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Gavin Grades The Movies


In Time

by Gavin , posted Oct 26 2011 4:20PM
How much time has to go by before we forget that Justin Timberlake was once a pop star?  Better question; how many movies does he have to star in for us to forget?  In Time marks his second attempt at being a leading man since his turn in the romantic comedy Friends with Benefits.  He impressed most people as the devilish Sean Parker in The Social Network, but is he good enough to shoulder the load of a entire film that dares to do more than just put asses in seats with a promise of pretty faces having sex, like his last film?  No, he is not. In Time is an ambitious sci-fi film from Andrew Niccol, who's written some very impressive movies like The Terminal, The Truman Show and Gattaca.  However, he's a far better writer than he is a director since attempts like Lord of War and S1mone fell quite flat. But In Time has a ridiculous premise where, in the future, time is our currency and we all stop aging at 23.  I give Niccol credit in that he tried to make more than another mindless sci-fi action flick.  It's really a statement about class warfare and socioeconomic policies.  Pretty timely considering the current political climate in this country.  But as current as it seems, it comes across as a script that was written years ago and was never updated.  For instance, it's not clear why we would ever go back to using pay phones and old muscle cars in the future.  But all the cleverness in the script gets lost in the stilted dialogue and piss-poor acting from Timberlake. Even gifted actors as Cillian Murphy (Batman Begins, 28 Days Later) and Amanda Seyfried (HBO's Big Love, Mama Mia!) couldn't make this middle school dialogue seem like entertainment, so I guess it's not all Timberlake's fault but boy is he not ready for primetime. Aside from a bad script and a poor choice in a leading man, the movie isn't very exciting.  It's a great concept to make a futuristic Robin Hood, but it gets so lost when a bigger problem is presented as a by-product of stealing time from one of the wealthiest men in the country.  Not to mention that it would bog the movie down if they stopped to explain why that bigger problem would exist without going into an economics lesson on a scale that would make us all doze off. So it's needlessly complicated, then confusing with its plot and to top it all off, the action isn't nearly plentiful enough to make us entertained by any of it.  By the time the movie has reached its exhaustingly excessive 109 minutes, you're just wishing it would end.  Ironic since the whole movie is about time and always trying to get more because I wish I could buy my time back from the creators of In Time since I feel a bit robbed of it. In Time  (Rated PG-13) Gavin Grade: D+
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Real Steel

by Gavin , posted Oct 6 2011 4:34PM
If you were to tell me that the generations-old children's game Rock 'Em Sock 'M Robots would be turned into a movie one day and that that movie would actually be fun to watch, I wouldn't believe you.  But here we are in 2011 and Hugh Jackman has teamed up with director Shawn Levy to create a fun, family movie about giant robots that beat on each other till they piss oil and it's very effective as entertainment...but there might be a sinister reason why. Shawn Levy is the director behind some truly awful films that make lots of money.  He directed Date Night, Cheaper by the Dozen and Just Married.  But he's also the guy that made the Night at the Museum movies which were shockingly funny and awesome!  So does a higher budget and bigger FX make Levy a better director?  Apparently so. It probably didn't hurt that he has two coaches in his corner named Steven Speilberg and Robert Zemeckis (Forrest Gump, Back to the Future series) as two out of the WHOPPING 12 Producers on Real Steel.  Seeing their names in the opening credits gave me hope that this wouldn't be rusty crap and I was right.  The film is brightly colored and slickly put together.  It's also edgy enough that it won't lose older teens but innocent enough that tweens will dig it too.  The CGI FX are top notch and although they may not be as plentiful and bloated as Transformers, it's the subtlety  that makes them seem so much more impressive.  I also appreciate that not all the robots in the film are the work of Hollywood computers.  Yes, they went old school in some scenes and actually used giant puppets. One of the other biggest surprises of the film was in its childhood lead, the 12-year-old Dakota Goyo (Thor), who blew me away with his performance.  Not only does he have the energetic smart-ass down cold, but taps into his inner daddy issues convincingly well too.  Oh yeah, this isn't just a popcorn-chomping action movie; there's a chance you may shed a tear or two.  It depends on whether or not you buy into Jackman's completely unlikable lowlife father character deserving any of your sympathy by the end. But not so fast... There's one thing about Real Steel that needs to be said and that's because it might be downright illegal.  The script, which was penned by John Gatins (Coach Carter, Hardballs), was highway robbery.  You may feel yourself enjoying Real Steel to the fullest but get a vague sense that you've seen this before.  That's because you have.  It was called Rocky and it won Best Picture in 1976.  I know you're thinking that it's easy to compare every boxing movie to Rocky.  That's not what I'm talking about.  Real Steel is SO MUCH like Rocky that I'm shocked it's legal.  Aside from the family drama, Real Steel is about a small, junkie robot that no one believes in getting a shot at the title because of a publicity stunt.  And that's not all.  The champion that he has to fight is a big, black, strong robot named Zeus.  In case you forgot, in Rocky the small, junkie boxer gets a shot at the title against a big, black, strong champion named...wait for it...Apollo.  Same story just switching the character's name from Roman to Greek.  I won't spoil the ending for you, but let's just say that that's not where the stealing...er....I mean similarities run out. So what am I trying to say?  How about this - if you've never seen Rocky, you may think that Real Steel is a great, emotional, well-made family boxing movie that will win your heart.  If you have seen Rocky, you'll still feel that way but you will have trouble getting past the blatant ripoff.  That's why I have to give this film two grades.  One, overlooking the copyright infringement, which many people (sadly) won't care about; and Two, taking that into consideration.  Either way it's a fun, entertaining movie...because you've probably already seen it. Real Steel  (Rated PG-13) Gavin Grade: B+ and D+
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Contagion

