This is the End

This is the End written and directed by Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg, starring Seth Rogen, Jay Baruchel, James Franco, Jonah Hill, Danny McBride, Craig Robinson, and Emma Watson.

There isn't much to say about this movie...but I'll just say I enjoyed it as the comedy it was and had a good time watching it.

This movie doesn't have much of a storyline but instead relies on the charisma of the actors playing themselves in this apocalyptic movie and for the most part this movie wholly succeeds.  I found it funny as all of the actors weren't shy about poking fun at themselves and didn't hold anything back.  By doing this they really helped to connect with the audience as they presented themselves with good moments followed by moments of them being jerks.  This helped to humanize them as they didn't put on Gwenth Paltrow airs, but made themselves be real people with real problems despite the fact they get paid large amounts of money for really doing nothing that adds much to society - which they even comment on in the movie. 

It is an odd movie because like I said above there isn't much of a storyline as the movie relies a lot on viewer's knowledge of the actors, the inside jokes that happens between them, and the viewer's knowledge or preconceived views of the actors.   Danny McBride being a prime example of this as he plays upon his persona as viewed through movies, which isn't a good a one, but he completely plays it up and interjects some much needed masculine energy into the movie when he shows up.  Every actor plays themselves in this movie and the first act of the movie is an Easter egg bonanza of movie knowledge, movie references, and movie inside jokes.  I've got to say it was pretty funny.  Emma Watson does a good job blowing up her sweet nature role in Harry Potter as she swears up a storm...though in a justified way so as not to completely ruin her persona.  That is one of the best thing about this movie how the actors don't shy away from poking fun at themselves, which is refreshing to see as they didn't take themselves too seriously.  This is something Tom Cruise has had a hard time doing in his movies as he always seems to portray himself a bad ass with all kinds of women in the movie falling themselves over to get to him.  Even when we get actors or actresses downplaying themselves: Tome Cruise, Julia Roberts, Gwenth Paltrow, or Tom Hanks there always seem to be a falseness to it that doesn't quite ring true.  But with all the actors in this movie it doesn't feel that way, it honesty feels more genuine.  This is one of the things that I thinks helps to sale the humor in this movie. 

It is also one of the few comedies I've seen in a long time that doesn't let the humor of scenes go on for a long time.  There was only one scene where this happened and it did help to hurt the pace of the movie, but one scene out of the whole movie, isn't that bad.  Other than that This is The End didn't over stay its welcome in the humor department and did its best to put the characters at the forefront of the movie.

The Heat

The Heat directed by Paul Feig, starring Sandra Bullock and Melissa McCarthy.

This is a movie that was going to live or die by the chemistry of the two stars because the premise harkens back to the good old days of the Lethal Weapon series and 48 Hours, only this time the two leads are women instead of men.  I will say this the chemistry between Bullock and McCarthy hold up remarkable well and made this one of funniest movies I've seen in a long time.  Both women do a great job.  Bullock plays the by the book, no rules breaking FBI agent (essentially playing the Murtaugh role) with the likableness that's expected of her.  McCharthy plays the crazy, wild, hard as nails cop (essentially the Riggs role) that's filled with fire.  She really enlightens every scene she's in with the same amount of energy as Mel Gibson brought to his role as Riggs in Lethal Weapon. 

The story line is one told countless times: two polar opposite cops team up, they start out disliking each other but become friends by the end of the movie.  All of that is alright, I don't mind a recycled story line but just give me something to care about with the characters.  The Heat does as it interjects a lot of personality and little depth into the two main characters, believe me this goes a long way into helping these two characters bond.  One of the absolute best things is how they incorporate McCarthy's character's family into the movie because it really helps to flesh out her character while adding some side splitting hilarious scenes.

This movie doesn't rely on over-the-top actions instead most of the movie reminded me of 48 Hours which also relied on the chemistry between Nolte and Murphy, not explosions and fight scenes.  The Heat is all the better for doing that, as it really creates two characters for the audience to care about and root for while the movie moves along.  Most of the comedy in this movie is not over played but is paced just right never letting things go for a long time but staying focused on the characters and the story line.  None of the scenes seemed added just for adding the scene just to be funny but they all were connected with the character or story line in some way xx, so they were funny but were important to what was going on.  This has become a hard thing to balance in a lot of comedies now-a-days, as the improvisations of comedians seem to outweigh storytelling and character.  There are a lot of comedies where ad-libbing makes scenes, pacing, and the movie seem longer than they need to be and really disrupt things.  This hurts they over all the product being sold.  The Heat is the polar opposite of this and it was refreshing to see a movie that made me care about the characters and not only care about them but want to spend more time with them because there is going to be a sequel.  Much like the Lethal Weapon movies the story lines became secondary as it was fun watching the characters and their family grow throughout that series.  I can this series doing the same thing if they stay focused on the characters and let them grown throughout the series and I for one would welcome that.  It would be fun to watch.

Planes

Planes by Disney not Pixar.

