REVIEW: FEAR 2 – Project Origin

Love you the scary? Then F.E.A.R. 2: Project Origin… might be for you.

I played the original F.E.A.R. game a while back and thought that the first level was one of the best things I’ve seen in a video game since Sub-Zero ripped Liu Kang’s spine out. It was just the right mix of “coming-out-of-nowhere” scares, a spooky atmosphere, and FPS action. The rest of the game proceeded to shit the bed, but that first level stands out as the gold standard of what the F.E.A.R. series could accomplish. I’d hoped that F.E.A.R. 2: Project Origin would return the series to its horror elements and loosen up on the shooter side of gameplay. In the end, my experience with the game was more “eh…” than “AAAAHHHHHHHH!”

F.E.A.R. 2: Project Origin puts the player in the body of Michael Beckett, a mute, faceless soldier in some elite military unit sent to apprehend Genevieve Aristide from the first game and winds up getting caught in the explosion that ended said first game. Beckett is then operated on to give him the same Bullet Time ability that the F.E.A.R. Point Man had (an attempt to shoehorn that gameplay mechanic back into the game. More head-scratching than cool.), which somehow bumps up his psychic ability to the point where he’s a mental beacon for Alma, the spooky girl who more of a mascot than an antagonist. You spend the rest of the game trying to track down Aristide while avoiding bullets, ghosts, and emaciated naked chicks, naturally.

F.E.A.R. 2 plays a lot like Half-Life or Halo in that cover is basically an afterthought. The enemy AI has learned to try and flush you out with grenades and overturn soda machines for cover. But for you, Mr. Bullet Time, most gunfights can be boiled down to “Enter Reflex Mode, run up to opponent, shoot their face off, run behind cover to rebuild Reflex meter, repeat.” I admit that it is kind of satisfying to surgically remove someone’s pancreas with lead before they can get a word out, but halfway through the game, I realized that my combat technique was exactly what I chide teenagers on Xbox Live for doing. One of the variations of this formula are the Power Armor sections, where you pump lead into anything that moves without fear of dying because you’re practically invincible. Sure, if you put the controller down to bake a cake and forget to hit “pause,” you have a chance of dying, but if you pay attention, these parts of the game will feel like swatting a horde of mosquitos while wearing Kevlar.

The horror element leaves something to be desired. Most of the scares consist of something vaguely spooky leaping out at you, trying to jolt the player into spontaneously wetting himself/herself. Maybe this was ill advised, but I played F.E.A.R. 2: Project Origin in the broad daylight. Perhaps I would’ve been more into the horror if I had played it in pitch darkness with the soundtrack from John Carpenter’s Halloween playing in the background, but if a game can only be enjoyed at a certain time of the day, how much fun can it really be?

To be fair, some of the scares were terrifically done, and some gunfights are genuinely difficult, even with your Valium-ification superpowers. When Alma interacts with your team, the game at least tries to come alive because we’re supposed to be scared of her and her power. But most of the time she appears in video glitches or brief cameos that don’t do much to accentuate how terrifying and dangerous she really is. A welcome edition are the feral creatures that crawl around like a demented Spider-Man. Frankly, I was more scared of them than I was of Alma! It’s often difficult to follow them and so they could be appearing out of anywhere. And knowing you’re being tracked by something you can hear but can’t see is one of the cornerstones of survival horror. On the action side, there’s a part when you ride a tram to Still Island while being shadowed and attacked by the bad guy army. Enemies are seemingly endless, and staying alive during this section (you vs. about a thousand other people) is just frustrating enough to be fun. To be fair, I was clinging onto my last sliver of health throughout this entire fight and rationing out how many bullets I could waste on each enemy, so maybe if you’re full-up on ammo and health, this section wouldn’t stand out for you.

A lot of work has gone into the atmosphere of F.E.A.R. 2: Project Origin, and it’s work that is appreciated. I love games like Fallout 3 or Assassin’s Creed that have some thought behind how their environments look and putting little easter eggs into the design, clues to hint at the world of the characters, which most people would just pass by in order to shoot more aliens. The level of variety and thought found in the blood splatter or the cryptic messages written in the blood all help to tell the story. And outside the (rather samey) office buildings, the world acts like a hellish Polaroid, a snapshot of the environment and what people were doing when they were instantly vaporized. I hate to wax poetically about this stuff, but it’s what I took away from the game instead of story.

The story in F.E.A.R. 2: Project Origin can be dodgy at times and outright confusing at other times. You feel like you’re just going through the missions on just the characters’ word, stepping forward (literally and figuratively) into darkness without any idea as to why you’re doing it. I may be less observant than the rest of you clarevoyants, but a lot of story points just passed me by. There was one bit where the character of “Snake Fist” said that you were like pizza at an anime convention, and while it was funny, I had no clue what the analogy had to do with me and Alma. All I could do was nod my head while I shot more bad guys. Like in my Halo 3 review, if you find yourself slipping, pull out Wikipedia and it will be your safety net. But I couldn’t help shake the feeling that I was somehow cheating on a test.

Final Verdict: 2.5 erratic blood stains out of 5

F.E.A.R. 2: Project Origin is solid by most videogame standards. I kept playing simply because I wanted to get to the end and there are enough good parts to merit a solid rental. But unless you’re addicted to Achievements (Trophies for the Playstation aficionado), a purchase is really not recommended. The game doesn’t grow enough (graphical updates and mech suits aside) to warrant shelling out the hard-earned scratch to put this one on your shelf.

The ending, which left me confused, broken, and eerily hollow (kind of like I went through the type of torture Michael Beckett went through), obviously is trying to set up a sequel. The events of the game itself really don’t do much but get us to this ending, an ending that doesn’t resolve anything and anticipates a third game. This is not really storytelling. In fact, it’s more like viral marketing.