by Gavin , posted Sep 8 2011 10:32PM
This movie opens on a black screen.  You hear audio, people talking, casino noises, but you don't see anything.  Then you hear someone start to cough.  The second that happens, you're already put on edge for the movie about a disease that threatens to wipe out the planet.  It's a brilliant way to open the movie.  I smirked when I heard that and got scared at the same time.  Sadly, that just might be the best part of Contagion. Movies about diseases that end the world scare the s**t out of me!  It's ten times scarier than a giant tidal wave or earthquakes or zombies or aliens.  Diseases are real and they really do harness the power to kill everyone alive.  Full disclosure, I was looking forward to this film and wanted it to be amazingly scary.  I was so disappointed. Director Stephen Soderbergh has his ups and downs but never would I call him a hack.  He's always looking for ways to push the envelope of cinema or have fun with it.  He's impressed critics and audiences with Traffic, Erin Brockovich and the Oceans movies.  He's won over only the critics with movies like The Informant! and The Girlfriend Experience. And he's disappointed both audiences and critics with movies like Solaris and Che Part 1 & 2.  Where will Contagion fall?  That seems to be debatable.  I'm gonna play it safe though and say it's something that only critics will enjoy but not the rest. Contagion is an example of how too many characters on too many story lines can ruin a film.  It's not short of A-list firepower at all.  It has Matt Damon, Lawrence Fishburn, Kate Winslet, Gwyneth Paltrow and Jude Law to name just a few.  All are fine actors that have given us great performances over the years.  However, none of these actors play characters that are involved in any cohesive story together.  They all are like supporting characters for a movie that has no lead. Not only does it not have a lead, it has no pulse.  It's as if the movie itself got infected and just staggers around in a cold sweat hacking.  All the things that make a movie about the end of the world entertaining are shown to us in Contagion with zero zest!  Mass panic, a race for a cure, tracking down the disease's origin; these are all in the film but shown to you in a way that makes you not care and certainly not chomp down on popcorn. My friend Dave went with me to see it.  He loved it.  He actually liked the fact that it was downplayed so much because he said it made it feel real.  I suppose it does; but with a film of this nature, I don't want it to feel so real that I am bored by it.  That's what happened with Contagion. Pulling off a movie with a huge cast of characters is not easy.  There are only a few movies that have done it...but Soderbergh is a director that has done that successfully a lot!  So what went wrong here?  I can only imagine my diagnosis was correct...Contagion is sick. Contagion  (Rated PG-13) Gavin Grade: C
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Rise of the Planet of the Apes