There's not much to say about this movie other than if you liked Cars you will like this movie.  It's cut from the same mold but didn't have near the depth of Cars's storyline.  Cars is one movie, at least for me, that got better the more I saw it and with kids you end up seeing these kinds of movies over and over and over.  I don't think Planes will have that sustaining power of Cars but in the end it was entertaining.  It didn't try anything new and basically had the follow your heart type of storyline that seems to be at the heart of most kids movie.  So if you're looking for a good time with the family, you can't really go wrong with this movie.

Munich

Munich directed by Steven Spielberg, starring Eric Bana, Geffory Rush, Daniel Craig, and Ciaran Hinds.

The storyline of Munich is historically based on the Black September massacre of Israeli people during the 1972 Olympics, the Israeli assassins who track down the terrorists and kill them.

This is an easy movie to summon up: it's a good film trying to be great but is by no means a great film.  I found it entertaining and I believe that can mostly be traced to the actors in this movie who really helped it to be better than sum of its parts.  Bana, Rush, Craig, and Hinds truly help this movie along considering it's directed by Spielberg.  Spielberg's last great movie was Schindler's List, since then everything he's done has been over long, reaching for Oscar glory, or politically motivated.  He needs to get back to just making movies because his passion for movies has drained out of his previous movies leaving them as good movies but no where great.  Munich suffers from this and for the first time in a long time the actors are the ones who rescue a movie.

This movie is polished, extremely polished, from a visual perspective, which doesn't hurt on the eyes as I watched it and only helped to make it entertaining.  Spielberg helped to bring the financing for this movie, I'm sure, so the sets, production, costumes, and visual movement of the camera is a lot better than most movies.  But like most Spielberg movies, post Schindler's List, Munich fails to fully engage the storyline and characters with the viewer as it works out its morality play.  The characters never become more than cliche and just when their about to go beyond their two dimensional character the movie interjects some grandstanding preaching that pulls them back as people, which leaves them nothing more than empty cardboard cut outs.  The movie wants to explore some deeps themes but instead of focusing on characters and letting them move through the story, the movie lets the themes move the characters, which is never a good idea.  Unfortunately this distant connection with the characters never leaves the movie, like I said above only the actors charisma and ability actually bring these characters to life, with no help from the screenplay.  I find that funny because I never wanted to see this movie until I found out the actors who were in it.  Even then I said they will  help to make this a good movie despite how the direction or screenplay turns out.  I knew they would make it a entertaining, and well they did. 

So if you're a fan of Eric Bana, Geffory Rush, Daniel Craig, or Ciaran Hinds, you will enjoy this movie despite the long overlong run time, the sloppy script, disjointed tones, over use of themes versus characters, and feeling of preaching instead of telling a story.  The end result is still a good film trying to be great, instead of just a film trying to be a film and letting the chips fall where they may. 

After Eearth

After Earth directed by M. Night Shyamalan, starring Jaden Smith and Will Smith.

Well I have to admit I wasn't expecting much out of this movie when I watched it considering the output of Shyamalan movies, since his wonderful Sixth Sense, have been some of the worst films I've seen.  I've also got to admit I haven't seen a Shyamalan movie since his disastrous movie Lady in the Water.  So needless to say, this movie's expectation wasn't at all that good.  But I have a soft spot for anything science fiction and will ultimately give it a chance just based on that genre, despite any biased I might have for anything or anyone involved in the film. 

So after saying all of that I've got to admit this movie wasn't bad but it wasn't great either.  It definitely hit the middle ground of entertainment.  It was a mediocre B-film with some great production design and good special effects.  All of this added up to a movie that wasn't boring but wasn't spectacular either, which it should have been, I think. 

The movie gave me enough back story line that I wanted to know more about the type of society the characters lived in now.  I really wanted to know more about everything involved in there military, government, their culture.  I found it interesting as the screenplay gave me enough to chew on but didn't by any means fill me up on that knowledge, which by the end of the movie I was still hungry for more knowledge about their society.  I don't find too many movie able to do that now-a-days. 

This movie kind of played out like an episode of a TV series where the larger part of the storyline was in the background and this part of the TV series was the episode dealing with the crash on the planet and the survival of the main character as he or she learns about themselves based on that survival.  It really felt like a Star Trek episode told on a grander scale with way better special effects but the over all concept was the same. I really liked the science fiction part of this movie.  All of the sci-fi gadgets and concepts were pretty cool and fit into the movie without overburdening every scene with effects. 