REVIEW: Punisher – War Zone

There is a special type of person who would voluntarily go to see Punisher – War Zone. It’s not a good type. It’s the sort of type that the FBI has a profile on: someone so nerdy or with such a jones for fake blood that they can’t see that they’ve just been suckered into paying money to see a movie that plays more like a 35 Million dollar fan film. It is the cinematic equivalent of GWAR, a spectacle piece that is shallower than Paris Hilton and barely even the sum of its parts. It’s worse than a bad movie; it’s a forgettable movie and an unfortunate stain on the Marvel name.

A history lesson is required, here. The Punisher has had a less than spotless relationship with the big screen, starting with the 1989 Dolph Lundgren adaptation (which is just about as much fun as it sounds) and the 2004 Thomas Jane attempt. Neither score higher than 30 on the Rotten Tomatoes scale, and they are hit and miss with fans. Enter into this equation Ray Stevenson (don’t look, Ethel) as Frank Castle, the special-ops guy turned warrior vigilante after he witnesses his family being murdered by the mob. Castle, now code-named “The Punisher,” takes his fight to Billy Russoti (Dominic West), who is disfigured by The Punisher and is reborn as the psychopathic Jigsaw. After that…

Sorry, sorry. I can’t go on with it anymore. The level of unoriginal in this movie is so off the charts they may have to pull out the dreaded Boll-O-Meter to chart this one. Take, for example, the debut of our villain: Jigsaw. I’d be surprised if there wasn’t a Batman DVD on the set because the filmmakers rip off Jack Nicholson’s plastic surgery scene so much, Tim Burton should sue. However, this film doesn’t hold a candle to that scene. Maybe they were watching it with the sound off…

Everything else beyond that is stock and boring. I would’ve thought that the quality of mobster you could hire would be better considering that “The Sopranos” is off the air. There were better mobsters in Analyze This, and for an action movie, that says a lot. None of the characters have any pathos whatsoever, except for a little girl who loses her father. Yeah, her story is tragic, but the filmmakers also place a lot of the pathos on the fact that she’s cute. Walking out of the theater, I wouldn’t have cared if someone had plugged Frank Castle right before the credits, and when your hero is someone walking the fine vigilante line, you can’t have the audience be wishy-washy about him.

The only outstanding feature is the special effects, and by “outstanding,” I’m not implying quality. It’s the only thing that separates this movie from two hours of color bars. Right from the first trailer, I could tell that Punisher – War Zone was aiming for the same market Grindhouse was going after. And man, did they hit it! The effects are straight out of Planet Terror or similar low-budget horror film. Quick and unstylized. Rarely did I feel a jolt when I saw a huge effect. When they do happen, the film is in such a hurry to move on that the weight of what just happened often dissipates quickly. Obviously not the way to do special effects.

There are some good moments, too. Wayne Knight gives a decent performance and the make-up on Jigsaw was unnerving and brilliant. It reminded me a lot of Mason Verger from Hannibal, although Ridley Scott had a better actor behind that make-up. I also enjoyed the fact that everyone knew Frank Castle was The Punisher, but willingly let him perform his wanton murder like a roommate allowing his buddy to have sex in his bed. Punisher – War Zone is also great for the gun fetishist in your family, of which I am, sorta. But generally, the bad far outweighs the good in this Marvel outing. It is a Junk Food Film, something to be consumed and forgotten about, and will probably shorten your life expectancy because of it. Take a tip from the great Stan Lee and do not show up anywhere near this movie.

REVIEW: The Spirit

Another day, another comic book movie. Not that I’m complaining; I love the genre and it does for cinema, either through visual aesthetic or plot and character. The one thing that I don’t like is how goddamn mediocre the movies can be at times, and with that, we have The Spirit – Frank Miller’s take on Will Eisner’s legendary comic strip from the 1940s. This movie seemed like a slam dunk on paper and in the previews. I mean c’mon; it’s Frank Miller! However, in reality, the end result is a bit shadier and less easy to call. I have a sneaking suspicion that it’ll lose a lot more people than it’ll gain.

Part of the problem with most comic book movies is familiarity with the source material and how much of it one needs to have. With The Spirit, every bit of research helps, but Miller makes the movie his own enough to not require outside reading to enjoy it. To quickly summarize, Denny Colt – a cop in New Yor… uh, Central City – is killed in the line of duty and comes back to life as The Spirit, an immortal crimefighter that also looks snazzy in a party mask and a red tie. When he’s not beating up on muggers like Daredevil, Batman, Spider-man or every other urban superhero does, he chases his main nemesis: The Octopus (Samuel L. Jackson), who is trying to unlock the key to The Spirit’s immortality. On the way, The Spirit will flirt with every woman he comes in contact with, Louis Lombardi will play the butt of a lot of dumb henchman jokes, and Eva Mendes will get naked. (And trust me, there is NO greater selling point for the movie than a lot of attention being paid to Ms. Mendes’ ass.)

The Spirit takes the pulp noir-style of the source material and gives it Miller’s trademark edge and style, meaning you’ll see a lot of interesting angles and colors that pop out for no reason other than they look cool. This movie is so Frank Miller that you’d think someone put on a DVD of Sin City by mistake, but believe it or not, this is a movie all it’s own. And yes, the best thing about the movie (apart from the aforementioned rear-end) is how it looks. Like 300 before it, The Spirit is a beautiful movie and stills from it could pass as modern art in almost any gallery. Big kudos also belongs to Bill Pope, veteran cinematographer of big budget action films like The Matrix and Team America. He and Miller make a movie that is a joy to watch at least on a purely visual level.

