Devil's Due (2014)

Devil's Due (2014) 

Rated R for boredom-inducing self-cutting and childbirth learning.

"Not all miracles come from god." Yeah... more like "Not all movies have a written fuckin' ending." The "plot": A newlywed couple go on their honeymoon in Costa Rica, drink way too much, most likely get drugged and are lured into a Satanic ritual in which the wife becomes impregnated by "evil forces". Hilarity ensues. All of this is half caught on video, just like everything else that happens, or doesn't happen rather.

I knew practically nothing about this movie before I went to see it. My fourteen year old niece called me up and told me that she wanted to go see this with me, so I figured what the hell. We've gone to the movies together for years now, seeing such gems as the complete Twilight series, the first Hunger Games, House at the End of the Street and Orphan. All I knew is that there was this prank video on youtube with a psycho, demon-possessed animatronic Devil Baby that was sort of a promotion for the film. I must have watched the clip about ten times that very morning, and loved every evil second of it. By far one of the best pranks on the net, the video is just downright the most amazing fucking thing evur, so check it out. The movie Devil's Due however, I'll tell you not to check out, since it totally sucks newborn nuts.

First of all, that totally awesome demonic baby is nowhere in the movie, so don't go in expecting any type of old school special effects or anything. And because of that don't go expecting, you know, a real payoff to the fucking movie! Because what we can assume, knowing nearly nothing about the movie, is that this woman is going to give birth and The Devil is somehow involved right? What we're dealing with here is a total sleight of hand job, a con, a ruse, trickery, skulduggery, a flawlessly deceptive marketing scheme, and yes, I am aware I just typed hand job. What this movie actually is, is a poorly conceived (see what I did there?) "found footage" film full of irrational and extremely lazy plot points, as well as some really shitty CGI.

But perhaps the film's biggest crime of all? It's painfully dull and so excruciatingly boring. Not only does it pretty much become a documentary on a pregnant woman's hospital visits for a third of the runtime, but the other third of the movie is just one pointless scene after another. It's pointless because none of it connects or goes anywhere. Some "weird stuff" happens and then it's never mentioned again, not by the characters and not by any further scene development. I was OK with it being one of those handheld "oh hey I'm a guy holding a camera" movies since I haven't really been overexposed to them (last one I was was Rec 3, a far superior film to this drivel). Of course the writers of this shit found their limitations to this style and had to set up some sort of system to capture footage, since this dude can't just hold a camera every second of the day.

Throughout the movie there are people in the background watching this couple. They are what I can only describe as the most laid back, low pressure, non-violent, squeamish bunch of Satan Worshipers ever committed to celluloid. One man stands across the street watching the house and after the lady and her husband notice, they scream at the guy and he scurries away. For some reason, they wait about seven months into the pregnancy before they go installing hidden cameras in every room of the couple's home. And on top of that we learn that they've got a empty house they're all squatting in which is just down the street. Considering this "mysterious" group of people have already chosen their targets, and had a place set up so closely to them, why in the fuck would they wait so goddamn long to install these cameras? Nobody knows because it is some stupid ass shit that's way.

Pictured: Some crazy shit that's not in the movie.

I wonder if the dude across the street just went back to the run down house and told the other Sect members "Hey, this me standing across the street staring at the house like a fucking creepy weirdo thing isn't working out. Let's brainstorm some better ideas huh?" And the other guys were like, "Well we got all these monitors and camera equipment just laying around by our dog food bowls full of human embryos, maybe we should use this stuff." After the husband starts getting paranoid by his wife's "freaky" behavior, he decides to watch the footage from his honeymoon on the computer. He finds some strange ritual occurring while they were passed out, so he calls up his friend to come over. All of a sudden when he turns around the discs are missing. Really? He walked from the living room to the front door and they just disappeared? That is some weak ass shit.

There comes a point where the wife, who is a conveniently a "vegetarian", stares at the meat section in the supermarket for a long time. You immediately know that she's going to start gnawing on the raw meat, because you've seen it a thousand times before, and that's exactly what happens. There is a mesmerized kid in the background and his disgusted mom witnesses what he's looking at she drags him away, which is one of the films few humorous moments. Then there's a scene when she's in lamaze class and gets to her relaxed point or whatever, and all the other women start writhing around in pain. That probably had to be the freakiest moment, bucause I was thinking unholy shit all these women are about to have bloody miscarages and there's going to be screams of anguish. It could have been a powerful and gruseome scene, but just like everything else in the movie the camera just jump cuts and we're left with nothing. Was that too grim of a thought for the filmmakers?

On top of a whole lot of nothing happening, and the wife showing some supernatural type abilities that are never explored once some shit actually does happen, the most anticlimactic ending of all time (perhaps beating out that shit movie The Blair Witch Project's lame ass end shot) just left me with a look of "are you fucking serious?" on my face. That was it? No demon baby? Nothing? The ending after the ending also does a real shit job off ripping of the 1977 film Satan's Blood aka Escalofrío (which, like Rec 3, is also a far superior film to this drudge). This movie is lazy, slow, irritating, tension free, disjointed, annoyingly shot, and for the most part just plain boring. Devil's Due is a stillborn mess which makes me wish I would have aborted that theater. Oh, and don't even get me started on the evil Quake logo.

Twilight 5 - Breaking Dawn: Part 2 (2012)

Twilight 5 - Breaking Dawn: Part 2 (2012)
[Rated PG-13: for sequences of violence including disturbing images, some sensuality and partial nudity]

Breaking Dawn Part 2 starts off very quietly with Bella in a room looking at herself in a mirror. She looks fabulous! Edward slowly walks and they softly touch each other  hold hands and kiss. They tell one another "I love you", then Edward smiles and tells her "We're the same temperature now." Awww. Hey, you think she practiced with a Popsicle before they finally had sex? After staring at herself and her husband for a while, Bella remembers that she just had a baby. "Renesmee, where is she? I have to see her!" Edward says that Bella can't see her until she feeds, so they go out and do some vampire stuff. When they come back, Jacob is waiting (with a shirt on for once) and he slowly lets her sniff him to get acquainted with hopefully not wanting to eat him I suppose? Through a series of unspoken nods, Edward and Jacob decide it's safe for Bella to see her own child. And here we're introduced to the most beautiful, creepiest looking motion-capture CGI baby version of an eleven year old actress you'll ever witness in your entire life. 

At this time Bella is unaware that Jacob has imprinted on her newborn baby Renesmee, something which ultimately means that he'll be having sex with her for the rest of their lives by the time she's seven years old (which is supposedly 16-18 in Dhampir years?) Everyone else knows this however, (and through a series of unspoken nods) they try for about a minute to keep things quiet after Bella awakens from her deathly slumber. But treating her as a stupid little girl doesn't seem to work any longer as she's now got golden red eyes and no pulse. She wants to know why Jacob gives such a shit about her baby and nobody getting eaten in her newborn state, and why he's being so clingy not all of a sudden. So Edward and Jacob agree to tell her (through a series of unspoken nods) that he has indeed made an "uncontrollable" wolf-clan mind-meld with one-day-old Renesmee and that their souls will forever be forced together (something Jacob always wanted to do with first and only other love Bella but couldn't, since she is a "Shield").

