Fatman 2020

So what do we have here, exactly?

Mel Gibson was one of my favorite actors growing up (with the Lethal Weapon series, Mad Max, etc) and I was pleasantly surprised that he played this role so well. A mediocre role in a somewhat mediocre film with so-so actors, director, writer, etc...

After his career somehow survived his various career killing situations (google is your friend) that came up over the past decade and a half, he has given us this rather fun-to-watch-once-and-forget movie. 

I should also mention the not particularly well-known director/writer brothers Eshom and Ian Nelms. They are not famous, they've had some interesting kudos at various film festivals, and yet they still kinda pulled off a somewhat courteous chuckle-worthy and goofy Santa Claus movie.

In a nutshell, it's an action comedy flick about Santa Claus having to seek out funds from the Federal Government in order to keep his factory working and keep his elves fed. Apparently they'v'e been living off the government dole for some time, and this year the check is only half of what they usually get. 

Apparently Santa's excuse for the slowdown is that "kids don't believe in Santa" or "aren't very well behaved" et al and has come up a few times to suggest why Santa's elves haven't been as busy as usual, thus the pared check situation. These excuses are basically ignored by the military folks that show up with a proposal: to build weapon parts for a couple months. 

You get right away that the federal government stiffed Santa just to get him to get the elves to build weapon parts, right? 

Well, as it turns out, the government stiffed Santa to get him to get his elves to build weapons parts. Is this a reflection of the U.S. Government and an insight to how our government really works? Could one walk away from this movie with a different point of view about the global insanity that our government leaders create from a need for power and greed?

Probably not.

In the meantime, this extremely spoiled rich kid Billy Wenan (played by Chance Hurstfield) decides he doesn't appreciate the idea of getting coal in his stocking. So he hires "Skinny Man" played by Walton Goggins to kill Santa. He'd already hired him to kidnap and force his school mate into admitting she cheated so he'd win first place in a school project, so what's so hard about killing Santa? Can't be that much of a big step...

So.  

The trailer might suggest that it's just a straightforward action flick, and it's not that far from the truth. There are lots of little plot twists and it's dark comedy is actually close to interesting enough to finish watching the entirety of the film. 

You would expect this to be a rather nutty film, and it is. I mean, the plot is certainly oddball, but that's okay. And the actors aren't exactly a-list, but that's fine. The writer/director brothers are sort of unknown, but that's cool. I had a hard time watching Mel Gibson in anything, to be honest, but it was tolerable. 

I suppose what I'm saying is: I'm okay with this movie. I came in expecting an all out action flick and I saw something rather fun to watch as well. Not as fun as the Gibson classics, but still fun nonetheless. 

As everyone has been pretty much in lock-down on and off over the past 8 or 9 months, and things have gotten pretty desperate with what to watch online, this movie somehow leaked through the cracks and caught my attention. I watch a lot of movies and shows, so I figured, what the fuck. Might as well say something mediocre about a mediocre film. 

Mel Gibson playing Santa and getting shot several times: 5

Overall plot: 3

The scene when the elves explain their diet to the military guy: 7

A movie with barely memorable cast members still doing a decent job at pulling off a mediocre film with a couple kinda funny situations:5

For a perfectly mediocre total of 5 out of 10.

Greenland, 2020

 

You've seen it before. Pretty often, actually. Big thing falls from the sky, gonna wipe out the entire human race, cause Armageddon, the usual. And then there's a person, family, group of some kind who is racing to get to save the planet, or just to get to a safe place, etc. 

Yes, you've seen this movie over and over again since 1916 (yep, you read that right, not 2016) in The End of the World, which, by the way, was about a comet passes by the earth. 

As it turns out, this movie is about a comet passing WAY too close to the earth and what happens when all those thousands of pieces hit. 

However, you haven't seen it with Gerard Butler and Morena Baccarin as leads in this film directed by Ric Roman Waugh. Well, maybe you have seen it, so that's good. 

