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Two entries in a row? Madness. That was what I thought about watching two movies in a row, first Karate Kid and then the new A-Team movie.

This one is going to be even quicker though, no high fallutin' prattling on with them big reviewers words. Get your buddies, go out and have a pizza or burger and the local fast food joint, have a beer or two, then go see the movie.

That preview you've seen with the crazy stuff with the plane and the tank? It's all like that. Not the questionable CGI, but the pure unappolagetic fun of a crazy over the top movie that doesn't care about a thin plot or cardboard characters (even though the plot and characters are surprisingly good IMHO), but just wants you to sit down and hang on for a ride. The actors are good matches for their 80's TV originals, the plot is a combination of origin story and first adventure, and the shit blowing up is just fun. So go see it, you'll like it. Unless you're the sort of person who wants to go see Sex in the City 2, in that case you're probably not going to like this movie at all.

Well worth it, see it in the theatre for the full effect, two thumbs up.

Went to see the new "Karate Kid" movie last weekend. Some good points and some bad. The story, overall, is pretty much the same as the 1984 classic except it's a short black kid named after a rapper instead of a tall white kid, they move to China instead of California, he's taught by Jackie Chan instead of Mr. Miyagi, gets beat up by a gang of Chinese kids instead of white kids and he learns Kung-fu instead of Karate.

The mechanics of the plot are the same, predictably so... even the end fight is pretty much the same. Still, not bad all things considered. The biggest plus for this movie was it felt like a travel video for China. Sweeping landscapes, colorful people and places, beautiful scenery, etc, all made me really want to go there with about $10k in camera gear and no deadlines. Saying it's like a travel video isn't a bad thing, it was still a movie of course, but they seemed to pay special attention to the cinematography to show just how beautiful the country is.

Sadly the biggest letdown for me was the acting from Jaden Smith, it had a few cringe-worthy, or at least almost cringe-worthy parts, and he only mostly managed to pull it off (says the guy with no acting experience ever). It really felt like maybe his parents were both big stars and wanted to create a movie to be a vehicle for him to rocket to stardom.

My vote, not required for the big screen, but if you've got the time, hey, why not, it's not that bad. Better yet if you've seen the "real" Karate Kid movie so you can catch the homages to the original (or you might call them "this worked last time, may as well do it this time as well").

A list, in no particular order:

1. The rude ass in front of my and to the left who had his cell phone out a bunch during the first half of the movie. I don't care if you're texting or checking your email or whatever, but hide the bright white screen so it's not shining in my eye while I'm trying to enjoy the world blowing up.
   
2. The maybe crying, maybe laughing, maybe just heavy breathing woman to my right. Honestly, I have no idea why she was making so much noise.
   
3. The noisy, chatty, moving around, going out to refill their popcorn and pop, rude ass little high school brats in front of me. For all I know they were having sex with all the rustling around they were doing.
   
4. Commenty mc-chatterson behind me. Not enough to deserve a comment or look, but enough to annoy the hell out of me.
   
5. Pre-bagged popcorn. Really, if I'm paying what they charge for popcorn and butter I want my popcorn well mixed with the butter, not for you (pimply cashier kid who you can tell doesn't give a shit) to get a bag of popcorn already full, drizzle a bit of butter over the top, and give it to me.
   

Oh the movie? Oh it was fine actually, the world blowing up with great special effects, and a minimal of that silly character development stuff (actually it did have some pretty good characters in it) made it a fun ride.

The rest of the experience however, aims to make me want to justify a big screen TV and blue-ray plwyer so I don't have to deal with the other humans in the movie theaters as much.

Finally got a chance to see the new Star Trek movie. Read more to see my (very) spoilery review. The short (and un-spoilered) review is it is a near perfect movie, fantastic in almost every way. A definite go see, go see right now. Trekkies old and new will love it.

Now, on to the spoilers and bitchings!

Horrible.

I have resolved to not read any reviews, spoiler-free or not, of the new Indiana Jones movie. I'll be seeing it Friday or Saturday (or Sunday, or all three in fact) regardless of what anyone else has to say. It's Indy, and I'm not going to let any random review taint my enjoyment (or lack thereof) of the movie.

Scary thing is just how long it's been since the last one.... The Last Crusade is on TV tonight and watching it I realized that I remembered watching it before the family trip to England and Tunisia between grade 8 and 9. That's a damn long time ago.

Apologies to friends who are older than me thinking "my god, in 1989 I had already graduated university, you were only just in high school!?" I'm sorry :)

Ugh. Still, looking forward to seeing the movie. Anyone want to join?

Dana was kind enough to invite me out tonight to see The Bank Job, which was given four of of five stars by PeeJay, which was all I needed to hear, since he's seen approximately every movie, ever :)

I have to agree with the 4/5 review. This was an excellent movie, combining a great mix of action, humor, "caper" and some "how are they going to get out of this one". In fact, that's also about my only complaint. More on that in a sec. The good is this movie is great! I believed the gritty look, the 70's characters, the actress playing the model Martine had the perfect 60s-70s model look. The caper was fast moving, the intrigue and "how are they going to get out of this" was reminiscent of Ocean's 11, the funny bits were some laugh out loud (but mostly believable) moments.... etc etc. Definitely go see this movie.