Bella becomes understandably pissed off and beats the shit out of him for this, shouting things like "I haven't even held her in my arms and you've taken her from me!" and the utterly fantastic "YOU NICKNAMED MY BABY AFTER THE LOCH NESS MONSTER!!?" upon hearing him refer to her as "Nesse". He's like, "Bella, It's not what it looks like! You've gotta understand, I know she's just a baby but we're getting married." Or some shit like that, and it's great, because it IS what it looks like. I can't believe they're trying to sugarcoat this... I mean, I'm sure they'll wait until the time is right. By this time Jacob is in Edward and Bella's lives forever, and no matter how pissed off Bella originally was about this, Jacob even starts living at the Cullen's house. Which is pretty fucking bizarre considering how everything started out. But by now with these films and how ridiculous they've become over time with the sequels, nothing like this should be a surprise by now. They're all one big fucked up, not-really-happy but gloomy and forlorn family.

So I guess the plot of the story is that vampire Irina (the immaculate Maggie Grace) witnesses the young girl Renesmee (Mackenzie Foy) floating through the air collecting snowflakes for Bella and Jacob. She stares at them for a while in shock and disgust, before running off to Italy to tell the Volturi that the Cullens have created a vampire child - something strictly forbidden and a crime punishable by death! Of course, Renesmee is actually only half-vampire (which for whatever reason isn't that bad?), so the Cullen clan goes around the world searching for other vampires to be witnesses to this, in hopes that nobody will die. SPOILERS: Everyone dies! I guess in the books nothing really happens at the end... that's what I heard. The Volturi show up and it's all drama, they're all about to kill everyone, but are convinced not to because the girl is half human, and they all live happily ever after. The filmmakers here added a little bit of action to the finale here, and man, did it make for one hell of a cinematic experience!

If you're going to ever watch this film, the absolute best time to do so would be right now in the Cinema with tons of unsuspecting fangirls of all ages. Why? Because you're going to want to be there to experience the reactions when their beloved characters are crushed to death and gets their heads ripped off. When the time for the big standoff comes, shit gets really intense (the music stops) and Aro (Michael Sheen) does his best impression of Nicholas Cage in Face/Off after snorting all those drugs. This fuckin' guy is nuts, so anything can happen here. After discovering that Renesmee isn't a true vampire child, Irena takes responsibility for her mistake and wasting their time... to which they then rip off her arms and head and light her on fire. Boo-yah! When the Volturi grab hold of Alice, she tells them that nothing she shows them will change their decision to fight and kill. And just when it seems that she's done for, father of the Cullen clan Carlisle runs to her aid.

As he runs towards the Volturi mob, Aro charges towards him and they both collide in mid-air. Aro lands crouching in the snow and Carlisle falls to the ground. As Aro rises up slowly, we see that he's holding Carlisle's severed head in his hand. Every single chick in the theater let out a super loud Gasp when this happened, and it was awesome. Even I was shocked admittedly. Who the hell would have expected that? Esme (Elisabeth Reaser), Carlisle's wife, lets out a horrified scream. Then both parties run towards the other and the bloodshed ensues. There was a buzzing throughout the room when the battle finally began. The screen was chaos with some fodder getting offed first, then Jane (Dakota Fanning) gets sight of Jasper (Jackson Rathbone). Bella tries to project her shielding abilities to protect him, but is ambushed by Jane's brother Alec (Cameron Bright). Without Bella's protection and outnumbered, Jane applies her "PAIN" spell on him. Jasper falls to his knees and the Volturi guard Demetri karate-chops his head clean off! 

At this point with Alice's boyfriend dead, the crowd starts to fucking lose it. I could hear "OMG"s everywhere, girls started breaking down and crying, and one chick just kept repeating the phrase "What is happening?! Are you serious?! What is happening?!" Wolf brother and sister Seth and Leah got it next. Jane then hit Seth the "PAIN" and a Volturi guard crushed his neck in about thirty places, dropping his drooling doggy corpse to the ground. Leah sacrificed herself to save Esme from being dragged down to hell and fell (in super sad slow motion with emphasis on crying wolf eyes) down into a lava pit. Nobody could sit still, people were thrashing around in their seats and I was waiting for someone to faint, but then the tides turned on the Volturi. Edward ripped off one of the guards heads with a twirly wrestling move. The blonde snobby Volturi guy got his face ripped in half lengthwise by some hot blonde vamp chicks, leaving his chin and tongue tangling as he fell to the ground. The older Volturi gentleman was torn to shreds after quietly whispering to himself "Finally" and allowing it to happen.

Emmett drops Alec on his back and kicks him in the throat, knocking him three feet into the soil. He then  rips his body from his head, by the feet(!), much to the dismay of Jane. As Aro and Jane begin to notice that things aren't going so well anymore, Alice makes a mad dash for Jane while under the protection of Bella. Jane for the first time in the series feels the fear, makes a face that looks like she's pissing herself, and starts to run away. The crowd goes nuts, laughing out loud and clapping. Alice grabs her by the throat, Jane shits bricks, and then Alice feeds her head first to big, black wolf Sam. Sam tears her head clean off and tosses it aside and the whole crowd cheers. Some people even stand up and scream. This was by far the loudest reaction during the whole movie. Man, people must have hated that bitch. With the whole theater in pandemonium, Bella and Edward double teamed Aro. Edward kicked him in the nuts and Bella jumped on his back and twisted his head off like a bottle cap. The place was in hysterics, when suddenly, as Bella was just about to light Aro's head on fire and we're staring into his fearful eyes, the scene cuts back to Alice holding Aro's hand. The sinister reveal that mind-fucked everyone in the audience, and left everyone talking till the end credits was tremendous. "They made me cry, those bastards!"

Even though the scene occurred as she was (or just after she was) showing him a vision, it was of course shown to us differently than the rest have been so far, and it was done seamlessly. Of course, this was done to trick the audience into as many emotions as possible and it totally worked. Some have said that this is a big "FU" to the people, or that the filmmakers were intentionally fucking with the rabid fans by pulling their heartstrings but I say Whatev! That shit was hilarious! I'm begging for an extended cut where more of the main characters die. Some of them seemed a bit left out of this battle, which was the only downside to it since Emmett and Rosalie could have died too. Even though everyone really didn't die, there actually was one true death in this one. The vampire girl Irena, who stuck her nose where it didn't belong. I guess the moral of the story is that bitches shouldn't fuck around in other people's business. If she hadn't been snooping around and later ran her mouth, everything would have been fine and she'd still be alive. No matter how hot she is, this sort of thing shouldn't be tolerated in any way, shape or form.

So all in all my niece and I had a great time seeing this along with all of those sobbing, orgasming and heart attack having girls. It was a pretty diverse crowd actually, but everyone got swept up in the final act. A plus for the grown men in the audience, we got to see a lot of decapitations and well, that dude's face being ripped lengthwise in half was the scene that had me laughing for about a minute. There was also a very PG-13 sex scene towards the beginning, with a lot of close-ups of legs, and arms conveniently covering boobs. Acting and make-up are of course what to be expected with these Twilight films. No matter how sappy or juvenile the story may ultimately be, a majority of side characters got some ample time in these last five films to make at least an impact when they were killed off. There were also a lot of ultra close-ups, a lot of airbrushing in some scenes (specifically on Bella and Renesmee's faces) and there's the issue of the CGI on actress Mackenzie Foy to superimpose her face on an animatronic baby or later in a future vision, a teenager. It wasn't overly horrible, just very noticeable.

