Cavalcade of Awesome

Steph was gone this past weekend so I made it my goal to watch as many movies as I can fit into like 3 days.  And not just any movies, I watched typical “guy” stuff that no self-respecting “lady” would ever sit down and voluntarily watch.  For you guys, I’ll do a quick review on 7 of the movies that I watched for the first time this weekend.  This doesn’t include Star Trek II and Star Trek III which I rewatched on Saturday and Sunday.  I also watched the first four episodes of 24:  Season 7. So, with my butt cramping from sitting on my sectional for 3 days, here are the reveiws of what I watched in my 72 hour Man-athon.

Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen (2009) — Let’s start out with the biggest movie I saw this weekend, Giant F***ing Robots 2:  Megan Fox is Super Hot.  Wait, I mean, Transformers 2:  Revenge of the Fallen.  The title is irrelevant.  To illustrate this, I created the poster above because I thought it more honestly reflected the flat-out AWESOME-ness that is contained in this movie.  For weeks I’ve read how horrible this movie is.  The internet is lambasting it as terrible, and I was prepared to HATE it when I walked out of the theater.  The only reason I saw it was to make fun of it. However, despite the movie’s problems, it is fun to watch and delivers on the “giant robots battling” action.  Don’t get me wrong, there are plot holes large enough to drive a transforming truck through, but the shiny, battling robots and Megan Fox’s partial nudity is well worth it.  I hear you asking, “What type of plot holes, Pax?”  Well, apparently, certain Transformers can teleport.  “Wait, wha-?!”  Yes, Jetfire, who can transform into one of the fastest planes ever created, the SR-71 “Blackbird”, can instantaneously teleport.  Actually, so can The Fallen, who transforms into a spaceship. Why would they ever transform in order to travel?  Why not just always teleport there? Why walk to work when you can drive, you know what I’m sayin’? Doesn’t make sense. There’s also something else that was surprising.  The Twins; Mudflap and Skids.  There’s been a lot of controversy over these guys because they are perceived as being “racially insensitive” caricatures.  Are they racially offensive?  I can see the argument of them being racially offensive.  I know they were put in there for younger audience members to identify with, but damn. They were also considered comic relief, which this movie has a lot of.  It seemed this whole movie was funnier than the first one. Lots of action, lots of funny. Don’t think too hard about the problems.  Like teleporting robots or why they couldn’t use the metal shard to revive Optimus Prime like they did Megatron or why Bumblebee still can’t speak despite the fact he could at the end of the first movie. It’s all just too much to worry about when you have giant f***ing robots beating the crap out of each other in the desert. 3.5/5

Dune (1984) — Okay, as awesomely action filled as Transformers 2 was, this movie is that amount of awful.  Like horrendous on multiple levels.  If you’ve read the original Frank Herbert novel, then this movie will be offensive based on the MANY ridiculous changes David Lynch made to the novel’s story (Weirding Modules?!  Hawat has to milk a hairless cat for the antidote to the residual poison in his body?!  The Mentats’ hilariously long eyebrows?!  Paul magically makes it rain on Arrakis?!).  If you haven’t read the novel, then this is just an insanely boring movie with a half naked Sting staring at you for 30 minutes.  WTF happened between Herbert’s novel and this movie?  I read the book a few months ago and while it was a dense read, it was worth it.  The characters and events are richly textured and the world Herbert creates is fantastic.  Lynch should be f’n ashamed of himself and never been allowed to make another movie after this was released.  True, this book would be hard for anyone to make, but DAMN, Lynch, WTF?!  My eyes have actively declared war on me for making them watch this abomination.  If you are having trouble sleeping and haven’t read the book, watch this movie, you’ll be out like a light in 10 minutes, I promise.  If you have read the book, pretend this movie doesn’t exist.  For now until I die, this movie is dead to me.  I would give it a 0 but it was so bad it almost became entertaining in the same way watching a horrendous car wreck is entertaining. 1/5