by Gavin , posted Aug 3 2011 9:42PM
Whether you want to admit it or not, the 1968 film Planet of the Apes is one of the top ten greatest science fiction movies of all time.  Sure there are lots of cheesy sequels and a par-at-best remake by Tim Burton, but there's something about that first movie that was so totally original.  It was exciting, had great make-up, a brilliant script, fun action and a moral message.  So it seems strange and very risky to create a prequel 43 years later that explains how it all started.  After seeing Rise of the Planet of the Apes, I couldn't be happier that they did! For anyone who doesn't know the original, it stars Charlton Heston as an astronaut that gets sucked through a wormhole in space and ends up on a planet overrun by talking apes that have replaced humans as the dominant species.  You find out at the end that the planet turns out to be Earth and he traveled hundreds of years in the future.  I know I should have said "Spoiler Alert" there but you'll need to know that to enjoy this movie and for Christ's sake it came out four decades ago! This film, which stars James Franco (127 Hours, Milk) and the incredible physical acting of Andy Serkis, who was Gollom in Lord of the Rings and Kong in King Kong, is absolutely brilliant!  Serkis plays Caesar, who is a chimp raised by Franco, and although he has (almost) no dialogue, he dazzles and stuns as he brings the chimpanzee to life in, not just a realistic way, but a totally deep, complex character filled with different emotions.  Simple facial expressions that he performs are touching one second and disturbingly menacing the next.  Ironically, the FX are so good (they were done by the same team that did Avatar) that it makes Oscar-nominated Franco seem like a cardboard cutout. Besides how well the movie explains the sequence of events that leads up to the original film flawlessly, it does something else that I found unexpected and shocking...it made a movie about apes very human.  The catalyst for the story is Franco trying to cure Alzheimer's Disease, which his father who's played by John Lithgow (Dexter, Shrek) is inflicted with.  The scenes that play out between them are done tastefully and tragically.  Same goes for the scenes when Caesar the Chimp is being abused and tortured by his captives, one of which is played by Tom Felton who was Draco Malfoy in the Harry Potter series for the last ten years.  (Side note: His American accent makes him sound creepily like Steve Buscemi.) Besides Serkis, the real star of Rise of the Planet of the Apes is director Rupert Wyatt.  He came from complete obscurity and produced the best film of the summer, which makes me look forward to his next project with baited breath.  For me, his most impressive work is a scene when (spoiler alert) Caesar speaks for the first time.  Again, if you know the series, you know they HAVE TO put an ape's first word in the film.  So much hinges on that scene.  It could easily be too ridiculous and ruin the whole movie, but it isn't.  In fact, the scene is so furious, emotional and shot and edited just right that when it happens, it gives you goosebumps. Rise of the Planet of the Apes may have one of the worst movie titles of the summer, but don't let that fool you.  This is a smart, quality science-fiction film that deserves the respect the original was given four decades ago.  Maybe, dare I say, even a little more. Rise of the Planet of the Apes (Rated PG-13) Gavin Grade: A+
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Cowboys and Aliens

by Gavin , posted Jul 28 2011 10:35PM
Every audience of this film will be filled with people who love the idea of it...at first.  Then, I believe, people will leave telling others how much fun this movie is and word will spread.  Then others, who thought the premise of the film about cowboys battling aliens is completely stupid, will check it out and some...not all...but some will agree with how good it is. My wife attended this premier with me although she was positive it was going to be stupid.  I assured it couldn't be crap because it stars Harrison Ford and Daniel Craig  (the new James Bond, Defiance), was directed by John Favearu (Iron Man, Iron Man 2) and was produced by Steven Speilberg, Ron Howard and Brian Grazer.  That's a blue ribbon pedigree right there.  Then I noticed during the opening credits that it was written by nine different people and I felt even more assured.  That many hands on a movie is either going to create quality or disaster, but I had faith that some of those top shelf Hollywood royalty wouldn't attach their names to crap.  I was right. Cowboys and Aliens is one of the most fun and well done films of the summer.  It's executed with precision because wavering slightly off target would have ruined it.  Harrison Ford, who plays one of his best roles since Han Solo, yells out the line "This is ridiculous" during a scene of exposition and although we all agree with him, that's as far as the movie goes to acknowledge it.  It's like a master comedian telling you a joke with a straight face.  The movie doesn't even give you as much as a wink to the premise being silly.  Everyone in the movie commits to the roles and plays it off as seriously as they could.  I loved that about it.  If it was done slightly campy or silly it would have felt like a totally different film and it wouldn't have satisfied what I was looking for.  I wanted True Grit and Independence Day to become one movie, although I don't smoke weed so a thought like that never crossed my mind until it was presented to me. The "cowboy" part of the film is done with such great detail that it would stand up to most great westerns.  The "alien" part of the film (although they're never called "aliens" since it's 1873...they're called "demons") is also done with splendid detail that it offers the thrills comparable to most great sci-fi films.  That is a very hard circus trick to pull off and I say they did it. Not everyone will agree with me however.  Cowboys and Aliens is going to be very polarizing for a lot of people.  Upon leaving this movie, I can say with confidence that you'll either love it or hate it; there will be no one left in between.  But there will be some haters that get converted to believers by exciting action, great performances, and even some shockingly touching scenes...just like my wife did.  For the rest of them, it's safe to say that if you think a movie titled Cowboys and Aliens sounds stupid and not intriguing in the slightest, you're better off staying home because that's exactly what you get...but hot damn is it fun. Cowboys and Aliens (Rated PG-13) Gavin Grade: A
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Green Lantern

