Shawn's Igor Review

2008 Movie #119 - Igor

I've stated many times this year that my biggest complaint with kids' movies is that they rarely seem to make the effort to appeal to the poor adults as well. Kudos to Igor it at least seems to somewhat try. However it seems to be much more focused on being the next Nightmare Before Christmas. The key difference of course being that Nightmare Before Christmas is awesome, and Igor is just very mediocre. 

Igor has a pretty decent idea going for it, however it's not an idea that translates well to a feature length movie. Things start out pretty interested and the movie displays a much darker tone than I expected. Then it doesn't take long for the thing to become some sort of bizarre romantic comedy and from that point on the film never fully recovers. Had it stayed with the tone it set up in the beginning, it could have made for a pretty decent film. 

The voice acting is quite good, with John Cusack putting in a surprisingly lively performance. His normally monotone, yet awesome, delivery is replaced with a more upbeat tone that works well and he does a good job. Sean Hayes and Steve Buscemi seem like easy and safe choices for their roles, but there must be a reason for that since they do well. In fact I would Bushemi's character was my favourite in the movie.

There are a handful of decent one-liners here and there but the overall humour is frankly a little stale. It's the same fare that almost all animated movies hand out. The movie does work best when it's being edgy as some of the jokes that actually have some balls, are the ones that are actually kind of funny. The movie doesn't throw these out too often however and decides to pretty much just play it safe the whole time.

I think the filmmakers should have taken the idea and just went a lot further with it. I can understand that they probably didn't want the make the movie too dark since it's supposed to be aimed at kids, but these kids can handle a lot more than what most movies give them credit for. Some of the most popular kids movies of the past are quite dark, even some of the current ones like the Harry Potter or Narnia series contain a lot of more adult material. With a slightly darker tone this could have been a pleasant surprise. As is, it's just another in a long line of forgettable 2008 movies.

**/5

Shawn's Saw V Review

2008 Movie #118 - Saw V

I remember way back when the first Saw movie was months away. I was telling everyone about the premise and how awesome it was. Everyone pretty much agreed it sounded like a really cool movie. For the most part, all those same people agreed that the first movie was really good. Then something happened. The movie did really well. Then a new one had to come out every single year. It became more and more about the gore and the traps than about telling a good story, which I still maintain the first movie had. Well I haven't flat out hated any of the Saw movies, including this one, usually the best compliment I can give is "well it didn't suck." And Saw V...well it didn't suck.

Saw IV was a little angering, with a twist ending that felt like a huge cop-out. Some of the traps were cool and the movie itself, well it didn't suck, but the whole thing felt like just buying time before having to explain things. The fifth one addresses this a little more, giving us more of a story and background and at least filling in a few of the story holes that IV left us with. Of course it also gives us some new ones since we know damn well VI is coming next year. So the storyline, while thin, is decent enough and a lot better than IV had to offer. There is one scene that is nearly 10 minutes of straight dialogue and it's surprisingly strong. The highlight of the movie I would say.

Of course everyone these days is pretty much just in it for the traps. The traps here are alright. The pendulum one is cool but seriously how in the fuck was that built? That question gets even bigger when you find out the circumstances in which it was built. After that trap none of them are that bad until one involving buzzsaws and a beaker. I would say this one ranks up there with the needle put and the Rack from Saw III as one of the more gruesome traps the series has offered. The final "trap" is also quite something. So the gore is there, but we've seen worse. The same goes for the traps themselves. I'm curious how many more they can come up with because it's starting to look like they've drained the well. The box trap is so simple you keep waiting for the big gruesome twist to it, which kind of comes but not becasue of the trap. Anyway, the ideas for traps seems to be getting near the bottom.

The acting is for the most part, pretty bad. Tobin Bell of course does fine and the two lead agents do alright too. Some of the 5 people in the game though are just terrible, with some of the worst acted lines I've heard in quite some time. Of course this is nothing new to the series so what do you expect I guess. After the first one, maybe even the 2nd and third to some extent, nobody expects good acting anymore.

