Why did I not have a desire to see Warrior when it was in theaters? The stellar-looking cast including Tom Hardy and Joel Edgerton didn’t hurt but perhaps it was the seemingly overwrought story of two estranged brothers who each are fighting against each other for whichever predetermined important reason. (Was that even supposed to be a surprise in the final act? Because it’s all over the trailer!) Or perhaps Warrior didn’t strike my fancy since I am hardly a sports fanatic even though the brutality and testosterone-y aspects of MMA are pretty cool. Yet, all it took was one of my colleagues saying “You’ll want to tackle someone while watching it” that got me on board. For the record, he was right.

Even if you are Amish or have short-term memory problems, or have otherwise not seen the entire narrative spoiled in the previews, the story in Warrior is so expected that you can see it coming from two summers ago. Hardy plays Tommy Conlon, an angry and bitter man who has suffered through many hardships in life, many from his estranged father Paddy (Nick Nolte) who was drunk and abusive before finding religion and sobriety. Edgerton plays Brendan Conlon, brother to Tommy, who left his family at sixteen to be with his would-be wife. Brendan has not seen Tommy since then and is still hesitant about any contact with his father.

Tommy’s past is a mystery since he is emotionally withdrawn and does not talk about it to anyone, especially his prying father. We learn in bits and pieces about him fleeing with his mother only to watch her painfully die later on as well as his heroics in the military and a promise made to the widow of one of his fallen compadres. Brendan on the other hand has a beautiful wife and two girls but is in a bad financial situation to the point that he is about to be removed from his house without a substantial amount of money. With that, both brothers sign up for a MMA tournament against fourteen other top fighters in the world for a chance to win $5 million.

It is odd that a film like The Fighter, which is good but very predictable, can be nominated for Best Picture along with a slew of other awards and the only Oscar nomination for Warrior goes to Nolte. Granted, Nolte is great with his performance as the outside man desperately seeking redemption from his remaining family. He carries the knowledge of his past failures and is humbled because of them but both sons mostly cast him aside except for Tommy who clearly specifies he needs Paddy as a trainer and nothing else. Hardy also turns in a criminally under-appreciated performance as Tommy who hides years of physical and emotional trauma behind a steely facade with nothing but rage and aggression poking through when he is in the cage.

Rounding out the trio of emotionally scarred Conlon men is Edgerton as Brendan who I first noticed and became a fan of from Animal Kingdom. Edgerton’s character has a good amount of time devoted to him but his character lacks the stress of Tommy or the rejection of Paddy rendering Brendan the more plain character out of the three. He still does a remarkable job though as Brendan is the underdog throughout the process and is given the most material to sympathize with. For most of the film, Tommy comes off almost as an ungrateful punk who doesn’t give a damn about anyone so connecting with him is a bit more difficult.

Even though the story seems a tad unoriginal, co-writer and director Gavin O’Connor infuses the film with so much energy that I feel comfortable in saying that you too will want to tackle someone at parts of the movie. The fight scenes, of which there are many, never feel overly staged or choreographed and the typical handheld camera shots are not overdone to risk confusing you as to what is going on. Punctuating the fight scenes are conversations between Tommy and his father, Brendan and his wife, and so forth but those don’t feel like filler or padding the way some sports movies throw in “heavy” scenes. Even if you are not a fan of martial arts or sports movies, it is close to impossible to watch this film and not get teary-eyed when appropriate or otherwise invested in the characters. I haven’t seen a lot of the heavily lauded films from last year so I can’t proclaim this is the best but I am disheartened that this top-notch drama did not receive a bit more recognition.

One might be able to argue that Dane Cook or Nickelback’s success is funny, but one of the big taboos in comedy is cancer. You typically don’t see much humor derived from an ailment that affects millions each year. Screenwriter Will Reiser though effectively manages to take the topic of cancer and turn it into a honest, genuine, and surprisingly funny look on the craziness surrounding an already terrible predicament in 50/50.

Joseph Gordon-Levitt plays Adam, essentially a stand-in for Reiser, who learns he has a rare form of cancer along his spine in the peak of his life. Seth Rogen, from reports who basically plays himself as he did to Reiser, is the supportive, opportunistic, and (of course) foul-mouthed friend to help along the way. We also meet Adam’s super-supportive girlfriend Rachel (Bryce Dallas Howard), his overbearing mother (Anjelica Huston), and his new-to-the-field therapist (Anna Kendrick) as they try and support Adam though the diagnosis, treatment, and aftermath.

While the previews mostly portrayed this film as more comedic in tone, 50/50 is primarily a drama with a sprinkling of comedy, usually courtesy of Rogen. There is only so much light you can make of a film about a debilitating illness without it coming across as inappropriate or crass. Fortunately, Reiser’s script walks a pretty fine line between making a mockery of the suffering of millions and taking what comes from life in stride. The film succeeds on this front as it is not a heavy-handed “live your life to the fullest” affair but also addresses the hardship that comes with the plights of Adam’s fellow cancer buddies played by Philip Baker Hall and Trashcan Man Matt Frewer.