24: Redemption (2008) — This is the two hour movie that was a prequel to 24’s Season 7.  I didn’t actually watch Season 7 this year so I’m preparing to catch it now that it’s out on DVD.  24, for me, works best marathoning it on DVD.  The tension between episodes is better kept when you can watch 4 shows in a row rather than waiting a week between each one. And as a prequel movie, this rocked.  Great action and a great setup for Season 7.  Jack is moving from country to country trying to stay ahead of the American gov’t who’s trying to bring him back to the States to make him answer for all of the things like torture and aggresive interrogation he’s done to suspected terrorists (nevermind he saved the US from not one, but TWO f’n nuclear bombs.  Whut Up, America?!) .  This time, Jack must save a village of children in Africa from a military warlord looking to make them soldiers in his army.  I love Sutherland as Jack Bauer and this totally got me hyped for Season 7, which I started watching on Sunday night.  And it’s awesome, so far.  Love these characters, love this show. 3.5/5

Punisher: War Zone (2008) — I enjoyed the first Punisher movie a few years ago with Thomas Jane. This one, while a COMPLETELY different movie in every way, was just as good, I guess. Punisher is a tough character to film. Every filmmaker wants to remove the iconic skull image from Punisher’s chest because it’s too “comic book-y”, but without it, all you have is your typical vigilante special forces guy against the bad guys. Maybe Punisher should stay in the comics. I wouldn’t be upset if no more Punisher movies were made.  And can we talk about Dominic West’s portrayal of the villain, Jigsaw?  OMFGWTF?! That was the worst characterization of a villain in a super hero movie I’ve seen since Tommy Lee Jones chewed up scenery in Batman Forever. He was so grating to watch I almost stopped the movie. If you ask me, they should have dumped West as Jigsaw and promoted Doug Hutchinson, who played Jigsaw’s brother, to the major villain. The crazy brother was a better Jigsaw than the main Jigsaw. Other than that, the action is fun and several times I found myself crying out, “Holy crap! That was pretty cool!”  3/5

Friday the 13th (2009) — Friday the 13th is my favorite “serial killer” movie series.  I like Jason better than Freddy, Michael Myers or Jigsaw (from the movie Saw).  Needless to say, I was interested to see how they would update Mr Vorhees in this “reboot” of the iconic horror franchise.  The characterization of Jason is handled very well.  You actually see his lair.  You see him stalking and protecting his turf.  He’s more reacting to the teens invading what Jason sees as his “home”, the abandoned Camp Crystal Lake, than punishing the teens for their transgressions.  And there’s a good amount of sex and boobies.  It’s what you would imagine a 2009 version of the first three F13 movies would be.  The acting isn’t great, but the action is.  Worth a look if you like these types of horror movies.  I like it better than the “horror porn” of recent movies like Saw and Hostel.  3/5

The Spirit (2008) — It’s bizarre, folks. There’s a scene where The Octopus (Sam Jackson) is standing on a dock firing at San Serif (Eva Mendez) underwater.  He must pump 200 rounds into the water and doesn’t even graze her.  Seriously, the movie cuts between San Serif underwater and The Octopus shooting his guns for what feels like 30 minutes.There’s another scene just after this between The Spirit and The Octopus that culminates in what feels like a 20 minute fight scene where The Octopus ends up hitting The Spirit over the head with a discarded toilet. An entire toilet. Then he laughs the laugh of a 1000 crazy people. I can’t make heads or tails of this movie.  BIZARRE.  I can’t tell if the movie is joking or if they are serious.  Is it The Shadow, or is it The Dark Knight?  And The Spirit’s awkward love affair with “his city” is a little creepy.  The Spirit and “his city” need to get a room.  It’s still better than Dune, though.  1.5/5

Doomsday (2008) — I don’t know what I really expected going into this movie, but it was different than I was expecting. Very similar to Road Warrior, it has a fairly interesting premise where most of Scotland falls to a deadly virus called Reaper and England builds a wall around the infected area and leaves everyone to die. Years later, the Reaper virus appears outside the walls and the gov’t has to send a team back in to find an antidote. That actually sounds like more plot than there really is in this movie. Lots of action, lots of post apocalyptic survivors that look like they wandered away from a Ramones concert. Rhona Mitra is still hot, Bob Hoskins is hilarious. The ending is weird, though.  Part Road Warrior, part Johnny Mneumonic (but in a good way, I guess).  3/5

This entry was posted on July 13, 2009 at 4:21 pm and is filed under movies, reviews, Transformers with tags Movie Manathon, movies, reviews, Transformers. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.