Sunday July 24, 2011

John Carpenter's Vampires- There is only so much to say about this movie. It's fun, in a "From Dusk Till Dawn" kind of way, but the hooker/Baldwin brother love story was weak, and so was most other things about the movie. I mean, you know how people say John Carpenter has bad movies. Well, this is kinda one of them. Sometimes inventive, but really nothing worth doing more than a slight reference to feel cool that you are a Carpenter Fan. I mean, I enjoy James Woods' voice, but as a so called bad-a#@ vampire slayer, he can only do so much justice. Overall, the only redeeming aspects were John Carpenter's great cinematography (as usual with his films) and catchy guitar score. It's a fun and light entertainment, ironically associated with darkness.



Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas- Watching this movie, being it as one of the few animated films of recent times I haven't seen yet (outside of a bunch of Studio Ghibli films I have been mean to get to), I was both pleasantly surprised, and ultimately saddened. But then again, the sadness was part of the film's intention. The story is intriguing and the voice work is pretty good, especially on the part of Eris, voiced by Michelle Pfeiffer, but the 3D animation mixed with 2D drawings is kind of jarring (almost like a Real D 3D film except without glasses, the claim being based on the idea that there are some weird moments of depth in between landscapes and creatures). I guess my only real fist against this film is the ending, which was altogether, too happy and hollywood styled, where a simple action in the film's plot could have easily prevented it.

SPOILER






SERIOUSLY, I'M GONNA TALK ABOUT THE ENDING (POSSIBLY WON'T MAKE SENSE UNLESS YOU HAE SEEN IT)

The film ends with Brad Pitt's Sinbad ending up with Joseph Fiennes' Proteus' fiance Marina (voiced by Catherine Zeta-Jones). Proteus, early in the film, puts his life on the line in order to give Sinbad the chance to redeem himself by getting back the Book of Peace that Eris framed him for stealing. Sinbad's actions of gratitude in return for this unselfish act on part of Proteus… steal his fiance's heart while on the journey. Sure, Proteus allows her to be with him in the end by giving his approval, but that doesn't change the fact that before Sinbad re-entered the picture of their long lost friendship (Sinbad, as a streetrat boy, befriended the royal Proteus, and was basically welcomed into their family to an extent), Marina was way into the noble Proteus. Tragic stuff, Dreamworks. Way to write a hollywood happy ending and still make me sad.



Superhero Movie- Yeah, it's stupid. But ehh, it's sometimes funny. Caught it on Comedy Central so it's not like I sought it out. Leslie Nielsen does his best to liven the film up with his spoof comic charm, but the script doesn't give him (or anybody else for that matter) a chance to create anything more than the movie "Spiderman" with fart jokes inserted in. Some sequences even seem like shot for shot copies except traded for dumbed down material. It kind of doesn't make sense that they even used "Spiderman" since "Spiderman 3" came out a year before... so why are they referencing 7 year old material. Also, the "X-Men" spoof sequence fails on even being a logical plot point in the film. It doesn't belong at all. Filler in a movie that is a giant filler.



- Jeff Bassin