As has become the standard since Part III, there are some cool throwbacks to the old movies. Of course they just assume you've seen them so if you're new to the series, or haven't seen the older ones in a while, you're not going to understand anything about what the fuck is going on. Also I really wish I could have recorded the conversation I just had with my girlfriend because I was going over what should be a simple plot point in these movies but had to reference about 19 different moments from each movie to get my point across. Perhaps the plot has gotten just a wee bit convuluted.

Of course it woudn't be a Saw movie without some sort of twist ending, and this movie has some. This isn't a spoiler, you know the drill. The twist is revealed and we hear that same music from the first one (which was an awesome twist ending by the way) play during a bunch of fast cuts from the movie. For this one, the twists were a let down. They weren't frustrating like they were at the end of IV, but just not great. One of them you should be able to see coming easily from the first few moments of the game. The other I was actually hoping would go a different way, the exact opposite way it went. I don't want to say too much but had the ending been the opposite of what happens, I would actually be pretty excited for the sequel.

Overall, I still enjoy this series enough to stick with it. It's gone from actually good horror movie, to decent sequels, to guilty pleasure. It's better than the fifth entries in just about any other horror franchise I can think of so hey, it has that. And well, it didn't suck.

** 1/2 / 5

Shawn's My Best Friend's Girl

2008 Movie #117 - My Best Friend's Girl

What the fuck was the thought behind this one? They tried to make a gross-out vulgar comedy that guys would like, combined with the usual romantic comedy shenanigans that women like. In the end, they failed at both.

Dane Cook is now 0/3. It would be one thing if each of his movies was decent, or even bad. But each one of them has been just awful. Stop with the vulgar comedies that also try to be sweet! Either do a fucking straight forward comedy or a fucking romantic comedy. I get that it's probably an attempt to show range but just start with one thing at a time. Move on to the next thing once you've done a decent job with the first.

This movie spends the first hour as an an R rated comedy and none of it is very funny at all. There's maybe a couple of good lines but other than that, not a whole lot going on. Then all of a sudden it's like the movie forgot what it had just done and decided that it's actually a sweet comedy...that's also vulgar. It's hard to be both and this movie has no clue what it's doing. However the only decent laughs come in this final part with the wedding sequence.

There is pretty much no likable character in this movie which certainly doesn't make things more bearable. Jason Bigg's character is borderline a sociopath, almost stalking a women he has known for 5 weeks and is obsessing over. I don't know if his character is supposed to be sympathetic or not but every time his character was on screen I just wanted a guy with a huge fucking net to come, capture him and take him away.

Dane Cook plays the asshole who redeems himself, but the redemption never really feels genuine and his character never becomes the sympathetic person the movie wants him to be. Kate Hudson...well I just don't know what the hell she is doing here? She read the script right? Then again after Fools Gold, her terrible choices should never really surprise me.

This is a schizophrenic movie that is neither funny nor romantic. I can't wait until next September when Dane Cook tries this again.

*/5

Shawn's Joy Ride 2 Review

2008 Movie # 116 - Joy Ride 2 Dead Ahead

I love the original Joy Ride. It was a great surprise the first time I saw it and I still revisit and enjoy it often to this day. It still holds up quite well. Therefore this is one of the few direct to DVD sequels I was interested in. I actually thought with a little effort they could make this one pretty damn good. Well it's not pretty damn good, but it's pretty good. At least they seemed to try.

The plot is very similar to the first movie. The same trucker Rusty Nail is stalking some young-uns after they wrong him. The character of Rusty Nail is probably my biggest complaint about this movie. His motivation in the first movie was pretty thin, which made him scary. You knew he was never going to stop, and the fact he had little reason behind it made him batshit crazy and all the more scary. In this one his motivation is still thin, but it's almost a little too thin. Especially because in this movie, he's gone beyond angry and crazy to just full blown horror movie villian.