Not many actors can pull of such a varied performance as Gordon-Levitt did as he hits every stage of the process in perfect form with scenes filled with joy, anger or grief and some all combined together. I would say it is an award-worthy performance but apparently the powers that be do not agree. The rest of the actors merely revolve around Adam in some shape or form with Rogen not breaking too much new ground and Kendrick playing the same young and sensitive, yet inexperienced role that she has in other films. Huston in minimal screentime had quite an impact as the mother that Adam purposefully distances himself from yet relies on when everything comes down to the wire.

Director Jonathan Levine takes what you would anticipate being an ensemble effort and focuses superbly on Adam and his struggle. From the first diagnosis when the “State University” doctor remarks that his cancer is quite interesting because it is rare and yada yada yada, Levine pulls back and focuses solely on the ear of the patient as he tries to comprehend the words being causally tossed at him. We follow Adam throughout the entire ordeal as he has his first chemotherapy, gets high on weed-laced macaroons, and comes to terms with the probable outcome that he will die. The emphasis on Adam and the events in his life during his treatment put you in the mindset of someone in that situation. It is not a joyous, “to hell with rules” mindset but one of reason, despair, and sorrow.

On one hand, 50/50 is not a feel-good movie as it evokes many emotions that most (including myself) would disregard while watching a film. But it is not only a strong movie off the back of Gordon-Levitt’s great performance, but also one that can help you see the bright side in even the worst situation.

Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows picks up close to where the last one left off. Holmes (Robert Downy Jr.) has spent an untold amount of time between films piecing together a continent wide conspiracy. With Watson (Jude Law) getting married, Holmes knows he has to finagle him into also being interested in the conspiracy. There have been bombings throughout Europe and Holmes concludes that his arch nemesis, Professor Moriarty (Jared Harris) is behind them. He safely stops one bomb just for the mark to be assassinated none the less by the hit man. During Watson’s bachelor party, Holmes sets out to collect more clues. Enter Noomi Rapace (The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo) as Madam Simza, the soothsayer. Fighting ensues and a disastrous and drunk evening winds up with a disheveled Watson late for his wedding the following day. Holmes is used to being the smartest man in the chase until he tangles again with Moriarty. The professor is always two steps ahead and not shy of grand gestures to aid Holmes in meeting his maker even if innocents are hurt. The great reveal comes with Moriarty admitting that even if he didn’t start the world war he was fine taking the world over financially with supplying the weapons to maintain the wars’ destructiveness. Throughout the film, the history is slightly tweaked to fit the plot and help the audience make sense of it all. The climax and confrontation is set (where else would it be in a comic book style storyline) at the Summit Meeting between the nations.

Downy’s performance is successful in delivering the quirky, intelligent, animated, lovable performance that we received from the first film. With Law bringing his cynical, realistic outlook on life attitude back they are a match still made in heaven. There’s been some time since such a male pair shared such charisma and elegance on screen together. They both put their best feet forward. The only downside, for the writing more so than performance, is there was no depth given to Holmes’ character. There were instances where you know there is going to be more than his intellectual insanity but it fell away as quick as it appeared. Watson seemed to see through the exterior but it was never delved into further than him acknowledging non-verbally that it there. Frustratingly, there is an entire underdeveloped subplot with Watson being married at the end of their adventure that would have left Sherlock alone in the flat which could have been used to really define Sherlock’s need for companionship. The loneliness behind his smile should have been given some room to be explored. However, It was still a very well put together action film.

Noomi’s character should have been given more of a role than just a plot device as her talent was not used to the best of her ability. I guess when coming from such a spectacular trilogy maybe it was a personal choice to cross over to the American cinema with this type of role. She is not bad by any means and she still works well with what she was given but there should have been more provided for her character. When you take such a strong actor and give them a mediocre role it shadows their true talent. Harris kicks in the door with his performance. I have never loved and hated a character so much. He is a genius in his evil, super villain with pizzazz role. You began to root for him and his despicably absurd ploy for financial world domination. With what we know of Moriarty I was shocked that it look so long for the hand-to-hand combat to come. His devilishly handsome and overly confident self meets Holmes move for move to leave us holding our breath as they get close to the edge of the falls.

