solo dispute for the re-release of Star Wars: Episode 4 and made Greedo the one to shoot first instead of Solo.”

He was right, Lucas has gone incredibly soft… and lame.

They should have buried the series after The Last Crusade. I’m extremely sad to say that Indiana Jones and the Kingom of the Crystal Skull disappointed me more than Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace.

I left work early the first Friday it opened to see it by myself. I love seeing movies by myself because it lets me fully experience the film without any distractions. However, no amount of preparation can prevent the movie itself from distracting me with unbelievable scenes, bad acting, and a terrible plot. Oh no, The Bad section is going to be long…

The Good

There were so few good things about this movie. I can actually list them out - all four of them.

• 1. Shia Labeouf. This guy keeps impressing me. I am officially a Shia fan. I wish I could say he saved the movie.
• 2. Cate Blanchett.
• 3. The Greaser/Jock diner fight.
• 4. The graphics during the alien aircraft launch.

The Bad

I don’t know which was worse, the plot or the acting. Let’s start with the acting since I believe Harrison Ford to be the main reason the first three movies were so good. I think Harrison has lost his touch. He was really good in What Lies Beneath, which is one of the last movies I remember seeing him in. But that was 8 years ago. He looked a lot older and less in control in Indiana Jones 4, and the one-liners, smirks, and panicked fight sequences that we have come to love him for are non-existent. Most of these qualities were instead found in Shia.

The plot didn’t even equal up to The Mummy movies, which I had previously defined as “Indiana Jones knock-offs”. It’s funny - I would venture so far as to say that Indiana Jones 4 is a knock-off of The Mummy.

What really made the first three films memorable, aside from Harrison Ford, was the story. Hunting after supernatural artifacts that, deep down, we believe really exist makes for a great story. The Arc of the Covenant actually existed at some point in time. A magnetic alien skull make of crystal and quartz from outer space did not really exist at some point in time. It could have, I guess. But we don’t know for a fact that it did like we know with the Holy Grail. As far as plot complexity, IJ4 was on par with the first films, but it was the substance that really bothered me. It seemed very manufactured.

The film also lacked the sort of “heart” that the first three had. I don’t know how to describe it - atmosphere, environment, feel… “heart”. This one is tough to explain, and I am not talking about nostalgia. The fight scene on top of the tank near the Canyon of the Crescent Moon. The scene on the blimp when Sean Connery asks Indy what he wants to talk about and he replies “I can’t think of anything”. The fight after the drinking contest in Marian’s bar. When the guy pulls out the huge sword in the market and Indy just shoots him. These are little pieces that make up the heart of the movie. IJ4 lacked these memorable scenes.

I can’t list all the unbelievable scenes in this film. Sure the first three films had some unbelievable scenes, but at least they were done with humor and class. Let me give you an example. In The Last Crusade, 5 Nazis fighting Indy conveniently stand in single file line on top of a tank speeding through the rough desert terrain, and Indy shoots a single bullet from a stolen Nazi gun which penetrates the torsos of all 5 Nazis - killing them instantly. Unbelievable? Yes. Amazing scene? Yes. Why? Because of the expression of wonder on Indy’s face when he looks at the barrel of the gun he just fired, telling us that the movie is aware of the impossibility it just presented us with.

In IJ4, there is at least one scene involving 10+ Russian goons firing fully-automatic weapons directly at Indy from 10 yards away - missing him every single time. Unbelievable? Yes. Amazing Scene? No. Why? The scene takes itself seriously. There is no joke involved.

The Beratings

Acting - 1 berating.
Just as one or two bad actors cannot ruin a film, one or two good actors cannot make a film. Sorry, Shia and Cate.

Plot - 2 beratings.

Inconsistencies - 2 beratings.
It doesn’t even seem like it belongs in the Indiana Jones series. Besides the same actor portraying Indy and the glimpse of the Arc during the warehouse scene, what else is there to convince me this movie deserves the Indiana Jones prefix?

Unbelievable Events - 2 beratings.
I tried not to bring up this scene, but I just have to seeing as how it’s the most unbelievable scene I’ve
ever seen in the history of Hollywood. There is a scene where Indy jumps in a fridge just before a nuclear explosion (which he later pronounces “nucular” LOL), gets launched a mile into the air and lands without the fridge breaking or even opening, tumbles out of the fridge without a scratch on him, and stands there facing the still-in-progress explosion that should be instantly blinding/burning/cancer-izing him. Anyone involved with creating this scene should be ashamed of themselves. Even you, ILM. Just kidding, I can’t stay mad at you ILM.

Schematics - 1 berating
The graphics were good, but I’m more concerned with the what my ears experienced than what my eyes beheld. Remember the Arc theme? Remember the Grail theme? There was no Skull theme. At least not one that stuck out. The first Indiana Jones films presented some of the greatest film scoring I’ve ever heard. This one failed.