In the first Joy Ride, he was just after the three main people, and would hurt anyone who got in the way. He still sticks to this general principal for the most part in this one, but some of it is just way over the top? The rod through the head death? The jaw death? I don't know if any human is actually capable of this. Also the dice game sequence, while fairly suspensful, felt like something out of a completely different movie. A little too Saw/Hostel-ish for me.

The acting was above average for one of these movies, but this movie makes the same mistake College did in that it seems to believe its comic relief is just hilarious when really they are fucking annoying. The one guy in this movie is one of the most annoyting characters I've seen in a movie since, well College. You will be counting the seconds until this motherfucker dies.

This movie does feature one of the worst mistakes I've ever seen in a movie. In one scene we cut to a stunt double who is actually wearing a completely different outfit than the character she's supposed to be portraying. It's not even subtle, it's a god damn close up of the character. How this one slipped through I have no idea. It's the best laugh in the movie though.

In the end, not a bad movie, especially when compared to the rest of the direct to DVD crap I've been sludging through this year. I wouldn't be surprised if we got to see a third entry in this series, and I for one am actually going to be checking that one out.

** 1/2 / 5

Shawn's Beverly Hills Chihuahua Review

2008 Movie #115 - Beverly Hills Chihuahua

I don't know why I bother still putting my name in the titles of these things, force of habit I suppose. So I'm gonna skip the usual "I'm way behind, saw this movie forever ago" routine...but it's still very very true.

My motivation to continue with this whole quest dies just a little more each and every day. Could it be all of the crap movies that are out/coming out/just seem to be everywhere? Not completely because there are actually a lot of movies out that I really want to see. School? Not any busier with that then I usually am. I think it comes down to the fact that we are currently in the middle of one of the best video game streaks probably ever. Every single week there's at least 3 good games coming out and for those of you who are missing out on it, well I just feel sorry for you.

I did manage to find some time between awesome video games to watch this piece of garbage though. To give you a little history of me and this movie, the first time I saw the trailer for this before Narnia, it was one of the single most jaw dropping moments of my life. I couldn't fucking believe the images in front of me. It was almost the subject of my third rant because I easily could have railed on for a fucking novel about how awful it was.

Then months went by and I mostly managed to forget about this movie. Then all of a sudden it comes back...and it's the number 1 movie?! WHAT?! That just about became the second rant about that movie. Then a week goes by...and it's the number 1 movie again! Seriously what the hell is wrong with parents these days? As soon as your child asks to see this movie is when you immediatly lock them in their rooms until they learn to change their evil ways.

Many months ago (probably around the time of Wall-e) I was talking about how important it is for kids movies to have something that appeals to adults as well. This movie doesn't even seem to try. The humour is as child centered as possible. Sure at least it's a step above the usual kids fare. There are no fart jokes as far as I can remember but still. Again I have to go back to not being in the target audience but that still doesn't make the movie any more bearable.

The whole thing just feels lazy. The plot isn't anything even close to being original, the idea of real animals with moving, talking mouths isn't new and isn't any less creepy than it ever was, and the jokes and dialogue are tired. "Talk to the paw?" Are you fucking kidding me? That joke was old...well always. Also the term dognapping is used at least 5 times as if it was the cutting edge of original jokery. Sure the audience is kids who haven't heard this as much as we all have, but it just feels fucking lazy.

The voice acting is decent I guess. I really don't have much more to say about it than that. Andy Garcia is probably the highlight though. The real actors are fine as well. I always like seeing Piper Perabo in a movie, I just wish they were better movies than these. Same goes for Jamie Lee Curtis, whose track record is starting to look just terrible with this and Christmas with the Kranks, easily one of the worst movies I've ever seen.

I'm shocked at how much money this thing has made, especially considering all of the flops there have been lately. Apparently City of Ember is quite good and it's made about 1/9th the amount of money this one has. At least this whole experiment has cost me my faith in the world....yay?

