(5 People gave this 3.20 out of 5)

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“Let’s just hope the Cooper Clan sticks with the First Amendment, and stays far, far away from the Second Amendment.”

The H-Bomb:  Jarod (Kyle Gallner), Travis (Michael Angarano), and Billy-Ray (Nicolas Braun) are three horny high-schoolers who get more than they bargained for when they show up at Sara’s (Melissa Leo) trailer for an Internet rendezvous.  What they imagined was going to be a wild and crazy night of three-on-one sex turns into a nightmare when they are taken captive by Abin Cooper (Michael Parks), a Fred Phelps-like preacher who shepherds a flock of gay hating Jesus freaks.  Cooper and his congregation used to pull the usual nonsense of protesting at funerals and whatnot, but they’ve been upping the ante as of late by stockpiling assault weapons and executing gays, as well as other perceived moral degenerates, during Cooper’s sermons.

This time, it’s the three teens who are going to be sacrificed on the Pastor’s altar for their deviant, “fornicatin’” ways.  But, without giving too much away, shit goes wrong…  very wrong.  Shots are fired, people are killed, and the ATF, led by John Goodman and Kevin Pollack, are called onto the scene.  The fit hits the shan and everything goes nucking futs when Cooper and his clan barricade themselves inside their walled-in compound, with children and hostages inside, and the feds move into position on the outside, resulting in a Waco-type standoff…  and that’s about as far as I’ll go, plot wise.

“Red State” is writer/director Kevin Smith’s balls out, no-holds-barred indie bounce back from his major studio flop “Cop Out” (a movie I didn’t hate as much as everyone else seemed to).  In a way, it’s almost as if the Jersey born director is apologizing for “Cop Out” by doing the exact opposite of everything he did on that film;  he wrote the script himself, raised the money himself, and even distributed it himself.  It’s most definitely not the kind of film we’ve ever seen from him before.  In fact, you’ll often have to remind yourself that you’re watching a Kevin Smith film, and even then, you’ll have a hard time believing it.

It’s only in the first twenty minutes or so that it even remotely feels like a Smith flick, with the foul mouthed teens talking about sex, sex, and…  more sex.  After that, it shifts into an intense, captive-tied-down type of torture porn, then shifts again into a stand off ‘n siege pic.  It’s not exactly a horror movie, per se, but like many horror flicks, it is dark, violent, and even oppressive, with a mean, pessimistic undercurrent running throughout.  It’s definitely not the kind of movie we would associate with this filmmaker… but he fuckin’ rocks it, nonetheless.

Simply put, “Red State” is, for the most part, fucking awesome.  This, to me, is Smith’s first film since “Dogma” where he really seems to have something on his mind and where he’s really giving it everything he’s got.  Like in “Dogma”, he’s once again saying that the only thing wrong with Christianity are the Christians, and it’s those who twist and pervert scripture to fit their own hateful beliefs who are once again the target of Smith’s satirical lashings.  But they’re not the only ones, as Smith also takes aim at the inept Government Agents and Bureaucrats, more interested in saving face than saving lives.  Even the victims, the kids who do all their thinking with the wrong head, are painted in a rather mocking light, and shown to be the shallow, chauvinistic dimwits that they are.  No one here is let off the hook.

With this movie, Smith shows that not only does he have a dark side, but that he can be funny in a deeper, more clever way, without resorting to his typical “dick ‘n fart” jokes.  The satire doesn’t always work, as there are some characters, like the closeted, bumbling local Sheriff, as well as the two cackling government suits towards the end, who come off as being a bit too cartoonish.  But for the most part, Smith’s lampooning is spot on, and it’s often as funny as it is frightening.

Tone and subject matter aside, “Red State” is also a major aesthetic departure for Smith, as it features a dirty, desaturated, hand-held look, something akin to “The Devil’s Rejects”, which this movie reminded me of in a number of ways, though things never quite get as intense as they did in Rob Zombie’s film.  As far as the acting is concerned, I would say there certainly aren’t any slouches in the lot, though there are two very notable standouts:  Melissa Leo and Michael Parks.

Leo, of course, won a much deserved Oscar for “The Fighter” this past year, and her turn here proves that she’s no one hit wonder.  She plays the easily led Christian zealot Sara with crazy eyed intensity and a cold blooded ferocity, all the while not falling into the trap of making her one note or a caricature.  She may be a complete moon-bat, but she’s also a dedicated family woman who loves her children and her church.  It would have been easy to go overboard into whacko-land with Sara, but Leo made her real instead, and added yet another knockout performance to her resume.

