The found footage genre is expanding out of the horror genre this year with movies like Project X and this weekend’s Chronicle, which puts the super hero/super powers genre through the found footage genre.  The gimmick of found footage doesn’t really add much but Chronicle is still a surprisingly fantastic movie with an amazing climax, interesting characters and great effects.

Chronicle follows a trio of high school students; Steve, Matt and Andrew, as they find a mysterious cave in the woods while at a rave and gain mysterious powers from whatever is in the cave.  The guys start messing around and slowly grow more powerful, which starts to effect Andrew in dangerous ways.

The three main guys are all pretty great and manage to avoid becoming stereotypes, even though it would have been easy for them to revert into them.  Andrew is the shy, loner who has a sick mom and abusive dad, Matt is Andrew’s cousin and tries to act smarter and cooler than he actually is and Steve is the super popular jock/class president.  The discovery of their powers however knocks down all the social barriers that would have kept them in their respective circles and they become extremely close friends, which makes what happens later that much more affecting.  One of the things that makes the guys endearing is their genuine glee over gaining super powers, something I think we all would experience.  Their experimentation and progress results in some hilarious moments, like their Jackass style visit to a department store and their attempts to discover how invulnerable they are by hitting each other in the face with a baseball.  The movie also smartly handles typical high school problems like bullies and girls along with the problems caused by gaining super powers.  Andrew’s arc is the main thrust of the story as his powers seemingly give him more confidence and popularity but his new found confidence is shattered by an embarrassing moment at a party and the pressure of his mom’s sickness and his dad’s abuse causes him to start giving in to the darker aspects his powers allow him to do.

Speaking of the super powers, they are all done amazingly well, especially considering the budget of the movie.  The guys manage to gain invulnerability, flight and telekinesis, with the latter being the showcase for some of the most impressive effects.  The progression of the powers is also handled extremely well as the guys are able to move bigger and bigger objects, fly for longer period of times and become more impervious to damage.  One aspect that isn’t explored quite as well is the fact that the guys are seemingly psychically linked but it’s never really explained why and only serves as a way to get the characters to plot points. The invulnerability aspect of their powers is not really explored as far as the flight and telekinesis powers are.   All of the build up of the powers leads to the absolutely spectacular finale where *SPOILERS* Andrew fully unleashes his powers and goes on a rampage throughout downtown Seattle with Matt trying desperately to stop him.  It’s everything a super powered fight should be with cars getting thrown through the air, people smashing each other through buildings, and cops getting thrown around like rag dolls.  It puts the finales of some of the bigger superhero movies to shame.

The one thing I wish is that Chronicle wasn’t a found footage movie.  It doesn’t suffer from the crazed shaky cam of movies like Cloverfield but the gimmick doesn’t really add much and it takes you out of some scenes because you start asking yourself, “Why would he be filming this right now?” and there’s a little too much dialogue from characters asking and justifying the camera.  There’s also the completely unnecessary element of Matt’s girlfriend also filming everything for her “blog”, which is where some of the footage for the movie comes from.  If Chronicle had just been a traditional superhero movie, you would probably be that much more invested in the characters and the set pieces would be that much more spectacular.  That being said, the found footage gimmick does add to some of the scenes like when the guys are flying for the first time and a sequence during the finale where the camera is the car with Matt and his girlfriend as they are trapped by Andrew and taken to the top of the Space Needle.  There’s also a pretty clever gimmick where Andrew levitates the camera so that all three guys can be on the screen at the same time.

Chronicle is a surprisingly great super hero/super powered movie that features some incredible effects for it’s budget and full fledged characters that you actually care about.  It doesn’t really need to be found footage but the gimmick doesn’t detract that much from the quality of the film.  If you’re in need of a movie superhero fix, Chronicle is definitely worth checking out.

4 out of 5

Liam Neeson continues to cement himself as an action star with his latest movie, The Grey, but there’s a lot more going on in it than you probably expect from the “Liam Neeson punches wolves” trailers.

Neeson stars as Ottway, a survival expert/hunter who works perimeter security for an oil drilling station in remote Alaska.  He’s suffered some sort of personal trauma and is basically on the verge of suicide as the movie opens but he quickly has to put everything aside when he and a small group of oil workers survive a horrific plane crash on their way back to civilization.  As if the freezing cold and remoteness of their crash weren’t bad enough, the men have seemingly crashed into the middle of wolf territory, as a pack of vicious wolves starts stalking and killing the men.

Neeson is at his absolute best in The Grey, giving both emotional depth and bad assness to the character of Ottway.  He effortlessly goes from staring down the wolf pack to comforting a man who is about to die.   No matter what situation comes up, Ottway keeps a level head and tries, and unfortunately usually fails, to drag the other men along with him to safety.  I also loved his resourcefulness whether he’s tying himself in to his airplane seat with three seatbelts to creating “wolf sticks” with some found shotgun shells and homemade spears.  If I was lost in the Alaskan wilderness, I would follow Ottway in a heartbeat.  The rest of the cast is a bunch of extremely solid character actors with the standout probably being Frank Grillo as Diaz, who starts out as what seems to be the typical asshole character but slowly grows and accepts his situation until he comes to his heartbreaking end. All of the characters are fleshed out extremely well and through things like fireside conversations, you start to care about them, which makes their eventual deaths to wolves, etc. that much more effecting.

Joe Carnahan does a great job of relating how dire the survivors situation is and how desolate a region they are in.  There are tons of shots of the wintry landscape that feel more and more hopeless as the movie goes on.  Not to say that the movie isn’t exciting as well, especially as there’s the almost constant threat of the wolf pack and there’s numerous times where you will probably jump out of your seat as a wolf comes out of nowhere to snatch away another survivor.  The plane crash is also one of the best I’ve seen.  Besides the wolves, the guys also have to fight the elements and just as many guys succumb to the freezing cold and nature as to wolves ripping their throats out.  The big scene that most people are probably waiting for, Liam Neeson taping bottles to his knuckles and taking on one of the wolves, is definitely not what you are expecting it to be and, *SPOILER* you don’t actually get to see Neeson go one on one with the wolf but the build up to that scene is so great emotionally that it would probably cheapen everything else, even though it would probably be awesome in the short run.

Just as I hoped, The Grey is the first great movie of the year, even though it’s not the balls to the action movie you might be expecting.  It is a fantastic survival movie with an amazing Liam Neeson in the lead and just goes to show the versatility of Joe Carnahan as the The Grey is a complete 18o from his last movie, the awesomely insane A-Team movie.  It’s definitely highly recommended and sets a high mark for the other movies of the year to match.

5 out 5

Last year Steven Soderbergh made everyone a germaphobe with the awesomly scary Contagion and this past weekend he made his first foray into straight up action with Haywire, starring former American Gladiator and MMA fighter Gina Carano.  The movie features some fantastic fight scenes and lots of Soderbergh flourishes but the story is bare bones and, despite a ton of great actors, it falls a little flat.

Carano stars as Mallory Kane, an operative for a government contractor who is betrayed by her handler and sets out to get the truth and take down everyone responsible.  The plot is about as barebones as you can get and feels like Soderbergh accidentally got the script for a Dolph Lundgren or Seagal movie on his desk and he somehow decided to do it.  He does try to give it some sense of complexity by utilizing some non-linear storytelling for the first hour or so but there’s only one or two things to keep track of, so it’s not as complex as say, a Christopher Nolan movie.

The best part of the movie is easily the fight scenes as Gina Carano utilizes her entire MMA repitoire to snap arms and break necks.  All the fights are fast, brutal and feel realistic, helped by the fact that the music completely stops so that the only sound is the punches and kicks connecting.  The fight between Gina Carano and Michael Fassbender is the highlight of the movie as they completely destroy a hotel room and Carano attempts to throw all kinds of MMA chokes and holds on Fassbender.  Besides the fights there’s also a pretty solid escape sequence as Carano attempts to evade police in Dublin and a fast but excellent car chase on a snow covered trail in Upstate New York that ends in a completely random way (local wildlife is involved).  The movie, unfortunately, fizzles out toward the end with the final fight suffering from weird choppy editing and terrible choreography, especially compared to earlier fights in the movie.

Carano is actually surprisingly good, acting wise, in Haywire.  Soderbergh, probably smartly, doesn’t force her to do any heavy emoting but she is able to hold her own against heavy hitters like Fassbender, Michael Douglas, Antonio Banderas and Ewan McGregor.  Besides Carano, Fassbender is awesome as usual as a freelance assassin hired by Carano’s superiors to eliminate her under the guise of them working together on a job.  Everyone else is surprisingly flat, which might be the fault of the no frills script but it seems like you could shuffle the actors around to different characters and the movie would still work out the same way.