*/5

Shawn's Sex and the City Movie Review

2008 Movie #114- Sex and the City Movie

I managed to avoid watching this one for months now. I dodged seeing it in theatres and instead went to go see The Strangers. Since it's out on DVD it felt like there was no better time to watch it. So I bit the bullet and decided to just get it all over with. I did have to watch it in 3 seperate shifts however.

I'm not a fan of the show by any means. I don't flat out hate it, it just isn't for me. I watched a few episodes and really had no motivation to watch anymore. Therefore there was no motivation for me to watch this movie. It wasn't really the train wreck that I had mentally prepared myself for, but I can still safely say that well, I don't get it.

I've talked to several fans of the show who didn't really like the movie and I think even I can understand why. The show is primarily a comedy but there really is nothing funny about the movie. It never even really tries to have jokes and when it does, they aren't particularily funny. So it's lose/lose. For a show known for being funny, there is very little funny in this movie which was surprising to me.

I'm not sure about the show itself but to me, in the movie at least, none of the characters were really all that likable. They just aren't very pleasant people and I don't get why I would want to watch them. I'd do anything in life to avoid socializing with people like this.

Of course there is no way I could get through this review without mentioning the length. 150 minutes, really? I'm ok with long movies as long as there is a purpose to the length but this one had absolutely no reason to be this long. Nothing happens the entire time! There is virtually no plot to speak of here. So much could have easily been cut, the best example being the subplot of Carrie's assisstant. This movie could have lost every single one of her scenes and the movie wouldn't have changed at all.

I can't say I liked this one, in fact I really disliked it. At the same time though, I'm really not the target audience at all so for that reason, my opinion basically means nothing. I'm just glad to have this one over with. Now I can move on to more quality movies....like Beverly Hills Chihuahua.

* 1/2 / 5

Shawn's Eagle Eye Review

2008 Movie #113 - Eagle Eye

I saw this one on opening night as well. I was immediatly intrigued by the first teaser trailer for this when it came out way back before I think Indiana Jones. The premise sounded pretty cool, if not a little much like Enemy of the State. Either way I was excited for it, even when the bad/terrible reviews started to flood in. In the end, I gotta say this looks like it's going to be one of those movies I'll have to defend because damn it, I liked it.

The premise is no doubt a little silly and really, really requires you to stretch your imagination, but hey I'm a fan of Prison Break and it does the same thing x10 every single week. If you can buy into the premise and are willing to simply go along for the ride, then chances are you're going to enjoy this one.

The breaking point for people seems to be when the reveal of the villain arrives. It's at this moment where your opinion of the entire movie will pretty much be decided right then and there. You're either going to see this plot point and go "Oh yea? Ok let's see where they're going with this" or "Are you fucking kidding me?! That's the most retarded shit ever! DONE!" I was the first one so the movie was never ruined for me.

The cast does fine, although I'm starting to reach my breaking point with Shia. He's not really a bad actor, I'm just not convinced he has any sort of range whatsoever. Let's look at his film resume so far. Constantine, I Robot, Disturbia, Transformers, Indiana Jones 4 and now this one. If you were to watch all of those movies back to back, you would never be able to tell the difference between one Shia character to the next. He pretty much plays the exact same role in all of his movies so I'm really waiting for him to try something different. Then we'll see just why he's being called the next big thing. However next up I think he has Transformers 2, so we could be waiting a while yet.

The action scenes are a highlight in this one. They too require a heavy dose of imagination stretching. They almost make Live Free or Die Hard seem entirely plausable. They're fun and exciting though, so once again I was willing to buy into it.

The ending would probably be my main complaint about the movie, but I'm not going to go into it here. It just felt a little too Spielberg-y, but then he was involved with the making of this movie so I guess it really isn't that surprising.

