Film Review: Kick-Ass

Kick-Ass is the latest highly anticipated adaptation of a popular comic book, while the ending is different and leans toward the typical happy ending. Kick-Ass is still Kick-Ass.

Aaron Johnson plays Kick-Ass, a once average teen who was sick of getting picked on and all the bad people in the city. He decides that he wants to be a superhero and fight crime, the problem is; he doesn't have any superpowers. After becoming a Youtube phenomenon, Kick-Ass gets dug deeper into the gritty and violent crime underworld. He meets Big Daddy and Hit Girl (Nicolas Cage and Chloe Moretz), who are out to get mob boss Frank D'Amico (played excellently by Mark Strong). Big Daddy and Hit Girl offer Kick-Ass to team up with them to stop D'Amico.

I'll be honest, I haven't enjoyed a film this year, like I enjoyed Kick-Ass. It's gleefull with the graphic violent, it's profane, and often funny. It's obvious that the cast had a good time being involved with this. If you have enjoy tons of bloody violence and a sense of humor, you will enjoy this. If not, you might want to watch something that clearly isn't badass like this. The title clearly speaks for itself.

Overall Grade: A-

3-D Catch Up

I caught two 3-D flicks recently, heres some quick thoughts.

Clash Of The Titans

If you "have" to see this movie, watch it in 2-D because the 3-D was uglier to look at than my asshole. Anywho, the movie, well, it wasn't good. I don't get what's the big deal with this Sam Worthington (Terminator: Salvation sucked, Avatar was extremely overrated, and now this). I'll admit, he's not a terrible actor or anything, but when the fuck did this guy come in to big in huge blockbusters already? About the movie, there was too many plot holes when it came to the inconsistent references to Greek mythology. Its brief reference to the robot owl made me cringe in my seat. The CGI was bland, and it wastes it's talents. Neeson and Fiennes seemed wasted in their role. The scene with Kraken was boring, go watch the campy original instead.

Overall Grade: D

How To Train Your Dragon

It seems like Dreamworks is starting to take advice from Pixar in the storytelling department, since this is one is better than some of the recent Pixar flicks when it came to in-depth characters. The story formula is nothing new, but it was still a tad convincing. The 3-D is actually well-done (up par with Avatar in that department). The comedy was simply "meh", mostly jokes I've seen in every other kids movie. This movie could have been better if it didn't try to be funny.

Overall Grade: C+

Catch Up

So I saw a shitload of flicks recently, here's a breakdown:

The Ghost Writer:

This is already one of the best films to come out this year. Everything about it is very well done. While it doesn't rank up to Chinatown, Repulsion, or Rosemary's Baby, it still ranks to The Pianist. Even though Polanski is going through some shit now, he can still make a damn good movie.

Overall Grade: A-

The Runaways:

I was somewhat surprised by this one, while it's not a in-depth look of the history of the band, it sure got the music down. Kristen Stewart does a pretty good job as Joan Jett, Dakota Fanning on the other hand, was not good. She got on my nerves, she also can't sing like Currie either. The highlight belongs to Michael Shannon, he shined everytime he was on screen. Overall, not a bad as I expected, but still not very good either.

Overall Grade: C+

Hot Tub Time Machine:

This is basically the spring's answer to The Hangover. Both movies are indeed funny. Rob Corddry is simply comedy gold anytime he was on screen. The rest of the cast was good too, especially the running gag with Crispin Glover. Would I call it the funniest movie of all time, no, but is it worth checking out, certainly.

Overall Grade: B

Survival Of The Dead:

This is the 6th entry of the Dead series. You'd think that Romero would run out of steam, while he is starting to reach that territory, there is still good moments in the last couple Dead flick. This is one is tied along with Diary Of The Dead. The story isn't anything groundbreaking, but there is still some good deaths for zombie lovers like myself.

Overall Grade: B-

Defendor:

Woody Harrelson has been on a roll recently, and this is keeping the wheel rolling. Harrelson is perfect for this role and does a great job with it. The film perfectly blends comedy and drama quite well. While I think the ending has it's flaws, this one is definetly worth your time.

Overall Grade: B+

Alice In Wonderland:

Want further proof that Tim Burton is overrated, this film will validate my argument. While this is technically a sequel, it doesn't have the feel of the original animated movie. Burton doesn't do a good job with the material, the 3-D was pointless, it seemed like they wanted to throw in the 3-D at the last minute in order to compete with Avatar. Depp got on my nerves in this one, he changes his voice every 5 minutes, this movie reminded me of Speed Racer due to the fact that it seems like they want to throw in some visual tricks to distract us from the pedestrian story. Do yourself a favor, and avoid this one.

Overall Grade: F

Green Zone:

So basically this is just a 4th Bourne movie, except based on actual events and came too late. I can't stand Greengrass' documentary style directing, he over does in the Bourne movies and with this one too. The camera movements were giving me a headache. This movie is just Matt Damon trying to find WMD's, with Bourne directing. Once you get to the "twist", you feel completely unsatisfied cause the audience knew how it was gonna turn out.