As a writer, Miller can be beyond reproach (see his 1980s run on “Daredevil” or “The Dark Knight Returns” for proof). But with the script for The Spirit, a lot of things were mishandled. The dialogue, at its worst, can be downright laughable with fake noir-talk and artificial toughness. But while the words can be grating at times, all the actors bring their A-Game and give those lousy lines their best. That earns a lot of points from me; nothing in the world is worse than a bad script and actors that know it’s bad and thus, don’t try. The best example is in a flashback scene where a young Denny Colt and girlfriend Sand Sarif after coming across a murder scene. What strikes you in that scene are not the words, but the emotions and the character motivations. Denny feels a deep connection with his city and protecting it while Sand wants to live a life bigger than Central City. The words are almost inconsequential, and it’s one of the better scenes in the film.

On a larger scale, the plot sputters more than my car on a cold winter’s day. The Octopus, portrayed in the comics as a criminal master of disguise, is reduced to just Sam Jackson as a megalomaniac with a curious obsession with eggs. His obsession with immortality is delivered with a “believe it because I say so” flair and no tangible grounds in reality. In the annals of the comic book villain hierarchy, Jackson’s Octopus will find it’s place after Superman’s Generic Mad Scientist #47. Also, we are treated to a commentary by what I can only guess is the Angel of Death, enticing Denny Colt to give up and be with her. It would work if The Spirit’s immortality was a major motivator for his actions, but he’s way more interested in finding his old girlfriend. If I were the editor, those scenes would’ve been the first to go. Branching off this, The Spirit is a shameless flirt. I guess one of the side-effects of being immortal is a Level 10 Charm and an immunity to all STDs. This device rung loud and clear to me – it was one of the few things that I could understand without thinking about it, but at the end The Spirit has a monologue about how he has to devote himself to his only lover: his city. Fine, but throughout the film, The Spirit had no problem protecting his city while simultaneously putting his undead stones to everyone he came across who was vaguely feminine.

It’s because of these story holes that I had to deduct points. The Spirit doesn’t take off and soar like Iron Man does to the point where I don’t care about the movie’s problems. It definitely has issues, but it not so bad that I’d stay away from it. The password is: Fun. The Spirit is a lot of fun to watch, and for these types of movies, there’s not much else you could ask of it.

Final Verdict: 3 vaguely luminescent red ties out of 5

I won’t bullshit you; Frank Miller saves this movie. If it were anyone else behind The Spirit, I probably wouldn’t give it a passing grade, but the fact that Almighty Frank is guiding us makes the ride enjoyable, especially to those lovers of SMFC (So Mother-Fucking Cool) cinema. The layperson might not have an easy time getting into it, but if you’ve spent more than a half hour in a comic book shop and think that The Dark Knight should be nominated for Best Picture, then jump into The Spirit with both feet.

REVIEW: Zack and Miri Make a Porno

You’d think this film would be a no-brainer. Great concept + Kevin Smith + Hope of seeing breasts = Gold in the Chris Wood book of Cinema. But my critical duties implore me to say that Zack and Miri Make a Porno is not Smith’s best work ever. It’s a competent film that earns some really good laughs, but fails to capture the harmony that you find in Clerks II or even Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back.

The film stars Seth Rogan and Elizabeth Banks as the titular (snicker) Zack And Miri, two high-school friends platonically sharing an apartment. When their financial situation comes crashing down like a ton of gold bricks, they decide to make an adult film to find some quick cash and, in the process of sleeping together, they discover their latent feelings for each other. It’s a brilliant concept and one that is ripe with comedic value. While the film does try to milk every last sex joke out of the premise like a vice-grip handjob, it lacks in compelling character and plot arcs, leaving me feeling entertained, yet curiously empty inside.

Let’s take a look at the story first. Smith, who acknowledges himself as a better writer than a director, creates a story where things happen without provocation. In other scripts, that’s not necessarily a bad thing – look at Dog Day Afternoon – but in this one, I can’t shake the feeling that the sudden loss of the shooting space or the party at Zack and Miri’s apartment were used as jump starts when the script stalled. They feel awkward and foreign, like Slayer performing at a bar mitzvah. Similarly, the Pornographic Duo decide to make the epic “Star Whores” (complete with sets, props and costumes) before settling on a scaled-back, more realistic porno set in the coffee shop where Zack works. Sure, the Star Whores jokes are some of the funniest in the movie, but the progression seems backwards. Zack, not the most artistically ambitious dude on earth and also not the most wealthy, would more likely go for the gonzo route and make a simpler movie just to get it done and get the money in his hands. He wouldn’t make an ambitious movie unless he cared about the artistic direction, which would then make the film less about the sexual tension between two friends and more about the struggles of a first-time director.

On the character side, Zack and Miri feel like real people, but I have a very difficult time empathizing with either of them. I’m closer to their situation than you could possibly know, but I don’t feel for their character arcs. Zack is just a vulgar dude trying to get money. There’s nothing about him that makes him empathetic for 75% of the movie. If he had more of a “frustrated artist” angle, I could understand, but he feels more like a character going through the motions before his time to shine comes in. Same with Miri. I don’t empathize with her until she starts having feelings for Zack, and that doesn’t come until the near-end of the film. And their relationship jumps the gun in the story. There’s a scene where Zack is outlining who is sleeping with whom in the movie, and Miri acts a little jealous when Zack says he’s sleeping with more than one person, over-hinting at their impending relationship. I appreciate how real the characters feel, but they spend most of their time behaving like nothing but vessels for the sex jokes.

Despite all the bad things I have to say about Zack and Miri Make a Porno, it is a funny movie. A few jokes fall flat, but Smith bats above average this time out. Justin Long, whom I’m biased towards because he plays the Mac Guy in Apple’s commercials, steals the entire movie in his portrayal of a gay porn star, a role that I categorize as “a white Prince”. He’s even got the same pencil-thin mustache! An honorable mention goes to Jeff Anderson, who knocks his role as Deacon, the Director of Photography, out of the freakin’ park. But overall, the three “Evening with Kevin Smith” DVDs are miles beyond the funny level in this movie. On the technical level, there are some beautiful moments, such as the sex scene between Seth Rogan and Elizabeth Banks. People often chastise Kevin Smith for making ugly movies, but this scene was one of the best portrayals of romantic sex I’ve seen on film. It’s not really erotic, but in its place are passion and romance, at least to this shut-in virgin of a film critic.