by Gavin , posted Jun 16 2011 10:34PM
Every year I think it's the Summer of the Superhero!  A season where the cinemas are filled with a non-stop avalanche of superhero films.  This year seems to be even worse than last.  But they're cash cows, commanding the box office with the might the main characters possess.  The latest is Green Lantern, which stars Ryan Reynolds in his THIRD attempt at playing a superhero (first was in Blade III, second was in Wolverine).  Luckily, playing pilot Hal Jordan aka Green Lantern is more believable and enjoyable than any of his previous attempts. Reynolds is joined by the stunningly gorgeous Blake Lively (The Town, Gossip Girl), Mark Strong (Sherlock Holmes), Tim Robbins (Shawshank Redemption) and Peter Sarsgaard (An Education, Jarhead).  Stealing the show, by far, is Sarsgaard who plays villain Hector Hammond.  He is downright disturbing as the tortured genius that becomes more and more deformed as the film goes on and his screams of suffering cut right into my nerves like a knife.  He is almost flawless as a villain for a superhero film.  He's just over-the-top enough to be enjoyable but skilled enough to be menacing. The director of Green Lantern is Martin Campbell who has a background in several James Bond films as well as the last Mel Gibson action film, Edge of Darkness.  You can imagine that Green Lantern is quite a departure for him considering that most of it is very, very heavy in science fiction.  This isn't the realistic superhero film like The Dark Knight or even the realistic fun superhero film like Iron Man.  A lot of the movie takes place in space and there are more aliens in it than all of 2010's alien movies combined.  That doesn't mean it's not good, but it does mean it's not for everyone. I wonder if that's why every critic seems to be taking great pride and joy in crapping all over it.  I'm not afraid to say that Green Lantern is a good film.  I enjoyed it just as much as I enjoyed Thor, maybe even slightly more.  It's bright, colorful and fun.  Sure it has a lousy script with cheesy dialogue that makes us wonder if it was scripted by the scribes of a made-for-TV movie, but overall it delivers. Another area that Green Lantern excels more than I thought it would is in the 3D FX.  A pleasant surprise considering the fact that if you pay over $10 for a single ticket, I want to see some fun 3D surprises.  Thor fell WAY flat in that department but Green Lantern is exciting and even gets you to sit back quickly in your seat from some of the FX. Don't get me wrong...Green Lantern isn't Oscar material or even spectacular filmmaking.  But is it fun?  Yup.  Will it excite you and make you laugh?  Yes.  Will you leave the theater feeling like you got your money's worth?  I did.  Maybe I enjoyed it so much because I had rock bottom expectations for it, but I feel bad there seems to be an unfounded vendetta among critics against Green Lantern. I can only hope that "by Green Lantern's light" it perseveres anyway. Green Lantern (Rated PG-13) Gavin Grade: B
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Super 8