One of the quirks of Steven Soderbergh that I’m not really a fan of is his insistence on crazy, 60′s style jazz scores for his movies and Haywire is no exception.  It works sometimes but other times it is completely overbearing.  There’s one sequence in the beginning where Carano and her team are breaking into a safehouse to rescue a hostage and there’s no noise except the crazy jazz score and, at least for me, it kind of made me roll my eyes at it’s pretentiousness.  The one thing I love about Soderbergh is that, regardless of quality, all of his movies look fantastic, especially now that he’s using the RED camera system and Haywire looks great.

Overall, Haywire is a decent action movie that Soderbergh somewhat sucessfully tries to class up by filling it with amazing actors and his stylistic touches.  It’s not gonna blow anyone’s minds but it has some great fights that fully utilize Gina Carano’s skills and she’s also suprisingly good as well.  I would not be opposed to seeing another Carano starring action movie, although maybe one directed by a more traditional action director.

3 out of 5

Contraband is a movie that is perfectly suited for a January release, because any other time it would be way out it’s league.  It’s a by the numbers heist movie that takes itself too seriously and ultimately just warrants a “meh” in response.

Mark Wahlberg stars as Chris Faraday, a master smuggler who retired to raise a family and start a legitimate business of installing home security systems.  His wife’s brother Andy (Caleb Jones), follows in Chris’ smuggling footsteps but blows a job for a vicious drug dealer (Giovanni Ribisi) and Chris is forced to reenter the smuggling world to bail Andy out and protect his family.

People either love or hate Mark Wahlberg and Contraband is not going to help change anybody’s opinion one way or the other.  He does is usual thing of being either confused or pissed off or both but he’s still one of the better current action stars.  Kate Beckinsale has basically nothing to do except get constantly threatened by Giovanni Ribisi and his goons.  Speaking of Ribisi, he is off in a completely different galaxy of acting, adopting what, I guess, is supposed to be a Cajun accent, as the movie is set in New Orleans but it’s so over the top it’s laughable and if the movie had a sense of humor, maybe they would have played it up more and it would have worked.  JK Simmons, as the captain of the ship Mark Wahlberg and crew are using to smuggle stuff, also seems to be adopting a Cajun accent but it’s almost too subtle, something you don’t normally associate with JK Simmons.  Ben Foster is seemingly going to be the comedic relief but then they establish that he’s a recovering alcoholic and he doesn’t even go on the heist with Wahlberg.

Contraband suffers doubly from being such a cliche of the heist genre.  On the one hand, you can basically predict the plot if you’ve seen any similar movies; something will go wrong that forces the crew to change the plan, one of the crew is a traitor, the crew narrowly avoids getting caught numerous times and the crew employs some sort of clever device to hide their ill gotten gain from the authorities.  It’s heist movie 101 although it is a little interesting to see what goes into smuggling things as opposed to just a straight up bank heist (although it’s apparently the easiest thing in the world to get onto the crew of a cargo ship with a conveniently assembled crew of fellow smugglers).  The one thing that Contraband should have taken from every other heist movie is the sense of fun with all the crazy members of the crew.  None of Mark Wahlberg’s crew stand out in anyway and they seem interchangeable as none of them seem to have any special skills.  In other heist movies you would have “the explosives guy”, “the driver”, “the muscle”, etc.

The other major problem with Contraband is that it’s just kind of boring.  There’s one action set piece in the middle of the movie but it seems to have been an afterthought when the director realized that they needed something so that they could sell it as an action movie.  All of the smuggling and heist stuff is all straight forward and not very interesting and there’s not even a final confrontation/fight that you would expect between Wahlberg and Ribisi.  There’s a kind of interesting dilemna that occurs between Kate Beckinsale and Ben Foster that, at first, seems like a ballsy decision but they quickly backpedal and the whole subplot fizzles out (Spoilers if you’re curious: Ben Foster thinks he murdered Kate Beckinsale by knocking into a bathroom sink but she survives, although unconscious, and Foster tries to hide her “body” at a construction site where they are pouring concrete).  The twists of how the guys pull of the heist are also pretty lame and they don’t even show how they did it.

If you’re a Mark Wahlberg fan, Contraband might be worth a rent but for everyone else, there are better heist movies out there, including Wahlberg’s own Italian Job.

2.5 out of 5

Sending out 2011 with a bang, Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol is an absolutely fantastic action movie and probably the best entry in the Mission Impossible series.

Ghost Protocol finds IMF’s best agent, Ethan Hunt, locked away in a Budapest prison, who’s broken out by Simon Pegg’s Benji Dunn and Paula Patton’s Jane Carter and the trio is tasked with stealing a file from the Kremlin concerning a possible terrorist codenamed Cobalt.  If you’ve seen the trailers, you know the mission goes horribly wrong and the IMF team is left on their own to track down Cobalt and his associates and stop them from starting a nuclear war.  Along with the trio is Jeremy Renner as IMF agent William Brandt.  Unlike say MI1 or 2, Ghost Protocol actually picks up story threads from MI3, especially concerning Ethan’s wife Julia, and weaves them into the plot in some interesting ways.

Say what you will about Tom Cruise in real life but when he’s in Ethan Hunt mode, he’s a complete bad ass and he has plenty of opportunities for bad assness in Ghost Protocol from fighting his way through a prison riot in the opening of the movie, escaping from a sunken SUV and, probably most impressive, scaling the outside of the Burj Khalifa, the world’s tallest building in Dubai, using only special “sticky” gloves.  Cruise does a lot of his own stunts as well, which is fantastic and helps make the action sequences that much more thrilling.  Simon Pegg, as usual, brings the comic relief and it’s great to see him actually in the field as opposed to MI3 when he was sort of Ethan’s “Q” back at IMF HQ.  The movie has a great sense of humor and most of it is Pegg’s Benji and his nervous energy.  Pegg and Cruise have a great back and forth dynamic.  Jeremy Renner proves himself a great choice to continue the franchise if Tom Cruise decides to stop and his Agent Brandt is just as competent as Ethan but I enjoyed the fact that their personalities are completely different.  Ethan Hunt is completely unflappable and efficient while Brandt is sarcastic and more practical than Ethan; he’s less willing to perform Ethan’s insane risky manuevers but will do them if he has to.  Rounding out the team is Paula Patton, who you wouldn’t think would be able to kick ass based on her previous roles in such films as Precious and Jumping the Broom but she more than holds her own with the men of the team.  The only complaint I would have about the acting is that the bad guys are about as generic as can be with the original Swedish The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo’s Michael Nyquist as the main bad guy.

Two of the defining characteristics of the MI series are crazy stunts and fun gadgets and Ghost Protocol has both in spades.  The gadgets on display are some of the coolest of the series including a holographic projector screen to hide Ethan and Benji in the halls of the Kremlin, a robotic magnet platform that allows a person wearing a special suit to levitate and a contact lens that hides facial recognition software and a camera linked to a suitcase printer.  The trademark masks of the series are wisely not relied on as heavily as in the previous movies and it’s fun to see Ethan and the IMF team have to rely on their actual spy skills, especially since, with no backup or support, many of their gadgets fail or are unavailable later in the film.

As far as stunts go, the aforementioned scaling of the Burj Khalifa is amazing and I can’t even imagine how it would look in IMAX.  The whole Dubai sequence might be the highlight of the movie because it features a crazy Ethan manuever, the team having to trick two deadly killers with fake business deals and Ethan having to chase one of Cobalt’s henchmen in the middle of a massive sandstorm.  The final battle between Cobalt and Ethan is also pretty great and takes place in an automated parking garage in India with constanlty moving platforms and shifting cars.  Those that were worried that Brad Bird would be unable to direct live action, consider your fears dead and buried.

Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol is easily the best entry in the MI series, even topping the underrated but awesome Mission Impossible 3 and has the perfect blend of gadgets, espionage and crazy stunts that the series is known for.  I would be completely on board for another entry in the series led by Jeremy Renner but the end of Ghost Protocol leaves things open for Ethan Hunt to return as well.  Either way, more Mission Impossible is something I would definitely be excited for and if you’re a fan of the series or just great action movies in general, you definitely have to go see Ghost Protocol.

4.5 out of 5

2009′s Sherlock Holmes reboot was generally well received, thanks in large part to the charming pairing of Robert Downey Jr. and Jude Law and stylish and gritty action, courtesy of Guy Ritchie.  All of that is still in play for A Game of Shadows and it doesn’t really improve on the first one but it’s still a fun ride.

Robert Downey Jr.’s Sherlock Holmes is in pursuit of criminal mastermind, Professor James Moriarty (played by Jared Harris), who has been acting on a plan that could change all of Europe forever if successful.  Holmes drags a reluctant Dr. Watson into the plot, despite the fact that Watson is getting married and the duo goes in search of a gypsy fortune teller (Noomi Rapace), who’s brother seems to be a key part of Moriarty’s plan.