The entire film is action and adventure sprinkled with dialogue and great direction. There are moments like when they get to the Summit that seem a little dragged out to make up for too many fighting sequences. The attention to detail is lacking in the action sequences and some may never notice but I did. Sherlock Holmes resides in Britain for most of his life, so why is it that he has an Eastern fighting style? I understand it is what most movie goers these days expect but that little anachronism changes the way I see the Guy Ritchie franchise of the great detective. It is why there is so much action in the movie bringing the film more current than the actual setting to appease the audiences. If some of the extraneous scenes were dropped the two-hour-plus movie wouldn’t have felt more like three. Ritchie stayed true to his form with the slow motion this-is-what-went-down technique and flash backs to cover what had previously happened but was skipped temporarily in the film. Over all it was a very enjoyable film and I would say it is slightly better than the original but sets expectations higher for a third installment to set itself apart from this film.

I’ve already said my piece (twice actually) regarding The Hangover Part II, namely that I would not cry if it died in a blazing inferno. No such luck though as the film was released last Memorial Day weekend to buckets of money being thrown at it. I guess that means we can expect another sequel in a year and a half or so much to my chagrin since this entry was just like the first, except not funny.

Perhaps that is too harsh. Perhaps Hangover II is in fact funny but I was too biased to notice. I don’t think that is the case though unless you equate lazy storytelling with funny. Much like the last film, there is a wedding involved, the “Wolfpack” getting into trouble with the locals and the authorities, a missing member of the group, a new addition to the group (this time there are three in fact), and shenanigans as our leads attempt to piece together the previous night’s events. And there is even a random song from Ed Helms and an appearance by Mike Tyson. What a coincidence! At this point, I can’t tell if writer/director Todd Phillips and co-writers Craig Mazin and Scot Armstrong are merely trying to emulate the first film or just have nothing else for our trio of Bradley Cooper, Zach Galifianakis, and Helms to do other than recreate the first.

My chief concern for this film, even just hearing about it during production, was that it would be a soulless cash grab missing any of the “charm” of the original. The fact that the main cast members (except Heather Graham, sad) returned was remarkable to avoid a painful recasting or written-out character. From the acting front, everything still clicked as Cooper, Galifianakis, and Helms have a good chemistry together which makes the events fairly easy to watch. Ken Jeong randomly reemerges as Chow but he was quite entertaining in his brief screentime. Even Doug (Justin Bartha) returns although he is left out of the fun and games but not because he is the missing person. That honor goes to Mason Lee as Teddy, who is Stu’s soon-to-be brother-in-law but his interactions with the gang are few thus making his disappearance not as impactful as Doug’s in the first.

So while the cast was good enough here, the really issue lies with the story which is just a shameless rip-off of the original. Many of the scenes that originally drew big laughs from myself and I’d imagine many others are almost painstakingly recreated here which just leads to a yawn and fond rememberance of a film that was wild and unpredictable, as opposed to this film that was unpredictable only in how many callbacks to the first it could jam into the 1 hour 40 minute running time. While I didn’t pick up on the location of Teddy like Stu did (although that seemed a bit forced as well), pretty much everything else in the film is so predictable and easy to see coming. That is of course unless you haven’t watched the original.

Everything else on a technical level was sound with quite impressive shots of not only the gritty, urban Bangkok locale but also of the remote private Thailand island where the wedding is to take place. Honestly, it was the end of the film which solidified that I did not care for this movie with the random realization of where Teddy is, followed by Alan taking control of a speedboat to get back to the wedding (nothing can go wrong, right?), and then Stu finally standing up to his douche of a father-in-law. It all seemed so forced and convenient since the rest of the movie has established that everything will happen just like the first so we know that Stu’s nuptials are not in any real danger.

Whereas I liked the first Hangover because it was crass, silly, and unexpected, I dislike its sequel because it has all of those same characteristics but nothing else to bring to the table. Was it funny learning that Stu has “semen in him?” Quite. The random monk beating Helms and Cooper with a cane? Pretty funny. But there are so few moments in this film that are not almost directly lifted from its predecessor to make it anything more than Hollywood’s poster child for churning out sequels that no one (well, maybe just me) wants to see.

I caught a lot of crap at work for “liking” the Final Destination series. Primarily, this is coming from a guy who proclaims his favorite movie ever is the original Saw, so I consider his opinion moot. Given the unevenness of the series, I would say “tolerate” is a more appropriate verb for my feelings on these films. That seems fair since Final Destination films seem to range from pretty good, like the original, to the offensively stupid, such as a large chunk of part 3 and all of part 4. Since the various writers and directors of the previous four films seem to have moved on, Final Destination 5‘s writer Eric Heisserer and director Steven Quale have almost a blank canvas to create on.

The synopses part of these reviews almost seem rote now but if you’ve seen any of the previous films, you know the gist. In this case, Sam (Nicholas D’Agosto) has a vision of a cataclysmic bridge collapse on the way to his company’s team building retreat. He manages to get everyone off the bus only for them all to get made dead via collapsing bridge decks, swinging suspension cables, or random sailboats. Fearing his premonition, Sam manages to get his girlfriend Molly (Emma Bell), friend Peter (Miles Fisher) and other company folk off the bridge before it collapses. From then, they all die. This is not a spoiler. This is expected for this type of film.