There’s a very simple test as to if you’ll like the humor in Zack and Miri: if you’ve ever laughed heartily at one of the jokes Penthouse used to publish, then you’ll enjoy this movie. Other than that, you might want to think about going to see Madagascar again.

Final Verdict: 2.5 Jason Mewes’ Penises out of 5

I wanted to like this movie. I really really really did. But even though I laughed out loud several times, I have a hard time finding a reason to recommend it to anyone. It’s by no means a horrible film, but falls squarely within the “competent” range. For my money, it’s a solid rental.

However, if you do wind up seeing it in the theaters, I wish you a better experience than the one I had. My print had a few obvious edits to chop out bad frames (at least I hope they were bad frames) and the audio levels were being operated by a moron. Throughout a good quarter of the film, the soundtrack operator couldn’t decide if he wanted Surround Sound on or off and chose instead to flicker it back and forth like someone testing out a busted lightbulb. In the instances where the sound was good, the audio dude rose the level to “Deafening” because he forgot this was Zack and Miri and not Eagle Eye. I believe a few people walked out of the room to complain and, hopefully, at the end of the movie someone got his ass handed to him by the manager.
I blame the sound guy because I refuse to believe that a movie mixed at Skywalker Sound could purposely be that screwed up.

REVIEW: Hamlet 2

I’ve been in a very awkward position for the past few months. As I’m sure most of you know, entertainment criticism thrives on negativity, i.e. the worse something is, the more you can make fun of it. I’ve seen only a smattering of films and most of them have had something good about them and weren’t bad enough, in my eyes at least, to warrant the Bitchslap of Sarcasm. In short, I haven’t seen anything this summer that outright sucked.

Well, faithful readers, that’s changed. Sort of.

Hamlet 2 is a comedy about a washed-up actor named Dana (Steve Coogan) who has abandoned his dream of stardom and decided that teaching drama in Tuscon, Arizona is the best way to wank off his ego. Creatively and financially going bankrupt, Dana decides to write a completely original work which later turns out to be a sequel to Shakespeare’s Hamlet and stage it with his students, now including the rough and tumble urban kids kicked out of other classes, hardy har har. The play winds up offending almost everyone in the community and launches a free speech debate with Dana’s confidence and reputation caught in the middle.

I’ve just told you everything you need to know about the plot so you can focus on what’s important: the jokes. Depending on your sense of humor, Hamlet 2 can be a very funny movie. The dilemma for me is is what to base the recommendation on: plot plausibility or sense of humor? If slightly absurdist comedies like Team America and Semi-Pro make you laugh, then Hamlet 2 is for you and you should start ignoring me now. The rest of this review is for people who feel they need their comedies to work a bit harder.

To be frank, the script of the movie itself is something to behold, not in awe like the Lincoln Memorial but in sadness… like Pee Wee Herman getting busted in a porno theater. The biggest fault, one that pops up a lot in ambitious films, is that the script moves faster than the characters. We start out watching a bunch of kids who act like they would rather shiv me than give me the time of day, and by the end they’re all singing and dancing like nobody told them this wasn’t West Side Story. Sure, the scene was funny and well executed technically, but I couldn’t help silencing this little rational gremlin in my head, badgering me that there’s no amount of preptime that would aid that transformation. The concept of jazz-hands would just bounce right off their skulls.

The biggest knock against Hamlet 2 is the play within the movie. I don’t want to sound like a stickler for detail, but this play is crazy simply for the sake of it. Crazy I can deal with, but there is no source of how eccentric the play is other than the fact that Dana the Playwright is creatively dead and (literally) balls-out crazy. I’m not expecting Tony-winning stuff, here, but c’mon! The parodies range from Star Wars to Rent to David Lynch to the entire Christian religion. The references are stacked on top of each other in such a haphazard way you feel like somebody said, “Hey, let’s have a lightsaber fight!” and nobody bothered to ask “Why?” If Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer made a stage version of one of their movies and called it “Disaster Play” or something similar, it would look a lot like “Hamlet 2”. I would’ve loved to see some cause for the play’s insanity other than “it sounded funny to us,” some commentary on the nature of sequels and art and parody, but none is to be had here. The students are also to blame for this; even without training, they soldier forward with such a dogmatic “stay-the-course” attitude that it would give George W. Bush a boner.

The performances are a high point of the film, especially Steve Coogan. At times it does get a bit stereotypical – I couldn’t help but see Dana as Mr. Kotter and his mostly Latino students as El Sweathogs – but some moments are genuinely clever. One of the students Dana interacts with is basically a 9 year-old Yoda, and if they’d found a better kid actor, that part may have stolen the whole movie. Catherine Keener shows up again, and I find the woman so interesting that I’d watch her read Hannibal Rising and still be enchanted. David Arquette shows up here and, for some weird reason, I felt that he was underused in the film. David can be really funny in the right circumstances, but in this case, it seemed like he was hired either to pay off a favor or because it made more sense than to ask one of the PAs to play the role. Aside from all this, the movie belongs to Coogan, which at times can be a tall order to ask of the audience. We are asked to kind of pity this person in a way, but that’s like asking someone to pity a child who talks backwards just for the fun of it. Think the best parts of Mr. Bean and the worst parts of Peter Griffin and you’ve got Steve Coogan’s performance. I don’t know what he represents other than the sheer will to achieve one’s goals despite a preternatural lack of any talent.

