Looper

Whenever someone tells me a movie is about time travel, I always think of “Back To The Future” with a teenage Michael J. Fox running around, trying not to run into himself in fear of screwing up the future. Well…that is the premise to this excellent sci-fi movie except that Marty McFly is an assassin and his job is to kill for a mob syndicate that is sending victims back into the past to be exterminated. The role of the killer is played by Joseph Gordon-Levitt who, at this point, seems to be the go-to guy in Hollywood right now. With his appearance in “Inception” and “”The Dark Knight Rises,” Gordon-Levitt is becoming this generation’s Tom Cruise and I mean that very much as a compliment.

In this role, he plays a young Joe, a paid assassin called a Looper, who waits patiently for the captured hit to appear via time travel and then kills them with a deadly gun shot. Except one day, the “hit” is himself, only 30 years older. The older Joe (Bruce Willis) escapes and it’s a cat & mouse game from there as the older Joe goes on the hunt for a young boy that will eventually grow up to be a crime kingpin named The Rainmaker. His idea is to kill the boy, setting in motion the new future that will allow him to remain with his wife and keep the peace in his city. Unfortunately, his younger self is protecting the child and his mother (the great Emily Blunt) and will stop at nothing to keep them alive.

At just under 2 hours, this movie could have been a mess. Interweaving 2 different storylines, bouncing from the past to the future, it had the potential to be disastrous. But director Rian Johnson, who has director nothing I’ve ever seen, does a remarkable job and keeps it engrossing the entire film length. I was especially pleased with the way the movie was broken into sections, first introducing Joe, then proceeding to the self assassination and then to the Rainmaker storyline. It flows pretty nicely altogether and there isn’t a stop in the action. As a matter of fact, the premise behind the Rainmaker makes it even more interesting because you don’t know how that story is going to end.

Needless to say, I loved this movie. All of the actors are fantastic, especially Gordon-Levitt, who wears a prosthetic chin to give himself the look of a young Bruce Willis. Emily Blunt is excellent as usual and Jeff Daniels as the mobster, Abe, also does a fantastic job. I would highly recommend seeing this movie in the theaters before it gets overrun by bad Halloween scare flicks!

Overall Rating: A

Moonrise Kingdom

So…where to start?

Hmmmm…

On the positive side, I REALLY enjoyed the trailer for the latest film by quirky director, Wes Anderson.

On the negative side, this is easily one of the most boring movies I have ever seen.

I don’t get it. A lot of people obviously do but I don’t. Wes Anderson is the reigning king of the art house world. With critics favorites such as “Rushmore,” “The Royal Tenenbaums,” and “Fantastic Mr. Fox,” no one gets the artsy-fartsy blood flowin’ like Anderson. And I kinda get that. I remember when I was in college and taking some film courses. My professors showed us some pretty odd stuff that was considered to be “art.” What is the definition of art though? Many critics like to describe Anderson’s work as “art.” Well….if art is boring and flat, then I guess this IS art.

There are so many things I didn’t like about this film. As with the few other movies by Anderson that I have seen, it just wasn’t entertaining to me. The story itself was slow in pacing. The characters were dull and not that interesting and the music/soundtrack was just odd enough to put me off. Granted, it’s 1965 in New England but still…

The storyline goes like this…2 young kids who are unhappy with their lives run off together. There is a search to find them. They are found and torn apart. What happens next? I’ll let you decide if you want to find out or not. Here’s the thing…the 2 young lovers are played by 2 actors who have ZERO personality. Is this acting or is this just a lack of experience? I do’t know. But throughout most of the film, she is staring blankly at the camera and he appears to be reciting lines from a textbook. As a matter of fact, ALL the child actors (I call them kids because I imagine none of them are over the age of 13) are bad actors. Why they were chosen is beyond me but they all have roles that require SOME acting and there is very little of it here. I haven’t seen acting this bad since Clint Eastwood’s “Gran Torino!”

As for the rest of the cast? Bruce Willis, Francis McDormand & Bill Murray are all wasted talent. The only one who gets to be remotely interesting is Edward Norton as a Cub Scout leader and even his role is almost too quirky for me.

The set pieces are interesting though with shots of the coastline and most of it being shot like it’s a picture on the wall. Everything seems remote and flat but I think that was on purpose. Everything about this movie gave me a sense of being too far removed from it, like I was looking at a complicated picture from a distance and but couldn’t see the details. If it was the Mona Lisa, I might have given it some time to come into focus. But as it is, Moonrise Kingdom is little more than a Bob Ross experience and even that might be too much of a compliment.

Overall Rating: D

The Expendables

Let’s see…take 10 or so of the 80’s & 90’s biggest action film stars, throw them together and fire off a ton of ammo and you have the ingredients for the mother of all action flicks…right?