With five films in the can now, the main hook of the Final Destination series is undoubtedly the deaths and the almost far-fetched yet somewhat conceivable ways that people can die. On that front, FD5 is almost tame in respect to some of the other films as many of the deaths are fairly straight-forward bad luck such as the flying wrench to the skull or crushing blow to the head from Buddha. Only one sequence really sticks out as the typical Rube-Goldbergian style that the series is built on. This scene though in a gymnasium is full of misdirection and red herrings (not sure that this applies here but we’ll go with it) that make the final outcome completely out of the blue, especially since this part was featured heavily in the trailers.

In the review for FD3, I remarked: “it is clear for me that what makes a Final Destination good as opposed to just mediocre are the characters.” FD4 (or THE Final Destination if you must) was shit because it completely disregards characters entirely for stupid gross-out gory moments and deaths. FD5 though walks the thin line not seen since the second between characters you actually care about and over-the-top death scenes. Here we have a good few minutes to get introduced to the characters and their histories and dynamics before they are almost playing on death’s swing set. While it might seem minor, the fact that Sam and Molly are on the rocks or that Olivia is self-conscious about her glasses are far more beneficial than just padding the film’s runtime. Unlike the last film, we can connect with these characters to some extent and can appreciate their relationships or worries which make their inevitable deaths just a bit more impactful.

It certainly helps greatly that we have professional actors in the film as opposed to the bottom-of-the-casting-barrel detritus that turned up last time. I don’t know why but I am a fan of D’Agosto, probably stretching back to his performance in Election. #pbf’s unrequited love Emma Bell is no slouch either as the love interest and final girl of the group. And Jacqueline MacInnes Wood is quite fetching. And a good actress to boot! In fact, all of the cast including Courtney B. Vance and David Koechner are believable in their respective roles even though Vance’s random agent seems a bit ridiculous since he is trying to blame a natural bridge collapse on Sam.

Vance’s role seemed to be a not very well conceived callback to the first where Alex is suspected of involvement in the airplane blowing up. That worked, to an extent, in that film but the notion that a mild-mannered guy could cause a freak natural disaster bridge collapse is stretching things a bit. There are other underlying callbacks to the first with the mentions of Paris and occurrences of the number 180 but there was no moment where the survivors figured out how their situation tied into the first film which was almost a staple in this series (the last film notwithstanding to my recollection.) Yet, without giving too much away, the final sequence ties in nicely with Devon Sawa and Kerr Smith from the original in a way I was pretty happy with.

At this rate, there isn’t too much new that can be done with these films but I was pleasantly surprised with how effectively Heisserer and Quale are able to balance the characters with the expected death scenes. Given that this was an online rental, I did not have the benefit of 3D while watching it but the effects sans one dimension were great (especially with the opening bridge collapse) so I was not missing too much. If I had to pick, I’d probably put this entry on par with part 2. It’s amazing how having realistic, albeit someone douchey, characters can make a mindless movie like this so much more enjoyable.

In case it isn’t apparent, we at Movie Scum are big fans of David Fincher. He is, in my opinion, one of few standout directors currently working even if his resume does not have the broad appeal of a Spielberg or a Cameron. Perhaps it was my excitement upon hearing he was involved in the American version of The Girl with a Dragon Tattoo that drowned out any feeble complaints of another American remake of a foreign film. I have not read the Stieg Larsson novel nor seen the entire Swedish adaptation, so I bring no preconceived notions of the story to this film and can hopefully be as impartial as possible.

I don’t read a ton (read: any) books, thus I was largely unaware of Larsson’s trilogy until the original Swedish film debuted in 2009 to much acclaim. The bulk of the praise as I recall centered around Noomi Rapace‘s portrayal of the unstable, anti-social, brilliant researcher Lisbeth Salander to the point that there was some general worry due to the casting of Rooney Mara as Fincher’s Lisbeth. Mara showed her acting chops perfectly in the first segment of Fincher’s last film, Social Network, but would she be able to pull off this challenging role? And how does Daniel Craig as disgraced journalist Mikael Blomkvist factor into it? And will Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross win another Oscar for their score? So many questions. Let’s get to the answers.

If you’ve read the books or seen the original, from what I hear there will be few surprises in this version as it is rather faithful to the material. Blomkvist is hired by Henrik Vanger (Christopher Plummer) to investigate the forty-year-old murder of his granddaughter. Meanwhile, Salander is busy trying to make ends meet by her assigned duties of investigating and/or computer surveillance while battling a grotesque pig of a “guardian” who uses his control over her finances to some, well, rather horrible means. A long stretch of the film goes by with Blomkvist doing his thing and Salander doing hers (you can take that in a number of ways) before they finally join forces and discover that the murder of one lone girl ties in with a string of murders previously undetected.