Holmes is even more eccentric in A Game of Shadows than he was in the first movie from turning his flat into a rainforest with turkeys and goats runnning around to developing “urban camouflage”, which is designed to match bookcases and chairs and make Holmes invisible.  It’s probably a little too crazy at times but as the movie goes on Holmes laser sharp observation and intellect take precedence.  Jude Law is still a great foil as Dr. Watson, constantly exasperated by Holmes’ antics but always has the detective’s back.  Watson also gets a chance to use the observation skills he’s picked up from Holmes in a couple of scenes.  Jared Harris is fantastic as Moriarty, outwardly incredibly charming but you can tell that just under the surface is something sinister.  The scenes between Holmes and Moriarty where they dance around their conflict and trade accusations and threats are some of the best scenes in the movie, especially their final exchange where they are not only revealing faults with each other’s plots but mentally playing chess as well.  Finally, Noomi Rapace is good as well, able to hold her own where the action is concerned but is kind of flat, emotionally.

One of the trademarks of the first Holmes was the use of slow motion during the fights and action scenes and there’s even more of it in A Game of Shadows, maybe too much at times.  The gimmick of seeing Holmes predict how the fights will go in slow motion and then seeing it in real time is still pretty cool and I appreciate the fact that the movie switches it up as well.  There’s a fight early on where Holmes is fighting a Cossack assassin and predicts at least 10 different strikes to perform but when we get back to real time, Noomi Rapace’s Sim takes the assassin out after Holmes’ first hit with a trio of knives.  We even get to see Moriarty’s version of the slow motion predicting toward the end.  The one scene where the slow motion is probably a bit much is the one you’ve probably seen from the trailer where the group is trying to escape a volley of mortars in a forest.  Not only does it go into slow motion for most of the scene but it eventually goes into super slow motion.  To paraphrase Jeff Winger from the recent Christmas episode of Community, “You eventually reach a point of diminishing returns on the slow motion.”

If you’re a fan of the first Sherlock Holmes, you’ll probably enjoy A Game of Shadows as it features everything you loved about the first one, just more of it from Holmes’ eccentricity to stylish fight scenes to a twisty mystery that is unraveled in classic Holmes fashion (meaning all at once in a breathless explanation by Holmes).  If you’re a fan of Holmes in general, you will also appreciate the setting of the climactic battle between Holmes and Moriarty.  I think the first Holmes is probably a little bit better as it had a slightly brisker pace than A Game of Shadows but it’s definitely a good choice if you’re heading to the theater this Christmas week.

4 out of 5

The Muppets made their triumphant return to theaters during Thanksgiving this year, their first theatrical release since 1999′s mediocre Muppets from Space.  If you are even a tiny bit of a Muppets fan, you have to do yourself a favor and go check out this new movie as it’s like a warm, felty hug with lots of laughs and great songs.

The plot of the movie, even though the plot has never been the priority of the Muppets movies, finds evil Texas oil baron Tex Richman (played by Chris Cooper) launching an evil plot to tear down the Muppet Theater and drill into the deposit of oil underneath it.  Fortunately the Muppets biggest fan, Walter (himself a Muppet), is hiding in Kermit’s old office at the time and overhears the plot.  He and his brother Gary (Jason Segel) and Gary’s girlfriend Mary (Amy Adams) (who are all on vacation in Los Angeles for Gary and Mary’s anniversary) decide to try and find Kermit and see if he can save the theater.  Kermit agrees to help and they all set out on a trip to round up the other Muppets and plan a special telethon show to raise $10 million and save the theater.

As far as the human actors go, Chris Cooper is definitely the stand out and he completely commits to being as hilariously over the top evil as possible, culminating in an awesome/awful rap song dissing the Muppets and their attempt to appeal to his sense of decency.  Yes, you read that right; Chris Cooper raps.  Jason Segel and Amy Adams are delightful but don’t really have much to do outside of their musical numbers.  Rashida Jones is great as the completely uninterested network executive who reluctantly gives The Muppets their telethon airtime and Jack Black, in one of his best recent roles, plays himself who gets roped, literally, into being the “celebrity host” of The Muppet Telethon.  The movie also has the usual slew of celebrity cameos with some of my favorites being Alan Arkin as the tour guide of the rundown Muppet Studios and Zach Galifinakis as “Hobo Joe”

I can’t imagine how you decide what Muppets to feature from the 50+ years of shows and movies and, for the most part, most of the Muppets get at least one good bit, with a few notable exceptions I’ll get to in a bit. Obviously Kermit, Fozzy and Miss Piggy are the three main Muppets featured, with Kermit and Miss Piggy having a weirdly serious sub plot about their failed marriage.  One of the funniest sequences of the movie is the montage where Kermit, Walter, Gary and Mary set out to gather the team and they find Fozzy working with a knock off group called The Moopets, who have turned Rainbow Connection into a commercial for the casino they’re in, Gonzo is a toilet and plumbing manufacturing magnate, Miss Piggy works in Paris for a fashion company and Animal is in anger management (with the aforementioned Jack Black) to deal with his obsession with drumming.  A bunch of the more obscure Muppets are brought back including one of my favorites, Uncle Deadly, who is one of Tex Richman’s henchmen along with recent addition to the gang, Bobo the Bear.  Walter, the newest addition, is a great addition and extremely lovable character and is basically channeling Jason Segel’s insane love of The Muppets and he helps carry the film along with Kermit, Miss Piggy and Fozzy. The other new addition, and now one of my all time favorite Muppets, is 80′s Robot, who serves as Kermit’s butler and chauffeur and, at least for me, was the source for some of the biggest laughs of the movie, offering up Tab and New Coke and attempting to find the other Muppets with his dial up modem.  One of my only real complaints about the movie is that some obvious fan favorite characters are pushed into the background like Dr. Honeydew, Rizzo, Swedish Chef, most of Electric Mayhem and Sweetums.  Personally, I also felt there wasn’t enough Statler and Waldorf, as they only have about 2 or 3 jabs in the whole movie.

Music has always been a big part of The Muppets and the new movie is a musical through and through.  A few of the songs don’t really work but a couple of them are extremely catchy including the introspective “Muppet or a Man” and the theme song of the movie “Life’s a Happy Song”, along with the previously mentioned Chris Cooper rap.  It’s too early to tell if any of these will become classics like Rainbow Connection, which is featured toward the end and instantly reminds you how it’s not just the best Muppet song but one of the best songs period, but they are still well done and easily get stuck in your head.  One other thing I like about the musical numbers is that they kind of make fun of the fact that it’s a musical as in most cases at the end of the song whoever’s singing will go into some sort of over the top showboating which usually results in them getting looked at like they’re  insane by bystanders.  There’s also some Muppet takes on popular songs like a kind of creepy barbershop quartet cover of “Smells Like Teen Spirit” and Carmella the Chicken singing Cee Lo’s “Fuck You”.  Finally, there’s a great selection of licensed music in the movie as well, including what could possibly be the greatest use of Starship’s “We Built This City”.

I’m not sure how you can possibly go see The Muppets and not leave with a big, dumb grin on your face.  It’s both a celebration and reintroduction of everything Muppets and has tons of laughs, good music and most of your favorite Muppets getting at least one joke and the new Muppets are great additions to the gang.  Definitely go check The Muppets out as soon as possible.

4.5 out of 5

Billing itself as from “the producers of 300″ and, from the trailers, seemingly sharing that movie’s stylish, slow motion heavy take on the sword and sandals genre is Immortals, the latest from Tarsem Singh of The Cell and The Fall fame.  While not quite at the level of 300, it still has some amazing visuals and spectacularly gory action, even if the plot meanders and bogs down at times.

Future Superman, Henry Cavill plays Theseus, a poor peasant from a cliffside village who, unbeknownst to him, has been guided by a disguised Zeus to combat the evil of King Hyperion, a warlord who wishes to use the fabled Epirus Bow to free the powerful Titans from their prison in Mt. Tartarus.  On his journey Theseus allies himself with the beautiful oracle Phaedra and wise cracking theif Stavros.  The plot is not the strongest aspect of the movie by any means, as the characters just sort of meander from place to place until they finally get the location for the final battle.