by Gavin , posted Jun 16 2011 10:01PM
I would imagine that working with (under the shadow of) Steven Speilberg is wonderful, intimidating and terrifying all a the same time.  That's what director JJ Abrams (Star Trek, ABC's Lost) did for Super 8 when he asked Steven Speilberg if he'd like to produce the film.  I couldn't be happier that he did that however it came at a cost. Possibly one of the most exciting movies of the summer, Super 8 is a nostalgic sci-fi thriller about how a group of kids in Ohio deal with a mysterious creature that is freed in their town when a train crashes.  Super simple story, but it's the way it was executed that made me so excited. It's not easy to be more than one genre.  You see disasters all the time among the ruins of dramatic-comedies.  Super 8 isn't a dramatic comedy though.  In fact, it chose an even more challenging path for itself that included categories like period piece, coming-of-age, science fiction, action, romance and drama.  Yikes!  That's a handful.  Abrams doesn't pull all of them off well but I give him credit for even trying. It's no spoiler alert that the train crash scene happens right at the end of the first act, but it's how the train scene goes that should drop the jaw of any unjaded theater goer.  I don't care how many bloated 3D pictures you pay for this summer; you won't see a better action sequence than that train crash.  The FX are done so masterfully and is performed so well by the kids that it deserves some sort of achievement award for it.  Perhaps Super 8 will secure itself an Oscar for Sound for that scene alone. The cast is full of no-name talents that you may or may not recognize, such as Kyle Chandler (Friday Night Lights) and Elle Fanning (Dakota's sister).  The banter between the children though are one of the most enjoyable things about the film.  It reminds me of movies like Stand By Me, The Goonies or (the extremely underrated '80s film) The Explorers.  It's a time portal back to what it was like to be 13-years-old and in the throws of summer in a small town.  Your first love.  Your projects you would attempt with friends.  Even feelings of late summer sunsets that seemed to last forever and go on for light years are gorgeously captured in the film.  Oh yeah, and there's a blood-thirsty alien too!  Ha! It's easy to forget that Super 8 is an exciting sci-fi movie too while watching it.  The downside of the film comes from just that mix up though; it tries to accomplish too much.  Super 8 spreads itself a tad too thin and some of the more dramatic scenes fall flat and feel forced because they're not given time to develop.  Pitty when you consider that Super 8 is good enough to warrent a three hour film and that would have given it the time it needed to breath. Although the movie stinks of Speilberg and comes a little too close to E.T. for me to fall in love with it head-over-heels, Super 8 is still one of the best Summer movies so far and makes me look forward to the next Abrams/Speilberg collaboration with sweaty palms! Super 8 (Rated PG-13) Gavin Grade: A-
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Source Code

by Gavin , posted Mar 31 2011 4:18PM
It's no secret that I'm vocal in my hatred of the spawn of celebrities getting into the film industry.  It just seems as if they don't earn the celebrity that they have.  But every once in a while there's one that comes along that is counter to my labels of "talentless and lucky" and an example of that is director Duncan Jones. Jones is the son of singer David Bowe and really impressed me with his last movie Moon.  It was a one-man show that featured Sam Rockwell putting in the last two weeks of a three year contract mining minerals by himself on the moon.  It was a sci-fi headtrip that was tense, sad and tragic.  What was amazing though was that it was science fiction for people who don't really like science fiction.  That's not an easy task to pull off, especially to do it well. For his follow-up film he chose to do exactly that again and surpassed it in scope and story.  This time, Jake Gyllenhaal is an Air Force pilot who wakes up to find himself in a secret military operation that involves reliving the same 8 minutes before a terrorist attack in Chicago in the body of someone else over and over again in an attempt to try and catch the killer.  Can you wrap your brain around that?! But what's most interesting to me is that he opens it up to be more than just a mindless action movie that, frankly, anyone from Bruce Willis to Jet Li could have pulled off.  By the end of the film Jones has shifted the thesis of the movie to one of morality, forgiveness and hope.  He also has the timeless theme of government overstepping their limit and stripping away rights for what they consider to be for the greater good.  Think of it kind of like Groundhog Day but with an exploding train.  Each time Gyllenhaal has to go back to solve a little more of the mystery, the story unfolds into more and more mystery. What's really cool because what you think would be the exciting parts of the film, such as finding the bomb and finding the terrorist, pale in comparison to the real mystery of how The Source Code works and how he got in it.  The only disappointment is that the scenes that do involve locating the bomb and confronting the terrorist are not executed as well as they should be.  They lack a pulse and seem almost rushed with cheesy dialogue and luke warm performances.  But when you make it to the end of the film and then look back on it, those scenes really aren't the point of the film.  It's not an action movie.  Source Code is science fiction drama that happens to have some cool explosions and jumps from a speeding train.  The originality of the script, written by Ben Ripley, is what drives this movie to the level of awesomeness it gets.  The twists and turns that shock and sadden are genuine and unpredictable, which seem to be the trend in Jones' movies.  Makes me look forward to his next film with heavy anticipation. The Source Code (Rated PG-13) Gavin Grade: A-
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Battle: Los Angeles