Final Judgement: 2 sexy Jesuses out of 5

Hamlet 2 is a movie that tries to juggle a lot of different balls and winds up dropping all of them. The worst part is that I thought there was something there, waiting to be unearthed out of the absurdist comedy, something meaningful about writing, acting, freedom of expression, and the way that a creative person kills himself or herself to produce anything. But instead we get a mediocre comedy that’s only worth a rental and that’s ONLY if you’re predisposed to that kind of humor. There was a good movie in there somewhere and it never got a chance to get out and play. Like Marlon Brando’s character in On the Waterfront, it coulda been somebody.

REVIEW: Sex Drive

Well, loyal readers, this is a first for me. Instead of playing catch-up when it comes to these reviews, this time I have a review of a movie that won’t be coming out for more than two weeks, meaning I can now behave like a professional film critic. Let’s just hope that this gets on the web before the film comes out…

Sex Drive is a hard movie to categorize because it borrows from so many different influences. The film concerns Ian, a high-school virgin whose balls are probably the shade of Dr. Manhattan from Watchmen by now who picks up a girl on the Internet and decides to take a road trip out to Kentucky for the sole purpose of having sex with her. He brings along his best friends, Harry the Cocksmith and Felicia the Girl Next Door. If you’ve started to notice some similarities, I’ll clue you in on a few more:

• Stealing family member’s sweet car: Ferris Beuler’s Day Off
• Straight man main character with goofy sidekick: Clerks
• Road Trip that mirror’s hero’s journey of personal discovery: Road Trip
• Amish: Kingpin
• At least one graphic on-screen portrayal of a bodily function: Too many to list.
• Main female character and male character secretly love each other, but don’t get it on because they’re “just friends”: Every romantic comedy ever made, see also The Chris Wood Story.

Sex Drive stea… uh, borrows, from the very best, but I can’t really knock it for that. The mark of a great filmmaker is to make something you’ve seen before feel fresh, with a new perspective on genre conventions. You don’t really get that here, but the movie did get a lot of laughs out of a near-packed house, and that’s not easy. It is that very frank, bordering on gross-out, type of humor, but you already knew that. If you go to a movie called Sex Drive and expect the Marx Brothers, you have way more problems than hearing saucy dialogue.

The first half hour was very difficult for me to get through because, frankly, I was uncomfortable. Sex Drive started out as a porno that wandered onto the set of a Hollywood comedy and got shoved in front of the camera. It seemed like baseless sex jokes and exploitation (although the “cum-stained underpants” sequence was kind of funny), but after the First Act got done and the movie really started, I enjoyed it a great deal. You could tell there was a little bit of heart to the material, even though – like most comedies with a “good guy” protagonist – the film served only to run him through one embarrassing situation after another.

This next part is going to require a little bit of confession. The character of Ian hit so close to home that I wondered if the film crew wasn’t following me around, documenting my life for dramatic purposes. Ian’s a nice guy who, if there were any justice in the world, would be riding a pussy train that had a stuck throttle. He is constantly told that he should get out and “live a little”, but doesn’t know how. The other characters are pretty decent for a comedy, too, but don’t excel. (I’m slightly biased now because one of the characters is my cinematic doppelganger.) Harry is the goofball friend who gets Ian into trouble, playing Randall to Ian’s Dante. He’s also laying more pipe than the Mario Bros. Judging how the actor looks, I’m not sure why women in the movie find him sexually attractive, but I’m not the foremost judge on what women want, as evidenced by the fact that I sleep alone every night, cuddling my plush Garfield. Felicia is the sort of woman every guy would like to know and hopefully fall in love with. She can be ballsy and caring, and is also very, very attractive.

However, the movie belongs to Seth Green in a cameo role that rivals when we first saw Jay and Silent Bob. Green is the most innovative and fresh of all the characters, playing an Amish man that drips more sarcasm than a Village Voice film review. (If you’re starting to smell o-zone, that’s the smell of irony.) You never know how this character stands. Is he a good guy? Is he a bad guy? Green gives an awesome performance that stays with you after you leave the theater.

Now, as for the movie on the whole. It’s obvious that Sex Drive is about sex. It’s right there in the title. It does feel like a “sex-for-sex’s sake” movie, which I generally term as “porn.” But the film does try to talk about what sex means to young men and young women, and perhaps the gratuity is a reflection on that. It also deals with the non-sexual relationships between young boys and girls, something I know a hell of a lot about, and covered in the totally mediocre movie Just Friends. Sex Drive is a better movie than that, but it doesn’t make a believable fist on the issue. I’d almost be more amazed if the movie turned out not to be about sex at all, a commentary on the over-emphasis that men put on sex in relationships. But sometimes you just want jokes about heart-shaped pussies, 10-inch dildos, and cum-stained underwear. Caveat Emptor.

Final Verdict: 3.5 adolescent hard-ons out of 5

If you’re under the age of 30 and want to see a good comedy, I’d recommend Sex Drive. It’s funny, titillating, and if you bring a date, you might get laid before the night is out. It’s an enjoyable film, but I’m not declaring it the King of the Teen Sex Comedies yet. In fact, I believe Kevin Smith’s Zach and Miri Make a Porno will be a better movie about friends and sex than this one is. But Sex Drive is a good primer, and not a bad way of spending a night out.

P.S. This movie does signal a profound sociological shift. In the 80s, sex comedies were all about the boobies. To some extent, they still are, but in terms of explicit jokes, the flesh-colored pendulum has swung to the side of the male. It does make sense, if you think about it. I’ve always said that a woman’s body is aesthetic and beautiful. If you see a pair of bare tits, you’re more likely to get aroused than laugh. However, a man’s body is purely functional. Male nudity in any context is simply funnier than female nudity.
If you have any thoughts, post them below.