The Twilight "Saga" may be a series of films where very little actually happens, but I can appreciate it for what it really is... and that's stupid, stupid fun. It sends a horrible message to young women, it's completely ridiculous, and it's all based around an incredibly selfish, stuttering, blinking, suicidal girl played by the incredibly hot Kristen Stewart. People say that these movies "Ruined Vampires", but similar shit was said when Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt were cast in Interview, and look at that movie now. It's pretty badass. You just wait... in about twenty years we'll be looking back at the heyday when Sparkling Vampires like Edward weren't such pussies as compared to what they've got now. Now that it's all "over" now, what's there to look forward to? Next year a new movie based on another of Stephanie Myers' books is coming out, called The Host. Who's starring in it you ask? Saoirse Ronan, who I at the moment am completely obsessed with. Just like with Kristen Stewart, these fuckers keep finding a way to pull me into this chubby author's world. Till next time... keep on Sparklin'.

Resident Evil: Retribution (2012)

Resident Evil: Retribution (2012)

RE: Retribution starts off with an explosive action scene that occurs just after the post-credit sequence from the last film... only it's played backwards, in super slow motion, and in 3-D while the credits appear on screen. Not only does this intro look downright incredible, but it's also pretty damn sweet and left me with a big stupid grin on my face. Unfortunately, from there it goes into some pop-up "split screen" type narrative introduction from Alice recapping the events from the entire series. After learning about the previous four films wasting the audience's time for about a minute or two, we get to see that reversed scene now in its original fast paced form. It goes by pretty quick on the second time around, but it's cool to see it all play out after you've seen it so slowly deconstructed. 

The look of Retribution is a wondrous vision to behold, much like its predecessor Afterlife. And herein lies the film's main strength. It is beautiful! So much of this movie, from the very first frames to the final shot are composed extremely well, shot magnificently and are very visually interesting - captivating, even. The mix of the elegant set designs of the Umbrella Corporation building and the holographic "Levels" throughout the story (and not to mention all the weird shit that goes on) give the whole film a really psychedelic vibe which I totally dig. Half way through, the thought of dropping a few tabs before I came to see this seemed both a dangerous and delightful idea. The majority of this film was obviously storyboarded with utmost importance and followed through with a passion.

Unfortunately (hey there's that word again), the film goes into quite a few lengthy shootout scenes where nearly nobody of importance is ever hit. Only faceless drones get shot to shit, over and over, while cutting repeatedly back and forth to our main characters popping off a few... and it gets boring. Those are the only boring moments of the film thankfully. And at least during one of these dreadfully overlong and choppily edited scenes, Barry Burton (Kevin Durand) gets a major scene that was just good enough to make his very underused character memorable. I wish I could say the same about Leon S. Kennedy (Johann Urb), who's only shining moment in this whole film is putting his hand on Ada's thigh on the helicopter ride home and getting rejected. What the fuck is that? 

That Ada Wong (Bingbing li) is one sexy ass bitch too I'll tell you that much. Her character, from the personality to the dialogue to the clothing and the poses, are so dead on; and Bingbing is so remarkably beautiful that there's no doubt this character will be welcomed by fans of the game. Ada is one of the big three characters here in the film, the other two being Alice (Milla Jovovich) of course, and Jill Valentine (Sienna Guillory). Jill Valentine, with her dyed blonde hair, skin-tight blue outfit and spider-like mind control device just above her luscious boobs (her outfit from the RE:5 Game) has always been one of my favorite designs (so hot!) and Sienna just works it and provides maximum fan service. Her robotic like dialogue and near T-X like stature adds that much more un-guilty pleasure to it all.

Alice is naturally the star of the show, and if you're in lust with Milla like I am, then you sure are in for a treat with this sequel. I love the long and lingering close-ups she's constantly getting, and when the camera smothers (or dry-humps) her. Nearly every shot of her is very voyeuristic and had my eyes glued to the screen... not to mention other things glued elsewhere. And of course, who doesn't like to see her kicking some serious ass!? After experiencing the outbreak in Japan and fleeing into an Umbrella hallway, she has a long "Oldboy-esque" battle against a shitload of zombies (including Patient Zero aka J-Pop Girl (Mika Nakashima) and another zombie hottie) much of it in slow motion with 3-D splattering brain effects to the maximum. It's all very palm-sweat inducing, somewhat laughable, really fun and just totally nuts. 

Alice and Ada also get a two on two against a pair of Axemen (Executioners) while on a walkthrough in New York City. There's a ton of chaos here with buses getting chopped to pieces, cars flying, gratuitous near deaths while dodging vicious blows and tons of head-shots that do absolutely nothing to these fuckers! While the shortest of the four main battles in the film, it's always exciting to see these huge monsters swinging those axes and getting thrashed by two hot chicks. I do however prefer the Axeman battle from Afterlife to this one (There's just something about seeing Ali Larter and Milla gettin' all wet and in slow-mo!). A massive Licker shows up a short while after this proceeds to relentlessly terrorize every single protagonist here, doing a fuckload of damage and bloodying things up. These things freak even me out, and if you ever play the games and encounter them, they'll freak you out too.

Retribution feels more like a video game than any of the previous films, and I really like that. A lot of the dialogue is pretty bad and video game-like (mostly Jill Valentine for instance, as well as a lot of puns) but it adds to the charm of it all. And of course the ending just has to feature a long and sultry battle between Alice and Jill, both of them looking seriously hot in their skin tight outfits. That's just the way it is with a movie like this, and always justifies my laying down the cash to see this on the big screen in 3-D (kinda like Underworld). One sour point for me was Albert Wesker (Shawn Roberts, hamming it up to the eleventh degree) in this one. Though, I wasn't totally convinced by his 'from game to screen' character in Afterlife, his 360 here (albeit done with personal gain heavily looming - think when Megatron joins forces with Optimus Prime for five minutes) is a bit unnearving and it's just plain weird to see himself, Alice, Jill, Leon and Ada all standing together. Very weird.

So should you go and see Resident Evil: Retribution? Let's examine the following two questions: Do you enjoy seeing Milla Jovovich almost completely naked? Or does seeing Milla Jovovich almost completely naked drive you insane and fill your heart with disgust? It's as simple as that. Almost isn't good enough, I know... but I say go see it. If you've seen all the previous films, and even if you "don't like them", you owe it to yourself to see this from a completest's point anyhow. Characters will be bastardized, these are always the facts, and fans of Leon will no doubt be disgusted by his representation in this film. Fans of Ada, Jill and even to a smaller degree, Barry, will leave extremely happy. Wesker fans, I'm not so sure either way. But if you've loved the character of Project: Alice from her conception, then you'll of course crave more!

Oh yeah, and Michelle Rodriguez was in this too.

The Hunger Games (2012)

I had no preconceived notions or expectations going in to see The Hunger Games. I haven't read the books and knew little to nothing about the details of the story, other than the general storyline (from the film being compared to other similarly themed films, and from watching the trailers). Other things I have gathered are: that this movie is based on a series of popular tween books, and that the theaters will be packed with giggling schoolgirls. Sooooo... with that in mind, I made the decision to get dressed in my hat, sunglasses, trench-coat and fake mustache, get in my unmarked white van with tinted windows, and head down to the local cinema.