by Gavin , posted Mar 10 2011 10:14PM
Imagine a perfect movie hybrid where every cliche you ever saw in a war film and every cliche you ever saw in a disaster film were combined into one super movie that contained them all.  That movie would be called Battle: Los Angeles. I wondered when the awesome trailer came out for this movie, why they were releasing in the winter wasteland, where studios dump their bad movies and not in the summer when these types of big budget blockbusters are seen.  The answer is because the winter wasteland is where it belongs. Battle: Los Angeles is essentially what Black Hawk Down or Saving Private Ryan would be like if they were moderately entertaining alien movies.  Los Angeles is just one of the many cities these aliens have invaded in an attempt to take over the world.  Aaron Eckhart (The Dark Knight, Rabbit Hole) is the leader of a platoon of marines sent into Santa Monica to find civilians and get them out.  He's joined by pop star Ne-Yo and Michelle Rodriguez (Avatar, Machete) , and they shoot and blast their way through the city to safety. It's as simple as a story can be and I mean that in the strictest sense of the word.  It's written with such military precision because screenwriter Christopher Bertolini (The General's Daughter) used to be a marine.  However his experiences and attention to detail on accurate military jargon has made him overlook what makes a movie compelling...feeling.  You feel nothing for these characters.  And the scenes that do make an attempt to tug at your heartstrings are so melodramatic and silly that day time soap operas wouldn't air them. However, director Jonathan Liebesman (Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning, Darkness Falls) does his best to give the movie a feeling of integrity despite the silly script.  Practically the entire film is shot with handheld cameras and gives it a very "on-the-ground" feel.  At first the sets seem really fake and a total Universal Studio's Backlot Tour but they do get more incredible as the film builds to the climax. But, for me, the choice of aliens was a huge mistake.  They are more mechanical than organic and that doesn't make me feel like they're as much of a threat or real for that matter.  Last year's District 9 proved that even the silliest looking aliens could still show menace and emotion by being more organic.  Battle: Los Angeles made me feel like they were fighting robots or terminators or something and never once did I buy into the fiction. Battle: Los Angeles is shot in a way that makes it seem a lot more exciting than it really is.  There are no thrills in it because the story didn't have any.  But the cinematography makes it appear suspenseful and dangerous.  Just make sure you avoid this film if  you get motion sickness...or if you don't want to waste your money. Battle: Los Angeles (Rated PG-13) Gavin Grade: C-
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Tron: Legacy

by Gavin , posted Dec 15 2010 5:53PM
I often have said to friends, "If I could buy stock in a movie, I'd be rich."  That's in reference to me being able to sniff out a hit film before it comes out.  Never in a million years would I have expected that Disney would get all these people whipped into a frenzy over a sequel to an obscure 1982 movie that even they forgot about and abandoned.  As I went into the theater, there were some people who were there with their kids who were super pumped for the film to begin but didn't even KNOW it was a sequel.  Okay, so maybe Tron: Legacy is one of those sequels where you don't have to see the first one to really get into the second, just like Wall Street 2 was earlier this year.  Nope, that's not the case at all.  Not only does Tron not care if you saw the first one or even remember how it ended, they created a new story of what's happened since the end of the first and quickly recap at the opening of the film.  Not all has been happy in Tron land and Kevin Flynn's son, who's played by Garrett Hedlund (Friday Night Lights, Four Brothers) is sent there to finally rescue his trapped father.  Think of it as a mix between the sequel to Wizard of Oz, Return to Oz, and The Matrix.  Everything you may or may not remember about the first one is a little different.  The self-important religious and philosophical overtones in the script are as obvious as can be.  However, a script was never what made Tron the minor success it was...it was the special effects, and brother there are plenty to go around this time too.  In fact, what you loved about the first one only gets bigger and badder for Legacy.  The Light Cycles are more amazing and realistic and the Disc Fights are faster and more intense.  I'm still shocked this movie got a PG rating from the MPAA and not a PG-13.  Even if your little kids can handle the violence, they'll be bored by not knowing what the hell is going on.  What's the most fun to watch is Oscar-winner Jeff Bridges pull double duty and play himself in current times as the zen Creator, Flynn, and the Bridges of 1982 who didn't age and is the bad guy, CLU.  Bridges is so much fun to watch in anything and that doesn't change here, although the technology that makes CLU ageless from 1982 is subpar at times and even jaunting to look at.  Another scene stealer is the fabulous Michael Sheen (Frost/Nixon, The Twilight series) who isn't in the film long, but makes the most of it with every ticking second.  I was actually amazed that Disney trusted the new launch of this potential franchise to a new director, Joseph Kosinski.  He actually does a really good job at keeping the imagery from the original intact but taking up several levels though.  That's not an easy task; to preserve the integrity of what made fanboys fall in love with it at first but also bring it into the 21st Century too seems full of pitfalls.  Another notable feature of the film is the soundtrack that combines the classic score by Hans Zimmer and French freaky techno group, Daft Punk.  It's amazing!  However, the choice to put Daft Punk in the movie and then show them over and over again is awful.  I think it's funny when there are musical cameos like that in movies, but after one quick shot, we get it; you don't need to bash us over the head with it.  The more you do it, the worse it is.  Overall I liked Tron: Legacy but I don't expect many people too.  I was a fan of the first but I haven't seen it in a decade and I was lost through half of it.  The action takes a backseat for a meaningless script that takes itself too seriously but Jeff Bridges owning it is enough to make you wait patiently for the action again. Tron: Legacy  (Rated PG) Gavin Grade: B
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Repo Men