REVIEW: Death Race

I have to admit that I’m a little behind the times with this movie, as it’s been out for creeping up on a month. I’d always wanted to go see it, but my financial situation kept restraining me from spending money on entertainment, so much so that I had to fall back on the free internet porn as opposed to the classy Playboy stuff. But, thanks to the quick eye of one of my friends, I got me a free movie ticket and I had to figure out what to blow it on. Lakeview Terrace? I’ll pass. My Best Friend’s Girl? Gag me with a spoon. Vicky Christina Barcelona? No way, Jose. So if I had to use my Get Out of Jail Free card somewhere, I thought that Death Race was the best option, and I’m extremely glad that I did.

Paul W.S. Anderson’s Death Race is a remake of Roger Corman’s B-Movie classic Death Race 2000. Now, Death Race 2000 is a guilty pleasure of mine as it has David Carradine (one of my favorite actors), Sylvester Stallone, and that “low budget magic” that comes along when a tight budget and creative people come together to create something really cool that reaffirms your faith in the human spirit. Not every good movie requires more than a hundred million dollars and a guest spot on Letterman. With this version of Death Race, I’m a bit more conflicted because it tries to do what the old movie did but with a bigger budget, and I think that kills part of the charm of the original.

Corman’s Death Race 2000 centered around a government-sponsored transcontinental road race featuring the goofiest characters this side of Wacky Races driving from New York to California, all while trying to see who can run down and kill the most people on the way there. During that, there are two subplots of a rebel group trying to stop the race and the mysterious backstory of the lead character, Frankenstein. The satire was thick enough to cut with a kitana as it was painfully obvious that this was so far over the top, it could see its own house from the sky. PWSA (as I’ll probably call him from now on) tones the satire down and makes the film about an gladiator-inspired race between prisoners with the winner gaining his freedom. Jason Statham steps in as Jensen Ames, a recent convict who is persuaded to don the costume of Frankenstein, a popular racer among fans who unexpectedly died after the last race.

When you see this movie, you’ll realize right away that Death Race is all about the action. We open the film with a race between Frankenstein and “Machine Gun” Joe (Tyrese Gibson) and, flashing back to Hot Fuzz for a moment, I thought it was edited by a crackhead. The cuts move so fast that you can barely register what’s going on, even for a child that was raised on video games! In a racing movie, you need to establish very clear screen direction and spatial relationships between the cars. Several times in this movie, I thought that the camera was inadvertently zooming in and out like a tremor effect. If you have epilepsy, I would seriously recommend Vicky Christina Barcelona because Woody Allen won’t make you foam at the mouth (unless you’re watching Curse of the Jade Scorpion). But after that opening sequence, shit goes down and goes down fast, to the point where I was clapping viciously at some of the crashes. There were only two dozen people in the room.

If I have to describe this movie, I’d say it’s the worst parts of Shawshank Redemption mixed with Escape from New York and with just a pinch of Speed Racer. The car race scenes have a lot of energy and never get boring. But despite that, I feel that the best scene in the whole film is a “stomping” scene where Jensen takes on a small gang inside the prison after a race day. Everything has weight in that scene and watching those two characters beat the fuck out of each other was a visceral experience for me. Anderson does know how to make something simple that could get repetitive interesting. Action fans will probably love this movie, and I’ll bet I would add it to my DVD collection as it’s worth going back to just for the action alone.

The one thing I will tell people: this isn’t The Dark Knight. It’s barely even Hellboy II. The story itself is an excuse to get to more races. With that being said, I loved a lot of the characters. Frankenstein is a very well rounded and surprisingly sympathetic character given what he does in the movie. His nemesis, “Machine Gun” Joe is a lot more than the jealous child that Stallone’s Joe was. I only had two complaints in this department: Joan Allen’s Warden Hennessey was very one-note and she’s so evil, it seems like she should have a poster in her office reminding her “What Would Hitler Do?”. I don’t think she’s as bad as Cate Blanchet was in Indiana Jones, but the two characters would get along very well, and might even have a contest as to who could stretch their thin characterizations the furthest? The other was a kid named Lists, played by Frederick Koehler. The actor himself looks fantastic for the part; wishing no offense to the man, in this movie he looks, um…. retarded. You never know what wound him up in jail, but he certainty doesn’t belong there. The character also stutters, something that hits close to home for me. I’d like to do research on the best on-camera stutterers, and he may be up there with Michael Palin in A Fish Called Wanda. Granted, the stutter may do more to accent his weakness (something that pisses me off) but for the most part, it’s just a natural part of who he is and I like that.

Also, the plot, as thin as it can be sometimes, misses a lot of potential. The whole movie has an “anti-capitalism” flair to it as the prisons are all privately owned and most of the motives of the bad guys revolve around profits. So, at best, it’s a corporate conspiracy movie, but I felt it could’ve done so much better as a government-conspiracy movie. It would’ve gained some credibility then, at least. On top of that, PWSA missed the angle that people are streaming Frankenstein’s antics onto their computers. In essence, watching him work, someone could uncover the corruption in the system or choose complacency. That’s interesting! But instead, PWSA chose to scratch the surface of reality TV, a topic that has been covered better by other movies.

While I’m on Nitpick Blvd., I thought that some of the choices surrounding women could be a bit insulting to my intelligence. Sure, they’re hot and all, but I don’t need the Pussycat Dolls or whomever is singing on the soundtrack accenting how hot they are. PWSA also had the gall to shoot these ladies exiting a prison bus in slow motion, and that final step must’ve been a doozy. Every one of them, even the most flat-chested, half-A cup lady jiggled like a Jell-O mold in an earthquake, the camera capturing every erotic quiver at 250 frames per second. If you’ve ever wondered what the sticky stuff under your seat at the movie theater is, now you know.

