Shmee.Me

September 22, 2014September 22, 2014

Look Out It Is Godzilla!

I love giant monster movies, but the last American Godzilla movie staring Matthew Broderick was so bad that when they announced a new Godzilla movie, I was hesitantly optimistic. They promised not to screw it up this time, and for the most part they succeeded, but they still have a lot of room for improvement for the next one.

This is usually the part of the review where I go over the plot, but I am not going to, not because there isn’t any plot, in fact there is far more plot than there should be, but this movie is about Godzilla fighting monsters, MUTOs in this case, and that is all that really matters. For the middle part of this movie they seem to forget this and instead follow Bryan Cranston’s family, who seem to only excel in poor decision making.

Aaron Taylor-Johnson and Elizabeth Olsen are fine actors, but all they do in this movie is chew screen time. They are given nothing interesting to do but to make bad choices that throw them in harms way. Which would be fine if there was a little more in the “harms way” department. Ken Watanabe likewise is one of my favorite actors, but all he does is act sullen and mopey because his bad choices killed a lot of people, and now no one is listening to him because his bad choices killed a lot of people. Also his only thought on how to fix everything is to “Let them fight!”. Now from a viewer’s perspective “Let them fight!” is exactly what I want to hear, but if you are resident of San Francisco, I don’t think that sounds like good advice.

When the monsters do fight it is great. It delivers on all the promise of an American production company making a Godzilla film. It is grand and epic, and Godzilla and the MUTOs look incredible. The problem is that it is all is in the last twenty minutes of the movie, so the first hundred is the aforementioned family of the year. It is a really good twenty minutes though. So it is kind of like waiting in line for a ride at Disney Land, sure you wait a long time, but the pay off is pretty great.

Unlike Pacific Rim which packs in a bunch of boyish glee when the monster’s aren’t fighting, Godzilla tries to be more serious, and it almost ruins the movie. Still once the titular big guy shows up, he was well worth the wait. It is a shame they didn’t cut down the running time of this movie a little, it would have made a big difference.

September 18, 2014

DC Doing Full Court Press For Justice League!

Bruce Timm who has brought us several amazing DC Universe cartoons over the years including the great Batman: The Animated Series is hard at work on an animated movie Justice League: Gods & Monsters. The movie should be out in 2015. Now one thing from Bruce Timm is good news, but what is great news is that they are also producing a short prequel series on Machinima to go with it.

I couldn’t believe it when Warner Brothers let Timm step down from his role at with DC, but it looks like they are bringing him back, and he gets start the hype machine for the Batman V Superman by reintroducing us to the Justice League. I am very excited for a new DCU movie and series. DC has needed something since Justice League: Unlimited went off the air.

September 9, 2014September 9, 2014

Feel The Rush!

Ron Howard is the king of making movies based on true stories. A Beautiful Mind and Apollo 13 are classics, so I was looking forward to seeing Rush in the fall of 2013, but it got lost in the shuffle. I am glad my wife pointed out to me that it was available as part of the Cinemax free weekend because while this movie is not a classic it is still very good.

The story follows two Formula One drivers: The free spirited and loose living James Hunt (Chris Hemsworth), and the buttoned up and stiff Niki Lauda (Daniel Brühl) from their early race days to their storied battle for the 1976 Formula One Championship. They hate each other at first, but over time they come to respect one another. Plus they have a mutual understanding of what it takes to do their very dangerous job.

What I love about this movie is that it doesn’t try to make this story more than it is. It is about two men that race. Neither of them are the good guy or the bad guy, and it doesn’t even try and mold them in to likeable people. They are both quite honestly kind of jerks, but what they did in 1976 was so amazing that to change who they are and were would be a disservice to their story. They were simply dominant.

Chris Hemsworth finally got to show that he was more than Thor, sure he still looks like Thor in this movie, but he gets to show a much wider range of emotion. Daniel Brühl turns in a great performance as well. He makes the arrogant jerk that is Nikki Lauda watchable and human, and from what I have read that is quite the feat.

Ron Howard has an amazing ability to not let his movie making style overwhelm the movies he directs. Each of his films has a unique feel, and that is the same with Rush. If I hadn’t been told that it was a Ron Howard film it would have been hard to discern. He lets this tale progress organically, and he doesn’t force anything to happen. He has earned his place among the top directors working today.