Although it’s not quite as insane as his previous movies, Immortals does feature plenty of stylish flourishes from Tarsem.  The costumes, especially for the gods, are all unique and, while maybe not practical, are interesting to look at.  Hyperion and his legions all wear some sinister, Leatherface looking masks and Hyperion also has a number of lieutenants who sport armor specific to their jobs like the hulking brute The Beast, who wears a helmet shaped like a bull made of barb wire or the falconer who has armor with metal, feather accents.  All the locations are gorgeous to look at as well from cliffs of Theseus’ village to the Mordor looking base camp Hyperion sets up at a captured monastery.  Where Tarsem’s directing really shines though is in the fight scenes, specifically the ones involving the gods.  These fights, which there are unfortunately only two of, almost one ups some of 300′s fight scenes by showing the power of the gods as they absolutely decimate their opponents and moving so fast that they are able to take out 3 or 4 enemies before they have time to react.  It’s done with this incredibly cool looking effect where the gods are in normal motion but the enemies are moving in slow motion.  The fights where it’s human vs human are solid as well, just not as incredible as the god fights.  There’s also the briefest of teases of a war in heaven, you’ve probably seen it in the trailers, that is like a mural come to life.

Henry Cavill does a solid job as the classical Greek hero, although he’s definitely more along the lines of a Harry Hamlin from the original Clash of the Titans than, to compare it to 300 again, the insane, rage fueled likes of Gerard Butler’s Leonidas.  He does a great job with some of the fight scenes but other scenes fall a little flat, particular when he’s giving the obligatory pre-battle speech.  Mickey Rourke chews scenery as King Hyperion and seems like he arrived on set every day after drinking a bottle of Jack Daniels.  The movie does a good job of getting you to hate him as he’s constantly performing horrible acts like murdering women, cooking people alive in a giant metal bull and randomly killing his henchmen.  He doesn’t really have any motivation for why he’s so evil though beyond the briefest of mentions that his family died sometime in the past and he blames the gods for it.  John Hurt is great as usual and is the standard “respected actor giving gravitas” character for the movie.  Frieda Pinto, much like Rise of the Planet of the Apes earlier this year, doesn’t have much to do besides look pretty and she has her first nude scene as well so that’s always a plus.  Stephen Dorff is an extremely weird choice to play the comic relief but he does a decent job.  As for the gods, none of them are much of a presence besides Luke Evans as Zeus, who is kind of bi-polar in that he’s supporting Theseus but also refuses to get involved with humanity.

One thing I found interesting about Immortals is that it presents the gods as perfect, kind, golden beings who just want to help humanity (everyone but Zeus that is) and the Titans are horrible, dirty, beasts who seem to live only to brutally murder everyone.  The portrayal of the mythology aspects reminded me a lot of the original Clash of the Titans and other mythology centered movies of that time, as opposed to say, a current take like God of War, where the Greek gods are complete and utter assholes who must be murdered in the most brutal way possible.

Immortals is definitely one of the better swords and sandals epics to come out in recent years but it can’t live up to movie it was promoting as it’s predecessor, 300.  Tarsem’s direction gives the movie a great look and some amazing fight sequences but the plot drags and the performances are decent, but not great.  If you’re a fan of the genre, it’s definitely worth a matinee ticket or rental when it comes on Blu Ray.

3.5 out of 5

In Time is the latest from director Andrew Niccol, who previously directed the similiarly themed Gattaca, and had an interesting premise but the movie boils down to an average chase/action movie.

The premise of In Time basically boils down to that in some alternate/future world, people have been genetically engineered to only age until 25 and then have one year to live after that unless they earn more time, which is now the currency of this society.  Theoretically if you were rich enough, you could basically live forever.  Justin Timberlake stars as Will Salas, who lives in the extremely poor Section 12 of the unnamed future city the movie takes place in.  He dreams of one day making enough time to move himself and his mom (Olivia Wilde) to the rich section of New Greenwich.  He ultimately stumbles into a way to do this but in the process becomes the target of a ruthless “Time Keeper” (Cillian Murphy), whose job is to regulate where the city’s time is, specifically, keeping it in the hands of the rich.

The premise of In Time is an interesting one but one of the main problems is that there isn’t enough world building.  There’s an extremely brief opening voice over to explain the gist of the world and over the course of the movie you see a couple touches like what a bank would be like in this world and the various ways time can be transfered (through a metal box device or by grabbing someone’s arm) but there is no explanation about how any of it works.  Transferring time by physically grabbing their arm for instance, how are you able to accurately trade time?  Is it a mental process or is it started by twisting the arm of the other person?  One aspect they do do a good job of showing is how society’s outlook on age would change drastically if everyone froze at age 25.  A character at one point makes the joke that how do you tell if a woman with a man is his mother, wife or daughter?  Other movies in this vein like Equilibrium and even Daybreakers does a better job of showing what their world are like with their alternate universe premises.

Acting wise, I think Justin Timberlake could be a decent action star but this movie doesn’t really play to his strengths.  His character is way too serious for someone as funny as Timberlake.  I can see him in the future as a sort of John McClane or Nathan Drake character, in terms of constantly dropping one liners and quips.  One of the funner parts of In Time is that it’s a fun guessing game about which young actor is going to show up next.  Various people drop in and out like White Collar’s Matt Bomer, The Big Bang Theory’s Jonathan Galecki, and Mad Men’s Vincent Kartheiser (who will forever be Pete Campbell) and a surprisingly fun Alex Pettyfer as a time stealing gangster.  Cillian Murphy probably gives the best performance as Time Keeper Raymond Leon, a “veteran” of 50 years who is relentless in his hunt of Will.

In terms of action, there’s nothing that you haven’t seen before with the requisite car and foot chases being the main action pieces.  With literal clocks ticking down on people, there is a little bit of added tension.  The movie tries to become a sort of future Bonnie & Clyde about halfway through but there’s only one heist scene and Amanda Seyfried and Justin Timberlake aren’t given any fun lines or have that great of chemistry to really be comparable to that classic.  The end also has an extremely convenient deus ex machina that you’ll either go with or groan at depending on how invested you are in the movie.

In Time is an average but still fun action movie with an interesting premise that it, unfortunately, doesn’t capitalize on to it’s fullest.  If you’re a fan of some of other movies I’ve mentioned with similar premises, I would say this one is worth a rent but you definitely don’t need to rush out to the theater to see it.

3 out of 5

I think it’s fairly safe to say that the 1982 John Carpenter classic, The Thing, is one of our favorite movies here at Everything Action.  It has a great cast lead by Kurt Russell, a throbbing, tense score from composing master Ennio Morricone and some of the most amazing practical effects in movie history.  Take away most of those things and you have the new prequel, which has a few decent scares and effects but is a pale imitation of it’s predecessor.

The prequel takes place just days before the original Thing as the ill fated Norwegian science team in Antarctica makes the initial discovery of the mysterious alien being and it’s spacecraft.  Paleontologist Kate Lloyd (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) is called in to help with the removal of the creature from the ice but the crew of the science station quickly learn that the alien is not as dead as they thought it was and it starts to kill and assimilate the crew.

There are a couple major problems that plague The Thing 2011 and one of the biggest is the fact that it seems to be constantly rushing toward it’s inevitable ending (and the beginning of the original).  The original The Thing had a brooding, slow burn as the men slowly unraveled.  There are great scenes like Kurt Russell making a recording of what has happened for anyone who might stumble upon the station or the famous blood test scene.  These scenes brilliantly build the tension until it bursts when The Thing reveals itself in it’s latest horrific transformation.  The new Thing never stops to build up any of the characters or try to build tension.  The Thing in this prequel is like a rampaging beast rather than the stealthy killer of the 82 version.  It rampages around the base, absorbing the station crew without any rhyme or reason.  The original established that The Thing wanted to hide inside one of the crew and then make it’s way to civilization to spread itself further.  They make token remarks toward that fact but most of the movie is people getting into brief Mexican stand offs and then The Thing kills a bunch of the very expendable Norwegian science team.  Most of the scenes in the movie are also just the poor man’s version of scenes from the 1982 Thing such as the “test” to determine who is The Thing, the stand off that leads to someone who isn’t The Thing getting killed, etc.  Even when the movie does some original things, like exploring the inside of The Thing’s spacecraft, they don’t take the time to explore or give any insight.  There seems to be a lot of advanced technology on the ship but how The Thing uses it or why it even has it is never explored.

Obviously there’s also a glarring hole in this new Thing as there’s not a lead as charismatic and bad ass as Kurt Russell’s RJ MacReady.  Mary Elizabeth Winstead does her best Ripley from Aliens impression and is good as usual but she doesn’t have a lot to do other than burn things with a flamethrower.  The movie seems to want to setup Joel Edgerton as a Kurt Russell surrogate but he’s a cheap imitation and vanishes for the middle act of the film, so there’s not a lot of time to develop his character.  That’s the problem with most of the cast, they are all just expendable fodder for The Thing and you don’t learn anything about them outside of the most basic facts like “Lars can’t speak English and has a pet dog”.  The original took the time to give you sense of who everyone in the station was and you got a sense of their history together even if you didn’t see it.