Final Verdict: 3.5 near-pointless remakes out of 5

Death Race is not a perfect movie, and by many standards it’s not even a good movie. However, it does squarely belong in the new genre of SMFC (So Mother-Fucking Cool) Movies. The adrenaline of the races, the spectacle and blood of the crashes… that is what people will be responding to in this movie and on that front, it excels. If, somehow, I were able to combine the two Death Race movies into a whole, it would be near perfect, but as it stands now, Paul W.S. Anderson’s Death Race is a good antithesis of Roger Corman’s Death Race 2000: a movie with a decent sense of humor that doesn’t bother with subtlety, theme, or other highfalutin concepts and just puts the fucking pedal to the fucking metal.
And just for the record, PWSA does earn a few points for bringing back Robin Shou. I haven’t seen him since Mortal Kombat!

In A World Without Don LaFontaine

Everybody’s heard Don LaFontaine, even though they may not have known it. And now, we’ll never hear him again.

Don LaFontaine, the Godfather of Voice Overs, passed away Monday, September 1st, 2008 from complications after his lung collapsed. The official cause of death is yet undecided, but what are crystal clear are the repercussions.

We’ve all heard his work, and maybe made fun of it at some point. You know those – at times, over – dramatic narrations that accompany movie and TV trailers, many of them featuring the phrase “In a world…” That was his creation, and it was like his “Let’s Get Ready to Rumble!”* It’s near impossible to find out exactly how many of them he did during his life, although IMDb pegs it at more than 3,500 appearances. He was single-handedly responsible for brining announcing out of the era of Gary Owens (who is still working) and the guy who announced The Honeymooners into the modern era. Movie trailers as we know them would be totally different without his contribution.

But for me, Don LaFontaine was something a bit more personal. He was the first voice I could ever impersonate well, and watching him work on Entertainment Tonight was probably the first time I realized that someone could make a living staying at home and talking into a microphone. Anyone who knows someone who does voice-overs for a living knows that they are the happiest motherfuckers on the planet. Many have home studios, work a few hours out of the day, and have two-car garages. Without people with the caliber of Don LaFontaine, voice-over artists would be even more invisible than they are right now. But beyond the sheer capitalism, Don was an extraordinary talent. Few could make a legend out of doing the same routine for years without it growing stale. He is the Voice of the Movies today, just like Walter Kronkite is synonymous with The News. He was a legend in his field, and movie fans are going to miss him dearly.

It’s difficult to eulogize Don, because I never knew him personally, I don’t have any amusing anecdotes about who he was when he wasn’t working, and his body of work isn’t at the same level as someone like Ayn Rand of Stephen King. I know him as everyone else did, a voice booming out of Dolby speakers in a large room while Keanu Reeves dodges bullets fired at him by Will Smith. But even though they were over-the-top at times, a Don LaFontaine trailer felt familiar and comforting, like eating a hamburger from your favorite restaurant that you know is going to be good, and yet the fore-knowledge doesn’t spoil the sensations one bit. The world will certainly move on and movie trailers will keep informing us of what big projects are lining up to take turns sucking at our wallets. But without that booming baritone coming at us, the commercials will just not be the same.

From the bottom of my heart, as a movie fan and voice-over groupie… thank you, Don.

REVIEW: The Dark Knight

I’ll get this out of the way right now. The Dark Knight is good. Go see it. Then go see it again. And then take the time to mail money directly to Chris Nolan’s house because goddamnit he deserves it. Comic book movies, long regarded as flashy entertainment without substance, have finally found their Citizen Kane. This movie is an epic slice of brilliance wrapped up in awesome and served with a side of “OMFG!!!”

Okay… now that the shameless fellating of this movie is out of the way, we can talk specifics. The sequel to Batman Begins looks at the tragedy and insanity of the Caped Crusader’s task from a new, darker angle. In fact, that’s most of what Mr. Nolan has been credited with doing, bringing Batman down to a human level and shoving him through an emotional meat grinder. This movie is more of that, with Batman seemingly pushed to the end of his rope, but it also adds an aspect of the character few ever thought of. Most comic fans know that Bruce Wayne needs Batman to be complete, but The Dark Knight asks if Bruce could actually accomplish his mission and go back to a normal life. Christian Bale balances the light and dark halves of the character like a tightrope walker crossing a busy street, all while trying to be an action hero and caught up in a love triangle at the same time. A lesser actor’s head might’ve exploded at the sheer weight of it all.

But, and you knew this before you even clicked on this review, the show all belongs to one man. There are few times when you can watch a movie and a villain seems real, fresh, and shocking. Freddy Krueger, Darth Vader, Hannibal Lecter. These are the truly great villains, and into their ranks steps Heath Ledger’s Joker. Mark Hamill, who gave the Clown Prince of Crime a voice in Batman: The Animated Series, called his performance a “balls-out, debauched psycho.” I couldn’t have said it better myself. While The Joker retains an anarchic, demented and sick sense of humor, he’s played more as a dangerous psychopath, twitching and lashing out without provocation. It’s impossible to take your eyes off him whenever he’s on screen and as a villain, he’s beyond reproach. This is a perfect example of how a villain should be done. He has no backstory (in fact, in a nod to The Killing Joke by Alan Moore, The Joker has different recollections of his past, probably all of them false) and his motives are subtle. Unlike many recent films, who attempt to humanize their villains by throwing the curtain open and exposing their every little secret, The Joker’s psychological cabinet has been closed, locked, and hacked to pieces with an axe. I loved all the little references to Killing Joke, none of them overtly obvious like Mark Steven Johnson’s Daredevil. The Dark Knight doesn’t overtly pander to fans; it takes the elements that work and makes them seamless parts of the film.

The film’s real strong point is the director, Chris Nolan. He’s made a movie that will fool you, shock you, and wring you out emotionally. Moments of the film that I knew were going to happen because they were in the flipping trailer still surprised not only me, but everyone in the theater! That’s the work of a master, and this may well be a masterpiece. It’s Batman’s Empire Strikes Back, a dark and tragic tale that pushes its protagonist and its audience to the edge and dares them to peak over. The Dark Knight is no popcorn movie; it’s something to be experienced. You may not walk out of the theater feeling the best you ever have, but you will be awestruck.