All the talk of Fincher being a difficult director seem to be warranted (he even confirms as much in the commentary for Se7en) but the man certainly has a clear vision and is unstoppable at achieving it. Much like most of his work, Dragon Tattoo is a dark story with many heinous acts shown or spoken throughout. Yet, there is a sense of beauty in the visuals as Fincher and his DP Jeff Cronenweth use the slow pan of a room with pictures tacked on the wall or of the serene landscape to almost offset the horror in the story’s details. Much like Se7en, this film centers around the hunt for a serial killer but this is not an action-packed affair with shootouts and car chases throughout that would permeate such a film normally (although those do happen infrequently here). It is more of a quiet reflection on the dark side of human behavior and unraveling the mindset behind a man who can rape, murder, and dismember another human being.

If nothing else, Fincher is an actor’s director as I cannot recall a horribly miscast or performed character in any of his movies (yes, even the much maligned Alien entry). This film is no different with Craig, Plummer, and Stellan Skarsgård as another of the Vanger clan turning in superb performances that shy away from typical Hollywood style of overacting. Most of the performances are done well enough that sell the characters as real life people, not simply James Bond trying to portray a normal person. Mara though outdoes them all with her performance as Salander. The internet is rife with debate between Mara and Rapace as the better Salander. Again, having not seen the Swedish version in its entirety, I cannot comment so much other than to say Mara was fantastic. A nomination of some sort is required after seeing this seemingly normal girl envelope the role so much that she donned her own genuine body piercings and is able to simultaneously embody an apathetic woman toward life in general as well as a woman so determined that she will put herself in harm’s way to stop a murderer. The dynamic between Craig and Mara is surprisingly authentic and their interactions engross you more into the story.

If you’ve seen the assembly cut of Alien 3 or either version of Zodiac, you know that Fincher is no stranger to movies that are quite long. Dragon Tattoo takes the cake though with a more than two-and-a-half hour runtime that could have been easily excised if Fincher, or writer Steven Zaillian, had a bit more control over the story. The best part of the film is when Salander and Blomkvist are paired up investigating the murder of almost a dozen Swedish women from decades ago. Unfortunately, there is a lot of questionably important backstory to get through before that happens. Likewise, after the murder mystery is resolved, the film still has a quite unnecessarily long coda of Blomkvist regaining his reputation. This is the one thing that hurts the movie as the best part, namely the investigation, is bookended by portions may serve the characters’ and their arcs but disrupt the narrative to do so. I hear this is the same in the novel and the original film as well but a good portion of the runtime could have been trimmed from these outskirts which are neat, but nowhere near as entertaining as the main plot.

Even with the assembly of a great cast and bringing his talent to this film, Fincher’s Dragon Tattoo is bogged down by the underlying uneven story. Everything else is undoubtedly great including Reznor and Ross’ second collaboration together on the score. Despite the effort though, Dragon Tattoo is merely a solid film, not as spectacular as I had hoped.

Let me just start off by saying how thankful I am that there is not another colon before the ‘Ghost Protocol’ subtitle. I think that would irritate me beyond belief, potentially to the point of not even doing a review at all. Whew. Crisis averted. Now as far as big-budget action franchises go, M:I has always been all over the place for me (and a lot of folk by the ratings and reviews). The first had its moments but was decried by some for its handling of establish characters from the TV series. I didn’t care about that so much but it had long stretches of nothing that my 14-year-old brain didn’t like. M:I 2 was much the same but with far too little talky parts and far too many random explosions and whiplash-inducing edits. M:I 3 I rather liked but I’ve only ever seen that once, on TNT or something, at 3 in the morning. So I’m not too qualified to make a firm declaration on that one.

As Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol got underway at the helm of Brad Bird (you know, the awesome director from likely your favorite Pixar films) and Jeremy Renner joining the cast, I was tempted from the start. The initial, and somewhat ongoing, talk was that Renner’s character Brandt was likely to take over for Captain Insano himself for any future installments. Anything that results in less Tom Cruise in my life is always a good thing. Sadly, I did not get to see this in IMAX which means that I didn’t get the DKR prologue (damn!) nor to experience some of the moments that others raved about. I can certainly imagine that those scenes would have been quite amazing in IMAX but I don’t think that the lack of a super-huge screen detracted from my enjoyment … at least not as much as the story.

At the start. we find Ethan Hunt (Insano Cruise himself) stuck in a Russian prison as the team of Jane (Paula Patton) and Benji (the returning Simon Pegg) are attempting to break him out. Of course they succeed since the opening credits have not even begun and Hunt is quickly thrust into a mission to retrieve files from the Kremlin. Things go awry, the Kremlin blows up, and the US government initiates ‘Ghost Protocol’ which is not a version of Call of Duty, but the shuttering of IMF and basically stranding Hunt and his team on their own with a new IMF analyst, Brandt (Renner) tagging along.

