Category: Home Video

Oh man, I have been dreading this day.  Today is the day that I review the 2014 film Pompeii distributed by TriStar Pictures.  What is sad about this movie is that it could have been a mindless action/disaster movie and been okay, but instead it is just all around bad.  The acting is bad, the special effects are bad, and you guessed it the script is bad.  That is the trifecta of bad.  I should expect no less (more?) of Paul W. S. Anderson.  He has a true gift for making terrible movies.

The story is about a young Celt named Milo (Kit Harington) who watches his family get butchered by the Romans and then is forced to become a gladiator.  He becomes a premier fighter and is moved to Pompeii where he falls for the Governor’s daughter (Emily Browning).  She is also being wooed (poorly) by Senator Quintas Attius Corvus (Kiefer Sutherland) who just happens to be the guy responsible for killing Milo’s family.  None of this really matters because they are all going to get killed by a Volcano.

Oh man this movie.  Really it is a Gladiator ripoff with a little Titanic thrown in for good measure.  Now I understand that there has to be some sort of story so we care about the people running from the fiery ash at the end of this movie.  Sadly, you don’t because they are all very stupid and one note.  You have to watch them make dumb move after dumb move until the end.  I wish at that point they would stop being dumb, but no, they continue to hold their grudges and act out their stupid storylines while the city is falling down around them.  Luckily for them the Volcano will stop erupting for them to have their epic(?) face-offs.

Normally with a script this terrible I give the cast a pass.  I mean there is only so much you can do with something like this, but these people all find ways to add to the garbage pile.  Harrington always looks like a sad puppy.  Browning looks confused, but best (worst) of all is Sutherland.  He tries his best to have a British accent (never mind that he should be trying to have an Italian one), but it is awful, but he does it with such gusto that it is almost funny.  Almost.  No one comes out looking good in this film.

The special effects artists deserve a Razzie for their work in this film.  I have never seen so many obvious green-screen shots in my life.  It was like watching a 90s made for TV Sci-Fi movie.  I was blown away with how bad everything looked.  If this was on the Discovery Channel or something maybe it would be passible, but for a big budget film it is inexcusable.

I have spent way too much time writing about this film, but all you need to know is that it is terrible.  It isn’t even so bad it is good, and I love those types of films, no this movie fails at even that.  Don’t watch Pompeii.  It is an hour and a half of your life that you will never get back.  Everyone who was part of this movie should feel bad about themselves.

When Disney decided to make the 2014 movie Maleficent, I was skeptical, but then I saw the perfect casting of Angelina Jolie, and I become hopeful.  While Jolie was amazing, I wish the rest of this film could have pulled its weight a little.  This movie grinds to a halt when she is not on the screen, luckily since she is the star that is not often, but still it keeps this movie from becoming great.

The film is a retelling of the Disney version of Sleeping Beauty, but instead of following Aurora, we fallow the titular Maleficent, and that change of focus changes the story quite a bit.  Instead of a villain, Maleficent becomes a tragic hero, and the forlorn King Stefan takes the role of evil doer.

This shift in roles make sense considering following a straight up villain would be a hard movie to write, let alone market to families, but I felt it was unfortunate.  Maleficent is one of Disney’s greatest, if not the greatest, villains of all time, so to cast her as a hero made her loose some of that mystique.  Now she was simply betrayed and misunderstood not dastardly and wicked.

Still that is not the main strike against this film, no that would be its pacing issues.  There is a lot of nothing happening in this film.  It takes awhile for Aurora to grow up, and for her and Maleficent to bond.  That would be fine if it was interesting, but even though it spends so much time doing it, it almost seems like it is a montage and glosses over it at the same time.  It doesn’t dig deep enough to excuse the running time.

The other problem is that beside Jolie, no other character is given anything to do.  Elle Fanning as Aurora just gets to be chipper and wide eyed.  King Stefan played by Sharlto Copley gets to be crazy and evil.  No one is given anything to work with.  They are just window dressing for Jolie’s Maleficent.

Jolie was wonderful, so it almost saves the film.  It did for my wife, and a few other friends I know, but it didn’t quite do it for me.  Maybe I was just hoping for something else.  A true villain movie, but whatever the reason this movie could never find its footing.  Considering how successful this movie was, I am sure Disney will try again with another villain, and maybe they will figure it all out next time.

The Rise of the Planet of the Apes was a surprise hit back in 2011, so it was no surprise that Fox green lit a sequel.  The question on everyone’s mind though was could Dawn of the Planet of the Apes work without the central relationship between Caesar (Andy Serkis) and Will Rodman (James Franco).  The answer is yes, and it could work quite well.

The story takes place ten years after Rise, and the world has been decimated by a virus based on the drug that made Caesar and the rest of the Apes smarter.  Only 10% of humans have survived.  Meanwhile Caesar and the rest of the Apes have been busy creating their civilization in the woods above San Francisco.  They care little of the plight of the humans until one shows up and shoots one of the Apes.  Now Caesar will have to do everything he can to avoid war.

