A Terrible Day to Die Hard

In case anyone didn't get it from the reviews, A Good Day to Die Hard was really awful.  Don't go see it.  I had known it was supposed to be terrible going in, but thought it's Die Hard, you've got to see it!  Die Hard 4 was supposed to be terrible too, and maybe it was, but I didn't regret going.  It was kinda fun.

#5 was not fun.  I do regret going.  Save yourself the time and money.  It's not funny.  It makes 0 sense.  It's not good action.  It lacked any redeeming qualities.  Even the couple homages to earlier movies were terribly done.

So again, don't go see it.  That is all.

Movies This Week - 07/07/2012

It's been too oppressively hot this week to go for a bike ride, and it's going to last through the weekend.  Although I still think we had a mild start of summer, we're quickly doing away with that idea.  Today is currently slated for 103.  Fortunately Monday's high is scheduled to be below 80, so things should cool off some.

So instead of rides this week, this is going to become Movies This Week, with three quick movie reviews -

Prometheus - I finally went and saw it.  And I was as disappointed as I guess everyone was.  I wasn't even expecting a lot based on the reviews I'd heard, but the movie just didn't make a lot of sense.  As I've said before, I'm happy to run with a non-scientifically-accurate premise and enjoy seeing what the characters do, but I just didn't believe any of what the "scientific mission" chose to do or how they went about things the entire movie.  And the Alien tie in was mediocre at best.  Oh well.  It was still fun to see some spaceships as all sci fi movies are at some level.

The Man From Nowhere - This is a Korean modern action movie (i.e. fights/gunplay) that was really good.  It was your typical rescue/revenge story - Former (special forces, hitman, MMA champion) badass turned (miserly recluse, drunk, family man) befriends an (8-12 year old) girl who gets taken by (the mob, sex traffickers, a warlord) because her parents were (rich, into drugs, witnessed something).  The former badass proceeds to show that his badass is not so former as he kills everything on his way to rescue/avenge the girl.  Very enjoyable.  The climactic sequence was awesome.

War of the Arrows - Another Korean movie, this one an ancient epic.  The son and daughter of a Chinese lord flee to Korea after his father is declared a traitor for sympathizing with Korea.  10 years later Chinese raiders are invading Korea, and the very proficient with a bow and arrow son (I guess only Chinese people are good with a bow) has to set off to rescue his sister who's been taken captive by the very proficient with bows and arrows raiders.  Lots of arrow fights ensue.  It was very well done, with some great cinematography and action sequences.  It reminded me some of House of Flying Daggers, and was the best ancient epic/action I had seen in a long time.  


That's it for this week.  I still have J. Edgar from blockbuster that I might get to this weekend, and I kinda want to go see savages.  Has anyone seen anything about Ted?  I can't tell if it looks funny or horrible.  With Mark Wahlberg in a comedy I lean towards horrible.

Battleship Review

Quick Summary - Aliens come to earth.  They fight some warships. 

Quick Review - Meh

IMDB: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1440129/

I was excited for battleship, even if nobody else was.  Aliens show up, and trap some battleships in a forcefield, and create a grid, and then they have good old fashioned blind naval warfare to duke it out.  And from the makers of GI Joe! 

I must say, I was disappointed.  About an hour into it I was thinking holy crap this is awful.  The initial setup was overly long and even more overly pointless.  The characters weren't particularly likable, and every decision they made was just obviously wrong.  And aside from the aliens and the ridiculous premise, the basic premise of things like it being a navy ship and how that ship was run didn't make any sense and were poorly done.  The obnoxious absurdity outweighed the enjoyable silliness, and the result was not good.

After about an hour though it picked up a little bit, and the scales tipped back towards silliness.  We got into them playing live action battleship, and we start finding out some more about the aliens.  By the end I had at least come to terms with how awful it was going to be and was ready to enjoy some explosions and alien ass kicking.  Suffice it to say in that in that, I was not disappointed.

Let the Bullets Fly Review

Quick Summary - Robin Hood like bandits in 1920s China ambush a new governor who has just bought his position and is on his way to his new province for the first time.  Since nobody knows who the new governor is, the head of the bandits decides to take the governor's spot.  He doesn't play by the normal rules though, and pretty soon runs into trouble with the local rich drug lord who actually runs things.  Pretty soon we have a Robin-Hood style story where the benevolent governor is trying to return the people's wealth to the people.  Guns are involved.