But it’s Parks who deserves the real accolades.  The guy’s always been a solid character actor, but what he gives here is easily a career defining performance.  Smith actually challenged people to name five actors who have given better performances this year.  Well, I’ve actually thought about it, and I can’t even come up with one.  Cooper is a certifiable nut-job of a Pastor, but Parks plays him as being calm, collected, and surprisingly charismatic.  When he goes off on one of his lengthy sermons, I can’t help but be captivated, even though everything he’s spouting is reprehensible, bigoted drivel.  This is a case where the actor maketh the movie, and Parks should win every award that Hollywood gives out this year.

Is there anything to bitch ‘n moan about, aside from the aforementioned cartoonish characters?  Well, I would say this “horror film” does sometimes fall into that horror film trap of having characters do stupid things simply because the plot needs them to; like when one of the captives gets his hands on an assault rifle, yet does not take everyone out, even though he very easily could.  But, this kind of flagrant dumb-assery happens infrequently enough that it can be forgiven.

When all is said and done, “Red State” is an “unlikely film from THAT Kevin Smith” that’s almost excellent.  I think that if the Tarantino/Rodriguez “Grindhouse” experiment had worked out as intended, and spawned an ongoing series, this would have been Smith’s contribution to it.  It doesn’t hurt that his wild script plays out in ways that are as unconventional as they are unpredictable (I defy anyone to guess how it all ends), making “Red State” a unique, curious little pic that not only broadens Smith’s abilities as a director, but also makes for what is easily his best film in over a decade.

(1 People gave this 3.00 out of 5)

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“This isn’t Casper!”

Swift Shot:  I guarantee you at least three screams.  Using that same, what I call, the “Where’s Waldo” effect, where you have to keep looking at seemingly mundane footage and trying to essentially figure out what, if anything, is off, missing, or wasn’t there before.  This was the scariest, and probably most interesting, of the films to date.  And, they left room for even more story-telling.  Somehow this stuff never gets old, and the creators manage to deliver more surprises!  Perhaps the biggest surprise was that Michael Landon’s kid, Christopher B. Landon wrote this thing – and that it was pretty terrifying!!

[Swift note, spoke to Aceman today and asked him if he had seen any of the films, "Yea, and at first I wasn't impressed, nor scared, but then, much later, it was with me, and I couldn't get it out of my head."  I told him, "Well, this one is scary AS you watch it AND it stays with you well after you see it."]

PA3 – as the cool kids are calling it – is set primarily in 1988, in September, where we see old VHS tapes of young Katie having a birthday then things start to go all Paranormal Activity!  Well, it isn’t quite that simple, things need time to develop.  Katie and Kristi are just little munchkins, living with their mother Julie and her boyfriend, Dennis, a struggling wedding videographer.

Julie and Dennis are likable characters, in fact, they reminded me a lot of Micah and Katie from the first Paranormal Activity – their dialogue was genuine, funny and helped the audience connect with them on several levels.  Plus, this was set in the 80′s, so if you are a fan of Family Guy, and few aren’t, you’ll love seeing some old “friends” and 80′s nostalgia nods on screen.  Heck, I want to see the film again just to see how many old toys I recognize.

Kristi is the younger kid, so she is still more apt to have a wild imagination, and she claims to have a friend, Toby that only she can see and hear.  It’s frustrating having this friend, because no one really believes he is real . . . or maybe no one wants to admit he is real.  Dennis is intrigued, and much like Micah, can’t leave well enough alone.  One night when he experiences an incredibly rude (you’ll see what I mean) earthquake, he notices something in reviewing the footage that he has to share with his co-worker and friend, Randy.

Even Randy thinks there is something to this that can’t be explained, and he encourages Dennis to try and record more strange phenomena.  Dennis, like a dumb-ass, does.  He manages to convince Julie to let him place some cameras around the house, and there we have the set-up we all expect with these films.  Because this was a videographer using his own equipment, at home, I was more immersed than the stilted, security camera footage from the previous film.  The second Paranormal Activity was good, but this was so much better!

Do you remember Gramma Lois?  No?  She is in this film, front and center, and while she liked Dennis, she reminds Julie that he has no real job or prospects and is just using her for her money.  It is never made clear what Julie does for a living, if anything, but Gramma Lois supports her daughter’s decision to stay with Dennis.

Using classic horror film elements, like the teeny-bopper babysitter, Lisa, who looked like she was Debbie Gibson’s biggest fan, this film even managed to be clever without being cheesy.  That’s hard to do.  Her scenes contain at least one of your “guaranteed screams”.  Then, Dennis’ friend Randy manages to pull out a classic Halloween game that you should really never toy around with.  In fact, if there are any lessons from the Paranormal Activity films, probably the best lesson is “Don’t meddle with things you don’t understand, nor know how to vanquish!”  Anyone who has ever had a paranormal encounter of their own probably already learned this lesson the hard way!  Randy certainly did!