I say "that's good" because this is just a refreshing movie with nearly no hints of humor whatsoever in it. It's a straight on legit drama between John and Allison Garrity (Butler, Baccarin) and how they have to deal with their marriage falling apart. 

Nathan, their son, played by Roger Dale Floyd, is really the center of the entire film, not the comet that comes down and wipes out 75% of humanity. 

The film basically introduces you to the Garrity family, and the fact that their marriage is completely on the rocks. Nathan, their son, has diabetes and he needs insulin on a regular basis. 

So there's your little "oh, yeah, that's gonna suck if a comet breaks apart in the sky and starts wiping out the planet" plot point. 

The Garritys get picked to go to a secret government facility (location unknown) through a huge loud message on their television and phones, while their neighbors question why they didn't get similar messages themselves. 

They then have to fight their way into the airbase to jump on a series of planes to some unknown location for safety. 

As they travel, they get separated, kidnapped, and miraculously brought back together at the last moment to somehow mysteriously wind up not even a mile from a special bunker in Greenland designed to withstand the apocalypse. 

Although you've seen this movie hundreds of times over the past century, it was still fun to see an interesting dramatic twist here and there, some interesting actors you might never get to see in a film, and Gerard Butler. 

I'm going to give some ridiculous algebraic equation to determine a completely random rating. 

Another apocalypse movie: 7

Getting to see Gerard Butler's six pack: 1

Having Morena Baccarin in a movie after seeing her in Deadpool 1 and 2: 6

Somehow believing yet again most of the planet could explode except for one tiny little bunker in some remote part of the world: 6

General sense of everyone is going to die!: 8

 

Which brings us to a noteworthy 5.6 out of 10. 

 

Not the greatest apocalyptic film of all time, but certainly not the worst.

Chef, 2014

If you want to see a very cool feel good exciting drama with and awesome cast of actors and actresses, with an edge of comedy (not too funny, though), that hits you right in the Little Cubans, than this movie is for you!

John Favreau (known for his role in Iron Man, Avengers, Cowboys and Aliens) steps out of the action movie genre into this dramatic happiness as a chef on a quest. The gist of this film is pretty simple. He is trying to be the best he can possibly be and his entire career is being held back from his boss (played by Noteworthy Mr. Dustin Hoffman) when he finds "twitter."  He tweets his way into a series of life changing events, eventually leading him to purchasing a dump of a taco truck from his ex-wife's ex-boyfriend (played by Robert Downey Jr.).

Turns out he always wanted to drive a food truck but felt being a chef was the better option in life. Along the way he gets to know his son, who's been feeling though his dad is ignoring him and not caring about him, and they wind up building a much stronger relationship together. The father son relationship building part of this whole movie was by far the best part of the film, the underlying plot which actually is the best part of the movie, to me.

I have to say it was a refreshing movie that I actually have recommended to quite a few people, including personal friends, which is saying a lot. I don't typically recommend any movies to anyone, but this was just fantastic. To watch the cooking alone was worth the time to watch the movie. I do recommend this film to anyone, regardless if you like to cook or not.

Without getting into detail, I'm just going to throw out a random 8.37 rating out of 10 for this film because it was just fantastic.

Lucy, 2014

Okay, so let me just get one thing straight here before we begin this review of Lucy. Scarlett Johansson is by far one of my favorite actresses. She plays smart, witty strong characters, and has recently made a rather successful transformation to beautiful kinda air-headed roles to super hot action star actress roles. She's ridiculously beautiful and talented and I am rather biased by this for any film she's in. I've been a fan since I first saw her in Lost in Translation (with Bill Murray, directorial debut of Sophia Coppola). She'd done some work before that, but that was the first movie I'd seen her in.

Morgan Freeman is also one of my favorite actors, although I will have to admit, I don't get a hard-on for Freeman like I do for Johansson. Nonetheless, Morgan Freeman is epic as epic can be for a sci-fi film like this.