8/10 Berating = Watch it purely for spousal points

0/10 Stand in line for the very first showing
1/10 See it the first weekend
2/10 See it at full price
3/10 See it at the Five-Buck-Club
4/10 See it at the dollar-fifty
5/10 See it OnDemand
6/10 Rent it from Blockbuster
7/10 Watch it on TV
>> 8/10 Watch it purely for spousal points
9/10 Never watch it
10/10 Buy it and publicly destroy it

In summary, I have at least learned a valuable lesson from this experience. Do not put your trust in anything but God. Everything else will eventually disappoint. Sorry, I know that’s a sad note to end on… but is it?

Posted under beratings, movies

This movie scared me because I thought for a bit that I was not going to like it. Then I found myself trying to make myself like it, which only made me dislike it more. But in the end I was pleasantly surprised as to how well it was able to turn itself around.

So far, the Narnia movies have been a sad reminder that no one will ever make another saga the likes of The Lord of the Rings. However, that’s such a high standard that it doesn’t mean the Narnia movies aren’t good. You just have to remember when you watch them that they were made for kids, and you’ll be fine. I kept finding myself comparing this movie to Shrek and The Princess Bride, but then I remembered those two films were made for adults. Once you let the kid in you come out, you will be able to enjoy this movie much more.

The Good

The battle scenes are what made this movie good. As I said, I was afraid I wouldn’t like this movie. That’s because the first 10 minutes were good, but then it plummeted into oblivion for about the next hour. I’ll get to that in the next section. After about an hour or so, the film really started to pick up - starting with the castle invasion at night. The choreography was much better than I expected. I would even wager it was better than a lot of the fight scenes in Lord of the Rings and Gladiator. I get annoyed in large-scale battle scenes when the filmmakers get lazy and give me what I call “the blur”. It’s when they stop focusing on single characters and start bombarding me with flashes of carnage that I can’t understand in order to make me think I’m seeing an awesome battle. Narnia NEVER does that, thank goodness! Every battle scene was surprisingly well thought out and executed, and I truly could not take my eyes off of the screen during the battles.

I also immensely enjoyed the actors that portrayed the Telmarines. They seemed very foreign and ominous, and they felt like a new culture that I’ve never seen in our world. The Telmarines are the only reason this movie won’t get 2 beratings for acting.

And the scene with the White Witch came at the perfect time because I had forgotten all about her. This scene is what reminded me that there is actually a plot buried somewhere underneath the colorful, light surface of this story.

The Bad

I will not dwell on the bad too much because I don’t feel like I need to convince you of anything. Here’s what is going to happen: you will go see this movie, want to like it, notice the exact same bad things as me, but decide overall that you did end up liking it. Besides the not-so-great acting, the plot was pretty sparse. I really had to struggle to dig a plot out of this film, and even though I loved the scene with the White Witch, that was the only part that held my attention plot-wise. A good movie will do this for at least half an hour, not 5 minutes.

I’ve prepared a visual aid which should help you understand how good this movie was from start to finish. The first 10 minutes were great, then it got really boring, and then it steadily climbed to become a good movie (mainly due to the battle scenes):

Yeah, yeah - I realize that wasn’t really necessary and I could’ve just explained it to you, but my boss walked in so I had to make a chart so it looked like I was working.

One more thing in the bad category. I want to ask Disney, or Walden, or whoever did this movie a question: how can you not create more life-like CGI animals? Come on - it’s 2008. I saw better graphics in Jurassic Park, and that was 15 years ago. The beaver, the mouse, the cheetah, the bear - they were all pretty fake. At least they did well with Aslan.

The Beratings

Acting - 1 berating
While the four children did better overall in this film, it is still not anything to write home about. They’ll get it by the next film I bet.

Plot - 1 berating
My eyes got candy, but my brain went hungry.

Inconsistencies - no beratings *UPDATE* 2 beratings
Very consistent with itself. It may be consistent with itself, but this movie is part of a greater story of which it is not consistent for many reasons that are better stated elsewhere. Upon further review, this film deserves 2 beratings for these inconsistencies. The ones that stick out to me most are the true characters of King Peter and Prince Caspian. They are not portrayed at all like they should be based on the book.

Unbelievable Events - no beratings
Believable, for the most part. The only unbelievable scene was the evil Telmarine leader lifted high in the air by the huge water creature. He would’ve at least fallen off his horse, if not the bridge itself. Not nearly enough to berate the film though.

Schematics - 1 berating
Good choreography, soundtrack, cinematography, landscape/object CGI, and battle sequences. Bad character CGI (isn’t that the most important thing to get right?)

5/10 Berating = See it OnDemand

0/10 Stand in line for the very first showing
1/10 See it the first weekend
2/10 See it at full price
3/10 See it at the Five-Buck-Club
4/10 See it at the dollar-fifty
>> 5/10 See it OnDemand
6/10 Rent it from Blockbuster
7/10 Watch it on TV
8/10 Watch it purely for spousal points
9/10 Never watch it
10/10 Buy it and publicly destroy it

This is my blog and I can change whatever I want. I recently changed my Berating of Ironman from 3/10 to 2/10, so there. Thanks for reading!