Final Judgement: 5 totally fucking cool Bat-Pods out of 5

I could nitpick things I didn’t like, for example the whole Hong Kong scene feels like the odd one out, but it sets up an important plot point, so I can forgive it like I can forgive having the wrong color gear knob on a Porcshe. Sure, it’s kinda odd, but it’s not so egregious an offense that it deserves real criticism, and plus everything else is so good that I’m not going to let that one little detail slow me down. This is a movie for the ages, and you should put it in front of all other professional, family, or even moral obligations.

REVIEW: Hellboy 2 – The Golden Army

I’m looking at the list of Relevant Super Heroes now, and I have to go through a few pages before I hit Hellboy. This is a character from the third level of comic books, a character known only to fans, and probably enjoys being a club player while people like Superman and Spider-Man are packing arenas. No matter, though. The Hellboy movie brought the character into the mainstream. Guillermo Del Toro and his staff made a good little movie that had critics and fans alike smiling, making a sequel almost inevitable. Now, I’ll admit that I’m late to the Hellboy party, paying attention only after my boss and my best friend double-teamed me with how good the original movie was. I watched it and was impressed, but by no means blown away totally. Hellboy II: The Golden Army seemed like it might surpass the first movie, seducing me with it’s well edited trailer and Rammstein music track. After watching the movie, I’ve found that it’s traded out all the problems of the old movie for some new ones, leaving the second go-’round in about the same place as the first.

On the story front, things are much improved. After a 3,000-year cease-fire between fantastical creatures and mankind, an elven prince breaks the truce by stealing components required to give him control over The Golden Army, an unstoppable mechanical force sure to lay waste to humanity. Hellboy (played by Ron Perlman) works to track him down and prevent the release of the Golden Army while at the same time trying to hold his relationship with Liz (Selma Blair) together. That’s basically it, and it’s a drastic improvement over the original story. When watching that movie, I had no fucking clue who Rasputin was (in the context of the movie) or who or what he was trying to awaken. All I knew was that he closely resembled Joe Panteliano and that was enough for me. All the characters, with the exception of Hellboy, Liz, and The Professor, were floating in space. Here, everything is much more grounded, playing out more like a fairy tale than a complex sci-fi story.

In fact, the whole movie has a fairy tale tint to it. Guillermo Del Tolo has really come into his prime as a director after the hugely successful Pan’s Labyrinth. I see him as a new Terry Gilliam or Tim Burton: someone with a grossly over-developed sense of image and style and can create a work of art that is instantly recognizable. Apart from playing out like a story my Dad would tell me as I was going to sleep, this movie feels very nightmarish with the creatures and some of the situations. The bug scene in particular, where Hellboy, Liz and Abe Sapien (Doug Jones) have to fight their way through a swarm of flesh-eating bugs, is particularly scary, one of the few instances where I was genuinely frightened at what was going on. The film looks as beautiful as any comic-book movie could hope to look, and fans won’t be disappointed by its style.

Now for the bad stuff. I really liked the situations the characters were put in; I won’t mention any of them because I try to be spoiler free in these reviews, but I will say that most of the characters are put in some type of delicious dilemma that they must figure out. I knew this, but I didn’t feel some as much as I did others. The many romance angles work, but could use a little polish in my opinion. I also would’ve really liked to know Prince Nuada (the main antagonist)’s gripe with humanity a bit more. Finally, the whole Johann Krauss (Family Guy creator and star Seth McFarlane) angle bugged me a bit. I realize that the movie asks us to take a few leaps of faith, but when you ask me to believe that a man is basically made out of ectoplasm and can use it to do or possess anything or anyone he feels like, I’m starting to feel the workings of a deus ex machina or in this case a deus ex ectoplasm. Of all the characters, he was the weakest, although he does have one very funny exchange with Hellboy halfway through the film. However, that one scene alone doesn’t excuse the character and I almost hoped he got flattened by one of the Plant Monster’s aggressively large vines.

Aside from all of this, it seems like Del Toro took a break for a few crucial scenes and allowed John Woo to come in and take over. For my money, Hellboy is a brawler, someone who uses his bulk and his strength to his advantage. For this movie, he might as well be played by Chow Yung Fat because he’s suddenly a martial arts expert. Sure, the fights are great, but they strike me as out of place, at least for Hellboy. Finally, the opening sequence sucks red monkey balls. Sure it gains some points with me for bringing John Hurt back from the dead, which I always appreciate, but the young kid playing prepubescent Hellboy got on my nerves. It didn’t seem right, and the kid felt like an impostor. I’d much rather see Hellboy as an awkward young kid, someone who acts like a normal boy, but is hindered by the fact that he’s a stonking demon! Hellboy acted a bit too much like me when I was younger, which frightens me a bit because I’m already not the posterboy for handsome and two horns and a cigar are not going to help my image.

Final Verdict: 3.5 “Oh Crap”’s out of 5

Despite my criticism, Hellboy II: The Golden Army is by no means a bad movie, or even an average movie. It’s stuck in the purgatory between “shitty” and “OMFG!”, but definitely an improvement on the original movie and something I’d be okay revisiting, speaking as someone who hasn’t read any of the comics leading up to this point and without a vested interest in the characters. But it’s not good enough to catapult it into the Hall of Justice with other great comic book movies like Spider-Man and Tim Burton’s Batman.* I found myself flashing back to other sequels to see how it fairs, since most sequels are like children and inevitably suffer because they had the sheer randomness to come out second, and Matrix: Reloaded kept popping into my head. This film even has a “moment of truth” choice that one character has to make, swapping out the Architect from Matrix with a mummified albatross-man called The Angel of Death. Also, the bad guy looks like Marilyn Manson, which I think is fucking cool.

*They’re already reserving a seat for The Dark Knight though…