Jaws The Revenge

I'm probably gonna have to fight on trial to retain my critic's licence.

I don't actually hate Jaws The Revenge, I don't think it's that bad a movie, I know this is coming from the guy who said the Star Wars Holiday Special had a few good things going for it and I did enjoy those bits but just bear with me. Now, does that mean everything works and is good? No. We're already off to a great start when the writer of this film didn't watch a single movie past the first one, and I could possibly argue this movie is a sort of Halloween 20 Years Later where the sequels are ignored and it's just the first and last movie that count. I'm not. You wanna define lazy writing? Try being a writer that did not brush up on previous info specifically for a sequel. And yet, while the actual shark aspect of this movie is in severe what the hell territory, the rest is pretty good! So Sean is now a police officer in Amity, so much for hating water one movie ago, and he gets offed by the shark in the first maybe 10 minutes of film. You know, that cute sweet boy from the first movie who mimicked his dad at the dinner table? Horribly eaten alive. Yeah, I didn't like it either. So Ellen Brody is just devastated beyond words, and Lorraine Gary who came out of retirement for this movie f***ing acts her goddamn heart out in this movie! I am real with you man, if this movie cut out the shark and replaced it with just her son being murdered and she's trying to get past it and find some solace in her life I would watch the hell out of that! The gloves are off and she knocks it clean out of the park! So Michael gets Ellen to visit in the Bahamas where he lives and she meets a pilot by the endearing name of Hoagie played by Michael Cane and a romance blossoms in a natural and rather sweet way. But it can't all be romance and beautiful weather, and the shark trails her from Massachusetts to the Bahamas (...okay) to hunt her and the family there. I...I got nothing, I mean it's already beyond ludicrous but then they compound it even further where I swear they give Ellen some mind link/ESP/force connection to this fish, so everytime the shark strikes she stops dead in her tracks like she knows. Now, I am no screenwriter, I don't write stories or movies, but I'm just saying. What the hell. It's not the bestest of things when I say, oh Jaws 4 isn't that bad when the shark isn't on screen. Maybe that's just me enjoying these characters and Jaws 3 just failed to appease me, but it is the best parts of the movie. You got Lorraine Gary, Michael Caine, Halloween 2 and The Last Starfighter lead Lance Guest, even Mario Van Peebles are just solid actors and have fun with the roles but commit to it fully. I think they are just fun to watch and easy to get invested in. For a movie clocking in at 90 minutes, it friggin' flies by which I'm sure for most people is a blessing, but it felt like I put the movie on 15 minutes ago and the movie was halfway over so it obviously keeps the pace just right. The body count is pathetic, they still got blood in there though so small victories where you can get them, the shark is the worst it has looked yet I do appreciate how much you see it from head to tail and they don't hide the animatronic parts though it is still obviously a motorized puppet. The scenic landscapes of the Bahamas played by special guest star Hawaii, are really nice and I find it interesting the movie takes place around Christmas but you'd never know. Christ, maybe I need to get my ass down to the Bahamas come December, not a tree or light in sight. It's better than 3, but that's about it. Hell the fact I didn't end this week sucking down daiquris and mixed drinks, hating Universal for money grabbing tactics, and just being in a foul mood is good enough for me. 2.5 stars, 5.5/10, and next week if all goes well I got a trilogy for you but not at all from where you would expect.

The Dark Knight

And...here we go!

What can I say? The Dark Knight is not just an amazing superhero movie but also an amazing movie in general. I saw it not once, not twice, but 3 times in theaters and surprise! I love it. The story is great, picking up about a year after Batman Begins with Bats facing off with The Joker for the first time and subsequently brought to his breaking point. Now let's just get this out of the way, Heath Ledger is outstanding and far worthy for his Academy Award. I mean, I thought Jack Nicholson was pitch perfect, ha ha ha ho hee ha ha and I thought my jokes were bad. Heath blows Jack out of the water, and that a stiff fraking order! Top Jack Nicholson as The Joker! Almost an impossible feat but he did it!! Don't know how, don't even care, cause I love him. Now moving on, Aaron Eckhart is Harvey Dent and he is great, bringing my absolute favorite Batman villain to the screen, though I do admit I wish I saw more of him, quite like Scarecrow in the previous movie. Maggie Gyllenhaal as Rachael Dawes......oh lord, I thank you for this good performance and for not having Katie back. Truly you have great wisdom. Thank you! And everybody in supporting cast is still kickass and I love seeing them again as these characters. Now for the more, intricate parts. I thought Chicago looked good in the first movie, I mean it looks absurdly great, it adds much more scale, and depth, and it looks glorious. Action scenes have improved by leaps and bounds, and I am so thankful for that! The dialogue, oh boy the dialogue, it's just as good. Hell in fact, I enjoyed this movie so much more than ever before due to one single scene and the actions of the characters afterwards. Jim Gordon's "death". Wow, I mean you don't buy into it cause, how do you kill Jim? It cannot be done! But really take a step back and look at how people react to it. For all intensive purposes, Jim Gordon is dead. How does Batman take it? He...snaps, almost killing people because he wants The Joker because he killed his friend, his partner in crimefighting. How does Harvey take it? He holds a guy at gunpoint, threatning to blow his brains out all due on a coin toss. Damn. That adds so much more character, and even more when they discover he is alive. That speaks volumes about how they viewed each other. And when it comes down to the wire, and the suspense and drama hit, it packs an explosive punch. Top notch direction, acting, editing, and cinematography in these scenes. The Tumbler, which a lot of people didn't see as a true Batmobile gets demolished and thus we get the Bat Pod, which looks awesome and many people liked more. And now we reach the ending, and so many people complained about, "Why not blame The Joker for all the deaths? Why does Batman have to take the fall?" and well, The Joker is an easy way out. They knew the direction they wanted to go in the next movie, and they set that up. No question about it. That part was essential in the making of the last movie, which of course we will look at to cap the week off. All in all, great movie, need to see it if you haven't already, and soon the legend ends....or does it?