[I just heard a noise in my closet, and I am fairly certain it wasn't Tom Cruise]

You’ll love this film like a roller-coaster, it will scare you, and at times you will laugh at yourself for being scared, but ultimately . . . scared is what you will be, particularly if you have a keen imagination.

Finally, when the credits roll, you’ll wonder just whom, or what, was watching this footage.  If you paid attention, the answer is eerily obvious.  If you are a fan of the other two films, you needn’t hear from me that you will like this one as well, it delivers to its fan base . . . and then some!  In fact, some people that I knew didn’t care for the other two actually said this one was the best of the three.  I only hope they have at least one, or two, more films to release.  I will be there, assuming I heed the film’s warnings and steer clear of the “intriguing”.  Where did I put that tripod?

(1 People gave this 5.00 out of 5)

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“The people’s champion… sounds good to me.”

The H-Bomb: No, your eyes are not deceiving you. No, that four star rating is not a typo. No, H-Man is not off his meds. I know what you’re thinking, that the story of “Real Steel” sounds an awful lot like “Rocky” remade by Michael Bay (ewwww… shudder), and that the only result that could ever come of that is pure, unadulterated cinematic retardation. Believe me, I was thinking that very same thing beforehand, and normally I would’ve been one hundred percent right. But on this occasion, I was one hundred percent wrong.

Set sometime in the not-too-distant future, “Real Steel” (adapted from a Richard Matheson story) tells the tale of ex-boxer Charlie Kenton (Hugh Jackman), who was forced into retirement when human boxing fell out of popularity long ago, and now gets by going around boxing robots. Basically, the way this works is he controls his robot like a video game while taking on another robot being controlled by someone else. Like in real boxing, there are sanctioned league fights, underground fights, and championships. But, no matter who’s running the fight, they usually end with one robot or the other being destroyed. Whether all this could be construed as a step forward or backwards in human evolution depends on who you ask.

But anyway, after Charlie’s last couple of robots have been smashed into junk, he finds himself down and out, in need of cash and a new bot. This is where fate smiles on Charlie, as ex-girlfriend, with whom he had an eleven year old son, Max (Dakota Goyo), has just died. Max’s wealthy aunt (Hope Davis), wants to adopt him, which Charlie has no problem with, since he was never part of the kid’s life, anyway. However, she’ll be in Italy for the summer, and so her husband offers Charlie $100,000 to look after Max until the end of August.

At first Charlie and Max butt heads and want nothing to do with each other, but then one night while they’re in a junk yard looking for robot parts, Max finds an old, long discarded robot named “Atom.” Atom, as Charlie explains, is a sparring robot, not designed for actual competition. But Max, being the headstrong youth that he is, disagrees, and sets about training (programming) the dinged up old bot to fight.

And what do you know, Charlie and Max actually start winning fights, with the puny old robot that wasn’t even designed to fight competitively. Word about them starts to spread, all the way to Farra Lemkova (Olga Fonda), a Russian Kim Kardashian who owns the world champion robot fighter, “Zeus,” designed by some scary looking ninja assassin dude (Karl Yune). Lemkova arrogantly offers to buy Atom off Charlie and Max, but Max throws it back in her face by challenging the mighty Zeus to a fight.

Naturally, this is just a joke to Camp Zeus, but after the public’s reaction to the challenge, they’re left with no choice but to accept. Will Charlie and Max be able to get their little-robot-that-could ready to take down the big, bad champion, and, of course more importantly, will they stop kicking each other in the balls and actually bond as father and son over the course of this long journey? What do you think?

“Real Steel” is a much, much better film than it should be. I went into this thing thinking it was going to be stupid as hell, like “BattleBots: The Movie”, and came out of it completely dumbfounded by how caught up I was in it. Strip away the high tech robots and whatnot, and what we have here is basically a good old fashioned, feel good, underdog sports movie. It’s a familiar formula, but it’s one that worked in the past, and I’ll be damned, it worked here, too.

Even though this flick is filled to the brim with slick special effects and metal mashing, robotic beat downs, that’s not what makes it so good. Rather, and hold on to your seat, because this is a shocker, it’s the well developed, likable lead characters and their chemistry together that maketh the movie. Jackman and Goyo are right on, spot on, dead perfect as the mismatched father and son team, and their performances couldn’t be better.

Goyo, as the piss ‘n vinegar filled Max, is a real find, and you won’t be able to help but smile during the scenes when he and his robot dance into the ring. Jackman’s Charlie is a real douche-baggy prick at first, but he redeems himself as his relationship with Max grows. It’s ultimately their journey and their bonding that makes up the back bone of this film, and that makes it so emotionally satisfying. The terrific sense of humor that it retains throughout helps, as well. Charlie’s big toothed redneck tormentor, Ricky (Kevin Durand), provided some real laugh out loud moments.