Posted under beratings, movies

That title is meant to be taken in a good way, although taken negatively it also aptly describes the movie. Iron Man is about the beginnings of a super hero: how the cockiest guy on Earth is convicted with the duty of saving humanity from an evil corporation that he helped build. He has no super powers, save the power of his brain (and the depth of his checking account). And he is extremely, annoyingly, unbelievably likable.

The Good

I’m going to mention some phrases and I want you to think about them for a minute. John Favreau. Robert Downey Jr. Jeff Bridges. Gwyneth Paltrow. Hilarious. ILM-made special effects. After you’ve thought about those phrases, I want you to honestly try and tell me that a movie containing these elements could be anything but good.

Robert Downey Jr. shines in Iron Man because he’s extremely cocky, funny, and smart. He’s one of the few actors that could pull off the role of a brilliant MIT grad who can also get any woman he wants. He never gets too over-the-top, he’s really really funny, he does the serious stuff well, and he’s so gosh darn likable I want to throw up. If you’re not a Robert Downey Jr. fan by now, go see Iron Man and you will inevitably join the ranks.

Lots of eye candy here too. There’s technology everywhere. Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) owns a mansion in Malibu that is equipped with every new gadget known to man, from exotic cars filling his garages to state-of-the-art computers and holograms adorning his desks/walls/floors. It is really neat to watch how he interacts with them. I know he just performed a series of movements that were later CGI’d to kingdom come, but it looks like he was actually interacting with everything on the screen (thanks to Industrial Light & Magic).

The plot is exactly like Batman Begins, so I won’t talk about it, but I’ll tell you it is definitely a winning formula for Iron Man (as it was for Batman).

Lastly, I’ll say that I loved Jeff Bridges (The Dude from The Big Lebowski) as the villain. He was so interesting to watch. He wasn’t just another villain. His facial expressions, menacing bald head/beard combo, and ability to smoke a cigar and drink a scotch like an old pro give him the characteristics of a worthy arch-rival to the also-scotch-drinking Iron Man.

The Bad

You know how when you fall a few thousand feet and slam into the ground you usually die? Well, don’t expect physics to have any part in Iron Man whatsoever, because he survives this multiple times. While fighter pilots have to train for years by practicing breathing techniques that prevent them from passing out at 10+ g-forces, Iron Man experiences maneuvers that are probably in the 20+ g-force range without so much as feeling the slightest bit nauseous.

Also, while they did a good job setting up how smart Stark is by going through his background as pretty much the smartest man ever born, there’s just no way he could build the machines he built. The prototype that he built in captivity is impossible. You can’t make an exoskeleton suit like his using dismantled weapons, and even if you could, there’s no way he would get away with it seeing as how he’s being monitored 24×7 on video camera.

I guess I would tell you to definitely suspend disbelief going into Iron Man, and just assume it takes place about 50 years in the future to help yourself out (even though it’s supposed to take place in the present). That way the artificial intelligence of his assembly machines, his personal virtual assistant who is as conscious as any human I know, the Minority Report-esque holographic computers, and the limitless paladium (?) arc reactor power supply in his chest will not be as unbelievable to you.

The Beratings

Acting - no beratings.
Think Batman as opposed to Ghost Rider.

Plot - no beratings
Again, think Batman (Begins) as opposed to The Hulk.

Inconsistencies - no beratings
Everyone does what I expect them to do. The screenplay makes sense.

Unbelievable Events - 2 beratings.
I found myself thinking about them way too often during the movie. It was enough to be pretty distracting.

Schematics - 1 berating *Update* no beratings OK, this may seem petty, but I’m docking this film one point for a bad soundtrack*. I understand it’s pitched in the teaser trailers with Ozzy playing in the background, but I didn’t want to sit through 2 hours of 70s heavy metal-based soundtrack. Play some good metal and the rest good symphonic score, not a pathetic hybrid of both. It was pretty cheesy in a few parts.

*After dwelling upon this berating, I realized it was not enough to dock the movie one point. If the “schematics” category only referred to soundtrack, then I would maintain this berating, but there is so much more involved in this category that a semi-bad soundtrack is not nearly enough to earn an entire berating point.

3/10 Berating = See it at the Five-Buck-Club

2/10 Berating = See it at full price

0/10 Stand in line for the very first showing
1/10 See it the first weekend
>> 2/10 See it at full price
3/10 See it at the Five-Buck-Club
4/10 See it at the dollar-fifty
5/10 See it OnDemand
6/10 Rent it from Blockbuster
7/10 Watch it on TV
8/10 Watch it purely for spousal points
9/10 Never watch it
10/10 Buy it and publicly destroy it