Now as you may probably know, I'm a huge supporter of films and stories with female leading characters. I don't really care if they're strong, weak, becoming, or just plain Bella... Ever since I was a baby, I always had a thing for chicks. And I've got the hots for Jennifer Lawrence, who plays the lead girl Katniss, there's no denying it. She may look similar to Emily Browning, but just different enough that I can justify stalking them both. Not that I need to justify anything. I think she is a great choice for the lead in this film (and series), and actually, am very happy for her that she'll no doubt be like, totally famous after this! Then there's Isabelle Fuhrman, who plays the character of Clove. Dark lord... what have you done!? This girl is absolutely beautiful! And she's getting more and more gorgeous each year that goes by. Not only that, but she's shown in this, and in her previous roles, that playing an evil little bitch is what she was born to do.

Clove's eventual and surprising fight scene with Katniss was intense, insane and horrifying. Naturally, it brought a smile to my face. This has to be my favorite scene from the whole film. Isabelle is sick as hell when it comes to portraying pure fucking evil and I drown in every second of it. Some may say "Oh, she's not evil, she's in the same situation as Katniss...". Yeah, I don't fucking think so. She's totally getting off killing and maiming things with her throwing knives. My second favorite scene from the films is Clove tossing her throwing knives into that lizard. That shit caught me by surprise. I never thought I would see something like that in a mainstream US film that's rated PG-13. Real or not. I giggled to myself as I got Argento flashbacks.

Some other things I liked about Hunger Games is that the film really worked building on the tension. It's not exactly horror tension, but it's very close, and rather a feeling that's constantly built up over periods of time before a calmness (sometimes) ensues. The film may not have started off too exciting, but the pacing was just right and even the "boring" scenes were interesting enough and set up the unsettling feelings. I thought that was well done, and the film really built up to the excitement. Midway, when Katniss began hiding in the trees (which was totally necessary and smart) the movie seemed to drag a bit, and some of the other youth actors got their chance to act. Bad move. Aside from Amandla Stenberg who played Rue, the other kids range from pretty horrible to downright atrocious.

I also liked the Adult supporting cast, especially Woody Harrelson and Elizabeth Banks. Woody of course just takes every role he's in to a spectacular place and this film is no exception. Everything he did in this film was total greatness and he stole scenes time and time again. Then again, he always does. As for Lizzy, I really like her. She's a goddess, and a magnificent woman, but I thought she looked gross in this movie with that weird make-up. Donald Sutherland seemed a bit uncommitted and wasted (but it's a trilogy right?). Lenny Kravitz surprised me, since I've never before liked that guy at all in any way/shape/form, by actually becoming an inspirational character with gold eyeliner. He seemed a bit touchy and RAPEish for a while, but I don't know...

The whole look of the film was pretty cool as well. I liked the shaky and unexpected camera work. All of the close-ups of Jennifer were fully appreciated. There were a lot of details that were well thought out and executed nicely. The CGI of the futuristic city and train were very CGI, but when it arrived, the costumes and set designs gave the movie a really interesting and messed up vibe.What a bunch of weirdos at this event! I thought the whole black leather and girl on fire chariot scene was pretty awesome too. Katniss and Peeta looked their coolest... well, as cool as Peeta could possibly look I suppose. I thought the idea of Sponsors sending out help via controlled mini-parachute was a brilliant idea, but a bit underused.

Since I never read the books, I don't really know how much info or scenes are missing from this movie. But it seemed to me like it was missing quite a bit. There were a lot of unexplained things, and a lot of it seemed simplified. Also, I don't know if half of the other kids in the event that got killed had names in the book... but they're lucky they even got faces in this movie. We could have at least got a bit more than a picture bio before they died (most of them offscreen!). Hopefully an extended version will correct this and some other things. For a 2 hour and 22 minute film, the filmmakers probably put a lot of small important details, but I wouldn't know. A 3 hour version would suffice. As long as there's more blood and violence! And groping.

One of the main things that disappointed me about this movie is that it wasn't violent enough. The first half of the film is the set-up, so of course nothing violent happens. And when it finally does, much of it happens far to quick to make sense of it all (think Michael Bay's Transformers). While the violence is indeed brutal, it doesn't leave a lasting affect on the viewer. Only two key characters were given admirable death time. For shame Hunger Games. We must have more time for Death! Overall, I liked The Hunger Games. I feel it has been getting far better ratings than it deserves, especially from horror bloggers. I understand that it exceeded the fact that it would most surely suck, and in fact was a damn fine movie, but it's not perfect score or 4.5/5 to me. I could see it possibly being a 3.5 or 4/5 with an extended cut, if everything was done to my liking, which would never happen anyways. But yeah, I liked it.

Underworld 4: Awakening

Underworld 4: Awakening 3D (2012) Rated: R. Thanks for joining me in this Spoilerific post. This is a Cinema Review, so let's get on with the quick thoughts of what I uhh... thought. Yeah.

I'll talk about what I liked first, which is of course: Kate Beckinsale. Without a doubt the hottest woman on the planet! I will watch anything with Kate in it, but the fact that she's featured so prominently in a horror franchise with vampires and werewolves, wearing nothing but tight black leather, it just makes it that much sweeter. I become fixated and mesmerized by her in these films, and I just can't get enough of her close-up shots. Aside from being drop un-dead gorgeous, she also kicks (and kills) some serious ass here. A lot of fight training really payed off, especially this time around where it's basically non-stop action from start to finish. Selene fucks shit up and leaves a serious path of destruction in Awakening. She's a total badass! She even gets a killer slow-motion walking away scene after showing off some of her skills.

And this path of destruction is GORY as all hell. I may have to go back and revisit the previous films in the series, but this one I do believe has more blood, gore and gross-out moments than all three of the other movies combined. It was sick! The violence is intense, heart pounding, graphic, and explosive. With a runtime of only 88 minutes(!) this may as well be a long Underworld music video. The unending action sequences and blood splattering death scenes are balanced out by the film's beautiful, sleek and colorfully toned look. It all just looks so glossy and magnificent, which is another thing I've really like about this series. A lot of great care is taken with how everything is presented. The 3D wasn't super over the top but there were a lot of great moments where a lot of images came out you (such as glass quickly flying after explosions, blood spattering, ect.) and none of it was overly obvious where it distracted.

A few things I didn't like or that slightly bothered me: The very first thing we see is a pointless recap of the first two films, and I hate that shit. It was less than a minute but it still bugged me. Afterwards they go into a 2D "black and white" news report style intro that sets up the film. That should have been the start of the film and not clips from the previous entries. It was distracting to see all this 2D after all the 3D trailers and before the film officially started. The transition was far from seamless when the new footage hits. Another thing, is they fogged the potential nudity. Just as in part 2 where Katie's ladies were conveniently covered by an arm, CGI smoke and haze filled all of the positive space here, obscuring her body parts. Booo!!1 Scott Speedman wasn't in this, but his character was and it obviously wasn't the same dude. Not that I really care too much about that, as he was hardly in the movie for all of twelve seconds and you never really got a good look at him.

Which brings me to the script. This story is probably the weakest amongst all four movies. I still enjoyed the hell out of Part 3 (for an Underworld film without Kate), but this film just ends up seeming weird in a lot of parts. Some of the dialogue is quite stiff and the very new relationship between mother and daughter needed to be explored deeper than a gentle, two minute scene. In fact, just about every character interaction in this movie seems slightly awkward for some reason or another. Awakening is also essentially an open ended film, which doesn't help matters. On one hand I actually thought it was pretty awesome how fast paced the film was, because everything was just so jam-packed and it never got slow, not once. But this movie could really benefit from a longer cut. Another half hour perhaps? Overall, a very incomplete feeling movie that left an instant gratification, but ultimately will end up best viewed back to back with part 1, 2 and eventually 5. Awakening is a crazy and wild mind escape that is over way too quickly. Recommended. I would have liked to go to the IMAX for this, but it didn't happen this time around.  It was kind of funny to see an uncredited Wes Bentley show up only to be dropped out of a window and die falling onto a parked car.

