Daggger

Name: Daggger
Joined On: Mar 06, 2007
Maintag: Daggger
Age: 26
Occupation: Analytical Chemist
Location: Raleigh, North Carolina
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Last seen: 11/8/08

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04/06/08

The Bank Job

I want to get this out of the way right out of the gate. This is a heist movie, but this is not Ocean’s Eleven, this is not Italian Job (original or remake), this is not the Thomas Crown Affair, this is not Catch me if you Can, or Swordfish, or The Score, or Entrapment.

The movie reminds me a lot of Snatch. The heist is structured more like: if I asked three of my friends to help me rob a bank and then we go do it in the same night. The movie does have a planning stage, but it’s very apparent that the “planning” was more of “this looks good but we’ll make it up on a fly” sort of plan.

A member of the British family is photographed in some “sexual” positions and a Drug dealer somehow ends up with the photographs (I do not think the acquisition of the photos is explained). Well the drug dealer is using the photos as blackmail in an effort to remain in England despite the British government knowing he’s a very, very bad man.

Bad men generally keep precious things in secret places, what better place than a bank vault safety deposit box, with tons of other safety deposit boxes. You know what’s coming next right? British government hires third party bad men to break into bank vault, crack open safety deposit boxes and steal everything including one specific box. Sexy girl is inside mole for the group and knows which box to break into. The problem comes from the contents of both that one specific box and . . . all the other safety deposit boxes.

The movie intricately weaves several different story lines a la most other British comedies you’ve seen (Snatch, Lock Stock, Two Smoking Barrels, etc. etc. etc.) It’s a smart movie. It’s well organized, and a well-told story. There is a proper mix of comedy, action, struggle, helplessness, trust, mistrust, and white knuckle stress. At times it’s violent, at times it’s funny, at times you want to scream at the screen trying to tell them not to be stupid. Finally in the end you are satisfied with the ride.

As I’ve said in past I hate giving stars but people like it.

So . . . somewhere around 3.5 out of 4 stars.

Posted by Daggger @ 1:26 pm EDT | Permalink | 1 Comments

03/19/08

Movie Reviews from (past) weekend 07Mar08

10,000 BC.

So it’s been a little bit since my last review but that’s because my life is a little crazy so . . . without further ado, let’s get to the reviewing. I saw 10,000 BC on 08MAR08 and it was . . . entertaining but cheesy. It was obvious to most of the theater patrons that cliché was the main plot drive. And 10,000 BC had every cliché available.

From the very beginning it had the plotline “loss of the father provides the son the destiny to be great”. It had “the lost beautiful girl and a sense of honor and duty drives the protagonist to get her back”, “combining forces against a common enemy”, it even had a cliché not seen very often, “hero saves beast, beast remembers the saving of it’s life and does not eat hero” along with the LAUGH OUT LOUD HILARIOUS LINE while our hero is saving the giant ferocious saber-toothed tiger. While saving the tiger he says, “I’m saving your life . . . do not eat me”. My head just about exploded! Of course he’s not going to eat you that would pretty much end the story right there.

The final planning stages and huge battle scene were enjoyable in a “fly on the wall” sorta way. Often times, with giant fight scenes, the director tries to put you inside battle, with at least one, angry enemy swinging right at the camera and one boulder rocketing right at the camera etc. This is not the normal fight scene. This battle is shot more from an “embedded reporter standpoint” as if you could report on it and you believe you won’t be injured by the implements that injure the warriors.

All in all, the movie was extremely cheesy but entertaining. Amidst all that cliché I found myself remembering and perhaps even reminiscing a little about why I enjoy watching movies and in that sense, the movie was successful. It allowed a couple hours of remembering all those clichés and watch those same clichés used in a proper setting to build upon themes and form a nice little story of hope, danger, love, loss, life, death and salvation. Finally, I will state the blatant. This is not Manchurian Candidate or Bridge Over the River Kwai, or Godfather or any of the other academy award winning serious movies. This is a movie you do to watch to be entertained. You enter the theater expecting cheesy dialog and hokie cues for the shameless kiss and the movies delivers on every single one of them.

Watch, Enjoy, and cringe at every single cliché

Stars rating:

Fake Fun stars rating 3.5 stars out of 5 for the shear cheesiness of the movie.
Real stars rating somewhere around 2 stars out of 5.