This movie was a really pleasant surprise for me and I had a hell of a lot of fun watching it. It will definitely be a blu-ray purchase for me when it's released in a few months. This one gets a high score and gets added to my list of "I don't get why people all hate it" movies.

****/5

Shawn's Choke Review

2008 Movie #112 - Choke

I actually saw this movie on opening day at the very first show it was running, something I haven't done for a movie in a long time now. It wasn't really that I was dying to see it, although I was definitely excited for it.

I just got into Chuck Pahliniuk's books recently. I started with Fight Club and then in the following few months, read pretty much back to back: Haunted, Invisible Monsters, Lullaby, Choke and Snuff. Survivor is next up on the list, especially now that it's apparently going to be the next movie. Fight Club is one of my favourite movies of all time and I was excited to see what happened with the next Pahliniuk adaptation.

I have to say I'm impressed. The movie stays very loyal to the book with only a few slight changes here and there. The humour is still there and many of the jokes translate well onto the big screen.

Sam Rockwell did a fantastic job in the lead role, which is great because the character walks a very fine line between likable and an asshole. The wrong actor could have easily screwed this up but Rockwell owns this role. In fact everyone does a great job and all of the characters in the movie feel very true to how they are in the book.

I really hope this one goes on to acheive the same sort of cult status that Fight Club managed to earn over the years. It's a very different movie, but one that is highly enjoyable. If you're a fan of the book, or at least a fan of the author, then check this one out. They didn't screw it up during the adaptation, which is almost one of the best compliments you can give a movie based on a book.

*** 1/2 / 5

Shawn's Lakeview Terrace Review

2008 Movie #111 - Lakeview Terrace

Well this is officially the worst I've been at updating this thing. I literally watched this movie a few days after it came out and here we are, approaching a month later and I'm just now getting around to writing it. Granted I've had a lot on my plate and have generally been playing a lot more video games than watching movies. Quitting the theatre also didn't help since movies are no longer free and I'm no longer in a movie theatre almost every day. However I would have even less free time otherwise. Anyway that's enough explaining myself to...basically myself.

When the trailer for this movie was first shown, I was excited. It became a fantastic running joke at work. I mean how amazing is Samuel L. Jackson cutting down bushes and screaming at people? Personally I feel every movie could use a scene where that happens. We would sit around at work on slow days and come up with theories as to just why Sam Jackson is so pissed off at this couple. Unfortunatly when you see the movie and find out that answer, you're immediatly disappointed. Then you realize that the movie really doesnt' have much else going for it.

I do like Sam Jackson. I think he plays the same role a lot but he's good at it and no matter what shitty movie he finds himself in (and he often finds himself in some pretty shitty ones) he seems like he is at least trying. Plus watching a Sam J movie is always fun because you're just waiting for him say motherfucker. You always know it's coming. Except in this movie I don't think he ever actually did say it. So you can just chalk that up as another disappointment.

The movie reminds me of those thrillers you used to see all the time in the early-mid nineties. In fact I bet this movie would have fit perfectly in at the time. It also reminds you of why those movies aren't really made anymore. They all follow the same formula pretty much to a tee. I was most excited to see how this movie played out, only to find it mostly played it safe and went exactly the way you thought it would.

Also the characters in this movie are almost across the board unlikable. Sam's character is supposed to be insane but when you hear the reason why you can't help but go "really that's it?" I'm pretty sure that kind of things happens to people all the time. Then again it doesn't happen to Sam Jackson and he reacts differently than any other human on the planet. The wife has a moment where she purposely stops taking her birth control pills to essentially trick her husband into getting her pregnant. That's a pretty terrible move on it's own, but then she proceeds to get mad at him when's upset about it. What? WHAT?! She even yells at him about sneaking cigarettes. Any sympathy with her character was killed in that moment.

So the movie isn't bad, but it feels like wasted potential. The movie is never boring, but all the most interesting parts are already in the trailer. The rest is just sort of padding between these parts. You could do worse, that's about the best I can say.

**/5