“Real Steel”, despite its moronic sounding premise, is in actuality a genuine, straightforward crowd pleaser. Yeah, you’re not going to be very surprised by it, but when a formula is done this well, it don’t matter. You’ll be reeled in by it in spite of yourself. I feel guilty saying this, but it’s actually one of the better movies to come out this year, and definitely one to catch on the big screen.

(4 People gave this 4.00 out of 5)

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Sawyer (Nathan Gamble) is an unhappy, lonely boy.  He has a hard time in school and as a result, he has to spend his summer vacation stuck in summer school.  His only friend is his cousin Kyle (Austin Stowell) who is about to leave to join the Army.  However, everything changes the day that Sawyer meets Winter.

While on his way to school, Sawyer stops off at the beach.  There is a man fishing and he notices something beached on the shore.  Sawyer goes to investigate and there he finds a badly hurt dolphin.  He helps the dolphin as much as he can, until the Clearwater Marine Hospital cavalry shows up, led by Dr. Clay Haskett (Harry Connick Jr) and his daughter Hazel (Cozi Zuehlsdorff).  They take the injured dolphin to the Marine Hospital, and Sawyer heads off to school.  But, Sawyer can’t concentrate and can’t stop thinking about the dolphin he helped.  So he visits the Marine Hospital after school and officially meets Hazel.  Hazel is pretty much the anti-Sawyer.  She’s bubbly and inquisitive and she and Sawyer become friends.  Dr. Clay doesn’t really like outsiders interacting with the injured animals, but Winter (as Hazel named her) bonded with Sawyer when he was helping her on the beach, so Dr. Clay makes an exception.

Now Sawyer finally has something he’s interested in!!  He researches dolphins and visits the Marine Hospital every day, eventually not even attending summer school anymore.  When his mother Lorraine (Ashley Judd) finds out, she is not happy – until she goes to the Marine School and sees how Winter is helping Sawyer grow.  She agrees to let him help at the Marine Hospital and makes a plea to his summer school teacher to allow him to earn his grade by doing practical work.  The teacher refuses, but it all works out by the end . . . of course.

Unfortunately, Winter’s tail was so infected that it had to be amputated.  This is bad because dolphins use their tails to swim by moving them in an up and down motion.  Since Winter has no tail, she moves what is left of it in a side to side motion to swim, which is damaging her spine.  The Clearwater Marine Hospital doctors are at a loss as to how to help Winter, and fear that the more damage is caused, the worse her condition will get.

Meanwhile, Sawyer’s cousin Kyle was involved in an explosion.  He gets to come home, but he doesn’t want to be around his family.  Kyle used to be a swim star, he set several records before graduating from high school, and since the explosion he is unable to move his legs without therapy.  It’s while visiting Kyle at the VA Hospital that Sawyer gets a brilliant idea – if people can have prosthetic limbs, why can’t Winter have a prosthetic tail??  Enter Dr. Cameron McCarthy (Morgan Freeman), who crafts prosthetic limbs for veterans who have lost their own while on duty.  Sawyer convinces Dr. McCarthy to work on fashioning a fake tail for Winter.

Unfortunately, Winter doesn’t like having fake parts on her body.  It takes a couple of tries but Sawyer and company never give up!!

I really enjoyed “Dolphin Tale”.  Morgan Freeman was great as usual, (when is he not fantastic in a role??) and I really enjoyed the antics of Rufus, a rather enthusiastic pelican that lives at the Marine Hospital.  Although it had a running time of nearly two hours, the film didn’t drag and kept my interest the whole time.

Inspired by the true story of Winter, the dolphin who lost her tail, “Dolphin Tale” is a light-hearted drama (I use the term drama loosely) that is an inspiration for the whole family.  Of course, the film is in 3D, but in this case it’s kind of nice.  When there was a 3D effect of a dolphin jumping, it looked like it was smiling at me and was going to jump out of the screen at me.

(4 People gave this 3.25 out of 5)

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Brilliant to some, B.S. to others… make up your own mind.

The H-Bomb: As I was exiting the theater for Terrence Malick’s latest film, “The Tree of Life”, I over heard a middle age man say to his wife, “Well, that was… different,” to which they both chuckled. I really could not tell if that was meant as a positive or a negative, but I imagine that would be, positive or negative, what many in the general movie going public will say after viewing this film.

Me, I am familiar with Malick’s past work, with “The Thin Red Line” being in my top ten list of all time favorite films, so I knew going in that this wasn’t going to be a typical film. Not a typical drama. Not a typical period piece. Not a typical storyline. Not a typical anything, and just to state off the bat, this is a film that many, many people will truly dislike. To say it’s not for all tastes is an understatement, so take my high rating, and the fact that it won the Palme d’Or (Best Picture) at Cannes this past spring with a grain of salt, because while I did quite like it, I am somewhat hesitant to recommend it to people.