Consider yourself warned about the cringing revelry of cliché

Posted by Daggger @ 2:13 pm EDT | Permalink | 1 Comments

03/07/08

Movie Reviews weekend 29Feb08 (cont.)

Vantage Point

I saved this for last for a reason. Vantage Point is the quality movie of the current “post Oscars” movie batch. If you watch TV you’ve seen previews of this movie where Dennis Quaid acts suspenseful and you’ve seen big explosions but in the end this is a Memento movie, with slightly less . . . “what the heck is going on”. The big explosions are used for their emotional impact and not as the definition of an action movie. It is quite clear this movie is American made, as the explosion draw direct emotional similarity to the 9/11 attacks. And yes, there is a car chase and it is actually quite good, and is used as the background for a montage of “this is how everything fits together”.

As Yahoo Movies tells me, “Thomas Barnes and Kent Taylor are two Secret Service agents assigned to protect President Ashton at a landmark summit on the global war on terror. When President Ashton is shot moments after his arrival in Spain, chaos ensues and disparate lives collide in the hunt for the assassin. In the crowd is Howard Lewis, an American tourist who thinks he's captured the shooter on his camcorder while videotaping the event for his kids back home. Also there is American TV news producer Rex Brooks, relaying the historic event to millions of TV viewers across the globe. As they and others reveal their stories, the pieces of the puzzle will fall into place - and it will become apparent that shocking motivations lurk just beneath the surface.”

I copied that word for word from Yahoo Movies because that is literally what the movie is. Quickly you realize you’re about to watch a very interesting story in the “real life” time span of about 30 total minutes of time. I should mention, that the crowd I was with started laughing three times in the movie, those times are the “restart point” for the 30 minutes because the story is told from different perspectives, but it starts at exactly the same point in every black screen. The film stops and rewinds back to 23 minutes before the event for each character. Each time it stops, the audience is left on a cliffhanger which carries the film's tension into the next character. The black screen with timer countdown, to reset the plot, is comical yet effective in tying together the story. Watching the movie, intertwines many characters together perfectly to weave this into a great story-telling effort by the director (Pete Travis, this is his first big screen effort and I will definitely be looking for more of his movies).

That being said, I’ve read several rather low rated reviews for this movie and I suspect those are from people who did not enjoy Memento or were distracted by the film rewind to begin another “Vantage Point”. Vantage Point is not a mystery; the director does not try and make you solve the problems for yourself. Each “Vantage Point” is additional background to the story and not a problem to solve, however each “Vantage Point” does add additional intrigue to the movie. Avid movie watchers will attempt to guess the next plot twist, however those movie watchers who solely go to enjoy a movie, will enjoy this film, as well. I would classify this movie as somewhere between an action movie, political intrigue with an ever so small pinch of Hitchcock suspense thrown in (The Hitchcock influences are not a dominating feature).

Overall very good movie, very well done and I definitely recommend at the very least a rental of this movie. Rating: 3 stars.

Upcoming: Hopefully I’ll get to see 10,000 BC and The Bank Job.

Posted by Daggger @ 10:33 am EDT | Permalink | 0 Comments

03/06/08

Movie Reviews weekend 29Feb08 (cont.)

The Other Boleyn Girl

It’s hard to review this movie, because it’s been done before. This movie has been written about, and performed so many times that it’s hard to call this movie “good”. However, it’s also hard to call it “bad”, it's more "average" or the word I use below is "generic". The story of Henry the VIII and his split from the Catholic Church is historic. The story of Anne Boleyn is a story of desire, greed, power, lust, sex, and ultimately ruin and death. I’m afraid that it is impossible to combine all these themes into one almost 2 hour movie.

Natalie Portman as Anna Boleyn is good, but her range of emotions displayed throughout the movie doesn’t seem to match the emotion that needs to be portrayed at that particular time. And finally in the end her cries and tears do not match the strength she should have had throughout the movie.

I believe the rating of this movie also tells you something about the content . . . or lack there of. The movie is rated PG-13 and judging by what the content needed to be in order for this movie needed to be in order for this movie to be more interesting the content should probably have been beefed up to warrant an R movie. We’re talking about two sisters having sex with the king to improve their family standing. That’s the first act of the movie. Making that storyline PG-13 is a crime against history.

