Tuesday, May 19, 2009

...watch it if, and only if you like Starwars. (Fanboys review)

In production for many, many years. Scenes shot, reshot, and shot again. This movie was "coming soon" for so long, that only a select group of starwars spoof underground movie-goers knew about it.

The story is simple. Die hard Starwars fans want to watch Episode 1 before it gets released to the public--so they decide to go steal a print of it. Enter shenanigans.

This is the type of movie that you have to have common knowledge of Starwars to enjoy. If you have never seen a Starwars movie before, I suggest not watching it. However, if you have seen any of them (like any normal person who knows what a good movie is), I suggest watching.

The Good: This is very Road Trip-esque, so if you like the "travel, jokes, travel, jokes" type of movie, this is perfect of you. The cast is great, although I don't really know any of their names. Lots of cameos such as William Shatner, Seth Rogan, Danny Trejo, Billy Dee Williams, Carrie Fisher, Kevin Smith, Jason Mewes, Ray Park(Darth Maul), Will Forte. This is like a dumbed down, smart comedy...if there is such a thing. The best parts are when Starwars fans and the Star Trek fans are just talking a lot of smack to each other. This epic battle between these subcultures traverses well into real world.

The Bad: The really good jokes were few and far between. Although the entire this is fairly well rounded, I only laughed out loud a few times. I'll go ahead and say that there are many plot holes, but thats to be expected.

Watch it...especially if you are reading this blog.

Rating: 7 out of 10

Tuesday, May 12, 2009

...go watch Star Trek instead.(X-Men Origins: Wolverine review)

I heard horrible things. Such horrible things about this movie that I wish not to repeat them on a public forum. However, these were things that I heard from people that had the "inside scoop" before the movie even came out--not actual reviews. The actual reviews that I heard seemed to give this movie some promise.

My brother was the first to tell me that he enjoyed this movie, then I had a co-worker tell me the same thing. But here's the thing, when someone follows up their opinion of a movie with a "because..." there is something wrong.

Example 1:

Me: "How was Wolverine?"
Brother: "It was good."
Brother: "Well, I liked it BECAUSE I didn't know much about Wolverine's background and that was kinda fun to watch."

Example 2:

Me: "How was Wolverine?"
Co-Worker: "I liked it a lot."
Co-Worker: "I liked it BECAUSE I used to read the comics when I was younger."

Now I'm not saying these are invalid reasons to enjoy a movie. I am just saying that these people know that its not a good movie. They have to justify themselves now, because they know later I will scrutinize them for liking the movie. Imagine back when someone told you Pulp Fiction was good. Did they say "It was good, because..."? NO! They just say its good...no explanation needed.

Example 1:

Me: "I never saw Shawshank Redemption, is it any good?"
Friend: "You haven't seen it?! Dude, its good."

Thats it. The lesson here is, good movies do not need explanations when giving your opinion. Bad movies do.

The Good: The idea of this is good. We have 3 X-Men movies, most of which were pretty good. Why not have separate movies for each of the characters? Marvel is crushing it with the Avenger series (Iron Man, Hulk, soon to be Thor). There was a good amount of action. I did have to cringe a little for a few scenes with horrible effects, but a lot of the fighting scenes were good. Thats

The Bad: CORNY!! It had so many cliche action scenes that it was annoying. The worst (SPOILER) being when Wolverine blows up the helicopter as he walks away (and you see the explosion behind him). I hate that soooo much. The effects were pretty bad(as noted earlier). The comedic level was much lower key than the X-Men movies. I think Wolverine's jokes had a huge impact on those movies.

Overall, it was a watchable movie, but waay too many crappy parts. It would go 15 minutes worth of good movie watching, then get followed up with 20 minutes of crap. Then 5 minutes of good, and another 20 mins of bad.

Rating: 6 out of 10