**** out of *****
As a kid, I was always a Star Wars guy.
I much preferred big, explosive space opera to Star Trek's quieter sci-fi drama. I have seen episodes of the show, and remember my mom calling me in from playing whenever the Khan and Tribble episodes were on. I also saw a lot of the 1970's animated version, as well as the first four movies in the series (and Turkish Star Trek! Where space is orange!). But it was more something that my dad watched.
Well, JJ Abrams is here to modern this bitch up a bit! We open with a really effective prologue, pitting the USS Kelvin (for all you Lost fans out there) against a mysterious Romulan ship with unstoppable weapons and the evil Captain Nero (Eric Bana). As acting captain, George Kirk manages to save his crew (including his wife and unborn son) before perishing with his ship. And I have to say, it's a pretty emotional scene for a summer blockbuster.
We then follow a few of Kirk and Spock's unnecessary childhood adventures before they both join Starfleet, and then skip ahead to Kirk beating the Kobayashi Maru test (apparently this means something to Star Trek people). THEN we get back to the plot, as an attack on Vulcan collects all our favorite Trekkers onto the Enterprise under the command of Christopher Pike (Bruce Greenwood). It seems Nero has found a way to turn planets into black holes (due to a red circle of goo, for all you Alias fans out there), and he's got both Vulcan and Earth in his sights.
Now, I'm torn on my rating. On one hand, there's really nothing I disliked about the movie. Oh sure, there's a lot of cheese...can't Kirk just walk into a cave instead of being chased by a big, pointless CGI monster? Isn't there any other way to explain the plot than to have a character show up at the mid-point and just explain it to the everyone? But it's all in good fun. I just didn't walk out wanting to boldly go where no man has gone before. This seems odd, as everyone else seems to be filling their pants about this movie. But to me it felt like a prologue…or perhaps my expectations were just too high.
Besides the JJ Abrams references to his most famous TV shows (the time travel/destiny plotline also owes a good deal to Lost), there are some good references to the original Star Trek (and probably lots more I missed). And he sets up a clever, although mildly infuriating, way to subvert all that dense Trek canon and start out anew. I particularly liked that even Abrams' Enterprise has one area full of pointlessly spinning blades.
And I suppose I got pretty wrapped up since I didn't even notice the just over two-hour running time, and actually felt like it could've gone longer (maybe I'm just used to the interminable Star Trek: The Motion Picture). So I've decided to err on the side of positivity. This is a fun movie, and probably the best way to spend your hard-earned cash in the multiplex..at least until Transformers: Revenge of the Incoherent Action Scene hits theaters.
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Showing posts with label action films. Show all posts
Showing posts with label action films. Show all posts
Thursday, May 21, 2009
Thursday, April 30, 2009
movie review by brandon: crank: high voltage
** out of *****
In the first Crank, Chev Chelios (Jason Statham) was given a poison that would kill him if he didn't keep his adrenaline up. Then he fell out of a helicopter.
The sequel picks up right where the first one left off, as a gang of foreign thugs grab his seemingly lifeless body to harvest the organs. Not on Statham's watch! After escaping, Chelios realizes that his heart has been taken out and given to a hundred year old Chinese man named Poon Dong (David Carradine…no, really), so he must track down various gangsters and guest stars in order to get his heart back for Doc Miles (Dwight Yoakam), who's reasonably sure he can put it back in.
In the meantime, Chelios has to keep electrocuting himself in order to keep his fake heart juiced with enough power. And that's the framework on which this all-out assault on everything that's good and holy hangs. But I'm not sure I can describe this gigantic mess in sane words.
Let me quote a bit from costar Bai Ling:
"Crank 2 is not a dream but a crazy ride as if you are hooked on drugs, you just can't stop but laughing and laughing and laughing in a speeding car, but don't worry, tell your grandmommy and your grand grand father, for them if will feel like they are in this fancy old Hollywood Gone with the wind car, have their lunch box in their lap and have Charley Chaplain sing : " A kiss is just a kiss, a lunch box is just a lunch box, box box box, hip hop hip hop hip hurt, there will be a chinese chicken soup in the hip box with a nice swimming fish from the blue sea in the sun singing: " Summer time, the fish will not jumping I am on striking ........and fish will listen to grandmommy's old story about how she can not find grandfather's old sun glass, but its a perfect Sunday pic nic soup, and you don't have to see it with glass, all you have to do is just in fact close your sleepy lovely red eyes and drink eat man and women, is it a film's name?"
Yep, that about covers it.
Anyone who saw the first Crank should expect more of the same, only crazier. It's the sort of movie where the main character can and WILL shove a shotgun up a guy's ass.
Where strippers get shot in their fake chests and silicon dribbles out. Where one fight scene suddenly turns into a parody of Godzilla vs. King Kong. Where Bai Ling runs around screaming like the psycho bitch she is, and her unintelligible sounds are subtitled in broken English.