I’ll try and keep this short by finishing here. In the end, this movie is generic (which is perhaps the reason I can't write more about the movie). A headline of young up and coming, beautiful stars were cast to improve the movies status but in the end the movie plays on the routine, it is generic in every sense of the word.

Star rating: 2

Posted by Daggger @ 12:20 pm EDT | Permalink | 4 Comments

03/02/08

Movie Reviews weekend of 29Feb08

Jumper

Like other movies from director Doug Liman (Mr. and Mrs. Smith and The Bourne Identity) Jumper is flashy. However, it is certainly not as refined as his previous works. Certain lapses in storyline were clearly and blatantly replaced for "cool special effects", (I will not mention them because the special effects are nice but it definitely removed from the storyline). Additionally, a nifty sequence introducing the "jumping concept" involves Hayden Christensen's character (David Rice) jumping around his room performing everyday tasks, drinking orange juice, reading the mail, getting dressed, even so far as jumping across the couch to grab the remote. The sequence makes David Rice just comes across as severely lazy.

This sequence made me think three things: 1) What would I do with my life if I didn't have to walk anywhere? 2) How does David Rice stay so fit if he doesn't have to walk anywhere or do anything? And 3) Why is this scene in the movie, this is an action movie, I want to be swept away with special effects, I don't want to see Hayden posing in front of a camera showing how awesome his life is now that he can steal money in order to survive. Did Doug Liman see any action movies at all, action scene after action scene, hell he made The Bourne Identity. It’s amazing to think that Doug could take a character out of a book and put it on screen perfectly like Bourne Identity and than make a stupid scene like this one in Jumper, your main character being a lazy bum is not really a desirable feature of a movie.

That being said, once we get past the "boring part" the movie turns into a pretty decent little action flick. Fight scenes turn into a 3-Dimensional exploration of the entire world, which is an interesting take on fight scenes. While believable you realize that “gravity” is simply a suggestion to the Jumpers. While not as refined as say a Matrix fight scene, you can draw some direct comparisons to the Matrix.

One scene Samuel L. Jackson gets thrown through a wall by a Jumper who built up momentum by jumping several times and it definitely had a Matrix feel to it. But by no means should this movie be compared to that. Jumper is a movie unto itself. And is lacking a depth that almost all other quality action movies have.

There are common themes in movies, confusion, despair, love, anger, friendship, teamwork . . . I think this movie glances over everyone of them and does not do it at all well. But the part of this movie that I am going to talk about here is the love story. But I will talk about it only in an effort to eliminate some crap that I read in a magazine.

Let me say that Rachel Bilson has some good acting skills. She was really good in The Last Kiss, and her agent said, he was viewing [Jumper] as her breakout film. And I hope that isn’t true because while she acted alright and was perhaps the only one who did actual acting in this movie, this was by no means a movie to label as her acting “breakout”. Her character, Millie Harris, has a clumsy look about her in the bar and you expect her to play the clumsy bartender role, which is clichéd by now in movies, but it doesn’t happen. Taking a trip to Rome and you expect Hayden and Rachel’s characters to immediately go out on the town, that’s what I would do if it were my first trip outside the country as is implied, but the trip out on the town doesn’t happen. So while I don’t think Rachel acted poorly in this movie I believe severely that her character lacked the definition that was required. Is Millie the “strong female who decides to save her boyfriend despite not knowing the whole story”, is she “the desperate small-town girl who desires to see the world and immediately sees too much of it and wants to go home”, is she the “trustworthy, ‘tell me the whole’ story and I’ll help you save the day heroine”, or on and on and on. We’ve seen a bunch of well defined characters in film and Millie Harris comes off as extremely schizophrenic in looks and actions.

Finally the rating should be in here somewhere but I just can’t find it. The action is fun, the acting hurt me emotionally, storyline is lacking definition along with the characters. So while I believe this movie is going to make a ton of money at the box office, I give it somewhere between 1 and 2 stars, probably closer to 1.

If you want to read a good review versus my "spit it onto a page" and hopefully my scattershot makes sense, Roger Ebert has a review of this movie that is comparable to my piece of crap writing above.

Roger Ebert's Jumper Review

Posted by Daggger @ 11:55 am EDT | Permalink | 2 Comments

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