Movie Reviews

Once again we've reached that time where I've caught up on enough cable movies to start offering some reviews. Again, most of these aren't reviews of the actual films, more stuff that caught my eyes while watching them.

Cedar Rapids I was excited to see this because it stars John C. Reilly and Ed Helms, who I both enjoy and I was expecting a laugh riot. It's definitely a comedy, but also not what I was expecting. It's less in the mold of Step Brothers and more in the way that Stranger Than Fiction was a comedy. Basically, the jokes aren't obvious and it has some serious parts to it. It's one of those comedies where a scene is funny because we've all had that experience and not because someone is falling down. Not saying it was bad, just saying it was not as light as I thought it was going to be. I do worry about Ed Helms, though. In this movie he's not very far removed from his roles in the Hangover or The Office - you know, the sort of awkward, bumbling do-gooder who means well. You can ride that train for a while, but then you can't get off that track. My advice is to jump off before you get locked in.

The Mechanic Jason Statham plays an brooding assassin, if you can believe it. (He's done this role so many times I'm slightly worried that Statham might begin to believe he actually is an assassin.) You know, when it comes to action movies like this I'm willing to go with the writers' premise that there is a secret organization out there murdering people on a nearly daily basis without anyone ever getting suspicious. I'm also willing to play along with the idea that you can have massive gunfights in the streets without a single police car showing up. I'll even go with you that it is possible to make a clean getaway after that massive gunfight in this day and age without being seen by a single person and their camera-phone. But there was one scene where they rolled into a gas station and the price at the pump was $2.69 - that's where I call bullshit. C'mon guys, at least try and base your movie on reality, just a little.

Faster This movie claims to star The Rock, but in actuality it's one of those movies where the muscle car is the star. The Rock plays a guy driving around killing all the people involved in the murder of his brother and that's about as deep as the plot gets. Here is all you need to know about this script - they didn't bother to name half the characters. Now, I get only referring to The Rock as "Driver" - you're trying to surround him with an air of mystery. But when the rest of the people in the movie are referred to by their occupation or some physical feature it tells me that either the script was never finished or it never really got started. Whichever the case, it just comes across as lazy. But, at least the cars are awesome.

Conviction This movie tells the true story of a Massachusetts woman who put herself through law school and became a lawyer with the sole intent of getting her brother, who was wrongly convicted of murder, out of jail. It is very well acted, but this is yet another movie where I bet the documentary of the true story featuring interviews with the real life-people involved, which is most likely included in the special features section of the DVD is way more interesting than the actual movie. But, that is not my point of contention with this film. Here's what bugs me: why do we continue to let people in movies butcher Boston accents? This movie stars Hillary Swank, who is a very good actress, and yet for this entire movie it sounds like she's doing her best Mayor Quimby impression. It really is not that hard of an accent to master. Memo to Hollywood: not everyone in Massachusetts is related to the Kennedys.