Where Statham dry-humps an old lady. Where the movie stops for a second so you can see a ferret lick its own balls. Where a transition title card pops up in a chase scene that says "9 Seconds Later" and cuts right back to the chase scene.
Where Corey Haim wears a blond mullet wig and gets beat up by a lady. Where a man cuts off his own nipples while another guy dances. Where Dwight Yoakam threatens to "choke a bitch."
Where the filmmakers throw in tits every couple minutes for no other reason than there hadn't been tits for a couple minutes. Where Chelios can shoot the F out of a bunch of Asian people and then snarl "CHICKEN AND BROCCOLI!!" (I dare you to explain that one).
And we haven't even discussed the severed head in the fish tank that is STILL ALIVE.
As much as the above sounds so-bad-it's-good, a movie this brain-smashing eventually just gets boring. The loud noises, choppy edits, and face-rending audaciousness eventually beat you senseless. It's like driving at top speed into oncoming traffic with the radio turned as loud as possible and Bai Ling trying to blow the gearshift.
Sure, there is some fun to be had, and I had to give this a higher rating than it deserves simply because it dared to go where movies don't go (for good reason). But when it's on purpose it loses that cheesy goodness. There's a lot of insanity here, and it probably should be seen just so you know (or at least just to see Bai Ling get flattened by a speeding car). But as it stands, I'm not going to recommend it.
In the first Crank, Chev Chelios (Jason Statham) was given a poison that would kill him if he didn't keep his adrenaline up. Then he fell out of a helicopter.
The sequel picks up right where the first one left off, as a gang of foreign thugs grab his seemingly lifeless body to harvest the organs. Not on Statham's watch! After escaping, Chelios realizes that his heart has been taken out and given to a hundred year old Chinese man named Poon Dong (David Carradine…no, really), so he must track down various gangsters and guest stars in order to get his heart back for Doc Miles (Dwight Yoakam), who's reasonably sure he can put it back in.
In the meantime, Chelios has to keep electrocuting himself in order to keep his fake heart juiced with enough power. And that's the framework on which this all-out assault on everything that's good and holy hangs. But I'm not sure I can describe this gigantic mess in sane words.
Let me quote a bit from costar Bai Ling:
"Crank 2 is not a dream but a crazy ride as if you are hooked on drugs, you just can't stop but laughing and laughing and laughing in a speeding car, but don't worry, tell your grandmommy and your grand grand father, for them if will feel like they are in this fancy old Hollywood Gone with the wind car, have their lunch box in their lap and have Charley Chaplain sing : " A kiss is just a kiss, a lunch box is just a lunch box, box box box, hip hop hip hop hip hurt, there will be a chinese chicken soup in the hip box with a nice swimming fish from the blue sea in the sun singing: " Summer time, the fish will not jumping I am on striking ........and fish will listen to grandmommy's old story about how she can not find grandfather's old sun glass, but its a perfect Sunday pic nic soup, and you don't have to see it with glass, all you have to do is just in fact close your sleepy lovely red eyes and drink eat man and women, is it a film's name?"
Yep, that about covers it.
Anyone who saw the first Crank should expect more of the same, only crazier. It's the sort of movie where the main character can and WILL shove a shotgun up a guy's ass.
Where strippers get shot in their fake chests and silicon dribbles out. Where one fight scene suddenly turns into a parody of Godzilla vs. King Kong. Where Bai Ling runs around screaming like the psycho bitch she is, and her unintelligible sounds are subtitled in broken English.
Where Statham dry-humps an old lady. Where the movie stops for a second so you can see a ferret lick its own balls. Where a transition title card pops up in a chase scene that says "9 Seconds Later" and cuts right back to the chase scene.
Where Corey Haim wears a blond mullet wig and gets beat up by a lady. Where a man cuts off his own nipples while another guy dances. Where Dwight Yoakam threatens to "choke a bitch."
Where the filmmakers throw in tits every couple minutes for no other reason than there hadn't been tits for a couple minutes. Where Chelios can shoot the F out of a bunch of Asian people and then snarl "CHICKEN AND BROCCOLI!!" (I dare you to explain that one).
And we haven't even discussed the severed head in the fish tank that is STILL ALIVE.
As much as the above sounds so-bad-it's-good, a movie this brain-smashing eventually just gets boring. The loud noises, choppy edits, and face-rending audaciousness eventually beat you senseless. It's like driving at top speed into oncoming traffic with the radio turned as loud as possible and Bai Ling trying to blow the gearshift.
Sure, there is some fun to be had, and I had to give this a higher rating than it deserves simply because it dared to go where movies don't go (for good reason). But when it's on purpose it loses that cheesy goodness. There's a lot of insanity here, and it probably should be seen just so you know (or at least just to see Bai Ling get flattened by a speeding car). But as it stands, I'm not going to recommend it.
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