The film starts with Johansson's character being duped into bringing drugs to a huge drug overlord. She winds up being kidnapped and having a pound of this weird drug surgically implanted in her stomach. Of course, at some point, the bag it's in bursts and the entirety of the bag of drugs gets dumped into her system. Instead of killing her, it makes her capable of using more and more of her brain, giving her super powers and unlimited knowledge of all things in the universe.

She then turns into a computer, compiles all the information she learns in this brief time, and transforms into a rather tiny little USB flash stick.

That's really it. The rest of it is Scarlett Johannson in tight clothing, being an awesome tough bitch with magical powers. Amr Waked played a very believable confused french police detective, by the way, a difficult role to get down as he did.

Directed By Luc Besson
Staring Scarlett Johannson, Morgan Freeman, Min-sik Choi, Amr Waked

Tits and Ass: 10. Scarlett always gets a 10.
Interesting plot : 6
Morgan Freeman: 9
Action sequences: 7
Min-sik Choi playing awesome bad guy: 7

Giving this a 7.8, which, although meaningless, in this case I really mean it, go see this film. It was worth the wait and it was an awesome cool flick to see. 

The Giver, 2014

What happens when Jeff Bridges and Meryl Streep get together to make a movie about pseudo-religious freaks that control minds, kill old people (and babies that are slightly defective) all while creating a perfect utopia for a small society? You get The Giver.

Strangely enough, I actually found this movie watchable to some extent. Brenton Thwaites had just played the role of prince Phillip in Maleficent (brilliant film, btw), before which he was relatively unknown. Odeya Rush is one of those young actresses everyone will be tripping over when she turns 18. Not hugely popular, this film may have given her a little bump in her career.

Alexander Skarsgard started his career in Sweden and wound up in a couple decent television series here and there in the past decade. You might recall he was in Melancholia and Battleship a few years back.

The basic idea is there's this utopia place, and Jeff Bridges is the keeper of knowledge that no one else in the entire society is allowed to know because it's all the secrets of the world before the society was created. War, injustice, horrible things done to the environment, death, destruction, etc etc etc. This old guy the Giver selects this new kid (uh, the Givee?) and transfers this knowledge through touch just like magic, man!

With all this knowledge and power, the kid gets stupid and starts trying to escape from this perfect baby-killing utopia outside the borders of their land. He does so by stealing some kind of air bike thing and riding out into the desert, completely unprepared, and then through snowy mountains, to a cabin of people singing christmas carols. We don't know if he ever makes it to the cabin, but he does get past the magical towers. 

Oh, yeah. So there are these towers, and if this kid, the givee, can get past the towers, then magically everyone in this baby-killing utopia will suddenly have all the memories he has (the good, the bad, the ugly) and everything will change. For the good? For the bad? Who knows, doubt we'll see a sequel to this, and doubt it will even be as mediocre as this film was.

Not seeing Katie Holmes naked: 9
Seeing Jeff Bridges in a robe and slippers again: 6
Wishing Odeya Rush was just a couple years older in this film: 6
Completely easy to figure out plot twists: 8
Teenage love: 4
Completely obvious references to religious cult : 9

For a grand total of 7, which is a completely meaningless number designed to help in no way shape or form.

Guardians of the Galaxy 2014

You can't really give this movie a bad review, even if, like me, you are rather cynical having woken up at 5 am when you definitely don't need to be up at 5 am (or anywhere near 5 am for that matter) and are hoping the meds kick in at some point in time so you aren't in pain the rest of the day and might get something accomplished other than having a personal record of how long you can lay in bed before everything goes numb.

So I am going to give this movie a horrible review, only because I can do whatever the fuck I want, but you should stop here and go see it because it was honestly a really really good feel good awesome sci-fi fun movie to watch.