If you’ve seen Alias, any James Bond film, or most any other “spy/covert action” movie, you could probably guess there is a deranged man with a major weapon that requires the team to travel to exotic locales to track down clues and contacts and ultimately stop World War III. As far as the story goes, there really is not a lot of new ground broken in this installment sadly. Please do not mistake the rote steps I described for boring as writers Josh Appelbaum and André Nemec use those genre tentpoles as effectively as possible while transitioning between the exposition and the action very seemlessly. Unlike another recent action-y/spy thriller Salt, the big sequences and showdowns feel naturally inserted into the story instead of a loose plot written around said sequences.

Bird as director deserves a lot of credit for this as well. Perhaps the many years managing the doubtlessly painstaking process of an average Pixar film is a much better training camp for action directors than say, music videos and commercials. Ghost Protocol is almost the antithesis of a Michael Bay film as you actually have a firm grasp of the setting and the blocking so you can tell what the hell is going on. Those transitions between the dialogue and the action and then back again are quite fluid for lack of a better word which is more desirable than the typical “throw in as many cuts as possible to confuse the audience into liking it” sense that seems to permeate action films nowadays.

Since 1996, Cruise has been the face of the M:I series so that sadly has not changed for now but he does well-enough with his smarmy, smug persona to pull off Hunt as well as before. Patton has a few decent scenes but nothing too spectacular. The main standouts for the cast are Pegg and Renner, and that statement might be only slightly partial since I am a fan of both. Pegg does little wrong (I haven’t seen Paul so I can’t say no wrong) so his portrayal of the new field agent Benji is just the right amount of smart and confident with a bit of naivete to him that serves as a great comedic foil for the mostly stone-serious cast. Renner may be among those serious characters but I’ve liked the guy in everything I’ve seen him in and he is quite versatile as an actor with action, drama, and a hint of facetiousness coming through here. While the villains are too blase to remember their names, the dynamic from the ex-IMF team as a whole made up for them. And Anil Kapor was excellent, although not too important in the grand scheme of things.

As a whole, Ghost Protocol doesn’t come together quite as well as I remember the last installment and it may not stick out as a great action film along the lines of Die Hard. But that’s no bother. The pedestrian story aside, there is more than enough here to satisfy with some great performances by Pegg and Renner as well as the type of pacing and structure that action films should strive to abide by.

Look, I’m not ashamed to admit that I spent deflated U.S. currency to see this big-budget teenage soap opera in theaters. Well, no, I am a bit ashamed. But that won’t deter me from finishing up the series that has pained my sensibilities for years now. Bella and Jacob are all grown-up, Edward is technically still a creepy old man, and no one ever seemed to ponder whether or not a vampire can knock-up an awkward teenage girl. Now, the world knows the truth as Breaking Dawn: Part I attempts to lay the old vampire-human sex myth to rest once and for all and so the women in the house can get their fix for pale vamp-y boy or ripped, shirtless wolf-y boy.

So, it appears that ‘Team Jacob’ is not going to be able to pull off a stunning upset in the bottom of the ninth as Bella (Kristen Stewart) is uterus-deep in wedding planning and other such shenanigans for her pending nuptials to Edward (Robert Pattinson). Yes, kids, let this be a lesson to you courtesy of Stephanie Meyer: follow, stalk, and mostly be a jackass to a girl but as long as you have pale skin and dreamy hair, you’re a shoe-in. The wedding seems to act as a manner of reintroducing old friends (poor Anna Kendrick!) and introducting new superfluous-for-now plot points (Maggie Grace looking quite creepy!) but mostly to affirm that Edward is dreamy, and perfect, and has great hair, and … anyways. They tie the knot, have a few awkward/embarrassing moments like any family occasion, and set off on their honeymoon to some random island with a beautiful house that would be toothpicks in a tsunami. ::Spoiler:: No such tsunami happens while Edward and Bella are vacationing there. ::snaps fingers::

After a hilariously over-the-top sex scene their first night (I hear the book is as bad), Bella is bruised and battered as Edward is either really good in the sack or really bad at containing his temper. There are shelters for you, Bella. They spend the next eternity in movie time sitting around, swimming, playing chess, and … bam! Bella’s pregnant! To Forks they return where no one has any idea of how that could happen or what to do next but Bella insists on keeping the baby even though it is breaking bones, feeding off her internal organs or something, and apparently applying quite effective makeup to show the emaciated girl. Jacob (Taylor Lautner) learns of about her “condition” to which the rest of the wolve-y clan aren’t keen about. Jacob breaks from the pack to protect Bella from the hostile shape-shifters while Bella continues to succumb to the demon-ish baby thing inside of her. If you’ve read the books, you know the rest. If not, the rest is actually kind of cool.