They say art is in the eye of the beholder, and in the case of a Terrence Malick film, truer words have never been spoken. I have never seen films divide audiences the way his do. His films can best be described as kind of cinematic poems, where plot and even character development take a back seat to mood, visuals, and overall themes. I would compare his films to David Lynch’s in their uniqueness, except the mystery and creepiness are replaced by spiritual and philosophical wonder. Malick has a style all his own, and his work is definitely for a limited audience, and even that audience is going to be divided in their assessment of “The Tree of Life”.

Some, such as myself, will find it captivating. Others will find it simply boring. Let me put it this way, if you hated “The Thin Red Line” and “The New World”, then just steer clear of “The Tree of Life”, as this is Malick’s most abstract, most esoteric, and most lacking in traditional story thrust film to date. If the meandering of his other films annoyed you, this one will drive you batty. Swifty, the fan of “The Thin Red Line” that you’re not, you would be well advised to stay the hell away.

So, with my attempt at a disclaimer out of the way, I shall now attempt to review this thing. At it’s core, “The Tree of Life” is about a man named Jack (played by Sean Penn as an adult, and by Hunter McCracken as a child), who, despite having a successful career, a beautiful home, and an attractive wife, seems to be going through some sort of inner turmoil. One of his younger brothers died at the age 19, and having never quite gotten over that, even decades after it happened, adult Jack reflects back on his childhood, growing up in a small Texas town with his mother (Jessica Chastain), father (Brad Pitt), and his two brothers.

I know that makes it sound like a typical coming of age story, but it‘s anything but. It’s a coming of age story, all right, but a very unusual one. Something, as mentioned by others, more akin to “2001: A Space Odyssey” than “Summer of ‘42”. One filled with ideas about the origins of the universe, life, and man’s place in it all… oh, but, wait, I’m getting ahead of myself. Let’s focus on the “main story” of Jack’s childhood and family, first.

We follow Jack from his infancy to early adolescence, where we see a very stark contrast between Jack’s mother, who is kind, nurturing, and soulful, and his father, who is strict, at times distant, and often bitter because of his own failures. He’s a man who is trying to prepare his sons for the harsh realities of life, so they don‘t make the same mistakes he did. He’s never abusive, but he can be stern, even harsh. It’s while being raised by these two very different people he calls his parents that young Jack must find his own self… something he’s still trying to reconcile well into his adulthood. Sounds simple enough, right? Yeah, well, it would be, except for the way it all unfolds.

“The Tree of Life”, much in keeping with the style of Malick, takes the existential, expressionistic approach. The narrative is fragmented, often dreamlike, with very little dialogue, but many of those flowery voiceovers that Malick has used in his earlier films. Like before, these “deep thought” narrations come from different characters; the mother, the father, young Jack, adult Jack. Often delivered in prayer like whispers, sometimes they work, but other times they seem like the kind of bad poetry that a pretentious college freshman would write.

However, the fragmented narrative does make sense, when one stops to think about how memories, particularly distant ones, work. Many scenes seem incomplete, where we only catch a sentence or two of what was a much longer conversation. When we remember a conversation with someone, we typically don’t remember the entire conversation, just the most important things said. An example of this would be when young Jack is scolded for a reason we’re never told nor shown. We’re not shown the reason because adult Jack remembers the scolding, but perhaps not what he did to receive it. That is very much how it unfolds here. We don’t get the whole picture of this boy’s experiences, just the bits and pieces that left an impression.

Then, and here’s the aspect of the film that throws many, there is the story thread that deals with the birth of the universe. For a solid 15-20 minutes of zero dialogue, we simply see various kinds of space imagery set to music. Then we see the start and evolution of life on Earth, and yes, that includes the much talked about scene featuring two dinosaurs, in which one dinosaur shows what seems to be compassion and mercy for the other. What does this have to do with the rest of the film… good fucking question.

In fact, fuck it, no summary or synopsis can even come close to doing justice to what this film actually is. Much of the imagery, such as adult Jack following his younger self through a desert, or young Jack in an attic with a man who appears to be a giant, or the mother floating in the air under a tree, or the relevance of the birth of the universe sequence, is symbolic, the meaning of which is left up to your own interpretation.

If I must offer my overall interpretation of “The Tree of Life”, without spoilers, it is that it’s about a jaded man trying to come to terms with his past, his father, his brother’s death, and his place in the world. Maybe the universe scenes are symbolic of him thinking about his tiny role in the “bigger picture” and being humbled or frightened by it. Or perhaps he’s pondering the existence of God. Who’s to say? These are merely my impressions, and I could be wrong. But that’s what I like about “The Tree of Life”, it’s a film about ideas, and engages me to interpret those ideas without spelling anything out. Films of this kind, that challenge us in this way rarely come along, and I appreciate them when they do.