First off, this movie is the sort of thing that needs a sequel as soon as humanly possible. You can't possibly have this much fun and excitement in a movie, action and plot twists and what not, without having a sequel. 10 minutes into the movie, every single person in the theater is thinking "seriously, there better be fucking sequel to this movie."

The PG-13 rating was really the swearing mostly, and might have been a PG rating otherwise. There wasn't enough gratuitous sex, violence or anything else to really give this movie a PG-13, so here's for hopping up a film just to make it so the cool kids want to watch it.

I found the character development in the film was well done, especially with the Rocket Raccoon character played by Bradley Cooper. Bradley Cooper is a pretty well known actor who started his career as a small forgettable spot in Sex and the City before most of the people watching this movie were even born. He played small roles here and there on various television cop shows (and Face in the movie adaptation of the A-Team) as well as a rather fantastic role in the Hangover movies. Now he's the voice of a raccoon with a moral dilemma.

Zoe Saldana. Honestly, if you go see this movie for any reason Other than seeing Zoe Saldana in it, you are wasting your time and money. Saldana is most famous for her lead role in Avatar, Neytiri, where she played a strong female role in an historically male dominated sci-fi genre. In fact, 5 years previous, she played a strong female role in The Terminal (she was the Visa stamp officer that Tom Hank's character kept meeting day to day to get into the U.S). She was Uhura in the newest adaptations of the Star Trek Films, where most of the geeks you will talk to will know her from. I have a lot of respect for strong, hot female lead roles with awesome bitchy to bitchy with exception character development like this movie here. She's an awesome actress that deserves patronage to her films for sure.

Without spoiling the movie at all, because you should see this, it's a pretty typical plot. Everyone meets in some weird circumstances, gets together, not by choice, and overcomes various personal issues in order to save the entire universe from complete and utter destruction, just barely, during the very last 4 minutes of the film. Everything that happens in between is fluff, but interesting and fun to watch fluff.

Notable actor in this film, completely underrated, Djimon Hounsou. You will remember this phenomenal actor was in Gladiator, Blood Diamond and Amistad, as well as more recently the voice of Drago in How to Train your Dragon. A lot of talent, not a whole hell of a lot of screen time, but a worthy addition to this film's credibility sheet.

Director: James Gunn
Starring: Chris Pratt, Zoe Saldana, Dave Bautista, Vin Diesel, Bradley Cooper, Lee Pace

Gratuitous use of the word Groot: 9
Not seeing Zoe Saldana (who I highly respect as a talented actress) way more naked: 4
Hearing Chris Pratt's voice from the lego movie the whole time you watched this movie : 9
Trying to get "everything is awesome" from said lego movie out of your head: 3
Interesting plot twists you didn't see coming: 5.3
Humorous use of finger gestures: 6

Grand total :  6.05

Dawn of the Planet of the Apes 2014

Wow. Okay so this was a very cool film to watch.

Let me just say, like most movie cover images (like this one, with the ape and the gun through the water by the burning bridge, etc) never took place in the movie. I really hate when that happens. I mean, yeah, monkey in the picture was technically riding a horse in the movie and did actually hold a gun....Whatever it's all good.

So the movie basically starts out 10 years after the monkey flu pulls a Stephen King "The Stand" on the world and only a handful of humans are left. Surprisingly the monkeys don't over populate what's left of the world in those 10 years and stick to some small forest just over the bridge from San Francisco.

The humans there in San Fran need to get into the woods where the monkeys are to rebuild the damn and provide power to the city.

To make the movie more interesting and provide the usual plot twists, instead of just making friends with monkeys, offering them information, teaching, technology, etc, in return for access to the damn, we find the usual fuckups on both sides (monkeys and humans) from greed, fear and warmongering, resulting in lots of dead monkeys and dead people. And blown up things.

I wasn't too too excited about watching this film, it was either this or watch porn, and this seemed to be a good waste of an hour or two.