About my only complaint about this was that the movie didn't seem to know exactly what type of movie it was. On one hand it was a gritty crime drama. On another hand it was a funny action movie with the funny sidekick (a bit like Snatch). On yet another hand it was a caper movie (like Inside Man). On another hand it was (as mentioned before) a great plot and "how are they going to get out of this" like Ocean's 11. At one point it's funny and goofy, a bit out of character, almost jarringly so (the "no names Micheal", "sorry Dave" part you see in the trailer). At yet another point it gets really dark, almost disturbingly so.

Maybe it's this combination of movie types that make the movie work, maybe not. This is the only reason why I'd take a point off the review. Even so this is a very minor niggle which I do not mean to tarnish what is a really great movie!

Saw Jumper over the weekend Friday night with Dana and Firefly and FireflyBro. The movie was what my friend Bryan calls a "trailer movie", where basically all the good parts are in the trailer.

The movie wasn't bad, however it did suffer from a couple of odd things that jarred me.

• Pacing - There were a couple of times during I thought that the movie was getting into the good action parts, and instead it ground to a halt.
  
• Backstory - Really, the movie did as little as possible to get a backstory, but the parts that it did include were wedged in at odd angles shall we say. There was one part in the last few minutes of the movie that came out of nowhere and went nowhere, unless it's a super-setup for Jumper 2, though I somehow doubt there will be one, no matter how big the setup was (my current theory is they only make sequels to really bad movies (IE: Step it up 2) or really good movies (IE: The Dark Knight)).
  
• WTF was up with Samuel L. Jackson's hair, and why didn't he get to say "motherfucker" at all??
  

Sadly some of my impression of the movie was tainted by the horrible service I got from the 18 year old popcorn-slinger who probably makes $7 and hour and doesn't give a shit about his job and it shows. First they forgot to give us our popcorn and then didn't put the butter in halfway as well as on top like they normally do. The complete lack of giving-a-shit definitely shows and pissed me off, which didn't leave a good taste in my mouth for the movie.

A couple of good friends from out of town are in for a couple of days, and we decided to go see the latest Pirates of the Caribbean movie.

I didn't like it. It wasn't that it was bad, it just seemed like both the studio and the editor went nuts a few times. First of all, it too way too long to get to things. There were some great battle scenes that too basically the entire movie to get to. Then they lasted way too long. At a certain point I really just stopped caring about the characters at all and wanted to finish the thing up so I could go home! We also waited throughout the entire credits to get to the scene that is after it. Waste of time there, sorry, but while it was an interesting reveal, the 30 seconds of footage wasn't worth the 10 minutes of credits we sat through.

It did have it's good points though. The characters were still great, the cameo by Keith Richards was fun to watch, and there were some good snappy funny lines (though sadly not as many as the first one).

The main problem with this movie was they seemed to want to push way too much into it. Aside from the problems of the intertwining "who is betraying who" plot lines, it seemed almost like the director was sitting there saying "we have to have a scene with a giant whirlpool", and "lets give some wonky mystical explanation for this character here", and "make sure that we have a scene with Jack Sparrow fighting Davy Jones on a mast.... in the rain.... while they're in a frickin' whirlpool!" (at this point I imagine Gore Verbinski (the directory) falling to the ground gasping for air). The trivia on imdb says they started filming without a finished script if that tells you anything.

Yet it was still a fair enough movie! Action, pirates, great special effects, and wrapping up the whole second movie (fairly) nicely. My recommendation though is to see it on DVD if you have a decent sound system/TV set, or on cheap night at the local theater.

Finally got around to seeing Snakes on a Plane tonight. What can I say about this movie that probably hasn't already been said, other than "Sporks?" Oh wait....

Anyway, it's a fun movie, with everything predictable you can throw at it.... from the airline stewardess that's a day from retirement to the couple heading to the bathroom to join the mile high club, Samuel L. Jackson's "motherf*ckin' snakes on this motherf*ckin' plane" remark, and the complete lack for some bits of the plot.

I think that for really bad movies the plots have to have one of two things. Either a completely predicable plot that never deviates from something that you have seen a hundred times already, or something that was obviously written under the influence from something out of this world (like mushrooms, which we all know are evil and most likely not created here on earth...). This movie is mostly from column A, with a sprinkling from column B. The whole "snakes on a plane" thing I hadn't seen before, but the overall plot of the movie has been done countless times already.

Snake vision, sporks, and the demise of "Mary Kate" are among the "definitely influenced by mushrooms" moments, some going on for far too long.

Still, if you have a 94 minutes to waste and (optionally) a group of rowdy friends, alcohol, or other illicit substances, you'll have a blast. I had only a small glass of Baileys (on ice) so I only had a marginally good time. Glad I finally saw it though.