Wednesday, April 07, 2010

Mini Movie Reviews

Sadly, time is against me at the moment so I can't devote the usual 4 hours a time to write my customary movie reviews for the last few movies I've seen

Cop Out [Rock out with your Glock out!]

30 Rock's Tracy Morgan’s silver-screen vehicle is just what you’d expect a Kevin Smith directed Tracy Morgan movie would be. So if you dislike either Morgan or Smith you’d probably do well to give this a miss.

Thankfully I think they’re more than worthy of my time and the combination of Morgan’s manic acting [well I say “acting” but I’m pretty sure that’s how he is in reality] with Willis' subdued [almost “phoned-in”] performance under Smith’s more “conforming” [no Jay/Silent-Bob] direction to the buddy-cop movie proved to be a success in my book.

You’ve seen “funny black dude teams up with hard-ass white guy” all throughout the ‘80’s and ‘90’s and even as recently as Showtime and Bad Company to some extent but Willis' straight-playing against the wild antics of Morgan brings it own unique flair that’s most endearing on screen.

Worth it especially for the interaction between our two lads and Sean William Scott -classic! Oh and they even got Harold Beverley Hills Cop Faltermeyer to score.

Colonel Creedon Rating: ****


From Paris With Love [Two agents. One city. No merci!]

I can imagine the producers getting together and discussing this:

Producer with money: "Whet have we got uh?"

Luc Besson: "Eh.. a young green by le book CIA ageant teams up with le oldear less by-the-buch how you say?... seen-it-all ageant and totally wrecks Paris?"

Producer with money: "Bon! We'll have a acteur from Irlandais, perhaps from Cork to play le younger ageant, is this Kill-ee-an Murphi availaballe?"

Luc Besson: "Non, what about Jean-athann Rhees My-ears from Le Tudors?"

Producer with money: "Excellant! Now we'll have Sam Jackson play le oldear ageant?"

Luc Besson: "Désolé! Unavailaball as well I'm afraid, but we can have Jean Travolta?"

Producer with money: "Magnifique!"

And that's all it takes for this kind of miscasting to happen. Neither Meyers or Travolta felt right here. Luc Besson's writing is hit and miss and this is a miss and he's dragged Taken's director Pierre Morel with him, and he's someone I was expecting something somewhat better from.
I'll actually just shit out 2.5 Stars for the somewhat impressive action scenes and for the fact that french producers are still willing to wreck paris and paint a somewhat dim view of parisians to make money. Zoot Alors!

Colonel Creedon Rating: **1/2

Green Zone [hide and seek with WMDs]

The people that went into this movie thinking they were getting a Bourne-style military action-drama from the star and director of the Bourne saga, Damon and Greengrass respectively, must have been as disappointed as the military teams depicted on screen who went hunting for the WMDs in Iraq. This wasn't that kind of movie and rightly so; it was depressing duty for the teams and were it not for turning up some pretty amazing alien artifacts buried since biblical times, it'd have been a totally wasted exercise for my team as well, but I digress.

Anyway I'd not have been impressed if they had somehow shoehorned Bourne-style action into the whole movie [the last 15 minutes was more then enough] even if they did create an interesting "conspiracy" straight out of some liberal nut-job's wet-dream. Look the forces of freedom and democracy went in and liberated a country strangled by tyranny - YAY U.S.A.!!! deal with it now and just forget this WMD nonsense, it's really not important anymore.

This should have been called Grain Zone because of the unnecessary amount of film grain on the picture, it was even more distracting than J.J. Abram's lens-flares on Star Trek but Greengrass delivered a competent if not sometimes slow conspiracy-action-thriller with Matt Damon playing his Chief Miller with dare I say: military precision.

Colonel Creedon Rating: ****


Kick-Ass [I can't fly. But I can kick your ass.]

When I was about 10 I made an Iron Man costume from old clothes and crepe paper. I even drew on a Tony Stark moustache with a marker above my lip [I was thorough about these things].

This movie is made for everyone who did shit like that at 10 or perhaps never grew out of it and could still be dressing up as a "hero" over 20 years later.

Oh, and this movie has guns, lots and lots and lots of guns and a shitload of people die.

Best movie of the year so far!

Colonel Creedon Rating: *****

7 comments:

vaughan said...

Colonel you have to give your opinion on Kick Ass a longer vent simply because if it was the film of the year so far...we need to hear of this and how the film made you "Feel" ....I personally was shocked because the Colonel went deathly quiet...something that has never happened before!!!!
As for Cop out.....hemmmm! I will not be going to this , I'm sure it is hilllllarious but I do have a problem with Smith and he has one with you Colonel....because Critics Disgust him!!!!! You see Cop Out floppe d at the Box office and Smith Decided that it was the Critics fault..(even though the critically derided Alice was the film Kicking Cop Out's Ass) So he has started a campaign to ban critics from screening and instead thinks a good idea would be to hand pick about a thousand Fans , have them spread the word about how good the movie is....."Film of the Year!"...sycophantic ass Licker who got to see a movie for free ..the kiss ass times.
As Mark Kermode pointed out Smith would never have been spotted except it was the Critics who he now attacks who convinced the studios to pick up Clerks and as he himself said "The Next time Smith you make a challenging film which needs the support of Critics to succeed....Don't!"
Ahh Kevin Smith genius film maker or man who had to go on Oprah to prove his point that he was not so fat the Airline asked him to leave the plane for his fellow passengers safety or book two seats......errrr the latter actually!

Civilian Overseer said...

Mr.V, I believe the Colonel goes deadly quiet just before he takes a man's soul.

Constance said...

I don't know, Mr. V. I also saw Cop Out and it had humorous moments. Of course, all of the odd moments and certain cast choices made perfect sense when I learned at the end of the movie that it was directed by K-Smith.

Of course the funniest moment was watching Sean whatsisname doing his jumping, and I was about to turn and say "oh look, he's doing parquer, which is..." just as Tracy Morgan turned to Bruce Willis and said it for me. I love Tracy Morgan, which is good as he is the same in every single thing he does. In fact, I think I'd like to see him in Death at a Funeral.

One DVD commentary with Kevin Smith was very... let's just say "open" about certain aspects of his personal life that I hope will one day be erased from my memory.

Luckily I have just returned from a showing of Hot Tub Time Machine, so that should take up a few cycles for a while.

Major General Creedon said...

@ Vaughan: The movie made me feel good that I had paid €9.50 to see it unlike so many other movies I pay that rediculous amount to see and feel "unstisfied".

I'm not surprised you're jumping on the bash Smith bandwagon. "Kevin Smith genius film maker" - maybe not but by the time he was your age he had 7 theatrically released full-length movies under his belt. You know what your getting with Smith, sometimes is just unShakesperian toilet-humour or endless fanboy/geekdom references. He's not there to make you think, he's there to make you laugh.

Of course a movie's director has to be slim and athletic, for his talent lies not in his mind of creativity but in either a slim waist or chisled chest. Yes indeed, just like Hitchcock's, del Toro's and Jackson's.

Look at Chasing Amy; made for $250k but took over $12m! Is that not genius? Now, as Captain Pike said to Kirk "I dare you to do better!"

Constance said...

"The movie made me feel good that I had paid €9.50 to see it..."

Hmmm? You did?

Constance said...

Also Colonel, shouldn't you be kissing Vaughan's ass if you want to continue your acting career?

Major General Creedon said...

@ Constance: Eh no, I stand corrected - as it was not purchased via credit-card the Kick-Ass ticket was only €9. Even better value.

Compared to the "praise" I usually lavish on him my dear - that is kissing his ass! :)