Batman Begins

Well it's birthday week again, so screw it. Let's finish the Batman movies!

The first of The Dark Knight trilogy, how is it after 10 long years? It's a great start, it builds the world it wants, executes an origin story on a more realistic setting, and kickstarted the most acclaimed Batman movies ever made. Do I need to spout off the plot? Well just so I can talk more, absolutely. Bruce Wayne has been missing for several years, training with a mysterious organization known as the League of Shadows, and returns to Gotham City to fight crime and reclaim his city. But the League has a few tricks up it's sleeve, including the first live action potrayal of The Scarecrow, easily one of my top 5 Batman villains played brilliantly by Cillian Murphy who has a helping hand in the destruction of Gotham. I won't give much else away, but believe me when I say it's a great movie. Now onto the cast! Christian Bale on first viewing for me, was nothing special. But as I grew older, and started appreciating the story and the characters more, he does a fine job. As Bruce Wayne, he is cool and unassuming and as the Dark Knight, he is a force to be reckoned with. Supporting cast ranges from perfection to what the flying hell were they thinking. Michael Caine as Alfred? Fan-flipping-tastic! Very difficult to replace Michael Gough, but he puts his all into it. Gary Oldman as Jim Gordon is terrific, well that's pretty much Gary Oldman in general. Morgan Freeman as Lucius Fox? A more unknown character, hell Morgan was an avid reader of the Batman comics and didn't know who he was, but still very likable and entertaining. It's God for crying out loud, how can you say bad things about him? Alright, Liam Neeson as Ra's Al Ghul.....he's not terrible, but didn't really feel like Ra's. Plus I hate how they pronounced his name, I know that's nitpicking but it seriously gets irritating after awhile. He plays the part well but it just felt off, character wise not performance wise. Katie Holmes as Rachael Dawes. Good God, she is bad in this. I'm not bashing on Katie Holmes but she sucks in this. Her character is just so boring! There's no development, no depth, she just acts kinda bitchy and there you go, there's her character! Might as well wrap up the rest of the negatives while I'm at it. The fight scenes are horrendous, they are so closely shot, so fast with motion, it is almost fundamentally impossible to tell what is happening. And that's kind of an important part of a superhero movie, where you know...people fight crime! I don't know what they were thinking but at least they learned. Also, criminal underuse of Scarecrow, Christopher Nolan is a cerebral filmmaker so I expected Scarecrow to be a terrifying force, front and center of the whole film, main villain being awesome. But nope. Cillian Murphy gets to be Scarecrow for maybe five minutes, and he is great! He is awesome! I fully believe this is a guy who experiments on people with fear toxin! Spot on acting sir! And that's about it really. Good stuff as is follows, great story, great retelling of an origin story, good acting, a memorable script, decent effects, using Chicago as a backdrop for Gotham which I am totally cool with even though it's quite obvious Gotham is a gothic caricature of New York City, and for the first installment of a trilogy it does it's job well. Also, side note the reason I fraking LOVE Batman movies is because somehow, I don't know how, the movies keep getting better as time goes on. But not....film wise, kinda. I'll try to explain. You see when you delve into this mythos, these stories, these characters, you notice little details. Call them easter eggs, call them references, whatever but once you know something you can connect it to something else, especially in comic book media. It's like, every adaptation, every retelling, every version of this story compliments everything so much. People hated that Jim Gordon drives the Batmobile in this movie, but recently Jim Gordon actually becomes the Batman in the comics! The whole scheme of destroying Gotham is strikingly, even suspiciously too similar to Arkham Knight with Scarecrow and his plans. It's that sort of references that always make it well worth my time to revisit and watch not just these movies, but all things Batman. I live it, I breathe it.....because I'm Batman!!!

Going In Style

Well I'd say that was worth the wait.

Going In Style is a very good movie, it's a comedy, a heist, and a buddy movie all at the same time. The plot revolves around 3 friends who after working for a steel company for 40 years learns that it's shutting down, and their pensions are being taken away. And that's actually really hard to watch because these things do happen, in this day and age quite often. So they decide screw it, they don't have much to lose, so they decide to rob a bank to provide for them until the end of their days. Casting is great, I mean you got Michael Caine, Morgan Freeman, and Alan Arkin, star studded cast if there was one. Comedy is very good, Christopher Lloyd has a small role and I could not stop laughing when he was on screen, I just wasn't expecting to see him so I got a real kick out of that. All in all, it's a funny movie, you want to see these guys succeed and get to live their life in comfort, and I don't think the ending will disappoint you. Well that's it for today. Next week, I don't know. I'll figure something out. It is my birthday soon.....