by Gavin , posted Mar 18 2010 7:33PM
When you hear that there's a film out starring celebrated British actor, Jude Law (Cold Mountain), who just got done playing Hamlet on Broadway, and Forest Whitaker (Panic Room), who has been nominated for Oscars, you'd think that Repo Men is going to be Academy Award-winning quality but it's WAY not.  Repo Men is a horror/sci-fi/action film that takes place in the near future and centers around two guys who work for a company repossessing property.  Sounds boring, right?  But what if I told you that property was your organs?!?!  And that premise not farfetched at all.  The film preys on many timely buzz topics that make it stand out in the genre.  Corporations now will repossess your cars and house if you can't make payments regardless of the outcome it has on you and your family.  So why is it that hard to believe that in the future the government expands that same crippling insensitive business decision to synthetic organs that you purchase for tons of money at super high interest rates that you can't afford?  Not only does the movie parallel that theme, but it also deals with the self-absorbed obsession we have with plastic surgery and also class divisions too.  Oh yeah, and did I mention that it's got action, blood and humor too?  First time director Miguel Sapochinik does a great job with the tone of the film and not letting it get too dark and too serious.  The banter between Law and Whitaker is mostly sincere and jovial when they're not trying to kill each other with knives - the weapon of choice for this film.  The downside to Repo Men is a completely idiotic subplot that involves Law's character going through a divorce and falling in love and saving the life of a totally random character he meets in the slums, played by Alice Braga (I Am Legend).  This is 99% of what the whole second act is about and it's so boring and horrible that the film almost falls apart completely because of it.  Thank God the movie is almost two hours long because it gives it the time it needed at the end to recover from such a saggy midsection.  In fact the climax of the movie is so intense that most of the theater at my screening was wincing and groaning at what they saw.  There is more brutal violence in this movie than in most of the horror films that have come out in the last few years.  This movie is rated R for a reason!  If surgery-type violence gives you the heebie-jeebies then avoid this film like the plague!  But if you're stomach is strong enough to handle such stuff, and you kind of miss the sci-fi films that make societal statements about the world that exists outside the theater, than you won't be disappointed with Repo Men.  Just try your hardest to make it through the swamp of awful that is the middle of the film. Repo Men (Rated R) Gavin Grade: B Click here if you'd like passes to the screening for Hot Tub Time Machine
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Surrogates

by Gavin , posted Sep 24 2009 9:23PM
There's no other movie star out there that looks better all beat up than Bruce Willis.  I think every movie he's ever been in, he's beat to hell by the end of it and still looks great.  Unfortunately for this movie, that might be the highlight of the film.  (That and seeing how fat the guy (Devin Ratray) who played Buzz in "Home Alone" has gotten.  He plays a long, haired FBI surveillance guy in "Surrogates.")  The story centers around humans using surrogate robots that go out in any form you want and live your life for you while you stay at home controlling them.  The problem with that is everyone uses absolutely gorgeous models for their robots, which means they needed a cast of absolutely gorgeous people, which also means you now have a cast of good looking people who can't act.  Even the performances from such veterans as Ving Rhames ("Pulp Fiction," "Dawn of the Dead") and James Cromwell ("W," "i-Robot") were terrible.  But I've seen bad action movies before that had awful stories and cheesy dialogue that starred Bruce Willis, but the man always seemed to make it work.  But his apathetic meandering through this movie made it stink so bad, I'm pretty sure he only did it for the paycheck.  Even the special effects weren't that great.  If you're a sci-fi movie that deals with robots and action you gotta make sure you hit the nail on the head.  Some of the action sequences (which were few and far between) looked like they were made on a teenager's iMac for a YouTube video.  The story was fine and was really the only saving grace, but the movie deserves none of that credit since it was based on a graphic novel.  The script was written by the team responsible for the last two Terminator movies and "Catwoman."  Ugh!  Who keeps giving these guys jobs?  However I was shocked to learn that they also wrote the David Fincher classic "The Game," so maybe that's why.  Hollywood's hoping for that level of genius again.  But this sure as hell wasn't it.  There was zero character motivation and drama that was shoehorned in with embarrassing results.  Leading all the way to the climax of the film which is so visually hilarious that those people left in the theater (yes, people were walking out) were cracking up, which was really not the intention of the scene.  Sadly you'd think that someone working on the film would've understood the story and applied the message to the movie itself.  No matter how shiny, beautiful and well-packaged something is, it doesn't mean there's a soul or substance behind it. Surrogates (Rated PG-13) Gavin Grade: D
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District 9

