Saving the World One Review at a Time.
When it comes to comic books, the ones that really get my attention generally have a deconstructionist slant to them. That is to say, I like it when you take what people expect from your typical super hero and spin it around on me. So when I heard that Hancock was about a super powered drunk who’s a bit of a prick, well my interest was piqued. Unfortunately, it may not be as strong a film as it could have been, but as far as Will Smith Fourth of July summer blockbusters go, it isn’t terrible.
Being the only super powered person on the planet can be a bit of a burden and Hancock (Will Smith) hasn’t handled it so well. Spending most of his time coping by living in a drunken stupor he isn’t exactly in the best mindset anytime he’s roused from sleeping one off to save the less fortunate. Consequently, he’s racked up millions of dollars in property damage and has hundreds of lawsuits pending against him. To put it mildly people don’t like him and he doesn’t care much for people. Of course, that changes after he saves struggling PR man Ray Embry (Jason Bateman) from getting hit by a train. In return, Ray goes against his wife Mary’s (Charlize Theron) wishes and promises to clean up Hancock’s image by righting the wrongs he’s responsible for due to his drunken negligence. But when a criminal he put away comes back for revenge just as his past starts to be revealed, Hancock may have more to worry about than a hangover.
I have a friend who doesn’t like animated movies. He’s pretty adamant about it, but since the first time he saw the movie poster he was curious about WALL-E. I found that odd, but after sitting through the preview he’s become just amazed by it. This should have told me something to begin with. Admittedly, we guys tend to mellow out as we get older, but for this dude to really want to see it says it all. When he asked whether or not the movie was any good, the best I good muster was “It’s really good” and when pressed all I said was “Its reeeally good.” What I didn’t want to admit was not only did I enjoy WALL-E and find it visually amazing and funny, but I spent part of the movie getting pretty choked up. There are so many things I like about this WALL-E I hardly know where to begin.
As a neurotics Account Manager Wesley, (James McAvoy) pretty much lives the same beat down life every day. Suffering from anxiety attacks, he never once stands up to the nagging girlfriend, the best fried with whom she’s cheating or his hateful office supervisor. That is until he is approached by Fox (Angelina Jolie) while at the pharmacy. She explains that his father was part of a secret order of assassins called The Fraternity and not only was he the best but he was recently murdered by a rouge member. No sooner than the words leave her mouth, they are under attack. Fox takes Wesley to meet The Fraternity’s leader, Sloan (Morgan Freeman) who explains that the order’s purpose is to keep balance in the world by murdering people whose names are given to Sloan in the form of binary code in the thread of the material produced from the Loom of Fate. He then sets Wesley upon a brutal training regiment to teach him to fight, shoot and toughen him up in order to track down and avenge his father’s murder.
There’s this place, I don’t know if you’ve heard of it, the Middle East. They’ve got a lot of problems over there, specifically, the whole Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Yeah, it’s a big mess. The Israelis have themselves a little bit of land, but the Palestinians say it was theirs first. One side attacks the other, and then the other retaliates. Then the first guy has to retaliate for the retaliation. Well that can’t stand, so they retaliate against the retaliation’s retaliation and on and on. It just doesn’t stop, but luckily one man has the answer. His name? Adam Sandler. If you took that whole big mess and added sex, scat humor, hair dressing, Neosporin, Arabic soda and more hummus that you thought it was humanly possible to fit in one movie, you’d have You Don’t Mess with Zohan. It’s like Munich, but with laughs.
Once there was a panda named Po (Jack Black), who lived with his father making noodles for the people in their village. But Po didn’t want to grow up to make noodles; he had dreams of his own. Despite the fact that he was lazy and completely out of shape, Po wanted to be a Kung Fu master like his heroes Tigress (Angelina Jolie), Crane (David Cross), Viper (Lucy Liu), Monkey (Jackie Chan) and Mantis (Seth Rogen) otherwise known as the Furious Five. One day it was announced that a new warrior was to be named, and Po accidentally fulfills a prophecy, becoming Master Shifu’s (Dustin Hoffman) newest student. When the evil snow leopard, Tai Lung (Ian McShane) escapes from prison and wipes out the other Kung Fu masters, the only one who is able to stand in his way is the seemingly overmatched and overfed panda.
It’s time for another big Marvel crossover story. Man, these things seem to just be flying at us, don’t they? First came Civil War followed and I think a little overlapped by World War Hulk and now we have Secret Invasion.
I don’t remember a time when Raiders of the Lost Ark didn’t exist. It’s almost as apart of my growing up as summer afternoons, however, I do remember both Temple of Doom and The Last Crusade’s release and every time I think of them I find it hard to separate them from other memories. I saw Temple of Doom for the first time on video in a cabin when going camping got rained out. And I can’t think of The Last Crusade without seeing my oldest friend’s face saying “He chose…poorly.” In some regards it’s difficult for me to be too hard on The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull just because Indiana Jones is so intertwined with my childhood, but at the same time its pedigree almost begs you to hold it a higher standard. You can’t just say that’s it’s just another summer action movie when it’s directed by the guy who created summer blockbusters with Jaws and the guy who wrote it created Star Wars. For that reason, to have a movie that fails on a fundamental story level is a huge disappointment.
Along with Douglas Adam’s Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy there isn’t another series of book that have were read more times by me as a child than The Chronicles of Narnia. I used to love those books and it probably accounts for both my nerdiness and my sense of humor. My love for The Chronicles of Narnia pretty much ensures that no matter what, I’m going to be sitting in the theater watching each and every one of those films. With that being said, just because I will always have a fondness for the C.S. Lewis series, it doesn’t mean that I’m going to give it a pass and Prince Caspian is the first to find no such quarter.
When I heard that the Wachowski brothers were making a film version of the old Speed Racer cartoon, my first reaction was “Why?” I am not a very nostalgic person and when it comes to my childhood I sort of take the things that I used to like with a grain of salt. Speed Racer is supposed to be one of those cartoons that have a special place in people’s heart, but I have yet to meet anyone who actually likes it. Sure there are those that enjoyed its ironic revival on MTV and t-shirts in the 90s, but that’s pretty much it. I hate to break it to you but liking something out of irony isn’t actually liking it. Personally I’m of the opinion that no one really likes Speed Racer and this film doesn’t do anything to dissuade me.
Ladies and Gentlemen, a conversation has been started in this great land of ours, a conversation that is taking place inside every comic book shop, online guild and marching band from one coast to the other and beyond. For a single man to inspire such unabashed enthusiasm and support, he must truly be someone special. He must be a man above all men; some might even say an Iron Man. A hero of this magnitude would surely be the greatest of them all, right?