A Very Harold and Kumar 3-D Christmas (2011)

A Very Harold and Kumar 3-D Christmas (2011)

[Rated R: for strong crude and sexual content, graphic nudity, pervasive language, drug use and some violence.]

Six Years after Harold and Kumar escaped from Guantanamo Bay, the two have drastically grown apart. Harold (John Cho) is more than happily married with Maria (the incredibly hot Paula Garcé) while Kumar (Kal Penn) has been left by Vanessa (Danneel Ackles) and does nothing but sit around his dirty apartment smoking weed and watching television (in today's case: A Christmas Story). When a mysterious package addressed to Harold arrives at Kumar's place, the two are reunited and Maria's father's prized Christmas tree gets inexplicably burnt down. So ensues another wacky adventure of miss-mashed events while the two go searching for a replacement tree.

I loved Harold and Kumar go to White Castle. Let me just get that out of the way. There were so many great scenes: the two of them whispering in Freakshow's truck, the Burger Shack employee talking about the secret sauce, the way they laugh during that PSA spoof, I got to see Malin Ackerman topless, Ali Larter and Rachel Nichols got it on in a nasty wet lesbian scene (wait, no... my mistake, that's just what I wanted this year for Christmas!), the animated burger land sequence that ends in Kumar licking Harold's face, the chubby extreme-velociraptor punk, the rabid raccoon, ect. The dialogue was all good and none of it seemed awkward aside from the "fuck it" kissing scene at the end. And it wasn't trying too hard (maybe the BattleShits scene). Then the sequel came and for half of it I just couldn't give a shit. I wasn't really into that whole "Hunting the terrorists" plot and I don't really care too much for Rob Corrdry. Those scenes were more of an annoyance to me, as was smoking with George W. I did like the John Reep scene about "whooping your little cyclops ass!", and the KKK stuff, the bottomless party, the more gentler scenes about Kumar's past smoking weed with Vanessa.

But the problem arises with the film trying too hard to be obscenely gross or super funny, when it shouldn't, and isn't. The same thing goes for the third film, Harold and Kumar Christmas. They went way overboard with the Neil Patrick Harris stuff, first of all. He's like in one-third of the total film, it's ridiculous. I didn't need to see him do an entire song and dance routine in 3-D. He was good in the first film, and even OK in the second, but this was too fuckin' much. Harold and Kumar both have new best friends in this one (played by Thomas Lennon and Amir Blumenfeld) and thankfully their scenes aren't nearly as annoying as the side scenes from part two involving the Government. I liked the running gag with the baby girl that keeps getting fucked up on various drugs.

There's a really awesome Claymation scene where the two are seriously tripping out on spiked egg nog and have to escape a giant, sinister snow man that's destroying the city. We even get our first shot of genitals here (Kumar's humongous 3-D clay dick in your face!). It keeps coming back to reality and showing how insane they're acting even though to them they're in a clay world and some crazy shit is going down. Then there's a little nod to A Christmas Story later on when Harold gets his dick stuck to a pole and Kumar decides that only his warm saliva can get it unstuck. "No! I don't want you spitting on my penis!" Aside from the more penisy scenes, we do get to (not) see NPH jerking off on a model's back while he gives her a massage, and a really nice ass shot from Maria (one which rivals the ass shot in Immortals). Nice!

Paula Garcé as Maria, who is perhaps the sexiest woman alive, gets a few more scenes this time around which I enjoyed. She's drop fuckin' dead gorgeous. And in this one she shows off her sex-craved side. The acting seems a little forced to be ultra naughty but I didn't mind. Danny Trejo play's Maria's Christmas tree sweater wearing father who seemingly wishes to disembowel Harold. The guy is dead serious about the trees that he grows (just check out that sweater!). Patton Oswalt plays the Mall Santa who of course, sells weed on the side. Danneel Ackles as Vanessa, was hardly in this movie at all (that sucks). Elias Koteas is here (Christopher Meloni couldn't make it) playing a Mob boss who wants the boys dead in a rather lame subplot involving his virgin daughter who can't seem to get fucked. His scenes are well done, but every scene with his kids are super annoying. Richard Riehle plays the real Santa, who again of course loves smoking pot out of his candy cane bong(!). I probably don't have to tell you how awesome this guy is in whatever movie he's in. He stole all the scenes he was in, playing probably the best Santa representation I've ever seen.

My favorite part of the whole film was the Nunspoitation scene. It's so good to see hot, nude, lesbian nuns soaped up and showering together in a mainstream film these days. I really appreciate the filmmakers for giving the nun-lovin' viewers something special. That, and any time I got to see Maria's face (or other parts) really left me with that warm Christmas feeling inside. I can see why they had to estrange Harold and Kumar, being it a major plot point of Santa's secret package that reunites them and saves their friendship. It was weird though, seeing them so distant and uncomfortable with each other. Guess it had to be done for the sake of the story and to introduce new characters. Side characters should stay side characters though, that's how I feel about it in these films. So, I guess I'd say that Harold and Kumar Christmas was a mixed sack. It's got a lot of small doses of truly funny moments, but a lot of the puns and dialogue with the lamer characters (mob kids, black guys selling trees, and new best friends to a lesser extent) are just kind of boring and tiresome. Something that plauged the last film, but hopefully not the next.

Note: Being that this film has 3-D firmly in the title and the films itself makes extremely obvious nods that it's in 3-D, make sure you see this in a theater with decent glasses and equipment. In fact, if you're seeing 3-D films in multiple theaters around your town it's good to find out which one does it best, don't keep switching it up if you have a bad experience in one. Always go to the place that plays it best if you're going to pay extra.

Twilight 4 - Breaking Dawn: Part 1 (2011)

Twilight 4 - Breaking Dawn: Part 1 (2011)

[Rated PG-13: for disturbing images, violence, sexuality/partial nudity and some thematic elements.]

The film starts off with Jacob walking out the door into the rain, his race riddled with emotional pain as usual, before he tears off his shirt (again?!) to show his ripped bod and starts to jog. I really should have expected that.

We first get a glimpse of the White Wedding as Bella walks down the isle towards Edward, only for things to become surreal and uneasy once they kiss. She looks down to notice that they're now both covered in blood, and as the camera very, very slowly pans out, both are standing over the pile of all the guest's dead bodies. Nice! Once the real wedding begins, Bella stands there holding her father's hand nervously and asks him, "Just don't let me fall down." This is important to note as it is a recurring theme for Bella, and to remind audiences that she is indeed, on rather clumsy ass, dumb bitch.

It's a very, I guess pretty would be the word, wedding scene and up until this point nearly every character from the previous films has had at least one scene. As Bella is walking down the isle there's a slow, minute-long scene of the camera's transition down the back of her dress. It sure is one detailed and cool looking dress, admittedly. [I wondered why the shot took so long, (not that I minded, it was interesting I thought and added to the real time factor of an event like this) so I looked it up and found out that Stephenie Meyer had written some six pages detailing nothing but the back of that dress. Weirdly obsessive much?] There's some humorous bits thrown in with the toasts, and while it's all about true love forever and all that gushy business it doesn't go completely sappy as before. And so, they get married and tongue kiss for about five minutes straight while all the tween girls in the audience get wet.