As far as the performances go, everyone does fine, considering their dialogue is minimal. Pitt makes for a very believable patriarch from that period, loving but less than affectionate. Chastain brings real warmth to what could be a star making role for her, assuming enough people see this. McCracken is impressive as the young Jack, taking on a complex role as a kid who seems to observe everything around him and absorb it like a sponge. He does well at conveying a wide range of emotion through, again, very few words. As the adult Jack, Penn is his stellar self, though I was disappointed by how little screen time he actually had. Despite his second billing, his appearance is little more than a glorified cameo.

Malick’s direction is very much in keeping with the visual style he has established in the past. Much of the film was shot with a steady cam, allowing the camera to float about freely like a ghost and capture moments on the fly. Another characteristic of Malick’s, images of a serene nature, such as trees in a forest or a flowing river, are composed like paintings. His trademark of juxtaposing man and nature, and the effect man can have on nature, is very present. Call his films dull to your heart’s content, but you must concede they are beautiful to look at.

But, pretty pictures alone will not sway a detractor’s opinion on this film, and I can understand why. There are even artsy-fartsy cinema snots who hated this thing, and granted, some aspects, like the dinosaurs or the mother floating, or the flowery narrations, border on being just silly. At two hours and eighteen minutes, it is long, languid, and some will say, not a whole lot happens.

Personally, I found it rich and thought provoking, from one of the few true artists working in cinema. Others will find it boring and incomprehensible. How you react to it depends on you. I know, that can be said of any film, but in the case of “The Tree of Life”, it has never been more true.

(6 People gave this 3.83 out of 5)

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Hail, Caesar?

It isn’t often a preview grabs me to where I’m jotting a movie down on my imaginary Must See list, but as the preview for this film unraveled, it gripped me in its maw like an unrelenting chimpanzee intent on a feast, forcing me to savor every last second. The concept of highly sentient animals or creatures vs. man is always fascinating to me (and no, Narnia doesn’t count), so it was no surprise that I was immediately hooked. At the end of the preview, where they usually slam the title in your face after a cascade of millisecond cut scenes, I was completely floored that this would be part of the Planet of the Apes mythos. My burning need to see this film was now a bonafide bonfire. Could it be that we are finally going to know what caused the downfall of man, and what would lead to arguably the most potent twist of an ending in all of moviedom?

This simian symphony starts off slow, as we get to know how and why Caesar came to be, but it never loses the viewer as it rumbles to a chest thumping crescendo. Dr. Will Rodman (James Franco) spends his life hot on the heels of a miracle cure that will help his father, Charles (John Lithgow) recover from a debilitating illness. At the cusp of a breakthrough, an unfortunate mishap cuts his funding and all the test subjects have to be eliminated. Well, all but one. Caesar, an infant who’s mother passed down Rodman’s science via her genetics, is a tiny chimpanzee, who’s death would be too heavy a burden for anyone to bear, so Rodman is forced to quietly take him home. Most of the movie is spent watching Rodman continue his research in the privacy of his home. He is relentless in his pursuit to cure his father and simultaneously amazed at Caeser’s remarkable intelligence and growth.

Some may find the pacing a bit on the slow side, but I felt it worked. The apes themselves were fantastically done. If I’m not mistaken, they were all cgi, and pretty lifelike. The animators did their research perfectly – I hadn’t felt any single ape was ‘wrong.’That could be due to Andy Serkis, who was the basis of the motion capture for Caeser. I imagine it wasn’t too big a step in transitioning from Gollum.

Overall, I really enjoyed the movie. It ties almost seamlessly into the 1968 classic. I was a little disappointed to find out that the “rise” in the title wasn’t an allusion to the apes taking man head on. Instead, man is neatly disposed of by irony. In Rodman’s effort to save his father and, in turn, the rest of mankind, he is instead the catalyst in man’s destruction. For Harry Potter fans, I think they’ll enjoy Draco Malfoy’s unhappy transition into the Muggle world.

Rise of the Planet of the Apes just claimed a spot on my imaginary Must Own list. See it in theaters while you can.

A feminine look at First Class…

I love superhero movies.  I’m not a fan of comic books, but I really enjoy the movies and learning about the characters and their stories.   I’m not going to lie though, I had no desire to see “Thor”.  For awhile I wasn’t even sure that I wanted to see “X-Men:  First Class”.  I really loved “X-Men”, really liked “X2″, and liked “X-Men:  The Last Stand” (although I remember being disappointed about something, but it’s been a while since I’ve seen it).  I like these movies because of the ensemble of characters, the good guys working together, the good guys working together with the bad guys, mutants versus humans, etc. I never saw “X-Men Origins:  Wolverine”, because I thought it only focused on Wolverine, and I didn’t want to see a movie about just one X-Men (X-Man??); I like the dynamic of the group interaction.  So, I was unsure about “X-Men:  First Class”, but the more previews I saw, the more I decided that I wanted to see it.