This story is really the natural progression of the first one.  In Rise we learn how the Apes gain their intelligence, and now in Dawn we learn how they start to take over the world, but I like how that wasn’t the whole story, they also work in few observations about human nature, or should I say Ape nature?  Can humans ever truly be at peace?  The Apes had a chance and they failed, and the humans obviously failed.  It was an interesting look at an old question.

The human cast featuring Gary Oldman, Jason Clarke, and Keri Russell was pretty decent, but they really weren’t given a lot to do.  Oldman got to be the power hungery jerk that wanted nothing but to wipe out the Apes, and Clarke just wanted everyone to get along.  Russell gets to look sad and pretty.  They are capable of more, but they were fine.  The Ape actors really stole the show.  Serkis’ Caesar was once again amazingly complex, and you could see the stresses of leadership really weighing on him. Toby Kebbell as the rebel Ape Koba was equally excellent.  You could see the fear and anger driving him forward.

I also have to give a big shout out to the special effects crew.  Everything looked great, and sure every now and then something looked a little off, but it was never distracting.  For the most part all of the Ape actors looked real.  They earned their Oscar nomination.

If the human actors were as well written and as interesting as their Ape counterparts this movie would have been great.  As it is, it was still a good movie and worth watching.  Not quite as good as Rise of the Planet of the Apes, but Dawn of the Planet of the Apes managed to hold its own.  Not bad for a franchise that was once thought of as a joke.

Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues is the 2013 sequel to the 2003 Anchorman (obviously) released by Paramount Pictures.  It sadly can never reach the heights of Anchorman, but it isn’t as bad as some people have let on.  If you are in the mood for a dumb comedy Anchorman 2 might fit the bill quite nicely.

The movie picks up some time after the first one with Ron Burgundy (Will Ferrell) and his wife Veronica Corningstone (Christina Applegate) working for a network news cast in New York, but it seems that they may be called up to the big leagues soon and anchor The National News.  Well not “they” just Veronica because Ron is terrible.  This leaves Ron to find work on the first 24 hour news agency.

This movie works best if you have watched a 24 hour news station lately.  It lampoons them so well.  It is all so dumb that it is hard to imagine that someone like Ron Burgundy didn’t come up with the idea.  The rest of the jokes are hit and miss, but there are so many jokes that you will get a few laughs out of them anyway.

The cast is quite good, but whether you like this movie or not depends on how much you can stand Will Ferrell being Will Ferrell.  Sure he is acting as “Ron”, but it is still pretty much standard Ferrell shtick.  I think it is pretty funny, but I know others that can’t stand it, and for them this movie is probably almost impossible to sit through.

I guess what I am saying is that if you liked Anchorman, you will probably at least mildly enjoy Anchorman 2.  If you disliked Anchorman, stay far, far away from this movie since it is not as good.  On other hand if you haven’t watched Anchorman, I am not sure why you are reading this review, but you should watch that movie.  It is one of Will Ferrell’s best.

Oh Wes Anderson!  You either love the guy, or hate him.  I love him, and he is getting better at what he does.  What he does is tell an odd and engaging story with a great cast of characters all while playing with his little set pieces.  As always you are watching a child playing with this toys, but I am starting you think you are watching a genius.

The movie is about how a onetime Lobby Boy, Zero Moustafa (Tony Revolori), came to be the owner of the titular Grand Budapest Hotel as recounted by The Author (Jude Law) according to a girl reading the book The Grand Budapest Hotel.  Zero gets involved with a murder mystery involving his boss and idol the concierge Monsieur Gustave H. (Ralph Fiennes), and a lonely old woman Madame D (Tilda Swinton).  Zero has to get everything sorted out while under the threat of war.

I love that Wes Anderson tells this story under several layers of narration.  It lets you know that while this is all fake anyway, what you are getting is probably not the whole story, kind of like the movie version of the old game telephone.  It allows his toy-box style to seem much more appropriate.  He is getting much better at getting the audience in the right frame of mind for his films.

The best part of Wes Anderson’s movies for me is always his amazing cast, and that they are willing to do whatever silly thing Anderson can think of.  This time around he added Ralph Fiennes to the mix and it worked wonderfully.  He plays Monsieur Gustave with such a zany grace that I wish he was at the front desk of every hotel.  Everyone else is great too, but without Fiennes this movie would have fallen apart.

If you haven’t liked Wes Anderson’s movies in the past, you can skip this one.  It is very much his film, but if you are on the fence, or have liked his other works, this is a must watch.  It is nice to know that there is still a place for quirky directors out there that aren’t named Woody Allen.  As long as Wes Anderson keeps making them, I will keep watching them.