by Gavin , posted Aug 14 2009 10:02PM
Hey creators of "Transformers 2," I hope you pay attention to this movie and learn a thing or two from it.  It was an independent film, produced by Peter Jackson (Lord of the Rings trilogy) for only $20 million and it's absolutely superb!!!  It's rare that I will beg people to go see a movie because I get the impression that that's annoying.  The last movie that I begged people to go see was "The Dark Knight."  "District 9" is just as good, if not better, and I'm BEGGING you to go see it.  If South African director Neill Blomkamp came to me years ago and said that he wanted to make a science fiction movie that was about aliens coming to Earth that was loaded with thrilling action, achingly-real emotion, comedy in the right places AND have it be a powerful and important statement about human rights and apartheid, I would've said it will never even be made, let alone be any good.  It just sounds too ambitious.  He pulled it off though...big time!  However, this movie is not for the squeamish.  The violence is stylized but it's plentiful and graphic, yet creative.  See, the movie begins and ends as a mock-documentary as to set up the backstory.  Then it seamlessly changes into a regular movie without ever feeling like a separate film.  But added touches such as hand-held camera shots and blood splattered on the camera lens helps remind you that this could still be documentary footage and adds to the realism.  That's crucial to get the point across that even though this is about aliens, humans are treated like this in refugee camps every day.  The special effects are amazingly lifelike considering the film's modest budget.  My guess is that Blomkamp learned some tricks from the FX King, Jackson.  Also adding to the realism is that there are no Hollywood sets involved and the entire film was shot where the story takes place in Johannesburg, South Africa with all South African actors.  The star of those actors is a man named Sharlto Copley.  Learn that name because he's gonna be a star.  The man seems to know how to make you laugh, cry, cheer and wince in under two hours.  I really don't have one bad thing to say about this film.  I don't think we'll be seeing it up for any Oscars because the Academy can't seem to bring itself to nominating a movie that has a CGI alien as a co-star.  But if enough people see it and start talking about it, it just might get the credit it deserves.  So please go see it...I'm begging you. District 9 (Rated R) Gavin Grade: A+
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Moon

by Gavin , posted Jul 5 2009 9:45AM
The trailer for this movie was haunting, creepy, confusing and I loved it!  I wanted to see what it was about in the worst way.  However, seeing the trailer and going into this movie with a preconceived notion of what it was about made me like it a little less though.  Sam Rockwell is not only the lead in this movie, he's the ONLY one in this movie.  There are some recorded images here and there from other actors and an eerie performance by Kevin Spacey as the voice of GERTY the robot.  If you have no idea what this movie is about, you're better off.  But since I mentioned that it stars only one person and there's a robot in it, I should say that it's a Sci-Fi movie about one man living on the Moon for 3 years working for a company that harvests clean energy for Earth.  That's covered in the first 30 seconds of the film and that's all you get from me.  To explain this movie in any fashion is a disservice to anyone who hasn't seen it.  What makes it so good is the unraveling of the story.  The other aspect of what makes the movie so good is Rockwell.  I've seen him in so many movies that range from utterly hilarious (The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy) to disturbing psycho horror (Joshua) to heartbreaking drama (Choke).  He's truly an underrated renaissance man of the acting world.  So if you're going to make a movie that only has one actor in it, he better be amazing...which is just another way of saying he better be Sam Rockwell.  I want to tell you why he's so great in this but that would blow part of the story.  But what I can say is how new director Duncan Jones chose to make this film was part of why Rockwell looked so good.  Jones (who's David Bowie's son) gives us a dirty vision of a world that doesn't need to sit in a certain year or placate to the lowest common denominator-of-viewers.  The movie echoes "2001" and other sci-fi movies that also try to make a statement.  It's deep.  It's complicated.  It's confusing.  It's creepy.  It's everything that I hoped it would've been except for what it was about.  But I wasn't disappointed by it at all.  It just took me to a different place than I thought I was going too, which (without saying too much) is a good way to sum this movie up. Moon (Rated R) Gavin Grade: A-
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