The movie starts out with a scene that looks a lot like a scene from a previous “X-Men” movie, where we see the beginnings of young Magneto’s powers in the 1940s.  Then we meet Sebastian Shaw (Kevin Bacon), a Nazi who enjoys experimenting with people and mutants.  What happens next is similar to a scene from “Star Wars Episode II”, and we see Magneto unleash his full powers.  Meanwhile, Charles is asleep in his family’s mansion when he hears an intruder, and he meets Raven/Mystique, a homeless orphan who is different like he is, and whom Charles offers a place to live.

Fast forward 20 years to the swinging 60s.  Charles Xavier (James McAvoy) has written a thesis on mutation.  He is best friends with his “sister” Raven (Jennifer Lawrence).  Erik Lehnsherr (Michael Fassbender) is searching for Sebastian Shaw, who is now the leader of the Hellfire Club and has some powers of his own.

Meanwhile, there is some talk about nuclear weapons, Turkey, Russia, Cuba, and the CIA gets involved.  Enter Moira MacTaggert (Rose Byrne, who is seemingly everywhere nowadays) who observes some odd happenings in the back room of a club in Vegas involving Sebastian Shaw, Emma Frost (January Jones), and Azazel (Jason Flemyng).  She seeks out Charles for help in explaining mutants to her boss.  They track down Sebastian Shaw, but guess who else has also caught up to him??  None other than Erik!!  Charles saves Erik from cetain death, Sebastian gets away, and the trio of mutants teams up to help the CIA.  But first, they decide to find others like them.  Other mutants. Other X-Men.  Enter Hank McCoy/Beast (Nicholas Hoult), Angel Salvadore (Zoe Kravitz), Sean Cassidy/Banshee (Caleb Landry Jones), Armando Muñoz/Darwin (Edi Gathegi), and Alex Summers/Havok (Lucas Til), some of whom appear in later installments in the series.

I really liked learning the back-stories of Mystique and Beast.  It was also nice to see Charles/Professor X and Erik/Magneto as friends and to see what drove them apart.  Prior to the screening, I had no idea that Kevin Bacon was in this movie.  He played a really good villain, because I certainly hated his character!!  And the first Magneto helmet, which Sebastian Shaw originated and wore first, I’m sorry but it made him look dorky.  It was effective, but dorky-looking.

Overall a solid superhero film and an excellent installment in the X-Men storyline.  After watching this movie you may be tempted to go looking for more information about the X-Men characters (I found this to be a very informative website:  marvel.com/universe) as I did, to learn even more.  And, keep your eyes open for a few surprises throughout the film.

Shaken?  Stirred? – Magneto is James Bond!?!?

Swift shot: I promise not to throw out some cheesy “X-cellent” or “X-quisite” or even “X-ceptional” in this review, it’s too tempting to play on that – and this latest film, directed by Matthew “Kick Ass” Vaughn stands alone yet masterfully incorporates the elements that made me love the original X-Men films.  Vaughn uses his own style and throws nods to some great film-makers throughout to deliver an interesting, entertaining summer revenge flick.

Opening in a familiar place, Poland 1944, with a familiar scene, young Erik Lehnsherr (German for feudal lord – Bill Milner) watches as the Nazis drag his parents away – he is writhing in emotional agony, pain and fear, as he wills the iron gates to bend just outside his reach.  His little scene captures the attention of a Nazi “doctor”.  The doctor turns Erik, a mere child, into his play thing, augmenting his talents in the harshest of methods, commenting that while he loathes “these Nazi methods” he can’t argue with their results.  I won’t give anything away here, because it is an emotionally difficult scene with some incredible cinematographic juxtaposition – you’ll see what I mean.

Meanwhile in Westchester, NY, at the same time, a young Charles Xavier (Laurence Belcher) makes the acquaintance of fellow mutant, Raven (Morgan Lily) and an odd relationship is formed.  The two kindred “freaks” are never far apart after that, at least not in this film.

Most of the action takes place where we see the two children, now young men, in 1962, in the midst of the darkest days of the Cold War.  Erik has one agenda, bloody vengeance against the Nazi Doctor who, in essence, created him.  Xavier is a young professor, having earned his doctorate in genetic studies at Oxford University – as he is being congratulated by his, ever close, friend Raven – he remarks, “I am not a professor until I have students”.  Thus foreshadowing his many adventures to come as leader of his own “X-Men”.

