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 have made all their money by now). 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...

-Flight This movie stars Denzel Washington, playing an alcoholic pilot whose plane crashes due to a mechanical error but it is only through his great skill that almost everyone survives. Then it becomes something of a legal drama about whether he will be charged with anything for flying with alcohol and drugs in his system as well as a story about redemption as he tries to pin the drugs on someone else. The first thing I want to make clear is that you should absolutely not see this movie if you plan to travel by airplane in the next 6 to 8 months. Seriously, the plane crash scene was one of better sequences I have seen in a movie in a long time. But much like firemen shouldn't see "Ladder 49", anyone who flies commercial doesn't need to be reminded that humans hurtling through the sky at hundreds of miles an hour is an affront to nature. The other thing you need to know is that you could probably turn the film off once the plane is on the ground because the ending of the movie is really annoying. Still, this movie provides a tremendous lesson for an aspiring film-makers out there: if you are only going to have one special-effect-heavy scenes in your movie, take the time and do it right.

-The Man With the Iron Fists I admit to having a bias that whenever I see a musician in an acting role I automatically assume the movie must not be very good because if they put someone who does something else as their main job in the lead role it must be that every professional actor passed on it. I know there are a few exceptions, but for the most part you can see why these people should have stayed in their entertainment lane. So knowing this movie not only starred RZA, the rapper from the Wu-Tang clan, but was written and directed by him, I wasn't expecting much. Turns out my expectations were still a little too high. Remember a couple months back when James Cameron bankrolled a round-table discussion regarding the Titanic and tried to take over the room even though he was just an enthusiast and all the other guys at the table were experts? That is what watching this movie felt like. It was supposed to be a tribute to the old-school kung-fu movies that RZA grew up watching and it's good for him that he has a hobby to be enthusiastic about but just because you watch a lot of kung-fu movies it doesn't mean you are qualified to make one. This movie is proof of that.

-Taken 2 I was kind of afraid to see this movie since the first one was so great and I was worried going back to the well for another movie was a bad idea as some movies should just be left to stand on their own. This effort wasn't necessarily a bad movie it just wasn't as good as the first one, which I can live with. The problem is that while the first one was a commercial success, someone working at the studio clearly got greedy and figured this one would make more money if they could make it a little more family-friendly. So in the first film Liam Neeson's character was such an amazingly cold-blooded bad-ass but in this one they soften him up, which was unnecessary. No one goes to see "Taken 2" because they left the theater after the original rooting for Neeson's character and his ex-wife reconcile. We just want another hour of Liam Neeson killing bad guys yet instead he's worried about his daughter's driving test or the fact that she has a new boyfriend. When you remember that 90% of this audience was going to be guys and the other 10% were women dragged to the movie who don't want to be there that kind of stuff should have been saved for the romantic comedies.

-Ted Given how much I love "Family Guy" and most of the things Seth MacFarlane comes up with as well as the fact that the opening sequence of this movie was shot in Norwood, you would have thought that I would have seen this movie while it was still in the theaters. Believe me, that was the plan. Somehow it fell through the cracks and became one of those, "I'll see it next week... next week" movies. Now, don't get me wrong I laughed out loud numerous times during the movie but at the same time I didn't feel like was missing anything  important by waiting so long to finally catch it on cable. It is essentially an hour and a half long episode of "Family Guy" with a teddy bear instead of a dog. I'm not complaining because MacFarlane has a formula that he knows works and he is sticking with it - in fact if it was something else I probably would have been annoyed. In fact, there was only one thing which bothered me and that was the geography. In one scene the characters are in a pouring rainstorm and just across town two other characters are experiencing a beautiful night. Given how small Boston is that just couldn't happen. I know New England weather is unpredictable but I'll believe a teddy bear can come to life before I'll take that leap of faith.

-Red Dawn This is a remake of the film from the late-80s when we were at the height of the Cold War which pondered what would happen if Russia ever actually tried to invade and the only people standing in the way were a group of teenagers. That movie stands as a cult-classic based mostly on that ridiculous premise and the fact it had many big stars of the day in it, so when I heard it was getting remade I was reminded of why I don't think Hollywood quite understands the concept of a "cult-classic". The original version has a special place in the TNT rotation because it is so bad that it's good. However, just because I will watch 10-15 minutes of it flipping passed the channel on a rainy Saturday that doesn't mean I was in any hurry to see it updated with a bunch of actors from current shows which I don't watch and then spend $20 to go see it on a big screen. The original movie worked for that time but the concept does not time travel well. Think of it like this - people may buy an old rotary phone because they like the look of it in their living room but when it is time to make a call they reach for their cellphones. Some things are just meant to be looked at, not be the launching point of a major motion picture.