Perhaps it’s because I just watched the horrid New Moon, or maybe it’s Opposite Day, or it’s possible that I’m just clinically insane but I actually kind of dug BD:P1. Most of it at least. From the male perspective, the most painful part is the first half or so. I understand that after three mostly unbearable films with the will-she-or-won’t-she affair between Bella and Edward, there needed to be some celebratory event. But, just like most family gatherings I attend, the wedding and its aftermath goes on far too long with little to occupy yourself other than copious amounts of alcohol. When Edward and Bella (why don’t they have a cool compound name like Bedward by now?) head off to the secluded island, the story drags like a tantrum-prone four-year-old in the checkout line but most everyone else wanted to see them get it on. For a movie that clocks in at just under two hours, I can think of a good fifteen to twenty minutes that should have been trimmed from this section.

When Bedward return after learning of the growing spawn, the otherwise overqualified director Bill Condon takes the movie into a bunch of wacky, yet ultimately interesting directions. I can’t really tell if there was a strong anti-abortion agenda present in the film as almost everyone is urging Bella to get “that thing” out of her or if Bella was just being her typical, insipid self and refusing to listen to the voice of reason that the child is killing her, inside and out. Stewart starts off the film much more attractive than I’ve previously found her before but ends looking like a poor woman struck down with some incredibly debilitating illness courtesy of some quite good makeup and CGI. And shockingly, Stewart is mostly up to the task excepting the typical stutter and awkwardness that her character is built upon. Honestly though, the majority of the other characters come off as bossy, assy, or just plain hateful which makes her almost seem like the sane one.

As Tabitha touched on in her review, there was a great deal of emotional impact that could have been harvested from the story as Bella is dying as a child/whatever is growing but most of that seemed to be jettisoned for Jacob scowling, Edward scowling, or random and insultingly-stupid wolf growl to human voice dubbing. Even the experience that Bella goes through is mostly extrapolated from everyone else’s reactions to her, which I guess is in keeping with the spirit of the rest of the series since she has very little defining character traits of her own. Bella does step out of her drab shell though to make things awkward as she remarks to Jacob “it feels complete when you’re here” in front of her new family and … HER NEW HUSBAND. I thought we were past this by now.

This series has chronically suffered from not-good acting but things were a bit better this time around. Pattinson has become better each film through heavy makeup, Stewart isn’t quite as irritating as the first couple films, and it even features more Billy Burke and Sara Clark! Yay for that! The rest of the Cullen clan are merely bystanders in their own house but there was nothing too incredibly off-putting here. Except Lautner. I thought the kid was okay before but maybe that was just when he had hair and no six-pack abdomen. He’s probably too focused on whatever crap movie he’s starring in at this point anyway.

I’ve already written way too much about this movie than I intended but it is pretty damn entertaining once we get past the lovey-dovey aspect of the story. Even without an external threat like the last film, Breaking Dawn: Part I is thus far the best in the series. Don’t get me wrong. It’s no American Beauty or Halloween, but something that I can possibly see myself watching (and fast-fowarding through) at home.

The Summer of Massacre will arrive on DVD and Blu-Ray on January 10th 2012 via Breaking Glass Pictures. It is 5 stories so bloody; so full of carnage that it is apparently in the Guinness Book of World records for highest body count recorded in a film. I am too lazy to verify that, so, you know, go ahead and Google or Wikipedia that. Whichever one you use to tell you what to believe.

You ever wanted to know what it would be like if Clive Barker took mescaline and then made a film? Joe Castro provides us with a pretty good guess. This film is ultra violent about 98.7% of the time. We have 5 chapters of dizzying images, ear piercing sounds and nonsensical industrial house music, and blood flowing like urine from a pissing contest atop Mt. Everest. I mean if something or someone could bleed, they did, as if their lives depended on it (!).

Chapter 1 is called Rampage. A man  is beaten severely while jogging through a park. A woman finds him still alive and calls the police. He jumps up and slaughters her, splattering blood all over the camera and everything else in the area. He then goes around town on a killing spree like one might go on a shopping spree at the local mall. Heads get squished, flesh gets ripped from bone, pointy objects get inserted in to various orifices. It’s quite a crimson delight, so long as internal organs laying out in the open is your type of thing.

Chapter 2 is is a delightful story about siblings called Lump, which is the nickname of a severely deformed hermaphrodite named Lori. Her sister is quite jealous of the attention she gets and takes her out to the woods with their brother and some friends. Lori’s sister pushes her (she is wheelchair bound) off of a cliff. When Lori doesn’t die, the others start to.

Chapter 3 is called Son of the Boogieman. Pretty straightforward. Years ago, a woman is raped by “the Boogieman” and has a child. Jessie (the son) and his mother have been hiding from him for 36 years. Somehow he has found them, and wants son to be just like father. Anyone that may come across his path is all but liquified.