Tits and ass: (Unless you like monkey tits and ass) : 0
Gratuitous monkey sex: 0
Plot twists that could have been avoided by just not being stupid: 9.3
Bill Murray Cameos: 0 (a shame, really)
Violence: 7.5
Sex: 0
Completely random number generated because I finished my coffee: 5.2

That brings this wonderful film rating to 3.14. Don't let the numbers fool you, it was an interesting watch that opened up the way for a sequel.

Kick Ass 2010

Kick Ass, released in April of 2010 did just that. Kicked Ass. We start with our hero Dave Lizewski (played by Aaron Johnson) narrating the first five minutes. Dave basically discusses superheroes, his dead mother and masturbating about his teacher's tits. I honestly believe Matthew Vaughn (directed Snatch and is also directing X-Men: First Class)  added the tissues to the trash repeatedly to remind parents that just because there are kids in the movie doesn't keep it from being rated R.

Once we get past his teacher's tits (nice, by the way, for a Cougar teacher) we get into the movie. I spoil all movies, so I'll try not to spoil this one too. Yeah right!).

The basic premise is the dweeb hates being mugged so he begins his valiant attempt at vigilante justice. which fails miserably. He basically gets his name reversed upon himself (get it? ass kicked?) on several occasions. While getting his ass pounded (metaphorically, thank goodness) he runs into Big Daddy, played by Nicolas Cage, and Hit Girl, played by Chloe Moretz. Chloe, in case you don't recognize her, did voice work for My Friends Tigger and Poo from 2007-2008. Don't let the sweet little voice fool you, though. Her character is vicious and lays a trail of blood and entrails every time she puts her mask on.

Well, as the plot unfolds, it turns out that Big Daddy has a score to settle with Frank D'Amico, played by Mark Strong. Strong played Lord Blackwood in Sherlock Holmes recently, as well as Godfrey in Robin Hood, two blockbuster hits of 2010. He was busy.  Strong has no idea that Big Daddy even exists, and a string of hits against his evil little empire are blamed on Kick Ass because someone actually got a shot of him on his camera phone.

So Frank's son Chris (played by Christopher Mintz-Plasse; Superbad, Role Models, How to Train Your Dragon) sells his dad on the idea that in order to catch the hero, he has to be a hero. So Chris transforms himself into Red Mist, drives around in a supe-d up car and finds Kick Ass. After realizing that Kick Ass is innocent, he finds out who the real culprit is for all the damage being done to Frank's people.

Eventually, he tricks Kick Ass into luring Big Daddy to his demise. Big Daddy's little girl (she's what, 13?) kills everyone in site, but not in time to save her father. Now it's her time for revenge. She takes out everyone in site and then Kick Ass blows Frank up with a Bazooka.

I know. Totally random. But in the movie it makes sense.

It's already rumored that 2012 will bring us another installment of Kick Ass (Balls to the Wall), but that wasn't too hard to swallow when you see that Chris is still alive and looking for vengeance too.

All in all, it was a very fun movie to watch. Kinda hardcore in some spots, like when they cut some guy's fingers off with a cable cutter, microwaved another guy, crushed someone in a car crusher, and then the overall action always ended in guts and brain spew (which was kinda cool). There was certainly a good amount of action, the plot was well thought out and easy to follow, and our hero (Kick Ass) gets the girl Lyndsy Fonseca who plays Katie Deauxma (Which is French for ten times hotter than...). Lyndsy has been all over TV from Boston Public to House M.D. and is also rumored to be in the sequel to this movie. She was also in Hot Tub Time Machine (played Jennie), but we'll get to that movie later.

Here are the numbers:

Gratuitous violence by a 13 year old: 9
Masturbation references in narrative: 3
The Balls it took to do this movie: 8
Unrelenting Spider Man references: 2
Nudity: 1
Cameos: 0
Tits and Ass: 3
Special effects: 7
Geek to Hero: 9

Brings our grand total for Kick Ass to 4.67. Don't let the number fool you, this movie was fantastic.