Quick Review - Amusing but dissapointing.

IMDB: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1533117/

After seeing the previews, recognizing a few of the cast, and hearing it was the highest grossing film in China, I was pretty excited for this one.  I was expecting a Smokin Aces style chaotic action/thriller with lots of gunplay and some comedy mixed in.  Instead it was more of a Kung Fu Hustle type of comedy with a little bit of action that wasn't all that thrilling.  And as with most Chinese movies, some of the comedy gets lost in translation.  Oh well.  It wasn't all bad, and I still enjoyed it on some level, but after having such high hopes it was definitely a letdown. 

Lockout Review

Quick Summary - In 2070 the president's daughter is visiting a brand new space station prison when the prisoners riot and take over the station, taking her and a number of the crew hostage. The president decides to send in a single man to infiltrate, break her out, and get her to the escape pod (yes, there's an escape pod).

Quick Review - Definitely enjoyable*

IMDB: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1592525/

This movie probably could have been terrible if they had even tried to take themselves seriously. Almost immediately though they do away with the premise that any of this would be not-ridiculous. What's left is an enjoyable action/comedy with some Shoot 'em up style sci-fi shenanigans.

Aside from that I'm not sure how to review this movie since the plot does not merit re-mentioning, there's nothing deep enough to analyze for more than about 5 seconds, and the only parts that are even worth complaining about all include spoilers. So instead I will just give a list of what made this movie awesome:

• A speeder-bike/futuristic-hovercraft-helicopter type thing chase with lots of explosions.
• Voice activated mines (when you catch one don't say "Oh Shit")
• Thinking you escaped into an impregnable holding cell only to find it is slowly filling with nitrogen that will kill you
• Finding out that the impregnable holding cell can be impregnated from both the front and the rear without too much effort
• The two Irish brother villains, one conniving, one insane
• A high orbit space battle between a heavily armed space station with automatic defense turrets and a bunch of military fighter ships
• Maggie Grace (who's both hot and apparently good at getting kidnapped)
• Airlock executions (which never get old)
• The president gets removed from office by the head of the secret service
• The prison literally crashes into the international space station out of nowhere
• Guy Pearce being an asshole all movie
• Zombie-like hordes of prisoners chasing people around the station and getting thwarted by blast doors which conveniently open/close at only the right times
• Witty dialogue all movie long (its kind of what made the movie)

So I enjoyed it. And you might too.

*Disclaimer: I tend to enjoy some terrible movies**.
**Re-disclaimer: I also tend to enjoy awesome movies. Like GI Joe.

The Next Three Days Review

Quick Summary - Russel Crowe is a middle class man who's wife has been (he believes) wrongfully imprisoned for murder.  When their last appeal fails, he decides to break her out of prison and run for it with her and their 6ish year old son.

Quick Review - Worth Watching

IMDB: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1458175/

I don't remember this movie ever being in theaters, which is surprising given that it has Russel Crowe and Elizabeth Banks as leads along with smaller roles by Liam Neeson and several others I recognized.  The first 15 minutes or so are of the family and how happy they are and then boom she gets arrested for murdering her boss.  It then cuts to a few years later and they're losing their last appeal.  It's made clear that the evidence is very condemning.

Most of the movie is then about how the hell someone who is not a criminal goes about breaking his wife out of jail.  He doesn't have any friends that he's willing to turn to, nor any criminal contacts who he can think of to talk to.  He's not particularly rich so he can't easily just buy his way through everything.  He's incredibly nervous the couple times he tries to do even the most basic set ups for his plan that he might get in trouble for doing.  It ends up being really suspenseful at times as he works to get her out.  I can't say I could quite relate to it, but it made you think could I do this?  How would I react in this situation?

There's also a little of did she or didn't she going on, and questions of would it be worth throwing your life away to be with the woman you love, even if she was a murderer.  Several times he gets asked if its all worth the risk (or probability) that both he and his wife will end up in jail and his son will be SOL without parents.  There are lots of questions about what's best for a family and all that.

Of course at the end of the movie he goes through with it and starts to break her out, and without adding spoilers suffice it to say they make it past the front door.  Just before the very end though the DVD I was watching flaked and so I didn't get to see the very very end, which kinda sucked, but I could pretty much see what was going to happen.  Stupid blockbuster. 

Anyways, all in all I thought it was a good suspenseful thriller and it's definitely worth a watch.