Well…kind of.

I’m not sure which is worst. The fact that almost all of these action stars have aged so much or if I’m the one who has aged and these kinds of movies now come across as completely stupid. Either way, something was lacking in this movie and I’m not sure who to blame. Here’s what I DO know…I’m tired of movies where the “heroes” go storming the castle and the bad guys are firing off millions of rounds of ammo and amazingly not one of the good guys gets hit. Meanwhile the good guys can literally throw knives from a quarter mile away while running (in slow motion) and are accurate enough to hit a gunman in the throat. I mean…seriously?

All of this kind of action is obviously catering to a certain crowd and it’s no surprise that with all the action stars, a few of them are gonna get short-changed for screen time. It IS a good thing that the ones who are NOT short-changed are Statham & Stallone. I would have to say that Statham is easily the action star of this generation so it was smart of the producer of this movie to make him a highlighted character. He’s given a bulk of the dialogue and is best man to director Stallone’s character. Stallone is, by all accounts, still an action star. He’s bulked up, veins poppin’ all over the place and he still has that “Rocky” mentality. He’s the underdog trying to do good and even with the odds against him, he’s bigger and badder than even the biggest and baddest. Also playing along are Dolph Lundgren (who is surprisingly good in this movie), Jet Li, Randy Couture, Mickey Rourke (in a limited role…which is too bad), Bruce Willis (also limited…ALSO too bad), Steve Austin plays a bad guy (which is for the best. The guy cannot act at all) and there’s a guest appearance by Ahnuld that gets the 3 big guns from the 80’s together in one scene that was pretty much the talk of the town last summer (2010) when this film was released.

So there you have the main cast. I could get into a plot but why bother? You know the score. If you don’t like this kind of movie (action sequences that defy physics, a hailstorm of bullets and explosions, violent hand-to-foot-to-face combat), you’re not gonna see it. If you DO love this kind of movie, then you’ve already seen it and that’s where this movie fails. I’ve already seen this kind of flick a hundred times and director Stallone doesn’t give me any reason to want to see it again. It’s brutal and over-the-top but the characters are shallow, the action is ridiculous and mission is lame. Which makes me think that the sequel (which is being made right now and scheduled for release in 2012) will probably be pretty much the same thing…except with more Ahnuld. Now that he’s out of office, he’s gotta find SOMETHING to do with his time. Oh wait…we already know what he’s been doing in his spare time…

Overall Rating: C-

10 Second Review: It’s loud, it’s dumb and it’s just what you would expect. If that’s your kind of movie…then by all means…check this one out! Statham and Stallone don’t disappoint but beyond that, it’s the same old, same old.

Red

Don’t mess with this group or you’ll get the power tools!

An interesting premise to a movie…what happens to retired assassins? And better yet…what happens when the assassins are filed for extinction because they know too much? That is the idea behind “Red” and with a stellar cast and a decent director, this film is about as entertaining as you can ask for. With Bruce Willis, Morgan Freeman, John Malkovich and Helen Mirren playing the soon to be “retired” hired guns, they must find out why they are being targeted and figure out a way to stay alive. With hundreds of CIA operatives in pursuit, the gang fights back and end up in many dangerous situations. However for them, it’s like a newfound lease on life, even if it does kill them, what do they have to lose?

What makes this entire premise work so well is obviously the cast. With Willis leading the charge, this group is not one to messed with. They are the best in their field and have not lost their edge as they find themselves all over the place, trying to figure out why they are being hunted. Along the way, Willis unwittingly ends up getting Mary Louise-Parker involved, which only adds to the storyline as she finds herself becoming more & more a apart of the action. This adds to the story simply because now we see what’s happening through her eyes. And what an adventure it is!

I really enjoyed this film. Not that it would have taken much because I seem to love the idea of assassins on the run (Grosse Pointe Blank, Mr & Mrs Smith), but this cast is one of a kind. I really enjoyed the Malcovich character. His character, Marvin Boggs, is overly paranoid but even when he seems like he’s on the verge of cracking, you come to find out he might be the most sane of the bunch! It’s a fun role for him and he plays it to the hilt. Everyone else is excellent as well. Freeman & Mirren are their usual selves, playing aged veterans who still have the skills to get the job done and Parker was perfectly cast as the lone normal citizen who finds all of this action and intrigue to be to her liking, especially since her life is so mundane before she got involved with this motley crew!

Everything else rolls along smoothly. Robert Schwentke does a great job directing, the writing is good and the action keeps the pace vigorous. All in all, this is a great “stay at home and nuke up some popcorn” flick that is worthy of a couple of hours of your time!

Overall Rating: B+