Rush is a very good movie, and for two men to dominate a sport the way Hunt and Lauda did was incredible. Still the movie would have needed something a little extra to push it in to classic territory. I think the two men that this movie is about hold it back because they themselves are not deep enough. They are race car drivers and not a lot more. Ron Howard did not disappoint with Rush, and I am just sad that I waited a year to watch it.

August 25, 2014

Man Of Steel Update!

I finally got around to watching my Blu-Ray copy of Man of Steel, and I would usually just give my impressions of the disk, but I will just say this. It looks look good. Zack Snyder uses a lot of filters, so it is a little grainy, but it is on purpose. It just will not be a movie I use to show off my TV’s visual fidelity. Instead of a disk review I am going to talk about the movie itself. FYI this post includes major spoilers, but hey the movie is over a year old.

A lot of people have a problem with this movie because they feel like Superman didn’t act a lot like Superman. He fights General Zod in the middle of Metropolis, and instead of directing the fight somewhere else, he throws Zod in to a bunch of buildings and causes even more damage. Making the already high body count no doubt go higher. Worst of all he kills Zod at the end of the fight.

On the city destruction thing, I give Supes a pass because he is just trying to stop Zod at all costs and he isn’t thinking about the consequences, and I am sure there will be consequences in the next movie. The Zod murder thing is a little harder to forgive. It is not something that Superman does. Plus it gets rid of one of Superman’s greatest enemies. Again I think Superman’s crime fighting problem solving skills are not at peak levels. He will get better and be the Boy Scout we all know and love.

The thing that this movie gets right is the action. The final fight between Kal-El and Dru-Zod is punishing, but the fight that is really impressive is Superman’s ultra high speed fight with Zod’s minions in Smallville. It really shows how outclassed humans are against these Kryptonians. The human soldiers keep shooting at the Aliens, but they are a minor nuisance to these super-beings. There is nothing they can do to stop or help Superman or his foes.

It was also interesting that Snyder really decided to focus this film on how humans would view Superman. It is what Clark’s Dad worries about. It is why Louis Lane drops the news story. They are all worried about how humans will react when they find out that they are not alone in the universe. But like Louis says “It didn’t matter in the end”. It doesn’t. Zod shows up and murders at least 30,000 people, and only Superman can save the day.

This movie has its flaws. It is really hard to deal with Superman killing someone, but there is more good here then bad, and I can’t wait to see how they clean all this up in Batman V Superman in a couple of years. I just hope that Superman doesn’t snap Batman’s neck.

August 18, 2014August 18, 2014

Shmee Is Divergent!

With the success of Harry Potter, Twilight and The Hunger Games it is no surprise that movie studios are making movies based on every YA book ever written. Divergent is Lionsgate/Summit Entertainment’s latest take on the genre, and it is a fine film, but it doesn’t do anything to set itself apart from other better movies. You know like the movies I listed before.

Stop me if you have heard this before, a girl in a dystopian future finds out that she is different, and only she can save the world! Well, okay, in this case it is a bombed out Chicago, but it is the world as they know it. The big change in this movie is that they have to choose factions, but they are tested, and they are supposed to choose the faction that the test tells them to pick, sort of like a sorting hat, or a district or something. Beatrice Prior’s (Shailene Woodley) test says she can be whatever she wants; she is divergent!

Anyway you get the general idea. There may be a hunky guy or two in there too just for fun. The story isn’t really that bad. It is just very familiar, and the writers didn’t do a lot to stress the differences in this world to the ones that we have seen before. Almost like they were instead playing up the similarities, which is a shame. As a lover of comic books, I am okay with seeing the same story over and over, I just appreciate it when they at least try and show me something new.

The art direction follows the same path as the writing. It is like they went ahead and copied the color pallets from other films **cough** The Hunger Games **cough**. Though the destroyed Chicago set did look cool, and the city did help his movie at least feel like it was in a different place.

What saved this movie was Shailene Woodley. She is charismatic, and even though her role forces her to be all “woe is me”, she is able to come off as a great leading lady. The rest of the cast however is not as good. Even Kate Winslet gives a pretty one note performance. Maybe now that this movie was a hit the rest of the cast will all try a little harder.

I was pretty hard on this movie, but it wasn’t terrible. It was just all done before, and better. We are getting three more of these films, so they will have a chance to pick it up a bit. I just hope that Insurgent can show us something new.