Overall Grade: C-

Repo Men:

This movie had a somewhat interesting story, but I was only looking forward to see this for the violence. The film has a good start and good end, but a pretty lousy middle. There was a sub-plot involving Jude Law's family and it was completely uninteresting. Forest Whitaker delivers an enjoyable laughable performance, and he does some badass shit. This could have been a good movie if they tried to flesh out a better story.

Overall Grade: C+

A Prophet:

Very well done prison mobster flick. Very-directed, great performances, and quite gritty. Check this one out as soon as possible.

Overall Grade: A

Film Review: Leaves Of Grass

Leaves of Grass is quite an interesting film, one of the obvious reasons is because Edward Norton plays two people.

The film stars Edward Norton as a pair of twin brothers. One brother Bill is an Ivy League philosophy professor, while the other brother Brady is a Oklahoma pot dealer. After Brady is part of a drug scheme gone wrong, he decides to lure Bill to Oklahoma to take part of his scheme, the problem is that Brady had to fake his death in order to get Bill to come back to Oklahoma. Upon arrival, Bill is already confused many of the town people think he is Brady. Bill gets knocked out and wakes up to find that Brade is still alive.

After Brady explains why Bill is here, Bill isn't necessarily happy with his plans, but he uses this as an opportunity to reconnect with his family which he hasn't seen in years. One of them is finding a love interest (Keri Russell).

This film is pitch as a comedy-thriller. While some of the content would easily filed under black comedy, I wouldn't call it a thriller. As far as comedy goes, this movie is pretty funny. The cast is good, while Norton is great as usual, the highlight of the films has to go to Richard Dreyfuss as the king of the drug trade in Oklahoma.

My only complaint is that Tim Blake Nelson's directing is a little uneven. While it isn't a "good" comedy, there is plenty of parts that were quite interesting. Leaves of Grass is still worth your time.

Overall Grade: B

Film Review: Brooklyn's Finest

Brooklyn's Finest is the latest entry to the trend of gritty cop films, sadly, this one is a giant cop movie cliche. This was directed by Antoine Fuqua, who directed one of the good recent cop flicks Training Day. You can tell that Fuqua is trying hard to replicate Training Day in this one.

The film focus on 3 different cops. The first one being played by Don Cheadle, as a cop who's been working undercover for the last few years, because of this, his private life hasn't been the same. He is trying to get out of the undercover game.

The second cop played by Ethan Hawke, who is a family man with 2 more kids along the way. Hawke is trying to save money to move out of his moldy apartment to raise a family in an actual house. With his recent cases of trail and tribulation, he decides to start stealing money from gang drug busts in order to get the new house.

The third cop is played by Richard Gere, who has been on the force for 22 years and is about to retire in a week. No one on the force likes him, since he is a coward. He is also suicidal and loves a certain hooker.

The three stories interwine barely and the plot is nothing we've never seen before. The film is also more than two hours, I was checking the time alot. I can't really buy Cheadle acting like a thug, if I was a gangster, I would've easily been able to tell he is an undercover cop. Hawke seems like he is trying and Gere seems bored.

Another reason this film is getting some attention is because of the return of Wesley Snipes, his role is pretty small and his performance wasn't bad, didn't really stand out. I was hoping his performance would be similar to New Jack City, not even.

Overall, the actors seems to try to do work with such a cliche piece of shit. Don't waste your time.

Overall Grade: C-

Film Review: The Crazies

The Crazies is another entry along the recent trends of horror movie remakes. Unlike the majority of these flicks, this one doesn't suck.

Along with this and the remake of Dawn Of The Dead, it seems thaat remaking a George A. Romero flick with possibly lead to a good remake (except for Night Of The Living Dead and Day Of The Dead).

The plot is pretty straight-forward, people in a small town start acting weird and become "zombies" and start killing people. Timothy Olyphant (who actually doesn't suck in this) and his wife (Radha Mitchell) are trying to survive and also slowly discover what's going on.

Once you get to what is going on within the first 30 minutes, the audience are hoping that these characters survive. While this film isn't breaking any new grounds, it's still entertaining.

I have to say I was pleasantly surprised with this one.

Overall Grade: B

Film Review: Cop Out

Cop Out is a departure from Kevin Smith, it's the first film he directed without taking credit for writing it. Sadly to say, this is a complete miss for Smith.

Cop Out is basically a "homage" to the 80's buddy cop flicks like Beverly Hills Cop and 48 Hrs.

Willis and Morgan are partners who just got suspended, Willis needed the work to pay for his daughter's wedding. He decides to sell an old baseball card, but it gets stolen. This stolen card leads to the drug underworld, and it's up to Willis and Morgan making amends without their badges.

Morgan is playing the same character Morgan always plays, I didn't buy him being a cop. Willis just seems bored in this. The couple of chuckles I got from the movie was from Seann William Scott.

Make sure you skip this one.

Overall Grade: D-