As I mentioned in the intro to this review, the 1982 The Thing had, and still has, some of the most impressive practical effects ever seen in a film.  The inventiveness of The Thing’s various forms was only matched by their grotesqueness.  The new Thing suffers from heavy use of CG and the new variations on The Thing are uninspired messes of tentacles and teeth.  They actually seem to be inspired by the Necromorphs from the video game Dead Space in that they are more focused on extra appendages and weird shifting of the body.  There’s a couple of cool creature moments but nothing that’s going to be as memorable as the creatures of the 1982 version.

Overall, The Thing 2011 is a pretty unnecessary addition to the universe of the The Thing.  There is nothing compelling about seeing the expanded version of what happened at the Norwegian camp and no new revelations or information about The Thing that would make the movie worthwhile for fans of the 1982 film.  The brief glimpses and evidence from the destroyed Norwegian camp in The Thing ’82 allowed for you to imagine what horrors had happened there and this new movie will probably not live up to anyone’s imaginations.  It’s not offensively bad but it doesn’t justify it’s existence.  Stick with the original (especially the absolutely gorgeous Blu Ray version).

2.5 out of 5

Coming out at during the usually slow and mellow pre-Oscar movie season, Real Steel feels like a summer blockbuster someone forgot to schedule.  It’s got some fantastic special effects, a great lead performance by Hugh Jackman and is tons of cheesy fun.

Jackman plays Charlie Kenton, a former up and coming boxer who has become a low level promoter in the new sport of choice, robot boxing.  Constantly running from debts and taking any odd job (like putting his robot against a bull in the opening of the movie), Charlie finds out that one of his ex-girlfriends has died and that he has custody of his 11 year old son Max.  Charlie wants nothing to do with Max but, through one of his schemes, agrees to take him on for the summer while his aunt and her husband go on vacation to Italy.  After another failure of a fight, Max and Charlie break into a junkyard and Max stumbles onto a robot named Atom who he gets functioning and demands Charlie find him a fight.

The highlight of the movie is easily the robot fighting.  From the underground fighting scene to local bars to the World Robot League championships, every venue has a distinct feel and so do the robots that compete in them.  Compared to the other big robot franchise of the moment, Transformers, the robots of Real Steel actually have distinct looks and personalities instead of just being random bits of jagged metal that a computer vomited up.  The boxing matches themselves are also incredibly well done. Also unlike the Transformers movies is that in Real Steel you can actually see the fights as opposed to watching Optimus fight Megatron while looking through Bumblebee’s armpit.  It’s classic, Rocky style movie boxing.  Rocky has been mentioned numerous times by director Shawn Levy as the main inspiration and apparently the final battle *spoilers* between Atom and the Ivan Dragoesque Zeus is actually almost a punch for punch remake of the Rocky/Drago fight from Rocky IV.  Speaking of Rocky IV connections, Zeus also has an icy Russian promoter and his creator says the very similar line of “Anything Zeus sees, he kills”

Another Stallone movie seemed to heavily influence Real Steel as well, which is Over the Top.  Both feature an estranged father and son bonding over a, some would argue stupid, sport and also driving across country in a truck.  Hugh Jackman is traveling to boxing matches instead of hauling Brut but the result is the same in that he learns to love his son and overcome all odds.  Over the Top is hilariously heavy handed in it’s messaging, becoming the poor man’s Terms of Endearment at times.  Real Steel isn’t quite that overt with it’s emotional story but it still has some groan inducing lines like, “I want you to fight for me, that’s all I’ve ever wanted!”.

Luckily for Real Steel, even with those groan inducing lines, it has Hugh Jackman to sell them.  Jackman is one of the most charming actors working and even when he’s supposed to be kind of sleazy, you still really want to like him and root for him.  Dakota Goyo, who plays Max, is one of those kid actors who is 11 but acts like he’s in his 30′s, he thinks he knows everything and talks like an adult in a kid’s body.  Back to Over the Top, Goyo is nowhere near as annoying as David Mendenhall was as Michael in that movie.  Evangeline Lilly is charming as well but she basically just acts as Jackman’s conscience for the whole movie, re-iterating the lessons he’s supposed to be learning.

My hope going into Real Steel was that it would be ridiculous fun and it more than delivers in that respect from the actually awesome robot fights to more unintentionally funny things like Charlie insisting that to give Atom more flair that Max should lead him in a hip hop dance as he makes his way to the ring (Atom has an ability to “shadow” people’s movements), to the “underground” fight scene where battles take place in biker bars, abandoned zoos and warehouses to the increasingly elaborate way that people control their bots.  One thing that was not fleshed out as much as it could have been is the fact that the movie takes place in 2027 but other than fancy new displays and glass iPhones and tablets, there isn’t really anything different besides the fact that robot boxing is the new combat sport of choice, although I guess things wouldn’t change that drastically in 8-9 years.

If you’re a fan of the Rocky movies (especially Rocky IV’s sensibilities) then Real Steel is definitely worth a look as it’s your classic underdog story with fantastic modern special effects.  Jackman is, as always,tons of fun to watch and the great fight sequences balance out the slightly cliche emotional father/son bonding story.  If you want some summer blockbuster style fun in the middle of October, Real Steel is your movie.

4 out of 5

Releasing on DVD last week, Area 51 was the result of the recent partnership between After Dark Films and SyFy channel and was actually the movie that SyFy let fans vote on aspects of.  It’s probably the most competent SyFy original movie I’ve seen but that’s not saying much considering the channel has given us such past gems as Raptor Island, Ice Spiders, Yeti, Mega Croc vs Gatoroid and various other creature filled schlock fests.

Area 51 stars Bruce Boxleitner as Col. Martin, the head of Area 51 who, because of increased government and public pressure, agrees to lead a tour of the base for two members of the press, blogger Claire and TV newsman Sam Whitaker, and their assistants.  Unfortunately this tour is seen as the perfect opportunity by the various alien lifeforms locked away to escape.

I gotta give 51 the biggest praise for it’s use of practical alien effects and costumes.  The biggest thing that makes most SyFy movies hilariously terrible is the awful CG they employ for the various creatures.  51 actually features three vastly different aliens from the shape shifting “Patient Zero”, who is all skin and blood vessels over a humanoid form, Lady Death and her baby, who are demonic looking humanoids with razor sharp claws for arms/front legs and J-Rod, a friendly, telepathic alien who is a variation on the classic “Greys”.  I would say a hefty portion of the budget went to the costumes, especially Lady Death and J-Rod, since they actually look good and gives them more weight in the world, as opposed to being just pixels.

Acting wise, everything is pretty much what you expect from a SyFy movie in that you have one good but affordable actor and it trickles down until you clearly have members of the crew or actors from Craigslist as random alien fodder.   Bruce Boxleitner is awesome as usual but on the opposite end of the spectrum, Jason London and Rachel Miner are completely irritating as a pair of surface guards who I think are supposed to be comic relief until they are called upon to keep any aliens from escaping the base.

If there’s another thing that SyFy original movies are known for besides terrible acting and CG, it’s over the top gore but Area 51 is surprisingly restrained about it’s gore.  There are still dozens of random soldiers getting killed but it’s usually by Lady Death’s razor whip of a tail or Patient Zero stabbing them in the neck after fooling them in one of his disguises.

Area 51 also borrows elements from two classic alien movies, The Thing and Aliens.  From The Thing it steals the idea of an alien that can change shape and a test to determine who is an alien.  They do give Patient Zero the weakness of being able to only speak phrases he has heard his targets say and having to physically touch his targets to change into them.  From Aliens they borrow some elements of the Xenomorphs for Lady Death, like the aforementioned whip tail and also wrist mounted motion detectors with the familiar dots and semi circle.  The movie probably smartly keeps the Lady Death stuff separate from the Patient Zero stuff, so it’s probably not as messy of a plot as it could have been and it keeps you from getting bored like you might if there was just one alien to focus on the entire movie.

Overall, Area 51 is an OK alien/horror movie that actually has some good practical effects and costumes, wisely borrows from two of the best alien movies ever and has above average acting and plot for a SyFy original movie.  If it’s on SyFy one Saturday afternoon, you won’t be wasting too much of your time by checking it out or if you happen to see it at a Redbox or on Netflix.

2.5 out of 5

Killer Elite marks the third Jason Statham movie that has come out this year following The Mechanic and Blitz.  Is there such a thing as too much Jason Statham?

Killer Elite is based on a book called “The Feathermen” written by former SAS soldier Ranulph Fiennes that details the SAS’s involvement in wars in Oman and other countries in the Middle East.  The movie and book, purportedly based on the true events, follows mercenary/assassin Danny Bryce (Statham) as he must come to the rescue of his mentor, Hunter (Robert De Niro), after he is kidnapped by an Oman Sheik after accepting a bogus mercenary gig.  Danny is forced to travel to London and hunt down three former SAS agents who killed the Sheik’s sons, get confessions from them and then kill them in ways that look like accidents.  Danny and his team become the target of a group of retired SAS and special forces soldiers called “The Feathermen”, who task Spike Logan (Clive Owen) to protect the men Danny is targeting.