Jacob shows up (with clothes on for once!) after the ceremony, standing in the woods, and seemingly unbitchier than usual. He seems to be finally coming into his own as a rightfully pissed off dude, and less of a crying, whimpering, shirtless and running, buff, teen-angst boy (Well except for that first scene, but I heard should have been towards the end of the third film actually). Anyways, he's manning up a bit. Even though, he's still majorly in love with this chick who keeps leading him on slightly, even though she just fucking got married! The two share a dance and some words together while everyone is still back at the party. When the honeymoon and subsequential turning get brought up, Bella tells Jacob that she will indeed be fucking Edward that night... but not as a Vamp, just as a mere, fragile human girl. Jacob naturally flips the fuck out, then storms off into the woods again crying like a little bitch.

Edward whisks Bella away to the mysterious vacation area of Rio De Janeiro, Brazil, where the two dance in the street for a short while amongst the local Asado-Grilling Muchachos and Gordita Putas. They share a few more kisses before taking a small motorboat out to a secluded island with an incredibly gorgeous and absolutely stunning looking summer home. Here we go, Edward and Bella finally get their fuck on! It's about time too. Bella's all nervous, brushing her teeth, shaving her legs and pumping herself up in the mirror while Edward decides to take a nude stroll out into the ocean. After coming to terms with the fact that she will indeed soon have Edwards wooden stake inside of her, she strips down and joins him in the water where they kiss for another fifteen minutes. There is a lot of goddamn kissing in this movie.

(This whole scene had to be shot just above nipples, so there's a whole lot of negative space with the sky in the background, and it looks just plain weird. The camera was too far out about half the time and it was distracting and downright infuriating to not see her boobs. It was far too lingering as well and the fact that I had to look at Edwards nipples didn't really help matters either!) It's actually pretty romantic this time around though, and a lot less (glaringly) cliche than the previous films. There still are some cheesy ass lines for those of us who so desire them, because come on, who doesn't love Meyer's groan inducing writing? I sure as fuck do! When Edward carried Bella to the bedroom to their honeymoon she gives him some shit, and he says "I'm nothing if not traditional." A major theme for Edward by the way who's a total old-school nerd of a virgin vampire. That line doesn't seem so bad written down, but in addition to his previous lines and delivery it's delightfully tacky.

Where was I? Oh right, the sex scene. It's a fairly quick scene (after all they are virgins), but it appears as if they go at it twice, with Bella mounting Edward the second time around. When Edward first slips inside of her sweet, pink little twitcher, he grabs the headboard, crushing it with his bare hands as he shoots his vampyric load prematurely inside of her. Smooth move. Bella later awakens with pillow feathers all over the place, the bed has been torn to shreds and the frame is busted all to fuck. There was a fun little scene later with the Spanish housekeepers, particularly the superstitious wife, when they walk through the house and that bed (whole room actually) is utterly thrashed! That next morning Bella stares at herself in the mirror for about five minutes and touches her face and lips for a while. Edward comes in and asks her how badly she's hurt. Yes, I grinned. He then opens parts of her robe to expose dark bruises all over her body.

Edward of course refuses to touch her shortly after that because he's so insistent on not ever hurting her. All the while she's pretty much screaming out "Fuck me! You idiot." He of course resists all of her temptations with the lingerie and blatantly rubbing her curvy ass in his face, instead opting to make her breakfast each morning and obliterate her at every chess game. She starts having bad dreams about never getting fucked again, one in which she finally wins a game of chess and then as compensation mounts him. Only to wake up and start crying as the dream was not real. How unfortunate! A few hours later Bella eats some slightly undercooked chicken and begins vomiting. When she notices that she missed her period, she checks herself out in the mirror and feels a violent trembling of a demon child. Edward naturally shits himself, panics and says they've got to get "that thing" out of her. Ouch!

Yeah, that's the look! Pants shat.

Talk about romantic, huh? The next half of the film deals with Bella's incredibly short and downright sickeningly-grim pregnancy. Arguments over "fetus" vs "baby" are had, and many of the family (including Jacob) want that fuckin' monstrosity out of her belly before it kills her. Bella insists that she's strong enough and Edward scoffs at the dumb girl's words. You, strong!? Que laughter. Nobody can sense the baby, or what it's like or what it wants until Edward reads Jacob's sarcastic mind that "it probably wants to come out so it can rip out someone's throat." Carlisle and the rest of them decide that the malnourished (and not to mention pretty fuckin' gross looking) young lass needs to Drink Blood(!) to feed the baby. Over the course of a few days, Bella goes through the family's lingering supply of Type O Positive blood pouches (drinking them with a straw out of Styrofoam cups). Soon enough, Edward discovers the error of his ways and comes to comfort his wife, telling her that he can now hear the baby's thoughts, that he loves the baby, and that the baby loves its mother. Aww.

With all well again in the Cullen family, Bella stands up and accidentally drops her cup, only to lean down and furiously Snap her spine in half! Dark lord. She screams in agonizing pain and goes into labor. As Dr. Carlisle, his wife and Emmett have gone out for more blood pouches (to accommodate the birth, nice timing), Rosalie, Jacob and Edward are forced to deliver the baby. After Edward slits Bella's stomach open with a scalpel, Rosalie's bloodlust takes control and Alice has to get her and Jasper the hell out of there before they eat her alive. The three of them go out to fight off the wolf pack, who are now focused on killing this baby as it is "too much of a threat to the world." Leaving Jacob and Edward both together once again in this dire situation. The fetus lining is too strong that the scalpel won't penetrate it, so Edward must bury his face into Bella's other slit and rip that fuckin' baby out with his own teeth! It's all pretty bloody disgusting actually.

Then she dies.

Yep. She's pregnant! I mean, It's totally obvious...

This film nearly got an R-Rating and had to be edited in two major spots. Personally this saddens the hell out of me and I hope that the home release will feature unaltered editing (though I highly fucking doubt it)! There were some strange cuts during the sex scene and also the birthing scene (far too many red lens and fades and shadows and disguise - I really wish they would have just shown more of the eventful gore). It was still nasty, and blood was all over the place, however. That being said, this film shows far more skin and blood than all the three previous combined. Not that that's really saying too much.

One of the main things I like about the film was how beautifully shot and composed everything is. All of the framing, set pieces, costumes, cinematography and timing are expertly handled. The music was distracting in only a few parts as it would start out of nowhere in the middle of dialogue, and I did notice one strange jump-cut between Carlisle and Edward's faces while in the doctor's office. But otherwise things flowed rather smoothly and scene transitions were often to some other spectacular looking location with some eventful bullshit building up. The whole first half of the film is so inviting and gorgeous. The last third of the film gets pretty damn ugly, especially in the case of Bella's walking corpse look.

Nearly all of the characters from the previous films all share moments together before Bella and her future sisters prepare for the wedding. The film takes its time to slow down and focus on a lot of the less dramatic scenes, where not much goes on aside from some dialogue and humorous, warm moments. It's nice that a lot of the smaller character development reminder-scenes were included in this split end-film, as not to compact and lose the  important stuff (Alright, let's get another shot of Jacob shirtless standing in the rain!). Bella's mom makes more of an appearance, her school friends aren't all dead after all, and the two least annoying siblings of the wolf clan (Seth and Leah Clearwater) get the most screen time from that bunch (which is good because I found all of the others particularly annoying!).