Chapter 4, called Burn, has some familiar elements to it. Some young Christians sitting around a campfire, discussing a legend of murders that happened 20 years ago. Then guess, what? They get naked, smoke pot, drink beer and die.

The 5th “chapter” is told in between each of the other chapters. Three serial killers tell their stories not only devoid of remorse, but proudly as if earning straight A’s in a mass murder college program. After chapter 4 concludes, their story is also completed in the same style the previous were.

This film has nothing to offer but gallons and gallons of blood and entrails. Not that there is anything wrong with that, but don’t pop this flick in looking for any kind of acceptable acting, original (or even interesting) stories and certainly not gifted writing. It is gore for gore’s sake, and as over the top as it is, it takes itself quite seriously. So, if you want to see a brain ooze out of a skull, this film is just for you. The sad thing is, even the gore is cheesy and not that good looking most of the time.

It was a good choice to make this film in to 5 stories. If it tried to tell one narrative instead, I would have ripped my own flesh off.

To prepare for the upcoming “Epic Finchercast,” I revisited Alien 3, or Alien Cubed if you so prefer, since I haven’t seen it since the early 90s after its debut on HBO. Since I was but maybe 10 or 11 at the time, I cannot hold myself too accountable for my disdain for this film since of course, at the time, I had not yet experienced Se7en, Zodiac, or Social Network. On the surface, Alien Cubed is a decent follow-up to the Alien saga. When viewed with the rest of director David Fincher‘s body of work, this was just the beginning.

The main consternation of Alien 3 seems to be around the death of Newt and Hicks. Now, I love Aliens (and Michael Biehn) just as much as the next guy and at the time I was sad to see them perish off-camera in rather rudimentary ways. But as the crew’s ship crash lands onto a Company-owned maximum-security prison/iron works/whatever, this time I began to see why that decision was made. Hicks was basically incapacitated and Newt, while cute and all, was still just a pesky pre-teen girl that would have otherwise been surrounded by the rapists and murderers on Fury 161. It’s tough to say but those characters had outlived their usefulness but Ripley, of course, has not.

Say what you want about the Alien series proper as a whole, but Ripley (Sigourney Weaver) has always been the backbone and Alien 3 shows exactly why. As she is told by the medical officer Clemens (Charles Dance) that her companions have perished, Ripley still has the nagging thought that an alien is behind their demise even though she is curiously restrained in explaining that. After the bodies of Newt and Hicks are cremated and a rescue team has been summoned, Ripley receives confirmation that an alien was on-board and has likely infiltrated the small camp of prisoners and corrections officers.

Having watched the theatrical cut and the “assembly cut” back-to-back, the omissions that were made are puzzling. Even knowing about the longer, fuller cut in advance, the theatrical version seems either far too sloppily edited or too truncated to do the film any justice. Out of the twenty five remaining in the facility, only a handful are ever given any characterization (such as Charles Dutton‘s Dillion) or even names (like the survivor Morse) in the regular cut, leading to the bulk of the film just an alien chasing random dudes down dimly-yellow-tinged hallways. The “assembly cut” or as close to Fincher’s director’s cut that we will likely receive is about twenty five minute longer and features not only more prominent characterizations of the important inmates but also a quite enthralling plot point that was completely omitted from the final film.

Since I have watched an ungodly amount of Fincher films in the past month, it is easy to see the visual style that he would hold onto with following films. The low- and high-angled shots, the yellow hues that permeate, and even the emphasis on character rather than flashy visuals that would define him almost two decades later are present in Fincher’s debut film. Sadly, that mostly holds true for the “assembly cut” rather than the theatrical version since a good chunk of the story was left out in the latter version. Even the other little details like the grimy set-pieces or the ruthless anonymous thugs speak toward Fincher’s other works and they certainly stand out here as Fincher seems to be more interested in the visual than the constantly changing narrative.

Even though it has been largely criticized by the movie-watching community, Alien 3 is a worthy follow-up to James Cameron’s Aliens in that it is almost completely different in its execution. Aliens was more focused on non-stop action whereas Alien 3 is more of a melding of its two predecessors. There are many horror-esque moments especially as the prisoners do not know about the threat but yet still many action sequences such as the alien chasing men through endless corridors, all while it is scaling walls and ceilings. Those chase scenes close to the finale, and even those throughout the film, are captured with almost a raw intensity that defy you to be nonchalant during them. Even the assembly cut ending which still has Ripley sacrificing herself is more impactful as the queen does not bust out just before. It not only is more fitting for the ending of a Fincher film but also makes Ripley’s journey more impactful.

There’s tons of stuff to beat this movie up on from the cruddy CGI to the underdeveloped characters but Alien 3 was nowhere near as abysmal as I feared it would be. The assembly cut is the one to watch if you have the chance but even through the studio fuckery, the theatrical cut is still a pretty powerful film on its own, and one that tries to stand up to its bigger brothers in the franchise.