The plot of Killer Elite takes a while to get going, especially in the beginning when it has to get through tons of exposition about the various groups and set up who is who.  One thing that doesn’t help getting a handle on things is the movie constantly jumping from country to country, going from London to Paris to Oman in what seems like a five minute span.  Once Danny and his team starts assassinating people it moves along at a good clip and the various ways they assassinate their targets is one of the highlights of the movie.  I won’t spoil them all but I will say that the one I thought was the most clever and cool involved the guys turning an oil tanker into a giant, remote controlled car and causing a traffic accident with it.

One thing that negetively affects the movie is that it seems like it’s trying to make some sort of statement about covert operations and the use of mercenaries.  Whenever action movies try to have some sort of commentary they either flat out don’t work (like, for instance, Green Zone) or it’s hilariously heavy handed (the Burmese genocide stuff in Rambo).  It’s hard to take your message seriously when Jason Statham does a flip in chair and smashes the chair into some dude’s back.  Killer Elite could have been so much better if they had spent more time on the action and less time on their convoluted message about the nature of killing and the men who do it.  I did like the fact that everyone is sort of operating in moral shades of gray.

Something that I was not expecting from Killer Elite was that it is actually a period piece, taking place in 1980.  The movie does a great job of incorpating the fashion, cars and technology of the early ’80′s but never commentating or winking at the audience about it.

Action wise, the aforementioned assassination scenes are handled really well, especially the remote control truck sequence.  One disappointing thing about the action is that the mano a mano fights between Statham and Clive Owen, while cool, are done in the handicam, close up style that has been growing increasingly annoying since showing up in the Bourne movies.  It’s not quite as bad as Michael Bay’s robot on robot fights in the Transformers movies where the camera is so close you just see random metal bits hitting other random bits but I would have appreciated the fights more if they were pulled back and you had a better sense of who was hitting who.

In terms of this year’s offerings from “The Stath” I would put Killer Elite ahead of Blitz but behind The Mechanic, just because I think that The Mechanic was a better all around action movie and didn’t get bogged down in political messages like Killer Elite does.  Statham, Clive Owen and Robert De Niro are all bad ass and fun to watch and it has some clever assassination scenes but it’s still kind of disappointing.  If you’re a serious Statham fan I would recommend you check it out during a matinee showing at your local theater but otherwise you can probably wait till it it hits DVD.

3.5 out of 5

Appearing on many sites “Most Anticipated of the Fall” lists, Drive is the latest film from Scandinavian director Nicolas Winding Refn, who previously directed such bizarre, or so I’ve heard,  films as Bronson and Valhalla Rising.  Drive is Refn’s take on the Los Angeles crime movie that is the favorite genre of directors like Michael Mann and it takes a number of influences, filters them through a number of stylistic filters and delivers a great thriller with some fantastic performances.

Ryan Gosling stars as “The Driver” or sometimes “The Kid”, a Hollywood stuntman/garage worker by day and a wheelman/getaway driver by night.  He starts getting involved with his neighbor, a sweet single mother, Irene, played by Carey Mulligan, whose husband returns from prison in the hole to some gangsters.  The Kid decides to help him out with a robbery job to protect  Irene and her son Benicio but things go horribly wrong and The Kid must figure out how to return the money and get himself and Irene off the gangsters hit list.

Gosling is fantastic as Driver, playing him as the latest in a long line of mostly quiet, heroic protagonists.  He’s able to fluctuate between the being the consumate professional when dealing with his various clients to being sweet and shy around Irene and her son by just subtle changes in his facial expressions.  You eventually also get to see the underlying viciousness that Driver has inside him as he systematically starts interrogating and eliminating the various thugs on his way to the head crime honchos.  Speaking of those honchos, they are played Ron Perlman and Albert Brooks, who are vague crime partners who operate out of Perlman’s pizza shop.  Ron Perlman does his usual thing, which is always great, but Albert Brooks is amazing, making his character Bernie Ross seem like a reasonable, nice guy who will murder you if it seems like the logical thing to do.  I wish Brooks was in more of the movie, as he only shows up at the beginning and then in the last third because if he had been a factor through the whole film it would have made it that much stronger.  Bryan Cranston and Christina Hendricks round out the cast.

The trailers for Drive are slightly misleading as they seem to promise a little more car action and fighting than is actually in the film.  The opening features a fantastic car chase that highlights more of Driver’s evasion abilities than the typical “smash as many cars as possible and blow stuff up” approach.  The little things he does, like always have a police scanner on and using alleys and bridges for cover, really highlight how high level his driving skills are.  I wish there had been at least more sequence like this that showed off his precision driving skills.  There is another more traditional car chase that is brief but incredibly satisfying.  The movie also has only brief bouts of violence but when they occur, it is some of the most brutal violence I’ve seen in a movie in a while.  What happens to Christina Hendricks’ character in particular is one of the most gruesome things I’ve seen in a long time, but it’s also kind of awesome.  In contrast to the action sequences, there are long stretches, particularly after the opening chase, where it’s Driver hanging out with Irene and her son, which I understand are important for character development but it does start to drag a bit when you have yet another shot of Ryan Gosling looking longingly out a window.  The ending is also a little cliche and wraps up with, what I felt, wasn’t a very satisfying conclusion, especially after all the build up the movie does with the Driver/Irene relationship.

Michael Mann is definitely a major influence on the look of the movie as the Los Angeles skyline, usually at night, is the main source of transitions.  It also has a similar pace to his movies like Heat, or Collateral.  It also seems to borrow Tarantino’s idea of building tension in a scene that ultimately explodes in horrible violence.  To top all that off, it also borrows, musically and clothing wise, from the 80′s (Nicolas Winding Refn has said that the soundtrack was inspired by John Hughes movies) with electro-pop dominating the soundtrack and Gosling constantly wearing a white, satin scorpion jacket.

A lot of people are already calling Drive their favorite movie of the year.  I wouldn’t go that far but it was definitely a great movie and will easily be in my top 10 for the year, maybe my top 5.  The cast is fantastic, especially Gosling and Brooks and it has the feel of a great Michael Man crime thriller and a great sense for building tension that ends in horrible violence.  It slows down at times and the ending is a little unsatisfying but it’s definitely worth checking out in theaters.

4 out of 5

The movie that finally beat The Help, Contagion is the latest from director Steven Soderbergh and it’s easily one of the scariest movies I’ve seen in years and easily one of the best movies of this year.

Contagion follows a number of different plots but they all start when Beth Emhoff (Gwyneth Paltrow) returns from a business trip to Hong Kong and dies a few days later from a mysterious illness.  Cases start appearing in other cities around the world and soon a full fledged, deadly outbreak is killing millions and the CDC, WHO and other agencies are left scrambling for a cure.

Steven Soderbergh has a knack for gathering tons of star power for his movies and Contagion is no exception with Matt Damon, Kate Winslet, Laurence Fishburne, Jude Law, Bryan Cranston and Marion Cotillard as the main starring cast.  All of them are pretty great, Damon especially is fantastic as the husband of Gwyneth Paltrow who becomes increasingly more and more paranoid about his daughter getting sick and she and him surviving the insanity of what’s left of Milwaukee.  Kate Winslet is also fantastic as CDC doctor Erin Mears, who is one of the first responders to Milwaukee.  Not quite of the same star power but also fantastic is Jennifer Ehle as another CDC doctor, Ally Hextall, who is in the trenches of the lab trying to find a cure and takes a pretty big gamble to try and get a working cure.

The movie ping pongs around the different plots with some intersecting and some existing separate.  Some of them work extremely well, like Matt Damon’s struggle to survive the rioting and devolving of society in Milwaukee and others don’t work quite as well like Marion Cotillard’s investigation in Hong Kong that ultimately gets her kidnapped by her Chinese counterpart, who wants to guarantee his small village receives the vaccine.  One subplot that was completely different than what I was expecting was Jude Law’s.  From the trailer it seemed like he was going to represent some evil corporation but he’s instead a blogger who is constantly trying to prove his conspiracy theories about how the CDC is corrupt and in league with big pharmaceutical companies.  The irony is the he is the one who profits from the epidemic by hyping a supposed cure to his online followers to profit the company who produces it.