The werewolves actually speaking to each other was otherworldly and just plain weird. I know they communicate telepathically, but I just didn't see this coming at all. In the previous films it was merely suggested with eyes and understood looks, but here you flat out hear what they're saying. It was like a cartoon. The CGI of the broken spine and envenoming blood traveling through the body looked pretty cool, as did the self-stitching skin. There were some quick flashback sequences (and man do I utterly hate flashbacks), but they were mostly done in quick fashion and didn't end up bothering me too much.

It's hard for me to rate this one in comparison to the other films in the series based on two factors. One of the reasons I watch these are for Kristen Stewart. If I could dream at all, it would be about her! Unfortunately she looks pretty disgusting for a good part of this movie (and while relevant to the film, I gotta shake my head no). Then there's the lameness and cheese factor. The last two Twilight films have been stepped it up a notch on the serious meter, and this time it didn't come off a total giggle-fest. Luckily there was still just enough awfulness that I went away fulfilled. Did I mention that Jacob falls in love with and "imprints" on their baby at the end of this? Motherfucker's now a babyfucker!

Immortals (2011)

Immortals (2011)

Rated: R (For sequences of strong bloody violence, and a scene of sexuality).

On 11-11-11, there came another movie... one which didn't Suck! (Note: I haven't actually seen 11-11-11 yet, I just wanted to say that). Immortals tells the story of the absolutely ruthless King Hyperion (Mickey Rourke, daw yeah!), who's roaming the land in search of the mystic Epirus Bow, a weapon of presumed myth, and legend. He needs this Bow to set loose The Titans, a nemesis group to the Gods, imprisoned since ancient times and thirsty for revenge. Though the Gods' laws restrict them from interfering with Man's destiny, Zeus himself under the guise of a wily old man (Luke Evans and John Hurt, respectively), raises and guides bastard child Theseus (Henry Cavill) to become mankind's savior. How that isn't to be interfering, I don't know... but I will not question the mighty and powerful, old turned young Zeus. All chaos ensues, and after King Hyperion kills the only mom that Theseus ever had, shit doth get utterly fucked up! Oh yeah, and Spoilers too.

So what was so cool about Immortals? Let me start with the Perfect Casting! Henry Cavill. Not only is this guy a great, simplistic actor (first saw him in The Tudors), but he's also just got that look (totally Ripped).  He plays a sensitive, lost soul with null and void religious beliefs. Caring about only the things closest to him, he closets the Inner Rage within! And man, is he fuckin' full of said Rage. Mickey Rourke is at his best here as one Evil, Unemotional and Dark motherkiller! Totally rivaling his role as Marv in Sin City, Rourke has taken his gritty yet elegant, ugly yet enticing, uncompromising yet giving nature to the Ultimate Level (Think Gary Oldman in Dracula). He's magnificent in every aspect and the true star of the whole f'n show. Steven Dorf makes a Blade comeback and totally Rocks It as a horny ass thief who gets pumped up and never lets his adrenaline level drop down. Luke Evans is spectacular as Young Zeus. Though much of his work is an intimidating emotional look, he pulls off a superior and saddened God quite well.

Onto the beautiful women. Isabel Lucas, evil tongue-lashing, Fembot-in-Disguise from Transformers 2 is here as Zeus' daughter, Athena. Hot as all fuck, she looks kinda like She-Ra in her Goddess uniform, and not only does she kick some Serious Ass, but all of her scenes are actually important to her character development. Imagine that. She was a perfect choice for this and her beauty is much appreciated by me, especially if I have to look at so many muscular, shirtless dudes. The most beautiful and visually intoxicating Freida Pinto (Slumdog Millionaire), gets totally naked (body double) and aside from that looks so fucking beautiful every single scene she's in. Not to get picky with the close-up that is a butt double, but the far away shot sure as hell looks like her (I know it's supposed to), even if she's in the shadows you can still see "things". Nice close up butt shot though. I don't think I heard much of her dialogue as I was too busy using my drool to shape my wizard beard into an erect point. She plays Phaedra, an Oracle with three distracts, who sees future events and seriously wants to get laid!

Secondly, it's GORY AS ALL HELL! The fight scenes are palm-sweatingly intense and their potentials are all reached to the maximum. There's heads fuckin' exploding(!), heads cut off, throats slit, stomachs pierced, bodies cut in half, limbs torn and cut off, eyes gouged out... major bloodshed, anarchy, chicks get roasted to death, and one dumb-ass headless fucker gets kicked off of a nine hundred foot cliff in which we get to watch him from afar, fall... all the way down. All of it very tastefully done. Some (not all) of it in that Zack Snyder slow-mo, with insane positions and maneuvers that not only tingle the brain but make one confused enough to think for once. It's completely badass. The finale goes nuts, and you will break a sweat! There's mental anquish and sheer torture throughout the film. I like that! It's a dark, dark film with lots of death and thoughts on death, and great dialogue on the legacy that one can leave behind. Be that a legacy of brutality, or of heroics. There is a hunger for both.

Also, there's The Look! Though majorly shot with seemingly CGI backgrounds, everything is so well done and thought out, that it's simply amazing looking. Many scenes transition from one another into similar looking but different locations and set pieces (say for instance a mask lingering will become a boat being rowed down the black ocean). Things like this happen often, and it's remarkable how visually interesting it's done. I can only imagine what it would have been like if I were not sober. The sets were also magnificent. Cinematography was mostly CGI play fields, but all of the zooms and fades and roaming just looked damn good. This movie really is like a painting come to life. Costumes are also great. For the most part it's the masks and hoods of the evil motherfuckers that attract. But for the royalty, purple capes and armor was used. Gold, exquisite and strange interesting head pieces for the Gods. Even the peasants had some stylish gear (hey, they're not rags!). It was all very well imagined and commendable. The story may not be the most unfathomable imaginable, but above all, the acting, look and gore made every single scene worthwhile.

The 3-D was subtle for the most part, but the movie was very layered and really thought out in terms of how every scene fits together depth-wise. All the positions of the actors and locations were done splendidly and it was, quite simply put, gorgeous. The color was a little drawn out, but I would have rather seen it in this way as I'll never do so again. Plus, the colors in these types of films are always a bit drawn out. Immortals is going to look beautiful in home High-Def hopefully, especially in its normalistic film version. Buy it, and Love it! That's your only option as far as I'm concerned, unless of course you see it now, and then do so.

Real Steel (2011)

Hey, I just payed to watch Real $teel (2011)

Rated: PG-13 (for Violence, Intense Robot Fighting Action, and Swear Words). 

Hugh Jackman plays Charlie Kenton, a down and out former professional boxer and now desperate, independent robot-boxing promoter who owes nearly everyone he knows tons of money. All this guy cares about is making whatever cash he can get as soon as possible, by booking his robot in all-or-nothing fights. Of course, ever since Robot Boxing took the world over and forced him out of the ring, his life has been a downward spiral of bad luck and reckless decisions which repeatedly cost him the very expensive bots he comes to own. Never one to learn a lesson, he'll work up a scheme or two here and there to procure a new bot once his old one gets thrashed. It's all he cares about, he's become a shell of his former self, and it's all very sad to watch. Of course, the character of Charlie Kenton is a complete fucking asshole and a dick to everyone around him so you as the viewer couldn't give a shit. That is of course, until his ex-girlfriend dies and he's reunited(?) with his son, Max (Dakota Goyo), whom he abandoned after birth. His ex's sister wants custody of course, and Charlie goes about conning the lady's husband out of $100,000 cash money to sign him over to her. Only to make things look good for both of them, he'll take the kid in for a few weeks and she never has to know about the deal.