This movie also had a humor that balanced out the seriousness of the subject matter, which has been a huge problem for sci-fi in general.  Sci-fi has become so serious and science focused it looses a lot of the humanity that the audience can connect with.  The humor in this movie helped to ground the characters a little more in reality.  This movie also established the characters way better than in sci-fi movies as it gave the audience a lot more to connect with than in normal sci-fi.  By doing this they focused more on the humanity of the characters letting the special effects and grand epic action
 scenes become secondary to the movie.  In this aspect of the movie Shyamalan's presence can be felt and for the first time in a long time, he's made a movie where he's not overshadowing himself but is just telling a story, which he has needed to do for a long time.  He's always been good at making characters and focusing on the human aspect of them but he's always let the story line get away from him as the movie progresses.  This is the one time, in a long time, that hasn't happened.  He's made a movie where the focus isn't on some twist or crazy idea but on the humanity of the characters and how they respond in the situation they're presented with. 

Like I said before this isn't a great movie but it's an entertaining movie and extremely focused on the subject matter, whereas most movies explain everything so much so that the story line gets lost.  Nothing like that happens in this movies, in fact the opposite happens.  If you're in the mood for a good B-movie that not going to tax your mind too much, than you can't go wrong with After Earth.

Europa Report

Europa Report directed by Sebastian Cordero, starring Sharlto Copley and Michael Nyquvist.

These are the kinds of movies I don't like but I went into this movie wanting to see it based on a bunch of reviews I'd read about this film, saying it was good.  This is basically a "found footage" film and it has all the trappings and everything else that goes with that.  I've only seen one "found footage" that was anything worth talking about, Chronicle.  Other than that most of these types of films seem to devoid of any all characters, tend to have little or no real camera angles at all, and tend to leave me wanting a lot more than the sum of all their parts.  Europa Report fits into the this category perfectly. 

I never got to know any of the crew that went on this mission so when they started dying off, I didn't really care because the movie never gave me anything to care for them.  This seems to be the case with most independent/low budget film.  They seem to ride an idea they have and put everything into that idea or they want to push an agenda and ride that agenda or they want to be edgy and arty and push everything into being shocking and pretentious/interpretive.  The end result being they always forget about the characters or story being told, not seeming to realize that the best way to get an idea across to a viewer is to create characters, have the viewer care about them, and then the idea will come across organically instead of feeling forced.

Europa Report isn't trying to be edgy, arty, or push any agenda, instead it just forgets to have an interesting idea and populate the story with some interesting characters.  This movie also falls prey to the scenario of smart people doing really dumb things, that make no sense and when they are doing them the viewer is just left shaking their head in disbelief (see the movie Prometheus for some insane examples of this).  Over all I found this movie boring as it didn't have enough story line to keep me compelled or interested.  The last half hour of this movie, which should have been the engaging part of the movie, I found myself writing some reviews and watching the movie as I did, because I just wasn't interested in what was going on.  Personally if you want to see a better film along the same subject as this film, I'd watch Danny Boyle's Sunshine and even though the third act of that film gets a little crazy, you won't care as much because he makes you invested into the characters, so you care about them and what happens to them. 

Resuce Dawn

Rescue Dawn directed by Werner Herzog, starring Christian Bale, Steve Zahn, and Jeremy Davies.

You kind of know what you're getting into when you watch this movie and that's not a bad thing because when I started watching this movie I expected to watch it over two nights but then I got sucked into the story and watched it all in one night.  It's a POW movie set during the Vietnam war where the POW's escape, so there's not really going to be much else to go on story line wise.  This is definitely a movie that is the polar opposite of The Great Escape but like The Great Escape, Rescue Dawn is also based on a true story and that is about where the similarities end.

Where as The Great Escape had a huge ensemble cast, Rescue Dawn focuses on one character.

Where as The Great Escape was a more fun movie to watch, Rescue Dawn is more brutal and realistic. 

Where as The Great Escape is more epic in nature, Rescue Dawn is more intimate and on a smaller scale.

The one thing I didn't expect from this movie was the violence, brutality, and realism depicted but all of that really helped to create a world that sucked me into and sympathize with the main character.  Herzog does a great job of creating the world Dieter Dengler found himself thrown into and then had to will himself to survive.  His direction helps to drive the narrative home without being flashy or over-the-top, but is subtle without relying solely on visuals and interpretation to drive home the story line (I'm talking to you Terrance Malick).  He's a great communicator of story and character and never once did I feel lost at to what was going on and the only time did was when it fit into the story line as the main character Dengler was also lost as to what was going on.  His direction of the jungle when Dengler escapes was vivid, entangling, as well as being lush, beautiful, and full of color.  This just added to the savagery and force of the nature surrounding Dengler.

Ultimately though this seems like another movie for Christian Bale to showcase, not just what a good actor he is, but to what lengths he will go through (physically) for a part see: The Machinist, The Fighter, The Batman trilogy, or American Psycho.  I really wonder how his body is going to hold up over time and he continues to fluctuate between thin and muscular with an ease that is startling and scary to watch.  He does a great job at his character and wholly brings him to life and the story line doesn't shy away from things that make Dengler kind of jerk, which (in my opinion) adds a lot more weight to the story and character and help to make him feel real. 

Like I said before you know what you're getting into when you watch this movie.  It's a movie about POW's who escape a prison camp but how it's told makes it worth while to watch.