Contagion definitely makes you feel like you need to douse yourself in gallons of hand sanitizer after watching it.  The effects and rapid spread of the disease are horrifying and Soderbergh does lots of lingering shots on door handles, bus poles, and cups that are the stuff of germaphobes nightmares.  The crumble of society isn’t anything that is too original but it’s still extremely scary to think about how quickly people would turn into animals in the face of some horrible crisis.  The movie as a whole as a very authentic feel that definitely calls to mind something like Michael Crichton in his prime (yes, Andromeda Strain in particular).  Also lending to the intensity of the movie is the absolutely fantastic score that is driving, intense electronic that would probably work as b-sides to the Tron: Legacy soundtrack but definitely keeps the movie moving forward.

Contagion is a thrilling, horrifying movie that will definitely make you take a second look at what you are touching or how many times you touch your face.  The acting is universally strong and it moves at a fantastic pace.  Some of the many side plots don’t work as well as others but Contagion is definitely one of the best movies of the year, which is kind of weird considering were in the slow months of September/October.

4.5 out 5

Getting shuffled from release date to release date, Apollo 18 finally came out this previous weekend.  The latest in the ever increasing “found footage” genre, did Apollo 18 live up to the creepiness and insanity of it’s trailer or is there a reason NASA denies this mission exists?

Apollo 18 follows a crew of 3 astronauts who are recruited for the Apollo 18 moon mission which, unlike the previous 17 missions, is a classified mission under the supervision of the Department of Defense.  Astronauts Nate Walker and Benjamin Anderson head to the surface of the moon while the final crew member, John Grey, remains in orbit.  While setting up motion sensors and other instrumentation around the south pole of the moon, Walker and Anderson discover a Russian lander and the body of a cosmonaut.  Things quickly spiral out of control from there.

The best part of the movie is easily how they managed to capture the look of 70′s era cameras.  Whatever filters they put on the footage really makes it seem like lost NASA footage, for the most part.  On the flip side, the movie is constantly flipping between different cameras, each with a different look and framerate, which is annoying and a little disorienting.  70′s cameras didn’t have the best frame rate or resolution but I think a more focused look would have made the movie easier to watch and would let the audience focus more on the characters and setting.  Speaking of setting, the other strong aspect of the movie is that it seems to nail the atmosphere of being alone on the moon.  I don’t know where they shot Apollo 18 but wherever it is, it’s a great substitute for the Moon.

Performance wise, the trio of actors does a decent job of portraying astronauts slowly coming unraveled.  Lloyd Owen in particular (who bugged me the entire time because I was trying to remember where I had seen him before.  Answer: Viva Laughlin) gets increasingly creepy as the movie goes on as *spoilers* he gets infected by the aliens on the moon, which are rock like spider creatures.

The main negative about the movie is that nothing really happens in it.  The trailers had the promise of secret Russian moon missions, aliens, space sickness and other assorted craziness but the movie is lots and lots of scenes where Anderson and Walker are setting up instruments and talking in the moon lander.  Even when things start to unravel, it seems really small scale and the climax is a guy pounding on a window.  Inspired most likely by Paranormal Activity, there are also a bunch of sequences where you are looking at a static image and then something moves near the corner of the screen. You never find out anything really interesting or shocking about the Russian moon mission or the rock spiders and it seems like if the filmmakers had focused a little more on the story then on filters and look of the movie, it probably could have been an interesting sci fi/horror movie.  As it is, it’s actually kind of boring.

Apollo 18 has some great atmosphere and definitely successfully apes the look and feel of 60′s-70′s era cameras and what a lost moon mission might have looked like but ultimately it doesn’t live up to the craziness that was portrayed in the trailer.  It’s not particularly scary and even when it does start to ratchet up toward the end, it’s underwhelming.  If you’re a fan of the found footage genre I would say it’s definitely a rent when it comes out on DVD but it’s not worth heading out the theaters (especially since a lot of the movie is in 4:3 aspect anyway).

3 out of 5

Jason Statham is, arguably, the greatest action star currently working.  Later next month he has the bad ass looking Killer Elite coming out in theaters but, bizarrely, this week another of his recent movies, Blitz, has come straight to DVD after getting a theatrical release in the UK.  Is this release strategy a sign of it’s quality?

Statham stars as London detective Brant, who gets into hot water early in the movie by assaulting a trio of hoodlums with a hurling bat.  Brant is told to keep a low profile but the entire department is put on alert when a vicious killer calling himself “Blitzkrieg”, or “Blitz” for short, starts killing cops.

If you’re looking for the usual Statham action fest, Blitz is probably not going to the movie for you.  It’s actually much closer to the Dirty Harry movies as it’s Detective Brant trying to find one killer.  There’s no car chases, army of henchmen or gunfights but it’s an extremely solid procedural as Brant and his main ally, Inspector Nash, try to piece together the clues.  Statham is still his usual bad ass self, even if he’s not constantly punching people.  The movie also dedicates a lot of time to the killer, Aiden Gillen, who is a great combination of arrogant, unnerving and creepy (and much better than his last villain role in 12 Rounds).  There’s also a subplot involving Brant’s friend, who is a recently rehabiliated undercover drug cop, that is completely unnecessary and doesn’t really go anywhere.  It does marginally wrap back into the main plot toward the middle of the movie but it then continues it’s pointlessness until it fizzles out in the third act.

The plot is pretty slow moving and drags at times but there’s some interesting twists involving the killer keeping trophies in an abandoned car and the motives behind why he’s doing the killings and a reporter and police informant who get involved.  You also know that Aiden Gillen is the killer for the entire movie so you’re just waiting for Statham to figure it out and bring the pain and when he finally does, it’s extremely satisfying.  To break up the slow moving investigation, there’s a pretty good, Point Break style foot chase toward the middle of the movie, but that’s kind of it in terms of action.

If you’re a fan of Jason Statham then I would say Blitz is definitely worth a look as he’s his usual charismatic and bad ass self and he’s just fun to watch, even if the movie is a little slow at times and doesn’t contain constant action.  There’s some good supporting performances and if you want to see what a British take on Dirty Harry would be like, this is a good example.

3.5 out 5

The role that gave kicked off the career of our patron saint, Arnold Schwarzenegger, is now in the hands of Game of Thrones/Stargate: Atlantis actor Jason Momoa.  Promising to be closer to the original Robert E Howard stories, the movie is a decent fantasy action movie but definitely doesn’t do anything too new and doesn’t really live up to the legend of the Arnold original.

This new Conan was literally born on the battlefield as his mother is stabbed in the womb and Conan must be cut out of it by his father.  Young Conan learns the ways of the sword from his father but eventually his whole village is slaughtered by troops of Khalar Zym, a warlord who wants to collect the pieces of an ancient mask that will grant him the power to conquer all of the continent of Hyboria.  Conan escapes the carnage and sets out on a life of adventuring but constantly seeks word of Zym so he can get his revenge.  He may get his chance when he comes to the rescue of a lovely female monk who Zym wants for her connection to an ancient bloodline.

Arnold as Conan in the original was a deadly warrior but he was also constantly getting drunk and sleeping with women.  Jason Momoa goes for a more intense and brooding portrayal of the Cimmerian warrior but he doesn’t have a lot charisma or charm and mainly just growls out his lines and does cool poses with his swords.  Young Conan (played by Leo Howard) actually seems like he would be a much more interesting character to follow and I would definitely watch a whole movie of Young Conan and his dad Ron Perlman making swords and killing dudes.  One of the best fight scenes of the movie actually goes to young Conan as he fights a bunch of crazy savages in the woods outside his village.  Stephen Lang, who jumped into the genre spotlight as Col. Quaritch in Avatar, is always a good choice for your bad guy but Zym doesn’t really do anything that interestingly evil or bad ass and is definitely not on the level of James Earl Jones creepy performance as Thula Doom in the original.  Of the two ladies in the movie, Rose McGowan is probably the more interesting, as she chews scenery as Zym’s evil sorceress daughter Marique.  Rachel Nichols, who you probably saw most recently in GI Joe: Rise of Cobra as Scarlett, seems like she’s going to be an ass kicking heroine but quickly devolves into a damsel in distress to the point where, in the last half hour, her dialogue consists almost entirely of screaming.  Something I wish that the movie would have had more of, if only to make it more entertaining, was the narration by, of all people, Morgan Freeman.  Freeman introduces the ridiculous backstory of Hyboria and then gives a quick update on Conan’s adult life and then disappears. The movie would have been a lot more fun if Morgan Freeman was delivering exposition and it would have actually been in tone with the original Conan, which featured tons of voice over from Mako.