So, can you see where this is going? I could. It's glaringly obvious. Real Steel ain't about the Robots. In fact, out of the few messages the movie is trying to convey at whichever time, it's hinted majorly that Charlie himself is the robot that his son comes to resurrect. He's an emotionless, reclusive, and downright mean (non-psychically abusive) son of a bitch who's completely caught up in the dream that he never dreamed. He's become a lost soul, who's in such a rush all the time to make money that he doesn't stop for a moment to see that he's destroying all of his relationships. As Charlie and Max go on their robot fight road-trips, a series of consequential events occur which bring the two closer(?) and as you would expect, Charlie shows signs of giving a fuck. Who would have thought. But giving a fuck ain't easy when you're so ripped. All I could think about while seeing this emotionally awakening and tragically beautiful father and son bonding movie was "Fuck these motherfuckers for trying to make me feel shit! I don't want to feel. I want to not feel!" Unless I'm feeling something in my pants when I see that super hot ring-girl in the wierd blue Tron getup during the final match. There should have been more scenes with her and less scenes with talking about feelings.

Nightmare on Elm Street, A (2010)





Horror bloggers were pissed, calling this an utter shitfest and proclaiming it the WURST THING EVUR! After second viewings, wouldn't you know, some hated it even more. How could they do this to our beloved Freddy? Everyone's favorite teen murdering, wise cracking jokester. How dare they go and make him Sinister again! Wait... that's not such a bad thing, innit? Freddy has always been my favorite slasher and A Nightmare on Elm Street is 10/10 always being in my top ten films of all time. But let's face the fuckin' facts here... Freddy's Dead was a major low point for the character. You really can't fuck things up worse than they did there. This is the way I look at things: Freddy was at his most true during the original, New Nightmare and to a slightly lesser extent, Part 3. Sure, I dig Fred when he puts those sunglasses on at the beach and calls Ricky a little meatball, that's all well and good. But I like my Freddy to be mean, nasty and a sick fucker. This remake did that.

I'm not going to go off the deep end and praise this film as being some major accomplishment for the horror genre, no. But do I feel that it's a bit under-appreciated, and that a few of the more harsh comments that have been slung its way are undeserved? You're damn right I do. I can see all the faults, and I can address the concerns of many as I too feel dissapointment in some areas. Just a few: The glove coming out of the bathtub between Nancy's legs. It had to be done for the sake of the remake, everyone knows it. Did it have the same effect as the original? Fuck no. If it hadn't been included in the remake, would people have complained? I sure think so. That's the trouble with this exciting scene of the past, the filmmakers this time around are screwed either way. Sad they couldn't think of a way to improve the original scene, and decided to just carbon copy it. After all, they didn't have Freddy's tongue coming out of a phone and that didn't matter much. In fact, when Freddy says that he's "Nancy's boyfriend now" in the remake, it's a lot more personal. And I'll get to that in a second.

They did this blurry edges effect for quite a bit of the dream sequence stuff and that irritated me. The dream isn't supposed to be noticeable (and some of it wasn't), but I guess this is happening when it's all micro-naps or on the edge of waking or falling asleep. Still, I don't like it. A lot of the children from their preschool are now dead and Nancy finds out about this online. That was annoying [it's not even off screen death, it's like off screen death hearsay], but I can see why they did it (for the storyline). At least they had the sense to put Marcus Yeon's vlog up there to give this part of the movie a moment of interest, if you can call it that. I at least like Yoo better than fuckin' Joy Division boy up there with his little awkward pouts and shit. What in the fuck that was the same character from Jennifer's Body. [Side note: Kinda like how Trent from the F13 remake was the exact same dude from the first Transformers film - Bay's influence, much? Yeah, and Aaron Yoo has now been killed by both Freddy and Jason (though when Jason killed him it was very Michael Myers and in the NoES remake he didn't so much die off screen as... in screen? Muhwaha! I'm rambling.)] So parts of it sucked, but let's take a moment to see what really works.

Freddy is a sick motherfucker, for one. That's what works. His relationship with Nancy here is taken to extreme, complicated and downright vile complexities. He may have loved kids, but he fuckin' loved Nancy the mostest! It's not made clear what he had "done" to the other children, or exactly how "far" he had gone with Nancy, but it is alluded to that he did bad things with her that he didn't do with the others. When she's taken from him he comes back from hell to get her back, much like Hellboy would have done for Liz. Though, I can't really see that big mitt making scratch marks on the young lass, simply pulverizing. And even then it's a fucked up thought to begin with. One of my Japanese followers is drawing up a Manga of this as.. of.. now! So he comes back for His Little Nancy and to get to her, what does he do? He kills all of her former schoolmates in grizzly fashion to get her attention, making sure that he leaves her for last, that she'll never wake up from a coma, and he'll be forever the man of her dreams. Spoiler, it happens!

And remember how they couldn't do justice to that bathtub scene? It was something not precisely in the scene itself, but rather the follow-up. In the original Nancy was taken underwater for a short while and she struggled. That's a nice scene (especially if you get the unedited version), but here they took it in a different direction and gave deformed birth to my very favorite line of the film: Nancy is walking through the snow onto her old preschool, and Freddy approaches her from behind. This is the point where Freddy is making his move to his now grown-up little princess. Formal introductions and the whole four knives. They exchange words and then he leans in, now holding her hand with his knived glove as she squirms, and he says softly in her ear: "You smell different." And he says it in this really creepy yet utterly sexy way, and it's not only disturbing as Fuck but I'm tellin' ya I felt butterflies. Sure, I was high at the time, but I smiled. Couldn't help it. Watch the clip HERE! I like the more disturbing angle they finally had the balls to go with. It made Freddy definitely darker than all previous versions, just based on the fact that they come out and get past alluding to it. This motherfucker surfs with E.T. and Firestarter came afterwards.

Even though I wouldn't call the script a work of genius (far from it), I feel they and JEH did a really great job on Freddy's demeanor and his words of choice. He spoke most of the time as if he were speaking to children. From "This won't hurt one little bit!", to "3...2...1... Ready or not, here I come." I feel that, on top of the other sick shit he eventually lays out, they really drove the point home and had a vision on how they wanted Freddy to appear here. The whole "wet dream" line late in the film made me somewhat cringe, since he was doing so well without the puns, but I can see how it fits now that his girl is "of age" and ready for Freddy. Also of note, his line about how the brain continues to function after death and now he's got more time to play. That was a rather brilliant contribution to this hated film, I'd say. Stuff like that gets under the skin of certain people, especially if they've seen that old Tales From the Crypt episode where the dude can feel his own autopsy. Uhg. That's an AFTERMATH I wouldn't wish for... huwaha! So I say forgive the movie for its shitty faults and look to the core of the matter. Freddy's Back!

So hide yo daughters, hide yo kids and hide yo dog cuz this mufucka's heavy-petting everybody!

Oh yeah, and one more thing. I didn't at all have a thing for Rooney Mara before this. During the production of the film and even during my initial viewing of, I found her somewhat plain and couldn't understand the attraction. After my second viewing and subsequent brainwashing, I know what it is: Those eyes. Perhaps she's got her mother's eyes. Well, I know that her character Nancy does after what transpired during the finale. ;)