More Movie Reviews

Once again I have seen enough movies on my cable movie channels that it is time to offer up some more reviews. Just as a reminder, for the most part these reviews aren't intended to be taken as endorsements or criticisms because I would never presume to know what kind of movie you would enjoy. That is why these reviews very rarely mention the quality of the movie and tend to focus on random things which caught my eye while watching them. The goods news is that if something I said intrigues you, these movies are old enough that by now they should either on your cable movie channels On-Demand feature, NetFlix or available for rent on the cheap using whichever system you prefer (to be honest you could probably pirate this particular crop of movies and no one would blame you, because they are not exactly Oscar contenders). The good news is that if you see any of these and then hate it, at least you didn't have to pay $12 to be disappointed. Let's get to it...

-Salmon Fishing in the Yemen This is one of those little cute movies which manages to rope in a lot of big stars and yet still somehow flies under the radar. (In this case subject matter may have a lot to do with it.) It got plenty of critical acclaim but no one actually went to the theaters to see it, meaning it essentially trolled for Oscars but missing the mark. But, what struck me is that it stars Emily Blunt, who it seems has been mentioned in every movie review post I have done lately. Seriously, how many movies did this woman make in 2012? I assume acting is a weird profession in that the fame can be so fleeting you almost feel compelled to take every role which is offered to you out of fear the offers will stop coming one day, but I worry that it just makes people sick of you faster than was going to happen anyway. Then again it could be that she and I have the same taste in movies and she is just doing films she would like to see, which is why she is in so many of the movies I watch. Still I only watched this movie due to a lack of other options and while it was perfectly fine it is not a movie I would have picked if it had been me. Actors need to know that you don't have to say yes to everything.

-Battleship Everyone said this movie was going to be horrible, so I went in with low-to-no expectations. For the most part I got exactly what I was expecting, as it felt like a mash-up of "Pearl Harbor" and "Transformers", only with far less plot to get in the way. The good news is that with the part of my brain which normally would be trying to follow a story unoccupied and free to wander, I spent most of the movie trying to figure out what this exactly this film was supposed to have to do with the board game Battleship, which is what the movie was allegedly based on. (I certainly don't remember aliens in the game.) You'll have to take my word for it they went a long, long, LONG way to get there and I don't feel like the journey was worth the effort. Plus, the tie-in was unnecessary because it was not like Battleship was the hot new came of the summer and they just had to strike while the iron was hot - the game is decades old and no one was clamoring for a movie version. Honestly, they could have just named this movie anything else, not said it was tied in to the game at all and the movie would have been no worse or no better. Forcing the tie-in just made the movie about 5 extra minutes too long and trust me, in this case shorter would have been the better.

-The Watch This was another movie which felt like it was trying too hard to shove two movies into one script. The premise is that a bunch of guys form a neighborhood watch and start taking it way too seriously. That would have been a fine comedy in and of itself, but then it turns out the neighborhood is being attacked by aliens (again, all of a sudden everything has to be about aliens). It's one storyline too many and you aren't sure if this was supposed to be a comedy or a sci-fi movie, so it fails to do either genre really well. On top of that Ben Stiller, Vince Vaughn and Jonah Hill spend the entire movie trying to out-funny one another. I've always felt the key to a really good comedy is to let the actors play off of one another and make everyone else funnier, not try and out-shine one another which is what happened here. It was like each actor was trying to prove it was their movie by getting in the best line of the scene and since nothing is less than than people trying really hard to be the funniest, it simply didn't work. Movie stars always like to rub shoulders with athletes, so you would have thought by now one of them would have passed along the message that it is the role players who win you championships - All-Star rosters rarely succeed. You'd think a town that had the Lakers to use an an example would have already known that.

-Savages I remember reading an interview with Kevin Bacon where he said that following the success of "Footloose", his agent told him he would get three flops before Hollywood declared him box-office poison and moved on to the next guy. Obviously, this wasn't totally accurate because there have been plenty of actors who have made a much longer strings of bad movies and still had careers (including Kevin Bacon), but I like the thought. In fact, I liked it so much I think we should start applying it to directors and after watching this movie I think Oliver Stone is officially on the clock. Seriously, everyone keeps singing the praises of this guy and talking about him like he's a legend, but when was the last time he made a truly entertaining movie? Looking over his resume I'd have to say "Natural Born Killers" (not my favorite movie but I can concede it was popular) and that was made in 1995. At some point doesn't his current work have to start overshadowing his early, better movies and actually cause us to view those as beginners luck and the stuff he is currently pumping out as what we should expect from him? Seriously, in a race between Oliver Stone and Spike Lee as to who may be more over-rated I think it would be a tie, and the people who like going to the movies would be the real losers.

-Dredd While I am not always in favor of re-makes, I was ok with it in this case. First of all, the Sylvester Stallone version was shot almost 20 years ago, before the current comic book movie craze, so I can understand why a studio would want to take another crack at it. Secondly, that movie was light and more like a buddy-comedy, which the comic was not. So, when they announced they were doing a new, darker version more closely aligned to the original story it sounded like a good idea. (Plus, anything with less Rob Schneider is probably a wise choice.) Still, this felt like it went too far the other way as it is really just 90 minutes of people getting shot in face in slow motion and blood flying all over the place (and it was shot in 3-D which, sadly, I do not have on my TV. The good news is that I feel confident watching it in old 2-D didn't change the story too much). This really felt almost like an over-compensation. Still, at least you can say it was truer to what it was originally meant to be, which I hope will make the hardcore fans of the comic happy. All you really need to know is this - when "Dredd" is the best movie of the group you know it has been a tough month for movie reviews.