Action wise, there’s a few interesting sequences, the aforementioned fight with young Conan is intense and well done and there’s a great sequence where Conan has to fight these zombie sand warriors that Marique conjurs up.  These sand zombie warriors are constantly erupting out of the sand and backflipping back into the sand to dodge Conan’s attacks.  The first part of the final battle between Conan and Zym was pretty interesting as well, as they were battling on a falling circular alter with Rachel Nichols tied up in the middle and the altar rotating in the middle of the fight. Most of the action is your typical fantasy action of guys getting slashed by swords and shot with arrows though, and you can only see it so many times before it gets boring.  I do appreciate the fact that director Marcus Nispel chose to use a lot of practical effects but some more creative violence and kills would have made the movie a lot more entertaining.  I can’t help but wonder what the movie would have been like if a director like Neil Marshall had been at the helm.  Nispel definitely does cover his fantasy bases though as there’s a fight sequence on a pirate ship, magic, a deadly snake monster and more.

Conan is a watchable, fun at times, fantasy action movie that is definitely a step up from the director’s previous effort, Pathfinder, but is definitely not going to become a classic of the genre.  It’s probably not going to be the start of a whole new Conan franchise (especially considering it’s box office performance) and Jason Momoa is certainly not the next Arnold but if you’re a fan of the genre I would say it’s worth a matinee screening (definitely not 3D though) or definitely a DVD/Blu Ray rent

3 out of 5

Going under the radar for most of the summer, a sense of excitement for Rise of the Planet of the Apes started to build with footage seen at Comic Con and excellent reviews.  The excitement was justified as Rise is one of the most surprisingly great movies of the summer, especially a movie that is sort of a re imagining of middling Planet of the Apes movie “Conquest of the Planet of the Apes”.

The movie follows James Franco’s character Will Rodman, a scientist at pharmaceutical company Gen-Sys, who has created a drug that could possibly cure Alzheimer’s by introducing a virus that rebuilds brain tissue.  A disastrous presentation to the board of directors leaves a test chimp named Bright Eyes dead and Will’s project rejected.  Will finds out from chimp handler Franklin that Bright Eyes had recently given birth and Will reluctantly takes the baby chimp home.  Will quickly realizes that the baby chimp has inherited the drug from his mother and is incredibly intelligent.  Will keeps the baby, names him Caesar and cares for him for the next eight years, until one day when Caesar leaps to the protection of Will’s father, who Will tested the drug on and seemingly cured of Alzheimer’s but is regressing, gets into an accident in his neighbor’s car.  Caesar is placed into a local shelter for primates and has to deal with the other apes but quickly comes up with a plan to gain their respect and escape.

Rise of the Planet of the Apes is surely going to reignite the “Can you give Oscars for completely digital performances” debate because Andy Serkis’ performance as Caesar is absolutely amazing.  The animation from WETA combined with his motion capture makes Caesar one of the most expressive CG characters ever and you truly get a sense of who he is and what he’s thinking.  The other apes are extremely well realized as well and the animation overall is superb.  An example of how great the animation is is that the apes communicate through hand motions and grunts but you know exactly what they are saying and planning to do.  Caesar commanding his “troops” on the Golden Gate Bridge is the highlight of the movie and you definitely see how Earth could be taken over by these super intelligent chimps.  As far as the human actors go, everyone is fine.  James Franco isn’t exactly the most believable genetic scientist but he’s not “Tara Reid in Alone in the Dark” bad.  Frieda Pinto is there to look pretty and suceeds, Brian Cox and Tom Felton are good as father/son douchebags in charge of the ape shelter and John Lithgow is really good as Will’s Alzheimer’s stricken father, giving lots of great looks of confusion.

The movie actually feels like three different movies and some of the parts definitely work better than others.  The first third is a sweet but slow story about Caesar growing up in Will’s house, Will meeting zoo vet Caroline and Will’s father getting cured of Alzheimer’s.  There’s a really great sequence where they bring Caesar to the Redwoods so that he can run around in the fresh air although it ends kind of bizarrely with a quick sequence of changing seasons that fast forwards time five years into the future.  The second third of the movie is essentially a prison movie where Caesar is the new kid on the block and must figure out to survive and ultimately rule the primate shelter while dealing with the evil “wardens” of Tom Felton and Brian Cox.  Caesar has to try to avoid fights, make deals, steal vital tools and all the other things you generally see in your typical prison movie.  The final third of the movie is a full out “animal rampage” movie where Caesar and his troops run amok through San Fransisco and eventually get into a standoff with police on the Golden Gate Bridge.  It’s great seeeing the apes freeing their fellow primates, utilizing broke metal fencing as spears and ultimately outwitting the cops on the bridge with superior tactics.  I think I liked the prison section the best as it was probably the most interesting character wise and plot wise but the balls to the wall finale was great as well.

I’m still a little confused about how this movie fits into the whole Apes franchise but apparently this is a complete reboot that is more connected to the original Charlton Heston series than the more recent Tim Burton reboot with Marky Mark.  There are tons of great little winks and nods to the original Planet of the Apes from names of characters to lines (Tom Felton gets to deliver two of Heston’s iconic lines) to a news report about a shuttle mission to Mars that goes missing (possibly with a certain Colonel Taylor on board?).  If this is the direction that the Apes franchise is going than I am definitely on board and director Rupert Wyatt already seems like he has some crazy ideas for a possible sequel.

Rise of the Planet of the Apes is one of the most pleasant surprises of the summer and easily in my top 5 for the summer.  It features some of the best CG characters I’ve ever seen in a movie, a fantastic finale set piece and an interesting plot that completely revitalizes the Planet of the Apes franchise.  Who says August is a dumping ground?

4.5 out of 5

Jean Claude Van Damme continues his “comeback” that started with his shockingly good performance in JCVD by teaming up with up and coming martial arts action star Scott Adkins for Assassination Games.

The movie follows Van Damme as veteran hitman Vincent Brazil and Adkins as former Interpol sanctioned assasssin Roland Flint, who are both given the opportunity to take out Romanian crime lord Polo Yakur.  In typical comic book fashion, Flint and Brazil get in each other’s way and have a “misunderstanding” fight before deciding to team up to take down Polo, since Roland is only in it for revenge for his wife, who Polo beat into a coma.

Van Damme is doing his best “Jean Reno in the Professional” impression and features a number of similarities to that classic movie hitman.  He lives in a crappy apartment building with neighbors who are constantly fighting, he has a pet turtle (Leon had a pet plant) and he tries to avoid relationships but a girl manages to work their way under his skin (in The Professional it’s Matilda, in Assassination Games it’s a hooker with a heart of gold).  I don’t know if it’s just because he physically can’t do as much as he could back in the 90′s but Van Damme is definitely trying to up his acting and he’s decent in Assassination Games.  Nowhere near as good as JCVD but he’s proving that he might be one of the best actors of the action hero pantheon.  Scott Adkins is solid as well, although his only emotion is intensely angry.  Ivan Kaye is cartoonishly evil as Polo Yakur but it makes it that much more satisfying when he gets his inevitable comeuppance.  Everyone else is predictably terrible, in particular Van Damme’s love interest, Marija Karan.  It really makes the scenes where Van Damme is supposed to be opening up and caring about someone not work and drag the film down.  Bringing The Professional back up again, not every hitman movie that comes out has to have the hitman learning to love and care.  Ever since The Professional everything from Assassins to Hitman have tried, and failed to replicate that aspect of The Professional.  The movie already had a competent emotional hook with Scott Adkins comatose wife, so the Brazil/hooker scenes just takes away time that could have been dedicated to more action.

Action wise, the movie is solid but not going to revolutionize the action genre.  Scott Adkins gets numerous abilities to show off his sick martial arts skills and Van Damme gets a couple of bad ass moments as well (especially his opening hit during a Russian mob wedding). There are some clever moments like, for instance, *spoilers* when Brazil and Flint go to interrogate one of Polo’s weapon dealers and use a laser guided machine gun to intimidate him.  After getting the info they need, Flint makes an off handed comment that they should take the machine gun to make it look like a break in and Brazil jokes that they should take something lighter.  Fast forward to the final showdown in Flint’s house and it’s revealed that they actually did steal the machine gun and it plays an integral role in getting them out of a jam.  That attention to detail puts Assassination Games slightly above it’s lower budget action competitors.

I’m not sure if it’s a stylistic choice but I’ve noticed in a couple of recent Direct to DVD movies (although just to note, Assassination Game is in limited release in theaters) that they have a weird yellowish filter.  Dolph Lundgren’s “The Killing Machine” had a similar filter and at first I thought something was wrong with my TV.  Making your movie look like someone pissed on the film is probably not the best way to attract people to your film.

Assassination Games, as I mentioned, is in very limited theatrical release right now and is also available on your On Demand video platform of choice.  If you’re a fan of Van Damme, I’d say it’s worth a watch and it’s a competent hitman movie.  A low budget latter day Van Damme movie is still infinitely better than a Steven Seagal direct to DVD movie and hopefully he makes a return to more mainstream movies in the near future (possibly starting with The Expendables 2!).

3 out of 5