Erik, played ruthlessly by Michael Faasbender, extracts a lead from a twisted Geneva banker to begin his pursuit of the evil Nazi doctor.  Following that lead to Argentina, he finds two unlucky Germans, one a pig-farmer and the other a tailor.  Oddly enough, these two have exactly the information Erik seeks, because they are actually Nazis – a scene that is uber transparent and painfully (emphasis on the pain) punctuated.  I know I compared Erik to Bond in my tag, but in actuality, Erik is less about finesse, he prefers cruelty to get results – a trick he learned from a Nazi doctor.  [Fans of Inglorious Basterds will recognize the subtle nod to QT's table talk scene, also with Faasbender]

Meanwhile in Oxford, Xavier (James McAvoy) is using his skills to hit on chicks, much to the chagrin of Raven who is tired of his lame pickup line “Mutant and proud”.  It is also during this time that CIA Agent MacTaggert played by Mrs. Everywhere in 2011 – Rose Byrne, has learned of an international plot to see to it that American ICBMs are placed in Turkey, which will likely incite World War III.   While conducting some brief under-cover work she discovers that so-called “mutants” exist as she sees Emma Frost (January Jones) turn into solid diamond when she crashes a Hellfire Club shindig.  Oh, and now is a good time to insert a bit of “don’t say I didn’t warn you” stuff – hearing McAvoy, as the future Professor X say shit like groovy more than zero times was enough for me.  Yes, Vaughn, we get it, this film is set in 1962, enough of making Xavier look like a weenie – if you were going for the two sides of the same coin comparison with Xavier vs. Magneto – it was overdone.

Things finally come to a head as Erik and Xavier are both pursuing the same man, I feel I would be ruining things here a bit – but, minor spoiler alert coming, the Nazi doctor is Sebastian Shaw (Kevin Bacon) who is the mutant leader of the Hellfire Club and has the power to absorb kinetic energy, and those few scenes where he shows off with this power were done extremely well.  Erik, alone, quickly discovers he is not able to handle these villains without assistance.  Reluctantly, he agrees to work with Xavier to end Shaw’s influence on the world stage.

Not only does Erik agree to help Xavier, he agrees to recruit with him, and in the BEST scene of the movie, there is a cameo from one of the past films – giving that away would be a geek capital crime!  The recruiting sequences and the team-building sequences were necessary.  They didn’t really tack on too long, but it was close, each new recruit brought something fresh to the story – while at least one annoying gnat of a character deserved a place right on my windshield next to the freakin thousand love bugs I slaughtered last month.  I didn’t even know her character existed in the Marvel universe, of course, I am not the expert either.

There was a, vomitorium, love-story taking place in the film as well, as Hank McCoy (AKA Beast – Nicholas Hoult) and Raven (AKA Mystique – Jennifer Lawrence) approached their mutant abilities as both a curse and a gift, respectively.  Then the film gets really James Bond, when the “agents” head to a Russian Military Retreat to discover more about the sinister plot of the villains on hand there, to launch the human world into a global war – killing the humans and taking their rightful place as leaders on the Darwinian scale.

A new character was introduced, Azazel, I didn’t know much about him before the film, but afterwards I was incredibly curious and once you see him and his abilities you’ll know why my curiosity was piqued.  In one scene he has a neat little method for dispatching an entire compound of government agents one by one – their last moments on earth were filled with terror – plus Azazel is apparently a closet fan of the 80′s band The Weather Girls.  [Yes, that last line has two hidden messages, have fun finding them]

The film really doesn’t disappoint much; it had moments that were a tad hokey and at times, because this was a team-building saga, it got melodramatic.  But, the story was well told, the characters were well developed, and even Kevin Bacon was somehow strangely believable as Sebastian Shaw.  Let me put it this way, if by the end of the film you DON’T want Shaw dead, I’d be surprised.  To me, that is all an actor’s job really is, make me love or hate your character and not you as an actor.  Most of the cast pulled this off well.

The effects and art team did a magnificent job portraying the tension of the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, using several moments from actual history while penciling in fictional characters that were seamlessly paneled into the historic archive . . . if only in an alternate realm of imagination. The climax of the film was a bit trite and predictable, but I liked how the team actually used their powers in tandem to get results, something the comics do a lot, emphasizing that each member of the team plays a pivotal role in mission accomplishment.  So, yes, it was an anti-climatic ending, pitting the humans vs. all the mutants, good or evil.  But, as the movie’s title indicates, this is the first class of Professor X, so I was expecting the end to be a beginning.  Still, the final crowning scene where Magneto dons his helmet was authentic to the comic books but it made the character less scary to behold.

Overall you are going to like X-Men: First Class; it deserves a slot in your Marvel collection.   If comic book films aren’t your thing, you’ll probably still enjoy the James Bond type story arc, maybe you will like seeing the X-Men’s beginnings, watch as they fumble around with their powers and form relationships and determine why they fight, who they fight for and learn why Magneto becomes a villain.  To me, it was just an enjoyable reprieve from my mundane, non-mutant, existence – which is all I want in a film like this anyway . . . to escape reality.

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